Battling with a fierce snowstorm, and a keen east wind, which drives the
flakes straight into your face like repeated stings of a small sharp
whip, a welcome shelter is presently found in Florence Marryat's pretty,
picturesque little house in St. Andrew's Road, West Kensington. Two
bright red pots filled with evergreens mark the house, which is built in
the Elizabethan style of architecture, with a covered verandah running
along the upper part. By a strange coincidence, the famous author has
settled down within a stone's throw of the place where her distinguished
father--the late Captain Marryat, R.N.--once lived. Until three months
ago, there stood in the Fulham Palace Road, a large, handsome building
enclosed in ten acres of ground, which was first called "Brandenburg
Villa," and was inhabited by the celebrated singer Madame Sontag. It
next fell into the hands of the Duke of Sussex, who changed its name to
Sussex House, and finally sold it to his equerry Captain Marryat, who
exchanged it with Mrs. Alexander Copeland for the Manor of Langham, in
Norfolk, where he died. For some years past Sussex House has been in
Chancery, but now it is pulled down; the land is sold out in building
plots, and the pleasure grounds will be turned into the usual streets
and rows of houses for the needs of the ever-increasing population. The
study--or as Florence Marryat calls it, her "literary workshop"--is
very small, but so well arranged that it seems a sort of _multum in
parvo_, everything a writer can want being at hand. It has a look of
thorough snugness and comfort. The large and well-worn writing table is
loaded with books of reference and a vast heap of tidily-arranged
manuscript, betokening the fact that yet another new novel is under
weigh. A massive brass inkstand, bright as gold, is flanked on each side
by a fierce-looking dragon. Two of the walls are lined with bookshelves
from floor to ceiling, filled with books which must number many hundreds
of volumes. Over the fireplace hangs an old-fashioned round mirror set
in a dull yellow frame, mounted on plush, around whose broad margin is
displayed a variety of china plates, picked up in the many foreign
countries which Miss Marryat has visited, and the effect is particularly
good. The room is lighted at the further corner by glass doors opening
into an aviary and conservatory, which is bright with many red-berried
winter plants; this little glass-house opens on to the big kennels where
Miss Marryat's canine pets are made so comfortable.
But the door opens. Enters your hostess with two ringdoves perched
familiarly on her shoulder. She is tall in stature, erect in carriage,
fair in complexion: she has large blue eyes--set well apart--straight,
well-formed eyebrows, and an abundance of soft, fair fluffy hair. She
is dressed very simply in a long black tea-gown with Watteau pleat, very
plainly made, but perfect in cut and fit, and looking quite unstudied in
its becoming graceful simplicity.
Florence Marryat is the youngest of the eleven children of the late
well-known author, Captain Marryat, R.N., C.B., F.R.S. Her mother, who
died at the good old age of ninety--in full possession of all her
faculties--was a daughter of Sir Stephen Shairp, of Houston, Linlithgow,
who was for many years H.B.M. Consul-General and _Charge d'Affaires_ at
the Court of Russia. One side of the little study is dedicated to the
relics of her father, and in the centre hangs his portrait, surrounded
by trophies and memories. The picture is painted by the sculptor Behnes,
in water-colours, and represents a tall, fair, slight, though
muscular-looking man leaning against the mast of his ship, _Ariadne_,
dressed in the full uniform of those days, a long-tailed coat, white
duck trousers, and cocked hat held under his arm. Two smaller pictures
of him are pen-and-ink drawings by Count D'Orsay and Sir Edward Belcher
respectively.
Entering the service at a very early age, and in troublous times,
Captain Marryat gained rapid promotion, and had been in no less than
fifty-nine naval engagements before he was twenty-one, and with the
single exception of Lord Nelson he was the youngest Post Captain ever
known, having indeed attained that rank at the age of twenty-four. After
the first Burmese war, in which he took so distinguished a part, he was
offered a baronetcy as a reward for his services, but refused it,
choosing instead a crest and arms to commemorate the circumstance, with
the stipulation that the arms should be such as his daughters might
carry. This was accordingly done, and at the present moment there are
only eleven women in England who possess the same right, of which number
Miss Marryat and her sisters make five. The crest, with arms (a
fleur-de-lis and a Burmese boat with sixteen rowers on an azure ground,
with three bars argent and three bars sable) is framed, and hangs close
to what she calls her "Marryat Museum." Just below the portrait is an
oval ebony frame containing an etching of a beaver done on a piece of
ship's copper by her father, a morocco case close by holds all his
medals, which were bequeathed to her, including the Legion of Honour
bestowed on him by the Emperor Napoleon, and the picture of the dead
Emperor, sketched by the gallant sailor, and published by Colnaghi,
which is considered the best portrait of him ever taken. His daughter
remarks:--"It was always said of my father that he ever displayed to
perfection that courage, energy, and presence of mind which were natural
to his lion-hearted character. Unlike the veteran who 'shouldered his
crutch to show how fields were won,' he never voluntarily referred to
exploits of which any man might have been proud. He was content to _do_,
and know that he had _done_, and left to others the pride which he might
justly have felt for himself."
