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I remember so well that very first meeting. We lived then in a little new villa in a row, in a new road quite near Wandsworth Common. The front room was the dining-room, and the piano was there; the back room at the end of the passage looking on to the tiny garden, which was kept full of flowers, was my father's study. This was lined with books, and in the middle of the room was his knee-hole writing-table.
On the table were scattered papers, his tin of Three Castles cigarettes, and his small tumbler of weak whisky and water. As a child I used to marvel at the way he puffed the smoke out of his mouth atter sipping whisky and water. He smoked and sipped all day, while he wrote with his thin, delicate hand in his small, thick writing, or lay on the sofa by the window reading the three-volume novels which he reviewed for part of his living.
My father had a name as an essayist and critic among a small public, but he had to eke out his means with reviewing and journalism, and we had just moved from Liverpool to London so that he could be more in touch with literary affairs.
Our house was comfortable and pleasant and very cosy, with people always coming and going. My mother and father were both very sociable and hospitable, and, though there cannot have been much money, owing to my mother's wonderful management there was always everything we wanted, and the unexpected guests who often turned up were warmly welcomed.
My father's study was the general sitting-room, and here all visitors were invited. Nothing disturbed my father at his work so muchas to be left alone. Often when my mother thought we were getting too noisy for him, we would creep out unnoticed by him into the dining-room, but in a few minutes we would hear his strange halting step in the passage, and his voice asking why we had left him, and back we would
_________
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all have to troop, to read aloud, play games, talk and laugh, while he wrote an essay or reviewed a book.
Our life was very happy, very social, very united. We were unconventional, though in no startling way — just informal and unselfconscious. A good deal of freedom of movement was allowed to us children, and freedom of speech and thought; and so far we had all pulled together, interested in new movements — 'well up in things', | think we should have said —- mainly artistic and especially of course literary — and with wide views on religious and social questions.
We all went to the Unitarian Church on Sunday, though neither of my parents belonged to this denomination, Father having been born and bred a Churchman, while Mother came of stout dissenting stock. But I expect they were drawn to the Unitarians by the semi-literary, semi-philosophical, nature of the sermons. We were poorer than most of the congregation, our income being very irregular our ways were not so bound by the conventions that seem to be set up by a regular flow of money. By the well-to-do of our type we should have been called Bohemians.
I think at this time we were all at home: that is, my eldest sister Irene; myself, seventeen and just left school; and my youngest sister, Mary, still at school. Both my sisters were clever, and had carried everything before them at school. I hated school, where my sisters' brilliance threw into sharp relief my own incapacity, and I had begged to leave and be at home with my father, whom I adored.
I remember that afternoon. We knew the strange boy was coming. Our Unitarian minister had asked my father to look at some of his work and see if it was any good, and Father had thought so highly of it that we had already nicknamed the boy 'The Genius'. Perhaps we had been told he was shy; anyway we left the study and went into the dining-room, and when he came he was shown straight in to Father, who was waiting for him. We girls were playing The Mikado on the piano and singing, and between whiles laughing and talking of the boy and wondering what he would be like, and I think
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feeling a slight, amused prejudice against him for being shy and serious and clever. Soon, when we thought Father had had enough of him to himself, we thought we should like to sec him, but my two sisters drew back at the door; so I went 'alone. I opened the door, feeling silly, and giggling, because of the rather extravagant things we had been saying about him: and just inside the door, standing by the bookshelves with an open book in his hand, he stood, so that I came upon him sooner than I had expected. This made me laugh the more, or feel inclined to laugh, had not his face, into which | looked, immediately changed my mood. My father introduced us and our eyes met — the boy's solemn grey eyes rather over-shadowed by drooping lids with long lashes. He did not smile, but looked very steadily at me and I at him as he took my hand with a very hard and long grip. I remember feeling pleasure in that first touch and thinking 'I like him; I like the way he shakes hands and the straight, intense look in his eyes.' After I came in, the talk lagged, my father doing his best to keep things going, but Edward was too shy and constrained by my presence to be able to talk. And soon he went, refusing to stay to tea to meet my sisters. I can't remember if he dwelt much in my thoughts after the first meeting, but I do remember that though I thought him shy and awkward and silent I liked him and wanted to see him again.
Edward was tall —just six feet — and slim, with a broad chest and shoulders, which he carried well — loose-limbed and athletic. He had a beautifully shaped head with a fine brow, and his thick fair hair, worn rather long, curled a little over his forehead and ears. His nose was long and straight, his mouth very sensitive, with the upper lip slightly overhanging the lower. The chin was strong. The eyes were grey and dreamy and meditative, but fearless and steady, and as if trying to pierce the truth itself. It was a most striking face, recalling a portrait of Shelley in its sensitive, melancholy beauty. His hands were large and powerful, and he could do anything With them from the roughest work to the most delicate: they symbolize for me his strength and tenderness. It is his hands
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even more than his beautiful face that remain in my vision when I think of him; I shall never forget them.
He came often, and always Father liked to have him alone but shortly before he went I used to slip in and try to talk t him. I have no recollection of how we got on, but I think no very well, because his shyness made me shy. |
My father helped him a great deal with advice about writing and reading, and with Father he got on well and talked well whose genial kindness and interest slowly broke down Edward' reserve. My father became very fond of him and used to call him Phil, because his first name was Philip, and my parents had had a little boy called Philip who had died as a baby, an by a strange coincidence Edward's features and general colour ing were very like this baby boy's, and I believe my father felt that this was his boy — the boy of his heart, loving th things he loved, and seeking self-expression in the same wa that my father had sought it.
