Part 9 (1/2)
”Do you see that they have lately been repealing some Factory legislation concerning women's labour in France? We are not France, but we might conceivably, don't you think, have a period of discontent?”
When the book at length appeared, in September, 1896, Mrs. Ward was afraid that it would hardly float under the weight of its politics, but this was not so, for it sold 15,000 copies within a week, and never, perhaps, were the reviews more cordial. The relation between the two women, Letty and Marcella, was universally felt to be one of the best things she had ever attempted, while the greater compression of the book was accepted with a sigh of relief.
”Mrs. Ward is wisely content,” said the _Leeds Mercury_, ”to take more for granted, and with true artistic instinct to leave room for the play of her readers' imagination; we are saved, consequently, tedious details, and that over-elaboration of incident, if not of plot, which was one of the most conspicuous blemishes in her previous works. She is beginning also to believe that brevity is the soul of art, as well as of wit, and therefore, without any sacrifice of the essential points in her narrative, she has found it possible--by discarding padding--to state all that she has to tell about 'Sir George Tressady' in considerably less than six hundred pages, instead of making her old, unconscionable demand for at least a thousand. It would not be true to say that Mrs.
Ward has lost all her literary mannerisms, or even affectations, but they are falling rapidly into the background--one proof amongst many, that she is mastering at length the secret of that blended strength and simplicity of style which all writers envy, but to which few attain.”
Two opinions, expressed by such opposite critics as Mrs. Sidney Webb and Mr. Rudyard Kipling, may be of interest to this day:
”The story is very touching,” wrote Mrs. Webb, ”and you have an indescribable power of making your readers sympathize with all your characters, even with Letty and her unlovely mother-in-law. Of course, as a strict utilitarian, I am inclined to estimate the book more in its character of treatise than as a novel. From this point of view it is the most useful bit of work that has been done for many a long day. You have managed to give the arguments for and against factory legislation and a fixed standard of life with admirable lucidity and picturesqueness--in a way that will make them comprehensible to the ordinary person without any technical knowledge. I especially admire your real intellectual impartiality and capacity to give the best arguments on both sides, though naturally I am glad to see that your sympathy is on the whole with us on those questions.
”Pray accept my thanks from a public as well as a personal point of view for the gift of the book to the world and to myself.”
And Mr. Kipling wrote:
”DEAR MRS. WARD,--
I am delighted to have _Sir George Tressady_ from your hand. I have followed him from month to month with the liveliest wonder as to how the inevitable smash in his affairs was to fall, and now that I have read the tale as a whole I see that of course there was but one way. Like all human books it has the unpleasant power of making you think and bother as one only bothers over real folk: but how splendidly you have done the lighter relief-work! 'Fifteen out of a possible twelve' has already been adopted as a household word by us, who have two babies.
”It will always be one of the darkest mysteries to me that any human being can make a beginning, end _and_ middle to a really truly long story. I can think them by scores, but I have not the hand to work out the full frieze. It is just the difference between the deep-sea steamer with twelve hundred people aboard, besides the poor beggars sweating and scorching in the stoke-hold, and the coastwise boat with a mixed cargo of 'notions.' And so, when the liner sees fit to salute the coaster in pa.s.sing, that small boat is mightily encouraged.”
But the writing of _Sir George Tressady_ had been carried out against greater handicaps of physical suffering and nervous strain than perhaps any of Mrs. Ward's previous books. She had agreed to let the _Century Magazine_ publish it serially from November 1, 1895, and had fully intended to have it finished, at any rate in provisional form, by that date. But ill-health and her absorption in the affairs of University Hall r.e.t.a.r.ded its progress, so that when November came there were still eight or nine chapters to write, and those the most difficult and critical of the book. The _Century_ cabled for more copy, but at the same time Mrs. Ward fell a victim to ”a new ailment,” as she wrote to her father, ”and what with that and the perpetual struggle with the hand, which will not let me write lying down, I hardly know how to get through sometimes.” She was advised to have what the surgeons a.s.sured her would be a ”slight” operation, but put it off until after a Christmas month at Stocks, during which she devoted herself, crippled as she was, to the writing of _Tressady_. Hardly would she have ”got through” these weeks at all--for by now the demands on her time, the letters and requests to speak were endless--had she not discovered during this winter a secretary, Miss Bessie Churcher, whose wonderful qualities made her not only Mrs. Ward's closest helper and friend during the whole remainder of her life, but have impressed themselves for good, through many years' devotion, on the public work of London.
