“Yes,” Stanley said. “But Sam, surely you have written of it in Life on the Mississippi.”
“I have indeed, but you and I — well, did we not make a journey together that might be somewhat interesting to our readers?” Then, for my sake, he added: “That was before I became Mark Twain and just when Henry became Henry.” But then as my husband’s face began to turn red, as sometimes happened with him in moments of discomfort, Clemens, seeing him so, dropped it. “What I mean, Dorothy, is that Stanley and I could make some kind of book together. My own company would give it a first-class treatment, of course. It’s just something to consider. I understand if you would not want to tie your fortunes to me, as lately I seem to attract disasters, businesswise. But with our names on such a book, whatever it might be about, I am certain that we could sell at least one hundred thousand copies of it by subscription.” Then, gloomily: “On the other hand, I could be wrong.”
“Should I end up winning this election in Lambeth, I doubt I would have the time to give this book you propose the proper care; but then if not — we will see.” Getting up, he said: “Come, Sam, to the billiard room.”
“Just one thing before you gentlemen resume your evening of revels,” I said as they were about to leave. “May I ask you, Mr. Clemens, how long you will be staying here in London?”
“Just a week,” he said. “I’ve got a few talks to give at several clubs and a meeting scheduled with my publisher here. I’ve heard some rattling about a reception with the queen, but I’d rather wriggle out of that one.”
“Would you,” I asked, “have any time to sit for me as a subject? I’ve already got several portraits in the National Gallery and a show coming up at the Royal Academy next year: It would be an honor that would please me greatly.”
“Well, I know how long such portraits take. I haven’t much free time,” he said warily. “I suppose I could give you a few hours. But if you begin it now, I can’t say when I’ll be able to sit for you again.”
“Two hours would be fine for now. Would tomorrow at two be possible?”
He thought on it briefly.
“I can’t tomorrow. But Wednesday, maybe.”
“At two p.m., then,” I said to him. “You’ve made me happy — and you will be pleased with what I do.”
IT WAS ABOUT TEN-THIRTY AT night when Lady Stanley finished writing: Her three hounds had started barking at some disturbance in the yard; she put down her pen to attend to it one evening in 1907.
A Note by Samuel Clemens on Meeting with the Stanleys in London, 1892
ABOUT FOUR, MET WITH HMS (His Majesty Stanley) over at Claridge’s for tea and found the chap cantankerously happy, as he had his new bride along with him, the beautiful and gifted Miss Dorothy Tennant, as she’s known in London; real society dame, a little haughty but not quite the snob, like a lot of the ladies who hang around the queen’s stiff upper-crust circles, the title-crazy dames who never really get around to looking you straight in the eye. But Mrs. Stanley was different. For lack of a better word, I would say that her eyes “sparkled” with friendliness and interest, as brightly as the pearl-studded choker she was wearing around her neck. As a matter of fact, I would say that she was a pretty attractive lady altogether — swan-necked, full-bosomed, with an ingratiatingly full head of lovely hair, which she wore in the coiffure of Empress Eugénie of France. Her first reaction at my approach was to surprise me by kissing my cheek, even when I had a cold. She said: “Oh, Mr. Clemens! A delight! It’s so wonderful to see you again!”
I sat down with Stanley and this gracious lady. With them was Mrs. Stanley’s famous and cranky mother, a grande dame of a bohemian, who still wears the widow’s black — but velvet — and all kinds of outlandish jewelry, including rings that would choke a horse and a cameo of her late husband prominently displayed beneath her goosey neck.
As for Stanley, he was looking well, considering his ailing health and a fall he had taken. He was fairly bronze-skinned; and while he seemed more tranquil, even content, in his matrimonial state, his eyes were unmistakably his own — the eyes of a caged lion, I would say. His mother-in-law seemed to put him on his best behavior, but in certain moments he was his old grim self. How I have often wondered what he was really thinking around me, but like a shrewd card player — even if he didn’t play cards — he remained a good actor, never revealing much about himself, at least in public. But his hair had turned so white, like dove feathers, that I wondered if it had come about from Africa, as he always said, or if it had come about from putting up with his mother-in-law. Though we had a butler standing by our banquette, she kept asking him to pass this and that over to her, as in, “Henry, would you ever so kindly please pass me the cream?” And: “Henry, my son, a few sugar cubes, please.” He seemed to be suppressing a lot of sighs — seemed fidgety, too, around her, as if he would rather be out in the wilds of Africa with the cannibals than having tea and crumpets on a rainy London afternoon. In any case, I had the impression that he was intensely bored by the whole business of dealing with Dame Gertrude, but upon his wife he truly doted. Seems that the domestic life was softening him up a bit: Now and then I caught him just staring at her in admiration, even affection. His transformation left me touched.
We made some small talk — I filled them in on my situation, more or less; these teas can be awkward, sort of like being trapped in a corner at a party. One has no choice but to yap and yap. But I must say I was happy to see Stanley doing so well. Of course, neither of us felt like bringing up the goings-on in Africa.
I haven’t felt too happy about the news out of Africa: It is true that Stanley had inadvertently set up for King Léopold a quite unpleasant and cruel colonial regime down there, brutal to the natives. I can’t imagine that Stanley would have done so on purpose. That’s one thing, and I can’t fault the man, though I have to often hold my tongue around him on the subject — that is, until we’ve had a few drinks, and then we come down to the brass tacks of it all. Still, I want to believe him when he tells me, as he has done on occasion, that to bring “civilization” to the wilds is going to be a long process, at some cost to native lives; that even if things might be bad right now, the longer view of history will have proved him and folks like Léopold correct. (Yet I dislike that king!) In any case, it’s not a subject that we care to discuss in public.
After a while Stanley and I left the ladies to have a few drinks in the gentlemen’s bar and billiard room. We were in the middle of a game when a gent, a stringy fellow in a dark, rumpled suit, a porter of some kind who had been sweeping the floor, came over to us — or, more precisely, to Stanley.
“Have I the honor of addressing Mr. Stanley, the great explorer?”
“Yes?”
“Eh, then I should say, it’s a great day for me, and one that I will share with my family for all time to come.” Then: “Is it true, eh, I dunno, without meaning to question your ’complishments, sir — but me cousin, a confectioner on Waterloo Road, seems to think you’ve been quite wrong in the handling of the African savages; I, of course, don’t believe so, but some do. Can you tell me wot I can say to ’im in that regard?”
Stanley bristled: “Cannot you not see that my friend and I are simply shooting billiards?” But as Stanley continued to play, the same fellow stood about, somewhat forlornly, grieved to have offended him.