"Glory to Thee in Thine Omnipotence,
Who dost dispense,
As seemeth best to Thine unerring will
The lot of victory still;
Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust,
And bowing to the dust
The rightful cause, that so much seeming ill
May Thine appointed purposes fulfil."
--SOUTHEY.
"Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden."
--_Swiss Inscription._
"If you your lips would keep from slips,
Of five things have a care:
To whom you speak, of whom you speak,
And how, and when, and where."
--_Old Distich._
At eleven o'clock on the morning of my sister's death, our aunt, Mrs.
Fitz-Gerald, arrived in Grosvenor Street. She wrote to me afterwards:--
"When Eleanor sent for me, after I recovered the shock, I went
immediately to Grosvenor Street, and the first thing I asked before
going up to Eleanor was, 'Is Mr. Hare (Francis) upstairs?' The
maid made answer, 'Oh, no; Miss Hare would not hear of seeing him,
and forbade us to let him enter the house, declaring that he had
her death to answer for.' I could not believe this statement, and I
called another servant into the dining-room, who repeated exactly
the same thing, saying also that things had taken place in that
house which were fearful, and that they were afraid of their lives.
_I_ was the innocent cause of Francis coming to sleep in the house,
as I did not think it was right that Eleanor should be left alone
with the dead body of your sister. I did not know till the
following morning, when the servants told me, that people had been
walking about the house the whole night, and that the Rev. Mother
(Pierina) had forbid them to leave the kitchen, hear what they
would."[380]
Upon this, and all succeeding nights until the funeral, the three maids
persistently refused at night to go upstairs, saying that they had seen
a spirit there, and they remained all through the night huddled up
together in a corner of the kitchen. By day even they manifested the
greatest terror, especially Mary Laffam, the lady's-maid, who started
and trembled whenever she was spoken to, and who entreated to be allowed
to go out when she heard the lawyer was coming, "for fear he should ask
her any questions." If they had the opportunity, they always made
mysterious hints of poison, and of Esmeralda's death having been caused
by unnatural means. To the Rev. Mother Pierina, Mary Laffam said at one
time that Miss Hare had told her she knew that she should die of
poison.[381] All the servants constantly repeated to the Rev. Mother
their conviction that Miss Hare was poisoned. They talked a great deal,
especially Mary Laffam, who horrified the Abbess by saying that Miss
Hare had herself said in her last moments, "I am poisoned and I die of
poison."[382] In consequence of all that the servants had said to Mrs.
Fitz-Gerald of their certain conviction that my sister had been
poisoned, she was most anxious, before my return to England, for a
post-mortem examination, but Francis violently opposed this, and he
carried his point.
The opinion that my sister's death was caused by poison was shared by
many of those who came to see her after death. They could not but
recollect that though Dr. Squires _then_ said he believed her to have
died of ulceration of the intestines, up to the day before the death he
had said that she might be removed, that the house might be let, and had
suggested no such impression. For two days _after_ death, black blood
continued to stream from the mouth, as is the case from slow corrosive
poison, and three eminent physicians, on hearing of the previous
symptoms and the after appearances (Dr. Hale, Sir Alexander Taylor, and
Dr. Winslow), gave it as their opinion that those were the usual
symptoms and appearances induced by corrosive poison. Mrs. Baker
(Marguerite Pole) wrote to me on June 24:--"The idea of poison is the
one I formed the first moment I saw the body, as for some years I was
practically versed in medicine, and I was at a loss how to account for
various appearances in a natural way--_i.e._, from illness."
When I arrived at the house on May 31 (the death having taken place on
the 26th), I found all its inmates agitated by the various reports which
were going about. Mrs. Fitz-Gerald was full of a dreadful message which
she believed to have been given by my dying sister to the Abbess
Pierina. "When I am dead, go to my brother Francis, and tell him that he
was the cause of my death, and that he will have to answer for it." This
message was also repeated to me by Mrs. Baker and by Mrs. William Hare,
and was always spoken of as having been given to the Rev. Mother
herself. On each occasion on which I heard it spoken of, I said that the
message had much better not be given to Francis, as he was in such a
weak state of health that it might do him serious injury; and that
probably when my sister gave it, she was in a state of semi-delirium,
brought on by her extreme weakness. I entirely declined to question the
servants, consequently I heard nothing directly from them, only their
words as repeated by Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the many persons to whom the
Mother Pierina had related them.
