Chapter XII: English Pleasures and Roman Trials (4)

At the bottom of the drift was another diligence, but the Hawkers and I walked on to Splugen.

We spent an interesting afternoon at Brugg, and drew at Königsfelden, where the Emperor Albert's tomb is left deserted and neglected in a stable, and Queen Agnes's room remains highly picturesque, with many relics of her. In the evening we had a lovely walk through the forest to Hapsburg, where we saw a splendid sunset from the hill of the old castle. With a glimpse at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, we reached Carlsruhe, with which we were very agreeably surprised. The Schloss Garten is really pretty, with fine trees and fountains: the town is bright and clean; and all around is the forest with its endless pleasant paths. We found dear Madame de Bunsen established with her daughters Frances and Emilia in a nice old-fashioned house, 18 Waldhornstrasse, with all their pictures and treasures around them, the fine bust of Mrs. Waddington in itself giving the room a character. Circling round the aunts were Theodora von Ungern Sternberg's five motherless children, a perpetual life-giving influence to the home. We went with them into the forest and to the _faisanerie_, and picked masses of wild lilies of the valley. In the palace gardens we saw the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, a very handsome couple: she the only daughter of the King of Prussia. At the station also I saw again, and for the last time, the very pleasing Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, and presented the Bunsens to her.[329] On the eve of Trinity Sunday we reached home.

_From my_ JOURNAL.

"_July 30, 1866.--Holmhurst._--Another happy summer! How different
my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all sunshine, then all
reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother
remembers nothing of those days, _nothing_ of those years of bitter
heartache which my uncles' wives cost me. But her present love, her
beautiful full heart devotion, are all free-will offering, not
sacrifice of atonement. Our little Holmhurst is most lovely and
peaceful."

In August we spent a fortnight at the Deanery at Westminster with Arthur and Augusta Stanley, the latter _fit les delices_ of all who came under her influence, and both were most kind in asking every one to meet us that they thought we could be interested to see. To me, however, no one was ever half so interesting as Arthur himself, and his conversation at these small Deanery dinner-parties was most delightful, though, as I have heard another say, and perhaps justly, "it was always versatile rather than accurate, brilliant rather than profound." From London we went to look after our humble friends at Alton, where all the villagers welcomed my mother with a most touching wealth of evergreen love, and where forty old people came to supper by her invitation in the barn. The owls hissed overhead in the oak rafters; the feast was lighted by candles stuck into empty ginger-beer bottles, and in quavering voices they all drank the mother's health. She made them a sweet little speech, praying that all those who were there might meet with her at the great supper of the Lamb. I had much interest at Alton in finding out those particulars which form the account of the place in "Memorials of a Quiet Life." The interest of the people, utterly unspoilt by "civilisation," can hardly be described, or the simplicity of their faith. Speaking of her long troubles and illness, "Betty Smith" said, "I ha' been sorely tried, but it be a' to help I on to thick there place." William Pontyn said, "It just be a comfort to I to know that God Almighty's always at whom: _He_ never goes out on a visit." Their use of fine words is very comical. Old Pontyn said, "My son-in-law need na treat I ill, for I niver gied un no _publication_ for it." He thanked mother for her "respectable gift," and said, "I do thank God ivery morning and ivery night, that I do; and thank un as I may, I niver can thank un enough, He be so awful good to I." He said the noise the threshing-machine made when out of order was "fierly ridic'lous," and that he was "fierly gallered (frightened) at it"--that he was "obliged to _flagellate_ the ducks to get them out of the pond."

I drove with Mr. Pile to see the remains of Wolf Hall, on the edge of Savernake Forest, where Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour. The house, once of immense size, is nearly destroyed. The roof of the banqueting-hall is now the roof of a barn. The beautiful fragment of building remaining was once the laundry. Hard by, at Burbage, is "Jane Seymour's Pool."

After leaving Alton, as if making the round of my mother's old homes, we went to Buntingsdale, Hodnet, and Stoke. While at the former, I remember the Tayleurs being full of the promptitude of old Mrs. Massie (whose son Edward married our cousin Sophy Mytton). When above ninety she had been taken to see the church of Northwich, where some one pointed out to her a gravestone with the epitaph--

"Some have children, and some have none;
Here lies the mother of twenty-one."

Old Mrs. Massie drew herself up to her full height and at once made this impromptu--

"Some have many, and some have few;
Here _stands_ the mother of twenty-two."

And what she said was true.

My mother turned south from Shropshire, and I went to Lyme, near Disley, the fine old house of the Leghs, whose then head, W. T. Legh, had married Emily Wodehouse, one of the earliest friends of my childhood. It is a most stately old house, standing high in a very wild park, one of the only three places where wild cattle are not extinct. The story of the place is curious.

