The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Part 22

So this year (1890) the saddest in Lady Burton's life, came to an end.

On January 20, 1891, she caused her husband's remains to be removed from the chapel and conveyed on board the Cunard steamer _Palmyra_. She herself was going to England by the quicker route overland.

Her work now being done, a few days later Lady Burton left Trieste for the last time. The evening before her departure twenty of her friends came up to spend the last hours with her. She walked round every room, recalling her life in her happy home. She visited every nook and cranny of the garden; she sat under the linden tree where she and her husband had spent so many quiet hours, and she gazed at the beautiful views for the last time. This went on till the time came for her to leave. Many friends came to accompany her to the station. When she arrived she found that she had to face quite a demonstration. All the leading people in Trieste and the authorities of the city, all the children of the orphanage in which she had taken so keen an interest, all the poor whom she had helped, and all her private friends, who were many, were there to bid her good-bye and offer her flowers. She says: "It was an awful trial not to make an exhibition of myself, and I was glad when the train steamed out; but for a whole hour, ascending the beautiful road close to the sea and Miramar and Trieste, I never took my misty eyes off Trieste and our home where I had been so happy for eighteen years."

On arriving in England, Lady Burton's first care was to go and see Sir Richard's sister and niece, Lady and Miss Stisted, and acquaint them with the circ.u.mstances of her husband's death, and her intentions. We will draw a veil over that meeting. She then went on to London and stayed at the Langham Hotel, intending to remain there a few days until she could find a lodging. At the Langham her three sisters were waiting for her.

Two days after her arrival in London, Lady Burton went to see about a monument to her husband. This monument has been already described, and it is unnecessary to repeat the description at any length here.

Suffice it to say that it is a tomb, shaped like an Arab tent, of dark Forest of Dean stone, lined inside with white Carrara marble. The tent is surmounted by a large gilt star, and over the flap door is a white marble crucifix. The fringe is composed of gilt crescents and stars. The door supports an open book of white marble: on one page is an inscription to Sir Richard Burton; the opposite page was then left blank. Lady Burton had the tomb fitted up with an altar and other accessories, so as to make it as much like a _chapelle ardente_ as possible, while preserving its Eastern character. There was room in the tent for two coffins, those of her husband and herself. Finding that her purse was too slender to carry out this somewhat elaborate design, Lady Burton was encouraged by her friends to ask for a public subscription, with the result that she received the greater part of the money, but the appeal was not responded to as it might have been.

She found that, owing to the state of the weather, the monument could not be completed for some months, but she selected the site in Mortlake Cemetery, the spot which she and her husband had chosen many years before, and had the ground pegged out. The next day, though very ill, she, with her sister Mrs. Fitzgerald, went down to Liverpool to meet her husband's remains, which were arriving by sea. Lord and Lady Derby, who had always been her kind friends, had arranged everything for her, and the next morning Lady Burton went on board s.h.i.+p. She says, "I forgot the people when I saw my beloved case, and I ran forward to kiss it."

It was taken to the train, and to Mortlake, where they arrived that evening. The coffin was conveyed by torchlight to a temporary resting- place in the crypt under the altar of the church, where it remained until the tent was erected. The same evening Lady Burton returned to London, and, her work being done, the reaction set in. She broke down and took to her bed that night, where she remained for many weeks.

She says "I cannot describe the horror of the seventy-six days enhanced by the fog, which, after sunlight and air, was like being buried alive.

The sense of desolation and loneliness and longing for him was cruel, and it became

The custom of the day And the haunting of the night.

My altered circ.u.mstances, and the looking into and facing my future, had also to be borne."

In the meantime her friends, notably the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, the Royal Geographical and other Societies, had not been idle, and her claims had been brought before the Queen, who was graciously pleased to grant Lady Burton a pension of 150 pounds a year from the Civil List. This pension, which she enjoyed to the day of her death, came to her as a surprise, and was not due to any effort of her own.

She would never have asked anything for herself: the only thing she did ask for was that the nation should help her in raising a monument to her husband's honour; but, as we have seen, the nation was somewhat lukewarm on that point.

At the end of April Lady Burton recovered sufficiently to leave the hotel, and joined her sister, Mrs. Fitzgerald. She was chiefly occupied during the next few months in looking out for a house, and in completing the arrangements for her husband's final resting-place. About the middle of June the tent was finished. Sir Richard Burton's remains were transferred from the crypt under the church to the mausoleum where they now rest. At the funeral service Lady Burton occupied a _prie-dieu_ by the side, and to the right was Captain St. George Burton, of the Black Watch, a cousin of Sir Richard. There was a large gathering of representatives of both families and many friends. The widow carried a little bunch of forget-me-nots, which she laid on the coffin. This simple offering of love would doubtless have been far more acceptable to the great explorer than the "wreath from Royalty" the absence of which his latest biographer so loudly deplores.

When the ceremony was over, Lady Burton went away at once to the country for a ten days' rest to the Convent of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, where she had been educated, and which had received within its walls many of the Arundells of Wardour. She left New Hall much refreshed and invigorated in mind and body, and for the next month was busy arranging a house which she had taken in Baker Street. She moved into it in September, 1891, and so entered upon the last chapter of her life.

NOTES:

1. Letter to Madame de Gutmansthal-Benvenuti, from London, March 1, 1891.

CHAPTER III. THE TINKLING OF THE CAMEL'S BELL. (1891-1896).

Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; Yet ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men:

The light of morn has grown to noon, has paled with eve, and now farewell!

Go, vanish from my Life as dies the tinkling of the Camel's bell.

RICHARD BURTON (_The Kasidah_).

The next few months Lady Burton mainly occupied herself by arranging in her new house the things which she had brought with her from Trieste.

When all was finished, her modest quarters in Baker Street were curiously characteristic of the woman. Like many of the houses in her beloved Damascus, the one in Baker Street was unpretentious, not to say unprepossessing, when viewed from without, but within totally different, for Lady Burton had managed to give it an oriental air, and to catch something of the warmth and colouring of the East. This was especially true of her little drawing-room, which had quite an oriental aspect.

Eastern curtains veiled the windows, the floor was piled with Persian carpets, and a wide divan heaped with cus.h.i.+ons and draped with bright Bedawin rugs ran along one side of the room. There were narghilehs and chibouques, and cups of filigree and porcelain for the dispensing of delectable Arab coffee. Quaint brackets of Morocco work, Eastern pictures, portraits, Persian enamels, and curios of every description covered the walls. The most striking object in the room was a life- size portrait of Sir Richard Burton, dressed in white, with a scarlet c.u.mmerbund, flanked on either side by a collection of rare books, most of them his works. Many other relics of him were scattered about the room; and all over the house were to be found his books and pictures, and busts of him. In fact, she made a cult of her husband's memory, and there were enough relics of him in the house to fill a little museum.

In this house Lady Burton settled down with her sister, Mrs. Fitzgerald, to her daily life in England, which was mostly a record of work--arduous and unceasing work, which began at 10.30 in the morning, and lasted till 6.30 at night. Sometimes, indeed, she would work much later, far on into the night, and generally in the morning she would do a certain amount of work before breakfast, for the old habit of early rising clung to her still, and until her death she never broke herself of the custom of waking at five o'clock in the morning. At the top of her Baker Street house Lady Burton built out a large room, or rather loft. It was here she housed her husband's ma.n.u.scripts, which she knew, as she used to say, "as a shepherd knew his sheep." They lined three sides of the room, and filled many packing-cases on the floor. To this place she was wont to repair daily, ascending a tortuous staircase, and finally getting into the loft by means of a ladder. Later she had to abandon this steep ascent, but so long as it was possible she scaled the ladder daily, and would sit on a packing-case surrounded by her beloved ma.n.u.scripts for hours together.

