[CHAPTER XVII.]
HIS FIRST LEAVE.
"Oh, when wilt thou return, my love?
For as the moments glide,
They leave me wishing still for thee,
My husband, by my side;
And ever at the evening hour
My hopes more fondly burn,
And still they linger on that word,
'Oh, when wilt thou return?'"
——To a Husband during a Long Absence.
Richard left me plenty of occupation during this awfully long absence of sixteen months. Firstly, all kinds of official fights about India, and then for a gunboat and other privileges for Fernando Po. I lived with my father, mother, and family, and then I had a great deal to do for his book, "The City of the Saints," and every letter brought its own work and commissions, people to see and to write to, and things to be done for him, so that I was never idle for a minute. I began to feel, what I have always felt since, that he was the glorious, stately ship in full sail, commanding all attention and admiration; and sometimes, if the wind drops, she still sails gallantly, and no one sees the humble little steam-tug hidden at the other side, with her strong heart and faithful arms working forth, and glorying in her proud and stately ship.
I think a true woman, who is married to her proper mate, recognizes the fully performed mission, whether prosperous or not, and that no one can ever take his place for her, as an interpreter of that which is betwixt her and her Creator, to her as the shadow of God's protection here on earth.
In winter he made me go to Paris with the Napoleon ring and sketch, mentioned in the little story called "The Last Hours of Napoleon;" and, through want of experience and proper friends and protection, my little mission of courtesy failed. The failure drew down upon me some annoyances, which appeared very disagreeable and important to me at the time; they are not worth mentioning, nor, indeed, had I been older and more experienced, should I have thought them worth fretting about.
The rest of the time of those dreary sixteen months was wearing to a degree, and diversified by ten weeks of diphtheria and its results. One day I betook myself to the Foreign Office, and I cried my heart out to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Layard. He seemed very sorry for me, and he asked me to wait awhile whilst he went upstairs; and, when he came back, he told me that he had got four months' leave home for my husband, and had ordered the despatch to be sent off that very afternoon. I could have thrown my arms round his neck and kissed him, but I did not; he might have been rather surprised. I had to go and sit out in the Green Park till the excitement wore off; it was more to me than if he had given me a large fortune.
At last the happy day came to go and meet Richard at Liverpool, and I shall never forget the joy of our meeting. It was December, 1863, and we had some happy weeks in England—a pleasant Christmas with my people at Wardour, and at Lord Gerard's at Garswood, where the family parties mustered strong, and at Fryston (Lord Houghton's), and several other country-houses; and he brought out two books—"Wanderings in West Africa" (2 vols., 1863), also "Abeokuta and the Cameroons" (2 vols., 1863), which he dedicated to me, with a lovely inscription and motto, of which I am very proud. And then came round the time again to leave. But I told him I could not possibly go on living as I was living; it was too miserable, one's husband in a place where one was not allowed to go, and I living with my mother like a girl—I was neither wife, nor maid, nor widow; so he took me with him. Excepting yachting, it was my first experience of real sea-going.