The entire family displayed a fascination with nature. While on holiday in California, Timothy H wrote to Kingsley, telling him of the impressive lakes and mountains that he had seen during a stagecoach drive to Saratoga.22 Blachley delighted in telling Kingsley about a host of creatures he had recently encountered, such as crows, squirrels and blue jays.23 This love of nature and the outdoors became a central facet in Kingsley’s development.
Timothy H’s deep regard for his wife, Louise, is apparent throughout the entire correspondence but most particularly in the poems he wrote to commemorate each of her birthdays. On her twentieth birthday he wrote:
To my darling
On her 20th Birthday
Twelve months ago with trembling hand,
Upon this sixth of May
I greeted thee, as maiden fair,
In timid, sacred lay...24
Louisa’s sister, Frances, gave birth to two daughters: Louisa Hoyt, on 7 September 1880, and Katherine Krom, on 9 January 1886.25 Both Merritt daughters were close in age to their cousin Kingsley and they attended many childhood events together. The happy Porter household, however, was struck with a major calamity soon after Kingsley’s birth, when Timothy H suffered a stroke of apoplexy.26 In 1887 he was stricken by a second stroke that completely paralysed his left side.
The Porters, Hoyts and Merritts continued to be on genial terms. On 27 December 1888, Louisa’s father, Joseph B. Hoyt, died at the age of 75.27 The Stamford leather merchant left a vast fortune of approximately three million dollars that was to be administered by his executors: his widow; his sons-in-law, Timothy H. Porter and Schuyler Merritt; and his intimate friend and associate Thomas Ritch.28 The main beneficiaries of the will were family members, including Louisa Porter, but there were also bequests of large sums to religious and educational institutions. Bitter disagreements as to the administration of the will developed between the executors and were subsequently fought out in a seven-year battle in the Court of Probate, the Superior and Supreme Courts.29
As the 1890s dawned, a series of tragedies of catastrophic proportions was about to befall the Porter family. Louisa became ill with pneumonia and died just three days later, on 13 December 1891, at the age of 44.30 Timothy H always believed that his wife’s death was hastened when she was persuaded to add a codicil to her will, making Schuyler Merritt co-executor.31
All three sons had been particularly close to their mother. Kingsley, aged just 8 years, must have felt a deep sense of loss and bewilderment at her sudden death. Also, his father was greatly weakened from his own illness, while Kingsley’s older brothers, Louis, aged 17, and Blachley, aged 15, were preoccupied with their studies. A young governess, Miss Mabel Hastings Earle, was employed by Kingsley’s father to provide the young boy with care, companionship and tutoring.
Mabel was born in Massachusetts in 1866, the daughter of Oscar T. and Katherine S. Earle.32 Her father was an inventor who filed several patents, including improvements to the rotary engine, with the United States Patent Office.33 The Earles had five children and soon after Mabel’s birth they moved to Connecticut, finally settling at 504 State Street, Bridgeport.34 Oscar T’s business was quite successful so the family employed two servants.35
Mabel’s mother died on 1 October 1891.36 Mabel then took up residence with Reverend R.G.S. McNeille in Bridgeport. Rev. McNeille was a colourful character by all accounts and was particularly popular with female churchgoers.37 Later in his career he was forced to resign because he insisted on wearing a ‘dress suit and patent-leather pumps’ when he preached on Sundays.38 Mabel finally left Rev. McNeille’s premises and obtained the position of governess with the Porters.
Contemporary accounts suggest that Mabel was a rare beauty, possessing style, charm and grace. There is no report of the extent to which Kingsley bonded with his new governess or whether he ever came to regard her as a maternal figure. What is clear is that Blachley Lodge must have been a bleak place for a child to live, without the devotion of his mother or the companionship of his brothers, left alone with a sick and aged father.The presence of a young, charming governess must have at least lightened Kingsley’s drab existence.
Timothy H may have been ill but he was still very much involved in the affairs of his late wife’s will. Louisa’s large fortune was to be administered by her brother-in-law, Schuyler Merritt, and Thomas E. Ritch, of the New York law firm Arnoux, Ritch & Woodford. Louisa left her husband a life income of $100,000.39 The remainder of Mrs Porter’s vast estate, valued at over four million dollars, was to be held in trust for her three sons until they reached the age of 25.40
At the time of his wife’s death, Timothy H was aged 65 and partially paralysed. After having a successful career in finance and having built up a reputation as a respectable member of the community, his sons might have been forgiven for believing that their father would be well pleased to live out his twilight years in a comfortable, dignified and uneventful manner. This, however, was far from Timothy H’s plans. Now that he found himself freed from the constraints of work, no longer in need of marrying for financial security, and perhaps as a late revolt against his repressed Baptist upbringing,Timothy H turned his attention to securing the affections of various young women of his acquaintance.
Between December 1892 and June 1893, Timothy H corresponded with at least a dozen young women in the locality.41 He seemed to have had a particular fetish for schoolteachers, aged between 30 and 33.The first of his letters was written to Miss Clark of Stamford, whom he called Zora:
Oh! if Zora was only here! How ineffably sweet it would be for me to lie here on the lounge while Zora should sit in a chair by my side and read to me Longfellow’s ‘The day is done.’ Or if somebody should occupy the sofa with me and let me feel somebody’s soft hand smoothing and soothing my anxious weary brow. What a perfect divine thorough happiness this! While I was in the village this morning I saw a piece of jewellery that quite took my fancy. It was Venus greeting the new May moon. The ornament was set in genuine diamonds and gold and I at once bought it. I thought the conception was worthy of a much richer setting, but then I remembered that this was much better as it was, since this could be worn without attracting particular attention or inquiry, whereas the one I had in mind, particularly of the locket inclosed by miniature, would almost surely betray our mutual secret. So I decided to send you this in the same form in which I found and bought it, and inclose it to you in this note, and later I will some time write you a verse of poetry upon the Goddess of love throwing her unvarying and effulgent breasts upon the rising new moon of love!
A letter to Miss Clark, dated 20 January 1893, mentioned Timothy H’s young son, Kingsley: ‘I have been at home this whole day lying upon the lounge and entirely alone excepting the few minutes Kingsley spent with me.’42
The letter goes on to report how much he missed Zora:
How I wished you could have been seated beside me, holding my hand with that soft dainty hand of yours, and reading or talking to me with that soft sweet beautifully modulated voice of yours! That would have made a day of rest indeed! I have spent a great many Sundays of this character. It was our favourite way of passing the day when either of us did not feel like going to church.
As this is Sunday why should I not close with quoting a verse – a modified version from your Sunday School hymn: ‘
My Zora, I love thee. I know thou art mine.
For thee all other lesser pledges of life I gladly resign;
My hope, trust, and fastness, and guerdon art thou.
If o’er I had love, my Zora, ‘tis now.’
Between February and April 1893, Timothy H began to log details of a selection of precious and semi-precious jewels that he was planning to have specially made for Miss Clark:
CONTENTS OF JEWEL CASKET SELECTED FOR Z.
1.