Feildens.[310] Mrs. Feilden told me that in her girlhood her family
went to the Isle of Wight and rented St. Boniface House, between
Bonchurch and Ventnor. She slept in a room on the first floor with
her sister Ghita: the French governess and her sister Cha slept in
the next room, the English governess above. If they talked in bed
they were always punished by the English governess, who could not
bear them; so they never spoke except in a whisper. One night, when
they were in bed, with the curtains closely drawn, the door was
suddenly burst open with a bang, and something rushed into the room
and began to whisk about in it, making great draught and
disturbance. They were not frightened, but very angry, thinking
some one was playing them a trick. But immediately the curtains
were drawn aside and whisked up over their heads, and one by one
all the bed-clothes were dragged away from them, though when they
stretched out their hands they could feel nothing. First the
counterpane went, then the blankets, then the sheet, then the
pillows, and lastly the lower sheet was drawn away from _under_
them. When it came to this she (Ellinor Hornby) exclaimed, 'I can
bear this no longer,' and she and her sister both jumped out of bed
at the foot, which was the side nearest the door. As they jumped
out, they felt the mattress graze against their legs, as it also
was dragged off the bed. Ghita Hornby rushed into the next room to
call the French governess, while Ellinor screamed for assistance,
holding the door of their room tightly on the outside, fully
believing that somebody would be found in the room. The English
governess and the servants, roused by the noise, now rushed
downstairs, and the door was opened. The room was perfectly still
and there was no one there. It was all tidied. The curtains were
carefully rolled, and tied up above the head of the bed: the sheets
and counterpane were neatly folded up in squares and laid in the
three corners of the room: the mattress was reared against the wall
under the window: the blanket was in the fireplace. Both the
governesses protested that the girls must have done it themselves
in their sleep, but nothing would induce them to return to the
room, and they were surprised the next morning, when they expected
a scolding from their mother, to find that she quietly assented to
the room being shut up. Many years after Mrs. Hornby met the lady
to whom the property belonged, and after questioning her about what
had happened to her family, the lady told her that the same thing
had often happened to others, and that the house was now shut up
and could never be let, because it was haunted. A murder by a lady
of her child was committed in that room, and she occasionally
appeared; but more frequently only the noise and movement of the
furniture occurred, and sometimes that took place in the adjoining
room also. St. Boniface House is mentioned as haunted in the
guide-books of the Isle of Wight."
"_Feb. 12._--Went in the morning with the Feildens to S. Maria in
Monticelli--a small church near the Ghetto. The church is not
generally open, and we had to ring at the door of the priest's
lodgings to get in: he let us into the church by a private passage.
In the right aisle is the famous picture over an altar. It is a
Christ with the eyes almost closed, weighed down by pain and
sorrow. The Feildens knelt before it, and in a very few minutes
they both declared that they saw its eyes open and close again.
From the front of the picture and on the right side of it, though I
looked fixedly at it, I could see nothing, but after I had looked
for a long time from the left side, I seemed to see the eyes
languidly close altogether, as if the figure were sinking
unconsciously into a fast sleep.
"In the case of this picture, Pope Pius IX. has turned Protestant,
and, disapproving of the notice it attracted, after it was first
observed to move its eyes in 1859, he had it privately removed from
the church, and it was kept shut up for some years. Two years ago
it was supposed that people had forgotten all about it, and it was
quietly brought back to the church in the night. It has frequently
been seen to move the eyes since, but it has not been generally
shown. The sacristan said it was a '_regalo_' made to the church at
its foundation, and none knew who the artist was.
"In the afternoon I was in St. Peter's with Miss Buchanan when the
famous Brother Ignatius[311] came in. He led 'the Infant Samuel' by
the hand, and a lay brother followed. He has come to Rome for his
health, and has brought with him a sister (Sister Ambrogia) and the
lay brother to wash and look after the Infant Samuel. He found the
'Infant' as a baby on the altar at Norwich, and vowed him at once
to the service of the Temple, dressed him in a little habit, and
determined that he should never speak to a woman as long as he
lived. The last is extremely hard upon Sister Ambrogia, who does
not go sight-seeing with her companions, and having a very dull
time of it, would be exceedingly glad to play with the little
rosy-cheeked creature. The Infant is now four years old, and is
dressed in a white frock and cowl like a little Carthusian, and
went pattering along the church in the funniest way by the side of
the stately Brother Ignatius. He held the Infant up in his arms to
kiss St. Peter's toe, and then rubbed its forehead against his
foot, and did the same for himself, and then they both prostrated
themselves before the principal shrine, with the lay brother behind
them, and afterwards at the side altars, the Infant of course
exciting great attention and amusement amongst the canons and
priests of the church. A lady acquaintance of ours went to see
Brother Ignatius and begged to talk to the Infant. This was
declared to be impossible, the Infant was never to be allowed to
speak to a woman, but she might be in the same room with the Infant
if she pleased, and Brother Ignatius would then himself put any
questions she wished. She asked who its father and mother were, and
the Infant replied, 'I am the child of Jesus Christ and of the
Blessed Virgin and of the holy St. Benedict.' She then asked if it
liked being at Rome, 'Yes,' it said, 'I like being at Rome, for it
is the city of the holy saints and martyrs and of the blessed
Apostles Peter and Paul.' When we saw the party, they were just
come from the Pope, who told Brother Ignatius to remember that a
habit could not make a monk.
"Miss Dowdeswell has been to see us, and given us a terrible
account of the misapplication of the Roman charities. She says the
people would rather beg, or even really die of want, than go into
most of the institutions--that the so-called soup is little more
than water, and that the inmates are really starved, besides which
the dirt and vermin are quite disgusting. The best hospital is that
of the 'Buon Fratelli,' where the people who obtain entrance are
kindly treated, but it is exceedingly difficult to get admittance,
and the hospital authorities will always say it is full, scarcely
ever taking in more than nine patients, though there is
accommodation for thirty, and each person admitted has to pay ten
scudi. At S. Michele, which is enormously endowed, and which
professes to be free, the patient is not only compelled to have a
complete outfit of bedding and everything else she requires, but
must pay three scudi a month for her maintenance as long as she
remains, yet for this will not have what she could procure for the
same sum elsewhere."
"_Feb. 15._--Went with the Eyres to Benzoni's studio. Amongst many
other statues was a fine group of a venerable old man raising a
little half-naked boy out of a gutter. 'Ecco il mio benefattore,'
said Benzoni. It was the likeness of Conte Luigi Taddini of Crema,
who first recognised the genius of Benzoni when making clay images
in the puddles by the wayside, and sent him to Rome at his own
expense for education. Count Taddini died six years after, but, in
the height of his fame, Benzoni has made this group as a voluntary
thank-offering and presented it to the family of his benefactor in
Crema. He was only twelve years old when adopted by Taddini.
"A curious instance of presentiment happened yesterday. Some
charitable ladies, especially Mrs. McClintock,[312] had been
getting up a raffle for a picture of the poor artist Coleman, whom
they believed to be starving. The tickets cost five scudi apiece,
and were drawn yesterday. Just at the last moment Mrs. Keppel, at
the Pension Anglaise, had a presentiment that 77 would be the lucky
number, and she sent to tell Mrs. McClintock that if she could have
77 she would take it, but if not, she would not take any number at
all. Seventy-seven happened to be Mrs. McClintock's own number.
However, she said that rather than Mrs. Keppel should take none,
she would give it up to her and take another. Mrs. Keppel took 77
and she got the picture."
"_Feb. 24, 1866._--The other day little Nicole Dolgorouki came in
to dinner with a pencil in his hand. The Princess said, 'Little
boys should not sit at dinner with pencils in their hands;' upon
which the child of eight years old coolly replied, 'L'artiste ne
quitte jamais son crayon!'
"When the Mother and Lea were both ill last week, our Italian
servants Clementina and (her daughter) Louisa groaned incessantly;
and when Clementina was taken ill on the following night, Louisa
gave up all hope at once, and sent for her other children to take
leave of her. This depression of spirits has gone on ever since
Christmas, and it turns out now that they think a terrible omen has
come to the house. No omen is worse than an upset of oil, but, if
this occurs on Christmas Eve, it is absolutely fatal, and on
Christmas Eve my mother upset her little table with the great
moderator lamp upon it. The oil was spilt all over her gown and the
lamp broken to pieces on the floor, with great cries of 'O
santissimo diavolo' from the servants. 'Only one thing can save us
now,' says Louisa; 'if Providence would mercifully permit that some
one should break a bottle of wine here by accident, that would
bring back luck to the house, but nothing else can.'
"The Borgheses have had a magnificent fancy ball. Young Bolognetti
Cenci borrowed the armour of Julius II. from the Pope for the
occasion, and young Corsini that of Cardinal de Bourbon. The
Duchess Fiano went in the costume of the first Empire, terribly
improper in these days, and another lady went as a nymph just
emerged from a fountain, and naturally clothed as little as
possible. The Princess Borghese[313] was dreadfully shocked, but
she only said, 'I fear, Madame, that you must be feeling horribly
cold.'
"When the French ambassador sent to the Pope to desire that he
would send away the Court of Naples, the Pope said he must decline
to give up the parental prerogative which had always belonged to
the Popes, of giving shelter to unfortunate princes of other
nations, of whatever degree or nation they might be, and 'of this,'
he added pointedly, 'the Bonapartes are a striking example.' The
French ambassador had the bad taste to go on to the Palazzo
Farnese, and, after condoling with the King of Naples[314] upon
what he had heard of his great poverty, said, 'If your Majesty
would engage at once to leave Rome, I on my part would promise to
do my best endeavours with my Government to obtain the restoration
of at least a part of your Majesty's fortune.' The King coldly
replied, 'Sir, I have heard that in all ages great and good men
have ended their days in obscurity and poverty, and it can be no
source of dread to me that I may be numbered amongst them.'
"The Queen-mother of Naples[315] is still very rich, but is now a
mere nurse to her large family, with some of whom she is to be
seen--'gran' bel' pezzo di donna'--driving every day. When the King
returned from Caieta, she was still at the Quirinal, and went down
to the Piazza Monte Cavallo to receive him; but with him and the
Queen came her own eldest son, and, before noticing her sovereign,
she rushed to embrace her child, saying, 'Adesso, son pagato a
tutto.'
"One sees the Queen of Naples[316] daily walking with her sister
Countess Trani[317] near the Porta Angelica, or threading the
carriages in the Piazza di Spagna, where the coachmen never take
off their hats, and even crack their whips as she passes. She wears
a straw hat, a plain violet linsey-woolsey dress, and generally
leads a large deerhound by a string. She is perfectly lovely.
"The great Mother, Maria de Matthias,[318] has lately come down
from her mountains of Acuto to visit my sister, who has arrived in
Rome, and the confessor of the Venerable Anna Maria Taigi has also
visited her. I have read the life of this saint, and have never
found out any possible excuse for her being canonised, unless that
she married her husband because he was a good man, though he was
'ruvido di maniere e grossolano.'
"At dinner at Mr. Brooke's, I met the quaint and clever Mrs.
Payne, Madame d'Arblay's niece. She said that England had an honest
bad climate and Rome a dishonest good one.
"Count Bolognetti Cenci is marvellously handsome, face and figure
alike perfect. Some people maintain that Don Onorato Caiëtani is
equally handsome. He has the extraordinary plume of white hair
which is hereditary in the Caiëtani family. His father, the Duke of
Sermoneta, said the other day, with some pardonable pride, 'Our
ancestors were reigning sovereigns (in Tuscany) long before the
Pope had any temporal power.'
"We have been to the Villa Doria to pick 'Widowed Iris,' which the
Italians call 'I tre Chiodi del Nostro Signore,'--the three nails
of our Saviour's cross.
"My sister declares that when Madame Barrère, late superior of the
Order of the Sacré Cœur, was in her great old age, a Catholic
lady who was married to a Protestant came to her and implored her
to promise that, as soon as she entered heaven, her first petition
should be for her husband that he might be a Catholic. Soon after
this the Protestant husband was taken alarmingly ill, but gave his
wife no hope that he would change his religion; yet, to her great
surprise, when he was dying he bade her send for a priest. She
considered this at first as a result of delirium, but he insisted
upon the priest coming, and, rallying soon after, was received into
the Roman Catholic Church. In a few days came the news of the death
of Madame Barrère, and on inquiry it was found that the moment of
her death and that of the Protestant sending for the priest exactly
coincided."
"_March 13._--The Roman princes are generally enormously rich.
Tortonia is said to have an income which gives him 7000 scudi
(£1200) a day. He is very charitable, and gives a great many
pensions of a scudo a day to poor individuals of the _mezzoceto_
class. The Chigis used to be immensely rich, but were ruined by old
Princess Chigi, who gambled away everything she could get hold of.
When one of her sons was to be made a Monsignore, a collection was
arranged amongst the friends of the family to pay the expenses, but
they imprudently left the rouleaux of money on the chimney-piece,
where the old Princess spied them, and snapping them up,
_gioccolare_-d them all away. The Massimi are rich, but the old
Prince[319] is very miserly. The other day he told his cook that he
was going to give a supper, but that it must not cost more than
fifteen baiocchi a head, and that he must give minestra. The cook
said it was utterly impossible, but the Prince declared he did not
care in the least about 'possible,' only it must be done. The
supper came off, and the guests had minestra. The next day the
Prince said to his cook, 'Well, now, you see you could do it
perfectly well; what was the use of making such a fuss about it?'
The cook said 'Yes, I _did_ it, but would you like to know where I
got the bones from that made the soup?' The Prince shrugged his
shoulders and said, 'Oh no, I don't want in the least to know about
that; so long as you do your suppers for my price, you may get your
bones wherever you like.' The cook told his friends afterwards that
he got them at the Immondezzajo!"
"_March 25._--Last January my sister wanted to engage a new maid.
The mistress of a famous flower shop at Paris recommended her
present maid, 'Madame Victorine,' who came to the hotel to see
Esmeralda, who was delighted with her, only thinking her too good
for the place. The new maid only made two stipulations: one was
that she should always be called _Madame_ Victorine; the other,
that she should not be expected to have her meals with the other
servants. My sister said that as to the first stipulation, there
would be no difficulty at all; that she had always called her
mother's maid 'Madame Victoire,' and that she could have no
objection to calling her Madame Victorine; but that as to the
second stipulation, though she insisted upon nothing, and though
Madame Victorine would be perfectly free to take her food away and
eat it wherever she pleased, yet she did not advise her to make any
difficulty of this kind, as they were going to Italy, where the
servants have jealous natures, and would be peculiarly liable to
resent anything of the sort. Upon this Madame Victorine waived her
second stipulation.
"Esmeralda was surprised, when Madame Victorine came to her, to
find how well she had been educated and little traces of her having
belonged to a higher position several times appeared by accident,
upon which occasions Madame Victorine would colour deeply and try
to hide what she had said. Thus, once she was betrayed into saying,
'I managed in that way with my servants;' and once in the railway,
'I did so when I was travelling with my son.' My sister observed
not only that all her dresses were of the best silk though
perfectly plain, but that all her cuffs, collars, and handkerchiefs
were of the very best and finest material. But the oddest
circumstance was, that once when Esmeralda was going to seal a
letter, having no seal about her, she asked Madame Victorine if she
had one. Madame Victorine lent her one, and then, colouring
violently, as if she remembered something, tried to snatch it away,
but Esmeralda had already pressed it down, and saw on the
impression a coronet and a cipher. When my sister first told Madame
Victorine that she was too good for the place, she seemed greatly
agitated and exclaimed, 'Oh don't, don't change your mind, do take
me: I will consent to do anything, only do take me.'
