"I shall never forget a scene with Madame de Trafford. I had gone
to rest in my room, but I did not venture to stay long. She also
had been up all night, but that was nothing to her--_paresse_ was
what she could never endure. When I went into her room, she had the
concierge with her, but she was greatly excited. She was even then
contending with her spirit. 'Taisez-vous, Maricot,' she was
exclaiming. 'Voulez vous vous taire: taisez-vous, Maricot.' I saw
that the concierge was getting very angry, quite boiling with
indignation, for there was no one else present, and she thought
Madame de Trafford was talking to her. 'Mais, madame, madame, je ne
parle pas,' she said. But Madame de Trafford went on, 'Va-t'en,
Maricot: va-t'en donc.'--'Mais, madame, je suis toute prête,' said
the concierge, and she went out, banging the door behind her."[173]
* * * * *
Madame de Trafford told my sister in Paris that her extraordinary power
had first come to her, as it then existed, many years before in the
Church of S. Roch. She had gone there, not to pray, but to look about
her, and, as she was walking round the ambulatory, there suddenly came
to her the extraordinary sensation that she _knew_ all that those
kneeling around her were thinking, feeling, and wishing. Her own
impression was one of horror, and an idea that the power came from evil;
but kneeling down then and there before the altar, she made a solemn
dedication of herself; she prayed that such strange knowledge might be
taken away, but, if that were not to be, made a vow to turn the evil
against itself, by using it always for good.
People suddenly ruined--whom Madame de Trafford called "the poor
rich"--she considered to be her peculiar vocation, because in her
younger life she had twice been utterly ruined herself. Once it was in
England. She had only a shilling left in the world, and, in her quaint
way of narrating things, she said, "Having only a shilling left in the
world, I thought what I had better do, and I thought that, as I had only
a shilling left in the world, I had better go out and take a walk. I
went out, and I met a man, and the man said to me, 'Give me something,
for I have nothing left in the world,' and I gave him sixpence, and I
went on. And I met a woman, and the woman said to me, 'Give me
something, for I have nothing whatever left in the world.' And I said,
'I cannot give you anything, for I have only sixpence left in the world,
so I cannot give you anything.' And the woman said, 'But you are much
richer than I, for you are well dressed; you have a good bonnet, a gown,
and shawl, while I am clothed in rags, and so you must give me
something.' And I thought, 'Well, that is true,' so I gave her the
sixpence, and I went on. At the corner of the street I found a sovereign
lying in the street. With that sovereign I paid for food and lodging.
The next day I had remittances from an uncle I had long supposed to be
dead, and who expressed the wish that I should come to him. He died and
left me his heiress: money has since then always flowed in, and I go
about to look for the poor rich." A presentiment would come to Madame de
Trafford, or the voice of Maricot would tell her, where she would be
needed, and she would set out. Thus she went to Geneva to help some one
unknown. She moved from hotel to hotel until she found the right one;
and she sat by person after person at the table-d'hôte, till she felt
she was sitting by the right one; then she waited quietly till the
moment came when she divined what was wanted.
The morning after their arrival in Paris, Madame de Trafford stood by my
sister's bedside when she awoke, ready dressed, and having already put
away most of the things in the apartment. As soon as breakfast was over,
a carriage came to take them to the station, and they set off for
Boulogne, where Madame de Trafford set her guests afloat for England
with £40 in their pockets. Thus they arrived on the scene of action.
Straight from London Bridge Station they drove to Mr. B.'s office. He
was there, and apparently delighted to see them. "Well, Mr. B., and pray
why have you sent me no money?" asked Italima. "Why, I've sent you
quantities of money," said Mr. B., without a change of countenance. "If
you write to Messrs. O. & L., the bankers at Geneva, you will find it's
all there. I have sent you money several times," and he said this with
such perfect _sangfroid_ that they believed him. Italima then said,
"Well now, Mr. B., I should wish to see the mortgages," because from
time to time he had persuaded her to transfer £46,000 of her own fortune
from other securities to mortgages on a Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall.
Mr. B. replied, "Do you know, when you say that, it would almost seem as
if you did not quite trust me."--"That I cannot help," said Italima,
"but I should wish to see the mortgages."--"There is no difficulty
whatever," said Mr. B.; "you could have seen them last year if you had
wished: to-day you cannot see them because they are in the Bank, and the
Bank is closed, but you can fix any other day you like for seeing
them,"--and they fixed the following Wednesday. Afterwards Mr. B. said,
"Well, Mrs. Hare, you do not seem to have trusted me as I deserve, still
I think it my duty to give you the pleasant news that you will be richer
this year than you have ever been in your life. A great deal of money is
recovered from the Paul bankruptcy, which you never expected to see
again; all your other investments are prospering, and your income will
certainly be larger than it has ever been before." Italima was perfectly
satisfied. That evening she made my sister write to Mrs. Julius Hare and
say, "We are convinced that Mr. B. is the best friend we have in the
world. Augustus was always talking against him, and we have been brought
to England by a raving mad Frenchwoman who warned us against him; but we
will never doubt or mistrust him any more."
