Part 4
Forgive me for writing such a foul letter, and bless you for answering it so promptly. The alarming list of faults which you have produced in answer to mine relieves my mind a good deal. Thank Heaven for a woman with a sense of humour. I was feeling rather awful that day, being thoroughly fagged, and had, I suppose, a grouch against civilisation. But I quite agree about the innocent “animal” business; I can imagine nothing more tedious. All the same, I feel very strongly, in my more honest moments, that love has got to be happy, for fear it should become all-important. I can’t expect you to understand this, and you would be an unnatural woman if you did, and I should hate you for it. But I do feel that the old “not long will his love stay behind him” attitude is degrading and horrible. I don’t want to feel that anybody’s life and happiness is bound up with mine. What dignity is there in life if one is not free to take one’s own risks? It doesn’t matter whether it’s a wife or a parent or a child or a brother—people should set their own value on themselves and not “live for others” or “live only in their children,” or whoever it is. It’s beastly. And yet—if I heard you say that—I don’t know, but I expect I should go off the deep end like poor old Harrison.
I think Lathom is rather getting on my nerves. If I had known he was such a gregarious devil I don’t think I should have agreed to set up housekeeping with him. Fortunately, as he is merely an acquaintance, and _not_ my wife or my father or my brother, I can more or less ignore his vagaries. He is always “running down” to see the Harrisons, and having them up here. You can’t get on with your work when people are everlastingly coming in and out. I just chuck it now, and sit tight in my own room, and let them get on with it.
I like the old boy, though—and, by jove, he does know how to cook! Yes, cook! He has a passion for cookery as a fine art. I must get him to show me how to make omelettes—I don’t believe _you_ know anything about it, do you? Also rump-steak, on which his views are very sound. He also has a fungus-complex—thinks the poor peasant ought to go forth and cull his grub from the hedgerow, and all that. He knows a tremendous lot about edible toadstools, and delivers lectures on them to Lathom, for whom he has taken a great fancy. As a matter of fact, Lathom is one of those offensively healthy people who shovel down anything that is set before them, but Harrison doesn’t see that, and enthuses mildly on in a sort of resistless river of speech that forces itself past all interruptions. Mrs. H. yawns, Miss Milsom yawns, Lathom yawns and I do my best not to yawn, because I’m the only person here who has any real sympathy with the subject, so it’s up to me. I’m not sure, though, that his monologues aren’t better than her intense duets. However, Harrison has now gone away into the country on his lonesome, so perhaps we shall be free of visitors for a bit.
I have been round to see Merritt & Hopkins, and this time saw the great Man of Merritt himself. He was very genial, and encouraged me to dig my old novel out of its sepulchre, in a last forlorn effort. You know—the one I wrote just before I met you, and which no one will have anything to do with. He has promised to read it himself, which was so decent of him that I hadn’t the heart to suggest that a younger man might look upon it with more sympathy!
I have just been reading the _Messenger’s_ interview with you, my child. How entertaining! What grand publicity! And how damnable impertinent. I suppose I shall be expected to put up with everybody having the right to comment on My Wife in public. We shall have rows about it; I see that inevitably. I shall sneer first and then lose my temper, and if you once give in you will be a lost woman.
Are you still quite sure you want to risk matrimony with
Yours infuriatingly, JACK
15. _George Harrison to Paul Harrison_
THE SHACK, NEAR MANATON, DEVON 22.10.28
MY DEAR BOY,
This month I must begin by wishing you very many happy returns of the day, and I trust that the mail will live up to its reputation and deliver my letter in time for the auspicious occasion. God bless you, my dear boy, and send you all happiness and prosperity. You are now thirty-six years old—still a very young man to hold the responsible position you have made for yourself. Yet to me it seems strange to think that when I was your age I had been married and settled for sixteen years! I was only a boy of twenty when I married your dear Mother! Her memory is very near and dear to me at this time, as indeed, at all times. You must never think that, because I have formed other ties of late years, I do not think of her with the deepest affection. But I know you do not think so. You know that there is room in my heart for both: and it is a great happiness to me to have a son whose face recalls, even more vividly as the years go by, that of my dear first wife.
I was greatly pleased to have your letter and to know that the work goes so well. Yours is a great opportunity. I know how proud and happy I should have been at your age to have the advantage of working under so distinguished a man as Sir Maurice. In my opinion he is the greatest engineer of his day. It is most gratifying that he should entrust so much of the responsible work to you. Be very careful to check _every_ figure and test _everything_, no matter how small, before it is put in place. The most brilliant calculations will not compensate for a defective bolt. Dolby’s is a first-class firm, but it is a sound rule to take nothing for granted.
