The Queen had decided to have some private theatricals and tableaux vivants, organised at Osborne during the Empress’s stay there, and on the evening the performance was given a few notabilities in the neighbourhood and some of the officers of the Royal Yacht had the honour of being invited. The day before the entertainment took place I received a sudden order to go to Osborne, and on arriving there was told that one of the dramatis personæ had suddenly been taken ill, and that I was to take that gentleman’s place. Mercifully there were no words to learn, and I only had to dress up and form one of the representants of the various pictures. The three most elaborate displays, with which the performance ended, were a series of large set-pieces representing Twelfth Night (in a general and not a Shakespearean sense), Queen Berengaria interceding with King Edward for the Burghers of Calais, and the Garden Scene from Faust. All these pictures were very beautifully “dressed,” and the great Mr. Clarkson arrived from London to make up the faces of the performers and arrange their wigs. In “Twelfth Night,” Princess Louise Marchioness of Lorne, Princess Henry of Battenberg, Lady Feodor Gleichen, and one or two other ladies were amongst the revellers, to say nothing of more than an equal number of men. This one I saw from the front, and though very pretty, I remember thinking it was a little crowded. In the next I took a part, and so can give no opinion upon it. Princess Louise again was in the Tableau, and made a very beautiful Queen Berengaria; the late Sir Henry Ponsonby, in a magnificent suit of armour from Windsor, was the King; Lord Stamfordham, then Colonel Arthur Bigge, was one of the Burghers; Colonel Sir H. Legge, then Captain Harry Legge, and I were amongst the knights in attendance, and Mr. Victor Biddulph, who died quite recently, wonderfully made up as to tonsure, was the attendant priest.
In the Garden Scene from Faust, Princess Beatrice took the part of Marguerite, with Lady Southampton as Martha; Harry Legge was Mephistopheles, whilst I, in my capacity as an understudy, had to represent Faust. I am afraid that this tableau was not altogether a success, for as soon as the curtain went up, I heard the Empress Eugenie, who was naturally seated next to the Queen, ask in a very audible voice, “Mais, qui est, donc, ce petit Faust?” The unfortunate “petit Faust” in question shook to such an extent with suppressed laughter that the whole stage quivered, and the picture in general could only be described as wobbly.
After the performance there was a great supper for the dramatis personæ and the guests in general, and I am bound to say that, though I went to Osborne with considerable trepidation, I finished up by spending an extremely agreeable evening.
A week or two later, at the end of August, the Queen left for Balmoral, and the following week I was promoted to the rank of Commander.
And so, in September 1890, after about twenty years’ service as boy and man, I became, for quite a considerable time, a free agent, as a Commander on the munificent half-pay of eight shillings per diem,—and a very pleasant time it was. In the spring of 1892 I had been fortunate enough to be elected a member of the Turf Club,—in those days, to my mind, much the most agreeable Club in London. The Turf Club was then, perhaps, at its very best. Socially it was extremely pleasant, the majority of the members being principally engaged in amusing themselves. All the best of the racing men belonged to it, and nearly all the men prominent in sport of all kinds made it a place of rendezvous, whilst in addition, it was much patronised by the leading Foreign Diplomatists, and our own Politicians of the best sort. A good deal of whist was played there, and nothing was more usual than to cut into a rubber where the other players might well be a Foreign Ambassador, some notable Politician, and the youngest-joined Guardsman, so altogether it was eminently many-sided. Though, from its name, most people had an idea that no conversation ever took place there except on the one topic of racing, nothing was further from the fact. When such men as the late Duke of Devonshire, Lord Russell of Killowen, and Lord James of Hereford (to mention only a very few) were constantly,—indeed almost daily,—to be met there, it was pretty obvious that there were other interests as well as racing connected with the Club, and that it was something more than merely a place for idle men of fashion. In those times it was a very late establishment, for, on most nights, returning from balls and parties, a number of us would put in there for an hour or so before going to bed.
Another very delightful Club that had just been established, though one of a very different nature, was the unfortunately short-lived Amphitryon Club in Albemarle Street. It was started by a number of well-known men, prominent amongst whom were the late Lord Randolph Churchill, the Marquis de Soveral, and the present Lord Chaplin. Though on the lines of the best sort of French Café, it was a Club to the extent that there was a small entrance fee and subscription, and a ballot for members. The Maître d’Hôtel, one Emile Aoust, had been at Bignon’s and thoroughly understood how to provide his clients with the best of everything. As well as the restaurant downstairs, there were several apartments upstairs, where large and small private dinner parties could be given, and had it only been really well managed it might have lasted for ever. Unfortunately Emile, though he thoroughly understood food, knew nothing about finance, and after about five years of existence the Club had not much to show except debts. Consequently the establishment had to be wound up, and a grievous pity it was. It was a delightful place for dinners or luncheons, and, moreover, members were allowed to entertain ladies there for meals, so it was an enormous convenience for the real Londoner. The worst of Emile’s system was that his prices were rather too varied. The regular habitués were not at all badly treated, for, though it was very expensive, the best food is very expensive, so there was not much to complain of; but occasionally, when dealing with members who did not understand his ways, his prices were really rather remarkable. I remember that he succeeded in losing the custom of a very good client by charging him sixteen shillings for a solitary baked apple. No doubt the apple was the very best of its sort, but even then, it was rather more than any man could stand who might happen to notice this detail, half-way down the long bill for a dinner for some eight or ten guests. However, with all his faults, Emile was a real artist, and I am by no means the only one of his old customers who constantly deplores the fact that he is no longer with us, and that the Amphitryon Club is a thing of the past.
