According to Timbs, in his interesting work on London, this "little towne" was the site of the grand old Domesbury Manor, where the kings of England in ancient days had their stables. Yonder great corner house was built by Isaac Ware, editor of Palladio, originally a chimney-sweep, of whom it was said, that "his skin was so ingrained with soot, that to his dying day he bore the marks of his early calling." By the way, that particular trade would appear to have been extremely lucrative in those days, as it is well known and authenticated that two great squares—not a hundred miles away—were entirely built by one David Porter, "who held the appointment of chimney-sweep to the village of Marylebone."
A few hundred yards further on to the north-west, and you reach the quiet thoroughfare of Chenies Street, which connects Gower Street and Tottenham Court Road, and here, indeed, a transformation has taken place. Where are the solid, but dull, old, grey houses which erstwhile stood on this spot? Within the last few years they have all been swept away, and the street is vastly improved by the imposing block of red-brick mansions which has been erected, and which bears outside a brass plate, inscribed "Ladies' Residential Chambers." A long-felt want is here supplied. In an age when hundreds of women of culture and of position are earning their living, and whose respective occupations require that they should dwell in the metropolis, a necessity has arisen for independent quarters, such as never can be procured in the ordinary lodgings or boarding-house, where, without being burdened with the cares of house-keeping, the maximum of comfort and privacy with the minimum of domestic worry can be obtained. All this is amply provided for within these walls. Touching an electric button without, the door is opened by the porter—the only man in the house—who wears on his breast the Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol medals, you enter a spacious hall, which opens on all sides into a number of self-contained flats. In the centre is a vast well staircase running up to the top of the building.
On the present occasion business takes you only to the first floor, where, rounding the great corridor, are separate little vestibules, each containing a complete suite of rooms, and Miss Adeline Sergeant's chambers are reached. They are so exquisitely arranged, and display so much artistic taste and refinement, that a few words must be said in description of them. The outer door is covered inside with a striped Moorish portière, and leads into a little hall faced by the study, and opening into the drawing-room on the right. The blue and white walls, on which hang half-a-dozen pictures, are of conventional floral design, relieved by cream-coloured mouldings, which throw up the rich Oriental draperies of the couch and Japanese screen near the door. The floor is laid down with peacock-blue felt and a few Persian rugs of subdued tints, whilst a white Siberian wolf, mounted on a fine black bearskin forms the rug. The broad bay windows are hung with soft cream-coloured muslin and guipure curtains, peeping out from the folds of oatmeal cloth hangings of the same shade of blue. Three dwarf bookcases are fitted into recesses, and are well filled with all the books necessary to a woman of letters. A clear fire blazes and sparkles in the tiled hearth, and throws out a ruddy glow over the bright brasses. The fireplace is draped with wine-coloured brocaded velvet curtains; the mantelshelf is high, and the long oblong mirror, in plain black narrow frame, is raised just sufficiently to show off the beautiful Oriental china, Benares brass vases, and Indian jars standing thereon. Over it hangs a single plaque, framed in dark oak, copied by Miss F. Robertson, in violet de fer on china, from the original engraving of "Enid, a Saxon Maiden." There are flowers everywhere—pots of lilies of the valley, ferns and palms, alike on the little hexagonal ebonised table in the windows and the small cabinet, whilst cut daffodils and anemones are grouped in vases in other parts of the room. The great Arabian brass salver, with its mystic scrolls and ebonised stand, forms a suitable tea-table alongside the comfortable American rocking-chair. The copper-coloured brocaded silk gown, with a tinge of red, which Adeline Sergeant wears, with leaves of darker and flowers of lighter pattern woven in, is in unison with the prevailing tints by which she is surrounded. A black fur boa is carelessly thrown round her shoulders, she is rather below the middle height, dark grey eyes, with a mischievous twinkle in them, can be discerned behind the pince-nez which she habitually wears, her good colouring betokens a healthy constitution her extremely thick hair, lightly touched with grey, is loosely rolled back from her forehead, she has a merry, bright smile, and laughs with silvery sweetness on being told you had nervously expected, from her pictures, to see a strong-minded, austere-looking woman; but until a sun-portrait can produce rich colouring, earnestness of purpose, combined with an ever-changing, laughing expression, she will appear to those who have only seen her photograph as being somewhat severe and stern.
Adeline Sergeant was born at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. Her father belonged to an old Lincolnshire family who had lived since the sixteenth century, at least, on the same ground, and had inhabited for many years a long, low, rambling house, of which he used to delight to tell her stories. When yet but a child she went with her parents to Selby, Easingwold, Weston-super-Mare, Worcester, and Rochester, where, when she was nineteen years of age, her father died, and their wanderings practically ended.
