The documents in the case

13. The Same to the Same

15a, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater

22.10.28

Hullo, Bungie, darling! My God, but I’m played-out! I’ve been sticking to the accursed Life like a leech, and have finished the religious outlook. Having ground it out with incredible sweat and travail, I read it through and thought it so awful that I was in two minds about chucking the whole thing into the fire. However, I didn’t, but instead went over and joined Jim in Paris for a week, on his way home, as you saw by my post-card. We had a mildly riotous time in that cheerful city, restraining each other in a brotherly way from the more perilous kinds of exuberance, and reached home feeling fit for anything. I took up the infernal religious outlook, read it through again, and came to the conclusion that it was bloody good stuff, after all! So now I am pressing forward with shouts of joy and encouragement to the critical estimate, which is the only part of the thing I really want to write at all. Dilkes, the dear old man, to whom I explained my troubles, talked to me like fifty fathers, and said extraordinarily nice things. He thinks, by the way, that the flippant and imaginative kind of biography has had its day, having been too much imitated, and that the time has come round again for solid facts and research. “The great humility of science, in face of the infinite and valuable variety of Truth.” Isn’t that an exquisite Victorian remark? “We should pray,” said he, making me feel like a very grubby fourth-form infant, “to be delivered from cleverness, because very clever people end by finding that nothing is worth while.” So I said, rather ungraciously, that probably nothing was worth while, and he gave the funniest twinkle from under his thick eyebrows and replied: “You must not think that, or you will become a bore.”

My parson turns out to be rather an enlightened person. It appears he took a mathematical tripos among other things, which is one up to him. He also has read Eddington, and, moreover, took it for granted that I had read Jeans and Japp and one or two other fantastic scientists whose names I had never heard of, which was two up to him. Also, he seemed quite delighted about the whole thing, and said he was thankful to find that scientists would at last allow him to believe what the Church taught, which in his young days they wouldn’t. I should have put this down to the usual shifty ecclesiastical clap-trap, but for the obvious fact that he knew what he was talking about, and I didn’t, so, feeling a fool, I put a good face on the matter and asked his advice about the religious outlook chapter. He gave me some really very useful stuff about Victorian materialism, which you will find in the book when it’s finished. We ended by discussing, with much laughter, some incredibly silly letter from correspondents in the Daily Dispatch, one of whom said: “Sir, Genesis says that God made Adam from the dust of the earth. God is the initial cause and dust is protoplasm. Yours faithfully”; while the reply observed briefly, “Sir, Dust is not protoplasm, Yours faithfully.”

Dearest, do you really want to be married to the sort of unsatisfactory bloke I am? It is extraordinarily brave and dear of you. You will have a devil of a time. I want to warn you now that when I say I want you to keep your independence and exquisite detachment, I don’t really mean it. I shall try to mould you into the mirror of myself, fatally and inevitably. When I say I am not jealous, either of your work or friends, I am lying. When I promise to look at things from your point of view, I am promising what I cannot perform. When I declare myself ready to discuss everything fully and freely and have a situation nette, I am pretending to be more honest than a man ever is or can be. I shall be reticent, inconsistent, selfish and jealous. I shall put my interests before yours, and the slightest suggestion that I should put myself out to give you peace and quietness to work in will wound my self-importance. I know it. I shall pretend to give you freedom, and make such an unholy martyr of myself that you will take up your chains for the sake of a quiet life. You will end by hating me, and leave me for some scamp of a fellow who knows how to handle women. And you will be quite right, from your point of view. I have been trying to look honestly into the thing, and I want to warn you. You think I am “different,” but I am not. With all your theoretical knowledge, Bungie, you haven’t had experience. You are generous, I know, and think you are willing to risk it, but I must try and make you understand the facts. Don’t think that I am wanting for one moment to cut our engagement out. I want you as I have never wanted anything. I want you terribly. But do try and understand that it won’t be what you think. I don’t want us to end in a ghastly sort of muddle.

I know you will say that you understand, but you don’t. You have an idea—all women have—that you can enter into a man’s point of view. You can’t; any more than I can enter into a woman’s point of view. Don’t, for God’s sake, tell me to cheer up and it will be all right. Don’t be sweet and understanding—be brutal, if you like—I shall not take offence at anything you may say, but I want you to realise what you are in for.

Yours ever,

Jack

P.S. This is arrant hypocrisy. I am bound to take offence, whatever you say, and we shall have one of those painful and acrimonious arguments. If you say nothing, I shall be offended at that, too. But for God’s sake don’t chuck me, Bungie.

