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MARRIAGE

Next year—1870—all thoughts were to a large extent taken up with the Franco-German War. It does not seem to me that we took violent sides in the struggle. Naturally we were quite ignorant of the depths of cruelty latent in the German nature, or of the manœuvres on the part of Bismarck which had led to the declaration of war. We were fond of our sister’s French governess Mdlle. Verdure, and sorry for the terrible collapse of her country, but I think on the whole that the strongest feeling in our family was amazement at the revelation of inefficiency on the part of the French, mingled with some admiration for the completeness of German organisation. Anyhow, everyone was set to work to provide comforts for the sick and wounded on both sides—medical stores which I fancy would have been to a large extent condemned wholesale if submitted to the medical authorities during the late War, but which I am sure were very useful and acceptable in ’70–71. As is well known, that winter was an exceptionally hard one—we had fine times skating, and I remember a very pleasant visit to old Lord Bathurst at Cirencester—but it must have been terrible in Paris. Our French man-cook had some refugee sisters quartered in the neighbourhood who were employed by my mother in dressmaking work for our benefit, but I do not know whether refugees were numerous in England.

What did really excite us in common with all England were the excesses of the Commune. Never shall I forget the papers coming out with terrific headlines: “Paris in Flames—Burning of the Tuileries,” and so on. I passed the morning in floods of tears because they were “burning history,” and had to be rebuked by my mother for expressing the wish that the incendiaries could be soaked in petroleum and themselves set on fire.

The year 1871 was rendered interesting to our family by the marriages of our two Leigh uncles—Chandos, commonly known among us as “Uncle Eddy,” married an amiable and good-looking Miss Rigby, who inherited money from a (deceased) Liverpool father. Uncle Eddy was a great character. A fine, athletic man, successful in every walk of life which he entered, a good horseman, cricketer and actor, he did well at the Bar and seemed to know practically everybody and to be friends with them all. He was blessed with supreme self-confidence and appeared innocently convinced that everyone was as much interested in his affairs as he was himself. This childlike disposition was really attractive, and quite outweighed the boyish conceit which endured to the end of a long and useful life.

His love affairs with Miss Rigby were naturally very public property. I heard all about them from the beginning, and have no doubt that anyone of age to listen and capable of sympathising was similarly favoured. He originally proposed to the young lady after a few days’ acquaintance, and she turned pale and said “You have no right to speak to me in this way.” Ups and downs followed, including a consultation with planchette, which quite properly wavered and shook and spoke with an uncertain voice. This was all in 1870. Some time in January we acted a small farce which I had perpetrated called The Detective. When it was over my uncle informed me that failing his marriage he intended to leave me a thousand pounds in recognition of this play. Fortunately I founded no hopes on that thousand pounds, for I think that it was the following morning when Uncle Eddy came shouting along the top corridor where we slept. “Margaret—you’ve lost your thousand pounds!” The post had come in and the fair lady had relented.

FANNY KEMBLE

James, my father’s youngest brother, called “Uncle Jimmy,” had travelled in the United States and been entertained on her plantation in Georgia by a charming Southern lady—a Miss Butler, daughter of the descendant of an old Irish family who had married the well-known actress Fanny Kemble. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce Butler had separated—not from any wrong-doing, but from absolute incompatibility of temper. For one thing the wife took up a violent anti-slavery attitude—a little awkward when (as she must have known when she married) the husband owned a cotton plantation worked by slave labour. However, the two daughters remained on friendly terms with both parents, and Mr. Butler died during—or shortly after—the war. One daughter married a Dr. Wister and became the mother of the well-known author, Owen Wister; the younger, Frances, married my uncle and was adopted into the family as “Aunt Fanny.” Though some ten or eleven years older than myself, she and I became the greatest friends, and I much liked her somewhat erratic, though withal stately, mother, who was called “Mrs. Kemble.” Both Uncles were married (on different days) in June 1871, my sister Agnes being bridesmaid to Miss Butler and I to Miss Rigby.

