I was told of a terrible rebuff Wolseley brought upon himself on an occasion when he took Madame Melba down to dinner, not having, most unfortunately, caught her name when presented. He neglected her at table and devoted himself to a charming lady on his other side, whom he knew well. After a time he asked—as was rather his habit—too loudly, "Who is my other neighbour?" "Surely you know Madame Melba," was the answer. "Only heard of her: never met her before: did not catch her name: when I brought her down she conveyed nothing to me." At last he turned to the great songstress and addressed some casual remark to her. Melba quietly asked: "To whom am I speaking?" He answered: "General Wolseley," and received the reply: "I am afraid the name conveys nothing to me." I hope Dame Nellie Melba will forgive me for repeating the story.
Writing of Wolseley reminds me of another, his comrade, Sir Redvers Buller, for years, with Lady Audrey, our friend and neighbour. Buller was a man of unflinching courage and dogged bravery: it was said that he had won his Victoria Cross three times over.
He invited me to join a congratulatory dinner party to be given by him, at a military club, in honour of Wolseley having been made a Field-Marshal. All the guests turned up except Wolseley, who had received a late summons from Windsor, commanding him to dine at the Castle, as Her Majesty wished to present the bâton to him in person on that very evening.
A long spell of years has passed since my wife and I were guests at what was then Thomas's Hotel, in Berkeley Square, now converted into flats, and met Evelyn Wood when he was about thirty, having already won the V.C. in the Indian Mutiny, after beginning his adventurous career as a midshipman and being wounded in the Crimea. We lost sight of him for a long while, and he must have become a Field-Marshal when he dined with us, as he often did, until increasing deafness made him cautious of accepting such invitations. He amused us once by threatening to recite the Lord's Prayer in an alarming number of languages if provoked.
Another Field-Marshal and V.C. whom we knew was the hero of Ladysmith, Sir George White. I met him first on board a P. & O. steamer when he was Governor of Gibraltar. We walked many a mile together on the deck of the Arabia. Both he and Lady White were very kind to me when I landed from his launch for a short stay on the Rock, and enabled me to be present at a memorial service for the Duke of Cambridge. When his own time came White was Governor of Chelsea Hospital. His body was taken across London, for burial in his native Ireland, to such a tribute of affection and regard from his comrades and the people as is rarely given.
I first knew the popular old soldier and father of the charming Lady Burnham and Lady Somerleyton, Sir Henry de Bathe, in the early days of my membership of the Garrick, and was so struck by his appearance that I did my best to suggest it in a part I played soon afterwards—I suppose with a measure of success, for when I stepped upon the stage Lady de Bathe (now the Dowager, still, happily, strong and well), who was seated in the stalls, exclaimed audibly, "Why, it's Henry!"
My wife was so impressed by a dramatic story the old general told of his Crimean days, that she often repeated it.
A convict from Eton
One evening, in the severe winter time, it was de Bathe's duty to direct the clearing of the dead and wounded after a deadly encounter with the enemy, the brunt of which had been borne by men drawn from the French convict settlements, who were thrust into the hottest places when trying work had to be done. The searching party came across one poor fellow who was grievously wounded but still alive: de Bathe had him placed upon a stretcher, lifted his head, and poured brandy into the soldier's mouth. The man took his hand and pressed it, murmuring in English, "Thank you, de Bathe." Thunderstruck, he stooped down and asked how a Frenchman knew his name and could also speak such perfect English. The wounded man smiled and whispered, "Eton!" as he fainted; de Bathe accompanied the stretcher to the French lines, saying that he would return as soon as his duty would allow him. He did so, but the man was dead; de Bathe lifted the sheet from his face and gazed upon it earnestly without recognising the lost creature, once his school companion, then known only as a French convict with a fictitious name.
I remember being once so fortunate, when the old general dined with me, as to place him between Sir William Howard Russell, the war correspondent, and Dion Boucicault, the dramatist, and to learn that all three of them in boyhood's days had been at the same school together in Dublin.