Part 28 (2/2)
We were at Florence this year during the festival of Corpus Domini, and saw that curious procession, chiefly consisting of little boys in white dominos, and brown monks and brothers of the Misericordia; but, following the Archbishop under his canopy, came the Grand Duke on foot, with all the male members of the Corsini and Guicciardini families, and the young Archdukes in white satin trains.
We saw also the Foundling Hospital, where all the children were brought up and nursed by goats, and where, when the children cried, the goats ran and gave them suck.
About the 10th of June we settled at Lucca baths, in the pleasant little Casa Bertini, a primitive house more like a farm-house than a villa, on the steep hillside above the Grand Duke's palace, possessing a charming little garden of oleanders and apple-trees at the back, with views down into the gorge of the river, and up into the hilly cornfields, which were always open to us. Very delightful were the early mornings, when the mother, with book and camp-stool, wandered up the hill-path, fringed with flowers, to the Bagni Caldi. Charming too the evenings, when, after ”_merenda_” at four o'clock in the garden, we used to go forth, with all the little society, in carriages or on horseback, till the heavy dews fell, and drove us in by the light of the fireflies. A most pleasant circle surrounded us. Close by, in a large cool villa with a fountain, was the gentle invalid Mrs. Greville (_n?e_ Locke), singing and composing music, with her pleasant companion Miss Rowland. Just below, in the hotel of the villa, ”Auntie” was living with the George Cavendishes, and in the street by the river the pretty widow, Mrs.
Francis Colegrave, with her children, Howard and Florence, and her sister Miss Chichester.
An amusing member of the society at the Bagni, living in a cottage full of curiosities, was Mrs. Stisted, the original of Mrs. Ricketts in ”The Daltons.” She had set her heart upon converting the Duke of Parma to Protestantism, and he often condescended to controversy with her. One day she thought she had really succeeded, but driving into Lucca town next day, to her horror she met him walking bare-headed in a procession with a lighted candle in his hand. Then and there she stopped her carriage and began to upbraid him. When he returned to the Bagni, he went to see her and to reprove her. ”There cannot,” he said, ”be two sovereigns at Lucca; either I must be Duke or you must be Queen,” and ever after she was called the Queen of the Bagni. Colonel Stisted had a number of curious autographs, the most interesting being the MS. of the ”Lines to an Indian air”--”I rise from dreams of thee”--found in the pocket of Sh.e.l.ley after he was drowned.
Living beneath us all this summer were the Grand Ducal family, and we saw them constantly. They were greatly beloved, but the Grand d.u.c.h.ess-Dowager, who was a Sardinian princess, was more popular than the reigning Grand d.u.c.h.ess, who was a Neapolitan Bourbon, and ultimately brought about the ruin of the family by her influence. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess-Dowager was the step-mother of the Grand Duke, and also his sister-in-law, having been sister-in-law of his first wife. The Hereditary Grand Duke was married to her niece, a lovely Saxon princess, who died soon afterwards: it was said that he treated her very ill, and that his younger brother protected her. We were at a very pretty ball which was given on the festa of S. Anna, her patroness. The Grand Ducal family generally went out at the same hour as ourselves. In the middle of the day nothing stirred except the scorpions, which were a constant terror. One was found in my bath in the morning, and all that day we were in fearful expectation, as the creatures never go about singly; but in the evening we met the companion coming upstairs. There were also quant.i.ties of serpents, which in the evening used frequently to be seen crossing the road in a body going down to the river to drink.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PONTE ALLA MADDALENA, LUCCA.][132]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Augustus J. C. Hare.
From a portrait by Canevari.]
Every Friday afternoon we had a reception in our hill-set garden, and our maid Quintilia set out tea and fruit, &c., in the summer-house.
At the gate a basket was held, into which every one dropped a story as they entered, and they were all read aloud after tea. One day, one of these stories, a squib on Ultra-Protestants written by the younger Miss Cavendish, led to a great fracas with the George Cavendishes, Admiral and Mrs. Cavendish being perfectly furious with my gentle mother, who of all people was the most innocent, as she could not have an idea of what was in the stories till they were read aloud. Well do I remember coming round the corner of the villa, and finding the Admiral storming at her as she sat upon her donkey, with ”My daughters shall never enter your house again--they shall never enter it again!” and her sweet smile as she replied, ”Then, Admiral Cavendish, I have only to thank you so very much for having so often allowed them to come to me hitherto,”--and the Admiral's subdued look afterwards.
There was a little school established by the Grand d.u.c.h.ess just below us, whither my mother sometimes went in the mornings. The children were taught Scripture dialogues. One little girl would say to another, ”Oh, cara mia, cara amica mia, I have such a wonderful thing to tell you,”
and then would narrate how a babe was born in Bethlehem, &c., upon which the hearer would exclaim, ”O Gran Dio” in her amazement, and on one occasion, with a cry of ”O cielo!” pretended to faint away with astonishment in the most natural way imaginable.
A long excursion from Lucca was that to Galicano, where a hermit with a reputation of great sanct.i.ty was living under an overhanging cliff in the mountains. He hid himself on our approach, but our large party hunted him, and eventually unearthed him--an old dirty man in a brown gown, with a chain of huge beads at his girdle. We wanted to see the miraculous image of which he was guardian, but he would not show it unless we were Catholics, and was much puzzled by my protesting that we were, and my mother that we were not. However, at last he consented to exhibit it, on condition that we all knelt, and that the ladies took off their bonnets. We returned home much later than was expected, and so, as we found afterwards, escaped seven bandits, who had been lying in wait for us, and at last gave us up. The whole of the road from Lucca to Galicano had then black crosses at intervals, commemorating the murders committed there.
