Chapter XVI: In My Solitary Life (5)

“Colonel and Mrs. Henderson (of the Police Force) were at dinner. He said his father had been executor to old Lord Bridport, who had a box which no one was ever allowed to open, and of the contents of which even Lady Bridport was ignorant. After Lord Bridport’s death, the widow sent for Colonel Henderson to look into things, and then said, ‘I wish you would open that box; one ought to know about it.’ Colonel Henderson did not like doing it, but took the box into the library and sat down before it, with candles by his side. Immediately he heard a movement on the other side of the table, and, looking up, saw old Lord Bridport as clearly as he had ever seen him in his life, scowling down upon him with a furious expression. He went back at once to Lady Bridport and positively refused to open the box, which was then destroyed unopened. He said, ‘I shall never to my dying day forget the face of Lord Bridport as I saw him after he was dead.’

“In Wilton Crescent I saw Mrs. Leycester, who was just come from Cheshire. She said:--

“A brother of Sir Philip Egerton has lately been given a living in Devonshire, and went to take possession of it. He had not been long in his rectory before, coming one day into his study, he found an old lady seated there in an arm-chair by the fire. Knowing no old lady could really be there, and thinking the appearance must be the result of an indigestion, he summoned all his courage and boldly sat down upon the old lady, who disappeared. The next day he met the old lady in the passage, rushed up against her, and she vanished. But he met her a third time, and then, feeling that it could not always be indigestion, he wrote to his sister in Cheshire, begging her to call upon the Misses Athelstan, sisters of the clergyman who had held his living before, and say what he had seen. When they heard it, the Misses Athelstan looked inexpressibly distressed and said, ‘That was our mother: we hoped it was only to us she would appear. When we were there, she appeared constantly, but when we left, we hoped she would be at rest.’

“About ‘ghost-stories’ I always recollect what Dr. Johnson used to say--‘The beginning and end of ghost-stories is this, all argument is against them, all belief is for them.’

“I have had a charming visit here at Ascot to the Lefevres, the only other guest being old Mr. Cole of South Kensington, the incarnation of ‘Father Christmas’ or of ‘Old King Cole.’ He talked of the facility of getting money and the difficulty of keeping it. He said that when he wanted money for a Music School, he asked Sir Titus Salt for a subscription. Sir Titus asked him what he wanted him to give. ‘Whatever you think will look best at the day of judgment,’ said Mr. Cole. Sir Titus signed a cheque for £1000.

“Sir John Lefevre described a place in Essex belonging to a Mr. (now Sir William) and Mrs. Stephenson. When they first went there, the housekeeper said there was one room which it was never the custom to use. For a long time it continued to be unoccupied, but one day, when the house was very full and an unexpected arrival announced, Mrs. S. said she should open and air it, and sent for the key. All the people staying in the house, full of curiosity, went with her when she visited the room for the first time. It was a large panelled room containing a bed like a catafalque, with heavy stuff curtains drawn all round. They drew aside the curtains, and there was the mark of a bloody hand upon the pillow! The room was shut up again from that time forward.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Jan. 22._--George Sheffield is here. He says that the Russian Minister’s wife at Washington called her dog ‘Moreover,’ because of ‘Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.’”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Jan. 24._--‘No,’ says Lea, ‘everything is not improving. I always say that everything has been going to the bad since the pudding lost its place.’

“‘Why, what can you mean?’

“‘Oh, in the old days, the good old days, the pudding always used to be before the meat, and then people were not so extravagant at the butcher’s. Why, old Mr. Taylor[70] used to say to me, “You know, marm,” says he, “we used to tak’ a bit of the dough when the bread was rising, and slip in an apple or two without peeling ’em, and bake ’em in the oven, and that was our dinner you know, marm.”’

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JOURNAL (The Green Book).

