Tennyson's Gift (35 page)

Mrs Cameron, meanwhile, decided that the phrenological route to perfect abstract expressions was not the only one, and to generate the right demeanour for her picture ‘Despair' she simply locked the sitter in a cupboard.

JESSIE FOWLER
became a famous phrenologist in her own right. She continued to help her parents in their lifetimes, and then pressed on alone, back in New York, writing widely on such arcane matters as ‘The Psychology of Arkansas'. She became an expert on child psychology. She never married.

Meanwhile, Lorenzo – that ‘prince of mental scientists' – lived to his eighties. Despite a stroke three years earlier, he accepted a model skull at the Phrenological Centenary in Queen's Hall, during a programme which included music from the Aeolian Ladies Orchestra, and a blindfold examination by Jessie. Back in Boston, Orson Fowler continued to hoe a lonely row, and was publicly reviled for such publications as
Private Lectures on Perfect Men, Women and Children, in Happy Families,
which included chapters on ‘Just How Love-Making Should be Conducted' and ‘Male and Female Electricity'. His
Sexual Science
at the Boston Public Library today has the obscure shelf-mark ‘Inferno', and cannot be traced. Presumably, it was burned.

THE MARRIAGE
of Ellen Terry and G. F. Watts did not survive many months. Ellen returned to her family home, where she received many visits from C. L. Dodgson. In the divorce proceedings, some years later, a difference of temperament was mentioned. In her chirpy memoirs, however, Ellen suggests that ‘a difference of occupation' would have been nearer the mark. Bumping into Watts one day in a street in Brighton, she records, ‘He told me I had grown!' Outside a jeweller's shop in Bond Street, she once saw Tennyson in his carriage. ‘How very nice you look in daytime!' he remarked. ‘Not like an actress.'

ALFRED TENNYSON
sat for umpteen portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron. She took over 1,200 images in all, and is rightly regarded as a great pioneer photographer. In terms of exposure and aesthetic composition, her solemn big-head pictures are unparalleled.

Dimbola Lodge still stands, with its view of the sea intact, and is currently under renovation as a museum. Of her portraits of Tennyson, the poet's favourite showed a profile, in which the full glory of his unwashed neck is visible for the world to gaze on in perpetuity. He named it ‘The Dirty Monk', and once wrote beneath it a characteristic imprimatur, ‘This I like best of all my portraits, except one by Mayall.'

FARRINGFORD
also still stands, as a hotel, with a pitch-and-putt on the lawn and croquet mallets in the hall. On Saturday nights is held a dinner-dance, to be avoided at all costs. Through some meteorological mishap, the Garibaldi tree is a gaunt bare trunk, but it is still sturdy and very tall, and pierces the horizon like a needle. Until recently, Alfred's study was reached by way of an entertaining sign in Gothic script, ‘Tennyson's Library and Colour Television'. The base of his spiral staircase was blocked by a fruit machine.

MARY RYAN,
though not a natural actress, appeared in photographs after this time, and made an amazingly good marriage as a result. Henry Cotton spotted her in Mrs Cameron's ‘Prospero and Miranda' at the Colnaghi Gallery, and fell in love. They were married in 1867. Henry Cotton was later knighted. Mrs Cameron celebrated their love by posing them, rather thoughtlessly, as King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid.

ENOCH ARDEN
sold extremely well, as did
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
One of these works has survived rather better than the other in the national memory, but no simple moral is to be deduced from this. A late flurry of bad feeling between Dodgson and Tennyson took place in 1870, when Dodgson applied to the poet – with extreme niceness – for his permission to read a bootlegged copy of a poem called ‘The Window'.

This is an extract from the whole letter. A shorter reply came from Emily Tennyson.

Dodgson insisted on an apology, but did not receive one. The friendship was at an end.

DAISY
(Margaret Louisa) grew up to be a prolific novelist. She became Mrs Woods, and was seen by Dodgson in 1833, acting Jessica in
The Merchant of Venice.
Her father, the Dean of Westminster, officiated at Tennyson's funeral in Westminster Abbey in 1892.

WATTS
was commissioned to sculpt a statue of Tennyson after his death, and it stands in the Close at Lincoln Cathedral. It shows a stooped figure with a big dog, looking down at his open hand with a puzzled expression. It is known to locals as ‘The Disappointed Cabbie'.

After his separation from Ellen Terry, Watts continued to paint excellent portraits and bad walls, still perversely preferring the latter. In the 1870s he bought a house of his own at Freshwater, which presumably surprised everyone. His second marriage was to another energetic woman, who built him a stunning Arts and Crafts chapel at Compton in Surrey. Mrs Cameron took a photograph of the second Mrs Watts with her sisters, all in their shifts. As if to make up for the
Maud
reference hidden in ‘Choosing', the subject for the photograph was ‘The Rosebud Garden of Girls'.

Despite his general good luck, Watts's most famous statement remains ‘Often I sit among the ruins of my aspirations, watching the tide of time', and photographs show a man who appears to have had his backbone removed. He is due a revival, however, especially since he missed out so badly by not joining the Pre-Raphaelites (who didn't want him). On hearing that Watts was about to tackle the walls of a country house, William Morris is supposed to have commented, ‘A coat of whitewash would soon set that right.'

In 1875,
THE CAMERONS
departed from Freshwater Bay. Mr Cameron announced a desire to see his estates in Ceylon, possibly to check that Julia had not given them away. Mrs Cameron died in Ceylon in 1879, looking at a sunset from her deathbed. Her last word was ‘beautiful'.

Mr Cameron, twenty years her senior, miraculously survived her. Surrounded by his sons as he lay dying, he declared himself happier than Priam. A minister, waiting outside, sent in a message, offering to read the Bible to him. Mr Cameron considered the proposal. His last words therefore were, ‘If you think it would be any comfort to him, let him come in.'

LYNNE TRUSS
is one of Britain's best-loved comic writers and is the author of the worldwide bestsellers
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
and
Talk to the Hand.
Her most recent book is
Get Her Off the Pitch!
She reviews for the
Sunday Times
and writes regularly for radio.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

From the reviews of
Tennyson's Gift:

‘A comic novel of subtle distinction … A richly entertaining book, and at times a very moving one'

The Times

‘An enormously entertaining novel, with some terrific writing throughout … a fast-moving farce which allows her sideswipes at the foibles of the famous. It is a delicious confection with some marvellous one-liners'

Sunday Telegraph

‘[A] wonderfully inventive
jeu d'esprit
… This epic of the Isle of Wight's literary apogee is virtually the perfect summer book. No deck-chair will be complete without it'

Independent

‘A rollicking read. It is mischievous, light-hearted and fun, and it certainly made me want to find out more about the Freshwater circle'

Literary Review

With One Lousy Free Packet of Seedr
Making the Cat Laugh:
One Woman's Journal of Single Life on the Margins
Tennyson's Gift Going Loco Tennyson and His Circle
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation
Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life
(or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door)
A Certain Age: Twelve Monologues from the Classic Radio Series
Get Her Off the Pitch: How Sport Took Over My Life

FOR CHILDREN

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference
The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without
Apostrophes!
Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts!

Celebrities seem to come like misfortunes —
it never rains but it pours.
LEWIS CARROLL,
Diaries,
October 1863

There is a terrible truthfulness about
photography that sometimes
makes a thing ridiculous.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

The action takes place at Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, in the last week of July 1864