14. The Same to the Same

15a, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater

26.10.28

Dearest and most wonderful Bungie,

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.

I am feeling greatly benefited by my little holiday, and am glad to be back to work again. I found all well at home on my return. Margaret was in very good spirits over a little surprise that she and Lathom had prepared for me. She has been sitting to him for her portrait, and he has made a very striking piece of work of it. While I cannot say I think it does her justice, there is no doubt that it is a handsome piece of coloratura, and the kind of thing to attract attention at the present time. Lathom belongs, of course, to the modern school. He paints, I feel, in too much of a hurry, and his pictures have not the beautiful smooth finish of a Millais, or, among living artists, of a Lavery—but no doubt he will grow out of this slapdash method when he is older. It is a kind of affectation which besets the young painters of to-day, and, while I cannot help but see the defects of his method, I am not blind to the merits of the work and to the kind thought which prompted the execution. He is anxious to show it at the Academy next year, and Margaret is (naturally, I suppose) delighted with the idea. I was obliged, however, to say that I did not care about the project. It is the kind of picture to attract a good deal of comment of one sort and another, and these young people do not quite see the amount of undesirable publicity it might involve. I fear they are both rather disappointed, but later on, when I was able to speak quietly about it to Lathom alone, he saw the matter in the right light, and was very nice about it. We are hanging it in a good light in the drawing-room, where it will look very well.

There has been a very amusing sequel to this. Your old friend (or should I say enemy?) Miss Milsom has taken it into her head that her fair features ought to be immortalised, too! Lathom, with his usual extraordinary good nature, has actually consented to make a picture of her—but only on the understanding that this time, if it turns out well, he shall have the right to do as he likes with it! Miss Milsom is only too enchanted at the idea of being hung at Burlington House. I did not feel called upon to interfere, since he is obviously only “pulling her leg,” and there is not the remotest chance of the portrait’s being exhibited; for, as you know, the lady is scarcely the Venus of Milo! She is very much excited about it, and has produced the most incredible garment to be painted in—very tight as to the bust and voluminous as to the skirt. I understand that a quattrocento effect is aimed at.

I am very hard at work of an evening now—with a number of sketches to work up and my little opus to prepare. I am illustrating it with water-colours of various plants and fungi in their natural habitat, and it should turn out a very pretty and useful volume.

I enclose the formulæ you asked for, and remain

Your affectionate

Dad

21. Agatha Milsom to Olive Farebrother

15, Whittington Terrace

22.11.28

Dear Olive,

I have received your letter about Ronnie. No doubt you think you know best. I will not allude further to the matter.

I am feeling much too upset to discuss such things just now. Mr. Harrison has been behaving abominably, undoing all the good his absence has done, and creating his usual atmosphere of unpleasantness.

Mr. Lathom painted a most beautiful picture of Mrs. Harrison. They both worked like galley-slaves to get it finished in time for his return (H.’s, I mean). I say both, for sitting is most exhausting work, as you would know if you had ever sat to anybody for a portrait, and she would end up sometimes so cramped she could scarcely move. As for Mr. Lathom, he seemed quite inspired over it, and painted and painted away without food or rest, till I got quite worried about him, and had to bring him up cups of hot Bovril and Ovaltine, for fear he should over-tax his strength. He is an extraordinarily generous young man, because, though he cannot be well off, he actually painted the portrait to give to Mr. Harrison, when I feel sure he could have sold it for a big price, it is such a splendid piece of work, and he says himself it is one of the best things he has ever done.

Well, they got it finished in time for the Bear’s return, and Mrs. Harrison was ever so delighted with it, and thought the creature would be pleased. It was quite pathetic to see how eagerly she looked forward to surprising him, poor woman. Well, he was pleased, in his grudging kind of way, though he had the impertinence to criticise the painting—as if Mr. Lathom didn’t know more about Art with his eyes shut than Mr. Harrison could learn in a month of Sundays. And then it was all spoilt by the Bear’s horrible selfishness. Mr. Lathom said—very nicely and courteously—he hoped Mr. Harrison would see no objection to its being sent to the Academy. Of course, as it was the best thing he’d done, you’d think anybody would see he had a right to exhibit it, and you’d think, too, that when anybody had received a valuable present like that, he’d be only too willing to be obliging. But the PIG just said, “Well, Lathom, I don’t quite think we can go as far as that. My wife would hardly like to be put on show, you know.”

