Forty Years of 'Spy'. Leslie Ward
and rubbed it well in (as directions) before going to bed. When, the next morning I arose, expectant, I was puzzled to find my lips swollen out of all proportion, and my disappointment was not untinged with feelings that can be left to the imagination.
About this time I received my first commission, through Mrs. Pender (afterwards Lady Pender), who asked my father if I could be induced to undertake a series of drawings for a friend of hers, Mrs. Butler Johnstone Munro. Of course, I jumped at the offer, and lost no time in making the acquaintance of my patroness, who was an eccentric old lady of eighty, and quite an original character. Her brother, Mr. Munro of Novar, had left her his collection of pictures of all schools, which she prized greatly, and she wished me to make a plan and series of drawings to scale, of the pictures in their frames exactly as they hung upon the walls of her house in Hamilton Place, that it might give her an idea how they should be placed in a mansion she was moving into. The work took me a little over three months to complete, and when it was done, I made sure of a handsome remuneration from Mrs. Butler Johnstone, who was very wealthy. Alas! the five-pound note which she paid me after my first day's work was all I ever got, for she died suddenly while I was taking a summer holiday, and I was "mug" enough not to send in a claim to her executors. Thus only the memory and satisfaction of having studied some of the finest pictures in this country was left me by way of compensation for my trouble. I often, however, look back in amusement at some of my experiences while I was working for this quaint old lady, who, I may mention, seemed to consider me at her beck and call, and used to telegraph for me to come and show her guests a portfolio containing an almost unique set of water-colour drawings by Turner. Colonel Butler Johnstone, M.P. (my patroness's husband) came into the room one day when I was starting upon my commission; he evidently had no sympathy with art, for he said that he thought that I might be better occupied. It seemed to him, he said, rather ridiculous to undertake such tedious work, because when it was completed he couldn't see the object of it.
This was a little disconcerting, but I was not discouraged.
I remember, one summer morning, Mrs. Butler Johnstone arriving on horseback at my father's house, and sending in a message by the servant to inform Mr. Leslie Ward, that the "Honourable Mrs. Butler Johnstone Munro" was waiting to see him, and, upon my hastening downstairs, I saw at the front door, mounted upon a good, but aged horse, my strange employer, shielding her wrinkled old face from the sun with a white parasol, which I afterwards discovered she habitually used whilst riding in the Park during the season. This call was to ask me to accompany her to the Kensington Museum, and there to act as her mouthpiece, she being desirous of making a proposition to Sir Wentworth Cole as to her intention of making a temporary loan of pictures to that institute. While we were driving to the Museum in a hansom cab, I remember that a somewhat ridiculous contretemps took place. The old lady, in giving her directions to the driver, managed to get her bonnet and cape entangled and dragged off, and I was reprimanded severely for the vain attempts I made to act as the "gallant" in assisting her to replace them.
My visit for six weeks, with my parents, to the first Lord Lytton (Bulwer Lytton) at Knebworth, made a great impression upon my mind, as I suppose I began to consider myself "grown up," and was rather flattered on receiving so interesting an invitation. During my stay I made a water-colour painting of the great hall, which was hung with rich red hangings and a fine old Elizabethan curtain. I also both caricatured from memory and drew a portrait of my host (for which he sat), for his appearance proved an irresistible attraction to me. Lord Lytton had a remarkably narrow face with a high forehead; his nose was piercingly aquiline, and seemed to swoop down between his closely-set blue eyes, which changed in expression as his interest waxed and waned. When he was interestedly questioning his neighbour, he became almost satanic looking, and his glance grew so keenly inquisitive as to give the appearance of a "cast" in his eyes. Carefully curled hair crowned his forehead, and his bushy eyebrows, beard and moustache gave a curious expression to his face, which was rather pale, except in the evening, when he slightly "touched up," as the dandies of his day were in the habit of doing. His beau ideal was D'Orsay, and he showed the nicest care in the choice of his clothes. His trousers were baggy as they tapered downward, and rather suggested a sailor's in the way they widened towards the feet. I can see him now standing on the hearthrug awaiting the announcement of dinner—dressed up "to the eyes," and listening with bent, attentive head to his guests. It was typical of Lord Lytton that he listened to the most insignificant of his guests with all the deference that he would have shown to the greatest. Replacing his hookah (for he smoked opium) he would be silent for a considerable time, watching us out of his odd eyes, and when he spoke it was in a soft voice which he never raised above a low tone. He told many stories of "Dis-ra-eel-i," whose name he pronounced with slow deliberation, and one strained one's ears to catch every word that he said, they were so interesting. I wish I could remember them now.
AT KNEBWORTH
In Art he had no taste whatever, but he was especially fond of artists with literary tastes, which perhaps explains why he "took" so much to Maclise and my father. Maclise (whom he considered everything that could be desired both as a personality and an artist) painted his portrait, which is now at Knebworth. It is an extraordinarily good likeness, but very hard in the quality of painting, and unsympathetic in treatment.
When I was at Knebworth I first found myself in public opposition to my father's dislike of tobacco. I do not think I have mentioned this distaste before. When he gave a dinner at home, he usually persuaded a friend to choose the cigars, and was very glad to escape from the atmosphere of tobacco when they were being smoked by his guests. Later in life the doctor ordered an occasional cigarette to soothe his nerves; he smoked one, and that was too much for him.
À propos of this detestation of tobacco, I suffered what I supposed then to be one of the most humiliating moments of my life. When the cigars were handed round to the guests after dinner, I took one and began to light it, whereupon my father, who had never allowed me to smoke in his presence, saw my cigar, and waved it magnificently down. Considering myself "grown up," I was at the most sensitive period of my boyhood, and I felt I must appear ridiculous in the eyes of all the men at the table, when possibly the whole episode had passed unnoticed, or if they had observed me, would not have given a moment's notice to the occurrence.
There was a French cook at Knebworth who used to go fishing in the lake for minnows. Lord Lytton was wont to damp my ardour when I expressed a desire to fish, by informing me that there were pike, but that nobody had ever succeeded in catching any. Strangely enough, from the moment I started to fish, I was very successful. Never a day passed without my making a good haul; and although the Frenchman failed to catch them, he knew the secret of stuffing and serving them for dinner.
Lord Lytton was in some respects rather curious, for he informed me that if I went on fishing I should empty the lake. However, I went down one morning and found the whole lake drained and the fish destroyed. The only explanation which occurred to me was that he might have regarded fishing as cruel, just as he considered shooting brutal; for after once hearing the cries of a hare he had wounded he never handled a gun again.
An American lady named Madame de Rossit was then acting as Lord Lytton's secretary. She had her little daughter with her, a very precocious child, who had been brought up evidently on the great man's poetry. I remember a very painful evening when all the household and the neighbours were present to hear the child recite "The Lady of Lyons." Anything more distressing could hardly be imagined.
Hume, the spiritualist and medium, whom I mentioned in connection with the S. C. Halls, constantly came, and Lord Lytton, with a view to testing my psychic possibilities, arranged that I should work with the planchette. He was, I think, making experiments more out of curiosity than earnest belief. Our attempts were entirely without results. I was evidently not en rapport.
My host was always attracted by the mysterious; he loved haunted rooms and tales of ghosts. There was a room at Knebworth where a "yellow boy" walked at midnight, and the house itself was full of surprises. For instance, you went to a bookcase to take down a volume, and found the books were merely shams, or you attempted to open another case, and found it was a concealed entrance to the drawing-room. There were some fine pieces of old oak in the house, nevertheless, and upon my mother's expression of admiration for one old door he had it packed and sent to her as a present.
In