think. "We stopped at last at the Four Swans, Bishopsgate Street; and from thence in a coach to 12 Mornington Crescent. Here my darling Mimosa was received very kindly; but oh! they might well weep over the wasted form and feeble steps. She was laid on a sofa, and had breakfast. I went where two dirty things were flying about in all directions. They took no notice of me, so I slipped out, and found my way to the post-office, where I deposited the letters; and on my return, finding the lady whose room Mimosa was to have waiting for a coach and none to go for her, I volunteered and went, a good long way, with such a painful foot that I was obliged to buy a pair of easy shoes on the road. Then I had to mount the boxes and of real servitude, and one to be remem- | from real sensibility; for the body was bered surely in the strange calendar of heavy on my spirit, and I could not 1839 ! 'Marion' rose early to prepare for her journey to London; and as on the previous evening everything had been packed and arranged, a hasty breakfast in the kitchen, whilst her mistress washed, and then the little tray prepared and taken up, was hardly done, when the coach drove up, and Mary Tennyson, Mimosa, and Marion on the box, went off, through Waltham to the close, dirty, beastly kitchen, and Edmonton, to London. The morning was clear and fine, but cold from the sharp east wind; and glad was I to have three fellow-travellers on the top to keep me warmer. Still I was dreadfully cold, or how much I would have enjoyed the beautiful country on the approach to London by this side! Ten miles we travelled from Waltham, yet not a single break in the line of villages which form the environs of the capital. How unlike Paris! I was much struck by it, and wonder what unpack-three pairs of stairs up! I foreigners must think of the difference had to carry all alone the heavy box; in extent between London and all and then I settled the room, lit the others throughout the world. I could fire, and ran down to get mistress her not help considering, too, of the strange lunch. I poached her an egg, but she power which this body has over its could not eat it. After this and suncaptive soul, that when I was sur-dry runnings about, dinner-time came. rounded by objects of the deepest interest, and scenes which I felt in my inmost heart, as in hurrying through the crowded streets, I marked the contrasting groups of idle misery and busy wealth; the magnificent monuments of art, the stately buildings of a metropolis, side by side with the homes of woe and sin and sickness, the almshouse, the hospital, the penitentiary; here rolled a carriage full of joyous smiles, there crouched the sullen child of starvation muttering deep curses; from the balcony of a crescent bent the graceful form of youth and beauty; from the window of a dark, high house, the fever hospital, I saw three pallid and emaciated faces pressed in dreary listlessness against the glass so gaunt! so wretched! so hopeless! I felt all this, but it was a dumb, irritated feeling, seemingly excited as much from my own sense of suffering, and awakened by the keen March wind, as I was to wait at table, and my heart mance of the whole affair rushed over all this with the most perfect good me. humor, never ruffled. So she and her friend agreed that the time, which would have been 'dreadful lonesome › alone, had passed better together; and Sibby told how one of her brothers was always saying, 'Well, Tit, when will you come home? I hate going home when you ain't there! 'Tain't like home, somehow.' And when she went to see them, says he, 'Have you had any supper, Tit?' 'Yes,' says she. Well, never mind, you must cat a bit of pork chop and drink a glass of ale. It does my heart good to see you here again, Tit. I wish you'd stop home with us and leave service.' 66 "Well, dinner over, I was to get mine; but fagged and excited as I was, I could not eat the broken meat that was left for me. I longed for a cup of tea, which I could not get; and then I made my mistress's bed, and sat up-stairs over her fire, so aching and weary that I knew not what to do, yet I dared not go to sleep for fear of not hearing them ring. This really was a dreadful evening, having water and coals and all sorts of things to bring up so often four pairs of steep stairs. At last I went down into the kitchen, and laying my head on my knees, I heard the kitchen talk. Elizabeth, the great, "I did not listen much longer, for the stout, flaunting maid-of-all-work, and bell rang for me, and mistress came up Sibby, who is a short, pale, fat girl to bed, dear thing! so tired and ill. belonging