Story of My Life Part 9

The grief of leaving Stoke made me miserably unwell, and a doctor was sent for as soon as I arrived at the Stanleys' house, 38 Lower Brook Street, who came to me straight from a patient ill with the scarlatina, and gave me the disorder. For three weeks I was very seriously ill in hot summer weather, in stifling rooms, looking on the little black garden and chimney-pots at the back of the house. Mary and Kate Stanley were sent away from the infection, and no one came near me except my faithful friend Miss Clinton, who brought me eau-de-Cologne and flowers.

It was long foolishly concealed from me that I had the scarlatina, and therefore, as I felt day after day of the precious holidays ebbing away, while I was pining for coolness and fresh country air, my mental fever added much to my bodily ailments, whereas, when once told that I was seriously ill, I was quite contented to lie still. Before I quite recovered, my dear nurse Lea became worn-out with attending to me, and we had scarcely reached Lime before she became most dangerously ill with a brain-fever. For many days and nights she lay on the brink of the grave, and great was my agony while this precious life was in danger.

Aunt Esther, who on _great_ occasions generally behaved kindly, was very good at this time, ceased to persecute me, and took a very active part in the nursing.

At length our dear Lea was better, and as I was still very fragile, I went with my mother and Anne Brooke, our cook, to Eastbourne--then a single row of little old-fashioned houses by the sea--where we inhabited, I should think, the very smallest and humblest lodging that ever was seen. I have often been reminded of it since in reading the account of Peggotty's cottage in "David Copperfield." It was a tiny house built of flints, amongst the boats, at the then primitive end of Eastbourne, towards the marshes, and its miniature rooms were filled with Indian curiosities, brought to the poor widow to whom it belonged by a sailor son. The Misses Thomas of Wratton came to see us here, and could hardly suppress their astonishment at finding us in such a place--and when the three tall smart ladies had once got into our room, no one was able to move, and all had to go out in the order in which they were nearest the door. But my mother always enjoyed exceedingly these primitive places, and would sit for hours on the beach with her Taylor's "Holy Living" or her "Christian Year," and had soon made many friends amongst the neighbouring cottagers, whose houses were quite as fine as her own, and who were certainly more cordial to the lady who had not minded settling down as one of themselves, than they would have been to a smart visitor in a carriage. The most remarkable of these people was an excellent old woman called Deborah Pattenden, who lived in the half of a boat turned upside down, and had had the most extraordinary adventures. My first literary work was her biography, which told how she had suffered the pains of drowning, burning (having been enveloped in flames while struck by lightning), and how she had lain for twenty-one days in a rigid trance (from "the plague," she described it) without food or sign of life, and was near being buried alive. We found a transition from our cottage life in frequent visits to Compton Place, where Mrs. Cavendish, mother of the 7th Duke of Devonshire, lived then, with her son Mr. Cavendish, afterwards Lord Richard. She was a charming old lady, who always wore white, and had very simple and very timid manners. But she was fond of my mother, who was quite adored by Lord Richard, by whom we were kept supplied with the most beautiful fruits and flowers of the Compton Gardens. He was very kind to me also, and would sometimes take me to his bookcases and tell me to choose any book I liked for my own. We seldom afterwards pa.s.sed a summer without going for a few days to Compton Place as long as Mrs. Cavendish lived there.

It was there that I made my first acquaintance with the existence of many simple luxuries to which, in our primitive life, we were quite unaccustomed, but which in great houses are considered almost as necessaries. The Cavendishes treated us as distant relations, in consequence of the marriage of my Grandmother's cousin, Georgiana Spencer, with the 5th Duke of Devonshire.

When I returned to Harnish I was still wretchedly ill, and the constant sickness under which I suffered, with the extreme and often unjust severity of Mr. Kilvert, made the next half year a very miserable one.

In the three years and a half which I had spent at Harnish, I had been taught next to nothing--all our time having been frittered in learning Psalms by heart, and the Articles of the Church of England (I could say the whole thirty-nine straight off when eleven years old), &c. Our history was what Arrowsmith's Atlas used to describe Central Africa to be--"a barren country only productive of dates." I could scarcely construe even the easiest pa.s.sages of C?sar. Still less had I learned to play at any ordinary boys' games; for, as we had no playground, we had naturally never had a chance of any. I was glad of any change. It was delightful to leave Harnish for good at Christmas, 1846, and the prospect of Harrow was that of a voyage of adventure.

