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[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement. If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: hart@pobox.com *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. MARGOT ASQUITHAN AUTOBIOGRAPHYTWO VOLUMES IN ONEI DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY HUSBANDWhat? Have you not received powers, to the limits of which you PREFACEWhen I began this book I feared that its merit would depend upon how faithfully I could record my own impressions of people and events: when I had finished it I was certain of it. Had it been any other kind of book the judgment of those nearest me would have been invaluable, but, being what it is, it had to be entirely my own; since whoever writes as he speaks must take the whole responsibility, and to ask "Do you think I may say this?" or "write that?" is to shift a little of that responsibility on to someone else. This I could not bear to do, above all in the case of my husband, who sees these recollections for the first time now. My only literary asset is natural directness, and that faculty would have been paralysed if I thought anything that I have written here would implicate him. I would rather have made a hundred blunders of style or discretion than seem, even to myself, let alone the world at large, to have done that. Unlike many memoirists, the list of people I have to thank in this preface is short: Lord Crewe and Mr. Texeira de Mattos—who alone saw my MS. before its completion—for their careful criticisms which in no way committed them to approving of all that I have written; Mr. Desmond MacCarthy, for valuable suggestions; and my typist, Miss Lea, for her silence and quickness. There are not many then of whom I can truly say, "Without their approval and encouragement this book would never have been written"—but those who really love me will forgive me and know that what I owe them is deeper than thanks. CONTENTS OF BOOK ONECHAPTER ITHE TENNANT FAMILY—MARGOT, ONE OF TWELVE CHILDREN—HOME LIFE IN GLEN, SCOTLAND—FATHER A SELF-CENTRED BUSINESS-MAN; HIS VANITIES; HIS PRIDE IN HIS CHILDREN—NEWS OF HIS DEATH—HANDSOME LORD RIBBLESDALE VISITS GLEN—MOTHER DELICATE; HER LOVE OF ECONOMY; CONFIDENCES—TENNANT GIRLS' LOVE AFFAIRSCHAPTER IIGLEN AMONG THE MOORS—MARGOT'S ADVENTURE WITH A TRAMP—THE SHEPHERD BOY—MEMORIES AND ESCAPADES—LAURA AND MARGOT; PROPOSALS OF MARRIAGE—NEW MEN FRIENDS—LAURA ENGAGED; PROPOSAL IN THE DUSK—MARGOT'S ACCIDENT IN HUNTING FIELD—LAURA'S PREMONITION OF DEATH IN CHILDBIRTH—LAURA'S WILLCHAPTER IIISLUMMING IN LONDON; ADVENTURE IN WHITECHAPEL; BRAWL IN A SALOON; OUTINGS WITH WORKING GIRLS—MARGOT MEETS PRINCESS OF WALES—GOSSIP OVER FRIENDSHIP WITH PRINCE OF WALES—LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL'S BALL—MARGOT'S FIRST HUNT; MEETS ECCENTRIC DUKE OF BEAUFORT; FALLS IN LOVE AT SEVENTEEN; COMMANDEERS A HORSECHAPTER IVMARGOT AT A GIRLS' SCHOOL—WHO SPILT THE INK?—THE ENGINE DRIVER'S MISTAKEN FLIRTATION—MARGOT LEAVES SCHOOL IN DISGUST—DECIDES TO GO TO GERMANY TO STUDY CHAPTER VA DRESDEN LODGING HOUSE—MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE WITH AN OFFICER AFTER THE OPERA—AN ELDERLY AMERICAN ADMIRER—YELLOW ROSES, GRAF VON— AND MOTIFS FROM WAGNERCHAPTER VIMARGOT RIDES HORSE INTO LONDON HOME AND SMASHES FURNITURE—SUITOR IS FORBIDDEN THE HOUSE—ADVISES GIRL FRIEND TO ELOPE; INTERVIEW WITH GIRL'S FATHER—TETE-A-TETE DINNER IN PARIS WITH BARON HIRSCH —WINNING TIP FROM FRED ARCHER THE JOCKEYCHAPTER VIIPHOENIX PARK MURDERS—REMEDIES FOR IRELAND—TELEPATHY AND PLANCHETTE—VISIT TO BLAVATSKY—SIR CHARLES DILKE'S KISS—VISITS TO GLADSTONE—THE LATE LORD SALISBURY'S POLITICAL PROPHECIESCHAPTER VIIITHE BEAUTIFUL KATE VAUGHAN—COACHED BY COQUELIN IN MOLIERE— ROSEBERY'S POPULARITY AND ELOQUENCE—CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN BON-VIVANT AND BOULEVARDIER—BALFOUR'S MOT; HIS CHARM AND WIT; HIS TASTES AND PREFERENCES; HIS RELIGIOUS SPECULATIONCONTENTS OF BOOK TWOCHAPTER ITHE SOULS—LORD CURZON'S POEM AND DINNER PARTY AND WHO WERE THESE —MARGOT'S INVENTORY OF THE GROUP—TILT WITH THE LATE LADY LONDONDERRY—VISIT TO TENNYSON; HIS CONTEMPT FOR CRITICS; HIS HABIT OF LIVING—J. K. S. NOT A SOUL—MARGOT'S FRIENDSHIP WITH JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS; HIS PRAISE OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFFCHAPTER IICHARACTER SKETCH OF MARGOT—PLANS TO START A MAGAZINE—MEETS MASTER OF BALLIOL; JOWETT'S ORTHODOXY; HIS INTEREST IN AND INFLUENCE OVER MARGOT—ROSE IN "ROBERT ELSMERE" IDENTIFIED AS MARGOT—JOWETT'S OPINION OF NEWMAN—JOWETT ADVISES MARGOT TO MARRY—HUXLEY'S BLASPHEMYCHAPTER IIIFAST AND FURIOUS HUNTING IN LEICESTERSHIRE—COUNTRY HOUSE PARTY AND A NEW ADMIRER—FRIENDSHIP WITH LORD AND LADY MANNERSCHAPTER IVMARGOT FALLS IN LOVE AGAIN—"HAVOC" IN THE HUNTING FIELD; A FALL AND A DUCKING—THE FAMOUS MRS. BO; UNHEEDED ADVICE FROM A RIVAL—A LOVERS' QUARREL—PETER JUMPS IN THE WINDOW—THE AMERICAN TROTTER— ANOTHER LOVER INTERVENES—PETER RETURNS FROM INDIA; ILLUMINATION FROM A DARK WOMANCHAPTER VTHE ASQUITH FAMILY TREE—HERBERT H. ASQUITH'S MOTHER—ASQUITH'S FIRST MARRIAGE; MEETS MARGOT TENNANT FOR FIRST TIME—TALK TILL DAWN ON HOUSE OF COMMONS' TERRACE; OTHER MEETINGS—ENGAGEMENT A LONDON SENSATION—MARRIAGE AN