FAST AND FURIOUS HUNTING IN LEICESTERSHIRE--COUNTRY HOUSE PARTY
AND A NEW ADMIRER--FRIENDSHIP WITH LORD AND LADY MANNERS
My friendship with Lord and Lady Manners, [Footnote: Avon Tyrrell,
Christchurch, Hants. Lady Manners was a Miss Fane.] of Avon
Tyrrell, probably made more difference to the course of my life
than anything that had happened in it.
Riding was what I knew and cared most about; and I dreamt of High
Leicestershire. I had hunted in Cheshire, where you killed three
foxes a day and found yourself either clattering among cottages
and clothes-lines, or blocked by carriages and crowds; I knew the
stiff plough and fine horses of Yorkshire and the rotten grass in
the Bicester; I had struggled over the large fences and small
enclosures of the Grafton and been a heroine in the select fields
and large becks with the Burton; and the Beaufort had seen the
dawn of my fox-hunting; but Melton was a name which brought the
Hon. Crasher before me and opened a vista on my future of all that
was fast, furious and fashionable.
When I was told that I was going to sit next to the Master of the
Quorn at dinner, my excitement knew no bounds.
Gordon Cunard--whose brother Bache owned the famous hounds in
Market Harborough--had insisted on my joining him at a country-
house party given for a ball. On getting the invitation I had
refused, as I hardly knew our hostess--the pretty Mrs. Farnham--
but after receiving a spirited telegram from my new admirer--one
of the best men to hounds in Leicestershire--I changed my mind. In
consequence of this decision a double event took place. I fell in
love with Peter Flower--a brother of the late Lord Battersea--and
formed an attachment with a couple whose devotion and goodness to
me for more than twenty years encouraged and embellished my
glorious youth.
Lord Manners, or "Hoppy," as we called him, was one of the few men
I ever met whom the word "single-minded" described. His sense of
honour was only equalled by his sense of humour; and a more
original, tender, truthful, uncynical, real being never existed.
He was a fine sportsman and had won the Grand Military when he was
in the Grenadiers, riding one of his own hunters; he was also the
second gentleman in England to win the Grand National in 1882, on
a thoroughbred called Seaman, who was by no means every one's
horse. For other people he cared nothing. "Decidement je n'aime
pas les autres," he would have said, to quote my son-in-law,
Antoine Bibesco.
His wife often said that, but for her, he would not have asked a
creature inside the house; be this as it may, no host and hostess
could have been more socially susceptible or given their guests a
warmer welcome than Con and Hoppy Manners.
What I loved and admired in him was his keenness and his
impeccable unworldliness. He was perfectly independent of public
opinion and as free from rancour as he was from fear, malice or
acerbity. He never said a stupid thing. Some people would say that
this is not a compliment, but the amount of silly things that I
have heard clever people say makes me often wonder what is left
for the stupid.
His wife was very different, though quite as free from rhetoric.
Under a becalmed exterior Con Manners was a little brittle and
found it difficult to say she was in the wrong; this impenitence
caused some of her lovers a suffering of which she was
unconscious; it is a minor failing which strikes a dumb note in
me, but which I have since discovered is not only common, but
almost universal. I often warned people of Con's dangerous smile
when I observed them blundering along; but though she was uneven
in her powers of forgiveness, the serious quarrel of her life was
made up ultimately without reserve. Lady Manners was clever,
gracious, and understanding; she was more worldly, more
adventurous and less deprecating than her husband; people meant a
great deal to her; and the whole of London was at her feet, except
those lonely men and women who specialise in collecting the famous
as men collect centipedes.
To digress here. I asked my friend Mr. Birrell once how the juste
milieu was to be found--for an enterprising person--between
running after the great men of the day and missing them; and he
said:
"I would advise you to live among your superiors, Margot, but to
be of them."
Con was one of the few women of whom it could be said that she was
in an equal degree a wonderful wife, mother, sister and friend.
Her charm of manner and the tenderness of her regard gave her face
beauty that was independent--almost a rival of fine features--and
she was a saint of goodness.
Her love of flowers made every part of her home, inside and out,
radiant; and her sense of humour and love of being entertained
stimulated the witty and the lazy.
For nineteen years I watched her go about her daily duties with a
quiet grace and serenity infinitely restful to live with, and when
I was separated from her it nearly broke my heart. In connection
with the love Con and I had for each other I will only add an old
French quotation:
"Par grace infinie Dieu les mist au mande ensemble."
My dear friend, Mrs. Hamlyn, was the chatelaine of the famous
Clovelly, in Devonshire, and was Con's sister. She had the spirit
of eternal youth and was full of breathless admiration. I hardly
ever met any one who derived so much pleasure and surprise out of
ordinary life. She was as uncritical and tolerant of those she
loved as she was narrow and vehement over those who had
unaccountably offended her. She had an ebullient and voracious
sense of humour and was baffled and eblouie by titled people,
however vulgar and ridiculous they might be. By this I do not mean
she was a snob--on the contrary she made and kept friends among
the frumps and the obscure, to whom she showed faithful
hospitality; but she was old-fashioned and thought that all
duchesses were ladies.
Christine Hamlyn was a character-part: but, if the machinery was
not invented by which you could remove her prejudices, no tank
could turn her from her friends. It was through the Souls and
these friends whom I have endeavoured to describe that I entered
into a new phase of my life.