THE ROMANCE OF ISABEL LADY BURTON
VOL. I
[Illustration: _Lady Burton at the age of 17 from an unfinished
drawing._]
THE ROMANCE OF
ISABEL LADY BURTON
THE STORY OF HER LIFE
TOLD IN PART BY HERSELF
AND IN PART BY
W. H. WILKINS
WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME ONE
LONDON
HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW
1897
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
To
HER SISTER
MRS. GERALD FITZGERALD
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
PREFACE
Lady Burton began her autobiography a few months before she died, but in
consequence of rapidly failing health she made little progress with it.
After her death, which occurred in the spring of last year, it seemed
good to her sister and executrix, Mrs. Fitzgerald, to entrust the
unfinished manuscript to me, together with sundry papers and letters,
with a view to my compiling the biography. Mrs. Fitzgerald wished me to
undertake this work, as I had the good fortune to be a friend of the
late Lady Burton, and one with whom she frequently discussed literary
matters; we were, in fact, thinking of writing a romance together, but
her illness prevented us.
The task of compiling this book has not been an easy one, mainly for two
reasons. In the first place, though Lady Burton published comparatively
little, she was a voluminous writer, and she left behind her such a mass
of letters and manuscripts that the sorting of them alone was a
formidable task. The difficulty has been to keep the book within limits.
In the second place, Lady Burton has written the Life of her husband;
and though in that book she studiously avoided putting herself forward,
and gave to him all the honour and the glory, her life was so absolutely
bound up with his, that of necessity she covered some of the ground
which I have had to go over again, though not from the same point of
view. So much has been written concerning Sir Richard Burton that it is
not necessary for me to tell again the story of his life here, and I
have therefore been able to write wholly of his wife, an equally
congenial task. Lady Burton was as remarkable as a woman as her husband
was as a man. Her personality was as picturesque, her individuality as
unique, and, allowing for her sex, her life was as full and varied as
his.
It has been my aim, wherever possible, throughout this book to let Lady
Burton tell the story of her life in her own words, and keep my
narrative in the background. To this end I have revised and incorporated
the fragment of autobiography which was cut short by her death, and I
have also pieced together all her letters, manuscripts, and journals
which have a bearing on her travels and adventures. I have striven to
give a faithful portrait of her as revealed by herself. In what I have
succeeded, the credit is hers alone: in what I have failed, the fault is
mine, for no biographer could have wished for a more eloquent subject
than this interesting and fascinating woman. Thus, however imperfectly I
may have done my share of the work, it remains the record of a good and
noble life—a life lifted up, a life unique in its self-sacrifice and
devotion.
Last December, when this book was almost completed, a volume was
published calling itself _The True Life of Captain Sir Richard F.
Burton_, written by his niece, Miss Georgiana M. Stisted, stated to be
issued “with the authority and approval of the Burton family.” This
statement is not correct—at any rate not wholly so; for several of the
relatives of the late Sir Richard Burton have written to Lady Burton’s
sister to say that they altogether disapprove of it. The book contained
a number of cruel and unjust charges against Lady Burton, which were
rendered worse by the fact that they were not made until she was dead
and could no longer defend herself. Some of these attacks were so paltry
and malevolent, and so utterly foreign to Lady Burton’s generous and
truthful character, that they may be dismissed with contempt. The many
friends who knew and loved her have not credited them for one moment,
and the animus with which they were written is so obvious that they have
carried little weight with the general public. But three specific
charges call for particular refutation, as silence on them might be
misunderstood. I refer to the statements that Lady Burton was the cause
of her husband’s recall from Damascus; that she acted in bad faith in
the matter of his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church; and to the
impugning of the motives which led her to burn _The Scented Garden_. I
should like to emphasize the fact that none of these controversial
questions formed part of the original scheme of this book, and they
would not have been alluded to had it not been for Miss Stisted’s
unprovoked attack upon Lady Burton’s memory. It is only with reluctance,
and solely in a defensive spirit, that they are touched upon now. Even
so, I have suppressed a good deal, for there is no desire on the part of
Lady Burton’s relatives or myself to justify her at the expense of the
husband whom she loved, and who loved her. But in vindicating her it has
been necessary to tell the truth. If therefore, in defending Lady Burton
against these accusations, certain facts have come to light which would
otherwise have been left in darkness, those who have wantonly attacked
the dead have only themselves to blame.
In conclusion, I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to those who
have kindly helped me to make this book as complete as possible. I am
especially grateful to Mrs. Fitzgerald for much encouragement and
valuable help, including her reading of the proofs as they went through
the press, so that the book may be truly described as an authorized
biography. I also wish to thank Miss Plowman, the late Lady Burton’s
secretary, who has been of assistance in many ways. I acknowledge with
gratitude the permission of Captain L. H. Gordon to publish certain
letters which the late General Gordon wrote to Sir Richard and Lady
Burton, and the assistance which General Gordon’s niece, Miss Dunlop,
kindly gave me in this matter. My thanks are likewise due to the
Executors of the late Lord Leighton for permission to publish Lord
Leighton’s portrait of Sir Richard Burton; to Lady Thornton and others
for many illustrations; and to Lady Salisbury, Lady Guendolen Ramsden,
Lord Llandaff, Sir Henry Elliot, Mr. W. F. D. Smith, Baroness Paul de
Ralli, Miss Bishop, Miss Alice Bird, Madame de Gutmansthal-Benvenuti,
and others, for permission to publish sundry letters in this book.
W. H. WILKINS.
8, MANDEVILLE PLACE, W.,
_April, 1897_.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I
BOOK I
_WAITING_
CHAPTER I
PAGE
BIRTH AND LINEAGE 3
CHAPTER II
MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13
CHAPTER III
MY FIRST SEASON 26
CHAPTER IV
BOULOGNE: I MEET MY DESTINY 40
CHAPTER V
FOUR YEARS OF HOPE DEFERRED 62
CHAPTER VI
RICHARD LOVES ME 80
CHAPTER VII
MY CONTINENTAL TOUR: ITALY 96
CHAPTER VIII
MY CONTINENTAL TOUR: SWITZERLAND 117
CHAPTER IX
THEY MEET AGAIN 140
CHAPTER X
AT LAST 157
BOOK II
_WEDDED_
CHAPTER I
FERNANDO PO 171
CHAPTER II
MADEIRA 184
CHAPTER III
TENERIFFE 198
CHAPTER IV
A TRIP TO PORTUGAL 226
CHAPTER V
BRAZIL 244
CHAPTER VI
OUR EXPEDITION INTO THE INTERIOR 271
CHAPTER VII
MORRO VELHO AND ITS ENVIRONS 295
CHAPTER VIII
MY LONELY RIDE TO RIO 322
CHAPTER IX
HOME AGAIN 342
CHAPTER X
MY JOURNEY TO DAMASCUS 360
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. I
LADY BURTON AT THE AGE OF 17 _Frontispiece_
_To face page_
WARDOUR CASTLE 6
NEW HALL, CHELMSFORD 18
RICHARD BURTON IN 1848 (IN NATIVE DRESS) 50
THE RAMPARTS, BOULOGNE 52
BURTON ON HIS PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA 70
VENICE 112
LADY BURTON AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE 166
THE BAY OF FUNCHAL, MADEIRA 190
THE PEAK OF TENERIFFE, FROM THE VALE OF OROTAVA 212
SANTOS 248
PETROPOLIS 258
SÃO PAULO 264
THE BAY OF RIO 272
THE SLAVE MUSTER AT MORRO VELHO 296
LADY BURTON IN 1869 350
THE BOULEVART, ALEXANDRIA 364
DAMASCUS, FROM THE DESERT 372
BOOK I
WAITING
(1831–1861)
I have known love and yearning from the years
Since mother-milk I drank, nor e’er was free.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
CHAPTER I
_BIRTH AND LINEAGE_
Man is known among men as his deeds attest,
Which make noble origin manifest.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
Isabel Lady Burton was by birth an Arundell of Wardour, a daughter of
one of the oldest and proudest houses of England. The Arundells of
Wardour are a branch of the great family of whom it was sung:
Ere William fought and Harold fell
There were Earls of Arundell.
The Earls of Arundell before the Conquest are somewhat lost in the mists
of antiquity, and they do not affect the branch of the family from which
Lady Burton sprang. This branch traces its descent in a straight line
from one Roger de Arundell, who, according to _Domesday_, had estates in
Dorset and Somerset, and was possessed of twenty-eight lordships. The
Knights of Arundell were an adventurous race. One of the most famous was
Sir John Arundell, a valiant commander who served Henry VI. in France.
The grandson of this doughty knight, also Sir John Arundell, was made a
Knight Banneret by Henry VII. for his valour at the sieges of Tiroven
and Tournay, and the battle that ensued. At his death his large estates
were divided between the two sons whom he had by his first wife, the
Lady Eleanor Grey, daughter of the Marquis of Dorset, whose half-sister
was the wife of Henry VII. The second son, Sir Thomas Arundell, was
given Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, and became the ancestor of the
Arundells of Wardour.
The House of Wardour was therefore founded by Sir Thomas Arundell, who
was born in 1500. He had the good fortune in early life to become the
pupil, and ultimately to win the friendship, of Cardinal Wolsey. He
played a considerable part throughout the troublous times which followed
on the King’s quarrel with the Pope, and attained great wealth and
influence. He was a cousin-german of Henry VIII., and he was allied to
two of Henry’s ill-fated queens through his marriage with Margaret,
daughter of Lord Edmond Howard, son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. His wife
was a cousin-german of Anne Boleyn and a sister of Catherine Howard. Sir
Thomas Arundell was a man of intellectual powers and administrative
ability. He became Chancellor to Queen Catherine Howard, and he stood
high in the favour of Henry VIII. But in the following reign evil days
came upon him. He was accused of conspiring with the Lord Protector
Somerset to kill the Earl of Northumberland, a charge utterly false, the
real reason of his impeachment being that Sir Thomas had been chief
adviser to the Duke of Somerset and had identified himself with his
policy. He was beheaded on Tower Hill a few days after the execution of
the Duke of Somerset. Thus died the founder of the House of Wardour.
In Sir Thomas Arundell’s grandson, who afterwards became first Lord
Arundell of Wardour, the adventurous spirit of the Arundells broke forth
afresh. When a young man, Thomas Arundell, commonly called “The
Valiant,” went over to Germany, and served as a volunteer in the
Imperial army in Hungary. He fought against the Turks, and in an
engagement at Grau took their standard with his own hands. On this
account Rudolph II., Emperor of Germany, created him Count of the Holy
Roman Empire, and decreed that “every of his children and their
descendants for ever, of both sexes, should enjoy that title.” So runs
the wording of the charter.[1] On Sir Thomas Arundell’s return to
England a warm dispute arose among the Peers whether such a dignity, so
conferred by a foreign potentate, should be allowed place or privilege
in England. The matter was referred to Queen Elizabeth, who answered,
“that there was a close tie of affection between the Prince and subject,
and that as chaste wives should have no glances but for their own
spouses, so should faithful subjects keep their eyes at home and not
gaze upon foreign crowns; that we for our part do not care that our
sheep should wear a stranger’s marks, nor dance after the whistle of
every foreigner.” Yet it was she who sent Sir Thomas Arundell in the
first instance to the Emperor Rudolph with a letter of introduction, in
which she spoke of him as her “dearest cousin,” and stated that the
descent of the family of Arundell was derived from the blood royal.
James I., while following in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth, and
refusing to acknowledge the title conferred by the Emperor, acknowledged
Sir Thomas Arundell’s worth by creating him a Baron of England under the
title of Baron Arundell of Wardour. It is worthy of note that James II.
recognized the right of the title of Count of the Holy Roman Empire to
Lord Arundell and all his descendants of both sexes in a document of
general interest to Catholic families.
[Illustration: WARDOUR CASTLE.]
Thomas, second Baron Arundell of Wardour, married Blanche, daughter of
the Earl of Worcester. This Lady Arundell calls for special notice, as
she was in many ways the prototype of her lineal descendant, Isabel.
When her husband was away serving with the King’s army in the Great
Rebellion, Lady Arundell bravely defended Wardour for nine days, with
only a handful of men, against the Parliamentary forces who besieged it.
Lady Arundell then delivered up the castle on honourable terms, which
the besiegers broke when they took possession. They were, however, soon
dislodged by Lord Arundell, who, on his return, ordered a mine to be
sprung under his castle, and thus sacrificed the ancient and stately
pile to his loyalty. He and his wife then turned their backs on their
ruined home, and followed the King’s fortunes, she sharing with
uncomplaining love all her husband’s trials and privations. Lord
Arundell, like the rest of the Catholic nobility of England, was a
devoted Royalist. He raised at his own expense a regiment of horse for
the service of Charles I., and in the battle of Lansdowne, when fighting
for the King, he was shot in the thigh by a brace of pistol bullets,
whereof he died in his Majesty’s garrison at Oxford. He was buried with
great pomp in the family vault at Tisbury. His devoted wife, like her
descendant Isabel Burton, that other devoted wife who strongly resembled
her, survived her husband barely six years. She died at Winchester; but
she was buried by his side at Tisbury, where her monument may still be
seen.
Henry, third Lord Arundell, succeeded his father in his titles and
honours. Like many who had made great sacrifices to the Royal cause, he
did not find an exceeding great reward when the King came into his own
again. As Arundell of Wardour was one of the strictest and most loyal of
the Catholic families of England, its head was marked out for Puritan
persecution. In 1678 Lord Arundell was, with four other Catholic lords,
committed a prisoner to the Tower, upon the information of the infamous
Titus Oates and other miscreants who invented the “Popish Plots.” Lord
Arundell was confined in the Tower until 1683, when he was admitted to
bail. Five years’ imprisonment for no offence save fidelity to his
religion and loyalty to his king was a cruel injustice; but in those
days, when the blood of the best Catholic families in England ran like
water on Tower Hill, Lord Arundell was lucky to have escaped with his
head. On James II.’s accession to the throne he was sworn of the Privy
Council and held high office. On the King’s abdication he retired to his
country seat, where he lived in great style and with lavish hospitality.
Among other things he kept a celebrated pack of hounds, which afterwards
went to Lord Castlehaven, and thence were sold to Hugo Meynell, and
became the progenitors of the famous Quorn pack.
Henry, the sixth Baron, is noteworthy as being the last Lord Arundell of
Wardour from whom Isabel was directly descended (see p. 9), and with him
our immediate interest in the Arundells of Wardour ceases. Lady Burton
was the great-granddaughter of James Everard Arundell, his third and
youngest son. Her father, Mr. Henry Raymond Arundell, was twice married.
His first wife died within a year of their marriage, leaving one son.
Two years later, in 1830, Mr. Henry Arundell married Miss Eliza Gerard,
a sister of Sir Robert Gerard of Garswood, who was afterwards created
Lord Gerard. The following year, 1831, Isabel, the subject of this
memoir, was born.
_Table showing the descent of Isabel Lady Burton from Henry, sixth Lord
Arundell of Wardour, and her kinship to the present Peer._
Henry, 6th Baron===m. Eliz. Eleanora,
b. 1694, | dau. of Baron
d. 1746. | Everard.
+-----------+----------------+-----------------+
| | |
Henry===m. Mary, dau. Raymond James Everard===m. Anne, dau. of John Wyndham.
7th Baron, | of Richard Thomas, d. 1803. |
b. 1717, | Arundell-Beling d. without |
d. 1756. | of Lanherne. issue 1768. |
+---+ +----------+---------------------------+
| | |
Henry===m. Maria Christiana, James Everard===m.(1) Mary Christiana Thomas Raymond===m. 1792, Elizabeth Smythe,
8th Baron, | dau. of Benedict who succeeded | (his cousin), dau. b. 1763, | dau. of Sir Edward Smythe,
b. 1740, | Conquest. his cousin | of Henry, d. 1829. | Bart.
d. 1808. | Henry as | 8th Baron. |
| 9th Baron, | (2).... |
| b. 1763, | |
| d. 1817. | |
| | +----------------+--+-------------+
| | | | |
| | Thos. Raymond, | 4 sons,
| | died in infancy. Henry Raymond, 2 daughters.
+------+-----+ +-----------------------+------+ b. 1799, d. 1886,
| | | | who married,
Mary Eleanor Mary, James===m. Mary Anne, Henry===(1) m. Frances 1827===(1) Mary Isabel, daughter of Sir
Christiana, m. to Charles, Everard, | dau. of George, Benedict, | Catherine, dau. | Hugh Clifford Constable, Bart.,
m. to her 6th Lord 10th Baron,| 1st Marquis of 11th Baron, | of Sir Henry | by whom (who died in 1828) he
cousin, Clifford. b. 1785, | Buckingham. b. 1804, | Tichborne, Bart., | had one son, Theodore, who
James d. 1834 | d. 1862. | by whom he had | married, 1854, his cousin, dau.
Everard, | | issue. | of John Hussey, and d. 1868,
9th Baron. No issue. | (2).... | leaving issue 3 sons and 3 daughters.
| (3).... | (2) m. 1830. Eliza, sister of Sir
John Francis, | Robert Gerard, 13th Bart. (and
12th and present | 1st Baron Gerard), who died
Lord Arundell of Wardour. | 1872.
|
+---------------------+----------+---------------+-------------+------------+--------------+-------+-----+------+---------+--------+
| | | | | | | | | | |
=Isabel====m. 1861, Raymond Blanche, Renfric Rudolph Henry Amy, Raymond Eliz. Mary Julia, Emeline
b. 1831, =Captain= Everard, m. 1857, Thomas, R.N., Alexis Alphonsus died Ignatius, Regis, died Mary,
d. 1896. =Sir= d. young. John Hugh killed in New (in the (lieut. R.N.), young. d. young. m. 1873, young. m. 1877,
=Richard= Smyth Pigott, Zealand 1860, Admiralty), d. at sea on Edward Richard
=Francis= of Brockley unmarried. d. 1877, board Gerald Van Zeller,
=Burton.=, Court, unmarried. H.M.S. Fitzgerald. Portuguese
=K.C.M.G.=, co. Somerset, _Bittern_ He died Vice-Consul
who died d. 1892. 1872. 1891. in London.
1890. He died
1892.
I have dwelt on Lady Burton’s lineage for several reasons. In the first
place, she herself would have wished it. She paid great attention to her
pedigree, and at one time contemplated writing a book on the Arundells
of Wardour, and with this view collected a mass of information, which,
with characteristic generosity, she afterwards placed at Mr. Yeatman’s
disposal for his _History of the House of Arundell_. She regarded her
forefathers with reverence, and herself as their product. But proud
though she was of her ancestry, there never was a woman freer from the
vulgarity of thrusting it forward upon all and sundry, or of expecting
to be honoured for it alone. Though of noble descent, not only on her
father’s side, but on her mother’s as well (for the Gerards are a family
of eminence and antiquity, springing from the common ancestor of the
Dukes of Leinster in Ireland and the Earls of Plymouth, now extinct, in
England), yet she counted it as nothing compared with the nobility of
the inner worth, the majesty which clothes the man, be he peasant or
prince, with righteousness. She often said, “The man only is noble who
does noble deeds,” and she always held that
He, who to ancient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dies bankrupt on the score.
Another reason why I have called attention to Lady Burton’s ancestry is
because she attached considerable importance to the question of heredity
generally, quite apart from any personal aspect. She looked upon it as a
field in which Nature ever reproduces herself, not only with regard to
the physical organism, but also the psychical qualities. But with it all
she was no pessimist, for she believed that there was in every man an
ever-rallying force against the inherited tendencies to vice and sin.
She was always “on the side of the angels.”
I remember her once saying: “Since I leave none to come after me, I must
needs strive to be worthy of those who have gone before me.”
And she was worthy—she, the daughter of an ancient race, which seems to
have found in her its crowning consummation and expression. If one were
fanciful, one could see in her many-sided character, reflected as in the
facets of a diamond, the great qualities which had been conspicuous in
her ancestors. One could see in her, plainly portrayed, the roving,
adventurous spirit which characterized the doughty Knights of Arundell
in days when the field of travel and adventure was much more limited
than now. One could mark the intellectual and administrative abilities,
and perhaps the spice of worldly wisdom, which were conspicuous in the
founder of the House of Wardour. One could note in her the qualities of
bravery, dare-devilry, and love of conflict which shone out so strongly
in the old Knight of Arundell who raised the sieges of Tiroven and
Tournay, and in “The Valiant” who captured with his own hands the banner
of the infidel. One could see the reflex of that loyalty to the throne
which marked the Lord Arundell who died fighting for his king. One could
trace in her the same tenacity and devotion with which all her race has
clung to the ancient faith and which sent one of them to the Tower.
Above all one could trace her likeness to Blanche Lady Arundell, who
held Wardour at her lord’s bidding against the rebels. She was like her
in her lion-hearted bravery, in her proud but generous spirit, in her
determination and resource, and above all in her passionate wifely
devotion to the man to whom she felt herself “destined from the
beginning.”
In sooth they were a goodly company these Arundells of Wardour, and ’tis
such as they, brave men and good women in every rank of life, who have
made England the nation she is to-day. Yet of them all there was none
nobler, none truer, none more remarkable than this late flower of their
race, Isabel Burton.
CHAPTER II[2]
_MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH_
(1831–1849)
As star knows star across the ethereal sea,
So soul feels soul to all eternity.
Blessed be they who invented pens, ink, and paper!
I have heard men speak with infinite contempt of authoresses. As a girl
I did not ask my poor little brains whether this mental attitude towards
women was generous in the superior animal or not; but I did like to
slope off to my own snug little den, away from my numerous family, and
scribble down the events of my ordinary, insignificant, uninteresting
life, and write about my little sorrows, pleasures, and peccadilloes. I
was only one of the “wise virgins,” providing for the day when I should
be old, blind, wrinkled, forgetful, and miserable, and might like such a
record to refresh my failing memory. So I went back, by way of novelty,
beyond my memory, and gleaned details from my father.
For those who like horoscopes, I was born on a Sunday at ten minutes to
9 a.m., March 20, 1831, at 4, Great Cumberland Place, near the Marble
Arch. I am not able to give the aspect of the planets on this occasion;
but, unlike most babes, I was born with my eyes open, whereupon my
father predicted that I should be very “wide awake.” As soon as I could
begin to move about and play, I had such a way of pointing my nose at
things, and of cocking my ears like a kitten, that I was called “Puss,”
and shall probably be called Puss when I am eighty. I was christened
Isabel, after my father’s first wife, _née_ Clifford, one of his
cousins. She died, after a short spell of happiness, leaving him with
one little boy, who at the time I was born was between three and four
years old.
It is a curious fact that my mother, Elizabeth Gerard, and Isabel
Clifford, my father’s first wife, were bosom friends, schoolfellows, and
friends out in the world together; and amongst other girlish confidences
they used to talk to one another about the sort of man each would marry.
Both their men were to be tall, dark, and majestic; one was to be a
literary man, and a man of artistic tastes and life; the other was to be
a statesman. When Isabel Clifford married my father, Henry Raymond
Arundell (of Wardour), her cousin, my mother, seeing he was a small,
fair, boyish-looking man, whose chief hobbies were hunting and shooting,
said, “I am ashamed of you, Isabel! How can you?” Nevertheless she used
to go and help her to make her baby-clothes for the coming boy. After
Isabel’s death nobody, except my father, deplored her so much as her
dear friend my mother; so that my father only found consolation (for he
would not go out nor meet anybody in the intensity of his grief) in
talking to my mother of his lost wife. From sympathy came pity, from
pity grew love, and three years after Isabel’s death my mother and my
father were married. They had eleven children, great and small; I mean
that some only lived to be baptized and died, some lived a few years,
and some grew up.[3]
To continue my own small life, I can remember distinctly everything that
has happened to me from the age of three. I do not know whether I was
pretty or not; there is a very sweet miniature of me with golden hair
and large blue eyes, and clad in a white muslin frock and gathering
flowers, painted by one of the best miniature painters of 1836, when
miniatures were in vogue and photographs unknown. My mother said I was
“lovely,” and my father said I was “all there”; but I am told my uncles
and aunts used to put my mother in a rage by telling her how ugly I was.
My father adored me, and spoilt me absurdly; he considered me an
original, a bit of “perfect nature.” My mother was equally fond of me,
but severe—all her spoiling, on principle, went to her step-son, whose
name was Theodore.
When my father and mother were first married, James Everard Arundell, my
father’s first cousin, and my godfather, was the then Lord Arundell of
Wardour. He was reputed to be the handsomest peer of the day, and he was
married to a sister of the Duke of Buckingham. He invited my father and
mother, as the two wives were friends, to come and occupy one wing of
Wardour immediately after their marriage, and they did so. When James
Everard died, my parents left Wardour, and took a house in Montagu Place
at the top of Bryanston Square, and passed their winters hunting at
Leamington.
We children were always our parents’ first care. Great attention was
paid to our health, to our walks, to our dress, our baths, and our
persons; our food was good, but of the plainest; we had a head nurse
and three nursery-maids; and, unlike the present, everything was
upstairs—day nurseries and night nurseries and schoolroom. The only
times we were allowed downstairs were at two o’clock luncheon (our
dinner), and to dessert for about a quarter of an hour if our
parents were dining alone or had very intimate friends. On these
occasions I was dressed in white muslin and blue ribbons, and
Theodore, my stepbrother, in green velvet with turn-over lace collar
after the fashion of that time. We were not allowed to speak unless
spoken to; we were not allowed to ask for anything unless it was
given to us. We kissed our father’s and mother’s hands, and asked
their blessing before going upstairs, and we stood upright by the
side of them all the time we were in the room. In those days there
was no lolling about, no Tommy-keep-your-fingers-out-of-the-jam, no
Dick-crawling-under-the-table-pinching-people’s-legs as nowadays. We
children were little gentlemen and ladies, and people of the world
from our birth; it was the old school. The only diversion from this
strict rule was an occasional drive in the park with mother, in a
dark green chariot with hammer-cloth, and green and gold liveries
and powdered wigs for coachman and footman: no one went into the
park in those days otherwise. My daily heart-twinges were saying
good-night to my mother, always with an impression that I might not
see her again, and the other terror was the old-fashioned rushlight
shade, like a huge cylinder with holes in it, which made hideous
shadows on the bedroom walls, and used to frighten me horribly every
time I woke. The most solemn thing to me was the old-fashioned
Charley, or watchman, pacing up and down the street, and singing in
deep and mournful tone, “Past one o’clock, and a cloudy morning.”
At the age of ten I was sent to the Convent of the Canonesses of the
Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, and left there when I was sixteen.
In one sense my leaving school so early was a misfortune; I was just at
the age when one begins to understand and love one’s studies. I ought to
have been kept at the convent, or sent to some foreign school; but both
my father and mother wanted to have me at home with them.
I want to describe my home of that period. It was called Furze Hall,
near Ingatestone, Essex. Dear place! I can shut my eyes and see it now.
It was a white, straggling, old-fashioned, half-cottage, half-farmhouse,
built by bits, about a hundred yards from the road, from which it was
completely hidden by trees. It was buried in bushes, ivy, and flowers.
Creepers covered the walls and the verandahs, and crawled in at the
windows, making the house look like a nest; it was surrounded by a
pretty flower garden and shrubberies, and the pasture-land had the
appearance of a small park. There were stables and kennels. Behind the
house a few woods and fields, perhaps fifty acres, and a little bit of
water, all enclosed by a ring fence, comprised our domain. Inside the
house the hall had the appearance of the main cabin of a man-of-war, and
opened all around into rooms by various doors: one into a small library,
which led to a pretty, cheerful little drawing-room, with two large
windows down to the ground; one opened on to a trim lawn, the other into
a conservatory; another door opened into a smoking-room, for the male
part of the establishment, and the opposite one into a little chapel;
and a dining-room, running off by the back door with glass windows to
the ground, led to the garden. There was a pretty honeysuckle and
jessamine porch, which rose just under my window, in which wrens and
robins built their nests, and birds and bees used to pay me a visit on
summer evenings. We had many shady walks, arbours, bowers, a splendid
slanting laurel hedge, and a beautiful bed of dahlias, all colours and
shades. A beech-walk like the aisle of a church had a favourite
summer-house at the end. The pretty lawn was filled, as well as the
greenhouse, with the choicest flowers; and we had rich crops of grapes,
the best I ever knew. I remember a mulberry tree, under the shade of
which was a grave and tombstone and epitaph, the remains and memorial of
a faithful old dog; and I remember a pretty pink may tree, a large white
rose, and an old oak, with a seat round it. Essex is generally flat; but
around us it was undulating and well-wooded, and the lanes and drives
and rides were beautiful. We were rather in a valley, and a pretty road
wound up a rise, at the top of which our tall white chimneys could be
seen smoking through the trees. The place could boast no grandeur; but
it was my home, I passed my childhood there, and loved it.