I could see that Mrs. Harrison felt the discourtesy to Mr. Lathom dreadfully, and she said at once she would be quite pleased to let the portrait be shown, and then he laughed—just laughed, as if it was of no importance to anybody, and said, “Oh, Lathom won’t insist on making an exhibition of you, my dear.” I could see how vexed Mr. Lathom was, and so could Mrs. Harrison, and she begged and prayed him not to be so selfish and unkind, and Mr. Lathom spoke up and said, if Mrs. Harrison would like her portrait shown, surely he was not going to be a Victorian husband. Of course, that was unwise (as I could have warned him if I could have got the chance), and we had one of the worst rows even I can remember. Mr. Lathom couldn’t stand it and went out of the room in disgust, and Mrs. Harrison cried, and her husband said the most insulting and unjustifiable things, ending up with: “Of course, if you want to make a public exhibition of yourself you can. Do exactly as you like”—as though anybody could, when they had been spoken to like that about it. So that was the end of trying to do something to please one’s husband! It was a most miserable ending to the day we had all looked forward to with so much hope and pleasure.

For once Mrs. Harrison has taken a firm line with him and refuses to speak to him. It is a very uncomfortable situation for me, and I am feeling very unwell. All my insomnia has come back, and so has the uncontrollable longing for shrimps. It is very tiresome and disappointing.

Mr. Lathom has been perfectly sweet about it all. He went in to see Mr. Harrison when the uproar had calmed down a little, and finding it impossible to move him, gave way gracefully. I was determined to do my best to make it up to him, so I went up and said how sorry I was, and added that I insisted that he should do exactly as he liked with my own portrait. He could show it anywhere he chose, I said, even if he liked to call it Portrait of a Middle-aged Spinster. He laughed, and said he wouldn’t think of calling it anything of the sort, and he certainly wouldn’t show it if I would rather he didn’t, and I said I was determined he should show it, whatever it turned out like. So he said, very well, that was a bargain, then. So we have begun the sittings. I am rather nervous about the result, because as you know, I always photograph very badly. But then a photograph cannot show the animation of the face as a portrait can, and people have so often told me that my animation is what gives character and interest to my looks. I hope it will be a good likeness—perhaps you will say that if it is it won’t be an attractive picture, but Mr. Lathom seems very keen on it, so perhaps it will turn out better than you, with your sisterly prejudice, might expect.

I am very tired with keeping the pose—I sat for two hours this morning and again in the afternoon—so I hope I may get some rest to-night.

The scarf will be finished to-morrow, if I can get the right shade of silk for the fringe.

Your affectionate sister,

Aggie

22. John Munting to Elizabeth Drake

15a, Whittington Terrace

1.12.28

Beloved Bungie,

Here we are again! Back home and full of beans and fit to face anything, even Lathoms and Milsoms.

By the way, I’ve got to take back what I said about Lathom. I’ll forgive him anything for being such a bloody fine painter. My God, he has made a fine thing of Mrs. Harrison—old Halkett would grunt in his funny gruff way and say, “It’s a masterpiece.” He wants to send it to the Academy (where it would probably be the picture of the year, if the Committee didn’t hang themselves in their own wires under the shock of seeing a decent bit of painting for once)—only, of course, those imbecile women have made a hash of it and put Harrison’s back up. Blether, blether blether—rushing at the poor man with chatter about newspaper sensations and standing under my portrait on opening day, blah! blah! blah! before the poor man had finished reeling under the impact. Row, of course. I told Lathom not to be a silly ass, and to go and apologise quietly to Harrison afterwards and tell him there wasn’t the slightest intention of showing it against his wishes. If he uses a little tact, the old boy will take it for granted three months hence that the thing is going to be shown and imagine he suggested it himself. I’ve got Harrison fairly well sized up, but his wife is a silly egoist, and Lathom has no practical sense at all as regards human relationships. Anyway, I hope the thing will be there, because I’d like you to see it. It’s really first-rate. And revealing, my God! only Mrs. H. doesn’t see that, and I don’t think Lathom realises it either.

I’ve had a letter from Merritt—he “has read the book with much interest and would be glad if I could find time to call and discuss it with him at my convenience.” First time anybody’s even offered to discuss it. I suppose that if I will consent to cut out all the “advanced” passages, and “brighten” the style and give it a more “satisfactory” ending, he will consider doing something with it. Well, he won’t get the chance, that’s all.