EVENTCHAPTER VITHE ASQUITH CHILDREN BY THE FIRST MARRIAGE—MARGOT'S STEPDAUGHTER VIOLET—MEMORY OF THE FIRST MRS. ASQUITH—RAYMOND'S BRILLIANT CAREER—ARTHUR'S HEROISM IN THE WARCHAPTER VIIVISIT TO WOMAN'S PRISON—INTERVIEW THERE WITH MRS. MAYBRICK— SCENE IN A LIFER'S CELL; THE HUSBAND WHO NEVER KNEW THOUGHT WIFE MADE MONEY SEWING—MARGOT'S PLEA THAT FAILEDCHAPTER VIIIMARGOT'S FIRST BABY AND ITS LOSS—DANGEROUS ILLNESS—LETTER FROM QUEEN VICTORIA—SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT'S PLEASANTRIES—ASQUITH MINISTRY FALLS—VISIT FROM DUCHESS D'AOSTACHAPTER IXMARGOT IN 1906 SUMS UP HER LIFE; A LOT OF LOVE-MAKING, A LITTLE FAME AND MORE ABUSE: A REAL MAN AND GREAT HAPPINESSMARGOT ASQUITHAN AUTOBIOGRAPHYBOOK ONE"Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid wooed by incapacity."—Blake. CHAPTER ITHE TENNANT FAMILY—MARGOT, ONE OF TWELVE CHILDREN—HOME LIFE IN GLEN, SCOTLAND—FATHER A SELF-CENTRED BUSINESS-MAN; HIS VANITIES; HIS PRIDE IN HIS CHILDREN—NEWS OF HIS DEATH—HANDSOME LORD RIBBLESDALE VISITS GLEN—MOTHER DELICATE; HER LOVE OF ECONOMY; CONFIDENCES—TENNANT GIRLS' LOVE AFFAIRSI was born in the country of Hogg and Scott between the Yarrow and the Tweed, in the year 1864. I am one of twelve children, but I only knew eight, as the others died when I was young. My eldest sister Pauline—or Posie, as we called her—was born in 1855 and married on my tenth birthday one of the best of men, Thomas Gordon Duff. [Footnote: Thomas Gordon Duff, of Drummuir Castle, Keith.] She died of tuberculosis, the cruel disease by which my family have all been pursued. We were too different in age and temperament to be really intimate, but her goodness, patience and pluck made a deep impression on me. My second sister, Charlotte, was born in 1858 and married, when I was thirteen, the present Lord Ribblesdale, in 1877. She was the only member of the family—except my brother Edward Glenconner— who was tall. My mother attributed this—and her good looks—to her wet-nurse, Janet Mercer, a mill-girl at Innerleithen, noted for her height and beauty. Charty—as we called her—was in some ways the most capable of us all, but she had not Laura's genius, Lucy's talents, nor my understanding. She had wonderful grace and less vanity than any one that ever lived; and her social courage was a perpetual joy. I heard her say to the late Lord Rothschild, one night at a dinner party: "And do you still believe the Messiah is coming, Lord Natty?" Once when her husband went to make a political speech in the country, she telegraphed to him: "Mind you hit below the belt!" She was full of nature and impulse, free, enterprising and unconcerned. She rode as well as I did, but was not so quick to hounds nor so conscious of what was going on all round her. One day when the Rifle Brigade was quartered at Winchester, Ribblesdale—who was a captain—sent Charty out hunting with old Tubb, the famous dealer, from whom he had hired her mount. As he could not accompany her himself, he was anxious to know how her ladyship had got on; the old rascal-wanting to sell his horse— raised his eyes to heaven and gasped: "Hornamental palings! My lord!!" It was difficult to find a better-looking couple than Charty and My next sister, Lucy, [Footnote: Mrs. Graham Smith, of Easton Grey, Malmesbury.] was the most talented and the best educated of the family. She fell between two stools in her youth, because Charty and Posie were of an age to be companions and Laura and I; consequently she did not enjoy the happy childhood that we did and was mishandled by the authorities both in the nursery and the schoolroom. When I was thirteen she made a foolish engagement, so that our real intimacy only began after her marriage. She was my mother's favourite child—which none of us resented—and, although like my father in hospitality, courage and generous giving, she had my mother's stubborn modesty and delicacy of mind. Her fear of hurting the feelings of others was so great that she did not tell people what she was thinking; she was truthful but not candid. Her drawings—both in pastel and water-colour—her portraits, landscapes and interiors were further removed from amateur work than Laura's piano-playing or my dancing; and, had she put her wares into the market, as we all wanted her to do years ago, she would have been a rich woman, but like all saints she was uninfluenceable. I owe her too much to write about her: tormented by pain and crippled by arthritis, she has shown a heroism and gaiety which command the love and respect of all who meet her. Of my other sister, Laura, I will write later. The boys of the family were different from the girls, though they all had charm and an excellent sense of humour. My mother said the difference between her boys and girls came from circulation, and would add, "The Winsloes always had cold feet"; but I think it lay in temper and temperament. They would have been less apprehensive and more serene if they had been brought up to some settled profession; and they were quite clever enough to do most things well. My brother Jack [Footnote: The Right Hon. H. J. Tennant] was petted and mismanaged in his youth. He had a good figure, but his height was arrested by his being allowed, when he was a little fellow, to walk twelve to fifteen