An Autobiography

My husband and I were present when Cardinals Vaughan and Logue laid the foundation stone of Westminster Cathedral. The luncheon that followed was enlivened by some excellent speeches, especially Cardinal Logue’s, whose rich brogue rolled out some well-turned phrases.

A week later we were at dinner at Farnborough Hill. “There was a large house-party, including Princes Victor and Louis Napoleon, the elder a taciturn, shy, dark man about thirty-three, and the younger an alert, intelligent officer of thirty-one, who is a colonel in the Russian cavalry, and is the hope and darling of the Bonapartists. I call him Napoleon IV. Victor went in with the Empress to dinner and Louis with me, but on taking our seats the two brothers exchanged places, so that I sat on Victor’s right. I had an uphill task to talk with the studious, silent Victor, and found my right-hand neighbour much more pleasant company, Sir Mackenzie Wallace. I had not caught his name and his accent was so perfect and his idioms and turns of speech so irreproachable that I never questioned his being a Frenchman. Away we went in the liveliest manner with our French till suddenly we lapsed into English, why I don’t know. This gave the Empress her chance. She began chuckling behind her toothpick and asked me in French if he had a good accent in speaking English. ‘Yes, madame, very good!’ ‘Ah? really good?’ (chuckle). ‘Really good, madame.’ ‘Ah, that is well’ (chuckle). I saw in Will’s face I was being chaffed and guessed the truth. Much laughter, especially from Louis. He told Will, across the Empress, that he had seen an engraving of ‘Scotland for Ever’ in a shop window in Moscow, and had presented it to the mess of his own cavalry regiment, the Czar being now colonel of the Scots Greys, and that he little expected so soon to meet the painter of that picture. The dinner was very bright and sparkling, so unlike a purely English one. How gratefully Will and I conformed to the spirit of the thing. His Irish heart beats in harmony with it. I didn’t quite recover from my faux pas at table, and, on our taking leave, brought everything into line once more by wishing Prince Louis ‘Felicissima Sera!’ in a way denoting a bewilderment of mind amidst such a confusion of tongues. I left amidst applause.

“July 8th.– There was a sham fight on the Fox Hills to-day to which the two French princes went. Will mounted Victor on steady ‘Roly Poly,’ and sent H. on ‘Heart of Oak’ to attend on His Imperial Highness throughout the day. Louis was mounted by the Duke. My General loves to honour a Napoleon, so, when he was riding home with Louis after the fight, and the Guards were preparing to give the General the usual salute, he begged the Imperial Colonel to take the salute himself. ‘But, General, I am not even in uniform!’ answered Louis. ‘One of your name, sir, is always in uniform,’ was the ready reply. So Louis took it. On his way back to the Empress he stopped at our hut, and after a glass of iced claret cup on this grilling day, he looked at my sketches, and at the little oil picture I am painting for Miss S. – ‘Right Wheel!’ – the Scots Greys at manœuvres. I wonder if he has it in him to make a bid for the French Throne!

“July 12th.– The Queen came down to-day, and there was a very fine display of the picked athletes of the army at the new gymnasium in the afternoon, before Her Majesty, who did not leave her carriage. She looked pleased and in great good humour. She gave a dinner to her generals in the evening at the Pavilion as she did last year. Will sat near her, and she kept nodding and smiling to him at intervals as he carried on a lively conversation with Princesses Louise and Beatrice. Her Majesty expanded into full contentment when nine pipers, supplied by the three Highland Regiments of the Division, entered the room at the close of dinner in full blast. They tell me that each regiment jealously adhered to its own key for its skirls, or whatever the right word is, and so in three different keys did the pibrochs bray, but this detail was not particularly noticeable in the general hurly-burly. The Queen stood it well, though in that confined space it must have tried her nerves. Give me the bagpipes on the mountain side or in the desert, where I have heard them and loved them.

