Chapter Eleven.
“The Captain and his Child Wife.”
Captain Mayne Reid had now met his fate; not in the dark-eyed Mexican señorita, but a fair little English girl, a child scarce thirteen years of age. Her name was Elizabeth Hyde, the only daughter of George William Hyde, a lineal descendant of the first Earl of Clarendon.
In his novel of “The Child Wife,” he describes his first meeting this young girl: “In less than ten minutes after, he was in love with a child! There are those who will deem this an improbability. Nevertheless it was true; for we are recording an actual experience.” Later on he says to his friend Roseveldt: “That child has impressed me with a feeling I never had before. Her strange look has done it. I feel as if she had sounded the bottom of my soul! It may be fate, destiny, but as I live, Roseveldt, I have a presentiment she will yet be my wife!”
The courtship was in itself a romance. Elizabeth Hyde was living in London with Mrs Hyde, the widow of her Uncle Clarendon, who brought her up after her mother’s death. At Mrs Hyde’s house Captain Reid was one evening a guest. Afterwards he told his wife, “I fell in love with you that evening at first sight.” The next morning her aunt said, “Captain Mayne Reid has quite fallen in love with you.” Elizabeth answered, “You can tell him I have not fallen in love with him.” A short time afterwards to the question of some one who had not seen the “lion,” “What is Captain Reid like?” she replied, “Oh, he is a middle-aged gentleman.” This was repeated to Captain Reid, and he afterwards allowed that his vanity was much wounded at the time. A few weeks passed and the “middle-aged gentleman” was quite forgotten. Other matters occupied Elizabeth Hyde’s thoughts. One day she was alone in the drawing-room making a doll’s outfit. Captain Reid entered the room, but she did not recognise him. He looked surprised, and said, “Do you not remember me?” As he had a very foreign appearance, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, you are Monsieur—” Then he mentioned his name. He asked how old she was, and, on hearing, said, “You are getting old enough to have a lover, and you must have me.”
The “middle-aged gentleman” did not, however, come up to her standard. Her uncle was her ideal.
After this Captain Reid made long and frequent visits to the aunt’s house, but saw the niece very little. With her, indeed, he found so little favour that she intentionally avoided his society. Mrs Hyde began to believe herself the attraction, as Mayne Reid spent hours in her society. All is fair in love and war.
An old Quaker lady—a great friend, who was frequently at the house at the time of Mayne Reid’s visits—was under the same impression, and at the first visit she paid after his marriage, said to Mayne Reid, in her quaint fashion, “Why, Mayne, I always thought thou wast after Eliza” (Mrs Reid’s aunt).
At last Elizabeth was beginning to feel some interest in her “lover.” It was pity at first, as she had a notion he was a refugee, having lately heard his name in connection with the Hungarian refugees, though to her childish mind a refugee had no definite meaning. She thought, however, it was something to be sorry for.
One day Captain Reid brought her “The Scalp Hunters,” asking her to read it, and saying she would find herself there. This book was written and published before the Captain saw her, but he said it was a foreshadowing, and that at first sight of her he had exclaimed to himself, “This is Zoë!”
Mrs Hyde was now about to marry again—a clergyman—and to reside in a distant suburb of London. Just before her removal, Captain Mayne Reid called to say he was going on a visit to Paris, and to wish goodbye. Mrs Hyde was not at home. He said to Elizabeth, “I shall not know where to find you when I return.” But she did not enlighten him on the subject, little thinking how long it would be ere they met again.
After Mrs Hyde’s marriage, Elizabeth went to her father in the country. There did not seem any probability of Captain Reid and herself ever meeting again, but she could not forget him for a single day during the interval which elapsed.
Two years after, in the winter of 1853, without the least knowledge that his Zoë was there, fate brought Captain Reid to the town at which she was then staying, where he had been invited to address a public meeting on behalf of the Polish Refugees.
Zoë was one of the audience at the Mechanics’ Hall, where the meeting was held, accompanied by some friends.