My mother, on the other hand grew to dislike him. She was jealous. She could find in thi quiet, reserved, clever boy no point of contact, though as rule she got on splendidly with boys, and preferred them t girls, and many came to the house, but none like this one The boys she liked were jolly, frank, well-mannered, easy creatures, intelligent cnough most of them, though hardl ever speaking seriously of things, but genial and cheery, an who found her a very congenial hostess.
At this time Edward talked exclusively of the books he wa reading — buying when he could, or borrowing from my fathe —and my appearance in the study stopped all talk except wha could be dragged out of him by questions. I do not want tq give the impression that his manners were those of a hobbledehoy, for though he was very shy and reserved, he had 4 natural courtesy and distinction of manner, which, thoug perhaps stiff for a boy of his age, was always dignified. :
His writing was devoted almost entirely to descriptions o nature, of clouds, sky, trees and landscapes, and I had read and liked very much some of his essays. My father got sever of them accepted by a weekly paper of which he was the
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co-editor, and the Globe printed some, and Father was encouraging him all he could with appreciation and advice and help. This period is a little vague for me, for I was outside it and was conscious of no attraction towards him beyond the impression, still very distinct, made by that first surprisingly firm grip, and that straight look, which made me patient with his silence, his shyness and his awkwardness.
I had always had a strong yearning for the country. Our life had been spent in towns in the north of England, and owing to my father's invalidism we were not, as so many children are, taken out for long walks by our father, and our times in the country had been confined to our summer holidays in north Wales. But I loved the country, and Edward's knowledge of country things gave us a common interest and subject of conversation, so that slowly we got to easier — though even now not very easy — terms until one day my father said to Edward. 'Here's Helen dying for the country, and a good walker; why don't you take her, and show her some of the places you know?'
Before this happened we had moved to a much bigger and nicer house in a better neighbourhood. It had a very pretty garden, which had been part of an orchard, and had several fruit trees in it — one, a very beautiful old cherry tree, always lovely to look at, and full of fruit in the season. A forked branch made a comfortable seat, and I often sat up there reading, and I remember how Edward once found me, with bare fect and legs, eating cherries and reading, and his surprise and pleasure at finding me unembarrassed by his seeing me like that. The study in this house had french windows opening on to the garden, and so in summer time the garden became our general gathering-place, and the cherry tree's branches pro- vided seats for several of the company. It was from this house that we set off for our first walk to Merton.
Merton was then a pretty rural place, with fields and lanes and footpaths and woods. We walked to it through a wilderc- ness of mean streets, and I can't remember that we talked much. Now it was I who was shy, and conscious of my intel-
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lectual inferiority, and I tried to talk 'up' to him, and became more self-conscious and said stupid things. But it was on this first walk that I spoke of the picture of a titmouse in a natural history which Edward had showed me some time before. It was a coloured illustration, and I could not believe that the colours were natural, and that such a lovely bright bird was really acommon English, even London, bird. My short sight and lack of observation made me ignorant of even the most commonly known facts of natural history, and this picture impressed me very much, and I told Edward as we went along how I had dreamt of a titmouse, only it was gigantic in size, and the colours of its plumage very, very vivid. He was delighted and amused at this, and this simple incident put us quite at ease with each other. We spoke of poetry, too, of Wordsworth particularly. I told him I didn't care for him because he was 'sentimental', which shocked Edward, and made me feel ashamed. Afterwards, when I got home, I read some of the poems he had spoken about, and from that talk my appreciation of poetry began.
I remember in that first walk how we scrambled about in a little roadside copse. It must have been winter or early spring, for the trees were bare, and Edward showed me many old nests, telling me the names of the birds which had made them, and pointing out to me their special characteristics.
Later on he brought me as a present a most beautifully compact, moss-covered nest of a chaffinch, which I could hardly believe was the work of a bird, and all my wonder pleased and amused him in his grave way. In that copse were many burdocks, and I remember asking him to throw some of the burrs on to my skirt, so that I could prove to my people I had really been into the country.
I enjoyed that walk. It was an utterly new experience for me. Everything was new — the very exercise which I found so delightful was new; the country so near to home; my companion, the first boy I had ever been on such terms with. And all his knowledge of everything we saw, and all his intimacy — everything lifted me at once into a new world.
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I was at this time about eighteen, and he nine months younger.
We came back to tea in the dusk of the evening, very happy together, and with very much of our former constraint worn away. But even now I felt he was 'The Genius' and I a very ordinary girl, as indeed I was.
After that he came and went, talking with my father, and more Now with me, and accepted by my mother in a grudging way. In a little while we had arranged to go on another walk, and my father was delighted with the success of his idea.
This time we were to take the train to Barnes, and walk up Priory Lane and over Richmond Park to the heronry where once at might Edward had climbed to get a heron's egg. I remember the place, which was near a big lake, and the tall trees (Were they Scotch pines, or elms?) in which the huge, untidy, insecure nests were built, looking more like rafts of twigs than nests. I, with my dizzy head, could not endure it when he — to show me his prowess, I expect — began to climb the straight tall trunk of one of them.
He told me of his fishing exploits, and of the big pike he had caught in the pond near by, for he was always a keen fisherman, and we spoke of Izaak Walton whom I had read. I learnt here the names of several wild flowers, especially the httle low-growing kinds — tormentil was one: I have never forgotten it, and its tiny bright flower always brings me back to Richmond Park, and that day. He found me a good walker; I did not get tired, nor lag behind, but we stepped out eagerly and joyfully always.
