Passing By

After dinner A. said to Mrs Housman that, knowing she liked music, he had provided her with a musical treat. Mrs Braham would sing to us. She sang, accompanying herself, The Garden of Sleep, The Silver Ring, Mélisande in the Wood, and, by special request, The Little Grey Home in the West. There was no other music.

Saturday, March 13th.

Had tea with the Housmans. They asked me to dinner next Tuesday to meet A. Mrs Housman says that Mrs Campion is one of the most charming and amusing people she has ever met. C. is staying in London. This Saturday A. is going to his house in the country. He has a small house on the coast near Littlehampton, where he keeps his yacht, but, of course, he cannot yacht yet. He has a large house in Sussex which is let.

Sunday Night, March 14th.

Went down to Woking to spend the day with Solway in his cottage. He is composing a Sonata for piano and violin. He played me the first movement. He said he thought there was a certain amount of good music being composed at the present day which nobody was taking notice of, but which would probably come into its own some day. He said Mrs Housman was the singer who gave him the most pleasure. He said: "Her singing is business-like. She is divinely musical."

Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl

    Sunday, March 14th.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I have been spending a perfect Saturday to Monday in London. I have had a busy week and was glad to see no one and do nothing all to-day, that is to say, comparatively no one and nothing, as I went to the play on Saturday night, and to-day I went to a large luncheon party at Alice's, who is back at Bruton Street. The news is that the Shamier episode is over, quite, quite over. There is no doubt about it. She is madly in love with Lavroff. I don't wonder. He is so intelligent and plays wonderfully. As for George, I don't think he cares. You will at once ask if there is no one else. Nobody that I know of. I don't know who he sees and what he does. He hates going out, and talks every day of giving a dinner at his flat, but as far as I know he hasn't entertained a cat yet.

I dined out every night last week, and gave one dinner at my flat. I think it was a success. Freda Macdonald, Louise, Lavroff and Eileen Hope, who sang quite beautifully. I asked Godfrey Mellor, but I really don't know if I can ask him again to that sort of party as he didn't utter a word. Freda liked him. But it does ruin a dinner to have a gulf of silence in the middle of it, especially as when he does talk he can be quite agreeable. George has gone down to the country. His sister is here now, but she goes north next week. I believe London bores him to death and he is longing for the summer and for his yacht. I am sorry you can tell me nothing of Mrs Housman. I haven't seen or heard anything more of her.

Thank you very much for the langues de chat. They added to the success of my dinner. Yours, etc.,

GUY.

From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor

Monday, March 16th.

I asked C. where he got his cigarettes. He said he got them from a little man who lived behind the Haymarket. Everybody seems to get their cigarettes and their shirts from a "little man." The little man apparently never lives in a street but always behind a street.

My new piano, a Cottage Broadwood, arrived to-day. It is bought on the three years' system.

Tuesday, March 17th.

Dined with my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Arthur last night, in Eccleston Square. A large dinner-party: a Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the French Chargé d'Affaires and his wife, the Editor of The Whig and his wife, Lord and Lady Saint-Edith, Professor Miles, Sir Herbert Wilmott and Lady Wilmott, Mr Julius K. Lee of the American Embassy, and Mrs Lovell-Smythies, the novelist.

As we were all waiting for dinner in the dark library downstairs a Miss Magdalen Cross came in late, carrying a book in her hand. "This book," she said to us all, "is well worth reading." It was a German novel by Sudermann. An old lady who was standing next to her, and who I afterwards discovered was the widow of the Bishop of Exminster, said: "You prepared that entry in your cab, dear Magdalen." Miss Cross blushed. I took her in to dinner. She talked of sculpture, the Chinese nation, German novels, and Russian music. She has been three times round the world. She has no liking for most German music and cannot abide Brahms. She likes Wagner, Chopin, Russian Church music and Spanish songs. On the other side I had the wife of the French Chargé d'Affaires. She said: "J'adore l'odeur des paquets anglais." Her favourite English author, she said, was Mrs Humphry Wood. I did not like to ask her if she meant Mrs Humphry Ward or Mrs Henry Wood. She said the works of this novelist made her weep.

When we were left in the dining-room after dinner, Lord Saint-Edith, Professor Miles and Hallam (of The Whig) had a long argument about some lines in Dante, and this led them to the Baconian theory. Lord Saint-Edith said he couldn't understand people thinking Bacon had written Shakespeare's plays. If they said Shakespeare had written the works of Bacon as a pastime he could understand it. He believed Homer was written by Homer. The Professor was paradoxical and said he thought the Odyssey was a forgery. "Tacitus," he said, "was known to be one."