When the Wednesday came on which they were to see the mortgages, Italima
was not well, and she said to my sister, "I am quite glad I am not well,
because it will be an excuse for you to go and fetch the mortgages, when
we can look them over quietly together." My sister went off to Lincoln's
Inn, but before going to Mr. B., she called at the house of another
lawyer, whom she knew very well, to ask if he had heard any reports
about Mr. B. "I pray to God, Miss Hare, that you are safe from that
man," was all he said. She rushed on to the office. Mr. B. was gone: the
whole place was _sotto-sopra_: everything was gone: there were no
mortgages: there was no Mr. Howell's estate: there was no money: £60,000
was gone: there was absolutely nothing left whatever.
Never was ruin more complete! Italima and Esmeralda had _nothing_ left:
not a loaf of bread, not a penny to buy one--nothing. My sister said she
prayed within herself as to how she could possibly go back and tell her
mother, and it seemed to her as if a voice said, "Go back, go back, tell
her at once," and she went. When she reached the door of Ellison's
hotel, where they were staying, the waiter said a gentleman was sitting
with her mother, but it seemed as if the voice said, "Go up, go up, tell
her at once." When she went in, her mother was sitting on the sofa, and
a strange gentleman was talking to her. She went up to her mother and
said, "Mama, we are totally ruined: Mr. B. has taken flight: we have
lost everything we have in the world, and we never can hope to have
anything any more." The strange gentleman came in like a special
intervention of Providence. He was a Mr. Touchet, who had known Italima
well when she was quite a girl, who had never seen her since, and who
had come that day for the first time to renew his acquaintance. He was
full of commiseration and sympathy with them over what he heard; he at
once devoted himself to their service, and begged them to make use of
him: the mere accident of his presence just broke the first shock.
Lady Normanby was at Sydenham when the catastrophe occurred; she at once
came up to London and helped her cousins for the moment. Then Lady
Shelley, the daughter-in-law of Italima's old friend Mrs. Shelley (see
chap. i.), fetched them home to her at Boscombe near Bournemouth, and
was unboundedly kind to them. Sir Percy Shelley offered them a cottage
rent-free in his pine-woods, but they only remained there three weeks,
and then went to Lady Williamson at Whitburn Hall near Sunderland, where
I first saw them.
Everything had happened exactly as Madame de Trafford had predicted. My
sister wrote to me:--
"The most dreadful news. We are _ruined_. Mr. B. has bolted, and is
a fraudulent bankrupt. Nobody knows where he is. We are nearly
wild. God help us. I hardly know what I am writing. What is to
become of Francis and William? We hardly know what we have lost. I
fear B. has seized on Mama's mortgages. Pray for us."
We received this letter when we were staying at Fotheringham. We were
very much shocked, but we said that when my sister talked of absolute
ruin, it was only a figure of speech. She and her mother might be very
much poorer than they had been, but there was a considerable marriage
settlement; that, we imagined, B. could not have possessed himself of.
But it was too true; he had taken everything. The marriage settlement
was in favour of younger children, I being one of the three who would
have benefited. Some years before, Mr. B. had been to Italima and
persuaded her to give up £2000 of my brother William's portion, during
her life, in order to pay his debts. On her assenting to this, Mr. B.
had subtly entered the whole sum mentioned in the settlement, instead of
£2000, in the deed of release, and the two trustees had signed without a
question, so implicit was their faith in Mr. B., who passed not only for
a very honourable, but for a very religious man. Mr. B. had used the
£2000 to pay William's debts, and had taken all the rest of the money
for himself. About Italima's own fortune he had been even less
scrupulous. Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall had never existed at all.
Mr. B. had taken the £46,000 for himself; there had been no mortgages,
but he had paid the interest as usual, and the robbery had passed
undetected. He had kept Italima from coming upon him during the last
summer by cutting off her supplies, and all might have gone on as usual
if Madame de Trafford had not brought his victims to England, and
Italima had not insisted upon seeing the mortgages.
The next details we received were from my aunt Eleanor Paul.
"_Sept._ 1, 1859.--B. is bankrupt and has absconded. They think he
is gone to Sweden. The first day there were bills filed against him
for £100,000, the second day for £100,000 more, all money that he
swindled people out of. I have not suffered personally, as the
instant I heard there was anything against him, I went to his
house, demanded my securities, put them in my pocket, and walked
away with them. But I fear B. has made away with all the mortgages
your mother and sister were supposed to have, or that they never
existed, as they are not forthcoming. It is supposed that he has
also made away with all the trust-money, besides the £5000 left to
your sister by her aunt. At this moment they are penniless.... Your
mother went to B. as soon as she arrived and desired to have the
mortgages. He promised to have them ready in a few days, and
meantime he talked her over, and made her believe he was a most
honourable man. Before the day came he had bolted...."
