I was to meet my fate again and unexpectedly. It was in my second year as editor of the Evening News and I was so confident of ultimate success in my business as a journalist that I began to go into society more and more and extend my knowledge of that wonderful pulsing life in London.
One night I went to the Lyceum Theatre. I have forgotten what was on or why I went, but I had seen the whole play and was standing talking to Bram Stoker by the door when, in the throng of people leaving, I saw Laura Clapton and her fat mother coming down the steps. She smiled radiantly at me and again I was captivated: her height gave her presence, she carried herself superbly-she was the only woman in the world for me. I could tell myself that the oval of her face was a little round, as I knew her fingers were spatulate and ugly, but to me she was more than beautiful. I had seen more perfect women, women, too, of greater distinction, but she seemed made to my desire. She must be marvellously formed, I felt, from the way she moved; and her long hazel eyes, and masses of carelessly coiled chestnut hair, and the quick smile that lit up her face-all charmed me. I went forward at once and greeted her. Her mother was unusually courteous; in the crowd I could only be polite and ask them if they would sup with me at the Criterion, for the Savoy was not known then, as Ritz had not yet come and conquered London and made its restaurants the best in the world.
"Why have you never come to see me?" was her first question.
I could only reply, "It was too dangerous, Laura." The confession pleased her.
Shall I ever forget that supper? Not so long as this machine of mine lasts. I was in love for the first time, on my knees in love, humble for the first time, and reverent in the adoration of true love.
I remember the first time I saw the beauty of flowers: I was thirteen and had been invited to Wynnstay. We had luncheon and Lady Watkin Wynn afterwards took me into the garden and we walked between two "herbaceous borders," as they're called, rows four and five yards deep of every sort of flower: near the path the small flowers, then higher and higher to very tall plants-a sloping bank of beauty. For the first time I saw the glory of their colouring and the exquisite fragility of the blossoms: my senses were ravished and my eyes flooded with tears!
So, overpowering was the sensation in the theatre: the appearance of Laura took my soul with admiration. But as soon as we were together, the demands of the mother in the cab began to cool me. "Daughter, the window must be shut! Daughter, we mustn't be late: your father-" and so forth. But after all, what did I care; my left foot was touching Laura's and I realized with a thrill that her right foot was on the other side of mine. If I could only put my knee between hers and touch her limbs: I would try as I got up to go out and I did and the goddess responded, or at least did not move away, and her smiling, kindly glance warmed my heart.
The supper was unforgettable, for Laura had followed my work and the subtle flattery enthralled me. "Is May Fortescue really as pretty as you made out?"
"It was surely my cue to make her lovely," I rejoined. Laura nodded with complete understanding. She enjoyed hearing the whole story; she was particularly interested in everything pertaining to the stage.
That evening everything went on velvet. The supper was excellent, the Perrier-Jouet of 1875-the best wine chilled, not iced; and when I drove the mother and daughter home afterwards, while the mother was getting out Laura pressed her lips on mine and I touched her firm hips as she followed her mother. I had arranged too a meeting for the morrow for lunch at Kettner's of Soho in a private room.
I went home drunk with excitement. I had taken rooms in Gray's Inn and when I entered them that night, I resolved to ask Laura to come to them after lunch, for I had bought some Chippendale chairs and some pieces of table silver of the eighteenth century that I wanted her to see.
How did I come to like old English furniture and silver? I had got to know a man in Gray's Inn, one Alfred Tennyson, a son of Frederick Tennyson, the elder brother of the great poet, and he had taught me to appreciate the recondite beauty in everything one uses. I shall have much to tell of him in later volumes of this autobiography, for, strange to say, he is still my friend here in Nice forty-odd years later. Then he was a model of manliness and vigour; only medium height, but with good features and a splendidly strong figure. His love of poetry was the first bond between us. He was a born actor, too, and mimic; he had always wished to go on the stage-a man of cultivated taste and good company. Here I just wish to acknowledge his quickening influence: I only needed to be shown the right path.
Very soon I had read all I could find about the two Adam brothers who came to London from Scotland and dowered the capital in the latter half of the eighteenth century with their own miraculous sense of beauty. The Adelphi off the Strand was named after them: even in their own time they were highly appreciated. But I was genuinely surprised to find that almost every age in England had its own ideals of beauty, and that the silverware of Queen Anne was as fine in its way as that of the Adam Brothers; and the tables of William and Mary had their own dignity, while a hall chair of Elizabeth's time showed all the stateliness of courtly manners. I began to realize that beauty was of all times and infinitely more varied than I had ever imagined. And if it was of all times, beauty was assuredly of all countries, showing subtle racecharacteristics that delighted the spirit. What could be finer than the silver and furniture of the First Empire in France? A sort of reflex of classic grace of form with superabundance of ornament, as if flowered with pride of conquest.
At length I had come into the very kingdom of man and discovered the proper nourishment for my spirit. No wonder I was always grateful to Alfred Tennyson, who had shown me the key, so to speak, of the treasure-house.
It was Alfred Tennyson, too, in his rooms in Gray's Inn, who introduced me to Carlo Pellegrini. Pellegrini was a little fat Italian from the Abruzzi and Tennyson's mother was also an Italian, and she had taught her son sympathy for all those of her race. At any rate, Tennyson knew Carlo intimately, and in the eighties Carlo was a figure of some note in London life. He was the chief cartoonist of Vanity Fair and signed his caricatures "Ape." They constituted a new departure in the art: he was so kindly that his caricatures were never offensive, even to his victims. He would prowl about the lobby of the House of Commons, taking notes, and a dozen of his caricatures are among the best likenesses extant. His comrade Leslie Ward, who signed "Spy," was nearly as successful. A better draftsman, indeed, but content with the outward presentment of a man, not seeking, as Pellegrini sought, to depict the very soul of the sitter.
Carlo confessed to being a homosexualist, flaunted his vice, indeed, and was the first to prove to me by example that a perverted taste in sex might go with a sweet and generous nature. For Carlo Pellegrini was one of nature's saints.
One trait I must give: once every fortnight he went to the office of Vanity Fair in the Strand and drew twenty pounds for his cartoon. He had only a couple of hundred yards to go before reaching Charing Cross and usually owed his landlady five pounds; yet he had seldom more than five pounds left out of the twenty by the time he got to the end of the street. I have seen him give five pounds to an old prostitute and add a kindly word to the gift. Sometimes, indeed, he would give away all he had got and then say with a whimsical air of humility, "Spero che you will invite me to dine — eh, Frankarris?"
The best thing I can say of the English aristocracy is that this member of it and that remained his friend throughout his career and supplied his needs time and again. Lord Rosebery was one of his kindliest patrons, my friend Tennyson was another, but it was in the nineties I learned to love him, so I'll keep him for my third volume. Here I only wish to remark that his frank confession of pederasty, of the love of a man for boys and youths, made me think and then question the worth of my instinctive, or rather unreasoned, prejudice. For on reflection I was forced to admit that paederastia was practiced openly and without any condemnation-nay, was even regarded as a semi-religious cult by the most virile and most courageous Greeks, by the Spartans chiefly, at the highest height of their development in the seventh and sixth and fifth centuries before our era. And what was considered honourable by Aeschylus and Sophocles and Plato was not to be condemned lightly by any thinking person. Moreover, the passion was condemned in modern days merely because it was sterile, while ordinary sex-sensuality was permissible because it produced children. But as I practiced Lesbianism, which was certainly sterile, I could not but see that my aversion to paederastia was irrational and illogical, a mere personal peculiarity. Boys might surely inspire as noble a devotion as girls, though for me they had no attraction. I learned, too, from Carlo Pellegrini the entrancing, attractive power of sheer loving-kindness, for in person he was a grotesque caricature of humanity, hardly more than five feet two in height, squat and stout, with a face like a mask of Socrates, and always curiously illdressed; yet always and everywhere a gentleman-and to those who knew him, a good deal more.
Next day I was waiting at Kettner's when Laura drove up; I hastened to pay her cab and take her upstairs. She didn't even hesitate as she entered the private room, and she kissed me with unaffected kindliness. There was a subtle change in her; what was it?
"Did she love anyone else?" I asked, and she shook her head.
"I waited for you," she said, "but the year ran out and five months more."
"Mea culpa," I rejoined, "mea maxima culpa, but forgive me and I'll try to make up-"
After we had lunched and I had locked the door against any chance intrusion of waiter or visitor, she came and sat on my knees and I kissed and embraced her almost at will but-. "What's the matter, Laura? The red of your lips is not uniform; what have you been doing with yourself?"
"Nothing," she replied, with an air of bewilderment. "What do you mean?"
"You've altered," I persisted.
"We all alter in a year and a half," she retorted. But I was not satisfied; once when I kissed the inside of her lips, she drew back questioning.
"How strangely you kiss."
