Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

by Oscar Hijuelos

  Then, with the disharmony between Stanley and Gladstone evident, the dinner proceeded. Soup, salad, roasted goose; legs of lamb, roast beef, and Brussels sprouts; string beans and boiled potatoes.

  During this meal, Gladstone, eating little, did not so much as look over at Stanley. And Stanley, normally a voracious eater, hardly touched his plate, his stomach in knots. Worse was the continued silence between them. As much as Dorothy attempted to provoke a lively conversation, Gladstone remained rather uncommunicative, answering most queries with one-or two-word responses. (“And how is your campaign proceeding, sir?” “Well enough.”)

  But then Dorothy asked Mr. Stanley if he might not mind making some remarks about his recent expedition, and though Stanley felt somewhat reluctant to do so, he addressed the gathering, somewhat timidly at first. Then, taking a deep breath and sipping from a glass of brandy, he continued:

  “Even now, great numbers of managers and officers of the African Association are pouring into that region, their only goal the betterment of its inhabitants. Regardless of what some wayward missionary reports—in singling out a few clashes between natives and Europeans—have unfairly cited as evidence of cruel treatment and a preexisting enmity between native and civilizer, the long view must be taken that it is all for the good of African and European alike.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have no reservations about this enterprise. Not only will those peoples benefit from our presence and the advancements of what our technology and medical knowledge can give them, but in the course of such advances, the Arab slavers will also be stamped out, and along the way, as I have advocated in the region of Uganda, the light of Christianity will flourish there as well. Yet even as I say this, I can only urge those in positions of power in England to carefully consider our own greater involvement there: Why we have not sought after the riches that are awaiting us by way of abundant natural resources and the promise of trade is beyond my grasp to understand. I may have an affiliation with Léopold’s International African Association, but as my heart and loyalties are British, I believe that what is most missing from that scheme is England itself.”

  Wishing to impress Miss Tennant, he spoke for another twenty minutes along those lines, to the point that she had regretted asking him to speak. But then, abruptly, looking about the room and somewhat annoyed by the fact that, during his remarks, Gladstone had passed the time by moving a soup spoon from side to side, Stanley decided to make a toast.

  “However, I am pleased to be here this evening to be saying a few words; indeed, there are some who have not been so lucky. A year ago, when in my dealings with the association, its president, King Léopold, asked me which man I would choose to govern such a region as the Congo, the name that came instantly to mind was that of a very fine chap, a capable and pious gentleman whose absolute opposition to the slavers and whose strong personal faith and bravery I held in the highest regard: I am speaking of the late General Gordon. And so I say”—and he hoisted a glass of wine—“here’s to the great General Gordon.”

  The gathering then followed suit.

  As Stanley sat back down, Gladstone’s stony gaze was upon him, and whereas Gladstone had been merely condescending with Stanley before, he now glared at Stanley with pure contempt. It was then that Miss Tennant steered the conversation toward literature, which, in her opinion, most people of refinement would find worthwhile to discuss—a neutral zone. In this she was correct, for she had finally engaged Gladstone’s interest.

  A conservative in his tastes, if not in his politics, and religiously inclined—as religious as Stanley—he spoke tenderly about the books of Saint Augustine, which he had hoped to one day translate himself; then of Horace and Ovid. When it came to English authors, he championed Tennyson and Milton, among others, whose writings, in his opinion, spoke well for the legacy of civilized England. (“I almost liked him for that,” Stanley would later write.) Stanley, for his part, held forth on the writers whom he most esteemed. In his opinion, Gibbon and Samuel Butler were remarkable enough, but in the realm of invention, Charles Dickens, so Stanley assessed, still remained the greatest author to come out of England, only bettered perhaps by the Shakespeare of Hamlet. Books such as Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield had always deeply moved him.

  “Reading Dickens,” he said that night, while looking over at the apprehensive Dorothy, “I have often thought David Copperfield was very much like me when I was a boy.”

