1870
HOME AGAIN
When I reached France it seemed as if at every corner I was to meet
old friends—all of them in difficulties—the result of an epidemic of
plunging on the Turf—very catching. At Marseilles I happened upon an old
Christ Church friend, whom I had left five years before in London, the
smartest of the smart. He was staying in the same hotel, and as I arrived
luggageless and in great discomfort, he very kindly supplied me with all
that I wanted, amongst other things with quite the most luxurious night
apparel that ever I slept in. We had a very pleasant evening together,
talking over old times, and the next morning he came to see me off at the
station. As the train was just moving, he put his head in at the window
and said, “By the bye, old fellow, when you get to London, please don’t
say you’ve seen me!”
At Paris, where I was to stay two days, my first visit was to my
colleagues at the Embassy. I asked who was in Paris. “Oh!” said they,
“—— is staying here,” and they gave me the address of a wretched little
_hôtel borgne_ in a side street off the Boulevard. I went off to see
him; it was the shabbiest house even in that shabbiest offshoot of a
brilliant neighbourhood—one of those violent contrasts which are the
essence of Paris. I rang at the bell and was looked over from head to
foot; obviously a suspicious character. However, I sent up my card, was
admitted, and joyously welcomed by my friend, who was lying in bed.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon—half an hour later than my Lord
Tomnoddy’s time for getting up. I asked the reason. His clothes were all
in pawn! I wanted to wash my hands and asked for a towel. “I’m so sorry!
I can’t lend you one; the people of the house won’t let me have any
linen for fear of my pawning it, but there is a dirty flannel shirt in
the corner—you can dry your hands on that!” I left him, carrying off his
pawn-tickets, and went off to see whether I could make up a purse among
some of our friends.
In an hour I was back with his garments liberated and a small sum of
money to go on with—twenty pounds, I remember. He was soon dressed,
as spick and span a dandy as you could meet in Bond Street, or on the
Boulevard, handsome as a picture and as gay as if he had not a care in
the world.
We went out to see another friend (not in difficulties) and I wanted to
turn down the Rue Laffitte. Impossible!—there was a bootmaker there who
would pounce upon him and make a scandal. So it was with several streets
and several trades. At last we reached the flower-market outside the
Madeleine. That was worst of all, for there was “an infernal old woman
there whose fortune he had made by inventing a button-hole, and she would
scratch his eyes out if he did not settle her wicked bill.” We parted in
the Champs Elysées.
That night poor Greville Sartoris and I were going to see Pasca, the
actress who was all the rage at the moment, and we dined first at the
Café Anglais. When we got there whom should we see but my impecunious
friend, beautifully got up, with a rosebud in his buttonhole, finishing
a delicate little dinner with a _salade d’ananas_ and a pint of Perrier
Jouet. When Georges, the waiter, came up with his bill, he said, “Tenez,
Georges, il y a longtemps que je ne vous ai rien donné,” and gave
him five napoleons, telling him to keep the change. I could not help
exclaiming at this. “Ah! my dear fellow,” said he, “you don’t begin to
know how to live on nothing at all. Those five napoleons will enable me
to lunch and dine here for a month on credit!” And with that he opened
his crush hat and went off to dazzle somebody else besides Georges and us.
My friend’s career had been remarkable. He was very handsome, very
clever, and was successful in his profession; but he threw it up and
preferred following the fortunes of the King of the Plungers. There was
a short period of success, on the strength of which he mounted a little
house in a very expensive street, engaged a first-rate cook, and gave
choice dinners. That did not last long—there came a crisis, a crash, and
an escape into that dingy disreputable hostelry off the Boulevard.
The King of the Plungers was Harry Hastings—the last Marquis—who was my
fag at Eton. He was an attractive little boy, and I think that everybody
liked him; but his ideas when he grew up were on too large a scale. He
had no health, and by burning the candle at both ends, and in the middle,
sealed his own fate.
Old Lord Wilton told me that when Hastings was Master of Hounds once the
hounds came to a check and some of them were straying; he called out to
him: “Blow your horn, Harry, blow your horn!” “That’s all very well, Lord
Wilton,” he replied, “but if I blow my horn I shall be sick!” That did
not suit the grand old horseman, one of the finest riders I ever saw, who
once at Melton, when the field was stopped by a gate, came up behind,
calling out: “I’ve got the key, gentlemen!” They all made a lane for him,
and “the wicked Earl” as he was affectionately called, cantered up and
flew over the gate like a bird.
Harry Hastings was not without a certain cleverness, and the ring knew
it. Steel, the famous bookmaker of those days, was once heard to grumble
as Hastings left him, after some transaction at the rails at Ascot: “Ah!
my lord, Heaven’s been very gracious to you, for you look a fool and you
ain’t one!”
* * * * *
The next day I was in London. I wonder whether other men feel the same
shyness about coming home that I have always done, especially after
having been a long time away in some remote country where everything is
strange and topsy-turvy, as different from England as is the tinkling
of a _samishen_ or _koto_ from the sonorous art of Bach or Beethoven.
Then again, even an attaché is in his small way a person of some
little consideration abroad, but Ambassadors, Governors, Ministers
Plenipotentiary themselves, as soon as they reach London, are whirled
like straws in the maelstrom, and count as little. Lord Dufferin gave
the best and wittiest expression to this shrinkage of greatness when he
said: “Twenty-five minutes of Pall Mall are enough to take the conceit
even out of a Viceroy of India!”
Then think of the poor little attaché whose sleigh at a place like St.
Petersburg (Petrograd from henceforth) has taken precedence of those of
all the magnates in the land, and forgive him if for a moment he thought
himself Somebody—pity him when he awakes from his dream and realizes that
he is Nobody!
But the strangest feeling of all was the wonder as to how I should be
received by those whose welcome had been looked to with such loving
anticipation, and such timorous anxiety. I felt like a sort of pale and
faded version of the prodigal son. I need have been under no fear. My
father’s old servant, the faithful friend of a quarter of a century,
met me at the station. The tears were in his good, old, kind eyes. My
father was waiting for me at Hobart Place, and in half an hour my dear
old cousin, Lord Redesdale, in spite of a sharp attack of gout, came in
to shake me by the hand. It did not take long to make me feel as if I had
never strayed away from home. Peking, Mongolia, Japan, the revolution,
faded like shadows of dreamland. There were more grey hairs in my
father’s head, a few coming in my own—otherwise little change. The Great
Reaper had been merciful, for of those nearest and dearest to me the
scythe of death had spared almost all.
I lost no time in reporting myself at the Foreign Office, where I found
very few changes. Mr. Hammond was as kind as ever, and said many pleasant
things to me about the work that I had done in the East, for he was
always generous in his appreciation of any endeavour on the part of his
subordinates. What pleased me very much was that I was to have a year’s
leave. I had been a good deal knocked up by the strenuous life of the
last two years in Japan, and my old friend, Dr. Quain, had commanded a
rest, so the idea of a long holiday was very welcome—the more so as I was
getting ready my “Tales of Old Japan” for the press, a formidable first
plunge into the world of letters. Lord Clarendon, who was then Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, hearing that I was in the office, sent for
me and kept me with him for some time, talking over the intricacies
of the Japanese revolution, and bade me go and see him in Grosvenor
Crescent. My own colleagues were to the full as gracious as the big men,
so I had no reason to complain of my first visit to the Foreign Office.
Altogether I felt that I had come back to a kind and generous world, and
when I went into certain drawing-rooms with the same arm-chairs, the same
curtains, and the same Sèvres vases on the chimney-pieces as of yore, I
hardly needed the cordial greeting to assure me that I was as much at
home there as I had been five long years ago.
By no one was I made more welcome than by Mrs. Sartoris (Adelaide
Kemble). She was a very old friend of ours, and I had known her from
my boyhood. Her house was a gathering-place for all that was most
distinguished in Letters and Art. Her dinners were perfection—never more
than eight or ten—for her dining-room was small, and she knew better
than to crowd her guests. She was now no longer young, but so witty, so
full of pleasant memories, and one of the best leaders of talk that I
ever knew. Of an evening she would be surrounded by such men as Charles
Dickens, Matthew Arnold, Leighton, while Sir Charles Hallé would sit down
at her piano and accompany Joachim or Madame Norman Neruda, the great
artists playing just for the love of music and of her. The society was
very catholic, for she was equally beloved of the stately dames who were
the law-givers of the great world. She herself would sometimes sing some
song of Gounod or Alary; her voice had grown rather thin, but the way in
which she told the story of her song was exquisite.
I used to go most afternoons to tea in Park Place, just for the pleasure
of hearing her talk. She had little patience with the affectations of
the modern æsthetes then just coming into vogue. I remember once at
the Monday Popular Concerts one of those young men coming up to her
and saying: “Oh! Mrs. Sartoris, did you notice that divine diminished
seventh?” “My dear boy,” was the answer, “don’t talk nonsense—a
diminished seventh is mere grammar. You might as well rave about the
divinity of an ablative absolute in a poem.”
She told us one day that as she had been hunting, as was her wont in the
old shops in Wardour Street, a man, obviously a foreigner, followed her
rather offensively. At last she turned round upon him and lifting her
veil, said: “Il paraît que monsieur est amateur d’antiquités.” The man
fled before the grand severe face. She had the beautiful features and
the solemn expression of the Kemble family, reminding one of the great
portrait of her aunt, Mrs. Siddons. When she was in a serious mood it
was the countenance of a sibyl. It was a loss indeed when she, smitten
by the unbearable grief of her son’s tragic death, thrown by his horse
larking over a hurdle, sought refuge in solitude and silence. People even
now delight in her “Week in a French Country House”—a description of life
in the château of the Marquis de L’Aigle, who married Mrs. Sartoris’
sister-in-law. It was a dainty book illustrated by Leighton, but for
myself I even preferred her “Past Hours.” Those who never knew her may
there see the reflection of her brilliant talk; but nothing can give the
effect of her words as she uttered them, her eager face lighted up by the
fire of her fine imagination.
She had the greatest horror of evil-speaking and slandering. I was
present once when somebody told an ugly story about a young married
couple. She turned upon the speaker with withering scorn, and her eyes
flashed as she said: “Why can’t you leave them alone? If you must abuse
somebody abuse us old people. Don’t help to destroy any chance that the
young ones may have of being happy. Besides, how do you know that you are
not lending a hand in spreading a lie?” And so she crushed the pedlar of
scandal, who had to carry his pack elsewhere.
I cannot remember whether her description of the violoncellist—a sly hit
at her friend, the famous Piatti—who “bore his cross meekly in a world
too much peopled with amateurs,” has ever been printed; even so it is
worth repeating. One evening there was a discussion as to the relative
advantages of married and unmarried life. She remained silent until a
great friend of hers—an old bachelor—stuck up stoutly for the freedom
of the unmarried. Then very softly she said: “Poor fellow! with nothing
better to go home to than a flat candlestick!”
One night towards the end of May I was at the theatre with Charles
Dickens and old Lady Molesworth. Just we three in a private box. Between
the acts we had great fun. Dickens was in high spirits, brim-full of
the _joie de vivre_. His talk had all the sparkle of champagne, and he
himself kept laughing at the majesty of his own absurdities, as one droll
thought followed another. He was not always in such a vein, for if he
thought he was being lionized he would sit mumchance; but he really liked
the old lady and of course I did not count; so he was at his ease and at
his very best, so bright, so merry and—like his books—so human.
