Chapter IX: Work in Southern Counties (3)

"She is a complete Mrs. Malaprop. 'I was educated, my dear,' she
said, 'at a cemetery for young ladies;' but this is only a
specimen. She is also used to _very_ strong language, and till she
became blind, she used to hunt all over the country in top-boots
and leathern breeches, like a man. When her husband died, she went
up from Mrs. Villiers' house at Grove Mill to prove his will.
Adolphus Liddell met her at the station, and helped her to do it,
and then took her to the 'Ship and Turtle' and gave her real
turtle--in fact, a most excellent luncheon. He afterwards saw her
off at Euston. She is blind, you know, and took no notice of there
being other passengers in the carriage, and greatly astonished they
must have been, as he was taking leave of her, to hear the old lady
say in her deliberate tones, 'Capital turtle! de-e-licious punch!
Why, lor bless ye! I'd prove my husband's will once a week to get
such a blow-out as that.'

"I thought this place hideous at first, but it improves on
acquaintance, and has its availabilities, like everything else:
there is a fine sea with beautiful sands, and the flower-garden is
radiant."

"_Sept. 15._--I long for you to know Lady Williamson. Of all people
I have ever known, she has the most _truly_ Christian power of
seeing the virtues of every one and passing over their faults. She
also has to perfection the not-hearing, not-seeing knack, which is
the most convenient thing possible in such a mixed family circle.

"Charlie Williamson arrived yesterday, and, with the most jovial
entertaining manner, has all his mother's delicacy of feeling and
excessive kindness of heart. When he heard of the B. catastrophe,
he went up at once from Aldershot to see Italima in London. 'Your
mother was quite crushed,' he says, 'but as for your dear sister,
there isn't a girl in England has the pluck she shows. She never
was down for a moment, not she: no, she was as cheery as possible,
and said, "Mama, it is done, and it is not our fault, so we must
learn to make the best of it." People may say what they like, but
she is real downright good, and no mistake about it.'

"I have been with Victor to Seaton Delaval--the 'lordly Seaton
Delaval' of 'Marmion,' scene of many of the iniquities of the last
Lord Delaval. It is a magnificent house, but the centre is now a
ruin, having been burnt about eighty years ago, by the connivance,
it is said, of its then owner, Sir Jacob Astley. There is a Norman
chapel, full of black effigies of knights, which look as if they
were carved out of coal, and in one of the wings is a number of
pictures, including Lord Delaval's four beautiful daughters, one of
whom married the village baker, while another was that Lady
Tyrconnel who died at Gibside.

"I hope I shall know all these cousins better some day. At present,
from their having quite a different set of friends and
associations, I always feel as if I had not a single thing to say
to them, and I am sure they all think I am dreadfully stupid....
But I am enchanted with Charlie Williamson, his tremendous spirits
and amusing ways."

"_Sept. 17._--At 8-1/2, as we were sitting at tea, Lady Williamson
put her head in at the drawing-room door and said, 'Come down with
me; they are arriving.' So we went to the hall-door just as the
carriage drove up, and Italima got out and flung herself into Lady
Williamson's arms.... Both she and Esmeralda looked utterly
worn-out, and their account was truly awful.... Lady Normanby came
at once to their assistance--but what touched them most was the
kindness of dear good Charlie Williamson, who came up directly from
Aldershot, bringing them all he had--£50."

"_Sept. 18._--It has now come out that Mr. B. was the person who
had Francis arrested, and he kept him in prison while he plundered
his estate of £17,000. It has also transpired that when, on a
former occasion, Sir J. Paul gave Mr. B. £1000 to pay Francis's
debts, he never paid them, but appropriated the money. B. has
robbed Italima of the whole of her own fortune besides her marriage
settlement. Two years ago he arranged with the trustees and Italima
to sell £2000 of the settlement fund to pay William's debts, and
presented to the trustees, as they supposed, papers to sign for
this purpose. They trusted to B. and did not examine the papers,
which they now find empowered him to take possession not only of
the £2000, but of the whole fund!"

"_Sept. 19._--Italima's state is the most hopeless I ever saw,
because she absolutely refuses to find hope or comfort or pleasure
in anything, and as absolutely refuses to take any interest or
bestir herself in any measures for the recovery of her lost
fortune.... When any one tries to elicit what she recollects about
the mortgages, she will begin the story, and then bury herself in
the sofa-cushions, and say we are killing her by asking her
questions, and that if we do not want her to die, she must be
quiet. She is furious with me because I will not see that the case
is quite hopeless, and quite acts up to her promise of never
regarding me with the slightest affection.... The state of Italima
is appalling, but my sister is perfectly calm. Lady Williamson is
kindness itself; and as for Charlie, I never knew his equal for
goodness, consideration, and generosity.

"I wish you could hear Lady Williamson sing; even when she was a
little girl, Catalani said that her voice was better than her own,
and that if it were necessary for her to sing publicly, she would
be the first singer in Europe."

"_Sept. 21._--Italima is daily more entirely woe-begone, and her
way of receiving her misfortunes more bitter.... It seems a trouble
to her even to see her cousins so prosperous, while she ...! The
Normanbys are here and most kind, though much out of patience with
her.... Old Mrs. Richmond, who has been very kind throughout, sent
for my sister the other day to her room, and gave her five pounds
to buy winter clothes, and has sent for patterns to Edinburgh for a
warm dress for her."