[Illustration: NEW HALL, CHELMSFORD.]
We used to have great fun on a large bit of water in the park of one of
our neighbours,—in the ice days in winter with sledges, skating, and
sliding; in the summer-time we used to scamper all over the country with
long poles and jump over the hedges. Nevertheless, I had a great deal of
solitude, and I passed much time in the woods reading and contemplating.
Disraeli’s _Tancred_ and similar occult books were my favourites; but
_Tancred_, with its glamour of the East, was the chief of them, and I
used to think out after a fashion my future life, and try to solve great
problems. I was forming my character.
And as I was as a child, so I am now. I love solitude. I have met with
people who dare not pass a moment alone; many seem to dread themselves.
I find no greater happiness than to be alone out of doors, either on the
sea-beach or in a wood, and there reflect. With me solitude is a
necessary consolation; I can soothe my miseries, enjoy my pleasures,
form my mind, reconcile myself to disappointments, and plan my conduct.
A person may be sorrowful without being alone, and the mind may be alone
in a large assembly, in a crowded city, but not so pleasantly. I have
heard that captives can solace themselves by perpetually thinking of
what they loved best; but there is a danger in excess of solitude, lest
our thoughts run the wrong way and ferment into eccentricity. Every
right-minded person must think, and thought comes only in solitude. He
must ponder upon what he is, what he has been, what he may become. The
energies of the soul rise from the veiled obscurity it is placed in
during its contact with the world. It is when alone that we obtain
cheerful calmness and content, and prepare for the hour of action.
Alone, we acquire a true notion of things, bear the misfortunes of life
calmly, look firmly on the pride and insolence of the great, and dare to
think for ourselves, which the majority of the great dare not. When can
the soul feel that it lives, and is great, free, noble, immortal, if not
in thought? Oh! one can learn in solitude what the worldly have no idea
of. True it is that some souls capable of reflection plunge themselves
into an endless abyss, and know not where to stop. I have never felt one
of those wild, joyous moments when we brood over our coming bliss, and
create a thousand glorious consequences. But I have known enough of
sorrow to appreciate rightly any moment without an immediate care. There
are moments of deep feeling, when one must be alone in self-communion,
alike to encounter good fortune or danger and despair, even if one draws
out the essence of every misery in thought.
I was enthusiastic about gypsies, Bedawin Arabs, and everything Eastern
and mystic, and especially about a wild and lawless life. Very often,
instead of going to the woods, I used to go down a certain green lane;
and if there were any oriental gypsies there, I would go into their camp
and sit for an hour or two with them. I was strictly forbidden to
associate with them in our lanes, but it was my delight. When they were
only travelling tinkers or basket-menders, I was very obedient; but wild
horses would not have kept me out of the camps of the oriental, yet
English-named, tribes of Burton, Cooper, Stanley, Osbaldiston, and one
other tribe whose name I forget. My particular friend was Hagar Burton,
a tall, slender, handsome, distinguished, refined woman, who had much
influence in her tribe. Many an hour did I pass with her (she used to
call me “Daisy”), and many a little service I did them when any of her
tribe were sick, or got into a scrape with the squires anent poultry,
eggs, or other things. The last day I saw Hagar Burton in her camp she
cast my horoscope and wrote it in Romany. The rest of the tribe
presented me with a straw fly-catcher of many colours, which I still
have. The horoscope was translated to me by Hagar. The most important
part of it was this:
“You will cross the sea, and be in the same town with your Destiny and
know it not. Every obstacle will rise up against you, and such a
combination of circumstances, that it will require all your courage,
energy, and intelligence to meet them. Your life will be like one
swimming against big waves; but God will be with you, so you will always
win. You will fix your eye on your polar star, and you will go for that
without looking right or left. You will bear the name of our tribe, and
be right proud of it. You will be as we are, but far greater than we.
Your life is all wandering, change, and adventure. One soul in two
bodies in life or death, never long apart. Show this to the man you take
for your husband.—HAGAR BURTON.”
She also prophesied:
“You shall have plenty to choose from, and wait for years; but you are
destined to him from the beginning. The name of our tribe shall cause
you many a sorrowful, humiliating hour; but when the rest who sought him
in the heyday of his youth and strength fade from his sight, you shall
remain bright and purified to him as the morning star, which hangs like
a diamond drop over the sea. Remember that your destiny for your
constancy will triumph, the name we have given you will be yours, and
the day will come when you will pray for it, long for it, and be proud
of it.”
Much other talk I had with Hagar Burton sitting around the camp-fire,
and then she went from me; and I saw her but once again, and that after
many years.
This was the ugliest time of my life. Every girl has an ugly age. I was
tall, plump, and meant to be fair, but was always tanned and sunburnt. I
knew my good points. What girl does not? I had large, dark blue, earnest
eyes, and long, black eyelashes and eyebrows, which seemed to grow
shorter the older I got. I had very white regular teeth, and very small
hands and feet and waist; but I fretted because I was too fat to slip
into what is usually called “our stock size,” and my complexion was by
no means pale and interesting enough to please me. From my gypsy tastes
I preferred a picturesque toilette to a merely smart one. I had
beautiful hair, very long, thick and soft, with five shades in it, and
of a golden brown. My nose was aquiline. I had all the material for a
very good figure, and once a sculptor wanted to sculpt me, but my mother
would not allow it, as she thought I should be ashamed of my figure
later, when I had fined down. I used to envy maypole, broomstick girls,
who could dress much prettier than I could. I was either fresh and wild
with spirits, or else melancholy and full of pathos. I wish I could give
as faithful a picture of my character; but we are apt to judge ourselves
either too favourably or too severely, and so I would rather quote what
a phrenologist wrote of me at this time:
“When Isabel Arundell loves, her affection will be something
extraordinary, her devotion great—in fact, too great. It will be her
leading passion, and influence her whole life. Everything will be
sacrificed for one man, and she will be constant, unchangeable, and
jealous of his affections. In short, he will be her salvation or
perdition! Her temper is good, but she is passionate; not easily roused,
but when violently irritated she might be a perfect little demon. She
is, however, forgiving. She is full of originality and humour, and her
utter naturalness will pass for eccentricity. She loves society, wherein
she is wild and gay; when alone, she is thoughtful and melancholy. She
is ambitious, sagacious, and intellectual, and will attract attention by
a certain simple dignity, by a look in her eye and a peculiar tone of
her voice. To sum her up: Her nature is noble, ardent, generous,
honourable, and good-hearted. She has courage, both animal and mental.
Her faults are the noble and dashing ones, the spicy kind to enlist
one’s sympathies, the weeds that spring from a too luxuriant soil.”
Thus wrote a professional phrenologist of me, and a friend who was fond
of me at the time endorsed it in every word. With regard to the
ambition, I always felt that if I were a man I should like to be a great
general or statesman, to have travelled everywhere, to have seen and
learnt everything, done everything; in fine, to be the Man of the Day!
When I was between seventeen and eighteen years of age, we left Furze
Hall and went to London. The place in which we have passed our youthful
days, be it ever so dull, possesses a secret charm.
I performed several pilgrimages of adieu to every spot connected with
the bright reminiscences of youth. I fancied no other fireside would be
so cosy, that I could sleep in no other room, no fields so green. Those
who know what it is to leave their quasi-native place for the first
time, never to return; to know every stick and stone in the place for
miles round, and take an everlasting farewell of them all; to have one’s
pet animals destroyed; to make a bonfire of all the things that one does
not want desecrated by stranger hands; to sit on some height and gaze on
the general havoc; to reflect on what is, what has been, and what may be
in a strange world, amidst strange faces; to shake hands with a crowd of
poor old servants, peasants, and humble friends, and not a dry eye to be
seen,—those who have tasted something of this will sympathize with my
feelings then. “Ah, miss,” the old retainers said, “we shall have no
more jolly Christmases; we shall have no beef, bread, and flannels next
year; the hall will not be decked with festoons of holly; there will be
no more music and dancing!” “No more snapdragons and round games,” quoth
the gamekeeper; and his voice trembled, and I saw the tears in his eyes
and in the eyes of them all.
So broke up our little home in Essex, and we went our ways.
CHAPTER III
_MY FIRST SEASON_
(1849–1850)
Society itself, which should create
Kindness, destroys what little we have got.
To feel for none is the true social art
Of the world’s lovers.
BYRON.
I was soon going through a London drilling. I was very much pleased with
town, and the novelty of my life amused me and softened my grief at
leaving my country home. I greatly disliked being primmed and scolded,
and I thought dressing up an awful bore, and never going out without a
chaperone a greater one. Some things amused me very much. One thing was,
that all the footmen with powdered wigs who opened the door when one
paid a visit were obsequious if one came in a carriage, but looked as if
they would like to shut the door in one’s face if one came on foot.
Another was the way people stared at me; it used to make me laugh, but I
soon found I must not laugh in their faces.
We put our house in order; we got pretty dresses, and we left our cards;
we were all ready for the season’s campaign. I made my _début_ at a
fancy ball at Almack’s, which was then very exclusive. We went under the
wing of the Duchess of Norfolk.
I shall never forget that first ball. To begin at the beginning, there
was my dress. How a girl of the present day would despise it! I wore
white tarlatan over white silk, and the first skirt was looped up to my
knee with a blush rose. My hair, which was very abundant, was tressed in
an indescribable fashion by Alexandre, and decked with blush roses. I
had no ornaments; but I really looked very well, and was proud of
myself. We arrived at Almack’s about eleven. The scene was dazzlingly
brilliant to me as I entered. The grand staircase and ante-chamber were
decked with garlands, and festoons of white and gold muslin and ribbons.
The blaze of lights, the odour of flowers, the perfumes, the diamonds,
and the magnificent dresses of the cream of the British aristocracy
smote upon my senses; all was new to me, and all was sweet. Julian’s
band played divinely. My people had been absent from London many
seasons, so at first it seemed strange. But at Almack’s every one knew
every one else; for society in those days was not a mob, but small and
select. People did not struggle to get on as people do now, and we were
there by right, and to resume our position in our circle. There is much
more heart in the world than many people give it credit for—at any rate
in the world of the gentle by birth and breeding. Every one had a hearty
welcome for my people, and some good-natured chaff about their having
“buried themselves” so long. I was at once taken by the hand, and kindly
greeted by many. Some great personage, whose name I forget, gave a
private supper, besides the usual one, to which we were invited; and in
those days there were polkas, valses, quadrilles, and galops. Old
stagers (mammas) had told me to consider myself very lucky if I got four
dances, but I was engaged seven or eight deep soon after I entered the
ballroom, and had more partners than I could dance with in one night. Of
course mother was delighted with me, and I was equally pleased with her:
she looked so young and fashionable; and instead of frightening young
men away, as she had always done in the country, she appeared to attract
them, engage them in conversation, and seemed to enjoy everything; she
was such a nice chaperone. I was very much confused at the amount of
staring (I did not know that every new girl was stared at on her first
appearance); and one may think how vain and incredulous I was, when I
overheard some one telling my mother that I had been quoted as the new
beauty at his club. Fancy, poor ugly me!
I shall not forget my enjoyment of that first ball. I had always been
taught to look upon it as the opening of Fashion’s fairy gates to a
paradise; nor was I disappointed, for, to a young girl who has never
seen anything, her first entrance into a brilliant ballroom is very
intoxicating. The blaze of light and colour, the perfume of scent and
bouquet, the beautiful dresses, the spirited music, the seemingly joyous
multitude of happy faces, laughing and talking as if care were a myth,
the partners flocking round the door to see the new arrivals—all was
delightful to me. But then of course in those days we were not born
_blasé_, as the young people are to-day.
And I shall never forget my first opera. I shall always remember the
delights of that night. I thought even the crush-room lovely, and the
brilliant gaslight, the mysterious little boxes, with their red-velvet
curtains, filled with handsome men and pretty women, which I think Lady
Blessington describes as “rags of roues, memoranda books of other
women’s follies, like the last scene of the theatre; they come out in
gas and red flame, but do not stand daylight.” I do not say that, but
some of them certainly looked so. The opera was _La Sonambula_, with
Jenny Lind and Gardoni. When the music commenced, I forgot I was on
earth; and, so passionately fond of singing and acting as I was, it was
not wonderful that I was quite absorbed by this earth’s greatest
delight. Jenny’s girlish figure, simple manner, birdlike voice, so
thrilling and so full of passion, her perfect acting and irresistible
love-making, were matchless. Gardoni was very handsome and very stiff.
The scene where Gardoni takes her ring from her, and the last scene when
he discovers his mistake, and her final song, will ever be engraven on
my memory; and if I see the opera a thousand times, I shall never like
it as well as I did that night, for all was new to me. And after—only
think, what pleasure for me!—there came the ballet with the three great
stars Amalia Ferraris, Cerito, and Fanny Essler, whom so few are old
enough to remember now. There are no ballets nowadays like those.
This London life of society and amusement was delightful to me after the
solitary one I had been leading in the country. I was ready for
anything, and the world and its excitement gave me no time to hanker
after my Essex home. The rust was soon rubbed off; I forgot the clouds;
my spirit was unbroken, and I lived in the present scrap of rose-colour.
They were joyous and brilliant days, for I was exploring novelties I had
only read or heard of. I went through all the sight-seeing of London,
and the (to me) fresh amusement of shopping, visiting, operas, balls,
and of driving in Rotten Row. The days were very different then to what
they are now: one rose late, and, except a cup of tea, breakfast and
luncheon were one meal; then came shopping, visiting, or receiving. One
went to the Park or Row at 5.30, home to dress, and then off to dinner
or the opera, and out for the night, unless there was a party at home.
This lasted every day and night from March till the end of July, and
often there were two or three things of a night. I was tired at first;
but at the end of a fortnight I was tired-proof, and of course I was
dancing mad. The Sundays were diversified by High Mass at Farm Street,
and perhaps a Greenwich dinner in the afternoon.
I enjoyed that season immensely, for it was all new, and the life-zest
was strong within me. But I could not help pitying poor wall-flowers—a
certain set of girls who come out every night, who have been out season
after season, and who stand or sit out all night. I often used to say to
my partners, “Do go and dance with So-and-so”; and the usual rejoinder
was, “I really would do anything to oblige you, but I am sick of seeing
those girls.” In fact, we girls must not appear on the London boards too
often lest we fatigue these young coxcombs. London, like the smallest
watering-place, is full of cliques and sets on a large scale, from
Billingsgate up to the throne. The great world then comprised the Court
and its _entourage_, the Ministers, and the _Corps Diplomatique_, the
military, naval, and literary stars, the leaders of the fashionable and
political world, the cream of the aristocracy of England; and—at the
time of which I write—the old Catholic cousinhood clan used to hold its
own. You must either have been born in this great world, or you must
have arrived in it through aristocratic patronage, or through your
talents, fame, or beauty. Nowadays you only want wealth! There were some
sets even then which were rather rapid, which abolished a good deal of
the tightness of _convenance_, whose motto seemed to be _savoir vivre_,
to be easy, fascinating, fashionable, and dainty as well as social.
I found a ballroom the very place for reflection; and with the sentiment
that I should use society for my pleasure instead of being its slave, I
sometimes obstinately would refuse a dance or two, or sitting-out and
talking, in order to lean against some pillar and contemplate human
nature, in defiance of my admirers, who thought me very eccentric. I
loved to watch the intriguing mother catching a coronet for her
daughter, and the father absorbed in politics with some contemporary
fogey; the old dandy with his frilled shirt capering in a quadrille the
steps that were danced in Noah’s ark; the rouged old peeress, whom you
would not have taken to be respectable if you did not happen to know
her, flirting with boys. I saw other old ones, with one foot in the
grave, almost mad with excitement over cards and dice, and every
passion, except love, gleaming from their horrid eyes. I saw the rivalry
amongst the beauties. I noted the brainless coxcomb, who comes in for an
hour, leans against the door, twirls his moustache, and goes out again—a
sort of “Aw! the Tenth-don’t-dance-young-man!”; the boy who asks all the
prettiest girls to dance, steps on their toes, tears their dresses, and
throws them down; the confirmed, bad, intriguing London girl, who will
play any game for her end; and the timid, delighted young girl, who
finds herself of consequence for the first time. I have watched the
victim of the heartless coquette—the young girl gazing with tearful,
longing eyes for the man to ask her to dance to whom she has perhaps
unconsciously betrayed her affection; she in her innocence like a pane
of glass, the other glorying in her torture, dancing or flirting with
the man in her sight, only to glut her vanity with another’s
disappointment. I have watched the jealousy of men to each other, vying
for a woman’s favour and cutting each other out. I have heard mothers
running down each other’s daughters, dowagers and prudent spinsters
casting their eyes to heaven for vengeance on the change of manners—even
in the Forties!—on the licence of the day, and the liberty of the age! I
have heard them sighing for minuets and pigtails, for I came between two
generations—the minuet was old and the polka was new; all alike were
polka mad, all crazed with the idea of getting up a new fast style, but
oh! lamblike to what it is now! I watched the last century trying to
accommodate itself to the present.
One common smile graced the lips of all—the innocent, the guilty, the
happy, and the wretched; the same colour on bright cheeks, some of it
real, some bought at Atkinson’s; and, more wonderful still, the same
general outward decorum, placidity, innocence, and good humour, as if
prearranged by general consent. I pitied the vanity, jealousy, and
gossip of many women. I classed the men too: there were many good; but
amongst some there were dishonour and meanness to each other, in some
there were coarseness and brutality, and in some there was deception to
women; some were so narrow-minded, so wanting in intellect, that I
believed a horse or a dog to be far superior. But my ideal was too high,
and I had not in those days found my superior being.
I met some very odd characters, which made one form some rather useful
rules to go by. One man I met had every girl’s name down on paper, if
she belonged to the _haute volée_, her age, her fortune, and her
personal merits; for he said, “One woman, unless one happens to be in
love with her, is much the same as another.” He showed me my name down
thus: “Isabel Arundell, eighteen, beauty, talent and goodness,
original—chief fault £0 0_s._ 0_d._!” Then he showed me the name of one
of my friends: “Handsome, age seventeen, rather missish, £50,000; she
cannot afford to flirt except _pour le bon motif_, and I cannot afford,
as a younger brother, to marry a girl with £50,000. She is sure to have
been brought up like a duchess, and want the whole of her money for
pin-money—a deuced expensive thing is a girl with £50,000!” Then he
rattled on to others. I told him I did not think much of the young men
of the day. “There now,” he answered, “drink of the spring nearest to
you, and be thankful; by being too fastidious you will get nothing.”
I took a great dislike to the regular Blue Stocking; I can remember
reading somewhere such a good description of her: “One who possesses
every qualification to distinguish herself in conversation, well read
and intelligent, her manner cold, her head cooler, her heart the coolest
of all, never the dupe of her own sentiments; she examined her people
before she adopted them, a necessary precaution where light is
borrowed.”
A great curiosity to me were certain married people, who were known
never to speak to each other at home, but who respected the
_convenances_ of society so much that even if they never met in private
they took care to be seen together in public, and to enter evening
parties together with smiling countenances. Somebody writes:
Have they not got polemics and reform,
Peace, war, the taxes, and what is called the Nation,
The struggle to be pilots in the storm,
The landed and the moneyed speculation,
The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm
Instead of love, that mere hallucination?
What a contrast women are! One woman is “fine enough to cut her own
relations, too fine to be seen in the usual places of public resort, and
therefore of course passes with the vulgar for something exquisitely
refined.” Another I have seen who would have sacrificed all London and
its “gorgeous mantle of purple and gold” to have wedded some pale shadow
of friendship, which had wandered by her side amid her childhood’s
dreary waste. And oh! how I pity the many stars who fall out of the too
dangerously attractive circle of society! The fault there seems not to
be the sin, but the stupidity of being found out. I say one little
prayer every day: “Lord, keep me from contamination.” I never saw a
woman who renounced her place in society who did not prove herself
capable of understanding its value by falling fifty fathoms lower than
her original fall. The fact is, very few people of the world, especially
those who have not arrived at the age of discretion, are apt to stop
short in their career of pleasure for the purpose of weighing in the
balance their own conduct, enjoyments, or prospects; in short, it would
be very difficult for any worldly woman to be always stopping to examine
whether she is enjoying the right kind of happiness in the right kind of
way, and, once fallen, a woman seems to depend on her beauty to create
any interest in her favour. I knew nothing of these things then; and
though I think it quite right that women should be kept in awe of
certain misdemeanours, I cannot understand why, when one, who is not
bad, has a misfortune, other women should join in hounding her down, and
at the same time giving such licence to really bad women, whom society
cannot apparently do without. ’Tis “one man may steal a horse, and
another may not look over the hedge.” If a woman fell down in the mud
with her nice white clothes on, and had a journey to go, she would not
lie down and wallow in the mud; she would jump up, and wash herself
clean at the nearest spring, and be very careful not to fall again, and
reach her journey’s end safely. But other women do not allow that; they
must haul out buckets of the mud, and pour it over the fallen one, that
there may be no mistake about it at all. Then men seem to find a
wondrous charm in poaching on other men’s preserves (though a poacher of
birds gets terrible punishments, once upon a time hanging), as if their
neighbours’ coverts afforded better shooting than their own manors.
When I went to London, I had no idea of the matrimonial market; I should
have laughed at it just as much as an unmarrying man would. I was
interested in the fast girls who amused themselves at most extraordinary
lengths, not meaning to marry the man; and at the slower ones labouring
day and night for a husband of some sort, without any success. I heard a
lady one day say to her daughter, “My dear, if you do not get off during
your first season, I shall break my heart.” Our favourite men joined us
in walks and rides, came into our opera-box, and barred all the waltzes;
but it would have been no fun to me to have gone on as some girls did,
because I had no desire to reach the happy goal, either properly or
improperly. Mothers considered me crazy, and almost insolent, because I
was not ready to snap at any good _parti_; and I have seen dukes’
daughters gladly accept men that poor humble I would have turned up my
nose at.
What think’st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?
As of a knight well spoken, neat and fine;
But were I you he never should be mine.
Lots of such men, or mannikins, affected the season, then as now, and
congregated around the rails of Rotten Row. I sometimes wonder if they
are men at all, or merely sexless creatures—animated tailors’ dummies.
Shame on them thus to disgrace their manhood! ’Tis man’s work to do
great deeds! Well, the young men of the day passed before me without
making the slightest impression. My ideal was not among them. My ideal,
as I wrote it down in my diary at that time, was this:
“As God took a rib out of Adam and made a woman of it, so do I, out of a
wild chaos of thought, form a man unto myself. In outward form and
inmost soul his life and deeds an ideal. This species of fastidiousness
has protected me and kept me from fulfilling the vocation of my
sex—breeding fools and chronicling small beer. My ideal is about six
feet in height; he has not an ounce of fat on him; he has broad and
muscular shoulders, a powerful, deep chest; he is a Hercules of manly
strength. He has black hair, a brown complexion, a clever forehead,
sagacious eyebrows, large, black, wondrous eyes—those strange eyes you
dare not take yours from off them—with long lashes. He is a soldier and
a _man_; he is accustomed to command and to be obeyed. He frowns on the
ordinary affairs of life, but his face always lights up warmly for me.
In his dress he never adopts the fopperies of the day, but his clothes
suit him—they are made for him, not he for them. He is a thorough man of
the world; he is a few years older than myself. He is a gentleman in
every sense of the word—not only in manners, dress, and appearance, but
in birth and position, and, better still, in ideas and actions; and of
course he is an Englishman. His religion is like my own, free, liberal,
and generous-minded. He is by no means indifferent on the subject, as
most men are; and even if he does not conform to any Church, he will
serve God from his innate duty and sense of honour. The great principle
is there. He is not only not a fidgety, strait-laced, or
mistaken-conscienced man on any subject; he always gives the mind its
head. His politics are conservative, yet progressive. His manners are
simple and dignified, his mind refined and sensitive, his temper under
control; he has a good heart, with common sense, and more than one man’s
share of brains. He is a man who owns something more than a body; he has
a head and heart, a mind and soul. He is one of those strong men who
lead, the mastermind who governs, and he has perfect control over
himself.
“This is the creation of my fancy, and my ideal of happiness is to be to
such a man wife, comrade, friend—everything to him, to sacrifice all for
him, to follow his fortunes through his campaigns, through his travels,
to any part of the world, and endure any amount of roughing. I speak of
the ideal man ’tis true, and some may mock and say, ‘Where is the mate
for such a man to be found?’ But there are ideal women too. Such a man
only will I wed. I love this myth of my girlhood—for myth it is—next to
God; and I look to the star that Hagar the gypsy said was the star of my
destiny, the morning star, which is the place I allot to my earthly god,
because the ideal seems too high for this planet, and, like the
philosopher’s stone, may never be found here. But if I find such a man,
and afterwards discover he is not for me, then I will never marry. I
will try to be near him, only to see him, and hear him speak; and if he
marries somebody else, I will become a sister of charity of St. Vincent
de Paul.”
CHAPTER IV
_BOULOGNE: I MEET MY DESTINY_
(1850–1852)
Was’t archer shot me, or was’t thine eyes?
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
The season over (August, 1850), change of air, sea-bathing, French
masters to finish our education, and economy were loudly called for; and
we turned our faces towards some quiet place on the opposite shores of
France, and we thought that Boulogne might suit. We were soon ready and
off.
We had a pleasant but rough passage of fifteen hours from London. While
the others were employed in bringing up their breakfasts, I sat on deck
and mused. Suddenly I remembered that Hagar had told me I should cross
the sea, and then I wondered why we had chosen Boulogne. I was leaving
England for the first time; I knew not for how long. What should I go
through there, and how changed should I come back? I had gone with a
light heart. I was young then; I loved society and hated exile. I had
written in my diary only a little time before: “As for me, I am never
better pleased than when I watch this huge game of chess, Life, being
played on that extensive chessboard, Society.” I never felt so patriotic
as that first morning on sea when the white cliffs faded from my view.
We never appreciate things until we lose them, and I thought of what the
feelings of soldiers and sailors must be, going from England and
returning after years of absence.
At length the boat stopped at the landing-place at Boulogne, and we
were driven like a flock of sheep between two ropes into a
_papier-maché_-looking building, whence we were put into a carriage
like a bathing-machine, and driven through what I took to be mews, but
which were in reality the principal streets. I recognize in this
reflection the prejudiced London Britisher, the John Bull; for in
reality Boulogne was a most picturesque town, and our way lay through
most picturesque streets. After driving up the hilly street, and under
an archway, in the old town, we came to a good, large house like a
barn, No. 4, Rue des Basses Chambres, Haute Ville, Boulogne-sur-Mer.
The rooms were chiefly furnished with bellows and brass candlesticks;
there was not the ghost of an armchair, sofa, ottoman, or anything
comfortable; and the only thing at all cheery was our kinswoman, Mrs.
Edmond Jerningham, who, apprised of our arrival, had our fires lighted
and beds made. She was cutting bread-and-butter and preparing tea for
us when we came in, and had ready for us a turkey the size of a fine
English chicken. This banquet over, we all turned into bed, and slept
between the blankets.
Next morning our boxes were still detained at the custom-house, and my
brothers and sisters and myself got some bad tea and some good
bread-and-butter, and sat round in a circle on the floor in our
nightgowns, with our food in the middle. Shortly after we heard a
hooting, laughing, and wrangling in a shrill key, “Coralie, Rosalie,
Florantine, Celestine, Euphrosine!” so I pricked up my ears in the hopes
of seeing some of those pretty, well-dressed, _piquante_ little
_soubrettes_ of whom we had heard mother talk, when in rolled about a
dozen harpies with our luggage. At first I did not feel sure whether
they were men or women; they had picturesque female dresses on, but
their manners, voices, language, and gestures were those of the lowest
costermongers. They spoke to me in _patois_, which I did not understand,
and seemed surprised to see us all in our nightgowns, forgetting that we
had little else to put on till they had brought the luggage. I gave them
half a crown, which they appeared to think a great deal of money, and it
inspirited them greatly. They danced about me, whirled me round, and in
five minutes one had decked me up in a red petticoat, another arrayed me
in her jacket, and a third clapped her dirty cap on my head, and I was
completely attired _à la marine_. I felt so amused by the novelty of the
thing that I forgot to be angry at their impertinence, and laughed as
heartily as they did.