Both marriages were very happy ones, though my Uncle Chandos ended his life in a dark cloud cast by the late War—in which he lost his only two sons, and his wife was killed in a motor accident not long after his death.

Since I wrote above I have found an old journal from May 18th, 1868, to November 3rd, 1869. I do not extract much from it, as it largely consists of records of the various balls and entertainments which we attended—but it is rather amusing to note what circumstances, social and otherwise, struck the fancy of a girl in her first two seasons. Politically the Irish Church Bill seems to have been the burning question. We went to part of the Debate on the Second Reading (June 17th, 1869) in the House, and I not only give a summary of Lord Salisbury’s speech, but when the Bill was carried, devote over two pages of my journal to a full description of the details of the measure. The causes célèbres of Madame Rachel, the Beauty Doctor, and of the nun, Miss Saurin, against her Mother Superior, Mrs. Starr, appear also to have been topics of conversation.

AN OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS

One visit is perhaps worth recording. My father’s mother was a Miss Willes of an old family living on the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire—regular country people. One of her brothers, Charles, was married to a certain Polly—I think she was a Miss Waller, but anyhow they were a plump, old-fashioned pair. She was supposed to keep a book in which were recorded the names of over a hundred nephews and nieces, and to sell a pig to give a present to any one of the number who married. On the last day of 1868 my brother Gilly and I went with our Aunt Georgiana to stay with this charming old couple at King-Sutton Manor House near Banbury. This is how I describe the New Year festivities of fifty years ago: “It is a queer old house like one in a storybook, full of corners. My wash-stand was in a recess with a window, separated from the rest of the room by doors so that it looked like a chapel. We had dinner between six and seven, a real Christmas dinner with nearly twenty people—great-uncle Charles, great-aunt Martha, great-aunt Sophy, George Willes, Willie Willes, Stany Waller, the clergyman Mr. Bruce, Aunt Polly herself beaming at the head of the table, turkey and beef stuck with holly, and the plum-pudding brought in, in flaming brandy. … Almost everyone seemed related to all the rest. A few more people came after dinner while we were in the drawing-room and the dining-room was being cleared for dancing. Two fiddlers and a blowing-man were then perched on a table in a corner and dancing began—quadrilles, lancers, jig, reel, and valse carried on with the utmost energy, by Aunt Polly in particular, till about half-past eleven, when muffled bells began to ring in a church close by and the dancing was stopped that we might all listen. At twelve o’clock the muffles were taken off, Aunt Polly charged with Xmas cards into the midst of her company, punch was brought in in great cups, silver, I believe; everyone kissed, shook hands, and wished everyone else a Happy New Year, the bells rang a joy-peal, and we had supper, and then began dancing again till between one and two in the morning. After many efforts Gilly succeeded in catching Aunt Polly under the misletoe and kissing her.” I do not know what a “blowing-man” may have been, but have a vivid recollection of Aunt Polly trying to dance everyone down in a perpetual jig, and of the portly figure of Uncle Charles, who had to be accommodated with two chairs at dinner.

We had other very pleasant visits—and amongst them we stayed with my uncle and aunt Wenlock for my cousin Carry Lawley’s wedding to Captain Caryl Molyneux. This marriage was particularly interesting to all the cousinhood, as it was brought about after considerable opposition. Carry was an extraordinarily pretty, lively, and attractive girl rather more than a year older than myself. She had brilliant eyes and auburn hair and was exceedingly clever and amusing. Her family naturally expected her to make a marriage which would give all her qualities a wide sphere. However, at the mature age of eleven she won the affections of Lord Sefton’s younger brother and he never fluctuated in his choice. I do not know at what exact moment he disclosed his admiration, but he contrived to make the young lady as much in love with him as he was with her. Vainly did her mother refuse consent. Carry stuck to her guns, and I believe ultimately carried her point by setting up a cough! Anyhow the parents gave in, and when they did so, accepted the position with a good grace. Somehow what was considered sufficient provision for matrimony was made and Caryl and Carry were married, on a brilliant spring day in April 1870.

