Story of My Life Part 75

"Afterwards I read to her a chapter in St. Luke--'Let this cup pa.s.s from me,' &c., and sat in her room till half-past nine. When I went downstairs I kissed her and said, 'Have a good _good_ night, darling.' I cannot recollect that she spoke, but I remember looking back as I opened the door, and seeing my sweet Mother lying on her side as she always did, and her dear eyes following me with a more than usually tender expression as I left the room.

"I have often thought since of a sentence in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling'--'Softly, as a common evening, the last of our evenings pa.s.sed away, and no other would come to me for evermore.'

"When I went upstairs again at half-past ten, I went, as I always did, to listen at her door, and, hearing a noise, went in. Terrible illness had come on and continued for hours.... The next thirty-six hours I never left her for an instant, and they all seem to me like one long terrible night. I remember very little distinctly, but at eight on Sat.u.r.day morning she was certainly much better. The doctor came at ten, and she was able to speak to him. He looked very grave over the lowness of her pulse, but she continued better for some hours, and slept a great deal in the afternoon. Towards evening I thought her not so well, though the doctor, who came at half-past nine, considered her state much less anxious. I was then possessed with the feeling that our parting was very near. Lea also called me downstairs to hear the extraordinary sound that was going on. It was indeed strange. It was as if hundreds of thousands of crickets were all chirping together. They appeared everywhere in swarms on the hearths downstairs. The noise was so great that I felt if it continued we should be driven out of the place: it was quite deafening; but they only came that night, they never were heard before, and the next day they had totally disappeared.[429] I persuaded Lea to lie down on her bed, where she soon fell asleep.

All through the night I sat by my darling on the pillow. I think the last thing she said was that the other arm, the well arm, pained her very much, and we feared paralysis, but more pressing symptoms diverted attention. At half-past one I called Lea again. I shall never know in this world whether my Mother was really conscious, if she even knew anything either of her own great physical suffering, or of what pa.s.sed that night. I believe G.o.d helped me to say and do all she would have wished. Each hour I was more sure of what was coming. Towards dawn, kneeling on the bed, I said some of the short prayers in the Visitation of the Sick, but she was then fading rapidly, and at last I repeated the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits s.h.i.+ne,' which we had always agreed was never to be used except as the solemn sign that our parting was surely come. I am not sure if my darling knew that she was dying before: I am sure, if she could still hear, that she knew it then. I am sure that she was conscious at the end and that she speechlessly took leave of us. Her expression was calm and serene, but very grave, as if she realised for the first time that I might not travel with her into the solitude she was entering. It was about a quarter of an hour before the end that all suffering ceased, her paralysed side seemed to become quite well; the lame hand, which had been so tightly clenched since the 13th of March, unfolded then upon the 13th of November, and gently met the other in prayer. The eyes were closing, but opened once more--as a look--a look of youth and radiance, stole over the beloved features at the last, when there was no struggle, only just a gentle sigh or two. Lea, who was leaning over the bed on the other side, held her spectacles to the mouth. There was no breath. I could scarcely believe that she was gone. I still held her in my arms. But oh! in my unutterable desolation I could give G.o.d thanks that the end was like this. The first stroke of the church-bell sounded as she pa.s.sed into the real life.

"When the sweet eyes closed and the dear face lost its last shadow of colour, I kissed my own Mother for the last time and came away.

The first snowflakes of winter were falling then. They do not signify now: no snow or cold can ever signify any more.

"But oh! the agony, the anguis.h.!.+

"And since then her precious earthly form has been lying, with her hands folded on her breast as if she were praying--the dear lame hand quite well _now_. The room is draped with white and filled with flowers. Two large white camellias stand at the head of the bed and overshadow her pillow, and on the table, draped with white, are her own particular objects, her bronze wolf, her little gold tray with her spectacles, smelling-bottle, &c., and all her special hymn-books. At first when I went in, in my great agony, I did not draw down the sheet. But now I draw it down and look at my dearest one. There is a look of unearthly serene repose upon the worn features, which is almost too beautiful.

"'Days without night, joys without sorrow, sanct.i.ty without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, satiety without envyings, communication of joys without lessening, and they shall dwell in a blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and from whence a friend never went away.'[430]

"But yet--oh my darling! my darling!"

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Sunday morning, Nov. 13._--My darling Mother has entered into the real life.

"She grew gradually weaker hour by hour, and I think she suffered less. She knew me always, and liked to keep her eyes constantly fixed upon me, but she could not speak. At half-past nine, she seemed sinking, and I repeated over to her, as she desired me to do when she was dying, the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits s.h.i.+ne.' I think she heard it.... Soon after she opened her eyes and gave me a long, long look of her own perfect lovingness, then turned to Lea, to me again, and we heard a few gentle sighs. I had just time to ring the bell close to my hand as I sat on the pillow, and as John and Harriet[431] (who had been waiting in the pa.s.sage) pa.s.sed sobbing into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, my sweet darling gently breathed her last in my arms, once more--quite at the last--opening her eyes, with a look of perfect bliss, as if gazing at something beyond us. It was so gentle a breathing out of her spirit, we scarcely knew when it was over. She died in my arms, with my kiss upon her forehead, at half-past ten. I know how tenderly my Mother's dearest, most tenderly loved friend feels for me, and that I need not ask her to pray for my Mother's poor child Augustus."

