Story of My Life Part 67

In March, Esmeralda talked to many of her friends of her plans for the future. She said that in consequence of the expense of keeping up the house, she should be obliged to part with Grosvenor Street, and that she should go abroad--to Rome, and eventually to Jerusalem. She did more than merely form the plan of this journey. She had the dresses made which she intended to wear in the East, and for three nights she sat up arranging all her papers, and tying up the letters of her different friends in separate parcels, so that they might more easily be returned to them. To Mary Laffam, her then maid, who a.s.sisted her in this, she said, "Mary, I am going on a very, very long journey, from which I may never return, and I wish to leave everything arranged behind me."

In the beginning of May Esmeralda went with her aunt to spend three weeks in Suss.e.x. After she returned to Grosvenor Street, she was very ill with an attack like that from which she had suffered at Dijon several years before. Having been very successfully treated then in France, she persuaded her aunt to obtain the direction of a French doctor. The remedy which this doctor administered greatly increased the malady. This was on Tuesday 19th.

On Thursday 21st my sister was so much weakened and felt so ill, that she dismissed the French doctor, and sent again for her old doctor, Squires, who came at once. He was much shocked at the change in her, and thought that she had been terribly mistreated, but he was so far from being alarmed, that he saw no reason why her house should not be let, as arranged, on the following Tuesday, to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the Swedish songstress, and said that the change would do her good.

About this time, by Esmeralda's request, my aunt wrote to tell Madame de Trafford of the illness, but she did not then express any alarm. On Sat.u.r.day the good and faithful Mrs. Thorpe[378] saw Esmeralda, and was much concerned at the change in her. She remained with her for some time, and bathed her face with eau-de-Cologne. Esmeralda then took both Mrs. Thorpe's hands in hers, and said no one could do for her as she did. Mrs. Thorpe was so much alarmed at Esmeralda's manner, which seemed like a leave-taking, that she went down to our Aunt Eleanor and tried to alarm her; but she said that as long as the house could be let on Tuesday to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the doctor must be perfectly satisfied, and there could not possibly be anything to apprehend.

Sunday pa.s.sed without any change except that, both then and on Sat.u.r.day, whenever her brother Francis was mentioned, Esmeralda became violently agitated, screamed, and said that he was on no account to be admitted.

Father Galway was away, but on Monday Esmeralda sent for Father Eccles, and from him she received the Last Sacraments. When I asked my aunt afterwards if this did not alarm her, she said, "No, it did not, because Esmeralda was so nervous and so dreadfully afraid of dying without the Last Sacraments, that whenever she felt ill she always received them, and the doctor still a.s.sured her that all was going on well."

That night (Monday, May 25), a nun of the Misericorde sat up in the room. Aunt Eleanor went to bed as usual. At half-past four in the morning she was called. The most mysterious black sickness had come on, and could not be arrested. Dr. Squires, summoned in haste, says that he arrived exactly as a clock near Grosvenor Square struck five. He saw at once that the case was quite hopeless, still for three hours he struggled to arrest the malady. At the end of that time, Esmeralda suddenly said, "Dr. Squires, this is very terrible, isn't it?"--"Yes,"

he replied, throwing as much meaning as possible into his voice, "it is indeed _most_ terrible." Upon this Esmeralda started up in the bed and said, "You cannot possibly mean that you think I shall not recover?" Dr.

Squires said, "Yes, I am afraid it is my duty to tell you that you cannot possibly recover now."--"But I do not feel ill," exclaimed Esmeralda; "this sickness is very terrible, but still I do not feel ill."--"I cannot help that," answered Dr. Squires, "but I fear it is my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible you can live."

"It was then," said her doctor, "that her expression lost all its anxiety. Death had no terror for her. She was almost radiant." The serenity of her countenance remained unchanged, and to her last moment she was as one preparing for a festival.

