MEMBLAND
To mention any of the other people of the outside world at once brings
me to Membland, because the outside world was intimately connected with
that place. Membland was a large, square, Jacobean house, white brick,
green shutters and ivy, with some modern gabled rough-cast additions and
a tower, about twelve miles from Plymouth and ten miles from the station
Ivy Bridge.
On the north side of the house there was a gravel yard, on the south side
a long, sweeping, sloping lawn, then a ha-ha, a field beyond this and
rookery which was called the Grove.
When you went through the front hall you came into a large billiard-room
in which there was a staircase leading to a gallery going round the room
and to the bedrooms. The billiard-room was high and there were no rooms
over the billiard-room proper—but beyond the billiard-table the room
extended into a lower section, culminating in a semicircle of windows in
which there was a large double writing-table.
Later, under the staircase, there was an organ, and the pipes of the
great organ were on the wall.
There was a drawing-room full of chintz chairs, books, potpourri, a grand
pianoforte, and two writing-tables; a dining-room looking south; a floor
of guests’ rooms; a bachelors’ passage in the wing; a schoolroom on the
ground floor looking north, with a little dark room full of rubbish next
to it, which was called the _Cabinet Noir_, and where we were sent when
we were naughty; and a nursery floor over the guests’ rooms.
From the northern side of the house you could see the hills of Dartmoor.
In the west there was a mass of tall trees, Scotch firs, stone-pines, and
ashes.
There was a large kitchen garden at some distance from the house on a
hill and enclosed by walls.
Our routine of life was much the same as it was in London, except that
the children had breakfast in the schoolroom at nine, as the grown-ups
did not have breakfast till later.
Then came lessons, a walk, or play in the garden, further lessons,
luncheon at two, a walk or an expedition, lessons from five till six, and
then tea and games or reading aloud afterwards. One of the chief items
of lessons was the _Dictée_, in which we all took part, and even Everard
from Eton used to come and join in this sometimes.
Elizabeth won a kind of inglorious glory one day by making thirteen
mistakes in her _dictée_, which was the record—a record never beaten by
any one of us before or since; and the words _treize fautes_ used often
to be hurled at her head in moments of stress.
After tea Chérie used to read out books to the girls, and I was allowed
to listen, although I was supposed to be too young to understand, and
indeed I was. Nevertheless, I found the experience thrilling; and there
are many book incidents which have remained for ever in my mind, absorbed
during these readings, although I cannot always place them. I recollect
a wonderful book called _L’Homme de Neige_, and many passages from
Alexandre Dumas.
Sometimes Chérie would read out to me, especially stories from the
_Cabinet des Fées_, or better still, tell stories of her own invention.
There was one story in which many animals took part, and one of the
characters was a partridge who used to go out just before the shooting
season with a telescope under his wing to see whether things were safe.
Chérie always used to say this was the creation she was proudest of.
Another story was called _Le Prince Muguet et Princesse Myosotis_, which
my mother had printed. I wrote a different story on the same theme
and inspired by Chérie’s story when I grew up. But I enjoyed Chérie’s
recollections of her childhood as much as her stories, and I could listen
for ever to the tales of her _grand-mère sévere_ who made her pick thorny
juniper to make gin, or the story of a lady who had only one gown, a
yellow one, and who every day used to ask her maid what the weather was
like, and if the maid said it was fine, she would say, “Eh bien, je
mettrai ma robe jaune,” and if it was rainy she would likewise say, “Je
mettrai ma robe jaune.” Poor Chérie used to be made to repeat this story
and others like it in season and out of season.
She would describe Paris until I felt I knew every street, and landscapes
in Normandy and other parts of France. The dream of my life was to go to
Paris and see the Boulevards and the Invalides and the Arc de Triomphe,
and above all, the Champs Elysées.
Chérie had also a repertory of French songs which she used to teach us.
One was the melancholy story of a little cabin-boy:
“Je ne suis qu’un petit mousse
A bord d’un vaisseau royal,
Je vais partout où le vent me pousse,
Nord ou midi cela m’est égale.
Car d’une mère et d’un père
Je n’ai jamais connu l’amour.”
Another one, less pathetic but more sentimental, was:
“Pourquoi tous les jours, Madeleine,
Vas-tu au bord du ruisseau?
Ce n’est pas, car je l’espère,
Pour te regarder dans l’eau,
‘Mais si,’ répond Madeleine,
Baissant ses beaux yeux d’ébêne.
Je n’y vais pour autre raison.”
I forget the rest, but it said that she looked into the stream to see
whether it was true, as people said, that she was beautiful—“pour voir si
gent ne ment pas”—and came back satisfied that it was true.
But best of all I liked the ballad:
“En revenant des noces j’étais si fatiguée
Au bord d’un ruisseau je me suis reposée,
L’eau était si claire que je me suis baignée,
Avec une feuille de chêne je me suis essuyée,
Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait,
Chante, beau rossignol, si tu as le cœur gai,
Pour un bouton de rose mon ami s’est fâché,
Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier,”
or words to that effect.
Besides these she taught us all the French singing games: “Savez-vous
planter les choux?” “Sur le pont d’Avignon,” and “Qu’est qui passe ici si
tard, Compagnons de la Marjolaine?” We used to sing and dance these up
and down the passage outside the schoolroom after tea.
Round about Membland were several nests of relations. Six miles off was
my mother’s old home Flete, where the Mildmays lived. Uncle Bingham
Mildmay married my mother’s sister, Aunt Georgie, and bought Flete;
the house, which was old, was said to be falling to pieces, so it was
rebuilt, more or less on the old lines, with some of the old structure
left intact.
At Pamflete, three miles off, lived my mother’s brother, Uncle Johnny
Bulteel, with his wife, Aunt Effie, and thirteen children.
And in the village of Yealmpton, three miles off, also lived my
great-aunt Jane who had a sister called Aunt Sister, who, whenever she
heard carriage wheels in the drive, used to get under the bed, such was
her disinclination to receive guests. I cannot remember Aunt Sister,
but I remember Aunt Jane and Uncle Willie Harris, who was either her
brother or her husband. He had been present at the battle of Waterloo as
a drummer-boy at the age of fifteen. But Aunt Sister’s characteristics
had descended to other members of the family, and my mother used to say
that when she and her sister were girls my Aunt Georgie had offered her a
pound if she would receive some guests instead of herself.
On Sundays we used to go to church at a little church in Noss Mayo until
my father built a new church, which is there now.
The service was long, beginning at eleven and lasting till almost one.
There was morning prayer, the Litany, the Ante-Communion service, and a
long sermon preached by the rector, a charming old man called Mr. Roe,
who was not, I fear, a compelling preacher.
When we went to church I was given a picture-book when I was small to
read during the sermon, a book with sacred pictures in colours. I was
terribly ashamed of this. I would sooner have died than be seen in the
pew with this book. It was a large picture-book. So I used every Sunday
to lose or hide it just before the service, and find it again afterwards.
On Sunday evenings we used sometimes to sing hymns in the schoolroom. The
words of the hymns were a great puzzle. For instance, in the hymn, “Thy
will be done,” the following verse occurs—I punctuate it as I understood
it, reading it, that is to say, according to the tune—
“Renew my will from day to day,
Blend it with Thine, and take away.
All _that_ now makes it hard to say
Thy will be done.”
I thought the blending and the subsequent taking away of what was blent
was a kind of trial of faith.
After tea, instead of being read to, we used sometimes to play a
delightful round game with counters, called _Le Nain Jaune_.
Any number of people could play at it, and I especially remember Susan
triumphantly playing the winning card and saying:
“Le bon Valet, la bonne Dame, le bon Woi. Je wecommence.”
In September or October, Chérie would go for her holidays. I cannot
remember if she went every year, but we had no one instead of her, and
she left behind her a series of holiday tasks.
During one of her absences my Aunt M’aimée, another sister of my
mother’s, came to stay with us. Aunt M’aimée was married to Uncle Henry
Ponsonby, the Queen’s Private Secretary. He came, too, and with them
their daughter Betty. Betty had a craze at that time for Sarah Bernhardt,
and gave a fine imitation of her as Doña Sol in the last act of
_Hernani_. It was decided we should act this whole scene, with Margaret
as Hernani and Aunt M’aimée reading the part of Ruy Gomez, who appears in
a domino and mask.
