Читать книгу The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6 - Augustus J. C. Hare - Страница 16

“At the Court of Charles X. it was the Dauphine who received. She was very severe in her manner and had a very harsh voice: it was as if the shadow of the Temple always rested upon her. The Duchesse de Berri was of gentler manners, but less wise. When the family of Charles X. fled after the revolution of four days, the deputation going to offer the crown to Louis Philippe found he was out; they found only the Duchess of Orleans. She was horrified at the very idea and refused point-blank, saying that her husband would never do such a wrong to his cousin—‘Grace à Dieu! mon mari ne sera pas usurpateur.’ Going through the garden at Neuilly, however, the deputation met Madame Adelaïde, who asked what their business was, and being told what the Duchess had answered, said, ‘Oh, mais mon frère accepte, certainement il accepte;’ and her view was definitive. She never separated from her brother afterwards, and he always deferred to her opinion; indeed, as Napoleon used to say, she was ‘the only man of the family.’ The whole family paid her great attention. She was enormously rich, and made the Prince de Joinville her heir. Louis Philippe chose her epitaph in the vaults at Dreux. It is from Gen. xii. 13: ‘Thou art my sister, and it has been well with me for thy sake.’

“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton was the first person Queen Marie Amelie sent for after her accession. She went in the evening, and found the Queen sitting at a table with Madame Adelaïde and one other lady, the wife of the Swedish Minister. A place was given to her between the Queen and Madame Adelaïde. The first words of the Queen seemed ominous—‘Nous avons laissé notre bonheur à Neuilly, Madame Hamilton.’ But Madame Adelaïde instantly took up the conversation, and talked of a bullet which she had found in her mirror, saying that she should never have the mirror mended, but should preserve it as ‘un souvenir historique.’

“Lady Waterford says how much brighter and happier people are for having something young about them—a young lady, a child, a young dog even. She says, ‘I want to make a picture of Hope painting the future in the brightest colours. It will be such a beautiful subject. A rainbow will pour into the room and all its colours be reflected on her palette.’ ”

“July 20.—Lady Waterford and the Ellices went to Broadlands, and returned in the evening radiant, and full of the Conference, with which they were delighted. I was very sorry indeed to be too ill to go, these Broadland ‘Conferences’ being quite a type of the times.

“They had a delightful drive through the forest and halted at Lyndhurst, visiting the ‘King’s House’ and seeing the stirrup which is said to have belonged to William Rufus. It is of gigantic size, and was probably really intended, when dogs were forbidden in the forest, as a sort of standard of measurement, only dogs which could pass through that stirrup being allowed.

THE GARDEN PORCH, HIGHCLIFFE. [183]

THE SUNDIAL WALK, HIGHCLIFFE. [184]

“At Broadlands, after luncheon, they went out on the lawn, where the Conference was proceeding under some fine beech-trees. ‘It was like a Claude,’ said Lady Waterford, the view being over the water, with a temple on one side and a cypress cutting the sky.’ Mr. Cowper Temple opened the afternoon meeting with a little speech; a Nonconformist minister followed, and then the High Church Mr. Wilkinson gave an address. The most remarkable thing he told was a story of a young lady who went to a meeting and returned resolved to dedicate herself to God. She wrote down her dedication, and then said, ‘It shall be from to-day.’ Then she considered that there was so much to be done, &c.—‘It shall be in three years.’ Again she hesitated and altered what she had written—‘I may not live: it shall be to-night.” But finally she thought again how much there was she wanted to do first, and finally wrote—‘In three weeks I will dedicate myself to God.’ In the morning the paper was found with all the different erasures and alterations, but the young lady was dead. … Several other speakers followed, and then Mr. Cowper Temple knelt on the gravel and prayed: all was most simple and earnest.

“Here at Highcliffe we have sat in the library in the morning, the great Brugmantia bursting into its bloom of scarlet bells in the conservatory beyond, Lady Waterford painting at her table, the rest working beneath the stained window.”

“Heckfield Place, August 13.—This is a beautiful open country with lovely woods and purple heaths studded with groups of fine old firs. The grounds of Heckfield itself are delightful, and the house, of red brick, stands upon a high bastioned terrace filled with brilliant flower-beds and overlooking undulating green lawns and an artificial sheet of water.

“Lord Eversley and his daughter Emma received me with most cordial kindness and a real family welcome, and it was pleasant to see so many interesting pictures of our common ancestors—on the staircase a full-length of my great-grandmother Mrs. Hare, as a young girl tripping along with her apron full of flowers. There are fine portraits of her father and mother; and her sister, Helena Lefevre, is represented again and again, from youth to age.

