The private life of Henry Maitland: A record dictated by J. H.

by Morley Roberts

CHAPTER XII

Now again he and I were but correspondents, and I do not think that in those days when I had so much to do, and had also very bad health, I was a very good correspondent. Maitland, although he sometimes apologised humorously, or even nervously, for writing at great length, was an admirable letter writer. He practised a lost art. Sometimes he put into his letters very valuable sketches of people. He did so both to me and to Rivers, and to others, and frequently made sharply etched portraits of people whom he knew at St Pée. He had a curious habit of nicknaming everybody. These nicknames were perhaps not the highest form of art, nor were they even always humorous, still it was a practice of his. He had a peculiarly verbal humor in these matters. Never by any chance, unless he was exceedingly serious, did he call any man by his actual name. Rawson, my most particular friend, whom he knew well, and whose books he admired very much for their style, was always known as "The Rawsonian," and I myself was referred to by a similarly formed name. These are matters of no particular importance, but still they show the man in his familiar moods and therefore have a kind of value—as if one were to show a score of photographs or sketches that were serious and then insert one where the wise man plays the child, or even the fool. There was not a person of any importance in St. Pée d'Ascain, although nobody knew it, who did not rejoice in some absurd nickname.

However he went further than mere nicknames, and there is in one letter of his to Rivers a very admirable sketch of a certain personage: "one of the most cantankerous men I ever came across; fierce against the modern tendencies of science, especially in England; an anti-Darwinite &c. He rages against Huxley, accusing him of having used his position for personal vanity and gain, and of ruining the scientific and industrial prospects of England; charges of the paltriest dishonesty against H. and other such men abound in his conversation. X., it seems, was one of the original students of the Jermyn Street School of Mines, and his root grievance is the transformation of that establishment—brought about, he declares, for the personal profit of Huxley and of—the clerks of the War Office! You, he regards as a most valuable demonstration of the evils resulting from the last half-century of 'progress,' protesting loudly that every one of your books is a bitter satire on Huxley, his congeners, and his disciples. The man tells me that no scientific papers in England will print his writing, merely from personal enmity. He has also quarrelled with the scientific societies of France, and now, being a polyglot, he writes for Spain and Germany—the only two countries in Europe where scientific impartiality is to be found."

In another letter of his he says: "By the bye, an English paper states that Henley died worth something more than eight hundred pounds." One might imagine that he would then proceed to condole with him on having had so little to leave, but that was not our Maitland. He went on: "Amazing! How on earth did he amass that wealth? I am rejoiced to know that his latter years have been passed without struggle for bread."

The long letter about the Roman Empire and Roman law from which I quoted in the last chapter, was dated August 6, 1903, and I did not hear again from Maitland until November 1. I had written to him proposing to pay another visit to the south-west of France in order to see him in his Pyrenean home, but he replied very gloomily, saying that he was in evil case, that Thérèse had laryngitis, and that everything was made worse by incredibly bad weather. The workhouse—still the workhouse—was staring him in the face. He had to labour a certain number of hours each day in direly unfavourable conditions. If he did not finish his book at the end of the year sheer pauperdom would come upon him. In these circumstances I was to see that he dreaded a visit from any friend, indeed he was afraid that they would not be able to stay in St. Christophe on account of its excessive dampness. According to this pathetically exaggerated account they lived in a thick mist day and night. How on earth it came to be thought that such a dreadful country was good for consumptive people he could not imagine; though he owned, somewhat grudgingly, that he himself had got a good deal of strength there. He told me that as soon as the eternal rain ceased they were going down to Bayonne to see a doctor, and if he did no good Thérèse would go to the south of France. Finally, he was hanged if he knew how it would be managed. He ended up with: "In short I have not often in my life been nearer to an appalling crisis." At the end of this dismal letter, which did not affect me so much as might be thought, he spoke to me of my book, "Rachel," and said: "I have been turning the pages with great pleasure to keep my thoughts from the workhouse."