During the evening Lady Molesworth insisted on his naming a night to
go and dine with her. The date was fixed and on the following day the
invitations came out for a day in June. Alas! That dinner never came off,
for on the 9th of June, two or three days before the night agreed upon,
the whole English-speaking world was stricken with grief. Dickens was
lying dead at his beloved Gad’s Hill. It seemed impossible. He had been
so brilliant that night. He was only fifty-eight years of age, twenty
years younger than I am at this time of writing, and though we knew that
he suffered terribly from exhaustion after his readings, which seemed
to sap all his energy, undermined as it had been by the strain of many
troubles, added to hard and incessant work, he was at times still so
young and almost boyish in his gaiety that it was an unspeakable shock.
Those murderous readings which killed him were enthralling. Never shall I
forget the effect produced by his reading of the death of Steerforth; it
was tragedy itself, and when he closed the book and his voice ceased the
audience for a moment seemed paralysed, and one could almost hear a sigh
of relief.
Had he, as he was once minded to do, taken up acting as a profession he
would have been as famous as Garrick. Would the gaiety of nations have
been as darkly eclipsed as it was when he died and “Edwin Drood” remained
a mystery?
Lady Molesworth was a great figure-head in London society. At her house
were to be met all the prominent personages in the great world, from the
Prince of Wales downwards, and there was always a goodly leaven of Art
and Literature. She had herself been a singer in early life, and was very
kind to young and struggling professional musicians. When she married Sir
William Molesworth she was the widow of Mr. Temple West, and it was her
influence which converted Sir William, a mathematician, philosopher, and
as much a recluse as a Parliamentarian and Secretary of State could be,
into a man of the world. Their dinners under her auspices became famous,
and when he died his last injunction to her was said upon her authority
to have been “Keep up the little dinners.” He left his place in Cornwall,
Pencarrow, to her for her lifetime, and in her hospitality there and
in Eaton Place she liberally and loyally carried out his behests. The
“little dinners” did more to keep the dead philosopher’s memory green
than his great edition of “Hobbes” in sixteen volumes.
* * * * *
Here I may say a word about the early days of the Marlborough Club.
The Prince of Wales was above all things a man of the most social habits;
the companionship of congenial friends was a necessity to him; he was
essentially what Dr. Johnson called a clubable man, and so there came
a moment when he felt the need of a club where he might go and play a
rubber and smoke a cigar with his intimates without formality, as the
spirit moved him. He made inquiries as to what club would best suit
his purpose. White’s, then the smartest club in London, was suggested.
Would he be free to smoke where he pleased? The old curled dandies of
the terrible bay window, to walk below which was a terror to the young
and innocent, said No!—there must be no smoking except in the appointed
place. To them tobacco was as great an abomination as Ashtaroth to the
Sidonians. That sealed the fate of White’s.
There was a freehold plot of land opposite Marlborough House. The site
was bought, the house was built, and the Prince founded the club, himself
becoming President. I was not an original member, for I was in the Far
East when it was opened in the late autumn of 1869, but I was elected in
the following May, immediately on my return home. Lord Tweeddale, then
Lord Walden, was Chairman of the Committee, of which I became a member
in 1871. At Lord Tweeddale’s death in 1878 Lord Colville of Culross was
elected chairman, and when he died in 1902 I received the following
letter from the secretary of the club.
“July 16th, 1902.
“MY LORD,
“I have the honour to inform you that at a special meeting of
the General Committee held this afternoon your lordship was
unanimously elected chairman of the committee for the ensuing
year, and that you were proposed for the office by His Majesty
the King, seconded by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
“I have, etc.,
(Signed) C. H. STONE,
“Secretary.”
I may be perhaps forgiven for recording an honour which is unique in club
life. From that year to the present (1915) I have been re-elected every
year.
From 1869 until the time when, after his accession, His Majesty removed
to Buckingham Palace the Marlborough Club was King Edward’s favourite
haunt. It was so convenient. He was able to cross over from Marlborough
House with his gentleman-in-waiting, or, on his return from the opera
or the play, to send away his carriage and walk home. When he took
possession of the Palace it was less handy for him; he had to keep a
carriage and servants which made a difficulty, and so the club saw
less of him. But he continued—as, indeed, does King George—to take the
greatest interest in its welfare, nothing being done without its being
submitted to him, and once a year to the end, on his return from abroad,
he did me the honour of dining with me there.