"_Sandhutton Hall, Sept. 24._--I left Whitburn yesterday, very
sorry to part with the dear kind cousins, with whom I had a tender
leave-taking--not so with Italima, who took no more notice of my
departure than she had done of my visit."

The only event of our home-autumn was the death of the Rector of Hurstmonceaux, who had succeeded my uncle, and the appointment of the charming old Dr. Wellesley[175] in his place. In November I was at Harrow with the Vaughans, meeting there for the first time two sets of cousins, Lord and Lady Spencer,[176] and Sir John Shaw-Lefevre,[177] with two of his daughters. With the latter cousins I made a great friendship. Then I returned to Oxford.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Christ Church, Dec. 6, 1859._-My whole visit here this time has
been enjoyable. Arthur is always so very good and kind, so
_knowing_ in what will give one pleasure: which I especially feel
in his cordiality to all my friends when they come here. Then it is
so interesting and delightful being perpetually examined by him in
different parts of history, and charming to feel that I can in a
small way be useful to him in looking out or copying things for his
lectures, &c. Victor Williamson and Charlie Wood come in and out
constantly.

"Mr. Richmond the artist is here. I quite long to be Arthur, going
to sit to him: he is so perfectly delightful: no wonder his
portraits are always smiling."

In the winter of 1859-60 I made a much-appreciated acquaintance with Sir George Grey, author of "Polynesian Mythology."

JOURNAL.

"_Dec. 15, 1859._--At the Haringtons' I met Sir George and Lady
Grey. I was very anxious to make acquaintance, but much afraid that
I should not have an opportunity of doing so, as I was never
introduced. As they were going away, I expressed regret at having
missed them before, and he hoped that we should meet another time.
I suppose I looked very really sorry for not seeing more of him,
for, after a consultation in the passage, he came back, and asked
if I would walk part of the way with him. I walked with him all the
way to Windmill Hill, where he was staying: he walked home with me:
I walked home with him; and he home with me for the third time,
when I was truly sorry to take leave, so very interesting was he,
and so easy to talk to. We began about Polynesian Mythology--then
poetry--then Murray, who, he said, had just paid Dr. Livingstone
£10,000 as _his_ share of the profits on his book--then of Lord
Dillon, who, he said, had led them the most jovial rollicking life
when he went to Ditchley to look over MSS., so that he had done
nothing.

"Then he talked of the Church in the Colonies. He said that High
Churchism had penetrated to the Cape to the greatest extent, and
that the two or three churches where it was carried out were
thronged as fashionable: that one of the views preached was, that
religion was a belief in whatever you fancied was for your good, so
that if you fancied that, our Lord being one with God, it would be
well for you to have a mediator between yourself and Him, you ought
then to believe in that mediator, and to invoke your guardian angel
as the mediator most natural. Another tenet was that prayer was
only 'a tracter' to draw down the blessings of God--that, as there
were three kinds of prayer, so there were three kinds of
tracters--that individual prayer would draw down a blessing on the
individual, family prayer on a family, but that public prayer, as
proceeding from the mouth of a priest, could draw down a blessing
on the whole state. Sir George had heard a sermon on 'It is needful
for you that I go away from you,' &c., proving that it _was_
needful, because if not, Christ would have to have remained as an
earthly king, have had to negotiate with other kings, meddle in
affairs of state, &c.--also because he would have been made 'a
lion' of--perhaps have become an object of pilgrimage, &c.

"Sir George said that the Wesleyan Methodists lived a holier, more
spiritual life in the Colonies, but then it was because religion
was there so easy to them; in London it would not be so; that
London, the place in the world most unsuited to Christianity, lived
on a great world of gambling-houses, brothels, &c., as if there
were no God; no one seemed to care. He said what a grand thing it
would be if, in one of the great public services in St. Paul's or
Westminster Abbey, the preacher were to shout out as his awful
text--'Where art thou, Adam?'--and show how the Lord would look in
vain for _His_ in most parts of London--where, _where_ had they
hidden themselves?

"Sir George told me an anecdote of a dog in New Zealand--that two
officers were walking by the shore, and that one of them said, 'You
declare your dog will do everything. I'll bet you he does not fetch
that if you tell him,' and he threw his walking-stick into a canoe
lying out at some distance in the shallow water, where the natives
wade up to their waists to get into them, and where they are
secured by strong hempen cords. The dog, when told, instantly swam
out, but, as the man who made the bet had foreseen, whenever he
tried to scramble into the canoe to get the stick, it almost upset,
and at length, after repeated struggles, he was obliged to swim to
shore again and lie down to rest. Once rested, however, without a
second bidding, he swam out again, and this time gnawed through the
cord, pulled the canoe on shore, and then got the stick out, and
brought it to his master."[178]

I told Arthur Stanley much of this conversation with Sir George Grey. Some time after, he was very anxious that I should go to hear Dr. Vaughan preach in a great public service under the dome of St. Paul's. I went, and was startled by the text--"Where art thou, Adam?"

In January 1860 I paid a delightful visit to Sir John Shaw-Lefevre at Sutton Place, near Guildford, a beautiful old brick house with terra-cotta ornaments, which once belonged to Sir Francis Weston, Anne Boleyn's reputed lover. Besides the large pleasant family of the house, Lord Eversley and his daughter were there, and Sophia, daughter of Henry Lefevre, with Mr. Wickham, whom she soon afterwards married.

JOURNAL.