Independent of his nautical career, Captain Marryat had other great
talents. His writings will never be forgotten, from "Peter Simple" and
"Midshipman Easy" down to "Masterman Ready," the much-beloved books of
children. His "Code of Signals" is so celebrated that reference must
just be made to it. Shortly before he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society, he invented and brought to perfection the code which was at
once adopted in the Merchant Service, and is now generally used by the
British and French navies, in India, at the Cape of Good Hope, and other
English settlements, and by the Mercantile Marine of North America. It
is also published in the Dutch and Italian languages, and, by an order
of the French Government, no merchant vessel can be insured without
these signals being on board. Rising, Miss Marryat puts the original
work into your hands, and you observe, with something like awe, that it
is all written in the deceased sailor's own hand; the penmanship is like
copper-plate, the flags and signals are painted, and each page is neatly
indexed. Needless to say, it is regarded as a priceless treasure by his
daughter.
Born of such a gifted father, it is small wonder that the child should
have inherited brilliant talents. She was never sent to school, but was
taught under a succession of governesses. "On looking back," she says
with compunction, "I regret to remember that I treated them all very
badly, for I was a downright troublesome child. I was an omnivorous
reader, and as no restriction was placed on my choice of books, I read
everything I could find, lying for hours full length on the rug, face
downwards, arms propping up my head, with fingers in ears to shut out
every disturbing sound, the while perpetually summoned to come to my
lessons. I may be said to have educated myself, and probably I got more
real learning out of this mode of procedure than if I had gone through
the regular routine of the schoolroom, with the cut-and-dried
conventional system of the education of that day."
Florence Marryat has been twice married: first at the age of sixteen to
Captain Ross Church, of the Madras Staff Corps, and secondly to Colonel
Francis Lean of the Royal Marines. By the first marriage she had eight
children, of whom six survive.
The first three-volume novel she published was called "Love's Conflict."
It was written under sad circumstances. Her children were ill of scarlet
fever; most of the servants, terror-stricken, had deserted her, and it
was in the intervals of nursing these little ones that, to divert her
sad thoughts, she took to her pen. From that time she wrote steadily and
rapidly, and up to the present date she has actually turned out
fifty-seven novels besides an enormous quantity of journalistic work,
about one hundred short stories, and numerous essays, poems, and
recitations. She says of herself, that from earliest youth she had
always determined on being a novelist, and at the age of ten she wrote a
story for the amusement of her playfellows, and illustrated it with her
own pen-and-ink sketches (for be it known, the accomplished author has
likewise inherited this talent from her father, and to this day she will
decorate many a letter to her favourite friends with funny and clever
little illustrations and caricatures). But she wisely formed the
determination that she would never publish anything until her judgment
was more matured, so as to ensure success, that she "would study people,
nature, nature's ways, and character, and then she would let the world
know what she thought"; and in this piece of self-denial she has shown
extreme wisdom, and reaped her reward in the long record of successes
that she has scored and the large fortune she has made, but which, alas!
she no longer possesses. "Others have spent it for me," she says
plaintively; but she adds generously, "and I do not grudge it to them."
Part of it enabled her, at any rate, to give each and all of her
children a thoroughly good education, and she is proud to think that
they owe it all to her own hard work. Miss Marryat is always especially
flattered to hear that her novels are favourites with women, and she had
a gratifying proof of this when visiting Canada in 1885. She was waited
on by a deputation of ladies, armed with bouquets and presents, to thank
her for having written that charming story called "My Own Child."
"Gup," which had an extensive sale, is entirely an Anglo-Indian book,
not so much of a novel as a collection of character sketches and tales,
which her powers of observation enabled her to form out of the life in
Indian stations. For the benefit of the uninitiated, the word "Gup"
shall be translated from Hindustanee into English: "Gossip." "Woman
Against Woman," "Veronique," "Petronel," "Nelly Brooke," "Fighting the
Air," were amongst the earliest of the eighteen novels that she brought
out in the first eleven years of her literary career. These, together
with her "Girls of Feversham," have been republished in Germany and
America, and translated into Russian, German, Swedish, and French. Miss
Marryat says: "I never sit down deliberately to compose or think out a
plot. The most ordinary remark or anecdote may supply the motive, and
the rest comes by itself. Sometimes I have as many as a dozen plots, in
different stages of completion, floating in my brain. They appear to me
like a set of houses, the first of which is fully furnished; the second
finished, but empty; the third in course of building; till the furthest
in the distance is nothing but an outline. As soon as one is complete, I
feel I _must_ write it down; but I never think of the one I am writing,
always of the next one that is to be, and sometimes of three or four at
a time, till I drive them forcibly away. I never feel at home with a
plot till I have settled the names of the characters to my satisfaction.