"One day since they have been at Palazzo Parisani, Esmeralda was
looking for something amongst her music. 'You will find it in such
an opera,' said Madame Victorine. 'Why, do you play also?' said
Esmeralda, much surprised. 'Yes,' said Madame Victorine, colouring
deeply. 'Then will you play to me?' said my sister. 'Oh no, no,'
said Madame Victorine, trembling all over. 'Then I hope you will
play sometimes when I am out,' said Esmeralda, and this Madame
Victorine said she would do, and it seemed to please her very
much."[320]
"_March 26._--The Santa Croce are perhaps really the oldest family
in Rome. They claim descent from Valerius Publicola, and the
spirit of his life, that which characterised 'the good house that
loved the people well,' still remains in the family. The other day
Donna Vincenza Santa Croce was speaking of the Trinità de'
Monti,[321] and the system of education there, and she said, 'I do
so dislike those nuns: they are so worldly: they do so give in to
rank, for when a girl of one of the great noble houses is there,
they will make all the other girls stand up when she comes into a
room! But this, you know, is not right, for it is only goodness and
talent, not rank, that ought to make people esteemed in the world.'
And was not this the spirit of Valerius Publicola speaking through
his descendant?"
"_March 27._--Last Sunday (Palm Sunday) was the last day of the
'mission' which the Pope had appointed in the hope of warding off
both the cholera and the destruction of his own power. All the week
processions had paraded the streets and monks had preached in the
piazzas, rousing the feelings of the people in behalf of the Holy
Father, and last Sunday it all came to a close. Giacinta, 'the
Saint of St. Peter's,' came to tell my sister about the scene at
Santo Spirito, where she was. A Passionist Father took a real crown
of thorns and pressed it upon his head three times, till the thorns
sank deep into the flesh, and the blood ran in streams down his
face and over his dress. The people cried and sobbed convulsively,
and were excited to frenzy when he afterwards took a 'disciplina'
and began violently to scourge himself before all the congregation.
One man sobbed and screamed so violently that he was dragged out by
the carabinieri. Whilst the feelings of the people were thus
wrought up, the father besought and commanded them to deliver up
all books they possessed which were mentioned in the Index,
tambourines and things used in dancing the saltarella, and all
weapons,--and all through that afternoon they kept pouring in by
hundreds, men bringing their books, and women their tambourines,
and many their knives and pistols, which were piled up into a great
heap in the courtyard of the Santo Spirito and set on fire. It was
a huge bonfire, which burnt quite late into the evening, and whilst
it burnt, more people were perpetually arriving and throwing on
their books and other things, just as in the old days of Florence
under the influence of Savonarola.
"Last Thursday at the Caravità, the doors of the church were
'closed at one hour of the day' (_i.e._, after Ave Maria), only men
being admitted, and when they were fast, scourges were distributed,
the lights all put out, and every one began to scourge both
themselves and their neighbours, any one who had ventured to remain
in the church without using a 'disciplina' being the more
vigorously scourged by the others. At such times all is soon a
scene of the wildest confusion, and shrieks and groans are heard on
all sides. Some poor creatures try to escape by clinging to the
pillars of the galleries, others fly screaming through the church
with their scourgers pursuing them like demons.
"They say that the reason why St. Joseph's day was so much kept
this year is that the Pope is preparing the public mind to receive
a dogma of the Immaculate Conception of St. Joseph--perhaps to be
promulgated next year: St. Anne is to be reserved to another time."
"_April 1, Easter Sunday._--Passion Week has been very odd and
interesting, but not reverent. It was very curious to see how--as
Mrs. Goldsmid says, 'the Church always anticipates,' so that the
Saviour, personified by the Sacrament, is laid in the tomb long
before the hour of His death, and Thursday, not Saturday, is the
day upon which all the faithful go about to visit the
sepulchres.[322] My sister decorated that of S. Claudio with
flowers and her great worked carpet. The Mother recalls John
Bunyan's confession of faith--
'Blest cross, blest sepulchre,--blest rather He,
The Man that there was put to shame for me.'
"We went to the Benediction in the Piazza S. Pietro--a glorious
blue sky and burning sunshine, and the vast crowd making the whole
scene very grand, especially at the moment when the Pope stretched
out his arms, and, hovering over the crimson balcony like a great
white albatross, gave his blessing to all the world. Surely nothing
is finer than that wonderful voice of Pius IX., which, without ever
losing its tone of indescribable solemnity, yet vibrates to the
farthest corners of the immense piazza.
"Afterwards we went to S. Andrea della Valle to see the 'sepolcro;'
but far more worth seeing was a single ray of light streaming in
through a narrow slit in one of the dark blinds, and making a
glistening pool of gold upon the black pavement.
"On Good Friday, after the English service, we went to Santo
Spirito in Borgo, where, after waiting an hour and a half, seeing
nothing but the curiously ragged congregation, we found that the
'Tre Ore' was to be preached in broad Trasteverino, of which we
could not understand a word. We went into St. Peter's, which was in
a state of widowhood, no bells, no clock, no holy water, no
ornaments on any of the altars, no lamps burning at the shrine, and
all because the Sacrament was no longer present. We went again in
the afternoon, when the whole building was thickly crowded from end
to end. I stood upon the ledge of one of the pillars and watched
two graceful ladies and a gentlemanly-looking man in black
buffetted in the crowd below me: they were the King and Queen of
Naples and the Countess Trani. Some zealous Bourbonists kissed
their hands at risk of being trampled on.
"To-day St. Peter's and all the other churches have come to life
again: the Sacrament has been restored: the bells have rung: and
fire and water have been re-blessed for the year to come. All
private Catholic houses too have had their blessings. A priest and
a boy surprised Lea by coming in here and blessing everything, and
she found them asperging the Mother's bed with holy water, all at
the desire of our fellowlodger, Mr. Monteith of Carstairs, whom
Louisa described as dropping gold pieces into their water-vessel.
At Palazzo Parisani, as well as below us, a 'colazione' was set
out, with a great cake, eggs, &c., and after being blessed was
given away.
"Antonelli has just been made a priest, in the vague idea, I
suppose, that it might some day be convenient to raise him to the
papacy.
"Mr. Perry Williams, the artist, thought the old woman who cleans
out his studio looked dreadfully ill the other day, and said, 'You
look very bad, what on earth is the matter with you?'--'Cosa vuole,
Signore, ho avuto una digestione tutta la notte.'"
"_April 3._--This morning poor little Miss Joyce lay in a chapelle
ardente at S. Andrea delle Fratte, and all the English Catholics,
with the Borgheses and Dorias, who were her cousins, attended the
requiem mass. She was only alarmingly ill for thirty-six hours, of
brain fever, caused by a dose of twenty-five grains of quinine
after typhus, which she had brought back from Naples. She had been
the gayest of the gay all the season, and a week ago was acting in
tableaux and singing at Mrs. Cholmondeley's party. It is said that
at least one young lady is killed every year by being taken to
Naples when she is overdone by the balls and excitement here.
"My sister gave a small party yesterday evening. The Duke and
Duchess Sora were there. The Duchess has a wonderfully charming
expression. K., a young Tractarian, was introduced to her. She said
afterwards, 'J'ai pensé longtemps qu'il était catholique, et puis
j'ai tourné, j'ai tourné, j'ai tourné, et voilà qu'il était
protestant!'"