After a pause she said, "Tell me how long you think it possible that I should live." Dr. Squires said, "You might live two days, but it is quite impossible that you should live longer than that." She at once asked for writing materials, and with a firm hand, as if she were well, she wrote a telegraphic despatch bidding Madame de Trafford to come to her at once. (The office was then closed, and when it was opened, it was already too late to send the despatch.) Then Dr. Squires kindly and wisely said, "I fear you have little time to lose, and if you wish to make any changes in your will, you had better make them at once." My sister answered, "Oh, I must alter everything. I never thought it possible that I should die before my aunt, and I wish to leave things so that my death will make no difference to her." The doctor, seeing a great change coming on, was afraid to leave the room even to get a sheet of paper, and he wrote upon a sc.r.a.p of paper which he picked up from the floor. My sister then made a very simple will, leaving everything to her (Protestant) aunt, Miss Paul, except her interest in Park Lodge and a chest of plate which she left to Francis, and her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds,[379] which she left to me.

When Esmeralda had dictated the page containing these bequests, her doctor wisely made her sign it in the presence of her servants before she proceeded to dictate anything else. Thus the first portion of her will is valid, but before she had come to the end of another page containing small legacies to the Servites, to the Nuns of the Precious Blood, &c., the power of signature had failed, and it was therefore valueless.

Esmeralda then said almost playfully, "You had better send for the Nuns of the Precious Blood, for they would never forgive me, even after all is over, if they had not been sent for," and a maid went off in a cab to fetch the Abbess Pierina. It was then that a priest arrived from Farm Street to administer extreme unction, and Dr. Squires, seeing that he could do nothing more, and that my sister was already past observing who was present, went away.

The Abbess Pierina says that she arrived at the house about nine o'clock, and saw at once that Esmeralda was dying. A priest was praying by the bedside. She remained standing at the foot of the bed for about ten minutes, then she went up to Esmeralda, who said, "I am dying." A few minutes afterwards, in a loud and clear voice, she called "Auntie,"

and instantly fell back and died.

Thus the day which she looked for as her Sabbath and high day came to her, and she pa.s.sed to the rest beyond the storm--beyond the bounds of doubt or controversy--to the company of those she justly honoured, and of some whom she never learnt to honour here, in the many mansions of an all-reconciling world. Let us not look for the living amongst the dead.

She exchanged her imperfect communion with G.o.d here for its full fruition in the peace of that Sabbath which knows no evening.

During the whole of the last terrible hours our poor deaf aunt was in the room, but she had sunk down in her terror and anguish upon the chair which was nearest the door as she came in, and thence she never moved.

She never had strength or courage to approach the bed: she saw all that pa.s.sed, but she heard nothing.

Soon after all was over, the Abbess Pierina came down to my aunt, and revealed--what none of her family had known before--that Esmeralda had long been an Oblate Sister of the Precious Blood, and she begged leave to dress her in the habit of the Order. All the furniture of the room was cleared away or draped with white, and the bed was left standing alone, surrounded night and day by tall candles burning in silver sconces, with a statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows" at the head, and at the foot the great crucifix from the oratory. Esmeralda was clothed in a long black dress, which she had ordered for her journey to Jerusalem, but had never worn, and round her waist was the scarlet girdle of the Precious Blood. On her head was a white c.r.a.pe cap and a white wreath, as for a novice nun.

As soon as Aunt Eleanor was able to think, she sent for her sister, Mrs.

Fitz-Gerald, who arrived at 11 A.M. She, as a strong Protestant, said that she could never describe how terrible the next three days were to her. All day long a string of carriages was ceaselessly pouring up the street, and a concourse of people through the house, nuns of the Precious Blood being posted on the different landings to show them where to go. Each post brought letters from all kinds of people they had never heard of before, asking to have _anything_ as a memorial, even a piece of old newspaper which Esmeralda had touched.

On the day after we arrived at Holmhurst from Germany (Sunday 31st), I went up to try to comfort my broken-hearted aunt at the house in Grosvenor Street. The rooms in which I had last seen Esmeralda looked all the more intensely desolate from being just finished, new carpets and chintzes everywhere, only the last pane of the fernery in the back drawing-room not yet put in. My aunt came in trembling all over. It was long before she was able to speak: then she wrung her hands. "Oh, it was so sudden--it was so sudden," she said; and then she became more collected, and talked for hours of all that had pa.s.sed. Those present said that for the whole of the first day she sat in a stupor, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and never spoke or moved, or seemed to notice any one who went in or out.