“Lord and Lady Selborne have been here. He has a stiff manner, but warms into much pleasantness, and she is very genial: their daughter, Sophy, is a union of both. I went with Lord Selborne and Miss Palmer to Strathfieldsaye. The Duke (of Wellington), dressed like a poor pensioner, received us in his uncomfortable room, where Lord Selborne, who has a numismatical mania, was glad to stay for two hours examining coins. Meanwhile the Duke, finding we were really interested, took Miss Palmer and me upstairs, and showed us all his relics. It was touching to see the old man, who for the greater part of his lifetime existed in unloving awe of a father he had always feared and been little noticed by, now, in the evening of life, treasuring up every reminiscence of him and considering every memorial as sacred. In his close stuffy little room were the last pheasants the great Duke had shot, the miniatures of his mother and aunt and of himself and his brother as children, his grandfather’s portrait, a good one of Marshal Saxe, and the picture of the horse Copenhagen. Most of the bedrooms were completely covered with prints pasted on the walls. It was the great Duke’s fancy. Some of them are amusing, but the general effect is poor and bad, and the medley curious, especially in some rooms where they were framed in crowds—Lord Eldon, Melancthon, and views of the Alhambra together. In the hall hung a fine beginning of a picture of the great Duke, painted by Goya at Madrid. Before it was finished the army had moved on to Salamanca. The Duke had then been made Captain-General of the forces, and upon the Spanish commander saying in a huff, ‘I will not serve under a foreigner,’ Goya rejoined, ‘And I will not finish his portrait.’ And he never did.

“Strathfieldsaye is an unprepossessing house—as the Duke himself said, ‘like a great cottage.’

“Lord Eversley gave, as a curious instance of the awe in which the great Duke kept his Duchess, that Mrs. Lefevre, going one day to visit her, found her dissolved in tears. When she asked the reason, the Duchess said, sobbing, ‘Look there,’ and from the window Mrs. Lefevre saw workmen cutting down all the ivy which made the whole beauty of the trees before the house; and when Mrs. Lefevre asked the Duchess why she did not remonstrate, she showed her a written paper which the head man had just brought in, having received it from the Duke—‘Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington desires that the ivy may immediately be cut down from every tree on his estate.’ They had begun with those nearest home; the Duke had evidently forgotten to except those, but his order could not be trifled with.

“One day the great Duke was much surprised by receiving a letter which he read as follows:—‘Being in the neighbourhood, I venture to ask permission to see some of your Grace’s best breeches. C. London.’ He answered to the Bishop of London that he had great pleasure in assenting to his request, though he must confess it had given him very considerable surprise. London House was thrown into confusion. The note was from Loudon, the great gardener, and ‘breeches’ should have been read ‘beeches.’[185]

“We went on to Silchester, which is one of the three walled Roman towns of England, Wroxeter and Risborough being the others. The walls, three miles in circumference, are nearly perfect. In the centre is the forum, an immense square, 315 feet by 276, surrounded by shops, amongst which those of the oyster-monger, game-seller, butcher, and jeweller have been identified. One house retains its curious apparatus for warming very perfect.”

“Heckfield, August 14.—Yesterday Colonel Townley came to dine, celebrated for his ride of eight hundred miles without stopping. It was of great importance that certain despatches from our Government should reach Constantinople before the Austrian messenger could deliver his, and Colonel Townley accomplished it. When within a few hours of Constantinople, an old wound opened from his exertion, and he felt almost dying; but just then he caught sight of the Austrian envoy coming over the brow of a distant hill, and it nerved him, and he rode on and arrived first. It gained him his colonelcy. He is a pleasant, handsome, unaffected man.”

“Deanery, Salisbury, August 15.—I came here yesterday morning to the Venerable Dean Hamilton of eighty-two, and his wife of seventy-two. He was a Cambridge friend of my uncle Julius Hare, and lived in the same circle, of Thirlwall, Whewell, Sedgwick, and the Malcolms, &c. His mind has all its old power, and he has much that is most interesting to tell of all the people he has seen. He gave a curious account of breakfasts at the house of Ugo Foscolo, where everything was served by the most beautiful maidens in picturesque dresses. He described the eccentric Mr. Peate, who lived in Trinity, but never came out of his rooms except to dinner or supper, when he always appeared to the moment. When Dr. Parr dined, Mr. Peate drew him out in Combination Room, but retired at the usual hour; only on going away, he walked up to Dr. Parr and said, ‘I will take leave of you, sir, in words which may possibly not be unfamiliar to you,’ and made a long set complimentary speech in honour of learning; it was all taken word for word from an essay Dr. Parr had published many years before; Peate’s memory was so very extraordinary. It was not, however, always very convenient, for if a neighbour at dinner affirmed an opinion, Peate would sometimes say, ‘On such a day or such a year you expressed such and such an opinion, which was exactly the reverse of this,’ for he never forgot anything, even the very terms of an expression.

“There is here in Salisbury the usual familiar society of a cathedral close—the Canon in residence and the other inhabitants meeting and going in and out of each others’ houses at all hours. With Canon Douglas Gordon I have been to the Palace, where we found the Bishop in his garden, which is quite lovely, the rich green and brilliant flowers sweeping up into and mingling with the grey arcades and rich chapels of the cathedral; and from all points the tall heaven-soaring spire is sublime, especially in the purple shadows of evening, with birds circling ceaselessly round it.