"Does it excite you?" I asked, and a pretty moue was all the answer I got in words. But soon under my kissings and caresses her lips grew hot and she did not draw away as she used to do a year and a half before; she gave her lips to me and her eyes too grew long in sensuous abandonment. I stopped, for I wanted to think, and above all, I wanted a memorable gift and not a casual conquest. "I want to show you a lot of things, Laura," I said. "Won't you come to my rooms in Gray's Inn and have a great afternoon? Will you come tomorrow?" And soon we had made an appointment; and after some more skirmishing kisses I took her home.
Laura lunching with me in my rooms in Gray's Inn. The mere thought took my breath, set the pulses in my temples throbbing and parched my mouth. I had already discovered the Cafe Royal, at that time by far the best restaurant in London, thanks to the owner, M. Nichol, a Frenchman, who had come to grief twice in France because he wanted to keep a really good restaurant. But now Nichol was succeeding in London beyond his wildest hopes (London always wants the best) and was indeed already rich. Nichol's daughter married and the son-in-law was charged by Nichol with the purchase of wine for the restaurant. Of course he got a commission on all he purchased, and after five and twenty years was found to have bought and bought with rare judgment more than a million pounds worth of wine beyond what was necessary. In due time I may tell the sequel. But even in 1884 and 1885 the Cafe Royal had the best cellar in the world. Fifteen years later it was the best ever seen on earth.
Already I had got to know Nichol and more than once, being in full sympathy with his ideals, had praised him in the Evening News.
Consequently, he was always willing to do better than his best for me. So now I ordered the best lunch possible: hors d'oeuvres with caviare from Nijni; a tail piece of cold salmon-trout; and a cold grouse, fresh, not high, though as tender as if it had been kept for weeks, as I shall explain later; and to drink, a glass of Chablis with the fish, two of Haut Brion of 1878 with the grouse, and a bottle of Perrier-Jouet of 1875 to go with the sweet that was indeed a surprise covering fragrant wild strawberries.
Nowhere could one have found a better lunch and Laura entered into the spirit of the whole ceremony. She came as the clock struck one and had a new hat and a new dress, and, looking her best, had also her most perfect manners.
Did you ever notice how a woman's manners alter with her dress? Dressed in silk she is silky gracious, the queen in the girl conscious of the rustle of the silken petticoat. I had a kiss, of course, and many an embrace as I helped her to take off her wraps. Then I showed her the lunch and expatiated on the table-silver of the Adam brothers.
When we had finished lunch, the water was boiling and I made the coffee and then we talked interminably, for I was jealously conscious of a change in her and determined to solve the mystery. But she gave me no clue-her reticence was a bad sign, I thought; she would not admit that she had any preferred cavalier in the long year of my absence, though I had seen her twice with the same man. Still, the proof was to come. About four I took her to my bedroom and asked her to undress. "I'm frightened," she said. "You do care for me?"
"I love you," I said, "as I've never loved anyone in my life. I'm yours; do with me what you will!"
"That's a great promise?"
"I'll keep it," I protested.
She accepted smiling: "Go away, sir, and come back in ten minutes."
When I returned I had only pyjamas on, and as I went hastily to the bed I was conscious of absolute reverence: if only the dreadful doubt had not been there, it would have been adoration. As I pushed back the clothes I found she had kept her chemise on. I lifted it up and pushed it round her neck to enjoy the sight of the most beautiful body I had ever seen. But adoring plastic beauty as I do, I could only give a glance to her perfections; the next moment I had touched her sex and soon I was at work: in a minute or two I had come but went on with the slow movement till she could not but respond, and then in spite of her ever-growing excitement, as I continued she showed surprise.
"Haven't you finished?" I shook my head and kissed her, tonguing her mouth and revelling in the superb body that gave itself to my every movement.
Suddenly her whole frame was shaken by a sort of convulsion; as if against her will, she put her legs about me and hugged me to her. "Stop, please!" she gasped, and I stopped; but when I would begin again, she repeated, "Please," and I withdrew, still holding her in my arms.
A moment later, remembering her fear, I got out of bed and showed her in the next room the bidet and syringe. She went in at once, but as she passed me I lifted the chemise and had more than a glimpse of the most perfect hips and legs. She smiled indulgently and turning, kissed me and passed into the dressing-room.
I felt certain now that she had given herself in that d… d year and a half to someone else. She was not a virgin, nor at her first embrace, but she had not been used much. Why? Had she been enceinte and got rid of the coming child? That would explain her lips, poor dear girl. If she would trust me and tell me, I would marry her; if not- When she returned she was all cold; I lifted her into bed, and after taking off her chemise covered her till she got warm, and then bit by bit studied her figure. It was not perfect, but the faults were all merits in my eyes. Her neck was a trifle too short, but her breasts were as small as a girl's of thirteen; her hips were perfect with almost flat belly, long legs and the tiniest, best-kept sex in the world. It was always perfectly clean and sweet. I have never seen one more perfect. The clitoris was just a little mound and the inner lips were glowing crimson. I began to tongue the sensitive spot, and at once she began to move spasmodically. As I touched just below the clitoris, she squirmed violently:
"What are you doing?" she cried, trying to lift my head.
