How Do I Love Thee? (48 page)
Read How Do I Love Thee? Online
Authors: Nancy Moser
Tags: #Fiction, #Christian, #General, #Religious, #ebook, #book
• They married and went back to their parents’ homes that same day . . . how horrible. The delayed longing. Then the next morning her family commented on the St. Marylebone Church bells ringing. A novelist’s ploy? Nope. It really happened.
• Ba’s family packed up to move at the same time she needed to pack to run away with Robert. Talk about perfect timing. Also, this is one of those moments when we can see God providing a nudge to get us out of our indecisiveness. If Papa hadn’t ordered the move to get the house cleaned (which was odd after living in the house for decades), Ba and Robert wouldn’t have been forced to
just do it
!
• When I first started writing the book, I was concerned about what to do regarding Elizabeth’s epic poems. I’d read some of them and found them very, very hard to read, much less fathom. When I learned that most nonliterary sorts were only familiar with her love sonnets, I was relieved, for in those sonnets were the words that touched me—they were the story. How ironic that with the depth of her knowledge and expertise in the classics and Greek, the work that has lived on for over 150 years did not come from her head knowledge but from the spillings of her heart.
• And finally, the ending . . . this was my biggest “You’re kidding!” moment. When I found out Ba wrote the sonnets privately and only showed them to Robert years later, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she gave them to him at a time in his life when he desperately needed to know how much she loved him.” Shortly after, I found out that’s exactly what happened! His mother died, he was deep in mourning, and she gave him the sonnets. The fact that Robert pulled her from the edge of death with his love and she did the same for him is beyond romantic perfection.
I found much common ground with Elizabeth—a woman with whom I would have thought I shared little. Yet her family loyalty, her work ethic, her health concerns, her quest for knowledge, her desire to avoid confrontation, her longing for praise, her self-doubt, her inner strength, and her utter joy when life gave her more than she ever imagined . . . can’t we all find parallel threads that traverse these emotions?
And now, for the pièce de résistance. It comes down to this: If Elizabeth had not mentioned Robert’s
Pomegranate
work in her “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” poem (which she only finished to make two volumes of her work be of equal length, writing nineteen pages in one day), if Cousin John had not sent a copy to Robert’s sister, if Robert had not read that story, if he had not written her a fan letter, if she had not written back,
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
would not exist.
Nor would this book.
God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. . . .
Nancy Moser
Fact or Fiction in
How Do I Love Thee?
Chapter 1
- The name of the Barrett home—Hope End—is actually not as menacing as it sounds. “Hope end” means “closed valley.” Papa bought it when Ba was three, for £24,000. It consisted of 475 acres near Ledbury. Papa had the huge home rebuilt in a Turkish style, complete with minarets. People came to gawk at it. It was very isolated, which distressed Ba’s mother but probably fed her father’s motives very well.
- Torquay and the surrounding area are often called the English Riviera because of the beaches and mild climate.
- The “company side of the bed” is Ba’s phrase. I love it.
- Balzac’s book
Le Père Goriot
, which Ba is reading, is about a father who gives everything to his selfish daughters. The father’s last words are: “Don’t let your daughters marry if you love them.” Ba found it “a very painful book.” The comparisons to her own father are obvious. She thought about this book a lot. . . . - Dr. Barry died of rheumatic fever at the end of October 1839.
- Little is known about Bro’s romance. It was mentioned after the fact
in a letter from Ba to her brother George, indicating that she had
wanted to give Bro money so he could marry. - No one knows why Ba’s mother, Mary Barrett, died on October 7,
1828. After having her twelfth child the previous year, she had been well but for some rheumatoid arthritis. She had gone on a trip to Cheltenham and was a bit ill, but was doing fine enough for her son
Sam to attend balls. Then suddenly, she was dead. A heart attack is one theory. - The descriptions of Ba’s room at No. 1 Beacon Street—“In the sea” and “from my sofa”—are hers. The apartment is still there, in the
middle of town. It looks out on the harbor and is sheltered by the steep rise of Beacon Hill behind it. It is now the Hotel Regina. - The scene leading up to Bro’s accident . . . It is not known what Ba
and Bro argued about the last time they were together, only that they
parted with “a pettish word.” Considering that Lady Flora died on July 5 and Ba was obsessed with the gossip about it, and Bro’s accident was on July 11, it seems possible that his boredom and his penchant for being reckless might have led him to act rashly. This is my supposition,
but it seems to make sense connecting the two events.
Chapter 2
- I do not know where the name Flush came from. My description in
this chapter is a guess. - As for the description of Ba’s bedroom on Wimpole Street: It was on the top floor at the back of the house, faced southwest, overlooked “star-raking chimneys,” had a window box, overgrown ivy, a painted shade, bookshelves, an armoire, a dresser, a table for her writing (and the table with a railing Cousin John had made for her), as well as a sofa she often used as a bed. And yet, I also found hints of a real bed, so I put in both a sofa and a bed. Pretty crowded, yet she often had all her family visit. I assume it had a fireplace. I read that Arabel slept in Ba’s room, but I couldn’t figure out how that would work, so I chose not to mention it.
- Papa took a 24-year lease on Wimpole Street. That’s hard to imagine,
but he was obviously hunkering down—and was confident his children
would remain in the family home forever. - I have assumed 50 Wimpole Street was a standard London row home; it would have the kitchen in the basement and perhaps a delivery entrance there. The ground floor (the street level) would have a dining room, the first floor (the second floor to Americans) would contain the drawing room, with the bedrooms above that. There would probably not be any running water. Metal pipes did not come into existence in London until after the 1840s. Even then the water system was run by private companies that only turned the water on for a few hours a day until 1871.
