by Ellen Wood
Twenty years ago, when the writer visited the monastery, he asked the Frere Procureur — then Frere Gerasime — of Frere Jeronimo. For answer the brother led the way to the cemetery, and pointed to a grave marked by a small wooden cross. Frére Jeronimo had been lying there ten years. Whatever his history, whatever the troubles and sorrows for which he had fled from the world, all was over. He was at rest.
Frere Gerasime himself was a fat, round-faced, good-humoured brother, who could not speak without laughing, and looked as if life had been a series of feast days, instead of the fasts the monastery imposed. Care and trouble had never driven him from the world; but rather a certain indolence of disposition, an unwillingness to take thought for the things of the morrow, well suited to a monastic life. The days and the years passed quietly and peacefully; he had no care or concern; it was not brave, perhaps, but it suited him; and as Frére Procureur he came into frequent and pleasant contact with visitors, who brought in with them a sufficient atmosphere of the outside world to content him. He said that he was perfectly happy, and his appearance confirmed his words.
Full of variety, full of movement, full of charm was the life of Mrs. Wood at this period. Much more of those days might be recorded, for they were full of incident; but sufficient has been written to place before the reader a picture of that far-off time when as yet neither trouble on the one side nor fame on the other had laid its hand upon the author of East Lynne.
But it was a quiet life. There were no great dramas to be recorded. Life is not made up of dramas, but of commonplace, everyday events. Happy those lives that are without dramas. Mrs. Henry Wood’s days flowed in a calm, even stream, surrounded by friends, by everything heart could desire; a husband who was most popular amongst men, and failed in nothing but the administration of his own affairs. Amongst other great works, he undertook to establish and bring into operation one or two of the large French railways, and, in spite of great opposition, by his influence and powers of organisation he triumphantly succeeded. Nothing was beyond his grasp — nothing excepting his personal interests. He was extremely wealthy at one time simply because wealth would and did come to him; and he might have become, without effort, one of the richest men in France. But the fickle goddess will not be courted for ever; there comes a time when she withdraws her favours if they are lightly esteemed.
Of society and much of its higher ranks Mrs. Wood had abundant experience. Her true and steadfast nature was formed for friendship of the highest description, and she never lost a friend once made. She was as popular and beloved in her way as her husband was in his. Many lifelong intimacies were the result; most of them amongst the French — that nation she grew so much to like, and in whom she saw so much that was good. Her earnest purpose seemed to draw out all that was best in those she saw frequently. She always thought good of every one. Without guile herself, she never saw guile in others. Yet the smallest deviation from the right path filled her with a nameless horror, which in later years — as a friend has observed who only knew her in later years — might have made her severe but that she possessed in so large a measure the “charity that thinketh no evil.”
But the life we have described was not to last. There came a day when their early home knew them no more, when much that life held dear and sacred had to be parted from for ever. What that parting was to Mrs. Wood will never be known. She never spoke of it. It must have been trouble too deep for words, setting its seal upon her for all time. With her husband it was quite different. He lost none of his gaiety or charm; his sanguine nature saw all things in rose-colour. Probably he never had a day’s depression throughout life.
We know not with whom to compare Mrs. Henry Wood in her years of trial. No life opening in brilliancy was ever for a time more clouded by sorrow and suffering; but through all she was the quiet and refined gentlewoman whose simple, undemonstrative piety emphatically rendered her home blessed and sacred. In those days and years her profoundly religious nature came to her aid, and enabled her to pass through heart-troubles and worldly cares with the calmness, almost the exaltation of a saint. She rose above them in every sense of the word. No protest ever went up to Heaven—” Lord, why am I thus afflicted?” But, on the contrary— “Thou doest all things well!” The first verse of the first Psalm for the day of her birth — the 17th of the month — became often a silent prayer in days of trial. This was never told, but an incident once occurred which caused us to feel that it was so. Even in times of deep sorrow she never failed to think and to utter from inmost feeling and conviction— “For Thou, Lord, art good and gracious: and of great mercy unto them that call upon Thee.” For years it was her practice to retire to her room for half an hour every evening alone; and the half-hour was spent in fervent prayer and earnest reading and meditation, in renewing strength for the trials of daily life.
