Richard notices a lunch at "dear old Larking's, aged eighty-five," who sheltered him when going to Mecca; and that we had a very pleasant dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Labouchere at Twickenham, and Richard dined with the "Odd Volumes;" also a delightful lunch with G. A. Sala, and one pleasant party at the Dowager Lady Stanley's of Alderley.
We saw a good deal of Count Téleki, who was starting on his African travels, and we had a pleasant lunch with Mrs. (now Lady) Jeune.
On return we went to Wardour, where there had been a great storm; some big oaks had been torn up in the pheasant copse near the Castle, a shepherd's hut had been lifted up and dashed to pieces, and a ploughshare had been blown along. We came in for an amusing village dance. Thence we went to Bournemouth for two days, where we met a good number of friends, dining with Sir Richard and Lady Glyn; then to Eastbourne to see an old friend of my girlhood, the Comtesse de Noailles, where we met Captain Jephson, who afterwards went with Mr. Stanley to Africa.
Lord Iddesleigh was now our Chief at the Foreign Office, and both he and Lady Iddesleigh were extremely kind to us, and we had a delightful dinner at their house.
My father's dear old home was quite empty, and before the keys were given up, Richard and I went all over it on the 18th of September, and took a solemn leave of it. On the 27th of September Richard had his last (independent) jolly night with his men-friends. He dined at Boodle's to meet Prince Salms, and then he went to Mr. Deutsch's, and he came home at half-past one, having had a very agreeable evening, but it was for the last time in that kind of way. We had a dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Ashbee's to say good-bye to Count Téleki before going to Africa, and I gave him a talisman.
On the 6th of October we went to hear Mr. Heron Allen's lecture on palmistry at the Vestry Hall, Hampstead.
His Third Bad Attack of Gout without Danger.
Richard had been having little attacks of gout off and on—bad one day, and better and well within two days—and had been plying up and down between Oxford and London. On the 19th of October I had a cab at the door to take me to Liverpool Street to go on a visit to my convent in Essex, but most fortunately, before I stepped into it, a telegram was put into my hands, saying, "Gout in both feet; come directly;" so I started for Oxford there and then, arriving in one hour and a half after I received the telegram. I found him quite helpless, not being able to put either foot to the ground, and very feverish and restless. It was a misty, muggy day, and there was thunder and lightning, and buckets of rain all that day and night till twelve o'clock the following day. The morning after my arrival I ambulanced him up to town, everything being prearranged by telegraph, and Dr. Foakes, his gout doctor, to meet us at our lodgings.
This was his third bad attack of gout since 1883—eight months, three months—and this time he was in bed several weeks. All his friends used to come and sit with him; amongst others, I remember Lord Stanley of Alderley, Mr. James Cotton of the Academy, St Clair Baddeley, Mr. Arbuthnot, Miss Bird, J. H. McCarthy, junior, Mr. Anderson the author, African traveller, and discoverer of the third movement of the Earth, used to come and amuse him.
On the 10th of November, 1886, the first volume of my "Nights" came out.