Part 67 (1/2)
In March, Esmeralda talked to many of her friends of her plans for the future. She said that in consequence of the expense of keeping up the house, she should be obliged to part with Grosvenor Street, and that she should go abroad--to Rome, and eventually to Jerusalem. She did more than merely form the plan of this journey. She had the dresses made which she intended to wear in the East, and for three nights she sat up arranging all her papers, and tying up the letters of her different friends in separate parcels, so that they might more easily be returned to them. To Mary Laffam, her then maid, who a.s.sisted her in this, she said, ”Mary, I am going on a very, very long journey, from which I may never return, and I wish to leave everything arranged behind me.”
In the beginning of May Esmeralda went with her aunt to spend three weeks in Suss.e.x. After she returned to Grosvenor Street, she was very ill with an attack like that from which she had suffered at Dijon several years before. Having been very successfully treated then in France, she persuaded her aunt to obtain the direction of a French doctor. The remedy which this doctor administered greatly increased the malady. This was on Tuesday 19th.
On Thursday 21st my sister was so much weakened and felt so ill, that she dismissed the French doctor, and sent again for her old doctor, Squires, who came at once. He was much shocked at the change in her, and thought that she had been terribly mistreated, but he was so far from being alarmed, that he saw no reason why her house should not be let, as arranged, on the following Tuesday, to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the Swedish songstress, and said that the change would do her good.
About this time, by Esmeralda's request, my aunt wrote to tell Madame de Trafford of the illness, but she did not then express any alarm. On Sat.u.r.day the good and faithful Mrs. Thorpe[378] saw Esmeralda, and was much concerned at the change in her. She remained with her for some time, and bathed her face with eau-de-Cologne. Esmeralda then took both Mrs. Thorpe's hands in hers, and said no one could do for her as she did. Mrs. Thorpe was so much alarmed at Esmeralda's manner, which seemed like a leave-taking, that she went down to our Aunt Eleanor and tried to alarm her; but she said that as long as the house could be let on Tuesday to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the doctor must be perfectly satisfied, and there could not possibly be anything to apprehend.
Sunday pa.s.sed without any change except that, both then and on Sat.u.r.day, whenever her brother Francis was mentioned, Esmeralda became violently agitated, screamed, and said that he was on no account to be admitted.
Father Galway was away, but on Monday Esmeralda sent for Father Eccles, and from him she received the Last Sacraments. When I asked my aunt afterwards if this did not alarm her, she said, ”No, it did not, because Esmeralda was so nervous and so dreadfully afraid of dying without the Last Sacraments, that whenever she felt ill she always received them, and the doctor still a.s.sured her that all was going on well.”
That night (Monday, May 25), a nun of the Misericorde sat up in the room. Aunt Eleanor went to bed as usual. At half-past four in the morning she was called. The most mysterious black sickness had come on, and could not be arrested. Dr. Squires, summoned in haste, says that he arrived exactly as a clock near Grosvenor Square struck five. He saw at once that the case was quite hopeless, still for three hours he struggled to arrest the malady. At the end of that time, Esmeralda suddenly said, ”Dr. Squires, this is very terrible, isn't it?”--”Yes,”
he replied, throwing as much meaning as possible into his voice, ”it is indeed _most_ terrible.” Upon this Esmeralda started up in the bed and said, ”You cannot possibly mean that you think I shall not recover?” Dr.
Squires said, ”Yes, I am afraid it is my duty to tell you that you cannot possibly recover now.”--”But I do not feel ill,” exclaimed Esmeralda; ”this sickness is very terrible, but still I do not feel ill.”--”I cannot help that,” answered Dr. Squires, ”but I fear it is my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible you can live.”
”It was then,” said her doctor, ”that her expression lost all its anxiety. Death had no terror for her. She was almost radiant.” The serenity of her countenance remained unchanged, and to her last moment she was as one preparing for a festival.
After a pause she said, ”Tell me how long you think it possible that I should live.” Dr. Squires said, ”You might live two days, but it is quite impossible that you should live longer than that.” She at once asked for writing materials, and with a firm hand, as if she were well, she wrote a telegraphic despatch bidding Madame de Trafford to come to her at once. (The office was then closed, and when it was opened, it was already too late to send the despatch.) Then Dr. Squires kindly and wisely said, ”I fear you have little time to lose, and if you wish to make any changes in your will, you had better make them at once.” My sister answered, ”Oh, I must alter everything. I never thought it possible that I should die before my aunt, and I wish to leave things so that my death will make no difference to her.” The doctor, seeing a great change coming on, was afraid to leave the room even to get a sheet of paper, and he wrote upon a sc.r.a.p of paper which he picked up from the floor. My sister then made a very simple will, leaving everything to her (Protestant) aunt, Miss Paul, except her interest in Park Lodge and a chest of plate which she left to Francis, and her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds,[379] which she left to me.