The coffin was already closed, and stood in the middle of the room covered with a white pall, and surrounded by burning candles and vases of flowers. Upon the coffin lay the crucifix which both Italima and Esmeralda held in their hands when they were dying. Near it was the bed, with the mark where the head had lain still unremoved from the pillow.

On Monday afternoon there was a long wearying family discussion as to whether the remains were to be taken to Kensal Green in the evening, to remain throughout the night in the cemetery chapel. Francis insisted that it should be so. Our Aunt Fitz-Gerald declared that if it was done she would not go to the funeral, as she would not follow _nothing_. I agreed with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the nuns of the Precious Blood were most vehement that the body should not be removed. Eventually, however, Francis carried his point. At 9 P.M. we all went up for the last time to the room, still draped like a chapel, where the coffin lay, covered with fresh flowers, with the great crucifix still standing at the foot between the lighted candles. Then what remained of Esmeralda was taken away.

The next day (June 2) was the funeral. At the cemetery the relations who came from the house were joined by Mr. Monteith, Lady Lothian, Lady Londonderry, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the Abbess Pierina, and all the nuns of the Precious Blood, with several nuns of the Misericorde.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESMERALDA'S GRAVE.]

The chapel was full of people, but it is very small, and a very small part of it is used for seats. The larger part was spread with a rich crimson carpet, in the midst of which rose a kind of catafalque, upon which lay the coffin, covered with a long purple velvet pall, embroidered in golden letters--"May all the holy saints and angels receive her soul." Round this were six candles burning in very tall bra.s.s candlesticks. After the priest had gone round with the holy water and incense, a door at the east end of the church was thrown open and the pall removed, when the light poured in upon the coffin and its silver ornaments and the large silver cross lying upon it. Then we all pa.s.sed out round the shrubberies to the grave, where the vault was opened just behind the beautiful seated statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows"

under the cross, which Esmeralda had herself erected. Upon the coffin was engraved--

ANNE FRANCES MARIA LOUISA HARE, E. de M.

(Enfant de Marie), _Oblate of the Order of the Precious Blood._ Born October 9, 1832.

Died May 26, 1868.

As the priest said all the leading sentences, the nuns, with clear voice, sang the responses. The whole service occupied nearly an hour and a half. We drove home in total silence: Aunt Fitz-Gerald led Auntie into the desolate house.

Thus was my sweet sister Esmeralda taken from us--being removed from the evil to come.

"Souls of the Holy Dead!

Though fancy whispers thus to musing hearts, We would not call ye back, whence ye are fled, To take your parts In the old battle-strife; or break With our heartache-- The rest which ye have won and in Christ's presence take."

XIV

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRACY

"Glory to Thee in Thine Omnipotence, Who dost dispense, As seemeth best to Thine unerring will The lot of victory still; Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust, And bowing to the dust The rightful cause, that so much seeming ill May Thine appointed purposes fulfil."

--SOUTHEY.

"Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden."

--_Swiss Inscription._

"If you your lips would keep from slips, Of five things have a care: To whom you speak, of whom you speak, And how, and when, and where."

--_Old Distich._

At eleven o'clock on the morning of my sister's death, our aunt, Mrs.

Fitz-Gerald, arrived in Grosvenor Street. She wrote to me afterwards:--

"When Eleanor sent for me, after I recovered the shock, I went immediately to Grosvenor Street, and the first thing I asked before going up to Eleanor was, 'Is Mr. Hare (Francis) upstairs?' The maid made answer, 'Oh, no; Miss Hare would not hear of seeing him, and forbade us to let him enter the house, declaring that he had her death to answer for.' I could not believe this statement, and I called another servant into the dining-room, who repeated exactly the same thing, saying also that things had taken place in that house which were fearful, and that they were afraid of their lives.