A PRE-MATRIMONIAL PARTY

It was at the Wenlocks’ London house, in the following year, that I made the acquaintance of Lord Jersey. We had unknowingly met as children at an old inn on Edgehill called “The Sunrising”; at that time his parents, Lord and Lady Villiers, lived not far off at Upton House, which then belonged to Sarah, Lady Jersey. While my brother and I were playing outside, a boy with long fair hair looked out of the inn and smilingly lashed his whip at us, unconscious that it was his first salutation to his future wife! I discovered in after years that George Villiers, as he then was, used to ride over for lessons to a neighbouring clergyman and put up his pony at the inn.

At the dinner-party at Berkeley Square Lord Jersey did not take me in, and I had not the slightest idea who he was, but when the ladies left the dining-room I was laughed at for having monopolised his attention when he was intended to talk to his partner. He was reckoned exceedingly shy, and I thought no more of the matter till the following season, to which I shall return in due course.

After our return to Stoneleigh, though I do not recollect in which month (I think August), we had a large and gay party including a dance—it was distinctly a pre-matrimonial party, as three of the girls whom it included were either engaged or married before twelve months were over, though none of them to the men present. The three girls were Gwendolen (then called Gwendaline) Howard, who married Lord Bute; Maria Fox-Strangways, married to Lord Bridport’s son Captain Hood; and myself. Rather oddly, a much older man and a widower, Lord Raglan, who was also of the party, caught the matrimonial microbe and married his second wife in the ensuing autumn.

Among others my cousin and great friend Hugh Shaw-Stewart was there and immortalised our doings in verse. At Christmas time I managed to get slight congestion of the lungs and soon after went to spend some time with my kind uncle and aunt Sir Michael and Lady Octavia Shaw-Stewart at Fonthill, and Hughie, who had also suffered from chest trouble, stayed with his parents there while preparing for Oxford.

FONTHILL ABBEY

Fonthill, as is well known, belonged to the eccentric Beckford and was full of his traditions. After his death the property was divided and my grandfather Westminster bought the portion which included Beckford’s old house, of which the big tower had fallen down, and built himself a modern house lower down the hill. Another part was bought—I do not know when—by Mr. Alfred Morrison. When my grandfather Westminster died in the autumn of 1869 he left the reversion of Fonthill Abbey to Uncle Michael. Perhaps he thought that the Shaw-Stewarts should have an English as well as a Scottish home. However that might have been, Fonthill is a delightful place—and I benefited by their residence there at this time. I think that they were only to come into actual possession after my grandmother’s death—but that she lent it to them on this occasion as my aunt was delicate and it was considered that she would be the better for southern air.

The modern house was a comfortable one with good rooms, but had a peculiarity that no room opened into another, as my grandfather objected to that arrangement—dressing-rooms, for instance, though they might open into the same lobbies, might not have doors into the bedrooms.

Part of Beckford’s old house higher up the hill was preserved as a sort of museum. The story was that he insisted on continuous building, Sundays and weekdays alike. The house had a very high tower which could be seen from a hill overlooking Bath, where he ultimately went to live. Every day he used to go up the hill to look at his tower, but one morning when he ascended as usual he saw it no longer—it had fallen down. It used to be implied that this was a judgment on the Sunday labour. Also we were told that he made the still-existing avenues and drove about them at night, which gave him an uncanny reputation. Probably his authorship of that weird tale Vathek added to the mystery which surrounded him. He had accumulated among many other treasures a number of great oriental jars from the Palace of the King of Portugal, and when these were sold after his death my grandfather, to the best of my recollection, purchased three.

Mr. Morrison had secured a good many of the others, which I saw in after years when I stayed at the other Fonthill House which he had built on his part of the property. Many of the other treasures passed, as is well known, into the possession of Beckford’s daughter who married the 10th Duke of Hamilton. Alas—most of them must have been dispersed ere now!