When they were gone, we set to work and unpacked and dressed, and by the
afternoon were as comfortable as we could make ourselves; but we were
thoroughly wretched, though mother kept telling us to look at the
beautiful sky, which was not half as blue or bright as on the other side
of the water. We sauntered out to look at the town. I own my first
impressions of France were very unfavourable; Boulogne looked to me like
a dirty pack of cards, such as a gypsy pulls out of her pocket to tell
your fortune with. The streets were irregular, narrow, filthy, and full
of open gutters, which we thought would give us the cholera. The
pavement was like that of a mews; the houses were unfurnished; the sea
was so far out from our part of the town that it might as well not have
been there—and such a dirty, ugly-looking sea too, we thought! The
harbour was full of poisonous-looking smelling mud, and always appeared
to be low water. The country was dry, barren, and a dirty brown (it was
a hot August); the cliffs were black; and there was not a tree to be
seen—I used to pretend to get under a lamp-post for shade. Every now and
then we had days of fine weather, with clouds of dust and sirocco, or
else pouring rain and bleak winds. From mother’s talk of the Continent
we expected at least the comforts of Brighton with the romance of
Naples; and I shall never forget our feelings when we were told that,
after Paris, Boulogne was the nicest town in France. Now I imagine that
ours are the feelings of every narrow-minded, prejudiced John Bull
Britisher the first time he lands abroad. It takes him some little time
to thoroughly appreciate all the good things that he does get abroad,
and to be fascinated with the picturesqueness, and then often he returns
home unwillingly.
We had a cheap cook, so that our dinners would have been scarcely served
up in my father’s kennel at home. When I had eaten what I could pick out
by dint of shutting my eyes and forcing myself to get it down, I used to
lie down daily on a large horsehair sofa, such as one sees in a
tradesman’s office, and sometimes cry till I fell asleep; I felt so
sorry for us all.
The most interesting people in Boulogne were the _poissardes_, or
fisherwomen; they are of Spanish and Flemish extraction, and are a clan
apart to themselves. They are so interesting that I wonder that no one
has written a little book about them. They look down on the Boulognais;
they are a fine race, tall, dark, handsome, and have an air of good
breeding. Their dress is most picturesque. The women wear a short red
petticoat, dark jacket, and snowy handkerchief or scarf, and a white
veil tied round the head and hanging a little behind. On _fête_ days
they add a gorgeous satin apron. These costumes are expensive. Their
long, drooping, gold earrings and massive ornaments are heirlooms, and
their lace is real. The men wear great jack-boots all the way up their
legs, a loose dark jacket, and red cap; they are fine, stalwart men.
They had a queen named Carolina, a handsome, intelligent woman, with
whom I made great friends; and also a captain, who had a daughter so
like me that when I used to go to the fish-market at first they used to
chaff me, thinking she had dressed up like a lady for fun. They also
have their different grades of society; they have their own church,
built by themselves, their separate weddings, funerals, and
christenings. They do not marry out of their own tribe or associate with
the townspeople. Their language has a number of Spanish and Latin words
in it. They have a strict code of laws, live in a separate part of the
town on a hill, are never allowed to be idle, and are remarkable for
their morality, although by the recklessness of the conduct and talk of
some of the commoner ones you would scarcely believe it. If an accident
does occur, the man is obliged to marry the girl directly. The upper
ones are most civil and well spoken, and all are open-hearted and not
grasping. There is a regular fleet of smacks. The men are always out
fishing. The women do all the work at home, as well as shrimping, making
tackle, marketing, getting their husbands’ boats ready for sea, and
unloading them on return; and they are prosperous and happy. The smacks
are out for a week or ten days, and have their regular turn. They have
no salmon, and the best fish is on our side of the water. The lowest
grade of the girls, who serve as kinds of hacks to the others, are the
shrimping girls; they are as vulgar as Billingsgate and as wild as red
Indians. You meet them in parties of thirty or forty, with their clothes
kilted nearly up to their waists and nets over their backs. They sing
songs, and are sure to insult you as you pass; but they make off at a
double quick trot at the very name of Queen Carolina.
At Boulogne the usual lounge, both summer and winter, was the Ramparts,
which were extremely pretty and picturesque. The Ramparts were charming
in summer, with a lovely view of the town; and a row down the Liane, or
a walk along its banks, was not to be despised. There were several
beautiful country walks in summer. The peasants’ dances, called
_guinguettes_, were amusing to look at. The hotels and _tables d’hôtes_
were not bad. The ivory shops in the town were beautiful; the bonnets,
parasols, and dresses very _chic_; the bonbons delicious. The market was
a curious, picturesque little scene. There were pretty _fêtes_,
religious and profane, and a capital carnival.
The good society we collected around us; but it was small, and never
mixed with the general society. The two winters we were there were gay;
there was a sort of agreeable _laissez aller_ about the place, and the
summers were very pleasant. But mother kept us terribly strict, and this
was a great stimulant to do wild things; and though we never did
anything terrible, we did what we had better have left alone. For
instance, we girls learned to smoke. We found that father had got a very
nice box of cigars, and we stole one. We took it up to the loft and
smoked it, and were very sick, and then perfumed ourselves with scent,
and appeared in our usual places. We persevered till we became regular
smokers, and father’s box of cigars disappeared one by one. Then the
servants were accused; so we had to come forward, go into his den, make
him swear not to tell, and confided the matter to him. He did not betray
us, as he knew we should be almost locked up, and from that time we
smoked regularly. People used to say, “What makes those Arundell girls
so pale? They must dance too much.” Alas, poor things! it was just the
want of these innocent recreations that drove us to so dark a deed!
I have already said that we were taken to Boulogne for masters and
economy. Our house in the Haute Ville was next to the Convent, and close
to the future rising—slowly rising—Notre Dame. My sister Blanche and I
gradually made up our minds to this life, our European Botany Bay. We
were not allowed to walk alone, except upon the Ramparts, which,
however, make a good mile under large shady trees, with views from every
side—not a bad walk by any means. Mother, my sister Blanche, and I used
to walk once daily up the lounge, which in fine weather was down the
Grande Rue, the Rue de l’Ecu, the Quai to the end of the pier and back;
but in winter our promenade may be said to be confined to the Grande
Rue. There we could observe the notorieties and eccentricities of the
place. There might be a dozen or more handsome young men of good family,
generally with something shady about money hanging over them, a great
many pretty, fast girls and young married women, a great deal of open
flirtation, much attention to dress, and plenty of old half-pay officers
with large families, who had come to Boulogne for the same reasons as
ourselves. If there were any good families, they lived in the Haute
Ville, and were English; there were, in fact, half a dozen aristocratic
English families, who stuck together and would speak to nobody else. I
have learnt since that often in a place one dislikes there will arise
some circumstance that will prove the pivot on which part, or the whole,
of one’s life may turn, and that scene, that town, or that house will in
after-years retain a sacred place in one’s heart for that thing’s sake,
which a gayer or a grander scene could never win. And so it was with me.
At this point it is necessary to interrupt Isabel’s autobiography, to
introduce a personage who will hereafter play a considerable part in it.
By one of those many coincidences which mark the life-story of Richard
and Isabel Burton, and which bear out in such a curious manner her
theory that they “were destined to one another from the beginning,”
Burton came to Boulogne about the same time as the Arundells. This is
not the place to write a life of Sir Richard Burton—it has been written
large elsewhere,[4] so that all who wish may read; but to those who have
not read Lady Burton’s book, the following brief sketch of his career up
to this time may be of interest.
Richard Burton came of a military family, and one whose sons had also
rendered some service both in Church and State. He was the son of Joseph
Netterville Burton, a lieutenant-colonel in the 36th Regiment. He was
born in 1821. He was the eldest of three children; the second was Maria
Catherine Eliza, who married General Sir Henry Stisted; and the third
was Edward Joseph Netterville, late Captain in the 37th Regiment
(Queen’s), who died insane. Colonel Burton, who had retired from the
army, and his wife went abroad for economy when Richard was only a few
months old, and they settled at Tours. Tours at that time contained some
two hundred English families, who formed a society of their own. These
English colonies knew little of Mrs. Grundy, and less of the dull
provincialism of English country towns. Thus Richard grew up in a free,
Bohemian society, an influence which perceptibly coloured his
after-life. His education was also of a nature to develop his strongly
marked individuality. He was sent to a mixed French and English school
at Tours, and he remained there until his father suddenly took it into
his head that he would give his boys the benefit of an English
education, and returned to England. But, instead of going to a public
school, Richard was sent to a private preparatory school at Richmond. He
was there barely a year, when his father, wearying of Richmond and
respectability, and sighing for the shooting and boar-hunting of French
forests, felt that he had sacrificed enough on account of an English
education for his boys, and resolved to bring them up abroad under the
care of a private tutor. This resolution he quickly put into practice,
and a wandering life on the Continent followed, the boys being educated
as they went along. This state of things continued till Richard was
nineteen, when, as he and his brother had got too old for further home
training, the family broke up.
Richard was sent to Oxford, and was entered at Trinity College, with the
intention of taking holy orders in the Church of England. But the roving
Continental life which he had led did not fit him for the restraints of
the University. He hated Oxford, and he was not cut out for a parson. At
the end of the first year he petitioned his father to take him away.
This was refused; so he set to work to get himself sent down—a task
which he accomplished with so much success that the next term he was
rusticated, with an intimation that he was not to return. Even at this
early period of his life the glamour of the East was strong upon him;
the only learning he picked up at Oxford was a smattering of Hindustani;
the only thing that would suit him when he was sent down was to go to
India. He turned to the East as the lotus turns with the sun. So his
people procured him a commission in the army, the Indian service, and he
sailed for Bombay in June, 1842.
He was appointed to the 14th Regiment, Bombay Native Infantry, and he
remained in India without coming home for seven years. During those
seven years he devoted himself heart and soul to the study of Oriental
languages and Oriental habits. He passed in ten Eastern languages. His
interest in Oriental life, and his strong sympathy with it, earned him
in his regiment the nickname of “the white nigger.” He would disguise
himself so effectually that he would pass among Easterns as a dervish in
the mosques and as a merchant in the bazaars. In 1844 Richard Burton
went to Scinde with the 18th Native Infantry, and was put on Sir Charles
Napier’s staff. Sir Charles soon turned the young lieutenant’s peculiar
acquirements to account in dealing with the wild tribes around them. He
accompanied his regiment to Mooltan to attack the Sikhs. Yet,
notwithstanding all these unique qualifications, when Richard Burton
applied for the post of interpreter to accompany the second expedition
to Mooltan in 1849, he was passed over on account of a feeling against
him in high quarters, on which it is unnecessary here to dwell. This
disappointment, and the mental and physical worry and fatigue which he
had undergone, broke down his health. He applied for sick leave, and
came home on a long furlough.
[Illustration: RICHARD BURTON IN 1848 (IN NATIVE DRESS).]
After a sojourn in England, he went to France (1850) to join his family,
who were then staying at Boulogne, like the Arundells and most of the
English colony, for change, quiet, and economy. Whilst at Boulogne he
brought out two or three books and prepared another. Burton took a
gloomy view of his prospects at this time; for he writes, “My career in
India has been in my eyes a failure, and by no fault of my own; the
dwarfish demon called ‘Interest’ has fought against me, and as usual has
won the fight.” There was a good deal of prejudice against him even at
Boulogne, for unfounded rumours about him had travelled home from India.
Burton, as it may be imagined, did not lead the life which was led by
the general colony at Boulogne. “He had a little set of men friends,”
Isabel notes; “he knew some of the French; he had a great many
flirtations—one very serious one. He passed his days in literature and
fencing. At home he was most domestic; his devotion to his parents,
especially to his sick mother, was very beautiful.” At this time he was
twenty-eight years of age. The Burton family belonged to the general
English colony at Boulogne; they were not intimate with the _crème_ to
whom the Miss Arundells belonged; and as these young ladies were very
carefully guarded, it was some little time before Richard Burton and
Isabel Arundell came together. They met in due season; and here we take
up the thread of her narrative again.
One day, when we were on the Ramparts, the vision of my awakening brain
came towards us. He was five feet eleven inches in height, very broad,
thin, and muscular; he had very dark hair; black, clearly defined,
sagacious eyebrows; a brown, weather-beaten complexion; straight Arab
features; a determined-looking mouth and chin, nearly covered by an
enormous black moustache. I have since heard a clever friend say that
“he had the brow of a god, the jaw of a devil.” But the most remarkable
part of his appearance was two large, black, flashing eyes with long
lashes, that pierced one through and through. He had a fierce, proud,
melancholy expression; and when he smiled, he smiled as though it hurt
him, and looked with impatient contempt at things generally. He was
dressed in a black, short, shaggy coat, and shouldered a short, thick
stick, as if he were on guard.
[Illustration: THE RAMPARTS, BOULOGNE.]
He looked at me as though he read me through and through in a moment,
and started a little. I was completely magnetized; and when we had got a
little distance away, I turned to my sister, and whispered to her, “That
man will marry me.” The next day he was there again, and he followed us,
and chalked up, “May I speak to you?” leaving the chalk on the wall; so
I took up the chalk and wrote back, “No; mother will be angry”; and
mother found it, and was angry; and after that we were stricter
prisoners than ever. However, “Destiny is stronger than custom.” A
mother and a pretty daughter came to Boulogne who happened to be cousins
of my father’s; they joined the majority in the society sense, and one
day we were allowed to walk on the Ramparts with them. There I met
Richard again, who (agony!) was flirting with the daughter. We were
formally introduced, and his name made me start. Like a flash came back
to me the prophecy of Hagar Burton which she had told me in the days of
my childhood in Stonymoore Wood: “_You will cross the sea, and be in the
same town with your Destiny and know it not.... You will bear the name
of our tribe, and be right proud of it._” I could think of no more at
the moment. But I stole a look at him, and met his gypsy eyes—those eyes
which looked you through, glazed over, and saw something behind; the
only man I had ever seen, not a gypsy, with that peculiarity. And again
I thrilled through and through. He must have thought me very stupid, for
I scarcely spoke a word during that brief meeting.
I did not try to attract his attention; but after that, whenever he came
on the usual promenade, I would invent any excuse that came ready to
take another turn to watch him, if he were not looking. If I could catch
the sound of his deep voice, it seemed to me so soft and sweet that I
remained spellbound, as when I hear gypsy music. I never lost an
opportunity of seeing him, when I could not be seen; and as I used to
turn red and pale, hot and cold, dizzy and faint, sick and trembling,
and my knees used to nearly give way under me, my mother sent for the
doctor, to complain that my digestion was out of order, and that I got
migraines in the street; he prescribed me a pill, which I threw in the
fire. All girls will sympathize with me. I was struck with the shaft of
Destiny, but I had no hope, being nothing but an ugly schoolgirl,[5] of
taking the wind out of the sails of the dashing creature with whom
Richard was carrying on a very serious flirtation.
The only luxury I indulged in was a short but heartfelt prayer for him
every morning. I read all his books, and was seriously struck, as
before, by his name, when I came to the book on _Jats in Scinde_. The
Jats are the aboriginal gypsies in India.
The more I got to know of Richard, the more his strange likeness to the
gypsies struck me. As I wrote to the _Gypsy Lore Journal_ in 1891, it
was not only his eyes which showed the gypsy peculiarity; he had the
restlessness which could stay nowhere long, nor own any spot on earth,
the same horror of a corpse, deathbed scenes, and graveyards, or
anything which was in the slightest degree ghoulish, though caring
little for his own life, the same aptitude for reading the hand at a
glance. With many he would drop their hands at once and turn away, nor
would anything induce him to speak a word about them. He spoke Romany
like the gypsies themselves. Nor did we ever enter a gypsy camp without
their claiming him. “What are you doing with that black coat on?” they
would say. “Why don’t you join us and be our king?” Moreover, Burton is
one of the half-dozen distinctively Romany names; and though there is no
proof whatever of his Arab or Romany descent, the idea that he had gypsy
blood is not to be wondered at. He always took a great interest in gypsy
lore, and prepared a book on the subject. He wrote many years later:
“There is an important family of gypsies in foggy England, who in remote
times developed our family name. I am yet on very friendly terms with
several of these strange people; nay, a certain Hagar Burton, an old
fortune-teller (_divinatrice_), took part in a period of my life which
in no small degree contributed to determine its course.”
My cousin asked Richard to write something for me at that time; he did
so, and I used to wear it next my heart. One night an exception was made
to our dull rule of life. My cousins gave a tea party and dance, and the
“great majority” flocked in, and there was Richard like a star among
rushlights! That was a night of nights; he waltzed with me once, and
spoke to me several times, and I kept my sash where he put his arm round
my waist to waltz, and my gloves, which his hands had clasped. I never
wore them again. I did not know it then, but the “little cherub who sits
up aloft” was not only occupied in taking care of poor Jack, for I came
in also for a share of it. I saw Richard every now and again after that,
but he was of course unconscious of my feelings towards him. And I was
evidently awfully sorry for myself, since I find recorded the following
moan:
“If kind Providence had blessed me with the man I love, what a different
being I might be! Fate has used me hardly, with my proud, sensitive
nature to rough the world and its sharp edges, alone and unprotected
except by hard and peremptory rules.”
So I thought then; but I have often blessed those rules since. A woman
may have known the illusions of love, but never have met an object worth
all her heart. Sometimes we feel a want of love, and a want to love with
all our energies. There is no man capable of receiving this at the time,
and we accept the love of others as a makeshift, an apology, to draw our
intention from the painful feeling, and try to fancy it is love. How
much in this there is to fear! A girl should be free and happy in real
and legitimate love. One who is passionate and capable of suffering
fears to risk her heart on any man. Happy is she who meets at her first
start the man who is to guide her for life, whom she is always to love.
Some women grow fastidious in solitude, and find it harder to be mated
than married. Those who fear and respect the men they love, those whose
judgment and sense confirm their affection, are lucky. Every one has
some mysterious and singular idea respecting his destiny. I asked myself
then if I would sacrifice anything and everything for Richard, and the
only thing that I found I could not sacrifice for him would be God; for
I thought I would as soon, were I a man, forsake my post, when the tide
of battle pressed hardest against it, and go over to the enemy, as
renounce my God. So having sifted my unfortunate case, I soon decided on
a plan of action. I could not push myself forward or attract his notice.
It would be unmaidenly—unworthy. I shuddered at the lonely and dreary
path I was taking; but I knew that no advantage gained by unworthy means
could be lasting or solid; besides, my conscience was tender, and I knew
that the greatest pleasure unlawfully obtained would eventually become
bitter, for there can be no greater pain than to despise oneself or the
one we love. So I suffered much and long; and the name of the tribe, as
Hagar Burton foretold, caused me many a sorrowful and humiliating hour;
but I rose superior at last. They say that often, when we think our
hopes are annihilated, God is granting us some extraordinary favour. It
is said, “It is easy to image the happiness of some particular
condition, until we can be content with no other”; but there is no
condition whatever under which a certain degree of happiness may not be
attained by those who are inclined to be happy. Courage consists, not in
hazarding without fear, but in being resolutely minded in a just cause.
Marvel not at thy life; patience shall see
The perfect work of wisdom to her given;
Hold fast thy soul through this high mystery,
And it shall lead thee to the gates of heaven.
The days at Boulogne went slowly by. We used to join walking or picnic
parties in summer, and generally have one of our pleasant big teas in
the evening. I joined in such society as there was in moderation, and I
became very serious. The last summer we had many friends staying with
us; the house was quite like a hotel. We much longed to go to Paris; but
in the winter poor little baby died, and mother had no spirits for
anything. This last winter (1851–52), during the time of the _coup
d’état_, there were eighteen hundred soldiers billeted on Boulogne; and
the excitement was great, crowds of people were rushing about to hear
the news, and vans full of prisoners passing by. They were very violent
against the English too; we had our windows broken occasionally, and our
pet dog was killed. Carolina, the Poissarde queen, told us that if the
worst came to the worst she should send us across to England in her
husband’s fishing-smack. Boulogne was a droll place; there was always
either something joyous, a _fête_, or some scandal or horror going on.
It was a place of passage, constant change of people, and invariably
there was some excitement about something or other.
Our prescribed two years were up at last, and we all agreed that
anything in London would be preferable to Boulogne. We began quietly to
pack up, pay our debts, and make our adieux. We were sorry to leave our
little circle; they were also sorry to part from us; and the
tradespeople and servants seemed conscious that they were about to lose
in a short while some honest and safe-paying people—not too frequent in
Boulogne—and were loud in their regrets. I had many regrets in leaving,
but was delighted at the prospect of going home, and impatient to be
relieved of the restraint I was obliged to impose on myself about
Richard. Yet at the same time I dreaded leaving his vicinity. I was
sorely sorry, yet glad. All the old haunts I visited for the last time.
There were kind friends to wish good-bye. I received my last communion
in the little chapel of Our Lady in the College, where I had so often
knelt and prayed for Richard, and for strength to bear my sorrow as a
trial from the hand of God, as doubtless it was for my good, only I
could not see it. When one is young, it is hard to pine for something,
and at the same time to say, “Thy will be done.” I always prayed Richard
might be mine if God willed it, and if it was for his happiness.
I said good-bye to Carolina, the queen of the fisherwomen; she reminded
me strangely of Hagar Burton, my gypsy. I wondered how Hagar would tell
her prophecies now? “Chance or not,” I thought, “they are strange; and
if ever I return to my home, I will revisit Stonymoore Wood, though now
alone; for my shaggy Sikh is dead, my pony gone, my gypsy camp
dispersed, my light heart no longer light, no longer mine.” I would give
worlds to sit again on the mossy bank round the gypsy fire, to hear that
little tale as before, and be called “Daisy,” and hear the prophecy of
Hagar that I should take the name of the tribe. I listened lightly then;
but now that the name had become so dear I attached much deeper meaning
to it.
At last the day was fixed that we were to leave Boulogne, May 9, 1852,
and I was sorely exercised in my mind as to whether or no I should say
good-bye to Richard; but I said to myself, “When we leave this place, he
will go one way in life, and I another; and who knows if we may ever
meet again?” To see him would be only to give myself more pain, and
therefore I did not.
We walked down to the steamer an hour or two before sailing-time, which
would be two in the morning. It was midnight; the band was playing, and
the steamer was alongside, opposite the Folkestone Hotel. It was a
beautiful night, so all our friends collected to see us off, and we
walked up and down, and had chairs to remain near the band. When we
sailed, my people went down to their berths; but I sat near the wheel,
to watch the town as long as I could see the lights, for after all it
contained all I wanted, and who I thought I should never see more. I was
sad at heart; but I was proud of the way in which I had behaved, and I
could now rest after my long and weary struggle, suffering, patient, and
purified; and though I would rather have had love and happiness, I felt
that I was as gold tried in the fire. It is no little thing for a girl
to be able to command herself, to respect herself, and to be able to
crush every petty feeling.
When I could see no more of Boulogne, I wrapped a cloak round me, and
jumped into the lifeboat lashed to the side, and I mused on the two past
years I had been away from England, all I had gone through, and all the
changes, and especially how changed I was myself; I felt a sort of
satisfaction, and I mused on how much of my destiny had been fulfilled.
Old Captain Tune, who had become quite a friend of ours at Boulogne,
came up, and wanted me to go below. I knew him well, and was in the
habit of joking with him, and I told him to go below himself, and I
would take care of the ship; so instead he amused me by telling me
stories and asking me riddles. The moon went down, and the stars faded,
and I slept well; and when I awoke the star of my destiny, my pet
morning star, was shining bright and clear, just “like a diamond drop
over the sea.” I awoke, hearing old Tune say, “What a jolly sailor’s
wife she would make! She never changes colour.” We lurched terribly. I
jumped up as hungry as a hunter, and begged him to give me some food, as
it wanted four hours to breakfast; so he took me down to his cabin, and
gave me some hot chops and bread-and-butter, and said he would rather
keep me for a week than a fortnight. It blew freshly. I cannot describe
my sensations when I saw the dear old white cliffs of England again,
though I had only been away two years, and so near home. The tears came
into my eyes, and my heart bounded with joy, and I felt great sympathy
with all exiled soldiers and sailors, and wondered what face we should
see first. Foreigners do not seem to have that peculiar sensation about
home, or talk of their country as we do of ours; for I know of no
feeling like setting one’s foot on English ground again after a long
absence.
CHAPTER V
_FOUR YEARS OF HOPE DEFERRED_
(1852–1856)
I was fancy free and unknew I love,
But I fell in love and in madness fell;
I write you with tears of eyes so belike,
They explain my love, come my heart to quell.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
On leaving Boulogne, Isabel saw Richard Burton no more for four years,
and only heard of him now and again from others or through the
newspapers. She went back to London with her people, and outwardly took
up life and society again much where she had left it two years before.
But inwardly things were very different. She had gone to Boulogne an
unformed girl; she had left it a loving woman. Her ideal had taken form
and shape; she had met the only man in all the world whom she could
love, the man to whom she had been “destined from the beginning,” and
her love for him henceforth became, next to her religion, the motive
power of her actions and the guiding principle of her life. All her
youth, until she met him, she had yearned for something, she hardly knew
what. That something had come to her, sweeter than all her young
imaginings, glorifying her life and flooding her soul with radiance. And
after the light there had come the darkness; after the joy there had
come keenest pain; for it seemed that her love was given to one who did
not return it—nay, more, who was all unconscious of it. But this did not
hinder her devotion, though her maidenly reserve checked its outward
expression. She had met her other self in Richard Burton. He was her
affinity. A creature of impulse and emotion, there was a certain vein of
thought in her temperament which responded to the recklessness in his
own. She could no more stifle her love for him than she could stifle her
nature, for the love she bore him was part of her nature, part of
herself.
Meanwhile she and her sister Blanche, the sister next to her in age, had
to take the place in society suited to young ladies of their position.
Their father, Mr. Henry Raymond Arundell, though in comfortable
circumstances, was not a wealthy man; but in those days money was not
the passport to society, and the Miss Arundells belonged by birth to the
most exclusive aristocracy of Europe, the Catholic nobility of England,
an aristocracy which has no parallel, unless it be found in the old
Legitimist families of France, the society of the Faubourg St. Germain.
But this society, though undoubtedly exclusive, was also undoubtedly
tiresome to the impetuous spirit of Isabel, who chafed at the restraints
by which she was surrounded. She loved liberty; her soaring spirit beat
its wings against the prison-bars of custom and convention; she was
always yearning for a wider field. Deep down in her heart was hidden the
secret of her untold love, and this robbed the zest from the pleasure
she might otherwise have taken in society. Much of her time was spent in
confiding to her diary her thoughts about Richard, and in gleaning
together and treasuring in her memory every scrap of news she could
gather concerning him. At the same time she was not idle, nor did she
pine outwardly after the approved manner of love-sick maidens. As the
eldest daughter of a large family she had plenty to do in the way of
home duties, and it was not in her nature to shirk any work which came
in her way, but to do it with all her might.
The Miss Arundells had no lack of admirers, and more than once Isabel
refused or discouraged advantageous offers of marriage, much to the
perplexity of her mother, who naturally wished her daughters to make
good marriages; that is to say, to marry men of the same religion as
themselves, and in the same world—men who would make them good husbands
in every sense of the word. But Isabel, who was then twenty-one years of
age, had a strong will of her own, and very decided views on the subject
of marriage, and she turned a deaf ear to all pleadings. Besides, was
she not guarded by the talisman of a hidden and sacred love? In her
diary at this time she writes:
“They say it is time I married (perhaps it is); but it is never time to
marry any man one does not love, because such a deed can never be
undone. Richard may be a delusion of my brain. But how dull is reality!
What a curse is a heart! With all to make me happy I pine and hanker for
him, my other half, to fill this void, for I feel as if I were not
complete. Is it wrong to want some one to love more than one’s father
and mother—one on whom to lavish one’s best feelings? What will my life
be alone? I cannot marry any of the insignificant beings round me. Where
are all those men who inspired the _grandes passions_ of bygone days? Is
the race extinct? Is Richard the last of them? Even so, is he for me?