miles a day with the shooters; and, however tired he would be, he was taken out of bed to play billiards after dinner. Leather footstools were placed one on the top of the other by a proud papa and the company made to watch this lovely little boy score big breaks; excited and exhausted, he would go to bed long after midnight, with praises singing in his ears. "You are more like lions than sisters!" he said one day in the nursery when we snubbed him. In making him his Parliamentary Secretary, my husband gave him his first chance; and in spite of his early training and teasing he turned his life to good account. In the terrible years 1914, 1915 and 1916, he was Under-Secretary for War to the late Lord Kitchener and was finally made Secretary for Scotland, with a seat in the Cabinet. Like every Tennant, he had tenderness and powers of emotion and showed much affection and generosity to his family. He was a fine sportsman with an exceptionally good eye for games. My brother Frank [Footnote: Francis Tennant, of Innes.] was the artist among the boys. He had a perfect ear for music and eye for colour and could distinguish what was beautiful in everything he saw. He had the sweetest temper of any of us and the most humility. In his youth he had a horrible tutor who showed him a great deal of cruelty; and this retarded his development. One day at Glen, I saw this man knock Frank down. Furious and indignant, I said, "You brute!" and hit him over the head with both my fists. After he had boxed my ears, Laura protested, saying she would tell my father, whereupon he toppled her over on the floor and left the room. When I think of our violent teachers—both tutors and governesses —and what the brothers learnt at Eton, I am surprised that we knew as much as we did and my parents' helplessness bewilders me. My eldest brother, Eddy, [Footnote: Lord Glenconner, of Glen, Innerleithen.] though very different from me in temperament and outlook, was the one with whom I got on best. We were both devoured by impatience and punctuality and loved being alone in the country. He hated visiting, I enjoyed it; he detested society and I delighted in it. My mother was not strong enough to take me to balls; and as she was sixty-three the year I came out, Eddy was by way of chaperoning me, but I can never remember him bringing me back from a single party. We each had our latch-keys and I went home either by myself or with a partner. We shared a secret and passionate love for our home, Glen, and knew every clump of heather and every birch and burn in the place. Herbert Gladstone told me that, one day in India, when he and Eddy after a long day's shooting were resting in silence on the ground, he said to him: "What are you thinking about, Eddy?" To which he answered: "Oh, always the same … Glen! …" In all the nine years during which he and I lived there together, in spite of our mutual irascibility of temper and uneven spirits, we never had a quarrel. Whether we joined each other on the moor at the far shepherd's cottage or waited for grouse upon the hill; whether we lunched on the Quair or fished on the Tweed, we have a thousand common memories to keep our hearts together. My father [Footnote: Sir Charles Tennant, 1823-1906.] was a man whose vitality, irritability, energy and impressionability amounted to genius. When he died, June 2nd, 1906, I wrote this in my diary: "I was sitting in Elizabeth's [Footnote: My daughter, Elizabeth Bibesco.] schoolroom at Littlestone yesterday—Whit-Monday—after hearing her recite Tartuffe at 7 p.m., when James gave me a telegram; it was from my stepmother: "'Your father passed away peacefully at five this afternoon.' "I covered my face with my hands and went to find my husband. My father had been ill for some time, but, having had a letter from him that morning, the news gave me a shock. "Poor little Elizabeth was terribly upset at my unhappiness; and I was moved to the heart by her saying with tear-filled eyes and a white face: "'Darling mother, he had a VERY happy life and is very happy now … he will ALWAYS be happy.' "This was true. … He had been and always will be happy, because my father's nature turned out no waste product: he had none of that useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own happiness with him, and was self-centred and self- sufficing: for a sociable being, the most self-sufficing I have ever known; I can think of no one of such vitality who was so independent of other people; he could golf alone, play billiards alone, walk alone, shoot alone, fish alone, do everything alone; and yet he was dependent on both my mother and my stepmother and on all occasions loved simple playfellows. … Some one to carry his clubs, or to wander round the garden with, would make him perfectly happy. It was at these times, I think, that my father was at his sweetest. Calm as a sky after showers, he would discuss every topic with tenderness and interest and appeared to be unupsettable; he had eternal youth, and was unaffected by a financial world which had been spinning round him all day. "The striking thing about him was his freedom from suspicion. Thrown from his earliest days among common, shrewd men of singularly unspiritual ideals—most of them not only on the make but I might