"_April 8._--On Thursday, at the Monteiths', I met Lady Herries,
Mrs. Montgomery, my sister, and many other Catholics. They were all
assembled before dinner to receive Cardinal de Reisach, a very
striking-looking old man, whose white hair and brilliant scarlet
robes made a splendid effect of colour.
"On Friday, at 2 P.M., I joined the Feildens to go to the Palazzo
Farnese. Mrs. F. wore a high grey dress without a bonnet: little
Helen was in black velvet, with all her pretty hair flowing over
her shoulders; Mr. Robartes, Mr. Feilden, and I wore evening dress.
The whole way in the carriage my companions declared they felt more
terrified than if they were going to a dentist, as bad as if they
were going to have their legs taken off. We drove into the
courtyard of the Farnese and to the foot of the staircase. Several
other people were just coming down. We were shown through one long
gallery after another to a small salon furnished with green, where
the Duca della Regina and an old lady received us. Soon the door
was opened at the side, and in very distinct tones the Duke
mentioned our names. Just within the door stood Francis II. He
looked grave and sad, and his forehead seemed to work convulsively
at moments; still I thought him handsome. The Queen sat on a sofa
at the other side of the room. She was in a plain black mourning
dress with some black lace in her hair (for Queen Marie Amelie, her
husband's aunt). The room was a boudoir, hung round with family
portraits. There was a beautiful miniature of the Queen on the
table near which I sat.
"I went up at once to the King and made as if I would kiss his
hand, but he shook mine warmly and made me sit in an arm-chair
between him and the Queen. Mrs. Feilden in the meantime had gone
direct to the Queen, who seated her by her side upon the sofa, and
taking little Helen on her lap, kissed her tenderly, and said she
remembered her, having often seen her before. I said, 'Ce petit
enfant a tant de dévouement pour sa Majesté la Reine, qu'elle va
tous les jours à la Place d'Espagne seulement pour avoir le bonheur
de voir sa Majesté quand elle passe.' The Queen's eyes filled with
tears, and she hid her face in Helen's hair, which she kissed and
stroked, saying, 'Oh mon cher enfant, mon cher petit enfant!'
"The King then said something about the great rains we had
suffered. I mentioned the prophecy if it rained on the 4th April--
'Quattro di brillante,
Quaranta di durante,'
and the King said that in Naples there was a superstition of the
same kind as that of our St. Swithin in England.
"As another set of people came in, we rose to go, kissing the
Queen's hand, except Helen, who kissed her face. The King[323]
shook hands and walked with us to the door, expressing a wish that
we should return to Rome; and replying, when I said how much my
mother benefited by the climate here, that Madame my mother ought
always to make the most of whatever climate suited her health and
remain in it. In the anteroom the Duca della Regina and the old
lady were waiting to see Helen again.
"To-day Mrs. Ramsay asked me the difference between the Italian
words _mezzo-caldo_ and _semi-freddo_. One would think they were
the same, but _mezzo-caldo_ is hot punch and _semi-freddo_ is cold
cream!"
I have put in these extracts from my journal, as they describe a state
of things at Rome which seemed then as if it would last for ever, but
which is utterly swept away now and rapidly passing into oblivion. The
English society was as frivolous then as it is now, but much more
primitive. It was the custom in those days, when any one gave a larger
party than usual, to ask Mrs. Miller, a respectable old Anglo-German
baker who lived in the Via della Croce, to make tea and manage the
refreshments, and one knew whether the party that one was invited to was
going to be a large or small one by looking to see if there was "To meet
Mrs. Miller" in the corner.
[Illustration: CONTADINA, VALLEY OF THE SACCO.[324]]
Our days were for the most part spent in drawing, and many were the
delightful hours we passed in the Villa Negroni, which has now entirely
disappeared, in spite of its endless historic associations, or in the
desolate and beautiful _vigne_ of the Esquiline, which have also been
destroyed since the Sardinian occupation of Rome. Indeed, those who
visit Rome now that it is a very squalid modern city, can have no idea
of the wealth and glory of picturesqueness which adorned its every
corner before 1870, or of how romantic were the passing figures--the
crimson Cardinals; the venerable generals of religious orders with their
flowing white beards; the endless monks and nuns; the pifferari with
their pipes; the peasant women from Cori and Arpino and Subiaco, with
their great gold earrings, coral necklaces, and snowy head-dresses; the
contadini in their sheep-skins and goat-skins; the handsome stalwart
Guardia Nobile in splendid tight-fitting uniforms; and above all, the
grand figure and beneficent face of Pius IX. so frequently passing,
seated in his glass coach, in his snow-white robes, with the stoic
self-estimation of the Popes, but with his own kindly smile and his
fingers constantly raised in benediction.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS, NARNI.[325]]
The heat was very great before we left Rome in April. We went first to
Narni, where we stayed several days in a very primitive lodging, with
the smallest possible amount of furniture, and nothing to eat except
cold goat and rosemary, but in a glorious situation on the terrace
which overlooks the deep rift of the Nar, clothed everywhere with ilex,
box, and arbutus; and we spent long hours drawing the two grand old
bridges--Roman and Mediæval--which stride across the river, even Lea
being stimulated by the intense beauty to a trial of her artistic
powers, and making a very creditable performance of the two grand
cypresses on the slope of the hill, which have disappeared under the
Sardinian rule.
[Illustration: THE MEDIÆVAL BRIDGE, NARNI.[327]]
We spent a happy day at Spoleto, with its splendid ilex woods. Here my
friends Kilcoursie[326] and Pearson joined us, and I went with them to
spend the morning at the Temple of the Clitumnus, and returned just too
late for the train we had intended to leave by. It is very
characteristic of the slowness of those early days of Italian railways,
that though we did not order our carriage till some time after the train
was gone, we reached Perugia by road, in spite of the steep hill to be
climbed, before the train which we were to have taken arrived on the
railway. This evening's drive (April 23) is one of the Italian journeys
I look back upon with greatest pleasure, the going onwards through the
rich plain of vines and almonds and olives, and all the blaze of spring
tulips and gladioli, and the stopping to buy the splendid oranges from
the piles which lay in the little market under the old cathedral of
Foligno; then seeing the sky turn opal behind the hills, and deepen in
colour through a conflagration of amber, and orange, and crimson, of
which the luminousness was never lost, though everything else
disappeared into one dense shadow, and the great cypresses on the
mountain edges were only dark spires engraven upon the sky. How many
such evenings have we spent, ever moving onwards at that stately smooth
_vetturino_ pace--and silent, Mother absorbed in her heavenly, I in my
earthly contemplations; dear Lea, tired by her long day, often sleeping
opposite to us against the hand-bags.
We spent several days in Florence in 1866, when the streets were already
placarded with such advertisements as 'I Menzogne di Genese, o
l'Impostatura di Mosé'--typical of the change of Government. I paid
several visits to the Comtesse d'Usedom (the Olympia Malcolm of my
childhood), who was more extraordinary than ever. When I went to
luncheon with her in the Villa Capponi, she talked incessantly for three
hours, chiefly of spirits.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE.[328]]
"I believe in them," she said, "of course I do. Why, haven't I
_heard_ them?" (with a perfect yell). "Why, I've seen a child whom
we knew most intimately who was perfectly possessed by
spirits--evil spirits, I mean. There is nothing efficacious
against _that_ kind but prayer and the crucifix. Why, the poor
little thing used to struggle for hours. It used to describe the
devils it saw. They were of different kinds. Sometimes it would
say, 'Oh, it's only one of the innocent blackies,' and then it
would shriek when it thought it saw a red devil come. It was the
red devils that did all the mischief. All the best physicians were
called in, but they all said the case was quite beyond them. The
possession sometimes came on twice in a day. It would end by the
child gasping a great sigh, as if at that moment the evil spirit
went out of it, and then quite calmly it would open its eyes,
wonder where it was, and remember nothing of what had happened. The
doctors urged that the child should not be kept quiet, but taken
abroad and amused, and mama writes me word now that it is quite
well.
"I never saw the ghosts at Rugen," said Madame von Usedom, "but
there is one of Usedom's houses there which I have refused ever to
go to again, for I have heard them there often. The lady in the
room with me saw them too--she saw three white sisters pulling her
husband out of his grave.
"We have an old lady in our family, a relation of Usedom's, who has
that wonderful power of second-sight.... When we left you at
Bamberg (in 1853), we went to Berlin, and there we saw Usedom's
relation, who told me that I was going to have a son. She 'saw it,'
she said. _Saw it!_ why, she saw it as plain as daylight: I was
going to have a son: Usedom's first wife had brought him none, and
I was going to give him one.
"When I left Berlin, we went to Rugen, but I was to return to
Berlin, where my son was to be born. Well, about three weeks before
my confinement was expected, the old lady sent for a relation of
Usedom's, who was in Berlin, and said, 'Have you heard anything of
Olympia?'--'Yes,' he said, 'I heard from Usedom yesterday, and she
is going on as well as possible, and will be here in a few
days.'--'No,' said the old lady, 'she will not, for the child is
dead. Yesterday, as I was sitting here, three angels passed through
my room with a little child in their arms, and the face of the
child was so exactly like Usedom's, that I know that the child is
born and that it is in heaven.' And so it was. I had a bad fall in
Rugen, which we thought nothing of at the time. I had so much
strength and courage that it did not seem to affect me; but a week
after my boy was born--dead--killed by that fall, and the image,
oh! the very image of Usedom."
From Florence we went to Bellagio on the Lago di Como, and spent a week
of glorious weather amid beautiful flowers with nightingales singing in
the trees all day and night. Many of our Roman friends joined us, and we
passed pleasant days together in the garden walks and in short
excursions to the neighbouring villas. When we left Bellagio, the two
Misses Hawker, often our companions in Rome, accompanied us. We ascended
the Splugen from Chiavenna in pitch darkness, till, about 4 A.M., the
diligence entered upon the snow cuttings, and we proceeded for some time
between walls of snow, often fifteen feet high. At last we stopped
altogether, and in a spot where there was no refuge whatever from the
ferocious ice-laden wind. Meantime sledges were prepared, being small
open carts without wheels, which just held two persons each: my mother
and I were in the second, Lea and an Italian in the third, and the
Hawkers in the fourth: we had no man with our sledge. The sledges
started in procession, the horses stumbling over the ledges in the snow,
from which we bounded up and down. At last the path began to wind along
the edge of a terrific precipice, where nothing but a slight edging of
fresh snow separated one from the abyss. Where this narrow path turned
it was truly horrible. Then came a tunnel festooned with long icicles;
then a fearful descent down a snow-drift almost perpendicularly over the
side of the mountain, the horses sliding on all fours, and the sledges
crashing and bounding from one hard piece of snow to another; all this
while the wind blew furiously, and the other sledges behind seemed
constantly coming upon us. Certainly I never remember anything more
appalling.
At the bottom of the drift was another diligence, but the Hawkers and I
walked on to Splugen.
[Illustration: HOLMHURST, FROM THE GARDEN.]
We spent an interesting afternoon at Brugg, and drew at Königsfelden,
where the Emperor Albert's tomb is left deserted and neglected in a
stable, and Queen Agnes's room remains highly picturesque, with many
relics of her. In the evening we had a lovely walk through the forest to
Hapsburg, where we saw a splendid sunset from the hill of the old
castle. With a glimpse at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, we reached Carlsruhe,
with which we were very agreeably surprised. The Schloss Garten is
really pretty, with fine trees and fountains: the town is bright and
clean; and all around is the forest with its endless pleasant paths. We
found dear Madame de Bunsen established with her daughters Frances and
Emilia in a nice old-fashioned house, 18 Waldhornstrasse, with all their
pictures and treasures around them, the fine bust of Mrs. Waddington in
itself giving the room a character. Circling round the aunts were
Theodora von Ungern Sternberg's five motherless children, a perpetual
life-giving influence to the home. We went with them into the forest and
to the _faisanerie_, and picked masses of wild lilies of the valley. In
the palace gardens we saw the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, a very
handsome couple: she the only daughter of the King of Prussia. At the
station also I saw again, and for the last time, the very pleasing Queen
Emma of the Sandwich Islands, and presented the Bunsens to her.[329] On
the eve of Trinity Sunday we reached home.
_From my_ JOURNAL.
"_July 30, 1866.--Holmhurst._--Another happy summer! How different
my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all sunshine, then all
reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother
remembers nothing of those days, _nothing_ of those years of bitter
heartache which my uncles' wives cost me. But her present love, her
beautiful full heart devotion, are all free-will offering, not
sacrifice of atonement. Our little Holmhurst is most lovely and
peaceful."
[Illustration: Lady Augusta Stanley]
[Illustration: ALTON BARNES CHURCH.]
In August we spent a fortnight at the Deanery at Westminster with Arthur
and Augusta Stanley, the latter _fit les delices_ of all who came under
her influence, and both were most kind in asking every one to meet us
that they thought we could be interested to see. To me, however, no one
was ever half so interesting as Arthur himself, and his conversation at
these small Deanery dinner-parties was most delightful, though, as I
have heard another say, and perhaps justly, "it was always versatile
rather than accurate, brilliant rather than profound." From London we
went to look after our humble friends at Alton, where all the villagers
welcomed my mother with a most touching wealth of evergreen love, and
where forty old people came to supper by her invitation in the barn. The
owls hissed overhead in the oak rafters; the feast was lighted by
candles stuck into empty ginger-beer bottles, and in quavering voices
they all drank the mother's health. She made them a sweet little speech,
praying that all those who were there might meet with her at the great
supper of the Lamb. I had much interest at Alton in finding out those
particulars which form the account of the place in "Memorials of a Quiet
Life." The interest of the people, utterly unspoilt by "civilisation,"
can hardly be described, or the simplicity of their faith. Speaking of
her long troubles and illness, "Betty Smith" said, "I ha' been sorely
tried, but it be a' to help I on to thick there place." William Pontyn
said, "It just be a comfort to I to know that God Almighty's always at
whom: _He_ never goes out on a visit." Their use of fine words is very
comical. Old Pontyn said, "My son-in-law need na treat I ill, for I
niver gied un no _publication_ for it." He thanked mother for her
"respectable gift," and said, "I do thank God ivery morning and ivery
night, that I do; and thank un as I may, I niver can thank un enough, He
be so awful good to I." He said the noise the threshing-machine made
when out of order was "fierly ridic'lous," and that he was "fierly
gallered (frightened) at it"--that he was "obliged to _flagellate_ the
ducks to get them out of the pond."
I drove with Mr. Pile to see the remains of Wolf Hall, on the edge of
Savernake Forest, where Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour. The house,
once of immense size, is nearly destroyed. The roof of the
banqueting-hall is now the roof of a barn. The beautiful fragment of
building remaining was once the laundry. Hard by, at Burbage, is "Jane
Seymour's Pool."
After leaving Alton, as if making the round of my mother's old homes, we
went to Buntingsdale, Hodnet, and Stoke. While at the former, I remember
the Tayleurs being full of the promptitude of old Mrs. Massie (whose son
Edward married our cousin Sophy Mytton). When above ninety she had been
taken to see the church of Northwich, where some one pointed out to her
a gravestone with the epitaph--
"Some have children, and some have none;
Here lies the mother of twenty-one."
