Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  And as Mrs. Wood seldom took up a social subject, so she rarely wrote with a set purpose before her, though the contrary has occasionally been said. Two works, and two only, were written with a distinct purpose: A Lifts Secret and Danesbury House — the latter even more than the former; for A Lifts Secret was meant to amuse as well as to instruct, whilst the end and aim of Danesbury House is never lost sight of throughout the story.

  The history of the latter was as follows. The Scottish Temperance League had advertised a prize for a story showing the evils of intemperance. An old and valued friend of the author, once Vicar of Great Malvern and Rector of Falmouth, who had been domestic chaplain to the late Duke of Cambridge and spent many of his years at Court — one of Queen Adelaide’s intimate friends — came to her one day, newspaper in hand.

  “My dear Mrs. Wood,” he said, “here is work that you can and must do. No one could write it so well, or preach so eloquent a sermon.”

  “You are paying me a great compliment,” laughed Mrs. Wood, for a very great preacher stood before her.

  “I assure you that I mean what I say,” returned her friend. “What do you think of my suggestion?”

  “I do not much like the idea of competing for a prize,” was the reply. “Is there not a slight want of dignity in this sort of thing?”

  “I fancied so too, at the first moment,” returned the Rector. “But I now think you might dismiss that idea for the sake of the good you would do.”

  “You are taking too much for granted,” said Mrs. Wood. “I might fail.”

  “My dear lady,” was the retort, “if you compete for the prize and do not gain it, never believe in me again. I would stake my reputation upon your success.”

  “There is another difficulty in the way,” said Mrs. Wood, after a moment’s reflection. “This advertisement has been out some time. Scarcely a month remains of the date when MSS. must be sent in; I could not do it.”

  “I am sure that you could,” persisted the Rector. “You have the pen of a ready writer, and, beginning at once, will accomplish the task.” Then turning to her husband, whose greatest friend he was, he added: “Won’t you join your persuasions to mine in this matter?”

  Mr. Wood laughed his usual quiet, easy laugh. “I never influence my wife in her writings,” he replied. “She knows what to do so much better than I can tell her. If she competes, I have no doubt she will succeed; but if she feels disinclined to make the attempt, I would not urge it.”

  The difference between Mr. Wood and the Rector was this: the one, though a learned divine, was also full of imagination and delighted in works of that description; whilst the other believed that politics and abstruse books of science were the levers on which the world should move. Everything else was lightly esteemed, and above all things works of fiction.

  But the Rector gained his point. He so persuaded Mrs. Wood that she agreed to make the trial. She began the work at once, threw her heart into the subject, of which she recognised the importance, and for which her mind was even then full of material. Much, very much, of Danesbury House is true. In twenty-eight days the work was completed and sent off; an instance of very rapid writing, for a portion of that twenty-eight days had to be devoted to the plot.

  In due time Mrs. Wood, as the Rector had predicted, was successful. But from a pecuniary point of view it would have been better to have failed. She received the sum of one hundred pounds for a work which has sold by hundreds of thousands. And when, some years after, unknown to her, this same friend and Rector wrote to the Scottish Temperance League and said that he considered a further honorarium was due to the author of a success beyond their dreams, and a harvest never anticipated, the directors briefly replied that “they must decline making any further acknowledgment to the author of Danesbury House, as it would establish a precedent.”

