by David Lodge
Henry met them at the Liverpool docks on a grey drizzling November day, with a hired maidservant at his side. The voyage had not been at all rough, but Alice had spent most of it prostrated in her cabin, and had to be carried ashore by two sailors. Henry was shocked at the sight, and had a premonition that his sister would never return to America. She had to be put to bed directly in an hotel, and stayed there for two days before she was fit to make the railway journey to London, where Henry took lodgings for her in Clarges Street, just round the corner from his own rooms, while Katharine Loring went on to Bournemouth with Louisa. Henry was able to see Alice frequently, sometimes twice a day, for brief chats in the interstices of his literary and social commitments. He entertained her with accounts of what he had been doing, the parties he had been to and the plays he had attended. Alice was a shrewd and observant woman, who had always been possessive about her brothers’ affections, and suspicious of other women’s designs upon them. It did not take her long to notice how often the name of ‘Miss Woolson’ occurred in Henry’s accounts of his doings, or that he sometimes referred to her as ‘Fenimore’. She teased and chided him on the subject.
‘Are you interested in this woman, Henry?’
‘She interests me, yes. Her views of literature are remarkably perceptive.’
‘You know what I mean, Henry. Do you have intentions towards her?’
‘Do you mean matrimonial ones? Certainly not.’
‘I think she has them towards you.’
‘Fenimore understands perfectly the nature of our friendship. It is based on a common interest in books and writing.’
‘I wonder you have the patience to read her dreary stories,’ said Alice petulantly.
Her jealousy was so transparent that he was able to tease her in turn, and make light of the matter. As Alice led a sequestered life, rarely venturing from her lodgings, there was little danger of her enouraging gossip in London, though he could not prevent her from dropping dark hints in her letters to William. Fenimore was of course aware of Alice’s presence in London, and inferred, from Henry’s discouragement of any proposal that she should call on her, Alice’s hostility to herself. So there was Henry, shuttling between two women, both living within a mile of each other in the heart of London, both with a keen interest in himself, who never met and relied entirely on him for information about each other. If it hadn’t been so close to home, he sometimes thought he might have made a story out of the situation. It was perhaps because Fenimore too found it slightly absurd that she withdrew from London and took lodgings in Leamington Spa for the summer of ’85, though her ostensible reason was to explore Warwickshire.
Alice’s health, meanwhile, did not improve. The English doctors frowned and poked and examined; they diagnosed ‘suppressed gout’ and ‘an abnormally sensitive nervous system’; they prescribed pills and potions, electric shocks and saltwater baths. Nothing had any effect. She became a chronic invalid, confined to her rooms, and for much of the time to her bed. She was sincerely grateful to Henry for his attentiveness, especially when Katharine Loring was away looking after her sister. ‘Don’t you resent having a helpless woman dumped on your shoulders, like the Old Man of the Sea?’ she asked him once, and he replied, quite truthfully, that he didn’t mind in the least. Unlike most of her friends and relatives, Henry did not find Alice’s hypochondria either exasperating or tragic; he found it interesting. It seemed to him that she cultivated her ill-health as he cultivated his art. It had become her vocation, her raison d’être, and in a way an instrument of her will. He could not but observe, for instance, that whenever Katharine Loring came back from nursing her sister, Alice had a collapse and took to her bed, thus ensuring that Katharine would stay on to look after her. Although Henry took a solicitous interest in Alice’s experiments with different medical practitioners, and reported them conscientiously in letters to William, at heart he never expected any of them to succeed. He never supposed she would ‘get better’, and did not distress himself with vain hopes on that score. He did his duty by her, he visited her and saw that she was well looked after, but otherwise got on with his life as before. Fenimore returned to London in the winter, and they resumed their occasional outings to theatres, museums, and art galleries. She was no longer disturbed by paintings of the nude, and was able to contemplate Edward Burne-Jones’s chastely stripped maidens with equanimity, though she had some reservations about the purity of Alma-Tadema’s imagination, which Henry privately shared.
For some time Henry had been thinking of looking for more spacious and comfortable accommodation for himself. His rooms in Bolton Street were conveniently situated, but they were rather dark and poky, especially in the winter months, and afforded only an oblique glimpse of the Park from the front windows. In the New Year he took the plunge, and a lease, on a fourth-floor flat in a new mansion block in South Kensington. It was a handsome symmetrical mass of pale ochre London brick, with stone facings, bay windows and delicately fashioned wrought-iron balconies, situated halfway down De Vere Gardens, a quiet, broad cul-de-sac off Kensington Gore. The address sounded a note of distinction which pleased him and the accommodation offered a huge improvement in amenities. He took Fenimore to see the flat in February, when it was still being furnished and decorated according to his instructions, choosing a Saturday afternoon when the workmen would be gone. He called for her at her lodgings in Sloane Street and they walked to De Vere Gardens.
‘Won’t you find the stairs rather trying, living on the fourth floor?’ she said as he pointed up to his balcony from the street.
‘Ah, wait and see,’ he said, twinkling.
‘An elevator!’ she exclaimed when they arrived.
