Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life Part 1

Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life.

by Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers, Countess of Jersey.

CHAPTER I

AN EARLY VICTORIAN CHILD

I was born at Stoneleigh Abbey on October 29th, 1849. My father has told me that immediately afterwards--I suppose next day--I was held up at the window for the members of the North Warwickshire Hunt to drink my health.

I fear that their kind wishes were so far of no avail that I never became a sportswoman, though I always lived amongst keen followers of the hounds.

For many years the first meet of the season was held at Stoneleigh, and large hospitality extended to the gentlemen and farmers within the Abbey and to the crowd without. Almost anyone could get bread and cheese and beer outside for the asking, till at last some limit had to be placed when it was reported that special trains were being run from Birmingham to a neighbouring town to enable the populace to attend this sporting carnival at my father's expense. He was a splendid man and a fearless rider while health and strength permitted--rather too fearless at times--and among the many applicants for his bounty were men who based their claims to a.s.sistance on the alleged fact that they had picked up Lord Leigh after a fall out hunting. It was always much more difficult to restrain him from giving than to induce him to give.

My mother, a daughter of Lord Westminster, told me that from the moment she saw him she had never any doubt as to whom she would marry. No wonder.

He was exceptionally handsome and charming, and I believe he was as prompt in falling in love with her as she confessed to having been with him. An old relative who remembered their betrothal told me that she knew what was coming when Mr. Leigh paid 5 for some trifle at a bazaar where Lady Caroline Grosvenor was selling. The sole reason for recording this is to note that fancy bazaars were in vogue so long ago as 1848.

My mother was only twenty when she married, and very small and pretty. I have heard that soon after their arrival at Stoneleigh my father gave great satisfaction to the villagers, who were eagerly watching to see the bride out walking, by lifting his little wife in his arms and carrying her over a wet place in the road. This was typical of his unfailing devotion through fifty-seven years of married life--a devotion which she returned in full measure.

I was the eldest child of the young parents, and as my grandfather, Chandos Lord Leigh, was then alive, our home for a short time was at Adlestrop House in Gloucestershire, which also belonged to the family; but my grandfather died and we moved to Stoneleigh when I was far too young to remember any other home. In those days we drove by road from one house to the other, and on one occasion my father undertook to convey my cradle in his dog-cart, in the s.p.a.ce under the back seat usually allotted to dogs.

In the middle of a village the door of this receptacle flew open and the cradle shot out into the road, slightly embarra.s.sing to a very young man.

About the earliest thing I can recollect was seeing the Crystal Palace Building when in Hyde Park. I do not suppose that I was taken inside, but I distinctly remember the great glittering gla.s.s Palace when I was driving with my mother. Of course we had pictures of the Great Exhibition and heard plenty about it, but oddly enough one print that impressed me most was a French caricature which represented an Englishman distributing the prizes to an expectant throng with words to this effect: "Ladies and Gentlemen, some intrusive foreigners have come over to compete with our people and have had the impertinence to make some things better than we do. You will, however, quite understand that none of the prizes will be given to these outsiders." It was my earliest lesson in doubting the lasting effects of attempts to unite rival countries in any League of Nations.

[Sidenote: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON]

Somewhere about this time I had the honour of being presented to the great Duke of Wellington in the long Gallery (now, alas! no more) at Grosvenor House. I do not remember the incident, but he was _the_ Hero in those days, and I was told it so often that I felt as if I could recall it. My father said he kissed me, but my mother's more modest claim was that he shook hands.

My parents were each endowed with nine brothers and sisters--i.e. my father was one of ten who all lived till past middle life, my mother was one of thirteen of whom ten attained a full complement of years. Indeed, when my parents celebrated their golden wedding they had sixteen brothers and sisters still alive. As almost all these uncles and aunts married and most of them had large families, it will be readily believed that we did not lack cousins, and the long Gallery was a splendid gathering-place for the ramifications of the Grosvenor side of our family. Apart from the imposing pictures, it was full of treasures, such as a miniature crystal river which flowed when wound up and had little swans swimming upon it. It was here, later on in my girlhood, that I saw the first j.a.panese Emba.s.sy to England, stately Daimios or Samurai in full native costume and with two swords--a great joy to all of us children.