I never had any interview with or heard anything directly from Pierina
herself. The reason of this was that, three days after the death, she
had a violent scene with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who had intercepted her in
the act of carrying off two large heavy silver candelabra from the
oratory, and some valuable point-lace, which she had ripped off the
altar-cloth and concealed in her pocket. She also took away a quantity
of small articles (rosaries, crucifixes, &c.), which were afterwards
returned with the more valuable articles by order of Monsignor Paterson,
who wrote to express his extreme grief and annoyance at her conduct. My
own impression still is that Pierina was a simple and devout character,
who would not willingly do anything she believed to be wrong, but that
she was really convinced (as she said) that it was a duty to take away
these things, which had been dedicated to the service of a Roman
Catholic altar, in order to prevent their being applied to secular uses
in a Protestant household. After this, however, which occurred before my
arrival, the Abbess Pierina was never allowed to return to the house, so
that I never saw her.
Immediately after the death, all the small articles in my sister's room
had been hastily removed, in order that the room might be draped with
white, and to give it as much as possible the appearance of a chapel. On
the day before the funeral, I saw Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who was in the inner
drawing-room, after opening a davenport and looking into a
blotting-book, suddenly burst into tears. "Oh," she said, "the whole
mystery is revealed now; it is all quite plain; you may see what it was
that killed your sister," and she held up a letter from Francis, written
on the Friday evening before her death--a cruel letter, telling her in
the harshest terms that she was totally ruined, that she might sell her
house and her plate, and all else that she possessed, for she had
nothing whatever left to live upon; but that, as he did not wish her to
starve, she and her aunt might come to live _with his wife_. This letter
Esmeralda must have received on Saturday morning, soon after writing the
affectionate note to Francis, which was read afterwards at Guildford in
proof of the happy terms on which she was living with him. But it was
her peculiar habit, when she was ill or suffering, to put letters aside,
whoever they might be from, and not to read them till she felt better;
it is therefore quite possible that she did not open this letter till
Monday, when it gave the fatal blow. This was my impression at the time,
and then and always afterwards, when others spoke of poison, I said,
"There were strange signs of poison, and many people think she was
poisoned, but it is my firm conviction that she did not die of poison,
but of _a broken heart_--_a heart broken by her brother Francis_."
On the 6th of June I spent the whole morning in the office of my
sister's solicitor examining accounts and papers, and the afternoon at
Coutts' Bank to find out what was left. The result of the investigation
was to show that in October my sister possessed £12,000 clear, besides
a great quantity of plate, diamonds, and other valuables, and the house
in Grosvenor Street paid for and clear from debt, as well as the
property in the Palazzo Parisani at Rome. At the time of her death she
possessed, interest and principal combined, £216, and debts to a
considerable amount, while the diamonds and plate seemed to have
disappeared without leaving a trace behind them.
Several days afterwards, while I was taking an envelope out of the
envelope-box on the table, I saw a bit of bluish paper sticking up
between the partitions of the box. I absently poked it up with a
paper-knife, and then found that it was a pawn-ticket from Attenborough
for £120 upon diamonds. Turning out a quantity of old _Times_ from a
cupboard, I afterwards found there a pawn-ticket for £100 upon plate;
later I found a third ticket for £82 upon some diamond earrings.
Attenborough told me that Francis had brought his sister there at
different times and placed the plate and diamonds in pawn.
Whilst I was still in Grosvenor Street, many of my sister's Catholic
friends came to see me. Mrs. Montgomery came three times. I had never
liked her, and had greatly deprecated my sister's intimacy with her, but
in the presence of what I believed to be a common grief I could not
refuse to receive her, and she was apparently most sympathising and even
affectionate. The second time she came she sat by me on the sofa and
spoke of Esmeralda's death as making a blank in her whole future life.
