(MRS. REEVES.)
Although it is but two o'clock in the afternoon, the streets are black
as night. With the delightful variety of an English climate, the
temperature has suddenly fallen, and a rapid thaw has set in, converting
the heavy fall of snow, which but two days before threatened to cover
the whole of London, into a slough of mud. It is a pleasant change to
turn from these outer discomforts into the warm and well-lighted house
which Mrs. Reeves has made so bright and comfortable.
You have judiciously managed to arrive five minutes earlier than the
hour appointed, in the hope of being able to make a few mental notes
before Helen Mathers comes in, and your perspicacity is rewarded, for a
bird's-eye glance around assures you that she possesses a refined and
artistic taste, which is displayed in the general arrangement of the
room. Lighted from above by a glass dome, another room is visible and
again a glimpse of a third beyond. The quaint originality of their shape
and build suggests the idea, of what indeed is the fact, that the house
was built more than a century and a half ago.
The first room is very long, and its soft Axminster carpet of amber
colour shaded up to brown gives the key-note to the decorations, which
from the heavily embossed gold leather paper on the walls to the
orange-coloured Indian scarves that drape the exquisite white
overmantels (now wreathed with long sprays of ivy, grasses, and red
leaves), would delight the heart of a sun-worshipper as Helen Mathers
declares herself to be.
As she now comes in, she seems to bring an additional sense of the
fitness of things. She carries a big basket of China tea-roses, which
she has just received from a friend in the country, and the long white
cachemire and silk tea-gown which she wears looks thoroughly
appropriate, despite the inclement season. It is her favourite colour
for house wear in summer or winter, and certainly nothing could be more
becoming to her soft, creamy complexion, and the natural tints of the
thick, bright copper-coloured hair, which, curling over her brow, is
twisted loosely into a great knot, lying low on the back of her head.
The conversation turning upon the peculiar structure of the rooms, Mrs.
Reeves proposes to take you into the one innermost which is truly a
curiosity. A very old cathedral glass partition opens on to a square and
lofty room, used as an inner hall, with great velvet shields of china
and brasses on its gold leather walls, and quaint old oak chairs,
cabinets, and high old-fashioned clock. A portrait in sepia of Mrs.
Reeves, done by Alfred Ward, hangs over a paneled door on the left. It
was to this picture that Mr. Frederick Locker wrote the following
lines:--
"Not mine to praise your eyes and wit,
Although your portrait here I view,
So what I may not say to you
I've said to it."
Opposite is a very wide, high door that opens into the oak-panelled
room, which may well have been a banqueting hall of the last century. It
is lighted from above, and each pane of glass has in its centre, in
vivid colours, the initials of the royal personage who, if the coats of
arms abounding everywhere are to be trusted, may have occupied this room
over a hundred years ago. By the way, the harp is absent from these
armorial bearings.
One entire side of the room is filled by a vast mirror, set in a
magnificently carved oak frame, and supported on either side by colossal
winged female figures, that are matched (and in the glass reflected) by
the caryatides who appear to hold up the massive carvings above the
door, which is itself covered entirely by superb carvings of beast and
bird, and laughing boys playing at Bacchus with great clusters of
grapes. Round this unique room runs an oak paneling of about five feet
in height, surmounted by a ledge, now decorated with trails of ivy, and
above the oak cupboards are panels representing a boar hunt, and worth,
it is said, a fabulous sum. But the glory of the room is the
mantelpiece, reaching to the roof. It was probably once an altar piece,
as the centre panel represents the Crucifixion. Two busts--one of Queen
Elizabeth, the other of the Earl of Leicester--frown down on you from a
great height, and do not please you half as well as a bronze Venus of
Milo below. The hearth itself (of an incredibly old pattern, with heavy
iron fender, which suggests a prison) has on either side two odd-looking
figures, that are supposed to represent Joan of Arc and her keeper. He
carries a knotted whip in one hand, and seems to look ferociously on
poor Joan in her half-manly, half-feminine garb.
"I am very fond of these two," says Mrs. Reeves, looking affectionately
at them, "and often dust their faces, but I am not at all fond of
sitting in this room. I much prefer my sunny quarters upstairs, and
these high carved oak chairs are uncomfortable to sit in, especially at
dinner!"
