I was a young actor in the country, full sixty years ago, when a new novel appeared which made the writer of it—a girl in her twenties—famous throughout the land. The book was Lady Audley's Secret. The girl was Miss Braddon. The fame of the new novel spread like wildfire and the rush for its three volumes—most novels were so published in those days—was extraordinary.
From one of the old Strand Theatre burlesques I recall words like these: "Always a lady's secret I respect, save Lady Audley's Secret which that deep Mudie lets out and won't let people keep."
Dickens and Thackeray were still alive and at work, as were George Eliot, Bulwer Lytton and Wilkie Collins.
Miss Braddon's own share reached more than seventy novels in more than fifty years of work. We knew her for many of those years, and loved her company, here in London, as in Switzerland and Italy.
In a long railway journey we took together from Lugano to Boulogne some anxiety arose as we neared the sea about what the "crossing" would be like. I remember Mrs. Maxwell's amusement at my wife's saying: "I don't feel comfortable about it; the small boats and fishing-smacks in harbour are too polite to each other, with their little bows and curtseys. I fear we shall find things more quarrelsome when we have crossed the bar."
The famous novelist was an open-air woman, at home in a saddle, loved to follow the hounds, and was devoted to her dogs, her cats and her birds. She adored Dickens, had great admiration for Balzac, and placed George Eliot on a lofty pedestal. The way she did her work was the oddest thing in the world. She huddled herself up in a little low chair, made a desk of her knees, and wrote for hours in that position.
Happily, she bountifully bequeathed her power over the pen to her son "Willie," who has the affection of his troops of friends.
I will close this chapter with a reference, full of kind thoughts and remembrances, to one of the most remarkable, as she was one of the most delightful, women my wife and I ever had the privilege to know—Lady Dorothy Nevill. She was a great little lady—happy, blithesome, clever, and so gay.
At her Sunday luncheon parties in Charles Street, one met everybody worth knowing and heard pretty well everything worth listening to. There assembled folk of all opinions and of every class and calling—honey gathered from many a hive.