Thank Heaven, the Life is practically finished with. I’m thankful to get rid of it. It has led me into reading a lot of scientific and metaphysical tripe which is of no use to anybody, and least of all to a creative writer (a fact I have taken delight in rubbing in, in the course of the work!). And the further you go with it, the worse it gets. Lucretius could make great poetry out of science, and Bacon got some good work in on it—and even Tennyson could screw some fine lines out of an unsound theory of evolution and perfectibility and all the rest of it. But now, oh, heavens! after the bio-chemist, the mathematician. What can you make out of the action of the glands of internal secretion upon metabolism, or Pi and the square root of minus one? Despair and a kind of gloomy grubbiness, that’s all. I’d rather have a Miltonian theology to make poetry of than all this business of liver and gonads and the velocity of light. Perry the parson gets out of it by pretending that the Catholic Church knew all about it from the beginning, and that inaccurate theological metaphors can be interpreted as pseudo-scientific formulæ, which is a lie. The origin of life is our great stamping-ground for discussion. You can’t make life synthetically in a laboratory—therefore he deduces that it came by divine interference! Rather an assumption! But, after all, he is little worse than the man of science. “In some way or other, life came,” they say. “Sometime, somehow, we may learn how to make it.” But even if one could learn to make it, that doesn’t account for its having arrived spontaneously in the first place. The biologist can push it back to the original protist, and the chemist can push it back to the crystal, but none of them touch the real question of why or how the thing began at all. The astronomer goes back untold million of years and ends in gas and emptiness, and then the mathematician sweeps the whole cosmos into unreality and leaves one with mind as the only thing of which we have any immediate apprehension. Cogito, ergo sum, ergo omnia esse videntur. All this bother, and we are no further than Descartes. Have you noticed that the astronomers and mathematicians are much the most cheerful people of the lot? I suppose that perpetually contemplating things on so vast a scale makes them feel either that it doesn’t matter a hoot anyway, or that anything so large and elaborate must have some sense in it somewhere.

I wish I had Lathom’s robust contempt for all this kind of thing. His attitude is that bio-chemistry cannot affect his life or his art, so let them get on with it. I am tossed about with every wind of doctrine, and if I’m not damn careful I shall end by writing a Point Counterpoint, without the wit. You can’t really make a novel hold together if you don’t believe in causation.

Perhaps this accounts for my never having been able to produce a book with a plot—except, of course, the one Merritt wants to see me about. And that was a sort of freak book.

Well, never mind. Only a fortnight now and I shall be seeing you. Praise God (or whatever it is) from (if direction exists) whom (if personality exists) all blessings (if that word corresponds to any percept of objective reality) flow (if Heraclitus and Bergson and Einstein are correct in stating that everything is more or less flowing about).

Your ever faithful

Jack

23. The Same to the Same

4.12.28

Bungie dearest,

Just a line to say that the unexpected has happened! Merritt is all over the book! ! ! Thinks it’s the biggest thing that ever happened, and has offered me a first-class contract (£100 advance, 10% to 500, 15% to 1,000 and 20% thereafter, with a firm offer for the next two beginning at top previous rate), on condition he can get it into print instanter to publish before the end of Jan. The man’s as mad as a hatter!

I nearly sent round to get him certified, but instead found myself accepting the terms. When you consider the frightful flop Deadlock was, you realise that the thing is sheer stark raving madness, but who cares?

Damn it, I always believed there was something in the book, but I thought I was a fool to think so. But how can he ever imagine that it will sell! . . . But that’s his funeral.

He says it must have a new title. Try and think of something that will look well on a jacket, there’s an ingenious cherub. It’s fearfully urgent, because he’s got to get his travellers out with it at the beginning of next month.

Lathom’s portrait of Miss Milsom is the wickedest piece of satire you ever saw. She, fortunately, does not see it at all. In fact, she lugged the parson up to have a look at it yesterday. Perry, though a parson, is no fool. He looked grave, said that it was a striking picture, and added that Mr. Lathom had a great gift which should be put to great uses. Lathom grinned, and Miss Milsom began to babble about the Academy and Mrs. Harrison’s portrait, at which Perry looked graver still. I suppose he thinks that idiots should be charitably protected from themselves. Lathom is in wild spirits and is working like something inspired. O si sic omnes, meaning me!

Jim reports that he is toiling away like stink and really sticking to it. I hope so. He will be at home when term ends, so you will meet the white-headed boy of the family. I trust you will be able to bear with us all. He is inflicting on us a friend of his who went down from Caius this year—man called Leader—one of those infernally high-spirited youths who bounce all over the shop like Airedale puppies—he rouses all my worst instincts, but is perfectly harmless. He is now in London, at St. Anthony’s College of Medicine, and I suppose one of these days he will muddle though his hospital work and be turned out as a genial G.P.—“Dr. Leader is such a nice, cheerful man; he makes you feel better the minute he comes into the room.” I hate cheerful people. Still, he and Jimmy will amuse one another, and we shall have a chance to get off on our own a bit.