“July 13th.– At a very fine review for the Queen, who brought her usual weather with her. She looked well pleased, especially with the stirring light cavalry charge at the close, when Brabazon pulled up his line at full charging pace within about 12 yards (it seemed to me) of the royal carriage. Really, for a moment, I thought, as the dark mass of men and horses rolled towards us, that he had forgotten all about ‘Halt!’ It was a tremendous tour de force, and a bit of swagger on the part of this dashing hussar. That group of the Queen in her carriage, with the four white horses and scarlet coated servants; the Prince of Wales and the rest of the glittering Staff; Prince Victor Napoleon in civilian dress, his heavy face shaded by his tall black hat as he uneasily sat his excited horse; the other carriages resplendent in red and gold; the Empress’s more sober equipage full of French élégantes, and the wave of dark hussars bursting in a cloud of dust almost in amongst the group, all the leaders of the charging squadrons with sabres flung up and heads thrown back – what a sight to please me! I feel a physical sensation of refreshment on such occasions. What discipline and training this performance showed! Had one horse got out of hand he might have flopped right into the Queen’s lap. I saw one of the squadron leaders give a little shiver when all was over. On getting home I was doing something to the bearskins of my Scots Greys in ‘Right Wheel,’ showing the way the wind blew the hair back, as I had just seen it at the review, while fresh in my mind, when a servant came to tell me Princess Louise was at the Hut. I had got into my painting dress with sleeves turned up for coolness. I ran in, changed in half a minute, and had a nice interview, the Duchess of Connaught being there also, and we had one of those ‘shoppy’ art talks which the Duchess of Argyll likes.

“August 16th.– My ‘At Home’ day was made memorable by the appearance of the Empress Eugénie, who brought a remedy for little Eileen’s cold. It was a plaster, which she showed me how to use. I cannot say how touched we were by this act, so thoughtful and kind – that poor childless widow! She seems to have a particularly tender feeling for Eileen, indeed Mdlle. d’Allonville has told me so.”

The rest of the Aldershot Diary is filled with military activities up to the date of the expiration of my husband’s time there, and his appointment to the command of the South Eastern District with Dover Castle as our home. But between the two commands came an interlude filled with a tour through some parts of Italy I had not seen before, and a visit to the Villa Cyrnos at Cap Martin, whither the Empress had invited us.

CHAPTER XX

ITALY AGAIN

IN January, 1896, we left Aldershot on a raw foggy day, with the usual winter brown-paper sky, the essence of dreariness, on leave for the land I love best. At Turin our train for Genoa was filled with poor young soldiers off to Abyssinia, the Italian Government having followed our example in the policy of “expansion”; with what success was soon seen. An Italian told us that “good coffee” was to be had from there, amongst other desirable commodities. So the poor young conscripts were being sent to fetch the good coffee, etc. They were singing in a chorus of tenor voices as they went, after affectionately kissing the comrades who had come to see them off.

At sunrise we arrived at Naples, Vesuvius looking like a great amethyst, transparent in the golden haze from the sun which rose just behind it. I must say the Neapolitan population struck me as very wretched; the men were no better than the poor creatures one might see in Whitechapel any day, and dressed, like them, in shoddy clothing. The poor skeleton mules and horses were covered with picturesque brass-mounted harness instead of flesh, and I saw no red-sashed, brown-limbed lazzaroni such as were supposed to dance tarantelle on the shore. Certainly there is not much dancing and singing in their hungry-looking descendants.

January 17th was a memorable day, spent at Pompeii. One must see the place for oneself. Familiar with it though you may be through books and paintings, Pompeii takes you by surprise. The suddenness of that entrance into the City of the Dead is a surprise to a newcomer, such as I was. To come into the city at once by the “Street of Tombs,” which carries you steeply upwards into the interior – no turnstiles at the gate, no ticket collectors, no leave-your-umbrella-at-the-door; this natural way of entering gave me a strange sensation as if I were walking into the past. The present day was non-existent. Though we were three and a half hours circulating about those theatres, baths, villas, shops, through the narrow streets, with their deep ruts and stepping stones, I was so absorbed in the fascination of realising the life of those days that I never needed to rest for a moment, and the day had grown very hot. One rather drags oneself through a museum, but we were here under the sky, and Vesuvius, the author of this destruction, was there in very truth, looking down on us as we wandered through the remnants of his victim.

As to beauty of colour there is here a great feast for the painter. What could surpass, on a day like that, the simple beauty of those positive reds and yellows and blues of walls and pillars in that light, back-grounded by the tender blue of mountains delicately crested with the white of their snows? The positive strong foreground colours emphasised by the delicacy of the background! The absolute silence of the place was impressive and very welcome.

The Diary had better “carry on” here: “Sunday, January 19th.– To Capri and Sorrento on our way to Amalfi. There is a string of names! I feel I can’t pronounce them to myself with adequate relish. To Mass at 8, and then at 9 by steamer to Capri, touching at Sorrento on our way. Three hours’ passage over a very dark blue sea, which was flecked with foam off Castellamare. Capri is all I expected, a mass of orange and lemon groves in its lower part, with wonderful crags soaring abruptly, in places, out of the clear green water. Tiberius’s villa is perched on the edge of a fearful precipice that has memories connected with his cruelties which one tries to smother. Indeed, all around one, in those scenes of Nature’s loveliness, the detestable doings of man against man are but too persistently obtruding themselves on the mind which is seeking only restful pleasure.