Old Mrs. Massie drew herself up to her full height and at once made this
impromptu--
"Some have many, and some have few;
Here _stands_ the mother of twenty-two."
And what she said was true.
My mother turned south from Shropshire, and I went to Lyme, near Disley,
the fine old house of the Leghs, whose then head, W. T. Legh, had
married Emily Wodehouse, one of the earliest friends of my childhood. It
is a most stately old house, standing high in a very wild park, one of
the only three places where wild cattle are not extinct. The story of
the place is curious.
"Old Colonel Legh of Lyme left his property first to his son Tom,
but though Tom Legh was twice married, he had no sons, so it came
to the father of the present possessor. Tom's first wife had been
the celebrated Miss Turner. Her father was a Manchester
manufacturer, who had bought the property of Shrigley, near Lyme,
of which his only daughter was the heiress. She was carried off
from school by a conspiracy between three brothers named Gibbon
Wakefield and a Miss Davis, daughter of a very respectable master
of the Grammar School at Macclesfield. While at school, Miss Turner
received a letter from home which mentioned casually that her
family had changed their butler. Two days after, a person
purporting to be the new butler came to the school, and sent in a
letter to say that Mr. Turner was dangerously ill, and that he was
sent to fetch his daughter, who was to return home at once. In the
greatest hurry, Miss Turner was got ready and sent off. When they
had gone some way, the carriage stopped, and a young man got in,
who said that he had been sent to break to her the news that her
father's illness was a fiction; that they did not wish to spread
the truth by letting the governess know, but that the fact was that
Mr. Turner had got into some terrible money difficulties and was
completely ruined, and he begged that his daughter would proceed at
once to meet him in Scotland, whither he was obliged to go to evade
his creditors. During the journey the young man who was sent to
chaperon Miss Turner made himself most agreeable. At last they
reached Berwick, and then at the inn, going out of the room, he
returned with a letter and said that he was almost afraid to tell
her its contents, but that it was sent by her father's command, and
that he only implored her to forgive him for obeying her father's
orders. It was a most urgent letter from her father, saying that it
rested with her to extricate him from his difficulties, which she
could do by consenting to marry the bearer. The man was handsome
and pleasant, and the marriage seemed no great trial to the girl,
who was under fifteen. Immediately after marriage she was taken to
Paris.
"Meantime all the gentlemen in the county rallied round Mr. Turner,
and he contrived somehow to get his daughter away whilst she was in
Paris. Suspicion had been first excited in the mind of the
governess because letters for Miss Turner continued to arrive at
the school from Shrigley, and she gave the alarm. There was a great
trial, at which all the gentlemen in Cheshire accompanied Mr.
Turner when he appeared leading his daughter. The marriage was
pronounced null and void, and one of the Gibbon Wakefields was
imprisoned at Lancaster for five years, the others for two. It was
the utmost punishment that could be given for misdemeanour, and
nothing more could be proved. The Gibbon Wakefields had thought
that, rather than expose his daughter to three days in a witness
box, Mr. Turner would consent to a regular marriage, and they had
relied upon that. Miss Turner was afterwards married to Mr. Legh,
in the hope of uniting two fine properties, but as she had no son,
her daughter, Mrs. Lowther, is now the mistress of Shrigley."
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Lyme Hall, August 29, 1866._--I have been with Mrs. Legh to
Bramhall, the fine old house of the Davenports, near Stockport,
with the haunted room of Lady Dorothy Davenport and no end of
relics. Out of the billiard-room opens the parish church, in the
same style as the house, with prayer-books chained to the seats. We
returned by Marple, the wonderfully curious old house of Bradshaw
the regicide."
"_Sept. 1._--To-day we had a charming drive over the hills, the
green glens of pasture-land, the steeps, and the tossing burns
recalling those of Westmoreland. I went with Mrs. Legh into one of
the cottages and admired the blue wash of the room, 'Oh, _you_ like
it, do ye?' said the mistress of the house; 'I don't--so that's
difference of opinions.' The whole ceiling was hung with different
kinds of herbs, 'for we're our own doctors, ye see, and it saves
the physic bills.'
"The four children--Sybil and Mob (Mabel), Tom and Gilbert Legh,
are delightful, and Sybil quite lovely. It is a pleasure to hear
the little feet come scampering down the oak staircase, as the four
rush down to the library to ask for a story at seven o'clock--'A
nice horrible story, all about robbers and murders: now do tell us
a really horrible one.'"
"_Thornycroft Hall, Cheshire, Sept._ 3.--The family here are much
depressed by the reappearance of the cattle plague. In the last
attack sixty-eight cows died, and so rapidly that men had to be up
all night burying them by lantern-light in one great grave in the
park.... How curious the remains of French expressions are as used
by the cottagers here. They speak of _carafes_ of water, and say
they should not oss (oser) to do a thing. The other day one of the
Birtles tenants was being examined as a witness at the Manchester
assizes. 'You told me so and so, didn't you?' said the lawyer. And
the man replied, 'I tell't ye nowt o' the kind, ye powther-headed
monkey; ask the coompany now if I did.'"
From Thornycroft I went to stay (only three miles off) at Birtles, the
charming, comfortable home of the Hibberts--very old friends of all our
family. Mrs. Hibbert, _née_ Caroline Cholmondeley, was very intimate
with my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and a most interesting and agreeable person;
and I always found a visit to Birtles a most admirable discipline, as my
great ignorance was so much discovered and commented upon, that it was
always a stimulus to further exertion. It was on this occasion that Mrs.
Hibbert told me a very remarkable story. It had been told her by Mrs.
Gaskell the authoress, who said that she felt so greatly the uncertainty
of life, that she wished a story which might possibly be of consequence,
and which had been intrusted to her, to remain with some one who was
certain to record it accurately. Three weeks afterwards, sitting by the
fire with her daughter, Mrs. Gaskell died suddenly in her arm-chair.
Mrs. Hibbert, in her turn, wished to share her trust with some one, and
she selected me.
In my childhood I remember well the Misses T., who were great
friends of my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and very clever agreeable old
ladies. "Many years before," as Mrs. Gaskell described to Mrs.
Hibbert, "they had had the care of a young cousin, a girl whose
beauty and cleverness were a great delight to them. But when she
was very young, indeed in the first year of her 'coming out,' she
engaged herself to marry a Major Alcock. In a worldly point of view
the marriage was all that could be desired. Major Alcock was a man
of fortune with a fine place in Leicestershire: he was a good man,
of high character, and likely to make an excellent husband. Still
it was a disappointment--an almost unspoken disappointment--to her
friends that the young lady should marry so soon--'she was so
young,' they thought; she had had so few opportunities of judging
persons; they had looked forward to having her so much longer with
them,' &c.
"When Mrs. Alcock went to her new home in Leicestershire, it was a
great comfort to the Misses T. and others who cared for her that
some old friends of the family would be her nearest neighbours, and
could keep them cognisant of how she was going on. For some time
the letters of these friends described Mrs. Alcock as radiantly,
perfectly happy. Mrs. Alcock's own letters also gave glowing
descriptions of her home, of the kindness of her husband, of her
own perfect felicity. But after a time a change came over the
letters on both sides. The neighbours described Mrs. Alcock as sad
and pale, and constantly silent and preoccupied, and in the letters
of Mrs. Alcock herself there was a reserve and want of all her
former cheerfulness, which aroused great uneasiness.