She said what a comfort and happiness it would be to her if she were
ever able to be of use to me in any way,--in any way to supply the place
of her I had lost.... Yet ten days after![383]
Mrs. Dunlop came several times. On June 8 she would not get out of her
carriage, but begged me to come down to her and speak to her in it. She
then said, "Now I know you would not speak of these things to any one
else, but you _know_ you may trust me: now do tell me, was it not most
extraordinary that Francis should, in spite of her forbidding him, force
his way into his sister's house just upon the one day on which he knew
his aunt was away? Now of course you would not speak of this to every
one, but Esmeralda loved me as a sister. You _know_ you may trust me."
She went on very long in the same strain. At last I was so shocked that
I got up and said, "Mrs. Dunlop, I see what you _wish_ me to say. You
_wish_ me to say that I think my brother poisoned my sister. Recollect
that _I do not think so_. I distinctly think that he was the cause of
her death, but I think that she died of a broken heart," and so saying I
left her.
In the face of this Mrs. Dunlop afterwards asserted that I had told her
that Francis poisoned my sister. In fact, I shall always believe that
the whole of the poisoning story, as it appeared at the trial which
ensued, originated, sprung up, and fructified with Mrs. Dunlop, the most
unscrupulous of the conspirators concerned. "Where the devil cannot go,
he sends an old woman," is an old German proverb.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Mary Stanley]
On June 9 I received a letter from my adopted mother's niece, Mary
Stanley, saying that some friends had come up to her at a party, and
spoken of the cruel way in which Mr. (Francis) Hare had been treated by
his Protestant relations. When she asked an explanation, they said that
Mrs. Montgomery had asserted (it was at Lord Denbigh's) that the doors
of the house in Grosvenor Street were forcibly closed upon Mr. and Mrs.
Francis Hare during Miss Hare's illness, and that she was influenced in
her last moments to cancel a will in which she had left all her money to
her brother Francis; also that neither Francis nor his wife were
then allowed to enter the house or to see their aunt, and that they had
nothing to live upon, owing to their having been disinherited by Miss
Hare, who supported them during her life. Mary Stanley, a Roman
Catholic, shocked at such falsehoods promulgated by a member of her own
creed, and seeing the discredit it was likely to bring upon her party,
strongly urged my writing to Mrs. Montgomery, who had professed such
intimate friendship for me, stating that I had heard such a report was
circulated, though not by whom, and after putting her in possession of
the facts, as my sister's dearest friend, urging her to contradict it.
Having an inward distrust of Mrs. Montgomery, and a shrinking from any
communication with her, I did not then write as Mary Stanley wished.
On June 11 Mary Stanley came down to Holmhurst, and again vehemently
urged my writing to Mrs. Montgomery in defence of Miss Paul. On June 12
I yielded to her repeated solicitations, and wrote--Mary Stanley and my
adopted mother looking over the letter and approving it sentence by
sentence. When it was finished, Mary Stanley said, "That letter is
perfect: you must not alter a word: it could not be better." The letter
was as follows:--
"_Holmhurst, June 13, 1868._--Dear Mrs. Montgomery, I have heard on
good authority that a report has been circulated in London to the
effect that the doors were perfectly closed upon Mr. and Mrs.
Francis Hare during Miss Hare's illness, and that she was
influenced in her last moments to cancel a will in which she had
left all her money to her brother Francis; also that neither
Francis nor his wife are now allowed to enter the house or to see
their aunt, and that they have nothing to live upon, owing to their
being disinherited by Miss Hare, who supported them during her
life.
"As it is a pity that this impression should be allowed to gain
ground, and as you were latterly the most intimate friend my
dearest sister possessed, I venture to put you in possession of the
facts.
1. "In her previous will my sister had not even mentioned Francis'
name. She had left £4000 to me, a very large legacy to Lady G.
Fullerton, legacies to other friends, and the remainder to her
aunt. Francis was not even alluded to.
2. "Francis was not allowed to see my sister during the last days
of her life at her own especial request: the very mention of his
name made her scream with horror. In her last moments she left a
solemn message with the Superior of the Precious Blood, to be given
him after her death. This message was of so terrible a kind that,
owing to Francis' critical state of health and the uncertainty of
his life, he has hitherto been spared the pain of hearing it.
