For all his glory, sleep did not come easily to him; having no use for such pithy emotions as guilt, and not feeling any blame for having performed the necessary task of burning down two hundred and twenty-six African villages on his marches (“reduced” is the term he used to refer to such events), and in general equating any inkling of shame with weakness, he, in full control of his emotions — save for rage, impatience, and envy (among others) — found himself vexed over the capricious and troubling thoughts that would come to him in those moments preceding his sleep, and during sleep itself, when he felt very much alone in the world, only Stanley and God existed in the room.
BY THE TIME HE RETURNED to England, in June of 1889, after triumphant processions in Rome, Paris, and Brussels — where Léopold bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the Order of Léopold and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown — he found that his recent exploits, above all others, had not only made him more famous than ever before but had also enhanced his standing with the aging Queen Victoria, who invited Stanley to dinner at Windsor Castle so that she could hear his stories.
The great dame was far more receptive to me than she was on my previous visits. Something in the outpouring of congratulations from all over Europe and the universal publicity — which reflected well on the “English goodwill” accrued by my adventure — seemed to dispose Her Royalness well toward me. I was received in her private quarters, where she showed me some of her drawings of persons and landscapes (not a bad artist, for an amateur) and asked me if I would be disposed to a knighthood; but for many a reason, I had to defer the honor until some other time, mainly (and I could not tell her so without offense) because of my status as an American citizen, which was conferred on me during my trip to the United States in 1885. As she would not have understood the practical reasons for it, involving copyright protection in the United States, I informed the queen that I was not yet worthy of such an honor. Though it did not sit well with her, I am told that, after I held forth on the difficulties of the Emin Pasha expedition before a gathered assembly at Windsor Castle, she was greatly pleased and considered me a “wonderful traveler and explorer.” It had been a help, I think, that I named several geographical sites after her.
A grand reception was given in his honor by the Royal Geographical Society in London. Royal Albert Hall was packed with some ten thousand important spectators, Dorothy Tennant among them. For reasons that were of an intestinal origin, Stanley, hearing one wave after another of applause in anticipation of his appearance, fainted three times. (“What brought that about I do not know,” he wrote.) Finally coming out onto the stage, he stood before Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, president of the society, and, hearing his praises sung as a great and intrepid explorer, and as Sir Mountstuart placed around his neck the red ribbon and gold medal of the RGS, bearing an image of Stanley’s profile imposed upon an image of Africa, he was dearly tempted, in the name of truth, to expose the whole enterprise as a “bold, certainly brave procession of madness, come to a good conclusion.” But when he accepted the medal, he spoke instead of the many great things he accomplished — of the advantages that were to be gained by the European presence in Africa and about the “high moral road to be taken by all.” Methodically, and with the assistance of several maps, he described, in the simplest of terms, the results of his expedition, the high point of his exegesis being a description of his definitive establishment of the exact location of the legendary Mountains of the Moon on his return route, which brought about yet another great ovation. Humbly thanking the gathering, he left the stage to sustained applause — archbishops, scientists, noblemen, and even cynical journalists were on their feet. Shaking many hands backstage, Stanley then inquired as to the whereabouts of a water closet; led to one, he closed the door behind him and vomited. Though he would publicly say that the RGS reception was by far the grandest he had ever known, in the privacy of the loo, he repeated to himself: “This is s — t, all of it the d — est s — t.”
IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE ONE DAY, after he had settled back into his New Bond Street flat, was a letter from Dorothy Tennant. It had been written one morning when she had awakened from yet another of her dreams about him.
June 7, 1890
Dearest Stanley—
I know that you may have thought of never hearing from me again, but I should let you know that although I behaved foolishly in regard to you, for the many months of your absence — four years now — I have often reflected tenderly on the matter of our mutual affections; these thoughts came to me when I realized my own despair over the possibility that you might have come to harm in Africa. I prayed for your safe return nightly — I consulted often with Lord Mackinnon as to word of your well-being… In short, dear Henry, I realized how dearly I held you and regretted my grievous and selfish actions. Though you must surely think me bold to write you now, after so long a time, it is because I have been struggling to change… to turn away from the selfishness that blinded me to your worth as a man. If I have been neglectful in this regard, then understand that I am more than what I was then and would be honored and deeply glad to see you again, not because you have done great things but because I fear I might never see you again.
Your sincere friend,
Dorothy Tennant
STANLEY DID NOT ANSWER THIS LETTER and did his best to avoid her. Each time he went to a reception or banquet in his honor, his face would heat up at the prospect of meeting Miss Tennant. But in the small circles of London, it was inevitable that they would meet again. It happened one evening at a reception held by Mackinnon in Stanley’s honor at the Langham hotel. With Mackinnon by his side, Stanley — dressed in the same white corded Egyptian officer’s uniform that Dorothy would immortalize in her painting of him — stood about, gloomily sipping Champagne. Then he saw her, in the bloom of her beauty — even more beautiful than he recalled — standing in the corner of the room demurely with her mother, the old bat nodding at him when she caught his eye. Why was it, he wondered, that Dorothy then beamed a smile at him, despite all the public humiliation she had put him through? (Everyone in London knew about her rejection of his proposal.) And why did the very air around him seem to take on such a heavy weight, as if its molecules had grown dense? Why did his pulse race — either anger or nascent love teeming through him? He could not say. Hoisting her own Champagne glass up to him, Dorothy nodded, and he turned away, his face flush. Mackinnon, who had taken the liberty of inviting the Tennants to his fete on the chance that Stanley might reconcile with her (for she had seemed genuinely affectionate in speaking of Stanley in his absence), turned to his explorer friend, asking: “But Stanley, what harm would there be in your speaking to her?”
“I would sooner be back in the swamps and up to my neck with leeches,” he snapped.
As he occupied himself in petty conversation with his admirers, she noticed him turning to look toward her despite his efforts not to do so — an effort he would never admit to undertaking. Inevitably, she worked her way across the room, her progress slow, for in her way she was famous, too, and she often stopped to speak with her own admirers. Finally, when she found herself standing a few paces from him, she was startled to see how the great man had been aged by his travels. It was not so much that his hair had turned completely white but that his whole being, which had seemed, in his moments of good health, tireless, now seemed subdued, even frail. She was suddenly aware that he had seemed to have shrunk somewhat, not in matters of height — she was some three inches taller than he was — but by way of a diminished vitality. His air of immortality had faded. All at once, though he refused to look her squarely in the eye, she found this softer, more world-weary Stanley somehow more appealing than the previous Stanley, and without even considering how it would look to others, Dorothy took hold of his hands and held them close to her heart: “Oh, Mr. Stanley, if you only knew how long I’ve waited to see you again.” Then: “But will you not speak to me?”