I went from Gibside to Whitburn to be there when Italima arrived. Her
despair and misery were terrible to witness. She did nothing all day
but lament and wail over her fate, and was most violent to my sister,
who bore her own loss with the utmost calmness and patience. Nothing
could exceed Lady Williamson's kindness to them. She pressed them to
stay on with her, and cared for them with unwearied generosity during
the first ten months of their destitution. Many other friends offered
help, and the Liddell cousins promised an annual subscription for their
maintenance; but the generosity which most came home to their hearts was
that of their old Roman friend Mr. William Palmer, who out of his very
small income pressed upon them a cheque for £150. In this, as in all
other cases of the kind, those who had least gave most. One idea was to
obtain admission for them to St. Catherine's Almshouses for ladies of
good family, but this was unwisely, though generously, opposed by my
Aunt Eleanor.
"I am inclined to quarrel with you for ever mentioning the word
'Almshouse.' I have lived with my sister during her richer days,
and certainly do not mean to desert her in her distress. I only
wish she could think as I do. We can live in a smaller domain very
happily, and if the worst come to the worst, I have £300 a year,
and if the Liddell family allow £150, that, with the colliery
shares, would make up £500 a year between us: and I have every
prospect of recovering at least a portion of my fortune, and if I
do, shall have £200, perhaps £300 a year more, making £800. Knowing
this, I think it wrong to make oneself miserable. Francis and
William must work: they have had their share of the fortune. I am
only waiting till something is settled with regard to my affairs,
but desertion has never for a moment entered my brain, and I hope
you never gave me credit for anything so barbarous."[174]
_To_ MY MOTHER (before seeing Italima).
"_Whitburn Hall_, _Sept._ 13.--Nothing can exceed Lady Williamson's
kindness about Italima. Though she can ill afford it, she at once
sent them £110 for present necessities.... She does not think it
possible they can ever return to Rome, but having to part with
Félix and Victoire is the greatest of their immediate trials. In
addition to her invalid husband and son, Lady Williamson, the good
angel of the whole family, has since her father's death taken the
entire charge of his old sister, Mrs. Richmond--'Aunt Titchie.'
Victor and I have just been paying a visit in her bedroom to this
extraordinary old lady, who was rolled up in petticoats, with a
little dog under a shawl by way of muff. She is passionately fond
of eating, and dilated upon the goodness of the cook--'Her tripe
and onions are de-licious!'--'I like a green gosling, and plenty of
sage and stuffing, that's what _I_ like.'
"She is a complete Mrs. Malaprop. 'I was educated, my dear,' she
said, 'at a cemetery for young ladies;' but this is only a
specimen. She is also used to _very_ strong language, and till she
became blind, she used to hunt all over the country in top-boots
and leathern breeches, like a man. When her husband died, she went
up from Mrs. Villiers' house at Grove Mill to prove his will.
Adolphus Liddell met her at the station, and helped her to do it,
and then took her to the 'Ship and Turtle' and gave her real
turtle--in fact, a most excellent luncheon. He afterwards saw her
off at Euston. She is blind, you know, and took no notice of there
being other passengers in the carriage, and greatly astonished they
must have been, as he was taking leave of her, to hear the old lady
say in her deliberate tones, 'Capital turtle! de-e-licious punch!
Why, lor bless ye! I'd prove my husband's will once a week to get
such a blow-out as that.'
"I thought this place hideous at first, but it improves on
acquaintance, and has its availabilities, like everything else:
there is a fine sea with beautiful sands, and the flower-garden is
radiant."
"_Sept. 15._--I long for you to know Lady Williamson. Of all people
I have ever known, she has the most _truly_ Christian power of
seeing the virtues of every one and passing over their faults. She
also has to perfection the not-hearing, not-seeing knack, which is
the most convenient thing possible in such a mixed family circle.
"Charlie Williamson arrived yesterday, and, with the most jovial
entertaining manner, has all his mother's delicacy of feeling and
excessive kindness of heart. When he heard of the B. catastrophe,
he went up at once from Aldershot to see Italima in London. 'Your
mother was quite crushed,' he says, 'but as for your dear sister,
there isn't a girl in England has the pluck she shows. She never
was down for a moment, not she: no, she was as cheery as possible,
and said, "Mama, it is done, and it is not our fault, so we must
learn to make the best of it." People may say what they like, but
she is real downright good, and no mistake about it.'