to Mrs. Moore, the lodging- We were long in talking and getting to house proprietor, are friends, I per- bed, when I fell sound asleep; but she, ceive; and by the dialogue I overheard | I fear, tossed about all night in pain. whilst one was quilling net for a cap I woke very early, scarcely daybreak, and the other scouring saucepans, they and lit the fire, got quickly to bed again, have two absent lovers, absent since a and slept till eight. fortnight or month; upon which occa- Saturday. Dressed Mimosa in sion Sibby, in utter disgust at the white - she looked so beautiful! with thoughts of home when he was gone, a blue cap, her blue scarf, and her had offered herself as assistant to poor silver-grey shawl like a thing of old Mrs. Moore, who had lately broken dreams, shadowy and ethereal, and yet her leg and arm, and to help her friend like a flower of mortality, sickening and Elizabeth, whose quantity of work sur-fading away. In spite of all that passes all I ever conceived it possible for one head and one pair of hands to accomplish. First, she has her kitchen to prepare in the morning, and Frederick Tennyson's room to arrange, fire to light, etc., etc.; then the drawingroom, and Mrs. Tennyson's bed to make; breakfast to give to Mrs. Tennyson and the girls and Horatio, then up-stairs to Frederick and Septimus; then to market, and dinner for Mrs. Moore at two; luncheon in the drawing-room; dinner there at four, always meat and an apple pudding for Alfred; dinner above for Frederick and Septimus at six, meat and pudding; tea in the parlor at eight; fires to attend to, door to answer, everything to clean, and all the bells to answer; and then to sit up for the family even till one, two, and three in the morning, yet to rise and work as usual the next day; Dr. Curie has said, I am longing for his coming, to dispel the foreboding cloud, and tell me that she will recover. My soul is clinging closer and closer to her; how shall I bear to part with her? ... Curie has come! I sit on the stairs with throbbing heart! . . . He left, and I ran after him; asked eagerly what he thought of her? And the heavy words fell like iron on my heart:: Elle est poitrinaire oui, sans doute ; mais mercredi je vous dirai si on peut espérer de la sauver. C'est peut-être trop tard !' "Ah! he thought he said this to a servant, a hireling; and there was little ménagement in the declaration. Those words! Yet I knew it ! I knew it quite as well; nay, I know more, that he cannot save her! And yet I hope and smile, and seem to grasp at every change of symptom, in spite of the evident decrease of strength and increase of suffering! man?" he questioned. She stammered an evasive reply, and left the room. "Sunday 23d March. I was late this That evening, at dinner or supper, morning, for I did not hear the knock, Alfred, calling for beer, a refractory but I made haste and lit the fire. Mi- cork refused to be drawn, and every mosa got up and dressed, then lay down one tried their hands on it in vain. to rest and read, whilst I got her break- "Where is your Marion ?" said Alfred fast, after which we read together in to Mrs. Neville; "she could do it! the Bible. By the time I had done She can do everything, I verily believe her room and dressed, it was time to from reading German to waiting at wait at table. I got on very well. table. Let her try!" Mrs. Neville Alfred was very civil to Marion upon demurred, knowing how her friend their meeting on the stairs with a tray; would shrink from being thus brought he speaks little, and they are all silent. en évidence; but Alfred insisted, and To-day Mary Tennyson came up to called "Marion! Marion !" till Marion Mimosa's room and said, 'I have been came, and amid a laughing chorus of thinking all night of what Louisa apologies and explanations, took the Lanesborough says in her letter about corkscrew from Alfred and drew the your going in six weeks; you won't, will you? Don't let her come and This was the period, it will be rememfetch you! I shall hate to see her.' bered, when Alfred Tennyson was I, too, standing by her side! It seems "toiling over his manuscripts in his so strange, so like a dream, that I begin | London lodging,” as one of his biograto doubt my own identity. To the Tennysons, to Curie, to all at Beech Hill and Mornington Crescent, I am Marion. In the same houses and in one little room with bolted door I am myself. Here I am writing as Louisa Lanesborough, and waiting to be called to wait at table as a servant. . . . Mimosa came early to bed, her head ached So. After all, am I not more with her than any one else? If Mary did but