Chapter XVI: We Return Home for the Last Time (2)

"At last came the British Association Meeting (Bath, September, 1864). We had been married in 1861, and were back on leave from the West Coast of Africa. Laurence Oliphant conveyed to Burton that Speke had said that if Burton appeared on the platform at Bath (which was, as it were, Speke's native town) he would kick him. I remember Richard's answer: 'Well, that settles it. By God, he shall kick me;' and so to Bath we went. There was to be no speaking on Africa the first day, but the next day was fixed for the great discussion between Burton and Speke. The first day we went on to the platform close to Speke. He looked at Richard and at me, and we at him. I shall never forget his face. It was full of sorrow, of yearning, and perplexity. Then he seemed to turn to stone. After a while he began to fidget a great deal, and exclaimed half aloud, 'Oh, I cannot stand this any longer.' He got up to go out. The man nearest him said, 'Shall you want your chair again, sir? May I have it? Shall you come back?' And he answered, 'I hope not,' and left the hall. The next day a large crowd was assembled for this famous discussion. All the distinguished people were with the Council; Burton alone was excluded, and stood on the platform, we two alone, he with his notes in his hand. There was a delay of about twenty-five minutes, and then the Council and speakers filed in and announced the terrible accident out shooting that had befallen poor Speke shortly after his leaving the hall the day before. Burton sank into a chair, and I saw by the workings of his face the terrible emotion he was controlling and the shock he had received. When called upon to speak, in a voice that trembled he spoke of other things and as briefly as he could. When we got home, he wept long and bitterly, and I was for many a day trying to comfort him.

"Yours obediently,

"ISABEL BURTON."

There were old servants to be placed out, many people dependent on us, institutions of which I was President to be wound up, debts to be paid, old friends to say good-bye to. My husband's and my personal effects, his library and manuscripts, were packed in two hundred and four cases. Having been eighteen years at Trieste, I felt there would be a meanness in selling, so I furnished the orphanage, and a few rooms for Lisa, and gave away everything where I thought it would be most useful or most valued; and this, with constant visits to my beloved in the _chapelle ardente_, which was half an hour's drive away, occupied fourteen weeks, though I got up at six and worked till ten p.m. I never rested, and it was a life of torture. I used to wake at four, the hour he was taken ill, and go through all the horrors of his three hours' illness until seven. I prayed for supernatural strength of soul and body, and it was really given to me.

I became almost listless as to _exterior_ things; I suppose that is always the way with a deep-sea grief. I had a little relief by the coming of my cousin Canon Waterton, of Carlisle, and he, by leave from the Vatican, said Mass in our chapel, gave me Communion every morning, stayed with us a month, and helped me wonderfully with the books and manuscripts. He is a highly educated man of good family, living in the best society, was educated in France, so he was a fitting person to consult on many points, to which no one else there could have helped me. I should like to say a word of parting with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose affairs I wound up before leaving, because the history is rather curious, and will interest a large body of people who subscribed to it. I had employed four active men; the rest of the Society was nominal. One of these men died of apoplexy one month after my husband; the second had a stroke of paralysis and died immediately after I left; the third fell into a well, and his body was not found till several days; the fourth was very ill of blood-poisoning, had to be sent away, but has since returned and is well--five of us put _hors de combat_, as I was stricken down with grief. I left a complete chart of directions as to how the remaining money, 1916 florins, should be employed, after which there would be no more funds, and the work closed. The remaining man is Inspector Mottek, of the police, and one new man, both of whom I can trust. The money is under control of the bank, the accounts are sent to me every three months. It has lasted two years and three months, and I believe there are a few florins still left. This will comfort my numerous donors.

[Sidenote: _The Beloved Remains are removed to England_.]

