"It was," he continues, "in the latter part of 1860 that I received a message from the unhappy woman so well known to the public under the name of Lola Montez, earnestly requesting me to visit her and minister to her spiritual wants. She had been stricken down by a paralysis of her left side. For some days she was unconscious, and her death seemed to be at hand. She had, however, rallied, and a most benevolent Christian female, who had been her schoolmate in Scotland in the days of her girlhood, and knew her well, had stepped forward and provided for the temporal comfort of the afflicted companion of her childhood. The real name of Lola Montez was Eliza G., and she was of respectable family in Ireland, where she was born."
But neither the Rev. Mr. Hawks, with his oiliness and smug piety, nor Mrs. Buchanan, with her true womanly sympathy and understanding, could bring Lola Montez back to health, any more than—for all their pills and purges—could the doctors and nurses round her bed. She lay there, day after day, aware of their presence, but unable to move or speak. Yet, able to think. Thoughts crowded upon her in a series of flashing pictures; a bewildering phantasmagoria, coming out of the shadows, and beckoning to her. Childhood's memories of India; hot suns, marching men, palanquins and elephants; Montrose and a dour Calvinism; Bath and Sir Jasper Nicolls; love's young dream; Lieutenant James and the runaway marriage in Dublin; another experience of India's coral strand; kind-hearted Captain Craigie and hard-hearted George Lennox; the Consistory Court proceedings; fiasco at Her Majesty's Theatre; Ranelagh and Lumley; wanderjahre and odyssey; Paris and Dujarier; Ludwig and the steps of a throne; passion and poetry; intrigues and liaisons; Cornet Heald and Patrick Hull; voyages from the old world to the new; mining camps and backwoods; palaces and conventicles; glittering triumphs and abject failures. And now, gasping and struggling for breath, the end.
The sands were running out. The days slipped away, and, with them, the last vitality of the woman who had once been so full of life and the joy of living.
The doctors did what they could. But it was very little, for Lola Montez was beyond their help. The end was fast at hand. It came with merciful swiftness. On January 17, 1861, she turned her face to the wall and drew a last shuddering breath.
"I am very tired," she whispered.
The funeral took place two days later. "Accompanied by some of our most respected citizens and their families," says an eye-witness, "the cortège left the house of Mrs. Buchanan for Green-Wood cemetery."
"The Rev. Dr. Hawks," adds a second account, "was constantly at the bedside of Lola Montez, and gave her the benefit of his pastoral care as freely as if she had been a member of his own flock. He conducted her obsequies in an impressive fashion; and Mr. Brown, his assistant, who had himself attended so many funerals and weddings in his day, was seen to wipe the tears from his eyes, as he heard the reverend gentleman remark to Mrs. Buchanan that he had never met with an example of more genuine penitence."
"Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?" enquired the Rev. Mr. Hawks, as he stood addressing the company assembled round the grave. He himself was assured that the description was thoroughly applicable to the woman lying there.
"I never saw," he declared, "a more humble penitent. When I prayed with her, nothing could exceed the fervour of her devotion; and never have I had a more watchful and attentive hearer when I read the Scriptures.... If ever a repentant soul loathed past sin, I believe hers did."
Possibly, since it could scarcely have been Mrs. Buchanan, it was this clerical busybody who was responsible for the inscription on Lola's headstone: