By the kindness of Mr. Henry Smetham (locally famed as the "Laureate of Strood"), we subsequently had an introduction to Mrs. Taylor, formerly school-mistress at Higham, who came there in 1860, and remained until some years after the death of Charles Dickens. She knew the novelist well, and used to see him almost every day when he was at home. She said, "If I had met him and did not know who he was, I should have set him down as a good-hearted English gentleman." He was very popular and much liked in the neighbourhood. On his return from America, in the first week of May, 1868, garlands of flowers were put by the villagers across the road from the railway station to Gad's Hill. There was a flag at Gad's (a Union Jack, she thinks), which was always hoisted when Dickens was at home. He never read at Higham, and never came to the school; but he always allowed the use of the meadow at the back of Gad's Hill Place for the school treats, either of church or chapel, and contributed to such treats sweets and what not.
Mrs. Taylor remembers that the carriage was sent down from Gad's Hill Place to the Higham railway station nearly every night at ten o'clock to meet either Charles Dickens or his friends. It passed the school, and she well recollects the pleasant sound made by the bells. She heard Dickens read Sairey Gamp in London once, and did not like the dress he wore, but thought the reading very wonderful.
This lady says she was in London at the time of the death of Charles Dickens, the announcement of which she saw on a newspaper placard, and was ill the whole of the day afterwards. It was a sorrowful day for her.
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We are much indebted to Mrs. Budden of Gad's Hill Place for the following interesting particulars which she obtained from Mrs. Easedown, of Higham, "who was parlour-maid to Mr. Dickens, and left to be married on the 8th of June, the day he was seized with the fit. She says it was her duty to hoist the flag on the top of the house directly Mr. Dickens arrived at Gad's Hill. It was a small flag, not more than fourteen inches square, and was kept in the billiard-room. She says he was the dearest and best gentleman that ever lived, and the kindest of masters. He asked her to stay and wait at table the night he was taken ill; she said if he wished it she would, and then he said, 'Never mind; I don't feel well.' She saw him after he was dead, laid out in the dining-room, when his coffin was covered with scarlet geraniums—his favourite flower. The flower-beds on the lawns at Gad's Hill in his time were always filled with scarlet geraniums; they have since been done away with. Over the head of the coffin was the oil painting of himself as a young man (probably Maclise's portrait)—on one side a picture of 'Dolly Varden,' and on the other 'Kate Nickleby.' He gave Mrs. Easedown, on the day she left his service, a photograph of himself with his name written on the back. Each of the other servants at Gad's Hill Place was presented with a similar photograph. She said he was unusually busy at the time of his death, as on the Monday morning he ordered breakfast to be ready during the week at 7.30 ('Sharp, mind') instead of his usual time, 9 o'clock, as he said 'he had so much to do before Friday.' But—'Such a thing was never to be,' for on the Thursday he breathed his last!"
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Mrs. Wright, the wife of Mr. Henry Wright, surveyor of Higham, lived four years at Gad's Hill Place as parlour-maid. She is the proud possessor of some interesting relics of her late master. These include his soup-plate, a meerschaum pipe (presented to him, but he chiefly smoked cigars—he was not a great smoker), a wool-worked kettle-holder (which he constantly used), and a pair of small bellows. When she was married Mr. Dickens presented her with a China tea service, "not a single piece of which," said Mrs. Wright proudly, "has been broken."
She remembers, at the time of her engagement as parlour-maid, that the servants told her to let a gentleman in at the front door who was approaching. She didn't know who it was, as she had never seen Mr. Dickens before. She opened the door, and the gentleman entered in a very upright manner, and after thanking her, looked hard at her, and then walked up-stairs. On returning to the kitchen the servants asked who it was that had just come in. She replied, "I don't know, but I think it was the master." "Did he speak?" they asked. "No," said she, "but he looked at me in a very determined way." Said they, "He was reading your character, and he now knows you thoroughly," or words to that effect.
As parlour-maid, it was part of her duty to carve and wait on her master specially. The dinner serviettes were wrapped up in a peculiar manner, and Mrs. Wright remembers that Lord Darnley's servants were always anxious to learn how the folding was done, but they never discovered the secret. At dinner-parties, it was the custom to place a little "button-hole" for each guest. This was mostly made up of scarlet geranium (Dickens's favourite flower), with a bit of the leaf and a frond of maidenhair fern. On one occasion in her early days, the dinner-lift (to the use of which she was unaccustomed) broke and ran down quickly, smashing the crockery and bruising her arm. Mr. Dickens jumped up quickly and said, "Never mind the breakage; is your arm hurt?" As it was painful, he immediately applied arnica to the bruise, and gave her a glass of port wine, "treating me," Mrs. Wright remarked, "more like a child of his own than a servant."
When she was married, and left Gad's Hill, she brought her first child to show her former master. He took notice of it, and asked her what he could buy as a present. She thanked him, and said she did not want anything. On leaving he gently put a sovereign into the baby's little hand, and said, "Buy something with that."