Chapter III: Boyhood (1)

1843-1848

"The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's returning stages:
A day to childhood seems an year,
And years like passing ages."

--THOMAS CAMPBELL.

"Oh if, in time of sacred youth,
We learned at home to love and pray,
Pray Heaven that early Love and Truth
May never wholly pass away."

--THACKERAY.

My mother took me to Harnish Rectory on July 28, 1843. The aspect of Mr. Kilvert, his tall figure, and red hair encircling a high bald forehead, was not reassuring, nor were any temptations offered by my companions (who were almost entirely of a rich middle class), or by the playground, which was a little gravelled courtyard--the stable-yard, in fact--at the back of the house. The Rectory itself was a small house, pleasantly situated on a hill, near an odd little Wrenian church which stood in a well-kept churchyard. We were met at Harnish by Mrs. Pile, who, as daughter of an Alton farmer, was connected with the happiest period of my mother's life, and while I was a prey to the utmost anguish, talking to her prevented my mother from thinking much about parting with me.

One miserable morning Mr. Kilvert, Mrs. Pile, and I went with my mother and Lea to the station at Chippenham. Terrible indeed was the moment when the train came up and I flung myself first into Lea's arms and then into my mother's. Mrs. Pile did her best to comfort me--but ... there _was_ no comfort.

Several boys slept in a room together at Harnish. In mine there was at first only one other, who was one of the greatest boy-blackguards I ever came across--wicked, malicious, and hypocritical. He made my life indescribably miserable. One day, however, whilst we were wearily plodding through our morning lessons, I saw a pleasant gentleman-like boy come through the gate, who was introduced to us as Alick MacSween. He was thirteen, so much older than any of the others, and he was very good-looking, at least we thought so then, and we used to apply to him the line in our Syntax--

"Ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris."

It was a great joy to find myself transferred to his room, and he soon became a hero in my eyes. Imagination endowed him with every grace, and I am sure, on looking back, that he really was a very nice boy. Gradually I had the delight of feeling assured that Alick liked me as much as I liked him. We became everything to each other, and shared our "lockers" in school, and our little gardens in play-hours. Our affection made sunshine in the dreariness. My one dread was that Alick would some day like another boy better than he liked me. It happened. Then, at ten years old, life was a blank. Soon afterwards Alick left the school, and a little later, before he was fifteen, I heard that he was dead. It was a dumb sorrow, which I could speak to no one, for no one would have understood it, not even my mother. It is all in the dim distance of the long ago. I could not realise what Alick would be if he was alive, but my mind's eye sees him now as he was then, as if it were yesterday: I mourn him still.

Mr. Kilvert, as I have said, was deeply "religious," but he was very hot-tempered, and slashed our hands with a ruler and our bodies with a cane most unmercifully for exceedingly slight offences. So intense, so abject was our terror of him, that we used to look forward as to an oasis to the one afternoon when he went to his parish duties, and Mrs. Kilvert or her sister Miss Sarah Coleman attended to the school, for, as the eldest boy was not thirteen, we were well within their capacities. The greater part of each day was spent in lessons, and oh! what trash we were wearisomely taught; but from twelve to one we were taken out for a walk, when we employed the time in collecting all kinds of rubbish--bits of old tobacco-pipe, &c.--to make "museums."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"DARLING MAMA,--I like it rather better than I expected. They have
killed a large snake by stoning it, and Gumbleton has skinned it,
such nasty work, and peged it on a board covered with butter and
pepper, and layed it out in the sun to dry. It is going to be
stuffed. Do you know I have been in the vault under the church. It
is so dark. There are great big coffins there. The boy's chief game
is robbers. Give love and 8 thousand kisses to Lea and love to the
Grannies. Good-bye darling Mama."

"Frederick Leuis has been very ill of crop. Do you know what that
is? I have been to the school-feast at Mr. Clutterbuck's. It was so
beautifull. All the girls were seated round little round tables
amongst beds of geraniums, heltrope, verbenas, and balm of Gilead.
We carried the tea and were called in to grapes and gooseberries,
and we played at thread-the-needle and went in a swing and in a
flying boat. Good-bye Mamma."

"MY DEAR MAMMA,--The boys have got two dear little rabbits. They
had two wood-pigeons, but they died a shocking death, being eaten
of worms, and there was a large vault made in which was interred
their bodies, and that of a dear little mouse who died too. All
went into mourning for it."

"MY DEAR MAMMA,--We have been a picknick at a beautiful place
called Castlecomb. When we got there we went to see the dungeon.
Then we saw a high tower half covered with ivy. You must know that
Castlecomb is on the top of an emense hill, so that you have to
climb hands and knees. When we sate down to tea, our things rolled
down the hill. We rambled about and gathered nuts, for the trees
were loaded. In the town there is a most beautiful old carved cross
and a church. Good-bye darling Mamma."

"_Nov. 11._--I will tell you a day at Mr. Kilvert's. I get up at
half-past six and do lessons for the morning. Then at eight
breakfast. Then go out till half-past nine. Then lessons till
eleven. Then go out till a quarter-past eleven. Then lessons till
12, go a walk till 2 dinner. Lessons from half-past three, writing,
sums, or dictation. From 5 till 6 play. Tea. Lessons from 7 to 8.
Bed. I have collected two thousand stamps since I was here. Do you
ever take your pudding to the poor women on Fridays now? Goodbye
darling Mamma."

