CHAPTER IV

A Painting by Romney—Hunter’s School at Kineton—Corporal Punishment—A Sporting Parson—My Schoolfellows at Kineton—The Warre-Malets—Lord Charleville.

Before going to school in England, I was taken to Richmond to see my mother’s aunt, Lady Caroline Murray, who was now an old lady and lived in a house near the Thames, for, as the Duchess of Gloucester, to whom she had been lady-in-waiting, had been dead some years, she was no longer at Court. In her younger days, Lady Caroline had been a good horsewoman and had ridden very well to hounds. But, at this time, she was leading a very quiet life, receiving only her relatives and friends.

I can remember that in Lady Caroline’s drawing-room at Richmond there was a most beautiful picture of her mother, Viscountess Stormont, British Ambassadress to France and Austria, painted by Romney. It represented the Countess in her own right, as she afterwards became, sitting beneath a large tree and wearing a kind of loose _peignoir_ of a pale yellow colour, like the colour of the sea just before a storm. The _peignoir_ was fastened at the shoulder by a brooch, in which was a large yellow stone. Her hair was dressed high above the head, in the style of Marie Antoinette, in whose days her husband was Ambassador in France, and over it she had a Scottish plaid of the clan to which she belonged. One leg was crossed over the other, and her arms were folded. She was painted in profile; her _peignoir_, open at the front, displaying a perfect bosom and a beautiful, swan-like neck. Her hair possessed that glorious auburn tint with shades of gold in it, which made it appear as though the sun were shedding its full rays upon the gold tresses, one of which had escaped from the rest and hung loose. Her face was of a tender oval, with expressive eyes of a peculiar shade of green, like that of the sea when the sun falls upon it, or as it is in Böcklin’s pictures. Her nose was straight and delicate, with nostrils like those of a Greek statue. Her mouth was unusually small, with a tiny upper lip, slightly curved; her chin short and classical. The expression on the face was of pride, of audacity, of childish innocence, of sentimentality, and it possessed a marvellous charm and attraction.

[Illustration: The Author’s Mother.

[_To face p. 40._]

This beautiful portrait, which Lady Caroline bequeathed to Earl Cathcart, as he was the head of her mother’s family, was once seen by a wealthy American, who said to the Earl, into whose possession it had then come:—

“Have you ever seen such a lovely woman as this in all your life?”

“No, I have not,” the Earl answered.

“Well, I guess you haven’t,” rejoined the other, “and I don’t think there ever was such a lovely woman on earth.”

And he offered Lord Cathcart £20,000 down for the picture, which the latter, though not a rich man, refused. The American then promised the Earl’s son, Viscount Greenock, £500, if he could persuade his father to accept the offer; but it was all of no avail.

I showed Mr. Noseda, the well-known print-seller in the Strand, the engraving of this picture by J. R. Smith, which had belonged to my grandfather, when Mr. Noseda told me that he very much preferred the engraving to the painting, as the latter had been so much touched up, whereas the former was so beautifully executed in every detail that he considered it finer than Romney’s portrait. This was after I had told him about the offer of £20,000 which the American had made for the original painting.

Viscountess Stormont had been Ranger of Richmond Park, and was allotted, as her official residence, the house which is now the Queen’s Hôtel. An old gentleman whom I met at Richmond in later years told me that he thought the hôtel ought to have been named after the Countess of Mansfield, as Lady Stormont became later, instead of being called the “Queen’s.” He remembered Lady Caroline Murray, and remarked that she was one of those ladies of the old nobility who were scarce nowadays.

Viscount Greenock afterwards became Earl Cathcart, and died in London in 1911. He was at Eton with me, and afterwards joined the 23rd Welsh Fusiliers, from which he was transferred to the Scots Guards. When at Eton, he often came to my tutor’s house to see his cousin, Charles Douglas, whose father had placed him there to be with me. The Hon. Reginald Cathcart, a younger brother of Lord Cathcart, was in the 60th Rifles, and I recollect giving him a letter to his colonel, Godfrey Astell, in India,[9] when he first joined the regiment. Reginald Cathcart, who was a very nice young man, tall, dark, and handsome, was one of those unhappily killed in the Boer War.