“The Palace has a grand dull room full of portraits of deceased bishops, where we had tea. Bishop Moberly, who is still rather schoolmasterish, has no end of daughters, all so excellent that it has been observed that whenever a colonist sends home for a commendable wife, you may, with the most perfect confidence, despatch a Miss Moberly.”

“August 16.—To Breamore, the fine old Elizabethan house of Sir Edward Hulse, almost gutted by fire some years ago. I was taken up to the housetop to survey several surrounding counties, and sat the rest of the afternoon with the family in the shade of the old red gables. Two very handsome boys, Edward and Westrow, asked for a story.”

“Stanmer Park, August 18.—I came here yesterday to Lord Chichester’s. It is a moderate house in a dullish park, with fine trees and a bright flower-garden. We pray a great deal, and Lord Chichester—who is intensely good—makes little sermons at prayers. … Lord Pelham is very amusing under a quiet manner. ‘I thought I heard your dulcet tones, my love, so I am coming out to you,’ he is just saying, as he steps through the open window to his wife upon the verandah.”

“Oct. 4.—A most charming visit to Lady Mary Egerton at Mountfield Court. Mr. Charles Newton[186] of the British Museum is here, who is always charming, with ripple of pleasantest anecdote and kindly, genial manners. He says:—

“General Skenk had a monkey and a parrot, which hated each other. One day he imprudently went out, leaving them alone together in a room. When he came back, the monkey was sitting in his arm-chair, bleeding profusely, and looking very sheepish and ashamed of himself, while the floor was covered with feathers. The parrot had disappeared, but while General Skenk was looking for any further remains of it, out from under a sofa walked a perfectly naked bird, and said, ‘What a hell of a time we’ve had!’

“Mr. Newton was at a spiritual séance. An old man of the party was told that the spirit manifested was his wife, upon which he said:—

“ ‘Is that you, ’Arriet?’

“ ‘Yes, it’s me.’

“ ‘Are you ’appy, ’Arriet?’

“ ‘Yes, very ‘appy.’

“ ‘’Appier than you were with me, ’Arriet?’

“ ‘Yes, much ‘appier.’

“ ‘Where are you, ‘’Arriet?’

“ ‘In ‘ell.’

“Mr. Newton says that the cry of the wood-pigeon is ‘Sow peas, do, do.’ There is a bird in Turkey of which the male seems to say a string of words meaning ‘Have you seen my sheep?’ when the female replies, ‘No, I have not seen them.’ They are said to be a shepherd and shepherdess who lost all their sheep and died of a broken heart, when they were turned into birds. But the interesting point is that the story is found in an old Greek novel—‘Longus.’

“ ‘The origin of the Torlonia family,’ said Mr. Newton, ‘is very curious. When Pius VII. wished to excommunicate Napoleon I., he could not find any one who was bold enough to affix the scomunica to the doors of the Lateran. At length an old man who sold matches was found who ran the risk and did it. On the return of the Pope in triumph, the old man was offered any favour he liked, and he chose the monopoly of tobacco. From that time every speculation that the Torlonias entered upon was sure to answer.’

“The late Prince Torlonia, being at Naples, went into the room where the public appointments were sold by auction. He left his umbrella there, and went back to get it while the sale was going on. The bidders, chiefly Neapolitan nobles, were aghast to see the great Torlonia reappear, and at last, after some consultation, one of them came up to him and said they would give him 60,000 francs if he would leave. Instead of showing the intense astonishment he felt at this most unexpected proposal, Torlonia only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘È póco,’ and they gave him 100,000.

“The only other guests at Mountfield are a Mr. Baker, a Gloucestershire squire, and his wife. He is an excellent man, and was the first who instituted a Reformatory. This he did first at his own expense, but the Government bought it from him. He speaks with the most dreary voice. Mr. Newton says it is ‘just the sort of utterance he should be grateful for if he was making his last speech upon the scaffold.’ ”

“Sonning, Dec. 30.—My ever-kind friend Lord Stanhope died on Christmas Eve. It was only two years from the time of dear Lady Stanhope’s death, on New Year’s Eve, 1873. She left a paper for her husband—what she called her ‘Last Words’—imploring him, for her sake, to go back to his literary interests, not to give up what had been his work, to try to fill up the blank in his life.

“When Lord Stanhope was dying, he said touchingly to Lady Mohun, ‘You know what my dearest Emily asked of me in her last words. I have tried to do as she wished, and you, my dear, have been such a good and kind daughter to me, you have almost made me wish to live.’

“I have been spending charming days with Hugh Pearson. He says, ‘What will become of a country in which the upper classes are content to be fed upon Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ’ and the middle classes upon Moody and Sankey?’ He told me of Justice Knight Bruce’s capital lines—

‘The ladies praise our curate’s eyes;

I cannot see their light divine:

He always shuts them when he prays,

And, when he preaches, closes mine.’ ”