Story of My Life Part 65

"_Friday evening, March 6._--All day there has been a rally, and she has now power to cough again. Grilli had given the case up, so at noon to-day I had no scruple in sending for Dr. Topham, writing full explanation of the strange case. He says it is the most extraordinary he has ever seen and a most interesting study--'Before such a miracle of nature, science can only sit still.' Life still hangs on a thread, but there is certainly an improvement. She knows none but me."

"_Sat.u.r.day evening, March 7._--What a quiet day of respite we have had after all the long tension and anxiety. My darling's face has resumed a natural expression, and she now lies quite quiet, sleeping, and only rousing herself to take nourishment."

I have copied these fragments from my journal of two terrible weeks, written upon my knees by my mother's side, when we felt every hour _must_ be the last, and that her words, so difficult to recall afterwards, would be almost our only consolation when the great desolation had really fallen. But no description can give an idea of the illness--of the strange luminousness of the sunken features, such as one reads of in lives of Catholic saints--of the marvellous beauty of her expression--of the thrilling accents in which many words were spoken, from which her sensitive retiring nature would have shrunk in health.

Had there been physically any reason for hopefulness, which there was not--had the doctors given any hope of recovery, which they did not, her appearance, her words, her almost transfiguration would have a.s.sured us that she was on the threshold of another world. I feel that those who read must--like those who saw--almost experience a sort of shock at her being given back to us again. Yet I believe that G.o.d heard my prayer in St. Peter's for the two years more. During that time, and that time only, she was spared to bless us, and to prepare me better for the final separation when it really came. She was also spared to be my support in another great trial of my life, to which we then never looked forward.

But I will return to my journal, with which ordinary events now again entwine themselves.

"_March 10, 1868._--My darling is gradually but slowly regaining strength, the doctor saying he can give no medicine, but that he can only stand still in awe before the marvels of nature, whilst we, the watchers, are gradually rallying from the great strain and tension of the last week.

"Yesterday was Santa Francesca Romana's day. I went to her house, the old Ponziani Palace, now the Ezercizii Pii, hung outside for the day with battered tapestry and strewn within with box. The rooms inside are the same as when the Saint lived in them, with raftered ceilings, and many of them turned into chapels. Downstairs is the large room which she turned into a hospital, and there is a bright open courtyard planted with orange-trees, though certainly nothing of the 'magnificent Ponziani Palace' described by Lady Georgiana Fullerton in her book.

"Thence to the Tor de' Specchi, where a cardinal, a number of Roman ladies, and a crowd of others were pa.s.sing through the bright old rooms covered with frescoes and tapestry, and looking into the pleasant courtyards of the convent with their fountains and orange-trees. Upstairs is a fine chapel, where the skeleton of the Saint lies under the altar, dressed as an Oblate (with the face exposed), but in a white veil and white gloves! The living Oblates flitting about were very interesting picturesque-looking women, mostly rather old. Several relics of Santa Francesca are preserved.

On a table near the entrance was the large flat vase in which she made ointment for the poor, filled with flowers.

"On Sunday, when many ladies went to the Pope, he made them a little sermon about their guardian angels and Sta. Francesca Romana."

"_March 15._--My sweet Mother is in almost exactly the same state--a sort of dormouse existence, and so weak that she can scarcely hold up her head; yet she has been twice wheeled into the sitting-room.

"I have been with the Fitzmaurices to the Castle of S. Angelo, very curious, and the prisons of Beatrice Cenci and her stepmother, most ghastly and horrid. There are between seven and eight hundred men there now, and many prisoners. Over the prison doors pa.s.sers-by had made notes in chalk: one was 'O voi che entrate qui, lasciate ogni speranza;' another, 'On sait quand on entre, on ne sait pas quand on sort;' another, 'H?tel des Martyrs.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTLE OF ESTE.[370]]

"On Friday evening I rushed with all the world to the receptions of the new cardinals--first to the Spanish Emba.s.sy, then to the Colonna to see Cardinal Bonaparte,[371] who has a most humble manner and a beautiful refined face like Manning at his best; and then to the Inquisition, where Cardinal de Monaco was waiting to receive in rooms which were almost empty."

"_March 30._--The dear Mother makes daily progress. She has the sofa in her bedroom, and lies there a great deal in the sunny window.

"I went to Mrs. Lockwood's theatricals, to which, as she said, 'all the people above the rank of a d.u.c.h.ess were asked down to the letter M.' The play, _L'A?eule_, was wonderfully well done by Princess Radziwill, Princess Pallavicini, Princess Scilla, Duca del Gallo, and others, a most beautiful electric light being let in when the grandmother steals in to give the poison to the sleeping girl."

"_May 8._--We leave Rome to-morrow--leave it in a flush of summer glory, in a wealth unspeakable of foliage and flowers, orange blossoms scenting our staircase, the sky deep blue.