The school to which I was sent was at Kineton, near Warwick. It had been recommended to my father by Lady Caroline Murray, who had heard of it from the Duke of Buccleuch, and a cousin of mine, Greville Finch-Hatton, was being educated there. When my father and I arrived, we were shown into a sitting-room, looking out on to a garden, where we were received by Mrs. Hunter, the headmaster’s wife. Mrs. Hunter was an old lady, whose age, I afterwards ascertained, was about seventy. To guess it would have been a difficult task, so terribly made up was she. Everything about her was false: false teeth, false hair, and a false bust, giving her somewhat the appearance of a wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s. She had, however, very pretty white hands, with pointed fingers. She was dressed in black satin, with a large gold brooch at her throat, and a long gold chain round her neck, a costume which she always wore.

“This, I presume, is your little son, whom you are leaving with us?” said Mrs. Hunter to my father. “Will you tell me whether you belong to the High or Low Church, as it is my province to look after the boys’ religious instruction, and I am always interested to know.”

The question was rather a poser for my father, who, I do not think, had entered a church since he left England. So he turned to me and said:—

“Tell the lady to what church you go with your mother.”

I said that at Ostend I always went to the English Protestant Church. Upon which Mrs. Hunter observed:—

“I see, you have been living on the Continent, and foreigners have very little religion. However, I will take care that your son has the proper religious instruction.”

Suddenly, the door opened, and an immensely stout man, of about sixty-five, with mutton-chop whiskers and spectacles, entered the room, and introduced himself as Mr. Hunter, the headmaster.

In his youth Mr. Hunter had probably been an exceedingly handsome man, and was still, apart from his corpulence, decidedly good-looking, with a fine forehead, a small mouth with thin lips and very good teeth, and regular features.

After showing us over the school, Mr. Hunter sent for Greville Finch-Hatton, telling my father that I should occupy a dormitory with my cousin and two other boys. At eight o’clock, supper was served in a large dining-room, where the presence of a new boy provoked a good deal of talking amongst the other boys. Mrs. Hunter sat at one end of the table, her husband at the other; and the meal was a cold one, carved on the table, and consisting of cold meat, followed by bread and cheese, washed down by draught beer.

As soon as supper was over, we were sent to our dormitories, where I had not been long in bed when my cousin leant over from his and asked if I were asleep. On finding that I was awake, he told me that we must talk in a very low voice, as talking was forbidden, and Mrs. Hunter occasionally paid us a visit to see whether this regulation was being observed. The two other boys in the room also began talking in low tones. Later on, when they considered themselves pretty safe from detection, they talked louder and carried on a long conversation about cricket, discussing who were the best bowlers in the school and whether fast bowling was more effective than slow.

I could not sleep, and, for some unaccountable reason, felt very miserable. At last I began to cry, at first quietly, but soon I was unable to restrain my sobs. My cousin, hearing me, tried to console me, saying that he, too, had found it hard to leave his parents at first. I felt inclined to tell him that it was not that which made me cry, but I thought better of it. Soon afterwards I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was at Kirchhofer’s school at Frankfurt, and that Vogelsang was talking to me. I even fancied that he kissed me, when I awoke suddenly, in despair at finding where I was.

Mr. Hunter was a very pleasant man, when he cared to be, which was by no means always the case. He was most severe with everyone, and had no particular favourites. Some boys he disliked, particularly those who did not learn quickly, and those who were inclined to be noisy. He was full of fun when he played football with us; making jokes and chaffing different boys in turn. He was, however, quite a different kind of man in school from what he was in the playground.

On Sundays, we, of course, attended church. The clergyman who preached, a Mr. Miller, had two voices: a very squeaky voice and a very gruff one. When he preached in his squeaky voice, most of us would fall asleep in the high pews, which screened us from the observation of the headmaster; but when Mr. Miller altered his tone, and his deep, gruff voice was suddenly heard, coming, as it were, out of a vault, we would be disagreeably startled from our slumbers. The sermons, I am inclined to believe, were bought ones, for Mr. Miller used sometimes to lose his place in the midst of his discourse and come to a stop, and when he continued, it was on quite a different subject. But it mattered little, so far as we were concerned, for most of the boys were usually asleep, and those who tried to listen could not follow the squeaky voice of the preacher—which had all the disagreeable sounds of a clarionet played badly—even by straining their ears, which few of them were disposed to do.

Our French master, who was obliged to accompany us, used sometimes to unfold the Paris _Figaro_ at full length and read it during the sermon. Mr. Hunter, owing to the height of the pews, could not, of course, see him, or he would most certainly have taken very strong exception to such an irregular proceeding. One Sunday, when Monsieur happened to have forgotten his _Figaro_, he passed the time of the sermon in an animated conversation with Rush, the captain of the Eleven. Unfortunately for the latter, Mr. Hunter happened to detect them; and, after church, he sent for Rush, and, refusing to listen to his appeals, took him to the schoolroom and, making him bend down, gave him a severe caning.

