Postlude
When Clive’s estate manager retired to a cottage on the sea in Cornwall, Clive took over the affairs.
In need of some other stimulating project, he wrote a primer on improvements in agricultural production.
The book is still sold today as a sound historical record of British achievements in the mid-nineteenth century.
Giselle continued her habit of drawings and paintings of towns and villages, and of the Carlisle homes in London, Richmond, Devonshire—and a new one they had built along the promenade in Brighton. She also taught others, mostly children, her techniques of draftsmanship.
Each summer on the anniversary of their wedding, she and Clive would journey to a new town or village.
Their choices were random, inspired by their sense of adventure.
They would stay for only a few days, if in Britain.
Or if they chose the Continent, they would remain for a few weeks.
She would do preliminary calculations and return home, armed with sketches of places they enjoyed.
As she finished each one, she and Clive would recall the days they walked the towns and the nights they had enjoyed in each other’s arms.
Forty-two years after their marriage and after both Giselle and Clive had returned to their Maker the year before, their daughter Collette—now the Countess of Drewsbury—and their older daughter, Annabelle—now the Duchess of Martindale—threw open the Richmond house as a museum.
There, where their father had first seen her mother and fallen in love with her, Collette and Annabelle sponsored a grand salon exposition of their mother’s and father’s works.
The museum remains open to this day, dedicated to those writers and artists who documented life in the country and in small towns throughout Europe.
Collette’s notation at the end of the exhibit was one her mother often repeated: You come to the thing you love with surprise and a special joy that you have been given a certain gift.
You come to the person you love above all others with a reverence.
You serve that union with a devotion, each to the other.
The blessings of that arrive each day with every smile, each touch of the hand, each tear shed together through loss and hardship, and each triumph brings new astonishment, new gratitude and peace.