When Esmeralda had dictated the page containing these bequests, her doctor wisely made her sign it in the presence of her servants before she proceeded to dictate anything else. Thus the first portion of her will is valid, but before she had come to the end of another page containing small legacies to the Servites, to the Nuns of the Precious Blood, &c., the power of signature had failed, and it was therefore valueless.
Esmeralda then said almost playfully, ”You had better send for the Nuns of the Precious Blood, for they would never forgive me, even after all is over, if they had not been sent for,” and a maid went off in a cab to fetch the Abbess Pierina. It was then that a priest arrived from Farm Street to administer extreme unction, and Dr. Squires, seeing that he could do nothing more, and that my sister was already past observing who was present, went away.
The Abbess Pierina says that she arrived at the house about nine o'clock, and saw at once that Esmeralda was dying. A priest was praying by the bedside. She remained standing at the foot of the bed for about ten minutes, then she went up to Esmeralda, who said, ”I am dying.” A few minutes afterwards, in a loud and clear voice, she called ”Auntie,”
and instantly fell back and died.
Thus the day which she looked for as her Sabbath and high day came to her, and she pa.s.sed to the rest beyond the storm--beyond the bounds of doubt or controversy--to the company of those she justly honoured, and of some whom she never learnt to honour here, in the many mansions of an all-reconciling world. Let us not look for the living amongst the dead.
She exchanged her imperfect communion with G.o.d here for its full fruition in the peace of that Sabbath which knows no evening.
During the whole of the last terrible hours our poor deaf aunt was in the room, but she had sunk down in her terror and anguish upon the chair which was nearest the door as she came in, and thence she never moved.
She never had strength or courage to approach the bed: she saw all that pa.s.sed, but she heard nothing.
Soon after all was over, the Abbess Pierina came down to my aunt, and revealed--what none of her family had known before--that Esmeralda had long been an Oblate Sister of the Precious Blood, and she begged leave to dress her in the habit of the Order. All the furniture of the room was cleared away or draped with white, and the bed was left standing alone, surrounded night and day by tall candles burning in silver sconces, with a statue of ”Our Lady of Sorrows” at the head, and at the foot the great crucifix from the oratory. Esmeralda was clothed in a long black dress, which she had ordered for her journey to Jerusalem, but had never worn, and round her waist was the scarlet girdle of the Precious Blood. On her head was a white c.r.a.pe cap and a white wreath, as for a novice nun.
As soon as Aunt Eleanor was able to think, she sent for her sister, Mrs.
Fitz-Gerald, who arrived at 11 A.M. She, as a strong Protestant, said that she could never describe how terrible the next three days were to her. All day long a string of carriages was ceaselessly pouring up the street, and a concourse of people through the house, nuns of the Precious Blood being posted on the different landings to show them where to go. Each post brought letters from all kinds of people they had never heard of before, asking to have _anything_ as a memorial, even a piece of old newspaper which Esmeralda had touched.
On the day after we arrived at Holmhurst from Germany (Sunday 31st), I went up to try to comfort my broken-hearted aunt at the house in Grosvenor Street. The rooms in which I had last seen Esmeralda looked all the more intensely desolate from being just finished, new carpets and chintzes everywhere, only the last pane of the fernery in the back drawing-room not yet put in. My aunt came in trembling all over. It was long before she was able to speak: then she wrung her hands. ”Oh, it was so sudden--it was so sudden,” she said; and then she became more collected, and talked for hours of all that had pa.s.sed. Those present said that for the whole of the first day she sat in a stupor, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and never spoke or moved, or seemed to notice any one who went in or out.
The coffin was already closed, and stood in the middle of the room covered with a white pall, and surrounded by burning candles and vases of flowers. Upon the coffin lay the crucifix which both Italima and Esmeralda held in their hands when they were dying. Near it was the bed, with the mark where the head had lain still unremoved from the pillow.
On Monday afternoon there was a long wearying family discussion as to whether the remains were to be taken to Kensal Green in the evening, to remain throughout the night in the cemetery chapel. Francis insisted that it should be so. Our Aunt Fitz-Gerald declared that if it was done she would not go to the funeral, as she would not follow _nothing_. I agreed with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the nuns of the Precious Blood were most vehement that the body should not be removed. Eventually, however, Francis carried his point. At 9 P.M. we all went up for the last time to the room, still draped like a chapel, where the coffin lay, covered with fresh flowers, with the great crucifix still standing at the foot between the lighted candles. Then what remained of Esmeralda was taken away.
The next day (June 2) was the funeral. At the cemetery the relations who came from the house were joined by Mr. Monteith, Lady Lothian, Lady Londonderry, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the Abbess Pierina, and all the nuns of the Precious Blood, with several nuns of the Misericorde.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ESMERALDA'S GRAVE.]