As soon as I have done that they become sentient beings in my eyes, and
seem to dictate what I shall write. I lose myself so completely whilst
writing, that I have no idea, till I take it up to correct, what I have
written." Judging by the great heap of MSS. alluded to on her
writing-table, there seems but little for the writer to correct. At your
request, she hands you half a dozen pages, and you notice but three
alterations amongst them; the facile pen, the medium of her thoughts,
seems to have known exactly what it had to write. The novel is called
"How like a Woman," and will shortly make its appearance.
Her latest published works are "On Circumstantial Evidence," "A Scarlet
Sin," "Mount Eden," "Blindfold," "Brave Heart and True," "The Risen
Dead," "There is no Death," and "The Nobler Sex." With respect to Miss
Marryat's book, "There is no Death," many people have pronounced it to
be, not only the most remarkable book that she has ever written, but the
most remarkable publication of the time. To the public it is so full of
marvels as to appear almost incredible, but to her friends, who know
that everything related there happened, under the author's eyes, it is
more wonderful still. The amount of correspondence that she has received
on the subject ever since the book appeared in June, 1891, is
incalculable. Even to this date she has seven or eight letters daily,
all containing the same demand, "Tell us how we can see our Dead." This
book has done more to convince many people of the truth of Spiritualism
than any yet written. Florence Marryat numbers her converts by the
hundred and they are all gathered from educated people; men of letters
and of science have written to her from every part of the world, and
many clergymen have succumbed to her courageous assertions. It is
curious and interesting to know that Miss Marryat's experiences are not
only those of the past, but that she passes through just as wonderful
things every day of her life, and the spirit world is quite as familiar
to her as the natural one, and far more interesting. Whether her readers
sympathise with her or not, or whether they believe that she really saw
and heard all the marvels related in "There is no Death," the book must
remain as a remarkable record of the experiences of a woman whose
friends know her to be incapable of telling a lie and especially on a
subject which she holds to be sacred. "I really do not care much," says
Miss Marryat with a smile, "if my readers believe me or not. If they do
not it is their loss, not mine. I have done what I considered to be my
duty in trying to convince the world of what _I_ know to be true, and to
which I shall continue to testify as long as I have breath."
"Tom Tiddler's Ground" is the history of her own adventures while in
America. Many of her books have been dramatised, and at one time nine of
these plays were running simultaneously in the provinces. She says, "The
most successful of my works are transcripts of my own experience. I have
been accused of caricaturing my acquaintances, but it is untrue. The
majority of them are not worth the trouble, and it is far easier for me
to draw a picture from my own imagination, than to endure the society of
a disagreeable person for the sake of copying him or her."
But Miss Marryat's talents are versatile. After a long illness when her
physicians recommended rest from literature, believing an entire change
of occupation would be the best tonic for her, she went upon the
stage--a pursuit which she had always dearly loved--and possessing a
fine voice, and great musical gifts, with considerable dramatic power,
she has been successful, both as an actress and an entertainer. She
wrote a play called "Her World Against a Lie" (from her own novel),
which was produced at the Prince of Wales' Theatre, and in which she
played the chief comedy part, Mrs. Hephzibah Horton, with so much skill
and _aplomb_, that the _Era_, _Figaro_, _Morning Post_, and other
papers, criticised her performances most favourably. She also wrote
"Miss Chester" and "Charmyon" in conjunction with Sir Charles Young.
She was engaged for the opening of the Prince of Wales's (then the
Princes') Theatre when she played "Queen Altemire" in _The Palace of
Truth_. She has toured with D'Oyly Carte's _Patience_ companies, with
George Grossmith in _Entre Nous_, and finally with her own company in
_The Golden Goblet_ (written by her son Frank). Altogether Miss Marryat
has pursued her dramatic life for fifteen years, and has given hundreds
of recitations and musical entertainments which she has written for
herself. One of these last, called "Love Letters," she has taken through
the provinces three times, and once through America. It lasts two hours;
she accompanies herself on the piano, and the music was written by
George Grossmith. Another is a comic lecture entitled, "Women of the
future (1991); or, what shall we do with our men?" She has also made
many tours throughout the United Kingdom, giving recitals and readings
from her father's works, and other pieces by Albery and Grossmith.
For the last seven years Miss Marryat has never looked at a criticism on
her books. She says her publishers are her best friends, and their
purses are her assessors, and she is quite satisfied with the result.