In January 1847 my mother took me to Harrow. Dr. Vaughan was then headmaster, and Mr. Simpkinson, who had been long a curate of Hurstmonceaux, and who had been consequently one of the most familiar figures of my childhood, was a master under him, and, with his handsome, good-humoured sister Louisa, kept the large house for boys beyond the church, which is still called "The Grove." It was a wonderfully new life upon which I entered; but though a public school was a very much rougher thing then than it is now, and though the f.a.gging for little boys was almost ceaseless, it would not have been an unpleasant life if I had not been so dreadfully weak and sickly, which sometimes unfitted me for enduring the roughness to which I was subjected. As a general rule, however, I looked upon what was intended for bullying as an additional "adventure," which several of the big boys thought so comic, that they were usually friendly to me and ready to help me: one who especially stood my friend was a young giant--Twisleton, son of Lord Saye and Sele.

One who went to Harrow at the same time with me was my connection Harry Adeane,[38] whose mother was Aunt Lucy's sister, Maude Stanley of Alderley. I liked Harry very much, but though he was in the same house, his room was so distant that we saw little of each other; besides, my intense ignorance gave me a very low place in the school, in the Lower Fourth Form. It was a great amus.e.m.e.nt to write to my mother all that occurred. In reading it, people might imagine my narration was intended for complaint, but it was nothing of the kind: indeed, had I wished to complain, I should have known my mother far too well to complain to _her_.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Harrow, Jan. 29, 1847._--When I left you, I went to school and came back to pupil room, and in the afternoon had a solitary walk to the skating pond covered with boys.... In the evening two big boys rushed up, and seizing Buller (another new boy) and me, dragged us into a room where a number of boys were a.s.sembled. I was led into the midst. Bob Smith[39] whispered to me to do as I was bid and I should not be hurt. On the other side of the room were cold chickens, cake, fruit, &c., and in a corner were a number of boys holding open little Dirom's mouth, and pouring something horrible stirred up with a tallow-candle down his throat. A great boy came up to me and told me to sing or to drink some of this dreadful mixture. I did sing--at least I made a noise--and the boys were pleased because I made no fuss, and loaded me with oranges and cakes.

"This morning being what is _called_ a whole holiday, I have had to stay in three hours more than many of the others because of my slowness in making Latin verses. This evening Abel Smith sent for me to his room, and asked me if I was comfortable, and all sorts of things."

"_Jan. 21._--What do you think happened last night? Before prayers I was desired to go into the fifth form room, as they were having some game there. A boy met me at the door, ushered me in, and told me to make my salaam to the Emperor of Morocco, who was seated cross-legged in the middle of a large counterpane, surrounded by twenty or more boys as his serving-men. I was directed to sit down by the Emperor, and in the same way. He made me sing, and then jumped off the counterpane, as he said, to get me some cake.

Instantly all the boys seized the counterpane and tossed away. Up to the ceiling I went and down again, but they had no mercy, and it was up and down, head over heels, topsy-turvy, till some one called out 'Satus'--and I was let out, very sick and giddy at first, but soon all right again.... I am not much bullied except by Davenport, who sleeps in my room."

"_Jan. 22._--To-day it has snowed so hard that there has been nothing but snow-balling, and as I was coming out of school, hit by a shower of s...o...b..a.l.l.s, I tumbled the whole way down the two flights of stairs headlong from the top to the bottom."

"_Jan. 23._--Yesterday I was in my room, delighted to be alone for once, and very much interested in the book I was reading, when D.

came in and found the fire out, so I got a good licking. He makes me his f.a.g to go errands, and do all he bids me, and if I don't do it, he beats me, but I don't mind much. However, I have got some friends, for when I refused to do my week-day lessons on a Sunday, and was being very much laughed at for it, some one came in and said, 'No, Hare, you're quite right; never mind being laughed at.'

However I am rather lonely still with no one to speak to or care about me. Sometimes I take refuge in Burroughs' study, but I cannot do that often, or he would soon get tired of me. I think I shall like Waldegrave,[40] a new boy who has come, but all the others hate him. Blomfield[41] is a nice boy, but his room is very far away. Indeed, our room is so secluded, that it would be a very delightful place if D. did not live in it. In playtime I go here, there, and everywhere, but with no one and doing nothing. Yet I like Harrow very much, though I am much teased even in my form by one big boy, who takes me for a drum, and hammers on my two sides all lesson-time with doubled fists. However, Miss Simmy says, if you could see my roses you would be satisfied."

"_Jan. 30._--There are certain fellows here who read my last letter to you, and gave me a great lecture for mentioning boys' names; but you must never repeat what I say: it could only get me into trouble. The other night I did a desperate thing. I appealed to the other boys in the house against D. Stapleton was moved by my story, and Hankey and other boys listened. Then a boy called Sturt was very much enraged at D., and threatened him greatly, and finally D., after heaping all the abuse he could think of upon me, got so frightened that he begged me to be friends with him. I cannot tell you how I have suffered and do suffer from my chilblains, which have become so dreadfully bad from going out so early and in all weathers."

"_Feb. 2._--To-day, after half-past one Bill, I went down the town with Buller and met two boys called Bocket and Lory. Lory and I, having made acquaintance, went for a walk. This is only the second walk I have had since I came to Harrow. I am perpetually 'Boy in the House.'"

"_Feb. 10._--To-day at 5 minutes to 11, we were all told to go into the Speech-room (do you remember it?), a large room with raised benches all round and a platform in the middle and places for the monitors. I sat nearly at the top of one of these long ranges. Then Dr. Vaughan made a speech about snow-balling at the Railway Station (a forbidden place), where the engine-drivers and conductors had been snow-balled, and he said that the next time, if he could not find out the names of the guilty individuals, the whole school should be punished. To-day the snow-balling, or rather ice-balling (for the b.a.l.l.s are so hard you can hardly cut them with a knife), has been terrific: some fellows almost have their arms broken with them."

"_Feb. 12._--I am in the hospital with dreadful pains in my stomach. The hospital is a large room, very quiet, with a window looking out into the garden, and two beds in it. Burroughs is in the other bed, laid up with a bad leg.... Yesterday, contrary to rule, Dr. Vaughan called Bill, and then told all the school to stay in their places, and said that he had found the keyhole of the cupboard in which the rods were kept stopped up, and that if he did not find out before one o'clock who did it, he would daily give the whole school, from the sixth form downwards, a new pun, of the severest kind.... There never was anything like the waste of bread here, whole bushels are thrown about every day, but the bits are given to the poor people.... I like Valletort[42] very much, and I like Twisleton,[43] who is one of the biggest boys in this house."

"_Feb. 20._--To-day I went to the Harrisites' steeplechase. Nearly all the school were there, pouring over hedges and ditches in a general rush. The Harrisites were distinguished by their white or striped pink and white jackets and Scotch caps, and all bore flags."

"_Feb. 21._--I have been out jumping and hare-and-hounds, but we have hard work now to escape from the slave-drivers for racket-f.a.gging. Sometimes we do, by one fellow sacrificing himself and shutting up the others head downwards in the turn-up bedsteads, where they are quite hidden; and sometimes I get the old woman at the church to hide me in the little room over the porch till the slave-drivers have pa.s.sed."

"_March 1._--I have just come back from Sheen, where I have had a very happy Exeat. Uncle Norwich gave me five shillings, and Uncle Penrhyn ten."

MRS. STANLEY _to_

HER SISTER MRS. A. HARE.

"_Sheen, March 1._--I never saw Augustus look anything like so well--and it is the look of health, ruddy and firm, and his face rounder. The only thing is that he stoops, as if there were weakness in the back, but perhaps it is partly shyness, for I observed he did it more at first. He did look very shy the first day--hung his head like a snowdrop, crouched out of sight, and was with difficulty drawn out; but I do not think it is at all because he is cowed, and he talked more yesterday. The Bishop was very much pleased with him, and thought him much improved.... He came without either greatcoat or handkerchief, but did not appear to want the one, and had lost the other. He said most decidedly that he was happy, far happier than at Mr. Kilvert's, happier than he expected to be; and, though I felt all the time what an uncongenial element it must be, he could not be in it under better circ.u.mstances."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_March 4._--As you are ill, I will tell you my adventure of yesterday to amuse you. I went out with a party of friends to play at hare-and-hounds. I was hare, and ran away over hedges and ditches. At last, just as I jumped over a hedge, Macphail caught me, and we sat down to take breath. Just then h.o.a.re ran up breathless and panting, and threw himself into the hedge crying out, 'We are pursued by navvies.' The next minute, before I could climb back over the hedge, I found myself clutched by the arm, and turning round, saw that a great fellow had seized me, and that another had got Macphail and another Hodgson Junior. They dragged us a good way, and then stopped and demanded our money, or they would have us down and one should suffer for all. Macphail and h.o.a.re were so frightened that they gave up all their money at once, but I would not give up mine. At last they grew perfectly furious and declared they _would_ have our money to buy beer. I then gave them a shilling, but hid the half-sovereign I had in my pocket, and after we had declared we would not give them any more, they went away.

