that she would let him read to her a portion of his play. He had seen
her act, and he honestly believed her to be a dramatic genius of the
first order. Few others shared this belief; but she was generally
thought of as a competent, though by no means brilliant, actress. Reade
admired her extremely, so that at the very thought of speaking with her
his emotions almost choked him.
In answer to a note, she sent word that he might call at her house. He
was at this time (1849) in his thirty-eighth year. The lady was a little
older, and had lost something of her youthful charm; yet, when Reade was
ushered into her drawing-room, she seemed to him the most graceful and
accomplished woman whom he had ever met.
She took his measure, or she thought she took it, at a glance. Here was
one of those would-be playwrights who live only to torment managers
and actresses. His face was thin, from which she inferred that he was
probably half starved. His bashfulness led her to suppose that he was
an inexperienced youth. Little did she imagine that he was the son of a
landed proprietor, a fellow of one of Oxford's noblest colleges, and one
with friends far higher in the world than herself. Though she thought so
little of him, and quite expected to be bored, she settled herself in a
soft armchair to listen. The unsuccessful playwright read to her a scene
or two from his still unfinished drama. She heard him patiently, noting
the cultivated accent of his voice, which proved to her that he was at
least a gentleman. When he had finished, she said:
"Yes, that's good! The plot is excellent." Then she laughed a sort of
stage laugh, and remarked lightly: "Why don't you turn it into a novel?"
Reade was stung to the quick. Nothing that she could have said would
have hurt him more. Novels he despised; and here was this woman, the
queen of the English stage, as he regarded her, laughing at his drama
and telling him to make a novel of it. He rose and bowed.
"I am trespassing on your time," he said; and, after barely touching the
fingers of her outstretched hand, he left the room abruptly.
The woman knew men very well, though she scarcely knew Charles Reade.
Something in his melancholy and something in his manner stirred her
heart. It was not a heart that responded to emotions readily, but it was
a very good-natured heart. Her explanation of Reade's appearance led
her to think that he was very poor. If she had not much tact, she had
an abundant store of sympathy; and so she sat down and wrote a very
blundering but kindly letter, in which she enclosed a five-pound note.
Reade subsequently described his feelings on receiving this letter with
its bank-note. He said:
"I, who had been vice-president of Magdalen--I, who flattered myself I
was coming to the fore as a dramatist--to have a five-pound note flung
at my head, like a ticket for soup to a pauper, or a bone to a dog, and
by an actress, too! Yet she said my reading was admirable; and, after
all, there is much virtue in a five-pound note. Anyhow, it showed the
writer had a good heart."
The more he thought of her and of the incident, the more comforted he
was. He called on her the next day without making an appointment; and
when she received him, he had the five-pound note fluttering in his
hand.
She started to speak, but he interrupted her.
"No," he said, "that is not what I wanted from you. I wanted sympathy,
and you have unintentionally supplied it."
Then this man, whom she had regarded as half starved, presented her with
an enormous bunch of hothouse grapes, and the two sat down and ate
them together, thus beginning a friendship which ended only with Laura
Seymour's death.
Oddly enough, Mrs. Seymour's suggestion that Reade should make a story
of his play was a suggestion which he actually followed. It was to her
guidance and sympathy that the world owes the great novels which he
afterward composed. If he succeeded on the stage at all, it was not
merely in "Masks and Faces," but in his powerful dramatization of Zola's
novel, L'Assommoir, under the title "Drink," in which the late
Charles Warner thrilled and horrified great audiences all over the
English-speaking world. Had Reade never known Laura Seymour, he might
never have written so strong a drama.
The mystery of Reade's relations with this woman can never be definitely
cleared up. Her husband, Mr. Seymour, died not long after she and Reade
became acquainted. Then Reade and several friends, both men and women,
took a house together; and Laura Seymour, now a clever manager
and amiable hostess, looked after all the practical affairs of the
establishment. One by one, the others fell away, through death or by
removal, until at last these two were left alone. Then Reade, unable
to give up the companionship which meant so much to him, vowed that she
must still remain and care for him. He leased a house in Sloane Street,
which he has himself described in his novel A Terrible Temptation. It is
the chapter wherein Reade also draws his own portrait in the character
of Francis Bolfe:
The room was rather long, low, and nondescript; scarlet flock paper;
curtains and sofas, green Utrecht velvet; woodwork and pillars,
white and gold; two windows looking on the street; at the other end
folding-doors, with scarcely any woodwork, all plate glass, but partly
hidden by heavy curtains of the same color and material as the others.
