Part 6

Except Lady Jarvis, they are all extraordinarily optimistic about George and think that there is nothing in the Housman thing and that it will pass off and he will marry Lavinia. I am sure they are wrong, and I am more depressed about it than words can say. Lavinia is fond of him, too, and that is all that has been gained. There are now three miserable people, instead of two! No letter from you this week, but I hope to get one to-morrow.

Yrs. G.

_From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor_

_Monday, November_ 1_st. Gray's Inn_.

Received a letter from Mrs Housman saying that she was leaving for Florence this morning, She was sorry not to have seen me yesterday. She is going to stay in Florence until the end of May.

_Tuesday, November_ 2_nd_.

Had dinner with A. alone at his flat. He was in low spirits and said that he hates official life.

_Tuesday, December_ 21_st_.

My Christmas holidays begin to-morrow. I am going to Aunt Ruth's. Cunninghame is staying with Lady Jarvis. A. said he would most probably spend Christmas with his sister, but he was not sure.

_Thursday, December_ 23_rd_.

Received a telegram from Aunt Ruth saying the party was put off as Uncle Arthur has got bronchitis. A telegram arrived for A. at the office this morning. I telephoned to Tuke at his flat to know where to forward it. Tuke said A.'s address for the next week would be Hotel Grande Bretagne, Florence.

_Christmas Day_.

Dined at the Club.

_Tuesday, December_ 28_th_.

Tuke telephoned to say not to forward any more letters to A. He was on his way home.

_Saturday, January_ 8_th_, 1910.

Received a letter from A. from his sister's house. He is coming up next week. Riley has written to me from Paris to know whether I could put him up next month. He is going to spend a month in London. I have told him I would be glad of his company.

_Letters from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl_

ROSEDALE, _Saturday, January_ 1_st_, 1910.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I have been staying with Lady Jarvis for Christmas. There is a very small party, only Jane Vaughan and Winchester Hill besides myself. Just before I came down here Housman asked me to dine with him at the Carlton. I went and he was alone. After talking nervously on ordinary topics, he told me he did not know what to do. It gradually came out that Mrs Park is making his life quite unbearable. She won't let him see any of his friends; she quarrels with Sarah, and has the most violent scenes; she makes scenes every day, and not long ago, he said, broke a fine piece of Venetian glass. He is miserable; he says he can't call his soul his own. I told Lady Jarvis all about this and she said the only thing to be done would be for Housman to get Mrs Housman to come back. She has been away two months, and if she comes back at the end of the month the worst of the winter will be over. She is very much worried about Mrs Housman and says this is most unfortunate, as it would be better really in every way if she were to stay out there. You see Edith and Mrs Campion and Freda all think that it is only a passing fancy of George's and that he will get over it and marry Lavinia Wray! Lady Jarvis says this is wrong; she knows they are wrong. She thinks George and Mrs Housman are desperately in love with each other and she doesn't know how it will end. She is so worried that she nearly went out to Florence last week. She had heard from Mrs Housman quite lately. She said in her last letter that George had suggested coming out to Florence for Christmas with Mrs Campion. She had told him that she would most likely not be in Florence as the Albertis had asked her to spend Christmas with them at Ravenna; she was not sure, however, whether she would go or not. Whether George went or not, I don't know. He told me he was going to spend Christmas with Mrs Campion at the Priory.

I am going back to London at the end of next week.

Yrs. G.

LONDON, _Wednesday, January_ 11_th._

DEAREST ELSIE,

I came back to London on Monday. I asked Housman to dinner with me and told him that he had much better get Mrs Housman back. He said he quite agreed that it was the only thing to do. Things were now worse than ever. Mrs Park was impossible. Poor little "Bert"! The worst of it is, that directly this is over there is quite certain to be someone else and perhaps someone worse. However, let us hope for the best. George came to the office yesterday. He said he had been staying with his sister; he said nothing about Florence. He is in low spirits.

I shall certainly go abroad at Easter and spend a few days in Paris in any case. Lady Jarvis is back in London, and the Shamiers. I dined there last night. Lavroff was there and Louise is just as fond of him as ever.

