Story of My Life Part 16

Lord and Lady Feilding[68] had been most active in urging and a.s.sisting Italima's change of religion, and they now turned to my sister, leaving no means untried by which they might make her dissatisfied with the Protestant faith. As they left Rome, Lord Feilding put into her hand a long controversial letter, imploring her to study it. That very spring his own faith had been strengthened by a supposed miracle in his family.

Lady Feilding had long been ill, and had partly lost the use of her limbs from sciatica. She had to be carried everywhere. All kinds of baths and doctors had been tried in vain. The case was almost given up, when Pope Pius IX. advised him to apply to a family of peasants living in the mountains above Foligno, who possessed a miraculous gift of healing. St. Peter, it was said, had pa.s.sed by that way and had lodged with them, and, on taking leave, had said that of silver and gold he had none to give them, but that he left with them his miraculous gift of healing, to be perpetuated amongst their descendants. A messenger was despatched to this favoured family, and returned with a venerable old peasant, respectably dressed, who went up to Lady Feilding, and, after reciting the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and Apostles' Creed, said, "Per l'intercessione dei Sti. Apostoli S. Pietro e S. Paolo siete guarita da tutti i mali come speriamo." He pa.s.sed his hand rapidly over her limbs, and making the sign of the cross, said, "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti"--and added, "E finito." Then Lady Feilding felt her limbs suddenly strengthened, and rising, walked upstairs like other people, which she had not done for many months, and the same afternoon went to St. Peter's to return thanks, walking all over that enormous basilica without pain.[69][70] Her illness returned slightly, however, in the following winter, and in the summer of 1853 she died of consumption at Naples. Her death was a great grief to Italima.

It was in the Carnival of 1852, immediately after her mother's change of religion, that my sister, after the then fashion of Roman ladies, was seated in one of the carriages which in a long line were proceeding slowly up the Corso, and whose inmates were employed in pelting those of the carriages which met them with bouquets and bonbons. As she was eagerly watching for her friends amongst those who pa.s.sed, my sister observed in one of the carriages, dressed in deep mourning among the gay maskers, a lady who clasped her hands and looked at her fixedly. The expression of the lady was so peculiar, that when her carriage reached the end of the Corso and turned round at the Ripresa dei Barberi, my sister watched carefully for her reappearance in the opposite line of carriages which she was now again to meet. Again she saw the lady, who again looked at her with an expression of anguish and then burst into tears. The third time they met, the lady laid upon my sister's lap a splendid nosegay of azaleas and camellias, &c., quite different from the common bouquets which are usually thrown about in the Carnival.

When my sister went home, she told her little adventure to her aunt and mother while they were at dinner, but it did not make any great impression, as at Rome such little adventures are not uncommon, and do not create the surprise they would in England.

The next morning at breakfast the family were again speaking of what had happened, when the door opened, and F?lix came in. He said that there was a lady in the pa.s.sage, a lady in deep mourning, who gave her name as the Comtesse de Bolvilliers, who wished to speak to Italima at once on important business. At that time there were a great many lady _qu?teuses_ going about for the different charities, and most of them especially anxious to take advantage of the new convert to their Church.

Therefore Italima answered that she was unable to receive Madame de Bolvilliers, and that she knew no such person. In a minute F?lix returned saying that Madame de Bolvilliers could not leave the house without seeing Mrs. Hare, for that her errand involved a question of life and death. She was then admitted.

