Chorus:
"Coffee and tea,
Coffee and tea,
Finest of Mocha and best of Bohea;
"Coffee and tea,
Coffee and tea,
Those are the liquors for Dilke and for me."'] while George
Trevelyan was in private most agreeable.'
This social isolation, if it severed Sir Charles from some acquaintances, restored to him a friend, Miss Katherine Sheil, who was living in Sloane Street with Miss Louisa Courtenay, a near neighbour and old friend of Charles Dilke. Both Miss Sheil's parents were dead. Her father, who died when she was a baby, had been a Captain in the 89th Foot; her mother came of an old Devonshire family, the Wises. Although she and Sir Charles had been close friends for about three years, their friendship had broken down.
For a long time we avoided one another, and I was only forgiven when the attacks on me in November, 1871, and the Bolton riot led to an expression of sympathy on her part. Miss Courtenay, who knew us both extremely well, … said: "A very suitable marriage. You are neither of you in love with one another, but you will get on admirably together." Miss Courtenay was, perhaps, at this time not far wrong. I had a profound respect for Miss Sheil's talent and a high admiration of her charm and beauty, and I think she had more liking than love for me. We both of us had a horror of the ordinary forms of wedding ceremonies, and we told only five persons in all-my great-uncle, who came up to town for the wedding, and was present at it; my brother, who was in Russia; my grandmother, who kept house for me, and who was present at it; George Trevelyan, [Footnote: 'On January 14th I announced to him my intended marriage with Miss Sheil, which was a profound secret… but our walks did not come to an end with my wedding a fortnight later.' Sir Charles's marriage to Miss Sheil took place January 30th, 1872.] and Kitty's maid.'
[Illustration: LADY DILKE (MISS KATHERINE SHEIL)
From a photograph by Hills and Saunders]
'We did not go far away till Easter. Castelar [Footnote: 'Easter, 1870, I spent in Spain. I made the acquaintance of Castelar, then Professor of Political Economy in the University of Madrid, and probably the first orator in the world—a little man, though not so small as Thiers, or my other orator friend, Louis Blanc.'] sent over a friend to ask me to go to stay with him in Spain, but when I had been in Paris at the end of '71, I had found myself watched by the French police, doubtless under the impression that I was helping the English Comtists under Harrison in supplying English passports to the Communards in hiding to help them to leave France; and I objected to return to the Continent till this spy system was at an end.' [Footnote: "Kinglake, dining with Thiers at the close of the Franco- German War—the sole Englishman at a dinner to Deputies of the Extreme Left—tells how 'among the servants there was a sort of reasoning process as to my identity, ending in the conclusion, "il doit être Sir Dilke."' Soon the inference was treated as a fact, and in due sequence came newspaper paragraphs declaring that the British Ambassador had gravely remonstrated with the President for inviting Sir Charles Dilke to his table. Then followed articles defending the course taken by the President, and so for some time the ball was kept up. The remonstrance of the Ambassador was a myth; Lord Lyons was a friend of Sir Charles, but the latter was suspect at the time, both in England and France—in England for his speeches and motion on the Civil List; in France because, with Frederic Harrison, he had helped to get some of the French Communards away from France, and the French Government was watching him with spies" (A. W. Kinglake: a Biographical and Literary Study, by the Rev. W. Tuckwell, p. 114).]
This assurance was procured for him by his friend Louis Blanc from Casimir-Périer, then Minister of the Interior, who wrote by the hand of his son, afterwards President of the Republic.
'Before I could leave London, I had to meet my constituents, which I did with complete success, and to stand the fire of my enemies by bringing forward in the House of Commons, on the earliest day that I could obtain, a motion on which I should be able to repeat the statements of my Newcastle speech, that they might be answered if any answer could be given.
'I had a rival in this project, a member who had given notice in the
previous session for a Committee to inquire into the Civil List,
George Dixon, known at that time in connection with the Education
League.'
But as the day, March 19th, approached, Mr. Dixon wrote to Sir Charles—