To go back to early recollections--my next clear impression is of the Crimean War and knitting a pair of red m.u.f.fetees for the soldiers. Plenty of "comforts" were sent out even in those days. Sir George Higginson once told me that when boxes of miscellaneous gifts arrived it was the custom to hold an auction. On one occasion among the contents were several copies of Boyle's Court Guide and two pairs of ladies' stays! So useful! The latter were bestowed upon the French vivandiere. No W.A.A.C.s then to benefit.

After the Crimean War came the Indian Mutiny, and our toy soldiers represented English and Sepoys instead of English and Russians. Children in each generation I suppose follow wars by their toys. Despite the comradeship of English and French in the Crimea, I do not believe that we ever quite ceased to regard France as the hereditary foe. A contemporary cousin was said to have effaced France from the map of Europe; I do not think we were quite so daring.

In all, I rejoiced in five brothers and two sisters, but the fifth brother died at fourteen months old before our youngest sister was born. His death was our first real sorrow and a very keen one. Long before that, however, when we were only three children, Gilbert, the brother next to me, a baby sister Agnes, and myself, our adventurous parents took us to the South of France. I was four years old at the time and the existence of a foreign land was quite a new light to me. I well remember running into the nursery and triumphantly exclaiming, "There is a country called France and I am going there!"

[Sidenote: TRAVELLING IN THE FIFTIES]

My further recollections are vague until we reached Lyons, where the railway ended and our large travelling carriage brought from England was put on a boat--steamer, I suppose--and thus conveyed to Avignon. Thence we drove, sleeping at various towns, until we reached Mentone, where we spent some time, and I subsequently learnt that we were then the only English in the place. I think that my parents were very brave to take about such young children, but I suppose the experiment answered pretty well, as a year later they again took Gilbert and me to France--this time to Normandy, where I spent my sixth birthday, saw the great horses dragging bales of cotton along the quays at Rouen, and was enchanted with the ivory toys at Dieppe.

I think that people who could afford it travelled more in former days than is realised. Both my grandparents made prolonged tours with most of their elder children. My grandfather Westminster took my mother and her elder sisters in his yacht to Constantinople and Rome. My mother well remembered some of her experiences, including purchases from a Turkish shopkeeper who kept a large cat on his counter and served various comestibles with his hands, wiping them between each sale on the animal's fur. At Rome she told me how she and one of her sisters, girls of some twelve and thirteen years old, used to wander out alone into the Campagna in the early morning, which seems very strange in view of the stories of restraint placed upon children in bygone days. As to my grandfather Leigh, I believe he travelled with his family for about two years, to Switzerland, France and the North of Italy. They had three carriages, one for the parents, one for the schoolroom, and one for the nursery. A courier escorted them, and an avant-courier rode on in front with bags of five-franc pieces to secure lodgings when they migrated from one place to another. On one occasion on the Riviera they met the then Grand Duke Constantine, who thrust his head out of the window and exclaimed "Toute Angleterre est en route!"

[Sidenote: GOVERNESSES]

After our return from Normandy we were placed in charge of a resident governess, a young German, but as far as I can recollect she had very little control over us. We discovered that the unlucky girl, though of German parentage, had been born in Russia, and with the unconscious cruelty of children taunted her on this account. Anyhow her stay was short, and she was succeeded about a year later by an Englishwoman, Miss Custarde, who kept us in very good order and stayed till she married when I was fourteen. Her educational efforts were supplemented by masters and mistresses during the London season and by French resident governesses in the winter months, but I do not think that we were at all overworked.

I doubt whether Miss Custarde would have been considered highly educated according to modern standards, but she was very good in teaching us to look up information for ourselves, which was just as useful as anything else. Her strongest point was music, but that she could not drive into me, and my music lessons were a real penance to teacher and pupil alike. She would give me lectures during their progress on such topics as the Parable of the Talents--quite ignoring the elementary fact that though I could learn most of my lessons quickly enough I had absolutely no talent for music. She was, however, a remarkable woman with great influence, not only over myself, but over my younger aunts and over other men and women.