‘Only they call it a lift,’ Henry observed, swishing open the latticed metal door, and ushering her into the little oak-panelled cubicle. Lifts in private residences were still something of a novelty in England.
The flat was spacious and many-windowed. Light flooded into it even on a grey London February day. Exulting in the pride of ownership he led her from room to room, their feet echoing on the polished wooden floors (the carpets and rugs had not yet been delivered by Barker’s). ‘This is the drawing room, but I shall use it as a study – I had the bookshelves fitted specially . . . shall use this sitting room for receiving visitors . . . the dining room, nicely proportioned, don’t you think? . . . master bedroom . . . guest bedroom . . . kitchen and servants’ quarters.’
Fenimore blinked a little at this last. ‘You’re going to have servants living in?’
‘A butler and cook-housekeeper. I’ve hired an admirable couple, a Mr and Mrs Smith. He was in service to an earl in his previous employment.’
‘My, Henry!’ Fenimore exclaimed. ‘You’ve certainly gone up in the world – metaphorically as well as literally.’
He smiled complacently and led her back to the drawing room, where he opened the French windows and led her out on to the small balcony. ‘It’s an elegant street, don’t you think? Rather Parisian, I feel. And if you lean out a little’ – he suited the action to the word and pointed down the street to his left – ‘you can see Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace beyond. ‘I’m going to get myself a dog and take him for walks in the park.’
‘It’s a wonderful apartment,’ Fenimore said. ‘I congratulate you, Henry.’
‘And will be even more wonderful when fully furnished,’ he said. ‘You must dine with me as soon as I’ve settled in. I have hopes – high hopes – of Mrs Smith’s cooking. At any rate it must be a great improvement on Bolton Street. It – ah – could not possibly be worse.’ He chuckled, and ushered her back into the drawing room.
‘And when will that be?’ Fenimore enquired.
‘I plan to move in around the middle of March,’ he said, closing the French windows.
‘Ah, I’m afraid I shall be gone by then,’ she said.
‘Gone?’ He almost whirled round in his surprise.
‘Yes, I’m going back to Florence.’
‘But why?’
‘Surely I don’t need to persuade you of the attractions of Florence?’ she said with a smile.
‘No, but . . .’ He hung fire.
‘I’ve had my fill of the English countryside and the diversions of London. So what is there to detain me here?’
Henry could not answer her. If he said, ‘Myself,’ there was no knowing what direction the conversation might take. As if sensing his embarrassment, Fenimore relieved him of the burden of replying. ‘One of the advantages of being a free woman, with an income of my own, and without ties, is that I can please myself where I live.’
‘Of course,’ he said, with a little acquiescent inclination of his head. She spoke with justifiable pride: she had done well out of the royalties on Anne – Henry had heard reports of American sales in tens of thousands, though she had tactfully abstained from telling him the figures herself – and she had a new novel in the press. ‘But I shall miss you,’ he thought it safe to add.
‘Will you, Henry?’ Fenimore said. ‘I think not. I never knew a man with so many friends.’
‘But very few of them understand what it is to be a writer and an artist – as you do.’
‘We can discuss those things by letter, as before,’ she said. She turned aside to examine the Lincrusta wallpaper, and ran a gloved finger over the raised pattern – because the flat was unheated, they had kept on their outdoor clothes. ‘This is nice,’ she murmured.
‘I’m told it’s the latest fashion,’ he said. ‘Did I tell you, the Atlantic has asked me to write a retrospective article about your work?’
Even though her head was half turned away from him, he saw Fenimore’s smooth white cheek suffused with a blush. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you didn’t.’ Henry knew very well that he hadn’t mentioned the proposal to her before, because until that moment he hadn’t made up his mind whether or not to accept it.
‘And will you do it?’ she asked, still examining the wallpaper closely.
‘Yes – once I’ve finished with The Princess,’ he said, referring to his inordinately long novel, The Princess Casamassima, currently being serialised in the Atlantic. He couldn’t quite have explained, had there been a witness present who enquired, why he had committed himself to writing the article, and almost at once he regretted doing so. Was it to demonstrate his esteem for Fenimore as a writer, or an attempt to make her feel guilty about deserting him? If the latter, the gambit was singularly unsuccessful.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, turning round to face him. ‘Then I’m very glad I’m leaving London. To go around with you, conscious all the time that you were reading my work and sitting in judgement on it, would be intolerable.’
‘I don’t promise not to follow you to Florence, however,’ he said. ‘The very sound of the word “Florence” in grimy foggy London makes me – makes me long for its sunwashed walls, and shady walks in the Cascine.’
‘Of course I should be very glad to see you there. But what would Alice say?’ She smiled as she put this question, but there was a challenge in her calm, unblinking gaze.
‘Nothing but what would be perfectly fitting and amiable,’ said Henry suavely.
