CHAPTER I.

1880-1899.

Once when Rivy had had a bad smash at polo he spent some time in hospital. “It seems odd to say so,” he wrote to Francis, “but I enjoyed it immensely. What lucky people we are, taking an interest in so many things! This was another side that I had not yet seen.” I set down these words at the beginning of this short record, for they sum up the attitude of the two brothers to life. Few people can have had a larger share of the happiness of youth, for not only had they ample opportunity of action and experience, but they bore within themselves the secret of joy. They never ceased to wonder at the magnificence of the world, and they carried a divine innocence into soldiering and travel and sport and business, and not least into the shadows of the Great War. In the comfortable age before 1914 they were among the best known and most popular young men of their day, and some picture of their doings may be of interest as a memorial of a vanished world. The coming of war upon their eager life is a type of the experience of all their countrymen, and a revelation of the inner quality of that land which has so often puzzled herself and her neighbours. But I write especially, as the friend of Francis and Rivy, for their many friends: who, before memory dies, may wish some record of two of the most endearing and generous spirits that ever “before their time into the dust went down.”

I.

Francis Octavius Grenfell and Riversdale Nonus Grenfell were born at Hatchlands, Guildford, on September 4, 1880, the twin sons of Pascoe Du Pre Grenfell and Sofia Grenfell his wife. Family history would be out of place in such a narrative as this, and I do not propose to discuss the intricate question of the Grenfell pedigree, and whether kin can be counted with the great figures of Sir Richard Grenville of the _Revenge_, or Sir Bevil, the Cavalier, of Lansdown Heath. It is sufficient to say that they came of an old Cornish strain, which in their case was double-distilled, for their parents were cousins. A Grenfell fought at Waterloo and lost a leg; their mother’s father, Admiral John Grenfell of the Brazilian Navy, was Lord Cochrane’s second in command, and performed many famous exploits, notably the cutting out and destruction of the Spanish flagship _Esmeralda_, in the midst of an armed squadron. His brother, Sydney, was a British admiral, distinguished in the China War. Their father’s brother is Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell. Of their own brothers, Pascoe served and died in the Matabele War; Robert fell gloriously in the charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman; Harold did brilliantly as a column commander in South Africa; and Arthur won the D.S.O. at the Battle of the Somme. A cousin, Claude Grenfell, was killed at Spion Kop; and all the world knows of their other cousins, Lord Desborough’s sons, who will live because of Julian’s poetry and their mother’s exquisite memoir in the literature as well as in the history of England. There are many famous fighting stocks among our people, but there can be few with a more stirring record than this.

A word should be said of their uncle, their mother’s brother, because he was a hero of romance to the boys in their youth, and they loved to dwell upon his amazing doings. Francis and Rivy were always gentle in their ways, and for this very reason they had a weakness for a stout swashbuckler. Admiral Sir Harry Grenfell was a British sailor after the eighteenth-century pattern. His gallantry was proverbial in the navy of his day, and he had various medals for saving life at sea. There must have been much of Julian’s spirit in him, for he had an insatiable zest for adventure and fighting, and when he could not get it in the way of duty he went out to look for it. Among other things he was middleweight champion of the navy. There is a story of him with which Rivy once delighted an American public dinner. He went ashore with some brother officers at Constantinople, and drifted to a music hall, where he found an immense Turk offering fifty dollars to any one in the audience who could knock him out in five rounds. Harry Grenfell promptly accepted the challenge. He put on the gloves wrongly, and stood awkwardly, so that the challenger thought him a novice and gave him some easy openings. Taking advantage of one of them, he stretched his antagonist on the floor. On recovering his senses, the Turk advanced to the footlights and announced in the pure accents of Limehouse, “Gen’l’men, the hexibition is closed.” Then, going over to Grenfell’s corner, he shook him warmly by the hand, whispering, “You’re no bloody lamb.” There is another tale which may be apocryphal, but which the Twins cherished as an example of how their uncle looked at things. Once Admiral Grenfell was dispatched in his ship to some Pacific isle to arrest and bring to Sydney a chief who had eaten a missionary. The chief was duly arrested, but during the long voyage back the British admiral came to entertain the highest respect for his qualities as a man. The upshot was that he dumped him down on some desert island and returned to report to his superiors that, having gone most carefully into the case, he had come to the conclusion that the missionary had been entirely in the wrong.

