Story of My Life Part 40

"_April 26._--Miss Robinson has been telling me, 'When we were in London, we went to a chapel in Bedford Place where Sydney Smith often used to preach, and we were shown into a pew; for, you know, in London you do not sit where you like, but they show you into pews--the women people that keep the church do. There was a strange lady in the seat, and I have never seen her before or since. It was not I that sat next to her--my Sister Surtees was the person. The service was got through very well, and when the preacher got up, it was Sydney Smith. I remember the sermon as if it were to-day. It was from the 106th Psalm. He described the end of man--the "portals of mortality." "Over those portals," he said, "are written Death!

Plague! Famine! Pestilence!" &c., and he was most violent. I am sure the poor man that had read the service and was sitting underneath would rather have been at the portals of mortality than where he was just then, for Sydney Smith thumped the cushion till it almost touched his head, and he must have thought the whole thing was coming down upon him. The lady in the pew was quite frightened, and she whispered to my Sister Surtees, "This is Sir Sydney Smith, who has been so long in the wars, and that is what makes him so violent."--"Oh dear, no," said my Sister Surtees, "you are under a great mistake," &c.

"Miss Robinson described her youth at Houghton-le-Spring, now almost the blackest place in Durham.

"'Houghton-le-Spring was a lovely rustic village. There was not a pit in the neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood was the best that was known in England. Sixteen or seventeen carriages waited at the church-gate every Sunday. My father lived at Herrington Hall, and our family were buried in Bernard Gilpin's tomb, because they were related.

"'The Lyons[206] of Hetton were a beautiful family, but Mrs.

Fellowes was the loveliest. Jane and Elizabeth died each of a rapid decline. Mrs. Lyon embarked ?60,000 in the pit at Hetton, lost it, and died of a broken heart. People used to say, 'Do you know where Mrs. Lyon's heart is? At the bottom of Hetton coal-pit.'"

After a visit to the George Liddells at Durham, I went on to Northumberland.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Westgate Street, Newcastle, May 6, 1862._--Yesterday afternoon I came here, to the old square dark red brick house of the Claytons, who are like merchant-princes in Newcastle, so enormous is their wealth, but who still live in the utmost simplicity in the old-fashioned family house in this retired shady street. The family are all remarkable. First comes Mr. John Clayton of Chesters, the well-known antiquary of North Tyne, a grand, st.u.r.dy old man, with a head which might be studied for a bust of Jupiter;[207] then there is his brother Matthew, a thin tall lawyer, full of jokes and queer sayings; then the venerable and beautiful old sister, Mrs. Anne Clayton (beloved far and wide by the poor, amongst whom she spends her days, and who are all devoted to 'Mrs. Nancy Claytoun'), is the gentlest and kindest of old ladies. And besides these, there is the nephew, George Nathaniel, a college friend of mine, and his wife, Isabel Ogle, whom we have often met abroad.

"Last night, Dr. Bruce[208] dined, the leader of the 'Romanist'

antiquarians in the county, in opposition to Dr. Charlton and the 'Medi?valists.'"

"_May 7._--How amused my mother would be with this quaintest of families, who live here in the most primitive fashion, always treating each other as if they were acquaintances of the day, and addressing one another by their full t.i.tles, as 'Miss Anne Clayton, will you have the goodness to make the tea?'--'Mr. Town-Clerk of Newcastle, will you have the kindness to hand me the toast?' &c.

Miss Anne is a venerable lady with snow-white hair, but her brother Matthew, who is rather older, is convinced that she is one of the most harum-scarum young girls in the world, and is continually pulling her up with 'Miss Anne Clayton, you are very inaccurate,'--'Miss Anne Clayton, be careful what you say,'--'Miss Anne Clayton, another inaccuracy,'--while the poor old sister goes on her own way without minding a bit.

"This afternoon we have been to Tynemouth, and most refreshing was the sea-air upon the cliffs, and the sight of that enchanting old ruin standing on its rocky height. The journey was very curious through the pit, gla.s.s, and alkali country.