"The Misses T. went to see Mrs. Alcock, and found her terribly,
awfully changed--haggard, worn, preoccupied, with an expression of
fixed melancholy in her eyes. Both to them and to the doctors who
were called in to her she said that the cause of her suffering was
that, waking or sleeping, she seemed to see before her a face, the
face of a man whom she exactly described, and that she was sure
that some dreadful misfortune was about to befall her from the
owner of that face. Waking, she seemed to see it, or, if she fell
asleep, she dreamt of it. The doctors said that it was a case of
what is known as phantasmagoria; that the fact was that in her
unmarried state Mrs. Alcock had not only had every indulgence and
consideration, but that even the ordinary rubs of practical life
had been warded off from her; and that having been suddenly
transplanted into being the head of a large establishment in
Leicestershire, with quantities of visitors coming and going
throughout the hunting season, had been too much for a very
peculiar and nervous temperament, and that over-fatigue and
unwonted excitement had settled into this peculiar form of
delusion. She must have perfect rest, they said, and her mind would
soon recover its usual tone.
"This was acted upon. The house in Leicestershire was shut up, and
Major and Mrs. Alcock went abroad for the summer. The remedy
completely answered. Mrs. Alcock forgot all about the face, slept
well, enjoyed herself extremely and became perfectly healthy in
body and mind. So well was she, that it was thought a pity to run
the risk of bringing her back to Leicestershire just before the
hunting season, the busiest time there, and it was decided to
establish her cure by taking her to pass the winter at Rome.
"One of the oldest established hotels in Rome is the Hôtel
d'Angleterre in the Bocca di Leone. It was to it that travellers
generally went first when they arrived at Rome in the old
_vetturino_ days; and there, by the fountain near the hotel door
which plays into a sarcophagus under the shadow of two old
pepper-trees, idle contadini used to collect in old days to see the
foreigners arrive. So I remember it in the happy old days, and so
it was on the evening on which the heavily laden carriage of the
Alcock family rolled into the Bocca di Leone and stopped at the
door of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Major Alcock got out, and Mrs.
Alcock got out, but, as she was descending the steps of the
carriage, she happened to glance round at the group under the
pepper-trees, and she uttered a piercing shriek, fell down upon the
ground, and was carried unconscious into the hotel.
"When Mrs. Alcock came to herself, she affirmed that amongst the
group near the door of the hotel she had recognised the owner of
the face which had so long tormented her, and she was certain that
some dreadful misfortune was about to overwhelm her. Doctors,
summoned in haste, when informed of her previous condition,
declared that the same results were owing to the same causes. Major
Alcock, who disliked bad hotels, had insisted on posting straight
through to Rome from Perugia; there had been difficulties about
horses, altercations with the post-boys--in fact, 'the delusion of
Mrs. Alcock was owing, as before, to over-fatigue and excitement:
she must have perfect rest, and she would soon recover.'
"So it proved. Quiet and rest soon restored Mrs. Alcock, and she
was soon able to enjoy going about quietly and entering into the
interests of Rome. It was decided that she should be saved all
possible fatigue, even the slight one of Roman housekeeping: so the
family remained at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Towards January,
however, Mrs. Alcock was so well that they sent out some of the
numerous letters of introduction which they had brought with them,
and, in answer to these, many of the Romans came to call. One day a
Roman Marchese was shown upstairs to the Alcocks' room, and another
gentleman went up with him. The Marchese thought, 'Another visitor
come to call at the same time as myself,' the waiter, having only
one name given him, thought, 'The Marchese and his brother, or the
Marchese and a friend,' and they were shown in together. As they
entered the room, Mrs. Alcock was sitting on the other side of the
fire; she jumped up, looked suddenly behind the Marchese at his
companion, again uttered a fearful scream, and again fell down
insensible. Both gentlemen backed out of the room, and the Marchese
said in a well-bred way that as the Signora was suddenly taken ill,
he should hope for another opportunity of seeing her. The other
gentleman went out at the same time.
"Again medical assistance was summoned, and again the same cause
was ascribed to Mrs. Alcock's illness: this time she was said to be
over-fatigued by sight-seeing. Again quiet and rest seemed to
restore her.
"It was the spring of 1848--the year of the Louis Philippe
revolution. Major Alcock had a younger sister to whom he was sole
guardian, and who was at school in Paris, and he told his wife
that, in the troubled state of political affairs, he could not
reconcile it to his conscience to leave her there unprotected; he
must go and take her away. Mrs. Alcock begged that, if he went, she
might go with him, but naturally he said that was impossible--there
might be bloodshed going on--there might be barricades to get
over--there might be endless difficulties in getting out of Paris;
at any rate, there would be a hurried and exciting journey, which
would be sure to bring back her malady: no, she had friends at
Rome,--she must stay quietly there at the hotel till he came back.
Mrs. Alcock, with the greatest excitement, entreated, implored her
husband upon her knees that she might go with him; but Major Alcock
thought this very excitement was the more reason for leaving her
behind, and he went without her.
"As all know, the Louis Philippe revolution was a very slight
affair. The English had no difficulty in getting out of Paris, and
in a fortnight Major Alcock was back in Rome, bringing his sister
with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alcock was gone. She was never,
never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that
ever was known of Mrs. Alcock was that, on the day of her
disappearance, some people who knew her were walking in front of S.
John Lateran, and saw a carriage driving very rapidly towards the
Porta S. Giovanni Laterano, and in it sat Mrs. Alcock crying and
wringing her hands as if her heart would break, and by her side
there sat a strange man, with the face she had so often described."
I have my own theories as to the explanation of this strange story of
Mrs. Alcock, but as they are evolved entirely from my own imagination, I
will not mention them here.
[Illustration: BODRYDDAN.]
From Cheshire I went to North Wales to pay a visit to our cousinhood at
Bodryddan, which had been the home of my grandmother's only brother, the
Dean of St. Asaph. The place has been spoilt since, but was very
charming in those days. Under an old clock-tower one entered upon a
handsome drive with an avenue of fine elms, on the right of which a
lawn, with magnificent firs, oaks, and cedars, swept away to the hills.
At the end rose the stately old red brick house, half covered with
magnolias, myrtles, and buddlea, with blazing beds of scarlet and yellow
flowers lighting up its base. Through an oak hall hung with armour a
fine staircase led to the library--an immense room with two deep
recesses, entirely furnished with black oak from Copenhagen, and
adorned with valuable enamels collected at Lisbon. The place had
belonged to the Conwys, and that family ended in three sisters, Lady
Stapleton, Mrs. Cotton, and Mrs. Yonge: they had equal shares. Mrs.
Cotton bought up Lady Stapleton's share, and left it with her own to the
two daughters of her sister Mrs. Yonge, of whom the elder married my
great-uncle, Dean Shipley, and was the mother of William and Charles
Shipley and of the three female first cousins (Penelope, Mrs. Pelham
Warren; Emily, Mrs. Heber; and Anna Maria, Mrs. Dashwood) who played so
large a part in the early history of my father and his brothers, and who
are frequently mentioned in the first volume of these memoirs.
When Dean Shipley married, he removed to his wife's house of Bodryddan.
Miss Yonge lived with them, and after her sister's death the Dean was
most anxious to marry her, trying to obtain an Act of Parliament for the
purpose. For some years their aunt, Lady Stapleton, also continued to
hold a life-interest in the property. Of this lady there is a curious
portrait at Bodryddan. She is represented with her two children and a
little Moor, for whom her own little boy had conceived the most
passionate attachment, and from whom he could never bear to be
separated. One night, after this little Moor was grown up, Lady
Stapleton, returning very late from a ball, went to bed, leaving all her
diamonds lying upon the table. Being awakened by a noise in the room,
she saw the Moor come in with a large knife in his hand, and begin
gathering up her jewels. Never losing her presence of mind, she raised
herself up in bed, and, fixing her eyes upon him, exclaimed in a
thrilling tone of reproach, "Pompey, is that you?" This she did three
times, and the third time the Moor, covering his face with his hands,
rushed out of the room. Nothing was heard of him till many years
afterwards, when the chaplain of a Devonshire gaol wrote to Lady
Stapleton that one of his prisoners, under sentence of death for murder,
was most anxious to see her. She was unable to go, but heard afterwards
that it was Pompey, who said that on the night he entered her room he
had intended to kill her, but that when she spoke, such a sense of his
ingratitude overwhelmed him, that he was unable to do it.