As I have hinted, those will have gathered very little of Maitland who imagine that I took this au pied de lettre. Maitland had cried "Wolf!" so often, that I had almost ceased to believe that there were wolves, even in the Pyrenees. All things had gradually become appalling crises and dreadful disasters. A mere disturbance and an actual catastrophe were alike dire and irremediable calamities. And yet, alas, there was more truth underlying his words than even he knew. If a man lives for ever in shadow the hour comes at last when there is no more light; and even for those who look forward, one would think with a certain relief, to the workhouse, there comes a day that they shall work no more. I smiled when I read this letter, but, of course, telegraphed to him deferring my visit until the rain had ceased, or laryngitis had departed from his house, or until his spirits recovered their tone on the completion of his great romance. One could do no other, much as I desired to see him and have one of our prodigious and preposterously long talks in his new home. I do not think that I wrote to him after this lamentable reply of his, but on November 16 I received my last communication from him. It was three lines on a post-card, still dated from St. Christophe. He referred in it once more to my book, and said: "Delighted to see the advertisement in ——— to-day, especially after their very base notice last week. Hurrah! Illness and struggle still going on here." The struggle I believed in, but, as ever with one's friends, one doubted if the illness were serious. And yet the catastrophe was coming.

At this time I was myself seriously ill. A chronic disease which had not been diagnosed resulted in a more or less serious infection of my own lungs, and, if I recollect truly, I had been in bed for nearly a fortnight. During the early days of my convalescence I went down to my club, and there one afternoon got this telegram from Rivers: "Have received following telegram from Maitland, 'Henry dying. Entreat you to come. In greatest haste.' I cannot go, can you?" This message to me was dated Folkestone, where Rivers was then living. Now at this time I was feeling very ill and utterly unfit to travel. I hardly knew what to do, but thought it best to go home and consult with my wife before I replied to Rivers. Anxious as she was to do everything possible for Maitland, she implored me not to venture on so long a journey, especially as it was mid-winter, just at Christmas-time. If I had not felt really ill she would not have placed any obstacles in my path, of that I am sure. She would, indeed, have urged me to go. After a little reflection I therefore replied to Rivers that I was myself very ill, but added that if he could not possibly go I would. At the same time I telegraphed to Maitland, or rather to Thérèse, saying that I was ill, but that I would come if she found it absolutely necessary. I do not think I received any answer to this message, a fact one easily understands when one learns how desperate things really were; but on December 26 I got another telegram from Rivers. I found that he had gone to St. Christophe in spite of not being well. He wired to me: "No nurse. Nursing help may save Maitland. Come if possibly can. Am here but ill." Such an appeal could not be resisted. I went straight home, and showing this telegram to my wife she agreed with me that I ought to go. If Rivers was ill at St. Christophe it now seemed my absolute duty to go, whatever my own state of health.

I left London that night by the late train, crossing to Paris by way of Newhaven and Dieppe in order that I might get at least three hours of rest in a recumbent position in the steamer, as I did not at that time feel justified in going all the way first class and taking a sleeper. I did manage to obtain some rest during the sea-passage, but on reaching Paris early in the morning I felt exceedingly unwell, and at the Gare St.-Lazare found at that hour no means of obtaining even a cup of coffee. I drove over to the Quai d'Orsay, and spent an hour or two in the coffee-room waiting for the departure of the express to Bordeaux. Ill as I was, and full of anxiety about Maitland, and now about Rivers, that journey was one long nightmare to me. I had not been able to take the Sud Express, and when at last, late in the evening, I reached Bayonne, I found that the last train to St. Christophe in its high Pyrenean valley had already gone hours before my arrival. While I was on my journey I had again telegraphed from Morcenx to Rivers or to Thérèse asking them to telegraph to me at the Hotel du Commerce, Bayonne, in case I was unable to get on that night, as I had indeed feared, although I was unable to get accurate information. On reaching this hotel I found waiting for me a telegram, which I have now lost, that was somehow exceedingly obscure but yet portended disaster. That I expected the worst I know, for I telegraphed to my wife the news in code that Maitland was dying and that the doctor gave no hope.