3. "Francis and his wife are _not_ allowed, by the lawyer's
direction, to see my aunt until the whole terrible story of my
sister's sudden death is cleared up. In the month of November,
besides Grosvenor Street, bought and paid for, she possessed
£12,000 in money; when she died she was absolutely penniless,
except £216, interest and principal combined, and she was
overwhelmed with debts. There is no trace of any part of her
fortune except of £2000 which was lost on the Stock Exchange
through brokers to whom Francis introduced her.
4. "My dear sister's accounts at Coutts' show only too clearly that
Francis had the greater part of her income. He will henceforward
receive _nothing_ from his aunt, who is totally ruined, and will
scarcely have enough left to buy daily bread, as £2400 of her own
little fortune is gone owing to signatures which Francis persuaded
her to give.
"I am sure you will forgive my troubling you thus far with our
family affairs, but I am certain that many, knowing your intimacy
with my sister, may ask you for information, and I wish you to be
in a position to give it. Believe me yours very truly,
"AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE."
In writing this letter, I had no idea of the significance which it might
be made possible to attribute to the sentence No. 3--"Until the whole
story of my sister's sudden death is cleared up." My own mind dwelt
entirely and fixedly upon the impression that my sister's terribly
sudden death was caused by the cruel shock of Francis' ungrateful letter
coming to her in her weak state. To have it cleared up would be in my
mind to have it clearly ascertained that she was poisoned, as most
people believed, because in that case it would be certain that Francis
might be held guiltless of her death, since--putting other reasons
aside--he had never once been allowed to enter the house during the last
days of the illness, and therefore _could_ have nothing to do with it.
The statements about the money were perfectly correct; my sister's
solicitor vouched for them. I believed all the other statements to be
correct also, for I wrote them, not upon what I had heard from one
person, but from what I had heard repeatedly and from many. I did not
know till long afterwards that "the message" was not given _by my
sister_ herself to the Superior of the Precious Blood, but that the
Superior had received it through the servants. It will be borne in mind
that I had never myself seen the Superior, except in the group of
mourners round the grave.
It was not till after I had written the letter to Mrs. Montgomery that I
was able to read all the details of my sister's former will, annulled
upon her death-bed. All that I had said and more than that was true.
The will was of great length and detail, but Francis was not even
alluded to. It began by leaving £4000, the family diamonds, miniatures,
and plate, with various other valuables, to me, but it also left me
residuary legatee. There was a legacy of £4000 to Lady Georgiana
Fullerton, or, if she were dead, to her husband, Alexander Fullerton;
£200 to Lady Lothian; £200 to Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Galton; £200 to
Father Galway--in all about £5000 to Roman Catholics. Besides these,
there were considerable legacies to Victoire, to Flora Limosin and her
daughter, to Clémence Boissy,[384] and £200 annuity to her aunt. There
were small legacies to various nuns--Serafina della Croce, Pierina of
the Precious Blood, the "Saint of St. Peter's," &c.
From the virulence and avarice afterwards displayed by the Roman
Catholics, and by the fact of their bringing an action to get the exact
sum, £5000, we could only conclude that they had discovered that my
sister had originally left them that sum and that they determined to
extort it from the Protestant part of the family, in spite of the fact
that she had really left _nothing_, so that even the last will was
valueless, and that, if it had not been so, I should have been the chief
sufferer, having been residuary legatee under the old will.[385]
In less than a week from the time of my sending the letter to Mrs.
Montgomery, I received one from a lawyer, who had long been mixed up
with Francis' affairs, stating that unless I at once withdrew and
apologised for every part of that letter, an action for libel would be
brought against me. Knowing that Francis was utterly insolvent, my
family and I treated this as an idle threat, and declining any
correspondence with the person in question, referred him to my
solicitor. Mrs. Montgomery and Mrs. Dunlop had persuaded Francis to
these proceedings, and Mrs. Montgomery had at once begun to stir up
strife by taking the letter to him.