All the Mason family were kind to me. I came in for a peculiar situation with Violet, who had married an odd little man who had an exalted idea of his own brain. He was, for a short time, Editor of the Times. He took an interest in the politics of Czechoslovakia and, with the exiled president, concocted an idea that it was safe for him to return, with the unhappy result that the poor man was murdered.
Violet was moving house, and I was to see that the furniture was placed in the spots she had chosen. I rang up Rhona, who told me to come at once to Violet's present house. Poor dear. Violet had an attack of madness. After much talk, it was decided that her husband should take her back to their London flat and, with one reference to me, that I should look after her in her bedroom that night and go with them in their car to London.
There were no difficulties on the way, but the first thing she did when we reached the flat was to fling her necklace of beautiful pearls out of the window. Her maid being capable, I rushed down and found the necklace in the gutter. The doctor came and recommended a nursing home, but she was back next day and, in the end, she was taken to the National Health Asylum, where she gradually recovered.
After her husband's death, she made a little home for herself in an Oxfordshire village, until she died. She had adopted two boys. One of them was much loved, but he grew up spoiled and reckless and died of an accident just before she did.
Some things I have remembered from what Mother told me. My Father's ship at the bombarding of Alexandria was the Cygnet, sister ship to Lord Charles Beresford (you probably know of his spectacular doings there). When my Father retired (presumably for his health), he and Mother spent a winter (or less) at St. Moritz. At their hotel were many English, including Sir Squire Bancroft and his wife. Later, when I was at the Admiralty, walking up the Haymarket, I met Sir Squire. He was an unmistakable figure, straight off the stage, but a gentleman. My Grandmother had had a very hard life with Grandfather and her own children. My Father made Mother promise not to let his sister – married to an unsuccessful architect, with a daughter and son in the Merchant navy – worry the life out of her with begging in very odd letters (haphazard and always with the same object).
EVELYN MASON
Evelyn Mason Lindsay, daughter of James Ludovic Lindsay (26th Earl of Crawford) and Emily Florence Bootle-Wilbraham, making her a cousin of EV's mother. Wife of James Francis Mason of Eynsham Hall, Witney, Oxfordshire, England. Jim & Evelyn's children were Violet Sybille Mason, Rhona Margaret Alice Mason, Michael Henry Mason, Doris Kathleen Mason, and Joan Marjorie Mason.
AN ODD LITTLE MAN
Julian Frank Whichcord married Violet Sybille Mason in 1901. On 29 Dec 1935, he passed away (due to heart trouble) at their home, Tankerton Cottage, Northwood Road, Tankerton. Violet passed away on 08 Dec 1970.
MUCH-LOVED ADOPTED SON
Eric George Whichcord, adopted son of Julian Frank Whichcord and Violet Mason. He died on 08 Nov 1970, just one month before his mother.
MY FATHER RETIRED
Commander Henry Hastings Jauncey was placed on the Retired List in June 1886, the year after he married EV's mother, Blanche Pringle.
SIR SQUIRE BANCROFT
English actor-manager and father of the form of drama known as "drawing-room comedy". He would have been in his 70s, when EV saw him during WWI.
GRANDMOTHER & GRANDFATHER
Henry John Jauncey & Sophia Hubbard, parents of EV's father, Henry Hastings Jauncey.
FATHER
Henry Hastings Jauncey, who passed away seven months before the birth of his daughter, EV.
FATHER'S SISTER
Henrietta Helen Jauncey married William Taprell Allen in 1882.
ILLUSTRATIONS
1) Henry Hastings Jauncey (c. 1885)
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