"All the last fortnight poor Emma Simpkinson[372] has been terribly ill--a great anxiety to us as to what was best to be done for her, but we hope now that she may be moved to England, and I must go with my restored Mother, who is expanding like a flower in the sunshine.

"This afternoon, at the crowded time, the young Countess Crivelli, the new Austrian Amba.s.sadress, drove down the Corso. At the Porta del Popolo she met her husband's horse without a rider. Much alarmed, she drove on, and a little farther on she found her husband's dead body lying in the road. She picked it up, and drove back down the Corso with the dead man by her side."

Amongst the many English who spent this spring in Rome, I do not find any note, in my diaries, of Lord Houghton, yet his dinners for six in the Via S. Basilio were delightful. His children were real children then, and his son, Robin,[373] a boy of wonderful promise. Lord Houghton was never satisfied with talking well and delightfully himself; his great charm was his evident desire to draw out all the good there was in other people.

JOURNAL.

"_Venice, May 10, 1868._--We had a terribly hot journey by Spoleto and Ancona, and came on to Este. It is a long drive up from the station to the primitive little town close under the Euganean Hills, with the ruined castle where the first Guelph was born. The inn (La Speranza) is an old palace, and our sittingroom was thirty-four feet long. The country is luxuriance itself, covered with corn and flax, separated by rows of peach and fig trees, with vines leaping from tree to tree. I drove to Arqua, a most picturesque village in a hollow of the hills. In the little court of the church is Petrarch's tomb, of red Verona marble, and on the high ridge his house, almost unaltered, with old frescoes of his life, his chair, his chest, and his stuffed cat, shrunk almost to a weasel."

"_Augsburg, May 24._--From Venice we saw Torcello--the Mother, Lea, and I in a _barca_ gliding over those shallow mysterious waters to the distant island and its decaying church, where we sat to draw near Attila's marble chair half buried in the rank growth of the mallows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PETRARCH'S TOMB, ARQUA.[374]]

"We came away by an early train to Verona, and drove in the afternoon to San Zenone, and then to the beautiful Giusti gardens for the sunset. Mother was able to climb up to the summer-house on the height, and the gardener gave us pinks and roses.

"On the 24th we came on to Trent, a most attractive place, with an interesting cathedral, fine fountains, beautiful trees, and surroundings of jagged pink mountains tipped with snow. Cheating the Alps by crossing the Brenner, we went by Salzburg to Berchtesgaden, where we found quiet rooms with a splendid view of the snow-clad Watzmann. We were rowed down the K?nigsee as far as the waterfall, Lea dreadfully frightened on the lake."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF THE COUNT OF CASTELBARCO, VERONA.[375]]

From Augsburg we went to Oberwesel on the Rhine, where we were very happy in a primitive hotel amid the vines and old timberhouses. On our second morning there, while I was drawing on the sh.o.r.e of the river, a strange and terrible presentiment came over me of some great misfortune, some overwhelming grief which was then taking place in England. I threw down my drawing things and hurried back to the hotel to my mother.

"Never," I said, "have these sudden presentiments come to me without meaning. I am sure you will listen to me when I say that we ought to be in England directly."--"Yes," she said, "I quite believe it; let us go at once;" and then and there, in the hot morning, we walked down to the train. We travelled all night, and at daybreak we were in England. I confess that, as we travelled, the detailed impression which I had from my presentiment was wrong. I thought of what would have affected my mother most. I fancied that, as I was sitting on the Rhine sh.o.r.e, Arthur Stanley had died at Westminster. But John Gidman met us with our little carriage at Hastings, and as we drove up to Holmhurst he told me the dreadful truth--that, at the very moment of my presentiment, my sister Esmeralda had expired.

I still feel the echo of that terrible anguish.

XIII

LAST YEARS OF ESMERALDA

"Sleep sweetly, dear one; thou wilt wake at dawn."--MOSCHUS.

"Her mind was one of those pure mirrors from which the polluting breath pa.s.ses away as it touches it."--BISHOP HEBER.

"Cette longue et cruelle maladie qu'on appelle la vie, est enfin gu?rie."--MADEMOISELLE D'ESPINa.s.sE.

"Let her pure soul ...

Remain my pledge in heaven, as sent to show How to this portal every step I go."--SIR JOHN BEAUMONT.

I think that I have not written anything concerning the life of my sister after we met her at Rome in the winter of 1865-66. Since that time she had been more incessantly engrossed by the affairs, and often very trivial interests, of the Roman Catholic Church, but without for a moment relaxing her affection and cordiality towards us. Great was my pleasure in watching how, in spite of all religious differences, my mother became increasingly fond of her every time they met. I think it is William Penn who says, "The meek, the just, the pious, the devout, are all of one religion."

On leaving Rome in 1866, Esmeralda made it an object to visit the famous "Nun of Monza," Ancilla Ghizza, called in religion the "Madre Serafina della Croce." This nun had been founding a religious order at Monza, which was at first intended to be affiliated to the Sacramentarie on the Quirinal at Rome. She was supposed to have not only the "stigmata," but the marks of our Lord's scourging, to be gifted with a wonderful power and knowledge of the interior life, and to possess the gift of prophecy.