II.

The first seven years of their life were spent at Hatchlands. As the youngest members of a large family they were a perpetual delight to their sisters, and their brothers vied with each other in directing their small feet in the paths of sport. They were solemn, self-possessed children, quiet in their ways, and as inseparable as the two sides of a coin. They would lurk peacefully for hours in corners, and once a short-sighted visitor sat down on them on a drawing-room sofa and nearly smothered them. As babies they were not so much alike, but as they grew older they became perfect doubles, puzzling everybody, including their mother, who often gave the wrong one medicine. At Hatchlands they acquired two red fox-terriers, known as the Gingers, who were as much alike as their masters. Only the Twins knew the Gingers apart, and only the Gingers could tell which twin was which. They had an air of serious cheerfulness, especially in their misdeeds, which was so endearing that it disarmed wrath; and they played their confusing twinship for all it was worth. Once, when they had been quarrelling—for, in the immortal phrase of the _Irish R.M._, they “fought bitter and regular, like man and wife”—their mother caught up one (she did not know which), set him on her knee, and scolded him heartily. When she stopped, the culprit said in a calm, meditative voice, “You certainly do look very jolly when you are angry, ’cos your eyes shine so.” They were very unpunctual, and had always convincing excuses. “Why are you late this time?” their father once asked despairingly. “Well, it’s all the fault of the housemaid,” was the answer. “She’s so selfish. She won’t lend me her stud, and mine has gone down a rabbit-hole.” One of their traits was a genius for getting hold of the wrong word. They used to give sixpence to the Christmas “waits,” till their father reduced the bounty because of the growing number of the applicants. “Only pennies this year,” the Twins announced to the waiting mob, “’cos there’s a chrysalis in the City.” This habit long remained to them. At school they invited their parents to come down and see the new chapel “disinfected” by the Bishop.

[Illustration: THE TWINS AT THE AGE OF EIGHT.]

Having seven brothers adepts at every form of sport, Francis and Rivy were early “entered” to most games. They played a kind of polo, mounted on walking-sticks, at the age of four. They soon learned to ride, and when hounds met anywhere in the neighbourhood they invariably contrived to be run away with by their ponies, and avoided lessons for that day. Their first pony was a communal possession with the name of Kitty, an aged family pet, which they took charge of and groomed themselves. Presently Kitty grew so infirm that she had to disappear from the world. They were told that Kitty had gone to stay with her mother, and complained that it was cool of her to go off without consulting them. A little later the coachman, in a moment of forgetfulness, presented them with one of Kitty’s hoofs. Said one twin to another in bewilderment, “What an extraordinary mother poor Kitty must have!” At that time they took a very solemn and matter-of-fact view of life. At their first pantomime they saw a rustic ballet of beautiful “farm workers,” and for some time afterwards perplexed the occupants of every farm they visited by asking where the pretty girls lived. At their second pantomime they were with their uncle in the stage-box, and argued so vigorously with the clown that he climbed up beside them, to their mingled joy and embarrassment. Their engaging gravity had no self-consciousness; they talked to their elders as they talked to each other. A relation who pronounced certain words in a bygone fashion, once at breakfast busied himself at the sideboard. “Who says tea and who says corfee?” he asked. The serious voice of Rivy replied, “Personally I always say _coffee_, but I’m too small to have any.”

In 1887 the family moved to Wilton Park, near Beaconsfield, where their father had spent most of his childhood. It had belonged to Mr. George Du Pre, his uncle, who for nearly forty years had been M.P. for Bucks and a colleague of Disraeli. There the Twins were in clover, and could indulge to the full their love of games and passion for animals. In the park they raced their ponies and hunted rabbits with the Gingers; they acquired several ferrets, and the favourite home of the ferret bag was the best armchair in the drawing-room. The worst poacher in the village was their habitual ally, and became so much attached to them and the family that he had to be made under-keeper. They had a cricket ground where they practised assiduously, and were bowled to by the sons and grandsons of the boys who had bowled to their father. They organized boys’ matches, arranging everything themselves. Their mother once asked them to let her know what they wanted for tea after the match. “Don’t trouble, mother,” was the answer. “We have ordered two hundred buns.”