The lady who came into the room at Palazzo Parisani was not the lady my sister had seen in the Corso. She said she was come to tell a very sad story, and besought Italima to have patience with her while she told it, as she was the one person who had the power of a.s.sisting her. She said that she had a sister-in-law, another Countess de Bolvilliers, who was then living at the Palazzo Lovati in the Piazza del Popolo: that at the beginning of the winter her sister-in-law had come to Rome accompanied by her only daughter, in whom her whole life and love were bound up: that her daughter was of the exact age and appearance of my sister, and that she (the aunt) felt this so strongly, that it seemed to her, in looking upon my sister, as if her own niece was present before her: that soon after they came to Rome her niece had taken the Roman fever, and died after a very short illness: that her sister-in-law had been almost paralysed by grief, and had fallen into a state of mental apathy, from which nothing seemed able to rouse her. At last fears were entertained that, if her body recovered, her mind would never be roused again, and, two days before, the doctors had advised resorting to the expedient of a violent mental transition, and had urged that as Madame de Bolvilliers had remained for several months in her room, in silence and darkness, seeing no one, she should suddenly be taken out into the full blaze of the Carnival, when the shock of the change might have the effect of re-awakening her perceptions. At first the experiment had seemed to succeed; she had taken notice and recovered a certain degree of animation; but then, in the Carnival, she had seen what she believed to be her daughter returned from the grave; upon her return home, she had fallen into the most fearful state of anguish, and they had pa.s.sed the most terrible night, the unhappy mother declaring that her lost daughter had returned to life, but was in the hands of others. The sister-in-law implored that Italima would allow her daughter to return home with her to the Palazzo Lovati, in order to prove that she was a living reality, and not what she was believed to be.

My sister at once put on her bonnet and walked back with the second Countess de Bolvilliers to the Palazzo Lovati, where the family rented the small apartment at the back of the courtyard. When they entered her room, the unhappy mother jumped up, and throwing her arms round my sister, declared that she was her daughter, her lost daughter, come back to her from the dead. Gradually, but very gradually, she was induced to believe in my sister's separate ident.i.ty. When she became convinced of this, she declared her conviction that a person who so entirely resembled her daughter in appearance and manners must resemble her in character also; that she was herself very rich (her husband had been a Russian), and that if my sister would only come to live with her and be a daughter to her in the place of the one she had lost, she would devote her whole life to making her happy, and leave all her fortune to her when she died. My sister declared that this was impossible; that she had a mother of her own, whom she could not leave; that it was impossible for her to live with Madame de Bolvilliers. The Countess flung herself upon her knees, and implored and besought that my sister would reconsider her determination, but Esmeralda was inexorable. The Countess then said that she was of a very jealous disposition; that it was quite impossible that she could go on living in the world, and feeling that her daughter's living representative was the child of another,--that she should leave the world and go into a convent. My sister, whose antagonism to Roman Catholicism was just then at its height, besought her to reconsider this, urged the many opportunities which were still left to her of being useful in the world, and the folly of throwing away a life which might be devoted to the highest aims and purposes. But Madame de Bolvilliers, on her part, was now firm in her determination. Esmeralda then begged that she might sometimes be allowed to hear from her, and said that she should be glad to write to her; that, though she could not live with her and be her daughter, she could never lose the interest she already felt about her. But Madame de Bolvilliers said, "No! she could not have half love; she must either have my sister altogether, or she must never hear from her; that would try her and tantalise her too much." My sister then begged that she might at any rate be allowed to hear of her once--of her well-being and happiness, and, after much entreaty, Madame de Bolvilliers said, "Yes, after a year has expired, if you inquire at a certain house in the Rue S. Dominique at Paris, you shall hear of me, but not till then." She then went into the next room, and she came back with a number of jewels in her hands. "These," she said, "were the jewels my daughter wore when she was with me. I must have one last pleasure--one last consolation in this world, in fastening them upon the person of my daughter's living representative upon earth." And so saying, she fastened the necklace, bracelets, &c., upon my sister, who possessed these, the Bolvilliers jewels, till the day of her death. More than a year elapsed and nothing whatever was heard of the Countess.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LE TOMBEAU NAPOLEON.]

In 1854, Italima and my sister were pa.s.sing through Paris. They drove to see the Tombeau Napoleon, which was then newly erected at the Invalides.

As they returned, and as they were turning a corner, the name "Rue S.