She was summoned to Rome, and, after three years' noviciate at the Sacramentarie, she was permitted, in 1862, to return to Monza, and to begin her community, fifteen nuns being clothed at the same time. She used to distribute little crosses which she declared to have been blessed by our Lord in person, and she was often in an ecstasy, in which it was alleged that her body became so light that she could be raised from the ground by a single hair of her head! Concerning Serafina della Croce, Esmeralda had already received from a celebrated Italian ecclesiastic the following:--

"_Venezia, 3 Gennaio, 1864._--Mi scusi se io cos? presto riprendo la penna, per offrirle il mio povero tentativo di consolarla, sotto la forma di questa piccola croce, che io ebbi dall' Ancilla Ghizzi di Monza, e che ? stata benedetta dalle mani stesse di Nostro Signore in una visione. Io potrei dirle molto di queste croci, ma ci vorrebbe troppo tempo. Cos? io le dir? soltanto per affermare la sua opinione sopra la sant.i.t? di questa serva di Dio, che io conosco qui un sacerdote che and? a vederla, e al quale il confessore dell' Ancilla deleg? la sua autorit?, dicendogli che poteva commandarla ed interrogarla per un' ora, come se fosse lui stesso il suo confessore. Infatti, portatosi dall' Ancilla, senza che essa fosse stata avvert.i.ta di quest' accordo fra loro, il Sacerdote le di?de mentalmente l'obbedienza di unirsi con Dio in orazione, ed essa immediatamente and? in estasi, e continu? un' ora intera in questo stato, nel qual tempo egli le domand?

_mentalmente_ varie cose in rapporto a certe persone che desiderebbero essere raccomandate alle sue preghiere, ed essa rispondeva al suo precetto mentale, raccomandogli ogni persona ed ogni domanda al Signore di _viva voce_, continuando cos? un dialogo non interrotto. Qualche volta per la soddisfazione di una terza persona che era presente, questo Sacerdote gli diceva all' orecchio il soggetto sopra il quale voleva schiarimento. Debbo aggiungere che in questo stato il suo corpo ? cos? leggiero che la poteva sollevare da terra _per un solo dei suoi capelli_, come se non avesse pi? nessun peso. Ho pure veduto dei manoscritti voluminosi del suo confessore pieni di maraviglie, e che dimostrano che la sua familiarit? colle cose e colle persone celesti ? arrivata ad un tal punto, che si pu? ben paragonare a tutto ci? che si legge nelle vite dei santi. Anzi a me mi pare che supera tutto quel che io ho letto fin qui."

Another intention of Esmeralda was to visit "Torchio," the inspired cobbler at Turin, and consult him on various subjects. This Torchio had had the most extraordinary visions of the Judgment; but alas! I neglected to write down the long verbal account which my sister gave me of her visit to him, and thus it is lost. I have only the following, written in crossing the Mont Cenis with an Asiatic bishop, to whom Esmeralda had offered a place in her carriage:--

"_June 4, 1866._--For three days running before leaving Rome, I had the visits of the venerable Monsignor Natale, and we talked of coming events in the political world. I went over from Pisa to Leghorn, and there I saw a very remarkable person called Suora Carolina. We went to Milan for one day, and from thence to Monza. I saw the bishop, and besought and entreated, and at last he gave permission, and I was the first to pa.s.s through the closed door of the convent, and to kneel and kiss the hand of the saint. Auntie went with me. I can never express what I felt. It was like seeing S. Francesco d'a.s.sisi, and it seemed like a dream as, side by side, we walked through the cloisters and then went up into her cell: one so highly favoured! it was too much happiness. All I had heard was nothing to the reality, and there was Auntie sitting in her cell, the other nuns standing round. Her face was quite beautiful, quite heavenly.

"And then we returned to Milan and started for Turin, and there I went to see Torchio, the celebrated Torchio, as he sat on his basket and spoke as he was inspired. It was a wonderful and beautiful sermon, both in word and action. When he spoke of the Pa.s.sion, one seemed to follow him to Calvary. He is a poor man living at the top of a very poor house, but he is an apostle."

Esmeralda returned to London to Mrs. Thorpe's, but in the autumn she went north and paid visits to the Monteiths and Stourtons and to Lady Herries in Yorkshire. Lady Herries said afterwards that she liked to think of her as she so often saw her in the chapel at Everingham, praying, "oh, so fervently," for hours together. As her life became more absorbed in devotion and religious interests, she was conscious of the danger of neglecting earthly duties and sympathies. On August 4, 1866, she wrote:--

"Let me walk in the presence of G.o.d without underrating His gifts, for the underrating of G.o.d's gifts is one of the temptations which I am required to fight against."

On September 8 she wrote:--