  “Dickens was one of Providence’s gifts to England, a very prolific and humane writer,” Gladstone declared. And he was kind enough to concede that he sensed Dickens’s influence on Stanley’s prose style: “Your many exclamations and colorful characterizations of people, rather broadly, in fact, do seem reminiscent of Charles’s work,” he said. “You certainly know how to keep your books moving along at a fast clip.”

  “I work very hard at what I do, sir,” Stanley answered, his tensely drawn face turning red. “And I am decisive in what I do.”

  With servants pouring liquors, Dorothy Tennant, knowing something of Stanley’s background, then asked, “And whom, Mr. Stanley, do you count among the better American authors?”

  “A difficult question to answer, Miss Tennant: I have also very much liked the writings of Benjamin Franklin; his autobiography is remarkable. Of current authors, Emerson comes to mind, and William Dean Howells. But I do have a particular favorite—a writer, who, in my opinion, soars over his contemporaries. In truth I am perhaps biased, for he is a longtime acquaintance. An author who is as well known in England as anyone.”

  “And who is this?”

  “Samuel Clemens.”

  “Mark Twain?”

  “Yes, Miss Tennant, Mark Twain.”

  “And what is it that you like especially about his work?”

  “Well, now,” said Stanley. “He has a great capacity to recall the minutest details; a knack for capricious language, and, I should say, he is one of the few writers besides Dickens who makes me laugh out loud. Though artful design is not his forte, he’s jolly in his choice of language and writes about many remarkable things, with a very sharp journalist’s eye. His Life on the Mississippi is one of the finest books that I have read about that region in America. As one who has traveled that river in my youth, I know what I am speaking of. It is no easy thing to write as Clemens does.” Then: “Even something like his juvenile’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has impressed me; his evocation of childhood, in a small town along the Mississippi River, as simply as it is written… it leaves me thinking about the glory and joy of childhoods in general, rare as they may be in some cases. I thought of Wales when I read it: I thought about the farmers I knew…. I can’t exactly describe my feelings about it, but for all my experience in this world, I have been touched by that book and others he has written.”

  Then, as he faltered for words, and as Gladstone looked at his vest-pocket watch, Stanley added, “His books have the warmth of life. A warmth that moves me deeply.”

  “Would you not say, then, Mr. Stanley,” the prime minister asked, “that he is the closest thing the Americans have to a Charles Dickens?”

  “I would.”

  “Ah—so I see that we’ve finally agreed on something,” the prime minister answered. “I have met this Mark Twain on several occasions and have found him a congenial sort. Were it that all writers could be so affably disposed.”

  With the evening thus salvaged from disaster by literature, Stanley was making his way out from the dining room when Miss Tennant followed him to the door. After thanking him for coming, she said, “Mr. Stanley, if you do not already know, I am a portrait painter.”

  “I know that.”

  “And as such, I would be very honored—and delighted—if you would come into my home again to sit for me as a subject. Can you?”

  “Well, Miss Tennant, as much as I am touched, my schedule is very full. Can it not be done with some photographs? I can have several delivered to you, if you like.”

 
; “No,” she said. “I would prefer that you sit for me.”

  Then, as she smiled in a lovely way: “Oh, please, Mr. Stanley, whatever you are doing, surely you will have a free afternoon. Please say that you will.”

  This he agreed to eventually do—and that is how things began between them.

  THERE CAME THE DAY in early July when Stanley found himself lingering for some time before the entranceway of the Tennant mansion, a sign beside the door saying: VISITORS WELCOMED HERE. Beforehand, he had walked up and down the streets of Whitehall for half an hour, debating with himself as to whether he should or shouldn’t finally keep his assignation with Miss Tennant, and he had nearly changed his mind when Dorothy, seeing him from her front window, opened the door and cheerfully called him in. Over her dress was tied a painter’s smock; her hair was up, her fingers smudged with paint, as she was still in the midst of a session with some of her urchin children.

