Cara passed her time in Glasgow pleasantly enough. She played a lot of chess, went to parties, attended church, and managed to look suitably solemn on Sundays. They always spent part of their long vacation at Cambridge and sometimes went abroad. From Italy she reported that their companions—among whom were Gerald Balfour, brother of the politician A. J. Balfour, and Oscar Browning—lacked humor, which heightened hers and gave her plenty of entertainment. She found it laborious to maintain their high conversational level, and as her ignorance of French bothered her she decided to study it closely on returning to Cambridge, intermitting her studies with the relatively new game of lawn tennis. She never argued with all these clever people, but listened attentively to what they had to say and gained their approbation thereby. On the other hand she asserted her individuality among the womenfolk, and once remained standing and talking in the middle of a drawing room until a chair became vacant in a sufficiently central spot, when she sat down and became the focus of the male guests.
Occupation, she thought, was necessary for happiness and she kept herself busy, finding that “the day has in it never an hour too much.” Dick loved his work and preferred spending a fine afternoon writing on Thucydides to playing tennis. Occasionally they stayed a few days in London, and early in 1880 they saw Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in The Merchant of Venice. She thought Irving’s Shylock infinitely better than his Hamlet, while Ellen Terry’s appearance, voice and acting were ineffable—“the most beautiful woman I think I ever saw”—and the memory of her performance kept Cara awake that night. Had she known it, her own life perfectly illustrated the truth in Ellen Terry’s remark to Bernard Shaw: “You’d be all bad, and no good in you, if you marry anyone unless you know you love her. A woman may not love before marriage and really love afterwards (if she has never loved before).” Cara was already beginning to love Dick, and her love increased even as their days did grow. Back at Glasgow after seeing Ellen Terry, the next excitement was the election of Gladstone for Midlothian and the general rout of the Tories, which occupied the minds of everyone; and Cara said that she hated Lord Beaconsfield—“he is such an out and out sham”—a sentiment which must have endeared her to the northern liberals.
In the course of the eighties Cara met quite a few famous folk. She thought Arthur Balfour cold, passionless and bored with life, and that Margot Tennant (afterwards Asquith) had little chance of marrying him though she was “moving heaven and earth” to do so. During a Cambridge vacation Cara met George Eliot, who was sweet, if old and ugly. Her husband, J. W. Cross, twenty years younger than she, talked much to the women of his own age, which irritated her and gave an edge to her remarks. She died soon after and her friends were advised not to press for a funeral in Westminster Abbey as it might be opposed by moral and religious people. Tennyson was another acquaintance, but Cara found talking to him “anxious work” owing to his morbid sensitiveness and his greed for praise. He dedicated a poem “to Professor Jebb.” After his death Cara heard that no poet Laureate would be appointed to succeed him, Swinburne having annoyed the Queen by extolling the murder of some grandee, William Morris being a socialist, and no one else counting. But some three years later, Lord Salisbury spotted a Laureate who was no poet and gave the post to Alfred Austin, whose Toryism could be depended on. Cara was something of a prophetess, for when she encountered R. B. Haldane, the ablest man she had met in England, not to mention the best company, she felt convinced that he would some day be Lord Chancellor, and eighteen years later he achieved that position. Haldane enjoyed her company as much as she did his, and there is little doubt that she could almost make the dumb talk. A shy youngster named Lord Ailsa sat next to her at a Glasgow dinner party and she tried every subject on earth to make him articulate. At last she hit the right theme, chickens, and he was off.
Sometimes the talk flowed a little too easily. Bret Harte, Consul for the United States at Glasgow, “made Dick’s hair stand on end through most of dinner.” His language was not that of a gentleman, according to Cara, who was terrified that he might say something that would shock the clergyman at her side. He told lots of good stories, and never closed his mouth. Then he wished to smoke, a habit indulged in those days after the ladies had retired from the dinner table, refused Dick’s offer of a cigarette with the observation that he only smoked cigars, and when these could not be found sat alone in the study with a pipe. Cara heard another eminent American holding forth, Mark Twain, “a gentle unpolished creature” who seemed to enjoy telling long and wordy stories on his feet, addressing the whole company as if from a platform. On the whole Cara considered the English less boring than the Americans because they were more sensible and were not made uncomfortable by long pauses in the conversation. She called to see a Harvard professor named Goodwin and his recently married wife, both of whom prosed away unmercifully, their talk reminding her of “the parts one always skips in books.”