Never had I experienced anything more thrilling. I used to lie on the
floor during the rehearsals, and soon I knew the whole act by heart. I
thought Betty the greatest genius that ever lived.
When Chérie came back she was rather surprised and not altogether pleased
to find I knew the whole of the last act of _Hernani_ by heart. She
thought this a little too exciting and grown-up for me, and even for
Margaret, but none the less she let me perform the part of Doña Sol one
evening after tea in my mother’s bedroom, dressed in a white frock, with
Susan in a riding-habit playing the sinister figure of Ruy Gomez. I can
see Chérie now, sitting behind a screen, book in hand to prompt me, and
shaking with laughter as I piped out in a tremulous and lisping treble
the passionate words:
“Il vaudrait mieuxzaller (which I made all one word) au tigre même
Arracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”
Chérie’s return from her holidays was one of the most exciting of events,
for she would bring back with her a mass of toys from Giroux and the
_Paradis des Enfants_, and a flood of stories about the people and
places and plays she had seen, and the food she had eaten.
One year she brought me back a theatre of puppets. It was called Théâtre
français. It had a white proscenium, three scenes and an interior, a
Moorish garden by moonlight, and a forest, and a quantity of small
puppets suspended by stiff wires and dressed in silk and satin. There was
a harlequin, a columbine, a king, a queen, many princesses, a villain
scowling beneath black eyebrows, an executioner with a mask, peasants,
pastry-cooks, and soldiers with halberds, who would have done honour to
the Papal Guard at the Vatican, and some heavily moustached gendarmes.
This theatre was a source of ecstasy, and innumerable dramas used to be
performed in it. Chérie used also to bring back some delicious cakes
called _nonnettes_, a kind of gingerbread with icing on the top, rolled
up in a long paper cylinder.
She also brought baskets of bonbons from Boissier, the kind of basket
which had several floors of different kinds of bonbons, fondants on the
top in their white frills, then caramels, then chocolates, then fruits
confits. All these things confirmed one’s idea that there could be no
place like Paris.
In 1878, when I was four years old, another brother was born, Rupert,
in August, but he died in October of the same year. He was buried in
Revelstoke Church, a church not used any more, and then in ruins except
for one aisle, which was roofed in, and provided with pews. It nestled
by the seashore, right down on the rocks, grey and covered with ivy,
and surrounded by quaint tombstones that seemed to have been scattered
haphazard in the thick grass and the nettles.
I think it was about the same time that one evening I was playing in my
godmother’s room, that I fell into the fire, and my little white frock
was ablaze and my back badly burnt. I remember being taken up to the
nursery and having my back rubbed with potatoes, and thinking that part,
and the excitement and sympathy shown, and the interest created, great
fun.
All this was before Hugo was in the schoolroom, but in all my sharper
memories of Membland days he plays a prominent part. We, of course,
shared the night nursery, and we soon invented games together, some of
which were distracting, not to say maddening, to grown-up people. One was
an imaginary language in which even the word “Yes” was a trisyllable,
namely: “Sheepartee,” and the word for “No” was even longer and more
complicated, namely: “Quiliquinino.” We used to talk this language, which
was called “Sheepartee,” and which consisted of unmitigated gibberish,
for hours in the nursery, till Hilly, Grace, and Annie could bear it no
longer, and Everard came up one evening and told us the language must
stop or we should be whipped.
The language stopped, but a game grew out of it, which was most
complicated, and lasted for years even after we went to school. The game
was called “Spankaboo.” It consisted of telling and acting the story of
an imaginary continent in which we knew the countries, the towns, the
government, and the leading people. These countries were generally at
war with one another. Lady Spankaboo was a prominent lady at the Court
of Doodahn. She was a charming character, not beautiful nor clever, and
sometimes a little bit foolish, but most good-natured and easily taken
in. Her husband, Lord Spankaboo, was a country gentleman, and they had no
children. She wore red velvet in the evening, and she was _bien vue_ at
Court.
There were hundreds of characters in the game. They increased as the
story grew. It could be played out of doors, where all the larger trees
in the garden were forts belonging to the various countries, or indoors,
but it was chiefly played in the garden, or after we went to bed. Then
Hugo would say: “Let’s play Spankaboo,” and I would go straight on with
the latest events, interrupting the narrative every now and then by
saying: “Now, you be Lady Spankaboo,” or whoever the character on the
stage might be for the moment, “and I’ll be So-and-so.” Everything that
happened to us and everything we read was brought into the game—history,
geography, the ancient Romans, the Greeks, the French; but it was a
realistic game, and there were no fairies in it and nothing in the least
frightening. As it was a night game, this was just as well.
Hugo was big for his age, with powerful lungs, and after luncheon he
used to sing a song called “Apples no more,” with immense effect. Hugo
was once told the following riddle: “Why can’t an engine-driver sit
down?”—to which the answer is, “Because he has a tender behind.” He asked
this to my mother at luncheon the next day, and when nobody could guess
it, he said: “Because he has a soft behind.” There was a groom in the
stables who had rather a Japanese cast of face, and we used to call him
_le Japonnais._ One day Hugo went and stood in front of him and said to
him: “You’re the Japonais.” On another occasion when Hugo was learning
to conjugate the auxiliary verb _être_, Chérie urged him to add a
substantive after “Je suis,” to show he knew what he was doing. “Je suis
une plume,” said Hugo.
We were constantly in D.’s room and used to play sad tricks on her. She
rashly told us one day that her brother Jim had once taken her to a fair
at Wallington and had there shown her a Punch’s face, in gutta-percha, on
the wall. “Go and touch his nose,” had said Jim. She did so, and the face
being charged with electricity gave her a shock.
This story fired our imagination and we resolved to follow Jim’s example.
We got a galvanic battery, how and where, I forget, the kind which
consists of a small box with a large magnet in it, and a handle which you
turn, the patient holding two small cylinders. We persuaded D. to hold
the cylinders, and then we made the current as strong as possible and
turned the handle with all our might. Poor D. screamed and tears poured
down her cheeks, but we did not stop, and she could not leave go because
the current contracts the fingers; we went on and on till she was rescued
by someone else.
Another person we used to play tricks on was M. Butat, the cook, and one
day Hugo and I, to his great indignation, threw a dirty mop into his
stock-pot.
A great ally in the house was the housekeeper, Mrs. Tudgay. Every day at
eleven she would have two little baskets ready for us, which contained
biscuits, raisins and almonds, two little cakes, and perhaps a tangerine
orange.
To the outside world Mrs. Tudgay was rather alarming. She had a calm,
crystal, cold manner; she was thin, reserved, rather sallow, and had
a clear, quiet, precise way of saying scathing and deadly things to
those whom she disliked. Once when Elizabeth was grown up and married
and happened to be staying with us, Mrs. Tudgay said to her: “You’re an
expense to his Lordship.” Once when she engaged an under-housemaid she
said: “She shall be called—nothing—and get £15 a year.” But for children
she had no terrors. She was devoted to us, bore anything, did anything,
and guarded our effects and belongings with the vigilance of a sleepless
hound. She had formerly been maid to the Duchess of San Marino in Italy,
and she had a fund of stories about Italy, a scrap-book full of Italian
pictures and photographs, and a silver cross containing a relic of the
True Cross given her by Pope Pius IX. We very often spent the evening in
the housekeeper’s room, and played Long Whist with Mrs. Tudgay, D., Mr.
Deacon, and John’s servant, Mr. Thompson.
When, in the morning, we were exhausted from playing forts and Spankaboo
in the garden, we used to leap through Mrs. Tudgay’s window into the
housekeeper’s room, which was on the ground floor and looked out on to
the garden, and demand refreshment, and Mrs. Tudgay used to bring two
wine glasses of ginger wine and some biscuits.
Sometimes we used to go for picnics with Mrs. Tudgay, D., Hilly, and the
other servants. We started out in the morning and took luncheon with us,
which was eaten at one of the many keepers’ houses on the coast, some
of which had a room kept for expeditions, and then spent the afternoon
paddling on the rocks and picking shells and anemones. We never bathed,
as there was not a single beach on my father’s estate where it was
possible. It was far too rocky. Mrs. Tudgay had a small and ineffectual
Pomeranian black dog called Albo, who used to be taken on these
expeditions. Looking back on these, I wonder at the quantity of food D.
and Mrs. Tudgay used to allow us to eat. Hugo and I thought nothing of
eating a whole lobster apiece, besides cold beef and apple tart.
Sometimes we all went expeditions with my mother. Then there used to be
sketching, and certainly more moderation in the way of food.
Membland was close to the sea. My father made a ten-mile drive along the
cliffs so that you could drive from the house one way, make a complete
circle, and come back following the seacoast all the way to the river
Yealm, on one side of which was the village of Newton Ferrers and on the
other the village of Noss Mayo. Both villages straggled down the slopes
of a steep hill. Noss Mayo had many white-washed and straw-thatched
cottages and some new cottages of Devonshire stone built by my father,
with slate roofs, but not ugly or aggressive. Down the slopes of Noss
there were fields and orchards, and here and there a straw-thatched
cottage. They were both fishing villages, the Yealm lying beneath them, a
muddy stretch at low tide and a brimming river at high tide. Newton had
an old grey Devonshire church with a tower at the west end. At Noss my
father built a church exactly the same in pattern of Devonshire stone.
You could not have wished for a prettier village than Noss, and it had,
as my mother used to say: “a little foreign look about it.”
At different points of this long road round the cliffs, which in the
summer were a blaze of yellow gorse, there were various keepers’
cottages, as I have said. From one you looked straight on to the sea from
the top of the cliff. Another was hidden low down among orchards and not
far from the old ruined church of Revelstoke. A third, called Battery
Cottage, was built near the emplacement of an old battery and looked out
on to the Mewstone towards Plymouth Sound and Ram Head. The making of
this road and the building of the church were two great events. Pieces of
the cliff had to be blasted with dynamite, which was under the direction
of a cheery workman called Mr. Yapsley, during the road-making, and the
building of the church which was in the hands of Mr. Crosbie, the Clerk
of the Works, whom we were devoted to, entailed a host of interesting
side-issues. One of these was the carving which was done by Mr. Harry
Hems of Exeter. He carved the bench-ends, and on one of them was a sea
battle in which a member of the Bulteel family, whom we took to be Uncle
Johnny, was seen hurling a stone from a mast’s crows’ nest in a sailing
ship, on to a serpent which writhed in the waves. Hugo and I both sat for
cherubs’ heads, which were carved in stone on the reredos. There were
some stained-glass windows and a hand-blown organ on which John used to
play on Sundays when it was ready.
The church was consecrated by the Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Temple.
Hugo and I learned to ride first on a docile beast called Emma, who, when
she became too lethargic, was relegated to a little cart which used to be
driven by all of us, and then on a Dartmoor pony called the Giant, and
finally on a pony called Emma Jane.
The coachman’s name was Bilky. He was a perfect Devonshire character. His
admiration for my brothers was unbounded. He used to talk of them one
after the other, afraid if he had praised one, he had not praised the
others enough. My brother Everard, whom we always called the “Imp,” he
said was as strong as a lion and as nimble as a bee. “They have rightly,
sir, named you the Himp,” one of the servants said to him one day.
During all these years we had extraordinarily few illnesses. Hugo once
had whooping-cough at London, and I was put in the same room so as to
have it at the same time, and although I was longing to catch it, as Hugo
was rioting in presents and delicacies as well as whoops, my constitution
was obstinately impervious to infection.
We often had colds, entailing doses of spirits of nitre, linseed
poultices, and sometimes even a mustard poultice, but I never remember
anything more serious. Every now and then Hilly thought it necessary to
dose us with castor-oil, and the struggles that took place when Hilly
used to arrive with a large spoon, saying, as every Nanny I have ever
known says: “Now, take it!” were indescribable. I recollect five people
being necessary one day to hold me down before the castor-oil could
be got down my throat. We had a charming comfortable country doctor
called Doctor Atkins, who used to drive over in a dog-cart, muffled in
wraps, and produce a stethoscope out of his hat. He was so genial and
comfortable that one began to feel better directly he felt one’s pulse.
When we first went to Membland the post used to be brought by a postman
who walked every day on foot from Ivy Bridge, ten miles off. He had a
watch the size of a turnip, and the stamps at that time were the dark red
ones with the Queen’s head on them. Later the post came in a cart from
Plympton, and finally from Plymouth.
In the autumn, visitors used to begin to arrive for the covert shooting,
which was good and picturesque, the pheasants flying high in the steep
woods on the banks of the Yealm, and during the autumn months the nearing
approach of Christmas cast an aura of excitement over life. The first
question was: Would there be a Christmas tree? During all the early years
there was one regularly.