Mr. Wood’s spirit and lightness, it has been said, never forsook him. He was at all times charming, brilliant, full of life. “To-morrow the roses and garlands will fade,” the poet sings; with Mr. Wood it was the opposite. To-morrow dead roses and garlands would bloom again. He lived in Utopia. Yet only in the things that concerned himself. In all concerning others he was an excellent counsellor, quick-judging, and with admirable common-sense. He would frequently give many days and much thought to the affairs of a friend — in which he had no more personal interest than in the ebb and flow of the tide — and overcome difficulties that would have landed any one else in disaster.
Perhaps, after all, we are not describing a very uncommon character; but it is rare when allied to such intellectual powers as Mr. Wood possessed.
France continued to be their home for many years. They both loved the country. At one time, indeed, Mr. Wood had almost been persuaded into becoming a naturalised Frenchman, and was only checked by the fact that his sons would then be under French rule, liable to conscription and other laws affecting the liberty of the subject. No doubt it would have added to his influence; but he was a true Englishman at heart; and, his mind once made up to remain an Englishman, the question passed, and never again came under consideration.
France, we say, continued to be their home. They both loved it, and had many friends in various parts of the country whom it was a great pleasure occasionally to meet. Mrs. Wood’s health was also very delicate at times, and it was supposed that the climate of France was more suited to her than that of England.
CHAPTER XIV
“Till all at once beyond the will
I hear a wizard music roll,
And through a lattice on the soul
Looks thy fair face and makes it still.”
THE following incident does not belong to this period of Mrs. Wood’s life. Many years had passed away; much had happened. East Lynne had been published some time, and Mr. Wood had recently died. All the old life had ceased to be, a new order reigned. But as an incident of travel it seems a fitting conclusion to the pages that have gone before.
Mrs. Wood had always been an excellent traveller to whom fear was unknown. Yet at the time of which we are writing there had grown upon her a singular phase of nervousness: she felt it almost impossible to cross the Channel. She, who had crossed it many times in roughest weather without the slightest hesitation, at last found that the calmest day was beyond her courage.
It arose from the circumstance that once when crossing from Dieppe the machinery broke down. The sea was frightfully rough, and the vessel came to a standstill until what was wrong could be put right. This took nearly twelve hours, and during part of that time they were in a certain amount of danger. There was much alarm on board amongst the passengers, and Mrs. Wood grew nervous, though maintaining her usual outward calmness. At length the machinery was repaired, the vessel proceeded, and fears subsided.
But the voyage, in place of being under six hours, was nearly eighteen, and there had been much anxiety on shore respecting the safety of the boat. Instead of landing in daylight the passengers now landed in the night, and Mrs. Wood, possessing ex
cellent sight by day, suffered from what is known as night-blindness — an inability to distinguish surrounding objects visible to others. In passing from the boat to the train she fell over a rope, and in the fall her hand was so badly sprained that for many years after she had to wear at times an elastic bandage designed for her by Sir Henry Thompson. Altogether the voyage had been trying; and from that time a fear of crossing the Channel by the longer route grew more and more strong, until the effort became too great an ordeal.
Thus it happened that once when she was desirous of joining her friend Mrs. Milner-Gibson at Dieppe, rather than take the voyage by way of Newhaven, she preferred to cross to Boulogne, and take the longer and at that time tedious though interesting journey by land. On that occasion she was accompanied by one of her sons. The short sea journey was passed without trouble, and the train carried the travellers on to Abbeville. Here the night had to be spent: the remainder of the journey would be taken by diligence, which started the next morning.
