VISITORS AT RIVENHALL
"_A chiel's amang you takin' notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it!_"--BURNS.
Among other visitors to Rivenhall was Lieut.-Colonel Steele, of the
Lancers, a dark, handsome man, who married my sister Anna.
I remember looking at Anna consideringly when I was told this was to
be, for, as children do, I had hitherto merely regarded Anna as a
sister too "grown-up" to play with on equal terms, and yet not as a
person sufficiently interesting to be married to one of the
magnificent beings who, like Evelyn's friends, wore such beautiful
uniforms and jingly spurs. But my sister had soft brown hair and a
lovely skin, blue eyes that were mocking, gay, or tender in response
to many moods, and a very pretty figure. And I solemnly decided that
she was really pretty, and quite "grown-up" enough to be loved by the
"beautiful ones."
Anthony Trollope was a great friend of my father and mother, and used
to stay with us a good deal for hunting. He was a very hard rider to
hounds, and was a cause of great anxiety to my mother, for my sister
Anna loved an intrepid "lead" out hunting, and delighted in following
Trollope, who stuck at nothing. I used to rejoice in his "The Small
House at Allington," and go about fitting the characters in the book
to the people about {9} me--a mode of amusement that palled
considerably on the victims.
I was always glad when our young cousin George (afterwards Sir
George) Farwell (Lord Justice Farwell) came to see us. A dear lad,
who quite won my childish admiration with his courtly manners and
kind, considerate ways.
The Hon. Grantley-Barkley (who was seventy, I believe) was a dear old
man who was very fond of me--as I was of him. I was but a child when
he informed my parents that he wished to marry me when I was old
enough! He was a dear friend of my father's, but, though the latter
would not consider the matter seriously, my mother, who was an
extraordinarily sympathetic woman, encouraged the idea.
Grantley-Barkley was always called the "Deer-slayer" by his friends.
A fine old sportsman, his house, "The Hut," at Poole, Dorset, was a
veritable museum of slain beasts, and I used to shudder secretly at
the idea of becoming mistress of so many heads and horns.
The dear old man used to write long letters to me before I could
answer them in anything but laborious print, and he wrote sheets to
my mother inquiring of my welfare and the direction of my education.
I still have many of the verses he composed in my honour, and though
the last line of the verse that I insert worries me now as much as it
did when I received it, so many years ago, I still think it very
pretty sentiment:
"Then the Bird that above me is singing
Shall chase the thought that is drear,
When the soul to _her_ side it is winging
The limbs _must_ be lingering near!"
This little one-sided romance died a natural death as {10} I grew up,
my old friend continuing to take the kindest interest in me, but
accepting the fact that I was no exception to the law of youth that
calls to youth in mating.
My brother Frank suggested to my brother-in-law, Sir Thomas
Barrett-Lennard, that Willie O'Shea, who was a first-class
steeplechase rider, would no doubt, if asked, ride the horse Honesty
that Tom was going to run in the Brentwood Steeplechase. He had
already ridden and won many races. Willie readily agreed to ride,
and came to stay at Belhus for the race.
I was staying there at the time, and though I was considered too
young to be really "out," as a rule I had my share in any festivities
that were going on. I remember my brother-in-law saying casually to
my sister Emma, who was giving a dinner party that evening: "Who is
Katie to go in with, milady?" and she answered promptly, "Oh, she
shall go in with O'Shea." A mild witticism that rather ruffled my
youthful sense of importance.
My first sight of Willie then, as a grown-up, was on this evening,
when I came rather late into the hall before dressing for dinner. He
was standing near the fire, talking, with the eagerness that was not
in those days bad form in young men, of the steeplechase he had
ridden and won on Early Bird.
I had been so much the companion of older men than he that I was
pleased with his youthful looks and vivacity. His dress pleased me
also, and, though it would appear a terrible affair in the eyes of a
modern young man, it was perfectly correct then for a young officer
in the 18th Hussars, and extremely becoming to Willie: a brown velvet
coat, cut rather fully, sealskin waistcoat, black-and-white check
trousers, and an enormous carbuncle and diamond pin in his curiously
folded scarf.
