Thomas Hardy (13 page)

In the novel, Clym finally finds ‘his vocation in the career of an itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects’. In fact, the word preacher is misleading, for it was said of him that: ‘He left alone creeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions common to all good men.’ Here, Hardy gives an intimation of his own disenchantment with the Christian faith.

By early 1878, Hardy had reluctantly come to the conclusion that in order to succeed as a writer, it was necessary for him to live in, or near, London. For this reason, on 22 March of that year the couple relocated to the capital. On 4 November
The Return of the Native
was published by Smith, Elder & Co.

Now lodging with Emma in Upper Tooting, London, Hardy immersed himself once more in the life and culture of the capital. He was elected to the Rabelais Club (which held literary dinners every two months), and also to the exclusive Savile Club for gentlemen. Time was spent at the Grosvenor Gallery studying and admiring sculptures and paintings. He also witnessed the final performance of actor Henry Irving, in a scene from Shakespeare’s
Richard II
at the Lyceum Theatre. Hardy’s love of the theatre may have had its origins in the strolling players whom he saw in and around Dorchester when he was a boy.

Needless to say, Hardy kept in touch with his native Dorset, where, in August and September of 1878, he renewed his acquaintance with poet William Barnes, and with Charles W. Moule, brother of the late Horace.

In August 1879 Hardy and Emma visited Hardy’s parents at Bockhampton. They also stayed for a time in Weymouth, where Hardy’s mother visited them and accompanied them on a drive to Portland.

Hardy was now moving in the upper echelons of London society, where among the people he met were Sir Percy Shelley, son of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; poet, educationalist and writer Matthew Arnold; poet Robert Browning; Poet Laureate Lord Tennyson (who said that of Hardy’s novels he liked
A Pair of Blue Eyes
best); novelist and cartoonist George du Maurier; and painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. He also attended the Epsom races for Derby Day.

Ever since his boyhood, when he had discovered a magazine on the subject at his home in Bockhampton, Hardy had been fascinated by the Napoleonic Wars. He would also have been aware that his grandfather, Thomas I, as a volunteer militiaman, had travelled with his regiment to Weymouth to prepare for the threatened invasion by Emperor Napoleon I of France.

Four years previously, in June 1875 (the 18th of that month being Waterloo Day, commemorating the Duke of Wellington’s victory in 1815 over Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo), Hardy and Emma had visited Chelsea Hospital and heard real-life accounts of the battle – from men who had fought in it. On another excursion to the Continent with Emma, in 1876, he had visited Waterloo and explored the battlefield. And, of course, nearer to home, he would often have seen the local ‘redcoats’ – based at their barracks in Dorchester – exercising their horses on the downs.

Hardy availed himself of any opportunity to immerse himself in matters Napoleonic, as when he attended the funeral of the exiled Prince Louis Napoleon (only son of Emperor Napoleon III), who had been killed, paradoxically, while fighting for Britain in the Zulu War. The prince’s body was duly brought back to England for burial at Chislehurst in Kent. It therefore seemed inevitable that Hardy would write a novel set during this period of history, and with this in mind he visited the British Museum and also read C. H. Gifford’s
History of the Napoleonic Wars
in order to acquaint himself with the full facts. Relevant information was also to be found in parish records and from inscriptions on local tombstones.

The Trumpet Major
is set in those anxious times when an invasion of England by the forces of Napoleon seemed imminent. The story is about two brothers: John Loveday (the Trumpet Major) and Robert, a sailor. Sons of the miller, the brothers are rivals for the hand of village beauty Anne Garland. Anne vacillates as to which one she really loves, and finally, it is the less deserving Robert whom she chooses. Meanwhile, John, reliable and self-sacrificing, sails under Admiral Lord Nelson and Captain Hardy (Thomas Hardy’s alleged ancestor) in the warship
Victory
, only to meet his death in Spain in the Peninsular War.

Included in the story is the visit of King George III to Weymouth amidst a fanfare provided by the ‘quire’ of fiddlers, violoncellists, trombonists and drummers. There is also mention of the local Dorchester ‘strong beer’ – a subject always close to Hardy’s heart which he describes thus: ‘It was of the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in body, yet brisk as a volcano: piquant, yet without a twang; luminous as an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but finally, rather heady.’
¹

On 11 February 1880 Hardy wrote to the Revd Handley Moule – at that time Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (who was another of the brothers of his late friend Horace) – concerning the recent death of his father, the Revd Henry Moule, vicar of Fordington. Hardy, for many years, had regarded himself as a parishioner of Henry Moule (even though, technically speaking, this was not the case), and had referred admiringly to the ‘energies’ which the vicar had brought ‘to bear upon the village’. Here, Hardy would have especially remembered the Revd Moule’s heroic efforts on behalf of the local population during the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854.

