Chapter 22
"Millais's portrait of her is very good, and so is Watts's; but the best idea of her is to be got from Josselin's little outlines in 'The Discreet Princess,' and these are out of print. If you have any, please lend them to me, and I will faithfully return them. I have more than once tried to draw her in _Punch_, from memory, but never with success.
"I used to call her '_La belle dame sans merci._'
"I've often, however, drawn Josselin, as you must remember, and people have recognized him at once. Thanks for all his old sketches of school, etc., which will be very useful.
"I wish I had known the Josselins better. But when one lives in Hampstead one has to forego many delightful friendships; and then he grew to be such a tremendous swell! Good heavens!--_Sardonyx_, etc. I never could muster courage even to write and congratulate him.
"It never occurred to any of us, either in Duesseldorf or London, to think him what is called _clever_; he never said anything very witty or profound. But he was always funny in a good-natured, jovial manner, and made me laugh more than any one else.
"As for satire, good heavens! that seemed not in him. He was always well dressed, always in high spirits and a good temper, and very demonstrative and caressing; putting his arm round one, and slapping one on the back or lifting one up in the air; a kind of jolty, noisy, boisterous boon-companion--rather uproarious, in fact, and with no disdain for a good bottle of wine or a good bottle of beer. His artistic tastes were very catholic, for he was prostrate in admiration before Millais, Burne-Jones, Fred Walker, and Charles Keene, with the latter of whom he used to sing old English duets. Oddly enough, Charles Keene had for Josselin's little amateur pencillings the most enthusiastic admiration--probably because they were the very antipodes of his own splendid work. I believe he managed to get some little initial letters of Josselin's into _Punch_ and _Once a Week_; but they weren't signed, and made no mark, and I've forgotten them.
"Josselin didn't really get his foot in the stirrup till a year or two after his marriage.
"And that was by his illustrations to his own _Sardonyx_, which are almost worthy of the letter-press, I think; though still somewhat lacking in freedom and looseness, and especially in the sense of tone. The feeling for beauty and character in them (especially that of women and children) is so utterly beyond anything else of the kind that has ever been attempted, that technical considerations no longer count. I think you will find all of us, in or outside the Academy, agreed upon this point.
"I saw very little of him after he bought Marsfield; but I sometimes meet his sons and daughters, _de par le monde_.
"And what a pleasure that is to an artist of my particular bent you can readily understand. I would go a good way to see or talk to any daughter of Josselin's; and to hear Mrs. Trevor sing, what miles! I'm told the grandchildren are splendid--chips of the old block too.
"And now, my dear Maurice, I will do my best; you may count upon that, for old-times' sake, and for Josselin's, and for that of '_La belle dame sans merci_,' whom I used to admire so enthusiastically. It grieves me deeply to think of them both gone--and all so sudden!
"Sincerely yours,
"George du Maurier.
"P. S.--Very many thanks for the Chateau Yquem and the Steinberger Cabinet; _je tacherai de ne pas en abuser trop!_
"I send you a little sketch of Graham-Reece (Lord Ironsides), taken by me on a little bridge in Duesselthal, near Duesseldorf. He stood for me there in 1860. It was thought very like at the time."
* * * * *
When the Josselins came back from their honeymoon and were settled in Southampton Row many people of all kinds called on the newly married pair; invitations came pouring in, and they went very much into the world. They were considered the handsomest couple in London that year, and became quite the fashion, and were asked everywhere, and made much of, and raved about, and had a glorious time till the following season, when somebody else became the fashion, and they had grown tired of being lionized themselves, and discovered they were people of no social importance whatever, as Leah had long perceived; and it did them good.
Barty was in his element. The admiration his wife excited filled him with delight; it was a kind of reflected glory, that pleased him more than any glory he could possibly achieve for himself.
I doubt if Leah was quite so happy. The grand people, the famous people, the clever, worldly people she met made her very shy at first, as may be easily imagined.
She was rather embarrassed by the attentions many smart men paid her as to a very pretty woman, and not always pleased or edified. Her deep sense of humor was often tickled by this new position in which she found herself, and which she put down entirely to the fact that she was Barty's wife.
She never thought much of her own beauty, which had never been made much of at home, where beauty of a very different order was admired, and where she was thought too tall, too pale, too slim, and especially too quiet and sedate.
Dimpled little rosy plumpness for Mr. and Mrs. John Gilpin, and the never-ending lively chatter, and the ever-ready laugh that results from an entire lack of the real sense of humor and a laudable desire to show one's pretty teeth.
Leah's only vanity was her fondness for being very well dressed; it had become a second nature, especially her fondness for beautiful French boots and shoes, an instinct inherited from her mother.