"Old Colonel Legh of Lyme left his property first to his son Tom,
but though Tom Legh was twice married, he had no sons, so it came
to the father of the present possessor. Tom's first wife had been
the celebrated Miss Turner. Her father was a Manchester
manufacturer, who had bought the property of Shrigley, near Lyme,
of which his only daughter was the heiress. She was carried off
from school by a conspiracy between three brothers named Gibbon
Wakefield and a Miss Davis, daughter of a very respectable master
of the Grammar School at Macclesfield. While at school, Miss Turner
received a letter from home which mentioned casually that her
family had changed their butler. Two days after, a person
purporting to be the new butler came to the school, and sent in a
letter to say that Mr. Turner was dangerously ill, and that he was
sent to fetch his daughter, who was to return home at once. In the
greatest hurry, Miss Turner was got ready and sent off. When they
had gone some way, the carriage stopped, and a young man got in,
who said that he had been sent to break to her the news that her
father's illness was a fiction; that they did not wish to spread
the truth by letting the governess know, but that the fact was that
Mr. Turner had got into some terrible money difficulties and was
completely ruined, and he begged that his daughter would proceed at
once to meet him in Scotland, whither he was obliged to go to evade
his creditors. During the journey the young man who was sent to
chaperon Miss Turner made himself most agreeable. At last they
reached Berwick, and then at the inn, going out of the room, he
returned with a letter and said that he was almost afraid to tell
her its contents, but that it was sent by her father's command, and
that he only implored her to forgive him for obeying her father's
orders. It was a most urgent letter from her father, saying that it
rested with her to extricate him from his difficulties, which she
could do by consenting to marry the bearer. The man was handsome
and pleasant, and the marriage seemed no great trial to the girl,
who was under fifteen. Immediately after marriage she was taken to
Paris.

"Meantime all the gentlemen in the county rallied round Mr. Turner,
and he contrived somehow to get his daughter away whilst she was in
Paris. Suspicion had been first excited in the mind of the
governess because letters for Miss Turner continued to arrive at
the school from Shrigley, and she gave the alarm. There was a great
trial, at which all the gentlemen in Cheshire accompanied Mr.
Turner when he appeared leading his daughter. The marriage was
pronounced null and void, and one of the Gibbon Wakefields was
imprisoned at Lancaster for five years, the others for two. It was
the utmost punishment that could be given for misdemeanour, and
nothing more could be proved. The Gibbon Wakefields had thought
that, rather than expose his daughter to three days in a witness
box, Mr. Turner would consent to a regular marriage, and they had
relied upon that. Miss Turner was afterwards married to Mr. Legh,
in the hope of uniting two fine properties, but as she had no son,
her daughter, Mrs. Lowther, is now the mistress of Shrigley."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Lyme Hall, August 29, 1866._--I have been with Mrs. Legh to
Bramhall, the fine old house of the Davenports, near Stockport,
with the haunted room of Lady Dorothy Davenport and no end of
relics. Out of the billiard-room opens the parish church, in the
same style as the house, with prayer-books chained to the seats. We
returned by Marple, the wonderfully curious old house of Bradshaw
the regicide."

"_Sept. 1._--To-day we had a charming drive over the hills, the
green glens of pasture-land, the steeps, and the tossing burns
recalling those of Westmoreland. I went with Mrs. Legh into one of
the cottages and admired the blue wash of the room, 'Oh, _you_ like
it, do ye?' said the mistress of the house; 'I don't--so that's
difference of opinions.' The whole ceiling was hung with different
kinds of herbs, 'for we're our own doctors, ye see, and it saves
the physic bills.'

"The four children--Sybil and Mob (Mabel), Tom and Gilbert Legh,
are delightful, and Sybil quite lovely. It is a pleasure to hear
the little feet come scampering down the oak staircase, as the four
rush down to the library to ask for a story at seven o'clock--'A
nice horrible story, all about robbers and murders: now do tell us
a really horrible one.'"

"_Thornycroft Hall, Cheshire, Sept._ 3.--The family here are much
depressed by the reappearance of the cattle plague. In the last
attack sixty-eight cows died, and so rapidly that men had to be up
all night burying them by lantern-light in one great grave in the
park.... How curious the remains of French expressions are as used
by the cottagers here. They speak of _carafes_ of water, and say
they should not oss (oser) to do a thing. The other day one of the
Birtles tenants was being examined as a witness at the Manchester
assizes. 'You told me so and so, didn't you?' said the lawyer. And
the man replied, 'I tell't ye nowt o' the kind, ye powther-headed
monkey; ask the coompany now if I did.'"

From Thornycroft I went to stay (only three miles off) at Birtles, the charming, comfortable home of the Hibberts--very old friends of all our family. Mrs. Hibbert, _née_ Caroline Cholmondeley, was very intimate with my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and a most interesting and agreeable person; and I always found a visit to Birtles a most admirable discipline, as my great ignorance was so much discovered and commented upon, that it was always a stimulus to further exertion. It was on this occasion that Mrs. Hibbert told me a very remarkable story. It had been told her by Mrs. Gaskell the authoress, who said that she felt so greatly the uncertainty of life, that she wished a story which might possibly be of consequence, and which had been intrusted to her, to remain with some one who was certain to record it accurately. Three weeks afterwards, sitting by the fire with her daughter, Mrs. Gaskell died suddenly in her arm-chair. Mrs. Hibbert, in her turn, wished to share her trust with some one, and she selected me.

In my childhood I remember well the Misses T., who were great
friends of my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and very clever agreeable old
ladies. "Many years before," as Mrs. Gaskell described to Mrs.
Hibbert, "they had had the care of a young cousin, a girl whose
beauty and cleverness were a great delight to them. But when she
was very young, indeed in the first year of her 'coming out,' she
engaged herself to marry a Major Alcock. In a worldly point of view
the marriage was all that could be desired. Major Alcock was a man
of fortune with a fine place in Leicestershire: he was a good man,
of high character, and likely to make an excellent husband. Still
it was a disappointment--an almost unspoken disappointment--to her
friends that the young lady should marry so soon--'she was so
young,' they thought; she had had so few opportunities of judging
persons; they had looked forward to having her so much longer with
them,' &c.