But pleasant as it is, there is other business on hand, and you cannot
linger over these beautiful antiquities; the afternoon is wearing on,
and Mrs. Reeves leads the way to the drawing-rooms, which are also oddly
shaped, and open one out of the other, like those downstairs; but those
rooms are very different to look upon, and are, in your hostess's
opinion, "much more cheery." You can step from the long windows on to a
flower-filled balcony that looks up and down Grosvenor Street. The
hangings of the first room are of yellow satin, of the second room pink;
the furniture is merely of basket work, but made beautiful and
comfortable by many soft cushions; and a long glass set in a frame of
white woodwork, its low shelf covered with rare old yellow china and
flowers, reflects the gold and cream leather walls, and the overmantel
crammed with a lovely litter of china, pictures, and odds and ends, in
the centre of which is a horseshoe. "Picked up by my boy, Phil," says
Mrs. Reeves, as you examine it, "and we always say it has brought us
luck."
But when you ask to see her writing-room--for there is not a sign of
pen, ink, and paper to be seen on a modest white escritoire behind the
door--she shakes her head and laughs.
"I have no writing-room and no particular table," she says, "indeed I
can't say in the least how my books get written. I jot down anything
that I especially observe, or think of, on a bit of paper, and when I
have a great many pieces I sort them out, and usually pin them together
in some sort of a sequence. At home, where I had an immense room to
write in over the library, the boys used to say no one must speak to me
if my 'authoress lock' were standing up over my forehead, but if I ever
display it nowadays, nobody," she adds, ruefully, "is deterred by it!
Often, just as I have settled down to do a good morning's work, and have
perhaps finished a page, someone comes in and puts letters or account
books on it, or my boy Phil rushes up and lays his air gun or his banjo
on the table, or my husband brings in some little commission or a heap
of notes to be answered for him. I always tell them," laughing, "that
everyone combines to put out of sight the story which is being written,
and often it is not touched again for a week; but my composition, when
really begun, is very rapid, and my ideas seem to run out of my pen. At
my old home they used to say I wrote the things that they thought, which
was a good, lazy way of getting out of it."
This leads to the subject of her "old home," and Mrs. Reeves imparts
some interesting details of her youthful days. She was born at
Misterton, Somersetshire, in the house described in "Comin' thro' the
Rye," and she has always most passionately loved it. Mrs. Reeves was one
of twelve children, who spent the greater part of their time in outdoor
sports and amusements, in which the girls were almost as proficient as
the boys. Their father was a great martinet, and never permitted any
encroachment on the regular lesson hours with their governess. "When I
was only eight years old," says your hostess, "our grandmamma Buckingham
(after whom I take my second Christian name) sent us a biography of
famous persons, arranged alphabetically. I looked down the list to see
if a Mathers were amongst them. It was not, and I took a pencil, and
made a bracket, writing in my name, Helen Mathers, novelist; so the
ruling idea must have been in me early."
The colour of her hair was Helen Mathers's greatest trouble in her
childhood. It was a rich red, and in the familiar home circle she was
called "Carrots," to her great annoyance, until she was sixteen. She
says:--"It gave me such genuine distress that before I was nine years
old, I had written a story depicting the sufferings of a red-haired girl
who wanted to marry a man who was in love with her golden-haired sister.
I inscribed this in an old pocket-book, looking out the names and places
in the _Times_ each day, and afterwards, in agonies of shyness, I read
it aloud to the assembled family, who received it with shouts of
mirth!"
At the age of thirteen, she was sent to Chantry School, and,
unfortunately for her, she was placed at once in the first class,
consisting of girls many years older than herself. Always ardent and
ambitious, she worked so hard that quite suddenly her health broke down,
and she became deaf--an affliction which has partially remained to this
day. No doubt this trouble drove her more into herself, and helped her
to concentrate her thoughts on literature. She wrote and wrote
incessantly for pure love of it, and before she was sixteen had
completed, her poem, "The Token of the Silver Lily." This she gave to a
friend of her family who was acquainted with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The
great man read it, and sent her a message to the effect that, if she
persevered, she bid fair at some future day to succeed. This highly
delighted the girl, who was always working while the others played in
the beautiful place to which her parents had removed when they left
Misterton. This later home is described as "Penroses" in her late novel,
"Adieu!" which previously ran as a serial in a monthly magazine.
