“Our old maid Teresa was of a very romantic turn of mind. We used, when I was a child, to live in the Palazzo Sciarra, where the ‘Maddalena della Radice’ is. She used to stand opposite to the picture and exclaim in gulpy tones, ‘Sono bestia io, e non capisco niente, ma questo me pare—pittoresco.’ My little sister, when our father was away, stood one day at the top of the stairs and said, ‘Io son padrona di casa, e no son padrona di casa: voi siete la servitu, e non siete la servitu.’ Teresa exclaimed, ‘Questa diavola, com’ é carina.’ We used to hear Teresa talking to our other maid, and they boasted of the number of times they had been beaten by their husbands. One day—it was during the French occupation, when the bread was doled out—Teresa took her tambourine with her when she went to get it, for they all loved flirting with the soldiers; and when her husband asked her what it was for, she said it was to bring back the bread in. But when she got inside the circle of soldiers, they had a merry saltarello. The husband was kept back outside the circle, and stood there furious. At first she laughed at him, but then when he went away and came back again, she got really frightened. And when she came out of the circle he flogged her with a whip all the way back to the Trastevere, and she ran before him screaming.
“How curious it is that ‘Est locanda’ is still to be seen in Roman windows of houses to be let—the one little relic of Latin: and how odd the word for lodgings being the same in all languages—Quartier, Quartos, Quartiere, Quarter, &c.”
Lady Marion also said:—
“As we were leaving Gibraltar, three of the shells from the practising fell quite close to our yacht. ‘Are you not very much frightened?’ said a French gentleman on board. ‘Not in the least,’ I said. ‘How could I be? our men are such perfect marksmen;’ but of course I was dreadfully.”
This story is wonderfully characteristic of the speaker: the Empress Catherine might have given such an answer. About ghosts Lady Marion was very amusing:—
“When I went to Belvoir with Lady Caroline Cust, they danced in the evening. I went upstairs early, for I was tired. As I was going to my room, Lady Jersey—it was wrong of her, I think—said, ‘Oh, I see you are put into the ghost-room.’ I said, ‘I am quite happy; there are no real ghosts here, I think.’—‘Well,’ said Lady Jersey, ‘I can only say Miss Drummond slept there last night, and she received letters of importance this morning and left before breakfast.’ Well, I went into my room, and lit the candles and made up the fire, but very soon I gave a great jump, for I heard the most dreadful noise close at my elbow—Oh-o-oo-oo!’ I thought of course that it was a practical joke, and began to examine every corner of the room, thinking some one must be hidden there; then I rang my bell. When my maid came in I said, ‘Now don’t be frightened, but there is some one hidden in this room somewhere, and you must help me to find him.’ Very soon the noise came again. Then Lady Caroline came, and she heard it: then her maid came. The noise occurred about every five minutes. We examined everything and stood in each corner of the room. The noise then seemed close to each of us. At last Lady Caroline said, ‘I can stand this no longer, and I must go,’ and she and her maid went away and shut themselves into the next room. Then I said to my maid, ‘If you are frightened you had better go,’ but she protested that she would rather stay where she was; after what she had heard, anything would be better than facing the long lonely passages alone. However, just at that moment ‘Oh-o-oo-oo!’ went off again close to her ear, and with one spring she darted out of the room and ran off as hard as ever she could. I went courageously to bed and determined to brave it out. But the thing went to bed too, and went off at intervals on the pillow close to my face. And at last it grated on my nerves to such a degree that I could bear it no longer, and I dragged a mattress into Lady Caroline’s room and slept there till dawn. The next morning I also received letters of importance and left before breakfast.
“Before I left, I sent for the housekeeper, and said, ‘You really should not put people into that room,’ and told her what had happened. She was much distressed, and told me that there really was no other room in the house then, but confessed it had often happened so before. Some time after I went over to Belvoir with some friends who wanted to see the castle, and the housekeeper then told me that the same thing had happened again in that room, which was now permanently shut up.”
Other guests at Ford were Mrs. Richard Boyle (known as E. V. B.), and her daughter—very quaint and original, and the mother a capital artist. We went to the Rowting Lynn, a beautiful spot surrounded with rocks overhung by old oak-trees. “Did you enjoy your walk?” said Lady Waterford to Mrs. Boyle as we came in. “Yes, excessively. You never told me you had a waterfall. You offered me a coal-pit, but the waterfall you forgot to mention.”
Lady Waterford was herself more delightful than ever. As Marocetti said of her, “C’est un grand homme, mais une femme charmante.” Here are some scraps from her conversation:—
“That is a sketch of L. H. She did not know I was drawing her. She looks sixteen, but is quite middle-aged. Mama used to say she was like preserved green peas. Preserved green peas are not quite so good as real green peas, but they do very nearly as well.’
“I always take a little book with me in the train and draw the things as I pass them. That is some railings against a sunset sky when it was almost dark: I thought it was like a bit of Tintoret.
“How trying it is to be kept waiting for people. Don’t you know the Italian proverb?—
‘Aspettare e non venire,
Star in letto e non dormire,
Vuol piacer, e non gradire.’
Miss Boyle had a much better one, though—
‘To do, to suffer, is a glorious state,
But a more noble portion is to wait.’
“How beautiful the singing was in our young days—Grisi and Mario and Lablache, who went straight to one’s heart and fluttered there.
“Some one, old Madame de Flahault I think it was, asked what she could give as a present. It must be ‘très rare et pas coûteux,’ and it was suggested that she should give a lock of her hair.
“You are like the old lady who said she had never had a ripe peach in her life, because when she was young all the old people had them, and when she grew old all the young people had them.
“I am longing to read ‘Marjory,’[25] but I cannot when I have my house full—my novel en action. When people are here and tell me their little stories, that is what I like best to read.”
To Miss Wright.
“Crook Hall, Lancashire, Oct. 20, 1872.—My visit at Ford was perfectly enchanting, and I made several new friendships there in what you think my sudden way, especially one with Lord Ronald Gower, which I think may become a pleasure. I much enjoyed, too, making friends with Mr. Beaumont and Lady Margaret B., one of the very best types of a fine lady it is possible to meet, almost funnily aristocratic in all her ideas, and high-minded in proportion. Her little person is arrayed in gowns which were as much things of beauty in their way as a mountain landscape; there is such a difference between ‘smart dress,’ and such a lovely harmony of shade and colour, as one can scarcely think of as mere clothing. Then I saw a great deal of the dear Lady Waterford, and am more than ever instructed and touched by her beautiful, noble, holy life. It is absolutely impossible to her to ‘think any evil,’ and so, to her, the best side of every one comes out. As an easier ‘let down’ than anything else, I accepted an invitation from thence to Lord and Lady Grey for three days at Howick on the wild sea-coast, and enjoyed my visit immensely. No one has more completely ‘l’art