At luncheon the Duchess asked for the key of the wine cellar, at which the Duke expressed surprise and curiosity. He was reproached for his inquisitiveness, but was not at the time enlightened as to the object for which the keys were wanted.
It appeared later on at dinner that the Duchess had been visiting a curate at some eight miles distance, who was ill, and had been recommended port wine. This, out of his meagre income, he would be unable, she said, to afford.
"With eighty pounds a year and five children, how," she asked, "can he drink port wine and eat new-laid eggs?"—which the doctor had also recommended. She had herself, therefore, driven over in the afternoon through the pouring rain to take them to him.
After lunch we had more shooting, the weather being now a trifle better. We got home in good time for dinner, and in the evening played at billiards. The Duke is an infinitely better player than I am; but by a series of flukes I got ahead of him, and at last found myself within two points of the game, and with the balls so left that it was most difficult for me to avoid making a final cannon. I saw, however, from the expression of the Duchess's countenance, that she had set her heart upon her husband's defeating me; and I must now confess that if I succeeded in not making that cannon, so difficult to miss, I did so simply out of regard for Her Royal Highness's feelings. The Duchess during the game acted as marker.
It was the Duchess's birthday, and in the course of the evening a courier from Russia, who had been anxiously expected all day, arrived with innumerable presents of jewellery. To these offerings the Duchess paid little or no attention. All she cared for was a letter she was awaiting from her father, and, on receiving it, she was soon absorbed in the perusal of its contents.
A few months afterwards, when the Duchess was present at a performance of Fidelio given at Her Majesty's Opera, I had a new proof of Her Royal Highness's musical knowledge and of her delicate ear. She arrived before the beginning of the overture, and brought with her two huge orchestral scores. The Duchess sat on the floor of the box reading one of them, and turning of course very rapidly over the leaves during the stretto of the "Leonora" overture. Suddenly she noticed an uncertain note from the second horn, and exclaimed, as if to set the musician right, "B flat!" After the act I asked Sir Michael Costa whether something did not go wrong with one of the horns. "Yes," he said, "but only a person with a very fine ear could have perceived it." I repeated to Her Royal Highness Costa's remark precisely as he had made it.
I opened my season again at Drury Lane early in 1876; but the lessee, Mr. Chatterton, who had been secretly treating with Salvini, did not think it right that in the great national theatre under his control I should be making so much money out of Shakespeare. The only contract I could now get from him had practically the effect of excluding Salvini, and this was really the beginning of Chatterton's ruin. Although I was to pay him the same amount of rental he insisted on retaining the Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturday mornings for himself. I had therefore to rent another theatre wherein to place Salvini. Mr. Chatterton brought over another Italian tragedian, Signor Rossi, and put him to perform at Drury Lane in opposition to Salvini, whom I had to present at the Queen's Theatre in Long Acre. The consequence was that both of us dropped money, and Mr. Chatterton's losses during that time were, I believe, considerable.
To my Opera Company I had added M. Faure, while retaining all the favourites of the previous year, including Titiens, Trebelli, Nilsson, &c.; Sir Michael Costa remaining as conductor.
At the close of 1876 I again visited the provinces, beginning my usual Italian Opera season at Dublin, with Mdlle. Titiens, who had returned fresh from her American triumphs, supported by Marie Roze, Valleria, Ilma de Murska, Emma Abbot, Trebelli, etc., etc. The tour was indeed a most prosperous one, and it terminated towards the latter part of the December of that year.
Early in 1877, when I applied for the renewal of my lease of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Mr. Chatterton showed much ill-will, which I attributed to his jealousy at my previous success with Salvini, and to my having declined to allow him to engage the Italian tragedian on his own account. He insisted that I should have the theatre but three days a week, and then only from ten in the morning till twelve at night. Not only was I precluded from using the theatre on the other days, but I was to finish my performance always by midnight and then hand him the key. As my rehearsals invariably have to take place on the "off days," when there is no opera, I should have been prevented by this arrangement from rehearsing at all. In fact, I found nothing but impossible clauses and conditions in the contract now offered.