Of these walks we took many, but only one other is clearly recalled to my memory. We went again to Merton, and talked of Shelley, whom we were both reading and both very full of. His life I knew very well, and he had for long been a hero of mine. It was his love of freedom, his hatred of injustice and tyranny that I chiefly responded to, I think, but also his spiritual beauty caught up my dawning perception of poctry. That day we talked of Shelley, and Edward had in his pocket a pretty little volume of selected lyrics — the flapping of a book
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in his jacket pocket as he strode along with his long sweepin stride is one of my earliest and latest memories of Edward and we read 'Adonais' and the 'West Wind' and 'Love' Philosophy' and 'Epipsychidion' together. |
Coming home from Merton, not yet having left the countr roads, and in the sunset-flushed mist of an autumn afternoon as we walked side by side, silent for the most part, but deep] conscious of happiness and friendship, he took my hand, an I, full of anew wonder and a new fear, and a new somethin —I could not tell what, let him walk thus. When we got home he would not come in to tea, but as we said good-bye at the gate he asked me to keep the Shelley for my own, and I too it, but did not want to, and yet could not tell why.
I was a plain girl, morbidly conscious of intellectual and physical deficiencies. I had often cried bitterly in the thought that no man could ever love me, and that my longing for children would never be satisfied. I had so persuaded mysel of this that it never entered my mind as a possibility until that moment when Edward took my hand; and even then I did not consciously think of love; all I felt was an unrest, a fear, a thrill, perhaps also a hope.
I was very affectionate, and almost painfully grateful to people who showed me affection, but conscious of my own unworthiness and with a constant distrust of myself. I think this was partly due to the contrast to myself in my two sisters, one older and one younger. Both were clever and self-confident and admired. They both succeeded where I failed, and my mother constantly said to me when she was irritated by her. ugly duckling, 'Why can't you be like your sister Mary?' and that remark made it more and more and more difficult for me. to attain that ideal, and I shrank further into my shell of self-distrust.
I loved all children passionately, especially young babies. loved to see a pregnant woman — I almost adored whilc envied her. I desired love, but only, at any rate consciously, in an emotional or spiritual form, for I did not comprehend physical love, and the whole thing was very mysterious to mc,
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and my mother had always refused to discuss the subject. | yearned vagucly for freedom, for something more than this quict home life, where my mother's word was law. I had begun to have different tastes from the others. In dress, for instance, I took to what were then called Liberty dresses, very simple and plain in line, but of beautiful colours and ornamented with embroidery. The fashions then made this style of dress conspicuous, and my sisters laughed at it, but I was getting to the priggish stage, and I am sure I thought myself superior. I wanted less furniture in my bedroom, and more air, and I read Ruskin and Morris and became their disciple. Edward and I read Carlyle's French Revolution, and particularly Wilhelm Meister, which we loved, and which influenced us very much, me specially perhaps in my natural instinct for unreserve and freedom and frankness of speech.
I was at that age plain, with a round healthy face and small nosc; rather serious in expression, but not entirely unattractive. I had a lot of dark brown hair, which I wore parted in the middle with long plaits wound round my head — a simple style suiting my dress and my general seriousness. I was straight and tallish, and my own well-shaped and strong and — as I think now — really lovely body gave me intense delight. I loved being without clothes, and moving about naked, and I took a pride in my health and strength.
Edward and I read Richard Jefferies, and with delight I found the joy in one's body spoken of there as if it was right and good. For with my old distrust of myself I had wondered if the joy I felt in my body indicated some moral deficiency in me, as my mother's teaching had been in direct opposition to what I felt so instinctively.
Edward and I were getting much less reserved together, and talked of anything and everything — of poetry a great deal — Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Tennyson chiefly, I think — oh, and Byron too: indeed we read all from Chaucer onwards; all was grist to the mills of our devouring minds, Also we began to speak of ourselves, our hopes, our tecling about life, our intimate thoughts and experiences.
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It must have been about this time that I introduced mysel to Edward's parents and brothers. He was the eldest of si boys. He had no sisters, and except for brief, awkward attrac tions for one or two girls who lived near, I was the first gi he had ever become friendly with. He knew nothing of girls less than I of boys, for though I had never been attractive t boys — my sister Mary taking all these honours — I had me many at home, but had never had a friend among them.
Edward's father, Mr Thomas, was a serious-minded Liberal — a self-satisfied, hard-working and conscientious civil servant who rose in his department quite remarkably. He was the thick-set, short, dark type of Welshman, handsome, but to me unattractive. He was a Nonconformist, and a student; with a very narrow view of life which made him an extremely unsympathetic father. All the boys except Edward were like their father in appearance, but not one of them like him in character.
His mother was a very pretty fair-haired woman, with a sweet melancholy face, very retiring and shy and sad Edward got his looks from his mother and much of his temperament, and so he adored her — if such a word can be used o so reserved, so undemonstrative an affection, which neve wavered. A wonderful sympathy existed between these two both too self-conscious to give it voice, but both sure of 1 always. The other boys, though, were beyond her understand ing, and there was a strange feeling of disharmony in tha house, which, after my own united family life, depressed m whenever I went there.
I went to see Mrs Thomas because I thought it only fai that, as my mother knew Edward, she should know me. I introduced myself boldly and impulsively, as I did things then. She was very kind, though shy and reserved with me; and I think liked me, anyway did not dislike me. When I returned home I told my mother about my visit and she to my great surprise and distress was very angry. She said I had behaved in a very improper way, and that I had practically announced myself as engaged to Edward. I thought her attitude and her anger ridiculous, and there began in me that antagonism to
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my mother which on my father's death made home life unendurable to me.