Perhaps Abbeville has changed less than many places, and yet it is now very different from what it was in those days. Mrs. Wood had never visited Abbeville, although well acquainted with the neighbourhood, and was delighted with the quaint old town, sleepy and quiet, yet full of a bygone charm and of old-world architecture. Above the banks of the river rose a long row of wonderful houses whose gabled roofs found their reflections in the placid stream. A canal ran through the town under streets and houses that had existed for ages. Some of the streets were so narrow that you might pass from one latticed window to its opposite neighbour in mid-air; and in truth the crumbling tenements were occasionally more picturesque than tempting. The house of Francis I., however, was an exception in its old and roomy courtyard, where vines then grew upon the walls. It was a vision of age and beauty, the embodiment of an artist’s dream, carrying one back to the centuries when Francis I. sat upon the throne of his fathers, strengthened its power and encouraged art. The house still exists, but in a less perfect condition than at that period.
Here, as everywhere in France, Mrs. Wood felt at home. For long years the language had been as familiar to her as English; whilst her gentle manner appealed to the Celtic temperament, and rich and poor loved her. She admired them also, and, as we have said, possessed the faculty of all good and pure minds, of only thinking good of others. Though quietest of the quiet and calmest of the calm, she admired their vivacity, their life and verve, their gay temperament, the very gestures they could not speak without using.
Those were charming and memorable hours spent at Abbeville. The hotel was one of the oldest and most picturesque houses in the town, but has long since disappeared; and the host ushered Madame to a sitting-room fitted up with the taste of a past age, opening to a bedroom Louis XIV. might have furnished for His Majesty’s own occupation. But the host apologised that for Monsieur there was nothing better to offer than a room in the grenier — comfortable, but high up and homely. The rooms not occupied at that moment were undergoing repair. There was only one other family in the house — the Comte de Marseine and Madame his mother — but they had taken nearly all the habitable apartments.
Here, indeed, was a strange coincidence, which for a moment rendered Mrs. Wood silent with surprise, then filled her with delight.
And so once more the old friends met in this singular manner, this out-of-the-world spot; and once again the world seemed smaller than it is. A delightful evening followed, in which the ladies were full of reminiscences of the past. The reason for the de Marseines’ present sojourn at Abbeville was that the old Comtesse de Marseine, Mrs. Wood’s friend, had a sister living at a chateau in the neighbourhood — Madame St. Ange — and this sister, in failing health, had begged them to come to the old town for what would be to her probably a last visit.
“You see, chere enfant,” — Mrs. Wood smiled at the old familiar way of addressing her, “ the Chateau de St. Ange is only a league from the town; and, as I never could get on with the husband of Adelaide, I felt that a frigid week spent under their roof would be too much for my nerves. So here we have installed ourselves; and we meet every day, and are excellent friends, he and I. I am not anxious about my sister. I think she has grown nervous about herself — she has had a trying life with her fidgety old husband, who calls her ‘Madame,’ and treats her with as much ceremony as if she were his queen instead of his wife, and is as cold as an icicle, and altogether fossilised. But as far as I can see, Adelaide is in excellent health. She is my junior by three years, and I am only seventy-two. You know I was a de Kerkade, one of the ancient families of Brittany — ancient, my dear, in every sense of the word, for we never think of dying under ninety, any one of us. Only my poor great-uncle died when he was seventy-four; killed when out boar-hunting: a judgment, some said, for boar-hunting at an age when he ought to have done with frivolities. But at seventy-four we are quite juvenile. My uncle killed his boar, and the head hangs up in the great hall of my old home — together with a good many other boars’ heads — overlooking our enchanting grounds and gardens, abounding in old-fashioned flowers, tall lilies and sweet-scented roses, and wonderful old wells decorated with ancient ironwork. Yes, Adelaide has twenty good years before her. And I give you my word that I don’t myself feel a day older than when I was forty years of age, and we used to sit, you and I, out upon the terraces, talking of the past and the future, and listening to the nightingales. This is something for a Frenchwoman to say — but then I am Bretonne.”
“And you have not changed,” remarked Mrs. Wood. “You do not look a day older than when we last met nine years ago.”
