It was not till after the death of my beloved friend Charles Dickens that I became aware, through the publication of his letters, that it was at his suggestion Sir Edward had made this flattering proposal. In a letter from Broadstairs to Knebworth, he speaks of me in these terms:

“Do you know Mary Boyle, daughter of the old Admiral?—because she is the very best actress I ever saw off the stage, and immeasurably better than a great many I have seen on it. I have acted with her in a country house in Northamptonshire, and am going to do so again next November. If you know her, I think she would be more than pleased to play, and by giving her something good in a farce, we could get her to do “Mrs Kitely.” In that case, my little sister-in-law would ‘go on’ for the second lady, and you could do without actresses, besides giving the thing a particular grace and interest. If we could get Mary Boyle, we would do Used Up, which is a delightful piece, as the farce. But maybe you know nothing about the said Mary, and in that case, I should like to know what you would think of doing.”

These negotiations resulted in the engagement, which I gladly accepted, to go down to Knebworth and tread the same stage with such distinguished writers as “Boz” himself, John Forster, Mark Lemon (the editor of Punch), Douglas Jerrold, and such well-known artists as Frank Stone, John Leech, and Augustus Egg; while for my confidante and companion I was promised the society of dear Georgina Hogarth. I was in the seventh heaven, for, as I have always said, theatrical business was the only business I liked, theatrical properties the only property I possessed. Then the interesting correspondence with the manager, the only despot I ever tolerated, the meetings for rehearsal, the conferences on the costume. I found myself indeed in my real element, but—when are there no buts to any bright prospects?—all of a sudden the conviction forced itself upon me that so great a delight was not in store, that some sorrow or mishap, or unforeseen obstacle, was hanging over my head, to prevent the consummation of this cherished scheme.

I have often had presentiments, and they have usually been realised; but this was more than a presentiment: it was a certainty that interfered with all my preparations, surrounding them with a feeling of apprehension. I gave orders for the making of the costume, which I was convinced I should never wear; I set myself drearily to learn the part of “Dame Kitely,” which I knew I was never destined to recite. My foreboding was but too sadly fulfilled. My sister-in-law came into the room one day and broke to me as tenderly as possible the death, in circumstances of a most distressing nature, of that dear and beautiful friend to whom I have alluded by the name of Fanny. If any words could have afforded me consolation at so terrible a moment, they would have been such tender and sympathetic lines as those which I received from the kind manager of our company, when he said:

“We are all extremely concerned and distressed to lose you, but we feel that it cannot be otherwise, and we do not in our own expectation of amusement, forget the sad cause of your absence. Bulwer was here yesterday, and if I were to tell you how earnestly he and all the other friends whom you don’t know have looked forward to the projected association with you, and in what a friendly spirit they all express their disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, I think.”

In November, 1851, Charles Dickens and his family went to live in Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, where they remained until the year 1857. The very sound of the name is replete to me with memories of innumerable evenings passed in the most congenial and delightful intercourse; dinners, where the guests vied with each other in brilliant conversation, whether intellectual, witty, or sparkling—evenings devoted to music or theatricals. First and foremost of that magic circle was the host himself, always “one of us,” who invariably drew out what was best and most characteristic in others, who used the monosyllable “we” much more frequently than that of “I,” and who made use of his superiority to charm and quicken the society around him, but never to crush or overpower it with a sense of their inferiority. The most diffident girl was encouraged to express her modest opinion to the great man, and in him the youngest child ever found a ready play-fellow.

I can never forget one evening, shortly after the arrival at Tavistock House, when we danced in the New Year. It seemed like a page cut out of the “Christmas Carol,” as far, at least, as fun and frolic went: authors, actors, friends from near and far, formed the avenues of two long English country dances, in one of which I had the honour of going up and down the middle, almost “interminably” as it seemed, with Charles Dickens for my partner.

The Keeleys were there, husband and wife, the former declining to dance; but when Sir Roger de Coverley struck up, he was loudly called upon to do so, and a vehement dispute began between the two sets, which should secure him in their ranks. That inimitable comedian showed so much fun in the apparent hesitation of his choice as to elicit roars of laughter, which were followed by thunders of applause, when the winning side claimed Keeley as their own.

In those days, before the guests went into dinner at Tavistock House, the children of the family were admitted into the drawing-room, and seldom have I seen more lovely boys, or sweeter or more graceful little girls; and it is still a pleasure to me to talk over that happy past with Kate Perugini and her sister, with Harry Dickens and his pretty wife, who venerates the memory of the father-in-law she never knew, and brings up her beautiful children to do the same.

