CHAPTER IIIMEMBLAND

“Arethusa aroseFrom her couch of snowsIn the Acroceraunian mountains.”

“Arethusa aroseFrom her couch of snowsIn the Acroceraunian mountains.”

“Arethusa aroseFrom her couch of snowsIn the Acroceraunian mountains.”

“Arethusa arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains.”

For years I thought “Acroceraunian” was a kind of pin-cushion.

Mrs. Christie had a passion for Sir Walter Scott and for the Waverley Novels. “You can’t help,” she said, “liking any King of England that Sir Walter Scott has written about.” She instilled into us a longing to read Sir Walter Scott by promising that we should read them when we were older. One of the most interesting discussions to me was that between Chérie and Mrs. Christie as to what English books the girls should be allowed to read in the country. Mrs. Christie told, to illustrate a point, the following story. A French lady had once come across a French translation of an English novel, and seeing it was an English novel had at once given it to her daughter to read, as she said, of course, any English novel was fit for thejeune personne. The novel was calledLes Papillons de Nuit. “And what do you think that was?” said Mrs. Christie. “Moths, by Ouida!”

The first poem that really moved me was not shown me by Mrs. Christie, but by Mantle, the maid who looked after the girls. It was Mrs. Hemans’: “Oh, call my Brother back to me, I cannotplay alone.” This poem made me sob. I still think it is a beautiful and profoundly moving poem. Besides English, Mrs. Christie used to teach us Latin. I had my first Latin lesson the day after my eighth birthday. This is how it began: “Supposing,” said Mrs. Christie, “you knocked at the door and the person inside said, ‘Who’s there?’ What would you say?” I thought a little, and then half-unconsciously said, “I.” “Then,” said Mrs. Christie, “that shows you have a natural gift for grammar.” She explained that I ought reasonably to have said “Me.” Why I said “I,” I cannot think. I had no notion what her question was aiming at, and I feel certain I should have said “Me” in real life. The good grammar was quite unintentional.

As for arithmetic, it was an unmixed pain, and there was an arithmetic book calledIbbisterwhich represented to me the final expression of what was loathsome. One day in a passion with Chérie I searched my mind for the most scathing insult I could think of, and then cried out, “Vieille Ibbister.”

I learnt to read very quickly, in French first. In the nursery Grace and Annie read meGrimm’s Fairy Talestill they were hoarse, and as soon as I could read myself I devoured any book of fairy-tales within reach, and a great many other books; but I was not precocious in reading, and found grown-up books impossible to understand. One of my favourite books later wasThe Crofton Boys, which Mrs. Christie gave me on 6th November 1883, as a “prize for successful card-playing.” It is very difficult for me to understand now how a child could have enjoyed the intensely sermonising tone of this book, but I certainly did enjoy it.

I remember another book calledRomance, orChivalry and Romance. In it there was a story of a damsel who was really a fairy, and a bad fairy at that, who went into a cathedral in the guise of a beautiful princess, and when the bell rang at the Elevation of the Host, changed into her true shape and vanished. I consulted Mrs. Christie as to what the Elevation of the Host meant, and she gave me a clear account of what Transubstantiation meant, and she told me about HenryVIII., the Defender of the Faith, and the Reformation, and made no comment on the truth or untruth of the dogma. Transubstantiation seemed to me the most natural thing in the world, as it always does to children, and I privately made up my mindthat on that point the Reformers must have been mistaken. One day Chérie said for everydevoirI did, and for every time I wasn’t naughty, I should be given a counter, and if I got twenty counters in three days I should get a prize. I got the twenty counters and sallied off to Hatchard’s to get the prize. I chose a book calledThe Prince of the Hundred Soupsbecause of its cover. It was by Vernon Lee, an Italian puppet-show in narrative, about a Doge who had to eat a particular kind of soup every day for a hundred days. It is a delightful story, and I revelled in it. On the title-page it was said that the book was by the author ofBelcaro. I resolved to getBelcarosome day;Belcarosounded a most promising name, rich in possible romance and adventure, and I saved up my money for the purpose. When, after weeks, I had amassed the necessary six shillings, I went back to Hatchard’s and boughtBelcaro. Alas, it was an æsthetic treatise of the stiffest and driest and most grown-up kind. Years afterwards I told Vernon Lee this story, and she promised to write me another story instead ofBelcaro, likeThe Prince of the Hundred Soups. The first book I read to myself wasAlice in Wonderland, which John gave to me. Another book I remember enjoying very much wasThe King of the Golden River, by Ruskin.

I enjoyed my French lessons infinitely more than my English ones. French poetry seemed to be the real thing, quite different from the prosaic English blank verse, except La Fontaine’sFables, which, although sometimes amusing, seemed to be almost as prosy as Shakespeare. They had to be learnt by heart, nevertheless. They seemed to be in the same relation to other poems, Victor Hugo’s “Napoléon II.” and “Dans L’Alcove sombre,” which I thought quite enchanting, as meat was to pudding at luncheon, and I was not allowed to indulge in poetry until I had done my fable, but not without much argument. I sometimes overbore Chérie’s will, but she more often got her way by saying: “Tu as toujours voulu écrire avec un stylo avant de savoir écrire avec une plume.” I learnt a great many French poems by heart, and made sometimes startling use of the vocabulary. One day at luncheon I said to Chérie before the assembled company: “Chérie, comme ton front est nubile!” the wordnubilehaving been applied by the poet, Casimir de la Vigne, to Joan of Arc.

The first French poem which really fired my imaginationwas a passage fromLes Enfants d’Édouard, a play by the same poet, in which one of the little princes tells a dream, which Margaret used to recite in bloodcurdling tones, and his brother, the Duke of York, answers lyrically something about the sunset on the Thames.[1]Those lines fired my imagination as nothing else did. We once acted a scene from this play, Margaret and I playing the two brothers, and Susan the tearful and widowed queen and mother, and Hugo as a beefeater, who had to bawl at the top of his voice: “Reine, retirez-vous!” when the queen’s sobs became excessive, and indeed in Susan’s rendering there was nothing wanting in the way of sobs, as she was a facile weeper, and Margaret used to call her “Madame la Pluie.” Indeed there was a legend in the schoolroom that the decline of LouisXIV., King of France, moved her to tears, and being asked why she was crying, she sobbed out the words: “la vieillesse du grand Woi.”