If I had been a rich man, or even moderately furnished with money on that journey, I should have taken a motor-car if it could have been obtained, and have gone on at once without waiting for the morning. But now I was obliged to spend the night in that little old-fashioned hotel in the old English city of Bayonne, the city whose fortress bears the proud emblem "Nunquam polluta." I wondered much if I should yet see my old friend alive. It was possible, and I hoped. At any rate, he must know that I was coming and was near at hand if only he were yet conscious. How much I was needed I did not know till afterwards, for even as I was going south Rivers was once more returning to Paris on his homeward journey. As I learnt afterwards, he was far too unwell to stay. In the morning I took the first train to St. Christophe, passing Cambo, where Rostand, the poet, makes his home. On reaching the town where Maitland lived I found no one waiting for me as I had expected; for, naturally enough, I thought it possible that unless Rivers were very ill he would be able to meet me. It was a cold and gloomy morning when I left the station. Taking my bag in my hand, I hired a small boy to show me the house in which Maitland lived on the outskirts of the little Pyrenean town. This house, it seems, was let in flats, and the Maitlands occupied the first floor. On entering the hall I found a servant washing down the stone flooring. I said to her, "Comment Monsieur se porte-t-il?" and she replied, "Monsieur est mort." I then asked her where I should find the other Englishman. She answered that he had gone back to England the day before, and then took me upstairs and went in to tell Thérèse that I had come.

I found her with her mother. She was the only woman who had given him any happiness. Now she was completely broken down by the anxiety and distress which had come upon her so suddenly. For indeed it seems that it had been sudden. Only four or five days ago Maitland had been working hard upon "Basil," the book from which he hoped so much, and in which he believed so fervently. Then it seems that he developed what he called a cold, some slight affection of the lungs which raised his temperature a little. Strangely enough he did not take the care of himself that he should have taken, or that care which I should have expected him to use, considering his curiously expressed nervousness about himself. By some odd fatality he became suddenly courageous at the wrong time, and went out for a walk in desperately bad weather. On the following day he was obviously very seriously ill, and sent for the doctor, who suspended judgment but feared that he had pneumonia. On the day succeeding this yet another doctor was called into consultation, and the diagnosis of pneumonia was confirmed without any doubt. But that was not, perhaps, what actually killed him. There was a very serious complication, according to Maitland's first physician, with whom I afterwards had a long conversation, partly through the intermediary of the nurse, an Englishwoman from Bayonne, who talked French more fluently than myself. He considered that Maitland also had myocarditis. I certainly did not think, and do not think, that he was right in this. Myocarditis is rarely accompanied with much or severe pain, while the anguish of violent pericarditis is often very great, and Maitland had suffered most atrociously. He was not now a strong man, not one with big reserves and powers of passive endurance, and in his agony he cried aloud for death.

In these agonies there were periods of comparative ease when he rested and was quiet, and even spoke a little. In one of these intermissions Thérèse came to him and told him that I was now actually on my way. There is no reason, I think, why I should not write what he said. It was simply, "Good old H——." By this time Rivers had gone; but before his departure he had, I understand, procured the nurse. The last struggle came early that morning, December 28, while I was at the Bayonne hotel preparing to catch the early train. He died quietly just before dawn, I think at six o'clock.

I was taken in to see Thérèse, who was still in bed, and found her mother with her. They were two desolate and lonely women, and I had some fears that Thérèse would hardly recover from the blow, so deeply did his death affect her. She was always a delicate woman, and came from a delicate, neurotic stock, as one could see so plainly in the elder woman. I did my best to say what one could say, though all that can possibly be said in such cases is nothing after all. There is no physic for grief but the slow, inevitable years. I stayed not long, but went into the other chamber and saw my dead friend. The bed on which he lay stood in a little alcove at the end of the room farthest from the window. I remember that the nurse, who behaved most considerately to me, stood by the window while I said farewell to him. He looked strangely and peculiarly intellectual, as so often happens after death. The final relaxation of the muscles about his chin and mouth accentuated most markedly the strong form of the actual skull. Curiously enough, as he had grown a little beard in his last illness, it seemed to me that he resembled very strongly another English writer not yet dead, one whom nature had, indeed, marked out as a story-teller, but who lacked all those qualities which made Maitland what he was. As I stood by this dead-bed knowing, as I did know, that he had died at last in the strange anguish which I was aware he had feared, it seemed to me that here was a man who had been born to inherit grief. He had never known pure peace or utter joy as even some of the very humblest know it. I looked back across the toilsome path by which he had come hither to the end, and it seemed to me that from the very first he had been doomed. In other times or some other age he might have had a better fate, but he was born out of his time and died in exile doubly. I put my hand upon his forehead and said farewell to him and left the room, for I knew that there was much to do and that in some way I had to do it.