Lady Burton was scarcely settled in Baker Street before her sister (the one next to her in age), Mrs. Smyth Pigott, of Brockley Court, Somerset, died. She had to go down to Weston-super-Mare for the funeral. When that was over she came back to Baker Street, where she remained over Christmas. She wrote to a friend of hers about this time:

"I dream always of my books and the pile of work. I am worrying on as well as I can with my miscellaneous writing. Fogs have kept us in black darkness and pea-soup thickness for five days without a lift, and with smarting eyes and compressed head I have double work at heart. I pa.s.sed Christmas night in the Convent of the Holy Souls. I went in my cab-- the streets were one sheet of ice--and two flambeaux on each side. In Regent's Park the fog was black and thick. We had communion and three ma.s.ses at midnight. It was too lovely: in the dead silence a little before midnight you heard the shepherd's pipe, or reed, in the distance, and echo nearer and nearer, and then the soft, clear voices burst into 'Glory be to G.o.d in the Highest,' and this was the refrain all through the service. I pa.s.sed the time with our Lord and my darling, who had many ma.s.ses said for him in London and all over England that night. I am better and have stronger nerves, and am perhaps more peaceful."[1]

In January, 1892, Lady Burton went down to her cottage at Mortlake, which she called "Our Cottage." In taking this house she had followed the plan which her husband when living had always adopted, of having a retreat a little way from their work, where they could go occasionally for rest and change. They had intended to follow this plan when they settled down in London. Another motive drew Lady Burton to Mortlake too: this cottage was close to the mausoleum of her husband, and she could visit it when she chose. It was a tiny cottage, plainly but prettily furnished. Most of her relics and curios were housed at Baker Street, and this place had few a.s.sociations for her beyond those which connected it with her husband's grave. The cottage was covered with creepers outside, and trees grew all round it. She had a charming little garden at the back, in which she took a good deal of pride; and when the summer came she had a big tent erected in the garden, and would sit there for many hours together, doing her work and frequently taking her meals out there.

She had always lived an outdoor life, and this tent recalled to her the days in the East. Here, too, she received a great many friends who found their way down to Mortlake; she was fond of asking them to come and take tea with her in her tent. From this arose a silly rumour, which I mention only to contradict, that Lady Burton was in the habit of receiving her visitors in her husband's tomb, which, as we have seen, was also fas.h.i.+oned like an Arab tent, though of stone.

Lady Burton stayed down at Mortlake for a few months, and came back to Baker Street in March, 1892, where she remained for two or three months.

For the first year of her life in England she lived like a recluse, never going out anywhere except on business or to church, never accepting an invitation or paying visits; but about this time she gradually came out of her seclusion, and began to collect around her a small circle of near relatives and friends. Always fond of society, though she had now abjured it in a general sense, she could not live alone, so in addition to the companions.h.i.+p of her favourite sister Mrs. Fitzgerald, who lived with her and shared all her thoughts, she widened her circle a little and received a few friends. She was fond of entertaining, and gave many little informal gatherings, which were memorable from the grace and charm of the hostess. Lady Burton was always a picturesque and fascinating personality, but never more so than in these last years of her life. She possessed a fine and handsome presence, which was rendered even more effective by her plain black dress and widow's cap, with its long white veil which formed an effective background to her finely cut features. She reminded me of some of the pictures one sees of Mary Stuart. I do not think the resemblance ceased altogether with her personal appearance, for her manners were always queenly and gracious; and when she became interested in anything, her face would light up and her blue eyes would brighten, and one could see something of the courage and spirit which she shared in common with the ill-fated queen. She was a most accomplished woman and a clever linguist. She could write and speak fluently French, Italian, Arabic, and Portuguese. German she knew also, though not so well, and she had more than a smattering of Yiddish. She was well-read in the literature of all these (save Yiddish, of course), yet never was a woman less of a "Blue-stocking." She was a brilliant talker, full of wit and charm in her conversation, and there was nothing she liked better than to relate, in her inimitable way, some of her many adventures in the past. In fact, though singularly well-informed on all the current questions of the hour, one could see that her heart was ever in the past, and her thoughts seldom strayed far from her husband. Thus it came about, after his death as in his life, she devoted herself wholly to glorifying his name, and I do not think it is any disparagement to Sir Richard Burton to say that his personality would never have impressed itself upon the public imagination in the way it did, if it had not been for the efforts of his wife.

In the summer of this year Lady Burton went to Ventnor, and also paid a few visits, and in the autumn she stayed at Ascot with her sister Mrs.

Van Zeller, whose husband had just died. In November she went to Mortlake, where she settled down in earnest to write the biography of her husband, a work which occupied her eight months. When once she began, she worked at it morning, noon, and night, from early till late, and except for a flying visit to Baker Street for Christmas, she never ceased her labours until the book was finished at the end of March, 1893.

She wrote to a friend at this time:

"I finished the book last night, and have never left Mortlake. It has taken me eight months. I hope it will be out the end of May. I do not know if I can harden my heart against the curs,[2] but I can put out my tongue and point my pen and play p.u.s.s.y cat about their eyes and ears.

I am to have six months' rest, but you know what that means."[3]

Lady Burton received a substantial sum from the publishers for the book, and it was published in May. The success which it achieved was immediate and unqualified, and, what is more, deserved, for with all its faults it is a great book--the last great work in the life of the woman who never thought of self, and her supreme achievement to raise aloft her husband's name. Its success was very grateful to Lady Burton's heart, not on her own account, but her husband's; in fact, it may be said to have gilded with brightness the last years of her life. She felt now that her work was done and that nothing remained. She wrote to a friend early in the New Year (1894)[4]:

"I have had my head quite turned by the great success of my book. First came about a hundred half-nasty, or wholly nasty, critiques; then the book made its way. I had three leading articles, over a thousand charming reviews, and have been inundated with the loveliest letters and invitations. . . . With my earnings I am embellis.h.i.+ng his mausoleum, and am putting up in honour of his poem, _Kasidah_, festoons of camel bells from the desert, in the roof of the tent where he lies, so that when I open or shut the door, or at the elevation of the Ma.s.s, the 'tinkling of the camel bell' will sound just as it does in the desert. On January 22 I am going down to pa.s.s the day in it, because it is my thirty-third wedding day, and the bells will ring for the first time. I am also carrying out all his favourite projects, and bringing out by degrees all his works. .h.i.therto published or unpublished, as of the former only small quant.i.ties were published, and these are mostly extinct.

If G.o.d gives me two years, I shall be content. I live in my little _chaumiere_ near the mausoleum on the banks of the Thames for the six good months of the year, and in my warm dry home in London six bad months, with my sister. You cannot think how the picture of Richard by you was admired at the Grosvenor Gallery, and I put your name over it. I have now got it home again, and I thought he smiled as I brought him back in the cab for joy to get home. . . . There is a great waxwork exhibition in England which is very beautifully done (Tussaud's). They have now put Richard in the Meccan dress he wore in the desert. They have given him a large s.p.a.ce with sand, water, palms, and three camels, and a domed skylight, painted yellow, throws a lurid light on the scene.

It is quite life-like. I gave them the real clothes and the real weapons, and dressed him myself. When it was offered to him during his life, his face beamed, and he said, 'That will bring me in contact with the people."

The other works of Sir Richard's which Lady Burton brought out after the Life of her husband included _Il Pentamerone_ and _Catullus_. She also arranged for a new edition of his _Arabian Nights_, and she began what she called the "Memorial Library," which was mainly composed of the republication of half-forgotten books which he had written in the days before he became famous. She also recalled, at great pecuniary sacrifice to herself, another work which she thought was doing harm to his memory, and destroyed the copies.

Upon the publication of the Life of her husband Lady Burton was overwhelmed with letters from old acquaintances who had half-forgotten her, from tried and trusted friends of her husband and herself, and from people whom she had never known, but who were struck by the magnitude of her self-sacrificing love. All these letters were pleasant. But she also received a number of letters of a very doubtful nature, which included begging letters and applications requesting to see her from quacks and charlatans of different kinds, who by professing great admiration for her husband and veneration for his memory, thought they would find in Lady Burton an easy prey. In this they were mistaken.

Although generous and open-hearted as the day, she always found out charlatans in the long run. She used to say she "liked to give them rope enough." Unfortunately, though, it must be admitted that Lady Burton had the defects of her qualities. Absolutely truthful herself, she was the last in the world to suspect double-dealing in others, and the result was that she sometimes misplaced her confidence, and put her trust in the wrong people. This led her into difficulties which she would otherwise have avoided.