As far back as I remember we used to act plays in French. The first one performed in the back drawing-room in Charles Street was calledComme on fait son lit on se couche, and I played some part in it which I afterwards almost regretted, as whenever a visitor came to luncheon I was asked to say a particular phrase out of it, and generally refused. This was not either from obstinacy or naughtiness; it was simply to spare my mother humiliation. I was sure grown-up people could not help thinking the performance inadequate and trifling. I was simply covered with prospective shame and wished to spare them the same feeling. One day, when a Frenchman, Monsieur de Jaucourt, came to luncheon, I refused to say the sentence in question, in spite of the most tempting bribes, simply for that reason. I was hot with shame at thinking what Monsieur de Jaucourt—he a Frenchman, too—would think of something so inadequate. And this shows how impossible it is for grown-up people to put themselves in children’s shoes and to divine their motives. If only children knew, it didn’t matter what they said!

Another dramatic performance was a scene from Victor Hugo’s drama,Angelo, in which Margaret, dressed in a crimsonvelvet cloak bordered with gold braid, declaimed a speech of Angelo Podesta of Padua, about the Council of Ten at Venice, while Susan, dressed in pink satin and lace, sat silent and attentive, looking meek in the part of the Venetian courtesan.

All this happened during early years in London.

Mademoiselle Ida used to enliven lessons with news from the outside world, discussions of books and concerts, and especially of other artists. One day when I was sitting at my slate with Mrs. Christie, she was discussing English spelling, and saying how difficult it was. Mrs. Christie rashly said that I could spell very well, upon which Mademoiselle Ida said to me, “You would spell ‘which’ double u i c h, wouldn’t you?” And I, anxious to oblige, said, “Yes.” This was a bitter humiliation.

Besides music lessons we had drawing lessons, first from a Miss Van Sturmer. Later we had lessons from Mr. Nathaniel Green, a water-colourist, who taught us perspective. One year I drew the schoolroom clock, which Mr. Jump used to come to wind once a week, as a present for my mother on her birthday, the 18th of June.

Sometimes I shared my mother’s lesson in water-colours. Mr. Green used to say he liked my washes, as they were warm. He used to put his brush in his mouth, which I considered dangerous, and he sometimes used a colour called Antwerp blue, which I thought was a pity, as it was supposed to fade. I was passionately fond of drawing, and drew both indoors and out of doors on every possible opportunity, and constantly illustrated various episodes in our life, or books that were being read out at the time. I took an immense interest in my mother’s painting, especially in the colours: Rubens madder, cyanine, aureoline, green oxide of chromium, transparent—all seemed to be magic names. The draughtsman of the family was Elizabeth. None of my brothers drew. Elizabeth used to paint a bust of Clytie in oils, and sometimes she went as far as life-size portraits. Besides this, she was an excellent caricaturist, and used to illustrate the main episodes of our family life in a little sketch-book.

Lessons, on the whole, used to pass off peacefully. I don’t think we were ever naughty with Mrs. Christie, although Elizabeth and Margaret used often to rock with laughter at some private joke of their own during their lessons, but with Chérie we were often naughty. The usual punishment was tobeprivé de pudding. When the currant and raspberry tart came round at luncheon we used to refuse it, and my mother used to press it on us, not knowing that we had beenprivé. Sometimes, too, we had to write out three tenses of the verbaimer, and on one occasion I refused to do it. It was a Saturday afternoon; there was a treat impending, and I was told I would not be allowed to go unless I copied out the tenses, but I remained firm throughout luncheon. Finally, at the end of luncheon I capitulated in a flood of tears and accepted the loan of my mother’s gold pencil-case and scribbledJ’aime, tu aimes, il aime, etc., on a piece of writing-paper.

In the drawing-room we were not often naughty, but we were sometimes, and tried the grown-ups at moments beyond endurance. My mother said that she had had to whip us all except Hugo. I was whipped three times. Before the operation my mother always took off her rings.

Upstairs, Margaret and Elizabeth used sometimes to fight, and Susan would join in the fray, inspired by the impulse of the moment. She was liable to these sudden impulses, and on one occasion—she was very small—when she was looking on at a review of volunteers, when the guns suddenly fired, she stood up in the carriage and boxed everyone’s ears.

Not long ago we found an old mark-book which belonged to this epoch of schoolroom life, and in it was the following entry in Chérie’s handwriting: “Elizabeth et Marguerite se sont battues, Suzanne s’est jetée sur le pauvre petit Maurice.” Whenever Margaret saw that I was on the verge of tears she used to say that I made a special face, which meant I was getting ready to cry, and she called thisla première position; when the corners of the mouth went down, and the first snuffle was heard, she called itla seconde position; and when tears actually came, it wasla troisième position. Nearly always the mention ofla première positionaverted tears altogether.

On Monday evenings in London my mother used to go regularly to the Monday Pops at St. James’s Hall, and on Saturday afternoon also. Dinner was at seven on Mondays, and we used to go down to it, and watch my mother cut up a leg of chicken and fill it with mustard and pepper and cayenne pepper to make a devil for supper. Margaret was sometimes taken to the Monday Pop, as she was supposed to like it, but the others were seldom taken, in case, my mother used to say,“You say when you are grown up that you were dragged to concerts, and get to dislike them.” The result was a feverish longing to go to the Monday Pop. I don’t remember going to the Monday Pop until I was grown up, but I know that I always wanted to go. I was taken to the Saturday Pop sometimes, and the first one I went to was on 8th November 1879. I was five years old. This was the programme:

Every winter we were taken to the pantomime by Lord Antrim, and the pantomimes I remember seeing wereMother Goose,Robinson Crusoe,Sinbad the Sailor,Aladdin, andCinderella, in which the funny parts were played by Herbert Campbell and Harry Nicholls, and the Princess sometimes by the incomparably graceful dancer, Kate Vaughan.