"When Mrs. Alcock went to her new home in Leicestershire, it was a
great comfort to the Misses T. and others who cared for her that
some old friends of the family would be her nearest neighbours, and
could keep them cognisant of how she was going on. For some time
the letters of these friends described Mrs. Alcock as radiantly,
perfectly happy. Mrs. Alcock's own letters also gave glowing
descriptions of her home, of the kindness of her husband, of her
own perfect felicity. But after a time a change came over the
letters on both sides. The neighbours described Mrs. Alcock as sad
and pale, and constantly silent and preoccupied, and in the letters
of Mrs. Alcock herself there was a reserve and want of all her
former cheerfulness, which aroused great uneasiness.

"The Misses T. went to see Mrs. Alcock, and found her terribly,
awfully changed--haggard, worn, preoccupied, with an expression of
fixed melancholy in her eyes. Both to them and to the doctors who
were called in to her she said that the cause of her suffering was
that, waking or sleeping, she seemed to see before her a face, the
face of a man whom she exactly described, and that she was sure
that some dreadful misfortune was about to befall her from the
owner of that face. Waking, she seemed to see it, or, if she fell
asleep, she dreamt of it. The doctors said that it was a case of
what is known as phantasmagoria; that the fact was that in her
unmarried state Mrs. Alcock had not only had every indulgence and
consideration, but that even the ordinary rubs of practical life
had been warded off from her; and that having been suddenly
transplanted into being the head of a large establishment in
Leicestershire, with quantities of visitors coming and going
throughout the hunting season, had been too much for a very
peculiar and nervous temperament, and that over-fatigue and
unwonted excitement had settled into this peculiar form of
delusion. She must have perfect rest, they said, and her mind would
soon recover its usual tone.

"This was acted upon. The house in Leicestershire was shut up, and
Major and Mrs. Alcock went abroad for the summer. The remedy
completely answered. Mrs. Alcock forgot all about the face, slept
well, enjoyed herself extremely and became perfectly healthy in
body and mind. So well was she, that it was thought a pity to run
the risk of bringing her back to Leicestershire just before the
hunting season, the busiest time there, and it was decided to
establish her cure by taking her to pass the winter at Rome.

"One of the oldest established hotels in Rome is the Hôtel
d'Angleterre in the Bocca di Leone. It was to it that travellers
generally went first when they arrived at Rome in the old
_vetturino_ days; and there, by the fountain near the hotel door
which plays into a sarcophagus under the shadow of two old
pepper-trees, idle contadini used to collect in old days to see the
foreigners arrive. So I remember it in the happy old days, and so
it was on the evening on which the heavily laden carriage of the
Alcock family rolled into the Bocca di Leone and stopped at the
door of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Major Alcock got out, and Mrs.
Alcock got out, but, as she was descending the steps of the
carriage, she happened to glance round at the group under the
pepper-trees, and she uttered a piercing shriek, fell down upon the
ground, and was carried unconscious into the hotel.

"When Mrs. Alcock came to herself, she affirmed that amongst the
group near the door of the hotel she had recognised the owner of
the face which had so long tormented her, and she was certain that
some dreadful misfortune was about to overwhelm her. Doctors,
summoned in haste, when informed of her previous condition,
declared that the same results were owing to the same causes. Major
Alcock, who disliked bad hotels, had insisted on posting straight
through to Rome from Perugia; there had been difficulties about
horses, altercations with the post-boys--in fact, 'the delusion of
Mrs. Alcock was owing, as before, to over-fatigue and excitement:
she must have perfect rest, and she would soon recover.'

"So it proved. Quiet and rest soon restored Mrs. Alcock, and she
was soon able to enjoy going about quietly and entering into the
interests of Rome. It was decided that she should be saved all
possible fatigue, even the slight one of Roman housekeeping: so the
family remained at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Towards January,
however, Mrs. Alcock was so well that they sent out some of the
numerous letters of introduction which they had brought with them,
and, in answer to these, many of the Romans came to call. One day a
Roman Marchese was shown upstairs to the Alcocks' room, and another
gentleman went up with him. The Marchese thought, 'Another visitor
come to call at the same time as myself,' the waiter, having only
one name given him, thought, 'The Marchese and his brother, or the
Marchese and a friend,' and they were shown in together. As they
entered the room, Mrs. Alcock was sitting on the other side of the
fire; she jumped up, looked suddenly behind the Marchese at his
companion, again uttered a fearful scream, and again fell down
insensible. Both gentlemen backed out of the room, and the Marchese
said in a well-bred way that as the Signora was suddenly taken ill,
he should hope for another opportunity of seeing her. The other
gentleman went out at the same time.

"Again medical assistance was summoned, and again the same cause
was ascribed to Mrs. Alcock's illness: this time she was said to be
over-fatigued by sight-seeing. Again quiet and rest seemed to
restore her.