As you see, I am down in the old shack for my usual holiday. I was obliged to take it rather late this year, as I could not be spared from the office till we had got the new power-station through. However, the weather is fortunately very favourable, and I have been able to do a good deal of sketching as well as rambling after fungi. I missed our old Puff-ball friend, _Lycoperdon giganteum_, of course, but I gathered a beautiful dish of the little _Amethyst Agaric_ yesterday, and to-morrow morning I am going out in search of _Amanita rubescens_, which I intend to try very slowly and delicately stewed in beef broth, or in a mock-beef gravy of _Fistulina Hepatica_, if I can find one in good condition. I do not know whether any one has ever tried this combination of two fungi. If it is a success I shall give the recipe in the little book I am writing on _Neglected Edible Treasures_. Messrs. Hopkin & Bigelow are interested in my “operculum,” and I rather think they mean to publish it.
I am sorry you are not here to go a-mushrooming with me. Margaret, of course, does not care for this kind of camp-life—I could not expect it of such a thorough little town-bird as she is—so I have had to become an old bachelor for the time being. I am hoping that young Lathom will come out with me sometimes on sketching expeditions. He seems a very decent, friendly young fellow, and it is very pleasant to have a fellow-artist in the place, with whom to exchange ideas. He runs in and out of our flat frequently of an evening, and we are always glad to see him. His lively chatter seems to amuse Margaret, and it is nice to have some young life about the place. We do not see quite so much of his friend Munting. He is reserved and quiet and talks modestly enough, though I believe he has written a book of very _risqué_ verse and a rather salacious novel. Margaret says she dislikes his sarcastic manner, but I cannot say I have found him in any way objectionable. Miss Milsom seems to have taken offence at something he said to her, but then she is not a particularly sensible woman. Nothing I can say will stop her putting dripping in the pan when frying a steak, which is a great nuisance. She has no real feeling for cookery.
Well, my boy, I have written rather a long letter, and I must stop now, as I see the lad approaching with the bread, and I must secure his services to take this to the post. I enclose a little cheque, as an offering which is always suitable in every season and country, and remain,
With every good wish, Your affectionate Father, GEO. HARRISON
16. _Agatha Milsom to Olive Farebrother_
15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 25.10.28
DEAREST OLIVE,
We are all breathing again! The Bear has taken himself off for one of his camping holidays, complete with painting outfit and half a dozen scribbling pads. He is actually going to write a book!—telling people how to live on nettles and toadstools and that sort of thing, and how in case of another Great War we could support the entire nation on boiled hedgehogs or some such nastiness. My dear, it is such a relief to get him out of the house! Of course, he couldn’t go off without creating an unpleasantness. He was absurd enough to suggest that Mrs. Harrison should go with him—the idea of it! in a horrible little shack, _miles_ from anywhere—damp as a well, I shouldn’t wonder, with no proper water or _sanitation_ or anything. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Naturally, Mrs. Harrison said she didn’t think she would care about it—what did the man expect? He didn’t say anything more about it _then_—I think I’ve taught him not to bully his wife when I’m about!—but he took it out of her when they went upstairs. She came in crying at 12 o’clock at night to sleep with me because she couldn’t stand it any longer. “My dear,” I said, “why do you take notice of it? If he wants your company so badly, why can’t he sacrifice himself for once and take you to Brighton or Margate, or some nice cheerful place? He just likes to make people miserable, that’s all.” So then I told her a little about what Dr. Trevor said about the people who enjoy inflicting torture on others. I said, “You must just look on it as a kind of disease and not resent it if you can help it. Build up a wall of protective thought about yourself and determine to be quite detached about it.” We had a very interesting little talk about repressions, and I have lent her my handbook to Freud. It is so important to get a healthy angle on these things.
