Читать книгу Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life - Countess of Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers Jersey - Страница 8

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EARLY MARRIED LIFE

It is more difficult to write at all consecutively of my married life than of my girlhood, as I have less by which I can date its episodes and more years to traverse—but I must record what I can in such order as can be contrived.

We did not stay long at Fonthill, and after a night or two in London came straight to our Oxfordshire home—Middleton Park.

My husband’s grandfather and father had both died in the same month (October 1859) when he was a boy of fourteen. He was called “Grandison” for the three weeks which intervened between their deaths, having been George Villiers before, so when he returned again to Eton after his father died, the boys said that he came back each time with a fresh name. His grandmother, however, the well-known Sarah, Lady Jersey, continued to reign at Middleton, for the largest share of the family fortune belonged to her as heiress of her grandfather Mr. Child—and, I suppose, in recognition of all he had enjoyed of hers, her husband left her the use of the Welsh property and she alone had the means to keep up Middleton. She was very fond of my husband, but when she died, soon after he came of age and inherited the place, he did not care to make many changes, and though his mother paid lengthened visits she had never really been mistress of the house. Therefore I seemed to have come straight upon the traces of a bygone generation. Even the china boxes on my dressing-table and the blotters on the writing-tables were much as Lady Jersey had left them—and there were bits of needlework and letters in the drawers which brought her personally vividly before me. The fear and awe of her seemed to overhang the village, and the children were still supposed to go to the Infant School at two years old because she had thought it a suitable age. She had been great at education, had built or arranged schools in the various villages belonging to her, and had endowed a small training school for servants in connection with a Girls’ School at Middleton. Naturally the care of that school and other similar matters fell to my province, and I sometimes felt, as I am sure other young women must have done under similar circumstances, that a good deal of wisdom was expected from me at an age which I should have considered hardly sufficient for a second housemaid. Some of the schools of that date must have been quaint enough. An old lame woman still had charge of the Infant School at the neighbouring hamlet of Caulcot, whom we soon moved into the Almshouses. In after years one of her former pupils told me that she was very good at teaching them Scripture and a little reading, but there was no question of writing. If the old lady had occasion to write a letter on her own account she used a knitting-needle as a pen while my informant held the paper steady. If a child was naughty she made him or her stand crouched under the table as a punishment. She never put on a dress unless she knew that Lady Jersey was at the Park, and then, she being crippled with rheumatism, her pupil had to stand on a chair to fasten it up, lest the great lady should pay a surprise visit.

LORD JERSEY’S MOTHER

Sarah, Lady Jersey, had a great dislike to any cutting down or even lopping of trees. She had done much towards enlarging and planting the Park, and doubtless trees were to her precious children. Therefore the agent and woodmen, who realised the necessity of a certain amount of judicious thinning, used to wait until she had taken periodical drives of inspection amongst the woods, and then exercised some discretion in their operations, trusting to trees having branched out afresh or to her having forgotten their exact condition before she came again.

In one school, Somerton, I was amused to find a printed copy of regulations for the conduct of the children, including injunctions never to forget their benefactress. But she was really exceedingly good to the poor people on the property and thoughtful as to their individual requirements. One old woman near her other place, Upton, told me how she had heard of her death soon after receiving a present from her, and added, “I thought she went straight to heaven for sending me that petticoat!” Also she built good cottages for the villagers before the practice was as universal as it became later on. The only drawback was that she would at times insist on the building being carried on irrespective of the weather, with the result that they were not always as dry as they should have been.

Lady Jersey was well known in the world, admired for her beauty and lively conversation, and no doubt often flattered for her wealth, but she left a good record of charity and duties fulfilled in her own home.

As for her beautiful daughter Lady Clementina, she was locally regarded as an angel, and I have heard that when she died the villagers resented her having been buried next to her grandmother, Frances Lady Jersey, as they thought her much too good to lie next to the lady who had won the fleeting affections of George IV.

I soon found home and occupation at Middleton, but I confess that after being accustomed to a large and cheerful family I found the days and particularly the autumn evenings rather lonely when my husband was out hunting, a sport to which he was much addicted in those days. However, we had several visitors of his family and mine, and went to Stoneleigh for Christmas, which was a great delight to me.

Soon after we went abroad, as it was thought desirable after my chest attack of the previous winter that I should not spend all the cold weather in England. We spent some time at Cannes, and I fancy that it really did my husband at least as much good as myself—anyhow he found that it suited him so well that we returned on various occasions.

Sir Robert Gerard was then a great promoter of parties to the Ile Ste Marguerite and elsewhere, and the Duc de Vallombrosa and the Duchesse de Luynes helped to make things lively.

IN LONDON

I will not, however, dwell on scenes well known to so many people, and only say that after a short excursion to Genoa and Turin we returned in the early spring, or at the end of winter, to superintend a good deal of work which was then being done to renovate some of the rooms at Middleton. At the beginning of May we moved to 7 Norfolk Crescent—a house which we had taken from Mr. Charles Fane of Child’s Bank—and my eldest son was born there on June 2nd, 1873. He had come into the world unduly soon—before he was expected—and inconveniently selected Whit Monday when the shops were shut and we were unable to supply certain deficiencies in the preparations. Nevertheless he was extremely welcome, and though very small on his arrival he soon made up for whatever he lacked in size, and, as everyone who knows him will testify, he is certainly of stature sufficient to please the most exacting.

THE LIBRARY, MIDDLETON PARK.

MIDDLETON PARK.

From photographs by the present Countess of Jersey.

My mother-in-law and her second husband, Mr. Brandling, were among our frequent visitors. Mr. Brandling had a long beard and a loud voice, and a way of flinging open the doors into the dining-room when he came in in the morning which was distinctly startling. Apart from these peculiarities he did not leave much mark in the world. He was very fond of reading, and I used to suggest to him that he might occupy himself in reviewing books, but I do not think that he had much power of concentration. My mother-in-law was tactful with him, but he had a decided temper, especially when he played whist. As I did not play, this did not affect me.

My younger sister-in-law, Caroline, and I were great friends. She had married Mr. Jenkins, who was well known as a sportsman and an amiable, genial man. His chief claim to fame, apart from his knowledge of horses and their training, was an expedition which he had made to avenge his sister’s death in Abyssinia. His sister had married a Mr. Powell and she and her husband had been murdered by natives when travelling in that country. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Powell’s brother went to Egypt, collected followers, went into the territory where the murder had taken place, burned the village which sheltered the aggressors, and had the chief culprits handed over to them for execution. It was said that the fact that a couple of Englishmen would not leave their relatives’ death unavenged produced more effect than the whole Abyssinian expedition.