When I first came to the school, I was chaffed about my pronunciation, and Rush said:—

“If you pronounce Themistocles like you do, I wouldn’t be in your shoes.” Then he used to ask me questions about my German school, which at first he laughed at. Soon, however, he took a great interest in it, making me tell him about the boys there, what they were like and what they did.

“It must be very much jollier than here,” said he, “and none of that beastly caning and flogging, as there is at Kineton.”

Mr. Hunter was certainly a devout believer in the precept: “Spare the rod, and spoil the child;” indeed, he seemed to have a perfect passion for caning the boys, and at times performed this operation with astonishing zest. Sometimes, of an evening, in my dormitory, we would play at being Mr. Hunter, each of us taking it in turns to personate the master and beat the other boys with a hairbrush, in place of a cane. One night, one of us happened to remark:—

“I think it is a pleasure that would grow upon one, as it evidently does upon old Hunter.”

Scarcely had he said this, when, to our consternation, the door suddenly opened, and the master appeared. The boys bolted into bed as fast as they could, but it was too late, and we were told to come to Mr. Hunter’s study after prayers the following morning. There, after we had been duly admonished, we were all severely caned.

Rush and other boys used to put hairs in the canes to split them; but Mr. Hunter found this out, for one day, he broke six canes one after another. He then rang for his whalebone whip, and we received a fearful thrashing, with no time to prepare for it by padding our clothes with books.

One day, the Duchess of Marlborough, who was a friend of Lady Caroline Murray, called, and asked to see my cousin and myself. She was accompanied by her son, Lord Randolph Churchill, and her visit to the school was due to the fact that she thought of placing him there. But Lord Randolph became too ill to go to school just then, and had a private tutor at home instead, until he was old enough to be sent to Eton.[10]

We often went for picnics to the charming woods of Compton Verney, belonging to Lady Willoughby de Broke. That lady, who was always very pleasant and full of fun, would sometimes come and talk to us and to Mr. Hunter. The latter had formerly been private tutor to her eldest son, and the school was on Lord Willoughby de Broke’s property.[11] The late Hon. Rainald Verney, Lord Willoughby’s younger brother, was at school at Hunter’s, before going to Eton, and often came to the school when I was there, before he joined the 52nd Light Infantry.

Mr. Hunter had a young and rather pretty niece, a girl of eighteen, with black hair, who stayed for a time with him. She used to go into the boys’ dormitories at night, when she would give them bonbons and generally kiss them. But her stay at Kineton was so short that her presence there was more like an angel’s visit than anything else.

One day, the Rev. William and Mrs. Finch-Hatton called to see their son and also asked to see me. Mrs. Finch-Hatton, who was at that time known as the “Rose of Kent,” was a lovely woman, with very black hair and regular features. She was a sister of Sir Percy Oxenden. She told me that both she and her husband were struck by my great resemblance to their son Greville; and Mr. Finch-Hatton very kindly gave me half a sovereign, which I never forgot, as I rarely received any money from anyone. Mr. Newenham, who had married a daughter of the Earl of Mount Cashell, and was a clergyman in Ireland, also came to see his son. He played football with us, and afterwards told us the following story:—

“I was once asked to see an old woman in Cork who was dying. She asked me to read the Bible to her, but as I was unprepared to find her so ill, I had not brought one with me, nor had she one in the house. So I pulled out a copy of _Bell’s Life_ which I happened to have in my pocket, and read her an article from it, which, as she happened to be deaf, had precisely the same effect upon her as the Bible would have had.”

Mr. Newenham was a regular sporting parson, with, however, a good deal more of the sportsman than the parson about him, but full of fun and very agreeable.

There was a boy named Charles Taylor at the school, who afterwards went to Eton. His father, who had himself been at Eton, was a famous cricketer and had played in the All-England Eleven. He was, however, somewhat eccentric, having the most intense dislike of being asked his age; in fact, when one put this question to him, he invariably answered that he neither knew it nor wished to know it. He had also a strong objection to anything of a violet colour, and if a person called to see him wearing a tie or a dress of that colour, he always picked a quarrel with his unfortunate visitor.