On the 20th of January, 1891, I had to go to the Sant' Anna Cemetery to see the beloved remains prepared, and conveyed on board the Cunard steamer _Palmyra_ at the New Port. The remains had been placed in a leaden shell, with a glass over the face; this was again closed in a very handsome coffin of steel and gilt. On this day it was put into a plain white deal case, two inches thick, dovetailed, and secured with iron clamps and screws, and painted in black--"To the Rev. Canon Wenham, Catholic Church, Mortlake, S.W., Surrey, England." The case was filled with sawdust, in which, according to Austrian law, a bottle of carbolic acid was poured, which has rather stained the coffin. (I cannot think who could have started the irreverent report in the press that it was a piano-case.) Accompanied by the Vice-Consul, Mr. Cautley, I proceeded to the steamer, and saw the precious case lowered, and put into a dry and secured place. Poor good Louis Marcovich, the guardian of the cemetery, would not take one single penny of the present that I had prepared for him, for giving up his bedroom for three months. He only said, clasping my hand, "Don't send it me, because I shall only send it back again. I have got a nice consecrated room to die in;" which he did, poor fellow, about a year later. May God reward him for his good work!

[Sidenote: _I leave Trieste and go to Liverpool_.]

The last night came, and twenty of my friends came up to spend the last evening with me. My work was only finished about two hours before I had to start, and I walked round and round to every room, recalling all my life in that happy home and all the sad events that had lately taken place. I gazed at all those beautiful views for the last time--at the tablet over the place where my husband's death-bed stood, recalling his death; another tablet in the chapel where the Masses had been said; and I looked around with parting eyes. I went into every nook and cranny of the garden, and under our dear linden tree, where my husband and I had so often sat (a little branch of which I have now framed in my room); my servants following me about, crying bitterly, and saying, "Oh, my dear mistress, we shall never have your husband's and your like again; we shall never have such another house as this." Then came carriages full of our friends to take me away, and the dreadful wrench made me cry all the way down to the station. There I found all that was worth of Society, and Authorities, and the children of our Orphanage, and our Poor, and all our private friends, bearing flowers. It was an awful trial not to make an exhibition of myself, and I was glad when the train steamed out; but for a whole hour ascending the beautiful road close to the sea and Miramar and Trieste, I never took my misty eyes off Trieste, and our home where I had been so happy for eighteen years, and which I shall never see again.

"A TRIESTE.

"Quando la sera piano sprofonda
Il sol nell' onda--solcando il mar,
Presso la riva d' un mesto addio
Il suol natio--vo' a salutar.

"Veggo le case, le ville, i monti,
Che ai bei tramonti--pajono d' or
E 'l scosso mare che con dolcezza
Bagna e accarezza--le sponde ancor.

"Qua e là pur veggo qualche nocchiero
Che con leggero--legno va e vien,
E qualche vela che al debil raggio
Tributa omaggio--nell' ampio sen.

"Mentre la sera man mano imbruna
Veggo la luna--nel ciel vagar,
Dietro alle nubi va lentamente,
Poi, di repente--si specchia in mar.

"Indi apparire veggo una stella
Lieve ma bella--d' aureo splendor,
E poi dell' altre formano in cielo
Screziato un velo--di luce e d' or.

"Poi, da lontano; la u' v' è Trieste
Debili e meste--sovra il terren
Veggo brillare mille più e mille
Vaghe scintille--che van che vien.

"Talvolta io sento flebili tocchi,
Poi, dei rintocchi--qua e la mandar
Un cupo suono che giunge a meta
Per l' aere cheta--lento a vagar.

"E allor contento penso a quel lido
Mio dolce nido--di pace e amor
E sospirando dico t' è degno
II tronco e il regno--di quel splendor.

"Terra diletta se un qualche giorno
A te ritorno--di vita pien,
Allor baciare in dolce pianto
Ti voglio tanto--caro terren."
----S. DI G. SFETEZ.

My first care on arriving in England was to go and see Richard's sister and niece, and acquaint them with all the circumstances and my intentions. I arrived in London on the 7th of February, 1891, and having no home, went to the Langham for a few days to look about for a lodging. At the Langham my three sisters were waiting for me.