almost say on the pounce—he advanced on his own lines rapidly and courageously, not at all secretively—almost confidingly—yet he was rarely taken in. "He knew his fellow-creatures better in the East-end than in the West-end of London and had a talent for making men love him; he swept them along on the impulse of his own decided intentions. He was never too busy nor too prosperous to help the struggling and was shocked by meanness or sharp practice, however successful. "There were some people whom my father never understood, good, generous and high-minded as he was: the fanatic with eyes turned to no known order of things filled him with electric impatience; he did not care for priests, poets or philosophers; anything like indecision, change of plans, want of order, method or punctuality, forgetfulness or carelessness—even hesitation of voice and manner—drove him mad; his temperament was like a fuse which a touch will explode, but the bomb did not kill, it hurt the uninitiated but it consumed its own sparks. My papa had no self- control, no possibility of learning it: it was an unknown science, like geometry or algebra, to him; and he had very little imagination. It was this combination—want of self-control and want of imagination—which prevented him from being a thinker. "He had great character, minute observation, a fine memory and all his instincts were charged with almost superhuman vitality, but no one could argue with him. Had the foundation of his character been as unreasonable and unreliable as his temperament, he would have made neither friends nor money; but he was fundamentally sound, ultimately serene and high-minded in the truest sense of the word. He was a man of intellect, but not an intellectual man; he did not really know anything about the great writers or thinkers, although he had read odds and ends. He was essentially a man of action and a man of will; this is why I call him a man of intellect. He made up his mind in a flash, partly from instinct and partly from will. "He had the courage for life and the enterprise to spend his fortune on it. He was kind and impulsively generous, but too hasty for disease to accost or death to delay. For him they were interruptions, not abiding sorrows. "He knew nothing of rancour, remorse, regret; they conveyed much the same to him as if he had been told to walk backwards and received neither sympathy nor courtesy from him. "He was an artist with the gift of admiration. He had a good eye and could not buy an ugly or even moderately beautiful thing; but he was no discoverer in art. Here I will add to make myself clear that I am thinking of men like Frances Horner's father, old Mr. Graham, [Footnote: Lady Horner, of Mells, Frome.] who discovered and promoted Burne-Jones and Frederick Walker; or Lord Battersea, who was the first to patronise Cecil Lawson; or my sister, Lucy Graham Smith, who was a fine judge of every picture and recognised and appreciated all schools of painting. My father's judgment was warped by constantly comparing his own things with other people's. "The pride of possession and proprietorship is a common and a human one, but the real artist makes everything he admires his own: no one can rob him of this; he sees value in unsigned pictures and promise in unfinished ones; he not only discovers and interprets, but almost creates beauty by the fire of his criticisms and the inwardness of his preception. Papa was too self-centred for this; a large side of art was hidden from him; anything mysterious, suggestive, archaic, whether Italian, Spanish or Dutch, frankly bored him. His feet were planted firmly on a very healthy earth; he liked art to be a copy of nature, not of art. The modern Burne-Jones and Morris school, with what he considered its artificiality and affectations, he could not endure. He did not realise that it originated in a reaction from early-Victorianism and mid-Victorianism. He lost sight of much that is beautiful in colour and fancy and all the drawing and refinement of this school, by his violent prejudices. His opinions were obsessions. Where he was original was not so much in his pictures but in the mezzotints, silver, china and objets d'art which he had collected for many years. "Whatever he chose, whether it was a little owl, a dog, a nigger, a bust, a Cupid in gold, bronze, china or enamel, it had to have some human meaning, some recognisable expression which made it lovable and familiar to him. He did not care for the fantastic, the tortured or the ecclesiastical; saints, virgins, draperies and crucifixes left him cold; but an old English chest, a stout little chair or a healthy oriental bottle would appeal to him at once. "No one enjoyed his own possessions more naively and enthusiastically than my father; he would often take a candle and walk round the pictures in his dressing-gown on his way to bed, loitering over them with tenderness—I might almost say emotion. "When I was alone with him, tucked up reading on a sofa, he would send me upstairs to look at the Sir Joshuas: Lady Gertrude Fitz-Patrick, Lady Crosbie or Miss Ridge. "'She is quite beautiful to-night,' he would say. 