We found this house so charming that we sent our courier back to England to bring out our boy. My aunt, Lady Agnes, and her husband, Dr. Frank, with their baby girl, lived not far off—they had found Isola Bella for us and were pleasant neighbours. My husband, Caroline, and myself found additional occupation in Italian lessons from a fiery little patriot whose name I forget, but who had fought in the war against the Austrians. Among other things he had a lurid story about his mother whose secrets in the Confessional had been betrayed by a priest, resulting in the arrest and I believe death of a relative. After which though the lady continued her prayers she—not unnaturally—declined to make further confessions.
Our sojourn on this visit to Cannes was further brightened by Conservative triumphs in the 1874 elections. We used to sit after breakfast on a stone terrace in front of the villa, Mr. Jenkins smoking and Jersey doing crochet as a pastime—being no smoker; and morning after morning the postman would appear with English papers bringing further tidings of success.
The Jenkinses returned to England rather before ourselves—we travelled back towards the end of April in singularly hot weather, and when we reached Dover Jersey left me there for a few days to rest while he went back to Middleton. Unfortunately the journey, or something, had been too much for me, and a little girl, who only lived for a day, appeared before her time at the Lord Warden Hotel. It was a great disappointment, and I had a somewhat tedious month at the hotel before migrating to 12 Gloucester Square—the house which we had taken for the season.
I have no special recollections of that season, though I think that it was that year that I met Lord Beaconsfield at the Duke of Buccleuch’s. It is, however, impossible to fix exactly the years in which one dined in particular places and met particular people, nor is it at all important.
OXFORDSHIRE NEIGHBOURS
I would rather summarise our life in the country, where we had garden parties, cricket matches, and lawn tennis matches at which we were able to entertain our neighbours. Now, alas! the whole generation who lived near Middleton in those days has almost passed away. Our nearest neighbours were Sir Henry and Lady Dashwood at Kirtlington Park with a family of sons and daughters; Lord Valentia, who lived with his mother, Mrs. Devereux, and her husband the General at Bletchington; and the Drakes—old Mrs. Drake and her daughters at Bignell. Sir Henry’s family had long lived at Kirtlington, which is a fine house, originally built by the same architect—Smith, of Warwick—who built the new portion of Stoneleigh early in the eighteenth century. Sir Henry was a stalwart, pleasant man, and a convinced teetotaller. Later on than the year of which I speak the Dashwoods came over to see some theatricals at Middleton in which my brothers and sisters and some Cholmondeley cousins took part. After the performance they gave a pressing invitation to the performers to go over on a following day to luncheon or tea. A detachment went accordingly, and were treated with great hospitality but rather like strolling players. “Where do you act next?” and so on, till finally Sir Henry burst out: “What an amusing family yours is! Not only all of you act, but your uncle Mr. James Leigh gives temperance lectures!” Sir Henry’s son, Sir George Dashwood, had a large family of which three gallant boys lost their lives in the Great War. To universal regret he was obliged to sell Kirtlington. It was bought by Lord Leven, whose brother and heir has in turn sold it to Mr. Budgett. Not long before I married, the then owner of another neighbouring place—Sir Algernon Peyton, M.F.H., of Swift’s House, had died. Lord Valentia took the Bicester hounds which he had hunted, for a time, rented Swift’s from his widow, and ultimately did the wisest thing by marrying her (1878) and installing her at Bletchington. They are really the only remaining family of my contemporaries surviving—and, though they have occasionally let it, they do live now in their own house. They had two sons and six daughters—great friends of my children. The eldest son was killed in the Great War.
Another neighbour was a droll old man called Rochfort Clarke, who lived at a house outside Chesterton village with an old sister-in-law whose name I forget (I think Miss Byrom)—but his wife being dead he was deeply attached to her sister. Soon after our marriage he came to call, and afterwards wrote a letter to congratulate us on our happiness and to say that had it not been for the iniquitous law forbidding marriage with a deceased wife’s sister we should have seen a picture of equal domestic felicity in him and Miss ——. He was very anxious to convert Irish Roman Catholics to the ultra-Protestant faith, and he interpreted the Second Commandment to forbid all pictures of any sort or kind. None were allowed in his house. Once he wrote a letter to the papers to protest against the ritualism embodied in a picture in Chesterton Church—an extremely evangelical place where Moody and Sankey hymns prevailed. Later on the clergyman took me into the church to show me the offending idol. It consisted of a diminutive figure—as far as I could see of a man—in a very small window high up over the west door. The most appalling shock was inflicted upon him by a visit to the Exhibition of 1851, where various statuary was displayed including Gibson’s “Tinted Venus.” This impelled him to break into a song of protest of which I imperfectly recollect four lines to this effect:
“Tell me, Victoria, can that borrowed grace
Compare with Albert’s manly form and face?
And tell me, Albert, can that shameless jest
Compare with thy Victoria clothed and dressed?”
The sister-in-law died not long after I knew him, and he then married a respectable maid-servant whom he brought to see us dressed in brown silk and white gloves. Shortly afterwards he himself departed this life and the property was bought by the popular Bicester banker Mr. Tubb, who married Miss Stratton—a second cousin of mine—built a good house, from which pictures were not barred, and had four nice daughters.
I cannot name all the neighbours, but should not omit the old Warden of Merton, Mr. Marsham, who lived with his wife and sons at Caversfield. The eldest son, Charles Marsham, who succeeded to the place after his death, was a great character well known in the hunting and cricket fields. He was a good fellow with a hot temper which sometimes caused trying scenes. Towards the end of his life he developed a passion for guessing Vanity Fair acrostics, and when he saw you instead of “How d’ye do?” he greeted you with “Can you remember what begins with D and ends with F?” or words to that effect. There was a famous occasion when, as he with several others from Middleton were driving to Meet, one of my young brothers suggested some solution at which he absolutely scoffed. When the hounds threw off, however, Charlie Marsham disappeared and missed a first-class run. It was ultimately discovered that he had slipped away to a telegraph office to send off a solution embodying my brother’s suggestion!