"_Ifield Lodge, Crawley._--When the long sad week was over, I felt
all power of further exertion gone, and yet it seemed, as it does
now, that for the soul God had taken to Himself, should the
happiness of that soul not yet be perfected, prayers must be
obtained, and that I must work on and on as long as life lasts.
There is a feeling of longing to help in the mind of every Catholic
for those departed. On Monday the 24th the dear remains were moved
from Brighton by the 6 P.M.train. Auntie and I went up by the same
train from Three Bridges, and Francis came to the Victoria Station
to meet the coffin; but such was the heavy feeling of sorrow, that,
though we were on the platform at the same time, we did not see
each other.
"The next morning I went for Edith, and we arrived at the church
early. The body had been placed in one of the side-chapels, and had
remained there through the night. Before mass it was brought out,
and remained before the high-altar during mass. There were many of
William's friends present, and also Margaret Pole, now Mrs. Baker.
The funeral procession formed at the door of the church. As the
body was moved down the church, Edith and I followed after the
officiating priests. I held Edith's hand tightly, and did not
intend her to get into one of the mourning coaches, but suddenly,
as the hearse moved slowly from the church door, she wrenched her
hand from my grasp and was gone before I had time to speak. Four
nuns went to say the responses at the grave. One was the nun who
had nursed dear Mama through her last hours, and had stayed on with
me in Bryanston Street. I returned from the church to the hotel,
and there Auntie and Edith found me after the funeral was over.
"The funeral service in the church was very solemn, but there was
no weight of gloom or sadness. The strong feeling of the safety of
the soul was such a consolation, that the end for which that soul
had been created had been gained, and that if it were not then in
heaven, the day would come soon, and could be hastened by the
prayers said for it. His dear remains rest now under the figure of
Our Lady of Sorrows, which he had so wished to see erected. I never
looked forward to such a deathbed for William, where there would be
so much peace and love of God, and now I can never feel grateful
enough for such grace granted at the eleventh hour. May we all and
each have as beautiful an end and close of life. Edith says, 'Oh I
wish I could see what William saw when he looked up with that
bright light on his face.' With that look all suffering is blotted
out of poor Edith's mind, all her long watchings.
"I can never feel grateful enough to Miss Marsh for all her
kindness to William. It helped him to God, and it was very, very
beautiful.... I hope still to go to Rome for the _funzione_ in
June, and also to Hungary for the coronation of the Emperor."
May 1867 was passed by my sister in London, where, by her astonishing
cleverness and perseverance, she finally gained the last of her
lawsuits, that for the family plate, when it had been lost in three
other courts. Soon after, in spite of the great heat of the summer,
Esmeralda started for Rome, to be present at the canonisation of the
Japanese martyrs, paying a visit to Madame de Trafford on the way. She
wrote to me:--
"When I first went to Beaujour, I was afraid to tell Madame de
Trafford that I intended to go to Rome. 'Mais où allez vous donc,
ma chère?' said Madame de Trafford. 'Mais, Madame, je vais ... en
voyage.'--'Vous allez en voyage, ça je comprends, mais ça ne répond
pas à ma question: vous allez en voyage, mais il faut aller quelque
part, où allez vous donc?'--'Mais, Madame, vous verrez de mon
retour.'--'Mais où allez vous donc, ma chère? dites-moi, où allez
vous?'--'Je vais à ... Rome!' Madame de Trafford sprang from her
chair as I said this, and exclaimed, 'Rome, Rome, ce mot de Rome,
Rome, Rome ... et vous allez à Rome ... moi aussi je vais à Rome,'
and she went with us. From the time that Madame de Trafford
determined to go, Auntie made no opposition to our going, and was
quite satisfied."