"It was the spring of 1848--the year of the Louis Philippe
revolution. Major Alcock had a younger sister to whom he was sole
guardian, and who was at school in Paris, and he told his wife
that, in the troubled state of political affairs, he could not
reconcile it to his conscience to leave her there unprotected; he
must go and take her away. Mrs. Alcock begged that, if he went, she
might go with him, but naturally he said that was impossible--there
might be bloodshed going on--there might be barricades to get
over--there might be endless difficulties in getting out of Paris;
at any rate, there would be a hurried and exciting journey, which
would be sure to bring back her malady: no, she had friends at
Rome,--she must stay quietly there at the hotel till he came back.
Mrs. Alcock, with the greatest excitement, entreated, implored her
husband upon her knees that she might go with him; but Major Alcock
thought this very excitement was the more reason for leaving her
behind, and he went without her.

"As all know, the Louis Philippe revolution was a very slight
affair. The English had no difficulty in getting out of Paris, and
in a fortnight Major Alcock was back in Rome, bringing his sister
with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alcock was gone. She was never,
never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that
ever was known of Mrs. Alcock was that, on the day of her
disappearance, some people who knew her were walking in front of S.
John Lateran, and saw a carriage driving very rapidly towards the
Porta S. Giovanni Laterano, and in it sat Mrs. Alcock crying and
wringing her hands as if her heart would break, and by her side
there sat a strange man, with the face she had so often described."

I have my own theories as to the explanation of this strange story of Mrs. Alcock, but as they are evolved entirely from my own imagination, I will not mention them here.

From Cheshire I went to North Wales to pay a visit to our cousinhood at Bodryddan, which had been the home of my grandmother's only brother, the Dean of St. Asaph. The place has been spoilt since, but was very charming in those days. Under an old clock-tower one entered upon a handsome drive with an avenue of fine elms, on the right of which a lawn, with magnificent firs, oaks, and cedars, swept away to the hills. At the end rose the stately old red brick house, half covered with magnolias, myrtles, and buddlea, with blazing beds of scarlet and yellow flowers lighting up its base. Through an oak hall hung with armour a fine staircase led to the library--an immense room with two deep recesses, entirely furnished with black oak from Copenhagen, and adorned with valuable enamels collected at Lisbon. The place had belonged to the Conwys, and that family ended in three sisters, Lady Stapleton, Mrs. Cotton, and Mrs. Yonge: they had equal shares. Mrs. Cotton bought up Lady Stapleton's share, and left it with her own to the two daughters of her sister Mrs. Yonge, of whom the elder married my great-uncle, Dean Shipley, and was the mother of William and Charles Shipley and of the three female first cousins (Penelope, Mrs. Pelham Warren; Emily, Mrs. Heber; and Anna Maria, Mrs. Dashwood) who played so large a part in the early history of my father and his brothers, and who are frequently mentioned in the first volume of these memoirs.

When Dean Shipley married, he removed to his wife's house of Bodryddan. Miss Yonge lived with them, and after her sister's death the Dean was most anxious to marry her, trying to obtain an Act of Parliament for the purpose. For some years their aunt, Lady Stapleton, also continued to hold a life-interest in the property. Of this lady there is a curious portrait at Bodryddan. She is represented with her two children and a little Moor, for whom her own little boy had conceived the most passionate attachment, and from whom he could never bear to be separated. One night, after this little Moor was grown up, Lady Stapleton, returning very late from a ball, went to bed, leaving all her diamonds lying upon the table. Being awakened by a noise in the room, she saw the Moor come in with a large knife in his hand, and begin gathering up her jewels. Never losing her presence of mind, she raised herself up in bed, and, fixing her eyes upon him, exclaimed in a thrilling tone of reproach, "Pompey, is that you?" This she did three times, and the third time the Moor, covering his face with his hands, rushed out of the room. Nothing was heard of him till many years afterwards, when the chaplain of a Devonshire gaol wrote to Lady Stapleton that one of his prisoners, under sentence of death for murder, was most anxious to see her. She was unable to go, but heard afterwards that it was Pompey, who said that on the night he entered her room he had intended to kill her, but that when she spoke, such a sense of his ingratitude overwhelmed him, that he was unable to do it.

As an ecclesiastical dignitary, Dean Shipley would certainly be called to account in our days. He was devoted to hunting and shooting, and used to go up for weeks together to a little public-house in the hills above Bodryddan, where he gave himself up entirely to the society of his horses and dogs. He had led a very fast life before he took orders, and he had a natural daughter by a Mrs. Hamilton, who became the second wife of our grandfather; but after his ordination there was no further stain upon his character. As a father he was exceedingly severe. He never permitted his daughters to sit down in his presence, and he never allowed two of them to be in the room with him at once, because he could not endure the additional talking caused by their speaking to one another. His daughter Anna Maria had become engaged to Captain Dashwood, a very handsome young officer, but before the time came at which he was to claim her hand, he was completely paralysed, crippled, and almost imbecile. Then she flung herself upon her knees, imploring her father with tears not to insist upon her marriage with him; but the Dean sternly refused to relent, saying she had given her word, and must keep to it.

She nursed Captain Dashwood indefatigably till he died, and then she came back to Bodryddan, and lived there with her aunt Mrs. Yonge, finding it dreadfully dull, for she was a brilliant talker and adored society. At last she went abroad with her aunt Louisa Shipley, and at Corfu she met Sir Thomas Maitland, who gave her magnificent diamonds, and asked her to marry him. But she insisted on coming home to ask her father's consent, at which the Dean was quite furious. "Why could you not marry him at once?"--and indeed, before she could get back to her lover, he died!

