It was in 1896, the year my father died which was the 7th June, the anniversary of his own mother’s death, whom he adored, that I went to Ireland.

I was in very unhappy and melancholic state and my mother was getting worried about me. She sent me to her to her cousin at Upland Farm near Edenbridge. They were in the middle of hop picking - October - and it was a marvellous summer.

It was fun in the hop garden and my cousin - the only daughter of George Smith, my mother’s cousin - had a big bin and I helped her all day. We were out there soon after four in the morning and I picked ravenously.

The hops were measured and the pickers had so much a bin. I know I picked twice as many as my cousin, Annie. She was always running off as she would spy one of her lovers. She had many of them. Fred Pickup was one and the others I shall remember presently.

Annie had lovely golden hair and was tall with a very fine figure but one could not exactly call her pretty. The expensive clothes and the put on manners of the Lady were rather fetching and her father used to say when he was not quite sober - which was often, “Aping the Ladies like the Middleton girls!”

My father was a thorough gentleman in every sense of the word. His books are now in the British Museum. He also resembled Lord Tennyson. When I saw Lord Tennyson’s portrait in the National Gallery I burst into tears for I thought it was him.

Well, I was paid for picking the hops. George Insisted that every man was worth his hire. It came to sixteen shillings and I took it home to my mother with joy in my heart.

My mother was living on Brasted Chart in the house my father had bought. It had views right across the country - abutting onto Colonel Tipping’s land. The house was full of beautiful china, silver and cut glass which we had at ‘Einhallow’. My poor mother was selling it bit by bit in order to keep going until she could get enough votes to have a pension.

A Mr Attenburg took over the coachbuilders’ ‘art journal’ of which my father had been the sole editor and my mother gave him a present of two hundred and fifty of the journals which were full of articles which my father had written.  

 It was now that my aunt, Clara Curtis of Rathgar in Dublin, wrote and asked my mother to send me over to stay with her.

My sister Amy, had been to boarding school at Castle Knock, and used to spend her holidays with Aunt Clara and her six daughters, who were then not married. I remember my sister remarking “What a shame for poor little Nell to go to that lot.” Then she added, “I don’t envy her.”

But my mother accepted the invitation and got what she could for me to wear which was - well - nothing much - just one black dress and a few blouses and two pink night dresses with long lace on the sleeves and down the front.

I had my tin box which was blue inside and brown outside. This was packed mostly with poems and stories that I had written and bits of painting and a box of water colours and music - all torn and gummed together. I took my precious work box that my father had given me on my ninth birthday together with an amber bracelet. I always wore the amethyst brooch which was gold and as big as a square button. It had belonged to his mother and he had presented it to me with a poem he had written. Here it is:

To my youngest child.

Fair image of the sainted one to whom

I owe this pledge of life,

For me thou dost fulfil the sound of love

Of mother child and wife.

 

And thou dost promise that my evening years

Shall still with love be bright,

Like sunset glories in our autumn skies

Until they fade in night.

 

Thy watchful care so free from thought of self

Thy pure and gentle ways

Like bread cast on the waters shall return

To thee in many ways

 

For as thou sowest shall thou reap

The harvest of thy love -

God will, I trust, protect the from all harm

And guide thee from above.

ca Sep 1890 C.S.M