Mr. Lathom has been very nice, coming in almost every evening to keep us company. It must be a relief to him not to be bothered with the Bear’s everlasting drivel about Art. He is going to paint our portraits. Mrs. Harrison is going up for her first sitting to-morrow. It is to be a blue, green and bronze colour-scheme—blue dress, green background and a big bowl of those bronze Chrysanthemums. It gave Mr. Lathom a great deal of trouble deciding it. Of course, Mrs. Harrison is very attractive-looking, but you couldn’t exactly call her _pretty_, with those greeny eyes and her rather pale complexion. I haven’t decided what to wear. I asked Mr. Lathom, but he said he thought I should look nice in anything and he could safely leave it to me. I think I shall have it done in that orange thing with the square yoke—the one which Mr. Ramsbottom said made me look like a Pre-Raphaelite page—you remember?—and have my hair waved and curled under all round to carry out the idea. I pointed out to Mr. Lathom that my face wasn’t the same both sides, and he laughed, and said no human being ever was the same both sides—Nature never worked by rule and compass.
I am doing well with my stockings, and have had several orders for scarves. Don’t forget to tell anybody who wants one that I am quite ready to undertake the work. I am experimenting on some calendars, made like the old-fashioned tinsel pictures, with the coloured paper-wrappers off chocolate creams. Some of the designs are simply beautiful. You might send me any you get. I think I might get some Christmas orders for them. I’ve thought out quite an original idea. . . .
* * * * *
[The remainder of this letter, which contained only some designs for needlework, has been detached.]
17. _John Munting to Elizabeth Drake_
15A, WHITTINGTON TERRACE 28.10.28
DARLING BUNGIE,
Just a line to say I am running down to Oxford to stay with the Cobbs for a week or two. It is simply impossible to work in this place at the moment—the downstairs menagerie swarms over us all day. This is the last time I’ll think of setting up housekeeping with a man on the strength of a school and restaurant acquaintance. Of course, it’s financially useful—but, damn it all! money isn’t everything, even when one’s hoping to get married. Lathom will insist on being a little ray of sunshine about the place. Damn sunshine. If it hadn’t gone joggling up the perfectly good and placid atoms in the primeval ooze, they would never have sweltered up in this unsatisfactory world of life and bothersomeness.
The great idea now is to paint a portrait of Mrs. Harrison as a surprise for Harrison on his return. Knowing Lathom’s style, I should say it would be a very great surprise to him, indeed. It will probably be a very fine work—the man can paint—but I wish they could get on with it quietly by themselves and leave me alone. That poisonous old woman is in and out the whole time. I daren’t emerge from my own room for a minute without being collared and asked some imbecile question or other. Impertinent old bitch. She’s a dangerous woman, too. In Harrison’s place I’d give her the sack. She had the damned sauce to edge into my room after me yesterday and ask whose photograph that was on my table, was it my best girl’s? I said, No—it was my last mistress but three or four, I had lost count. (It was Brenda’s, as a matter of fact.) I was told I was a dreadful man and that Miss Drake ought to know the way I behaved. I was furious. I don’t know how the devil she got hold of your name. Lathom’s damned chattiness, I suppose—confound him! She wound up the interview by saying, really, she didn’t think it safe to be in the same room with me, and leered her way out. Disgusting fool! Fortunately, I was only revising “Birth and Childhood,” or I should have been too irritable to work for the rest of the day. I hope, for your sake, I am not becoming neurotic—that would be the last straw.
Anyway, the Cobbs’ invitation came at the exact right moment to prevent my doing something regrettable, so I’m barging off. Otherwise I should probably have had a row with Lathom, which would have been a nuisance, as I’ve paid the rent up to Christmas.
No news from Merritt yet. Probably he has slung the poor old MS. into a drawer and forgotten about it. It could write its memoirs by this time: _Pigeon-holes I Have Lived in_. How goes your latest?
My love to the Governor and everybody,
Your loving J
18. _Agatha Milsom to Olive Farebrother_
15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 8.11.28
DEAREST OLIVE,
Ever so many thanks for sending the order from Mrs. Pottersby; I will get on with it as quickly as I can. I have two more scarves in hand, and Mr. Perry wants two dozen calendars for people in the parish, so you see I am quite busy just at present. I am glad Tom’s rheumatism is no worse, and that Joan’s little illness turned out to be such a trifling matter after all. It must have given you a lot of anxiety.
