Of Cephalonia, where we spent a few hours on our way to Corfu, my chief recollection is of wild mountainous country. The Consul (or Vice-Consul) who took us for a drive told us a thrilling tale—as yet unconcluded—of two rival families. The father of one married his daughter to a young man, whereas the other family wanted her and attacked the bridal party on the wedding day. I forget exactly how many people they killed, but I think the bridegroom was among the victims, and anyhow they carried off the young lady to the mountains, and she was still there at the time of our visit.
Corfu was very delightful—but I recall no particular incident. There seemed to be a good many people who still regretted that Mr. Gladstone had handed it over to Greece.
Our gunboat and M. Bakhméteff had left us at Zante, and from Corfu we went by an Austrian Lloyd steamer to Brindisi; thence by train to Naples. There we found Lord Rowton and dined with him and one or two friends. We also spent a day with him in Rome, where he was a good deal amused by our evident feeling that Roman were not to be compared to Greek antiquities.
CHAPTER VII
VOYAGE TO INDIA—HYDERABAD
I must go back a little in these mixed memories to record our early acquaintance with Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who afterwards became one of our great friends. I believe that I first met him at Lady St. Helier’s (then Lady Jeune) at a luncheon or party in 1886. We asked him to dinner at 3 Great Stanhope Street, and he accepted—and we also asked the Jeunes. Mr. Chamberlain, though this was about the time that he split with Gladstone over Home Rule, was still regarded as a dangerous Radical, and was by no means universally met in Conservative houses. As it happened he arrived at our dinner a little before the Jeunes. As they were announced I went to the drawing-room door to meet them and she stopped me, and said in a low voice before entering the room, “You are coming to dine with me on such a date—shall you mind meeting Mr. Chamberlain?” (She had quite forgotten our meeting at her house.) “He is in the house,” was my reply—whereat she gasped and nearly fell backwards. I well recollect the stern disapproval of our old-fashioned Tory butler Freeman. He showed it in his manner, though he did not venture at the moment to put it into words—but a few days afterwards we had another dinner at which were present some of our regular—and I am sure highly respectable—friends. The following morning Freeman said to me solemnly, “We had a very nice dinner last night.” “Yes,” said I, “I think it went off very well.” “All very nice people,” he added with marked emphasis, and left me to digest the unspoken rebuke.
Freeman was a great character and his comments were apt to be amusing. The year after this incident Lord Robert Cecil spent a Sunday at Osterley, and after the party had left on Monday Freeman informed me that there was only one thing that had troubled him. In reply to my rather anxious inquiry as to what had gone wrong he said: “That fine young fellow Lord Salisbury’s son did not hold himself up properly. I spoke to his servant about it, and he said it was his book. I said our young lord [Villiers] is very clever, but I hope he will hold himself up.” Poor Freeman! he was rather a rough diamond in some respects, but one of the best and most faithful of servants. He caught a chill and died early in 1894, soon after our return from Australia.
HADJI PETROS