In Tuscaloosa there resided, besides my Aunt Collier, few of my father’s and mother’s kin, and by a natural affinity I fell under the guardianship of my father’s brother, Thomas B. Tunstall, Secretary of State of Alabama. He was a bachelor; but all that I lacked in my separation from my father my uncle supplied, feeding the finer sides of my nature, and inspiring in me a love of things literary even at an age when I had scarce handled a book. My uncle’s influence began with my earliest days in Alabama. My aunt, Mrs. Collier, was delicate, Mrs. Battle domestic; Uncle Battle was a famous business man; and Uncle Collier was immersed in law and increasing political interests; but my memory crowds with pictures of my Uncle Tom, walking slowly up and down, playing his violin, and interspersing his numbers with some wise counsel to the child beside him. He taught me orally of poetry, and music, of letters and philosophy, and of the great world’s great interests. He early instilled in me a pride of family, while reading to me Scott’s fine tribute to Brian Tunstall, “the stainless knight,” or, as he rehearsed stories of Sir Cuthbert Tunstall, Knight of the Garter, and Bishop of London in the time of gentle Queen Anne; and it was in good Uncle Tom’s and my father’s company that the fascinations of the drama were first revealed to me.
While I was yet a schoolgirl, and so green that, had I not been protected by these two loving guardians, I would have been eaten up by the cows on the Mobile meadows, I was taken to see “The Gamester,” in which Charles Kean and Ellen Tree were playing. It was a remarkable and ever-remembered experience. As the play proceeded, I became so absorbed in the story, so real and so thrillingly portrayed, that from silent weeping I took to sniffling and from sniffling to ill-repressed sobbing. I leaned forward in my seat tensely, keeping my eyes upon the stage, and equally oblivious of my father and uncle and the strangers who were gazing at me on every side. Now and then, as I sopped the briny outflow of my grief, realising in some mechanical manner that my handkerchief was wet, I would take it by two corners and wave it back and forth in an effort to dry it; but all the while the tears gushed from my eyes in rivulets. My guardians saw little of the play that night, for the amusement I afforded these experienced theatre-goers altogether exceeded in interest the mimic tragedy that so enthralled me.
When the curtain fell upon the death-scene I was exhausted; but another and counteracting experience awaited me, for the after-piece was “Robert Macaire,” and now, heartily as I had wept before, I became convulsed with laughter as I saw the deft pickpocket (impersonated by Crisp, the comedian), courtly as a king, bowing in the dance, while removing from the unsuspecting ladies and gentlemen about him their brooches and jewels! My absorption in the performance was so great that I scarce heard the admonitions of my father and uncle, who begged me, in whispers, to control myself. Nor did I realise there was another person in the house but the performers on the stage and myself.
Years afterward, while travelling with my husband, he recognised in a fellow traveller a former friend from southern Alabama, a Mr. Montague, and brought him to me to present him. To my chagrin, he had scarcely taken my hand when he burst into immoderate and inexplicable laughter.
“Never,” said he to Mr. Clay, “shall I forget the time when I first saw your wife! We went to see Tree; but, sir, not half the house knew what was going on on the stage for watching the little girl in the auditorium! Never till then had I imagined the full power of the drama! Her delight, her tears and laughter, I am sure, were remembered by the Mobilians long after the ‘stars’ acting was forgotten.”
That visit to Mobile was my first flight into the beautiful world that lay beyond the horizon of my school life. In the enjoyments devised for me by my father in those few charmed days, I saw, if not clearly, at least prophetically, what of beauty and joy life might hold for me. Upon our arrival in the lovely little Bay city, my father, learning of a ball for which preparations were on foot, determined I should attend it. Guided perhaps in his choice of colour by the tints of health that lay in his little daughter’s cheeks, he selected for me a gown of peach-blossom silk, which all my life I have remembered as the most beautiful of dresses, and one which transformed me, heretofore confined to brown holland gowns by my prudent aunt, Mrs. Battle, as truly as Cinderella was changed into a princess.
Upon the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten Boat Club Ball, blushing and happy, eager, with delightful anticipations, yet timorous, too, for my guardians, the Battles, had disapproved of dancing and had rigorously excluded this and other worldly pleasures from their ward’s accomplishments, I was conducted by my father to the ball. In my heart lay the fear that I would be, after all, a mere looker-on, or appear awkward if I should venture to dance as did the others; but neither of these misgivings proved to have been well founded.
My father led me at once to Mme. Le Vert, then the reigning queen of every gathering at which she appeared, and in her safe hands every fear vanished. I had heard my elders speak frequently of her beauty, and somehow had imagined her tall. She was less so than I had pictured, but so winning and cordial to me, a timid child, that I at once capitulated before the charm she cast over everyone who came into conversation with her. I thought her face the sweetest I had ever seen. She had a grace and frankness which made everyone with whom she talked feel that he or she alone commanded her attention. I do not recall her making a single bon mot, but she was vivacious and smiling. Her charm, it seemed to me, lay in her lovely manners and person and her permeating intellectuality.
I remember Mme. Le Vert’s appearance on that occasion distinctly, though to describe it now seems garish. To see her then was bewildering, and all her colour was harmony. She wore a gown of golden satin, and on her hair a wreath of coral flowers, which her morocco shoes matched in hue. In the dance she moved like a bird on the wing. I can see her now in her shining robe, as she swayed and glided, holding the shimmering gown aside as she floated through the “ladies’ chain.” The first dance of my life was a quadrille, vis-à-vis with this renowned beauty, who took me under her protection and encouraged me from time to time.
“Don’t be afraid, my dear,” she would sweetly say, “Do just as I do,” and I glided after my wonderful instructress like one enchanted, with never a mishap.