They point out the matches I might make if I took the trouble, but the
trouble I will not take. I have no vocation to be a nun. I do not
consider myself good enough to offer to God. God created me with a warm
heart, a vivid imagination, and strong passions; God has given me food
for hunger, drink for thirst, but no companion for my loneliness of
heart. If I could only be sure of dying at forty, and until then
preserve youth, health, spirits, and good looks, I should be more
cheerful to remain as I am. I cannot separate myself from all thought of
Richard. Neither do I expect God to work a miracle to make me happy. To
me there are three kinds of marriage: first, worldly ambition; that is,
marriage for fortune, title, estates, society; secondly, love; that is,
the usual pig and cottage; thirdly, life, which is my ideal of being a
companion and wife, a life of travel, adventure, and danger, seeing and
learning, with love to glorify it; that is what I seek. _L’amour n’y
manquerait pas!_
“A sailor leaves his wife for years, and is supposed to be unfaithful to
her by necessity. The typical sportsman breakfasts and goes out, comes
home to dinner, falls asleep over his port, tumbles into bed, and snores
till morning. An idle and independent man who lives in society is often
a _roué_, a gambler, or drunkard, whose wife is deserted for a
_danseuse_.
“One always pictures the ‘proper man’ to be a rich, fat, mild lordling,
living on his estate, whence, as his lady, one might rise to be a leader
of Almack’s. But I am much mistaken if I do not deserve a better fate. I
could not live like a vegetable in the country. I cannot picture myself
in a white apron, with a bunch of keys, scolding my maids, counting eggs
and butter, with a good and portly husband (I detest fat men!) with a
broad-brimmed hat and a large stomach. And I should not like to marry a
country squire, nor a doctor, nor a lawyer (I hear the parchments
crackle now), nor a parson, nor a clerk in a London office. God help me!
A dry crust, privations, pain, danger for him I love would be better.
Let me go with the husband of my choice to battle, nurse him in his
tent, follow him under the fire of ten thousand muskets. I would be his
companion through hardship and trouble, nurse him if wounded, work for
him in his tent, prepare his meals when faint, his bed when weary, and
be his guardian angel of comfort—a felicity too exquisite for words!
There is something in some women that seems born for the knapsack. How
many great thoughts are buried under ordinary circumstances, and
splendid positions exist that are barren of them—thoughts that are
stifled from a feeling that they are too bold to be indulged in! I thank
God for the blessed gift of imagination, though it may be a source of
pain. It counteracts the monotony of life. One cannot easily quit a
cherished illusion, though it disgusts one with ordinary life. Who has
ever been so happy in reality as in imagination? And how unblessed are
those who have no imagination, unless they obtain their wishes in
reality! I do not obtain, so I seek them in illusion. Sometimes I think
I am not half grateful enough to my parents, I do not half enough for
them, considering what they are to me. Although we are not wealthy, what
do I lack, and what kindness do I not receive? Yet I seem in a hurry to
leave them. There is nothing I would not do to add to their comfort, and
it would grieve me to the heart to forsake them; and yet if I knew for
certain that I should never have my wish, I should repine sadly. I love
a good daughter, and a good daughter makes a good wife. How can I
reconcile all these things in my mind? I am miserable, afraid to hope,
and yet I dare not despair when I look at the state of my heart. But one
side is so heavy as nearly to sink the other, and thus my _beaux jours_
will pass away, and my Ideal Lover will not then think me worth his
while. Shall I never be at rest with him to love and understand me, to
tell every thought and feeling, in far different scenes from these—under
canvas before Rangoon—anywhere in Nature?
“I would have every woman marry; not merely liking a man well enough to
accept him for a husband, as some of our mothers teach us, and so cause
many unhappy marriages, but loving him so holily that, wedded or not
wedded, she feels she is his wife at heart. But perfect love, like
perfect beauty, is rare. I would have her so loyal, that, though she
sees all his little faults herself, she takes care no one else sees
them; yet she would as soon think of loving him less for them as ceasing
to look up to heaven because there were a few clouds in the sky. I would
have her so true, so fond, that she needs neither to burthen him with
her love nor vex him with her constancy, since both are self-existent,
and entirely independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she
will not marry him for liking, esteem, gratitude for his love, but from
the fulness of her own love. If Richard and I never marry, God will
cause us to meet in the next world; we cannot be parted; we belong to
one another. Despite all I have seen of false, foolish, weak
attachments, unholy marriages, the after-life of which is rendered
unholier still by struggling against the inevitable, still I believe in
the one true love that binds a woman’s heart faithful to one man in this
life, and, God grant it, in the next. All this I am and could be for one
man. But how worthless should I be to any other man but Richard Burton!
I should love Richard’s wild, roving, vagabond life; and as I am young,
strong, and hardy, with good nerves, and no fine notions, I should be
just the girl for him; I could never love any one who was not daring and
spirited. I always feel inclined to treat the generality of men just
like my own sex. I am sure I am not born for a jog-trot life; I am too
restless and romantic. I believe my sister and I have now as much
excitement and change as most girls, and yet I find everything slow. I
long to rush round the world in an express; I feel as if I shall go mad
if I remain at home. Now with a soldier of fortune, and a soldier at
heart, one would go everywhere, and lead a life worth living. What
others dare I can dare. And why should I not? I feel that we women
simply are born, marry, and die. Who misses us? Why should we not have
some useful, active life? Why, with spirits, brains, and energies, are
women to exist upon worsted work and household accounts? It makes me
sick, and I will not do it.”
In the meantime Richard Burton, all unconscious of the love he had
inspired, had gone on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca. As we have seen,
he was home from India on a long furlough; but his active mind revolted
against the tame life he was leading, and craved for adventure and
excitement. He was not of the stuff to play the part of _petit maître_
in the second-rate society of Boulogne. So he determined to carry out
his long-cherished project of studying the “inner life of Moslem,” a
task for which he possessed unique qualifications. Therefore, soon after
the Arundells had left Boulogne, he made up his mind to go to Mecca. He
obtained a year’s further leave to carry out his daring project. In 1853
he left England disguised as a Persian Mirza, a disguise which he
assumed with so much success that, when he landed at Alexandria, he was
recognized and blessed as a true Moslem by the native population. From
Alexandria he went to Cairo disguised as a dervish, and lived there some
months as a native. Thence he travelled to Suez, and crossed in an open
boat with a party of Arab pilgrims to Yambú. The rest of his dare-devil
adventures and hair-breadth escapes—how he attached himself to the
Damascus caravan and journeyed with the pilgrims to Mecca in spite of
the fiery heat and the scorching sands, how he braved many dangers and
the constant dread of “detection”—is written by him in his _Pilgrimage
to Mecca and El Medinah_, and is touched upon again in Lady Burton’s
Life of her husband. The story needs no re-telling here. Suffice it to
say that Burton was the first man not a Mussulman who penetrated to the
innermost sanctuary of Moslem, and saw the shrine where the coffin of
Mohammed swings between heaven and earth. He did the circumambulation at
the Harem; he was admitted to the house of our Lord; he went to the well
Zemzem, the holy water of Mecca; he visited Ka’abah, the holy grail of
the Moslems, and kissed the famous black stone; he spent the night in
the Mosque; and he journeyed to Arafat and saw the reputed tomb of Adam.
He was not a man to do things by halves, and he inspected Mecca
thoroughly, absolutely _living the life_ of the Mussulman, adopting the
manners, eating the food, wearing the clothes, conforming to the ritual,
joining in the prayers and sacrifices, and speaking the language. He did
all this, literally carrying his life in his hand, for at any moment he
might have been detected—one false step, one hasty word, one prayer
unsaid, one trifling custom of the shibboleth omitted, and the dog of an
infidel who had dared to profane the sanctuary of Mecca and Medinah
would have been found out, and his bones would have whitened the desert
sand. Quite apart from the physical fatigue, the mental strain must have
been acute. But Burton survived it all, and departed from Mecca as he
came, slowly wending his way with a caravan across the desert to Jeddah,
whence he returned up the Red Sea to Egypt. There he sojourned for a
space; but his leave being up, he returned to Bombay.
[Illustration: BURTON ON HIS PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA.]
The news of his marvellous pilgrimage was soon noised abroad, and
travelled home; all sorts of rumours flew about, though it was not until
the following year that his book, giving a full and detailed account of
his visit to Mecca, came out. Burton’s name was on the lips of many. But
he was in India, and did not come home to reap the reward of his daring,
nor did he know that one faithful heart was full of joy and thanksgiving
at his safety and pride at his renown. He did not know that the “little
girl” he had met now and again casually at Boulogne was thinking of him
every hour of the day, dreaming of him every night, praying every
morning and evening and at the altar of her Lord, with all the fervour
of her pure soul, that God would keep him now and always, and bring him
back safe and sound, and in His own good time teach him to love her. He
did not know. How could he? He had not yet sounded the height, depth,
and breadth of a woman’s love. And yet, who shall say that her
supplications were unheeded before the throne of God? Who shall say that
it was not Isabel’s prayers, quite as much as Richard Burton’s skill and
daring, which shielded him from danger and detection and carried him
safe through all?
In Isabel’s diary at this time there occurs the following note:
“Richard has just come back with flying colours from Mecca; but instead
of coming home, he has gone to Bombay to rejoin his regiment. I glory in
his glory. God be thanked!”
Then a sense of desolation and hopelessness sweeps over her soul, for
she writes:
“But I am alone and unloved. Love can illumine the dark roof of poverty,
and can lighten the fetters of a slave; the most miserable position of
humanity is tolerable with its support, and the most splendid irksome
without its inspiration. Whatever harsher feelings life may develop,
there is no one whose brow will not grow pensive at some tender
reminiscence, whose heart will not be touched. Oh if I could but go
through life trusting one faithful heart and pressing one dear hand! Is
there no hope for me? I am so full of faith. Is there no pity for so
much love? It makes my heart ache, this future of desolation and
distress; it ever flits like the thought of death before my eyes. There
is no more joy for me; the lustre of life is gone. How swiftly my sorrow
followed my joy! I can laugh, dance, and sing as others do, but there is
a dull gnawing always at my heart that wearies me. There is an end of
love for me, and of all the bright hopes that make the lives of other
girls happy and warm and pleasant.”
Burton did not stay long at Bombay after he rejoined his regiment. He
was not popular in it, and he disliked the routine. Something of the old
prejudice against him in certain quarters was revived. The East India
Company, in whose service he was, had longed wished to explore Harar in
Somaliland, Abyssinia; but it was inhabited by a very wild and savage
people, and no white man had ever dared to enter it. So it was just the
place for Richard Burton, and he persuaded the Governor of Bombay to
sanction an expedition to Harar; and with three companions, Lieutenant
Herne, Lieutenant Stroyan, and Lieutenant Speke, he started for Harar.
From her watch-tower afar off, Isabel, whose ceaseless love followed him
night and day, notes:
“And now Richard has gone to Harar, a deadly expedition or a most
dangerous one, and I am full of sad forebodings. Will he never come
home? How strange it all is, and how I still trust in Fate! The Crimean
War is declared, and troops begin to go out.”
When Burton’s little expedition arrived at Aden _en route_ for Harar,
the four men who composed it parted and resolved to enter Harar by
different ways. Speke failed; Herne and Stroyan succeeded. Burton
reserved for himself the post of danger. Harar was as difficult to enter
as Mecca; there was a tradition there that when the first white man
entered the city Harar would fall. Nevertheless, after a journey of four
months through savage tribes and the desert, Burton entered it disguised
as an Arab merchant, and stayed there ten days.[6] He returned to Aden.
Five weeks later he got up a new expedition to Harar on a much larger
scale, with which he wanted to proceed Nilewards. The expedition sailed
for Berberah. Arriving there, the four leaders, Burton, Speke, Stroyan,
and Herne, went ashore and pitched their tent, leaving the others on
board. At night they were surprised by more than three hundred Somali,
and after desperate fighting cut their way back to the boat. Stroyan was
killed, Herne untouched, and Speke and Burton wounded.
A little later the following note occurs in Isabel’s diary:
“We got the news of Richard’s magnificent ride to Harar, of his staying
ten days in Harar, of his wonderful ride back, his most daring
expedition, and then we heard of the dreadful attack by the natives in
his tent, and how Stroyan was killed, Herne untouched, Speke with eleven
wounds, and Richard with a lance through his jaw. They escaped in a
native dhow to Aden, and it was doubtful whether Richard would recover.
Doubtless this is the danger alluded to by the clairvoyant, and the
cause of my horrible dreams concerning him about the time it happened. I
hope to Heaven he will not go back! How can I be grateful enough for his
escape!”
Burton did not go back. He was so badly wounded that he had to return to
England on sick leave, and sorely discomfited. Here his wounds soon
healed, and he regained his health. He read an account of his journey to
Harar before the Royal Geographical Society; but the paper attracted
little or no attention, one reason being that the public interest was at
that time absorbed in the Crimean War. Strange to say, the paper, until
it was over, did not reach the ears of Isabel, nor did she once see the
man on whom all her thoughts were fixed during his stay in England. It
was of course impossible for her to take the initiative. Moreover,
Burton was invalided most of the time, and in London but little. His
visit to England was a short one. After a month’s rest he obtained
leave—after considerable difficulty, for he was no favourite with the
War Office—to start for the Crimea, and reached there in October, 1854.
He had some difficulty in obtaining a post, but at last he became
attached to General Beatson’s staff, and was the organizer of the
Irregular Cavalry (Beatson’s Horse: the Bashi-bazouks), a fact duly
noted in Isabel’s diary.
The winter of 1854–55 was a terrible one for our troops in the Crimea,
and public feeling in England was sorely exercised by the account of
their sufferings and privations. The daughters of England were not
backward in their efforts to aid the troops. Florence Nightingale and
her staff of nurses were doing their noble work in the army hospitals at
Scutari; and it was characteristic of Isabel that she should move heaven
and earth to join them. In her journal at this time we find the
following:
“It has been an awful winter in the Crimea. I have given up reading the
_Times_; it makes me so miserable, and one is so impotent. I have made
three struggles to be allowed to join Florence Nightingale. How I envy
the women who are allowed to go out as nurses! I have written again and
again to Florence Nightingale; but the superintendent has answered me
that I am too young and inexperienced, and will not do.”
But she could not be idle. She could not sit with folded hands and think
of her dear one and her brave countrymen out yonder suffering untold
privations, and do nothing. It was not enough for her to weep and hope
and pray. So the next thing she thought of was a scheme for aiding the
almost destitute wives and families of the soldiers, a work which, if
she had done nothing else, should be sufficient to keep her memory
green, prompted as it was by that generous, loving heart of hers, which
ever found its chiefest happiness in doing good to others. She thus
describes her scheme:
“I set to work to form a girls’ club composed of girls. My plan was to
be some little use at home. First it was called the ‘Whistle Club,’
because we all had tiny silver whistles; and then we changed it to the
‘Stella Club,’ in honour of the morning star—my star. Our principal
object was to do good at home amongst the destitute families of soldiers
away in the Crimea; to do the same things as those we would have done if
we had the chance out yonder amongst the soldiers themselves. We started
a subscription soup-cauldron and a clothing collection, and we got from
the different barracks a list of the women and their children married,
with or without leave. We ascertained their real character and
situations, and no destitute woman was to be left out, nor any
difference made on account of religion. The women were to have
employment; the children put to schools according to their respective
religions, and sent to their own churches. Lodging, food, and clothes
were given according to our means, and words of comfort to all, teaching
the poor creatures to trust in God for themselves and their husbands at
the war—the only One from whom we could all expect mercy. We undertook
the wives and families of all regiments of the Lifeguards and Blues and
the three Guards’ regiments. We went the rounds twice a week, and met at
the club once a week. There were three girls to each locality; all of us
dressed plainly and behaved very quietly, and acknowledged no
acquaintances while going our rounds. We carried this out to the letter,
and I cannot attempt to describe the scenes of misery we saw, nor the
homes that we saved, nor the gratitude of the soldiers later when they
returned from the war and found what we had done. It has been a most
wonderful success, and I am very happy at having been of some use. The
girls responded to the rules, which were rigorously carried out; and
when I look at my own share of the business, and multiply that by a
hundred and fifty girls, I think the good done must have been great. In
ten days, by shillings and sixpences, I alone collected a hundred
guineas, not counting what the others did. My beat contained one hundred
women of all creeds and situations, and about two hundred children. I
spared no time nor exertions over and above the established rules. I
read and wrote their letters, visited the sick and dying, and did a
number of other things.
“I know now the misery of London, and in making my rounds I could give
details that would come up to some of the descriptions in _The Mysteries
of Paris_ or a shilling shocker. In many cellars, garrets, and courts
policemen warned me not to enter, and told me that four or five of them
could not go in without being attacked; but I always said to them, ‘You
go to catch some rogue, but I go to take the women something; they will
not hurt me; but I should be glad if you waited outside in case I do not
come out again.’ But the ruffians hanging about soon learnt my errand,
and would draw back, touch their caps, move anything out of my way, and
give me a kind good-day as I passed, or show me to any door that I was
not sure of. Some people have been a little hard on me for being the
same to the fallen women as to the good ones. But I do hate the way we
women come down upon each other. Those who are the loudest in severity
are generally the first to fall when temptation comes: and who of us
might not do so but for God’s grace? I like simplicity and large-minded
conduct in all things, whether it be in a matter of religion or heart or
the world, and I think the more one knows the simpler one acts. I have
the consolation of knowing that all the poor women are now doing well
and earning an honest livelihood, the children fed, clothed and lodged,
educated and brought up in the fear and love of God, and in many a
soldier’s home my name is coupled with a blessing and a prayer. They
send me a report of themselves now once a month, and I love the salute
of many an honest and brave fellow as he passes me in the street with
his medal and clasps, and many have said, ‘But for you I should have
found no home on my return.’”
After the fall of Sebastopol the war was virtually at an end, and the
allied armies wintered amid its ruins. The treaty of peace was signed
at Paris on March 30, 1856. Five months before the signing of the
treaty Richard Burton returned home with General Beatson, his
commander-in-chief, who was then involved in an unfortunate
controversy. An evil genius seemed to follow Burton’s military career,
and it pursued him from India to the Crimea. He managed to enrage Lord
Stratford so much that he called him “the most impudent man in the
Bombay army.” He was certainly one of the most unlucky, even in his
choice of chiefs. Sir Charles Napier, under whom he served in India,
was far from popular with his superiors; and General Beatson was
always in hot water. The Beatson trial was the result of one of the
many muddles which arose during the Crimean War; it took place in
London in the spring (1856), and Burton gave evidence in favour of his
chief. But this is by the way. What we are chiefly concerned with is
the following line in Isabel’s diary, written soon after his return to
England:
“I hear that Richard has come home, and is in town. God be praised!”
That which followed will be told in her own words.
CHAPTER VI
_RICHARD LOVES ME_
(1856–1857)
Daughter of nobles, who thine aim shalt gain,
Hear gladdest news, nor fear aught hurt or bane.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
Now this is what occurred. When Richard was well home from the Crimea,
and had attended Beatson’s trial, he began to turn his attention to the
“Unveiling of Isis”; in other words, to discover the sources of the
Nile, the lake regions of Central Africa, on which his heart had long
been set; and he passed most of his time in London working it up.
We did not meet for some months after his return, though we were both in
London, he planning his Central African expedition, and I involved in
the gaieties of the season; for we had a gay season that year, every one
being glad that the war was over. In June I went to Ascot. There, amid
the crowd of the racecourse, I met Hagar Burton, the gypsy, for the
first time after many years, and I shook hands with her. “Are you Daisy
Burton yet?” was her first question. I shook my head. “Would to God I
were!” Her face lit up. “Patience; it is just coming.” She waved her
hand, for at that moment she was rudely thrust from the carriage. I
never saw her again, but I was engaged to Richard two months later. It
came in this wise.
One fine day in August I was walking in the Botanical Gardens with my
sister. Richard was there. We immediately stopped and shook hands, and
asked each other a thousand questions of the four intervening years; and
all the old Boulogne memories and feelings returned to me. He asked me
if I came to the Gardens often. I said, “Oh yes, we always come and read
and study here from eleven to one, because it is so much nicer than
studying in the hot room at this season.” “That is quite right,” he
said. “What are you studying?” I held up the book I had with me that
day, an old friend, Disraeli’s _Tancred_, the book of my heart and
taste, which he explained to me. We were in the Gardens about an hour,
and when I had to leave he gave me a peculiar look, as he did at
Boulogne. I hardly looked at him, yet I felt it, and had to turn away.
When I got home, my mind was full of wonder and presentiment; I felt
frightened and agitated; and I looked at myself in the glass and thought
myself a fright!
Next morning we went to the Botanical Gardens again. When we got there,
he was there too, alone, composing some poetry to show to Monckton
Milnes on some pet subject. He came forward, and said laughingly, “You
won’t chalk up ‘Mother will be angry,’ as you did when you were at
Boulogne, when I used to want to speak to you.” So we walked and talked
over old times and people and things in general.
About the third day his manner gradually altered towards me; we had
begun to know each other, and what might have been an ideal love before
was now a reality. This went on for a fortnight. I trod on air.
At the end of a fortnight he stole his arm round my waist, and laid his
cheek against mine and asked me, “Could you do anything so sickly as to
give up civilization? And if I can get the Consulate of Damascus, will
you marry me and go and live there?” He said, “Do not give me an answer
now, because it will mean a very serious step for you—no less than
giving up your people and all that you are used to, and living the sort
of life that Lady Hester Stanhope led. I see the capabilities in you,
but you must think it over.” I was long silent from emotion; it was just
as if the moon had tumbled down and said, “You have cried for me for so
long that I have come.” But he, who did not know of my long love,
thought I was thinking worldly thoughts, and said, “Forgive me; I ought
not to have asked so much.” At last I found voice, and said, “I do not
want to think it over—I have been thinking it over for six years, ever
since I first saw you at Boulogne. I have prayed for you every morning
and night, I have followed all your career minutely, I have read every
word you ever wrote, and I would rather have a crust and a tent with you
than be queen of all the world; and so I say now, ‘Yes, _yes_, YES!’”
I will pass over the next few minutes....
Then he said, “Your people will not give you to me.” I answered, “I know
that, but I belong to myself—I give myself away.” “That is all right,”
he answered; “be firm, and so shall I.”
I would have suffered six years more for such a day, such a moment as
this. All past sorrow was forgotten in it. All that has been written or
said on the subject of the first kiss is trash compared to the reality.
Men might as well undertake to describe Eternity. I then told him all
about my six years since I first met him, and all that I had suffered.
When I got home, I knelt down and prayed, and my whole soul was flooded
with joy and thanksgiving. A few weeks ago I little thought what a
change would take place in my circumstances. Now I mused thus: “Truly we
never know from one half-hour to another what will happen. Life is like
travelling in an open carriage with one’s back to the horses—you see the
path, you have an indistinct notion of the sides, but none whatever of
where you are going. If ever any one had an excuse for superstition and
fatalism, I have. Was it not foretold? And now I have gained half the
desire of my life: he loves me. But the other half remains unfulfilled:
he wants to marry me! Perhaps I must not regret the misery that has
spoilt the six best years of my life. But must I wait again? What can I
do to gain the end? Nothing! My whole heart and mind is fixed on this
marriage. If I cared less, I could plan some course of action; but my
heart and head are not cool enough. Providence and fate must decide my
future. I feel all my own weakness and nothingness. I am as humble as a
little child. Richard has the upper hand now, and I feel that I have at
last met the master who can subdue me. They say it is better to marry
one who loves and is subject to you than one whose slave you are through
love. But I cannot agree to this. Where in such a case is the pleasure,
the excitement, the interest? In one sense I have no more reason to fear
for my future, now that the load of shame, wounded pride, and unrequited
affection is lifted from my brow and soul. He loves me—that is enough
to-day.”
After this Richard visited a little at our house as an acquaintance,
having been introduced at Boulogne; and he fascinated, amused, and
pleasantly shocked my mother, but completely magnetized my father and
all my brothers and sisters. My father used to say, “I do not know what
it is about that man, but I cannot get him out of my head; I dream about
him every night.”
Richard and I had one brief fortnight of uninterrupted happiness, and
were all in all to each other; but inasmuch as he was to go away
directly on his African journey with Speke to the future lake regions of
Central Africa, we judged it ill advised to announce the engagement to
my mother, for it would have brought a hornets’ nest about our heads,
and not furthered our cause—and, besides, we were afraid of my being
sent away, or of being otherwise watched and hindered from our meeting;
so we agreed to keep it a secret until he came back. The worst of it all
was, that I was unable, first, by reason of no posts from a certain
point, and, secondly, by the certainty of having his letters opened and
read, to receive many letters from him, and those only the most
cautious; but I could write to him as freely as possible, and send them
to the centres where his mail-bags would be sent out to him. All my
happiness therefore was buried deep in my heart, but always was chained.
I felt as if earth had passed and heaven had begun, or as if I had
hitherto been somebody else, or had lived in some other world. But even
this rose had its thorn, and that was the knowledge that our marriage
seemed very far off. The idea of waiting for willing parents and a
grateful country appeared so distant that I should scarcely be worth the
having by the time all obstacles were removed. Richard too was exercised
about how I should be able to support his hard life, and whether a woman
could really do it. Another sorrow was that I had to be prepared to lose
him at any moment, as he might have to quit at a moment’s notice on
receiving certain information.
I gave him Hagar Burton’s horoscope, written in Romany—the horoscope of
my future. One morning (October 3) I went to meet him as usual, and we
agreed to meet the following morning. He had traced for me a little
sketch of what he expected to find in the lake regions, and I placed
round his neck a medal of the Blessed Virgin upon a steel chain, which
we Catholics commonly call “the miraculous medal.” He promised me he
would wear it throughout his journey, and show it me on his return. I
had offered it to him on a gold chain, but he said, “Take away the gold
chain; they will cut my throat for it out there.” He showed me the steel
chain round his neck when he came back; he wore it all his life, and it
is buried with him. He also gave me a little poem:
I wore thine image, Fame,
Within a heart well fit to be thy shrine;
Others a thousand boons may gain—
One wish was mine:
The hope to gain one smile,
To dwell one moment cradled on thy breast,
Then close my eyes, bid life farewell,
And take my rest!
And now I see a glorious hand
Beckon me out of dark despair,
Hear a glorious voice command,
“Up, bravely dare!
And if to leave a deeper trace
On earth to thee Time, Fate, deny,
Drown vain regrets, and have the grace
Silent to die.”
She pointed to a grisly land,
Where all breathes death—earth, sea, and air;
Her glorious accents sound once more,
“Go meet me there.”
Mine ear will hear no other sound,
No other thought my heart will know.
Is this a sin? “Oh, pardon, Lord!
Thou mad’st me so!”
R. F. B.
The afternoon on which I last met him was the afternoon of the same day.
He came to call on my mother. We only talked formally. I thought I was
going to see him on the morrow. It chanced that we were going to the
play that night. I begged of him to come, and he said he would if he
could, but that if he did not, I was to know that he had some heavy
business to transact. When I had left him in the morning, I little
thought it was the last kiss, or I could never have said good-bye, and I
suppose he knew that and wished to spare me pain. How many little things
I could have said or done that I did not! We met of course before my
mother only as friends. He appeared to me to be agitated, and I could
not account for his agitation. He stayed about an hour; and when he left
I said purposely, “I hope we shall see you on your return from Africa,”
and almost laughed outright, because I thought we should meet on the
morrow. He gave me a long, long look at the door, and I ran out on the
balcony and kissed my hand to him, and thus thoughtlessly took my last
look, quite unprepared for what followed.
I went to the theatre that evening quite happy, and expected him. At
10.30 I thought I saw him at the other side of the house looking into
our box. I smiled, and made a sign for him to come. I then ceased to see
him; the minutes passed, and he did not come. Something cold struck my
heart; I felt that I should not see him again, and I moved to the back
of the box, and, unseen, the tears streamed down my face. The old
proverb kept haunting me like an air one cannot get out of one’s head,
“There’s many a true word spoken in jest.” The piece was _Pizarro_, and
happily for me Cora was bewailing her husband’s loss on the stage, and
as I am invariably soft at tragedy my distress caused no sensation.
I passed a feverish, restless night; I could not sleep; I felt that I
could not wait till morning—I must see him. At last I dozed and started
up, but I touched nothing, yet dreamt I could feel his arms round me. I
understood him, and he said, “I am going now, my poor girl. My time is
up, and I have gone; but I will come again—I shall be back in less than
three years. I am your Destiny.”
He pointed to the clock, and it was two. He held up a letter, looked at
me long with those gypsy eyes of his, put the letter down on the table,
and said in the same way, “That is for your sister—not for you.” He went
to the door, gave me another of those long peculiar looks, and I saw him
no more.