At last a bell rang; the maid came in and invited Lady Bassett to follow
her. She opened the glass folding-doors and took them into a small
conservatory, walled like a grotto, with ferns sprouting out of rocky
fissures, and spars sparkling, water dripping. Then she opened two more
glass folding-doors, and ushered them into an empty room, the like
of which Lady Bassett had never seen; it was large in itself, and
multiplied tenfold by great mirrors from floor to ceiling, with no
frames but a narrow oak beading; opposite her, on entering, was a bay
window, all plate glass, the central panes of which opened, like doors,
upon a pretty little garden that glowed with color, and was backed by
fine trees belonging to the nation; for this garden ran up to the wall
of Hyde Park.
The numerous and large mirrors all down to the ground laid hold of the
garden and the flowers, and by double and treble reflection filled the
room with delightful nooks of verdure and color.
Here are the words in which Reade describes himself as he looked when
between fifty and sixty years of age:
He looked neither like a poet nor a drudge, but a great fat country
farmer. He was rather tall, very portly, smallish head, commonplace
features, mild brown eye not very bright, short beard, and wore a suit
of tweed all one color.
Such was the house and such was the man over both of which Laura
Seymour held sway until her death in 1879. What must be thought of their
relations? She herself once said to Mr. John Coleman:
"As for our positions--his and mine--we are partners, nothing more. He
has his bank-account, and I have mine. He is master of his fellowship
and his rooms at Oxford, and I am mistress of this house, but not his
mistress! Oh, dear, no!"
At another time, long after Mr. Seymour's death, she said to an intimate
friend:
"I hope Mr. Reade will never ask me to marry him, for I should certainly
refuse the offer."
There was no reason why he should not have made this offer, because his
Oxford fellowship ceased to be important to him after he had won fame as
a novelist. Publishers paid him large sums for everything he wrote. His
debts were all paid off, and his income was assured. Yet he never spoke
of marriage, and he always introduced his friend as "the lady who keeps
my house for me."
As such, he invited his friends to meet her, and as such, she even
accompanied him to Oxford. There was no concealment, and apparently
there was nothing to conceal. Their manner toward each other was that of
congenial friends. Mrs. Seymour, in fact, might well have been described
as "a good fellow." Sometimes she referred to him as "the doctor," and
sometimes by the nickname "Charlie." He, on his side, often spoke of her
by her last name as "Seymour," precisely as if she had been a man. One
of his relatives rather acutely remarked about her that she was not a
woman of sentiment at all, but had a genius for friendship; and that she
probably could not have really loved any man at all.
This is, perhaps, the explanation of their intimacy. If so, it is a very
remarkable instance of Platonic friendship. It is certain that, after
she met Reade, Mrs. Seymour never cared for any other man. It is no less
certain that he never cared for any other woman. When she died, five
years before his death, his life became a burden to him. It was then
that he used to speak of her as "my lost darling" and "my dove."
He directed that they should be buried side by side in Willesden
churchyard. Over the monument which commemorates them both, he caused
to be inscribed, in addition to an epitaph for himself, the following
tribute to his friend. One should read it and accept the touching words
as answering every question that may be asked:
Here lies the great heart of Laura Seymour, a brilliant artist, a humble
Christian, a charitable woman, a loving daughter, sister, and friend,
who lived for others from her childhood. Tenderly pitiful to all God's
creatures--even to some that are frequently destroyed or neglected--she
wiped away the tears from many faces, helping the poor with her savings
and the sorrowful with her earnest pity. When the eye saw her it blessed
her, for her face was sunshine, her voice was melody, and her heart was
sympathy.
This grave was made for her and for himself by Charles Reade, whose wise
counselor, loyal ally, and bosom friend she was for twenty-four years,
and who mourns her all his days.
END OF VOLUME FOUR