OFFICIAL LIFE--THE EAST
In 1880 my husband was offered the post of Adjutant-General at Plymouth,
and thither we went in time, with the pretty little infant Elizabeth
Frances, who came to fill the place of the sister who was gone. There
three more of our children were born.
I took up “Scotland for Ever!” again, and in the bright light of our
house on the Hoe, with never a brown fog to hinder me, and with any
amount of grey army horses as models, I finished that work. It was
exhibited alone. It is quite unnecessary to burden my readers with the
reason of this. I was very sorry, as I expected rather a bright effect
with all those white and grey galloping _hippogriffes_ bounding out of
the Academy walls. There was a law suit in question, and there let the
matter rest. Messrs. Hildesheimer bought the copyright from me, and the
picture I sold, later on, to a private purchaser, who has presented it
to the city of Leeds. By a happy chance I had a supply of very brilliant
Spanish white (_blanco de plata_) for those horses, and though I have
ever since used the finest _blanc d’argent_, made in Paris, I don’t
think the Spanish white has a rival. Perhaps its maker took the secret
with her to the Elysian Fields. It was an old widow of Seville.
On May 11th of that year our beloved father died, comforted with the
heartening rites of the Church. He had been received not long before the
end.
Life at “pleasant Plymouth” was very interesting in its way, and the
charm of the West Country found in me the heartiest appreciation. But
the climate is relaxing, and conducive to lotus eating. One seems to
live in a mental Devonshire cream of pleasant days spent in excursions
on land and water, trips up the many lovely rivers, or across the
beautiful Sound to various picnic rendezvous on the coast. There was
much festivity: balls in the winter and long excursions in summer,
frequently to the wilds of Dartmoor. Particularly pleasant were the
receptions at Government House under the auspices of the
Pakenhams--perfect hosts--and at the Admiralty, with its very
distinguished host and hostess, Sir Houston and Lady Stewart. Over
Dartmoor there spread the charm of the unbounded hospitality of the
Mortimer Colliers, who lived on the verge of the moor, and this was a
thing ever to be fondly remembered. No pleasanter house could offer one
a welcome than “Foxhams,” and how hearty a welcome that always was!
Riding was our principal pleasure. I never spent more enjoyable days in
the saddle elsewhere. My husband and I had a riding tour through
Cornwall--just the thing I liked most. But he was from time to time
called away. To Egypt in 1882, for Tel-el-Kebir; twice to Canada, the
second time on Government business; and in 1884 to the great Gordon
Relief Expedition, that terrible tragedy, made possible by the maddening
delays at home. I illustrated the book he wrote[9] on that colossal
enterprise, so wantonly turned into failure from quite feasible success.
My next picture was on a smaller scale than its predecessors, and was
exhibited at the Academy in 1882. The Boer War, with its terrible Majuba
Hill disaster, had attracted all our sorrowful attention the year before
to South Africa, and I chose the attack on Laing’s Nek for my subject.
The two Eton boys whom I show, Elwes and Monck, went forward (Elwes to
his death) with the cry of “_Floreat Etona!_” and I gave the picture
those words for its title.
Yet another Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Mansion House, in honour of the
Royal Academicians, saw me late in 1881 a guest once more in those
gilded halls, this time by my husband’s side. He responded for the Army,
and joined Arts and Arms in a bright little speech, composed
_impromptu_. “We were a highly honoured couple,” I read in the Diary,
“and very glad that we came up. We must have sat at that festive board
over three hours. The music all through was exceedingly good and,
indeed, so was the fare. The homely tone of civic hospitality is so
characteristic, dressed as it is with gold and silver magnificence,
rivalling that of Royalty itself! One of the waiters tried to press me
to have a second helping of whitebait by whispering in my ear the
seductive words, ‘_Devilled_, ma’am.’ It was a fiery edition of the
former recipe. I resisted.”
The departure of my husband with Lord Wolseley (then Sir Garnet) and
Staff for Egypt on August 5th, 1882, to suppress poor old Arabi and his
“rebels” was the most trying to me of all the many partings, because of
its dramatic setting. One bears up well on a crowded railway platform,
but when it comes to watching a ship putting off to sea, as I did that
time at Liverpool, to the sound of farewell cheering and “Auld Lang
Syne,” one would sooner read of its pathos than suffer it in person.
Soldiers’ wives in war time have to feel the sickening sensation on
waking some morning when news of a fight is expected of saying to
themselves, “I may be a widow.” Not only have I gone through that, but
have had a second period of trial with two sons under fire in the World
War.
I gave a long period of my precious time to making preparations for a
large picture representing Wolseley and his Staff reaching the bridge
across the canal at the close of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, followed by
his Staff, wherein figured my husband. The latter had not been very
enthusiastic about the subject. To beat those poor _fellaheen_ soldiers
was not a matter for exultation, he said; and he told me that the
capture of Arabi’s earthworks had been like “going through brown paper.”
He thought the theme unworthy, and hoped I would drop the idea. But I
wouldn’t; and, seeing me bent on it, he did all he could to help me to
realise the scene I had chosen. Lord Wolseley gave me a fidgety sitting
at their house in London, his wife trying to keep him quiet on her knee
like a good boy. I had crowds of Highlanders to represent, and went in
for the minutest rendering of the equipment then in use. Well, I never
was so long over a work. Depend upon it, if you do not “see” the thing
vividly before you begin, but have to build it up as you go along, the
picture will not be one of your best. Nor was this one! It was exhibited
in the Academy of 1885, and had a moderate success. It was well
engraved.
In the September of 1884 my husband left for the Gordon Expedition,
having finished his work of getting boats ready for the cataracts, boats
to carry the whole Army. In the following June he came home on leave,
well in health, in spite of rending wear and tear, but deeply hurt at
the failure of what might have been one of the greatest campaigns in
modern history. How he had urged and urged, and fumed at the delays! He
told me the campaign was lost _three times over_. Gordon was simply
sacrificed to ineptitude in high quarters at home. In this connection, I
ask, can praise be too great for the British rank and file who did
_their_ best in this unparalleled effort? You saw Lifeguardsmen plying
their oars in the boats, oars they had never handled before this call;
marines mounted on camels--more than “horse-marines,” as a camel in his
movements is five horses rolled into one; everything he was called upon
to do the British soldier did to the best of his capacity.
We spent most of my husband’s precious leave in Glencar. What better
haven to come to from the feverish toil on river and in desert, ending
in bitter disappointment? We went to Court functions, also. How these
functions amused me, and how I revelled in their colour, in their
variety of types brought together, all these guests in national uniform
or costume. And I must be allowed to add how proud I was of my
six-foot-two soldier in all his splendour. The Queen’s aide-de-camp
uniform, which he wore at the time of which I am writing, till he was
promoted major-general, was particularly well designed, both for “dress”
and “undress.” I frankly own I loved these Court receptions. No, I was
never bored by them, I am thankful to say; and I don’t believe any woman
is who has the luck to go there, whatever she may say.