I also remember the first Gilbert and Sullivan operas.PinaforeI was too young for; but I saw theChildren’s Pinafore, which was played by children.PatienceandIolantheandPrincess IdaI saw when they were first produced at the Savoy.

Irving and Ellen Terry we never saw till I went to school, as Irving’s acting in Shakespeare made my father angry. When he saw him play Romeo, he was heard to mutter the whole time: “Remove that man from the stage.”

Then there were children’s parties. Strangely enough, I only remember one of these, so I don’t expect I enjoyed them. But I remember a children’s garden party at Marlborough House, and the exquisite beauty, the grace, and the fairy-tale-like welcome of the Princess of Wales.

Two of the great days for the children in London were Valentine’s Day, on the eve of which we each of us sent the whole of the rest of the family Valentines, cushioned and scented Valentines with silken fringes; and the 1st of April, when Susan was always made an April fool, the best one being one of Chérie’s, who sent her to look in the schoolroom forLes Mémoires de Jonas dans la baleine. She searched conscientiously, but in vain, for this interesting book.

On one occasion, on the Prince of Wales’ wedding-day, in March, the whole family were invited to a children’s ball at Marlborough House. The girls’ frocks were a subject of daily discussion for weeks beforehand, and other governesses used to come and discuss the matter. They were white frocks, and when they were ready they were found to be a failure, for some reason, and they had to be made all over again at another dressmaker’s, called Mrs. Mason. It was on this occasion that Chérie made a memorable utterance and said: “Les pointes de Madame Mason sont incomparables,” as Elizabeth had for the first time risen to the dignity of apointe(the end of the pointed “bodies” of the fashions of that day). It was doubtful whether the new frocks would be ready in time. There was a momentous discussion as to whether they were to wear black stockings or not. Finally the frocks arrived, and we were dressed and were all marshalled downstairs ready to start. My father in knee-breeches and myself in a black velvet suit, black velvet breeches, and a white waistcoat. I was told to be careful to remember to kiss the Princess of Wales’ hand.

I can just remember the ballroom, but none of the grown-up people—nothing, in fact, except a vague crowd of tulle skirts.

One night there was a ball, or rather a small dance, in Charles Street, and I was allowed to come down after going to bed all day. People shook their heads over this, and said I was being spoilt, to Chérie, but Chérie said: “Cet enfant n’est pas gâté mais il se fait gâter.”

The dance led off with a quadrille, in which I and my father both took part. After having carefully learnt thepas chasséat dancing lessons, I was rather shocked to find this elegant glide was not observed by the quadrille dancers.

All this was the delightful epoch of the ’eighties, when the shop windows were full of photographs of the professional beauties, and bands played tunes from the new Gilbert andSullivan in the early morning in the streets, and people rode in Rotten Row in the evening, and Chérie used to rush us across the road to get a glimpse of Mrs. Langtry or the Princess of Wales.

Dancing lessons played an important part in our lives. Our first dancing instructor was the famous ex-ballerina, Madame Taglioni, a graceful old lady with grey curls, who held a class at Lady Granville’s house in Carlton House Terrace. It was there I had my first dancing lesson and learnt the Tarantelle, a dance with a tambourine, which I have always found effective, if not useful, in later life. Then Madame Taglioni’s class came to an end, and there was a class at Lady Ashburton’s at Bath House, which was suddenly put a stop to owing to the rough and wild behaviour of the boys, myself among them. Finally we had a class in our own house, supervised by a strict lady in black silk, who taught us thepas chassé, the five positions, the valse, the polka, and the Lancers.

Another event was Mrs. Christie’s lottery, which was held once a year at her house at Kentish Town. All her pupils came, and everyone won a prize in the lottery. One year I won a stuffed duck. After tea we acted charades. On the way back we used to pass several railway bridges, and Chérie, producing a gold pencil, used to say: “Par la vertu de ma petite baguette,” she would make a train pass. It was perhaps a rash boast, but it was always successful.

We used to drive to Mrs. Christie’s in a coach, an enormous carriage driven by Maisy, the coachman, who wore a white wig. It was only used when the whole family had to be transported somewhere.

Another incident of London life was Mademoiselle Ida’s pupils’ concert, which happened in the summer. I performed twice at it, I think, but never a solo. A duet with Mademoiselle Ida playing the bass, and whispering: “Gare au dièse, gare au bémol,” in my ear. What we enjoyed most about this was waiting in what was called the artists’ room, and drinking raspberry vinegar.

But the crowning bliss of London life was Hamilton Gardens, where we used to meet other children and play flags in the summer evenings.

This was the scene of wild enjoyment, not untinged with romance, for there the future beauties of England were all atplay in their lovely teens. We were given tickets for concerts at the Albert Hall and elsewhere in the afternoon, but I remember that often when Hugo and I were given the choice of going to a concert or playing in the nursery, we sometimes chose to play. But I do remember hearing Patti sing “Coming thro’ the Rye” at the Guildhall, and Albani and Santley on several occasions.

But what we enjoyed most of all was finding some broken and derelict toy, and inventing a special game for it. Once in a cupboard in the back drawing-room I came across some old toys which had belonged to John and Cecil, and must have been there for years. Among other things there was an engine in perfectly good repair, with a little cone like the end of a cigar which you put inside the engine under the funnel. You then lit it and smoke came out, and the engine moved automatically. This seemed too miraculous for inquiry, and I still wonder how and why it happened. Then the toy was unaccountably lost, and I never discovered the secret of this mysterious and wonderful engine.

During all this time there were two worlds of which one gradually became conscious: the inside world and the outside world. The centre of the inside world, like the sun to the solar system, was, of course, our father and mother (Papa and Mamma), the dispenser of everything, the source of all enjoyment, and the final court of appeal, recourse to which was often threatened in disputes.

Next came Chérie, then my mother’s maid, Dimmock, then Sheppy, the housekeeper, who had white grapes, cake, and other treats in the housekeeper’s room. She was a fervent Salvationist and wore a Salvationist bonnet, and when my father got violent and shouted out loud ejaculations, she used to coo softly in a deprecating tone.

