Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
Page 52
The funeral took place two days later, with Dodo’s husband, the Reverend Cyril Angell, officiating. ‘I tried never to give Touie a moment’s unhappiness; to give her every attention, every comfort she could want,’ Conan Doyle wrote afterwards to his mother. ‘Did I succeed? I think so. God knows I hope so.’
Of course there was Jean Leckie in the wings. Conan Doyle had fallen in love with her years before, and though they had kept the romance platonic, they had also realized that Touie was doomed in the long run by her tuberculosis, no matter how long Conan Doyle succeeded in prolonging her life. Was Touie aware of her husband’s feelings for Jean Leckie? Mary later remembered that in the spring of 1906,
Finally the sands began to run out, and it became clear she would not remain with us much longer. Some two months before the end she called me in for a talk. She told me that some wives sought to hold their husbands to their memory after they had gone—that she considered this very wrong, as the only consideration should be the loved-one’s happiness. To this end she wanted me not to be shocked or surprised if my father married again, but to know that it was with her understanding and blessing.
‘Privately,’ continues Georgina Doyle, ‘Mary told [Innes’s son] John that her mother actually mentioned the name of Jean Leckie as her future stepmother.’*
Happiness with Jean Leckie would have to wait. Not only was there a customary year of mourning ahead, but Conan Doyle fell into a depression from which he struggled to emerge as he puttered with family matters and the usual demands upon his time and attention.
to Mary Doyle OLD WAVERLY TEMPERANCE HOTEL, EDINBURGH, SEPTEMBER 6, 1906
Congratulations upon the new grand-daughter. What a relief it is! Dear old Lottie!†
I enclose a note just received from Mrs Leckie which gave me much pleasure.
I shall devote the day to showing K all the sights. We dine with the Cranstons at night.
I feel drawn to doing a continuation of Rodney Stone. It will be my next long book.
I hope to go to Dunbar tomorrow. Roxburgh County Hotel will be my address. There is good air & golf & cricket—all of which I need.
to Mary Doyle EDINBURGH, SEPTEMBER 1906
I return to my rest cure at Dunbar tonight. I am doing my essays. I finished one yesterday—making 8 out of 12.
You will see that Brigadier carried Edinburgh by storm. They had me onto the stage—in the old theatre of my boyhood.
You would have been pleased to see your three boys together, Kingsley, Innes & me. My word, we have no reason to be ashamed of the youngest branch. For solid sense & character it would be hard to match him. I’ll work at Dunbar (and rest) until about the end of the month.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW
Just a line to you, my dear old Mammie, to keep in touch. I am much better in health & mean to have a good soothing winter. I have a play on the stocks ‘The Fires of Fate’ founded on the Korosko, which really is about the very best thing I have done. I dont know if there is money in it but it is very strong. I have done 1 act and half another out of five. I’ll finish before Xmas.
As usual I have many interests all jostling me, but I think they will all smooth out quite right.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, OCTOBER 1906
I send cheque & shall be delighted to make up an annual £200.
When I said ‘paltry pounds’ I meant of course paltry compared to what I could earn when I was working well. I did not mean to express contempt for pounds in general.
I read the note you sent me back & thought it was a very goodhumoured protest—but I am sorry if it hurt you. I will be more careful in future.
Dodo & Jean seem to have struck up quite a friendship. Dodo is a wonderful woman. I have been much struck by her remarkable qualities.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW
I have been all alone for three days. Not unpleasant. One collects oneself & finds one’s soul.
I have hardly risen from my desk during that time, with the result that I have finished my big 5 act play ‘The Fires of Fate’. I dont know what to make of it. It’s new—quite new—which is what makes it so impossible to prophesy about. Ambitious, very—but there’s the danger. However one can but try.
I send some notices of Nigel. He is in a third Edition here and fifth in America, where he started a month earlier. I have been engaged in altering ‘The White Company’ so as to get the two books to agree as to facts. It is done.
I hope to take Dodo, Cyril, Branford & Jean to ‘Peter Pan’ tomorrow night—a funny team. My dear girl begins at last to feel the happiness of life, though still very self distrustful. But I would not have her otherwise. There are plenty of cocksure people in the world.
Goodbye, dear. I am going to work no more till the New Year. Lewis Waller comes for Xmas. Also his brother. Possibly Kingsley Milbourne.
What truly lifted Conan Doyle was a case that might have appealed to Sherlock Holmes. In late 1906, as he glanced through a logjam of papers and unanswered letters on his desk, a magazine article caught his attention. It concerned a young man named George Edalji—the half-caste son of an Englishwoman and an Indian Parsee vicar in the Anglican church—who had been convicted several years earlier for a strange series of cattle mutilations near their home in Great Wyrley, Staffordshire. Now, without explanation, he had been released from prison, but still with the stain upon his character and unable to practise as the lawyer he was, and he was appealing to the public for help in proving his innocence.