"Wait and see," I replied, "it's even more intense there, the sensation, isn't it?"
She nodded breathlessly, and I went on; in a little while she gave herself altogether to my lips and soon began to move convulsively and then: "Oh, Frank, oh! It's too much. I can't stand it, oh, oh, oh!" — she tried to draw away: as I persisted, she said, "I shall scream. I can't stand it- please stop," and as I lifted my head I saw that her love-juice had come down all over her sex. I touched the little clitoris again with my lips but she lifted my head up for a kiss and putting her arms about me strained me to her madly. "Oh you dear, dear, dear! I want you in me, your-, please."
Of course I did as she requested and went on working till her eyes turned up and she grew so pale-I stopped. When she got her breath again-"I would not have believed," she said after a while, "that one could feel so intensely.
You took my breath and then my heart was in my throat, choking me-"
Those words were my reward. I had learned the way to her supreme moment.
How we dressed I don't know, but passing through the dining-room I found myself desperately hungry and Laura confessed to the same appetite, and once more we set to on the food.
Why was Laura to me different from any other woman? She did not give me as much pleasure as Topsy; indeed, already in my life there had been at least two superior to her in the lists of love, and a couple also who had flattered me more cunningly and given me proofs of a more passionate affection. Her queenly personality, the sheer brains in her, may have accounted for part of the charm. She certainly found memorable words: this first day as we were leaving the bedroom, she stopped, and putting her hands on my shoulders she said, "Non ti scordare di me" (Don't forget me), and then, putting her arms round my neck, "We were one, weren't we?" And she kissed me with clinging lips.
And if it wasn't a word that ravished me, it was a gesture of sacred boldness.
As she gradually came to understand how her figure delighted me, she cast off shame and showed me that the Swedish exercises she practiced day after day had given her lovely body the most astonishing flexibility. She could stand with her back to a wall and, leaning back, could kiss the wall with her head almost on a level with her hips, her backbone as flexible as a bow. To me she was the most fascinating mistress and companion with a thousand different appeals. To see her in her triumphant nakedness strike an attitude and recite three or four lines, and then take the ultra-modest pose of the Florentine Venus and cover her lovely sex with her hand was a revelation in mischievous coquetry.
But now and then she complained of pains in the lower body, and I became certain that her womb had been inflamed by a wilful miscarriage: she had given herself to my American rival. If she had only been frank and told me the whole truth, I'd have forgiven her everything and the last barrier between us would have fallen, but it was not to be. She was still doubtful, perhaps of my success in life, doubtful whether I would go from victory to victory. In the humility of love I wanted to show her the reasons of my success, told her how I had learnt from newsboys, foolishly forgetting that to women ignorant of life, results alone matter: the outward and visible sign is everything to them. It took years for her to learn that I was able to win in life wherever I wished, on the stock exchange even more easily than in journalism. And her mother was always against me, as I learned later. "He can talk, but so can other people," she would say with a side glance at the Irish husband, whose talking was always unsuccessful. But though our immediate surroundings were unfavourable and doubtful, when we were together Laura and I lived golden hours; and now, when I think of her, I recall occasional phrases both of love's sweet spirit and poses of her exquisite body that made me shudder with delight.
Month in, month out, we met in private once at least a week, and once a fortnight or so I took mother and daughter to the theatre and supper afterwards. In that summer I bought a house in Kensington Gore opposite Hyde Park and only a few doors away from the mansion of the Sassoons, whom I came to know later. This little house gave me a place in London society. I gave occasional dinners and parties in it, helped by Lord Folkestone and the Arthur Walters, and had a very real success. I remember Mrs. Walter once advising me to invite a new pianist who was certain to make a great name for himself, and the first time I met him I arranged an evening for him: a hundred society people came to hear him and went away enthusiastic admirers. It was Paderewski on his first visit to London, and mine was the first house in which he played.
Of course I would have had Laura there to hear him, but it was difficult for her to go out in the evening without her mother, and I could not stand the mother.
She made herself the centre of every gathering by rudeness, if in no other way, and Laura would not hear a word criticizing her. I remember saying once to her, "You got all your beauty and grace from your father."