"I have been with Victor to Seaton Delaval--the 'lordly Seaton
Delaval' of 'Marmion,' scene of many of the iniquities of the last
Lord Delaval. It is a magnificent house, but the centre is now a
ruin, having been burnt about eighty years ago, by the connivance,
it is said, of its then owner, Sir Jacob Astley. There is a Norman
chapel, full of black effigies of knights, which look as if they
were carved out of coal, and in one of the wings is a number of
pictures, including Lord Delaval's four beautiful daughters, one of
whom married the village baker, while another was that Lady
Tyrconnel who died at Gibside.
"I hope I shall know all these cousins better some day. At present,
from their having quite a different set of friends and
associations, I always feel as if I had not a single thing to say
to them, and I am sure they all think I am dreadfully stupid....
But I am enchanted with Charlie Williamson, his tremendous spirits
and amusing ways."
"_Sept. 17._--At 8-1/2, as we were sitting at tea, Lady Williamson
put her head in at the drawing-room door and said, 'Come down with
me; they are arriving.' So we went to the hall-door just as the
carriage drove up, and Italima got out and flung herself into Lady
Williamson's arms.... Both she and Esmeralda looked utterly
worn-out, and their account was truly awful.... Lady Normanby came
at once to their assistance--but what touched them most was the
kindness of dear good Charlie Williamson, who came up directly from
Aldershot, bringing them all he had--£50."
"_Sept. 18._--It has now come out that Mr. B. was the person who
had Francis arrested, and he kept him in prison while he plundered
his estate of £17,000. It has also transpired that when, on a
former occasion, Sir J. Paul gave Mr. B. £1000 to pay Francis's
debts, he never paid them, but appropriated the money. B. has
robbed Italima of the whole of her own fortune besides her marriage
settlement. Two years ago he arranged with the trustees and Italima
to sell £2000 of the settlement fund to pay William's debts, and
presented to the trustees, as they supposed, papers to sign for
this purpose. They trusted to B. and did not examine the papers,
which they now find empowered him to take possession not only of
the £2000, but of the whole fund!"
"_Sept. 19._--Italima's state is the most hopeless I ever saw,
because she absolutely refuses to find hope or comfort or pleasure
in anything, and as absolutely refuses to take any interest or
bestir herself in any measures for the recovery of her lost
fortune.... When any one tries to elicit what she recollects about
the mortgages, she will begin the story, and then bury herself in
the sofa-cushions, and say we are killing her by asking her
questions, and that if we do not want her to die, she must be
quiet. She is furious with me because I will not see that the case
is quite hopeless, and quite acts up to her promise of never
regarding me with the slightest affection.... The state of Italima
is appalling, but my sister is perfectly calm. Lady Williamson is
kindness itself; and as for Charlie, I never knew his equal for
goodness, consideration, and generosity.
"I wish you could hear Lady Williamson sing; even when she was a
little girl, Catalani said that her voice was better than her own,
and that if it were necessary for her to sing publicly, she would
be the first singer in Europe."
"_Sept. 21._--Italima is daily more entirely woe-begone, and her
way of receiving her misfortunes more bitter.... It seems a trouble
to her even to see her cousins so prosperous, while she ...! The
Normanbys are here and most kind, though much out of patience with
her.... Old Mrs. Richmond, who has been very kind throughout, sent
for my sister the other day to her room, and gave her five pounds
to buy winter clothes, and has sent for patterns to Edinburgh for a
warm dress for her."
"_Sandhutton Hall, Sept. 24._--I left Whitburn yesterday, very
sorry to part with the dear kind cousins, with whom I had a tender
leave-taking--not so with Italima, who took no more notice of my
departure than she had done of my visit."
The only event of our home-autumn was the death of the Rector of
Hurstmonceaux, who had succeeded my uncle, and the appointment of the
charming old Dr. Wellesley[175] in his place. In November I was at
Harrow with the Vaughans, meeting there for the first time two sets of
cousins, Lord and Lady Spencer,[176] and Sir John Shaw-Lefevre,[177]
with two of his daughters. With the latter cousins I made a great
friendship. Then I returned to Oxford.
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Christ Church, Dec. 6, 1859._-My whole visit here this time has
been enjoyable. Arthur is always so very good and kind, so
_knowing_ in what will give one pleasure: which I especially feel
in his cordiality to all my friends when they come here. Then it is
so interesting and delightful being perpetually examined by him in
different parts of history, and charming to feel that I can in a
small way be useful to him in looking out or copying things for his
lectures, &c. Victor Williamson and Charlie Wood come in and out
constantly.
"Mr. Richmond the artist is here. I quite long to be Arthur, going
to sit to him: he is so perfectly delightful: no wonder his
portraits are always smiling."
In the winter of 1859-60 I made a much-appreciated acquaintance with Sir
George Grey, author of "Polynesian Mythology."