She was very orderly, and proud of that quality, but she worked too much on my conscience, making me regard trivial faults as actual sins which prevented her from kissing me or showing me affection--an ostracism which generally resulted in violent fits of penitence. She had more than one admirer before she ended by marrying a schoolmaster, with whom she used to take long walks in the holidays. One peculiarity was that she would give me sketches of admirers and get me to write long stories embodying their imaginary adventures. I suppose these were shown as great jokes to the heroes and their friends. Of course she did not think I knew the "inwardness" of her various friendships, equally of course as time went on I understood them perfectly. Miss Custarde is not the only governess I have known who acquired extraordinary influence over her pupils. In Marcel Prevost's novel _Anges Gardiens_, which represents the dangers to French families of engaging foreign governesses, he makes the Belgian, Italian, and German women all to a greater or less extent immoral, but the Englishwoman, though at least as detestable as the others, is not immoral; the great evil which she inflicts on the family which engages her is the absolute power which she acquires over her pupil. The whole book is very unfair and M. Prevost seems to overlook the slur which he casts on his own countrymen, as none of the men appear able to resist the wiles of the sirens engaged to look after the girls of their families; but it is odd that he should realise the danger of undue influence and attribute it only to the Englishwoman. Why should this be a characteristic of English governesses--supposing his experience (borne out by my own) to be typical?

Is it an Englishwoman's love of power and faculty for concentration on the object which she wishes to attain?

We liked several of our foreign governesses well enough, but they exercised no particular influence--and as a rule their engagements were only temporary. I do not think that Miss Custarde gave them much opportunity of ascendancy. With one her relations were so strained that the two ladies had their suppers at different tables in the schoolroom, and when the Frenchwoman wanted the salt she rang the bell for the schoolroom-maid to bring it from her English colleague's table. However, I owed a great deal to Miss Custarde and know that her affection for all of us was very real. She died in the autumn of 1920, having retained all her faculties till an advanced age.

After all no human being could compete with our mother in the estimation of any of her children. Small and fragile and often suffering from ill-health, she had almost unbounded power over everyone with whom she came in contact, and for her to express an opinion on any point created an axiom from which there was no appeal. As middle-aged men and women we have often laughed over the way in which we have still accepted "mama said"

so-and-so as a final verdict. As children our faith not only in her wisdom but in her ability was unlimited. I remember being regarded as almost a heretic by the younger ones because I ventured to doubt whether she could make a watch. Vainly did I hedge by a.s.serting that I was certain that if she had learnt she could make the most beautiful watch in the world--I had infringed the first article of family faith by thinking that there was anything which she could not do by the uninstructed light of nature. She was a good musician, and a really excellent amateur artist--her water-colour drawings charming. Her knowledge of history made it delightful to read aloud to her, as she seemed as if the heroes and heroines of bygone times had been her personal acquaintance. Needless to say her personal care for everyone on my father's property was untiring, and the standard of the schools in the various villages was maintained at a height uncommon in days when Education Acts were not so frequent and exacting as in later years.

[Sidenote: "MRS. GAILEY"]

Another great character in our home was our old nurse. For some reason she was never called Nanna, but always "Mrs. Gailey." The daughter of a small tradesman, she was a woman of some education--she had even learnt a little French and had been a considerable reader. Though a disciple of Spurgeon, she had lived as nurse with my mother's cousin the Duke of Norfolk in the days when the girls of the family were Protestants though the boys were Roman Catholics. When the d.u.c.h.ess (daughter of Lord Lyons) went over to the Roman Church the Protestant nurse's position became untenable, as the daughters had to follow their mother. She told us that this was a great distress at first to the eldest girl Victoria (afterwards Hope-Scott), for at twelve years old she was able to feel the uprooting of her previous faith. The other sisters were too young to mind. Gailey's idol, however, was Lord Maltravers (the late Duke), who must have been as attractive a boy as he became delightful a man.