As the holidays approached, I became ill with excitement and joy, but all through the half years at Harnish I always kept a sort of map on which every day was represented as a square to be filled up when lived through. Oh, the dreary sight of these spaces on the first days: the ecstasy when only one or two squares remained white!

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"When I arrived at Harnish, Augustus was looking sadly ill. As the
Rectory door was opened, the dear boy stood there, and when he saw
us, he could not speak, but the tears flowed down his cheeks. After
a while he began to show his joy at seeing us."

The Marcus Hares were at Hurstmonceaux all the winter, and a terrible trial it was to me, as my Aunt Lucy was more jealous than ever of any kind word being spoken to me. But I had some little pleasures when I was at Hurstmonceaux Place with the large merry family of the Bunsens, who had a beautiful Christmas-tree.

There is nothing to tell of my school-life during the next year, though my mind dwells drearily on the long days of uninstructive lessons in the close hot schoolroom when so hopelessly "nous suyons à grosses gouttes," as Mme. de Sévigné says; or on the monotonous confinement in the narrow court which was our usual playground; and my recollection shrinks from the reign of terror under which we lived. In the summer I was delivered from Hurstmonceaux, going first with my mother to our dear Stoke home, which I had never seen before in all its wealth of summer flowers, and proceeding thence to the English lakes, where the delight of the flowers and the sketching was intense. But our pleasure was not unalloyed, for, though Uncle Julius accompanied us, my mother took Esther Maurice with her, wishing to give her a holiday after her hard work in school-teaching at Reading, and never foreseeing, what every one else foresaw, that Uncle Julius, who had always a passion for governesses, would certainly propose to her. Bitter were the tears which my mother shed when this result--to her alone unexpected--actually took place. It was the most dismal of betrothals: Esther sobbed and cried, my mother sobbed and cried, Uncle Julius sobbed and cried daily. I used to see them sitting holding each other's hands and crying on the banks of the Rotha.

These scenes for the most part took place at Foxhow, where we paid a long visit to Mrs. Arnold, whose children were delightful companions to me. Afterwards we rented a small damp house near Ambleside--Rotha Cottage--for some weeks, but I was very ill from its unhealthiness, and terribly ill afterwards at Patterdale from the damp of the place. Matthew Arnold, then a very handsome young man, was always excessively kind to me, and I often had great fun with him and his brothers, but he was not considered then to give any promise of the intellectual powers he showed afterwards. From Foxhow and Rotha Cottage we constantly visited Wordsworth and his dear old wife at Rydal Mount, and we walked with him to the Rydal Falls. He always talked a good deal about himself and his own poems, and I have a sense of his being not vain, but conceited. I have been told since, in confirmation of this, that when Milton's watch--preserved somewhere--was shown to him, he instantly and involuntarily drew out his own watch, and compared, not the watches, but the poets. The "severe creator of immortal things," as Landor called him, read us some of his verses admirably,[32] but I was too young at this time to be interested in much of his conversation, unless it was about the wild-flowers, to which he was devoted, as I was. I think that at Keswick we also saw Southey, but I do not remember him, though I remember his (very ugly) house very well. In returning south we saw Chester, and paid a visit to an old cousin of my mother's--"Dosey (Theodosia) Leigh," who had many quaint sayings. In allusion to her own maiden state, she would often complacently quote the old Cheshire proverb--"Bout's bare but it's yezzy."[33] While at Chester, though I forget how, I first became conscious how difficult the having Esther Maurice for an aunt would make everything in life to me. I was, however, at her wedding in November at Reading.

The winter of 1844-45 was the first of many which were made unutterably wretched by "Aunt Esther." Aunt Lucy had chastised me with rods, Aunt Esther did indeed chastise me with scorpions. Aunt Lucy was a very refined person, and a very charming and delightful companion to those she loved, and, had she loved me, I should have been devoted to her. Aunt Esther was, from her own personal characteristics, a person I never could have loved. Yet my uncle was now entirely ruled by her, and my gentle mother considered her interference in everything as a cross which was "sent to her" to be meekly endured. The society at the Rectory was now entirely changed: all the relations of the Hare family, except the Marcus Hares, were given to understand that their visits were unwelcome, and the house was entirely filled with the relations of Aunt Esther--old Mr. and Mrs. Maurice; their married daughter Lucilla Powell, with her husband and children; their unmarried daughters--Mary, Priscilla, and Harriet[34]--Priscilla, who now never left her bed, and who was violently sick after everything she ate (yet with the most enormous appetite), often for many months together.