"_Sutton Place, Jan. 8._--Lord Eversley has been talking of
Bramshill, the old home of Prince Henry, where Archbishop Abbott
shot a keeper by accident, in consequence of which it became a
question whether consecration rites received at his hands were
valid. Lord Eversley did not believe that the oak in the park, from
which the arrow glanced (with the same effect as in the case of
Rufus), was the real tree, because it was _too_ old: oaks beyond a
certain age, after the bark has ceased to be smooth, do not allow
an arrow to glance and rebound.

"The Buxtons sent me a ticket for Lord Macaulay's funeral, but I
would not leave Sutton to go. Sir John went, and described that, as
often in the case of funerals and other sad ceremonies, people, by
a rebound, became remarkably merry and amusing, and that they had
occupied the time of waiting by telling a number of uncommonly good
stories. The sight of Lady Holland[179] and her daughters amongst
the mourners had reproduced the bon-mot of Mrs. Grote, who, when
asked how this Lady Holland was to be distinguished from the
original person of the name, said, 'Oh, this is New Holland, and
her capital is Sydney.'

"Apropos of Macaulay, Sir John remarked how extraordinary it was in
growing age to see a person pass away whose birth, education,
public career, and death were all within your memory.

"He said how unreadable 'Roderick Random' and 'Tom Jones' were now.
A lady had asked to borrow 'Pamela' from his library, saying she
well remembered the pleasure of it in her youth; but she returned
it the next day, saying she was quite ashamed of having asked for
anything so improper.

"Yesterday was Sunday, and I groped my way through the dark
passages to the evening service in the Catholic chapel, which has
always been attached to the house. An old priest, seated on the
steps of the altar, preached a kind of catechetical sermon upon
Transubstantiation--'My flesh is meat _indeed_'--'and the poor
Protestants have this in their Bibles, and yet they throw away the
benefit of the _indeed_.' The sight was most picturesque--the dark
old-fashioned roof, only seen by the light of the candles on the
richly decorated altar, and the poor English peasants grouped upon
the benches. It carried one back to the time before the
Reformation. In his discourse, the old priest described his
childhood, when he sat in the east wing of the house learning his
catechism, and when there were only two Catholics in Guildford; and
'what would these two solitary ones say now if they had seen the
crowd in St. Joseph's Chapel at Guildford this morning? Yes, what
would old Jem Savin say if he could rise up and see us now, poor
man?'"

_To_ MY MOTHER (after I had returned to my Handbook explorations).

"_Aldermaston Hall, Berks, Jan. 14, 1860._--I came here from
Newbury. The weather was so horrible, and the prospect of a damp
lonely Sunday in an inn so uninviting, that I thought over all
possible and impossible houses in the neighbourhood, and finally
decided upon Aldermaston as the best, and have taken it by storm.

"It was the dampest and dreariest of mornings as I came from the
station, but this place looked beautiful in spite of it--a wild
picturesque park, and a large house, full of colour inside, like a
restored French château. Mrs. Higford Burr (who seems to live more
in Italy than here) wears a sort of Greek dress with a girdle and a
broad gold hem.... I was at once, as I rather expected, invited to
stay _per l'amore d'Italia_, and my luggage sent for. This
afternoon Mrs. Burr, who is a most tremendous walker, has taken me
to Upton Court, the home of Arabella Fermor (Pope's Belinda), a
charming old house with a ghost, which the farm-people described as
'coming a clinkerin upstairs right upon un loike.'"

"_Christ Church, Feb. 4._--I have had a terribly cold tour to
Drayton-Beauchamp, Ashridge, Aylesbury, &c. The pleasantest feature
was a warm welcome from Mrs. Barnard, wife of the great
yeoman-farmer at Creslow Pastures, the royal feeding-grounds from
the time of Elizabeth to Charles II., with a lovely and interesting
old house overlooking Christ Low (the Christ's Meadow) and Heaven's
Low (Heaven's Meadow). Thence I went to North Marston, where was
the shrine of Sir John Shorne, a sainted rector, who preserved his
congregation from sin by 'conjuring the devil into his boot.'
Buckinghamshire is full of these quaint stories.

"Arthur has just been making great sensation by a splendid sermon
at St. Mary's, given in his most animated manner, his energies
gradually kindling till his whole being was on fire. It was on,
'Why stand ye here idle all the day long?--the first shall be last
and the last first.' 'Why stand ye here idle, listless, in the
quadrangle, in your own rooms, doing nothing; so that in the years
to come you will never be able to look back and say, "In such a
year, in such a term, I learnt this or that--that idea, that book,
that thought _then_ first struck me"? Perhaps this may be a voice
to the winds, perhaps those to whom it would most apply are even
now in their places of resort, standing idle: probably even those
who are here would answer to my question, "Because no man hath
hired us."'

"Then he described the powers, objects, and advantages of Oxford.
Then the persons who had passed away within the year, leaving gaps
to be filled up--the seven great masters of the English
language,[180] the German poets and philosophers,[181] the French
philosopher[182]--'and their praise shall go forth from generation
to generation.' Then he dwelt on the different duties of the coming
life to be prepared for, and he described the model
country-clergyman (Pearson), the model teacher (Jowett), the model
country-gentleman. Then came a beautiful and pictorial passage
about the eleventh hour and the foreboding of the awful twelfth.
The congregation was immense, and listened with breathless
interest. When the signatures were being collected for the Jowett
appeal, Arthur was hard at work upon them on Sunday when Mr. Jowett
came in. Arthur said, 'You need not mind my being at work to-day,
for I can assure you it is quite a Sunday occupation, a work of
justice, if not of mercy.'--'Yes,' said Jowett, 'I see how it is:
an ass has fallen into a pit, and you think it right to pull him
out on the Sabbath-day.'"

Arthur Stanley used to see a great deal of Mr. Jowett during this year--far too much, my mother thought when she was staying with him at Oxford; for Jowett--kind and unselfish as a saint--was only "Christian" in so far that he believed the central light of Christianity to spring from the life of Christ. He occasionally preached, but his sermons were only illustrative of practical duties, or the lessons to be learnt from holy and unselfish lives. It was during this year, too, that the English Church recognised with surprise that it was being shaken to its foundations by the volume of--mostly feeble and dull--"Essays and Reviews." But to turn to a very different religious phase.

JOURNAL.

"_Wantage, Feb. 21, 1860._--I came here yesterday over dreary
snow-sprinkled downs. Wantage is a curious little town surrounding
a great cruciform church in the midst of a desert. The Vicar (Rev.
W. J. Butler[183]) welcomed me at the door of the gothic vicarage,
and almost immediately a clerical procession, consisting of three
curates, schoolmaster, organist, and scripture-reader, filed in (as
they do every day) to dinner, and were introduced one by one. The
tall agreeable Vicar did the honours just as a schoolmaster would
to his boys. There was such a look of daily service, chanting, and
_discipline_ over the whole party, that I quite felt as if Mrs.
Butler ought also to be a clergyman, and as if the two little girls
would have been more appropriately attired in black coats and
bands.

"After dinner, in raging snow and biting east wind, we sallied out
to survey the numerous religious institutions, which have been
almost entirely founded by the energy and perseverance of this
Vicar in the thirteen years he has been at Wantage. The church is
magnificent. There is an old grammar-school in honour of Alfred
(who was born here), a National School painted with Scripture
frescoes by Pollen, Burgon, &c., a training school under the charge
of Mrs. Trevelyan, a cemetery with a beautiful chapel, and St.
Mary's Home for penitents. At seven o'clock all the curates
dispersed to various evening services, Mr. Butler went to St.
Mary's Home, and Mrs. Butler and I to the church, where we sat in
the dark, and heard a choir chant a service out of what looked like
a gorgeous illumination.

"I was aghast to hear breakfast was at half-past seven, but as I
could not sleep from the piercing cold, it did not signify. At
seven a bell rang, and we all hurried to a little domestic chapel
in the house, hung with red and carpeted with red, but containing
nothing else except a cross with flowers at one end of the room,
before which knelt Mr. Butler. We all flung ourselves down upon the
red carpet, and Mr. Butler, with his face to the wall, intoned to
us, and Mrs. Butler and the servants intoned to him, and all the
little children intoned too, with their faces to the ground.

"Now there is to be full church service again, and then--oh! how
glad I shall be to get away."[184]

The society of Mrs. Gaskell the authoress was a great pleasure during this term at Oxford. I made great friends with her, and we kept up a correspondence for some time afterwards. Everybody liked Mrs Gaskell.[185] I remember that one of the points which struck me most about her at first was not only her kindness, but her extreme courtesy and deference to her own daughters. While she was at Oxford, the subject of ghosts was brought forward for a debate at the Union; she wished to have spoken from the gallery, and if she had, would probably have carried the motion in favour of ghosts at once. Here is one of her personal experiences:--

"Mrs. Gaskell was staying with some cousins at Stratford-on-Avon,
who took her over to see Compton Whinyates. On their return she
stayed to tea at Eddington with her cousins--cousins who were
Quakers. Compton Whinyates naturally led to the subject of spirits,
and Mrs. Gaskell asked the son of the house whether there were any
stories of the kind about their neighbourhood; upon which the
father, who was a very stiff, stern old man, reproved them for vain
and light talking.

"After tea Mrs. Gaskell and her cousins went out to walk about the
place with the younger Quaker, when the subject of the supernatural
was renewed, and he said that their attention had lately been
called to it in a very singular manner. That a woman who was a
native of the place had many years ago gone as a lady's-maid to
London, leaving her lover, who was a carter, behind her. While in
London, she forgot her carter and married some one else, but after
some years her husband died, leaving her a large competence, and
she came back to spend the rest of her life in her native village.
There she renewed her acquaintance with the carter, to whom, after
a fortnight's renewal of courtship, she was married. After they had
been married a few weeks, she said she must go up to London to sell
all the property she had there, and come down to settle finally in
the country. She wished her husband to go with her, and urgently
entreated him to do so; but he, like many countrymen in that part,
had a horror of London, fancied it was the seat of all wickedness,
and that those who went there never could come back safe: so the
woman went alone, but she did not return. Some time after her
husband heard that she had been found in the streets of
London--dead.

"A few weeks after this the carter husband was observed to have
become unaccountably pale, ill, and anxious, and on being asked
what was the matter with him, he complained bitterly, and said that
it was because his wife would not let him rest at nights. He did
not seem to be frightened, but lamented that his case was a very
hard one, for that he had to work all day, and, when he wanted
rest, his wife came and sat by his bedside, moaning and lamenting
and wringing her hands all the night long, so that he could not
sleep.