The publication of the Life of her husband seemed also to arouse a number of dormant animosities, and it led, among other things, to a large increase in the number of abusive and insulting letters which she received from anonymous writers, chiefly with regard to her burning of _The Scented Garden_. They gave her great pain and annoyance. But many approved of her action, and among others who wrote to her a generous letter of sympathy was Lady Guendolen Ramsden, the daughter of her old friends the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset. I give Lady Burton's reply because it shows how much she appreciated the kindness of her friends:

"October 31, 1893.

"MY DEAR LADY GUENDOLEN,

"I cannot tell you what pleasure your very kind letter gave me. I feared that you and all your family had forgotten me long ago. I was, and so was Richard, very much attached to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess; they always made us welcome, they always made us feel at home. I delighted in the Duke-- so clever, so fascinating, and he was my _beau ideal_ of a gentleman of the Old School, whilst the kindness of heart, the high breeding, and the wit of the d.u.c.h.ess attached us both greatly to her. You were such a very young girl that I knew you the least, and yet you are the one to be kind to me now. The ones I knew best were poor Lord St. Maur and Lady Ulrica.

Let me now thank you for speaking so truly and handsomely of my dear husband, and your kindness and sympathy with me and my work. It is quite true! If you knew what a small section of people have made me suffer, and the horrible letters that they have written me, you would feel sorry to think that there were such people in the world, and when I reflect that it was that cla.s.s of people who would have received the ma.n.u.script with joy, I know how right I was to burn it. It was not the _learned_ people, as you imagine, who regret this, because there was no learning to be gained from it. My dear husband did it simply to fill our purse again. The people who were angry were the people who loathe good, and seek for nothing but that cla.s.s of literature. My husband had no vicious motive in writing it; he dissected these things as a doctor would a body. I was calculating what effect it would have on the ma.s.s of uneducated people who _might_ read it. I did receive many beautiful letters on the subject, and the papers have more or less never let me drop, but often much blame. I was so astonished to find myself either praised or blamed; it seemed to me the natural thing for a woman to do; but I see now how mistaken I was to have confessed it, and to imagine it was my duty to confess, which I certainly did. I know that he, being dead, would not have wished it published; if so, why did he leave it to me? . . . You are quite right; it has pleased me more than I can say that you should approve and confirm my ideas, and I am so thankful that the Life has succeeded. I got my best reward in a review which said that 'Richard Burton's widow might comfort herself, as England now knew the man inside and out, that she had lifted every cloud from his memory, and his fame would s.h.i.+ne as a beacon in all future ages.' I remember so well the party at Lady Margaret Beaumont's.

I can shut my eyes and see the whole dinner-table; we were twenty-five in party. And I remember well also the party at Bulstrode. If I am alive in the summer, I shall be only too glad to pa.s.s a few days with you at Bulstrode, if you will let me. I feel that a talk to you would carry me back to my happy days.

"Believe me, with warmest thanks, "Yours sincerely, "ISABEL BURTON."

After the publication of the Life of her husband Lady Burton spent most of her time at Baker Street, with intervals at Mortlake, and a few visits to friends, including Lady Windsor, Lord Arundell of Wardour, Lady Guendolen Ramsden at Bulstrode, and Canon Waterton at Carlisle.

The year which followed (1894) may be said to have been her last active year, and it was the pleasantest year of her life in England. The success which had attended her book had brought her more into contact with the world than she had been at any time since her husband's death, and she saw that there was a field of usefulness still before her.

This was the year in which she saw most friends, entertained most, and went about most. Her health, never good, seemed to rally, and she was far less nervous than usual. She may be said about this time to have taken almost to literature as a profession, for she worked at it eight hours every day, in addition to keeping up a large correspondence, chiefly on literary and business matters. She went frequently to the play, got all the new books, and kept herself well in touch with the current thought of the day. She was not in sympathy with a good deal of it, and her way of expressing her opinions was delightfully frank and original. Despite her abiding sense of her loss, there was nothing morbid about Lady Burton. She was bright and cheerful, full of interest in things, and perfectly happy in the society of her dearly loved sister.