Bless you, Bungie! I am counting the days till we meet.

Your own

Jack

24. George Harrison to Paul Harrison

15, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater

20th December, 1928

My dear Boy,

A line at Christmas-time to send our best love, and to say that all our thoughts are with you. Next Christmas, if all goes well, we shall have you back, and things will seem more like themselves. Here, of course, a sad shadow is cast on our festivities by the illness of the King. There are distressing rumours, but I feel great confidence that he will pull through in the end.

In spite of this feeling of depression and anxiety, we have decided to make a little jaunt over to Paris. Margaret has seemed rather restless lately, and I think this small excitement will do her good. I am such a quiet sort of old fellow, that I fear she finds her life a trifle dull at times. A visit to the “gay city” will set her up again, and it will be beneficial to me, too, to be shaken out of my rut. We shall be staying at the Hotel Victoria-Palace in the Rue ——; it is a pleasant, respectable place, and not dear, as Paris hotels go. We shall do a theatre or two and perhaps go up to Montmartre to see the “night-life” one hears so much about. Young Lathom says he may be running over to Paris for a few days, and, if so, will look us up and show us round the town. It is kind and attentive of him, and we shall appreciate having an up-to-date cicerone, for my own memories of Paris are very antiquated, and I expect everything is very much changed.

I was very glad to hear that your work was progressing so well and that your action in the matter of the man you dismissed was approved of. Leniency in such a case is always a mistake, as I have found from bitter experience.

We are doing better over here than we had really any right to expect under the present depressed conditions. I think we shall secure the contract for the Middleshire High-Power Station. If so, that will mean a big job, which will probably take me away from London in the spring.

I am really wondering whether, before this happens, I ought not to take some steps about replacing Miss Milsom by somebody who would be a more suitable companion for Margaret. Miss Milsom has always seemed to me a very tiresome woman, and lately she has been getting altogether above herself. She consults these psycho-analytical quacks, who encourage her to attach an absurd importance to her whims and feelings, and to talk openly at the dinner-table about things which, in my (doubtless old-fashioned) opinion, ought only to be mentioned to doctors. Besides, she is very lazy and untidy, and, instead of putting her mind to the housework, she litters the place with wool and bits of paper which she calls “art materials,” and she borrows my paints and forgets to return them. There is no harm, of course, in her doing needlework and making calendars, if it does not interfere with her duties, but she has frequently been very impertinent when I have had occasion to speak about the unsatisfactory cooking. Lathom has been painting a picture of her—a very clever thing, certainly, but it seems to have turned her head completely. However, Margaret wishes to be kind to the woman, and says, truly, that she would find it hard to get another post, so perhaps it will be better to put up with her a little longer and see if the situation improves. She is certainly most loyal and devoted to Margaret, and that outweighs a great many drawbacks.

Well, I must not worry you with these small domestic matters. I hope that you will be enjoying a very happy Christmas in your exile, and that our little offerings have arrived quite safely. By the way, your Plum-pudding was not, I can assure you, an example of Miss Milsom’s culinary genius. I attended to that important matter myself—otherwise you might have found many strange things in it—such as glass beads or stencil-brushes! The calendar, however, was all the lady’s own work. She wonders regularly every day whether you will like it, and whether your colleagues will think it was painted for you by your fiancée. She means kindly, poor woman, so, if you have not already expressed your hearty delight, pray do so, and assure her that the masterpiece has an honoured place on your walls.

With much love,

Your affectionate

Dad

25. Note by Paul Harrison

I can find only one letter for the next few weeks with any important bearing on the subject of this inquiry. My father and stepmother were in Paris from the 15th of December to the 7th of January. I received a few picture post-cards with accounts of places visited, but they contained nothing of any moment, and I did not preserve them.

Lathom joined them on or about the 28th of December, and spent the Jour de l’An in their company. I believe that Mrs. Harrison wrote several letters to Miss Milsom from Paris, but these I have been unable to secure; in fact, I am informed that they have been destroyed. I visited Miss Milsom (see my statement No. 49), and questioned her as tactfully as possible on the subject, but could only get from her a rambling diatribe, full of the same demented prejudice she has always displayed against my father, and, in the absence of any direct evidence (such as the original letters would have afforded), I feel bound to ignore her remarks. Indeed, it is obvious that nothing which Miss Milsom says later than April, 1929, is of any evidential value whatsoever, and that all her statements, without exception, must be received with extreme caution, except in so far as they tend to prove the influence exerted, consciously or unconsciously, by her upon my stepmother.

