And here I must say something about my old and dear friend, Lady Lindsay, who has so recently passed away, and whose lameness prevented her from toiling up the stairs to our at-homes very often. For many years I was constantly at her house, both at her famous dinner-parties and running in to have a talk about books when I was sure of finding her alone, for she was good enough to be much interested in my work.
“MISS BRADDON”
Drawn by Yoshio Markino
The daughter of a Cabinet Minister, the Right Hon. Henry Fitzroy (son of the first Lord Southampton), a descendant of Nathan Meyer de Rothschild, who founded the fortunes of his House, and sister-in-law of the Loyd Lindsay, V.C., who became Lord Wantage, she knew nearly every noted person of her time, and those whom she did not know, she generally could have known but for some prejudice against them. At her dinner-parties you met men like Tennyson and Gladstone and Layard of Nineveh—great politicians, great nobles, great authors, great painters, but hardly any one from the theatrical world. I was nearly always the least important person present. Eight was her favourite number, though sometimes there were a dozen at her famous round table. The conversation used to be brilliant; the company was arranged with a view to that—naturally the chief guest often got possession of the table, and we sat and chronicled the historic scene in our hearts.
Afterwards, when one went up into the drawing-room, our eyes rested on pictures by Sandro Botticelli and Titian, sixteenth-century Italian wedding-chests, and other inheritances of the great. She wrote more than one volume of poems which went into several editions.
It is natural to mention beside her another great lady who was in touch with all the notabilities of her time, Walpole’s descendant, Lady Dorothy Nevill, who married a descendant of Warwick the Kingmaker’s elder brother, the Baron of Abergavenny. Her husband was at one time the heir-presumptive of the Marquis of Abergavenny. She happily gave her reminiscences to the world, as Lady Lindsay always meant to do, so readers know her connections, though she was too modest to show how Disraeli leaned upon her advice. Among the most interesting things which I remember in her house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, were the unique mementoes of her ancestor, the tremendous Sir Robert Walpole, the Asquith of the eighteenth century. It was she who told me that Nelson was called Horatio because Horace Walpole presented his father to the living of Burnham Thorpe, which is still in the gift of the Earls of Orford.
Lady St. Helier, another great London hostess, at whose house I have met some of the most celebrated people of the day—Lady St. Helier and her daughter, Mrs. Allhusen, never came to see us till we had left Addison Mansions for the Avenue House, Richmond. No woman has been more integrally a part of the life of her time than Lady St. Helier, who wrote an admirable volume of reminiscences. Mrs. Allhusen has the inspiration of owning a house where one of the masterpieces of literature was written—Gray’s Elegy. For the house in which Gray wrote it after the inspiration, which came to him as he was leaning over the gate of Stoke Poges Churchyard, has been enlarged into Stoke Court, and the room in which Gray wrote out the Elegy forms part of Mrs. Allhusen’s writing-room.
Marie Corelli, like Hall Caine, has a dislike of literary receptions. I cannot remember if she ever came to Addison Mansions, though we have been friends for many years, and I remember going to brilliant dinner-parties at her house in Longridge Road. Her stepfather, Charles Mackay, who adopted her, was one of my earliest literary friends.
Her stepbrother, Eric Mackay, author of the famous Love-letters of a Violinist, lived with her, and he came to our at-homes so frequently that I think she must have come with him sometimes. They were a very musical family. It is always said that Marie Corelli, had she so chosen, could have won as much fame in music as she has in literature. Her books illustrate Hall Caine’s axiom that the greatest novels are those which deal with the elemental facts of human nature. Her grasp of human nature has won her countless readers in both hemispheres.
It is not universally known that Marie Corelli is an admirable speaker—so lucid, so convincing, able by perfect elocution to reach the furthest corner of the large hall of the Hotel Cecil without raising her voice. Though she lives at Stratford-on-Avon, and is identified with all its functions, she is frequently to be seen in London at places like Ranelagh or dancing at the great balls at the Albert Hall.