“We were driven to the Hotel Quisisana (‘Here one gets well’), very high up on a steep ridge, where the village is, and were sorry to find our pleasure marred by being set down to déjeuner with as repulsive a company of Teutons as one could see. The perspective of those feeding faces, along the edge of the table, tried me horribly. They say the Germans are outnumbering the British as tourists in Italy now. Nowhere do their loud voices and rude manners jar upon our sensibility so painfully as in Italy. The Frau next to me actually sniffed at four bottles out of the cruet in succession, poking them into her nose before she satisfied herself that she had found the right sauce for her chop! What’s to be done with such people?

“We had not much time to give to the lovely island, for the little steamer had to take us to Sorrento at two o’clock. We put up there at the Hotel Tramontano, and had a stroll at sunset, with views of the coast and Vesuvius that spread out beyond the reach of my well-meaning, but inadequate, pen. I can’t help the impulse of recording the things of beauty I have seen. It is owing to a wish to preserve such precious things in my memory, to waste nothing of them, and to record my gratitude as well.”

At Amalfi came the culmination to our long series of experiences of the Neapolitan Riviera. The names of Amalfi, Ravello, Salerno and Pæstum will be with me to the end, in a halo of enchantment.

On returning to Naples, of course, we paid our respects to Vesuvius. Our climb to the highest point allowable of the erupting cone was not at all enchanting, and left my mind in a most perturbed condition. There was much food for meditation when our visit was over, but at the time one had only leisure to receive impressions, and very disconcerting impressions at that. A keen north wind blew the fumes from the crater straight down my throat as I panted upwards through the sulphur, ankle deep, and I could only think of my discomfort and probable collapse. I disdained a litter. I perceived several fat Germans in litters.

An even deeper impression was made on my mind than that produced by the eruption proper on our coming, after much staggering over cold lava, near a great, crawling river of liquid fire oozing out of the mountain’s side. Above our heads the great maw of the crater was throwing up bursts of rock fragments with rumblings and growls from the cruel monster. I wonder when that wild beast will make its next pounce? And down there, far, far below, in the plain lay little Pompeii, its poor, tiny, insignificant victim! Yes, for a thoughtful climber there was more than the sulphurous north wind to make him pause.

The little funicular railway had brought us up to the foot of the cone, crunching laboriously over the shoulder of the mountain, and I could not but think – “If the chain broke?” At one point the open truck seemed to dangle over space. We were sitting with our faces turned towards the sea and away from the cone, and (were we never to be rid of them?) two corpulent Teutons faced us, hideously conspicuous, as having apparently nothing but blue air behind them. There was no horizon at all to the sea, the pale haze merging sea and sky into one. Then, when we alighted, we found ourselves in a restaurant with Messrs. Cook & Co.’s waiters running about. Certainly it was no time for meditating or moralising in that medley of the prehistoric and the fin de siècle.

I found Rome very much changed after the lapse of all those years since I was there with our family during the last months of the Temporal Power. I shall never forget the shock I felt when, to lead off, on our arrival, I conducted my husband to the great balustrade on the Pincian overlooking the city, promising him my favourite view. It was a truly striking one in the far-off days, and quite beautiful. Instead of the reposeful vineyards of the area facing us beyond the Tiber, fitting middle distance between us and St. Peter’s, gaunt buildings bordering wide, straight, staring streets glistening with tramlines seemed to jeer at me in vulgar triumph, and I am not sure that I did not shed tears in private when we got back to our hotel. One fact, however, brought a sense of mental expansion as I surveyed that view, which should have made amends for the sensitive contraction of my artist’s mind. That great basilica yonder was mine now! A return to Rome had another touch of sadness for me. Our father had been so happy there in introducing his girls to the city he loved. He seemed now to be ever by my side as the well-remembered haunts that were left unchanged were seen again. Leo XIII. was now Pope. On one particular occasion in the Sistine Chapel, at Mass, I was struck by the extraordinary effect of his white, utterly ethereal face and fragile figure as he stood at the altar, relieved against the background of Michael Angelo’s exceedingly muscular “Last Judgment.” And, now, what of this “Last Judgment”? The action of our Lord, splendidly rendered as giving the powerful realisation of the push which that heavy arm is giving in menace to the condemned souls towards the Abyss on His left (I had almost said the shove!), is realistic and strong. But what a gross conception! Our modern minds cannot be impressed by this fleshly rendering of such a subject, a rendering suitable to the coarser fibre of the Middle Ages. I could positively hate this fresco, were I not lured, as a painter, to admire its technical power.