"Mrs. Gaskell naturally expressed a wish to see the man and to hear
the story from his own lips. The Quaker said that nothing could be
easier, as he lived in a cottage close by; to which she went,
together with five other persons. It was like a Cheshire cottage,
with a window on each side of the door, and a little enclosure,
half-court, half-garden, in front. It was six o'clock in broad
summer daylight when they arrived. The door was locked and the
Quaker went round to try the back entrance, leaving Mrs. Gaskell
and her friends in the enclosure in front. They all, while there,
distinctly saw a woman, of hard features, dressed in a common lilac
print gown, come up to the latticed window close by them on the
inside and look out. They then saw her pass on and appear again at
the window on the other side of the door, after which she went away
altogether.

"When the Quaker appeared, unsuccessful in opening the back-door,
they said, 'But there is some one who could have let you in, for
there is a woman in the house.' They tried unsuccessfully, however,
to make her hear. Then they went to the adjoining cottage, where
the people assured them that the man was gone out for the day, and
that there could not possibly be any one in the house. 'Oh,' said
Mrs. Gaskell, 'but we have _seen_ a woman in the house in a lilac
print gown.' 'Then,' they answered, 'you have seen the ghost: there
is no _woman_ in the house; but that is _she_.'"

It was when I was at Beckett, just before Easter 1860, that I was first told that we should have to leave our dear home at Hurstmonceaux. Many years before, there had been an alarm, and my mother would then have bought the Lime property, but that the price asked was so greatly above its value, and no other purchasers came forward. So she was satisfied to go on renting Lime and the surrounding fields for a small sum, especially as she had a promise from those who had charge of the sale that no other offer should be accepted without giving her the preference. In the spring of 1860, however, Mr. Arkcoll, a rich old Hurstmonceaux farmer and churchwarden, died, leaving a large fortune to his nephew and a considerable sum of ready money to buy a house near his property. Lime had long been as Naboth's vineyard in the younger Mr. Arkcoll's eyes, and before we knew that the uncle was dead, we heard that the nephew was the purchaser of Lime, the promise to us having been broken.

My mother immediately offered Mr. Arkcoll a much larger sum than he had paid to save Lime, but not unnaturally he was inexorable.

Thus it was inevitable that at Michaelmas we must leave our dear home, and, though I had suffered much at Hurstmonceaux, and though our position there as a ruined family was often a dismal one, yet we felt that nothing could ever replace what Lime itself was, where every plant was familiar, and every tree had its own little personal reminiscence. And there was also the great difficulty of finding a new home within our small means, and yet large enough to house our many books and pictures.

I met my mother at Bournemouth to talk over plans and possibilities for the future, and we went on to Weymouth, where we remained some weeks. It was bitterly cold weather, but I always liked Weymouth, and the pleasant walks in Sandyfoot Bay, and excursions to Bow and Arrow Castle, Corfe Castle, Abbotsbury, and Lyme Regis. In April I was again at Beckett.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Beckett, April 8, 1860._--Yesterday I went with Lady Barrington
and Lady Somerton to Ashdowne (Lord Craven's). It is a most awfully
desolate place, standing high up on the bare downs. Four avenues
approach the house from the four sides. It was built by a Craven
who was Lord Mayor of London, and who, flying from the great
plague, rode fiercely on and on, till upon this bleak down he saw a
desolate farmhouse, where he thought that the plague could not
penetrate, and there he rested, and there he eventually built. The
four avenues, and the windows on every side, were intended to let
the plague out in one direction if it came in at the other. Inside
the house are great stag's horns which Elizabeth of Bohemia brought
with her from Germany, and portraits of her, Prince Rupert, Prince
Maurice, and the four princesses her daughters, painted by one of
them. The young Ladies Craven showed us the house amid shouts of
laughter at their own ignorance about it, which certainly was most
dense.

"We went on by roads, which were never meant for a carriage, to a
point whence Lady Barrington and I walked across the down to
'Wayland Smith's Cave,' a very small cromlech, in which Wayland
could hardly have stood upright when he used it for a forge."

"_Hendred House, April 15._--It is a proof how necessary it is for
the writer of a Handbook to see himself all that he writes about,
that I found East Hendred, of which I had heard nothing, to be one
of the most romantic villages I ever saw--groups of ancient
gable-ended houses, black and white or black and red, with turreted
chimneys--a ruined moss-grown chapel dedicated to 'Jesus of
Bethlehem'--a fine old grey church in a glen--and a beautiful
Catholic chapel attached to this quaint old house, which contains a
great Holbein of Sir Thomas More and his family, his cup, a
portrait of Cardinal Pole, and the staff upon which Bishop Fisher
leant upon the scaffold!"

My next visit was to Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton, to whom I became much attached. Being in the house with him was a constant intellectual feast, he was so accomplished as well as learned. Beautiful and interesting books were produced to illustrate all he said, and it would be hard to say how much Latin or Italian poetry he daily read or repeated to me. It was impossible not to be perfectly at home with him, he was so easy and natural. Of the two old sisters who had resided with him, and who were known by Eton boys as Elephantina and Rhinocerina, only one was still living, in a gentle and touching state of childishness, keeping up all her old-fashioned habits of courtesy and politeness; the mind now and then taking in an idea like a flash of light, and immediately losing it again. The Provost's attention to this old sister was quite beautiful, and her affection for him. When she was going to bed she would "pack up" and carry off all the things upon the table--books, envelope-boxes, &c., which were soon sent downstairs again.

