Records of Later Life Part 55

Good-bye, my dear.

I am ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

[Mademoiselle de Luzzy, the governess of the Duc de Praslin's children, was acquitted upon his trial of any complicity in his crime; that of which she was not acquitted, however, was, turning the hearts of her pupils against their unfortunate mother, and endeavoring to establish her position and authority in the d.u.c.h.ess's home and family, at her expense. By a most strange turn of circ.u.mstance, Mademoiselle de Luzzy, thus connected with the great world of Paris and implicated in one of its most tragic occurrences, went to the United States, where she married a country clergyman, whose family belonged to the peaceful population of Stockbridge--one of the loveliest villages in the "Happy Valley" of the Housatonic.

The residence of the Sedgwick family in this charming place attracted to it many foreigners of mark and distinction; but few, certainly, whose claims to notoriety were so peculiar and painful as this lady's.

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, of Carolside, was a Scotchwoman of an Aberdeen family. She was my dear friend for many years, and a perfectly charming person. Her face was exquisitely pretty and her figure faultless; she had very peculiar eyes of a lightish hazel, with such long lashes that it seemed occasionally as if her eyes were shining through a soft haze of golden brown rays. She spoke with a slight Scotch accent, the "winning Scottish speech" which Secretary Philips writes of as one of Mary Stuart's peculiar charms; and she was personally my notion of that "much blamed, much worshipped" modern Helen. She had remarkable decision of character and force of will, with the gentlest and most feminine appearance and manner; she was humorous and witty, and an incomparable mimic. She was a woman of admirably high principle and rect.i.tude, and in every way as attractive as she was estimable. Her eldest son was proprietor of a charming place, Carolside, just over the Scottish border, and had hardly come of age and inherited it when the Crimean war broke out and compelled him, then a young officer in the army, to leave his pleasant home prospects and encounter the threatening aspect of "grim-visaged war." His mother, whose widowed life had been devoted to him and his younger brother, also a soldier, fluttered after her dear ones to the Crimea, and had the joy to get them safe back from the "world's great snare uncaught."

Lady M---- and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l were attached and almost inseparable friends for many years, occupying the same house in London, travelling on the Continent together, and when in Scotland living together at Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's pretty home, Carolside, or hiring some house in the Highlands together. Emily de Viry (afterwards, alas!

Emily de Revel) I met again, for the first time for many years, at Carolside. She was the daughter of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Basil Montague, and half-sister of my kind friend Mrs. Procter, and a very intimate friend of my sister Adelaide. She was an extremely interesting person, the tragic close of whose life can never be thought of without profound regret. She had married her cousin Count Charles de Viry, and after years of widowhood she married again the Count Adrien de Revel, Sardinian Amba.s.sador in England, to whom she had not been united a week when they were both carried off by the cholera, which was then raging in Genoa: the same paper which announced their marriage brought the tidings of their untimely death to me. During this visit of mine to Carolside M. de Revel came there for a few days; I was well acquainted with him, and liked him very much.]

CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, Sunday, 29th.

I am no more in London, my dear Hal, but in one of the sweetest places I ever was in, which, as you know, is a great delight to me.

I am only just beginning to recover from the effects of the journey hither, which, though divided into two days, made me very unwell....

Surely, you never meant, in spite of my invariable habit of replying to all your questions, that I should ever attempt an answer to that suggestion of your love and sorrow which, in speaking of your brother [Barry S----, dead many years before], makes you exclaim, "What now is his nature?" ...

I have been sorrier to think of the death of Dr. Combe than I was to hear of it, when, as is always the case with me, my first feeling was one almost of joy and congratulation. I never have any other emotion on first hearing of a good man's death. I have an instantaneous sense of relief, as it were, for such a one, of freer breathing, of expanded powers; of infirmity, pain, sorrow, trouble, fleshly hinderance, and earthly suffering for ever laid in the grave and left behind; and that glorious creature, a n.o.ble human soul, soaring into a purer atmosphere proper to it, and promoted to such higher duties as may well be deemed rewards for duties well fulfilled on earth.

After a little while I began to cry, thinking of that sweet, beaming, intelligent, benevolent countenance, that I am never to see here again; but this was crying for myself, not him. I am truly grieved for his brother, and all who knew, and loved, and have lost so excellent a friend.

I have a paper in my possession still, which he laughingly drew up and gave me when I was a girl in Edinburgh, a sort of legal doc.u.ment, binding him to appear to me after he was dead; and one or two evenings, as I lay on my sofa alone in Orchard Street, I thought of this, and could not help fancying that if indeed it had been possible he could have appeared to me, the familiar trust and affection with which I always regarded him would have been paramount to all fears and wonders in the first moment of my seeing him.