_I_ was the innocent cause of Francis coming to sleep in the house, as I did not think it was right that Eleanor should be left alone with the dead body of your sister. I did not know till the following morning, when the servants told me, that people had been walking about the house the whole night, and that the Rev. Mother (Pierina) had forbid them to leave the kitchen, hear what they would."[380]

Upon this, and all succeeding nights until the funeral, the three maids persistently refused at night to go upstairs, saying that they had seen a spirit there, and they remained all through the night huddled up together in a corner of the kitchen. By day even they manifested the greatest terror, especially Mary Laffam, the lady's-maid, who started and trembled whenever she was spoken to, and who entreated to be allowed to go out when she heard the lawyer was coming, "for fear he should ask her any questions." If they had the opportunity, they always made mysterious hints of poison, and of Esmeralda's death having been caused by unnatural means. To the Rev. Mother Pierina, Mary Laffam said at one time that Miss Hare had told her she knew that she should die of poison.[381] All the servants constantly repeated to the Rev. Mother their conviction that Miss Hare was poisoned. They talked a great deal, especially Mary Laffam, who horrified the Abbess by saying that Miss Hare had herself said in her last moments, "I am poisoned and I die of poison."[382] In consequence of all that the servants had said to Mrs.

Fitz-Gerald of their certain conviction that my sister had been poisoned, she was most anxious, before my return to England, for a post-mortem examination, but Francis violently opposed this, and he carried his point.

The opinion that my sister's death was caused by poison was shared by many of those who came to see her after death. They could not but recollect that though Dr. Squires _then_ said he believed her to have died of ulceration of the intestines, up to the day before the death he had said that she might be removed, that the house might be let, and had suggested no such impression. For two days _after_ death, black blood continued to stream from the mouth, as is the case from slow corrosive poison, and three eminent physicians, on hearing of the previous symptoms and the after appearances (Dr. Hale, Sir Alexander Taylor, and Dr. Winslow), gave it as their opinion that those were the usual symptoms and appearances induced by corrosive poison. Mrs. Baker (Marguerite Pole) wrote to me on June 24:--"The idea of poison is the one I formed the first moment I saw the body, as for some years I was practically versed in medicine, and I was at a loss how to account for various appearances in a natural way--_i.e._, from illness."

When I arrived at the house on May 31 (the death having taken place on the 26th), I found all its inmates agitated by the various reports which were going about. Mrs. Fitz-Gerald was full of a dreadful message which she believed to have been given by my dying sister to the Abbess Pierina. "When I am dead, go to my brother Francis, and tell him that he was the cause of my death, and that he will have to answer for it." This message was also repeated to me by Mrs. Baker and by Mrs. William Hare, and was always spoken of as having been given to the Rev. Mother herself. On each occasion on which I heard it spoken of, I said that the message had much better not be given to Francis, as he was in such a weak state of health that it might do him serious injury; and that probably when my sister gave it, she was in a state of semi-delirium, brought on by her extreme weakness. I entirely declined to question the servants, consequently I heard nothing directly from them, only their words as repeated by Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the many persons to whom the Mother Pierina had related them.

I never had any interview with or heard anything directly from Pierina herself. The reason of this was that, three days after the death, she had a violent scene with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who had intercepted her in the act of carrying off two large heavy silver candelabra from the oratory, and some valuable point-lace, which she had ripped off the altar-cloth and concealed in her pocket. She also took away a quant.i.ty of small articles (rosaries, crucifixes, &c.), which were afterwards returned with the more valuable articles by order of Monsignor Paterson, who wrote to express his extreme grief and annoyance at her conduct. My own impression still is that Pierina was a simple and devout character, who would not willingly do anything she believed to be wrong, but that she was really convinced (as she said) that it was a duty to take away these things, which had been dedicated to the service of a Roman Catholic altar, in order to prevent their being applied to secular uses in a Protestant household. After this, however, which occurred before my arrival, the Abbess Pierina was never allowed to return to the house, so that I never saw her.