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. One large 3½-carat solitaire diamond ring.
2. A large Hungarian opal.
3. A large ruby ring with beautiful diamond setting.
4. A large sapphire ring richly set with beautiful diamonds.
5. A very beautiful emerald ring, tastefully mounted with diamonds.
6. A superb Marquise diamond ring.
7. A very large Alexandrian ring, mounted with fine large diamonds.
8. An amethyst brooch, consisting of a large magnificent amethyst, mounted in a diamond setting of thirty-two first water, old-mine stones.43
During April he sent the jewellery list to Miss Clark, along with the following note:
All of the above stones have been chosen and selected by me personally, even to every small diamond used in the mounting, and have been mounted under my direction and under my personal supervision.
I will deliver to you to-morrow only a part of the above list, for I do not wish to suddenly so shock you by my extravagance as to give you the impression that I have lost my head. Besides, you will not be able to wear the jewels in the present state of affairs without disclosing the secret of our relations. For there is not a single jewel on the list but that would indicate to any intelligent person who should see it that it came from me. You will therefore have to enjoy them by yourself for the present, or till we are ready to let others know what we alone know now.
In selecting the above casket of jewels I have had in my mind the certain following ideas, which I felt like embodying in a permanent form and as souvenirs of facts and incidents which have made an abiding impression:
1. Intended as a conventional engagement ring.
2. As a souvenir of our first meeting after our first separation.
3. As a souvenir of a first nameless confidence between us.
4. A coming Easter present.
5. A souvenir of a zealous heart’s pledge
