“We spent Tuesday at Cliveden, a pouring day, but it did not matter. The Duchess of Westminster[320] is Ronald’s favourite sister, and was very pleasant and cordial to his friend. She is gloriously handsome, though so large. We talked for four hours without ceasing, and she took us into every corner of the beautiful house full of charming pictures, and then put on an ulster and hood and walked with us through the torrents of rain to the conservatories. One felt that she was a person to whom one could say anything without being misunderstood, and who would become an increasingly true friend. Her daughter, Lady Beatrice Cavendish, was there, and the handsome young husband, Compton Cavendish, Lord Chesham’s son, came in to luncheon and tea. All saw us off at 5 P.M. in the little cart with Piggy the pony.
“On Wednesday morning we went into the castle to see Lady Ponsonby, who lives in the old prison over Edward III.’s gateway—most curious, and fitted up in admirable taste, despairing to Mr. Ayrton.”
“Osterley Park, Nov. 13.—I came here yesterday, most kindly welcomed by the good old Duchess of Cleveland, who is delightful. The greatness of her charm certainly lies in the absence of charm: no one ever had less of it. But what bright intelligence, what acute perceptions, what genuine kindness, what active beneficence! I found Julia, Lady Jersey, here, and Mr. Brandling, and a Mr. and Mrs. Bramston, relations of the Cleveland family. After dinner, the Duchess made me sit exclusively by her, saying kindly that she could not waste any of my short visit. She talked in a very interesting way of the great Duke of Wellington, and then of the present Duke. She said that when she asked the latter if the great Duke had never shown him any kindness, he said, ‘No, he never even so much as patted me on the shoulder when I was a boy, but it was because he hated my mother.’
“After luncheon to-day I walked with Brandling and Colonel Bramston to Boston Hall, the fine old house of the Clitherows.
“As Lady Caroline Paulet, the Duchess of Cleveland used to be very proud of her little foot. She wore an anklet, and would often sit upon a table, and let it fall down over her foot to show it. It was inscribed, ‘La légèreté de Camille et la vitesse d’Atalante.’ One day Lady Isabella St. John, who was equally proud of her little foot, said, ‘I wish you would let me try if I can get your anklet over my foot, Lady Caroline.’ And she put it on, and, to Lady Caroline’s great disgust, kicked it off, to show how easily her foot would go through it.
“In those long-ago days—one cannot imagine it now—she used to be very décolletée, and the Duchess Elizabeth (Miss Russell), who did not like her, once flung a napkin at her across the table, saying, ‘Caroline, here is something to cover your nakedness with.’
“How many and amusing are the anecdotes remembered of that Duchess Elizabeth, who went on receiving a pension from the Duke of Bedford, as his cast-off mistress, after she was married to the Duke of Cleveland. She had been a washerwoman. She left Newton House, where she lived as a widow, to her nephew Mr. Russell, whose grandson married a Lushington. She gave £70,000 to her niece Laura when she married Lord Mulgrave, and the marriage very nearly went off because the Normanbys stuck out for £100,000. ‘Laura is not my only niece, remember that,’ she said, and then they became frightened. She used to call Lord Harry Vane ‘My ‘Arry.’ One day, with Mr. Francis Grey, the conversation turned upon Venus. ‘I do not like her,’ she said; ‘she had a bad figure, and by no means a good character.’ Her companion laughed and said, ‘She mistakes her for a living person,’ and so she did.”
“Nov. 14.—Life is very pleasant in this fine old house, and its long sunny gallery full of books and pictures is a delightful resort on winter mornings. We breakfast at ten, during which Mr. Spencer Lyttelton, who is frequently here, does his best to shock people for the day, but is certainly very clever and amusing. I never saw any one who called a spade a spade as he does, but I believe he likes every one to think him worse than he is. This morning I walked with Brandling in the long shrubberies, the great trees casting perfectly blue shadows upon the park white with hoar-frost and the lake thinly coated with ice.
“In the afternoon we went to Ham House—a most curious visit. No half-inhabited château of a ruined family in Normandy was ever half so dilapidated as this home of the enormously rich Tollemaches. Like a French château too is the entrance through a gateway to a desolate yard with old trees and a sundial, and a donkey feeding. All the members of the family whom I knew were absent, but I sent in my card to Mr. Algernon Tollemache, who received us. As the door at the head of the entrance-stair opened, its handle went through a priceless Sir Joshua of Louisa, Countess of Dysart: it always does go through it. We were taken through a half-ruined hall and a bedroom to an inner room in which Mr. Algernon Tollemache (unable to move from illness) was sitting. It presented the most unusual contrasts imaginable—a velvet bed in a recess backed by the most exquisite embroidery on Chinese silk; an uncarpeted floor of rough boards; a glorious Lely portrait of the Duchess of Lauderdale; a deal board by way of washing-stand, with a coarse white jug and basin upon it; a splendid mirror framed in massive silver on a hideous rough deal scullery table without a cover; and all Mr. Tollemache’s most extraordinarily huge boots and shoes ranged round the room by way of ornament.
“The vast house is like a caravansary; in one apartment lives young Lord Dysart, the real owner; in another his Roman Catholic mother, Lady Huntingtower, and her two Protestant daughters; in a third, his great-aunt, Lady Laura Grattan; in a fourth, his uncle, Mr. Frederick Tollemache, who manages the property; in a fifth, Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Tollemache, who made a great fortune in Australia.