Our visit to the Empress at Cap Martin followed, on our way home to Aldershot. She received us with her usual genial grace. The place, of course, ideal, and the typical blue weather. We were made very much at home. Madame le Breton told me I was to wear a table d’hôte frock at dinner, and Pietri told Sir William a black tie to the evening suit was the order of the day.

“February 13th.– The Villa Cyrnos is in a wood of stone pines, overhanging the sea on a promontory between Mentone and Monte Carlo. It is in the French Riviera style, all very white – no Italian fresco colouring. Plentiful striped awnings to keep off the intense sunlight. Cool marble rooms, polished parquets, flowers in masses – a sense of grateful freshness with reminders of the heat outside in the dancing reflections from the sea. Indeed, this is a charming retreat. Madame d’Arcos and her sister, Mrs. Vaughan, were there, who having just arrived from England, were full of accounts of the arrival of the remains of Prince Henry of Battenberg from Ashanti, and the funeral, at which Madame d’Arcos had represented the Empress. The different episodes were minutely described by her of this, the last act of the latest tragedy in our Royal Family. She had a sympathetic listener in the poor Empress.

“February 14th.– A sunny day marred, to me, by a visit to Monte Carlo, where the gambling is in fullest activity. The Empress wanted us all to go for a little cruise in a yacht, but though the sea was calm enough I preferred terra firma, and her ladies drove me to Monte Carlo. Hateful place! The lovely mountains were radiant in the low sunshine of that afternoon and the sea sparkling with light, but a crowd of overdressed riff-raff was circulating about the casino and pigeon-shooting place, from which came the ceaseless crack of the cowardly, unsportsmanlike guns. I record, with loathing, one fellow I saw who came on the green, protected from the gentle air by a fur-lined coat which his valet took charge of while his master maimed his allotted number of clipped victims, and carefully replaced as soon as all the birds were down. A black dog ran out to fetch each fluttering thing as it fell. I was glad to see this hero was not an Englishman. Inside the casino the people were massed round the gaming tables, the hard light from the circular openings above each table bringing into relief the ugly lines of their perspiring faces. The atmosphere was dusty and stifling, and the hands of these horribly absorbed people were black with clawing in their gains across the grimy green baize. I drank in the pure, cool air of the sunset loveliness outside when I got free, with a very certain persuasion that I would never pay a second visit, except under polite compulsion, to the gambling palace of Monte Carlo.

“February 15th.– The Empress took us quite a long walk to see the corps of the ‘Alpins’ at the Mentone barracks and back by the rocky paths along the shore. She is very active, and is looking beautiful.

“Sunday, February 16th.– All of us to Mass at the little Mentone church. The dear Empress gave me a little holy picture during the service and said, ‘I want you to keep this.’ There is at times something very touching about her.”

I sent a small picture this year to the “New Gallery,” instead of the Academy, feeling still the effects of their unkindness in placing “The Dawn of Waterloo” where they did the preceding year.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DOVER COMMAND

AND now Dover Castle rises into prominence above the horizon as I travel onward. My husband was offered Colchester or Dover. He left the choice to me. How could there be a doubt in my mind? The Castle was the very ideal, to me, of a residence. Here was History, picturesqueness, a wide view of the silver sea, and the line of the French coast to free the mind of insularity. So to Dover we went, children, furniture, horses, servants, dogs and all, from the Aldershot bungalow. As usual, I was spared by Sir William all the trouble of the move, and while I was comfortably harboured by my ever kind and hospitable friends, the Sweetmans, in Queen’s Gate, my husband was managing all the tiresome work of the move.