On the 9th I immediately went to Messrs. Dyke, 49, Highgate Road, to inspect the monument, and to give orders respecting everything, and found, to my great distress, that, owing to the severity of the weather, it would be difficult to say when we could get the remainder of the Forest of Dean stone. On the 10th I went to Mortlake, chose my ground and had it pegged out, made arrangements with Canon Wenham, and on the 11th my sister, Mrs. Gerald Fitzgerald, and I went to Liverpool. I cannot say how ill I felt, and as soon as I arrived at Liverpool I had to go to bed. Friends began to arrive from different parts of England. Lord and Lady Derby, my best and kindest friends, had been so kind as to have everything seen to for me at Liverpool, and the Captain and the officers of the ships, the authorities of the dockyard, and the London and North-Western Company outvied each other in civility and courteous attention in the arrangements that were made for us.

The _Palmyra_ (after a journey as smooth as a lake) arrived on the 12th of February, 1891, at midnight, and we were told to be on board at nine next morning. Carriages for my party, and a small hearse, were ready to convey us to the ship. We went on board, and were courteously received by the Captain, and the case containing the coffin was brought up and placed on a small bridge. I forgot the people when I saw my beloved case, and I ran forward to kiss it. Canon Waterton said a few prayers. The Captain, officers, and men knew my husband, and many of the dockyard men were Catholics. They all bowed their heads, the Catholics answered the prayers, and there were audible sobs all round. The case was conveyed to the hearse, and we proceeded to the station, where it was immediately put into a separate compartment next to the two saloons reserved for me and my party.

When we arrived at Euston we found a duplicate of these conveyances waiting to take us and the body to Mortlake. We unpacked the case, but Canon Wenham, who had gone out, kept us an hour and three-quarters. The evening was cold and damp, and by torchlight, with a prayer, we conveyed him to rest in the crypt under the altar of the church. I remained some time praying there, and then we all dispersed, my sister and myself going back to the Langham. The reaction, after all I had gone through, set in; there was no more call upon my courage. I was safe in England and amongst my own people; there was nothing more to be done for Richard till the funeral.

"Poor had been my life's best efforts,
Now I waste no thought or breath;
For the prayer of those who suffer
Has the strength of love and death."

[Sidenote: _I fall ill_.]

My courage broke, and I took to my bed that night, the 13th of February, and _nolens volens_ I was obliged to stay at the Langham, being too weak either to find or to be transferred to a lodging. I passed from the 13th of February till the 30th of April between bed and armchair, and latterly was taken down in the lift occasionally to dinner or lunch. Every one was most kind to me, and my sisters spoilt me, and came daily to lunch or dine. I cannot describe the horror of the seventy-six days, enhanced by the fog, which, after sunlight and air, was like being buried alive. The sense of desolation and loneliness and the longing for him was cruel, and it became--

"The custom of the day,
And the haunting of the night."

My altered circumstances, and the looking into and facing my future, had also to be borne. From my sick bed I dictated answers to some two thousand letters, mostly of sympathy, writing out different business cases, and preparing for the funeral. Meantime the Queen had, in consideration of my husband's services, to my great gratitude and surprise, allowed me a pension of £150 a year.[7]

I would not have asked for anything for myself, but I thought that the British nation would take a pride in helping me to raise the characteristic monument so long wished for, to a man they so honoured, and who had devoted his life to the nation's interest in so many ways as he had done; and more so as I had over a thousand cuttings from newspapers and hundreds of letters saying that the nation _wished his memory to be honoured by a testimonial_. Nor was I disappointed, as, during the eight months, from his death to his final burial at Mortlake, I was helped by £668 towards it.[8]

On the 30th of April I was well enough to be transferred to a lodging, where my sister and I lived together; for the Langham was getting too gay, too full for me, nor could I afford it. Here I had privacy, quiet, and cheapness.

The funeral was finally fixed for Monday, the 15th of June, at eleven o'clock, and the final completions were only ended two hours before the ceremony began.

[Sidenote: _The Mausoleum Tent complete_.]