"To cut the story short, I got Hodgson Junior (for the others were afraid) to go with me to the farmer on whose land the men were working, and told what had happened. He went straight to the field where the navvies were and made them give up all our money, turned one out of his service, and threatened the other two, and we came back to Harrow quite safe, very glad to have got off so well.

"What do you think! the fever has broken out in Vaughan's, and if any other house catches it, we are to go--home!"

"_March 9._--All the school is in an uproar, for all Vaughan's house went down yesterday. Two boys have the fever, and if any one else catches it, we shall all go home. What fun it will be. The fever came straight from Eton with some velocipedes. Everybody now thinks everybody else has the fever. I am shunned by all because I have a sore throat, and half-a-yard is left on each side of me in form. Boys suck camphor in school. Endless are the reports.

'Pember's got the fever.'--'No, he hasn't.'--'Yes, he has, for it's broke out in Harris's.'--'Then we shall all go home. Hurrah!'--'No, it's all a gull!'"

"My adventure with the navvies has been a very good thing for me, as some fellows say 'that little Hare has really got some pluck.'"

"_March 10._--Hurrah! Vaughan has caught the fever. The Vaughanites are all gone. Valletort is gone. Waldegrave is gone. But the great news is we all go home the day after to-morrow. Now if you don't write the instant you get this you will delay my return home. So pray, Mamma, do--do--do--do. I cannot write much, for the school is so hurry-scurry. There will be no Trial--oh hip! hip! Oh pray do write directly! I shall see you soon. Hurrah!"

(After Easter holidays), "_April 14._--When I got here, I found Davenport was gone and Dirom come into our room. The bells rang all night for the return of the school. We are busy at our Trial, which we do with our masters in form. We did Ovid this morning, and I knew much more about it than many other fellows."

"_Sat.u.r.day._--To-day has been a whole holiday, as it always is at the end of Trial. I have got off very well, and learnt eighty lines more than I need have done, for we need only have learnt fifty lines, and I knew more of other things than many others.

"To-day was 'Election Day'--commonly called Squash Day (oh, how glad I am it is over), the day most dreaded of all others by the little boys, when they get squashed black and blue, and almost turned inside out. But you won't understand this, so I will tell you. Platt, horrid Platt, stands at one side of Vaughan's desk in school, and Hewlett at the other, and read the names. As they are read, you go up and say who you vote for as cricket-keeper, and as you come out, the party you vote against squash you, while your party try to rescue you. Sometimes this lasts a whole hour (without exaggeration it's no fun), but to-day at breakfast the joyful news came that the fourth form was let off squash. It was such a delight. The fifth form were determined that we should have something though, for as we came out of Bill, they tried to knock our hats to pieces, and ourselves to pieces too."

"_April 24._--The boys have all begun to wear strawhats and to buy insect-nets, for many are very fond of collecting insects, and to my delight I found, when I came up, that they did not at all despise picking primroses and violets."

"_April 28._--The other day, as Sturt was staying out, I had to f.a.g in his place. I had to go to that horrid Platt at Ben's. At the door of Ben's was P----. I asked him which was Platt's room, and he took me upstairs and pushed me into a little dark closet, and when I got out of that, into a room where a number of fellows were at tea, and then to another. At last I came to some stairs where two boys were sitting cross-legged before a door. They were the tea-f.a.gs. I went in, and there were Platt and his brother, very angry at my being late, but at last they let me go, or rather I was kicked out of the house.

"To-day we went to hear a man read the 'Merchant of Venice' in Speech-room. Such fun: I liked it so much."

"_May 1._--Yesterday I was in a predicament. Hewlett, the head of our house, sent me with a note to Sporling, the head of the school, in Vaughan's new house. I asked a boy which was Sporling's. He told me that I should find him upstairs, so I went up stairs after stairs, and at the top were two monitors, and as I looked bewildered by the long pa.s.sages, they told me which was Sporling's room. When I came out with an answer to the note, they called after me, and ordered me to give Hewlett their compliments, and tell him not to be in too great a hurry to get into Sporling's shoes. You must obey a monitor's orders, and if you don't you get a wapping; but I was pretty sure to get a wapping anyway--from the monitors if I did not deliver the message, and from Hewlett for its impertinence. I asked a great many boys, and they all said I must tell Hewlett directly. At last I did: he was in a great rage, but said I might go.

"I have 7s. 6d. owed me, for as soon as the boys have any money they are almost obliged to lend it; at least you never have any peace till it is all gone. Some of the boys keep rabbits in the wells of their studies, but to-night Simmy has forbidden this."