Dominique" caught my sister's eyes. "Oh," she said, "the year has expired, and this is the place where we were to inquire after the Countess de Bolvilliers;" and in spite of her mother's a.s.surance that it was useless to look for her, she insisted upon driving to the number the Countess had indicated; but the portress declared that she knew of no such person as Madame de Bolvilliers. Upon this Italima said, "Well, now you see how it is; I always told you she gave you a false direction, because she did not wish you to find her out, and you will never discover her." "But to find her I am perfectly determined," said my sister, and she insisted on getting out of the carriage and knocking at every door down the long extent of the Rue S. Dominique to make inquiries, but without any result. Her mother followed in the carriage, very angry, but quite vainly urging her to get in. Having done one side of the street, Esmeralda insisted upon going up the other, and inquiring at every door in the same way. Her mother stormed to no purpose. She then insisted upon going back to the first house and inquiring who did live there. "Oh," said the portress, "it is a convent of the Sacr?

C?ur." When my sister heard this, she asked for the Superior, and said, "Is there any one here whose real name it may generally be thought better to conceal, but who was once known in the world as the Countess de Bolvilliers?" And the Superior said, "_You_ then are the lady who was to come from Rome in a year's time: you are exactly the person who has been described to me. Yes, Sister Marie Adela?de was once known in the world as Madame de Bolvilliers."

When my sister saw the Countess in her nun's dress, she found her perfectly calm and satisfied. She no longer reproached my sister for not having consented to live with her. She did not regret the step she had taken; she was perfectly happy in her convent life with its regular duties and occupations. She was also pleased that my sister should frequently go again to see her. My sister went very often, and, while visiting her, was introduced to the famous controversialist nun Madame Davidoff, by whose teaching and arguments she was converted to the Roman Catholic Church.

The last thing Italima wished was that her daughter should become a Roman Catholic, for my sister was at that time a considerable heiress, the whole of her aunt's fortune being settled upon her, as well as that which Italima had derived from Lady Anne Simpson. And Italima knew that if my sister changed her religion, her aunt, a vehement Protestant, would at once disinherit her.

My sister said nothing to her mother of what was going on. It was supposed that Madame de Bolvilliers was the only cause of her visits to the Sacr? C?ur. She also said nothing to her aunt, but her aunt suspected that all was not right. My sister had abstained from going to church on one pretext or another, for several Sundays. Easter was now approaching. "You will go to church with me on Good Friday, won't you, Esmeralda?" Aunt Eleanor kept saying.

At last Good Friday came. Aunt Eleanor, according to her habit, went in early to see my sister before she was up. My sister was more affectionate than usual. As soon as her aunt was gone, she got up and dressed very quickly and went off with her maid to the Sacr? C?ur.

In her room she left three letters--one to her mother, bidding her come to the church of the convent on a particular day, if she wished to see her received: one to her aunt, telling her that her determination was irrevocable, but breaking it to her as gently as she could: and one to her greatest friend, Marguerite Pole, begging her to go at once to her aunt to comfort her and be like a daughter in her place. "When Miss Paul read her letter," said Victoire, "her lips quivered and her face became pale as ashes. But she said no word to any one: it was quite awful, she was so terribly calm. She took up her bonnet from the place where it lay, and she walked straight downstairs and out of the house. We were so alarmed as to what she might do, that I followed her, but she walked quite firmly through the streets of Paris, till she reached Sir Peter Pole's house, and there she went in." Aunt Eleanor went straight up to Sir Peter Pole, and told him what had happened. Sir Peter was a very excitable man, and he immediately rang the bell and sent for his daughter Marguerite. When she came he said, "Esmeralda Hare is about to become a Roman Catholic; now remember that if you ever follow her example, I will turn you out of doors then and there with the clothes you have on, and will never either see you or hear of you again as long as you live." The result of this was that within a week Marguerite Pole had become a Roman Catholic. Of what happened at this time my sister has left some notes:--

"It was Madame Davidoff who led Marguerite Pole across the courtyard of the Sacr? C?ur to the little room at the other side of it, where the P?re de Ravignan was waiting for her. As she opened the door he looked up in an ecstasy. 'Voil? trois ans,' he said, 'que je prie pour votre arriv?e, et vous voil? enfin.' She was quite overcome, and told him that for three years she had seen a figure constantly beckoning her forward, she knew not whither.