For these, and for pretty furniture and hangings, she had the truly aesthetic eye, and was in advance of her time by at least a year.
She shone most in her own home--by her great faculty of making others at home there, too, and disinclined to leave it. Her instinct of hospitality was a true inheritance; she was good at the ordering of all such things--food, wines, flowers, waiting, every little detail of the dinner-table, and especially who should be asked to meet whom, and which particular guests should be chosen to sit by each other. All things of which Barty had no idea whatever.
I remember their first dinner-party well, and how pleasant it was. How good the fare, and how simple; and how quick the hired waiting--and the wines! how--(but I won't talk of that); and how lively we all were, and how handsome the women. Lady Caroline and Miss Daphne Rohan, Mr. and Mrs. Graham-Reece, Scatcherd and my sister; G. du Maurier (then a bachelor) and myself--that was the party, a very lively one.
After dinner du Maurier and Barty sang capital songs of the quartier latin, and told stories of the atelier, and even danced a kind of cancan together--an invention of their own--which they called "_le dernier des Abencerrages_." We were in fits of laughter, especially Lady Caroline and Mrs. Graham-Reece. I hope D. M. has not forgotten that scene, and will do justice to it in this book.
There was still more of the Bohemian than the Guardsman left in Barty, and his wife's natural tastes were far more in the direction of Bohemia than of fashionable West End society, as it was called by some people who were not in it, whatever it consists of; there was more of her father in her than her mother, and she was not sensitive to the world's opinion of her social status.
Sometimes Leah and Barty and I would dine together and go to the gallery of the opera, let us say, or to see Fechter and Miss Kate Terry in the _Duke's Motto_, or Robson in Shylock, or the _Porter's Knot_, or whatever was good. Then on the way home to Southampton Row Barty would buy a big lobster, and Leah would make a salad of it, with innovations of her own devising which were much appreciated; and then we would feast, and afterwards Leah would mull some claret in a silver saucepan, and then we (Barty and I) would drink and smoke and chat of pleasant things till it was very late indeed and I had to be turned out neck and crop.
And the kindness of the two dear people! Once, when my father and mother were away in the Isle of Wight and the Scatcherds in Paris, I felt so seedy I had to leave Barge Yard and go home to Lancaster Gate. I had felt pretty bad for two or three days. Like all people who are never ill, I was nervous and thought I was going to die, and sent for Barty.
In less than twenty minutes Leah drove up in a hansom. Barty was in Hampton Court for the day, sketching. When she had seen me and how ill I looked, off she went for the doctor, and brought him back with her in no time. He saw I was sickening for typhoid, and must go to bed at once and engage two nurses.
Leah insisted, on taking me straight off to Southampton Row, and the doctor came with us. There I was soon in bed and the nurses engaged, and everything done for me as if I'd been Barty himself--all this at considerable inconvenience to the Josselins.
And I had my typhoid most pleasantly. And I shall never forget the joys of convalescence, nor what an angel that woman was in a sick-room--nor what a companion when the worst was over; nor how she so bore herself through all this forced intimacy that no unruly regrets or jealousies mingled in my deep affection and admiration for her, and my passionate gratitude. She was such a person to tell all one's affairs to, even dry business affairs! such a listener, and said such sensible things, and sometimes made suggestions that were invaluable; and of a discretion! a very tomb for momentous secrets.
How on earth Barty would have ever managed to get through existence without her is not to be conceived. Upon my word, I hardly see how I should have got on myself without these two people to fill my life with; and in all matters of real importance to me she was the nearest of the two, for Barty was so light about things, and couldn't listen long to anything that was at all intricate. Such matters bored him, and that extraordinary good sense which underlies all his brilliant criticism of life was apt to fail him in practical matters; he was too headstrong and impulsive, and by no means discreet.
It was quite amusing to watch the way his wife managed him without ever letting him suspect what she was doing, and how, after his raging and fuming and storming and stamping--for all his old fractiousness had come back--she would gradually make him work his way round--of his own accord, as he thought--to complete concession all along the line, and take great credit to himself in consequence; and she would very gravely and slowly give way to a delicate little wink in my direction, but never a smile at what was all so really funny. I've no doubt she often got me to do what she thought right in just the same way--_a mon insu_--and shot her little wink at Barty.
* * * * *
In due time--namely, late in the evening of December 31, 1862--Barty hailed a hansom, and went first to summon his good friend Dr. Knight, in Orchard Street; and then he drove to Brixton, and woke up and brought back with him a very respectable, middle-aged, and motherly woman whose name was Jones; and next morning, which was a very sunny, frosty one, my dear little god-daughter was ushered into this sinful world, a fact which was chronicled the very next day in Leah's diary by the simple entry:
"Jan. 1.--Roberta was born and the coals came in."