By the time Fenimore left for Florence, Henry was so preoccupied with the innumerable practical problems of moving house that he scarcely registered her departure; and then in April, just as he began to draw breath and seek society again, a welcome new source of company arose: the Du Mauriers moved into London for a longish spell. A gregarious man, who loved dinners and parties, and was the recipient of numerous invitations, George Du Maurier had long chafed at the inconvenience of living so far out of London when attending evening engagements. To hire a cab was devilishly expensive, as he frequently complained, for the drivers charged a substantial premium to climb Fitzjohn’s Avenue or Haverstock Hill. There was only one local cab available, and he often found himself competing for its services with a friend, Samuel Jealous, editor of the Hampstead and Highgate Express. Sometimes they shared it, and made a joke of this economy by telling the driver to announce ‘Sir Hampstead Landau’s Carriage’ when at the end of the evening he called to collect them at their respective venues in his rickety conveyance. The jest concealed a continuing sense of dissatisfaction and frustration. Du Maurier didn’t want to give up New Grove House, or deny his family the healthy air of Hampstead, so he had the happy idea of letting their home for three months of the year while he rented a furnished house in Bayswater. He and Emma were then free to accept as many invitations as they liked for a period. The experiment proved so successful that he resolved to make a regular habit of it in future. Henry was a frequent caller at 27 Gloucester Gardens, and they would take evening strolls together through the streets of Bayswater.
That summer Guy de Maupassant made a visit to London, and Henry, who had known him in Paris, arranged a dinner at Greenwich in his honour to which he invited Du Maurier along with Edmund Gosse and others. Du Maurier was flattered to be included in this distinguished literary gathering, while Henry was glad to have at least one guest capable of conversing easily in French (although Gosse was official translator to the Board of Trade, his spoken French was appalling). The evening went off extremely well, partly no doubt because it was a private, all-male occasion. A few days earlier, Henry had lunched with Maupassant at a fashionable London restaurant, and the Frenchman had embarrassed him by trying to enlist his help in picking up a woman seated alone at a table on the opposite side of the dining room.
‘Go and ask her if she would like to join us, Henri,’ Maupassant said. (Mercifully they were both speaking French.)
‘I couldn’t possibly, Guy,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t know who she is.’
‘Well, send her a note by the waiter. Tell her we would like to make her acquaintance.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘I would do it myself, but my English is not good enough.’
‘You simply cannot do such things here, Guy,’ Henry protested. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘Why not?’ Maupassant demanded, helping himself to more wine, to the distress of the hovering waiter who considered this operation to be his duty. ‘She is available, without doubt. Why else is she dining alone in a public restaurant?’
‘There is a new species of respectable but emancipated ladies in this country who are laying claim to some of the traditional prerogatives of men. I daresay she is one such.’
Maupassant snorted derisively. ‘I want a woman,’ he grumbled. ‘Not an emancipated one, just an ordinary woman, as long as she has a pretty face and a nice arse. I haven’t had one since I got to London.’
Henry was relieved to get him out of the restaurant without creating a scene. It confirmed all his prejudices about the morals of French writers. How right he had been to flee Paris!
After meeting Maupassant at Greenwich, Du Maurier took a particular interest in the French writer’s work, and began to look out for his books. The following March he wrote to Henry: ‘Have you read “Une Vie” by Maupassant – It beguiled a rainy day in Brighton – certain forbidden things are treated with a wonderful skill, simulating naïveté – there is a honeymoon scene in a wood in Corsica, which is either charming or revolting – I blush to say I found it the former.’
Henry received this letter in Venice. He had been in Italy ever since early December, when he felt an irrepressible urge to skip the damp chill of the English winter and the ponderous festivities of the English Christmas, and join Fenimore in Florence. He was exhausted by his labours on The Princess Casamassima, and somewhat dejected by its cool reception when it was published in book form at the end of October. Du Maurier praised it to the skies – ‘long as it is, there is not a line too much,’ he wrote to Henry after receiving an inscribed copy. But the reviewers were less tolerant of the book’s length, and Kiki’s opinion, though welcome, was a flimsy counterweight in the critical balance – he was, after all, an amateur in the field of literature. Henry hankered for Fenimore’s moral support, and wrote to ask for her
help in finding accommodation in Florence. As it happened, she had leased but not yet occupied some rooms in the Casa Brichieri in the picturesque hill village of Bellosguardo just outside the city, and offered them to Henry while she remained in her accommodation in the Villa Castellani next door until the New Year. The villa belonged to their mutual friends, the Bootts, who had moved down into Florence for the winter, so Henry and Fenimore enjoyed each other’s company undisturbed. It seemed only sensible to dine together in the evenings at the same table in one or other of their respective apartments. As he had hoped, she heaped discriminating praise on The Princess, and smoothed his slightly ruffled authorial wings. The weather was mild, the views enchanting. When Fenimore had to occupy her rooms in the Casa, Henry moved down the hill into Florence and took his place on the social carousel of the city’s expatriate community, but he continued to see her frequently. He was minded to extend his stay in Italy, and arranged for Alice to occupy his flat for a few months, for her own greater comfort, and to justify the expense of paying the Smiths their wages. Alice enjoyed the amenities of De Vere Gardens, though harbouring suspicions of Smith’s drinking habits and Henry’s motives for staying abroad. ‘Henry is gallivanting on the continent with a she-novelist,’ she wrote to William, who transmitted the words gleefully to his brother.