Gailey came to us when I was about four, my first nurse, who had been my wet-nurse, having married the coachman. Our first encounter took place when I was already in my cot, and I announced to her that if she stayed a hundred years I should not love her as I had done "Brownie." "And if I stay a hundred years," was the repartee, "I shall not love you as I did the little boy I have just left"--so we started fair. Nevertheless she was an excellent nurse and a fascinating companion. She could tell stories by the hour and knew all sorts of old-fashioned games which we played in the nursery on holiday afternoons.

The great joy of the schoolroom children was to join the little ones after tea and to sit in a circle while she told us either old fairy tales, or more frequently her own versions of novels which she had read and of which she changed the names and condensed the incidents in a most ingenious manner. On Sunday evenings _Pilgrim's Progress_ in her own words was subst.i.tuted for the novels. Miss Custarde could inflict no greater punishment for failure in our "saying lessons" than to keep us out of the nursery. Gailey stayed with us till some time after my marriage and then retired on a pension.

The Scottish housekeeper, Mrs. Wallace, was also a devoted friend and a great dispenser of cakes, ices, and home-made cowslip and ginger wine.

Rose-water, elder-flower water, and all stillroom mysteries found an expert in her, and she even concocted mead from an old recipe. Few people can have made mead in this generation--it was like very strong rather sweet beer. We all loved "Walley"--but she failed us on one occasion.

Someone said that she had had an uncle who had fought at Waterloo, so we rushed to her room to question her on this hero's prowess. "What did your uncle do at Waterloo?" The reply was cautious and rather chilling: "I believe he hid behind his horse." She looked after all our dogs and was supposed to sleep with eight animals and birds in her room.

[Sidenote: QUEEN VICTORIA AT STONELEIGH]

In the summer of 1858 a great event occurred in the annals of Stoneleigh.

Queen Victoria stayed at my father's for two nights in order to open Aston Hall and Park, an old Manor House and property, which had belonged to the Bracebridge family and had been secured for the recreation of the people of Birmingham. Naturally there was great excitement at the prospect. For months beforehand workmen were employed in the renovation and redecoration of the Abbey and its precincts. Many years afterwards an ex-coachpainter met one of my sons and recalled to him the glorious days of preparation for Her Majesty's visit. "Even the pigsties were painted, sir," said he.

Stoneleigh is a large ma.s.s of buildings--parts of the bas.e.m.e.nt remain from the original Abbey of the Cistercian monks. On these was built a picturesque house about the beginning of the seventeenth century, early in the eighteenth century a large mansion was added in the cla.s.sical Italian style, and about a hundred years later a new wing was erected to unite the two portions. The old Abbey Church stood in what is now a lawn between the house and the ancient Gateway, which bears the arms of Henry II. To put everything in order was no light task. The rooms for the Queen and Prince Consort were enclosed on one side of the corridor leading to them by a temporary wall, and curtained off where the corridor led to the main staircase. In addition to every other preparation, the outline of the gateway, the main front of the house, and some of the ornamental flower-beds were traced out with little lamps--I think there were 22,000--which were lighted at night with truly fairy-like effect. By that time we were five children--the house was crowded in every nook and corner with guests, servants, and attendants of all kinds. Somehow my brother Gilbert and I were stowed away in a room with two or three maids, but the "little ones," Agnes and two small brothers Dudley and Rupert, were sent to the keeper's house in the Deerpark. That house was a delightful old-world building standing on a hill with a lovely view, and we were occasionally sent there for a day or two's change of air, to our great joy.

On the occasion of the Royal Visit, however, Gilbert and I quite realised our privilege in being kept in the Abbey and allowed to stand with our mother and other members of the family to welcome the Queen as the carriage clattered up with its escort of Yeomanry. My father had, of course, met Her Majesty at the station. The Queen was more than gracious and at once won the hearts of the children--but we did not equally appreciate the Prince Consort. a.s.suredly he was excellent, but he was very stiff and reserved, and I suppose that we were accustomed to attentions from our father's guests which he did not think fit to bestow upon us, though the Queen gave them in ample measure.

