Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life. Countess of Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers Jersey
and she turned pale and said “You have no right to speak to me in this way.” Ups and downs followed, including a consultation with planchette, which quite properly wavered and shook and spoke with an uncertain voice. This was all in 1870. Some time in January we acted a small farce which I had perpetrated called The Detective. When it was over my uncle informed me that failing his marriage he intended to leave me a thousand pounds in recognition of this play. Fortunately I founded no hopes on that thousand pounds, for I think that it was the following morning when Uncle Eddy came shouting along the top corridor where we slept. “Margaret—you’ve lost your thousand pounds!” The post had come in and the fair lady had relented.
FANNY KEMBLE
James, my father’s youngest brother, called “Uncle Jimmy,” had travelled in the United States and been entertained on her plantation in Georgia by a charming Southern lady—a Miss Butler, daughter of the descendant of an old Irish family who had married the well-known actress Fanny Kemble. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce Butler had separated—not from any wrong-doing, but from absolute incompatibility of temper. For one thing the wife took up a violent anti-slavery attitude—a little awkward when (as she must have known when she married) the husband owned a cotton plantation worked by slave labour. However, the two daughters remained on friendly terms with both parents, and Mr. Butler died during—or shortly after—the war. One daughter married a Dr. Wister and became the mother of the well-known author, Owen Wister; the younger, Frances, married my uncle and was adopted into the family as “Aunt Fanny.” Though some ten or eleven years older than myself, she and I became the greatest friends, and I much liked her somewhat erratic, though withal stately, mother, who was called “Mrs. Kemble.” Both Uncles were married (on different days) in June 1871, my sister Agnes being bridesmaid to Miss Butler and I to Miss Rigby.
Both marriages were very happy ones, though my Uncle Chandos ended his life in a dark cloud cast by the late War—in which he lost his only two sons, and his wife was killed in a motor accident not long after his death.
Since I wrote above I have found an old journal from May 18th, 1868, to November 3rd, 1869. I do not extract much from it, as it largely consists of records of the various balls and entertainments which we attended—but it is rather amusing to note what circumstances, social and otherwise, struck the fancy of a girl in her first two seasons. Politically the Irish Church Bill seems to have been the burning question. We went to part of the Debate on the Second Reading (June 17th, 1869) in the House, and I not only give a summary of Lord Salisbury’s speech, but when the Bill was carried, devote over two pages of my journal to a full description of the details of the measure. The causes célèbres of Madame Rachel, the Beauty Doctor, and of the nun, Miss Saurin, against her Mother Superior, Mrs. Starr, appear also to have been topics of conversation.
AN OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS
One visit is perhaps worth recording. My father’s mother was a Miss Willes of an old family living on the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire—regular country people. One of her brothers, Charles, was married to a certain Polly—I think she was a Miss Waller, but anyhow they were a plump, old-fashioned pair. She was supposed to keep a book in which were recorded the names of over a hundred nephews and nieces, and to sell a pig to give a present to any one of the number who married. On the last day of 1868 my brother Gilly and I went with our Aunt Georgiana to stay with this charming old couple at King-Sutton Manor House near Banbury. This is how I describe the New Year festivities of fifty years ago: “It is a queer old house like one in a storybook, full of corners. My wash-stand was in a recess with a window, separated from the rest of the room by doors so that it looked like a chapel. We had dinner between six and seven, a real Christmas dinner with nearly twenty people—great-uncle Charles, great-aunt Martha, great-aunt Sophy, George Willes, Willie Willes, Stany Waller, the clergyman Mr. Bruce, Aunt Polly herself beaming at the head of the table, turkey and beef stuck with holly, and the plum-pudding brought in, in flaming brandy. … Almost everyone seemed related to all the rest. A few more people came after dinner while we were in the drawing-room and the dining-room was being cleared for dancing. Two fiddlers and a blowing-man were then perched on a table in a corner and dancing began—quadrilles, lancers, jig, reel, and valse carried on with the utmost energy, by Aunt Polly in particular, till about half-past eleven, when muffled bells began to ring in a church close by and the dancing was stopped that we might all listen. At twelve o’clock the muffles were taken off, Aunt Polly charged with Xmas cards into the midst of her company, punch was brought in in great cups, silver, I believe; everyone kissed, shook hands, and wished everyone else a Happy New Year, the bells rang a joy-peal, and we had supper, and then began dancing again till between one and two in the morning. After many efforts Gilly succeeded in catching Aunt Polly under the misletoe and kissing her.” I do not know what a “blowing-man” may have been, but have a vivid recollection of Aunt Polly trying to dance everyone down in a perpetual jig, and of the portly figure of Uncle Charles, who had to be accommodated with two chairs at dinner.