After this visit I used often to go to Edward's home, and became well known to his father and brothers. I tried to pierce Mrs Thomas's deep reserve, and I believe my warm, impulsive nature did achieve something. I got on very well with both Mr and Mrs Thomas, and felt easy and confident with them. [ was a new element in the house, being a girl, and as I was full of interest, and with a good deal of knowledge, though immature, of artistic things, Mr Thomas liked to talk to me, and I remember, in spite of my dislike of him, I felt flattered.
Mr Thomas had a great admiration for my father, as one of the foremost literary critics of the day. Later on Mr Thomas made the acquaintance of my father, who was a man of great charm of manner and distinction of appearance, genial and humorous and sympathetic, and very generous with all he had, material and spiritual. So under the wing of my father's reputation and personality I was made welcome at the Thomas's and blossomed out there — freed from the everlasting comparison with my sisters.
The brothers were a strange lot of rather uncouth boys: their huge appetites and rough ways amazed me. Their parents provided no social life at home for them, and at a very early age they sought their amusements elsewhere. Edward was the only one who had a love of nature and literature. The very house seemed to me ugly and uninteresting, and there was only one room which had for me any character or charm, and this was Edward's own room — study and bedroom in one. There he kept his collection of birds' eggs and rods and fishing-tackle, and here he lived most of his indoor life reading or writing. A few photographs of Titian and Botticelli and Greek sculpture were pinned on to the walls, and there was a shelf of books — not many yet, for he had very little pocket money to spend. Here we were allowed to sit and talk and read, though his mother often asked if I thought my mother would like it, and sometimes, because she was so uncertain that she was doing right for her boys, she would forbid us this room,
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and we had to be content to sit in the cold and formal lit@d drawing-room at the back of the house.
At this time my father, who had always been delicate, began to show signs of the tuberculosis in the throat of which died. He was not able now to see much of Edward, and when Edward came to the house my mother's dislike of him became more and more obvious. About the same time Edward we away for one of his long visits to Wiltshire, where his gran mother lived, and where he could wander all day on t Downs, and tramp about the outlying country with an o vagabond from whom he had learnt much country lore, a who had first taught him how to bait a hook, and skin a mo and shout the 'view-hallo' when the hunt was out.
My mother, taking advantage of all the circumstances, fo bade me to have anything more to do with Edward — to wri to him or receive letters from him while he was away, or see him when he returned. My father was too ill to be appeal to, and for the first time in my life I took the law into own hands. I wrote to him secretly, and received letters fro him through a school friend of his, who was a great favourit with my mother, and who came to inquire after my fathé and to bring my letters with him.
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Friendship had now become unconscious love. We wrote to each other every day, concealing nothing of our thoughts and ideas and emotions, and relating all that happened to us in our daily life, and the deeper experiences of our growing consciousness. The writing of my letters and the receiving of his were to me the most wonderful experiences I had ever had. I had found the friend of my heart, and my nature, hitherto so repressed, so morbidly self-distrustful, blossomed out, and I was expressing myself easily and well, and was always brimming over with things to tell him of myself and my reading, and I gained my greatest satisfaction in his appreciation and understanding and response. During his absence in Wiltshire Edward sent me boxes of wild flowers, and a thrush's egg — the first he had found. I have it still with the inscription I wrote on the lid of the box: 'From my dearest friend, Edward Thomas, to be kept always in memory ofa happy friendship.'
During this time my father's illness got worse and worse, and after an operation in his throat, a few days after Edward's return, he died. I was alone with my mother the night before his death. We had left him for a little while in the care of the nurse, to get a little much-needed sleep, but we simply lay down on the bed in our clothes, expecting to be called at any moment. While we were alone together in the early hours of the morning, my mother, using all the advantage of our relation, and of the emotional crisis through which we were passing, and which for the while brought us together, asked me tO promise to give up Edward's friendship. She saw more plainly than we where it was tending, and she so disliked Edward, and felt jealous of my growing affection for him. In the middle of a terrible discussion the nurse came to summon us to my father who was in his last agony, and when we got
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to his bedside he was dead.
I remember my mother fainting, and my running upstairs to wake my two sisters, and the feeling of loneliness and despair that I had lost such a dear friend and ally. I remember waiting for the morning to come which would bring Edward outside the house to ask for news, and my running out to tell him, but I cannot remember how he took it.
After my father's death life at home became very different. His genial kindness and happiness withdrawn, my mother's harshness became more pronounced. Quite frankly she showed that her daughters were a bother to her. She had to add to her small income by taking in boarders, and these young men — quite decent and nice of their kind — became as her family. All the affection and sympathy she failed to give to her daughters she gave to these strangers, and they and she lived in the happiest relations. My friendship with Edward when it was mentioned was always alluded to with sneers and contempt. The young men took this up, and with my mother's approval did all they could to make things appear ridiculous. Edward never came to the house now, but though my mother had forbidden it she was powerless to prevent my meeting him and I never hid from her that we did. We met and walked and talked, and love grew.
There was no definite moment when friendship became love, but a natural merging into love as we became closer, friends. At this time we both knew that the friendship between us was the happiest thing in our lives, but we did not regard the future. We were content with the present. But I remember one evening very well. It was in the spring and nearing Edward's birthday, March 3rd. We were walking on the Common, very happy, talking of what we had been reading, what doing, what thinking, walking as usual hand in hand. In a space of silence, when thought and emotion went to and fro between us too full even for speech, I felt that wonderful experience of the first stirring of desire, though at this time it seemed half-maternal tenderness for his big, strong body, and his lovely face, and his hand holding mine, which now held
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his more firmly — mingled with something new and strange that I did not understand. I remember how, with that emotion Aooding my being, my heart beat too fast, and my face burned, and I could have fainted with the pain and the joy of it. For it affected me as later I was affected by the first flutter of my baby in my womb.
