THE CHILDHOOD OF CECIL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XXV, 20 June 1896, Page 714

THE CHILDHOOD OF CECIL.

FROM ‘ WOMAN.’ JUST as there is only one Right Honourable Cecil Rhodes, so is there only one Mrs Bankes. Now Mrs Bankes was once Mr Rhodes’ old nurse, and the opportunity offering itself, I thought I would get from her some information as to the youth of the millionaire politician who, having resigned his Premiership at the Cape, is coming over to Pingland to explain his share in the great South African crisis. ‘ I’ll lay I know more about him than his own mother,’ Mrs Bankes said. She was snowy capped and white aproned, and sat at the door of her cottage, enveloped in a shawl, sewing. ’ Wasn’t I there at Bishop’s Stortford in his father’s house eight years ? Susan, he used to call me.’ ‘ Was he a " caution ” ?’ ‘ A big caution, I think ; he never was like an ordinary child. Master Cecil was five when I went there. His home lay about a mile out of Stortford on the main road, and mine was half way between his home and the town. Many a time my dear father see them—him and his brothers —pass the mill cornin’ from school, balancin’ theirselves on the kerb ; never seemed scarce to touch the ground, givin’ such springs. All of them were active, getting on tops of buildings like monkeys, and in walking Cecil’s arms and legs were always on the swing, and that tricky ! But Cecil had his jokes to himself, and never laughed unless he liked. Often when I passed him indoors he would say pieces out of the Bible to me, queer-like. Sometimes my kitchen dresser bein’ in front of the window, he would try to pop through there instead of by the door, me and him havin’ a tussle, catchin’ hold of his legs or jacket, whatever come first. One day, a Sunday, them boys thinks me out and goes

to the kitchen, watching till the garden boy, by name Ricketts, come to bring the coals, me all the time outside in the pantry with the up-and-down girl, listenin’. Presently Herbert—that’s the eldest boy as was burnt, I think, in Natal, poor lad—calls out ‘ ‘ Hullo ! Rickety, boy, are you cold ? Come to the fire, my little man, come to the fire and takes down the kitchen hook and hoicks open the furnace door, the fire bein’ extra large because of the hot joint for supper that night, contrary to usual arrangement for Sunday evenin's in a clergyman’s family. I walks in just in time to prevent something or other dreadful. * Did Master Cecil ever get into hot water ?’

* Times over. He was good-natured, but most strange when put out. When vexed he would get into a dark corner under the staircase, not speakin’ for hours, but make a tnoani’j,’ howlin’ noise. His mother was won-

derful fond and indulging ; she would go to try and pet him. He would often call her “ Mrs Rhodes,” in a

queer tone, still growlin’. One day in one of his tantrums he says to her, in a mumbling voice, “ You’re not a lady.” “Oh,” she says, “what am I then?” she says. "‘You’re only Mrs Rhodes,” he says, that contemptuous !’ ‘ A Tartar ?’

‘ That he was sometimes, and so quick you never knew where you had him. One morning, his mother havin’ scolded him as he was gettin’ up, Master Cecil runs away, jumps out of window in nothing but his night shift, and gets away on to the leads and down by a trellis work—he was like a climbin’ cat —and us all after him on an April day, with the ground soakin’, over the ’sparagis beds ; but Cecil was light-footed. Then he got on the portico of the back door, and from it on to the wall which divided off the garden. He wouldn’t come in till his mother sent him up his socks, because he said his feet were damp, and him sitting there on the wall by the high road puttin’ them on quite cool, with Rush, the gardener, swearing dreadful at the ’sparagis beds. “It’s Master Cecil’s life that matters,” I says, “ only just out of bed with a nasty cold on his chest.” It’s been my private opinion ever since that from that day Rush never did his duty by the servants’ hall in the matter of ’sparagis.’ ‘ Go on.’

‘He used to be fond of jam. We used to have fine blackberries at Stortford. I made some beautiful

preserve one autumn. It was a bad kitchen for beetles though. I put them pots as high as ever I could. Blest if two of them wasn’t clean empty before you could turn round. “Cecil,” I said, very grave, “ did you eat that jam ?” ’ ‘ Did he “ face the music ” then, Mrs Bankes ?’ * What music, love ? He always got round me, if you mean that. “Yes,” he says, “yes, Susan, and some I spilt, and Herbert and me wiped it up when you were out. I am sorry it’s gone or eaten, Susan. It was very good. Make some more,” he says, superior, and goes off whistlin’. “ What are you to do with a boy like that ?” I asks his mother. “ Let him alone, Susan ; it’s the best,” she says, “ as long as he speaks the truth.” But how he reached them shelves is a mystery.’ ‘ He was ambitious even in those days ?’

‘Well love, I don’t exactly know. I saw him some years back, when I was housekeeper at Mrs R— 7 —’s down Iffley way. Says she : “ Mr Rhodes is cornin’ here ; do you know who that is ?” “Knowhim ?” I says; “ don’t I know him. ma’am !” Says she : “ Mr Rhodes is a great friend of my husband’s : but you know, Mrs Bankes, he doesn’t tell my husband everything.” Presently the dog-cart drove up, and there was Cecil sitting by my master. Next mornin’ I went to the study, and he asked me all about the jam ; Mrs R havin’ told him previous, most likely. That was one of the times he laughed, and then he come to the housekeeper’s room, “ And when are you going to settle yourself, sir,” I says, “ and give up them African things and get married ?” “Marriage,” he says, “ marriage is a more difficult game than politics, Bankes.” “ Bless your heart,”l says, “ it’ssimpleenough. You says to her “ Snip,” she says to you “Snap,” and it’s settled, though only calling myself “ Mrs ” because of my situation as housekeeper, I can’t say I’ve had any experience of a husband mysel.f” He don’t never enter a church now, Mrs R tells me ; but there ! his father left him and never forced him ; a good man and still missed in Stortford! I’ve been thinking a deal about them lately, and poor Master Frank—that’s the colonel —in prison.’

‘Mr Rhodes will be back almost immediately. I wonder what will happen then ? You see, Mrs Bankes, there’s sure to be a fuss.’ ‘ Well, he’ll speak the truth, and they’d best let him alone—you tell ’em.’ As I left her to a Family Herald and an early cup of tea, I wondered if she were so far from the mark after all. Joan Sympi.e.

The Duke takes an active interest iupolitics, being the recognised leader in Ulster affairs. Recently he acted as chairman of the county convention. Formerly he was a member of Parliament from county Donegal, holding his seat from iB6O to 1880. He is also Colonel of the Donegal Militia. He is 58 years of age. In 1869 he wedded Lady Mary, the daughter of Earl Howe, and six children have been the issue of the union.