guess! But no, they shall never know it." cork! phers has it, and joining his friends at the Anonymous Club for discussions or dinners, or dining at the now historic Cock, and sitting over his port and pipe far into the night, while poor, overworked Elizabeth or Sibby sat nodding over the kitchen fire awaiting his return, "up to two and three o'clock in the morning," as Marion has told us. I find no mention of Mornington Crescent among his biographical notices, which scarcely, indeed, give adequate idea of the bright, appreciative home Here I recall one of "L. L.'s" un- circle in which he lived there; and, written reminiscences, how she was still more strangely, I have searched in one day passing the open door of Al- vain through the best-informed biogfred's room as he lay in bed reading raphies recently published for so much and smoking at some late hour of the as the very name of Beech Hill! One morning, and catching sight of the trim cannot help regretting that "L. L.'s " "maid Marion as she passed, called preoccupation over her friend's health to her to enter. "Marion, I want a has so far crowded out more detailed book from the book-shelf down-stairs. reminiscences of the Tennyson family. Will you get it for me?" He at- But to continue my extracts from tempted to describe it, but it was a "L. L.'s " journal. Her immunity German work-"so you cannot read from detection now emboldened her to the title," quoth he. "I know it!" venture on a further flight. She had said demure Marion unwittingly, for- several friends in London-notably getting for a moment her assumed one who, with Mrs. Neville, shared her character; and she tripped lightly tenderest affections; and she could down-stairs and brought it back at scarcely find herself within reach of Alfred stared at her in astonish- this friend without yearning for a sight "Why, do you understand Ger- of her. So once. ment. "Tuesday. I scarcely could rest | hurried up the Quadrant, Regent with thinking of to-day, and the doubts Street, Oxford Street, Wigmore Street, and perplexities of my visit to Ken- Cavendish Square, Welbeck Street, and sington. I lit the fire at six, and got so on to Bulstrode Street, where I hasup soon after; had my breakfast, tily took off my frill and veil and fetched mistress's roll from the baker, knocked at the door. 'Is this Miss and prepared her tray; then read, etc., Langton's?' 'Yes. Oh, I suppose as usual, and we dressed for the day, I you're Mrs. Neville's servant. Please in the black merino and blanket-shawl; to walk in ;' and I was ushered below packed up my comb and brush, and cap into the housekeeper's room, and retour de tête with white ribbons, and ceived by Mrs. Hayne very kindly. I frill, in the basket, and went off for a asked after 'missus,' who was pretty coach up to Camden Town. Well, well, she said, and in her turn asked mistress was settled in it, and we de- question after question as fast as possired the man to drive slowly and stop sible: Had I had my tea? Did I like at Manchester Square, which was no oysters ? being the first; and followed sooner done than I dropped the dark up by settling of cups and saucers wig and Marion's cap, resumed my own and plate of oysters, to which we sat costume, with Mimosa's veil, and was down tête-à-tête; she telling stories of quite ready when the coach stopped. Master Charles, and Miss Margaret, I got out cleverly without the driver and Miss Mary, and lamenting over my seeing my face, and crossed the square, poor mistress being so weak and ill; leaving dear Mimosa to go on to 6 Bul- then putting all my ingenuity to the strode Street to her aunt's. Turning test with her cross-examination about into Duke Street on the left-hand side, Guernsey and people I didn't know ; I saw a 'sixpenny hairdresser,' and about the ways of master's house, went in, desiring to have my hair cut; prices of meat, etc., etc. There she for I found it now impossible to part sat at one side of the little round table, my hair after its being so long mixed, a tall and portly dame, in full-trimmed and as it fell, a cutting could do no cap and dark gown, pouring out the tea harm. This gave me an opportunity of and offering oysters, with a gracious arranging myself quite à la L. L.,' condescension of the dignity of favorite and the excitement giving me quite an attendant and superintending houseunusual color, I was not afraid of see- keeper, to me, the simple maiden of a ing dear L. M. C. [Louisa MacCul- sick mistress, with a close-drawn cap loch]." of Puritan shape, and black merino dress, black shawl, and little holiday silk apron, answering with quiet voice and