The following is a quotation from a description which Mrs Reid wrote down:—“An electric thrill seemed to pass through me as Captain Reid entered the room. Instantly, as though drawn by an invisible hand, and without a word to my friends, I left my seat and followed in the direction I saw him take. There was a platform at one end, occupied by the speakers and a few ladies and gentlemen. He took his seat on the platform, and I mine also, just opposite to him. We did not speak, but our eyes met.
“At last it all came to an end—near midnight. The audience were fast dispersing in the body of the hall, the lights were being extinguished. The few who remained on the platform were hand-shaking and congratulating the speakers. Captain Reid had a number around him. I might also have joined them—we were then standing only a few feet apart—but something held me back.
“The place was now almost in darkness—all were leaving the platform. I caught a glimpse of my father hurrying towards me, and could just dimly see two or three gentlemen evidently waiting for the Captain, who was still conversing with one person.
“It seemed as though we were again about to be severed. At that moment he came towards me, grasped my hand, and I just caught the hurried words:—‘I leave for London by the next train. Send me your address.’ Speech seemed to have left me, but it flashed upon me that I was in ignorance of his, and managed to stammer out:—‘I do not know where.’ He instantly handed me his card, and was gone.
“My father lifted me down from the platform and we groped our way out in the darkness.
“I then learned that Captain Mayne Reid had only arrived that evening, and was obliged to leave by the midnight train for London.
“On awaking the next morning, I immediately sprang out of bed to see if the card which I had left on my table the previous night was still there—or if it had not all been a dream. But there was the card, with the name and address in full.
“It was not long after breakfast before I wrote and posted a formal little note:
“‘Dear Captain Reid,—As you asked me last night to send you my address, I do so.’
“By return of post I received the following:
“‘My Little Zoë,—Only say that you love me, and I will be with you at once.’
“My reply was:
“‘I think I do love you.’
“On receipt of this the Captain put himself into an express train, quickly covering the hundred and fifty miles which separated us. My lover told me that when we parted in London he had feared that it was impossible to make me love him, but he could never forget me, and, in spite of all obstacles, had the firm conviction I should yet be his.
“My father rather reluctantly gave his consent to our marriage, the date of which was then fixed.
“I remember telling my father that I should be obliged to marry Captain Reid, despite his objection. But his disposition was the most gentle and confiding.
“The last letter from my fiancé contains the following:
“I shall soon now call you my own, and gaze again into those beautiful eyes.
“Your love falls on my heart like dew on the withered leaf. I am getting old, and blasé, and fear that your love for me is only a romance, which cannot last when you know me better. Do you think you can love me in my dressing-gown and slippers?
“The word blasé puzzled me very much. It was not then in my vocabulary.”
Her aunt was greatly astonished at hearing the news of the marriage, as she was daily expecting her niece’s arrival en route for school.
The child had gone to school of a different kind to educate herself in the real experiences of life.
After Captain Reid’s marriage many amusing incidents occurred in relation to his “Child Wife.” One day Captain Reid, accompanied by his little lady, was choosing a bonnet for her at a fashionable milliner’s in Regent Street.
The milliner had addressed Mrs Reid several times as “Miss.” At last the Captain exclaimed rather sharply:
“This lady is my wife!”
The milliner, looking very much astonished, said: “I beg your pardon, sir, I thought the young lady was about returning to school, and that you were choosing a bonnet for her to take.”
Two years later, when they were residing in the country, Mrs Reid was one day in the baker’s shop in the village ordering amongst other things some biscuits. Whilst the old man was weighing them out, he offered some to Mrs Reid. She thought this rather odd, but not liking to appear offended took a biscuit. The baker inquired, “How is Captain and Mrs Reid, miss?” Mrs Mayne Reid was much surprised as well as amused at this question, thinking of course the baker must know her, as she and Captain Reid had often been in the shop. She answered: “Captain Reid is quite well, and I am Mrs Reid.”
The old man’s face was a study for an artist; he nearly fell back behind his counter, exclaiming: “I humbly beg your pardon, ma’am. I thought you was the young lady visiting at the house during the holidays.” The Captain’s wife being still taken for a school-girl, it was necessary for her to assume an extra amount of dignity.
It appeared they had fancied that Mrs Mayne Reid was an elderly invalid lady, who did not go out much.
About this time Mrs Reid’s father was on a visit to them, and used to accompany his daughter on horse-back nearly every day. He looked so young that the servants were asked: “Who is that young gentleman who is always riding out with Mrs Reid?”
They got things considerably mixed, taking the husband for the father, and the father for something else, the latter being much the younger looking of the two, though of about the same age.
A short time previous to Captain Mayne Reid’s death, he and Mrs Reid were spending an evening at a friend’s house, and the late John Oxenford was one of the guests. Just as they were taking their departure, Mr Oxenford said to Mrs Reid: “I have had a very pleasant surprise in meeting your father again; he is as entertaining as ever.” Mrs Reid was rather puzzled, since her father had been dead some years, until the hostess explained: “This is Captain Mayne Reid’s wife, not his daughter.”
At which there was a general laugh all round.
These funny incidents were constantly occurring. Sometimes Mrs Reid would be supposed to be in no way related to Captain Reid, and would hear all kinds of remarks and comments passed upon the gallant Captain-author, which she would afterwards relate for his amusement.
Captain Reid used to say he could not have endured having an old wife. On one occasion, when attending a large public soirée, a somewhat elderly dame of his acquaintance attached herself to him, and promenaded the room by his side for a great part of the evening. Mrs Reid wondered what was making her husband look so savage. He came across the room to her saying: “I want you to keep close by me for the rest of the evening, or people will be taking that old thing for my wife!”
He was proud of his wife, and liked to have her remain his “Child Wife” to the end of the chapter.
“The Hunter’s Feast” and “The Forest Exiles” were now written, the latter being his next boys’ book for Christmas 1854.
“The Bush Boys,” published in 1855, was the first of Captain Mayne Reid’s South African books for boys. It was dedicated “To three very dear young friends, Franz, Louis and Vilma; the children of a still older friend, the friend of freedom, of virtue, and of truth—Louis Kossuth, by their sincere well-wisher, Mayne Reid.”
Captain Reid had commenced “The Quadroon” some time before, and laid the Mss. away in his desk. It was finally published in three volumes, 1856, and was a very popular book. It was dramatised shortly after its first appearance, and performed at the City of London Theatre. Some years later, when a controversy arose as to the source of Mr Boucicault’s drama of “The Octoroon,” Mayne Reid sent the following letter to the Athenaeum, on December 14th, 1861:
“During a residence of many years—commencing in 1839, and ending, with intervals of absence, in 1848—the author of ‘The Quadroon’ was an eye-witness of nearly a score of slave auctions, at which beautiful Quadroon girls were sold in bankruptcy, and bought up, too, notoriously with the motives that actuated the ‘Gayarre’ of his tale; and upon such actual incidents was the story of ‘The Quadroon’ founded. Most of the book was written in 1852; but, as truthfully stated in its preface, in consequence of the appearance of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ its publication was postponed until 1856. The writing of it was finished early in 1855.
“With regard to ‘The Quadroon’ and the Adelphi drama, the resemblance is just that which must ever exist between a melodrama and the romance from which it is taken; and when ‘The Octoroon’ was first produced in New York—January, 1860—its scenes and characters were at once identified by the newspaper critics of that city as being transcripts from the pages of ‘The Quadroon.’ Some of its scenes as at present performed are original—at least, they are not from ‘The Quadroon’—but these introduced incidents are generally believed not to have improved the story; and one of them—the poisoning of the heroine—Mr Boucicault has had the good taste to alter, restoring the beautiful Quadroon to the happier destiny to which the romance had consigned her. It might be equally in good taste if the clever dramatist were to come out before the public with a frank avowal of the source whence his drama has been drawn.”
Soon after his marriage Captain Mayne Reid took up his abode in Buckinghamshire, at Gerrards Cross, about 20 miles from London. The greater number of his works were written in this rural retreat.
“The Young Yägers,” a sequel to “The Bush Boys,” was his Christmas book for 1856, and on the 3rd of January, 1857, the first chapter of his novel, “The War Trail,” appeared in Chambers Journal. Messrs Chambers paid three hundred guineas for the right of issue in their journal, and the following year they published “Oceola” in the same manner, with an advance in price. The scene of this novel is laid in Florida, and deals with the Seminole war.
During the year 1858, Captain Mayne Reid wrote “The Plant Hunters,” also his first essay at a sea book of adventure for boys, “Ran Away to Sea.” It was followed in 1859 by “The Boy Tar,” published by Messrs Routledge, and in 1860 he wrote for that firm “Odd People,” a popular description of singular races of men.
“The White Chief,” published in 1859, was his next novel.
In 1860 “The Wild Huntress” first appeared in Chambers Journal.
In 1861 Messrs Routledge published “Bruin, or the Great Bear Hunt,” also a book of “Zoology for Boys: Quadrupeds, what they are and where found.”
Captain Reid dramatised “The Wild Huntress” himself.
In 1861-62, “The Wood Rangers” and “The Tiger Hunter, or a Hero in Spite of Himself,” adapted from the French of Louis de Bellemare, were published; and in 1862, the first part of “The Maroon” appeared in Cassell’s Family Paper. It was afterwards issued in three volumes by Hurst and Blackett, of Marlborough Street. Mayne Reid dramatised this story himself, and the play was performed at one of the East End London theatres.
In the autumn of 1863, Mayne Reid published a “Treatise on Croquet.” He was an enthusiast of the game, had made a study of the rules, and spent many a happy hour in sending his enemy to “Hong-Kong.” Calling one day at a friend’s house he picked up a little book called “The Rules of Croquet,” by an “Old Hand;” on examination this proved to be a copy of his own book. It was sent out in boxes of croquet, of what was known as the “Cassiobury” set, and Lord Essex was responsible for its publication. Mayne Reid demanded an explanation and withdrawal of the work. This being refused him, he advised his solicitor, the result being a Chancery suit against Lord Essex, which was eventually compromised by the payment of 125 pounds, as well as all costs of the suit, the withdrawal of the book and the destruction of all copies.
Towards the end of 1862 a singular being presented himself at Captain Reid’s town house. He was attired in a rough blanket, with his head passed through a hole in the middle of it—a sort of “poncho”—and carried a brown paper parcel under his arm. Mayne Reid listened to his story, which was to the effect that he had lately landed from Australia, that he had travelled round the earth more than six times and had lived with cannibals.
Captain Mayne Reid invited the “cannibal” to stay and eat, as it was just luncheon-time. Mrs Reid listened to his wonderful tales with horror. The cannibal remarked, “I scarcely know how to use a knife and fork, having been away so long from civilisation.”
During the repast, Captain Reid had to leave the table to see some one in his study, and Mrs Reid quickly made an excuse for going too, fearing she might be eaten!
The parcel contained a story he had written. He had tried to get an audience of some publishers in London, but they would not look at him. His name was Charles Beach, otherwise “Cannibal Charlie.” Mayne Reid told him to leave his manuscript, and he would look at it, at the same time giving the man a sum of money and telling him to get himself a “rig-out,” as no doubt his appearance being so outlandish prejudiced those whom he called upon.
At the “cannibal’s” next appearance, he was looking a little more civilised, and the manuscript in time, through the help of Captain Mayne Reid, developed into a three volume novel, published in 1864, under the title of “Lost Lenore; or the Adventures of a Rolling Stone.”
In the preface Mayne Reid scarcely takes sufficient credit to himself for the part he played; he had recast and nearly rewritten the whole work before it was placed in the publisher’s hands. He says:
“A ‘Rolling Stone’ came tumbling across my track. There was a crystalline sparkle about it, proclaiming it no common pebble. I took it up, and submitted it to examination—it proved to be a diamond! A diamond of the ‘first water,’ slightly encrusted with quartz, needing but the chisel of the lapidary to lay bare its brilliant beauties to the gaze of an admiring world. Charles Beach is the proprietor of this precious gem; I, but the artisan intrusted with its setting. If my share of the task has been attended with labour, it has been a ‘labour of love,’ for which I shall feel amply rewarded in listening to the congratulations which are due—and will certainly be given—to the lucky owner of the ‘Rolling Stone,’ the finder of ‘Lost Lenore.’”