With the inmates of the house, the whole "tone" of the Rectory society was changed. It was impossible entirely to silence Uncle Julius, yet at times even he was subdued by his new surroundings, the circle around him being incessantly occupied with the trivialities of domestic or parochial detail, varied by the gossip of such a tenth-rate provincial town as Reading, or reminiscences of the boarding-school which had been their occupation and pride for so many years. Frequently also the spare rooms were filled by former pupils--"young ladies" of a kind who would announce their engagement by "The infinite grace of God has put it into the heart of his servant Edmund to propose to me," or "I have been led by the mysterious workings of God's providence to accept the hand of Edgar,"[35]--expressions which Aunt Esther, who wrote good and simple English herself, would describe as touching evidences of a Christian spirit in her younger friends.

But what was far more trying to me was, that in order to prove that her marriage had made no difference in the sisterly and brotherly relations which existed between my mother and Uncle Julius, Aunt Esther insisted that my mother should dine at the Rectory _every_ night, and as, in winter, the late return in an open carriage was impossible, this involved our sleeping at the Rectory and returning home every morning in the bitter cold before breakfast. The hours after five o'clock in every day of the much-longed-for, eagerly counted holidays, were now absolute purgatory. Once landed at the Rectory, I was generally left in a dark room till dinner at seven o'clock, for candles were never allowed in winter in the room where I was left alone. After dinner I was never permitted to amuse myself, or to do _anything_, except occasionally to net. If I spoke, Aunt Esther would say with a satirical smile, "As if you ever _could_ say anything worth hearing, as if it was ever _possible_ that any one could want to hear what you have to say." If I took up a book, I was told instantly to put it down again, it was "disrespect to my Uncle." If I murmured, Aunt Esther, whose temper was absolutely unexcitable, quelled it by her icy rigidity. Thus gradually I got into the habit of absolute silence at the Rectory--a habit which it took me years to break through: and I often still suffer from the want of self-confidence engendered by reproaches and taunts which never ceased: for a day--for a week--for a year they would have been nothing: but for _always_, with no escape but my own death or that of my tormentor! Water dripping for ever on a stone wears through the stone at last.

The cruelty which I received from my new aunt was repeated in various forms by her sisters, one or other of whom was always at the Rectory. Only Priscilla, touched by the recollection of many long visits during my childhood at Lime, occasionally sent a kindly message or spoke a kindly word to me from her sick-bed, which I repaid by constant offerings of flowers. Most of all, however, did I feel the conduct of Mary Maurice, who, by pretended sympathy and affection, wormed from me all my little secrets--how miserable my uncle's marriage had made my home-life, how I never was alone with my mother now, &c.--and repeated the whole to Aunt Esther.

From this time Aunt Esther resolutely set herself to subdue me thoroughly--to make me feel that any remission of misery at home, any comparative comfort, was as a gift from her. But to make me feel this thoroughly, it was necessary that all pleasure and comfort in my home should first be annihilated. I was a very delicate child, and suffered absolute agonies from chilblains, which were often large open wounds on my feet. Therefore I was put to sleep in "the Barracks"--two dismal unfurnished, uncarpeted north rooms, without fireplaces, looking into a damp courtyard, with a well and a howling dog. My only bed was a rough deal trestle, my only bedding a straw palliasse, with a single coarse blanket. The only other furniture in the room was a deal chair, and a washing-basin on a tripod. No one was allowed to bring me any hot water; and as the water in my room always froze with the intense cold, I had to break the ice with a brass candlestick, or, if that were taken away, with my wounded hands. If, when I came down in the morning, as was often the case, I was almost speechless from sickness and misery, it was always declared to be "temper." I was given "saur-kraut" to eat because the very smell of it made me sick.

When Aunt Esther discovered the comfort that I found in getting away to my dear old Lea, she persuaded my mother that Lea's influence over me was a very bad one, and obliged her to keep me away from her.

A favourite torment was reviling all my own relations before me--my sister, &c.--and there was no end to the insulting things Aunt Esther said of them.

People may wonder, and oh! how often have I wondered that my mother did not put an end to it all. But, inexplicable as it may seem, it was her extraordinary religious opinions which prevented her doing so. She literally believed and taught that when a person struck you on the right cheek you were to invite them to strike you on the left also, and therefore if Aunt Esther injured or insulted me in one way, it was right that I should give her the opportunity of injuring or insulting me in another! I do not think that my misery cost her nothing, she felt it acutely; but _because_ she felt it thus, she welcomed it, as a fiery trial to be endured. Lea, however, was less patient, and openly expressed her abhorrence of her own trial in having to come up to the Rectory daily to dress my mother for dinner, and walk back to Lime through the dark night, coming again, shine or shower, in the early morning, before my mother was up.