  “Do come in—and forgive my appearance, Mr. Stanley. Come now, into my studio.” And so it was that she led Stanley down a long hallway, with which he would become well familiar, to a room at the far end of the house on the first floor, which she had nicknamed the birdcage and where her delightful subjects, the little street children of London, fluttered about, lively and as happy as sparrows. With some trepidation—“I do not intend to disturb your labors; I can come back another day,” he told her—he followed her into the studio. In it were numerous cabinets, barrels of ragged clothes, a bucket of soot, and all kinds of props: a baby carriage, a cradle, a milk churn, baskets, a large mirror, a wooden rocking horse, and two very small chairs. Two children, a boy and girl, costumed as common urchins in rags, were attempting to play her upright piano, their soot-covered hands banging wildly at its keys; a third child, a boy, pounded at a snare drum; another hit a spoon on a triangle. This little orchestra played to their heart’s content, making a cacophonous racket, which, however, did not bother Miss Tennant in the slightest. Leading Stanley to her easel, on which sat one of her “urchin paintings” in progress, she smiled serenely and said, “Come and look, Mr. Stanley. What do you think?”

  On a small canvas was a nicely detailed rendering of a chimney sweep playing with his friends; the studio fireplace before which her subjects posed had turned into a dingy alley and brick wall somewhere in London.

  “Most interesting,” Stanley said. “Most charming.”

  Stanley, with his serious manner, brought the children’s revelry to an abrupt halt: The leader of this small gang, putting down his drumstick, asked Miss Tennant, “Are we done now, ma’am?”

  “Yes, you can go for today,” she told him, placing sixpence into his palm. “But I will see you and your friends tomorrow, yes?”

  Once the children had gone, escorted by a butler out the door, Miss Tennant, tending to several brushes with turpentine, begged Stanley’s forgiveness for her state of dress, adding: “But I did want you to see me as I often am.”

  Then she proceeded to show him the numerous sketches she had made of her “beloved ragamuffins,” mostly charcoal and pencil drawings that she kept in a large portfolio: a little girl watching her baby brother in a cradle; a boy standing outside a café window holding a violin and bow in hand, as if wishing he had enough money for a meal. One drawing after the other, depicting the life of poor London waifs.

  “I get my ideas for these scenes from my ramblings around the city. I find some of my children around St. Paul’s, or down by the embankments of the Thames. You will notice that poor though they may be, each child is truly happy.”

  Stanley, who had spent nine years in a workhouse with such poor children and who did not remember them as happy, asked, “And how so?”

  “Happy in that they are children, unspoiled by things. You see, I believe that all children, regardless of their circumstances, are more contented than what most people are led to believe—that even an impoverished childhood holds out many delights and joys. The way they are depicted in our newspapers—as thin, pale, and sickly guttersnipes with sunken eyes and hopeless spirits—goes against everything I have observed of them, living, as all children cannot help but do, in the utter bliss and sunshine of those precious years.”

  “If you ask me, that’s a matter of opinion, Miss Tennant.” Then: “But have you not wanted children of your own?”

  “Oh, sir, I have,” she told him. “But I have somehow managed without them.” Then: “Is it so that you genuinely like these drawings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then I hope you will be happy with the portrait I will make of you.”

  “Are we to begin today?”

  “If you would like. But first, let us have some lunch.”

  COMING TO HER STUDIO to pose for her, he got to know her slightly then. Her way of thinking, mostly capricious, seemed intent upon avoiding the obvious; a kind of contrary manner of putting things was her method, or a natural irony. She was very pleasant company, he thought; she let him smoke to his heart’s content and seemed such a gentle kind of lady that naturally his innermost thoughts poured forth. The first two times he sat for her, he mainly talked about Africa, but then, by and by, he started to tell her more about his past, a line he rarely crossed with strangers.

  “AS I SAID, MISS TENNANT, my father died when I was three, but I know he was a butcher because I have some very early recollection of being laid faceup on a counter of his shop and seeing all these swine heads staring down at me, and I can remember a smell of clotted blood that was most strong, enough to seem thick as mud in my nostrils. At that tender age I was left no better off than an orphan. As my own mother, one Betsy Parry, was otherwise occupied in London, struggling to earn a living, I was given over to the guardianship of my maternal grandfather, Moses Parry. Now, Miss Tennant, with him you would have a proper subject to paint. He was a farmer, a huge man with enormous hands, capable of easily lifting a heavy stone off the ground, of plowing a field without a mule. He lived in a whitewashed cottage near Denbigh Castle, at the center of town: I can remember that behind the cottage, at the far end of a long garden, stood a shed in which the old man slaughtered calves and split their carcasses in two before taking them to market. This I had often watched him doing; he showed me the slaughter so that I would know where the meat we ate came from. It is a smell, of blood drying on the ground, that remains with me to this day. Now, though he was a gruffly tempered and blunt fellow, he had a caring side to him, and he would sit me down on his lap and teach me how to write the letters of the alphabet on a board of slate. And he’d take me to a Wesleyan church each Sunday so that I might know something about piety, an important thing.

  “It was my grandfather who first taught me about the Bible, as he had wanted me to possess some moral sense of things. He taught me discipline with regular beatings, so that I would learn obedience. But he could be tender, too. He always told me that I did not need a mother. ‘Even without one, you shall yet become a man,’ he’d say. Has it turned out to be the truth? That I cannot say, but it was through him, Miss Tennant, that I felt the first shock of death, for I was watching him tending to some work in a field one morning when, with a gasp, he clutched his chest and, taking three agitated breaths, fell to the ground, dead.

  “He had two sons who looked after me for a time, but as they wanted to get married and needed the run of the cottage to themselves, they boarded me out for the price of a half a crown a week to an elderly couple who lived on the other side of the castle. My new guardian’s name was Richard Price; his was a pocked and grave face, and his eyes were watery and teeth quite broken; but he made a livelihood tending to the village green. He was also the sexton of Whitchurch and, therefore, like my grandfather, of a very religious proclivity. His wife was a fat old woman who cooked pease pudding each night, which I disliked but was forced to eat because that half a crown did not provide for much more. They had a daughter, Sarah, and it was she who taught me about the devil, who—and I have since learned this to be one of the truths of life—fights w
ith God for dominion over the world… she loved to frighten me with stories about Satan and the ways he had to trick men into sinning… and about witches and evil spirits, too: and she spoke of ghosts, the disembodied spirits of men.

  “She so filled my head with such stories that I trembled each night when it got dark. I trembled whenever I was sent out of the house to fetch water from a well; trembled when I had to enter into the castle-wall shadows. Such tales afflicted me with bad dreams. I used to believe that my grandfather’s ghost would soon be coming after me, for I was not always so well behaved when he was alive and had wished him dead whenever he beat me. The story of Lazarus, raised by Jesus from the dead, troubled me as well, and I would cry out night after night, waking everyone in that household, thinking that Lazarus had come to visit me.

  “Then I take it you believe in ghosts?”

  “Of the mental kind, yes. Children, especially, see so many things that we cannot; in fact, I did see a ghost, not in a dream but in actuality, on one of those nights when I went to fetch some water. As I approached the well, I saw a very great shadow moving out from behind some trees: It was no man, just the shadow of a man, stretching high over the castle walls. Well, I instantly ran back into the house, leaving my bucket behind, and from that time on I slept ever more restlessly and cried out from ever more frightening dreams.

  “And so, Miss Tennant, as I disturbed their peace at night, and as they found me a difficult sort of child, they demanded more money from my uncles for their troubles. But this extra my uncles refused to pay, nor would they take me back. Shortly came the day when the sexton told me that I would be making a journey; a wagon, driven by his eldest boy, was to take me to the town of Ffynnon Beuno, where I was to be boarded with another of their relatives, a certain Aunt Mary. Being so young and trusting of others, I had no inkling of what awaited me—a very different life from the one I had known.”