'Just run up to the drawing-room, Margot, and have a look at her.' "It was not only his collections that he was proud of, but he was proud of his children; we could all do things better than any one else! Posie could sing, Lucy could draw, Laura could play, I could ride, etc.; our praises were stuffed down newcomers' throats till every one felt uncomfortable. I have no want of love to add to my grief at his death, but I much regret my impatience and lack of grace with him. "He sometimes introduced me with emotional pride to the same man or woman two or three times in one evening: "'This is my little girl—very clever, etc., etc. Colonel Kingscote says she goes harder across country than any one, etc., etc.' "This exasperated me. Turning to my mother in the thick of the guests that had gathered in our house one evening to hear a professional singer, he said at the top of his voice while the lady was being conducted to the piano: "'Don't bother, my dear, I think every one would prefer to hear "I well remember Laura and myself being admonished by him on our returning from a party at the Cyril Flowers' in the year 1883, where we had been considerably run by dear Papa and twice introduced to Lord Granville. We showed such irritability going home in the brougham that my father said: "'It's no pleasure taking you girls out.' "This was the only time I ever heard him cross with me. "He always told us not to frown and to speak clearly, just as my mother scolded us for not holding ourselves up. I can never remember seeing him indifferent, slack or idle in his life. He was as violent when he was dying as when he was living and quite without self-pity. "He hated presents, but he liked praise and was easily flattered; he was too busy even for MUCH of that, but he could stand more than most of us. If it is a little simple, it is also rather generous to believe in the nicest things people can say to you; and I think I would rather accept too much than repudiate and refuse: it is warmer and more enriching. "My father had not the smallest conceit or smugness, but he had a little child-like vanity. You could not spoil him nor improve him; he remained egotistical, sound, sunny and unreasonable; violently impatient, not at all self-indulgent—despising the very idea of a valet or a secretary—but absolutely self-willed; what he intended to do, say or buy, he would do, say or buy AT ONCE. "He was fond of a few people—Mark Napier, [Footnote: The Hon. Mark Napier, of Ettrick.] Ribblesdale, Lord Haldane, Mr. Heseltine, Lord Rosebery and Arthur Balfour—and felt friendly to everybody, but he did not LOVE many people. When we were girls he told us we ought to make worldly marriages, but in the end he let us choose the men we loved and gave us the material help in money which enabled us to marry them. I find exactly the opposite plan adopted by most parents: they sacrifice their children to loveless marriages as long as they know there is enough money for no demand ever to be made upon themselves. "I think I understood my father better than the others did. I guessed his mood in a moment and in consequence could push further and say more to him when he was in a good humour. I lived with him, my mother and Eddy alone for nine years (after my sister Laura married) and had a closer personal experience of him. He liked my adventurous nature. Ribblesdale's [Footnote: Lord Ribblesdale, of Gisburne.] courtesy and sweetness delighted him and they were genuinely fond of each other. He said once to me of him: "'Tommy is one of the few people in the world that have shown me gratitude.'" I cannot pass my brother-in-law's name here in my diary without some reference to the effect which he produced on us when he first came to Glen. He was the finest-looking man that I ever saw, except old Lord Wemyss, [Footnote: The Earl of Wemyss and March, father of the present Earl.] the late Lord Pembroke, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and Lord D'Abernon. He had been introduced to my sister Charty at a ball in London, when he was twenty-one and she eighteen. A brother-officer of his in the Rifle Brigade, seeing them waltzing together, asked him if she was his sister, to which he answered: "No, thank God!" I was twelve when he first came to Glen as Thomas Lister: his fine manners, perfect sense of humour and picturesque appearance captivated every one; and, whether you agreed with him or not, he had a perfectly original point of view and was always interested and suggestive. He never misunderstood but thoroughly appreciated my father. … Continuing from my diary: "My papa was a character-part; and some people never understood character-parts. "None of his children are really like him; yet there are resemblances which are interesting and worth noting. "Charty on the whole resembles him most. She has his transparent simplicity, candour, courage laid want of self-control; but she is the least selfish woman I know and the least self-centred. She is also more intolerant and merciless in her criticisms of other people, and has a finer sense of humour. Papa loved things of good report and never believed evil of any one. He had a rooted objection to talking lightly of other people's lives; he was not exactly reverent, but a feeling of kindly decent citizenship prevented him from thinking or speaking slightingly of other people. "Lucy has Papa's artistic