The journey to Rome with Madame de Trafford was full of unusual
incidents. The heat was most intense, and my sister suffered greatly
from it. At Turin she was so ill that she thought it impossible to
proceed, but Madame de Trafford insisted upon her getting up and going
on. Whilst they were still _en route_ Madame de Trafford telegraphed to
Rome for a carriage and every luxury to be in readiness. She also
telegraphed to Pisa to bid M. Lamarre, the old family cook of Parisani,
go to Rome to prepare for them. My sister telegraphed to Monsignor
Talbot to have places reserved for the ceremonies, &c. All the last part
of the way the trains were crowded to the greatest possible degree,
hundreds of pilgrims joining at every station in Umbria and the
Campagna, for whom no places were reserved, so that the train was
delayed six or seven hours behind its time, and the heat was increased,
by the overcrowding, to the most terrible pitch. My sister wrote:--
"In the carriage with us from Florence was a young Florentine
noble, a Count Gondi, all of whose relations I knew. He asked me
what I should do after the canonisation. 'Ça dépend, M. le Comte,
si on attaquera Rome.'--'Mais, certainement on l'attaquera.'--'Eh
bien, done je reste.'--'Mais vous restez, Mademoiselle, si on
attaque Rome.'--'Oui, certainement.'--'Et vous, Madame,' said Count
Gondi, turning to Madame de Trafford. 'Mais si on attaque Rome,'
said Madame de Trafford, 'je ferais comme Mademoiselle Hare, je
reste, bien sure.' His amazement knew no bounds.
"When we arrived at Rome, I was so afraid that Madame de Trafford
might do something very extraordinary that I made her sleep in my
room, and slept myself in the little outer room which we used to
call the library, so that no one could pass through it to my room
without my knowing it. The morning after we arrived she came into
my room before I was up. I said, 'Mais, Madame, c'était à moi de
vous rendre cette visite?'--'Laissez donc ces frivolités,' said
Madame de Trafford, 'nous ne sommes pas ici pour les frivolités
comme cela: parlons du sérieux; commençons.'"
The ceremonies far more than answered my sister's expectations. She
entered St. Peter's with Madame de Trafford by the Porta Sta. Marta, and
they saw everything perfectly. She met the Duchess Sora in the church,
radiant with ecstasy over what she considered so glorious a day for
Catholicism. "I _knew_ you would be here," said the Duchess; "you
_could_ not have been away." The meeting was only for a moment, and was
their last upon earth. "When the voices of the three choirs swelled into
the dome," wrote Esmeralda, "then I felt what the Pope expressed in
words, 'the triumph of the Church has begun.' When we first went into
St. Peter's, Giacinta,[377] who had _felt_ I should be there, was
waiting for me. 'Eccola, la figlia,' she said, 'io l'aspettava.'"
Afterwards Giacinta came to see my sister at the Palazzo Parisani. "I
shall never forget the meeting of those two souls," wrote Esmeralda,
"when Giacinta first saw Madame de Trafford. They had never heard of one
another before: I had never mentioned Giacinta to Madame de Trafford,
and she had never heard of Madame de Trafford, but they understood one
another at once. Madame de Trafford passed through the room while
Giacinta was talking to me, and seeing only a figure in black talking,
she did not stop and passed on. Giacinta started up and exclaimed, 'Chi
è?'--'Una signora,' I said. 'Quello se vede,' said Giacinta, 'ma quello
non è una risposta--chi è?'--and when I told her, 'O vede un' anima,'
she exclaimed. Madame de Trafford then did what I have never known her
do for any other person; she looked into the room and said, 'Faites la
passer dans ma chambre,' and we went in, and the most interesting
conversation followed."
As she returned through Tuscany, Esmeralda had her last meeting with her
beloved Madame Victoire, who had then no presentiment of the end. At
Paris she took leave of Madame de Trafford, and returned to London,
where she for the first time engaged a permanent home--5 Lower Grosvenor
Street. The furnishing of this house was the chief occupation of the
next two months, though Esmeralda began by depositing in the empty rooms
a large crucifix which Lady Lothian had given her, and saying, "Now the
house is furnished with all that is really important, and Providence
will send the rest." A room at the top of the house was arranged as an
oratory; an altar was adorned with lace, flowers, and images; a lamp
burned all night long before the crucifix, and if Esmeralda could not
sleep, she was in the habit of retiring thither and spending long hours
of darkness in silent prayer. There also she kept the vigil of "the Holy
Hour." Early every morning the Catholic household in Grosvenor Street
was awakened by the sharp clang of the prayer-bell outside the oratory
door.
