Mr. Neville, the rector of Ford, prayed with her daily. “How I wish that others might have the solace this is to me,” she said, with her peculiar emphasis on the word “solace.”
Lady Brownlow was with her three days, and was her last visitor: she came away saying it had been like being in a beautiful church, so pervading was the sense of holiness. “Oh, darling Adelaide! goodness and beauty, beauty and goodness: those are ever the great things!” were our dear Lady’s last words to her, as she took her hands and gazed at her earnestly. They were very characteristic.
To Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.
“April 12, 1891.—How often my thoughts go to Ford, and how well I can imagine all that surrounds you there—the snowy Cheviots, that pretty little garden in the bastion tower, the warm bright library; most of all the constant care of Miss Thompson and Miss Lindsay. I am so glad I know it so well, and have so many memories of happy visits—in the old castle, in the cottage with dear Lady Stuart, in the renewed castle since. I seem to see you this bright Sunday morning, and hope it is as bright with you. Inwardly I am sure the sun is shining, and that the Saviour you have loved so well is very near you in hours of weakness. I often wish I could do something—anything—for you, but I can only think of you with ever-grateful love, and pray that all may be peaceful and smooth with you.
“Lady Bloomfield is feeling the loss of her old friend Mrs. Hogg,[495] but she had the most gentle and peaceful end, just talking to her sister and daughter very calmly and quietly without any pain or fear, and then falling sweetly asleep and not waking....
“‘The Blessed Trinity have you in his keeping,’ as Margaret Paston wrote in 1461.”
“April 26.—Another week of bitter cold and biting winds, and I fear you will have been the worse for them. Your state of suspension from so much that you used to be able to do so constantly recalls that of my dearest mother—in winter—for many years; but when the limbs seemed least helpful, and eyes and hands least active, all happy memories of her wealthy past seemed brighter to her, and she was always able to find comfort in the feeling that ‘they also serve who only stand and wait.’ ... I know that, to the weakest, Christ can give such blessed assurance of His love, that in the joy of it all pain and fear are unfelt and vanish. Oh, would that I could do anything for you, but you know how much I always am your most affectionate and grateful
“A. J. C. H.”
This letter was read to our Lady: then I was told to write no more. The end was very near, and each hour became filled with a tensity of waiting for the silent summons. There were none of the ordinary signs of an illness. Our Lady suffered no pain at all, scarcely even discomfort. Her former beauty returned to her, only in a more majestic form, the signs of age seeming to be smoothed away, except in the grey hair half hidden by soft lace. She rarely spoke, and noticed little except the beauty of the flowers by which she was surrounded. But when she did speak, those with her knew that, with entire and humblest prostration of self at the foot of the Cross, her faith and hope had never been brighter. She looked beyond the snowy hills into a sky of unearthly beauty. And so, peacefully, radiantly, our dearest Lady fell into the ever-smiling unconsciousness, in which, on May 11th, she passed away from us to join the beloved and honoured who are at rest with Christ. As I think of her, some lines come back to me which I read to her on my last morning at Ford:—
“Now for all waiting hours
Well am I comforted,
For of a surety now I see
That, without dire distress
Of tears or weariness,
My Lady verily awaiteth me:
So that, until with her I be,
For my dear Lady’s sake
I am right fain to make
Out of my pain a pillow, and to take
Grief for a golden garment unto me;
Knowing that I, at last, shall stand
In that green garden-land,
And, in the holding of my Lady’s hand,
Forget the grieving and the misery.”[496]