"October the I don't know what.—O dearest Mamma, what do you think! Mr. Dalby asked me to go to Compton Bassett with Mr. and Mrs. Kilvert and Freddie Sheppard. … When we got to the gate of a lovely rectory near Calne, Mrs. Sheppard flew to the door to receive her son, as you would me, with two beautiful little girls his sisters. After dinner I went with Freddie into the garden, and to the church, and saw the peacocks and silver pheasants, and made a sketch of the rectory. On Sunday we had prayers with singing and went to church twice, and saw a beautiful avenue where the ground was covered with beech-nuts. On Monday the Dalbys' carriage brought us to Chippenham to the Angel, where we got out and walked to Harnish. Mr. Dalby told me to tell you that having known Uncle Augustus so well, he had taken the liberty to invite me to Compton."
"Oct. 6.—It is now only ten weeks and six days to the holidays. Last night I had a pan of hot water for my feet and a warm bed, and, what was worse, two horrible pills! and this morning when I came down I was presented with a large breakfast-cup of senna-tea, and was very sick indeed and had a very bad stomach-ache. But to comfort me I got your dear letter with a sermon, but who is to preach it?"
"Nov. 6.—Dearest Mamma, as soon as we came down yesterday all our dresses for the fifth of November were laid out. After breakfast the procession was dressed, and as soon as the sentinel proclaimed that the clock struck ten, the grand procession set out: first Gumbleton and Sheppard dressed up with straps, cocked hats, and rosettes, carrying between them, on a chair, Samuel dressed as Guy Fawkes in a large cocked hat and short cloak and with a lanthorn in his hand. Then came Proby carrying a Union Jack, and Walter (Arnold) with him, with rosettes and bands. Then King Alick with a crown turned up with ermine, and round his leg a blue garter. Behind him walked the Queen (Deacon Coles) with a purple crown and long yellow robe and train, and Princess Elizabeth (me) in a robe and train of pink and green. After the procession had moved round the garden, singing—
'Remember, remember,
The fifth of November, &c.,'
the sentinel of the guard announced that the cart of faggots was coming up the hill … and in the evening was a beautiful bonfire and fireworks.
"What a pity it is that the new railway does not turn aside to save Lewes Priory. I shall like very much to see the skeletons, but I had much rather that Gundrada and her husband lay still in their coffins, and that the Priory had not been disturbed. … It is only five weeks now to the holidays."
"Nov. 28.—Counting to the 19th, and not counting the day of breaking up, it is now only three weeks to the holidays. I will give you a history of getting home. From Lewes I shall look out for the castle and the Visitation church. Then I shall pass Ringmer, the Green Man Inn, Laughton, the Bat and Ball; then the Dicker, Horsebridge, the Workhouse, the turnpike, the turn to Carter's Corner, the turn to Magham Down, Woodham's Farm, the Deaf and Dumb House, the Rectory on the hill, the Mile Post—'15 miles to Lewes,' Lime Wood, the gate (oh! when shall I be there!)—then turn in, the Flower Field, the Beaney Field, the gate—oh! the garden—two figures—John and Lea, perhaps you—perhaps even the kittens will come to welcome their master. Oh my Lime! in little more than three weeks I shall be there!"
"Hurrah for Dec. 1.—On Wednesday it will be, not counting breaking-up day, two weeks, and oh! the Wednesday after we shall say 'one week.' This month we break up! I dream of nothing, think of nothing, but coming home. To-day we went with Mr. Walker (the usher) to Chippenham, and saw where Lea and I used to go to sit on the wooden bridge. … Not many more letters! not many more sums!"
How vividly, how acutely, I recollect that—in my passionate devotion to my mother—I used, as the holidays approached, to conjure up the most vivid mental pictures of my return to her, and appease my longing with the thought of how she would rush out to meet me, of her ecstatic delight, &c.; and then how terrible was the bathos of the reality, when I drove up to the silent door of Lime, and nobody but Lea took any notice of my coming; and of the awful chill of going into the drawing-room and seeing my longed-for and pined-for mother sit still in her chair by the fire till I went up and kissed her. To her, who had been taught always to curtsey not only to her father, but even to her father's chair, it was only natural; but I often sobbed myself to sleep in a little-understood agony of anguish—an anguish that she could not really care for me.
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!"[37]
In the winter of 1845–46, "Aunt Lucy" let Rockend to Lord Beverley, and came to live at Lime for six months with her three children, a governess, and two, sometimes three, servants. As she fancied herself poor, and this plan was economical, it was frequently repeated afterwards. On the whole, the arrangement was satisfactory to me, as though Aunt Lucy was excessively unkind to me, and often did not speak a single word to me for many weeks together, and though the children were most tormenting, Aunt Esther—a far greater enemy—was at least kept at bay, for Aunt Lucy detested her influence and going to the Rectory quite as cordially as I did.
How often I remember my ever-impatient rebellion against the doctrine I was always taught as fundamental—that my uncles and aunts must be always right, and that to question the absolute wisdom and justice of their every act—to me so utterly selfish—was typical of the meanest and vilest nature. How odd it is that parents, and still more uncles and aunts, never will understand, that whilst they are criticising and scrutinising their children or nephews, the latter are also scrutinising and criticising them. Yet so it is: investigation and judgment of character is usually mutual. During this winter, however, I imagine that the aunts were especially amiable, as in the child's play which I wrote, and which we all acted—"The Hope of the Katzekoffs"—they, with my mother, represented the three fairies—"Brigida, Rigida, and Frigida"—Aunt Lucy, I need hardly say, being Frigida, and Aunt Esther Rigida.
Being very ill with the measles kept me at home till the middle of February. Aunt Lucy's three children also had the measles, and were very ill; and it is well remembered as characteristic of Aunt Esther, that she said when they were at the worst—"I am very glad they are so ill: it is a well-deserved punishment because their mother would not let them go to church for fear they should catch it there." Church and a love of church was the standard by which Aunt Esther measured everything. In all things she had the inflexible cruelty of a Dominican. She would willingly and proudly undergo martyrdom herself for her own principles, but she would torture without remorse those who differed from her.
When we were recovering, Aunt Lucy read "Guy Mannering" aloud to us. It was enchanting. I had always longed beyond words to read Scott's novels, but had never been allowed to do so—"they were too exciting for a boy!" But usually, as Aunt Lucy and my mother sat together, their conversation was almost entirely about the spiritual things in which their hearts, their mental powers, their whole being were absorbed. The doctrine of Pascal was always before their minds—"La vie humaine n'est qu'une illusion perpetuelle," and their treasure was truly set in heavenly places. They would talk of heaven in detail just as worldly people would talk of the place where they were going for change of air. At this time, I remember, they both wished—no, I suppose they only thought they wished—to die: they talked of longing, pining for "the coming of the kingdom," but when they grew really old, when the time which they had wished for before was in all probability really near, and when they were, I believe, far more really prepared for it, they ceased to wish for it. "By-and-by" would do. I imagine it is always thus.
Aunt Lucy loved her second boy Theodore much the best of her three children, and made the greatest possible difference between him and the others. I remember this being very harshly criticised at the time; but now it seems to me only natural that in any family there must be favourites. It is with earthly parents as Dr. Foxe said in a sermon about God, that "though he may love all his children, he must have an especial feeling for his saints."
To MY MOTHER.
"March 13.—My dearest, dearest