III.

In 1887 they went to Mr. Edgar’s school at Temple Grove, East Sheen, where their seven brothers had been before them. At that time they were bent on learning every game, but had no ambition to excel in lessons. They both played cricket and football for the school, and occasionally brought home a prize, the wrong twin being invariably congratulated on the achievement. In their schooldays their spelling was original and ingenious. To one who was about to become their brother-in-law they wrote: “I can gratcherlate you, she is a niece girl.” Apropos of a wet day they achieved this memorable sentence: “It pordanpord.” The word deserves admission to the weather vocabulary of the English tongue.

In 1894 they went to Eton, where their grandfather, father, six brothers, and many cousins had been before them. They began in Mr. Arthur Benson’s house, but next year went to that of Mr. Walter Durnford, who was one of the chief family friends. Their name was sufficient passport in that home of long traditions, for three of their brothers had played in the Eleven, and they rapidly became very popular and dominant figures in the school. In 1898 Francis was Master of the Beagles, and Rivy Whip. At the time the pack was most indifferently housed, so the Twins raised a fund to build, on the piece of land known as Agar’s Plough, the kennels which are now in use. They wrote letters—generally wrongly addressed—to a multitude of old Etonians, including the late Lord Salisbury, and received subscriptions and letters—notably one from Lord Rosebery—which they cherished as heirlooms. “The Head Master,” Mr. Durnford writes, “was never safe from having his majestic progress through the playing fields arrested by one of the Twins conveying some petition concerned with the great project, and the Bursar—not renowned for his acceptance of new ideas—capitulated before the unceasing attack.” In 1899 Francis was in the Eleven, and in the match against Harrow at Lord’s, at a critical point in the game, he and Mr. H. K. Longman, of Mr. Radcliffe’s house, made 170 runs for no wickets. That year he established a bold innovation. Formerly the two Elevens kept apart at lunch; Francis, though it was his first appearance in the historic match, decreed that they should sit together, and ever since this excellent practice has been followed.

At Eton they showed little interest in books, and later were wont to lament to each other that they had left school wholly uneducated. But they learned other things—the gift of leadership, for instance, and the power of getting alongside all varieties of human nature. They discovered, too, an uncommon knack of obtaining what they wanted by their gentle persistence and radiant charm of manner. They had a way of taking things for granted, and giving large orders which were generally fulfilled. Being desirous to have flowers on their small window-sill, they wrote to the gardener at Wilton to send them some “rowderdendrons.” It appeared afterwards that they meant geraniums, but an under-gardener was discovered faithfully digging up an enormous bush, which would have filled their little room, let alone the window. They always worked in couples, and used their similarity in looks shamelessly for various unconstitutional purposes. During the winter one would answer for both, so that the other could get off to hunt. Once the trick was badly given away by the huntsman appearing at supper with blood trickling down his sleeve. Taken unawares, he explained that he had had a fall on a heap of stones. Hunting had now become a passion with both, and during one exeat they settled to go to Melton, hired horses to meet them at a very early train, and ordered a hansom to be at the door at 6 a.m. The cab never appeared, and they missed the train. They managed to get half-way to the meet in a slow train, and then _took a special_ and had a first-class day. Coming back in the evening they told Frankie Rhodes the trouble they had had, and he insisted on paying for the special.