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When introduced to me he was most condescending, and nettled me so
much by his kindly patronage of my youthfulness that I promptly
plunged into such a discussion of literary complexities, absorbed
from my elders and utterly undigested, and he soon subsided into a
bewildered and shocked silence.
However, in the few days of that visit we became very good friends,
and I was immensely pleased when, on parting, Willie presented me
with a really charming little poem written about my "golden hair and
witsome speech."
Of course, as usual, I flew to show my father, who, reading, sighed,
"Ah, too young for such nonsense. I want my Pippin for myself for
years to come."[1]
In the summer at Belhus I met Willie again. Unconsciously we seemed
to drift together in the long summer days. The rest of the household
intent on their own affairs, we were content to be left together to
explore the {12} cool depths of the glades, where the fallow deer ran
before us, or the kitchen garden, where the high walls were covered
with rose-coloured peaches, warm with the sun as we ate them. What
we talked about I cannot remember, but it was nothing very wise I
should imagine.
Week after week went by in our trance of contentment. I did not look
forward, but was content to exist in the languorous summer
heat--dreaming through the sunny days with Willie by my side, and
thinking not at all of the future. I suppose my elders were content
with the situation, as they must have known that such propinquity
could have but one ending.
There was a man by whom I was attracted and who had paid me
considerable attention--E.S., stationed at Purfleet. He was a fine
athlete, and used to fill me with admiration by jumping over my
pony's back without touching him at all. I sometimes thought idly of
him during these days with Willie, but was content to drift along,
until one day my sister asked me to drive over with a note of
invitation to dinner for the officers at Purfleet.
In the cool of the evening I set out, with Willie, of course, in
attendance. Willie, on arrival, sprang out of the pony cart to
deliver the note, and as he was jumping in again glanced up at the
window above us, where it happened E. S. and another officer were
standing. Without a moment's hesitation Willie leant forward and
kissed me full on the lips. Furious and crimson with the knowledge
that the men at the window had seen him kiss me, I hustled my poor
little pony home, vowing I would never speak to Willie again; but his
apologies and explanation that he had only just wanted "to show those
fellows that they must not make asses of themselves" seemed so funny
and in keeping with the dreamy sense I had of belonging {13} to
Willie that I soon forgave him, though I felt a little stab of regret
when I found that E. S. declined the invitation to dinner. He never
came again.
Willie had now to rejoin his regiment, and in the evening before his
going, as I was leaving the drawing-room, he stopped to offer me a
rose, kissing me on the face and hair as he did so.
A few mornings after I was sleeping the dreamless sleep of healthy
girlhood when I was awakened by feeling a thick letter laid on my
cheek and my mother leaning over me singing "Kathleen Mavourneen" in
her rich contralto voice. I am afraid I was decidedly cross at
having been awakened so suddenly, and, clasping my letter unopened,
again subsided into slumber.
So far nearly all my personal communication with Willie when he was
away had been carried on by telegraph, and I had not quite arrived at
knowing what to reply to the sheets of poetic prose which flowed from
his pen. Very frequently he came down just for a day to Rivenhall,
and I drove to meet him at the station with my pony-chaise. Then we
used to pass long hours at the lake fishing for pike, or talking to
my father, who was always cheered by his society.
At this time Colonel Clive, of the Grenadier Guards, was a frequent
visitor. I was really fond of him, and he pleased me by his pleasure
in hearing me sing to my own accompaniment. I spent some happy hours
in doing so for him when staying at Claridge's Hotel with my sister,
and I remember that when I knew he was coming I used to twist a blue
ribbon in my hair to please him.
Once, when staying at Claridge's, my sister and I went to his rooms
to see the sketches of a friend of my brother Evelyn's, Mr. Hozier,
the clever newspaper {14} correspondent, afterwards Sir H. Hozier,
and father of Mrs. Winston Churchill. The drawings were, I believe,
very clever, and I know the tea was delicious.
