CHAPTER XL
LORD AND LADY ARTHUR RUSSELL AND THE "SALON" IN ENGLAND
The recent death of Lady Arthur Russell diminished by one the number of accomplished women of this generation who were distinguished in the last generation also. And it closed one of the few drawing-rooms in London which have been salon as well as drawing-room. I suppose Lady Arthur herself might have said as she looked about her and looked back, "Tout passe." The French phrase would have come naturally to her tongue, for she was French: daughter of that Vicomte de Peyronnet who was Minister to Charles X. Yet one was not often, at any rate not too often, reminded of her French origin. So long ago as 1865 Mlle. de Peyronnet married Lord Arthur Russell, brother of the ninth Duke of Bedford and of the more famous Lord Odo Russell, afterward the first Lord Ampthill, long British Ambassador at Berlin, where he managed to be on good terms both with Prince Bismarck and the present Emperor; a feat of diplomacy almost unique.
It is eighteen years since Lord Arthur died. He was indisputably of the last or an earlier generation, having little in common with the present. People thought of Lord and Lady Arthur as one; of itself enough to identify them with earlier times than those when husband and wife are as likely to be met separately as together. If there was a distinction it was at the breakfast hour, at breakfasts in other houses. There was no rule which excluded ladies from these breakfasts, but there was a custom which held good in the majority of cases. The host's wife, if he had one, might or might not appear. But the group of men who were in the habit of breakfasting at each other's houses included Lord Arthur Russell, Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, Lord Reay, Mr. Charles Roundell, Mr. Albert Rutson, sometimes Mr. Herbert Spencer, and many more. You will recognize Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff's name as that of the most voluminous diarist of his time, and when you have read his six or seven volumes the map of his life is spread out before you; an honoured and useful life, a career of real distinction. Lord Arthur had not Sir Mountstuart's ambitions; he was content with his home and his kin and his books.
His brother, the Duke, had a habit of referring to himself as Hastings Russell. An alteration at Woburn Abbey was proposed to him. "It will not be made in the lifetime of Hastings Russell," his answer. He had a sense of humour, which Lloyd-George must think a rare thing in a duke. I drove once from Mentmore to Woburn Abbey with Lady Rosebery and her little girl, Lady Sibyl, then eight or nine years old, with a gift of humorous perception rare at any age in her sex. The child had a balanced mind and a mature view of things which might have belonged to eighteen as well as eight. The old place interested her and she asked the Duke to show her the whole. He was delighted and took us through room after room, each stately and each a museum. Presently we came to a rather bare, scantily furnished, unhandsome room, and Lady Sibyl asked:
"But what is this?"
"This, my dear, is where I earn my living writing cheques for six hours a day."
All three brothers, the Duke, Lord Odo, and Lord Arthur, had a quiet humour in common. Lord Odo had, besides humour, wit. It was he, while Ambassador in Berlin and during a visit of the Shah, when that great potentate practised a less strict abstinence at dinner than his religion demanded, who said to a neighbour: "After all, it's nothing wonderful. You must remember the proverb, 'La nuit tous les chat sont ris. And Berlin used to echo with his caustic, good-natured speeches. Nor did Berlin, nor perhaps London, ever forget Prince Bismarck's saying:
"I never knew an Englishman who spoke French well whom I would trust except Lord Odo."