by Ann Thwaite
When the book was published in October 1915, following serialization in St Nicholas, everybody liked it, although the more sophisticated critics took care to cover themselves by realizing that it could be dismissed as “superficial, sentimental, conventional and other such things”. The New York Times, for instance, suggested cynics might jeer, but believed it to be “a story for young people of all ages from ten to a hundred, a story fresh and gracious as spring time, full of those high and clean and simple ideals which have never lost, and probably never will lose, their power over the imaginations and sympathies of men”.
The war was by this time of course occupying a great deal of everyone’s attention. On 4th October 1915 Frances wrote to Josephine Browne in Devon: “For the last two or three days we have been lifting up our heads a little because of the advance of the Allies. And yet, one’s heart breaks at the thought of what an advance means to so many who are only the toys of a monstrous cruelty and egotism I won’t go on. The mere writing of it leads to such horror.” Frances’ own war-work took various forms. She collected books for the Royal Engineers’ library in Bermuda. “The battered and ancient volumes on the shelves of the Recreation Room almost make me weep and I am getting together all I can,” she wrote to Scribner. “Half the men went to the front long ago and the regimental notepaper is bordered in black.” She entertained soldiers and sailors and wrote dozens of letters to them and to her friends in England. When the war was over, Rosamund Campbell wrote to say how much they had meant to her: “I just thank you again and again, dearest, for your wonderful letters during these last awful years.”
Her own books were helping too. In 1895, in one of her rare public speeches, Frances had said: “The happiest thing in the world is to feel that, after all, one’s work was worthy of the doing.” She had never really doubted it but it was always good to be reassured. Of all the fan mail she received in her long writing life, two notes gave her particular pleasure. One had been stencilled in 1889 by a small girl in the Perkins Institute for the Blind, Boston—Helen Keller. (“I do love Lord Fauntleroy because he was so kind to Mr Hobbs and Dick and the poor old woman and Bridget.”) The second was a postcard which came in 1917:
Am just writing this P.C. in a spare minute to thank you for writing T. Tembarom. It was lent to me when I had gone sick, and was, in addition, most completely fed up with life in general.
It was a splendid tonic, your novel—it is a real bucker, and braced me up tophole. I should like to receive three such books every week . . . I hope it has done dozens of gloomy beggars as much good as it did me.
Thank you again for it. May you write many more such.
One of the Mesopot. Expeditionary Force, Baghdad.
“Cheering up gloomy beggars”: that was certainly a part of her life’s intention. Not everyone wanted to be cheered up, of course. She lent E. L. Burlingame some “Edinburgh and London Lectures” but he sent them back with the comment, “I am afraid I am a hardened old questioner, not easily turned into an optimist or persuaded that his woes can be taken cheerfully.” The Dawn of a Tomorrow was doing its bit by sending out its cheering message on the cinema screen. Mary Pickford, at the height of her fame, was “irresistible as the waif in the London slums, wearing a most attractive and delightful costume of rags and tatters . . . Everybody knows The Dawn of a Tomorrow. One goes merely to see Miss Pickford as Glad. And, often as the story has been told, it is absorbing.” Another paper called it “this sublime drama of human suffering and sacrifice that has brought to so many weary souls a new inspiration to bear the trials of today in the expectancy of tomorrow’s dawn.” Mary Pickford also appeared in Esmeralda, “one of the most exceptionally clever films of the season”.
But how was it that someone who proclaimed herself “a disciple of happiness”, who was on record as saying “we never discuss painful things—that is our religion, our philosophy”, whose life-long motivation was “Be kind”, how was it that Frances could find herself in court sued for fifty thousand dollars’ damages for libel? The papers enjoyed the case enormously and gave great space to it. The author of Little Lord Fauntleroy, they said, “had lost none of her descriptive ability when she wrote the letter” on which the suit was based. Middle-aged reporters who, as children, had been “forced by their mothers to wear detestable velvet knickerbockers and broad lace collars” seemed to welcome the chance to get their revenge on Frances. She had said, more than once, “Eliminate anything that makes you unhappy; concentrate on happy things.” But she could not ignore the law.
The facts were these. On 21st February 1915 Frances had written a letter to Mrs Emma Prall Knorr, the sister of Archie Fahnestock’s wife, Annie. Frances had certainly been very foolish, and indeed malicious. Angry at Annie’s treatment of her mother-in-law (Annie had accused Edith of “making mischief” between her and Archie), Frances had called Annie “a liar, slanderer, ill-bred meddler, a shrew and a brawler of doubtful character and antecedents, and subject to brainstorms”. Emma and Annie were outraged. They produced a Washington doctor who testified that Annie did not suffer from brainstorms or hysteria. They said Annie had been “held up to scorn, scandal and disgrace”. But the letter was of course a private letter and if they had not chosen to take it to court there would have been no question of public scandal and disgrace. It is impossible not to guess that the sisters saw the letter as an excellent opportunity to get money out of an extremely rich old woman. As a result of their action, not hers, everything was washed in public. The court was told that when Archie Fahnestock married Annie Prall, he was earning only ten dollars a week as a reporter for the society column of a New York newspaper. Annie was a woman of thirty-five when they married. Archie had been reluctant, as he had known he did not earn enough to support a wife.
In her defence, Frances said that she had virtually been the support of her nephew and his wife ever since their marriage. She it was who paid when Annie had to go into a sanatorium. She gave them a cheque for five thousand dollars towards their home. As to the letter, “it was a private communication to a close friend and in no way concerned the public”. One newspaper commented, “She probably could pay a judgment for fifty thousand dollars without feeling it, but she says she ‘doesn’t intend to’, if she can help it, when the person seeking it is a member of the family to whom she already has been a benefactor.”
The court case dragged on. Can a letter written to a friend and not intended for the eyes of the public be a libel? One judge at least did not think so. The New York Telegraph of 17th October 1917 carried the headline LORD FAUNTLEROY AUTHOR WINS SUIT. Mr Justice Brown in the Supreme Court threw the case out. As the letter was written as a private communication, it did not result in any damage to the plaintiff. It was revealed in court that Annie was now living with her sister and Archie with Frances. But it was not all over. Frances wrote to Josephine Browne: “The appalling case came off about a month ago and was dismissed from the court by the Judge . . . You can imagine our relief—but—if you please—they have taken it to another Court; ‘made an appeal’, it is called, and it will be submitted to yet another Judge—not by trial but by giving to him for inspection copies of all the evidence. If he sustains the decision of the first Judge, I think that is the end, but if he reverses his decision, they can bring the whole thing into court again. It is too horrible. After just a few weeks of relief and peace to have that Monster start to life again is almost more than one can endure . . .”
The result of the appeal was worse than she could possibly have imagined. On 18th March 1918, the New York American carried the headlines “COURT LASHES MRS BURNETT. Author of Little Lord Fauntleroy censured for ‘Malice’ in her ‘virulent letter’ ”. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court decided Mrs Burnett would have to stand trial a second time for writing a defamatory letter. She had “butted into” a family controversy without cause and deliberately defamed Mrs Fahnestock. Mrs Burnett could not claim privilege, as her letter was not written in reply to any letter directed
to herself. The court said that the malice which pervaded the letter was manifest in almost every paragraph.
Although at the second trial the original decision of the Supreme Court was upheld, it was a black time. Frances’ image of herself was shattered. She had to admit that she could be spiteful, petty, cruel. For many years she had tried to believe that she was better than most other people—braver, sweeter, kinder, more generous. She had become accustomed to admiration and gratitude. Now she had to face other things. If she had herself been malicious, she now received malice. If she had been cruel, she was now treated cruelly. Journalists who had been refused interviews responded with this sort of thing: “She is devoted to osteopathy, the beau monde and solid food with relishes on the side.” Toast and buttermilk would apparently not have sounded equally insulting. “She recounts interminable and anaesthetic reminiscences. She is insufferably rude because rudeness seems the prerogative of her majesty . . . She crowns her venerable head with the coiffure of a Titian of twenty and arrays her body in sky blue, plumes and wampum.” “She would extract personal flattery from the reports of the weather bureau.” “Her mesmerized sycophants proclaim her pot-boilers to be masterpieces.” “In the universe of eiderdown she is high priestess of the omnipotent cult of the second rate.” “She inhabits a saccharine dream-world of her own.”
With more accuracy, one man wrote: “She has shattered all the mirrors which might betray her to herself.” No one over seventy likes mirrors. It is too late to change one’s style; the brave face has too many lines. But it was true she had not valued mirrors for many years. She had often given not true reflections but had invented mirages: many of her books were written, as they were read, to substantiate day-dreams. She had tried, earnestly and genuinely, to be the perfect mother, friend, sister, neighbour, writer, the beloved public figure. She had set the scene on so many occasions: mostly the other actors had played the bit parts she had written for them, receiving gratefully, falling into line. (Though Swan had not, of course, neither had Stephen and neither had Annie Prall Fahnestock.) “It is the most wondrous thing in life to be born a giver,” Frances had written in her introduction to the work of Kate Douglas Wiggin. She had sung the praises of tolerance. She had been “the Happifier”, the Fairy Godmother. It was fine while other people did as she wanted, receiving gratefully without question, adoring in return.
Fortunately Vivian and Constance (Constance sometimes perhaps with difficulty) were still playing perfectly the parts assigned to them. In 1916, and again in 1918, they had presented Frances with grand-daughters and a new and delightful rôle. After the first child, Verity, was born, Frances wrote to Elizabeth Jordan, editor of Harper’s Magazine, for whom she was completing The White People: “Great Heaven! I have not yet told you that I have a grand-daughter—which seems to have been born by magic—so quietly and beautifully it appeared—and so wonderfully radiant is its lovely little mother. I have now the relationship of Fairy Grandmother. The Fairy Godmother will pale by comparison. I wish you could see the Lilliputian white wicker wardrobe I have lined through every drawer and shelf with softly orris-scented pale blue flowered silk.” She took great delight in buying for her grand-daughters all the beautiful things she had not been able to afford when her own boys were babies.
Edith also continued to play her rôle perfectly. She needed all Frances’ love and attention at this time and was grateful for it. She too, of course, had suffered greatly through the libel case and, in 1918 in the midst of it Ernest, her beloved younger son, had died of pneumonia. Ernest had been an inventor, the inspiration of a number of characters in Frances’ books—including Joseph Hutchinson, Ann’s father in T. Tembarom. Like Mr Hutchinson, Ernest had suffered “periodical fits of infuriated discouragement” but Frances had always believed in him. “I don’t want you to be anxious,” she had written to him. “You need never be anxious so long as I can take care of you. I shall always try to see that you can have your mind free for the work you are doing.” For years he was unsuccessful but before he died he was able to hand his aunt a substantial dividend on her investment in one of his inventions.
The shock and sadness of Ernest’s death made Frances put aside the book she was writing—a new big book which was eventually to appear in two volumes as The Head of the House of Coombe and Robin, her last substantial work. It was finally finished in 1920, began serialization that year, and the two volumes were published in 1922. They had the worst press of any Frances had written. Her day was over; her powers declining. One critic called Robin “the apotheosis of Burnettian slush”. The Times Literary Supplement wrote: “Lush sentiments flow from her pen with a sweetness that, suggests syrup rather than plain ink . . . This is a pity, because once upon a time Mrs Burnett could write differently.” She could indeed; if she had died at thirty-five, before she had written Little Lord Fauntleroy, she might well have had a reputation comparable with Mrs Gaskell’s. Certainly there were those, even as late as 1910, who thought of her as “an author for whom not merely the reading public, eager for amusement but lovers of true literature, harbour the kindliest feelings”. But by 1922 the sort of readers who had admired That Lass o’ Lowrie’s all those years before were now reading Virginia Woolf. Jacob’s Room was reviewed at length in the same issue of the Times Literary Supplement which briefly dismissed Robin.
But Frances still had her faithful readers even among the critics. The Boston Transcript admitted she had written better stories, “but Mrs Burnett not in her best mood is far better than the average storyteller of the day”. And the New York Times went so far as to pick out one section and say “Mrs Burnett has done nothing better”.
Frances once said how much her readers meant to her, how much she valued meeting “friends” all over the world—people who had read and loved her work. “That,” she said, “is the most that life has given me. It began so early in my life that I can form no idea at all of what life would be like without it. And if, by any human possibility, it should ever come about that I should lose this, I am quite sure that I would not want to go on living.” She never did lose this assurance, whatever some critics might say, that people were waiting eagerly for the next words she would write, for the next issue of the monthly magazine. She had not lost her power to tell stories and there were many readers for whom that was enough.
From a biographical point of view, there is much of interest. The Head of the House of Coombe has the most dramatic of all the changes from riches to poverty which occur again and again in her books. Feather, a silly, feckless girl, is left widowed, destitute with a small baby. It is surely no coincidence that her nickname, “Feather”, recalls Frances’ own “Fluffy”. She is like a caricature of all the basest characteristics Frances feared, of all the tendencies in herself that frightened her, of things she herself had been accused of by the newspapers. She is pleasure-loving, frivolous, extravagant. She has no taste or feeling. There is a marvellously observed scene when the child Robin is brought down to her mother’s drawing-room to be shown off.
Throughout this first volume, there is a strong sense of an old order breaking up. “The note of today is: ‘Since it has never been done, it will surely be done soon.’ . . . So many people lived in glass-houses that the habit of throwing stones had fallen out of fashion as an exercise . . . A mad dog is loose among us and we sit and smile.” A few can hear “The sound of dashing arms and the mudding of marching feet.” Robin, fearful, ignored, is an outsider in the heedless, extravagant world her mother inhabits. “Oh! what worlds away from her the party had been.” When eventually she is invited to her first dance and meets again Donal, the boy she had known as a child, it is on the night of the assassination at Sarajevo.
The second volume, Robin, is set in London during the war. Frances’ material was second-hand. The flaws and limitations in the book are numerous but her romancing did not extend to war. She sees the horror, not any nobility or glamour. She sees slain soldiers in “awful heaps”. She considers how a boy’s eyes wo
uld look when killing a man. When foolish Feather, unchanged, unsubdued by war, rushes out with her new lover to see the Zeppelins, all that is left of her is her hand, with a ring and a purple scarf. In her treatment of the sexual relationship between Donal and Robin, Frances was hopelessly hindered by the conventions of the time. She wanted to be daring and outspoken, but she could not quite bring herself to be. She wanted to be realistic but her heart was not really in it. She was getting tired; she was getting old. She had had her seventieth birthday in 1919. There were still some good times. Constance and Verity visited her in Bermuda in the spring of 1920, leaving the baby, Dorinda, in the care of a “treasure”. Frances and Verity fed the red birds together beneath the oleander trees. But her back ached “devilishly”. She tried not to complain, but in December 1920, she wrote to Vivian:
. . . I will—for a reason—frankly tell you now, that for years the greatest part of my strength has been given to a certain game of bluff on more occasions than you have ever guessed. The bluff was to convince the world that I was not an unrelieved Bore who was always ill—in one way or another. Sometimes—quite often—I can quite “carry it off”—but not always. The trouble is that sometimes I am absolutely prevented from doing things I ought to do—or must do. No one should know at all if the thing did not make explanations necessary. That is why I go into this revolting detail now. I must ask you to do things.
. . . Oh! I do want to be let alone by pain. I do—I do. I am so tired all over my body, Vivvie, that it almost breaks my spirit. If I am allowed to gnaw my dog biscuit in peace, perhaps that will pass away.