Poor Godfrey Mellor is terribly melancholy. He has got a friend staying with him now and I don't see much of him.

Yrs. G.

_From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor_

_Tuesday, February_ 15_th_, 1910.

Alfred Riley arrived last night. He is now professor at Shelborough University and is editing _Propertius_. He has come to consult some books at the British Museum.

_Wednesday, February_ 16_th_.

Sat up very late last night talking with Riley. He was amused by a conversation he had overheard at a Club. Two men were talking about someone who had become a Roman Catholic. Someone he didn't know. One of them said to the other that it was a very pleasant solution if you could do it. The other one said: "Certainly; no bother, no responsibility ... everything settled for you." I said that I did think the Confessional must be the negation of responsibility. Riley said that by becoming a Catholic you became responsible for all your actions. He said that before he was a Catholic he felt no responsibility at all to anything or anyone, but that the moment you were a Catholic everything you did and said counted. Every time you went to Confession you acknowledged and confirmed your assumption of responsibility. I mentioned a common friend of ours, O'Neil, who had been a Catholic all his life and who, though he was married, had never ceased to live with a Miss Silvia Thorpe, whom I had known as an artist. He didn't hide it, neither did she. Riley said that this proved his point. O'Neil never dreamt of going to Confession; he knew it would be useless, because he had no intention of giving up Miss Thorpe, and that being so, he knew he couldn't get Absolution, It was a sacrifice to him, a very great sacrifice, as he Was a believing Catholic. "That shows," he went on, "that you don't understand how the thing works. You and all Protestants think that one can stroll into the Confessional, wipe the slate clean and go on with what you are doing, however bad it is, with the implied sanction of the Church. But the fact remains that practising Catholics who are living in a way which the Church condemned do not go to Confession. Going to Confession entails facing responsibility instead of evading it." He said that if what I thought was true, people like O'Neil would go to Confession. I must face the fact that he did not go to Confession and was extremely unhappy on that account. He would like to go to the Sacraments but he had made this great sacrifice with his eyes open. I said that I had always thought the Church was lax about such matters. He said individuals might be lax. The Church was not responsible for the conduct of individuals, but the rule of the Church was absolutely uncompromising. I said O'Neil might be an extreme case, but supposing a devout Catholic married woman had a great man friend, supposing he was very much in love with her, but she was a virtuous woman, faithful to her husband, she could go on seeing the other man as much as she liked? Would the Church forbid it? Riley said the Church would forbid _sin_. Any priest would tell her that if she thought it might lead to sin, she must cut it out of her life. I said that was quite clear, but he was not telling me what I wanted to know. He said: "What is it that you want to know?" I said I must give it up. I couldn't put it into words. I said Roman Catholics were always so matter-of-fact. They handed one opinions and ideas like chocolates wrapped up in silver paper. He said: "You think that, because you would sooner walk naked in the streets than think things out, or call things by their names. You like leaving them vague. 'Le vague,' Renan said, 'est pire que le faux.'"

I said, going back to the question of responsibility, that I had often heard Catholics themselves complain of the want of responsibility of Catholics. Riley said that might very well be; they might lack a sense of responsibility, just as they might lack a sense of charity or honesty. "You think," he said, "that the Church is perpetually arranging comfortable compromises. Nothing is further from the truth. Nothing is harder on the individual than certain of the commandments of the Church with regard to marriage: for instance, divorce, and the bearing of children. Some of the Church's views were just as hard on the individual as it was hard on a man, who is going to catch a train to see his dying child, to be delayed by a policeman holding up the traffic, but in order to make traffic possible, you had to have a policeman, and the individual couldn't complain however much he might suffer.

"I know a much harder case than O'Neil's," he said: "a colleague of mine who is married and has been completely neglected by his wife. On the other hand, he has been looked after devotedly for years by another woman, who nursed him when he was ill and saved his life. He wants to become a Catholic, but he knows quite well that the Church will not receive him unless he were to give up this woman, whom he adores, and go back to his wife, who is indifferent to him. What you don't understand," he said, "is that the Church is not an air cushion but a rock."

He said I accused the Church of being lax, but many people that he knew found fault with what they called the _hardness_ of the Church. But as a matter of fact they had generally to admit that as far as the human race was concerned the Church in such matters of morals was always right. He cited instances of what the Church was right in condemning. I said that one did not need to be Roman Catholic to know that immorality was bad for the State, and that vice was noxious to the individual. The ordinary laymen reach the same conclusions merely by common-sense.

Riley said there were only two points of view in the world: the Catholic point of view or the non-Catholic point of view. All so-called religions which I could mention, including my layman's common-sense view, were either lopped-off branches of Catholicism or shadows of it, or a blind aspiration towards it, or a misguided parallel of it, as of a train that had gone off the rails, or a travesty of it, sometimes serious, and sometimes grotesque: a distortion. The other point of view was the materialist point of view, which he could perfectly well understand anyone holding. It depends, he said, whether you think human life is casual or divine.

I said I could quite well conceive a philosophy which would be neither materialist nor Catholic. He quoted Dr Johnson about everyone having a right to his opinion, and martyrdom being the test. Catholicism, he said, had survived the test; would my philosophy?

As far as I was concerned I admitted that I held no opinion for which I was ready to go to the stake, except, possibly, that _Jane Eyre_ was an interesting book.

_Monday, February_ 21_st_.

I heard from Mrs Housman this morning. She returns to-morrow.

_Saturday, February_ 26_th._

Called on Mrs Housman, and found her in. Housman was there also. They asked me to dinner next Monday.

_Sunday, February_ 27_th. Rosedale_.

I am staying with Lady Jarvis. There is no one else. Lady Jarvis said she was glad Mrs Housman had returned to London.

_Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl_

LONDON, _Tuesday, March_ 1_st_.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I dined with the Housmans last night. Only myself, Miss Sarah, Lady Jarvis, and Godfrey Mellor. Everything as it used to be. Carrington-Smith came in after dinner. He has not been inside the house for months. I don't know what Mrs Housman did nor how it was done, but it _was_ done, and done most successfully and quickly! She only came back a week ago. "Bert" looks quite different and is perfectly radiant.

George, I gather, hasn't seen her. They asked him to dinner last night, but he had an official dinner and couldn't come. He asked me whether I had seen her. He said he had been there several times, but she had always been out. He is still most depressed and goes nowhere unless he is absolutely obliged to. The Housmans have asked me to spend Easter at their villa. Lady Jarvis is going, and Godfrey; and Housman told me he was going to ask George. I am going and I shall stop two or three days in Paris on the way.

Lavinia Wray has gone to the south of France with her aunt. The Shamiers are going to Paris next week. They will tell you all the news, not that there is much.

Yrs. G.

_From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor_

_Monday, February_ 28_th._

A. told me he had not been to the country after all on Saturday.

_Tuesday, March_ 1_st_.

Dined with the Housmans, a very agreeable dinner. Mrs Housman played and sang after dinner: Brahms' _Lieder_, and some Grieg.

_Wednesday, March_ 2_nd_.

A. asked me to luncheon. He told me he had been so sorry not to be able to go to the Housmans' last night. He said he had not seen them yet. He was so busy. He asked me how Mrs Housman was and whether Florence had done her good.

_Thursday, March_ 3_rd_.

I told Riley I had been reading Renan's _Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse_, and that Renan said in this book that there was nothing in Catholic dogmas which raised in him a contrary opinion; nothing either in the political action or in the spirit of the Church, either in the past or in the present, that led him to doubt; but directly he studied the "Higher Criticism" and German text-books his faith in the Church crumbled. I asked Riley what he thought of this. He said people treated German text-books superstitiously then and they still did so now. If German text-books dealt with Shakespeare people could see at once that they were talking nonsense, and that mountains of erudition were being built on a false base, a base which we knew to be false, because we were English; but when they dealt with things more remote, like the Gospels, people swallowed what they said, and accepted any of their theories as infallible dogma. In twenty years' time, he said, nobody will care two straws for the "Higher Criticism."

Riley is going away to-morrow.

_Friday, March_ 4_th._

Mrs Housman has written to ask me to come and see her on Sunday afternoon if I am in London.