When Roberta was first shown to her papa by the nurse, he was in despair and ran and shut himself up in his studio, and, I believe, almost wept. He feared he had brought a monster into the world. He had always, thought that female babies were born with large blue eyes framed with long lashes, a beautiful complexion of the lily and the rose, and their shining, flaxen curls already parted in the middle. And this little bald, wrinkled, dark-red, howling lump of humanity all but made him ill. But soon the doctor came and knocked at the door, and said:
"I congratulate you, old fellow, on having produced the most magnificent little she I ever saw in my life--bar none; she might be shown for money."
And it turned out that this was not the coarse, unfeeling chaff poor Barty took it for at first, but the pure and simple truth.
So, my blessed Roberta, pride of your silly old godfather's heart and apple of his eye, mother of Cupid and Ganymede and Aurora and the infant Hercules, think of your poor young father weeping in solitude at the first sight of you, because you were so hideous in his eyes!
You were not so in mine. Next day--you had improved, no doubt--I took you in my arms and thought well of you, especially your little hands that were very prehensile, and your little feet turned in, with rosy toes and little pink nails like shiny gems; and I was complimented by Mrs. Jones on the skill with which I dandled you. I have dandled your sons and daughters, Roberta, and may I live to dandle theirs!
So then Barty dried his tears, if he really shed them--and he swears he did--and went and sat by his wife's bedside, and felt unutterably, as I believe all good men do under similar circumstances; and lo!--proh!--to his wonderment and delight, in the middle of it all, the sense of the north came back like a tide, like an overwhelming avalanche. He declared he all but fainted in the double ineffability of his bliss.
That night he arranged by his bedside writing materials chosen with extra care, and before he went to bed he looked out of window at the stars, and filled his lungs with the clean, frozen, virtuous air of Bloomsbury, and whispered a most passionate invocation to Martia, and implored her forgiveness, and went to sleep hugging the thought of her to his manly breast, now widowed for quite a month to come.
Next morning there was a long letter in bold, vigorous Blaze:
"My more than ever beloved Barty,--It is for me to implore pardon, not for _you_! Your first-born is proof enough to me how right you were in letting your own instinct guide you in the choice of a wife.
"Ah! and well now I know her worth and your good-fortune. I have inhabited her for many months, little as she knows it, dear thing!
"Although she was not the woman I first wanted for you, and had watched so many years, she is all that I could wish, in body and mind, in beauty and sense and goodness of heart and intelligence, in health and strength, and especially in the love with which she has so easily, and I trust so lastingly, filled your heart--for that is the most precious thing of all to me, as you shall know some day, and why; and you will then understand and forgive me for seeming such a shameless egotist and caring so desperately for my own ends.
"Barty, I will never doubt you again, and we will do great things together. They will not be quite what I used to hope, but they will be worth doing, and all the doing will be yours. All I can do is to set your brains in motion--those innocent brains that don't know their own strength any more than a herd of bullocks which any little butcher boy can drive to the slaughter-house.
"As soon as Leah is well enough you must tell her all about me--all you know, that is. She won't believe you at first, and she'll think you've gone mad; but she'll have to believe you in time, and she's to be trusted with any secret, and so will you be when once you've shared it with her.
"(By-the-way, I wish you weren't so slipshod and colloquial in your English, Barty--Guardsman's English, I suppose--which I have to use, as it's yours; your French is much more educated and correct. You remember dear M. Durosier at the Pension Brossard? he taught you well. You must read, and cultivate a decent English style, for the bulk of our joint work must be in English, I think; and I can only use your own words to make you immortal, and your own way of using them.)
"We will be simple, Barty--as simple as Lemuel Gulliver and the good Robinson Crusoe--and cultivate a fondness for words of one syllable, and if that doesn't do we'll try French.
"Now listen, or, rather, read:
"First of all, I will write out for you a list of books, which you must study whenever you feel I'm inside you--and this more for me than for yourself. Those marked with a cross you must read constantly and carefully at home, the others you must read at the British Museum.
"Get a reading ticket at once, and read the books in the order I put down. Never forget to leave paper and pencil by your bedside. Leah will soon get accustomed to your quiet somnambulism; I will never trouble your rest for more than an hour or so each night, but you can make up for it by staying in bed an hour or two longer. You will have to work during the day from the pencil notes in Blaze you will have written during the night, and in the evening, or at any time you are conscious of my presence, read what you have written during the day, and leave it by your bedside when you go to bed, that I may make you correct and alter and suggest--during your sleep.
"Only write on one side of a page, leaving a margin and plenty of space between the lines, and let it be in copybooks, so that the page on the left-hand side be left for additions and corrections from my Blaze notes, and so forth; you'll soon get into the way of it.