Then there was Monsieur Butat, the cook, who used to appear in white after breakfast when my father ordered dinner; Deacon, his servant, was the source of all worldly wisdom and experience, and recommended brown billycock hats in preference to black ones, because they did not fade in the sea air; Harriet, the housemaid, who used to bring a cup of tea in the early morning to my mother’s bedroom, and Frank the footman. I can’t remember a butler in London, but I suppose there was one; but if it was the same one we had in the country, it was Mr. Watson.

Dimmock, or D., as we used to call her, played a great part in my early life, because when I came up to London or went down to the country alone with my father and mother she used to have sole charge of me, and I slept in her room. One day, during one of these autumnal visits to London, I was given an umbrella with a skeleton’s head on it. This came back in dreams to me with terrific effect, and for several nights running I ran down from the top to the bottom of the house in terror. The umbrella was taken away. I used to love these visits to London when half the house was shut up, and there was no one there except my father and mother and D., and we used to live in the library downstairs. There used to be long and almost daily expeditions to shops because Christmas was coming, as D. used to chant to me every morning, and the Christmas-tree shopping had to be done. D. and I used to buy all the materials for the Christmas-tree—the candles, the glass balls, and the fairy to stand at the top of it—in a shop in the Edgware Road called Eagle. I used to have dinner in the housekeeper’s room with Sheppy, and spent most of my time in D.’s working-room. One day she gave me a large piece of red plush, and I had something sewn round it, and called itRed Conscience. Never did a present make me more happy; I treated it as something half sacred, like a Mussulman’s mat.

On one occasion D. and I went to a matinée at St. James’s Theatre to seeA Scrap of Paper, played by Mr. and Mrs. Kendal. This year I read the play (it was translated from Sardou’sPattes de Mouche) for the first time, and I found I could recollect every scene of the play, and Mrs. Kendal’s expression and intonation.

Another time Madame Neruda, who was a great friend of my mother’s, whom we saw constantly, gave me two tickets for a ballad concert at which she was playing. The policeman was told to take me into the artists’ room during the interval. D. was to take me, but for some reason she thought the concert was in the evening, and it turned out to be in the afternoon; so as a compensation my father sent us to an operetta calledFalka, in which Miss Violet Cameron sang. I enjoyed it more than any concert. The next day Madame Neruda came to luncheon and heard all about the misadventure. “And did you enjoy your operetta?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, with enthusiasm. “Say, not as much as you would have enjoyedthe ballad concert,” said my mother. But I didn’t feel so sure about that.

I used to do lessons with Mrs. Christie, and have music lessons from Mademoiselle Ida, and in the afternoon I often used to go out shopping in the carriage with my mother, or for a walk with D. But I will tell more about her later when I describe Membland.

The girls had a maid who looked after them called Rawlinson, and she and the nursery made up the rest of the inside world in London.

In the outside world the first person of importance I remember was Grandmamma, my mother’s mother, Lady Elizabeth Bulteel, who used to paint exquisite pictures for the children like the pictures on china, and play songs for us on the pianoforte. She often came to luncheon, and used to bring toys to be raffled for, and make us, at the end of luncheon, sing a song which ran:

“A pie sat on a pear tree,And once so merrily hopped she,And twice so merrily hopped she,Three times so merrily hopped she,”

“A pie sat on a pear tree,And once so merrily hopped she,And twice so merrily hopped she,Three times so merrily hopped she,”

“A pie sat on a pear tree,And once so merrily hopped she,And twice so merrily hopped she,Three times so merrily hopped she,”

“A pie sat on a pear tree,

And once so merrily hopped she,

And twice so merrily hopped she,

Three times so merrily hopped she,”

Each singer held a glass in his hand. When the song had got thus far, everyone drained their glass, and the person who finished first had to say the last line of the verse, which was:

“Ya-he, ya-ho, ya-ho.”

“Ya-he, ya-ho, ya-ho.”

“Ya-he, ya-ho, ya-ho.”

“Ya-he, ya-ho, ya-ho.”

And the person who said it first, won.

Everything about Grandmamma was soft and exquisite: her touch on the piano and her delicate manipulation of the painting-brush. She lived in Green Street, a house I remember as the perfection of comfort and cultivated dignity. There were amusing drawing-tables with tiles, pencils, painting-brushes; chintz chairs and books and music; a smell of potpourri and lavender water; miniatures in glass tables, pretty china, and finished water-colours.

In November 1880—this is one of the few dates I can place—we were in London, my father and mother and myself, and Grandmamma was not well. She must have been over eighty, I think. Every day I used to go to Green Street with my mother and spend the whole morning illuminating a text. I was told Grandmamma was very ill, and had to take the nastiestmedicines, and was being so good about it. I was sometimes taken in to see her. One day I finished the text, and it was given to Grandmamma. That evening when I was having my tea, my father and mother came into the dining-room and told me Grandmamma was dead. The text I had finished was buried with her.

The next day at luncheon I asked my mother to sing “A pie sat on a pear tree,” as usual. It was the daily ritual of luncheon. She said she couldn’t do “Hopped she,” as we called it, any longer now that Grandmamma was not there.

Another thing Grandmamma had always done at luncheon was to break a thin water biscuit into two halves, so that one half looked like a crescent moon; and I said to my mother, “We shan’t be able to break biscuits like that any more.”

To mention any of the other people of the outside world at once brings me to Membland, because the outside world was intimately connected with that place. Membland was a large, square, Jacobean house, white brick, green shutters and ivy, with some modern gabled rough-cast additions and a tower, about twelve miles from Plymouth and ten miles from the station Ivy Bridge.

On the north side of the house there was a gravel yard, on the south side a long, sweeping, sloping lawn, then a ha-ha, a field beyond this and rookery which was called the Grove.

When you went through the front hall you came into a large billiard-room in which there was a staircase leading to a gallery going round the room and to the bedrooms. The billiard-room was high and there were no rooms over the billiard-room proper—but beyond the billiard-table the room extended into a lower section, culminating in a semicircle of windows in which there was a large double writing-table.

Later, under the staircase, there was an organ, and the pipes of the great organ were on the wall.

There was a drawing-room full of chintz chairs, books, potpourri, a grand pianoforte, and two writing-tables; a dining-room looking south; a floor of guests’ rooms; a bachelors’ passage in the wing; a schoolroom on the ground floor looking north, with a little dark room full of rubbish next to it, which was called theCabinet Noir, and where we were sent when we were naughty; and a nursery floor over the guests’ rooms.

From the northern side of the house you could see the hills of Dartmoor. In the west there was a mass of tall trees, Scotch firs, stone-pines, and ashes.

There was a large kitchen garden at some distance from the house on a hill and enclosed by walls.

Our routine of life was much the same as it was in London, except that the children had breakfast in the schoolroom at nine, as the grown-ups did not have breakfast till later.

Then came lessons, a walk, or play in the garden, further lessons, luncheon at two, a walk or an expedition, lessons from five till six, and then tea and games or reading aloud afterwards. One of the chief items of lessons was theDictée, in which we all took part, and even Everard from Eton used to come and join in this sometimes.

Elizabeth won a kind of inglorious glory one day by making thirteen mistakes in herdictée, which was the record—a record never beaten by any one of us before or since; and the wordstreize fautesused often to be hurled at her head in moments of stress.

After tea Chérie used to read out books to the girls, and I was allowed to listen, although I was supposed to be too young to understand, and indeed I was. Nevertheless, I found the experience thrilling; and there are many book incidents which have remained for ever in my mind, absorbed during these readings, although I cannot always place them. I recollect a wonderful book calledL’Homme de Neige, and many passages from Alexandre Dumas.

Sometimes Chérie would read out to me, especially stories from theCabinet des Fées, or better still, tell stories of her own invention. There was one story in which many animals took part, and one of the characters was a partridge who used to go out just before the shooting season with a telescope under his wing to see whether things were safe. Chérie always used to say this was the creation she was proudest of. Another story was calledLe Prince Muguet et Princesse Myosotis, which my mother had printed. I wrote a different story on the same theme and inspired by Chérie’s story when I grew up. But I enjoyed Chérie’s recollections of her childhood as much as her stories, and I could listen for ever to the tales of hergrand-mère séverewho made her pick thorny juniper to make gin, or the story of a lady who had only one gown, a yellow one, and who every day used to ask her maid what the weather was like, and if the maid said it was fine, she would say, “Eh bien, je mettrai ma robe jaune,” and if it was rainy she would likewise say, “Je mettrai ma robe jaune.” Poor Chérie used to be made to repeat this story and others like it in season and out of season.

She would describe Paris until I felt I knew every street, and landscapes in Normandy and other parts of France. The dream of my life was to go to Paris and see the Boulevards and the Invalides and the Arc de Triomphe, and above all, the Champs Elysées.

Chérie had also a repertory of French songs which she used to teach us. One was the melancholy story of a little cabin-boy:

“Je ne suis qu’un petit mousseA bord d’un vaisseau royal,Je vais partout où le vent me pousse,Nord ou midi cela m’est égale.Car d’une mère et d’un pèreJe n’ai jamais connu l’amour.”

“Je ne suis qu’un petit mousseA bord d’un vaisseau royal,Je vais partout où le vent me pousse,Nord ou midi cela m’est égale.Car d’une mère et d’un pèreJe n’ai jamais connu l’amour.”

“Je ne suis qu’un petit mousseA bord d’un vaisseau royal,Je vais partout où le vent me pousse,Nord ou midi cela m’est égale.Car d’une mère et d’un pèreJe n’ai jamais connu l’amour.”

“Je ne suis qu’un petit mousse

A bord d’un vaisseau royal,

Je vais partout où le vent me pousse,

Nord ou midi cela m’est égale.

Car d’une mère et d’un père

Je n’ai jamais connu l’amour.”

Another one, less pathetic but more sentimental, was:

“Pourquoi tous les jours, Madeleine,Vas-tu au bord du ruisseau?Ce n’est pas, car je l’espère,Pour te regarder dans l’eau,‘Mais si,’ répond Madeleine,Baissant ses beaux yeux d’ébêne.Je n’y vais pour autre raison.”

“Pourquoi tous les jours, Madeleine,Vas-tu au bord du ruisseau?Ce n’est pas, car je l’espère,Pour te regarder dans l’eau,‘Mais si,’ répond Madeleine,Baissant ses beaux yeux d’ébêne.Je n’y vais pour autre raison.”

“Pourquoi tous les jours, Madeleine,Vas-tu au bord du ruisseau?Ce n’est pas, car je l’espère,Pour te regarder dans l’eau,‘Mais si,’ répond Madeleine,Baissant ses beaux yeux d’ébêne.Je n’y vais pour autre raison.”

“Pourquoi tous les jours, Madeleine,

Vas-tu au bord du ruisseau?

Ce n’est pas, car je l’espère,

Pour te regarder dans l’eau,

‘Mais si,’ répond Madeleine,

Baissant ses beaux yeux d’ébêne.

Je n’y vais pour autre raison.”

I forget the rest, but it said that she looked into the stream to see whether it was true, as people said, that she was beautiful—“pour voir si gent ne ment pas”—and came back satisfied that it was true.

But best of all I liked the ballad:

“En revenant des noces j’étais si fatiguéeAu bord d’un ruisseau je me suis reposée,L’eau était si claire que je me suis baignée,Avec une feuille de chêne je me suis essuyée,Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait,Chante, beau rossignol, si tu as le cœur gai,Pour un bouton de rose mon ami s’est fâché,Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier,”

“En revenant des noces j’étais si fatiguéeAu bord d’un ruisseau je me suis reposée,L’eau était si claire que je me suis baignée,Avec une feuille de chêne je me suis essuyée,Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait,Chante, beau rossignol, si tu as le cœur gai,Pour un bouton de rose mon ami s’est fâché,Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier,”

“En revenant des noces j’étais si fatiguéeAu bord d’un ruisseau je me suis reposée,L’eau était si claire que je me suis baignée,Avec une feuille de chêne je me suis essuyée,Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait,Chante, beau rossignol, si tu as le cœur gai,Pour un bouton de rose mon ami s’est fâché,Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier,”

“En revenant des noces j’étais si fatiguée

Au bord d’un ruisseau je me suis reposée,

L’eau était si claire que je me suis baignée,

Avec une feuille de chêne je me suis essuyée,

Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait,

Chante, beau rossignol, si tu as le cœur gai,

Pour un bouton de rose mon ami s’est fâché,

Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier,”

or words to that effect.

Besides these she taught us all the French singing games: “Savez-vous planter les choux?” “Sur le pont d’Avignon,” and “Qu’est qui passe ici si tard, Compagnons de la Marjolaine?” We used to sing and dance these up and down the passage outside the schoolroom after tea.

Round about Membland were several nests of relations. Six miles off was my mother’s old home Flete, where the Mildmays lived. Uncle Bingham Mildmay married my mother’s sister,Aunt Georgie, and bought Flete; the house, which was old, was said to be falling to pieces, so it was rebuilt, more or less on the old lines, with some of the old structure left intact.

At Pamflete, three miles off, lived my mother’s brother, Uncle Johnny Bulteel, with his wife, Aunt Effie, and thirteen children.

And in the village of Yealmpton, three miles off, also lived my great-aunt Jane who had a sister called Aunt Sister, who, whenever she heard carriage wheels in the drive, used to get under the bed, such was her disinclination to receive guests. I cannot remember Aunt Sister, but I remember Aunt Jane and Uncle Willie Harris, who was either her brother or her husband. He had been present at the battle of Waterloo as a drummer-boy at the age of fifteen. But Aunt Sister’s characteristics had descended to other members of the family, and my mother used to say that when she and her sister were girls my Aunt Georgie had offered her a pound if she would receive some guests instead of herself.

On Sundays we used to go to church at a little church in Noss Mayo until my father built a new church, which is there now.

The service was long, beginning at eleven and lasting till almost one. There was morning prayer, the Litany, the Ante-Communion service, and a long sermon preached by the rector, a charming old man called Mr. Roe, who was not, I fear, a compelling preacher.

When we went to church I was given a picture-book when I was small to read during the sermon, a book with sacred pictures in colours. I was terribly ashamed of this. I would sooner have died than be seen in the pew with this book. It was a large picture-book. So I used every Sunday to lose or hide it just before the service, and find it again afterwards. On Sunday evenings we used sometimes to sing hymns in the schoolroom. The words of the hymns were a great puzzle. For instance, in the hymn, “Thy will be done,” the following verse occurs—I punctuate it as I understood it, reading it, that is to say, according to the tune—

“Renew my will from day to day,Blend it with Thine, and take away.Allthatnow makes it hard to sayThy will be done.”

“Renew my will from day to day,Blend it with Thine, and take away.Allthatnow makes it hard to sayThy will be done.”

“Renew my will from day to day,Blend it with Thine, and take away.Allthatnow makes it hard to sayThy will be done.”

“Renew my will from day to day,

Blend it with Thine, and take away.

Allthatnow makes it hard to say

Thy will be done.”

I thought the blending and the subsequent taking away of what was blent was a kind of trial of faith.

After tea, instead of being read to, we used sometimes to play a delightful round game with counters, calledLe Nain Jaune.

Any number of people could play at it, and I especially remember Susan triumphantly playing the winning card and saying:

“Le bon Valet, la bonne Dame, le bon Woi. Je wecommence.”

In September or October, Chérie would go for her holidays. I cannot remember if she went every year, but we had no one instead of her, and she left behind her a series of holiday tasks.

During one of her absences my Aunt M’aimée, another sister of my mother’s, came to stay with us. Aunt M’aimée was married to Uncle Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s Private Secretary. He came, too, and with them their daughter Betty. Betty had a craze at that time for Sarah Bernhardt, and gave a fine imitation of her as Doña Sol in the last act ofHernani. It was decided we should act this whole scene, with Margaret as Hernani and Aunt M’aimée reading the part of Ruy Gomez, who appears in a domino and mask.

Never had I experienced anything more thrilling. I used to lie on the floor during the rehearsals, and soon I knew the whole act by heart. I thought Betty the greatest genius that ever lived.

When Chérie came back she was rather surprised and not altogether pleased to find I knew the whole of the last act ofHernaniby heart. She thought this a little too exciting and grown-up for me, and even for Margaret, but none the less she let me perform the part of Doña Sol one evening after tea in my mother’s bedroom, dressed in a white frock, with Susan in a riding-habit playing the sinister figure of Ruy Gomez. I can see Chérie now, sitting behind a screen, book in hand to prompt me, and shaking with laughter as I piped out in a tremulous and lisping treble the passionate words:

“Il vaudrait mieuxzaller (which I made all one word) au tigre mêmeArracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”

“Il vaudrait mieuxzaller (which I made all one word) au tigre mêmeArracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”

“Il vaudrait mieuxzaller (which I made all one word) au tigre mêmeArracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”

“Il vaudrait mieuxzaller (which I made all one word) au tigre même

Arracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”

Chérie’s return from her holidays was one of the most exciting of events, for she would bring back with her a mass of toys from Giroux and theParadis des Enfants, and a flood ofstories about the people and places and plays she had seen, and the food she had eaten.

One year she brought me back a theatre of puppets. It was called Théâtre français. It had a white proscenium, three scenes and an interior, a Moorish garden by moonlight, and a forest, and a quantity of small puppets suspended by stiff wires and dressed in silk and satin. There was a harlequin, a columbine, a king, a queen, many princesses, a villain scowling beneath black eyebrows, an executioner with a mask, peasants, pastry-cooks, and soldiers with halberds, who would have done honour to the Papal Guard at the Vatican, and some heavily moustached gendarmes. This theatre was a source of ecstasy, and innumerable dramas used to be performed in it. Chérie used also to bring back some delicious cakes callednonnettes, a kind of gingerbread with icing on the top, rolled up in a long paper cylinder.

She also brought baskets of bonbons from Boissier, the kind of basket which had several floors of different kinds of bonbons, fondants on the top in their white frills, then caramels, then chocolates, then fruits confits. All these things confirmed one’s idea that there could be no place like Paris.

In 1878, when I was four years old, another brother was born, Rupert, in August, but he died in October of the same year. He was buried in Revelstoke Church, a church not used any more, and then in ruins except for one aisle, which was roofed in, and provided with pews. It nestled by the seashore, right down on the rocks, grey and covered with ivy, and surrounded by quaint tombstones that seemed to have been scattered haphazard in the thick grass and the nettles.

I think it was about the same time that one evening I was playing in my godmother’s room, that I fell into the fire, and my little white frock was ablaze and my back badly burnt. I remember being taken up to the nursery and having my back rubbed with potatoes, and thinking that part, and the excitement and sympathy shown, and the interest created, great fun.

All this was before Hugo was in the schoolroom, but in all my sharper memories of Membland days he plays a prominent part. We, of course, shared the night nursery, and we soon invented games together, some of which were distracting, not to say maddening, to grown-up people. One was an imaginary language in which even the word “Yes” was a trisyllable,namely: “Sheepartee,” and the word for “No” was even longer and more complicated, namely: “Quiliquinino.” We used to talk this language, which was called “Sheepartee,” and which consisted of unmitigated gibberish, for hours in the nursery, till Hilly, Grace, and Annie could bear it no longer, and Everard came up one evening and told us the language must stop or we should be whipped.

The language stopped, but a game grew out of it, which was most complicated, and lasted for years even after we went to school. The game was called “Spankaboo.” It consisted of telling and acting the story of an imaginary continent in which we knew the countries, the towns, the government, and the leading people. These countries were generally at war with one another. Lady Spankaboo was a prominent lady at the Court of Doodahn. She was a charming character, not beautiful nor clever, and sometimes a little bit foolish, but most good-natured and easily taken in. Her husband, Lord Spankaboo, was a country gentleman, and they had no children. She wore red velvet in the evening, and she wasbien vueat Court.

There were hundreds of characters in the game. They increased as the story grew. It could be played out of doors, where all the larger trees in the garden were forts belonging to the various countries, or indoors, but it was chiefly played in the garden, or after we went to bed. Then Hugo would say: “Let’s play Spankaboo,” and I would go straight on with the latest events, interrupting the narrative every now and then by saying: “Now, you be Lady Spankaboo,” or whoever the character on the stage might be for the moment, “and I’ll be So-and-so.” Everything that happened to us and everything we read was brought into the game—history, geography, the ancient Romans, the Greeks, the French; but it was a realistic game, and there were no fairies in it and nothing in the least frightening. As it was a night game, this was just as well.

Hugo was big for his age, with powerful lungs, and after luncheon he used to sing a song called “Apples no more,” with immense effect. Hugo was once told the following riddle: “Why can’t an engine-driver sit down?”—to which the answer is, “Because he has a tender behind.” He asked this to my mother at luncheon the next day, and when nobody could guess it, he said: “Because he has a soft behind.” There was a groom in the stables who had rather a Japanese cast of face,and we used to call himle Japonnais.One day Hugo went and stood in front of him and said to him: “You’re the Japonais.” On another occasion when Hugo was learning to conjugate the auxiliary verbêtre, Chérie urged him to add a substantive after “Je suis,” to show he knew what he was doing. “Je suis une plume,” said Hugo.

We were constantly in D.’s room and used to play sad tricks on her. She rashly told us one day that her brother Jim had once taken her to a fair at Wallington and had there shown her a Punch’s face, in gutta-percha, on the wall. “Go and touch his nose,” had said Jim. She did so, and the face being charged with electricity gave her a shock.

This story fired our imagination and we resolved to follow Jim’s example. We got a galvanic battery, how and where, I forget, the kind which consists of a small box with a large magnet in it, and a handle which you turn, the patient holding two small cylinders. We persuaded D. to hold the cylinders, and then we made the current as strong as possible and turned the handle with all our might. Poor D. screamed and tears poured down her cheeks, but we did not stop, and she could not leave go because the current contracts the fingers; we went on and on till she was rescued by someone else.

Another person we used to play tricks on was M. Butat, the cook, and one day Hugo and I, to his great indignation, threw a dirty mop into his stock-pot.

A great ally in the house was the housekeeper, Mrs. Tudgay. Every day at eleven she would have two little baskets ready for us, which contained biscuits, raisins and almonds, two little cakes, and perhaps a tangerine orange.

To the outside world Mrs. Tudgay was rather alarming. She had a calm, crystal, cold manner; she was thin, reserved, rather sallow, and had a clear, quiet, precise way of saying scathing and deadly things to those whom she disliked. Once when Elizabeth was grown up and married and happened to be staying with us, Mrs. Tudgay said to her: “You’re an expense to his Lordship.” Once when she engaged an under-housemaid she said: “She shall be called—nothing—and get £15 a year.” But for children she had no terrors. She was devoted to us, bore anything, did anything, and guarded our effects and belongings with the vigilance of a sleepless hound. She had formerly been maid to the Duchess of San Marino in Italy,and she had a fund of stories about Italy, a scrap-book full of Italian pictures and photographs, and a silver cross containing a relic of the True Cross given her by Pope PiusIX.We very often spent the evening in the housekeeper’s room, and played Long Whist with Mrs. Tudgay, D., Mr. Deacon, and John’s servant, Mr. Thompson.

When, in the morning, we were exhausted from playing forts and Spankaboo in the garden, we used to leap through Mrs. Tudgay’s window into the housekeeper’s room, which was on the ground floor and looked out on to the garden, and demand refreshment, and Mrs. Tudgay used to bring two wine glasses of ginger wine and some biscuits.

Sometimes we used to go for picnics with Mrs. Tudgay, D., Hilly, and the other servants. We started out in the morning and took luncheon with us, which was eaten at one of the many keepers’ houses on the coast, some of which had a room kept for expeditions, and then spent the afternoon paddling on the rocks and picking shells and anemones. We never bathed, as there was not a single beach on my father’s estate where it was possible. It was far too rocky. Mrs. Tudgay had a small and ineffectual Pomeranian black dog called Albo, who used to be taken on these expeditions. Looking back on these, I wonder at the quantity of food D. and Mrs. Tudgay used to allow us to eat. Hugo and I thought nothing of eating a whole lobster apiece, besides cold beef and apple tart.