She has an intense love of animals, and asks if you would object to the
presence of her dogs, as this is the hour for their admittance. On the
contrary, it is what you have been longing for, and two magnificent
bulldogs of long pedigree are let in. Ferocious as is their appearance,
their manners are perfect, and their great brown eyes seem human in
their intelligence as each comes up to make acquaintance. Meantime the
two doves have gone peacefully to sleep, each perched on a brass dragon,
and the dogs eye them respectfully, as if they were all members of "a
happy family."
A neat little maid comes in with a tea-tray, but ere she is permitted to
lay the prettily embroidered cloth, Miss Marryat directs attention to
the table, which is a curiosity. It is a small round table, made from
the oak planks of the quarter deck of H.M.S. _Ariadne_. This was sent to
her by a gentleman who never saw her, with a letter saying that she
would prize the wood over which her father's feet had so often trod. It
bears in the centre a brass inscription, as follows:--"Made from the
timbers of H.M.S. Ariadne, commanded by Captain Marryat, R.N., C.B.,
1828."
Miss Marryat, probably wishing to pay you a peculiar honour, pushes
forward her own special revolving writing chair; but no, you had
surreptitiously tried it whilst waiting for her, and unhesitatingly
pronounce it to be the most uncomfortable piece of furniture ever made.
It is constructed of wood, is highly polished, and has a hard seat, hard
elbow rests, and a hard unyielding back. She laughs heartily, and
declares she will hear no word against her "old arm-chair"; she says she
has got used to it; it has been, like herself, a great traveller; she
has written in it for twenty years, and it is a particular favourite.
Miss Marryat wears a diamond ring, which has a peculiar history, and is
very old. During the first Burmese war in which her father was engaged,
the natives were in the habit of making little slits in their skin, and
inserting therein any particular stone of value they wished to conceal.
One of these men was taken prisoner, and on being searched, or felt
over--for there was not much clothing to search--a small hard lump was
found on his leg, which at once revealed the presence of some valuable.
A slight incision produced a diamond, which was confiscated, set, and
presented by the good old sailor to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Horace
Marryat, whose only son, Colonel Fitzroy Marryat, gave it to his cousin,
the author.
She takes you into the adjoining room to see two oil-paintings of
wrecks, _chef d'oeuvres_ of the great Flemish seascape painter, Louis
Boeckhaussen, and valued at a high figure. There is a story attached to
these also. They belonged originally to the Marryat collection at
Wimbledon House, and were given to her brother Frederick by his
grandmother on his being promoted to be first lieutenant of the
_Sphynx_, and were hanging in his cabin when that ship was wrecked off
the Needles, Isle of Wight. They remained fourteen days under water, and
when rescued were sent to a Plymouth dealer to be cleaned. Lieutenant
Marryat, for his bravery on that occasion, was immediately appointed to
the _Sphynx's_ twin vessel, the ill-fated _Avenger_, who went down with
380 souls on the Sorelli rocks.
After this catastrophe, the dealer sent the paintings to the young
officer's mother, saying it was by his instructions, and that he had
refused to take them to sea again, as he declared that they were "much
too good to go overboard." Miss Marryat also possesses a painting by
Cawno, from "Japhet in search of a Father," which was left to her by the
will of the late Mr. Richard Bently, the publisher, and this she prizes
highly. She has several presentation pens, one of porcupine quill and
silver, with which her father wrote his last five novels; another of
ivory, coral, and gold, inscribed with her name and presented by Messrs.
Macniven and Cameron; a third of silver, and a fourth of gold and ivory,
given by admirers of her writings; fifthly, and the one she values most
and chiefly uses, a penholder of solid gold with amethysts, which
belonged to an American ancestress of the family, for Miss Marryat's
paternal grandmother was a Boston belle. This was a tribute from her
American relations when she crossed the Atlantic, with the words that
she was "the most worthy member to retain it." A noise of barking and
scratching at the door is heard outside. Florence Marryat opens it, and
many tiny, rough, prize terriers rush in. She laughs at your exclamation
of surprise at the number of her dog friends and answers, "They are not
all kept entirely for amusement. I sell the puppies, and they fetch
large prices. It is quite the fashion to be in trade now-a-days, you
know. One lady runs a boarding-house, another, her emporium for
furniture, a third, her bonnet shop, a fourth, her dress-making
establishment, so why not I, my kennels? I love dogs better than
bonnets, or chairs, or people, and so I derive pleasure as well as
profit from my particular fancy, and I should be lonely without these
pets."
But, as though talking of old reminiscences had changed her mood from
gay to grave, she asks you to look at a few very special treasures in
her writing room. "I call this my room of home memories," she says with
exceeding softness and pathos. "There are my children's pictures;
those," pointing to a small shelf, "are my best friend's books." "_Here_
are portraits of all whom I love best, my living, and my dead!"
[Illustration: Emily Lovett Cameron]