"_Nov. 14._--It seems so strange to look out of the window and see the same sheep feeding in the same green meadows, the same flowers blooming, and yet such a change over all. I feel as if it were I who had died yesterday.

"What a long, long day it was! A thousand times I was on the point of running into the room to say some little loving word to her who has been the recipient of every thought, _every_ pleasure for so many, many years, and then the crus.h.i.+ng blank, the annihilation came all afresh. Indeed, I feel it afresh every quarter of an hour, and when I am calmed after one thing in which my great desolation is especially presented to me, something else calls it all forth again. Oh, my darling! my darling! can it be? oh! how can it be?

"The dear earthly form lies with its hands sweetly folded as if she were praying. I go in often. I am always going in; but it does not remind me of her, though it is most peaceful, and the servants and others have the greatest comfort from looking at it.

"It is as a dream that yesterday morning, quite after it was over, I could say 'The day before yesterday my darling did this, my darling said that.' On Friday she was so bright, so happy, only her memory a little astray, but I was already forming a thousand little schemes for supplying this lost power, so that it should not be apparent to others, and to me _nothing_, I felt, could ever matter if the suns.h.i.+ne of my dear Mother's sweet presence was with me under any change."

"_Tuesday, Nov. 15._--Your most dear letter has come.... How much, even in the first anguish of my desolation, I have felt what it would be to you also. You will always be most tenderly entwined with her sacred memory; indeed, I can scarcely think of you apart.

For the last few years especially your companions.h.i.+p has been her greatest joy, and in your absence she has never pa.s.sed many hours without speaking of you, never _any_, I think, without thinking of you. The grief she most dreaded was that she might have to mourn for you, for I think she rightly felt that--great as the sorrow would be--your physical powers would enable you to bear the separation better than she could have done.

"This morning I feel a little better, and can dwell more upon my darling's being perfected, upon the restoration of all her powers, upon her reunion to those she loved in former times of her life; and I have a perfect treasure-store in my journals for years of her sacred words of blessing, and advice, and thought for me, many of them, I know, intended to be my comfort now.

"I will send you many of the letters about her. I wonder why people should dread letters of sympathy. To me the letters are nothing, but what I long for is not to hear that people sympathise with me, but to know how they loved her.

"To-day it is thick snow. Oh! she would have been so ill; now she is not ill."

"_Tuesday evening, Nov. 15._--To-day a change came over the dear face--a look of unspeakable repose and beauty such as I never saw on any face before. The servants told me of it, and so it was; it is the most wonderful expression--serene, solemn, holy beauty.

"All the letters are a great--not comfort--nothing can ever be that, but I like to see how she was loved, and I look forward to them. There were thirty to-day, and yet I thought no one could know. What comes home to one is simple sympathy. One cannot help envying the people who can be comforted in real sorrow by what one may call Evangelical topics. It seems so perfectly irrelative to hear that 'man is born to trouble,' that 'it is G.o.d that chasteneth,' &c.

"I recollect now that on Sat.u.r.day morning I was obliged to send off some proof-sheets.[432] She asked what I was doing, and then said, 'I shall so enjoy reading it when it is all finished, but I must have my little desk out then, because I shall not be able to hold the book.' We have only just remembered this, which proves that there must have been a slight rally then. It was all so short, so bewildering at last, that things will only come back gradually.

"I shall be glad when the incessant noise of workmen[433]

downstairs ceases. It is so incongruous in the house now, but could not be helped. My darling did not mind it; indeed it seems to me, on looking back, as if she never found fault with anything; often she did not hear it, and when she did, 'I like that pleasant sound,' she said."

"_Nov. 16._--There were forty letters to-day, many wanting answers, so I can only write a little, but it is a comfort to me to send you any memories of those precious last days as they occur to me, and as the first _mist_ of anguish clears up, so many things recur.

"You asked about Romo. Indeed it overwhelms me to think of it. The dear little beast is so touching in his attempts to comfort me. He comes and licks my hand and rubs himself against me, as he never was in the habit of doing. In the first sad moments after the dear eyes closed, Lea, by an old Northern custom, would send down to '_tell_ the dog and the bees' (the bees would have died, she thinks, if they had not been told), and Romo understood it all, and did not howl, but cried plaintively all morning.

"I forget whether I spoke of the music. For the last four days my darling had said at intervals that she heard beautiful music.

Thursday and Friday I thought nothing of it; on Sat.u.r.day it began to have a solemn meaning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHURCH LANE, HURSTMONCEAUX.]

"I have been to-day to Hurstmonceaux. It was necessary. There was deep snow the first part of the way, but beyond Battle no snow at all, leaves still on the trees, and quite a summer look. It was more overpowering to me than I expected to pa.s.s Lime, and I almost expected to see _her_ come across the field and open the wicket-gate to her beloved walk to the school. The Haringtons[434]

were most kind in placing Hurstmonceaux Place at our disposal for the funeral, and removed all scruples about it by saying how really thankful they were to be able to show their affection for the Mother in that way. I went up twice to the church. The road thither and the churchyard looked most beautiful, and the spot chosen, on the edge towards the level, with the view she always thought so like the Campagna. I am allowed to enclose a little s.p.a.ce, which will contain my grave also.