“_Jan. 25, 1874._--Somehow I have felt as if this volume was closed for ever--closed away with the sweet presence which was so long the sunshine of my life. Yet to-day, while I am alone, sitting once more in the sacred chamber where I have watched her through so many days and nights, I feel constrained to write once more.

“How all is changed to me since then: I can hardly feel as if the two lives were related--hardly as if they _could_ belong to the same person.

“Wonderfully, mysteriously, time has healed--no, not healed, but soothed, even this wound. At first I felt this must always be impossible, life was _too_ blank, but imperceptibly, stealthily, other interests asserted their power, and though the old life is always _the_ life to me, yet I feel all is not over.

“I have always talked of my Mother, and it has been a great comfort. At first it almost shocked people that I should do it. Perhaps the very fact of talking and writing about her myself, and her life being now so much talked of by others, has dried up the agony of my own inner desolation by force of habitude. Yet, oh, my darling! there is never a day, seldom an hour, in which I do not think of her; and sometimes when I am alone,

‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,’

I take one of her sketch-books, one of her journals or mine, and with them go back into our old life--thus she looked--thus she spoke--thus she smiled.

“At first I was kept up by the sacred work of the ‘Memorials,’ and the necessity of fighting against the violent family opposition to them. This seemed a duty which rose out of her grave, the one duty for which I was prepared to sacrifice everything else in the world. I was determined to fulfil it at whatever cost to myself. And I have fulfilled it--not so well perhaps as I might have done if Arthur and Mary Stanley had not tried to trample and stamp all the spirit out of it. They condemned the book violently and furiously before they read it, and, after reading it, they never had the courage to rescind opinions expressed so frequently and publicly. Still, the world says that it is well, and it will still keep her lamp burning brightly, so that her earthly work is not over yet, and she can still guide others heavenward through the darkness. Besides, not only in the ‘Memorials,’ but in all else, I have felt the truth of Joseph Mazzini’s advice--‘Get up and work; do not set yourself apart. When the Evil One wanted to tempt Jesus, he led Him into a solitude.’

“I was one winter in Spain with Miss Wright. Then not much more than my first desolate year had passed, and I had still that crushed lacerated feeling of utter misery; but I tried to be as bright as I could for my companion’s sake. Last year I was in Italy, and though very ill, and though I felt poignantly the first return to the old scenes, it was better, and all old friends were most kind.

“The dear cousin of my mother’s life, Charlotte Leycester, has been here each year for some months, and other guests come and go through the summer, so that little Holmhurst still gives pleasure.

“At first I was very, very poor, and it was a struggle to have a home; but latterly my books have brought in enough to keep the house, and a great deal to give away besides, which has been most opportune, as several members of the family have sorely needed helping. I have also a little Hospice, where I receive those whom I hear of as in need of thorough change, mental and physical, for a month, sets of sunshine-seekers succeeding each other. My dear Lea is still left to me, and is my greatest comfort, so associated with all that is gone.

“My books have made me almost well known after a fashion, and people are very kind, for, with what Shakspeare calls ‘the excellent foppery of the world,’ many who used to snub me now almost ‘make up to me,’ and all kinds of so-called ‘great people’ invite me to their houses. Sometimes this is very pleasant, and I always enjoy being liked. I do not think it is likely to set me up; I have too strong a feeling of my own real inferiority to the opinion formed of me. Intellectually, I am so ill grounded that I really know nothing well or accurately; and if I am what is called ‘generous,’ certainly that is no virtue, for it pleases myself as well as others. I think it is still with me as George Sand says of herself, ‘Je n’ai pas de bonheur dans la vie, mais j’ai beaucoup de bonheurs.’

“To-morrow I am going abroad again. It is almost necessary for my books; and though I feel bitterly leaving Lea and the little home, I like my mother’s adopted son to earn a reputation; that is all I care for, except that it is always a pleasure to give pleasure. There is a sentence, too, of Carlyle’s which comes back to me--‘We are sufficiently applauded and approved, and ought now, if possible, to go and do something _deserving_ a little applause.’”