It was a pleasure to give dances at the Constables’ Tower, and the dinners were like feasts in the feudal times under that vaulted ceiling of the Banqueting Hall. Our boys’ bedroom in the older part of this Constables’ Tower had witnessed the death of King Stephen, and a winding staircase conducted the unappreciative London servants by a rope to their remote domiciles. The modernised part held the drawing-rooms, morning-room, library, and chief bedrooms, while in the garden, walled round by the ramparts, stood the tower whence Queen Mary is said to have gazed upon her lost Calais. My studio had a balcony which overhung the moat and drawbridge. What could I have better than that? No wonder I accomplished a creditable picture there, for I had many advantages. I place “Steady, the Drums and Fifes!” amongst those of my works with which I am the least dissatisfied. The Academy treated me well this time, and gave the picture a place of honour. These drummer-boys of the old 57th Regiment, now the Middlesex, are waiting, under fire, for the order to sound the advance, at the Battle of Albuera. That order was long delayed, and they and the regiment had to bear the supreme test of endurance, the keeping motionless under fire. A difficult subject, excellent for literature, very trying for painting. I had had the vision of those drummer-boys for many years before my mind’s eye, and it is a very obvious fact that what you see strongly in that way means a successful realisation in paint. Circumstances were favourable at Dover. The Gordon Boys’ Home there gave me a variety of models in its well-drilled lads, and my own boys were sufficiently grown to be of great use, though, for obvious reasons, I could not include their dear faces in so painful a scene. The yellow coatees, too, were a tremendous relief to me after that red which is so hard to manage. I remember asking Detaille if he ever thought of giving our army a turn. “I would like to,” he said, “but the red frightens us.” The bandsmen of the Peninsular War days wore coatees of the colour of the regimental facings. After long and patient researches I found out this fact, and the facings of the 57th, being canary yellow, I had an unexpected treat. I remember how the Duke of York[11 - Now King George V.] at an Aldershot dinner had characteristically caught up this fact with great interest when I told him all about my preparations for this picture. I am glad to know this work belongs to the old 57th, the “Die Hards,” who won that title at Albuera. “Die hard, men, die hard!” was their colonel’s order on that tremendous day.

Many interesting events punctuated our official life at Dover:

“August 15th, 1896.– Great doings to-day. We had a busy time of it. Lord Salisbury was installed Lord Warden in the place of Lord Dufferin. Will had the direction, not only of the military part of the ceremonies but of the social (in conjunction with me), as far as the Constables’ Tower was concerned. Everything went well. Lord and Lady Salisbury drove in a carriage and four from Walmer up to our Tower, and, while the procession was forming outside to escort them down to the town, they rested in our drawing-room for about half an hour, and Lord Dufferin also came in.

“I had to converse with these exalted personages whilst officers in full uniform and women in full toilettes came and went with clatter of sabre and rustle of silk. To fill up the rather trying half-hour and being expected to devote my attention chiefly to the new Lord Warden, I bethought myself of conducting him to a window which gave a bird’s-eye view of the smoky little town below. I moralised, à la Ruskin, on the ugliness of the coal smoke which was smudging that view in particular, and spoiling England in general. On reconducting the weighty Salisbury to a rather fragile settee I morally and very nearly physically knocked him over by this felicitous remark: ‘Well, I have the consolation of knowing that the coalfields of England are finite!’ ‘What?’ he shouted, with a bound which nearly broke the back of that settee. I don’t think he said anything more to me that day. Of course, I meant that smokeless methods would have to be discovered for working our industries, but I left that unsaid, feeling very small. It is my misfortune that I have not the knack of small talk, so useful to official people, and that I am obliged to propel myself into conversation by pronouncements of that kind. Shall I ever forget the catastrophe at the L – s’ dinner at Aldershot, when I announced, during a pause in the general conversation, to an old gentleman who had taken me in, and whose name I hadn’t caught, that there was one word I would inscribe on the tombstone of the Irish nation, and that word was – Whisky. The old gentleman was John Jameson.

“But to return to to-day’s doings. I had to consign to C.,[12 - Our eldest daughter Elizabeth, now Mrs. Kingscote.] as my deputy, the head of the table for such of the people as were remaining at the Castle for luncheon as I myself had to appear at that function at the Town Hall. The procession, military, civil and civic – especially civic – started at 12 for the ‘Court of Shepway,’ where much antique ceremonial took place. When they all reached the Town Hall after that, Lord Salisbury first unveiled a full-length portrait of the outgoing Lord Warden, at the entrance to the Banqueting Hall, and complimented him on so excellent a likeness with a genial pat on the back. We were all in good humour which increased as we filed in to luncheon and continued to increase during that civic feast, enlivened by a band. Trumpets sounded before each speech, and the sharp clapping of hands called, I think, ‘Kentish Fire,’ gave a local touch which was pleasingly original. I am glad, always, to find the county spirit still so strong in England, and nowhere is it stronger than in Kent. It must work well in war with the county regiments.

“I am afraid Lady Salisbury must have got rather knocked out of time coming to the Castle, by all the saluting, trumpeting and general prancing of the guard of honour. She was nervous crossing our drawbridge with four ‘jumpy’ horses which she told me had never been with troops before! Altogether I don’t think this was a day to suit her at all. I heard the postillion riding the near leader shout back to the coachman on the box as they started homeward from our door, ‘Put on both brakes hard!’ Away went the open carriage which had very low sides and no hood, and Lord Salisbury, being very wide, rather bulged over the side. Wearing a military cape, lent him by my General, the day turning chilly, he had a rather top-heavy appearance, and we only breathed freely when that ticklish drawbridge, and the very steep drop of the hill beyond it, were passed. So now let them rest at Walmer. Will will do all he can to secure peace for them there.”