I had taken lodgings at Mortlake. The tent is sculptured in dark Forest of Dean stone and white Carrara marble. It is an Arab tent, twelve feet by twelve and eighteen feet high, surmounted by a gilt star of nine points. Over the flap door of the tent is a white marble crucifix. The fringe is composed of gilt cressets and stars. The flap door of the tent supports an open book of white marble, on which are inscribed Richard's name and the dates of his birth and decease. A blank page is left for "Isabel, his wife." Underneath is a ribbon with the words, "This monument is erected to his memory by his loving countrymen." Below, on a white marble tablet, is a beautiful sonnet written in a passion of grief by Justin Huntley McCarthy:--

"RICHARD BURTON.

"Farewell, dear friend, dead hero! The great life
Is ended, the great perils, the great joys;
And he to whom adventures were as toys,
Who seemed to bear a charm 'gainst spear or knife
Or bullet, now lies silent from all strife
Out yonder where the Austrian eagles poise
On Istrian hills. But England, at the noise
Of that dread fall, weeps with the hero's wife.
Oh, last and noblest of the Errant Knights,
The English soldier and the Arab Sheik!
Oh, singer of the East who loved so well
The deathless wonder of the 'Arabian Nights,'
Who touched Camoens' lute and still would seek
Ever new deeds until the end! farewell!"

It is planted round with trees and flowers, and has a background of linden trees. It is, I think, the most beautiful little burial-ground in England, especially in summer time. In fact, it is so covered with flowers and embedded in trees as to look almost foreign, by its pretty little church and presbytery.

[Sidenote: _The Funeral in England at Mortlake_.]

The interior is nearly all marble; the floor, of white and black marble, covers a base of Portland cement (concrete), so that no damp can arise from the ground. The coffin of steel and gilt lies above ground on three marble trestles, with three trestles on the opposite side for me. At the foot of the coffin is a marble altar and tabernacle with candles and flowers, a window of coloured glass, with Richard's monogram, and the whole adorned with seven hanging and various other Oriental lamps. It is no small compliment to Messrs. Dyke, that many people who come into the ground ask "why the canvas cover is not taken off," and are quite astonished when they touch the stone. People were invited _generally_, but special invitations were issued to the senders of wreaths, telegrams, cards, letters, subscriptions, visits, editors of friendly newspapers, applications, private friends, and those who had interested themselves in my future. Eight hundred and fifty-two invitations were issued. Four hundred were down with influenza, but eight hundred people came all the same. Trains left Waterloo for Mortlake at 10.20 a.m., arriving at 11.47.

The ceremony began at eleven, lasting an hour and a half, giving time to a visitor to enter the mausoleum and get back to the station, which was a few yards from the church, for the one o'clock train back to London, the authorities being duly warned of the number of invited. The Church was very simply decorated with a fleur-de-lys carpet, the trestles were covered by a cramoisie velvet pall, being Richard's favourite colour, and the coffin was laid at the top of it, and covered with wreaths sent by friends, my little bunch of forget-me-nots lying where the face would be. It was surrounded by tall silver candlesticks with wax candles. I occupied a _prie-dieu_ by his side; to my right were the women--on the left hand the men--mourners, headed by Captain St. George Burton of the Black Watch, his chief male relation, and both sides were composed of his and my relations, and his oldest friends. The procession filed out exactly at 11.10, the acolytes bearing flambeaux. The short requiem Mass of Casciolini was the one sung, by a London professional choir. Monsignor Stanley sang the Mass, assisted by several priests who had been personal friends of my husband. Then followed the Burial Service with its three absolutions, the priest walking round the coffin perfuming it with incense, and sprinkling it with holy water, and Canon Wenham, who performed this service in Latin, said in English, with a smile and a voice full of emotion, "Enter now into Paradise." The men then lifted the coffin, and a wreath was given to one of the lady mourners to carry, I taking my own little bunch of forget-me-nots, and following the coffin closely. Flanked a little lower down by the women and men mourners, and followed by all the assembled friends, the procession wound through the small but beautiful cemetery of St. Mary Magdalen's, Mortlake, to what seemed a veritable canvas tent pegged down amongst palm-trees, and he, who died eight months ago, was laid in his final resting-place. I begged that there might be no sermon or oration. When the coffin was deposited, the choir sang the Benedictus, and if there was any choice throughout the touching and impressive ceremony, perhaps this was the most impressive and the softest.