Sometimes we all went expeditions with my mother. Then there used to be sketching, and certainly more moderation in the way of food.

Membland was close to the sea. My father made a ten-mile drive along the cliffs so that you could drive from the house one way, make a complete circle, and come back following the seacoast all the way to the river Yealm, on one side of which was the village of Newton Ferrers and on the other the village of Noss Mayo. Both villages straggled down the slopes of a steep hill. Noss Mayo had many white-washed and straw-thatched cottages and some new cottages of Devonshire stone built by my father, with slate roofs, but not ugly or aggressive. Down the slopes of Noss there were fields and orchards, and here and there a straw-thatched cottage. They were both fishing villages, the Yealm lying beneath them, a muddy stretch at low tide and a brimming river at high tide. Newton had an oldgrey Devonshire church with a tower at the west end. At Noss my father built a church exactly the same in pattern of Devonshire stone. You could not have wished for a prettier village than Noss, and it had, as my mother used to say: “a little foreign look about it.”

At different points of this long road round the cliffs, which in the summer were a blaze of yellow gorse, there were various keepers’ cottages, as I have said. From one you looked straight on to the sea from the top of the cliff. Another was hidden low down among orchards and not far from the old ruined church of Revelstoke. A third, called Battery Cottage, was built near the emplacement of an old battery and looked out on to the Mewstone towards Plymouth Sound and Ram Head. The making of this road and the building of the church were two great events. Pieces of the cliff had to be blasted with dynamite, which was under the direction of a cheery workman called Mr. Yapsley, during the road-making, and the building of the church which was in the hands of Mr. Crosbie, the Clerk of the Works, whom we were devoted to, entailed a host of interesting side-issues. One of these was the carving which was done by Mr. Harry Hems of Exeter. He carved the bench-ends, and on one of them was a sea battle in which a member of the Bulteel family, whom we took to be Uncle Johnny, was seen hurling a stone from a mast’s crows’ nest in a sailing ship, on to a serpent which writhed in the waves. Hugo and I both sat for cherubs’ heads, which were carved in stone on the reredos. There were some stained-glass windows and a hand-blown organ on which John used to play on Sundays when it was ready.

The church was consecrated by the Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Temple.

Hugo and I learned to ride first on a docile beast called Emma, who, when she became too lethargic, was relegated to a little cart which used to be driven by all of us, and then on a Dartmoor pony called the Giant, and finally on a pony called Emma Jane.

The coachman’s name was Bilky. He was a perfect Devonshire character. His admiration for my brothers was unbounded. He used to talk of them one after the other, afraid if he had praised one, he had not praised the others enough. My brother Everard, whom we always called the “Imp,” he said was as strong as a lion and as nimble as a bee. “They haverightly, sir, named you the Himp,” one of the servants said to him one day.

During all these years we had extraordinarily few illnesses. Hugo once had whooping-cough at London, and I was put in the same room so as to have it at the same time, and although I was longing to catch it, as Hugo was rioting in presents and delicacies as well as whoops, my constitution was obstinately impervious to infection.

We often had colds, entailing doses of spirits of nitre, linseed poultices, and sometimes even a mustard poultice, but I never remember anything more serious. Every now and then Hilly thought it necessary to dose us with castor-oil, and the struggles that took place when Hilly used to arrive with a large spoon, saying, as every Nanny I have ever known says: “Now, take it!” were indescribable. I recollect five people being necessary one day to hold me down before the castor-oil could be got down my throat. We had a charming comfortable country doctor called Doctor Atkins, who used to drive over in a dog-cart, muffled in wraps, and produce a stethoscope out of his hat. He was so genial and comfortable that one began to feel better directly he felt one’s pulse.

When we first went to Membland the post used to be brought by a postman who walked every day on foot from Ivy Bridge, ten miles off. He had a watch the size of a turnip, and the stamps at that time were the dark red ones with the Queen’s head on them. Later the post came in a cart from Plympton, and finally from Plymouth.

In the autumn, visitors used to begin to arrive for the covert shooting, which was good and picturesque, the pheasants flying high in the steep woods on the banks of the Yealm, and during the autumn months the nearing approach of Christmas cast an aura of excitement over life. The first question was: Would there be a Christmas tree? During all the early years there was one regularly.

After the November interval in London, which I have already described, the serious business of getting the tree ready began. It was a large tree, and stood in a square green box.

The first I remember was placed in the drawing-room, the next in the dining-room, the next in the billiard-room, and after that they were always in the covered-in tennis court, whichhad been built in the meanwhile. The decoration of the tree was under the management of D. The excitement when the tree was brought into the house or the tennis court for the first time was terrific, and Mr. Ellis, the house-carpenter, who always wore carpet shoes, climbed up a ladder and affixed the silver fairy to the top of the tree. Then reels of wire were brought out, scissors, boxes of crackers, boxes of coloured candles, glass-balls, clips for candles, and a quantity of little toys.

Hugo and I were not allowed to do much. Nearly everything we did was said to be wrong. The presents were, of course, kept a secret and were done up in parcels, and not brought into the room until the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

The Christmas tree was lit on Christmas Eve after tea. The ritual was always the same. Hugo and I ran backwards and forwards with the servants’ presents. The maids were given theirs first,—they consisted of stuff for a gown done up in a parcel,—then Mrs. Tudgay, D., and the upper servants. One year Mrs. Tudgay had a work-basket.

Then the guests were given their presents, and we gave our presents and received our own. The presents we gave were things we had made ourselves: kettle-holders, leather slippers worked in silk for my father, and the girls sometimes made a woollen waistcoat or a comforter. Chérie always had a nice present for my mother, which we were allowed to see beforehand, and she always used to say: “N’y touchez pas, la fraîcheur en fait la beauté.”

Our presents were what we had put down beforehand in a list of “Christmas Wants”—a horse and cart, a painting-box, or a stylograph pen.

The house used to be full at Christmas. My father’s brothers, Uncle Tom and Uncle Bob, used to be there. Madame Neruda I remember as a Christmas visitor. Godfrey Webb wrote the following lines about Christmas at Membland:

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