I would not have any one suppose that, on looking back through the elucidation of years, I can see no merits in my Aunt Esther Hare. The austerities which she enforced upon my mother with regard to me she fully carried out as regarded herself. "Elle vivait avec elle-même comme sa victime," as Mme. de Staël would describe it. She was the Inquisition in person. She probed and analysed herself and the motive of her every action quite as bitterly and mercilessly as she probed and analysed others. If any pleasure, any even which resulted from affection for others, had drawn her for an instant from what she believed to be the path--and it was always the thorniest path--of self-sacrifice, she would remorselessly denounce that pleasure, and even tear out that affection from her heart. She fasted and denied herself in everything; indeed, I remember that when she was once very ill, and it was necessary for her to see a doctor, she never could be persuaded to consent to it, till the happy idea occurred of inducing her to do so on a Friday, by way of a penance! To such of the poor as accepted her absolute authority, Aunt Esther was unboundedly kind, generous, and considerate. To the wife of the curate, who leant confidingly upon her, she was an unselfish and heroic nurse, equally judicious and tender, in every crisis of a perplexing and dangerous illness. To her own sisters and other members of her family her heart and home were ever open, with unvarying affection. To her husband, to whom her severe creed taught her to show the same inflexible obedience she exacted from others, she was utterly devoted. His requirement that she should receive his old friend, Mrs. Alexander, as a permanent inmate, almost on an equality with herself in the family home, and surround her with loving attentions, she bowed to without a murmur. But to a little boy who was, to a certain degree, independent of her, and who had from the first somewhat resented her interference, she knew how to be--oh! she was--most cruel.

Open war was declared at length between Aunt Esther and myself. I had a favourite cat called Selma, which I adored, and which followed me about at Lime wherever I went. Aunt Esther saw this, and at once insisted that the cat must be given up to her. I wept over it in agonies of grief: but Aunt Esther insisted. My mother was relentless in saying that I must be taught to give up my own way and pleasure to others; and forced to give it up if I would not do so willingly, and with many tears, I took Selma in a basket to the Rectory. For some days it almost comforted me for going to the Rectory, because then I possibly saw my idolised Selma. But soon there came a day when Selma was missing: Aunt Esther had ordered her to be ... hung!

From this time I never attempted to conceal that I loathed Aunt Esther. I constantly gave her the presents which my mother made me save up all my money to buy for her--for her birthday, Christmas, New Year, &c.--but I never spoke to her unnecessarily. On these occasions I always received a present from her in return--"The Rudiments of Architecture," price ninepence, in a red cover. It was always the same, which not only saved expense, but also the trouble of thinking. I have a number of copies of "The Rudiments of Architecture" now, of which I thus became the possessor.

Only from Saturday till Monday we had a reprieve. The nearness of Lime to the school which my mother undertook to teach on Sundays was the excuse, but, as I see from her journal, only the excuse, which she made to give me one happy day in the week. How well I remember still the ecstasy of these Saturday evenings, when I was once more alone with the mother of my childhood, who was all the world to me, and she was almost as happy as I was in playing with my kittens or my little black spaniel "Lewes," and when she would sing to me all her old songs--"Hohenlinden," "Lord Ullin's Daughter," &c. &c.--and dear Lea was able to come in and out undisturbed, in the old familiar way.

Even the pleasures of this home-Sunday, however, were marred in the summer, when my mother gave in to a suggestion of Aunt Esther that I should be locked into the vestry of the church between the services. Miserable indeed were the three hours which--provided with a sandwich for dinner--I had weekly to spend there; and though I did not expect to see ghosts, the utter isolation of Hurstmonceaux Church, far away from all haunts of men, gave my imprisonment an unusual eeriness. Sometimes I used to clamber over the tomb of the Lords Dacre, which rises like a screen against one side of the vestry, and be stricken with vague terrors by the two grim white figures lying upon it in the silent desolation, in which the scamper of a rat across the floor seemed to make a noise like a whirlwind. At that time two grinning skulls (of the founder and foundress of the church, it was believed) lay on the ledge of the tomb; but soon after this Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther made a weird excursion to the churchyard with a spade, and buried them in the dusk with their own hands. In the winter holidays, the intense cold of the unwarmed church made me so ill, that it led to my miserable penance being remitted. James II. used to say that "Our Saviour flogged people to make them go out of the temple, but that he never punished them to make them go _in_."[36] But in my childhood no similar abstinence was observed.

It was a sort of comfort to me, in the real church-time, to repeat vigorously all the worst curses in the Psalms, those in which David showed his most appalling degree of malice (Psalm xxxv. 7-16, Psalm lix., Psalm lxix. 22-29, Psalm cxl. 9, 10, for instance), and apply them to Aunt Esther & Co. As all the Psalms were extolled as beatific, and the Church of England used them constantly for edification, their sentiments were all right, I supposed.

A great delight to me at this time was a cabinet with many drawers which my mother gave me to keep my minerals and shells in, and above which was a little bookcase filled with all my own books. The aunts in vain tried to persuade her to take away "some of the drawers," so that I might "never have the feeling that the cabinet was wholly mine." When I returned to school, it was some amusement in my walks to collect for this cabinet the small fossils which abound in the Wiltshire limestone about Harnish, especially at Kellaway's quarry, a point which it was always our especial ambition to reach on holidays. At eleven years old I was quite learned about Pentacrinites, Bellemnites, Ammonites, &c.

It was often a sort of vague comfort to me at home that there was always one person at Hurstmonceaux Rectory whom Aunt Esther was thoroughly afraid of. It was the faithful old servant Collins, who had kept his master in order for many years. I remember that my Uncle Marcus, when he came to the Rectory, complained dreadfully of the tea, that the water with which it was made was never "on the boil," &c.--"they really must speak to Collins about it." But neither Uncle Julius nor Aunt Esther would venture to do it; they really couldn't: he must do it himself. And he did it, and very ill it was received.

The summer holidays were less miserable than those in the winter, because then, at least for a time, we got away from Hurstmonceaux. In the summer of 1845, I went with my mother to her old home of Alton for the first time. How well I remember her burst of tears as we came in sight of the White Horse, and the church-bells ringing, and the many simple cordial poor people coming out to meet her, and blessing her. She visited every cottage and every person in them, and gave feasts in a barn to all the people. One day the school-children all sang a sort of ode which a farmer's daughter had composed to her. Never was my sweet mother more charming than in her intercourse with her humble friends at Alton, and I delighted in threading with her the narrow muddy foot-lanes of the village to the different cottages, of old and young Mary Doust, of Lizzie Hams, Avis Wootton, Betty Perry, &c.

Alton was, and is, quite the most primitive place I have ever seen, isolated--an oasis of verdure--in the midst of the great Wiltshire corn-plain, which is bare ploughed land for so many months of the year; its two tiny churches within a stone-throw of each other, and its thatched mud cottages peeping out of the elms which surround its few grass pastures. A muddy chalky lane leads from the village up to "Old Adam," the nearest point on the chain of downs, and close by is a White Horse, not the famous beast of Danish celebrity, but something much more like the real animal. I was never tired during this visit of hearing from his loving people what "Uncle Augustus" had said to them, and truly his words and his image seemed indelibly impressed upon their hearts. Mrs. Pile, with whose father or sister we stayed when at Alton, and who always came to meet us there, was one of those rare characters in middle life who are really ennobled by the ceaseless action of a true, practical, humble Christianity. I have known many of those persons whom the world calls "great ladies" in later times, but I have never known any one who was more truly "a lady" in every best and highest sense, than Mrs. Pile.

On leaving Alton, we went to join the Marcus Hares in the express train at Swindon. Uncle Marcus, Aunt Lucy, her maid Griffiths, and my mother were in one compartment of the carriage; my little cousin Lucebella, Lea, an elderly peer (Lord Saye and Sele, I think), and I were in the other, for carriages on the Great Western were then divided by a door. As we neared Windsor, my little cousin begged to be held up that she might see if the flag were flying on the castle. At that moment there was a frightful crash, and the carriage dashed violently from side to side. In an instant the dust was so intense that all became pitch darkness. "For God's sake put up your feet and press backwards; I've been in this before," cried Lord S., and we did so. In the other compartment all the inmates were thrown violently on the floor, and jerked upwards with every lurch of the train. If the darkness cleared for an instant, I saw Lea's set teeth and livid face opposite. I learned then for the first time that to put hand-bags in the net along the top of the carriage is most alarming in case of accident. They are dashed hither and thither like so many cannon-balls. A dressing-case must be fatal.

After what seemed an endless time, the train suddenly stopped with a crash. We had really, I believe, been three minutes off the line. Instantly a number of men surrounded the carriage. "There is not an instant to lose, another train is upon you, they may not be able to stop it,"--and we were all dragged out and up the steep bank of the railway cutting. Most strange, I remember, was the appearance of our ruined train beneath, lying quite across the line. The wheels of the luggage van at the end had come off, and the rest of the train had been dragged off the line gradually, the last carriages first. Soon two trains were waiting (stopped) on the blocked line behind. We had to wait on the top of the bank till a new train came to fetch us from Slough, and when we arrived there, we found the platform full of anxious inquirers, and much sympathy we excited, quite black and blue with bruises, though none of us seriously hurt.

Soon after we reached Hurstmonceaux, my Uncle Marcus became seriously ill at the Rectory. I went with my mother, Aunt Esther, and Uncle Julius to his "charge" at Lewes, and, as we came back in the hot evening, we were met by a messenger desiring us not to drive up to the house, as Uncle Marcus must not be disturbed by the sound of wheels. Then his children were sent to Lime, and my mother was almost constantly at the Rectory. I used to go secretly to see her there, creeping in through the garden so as not to be observed by the aunts, for Aunt Lucy could scarcely bear her to be out of sight. At last one morning I was summoned to go up to the Rectory with all the three children. Marcus went in first alone to his father's room and was spoken to: then I went in with the younger ones. Lucebella was lifted on to the pillow, I stood at the side of the bed with Theodore; my mother, Uncle Julius, and Aunt Esther were at the foot. I remember the scene as a picture, and Aunt Lucy sitting stonily at the bed's-head in a violet silk dress. My dying uncle had a most terrible look and manner, which haunted me long afterwards, but he spoke to us, and I think gave us his blessing. I was told that after we left the room he became more tranquil. In the night my mother and Uncle Julius said the "Te Deum" aloud, and, as they reached the last verse, he died.

Aunt Lucy never saw him again. She insisted upon being brought away immediately to Lime, and shut herself up there. She was very peculiar at this time and for a year afterwards, one of her odd fancies being that her maid Griffiths was always to breakfast and have luncheon with the family and be waited on as a lady. We children all went to the funeral, driving in the family chariot. I had no real affection for Uncle Marcus, but felt unusually solemnised by the tears around me. When, however, a peacock butterfly, for which I had always longed, actually perched upon my prayer-book as I was standing by the open grave in the most solemn moment, I could not resist closing the book upon it, and my prayer-book still has the marks of the butterfly's death. I returned to school in August under the care of Mr. Hull, a very old friend of the family, who had come to the funeral.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Harnish, August 8._--When we got to London we got a cab and went,
passing the Guildhall where Gog and Magog live, the great
Post-Office, the New Royal Exchange and the Lord Mayor's, to
Tavistock Square, where three young men rushed down-stairs, who Mr.
Hull told me were his three sons--John, Henry, and Frank. I had my
tea when they had their dinner. After tea I looked at Miss Hull's
drawings. Mr. Hull gave me a book called 'The Shadowless Man.' I
stayed up to see a balloon, for which we had to go upon the top of
the house. The balloon looked like a ball of fire. It scattered all
kinds of lights, but it did not stay up very long. We also saw a
house on fire, the flames burst out and the sky was all red. Do
give the kitten and the kitten's kitten some nice bits from your
tea for my sake."

"_August 30._--We have been a picknick to Slaughterford. We all
went in a van till the woods of Slaughterford came in sight. Then
we walked up a hill, carrying baskets and cloaks between us till we
came to the place where we encamped. The dinner was unpacked, and
the cloth laid, and all sate round. When the dishes were uncovered,
there appeared cold beef, bread, cheese, and jam, which were
quickly conveyed to the mouths of the longing multitude. We then
plunged into the woods and caught the nuts by handfuls. Then I got
flowers and did a sketch, and when the van was ready we all went
home. Goodbye darling Mamma. I have written a poem, which I send
you--

"O Chippenham station thy music is sweet
When the up and down trains thy neighbourhood greet.
The up train to London directeth our path
And the down train will land us quite safely at Bath."

"_October_ the I don't know what.--O dearest Mamma, what do you
think! Mr. Dalby asked me to go to Compton Bassett with Mr. and
Mrs. Kilvert and Freddie Sheppard.... When we got to the gate of a
lovely rectory near Calne, Mrs. Sheppard flew to the door to
receive her son, as you would me, with two beautiful little girls
his sisters. After dinner I went with Freddie into the garden, and
to the church, and saw the peacocks and silver pheasants, and made
a sketch of the rectory. On Sunday we had prayers with singing and
went to church twice, and saw a beautiful avenue where the ground
was covered with beech-nuts. On Monday the Dalbys' carriage brought
us to Chippenham to the Angel, where we got out and walked to
Harnish. Mr. Dalby told me to tell you that having known Uncle
Augustus so well, he had taken _the liberty_ to invite me to
Compton."

"_Oct. 6._--It is now only ten weeks and six days to the holidays.
Last night I had a pan of hot water for my feet and a warm bed,
and, what was worse, two horrible pills! and this morning when I
came down I was presented with a large breakfast-cup of senna-tea,
and was very sick indeed and had a very bad stomach-ache. But to
comfort me I got your dear letter with a sermon, but who is to
preach it?"

"_Nov. 6._--Dearest Mamma, as soon as we came down yesterday all
our dresses for the fifth of November were laid out. After
breakfast the procession was dressed, and as soon as the sentinel
proclaimed that the clock struck ten, the grand procession set
out: first Gumbleton and Sheppard dressed up with straps, cocked
hats, and rosettes, carrying between them, on a chair, Samuel
dressed as Guy Fawkes in a large cocked hat and short cloak and
with a lanthorn in his hand. Then came Proby carrying a Union Jack,
and Walter (Arnold) with him, with rosettes and bands. Then King
Alick with a crown turned up with ermine, and round his leg a blue
garter. Behind him walked the Queen (Deacon Coles) with a purple
crown and long yellow robe and train, and Princess Elizabeth (me)
in a robe and train of pink and green. After the procession had
moved round the garden, singing--

'Remember, remember,
The fifth of November, &c,'

the sentinel of the guard announced that the cart of faggots was
coming up the hill ... and in the evening was a beautiful bonfire
and fireworks.

"What a pity it is that the new railway does not turn aside to save
Lewes Priory. I shall like very much to see the skeletons, but I
had much rather that Gundrada and her husband lay still in their
coffins, and that the Priory had not been disturbed.... It is only
five weeks now to the holidays."

"_Nov. 28._--Counting to the 19th, and not counting the day of
breaking up, it is now only three weeks to the holidays. I will
give you a history of getting home. From Lewes I shall look out for
the castle and the Visitation church. Then I shall pass Ringmer,
the Green Man Inn, Laughton, the Bat and Ball; then the Dicker,
Horsebridge, the Workhouse, the turnpike, the turn to Carter's
Corner, the turn to Magham Down, Woodham's Farm, the Deaf and Dumb
House, the Rectory on the hill, the Mile Post--'15 miles to Lewes,'
Lime Wood, the gate (oh! when shall I be there!)--then turn in, the
Flower Field, the Beaney Field, _the_ gate--oh! the garden--two
figures--John and Lea, perhaps you--perhaps even the kittens will
come to welcome their master. Oh my Lime! in little more than three
weeks I shall be there!"