I sprang out of bed to the door into the passage (there was nothing),
and thence I went to the room of one of my brothers, in whom I confided.
I threw myself on the ground and cried my heart out. He got up and asked
what ailed me, and tried to soothe and comfort me. “Richard is gone to
Africa,” I said, “and I shall not see him for three years.” “Nonsense,”
he replied; “you have only got a nightmare; it was that lobster you had
for supper; you told me he was coming to-morrow.” “So I did,” I sobbed;
“but I have seen him in a dream, and he told me he had gone; and if you
will wait till the post comes in, you will see that I have told you
truly.”
I sat all night in my brother’s armchair, and at eight o’clock in the
morning when the post came in there was a letter for my sister Blanche,
enclosing one for me. Richard had found it too painful to part from me,
and thought we should suffer less that way; he begged her to break it
gently to me, and to give me the letter, which assured me we should be
reunited in 1859, as we were on May 22 that year. He had received some
secret information, which caused him to leave England at once and
quietly, lest he should be detained as witness at some trial. He had
left his lodgings in London at 10.30 the preceding evening (when I saw
him in the theatre), and sailed at two o’clock from Southampton (when I
saw him in my room).
I believe there is a strong sympathy between some people (it was not so
well known then, but it is quite recognized now)—so strong that, if they
concentrate their minds on each other at a particular moment and at the
same time, and each wills strongly to be together, the will can produce
this effect, though we do not yet understand how or why. When I could
collect my scattered senses, I sat down and wrote to Richard all about
this, in the event of my being able to send it to him.
But to return. At 8.30 Blanche came into the room with the letter I have
mentioned, to break the sad news to me. “Good heavens!” she said, “what
has happened to you? You look dreadful!” “Richard is gone!” I gasped
out. “How did you know?” she asked. “Because I saw him here in the
night!” “That will do you the most good now,” she said. The tears came
into her eyes as she put a letter from Richard into my hand, enclosed in
one to herself, the one I had seen in the night. The letter was a great
comfort to me, and I wore it round my neck in a little bag. Curiously
enough I had to post my letter to him to Trieste—the place where in
after-life we spent many years—by his direction. It was the last
exertion I was capable of; the next few days I spent in my bed.
My happiness had been short and bright, and now I had to look forward to
three years of my former patient endurance, only with this great change:
before I was unloved and had no hope; now the shame of loving unasked
was taken from me, and I had the happiness of being loved, and some
future to look forward to. When I got a little better, I wrote the
following reflections to myself:
“A woman feels raised by the love of a man to whom she has given her
whole heart, but not if she feels that she loves and does not respect,
or that he fails in some point, and for such-and-such reasons she would
not marry him. But when she loves without reserve, she holds her head
more proudly, from the consciousness of being loved by him—no matter
what the circumstances. So I felt with Richard, for he is above all
men—so noble, so manly, with such a perfect absence of all meanness and
hypocrisy. It is true I was captivated at first sight; but his immense
talents and adventurous life compelled interest, and a mastermind like
his exercises influence over all around it. But I _love_ him, because I
find in him depth of feeling, a generous heart, and because, though
brave as a lion, he is yet a gentle, delicate, sensitive nature, and the
soul of honour. Also he is calculated to appear as something unique and
romantic in a woman’s eyes, especially because he unites the wild,
lawless creature and the gentleman. He is the latter in every sense of
the word, a stamp of the man of the world of the best sort, for he has
seen things without the artificial atmosphere of St. James’s as well as
within it. I worship ambition. Fancy achieving a good which affects
millions, making your name a national name! It is infamous the way half
the men in the world live and die, and are never missed, and, like a
woman, leave nothing behind them but a tombstone. By ambition I mean men
who have the will and power to change the face of things. I wish I were
a man: if I were, I would be Richard Burton. But as I am a woman, I
would be Richard Burton’s wife. I love him purely, passionately, and
devotedly: there is no void in my heart; it is at rest for ever with
him. For six years this has been part of my nature, part of myself, the
basis of all my actions, even part of my religion; my whole soul is
absorbed in it. I have given my every feeling to him, and kept back
nothing for myself or the world; and I would this moment sacrifice and
leave all to follow his fortunes, were it his wish, or for his good.
Whatever the world may condemn in him of lawless actions or strong
opinions, whatever he is to the world, he is perfect to me; and I would
not have him otherwise than he is—except in spiritual matters. This last
point troubles me. I have been brought up strictly, and have been given
clear ideas on all subjects of religion and principle, and have always
tried to live up to them. When I am in his presence, I am not myself—he
makes me for the time see things with his own eyes, like a fever or a
momentary madness; and when I am alone again, I recall my own belief and
ways of thinking, which remain unchanged, and am frightened at my weak
wavering and his dangerous but irresistible society. He is gone; but had
I the chance now, I would give years of my life to hear that dear voice
again, with all its devilry. I have no right to love a man who calls
himself a complete materialist, who has studied almost, I might say,
beyond the depth of knowledge, who professes to acknowledge no God, no
law, human or divine. Yet I do feel a close suspicion that he has much
more feeling and belief than he likes to have the credit of.”
After Richard was gone I got a letter from him dated from Bruges,
October 9, telling me to write to Trieste, and that he would write from
Trieste and Bombay. I sent three letters to Trieste and six to Bombay.
He asked me if I was offended at his abrupt departure. Ah, no! I take
the following from my diary of that time:
“I have now got into a state of listening for every post, every knock
making the heart bound, and the sickening disappointment that ensues
making it sink; but I say to myself, ‘If I am true, nothing can harm
me.’ My delight is to sit down and write to him all and everything, just
as it enters my head, as I would if I were with him. My letters are half
miserable, half jocose, for I do not want to put him out of spirits,
whatever I may be myself. I feel that my letters are a sort of mixture
of love, trust, anger, faith, sarcasm, tenderness, bullying, melancholy,
all mixed up.... He has arrived at Alexandria.... At any rate my heart
and affections are my own to give, I rob no one, and so I will remain. I
have a happy home, family, society, all I want, and I shall not clip my
wings of liberty except for him, whatever my lot may be. I love and am
loved, and so strike a balance in favour of existence. No gilded misery
for me. I was born for love, and require it as air and light. Whatever
harshness the future may bring, he has loved me, and my future is bound
up in him with all consequences. My jealous heart spurns all compromise;
it must have its purpose or break. He thinks he is sacrificing me; but I
want pain, privations, danger with him. I have the constitution and
nerves for it. There are few places I could not follow my husband, and
be to him companion, friend, wife, and all. Where I could not so follow
him, I would not be a clog to him, for I am tolerably independent.”
Our friends used sometimes to talk about Richard at this time and his
expedition. Whilst they discussed him as a public man, I was in
downright pain lest they should say something that I should not like.
Father told them that he was a friend of ours. I then practised
discussing him with the greatest _sang froid_, and of course gave a
vivid description of him, which inspired great interest. His books,
travels, and adventures were talked of by many. I told Richard in one
letter that it was the case of the mouse and the lion; but I teased him
by saying that when the mouse had nibbled a hole big enough the lion
forgot him because he was so small, and put his big paw on him and
crushed him altogether. I knew that his hobby was reputation; he was
great in the literary world, men’s society, clubs, and the Royal
Geographical Society. But I wished him also to be great in the world of
fashion, where my despised sex is paramount. I also knew that if a man
gets talked about in the right kind of way in handfuls of the best
society, here and there, his fame quickly spreads. I had plenty of
opportunities to help him in this way without his knowing it, and great
was the pleasure. Again I fall back on my journal:
“I beg from God morning and night that Richard may return safe. Will the
Almighty grant my prayer? I will not doubt, whether I hear from him or
not. I believe that we often meet in spirit and often look at the same
star. I have no doubt he often thinks of me; and when he returns and
finds how faithful I have been, all will be right. There is another life
if I lose this, and there is always La Trappe left for the
brokenhearted.
“_Christmas Day, 1856._—I was delighted to hear father and mother
praising Richard to-day; mother said he was so clever and agreeable and
she liked him so much, and they both seemed so interested about him.
They little knew how much they gratified me. I was reading a book; but
when the time came to put it away, I found it had been upside-down all
the time, so I fancy I was more absorbed in their conversation than its
contents. I have been trying to make out when it is midnight in Eastern
Africa, and when the morning star shines there, and I have made out that
at 10 p.m. it is midnight there, and the morning star shines on him two
hours before it does on me.
“_January 2, 1857._—I see by the papers that Richard left Bombay for
Zanzibar with Lieutenant Speke on December 2 last. I am struck by the
remembrance that it was on that very night that I was so ill and
delirious. I dreamt I saw him sailing away and he spoke to me, but I
thought my brain throbbed so loud that I could not hear him. I was quite
taken off my guard to-day on hearing the news read out from the _Times_,
so that even my mother asked me what was the matter. I have not had a
letter; I might get one in a fortnight; but I must meet this uncertainty
with confidence, and not let my love be dependent on any action of his,
because he is a strange man and not as other men.
“_January 18._—Unless to-morrow’s mail brings me a letter, my hope is
gone. What is the cause of his silence I cannot imagine. If he had not
said he would write, I could understand it. But nothing shall alter my
course. It is three months since he left, and I have only had two
letters; yet I feel confident that Richard will be true, and I will try
to deserve what I desire, so that I shall always have self-consolation.
My only desire is that he may return safe to me with changed religious
feelings, and that I may be his wife with my parents’ consent. Suspense
is a trial which I must bear for two years without a murmur. I must
trust and pray to God; I must keep my faith in Him, and live a quiet
life, employ myself only in endeavouring to make myself worthy; and
surely this conduct will bring its reward.”
CHAPTER VII
_MY CONTINENTAL TOUR: ITALY_
(1857–1858)
Leave thy home for abroad an wouldst rise on high,
And travel whence benefits fivefold arise—
The soothing of sorrow and winning of bread,
Knowledge, manners, and commerce with good men and wise;
And they say that in travel are travail and care,
And disunion of friends and much hardship that tries.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
In August, 1857, nearly a year after Richard had gone, my sister Blanche
married Mr. Smyth Pigott, of Brockley Court, Somerset, and after the
honeymoon was over they asked me to travel abroad with them. I was glad
to go, for it helped the weary waiting for Richard, who was far away in
Central Africa.
On September 30 we all took a farewell dinner together, and were very
much inclined to choke over it, as we were about to disperse for some
time, and poor mother especially was upset at losing her two girls. On
that occasion she indulged in a witticism. She told me that she had
heard by a little bird that I was fond of Richard; but little thinking
she was speaking anything in earnest, she said, “Well, if you marry that
man, you will have sold your birthright not for a mess of pottage, but
for Burton ale.” I quickly answered her back again, “Well, a little bird
told me that you were ordered an immense quantity of it all the time you
were in the family way with me, so that if anything does happen we shall
call it heredity,” upon which we both laughed. We all left home at six
o’clock for London Bridge Station: we—my sister, her husband, and
myself—to go on the journey, and the rest of the family came with us to
see us off.
We had a beautiful passage of six and a half hours, and slept in rugs on
deck. There was a splendid moon and starlight. About three o’clock in
the morning the captain made friends with me, and talked about yachting.
He had been nearly all over the world. The morning star was very
brilliant, and I always look at it with particular affection when I am
on board ship, thinking that what I love best lies under it. We got to
the station at Dieppe at 7.30 a.m.; and then ensued a tedious journey to
Paris.
The next day we drove about Paris, and then went to the Palais Royal,
Trois Frères Provenceaux, where we dined in a dear little place called a
_cabinet_, very like an opera-box. It was my first experience of that
sort of thing. The _cabinet_ overlooked the arcade and garden. We had a
most _recherché_ little dinner, and only one thing was wanting to make
it perfect enjoyment to me. The Pigotts sat together on one side of the
table, and I—alone on the other. I put a place for Richard by me. After
dinner we strolled along the principal boulevards. I can easily
understand a Parisian not liking to live out of Paris. We saw it to
great advantage that night—a beautiful moon and clear, sharp air.
This day (October 3) last year how wretched and truly miserable I was!
On the evening of this day Richard left! We drove out and went to the
Pré de Catalan, where there was music, dancing, and other performances.
We went to the opera in the evening. A _petit souper_ afterwards. This
night last year was a memorable one. If Richard be living, he will
remember me now; it was the night of my parting with him a year ago when
he went to Africa for three years.
We left Paris three days later; arrived at Lyons 7 a.m. The next morning
breakfasted, dogs and all, and were at Marseilles at 5 p.m. I should
have been glad to stay longer at Marseilles; I thought it the most
curious and picturesque place I had ever seen. We arrived just too late
for the diligence. There was no steamer. A _veterino_ was so slow, and
we could not remain till Saturday, so we did not know what to do. At
last we discovered that a French merchant vessel was going to sail at 8
o’clock p.m.; but it was a pitch-dark night, and there was a strong,
hard wind, or mistral, with the sea running very high. However, we held
a consultation, and agreed we would do it for economy; so we got our
berths, and went and dined at the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs, _table
d’hôte_, where I sat by a cousin of Billy Johnson, a traveller and
linguist. We fraternized, and he made himself as agreeable as only such
men can. After dinner we went on board, and all the passengers went down
to their berths. I dressed myself in nautical rig, and went on deck to
see all that I could. We passed the Isle d’Hyères and the Château d’If
of Monte Christo. We could not go between the rocks, owing to the
mistral. The moon arose, it blew hard, and we shipped heavy seas. The
old tub creaked and groaned and lurched, and every now and then bid fair
to stand on beam-ends. Being afraid of going to sleep, I lashed myself
to a bench; two Frenchmen joined me, one a professor of music, the other
rather a rough diamond, who could speak a mouthful of several languages,
had travelled a little, and he treated me to a description of India, and
told me all the old stories English girls hear from their military
brothers and cousins from the cradle. Every time we shipped a sea all
the French, Italian, and Spanish passengers gave prolonged howls and
clung to each other; it might have been an Irish wake. They were so
frightfully sick, poor things! It hurt my inside to hear them, and it
was worse to see them. Meanwhile my two companions and I had pleasant
conversation, not only on India, but music and Paris. By-and-by they too
gradually dropped off; so I went down and tumbled into my berth, and
slept soundly through the night.
I was aroused next morning by a steward redolent of garlic. Our maid
shared the cabin with me, and treated me to a scene like the deck of the
preceding evening. Why are maids always sick at sea, and have to be
waited on, poor things, by their mistresses who are not? There was such
a noise, such heat and smells. I slept till we were in Nice Harbour. My
sister and her husband went off to find a house; I cleared the baggage
and drove to the Hôtel Victoria, where we dined, and then went to our
new lodging.
I was not sorry to be housed, after being out two days and two nights. I
got up next morning at 6 a.m.; there was a bright, beautiful sky, a dark
blue sea, and such a lightness in the air. I went out to look about me.
Nice is a very pretty town, tolerably clean, with very high houses,
beautiful mountains, and a perfect sea, and balminess in the air. There
is something Moorish-looking about the people and place. I am told there
is no land between us and Tunis—three hundred miles!—and that when the
sirocco comes the sand from the great desert blows across the sea on to
our windows. We have an African tree in our garden. And Richard is over
there in Africa.
My favourite occupation while at Nice was sitting on the shingle with my
face to the sea and towards Africa. I hate myself because I cannot
sketch. If I could only exchange my musical talent for that, I should be
very happy. There is such a beautiful variety in the Mediterranean: one
day it looks like undulating blue glass; at others it is dark blue,
rough, and dashing, with white breakers on it; but hardly ever that dull
yellowish green as in our Channel, which makes one bilious to look at
it. The sky is glorious, so high and bright, so soft and clear, and the
only clouds you ever see are like little tufts of rose-coloured wool.
The best time to sit here is sunset. One does not see the rays so
distinctly in England; and when the sun sinks behind the hills of the
frontier, there is such a purple, red, and gold tint on the sea and sky
that many would pronounce it overdone or unnatural in a painting. A most
exquisite pink shade is cast over the hills and town. There is one nice
opera-house at Nice, one pretty church, a corso and terrace, where you
go to hear the band and eat ices in the evening; there is the reading
club at Visconti’s for ladies as well as men, where you can read and
write and meet others and enjoy yourself. (I am talking of 1857.) Our
apartments suit us very well. My portion consists of a nice lofty
bedroom, a painted ceiling, furnished in English style, a little
bathroom paved with red china, and a little sort of ante-drawing-room.
My windows look over a little garden, where the African tree is, and the
sea beyond, and beyond that again Africa and Richard.
We left Nice for Genoa at 5.30 on November 14, my sister, her husband,
and self, in the _coupé_, which was very much like being packed as
sardines—no room for legs. However, we were very jolly, only we got
rather stiff during the twenty-four hours’ journey; for we only stopped
twice—once for ten minutes at Oniglia at 4 a.m. for a cup of coffee, and
once at noon next day for half an hour at another place to dine.
However, I was too happy to grumble, having just received a letter
saying that Richard would be home in next June, 1858 (he was not home
for a year later); we smoked and chatted and slept alternately. The
Cornice road is beautiful—a wild, lonely road in the mountains, with
precipices, ravines, torrents, and passes of all descriptions: the sea
beneath us on one side, and mountains covered with snow on the other.
You seem to pass into all sorts of climates very speedily. On the land
to our left was a fine starlight sky and clear, sharp air, and on the
sea thunder and lightning and a white squall. There was always the
excitement of imagining that a brigand might come or a torrent be
impassable; but alas! not a ghost of an adventure, except once catching
a milestone. I think the Whip Club would be puzzled at the driving:
sometimes we have eleven horses, each with a different rein; to some the
drivers whistle, to others they talk. It is tiresome work crawling up
and down the mountains; but when they do get a bit of plain ground, they
seem to go ten miles an hour, tearing through narrow streets where there
seems scarcely room for a sheet of paper between the diligence and the
wall, whirling round sharp zigzag corners with not the width of a book
between the wheel and the precipice, and that at full gallop. We created
a great sensation at one of our halting-places, and indeed everywhere,
for we were in our nautical rig; and what amused the natives immensely
was that one of our terriers was a very long dog with short legs, and
they talked of the yards of dog we had with us. We at last arrived at
Genoa.
I liked Genoa far better than Nice: the sky is more Italian; the sea
looks as if it washed the town, or as if the town sprang out of it; it
is all so hilly. The town with its domes looks like white marble. The
lower range of mountains is covered with monasteries, forts, pretty
villas, and gardens; the other ranges are covered with snow. There are
six or seven fine streets, connected by a network of very narrow, oddly
paved side-streets, whose tall houses nearly meet at the top; they are
picturesque, and look like the pictures of the Turkish bazaar. Mazzini
is here, and the Government hourly expect an outbreak of the Republican
party. The troops are under arms, and a transport with twelve hundred
men from Turin and troops from Sardinia have arrived. The offer to the
Neapolitan Government to expel the exiles is the cause. The police are
hunting up Mazzini; Garibaldi is here; Lord Lyons’ squadron is hourly
expected.
I have been abroad now two months. I have had one unsatisfactory note
from Richard; he is coming back in June or July. Oh what a happiness and
what anxiety! In a few short months, please God, this dreadful
separation will be over. Pray! Pray!! _Pray!!!_
Monsieur Pernay spent an evening with me; and seeing the picture on the
wall of Richard in Meccan costume, he asked me what it was; and on my
telling him, he composed a valse on the spot, and called it “Richard in
the Desert,” and said he should compose a libretto on it. How I wish
Richard were here! It makes me quite envious when I see my sister and
her husband. I am all alone, and Richard’s place is vacant in the
opera-box, in the carriage, and everywhere. Sometimes I dream he came
back and would not speak to me, and I wake up with my pillow wet with
tears.
My first exclamation as the clock struck twelve on St. Sylvester’s
night, 1857, as we all shook hands and drank each other’s health in a
glass of punch at the Café de la Concorde, was, “This year I shall see
Richard!”
On the first Sunday of the year I went to hear Mass at Saint Philip
Neri, and then went to the post-office, where a small boy pushed up
against me and stole my beloved picture of Richard out of my pocket. I
did not feel him do it, but a horrible idea of having lost the picture
came over me. I felt for it, and it was gone! I had a beautiful gold
chain in my pocket, and a purse with £25; yet the young rascal never
touched them, but seemed to know that I should care only for the
portrait. I instantly rushed off to every crier in the town; had two
hundred _affiches_ printed and stuck up in every corner; I put a
paragraph in the papers; I asked every priest to give it out in the
pulpit; the police, the post-office, every corner of the town was
warned. Of course I pretended it was a picture of my brother. After
three agonizing days and nights an old woman brought it back, the frame
gone, the picture torn, rubbed, and smeared, which partly effaced the
expression of the face and made it look as if it knew where it had been
and how it had been defiled. The story was that her little boy had found
it in that state in a dirty alley; and thinking it was a picture of
Jesus Christ or a saint, took it home to his little brother to keep him
good when he was naughty, and threw it in their toy cupboard. A poor
priest happened to dine with this poor family, and mentioned the
_affiche_, in which the words _ufficiale Inglese_ as large as my head
appeared. The boys then produced the wreck of the portrait, and asked if
that could possibly be the article, and if it was really true that the
Signorina was willing to give so much for it; and the priest said “Yes,”
for the Signorina had wept much for the portrait of her favourite
brother who was killed in the Crimea. So it was brought, and the simple
Signorina gladly gave three napoleons to the old woman to know that she
possessed all that remained of that much-loved face. But that boy—oh
that boy!—got off scot-free, and the Signorina’s reward did not induce
any one to bring him to her. Doubtless, finding the stolen picture of no
value to him, he had maltreated it and cast it in the gutter. How I
could spank him!
We left Genoa at 9 a.m. on January 15. We wished good-bye to a crowd of
friends inside and outside the hotel. We had a clean, roomy _veterino_
with four capital little horses at the door charged with our luggage, a
capital _vetturino_ (coachman), and room for four inside and four out. A
jolly party to fill it. It was agreed we should divide the expenses,
take turns for the outside places, and be as good-humoured as possible.
Luckily for me nobody cared for the box-seat, so I always got it. The
first day we did thirty miles. Our halting-place for the day was Ruta,
where something befell me. I lost my passport at Nervi, several miles
back; a village idiot to whom I gave a penny picked it up and sold it to
a peasant woman for twelve sous, who happened to be riding on a mule
into Ruta, and halted where we were feeding. Our _vetturino_ (Emanuele)
happened to see it and recognized it in her hand, bought it back again
for twelve sous, and gave it to me. It would have been a fatal loss to
me. Soon after sunset we halted for the night at Sestri; the horses had
done enough for the day. Four or five carriages had been attacked this
winter, and there was a report of a large number of murders near Ancona,
and there was no other sleeping-place to be reached that night. We soon
had a capital fire, supper, and beds.
On this journey we planned out our day much as follows: We rose at
daybreak and started; we had breakfast in the carriage after three
hours’ drive. We passed our day in eating and drinking, laughing and
talking, smoking and sleeping, and some mooning and sentimentalizing
over the scenery: I the latter sort, and improving my Italian on the
_vetturino_. We used to halt half-way two hours for the horses to rest
and dinner, and then drive till dark where we halted for the night,
ordered fire, supper, and beds, wrote out our journals, made our
respective accounts, and smoked our cigarettes. The scenery and weather
varied every day.
We slept a night at Sestri, and went on at daybreak. This day I had a
terrible heartache; to my horror we had a leader, the ghost of a white
horse covered with sores, ridden by a fine, strapping wag of a youth,
who told me his master was rich and stingy, and did not feed him, let
alone the horse, which only had a mouthful when employed. I told him his
master would go to hell, and he assured me smilingly that he was sure
his soul was already there, and that it was only his body that was
walking about. I asked him to sell the horse to me, and let me shoot
him; but he shook his head and laughed. “You English treat your horses
better than masters treat their servants in Italy,” said he, as we
topped the mountain. At my request Emanuele gave the poor beast a feed
and sent him back, poor mass of skin and bones that it was. It was not
fit to carry a fly, and I am told it was the best horse he had. That day
our journey was a forty weary miles of black, barren ascent and descent,
amongst snowy mountains, which looked as if man or beast had never trod
there. Our halt was at Borghetto in the middle of the day. At the end of
the forty miles came a delightful surprise. We were on a magnificent
ridge of Maritime Alps covered with snow; a serpentine road led us down
into a beautiful valley and Spezzia on the sea, the beautiful Gulf. The
Croce di Malta was a comfortable little hotel. In half an hour we were
round a roaring fire with a good supper.
Next morning we took a boat and explored the Gulf, the Source d’Eau,
Lerici, where Byron and Shelley lived. That day was the Feast of Saint
Anthony; the horses were blessed, which is a very amusing sight. It was
the first night of the Carnival, and the Postilions’ Ball, to which we
were invited and went. It was full of peasant-girls and masqueraders; it
was capital fun, and we danced all night. The costumes here are very
pretty; they and the pronunciation change about every forty miles.
The day we went away we had great fun. The Magra had to be passed two
hours from Spezzia; it is a river with a bridge broken down. The
peasants, working, look for all the world like diggers at the diggings;
they are lawless enough to do anything. You get out and walk a mile
amongst them; your carriage is embarked in a barge; it wades through and
gets filled with water; the men at their pleasure upset it, or demand
eighty francs or so. However, we were all game for anything that might
occur, knowing how they treated others. Our _vetturino_ was a regular
brick—waded through with it without an accident; we walked through with
all our money about us, dressing-cases in hand, our jackets with belts
and daggers in them. One man became rather abusive; but we laughed at
him, and gave him a universal chaffing. They followed us, and were
annoying; but we swaggered along, and looked like people troubled with
mosquitoes instead of ruffians, and not given to fainting and hysterics.
So at last they were rather inclined to fraternize with us than
otherwise. I suspect that they were accustomed to timid travellers.
After this we passed Sarzana, a town of some consequence in these parts,
with a castle and fortress. The weather this day was cold and biting,
especially on the box-seat, and the scenery, except at Carrara, no great
shakes. We found Carrara in a state of siege, and the troops occupied
the hotel. Emanuele found a sort of stable, but we could get no food.
After this we proceeded by stages, and stopped some days at several
places, and made long interior excursions, which I was often too tired
to note. At last we arrived at Pisa. We had no trouble with the
_douanier_. When I entered the Tuscan frontier, I declared I would never
say another word of French; and Emanuele, who was a wag, sent all the
_douaniers_ to me; but a franc, a smile, an assurance that we had
nothing contraband, and the word was given to pass. We scarcely ever had
our baggage touched; but that was in 1858.
In Pisa we saw many things, including the Baptisteria, the Campanile or
leaning tower, the Duomo, and the Sapienza, an object of interest to
_me_, as Richard passed so much of his boyhood here, and that was his
school. I regret to say the most debauched and ungentlemanly part of the
population issued from this place, which distressed me, who held it
sacred because of him. The Granda Bretagna was a very nice hotel, with a
good _table d’hôte_, and all English. It had every comfort; only, being
full, we could only get small, dark rooms at the back, which was dull,
and with nothing but stoves; and the weather being bitter, we were
petrified. We went a great deal to the Duomo and the Campo Santo, where
the figures rather made us laugh, though I felt sentimental enough about
other things. At the top of the Campanile or leaning tower, or belfry, I
found that Richard had chiselled his name, so I did the same. How
curious it would have been if while he was doing it he could have said,
“My future wife will also come and chisel hers, so many years later, in
remembrance of me.”
The man who shows the Campanile remembered Richard, and it was he who
told me where he cut his name at the top of the tower.
The last day I was in Pisa (January 25) it was our Princess Royal’s
wedding day. We had a grand dinner, champagne, toasts, and cheering. The
_table d’hôte_ was decorated with our yacht flags. One of the English
ladies invited us to her rooms, where we had music and dancing, and I
talked to one girl of seventeen, who proved to be an original after my
own heart. After the _soirée_, we smoked a cigarette and discussed our
plans. The next morning we had to leave Pisa. We were all sorry to part.
Half an hour’s train brought us to Leghorn, where we got pretty rooms at
the Victoria and Washington. It is quite spring weather, beautiful sky
and sea; again flat, ugly country, but the range of mountains shows to
advantage; the air is delicious, and we are all well and in spirits. The
town is very fine, the people _tant-soit-peu_-Portsmouth-like. There is
nothing to see at Leghorn. _Faute de mieux_ we went to see an ugly
duomo, which, however, contained Canova’s Tempo, the one statue of which
you hear from morning till night. We also visited the English Cemetery,
which contained Smollett’s tomb. There are the docks to see, and Habib’s
bazaar, a rogue, and not too civil, but he has beautiful Eastern things.