  The circumstance when related to Mrs. Wood caused her some pain: a little from this proof of want of appreciation on the part of the League; but much more that the request should have been made. For no one ever cared less for the intrinsic merit of wealth, whilst duly measuring its necessity. The love of money was never hers. Even if she felt that she had met with less than justice at the hands of any, it was soon forgotten. If occasionally remonstrated with for too great leniency, there ever came the reply: “It will be all right in the end.” When East Lynne had appeared, Harrison Ainsworth wrote and said: “I suppose now I shall never have another work from your pen.” And she replied with the singleness of purpose that was part of herself: “Yes, I will write you one more book.” This was The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Harrison Ainsworth was charmed, thinking the title one of the best and most effective he had ever heard. For a moment Mrs. Wood had hesitated between this title and Lady Godolphins Folly, though much preferring the one she adopted. But its rhythm depends on the accent being laid upon the penultimate syllable of Ashlydyat; dividing the name into three syllables only. It may be said that Mrs. Wood gave away the serial rights for which she received £60, and for which rights about the same time she was offered £1000 Perhaps it was greater generosity than Harrison Ainsworth deserved, though circumstances more than nature may have caused him to be the reverse of generous; but we have seen that Mrs. Wood was never of the world, worldly.

  The allusions to Danesbury House bring to mind how it has been sometimes remarked that the author of that work, a temperance story, ought to have been herself an abstainer from wine. But though Danesbury House is certainly a temperance story, it does not advocate universal abstinence. This Mrs. Wood only thought necessary in certain cases. If there were people in the world who, like Dr. Johnson, could abstain but could not be moderate, for such there was only one thing to be done. There must be no hesitation or half measures. This is strictly laid down in Danesbury House; no other way of escape is suggested.

  For those not so unfortunately constituted she saw, on the contrary, more virtue in moderation than in total abstinence, and this she practised. Whilst laying down strict rules of self-discipline, she was large-minded for others, believing that “all things are given us richly to enjoy,” though in the spirit of discretion. Not hers the contracted nature of the ascetic, but the broad views of the philanthropist. All the troubles of the world could never have driven her to the cloister with its narrowing tendencies. Petty rules and ceremonials formed no part of her creed, but the state of the heart. Into her religion she carried her simple doctrine. To one ever self-denying, exceptional seasons of penance seemed a work of supererogation, which might presently be looked upon as a sacrifice and meritorious; whispering, “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace. In all such things there was the inevitable danger of substituting the ceremonial for the spiritual. Yet she never belonged to the extreme Low Church Party. As a girl she had attended the good old-fashioned High Church services of the Cathedral, where all things were done with simple grandeur and dignity; and in such services she joined heart and soul. She had mixed with the old-fashioned dignitaries, and her love for them and their ways was too deep-rooted for any change. But the services of those days and of these are widely separated. For her religious views Mrs. Wood went to the New Testament, and what she did not find there she would not believe and dared not advocate. Her convictions were unchangeable, for she ever placed before her one EXAMPLE whereon she rested. Arguments and dogmas she avoided, leading others insensibly by the strongest of all influences — the unerring force of a consistent life.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  “And thou art worthy; full of power;

  As gentle; liberal-minded, great,

  Consistent; wearing all that weight

  Of learning lightly like a flower.”

  No record of Mrs. Henry Wood would be complete without some mention of Johnny Ludlow, one of her chief and favourite characters.

  Johnny Ludlow may be said to have been Mrs. Wood’s companion, continually in her thoughts, and very much in her heart, during all the latter portion of her life; for the papers extended over a period of twenty years.r />
  Whilst most of her other books were being written, Johnny Ludlow was constantly going on, and month after month some fresh story was being woven of which he was the hero and centre. The stories came to her without the slightest effort, and it gave her the greatest pleasure to write them. Had she lived for another twenty years, Johnny Ludlow could never have quite ceased, though perhaps only appearing at longer intervals. For he had become part of her life; a reality; endowed with existence; and she could no more have placed finis at the end of any one paper than she could have signed the death-warrant of a personal friend. Altogether she must have written considerably over a hundred Johnny Ludlow papers, reckoning each monthly part as a story; and every separate part had its own special plot or drama. But the stories were of various lengths; some completing themselves in one number, others passing into two, three, or even more numbers. The two longest were the two last: Featherstone’s Story, that tragedy at the Maison Rouge, so much of which is actual fact; and The Silent Chimes.