Mr. Munting, who spent the Christmas season with his family and in the company of his fiancée, not returning to town till the 15th of January, has handed to me the only letter which he received from his friend during this period.

26. Harwood Lathom to John Munting

Polperro

4th Jan., ’29

Dear Munting,

How are you? And how did the season of over-feeding and Christian heartiness leave your soul? Did honourable love survive the domesticities? If so, I swear that you and your intelligent young woman are either gods or beasts. Gods, probably—with that dreadful temperateness of the knowledge of good and evil, seeing two sides to every question. You will analyse your bridal raptures, if you have any, and find the whole subject very interesting. You will have, Heaven help you! a sense of humour about the business, and your friends will say how beautiful it is to see such a fine sense of partnership between a man and woman. A copulation of politic tape-worms! But where is the use of being offensive to a man who will allow for my point of view? I hate being allowed for, as if I were an incalculable quantity in an astronomical equation.

Having (thank God!) no family, except my aunt at Colchester, I escaped good King Wenceslas and departed for Paris, where everything is jejune enough, and the weather just as snow-bound and bitter as in our own happy island, but where at least the stranger is not sucked into the vie familiale. I found the Harrisons dismally vegetating in a highly respectable Anglophile hotel, and toted them round the usual stale shows, getting my pleasure from their naïve enjoyment. Or, at any rate, from her enjoyment; the old boy was as peevish as ever, and brought the blush of shame to my cosmopolitan cheek by walking out of a cabaret in the middle, trailing his wife and friend after him in the approved barn-door style. Being too wrathful for speech, I said nothing, and had the pleasure of sitting out a family row in the taxi afterwards. La belle Marguerite was actually quite as shocked as he was, poor child, but thrilled to an unregenerate ecstasy nevertheless. She has the makings of a decent pagan soul if one could teach her. However, I needed to do no teaching. His vulgar disgust (with which, if he had had the elementary tact to leave her alone, she would have agreed) drove her into an excited opposition, and she argued the point with an obstinacy and wholeheartedness which it was a pleasure to listen to. I wouldn’t be appealed to—I didn’t want a row, and besides, she will learn nothing except by arguing it out for herself. In fact, I apologised and said, in effect, that an artist became rather blind to the proprieties, legs, as the bus-conductor said, being no treat to him. In fact, I controlled myself marvellously, and—went away and walked about in a fury all night!

After that we did picture-galleries, and I had to listen to Harrison’s lectures on art. Never have I heard—not even in Chelsea—so much jargon applied over so grisly a substructure of ignorance and bad taste. The man ought to be crucified in the middle of all his own abominable daubs. You would have enjoyed it, I suppose, or made copy of it.

We saw the New Year in with dancing and the usual imbecile festivities. Mrs. H. thanked me with tears of excitement in her eyes—it was pathetic—like giving sweets to a kid. Even H. was a little moved from his usual grimth. I procured him a partner—no! I didn’t hire her, I knew her—a decent little soul who used to live with Mathieu Vigor and is now, I believe, Kropotzki’s petite amie—and she trundled him round in the most amiable way. He emerged from the fray quite sparkling (for him!), and solemnly led Madame out for the next dance! That didn’t go so well, because he found fault with her steps, so I pushed him back on to Fleurette, who could dance with a kangaroo, I think, clever little devil.

I crossed on the 2nd, and came down here for warmth and sunshine (what a hope!). The place has been ruined, of course, by “artistic” tourists, and is lousy with Ye Olde Potterye Shoppes. The brave fishermen dangle around in clean blue jerseys and polish up the boats in the harbour, while they long for the film-season to start again.

I shall be back in Bayswater some time next week. I hope your sense of humour is feeling robust, for I am in a foul mood and nothing pleases me.

Yours ever,

Lathom

27. John Munting to Elizabeth Drake

15a, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater

[The opening sheets of this letter are lost, but the date is evidently some time in January.]

. . . proofs coming along at express speed, I am enjoying a magnificent illusion of importance and busy-ness. The novel will be out before the Life, which is being held up considerably by copyright bothers over the plates. All the better, as it is a mistake to bung two books out right on top of one another.