When we reached the place for good night I could not let him go as he had always done before, but put hands round his head and drew it down to mine and kissed his mouth and looked close into his eyes. And he returned my kiss and my look, and then turned to go. But as I turned to go, too, he caught me in his arms and pressed me to him and kissed my mouth and my eyes and my neck; blindly and fiercely he kissed me, and I abandoned myself to him, not responding but just yielding myself to his kisses. When I was in my bed I could not sleep, but lay trembling half with fear, half with wonder, at what I had awakened in him. I had not known that love could be like that — so fierce, so rough, so greedy.
Quite soon after my father's death my position at home became unbearable, and I left home to earn my living as a nursery governess with relatives of friends living at Broadstairs. I do not remember that this parting from Edward seemed terrible to us at all: we were so happy in our love, and so sure of the future. I do remember that my mother came to see me off, and that she uttered no protest and showed no surprise when Edward came too. So I left home for the first time in my life.
During the time that I was in Broadstairs, we wrote to each other every day. My letters were written last thing at night in the only time of my own that I had. My work filled my day. Thad four young children to bathe, dress, teach (including Plano and violin), take out for walks, and mend for; and in the evening, when they were in bed, I was expected to play cards with Mr and Mrs Webb on weekdays, and on Sundays listen patiently while Mr Webb read aloud to his patient wife and me Cary's translation of Dante. How I used to long impatiently for ten o'clock to strike, for when the hour came we
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stopped the game or the reading! They went to bed, and It
my room to read over again the letter [ had had in the morning and to write all that my heart and mind were full of. d letters they were — poured out of my brimming consciousness We wrote of our daily lives, our thoughts, the books we were reading, and our emotions. We hid nothing of ourselves from each other, and we now looked forward to a life together, when it would be possible. Marriage did not enter into our plans, but just a passionate desire to be one in body as we were in spirit.
Looking back, it seemed to me unbelievable that we were so ignorant of physical love. But we were very ignorant and very innocent.
During this time at Broadstairs I was very happy teaching and playing with the children, with whom I got on very well. Sometimes it happened that between putting the children to bed and dinner-time I was able to slip out on to the beach just below the house, and then it was my delight to run along the sand with the wind in my hair reciting aloud Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind' or 'Adonais'. These and most of Shelley's lyrics and many of Keats's I knew by heart. I remember the exhilaration I felt in those few stolen moments as the strong' salty wind snatched the words from my lips, and my breath too, and how I delighted in holding my head high and not lowering it against the speed and the strength of the wind, and how the sound of the wind and of the sea drowned the sound of my voice, and how I felt my own strength and my own place in the motion and strength and sound, for love had given me a consciousness of my own part and significance in the universe I had not dreamt I should ever know.
I had been in Broadstairs for many months and I was so inexperienced and I suppose so well, and so happy with my secret, that it never occurred to me to ask for a holiday, and none was ever offered. The servants and the nurse all had their times off, but I never had any. However, one day Edward wrote to me that he was coming into Kent to Horsmonden with a friend to fish together. He had been working hard for
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a Civil Service Examination, and this was to be a little rest before the examination actually took place. I remember when I asked Mrs Webb for the day, and told her why, she said, as if so surprised to find I had any life more than her children provided for me, "Oh, I didn't know Phyllis had got a Corydon.' So very early one morning I set off. I had to get up at about five, for the journey was a tiresome cross-country one. The cook, who was very kind to me, had left me breakfast laid in the schoolroom, and I remember stealing downstairs so as not to wake anyone and finding to my great joy that the weather promised to be fine. I was wearing mourning for my father, but I hated it and the idea of it. I was too poor to buy anew frock for this great day; so I had made myself a white blouse to wear with my black coat and skirt; and with a big black hat, from which I had taken the black ribbon, putting instead a coloured scarf, I made the best of myself.
I remember only vaguely the journey. What I chiefly remember is the changing smell of the air from the sharp, salty sea air to the soft earthy smell of the green country. When at last I got to Horsmonden, Edward was there on the platform, and in a moment we were together. We did not speak or kiss, but when we got into the lane and I took in a great deep breath of the delicious air, he said, 'Oh Helen, love me more than anything that you love,' and stopped in the lane, took me in his arms and kissed me, and we leant tremblingly against each other. And I, 'I only love other things so much because I Jove you, dear.' Then we walked hand in hand silently, cill we came to the top of a little hill, when he ran down, pulling me with him till we were both out of breath and laughing, and we sat down by the roadside among cow-parsley and speedwell, till we had got our breath again.
I remember every minute of that day — how we talked and talked as we walked, I not noticing where we were going, but deeply conscious of all the beauty, so strange and so especially lovely to me after the sea and the barren country just inland.
We came at last to a mill pond and to a stick planted in the bank. Here Edward leant down and pulled up a bottle of
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lemonade that he had let down into the cool water, and fro under a bush he produced a basket full of sandwiches, eggs cake and fruit, all wrapped up in cool leaves. Not far fro the stream was a little copse, and here in the coolness, within sound of the stream, and on a carpet of dog's mercury we sat and ate and talked. I was very hungry after my early rising and as I sat with Edward's arm round me, and he was stroking my hair, I soon began to feel sleepy, and when he saw that he made fun of me. It was a hot summer day, and even in the shade of the copse it was hot, and so Edward unfastened the first few buttons of my blouse to let the air in on my throat and then with dry leaves he made a place for me to lie, an took off my shoes and stockings. And I lay down in the little place he had made for me, and he sat down by me and, kissing my eyes shut, he told me to go to sleep, and soon I was fast asleep. I don't know how long I slept, but I think not long, was awakened by feeling his face near to mine, and when he saw my eyes opened he kissed my eyes and my mouth an my throat, and took my head between his hands and kissed me again and again, and I, putting my arms round him, drew him to my breast, and so we lay in each other's arms, wit our hearts beating wildly together. And yet I can remember no desire for more than this; the new rapture of such ar embrace contented us utterly. Then we walked through meadows and woods, and through a beautiful park, where first learnt to distinguish trees. I remember the lime trees there and the beech, and it seems strange now that there was eve a time when I could not recognize the fine-textured skinlike bark, and the set of the trunk and branches like human limbs, and the beautiful curve that the leafy branches make, like hand opened for giving.
For tea we made a fire and boiled a kettle. It was the first time we had had a whole day together; the first time we had: eaten out of doors together; picnics had been very rare treats in my towny childhood, and this seemed to me the height of happiness. My surprise and joy and excitement in it all were as wonderful to Edward as the whole adventure was to me. °
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At dusk I went. He saw me off in the train, and that day ended, and we did not see each other again for many months.
During this time Edward was working for his examination, but very half-heartedly, for he hated the idea of an office life. He had very much wanted to go to Oxford, but the idea was not encouraged by his parents, partly on account of the expense and partly because his father thought that university lite would encourage Edward in his desire to earn his living by writing, which his father well knew would never lead to a fortune, while fame never entered his mind as a possibility. My father's influence had, of course, been on the side of a literary career, and so Edward's work for the higher branch of the Civil Service was very much against the grain. About this time his first book was published. He had, during his long walks at all times of the year, kept a minute diary of natural events — birds'-nesting, flowers opening, and descriptions of the sky, and clouds and atmosphere, and all sorts of observations made from day to day. This diary he offered on my father's advice to a firm which accepted it. I shall never forget my pride and joy when my copy of the book arrived, and how, in spite of my shyness in speaking to my employers of my own affairs, I rushed up to Mrs Webb to show her the book written by my lover and dedicated to my father. Mrs Webb admired my father's work, and the incident led to my telling her about Edward, and after that I had an interested and sympathetic friend in her.
Soon after this I left Broadstairs. My mother said she wanted me at home, and I did stay at home with her for a little while; but the old antagonism sprang up and I could not endure it tor long. | very soon got another post as a governess so that I should not be dependent on her.
She tried again to make me give up Edward, and forbade me to see him; so he could not come to the house. I lived at home, paying Mother for my keep. Each evening Edward and I met, generally on Wandsworth Common, where afar off I would recognise him by his long swinging stride, even though with my short sight I could distinguish nothing else
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about him. Sometimes on these evenings he would just walk with me as far as my gate, but sometimes we would go to Wimbledon Common.
It was on one of these summer evenings we had been talking of Richard Jefferies and his love for the human body. We had just read his essay, 'Nature in the; Louvre' and his description of the 'Vénus Accroupie', which he had admired so much. We were sitting in the undergrowel of a little copse in a remote part of the common. Edward had said that he had never seen a woman's body, and I do not remember quite how it came about, but I quite naturally and simply, without any feeling of shyness, knelt up in our secret bower and undid my clothes, and let them fall about my knees; so that to the knees I was naked. I knew my body was pretty: my breasts were firm and round and neither too small nor too large, and my neck and shoulders made a pleasant line, and my arms were rounded and white, and though my hips were small, the line of the waist was lovely. I was proud of my body, and took the most innocent pleasure in its lines and health and strength. So we knelt in the grass and dead leaves of the copse opposite to cach other, he silent and I laughing with joy to feel the air on my skin, and to see his enraptured gaze. For as he knelt he gazed wonderstruck and almost adoring, quite still, quite silent, looking now and then into my eyes with serious ecstatic look, his eyes full of tenderness and love, searching mine for any sign of regret or shyness. He did not touch me, but just knelt there letting his eyes take their fill of the beauty that was filling his soul with delight. When, without a word, I lifted my clothes about me, he helping me, he only then said, 'Helen, I did not know there was such beauty.'
He told me as we walked home that no statue or picture of a nude woman had ever given him a true idea, and that it was a far more beautiful thing than he had thought. For though he loved the Greek statues, it seemed to him that my body was far lovelier. But that was only because a warm and living thing has beauty which a stone representation of the most perfect body can never have.
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We were still very ignorant of sex, and only knew ina vague way through the reading of poetry how the human sexual act was performed. I remember very well with what joy I realized that his head would be on my breast, and I would enfold him in my arms,
After that, often when we were in remote places, I undressed and lay in the long grass, often beside the infant Wandle, then still an unpolluted stream. I had always from childhood had a love of feeling the air and sun on my body, and now — to be able often to have that experience and added to it the joy of my lover's delight — my heart was full indeed.
He did not undress — at this time being shy — because he said his body would look so ugly beside mine, but he used to lie by me with one arm supporting his head while he read to me, the other over me, his hand wandering over my body as he read till it knew the curves as well as his eyes.
Desire had become more conscious and definite, and often in my breast I would experience a pleasurable pain of longing for I knew not what; I loved to fee! his hand caressing me. After such a time he would help me to dress, kissing me as he did so, and I half-ashamed of his too great admiration, and wishing I was indeed all that he thought I was — wishing that I had perfect sight, wishing that my hair was not so straight and my nose was straighter, wishing that I could match his intellect and spirit, wishing that I had more to give him, and longing to give him all. But in spite of all that I knew to be imperfect in me I was utterly happy in his love, and hoped that in his heart he created beauty where none was, out of his love for me.
During these stolen hours we sometimes used to go to his home and read aloud, and sometimes we would go into town to the British Museum or the National Gallery, with Ruskin dictating our taste sometimes, and we finding it for ourselves too. Sometimes we would haunt Booksellers' Row — that queer little back street that used to lie behind the Strand — and spend a shilling or two on a second-hand copy of some book we wanted, or having saved up would buy a new volume of
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Ruskin in a good edition, or Shelley or Keats. Often we had no money, and could only turn the books over, and if we sa one we wanted hope that it would be there next time we cam Sometimes we would walk all the way home, along the Embankment and over Battersea Bridge and home through Clapham Junction. Or we would walk to Hampstead and look at Keats's house and walk on the heath where Edward would be sure to find some unexpected wild flower, or hear a bird he did not think to hear there, or notice some beautiful effect of clouds or of smoke against the blue sky. All of this was new aspect of life to me; for my eye readily caught the beaut of a group of red roofs, and the iron-work of an old entrance gate, or the bend of a street of tall dignified houses, but nature was a sealed book to me until Edward taught me to see wit new eyes and hear with new ears. And often I used to escape from home in the evening and go for little walks with him t fields and lanes whose existence so near home | had no dreamed of, and we would talk of life, and books, and love and nature, and ourselves, and sometimes there was no nee for talk — silence satisfied us more.
All this time he was working for his Civil Service Examination, and I was going to and from my work. I liked my work, which was the care of an interesting little boy of four. His parents were foreigners, the father a Russian aristocrat, fierce and cruel and tyrannous, and his mother a most lovable Austrian. She and I became, while I worked fer her, great friends. They lived in a luxurious suite of rooms at the Hotel Metropole. Sometimes I would be allowed to bring the little boy home, and then Edward would meet us, and we would go for a walk, he carrying the child on his shoulders, who would delight his mother on his return with the bunches of wild flowers which she and he would arrange in cups and saucers, there being no suitable vases in their grand rooms for such simple nosegays. They left England quite suddenly, making me promise I would return to them when they came back. I promised, for I loved the mother and little boy very much, but the man I hated, and he never paid me about £20 he owed
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me. So I got another job, this time a resident post in a very pleasant suburb of London. Here I was fairly well paid, and my work was light, still with children. Edward and I wrote to cach other every day, and of course on my fixed free times we met. But I felt terribly lonely there, and the week which elapsed between our meetings seemed endless. The child was spoilt and difficult, and the mother an irritable, nervous, highly strung creature, with a cigarette always in her mouth.
I felt a failure here, and that and my loneliness made me very unhappy. Mrs Andrews noticed, I supposed, that I was not happy, and very kindly questioned me about myself. So I told her about Edward, and she at once said that if I liked he could come and spend two evenings a week with me there in the room at the top of the house, which was the nursery during the day and my sitting-room at night. This made all the difference to me, and with increased happiness I could tackle my work better, and very soon the child and I were on the best of terms, and his parents congratulated me on the improvement in him. Affection and praise and encouragement were always to my soul what food is to the body, and in the atmosphere now so happy I know I was at my best, and no employers could have had a more devoted servant. It was my delight to take the child as far out into the country as I could in the time. We went — he in his pram — to Barnes Common and Richmond Park, and there I would tell him all my newly acquired knowledge of birds and trees and flowers. Sometimes we would go in the other direction, along the towpath to Isleworth, and bring home bunches of meadow-sweet and loosestrife. Mrs Andrews was delighted that her child got taken to these places, and the child and I were never so happy as when picking bunches of flowers, or peering into gorse bushes for nests.
Edward used to come at about eight o'clock in the evening and stay till nine-thirty, and once a week I had the afternoon and evening free. Whenever the weather was good enough — and it had to be very bad to stop us — we used to walk on Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park, and go either to
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his home or mine for tea, for now my mother tolerated hi presence. Edward was hating more and more the idea of th Civil Service as a means of earning his living, and at abou this time, greatly to his father's anger, he gave up the work and decided to try and earn his living by writing. Several of the literary weeklies were taking his essays, and his book ha had a fair sale. His father, naturally enough, hated the precariousness of this way of living, and after a lot of discussion 1 was decided that Edward should go to Oxford, which hi father thought would be a good start for any career that he took up. He decided to enter for a history scholarship, and as he had now left school some time, this required a good deal of reading. He liked the idea of going to university, but dreaded it too, for he had had so very little social life and was so unused to meeting his fellows; and also the thought of the separation from me was hateful to think of. : _ We had often spoken of our life together, and had mace great plans for the education of our children. We hated the thought of a legal contract. We felt our love was all the bond that there ought to be, and that if that failed it was immoral to be bound together. We wanted our union to be free and spontaneous. We had no idea when it should take place, but the thought of our approaching separation heightened our desire to be united in body as we were in heart and spirit. My twentieth birthday drew near, and I was to havea whole holiday, which Edward and I were to spend on our favourite Wimbledon Common. We were to picnic there for Junch and tea, and go home to a birthday dinner in the evening. It was July and glorious weather. I had made myself a very pretty white frock, embroidered in flame-coloured silk. I wore a shady hat trimmed with the same colour. it suited me, and I know I looked as pretty as it was possible for me to look. I remember Mr Andrews' saying as I went out, 'Why, Helen, you look like a bride going to meet her bridegroom,' and I remember blushing and feeling a great wave of passionate joy surging up in me, and I could hardly help laughing back at him, 'Iam, I am!' I was to bring the lunch, and Edward the
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tea, and I bought fruit and sandwiches and biscuits and some of our favourite Gruyére cheese and half a bottle of wine.