Another boy at Kineton, whom I shall call L——, had the misfortune to be afflicted with kleptomania, and would take everything he could lay his hands on. Mr. Hunter used to break so many canes upon his back that he said to him one day:—

“I shall send the bill for all the canes I have broken in trying to correct you to your mother, for you get worse and worse every day.”

The school colours were scarlet and white, but they were only worn by the cricket Eleven. As I was in the Eleven, I had this coveted privilege. My cousin did not much care for cricket, and was fonder of riding and shooting, at both of which he excelled. Mr. Hunter kept a pony for the boys to ride. When he drove to Warwick, Leamington or Banbury, he would take two of us with him, one boy riding the pony, while the other sat in the pony-trap with the master. I can remember once riding to Warwick and then to Stratford-on-Avon on the pony, which Finch-Hatton rode back to Kineton. Most of the boys could ride well, and those who could not were never taken by Mr. Hunter, save on one occasion, when I recollect that the boy he took with him reminded me of certain Frenchmen whom one sees riding in the Bois de Boulogne, who are afraid to let their horses go beyond a walk. As my father used to say in Paris:—

“They praise the Lord on their knees every time they come home safely and are out of the saddle.”

Greville Finch-Hatton was rather delicate, and, after making a voyage to Australia, died quite young.

Aubrey Birch Reynardson, who also slept in my dormitory, had a gift for story-telling. One night he related to us the story of “Eric, or Little by Little,” with which, I can remember, we were delighted.

Mr. Hunter always wore spectacles. At times, by gaslight, when the gas fell upon them, it looked as if his eyes were two flames, and that he was an ogre ready to devour one of us, particularly when he took up his cane, and glared at the culprit, through his spectacles, with fiery eyes. But, taken on the whole, Mr. Hunter was a very good fellow, who would never have done anyone an injury, apart from perhaps giving him a dose of the cane.

Among the boys who were at Hunter’s with me was Charles Home-Purves, who was the head of the school. He afterwards went to Eton and took Lower School instead of Fourth Form, at which Mr. Hunter was much disappointed. His father, Colonel Home-Purves, was in attendance on the Duchess of Cambridge, and was accidentally killed by the overturning of a carriage in which he was driving with Her Royal Highness. He was so terribly cut about the face by the glass of the carriage-window that he died almost immediately. His son was offered a commission in the Guards, but preferred entering the Rifle Brigade. However, he left the regiment shortly afterwards, and died when very young.

The late Earl of Lonsdale, before he succeeded his uncle in the title, was also at Kineton with me. On one occasion, he ordered a lot of toys from Cremer’s toy-shop, but when they arrived, Mr. Hunter was so startled at the bill, which amounted to a considerable sum, that he had them at once sent back to where they came from, telling Lowther, as he was then, that he must make a better use of his money. He found life at Hunter’s too restricted and not lively enough for him, so he only remained one half, and then asked to leave the school. I met him at Eton with his brother, the present Earl of Lonsdale. The latter was attached to the Rifle Brigade, and was a very keen sportsman, I remember, when we were both stationed at Winchester.

One day, at Kineton, I was playing with Newenham, who happened to have a pocket-knife open in his hand, and, by accident, I got a very ugly stab in the back. Indeed, the doctor declared that, if the wound had been one-eighth of an inch deeper, it would have been fatal. Newenham was once mistaken for me by an uncle of mine at the Great Western Hotel, Paddington, which amused both of them very much, particularly as I was then at the same school as Newenham. He retired from the Army with the rank of Major, and lives in County Kerry, for which he is a magistrate.

Once, on the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth,[12] Mr. Hunter took us to Stratford-on-Avon, to show us the house where the poet was born and to visit the theatre. Mr. Hunter was a good amateur actor, and would sometimes get up plays for us to act. On one occasion, we played “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Lady Willoughby de Broke, Lord and Lady North, Sir Charles Mordaunt, and all the neighbouring county families were invited to the performance, which went off fairly well. “Making up” afforded us great amusement. One of the boys had learned this art from his sister, and proved himself quite an adept at darkening the others’ eyebrows and rouging their cheeks and lips.

I happened to meet recently the Rev. Henry Knightley, brother of Sir Charles Knightley. He had been at Kineton with me, but it was forty years since we had met. From him I learned that Mr. Hunter had died at Leamington after giving up his school, and that Rush had died quite early in life, as well as several others who were there with us. It was quite a pleasure for me, and, I think, also for him, to recall our school-days, and even the canings I looked back upon with some regret, feeling that I would willingly submit to them again, could I but return to those times. We both agreed that we had not learned much at Kineton, but that, on the whole, our life there with our schoolfellows had been a pleasant one. I found that Knightley was under the impression that Greville Finch-Hatton had inherited the title of Winchilsea, but I told him that my cousin was dead, and that the present Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham had been at Eton with me, and was kind enough to interest himself in my book about our school life.

