Frederick Stephenson came home as quickly as possible, stopping in Paris at the house of his sister, Mrs. Melvil Wilson. Such was his ragged and starved appearance that the man-servant, who knew him well, had almost turned him away from the door as a disreputable person. The man, however, recognised his voice, and as soon as he was inside the door all his troubles seemed over. Mrs. Wilson was noted for the excellent appointment of her house, and for her cuisine; she was also a capable woman in a sickroom, and very fond of her brother. A lavish use of hot water, good soap, and fine towels (undreamed-of luxuries for the last year), then a comfortable bed with fine clean linen, and the attendance of a charming woman who brought soup, jellies, and cooling drinks, made the poor worn-out invalid feel as though he were in Paradise. It was, however, some time before he recovered health and strength enough to enable him to go home to England, where his mother and the rest of his family eagerly awaited him.
A month or two spent at home restored him sufficiently to allow of his return to the scene of action, where the great disappointment faced him of finding the post of military secretary to the Commander-in-Chief no longer open to him. As will be seen by his letters to his brother, he accepted the inevitable with his usual cheerful reasonableness. Still greater disappointments and disagreeables were to be faced later on in China and in Egypt, and to be met and overcome in the same spirit. It was always a matter of great regret to him that he got back too late to be present when at last Sebastopol fell. He was able, however, to return home with his regiment, and to march into London with them on July 9, 1856.
In 1857 came the war with China, and Frederick Stephenson was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General to the forces sent out, and remained there till 1861.
It was a period of very mixed experiences, as will be seen by his letters home at that date, but the time he spent under Sir Hope Grant's command was so agreeable to him that it quite outweighed his previous annoyances.
In Captain Henry Knollys' Incidents of the China War of i860, a book chiefly compiled from Sir Hope Grant's private diaries, the following passage is quoted from his list of staff officers: —
" Colonel Stephenson, Scots Fusilier Guards, Deputy Adjutant- General. I consider myself fortunate in this appointment, as not only was he in ever}'- respect a first-rate officer, but he possessed a peculiarly conciliatory manner, which smoothed over many difficulties,
HIS MOTHER'S DEATH 33
and specially qualified him for the post of Adjutant- General."
The letters from China are in some respects the most interesting of all. The descriptions of places and people are lively and graphic, and the writer's references to his own position, with its attendant disagreeables, brings out his character very clearly, while at the same time he tells the story of a campaign that has been very seldom described; it was so completely overshadowed by the Indian Mutiny that public attention was turned from it at the time, and not very much has been written about it since.
He gives a capital account of the shipwreck of the Transit on the voyage out, but it is only from a letter published in the papers at the time, and written by an officer who was on board the ship, but whose name is not given, that we learn the following details: —
" Colonel S, Scots Fusilier Guards, is in command,
and there is in my opinion no man better fitted for high command, as, with a temper most enviable, he has a calmness, firmness, and self-possession which has proved of essential service to us all. He was the last of our party to leave the ship."
After his return from China in 1861 Frederick Stephenson had only a few months at home, and it was a sad time. His mother. Lady Stephenson, to whom he was deeply attached and to whom the greater number of his letters up to this time had been addressed, was in failing health, and died in November of that year at the age of eighty-one. He felt her loss keenly, and it is not unlikely that to this cause may be attributed the fact that the next set of letters, those from Canada, are of very slight interest. He must have felt when writing them that the one to whom he could say everything, and to whom the slightest detail was precious, was no longer there to read and answer what he wrote, and that staj'^ed his hand and made his written thoughts less free.
There was, it is true, not so much that was interesting to write about as in the earlier letters; anyway, the fact remains that the letters from Canada written in 1862 and the two following years are of no general interest, though a few extracts are worth quoting and will be given below.