Both of them had an astonishing gift of getting on friendly terms with every sort of dignitary. The complete simplicity and candour of the two slim, dark boys was not to be resisted. There is a legend, probably untrue, that Francis once borrowed a sovereign from the Head to tip a hunt-servant, and got it! Another tale can be vouched for. After one of the many consultations about the new kennels, Dr. Warre walked down the street with his arm in Francis’s. He stopped to speak to some one, and at the same moment Francis met a friend, upon which the Head overheard the following conversation. Said the friend, “Fancy you walking arm-in-arm with the Head! Why, he terrifies me!” Said Francis, “I don’t see why the poor man shouldn’t have pals among us. It’s bad enough to be Head, without having to go without pals.” And here is an adventure of Rivy’s. He was asked by Miss Bulteel, who was then in waiting on Princess Beatrice, to tea at Windsor Castle. He marched in, and ascended the first staircase he saw. There he found a kind old lady, who asked him whom he wanted to see, and on Rivy’s explaining told him he had come in by the wrong entrance. She summoned a liveried giant, and bade him show the way to Miss Bulteel’s room. The giant bowed low to Rivy and walked backward before him along several passages and up and down staircases. Finally the crab-like progress halted before a door, and with another low bow Rivy was asked what name. When he gave it the giant drew himself up, flushed and said, “Oh, is that all? You can go in.” Afterwards Rivy found out that he had wandered up the Queen’s private staircase, that the old lady was the Empress-Dowager of Germany, and that the footman had taken him for a foreign royalty. This was not the last of Rivy’s odd experiences in court circles.

[Illustration: THE TWINS WITH THE ETON BEAGLES.]

Mr. Walter Durnford has been so kind as to set down his recollections of the Twins.

“I have been asked to contribute to the memoir of Francis and Riversdale Grenfell something bearing on their life as boys at Eton. It is not a very easy task, for though their memory is still fresh and strong in the mind of the writer, life at school, with its regularity, its ordered course of work and play, does not present, as a rule, startling features or occasions which lend themselves to description. Month succeeds month, and year follows year, with such quiet regularity that almost before one realizes the change the small boy has grown into the big boy, and the big boy is preparing to take his place in the great world.

“The ‘Twins’—for so we always called them, and it is indeed impossible to dissociate them in our memory—came to Eton in 1894, and a year later entered my house, where their brothers Harold, Arthur, and Robert had preceded them—a funny little pair, so like one another that they were the despair of masters who only saw them occasionally; and even their tutor, who saw them perpetually, never really knew them apart till the last year they were at Eton. Francis, writing to him after Rivy’s death, says: ‘Rivy used to like you best, I think, when some one gave him a yellow ticket and you used, when you came round, to pretend to be furious and curse me instead of him.’

“Like most brothers, they fought. In the same letter Francis writes: ‘You, who used with difficulty to part us after fighting in old days, know what we were to each other’; and, indeed, they had at bottom that love for each other which, it seems to me, only twin brothers have; nor do I believe that they were ever happy if for many hours they were separated.

“To say that they were diligent would be absurd. They vexed the souls of masters in whose forms they found themselves, and on whom they sometimes played off their wonderful likeness with diabolical ingenuity; they vexed the soul of their tutor, who had to see that, somehow or other, they scraped through their tale of work. But it was impossible to be angry with them for long, for their invincible cheerfulness blunted the wrath of justly indignant teachers; and all the time they were learning, unconsciously perhaps, but still learning, the lessons which were to make them so greatly beloved in after life—lessons of kindness, of thoughtfulness, of perseverance, of straight and honourable conduct—the fruit of which will be seen in the later pages of this book. So the years slipped by—happy years for both of them—until they found themselves in that position which is perhaps the most delightful that the English boy can attain to—‘swells,’ with troops of admiring friends, and a recognized position as people of mark in the school. Such a position is not free from danger, and boys’ heads are easily turned by it; but the Twins never lost the simplicity which was one of their most engaging characteristics, and they retained, as all boys do not, the heart of a boy to the end of their schooldays.”