"This evening old Mr. Matthew has been unusually extraordinary, and very fatiguing--talking for exactly two hours about his bootmakers, Messrs. Hoby & Humby, whence they came, what they had done, and how utterly unrivalled they were. 'Miss Anne Clayton,' he said at the end, 'I hope you understand all I've been saying. Now wait before you give an opinion, but above all things, Miss Anne Clayton, don't, don't be inaccurate.'"

"_Dilston Hall, May 8, 1862._--I left Westgate Street this morning directly after breakfast, and getting out of the train at Blaydon, walked by Stella and Ryton to Wylam. Ryton was very interesting to me, because the church is full of monuments of my Simpson relations, including that of old Mrs. Simpson, the mother-in-law of Lady Anne, of whom we have a picture, and of her father, Mr.

Andersen,[209] from whom the property came. As I was going through the churchyard, the s.e.xton poked up his head from an open grave to stare at me. 'Where can I get the church keys?' I said. 'Why, I'll tell you wherefrom you'll get them; you'll just get them out of my coat-pocket,' he answered, and so I did. It was a beautiful church, with rich stained windows, oak stalls, and tombs, and outside it lovely green haughs sloping down to the Tyne.

"Thence I walked on to see Bradley,[210] the home of my great-grandmother Lady Anne Simpson. It is a charming place, with deep wooded glens filled with what Northumbrians call rowan and gane trees, and carpeted with primroses and cowslips.

"I arrived at Dilston by tea-time, and afterwards we went out along the terraced heights, and I longed for you to see the view--the rich hanging woods steeped in gold by the setting sun, while behind rose the deep blue moorlands, and from below the splash of the Devil's Water came through the gnarled oaks and yellow broom."

"_Old Elvet, Durham, May 4._--On Friday I drew in the lovely woods by the Devil's Water, and then walked, overtaken by a dreadful storm on the way, to Queen Margaret's cave in Deepden, where she met the robber. Yesterday a wild moorland drive took me to Blanchland,[211] a curious place, with a monastic church and gateway, and a village surrounding a square, in the deep ravine of the Derwent. Then a still wilder drive brought me to Stanhope, whence I came here by rail to the kind Liddell cousins.

"George Liddell has been telling me how, when they lived out of the town at Burnopside, a poor woman lived near them at a place called 'Standfast Hill,' who used to have periodical washings, and put out all the things to dry afterwards on the bank by the side of the road. One day a tramp came by and carried them all off: when the daughter came out to take the things in, they were all gone, and she rushed back to her mother in despair, saying that they were all ruined, the things were all gone, &c.

"The Liddells went up to see that poor woman afterwards and to tell her how sorry they were; but she said, 'Yes, there's my poor Mary, she goes blearing about like a mad bull; but I say to her, "Dinna'

fash yersel, but pray to the Lord to have mercy on them that took the things, for they've paid far dearer than I ever paid for them."'"

In June I was at Chartwell in Kent, when Mr. Colquhoun (who was one of the most perfect types of a truly Christian _gentleman_ I have ever known), told me the following story, from personal knowledge both of the facts and persons:--

"On awaking one morning, Mr. Rutherford of Egerton (in Roxburghshire) found his wife dreadfully agitated, and asked her what was the matter. 'Oh,' she said, 'it is something I really cannot tell you, because you could not possibly sympathise with it.'--'But I insist upon knowing,' he said. 'Well,' she answered, 'if you insist upon knowing, I am agitated because I have had a dream which has distressed me very much. I dreamt that my aunt, Lady Leslie, who brought me up, is going to be murdered; and not only that, but in my dream I have seen the person who is going to murder her:--I have seen him so distinctly, that if I met him in any town of Europe, I should know him again.'--'What bombastical nonsense!' said Mr. Rutherford; 'you really become more and more foolish every day.'--'Well, my dear,' said his wife, 'I told you that it was a thing in which you could not sympathise, and I did not wish to tell you my dream.'

"Coming suddenly into her sitting-room during the morning, Mr.

Rutherford found his wife still very much agitated and distressed, and being of choleric disposition, he said sharply, 'Now do let us have an end once for all of this nonsense. Go down into Fife and see your aunt, Lady Leslie, and then, when you have found her alive and quite well, perhaps you will give up having these foolish imaginations for the future.' Mrs. Rutherford wished no better; she put a few things into a hand-bag, she went to Edinburgh, she crossed the Firth of Forth, and that afternoon at four o'clock she drove up to Lady Leslie's door. The door was opened by a strange servant. It was the man she had seen in her dream.

"She found Lady Leslie well, sitting with her two grown-up sons.

She was exceedingly surprised to see her niece, but Mrs. Rutherford said that having that one day free, and not being able to come again for some time, she had seized the opportunity of coming for one night; and her aunt was too glad to see her to ask many questions. In the course of the evening Mrs. Rutherford said, 'Aunt, when I lived at home with you, whenever I was to have an especial treat, it was that I might sleep in your room. Now I am only here for one night; do let me have my old child's treat over again: I have a special fancy for it;' and Lady Leslie was rather pleased than otherwise. Before they went to bed, Mrs. Rutherford had an opportunity of speaking to her two cousins alone. She said, 'You will be excessively surprised at what I ask, but I shall measure your affection for me entirely by whether you grant it: it is that you will sit up to-night in the room next to your mother's, and that you will tell no one.' They promised, but they were very much surprised.

"As they were going to bed, Mrs. Rutherford said to Lady Leslie, 'Aunt, shall I lock the door?' and Lady Leslie laughed at her and said, 'No, my dear; I am much too old-fashioned a person for that,' and forbade it. But as soon as Mrs. Rutherford saw that Lady Leslie was asleep, she slipped out of bed and turned the lock of the door. Then, leaning against the pillow, she watched, and watched the handle of the door.

"The reflection of the fire scintillated on the round bra.s.s handle of the door, and, as she watched, it almost seemed to mesmerise her, but she watched still. Suddenly the speck of light seemed to appear on the _other_ side; some one was evidently turning the handle of the door. Mrs. Rutherford rang the bell violently, her cousins rushed out of the next room, and she herself threw the door wide open, and there, at the door, stood the strange servant, the man she had seen in her dream, with a covered coal-scuttle in his hand. The cousins demanded why he was there. He said he thought he heard Lady Leslie's bell ring. They said, 'But you do not answer Lady Leslie's bell at this time in the night,' and they insisted upon opening the coal-scuttle. In it was a large knife.

"Then, as by sudden impulse, the man confessed. He knew Lady Leslie had received a large sum for her rents the day before, that she kept it in her room, and that it could not be sent away till the next day. 'The devil tempted me,' he said, 'the devil walked with me down the pa.s.sage, and unless G.o.d had intervened, the devil would have forced me to cut Lady Leslie's throat.'

"The man was partially mad--but G.o.d had intervened."

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Holmhurst, July 27, 1862._--A gorgeous beautiful summer day at length, and it is our last here. To-morrow we go north. It has been a pleasant summer, and it will be a very bright one to look back upon. I have had the great delight of having Charlie Wood here for four days--days of endless conversations, outpourings of old griefs and joys, of little present thoughts and anxieties, of hopes and aspirations for the future, which I should not venture upon with any one else. And besides, we have had a succession of visitors, each of whom has enjoyed our home, whilst our little Holmhurst daily twines itself more and more round our own hearts. Sometimes I have a sort of inward trembling in thinking that I trace an additional or increasing degree of feebleness or age in my sweetest mother, but I do not think her ill now, and may go to the North with a confident feeling that it will be at the time which will suit her best, as she will have other friends with her with whom she would rather be alone. My sweet darling! what should I do without her? and how blank and black the whole world would seem!

