Jean Elizabeth Leckie was born on 14 March 1874, the second of five children born to James Blythe and Selina Leckie. She was more than fifteen years younger than the man she would marry, and more than seventeen years younger than the woman she would supplant. As Georgina Doyle observed,
What chance did forty-year-old, sick Louise stand against healthy, twenty-two-year old Jean? It would appear none whatsoever.
Other than missing Jean's age by one year, Georgina Doyle was correct. For the last decade of Louise's consumptive life, Arthur frequently left Louise behind to carry on his affair elsewhere with Jean.
Jean was raised in a fashion typical of young women springing from prosperous Victorian families. Taught to sing, ride, and chase the hounds, she was formally educated in Dresden, returned to London for music instruction at the renowned Guildhall School of Music, then moved to Florence for training under vocal maestro Vincenzo Vannini. No later than 15 March 1897, we know she was back in England, for that was the day that Arthur marked as the beginning of their relationship. That was after Arthur and Louise arrived from Cairo, and before they moved into Undershaw.
John Dickson Carr and Pierre Nordon described Jean in lofty terms. Carr, who thoroughly diminished Louise, gushed over Jean.
Miss Jean Leckie was just twenty-four. Even the not-very-expert photography of the time reveals her extraordinary beauty. But the colouring of that beauty it cannot show; the dark-gold hair, the hazel-green eyes, the delicate white complexion, the changes of the smile. […] Despite her delicacy (slender, with small hands and feet), she was an expert horsewoman who had been trained to ride from childhood. […] We see her across the years as quick of sympathy, impulsive, strongly romantic: the slender neck rises from a lace gown, and the eyes (read their expression, even in a photograph) tell her character. […]
Conan Doyle was no plaster saint. Anyone who has so far followed his life will have seen that. He was violent, he was stubborn, he was often wrong-headed, he did not easily forgive injury. And yet, with his particular background, upbringing, and beliefs, we can foresee exactly what he did. He could not help being in love with Jean, or she with him. But there it must stop.
Carr’s suggestion that Arthur's ten-year affair with Jean was purely platonic may indeed have been the case, but Arthur should never be taken at his word. When he discussed Jean with his biological family, he consistently maintained as much, and no surviving document proves otherwise. On the day of Jean’s death, however, their son burned all of Arthur’s love letters to her, hiding forever an untold number of secrets.
Pierre Nordon used his praise of Jean as another opportunity to denigrate Louise.
Jean was entirely different from Louise: charming, dignified, sensitive, and demonstrative, she had an ease of manner which came from the advantages she was born to. This woman who might have been the heroine of a novel by George Meredith aroused in the mature Conan Doyle an intensity of passion he had never before experienced. For ten years she was his mystical wife, and he her cavaliere servente and her hero; they were years of sometimes painful emotional tension for him, providing a test of his chivalry which he was better fitted to meet than any man of his generation, and which he may even have desired. Like a lamp under a parchment shade, this enduring passion lit up the unexpected paths of his public life during those ten years.
Georgina Doyle took issue with such lofty portrayals as those from Carr and Nordon. Though she did not have access to the Conan Doyle archives, as they did, she was not writing under the watchful eye of Adrian. She made her stance abundantly clear.
When Carr described Jean Leckie, he used extravagant terms, to the detriment of Louise. We must remember that his description was influenced by Adrian Conan Doyle, for Carr and Pierre Nordon were the two writers he allowed to fully examine the family archives. Adrian was sometimes over-enthusiastic, and he was intent on presenting his own one-sided viewpoint; naturally he would be his mother's champion. Mary [Louise and Arthur's daughter] believed firmly that the blame lay with Adrian for the virtual obliteration of her own mother as part of Arthur's life. A picture has emerged of Jean as a romantic heroine, possessing all the qualities that Louise lacked. Arthur has been presented as a noble hero, torn by hopeless love for a worthier woman but steadfastly refusing to abandon the stern duty of standing by, and looking after, his sick wife. I think this is humbug. […]
Carr eloquently pleaded for her with an appealing complexion, and what he called a changing smile. He stated that she possessed an extraordinary beauty, but this is not borne out by photographs. In fact, she was rather sharp-featured, with a small mouth and intensely soulful eyes. She had lovely clothes and luxuriant hair but she was not a beauty. I have heard again and again from members of the Doyle family that Jean was gushing and affected and a woman who craved limelight.
Andrew Lycett walked the line between the two views.
