Mrs. Curzon's parents visited her every summer, and her father bought for her the London residence, Number One Carlton House Terrace, the first in a row of twenty-two handsome houses with a colonnade of marble pillars, overlooking St. James Park, one of the most exclusive localities in London.
Mary Victoria Leiter
(Baroness Curzon of Kedleston)
From photograph by Miss Alice Hughes
In close companionship and absolute sympathy with a statesman whose life promised greatness, in the full enjoyment of a social existence in which the grace and strength of her personality had already made themselves felt, happily placed in all her relations to life, it would have seemed, in consideration of the youth of both herself and her husband, that for the time being at least their measure of good fortune was well filled. In the summer of 1898, however, Mr. Curzon was offered the greatest gift of the British government, the Governor-Generalship of India. Until Mr. Balfour's authoritative announcement of the fact in the House of Commons many people had discredited the rumor on the ground that such an office had never been offered to a Commoner.
In India, which Mr. Curzon had visited frequently and where he had already become thoroughly known through his writings, the news of his nomination was received with entire satisfaction. In London it excited unusual interest.
In addition to more or less lengthy editorial comment, every journal reviewed his strikingly brilliant career, and in enumerating his unusual advantages through which he might hope for success in the discharge of the duties of the high office he had accepted, his American wife was ranked among the first. It was regarded as a happy circumstance that such a woman should partake of the glories and responsibilities of his position.
According to an old English statute, a man who is duly elected to the House of Commons may not resign his seat. It may be vacated only by death, expulsion, legal disqualifications, or by accepting an office from the crown. As soon as Mr. Curzon was nominated to succeed Lord Elgin, whose term as Governor-General of India still had several months to run, in order to enable him to sever his connection with the Parliament, he received from the queen the appointment of High Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
The office, however, is merely honorary, and was retained only until he was officially proclaimed governor-general. His seat in Parliament at the election following his withdrawal was carried by the Liberal candidate, the late Sir Herbert Naylor-Leyland, whose wife, another beautiful American, Miss Jennie Chamberlain, of Cleveland, had played much the same part in his campaign as Mrs. Curzon, under similar circumstances, had taken in that of her husband.