The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"As all know, the Louis Philippe revolution was a very slight affair. The English had no difficulty in getting out of Paris, and in a fortnight Major Alcock was back in Rome, bringing his sister with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alcock was gone. She was never, never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that ever was known of Mrs. Alcock was that, on the day of her disappearance, some people who knew her were walking in front of S. John Lateran, and saw a carriage driving very rapidly towards the Porta S. Giovanni Laterano, and in it sat Mrs. Alcock crying and wringing her hands as if her heart would break, and by her side there sat a strange man, with the face she had so often described."

I have my own theories as to the explanation of this strange story of Mrs. Alcock, but as they are evolved entirely from my own imagination, I will not mention them here.

From Cheshire I went to North Wales to pay a visit to our cousinhood at Bodryddan, which had been the home of my grandmother's only brother, the Dean of St. Asaph. The place has been spoilt since, but was very charming in those days. Under an old clock-tower one entered upon a handsome drive with an avenue of fine elms, on the right of which a lawn, with magnificent firs, oaks, and cedars, swept away to the hills. At the end rose the stately old red brick house, half covered with magnolias, myrtles, and buddlea, with blazing beds of scarlet and yellow flowers lighting up its base. Through an oak hall hung with armour a fine staircase led to the library—an immense room with two deep recesses, entirely furnished with black oak from Copenhagen, and adorned with valuable enamels collected at Lisbon. The place had belonged to the Conwys, and that family ended in three sisters, Lady Stapleton, Mrs. Cotton, and Mrs. Yonge: they had equal shares. Mrs. Cotton bought up Lady Stapleton's share, and left it with her own to the two daughters of her sister Mrs. Yonge, of whom the elder married my great-uncle, Dean Shipley, and was the mother of William and Charles Shipley and of the three female first cousins (Penelope, Mrs. Pelham Warren; Emily, Mrs. Heber; and Anna Maria, Mrs. Dashwood) who played so large a part in the early history of my father and his brothers, and who are frequently mentioned in the first volume of these memoirs.

When Dean Shipley married, he removed to his wife's house of Bodryddan. Miss Yonge lived with them, and after her sister's death the Dean was most anxious to marry her, trying to obtain an Act of Parliament for the purpose. For some years their aunt, Lady Stapleton, also continued to hold a life-interest in the property. Of this lady there is a curious portrait at Bodryddan. She is represented with her two children and a little Moor, for whom her own little boy had conceived the most passionate attachment, and from whom he could never bear to be separated. One night, after this little Moor was grown up, Lady Stapleton, returning very late from a ball, went to bed, leaving all her diamonds lying upon the table. Being awakened by a noise in the room, she saw the Moor come in with a large knife in his hand, and begin gathering up her jewels. Never losing her presence of mind, she raised herself up in bed, and, fixing her eyes upon him, exclaimed in a thrilling tone of reproach, "Pompey, is that you?" This she did three times, and the third time the Moor, covering his face with his hands, rushed out of the room. Nothing was heard of him till many years afterwards, when the chaplain of a Devonshire gaol wrote to Lady Stapleton that one of his prisoners, under sentence of death for murder, was most anxious to see her. She was unable to go, but heard afterwards that it was Pompey, who said that on the night he entered her room he had intended to kill her, but that when she spoke, such a sense of his ingratitude overwhelmed him, that he was unable to do it.

As an ecclesiastical dignitary, Dean Shipley would certainly be called to account in our days. He was devoted to hunting and shooting, and used to go up for weeks together to a little public-house in the hills above Bodryddan, where he gave himself up entirely to the society of his horses and dogs. He had led a very fast life before he took orders, and he had a natural daughter by a Mrs. Hamilton, who became the second wife of our grandfather; but after his ordination there was no further stain upon his character. As a father he was exceedingly severe. He never permitted his daughters to sit down in his presence, and he never allowed two of them to be in the room with him at once, because he could not endure the additional talking caused by their speaking to one another. His daughter Anna Maria had become engaged to Captain Dashwood, a very handsome young officer, but before the time came at which he was to claim her hand, he was completely paralysed, crippled, and almost imbecile. Then she flung herself upon her knees, imploring her father with tears not to insist upon her marriage with him; but the Dean sternly refused to relent, saying she had given her word, and must keep to it.

She nursed Captain Dashwood indefatigably till he died, and then she came back to Bodryddan, and lived there with her aunt Mrs. Yonge, finding it dreadfully dull, for she was a brilliant talker and adored society. At last she went abroad with her aunt Louisa Shipley, and at Corfu she met Sir Thomas Maitland, who gave her magnificent diamonds, and asked her to marry him. But she insisted on coming home to ask her father's consent, at which the Dean was quite furious. "Why could you not marry him at once?"—and indeed, before she could get back to her lover, he died!

After the death of Mrs. Yonge, Mrs. Dashwood lived at Cheltenham, a rich and clever widow, and had many proposals. To the disgust of her family, she insisted upon accepting Colonel Jones, who had been a neighbour at Bodryddan, and was celebrated for his fearfully violent temper. The day before the wedding it was nearly all off, because, when he came to look at her luggage, he insisted on her having only one box, and stamped all her things down into it, spoiling all her new dresses. He made her go with him for a wedding tour all over Scotland in a pony-carriage, without a maid, and she hated it; but in a year he died.

Then she insisted on marrying the Rev. G. Chetwode, who had had one wife before and had two afterwards—an old beau, who used to comb his hair with a leaden comb to efface the grey. On her death he inherited all she had—diamonds, £2000 a year, all the fine pictures left her by Mr. Jones, and all those Landor had collected for her in Italy.

But to return to Dean Shipley. To Mrs. Rowley, who was the mistress of Bodryddan when I was there, the Dean had been the kindest of grandfathers, and she had no recollection of him which was not associated with the most unlimited indulgence. The Dean was much interested in the management of his estate, but he insisted that every detail should pass through his own hands. For instance, while he was absent in London, a number of curious images and carvings in alabaster were discovered under the pavement at Bodryddan: news was immediately sent to him, but he desired that everything should be covered up, and remain till he came home. On his return, he put off the examination from time to time, till, on his death, the place was forgotten, and now no one is able to discover it.