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16 Old Memories of East-Bourne. [Chap. II.
who was Mrs. W. C. Hood, and Charlotte who afterwards married a Frenchman named Bataillard. I saw this gentleman on one occasion taking leave of The Grays footman on the railway platform by giving him a warm shake of the hand which I suppose was a French fashion, but certainly is not an English one. Mrs. Hood afterwards married Mr. C. Manby, a Civil Engineer, and resided at The Grays till her death. The Architecture and internal geography of the house was very complex, the street front having been burnt down in 1853 and re-built.
I now come to Compton Place. Its history and how it became a Cavendish centre is sufficiently well-known, so I make no attempt to repeat it. When I first knew it, it was only occasionally occupied by the 2nd Earl of Burlington after the death of his Countess in 1840, so that his mother, Mrs. Cavendish, must be regarded as the tenant during my early years. She lived there with her bachelor son, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Richard Cavendish. I was walking with him one day along the drive at The Gore, where he had been calling, and he said casually "It is one of the advantages of being a younger brother of a Duke, that I can wear a straw hat." After his mother's removal in 1861 to Chislehurst (where she died in 1862, Lord Richard Cavendish dying in London in 1873) the Duke of Devonshire lent the house to his sister, Lady Fanny Howard, who lived there for about 22 years with her husband and children. During the greater part of that period, when the young Howards were boys, I played cricket there a good deal during many successive summers. In the later years of her life my visits there were for intellectual purposes, so to speak. I remember a delightful Shakesperian reading there on March 6,1879, organised by my wife at Lady Fanny's request. After her death in 1885 Mr. Howard remained on at Compton Place till 1890, when he went to Angus House, Granville Road, where he died in 1897. All his sons and two of his three daughters survived him. A family group is represented in one of the plates. The gentleman in fur |
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