lowly manner, as became the visitor in that situation. Good old Mrs. Hayne! A knock and a ring disturbed us by announcing the arrival of the carriage, and I was shown up to my mistress in the drawing-room, where sat Miss Langton, Hayne in nobility, a 'ladye of the past age' in a kind and courtly way, sitting opposite to her niece on the sofa, full dressed in lace and ribbons, and with that peculiar style of habiliment and manner which stamps her as one of the lingerers of the past, in a new and different world of fashion. A fine face and stout, upright figure belied her age-in good truth they spoke well for the oysters She then procceded to Kensington, and the afternoon was spent with her friend very happily until "Six o'clock came. I dare not stay later; so with many kind, loving words of true affection, and a lingering walk up the Square with darling Louisa, we parted, and I got into an omnibus which took me into Piccadilly. Here I descended, and for a minute or two walked slowly up, considering how I should change myself again into Marion. At last a thought came. I went into a hotel, and desired to be shown a room. This was done, and in a few minutes my wig and cap were put on, but my veil and frill left, which partial change (as I blew the light out) was unperceived by the attendant, and I and ale! and my eye glanced sadly "Wednesday. - Dear Mimosa tired and dispirited. Curie was to come, and she went down in her white dress, looking ill and weak. He was late, too, and at the first double knock I ran hastily, breathlessly up. It was Alfred Tennyson. Ah! how I hated the sight of him! And then Frederick, and then Septimus, gave me the same run and disappointment. At last Curie did arrive, and I showed him into Frederick's room. Mimosa went up, and I watched and waited for his coming down. I had to go in oncehe had my letter before him, making notes; how odd it appeared! - and when he came down, as I waited for the expected words, he spoke them: 'Votre maîtresse est poitrinaire bien décidément, mais ce n'est qu'à la première période.' "Et vous pouvez la sauver, n'est ce pas, monsieur ? ' a tune that in the spoken word we hear not from the lips of a cold and careless speaker. And besides, he had not seen her, he had not had any guide but my own details and perhaps exaggerated fears; now he had seen and tried, and the case was clear. Then there were visions of hope in change of air, an exertion of skill, and the pleasure of seeing dear friends; now there was a shadow of fear on the hope, and more anxiety, for the faint step was fainter, and drooping head still heavier, the flush on the cheek brighter, and the branded characters more legible, though we were in England and with skilled. men. The bitterness of death! When is it?'"' A second physician, the well-known Dr. Locock, was consulted, and he confirmed Curie's verdict that lung disease had begun. The only hope of prolonging life lay in a warm climate - Italy; and again the question arose as to Louisa accompanying her thitherstep which the girl seems, naturally enough, to have been reluctant to take. a Meanwhile there was a touching little scene ere their departure from London. "Tuesday, April 2.-Baptist Noel, came to administer the sacrament to dear Mimosa. . . . She lay on the sofa, with flushed and tearful countenance, her friends Mary, Cecilia, and Mrs. Tennyson at her side; Marion at her feet. 66 Wednesday morning. - Went to Curie." After giving a detailed account of this interview, she continues: “I went home with a little medicine, but a full heart; only time enough to dress and get off for the coach to Beech Hill; Alfred, Mary, my mistress, and I inside - Alfred murmuring poetry, talking husk-ily, and abusing Mrs. HeHow I longed to speak! Ar "Mais-je ne sais pas. J'espère je n'en ai pas la certitude. Je ne désespère pas, mais il faut lui relever les esprits, voyez-vous.' "Poitrinaire bien décidément. What made me shrink, and my spirit fail at these words, which I not only knew mans. before, but had every reason to think|rived about seven at Beech Hill." her state more confirmed than at the As the news spread of Mrs. Neville's first stage? I thought the bitterness precarious state of health, letters of had been passed when I heard it first- inquiry and condolence, harrowing in when that letter, that confirming letter, their tender anxieties, poured in upon came with all its hopelessness; but her; and one of the little band of no! for a written thing we read, and "Husks " (Anna Maria Mainguy) came the heart of sorrow gives to each word down to Beech Hill to bid her a last 87 LIVING AGE. VOL. II. |