In 1853, the Dickens family were settled at Boulogne-sur-Mer, having rented a charming house on the hill just outside the town, called Villa des Moulineaux, which name it derived from some neighbouring water-mills. It was well situated, and the house, which you approached through (I might almost say) an avenue of splendid hollyhocks, was built against the side of the hill, so that you reached the rez-de-chaussÉe by a flight of steps, and stepped out of the top floor into a garden-path. It commanded an extensive view of Boulogne, old and new, and its picturesque harbour, while on the heights the Napoleon Column was visible, which commemmorated Napoleon the First’s intended invasion of England.

Charles Dickens in his invitation that I should come and visit him for some weeks, provided me with an escort, in the person of the late Mr Peter Cunningham, the agreeable editor of Horace Walpole’s correspondence, and in his company I performed the voyage. Many and pleasant were my fellow-guests in that happy summer. Douglas Jerrold, with his flow of conversation, which elicited so rich a return in that of his host; if I might make use of a homely simile, I would say, that brace of talkers reminded me of Bryant & May’s matches “on a superior scale.” It was here also I learned to know and value Wilkie Collins, the popular writer of fiction.

Charles Dickens was an indefatigable pedestrian, and took most extensive walks in the neighbourhood, and it was amusing to find that the friends who on the first days after their arrival gladly agreed to accompany him, mostly slackened by degrees in their readiness to do so, and had such urgent demands for correspondence or literary work as to detain them at home. He was thus often reduced to the society of his sister-in-law and myself, who, from so constantly sharing in his walks, had got into excellent condition.

During the time I was at Boulogne there was a fair, and a camp, and a theatre, and many minor excitements, but these halycon days were suddenly clouded over by the outbreak of that dreadful epidemic, diphtheria, which was at first called the “Boulogne sore-throat.” It caused a panic in our little household; mother and children were shipped off at a moment’s notice, and the rest quickly followed, with no small regret at the breaking up of so good a time.

It was in the year 1857 that Charles Dickens took possession of the little house of Gad’s Hill, within a walk of Rochester. I thought the dwelling characteristic of the man, for it was situated on the high road, frequented by all sorts and conditions of men—the tramp and vagrant in their tatters, the well-dressed and joyous holiday-makers, emigrants travelling to the sea-coast, military men changing quarters, pedestrians, equestrians. From the opposite garden of the wayside inn, which bore the traditional sign of the “Falstaff,” came the sound of the bowling of skittles, with an old-fashioned ring in its merriment. The smooth lawn with its flower-beds, the hay-fields beyond, and the beautiful woods of Cobham Park in the distance, represented to my fancy the tenderness of Charles Dickens’ sentiment, and the freshness and the delicacy of his imagination.

Many were the summer days I passed under the roof of that little dwelling, many the hours I sat with Georgina Hogarth in the garden, or in one of the glades of a small wood which, in the sweet season, formed a charming resting-place, all hung with garlands of eglantine, with long strings of blue convolvulus, and the sweet-scented honeysuckle. These were the hours during which “Boz” was left to his work, in what I called his “lair,” for few of us would have risked disturbing him, when he had taken up his position for the morning’s labour, in the chÂlet, which his friend Fechter, the tragedian, had brought him from Paris. In the setting-up of the said chÂlet, after the manner of a child’s architectural toy, Charles had found the greatest amusement, for he was indeed one of those who find

and the hanging of his pictures, the arranging his furniture, the annexation of a tiny conservatory, and the construction of an underground tunnel, which connected the area round the house with a small plantation of lofty cedars, under the shade of which he had erected his chÂlet, were all sources to him of intense interest.

In the afternoon he sought relaxation, and then the other inmates of the house came in for their share of his enviable society, and the basket-carriage was brought to the door, drawn by the “sober Newman Noggs,” the harness adorned with musical bells, which his friend Mr Lehmann had brought him from Norway, and we would take long drives all around this picturesque neighbourhood. Sometimes we would alight at a distant point, to return home on foot; sometimes we would wend our way through green hop-gardens on one side, and golden cornfields on the other for a distance of many miles; yet we were never wearied. I remember once Georgina Hogarth and I had accompanied him to a new spot of interest which he had lately discovered. He walked at his usual swinging rate, and we had proudly kept up with him. Only five minutes had been allowed for refreshment, as he called it, otherwise rest, between reaching the goal and arriving at home. How pleased his fellow-pedestrians were to receive the following tribute: “Well done!—ten miles in two hours and a half!” I sit in my armchair now, and look back on that feat as almost miraculous.

Charles Dickens, himself a hero, was a hero-worshipper, and in all of my experience I never knew a man so utterly exempt from the slightest tinge of professional jealousy.

