"I have often wished," says Mrs. Riddell "we never had so decided, yet in that case, I do not think I ever should have achieved the smallest success, and even before we left, with bitter tears, a place where we had the kindest friends, and knew much happiness, my mother's death was—though neither of us then knew the fact—a certainty. The illness of which she died had then taken hold of her. She had always a great horror of pain mental and physical; she was keenly sensitive, and mercifully before the agonising period of her complaint arrived, the nerves of sensation were paralysed; first or last, she never lost a night's sleep the whole of the ten weeks, during which I fought with death for her, and—was beaten."
Mrs. Riddell's first impressions of London are well worth recording. Coming as strangers to a strange land, throughout the length and breadth of the great metropolis, she says, "We did not know a single creature! During the first fortnight, indeed, I really thought I should break my heart. I had never taken kindly to new places, and, remembering the sweet hamlet and the loving friends left behind, London seemed to me horrible! I could not eat; I could not sleep; I could only walk over the 'stony-hearted streets' and offer my manuscripts to publisher after publisher, who unanimously declined them." The desolation of her spirit can be more easily imagined than described. Conceive the situation of the young girl, burning to earn a living by her pen, knowing that it was within her to do so, yet unacquainted with a single literary or other person; friendless, unknown, with an invalid mother, and terribly insufficient means! And when, at last, she sold a story, called "Moors and Fens," that beloved mother had passed away; and your eyes moisten as the daughter mentions the touching and filial use to which her first twenty pounds were applied.
But Mrs. Riddell has something pleasant to say for those who declined her MSS., and it must be related in her own words: "Looking back I must say, as a rule, they were all very kind to me. I was too ignorant and heartsore to understand how gracious they were to my simplicity, even more than to my youth. Yet I shall never forget how charming Mr. George Bentley's manner seemed the first day I saw him. His father—the kindest, most impulsive, most sympathetic of men—was alive then, and for many a year afterwards; but it so happened that Mr. George Bentley was the partner whom I saw, and," she adds smiling, and naïvely, "though he, like everyone else, refused my work, still I left his office not unhappy, but thinking much more about how courteous and nice he was than of how entirely the wrong person in the wrong place I seemed to be. Ere long, with some publishers I became quite on friendly terms, and I have now known three generations of the Bentleys."
After a short silence Mrs. Riddell resumes the subject, saying, "I must name also Mr. Charles Skeet, of King William Street, who was good enough to keep my mother supplied with books. Long as it is since he retired from business, our friendship remained unbroken until his death. He was most kind to me always. He published 'The Rich Husband,' 'Too Much Alone,' 'The World and the Church,' and 'Alaric Spencer.'"
"I could always, when the day was frightfully cold—and what a winter that was when I first came to London—turn into Mr. Newby's snug and warm office in Welbeck Street, and have a talk with him and his 'woman of business.' I am glad to mention her name—Miss Springett. She was a lady, always kind, nice, and capable; she remained with him till her death, I believe. Everyone was good to me in those days; but, indeed, I have received, all my life through, an enormous amount of kindness, and have not a word to say against a world which has treated me far better than I deserved."
A year after the death of her mother the young author married. Mr. Riddell belonged to an old Staffordshire family, a branch of the Scotch Riddells, of long descent and gentle blood. "Courageous and hopeful, gifted with indomitable energy," says his widow, "endowed with marvellous persistence and perseverance; modestly conscious of talents which ought to have made their mark, he, when a mere lad, began his long quest after fortune, one single favour from whom he was never destined to receive."
Gifted with much inventive genius, Mr. Riddell was also possessed of considerable general knowledge, and was deeply versed in literature, medicine, science, and mathematics. To him his wife turned for all the information she needed in her novels; the chemistry in "Too Much Alone," the engineering in "City and Suburb." He supplied all the business details in "George Geith," and "The Race for Wealth"; while in "Mortomley's Estate" Mrs. Riddell says she has "but told the simple story of what, when in ill-health and broken in spirit, he had to encounter before ruin, total and complete, overtook him." Too early in youth overweighted with a heavy burden, under which a strong man might have found it hard to stagger, she declares that, "in spite of harassing trouble and continuous misfortune, their twenty-three years of married life were happy as few lives are, simply by reason of his sweet, patient temper, and his child-like faith." Suddenly and unexpectedly, the end came, and the crowning sorrow of a much-tried life was laid upon the devoted wife when death claimed her gifted husband. Over that grief a veil must be drawn. Suffice it to say that it is a sorrow which will ever be keen in her remembrance "Until the day break and the shadows flee away."
"I never remember the time," Mrs. Riddell says, "when I did not compose. Before I was old enough to hold a pen I used to get my mother to write down my childish ideas, and a friend remarked to me quite lately that she distinctly remembers my being discouraged in the habit, as it was feared I might be led into telling untruths. In my very early days I read everything I could lay hands on, the Koran included, when about eight years old. I thought it most interesting."
Mrs. Riddell describes the way in which the situations and characters of her books are often suggested. She observes everything almost unconsciously; but if asked, directly after, her impressions, she could scarcely describe them. Later on, perhaps, when between the border-land of sleep and waking, scenes, words, people whom she has noticed seem to be photographed on the brain; sentences form themselves, and in the morning she is able to reproduce them at length.
The intimate knowledge of the city possessed by this novelist is the result of personal experience. Whilst on her once fruitless expeditions to publishers she learnt every short cut, every alley and lane by heart. Little as she relished these excursions at the time, they laid the foundation for many a scene afterwards so faithfully depicted in "George Geith," "City and Suburb" (in which most of the poetry was quoted from the works of her young sister-in-law, a genius who died at the age of nineteen), "Daisies and Buttercups," "The Struggle for Fame," "Mitre Court," "My First Love, and My Last Love," "The Earl's Promise," and also that entrancing book, "The Senior Partner," in which the old Scotch merchant, M'Cullagh, "plain auld Rab," worthy but saving old gentleman, is a distinct creation. "In all the old city churches and graveyards, such, indeed, as are left," Mrs. Riddell says, sorrowfully, "you could take no better guide than myself; but, alas! many of the old landmarks are now pulled down to make room for the ever increasing business of the great metropolis."