Her first appearance in print is thus described:--"It was hay-making
time, and everybody, boys and girls, children, servants, and all, were
down in the hayfield, when someone brought me a shabby little halfpenny
wrapper with the magic word 'Jersey' at the top. I gave a sort of whoop,
and fled down the lawn and across the orchards, and into the bosom of my
family like one possessed. 'Boys, girls!' I cried; 'it's
_accepted_--it's here in _print_! Look at it!' And never did a prouder
heart beat than the heart under my white frock that day for my
first-born bantling of the pen. I had been yachting with my
brother-in-law, Mr. Hamborough, a short time previously, with this
result, that I wrote a sketch of him and his wife and the place, and,
signing it 'N.'--short for 'Nell'--I took counsel with Mr. George
Augustus Sala, whom I did not know in those days, but who was very kind
in replying to me, and he despatched it to _Belgravia_. When it _did_
appear Jersey was very angry, and declared it was libelled, and I should
not have ventured to go over there again for a long while!"
About three years later she produced her first novel, "Comin' thro' the
Rye." It proved a great success, and was rapidly translated into many
languages; indeed, a copy in Sanscrit was sent to her. This work was
written unknown to her family. "My poor father," says Mrs. Reeves,
sadly, "I got him into the story, and though I did not mean to be unkind
or disrespectful, I could not get him out again. I hardly drew a free
breath for months afterwards, fearing someone would tell him I had
written it, and that he would be grievously offended; but I was young
and foolish, too young a great deal I often think to succeed, but it
makes me feel a sort of Methuselah now."
A story is told that many years ago a very youthful writer supplemented
a story of her own with several pages of this book, and wrote to Messrs.
Tillotson, saying she had written the twin novel to "Comin' thro' the
Rye," and would they buy it? The publishers told Mrs. Reeves of this
application. She was much amused, and in high good humour wrote back to
say that she had always understood twins appeared about the same time,
and that she had never heard before of one arriving seven years after
the other.
In 1876 Helen Mathers married Mr. Henry Reeves, the well-known surgeon
and specialist on Orthopaedics. He has been on the staff of the London
Hospital for nearly twenty years, and he, too, is an author, but his
works bear more stupendous and alarming names than those of his wife,
such as "Human Morphology," "Bodily Deformities"--sad, significant
title! But not only as the skilful surgeon, the renowned specialist, the
student, and author, is Henry Reeves known. There is another section of
the world--amongst the poor and suffering, the over-worked clerk, the
underpaid governess, the struggling artist, where his name like many
another in his noble profession, is loved and revered, and where the
word "fee" is never heard of, and the "left hand knoweth not what the
right hand doeth." Did you not know all this from personal experience,
it is almost to be read in the kind, benevolent face. His wife says,
laughing, that "he is so unselfish, he never thinks of himself, and I
have always to be looking after him to see that he gets even a meal in
peace"; and she adds, in a low and tender tone, "but he is the kindest
and best of husbands." They have but one child--"Phil"--a bright,
handsome boy of fourteen. He is the idol of their hearts, and like
quicksilver in his brightness. His mother says when he was only three,
he was found sitting at her desk, wielding a pen with great vigour, and
throwing much ink about, as he dipped his golden curls in the blots he
was making. "What are you doing?" his mother asked. "Writing ''Tory of a
Sin,'" he said, with great dignity; and now that he is older he composes
with great rapidity.
"He is at school now," says Mrs. Reeves, "and the house is like a tomb
without him. If it were not for my needlework (my especial vanity) I
could not get through the long weeks between his holidays. Children,
flowers, needlework--these are my chief delights; and as I often have to
do without the first two, my needle is often a great comfort to me."
Shortly after her marriage, Mrs. Reeves again took up her pen, and
during the next few years she wrote several novels and novelettes,
selecting peculiarly attractive titles. Amongst these books are "Cherry
Ripe," "As He Comes up the Stair," "The Story of a Sin," "The Land of
the Leal," "My Lady Greensleeves," "Eyre's Acquittal," etc., etc.
