Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

Only once have we crossed that line, in July — as a gentleman, I did not initiate it. We had finished one of the painting sessions. She had been cleaning a brush with turpentine when, as I was about to take my leave, she told me, “Mr. Stanley, you have something on your cheek.” What kind of speck it might have been I cannot say, but she touched my face to remove it, and then, quite forwardly, she suddenly chose to kiss me. It was an innocent enough act, lasting no more than a few moments — but it was one that, to an observer, would have seemed more than it was. Certainly it appeared so to her mother, who had happened into the studio at that very moment.

I mention this because shortly thereafter, I learned that mother (of whom I am very wary) and daughter were to suddenly embark on a two-month tour of Europe; and though Miss Tennant later told me that this journey had been planned for quite a long time (I had heard nothing of it before), I am convinced that her mother quickly contrived it to keep Miss Tennant and me apart. (In my gut, I believe her mother thinks I am not good enough for her.)

So we did not see one another for two months. Miss Tennant and her mother left in August for a grand tour of Europe and other places in England that lasted until early November. In that time, we wrote one another constantly, looking forward in anticipation to the very day when we would see each other again. Over those months, for all the busyness of my life, and even during a thankfully brief and mild bout of my recurring malaria (early September), in which I had a very strange dream about Miss Tennant coming to my New Bond Street flat as the goddess Demeter (whom I have always thought she resembles anyway), I had begun to wonder if I should be so bold as to find a means to broach the subject of matrimony with her. (When I mentioned this to King L éopold, he, true to his rakish form, told me: “Why not, Monsieur Stanley? After all, if you get bored with her, you can always find yourself a mistress.”)

We took up again upon her return, and, to her mother’s unhappiness, there came to us a renewed sense of purpose about our courtship. But the fly in the ointment remains: Her mother exerts so great a control and hold over her daughter’s life (Miss Tennant has confided in me that she sleeps in the same bedroom with her at night) that her dislike for me and what I seem to represent — i.e., a lowly born person of nonaristocratic pedigree — does not bode well for my future with her daughter, and for that reason alone, I am somewhat afraid of her. Though we have not yet spoken of marriage, and I remain wary of her mother’s interference, I am bracing myself to propose, to what outcome I do not know. Still, I am afraid of a possible rejection. Perhaps I am being a fool to say this, but I feel that to propose and be refused would be my death. What, old companion, do you, with your great success in domestic matters, advise?

As for my immediate future, I seem to spend month upon month cooling my heels while awaiting a new assignment in Africa, though what it might entail I have no idea. King L éopold, whom I know you do not care for, has been promising me the directorship of the Congo Free State, though he has been agonizingly slow in making the appointment. Further, I have heard some rumblings in regard to my involvement as a possible commander of an expedition to bring supplies and armed men to one Emin Pasha, General Gordon’s successor and governor of Equatoria in the southern Sudan; he is holed up in a stronghold in the Lake Albert region, besieged by the forces of the Mahdists, those same Islamic fanatics who had cut off General Gordon’s head at Khartoum. It is being said that I am the most qualified man in Europe to lead such a mission — though if the truth be told, Samuel, I am getting tired of such exertions and would now prefer a quieter and more tranquil existence.

I go on too long. It’s now snowing here in London: I imagine it could well be so in Connecticut — it is that time of year; Christmas is not far off. May yours go well — for I always keep good wishes for you and your family close to my heart.

Most faithfully yours,

Henry M. Stanley

January 2, 1886

Farmington Avenue

Hartford, Connecticut

Dear Stanley,

I received your welcome letter on Christmas Eve, and to be truthful, as I am always happy to hear from you, I was doubly delighted by news of this promising lady in your life, no matter how difficult the mother situation may appear to be. From your description of her, it seems to me that you have come across the rare creature who combines intelligence, grace, abilities, and a good heart — my own Livy, putting up with me endlessly, is also of that category. (Let me remind you that when I first courted Livy, her parents wanted nothing to do with me.) But as for your reluctance, stemming from past disappointments — the Alice episodes, of which you reminded me (you had written to me about her before) — my God, dear Stanley, what could you have expected from such a child of seventeen? And you should ask yourself if you, as a man of the world, would have been able to put up with the supercilious prattling of a young spoiled society dame for very long. What by way of intellectual fulfillment would she have brought you? Or what assistance, of any kind, to the constant process of your writing? Seems to me that you were spared an interminable boredom with that one. As for Miss Tennant — though I am not a lonely hearts columnist — I say that you should exercise more patience and less suspicion, as you are of an age and position in this world where you should not be scrounging around for companionship of the female kind.

As for me and my family, we, including nine cats, remain happily intact, and have in recent weeks, around the holidays, been mainly at home entertaining numerous visitors, among them my old friends Dean Howells and the Reverend Twichell, who as a preacher continues to try to put me on the righteous (ergo, God-believing, prayerful) path. We had a fairly grand Christmas tree, a New Hampshire fir, burning with candles in our salon (until the tree dried up), but happily the house did not burn down and all of us are in one piece, though the usual ailments (rheumatism, mainly) bother Livy and me.

By the way, Stanley, I’ve been asked by my lecture representative and friend Major J. B. Pond if you would have any interest in meeting with him at some point in London; he has plans to travel there this summer with Henry Beecher and seems to have an interest in bringing you back to your old digs in the States for some kind of tour, given that you are so much a household word over here. Should you make your way across the Atlantic, you will have, as always, a friendly room and bed, and a cat or two, awaiting your comfort in my home.

Forge onward, great explorer! Be not afraid! (Especially of the mother, for it is in their makeup to be contrary to the men who come along to steal their little girls away.)

Livy and the girls send you their best.

Yours,

Sam Clemens

London, 1885

AS STANLEY WOULD CONFESS to his old friend, when it came to matters of the heart and dealings with the gentler sex, his past was littered with rejections. Though he could not walk down a London street without passersby stopping to shake his hand or stroll along Piccadilly without coming across a tourist shopwindow that sold brass Stanley busts or plates bearing his image, and though he knew himself to be something of a hero to the people of England (and to Americans, too), he remained a solitary bachelor whose best companions, as he would say, were books, dogs, and the abstract ideal that he called the “freedom of the wilds.” For all the many honors he received over a decade and a half in recognition of his three arduous missions to Africa, the simple caress of a woman’s hand across his brow eluded him.