Dined with Cunninghame at a restaurant and went to the Palace Music Hall afterwards.

_Saturday, March_ 5_th._

A. is much annoyed at having to stay with the Foreign Secretary. Dined at the Club.

_Sunday, March_ 6_th._

Spent the afternoon at Mrs Housman's. There was nobody there until Housman came in late just when I was going. Housman said we must all meet at Florence. He said he was going to ask A. "But we never see him now," he added. He asked me what A. was doing. I told him he was staying with the Foreign Secretary. He said, of course he was right to attend to his official and especially to his social duties. He said he would ask him to dinner next week. He asked me to dine on Wednesday. Mrs Housman asked me to go to a concert with her on Tuesday.

_Monday, March_ 7_th._

Dined at the Club.

_Tuesday, March_ 8_th._

Went to a concert in Chelsea with Mrs Housman, Housman and Miss Housman. Solway played, and an excellent violinist, Miss Bowden; Beethoven Sonata (G Major) and Schubert Quartet (D Minor). We all enjoyed the music and the playing. During the interval we went to see Solway. Housman asked him to dinner to-morrow.

_Wednesday, March_ 9_th._

Dined with the Housmans. Lady Jarvis, Mrs Campion, Solway, Cunninghame, Mrs Baines, and A. and Miss Housman were there. I sat between Lady Jarvis and Mrs Campion. After dinner Mrs Housman asked Solway to try a song with her, a new English song by a boy who has just left the College of Music. She sang this and after that she sang all the _Winterreise_. Housman asked A. and Mrs Campion to stay with them in Florence. Mrs Campion cannot get away this Easter. A. accepted the invitation.

_Thursday, March_ 10_th._

Went after dinner to Aunt Ruth's. Uncle Arthur is quite restored to health. He asked me whether I had been appointed to Paris, still thinking that I was in the F.O. There were a great many people there. Aunt Ruth spoke severely about A. and said she heard he only went out in the Bohemian world. I said he had stayed with the Foreign Secretary last week.

_Friday, March_ 11_th._

Dined with Mrs Campion. A. was there and the Albertis, who are over in England. A. said he was much looking forward to Florence. Easter is early this year.

_Saturday, March_ 12_th._

A. has gone to Littlehampton. He has asked the Housmans and Cunninghame. I am going to Woking.

_Sunday, March_ 13_th._

Spent the day with Solway, who played Bach. Returned by the late train after dinner.

_Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl_

LONDON, _Monday, March_ 14_th._

DEAREST ELSIE,

I have just come back from Littlehampton, where I spent Sunday with George and his sister. The Housmans were asked and Housman went, but Mrs Housman was not well. I start on Thursday morning and shall be in Paris Thursday night and stay there till Monday. Let us do something amusing. I should like to go to the play one night. But you have probably seen all the best things hundreds of times. I am going on co Florence on Monday. I don't think George has seen much of Mrs Housman. I dined there last Wednesday. Mrs Housman sang the whole evening so that he did not get any talk with her. Godfrey has been much more cheerful lately and even suggested going to a music-hall one night. Mrs Campion is coming to Florence too.

I'm sorry I've been so bad about writing lately. I seem to have had no time and yet to have done nothing, and there have been a series of rather tiresome episodes at the office.

Au revoir till Thursday,

Yours, G.

_From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor_

_Monday, March_ 14_th_

A. came back from the country in a gloomy state of mind. He said it was a great mistake to go to the country in March and that his party had been a failure. He said bachelors should not give parties. He asked me to dine with him, which I did. He says he is leaving on Wednesday but will stop two nights in Paris. Mrs Campion is travelling with him.

_Tuesday, March_ 15_th._

Mrs Housman rang up on the telephone and told me that a young vocalist was dining with them to-morrow night. She wanted a few people to hear her. Would I come? Solway was coming.

Dined with Cunninghame at his Club. He says he has never seen A. so depressed.