When Mrs. Ward at last found time to put herself in the surgeons' hands, the operation which ensued was clumsily performed, and left her with yet another burden to carry through all her later life. After it she lay for days in such pain as the doctors had neither foreseen nor prophesied, while the nervous shock of the operation itself was aggravated, one night, by the antics of a drunken nurse, who came into her room with a lighted lamp in her hand and deposited it, swaying and lurching, upon the floor. Fortunately help was at hand and the nurse removed, but the terror of the moment did not forward Mrs. Ward's recovery. It was many weeks before sleep came back to her, many weeks before she could sit up with any comfort or move with ease. But the book must be finished, in spite of aches and pains, and finished it was within ten weeks of the operation (March 22, 1896). George Tressady's death in the dark galleries of the mine ”possessed” her as she had only been possessed by the tale of Bessie Costrell, and helped her no doubt to master the host of her physical ills. But when the strain was over she was fit for nothing but to be taken out to Italy, there to recover, if she could, under the stimulus of that magic light and air which appealed--so at least we used to imagine--to something in her own far-off southern blood. At Cadenabbia, on Lake Como, health began to return to her; at Padua she was ”doing more walking than she had dreamed of for four years,” and with the revival of her strength she wrote home in sheer joy of spirit, ”All Italy to me is enchanted ground!” But alas, it was too early to rejoice. She came again to the Lake of Como to have a fortnight's complete rest before returning home--staying at the Villa Serbelloni, above Bellagio--and there unduly overtaxed her new-found powers. She must make her way to the ruined tower of San Giovanni that looks at you from its hill-top beyond the little town, and since the path was _non-carrozzabile_ she would make the ascent on foot. The adventure was pure joy to her, the views of the lake all the more intoxicating for having been won by her own strength of limb. But the next day a violent attack of her old and still unexplained trouble declared itself. The journey homewards, via Lucerne, was performed under conditions of crisis which still leave a haunting memory, and though a clever Swiss doctor at Lucerne appeared to diagnose the disease more surely than any previous medicine-man, he could suggest no practicable remedy. Mrs. Ward continued to suffer from her obscure ailment to a greater or less degree for the rest of her life, as well as from the results of the operation; but on the whole the attacks became less frequent, or less severe, as the years went on. She developed an extraordinary skill in fighting them, by the aid of the thousand and one little drugs before-mentioned, and often derived a keen pleasure from the sense of having met and routed an old enemy. But the enemy was always there, lying in wait for her if she walked more, say, than half a mile at a time. It is well to remember that her life from 1892 onwards was conducted under that constant handicap.
Yet it was during the years in which her illness was most acute that she carried to a successful conclusion her labours for the foundation of the Pa.s.smore Edwards Settlement.
When Mr. Edwards, in May, 1894, offered to provide 4,000 towards the Building Fund of University Hall,[18] it was only the beginning of a long struggle towards the accomplishment of this design. The next step was to interest the Duke of Bedford--as the ground-landlord of that part of London--in the scheme. This Mrs. Ward succeeded in doing during the summer of 1894, thus laying the foundation of a co-operation that was to ripen into a strong mutual regard. The Duke took a keen personal interest in the finding of a suitable site for the new building, and when such a site became available in Tavistock Place, offered it to the Committee at less than its market value, and contributed 800 towards the building fund. Oddly enough, however, this site--for which the contract was actually signed in February, 1895--was not that on which the Settlement stands to-day, but lay on the opposite side of the street; the disadvantage to it being that there would have been a delay of two years in obtaining possession, owing to existing tenants' rights.
When, therefore, an equally good site actually fell vacant in the same street a few months later, the Duke willingly released the Committee from their contract and made over to them the ground on which the Settlement now stands on a 999 years' lease. In the meantime Mr.
Pa.s.smore Edwards had raised his original offer from 4,000 to 7,000, and then to 10,000; the total fund stood at over 12,000, and Mr.