We had other very pleasant visits—and amongst them we stayed with my uncle and aunt Wenlock for my cousin Carry Lawley’s wedding to Captain Caryl Molyneux. This marriage was particularly interesting to all the cousinhood, as it was brought about after considerable opposition. Carry was an extraordinarily pretty, lively, and attractive girl rather more than a year older than myself. She had brilliant eyes and auburn hair and was exceedingly clever and amusing. Her family naturally expected her to make a marriage which would give all her qualities a wide sphere. However, at the mature age of eleven she won the affections of Lord Sefton’s younger brother and he never fluctuated in his choice. I do not know at what exact moment he disclosed his admiration, but he contrived to make the young lady as much in love with him as he was with her. Vainly did her mother refuse consent. Carry stuck to her guns, and I believe ultimately carried her point by setting up a cough! Anyhow the parents gave in, and when they did so, accepted the position with a good grace. Somehow what was considered sufficient provision for matrimony was made and Caryl and Carry were married, on a brilliant spring day in April 1870.
A PRE-MATRIMONIAL PARTY
It was at the Wenlocks’ London house, in the following year, that I made the acquaintance of Lord Jersey. We had unknowingly met as children at an old inn on Edgehill called “The Sunrising”; at that time his parents, Lord and Lady Villiers, lived not far off at Upton House, which then belonged to Sarah, Lady Jersey. While my brother and I were playing outside, a boy with long fair hair looked out of the inn and smilingly lashed his whip at us, unconscious that it was his first salutation to his future wife! I discovered in after years that George Villiers, as he then was, used to ride over for lessons to a neighbouring clergyman and put up his pony at the inn.
At the dinner-party at Berkeley Square Lord Jersey did not take me in, and I had not the slightest idea who he was, but when the ladies left the dining-room I was laughed at for having monopolised his attention when he was intended to talk to his partner. He was reckoned exceedingly shy, and I thought no more of the matter till the following season, to which I shall return in due course.
After our return to Stoneleigh, though I do not recollect in which month (I think August), we had a large and gay party including a dance—it was distinctly a pre-matrimonial party, as three of the girls whom it included were either engaged or married before twelve months were over, though none of them to the men present. The three girls were Gwendolen (then called Gwendaline) Howard, who married Lord Bute; Maria Fox-Strangways, married to Lord Bridport’s son Captain Hood; and myself. Rather oddly, a much older man and a widower, Lord Raglan, who was also of the party, caught the matrimonial microbe and married his second wife in the ensuing autumn.
Among others my cousin and great friend Hugh Shaw-Stewart was there and immortalised our doings in verse. At Christmas time I managed to get slight congestion of the lungs and soon after went to spend some time with my kind uncle and aunt Sir Michael and Lady Octavia Shaw-Stewart at Fonthill, and Hughie, who had also suffered from chest trouble, stayed with his parents there while preparing for Oxford.
FONTHILL ABBEY
Fonthill, as is well known, belonged to the eccentric Beckford and was full of his traditions. After his death the property was divided and my grandfather Westminster bought the portion which included Beckford’s old house, of