I went to stay with my sister in August for a few days. Esmeralda was at
this time looking very pale and delicate, but not ill. Though the beauty
of her youth had passed away, and all her troubles had left their trace,
she was still very handsome. Her face, marble pale, was so full of
intelligence and expression, mingled with a sort of sweet pathos, that
many people found her far more interesting than before, and all her
movements were marked by a stately grace which made it impossible for
her to pass unobserved. Thus she was when I last saw her, pale, but
smiling her farewell, as she stood in her long black dress, with her
heavy black rosary round her neck, leaning against the parapet of the
balcony outside the drawing-room window.
All through the winter Esmeralda wrote very seldom. She was much
occupied with her different books, some of which seemed near
publication. "The Study of Truth," upon which she had been occupied ever
since 1857, had now reached such enormous dimensions, that the very
arrangement of the huge pile of MS. seemed almost impossible. A volume
of modern American poetry was to be brought out for the benefit of the
Servites, and was also in an advanced state; yet her chief interest was
a collection of the "Hymns of the Early Church," obtained from every
possible source, but chiefly through the aid of foreign monasteries and
convents. Upon this subject she kept up an almost daily correspondence
with the Padre Agostino Morini of the Servites, who was her chief
assistant, especially in procuring the best translations, as the
intention was that the original Latin hymn should occupy one page and
that the best available translation should in every case be opposite to
it: many hundreds of letters remain of this correspondence. In the
autumn Esmeralda was again at Ifield Lodge, where she was persuaded into
a wild scheme for building a town for the poor at Crawley. Land was
bought, measurements and plans were taken, and a great deal of money was
wasted, but Esmeralda fortunately withdrew from the undertaking before
it was too late.
But the state of excitement and speculation in which she was now
persuaded to live had a terrible effect upon Esmeralda, who had
continued in a weak and nervous state ever since her hurried journey to
Rome. She now found it difficult to exist without the stimulus of daily
excitement, and she added one scheme and employment to another in a way
which the strongest brain could scarcely have borne up against. On her
return to London she threw herself heart and soul into what she called a
scheme for the benefit of the "poor rich." She remembered that when she
was herself totally ruined, one of her greatest trials was to see her
mother suffer from the want of small luxuries in the way of food to
which she had been accustomed, and that though their little pittance
allowed of what was absolutely necessary, London prices placed chickens,
ducks, cream, and many other comforts beyond their reach. Esmeralda
therefore arranged a plan by which she had over twice a week, from
certain farms in Normandy, large baskets containing chickens (often as
many as eighty at a time), ducks, geese, eggs, apples, and various other
articles. The prices of the farm produce in Normandy were so low, that
she was able, after paying the carriage, to retail the contents of her
hampers to the poor families she was desirous of assisting, besides
supplying her own house, at a cost of not more than half the London
prices. Many families of "poor rich" availed themselves of this help and
were most grateful for it, but of course the trouble involved by so many
small accounts, with the expenditure of time in writing notes, &c.,
about the disposition of her poultry was enormous. It was in the
carrying out of this scheme that Esmeralda became acquainted with a
person called Mrs. Dunlop, wife of a Protestant, but herself a Roman
Catholic. Esmeralda never liked Mrs. Dunlop; on the contrary, she both
disliked and distrusted her; but owing to her interesting herself in the
same charities, she inevitably saw a great deal of her.
During the winter an alarming illness attacked my brother Francis. He
was my brother by birth, though I had seldom even seen him, and
scarcely ever thought about him. Looking back now, in the distance of
years, I wonder that my Mother and I never spoke of him; but he was
absolutely without any part in our lives, and we never did, till this
winter, when my sister mentioned his refusing to go to live with her in
Grosvenor Street, which she had hoped that he would do when she took the
house, and of his putting her to the unnecessary expense of paying for
lodgings for him. Here he caught cold, and one day, unexpectedly, Dr.
Squires came to tell Esmeralda that he considered him at the point of
death. She flew to his bedside and remained with him all through the
night. As she afterwards described it, she "could not let him die, and
she breathed her life into his: she was willing to offer her life for
his."
After this Esmeralda wrote to us (to Rome) that the condition of Francis
was quite hopeless, and that her next letter must contain the news of
his death. What was our surprise, therefore, when the next letter was
from Francis himself (who had never written to us before), not merely
saying that he was better, but that he was going to be married
immediately to a person with whom he had long been acquainted. At the
time of this marriage, Esmeralda went away into Sussex, and afterwards,
when she returned to London, she never consented to see Mrs. Francis
Hare.