I went with the Provost to dine at New Lodge (Mr. Van de Weyer, the Belgian Minister's), and found there the Dean of St. Paul's and Mrs. Milman, he most bright and animated, she "icily bland and coldly amiable as ever." I was quite delighted with the Van de Weyers, especially the second son Albert (who afterwards died young). M. Sylvain Van de Weyer, through life the trusted friend and representative of Leopold I. of Belgium, had the expensive hobby of books, collecting rare editions and the earliest printed classics, a taste inherited from his father, who kept a circulating library at Louvain. When he showed us two shelves of books in his library he said, "I have read all these whilst waiting for dinner. I am always down punctually, and my guests are always late. From my library I see them arrive, and never join them till a good many are come: thus I have got through all these." Madame Van de Weyer was immensely fat. She had lately been with her husband to a concert at Windsor, and been much jostled, at which she was very indignant. "Why, they take us for pages," she said to her husband. "No, my dear," he replied; "they take me for a page, but they take you for a volume."

On the last occasion on which I saw the Provost Hawtrey before his death, he said to me that he knew I collected curious stories, and that there was one story, intimately connected with his own life, which he wished that I should write down from his lips, and read to him when I had written it, that he might see that it was perfectly correct.

Here is the story as he gave it:--

"In the time of my youth one of the cleverest and most agreeable
women in Europe was Madame de Salis--the Countess de Salis--who had
been in her youth a Miss Foster, daughter of the Irish Bishop of
Kilmore. As a girl she had been most beautiful and the darling of
her parents' hearts, but she married against their will with the
Count de Salis. He was a Swiss Count, but he took her, not to
Switzerland, but to Florence, where he hired a villa at
Bellosguardo. There the life of Madame de Salis was a most
miserable one: she had many children, but her husband, who cut her
off from all communication with her friends, was exceedingly unkind
to her. She was married to him for several years, and then she was
mercifully released by his death. It was impossible for her to
pretend to be sorry, and she did not pretend it: she hailed it as
the greatest mercy that could have befallen her.[186]

"Madame de Salis went back to Ireland, where her parents, the old
Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster, were still alive, and welcomed
her with rapture. But she had left them a radiant, beautiful,
animated girl; she returned to them a haggard, weird, worn woman,
with that fixed look of anguish which only the most chronic
suffering can leave. And what was worst was that her health had
completely given way: she never slept, she never seemed able to
rest, she had no repose day or night: she became seriously ill.

"All the best advice that could be procured was hers. There was a
great consultation of doctors upon her case, and after it had taken
place, the doctors came to the Bishop and said, 'The case of Madame
de Salis is an extraordinary one; it is a most peculiar, but still
a known form of hypochondria. She cannot rest because she always
sees before her--not the horrible phantom which made her married
life so miserable, but the room which was the scene of her
suffering. And she never will rest; the image is, as it were,
branded into her brain, and cannot be eradicated. There is only one
remedy, and it is a very desperate one. It will probably kill her,
she will probably sink under it, but it may have happy results.
However, it is the only chance of saving her. It is that she should
see the real room again. She can never get rid of its image: it is
engraven upon her brain for life. The only chance is for her to
connect it with something else.' When Madame de Salis was told
this, she said that her returning to Florence was impossible,
absolutely impossible. 'At any rate,' she said, 'I could not go
unless my younger sister, Miss Foster, might go with me; then
possibly I might think of it.' But to this Dr. and Mrs. Foster
would not consent. The happiness of their lives seemed to have been
extinguished when their elder daughter married Count de Salis, and
if their beautiful younger daughter went abroad, perhaps she also
would marry a foreigner, and then what good would their lives do
them? However, Madame de Salis grew daily worse; her life was
evidently at stake, and at last her parents said, 'Well, if you
will make us a solemn promise that you will never, under any
circumstances whatever, consent to your sister's marrying a
foreigner, she shall go with you;' and she went.

"Madame de Salis and Miss Foster went to Florence. They rented the
villa at Bellosguardo which had been the scene of the terrible
tragedy of Madame de Salis's married life. As they entered the
fatal room, Madame de Salis fell down insensible upon the
threshold. When she came to herself, she passed from one terrible
convulsion into another: she had a brain fever: she struggled for
weeks between life and death. But nature is strong, and when she
did rally, the opinion of the Irish doctors was justified. Instead
of the terrible companion of her former life and the constant dread
in which she lived, she had the companionship of her beautiful,
gentle, affectionate sister, who watched over her with unspeakable
tenderness, who anticipated her every wish.... The room was
associated with something else! Gradually, very gradually, Madame
de Salis dawned back into active life. She began to feel her former
interest in art; in time she was able to go and paint in the
galleries, and in time, when her recovery became known, many of
those who had never dared to show their sympathy with her during
her earlier sojourn at Florence, but who had pitied her intensely,
hastened to visit her; and gradually, as with returning health her
brilliant conversational powers came back, and her extraordinary
gift of repartee was restored, her salon became the most
_recherché_ and the most attractive in Florence.

"Chief of all its attractions was the lovely Miss Foster. When,
however, Madame de Salis saw that any one especially was paying her
sister attentions, she took an opportunity of alienating them, or,
if there seemed to be anything really serious, she expressed to the
individual her regret that she was unable to receive him any more.
But at last there was an occasion on which Madame de Salis felt
that more stringent action was called for. When a young Count
Mastai, in the Guardia Nobile, not only felt, but showed the most
unbounded devotion to Miss Foster, Madame de Salis did more than
express to him her regret that untoward family circumstances
prevented her having the pleasure of seeing him again; she let her
villa at Bellosguardo, she packed up her things, and she took her
sister with her to Rome.