  It is true that towards the end, when so many stories had appeared, and Johnny Ludlow had gone through a multiplicity of experiences, she found it more difficult to invent plots and situations, and to keep up the air of realism which had to be preserved. The same thread had to be visible in all; Johnny Ludlow himself must always be in evidence. Nevertheless that fertile imagination, that, as Francis Ainsworth had remarked years before, was an inexhaustible well whose waters grew sweeter the more you drew from it, would certainly never have ceased weaving plots and dramas, comedies and tragedies, of which Johnny Ludlow held the key. The ease with which they were written must have added to the author’s enjoyment, as it does to the reader’s.

  When Mrs. Wood first began to write Johnny Ludlow, she had no idea to what dimensions the work would grow. The first stories, originally designed as short papers for the Argosy, immediately became so popular that there was no resource but to go on with them. This was no trouble, but a great delight, which only increased as Johnny Ludlow and all his surroundings gradually took form and existence. Presently the author found herself in the midst of a crowd of early friends, scenes, and recollections arising as it were from a long-closed cavern of memory. Voices long silent awoke, faces long unseen revived; many a lost echo, many a village street and country lane must have once more haunted her in these Johnny Ludlow days.

  To prove the truth and reality of these memories, and their effect upon others, we cannot forbear quoting from an article which appeared a little time ago upon Mrs. Henry Wood as the writer of Johnny Ludlow.

  It is so exact a picture of Worcester and Worcestershire, the tone is so earnest, its quiet testimony so thorough, that it deserves a less ephemeral record than the pages of a magazine. The unknown author had evidently studied her subject carefully and conscientiously, and drawn her conclusions amidst the very places and influences, the very same condition of people described in the stories. of this article, “an American author said that her greatest pleasure lay not in the associations of celebrated persons and events in real life, but in the connection of the characters and incidents of her favourite author with the places and scenes she visited.

  “Something of this feeling is, no doubt, experienced by most imaginative and impressionable persons in a neighbourhood or town endeared to them as the scene of favourite books. It would be a great advantage in many ways if every novelist of note would, in his writings, ‘work up’ the county or town with which he is most familiar. What an interesting and valuable picture of the varied phases of life, of which our little island is the scene, would be presented to a reader if there were a novelist to do for every county what Mrs. Henry Wood has done for Worcestershire!

  “Whilst the latter has not confined herself exclusively to the one county in her writings, many of her books were all localised in the Faithful City or its shire.

  “There are few towns in England which can surpass Worcester for historic and antiquarian interests; but as I drive down the Tything, and the Cross, and along dear old High Street, on my occasional visits, for me the celebrities of real life have a very hazy existence; but I always feel that Squire Todhetley, accompanied by Tod and Johnny, is driving Bob and Blister in front of me, and if I put up at the ‘Star and Garter’ I shall surely see them. When the college boys come clattering through the Close at dinner-time, and tear off to their respective homes, I can see the young Channings and Yorkes, the Halliburtons and Sankers amongst them, and I always look out specially for dear Stephen Bywater. Many a time I have had lunch at the confectioner’s in High Street from which Toby Sanker used to buy the penny pork pies for the improvised dinners of that ill-regulated household.

  “I often walk round the Close, trying to fix on the Channings’ house, and, in fancy, hear Roland Yorke’s tremendous peals on the bell. Here is the scene of the tragedy with which the book bearing his name opens; and I never stand at the wall to the west of the beautiful Cathedral, below which the river winds its lovely course, without thinking of the mischievous college boys mounted thereon, throwing poor old Ketch’s keys into the swift-flowing water. The sight of a barge floating along brings to mind poor Charley Channing and his misadventure — a true incident, which we believe really occurred many years ago in the city.

  “One might continue such recollections indefinitely, so completely is the whole city incorporated with one or other of Mrs. Henry Wood’s tales; but I wish specially to refer here to the charge occasionally brought against her of improbability in her plots and incidents, a charge which, in my opinion, is utterly unfounded.