Cara found life very pleasant, especially at Cambridge during the vacations and on the Continent. In 1883 she visited Pau for her health, and though her companions were too full of information for comfort she could always retire to her bedroom and enjoy the view of the snow-capped Pyrenees. In 1899 she went to Monaco with Dick, where they walked every day, listened to music, played chess and watched the gamblers, which was more amusing than taking part in the gambling. Dick was asked to lecture at Harvard in 1884 and she accompanied him, delighted to find that everything in America pleased him and that he could enjoy himself so much.
In 1881 they took a house at Cambridge called “Springfield,” which faced “the Backs” and had a tennis lawn, a kitchen garden, and all the other conveniences. At first the rent and rates came to £200 a year, but later they bought the lease. Dick had become happier, more sociable and genial since his marriage, although Cara did not think him “a shining example of brilliant spirits.” He never got rid of his donnish substitute for humor, in which many words did the service of few, and he never cared for evening callers, preferring a quiet domestic life. But Cara’s natural cheerfulness lifted his spirits and made him less of a recluse. He depended entirely on her, became more and more devoted with the years, and recognized that his marriage had been “his one tremendous piece of luck.” In time she could even speak of his “boyish light-heartedness.” He slaved away at his work incessantly and became restless when not industrious. In ‘88 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College and in ‘89, with the death of Kennedy, he became Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. Various academic honors followed, and in ‘91 he was returned unopposed to represent Cambridge University in Parliament. All this time he had been preparing his famous edition of the works of Sophocles.
While Dick was laboring at Greek, Cara was busy matchmaking. Her sister Ellen’s two daughters, Nellie and Maud DuPuy, came to stay with her. Nellie arrived in ‘82, and one of Cara’s first duties was to cure the girl of the giggling habit. They all went to Florence that year, and Gerald Balfour, attracted by Nellie’s face, tried to make her appreciate classical music. A new bill permitting Fellows of colleges to marry had just been passed, and it seemed that Nellie would have all sorts of chances. Gerald Balfour displayed much interest in her, and Cara felt certain that if only the interest were returned the issue would be favorable. But though he was extremely good-looking, Nellie remained unimpressed: they had nothing in common, and at last Nellie declared that she had never met such a conceited man. Cara’s next hope was George Darwin, a Fellow of Trinity and son of the great Charles. But this too fizzled out. George proposed and was rejected. Nellie left for America and passed the rest of her life in a state of “single blessedness.”
Next came Maud in ‘83. Gerald Balfour’s vanity would not let him be allured by another of Cara’s nieces, but several other men fell in love with her—one of them, H. M. Taylor, Fellow of Trinity, seriously so. Cara thought that many otherwise attractive men were spoilt by the shape of their legs, but Maud had to admit that Taylor’s were perfectly straight and chiefly obj
ected to his shortness. Anyhow she refused him and turned her attention to George Darwin. Advising Maud how to behave, Cara told her not to go out with George unless chaperoned, not to be seen with him too much, not to be careless of the conventions, not to spell her letters incorrectly, and so on. George proposed and was accepted, on hearing which Cara repudiated the imputation that she was a matchmaker. All the same, people noticed that her dinner parties were often arranged for the purpose of finding out whether a male of her acquaintance would be likely to suit a female in whom she took an interest. “I have noticed that people who are fond of eating are generally kind and happy,” she declared, her reason being that good food, unlike good intentions, satisfied the aspiration of those who enjoyed it. On this basis she could judge character and decide between dishes whether there was a likelihood of harmony in the union she envisaged.
