But Mrs. Fraser's own particular favourite is just beyond—she calls it her tea-room, not her study. "Not very large," she says, "but always bright and cheerful, and the view is so lovely from this window. That wood was gorgeous in its autumnal tints, and on a very clear morning Leith Hill looks as if it were close to us. My rose garden is just to the right here. I wish it was summer, that you might see it in all its glory." And the view is lovely now, as the sun peeps in and out amongst the great trees, which stand in clumps, with rustic seats beneath them.
After admiring it for a while, you turn round to have a survey of the room, and certainly endorse Mrs. Fraser's opinion. It has an oak ceiling, like the other reception rooms, and pale-green walls, that show off to advantage a number of oil paintings framed in dark crimson velvet and gold. Two are especially fine, "The Golden Horn," and "Morning on the Dutch Rivers," by an artist of some note, Fryar; and you fall in love with two exquisite little bits of Brittany, by Gregory. A large mirror in an elaborately carved frame surmounts the mantel-piece, which is laden with Satsuma ware and other Japanese, Chinese, and Indian curios. An old French marqueterie cabinet full of books stand in a recess vis-à-vis to a handsomely inlaid writing bureau with a silver basket of hothouse flowers on it.
Mrs. Fraser here calls attention to a number of silver vases, loving cups, hunting flasks, gongs, etc., all of which are prizes won by her sons' ponies and fox-terriers. These lie so perilously near the window as to suggest a remark to the effect that they might be stolen, but Mrs. Fraser declares that the people are wonderfully honest down in these parts of the country, and that no burglary has been heard of for thirty years or more.
Later on, whilst being regaled with all sorts of cakes and hothouse grapes, the conversation turns on literary matters. "I have no particular writing-room," says your hostess, "I generally write in the evening after dinner, with my people chattering all the time, but I am too much accustomed to that to be disturbed by it. My first essays in fiction were magazine stories. I suppose I have written over four-score of these, and they always seemed to find a good deal of favour with the leading provincial journals. I sold a story called 'Man[oe]uvring' for a very nice little sum to a French editor for translation into L'Etoile, and I was very much pleased when I got a requisition for a tale from the Lady's Magazine in Philadelphia, but of later years I have written about five-and-twenty three-volume novels. The first of these was called 'Faithless.' The next two: 'Denison's Wife,' and 'Not While She Lives.' After that 'Her Plighted Troth,' 'A Maddening Blow,' 'A Thing of Beauty,' and 'A Fatal Passion' came out. These are names which recur to me at the moment out of all that I have written. I like the last best, and next to it 'A Leader of Society,' and 'The Match of the Season,' perhaps because I took the heroes and heroines from real life. More recently Mr. F. V. White has brought out my books, and they have all more or less been excellently noticed, especially 'Daughters of Belgravia,' 'The Last Drawing Room,' and 'The New Duchess,' all of which have gone into two or three editions. Occasionally I send a piece of poetry to the magazines, and it generally gets a little kudos from the Press, and some little time ago I wrote a sacred song called 'Calvary's Cross,' which gained much popularity; a copy of it was very graciously accepted by the Queen." The latest of all is "A Modern Bridegroom."
Mrs. Fraser observes that she has often been asked what is her "method" in writing, and that on one occasion she received a letter from a clergyman in Nottingham, begging her to "describe it exactly." "I laughed when the letter came," she continues, "and I am ashamed to say I never answered it, because I have no method. I simply write straight on, and never copy my MSS., and pity the poor printers who have to decipher my hieroglyphics. I am very fond of recitations, too, and some years ago I studied elocution under Mrs. Stirling. Once, in her unavoidable absence, I recited two of her pieces before a large audience in St. George's Hall. I felt horribly nervous, but I suppose I did the "pathos" pretty well, for I noticed a good many people crying, and was much pleased to see them do so! I have recited several times in America also, but now I never exert myself beyond writing a novel or a short story just when I feel inclined for it."
After tea Mrs. Fraser proposes a stroll through the grounds. "It is very cold, but dry," she says, "so we might venture; but first come into the billiard-room, which is our usual postprandial resort." Passing through the hall and another conservatory, with vines thickly intersecting overhead, and full of splendid specimens of maidenhair ferns, with the vivid scarlet of geraniums between them, she takes you into a large and lofty room, panelled in oak. At the further end a flight of oaken steps leads up to a sort of daïs, from which the game can be well surveyed. The furniture is all of carved oak and crimson velvet, with the exception of two great easy chairs, whose backs and arms and legs are composed of buffalo horns, beautifully polished and mounted. These were sent to her from Russia, and are the admiration of the neighbourhood.
All round the walls hang pictures of the celebrated American trotting horses, whose performances in Central Park, New York, were a daily delight to Mrs. Fraser. A tall bookcase, carved quaintly, stands in a recess, but she tells you not to expect to see any of her own novels in it, as she invariably gives them all away, except one copy of each, which her mother, who lives with her, always confiscates, and values as her dearest possessions. This lady must have been one of the loveliest of women in her youth, and she is still wonderfully handsome and young-looking.
Mrs. Alexander Fraser comes of a good old stock. Her grandmother was a sister of Sir Wolstan Dixie, descended from the Sir Wolstan Dixie who settled at Bosworth, Leicestershire, in the time of Queen Elizabeth. On her mother's side she is related to the ancient house of Dunboyne, dating as far back as Sir Thomas Butler, or Le Botelier, in the reign of Edward II.; and she is a connection of William Makepeace Thackeray. Of this she declares herself to be "most proud," and adds:—"I consider his 'Becky Sharp' is one of the most able studies of character that was ever written. How much I should delight in his power of reading character, though perhaps he took somewhat too caustic a view of it occasionally!"
A stand close by contains the whole set of Mrs. Lovett Cameron's novels—"I enjoy her writing so much," says your hostess. "When I was younger I was fanatica on Ouida; but though I still admire her marvellous command of language, especially in description of scenery, I have grown too sober and prosaic and practical in my ideas and views of life to appreciate her works as I used to do."
Losing her father at a very early age, when only fifteen, Mrs. Fraser went to India, after spending two years at a school in Paris, and at the age of sixteen she married Captain, now General Alexander Fraser, C.B., sometime Member of Council, for many years Secretary to the Government of India, and only surviving brother of the late Bishop of Manchester. She describes her life in India in glowing colours. "I liked India immensely," she remarks. "Most women do, I fancy. They are so hospitable out there, and there is so much fun and 'go' in the society. Besides," she adds, laughing, "one has so much attention that one feels in a delightfully chronic state of self-complacency!"