This summer at Lucca was altogether the greatest halt in my life I have ever known. We seemed so removed from the world, and I was more free from family snubbings than I had ever been before. But, all through the time we were there, I had been far from well, and the doctor who was consulted declared that I could not survive the severities of an English winter. In spite of this, my mother never flinched in her determination to return, for having once taken the impression (without the remotest reason) that I had a tendency to Roman Catholicism, she had a far greater terror of what she considered as danger to my soul than of any danger to my body.
When we left the Bagni di Lucca on the 2nd of August, I left it in despair. Behind us was a quiet, peaceful, and a far from useless life, encircled by troops of friends, and supplying the literary and artistic occupations in which I began to feel that I might possibly in time be able to distinguish myself. Before me was the weary monotony of Hurstmonceaux, only broken by visits from or to relations, by most of whom I was disliked and slighted, if not positively ill-treated. I also felt sure that all the influence of my aunts would be used with my easily guided mother to force upon me the most uncongenial of employments, which she was only too certain to allow them to advocate as ”especially desirable for Augustus, because they _were_ uncongenial!”
I was at this time also in more than usual disgrace, because disgust at the sham Christians, sham Evangelicals, sham Protestants, with whom for years I had been thrown, had induced me to avow my horror of Ordination.
In every way I felt myself unfitted for it. I wrote at this time--”'Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no depth of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and, because they had no root, they withered away.' If you want to know about my past religious 'impressions,' that is just my story.” Still the declaration of my determination not to take Orders, dreaded and put off for years, cost me acutest suffering from the pain and disappointment which I knew it inflicted upon my mother.
When we left Casa Bertini and descended the steep hill to our carriages, we found that the whole society had been amusing themselves by dressing in mourning, and were waiting to sing ”a dirge” of their own composition, as we drove away. But we had one or two more happy days. On the morning after our arrival at Lucca town, we were astonished by sounds of loud singing in the pa.s.sage, and going out, found all those we had so recently parted from at the Bagni singing in chorus some more verses which they had composed as ”a serenade,” and bringing for us a picture of the Ponte alla Maddalena, painted on a stone out of the river. We quickly determined to spend the day in going with them to Pisa, and making an excursion to the Gombo, where the Pisan pines end in the sands by the seash.o.r.e--and we did not return till midnight. It was the custom at Lucca for those who drew to make little sketches in the travellers' book at the hotel, and I had amused myself by doing one the day before, and inscribing it ”View from the Walls of Lucca,” though it was a wretched performance. When we came back, we found a most lovely drawing opposite, inscribed--”View from the Walls of Lucca as it really is.” The Grand Duke's artist had been at the hotel in the interval.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PIETRA SANTA.[133]]
We travelled then with delicious slowness, only rolling onwards through the most glorious scenery in the cool mornings and evenings, and resting in the heat of mid-day, while, as at this time we only took our carriage from place to place, we had no scruple in halting for days at Pietra Santa, with its glorious views over the mountains, and old convents embosomed in olives and cypresses; in making excursions to Serravezza and to dismal Carrara; in lingering at La Spezia, where the avenue of oleanders was in full blaze of bloom, and driving thence to Porto Venere with its marble church and wonderful views along the cliffs--blue, green, yellow, and coral-red, descending abruptly into the sea.
_To_ MY AUNT ELEANOR PAUL.
”_Lucca, August 3, 1858._--Once upon a time there was a lady advanced in years, who had an only child. They were sick and sorrowful, and the tempests of the world beat upon them. Driven from home, they wandered hither and thither, seeking rest and finding none, till at length one day they arrived, wearied and wayworn, at the entrance of a mountain valley. 'Alas!' they whispered, 'what place is this?'--'Take courage,' answered the trees and fountains; 'rejoice,' shouted the flowers, 'for this is the Happy Valley, where those who enter rest from all sickness and trouble: this is the place where people may have a halt in life, and where care and anxiety do not exist.' And when they heard these words, the countenances of the weary lady and her son were glad, and the flowers and the trees and the fountains laughed and shouted for joy in the ceaseless golden suns.h.i.+ne. For two months the strangers rested in the Happy Valley, and then once more the tempest howled to receive them, and the voices of the unseen sternly bade them depart; and slowly and sadly they arose, and went out again into the wilderness, where every solitary flower, every mountain and stream, seemed only an echo from a lost and beautiful past.
”Oh, my auntie, do you know who the mother and son were, and what was the Happy Valley to which they looked back with so much loving regret?”
”_La Spezia, August_ 8.--We have been to Carrara. Do you know, my auntie, that once upon a time there lived in the mountains of Carrara a race of funny little people called Fanticelle? They were the hobgoblins of the marble rocks, and were very merry, very useful, and highly respected by every one. Each marble had its own Fante; one was dressed in red, another in yellow, and others in stripes of various colours; but the Fante of the white marble wore only a simple dress as white as snow, and was greatly despised in consequence by her companions, who were so fas.h.i.+onably attired.
Daily the poor white Fante was snubbed and insulted, and at last, when the ancient Romans came to make quarries, and cut and hacked her to pieces, and carried her remains away in carts, all the other Fanti smiled in their cold satire and said, 'It only served the vulgar creature right, for she did not even know how to dress herself, and sitting upon the mountain with nothing on but her night-dress was really quite indecorous.'
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