In the autumn of 1888 William Richmond painted her portrait, for which she wore “a lovely blue plush tea-gown faced with pink,” which drew an exclamation of pleasure from her husband. She made a striking subject with her lively eyes, dark auburn hair, good complexion and statuesque build. Her personality did not belie her appearance: she had a slightly husky voice that reminded one of Ellen Terry’s, a radiant vitality, and an unaffected interest in everybody and everything around her. At nearly fifty she looked only thirty. People gazed at her when she entered a room, listened to her rapturously, and caught some of her own animation. Her nature was kindly, not passionate, and so her popularity was general and not peculiar to a group.
Her drives about Cambridge were features of the social life. Her coachman-gardener, a tubby little man called Melbourne, drove the victoria with his eyes on Zoe the mare and his ears attentive to the conversation in the carriage, which he frequently interrupted in order to supplement or correct the statements of his mistress or her companion. He knew everything that was happening or being talked about in Cambridge and kept Cara fully informed on all points. Glen, the collie dog, followed the carriage and barked vociferously when feeling the need. In addition to Melbourne and the dog, the domestic staff at Springfield consisted of three maids, who were never changed, and Darius, the Persian cat. One other member of the family hardly seemed to exist, and at least one of Cara’s great-nieces, daughter of Maud and later to be known as Gwen Raverat, described Uncle Dick as a wholly unimportant figure, “a sort of harmless waif, who was kindly allowed to live in a corner of the library, so long as he kept quiet and gave no trouble.” But according to Cara, her husband became more and more precious to her every year, and as the time passed by he achieved more and more prominence in the eyes of the world.
In 1897, Jebb refused the offer of a knighthood but, urged by his friends, became Sir Richard three years later. Various other recognitions of his scholastic eminence were crowned by the Order of Merit in 1905. In the summer of that year he went to South Africa as President of the Education Section of the British Association. Traveling and speechifying and sightseeing and banqueting proved too exhausting for some of the writers and scientists who made up the expedition, and there were casualties. Jebb himself came home to die. He was ill with fever on arrival, contracted pleurisy, assured his wife that but for her he did not wish to live, underwent an operation for abscess of the liver, faded away on December 9, 1905, and was buried in St. Giles Cemetery.
Lady Jebb lived for many more years, but all she cared for was buried with Dick, “my dearest and best.” She was reminded of him wherever she went, his shadow coming between her and the sun, and three years after his death she wrote in her diary: “I would give all the years of my life to come if only I could live those last few weeks we were together once again.” In 1907 she published his Life and Letters and after that she tried to ease her heartache by traveling. She wintered on the Riviera and visited America to stay with her relations. Having, at the age of seventy-seven, rejected a marriage proposal from an old admirer, Sir Charles Walpole, she sold Springfield in 1917 and retired to Washington in the United States, where she resumed her social life but continually pined for Cambridge. We hear of her in 1921 at a big reception given by the British Ambassador, Sir Auckland Geddes, whereat she met Arthur Balfour again and talked to Admiral Lord Beatty. In 1924 she went to Erie, Pennsylvania, where she expired on July 11, 1930, at the age of ninety, her ashes being sent at her own request for interment in Dick’s tomb.
America seems to breed women of a dominating character. It may be that the males of that continent have to expend all their strength in wresting a living, first from the forces of nature and next from the violence of competition, leaving them no energy to combat the natural tendency of the female to rule her own territory. Whatever the cause, American men take a back seat at home and in social life; and in the case of the remarkable Pilgrim Daughter we are about to notice, she eclipsed her husband so completely in the sphere he had chosen for himself that someone once described him as “a mere peer.”