I have heard nothing more of my engagement at the Princess's Theatre, and begin to think that perhaps I shall not hear anything more about it; but I scarcely expected to do so before the end of November, because till then I should not be wanted there, and I dare say the manager will leave me as long a time as possible to consider of his offers and my acceptance or rejection of them.

I am charmed with my hostess. She is exceedingly pretty--a great virtue, as you know, in my estimation; she is upright, true, pious, and uncommonly reasonable and judicious: am I not right to be charmed with her? Then, too, she is most kind, gentle, considerate, and affectionate to me, and esteems me, as I believe I have before told you, far beyond my deserts--who can resist _that_ bribe?

Upon several points upon which I differ from people's usual modes of thinking and feeling, I find there is a great similarity in our views; and I feel as if I might thank G.o.d for an addition to the treasure of excellent people's love that He has comforted my life withal; and count another friend added to those who have been such infinite blessings to me.

I am left to conclude that Mrs. Grote was so absorbed in her interest in Mademoiselle Jenny Lind that I vanished utterly from her mind; for after coming to see me just before I went down to Bannisters and pressing me to go to the Beeches when I returned, I never heard another word about it, or even set eyes upon her again.

I have been with your precious Dorothy, who came, both to my joy and sorrow, to meet me at the railroad station, with her poor face covered with that hideous respirator, and speaking when she had it off as if she still had it on, her voice was so pale and dim. It grieved me that she should have made an exertion that I feared might injure her, and yet I was delighted to see her and most grateful for her extreme kindness in thus troubling herself. She came, too, with her hands full of flowers (my "good angels" brought to me by your "good angel," which seemed to me pretty and proper, was it not?), and carried me straight off to Fulford [Miss Wilson's home near York], where, in spite of much pain and exhaustion consequent upon the long railroad journey, I pa.s.sed a blessed few hours with her, though our talk inevitably was of much sorrow....

I have not had time yet to see anything of the condition of the people about this place. The villages and cottages we pa.s.sed coming hither all struck me as poor and comfortless compared with England; but the less cleanly and tidy habits of the Scotch, and their almost universal practice of going barefoot--at least the women and children,--give an impression of greater poverty and discomfort than really exist, I believe.

I have not yet received my American letters.... I am to act three nights at Glasgow. I think Kelso is the town nearest Carolside, and that is fourteen miles distant; the post town or village is Earlston (Ercildown), a mile from the house. The whole region belongs to poetry and legend and romance. The Eildon hills overlook it, and Thomas the Rhymer haunts it, and the Scotch ballads are full of it. Do you know--oh no, you know no songs, you unfortunate!--"Leader haughs and Yarrow," or that exquisite melody beloved of Mendelssohn:--

"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride!

Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome _marrow_!"

(isn't that an odd term of endearment to one's mistress?)

"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride!

And think nae mair on the braes of Yarrow"?

Then there is that lovely ditty "Gala Water," which I always sing in honor of my young host, who is a sort of Laird of Galashiel. The whole place is full of such charming suggestions and a.s.sociations. The Leader, a lovely, clear, rapid, shallow, sparkling trout-stream, makes a sudden bend across the lawn, opposite the drawing-room and dining-room windows here (last October the pixie got vexed at something and very nearly rushed in to the house); and early before breakfast this morning I walked along the banks of the stream, and then knee deep up its bright waters, and then over the breezy hills, "O'er the hills, amang the heather," whence I watched its gleaming course between red-colored rocks, like walls of porphyry or Roman tufa, and through corn-fields, and by tufted woods, and felt for an hour as if there was no bitterness in life....

I shall remain here till September 11th, when I go to Glasgow, where I expect to act on the 13th. I shall be very sorry to go away, but shall certainly by that time have had enjoyment enough to feel that it would be unwise to tempt the inevitable decree which makes all pleasure and happiness short-lived here, and which, when we strive to retain or detain them, makes us wise through some disappointment or disenchantment, which it is still wiser to antic.i.p.ate and avoid.

Farewell, dear Hal.

I am ever as ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

[Carolside was situated just beyond the Border in Scotland, in that region of romantic and poetical traditions, full of the charm of early legendary and ballad lore, of the a.s.sociations of Burns's songs and Scott's Border minstrelsy, pervaded with the old superst.i.tions, half-beliefs, dating from as far back as the days of Thomas the Rhymer, and the later powerful influence of the Wizard of the North, the mighty master-magician of our own day.