During the Benedictus the priest made a sign to me to go inside the mausoleum. I knelt and kissed the coffin, and put my forget-me-nots on it, and then I got behind the door. The other chief mourners passed into the tent, knelt, and deposited their wreaths and flowers. After the Benedictus, Canon Wenham, feeling that there were so many Protestants, said some English prayers; but his voice broke with emotion, and he had a difficulty in finishing them. When all was over, St. George Burton gave me his arm and conducted me to Canon Wenham's house, that I might not embarrass the public, who would like freely to enter the mausoleum and examine it. As I passed through the burial-ground, many friends shook hands with me, but I was so dazed I could not see them.

SIR RICHARD BURTON, KNIGHT.

Born 1821. Died 1890.

"He resteth now. His noble part is done,
And Britain mourns another true-born son.
His was the work that crowned with lasting fame
The hallowed mem'ry of a gallant name.
He gave the world the mysteries of men;
He travelled lands unknown to history's pen,
And braved the savage in his distant den.
America and Asia's hills and plains--
Through Afric's darkest forest light he gains.
The tree of knowledge bloomed for him its flow'rs
Where grandest Nature showed her mighty pow'rs;
And Heaven was his in all his lonely hours.
Oh! name him as he sleeps through longest night
A learned gentleman--a gallant Knight."
----W. J. NOWERS BRETT.

One might add--There lies the best husband that ever lived, the best son, the best brother, and the truest, staunchest friend.

Cardinal Manning had written me a beautiful letter full of blessings and consolation, in which he said, "As for myself, I will not fail to remember you on the day of the requiem--my heart will be with you; but I have not left the house for many months, and have ceased to officiate. I therefore cannot be with you, for I am within a few weeks of my eighty-fourth year."

Then one of my sisters took me away to the country at once.

At the end of July I went down to my Convent, the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, Essex. It has been full of my relations for six generations, and is like a second home to me. I passed most of my youth in it, and I returned to it with pleasure. There I found a mental and physical tonic. The 1st of September, 1891--the date that we were to have been settled in London together--I came to London, and took a small house in Baker Street, and finding I could never keep away from the mausoleum, I bought a very little cottage close to it, and I set about making them comfortable and pretty, out of my two hundred and four cases from Trieste, and a little second-hand furniture.

During this sad time, death has been alarmingly busy with us. We were four sisters, all married. One sister, exactly like me, died in September; all three sisters lost their husbands in November, January, and September; and one sister lives with me. I was brought to death's door with influenza in January, 1892, but I was spared to do the work I am now doing. I got my books and papers housed in March, 1892. The books are tidied and classified, but my papers are not; but I was afraid to trust to sufficient life if I took six months to put them in order, so I have hurried on to give these pages to the world, and whilst I live I shall transact the rest of his literary work set forth in the preface. The loss of eight immediate relatives and my own wretched health have marked little epochs in the period that has elapsed.

"It is a terrible thing to be innocent, and yet to know yourself suspected. Nobody in such a case can ever act quite naturally. The very sense of innocency, coupled with the knowledge of the suspicions against one, gives rise to an awkward self-consciousness which looks like guilt in the eyes of others."

[Sidenote: _"It" Confesses--too Late_.]

I must now refer to the episode of "_It_." In July, 1891, after all my troubles, I was summoned to the death-bed of a lady who I thought was a great friend of mine. I went with great warmth and distress of feeling, and when I went up to her bed to kiss her, she drew away and said, "Do not kiss me. I have sent for you to make a confession, as if it were to a priest; but you must give me a solemn promise never to betray me, after I am dead, that my husband and my girls, who go out a great deal in Society"--naming very high quarters--"may not have to be ashamed of me, and curse my memory." I gave the required promise, for I thought she was going to breathe her last, and she said she could not die in peace. I will never betray her name, but I have a right to tell the substance of what she said, because I have had to suffer bitterly through it, and may still be suffering without knowing it. She asked me not to look at her, and in pity I turned away.

