Part 7 (1/2)
She had written to him at last, knowing of him--as all that generation knew--mainly as the generous founder of Free Libraries, but without much hope that he would seriously take up the Marchmont Hall building scheme.
At that time the Committee were in favour of a site in Somers Town, north of the Euston Road, the advantages of which Mrs. Ward had set forth in her letter to Mr. Edwards. His answer ran as follows:
_May 30, 1894._
MY DEAR MADAM,--
Since I received your letter in Italy I have considered your suggestion in reference to the extension in ampler premises of University Hall Settlement, and thereby planting as you say a Toynbee Hall in the Somers Town district. I have also visited the district in and around Clarendon Sq., and am convinced that such an Inst.i.tution is as much wanted in North London as it was wanted in East London. I therefore cheerfully respond to your appeal, and undertake to provide the necessary building within the limits of the sum you indicate, if somebody will provide a suitable site. The vacant place in Clarendon Sq. would, I consider, be a convenient spot for the Settlement. As a matter of course, provision must be made that the building shall be permanently devoted to the purpose now intended. In my opinion we have the two things most necessary in the Somers Town district for a Toynbee Hall: we have a numerous working population requiring educational a.s.sistance and advantages; and we have in the neighbourhood many able and willing workers ready to a.s.sist in works of intellectual, moral and social culture.
I remain, Yours faithfully, J. Pa.s.sMORE EDWARDS.
This was her first great victory on the road to the building of the Pa.s.smore Edwards Settlement. That road was still to be a long and difficult one, but she was not to be discouraged, and where many lesser souls would have fallen out by the wayside, wearied by ill-health and by the multiplication of obstacles, she persisted, and won in the end a vantage-ground in the fine buildings of the Settlement, whence, in the course of time, she could pa.s.s on to new and various achievements.
Heavy and exacting as the work of University Hall was during the first three years of its existence, and glum as the face of our coachman was wont to look at the reiterated orders to drive there (for he disapproved of his horse being kept waiting in the street while people were just talking), Mrs. Ward never allowed it to absorb her mind completely.
Indeed, these years saw the writing of her second three-volume novel, _The History of David Grieve_, as well as many important developments in our domestic affairs. The house on Grayswood Hill, near Haslemere, was rising fast during the early months of 1890, while the principles of the new Settlement were being thrashed out in the study at Russell Square, and at length Mrs. Ward tore herself away from London, stipulating for a six weeks' break from the affairs of University Hall, buried herself in a neighbouring house named ”Grayswood Beeches,” wrote _David_ hard, and kept a watchful eye on the plasterers and painters at work on ”Lower Grayswood” below. She took the keenest interest in every detail of the new house, planning it out in daily letters to her husband, and yet as it drew near completion she could not help rebelling at its very newness, at the half-made garden and the plantations of birch and larch and pine which covered much of the nine acres of ground, while of real trees there was hardly one. Waves of longing would a.s.sail her for Hampden House, with its silence and its s.p.a.ciousness, its old lawns and trees, and its complete absence of neighbours. ”How I have been hankering after Hampden lately!” she writes to her father in June, 1890, and to her husband she confesses that she has been to the agent's to inquire whether Hampden could be let for a term of years. ”They don't think so. I told them to inquire without mentioning our names at all.”
Hampden, however, was not to be had, and when once she was established in Lower Grayswood, Mrs. Ward took more kindly to the house, which had from its windows one of the most astonis.h.i.+ng views in all the South of England. Yet still she wrote to her father: ”I doubt whether I shall be content ultimately without an old house and old trees! If one may covet anything, I think one may covet this kind of inheritance from the past to shelter one's own later life in. Life seems so short to make anything quite fresh. Meanwhile, Lower Grayswood is very nice, and more than we deserve!”
The verdict of children and friends was indeed unanimous in praise of the poor new house, whence endless fis.h.i.+ng expeditions were made to muddy little brooks in the plain below, almost compensating for the loss of Forked Pond and the other barbarian delights of Borough Farm. But even the children realized that there were ”too many people about” for the health of their mother's work. The pile of cards on the hall table grew ominously thick. Americans walked in, taking no denial, and once in mid-August, when the youngest child tactlessly won a junior race at the Lythe Hill Sports, with all Haslemere looking on, there were paragraphs in the evening papers. It would not do, and I think the house at Haslemere was doomed from that day onwards. Still, for two years it played its part delightfully in the web of Mrs. Ward's life, giving her quiet, especially in the autumn and winter, for the writing of _David Grieve_, giving her deep draughts of beauty which were not forgotten in after years. The lodge was made a home for tired Londoners, whether boys or mothers or factory-girls, and the house itself was never long empty of guests.