After the death of Mrs. Yonge, Mrs. Dashwood lived at Cheltenham, a rich and clever widow, and had many proposals. To the disgust of her family, she insisted upon accepting Colonel Jones, who had been a neighbour at Bodryddan, and was celebrated for his fearfully violent temper. The day before the wedding it was nearly all off, because, when he came to look at her luggage, he insisted on her having only one box, and stamped all her things down into it, spoiling all her new dresses. He made her go with him for a wedding tour all over Scotland in a pony-carriage, without a maid, and she hated it; but in a year he died.

Then she insisted on marrying the Rev. G. Chetwode, who had had one wife before and had two afterwards--an old beau, who used to comb his hair with a leaden comb to efface the grey. On her death he inherited all she had--diamonds, £2000 a year, all the fine pictures left her by Mr. Jones, and all those Landor had collected for her in Italy.

But to return to Dean Shipley. To Mrs. Rowley, who was the mistress of Bodryddan when I was there, the Dean had been the kindest of grandfathers, and she had no recollection of him which was not associated with the most unlimited indulgence. The Dean was much interested in the management of his estate, but he insisted that every detail should pass through his own hands. For instance, while he was absent in London, a number of curious images and carvings in alabaster were discovered under the pavement at Bodryddan: news was immediately sent to him, but he desired that everything should be covered up, and remain till he came home. On his return, he put off the examination from time to time, till, on his death, the place was forgotten, and now no one is able to discover it.

Mrs. Rowley was the beautiful Charlotte, only daughter of Colonel William Shipley, and had led an adventurous life, distinguishing herself by her bravery and heroism during the plague while she was in the East, and on various other occasions. By her marriage with Colonel Rowley, second son of the first Lord Langford, she had three children,--Shipley Conwy, the present owner of Bodryddan; Gwynydd, who has married twice; and Efah, who, after her mother's death, made a happy marriage with Captain Somerset.

In her early married life, Mrs. Rowley had lived much in Berkeley Square with her mother-in-law, old Lady Langford, who was the original of Lady Kew in "The Newcomes," and many pitched battles they had, in which the daughter-in-law generally came off victorious. Lady Langford had been very beautiful, clever, and had had _une vie très orageuse_. She had much excuse, however. She had only once seen her cousin, Lord Langford, when he came to visit her grandmother, and the next day the old lady told her she was to marry him. "Very well, grandmama, but when?"--"I never in my life heard such an impertinent question," said the grandmother; "what business is it of yours _when_ you are to marry him? You will marry him when I tell you. However, whenever you hear me order six horses to the carriage, you may know that you are going to be married." And so it was.

At the time I was at Bodryddan, the most devoted and affectionate deference was shown by Mrs. Rowley to every word, movement, or wish of her only brother, Colonel Shipley Conwy. He looked still young, but was quite helpless from paralysis. Mrs. Rowley sat by him and fed him like a child. It was one mouthful for her brother, the next for herself. When dinner was over, a servant came in and wrung his arms and legs, as you would pull bell-ropes, to prevent the joints from stiffening (a process repeated several times in the evening), and then carried him out. But with all this, Colonel Shipley Conwy--always patient--was very bright and pleasant, and Mrs. Rowley, who said that she owed everything to my father and his interest in her education, was most cordial in welcoming me. I never saw either of these cousins again. They spent the next two winters at the Cape, and both died a few years afterwards.

A little later, I went to stay at Dalton Hall in Lancashire, to visit Mrs. Hornby, a cousin of my Aunt Penrhyn, and a very sweet and charming old lady, who never failed to be loved by all who came within her influence. She told me many old family stories, amongst others how--

"The late Lord Derby (the 13th Earl) was very fond of natural
history even as a boy. One night he dreamt most vividly of a rare
nest in the ivy on the wall, and that he was most anxious to get
it, but it was impossible. In the morning, the nest was on his
dressing-table, and it could only have got there by his opening the
window in his sleep and climbing the wall to it in that state.

"Another instance of his sleep-walking relates that he had a
passion, as a little boy, for sliding down the banisters, but it
was strictly forbidden. One night his tutor had been sitting up
late reading in the hall, when he saw one of the bedroom doors
open, and a little boy come out in his night-shirt and slide down
the banisters. This he did two or three times, and when the tutor
made some little noise, he ran upstairs and disappeared into his
bedroom. The tutor followed, but the little boy was fast asleep in
bed."

Apropos of sleep-walking, Mr. Bagot (husband of Mrs. Hornby's daughter Lucy) told me a story he had just seen in the _Times_:--

"A large pat of butter was lately on the breakfast table of a
family. When it was divided, a gold watch and chain were found in
the midst of it. The maid who was waiting gave a shriek, and first
rushed off to her room, then, coming back, declared it was hers.
The family were much surprised, but what she said turned out to be
true. She had dreamt that she was going to be robbed of her watch
and chain, and that the only way of hiding them would be to wrap
them up in a pat of butter, and she had done it in her sleep."

