The Queen was indeed more than kind, and was very much upset when our departure was delayed, just when all preparations were made, by my being seized with an attack of typhoid fever. She telegraphed constantly, and when the Court returned to Windsor sent a messenger daily to inquire. We were told that her kind heart led her to imagine that my illness was either caused or intensified by our having been summoned to Balmoral just at the last minute, because she had forgotten that we were starting so soon. Of course it had nothing to do with it, but the Queen was well aware what typhoid fever meant. As she wrote to Jersey, she was “but too well acquainted with this terrible illness not to feel anxious whenever any relations or friends are suffering from it.”

The result was that when I was convalescent Jersey had to start alone, and I went with my children to spend Christmas at Stoneleigh, following him in January. Lady Galloway was a true friend, for since our London house was let she took me from Claridge’s Hotel, where I was taken ill, to her house in Upper Grosvenor Street and nursed me there for weeks. Everyone was kind, Lady Northcote offering that I should take possession of her house and have Lady Galloway there to look after me, but in the end I stayed in Upper Grosvenor Street till I could move to Stoneleigh. Christmas at Stoneleigh was an unexpected pleasure, and my parents, brothers, and sisters did all they could to further my convalescence. An addition to the family party was my brother Dudley’s charming new American wife, of whom he was intensely proud. When we greeted them or drank their healths, however, in the course of the festivities he invariably prefaced his words of thanks with “I and my wife” despite the laughing protests of his auditors. On Twelfth Night we drew characters, with the result—perhaps not quite fortuitous—that my eldest girl Margaret and her youngest brother Arthur, aged seven, were Queen and King. Their healths were duly drunk, and Arthur eagerly and emphatically responded, beginning “My wife and I!”

Mrs. Dudley Leigh had been in her girlhood much admired in the Court of Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie. She was greatly attached to the Empress and was one of the young ladies recorded in Filon’s Memoirs as having helped to cheer the deposed monarchs in the first part of their exile when they resided at Cowes.

Hélène Leigh (then Beckwith) told me that she and her sister often went to spend an evening with the Empress, who, as is well known, had a leaning towards spiritualism and table-turning. The Emperor disliked the experiments, and on one occasion begged them to stop. Presently he went to bed and then Eugénie determined to resume. The table moved, and rapped out “Janvier.” The Empress asked what the date implied, and the answer came “La Mort.” In the following January the Emperor died. Personally none of these coincidences convince me, as I have known automatic and other prophecies which did not “come off.” The Emperor was very ill and his death must have seemed imminent to many present, but I allow that it is curious that the date as remembered by my sister-in-law should have proved accurate.

FAREWELL TO ENGLAND

At last I was considered well enough to start, and went off accompanied by four children, two governesses and three servants, the rest of the household having preceded us. We had a bitterly cold journey, and Lady Galloway, who joined us in London and went with us across France and Italy, had her work cut out to keep us warm and fed. She then went to stay with some of her friends, having promised to visit us later in Australia.

It was very sad leaving all my family, and particularly my eldest boy Villiers. He had to finish his time at Eton and was then to come to us before going to Oxford. Everyone who has to leave children behind—and, alas! that is the lot of only too many English parents—knows what it means, and I will not dwell upon it.

All our friends were most sympathetic and helpful, and I was particularly touched by Lord Derby’s thoughtfulness. In his first letter on hearing of the appointment he wrote: “You are a queen and an exile. Are you to be congratulated or condoled with?...” He went on with serious words of encouragement, and a little later took the trouble voluntarily to write out for our use notes on Australia “founded on the reports of many friends and on some experience of C. O.”

Among his very shrewd remarks was:

“Distrust all informants who have been long away; things change rapidly in those parts. And remember that the enriched colonist who comes back with £10,000 a year to live in England does not in the least represent the country in which his money was made.”