The P?re de Ravignan answered, 'I believe that you will see that figure for the last time on the day of your premi?re communion;'

and so it was: the figure stood by her then, and afterwards it disappeared for ever.

"At the first Sir Peter had said that he would turn Marguerite out of doors, and his fury knew no bounds. One evening Marguerite sent her maid privately to me with a note saying, 'To-morrow morning I shall declare myself: to-morrow my father will turn me out of doors, and what _am_ I to do?' 'Oh,' I said, 'only have faith and watch what will happen, for it will all come right.' And sure enough, so it seemed at the time, for the next morning Sir Peter sent for his housekeeper and said to her, 'I've changed my mind; Miss Marguerite shall not go away; and I've changed my mind even so much that I shall send to Mrs. Hare and ask her to take me with her when she goes to see her daughter make her premi?re communion.'

"It was quite a great function in the church of the Sacr? C?ur.

I was terrified out of my wits when I saw the crowd in the church, and in the chancel were the Bishop, the Papal Nuncio, and all the princ.i.p.al clergy of Paris, for it was quite an event. Marguerite and I were dressed in white, with white veils and wreaths of white roses. As the Papal Nuncio came forward to place his hands on our heads, in the very act of confirmation, there was a fearful crash, and Sir Peter fell forward over the bench just behind us, and was carried insensible out of the church. Mamma went with him, for she thought he was dying. When he came to himself his first words were--'Louisa, Louisa! I have seen Louisa.' He had seen Lady Louisa Pole.

"When Lady Louisa was dying she said to Marguerite, 'My child, there is one thing I regret; it is that I have had doubts about the Roman Catholic Church, and that I have never examined.'"

Of this time are the following notes by Victoire:--

"When your sister first insisted upon going to the Sacr? C?ur, she said it was 'pour voir.' 'O comme c'est dr?le,' I said to Madame Hare. But your sister was always obstinate in her own intentions. 'Je veux examiner la religion catholique au fond,' she said, 'ainsi que la religion protestante.' She got all the books.

She read those on both sides. Then she went to the Sacr? C?ur again. Her maid went to her three times a day. One day she took her a great many things. 'What is it you take to Mademoiselle?' I said.

'I take what she ordered me,' answered the maid, and I said no more: but it was really the white dress, the veil, and all that was required for the reception. The next day I had a note from Mademoiselle asking me to come to her at eight o'clock. I showed it to Madame. 'Eh bien, nous irons ensemble,' she said, and we went together in the carriage. When we reached the Sacr? C?ur, we were shown at once to the chapel, and then I began to suspect. All the nuns were a.s.sembled. At last a door opened and your sister came in, all in white, with a long white veil on her head. She walked in firm and erect, and knelt down at a _prie Dieu_ in the aisle. The P?re de Ravignan made a most touching discourse. He bade her, if she still felt any doubts, to remember that there was still time; he urged her not to come forward without true faith. At the end of his discourse she walked firmly up to the altar and knelt on the steps. She remained there while ma.s.s was said. After it was over she was taken into the garden. There she embraced her mother and me. A collation was then served.... Nothing was said about her going away. 'Voulez vous amener votre fille?' said one of the nuns at last to Madame Hare. 'Je la laisse parfaitement libre maintenant et toujours,' she replied. 'Oh comme Mademoiselle ?tait belle ce jour-l?; elle ?tait fra?che, elle allait si bien avec ce grand voile blanc, et ses beaux cheveux noirs, et ses grands yeux: elle avait du couleur, elle ?tait vraiment ravissante! elle ?tait radieuse!... Dans ce temps-l? elle ?tait la reine de tous les bals--? l'amba.s.sade, ? la cour, partout: mais elle n'?tait jamais plus ravissante de sa beaut? que ce jour-l? dans le couvent.'"

The Dowager Lady Lothian[71] once told me that in the letter of condolence which Madame Davidoff wrote to my sister after her mother's death she said, "The cross which you saw on the day of your first communion has been very heavy, but it has never crushed you." On the day of her first communion she saw a huge black cross between her and the altar. She lay on the ground, and it advanced to crush her, only it seemed as if an invisible power upheld it, and then she saw that the top was wreathed with flowers. Oh, how prophetic was this vision of the cross!

A few days after her reception, Sir Peter Pole fulfilled his word with regard to his daughter Marguerite. He turned her out of his house, and he never would allow her name to be mentioned again. Not only to her father, but to my sister, and to her own sister, Alice Pole, every trace of her was lost. How my sister met Marguerite Pole again, and of her extraordinary history in after years, will be told later in these volumes.

I have been antic.i.p.ating greatly, but it seems impossible to break up a connected story into the different years in which their events occurred.

Meantime, without any romantic excitement and far removed from religious controversy, our quiet existence flowed on; though I was always fond of my sister and deeply interested in the faint echoes which from time to time reached me from her life.

Mrs. Alexander was now settled at the Rectory at Hurstmonceaux, and she ruled as its queen. Uncle Julius consulted her even on the smallest details; she ordered everything in the house, she took the leading part with all the guests, everything gave way to her. And the odd thing was that Mrs. Julius Hare (Aunt Esther), instead of being jealous, worshipped with greater enthusiasm than any one else at the shrine of the domestic idol. I have met many perfectly holy and egotistical women, but Mrs. Alexander was the most characteristic specimen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANON STANLEY'S HOUSE, CANTERBURY.]

In the summer of 1851, Arthur Stanley had been appointed to a canonry at Canterbury, which was a great delight to me as well as to him. "One of my greatest pleasures in going to Canterbury is the thought of Augustus's raptures over the place and the cathedral," he wrote to my mother. And truly I did enjoy it, and so did he. The eight years he spent at Canterbury were certainly the happiest of his life. We spent part of my winter holidays there with him and his family. Mrs. Grote used to describe Arthur truly as "like a sausage, packed so full of information;" and, with many peculiarities, he was the most charming of hosts, while his enthusiastic interest peopled every chapel, every cloister, every garden, with historic memories. Arthur Stanley's was now the most stimulating companionship possible. He had lost all the excessive shyness which had characterised his youth, and talked on all subjects that interested him (ignoring those which did not) with an eloquence which "se moque de l'?loquence," as Pascal says. His canonry was situated in its own garden, reached by the narrow paved pa.s.sage called "the Brick Walk," which then intersected the buildings on the north-east of the cathedral. Just behind was the Deanery, where the venerable Dean Lyall used to be seen walking up and down daily in the sun in the garden which contained the marvellous old mulberry tree, to preserve the life of which a bullock was actually killed that the tree might derive renewed youth from its blood. The fact that a huge bough rent asunder[72] from this old tree had taken root, and become even more flourishing than the parent stem, was adapted as an ill.u.s.tration by Arthur Stanley in a lecture in which he likened the two trees to the Churches of Rome and England.

Enchanting indeed were the many ancient surroundings of the mighty cathedral--the Baptistery with its open arches and conical roof half buried in ivy; the dark pa.s.sage haunted by "Nell Cook;" the Norman staircase, so beautiful in colour; the Pilgrim's Inn, down a narrow entry from the street; the many tombs of the archbishops; and most of all the different points through which one could follow Thomas ? Becket so vividly through his last hours from his palace to his martyrdom. I made many drawings, chiefly in pencil and sepia, for my mother and aunt deprecated colour. "Until you can draw perfectly you have no right to it. Do one thing well, and not two badly," they said. Of course they were right; and though often abashed and distressed by Aunt Kitty's dictum--"Crude, coa.r.s.e, harsh, and vulgar," after looking at my sketches, I always felt the slight meed of praise just possible from her lips a prize well worth striving for. I owe much to her (as to my mother's) constant inquiry, after I had done a drawing I was conceitedly proud of, as to what each line meant, and unless I could give a good account of its intention, desiring me to rub it out; thus inculcating the pursuit of _truth_, which she urged in drawing as in all else, instead of striving after unattainable excellence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SITE OF BECKET'S SHRINE, CANTERBURY.]

One great interest of this winter was going with Arthur Stanley excursions to Bozledeane Wood and tracing out on the spot the curious history of the so-called Sir William Courtenay, which is so strangely at variance with the usually matter-of-fact character of the present century. Briefly, the story is that of John Nichols Tom, son of a maltster at Truro, who ran away from his wife, and, going to Canterbury, announced himself as Sir William Courtenay, and laid claim to the t.i.tle and rights of the Earls of Devon. His dress was most extraordinary--a scarlet robe with a crimson hanger. He was taken up, tried for perjury, and confined in a lunatic asylum, but, while there, contrived to interest Sir Edward Knatchbull in his behalf, and obtained his release by Sir Edward's influence with Lord John Russell. On his return to Canterbury in 1838, he gave out that he was not only Sir William Courtenay, but Jesus Christ himself. It was not so much his dress, as his long flowing hair, his beard, his perfect proportions, his beauty and height, which lent themselves to his story, and his wonderful resemblance to the well-known pictures of the Saviour. The rustics and tradesmen welcomed him, and really believed in him. With forty of his most devoted disciples he took up his abode in a village near Canterbury. He was always preaching, and the chief part of his doctrine was faith--faith in himself. He formed a plan of storming Canterbury and seizing the cathedral on Whitsunday, when all the people were at the service there. But this plan was frustrated and he lived in comparative quietude till Michaelmas. Then a constable was sent to arrest him. The constable found Courtenay with his forty disciples at breakfast at a farmhouse near Bozledeane Wood, and when Courtenay saw him approach, he went out, shot him, and leaving him writhing in agony upon the ground, returned, perfectly unruffled, to finish his repast. After breakfast "Sir William Courtenay" led his disciples down the path, which still remains, into a hollow by a little stream in the heart of the wood. Here his followers, under Colonel Armstrong, a fanatical leader from Canterbury, threw up an earthwork, behind which they entrenched themselves, and here they were surrounded by a body of troops sent out in three bands to encompa.s.s them. Lieutenant Bennet, who was in command, was sent forward to parley with the impostor. Courtenay, who stood under a tree, waited till he came close up, and then shot him through the heart! The troops then rushed forwards, but the fanatics, though greatly astonished at the death of Courtenay, who, in spite of his professed invulnerability, fell in the first onset, fought with fury, and defended themselves with their bludgeons against the muskets of the soldiers. At last seven of them were killed and the rest taken prisoners.

Mr. Curteis, the Princ.i.p.al of St. Augustine's College, who went with us to Bozledeane Wood, described the scene after the battle, the pools of blood, the trees riddled with shot, the bodies lying in the public-house, and the beautiful hair of Courtenay being cut off and distributed amongst the people. It was fourteen years afterwards that we visited the spot. We went to the farmhouse where the last breakfast was held and the gate where the constable was shot. The view was beautiful over the Forest of Blean to the sea, with the line of the Isle of Sheppey breaking the blue waters. A boy guided us down the tangled path to the hollow where the battle took place by the little stream, said to be now frequented by the white squirrel and badger. The "stool" of the tree under which Courtenay stood had lately been grubbed up. The boy described Courtenay and his forty men lying on a green mossy bank talking, the evening before they were attacked, and his giving "bull's-eyes" to all the children on the morning of the battle.

Courtenay had great powers of attracting all who came in contact with him. A girl belonging to the farmhouse (who on a previous occasion had knocked his arm aside when he would have shot a magistrate) rushed about during the engagement to give water and help to the dying, perfectly regardless of the bullets which were flying around her. And after his death his wife turned up, "Mrs. Tom" from Truro, most deeply afflicted, for "he was the best of husbands!"

I liked better being with the Stanleys at Canterbury than in London, where they talked--as people in London do talk, and where my dearest mother, who had lived only in the narrowest groove latterly, and especially as to religious things, often felt it necessary to "testify to her religious profession" in a way which was even more a mortification than a pain to me. After we began to go abroad, and she was removed from the "mutual admiration society" at Hurstmonceaux, she took a wider view of everything,[73] and had a far better and more general influence in consequence. But there was a time when my mother, so infinitely tender and gentle in her own nature, almost seemed to have lost her hold upon the liberality and gentleness of the Christian gospel in her eager espousal of the doctrine of fire and worms beyond the grave. I think it is St. Jerome who says, "Desire rather to act Scripture than to write about it, to do rather than to say holy things."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Southgate, Feb. 10, 1852._--My own dearest mother, I am settled here again after my most happy holidays, with the old faces round me, and the old tiresome conversation about nothing but the comparative virtues of ruff pigeons and carriers.... The last part of the holidays at Canterbury was indeed perfectly delightful, and I enjoyed it--oh! so much. I shall work very hard, and tell Arthur I shall be quite ready for an examination on Pericles, Marathon, and Arbela when I see him again. I am afraid Aunt Kitty thought me awfully ignorant of Greek history, but I really never have had anything to do with it.[74] I think of you and your walk through the beautiful cloister when I plod through the muddy village to our hideous chapel. It is very smoky and dirty and misty, but--I will not be discontented."

"_Feb. 14._--And now I think of my dearest mother at home again, sitting in the evening in her own arm-chair in Peace Corner, with her little table and her Testament, and John and my Fausty[75]--all white and clean--bringing in the supper, and, oh! how nice it must be!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEPS AT LIME.]

It was very soon after her return from Canterbury that my mother, going to visit a sick woman in the village, slipped down a turfy frostbound bank near some steps in the garden at Lime. Unable to make any one hear her cries for help, she contrived to crawl to the back part of the house, whence she was carried to a sofa, and a doctor was sent for, who found that her leg was broken. After very many weeks upon a sofa, all lameness was cured, but the confinement, to one used to an active life, told seriously upon her health, and my dearest mother was always liable to serious illness from this time, though her precious life was preserved to me for nineteen years to come. Henceforward I never left her without misery, and when with her was perhaps over-anxious about her. Mr. Bradley wisely sent me at once to her for a day that I might be rea.s.sured, and I feel still an echo of the pang with which I first saw her helpless--as I so often saw her afterwards. How I remember all the sheltered spots in which Lea and I found primroses for her in the one day I was at home in this bitterly early spring!

_To_ MY MOTHER (after returning to Southgate).

"_March 13, 1852._--Yesterday we had 'a truce,' so I hurried to see Gerard's Hall in Bow Lane before its demolition. It has latterly been an inn, with a statue of Gerard the Giant over the door. A wooden staircase leads into the wine-cellar, once Gerard's Crypt, possessing slender arches and pillars, most beautiful in colour, and forming wonderful subjects for pictures, with pewter pots and stone pitchers thrown about in confusion."

"_April 29._--I have been to see Mrs. Gayford, the nurse who brought me over to England. She is very poor, and lives in an attic in the New Wharf Road, but was enchanted to see me. I sate upon the old seachest which has been often with her to India, and heard the history of her going to Mannheim and meeting my father with his 'weak baby--very pa.s.sionate, you know, but then it's in the nature of such young gentlemen to be so.' And then she described the journey and voyage, and my ingrat.i.tude to a lady who had been very kind to me by slapping her in the face when she was sea-sick."