The town is in a state of siege, and no Carnival is allowed.
We left Leghorn on February 1 for Florence, and visited successively
many queer, little, out-of-the-way towns _en route_.
The first day at Florence we drove about to have a general view of the
city, and after that we visited the principal palazzos, churches, and
theatres—all of which have often been described before. We were at
Florence nearly a month. We saw one Sunday’s Carnival, one opera, one
masked ball. We had several friends, who were anxious for us to stay,
and go into society; but time pressed, and we had to decline. Every
evening we used to go to the theatre, and some of our friends would
invite us to _petits soupers_. At Florence all Richard’s friends,
finding I knew his sister in England, were kind to us; and we were very
sorry to start at 3 a.m. on February 11 _en route_ for Venice.
We were five individuals, with our baggage on our backs, turned into a
rainy street, cutting a sorry figure and laughing at ourselves. The
diligence started at once. We had twenty-one hours to Bologna, drawn by
oxen at a foot’s pace through the snow, which the _cantonniers_ had
cleared partially away, but which often lay in heaps of twelve or twenty
feet untouched. I never saw such magnificent snow scenes as when
crossing the Apennines. We slept at Bologna, saw it, and took a
_vetturino_ next day. The drive was a dreary, flat snow piece of forty
miles in length. Malebergo was the only town. We here came across a
horrid thing. Two men had fallen asleep in a hay-cart smoking; it caught
fire, burnt the men, cart, hay, and all. The horse ran away, had its
hind-quarters burnt out, and they were all three dead, men and horse. It
gave us a terrible turn, but we could do nothing. Next morning we were
up at four o’clock. We crossed the river Po at seven o’clock; it was
bitter cold. We drove fifty miles that day; the last twelve were very
pretty. At length we reached Padua. The ground was like ice; our off
leader fell, and was dragged some little distance. (How little I thought
then that I should be a near neighbour and frequent visitor of all these
places during the eighteen last years of my married life!) When we left
Padua, we had twenty-seven miles more to go, where we exchanged for the
(to us girls) new wonder of a gondola, which took us to the Hôtel Europa
in Venice. We were not sorry to have got through our journey, and a
blazing fire and a good supper and cigarette soon effaced the memory of
the cold, starvation, and weariness we had gone through for so long. We
wanted no rocking that night.
It is all very well writing; but nothing I could ever say would half
express my enthusiasm for Venice. It fulfils all the exigencies of
romance; it is the only thing that has never disappointed me. I am so
happy at Venice. Except for Richard’s absence, I have not another wish
ungratified; and I also like it because this and Trieste were the last
places he was in near home when he started for Africa.
Not a night passes here that I do not dream that Richard has come home
and will not speak to me; not a day that I do not kneel down twice,
praying that God may send him a ray of divine grace, and bring him to
religion, and also, though I feel quite unworthy of so high a mission,
that I may be his wife, for I so love and care for him that I should
never have courage to take upon myself the duties of married life with
any other man. I have seen so much of married life; have seen men so
unjust, selfish, and provoking; and have always felt I never could
receive an injury from any man but him without everlasting resentment.
Oh, if he should come home and have changed, it would break my heart! I
would rather die than see that day!
[Illustration: VENICE.]
We plan out our days here, rising at eight, breakfast nine, Mass,
spending the morning with friends, music, reading, working, writing,
reading French and Italian, and some sketching. At one o’clock we start
to explore all the beautiful things to be seen here, then we go to a
very cheerful _table d’hôte_, and afterwards spend a most agreeable
evening in each other’s apartments, or we gondola about to listen to the
serenades by moonlight. I think we have walked and gondolaed the place
all through by day and moon. How heavenly Venice would have been with
Richard, we two floating about in these gondolas! Our friends are a
charming Belgian couple named Hagemans, two little children, and a nice
sister, and last, though not least, the Chevalier de St. Cheron. The
Chevalier is a perfect French gentleman of noble family, good-looking,
fascinating, brilliant in conversation; has much heart, _esprit_, and
_délicatesse_; he is more solid than most Frenchmen, and better
informed, and has noble sentiments, head and heart; and yet, were he an
Englishman, I should think him vain and ignorant. He has a few small
prejudices and French tricks, which are, however, little faults of
nationality, education, and circumstance, but not of nature. Henri V.,
the Bourbon King, called the Comte de Chambord, lives at the Palazzo
Cavalli, and holds a small court, kept up in a little state by devoted
partisans, who are under the surveillance of the police, and have three
or four different lodgings everywhere. St. Cheron is his right-hand man
and devoted to him, and will be in the highest office when he comes to
the throne. As we are devoted to the Bourbons he introduced us there,
and the King helped to make our stay happy to us.
We arrived in Venice for the end of the Carnival. The last night of it
we went to the masked ball at the Finice; it was the most brilliant
sight I ever saw. We masked and dominoed, and it was there that the
Chevalier and I first came in contact and spoke; he had been watching
for an opportunity. The evening after the ball he came to _table d’hôte_
and spoke to us, and asked leave to pay us an evening visit, which he
did (the Hagemans were there too); and from that we spent all our
evenings and days together.
One night we rowed in gondolas by moonlight to the Lido; we took the
guitar. I never saw Venice look so beautiful. The water was like glass,
and there was not a sound but the oars’ splashing. We sang glees.
Arrived at the Lido, we had tea and walked the whole length of the
sands. That night was one of many such evenings in queenly Venice. I
shall often remember the gondolier’s serenades, the beautiful moon and
starlight, the gliding about in the gondola in all the romantic parts of
Venice, the soft air, the stillness of the night, hearing only the
splash of oars, and nothing stirring except perhaps some dark and
picturesque figure crossing the bridge, the little Madonna chapel on the
banks of the Lido edging the Adriatic, the Piazza of San Marco with the
band, and ices outside Florian’s, the picturesque Armenians, Greeks, and
Moors, and the lovely water-girls with their _bigolo_, every language
sounding in one’s ears. I remember too all my favourite localities, too
numerous to set down, but known doubtless to every lover of Venice.
On the days that were too bad for sight-seeing we and our friends read
Byron, talked French, and sketched; on indifferent days we lionized; and
on beautiful days we floated about round the islands. I had two
particularly happy days; they were the summer mornings when the sun
shone and the birds sang; and we were all so gay we sang too, and the
Adriatic was so blue. There were two or three beautiful brigs sometimes
sailing for Trieste.
One day Henri V. desired the Chevalier to bring us to a private
audience. Blanche wore her wedding-dress with pearls and a slight veil;
my brother-in-law was in his best R.Y.S. uniform, and I in my
bridesmaid’s dress. We had a very smart gondola covered with our flags,
the white one uppermost for the Bourbons, which did not escape the
notice of the King, and the gondoliers in their Spanish-looking sashes
and broad hats. Blanche looked like a small sultana in her bridal robes
sitting amidst her flags. We were received by the Duc de Levis and the
Comtesse de Chavannes; there was also a Prince Somebody, and an emissary
from the Pope waiting for an audience. As soon as the latter came out we
were taken in, and most graciously received; and the King invited us to
sit. He was middle height and fair, a _beau-idéal_ of a French
gentleman, with winning manners. His consort was tall, gaunt, very dry
and cold, but she was kind. They asked us a thousand questions; and as
my French was better than the others’, I told them all about our
yachting, and all we had seen and were going to see; and they were much
interested. I was also able to tell the King that when he was a little
boy he had condescended to ask my mother to dance, and that it was one
of the proudest souvenirs of her life. My brother-in-law behaved with
great ease and dignity; he put his yacht and his services at the King’s
disposal, and expressed our respectful attachment to the House of
Bourbon. We thanked them for receiving us. After about twenty minutes
they saluted us; we curtseyed to the ground, backed to the door,
repeated the curtsey, and disappeared. We were received again by the Duc
de Levis and the Comtesse de Chavannes, and conducted to the gondola. I
am proud to say that we heard that the King was enthusiastic about
Blanche and myself, and subsequently that night at dinner and many a day
after he spoke of us. We also heard from the Chevalier and a Vicomte
Simonet that the King was charmed with my brother-in-law for turning the
white flag upwards and offering him the use of his yacht.
CHAPTER VIII
_MY CONTINENTAL TOUR: SWITZERLAND_
(1858)
You’re far, yet to my heart you’re nearest near;
Absent, yet present in my sprite you appear.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
We left Venice one evening in early April at half-past nine, after six
weeks’ stay, and travelled by the night train to Padua. We then went
through a terrible experience. We started on a twenty-four hours’ drive
without a stoppage, without a crumb of bread or a drop of water. We
drove through Milan at 8.30 in the morning, and after leaving it we got
a magnificent view of the Alps, and had a very troublesome frontier. At
last we came to Turin. We went on in a train with a diligence on it, and
arrived at Susa, our last Italian town. Here the diligence was taken off
the train. We had fourteen mules and two horses, and began to ascend
Mont Cenis. These were the days when there were no trains there. Some of
us with the conductor climbed up the shorter cuts (like ascending a
chimney) until dark, and met the diligence. We had a splendid view. But
what a night! The snow in some places was twenty feet deep, and the wind
and sleet seemed as if they would sweep us over; it was wild and awful,
one vast snow scene, and the scenery magnificent. At midnight we came to
the top; but here was the worst part, where the smaller road begins.
Here, as before, we only went at a foot’s pace, and the horses could
hardly stand. The men kept tumbling off, the vehicle was half buried in
the snow, there were drifts every few paces, and we had to be cut out.
At Lans le Bourg at one o’clock we stopped, and they gave us some bad
soup, for which we gratefully paid four francs. The few travellers were
ascending and descending, asking all sorts of questions. We tried to
sleep, but ever and anon some accident happened to wake us. Every here
and there we tried to knock somebody up for assistance; but it appeared
to me as if most of the houses of refuge were shut up, thinking that
nobody would be mad enough to travel in such weather. We were so tired
that it seemed as if the horses were wandering about, not knowing where
they were going to. Everything tumbled about most uncomfortably in a
snowy, dreamy state of confusion. Some of the men roared with laughter
at one of the postilions sprawling off his horse into the snow, and
floundering about without being able to get up again. Things went on
like that till 7 a.m., when we pulled up at the station, St. Jean de
Marienne, where we ought to have caught the 6 a.m. train, but it was
gone; so there was nothing for it but to remain for the 10.20, and get a
good breakfast. We took the 10.20 train, and arrived at 12.20 at
Chambéry. Here a civil man convinced us that we had to choose between
two disagreeables; so we took the lesser, remained at Chambéry till five
o’clock, and then started by diligence, and (what we did not know) tired
horses.
At midnight, when body and soul were worn out (we had not had our
clothes off for three days and nights, hardly any food or other
necessities; we had been sitting with our knees up to our chins in that
blessed _coupé_, which was like a chimney-piece big enough for two, the
windows close to our faces)—well, I say, when body and soul were worn
out, they shot us down like so much rubbish at a miserable inn at Anneçy
at midnight, and swore they would go no farther. My brother-in-law stuck
to his place, and refused to move till we had got another diligence and
fresh horses; so seeing there was no help for it, they did get them, and
transferred our baggage. Then we took our places and drove off. The road
was nearly impassable; the driver frequently stopped at places to
entreat that they would give him more horses, but all the inns were shut
up and asleep, and nobody cared to hear him, so we lost half an hour
every here and there. Morning came, but we stuck again, and were not
near to the end of our journey. We turned into an inn, where we got some
chocolate, and sat round a stove with the peasants, who chaffed our
driver, his exploits, and his poor horses. That morning we passed an
exquisite bridge over a chasm, of which I would give worlds to have a
photograph. One seemed suspended between heaven and earth. I learnt
afterwards that my bridge is between Crusie-Caille; it is 636 feet long,
and 656 above the stream. The old road winds beneath it; the Sardinians
call it the Ponte Carlo Aberto. A few more difficulties, and at 10.30
a.m., Wednesday, April 7, we arrived at the Hôtel des Bergues, Geneva.
The poor horses were delighted the moment they saw Geneva below, and put
on a spurt of themselves.
The Hôtel des Bergues, Geneva (at the time I write), is the second best
hotel here; we have three cheerful rooms on the lake, and a dull _table
d’hôte_ at five o’clock. The lake is like blue crystal, on which we have
a five-ton sailing-boat; the sky without a cloud; the weather like May.
The nights are exquisite. The peasants are ugly; they wear big hats, and
speak bad French. It is a terrible place for stomach-ache, owing to the
mountain water. The religion is a contrast to Italy—little and good. As
I am Number Three of our party, I have had all along to make my own life
and never be in the way of the married couple. We arrived here in time
for the railway _fête_; there were flags and _feux de joie_, bands, and
a magnificent peasant ball. Our Minister for Switzerland, whose name was
Gordon, came for the _fête_ (the French Minister refused). He dined
here, spent the evening with us, and took us to the ball. The Union Jack
floated at our windows in his honour. A pretty place Geneva, but very
dull. The spring begins to show itself in the trees and hedges. I long
for the other side of the lake. We walk and sail a great deal.
I have not heard a word from Richard, and I am waiting like Patience on
a monument in grand expectation of what the few months may bring,
relying on his sister having told me that he will be home this summer,
when I feel that something decisive will take place. This day I have had
an offer from an American, polished, handsome, fifty years of age, a
widower, with £300,000 made in California; but there is only one man in
the world who could be master of such a spirit as mine. People may love
(as it is called) a thousand times, but the real _feu sacré_ only burns
once in one’s life. Perhaps some feel more than others; but it seems to
me that this love is the grandest thing in this nether world, and worth
all the rest put together. If I succeed, I shall know how to prove
myself worthy of it. If any woman wants to know what this _feu sacré_
means, let her ascertain whether she loves fully and truly with brain,
heart, and passion. If one iota is wanting in the balance of any of
these three factors, let her cast her love aside as a spurious
article—she will love again; but if the investigation is satisfactory,
let her hold it fast, and let nothing take it from her. For let her rest
assured love is the one bright vision Heaven sends us in this wild,
desolate, busy, selfish earth to cheer us on to the goal.
My American Crœsus is not my only chance. A Russian general here, a man
of about forty years, with loads of decorations, who knows many
languages, is a musician, and writes, has made me an offer. He is a man
of family, has nine _châteaux_, and half a million of francs income. He
saw me at the altar of the Madonna, Genoa, two months ago. He tells me
he fell as much in love with me as if he were a boy of fifteen. He
followed me, changed his hotel to come here, came to dinner, and took
the room next to me. He serenades me on the violin at 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.
and at 7 a.m. He sent me a bouquet and a basket of fruit, and a letter
of about six pages long to tell me that the Tsar is a great man, that he
(the general) has bled for his country, and that if I will marry
him—“Que je serai dans ses bras” (what a temptation!) “et qu’il me fera
la déesse du pays.” I refused him of course.
On June 10, when we were in bed at one o’clock in the morning, all the
steamers set up a peal. I, who was lying awake, rushed to the window,
and then called up the others. We looked out, and saw that apparently
the back of our hotel and the whole Quartier des Bergues was in flames.
We gave the alarm in the house, ran down the corridors to arouse
everybody, and then to our rooms to put on what we could, collect a few
treasures and our animals. I took the bullfinch (Toby) and Richard’s
picture, the Pigotts took each a dog, and down we cut. By this time
thousands of people were running to the rescue, every bell in the town
was ringing, the whole fire brigade turned out, and they even
telegraphed to the borders of France to send down reinforcements. Dozens
of engines were at work, and we soon learnt that our hotel was _not_ on
fire, but that the fire was so extensive they could scarcely distinguish
what was on fire and what was not. In a street at the back of us nine
houses were burning, a _café_, and an _entrepôt_ of inflammables; and
the _pompiers_ said that if we had a north-east wind instead of a
south-west one, nothing could have saved our whole _quartier_ from
destruction. Every soul in Geneva was there, and the roofs of the houses
were crowded; and we went up on the roof of the hotel to see the
wonderful sight. The fire brigade was on the ground for thirty hours.
They could do nothing for the houses already on fire, but only prevent
its spreading by playing on the surrounding ones, which were red-hot, as
was the back of our hotel. Fresh firemen and engines arrived from
France. Among the animals destroyed were one horse and two cows, some
sheep, and some goats, in their sheds. A cage of birds fell and opened,
and the poor little things escaped, but in their fright flew about in
the flames. A baby, whom the mother forgot in its bed (most unnatural),
and two men were killed: one was crushed by the falling roof, and the
other burned. Two firemen lost their lives: one in trying to save a
woman (God bless him!), in which he succeeded, but fell in the flames
himself; another was mortally burnt; and also two persons were lost
whose bodies could never be found. It appeared that a Frenchman had a
quarrel in the _café_, and out of spite went out and contrived to set it
alight. The populace say (he is caught and in prison) that they will
lynch him, and burn him at the stake. The loss of property is great. The
flames arose above the whole town, and seemed to lick the whole
_quartier_. It was a dark night, and everybody was in _déshabillé_ from
their beds, and there was a horrible smell of burnt flesh.
We started on July 1, a large and merry party, from Geneva one beautiful
morning at the top of the diligence, and drove through an
English-looking country to Sallenches. Here we took some vehicles that
ought to have been built in the year 1 B.C., which shook my sister quite
ill; but we who could walk much preferred doing so, as well for ease as
for seeing the scenery, to which no pen of mine could ever do justice.
We arrived at Chamounix in the evening, bathed and dined, and took a
moonlight stroll through the town and valley. Chamounix is the second
thing that has never disappointed me. I look around, and as far as my
eye can stretch up and down the valley are ranges of grand mountains,
covered with firs, Alpine roses, and wild rhododendrons, and above these
splendid peaks, some covered with snow, almost overhanging us, and
standing out in bold relief against the bluest of skies. I note it
all—the peaceful hamlet in the vale at the foot of Mont Blanc, the
church spire distinct against that background of firs on the opposite
mountain-side, the Orne rushing through the town, the balconies and
little gardens, the valley dotted with _châlets_, the Glacier du Boisson
and Mer de Glace sparkling in the sun. How glorious it is!
We had to start next morning at daybreak before the sun should become
too hot. We dressed in little thick boots, red petticoats that we might
see each other at a distance, brown Holland jackets and big hats, a pike
and a mule and a guide each, besides other guides. At first the mule
appears to step like an ostrich, and you think of your mount at home,
and you tremble as you see the places he has to go up, or, worse, to go
down. In time you arrive at the top of the Flégère. From here you see
five glaciers, the best view of Mont Blanc and other peaks too numerous
to mention. We met some pleasant people, dined together at the _châlet_,
and drew caricatures in the travellers’ book. One or two of us went up
as far as the Grands Mulets without guides, slept there, and descended
early, where we picked up our party. In the descent we walked, and some
of the mules ran away. Not finding ourselves quite pumped by the
descent, we proposed ascending to the Chapeau the opposite side, to look
at the Mer de Glace, which we did; and as we were mounting we had the
pleasure of seeing an avalanche and some smaller falls. We were joined
by a party of seven jolly Scotch girls, and we descended with them. We
were very tired.
Our next excursion was to Montanvert, which ascent was most magnificent.
The lower part of the mountain is a garden of wild flowers, roses, and
firs, and between the mountains stood out wondrous peaks. Against the
sky was the Aiguille Verte, leaning as much over as the Campanile at
Pisa. It is wonderful to think of the commotion there must have been
when these immense masses of rock were scattered there by the
convulsions of Nature, and the trees were crushed. At Montanvert we fed,
and were joined by others from the Mer de Glace. Here those who had weak
heads went back, and those who feared not nor cared not went on. Every
lady had her guide and alpenstock, every man had his alpenstock, and all
of us were strapped round our waists to hold on to each other. A little
cannon was fired to tell us the echo and announce our start. The first
part was easy enough, and a man with a hatchet in advance cut us
footsteps. (Albert Smith has opened this passage within five years.)
Here and there is a stream of water, so pure one might fancy it to be
melted diamonds. Thousands of chasms in the ice, five hundred or more
feet deep, of a beautiful blue colour, and a torrent beneath, had to be
passed by a plank thrown across. What is a precipice to-day is closed up
to-morrow by the constant movement of the ice. Take the _tout ensemble_,
it gives you the idea of a rebellious sea that had dared to run
mountains high, in defiance of its Creator, who had struck it (while in
motion) into ice. Here and there came a furious waterfall or torrent; a
plank was then thrown across in a safe part. Once I slipped, and my legs
fell in, and my alpenstock; but I clung to the stump till hauled up.
Then came the Mauvais Pas. You descend the side of a precipice by holes
cut for your feet, and let yourself down by a rope. If one has got a
good head, it is worth while looking down. Hamlets look like a set of
tea-things, men (if seen at all) like ants beneath one; and how
glorious! one is suspended between heaven and earth, and one’s immortal
part soars higher than the prison carcase can! As one loves to feel
one’s own nothingness by the side of the man to whom one has given one’s
heart, so does this feeling (the best we own) increase in magnitude when
it relates to God. _He_ holds you there, _He_ guards against that false
step which would dash you to pieces, and gives you the power of brain to
look below, around, and upwards, to wonder and to thank. I think this
was the most intense excitement of its sort that I had felt in my girl
travelling life. At last we arrived at the Chapeau, and descended the
same mountain as yesterday.
The next day we proposed ascending the Glacier du Boisson, and
reascending Mont Blanc for a few hours; but some of our party were
anxious to get home, so we ordered some rackety vehicles for Argentières
next morning, and there the strong betook themselves to their legs and
alpenstocks, and the weak to mules. We strolled gaily along, making
wreaths of wild flowers for our hats, singing the _Ranz des Vaches_ and
all that, though still in Savoy, and we mounted the Col de Balme. This
is one of the darkest and sublimest views imaginable. On one side you
look down the valley of Chamounix and the Savoy Mountains; the Col seems
like a high barrier with one hut on it. On the other side you look over
the Bernese Alps, and you see a spectacle not of everyday occurrence.
Turn to Switzerland, all is sunshiny, bright, and gay; turn to Savoy, a
thunder-storm is rolling along the valley beneath, and you stand there
on the Col in winter, in snow, shivering, hail, wind, and sleet driving
in your face. You see on one side, half a mile below, autumn; on the
other spring, with buttercups, daisies and all sorts of wild flowers,
and forsooth the cuckoo; and at the bottom of both valleys is summer,
bright or stormy. At this place the ruffian who keeps the hut makes you
pay twenty-eight francs for a slice of ham, and you come out rather
amused at the people who are swearing on that account. Some delicate
ladies are in semi-hysterics at the storm, or the black, frowning spot
on which we find ourselves, and are rushing about, making tender
inquiries after each other’s sensitive feelings. After an hour’s rest we
start, the weak ones for Martigny, the strong by a steep path in the
mountains, which brings us after a couple of hours to spring. But stop
awhile in winter. A black range of mountains dark and desolate are
dressed in thunder-clouds. You feel awed, yet you would rather see it so
than in sunshine. A small bit of table-land is on the side; it makes you
think of an exile in Siberia or Dante’s Damned Soul in a Hell of Snow.
We were all silent. No doubt we all made our reflections; and mine ran
thus:
“If an angel from heaven came from Almighty God, and told you that
Richard was condemned to be chained on that plateau for a hundred years
in expiation of his sins before he could enter heaven, and gave you the
choice between sharing his exile with him or a throne in the world
beneath, which would you choose?”
My answer did not keep me long in suspense; it came in this form:
“A throne would be exile _without him_, and exile _with him_ a home!”
We reached spring, and passed the _châlets_ where Gruyère cheese is
made; and I stopped the herdsman, and took a lesson in the _Ranz des
Vaches_ amidst much laughter, and to the evident amusement of a cuckoo,
who chimed in. The descent of the Tête Noir is the most beautiful thing
we have seen; at any rate, it is the most graven on my memory. It is
down the side of magnificently wooded mountains, with bridges of a
primitive kind, overhanging precipices, and looks into the dark valley,
part of which never sees the sun. Here we sang snatches of _Linda de
Chamounix_; the scenery reminds one of it, and comes up to, or even
surpasses, all that I have read or thought. In one place we came to an
immense rock that had fallen, and was just on the balance over a
precipice, and there it has hung for hundreds and thousands of years.
The peasants are _fait soit peu sauvage_, and they dealt us out plainly
plenty of chaff, as they gave us water, in the fond belief that we did
not understand French. At length we reached the _châlet_ where
travellers feed. After dinner at nine o’clock the moon rose, and we went
through a splendid forest on a mountain-side, with a torrent dashing
below. I lit my cigarette, and went a little ahead of my party. There
are sacred moments and heavenly scenes I cannot share with the common
herd. There was only one voice which I could have borne to break the
silence, and that, like heaven, was so far off as to be like a fable
now. At length we arrived at a hut at the top of the Mont Forclaz, a hut
where we must have our passport _viséd_—why, I do not know, as we have
long since been in Switzerland. The gendarme grumbled something about
“eccentric English who scale the mountains in the night.” A hint to be
quick is all he gets, and we descend. Now we were so tired that we
mounted our mules on the assurance that it would rest us; but such a
descent I should never care to do again. The road was steep and
unfinished; the moon was under a cloud; there were precipices on each
side. The step of the mule sends one upon a narrow, hard saddle, bumping
one moment against the pommels, and the next on to the baggage here and
there. There is a roll over a loose stone; but the clever mule, snuffing
and pawing its way, nimbly puts its feet together, and slides down a
slab of rock. My companions got down and walked, tired as they were. I
really could not; and seeing the mule was so much cleverer than myself,
I knotted the bridle and threw it on his back, and _in the dark_ put my
leg over the other side, and rode down straddle like a man, half an hour
in advance of the rest. They said there were wolves on these mountains,
but I did not see or hear any. I had only my pike to defend myself with,
and should have been in an awful fright had I come across a wolf. At
midnight I reached the hotel at Martigny, and went to bed.
Our next move was to charter a carriage that would hold us all inside
and out. We had a splendid drive through the valley of the Rhone for
some days, and visited many places.
I was immensely impressed by Chillon at night. The lake lies at our feet
like a huge crystal with a broad track of moonlight on it. A moment ago
it was fine starlight, and now the moon rises behind the Dent du Midi,
lighting up those magnificent mountains too brightly for the stars.
Vevey is asleep, and no noise is heard save the splash of an oar, or a
bit of loose rock rolling with a crash down the mountain, or the buzz of
some insect going home late. A bat flutters near my face now and then;
there is a distant note from a nightingale. How refreshing is the soft
breeze and the sweet smell of the hay after the heat of the day! And now
crossing the moonlight track, westward bound, glides a lateen sail like
a colossal swan. These are the scenes that, save for the God Who made
them, let us know we are alone on earth. These are the moments when we
miss the hand we want to clasp in ours without speaking, and yet be
understood; but my familiar spirit with whom I could share these moments
is not here.
At last we received orders to be ready within an hour’s notice to leave
Geneva for Lausanne, and we were very glad to obey. We had been too long
at Geneva, and were heartily tired of it, especially after all the
beautiful things we had seen. It was, however, found that the cutter
would not hold us all; so the maid and I went with the baggage and
animals, and also Mr. Richard Sykes (who brought a letter from my
brother Jack, a charming, gentlemanly boy of twenty, who joined us for a
few weeks), by steamer to Lausanne, and put up at an _auberge_ at Ouchy
on the water’s edge, where we waited the sailing party. Ouchy consists
(1858) of a humble street and an old-fashioned inn at the water’s edge
beneath Lausanne. Here we took three little rooms, one for Mr. Sykes,
one for the maid, and one for me, which was half bedroom, half
drawing-room, with a good view. The others arrived in a few days, having
met the _bise_ and had to put back to port. Here I found some one with
whom I could begin German. I rowed and swam a great deal. There is a
beautiful country for driving and walking, and our _chaloupe_ is now at
anchor. In this last we were able to make excursions.
Among other places we ran over to Evian, twelve miles across on the
opposite coast. There were one hundred and twenty-five people in the
hotel, who were very kind, and made a great fuss with us; and we had
great fun, though they had great difficulty in making room for us. Mr.
Sykes had to go to an old tower in the garden, and my room was somewhere
under the tiles. We often gave them supper and cigarettes at 11.30,
after music and impromptu dancing in the evening. They were all vastly
kind to us, and when we went away they came down to see us off in our
cutter.
