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24 September 1883 — Ca’ Capello, Venice | |
Monday. 24th September [1883]. Spent the morning arranging things & taking over the keys & all the cupboards from my maid Hill who is going to leave me after having been 17 years in my service. She hates living here at Venice & her disposition has got soured & her nerves irritable and we cannot get on any longer together & so we have to part & she decided to go & to start on Wedy by the night train– We lunched at 1. Mr Bentinck came to see Henry to talk to him about poor old Rawdon Brown’s affairs but he left before lunch– At 3 Henry, the Dicksons & I went out in the gondola– We dropped Henry at the Stabto Venezia & Murano & went on to leave cards & notes & returned to fetch him. We found him very much annoyed at the state of things at Venice. A gentleman had just bought 500 francs worth of glass & the gondoliers who brought him there had insisted on having 50 fcs of it for percentage. These gondoliers are ruining the trade of the place. We went to the Piazza for Lady Dickson to do some shopping & then returned home to tea. Rested till dinner at 7. Mr & Lady Margaret Beaumont & Miss Barbara Lyall came to dine with us. In the eveng Mrs Brown & her son Horatio, Mr & Mrs Curtis, Mr Grenville Berkeley & Miss Berkeley, young Mr Beaumont, Mrs Noel Moore (wife of our consul at Jerusalem) came to tea. Mr Berkeley told me a curious story abt Mr Jackson Eldridge our Consul Genl. at Beyrouth. It appears that while Mr B was staying at Mansfield with Lady Shelley she got a letter from him in these terms. Madam. When I was a boy I knew your family. I owe everything to it altho’ it was by doing wrong. May I come down to see the place– He then went on to explain that he had been steward’s boy at Mansfield, that he had been so fond of reading that he could not resist taking the books from the library to read & had learnt a great deal. He thence went to America where his immense facility for languages & his love of reading soon got him on & he became editor of a newspaper & so he went on step by step till he became H.M.S. Consul in Russia—married a Russian lady—& was now H.M.S. Consul at Beyrouth & he signed himself “Jackson Eldridge.” Of course Lady Shelley invited him down. He went to the village where he was born & there met an old man breaking stones on the road whom he recognised as one of his schoolmates. | |
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