"_Hurrah for Dec. 1._--On Wednesday it will be, not counting
breaking-up day, two weeks, and oh! the Wednesday after we shall
say 'one week.' This month we break up! I dream of nothing, think
of nothing, but coming home. To-day we went with Mr. Walker (the
usher) to Chippenham, and saw where Lea and I used to go to sit on
the wooden bridge.... Not many more letters! not many more sums!"

How vividly, how acutely, I recollect that--in my passionate devotion to my mother--I used, as the holidays approached, to conjure up the most vivid mental pictures of my return to her, and appease my longing with the thought of how she would rush out to meet me, of her ecstatic delight, &c.; and then how terrible was the bathos of the reality, when I drove up to the silent door of Lime, and nobody but Lea took any notice of my coming; and of the awful chill of going into the drawing-room and seeing my longed-for and pined-for mother sit still in her chair by the fire till I went up and kissed her. To her, who had been taught always to curtsey not only to her father, but even to her father's chair, it was only natural; but I often sobbed myself to sleep in a little-understood agony of anguish--an anguish that she could not really care for me.

"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!"[37]

In the winter of 1845-46, "Aunt Lucy" let Rockend to Lord Beverley, and came to live at Lime for six months with her three children, a governess, and two, sometimes three, servants. As she fancied herself poor, and this plan was economical, it was frequently repeated afterwards. On the whole, the arrangement was satisfactory to me, as though Aunt Lucy was excessively unkind to me, and often did not speak a single word to me for many weeks together, and though the children were most tormenting, Aunt Esther--a far greater enemy--was at least kept at bay, for Aunt Lucy detested her influence and going to the Rectory quite as cordially as I did.

How often I remember my ever-impatient rebellion against the doctrine I was always taught as fundamental--that my uncles and aunts must be always right, and that to question the absolute wisdom and justice of their every act--to me so utterly selfish--was typical of the meanest and vilest nature. How odd it is that parents, and still more uncles and aunts, never will understand, that whilst they are criticising and scrutinising their children or nephews, the latter are also scrutinising and criticising them. Yet so it is: investigation and judgment of character is usually mutual. During this winter, however, I imagine that the aunts were especially amiable, as in the child's play which I wrote, and which we all acted--"The Hope of the Katzekoffs"--they, with my mother, represented the three fairies--"Brigida, Rigida, and Frigida"--Aunt Lucy, I need hardly say, being Frigida, and Aunt Esther Rigida.

From a portrait by S. Lawrence.]

Being very ill with the measles kept me at home till the middle of February. Aunt Lucy's three children also had the measles, and were very ill; and it is well remembered as characteristic of Aunt Esther, that she said when they were at the worst--"I am _very glad_ they are so ill: it is a well-deserved punishment because their mother would not let them go to church for fear they should catch it there." Church and a love of church was the standard by which Aunt Esther measured everything. In all things she had the inflexible cruelty of a Dominican. She would willingly and proudly undergo martyrdom herself for her own principles, but she would torture without remorse those who differed from her.

When we were recovering, Aunt Lucy read "Guy Mannering" aloud to us. It was enchanting. I had always longed beyond words to read Scott's novels, but had never been allowed to do so--"they were too exciting for a boy!" But usually, as Aunt Lucy and my mother sat together, their conversation was almost entirely about the spiritual things in which their hearts, their mental powers, their whole being were absorbed. The doctrine of Pascal was always before their minds--"La vie humaine n'est qu'une illusion perpetuelle," and their treasure was truly set in heavenly places. They would talk of heaven in detail just as worldly people would talk of the place where they were going for change of air. At this time, I remember, they both wished--no, I suppose they only thought they wished--to die: they talked of longing, pining for "the coming of the kingdom," but when they grew really old, when the time which they had wished for before was in all probability really near, and when they were, I believe, far more really prepared for it, they ceased to wish for it. "By-and-by" would do. I imagine it is always thus.

Aunt Lucy loved her second boy Theodore much the best of her three children, and made the greatest possible difference between him and the others. I remember this being very harshly criticised at the time; but now it seems to me only natural that in any family there must be favourites. It is with earthly parents as Dr. Foxe said in a sermon about God, that "though he may love all his children, he must have an especial feeling for his saints."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_March 13._--My dearest, dearest Mamma, to-day is my 12th
birthday. How well I remember many happy birthdays at Stoke, when
before breakfast I had a wreath of snowdrops, and at dinner a
little pudding with my name in plums.... I will try this new year
to throw away self and think less how to please it. Good-bye dear
Mamma."