I am feeling a great deal more sympathetic with Lathom just now. The earnest Harrison has transferred his attentions, for the moment, to me, because, as a literary man, I can, of course, tell him exactly how best to prepare his fungus-book for the press. He comes teetering in at my busiest moments to discuss points of grammar. I tell him my opinion and he contradicts it at great length, pointing out subtleties in his phrasing which I have not grasped. At length I either tell him that his own original idea expresses his personality best, or fall back on The King’s English if the error is really too monstrous to let pass. This works all right for a time, and he carries the book off with much gratitude—returning later, however, with the demurrer to Mr. Fowler carefully written down on paper. I once made the foolish suggestion that he should write to Fowler and thrash it out with him direct; this was fatal, as I had to listen to (a) the letter; (b) the reply; (c) the rejoinder—so I now fall back as a rule on the phrase about expressing personality. There was also a dreadful day when a water-colour picture of fungi came out too green by three-colour process. Lathom and I suffered dreadfully over this abominable toadstool, and were at length forced to go out and drown the recollection in Guinness.

All the same, I try my best to be helpful, because I am the only person who can enter into Harrison’s interests, and he has really written a very entertaining little piece of work, full of odd bits of out-of-the-way knowledge, scraps of country lore and queer old-fashioned recipes and things. He must have made extraordinary good use of his holidays, and there’s not a plant or animal in the country fit for food that he doesn’t know the last word about. He has made a wonderful collection of botanical diaries, which ought to be of considerable scientific value, and he brings a really scholarly mind to his rather unscholarly subject. His water-colours, though too prim considered as pictures, make really rather attractive book-illustrations, and his drawings of plants and fungi are beautifully accurate in line and colour—far better than the stuff you find in the usual text-books. And, indeed, the vagaries of the three-colour process are enough to make Job irritable. I told him that he should take as his motto for the book the famous misprint in the Bible, “Printers have persecuted me without a cause”—which pleased him.

Profiting by my position as literary guide and mentor, I have (with colossal tact) persuaded him to let the famous portrait be shown. We got round to it by way of cookery, oddly enough. I said that cookery was really a very important creative art, which was not properly understood in this country, being chiefly left in the hands of women, who were not (pardon me, Bungie) as a rule very creative.

That led on to a general discussion of Art, and the yearning that every creative artist feels to obtain a public response to his art. And so, by devious ways, to Lathom and his picture. I said that, while I entirely understood Mrs. Harrison’s quite natural feeling that to exhibit her portrait would be, to a great extent, exhibiting herself, to Lathom it was, of course, quite a different matter. It was his work, his handling of line and colour, for which he wanted public recognition. But I admitted that a woman could not be expected to appreciate this point of view.

As I had foreseen, Harrison took this as an indirect criticism of his wife, and promptly reacted against it. She was not, he said, like the ordinary woman. She had a remarkable gift for artistic appreciation. He felt sure that if he put it to her in the right light, she would see that it was not a personal question at all. Indeed, she had made no objection herself—it was he who had been afraid of exposing her to unwelcome notoriety. But it should be made quite clear that the painting was the important matter, and that the subject had no personal bearings of any kind.

It was very odd, Bungie, to see him reassuring himself in this vicarious way. And it was still odder that I had a feeling all the time as if I was doing something unfair. His attitude about the thing was preposterous, of course, but I have a queer feeling about Mrs. Harrison. She isn’t so stupid that she can’t see Lathom’s point of view. It would matter less if she were. It is that she is clever enough to see it and adopt it when it is pointed out, and to make it into a weapon of some kind for something or other. Not knowing that it is a weapon, either; practising a sort of ju jitsu, that overcomes by giving way—good God! what a filthy bit of obvious journalese metaphor!

Anyhow, Mr. Harrison worked off my little lecture on the creative artist with great effect under my very nose the same evening, as though it was all his own work. Mrs. H. started off with her usual lack of tact by saying: “I thought you said,” and “I don’t want to discuss it,” but, catching my eye, resigned herself to listen graciously and give consent. So the Hanging Committee is, after all, to have the happiness of gazing upon the portraits of Mrs. Harrison and Miss Milsom—blest pair of sirens—and I hope they will be duly appreciative. Lathom is pleased—and so he damn well ought to be! I hope it will calm him down, for what with the portraits and the fungus-book and one thing and another, he and I are both getting into a state of nerves.

I want peace and quiet. Damn all these people! Thank Heaven I’ve got the proofs to see to, because I’m in no fit state to write anything. My ideas are all upside down. I can’t focus anything. I suppose it’s just the usual “between-books” feeling. I am going to take a few weeks’ lucid interval and read astronomy or physics or something. Personally, I’m dead sick of the blasted creative instinct!