Mr. Alfred Morrison, when I was at Fonthill with my uncle and aunt, was a subject of much interest, as it was rumoured that he wanted to emulate Beckford. I do not quite know in what way beyond trying to collect the oriental jars. He was a distinctly literary man, and was reported to have married his wife because he found her reading a Greek grammar in the train. Whether or no that was the original attraction I cannot say, but she proved a delightful and amusing person when I met her in after years. Meantime we used to hear of the beautiful horses which he sent to the meets of the local hounds, though he did not ride, and other proofs of his wealth and supposed eccentricity.

My uncle as well as my aunt being far from strong, we led a quiet though pleasant life. Hughie and I shared a taste for drawing and painting of very amateur description and Hughie used to help me with Latin verses, in which I then liked to dabble.

After my return to Stoneleigh I had yet another treat. My Uncle James and his new wife “Aunt Fanny” were kind enough to ask me to share in the spring their first trip abroad after their marriage. We went via Harwich to Rotterdam and thence for a short tour in Holland and Belgium with which I was highly delighted. The quaint canals, the cows with table-cloths on their backs, the queer Jewish quarter in Amsterdam, and still more the cathedrals and picture galleries in Belgium gave me infinite pleasure, but are too well known to describe.

Even the copyist in the Antwerp Gallery who, being armless, painted with his toes was an amusement, as much to my uncle, who loved freaks, as to myself. Ghent and Bruges were a revelation; and I was much entertained by the guide who took us up the Belfry of St. Nicholas (I think it was) at the former city and pointed triumphantly to the scenery as “bien beau, tout plat, pas de montagnes.” He shared the old Anglo-Saxon conception of Paradise.

“Nor hills nor mountains there

Stand steep, nor strong cliffs

Tower high, as here with us; nor dells nor dales,

Nor mountain-caves, risings, nor hilly chains;

Nor thereon rests aught unsmooth,

But the noble field flourishes under the skies

With delights blooming.”

In the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, over the high altar, was an image of the saint with three children in a tub. My uncle asked a priest what he was doing with the children, but all the good man could say was that “St. Nicolas aimait beaucoup les enfants,” quite ignorant of the miracle attributed to his own saint, namely, that he revived three martyred boys by putting them into a barrel of salt.

Shortly after our return to England we moved to Portman Square for the season. At a dinner-party—I believe at Lord Camperdown’s—I again met Lord Jersey, but fancied that he would have forgotten me, and subsequently ascertained that he had the same idea of my memory. So we did not speak to each other. Later on, however, my father told my mother that he had met Lord Jersey and would like him asked to dinner. The families had been friends in years gone by, but had drifted apart. My mother agreed, sent the invitation, which was accepted. In arranging how the guests were to sit I innocently remarked to my mother that it was no good counting Lord Jersey as a young man—or words to that effect—as “he would never speak to a girl”—and I was rather surprised when in the drawing-room after he came across to me and made a few remarks before the party broke up.

After this events moved rapidly for me. Jersey, unexpectedly to many people, appeared at balls at Montagu House, Northumberland House (then still existing), and Grosvenor House. Also he came to luncheon once or twice in Portman Square. He did not dance at balls, but though “sitting-out” was not then the fashion we somehow found a pretext—such as looking at illuminations—for little walks. Then Lord Tollemache drove my mother and me to a garden-party at Syon, where I well recollect returning from another “little walk” across a lawn where my mother was sitting with what appeared to me to be a gallery of aunts.

ENGAGEMENT

We went to a last ball at the Howards of Glossop in Rutland Gate, and discovering that we were about to leave London Jersey took his courage in two hands and came to Portman Square, July 18th, and all was happily settled.