Hardy stated that of all his novels,
The Trumpet Major
was the one ‘founded more largely on testimony, oral and written, than any other’. It was published by Smith, Elder & Co. on 26 October 1880.

In November 1880, on a visit to Cambridge, Hardy attended the 5 p.m. service at Kings College Chapel. It was in Cambridge that he fell ill. On his return to London a surgeon was summoned to determine why Hardy was experiencing acute abdominal pain. The diagnosis was internal bleeding. By now, Hardy had already written the early chapters of his next novel,
A Laodicean
, to be serialised in
Harper’s Magazine
with illustrations by George du Maurier. He was now, on account of his illness, ‘forced to lie in bed with his feet higher than his head for several months’.
²
For this reason, the only way he could complete his manuscript was by dictating it to Emma, who nursed him through this episode. The process of dictation was completed on 1 May 1881, by which time Hardy was able to leave his sickbed and venture outdoors once again.

Due to Hardy’s illness, he and Emma had been obliged to ask for an extension to the lease of their house in Upper Tooting. Having previously been torn between London and Dorset, they now decided to return to the country. In future, they would visit the capital for a few months only each year. A return to Dorset, they hoped, would not only be beneficial to Hardy’s health, but would also provide inspiration for him in his future writing. Accordingly, they relocated to Wimborne, to a house named ‘Llanherne’.

In retrospect, it seems likely that Hardy had suffered a prolonged attack of biliary colic, a condition in which a small concretion (‘stone’) becomes temporarily lodged in the duct which drains bile from the liver into the gut. This would account for his jaundice, as observed by Edmund Gosse, who visited him at the time.
³
(Renal colic, also caused by a stone, is another possibility. However, this might well have manifested itself by haematuria (blood in the urine) or by Hardy actually passing the stone, of which there is no mention.)

In July 1881 Hardy and Emma, in company with Hardy’s younger sister Katharine, visited the ancient British stronghold of Badbury Rings, and also Kingston Lacy (seat of the Bankes family). Hardy pointed out Charborough on the journey (the home of Mrs Drax), in the grounds of which stood a tall tower – which subsequently reappeared in one of Hardy’s novels, as will be seen.
⁴
In August the couple travelled extensively in Scotland where they visited castles and lochs, and Hardy sketched. On their return they attended a ball given by Lady Wimborne at Canford Manor.

Hardy undoubtedly derived the title of his next novel,
A Laodicean
, from the Biblical book of Revelation, where the phrase ‘lukewarm in religion, like the Christians of Laodicea’ is to be found.
⁵
These words apply equally well to the heroine of the story, Paula Power.

Paula’s father purchases Castle de Stancy from the ancient de Stancy family, but he permits one of the members of that family, Charlotte, who is now penniless, to continue to live there as a friend for Paula. The hero is George Somerset, an architect, music lover and poet. Other characters include Captain William de Stancy, Charlotte’s brother, who hopes to marry Paula and thereby reclaim the ancestral home;William Dare, de Stancy’s illegitimate son; and James Havill, also an architect, who competes with Somerset in drawing up plans for the restoration of the castle.

Paula adores the ‘romantic and historical’, considers the castle to be wonderful, and even wishes that she was one of the ancient de Stancy family who had built it all those years ago. But whereas de Stancy can offer Paula a pedigree and a title to go with it, Somerset, who is also a suitor of Paula, reminds her that there is another nobility, one of ‘talent and enterprise’, and he cites such creative geniuses from the past as Archimedes, Newcomen, Watt, Telford and Stephenson. In fact, Paula’s father is himself an engineer and builder of railways. Finally, it is Somerset who wins the day, and he and Paula become man and wife.

A favourite device which Hardy used in his novels was that of two men each vying for the hand of the same woman. This was a legacy from the time when he was courting Emma; for when he first met her at St Juliot, another rival for her hand
⁶
(who was known to be a farmer) was already on the scene. As Somerset pleads his case with Paula, so one may imagine Hardy pleading his case with Emma and asking her to ignore his humble origins and judge him on his merits.