As an ecclesiastical dignitary, Dean Shipley would certainly be called
to account in our days. He was devoted to hunting and shooting, and used
to go up for weeks together to a little public-house in the hills above
Bodryddan, where he gave himself up entirely to the society of his
horses and dogs. He had led a very fast life before he took orders, and
he had a natural daughter by a Mrs. Hamilton, who became the second wife
of our grandfather; but after his ordination there was no further stain
upon his character. As a father he was exceedingly severe. He never
permitted his daughters to sit down in his presence, and he never
allowed two of them to be in the room with him at once, because he
could not endure the additional talking caused by their speaking to one
another. His daughter Anna Maria had become engaged to Captain Dashwood,
a very handsome young officer, but before the time came at which he was
to claim her hand, he was completely paralysed, crippled, and almost
imbecile. Then she flung herself upon her knees, imploring her father
with tears not to insist upon her marriage with him; but the Dean
sternly refused to relent, saying she had given her word, and must keep
to it.
She nursed Captain Dashwood indefatigably till he died, and then she
came back to Bodryddan, and lived there with her aunt Mrs. Yonge,
finding it dreadfully dull, for she was a brilliant talker and adored
society. At last she went abroad with her aunt Louisa Shipley, and at
Corfu she met Sir Thomas Maitland, who gave her magnificent diamonds,
and asked her to marry him. But she insisted on coming home to ask her
father's consent, at which the Dean was quite furious. "Why could you
not marry him at once?"--and indeed, before she could get back to her
lover, he died!
After the death of Mrs. Yonge, Mrs. Dashwood lived at Cheltenham, a rich
and clever widow, and had many proposals. To the disgust of her family,
she insisted upon accepting Colonel Jones, who had been a neighbour at
Bodryddan, and was celebrated for his fearfully violent temper. The day
before the wedding it was nearly all off, because, when he came to look
at her luggage, he insisted on her having only one box, and stamped all
her things down into it, spoiling all her new dresses. He made her go
with him for a wedding tour all over Scotland in a pony-carriage,
without a maid, and she hated it; but in a year he died.
Then she insisted on marrying the Rev. G. Chetwode, who had had one wife
before and had two afterwards--an old beau, who used to comb his hair
with a leaden comb to efface the grey. On her death he inherited all she
had--diamonds, £2000 a year, all the fine pictures left her by Mr.
Jones, and all those Landor had collected for her in Italy.
But to return to Dean Shipley. To Mrs. Rowley, who was the mistress of
Bodryddan when I was there, the Dean had been the kindest of
grandfathers, and she had no recollection of him which was not
associated with the most unlimited indulgence. The Dean was much
interested in the management of his estate, but he insisted that every
detail should pass through his own hands. For instance, while he was
absent in London, a number of curious images and carvings in alabaster
were discovered under the pavement at Bodryddan: news was immediately
sent to him, but he desired that everything should be covered up, and
remain till he came home. On his return, he put off the examination from
time to time, till, on his death, the place was forgotten, and now no
one is able to discover it.
Mrs. Rowley was the beautiful Charlotte, only daughter of Colonel
William Shipley, and had led an adventurous life, distinguishing herself
by her bravery and heroism during the plague while she was in the East,
and on various other occasions. By her marriage with Colonel Rowley,
second son of the first Lord Langford, she had three children,--Shipley
Conwy, the present owner of Bodryddan; Gwynydd, who has married twice;
and Efah, who, after her mother's death, made a happy marriage with
Captain Somerset.
In her early married life, Mrs. Rowley had lived much in Berkeley Square
with her mother-in-law, old Lady Langford, who was the original of Lady
Kew in "The Newcomes," and many pitched battles they had, in which the
daughter-in-law generally came off victorious. Lady Langford had been
very beautiful, clever, and had had _une vie très orageuse_. She had
much excuse, however. She had only once seen her cousin, Lord Langford,
when he came to visit her grandmother, and the next day the old lady
told her she was to marry him. "Very well, grandmama, but when?"--"I
never in my life heard such an impertinent question," said the
grandmother; "what business is it of yours _when_ you are to marry him?
You will marry him when I tell you. However, whenever you hear me order
six horses to the carriage, you may know that you are going to be
married." And so it was.
At the time I was at Bodryddan, the most devoted and affectionate
deference was shown by Mrs. Rowley to every word, movement, or wish of
her only brother, Colonel Shipley Conwy. He looked still young, but was
quite helpless from paralysis. Mrs. Rowley sat by him and fed him like a
child. It was one mouthful for her brother, the next for herself. When
dinner was over, a servant came in and wrung his arms and legs, as you
would pull bell-ropes, to prevent the joints from stiffening (a process
repeated several times in the evening), and then carried him out. But
with all this, Colonel Shipley Conwy--always patient--was very bright
and pleasant, and Mrs. Rowley, who said that she owed everything to my
father and his interest in her education, was most cordial in welcoming
me. I never saw either of these cousins again. They spent the next two
winters at the Cape, and both died a few years afterwards.
A little later, I went to stay at Dalton Hall in Lancashire, to visit
Mrs. Hornby, a cousin of my Aunt Penrhyn, and a very sweet and charming
old lady, who never failed to be loved by all who came within her
influence. She told me many old family stories, amongst others how--
"The late Lord Derby (the 13th Earl) was very fond of natural
history even as a boy. One night he dreamt most vividly of a rare
nest in the ivy on the wall, and that he was most anxious to get
it, but it was impossible. In the morning, the nest was on his
dressing-table, and it could only have got there by his opening the
window in his sleep and climbing the wall to it in that state.
"Another instance of his sleep-walking relates that he had a
passion, as a little boy, for sliding down the banisters, but it
was strictly forbidden. One night his tutor had been sitting up
late reading in the hall, when he saw one of the bedroom doors
open, and a little boy come out in his night-shirt and slide down
the banisters. This he did two or three times, and when the tutor
made some little noise, he ran upstairs and disappeared into his
bedroom. The tutor followed, but the little boy was fast asleep in
bed."
Apropos of sleep-walking, Mr. Bagot (husband of Mrs. Hornby's daughter
Lucy) told me a story he had just seen in the _Times_:--
"A large pat of butter was lately on the breakfast table of a
family. When it was divided, a gold watch and chain were found in
the midst of it. The maid who was waiting gave a shriek, and first
rushed off to her room, then, coming back, declared it was hers.
The family were much surprised, but what she said turned out to be
true. She had dreamt that she was going to be robbed of her watch
and chain, and that the only way of hiding them would be to wrap
them up in a pat of butter, and she had done it in her sleep."
A sister-in-law of Mrs. Hornby--a Mrs. Bayley--was staying at Dalton
when I was there. She told me--first hand--a story of which I have heard
many distorted versions. I give it in her words:--
"My sister, Mrs. Hamilton (_née_ Armstrong), was one night going to
bed, when she saw a man's foot project from under the bed. She
knelt down then and there by the bedside and prayed for the wicked
people who were going about--for the _known_ wicked person
especially--that they might be converted. When she concluded, the
man came from under the bed and said, 'I have heard your prayer,
ma'am, and with all my heart I say Amen to it;' and he did her no
harm and went away. She heard from him years afterwards, and he was
a changed man from that day."