The last line was rather prophetic, as there was no “Grandison” apart from the family’s Irish title at the time of writing. My husband, as already mentioned, bore the name for the three weeks between his grandfather’s and father’s death, but our elder son was always Villiers. Now his son is Grandison and I think bids fair to inherit the “qualities good” of his grandfather—he could not do better.
A JUBILEE SERMON
The “nice little church” was that at Norwood Green, and the sermon, preached by a rather eccentric Irish clergyman, informed us that he had been studying history and found that in the days of George III’s Jubilee “there was an old king and a ma-ad king. How would you have liked that?” And he continued to tell us of the death at that period of Sir John Moore commemorated by an Irish clergyman who “two years later was translated to the Kingdom of Heaven, for which his Irish curacy had so well prepared him.”
In addition to those above named by Mr. Ashley, we had staying with us Lord Rowton, Lord and Lady Galloway, Lady Lytton and her daughter Betty, Col. Charles Edgcumbe, my sister Cordelia, and my brother-in-law Reginald Villiers, to whom my husband was greatly attached. It is very pleasant to recall those happy days, but sad to think how few that shared them are left!
I turn from our Osterley parties for the time being to record a most amusing journey which Lady Galloway and I made to Greece in 1888. Lord Jersey could not make up his mind to start with us, though we had hopes (which proved vain) that he might join us later. Our families were somewhat excited on learning our intention, as the recollection of the Marathon brigands who captured poor Mr. Vyner and the Muncasters still coloured the popular ideas of Greece.
Our husbands, however, were—fortunately—confident in our own powers of taking care of ourselves. Lord Jersey calmly remarked, “If you are captured Galloway and I will come with an army to rescue you.” Mr. Ashley, less trustful of the future, insisted on presenting each of us with a small revolver and box of cartridges. I forget what Mary did with hers, but my one object was to conceal the weapon from possible brigands. I regarded them rather like wasps, who are supposed not to sting if you let them alone, but I was certain that if I tried to shoot I should miss, and then they might be annoyed and I should suffer. I had to take the revolver, but I hid the cartridges in my luggage and put the weapon where it would not be seen.
We were not absolutely certain till we reached Marseilles whether we should go to Greece after all, or to Algeria or elsewhere, but finding that we could get berths on a Messageries boat we ultimately carried out our original intention though we did not really mean to stay long in Athens or its neighbourhood, and imagined Marathon (the scene of the Vyner tragedy) to be quite “out of bounds.”
However, when on March 31st we reached the Piræus early in the morning we soon found that we were in the happiest possible abode. Our constant friend and protector Sir Thomas (now Lord) Sanderson had written from the Foreign Office to Mr. William Haggard, the British Chargé d’Affaires, to look after us in the absence of the Minister, and it is impossible to speak too highly of his kindness. The Greek Ministers were deeply impressed by the fact that Lady Galloway was (half) sister to the English Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and laid themselves out to make everything pleasant and delightful. Greece was still almost unknown to Cook’s tourists. I think there was a Cook’s Office, but I do not recall seeing any of his clients about the place—anyhow, not outside Athens itself. Mr. Haggard met us with a boat belonging to the Harbour Master’s Office, and as soon as we had settled ourselves in the Hôtel d’Angleterre at Athens (a very good hotel) he began to make all sorts of arrangements for us—so that instead of three days we stayed some three weeks in Athens and about a month altogether in Greece.
MARATHON
We told Mr. Haggard that our friends were very much afraid of our finding brigands at Marathon, or rather at their finding us. He assured us that after the tragedy—seventeen years previously—all the brigands had been killed and it was perfectly safe; anyhow, he took us to Marathon next day, and we were delighted with the scenery through which we passed and with the silent, desolate field where the battle had been waged, with wild flowers growing on the hillock pointed out as the soldiers’ grave. Whether it still keeps its impressive solitude I know not. It is useless to attempt description of Greece, so well known to all either from personal experience or from hundreds of accounts both in prose and poetry, but I may just say that as my mother (who saw it as a girl) told me, the colours of the mountains were like those of a dove’s neck, and the clearness of the atmosphere such that one felt as if one could see through the hills.