Thérèse was most anxious that he should not be buried in St. Christophe, of which she had conceived a natural horror. There was at this time an English clergyman in the village, the chaplain of the English church at St. Pée, about whom I shall have something to say later. With him I concerted what was to be done, and he obtained the necessary papers from the mairie. And all this time, across the road from the stone house in which Henry Maitland lay dead, I heard the sound of his coffin being made in the little carpenter's shop which stood there. When all was done that could be done, and everything was in order, I went to the little hotel and had my lunch all alone, and afterwards dined alone and slept that night in the same hotel. The next day, late in the afternoon, I went down to St. Pée d'Ascain in charge of his body. During this journey the young doctor who had attended Maitland accompanied me part of the way, and for the rest of it his nurse was my companion. At St. Pée d'Ascain, where it was then quite dark, we were received by the clergyman, who had preceded us, and by a hearse, into which we carried Maitland's body. I accompanied it to the English chapel, where it remained all night before the altar. I slept at my old hotel, where I was known, as I had stayed there at the time I last saw Maitland alive.

In the morning a service was held for him according to the rites of the English Church. This was the desire of Thérèse and Madame Espinel, who, if it had been possible, I think would have desired to bury him according to the rites of the Catholic Church. Maitland, of course, had no orthodox belief. He refused to think of these things, for they were disturbing and led no-whither. Attending this service there were many English people, some who knew him, and some again who did not know him but went there out of respect for his name and reputation, and perhaps because they felt that they and he were alike in exile. We buried him in the common cemetery of St. Pée, a place not unbeautiful, nor unbeautifully situated. And while the service went on over his grave I was somehow reminded of the lovely cemetery at Lisbon where another English man of letters lies in a tomb far from his own country. I speak of Fielding.

I left Thérèse and Madame Espinel still at St. Christophe, and did not see them again before I started for England. They, I knew, would probably return to Paris, or perhaps would go to relatives of theirs in Spain. I could help them no more, and by now I discovered that my winter journey, or perhaps even my short visit to the death-chamber of Henry Maitland, had given me some kind of pulmonary catarrh which in my overwrought and nervous state seemed likely, perhaps, to result in something more serious. Therefore, having done all that I could, and having seen him put in the earth, I returned home hurriedly. On reaching England I was very ill for many days, but recovered without any serious results. Soon afterwards some one, I know not who it was, sent me a paragraph published in a religious paper which claimed Maitland as a disciple of the Church, for it said that he had died "in the fear of God's holy name, and with the comfort and strength of the Catholic faith." When some men die there are for ever crows and vultures about. Although I was very loath to say anything which would raise an angry discussion, I felt that this could not be passed by and that he would not have wished it to be passed by. Had he not written of a certain character in one of his books "that he should be buried as a son of the Church, to whom he had never belonged, was a matter of indignation"? That others felt as I did is proved by a letter I got from his friend Edmund Roden, who wrote to me: "You have seen the report that the ecclesiastical buzzards have got hold of Henry Maitland in articulo mortis and dragged him into the fold."

My own views upon religion did not matter. They were stronger and more pronounced, and, it may be, more atheistical than his own. Nevertheless I knew what he felt about these things, and in consequence wrote the following letter to the editor of the paper which had claimed him for the Church: "My attention has been drawn to a statement in your columns that Henry Maitland died in communion with the Church of England, and I shall be much obliged if you will give to this contradiction the same publicity you granted, without investigation, to the calumny. I was intimate with Maitland for thirty years, and had every opportunity of noting his attitude towards all theological speculation. He not only accepted none of the dogmas formulated in the creeds and articles of the Church of England, but he considered it impossible that any Church's definition of the undefinable could have any significance for any intelligent man. During the whole of our long intimacy I never knew him to waver from that point of view.