  “In general, all elderly persons, at all events, must have learned, by life’s experience, that truth is stranger than fiction, and that it would be almost impossible for a novelist to invent more improbable things than the happenings of real life; and in particular, I have it on excellent authority, that our authoress had a most remarkable experience of life and people, and never invented a single plot that had not in it a substratum of truth: truth and fiction being cunningly blended together; as it is in the works of all our greatest novelists, from Scott downwards. And often it will be found that the most improbable incidents are those drawn, not from imagination but from fact. Though quite unacquainted with Mrs. Henry Wood, and only coming to reside in her county after her death, I have myself met with several exactly parallel cases to some of her incidents.

  “The tales which fill the several volumes of the Johnny Ludlow series are made up of very simple material; the charm and fascination which they have for their thousands of readers being in the manner of writing, and the accurate pictures of country life and people which they present — pictures as true and distinct as photographs, and which every one feels must have been drawn direct from nature.

  “Some great man has said that every person’s life is worth writing, and would be interesting if written well; and certainly every small town with the adjacent country can furnish abundant material for such a work as Johnny Ludlow, if only it numbered amongst its inhabitants a literary ‘witch’ who, like Mrs. Henry Wood, would ‘make these dry bones live’ by the mere force of her genius. But these ‘witches’ are only born once in a century.

  “But interesting as her pictures of Worcester are, it is in her delineation of the rural life of the county that one who has lived there can appreciate best Mrs. Henry Wood’s thorough acquaintance with her subject, and her power of presenting it to others. She has been charged with ‘unnaturalness’ in the language and speech of her country-folk; I have heard people say that they were sure that no such dialect could be found in England, and I confess that until I lived amongst them I was also doubtful.

  “But a few months’ acquaintance with the uncouth dialect, and curious, grating accent peculiar to this county, convinced me that on this point, more, perhaps, than on any other, Mrs. Henry Wood distinctly knew her work. In real life, as in her novels, these people seem to try how awkwardly they can word their sentences, and how often they can substitute the objective or possessive case for the nominativ
e, and vice versa; and how narrow a limit they can put to their verb conjugations. A man will say, ‘Now, Tom, let we have us dinners.’ Be is generally used for am and are, and have for has, while for have proper we hear haves. —

  “The scenes of a great portion of Johnny Ludlow’s tales are laid in that part of the county which lies between the city and the Lickey Hills, the Severn and the county boundary; Crabb Cot lying just on the dividing line of Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

  “In this area we find some of the prettiest villages, quaintest little towns, and most unspoiled phases of country life that the midland counties can offer. More charming villages than Clent, Hagley, or Ombersley (the scene of Bill Whitney’s hunting accident), it would be hard to find; and wandering on a bright summer’s morning down the little streets, past their quiet churches and pretty creeper-covered houses and cottages, one feels that one has indeed alighted on the originals of the lovely village which figures under so many different names in the books under discussion.

  “Worcestershire is remarkable for the number and variety of its country seats and beautiful half-timbered houses.

  “It is impossible to go far in any direction without meeting with some of the former, of which we find specimens of every description and grade, from the stately old castle and its modern imitation, to the rambling Tudor or Jacobean farmhouse of the well-to-do yeomen, a class of people of sterling worth, well represented in this county, and for whom Mrs. Wood seems to have entertained much respect, recognising and delineating them as the keystone of agricultural prosperity.

  We meet with them again and again in her books; the family of Coney in Johnny Ludlow being an excellent example. It is with such families that I am best acquainted; and in exactly such a farmhouse as she has often depicted (that in Dene Hollow, for instance) I am writing these lines.

  “This class is frequently the equal of the less wealthy portion of the landed gentry in education, breeding, manner of life, and wealth (in this respect, indeed, they often have the advantage), the difference being that they rent instead of own their land, and generally their houses too. The homesteads are handed down from generation to generation, in some cases for hundreds of years, and they are as dear to the occupants as if they were their own possessions.