Story of My Life Part 49

'It may be when the midnight Is heavy upon the land, And the black waves lying dumbly Along the sand; When the moonless night draws close, And the lights are out in the house; When the fires burn low and red, And the watch is ticking loudly Beside the bed: Though you sleep, tired out, on your couch, Still your heart must wake and watch In the dark room, For it may be that at midnight I will come.'

When the Master does come, she will be always found waiting. Has not my darling kept her lamp burning all her life long? Surely when the Bridegroom cometh, she will enter into the kingdom.

"I cannot tell how soon it will be. I have no hope now of her being given back to me. It is a solemn waiting. Oh! my Esmeralda, when you hear that the hour _has_ come, pity, pray for her unutterably desolate son."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Feb. 17._--There has been an unexpected rally. Two days ago, when I was quite hopeless and she lay motionless, unconscious of earth, Dr. Taylor said, '_Wait_, you can do nothing: if this trance is to end fatally, you can do nothing to arrest it; but it may still prove to be an extraordinary effort of Nature to recruit itself.'

And truly, at eight o'clock yesterday morning, after sixty hours of trance, she suddenly opened her eyes, smiled and spoke naturally. I had just left the room, when Lea called me back--'She is talking to me.' I could scarcely believe it; yet, when I went in, there my darling sat in her bed, with a sweet look of restored consciousness and returning power.

"It was like a miracle.

"She remembers nothing now of her illness. She does not think she has suffered. During the last night she says she was constantly saying the seventy-first Psalm. Almost the first thing she said after rallying was, 'I have not been alone: your Uncle Penrhyn and your Aunt Kitty[257] have been here, supporting me all through the night.'

"Our nice simple little landlady had just been to the church to pray for her, and, coming back to find her restored, believes it is in answer to her prayers.

"I did not know what the agony of the last three days was till they were over. While they lasted, I thought of nothing but to be bright for _her_, that she might _only_ see smiles, to prevent Lea from giving way, and to glean up every glance and word and movement; but to-day I feel much exhausted."

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Pau, Feb. 21._--My darling has been mercifully restored to me for a little while--a few days' breathing s.p.a.ce; and yet I could not count upon this even while it lasted; I could not dwell upon hope, I could not look forward--the frail frame is so _very_ frail. I cannot think she is given to me for long: I only attempt to store up the blessings of each day now against the long desolate future.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAU.[258]]

"Last Sunday week she fell into her trance. It lasted between sixty and seventy hours. During this time she was almost unconscious. She knew me, she even said 'Dear' to me once or twice, and smiled most sweetly as she did so, but otherwise she was totally unconscious of all around her, of day and night, of the sorrow or anxiety of the watchers, of pain or trouble. A serene peace overshadowed her, a heavenly sweetness filled her expression, and never varied except to dimple into smiles of angelic beauty, as if she were already in the company of angels.

"But for the last sixteen hours the trance was like death. Then the doctor said, 'If the pulse does not sink and if she wakes naturally, she may rally.' This happened. At eight the next morning, my darling gently awoke and was given back into life. This was Thursday, and there were three days' respite. But yesterday she was evidently failing again, and this morning, while Dr. Taylor was in the room, the trance came on again. For ten minutes her pulse ceased to beat altogether.... Since then she has lain as before--scarcely here, yet not gone--quite happy--_between_ heaven and earth.

"I believe now that if my darling is taken I can give thanks for the exceeding blessedness of this end.

"Meantime it is again a silent watching, and, as I watch, the solemn music of the hymns that my darling loves comes back to me, and I repeat them to myself. Now these verses are in my mind:--

'Have we not caught the smiling On some beloved face, As if a heavenly sound were wiling The soul from our earthly place?-- The distant sound and sweet Of the Master's coming feet.

We may clasp the loved one faster, And plead for a little while, But who can resist the Master?

And we read by that brightening smile That the tread we may not fear Is drawing surely near.'

And then, in the long watches of the night, all the golden past comes back to me--how as a little child I played round my darling in Lime Wood--how the flowers were our friends and companions--how we lived in and for one another in the bright Lime garden: of her patient endurance of much injustice--of her sweet forgiveness of all injuries--of her loving grat.i.tude for all blessings--of her ever sure upward-seeking of the will and glory of G.o.d: and my eye wanders to the beloved face, lined and worn but glowing with the glory of another world, and while giving thanks for thirty years of past blessing, shall I not also give thanks that thus--not through the dark valley, but through the suns.h.i.+ne of G.o.d--my mother is entering upon her rest?