We were allowed to join the large party of guests after dinner, and either the first or the second evening witnessed with interest and amus.e.m.e.nt the presentation of the country neighbours to the Queen. Having been carefully instructed as to our own bows and curtsies, we naturally became very critical of the "grown-up" salutations, particularly when one nervous lady on pa.s.sing the royal presence tossed her head back into the air by way of reverence. I think the same night my father escorted the Queen into the garden in front of the house, which was separated from part of the Park by a stone bal.u.s.trade. In this park-ground several thousand people had a.s.sembled who spontaneously broke into "G.o.d save the Queen" when she appeared. Fortunately the glorious hot summer night (July) was ideal for the greeting.

One morning our small sister and brothers were brought to the Abbey "to be presented." Agnes made a neat little curtsy, though we unkindly a.s.serted that it was behind the Queen's back, but the baby boys were overcome by shyness and turned away from the Queen's kisses. Unfortunate children!

they were never allowed to forget this!

[Sidenote: THE PRINCE CONSORT]

Poor Prince Consort lost his last chance of good feeling from Gilbert and myself when he and the Queen went to plant memorial trees. We rushed forward to be in time to see the performance, but he sternly swept us from the royal path. No doubt he was justified in bidding us "stand back," but he might have remembered that we were children, and his host's children, and done it more gently.

I shall refer to our dear Queen later on, but may here insert a little incident of her childhood which came to my knowledge accidentally. In the village belonging to my married home, Middleton Stoney, there was a middle-aged policeman's wife who cultivated long ringlets on either side of her face. She once confided to me that as a child she had had beautiful curls, and that, living near Kensington Palace, they had on one occasion been cut off to make "riding curls" for Princess (afterwards Queen) Victoria, who had lost her own hair--temporarily--from an illness. The child had not liked this at all, though she had been given some of the Princess's hair as an equivalent. I imagine that her parents received more substantial payment.

Our childhood was varied by a good deal of migration. We were regularly taken each year about May to our father's London house, 37 Portman Square, where we entertained our various cousins at tea-parties and visited them in return. We were generally taken in the autumn to some seaside place such as Brighton, Hastings, Rhyl, or the Isle of Wight. We estimated the merits of each resort largely according to the amount of sand which it afforded us to dig in, and I think Shanklin in the Isle of Wight took the foremost place in our affections.

[Sidenote: A NARROW ESCAPE]

Two years, however, had specially delightful autumns, for in each of these our father took a moor in Scotland--once Kingairloch and the second time Strontian. On each occasion I accompanied my parents; to Kingairloch, Gilbert (Gilly he was always called) came also--the second year he spent half the time with us and then returned to his tutor and Agnes, and Dudley took his place for the remainder of our stay. How we enjoyed the fishing, bathing in the loch, and paddling in the burns! Everyone who has spent the shooting season in Scotland knows all about it, and our experiences, though absolutely delightful, did not differ much from other people's.

These visits were about 1860 and 1861. The railroad did not extend nearly so far as at present and the big travelling-carriage again came into play.

One day it had with considerable risk to be conveyed over four ferries and ultimately to be driven along a mountainous road after dark. As far as I remember we had postilions--certainly the charioteer or charioteers had had as much whisky as was good for them, with the result that the back wheels of the heavy carriage went right over the edge of a precipice. The servants seated behind the carriage gave themselves over for lost--we children were half-asleep inside and unconscious of our peril, when the horses made a desperate bound forward and dragged the carriage back on to the road. We were taken later to see the place with the marks of the wheels still plain on the rocky edge--and young as we were could quite realise what we had escaped. Both shooting lodges were situated in the midst of the lovely mountain scenery of North Argyllshire, possibly Kingairloch was the more beautiful of the two. One day from dawn to eve the mountains echoed and re-echoed with the plaintive bleating of flocks, and we were told that it was because the lambs were taken from their mothers. I still possess some verses which my mother wrote on that occasion, and transcribe them to show that she had a strong poetic as well as artistic vein:

"Far over the mountains and over the corries Echoed loud wailings and bleatings the day When from the side of the mothers that loved them The lambs at Kingairloch were taken away.

"Vainly, poor mothers, ye watch in the valley The nook where your little ones gambolled before, Vainly ye climb to the heights of the mountains-- They answer you not, and shall answer no more!