Tracks of a Rolling Stone | Page 8

far end of the table a long
way off. But my lady kept an eye on him, for she had caught him
drinking champagne. She beckoned to the groom of the chambers, who
stood behind her; and in a gruff and angry voice shouted: 'Go to my
Lord. Take away his wine, and tell him if he drinks any more you have
my orders to wheel him into the next room.' If this was a joke it was
certainly a practical one. And yet affection was behind it. There's a
tender place in every heart.
Like all despots, she was subject to fits of cowardice - especially, it was
said, with regard to a future state, which she professed to disbelieve in.
Mr. Ellice told me that once, in some country house, while a fearful
storm was raging, and the claps of thunder made the windows rattle,
Lady Holland was so terrified that she changed dresses with her maid,
and hid herself in the cellar. Whether the story be a calumny or not, it is
at least characteristic.
After all, it was mainly due to her that Holland House became the focus
of all that was brilliant in Europe. In the memoirs of her father -
Sydney Smith - Mrs. Austin writes: 'The world has rarely seen, and will
rarely, if ever, see again all that was to be found within the walls of
Holland House. Genius and merit, in whatever rank of life, became a
passport there; and all that was choicest and rarest in Europe seemed
attracted to that spot as their natural soil.'

Did we learn much at Temple Grove? Let others answer for themselves.
Acquaintance with the classics was the staple of a liberal education in
those times. Temple Grove was the ATRIUM to Eton, and
gerund-grinding was its RAISON D'ETRE. Before I was nine years old
I daresay I could repeat - parrot, that is - several hundreds of lines of
the AEneid. This, and some elementary arithmetic, geography, and
drawing, which last I took to kindly, were dearly paid for by many tears,
and by temporarily impaired health. It was due to my pallid cheeks that
I was removed. It was due to the following six months - summer
months - of a happy life that my health was completely restored.

CHAPTER III

MR. EDWARD ELLICE, who constantly figures in the memoirs of the
last century as 'Bear Ellice' (an outrageous misnomer, by the way), and
who later on married my mother, was the chief controller of my
youthful destiny. His first wife was a sister of the Lord Grey of Reform
Bill fame, in whose Government he filled the office of War Minister. In
many respects Mr. Ellice was a notable man. He possessed shrewd
intelligence, much force of character, and an autocratic spirit - to which
he owed his sobriquet. His kindness of heart, his powers of
conversation, with striking personality and ample wealth, combined to
make him popular. His house in Arlington Street, and his shooting
lodge at Glen Quoich, were famous for the number of eminent men
who were his frequent guests.
Mr. Ellice's position as a minister, and his habitual residence in Paris,
had brought him in touch with the leading statesmen of France. He was
intimately acquainted with Louis Philippe, with Talleyrand, with
Guizot, with Thiers, and most of the French men and French women
whose names were bruited in the early part of the nineteenth century.
When I was taken from Temple Grove, I was placed, by the advice and
arrangement of Mr. Ellice, under the charge of a French family, which
had fallen into decay - through the change of dynasty. The Marquis de
Coubrier had been Master of the Horse to Charles X. His widow - an
old lady between seventy and eighty - with three maiden daughters, all

advanced in years, lived upon the remnant of their estates in a small
village called Larue, close to Bourg-la-Reine, which, it may be
remembered, was occupied by the Prussians during the siege of Paris.
There was a chateau, the former seat of the family; and, adjoining it, in
the same grounds, a pretty and commodious cottage. The first was let
as a country house to some wealthy Parisians; the cottage was occupied
by the Marquise and her three daughters.
The personal appearances of each of these four elderly ladies, their
distinct idiosyncrasies, and their former high position as members of a
now moribund nobility, left a lasting impression on my memory. One
might expect, perhaps, from such a prelude, to find in the old Marquise
traces of stately demeanour, or a regretted superiority. Nothing of the
kind. She herself was a short, square-built woman, with large head and
strong features, framed in a mob cap, with