It was some time after this that the 18th Hussars were stationed at
Brighton. Willie loved early morning gallops on the Downs, and, on
one occasion, he rode off soon after daybreak on his steeplechaser,
Early Bird, for a gallop on the race-course. At the early parade
that morning Willie was missing, and, as inquiries were being made as
to his whereabouts, a trooper reported that Early Bird had just been
brought in dead lame, and bleeding profusely from a gash in the chest.
He had been found limping his way down the hill from the race-course.
Willie's brother officers immediately set out to look for him, and
found him lying unconscious some twenty yards from a chain across the
course which was covered with blood, and evidently the cause of the
mishap. They got him down to the barracks on a stretcher, and there
he lay with broken ribs and concussion of the brain.
He told us afterwards that he was going at a hard gallop, and neither
he nor Early Bird had seen the chain till they were right on it, too
late to jump. There had never been a chain up before, and he had
galloped over the same course on the previous morning.
I was at Rivenhall when I heard of the accident to Willie, and for
six unhappy weeks I did little else than watch for news of him. My
sister, Lady Barrett-Lennard, and Sir Thomas had gone to Preston
Barracks to nurse him, and as soon as it was possible they moved him
to their own house in Brighton. For six weeks he lay unconscious,
and then at last the good news came that he was better, and that they
were going to take him to Belhus to convalesce.
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A great friend of Willie's, also in the 18th--Robert Cunninghame
Graham--was invited down to keep him amused, and my sister, Mrs.
Steele, and I met them in London and went down to Belhus with them.
Willie was looking very ill, and was tenderly cared for by his friend
Graham. He was too weak to speak, but, while driving to Belhus, he
slipped a ring from his finger on to mine and pressed my hand under
cover of the rugs.
Robert Cunninghame Graham, uncle of Robert Bontine Cunninghame
Graham, the Socialist writer and traveller, walked straight into our
hearts, so gay, so careful of Willie was he, and so utterly _bon
camarade_, that we seemed to have known him for years. In a few days
Anna and I left Belhus, and Willie's father came over from Ireland to
stay with him till he was completely recovered.
Before Willie left I was back at Belhus on the occasion of a dinner
party, and was shyly glad to meet him again and at his desire to talk
to me only.
While the others were all occupied singing and talking after dinner
we sat on the yellow damask sofa, and he slipped a gold and turquoise
locket on a long gold and blue enamel chain round my neck. It was a
lovely thing, and I was very happy to know how much Willie cared for
me.
[1] Captain O'Shea's family, the O'Sheas of Limerick, were a
collateral branch of the O'Sheas of County Kerry. William O'Shea had
three sons, Henry, John and Thaddeus, of whom the first named was
Captain O'Shea's father. John went to Spain (where a branch of the
family had been settled since 1641, and become the Duges of
Sanlucas), founded a bank and prospered. Henry found the family
estate (Rich Hill) heavily mortgaged, entered the law, and by hard
work pulled the property out of bankruptcy and made a fortune. He
married Catherine Quinlan, daughter of Edward Quinlan, of Tipperary,
a Comtesse of Rome, and had two children, Captain O'Shea and Mary,
afterwards Lady of the Royal Order of Theresa of Bavaria. The
children had a cosmopolitan education, and the son went into the 18th
Hussars, a keen sporting regiment, where he spent great sums of
money. Finally, a bill for £15,000 coming in, his father told him
that his mother and sister would have to suffer if this rate of
expenditure continued. Captain O'Shea left the regiment just before
his marriage to Miss Wood. The Comtesse O'Shea was a highly educated
woman, assiduous in her practice of religion, but valetudinarian and
lacking a sense of humour. Mary O'Shea's education had left her
French in all her modes of thought and speech. Both ladies
disapproved of the engagement between Captain O'Shea and Miss Wood.
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