Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life. Countess of Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers Jersey
Macclesfield, who was in Waiting at Marlborough House when His present Majesty was born. My aunt welcomed us in the Princess of Wales’s pretty sitting-room hung with a kind of brocade with a pattern of roses. The baby was then brought in to be admired, and to my gratification I was allowed to hold the little Prince in my arms. I did not then realise that in after years I could claim to have nursed my King.
Shortly afterwards we used to hear a good deal of the American Civil War. We were too young to have much opinion as to the rival causes, but there was a general impression conveyed to our minds that the “Southerners were gentlemen.” Some time after the war was over, in December 1868, Jefferson Davis, the Southern (Confederate) President, came to stay at Stoneleigh. He was over in Europe on parole. We were told that he had been in prison, and one of my younger brothers was anxious to know whether we “should see the marks of the chains.” We had a favourite old housemaid who was preparing his room, and we imparted to her the thrilling information of his former imprisonment. Her only response was “Umph, well, I suppose he won’t want these silver candlesticks.” A large bedroom was being prepared for him, but she considered that silver candlesticks were only for ladies, and that presidents and prisoners were not entitled to such luxuries.
He proved to be a benevolent old gentleman who impressed my cousins and myself by the paternal way in which he addressed any elder girl as “daughter.”
After this—but I cannot remember the particular years—we went in the autumn to Land’s End, The Lizard, and Tintagel, and also had villas at Torquay and Bournemouth respectively, but our experiences were too ordinary to be worthy of record. I think I was about seventeen when I went with my parents to Vichy, where my father drank the waters—and we went on to some beautiful Auvergne country. This was my last excursion abroad with my parents before I married.
CONFIRMATION
In 1867 I was confirmed. The church which we attended was in Park Street. It has since been pulled down, but was then regarded as specially the church of the Westminster family. My grandparents sat in a large pew occupying the length of the gallery at the west end of the church. We had a pew in the south gallery with very high sides, and my early recollections are of sitting on a dusty red hassock from which I could see little but the woodwork during a very long sermon. One Sunday when I was approaching years of discretion the clergyman gave out notice of a Confirmation, with the usual intimation that Candidates should give in their names in the Vestry. My mother told me to do this accompanied by my younger brother (Gilbert) as chaperon. The clergyman seemed a good deal surprised, and I rather fancy that I was the only Candidate. He was an old man who had been there for a long time. He said that he would come and see me at my parents’ house, and duly arrived at 37 Portman Square. I was sent in to my father’s sitting-room for the interview, and I believe that he was more embarrassed than I was, for I had long been led to regard Confirmation as the proper sequence to learning my Catechism and a fitting step in religious life. The clergyman somewhat uneasily remarked that he had to ascertain that I knew my Catechism, and asked me to say it. This I could have done in my sleep, as it had for years formed part of my Sunday instruction. When I ended he asked after a slight pause whether I knew why the Nicene Creed was so called. This was unexpected pleasure. I had lately read Milman’s Latin Christianity to my mother, and should have enjoyed nothing better than delivering to my pastor a short lecture on the Arian and Athanasian doctrines. When I began it, however, he hastily cut me short, saying that he saw that I knew all about it—how old was I? “Seventeen and a half.” “Quite old enough,” said he, and told me that he would send me my ticket, and when I went to the church someone would show me where to sit. This ended my preparation as far as he was concerned. I believe he intimated to my parents that he would see Miss Leigh again, but in practice he took care to keep clear of the theological enfant terrible.
I was duly confirmed on May 31st, by Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London. I feel sure that my mother amply supplied any lacunæ left by the poor old clergyman. No doubt in those days Preparation for Confirmation was not regarded as seriously as at present, but I do not think that mine was quite typical, as some of my contemporary cousins underwent a much more serious course of instruction.
“COMING OUT”
That autumn I began to “come out” in the country. We went to a perfectly delightful ball at the Shaw-Stewarts’ at Ardgowan, where the late Duke of Argyll—then Lord Lorne—excited my admiration by the way he danced reels in Highland costume. Thence my brother and I went to Hans Hall to the coming-of-age of my cousin Charles Adderley, now Lord Norton. The whole country-side swarmed to the festivities, and one party unable to obtain any other conveyance chartered a hearse. Miss Ferrier, in her novel The Inheritance, makes one of her female characters arrive at a country house, where she was determined to be received, in a hearse—but she was even more gruesome than my cousin’s guests as she accompanied the corpse!
The following year (1868), May 12th, I was presented—Princess Christian held the Drawing-Room on behalf of the Queen, who still lived in retirement as far as social functions were concerned. She, however, attended this Drawing-Room for about half an hour—receiving the entrée. Her devotion to the Prince Consort and to his memory was unparalleled. No doubt the fact that she had practically never had anyone with whom she could associate on equal terms until her marriage had a good deal to do with it. I know of a lady whom she summoned to sit with her when the Prince Consort was being carried to his funeral on the ground that she was a widow and could feel for her, and she said that her shudders when the guns went off were dreadful, and that she seemed unable to realise that here for the first time was something that she could not control.
To return to my entry in the world. Naturally I went during 1868 and the three or four succeeding years to the balls, dinners, and garden parties usual in the course of the season. The “great houses” then existed—they had not been pulled down or turned into public galleries and offices. Stafford House, Grosvenor House, Northumberland House, and others entertained in royal style, and there were Garden Parties at Argyll Lodge and Airlie Lodge on Campden Hill, at Syon, and at Chiswick, then in possession of the Duke of Devonshire.
In those days there was still a sort of question as to the propriety of waltzing. Valses and square dances were danced alternately at balls, and a few—but very few—girls were limited to the latter. Chaperones were the almost invariable rule and we went back to them between the dances. “Sitting-out” did not come in till some years later. In the country, however, there was plenty of freedom, and I never remember any restriction on parties of girls and young men walking or rowing together without their elders. By the time I came out my brother Gilbert (Gilly) was at Harrow and Dudley and Rupert at Mr. Lee’s Private School at Brighton. My special charge and pet Rowland was still at home, and the youngest of the family Cordelia a baby.
Dudley and Rupy were inseparable. Duddy delicate, Rupy sturdy and full of mischief into which he was apt to drag his elder brother. I had to look after them, and see that they accomplished a few lessons in the holidays—no light task, but I was ready for anything to keep off holiday tutors and, I am afraid, to retain my position as elder sister. Love of being first was doubtless my besetting sin, and my good-natured younger brothers and sisters accepted my rule—probably also because it was easier than that of a real grown-up person. My mother had bad health, and my father took it for granted that it was my business to keep the young ones as far as possible out of mischief. As for my sister Agnes, she was always a saint, and I am afraid that I was a tyrant as far as she was concerned. Cordelia was born when I was over sixteen and was always rather like my child. Rowland was just seven when her arrival delighted the family, and his first remark when he heard that he had a little sister was “I wonder what she will think of my knickerbockers”—to which he had lately been promoted. Boys wore little tunics with belts when they first left off baby frocks, and sailor suits were not introduced when my brothers were children.
IRELAND
My next special recollection is of a visit to Ireland which I paid in company with my parents, Gilbert, and Agnes in August 1869. We crossed in the Leinster and duly lionised Dublin. I kept a journal during this tour in which the sights of the city are duly noted with the remark, after seeing the post office, that we “made the various observations proper to intelligent but tired travellers.”