"What communication may have reached you from any one who visited Maitland during his illness I do not know. But I presume you do not maintain that a change in his theological standpoint can reasonably be inferred from any words which he may have been induced to speak in a condition in which, according to the law of every civilised country, he would have been incompetent to sign a codicil to his will.

"The attempt to draw such a deduction will seem dishonest to every fair-minded man; and I rely upon your courtesy to publish this vindication of the memory of an honest and consistent thinker which you have, however unintentionally, aspersed."

Of course this letter was refused publication. The editor answered it in a note in which he maintained the position that the paper had taken up, stating that he was thoroughly satisfied with the sources of his information. Naturally enough I knew what those sources were, and I wrote a letter in anger to the chaplain of St. Pée, which, I fear, was full of very gross insults.

Seeing that the paper refused my letter admission to its columns, on the advice of certain other people I wrote to a London daily saying: "As the intimate friend of Henry Maitland for thirty years, I beg to state definitely that he had not the slightest intellectual sympathy with any creed whatsoever. From his early youth he had none, save for a short period when, for reasons other than intellectual, he inclined to a vague and nebulous Positivism. His mental attitude towards all theological explanations was more than critical, it was absolutely indifferent; he could hardly understand how any one in the full possession of his faculties could subscribe to any formulated doctrines. No more than John Stuart Mill or Herbert Spencer could he have entered into communion with any Church."

Of course I knew, as any man must know who is acquainted with humanity and its frailties, that it was possible for Maitland, during the last few poisoned hours of his life, to have gone back in his delirium upon the whole of his previous convictions. He knew that he was dying. When he asked to know the truth he had been told it. In such circumstances some men break down. There are what people call death-bed repentances. Therefore I did my best to satisfy myself as to whether anything whatever had occurred which would give any colour to these theologic lies. I could not trouble Thérèse upon this particular point, but it occurred to me that the nurse, who was a very intelligent woman, must be in a position to know something of the matter, and I therefore wrote to her asking her to tell me all she knew. She replied to me about the middle of January, telling me that she had just then had a long talk with Mrs. Maitland, and giving me the following facts.

It appears that on Monday, December 21, Maitland was so ill that a consultation was thought necessary, and that both the doctors agreed that it was impossible for the patient to live through the night, though in fact he did not die till nearly a week afterwards. On Thursday, December 24, the chaplain was sent for, not for any religious reasons, or because Maitland had called for him, but simply because Thérèse thought that he might find some pleasure in seeing an English face. When the clergyman came it did indeed have this effect, for Maitland's face lit up and he shook him heartily by the hand. At this moment the young doctor came in and told the clergyman privately that Maitland had no chance whatever, and that it was a wonder that he was still alive. It is quite certain that there was no religious conversation between the clergyman and the patient at this time. The nurse arrived at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, and insisted on absolute quietness in the room. The clergyman simply peeped in at the door to say good-bye, for at that time Mr. Rivers was in charge in the bedroom.

The chaplain did not see Maitland again until the day I myself came to St. Christophe, when all was over. While Maitland was delirious it appears that he chanted some kind of Te Deum repeatedly. To what this was attributable no man can say with certainty, but it is a curious thing to reflect upon that "Basil" was about the time of Gregory, and that Maitland had been studying most minutely the history of the early Church in many ecclesiastical works. According to those who heard his delirious talk, it seems that all he did say had reference to "Basil," the book about which he had been so anxious, and was never to finish. At any rate it is absolutely certain that Maitland never accepted the offices of the Church before his death, even in delirium. Before I leave this matter I may mention that the chaplain complicated matters in no small degree before he retired from the scene, by declaring most disingenuously that he had not written the notice which appeared in print. Now this was perfectly true. He did not write it. He had asked a friend of his to do so. When he learnt the truth this friend very much regretted having undertaken the task. I understand that though the editor refused to withdraw this statement the authorities of the paper wrote to the chaplain in no pleased spirit after they had received my somewhat severely phrased communication. It is a sad and disagreeable subject, and I am glad to leave it.