Melrose, Dryburgh, and Abbotsford, Smailholme, and Beamerside, were all within easy distance of it; "the bonnie broom of Cowdenknowes"

bloomed in its neighborhood; the Gala, the Leader, the Tweed, the Yarrow, ran singing through the lovely region, the exquisite melodies that have been inspired by their wild scenery. It was a region of natural beauty, heightened by every a.s.sociation that could add to its charm. The Eildon Hills were our landmarks in all our walks and rides and drives: and Ercildown, modernized into Earlston, the picturesque post-village at our gates.]

CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, September 5th.

MY DEAR LADY DACRE,

... Of the advantageous engagement which you heard I had concluded I cannot speak with any certainty, for it never was settled definitively, and I begin to think will not be concluded. I think it may have been nothing more than a feint on the part of the manager of the Princess's Theatre, who has been urged by Mr. Macready's friends to engage me to act with him, and who, as he will not give me my terms, has, I think, perhaps merely tendered me an arrangement that he knew I would not accept, in order to be able to say that he had _endeavored_ to make an arrangement with me. I am very sorry for this, for employment during the winter months in London is what I much desired. However, "there is a soul of good even in things evil," and the later experiences of my life have left me little sensibility to spend upon crosses of this description.

Not to be able to work for my own maintenance would indeed be a serious calamity to me; but if I fail of a theatrical engagement I shall fall back upon my original plan, to me so far preferable, of giving readings.

I do not think that now, after a whole year of apparent relinquishment of that pursuit, my father has any thought of resuming it, which leaves me free to make the attempt.

I am staying with a friend at a place on the Scottish Border; the Leader, famous in song, runs across the lawn; we are four miles from Melrose, and about as many from Abbotsford; the country is lovely, and full of poetical and romantic a.s.sociations.

I remain here another week, and then go to Glasgow, where I am to act; after that I expect to pa.s.s three weeks in Edinburgh, between my two cousins, Cecilia Combe (whom you remember as Cecy Siddons) and a daughter of my dear friend Mrs. Harry Siddons, who married Major Mair, and is living happily and prosperously in beautiful Edinburgh.

I must either act or give readings during this time, as I can in no wise afford to be idle.

It was a great disappointment to me to _boil_ by B----'s very door on my way here [Miss Barbarina Sullivan, Lady Dacre's granddaughter, now the Hon. Lady Grey], but my plans had been all disarranged and confused by other people, and I was most unwillingly compelled to pa.s.s by Howick. I have written to offer myself to her in the last week of October on my way back to London, and heartily hope she may be able and willing to receive me, as I long to see her in her new home.

Pray give my kind regards to Mrs. Brand. You ought to be of the greatest use, comfort, and pleasure to each other, endowed, as you both are, with the especial graces of age and youth.

With affectionate respects to Lord Dacre, believe me

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

[Miss Susan Cavendish had married the Hon. Thomas Brand, Lord Dacre's nephew and heir. When I wrote this letter young Mr. and Mrs.

Brand lived a good deal at the Hoo with my kind old friends.]

CAROLSIDE, EARLSTON, September 5th.

You ask me what I am doing, dear Hal. I am driving fifteen miles in an open britzska, in a bitter blowing day, to return morning calls of neighbors, whose laudable desire is to "keep the county lively," and who have dragged my little hostess into active partic.i.p.ation in a picnic at Abbotsford, which is to take place next Friday, the weather promising to reward the seekers after "liveliness" with their death of cold, if they escape their death of dulness.

I have taken several charming rides; the country is beautiful. I have caught a tolerably good cold--I mean, good of its kind--by wading knee deep in the Leader, and then standing on cold rocks, fishing by the hour; in which process I did catch--cold, but nothing else; for, though the water is still drowning deep in some beautiful brown pools, set in the rocks like huge cairngorms, it is, for the most part, so shallow, and everywhere so clear with the long-continued drought, that the spotted trout and silver eels see me quite as well as I see them, and behave accordingly, avoiding me more successfully, but quite as zealously, as I seek them....

Our party has. .h.i.therto consisted of Emily de Viry, an uncle and brother of Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's, and a London banker, a friend of hers. This, with the "liveliness" of the neighborhood, with whom we have dined, and who have dined with us, has been our society.

Next week Lady M----, who has been on a visit at Dunse Castle, returns, and various people are coming from sundry places; but, except the Comte de Revel, I do not know any of those who are expected.

The only music I have is my own, _forbye_ a comic song or two, gasped and death-rattled out by poor old Sir Adam Fergusson, whom I met seventeen years ago at Walter Scott's house, and who is still tottering on, with inexhaustible spirits, but a body that seems quite threadbare, tattered, and ready to fall in pieces with long and hard use.

I do not read to the party collectively, but occasionally to Emily de Viry alone, who has asked me once or twice to read her favorite poems of hers, of Wordsworth's, Tennyson's, and Milnes's....