"The reputation of the two sisters had preceded them, and when it
became known that the Madame de Salis who had had so romantic a
history was come to Rome with her beautiful younger sister, all
that was most intellectual and all that was most remarkable in the
old Papal capital gathered around them. But now the scene had
changed. It was no longer Madame de Salis who was the invalid. Miss
Foster grew pale and languid and unable to occupy herself, and
gradually she became so pale and so changed, and the cause of it
was so evident, that Madame de Salis felt that she must choose
between two alternatives: she must either break her word to her
parents and save the life of her sister, or she must keep her
promise to her parents and see her sister sink into the grave.

"And she decided on the former course. She wrote two letters--one
letter to Count Mastai, telling him that he might come back and see
her sister again, and the other letter to the Bishop of Kilmore and
Mrs. Foster. She said to her parents that she knew they measured a
foreign marriage by her own dreadful life with Count de Salis: that
in Count Mastai they must imagine the exact opposite of Count de
Salis: that he was honourable, noble, chivalrous, generous,
disinterested--in fact, that had she to seek through the whole
world the person to whom with the greatest confidence she could
commit her sister's happiness, she could not do otherwise than
choose Count Mastai. This letter she sent too late to have the
refusal which she knew it would bring. Count Mastai flew to the
feet of the beautiful Miss Foster, and was accepted at once. The
wedding-day was fixed, the wedding-dress was made, the
wedding-feast was prepared.[187]

"When the day came, all the friends of Madame de Salis collected in
the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where the marriage was to
take place. According to the custom of brides in Rome, Miss Foster,
accompanied by Madame de Salis, came first to the altar and waited
for the bridegroom. He never came--he never came at all--he never,
never, never was heard of again. And that is the end of the first
part of the story.

* * * * *

"The second part of the story is quite different. It was the time
of the great famine and pestilence in the Basilicata. The misery
was most intense, hundreds perished daily everywhere. Every one who
could get away did; those who could went to Switzerland, others
went to Sicily; bishops abandoned their dioceses, priests abandoned
their flocks: there was a general stampede.

"But in that terrible time, as in all seasons of great national
suffering, there were instances of extraordinary devotion and
heroism. There was one young bishop of a Neapolitan diocese, who
was absent in Switzerland at the time, who came back like San Carlo
Borromeo over the Alps, who sold his library for the poor, who sold
his carriages, who sold at last even his episcopal ring, who walked
day and night in the hospitals, and by whose personal devotion many
lives were saved, while thousands were cheered and encouraged by
his example. The consequence was, that when the famine and the
pestilence in the Basilicata passed away, at an early age--at a
much earlier age than is usual--that young bishop was made a
cardinal.

* * * * *

"The third part of the story is again quite different. It was when
Pope Gregory XVI. lay upon his deathbed. There was the greatest
possible difficulty about who should be his successor; one member
of the Sacred College was too old, another was too young, another
was too much bound up with the princely families: there seemed to
be no one. The person who was of most influence at that time was
Count Rossi, the French Ambassador, and he was very anxious for a
liberal Pope, for some one who would carry out his own liberal
views. One day as he was walking pensively, filled with anxieties,
down the Corso, there passed by in a carriage that young bishop of
the Basilicata, once Bishop of Imola, now Archbishop of Spoleto,
who had been so distinguished during the famine. And when Count
Rossi saw him, he felt _that_ is the man--_that_ is the man who
would further my ideas and carry out my views. And by the wonderful
influence of Count Rossi on separate individuals, and by his
extraordinary powers of combination in bringing the mind of one
person to bear upon another, that person was chosen Pope. And on
the day on which he mounted the Papal throne as Pius IX., he
revealed that he was the person who, as Count Mastai Ferretti in
the Guardia Nobile, had been engaged to be married to the beautiful
Miss Foster. He had belonged to a Jesuit family: he had been
summoned on a Jesuit mission from which no one can shrink: his
value to the Church had been estimated: he was sent off to the West
Indies: letters were intercepted, and he was induced to believe
that Miss Foster had ceased to care about him: he was persuaded to
take Orders; he became bishop in the Basilicata, Bishop of Imola,
Archbishop of Spoleto, Pope of Rome--and Miss Foster lived to know
it.

* * * * *

"'Now,' said Dr. Hawtrey, 'if you ever tell that story, recollect
to say that it is no mere story I have heard; it is part of my own
life. Madame de Salis and her sister were my relations, and I was
most intimate with them. I was there when Madame de Salis made her
miserable marriage; I was there when she came back so terribly
changed. I shared in the consultations as to whether her sister
should go with her: I was with Dr. and Mrs. Foster when they
received the letter about Count Mastai: I was there when they heard
of the disappearance of the mysterious bridegroom: and I have lived
to think of him as Pope.'"

