A ROMANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20563, 14 May 1930, Page 17

A ROMANCE.

COUNTESS OF SEAFI ELD.

LIKE QUEEN VICTORIA

Prominent in the news because of her unobtrusive marriage to Mr. Derek Studley Herbert —a tall young Etonian exGuardsman, more recently employed in Iho city—is tho 23-year-old Countess of Seafiold. Scotland. Thero aro living quietly in a picturesquo littlo house almost in the shadow of the, great Victoria and Albert Museum, in tho Cromwell Road. 1 found her tlie.ro the other day, states a London writer.

"This is ye House that Jack Built, emblazoned on a gaily decorated piece of tiling, is the only mark of distinction about the little home—a very new red brick building of perhaps six or seven rooms, one of six or eight of its kind hiding away in a sheltered close behind a square.

After some diplomatic manoeuvring I eventually persuaded a matronly figure, hostilo to newspaper folk, to let mo in. Mi'. Herbert interviewed me first.

A (all, very blonde youth, ho was obviously of the type which has made Englishmen well liked wherever the best Englishmen aro seen—cheerful, well spoken, frank and friendly iri his manner, but possessed of no other distinction.

After a while the countess canio down She is a very small, fair girl, with cop-per-coloured hnir, long finger nails enamelled a brilliant red, and a distinctive face said to be strangely alike to Queen Victoria's countenanco in her younger days. The counless is the only daughter of James Grant, the eleventh Earl of Seafield, who was killed in action in France in November, 1915, while serving as captain of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. The eleventh earl lived for some time in New Zealand, principally in Christchurch, where he married the daughter of Dr. J. 11. Townend. Being the only child, the Earldom of Seafield descended to the present countess on lier father's death, other titles in tho Claii Grant passing to her uncle, Lord Strath spcy, who was born in Oanjaru, Now Zealand.

Lord Strathspey thus became the Grant of Grant —the chieftain of the Grant clan —without succeeding to the Earldom of Seafield, which his niece holds in her own right. Tho curious position thus arose that there are threo Countesses of Seafield living, but no Earl. The throe countesses aro tho mother of tho dead earl and his brother, Lord Strathspey; the dead earl's wife, his daughter. Now that the youngest countess —who alone of the three is countess in her own right —has married, if she has male issue there will again be an Earl of Seafield. But who will be the Grant of Grant? Her son (if she had one) or Lord Strathspey's son, Donald Trevor Grant, who figures in Who's Who as Master of Grant? And to whom will Castle Grant belong, and to whom will the Grants give their allegiance ? Neither Lord Strathspey nor tho Countess of Seafield, though both appear in the columns of Who's Who as the owner of it, ever visit or live at Castle Grant, the ancestral home of the head of the Seafield estate. The only occasion that Lord Strathspey has visited tho estate since his arrival about 11 years ago from New Zealand—lie told me this himself—he was not a guest at Castle Grant, but paid for lodgings at the hotel there. Wltile tlie octogenarian trustees consider the position created bv the countess' wedding, Lord Strathspey and his Lady live in virtual retirement at a small West End hotel, and the countess herself | occupies the "house that Jack built.