“Nine years!” echoed Madame de Marseine. “Yes, it is indeed nine years, yet it seems only yesterday. Time flies. Before I can turn round my twenty years will have passed, and both Adelaide and I will be no more. As for you, chere enfant, that lovely face is more lovely, more youthful than ever. If you live to be ninety, you will never grow old. And then your success! Who would have supposed this quiet person had so much in her! But I was sure there was much more behind those eyes than the world imagined, and you may remember that I told you so. I read your East Lynne in French first of all, translated by Mr. North Peat, who called it Lady Isabel; and then I read it in English. It is a pity that any great work has to be translated — the essence evaporates. And so you are going to Dieppe, to make there la pluie et le beau temps. Well, we will come and spend ten days also, for the sake of being with you. We have several friends there at this moment — charming people whom you must know.”
It was a very pleasant incident, which made the visit to Abbeville more than memorable.
The grenier referred to proved delightful, high up and humble though it was. Admirable from an artistic point of view, with a lovely sixteenth-century dormer window and latticed panes, from which one looked out upon a wonderful assemblage of slanting ancient red and gray roofs, magnificent in tone, backed by the rich and picturesque towers of the church of St. Wolfram. And in the early morning it was worth a king’s ransom to watch the breaking of dawn, and the wonderful light and colour spreading in an almost cloudless sky; the sun rising in splendour behind the church towers.
That morning was market-day, and Abbeville, for a quiet town, was full of sound and bustle. About six o’clock the factory people, men and women, hastened to their daily work; causing a small commotion, a crisp sound of many feet upon the pavements, many of them wearing sabots, which gave out a sharp sound like the falling of hail. The women wore white caps, which alone lifted them out of the realms of the commonplace. If they could only realise how much they have lost, would they return to their old ways? The people of Picardy have become very uninteresting; plain and rugged, with harsh shrill voices that seem laden with the coldness of their northern atmosphere. But on that bygone day everything was charming, old-world, and primitive; it was still the age of beauty and picturesqueness; streets and houses matched wonderfully with the people; not a shadow of the coming change had fallen.
The market-place was crowd
ed with buyers and sellers.
Quite early in the morning ladies and servants had assembled with their baskets for the mid-week’s purchases. Many of the market-women were decorated with gold chains and earrings, often really artistic — heirlooms handed down from mother to daughter, of which they were proud and careful as an old English baron of his pedigree. No offer would have persuaded one of them to part with her jewels, for they were a badge of the respectability of the wearer and the antiquity of her race. Everything was clean and tempting; butter, poultry, and vegetables; the latter arranged almost as one sees them in the far South and in Italy; a scene that charmed Mrs. Wood. She delighted in entering into conversation with some of the fresh, comely market-women decked out in their gold ornaments and caps. Romantic and interesting they looked in their way, these women of Abbeville, wives and daughters of the small farmers of the neighbourhood. As Mrs. Wood went through the market she was of course apostrophised by many an anxious seller of ducks, chickens and fresh Picardy produce. All reminded her of days gone by, when in her southern home, like all the ladies of the neighbourhood, she had accompanied her housekeeper to market, for the pleasure of seeing what was going on, and of being in touch with her tradespeople, and where, as old Venus had poetically expressed it, she came to them as a ray of sunshine. Only in such a country as France is such a state of things possible; and in leaving France this universally good understanding was a condition of life she much regretted.
Rarely, in her southern French home or elsewhere, had she gazed upon a more picturesque scene than this market-place framed in by the quaint houses. Only the one charm was absent — they were all strangers to her. She could not inquire into the joys and sorrows of their simple and straightforward lives. No doubt all had their share of vicissitudes, but the tragic element was absent; few had skeletons in the cupboard. There is not a better, more quietly conducted class than the small farmers of France. Temperate and industrious, their simple annals are marked by seed-time and harvest, summer and winter. The men are peaceable, and have few vices; especially the sin of intemperance is rare. The women make good helpmates. As for the comely daughters of that Abbeville morning, they were only entering upon life; it would have been sad if as yet they knew much of its sorrows.