Story of My Life Part 50

[Ill.u.s.tration: B?THARRAM.][261]

During my mother's long illness at Pau, I naturally thought of nothing, and saw scarcely any one, but her. In the last three weeks, however, after her rally, and before the last alarm, I saw a few people, amongst them very frequently Lady Vere Cameron, whose husband, Cameron of Lochiel, had been known to my mother from girlhood. Through Lady Vere, I was introduced to a remarkable circle then at Pau, which formed a society entirely occupied with spiritualism. Most extraordinary were the experiences they had to narrate. I have kept some notes of my acquaintance with them:--

"_Pau, March 1865._--When I was at Lady Vere Cameron's, the subject of table-turning was brought forward, and I then said that I had been told that I was a medium, meaning merely with reference to tables. We sat down to a table and it turned. Soon it began to rap violently, and a scratching noise was heard underneath. This I believe to have been owing to some ventriloquism on the part of Ferdinand Russell, who was present, but it excited Lady Vere very much.

"Some days after I had a note from Lady Vere to desire that I would come to be introduced to her 'particular friend,' Mrs. Gregory, at a party in her own house. As I knew that Mrs. Gregory was a great spiritualist and much occupied with the subject, I naturally supposed that this desire to make my acquaintance was due to the table-turning at Lady Vere's, and I went expecting to find a s?ance.

"But it was a large party, a great number of people whom I had never seen before. Mrs. Gregory had the odd expression of always looking for something behind her. She spoke at once of my being a medium, and then said in an excited manner, 'But are you far advanced? are you like me? when a friend is going to die, do you see it written before you in letters of light _there_?'--pointing into vacancy. 'No,' I said, 'certainly not: that never happens to me.' Speaking of this afterwards to a Mr. Hamilton, he bade me beware, for very unpleasant things often happened at Mrs. Gregory's s?ances, or, if they did not happen, every one present believed that they did--that hands appeared, &c.: that his cousin, Mrs. H.

of S., had received messages from her child who was dead: that others also had received messages from their dead relations. The meetings were always solemnly opened with prayer.

"At Mrs. White Hedges' I saw Mrs. H. She said that she also was certain that I was a medium, and asked whether I did not frequently have messages from the other world. I said 'No,' and that I did not wish to have any. 'What,' she said, with a look of great surprise, 'you do not wish, then, for the regeneration of the world; for if you did you would feel that it can only be brought about through the instrumentality of spirits.'"

"_April 4._--At Lady Robinson's[262] I again met Mrs. Gregory, who asked me to come on the 6th to help her to turn a table, and see if I should receive any messages. I agreed to do so, understanding that nothing more was intended than she said. Afterwards I sat by Miss N. L., who said, 'I see that terrible woman has been getting hold of you. Pray don't go. You don't know what you will see. Every one who goes is beguiled by small pretexts till they see the most appalling things. It can only be through the devil.'

"Persuaded by Miss N. L., I went to Mrs. Gregory and said, 'Mrs.

Gregory, do tell me exactly what you expect to happen on Thursday, because I do not wish to _see_ anything.'

"'Oh, you are a coward, are you?' said both Mrs. Gregory and Mrs.

Alexander, who was sitting near her.

"'Yes, certainly I am a coward about trifling with the supernatural. It is not because I do not believe that spirits can return from the dead, but because I do believe it that I would rather not come, if you expect to see anything.'

"'Well, I can only say that both seeing and receiving messages are the greatest possible comfort to me: it is only that which keeps me in my right mind,' said Mrs. Gregory.

"I answered that I should dislike being upset for the ordinary and practical duties of life by being led to dwell constantly upon the supernatural.

"'That is precisely what strikes me as the greatest advantage,'

said Mrs. Gregory; 'surely one cannot think too much of the other world. To feel that spirits are constantly watching you, and grieving or rejoicing over you, must surely tend to keep you from a great deal of evil. I have known many infidels entirely converted to a new and Christian life by what they have seen with me--Mr.

Ruskin, for instance. I asked Mr. Ruskin one day what he believed, and he answered "Simply nothing." He afterwards came to my house several times when I had s?ances, and then he took my hands, and with tears in his eyes said, "Mrs. Gregory, I cannot thank you enough for what you have shown me: it will change my whole life, for because I have seen I believe." Mr. Pickersgill the artist was another instance. Certainly hands often appear to me, but I like to see them. If you had lost any one who was a part of your life, would you not like to know that you were receiving a message from those you loved? You need not be afraid of the messages I receive.