A sister-in-law of Mrs. Hornby--a Mrs. Bayley--was staying at Dalton when I was there. She told me--first hand--a story of which I have heard many distorted versions. I give it in her words:--

"My sister, Mrs. Hamilton (_née_ Armstrong), was one night going to
bed, when she saw a man's foot project from under the bed. She
knelt down then and there by the bedside and prayed for the wicked
people who were going about--for the _known_ wicked person
especially--that they might be converted. When she concluded, the
man came from under the bed and said, 'I have heard your prayer,
ma'am, and with all my heart I say Amen to it;' and he did her no
harm and went away. She heard from him years afterwards, and he was
a changed man from that day."

Apropos of the growth of a story by exaggeration, Mrs. Bayley said:--

"The first person said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill that what
she threw up was almost like a black crow.' The second said, 'Poor
Mrs. Richards was so ill: it was the most dreadful thing, she
actually threw up a black crow.' The third said, 'Poor Mrs.
Richards has the most dreadful malady: it is almost too terrible to
speak of, but she has already thrown up ... three black crows.'"

Mrs. Bayley was a very "religious" person, but she never went to church; she thought it wrong. She called herself an "unattached Christian," and said that people only ought to go to church for praise, but to do their confessions at home. When I left Dalton, she presented me with a little book, which she begged me not to read till I was quite away. It was called "Do you belong to the Hellfire Club?" It was not an allegorical little book, but really and seriously asked the question, saying that, though not generally known, such a club really existed, where the most frightful mysteries were enacted, and that it was just within the bounds of possibility that I might secretly belong to it, and if so, &c., &c. A similar little book was once thrust into my hand by a lady at the top of St. James's Street.

On the 29th of October 1866 we left England for Cannes, stopping on the way at Villefranche, that we might visit Ars, for the sake of its venerable Curé.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Nov. 1866._--It was a pretty and peculiar drive to Ars: first
wooded lanes, then high open country, from whence you descend
abruptly upon the village, which, with its picturesque old church,
and the handsome wooden one behind it, quite fills the little
hollow in the hills. The village itself is almost made up of hotels
for the pilgrims, but is picturesque at this season, with masses of
golden vine falling over all the high walls. We left the carriage
at the foot of the church steps, and ascended through a little
square crowded with beggars, as in the time of the Curé.[330] The
old church is exceedingly interesting. In the middle of the floor
is the grave of the Curé, once surrounded by a balustrade hung with
immortelles, which are now in the room where he died. At the sides
are all the little chapels he built at the different crises of his
life, that of S. Philomene being quite filled with crutches, left
by lame persons who have gone away cured. Beyond the old church
opens out the handsome but less interesting modern building
erected by the Empress and the bishops, with a grand baldacchino on
red granite pillars, and on the altar a beautiful bas-relief of the
Curé carried to heaven by angels. In the old church a missionary
was giving the pilgrims (who kept flocking in the whole time) a
very beautiful and simple exposition on the life of Christ as a
loving Saviour, quite carrying on the teaching of the Curé.

"At half-past twelve a Sister of Charity came to show the Curé's
room. It is railed off, because the pilgrims would have carried
everything away, as they have almost undermined the thick walls in
their eagerness to possess themselves of the bits of stone and
plaster; but you see the narrow bed, the poor broken floor, his
chair, his table, his pewter spoon and earthenware pot,--the
picture which was defiled by the Demon,--the door at which 'the
Grappin' knocked,--the narrow staircase from which he shouted
'Mangeur de truffes,'--the still poorer room downstairs where the
beloved Curé lay when all his people passed by to see him in his
last sleep,--the little court shaded by ancient elder-trees in
which he gave his incessant charities,--and close by the little
house of his servant Catherine. She herself is the sweetest old
woman, seeming to live, in her primitive life, upon the gleanings
and the teaching of the past. She sate on a low stool at Mother's
feet, and talked in the most touching way of her dear Curé. When
Mother said something about the crowds that came to him, she said,
'I have always heard that when the dear Saviour was on earth, He
was so sweet and loving, that people liked to be near Him, and I
suppose that now when men are sweet and loving, and so a little
like the dear Saviour, people like to be near them too.' In a small
chapel of the school he founded they showed some blood of the Curé
in a bottle--'_encore coulant_.' Many other people we saw who
talked of him--'Comme il était gai, toujours gai,' &c. The whole
place seemed cut out of the world, in an atmosphere of peace and
prayer, like a little heaven: no wonder Roman Catholics like to go
into 'Retreat' there."

We stayed afterwards at Arles, and made the excursion to S. Remy, one of the most exquisitely beautiful places I have ever seen, where Roman remains, grand in form and of the most splendid orange colouring, rise close to the delicate Alpines.

At Cannes we were most fortunate in finding a house exactly suited to our needs--a primitive bastide, approached by a long pergola of vines, on the way to the Croix des Gardes, quite high up in woods of myrtle and pine upon the mountain-side.[331] It was far out of the town and dreadfully desolate at night, but in the daytime there were exquisite views through the woods of the sea and mountains, and a charming terraced garden of oranges and cassia--the vegetation quite tropical. Close to the turn into our pergola was a little shrine of S. François, which gave a name to our cottage, and which the peasants, passing to their work in the forests, daily presented with fresh flowers. Delightful walks led beyond us into the hilly pine woods with a soil of glistening mica, and, if one penetrated far enough, one came out upon the grand but well-concealed precipices of rock known as the Rochers de Bilheres. Just below us lived Lord Mount-Edgecumbe, the "Valletort" of my Harrow days, with his sweet invalid wife, and their three little girls, with the little Valletort of this time, were a perpetual pleasure to my mother in her morning walk to the Croix des Gardes. Old Madame Bœuf, our landlady, used to come up every morning in her large flapping Provençal hat to work with her women amongst the cassia: the sunshine seemed almost ceaseless, and all winter we used to sit with open windows and hear our maid Marguerite carolling her strange patois ballads at her work.