"I called on Mrs. W. Isted,[435] and found her quite overpowered, sitting with my darling's photograph. 'It is not only her own loss, dearly as I loved her, but the deaths of all my others come back to me, which she helped me to bear.'"

"_Nov. 17._--Do you know that through a mist of tears I have been forced to go on sending off proof-sheets of 'Walks in Rome'? One of the last things she spoke of was her hope that I would not let her illness hinder the book. The dedication to her, already printed, will seem touching to those who read it. She herself read _that_ when the first volume was finished. But her great pleasure of the last few weeks was in the chapters of the 'Memorials' which I was writing of her Alton life. To continue them with the copious materials she has left will now be my one great interest. She has left me perfectly free to make what use I like of all, and one day made me write down from her dictation an expression to that effect.

The Alton life is certainly the most perfect ideal of a country clergyman's life that can well be conceived."

"_Nov. 19._--I cannot leave home yet.... Leycester, Mamie, and many others have written, as she always said they would, that their hearts and houses are open to receive me, but this must be later.

Indeed, I shall cling to all she loved, and in the ever-living remembrance of her shall be able to love _all_. I had even a kind note from Mrs. Maurice[436] to-day: she said I should.

"Henry Papillon came yesterday, touchingly wishful to look upon the dear face once more, and he was even more struck than I expected with its immortal beauty.... To-day was a great wrench. This morning the precious earthly form was sealed away from us."

"_Nov. 22._--I went through yesterday in a dream. I did not realise it at all. Lea left Holmhurst in an agony of sobs and tears, but I did not; I had so often thought of it, I seemed to have gone through it all before, and then I had already lost sight of my darling.

"Lea, John, Johnnie Cornford, and I went in the little carriage _first_; Harriet, Anne, Rogers, Joe, and Margaret Cornford[437]

followed _her_. We reached Hurstmonceaux Place about half-past twelve. In half-an-hour they all began to arrive: each and all of my dear cousins were most kind to me."

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Dec. 4, 1870._--I have been unable to write in my journal, the hundred and ninety-two letters which I have had to answer have taken all the time.... And I live still. I used to think I could not live, but I am not even ill; and yet how my life is changed, all the interest, all the happiness, all the suns.h.i.+ne gone, only the systematic routine of existence left.

"My poor Lea is already beginning to be interested in her chickens and her farm-life, and to think it all 'such a long time ago.' But to me it seems as if it had only just happened, and the hour in which her sweet eyes closed upon me has swallowed up all the hours which have come since, and is always the last hour to me.

"I think it was about the third day afterwards that Lea came into my room and told me that the look of wonderful beauty and repose which appeared at the last had come back again to the dear features. And so it was. It was the sweetest look of calm, serene repose. The colour had all faded out of my darling's cheeks, which had lost every sign of age, and were smooth and white as if they were chiselled in marble. Her closed eyelids, her gently curving mouth expressed the sweetest restfulness. The dear lame hand, quite supple at last, had closed softly upon the other. And this lovely image of her perfected state was lent to me till the last, when the beloved features were closed away from me for ever.

"It was on the Sat.u.r.day that Lea and I went in together for the last time. Lea cried violently. I was beyond tears. We covered away together all that was dearest to us on earth. I placed a lock of my hair in her hands, and laid her favourite flowers by her. Monday a day of rain and storm-cloud. I shall always a.s.sociate the road to Hurstmonceaux with the drive on that winter's morning with swirling rain-clouds, and the waters out on the distant Levels gleaming white through the mist. Coming down the hill near Boreham how many memories of my dearest one came back to me,--of her anxiety to put me out to walk at Standard Hill,--of her admiration of the three pines on the hill-top; and then, near Lime, of walks with her on dewy summer mornings, when I went with her in my childhood to pick ground-ivy and violets in the fields behind Lime Cross.

"The coffin lay in the centre of the drawing-room at Hurstmonceaux Place, upon a high raised stand draped with white. All around it hung a lovely wreath of flowers from Holmhurst, and at the foot ma.s.ses of flowers kindly sent by the present owners of Lime. Mrs.

H. Papillon[438] had sent a beautiful cross of white chrysanthemums, and some one else a wreath, and in the centre, linking all with a reminiscence of her sister Lucy, lay a bunch of withered violets from Abbots Kerswell. Here, over the coffin of her whose life was perfect peace, the two great enemies in the parish of Hurstmonceaux shook hands and were reconciled.

"At two the eighteen bearers, all chosen from labourers whom she had known, filed in in their white smock frocks and took up the precious burden. Lea and I followed immediately, then Leycester, Vere, and Emmie Penrhyn; Arthur, Augusta, and Mary Stanley; Morgan and Mamie Yeatman; Dr. Vaughan, Frederick Fisher, Mrs. Hale, and a long line of neighbours, clergy, and servants, walking two and two.