"_June 15._--We are in the midst of an examination in Thierry's 'Norman Conquest.' At nine we all a.s.semble in the dining-room, and the greatest anxiety is exhibited: the 'prophets' proclaim their views on the issue of the day, and the 'hunters' speculate upon the horses who are to 'run in the Thierry stakes.' Bradley comes in with the papers and gives one to each, and from that time we are in custody: no one can exchange a word, and two fellows may never go up to the table together. When we have done that set of questions, generally between one and three o'clock, we are at liberty till five, and then we are in custody again till we have done the next, at nine, ten, or eleven. Bradley is on guard all day, or, if he is obliged to go out, Mrs. B. mounts guard for him. They cannot employ themselves, as they have always to wander up and down the rows of writers with their eyes.... I like the life during these examinations, there is so much more excitement than over ordinary work, and one never has time to get stupid, but the others do nothing but bemoan themselves."

I think it must have been on leaving Southgate for the summer that I paid a visit of one day to "Italima" and my sister in a house which had been lent them in Grosvenor Square. It was then that my sister said, "Mamma, Augustus is only with us for one day. We ought to take the opportunity of telling him what may be of great importance to him: we ought to tell him the story of the 'Family Spy.'" What I then heard was as follows:--

For many years my sister had observed that she and her mother were followed and watched by a particular person. Wherever they went, or whatever they did, she was aware of the same tall thin man dressed in grey, who seemed to take a silent interest in all that happened to them.

At last this surveillance became quite disagreeable and they tried to escape it. One spring they pretended that they were going to leave Rome on a particular day, announced it to their friends, and made secret preparations for quitting Rome a week earlier. They arrived in safety within a few miles of Florence, when, looking up at a tall tower by the side of the road, my sister saw the face of the Family Spy watching them from its battlements. Another time they heard that the Spy was ill and confined to his bed, and they took the opportunity of moving at once. As their vetturino carriage turned out of the piazza into the Via S. Claudio, in order to attain the Corso, which must be pa.s.sed before reaching the gate of the city, the narrow street was almost blocked up by another carriage, in which my sister saw the emaciated form of the Family Spy propped on pillows and lying on a mattress, and which immediately followed them. Constant inquiries had long since elicited the fact that the Spy was a Sicilian Marquis who had been living at Palermo when my parents were there, and whose four children were exactly the same age as _their_ four children. Soon afterwards his wife and all his children were swept away at one stroke by the cholera, and he was left utterly desolate. With characteristic Sicilian romance, he determined to create for himself a new family and a new interest in life by adopting the other family, which was exactly parallel to his own, and of which only the father had been removed--but adopting it by a mysterious bond, in which the difficulty of a constant surveillance should give entire occupation to his time and thought. When Italima heard this, after making inquiries about him which proved satisfactory, she sent to the Spy to say that she thought it much better this secret surveillance should end, but that she should be happy to admit him as a real friend, and allow him to see as much as he liked of the family in which he took so deep an interest. But, though expressing great grat.i.tude for this proposal, the Spy utterly declined it. He said that he had so long accustomed himself to the constant excitement of his strange life, that it would be quite impossible for him to live without it; that if ever an opportunity occurred of rendering any great service to the family whose fortunes he followed, he would speak to them, but not till then.

When I had been told this story, my sister and Italima took me out in the afternoon to drive in the Park. As we were pa.s.sing along the road by the Serpentine, my sister suddenly exclaimed, "There, look! there is the Family Spy," and, among those who walked by the water, I saw the tall thin grey figure she had described. We pa.s.sed him several times, and he made such an impression upon me that I always knew him afterwards. My sister said, "If you look out at ten o'clock to-night, you will see him leaning against the railing of Grosvenor Square watching our windows,"--and so it was; there was the tall thin figure with his face uplifted in the moonlight.