When we got half-way across the lake, I said to my brother-in-law, “Does
it not look rather like wind out there?” He gave a short, quick command
at once to take every bit of sail down; but we knew nothing of
lake-sailing, though we knew sea-sailing, and before we had got it half
down the wind came upon us like a wall, and threw us on our side. Our
bobstay snapped like sealing-wax, our mainsail rent like ribbon, our
foresail flew away, and she would not answer her helm, and we remained
in the trough of the waves, which rose awfully high. We then cut away
the jib. We had given up all hope, having beaten about for a long time,
and two of us had been in the water for three-quarters of an hour. At
length we spied five boats putting out to us, and we were truly
thankful. It appeared that the fishermen had refused to come before,
because they were convinced we had gone down long ago, and all the
village people were on their knees praying for us. We were safely towed
in by the five boats, much too disabled to help ourselves, and the
cutter was smashed to pieces. We rewarded the men liberally, got some
brandy, dried our clothes, and went back by the next steamer.
There was a grand _fête_ at Lausanne. The canteen of Swiss woodwork was
decorated with branches, and there were shooting-galleries, the usual
booths and whirligigs, a very respectable vagrant theatre, a
dancing-circus and band. The streets were all festooned with garlands,
and bits of sentiment such as, “Liberté et patrie,” “Un bras pour la
défendre, un cœur pour l’aimer,” etc.
It was cloudless weather that evening at Lausanne, the sky clear and
high, the country fresh, green, and sweet-smelling. The mountains
surrounded one-half the lake with twenty different shades at the setting
sun, from palest pink on the snow-peaks to the deepest purple on the
rocks. It was all quiet enough after leaving the merriment of the fair,
with only the noise of birds or bees, and the sweet smell of wild
flowers in the fresh air. Later the evening star came out in the pale
sky, and the glow-worms shone like brilliants in the grass. I thought of
Richard in that far-away swamp in Central Africa, and a voiceless prayer
rose to my lips. I wonder if he too is thinking of me at this time? And
as I thought an angelic whisper knocked at my heart and murmured, “Yes.”
After we had been at Lausanne some time, I got ill. I was fretting
because there was no news at all about Richard; I had been hoping to
hear from him for two months. I had enough of the climate too. I had a
habit of rowing myself out a little way, undressing in the boat, jumping
in for a swim, climbing back into the boat, and rowing ashore; and one
day I was too hot, and I just had the strength to give the last pull to
the oar ashore, when I fainted. There were no doctors, no medicines, and
I lay ill on my very hard bed with a dreadful pain in my side for three
weeks. But I was too strong to die; and one day somebody got me a bottle
of Kirschwasser, and drinking it in small quantities at a time seemed to
take away the pain; but I was very pale and ill, and every one said I
had rheumatic fever. We were all three more or less ill, and did not
like to part; but it was a necessity, so I was sent forward with twelve
pieces of baggage and sixteen napoleons to work my way from Ouchy to
Honfleur, where I was to wait for my brother-in-law and sister, Honfleur
being a quieter place than Havre. Poor Blanche looked so worn and sad!
I got in a railway-carriage by myself, and asked the guard to look after
me because I was alone; but just before the train started he put in a
man, and begged my pardon, saying it was inevitable, as there was not a
place in any other carriage. In about twenty minutes the man began to
make horrible faces at me, and I was so dreadfully frightened I felt I
must speak; so I said, “I am afraid you are ill”; and he said, “Yes; I
am very sorry, but I am going to have an epileptic fit.” He was almost
immediately black, and in horrible contortions. It was an express train.
There was no means of communicating with the guard (1858), and there was
no use in screaming; so, frightened though I was, I pulled the man down
on the ground, undid his cravat, and loosened all about his neck. I had
no medicine with me, except a quarter of a bottle of sweet spirits of
nitre, which I was taking for rheumatic fever. I poured it all down his
throat, and then I covered his face over with a black silk handkerchief
I had round my neck, that I might not see him, and squeezed myself up in
the farthest corner. In about twenty minutes he came to, and asked me
how long he had been like that. I told him, and he asked me if I was
dreadfully frightened, and I said, “Yes.” He said, “I am subject to
these fits, but they generally last much longer; this has been very
slight.” So I said, “I think it is my duty to tell you that I have put
about three ounces of spirits of nitre down your throat.” He said,
“Well, I think it must have done me good, because I feel very
comfortable.” I called the guard the first station we arrived at, told
him what had occurred, and begged him to move me into a carriage with
other people, which he did. I never knew anything so slow as the trains
were; and at the stations there seemed no one to help, nor to tell one
where anything was. I got two seats with my back to the engine, so that
I could lie down. The heat was intense. The carriage was crammed. There
was a ladylike little woman, with a brawny nurse and two of the
worst-behaved children I ever saw. They fought, and sang, and cried, and
teased my bullfinch, and kicked my shins, and trod on my toes; but the
mother was too nice to offend, and so I bore it. At Maçon at 8 p.m. we
stopped to sup; and then I felt I could bear no more of it, so I begged
the guard to change me to a quiet carriage, and he put me in with two
gentlemanly Spaniards. There was plenty of room, and we had a quiet
night enough, only one of them was so long that every now and then in
his sleep he put his feet into my lap or on the birdcage.
We arrived at 6 a.m., and drove for at least an hour to the Havre
station in the pouring rain. Here my troubles began. It was past seven,
the train was at 8.25; so I thought I had time to get a little breakfast
at the _café_. I did so, and returned. The porters were very rude to me,
and refused to weigh my baggage, saying I was too late. In vain I
entreated, and I had to return to my _café_ and sit in a miserable room
from 8 o’clock to 1 p.m. I drank a bottle of gingerbeer, and did my
accounts, but my head was too stupid to do them properly; so with the
idea that I had only forty-eight francs left, I had taken my ticket to
Havre, but not paid the baggage, and I had still to get to Honfleur. I
then got scared with fancying I had lost four napoleons, and sat looking
at my purse in despair. Then I discovered I had lost a bunch of keys,
that the turquoise had fallen out of my ring, that I had broken my back
comb, and left behind part of my dressing-case. Then it suddenly
occurred to me that I had no blessing because I had not said my morning
prayers; so I at once knelt down, and during my prayers a light flashed
on me that there were five napoleons to a hundred francs, and the money
was right to a farthing, so I rose with a thankful heart, heedless of
smaller evils. I took the one o’clock train, which went fast. It was
hot, windy, dusty, crowded; but no matter, I drove straight to the boat.
Alas! it was gone, and I had only a few francs. There was nothing for it
but to go to the hotel opposite the boats, and ask for a room, a hot
bath, some tea and bread-and-butter (I had been out thirty-six hours
without rest). I was on board the first boat, which steamed off at a
quarter to seven in the morning, and at eight was safely housed at the
Hôtel d’Angleterre, Honfleur, forty-eight hours after leaving Ouchy,
with three-ha’pence in my pocket. Unfortunately at Havre there was a law
by which the porters were not obliged to weigh your baggage unless you
came half an hour before the time, but that nobody ever did, and they
would not _dare_ nor _think_ of refusing a French person; but because I
was an English girl, and alone, they abused their power. I was only five
minutes after time; there was twenty-five minutes to spare, and they
were rude into the bargain. They are not paid by Government (1858), and
there is no tariff. They follow you like a flock of sheep, and say, “We
will carry your baggage if you pay us, and if not we will not.” My purse
prevented my being very free-handed; they would not take less than a
franc and a half, and slang you for that; and I spent eighteen francs on
them between Lausanne and Honfleur.
Honfleur is a horrid place. It is a fishing town, containing about ten
thousand people of an inferior class, as dull as the grave, no society,
and, still worse, not the necessaries of life—the only good things are
the fruit, the sea, and country. There are two hotels, which in England
we should call public-houses; not a room fit to sleep in, so I have had
a bed put in a kind of observatory at the top of the house. I can shut
out all, and live with nature and my books. There is a terrace, and at
high tide the sea rolls under it, and at a stretch I could fancy myself
on board a ship; but, thank God, I am getting better.
They come and ask you what you would like for dinner:
“Ce que vous avez à la maison; je ne suis pas difficile.” “Nous avons
_tout_, du melon, par exemple—des crevettes,” etc.
What they want to feed me on here are melons and water. An Englishman
came the other day, very hungry, and wanted to dine. “Voulez-vous une
omelette, monsieur?” “Damn your omelette!” he said; “I want to dine.” He
was obliged to go. The servants are one remove from animals, and the
family ditto, except madame, who is charming. The weather is beastly,
the sea is muddy, the sand all dirt; there is not a piano in the town.
The baths are half an hour from here, and the Basse gents are
excessively _sauvage_. But even in this fifth-rate society I found a
grain of wheat among the chaff—a Parisian Spanish woman, the wife of a
physician, here for her child’s health, very _spirituelle_, not pretty,
and devoted to Paris. We smoke and read, and she gives me the benefit of
her experience, which I really think I had better have been without; but
she is a jolly little creature, and I do not know how I should pass my
time without her.
Blanche and my brother-in-law joined me at Honfleur a fortnight after my
arrival; and having received a draft for fresh supplies, we determined
to start next day. We had a delightful trip of six hours up the Seine to
Rouen; we revisited the old cathedral, and walked up to that little gem
Notre Dame de bon Secours. I am very fond of Rouen; it is such a lovely
place. We went on to Dieppe, and had a calm passage to Southampton. Once
more I was in England. We went straight to London, and home.
CHAPTER IX
_THEY MEET AGAIN_
(1858–1860)
Allah guard a true lover, who strives with love
And hath borne the torments I still abide,
And seeing me bound in the cage with mind
Of ruth release me my love to find.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
While Isabel was touring through Italy and Switzerland, Burton was
fighting his way through the Central African jungle to find the fabled
lakes beyond the Usagara Mountains, which at that time the eye of the
white man had never seen.
It is necessary to give a brief sketch of this expedition, and of the
difference between Burton and Speke which arose from it, because these
things influenced to a considerable degree Isabel’s after-life. She was
always defending her husband’s position and fighting the case of Burton
_versus_ Speke.
As already stated, Burton left London in October, 1856. He went to
Bombay, applied for Captain Speke to accompany him as second in command
of his expedition into the unknown regions of Central Africa, and landed
at Zanzibar in December. The Royal Geographical Society had obtained for
him a grant of £1,000, and the Court of Directors of the East India
Company had given him two years’ leave.
On June 26, 1857, after an experimental trip, they set out in earnest on
their journey into the far interior. Burton was handicapped by a very
inadequate force, and he had to make his way through hostile savage
tribes; yet he determined to risk it, and in eighteen days achieved the
first stage of the journey. Despite sickness and every imaginable
difficulty, the little band arrived at K’hutu.
Thence they marched to Zungomero, a pestilential Slough of Despond. Here
they rested a fortnight, and then began the ascent of the Usagara
Mountains. They managed to climb to the frontier of the second region,
or Ghauts. They then pushed on, up and down the ranges of these
mountains, sometimes through the dismal jungle, sometimes through marshy
swamps, sometimes along roads strewn with corpses and victims of
loathsome diseases, tormented always by insects and reptiles, and
trembling with ague, with swimming heads, ears deafened by weakness, and
legs that would scarcely support them, threatened by savages without and
deserters within, until at last they reached the top of the third and
westernmost range of the Usagara Mountains. The second stage of the
journey was accomplished.
After a rest they went through the fiery heat of the Mdaburu jungle,
where they were much troubled by their mutinous porters. At last they
entered Kazeh. The Arabs helped them here (Burton always got on well
with Arabs), and they rested for a space. On January 10, 1858, they
reached M’hali, and here Burton was smitten by partial paralysis,
brought on by malaria; his eyes were also afflicted, and death seemed
imminent. But in a little time he was better, and again they pushed on
through the wilderness. At last, on February 13, 1858, just when they
were in despair, their longing eyes were gladdened by the first glimpse
of the Lake Tanganyika, the sea of Ujiji, laying like an enchanted lake
“in the lap of the mountains, basking in the gorgeous tropical
sunshine.”
For the first known time in the world’s history European eyes rested on
this loveliness. It is only fair therefore to remember that in the
discovery of Lake Tanganyika Burton was the pioneer. His was the brain
which planned and commanded the expedition, and it was he who first
achieved with inadequate means and insufficient escort what Livingstone,
Cameron, Speke, Grant, Baker, and Stanley achieved later. If he had
possessed their advantages of men and money, what might he not have
done!
At Ujiji they rested for some time; they had travelled nine hundred and
fifty miles, and had taken more than seven and a half months over the
journey on account of the delay arising from danger and illness. They
spent a month cruising about the lake, which, however, they were not
able to explore thoroughly.
On May 28, 1858, Burton and Speke started on the homeward route. In due
time they reached Kazeh again. Here, Burton being ill, and Speke not
being able to get on with the Arabs, who abounded at Kazeh, it was
decided that Burton should remain at Kazeh to prepare and send reports,
and that Speke should go in search of the unknown lake (now called
Nyanza) which the merchants had told them was some sixteen marches to
the north. So Speke set out. After some six or seven weeks he returned
to Kazeh. His flying trip had led him to the northern water, which he
found to be an immense lake (Nyanza), and he announced that he had
discovered the sources of the White Nile. On this point Burton was
sceptical, and from this arose a controversy upon which it is
unnecessary to enter. There were probably faults on both sides. The
difference between Burton and Speke was much to be regretted; I only
allude to it here because it influenced the whole of Burton’s subsequent
career, and by so doing affected also that of his wife.
At Kazeh Burton decided that they must return to the seacoast by the way
they came. So they beat their way back across the fiery field to the
usual accompaniments of quarrels, mutinies, and desertions among the
porters. At one place Speke was dangerously ill, but Burton nursed him
through. They recrossed the Usagara Mountains, and struggled through mud
and jungle, and at last caught sight of the sea. They made a triumphal
entrance to Konduchi, the seaport village. They embarked and landed in
Zanzibar on March 4, 1859. Here Burton wanted to get fresh leave of
absence and additional funds; but the evident desire of the British
Consul to get rid of him (because he was too friendly with the Sultan),
and the impatience of Speke to return to England, caused him to abandon
the idea. Just then H.M.S. _Furious_ arrived at Aden, and passage
homeward was offered to both of them. Burton was too ill to go; but
Speke went, and his last words, according to Burton, were: “Good-bye,
old fellow. You may be quite sure I shall not go up to the Royal
Geographical Society until you come to the fore and we appear together.
Make your mind quite easy about that.”
Nevertheless, when Burton arrived in England on May 21, 1859 (having
been absent two years and eight months), he found the ground cut from
under his feet. Speke had arrived in London twelve days before, and the
day after his arrival had called at the headquarters of the Royal
Geographical Society, told his own tale, and obtained the leadership of
a new expedition. Burton, who had originated and carried out the
expedition, found himself shelved, neglected, and thrust aside by his
lieutenant, who claimed and received the whole credit for himself.
Moreover, Speke had spread all sorts of ugly—and I believe
untrue—reports about Burton. These coming on top of certain other
rumours—also, I believe, untrue—which had originated in India,[7] were
only too readily believed. When Burton got home, he found that the
Government and the Royal Geographical Society regarded him with
disapproval, and society looked askance at him. Instead of being
honoured, he was suspected and under a cloud. One may imagine how his
spirit chafed under this treatment. He was indeed a most unlucky man.
Yet in spite of the crowd of false friends and open enemies, in spite of
all the calumny and suspicion and injustice, there was one heart which
beat true to him. And then it was that Burton proved the strength of a
woman’s love.
Isabel had been back in England from her Continental tour just a year
when Burton came home. It had been a terribly anxious year for her; she
had written to him regularly, and kept him well posted in all that was
going on; but naturally her letters only reached him at intervals. News
of him had been meagre and infrequent, and there were long periods of
silence which made her sick at heart with anxiety and dread. The novelty
and excitement of her trip abroad had to some extent diverted her mind,
but when she came home all her doubts and fears returned with threefold
force. The monotony and inaction of her life chafed her active spirit;
the lack of sympathy and the want of some one in whom she could confide
her love and her sorrow weighed her down. It was a sore probation, and
in her trouble she turned, as it was her nature to turn, to the
consolations of her religion. In the Lent of 1859 she went into a
Retreat in the Convent at Norwich, and strove to banish worldly
thoughts. She did not strive in vain, as the following extracts from one
of her devotional books,[8] written when in retreat, will show.
“I bewail my ordinary existence—the life that most girls lead—going out
into society and belonging to the world.
“I must follow the ordinary little details of existence with patient
endurance of suffering and resistance of evil. With courage I must fly
at what I most dislike—grasp my nettle. There is good to be cultivated,
there is religion to be uppermost; occupation and family cares must be
my resources.
“And why must I do this? Other girls are not desirous of doing it.
Because at a critical moment God snatched me from the world, when my
heart bounded high for great things, and I was hard pressed by
temptation. I said to myself, ‘Why has He called such a being as myself
into existence?’—seemingly to no purpose. And He has brought me to this
quiet corner, and has showed me in a spiritual retreat (like in a holy
lantern) things as they really are; He has recalled to me the holiest
and purest of my childhood and my convent days, humbled me, and then,
shutting out that view, once more He will send me forth to act from His
fresh teaching. He seemed to say to me: ‘You have but little time; a
long life is but eighty years or so—part of this is lost in childhood,
part in old age, part in sleep. How few are the strong, mature years
wherein to lay in store for death—the only store you can carry with you
beyond the dreams of life, beyond the grave! You, from defects in your
upbringing, have allowed your heart to go before your head; hence sharp
twinges and bitter experience. These faults are forgiven you. Now enter
on your mature years with a good spirit, and remember that the same
excuses will not serve any more.’
“With these reflections I saw myself as an atom in this vast creation,
chosen from thousands who would have served Him better, and brought
safely through my nine months’ imprisonment to my baptism. On what did I
open my eyes? Not on the circle of a certain few, who are so covered
with riches, honour, luxuries, and pleasures as to have their Paradise
here. Not amongst the dregs of the unfortunate people who are the very
spawn of vice, who never hear a good word or see a good action, who do
not know that there is a God except in a curse. No! God gave me
everything; but He chose a middle way for me, and each blessing that
surrounded me was immense in itself, and many were combined. Pure blood
and good birth, health, youth, strength, beauty, talent, natural
goodness—God and Nature gave me all, and the Devil and I spoiled the
gift. Add to all this a happy home and good family, education, society,
religion, and the true Church of Christ. He took from me the riches and
the worldly success that might have damned me; and having purified me,
He sent me back only a sufficiency for needs and comforts. He gave me a
noble incentive to good in the immense power of affection I have within
me, which I may misuse, but not deprave or lose; this power is as fresh
as in my childhood, but saddened by experience. He preserves me from the
multitude of hourly evils which I cannot see; nay, more, He seems to
watch every trifle to meet my needs and wants. He scarcely lets the wind
visit me too roughly; He almost takes up the instruments He gave me, and
works Himself. He seems to say, ‘Toil for one short day, and in the
evening come to Me for your reward.’ He appointed to me, as to every
one, an angel to protect me; He has shown me the flowery paths that lead
down—down to the Devil and Hell—and the rugged path that leads upward to
Himself and Heaven. Shall I refuse to climb over my petty trials for
this short time, when He is so merciful, when He has died for me?”
Isabel came out of her Retreat on Easter Day, and after visiting some
friends for a few weeks returned to her parents’ home in London. Here
she was greeted with the news that Speke had come home alone. The air
was full of Speke, and the rumour reached her ears that Burton was
staying on in Zanzibar in the hope of being allowed to return to Africa.
A sense of despair seized her; and just as she was thinking whether she
would not return to the Convent and become a Sister of Charity, she
received six lines in a well-known hand by post from Zanzibar—no letter.
This communication was long past date, and evidently had been slow in
coming:
=To Isabel.=
_That brow which rose before my sight,
As on the palmer’s holy shrine;
Those eyes—my life was in their light;
Those lips—my sacramental wine;
That voice whose flow was wont to seem
The music of an exile’s dream._
She knew then it was all right.
Two days later she read in the paper that Burton would soon arrive. She
writes in her diary:
“_May 21._—I feel strange, frightened, sick, stupefied, dying to see
him, and yet inclined to run away, lest, after all I have suffered and
longed for, I should have to bear more.”
But she did not run away. And here we leave her to tell her own tale.
On May 22 I chanced to call upon a friend. I was told she had gone out,
but would be in to tea, and was asked if I would wait. I said, “Yes.” In
a few minutes another ring came to the door, and another visitor was
also asked to wait. A voice that thrilled me through and through came up
the stairs, saying, “I want Miss Arundell’s address.” The door opened, I
turned round, and judge of my feelings when I beheld Richard! For an
instant we both stood dazed. I felt so intensely, that I fancied he must
hear my heart beat, and see how every nerve was overtaxed. We rushed
into each other’s arms. I cannot attempt to describe the joy of that
moment. He had landed the day before, and come to London, and had called
here to know where I was living, where to find me. No one will wonder
when I say that we forgot all about my hostess and her tea. We went
downstairs, and Richard called a cab, and he put me in and told the man
to drive about—anywhere. He put his arm round my waist, and I put my
head on his shoulder. I felt quite stunned; I could not speak or move,
but felt like a person coming to after a fainting fit or a dream; it was
acute pain, and for the first half-hour I found no relief. I would have
given worlds for tears, but none came. But it was absolute content, such
as I fancy people must feel in the first few moments after the soul has
quitted the body. When we were a little recovered, we mutually drew each
other’s pictures from our respective pockets at the same moment, to show
how carefully we had always kept them.
After that we met constantly, and he called upon my parents. I now put
our marriage _seriously_ before them, but without success as regards my
mother.
I shall never forget Richard as he was then. He had had twenty-one
attacks of fever—had been partially paralyzed and partially blind. He
was a mere skeleton, with brown-yellow skin hanging in bags, his eyes
protruding, and his lips drawn away from his teeth. I used to give him
my arm about the Botanical Gardens for fresh air, and sometimes convey
him almost fainting in a cab to our house or friends’ houses, who
allowed and encouraged our meeting.
He told me that all the time he had been away the greatest consolation
he had received were my fortnightly journals, in letter-form, to him,
accompanied by all newspaper scraps, and public and private information,
and accounts of books, such as I knew would interest him; so that when
he did get a mail, which was only in a huge batch now and then, he was
as well posted up as if he were living in London.
Richard was looking so lank and thin. He was sadly altered; his youth,
health, spirits, and beauty were all gone for the time. He fully
justified his fevers, his paralysis and blindness, and any amount of
anxiety, peril, hardship, and privation in unhealthy latitudes. Never
did I feel the strength of my love as then. He returned poorer, and
dispirited by official rows and every species of annoyance; but he was
still—had he been ever so unsuccessful, and had every man’s hand against
him—my earthly god and king, and I could have knelt at his feet and
worshipped him. I used to feel so proud of him; I used to like to sit
and look at him, and think, “You are mine, and there is no man on earth
the least like you.”[9]
Isabel tells us that she regretted bitterly not having been able to stay
with and nurse the man she loved at this time. They were both most
anxious that their marriage should take place, so that they might be
together. But the great obstacle to their union was Mrs. Arundell’s
opposition. Isabel made a long and impassioned appeal to her mother; but
she would not relent, and turned a deaf ear to the lovers’ pleadings. In
justice to Mrs. Arundell, it must be admitted that she had apparently
good reasons for refusing her consent to their marriage. Burton’s niece
says that she “vehemently objected to any daughter of hers espousing a
Protestant.”[10] But this is one of those half-truths which conceal a
whole fallacy. Of course Mrs. Arundell, who came of an old Roman
Catholic family, and who was a woman of strong religious convictions,
would have preferred her daughter to marry a man of the same faith as
herself. But it was not a question between Catholicity and
Protestantism, but between Christianity and no religion at all. From all
that was publicly known of Burton at this time, from his writings and
his conversation, he was an Agnostic; and so far as the religious
objection to the marriage entered, many a Protestant Evangelical mother
would have demurred quite as much as Mrs. Arundell did. Religious
prejudices may be just or unjust, but they are forces which have to be
reckoned with. And the religious objection was not by any means the only
one. At this time there were unpleasant rumours flying about concerning
Burton, and some echo of them had reached Mrs. Arundell’s ears. The way
in which the Royal Geographical Society had passed him over in favour of
Speke had naturally lent colour to these reports; and although Burton
had a few friends, he had many enemies. He was under a cloud. The
Government ignored him; the War Office disliked him; his military career
had so far been a failure—there was no prospect of promotion; the Indian
army had brought him under the reduction; he had not the means to keep a
wife in decent comfort, nor were his relations in a position to help
him, either with money or influence; and lastly, he was of a wild,
roving disposition. All these considerations combined to make Mrs.
Arundell hesitate in entrusting her daughter’s happiness to his hands.
It must be remembered that Isabel was the eldest child. She was a very
handsome and fascinating girl; she had many wealthy suitors, and might
well have been expected to make “a good match.” From a worldly point of
view she was simply throwing herself away. From a higher point of view
she was following her destiny, and marrying the man she loved with every
fibre of her being. But Mrs. Arundell could hardly have been expected to
see things in this light, and in opposing Isabel’s marriage with Richard
Burton she only acted as ninety-nine mothers out of every hundred would
have done. No sooner were they married than she admitted that she had
made a mistake, and did all in her power to atone for it; but at this
time she was inexorable.[11]
Burton, who was very much in love, was not in the habit of brooking
opposition, least of all from a woman; and he suggested to Isabel that
they should take the law in their own hands, and make a runaway match of
it. After all, they had arrived at years of discretion, and might fairly
be expected to know their own minds. He was past forty, and Isabel was
nearly thirty. More than three years had gone by since he declared his
love to her in the Botanical Gardens; nearly ten years had passed since
she had fallen in love with him on the Ramparts of Boulogne. Surely they
had waited long enough. Isabel was swayed by his pleading; more than
once she was on the point of yielding, but she resisted the temptation.
Duty and obedience were always watchwords with her, and she could not
bear the thought of going against her mother. Her sense of duty warred
with her desire. So things see-sawed for nearly a year. And then:
“One day in April, 1860, I was walking out with two friends, and a
tightening of the heart came over me that I had known before. I went
home, and said to my sister, ‘I am not going to see Richard for some
time.’ She said, ‘Why, you will see him to-morrow!’ ‘No, I shall not,’ I
said; ‘I don’t know what is the matter.’ A tap came at the door, and a
note with the well-known writing was put into my hand. I knew my fate,
and with a deep-drawn breath I opened it. He had left—could not bear the
pain of saying good-bye; would be absent for nine months, on a journey
to see Salt Lake City. He would then come back, and see whether I had
made up my mind to choose between him or my mother, to marry me if I
_would_; and if I had not the courage to risk it, he would go back to
India, and thence to other explorations, and return no more. I was to
take nine months to think about it.”[12]
This was the last straw to Isabel, and for a time she broke down
utterly. For some weeks she was ill in bed and delirious, heart-sick and
hopeless, worn out with the mental conflict she was going through. Then
she girded up her strength for one last struggle, and when she arose
from her bed her purpose was clear and strong. The first thing she did
showed that her mind was made up. On the plea of change of air she went
into the country and stayed at a farmhouse. As she had determined to
marry a poor man and also to accompany him in all his travels, she set
herself to rough it and to learn everything which might fit her for the
roving life she was afterwards to lead, so that in the desert or the
backwoods, with servants or without them, she might be qualified for any
emergency. In addition to mastering all domestic duties at the
farmhouse, heavy and light, she tried her hand at outdoor work as well,
and learned how to look after the poultry-yard and cattle, to groom the
horses, and to milk the cows. Nor did her efforts end here. When she
came back to London, she asked a friend (Dr. Bird) to teach her to
fence. He asked her why she wanted to learn fencing. She answered, “Why?
To defend Richard, when he and I are attacked in the wilderness
together.” Later on Burton himself taught her to fence, and she became
an expert fencer. At this time also she was eager for books of all
kinds. She wanted a wider range of reading, so that she might, as she
phrased it, “be able to discuss things with Richard.” This period of
waiting was, in effect, a period of preparation for her marriage with
the man she loved, and she pursued her preparations steadily and quietly
without a shadow of wavering. Nevertheless she fretted a great deal
during this separation. A friend who knew her at this time has told me
she often looked wretched. She spent much time in fasting and prayer,
and there were days when she would eat nothing but vegetable and drink
water. She used to call these her “marrow and water days.”
