Читать книгу Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles) - Katherine Mansfield - Страница 9

“The morn dawned bright, the sun was high,

The Duke, went out his hawks to try,

Well trained, he judged, I ween:

The rook was circling high in air,

His new-fledged pinions to prepare,

No danger there was seen.

“The hood was cast, the bird up flew,

He missed the prey that was in view,

And pounded on the rock;

With broken wing he fell to ground,

The village boys were playing round,

And pity on him took.

“Pity, first germ of generous thought,

Young nature’s impulse felt untaught,

Thy kindly spark I prize;

Prospective virtue, noble mind,

Justice, mercy, love of kind,

All that adorns the wise …” (etc.)

John Beauchamp’s wife, Anne Stone (greatgrandmother of Katherine Mansfield), was one of six sisters known as “The Six Precious Stones.” Anne was a beautiful girl — one of the fadeless ones— “looking more beautiful than ever” as she grew older. She and a younger sister, Harriet Honour, who married C. R. Leslie, the artist, were so alike that it was difficult to tell whether the Royal Academician had painted his latest picture from his wife,”Harry,” or his sister-in-law, Anne.

Both women wore — under their huge poke bonnets — a deceptive look of gentle obedience (being “good wives” in the particular fashion of the period); but though the eyes were dark and dreamy, wide-set under broad brows, the mouth, full-lipped and bow-shaped, was yet very firm. And there was something more — a bit of the fay — in their look; probably from that slight, unexpected flare of nostrils of a longish, well-cut nose; or perhaps from the way the head was set to the shoulders. It is the face that appears in most of Leslie’s better pictures, for “Harry” became his “Stunner” when she became his wife. When Anne Beauchamp sat for him (for instance as “The Widow Wadman,” one of his most popular tableau portraits), she appeared so like her sister as to be but a variation of the feminine type he was making so popular among his contemporaries.

Both women were more intellectual companions to their husbands than was usual in their era. Mrs. Beauchamp shared her husband’s enjoyment of poetry; Mrs. Leslie supported hers in his heroworship of contemporary artists of whom (with his “well-intended reticence”) he preserved in his Memoirs”only the good.” It is significant that John Constable, R.A., who knew them so well, should have written to Leslie:”You are always right and if not, you and Mrs. Leslie together are never failing.” If Anne Beauchamp’s relation to her husband was slightly different, in this particular respect, it must not be forgotten that she had married a “Pa Man.”

The Leslies were a part of the artistic coterie living in St. John’s Wood, safely removed — like the Constables in Well Walk, Hampstead, and the Beauchamps in Hornsey Lane, Highgate — from the “unhealthy humours” of “the slimy marshes of Chelsea and Paddington and St. Pancras.” Though the trip between any two of these was “so much expense” (in a fly), and to have “safely made the journey” sufficient cause for a letter of congratula- tion, the families were close-knit in the bond of children of the same age, and exchanged frequent visits.

John Constable had met the Beauchamps through Leslie, and his two boys were thrilled by the Holborn workshop.

“I went with my boys to Mr. Beauchamp’s last evng.” (Constable wrote to Leslie on January 20th, 1833)”their delight was great — not only at the very great kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp and the boys, but at the sight of almost all that was to their heart’s content — forges — smelting potts — metals — straps — and bellows — coals ashes dust — dirt — cinders — and everything else that is agreeable to boys.

“They want me to build them just such a place under my painting room — and had I not better do so — and give up landscape painting. Poor Mrs. Beauchamp was suffering with toothache — but her politeness made her assure me that I succeeded in ‘taking it off’.”

And on another day:

“John” (who was age eight)”set off alone to Holborn yesterday. Master Beauchamp has engaged him to ‘mind his carronade’ — which he did very nicely.”

From these artistic circles — rather than from the Highgate Grammar School — Arthur Beauchamp probably derived those advantages in culture which, in colonial life later, placed him beside men of good birth and background. John Constable was not the only eminent acquaintance of Arthur’s uncle, Leslie, for he frankly admitted the pleasure he found in “consorting with his superiors.” Turner was an associate of his; Edwin Landseer, the dark curly- headed”boy dog” was in the Academy when Leslie, in his first years over from America, was studying on a Philadelphia grant. Washington Irving was an intimate family friend. Leslie, despite his weakness for men of eminence, lived in closely-knit family ties; and Arthur’s associations with the St. John’s Wood family began very early.

In July, 1830, when his mother was posing for “The Widow Wadman,” Arthur (the sixth of nine sons) was three years old. Since he was the youngest Beauchamp at the time, it is probable that he was taken with her to the St. John’s Wood studio, opening off a garden, from which his handsome young uncle “picked a honeysuckle or a rose” daily before breakfast for the glass “on the mantelshelf of his painting room,” hung, not with his own compositions, but with his copies of the masters. The oldest cousin, Robert Leslie, was four at the time; the boys were of an age to have begun the habit of intimacy, amusing each other while the artist (“keeping up a kind of whistling”) posed his sister-in-law, Anne Beauchamp, as the too refined captivator of Uncle Toby.