Norman Shaw agreed to preside over an architects' compet.i.tion and to judge between the various designs submitted. All connected with University Hall rejoiced greatly when the award fell to two young residents of the Hall, Messrs. Dunbar Smith and Cecil Brewer, whose simple yet beautiful design far surpa.s.sed those of the other compet.i.tors. But according to the instructions of the Committee itself the building was to cost up to 12,000, while the price of the site was 5,000, and a further sum would be required for furnis.h.i.+ng. Mrs. Ward set herself to the task of raising further funds with her accustomed energy, but her illness during the winter of 1895-6 greatly hampered her, and the fund rose all too slowly for her eager spirit. Meanwhile the builders' tenders soared in the opposite direction. When she returned from Italy and Lucerne in May, 1896, she found the situation critical; either fresh plans of a far less ambitious nature must be asked for, or a further sum of 3,500 must be raised at once. Mr. R. G.
Tatton, already one of the most active members of the Council, and soon to be appointed Warden, believed that the only hope lay in Mr. Pa.s.smore Edwards, but told Mrs. Ward plainly that the benefactor had said he could do no more unless others showed a corresponding interest. Mr.
Tatton boldly asked Mrs. Ward herself to lay down 1,000. This she did; a fortunate legacy of 500 came in at the same moment, and Mr. Edwards gave an additional 2,000 with the best grace in the world. Yet once more, on the night of the formal opening, nearly two years later, did he come forward with a similar donation, making 14,000 in all. He showed throughout a steadfast faith in the working ideals of the Settlement that triumphed over all minor difficulties; Mrs. Ward described him once as possessed by ”the very pa.s.sion of giving.” No wonder that the Committee decided, long before the new building was completed, to call it by his name.
Thus Mrs. Ward could have the happiness, during the years 1896 and 1897, of seeing the beautiful building for which she had toiled so hard rise and take bodily shape before her eyes. She became fast friends with the two young architects, who had so decisively won the compet.i.tion, and who now devoted themselves indefatigably to the supervision of the work. She formed, early in 1897, a General Committee for the new Settlement, the wide and representative character of which showed how warm was the sympathy entertained for the new venture not only in London, but also in Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester. And she devoted herself to the formation of a Lectures.h.i.+p Committee, named after Benjamin Jowett, which was to carry on, within the new organization, the religious ideals of University Hall. The Settlement itself rested on a purely secular basis, but the Council fully agreed to the inclusion of the following clause as one of the ”Objects” in the Memorandum of a.s.sociation: ”To promote the study of the Bible and of the history of religion in the light of the best available results of criticism and research.” The Jowett Lectures.h.i.+p Committee was established in order to carry out this clause, and a sum of 100 per annum was placed at its disposal from the general revenue of the Settlement--a small result, it may be argued, of all the missionary effort put forth in the founding of University Hall seven years before. But the Settlement itself stood there as the result of that effort, and as Mrs. Ward looked down, on October 10, 1897, on the packed audience that a.s.sembled in the new hall to hear her opening address, she might well feel that her dreams had come to a more solid fruition than she could ever have dared to hope. But even then she did not know the whole. There sat the mothers and the fathers, with faces eager and expectant, ready to throw themselves into this big experiment that was opening out before them. Mrs. Ward welcomed them with her whole heart; yet this was not all: the children were at the gates.
CHAPTER VII
CHILDREN AND ADULTS AT THE Pa.s.sMORE EDWARDS SETTLEMENT--THE FOUNDATION OF THE INVALID CHILDREN'S SCHOOL
1897-1899
For some two or three years before the opening of the new Settlement, a Sat.u.r.day morning ”playroom” for children had been held at Marchmont Hall, mainly under the direction of Miss Mary Neal, who, as the founder of the Esperance Club for factory girls, and one of the ”Sisters”
working under Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, had already made her name beloved in the slums of St. Pancras. In that shabby little room she had taught them Old English games and dances, till even the street outside grew merry with the sound of their music, and many were the groups of children seen playing ”Old Roger is dead” or ”Looby Loo” at street corners during the other days of the week. Mrs. Ward had been much attracted by the experiment, which was hampered, like everything else at Marchmont Hall, by lack of s.p.a.ce; and now that the fine new buildings were available she was eager to transplant it and to carry it further.