Jean had a trim figure, searching green eyes and cascading golden hair, her only possible blemish being a small, downturned mouth that brought out a pinched quality in her features. […] Arthur must have sensed that Jean would provide the support he needed as he geared up for the next period in his life when, secure at home, he would play a more public role in the nation's affairs. He did not intend to desert his wife: that would be alien to his nature. But while she remained alive and he had no physical outlet for his sex drive, Jean Leckie would offer him an idealized romance. This was an understandable option for a man such as Arthur who, for all his blunt physicality, had an unusual capacity for living in his mind. It would also let him off the moral hook, for he would convince himself that, so long as he was chaste, this type of dalliance was acceptable.
Lycett’s observation about Jean’s pinched features is interesting. Victorians seldom smiled when posing for pictures, but Jean's images do seem unnecessarily dour. Louise's images, on the other hand, usually reveal the hint of a smile. Given the comparative circumstances of the two women, one might expect the reverse.
According to Innes’s diary, Jean was at Undershaw frequently. She dined there on 26 November 1897, just a month after Arthur and Louise had moved in, then again on 22 December, joining Arthur for a walk and some tea, and again on 26 December.
The Undershaw guest book was crammed with signatures every weekend, but none of Arthur’s biographers gives credit to Louise as a hostess. Mary, fortunately, left a charming description of her gracious and unflappable mother.
Well I do remember one occasion when Mother's poise was put to the test with a vengeance. Daddy had asked a well-known authoress of that time, who was staying at the Royal Huts Hotel, to come in and have Sunday evening supper with us—and had then forgotten all about it. Nobody knew, so there was no extra place set. We were half way through the meal, when the front door bell pealed, the dining-room door was thrown open to Miss Helen Mathers, and in she sailed resplendent in a pink evening dress and pearls.
I can see the picture now—Daddy's half-turned head, jaw dropped with amazement, and the little feather of hair on the crown of his head sticking straight up as it always did when he was tired or agitated. Mother rose and took the situation in hand. She came forward with a calm sweetness and a charming little dignity all her own—only that telltale glint in the eye told me what she was thinking. She greeted the unexpected guest, and proceeded to put everyone at their ease by her own refusal to be embarrassed or appear to be taken aback. We all took our cue from her, started talking naturally and soon the position was restored.
Mary and Kingsley saw much more of their mother than they did of their father. Arthur made frequent and lengthy trips to London and other locations, for business and secret meetings with Jean. Mary noted that he "invariably brought a small posy of flowers back for [Louise], or some charming little trinket. It was beautiful to see his gentleness with her." Arthur later, in a letter to his mother, rationalized this behavior:
If I cannot give her my full love I can at least give her every material pleasure with a full hand.
In December of 1897, Arthur and Louise staged such a large costume ball that it required two venues: Undershaw, and the Beacon Hill Hotel in nearby Hindhead. Innes described the affair in his diary.
Dance was a great success. All costumes were wonderfully good. Nearly 200 people. Everything right except that the band stole all the cigars. Our house party was Touie [Louise], Lottie, Mrs Trevor, Arthur, Trevor, Wood, Bartley, Williams, Archie and I. At hotel were mother, Nem [Louise’s sister], Connie [Arthur’s sister], Tootsie, K.H., Misses Leaky [sic] and Driver, Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Boulnois, Ford, Stone, Driver.
Arthur was dressed as a Viking, Jean as Queen Mary. Arthur's sister Lottie met Jean there for the first time, apparently under false pretenses. The meeting is preserved by a note from Lottie to Jean.
I hope that next time we meet you will remember that all my friends call me Lottie and that I hate being Miss Doyle to anyone I like.
Lottie seemingly did not realize that Jean was destined to replace Louise. Jean's parents, on the other hand, were certainly aware of the possibility. For Christmas, they gave Arthur a diamond and pearl pin-stud. The following February, Arthur visited them at their home and dined with them. Not long thereafter Jean moved out of her parent’s home and into a flat with two friends.
In early 1900, with the second Boer War well underway. Arthur volunteered as a civilian doctor for a privately run field hospital in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Hoping to rent Undershaw during his absence, he sent Louise and the children to Naples, so that they could be near his one of his sisters and her husband. Louise’s absence allowed Jean to be the one to see Arthur off as he set sail for Africa. According to Carr, Jean had told Arthur she would not be there because she could not endure the parting; Arthur learned only later that she had been standing on the dock as his ship pulled out. According to Nordon, Jean had Arthur's cabin filled with flowers.
While at the Langham Hospital in Bloemfontein, Arthur spent much of his time working on his book The Great Boer War (1900), and taking furloughs from the hospital, hoping to witness combat. He departed for good before his contract expired. Letters to his mother make clear that he longed to see her and Jean; his behavior evidenced no particular desire to see Louise or their children. On 23 June, he stated explicitly that there were only two reasons for wanting to return to England: one was to kiss his mother, the other he left to her imagination. Upon disembarking in London, he debated whether he should "recall Touie [Louise] & the family to Undershaw." The massive house had not been rented, and that seemed to be the only reason he considered bringing them back. "It seems absurd to pay highly for rooms abroad when that fine house is empty."
If he visited Undershaw soon after his return, he must have done so only briefly. During the last half of August, he played cricket in London and Cambridgeshire. His brother-in-law, Willie Hornung, stumbled into Jean at one of the matches and became aware of their relationship. Hornung later, in private, expressed his disapproval to Arthur. Arthur responded with a racist insult regarding Hornung’s eastern European ancestry.
Arthur ran for office in an unsuccessful effort to represent an Edinburgh district more than 430 miles north of Undershaw. During the final months of 1900, he split his time between London and his family estate. He did spend Christmas at Undershaw, presumably with Louise, Mary, and Kingsley, but this was likely a small comfort to them, as he had managed to separate himself from them for most of the year.
Arthur's contemporaneous letters provide insight into the nature of his liaisons with Jean. He encouraged Louise to travel or to visit her family. Whether she did or not, he would plan a golf vacation on the pretense of needing to recover his health, of which he frequently complained, as if he was the one slowly dying of tuberculosis. He would then arrange lodging for a fortnight in a remote, tranquil location such as the North Countree, New Forest, or Ashford Forest. There, Arthur would be joined by Jean, a chaperon, and, frequently, his mother.
In February of 1901, Arthur stayed in Ashford Forest with Jean and her brother Malcolm. His mother did not join him on that occasion, but she wrote to him there and he responded. He invited her to his next liaison, to take place elsewhere since Ashford Forest had become too well known among their friends. He fretted that Louise had decided not to spend a month in France, that she planned instead to visit her mother in Torquay.
The 1901 census recorded that Arthur settled once again on Ashford Forest. His mother joined them at the Ashford Forest Hotel. The same census reveals that Louise's sister Emily cared for Mary and Kingsley at Undershaw while Louise visited her mother in Torquay. Curiously and sadly, the census recorded the occupation of both Louise and her mother as "Living on own means."
The year 1901 turned out to be yet another in which Arthur spent most of his time away from Louise. In January, he played golf in Ashford Forest. In February he met Jean there. In March, he met Jean and his mother there. In April he seems to have rendezvoused with Jean there yet again, and travelled also to Cromer for still another golfing vacation.
Throughout early- and mid-May, Arthur socialized in London, dining with Winston Churchill at the House of Commons, presiding over the Ladies Dinner given by the Authors' Club, attending the annual dinner of the Society of Authors, and feasting at another dinner in the Gray's Inn. He also played cricket on the 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 24th, and 25th.
Any cricket match could last three days and each was a major social event. We know that Jean had taken a flat in London, and that she had attended at least one cricket match, since that instance caused a rift within the family. We have no reason to doubt that Jean attended matches prior to that instance, and we have direct evidence that she at least hovered about afterward.
The cricket season continued in June. Arthur played every day from the 3rd through the 8th, always at locales well away from Undershaw. Around the 10th he was at Undershaw for at least a day before setting forth for more cricketing on 13, 14, 17, 18, 24, 25, 26 and 29 June.
In July, Arthur attended more dinners in London, and he took a 25-mile balloon ride from the Crystal Palace to Kent. Jean won a bronze medal as a vocalist during her public examination for the London Academy of Music, and we can be confident that Arthur attended.
Early in August he took a four-day vacation to Southsea with Louise and the children. After performing his husbandly and fatherly duties, he traveled to Norwich for a cricket match on the 9th and 10th. Jean was then staying thirty miles away, at the Marlborough Hotel in Southwold. On the 16th, 17th, 24th and 31st, Arthur played cricket at Lord's Cricket Ground in London, much closer to Jean's flat.
Thus did the three of them pass Louise's remaining years. Louise would stay at Undershaw or visit family. Arthur would socialize in London, or play cricket, or take golfing vacations to secluded locales. He would always be emotionally closer to Jean, and conspire to be physically closer as well. When writing to his mother, he spoke of Jean only in lofty tones: "Dear J is a model of good sense and propriety," "No man can owe a greater debt to a woman," and "There never was anyone with a sweeter and more unselfish nature."
Louise's presence, on the other hand, had become an annoyance. In a letter to his mother, Arthur gave what he described as a trivial but typical example of Louise's exasperating behavior. He discovered that several of his pipes had been cleaned, and he presumed that she had cleaned them. He was touched by the gesture, so he mentioned it to her, only to be shocked to learn that George, the family’s bootblack, had cleaned them. Arthur was appalled by the thought of a lowly bootblack cleaning his pipes. "It was he who had cleaned them all, the things I had to put between my lips," he wrote in anger.
Arthur was more explicit about his growing frustration with Louise in a later letter to his mother. Her reply prompted him to backpedal a bit.
You must have misunderstood something which I said. I have nothing but affection and respect for Touie. I have never in my whole married life had one cross word with her, nor will I ever cause her any pain. I cannot think how I came to give you the impression that her presence was painful to me.
In another letter, Arthur simply conceded that he had grown weary of being married to someone so ill.
I have lived for six years in a sick room and, oh, how weary of it I am.
Remarkably, he claimed to have suffered from Louise's disease more than she did.
It has tired me more than her.
It would hardly be the first or last instance in which he minimized Louise's affliction. His letters are littered with self-comforting claims that "Touie [Louise] keeps very fit," "is in very good form," "is in excellent form," “keeps bright and well,” “has been in bed for a week but rather as a prevention than a cure,” “is wonderfully well save for her poor voice which has almost gone."
"I do think that in spite of all she is the happiest woman I know," Arthur wrote, but it must have been obvious that Louise was wasting away. "Touie has lost weight considerably," he finally conceded, noting that "for two years there has been a steady drop." As an experienced physician, he must have known that her laryngitis was evidence that the bacteria had escaped her lungs, that they were coursing through her blood vessels, and already consuming other parts of her body. Even as Arthur downplayed her illness, he complained of “feeling rather run down” or “low.” His proposed cure was usually another vacation.
The year 1906 began for Arthur and Louise as had the previous eight. Arthur absented himself from Undershaw as Louise wasted away. In January he again ran for office, this time to represent Harwick, 380 miles to the north. Again he lost. In March, his Brigadier Gerard opened as a comedy in four acts at the Imperial Theatre in London. In April, he dined at a Pilgrim's banquet at the Savoy Hotel, dined with Lord Milner at the Hotel Cecil, and then met with the Jewish Territorial Organization. Each event was in London, conveniently close to Jean's flat.
At the end of May, it was Arthur’s brother Innes, not Arthur, who escorted Louise and Mary to London to see Arthur's Brigadier Gerard play. That outing seems to have been the last time Louise left Undershaw, other than to be buried. She deteriorated even more quickly after that outing. The infection spread beyond her larynx to her brain. She suffered bouts of delirium. She became paralyzed on her left side.
On 8 June, Arthur was at the Grand Hotel, in London. On the 11th, he presided at the Authors' Club, in London. On the 15th, he unveiled a memorial table to Henry Fielding at Widcombe Lodge in Bath. On the 30th, he attended the Golf Club Exhibition near home.
Louise died barely four days later, at 3 AM, on 4 July 1906. Arthur was at her side, weeping.
Arthur eventually came clean about his true feelings regarding the marriage. He did so while spreading the word of spiritualism. He described the great beyond as an idyll where a person’s etheric body resembles the living one, absent all imperfections, and where individuals pursue the same interests and hobbies they had on Earth. From Our American Adventure (1923):
The usual information is that any nutrition is of a very light and delicate order, corresponding to the delicate etheric body which requires it. Then there was the question of marriage, and the old proposition of the much-married man, and which wife he should have. As there is no sexual relation, as we understand it, this problem is not very complex and is naturally decided by soul affinity.”
In Our Second American Adventure (1924), Arthur spoke more to the point.
True marriage carries on, but the tepid or cold marriage dissolves.
He not only abandoned Louise in this world, he hoped to avoid her for all eternity.
Arthur deluded himself until the very end that Louise was unaware of his relationship with Jean. As was usually the case, he thought too highly of his cleverness and too little of everyone else’s. Of course Louise knew of his love for Jean; everyone knew. He told his siblings of the affair and they told their spouses. He told even Innes, who was particularly close and kind to Louise. Arthur frequently left Louise behind, provided baubles when he returned, then schemed to leave yet again. He told his mother that he disposed of Jean's letters by burning them or burying them, presumably at Undershaw. Jean lodged near the scenes of Arthur's frequent diversions, and she appeared in public with him. She was so bold as to visit Undershaw, walk and ride there with Arthur, and dine with the family.
As the end neared, Louise called seventeen-year-old Mary to her bedside. Mary told Pierre Nordon of that conversation.
Finally the sand began to run out, and it became clear she would not remain with us much longer. Some two months before the end she called me in for a talk. She told me that some wives sought to hold their husbands to their memory after they had gone—that she considered this very wrong, as the only consideration should be the loved-one's happiness. To this end she wanted me not to be shocked or surprised if my father married again, but to know that it was with her understanding and blessing.
Georgina Doyle offered inside information about that sorrowful discussion between a dying mother and her teenage daughter. She reported that Mary told John (Georgina’s husband) that Louise mentioned Jean Leckie by name.