On August 20th I went to poor Sir John Millais’ funeral in St. Paul’s. The ceremony was touching to me when I thought of the kind, enthusiastic friend of my early days and his hearty encouragement and praise. They had placed his palette and a sheaf of his brushes on the coffin. Lord Wolseley, Irving, the actor, Holman Hunt and Lord Rosebery were the pall-bearers. The ceremony struck me as gloomy after being accustomed to Catholic ritual, and the undertaker element was too pronounced, but the music was exquisite. So good-bye to a truly great and sincere artist. What a successful life he had, rounded by so terribly painful a death!

One of the most interesting of the Dover episodes was our hiring of “Broome Hall” for the South-Eastern District manœuvres in the following September. The Castle was too far away for working them from there, so this fine old Elizabethan mansion, being in the very centre of the theatre of “war,” became our headquarters. There we entertained Lord Wolseley and his staff as the house-party. Other warriors and many civilians whose lovely country houses were dotted about that beautiful Kentish region came in from outside each day, and for four days what felt to me like a roaring kind of hospitality went on which proved an astonishing feat of housekeeping on my part. True, I was liberally helped, but to this day I marvel that things went so successfully. Everything had to be brought from the Castle – servants in an omnibus, batterie de cuisine, plate, linen and all sorts of necessary things, in military waggons, for the house had not been inhabited for a long while. All the food was sent out from Dover fresh every day, by road – no village near. The house had been palatially furnished in the old days, but its glory was much faded and so ancestral was it that it possessed a ghost. A pathetic interest attaches to “Broome” to-day, and I should not know it again in its renovated beauty. Lord Kitchener restored it to more than its pristine lustre, I am told.

The morning start each day of all these generals (Sir Evelyn Wood was one of them) from the front door for the “battle” was a pleasing sight for me, with the strong cavalry escort following. After the gallant cavalcade had got clear I would follow in the little victoria with friends, hoping in my innermost heart that I was leaving everything well in hand behind me for the hungry “Cocked Hats” on their return.

On March 30th, 1897, I had a glimpse of Gladstone. We were on the pier to receive a Royalty, and the “Grand Old Man” was also on board the Calais boat. He was the last to land and was accompanied by his wife. He came up the gangway with some difficulty, and struck me as very much aged, with his face showing signs of pain. I had not seen him since he sat beside me at a dinner at the Ripons’ in 1880, when his keen eye had rather overawed me. He was now eighty-eight! The crowd cheered him well, but the old couple were past that sort of thing, and only anxious to seek their rest at “Betteshanger,” a few miles distant, whither Lord Northbourne’s carriage whirled them away from public view.

And now comes the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. I think my fresh impressions written down at the time should be inserted here as I find them. Too much national sorrow and suffering brought to us by the Great War, and too many changes have since blurred that bright picture to allow of posthumous enthusiasm for its chronicling to-day. Were I to tone down that picture to the appearance it has to me at the present time it would hardly be worth showing.

“June 22nd, 1897.– Jubilee Day. I never expected to be so touched by what I have seen of these pageants and rejoicings, and to feel so much personal affection for the Queen as I have done through this wonderful week. Thinking of other nations, we cannot help being impressed with the way in which the English have comported themselves on this occasion – the unanimity of the crowds; the willingness of every one concerned; all resulting in those huge pageants passing off without a single jar. My place was in the courtyard of the Horse Guards; Will’s place was on his big grey before St. Paul’s, at Queen Anne’s statue, to keep an eye on things. I had an effective view of the procession making the bend from Whitehall into the courtyard, and out by the archway into the parade ground. This gave me time to enjoy the varied types of all those nationalities whose warriors represented them, as they filed past at close quarters. But we had five hours of waiting. These hours were well filled up for me, so continually interested in watching the movements of the troops as they took up their positions for receiving the procession and saluting the Queen. I think in the way of perfect dress and of superfine, thoroughbred horseflesh, Lord Lonsdale’s troop of Cumberland Hussars was as memorable a group as any that day. They wore the ‘sling jacket,’ only known to me in pictures and old prints of the pre-Crimean days, and to see these gallant-looking crimson pelisses in reality was quite a delightful surprise.