"G.o.d will give me strength: I feel quite calm. I can think only how to soothe, how to cheer, how to do everything for her."

"_Feb. 26._--It is still the same; we are still watching. In the hundred and twelfth hour of her second trance, during which she had taken no nourishment whatever, my mother spoke again, but it was only for a time. You will imagine what the long watchings of this death-like slumber have been, what the strange visions of the past which have risen to my mind in the long, silent nights, as, with locked doors (for the French would insist that all was over), I have hovered over the pillow on which she lies as if bound by enchantment. Now comes before me the death-bed scene of S. Vincent de Paul, when, to the watchers lamenting together over his perpetual stupor, his voice suddenly said, 'It is but the brother that goes before the sister.' Then, as the shadows lighten into dawn, Norman Macleod's story of how he was watching by the death-bed of his beloved one in an old German city, and grief was sinking into despair, when, loud and solemn, at three in the morning, echoed forth the voice of the old German watchman giving the hours in the patriarchal way--'Put your trust in the _Divine Three_, for after the darkest night cometh the break of day.'

"Last night the trance seemed over. All was changed. My sweetest one was haunted by strange visions; to her excited mind and renewed speech, every fold of the curtains was a spirit, every sound an alarm. For hours I sat with her trembling hands in mine, soothing her with the old hymns that she loves. To a certain extent, however, there is more hope, more of returning power. Is it a superst.i.tion to think that she began to revive when in the churches at Holmhurst, Hastings, Hurstmonceaux, Alton, and Pau prayers (and in many cases how earnest) were being offered up for her restoration?

"_Two_ P.M.--My darling has been sitting up in bed listening to sweet voices, which have been singing to her; but they were no earthly voices which she heard.

"_Ten_ P.M.--She has just declared that she sees Ruth Harmer (a good, sweet girl she used to visit, who died at Hurstmonceaux) standing by her bedside. 'It is Ruth Harmer--look at Ruth Harmer,'

she said. But it was not a voice of terror; it was rather like the apostolic question, 'Who are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence come they?' There has also been a time when she has spoken of 'dear Holmhurst, _dear_ beautiful Holmhurst,' in the most touching way."

"_Feb. 27._--She has fallen into a third stupor, deeper than the others; there is no sign of breath, the heart does not beat, the pulse does not beat, the features have sunk. I _alone_ now declare with certain conviction that she lives. The shadows are closing around us, yet I feel that we are in the immediate presence of the Unseen, and that the good Ruth Harmer is only one of the many angels watching over my sweetest one. Years ago she told me that when dying she wished her favourite hymn--

'How bright those glorious spirits s.h.i.+ne,--'

to be sung by her bedside; was it these words which she heard the angels sing to her? Oh! my Esmeralda, are you praying that I may endure while it is necessary to do everything for her, only so long? How strange that the scene which I have so often imagined should be in a country hitherto unknown, the only relations near having been strangers before; yet the simple French people here are very sad for us, and there is much sympathy."

"_March 10._--It has been many days since I have ventured to write: it has been so difficult to say anything definite, with the constant dread of another relapse, which we have thought must come every day: yet I think I may now venture to write in thanksgiving that my mother is restored to me from the brink of the grave. It seemed _quite_ impossible that she could come back, as if she _must_ enter the world on the portals of which she had been so long resting. Doctor and nurse gave up all hope; and at last the nurse went out, saying all must be over when she returned in three hours'

time. In those three hours the remedies began to take effect, the dead limbs to revive, the locked mouth to open, the closed eyes to see, the hands to feel. It had been a death-like trance of a hundred and ninety-six hours altogether--ten days and nine nights.

She remembers nothing of it now, and nothing of the illness which came before, but a gradual revival and awakening of all her powers is going on. It has been less painful to her throughout than to any one, and it is so still.

"Dr. Taylor is made Sir Alexander. He and Lady Taylor have been most kind to us--could not have been more so. It has been interesting to see so much of her, the last survivor of our father's generation in the family, and one who, living constantly at Hurstmonceaux, was present through all the old family crises and conflicts, which she narrates with much of sound sense and observation. I shall hope to write down much of her recollections, and shall begin in good earnest to collect the memorials of that earlier family period, quite as curious in its way as many later ones."[259]

"_Pau, March 27._--My sweet mother continues slightly better certainly, but in a most fragile and hara.s.sing state of health. I never feel happy in leaving her, even for half-an-hour. On some days she is better and almost able to enjoy reading a few words, or being read to a little: on others, as to-day, the trembling increases to such a degree as to prevent her occupying herself in any way. I need not say how beautiful are her faith and love, how increasing the beat.i.tude of her inner, her heavenly life. 'Oh, how long it is since I have been at church,' she said last night. 'But you are always at church in your soul, darling,' I said. 'Yes,' she answered, 'that is the greater part of my day--meditation and prayer, and in the night I say my hymns and texts.' On my birthday she gave me a solemn blessing. Each day I watch her every look and movement. Truly I feel as if the pulse of her life beat into mine.

She does not see many people, but our sweet little cousin Lady Dashwood, Lady Taylor, and Lady Charles Clinton come occasionally.

"Pau is the most unattractive place I ever was in, and it pours or snows almost incessantly. The 'society' is small, good, and uninteresting, and snubs the immense remainder of the Anglo-Pau world with hearty goodwill.

"For some days we have been very sad about dear Emma Leycester, who has been terribly ill: at least I have been, for I think the mother has scarcely taken in the great cause for alarm."

I think the name of this most dear cousin, Emma Leycester (Charlotte's much younger sister) has scarcely been mentioned in these memoirs, and yet there was scarcely any one who had a tenderer place in our home life and thoughts, or to whom we were more devoted. Perhaps the very fact of omitting her shows how entirely she must have kept aloof from all family squabbles and disorders, whilst rejoicing in all our pleasures and sorrowing in all our griefs. She was never strong, and I always recollect her as a semi-invalid, yet more animated and cheerful than most people in strong health, and able, from the very fact of weakness removing her from the general turmoil of all that was going on around her, to give her full attention and sympathy to the things she could partic.i.p.ate in. Small in person, she was of a most sweet countenance, with grey hair, a most delicate complexion, and bright eyes, full of expression and humour--

"Her angel's face As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a suns.h.i.+ne in the shady place."[260]

As a child, in her visits to Stoke and Lime, I was quite devoted to her, and in the persecutions of my boyhood was comforted by her unfailing sympathy. When at Southgate, the greatest pleasure of my London excursions was that they sometimes ended at "Charlotte and Emma's house"

in Wilton Crescent, and that I often went to have tea with the dear Emma, who was already gone to rest upon the sofa in her own little sitting-room. When I was at Oxford she came to visit me there; and latterly the loss of her own brother and sister had drawn this sister-like cousin nearer to my mother as well as to myself.

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Pau, April 6, 1865_, 8 P.M.--I must write one little line of love this evening: the sad news reached us two hours ago, and you will know _how_ we are mourning with you. I had just a hope, and can hardly feel yet that dearest Emma's sweet presence, her loving tender sympathy and interest, are taken from us in this world: but may we not feel that she is perhaps still near us in her perfected state, and to you and to my darling mother even the visible separation may be a very short one, it _can_ only be a few years--long here, but like a moment to her, till the meeting again.

"I am glad to think of you at Toft, and of her resting there, where we can visit the grave. I feel so _deeply_ not being able to be with you, or to do anything for you, as dearest Emma so often said I should do for her, if you were taken from her.

"The news came at tea-time. It was impossible to conceal it. The mother had had a suffering day, and was utterly crushed. We put her to bed at once, and very soon she literally 'fell asleep for sorrow,' and I, watching beside her, heard her lips murmur, 'O blessed are they who die in Thee, O Lord, for they rest from their labours.'"

"_L'Estelle, April 8._--My mother continued so seriously ill up to yesterday morning, that I was certain if she were not moved at once, I must not hope she ever would be. Dr. Taylor declined to take the responsibility, but I felt some one _must_ act; so I sent for a large carriage, and had her carried down into it like a baby, and brought off here, only two hours' easy drive from Pau. Before we had gone six miles she began to revive, was carried to her room without exhaustion, and to-day opens her eyes on a lovely view of the snow mountains above the chestnut woods, with a rus.h.i.+ng river and the old convent of B?tharram in the gorge, which is a wonderful refreshment after having lived in a narrow street, and seen nothing but a white-washed wall opposite for eleven weeks. Already she is better."

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_L'Estelle, April 9._--You will have heard of our great sorrow....

A week ago dearest Emma's fever pa.s.sed and took the form of prayer, which, as Charlotte says, 'flowed like a river.' Once she said, 'I have been fed with angels' food; I did not _ask_ for it, I could not, but I have _had_ it.' Her last resting-place is at Toft.

Charlotte was able to be present.... I feel that, though we have many still to love, no one can ever fill the _same_ place in our hearts."