Sir Charles's bedroom above was the old nursery, connected with his mother's room, in which he was born, and out of which opened a little room where as a child he slept. His memories of that room were the terrors of a nervous boy, lying alone in the dark, creeping downstairs to sit—a tiny white-robed figure—as near as possible to the drawing-room door, to get comfort from the hum of talk or thunder of the four-handed piano pieces of the period.
His own room for many years was full of drawings by his second wife—her studies under Mulready, her drawings for her Renaissance, and other pen-and-ink sketches by her hand, as well as two miniatures of her by Pollet. Some of Frank Dicey's Thames water-colours, one showing Sir Charles's river house at Dockett Eddy, and sketches from his own pen or brush made in his Russian, American, and world-wide wanderings, were here also. In a tiny glazed bookcase by the fire were some 'favourite books,' a volume or two of Kipling, two volumes of Anatole France, next to a cookery book of 1600, Renan's Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse, and a volume of Aubanel. The place of honour was given to a deeply scored copy of Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove.
Beside his great-uncle's Peninsular medal and clasps hung one of Roty's medals, a present from the artist. There were several of Roty's beautiful medallions in the house, the finest one of Sir Charles himself, explained by the legend on the back as 'done for his wife.' She had it made, and it was always with her.
There were a good many of W. E. F. Britten's pictures, painted for Sir Charles; the finest was that of 'St. Francis preaching to the Birds,' a thing of delicate colour and taste, which fitted with his love of the Umbrian Holy Land and went later to the country cottage at Pyrford. There was more force in a large crayon drawing of the Earl of Southampton in the Tower: 'his cat had just arrived down the chimney, probably saving his master's reason by relief of the intolerable tension of lonely confinement.'
The painted cats, or Miss Chaplin's modelled pussies, of which there were many, were seldom without some magnificent living representative at 76, Sloane Street. Zulu, an enormous dark long-haired cat, was very popular; but the last of the 'Head Cats,' Calino, was so engaging that, at his death about 1908, Sir Charles decided that he should never be replaced. The sway of these cats was despotic, but there were occasions on which their own territory was too limited for them, and messages would come from far down the street demanding the removal of the reigning favourite from some article of furniture where it had ensconced itself with such majesty that a show of violence was out of the question. Among his precious books was a cat story—privately printed and bound—which his second wife had gradually evolved among the wonderful essays in story-telling with which, when he was jaded, she diverted him. This held so large a share in his affection that it nearly displaced his little French copy of the Contes de Perrault, containing the adventures of the Marquis of Carabas and Puss in Boots. At the winter cottage at Pyrford, among the pines, was a cattery, where Persian tailless cats, some ginger and some white, were bred. A list of names was kept ready for them, and Babettes, Papillons, Pierrots and Pierrettes, Mistigrises and Beelzebubs, were distributed to friends and acquaintances. Among the treasured pathetic scraps kept in his father's desk, his executors found a pencil drawing by his wife, the closed window of a silent house, into which the perfectly sketched figure of a little kitten was trying to enter.
In the gracious setting of this house the pervading atmosphere was that of work. The three generations of Dilkes whom it had sheltered had each found the sphere for which he was best fitted, and pursued it tirelessly. The grandfather, beloved old scholar and critic; the father, indefatigable organizer of international exhibitions, horticulturist, newspaper proprietor, member of Parliament—both passed on the traditions of strenuous labour to the great Parliamentarian who was now the occupant of the house. He had absorbed those traditions and far outvied his predecessors, working day and night, bringing down from his bedroom almost illegible memoranda to be deciphered by his secretary in the morning.
From 1880 to 1885 his accession to public office had intensified the work. Messengers with official boxes waited in the hall; callers on political or electoral business, to be interviewed by him or his secretaries, filled the Blue and Red Rooms. After the morning's fencing he passed rapidly from letters to interviews till the Office or the House of Commons claimed him, and his faithful coachman, Charles Grant, who when he died in 1901 had served his master for thirty years, waited for him at the door. Yet with all this the house continued, as in his father's day, to be noted for its hospitality, and the lists of guests in the tattered diaries bear witness to the enormous and varied circle of Sir Charles's friends. Here met foreign diplomatists and artists, English statesmen, and men of letters. Even Cardinal Manning broke his rule against dining out, as 'yours is a Cabinet dinner,' to come to 76, Sloane Street; but as he met M. de Franqueville, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, and the friend whom the Cardinal designated to be his biographer, the future author of France, J. E. C. Bodley, there must have been talk of other subjects than 'Housing of the Poor.' Indeed, absence of 'shop' seems to have been one of the charms of these dinners, and Mr. G. W. Osborn, the Chairman of the Chelsea Liberal Association, records that, even when the local leaders met there, some outside element was always introduced which made the talk general.
On another occasion Sir Charles notes: 'July 9th, 1884. On this day Cardinal Manning dined with me, and gave me, in return for a Spanish crucifix with which I had presented him, a miniature of "our patron, St. Charles,"' which now, he adds, '(1891 and 1903) hangs in my bedroom. Manning and H. von Bismarck met at my table—I think for the first time.'
His first invitation to Mr. Gladstone, of October 26th, 1882, was to meet the Duc de Broglie: 'the leader of the Conservative party in France is at this moment a sufficiently interesting figure for me to think you may like to come to meet him, if you are not engaged.'
Such social life, like the morning's rapid turn with the foils or the Sunday afternoon on the river, helped to save him from breakdown under a strain of work persistently intense. Another quality which saved him was his power of turning at once and completely from one occupation to another.