Just before I came here I received this message--"Keep close to G.o.d in prayer." There was nothing dreadful in that, was there? Was not that a beautiful message to receive. But sometimes the spirits are conflicting. There are good and bad spirits. If the messages are not such as we should wish, then we know the bad spirits are there.

All this is in the Bible, "Ye shall try the spirits, whether they be good or evil." This is one of the means of grace which G.o.d gives us: surely we ought not to turn aside from it.'

"Afterwards I asked Lady Robinson her experience. She said that she had been at one of the s?ances, but nothing appeared and 'the Indicator' gave nothing decided. She said it was conducted most seriously, with all religious feeling. She described Mrs. Gregory as not only praying at the time, but living in a state of prayer, and she believed that the messages were granted in answer to real faith. She said quant.i.ties of people had seen the hands appear.

Mrs. Gregory had a very large s?ance at Sir William Gomm's in London, and Lady Gomm asked for an outward sign before she would believe. A bodiless hand then appeared, and, taking up a vase with a plant in it from a china dish upon the table, set it on the floor, and then breaking a flower from the plant, came and laid it in Lady Gomm's lap: all the company saw it.

"I told the Taylors what I had heard. Sir Alexander said that he thought the chief good of such a clever physician as Mrs. Gregory's husband (Dr. Gregory of the powders) appearing would be to write a prescription for the living."

While we were at Pau, my sister wrote much to me upon the death of Cardinal Wiseman, to whom she was greatly devoted, and whom I have always believed to be a most sagacious and large-hearted man. His burly figure upon the sands at Eastbourne used to be very familiar to me in my boyhood. I heard Monsignor Capel, who afterwards attained some celebrity, preach his funeral sermon at Pau.

"Thirty years ago," he said, "there were only six Catholic churches in London; now there are forty-six. Then there were six Catholic schools in London; now there are at least three in each of these parishes--one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants. Then there were only 30,000 Catholics in all England; now there are two millions, one-ninth of the whole population of the country. Then there were no religious Orders except the Jesuit Fathers, who had lingered on from the Reformation, flying from one Catholic house to another, and administering the sacraments in fear and trembling; now there are in London the followers of St. Francis and St.

Dominic, the Pa.s.sionist Fathers, the Redemptorists, and at least twelve nunneries of English ladies. All this change is in a great measure due to Cardinal Wiseman, the founder of the English hierarchy. He entered on his labours in troublous times: with the enthusiasm and love of splendid ritual which he imbibed as a Spanish boy, with the ecclesiastical learning of Italy, with the dogmatic perseverance and liberality which he drank in with his English education. He chose as the t.i.tle of his bishopric the see of the last martyred English bishop, and he also thirsted for martyrdom."

These notes are curious as showing how the rapid growth of Catholicism in England, which we Protestants are so unwilling to recognise, had advanced under Cardinal Wiseman's leaders.h.i.+p.

At L'Estelle my mother daily revived, and was soon able to sit out on the sunny balcony, for the valleys of the Pyrenees were already quite hot, though the trees were leafless and the mountains covered with snow.

It was long, however, before I ventured to leave her to go beyond the old convent of B?tharram, with its booths of relics and its calvary on a hill. When she was stronger, we moved to Argel?s, a beautiful upland valley, whence excursions are very easy to Cauterets and Luz.

Afterwards we visited Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes; but though the snow was too deep to allow of mountain rambles, the heat was already too intense for enjoyment of the valleys. We had left Pau without a sign of vegetation, and when we came back three weeks later, it was in all the deadest, heaviest green of summer. So it was a great refreshment to move at once to Biarritz, with its breezy uplands, covered with pink daphne, and its rolling, sparkling, ever-changing sea, so splendid in colour. To my mother, Biarritz was a complete restorative, and she was able there to take up her drawing again, to enjoy seeing friends, and to enter into the interests and peculiarities of the curious Basque country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIARRITZ.[263]]

We visited many of the Basque churches, which are always encircled within by three galleries, except over the altar. These galleries are of black oak. The men sit in the galleries, and the women below, and they enter at different doors. In the churchyards the graves have all little crosses or Basque head-stones with round tops, and they are all planted with flowers. The houses all have wide overhanging roofs and external wooden galleries. Bidart and Cambo are good specimens of Basque villages. Bidart is a beautiful place on the road to S. Jean de Luz, and has a church with the characteristic overhanging belfry and high simple b.u.t.tresses. A wide entry under the organ-loft is the only entrance to the church. In the hollow below is a broken bridge reflected in a pool, which is golden at sunset, and which, with the distant sea and sands, and the old houses with their wooden balconies scattered over the hillside, forms a lovely picture. Here I stayed one evening to draw with Miss Elizabeth Blommart, an acquaintance we made at Biarritz (afterwards our friend for many years), while my mother and Lea walked on, and descended from the opposite hill upon the sands. We had often been told of the treacherous waves of Bidart, but could not have believed in danger--so distant, beyond the long reaches of sand, seemed the calm Atlantic, glistening in the last rays of sunlight. To our horror, when we had nearly finished our drawing, we looked up, and saw my mother and Lea coming towards us pouring with salt water from cloaks, bonnets, everything. They had been walking unsuspiciously on the sands three-quarters of a mile from the sea, when suddenly, without any warning, a great wave surrounded them. My mother was at once swept off her feet, but Lea, with her usual presence of mind, caught her cloak and rolled it round her arm, and plunging herself deep into the sand, resisted the water and held her mistress till the wave receded, when they made their escape. A few days afterwards an Englishman with his little dog was walking in the Bay of Bidart; the man escaped, but the dog was swept out to sea.

Cambo is two hours' drive from Biarritz--a most pleasant watering-place on a high terrace above the Nive, with pergolas of vines and planes, a churchyard which is a perfect blaze of lilies and roses, and an inn-garden which is full of lovely flowers. Close by is the opening to the Pas de Roland, a grand little gorge where the Nive rushes through the mountains--a finer Dovedale. A rocky path ascends by the side of the stream and climbs a succession of steeps to _la roche perc?e_, through which it pa.s.ses to a little hamlet and old bridge. Eighteen miles farther is S. Jean de Port, whence one can ride to Roncesvalles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PAS DE ROLAND.[264]]

The whole of this Basque country is full of memorials of the Peninsular War, the events of which in this district are wonderfully well described in the novel of "The Subaltern." There are deep woods and glens which ran down with blood; green lanes (as at Irogne) which were scenes of desperate combats; tombs of English officers, as in the churchyard at Bidart and in the picturesque mayor's garden between Bidart and Biarritz, where a flat stone commemorating three English officers is to be seen under the old apple-trees, overlooking a wide expanse of country. The most dreadful slaughter was near the Negressa Station, where the two armies, having occupied the ridges on either side the lake, suffered frightful carnage. It might have been spared, but in both armies it was then unknown that Napoleon had abdicated, and that peace was proclaimed. Between S. Jean de Luz and the Behobia is a picturesque old ch?teau, which was taken by the English after an easy siege, the inhabitants having been forced to fly with such precipitation that everything was abandoned, even the mail-bags which they had just seized being left behind and the contents scattered about on the floor. The first letter the English officer in command picked up was directed to himself and from his own father! He took nothing from the house but a Spanish dictionary from the library, but returning that way three weeks afterwards, found it completely pillaged by the Spanish camp-followers.

The peasantry of the Basque country are most interesting to talk to, and it is strange that more should not have been said and written about them, as their conversation is more full of ancient proverbs and folk-lore than that of the inhabitants of any other part of France. I remember an old Basque woman saying that her language was not only the best, but far the oldest in the world--in fact, it was that which Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise!

Twice, while we were at Biarritz, I made excursions into Spain, crossing the Bida.s.soa close to the Isle of Pheasants with intense interest. In all the Spain I have seen since, there is nothing more utterly Spanish than the tiny walled town of Fontarabia, with its wooden balconies piled one above another, and its lookout over a blue estuary. Most striking also is Pa.s.sages--a land-locked bay of the sea with a very narrow opening, which is pa.s.sed on the way to S. Sebastian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. EMILION CATHEDRAL DOOR.[265]]

Our return journey to England in the late spring was very delightful. My mother, in entire enjoyment of her marvellously restored health, and delighting to drink in the full beauties of nature and antiquity, was in no hurry to return to the turmoil of English life. We lingered everywhere, making short half-day journeys, and spending quiet afternoons sketching in the gra.s.s-grown streets of half-deserted cities, or driving out in little carriages to grand old ch?teaux. Thus we first saw S. Emilion, that marvellous place, where the buildings are so mingled with the living rock, that you scarcely can tell where the work of man begins, and where each sculptured cornice glows in late spring with a glory of crimson valerian. In one of the quietest streets of Poitiers, before a cottage door, we bought an old inlaid table, which is one of the pleasantest memorials of our journey. At Amboise we stayed several days in a most primitive but charming hotel, the vision of my dear mother in which often comes back to me, sitting with her psalm-book in a low room with white-washed walls and brick floor, and with a latticed window looking out over the great river glistening in the sunset. My mother liked and admired Amboise[266] more than almost any of our thousand resting-places, and she delighted in the excursions to moated Chenonceaux and to Chambord, where we and Lea had tea and bilberry jam at a delightful little inn which then existed on the outskirts of the forest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMBOISE[265a]]

