“Mrs. Charles Knightley drove me to Canons Ashby, the beautiful and romantic old place of the eccentric and impoverished Sir H. Dryden. I thought it looked like the background of a novel, and afterwards found that it was the background of—‘Sir Charles Grandison’!
“Lady Knightley took me to Shackborough—a pretty place. When Charles I. was going to the battle of Edgehill he met its proprietor of that day merrily hunting. He had never heard that there was a civil war going on, such was the paucity of political news! But he turned about and went with the king into the fight and was wounded there.
“At the beginning of this century, the daughter of the house became engaged to be married to an officer quartered at Weedon—a mésalliance which was greatly disapproved by her family. At last she was induced to break it off. But the officer persuaded her to grant him one last interview at the summer-house on the hill that he might give her back her letters. He gave her the letters with one hand, and with the other he shot her dead, and then shot himself.
“At Marston St. Lawrence, near this, is an old house, beautiful and moated. Here a Mrs. Blencowe was one day being dressed by her maid before the toilet-table. Suddenly she said, ‘Did you see anything’—‘Yes,’ said the maid. A hand had come out from behind the curtain. They had both seen it, and both screamed violently. Help came, and the room was searched, but no one was there.”
“Ickwellbury, Jan. 27.—A man here, being asked by Mrs. Harvey how he liked going to church, said, ‘Well, I like it very much: I goes to church, and I sits down, and I thinks o’ nowt.’”
“London, Feb. 23.—My dear Mrs. Duncan Stewart is dead. She never rallied from the sudden death of her son-in-law Mr. Rogerson. But she was able to see several people, to whom she spoke with that all-majestic charity which was the mainspring and keynote of her life. Her last words were ‘Higher, higher!’ and we may believe that she has passed into those higher regions where her thirst after life, not repose, meets its full fruition. I went to see her in the solemn peace of the newly dead, and last Thursday I saw her laid in a grave of flowers at Kensal Green, many faithful hearts mourning, many sad eyes weeping beside her coffin.[394]
“There were few equal to her. Mrs. Procter is most so. I met her the other day, and some one made her a pretty speech. She said, ‘When I was very young, Sydney Smith said to me, “My dear, do you like flattery?”—“Very much indeed,” I answered, “but I do not like it put on with a trowel.” What I really do like is—in the words of Sterne—a few delicate attentions, not so vague as to be bewildering, and not so pointed as to be embarrassing.’”
“Firle, Lewes, April 18, 1884.—I came here to find a party of twenty in the house, including Sir Rainald and Lady Knightley. It is a large house, like a French château, close under the downs, but as my kind but singular little host, Lord Gage, likes every window open in these bitter winds, the cold is ferocious. On Wednesday I got Lady Knightley to walk with me (the inhabitants of this place had never heard of it!) 2½ miles across the marshes to Laughton Place, the ancient and original residence of the Pelhams—a moated grange, having an old red brick tower with terra-cotta ornaments, and many other curious remains, looking—stranded in the desolate fen, and with an abundance of animal life—like an old Dutch picture.
“Yesterday I walked with Sir Rainald to Glynde. It is a curious old house, approached through a gateway and stableyard and by clipped yew hedges, having a pleasant view over upland country and high gardens. A fine black oak staircase leads to a noble gallery-room, with deep alcoves, so pleasantly furnished with fine pictures, &c., that, though suitable to an enormous party, a single individual would never feel solitary in it. Miss Brand did the honours of the many good portraits very pleasantly, and, before we left, Lady Hampden came in from walking, and I was very glad to see her in her country home, having so often been in her house in the palace at Westminster.”
Ill-health in June made a happy excuse for my spending a delightful month abroad. I saw first the group of towns around Laon, charming old-fashioned Noyon, beautiful Soissons, and Coucy with its grand castle. Then Alick Pitt met me at Thun, and we spent a delightful time, joining the Husseys of Scotney Castle at Mürren and Rosenlaui, sketching and flower-picking, and reawakening every slumbering sense of the delights of Switzerland.