[Illustration: C. D. Williamson, at Eton with the Author.

[_To face p. 50._]

[Illustration: Miss Mabel Warre-Malet.

[_To face p. 51._]

The chief prize I got at this school was a copy of Longfellow’s poems, beautifully bound and illustrated. I was very pleased at receiving it, as Longfellow was at that time my favourite lyrical poet in the English language.

Most of the boys remained at Kineton until they were fourteen, when they left for Harrow, Eton, Winchester, or some other public school. Greville Finch-Hatton went to Wellington, Rush to Cheltenham, and Knightley to Marlborough.

During my holidays, I sometimes went to Taunton, to stay with an aunt of mine, whose husband, a very kind man, was extremely fond of me. His daughter’s chief friends were some children of the name of Warre-Malet, nieces of the Ambassador, Sir Alexander Warre-Malet. The eldest girl, Mabel, who was about thirteen, the same age as myself, was very pretty, with brown hair, a lovely complexion and eyes of a deep blue. One Christmas Eve, Mrs. Warre-Malet had a large Christmas tree, with numerous presents attached to its branches, and we were invited to her house. Every one of the children received a beautiful present from the tree, which was illuminated by a great number of candles. Afterwards we played at forfeits, and I was told to kiss Mabel Warre-Malet as a forfeit, an act which I felt very shy about performing. “_Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait._” Another friend of ours was a girl whose name was Amy; who was also about thirteen. She, too, was a very attractive little lady, with long brown hair, hazel eyes with black lashes, an oval face, and a small mouth with pearly white teeth. She had a cousin, the Earl of Charleville, some years older than herself, who was staying at that time with her people. One day she came with him to see my cousins, and said to me:

“Charleville can tell you all about Eton, if you want to know anything, as he went to school there.”

Lord Charleville had to go away before his companion, who remained to tea. Afterwards, one of my cousins and I accompanied her part of the way home, and, while we were crossing some fields, she suddenly exclaimed:—

“Good gracious! my petticoat is coming down!”

And she burst out laughing.

My cousin Florence, a girl of thirteen, told me to walk on, while she pinned up Amy’s petticoat. But this proved a more difficult task than she had bargained for, as a string fastening had been broken, and it ended in Amy being obliged to take her petticoat off and carry it as a parcel. The two girls laughed consumedly at this mishap and its victim said to me:—

“Don’t you tell anyone that you saw me take my petticoat off, or I will never forgive you.”

I assured her that on no consideration would I breathe so much as a syllable, and, on leaving us, she said:—

“As you are going away, you may give me a kiss, if you like.”

Which I did right gladly, as you may suppose.

A few days later, I met Charleville at an evening party in Taunton, at which he paid marked attention to the daughter of the house, a very pretty girl. I recollect meeting at this party two of the daughters of the vicar of Taunton, Elsie and Audrey Clark, the elder of whom was thirteen, while her sister was three years younger, and was much struck by their beauty, which was quite out of the common. One of them had the most lovely hair, of the same exquisite colour as that which one sees in Titian’s paintings; the other’s hair was also very beautiful, but of a more auburn shade; and both sisters had the most charming complexion. I danced repeatedly with one of them; _mais mon cœur balançait entre les deux_, so far as their attractions were concerned. The girl with the Titian hair afterwards married the fourteenth Lord Petre, while her sister married his uncle.

Lord Charleville was a tall, good-looking youth, with wavy brown hair and regular features, but he was very delicate, being consumptive. After serving for a year in the Rifle Brigade, his health obliged him to resign his commission. He then went for a voyage in his yacht, but derived little benefit from it, and died before reaching his majority.

The late Mrs. O. Warre-Malet told me that, when she was quite a young girl, she and her sister went to Ascot races on foot and disguised as boys for a joke, and that they got a good deal of money from people who were driving to the course. Her sister married the Hon. Humble Dudley-Ward, and after her husband’s death, the late Duke of Richmond made her an offer of marriage. This she refused, but accepted Mr. Gerard Leigh, who was an immensely wealthy man. After his death she became the wife of Monsieur de Falbe, and died some years ago.