On the 27th of May we reached Holmhurst. One of those curious incidents which are inexplicable had occurred during our absence, and was narrated to us, on our return, by our servants, neighbours, and by Mrs. Hale, the wife of our Hastings doctor. During my mother's illness at Pau, two of our maids, Alice and Jane Lathom, slept, according to their custom, in one of the spare rooms to the front of the house. In the middle of the night they were both aroused by three piercing terrible screams in the room close to the bed. Petrified with horror, they hid under the bed-clothes, and lay thus more dead than alive till morning. With the first streak of dawn they crept down the pa.s.sage to John Gidman's room, roused him, and told him what had happened. He felt it was certainly an omen that the death they expected had occurred; took the carriage and drove down at once to St. Leonards to Mrs. Hale. Dr. and Mrs. Hale were at breakfast when John Gidman arrived and sent in word that his mistress was dead. When they went out, they found he had received no letter, but had only an inward conviction of the event from what had happened.

It was the same hour at which my mother, waking from her second trance in her room at Pau, had uttered three long piercing screams in her wandering, and said, "Oh, I shall never, never see my dear Holmhurst again!"

There is no explanation to offer.

We had much enjoyment of our little Holmhurst this summer and a constant succession of guests. Amongst those who now came annually were Arthur Stanley and his wife Lady Augusta. To my mother, Augusta Stanley was always a very tender and dutiful niece, and to me a most kind cousin.

She rejoiced to aid my mother in acting as a drag to Arthur's ever-increasing impression that the creed of progress and the creed of Christianity were identical. Many people thought that such an intense, almost universal warmth of manner as hers must be insincere, but with her it was perfectly natural. She took the suns.h.i.+ne of court favour, in which they both lived, quite simply, accepting it quietly, very glad that the Royal Family valued her, but never bringing it forward. She was indeed well worthy of the confidence which her royal mistress reposed in her, for though the Queen wrote to her daily, and though she generally came in to breakfast with several sheets in the large well-known handwriting, not one word from them ever transpired to her nearest relation or dearest friend.

What Lord Beaconsfield called "Arthur Stanley's picturesque sensibility"

made him care more than Augusta about having royal (_i.e._ historic) friends.h.i.+ps, though he had less personal feeling than she had for the ill.u.s.trious persons who made them. He was, however, quite devoted to the Queen, to her own personality, and would certainly have been so had she been in any other position of life. The interests of Westminster made him very happy, and he rejoiced in the duty which fell upon him of preserving the Abbey as he received it, furious when it was suggested that some of the inferior and ugly monuments might be removed, or that the peculiar character of the choir (like a Spanish _coro_) might be altered. Always more a lover of moral than of doctrinal, or even spiritual Christianity, at this time he was beginning to be the victim of a pa.s.sion for heretics which went on increasing afterwards. The Scotch were delighted with him: they thought he had an enthusiastic admiration for their Church. But he almost equally admired all schismatics from the Church to which he officially belonged, and was almost equally interested in them, and if he could get any one with ever so slight a taint of heresy to preach in the Abbey, it was a great delight to him: he thought it was setting an example of Christian liberality.

My sister left Rome with her aunt at the end of May (1865). At Pisa she took leave of her beloved Victoire, who remained at her own house. When she reached France, weakness prevented her intended visit to Paray le Monial, whence the nuns sent her the following rules for the employment of "The Holy Hour" in acts of reparation for insults offered to our Lord by the sins of men:--

{ Short acts.--"Lord, I believe, help 1. Unbelief { thou mine unbelief."

{ Faith.--"Lord, increase our faith," &c.

2. Ridicule, mockery. Secret prayers for the scoffers.

3. Irreverence.--Special reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament.

4. Rash judgments.--Acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart.

5. Unlawful opinion.--Silence upon things settled by authority.

6. Careless life.--Act of offering morning and night against frivolous and immoderate words and actions.

7. Love of ease and pleasure.--Simple acts of mortification and self-denial in the course of the day.

Esmeralda was detained for some time by serious illness at Dijon, with the strange symptoms which, three years later, attended her final illness, and which were then inexplicable to all around her. On her recovery, Madame de Trafford met her at Paris, and insisted that she should follow her to her ch?teau in Touraine. Hence Esmeralda wrote:--