I am feeling very much better, I am glad to say—in fact, we are all brighter and happier for our period of peace and quietness. The Bear came back in quite a good mood, for him!—and dear Mrs. Harrison seems quite a different person. She reads a lot, and I am encouraging her to live in her books, and abstract herself altogether from the wearing and irritating realities of life. It is easy, because she has a wonderfully vivid and romantic imagination, which makes the world of literature very real to her. Of course, that is what Mr. Harrison would never be able to understand. It is hopeless to try to discuss anything with him. I tried to get him to talk about Gilbert Frankau’s new book the other day. He said he hadn’t read it and didn’t want to. I gave him an outline of the plot, but I don’t think he was listening. At any rate, he only said, “Oh!” and went on to talk interminably about his eternal fungi and hedgehogs. Still, provided he keeps his temper, it doesn’t much matter what he talks about, and Mrs. Harrison listens to it all most patiently. I wonder how she can do it, but she is in a wonderfully serene and happy frame of mind. I am rather proud of my work, for I am sure it was our little talk in my bedroom the other day that showed her the way out of her troubles.
I am sorry for what you say about Ronnie. It is most trying for you that he should have got mixed up with that sort of girl, but no doubt it will all blow over. Dr. Trevor says that that kind of adolescent love-affair should always be dealt with sympathetically, and will work itself out naturally if not thwarted. I’m sure it would be _most unwise_ of Tom to exert his authority in any way. I cannot forget how our poor dear Mother _ruined_ my life—of course, with the best intentions—by her old-fashioned ideas of what was “nice.” Nobody will ever know what I suffered as a girl, and I am sure it is all due to that early unhappiness that I am in the doctor’s hands now. It was not the same thing for you, of course—you never had that complicated and delicately-balanced temperament, and would probably always have been happy enough, whether you had married or not. People of your kind are much the most fortunate, but then one cannot help one’s temperament, can one? If you take my advice, and treat Ronnie with sympathy and indulgence, you will avoid making the mess of his life that our parents made of mine. I feel that Ronnie and I are very much akin—perhaps a few words from me would help to explain him to himself. I am writing to him to-night.
Your loving sister, AGGIE
19. _The Same to the Same_
15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 15.11.28
DEAR OLIVE,
I have been much surprised and deeply hurt by Ronnie’s letter to me, which I enclose for you to see. I cannot believe that he would have written in that spirit of his own accord. I can only suppose that you and Tom have been prejudicing him against me. Of course, he is your child and not mine, but it is quite a mistake to imagine that, merely because of the physical accident of parenthood, you are, for that reason, divinely qualified to deal with a sensitive temperament like Ronnie’s. I (not having my eyes blinded) can see quite clearly through what he writes, that you have succeeded in _apparently_ bringing him into agreement with your point of view; but, if you did but know it, you are merely encouraging him to repress his natural feelings, with consequences which may be _terrible to contemplate_. I can imagine nothing worse for him than what you call change of scene and companionship, when I know perfectly well that you mean that unimaginative and completely insensitive Potts person. I cannot imagine a more dangerous influence for a boy in Ronnie’s state of mind than a footballing parson. The harm done by men of that class is quite incalculable, and their minds are, as a rule, perfect sinks of dangerous and sublimated libidos (I don’t know whether that is the right way to spell the plural). However, it is your own affair, and I am powerless to interfere, but I do think you ought not to set the boy against me, merely because I am, unhappily, in a position to know more than you do about certain facts of life.
Thank you, I am glad to say we are all very well. Mrs. Harrison’s portrait is finished. It is a very striking piece of colour. Of course, Mr. H. thinks it does not do her justice, but then, as you would expect, he is quite out of sympathy with modern art.
We are relieved from the presence of Mr. Munting, who has gone to Oxford, on a visit to some friends, or so he says. I think it is much more likely that he is leading a double life somewhere. He unblushingly confesses to having innumerable disreputable entanglements, and I am very sorry indeed for the girl he is engaged to.
Your affectionate sister, AGGIE
20. _George Harrison to Paul Harrison_
15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE 20.11.28
MY DEAR BOY,
I was very glad to get your last letter—the one dated 7th October—and to know that all goes on so well with you and the bridge. You took exactly the course I should have advised myself in the matter of the man Matthews. In such a case, consideration is out of place. Your duty to the firm (to say nothing of the thousands who will use the bridge) must come before any sympathy for the man and his special circumstances. Far too much laxity is shown nowadays to outbreaks of so-called “temperament,” with most disastrous consequences, and there is far too much talk about “not being able to help one’s self.” I should not let the matter prey on your mind in the least. I quite understand that the man has brilliant powers and an attractive personality, and that you are sorry to lose him, but it is fatally easy for a man like that to imagine that the ordinary rules of morality do not apply to him, and to indulge him in such ideas is bad for him, and may easily be ruinous to other people and to his work. I entirely approve your decision, and so, I am sure, must Sir Maurice, if the matter comes to his notice.