and generous side, but none of his self- confidence or decisiveness; all his physical courage, but none of his ambition. "Eddy has his figure and deportment, his sense of justice and emotional tenderness, but none of his vitality, impulse or hope. Jack has his ambition and push, keenness and self-confidence; but he is not so good-humoured in a losing game. Frank has more of his straight tongue and appreciation of beautiful things, but none of his brains. "I think I had more of Papa's moral indignation and daring than the others; and physically there were great resemblances between us: otherwise I do not think I am like him. I have his carriage, balance and activity—being able to dance, skip and walk on a rope—and I have inherited his hair and sleeplessness, nerves and impatience; but intellectually we look at things from an entirely different point of view. I am more passionate, more spiritually perplexed and less self-satisfied. I have none of his powers of throwing things off. I should like to think I have a little of his generosity, humanity and kindly toleration, some of his fundamental uprightness and integrity, but when everything has been said he will remain a unique man in people's memory." Writing now, fourteen years later, I do not think that I can add much to this. Although he was a business man, he had a wide understanding and considerable elasticity. In connection with business men, the staggering figures published in the official White Book of November last year showed that the result of including them in the Government has been so remarkable that my memoir would be incomplete if I did not allude to them. My father and grandfather were brought up among City people and I am proud of it; but it is folly to suppose that starting and developing a great business is the same as initiating and conducting a great policy, or running a big Government Department. It has been and will remain a puzzle over which intellectual men are perpetually if not permanently groping: "How comes it that Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown made such a vast fortune?" The answer is not easy. Making money requires FLAIR, instinct, insight or whatever you like to call it, but the qualities that go to make a business man are grotesquely unlike those which make a statesman; and, when you have pretensions to both, the result is the present comedy and confusion. I write as the daughter of a business man and the wife of a politician and I know what I am talking about, but, in case Mr. Bonar Law—a pathetic believer in the "business man"—should honour me by reading these pages and still cling to his illusions on the subject, I refer him to the figures published in the Government White Book of 1919. Intellectual men seldom make fortunes and business men are seldom intellectual. My father was educated in Liverpool and worked in a night school; he was a good linguist, which he would never have been had he had the misfortune to be educated in any of our great public schools. I remember some one telling me how my grandfather had said that he could not understand any man of sense bringing his son up as a gentleman. In those days as in these, gentlemen were found and not made, but the expression "bringing a man up as a gentleman" meant bringing him up to be idle. When my father gambled in the City, he took risks with his own rather than other people's money. I heard him say to a South African millionaire: "You did not make your money out of mines, but out of mugs like me, my dear fellow!" A whole chapter might be devoted to stories about his adventures in speculation, but I will give only one. As a young man he was put by my grandfather into a firm in Liverpool and made L30,000 on the French Bourse before he was twenty-four. On hearing of this, his father wrote and apologised to the head of the firm, saying he was willing to withdraw his son Charles if he had in any way shocked them by risking a loss which he could never have paid. The answer was a request that the said "son Charles" should become a partner in the firm. Born a little quicker, more punctual and more alive than other people, he suffered fools not at all. He could not modify himself in any way; he was the same man in his nursery, his school and his office, the same man in church, club, city or suburbs. [Footnote: My mother, Emma Winsloe, came of quite a different class from my father. His ancestor of earliest memory was factor to Lord Bute, whose ploughman was Robert Burns, the poet. His grandson was my grandfather Tennant of St. Rollox. My mother's family were of gentle blood. Richard Winsloe (b. 1770, d. 1842) was rector of Minster Forrabury in Cornwall and of Ruishton, near Taunton. He married Catherine Walter, daughter of the founder of the Times. Their son, Richard Winsloe, was sent to Oxford to study for the Church. He ran away with Charlotte Monkton, aged 17. They were caught at Evesham and brought back to be married next day at Taunton, where Admiral Monkton was living. They had two children: Emma, our mother, and Richard, my uncle.] My mother was more unlike my father than can easily be imagined. She was as timid, as he was bold, as controlled as he was spontaneous and as refined, courteous and unassuming as he was vibrant, sheer