‘The facts of the case are a little complex and became more so as the matter proceeded,’ Conan Doyle acknowledged in Memories and Adventures, but he was soon convinced of Edalji’s innocence when he found him so nearly blind that he could scarcely have negotiated his way in darkness across fields, culverts, and fences to the scenes of the crimes, and home again. Edalji, who had grown up the target of considerable racial prejudice, had been accused of the crimes in a series of unsigned letters, but the police, instead of trying to identify the person who had written them, had accused Edalji of writing them himself. In other ways, too, their investigation had been a travesty, and the legal proceedings that followed it less than fair.
‘What aroused my indignation and gave me the driving force to carry the thing through,’ said Conan Doyle,
was the utter helplessness of this forlorn little group of people, the coloured clergyman in his strange position, the brave blue-eyed grey-haired wife, the young daughter, baited by brutal boors, and having the police, who should have been their natural protectors, adopting from the beginning a harsh tone towards them and accusing them, beyond all sense and reason, of being the cause of their own troubles and of persecuting and maligning themselves. Such an exhibition, sustained, I am sorry to say, by Lord Gladstone and all the forces of the Home Office, would have been incredible had I not actually examined the facts.
It also aroused the chivalry that he had learned from his mother, and had extolled in tales like The White Company and Sir Nigel. He plunged into the case, not only with pen—opening a campaign in London’s Daily Telegraph on January 9, 1907, that stretched over months to come, to persuade the Home Office into reopening the case—but with his own investigation, though he had often protested that he possessed none of the deductive talent of Sherlock Holmes.*
He amassed a great deal of evidence that he believed exonerated Edalji, and he also believed that he had succeeded in identifying the real perpetrators of the crimes and the unsigned letters. He submitted his evidence in January, confidently expecting Edalji to be cleared officially, as he turned to other matters, including plans to marry Jean.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, JANUARY 29, 1907
I have been so busy over Edalji that I have been rather neglecting my filial duties.
I have put all possible evidence before the Home Office, they are considering it, and I cannot doubt that it will end in a recognition of his innocence.
Meanwhile all my energies have gone towards the capture & exposure of the real offenders.
These are three youths (one already dead) brothers of the name of Sharp. The case I have against them is already very strong but I have five separate lines of inquiry on foot by which I hope to make it overwhelming. They are decently educated men, as is evident from the letters. It will be a great stroke if I can lay them by the heels. I hope that they have been sending you the DT so that you can follow all the developments. Of course I have said nothing of the really interesting part in fear of frightening my birds but I have laid it all before the Authorities in private. My time is divided in town between Home Office, Scotland Yard & the D.T. office.
Connie is here. We went down to see the grave yesterday. It looks very pretty. I have it planted with spring flowers.
My own plans must soon begin to take shape. I presume that you would not counsel me to take more than just a little over the proper period of mourning. I think more at my age can hardly be expected. The first of August is the date I have in my mind. In that case I would announce my engagement in June, and say that the wedding will be a quiet one some time in August. What think you of that?
I have abandoned the sale of Undershaw, mostly because I cant get any offer near the price I want. I have no doubt I can let it for two years & live at C* during that time. Then at the end of that time we can determine which we shall live in, and we can sell or let at long lease the other. I shall probably take a small flat in town to make us independent of hotels, and very likely shall at first put Wood in there, as he will be central, and I can get more out of him than if he lived at home. He is essential to me and yet I cant well have him in a new ménage, so that seems a happy compromise.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW
Didn’t you read my articles about the letters, how they are all by the same hand, how they originated at Walsall School in 1892 &c. Of course I was not speaking vaguely about the sailor & the three brothers &c. I know well who wrote them. Poor E had as much to do with it as you have. Knowing this I can never leave the job half done. The man who wrote the letters is the man who did the outrages.
‘It is marvellous what Arthur has found out,’ Connie wrote to her niece Mary at school. ‘Sherlock Holmes at his best is not up to him.’ And the case had toned him up, Connie continued. ‘Arthur looks very well and in good form. We went down to look at Touie’s grave—the marble cross is beautiful and spring flowers are putting their heads up out of the ground. It is just as she would have liked it.’
But Staffordshire’s police appeared dismissive, and the Home Office was slow to respond, so his work went on. ‘Daddy is still Edalji-ing hard!’ Mary wrote to Innes on February 18th: ‘It seems to have come to a critical point now, as the case is to be retried—and with the Law, the simplest thing seems to become difficult! But I’ve no doubt that he’ll win in the end. Patience and money overcome most obstacles.’
Instead of a new trial, however, a Committee of Inquiry was appointed to look into the matter; and more time passed in silence.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, FEBRUARY 27, 1907
I have had six days of ptomaine poisoning but it is a blessing in disguise for it has given me the rest cure which I have long needed. I expect I shall lounge about the house till Monday next. Then on the ‘path, of tears and wrath, which leads to high emprise’ once more.* I have no symptoms now only considerable weakness. Wood is away for 2 days but Innes is here so I am not lonely. He is in capital form.
I have done splendidly about the wedding. First I got it back to the 31st July for your days sake. Then back further to the 22nd on Annette’s. Finally I found that her mothers was on July 7 so I made a bold bid for that. Alas it proved to be a Sunday. But none the less, as Monday is a bad day, I have got her down to July 9th (Tuesday) which is a long advance on Sept. I am so pleased. We can begin to really live then. I suggest May 1st to announce our engagement. It will be so good.
It was dear of you about the children. I daresay it will be a great help. Anyhow you must go & have a good holiday.
Edalji case hangs fire. But we are all ready.
to Mary Doyle MONKSTOWN, CROWBOROUGH
Day by day I get stronger. I was tired yesterday after the long journey but today I am much better. I shall be here till next Thursday which is the girl’s birthday. On Friday home.
I shall write to Leslie next week & tell him my plans. I hope you didnt think July 9 premature.
I view the Edalji Committee with some suspicion—why should it sit in secret—but I am prepared to take all they will give & then ask for more. I want justice against the police, as well as justice for E. We will ask E to the wedding.
to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW
I had a good view of your family yesterday, Innes, Ida, Connie, Willie, Nelson, all very flourishing. I gather my own strength from day to day. Gibbs examined me with care and he tells me I am absolutely sound.
I have been writing to Jean about the wedding. We all discussed the details there but I have reconsidered some points. Of course I would yield to any feeling of hers but this is my general idea.
1. That it be on Tuesday July 9th.
2. In London at a central church, probably Westminster.
3. That the Leckies should ask all their friends to the Reception afterwards as it is her day of fete. That in my case it is different and that I should have only my own nearest and dearest. I should feel much happiest so.
4. That the children should not be there. They will both be away at the time & there is no reason to recall them. J I think wants to have them, but I hope she will reconsider it. Let them meet us as a month old married couple & all will be much easier.
Goodbye, dearest. I shall be at the Grand from Tuesday night to Friday. Nem is in Brighton & comes up to town on Wednesday. Mary comes up to go to the theatre with Jean on that day. I will bring Nem round to them. I feel as if the latter were the one legacy that poor Touie has left me, and I want to get her established either in London or somewhere. She seems so perfectly lonely and helpless that it is very pathetic. I wrote to her & without mentioning names I outlined my intentions. She wrote very nicely back wishing me ‘the happiness I deserved’.
to Mary Doyle GRAND HOTEL, LONDON, APRIL 13, 1907
We have—as you have heard—postponed till Sept 3d. We both thought it was wiser to give a broader margin. But I dont like it all the same. However it is only 8 weeks extra.
My Fielding speech went very well yesterday. Jean & father were there. I take Stratton out to dinner on Friday. I shall see Ida off on Thursday.
to Mary Doyle GRAND HOTEL, LONDON
Yes indeed—you must spend your birthday with me. I hope whenever the weather is warm you will come to Undershaw which is ready for you at all times.
We (Jean and I) were sorry about the postponement, but it is better to make sure of starting right. I think everyone was relieved at our change of plan.
I will do all you say about rest. I am shedding one thing after another. Yes, I long for a quiet home life. It is very good that Mary & Jean have become such friends. I have never known Mary take to anyone so.
to Mary Doyle GRAND HOTEL, LONDON, MAY 15, 1907
No definite Edalji news yet—only rumours. I hope for the best.
The Committee of Inquiry—which included a cousin of the Staffordshire police’s Chief Constable—reported out shortly after this letter. Edalji, it declared, was not guilty of the cattle mutilations; and it acknowledged that, as Conan Doyle summarized it later, ‘the police commenced and carried on their investigations, not for the purpose of finding out who was the guilty party, but for the purpose of finding evidence against Edalji, who they were already sure was the guilty man.’ The evidence had been tainted, and the trial therefore unfair.
But there was nevertheless to be no compensation for Edalji’s unjust conviction and three years in prison, for the Committee of Inquiry was ‘not prepared to dissent from the finding of the jury’ that the anonymous letters had been written by Edalji.
‘Very disgusted about the mean refusal of the Government to give
compensation to Edalji after declaring him innocent,’ Conan Doyle wrote to his mother; and in his May 20th letter to the Daily Telegraph discussing the outcome, he called the Committee of Inquiry’s position ‘absolutely illogical and untenable’.
Either the man is guilty or else there is no compensation which is adequate for the great wrong which this country, through its officials, has inflicted upon him. It is hard, indeed, that such compensation should be drawn from the pockets of the taxpayer. It might well be levied in equal parts from the Staffordshire police, the Quarter Sessions Court [which had tried Edalji], and the officials of the Home Office, since it is these three groups of men who are guilty among them of this fiasco.
‘Could anything be imagined meaner or more un-English than that the mistake should be admitted but reparation refused?’ he thundered.
While nothing could be done about it for the present, Conan Doyle kept the matter alive through more letters to the Telegraph that summer; and George Edalji did attend his and Jean’s wedding reception in London on September 18, 1907.
Thus began a new phase in Conan Doyle’s life. Jean, he said discreetly in Memories and Adventures, was ‘the younger daughter of a Blackheath family whom I had known for years, and a dear friend of my mother and sister’.
‘There are some things which one feels too intimately to be able to express,’ he continued, ‘and I can only say that the years have passed without one shadow coming to mar even for a moment the sunshine of my Indian summer which now deepens to a golden autumn.’ Their honeymoon through Europe took them as far as Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, and then back to Windlesham, the house in Crowborough that he had purchased for their home.