“The sun burst through the clouds just as the guns announced to us that the Queen had started from Buckingham Palace on her great round by St. Paul’s at 11.15. So we waited, waited. Presently some one called out, ‘Here’s Captain Ames,’ and, knowing he was the leader, we nimbly ran up to our seats. It seemed hardly credible that the journey to St. Paul’s and the ceremony there, and the journey homewards could have occupied so comparatively brief an interval. I think the part of the procession which most delighted me was the cohort of Indian cavalry, and then the gorgeous bunch of thirty-six princes, each in his national dress or uniform. These rode in triplets. You saw a blue-coated Prussian riding with a Montenegrin on one side and an Italian bonneted by the absurd general’s helmet now in vogue on the other. Then came another triplet of a Persian, whose breast was a galaxy of diamonds flashing in the sun, an Austrian with fur pelisse and busby (poor man, in that heat), and the brother of the Khedive, wearing the familiar tarboosh, riding a little white Arab. Then followed an English Admiral in the person of the Duke of York, a Japanese mannikin on his right, and a huge Russian on his left, and so on, and so on – types and dresses from all the quarters of the globe in close proximity, so that one could compare them at a glance. The dignified Indian cavalry were superb as to dress and puggarees, but the faces were stolid, very unlike the keen, clean-cut Arab types which so charmed me in Egypt and Palestine. There certainly were too many carriages filled with small Germans. Then came the colonial escort to the Queen’s carriage. As they came on and passed before us I do not exaggerate when I say that there seemed to pass over them an ever-deepening cloud-shadow, as it were, from the white Canadians riding in front, through ever-deepening shades of brown down to the blackest of negroes, who rode last. What an epitome of our Colonial Empire! Then, finally, before the supreme moment, came Lord Wolseley, the immediate forerunner of the Royal carriage. He looked well and gallant and youthful. Then round the curve into the courtyard the eight cream-coloured horses in rich gala harness of Garter-blue and gold! So quick was the pace that I dared not dwell too long on their beauty for I was too absorbed in the Queen during that precious minute. There she was, the centre of all this! A little woman, seated by herself (I had not time to see who sat facing her) with an expressionless pink face, preoccupied in settling her bonnet, which had got a little crooked, as though nothing unusual was going on, and that was the last I saw of her as she passed under the dark archway, facing homeward.

“June 26th.– Off from Dover at 2 a.m. for Southampton, by way of London, to see the culminating glory of the Jubilee – the greatest naval review ever witnessed. At eight we left Waterloo in one of the ‘specials’ that took holders of invitation cards for the various ocean liners that had been chartered for the occasion. Our ship was the P. and O. Paramatta, and very pleased I was on beholding her vast proportions, for I feared qualms on any smaller vessel. There were meetings on board with friends and a great luncheon, and general good humour and complacency at being Britons. The day cleared up at 10.30, and only a slight haze thinly veiled the mighty host of the Channel Fleet as we slowly steamed towards it along the Solent. Gradually the sun shone fully out and the day settled into steady brilliance.

“Well, I have been so inflated with national pride since beholding our naval power this day that if I don’t get a prick of some sort I shall go off like a balloon. Let us be exultant just for a week! We won’t think of the ugly look of India just now and all the nasty warnings of the bumptious Kaiser and the rest of it. We can’t while looking at Britannia ruling the waves, as we are doing to-day. Five miles of ships of war five lines deep! When all these ships fired each twenty-one guns by divisions as the Prince of Wales steamed up and down the lines, and the crews of each vessel in turn gave such cheers as only Jack Tar can give, it was not the moment to threaten us with anything. I shall never forget the aspect of this fleet of ours, black hulls and yellow funnels and ‘fighting tops’ stretching to east and west as far as the eye could reach and beyond, the mellow sunlight full upon them and the slowly-rolling clouds of smoke that wrapped them round with mystery as their countless guns thundered the salute! Myriads of flags fluttered in the breeze, the sea sparkled, and in and out of those motionless battleships all manner of steam and sailing craft moved incessantly, deepening by the contrast of their hurry the sense one had of the majestic power contained in those reposing monsters… Every one is saying, ‘And to think that not a single ship has been recalled from abroad to make up this display!’ We are all very pleased, and have the good old Nelson feeling about us.” On June 28th the Queen held her Jubilee Garden Party in the Buckingham Palace grounds. There we looked our last on her.

I took four of the children, in August, to Bruges, that old city so much enjoyed by me in my early years. I was charmed to see how carefully all the old houses had been preserved, and, indeed, I noticed that a few of them, vulgarly modernised then, were now restored to their original beauty. How well the Belgians understand these things! Seventeen years after this date the eldest of the two schoolboys I had with me was to ride through that same old Bruges as A.D.C. to the general commanding “The Immortal 7th Division,” which, retiring before the German hordes, was to turn and help to rend them at Ypres.

