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12 December 1895 — 3 Savile Row | |
Thursday. 12th [December 1895]. Kitty & I went up in a cab at 11 to Maria’s to see her dr Mary who is staying there & then we went on to King’s Cross & by 11.45 train to Hatfield to see her son Monty who is curate there. It was fine when we started but began to rain just as we got there & thus passed the rest of the day. Monty met us & we went to his lodging & he gave us a cup of tea & we sat & talked & he played the piano to us—& abt 1.30 we set off to walk up to the to lunch with the Salisburys & arrived there very wet in spite of umbrellas– Lunched at 2. Lady Galloway was there & a private Sec of Lord Salisburys– Ld S. came in late & also Lady Maud– Lady S. was pleasant & civil. She kept calling me Enid. After lunch we sat together in the library & had a long talk about Turkey & the present state of things there. I said I was glad to see the Sultan was giving in about having the 2nd stationnaires up to Consple & she said—“Oh yes only trying to make no end of conditions. In fact the whole thing is a question of money & they say the money will only last out till March & then the whole thing must break up.” I asked her if she had known “Little Saïd” the Ex Vizir about whom all the fuss was being made. She said she had & knew how anti English he was. We also talked of Isset Bey & I said I remembered how he used to dance at our balls & had married Nazli Khanum’s sister who was also Anti English & brought up quite French. She told me à propos of Nazli how once in talking over some person who was obnoxious to England Nazli had quietly said “You ought to get rid of him. How odd you Christians are! If you were a Turk you wd soon get rid of him.” On Lady Salisbury asking her how, she said “Oh a cup of coffee”– Lady S. answered that we could not do that—it was not allowed by our religion—& asked Nazli to explain how it could be done– Whereat she explained how you lit a pipe—closed it at one end & let one drop of the nicotine fall into a cup of coffee & the thing was done. Lady S. objected that it might be tasted—& she said “Oh no! every one here smokes & no one who smokes could detect it”– We talked about Venice mosaics &c & I remarked that a picture of the great Cecil seemed to be done in mosaic—that was over the fire place. She said that it was so & that they had still the letter from Wotton who sent it from Venice to Cecil as a specimen of what was made at Venice then & to adorn the new house Cecil was building. While we were talking Lord Cranborne’s children were playing about & the eldest boy of about 4 kept coming to play with his grandmother. She said “We preserve all these things but with the present death duties they will all have to be sold—& this young man will sell them—wont you dear?” She took me into the big gallery to show me 2 pietra dura tables also sent from Venice by Wotton. Like those now made at Florence. It was dark by then & the electric light being turned up the old house looked lovely. She sent us to the station in a carriage & Kitty & I returned to town by 4.19 train & got home to Savile Row by 5 o’cl tea. | |
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