It was when we were staying with Aunt Marianne in 1839 that I first saw my real mother. "On est mère, ou on ne l'est pas," says the Madame Cardinal of Ludovic Halévy. In my case "on ne l'était pas." I watched Mrs. Hare's arrival, and, through the banisters of the staircase, saw her cross the hall, and was on the tiptoe of expectation; but she displayed no interest about seeing me, and did not ask for me at all till late in the evening, when all enthusiasm had died away. "I hope the Wolf answered your expectations, or still better surpassed them," wrote my father to his wife from West Woodhay. He was in the habit of calling all his children by the names of beasts. "Bring some cold-cream for the Tigress" (my sister), he wrote at the same time, and "the Owl (Eleanor Paul) and the Beast (William) are going to dine out." Francis he generally called "Ping," and his wife "Mrs. Pook."
Aunt Marianne, wishing to flatter Uncle Julius's love of learning, proudly announced to him that she had given me a book—a present I was perfectly enchanted with—when, to my intense dismay, he insisted upon exchanging it for a skipping-rope! which I could never be persuaded to use.
In the autumn of 1839 my father again returned with his family to Pisa, to the bitter grief of old Mrs. Louisa Shipley, who refused altogether to take leave of Mrs. Hare, though she afterwards wrote (Oct. 16), "I hope Anne has forgiven my rudeness her last day. I was too sorry to part with you to admit any third person." She was already rapidly failing, but she still wrote, "Your letters always give me pleasure, when I can read them, but to be sure they take a long time in deciphering." In the course of the following winter Mrs. Louisa Shipley died, without seeing her favourite nephew again. It was found then that she had never forgiven the last emigration to Italy against her wishes. Except a legacy to my Uncle Marcus, she left all she possessed to her next neighbour and cousin, Mrs. Townshend (daughter of Lady Milner—half-sister of Mrs. Shipley)—a will which caused terrible heartburnings amongst her more immediate relations, especially as many precious relics of Lady Jones and of Mrs. Hare Naylor were included in the property thus bequeathed. At the same time the estate of Gresford in Flintshire, which Bishop Shipley had left to each of his daughters in turn, now, on the death of the last of them, descended to my father, as the eldest son of the eldest daughter who had left children.
Victoire remembered the arrival of the letter, sealed with black, which announced the death of Mrs. Shipley, whilst the Hare family were at Florence. Félix was with his master when he opened the letter, and came in afterwards to his wife, exclaiming, "Oh mon pauvre M. Hare a eu bien de malheur." Francis Hare had thrown up his hands and said, "Félix, nous sommes perdus." All that day he would not dress, and he walked up and down the room in his dressing-gown, quite pale. He never was the same person again. Up to that time he had always been "si gai"—he was always smiling. He was "si recherché." "Avec les grands il était si franc, si charmant, mais avec les personnes de basse condition il était encore plus aimable que avec les grands personnages. Oh! comme il était aimé. … Jusque là il était invité partout, et il donnait toujours à diner et ses fêtes, et son introduction était comme un passeport partout. Mais depuis là il ne faisait pas le même—et c'était juste: il faudrait penser à ses enfants."[21]
But I am digressing from my own story, and must return to the intensely happy time of escaping from Rockend and going to Stoke. It was during this journey that I first saw any ruin of importance beyond Hurstmonceaux and Pevensey. This was Glastonbury Abbey, and it made a great impression upon me. I also saw the famous Christmas-blooming thorn, which is said to have grown from St. Joseph of Arimathea's staff, in the abbot's garden, bright with hepaticas. I remember at Stoke this year having for the first time a sense of how much the pleasantness of religious things depends upon the person who expresses them. During the winter my mother saw much of the voluminous author Mr. Charles Tayler, who was then acting as curate at Hodnet. He was very frank and sincere, and his "religious talking" I did not mind at all; whereas when the Maurices "talked," I thought it quite loathsome. In the following summer I used often to listen to conversations between Mr. Manning (afterwards Archdeacon, then Cardinal) and my mother, as he then first fell into the habit of coming constantly to Hurstmonceaux and being very intimate with my mother and uncle. He was very lovable and one of the most perfectly gentle gentle-men I have ever known; my real mother used to call him "l'harmonie de la poésie religieuse." My mother was very unhappy when he became a Roman Catholic in 1851.
How many happy recollections I have of hot summer days in the unbroken tranquillity of these summers at Lime. My mother was then the object of my uncle's exclusive devotion. He consulted her on every subject, and he thought every day a blank in which they had no meeting. We constantly drove up to the Rectory in the afternoon, when he had always some new plant to show her and to talk about. I well remember his enchantment over some of the new flowers which were being "invented" then—especially Salpiglossis (so exceedingly admired at first, but now forgotten), Salvia patens and Fuchsia fulgens, of which we brought back from Wood's Nursery a little plant, which was looked upon as a perfect marvel of nature.
Often when awake in the night now, I recall, out of the multiplicity of pretty, even valuable things, with which my house of Holmhurst is filled, how few of them belonged to our dear simple home in these early days. The small double hall had nothing in it, I think, except a few chairs, and some cloaks hanging on pegs against the wall, and the simple furniture of the double drawing-room consisted chiefly of the gifts made to my mother by her family when she went to Alton. One wall—the longest—was, however, occupied by a great bookcase, filled with handsomely bound books, chiefly divinity, many of them German. On the other walls hung a very few valuable engravings, mostly from Raffaelle, and all framed according to Uncle Julius's fancy, which would have driven print-collectors frantic, for he cut off all margins, even of proofs before letters. The only point of colour in the room, not given by flowers, came from a large panel picture presented by Landor—a Madonna and Child by Raffaellino da Colle, in a fine old Italian frame. The few china ornaments on the chimney-piece beneath were many of them broken, but they were infinitely precious to us. In the dining-room were only a few prints of Reginald Heber, my Uncle Norwich, my grandfather Leycester, and others. Simpler still were the bedrooms, where the curtains of the windows and beds were of white dimity. In my mother's room, however, were some beautiful sketches of the older family by Flaxman. The "pantry," which was Lea's especial sitting-room, where the walls were covered with pictures and the mantel-piece laden with china, had more the look of rooms of the present time. I believe, however, that the almost spiritualised aspect of my mother's rooms at Lime were as characteristic of her at this time, as the more mundane rooms of my after home of Holmhurst are characteristic of myself!
My mother and I breakfasted every morning at eight (as far as I can remember, I never had any meal in the so-called nursery) in the dining-room, which, as well as the drawing-room, had wide glass doors always open to the little terrace of the garden, from which the smell of new-mown grass or dewy pinks and syringa was wafted into the room. If it was very hot too, our breakfast took place on the terrace, in the deep shadow of the house, outside the little drawing-room window. After breakfast I began my lessons, which, though my mother and uncle always considered me a dunce, I now think to have been rather advanced for a child of five years old, as besides English reading, writing and spelling, history, arithmetic and geography, I had to do German reading and writing, and a little Latin. Botany and drawing I was also taught, but they were an intense delight. Through plans, maps, and raised models, I was made perfectly familiar with the topography of Jerusalem and the architecture of the Temple, though utterly ignorant of the topography of Rome or London and of the architecture of St. Peter's or St. Paul's. But indeed I never recollect the moment of (indoor) childhood in which I