_Wednesday, March_ 16_th._

Dined with the Housmans. Miss Housman, Solway and Lady Jarvis were there. The vocalist, a Miss Byfield, did not arrive till after dinner. Mrs Housman said Miss Byfield was shy and had refused to dine at the last moment. After dinner she sang some songs from the classical composers. She was extremely nervous. Mrs Housman and Solway say she has promise. Housman said to me confidentially that he was sure there was no money in her. The Housmans leave to-morrow. A. left to-day.

_Thursday, March_ 17_th._

Cunninghame left to-day. I had dinner with Lady Jarvis. She asked me to travel with her on Saturday. We are both stopping Sunday night in Paris.

_Friday, March_ 18_th._

Lunched and dined at the Club. Packed up my things. Am taking some music with me.

_Saturday, March_ 19_th. Paris._

Arrived at the Hôtel Saint Romain. Had a pleasant journey with Lady Jarvis.

_Sunday, March_ 20_th._

Lady Jarvis took me to see a French friend of hers, Madame Sainton. It was her day. There was a large crowd of men and women in the drawing-room and the dining-room, where there was tea, Madeira and excellent sandwiches. The French take just as much trouble about preparing a good tea as they do to write or to dress well. I was introduced to a famous composer, who talked to me technically about boxing. I was obliged to confess that I knew nothing of the art. It was a pity, I thought, Carrington-Smith was not there. I was also introduced to a French author, who asked me what was the place of Meredith in modern literature, what _les jeunes_ thought about him. I was obliged to confess I had never read one line of Meredith. The French author thought I despised him. He asked me: "Quest qu'on lit en Angleterre maintenant avant de se coucher?" I said that I had no idea what _les jeunes_ read but that I personally, for a bedside book, preferred _Jane Eyre_.

The French author said "_Tiens_!" He then asked me what I thought of Bernard Shaw. I had again to confess that I had never seen his plays acted. I told him that when I had time to spare I went to concerts. He said: "Ah! la musique," and I felt he was generalising a whole movement in young England towards music.

In the evening we went to the Opéra Comique and heard _Carmen_, which I greatly enjoyed.

_Monday, March_ 21_st. Florence. Villa Fersen._

We arrived at Florence this morning. Cunninghame and A. and Mrs Campion were in the same train. The Housmans had been there some days already.

_Tuesday, March_ 22_nd_.

Cunninghame, Mrs Housman, A. and Mrs Campion went out together. Lady Jarvis stayed at home. I went later in the morning to the Pitti. In the afternoon they went to Fiesole. Housman went to call on some friends. Lady Jarvis and I went for a walk.

_Wednesday, March_ 23_rd_.

We were invited to luncheon by a Mr Eugene Lowe, a friend of Lady Jarvis. He has a flat in the town on the Pitti side of the river. The Housmans and Cunninghame and myself went. A. and his sister had luncheon with the Albertis. Mr Lowe's flat had the peculiarity that everything in it had been ingeniously diverted from its original purpose. The only other guest besides ourselves was an ex-diplomatist whom I met last year.

_Thursday, March_ 24_th._

Lady Jarvis has gone to Venice, where she is staying with friends until next Monday. While we were sight-seeing this morning we met a lady called Mrs Fairburn, who claimed to be an old friend of Mrs Housman. Mrs Housman told me she had met her in America soon after she married, but that she had never known her well. She asked us all to luncheon on Saturday. Mrs Housman accepted for herself and Housman. Cunninghame and I also accepted. A. and his sister were engaged.

In the afternoon Mrs Housman said she was going to hear a Dominican preach. Cunninghame and I asked if we might accompany her. A. said it was no use his going as he did not understand Italian. He was most eloquent.

_Friday (Good Friday), March_ 25_th._

Mrs Housman spent the whole morning in church. I went with Cunninghame for a long walk.

_Saturday, March_ 26_th._

We had luncheon with Mrs Fairburn, who has a villa on the Fiesole side. She is a widow and always, she says, lives abroad; so much so, she told us, that she had difficulty in speaking English correctly. She gave us no evidence that she spoke any other language with great correctness. She told me she was overjoyed at meeting Mrs Housman, who was her oldest friend. Housman asked her to dinner to-morrow night.

_Sunday (Easter Sunday), March_ 27_th._