After the November interval in London, which I have already described,
the serious business of getting the tree ready began. It was a large
tree, and stood in a square green box.
The first I remember was placed in the drawing-room, the next in the
dining-room, the next in the billiard-room, and after that they were
always in the covered-in tennis court, which had been built in the
meanwhile. The decoration of the tree was under the management of D. The
excitement when the tree was brought into the house or the tennis court
for the first time was terrific, and Mr. Ellis, the house-carpenter, who
always wore carpet shoes, climbed up a ladder and affixed the silver
fairy to the top of the tree. Then reels of wire were brought out,
scissors, boxes of crackers, boxes of coloured candles, glass-balls,
clips for candles, and a quantity of little toys.
Hugo and I were not allowed to do much. Nearly everything we did was
said to be wrong. The presents were, of course, kept a secret and were
done up in parcels, and not brought into the room until the afternoon of
Christmas Eve.
The Christmas tree was lit on Christmas Eve after tea. The ritual was
always the same. Hugo and I ran backwards and forwards with the servants’
presents. The maids were given theirs first,—they consisted of stuff for
a gown done up in a parcel,—then Mrs. Tudgay, D., and the upper servants.
One year Mrs. Tudgay had a work-basket.
Then the guests were given their presents, and we gave our presents and
received our own. The presents we gave were things we had made ourselves:
kettle-holders, leather slippers worked in silk for my father, and
the girls sometimes made a woollen waistcoat or a comforter. Chérie
always had a nice present for my mother, which we were allowed to see
beforehand, and she always used to say: “N’y touchez pas, la fraîcheur en
fait la beauté.”
Our presents were what we had put down beforehand in a list of “Christmas
Wants”—a horse and cart, a painting-box, or a stylograph pen.
The house used to be full at Christmas. My father’s brothers, Uncle Tom
and Uncle Bob, used to be there. Madame Neruda I remember as a Christmas
visitor. Godfrey Webb wrote the following lines about Christmas at
Membland:
CHRISTMAS AT MEMBLAND
“Who says that happiness is far to seek?
Here have I passed a happy Christmas week.
Christmas at Membland—all was bright and gay,
Without one shadow till this final day,
When Mrs. Baring said, ‘Before you go
You must write something in the book, you know.’
I must write something—that’s all very well,
But what to write about I cannot tell.
Where shall I look for help?—it must be found,
If I survey this Christmas party round.
There’s Ned himself, our most delightful host,
Or Mrs. Baring, she could help me most,
The Uncles too, if I their time might rob.
Shall I ask Tom? or try my luck with Bob?
Madame Neruda, ah, would she begin,
We’d write the story of a violin,
And tell how first the inspiration came
Which took the world by storm and gave her fame.
There’s Harry Bourke, with him I can’t go wrong,
Could I but write the words he’d sing the song.
So sung, my verse would haply win a smile
From his bright beauty of the sister Isle,
Who comes prepared her country’s pride to save,
For every Saxon is at once her slave;
But no, I must not for assistance look,
So, Mrs. Baring, you must keep your book
For cleverer pens and I no more will trouble you,
But just remain your baffled bard.”
G. W. (1879).
Mr. Webb was a great feature in the children’s life of many families.
With his beady, bird-like eye and his impassive face he made jokes so
quietly that you overheard them rather than heard them. One day out
shooting on a steep hill in Newton Wood, in which there were woodcock
and dangerous shots, my father said to him, “You take the middle drive,
Godfrey; it’s safer, _medio tutissimus_.” “Is there any chance of an
_Ibis_?” Mr. Webb asked quietly. Another time, he went out duck-shooting.
He was asked afterwards whether he had shot many. “Not even a _Mallard
imaginaire_,” was his answer.
Another Christmas event was the French play we used to act under the
stage management of Chérie.
When I was six I played the part of an old man with a bald forehead and
white tufts of hair in a play called _Le Maître d’Ecole_, and I remember
playing the part of Nicole in scenes from the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ at
Christmas in 1883, and an old witch called Mathurine in a play called _Le
Talisman_ in January 1884.
One of our most ambitious efforts was a play called _La Grammaire_, by
Labiche: it proved too ambitious, and never got further than a dress
rehearsal in the schoolroom. In this play, Elizabeth had the part of the
heroine, and had to be elegantly dressed; she borrowed a grown-up gown,
and had her hair done up, but she took such a long time preening herself
that she missed her cue, which was: “L’ange la voici!” It was spoken by
Margaret, who had a man’s part.
“L’ange la voici!” said Margaret in ringing tones, but no _ange_
appeared. “L’ange la voici!” repeated Margaret, with still greater
emphasis, but still no _ange_; finally, not without malice, Margaret
almost shouted, “L’ange la voici!” and at last Elizabeth tripped blushing
on to the stage with the final touches of her toilette still a little
uncertain. In the same play, Susan played the part of a red-nosed
horse-coper, dressed in a grey-tailed coat, called _Machut_.
Another source of joy in Membland life was the yacht, the _Waterwitch_,
which in the summer months used to sail as soon as the Cowes Regatta
was over, down to the Yealm River. The _Waterwitch_ was a schooner of
150 tons; it had one large cabin where one had one’s meals, my mother’s
cabin aft, a cabin for my father, and three spare cabins. The name of the
first captain was Goomes, but he was afterwards replaced by Bletchington.
Goomes was employed later by the German Emperor. He had a knack of always
getting into rows during races, and even on other occasions.
One day there was a regatta going on on the Yealm River; the gig of the
_Waterwitch_ was to race the gig of another yacht. They had to go round
a buoy. For some reason, I was in the _Waterwitch’s_ gig when the race
started, sitting in the stern next to Goomes, who was steering. All went
well at first, but when the boats were going round the buoy they fouled,
and Goomes and the skipper of the rival gig were soon engaged in a
hand-to-hand combat, and beating each other hard with the steering-lines.
My father and the rest of the family were watching the race on board the
yacht. I think I was about six or seven. My father shouted at the top of
his voice, “Come back, come back,” but to no avail, as Goomes and the
other skipper were fighting like two dogs, and the boats were almost
capsizing. I think Goomes won the fight and the race. I remember enjoying
it all heartily, but not so my father on board the yacht.
Bletchington was a much milder person and, besides being a beautiful
sailor, one of the gentlest and most beautiful-mannered mariners I have
ever met. He was invariably optimistic, and always said there was a nice
breeze. This sometimes tempted the girls, who were bad sailors, to go
out sailing, but they always regretted it and used to come back saying,
“How foolish we were to be taken in!” Hugo and I were good sailors and
enjoyed the yacht more than anything. John was an expert in the handling
of a yacht, but the “Imp” nearly died of sea-sickness if ever he ventured
on board.
Captain Bletchington taught Hugo and myself a song in Fiji language. It
ran like this:
“Tang a rang a chicky nee, picky-nicky wooa,
Tarra iddy ucky chucky chingo.”
Which meant:
“All up and down the river they did go;
The King and Queen of Otahiti.”
I think what we enjoyed most of all were games of Hide-and-seek on
board. One day one of the sailors hid us by reefing us up in a sail in
the sail-room, a hiding-place which baffled everyone. The _Waterwitch_
was a fast vessel, and won the schooners’ race round the Isle of Wight
one year and only narrowly missed winning the Queen’s Cup. The story
of this race used to be told us over and over again by D., and used to
be enacted by Hugo and me on our toy yachts or with pieces of cork in
the sink. This is what happened. Another schooner, the _Cetonia_, had
to allow the _Waterwitch_ five minutes, but the _Waterwitch_ had to
allow the _Sleuthhound_, a cutter, twenty-five minutes. D. was watching
from the shore, and my mother was watching from the R.Y.S. Club. The
_Cetonia_ came in first, but a minute or two later the _Waterwitch_
sailed in before the five minutes’ allowance was up. Then twenty minutes
of dreadful suspense rolled by, twenty-three minutes, and during the
last two minutes, as D. dramatically said, “That ’orrid _Sleuthhound_
sailed round the corner and won the race.” Hugo and I felt we could never
forgive the owner of the _Sleuthhound_.
Besides the _Waterwitch_ there was a little steam launch called the
_Wasp_ which used to take us in to Plymouth, and John had a sailing-boat
of his own.