My mother's "religion" made her think reading any novel, or any kind of work of fiction, absolutely wicked at this time, but Grannie took in "Pickwick," which was coming out in numbers. She read it by her dressing-room fire with closed doors, and her old maid, Cowbourne, well on the watch against intruders—"elle prenait la peine de s'en divertir avec tout le respect du monde;" and I used to pick the fragments out of the waste-paper basket, piece them together, and read them too.
Sundays were far less horrid at Stoke than at home, for Grannie generally found something for me to do. Most primitive were the church services, very different indeed from the ritualism which has reigned at Stoke since, and which is sufficient to bring the old grandparents out of their graves. In our day the Rectory-pew bore a carved inscription—
God prosper ye Kynge long in thys lande And grant that Papystrie never have ye vper hande,
but the present Rector has removed it.
I can see the congregation still in imagination, the old women in their red cloaks and large black bonnets; the old men with their glistening brass buttons, and each with his bunch of southern-wood—"old man"—to snuff at. In my childhood the tunes of the hymns were always given with a pitch-pipe. "Dame Dutton's School" used to be ranged round the altar, and the grand old alabaster tomb of Sir Reginald Corbet, and if any of the children behaved ill during the service, they were turned up and soundly whipped then and there, their outcries mingling oddly with the responses of the congregation. But in those days, now considered so benighted, there was sometimes real devotion. People sometimes said real prayers even in church, before the times since which the poor in village churches are so frequently compelled to say their prayers to music. The curates always came to luncheon at the Rectory on Sundays. They were always compelled to come in ignominiously at the back door, lest they should dirty the entrance: only Mr. Egerton was allowed to come in at the front door, because he was "a gentleman born." How Grannie used to bully the curates! They were expected not to talk at luncheon, if they did they were soon put down. "Tea-table theology" was unknown in those days. As soon as the curates had swallowed a proper amount of cold veal, they were called upon to "give an account to Mrs. Leycester" of all that they had done in the week in the four quarters of the parish—Eton, Ollerton, Wistanswick, and Stoke—and soundly were they rated if their actions did not correspond with her intentions. After the curates, came the school-girls to practise their singing, and my mother was set down to strum the piano by the hour together as an accompaniment, while Grannie occupied herself in seeing that they opened their mouths wide enough, dragging the mouths open by force, and, if they would not sing properly, putting her fingers so far down their throats that she made them sick. One day, when she was doing this, Margaret Beeston bit her violently. Mr. Egerton was desired to talk to her afterwards about the wickedness of her conduct. "How could you be such a naughty girl, Margaret, as to bite Mrs. Leycester?"—"What'n her put her fingers down my throat for? oi'll boite she harder next time," replied the impenitent Margaret.
Grannie used to talk of chaney (china), laylocks (lilacs), and gould (gold): of the Prooshians and the Rooshians: of things being "plaguey dear" or "plaguey bad." In my childhood, however, half my elders used such expressions, which now seem to be almost extinct. "Obleege me by passing the cowcumber," Uncle Julius always used to say.
There were always three especial sources of turmoil at Stoke—the curates, the butlers, and the gardeners. Grannie was very severe to all her dependants, but to no one more than to three young lady protégées who lived with her in turn—Eliza Lathom, Emma Hunt, and Charlotte Atkinson—whom she fed on skim-milk and dry bread, and treated so harshly that the most adventurous and youngest of them, Charlotte Atkinson,[25] ran away altogether, joined a party of strolling players, and eventually married an actor (Mr. Tweedie). I remember Grannie going down into the kitchen one day and scolding the cook till she could bear it no longer, when she seized the dinner-bell from the shelf and rang it in her ears till she ran out of the kitchen. When there was "a wash" at Stoke, which was about every third week, it was a rule with Grannie that, summer or winter, it must always begin at one A.M. At that hour old Hannah Berry used to arrive from the village, the coppers were heated and the maids at work. The ladies-maids, who were expected to do all the fine muslins, &c., themselves, had also always to be at the washtubs at three A.M.—by candlelight. If any one was late, the housekeeper reported to Mrs. Leycester, who was soon down upon them pretty sharply. Generally, however, her real practical kindness and generosity prevented any one minding Mrs. Leycester's severity: it was looked upon as only "her way;" for people were not so tender in those days as they are now, and certainly no servant would have thought of giving up a place which was essentially a good one because they were a little roughly handled by their mistress. In those days servants were as liable to personal chastisement as the children of the house, and would as little have thought of resenting it. "You don't suppose I'm going to hurt my fingers in boxing your ears," said Grannie, when about to chastise the school children she was teaching, and she would take up a book from the table and use it soundly, and then say, "Now, we mustn't let the other ear be jealous," and turn the child round and lay on again on the other side. Grannie constantly boxed her housemaids' ears, and alas! when he grew very old, she used to box dear Grandpapa's, though she loved him dearly, the great source of offence being that he would sometimes slyly give the servant's elbow a tip when his daily table-spoonful of brandy was being poured out.
As I have said, Grannie was quite devoted to Grandpapa, yet as she was twenty years younger, his great age could not but accustom her to the thought of his death, and she constantly talked before him, to his great amusement, of what she should do as a widow. Judge Leycester ("Uncle Hugh"), my grandfather's brother, had left her a house in New Street, Spring Gardens, and whenever Mary Stanley went to Stoke, she used to make her write down the different stages and distances to London to be ready for her removal. Frequently the family used to be startled by a tremendous "rat-a-tat-tat-tat," on the dining-room door. Grannie had ordered Richard, the young footman, up, and was teaching him how to give "a London knock"—it was well he should be prepared. One day the party sitting in the drawing-room were astonished to see the family carriage drive up to the door, with Spragg the butler on the box. "I was only seeing how Spragg will look as coachman when your Grandpapa is dead," said Grannie, and Grandpapa looked on at the arrangements and enjoyed them heartily.
As for dear Grandpapa himself, he was always happy. He would amuse himself for hours in touching up in grey or brown his own (very feeble) sketches in Switzerland or France. Being a great classical scholar, he also read a great deal of Italian and Latin poetry, and addressed a Latin ode to his daughter-in-law Lady Charlotte Penrhyn when he was in his ninety-second year! This kind aunt of my childhood—"Aunt Nin," as I always called her—was a very simple person, utterly without pretension, but because she was Lord Derby's daughter, Grannie always treated her as the great person of the family. When we went to Stoke, no difference whatever was made in the house, the stair-carpets were not laid down, and though the drawing-room was constantly lived in, its furniture was all swathed in brown holland after the fashion of an uninhabited London house. When the Stanleys or Leycesters of Toft came to Stoke, the stair-carpet was put down and the covers-covers were taken off; but on the rare occasions when Aunt Penrhyn came to Stoke—oh sublime moment!—the covers themselves were taken off.
From our constant winter walk—"the Rope Walk"—my mother and I could see Hodnet Tower, of which Grandpapa had at one time been Rector as well as of Stoke. Bishop Heber had been Rector before