One day she saw in the paper “Murder of Captain Burton.” Her anguish was
intense. Her mother went with her to the mail-office to make inquiries
and ascertain the truth. A Captain Burton had been murdered by his crew,
but it was not Isabel’s Captain Burton. She says, “My life seemed to
hang on a thread till he [the clerk] answered, and then my face beamed
so the man was quite startled.” Great joy, like great grief, is selfish.
She gave little thought of the poor man who was killed, the sense of
relief was so great. Burton—her Burton—was at that moment enjoying
himself with the Mormons in Salt Lake City, where he stayed for some
months. When his tour was completed, he turned his face towards home
again—and Isabel.
CHAPTER X[13]
_AT LAST_
(1860–1861)
My beloved is mine, and I am his.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
For love is strong as death.
_The Song of Solomon._
It was Christmas, 1860, that I went to stop with my relatives, Sir
Clifford and Lady Constable (his _first_ wife, _née_ Chichester), at
Burton Constable—the father and mother of the present baronet. There was
a large party in the house, and we were singing; some one propped up the
music with the _Times_, which had just arrived, and the first
announcement that caught my eye was that “Captain R. F. Burton had
arrived from America.”
I was unable, except by great resolution, to continue what I was doing.
I soon retired to my room, and _sat_ up all night, packing, and
conjecturing how I should get away—all my numerous plans tending to a
“bolt” next morning—should I get an affectionate letter from Richard. I
received two; one had been opened and read by somebody else, and one, as
it afterwards turned out, had been burked at home before forwarding. It
was not an easy matter. I was in a large country house in Yorkshire,
with about twenty-five friends and relatives, amongst whom was one
brother, and I had heaps of luggage. We were blocked up with snow, and
nine miles from the station, and (_contra miglior noler voler mal
pugna_) I had heard of his arrival only early in the evening, and twelve
hours later I managed to get a telegram, ordering me to London, under
the impression that it was of the most vital importance.
What a triumph it is to a woman’s heart, when she has patiently and
courageously worked and prayed and suffered, and the moment is realized
that was the goal of her ambition!
As soon as we met, and had had our talk, he said:
“I have waited for five years. The first three were inevitable, on
account of my journey to Africa, but the last two were not. Our lives
are being spoiled by the unjust prejudice of your mother, and it is for
you to consider whether you have not already done your duty in
sacrificing two of the best years of your life out of respect to her. If
_once_ you _really_ let me go, mind, I shall never come back, because I
shall know that you have not got the strength of character which _my_
wife must have. Now you must make up your mind to choose between your
mother and me. If you choose me, we marry, and I stay; if not, I go back
to India, and on other explorations, and I return no more. Is your
answer ready?”
I said, “Quite. I marry you this day three weeks, let who will say nay.”
When we fixed the date of our marriage, I wanted to be married on
Wednesday, the 23rd, because it was the Espousals of Our Lady and St.
Joseph; but he would not, because Wednesday the 23rd and Friday the 13th
were our unlucky days; so we were married on the Vigil, Tuesday, January
22.
We pictured to ourselves much domestic happiness, with youth, health,
courage, and talent to win honour, name, and position. We had the same
tastes, and perfect confidence in each other. No one turns away from
real happiness without some very strong temptation or delusion. I went
straight to my father and mother, and told them what had occurred. My
father said, “I consent with all my heart, if your mother consents”; and
mother said, “_Never!_” I asked all my brothers and sisters, and they
said they would receive him with delight. My mother offered me a
marriage with my father and brothers present, my mother and sisters not.
I felt that this was a slight upon _him_, a slight upon his family, and
a slur upon me, which I did not deserve, and I refused it. I went to
Cardinal Wiseman, and I told him the whole case as it stood, and he
asked me if my mind was absolutely made up, and I said, “_Absolutely._”
Then he said, “Leave the matter to me.” He requested Richard to call
upon him, and asked him if he would give him three promises in
writing—(1) that I should be allowed the free practice of my religion;
(2) that if we had any children they should be brought up Catholics; (3)
that we should be married in the Catholic Church: which three promises
Richard readily signed. He also amused the Cardinal, as the family
afterwards learnt, by saying sharply, “Practise her religion indeed! I
should rather think she _shall_. A man without a religion may be
excused, but a woman without a religion is not the woman for me.” The
Cardinal then sent for me, promised me his protection, said he would
himself procure a special dispensation from Rome, and that he would
perform the ceremony himself. He then saw my father, who told him how
much opposed my mother was to it; that she was threatened with
paralysis; that we had to consider her in every possible way, that she
might receive no shocks, no agitation; but that all the rest quite
consented to the marriage. A big family council was then held; and it
was agreed far better for Richard and me and for every one to make all
proper arrangements to be married and to be attended by friends, and for
me to go away on a visit to some friends, that they might not come to
the wedding, nor participate in it, in order not to agitate my mother;
that they would break it to her at a suitable time; and that the secret
of their knowing it should be kept up as long as mother lived. “Mind,”
said my father, “you must never bring a misunderstanding between mother
and me, nor between her and her children.”
I passed that three weeks preparing very solemnly and earnestly for my
marriage day, but yet something differently to what many expectant
brides do. I made a very solemn religious preparation, receiving the
Sacraments. Gowns, presents, and wedding pageants had no part in it, had
no place.
The following were my reflections[14]:
“The principal and leading features of my future life are going to be:
“Marriage with Richard.
“My parents’ blessing and pardon.
“A man-child.
“An appointment, money earned by literature and publishing.
“A little society.
“Doing a great deal of good.
“Much travelling.
“I have always divided marriage into three classes—Love, Ambition, and
Life. By Life I mean a particular style of life and second self that a
peculiar disposition and strong character require to make life happy,
and without which possibly neither Love alone nor Ambition alone would
satisfy it. And I love a man in whom I can unite all three, Love, Life,
and Ambition, of my own choice. Some understand Ambition as Title,
Wealth, Estates; I understand it as Fame, Name, Power. I have undertaken
a very peculiar man; I have asked a difficult mission of God, and that
is to give me that man’s body and soul. It is a grand mission; and after
ten years and a half of prayer God has given it to me. Now we must lead
a good, useful, active, noble life, and be each other’s salvation; and
if we have children, bring them up in the fear of God. The first thing
to be done is to obtain my parents’ pardon and blessing for going my own
way; the next, to pray for a child to comfort me when he is absent and
cannot take me; and, thirdly, to set to work with a good heart to work
for an appointment or other means of living. We must do any amount of
study and publishing, take society in moderation as a treat; we must do
good according to our means; and when successful we will travel. My
rules as a wife are as follows:
=Rules for my Guidance as a Wife.=
“1. Let your husband find in you a companion, friend, and adviser, and
_confidante_, that he may miss nothing at home; and let him find in the
wife what he and many other men fancy is only to be found in a mistress,
that he may seek nothing out of his home.
“2. Be a careful nurse when he is ailing, that he may never be in low
spirits about his health without a serious cause.
“3. Make his home snug. If it be ever so small and poor, there can
always be a certain _chic_ about it. Men are always ashamed of a
poverty-stricken home, and therefore prefer the club. Attend much to his
creature comforts; allow smoking or anything else; for if you do not,
_somebody else will_. Make it yourself cheerful and attractive, and draw
relations and intimates about him, and the style of society (_literati_)
that suits him, marking who are real friends to him and who are not.
“4. Improve and educate yourself in every way, that you may enter into
his pursuits and keep pace with the times, that he may not weary of you.
“5. Be prepared at any moment to follow him at an hour’s notice and
rough it like a man.
“6. Do not try to hide your affection for him, but let him see and feel
it in every action. Never refuse him anything he asks. Observe a certain
amount of reserve and delicacy before him. Keep up the honeymoon
romance, whether at home or in the desert. At the same time do not make
prudish bothers, which only disgust, and are not true modesty. Do not
make the mistake of neglecting your personal appearance, but try to look
well and dress well to please his eye.
“7. Perpetually work up his interests with the world, whether for
publishing or for appointments. Let him feel, when he has to go away,
that he leaves a second self in charge of his affairs at home; so that
if sometimes he is obliged to leave you behind, he may have nothing of
anxiety on his mind. Take an interest in everything that interests him.
To be companionable, a woman must learn what interests her husband; and
if it is only planting turnips, she must try to understand turnips.
“8. Never confide your domestic affairs to your female friends.
“9. Hide his faults from _every one_, and back him up through every
difficulty and trouble; but with his peculiar temperament advocate peace
whenever it is consistent with his honour before the world.
“10. Never permit any one to speak disrespectfully of him before you;
and if any one does, no matter how difficult, leave the room. Never
permit any one to tell you anything about him, especially of his conduct
with regard to other women. Never hurt his feelings by a rude remark or
jest. Never answer when he finds fault; and never reproach him when he
is in the wrong, _especially when he tells you of it_, nor take
advantage of it when you are angry; and always keep his heart up when he
has made a failure.
“11. Keep all disagreements for your own room, and never let others find
them out.
“12. Never ask him _not_ to do anything—for instance, with regard to
visiting other women, or any one you particularly dislike; trust him,
and tell him everything, except another person’s secret.
“13. Do not bother him with religious talk, be religious yourself and
give good example, take life seriously and earnestly, pray for and
procure prayers for him, and do all you can for him without his knowing
it, and let all your life be something that will win mercy from God for
him. You might _try_ to say a little prayer _with_ him every night
before laying down to sleep, and gently draw him to be good to the poor
and more gentle and forbearing to others.
“14. Cultivate your own good health, spirits, and nerves, to counteract
his naturally melancholy turn, and to enable you to carry out your
mission.
“15. Never open his letters, nor appear inquisitive about anything he
does not volunteer to tell you.
“16. Never interfere between him and his family; encourage their being
with him, and forward everything he wishes to do for them, and treat
them in every respect (as far as they will let you) as if they were your
own.
“17. Keep everything going, and let nothing ever be at a standstill:
nothing would weary him like stagnation.”[15]
Richard arranged with my own lawyer and my own priest that everything
should be conducted in a strictly legal and strictly religious way, and
the whole programme of the affair was prepared. A very solemn day to me
was the eve of my marriage. The following day I was supposed to be going
to pass a few weeks with a friend in the country.
At nine o’clock on Tuesday, January 22, 1861, my cab was at the door,
with my box on it. I had to go and wish my father and mother good-bye
before leaving. I went downstairs with a beating heart, after I had
knelt in my own room, and said a fervent prayer that they might bless
me, and if they did I would take it as a sign. I was so nervous, I could
scarcely stand. When I went in mother kissed me, and said, “Good-bye,
child; God bless you!” I went to my father’s bedside, and knelt down and
said good-bye. “God bless you, my darling!” he said, and put his hand
out of the bed and laid it on my head. I was too much overcome to speak,
and one or two tears ran down my cheeks, and I remember as I passed down
I kissed the door outside.
I then ran downstairs, and quickly got into my cab, and drove to the
house of some friends (Dr. and Miss Bird), where I changed my
clothes—not wedding clothes (clothes which most brides of to-day would
probably laugh at)—a fawn-coloured dress, a black-lace cloak, and a
white bonnet—and they and I drove off to the Bavarian Catholic Church,
Warwick Street. When assembled, we were altogether a party of eight. The
Registrar was there for legality, as is customary. Richard was waiting
on the doorstep for me, and as we went in he took holy water, and made a
very large sign of the cross. The church doors were wide open, and full
of people, and many were there who knew us. As the 10.30 Mass was about
to begin we were called into the Sacristy, and we then found that the
Cardinal in the night had been seized with an acute attack of the
illness which carried him off four years later, and had deputed Dr.
Hearne, his Vicar-General, to be his proxy.
After the ceremony was over and the names signed, we went back to the
house of our friend Dr. Bird and his sister Alice, who have always been
our best friends, where we had our wedding breakfast. During the time we
were breakfasting Dr. Bird began to chaff Richard about the things that
were sometimes said of him, and which were not true. “Now, Burton, tell
me, how do you feel when you have killed a man?” Dr. Bird (being a
physician) had given himself away without knowing it. Richard looked up
quizzically, and drawled out, “Oh, quite jolly! How do you?”[16]
[Illustration: LADY BURTON AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE.]
We then went to Richard’s bachelor lodgings, where he had a bedroom,
dressing-room, and sitting-room; and we had very few pounds to bless
ourselves with, but were as happy as it is given to any mortals out of
heaven to be. The fact is, that the only clandestine thing about it—and
that was quite contrary to _my_ desire—was that my poor mother, with her
health and her religious scruples, was kept in the dark; but I must
thank God, though paralysis came on two years later, it was not I that
caused it.
To say that I was happy would be to say nothing. A peace came over me
that I had never known. I felt that it was for eternity, an immortal
repose, and I was in a bewilderment of wonder at the goodness of God,
Who had almost worked miracles for me.
BOOK II
WEDDED
(1861–1890)
“_Ellati Zaujuhá ma’ahá b’tadir el Kamar b’asbiha._”
(“The woman who has her husband with her can turn the moon with her
finger.”)
CHAPTER I
_FERNANDO PO_
(1861–1863)
I praise thee while my days go on;
I love thee while my days go on;
Through dark and death, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank thee while my days go on.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
In fiction (though perhaps not now as much as formerly) marriage is
often treated as the end of all things in a woman’s life, and the last
chapter winds up with the “happy ever after,” like the concluding scene
of a melodrama. But in this romance of Isabel Burton, this drama of real
life, marriage was but the beginning of the second and more important
half of her life. It was the blossoming of love’s flower, the expanding
of her womanhood, the fulfilment of her destiny. For such a marriage as
hers was a sacrament consecrated by love; it was a knitting together, a
oneness, a union of body, soul, and spirit, of thought, feeling, and
inclination, such as is not often given to mortals to enjoy. But then
Burton was no ordinary man, nor was his wife an ordinary woman. She
often said he was “the only man in the world who could manage me,” and
to this it may be added that she was the only woman in the world who
would have suited him. No other woman could have held him as she did.
The very qualities which made her different to the ordinary run of women
were those which made her the ideal wife for a man like Richard Burton.
The eagle does not mate with the domestic hen, and in Isabel’s
unconventional and adventurous temperament Burton saw the reflex of his
own. Though holding different views on some things, they had the same
basic principles; and though their early environment and education had
been widely different, yet Nature, the greatest force of all, had
brought them together and blended them into one. It was a union of
affinities. Isabel merged her life in her husband’s. She sacrificed
everything to him save two things—her rare individuality, and her
fervent faith in her religion. The first she could not an she would; the
second she would not an she could; and to his honour be it said he never
demanded it of her. But in all else she was his absolutely; her
passionate ideals, the treasure of her love, her life’s happiness—all
were his to cherish or to mar as he might please. She had a high ideal
of the married state. “I think,” she writes, “a true woman who is
married to her proper mate recognizes the fully performed mission,
whether prosperous or not, and no one can ever take his place for her as
an interpreter of that which is between her and her Creator, to her the
shadow of God’s protection here on earth.” And her conception of a
wife’s duty was an equally unselfish one, for she wrote of the beginning
of her married life: “I began to feel, what I have always felt since,
that he was a glorious, stately ship in full sail, commanding all
attention and admiration, and sometimes, if the wind drops, she still
sails gallantly, and no one sees the humble little steam-tug hidden on
the other side, with her strong heart and faithful arms working forth,
and glorying in her proud and stately ship.”
Very soon after her marriage Isabel was reconciled to her mother. It
came about in this wise. Mrs. Arundell thought she had gone away on a
visit to some friends in the country, and told her friends so; but a
week or two after the marriage one of Isabel’s aunts, Monica Lady
Gerard, heard of her going into a lodging in St. James’s, and
immediately rushed off to tell Mrs. Arundell that Isabel could not be
staying in the country, as was supposed, and she feared she had eloped
or something of the kind. Mrs. Arundell, in an agony of fear,
telegraphed to her husband, who was then staying with some friends, and
he wired back to her, “She is married to Dick Burton, and thank God for
it.” He also wrote, enclosing a letter Burton had written to him on the
day of the marriage, announcing the fact, and he asked his wife to send
one of Isabel’s brothers (who knew the Burtons’ address) to them and be
reconciled. Mrs. Arundell was so much relieved that a worse thing had
not befallen Isabel that she sent for the truant pair at once. She was
not a woman to do things by halves; and recognizing that the inevitable
had happened, and that for weal or woe the deed was done, she received
both Isabel and her husband with the utmost kindness, and expressed her
regret that she should have opposed the marriage. The statement that she
never forgave Burton is incorrect. On the contrary, she forgave him at
once, and grew to like him greatly, always treating him as a son. She
gave a family party to introduce Burton to his wife’s relations, and
there was a general reconciliation all round.
For seven months after their marriage Isabel and her husband continued
to live, off and on, at their little lodgings in St. James’s, as happy
as two birds in a nest. But the problem of ways and means had early to
be considered. Now that Burton had taken unto himself a wife, it became
imperatively necessary that he should to some extent forego his
wandering habits and settle down to earn something to maintain her in
the position in which she had been accustomed to live. He had a small
patrimony and his pay; in all about £350 a year. With the help Isabel’s
friends would have given, this might have sufficed to begin matrimony in
India. In the ordinary course of events, Burton, like any other officer
in the service, would have returned to India, rejoined his regiment, and
taken his wife out with him. The money difficulty alone would not have
stood in the way. But there were other difficulties, as Burton knew
well; the strong prejudice against him (an unjust one, I believe, but
none the less real) made it hopeless for him to expect promotion in the
Indian army. So he did what was undoubtedly the best thing under the
circumstances. He determined not to return to India, and he applied for
a post in the Consular Service, with the result that in March, some
three months after his marriage, he was offered the post of Consul at
Fernando Po, on the west coast of Africa—a deadly climate, and £700 a
year. He cheerfully accepted it, as he was only too glad to get his foot
on the lowest rung of the official ladder. He was told to hold himself
in readiness to leave in August; and as the climate of Fernando Po was
almost certain death to a white woman, he would not allow his young wife
to accompany him. So the bliss of the first months of their wedded life
was overshadowed by the thought of approaching separation.
In accepting the offer of Fernando Po, Burton wrote to the Foreign
Office[17]: “My connexion with H.M.’s Indian army has now lasted upwards
of nineteen years, and I am unwilling to retire without pension or
selling out of my corps. If therefore my name could be retained upon the
list of my regiment—as, for instance, is the case with H.M.’s Consul at
Zanzibar—I should feel deeply indebted.” A reasonable request truly.
Lord John Russell, who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
and who had given Burton the Consulship, caused his application to be
forwarded to the proper quarter—the Bombay Government. But the
authorities in India refused to entertain Burton’s application; they
struck his name off the Indian Army List; and in this way the whole of
his nineteen years’ service in India was swept away without pay or
pension. If the brutal truth must be told, they were only too glad to
seize on this excuse to get rid of him. But that does not palliate their
conduct; it was well said, “His enemies may be congratulated on their
mingled malice and meanness.”
With regard to Fernando Po, I cannot take the view that Burton was
ill-treated in not getting a better post; on the contrary, taking all
the circumstances into consideration, he was fortunate in obtaining this
one. For what were the facts? He had undoubtedly distinguished himself
as an explorer, as a linguist, and as a writer; but his Indian career
had been a failure. He had managed to give offence in high quarters, and
he was viewed with disfavour. On quitting one service under a cloud, he
could not at once expect to receive a pick appointment in another. As a
Consul he was yet an untried man. There is little doubt that even
Fernando Po was given him through the influence of his wife. It was the
same throughout his after-career; his wife’s unceasing efforts on his
behalf helped him up every step of the official ladder, and shielded him
more than once from the full force of the official displeasure. There is
nothing like a brilliant and beautiful wife to help a man on; and so
Burton found it. He had done many clever and marvellous things during
his life, but the best day’s work he ever did for himself was when he
married Isabel Arundell. His marriage was in fact his salvation. It
steadied him down and gave him some one to work for and some one to
love, and it did more than anything else to give the lie to the rumours
against him which were floating about. No longer an Ishmael, he entered
an ancient and honoured family. Many who would not have moved a finger
to help Burton were willing to do anything in their power for his wife;
and as she cared for only one thing, her husband’s interests, he secured
their influence in his favour.
When the London season came round, the Burtons, despite their limited
means, went a good deal into society. The story of their romantic
marriage got abroad, and many friends were ready to take them by the
hand. The late Lord Houghton was especially kind. He asked Lord
Palmerston, who was then Prime Minister, to give a party in their
honour; and Isabel was the bride of the evening, and went down to dinner
on the Prime Minister’s arm. Shortly after this she was presented at
Court, “on her marriage,” by Lady John Russell.
There had been some little doubt in Isabel’s mind concerning her
presentation, as the Queen made it a rule then (and may do so now, for
all I know) that she would not receive at Court any bride who had made a
runaway marriage. Isabel’s was hardly a runaway marriage, as she married
with her father’s knowledge and consent. Still it was not quite a usual
one, and she was very glad when her presentation at Court removed any
doubt in this respect, especially as she looked forward to living abroad
in the future, and difficulties might arise as to her attending a
foreign court if she were not received at her own. She wanted to help
her husband in every way.
Concerning her presentation Mrs. Fitzgerald has told me the following
anecdote. Isabel’s one thought was how to please her husband, and she
was always yearning to win his approval. A word of praise from him was
the sweetest thing in life. Burton, however, though proud and fond of
her, was of anything but an effusive nature, and his praises of any one
were few and far between. When she was dressed for her first
Drawing-Room—and very handsome she looked, a beautiful woman beautifully
dressed—she went to show herself to her husband. He looked at her
critically; and though he was evidently delighted with her appearance,
said nothing, which was a great disappointment to her. But as she was
leaving the room she overheard him say to her mother, “La jeune femme
n’a rien à craindre”; and she went down to the carriage radiant and
happy.
The Burtons were such an unconventional couple that there was a good
deal of curiosity among their acquaintances as to how they would get on,
and all sorts of conjectures were made. Many of Burton’s bachelor
friends told one another frankly, “It won’t last. She will never be able
to hold him.” Shortly after her marriage one of her girl friends took
her aside and asked her in confidence, “Well, Isabel, how _does_ it
work? Can you manage him? Does he ever come home at night?” “Oh,” said
Isabel, “it works very well indeed, and he always comes home with the
milk in the morning.” Of course this was only in joke, for Burton was a
man of most temperate life, and after his marriage, at any rate, he
literally forsook all others and cleaved only to his wife.
About this time a calamity befell them in Grindlay’s fire, in which they
lost everything they had in the world, except the few personal
belongings in their lodgings. All Burton’s manuscripts were destroyed.
He took it philosophically enough, and said, “Well, it is a great bore;
but I dare say that the world will be none the worse for some of the
manuscripts having been burnt.” His wife notes this as “a prophetic
speech”; and so it was, when we remember the fate of _The Scented
Garden_ thirty years after.
The London season came to an end sooner in those days than it does now,
and the end of June found the Burtons embarked on a round of visits in
country houses. One of the houses they visited at the time was Fryston,
Lord Houghton’s, and here they met many of the most celebrated people of
the day; for wit and beauty, rank and talent, met on common ground
around the table of him “whom men call Lord Houghton, but the gods
Monckton Milnes.” Isabel always looked back on these first seven months
of her marriage as the happiest of her life. They were one long
honeymoon, “a great oasis”; and she adds, “Even if I had had no other,
it would have been worth living for.” But alas! the evil day of parting
came all too soon. In August Burton had to sail for Fernando Po—“the
Foreign Office grave,” as it was called—and had perforce to leave his
young wife behind him. She went down to Liverpool with him to see him
off, and the agony of that first parting is best expressed in her own
words:
“I was to go out, not now, but later, and then perhaps not to land, and
to return and ply up and down between Madeira and Teneriffe and London;
and I, knowing he had Africa at his back, was in a constant agitation
for fear of his doing more of these explorations into unknown lands.
There were about eighteen men (West African merchants), and everybody
took him away from me, and he had made me promise that if I was allowed
to go on board and see him off I would not cry and unman him. It was
blowing hard and raining. There was one man who was inconsiderate enough
to accompany and stick to us the whole time, so that we could not
exchange a word. (How I hated him!) I went down below, and unpacked his
things, and settled his cabin, and saw to the arrangement of his
luggage. My whole life and soul were in that good-bye, and I found
myself on board the tug, which flew faster and faster from the steamer.
I saw a white handkerchief go up to his face. I then drove to a spot
where I could see the steamer till she became a dot.”[18]
Burton was absent eighteen months, working hard at his duties as Consul
on the west coast of Africa. During that time Isabel lived with her
parents at 14, Montagu Place, W. It was a hard thing to be exiled from
her husband; but she did not waste her time in idle repining. Burton
left her plenty of work to do, and she did it thoroughly. In the first
place, she fought hard, though unsuccessfully, against the decision of
the Bombay Government to remove Burton’s name from the Indian Army List.
In the next place, she arranged for the publication of his book on the
Mormons. Surely not a very congenial task for a young wife of seven
months with an absent husband, for the book was largely a defence of
polygamy! But whatever Burton told her to do she did. She also executed
his divers commissions which came by every mail. One of them was to go
to Paris in January, 1862, on a special mission, to present to the
Emperor and Empress of the French some relics of the great Napoleon—a
lock of his hair, a sketch of a plaster cast taken after his death—which
had come into the possession of the Burton family, also a complete set
of Burton’s works, and to ask for an audience of them. She left her
letter and presents at the Tuileries, and her audience was not granted.
She blamed herself bitterly at the time, and put the failure of her
mission of courtesy down to “want of experience and proper friends and
protection.” But the truth of the matter is, that she ought never to
have been sent on such an unnecessary errand, for it was not one in
which she or any one could have been expected to succeed. Nevertheless
Burton’s relatives made themselves very unpleasant about it, and worried
Isabel most cruelly concerning the loss of their trifling relics. And it
may be remarked here that Burton’s near relatives, both his sister and
his niece, always disliked Isabel, and never lost an opportunity of
girding against her. One of them has even carried this rancorous
hostility beyond the grave. These ladies were jealous of Isabel—jealous
of her superior social position, of her beauty, her fascinations, and
above all jealous of her influence over her husband. Why this should
have been so it is impossible to say, for Burton did not get on very
well with his relatives, and made a point of seeing as little of them as
possible. Perhaps they thought it was Isabel who kept him away; but it
was not. Fortunately it is not necessary to enter into the details of a
sordid family squabble. To do so would be to weary, and not to edify.
Following the annoyance to which she was subjected by her husband’s
relatives came another of a different nature. There were many who heard,
and some who repeated, rumours against Burton which had been circulated
by Speke and others. One candid friend made it his business to retail
some of these to Isabel (one to the effect that her husband was “keeping
a seraglio” out at Fernando Po), and gave her a good deal of gratuitous
and sympathetic advice as to how she ought to act. But Isabel refused to
listen to anything against her husband, and spurned the sympathy and
advice, declaring that “any one who could listen to such lying tales was
no friend of hers,” and she closed the acquaintance forthwith.
Despite her brave words there is no doubt that she fretted a good deal
through the months that followed. Her depression was further aggravated
by a sharp attack of diphtheria. One day in October, when she could bear
the loneliness and separation from her husband no longer, she went down
to the Foreign Office, and cried her heart out to Sir Henry (then Mr.)
Layard. Her distress touched the official’s heart, for he asked her to
wait while he went upstairs. Presently Mr. Layard came back, saying he
had got four months’ leave for Burton, and had ordered the dispatch to
be sent off that very afternoon. She says, “I could have thrown my arms
around his neck and kissed him, but I did not; he might have been
surprised. I had to go and sit out in the Green Park till the excitement
wore off; it was more to me than if he had given me a large fortune.”
In December Burton returned home after an absence of eighteen months,
and his wife went to Liverpool to meet him. We may imagine her joy.
Christmas was spent at Wardour Castle (Lord Arundell’s), a large family
gathering; then they went to Garswood to stay with Lord Gerard; he was
Isabel’s uncle, and always her staunch friend.
Burton’s leave sped all too soon; and when the time came for his
departure, his wife told him that she could not possibly go on living as
she had been living. “One’s husband in a place where I am not allowed to
go, and I living with my mother like a girl. I am neither maid, nor
wife, nor widow.” So he arranged to take her with him as far as
Teneriffe at any rate. As they were to leave from Liverpool, they stayed
at Garswood, which was hard by, until the day came for them to sail.