"My mother was a quiet, delicate, refined, sensitive woman," says Miss Sergeant, while a look of sadness comes over her face. "She spent most of her spare time in writing, and from her, I suppose, I inherit some of my taste for writing, though it comes from my father's side too, for a cousin of mine is a literary man, and several of my relations dabbled a little in literature. My mother wrote verses and religious stories chiefly; she had a very high ideal of style, and one of my earliest and latest recollections of her is seeing her covering scraps of paper with her peculiarly beautiful handwriting in pencil, and afterwards copying them most carefully in ink at her desk. She had a long illness; she died of consumption, after eight years of confirmed invalidism and gradually wasting away. I remember it now as a remarkable fact that I never knew her to complain or to have anything but the sweetest, brightest smile. Her sense of the ridiculous was acute to the very last, and she was always ready to enjoy a good story. Her appreciation of literature was very great, and it was from her that I learned to enjoy Browning as well as the older masters of verse. After my father's death we removed to the suburbs of London, and my mother died fifteen months later. We were united heart and soul, and her death was the greatest sorrow of my life, especially as I had been much separated from her by school and college life, and had been promised that I should live at home and care for her when my elder sister married, but my mother died four months before the wedding, and that dream—hers as well as mine, I think—was never realized."
Adeline Sergeant began to write at the very youthful age of eight. Her first published verses appeared when she was but thirteen, and a volume of verse when she was sixteen years of age. "It always seems to me," she continues, "that I owe a great deal to the influences of the free country life of my early childhood when we lived at Eastington, near Stonehouse, for two years. I believe that modern teachers would say that I wasted my time, for I went to no school then, but 'did lessons' with my mother in a desultory fashion." Rambling for hours in the fields and lanes by herself, sometimes with a book and sometimes without, the young author used conscientiously to set herself her own tasks; she wrote innumerable stories, had no playfellows, and no children's books, but she had the run of her father's library. Here she read Shakespeare until she knew him by heart; next to Shakespeare her favourite book was Addison's "Spectator"; after these came Byron, Mrs. Hemans, and many earlier poets, Prior, Gay, Dryden, etc. Here, from the age of eleven to fifteen, she also studied theological writers like Chalmers, Butler, and Jeremy Taylor; whilst a set of Encyclopædias, in twenty-two volumes, gave her many happy hours. It is no wonder that Adeline Sergeant declares this to have been one of the most fructifying periods of her life, and that her impressions of landscape, cloud scenery, effects of light, shade, sound, etc., are still coloured by her remembrances of that time.
"I think," she observes, smiling, "that this was better bracing for the mind than the indiscriminate devouring of story-books, which is characteristic of young folks nowadays. But I must also add that at Weston, our next place of residence, I simply gorged myself on novels of all sorts, as I had the command of every circulating library in the place, and no control was ever exercised over my reading."
At sixteen Miss Sergeant went to Laleham, Miss Pipe's well-known school at Clapham; and at eighteen to Queen's College, Harley Street, where she held a scholarship for some time. The death of her sister two years after her marriage left the young girl very much alone in the world. For some years she lived with very dear and kind friends, whose two daughters she had some share in teaching. Having much time free, she went on with her literary work, which had been suspended for a long while after her bereavements, when she had no heart to write anything. After leaving college, Adeline Sergeant devoted herself entirely to study for the Cambridge and other examinations. After taking her First Class Honours Certificate in the women's examination, she gave up her time to teaching, writing, and parochial work of all sorts; she played the organ in church, held Sunday and week-day classes for village children, trained the choir, and so on. A temporary failure in health made a winter in Egypt a real boon to her about that time, and it was on her return that she gave herself up more to literary work.
"I was not at all successful at first," says Miss Sergeant in a cheerful tone of voice. "My first novel has never seen the light to this day. My second was also refused, but has since been re-written and re-issued, under the name of 'Seventy Times Seven.' I wrote little stories for little magazines, and a child's book or two. But I had no success for many years. In 1880 I competed for a prize of £100 offered by the Dundee People's Friend for a story, and gained it, to my great delight. I have kept up my connection with this paper ever since, and am always grateful to the editor for the help he gave me at a critical time. This story was 'Jacobi's Wife.' When I heard the good news I was in Egypt, where I was spending a winter at the invitation of my friends, Professor and Mrs. Sheldon Amos. On my return I wrote 'Beyond Recall,' which embodies my impressions of Egyptian life. I went on writing for the next two years, and doing other work as well, but in 1883 I made up my mind to throw myself entirely into literature."
Miss Sergeant's next step was to write and consult the kindly Dundee editor on this subject, and in return she received a proposition from the proprietors that she should go to live in Dundee and do certain specified literary work for them. She did so, and counts it as one of the most fortunate occurrences of her life, as she made many friends and led a pleasant and healthful life, first at Newport, in Fife, and then in Dundee. Two years later, however, it seemed better to her to return to London, though without severing her connection with Dundee. Since 1887 Adeline Sergeant has lived more or less in London, although she spends a good deal of time at the seaside, in the country, and in Scotland, or in visiting at friends' country houses in different parts of England.