and adventurous. Fond as we were of each other and intimate over all my love- affairs, my mother never really understood me; my vitality, independent happiness and physical energies filled her with fatigue. She never enjoyed her prosperity and suffered from all the apprehension, fussiness and love of economy that should by rights belong to the poor, but by a curious perversion almost always blight the rich. Her preachings on economy were a constant source of amusement to my father. I made up my mind at an early age, after listening to his chaff, that money was the most overrated of all anxieties; and not only has nothing occurred in my long experience to make me alter this opinion but everything has tended to reinforce it. In discussing matrimony my father would say: "I'm sure I hope, girls, you'll not marry penniless men; men should not marry at all unless they can keep their wives,' etc. To this my mother would retort: "Do not listen to your father, children! Marrying for money has never yet made any one happy; it is not blessed." Mamma had no illusions about her children nor about anything else; her mild criticisms of the family balanced my father's obsessions. When Charty's looks were praised, she would answer with a fine smile: "Tant soit peu mouton!" She thought us all very plain, how plain I only discovered by overhearing the following conversation. I was seventeen and, a few days after my return from Dresden, I was writing behind the drawing room screen in London, when an elderly Scotch lady came to see my mother; she was shown into the room by the footman and after shaking hands said: "What a handsome house this is. …" MY MOTHER (IRRELEVANTLY): "I always think your place is so nice. ELDERLY LADY: "Oh, I'm not a gardener and we spend very little time at Auchnagarroch; I took Alison to the Hydro at Crieff for a change. She's just a growing girl, you know, and not at all clever like yours." MY MOTHER: "My girls never grow! I am sure I wish they would!" ELDERLY LADY: "But they are so pretty! My Marion has a homely face!" MY MOTHER: "How old is she?" ELDERLY LADY: "Sixteen." MY MOTHER: "L'AGE INGRAT! I would not trouble myself, if I were you, about her looks; with young people one never can tell; Margot, for instance (with a resigned sigh), a few years ago promised to be so pretty; and just look at her now!" When some one suggested that we should be painted it was almost more than my mother could bear. The poorness of the subject and the richness of the price shocked her profoundly. Luckily my father—who had begun to buy fine pictures—entirely agreed with her, though not for the same reasons: "I am sure I don't know where I could hang the girls, even if I were fool enough to have them painted!" he would say. I cannot ever remember kissing my mother without her tapping me on the back and saying, "Hold yourself up!" or kissing my father without his saying, "Don't frown!" And I shall never cease being grateful for this, as a l'heure qu'il est I have not a line in my forehead and my figure has not changed since my marriage. My mother's indifference to—I might almost say suspicion of— other people always amused me: "I am sure I don't know why they should come here! unless it is to see the garden!" Or, "I cannot help wondering what was at the back of her mind." When I suggested that perhaps the lady she referred to had no mind, my mother would say, "I don't like people with ARRIERE— PENSEES"; and ended most of her criticisms by saying, "It looks to me as if she had a poor circulation." My mother had an excellent sense of humour. Doll Liddell [Footnote: The late A.G.C. Lidell.] said: "Lucy has a touch of mild genius." And this is exactly what my mother had. People thought her a calm, serene person, satisfied with pinching green flies off plants and incapable of deep feeling, but my mother's heart had been broken by the death of her first four children, and she dreaded emotion. Any attempt on my part to discuss old days or her own sensations was resolutely discouraged. There was a lot of fun and affection but a tepid intimacy between us, except about my flirtations; and over these we saw eye to eye. My mother, who had been a great flirt herself, thoroughly enjoyed all love-affairs and was absolutely unshockable. Little words of wisdom would drop from her mouth: MY MOTHER: "Men don't like being run after …" MARGOT: "Oh, don't you believe it, mamma!" MY MOTHER: "You can do what you like in life if you can hold your tongue, but the world is relentless to people who are found out." She told my father that if he interfered with my love-affairs I should very likely marry a groom. She did me a good turn here, for, though I would not have married a groom, I might have married the wrong man and, in any case, interference would have been cramping to me. I have copied out of my diary what I wrote about my mother when she died. "January 21st, 1895. "Mamma is dead. She died this morning and Glen isn't my home any more: I feel as if I should be 'received' here in future, instead of finding my own darling, tender little mother, who wanted arranging for and caring for and to whom my gossipy trivialities were precious and all my love-stories a trust. How I WISH I could say sincerely that I had understood