She was annoyed immediately. "I got my skin from my mother," she retorted,
"and my hair as well and my heart, too, which is a good thing for you, Sir, as you may find out," and she made a face at me of exquisite childishness that enchanted me as much as her loyalty. Girls nearly always prefer their mother to their father: why?
One evening Laura and her mother came to a small evening party I gave in Kensington Gore and Mrs. Lynn Linton was there, who was by way of being a great admirer of mine and a great friend. Laura sang for us: she had been admirably trained by Lamperti of Milan, whom I knew well, but she had only a small voice and her singing was of the drawing-room variety. But afterwards, feeling that she was suffering through the failure of her song. I got her to act a scene from Phedre and she astonished everyone: she was a born actress of the best! Everyone praised her most warmly in spite of the mother's pinched air of disapproval: she was always against Laura's acting. But Mrs.
Lynn Linton took me aside and advised me to get rid of the mother: "She's impossible; the girl's a wonder and very good to look at, you Lothario! Or are you going to marry her?"
"Marry," I replied, "sure," for Laura was within hearing.
"Get rid of the mother first," advised Mrs. Lynn Linton. "She's no friend of yours, anyone can see that. How have you offended her?" I shrugged my shoulders; have likes and dislikes any avowable reason?
I found it difficult, not to say impossible, to get any sex-knowledge from Laura. Like most girls with any Irish strain in them, she disliked talking of the matter at all. I asked her, "When did you first come to realize the facts of sex?"
"I don't really know," she'd say. "Girls at school talk: some elder girl tells a younger one this or that and the younger one talks of the new discovery with her chums and so the knowledge comes."
My reverence for her was so extraordinary that although I made up my mind a dozen tunes to ask her had she ever excited herself as a girl, I never could.
Often, indeed, when I asked her something intimate, she would take me in her arms and kiss me to silence while her eyes danced in amusement; and if I still persisted I'd get some phrase such as, "You have me, Sir, body and soul; what more do you want?"
Once I asked her about dancing. I had grown jealous watching her: she was picked out by the best dancers at every party and the sensuous grace of her movements attracted universal admiration. Not that she exaggerated the sensuous abandonment; on the contrary, it was only indicated now and then.
As a dancer she reminded me irresistibly of Kate Vaughan, whom I always thought incomparable, the most graceful dancer I ever saw on any stage.
Laura moved with the same easy exquisite rhythm, a poem in motion. But she denied always that the dance excited her sensually. "It's the music I love," she would say, "the rhythm, the swaying harmony of the steps. It's as near intoxication as sense-indulgence."
"But again and again his leg was between yours," I insisted. "You must have felt the thrill." She shrugged her shoulders and would not reply. Again I began. "You know that even your little breasts are very sensitive; as soon as my lips touch them the nipples stand out firm and glowing red and your sex is still quicker to respond. You must feel the man's figure against your most sensitive part. I believe that now and again you take care his figure should touch you: that adds the inimitable thrill now and then to your grace of movement."
At first she seemed to hesitate, then she said thoughtfully, "That seems to me the great difference between the man and the woman in the way of love.
From what you say, it is clear that touching a woman's legs or feeling her breast would excite you, even if you didn't care for her, perhaps even if you disliked her; but such a contact doesn't excite a woman in the least, unless she loves the man. And if she loves him as soon as he comes towards her, she's thrilled; when he puts his arms round her, she's shaken with emotion! With us women it's all a question of love; with you men, sensuality takes the place of love and often leads you to cheat yourselves and us."
"That may indeed be the truth," I replied. "In any case, it's the deepest insight I've heard on the matter and I'm infinitely obliged to you for it. Love then intensifies your sensations, whereas it is often the keenness of our sensations that intensifies our love."
"You men, then," she summed up, "have surely the lower and more material nature."
And in my heart I had to admit that she was right.
Whenever we had been long together, her attraction for me was so overpowering that it always excited suspicion in me. I don't know why; I state the fact: I was never sure of her love.
Verses of the old German folksong often came into my mind:
Sie hat zwei Auglein, die sind braun
Heut du Dich!
Sie warden dich uberzwerch anschaun
Heut du Dich! Heut du Dich!
Vertrau ihr nicht, sie narret Dich.
Sie hat ein licht goldfarbenes
Haar Heut du Dich!
Und was sie red't das ich nicht wahr,
Heut du Dich! Heut du Dich!
Vertrau ihr nicht, sie narret Dich! (Her beauty's full of contrasts, hazel eyes and golden hair and lovely body:
Don't trust her! She's fooling you!)