We succeeded in making the little girl work exclusively at her acting, and Leighton, Watts, and I frequently visited the school where she was being trained under Mrs. Glyn, to hear her and her fellow-students perform the pieces they had studied. Eventually she appeared in London and in the provinces, and quickly communicated all her successes and failures to Leighton and to me. Constant notes passed between us as we each received news from our young protégée, or when we thought some fresh step might be taken for her advantage. For instance, one of these notes runs as follows:—
Dear Mrs. Barrington,—It has occurred to me that I perhaps seemed this morning what I certainly did not mean to seem, churlish in regard to that letter from Irving.[77] If Miss Pullen is now ripe for him to hear her—this is the most important point (for to go to him too soon would be the most unwise thing possible in view of her getting a good engagement)—and if, having declined a letter on a previous occasion, she has any unnecessary scruple about now asking for one, it will be quite enough for you to tell me from her that she wishes for one, and I will at once write it. Kemp will always be able to tell you where to get at me. I can write as easily from Vienna or Constantinople as from here.
From Exeter Dorothy Dene wrote to Leighton after recounting an unwonted success:—
"Don't be frightened that I shall let all this praise turn my head. I know how much better it could be done, and after every scene a great weight falls on my heart that I have done no better. But I like you to warn me; it is good for me, so don't leave off, please. I am sorry that your friend, Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, will not see me, and that you had the bother of writing for nothing. Please do not fash yourself about finding out any one else. I must leave off now, as it is time to go to the theatre, and you will not get this any sooner if it were posted to-night than to-morrow.
Sunday, 24th.
"To continue, our lodgings are very comfortable, and nearly opposite the theatre; the food is good, and very fairly cooked, but I am very pleased with the tuck parcel; we had one of the birds when we arrived, the other things we have hardly touched. I thought it better to save them for places where the food may be bad. Please send me Mr. B. Tree's letter. I thought as you think about its advice. Thank you so much for your kind advice and gentle reminders, I shall try so hard to remember all you have said to me at different times; and if I do become anything in the future, I shall owe all the best part of it to you."
An engagement for two matinées was made for her début in London.
"Dear Mrs. Barrington, 'Dorothy' acts at the Globe on Monday and Tuesday afternoons," wrote Leighton; "I mean to go on Monday." I took a party of eight to see her, including the late Lord Lytton, who took much interest in the stage. After the performance Leighton wrote to me, "Poor Dorothy was paralysed with terror yesterday—but I hope intelligent people will have seen through that." Again, later, "she is adding, as she deserves, to the number of her friends, several of whom treat her with really maternal kindness." I can indeed very truly endorse Leighton's good opinion. Dorothy and three of her sisters were worthy of all the interest shown in them. They were entirely self-respecting, conscientious children, most affectionately devoted to one another, and striving their utmost to improve in every sense, and make themselves worthy of the help they received. Naturally they adored their chief benefactor, Leighton. Unfortunately, Dorothy, notwithstanding dramatic gifts, great perseverance and intelligence, lacked charm on the stage. Her very beautiful face and throat were not seen to advantage, as they were hardly in proportion with her figure, which was short and too stiffly set to move gracefully on the stage. Leighton in fun always called her "the little tee-to-tum," or when she wore a large hat, "the mushroom." As he felt vitality waning and mental effort a greater strain, the little family of Pullens had to Leighton somewhat the same resting charm that Italy had in early days, when he turned from the German austerity in study to the relaxation of the dolce far niente of Italian national life. "I go to see them," he used to say, "when I want to let my back hair down and get off the stilts." When Leighton was dying, his sister, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, took Dorothy into his room. He was too ill to speak, but only smiled to her in answer to her saying, "If I have or ever will do anything worth doing, I owe it all to you—everything I owe to you." It is almost unnecessary, as it is distasteful, to mention that this beautiful paternal attitude Leighton displayed towards these orphans was made the subject of ugly gossip—for are there not always the misérables of the world who seek the ugly rather than the beautiful? misinterpreting the beautiful so that it should come within the range of their scandalous arrows, more especially when the darts attack a man in the high position Leighton held. Some of these offshoots of envy and jealousy came within earshot of Leighton's sisters, who thought it well to warn him in a letter that such malice was in the air. He wrote a lengthy answer, ending with the following sentence: "But let me turn away from the whole thing, it has pained me more than enough. I implore you not to reopen it. On the only thing that matters, you are absolutely assured, if you believe in my honour. If you hear these rumours again, meet them with a flat, ungarnished denial. Let that suffice—it does for me." To a lady friend he wrote still more explicitly, in order, as he said, that there should exist in his own handwriting an implicit and unmitigated denial of the malicious falsehood. Leighton never knew under whose auspices this scandal was conducted. As is the case invariably, it was impossible to put the finger exactly on the culprit—for these fulsome things have to be propagated under the rose, in order that they should get a firm root before an authoritative denial can be given. However, after Leighton's death, the lie was stated more boldly—even directly to his two sisters. It is necessary, therefore, to include in the account of his life the full and truthful version of the kind and fatherly protection Leighton gave to this family.
The interests of the Kyrle Society were another cause which I had in common with Leighton. He spoke at the first public meeting that was held in the Kensington Town Hall on January 27, 1881, and I possess an interesting correspondence with him on the subject, which space will not allow me to quote. The important matter contained in it appears in the following correspondence between Mr. T.C. Horsfall, the chief mover in establishing the Art Museum and Galleries in Manchester, and Leighton, together with a discussion on other vital points connected with Art:—
April 7, about 1880.