Yet even then I should bless G.o.d that this place, now consecrated by memories of her, would still be my home, and, in fulfilling her wishes, her designs, I should try to link the desolate present to the sunny past. I cannot be grateful enough for her power of bearing and rallying from great blows. The loss of Aunt Kitty in the spring, the impending loss of Aunt Esther, are furrows which G.o.d permits, but which He too smooths over. I have even the comfort of feeling that it would be thus in case of my own death, dreadful as that would be to her at the time."

Early in August I went with my mother for a long visit to Buntingsdale in Shropshire, the old pleasant friendly home of the Tayleurs. The master of the house, William Tayleur, had come very late into his property, after a long period of almost cruel repression during the life of his eccentric father; but, unlike most people, the late attainment of great wealth only made him full of anxiety that as many as possible should benefit by it, and he was the very soul of courtesy, hospitality, and generosity. With him lived his two delightful old sisters (already mentioned in the account of my childhood), emanc.i.p.ated when past fifty from a thraldom like that of the schoolroom. Of these, my mother's great friend, Harriet, was the younger--a most bright, animated, clever, and thoroughly excellent person, exceedingly popular in Shropshire society.

The elder, Mary, was very delicate in health, but a very pretty, gentle old lady, who always wore an immense bonnet, ending in a long shade of the kind called "an ugly," so that people used to call her "the old lady down the telescope." Buntingsdale is one of the finest houses in Shropshire, a large red brick mansion, with very handsome stone mouldings and pillars, and a most splendid flower-garden, bordered by a high terrace overlooking the little shining river Terne and its pretty watermeadows. I have seldom known my mother happier than during this visit. It touched her so much to find how she was considered by these faithful old friends--how, after many years' absence, all the people she wished to see were asked to meet her, yet all arranged with thoughtful care, so as to cause her the least possible amount of fatigue and emotion.

We went to Stoke to visit my grandfather's grave, and any of his old parishioners who wished to see my mother were bidden to meet her in the churchyard. There we found fourteen poor women and three old men waiting. To the changed Rectory she never looked. Then we were for some days at Hodnet, where Lady Valsamachi[212] was staying, and both at Hodnet and Hawkestone my mother was warmly welcomed by old friends. I was glad to have the opportunity of walking with her in the beautiful fields consecrated to her by recollections of her happy life long ago in intimacy with the Hebers. From Hodnet we went to spend a few days with Henry de Bunsen at Lilleshall Rectory, which had a charming garden, where all his parishioners were invited to walk on Sunday afternoons.

Thence my mother returned home, and I went towards my northern work.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Weeping Cross, Stafford, August 21, 1862._--Miss Sarah Salt met me at the Stafford station, and drove me here--a moderate-sized house, simply furnished, but with the luxury of a cedar-wood ceiling, which smells delicious. Out of a window-seat in the low comfortable library rose the thin angular figure of Harriet Salt, speaking in the subdued powerless way of old. She had a huge cat with her, and an aunt--rather a pretty old lady. 'What is your aunt's name?' I said afterwards to Miss Sarah. 'Oh, Aunt Emma.'--'Yes, but what is her other name? what am I to call her?'--'Oh, call her Aunt Emma; she would never know herself by any other name.'--'And what do you do when your Aunt Emma Pet.i.t is here too?'-'Oh, she is only Aunt Emma, and this is the other Aunt Emma; so when Aunt Emma from Lichfield is here, and we want this one, we say, "Other Aunt Emma, will you come here?"'

"After luncheon, we went out round the domain--paddocks with round plantations, and a good deal of garden. Miss Salt rode a white pony, we walked. Then the aunt mounted the pony, and she and Miss Sarah and I went a longer round, Miss Sarah breaking down the fences and pulling the pony through after her. 'Will not the farmers be angry?' I said. 'Oh, no; I threatened to have them up before the magistrates for stopping up a road, so we compromised; they are to have their road, and I am to break down their fences and go wherever I like, whether there is a road or not.'