My sister's cheque-books of the last year of her life show that during
that year alone her brother Francis had received £900 from her, though
her income at the most did not exceed £800. He had also persuaded
Esmeralda to take a house called "Park Lodge" in Paddington, with an
acre and a half of garden. The rent was certainly low, and the
arrangement, as intended by Esmeralda, was that her brother should live
in two or three rooms of the house, and that the rest should be let
furnished. But tenants never came, and Francis lived in the whole of the
house, after furnishing it expensively and sending in the bills to his
sister, who paid them in her fear lest anxiety about money matters might
make him ill again.
At the end of March Esmeralda received a letter from Madame de Trafford,
of which she spoke to Mrs. Dunlop. She said, "Madame de Trafford has
written to me in dreadful distress. She says she sees me in a very dark,
narrow place, where no one can ever get at me, and where no one will
ever be able to speak to me any more." Esmeralda laughed as she told
this, and said she supposed it referred to the prison to which Augustus
said she would have to go for her extravagance; but it was the grave of
which Madame de Trafford spoke.
In March, Esmeralda talked to many of her friends of her plans for the
future. She said that in consequence of the expense of keeping up the
house, she should be obliged to part with Grosvenor Street, and that she
should go abroad--to Rome, and eventually to Jerusalem. She did more
than merely form the plan of this journey. She had the dresses made
which she intended to wear in the East, and for three nights she sat up
arranging all her papers, and tying up the letters of her different
friends in separate parcels, so that they might more easily be returned
to them. To Mary Laffam, her then maid, who assisted her in this, she
said, "Mary, I am going on a very, very long journey, from which I may
never return, and I wish to leave everything arranged behind me."
In the beginning of May Esmeralda went with her aunt to spend three
weeks in Sussex. After she returned to Grosvenor Street, she was very
ill with an attack like that from which she had suffered at Dijon
several years before. Having been very successfully treated then in
France, she persuaded her aunt to obtain the direction of a French
doctor. The remedy which this doctor administered greatly increased the
malady. This was on Tuesday 19th.
On Thursday 21st my sister was so much weakened and felt so ill, that
she dismissed the French doctor, and sent again for her old doctor,
Squires, who came at once. He was much shocked at the change in her, and
thought that she had been terribly mistreated, but he was so far from
being alarmed, that he saw no reason why her house should not be let, as
arranged, on the following Tuesday, to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the Swedish
songstress, and said that the change would do her good.
About this time, by Esmeralda's request, my aunt wrote to tell Madame de
Trafford of the illness, but she did not then express any alarm. On
Saturday the good and faithful Mrs. Thorpe[378] saw Esmeralda, and was
much concerned at the change in her. She remained with her for some
time, and bathed her face with eau-de-Cologne. Esmeralda then took both
Mrs. Thorpe's hands in hers, and said no one could do for her as she
did. Mrs. Thorpe was so much alarmed at Esmeralda's manner, which seemed
like a leave-taking, that she went down to our Aunt Eleanor and tried
to alarm her; but she said that as long as the house could be let on
Tuesday to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the doctor must be perfectly satisfied,
and there could not possibly be anything to apprehend.
Sunday passed without any change except that, both then and on Saturday,
whenever her brother Francis was mentioned, Esmeralda became violently
agitated, screamed, and said that he was on no account to be admitted.
Father Galway was away, but on Monday Esmeralda sent for Father Eccles,
and from him she received the Last Sacraments. When I asked my aunt
afterwards if this did not alarm her, she said, "No, it did not, because
Esmeralda was so nervous and so dreadfully afraid of dying without the
Last Sacraments, that whenever she felt ill she always received them,
and the doctor still assured her that all was going on well."