Referring to a character in the last of these, you ask to see the book;
but there is not a single volume visible; they are all conspicuous by
their absence.
Mrs. Reeves remarks that she "has done nothing to speak of lately,
feeling she has had nothing to say." Some months ago the inclination to
begin a new story came back to her, and she set diligently to work while
it lasted. A great catastrophe occurred. The first volume was finished
when, having occasion to go on other business to her publisher, she had
the manuscript put into the hansom which was to convey her to his
office. After a long conversation, she suddenly remembered that the
parcel had been left in the cab, and from that day to this she has never
recovered it. At the time she did not take the matter seriously, feeling
sure the precious packet would be found at Scotland Yard; but, though
rewards were offered and handbills circulated by the thousand, all was
of no avail. Mrs. Reeves adds, "the Press most kindly assisted me in
every possible way. Either the cabman threw it away, in total ignorance
of its value, and then was afraid to come forward and confess it, or
some dishonest person who next got into the cab may have sold, or used
the story, in America probably, or elsewhere. _Nous verrons!_ I have
written it over again. It took me a few weeks only, without notes,
without a scrap of anything to help me, save my memory, and never in my
life did I sit down to a harder task."
The author is very modest in her own opinion of this last book, and adds
ruefully, "I feel miserable over it, but I never _am_ at all satisfied
with my work, and when I sent it to my publishers, I told them that they
had much better put it into the fire--it fell so entirely short of what
I had intended." They however, happily took quite a different view of
its merits, and the novel will shortly be brought out in three volumes.
Helen Mathers is a great needlewoman. Not only are the long satin
curtains, the pillows, cushions, and dainty lamp shades all made by her
own hands; but she can cut out and sew any article of feminine apparel.
She has, indeed, a very pretty taste in dress, and many of her friends
are in the habit of consulting her in that line--from the designing of
their smartest gowns to the little economies of "doing up the old ones
to look like new." "And yet," says Mrs. Reeves plaintively, "people call
me extravagant. Why! I have not even got a fashionable dressmaker. All
my makings and mendings and turnings are done at home by a clever little
workwoman, under my own superintendance, and I am most careful and
economical. When a child, I was never taught the value of money, but I
learnt it later by experience, and experience, after all, is the best
teacher. I look upon myself as a sort of 'Aunt Sally,' at whom Fate is
always having a 'shy,' chipping off a bit here, and a bit there, but
never really knocking me off my perch."
A great solid silver donkey with panniers which must hold a pint of ink,
stands on a table close to an oval Venetian glass framed in gold and
silver. Mrs. Reeves observes that though she has no writing-table, that
is her especial ink-stand, which is carried about from room to room. It
was given to her when very young, and, she laughingly adds, "You can
imagine all the complimentary remarks the boys at home made to me about
it." She goes on to say, "I always loved a good laugh, even though it
were against myself. We were such a happy united family in the big old
house. We are all scattered now," she remarks sadly; "some are dead,
some are abroad, and one sister, who married a son of Dr. Russell, of
_Times_ renown, is in China with her husband."
Mrs. Reeves is essentially a domestic woman. She cares comparatively but
little for society, and is never as happy as when at home, with her
husband sitting on the other side of the fire-place, like "Darby and
Joan." She is excellent company, and a brilliant conversationalist. She
possesses that good gift, a low, sweet voice, which glides on from topic
to topic--now gay, with flashes of wit and mirth, now subdued to gravity
or pathos. Albeit, she is a good listener, and has the happy knack of
drawing out talk. Yet, though constantly conversing on people and social
matters, not one unkindly word or suspicion of scandal escapes her lips.
She has a good word to say for all, and speaks with affectionate
gratitude of many. She prefers the company of woman, and says that her
best friends have been those of her own sex. But the charm of her
society has beguiled you into a long visit, and whilst bidding her
good-bye the feeling arises that if a friend in need were wanted, a
friend indeed would be found in "Helen Mathers."
[Illustration: Florence Marryat]