]

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On the other side of Cannes, at the Hôtel de Provence, we had a large group of friends, Lady Verulam and her sons; Lord and Lady Suffolk and their two daughters; and the Dowager Lady Morley with her son and daughter. With the latter I became very intimate, and joined them in many long and delightful excursions to remote villages and to the unspeakably grand scenery above the Var. Lady Suffolk too became a dear and much honoured friend.

A still greater pleasure was the neighbourhood, in a small house by the torrent at the foot of our hill, of the dear old Lady Grey of our Nice days, and her niece Miss G. Des Vœux. I generally dined with them once or twice a week, and constantly accompanied them on delightful drawing excursions, taking our luncheon with us. In the spring I went away with them for several days together to the wild mountains of S. Vallier and S. Cesaire. Lady Grey painted beautifully, though she only began to be an artist when she was quite an old woman. She always went out sketching with thirty-nine articles, which one servant called over at the door, another answering "Here" for each, to secure that nothing should be left behind.

Beneath us, at the Hôtel Bellevue, were Lady Jocelyn and her children, with Lord and Lady Vernon and Mr. and Lady Louisa Wells, whom we saw frequently; also three admirable Scotch sisters, Mrs. Douglas, Miss Kennedy, and Mrs. Tootal. Hither also came for two months our dear friend Miss Wright ("Aunt Sophy"), and she was a constant pleasure, dropping in daily at tea-time, and always the most sympathising of human beings both in joy and sorrow.

Altogether, none of our winters was so rich in pleasant society as this one at Cannes, and we had nothing to trouble us till the spring, when Lea was taken very seriously ill from the bite either of scorpion or tarantula, and, while she was at the worst and unable to move, my mother became alarmingly ill too with a fever. I was up with them through every night at this time; and it was an odd life in the little desolate bastide, as it was long impossible to procure help. At length we got a Sœur de Charité--a pretty creature in a most picturesque nun's dress, but efficient for very little except the manufacture and consumption of convent soup, made with milk, tapioca, and pepper.

Still, for the most part, my mother had not been so well or so perfectly happy for years as in our little hermitage amid the juniper and rosemary. It was just what she most enjoyed, the walks all within her compass--perfect country, invariably dry and healthy, perpetual warmth in which to sit out, and endless subjects for her sketch-book. Lea, rejoiced to be rid for some months of her tiresome husband, found plenty of occupation in her kitchen and in attending to the poultry which she bought and reared; while I was engrossed with my drawings, of which I sold enough to pay our rent very satisfactorily, and with my "Lives of the Popes," a work on which I spent an immense amount of time, but which is still unfinished in MS., and likely to remain so. My mother greatly appreciated the church at Cannes, and we liked the clergyman, Mr. Rolfe, and his wife. His sermons were capital. I do not often attend to sermons, but I remember an excellent one on Zacharias praying for vengeance, and Stephen for mercy on his murderers, as respectively illustrating the principles of the Old and New Testament--Justice and Mercy.

I dined once or twice, to meet Mr. Panizzi[334] of the British Museum, at the house of a quaint old Mr. Kerr, who died soon afterwards. It was him of whom it used to be said that he had been "trying to make himself disagreeable for sixty years and had not quite succeeded." When he was eighty he told me that there were three things he had never had: he had never had a watch, he had never had a key, and he had never had an account.

I frequently saw the famous old Lord Brougham, who bore no trace then of his "flashes of oratory," of his "thunder and lightning speeches," but was the most disagreeable, selfish, cantankerous, violent old man who ever lived. He used to swear by the hour together at his sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brougham,[335] who lived with him, and bore his ill-treatment with consummate patience. He would curse her in the most horrible language before all her guests, and this not for anything she had done, but merely to vent his spite and ill-humour. Though a proper carriage was always provided for him, he would insist upon driving about Cannes daily in the most disreputable old fly he could procure, with the hope that people would say he was neglected by his family. Yet he preferred the William Broughams to his other relations, and entirely concealing that he had other brothers, procured the reversion of his title to his youngest brother, William, much to the annoyance of the Queen when she found it out. Lord Brougham was repulsive in appearance and excessively dirty in his habits. He had always been so. Mr. Kerr remembered seeing him at the Beefsteak Club, when the Prince Regent was President, and there was the utmost license of manners. One day when he came in, the Prince Regent roared out, "How dare you come in here, Brougham, with those dirty hands?"--and he insisted on the waiters bringing soap and water and having his hands washed before all the company. In early life, if anything aggravated him at dinner, he would throw his napkin in the face of his guests, and he did things quite as insulting to the close of his life at Cannes, where he had a peculiar prestige, as having, through his "Villa Louise Eleanore,"[336] first brought the place into fashion, which led to the extension of a humble fishing village into miles upon miles of villas and hotels.

]

_To_ MISS WRIGHT (after she had gone on to Rome).

