And thus this plague, the illness and death of Lord Palmerston, and—more personal—the alarming illness and slow, lingering convalescence of Miss Charlotte Dempster—'my fair contributor,' as Reeve used to call her—fill the correspondence of the year. One note only, an account of Reeve's visit to Woodnorton, has a more particular interest.
To Mr. Dempster
C. O., November 23rd.—My last campaign has been in Worcestershire, where I went to see a barnful of princes and princesses in a house much more like a very wild Highland shooting quarter than an Englishman's hunting-box. However, this only made the whole party more jolly; and as the stables are very superior to the house, I shall entreat them, the next time I go, to give me a loose box instead of a bedroom. Cutbush is supposed to have slept on a dresser in the servants' hall; and a stray Frenchman who arrived one evening was laid up in the smoking-room, on a sofa.
And, according to the Journal, the year closed with—
Visits to Farnborough, Denbigh (Haslemere), and Timsbury [Ralph Dutton's, near Romsey].
Between Reeve and the Duttons there was a friendship of many years' standing, and they were there, wrote Mrs. Reeve, 'a pleasant little party of ten, only Henry has had a very bad fit of gout and could not join the shooters, or even the dinner-table some days: too provoking!' They remained at Timsbury for a week, and then:—
January 10th.—A pleasant party at Torry Hill, with Sir E. Head and Kit. Pemberton. Shooting in the snow, which was heavy.
18th.—Sir C. Eastlake was buried.
One day at a dinner party of Royal Academicians at Eastlake's, they were discussing the merits of Solomon the painter and praising him. 'Yes,' said Valentine Prinsep, 'but Solomon in all his glory is not R.A.ed like one of these.'
24th. We were invited rather late in the morning to the christening of Sir Robert and Lady Emily Peel's infant daughter, and to a banquet afterwards. Christine came down to my office at two o'clock, and we went across to Whitehall Chapel. Sir Robert stood rayonnant at the door; Lady Emily looked the picture of maternal beauty; and in the chapel we found a small but remarkable party—Duke and Duchess of Wellington, Lord and Lady Russell, the Gladstones, Lady Ely, the Dufferins, &c., about fifty in all. Lord Russell said he had never been inside that building [Footnote: Now the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution.] before. Gladstone was very cordial, and we joined our enthusiasm about the roof of the building and the Rubenses. The Queen stood Godmother.