That night (Monday, May 25), a nun of the Misericorde sat up in the
room. Aunt Eleanor went to bed as usual. At half-past four in the
morning she was called. The most mysterious black sickness had come on,
and could not be arrested. Dr. Squires, summoned in haste, says that he
arrived exactly as a clock near Grosvenor Square struck five. He saw at
once that the case was quite hopeless, still for three hours he
struggled to arrest the malady. At the end of that time, Esmeralda
suddenly said, "Dr. Squires, this is very terrible, isn't it?"--"Yes,"
he replied, throwing as much meaning as possible into his voice, "it is
indeed _most_ terrible." Upon this Esmeralda started up in the bed and
said, "You cannot possibly mean that you think I shall not recover?" Dr.
Squires said, "Yes, I am afraid it is my duty to tell you that you
cannot possibly recover now."--"But I do not feel ill," exclaimed
Esmeralda; "this sickness is very terrible, but still I do not feel
ill."--"I cannot help that," answered Dr. Squires, "but I fear it is my
duty to tell you that it is quite impossible you can live."
"It was then," said her doctor, "that her expression lost all its
anxiety. Death had no terror for her. She was almost radiant." The
serenity of her countenance remained unchanged, and to her last moment
she was as one preparing for a festival.
After a pause she said, "Tell me how long you think it possible that I
should live." Dr. Squires said, "You might live two days, but it is
quite impossible that you should live longer than that." She at once
asked for writing materials, and with a firm hand, as if she were well,
she wrote a telegraphic despatch bidding Madame de Trafford to come to
her at once. (The office was then closed, and when it was opened, it was
already too late to send the despatch.) Then Dr. Squires kindly and
wisely said, "I fear you have little time to lose, and if you wish to
make any changes in your will, you had better make them at once." My
sister answered, "Oh, I must alter everything. I never thought it
possible that I should die before my aunt, and I wish to leave things so
that my death will make no difference to her." The doctor, seeing a
great change coming on, was afraid to leave the room even to get a sheet
of paper, and he wrote upon a scrap of paper which he picked up from the
floor. My sister then made a very simple will, leaving everything to her
(Protestant) aunt, Miss Paul, except her interest in Park Lodge and a
chest of plate which she left to Francis, and her claims to a portrait
by Sir Joshua Reynolds,[379] which she left to me.
When Esmeralda had dictated the page containing these bequests, her
doctor wisely made her sign it in the presence of her servants before
she proceeded to dictate anything else. Thus the first portion of her
will is valid, but before she had come to the end of another page
containing small legacies to the Servites, to the Nuns of the Precious
Blood, &c., the power of signature had failed, and it was therefore
valueless.
Esmeralda then said almost playfully, "You had better send for the Nuns
of the Precious Blood, for they would never forgive me, even after all
is over, if they had not been sent for," and a maid went off in a cab to
fetch the Abbess Pierina. It was then that a priest arrived from Farm
Street to administer extreme unction, and Dr. Squires, seeing that he
could do nothing more, and that my sister was already past observing who
was present, went away.
The Abbess Pierina says that she arrived at the house about nine
o'clock, and saw at once that Esmeralda was dying. A priest was praying
by the bedside. She remained standing at the foot of the bed for about
ten minutes, then she went up to Esmeralda, who said, "I am dying." A
few minutes afterwards, in a loud and clear voice, she called "Auntie,"
and instantly fell back and died.
Thus the day which she looked for as her Sabbath and high day came to
her, and she passed to the rest beyond the storm--beyond the bounds of
doubt or controversy--to the company of those she justly honoured, and
of some whom she never learnt to honour here, in the many mansions of an
all-reconciling world. Let us not look for the living amongst the dead.
She exchanged her imperfect communion with God here for its full
fruition in the peace of that Sabbath which knows no evening.
* * * * *
During the whole of the last terrible hours our poor deaf aunt was in
the room, but she had sunk down in her terror and anguish upon the chair
which was nearest the door as she came in, and thence she never moved.
She never had strength or courage to approach the bed: she saw all that
passed, but she heard nothing.
Soon after all was over, the Abbess Pierina came down to my aunt, and
revealed--what none of her family had known before--that Esmeralda had
long been an Oblate Sister of the Precious Blood, and she begged leave
to dress her in the habit of the Order. All the furniture of the room
was cleared away or draped with white, and the bed was left standing
alone, surrounded night and day by tall candles burning in silver
sconces, with a statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows" at the head, and at the
foot the great crucifix from the oratory. Esmeralda was clothed in a
long black dress, which she had ordered for her journey to Jerusalem,
but had never worn, and round her waist was the scarlet girdle of the
Precious Blood. On her head was a white crape cap and a white wreath, as
for a novice nun.
