y day--that was only a
_malheureuse_ passion.

Apropos of this union, a popular riddle went the round of the clubs:
"Why does a certain young officer of the Life Guards resemble a much
mended pair of shoes?" The answer was, "Because he has been heeled
[Heald] and soled [sold]."

The honeymoon was spent at Berrymead Priory, a house that the
bridegroom owned at Acton. This was a substantial Gothic building,
with several acres of well timbered ground and gardens. Some distance,
perhaps, from the Cornet's barracks. Still, one imagines he did not
take his military duties very seriously; and leave of absence "on
urgent private affairs" was, no doubt, granted in liberal fashion.
Also, he possessed a phaeton, in which, with a spanking chestnut
between the shafts, the miles would soon be covered.

The Priory had a history stretching back to the far off days of Henry
III, when it belonged to the Chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral. Henry
VII, in high-handed fashion, presented it to the Earl of Bedford; and
a subsequent occupant was the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh, the
bigamous spouse of the Duke of Kingston. Another light lady, Nancy
Dawson, is also said to have lived there as its chatelaine, under the
"protection" of the Duke of Newcastle.

At the beginning of the last century the property was acquired by a
Colonel Clutton. He was followed by Edward Bulwer, afterwards Lord
Lytton, who lived there on and off (chiefly off) with his wife, until
their separation in 1836. On one occasion he gave a dinner-party,
among the guests being John Forster, "to meet Miss Landon,
Fontblanque, and Hayward." To the invitation was added the warning,
"We dine at half-past five, to allow time for return, and regret much
having no spare beds as yet." A spare bed, however, was available for
Lord Beaconsfield, when he dined there in the following year.

On the departure of Bulwer, the house had a succession of tenants; and
for a short period it even sheltered a bevy of Nuns of the Sacred
Heart. It was when they left that the estate was purchased by Mr.
George Heald, a barrister with a flourishing practice. He left it to
his booby son, the Cornet: and it was thus that Lola Montez
established her connection with Berrymead Priory.

While the original house still stands, the garden in which it stood
has gone; and the building itself now serves as the premises of the
Acton Constitutional Club. But the committee have been careful to
preserve some