"Then when each copybook is complete--I will let you know--get Leah to copy it out; she writes a very good, legible business hand. All will arrange itself....
"And now, get the books and begin reading them. I shall not be ready to write, nor will you, for more than a month.
"Keep this from everybody but Leah; don't even mention it to Maurice until I give you leave--not but what's he's to be thoroughly trusted. You are fortunate in your wife and your friend--I hope the day will come when you will find you have been fortunate in your
"Martia."
Here follows a list of books, but it has been more or less carefully erased; and though some of the names are still to be made out, I conclude that Barty did not wish them to be made public.
* * * * *
Before Roberta was born, Leah had reserved herself an hour every morning and every afternoon for what she called the cultivation of her mind--the careful reading of good standard books, French and English, that she might qualify herself in time, as she said, for the intellectual society in which she hoped to mix some day; she built castles in the air, being somewhat of a hero-worshipper in secret, and dreamt of meeting her heroes in the flesh, now that she was Barty's wife.
But when she became a mother there was not only Roberta who required much attention, but Barty himself made great calls upon her time besides.
To his friends' astonishment he had taken it into his head to write a book. Good heavens! Barty writing a book! What on earth could the dear boy have to write about?
He wrote much of the book at night in bed, and corrected and put it into shape during the daytime; and finally Leah had to copy it all out neatly in her best handwriting, and this copying out of Barty's books became to her an all but daily task for many years--a happy labor of love, and one she would depute to no one else; no hired hand should interfere with these precious productions of her husband's genius. So that most of the standard works, English and French, that she grew to thoroughly master were of her husband's writing--not a bad education, I venture to think!
Besides, it was more in her nature and in the circumstances of her life that she should become a woman of business and a woman of the world rather than a reader of books--one who grew to thoroughly understand life as it presented itself to her; and men and women, and especially children; and the management of a large and much frequented house; for they soon moved away from Southampton Row.
She quickly arrived at a complete mastery of all such science as this--and it is a science; such a mastery as I have never seen surpassed by any other woman, of whatever world. She would have made a splendid Marchioness of Whitby, this daughter of a low-comedy John Gilpin; she would have beaten the Whitby record!
She developed into a woman of the world in the best sense--full of sympathy, full of observation and quick understanding of others' needs and thoughts and feelings; absolutely sincere, of a constant and even temper, and a cheerfulness that never failed--the result of her splendid health; without caprice, without a spark of vanity, without selfishness of any kind--generous, open-handed, charitable to a fault; always taking the large and generous view of everything and everybody; a little impulsive perhaps, but not often having to regret her impulses; of unwearied devotion to her husband, and capable of any heroism or self-sacrifice for his sake; of that I feel sure.
No one is perfect, of course. Unfortunately, she was apt to be somewhat jealous at first of his singularly catholic and very frankly expressed admiration of every opposite type of female beauty; but she soon grew to see that there was safety in numbers, and she was made to feel in time that her own type was the arch-type of all in his eyes, and herself the arch-representative of that type in his heart.
She was also jealous in her friendships, and was not happy unless constantly assured of her friends' warm love--Ida's, mine, even that of her own father and mother. Good heavens! had ever a woman less cause for doubt or complaint on that score!
Then, like all extremely conscientious people who always know their own mind and do their very best, she did not like to be found fault with; she secretly found such fault with herself that she thought that was fault-finding enough. Also, she was somewhat rigid in sticking to the ways she thought were right, and in the selection of these ways she was not always quite infallible. _On a les defauts de ses qualites_; and a little obstinacy is often the fault of a very noble quality indeed!
Though somewhat shy and standoffish during the first year or two of her married life, she soon became "_joliment degourdie_," as Barty called it; and I can scarcely conceive any position in which she would have been awkward or embarrassed for a moment, so ready was she always with just the right thing to say--or to withhold, if silence were better than speech; and her fit and proper place in the world as a great man's wife--and a good and beautiful woman--was always conceded to her with due honor, even by the most impertinent among the highly placed of her own sex, without any necessity for self-assertion on her part whatever--without assumption of any kind.
It was a strange and peculiar personal ascendency she managed to exert with so little effort, an ascendency partly physical, no doubt; and the practice of it had begun in the West End emporium of the "Universal Fur Company, Limited."
How admirably she filled the high and arduous position of wife to such a man as Barty Josselin is well known to the world at large. It was no sinecure! but she gloried in it; and to her thorough apprehension and management of their joint lives and all that came of them, as well as to her beauty and sense and genial warmth, was due her great popularity for many years in an immense and ever-widening circle, where the memory of her is still preserved and cherished as one of the most remarkable women of her time.