Mr. Durnford notes how little they changed during their school life. It is the testimony of all their friends at all their stages. They possessed a certain childlikeness, the ardour and innocence and unworldliness of the dawn of life, the charm of which was never rubbed off by experience. The one change during the Eton years was that Rivy began unconsciously to charge himself with Francis’s future. A list of their school friends—even of their intimate friends—would be so large as to be meaningless, but I fancy, looking back, that their closest friendships were with Waldorf Astor, Lord Esmé Gordon-Lennox, Lord Francis Scott, and Paul Phipps. From a letter of the last-named I quote a sentence: “Even in those days Rivy had begun to adopt the protecting, almost paternal, interest in Francis’s career which he preserved all his life. In the summer in which Francis got into the Eleven it was Rivy who took out his twin and sternly made him practise fielding, just as in later life he would conscientiously read some book which he had heard recommended, not for his own instruction or amusement, but in order that he might pass it on, if found suitable, to Francis.”

IV.

The summer of 1899 was their last term at Eton. The time was coming very near when their paths must diverge. Their father had died in 1896, and they lost their mother in 1898. Wilton Park had been given up some time before, and the family was scattering, their many brothers being already settled in various professions. Their uncle, Lord Grenfell, was their guardian, and few guardians can ever have fulfilled more devotedly and successfully their trust, as this narrative will bear witness. I quote from a letter written by him in September 1898 from Cairo:—

“MY DEAR TWINS,—By the death of your mother I become your guardian, and shall have to settle with Cecil as to your future careers.... You may rely upon me to do all I can to help you. But you are getting on now, and soon you will have to depend on your own energy for your success in life. You will not be rich, and you will have to work for your living, as your father and I have had to do before you. Though you have both been good boys, and have all the feelings of gentlemen, and have never caused your father or mother any anxiety, you have neither of you (as far as I can learn) taken any great interest in your studies. You must remember that in your future life you will not be able to do nothing but amuse yourselves, and I do trust that for this next year, whether you remain at Eton or not, you will work hard and try to learn all you can to improve your minds and fit yourselves for the future.

“I always received so much kindness from your father and mother when I was young, that you may depend on my helping you as much as I can; and when I am in England my house will always produce a corner for you and a bottle of the best. You have your brothers also to advise and help you. But to be successful in life you must depend on your own exertions, and therefore I hope you will work hard and learn to be punctual and support your masters.

“Read your Bibles, and shoot well ahead of the cock pheasants; and if you are ever in any difficulty that your brothers can’t help you in, come to your very affectionate

“UNCLE FRANCIS.”

“_P. S._—Since writing this, I have heard of dear Robert’s death.[1] He died a gallant death for his Queen and country.... Well! he is with God—and your mother—and there we can afford to leave him.”

Both would fain have followed the main Grenfell tradition and become soldiers, but their means forbade. One of them must choose a more lucrative calling, and the duty fell to Rivy, as having entered the world a few minutes later than his Twin. In any case he would have given first choice to Francis, to whom he had come to regard himself as _in loco parentis_. In this assignment Francis was the luckier, for he was born for the army. Indeed, both were, for it is hard to believe that Rivy had any aptitude for high finance, and he had beyond doubt the makings of a fine soldier. There was a very real difference between their minds: for Rivy, as we shall see, discovered later a restless interest in politics and a good deal of ambition for that career, while Francis never wavered in his devotion to his profession; but the aptitudes of both might well have been satisfied by the multifarious requirements of modern soldiering.

When they left Eton the Twins seemed exact replicas in tastes and interests, and they were as like as two peas in person. That summer Francis went to Inverness to join the Seaforth Militia, with a view to a commission later in the 60th. He stayed at Loch Carron with his friend Alasdair Murray, who a few months later was to fall with the Grenadier Guards in South Africa. While he was out stalking one day, Rivy arrived, was shown to his room, and changed into a suit of Francis’s country clothes. When he rang the bell a footman appeared, who looked once at him and fled. “Something terrible has happened to Mr. Grenfell on the hill,” he told his fellows in the servants’ hall. “His ghost is sitting in his room!”

Francis caught typhoid that autumn in Inverness, and for several months was seriously ill. In December 1899 he was sent off to the Cape for a sea voyage, and so began those wanderings which were to fill the rest of his life. Meantime Rivy had become a decorous clerk in the Bank of England. The Twins had left boyhood behind them.