- Wimpole Street has many claims to fame. The Barrett home at 50
Wimpole Street is now a hospital run by Britain’s National Health Service. Paul McCartney, of Beatles fame, moved into the attic rooms of 57 Wimpole Street, which was opposite the Barrett residence. It was actually the family home of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Jane Asher, and was where he stayed for almost three years. While living there, Paul, with John Lennon, wrote many of the Beatles’ most famous songs, including their first American number one hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which was written in the basement. “Yesterday” was also apparently written there on the family piano. In Jane Austen’s
Mansfield Park
, Mr. Rushworth takes a house on Wimpole Street after his marriage. Professor Henry Higgins lived at 27A Wimpole Street in George Bernard Shaw’s
Pygmalion
. - There are two movies made about the Barretts:
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
(1957) starring Jennifer Jones and John Gielgud, and an earlier 1934 version starring Norma Shearer and Charles Laughton. Jennifer Jones dedicated a plaque at 50 Wimpole Street, and a figure of the actress as Elizabeth was unveiled at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. - You may be familiar with the famous “Pinkie” painting by Thomas
Lawrence, a 1794 painting of a young girl in white with a pink bonnet
and sash. This was Papa’s sister, Sarah, when she was eleven. It was painted before she and her brothers left Jamaica to finish their schooling in England. She died a year later of TB. Papa owned this
painting, but I don’t know if it was displayed in the Wimpole Street
house. - The gossip I mention in this book is real. Isolated from the world at
large, Ba loved her gossip.
Chapter 3
- Their nicknames: Ba was for baby, Bro for brother. Arabella was
called Arabel, and Henrietta was often Addles. Charles was Stormie, Octavius and Septimus were Occy and Sette. Alfred was nicknamed Daisy as a boy. No one knows why. I’m not sure if they called him
that as an adult, but it seemed such a silly name that I decided to let Alfred just be Alfred. Daisy for a grown man? I couldn’t do it. - Papa’s childhood: Edward Barrett’s indulgent mother did him no
favors. He was permitted to live in a dream world of his own. He never had to discipline himself by academic studies or learn how to get along with other people. He never had to assume many responsibilities
and so became willful, isolated, and insensitive. Papa inherited money from his grandfather, and £30,000 from an uncle—a huge amount. But then . . . in 1831-32 everything fell apart when there was a slave rebellion in Jamaica and much of the Barrett plantation was destroyed. Papa went from being landed gentry to having to work. Money and an overindulgent mother explain a lot.
Chapter 4
- Her name: Virtually no one called her Elizabeth. She signed her letters
to nonfamily members E.B.B., and family and friends called her Ba.
Chapter 5
- Lord Bulwer-Lytton was a popular writer of his day. Some famous
phrases of his are “the great unwashed,” “pursuit of the almighty dollar,”
“the pen is mightier than the sword,” and “It was a dark and stormy
night.” Despite his popularity then, today his name is a byword for
bad writing. San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction
Contest for bad writing is named after him. - Actually, Flush was stolen (this, the first of two times) near their home
while Crow was walking him alone on Mortimer Street. - The guinea did not exist as an actual coin, but prices were still quoted
in guineas (got that?). The guinea was a nonexistent denomination worth twenty-one shillings (or one shilling more than a pound). A servant had all living expenses taken care of but earned as little as ten pounds a year. You were considered to be middle class if you had at least one servant. Some vicars earned as little as forty or fifty pounds a year. So five guineas equaled approximately five pounds, which was
10 percent of a vicar’s yearly wage! All to ransom a dog.
Chapter 6
- Sette’s nearly mortal wound from fencing actually happened in
November 1842, but for the story’s sake, I placed it in 1844. - Although Anna Jameson did not have her portrait in Horne’s
A New Spirit of the Age
, I fudged to further the story of her meeting with Ba. - Henry Horne’s book
A New Spirit of the Age
bombed. He’d chosen the wrong literary figures and was offensive in his criticism. He got in trouble for not including statesmen, artists, and scientists too. He’d planned to write other volumes encompassing those areas of expertise, but when this book failed, he wisely decided not to. He ran off
to Germany instead.
Chapter 7
- Ba’s book dedication was very flowery. Papa ate it up. It proved to him that she was dependent, was contrite for her flaws, and loved him to the point where he knew he had no rival. With Bro dead, he
was
her everything. For a while . . .
Chapter 8
- Mary Mitford rides a train to London. Ba can’t imagine riding in one.
With good cause. In 1845 there were no toilets on trains (not until 1892), no dining cars (1879), no lighting. Yet being able to travel 20 miles per hour was worth the limitations. Originally there were only two classes, first and second, second meaning you traveled in open cars! Ba would
not
have fared well under such conditions.
Chapter 9
- Le Rouge et le Noir—The Red and the Black—
the novel by Stendhal that Ba read . . . Stendhal was considered the father of the psychological novel.
Up until this time novelists used dialogue and omniscient narrative.They didn’t linger in the heads and hearts of the characters. Ba read this book in its original French. - Regarding the letters that are quoted in this book: Robert and Ba agreed not to edit their letters, so they were sent to each other as is. I, however, did edit them, as they often were a little stream-ofconsciousness in tone, as one thought led to another, and another. I also changed the punctuation to be more easily readable. But the letters in this book
are
based on real letters. I did not change their essence. - Robert noted the times and dates of his visits with Ba on the back of
the envelopes from their letters. - Surtees Cook and Henrietta were cousins. They shared the same
great-grandfather, Roger Altham, whose daughter married John Graham-Clarke, Henrietta’s mother’s father. My advice? Don’t even try to get this straight.