After dinner upstairs there was tea but no music. Uncle Arthur is growing very deaf and forgetful and asked me how I was getting on at Balliol.

Aunt Ruth told me she had asked my new chief to dinner, but that he had refused. "Of course," she said, "this is not the kind of house he would find amusing. But considering how well I knew his father I think it would be only civil for him to come to one of my Thursday evenings."

Wednesday, March 17th.

I dined at the Housmans' last night. It was a dinner for A. He was the guest of the evening. To meet him there were Lady Maria Lyneham, who must be over seventy; a French lady of imposing presence called, if I caught the name correctly, the Princesse de Carignan and who, Housman whispered to me, was a Bourbon, and if she had her rights would be Queen of France to-day; a secretary from the Italian Embassy; Mr and Mrs Baines. Mr Baines is an official at the British Museum and is half French. His wife, he told me, had once been taken for Sarah Bernhardt. There were several other people: Sir Herbert Simcox, the K.C., and Lady Simcox, an art critic, a lady journalist and Miss Housman.

A. sat between Mrs Housman and Lady Simcox. Housman had the Princesse de Carignan on his right and Lady Maria on his left. I sat between Lady Maria and Miss Housman. Lady Maria told me she dined out whenever she could, and asked me to luncheon on Sunday. "Don't come," she said, "if you mind meeting lions; I like pleasant people. Only I warn you I have an old-fashioned prejudice for good manners and I always ask their wives."

Mr Baines talked beautiful French to the Princesse. Lady Maria told me she was neither French nor a princess, but the illegitimate daughter of a Levantine. "But very respectable all the same, I'm afraid," she added.

After dinner a few people came. Among others, Housman's partner and Esther Lake, the contralto. She sang (she brought her own accompanist) some Handel and Che faro and, by request of Mr Housman, Gounod's There is a Green Hill.

I drove home with A. He told me he had enjoyed himself immensely and he thought Esther Lake was the finest singer in the world.

He said Miss Housman was a very clever woman and Housman appeared to be quite a good sort.

He said he liked this kind of dinner-party.

Thursday, March 18th.

The first day there has been a feeling of spring in the air. I went to St James's Park on the way to the office.

Dined at the Club.

Friday, March 19th.

A. asked me to spend Sunday with him in the country. I told him I was sorry I was engaged to go out to luncheon on Sunday. He said I must come the week after.

Saturday, March 20th.

C. said it was a great pity A. did not go out more. He used to go out a great deal, he said. "I suppose," he added, "it's because he doesn't wast to meet Mrs Shamier." I said I thought C. had told me he was fond of her. "Yes," said C, "he was very fond of her, but that is all over now."

Sunday Evening, March21st.

I went to St Paul's Cathedral in the morning. Then to luncheon with Lady Maria in her house in Seymour Place.

A curious luncheon. There were two actors and their wives, Father Seton, and Mr Le Roy, who writes detective stories, and his wife, and Sir James Croker.

I sat next to Mrs Le Roy, who is, she told me, a Greek. She told me her husband had written one hundred and ten books, but that she had read none of them. She said it worried him if she read them. She said it was a great sacrifice as she doted on detective stories and was told his were very good. The actors, who were both actor managers, told us about their forthcoming productions. Mr Vane said there was going to be a real panther in his next production (a Shakespearean revival). Mr Jones Acre is producing a play which is translated from the Swedish, and which deals with the question of a man who has inoculated himself and his whole family with a fatal disease, in the interests of science.

Father Seton took a great interest in the stage, and said he considered the Church and the stage should be close allies. The clergy took far too little interest in these things. It was a pity, he said, to let the Romans have the monopoly of that kind of thing. This surprised Mrs Le Roy, who said she thought he was a Roman Catholic. He laughed and said Rome would have to capitulate on many points before any idea of corporate reunion could be entertained.

Sir James Croker told stories of early days in the Foreign Office and Lord Palmerston.

We sat on talking until half-past three. I then went home and read Jane Eyre.

Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl

    HALKIN STREET,
    March 25th.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I start on Thursday and shall arrive Thursday evening. I have got rooms at the Ritz. Let us have dinner together Thursday night, and not go to a play. I shall stay in Paris a week and then go for four days to Mentone. Then I shall come back to Paris for three days, and then home. I suppose we shall have to dine at the Embassy one night. George is going to the country for Easter with his sister. I want a really nice screen (a small one). You must help me to find one, not too dear. I also want something for the dining-room, which at present is coo bare.

I won't write any more now.

    Yours,