She said then, "I am '_It_.' In 1876-7 your husband began mining in Midian, and subsequently in West Africa, and nothing was talked of but the millions that you were then sure of making--£100,000 in six months, so you said, and the rest following quickly. Now, I was awfully fond of money. I was much attracted by your husband. I loved you, and admired you; I hated you, and was jealous of you. I was not in love with him--So-and-so was my lover--but I thought that if I could only conciliate him, and disgust him with you, I should probably get a great deal of that money which I wanted; for my extravagances were far beyond the means of my husband or my lover, and I live very much in the world." She here confessed all she had done against us both, until our mining hopes had come to nothing. "I was dreadfully disgusted," she owned, "finding it impossible to alienate you, as the moment you found out anything you went and told each other; but I was surprised that you never suspected the right person, and you both of you frequently openly joked with me about '_It_.' Towards the end I saw that your husband disliked and distrusted me, but he could not fix in his own mind why it was. You were easily deceived, but I dared not do anything except in his absence. I took a wicked pleasure in your perfect trust in me."

She had free access to all my letters, papers, journals, and writings, and knew my every movement. She would send me nice letters in a hand I did not know, but signed with a name I did know, in the hopes I might answer it. If I did answer it, I made a fool of myself, and if I did not answer it, _she did_, copying from my own writings my style and mode of speech. She was assisted in the forging part of the business (I mean handwriting) by a needy Englishman, with a college education, who was an expert in copying hands.

For a long time I sat crouched up in the room without answering, with my head buried in my hands--my consternation and my humiliation were so great, and I was wrestling with myself--and at last I answered her pitiful entreaties for pardon. I said, "I am sixty years old, I have left the world, I have one foot in the grave, and I have nothing to do with Revenge; but, before I go, I _must_ clear the name I am so proud to bear. No one shall ever know who '_It_' was. Your husband and your daughters and the _crème_ of Society shall still bless and regret you; but you must give me the list, as far as you can, of the people you have written to, either in my name or my husband's, and then, if God will forgive you, and if Richard will forgive you, then I will also--and may you rest in peace!" I asked her what _sort_ of letters she had written. "You frequently allowed me to help you to answer your letters. Sometimes I wrote gushing letters, so as to make you seem silly; sometimes I gave your opinions to people in high positions, to make you seem impertinent. Sometimes I wrote you letters myself, in a feigned hand, and answered them in _your_ hand (imitated) to the supposed writers." I did not trust myself to speak, but I wrote down all the names she gave me, and I wrote this history to all those concerned, and, except one, they have all answered me. I left the room quietly, and she eventually died.

"Now, now my frame is old and wan and weary,
And now my years on earth can be but few;
I count the days, when God's voice, calling clearly,
Shall lead me, O my loved one, back to you!"

[1] From "John Halifax."

[2] This is what happened to me. In my younger days I had malignant typhus. I appeared to die. I was attended by two very clever doctors, who were with me at my supposed death, which they certified, and I was laid out. My mother's grief was so violent that my father judged it expedient to send for her confessor to give her some consolation. He happened to be the famous large-minded clever Jesuit and theologian, old Father Randal Lythegoe. He consoled my mother for some time, then he knelt down and prayed for me, and then he got up and put on his stole. "What are you going to do, Father?" said my mother. "I am going to give her Extreme Unction," he said. "But you can't; she has been dead several hours." "I don't care about that," he said. "I am going to risk it." He did so, and about two hours after he was gone I opened my eyes, and gradually came to.

[3] His journals show that he believed in this too.

[4] I received £688, and I owe this handsome contribution to the exertions of Baroness Paul de Ralli, of Trieste, to Sir Polydore Keyser, and Mrs. Roland Ward, who started and collected for it.

[5] And since writing this, Colonel Grant has gone to join them.

[6] Speke told me of this, and after his death I taxed Laurence Oliphant with it, who said so simply, "Forgive me--I am sorry--I did not know what I was doing," I could not say another word; but Richard and he were friends after that.--I. B.

[7] I owed my pension to several of our old friends; notably the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, the Royal Geographical and other learned Societies.

[8] I mention this because I had an anonymous letter sent me which taunted me with touting for subscriptions for it.--I. B.