In March the news that my dear (Mary) Lea was going to marry our man-servant John Gidman was an awful shock to me. My mother might easily have prevented this (most unequal) marriage, which, as far as Mrs. Leycester was concerned, was an elopement. It was productive of great trouble to us afterwards, and obliged me to endure John Gidman, to wear him like a hair-shirt, for forty years. Certainly no ascetic torments can be so severe as those which Providence occasionally ordains for us. As for our dear Lea herself, her marriage brought her misery enough, but her troubles always stayed in her heart and never filtered through. As I once read in an American novel, "There ain't so much difference in the troubles on this earth, as there is in the folks that have to bear them."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_March 20._--O my very dearest Mamma. What news! what news! I
cannot believe it! and yet sometimes I have thought it might
happen, for one night a long time ago when I was sitting on Lea's
lap--O what shall I call her now? may I still call her Lea? Well,
one night a long time ago, I said that Lea would never marry, and
she asked why she shouldn't, and said something about--'Suppose I
marry John.' ... I was sure she could never leave us. I put your
letter away for some time till Mrs. Kilvert sent me upstairs for my
gloves. Then I opened it, and the first words I saw were
'Lea--married.' I was so surprised I could not speak or move....
How very odd it will be for Lea to be a bride. Why, John is not
half so old as Lea, is he?... Tell me all about the wedding--every
smallest weeest thing--What news! what news!"

MARY (LEA) GIDMAN _to_ A. J. C. H.

"_Stoke_, _March_ 29, 1846.--My darling child, a thousand thanks
for your dear little letter. I hope the step I have taken will not
displease you. If there is anything in it you don't like, I must
humbly beg your pardon. I will give you what account I can of the
wedding. Your dear Mamma has told you that she took me to
Goldstone. Then on Saturday morning a little after nine my mother's
carriage and a saddle-horse were brought to the gate to take us to
Cheswardine. My sister Hannah and her husband and George Bentley
went with me to church. I wished you had been with me so very much,
but I think it was better that your dear Mamma was not there, for
very likely it would have given her a bad headache and have made me
more nervous than I was, but I got through all of it better than I
expected I should. As soon as it was over the bells began to ring.
We came back to Goldstone, stayed about ten minutes, then went to
Drayton, took the coach for Whitmore, went by rail to Chelford, and
then we got a one-horse fly which took us to Thornycroft to John's
grandfather's, where we were received with much joy. We stayed
there till Wednesday, then went for one night to Macclesfield, and
came back to Goldstone on Thursday and stayed there till Friday
evening. Then we came back to Stoke. The servants received us very
joyfully, and your dear Mamma showed me such tender feelings and
kindness, it is more than I can tell you now. My dear child, I hope
you will always call me Lea. I cannot bear the thought of your
changing my name, for the love I have for you nothing can ever
change. My mother and Hannah wish you had been in the garden with
me gathering their flowers, there is such a quantity of them.... We
leave Stoke to-morrow, and on Friday reach your and our dear Lime.
I shall write to you as soon as we get back, and now goodbye, my
darling child, from your old affectionate nurse Lea."

The great age of my dear Grandfather Leycester, ninety-five, had always made his life seem to us to hang upon a thread, and very soon after I returned home for my summer holidays, we were summoned to Stoke by the news of his death. This was a great grief to me, not only because I was truly attached to the kind old man, but because it involved the parting with the happiest scenes of my childhood, the only home in which I had ever been really happy. The dear Grandfather's funeral was very different from that which I had attended last year, and I shed many tears by his grave in the churchyard looking out upon the willows and the shining Terne. Afterwards came many sad partings, last visits to Hawkestone, Buntingsdale, Goldstone; last rambles to Helshore, Jackson's Pool, and the Islands; and then we all came away--my Uncle Penrhyn first, then Aunt Kitty, then my mother and Lea and I, and lastly Grannie, who drove in her own carriage all the way to her house in New Street, Spring Gardens, the posting journey, so often talked of, actually taking place at last. Henceforward Stoke seemed to be transferred to New Street, which was filled with relics of the old Shropshire Rectory, and where Mrs. Cowbourne, Margaret Beeston, Anne Tudor, and Richard the footman, with Rose the little red and white spaniel, were household inmates as before.

I thought the house in New Street charming--the cool, old-fashioned, bow-windowed rooms, which we should now think very scantily furnished, and like those of many a country inn; the dining-room opening upon wide leads, which Grannie soon turned into a garden; the drawing-room, which had a view through the trees of the Admiralty Garden to the Tilting Yard, with the Horse Guards and the towers of Westminster Abbey.

The grief of leaving Stoke made me miserably unwell, and a doctor was sent for as soon as I arrived at the Stanleys' house, 38 Lower Brook Street, who came to me straight from a patient ill with the scarlatina, and gave me the disorder. For three weeks I was very seriously ill in hot summer weather, in stifling rooms, looking on the little black garden and chimney-pots at the back of the house. Mary and Kate Stanley were sent away from the infection, and no one came near me except my faithful friend Miss Clinton, who brought me eau-de-Cologne and flowers. It was long foolishly concealed from me that I had the scarlatina, and therefore, as I felt day after day of the precious holidays ebbing away, while I was pining for coolness and fresh country air, my mental fever added much to my bodily ailments, whereas, when once told that I was seriously ill, I was quite contented to lie still. Before I quite recovered, my dear nurse Lea became worn-out with attending to me, and we had scarcely reached Lime before she became most dangerously ill with a brain-fever. For many days and nights she lay on the brink of the grave, and great was my agony while this precious life was in danger. Aunt Esther, who on _great_ occasions generally behaved kindly, was very good at this time, ceased to persecute me, and took a very active part in the nursing.