Nancy Langhorne entered the world on May 19, 1879, the seventh child of Chiswell D. Langhorne and Nancy Witcher Keene. Her father, once owner of a large slave-worked tobacco plantation in Virginia, was ruined by the Civil War, and had to take all sorts of jobs, from polishing boots in a hotel to selling livestock in a yard. He made more money from poker-playing than from working; in fact he did well enough at the game to arouse suspicions. At last he got a job with a railway contractor, which put him on his feet, and soon he was in business on his own. He appears to have been a good mixer, both in talking and drinking, with innumerable yarns in his repertoire, each of which could be adapted with embellishments to the company of the moment. In time he did so well that he could take a sizable house at Richmond, and in 1892 he could afford to buy a considerable estate to the north of Richmond called Mirador. Here his children were able to live a carefree sort of existence and he could enjoy all the riding, shooting and fishing to which he had once been accustomed, as well as the society of his friends.
His five beautiful daughters soon made themselves known throughout the countryside, and in 1895 one of them, Irene, married the popular artist Charles Dana Gibson, who at once began to use her and her sisters as models for his drawings, the type he created winning renown in Europe and America, where “the Gibson girls” appeared in all sorts of circumstances, and eventually as a chorus in a musical comedy.
But our present subject was more concerned with horses and books than with pictures; and at the age of sixteen Nancy went to a school in New York, where she was too individualistic to like the atmosphere of communal girlhood and persuaded her parents to take her away from it. Returning to Mirador, she came under the influence of the local pastor and did a certain amount of social work, visiting homes for the aged and infirm. All the Langhorne girls had been taught horsemanship by their father, and were highly proficient. They were allowed to ride wherever they liked, but were not allowed to stroll with men beyond the limits of the front lawn. Their mother had been married at the age of sixteen, and perhaps their father wished to guard them from a similar fate.
But fate is not affected by parental vigilance, and at the age of eighteen, while staying with Irene in New York, Nancy met a handsome young man named Robert Gould Shaw, who was much admired by women, belonged to a sound Boston family, and enjoyed a respectable income. He asked her to marry him, and as her family approved she consented. Reflection made her break the engagement, but further reflection confirmed it. A remark by the young man’s father that her influence would help to steady the youth caused her some apprehension; but she resolved to go through with it, and they were married in the autumn of 1897. She soon discovered that drink was the cause of his unsteadiness. Gravely disturbed, she yet thought his habits would improve; but with the birth of their son the situation became unendurable. Taking the advice of her father-in-law, she left Robert for six months in the hope that her absence would make his heart grow less fond of the bottle. But the hope was vain. On her return, she left him for good. It required some pluck at the age of twenty, but she nev
er lacked for that. At first the Puritanical streak in her fought against a divorce, but on hearing that her husband wished to marry the woman with whom he was living, she started proceedings, divorcing him for adultery. This early experience created in her a morbid abhorrence of alcohol. She did not take the rational view that the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use. If food were denied people because some of them were gluttons, the world would starve, and overeating does far more harm than overdrinking. As Dr. Johnson said: “Not to drink wine is a great deduction from life.” Even the comfort of sobriety is heightened by contrast with occasional insobriety. But nearly everyone has a bee in the bonnet, and hers never ceased to buzz.
Having visited London and Paris, she returned to Mirador, where after the death of her mother she looked after her father. But two visits to Leicestershire for the hunting seasons of 1904 and 1905 changed the course of her life, for on one of her journeys to England she met Waldorf Astor, who wasted no time in asking her to become his wife.
A word on the Astors. Members of that family arrived in the United States from Germany toward the close of the eighteenth century. The founder of the Astor millions, John Jacob, made money from the fur trade, and early in the nineteenth century his ships were taking furs to certain parts of the world where such commodities were expensive. Not content with the large sums he was making in this way, and foreseeing that the port of New York would in time become a considerable city, he bought land on Manhattan Island (in Falstaff’s phrase) “as cheap as stinking mackerel”—the value of which rose to such a height that he was able to leave a vast fortune to his son William Backhouse Astor, who multiplied the millions he inherited, handing on two-thirds of his wealth to one son, John Jacob the Second, one-third to another son, William. The former added to the value of his possessions by building innumerable houses, and left a colossal sum to William Waldorf, his only son.
The Marrying Americans Page 24