Whilst on the subject of London Clubs, it was about this time that I was fortunate enough to survive the ordeal by ballot and be elected a member of the Beefsteak Club. The activities of that charming little establishment have been terribly hampered by the paternal legislation rendered necessary by the war, but when I first joined, it used to begin to fill at a much later hour than that at which it now empties itself, in these supperless times. In the past it had been essentially a Night Club, the Annual General Meeting being held about midnight, that being the sort of hour when the majority of members used to arrive. Perhaps it was at its gayest and best when, after a first performance at some popular theatre, the “first-nighters” used to flock in to discuss the new play that had just been produced, and join up with the members who had remained on after dinner. I can hardly remember any place where I have heard such “good talk” as I have there, and “good talk” of the most varied kind, ranging from frank Bohemianism to the political history of England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The sort of typical gathering that occurs to my memory when still at our old home, where the new portion of Charing Cross Hospital now stands, would be composed somewhat as follows; and though many of them have joined the great majority, I am sure that they are not forgotten by their old Club-mates. To give them the names by which they were best known:—Archie Wortley, the principal founder of the Club; the “Pelican,” the name to which Pellegrini was expected to answer; Arthur Blunt; Corney Grain; the “Beetle,” otherwise Harry Kemble; Johnny Giffard; that most delightful of men, Joe Knight, then dramatic critic of the Morning Post, and also a great bibliophile; and Joe Comyns Carr, perhaps the wittiest of them all. These have all passed away, but amongst the habitués of the early ’nineties there are still left such men as Willie Elliot, Harry Higgins, Cecil Clay, Marshall Hall, and one or two others. I forget exactly when we moved into our new premises in Green Street, Leicester Square, but it must have been a good many years ago, and I do not know that the “talk” in the new house is not as good as it was in the former one, when the survivors of the old gang are reinforced by Leonard Courtney, John Scott Montagu (now Lord Montagu of Beaulieu), Seymour Hicks, Perceval Landon, Charles Whibley, and, until his death, the deeply regretted Harry Cust, perhaps the most brilliant man in England.
Another popular personage in London Society who died recently and was a great frequenter of the Beefsteak was the late Count Benckendorff, for many years Russian Ambassador in London. He did not often leave London, and there was hardly a night that he did not come in for an hour or so for a cigar and a chat before going to bed. He was always a very kind friend to me, and I knew him pretty well. He made himself extremely agreeable at the Club, and besides being a wonderful linguist (he really spoke English like an Englishman), he was a mine of information about every sort of subject, and I am convinced would have taken “full marks” for any “English History Examination Paper,” if he ever saw such a thing. Outside his own family, I am sure that in no coterie was his death more sincerely mourned than in that, composed of the members of the Beefsteak Club.
In the course of that winter I managed to get a little hunting. Lord Manners, who had married one of my cousins, a Miss Hamlyn Fane,[3] had been lately Master of the Quorn, and was then living at Cold Overton, the well-known Leicestershire hunting-box. With the aid of a few hirelings and the kindness of my host I succeeded in condensing a good deal of sport into the ten days’ visit. It was at Cold Overton that I first made the acquaintance of the present Mrs. Asquith, then Miss Margot Tennant, who was hunting from there for the season. Our host always hacked to the meet, and used to place a dog-cart at the disposal of Miss Margot and myself. With such a companion the long drive to the various meets which we attended formed quite an agreeable part of the day’s sport. In those days Miss Margot Tennant was as brilliant a performer over the country as she was a conversationalist, and her very numerous friends will, I am sure, fully endorse this statement.
My half-pay time came to an end in the spring of 1891, when I joined the Staff of the Naval Intelligence Department. This Department was quite new, and Captain Cyprian Bridge, my old Commander of the Audacious, the then Director, was only the second to hold the appointment, the first holder of that office having been Captain Hall. Curiously enough his son, Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, M.P., was one of the most conspicuous successes of the late war when in charge of that same Department. So completely civilian-ridden was the old Whitehall building then, that this very important Department was looked upon as a part of the Civil Service of the Admiralty, in spite of the fact that its Director was either an Admiral, or a very senior Captain, who had working under him two more Captains as Assistant-Directors, four Commanders as Naval Staff, and four Marine Officers as Marine Staff. When I went there first, I expected to find the work extremely interesting; but, as in all other offices, it soon turned out that it mainly consisted in a sort of regular routine. Indeed, during the two years which I spent there, I can only remember three or four really illuminating jobs which came my way. Towards the end of my time there, my particular business was to look after the Navies of France and Russia, as regards ships in commission and reserve, and building programmes. This entailed a great deal of reading of French newspapers and magazines, but with Russian literature I could not cope, and everything had to be translated for me. Lord Fisher was then on the Board as a Rear-Admiral, and in that capacity I suppose had to assist in the preparation of the Estimates. I remember being told to supply their Lordships with a statement of the combined strength of the Navies of France and Russia, against which had to be shown, ship by ship, our own Navy. I was given the hint that, the object being to wring more money for more ships out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I was to make out as formidable a list as I could of our then possible enemies. Naturally, I did as I was told, and no old lame duck was too obsolete to be trotted out for the occasion. Personally I was convinced that the device was too transparent to deceive a child, let alone such an old political hand as was Sir William Harcourt, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. To my secret delight, my precious report came back with the Chancellor’s own annotations on it, and very much to the point they were. I felt that with all the knowledge of those Fleets that I had at the moment, I could not have made a better selection of the obsolete and useless vessels than did the Chancellor with his blue pencil.