After our return to Stoneleigh, though I do not recollect in which month (I think August), we had a large and gay party including a dance—it was distinctly a pre-matrimonial party, as three of the girls whom it included were either engaged or married before twelve months were over, though none of them to the men present. The three girls were Gwendolen (then called Gwendaline) Howard, who married Lord Bute; Maria Fox-Strangways, married to Lord Bridport’s son Captain Hood; and myself. Rather oddly, a much older man and a widower, Lord Raglan, who was also of the party, caught the matrimonial microbe and married his second wife in the ensuing autumn.
Among others my cousin and great friend Hugh Shaw-Stewart was there and immortalised our doings in verse. At Christmas time I managed to get slight congestion of the lungs and soon after went to spend some time with my kind uncle and aunt Sir Michael and Lady Octavia Shaw-Stewart at Fonthill, and Hughie, who had also suffered from chest trouble, stayed with his parents there while preparing for Oxford.
FONTHILL ABBEY
Fonthill, as is well known, belonged to the eccentric Beckford and was full of his traditions. After his death the property was divided and my grandfather Westminster bought the portion which included Beckford’s old house, of which the big tower had fallen down, and built himself a modern house lower down the hill. Another part was bought—I do not know when—by Mr. Alfred Morrison. When my grandfather Westminster died in the autumn of 1869 he left the reversion of Fonthill Abbey to Uncle Michael. Perhaps he thought that the Shaw-Stewarts should have an English as well as a Scottish home. However that might have been, Fonthill is a delightful place—and I benefited by their residence there at this time. I think that they were only to come into actual possession after my grandmother’s death—but that she lent it to them on this occasion as my aunt was delicate and it was considered that she would be the better for southern air.
The modern house was a comfortable one with good rooms, but had a peculiarity that no room opened into another, as my grandfather objected to that arrangement—dressing-rooms, for instance, though they might open into the same lobbies, might not have doors into the bedrooms.
Part of Beckford’s old house higher up the hill was preserved as a sort of museum. The story was that he insisted on continuous building, Sundays and weekdays alike. The house had a very high tower which could be seen from a hill overlooking Bath, where he ultimately went to live. Every day he used to go up the hill to look at his tower, but one morning when he ascended as usual he saw it no longer—it had fallen down. It used to be implied that this was a judgment on the Sunday labour. Also we were told that he made the still-existing avenues and drove about them at night, which gave him an uncanny reputation. Probably his authorship of that weird tale Vathek added to the mystery which surrounded him. He had accumulated among many other treasures a number of great oriental jars from the Palace of the King of Portugal, and when these were sold after his death my grandfather, to the best of my recollection, purchased three.
Mr. Morrison had secured a good many of the others, which I saw in after years when I stayed at the other Fonthill House which he had built on his part of the property. Many of the other treasures passed, as is well known, into the possession of Beckford’s daughter who married the 10th Duke of Hamilton. Alas—most of them must have been dispersed ere now!
Mr. Alfred Morrison, when I was at Fonthill with my uncle and aunt, was a subject of much interest, as it was rumoured that he wanted to emulate Beckford. I do not quite know in what way beyond trying to collect the oriental jars. He was a distinctly literary man, and was reported to have married his wife because he found her reading a Greek grammar in the train. Whether or no that was the original attraction I cannot say, but she proved a delightful and amusing person when I met her in after years. Meantime we used to hear of the beautiful horses which he sent to the meets of the local hounds, though he did not ride, and other proofs of his wealth and supposed eccentricity.
My uncle as well as my aunt being far from strong, we led a quiet though pleasant life. Hughie and I shared a taste for drawing and painting of very amateur description and Hughie used to help me with Latin verses, in which I then liked to dabble.
After my return to Stoneleigh I had yet another treat. My Uncle James and his new wife “Aunt Fanny” were kind enough to ask me to share in the spring their first trip abroad after their marriage. We went via Harwich to Rotterdam and thence for a short tour in Holland and Belgium with which I was highly delighted. The quaint canals, the cows with table-cloths on their backs, the queer Jewish quarter in Amsterdam, and still more the cathedrals and picture galleries in Belgium gave me infinite pleasure, but are too well known to describe.