The hours in the old days of the club were very late. The Prince never
seemed to know what fatigue meant. He would sit playing whist or writing
letters—he was a most punctual and voluminous correspondent—till any
hour. Often a party of us would stream into St. James’s Street in the
grey dawn, to be distributed by hansom cabs in various directions, and
sleep out the morning, cross if any mischance should awaken us. He, on
the contrary, would often be off by the first train, radiant with health
and strength and good humour, to attend some distant function, where he
would shine as if he had spent the whole night in bed; for with him
pleasure was never allowed to interfere with duty. After about 1880 he
became more prudent and more conscious of the necessity of sparing a
certain amount of time for sleep. Even then he did much work late at
night.
American bowls were much the fashion in those days and the ground floor
of the club was turned into a bowling alley, which has now been parcelled
off into two billiard rooms. A good many of us regretted the noisy old
alley which was a meeting-place for the happy little crowd that laughed
there every night, none gayer, none more bright, none more instinct with
the joy of life than the brilliant young Prince himself. Such was the
Marlborough Club in the seventies. Downstairs skittles, fun and frolic;
upstairs whist and the seriousness of the catacombs. Hartington, James
Clay, Batchelor, St. Albans, Owen Williams and others, all as solemn as
schoolmasters; the Prince himself leading the gravity up above as he had
been leading the gaiety below, and playing a capital rubber. There are
very few of the old set left and as one of the survivors wrote to me the
other day, upon the death of another, “the leaves are falling fast.”
One afternoon—it was 1872, but I prefer to tell the story here—I was all
alone in the club when Sleeman, the then steward of the club, came into
the room surcharged with importance and told me that the Emperor of the
French, who was a member, was down below, and asked permission to bring
in the Duc de Bassano, who was his Lord Chamberlain. It was his first
visit and I ran down to receive him, took him upstairs, and established
him in an arm-chair with the evening paper. After a while he called me
up and began questioning me as to my profession and the various posts at
which I had been. We had a long talk, for he had to kill time waiting for
his train.
Louis Napoléon, whose faculty of silence is a matter of history, was,
when he chose, a very agreeable talker, and his conversation was pointed
by a certain dry, sardonic humour accentuated by his rather saturnine
appearance. He was looking miserably ill, his face ashen grey, and his
lack-lustre eyes significant of the pain by which, for years, he had been
tortured; his figure was bowed and aged—obviously a man waging an unequal
war with disease. He talked a good deal about the missionary question
in China and Corea, upon which he was thoroughly well posted, and he
also spoke with a great deal of feeling about the murder of his men, the
sailors of the _Dupleix_, in 1868. After half an hour’s talk with him I
understood the charm which he exercised over men and women when he chose
to do so. I also understood that when Kinglake fired all the arrows of
bitterness at him there could be but one cause—a woman.
* * * * *
To go back to the year 1870. There was a great performance of the
_Barbiere_ with Mario as Almaviva. I happened to be in the stage-box;
Mario saw me, gave me a little friendly sign of greeting and welcome
home. To my surprise who should come into the box between the acts but
the Prince of Wales. He began talking in his old friendly way, very
anxious to hear all about the Duke of Edinburgh’s reception in Japan,
and bade me to dinner, _en petit comité_, on the following Sunday. It
was a delightful little party of about ten people in the small upstairs
dining-room—quite without ceremony.
The season of 1870 was brilliant. London was at its gayest. But London
might dine, flock to the play or the opera, and dance to the strains of
Strauss’s famous waltz, “An der schönen blauen Donau,” then a novelty;
but trouble was brewing, the dogs of war were straining at their leashes,
though men knew it not; and at the very moment when there was the most
need for his services the pilot was torn from the helm—Lord Clarendon
died.