Yours all-of-a-dither, but still devotedly,

Jack

28. The Same to the Same

15a, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater

1st February, 1929

Bungie, my darling,

What, in God’s name, are you going to do with me if I get jealous and suspicious? Or I with you, if it happens that way? I ask this in damn sober earnest, old girl. I’ve got the thing right under my eyes here, and I know perfectly well that no agreement and no promise made before marriage will stand up for a single moment if either of us gets that ugly bug into the blood.

You remember—months ago—I passed on a cheerful little matrimonial dialogue that took place by the umbrella-stand. To-night we had the pleasure of hearing the thing carried on to the next stage.

Harrison had the brilliant idea of inviting Lathom and me to dinner to taste his special way of frying chicken. Well, there we all were—Miss Milsom frightfully kittenish in a garment she had embroidered herself with Persian arabesques. (“I don’t know what they mean, you know, Mr. Munting. Probably something frightfully improper! I copied them off a rug.”) Harrison who allows nobody to penetrate into “his” kitchen when he’s working out a masterpiece, was frying away amid a powerful odour of garlic. No Mrs. Harrison! We furiously make conversation—enter H.—gives a black look round, and disappears again. I count the things on the mantelpiece—two brass candlesticks, brass door-knocker representing the Lincoln imp—two imitation brass mulling-cones—ill-balanced pottery nude—quaint clock and pair of Liberty nondescripts. Front door goes. Kitchen door in the distance heard to burst open. “Well, where have you been?” Awful realisation creeps over us all that the sitting-room door has been left open. I say hurriedly: “Have you read the new Michael Arlen, Miss Milsom?” We are all aware that a prolonged cross-examination is proceeding. Lathom fidgets. Voice rises to appalling distinctness: “Don’t talk nonsense! How long were you at the hairdresser’s?—Well, what were you doing?—Yes, but what kept you?—Yes, of course, you met somebody. You seem to be meeting a lot of people lately!—I don’t care who it ‘only’ was—one of the men from the office, I suppose—Carrie Mortimer? nonsense!—I shall not be quiet—I shall talk as loudly as I like—Did you or did you not remember——?” Here I grow desperate and turn on the gramophone. In comes Harrison, putting a good face on it. “Here’s the wife, late as usual!” We sit down to dinner in embarrassed silence. I murmur eulogies on the chicken. “Over-cooked,” says Harrison, shovelling it all aside and savagely picking at the vegetables. After this, everybody is afraid to eat it, for fear of not seeming to know good food from bad. “It seems delicious to me, Mr. Harrison,” says Miss Milsom, profiting nothing from long experience. “Oh,” says Harrison, sourly, “you women don’t care what you eat. It’s overdone, isn’t it, Lathom?” Lathom, quite helpless with rage, says in a strangulated voice, that he thinks it’s just right. “Well, you’re not eating it,” says Harrison, gloomily triumphant. By this time everybody’s appetite is taken thoroughly away. There is nothing on earth the matter with the chicken, but we all sit staring at it as though it was a Harpagus-feast of boiled baby.

Well, I’ll spare you the rest of the nightmare. The point is that this time, Mrs. Harrison didn’t come in bubblingly eager to say where she had been and what she had been doing—and that next time the alibi will hold water—and then Harrison will start saying that you can’t trust women, and will very likely be perfectly justified.

Bungie—I see how these things happen, but how does one insure against them? What security have we that we—you and I, with all our talk of freedom and frankness—shall not come to this?

Love makes no difference. Harrison would cheerfully die for his wife—but I can’t imagine anything more offensive than dying for a person after you’ve been rude to them. It’s taking a mean advantage. And what’s the good of it all to him, if he loves her so much that everything she says gets on his nerves? I like Harrison—I think he’s worth a hundred of her—and yet, every time there’s a row, she ingeniously manages somehow to make him appear to be in the wrong. She is completely selfish, but she takes the centre of the stage so convincingly that the whole scene is engineered to give her the limelight for her attitudes.

This house is becoming a nightmare; I shall have to chuck it, but I must stay on till Easter, because the rent is paid up to the quarter and I can’t afford to lead a double life and Lathom can’t manage more than his own share. Hell!

I to Hercules comes out next month. I hope old Merritt won’t be let down over it. He continues to be enthusiastic. Senile decay, I should think. Well, we’ll hope for the best. If my Press is as good as yours I shan’t complain, my child.

Your envious

Jack