Old Lady Holland at one time held a sort of “court” at Holland House. Owing to her elopement, as may well be understood, she was never received at St. James’s; nevertheless, she was made a great deal of by the leading ladies of the Whig party, who used to crowd to her evening receptions, and her youthful escapade was in latter years almost totally forgotten or overlooked. I well remember being taken to see her, and, on the occasion of these visits, though imbued with great awe, I did not find her the terrible old woman of whose sternness I had heard so much; she was, as a matter of fact, very nice to me. The old Duchess of Cleveland used, very amusingly, to tell how, as a girl, she once paid a visit to Holland House, and was treated with the greatest sternness by its mistress, who cross-examined her (so she would declare) exactly as if she had come straight out of a charity school, and expressed the strongest disapproval on learning that her young visitor was allowed a sitting-room as well as a bedroom in her father’s house. “I think it the greatest of mistakes,” said Lady Holland, “to allow girls so many luxuries—unless you marry well you will feel the difference.” In after-years the Minerva of Holland House sent a message to the Duchess to come and see her “as an old acquaintance,” but the latter, mindful of the snubs she had received as a young girl, bluntly refused to go. To me, as I have said, Lady Holland was most affable; my sister and myself, however, it should be added, had gone to see her at her special request, my brother being just engaged to marry Lady Holland’s grand-daughter, Miss Pellew, whose mother, Harriet, was the daughter born of her first marriage with Sir Godfrey Webster. In order to prevent her child from being claimed by its father after her divorce, Lady Webster, as Lady Holland then was, had caused it to be hidden away; she then pretended it was dead, and actually had a funeral service performed over the body of a kid, after which Harriet Webster returned to her mother’s house as an adopted child. The sham burial is alluded to by Byron, who wrote:—
Have you heard what a lady in Italy did,
When to spite a cross husband she buried a kid?
Many were the stories of her dictatorial ways and passion for interfering with and upsetting everybody. At times, indeed, she was positively insolent. She was declared, for instance, on one occasion when a very shy young man was sitting next her at dinner, to have plunged her hand into his pocket, drawn out his handkerchief, and, with a sniff of disgust, given it to the servant behind her chair, with the words, “Take that to the wash!” In Count D’Orsay, however, Lady Holland met her match, for, seated next him at dinner during the early days of his residence in England, she kept letting her napkin slip from her lap, expecting that the awestruck young foreigner would continue to keep picking it up, as a commanding motion of the hand on each occasion directly indicated. Polite at first, he soon wearied of what he discerned to be no accident but a mere piece of impertinence, which was effectually checked by the words, “Should I not do better, Madam, to sit under the table in order to keep passing you your napkin more quickly?” Lady Holland’s passage-of-arms with the Belgian minister, M. Van de Weyer, is probably better known. With characteristic bad taste she jeered him about the Belgians, saying, “Les Belges! Qu’est ce que les Belges? I never heard of them.” “Madam,” was his grave reply, “it was some one called Julius Cæsar, a pretty clever fellow, as you may have heard, who called them by that name.”
HOLLAND HOUSE
Lady Holland could not brook the slightest opposition to her wishes, and would ever attempt to overcome any obstacles which might stand in the way of her will. On one occasion, whilst at Tunbridge Wells, she heard that no stranger was ever allowed to visit Eridge Castle—which, I believe, up to my cousin’s father’s day was actually the case. Accordingly, she never rested till she obtained leave to inspect it, and when this was accorded, marched through the place in triumph with a large party, in which her maid was even included. Her behaviour, indeed, even when staying at other people’s houses, was dictatorial in the extreme. Once, when at Brocket on a self-given invitation to a party with old Lord Melbourne, she completely upset the household and installed herself exactly as if she were at home. Her room, as it happened, chanced to be on the first floor, the windows completely surrounded by the magnificent flowers of a splendid magnolia. Lady Holland, however, did not appreciate their scent, which, as she afterwards casually told Lord Melbourne, was too strong; and, without asking permission, ordered every blossom to be cut off within twenty-four hours of her arrival.
In spite of these very unlovable traits of character old Lady Holland, I believe, had many good points, the chief of which was that she never bore malice against those who refused to submit to her iron rule. Indeed, the contrary rather was the case, and those who firmly stood up to her in no way fell into her bad graces. A staunch and faithful friend, she was long remembered with gratitude and regret by those who had known her well, and, in spite of all her faults and her dictatorial ways, she contrived to make Holland House the resort of the most cultivated, learned, and clever society of her day.
Although Lady Holland did not owe her position as presiding genius at Holland House to any especial distinction as a brilliant conversationalist or wit, she occasionally made some very trenchant and clever criticisms. Of two old people (a devoted couple who, it was notorious, had been lovers for many years whilst the wife’s first husband was yet alive) she said: “Is it not pretty to watch them—they almost make adultery respectable!”
Lord Holland—a mere cypher in the household—was a man of great geniality and charm, and no doubt this largely contributed to the attraction of his wife’s parties. He, poor man, would as soon have thought of asking any one to dinner without first consulting her as of attempting to fly. This, perhaps, was no bad thing, for he was so good-natured that had he been allowed to invite people as the fancy seized him, Holland House would have been perpetually suffering from a very invasion; as it was, the dinners there were far too crowded, many of the guests having to find places at a side-table. Lady Holland, who liked to do out-of-the-way things, very often chose to dine about two hours earlier than any one else, alleging her weak health as an excuse, but, as Talleyrand said, there was probably another reason—to upset everybody; this she loved to do, not from caprice, but in order to show her power.
Wielding great social influence, though of a totally different kind from that exercised by Lady Holland, Lady Palmerston is still remembered by those who knew her as the most admirable hostess possible to conceive. At Cambridge House in old days she used to give the most charming parties imaginable—indeed, I liked them best of all those which I remember. There is no doubt that her tact and her advice were often of great political service to her husband.