her nature and sympathised with her and never felt hurt by anything she could say and had EAGERLY shown my love and sought hers. … Lucky Lucy! She CAN say this, but I do not think that I can. "Mamma's life and death have taught me several things. Her sincerity and absence of vanity and worldliness were her really striking qualities. Her power of suffering passively, without letting any one into her secret, was carried to a fault. We who longed to share some part, however small, of the burden of her emotion were not allowed to do so. This reserve to the last hour of her life remained her inexorable rule and habit. It arose from a wish to spare other people and fear of herself and her own feelings. To spare others was her ideal. Another characteristic was her pity for the obscure, the dull and the poor. The postman in winter ought to have fur-lined gloves; and we must send our Christmas letters and parcels before or after the busy days. Lord Napier's [Footnote: Lord Napier and Ettrick, father of Mark Napier.] coachman had never seen a comet; she would write and tell him what day it was prophesied. The lame girl at the lodge must be picked up in the brougham and taken for a drive, etc. … "She despised any one who was afraid of infection and was singularly ignorant on questions of health; she knew little or nothing of medicine and never believed in doctors; she made an exception of Sir James Simpson, who was her friend. She told me that he had said there was a great deal of nonsense talked about health and diet: "'If the fire is low, it does not matter whether you stir it with the poker or the tongs.' "She believed firmly in cold water and thought that most illnesses came from 'checked perspiration.' "She loved happy people—people with courage and go and what she called 'nature'—and said many good things. Of Mark Napier: 'He had so much nature, I am sure he had a Neapolitan wet-nurse' (here she was right). Of Charty: 'She has so much social courage.' Of Aunt Marion [Footnote: My father's sister, Mrs. Wallace.]: 'She is unfortunately inferior.' Of Lucy's early friends: 'Lucy's trumpery girls.' "Mamma was not at all spiritual, nor had she much intellectual imagination, but she believed firmly in God and was profoundly sorry for those who did not. She was full of admiration for religious people. Laura's prayer against high spirits she thought so wonderful that she kept it in a book near her bed. "She told me she had never had enough circulation to have good spirits herself and that her old nurse often said: "'No one should ever be surprised at anything they feel.' "My mamma came of an unintellectual family and belonged to a generation in which it was not the fashion to read. She had lived in a small milieu most of her life, without the opportunity of meeting distinguished people. She had great powers of observation and a certain delicate acuteness of expression which identified all she said with herself. She was fine-mouche and full of tender humour, a woman of the world, but entirely bereft of worldliness. "Her twelve children, who took up all her time, accounted for some of her a quoi bon attitude towards life, but she had little or no concentration and a feminine mind both in its purity and inconsequence. "My mother hardly had one intimate friend and never allowed any one to feel necessary to her. Most people thought her gentle to docility and full of quiet composure. So much is this the general impression that, out of nearly a hundred letters which I received, there is not one that does not allude to her restful nature. As a matter of fact, Mamma was one of the most restless creatures that ever lived. She moved from room to room, table to table, and topic to topic, not, it is true, with haste or fretfulness, but with no concentration of either thought or purpose; and I never saw her put up her feet in my life. "Her want of confidence in herself and of grip upon life prevented her from having the influence which her experience of the world and real insight might have given her; and her want of expansion prevented her own generation and discouraged ours from approaching her closely. "Few women have speculative minds nor can they deliberate: they have instincts, quick apprehensions and powers of observation; but they are seldom imaginative and neither their logic nor their reason are their strong points. Mamma was in all these ways like the rest of her sex. "She had much affection for, but hardly any pride in her children. Laura's genius was a phrase to her; and any praise of Charty's looks or Lucy's successes she took as mere courtesy on the part of the speaker. I can never remember her praising me, except to say that I had social courage, nor did she ever encourage me to draw, write or play the piano. "She marked in a French translation of "The Imitation of Christ" which Lucy gave her: "'Certes au jour du jugement on ne nous demandera point ce que nous avons lu, mais ce que nous avons fait; ni si nous avons bien parle mais si nous avons bien vecu.' "She was the least self-centred and self-scanned of human beings, unworldly and uncomplaining. As Doll Liddell says in his admirable letter to me, 'She was often wise and always gracious.'" |
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