"_Maison S. François, Cannes, Feb. 2, 1867._--On Tuesday we made an
immense excursion of thirteen hours to the 'Seven villages of the
Var.' The party consisted of Lord Morley and Lady Katherine, Lord
Suffolk and Lady Victoria, Lord Henry Percy, Lord Mount-Edgecumbe,
and myself. We left by the 7.40 train and had carriages to meet us
at Cagnes. These took us as far as the grand Sinai-like granite
peaks of S. Janet, and thence we walked. The whole terrace is most
grand for seven miles above the tremendous purple gorge of the Var,
overhung here and there by splendid Aleppo pines or old gnarled
oaks; and as we reached just the finest point of all, where the
huge castle of Carrozza stands out on a great granite crag, the
mist curtain drew up and displayed range on range of snow
mountains, many of them close by--really a finer scene than any
single view I remembered in Switzerland. The whole of our party,
hitherto inclined to grumble, were almost petrified by the
intensity of the splendour.

"M. Victor Cousin's sudden death at dinner has been a great shock
to the Cannes world. It was just at that time that our attention
was so sadly occupied by the illness and death of dear old Sir Adam
Hay. The Hays gave a picnic at Vallauris, to which I was invited,
and Sir Adam caught a cold there, which excited no attention at the
time, as he had never been ill in his life before. Four days
afterwards Addie Hay took Miss Hawker and me in their carriage to
Napoule, where we spent a pleasant day in drawing. When we came
back, his father was most alarmingly ill, and absent children had
been already telegraphed for. All that week I went constantly to
Villa Escarras, and shared with the family their alternations of
hope and fear, but at the end of a week dear Sir Adam died, and all
the family went away immediately, as he was to be buried at
Peebles."

]

During the latter part of our stay at Cannes, the society of Madame Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind) was a great pleasure to my mother, and in her great kindness she came often to sing to her. We went with the Goldschmidts to Antibes one most glorious February day, when Madame G. was quite glowing with delight in all the beauties around and gratitude to their Giver. "Oh, how good we ought to be--_how_ good with all this before our eyes! it is a country to die in." She spoke much of the sweetness of the Southern character, which she believed to be partly due to the climate and scenery. She talked of an old man, bowed with rheumatism, who worked in her garden. That morning she had asked him, "Comment ça va t'il? Comment va votre santé?"--"Oh, la volonté de Dieu!" he had replied--"la volonté de Dieu!" In his pretty Provençal his very murmur was a thanksgiving for what God sent. She spoke of the dislike English had to foreigners, but that the only point in which she envied the English was their noble women. In Sweden she said they might _become_ as noble, but that hitherto the character of Swedish women had been oppressed by the bondage in which they were kept by the laws--that they had always been kept under guardians, and could have neither will nor property of their own, unless they married, even when they were eighty. She said that she was the first Swedish woman who had gained her liberty, and that she had obtained it by applying direct to the king, who emancipated her because of all she had done for Sweden. Now the law was changed, and women were emancipated when they were five-and-twenty.

Then Madame Goldschmidt talked of the _faithfulness_ of the Southern vegetation. In England she said to the leaves, "Oh, you poor leaves! you are so thin and miserable. However, it does not signify, for you have only to last three or four months; but these beautiful thick foreign leaves, with them it is quite different, for they have got to be beautiful always."

We drove up the road leading to the lighthouse, and then walked up the steep rocky path carrying two baskets of luncheon, which we ate under the shadow of a wall looking down upon the glorious view. Madame Goldschmidt had been very anxious all the way about preserving a cream-tart which she had brought. "Voilà le grand moment," she exclaimed as it was uncovered. When some one spoke of her enthusiasm, she said, "Oh, it is delightful to soar, but one is soon brought back again to the cheese and bread and butter of life." When Lady Suffolk asked how she first knew she had a voice, she said, "Oh, it did fly into me!"

At first sight Madame Goldschmidt might be called "plain," though her smile is most beautiful and quite illuminates her features; but how true of her is an observation I met with in a book by the Abbé Monnin, "Le sourire ne se raconte pas." "She has no face; it is all _countenance_," might be said of her, as Miss Edgeworth said of Lady Wellington.

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It was already excessively hot before we left Cannes on the 29th of April. After another day at the grand ruins of Montmajour near Arles, we diverged from Lyons to Le Puy, a place too little known and most extraordinary, with its grand and fantastic rocks of basalt crowned by the most picturesque of buildings. Five days were happily spent in drawing at Le Puy and Espailly, and in an excursion to the charming neighbouring campagne of the old landlord and landlady of the hotel where we were staying. Then my mother assented to my wish of taking a carriage through the forests of Velay and Auvergne to the grand desolate monastery of the Chaise Dieu, where many of the Popes lived during their exile in France, and where Clement VI. lies aloft on a grand tomb in the centre of the superb choir, which is so picturesquely hung with old tapestries. Our rooms at the hotel here cost half a franc apiece. Joining the railway again at Brioude, we went to the Baths of Royat, then a very primitive and always a very lovely place, with its torrent tumbling through the walnut woods, its gorge closed by a grand old Templars' church, and its view over rich upland vineyards to the town and cathedral of Clermont. On the way home we visited the great deserted abbey of Souvigny near Moulins, and bought the beautiful broken statuette which is one of the principal ornaments of Holmhurst.

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