There, too, in the book-lined room which she had made her study, she would on Sunday evenings carry out in practice those ideas on the teaching of the Bible which she had striven to inculcate at University Hall. The audience sat on low stools or lay on the floor, while she read to them usually a part of the Gospels, making the scene live again, as only she could make it, not only by her intimate knowledge of the times, but by her gift of presentation. Systematically, making us use our minds to follow her, she would work through a section of St. Mark or St.
Matthew, comparing each with the other, showing the touches of the ”later hand,” taking us deep into the fascinating intricacies of the Synoptic Problem. But all the time the central figure would grow clearer and clearer, in simple majesty of parable or act of healing, while at the greatest moments commentary fell away and only the old words broke the stillness. She was immensely interested in the problem of the Master's own view of himself and his mission, following him step by step to the declaration at Caesarea Philippi, then tracing the gathering conviction that in himself was to be fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy of the Suffering Servant. She was inclined to reject the prophecies of the Second Coming as showing too obviously the feeling of the second generation, as being unworthy of him who said, ”The Kingdom of G.o.d is within you.” But in later years she came to regard them as probably based on utterances of his own, for was he not, after all, the child of his time and country? With an episode like the Transfiguration she would show us the elements of popular legend from which it was put together, fitting piece into piece till the whole stood out with a new freshness, throwing its light backwards over the age-long Jewish expectations of the return of Moses and Elijah. So with the Resurrection stories; she bade us always remember the teeming soil from which they sprang, in that long-past childhood of the world; how none of them were written down till forty years, most of them not till sixty and seventy years, had pa.s.sed since the Crucifixion; how the return from Hades on the third day is at least as old as Alcestis. These things, she said, forbade us to accept them as literal fact; but it was impossible to listen to her reading of the Walk to Emmaus, or the finding of the empty tomb, without coming under the spell of an emotion as deep as it was austere. For the fact that we in these latter days had outgrown our childhood and must distinguish truth from phantasy was no reason in her mind, why we should renounce the poetic value of scenes and pictures woven into the very fabric of our being. And so, Sunday after Sunday, our little minds drank in a teaching which she would fain believe could have been spread broadcast among our generation, could the ideals of University Hall but reach the ma.s.ses. She did not realize how unique her teaching was, nor how few among her generation combined such knowledge as hers with such a power of instilling it into other minds and hearts.
The writing of _David Grieve_ was a long-sustained effort, extending over the best part of three years, and too often performed under the handicap of writer's cramp and sleeplessness. But Mrs. Ward was at the prime of her powers, and felt herself more thoroughly master of her material in this book than she had done in the case of _Robert Elsmere_, so that the revision, when it came, was a matter of weeks and not of months. Her visits to Manchester and Derbys.h.i.+re for the local colour of the book had inspired her with a vivid faith in the working population of the north, which finds expression in a letter written to her father in September, 1890, in reply to criticisms which he, with his Catholic prepossessions, had made on the unloveliness of their lives:
”You and I would not agree about New Mills, I am afraid! At least, if New Mills is like Bacup and the towns along the Irwell, as I suppose it is. After seeing those mill-colonies among the moors, I came home cheered and comforted in my mind for the future of England--so differently may the same things affect different people. Beatrice Potter told me that she had stayed for some time incog. as one of themselves with a family of mill-hands at Bacup, and that to her mind they were 'the salt of the earth,' so good and kind to each other, so diligent, so G.o.d-fearing, so truly unworldly. She attributed it to their religion, to those hideous chapels, which develop in them the keenest individual sense of responsibility to G.o.d and man, to their habit of combination for a common end as in their Co-op. Societies and Unions, and to their real sensitiveness to education and the things of the mind, up to a certain point, of course. And certainly all that I saw last autumn bore her out. I imagine that if you were to compare Lancas.h.i.+re with any other manufacturing district in Europe, with Belgium, with Lyons, with Catalonia, it would show favourably as regards the type of human character developed. All the better men and women are interested in the things that interested St. Paul--grace and salvation, and the struggle of the spirit against the flesh, and for the rest they work for their wives and children, and learn gradually to respect those laws of health which are, after all, as much 'set in the world,' to use Uncle Matt's phrase, as beauty and charm, and in their own way as much a will and purpose of G.o.d. Read the books about Lancas.h.i.+re life a hundred years ago, and see if they have not improved--if they are not less brutal, less earthy, nearer altogether to the intelligent type of life. That they have far to go yet one cannot deny. But altogether, when London fills me with despair, I often think of Lancas.h.i.+re and am comforted for the future. I think of the people I had tea with at Bacup, all mill-hands, but so refined, gentle and good; and I think of the wonderful development of the civic sense in a town like Oldham, with all its public inst.i.tutions, its combinations of workpeople for every possible object, and its generally happy and healthy tone. I wish the streets were less ugly, but after all, our climate is hard and drives people indoors three-parts of the year, and the race has very little artistic gift.”
Meanwhile, the Copyright Committee was again hard at work in the United States, arousing much anxious speculation in Mrs. Ward's mind as to whether their Bill would be through Congress in time for her new book; but in the end the victory came more easily and swiftly than was expected. Congress pa.s.sed it in November, 1890, and it became law in the following March. The effect on Mrs. Ward's fortunes was not long in making itself felt. Mr. George Smith had been negotiating for her with an American firm that offered good but not magnificent terms for _David Grieve_; he was dissatisfied, and in his wise heart bethought him of her old friends the Macmillans, who had an ”American house.” The sequel must be told in his own words:
15, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
_June 13, 1891._
DEAR MRS. HUMPHRY WARD,--
I met Frederick Macmillan in the Park this morning. It flashed on my mind that I would sell him the American copyright of your book, and after a long talk (which made me late for breakfast) I promised him that if he made me a firm offer of seven thousand pounds for the American copyright, including Canada, before one o'clock to-day, I would accept it on your behalf. He has just called here and written the enclosed note. I am rather pleased with myself, and I hope that you will not reproach me. I write in haste, for I shall feel rather anxious until I have a line from you on the subject.
Believe me, Yours sincerely, G. M. SMITH.
Needless to say, the ”line” was forthcoming, and Mrs. Ward was left to contemplate, with some emotion, the fact that she was mistress of a little fortune. Whether the Macmillans remained as contented with their bargain as she was is, however, a point of some obscurity. Certainly they desired her next book (_Marcella_), which amply made up to them for any shortcomings on _David Grieve_, but during the negotiations for it some uncomfortable tales leaked out. ”Mr. Brett told me,” wrote Mrs.
Ward to George Smith, eighteen months after the appearance of _David_, ”that owing to the description of profit-sharing in _David Grieve_ and the interest roused by it in America, their American branch adopted it last year for all their employes. Then in consequence of _David_ there were no profits to divide! I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the situation, and I am quite determined that if there are losses this time I will share them.”
But as yet the prospect was unclouded, and the summer of 1891 was spent in a hard wrestle with the remaining chapters of the book--with the tragedy of Lucy and the sombre fate of Louie Grieve--but at length, on September 24, the last words of _David Grieve_ were written, and on October 16 she and Mr. Ward fled for nine weeks to Italy.
It was not their first visit, for in the spring of 1889 they had spent eight days in Rome, making their first Italian friends.h.i.+ps and learning something of the spell of that city of old magic. ”In eight days one can but scratch the surface of Rome,” she had written to her father on that occasion. ”Still, I think Lord Acton was quite right when he said to us at Cannes, 'If you have only three days, go!' To have walked into St.
Peter's, to have driven up on to the Janiculan and seen the view of Rome, the Alban Hills, the Campagna and Soracte which you get from there, to have wandered about the Forum and Colosseum and to have climbed the Palatine and the Capitol, is something after all, even if one never saw this marvellous place again.”
Now this second time she was so tired that they pa.s.sed Rome by on the outward journey and went instead to Naples, Amalfi and Ravello, where the good Signora Palumbo, landlady of the famous little inn, tended her as she lay quite fallow, browsing in books or gazing at sea and sky and sunny coast. But a visit to Pompeii could still arouse all her historical instincts: