Works of Ellen Wood, page 1313
Had she quite realised all the transition meant, would she have found courage to take the step? Perhaps it is doubtful; but whether the cost was counted, the step was taken, and Ellen Price became Mrs. Henry Wood. It was perhaps no marvel where the courage came from, for her husband was one of the handsomest and most charming of men. The portrait given of Mr. Wood was taken shortly before his death, after the commencement of his last illness. That illness had changed him almost beyond recognition; he had suddenly passed from youth to age; but the fineness of the features and the intellectual development of the head are still evident, though the charm of youth has fled.
MR HENRY WOOD
The scene of Mr, Henry Wood’s life was laid abroad. The term sounds distant and formidable, but means nothing more remote than the south of France. Yet in those days it took as long to reach the Riviera by easy stages as it now takes to get to Egypt. Railways had not come into use, revolutionising the world with changes good and evil.
Mr. Wood was at the head of a large banking and shipping firm, and was in those days, though young, a man of wealth and influence. Later on, for a short time, and solely with the idea of being useful, and not for remuneration, he joined the Consular Service; and it was said by Lord Palmerston that he had never received such clear and satisfactory reports, such excellent suggestions, as those sent in by Mr. Henry Wood. So high an opinion had he of his abilities that he pressed him to take up a more public life. But this did not enter into Mr. Wood’s ambitions, and he never did so. He retired early from work and activity, and died comparatively young.
In choosing his wife from Worcester, it was a singular coincidence that he was somewhat nearly related to one who bore his name and was for many years a Canon of Worcester Cathedral. Another coincidence was that in marrying Miss Price he was marrying into an old family name, though they were not in any way related. He was heir to a considerable property left by an ancestor named Price, who in 1741 went out to India as Governor of Surat, and died in 1780, leaving a large possession which, never claimed by his descendants, remained in the hands of the East India Company until it passed over to the Government, where it still remains.
On the morning of the marriage a slight but amusing incident occurred. It had somehow gone abroad that the marriage would take place at St Peter’s Church, in the Faithful City, and at ten o’clock the church was crowded. Instead of which the carriages quietly drove off to Wittington, a pretty suburb of Worcester now given over to modem villas, where in presence of a few friends Miss Ellen Price and Mr. Henry Wood were made man and wife. The bride was dressed according to the fashion of the time in a white silk dress and white silk bonnet, trimmed with orange blossoms. Very often the brides of that day were married in their riding habits.
Mr. Henry Wood was a man of great powers of mind, but the exact opposite to his wife. Whilst she was full of romance and ideality, he had not a spark of imagination, scarcely any sympathy with the gift. In this one point they were not well matched. It was an effort to him to read a novel; poetry he never looked at; abstruse books of science were his delight. Yet in social life he was the gayest of the gay, the soul of wit and conversation; the leader of society; but — as time was to prove — possessing a mind a little wanting in ballast.
He had a great gift for languages and spoke several fluently, French especially. No Frenchman, hearing him for the first time, believed him anything but a fellow-countryman. And he possessed not only the gift of tongues, but of language: he was a first-rate public speaker, and a great politician on the Conservative side — although he managed to gain favour with Lord Palmerston.
He possessed another gift also, amounting to genius — that of medicine; loving it for its own sake. Out of pure devotion to the science, when he was about eighteen he walked the hospitals of London, performed operations, went through the whole curriculum. And this not with any idea of practising, for he never practised, never intended to do so; he simply was happy in it. He was a great friend of the late Sir William Lawrence, who in the only illness he ever had — through being put into a damp bed — until his last and fatal malady, saved his life. He possessed all the strength of a man with the tenderness of a woman — gifts so wonderfully useful had he followed the profession for which Nature had most gifted him.
Though he never practised, perhaps one exception might be made to the assertion. As long as he lived no doctor was needed in his own house, as far as his children were concerned. This was fortunate, for, living abroad, they would otherwise in their childish illnesses have been at the mercy of the French physicians, who in those days as often killed as cured. It was, in fact, the fatal treatment of a French doctor which determined him for ever after to trust to himself rather than to them.
A little daughter fell ill with scarlet fever. Mr. Wood, then a young man, feared to trust himself with so much responsibility. He was passionately devoted to the child, who has been described as very sweet and lovely. People remarked that she was too good to live; and their prophecies were soon fulfilled.
The doctors treated her according to the fashion of the day. They first starved her almost to death, and, when she was sinking from exhaustion, ordered leeches to be applied to the throat. The faithful French head nurse, who was then a member of the household and has ever since belonged to it, a true and firm friend now of patriarchal age, protested in vain.
“Sir,” she cried to her master in agonies of grief, “do not allow it. If leeches are used, the child will die. I know it from experience.”
But she was powerless. The leeches were applied, the little throat closed up, and the child died. The father’s sorrow was so great it was almost feared that he would die also. The faithful nurse was almost equally stricken. She was one of those strong and determined characters who must have their own way in everything: the under nurses had to obey her every look and word — even the mother’s authority in the nursery was quite a secondary consideration.