"At seven the clergyman and his wife came to dinner. I took in the aunt, a timid old lady, who seldom ventured a remark, and then in the most diffident manner. This was her first--'I think I may say, in fact I believe it has been often remarked, that Holland is a very flat country. I went there once, and it struck me that the observation was correct.' In the evening Miss Sarah looked at my drawings, and said, 'Well, on the whole, considering that they are totally unlike nature, I don't dislike them quite so much as I expected.'

"We breakfasted this morning at half-past seven, summoned by a gong; Miss Sarah having said, 'At whatever hour of the day or night you hear that gong sound, you will know that you are expected to appear _somewhere_.' She presided at the breakfast-table with a huge tabby-cat seated on her shoulder. 'Does not that cat often tear your dress?' I asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but it very often tears my face,' and went on pouring out the tea."

"_August 22._--Yesterday was hot and steamy, without a breath of air. Miss Sarah drove me and the clergyman's wife to Cannock Chase, a wild heathy upland, with groups of old firs and oaks, extending unenclosed for fifteen miles, and surrounded by n.o.blemen's houses and parks. Here we joined a picnic party of fifty people. English fashion, scarcely anybody spoke to anybody else, and the families sat together in groups. Afterwards the public played at 'Aunt Sally,' and I walked with Miss Salt and her friends Misses Anastasia and Theodosia Royd far over the moorlands. A ridiculous old gentleman went with us, who talked of 'mists, while they enhanced the merits of nature, obscuring the accuracy of vision.'

He also a.s.sured us that whenever he saw a snake, he shut his eyes and cried 'Murder!' We mounted another hill for kettle-boiling and tea, and then danced country-dances to the sound of a fiddle. It was seven o'clock and the mists were rolling up from the hollows when we turned to go home. Mr. Salt was heard blowing a horn in the distance, which his daughter answered by a blast on her whistle, and so we found the carriage."

I am sorry not to find any letters recording the visit I paid after this to Mr. Pet.i.t, the ecclesiologist. He lived at Lichfield in a house built by Miss Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter. With him resided his three sisters and seven cats, who appeared at all meals as part of the family, and rejoiced in the names of "Bug, Woodlouse, Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel, Bezor, Rabshakeh, and Eva--'the mother of all the cats.'" Mr. Pet.i.t was most extraordinary, but a very interesting companion. I had a capital sight of the cathedral with him, beautiful still, though sadly "jemmyfied" by Scott, who has added some immense statues in the choir which put everything out of proportion, and has put up a b.a.s.t.a.r.d-gothic metal screen. At the end of an aisle is Chantrey's monument of the two Robinson children. One of them was burnt to death in reaching to get from the chimney-piece the snowdrops represented in her hand; the other died of consumption caused by too much rowing. When I was at Lichfield their mother was still living there with her third husband.

We went up Borrow Copp, a charming mound near the town, crowned by a chapel-like summer-house. Here the three Saxon kings are supposed to be buried whose bodies are represented in the arms of Lichfield.

The Pet.i.ts are Pet.i.ts des Etampes, and were refugees from Caen. They had a valuable miniature of Mary Queen of Scots by Bernard Lens, from their family connection with the Guises. Far more extraordinary than any other house I have ever seen was their country place of--"b.u.mblekite Hall!"

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Ripley Castle, August 28, 1862._--In coming down to dinner, I found a tall distinguished-looking lady upon the staircase, with whom I made friends at once as Charlie Wood's aunt, Lady Georgiana Grey. This afternoon I went with her and Miss Ingilby to Knaresborough, a town with stone roofs on a height above the Nid, crowned by the ruins of the castle which contains the vaulted dungeon where the murderers of Thomas ? Becket were confined. Below the castle is the public-house called 'Mother Shipton,' bearing her picture and the inscription--

'Near to this petrifying well I first drew breath, as records tell.'