In 1898 I exhibited a smaller picture than usual – “The Morrow of Talavera,” which was very kindly placed at the Academy – and I began a large Crimean subject, “The Colours,” for the succeeding year. I had some fine models at Dover for this picture. In making the studies for it I had an interesting experience. I wanted to show the colour party of the Scots Guards advancing up the hill of the Alma in their full parade dress – the last time British troops wore it in action – Lieutenant Lloyd Lindsay carrying the Queen’s colour. It was then he won the V.C. Lord Wantage (that same Lloyd Lindsay), now an old man, but full of energy, when he heard of my project, conducted me to the Guards’ Chapel in London, and there and then had the old, dusty, moth-eaten Alma colours taken down from their place on the walls, and held the Queen’s colour once more in his hand for me to see. I made careful studies at the chapel, and restored the fresh tints which he told me they had on that far-away day, when I came to put them into the picture. I was in South Africa when the Academy opened in the following spring.

On September 11th, 1898, we received the terrible news of the assassination of the Empress of Austria. I had seen her every Sunday and feast day at our little Ventnor church, at Mass, during her residence at Steep Hill Castle. She had the tiniest waist I ever saw – indeed, no woman could have lived with a tinier one. She was beautiful, but so frigid in her manner; she seemed made of stone, yet she rode splendidly to hounds – altogether an enigma.

October 27th, 1898, I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a day after my own heart – picturesque, historical, stirring, amusing. Sir Herbert Kitchener, the Sirdar par excellence, was received at Dover on his arrival from the captured Khartoum with all the prestige of his new-won honours shining around him. My husband had decided that the regulation military honours “to be accorded to distinguished persons” were applicable to the man who was coming, and so a guard of honour (Highlanders) with the regimental colour was drawn up at the pier head, the regimental officers in red and the staff in blue. The crowd on the upper part of the pier was immense and densely packed all along the parapet, and the Lower Pier, reserved for special people, was crowded, too. It was a calm, grey, yet bright day, and the absence of wind made things pleasant. Great gathering of Cocked Hats at the entrance gates, and we all walked to the landing stage. There was a dense smudge of black smoke on the horizon. I knew that meant Kitchener. Keeping my eye on that smudge, I took but a distracted part in the small talk and frequent introductions of distinguished persons come from afar to welcome the man of the hour, “the Avenger of Gordon.” I was conducted to the head of the landing steps, together with such of the staff as were not to go on board the boat with the General. Then the smudge got hidden behind the pier end, but I could see the ever-increasing swish and swirl of the water on the starboard side of the hidden steamer, and soon she swept alongside; a few vague cheers began, no one in the crowd knowing the Sirdar by sight. When, however, the General went on board and shook hands, this proclaimed at once where the man was, and cheer upon cheer thundered out. I have never, before or since, seen such spontaneous enthusiasm in England. After a little talk (my husband and he were long together on the Nile) and after the delivery of letters (one from the Queen) and telegrams, during which the hurrahs went on in a great roar and multitudinous pocket handkerchiefs fluttered in a long perspective, the big, solid, stolid, sunburnt Briton stepped on English soil once more. While shaking hands with me he seemed astonished and amused at all that was going on and, looking over my head at the masses of people above, he lifted his hat, and thenceforth kept it in his hand as he was escorted to the Lord Warden Hotel. He had asked his A.D.C., on first catching sight of the reception awaiting him, “What is all this about?”

Then there was an Address at the hotel to which he listened with an ox-like patience, and after that the enormous company of invited guests went to lunch. In his speech my husband paid the Sirdar the compliment of saying that the traditional Field Marshal’s baton would be found in his trunk when the customs officers opened it at Victoria. Kitchener spoke so low I could not hear him. Had he been less immovable one could have plainly seen how utterly he hated having to make a speech. His travelling dress looked most interestingly incongruous amidst the rich uniforms and the glossy frock-coats as he stood up to say what he had to say. As we all bulged out of the hotel door the cheers began again from the crowds. I took care to look at the people that day, and I was struck by their unanimity. All ranks were there, and yet on every face, well bred or unwashed, I saw the same identical expression – one of broad, laughing delight. Such were my impressions, which I noted down, as usual, at the moment, and I have lived to see that remarkable man work out his life, and end it with a tragedy that will hold its place in history; my husband’s prophecy, put in those playful words at Dover, fulfilled; a threatening disaster to the Empire turned into victory with the aid of that extraordinary mind and physical endurance; and the burning fire of that personality quenched, untimely, in the icy depths of a northern sea.