I am surprised to find no letters recording the long and happy visit which I made during the latter part of April 1860 to Chequers, the beautiful old house of Lady Frankland Russell, to whom I had been introduced by Lady Sheffield, who was her cousin. With this most interesting old lady I made great friends and received the greatest kindness from her. Owing to the marriage of Sir John Russell of Chequers with Mrs. Rich, youngest daughter of Cromwell, the house was perfectly full of Cromwell relics, and in its grand old gallery hung portraits of the Protector, his mother, brother, his four daughters, two sons-in-law, secretary, &c. Here, also, enclosed in a cabinet, was a very awful mask taken from Cromwell's face after death, which Lady Frankland used to uncover with great solemnity. In the garden was a wonderful wych elm, said to have been planted by King Stephen, and behind rose the Chiltern Hills, the most beautiful point of which--Velvet Lawn, covered with indigenous box--was in the immediate neighbourhood.

All through the summer of 1860 we were occupied in considering our new home. We sent for all the London agents' lists of places to be let or sold south of the Humber, and many of these, in Kent, Surrey, Berks, Bucks, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, I went to see, either with or without my mother. If she were not with me, I wrote to her long accounts, always concluding with saying, "They are not like Holmhurst, not in the least like Holmhurst,"--Holmhurst being the ideal place in the unwritten novels which my mother and I had been accustomed to narrate to each other in our long journeys abroad. My being difficult to satisfy gave the aunts an unusual handle for abuse, and plentifully did they bestow it upon me. "What can it signify whether you have a view or not? No one but you would care to waste your time in always looking out of the window," &c., &c. Especially was indignation roused by my refusing to consider an old house which the Stanleys were determined upon our taking in Oxfordshire,[188] and which was to be had very cheap because no servants could be persuaded to stay there on account of a frightful apparition which was supposed to haunt it. At last we almost despaired of finding any place to suit us, and determined to take the farm of Belhurst at Hurstmonceaux to put our furniture in, and to go abroad till quite a different set of places were to be disposed of. Just then a neighbour sent us a Hastings paper with a very humble advertisement marked, "At Ore, a house, with thirty-six acres of land, to be let or sold." "What a horrible place this must be," I said, "for which they cannot find one word of description;" for the very ugliest places we had seen had often been described in the advertisements as "picturesque manorial residences," "beautiful villas with hanging woods," &c. But my mother rightly thought that the very simple description was perhaps in itself a reason why we should see it, and after breakfast we set off in the little carriage. It was a drive of about fourteen miles. Long before we could arrive at Ore, we passed under a grey wall overhung by trees. "It looks almost as if there might be a Holmhurst inside that wall," I said. Then we reached a gate between two clipped yew-trees, and a board announced, "This house is to be let or sold." We drove in. It was a lovely day. An arched gateway was open towards the garden, showing a terrace, vases of scarlet geraniums, and a background of blue sea. My mother and I clasped each other's hands and simultaneously exclaimed--"This is Holmhurst!"

The house was let then, and we were refused permission to see the inside, but my mother bought the property at once: she was as sure as I was that we should never like any other place as well.

We found that the name of the place was Little Ridge. There were six places called Ridge in the neighbourhood, and it was very desirable to change the name, to prevent confusion at the post-office and elsewhere. Could we call it anything but Holmhurst? Afterwards we discovered that Holmhurst meant an ilex wood, and our great tree is an ilex.

On September 24 my mother left Lime. The day before was Sunday, and very sad--so many tearful farewells, so many poor women crying in the churchyard as we passed through. I stayed at Lime to pack up and arrange everything. On October 6, in the gloaming of the autumn evening, while the sunlight was streaming through the diminishing leaves of the old abele trees, and throwing long shadows upon the green lawn and bright flower-beds, we took a last farewell of our dear Hurstmonceaux home. Lea delivered up the keys, and we walked away (to the Rectory) up the drive, our drive no longer.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Holmhurst, Oct. 8, 1860._--This morning we left Hurstmonceaux
Rectory directly after breakfast, good old Dr. Wellesley quite
affected, and Harriet Duly, and even begging Mrs. Havendon, crying
bitterly on taking leave of Lea. We met a smart carriage with two
white horses going to fetch the Arkcolls, who made a triumphal
entry to Lime just after our departure. Winchester drove us, in
order to bring back the horse--John and Romo (the dog) on the box:
Lea and I with Julietta (the cat) and her kitten inside, and no end
of provisions under the seats. We stopped first at Mrs. Taylor's
farm, and she gave Lea a new loaf and some cheese to begin
housekeeping with, and me some excellent cakes. Lea thought the
drive charming. I walked up all the hills and we arrived about one
o'clock. It was impossible to enter the gates on account of the
waggons of the outgoing tenants, but Joe and Margaret Cornford from
the lodge hailed us with the joyful news that they had themselves
departed a few hours before."

"_Oct. 9._--We began work at six, a lovely morning, and the view
exquisite as I opened my window, the oak-trees with which the
meadows are studded casting long shadows on the grass, the little
pond glittering in the sun, and the grey castle rising against the
softest blue sea beyond. John is awed by the magnitude of the
grounds.... Julietta cries to go home, and would certainly set off,
if it were not for little black pussy. I think the winding walks
and obscure paths are enchanting, and the fir-woods are really
large enough for you to 'inhale the turpentine air' as at
Bournemouth."

My mother came to Holmhurst in about ten days, but not to stay, as we had arranged to break the transition between our two homes by spending the winter at Mentone. We took the route to the south by Orleans (whence I made a most interesting excursion to Notre Dame de Clery), Bourges, and then lingered at Oranges, Avignon, &c. I have always looked back upon the earlier part of this journey with remorse, as one in which I took my mother a longer way, in cold weather, simply to gratify my own wishes.