As soon as Aunt Eleanor was able to think, she sent for her sister, Mrs.
Fitz-Gerald, who arrived at 11 A.M. She, as a strong Protestant, said
that she could never describe how terrible the next three days were to
her. All day long a string of carriages was ceaselessly pouring up the
street, and a concourse of people through the house, nuns of the
Precious Blood being posted on the different landings to show them where
to go. Each post brought letters from all kinds of people they had never
heard of before, asking to have _anything_ as a memorial, even a piece
of old newspaper which Esmeralda had touched.
On the day after we arrived at Holmhurst from Germany (Sunday 31st), I
went up to try to comfort my broken-hearted aunt at the house in
Grosvenor Street. The rooms in which I had last seen Esmeralda looked
all the more intensely desolate from being just finished, new carpets
and chintzes everywhere, only the last pane of the fernery in the back
drawing-room not yet put in. My aunt came in trembling all over. It was
long before she was able to speak: then she wrung her hands. "Oh, it was
so sudden--it was so sudden," she said; and then she became more
collected, and talked for hours of all that had passed. Those present
said that for the whole of the first day she sat in a stupor, with her
eyes fixed on vacancy, and never spoke or moved, or seemed to notice any
one who went in or out.
The coffin was already closed, and stood in the middle of the room
covered with a white pall, and surrounded by burning candles and vases
of flowers. Upon the coffin lay the crucifix which both Italima and
Esmeralda held in their hands when they were dying. Near it was the bed,
with the mark where the head had lain still unremoved from the pillow.
On Monday afternoon there was a long wearying family discussion as to
whether the remains were to be taken to Kensal Green in the evening, to
remain throughout the night in the cemetery chapel. Francis insisted
that it should be so. Our Aunt Fitz-Gerald declared that if it was done
she would not go to the funeral, as she would not follow _nothing_. I
agreed with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the nuns of the Precious Blood were
most vehement that the body should not be removed. Eventually, however,
Francis carried his point. At 9 P.M. we all went up for the last time to
the room, still draped like a chapel, where the coffin lay, covered with
fresh flowers, with the great crucifix still standing at the foot
between the lighted candles. Then what remained of Esmeralda was taken
away.
The next day (June 2) was the funeral. At the cemetery the relations who
came from the house were joined by Mr. Monteith, Lady Lothian, Lady
Londonderry, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the Abbess Pierina, and all the
nuns of the Precious Blood, with several nuns of the Misericorde.
[Illustration: ESMERALDA'S GRAVE.]
The chapel was full of people, but it is very small, and a very small
part of it is used for seats. The larger part was spread with a rich
crimson carpet, in the midst of which rose a kind of catafalque, upon
which lay the coffin, covered with a long purple velvet pall,
embroidered in golden letters--"May all the holy saints and angels
receive her soul." Round this were six candles burning in very tall
brass candlesticks. After the priest had gone round with the holy water
and incense, a door at the east end of the church was thrown open and
the pall removed, when the light poured in upon the coffin and its
silver ornaments and the large silver cross lying upon it. Then we all
passed out round the shrubberies to the grave, where the vault was
opened just behind the beautiful seated statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows"
under the cross, which Esmeralda had herself erected. Upon the coffin
was engraved--
ANNE FRANCES MARIA LOUISA HARE,
E. de M.
(Enfant de Marie),
_Oblate of the Order of the Precious Blood._
Born October 9, 1832.
Died May 26, 1868.
As the priest said all the leading sentences, the nuns, with clear
voice, sang the responses. The whole service occupied nearly an hour and
a half. We drove home in total silence: Aunt Fitz-Gerald led Auntie into
the desolate house.
Thus was my sweet sister Esmeralda taken from us--being removed from the
evil to come.
"Souls of the Holy Dead!
Though fancy whispers thus to musing hearts,
We would not call ye back, whence ye are fled,
To take your parts
In the old battle-strife; or break
With our heartache--
The rest which ye have won and in Christ's presence take."