One day I went with his two daughters, Mary and Katie (Mrs Charles Collins, who, with her husband, spent most of the summer under the paternal roof) and their aunt to meet him at the station. Lifting up the hand-bag which he always carried, he exclaimed: “Here, girls, I have a treat for you—Tennyson’s magnificent poem of ‘The Idylls of the King.’ Is it not glorious to think, that after having written for so many years, a man should now bring forth, perhaps, the noblest of his works.” What enchanting hours of summer sunshine were passed in reading for the first time those magical pages, which since that moment have been pored over and conned to my heart’s content.

Among our visitors at Gad’s Hill were Fechter, the distinguished actor, Edmund Yates, Marcus Stone, and many others. I mention these three names in conjunction, for a special reason. Fechter, for whose talent I had an unbounded admiration, rather disappointed me as a companion. He had a limited scope in conversation, but as a mimic, he was unrivalled. It was not only that with the exact tone and inflexion of voice he assumed the gait and gesture, but he actually brought his features into so close a resemblance with the original he intended to copy, that when he walked into the room and advanced to greet me, I never failed to say, “How do you do, Mr Yates?” “I am glad to see you, Marcus,” and so on to others of my acquaintance.

Charles Dickens, junior, had married early in life, what one might well call a juvenile bride, and their two eldest children, Charles the third, and his sister, who went by the pet name of “Micketty” in the family, often came down for fresh air to their grandfather’s country house. “Micketty” always called him “Venerable,” and one day she made me laugh heartily, when, coming into the little study, she found me busy at the book-shelves.

“Oh, Miss Boyle,” she said confidentially, “you take care; if ‘Venerable’ sees you at his books, you’ll catch it”—and verily, if that had been true, I should often have “caught it,” for I was “always at his books.”

Another time she was talking to her aunt and myself about what she intended to do when she grew up, “For then you know, of course, poor mamma will be dead.” Now her hearers did not see any reason to fear such a contingency, for she was one of the youngest mothers we knew, and we told her daughter so, but she would not be convinced, saying, “Oh, no! she’s very old indeed; do remember how long I have had her.”

But I must pause in recalling these trifling anecdotes, which naturally recur to my mind as I indite these family records.

In November, 1868, a terrible blow awaited me in the death of my beloved brother, Cavendish, after two days’ illness. Between him and Charles Dickens there existed a close and tender friendship, and the letter of condolence I received from Gad’s Hill on that occasion touched me deeply, and all the more that it spoke in high terms of him whose loss had plunged me into such poignant grief. But all Charles Dickens’ letters which he addressed to mourners were remarkable for the delicate manner in which he expressed his sympathy, being free from the usually conventional and matter-of-fact manner of offering consolation. The two friends were shortly to be re-united.

The year following my brother’s death, I went to Rome for the winter, and on my return to England I visited Charles Dickens in London. It was in the evening, and he was just going out to dinner at Lord Houghton’s. He said he did not feel very well and would gladly have sent an excuse, but his old friend Milnes had made him promise to meet the Prince of Wales. “Have you seen Lord Clarendon,” he said, “since you came back to England? I never saw any one look so ill, he is quite changed.”

I had not seen him, but told him I was engaged to luncheon with Lord and Lady Clarendon the next day. He bade me good-night, assured me he counted on seeing me very soon at “Gads,” and the door closed behind him. The following afternoon I realised the truth of what he had said of Lord Clarendon’s ill-looks—and that day fortnight both those great and good men, and dear friends of mine, had passed away, leaving me, as well as the world, impoverished by their loss.

On the 9th June, 1870, I had been attending the marriage of my little favourite, Florence, Lady Hastings, with Sir George Chetwynd. It was a pretty wedding and gay scene, and the bride, who always “looks lovely” in the newspapers, on this occasion truly merited the epithet. I came home, and on my table lay the fatal letter, announcing that Charles Dickens had had a stroke of paralysis, and little hopes were entertained of his recovery. I lost no time in changing my wedding garment, and dashing off for Charing Cross, took the rail for Gravesend, and drove in a fly to the scene of so many past delights, my heart beating with fear all the way I went.

I had for my companion, my trusty and attached maid, Louisa Simons, who loved Gad’s Hill and its owners almost as much as I did, and her society and sympathy upheld me in my suspense.

I got down at the door of the stable-yard, and crawling rather than walking across the yard, where the two faithful dogs knew and greeted me, and passing through a little well-known side gate, gained the entrance, and flung myself down, half-fainting, on a seat, in that spot hallowed by the remembrance of so many happy summer evenings. The door was open, but I did not dare enter, or ring, or move, lest I should break the silence which was profound, save, indeed, for the voices of the choirs of birds, who were singing his requiem in the garden he loved.

A short time passed, when his eldest son Charles came into the porch to breathe the fresh air for a few moments, and I think he was touched with my deep distress, and my participation in his own grief. He led me into the little study and brought his aunt to speak to me. It was a comfort to be clasped for an instant in her arms, but my place was no longer there, and I left the little house for ever.