But she was as tenacious in her affections as she was strong in character. None but herself was allowed to perform the last sad office for the pure and beautiful little creature who had gone to a better world. With her own hands she placed her in her little coffin, watched over it night and day until the little body was consigned to the earth and hidden away from mortal eyes for ever. There in a foreign grave she sleeps.
But Mr. Henry Wood had had enough of foreign doctors. The day his little daughter died his son was taken ill with the same fever. “This,” he mournfully said, “shall be my care. Come what may, I will have no more French doctors in the house.” And before long the child was well again and running about.
Years afterwards, when another daughter was born to them, Mr. Wood — who regarded his wife as a woman far above rubies, and ever thought the world contained none like her — insisted that the name Ellen should be repeated. His wife, whose vivid imagination perhaps inclined her to superstition, hesitated. A compromise was at last agreed upon by the addition of Mary; and Ellen Mary she was christened. Had he been blessed with twelve daughters instead of two, probably every one of them, amongst other names, would have borne that of Ellen. Liquid and flowing, the name exactly suited Mrs. Henry Wood; expressing her own gentle, quiet, retiring nature.
It was about this time that Mrs. Wood — apart from the spinal trouble of her childhood — had her first and serious illness, during which for many months her life hung in the balance. After the birth of one of her children, she fell into a state of great delicacy and debility. The previous loss of her little daughter had proved a grief that had tried her much. When her strength failed, she found that she was unable to rally. Day by day the doctors watched her, and day by day they feared a decline. Her husband was in despair: to lose wife as well as child would have been overwhelming. Yet no care seemed to avail. Half his time was spent by her side, endeavouring to raise hope and courage. When she grew too weak to walk, none but himself was permitted to carry her from her bedroom to her drawing-room, and she was as a child in his arms. There he would place her gently upon her couch, and arrange her cushions twenty times in a day with all his extreme tenderness and care. The weakness and prostration were so great that she could only lie day after day perfectly still and passive, her hands idle. She had no power to hold the smallest volume. In subdued tones her husband read aloud to her as long as she could bear to listen; or would sit down to the piano and very softly and quietly sing her favourite songs, trying to wean her thoughts into brighter grooves. This illness lasted altogether for nine months, when health and strength gradually returned, and the shadow was lifted from the home.
Amongst the many charms that distinguished her was a very rare one. She had little ear for music, could not sing a note; but in speaking her voice was music itself. Sweet, clear and distinct, it was like a silver chime in the house. Once heard, it was not easily forgotten; its beauty remained. To the writer it is as audible as when, seven years ago, in this world it was hushed for ever.
CHAPTER VI
“And was the day of my delight
As pure and perfect as I say?
The very source and fount of
Day Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.”
WE have spoken of the French nurse who had so grieved for the loss of the little child. She was, in her way, a very remarkable woman, and so much a part of the family all the days of her life, that a few words about her will not be out of place.
Like every — one else, she worshipped her mistress, but loved — her — own — way still more. A more determined will never lived, — happily guided by a fine intelligence. A faithful, self-sacrificing, duty-fulfilling woman, neither time nor infirmities would have separated her from her beloved masters and charges; but departing once for a holiday to her native French village, when quite middle-aged, she was wooed and married before she had time to realise what she had done.
When asked a reason for her folly, all she could answer with tears was that she dreaded the time when old age would perhaps only make her an encumbrance to those she delighted to serve. Her married life was happy but short; she was soon left a widow. But dropped threads cannot always be taken up again, and she did not return to her former scenes. A neat cottage was found in her own village, picturesque with thatched roof and white-washed walls, reposing in a garden well stocked with flowers and fruit-trees, and comfortably furnished. Superannuated by those whom she had so faithfully served all her best days, and left in a moment of weakness, but for whom, nevertheless, she would have suffered martyrdom, she was installed — and was not unhappy. There she yet lives, the great lady of her surroundings.
Her charges had always been her children, and those yet living are so still. Since her marriage she has had many red-letter days, when she has paid them a month or two’s visit in their own homes; but on more frequent occasions they have crossed the water to her village of Landry for the sake of spending a few hours with her: hours that would bring a whole year’s sunshine and happiness to the faithful woman’s heart and home.
Like the best of humankind, she had her faults, and one of them was a jealous temper. Die for you, go through fire and water — that she would have done; but deprive her of her smallest claim upon your affections, and she could neither forget nor forgive. For this reason she never forgave herself for marrying when she considered herself old enough to have done with the frivolities of life. She would listen to neither rhyme nor reason where her heart or power was concerned. Sole mistress of her kingdom she would reign, and she ruled with the rod of a kindly despot.
In after years if one of her children, as Joachine always called them, was about to be married, so momentous an event could not be legal without her presence. That the Channel now divided them was only the more reason for a great effort. The crossing was almost death to her, but she was ready to brave even that. She would arrive with great ceremony, magnificent in long gold earrings — the pedigree of the French of her class — rustling in a new silk gown, made for the occasion and afterwards religiously reserved for village high days and holidays, the awe and worship of her friends and neighbours, who looked upon her as a being translated to a sphere above them. A woman who had travelled, had seen the wonders of the world, had gained a knowledge of life, a certain refinement, a degree of learning and savoir faire — all this exalted her to the dignity of a village oracle.
A great event on one of these visits was the occasion of her being photographed. The importance of the ceremony; the difficulty of getting the exact pose; the adjustment of the magnificent cap, and the due prominence of chain and earrings; her anxiety lest a fold of the incomparable gown should be out of place — all had to be satisfactorily adjusted by the artist with the patience of a Job. When the result arrived in due time her surprise and delight were unbounded. She gave out a long series of disjointed exclamations, pausing to think and admire between each sentence, finally ending with:— “It is not so very surprising after all that my poor husband married me in middle age. I used sometimes to wonder whether my money had anything to do with it, but I really think it may have been only myself.”
Perhaps it was a little of both. The husband, a superior man for his station, would launch out in small experiments which always failed. In this way he had wasted his substance; and in like manner Joachine’s savings had melted before she became a widow.
The return to her village after one of these visits was the dark hour of her life, and many a secret tear must have been shed on the lonely journey. Yet at the end there was the homage of her little world awaiting her — a succession of village levies, in which the charm of reigning no doubt helped to heal the wounds of separation.
Then, as the years went on, another generation arose which knew her not, and the occasional visits to her had to be reinforced. In the first of these the infirmities of age and rheumatism were beginning to tell upon her; she walked with a stick. According to custom, she stood in her doorway awaiting the arrival, pale, agitated, and eager-looking: her brother, who lived with her, standing on one side, and a niece, who “kept house” for her, on the other. After due salutations, she sat down to recover her equanimity, and shed a few tears of regret for her lost kingdom.
The first emotion over, happiness reigned. Joachine, as ever, was always the pink of perfection and neatness. Not a hair unsmoothed, not a crease in the snow-white cap and ribbons, not a fold out of place in the gown; chain and earrings in all their glitter and glory. Ever the same good face — now pale and subdued, calm and placid with age, yet with something of youth remaining in spite of her eighty years; the same kindly blue eye, from which all the fire of other days had departed; the same dome-like forehead, with ample room for thought, an indication of the strength of character that once brooked no interference from equal or superior. Such she was; such she is still — a little younger-looking, perhaps, than she was ten years ago, but otherwise unchanged.
All her life she had had a great fear and horror of death, but it has recently gone from her; and in a letter lately received, for the first time she alludes to it voluntarily. “Is it possible,” she remarks, “that I shall have the happiness of seeing you once more before I set out upon my last long journey?” — signs, one would think, of an approaching change, since coming events so often cast their shadows before.
The cottage found for her was like herself — perfection in its way, and in its manner of keeping. The door opened on to the living room: a quaint picturesque room, with sanded floor and a ladder staircase leading to the loft; the wooden ceiling supported by cross beams, and almost the whole of one side of the room given up to the huge chimney. Opposite the door a wide latticed window looked out on the garden — flowers, vegetables, and fruit-trees: spreading branches that in season groan under the weight of pears, apples, and rich red plums. On one certain visit when all the fruit-trees were in blossom, Joachine sitting beneath them in her little avenue, the brilliant sunshine flecking the path with lights and shadows, formed a picture to which few artists could have done justice.
Peat, braise, and wood sent up a pleasant odour from the hearth, and would stir into a bright flame and a thousand sparks. On one side, within the chimney, was an arm-chair for Louis, the brother, in which, his day’s quiet work done — tending his garden, feeding his pigs, and making himself generally useful — he smoked his pipe, caressed his dog, and meditated; for the whole family have been noted for their reflective intelligence. On the other side of the hearth a low chair for Joachine. Here she would often sit at night, when the others had long gone to rest, and brood over bygone days, her active and eventful life. Sometimes she would fall asleep and wake up in darkness, the night far spent, the fire out. As Malvina, her niece, once quaintly remarked, she might do it once too often, and awaken one morning paralysed with cold or burnt to a cinder. But Joachine had still a will of her own, and would not be turned.
There was a long table under the window, and when the lid was removed it disclosed a trough for bread-making. On baking days Malvina would show her good-will towards you by making delicious galettes, and presenting them hot and smoking from the oven, soaked in the freshest of country butter. To the right of this was the door leading to her larder, given up to country fare, and seeing from January to December few delicacies. The autumn pig-killing was the great event as regards stock provision for the winter. In the way of meat it is what most of the villagers depend upon; and if the pig turns out badly it is a sad look-out for the Sundays, high days and holidays, of the cold months that have to be lived through.
To the left of the bread-trough is Joachine’s bed-chamber and state apartment. Here she holds her receptions on such occasions as the present. The bed is almost invisible in an alcove, adorned with lace and other beautifying material. Here too she spreads her banquet for great events; the tables groan under a weight of good things provided by her grateful and hospitable heart, set off by snow-white linen and the best of English electro-plate. The walls are lined with portraits and framed photographs of all ages and sizes, and of more than one generation: those she has served and those she has helped to bring up. These she visits regularly, as other people do their picture galleries; and so holds mental communion with many who have now passed out of her everyday life, but who dwell in her faithful heart and memory for ever. The photographs begin to look faded and shadowy, and, alas! too many of those they represent have themselves passed into the land of shadows.