I went next morning—it may have been the same evening—to tell Aunt Fanny, who was then laid up at a house not far from ours. I had been in the habit of paying her constant visits, so she had an idea of what might happen, and I found her mother, Mrs. Fanny Kemble, with her. One word was enough to enlighten my aunt, who then said, “May I tell my mother?” I assented, and she said, “This child has come to tell me of her engagement.” Whereupon Mrs. Kemble demanded, with a tragical air worthy of her aunt Mrs. Siddons, “And are you very happy, young lady?” I cheerfully answered, “Oh yes”—and she looked as if she were going to cry. My aunt said afterwards that any marriage reminded her of her own unfortunate venture. Aunt Fanny was much amused when I confided to her that finding immediate slumber difficult the first night of my engagement I secured it by attempting the longest sum which I could find in Colenso’s arithmetic. My brothers and sisters accepted the news with mixed feelings—but poor little Cordelia, who had been left at Stoneleigh, was quite upset. I wrote her a letter in which I said that Lord Jersey should be her brother and she should be bridesmaid. The nurse told me that she burst into tears on receiving it and said that he should not be her brother, and not take away Markie. She quite relented when she saw him, because she said that he had nice smooth light hair like Rowly—and as time went on, she suggested that if Aggy would only “marry or die” she should be “head girl and hear the boys their lessons.” As the youngest “boy” was seven years older than herself this may be regarded as an exceptional claim for woman’s supremacy in her family.

My future mother-in-law, Jersey’s mother, and his brothers welcomed me most kindly. As for his sisters, Lady Julia Wombwell and Lady Caroline Jenkins, I cannot say enough of their unvarying friendship and affection.

MARRIED TO LORD JERSEY

I was engaged about the middle of July, and shortly we returned to Stoneleigh. My mother was terribly busy afterwards, as my brother Gilbert came of age on the first of September and the occasion was celebrated with great festivities, including a Tenants’ Ball, when the old gateway was illuminated as it had been for the Queen’s visit. The ivy, however, had grown so rapidly in the intervening years that an iron framework had to be made outside it to hold the little lamps. There was a very large family party in the house, and naturally my affairs increased the general excitement and I shared with my brother addresses and presentations. As my mother said—it could never happen to her again to have a son come of age and a daughter married in the same month. She was to have launched the Lady Leigh lifeboat in the middle of September, but my sister was commissioned to do it instead—and we returned to Portman Square for final preparations. Like most girls under similar circumstances I lived in a whirl during those days, and my only clear recollections are signing Settlements (in happy ignorance of their contents) and weeping bitterly the night before the wedding at the idea of parting from my family, being particularly upset by my brother Dudley’s floods of fraternal tears. However, we were all fairly composed when the day—September 19th, 1872, dawned—and I was safely married by my Uncle Jimmy at St. Thomas’s Church, Orchard Street. It was not our parish, but we had a special licence as it was more convenient. My bridesmaids were my two sisters, Frances Adderley, one of the Cholmondeleys, Minna Finch (daughter of my father’s cousin Lady Aylesford), and Julia Wombwell’s eldest little girl Julia—afterwards Lady Dartrey.

When all was over and farewells and congratulations ended, Jersey and I went down for a short honeymoon at Fonthill, which my grandmother lent us. So ended a happy girlhood—so began a happy married life. I do not say that either was free from shadows, but looking back my prevailing feeling is thankfulness—and what troubles I have had have been mostly of my own making.

My father was so good—my mother so wise. One piece of advice she gave me might well be given to most young wives. “Do not think that because you have seen things done in a particular way that is the only right one.” I cannot resist ending with a few sentences from a charming letter which Aunt Fanny wrote me when I went to Stoneleigh after my engagement:

“I have thought of you unceasingly and prayed earnestly for you. I could not love you as I do, did I not believe that you were true and good and noble—and on that, more than on anything else, do I rest my faith for your future. Oh, Marky my darling child, cling to the good that is in you. Never be false to yourself. I see your little boat starting out on the sea of life, anxiously and tremblingly—for I know full well however smooth the water may be now there must come rocks in everyone’s life large enough to wreck one. Do you call to mind, dear, how you almost wished for such rocks to battle against a little time ago, wearying of the tame, even stream down which you were floating? God be with you when you do meet them.”