We met in the horrid, dark tunnel at Clapham Junction Station. He was there waiting for me, so tall, so distinguished from other men, dressed as always with a sort of carelessness that was not at all untidy, but just easy and individual. He was in his person scrupulously careful, and his large hands, which he used so well in all sorts of work, were always well kept. No lover could have pleased the eye more, no girl have been prouder of her man than I of mine and the wonder of his loving me never left me. Our hearts were beating so, and Our joy so intense, we could not speak but just in that crowded place pressed cach other's hands and walked side by side.
It did not take us long to get to the Common. In the solitude there we walked hand in hand, or Edward with his arm around my waist, and I with my hand over his hand, whose pressure under my breast made my whole body tender with desire. Our souls spreading their wings enfolded us in such dreamlike happiness that nothing disturbed our calm and our utter satisfaction. We talked as we sauntered along of what I should do while he was at Oxford, of our life together when he left, of my longing for children, of his ambitions in literature; and in this talk as in many others there was often hinted that deep spiritual unrest, which as yet we did not recognize, much less realize how it was to overshadow so much of his life and mine. All the beauty of the earth, the grass, the flaming gorse, the lark's song, the high cloudlets, the sweet air laden with the honey smell of gorse, seemed to be a part of our love. We could not speak of it, but as we stood to watch a bumble-bee make the gorse flower deliver its secret to him, he standing a little behind me, with his hands over my breasts, drew me to him and kissed me where my hair grew soft and curly under my ear. So I leaned smiling up at him, and he solemnly looking down at me, his eyes half-closed, his lovely mouth trembling from the kiss. So on, walking with hips moving together, laughing because of my short step and his long one. He picked a little bunch of flowers in the grass, white clover, yellow
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bedstraw and milkwort, and then remembered he had a birth day present for me. It was a brooch made of gold wire, twisted into a Celtic pattern, and when IJ had put my arms round hig neck and kissed him for it, he pinned the flowers into th opening of my dress, which first he opened a little more tg kiss the warm, soft swell of my breast, and while he kissed me I pressed his head yet further down into the warmth ang sweetness there.
So we walked on into the remote part of the Common among the trees, until we came to a beautiful little pool, where moorhens and coots lived in the reeds, and where water voles dipped out of their holes in the low bank into the water, making a sound like cream being stirred. Here we sat and paddled ous feet in the water and ate our lunch. We were so quiet that thé timid water creatures grew bold and birds skimmed over th¢ water, and a flaming dragon-fly darted in the air round and round us, as if weaving us in a web of rainbow colours.
As we sat, Edward read to me some of the old ballads, 'Edo O'Gordon' and 'Chevy Chase' and 'Sir Patrick Spens', he leany ing against a beech tree and I leaning in the crook of his arn and shoulder, listening to his deep, clear voice, so quiet, sq vibrating, so tender. I was caught up into heaven; all beauty all love, all content was mine. Life gave me all it had to give! As I lay there in the bend of his arm, in the silence that the splash of the voles, and the song of the lark, and the sound o his voice did not disturb, the beating of his heart under my cheek lulled me to sleep, and my eyes were only opened by his kisses. He kissed my eyes, and my funny nose and m mouth and neck and my hands and feet. But I laughed at hig serious kisses and pushed him away, and before he knew wha I meant to do I had run away and hidden in a thicket of haze and beech, and crouched down in the dry leaves. I heard lug step rustling in the leaves, and I waited, trembling half wit fear of his finding me, and half afraid I had hidden myself toa well. But he came upon me before I knew he was near, and caught me up in his arms and carried me further and furthes into the little copse. I lay inert in his arms, conscious of nothing
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but his beating heart. Soon he came to a little glade in the copse, leafy and mossy and sunny, and putting me down, knelt in front of me and undid my hair, but finding it fell over my face he picked a trail of white bryony and made a fillet of it to keep my hair back. Then, keeping his eyes fixed so tenderly and seriously and passionately on mine, he undid my dress and took my arms out of the sleeves, and unfastened my underclothes, and slipped the shoulder-straps over my arms, so that I was naked to the waist, with my clothes lying round me. Then I held out my hands to him — for he was standing now, and he raised me to my feet, so that my clothes slid down in a ring. I stepped out of them on to the soft moss and dry leaves, and he kneeling kissed my body from my feet up to my knees, and from my knees up to my hips, and when he had kissed me and let his hand wander all over me he laid me down on the moss, and I lay with my eyes closed, just conscious that he was quickly undressing, and hearing his voice speaking some passionate name. And I knowing he was ready, opened my eyes and saw him standing there naked, said 'Come,' and drew him to my breast.
I only remember vaguely that the birthday dinner at home was very jolly and rollicking. My sisters were there, and my youngest sister's sweetheart — a man very much approved of by my mother and full of fun — and well-to-do and practical and a clever engineer. He was for ever scoring off me in some way, and tried to do the same with Edward, but he got as good as he gave, for Edward's wit was quick and penetrating, though he was not often moved to show it.
We walked back over Wandsworth Common to Clapham Junction, talking at first happily enough of the books we should buy with the five pounds my mother had given me. I had seen, too, some old brass candleticks, and a nice Morland print I had set my heart on buying him for his Oxford rooms. We kissed our good-night kiss on the dark Common, and Edward gave me to wear for a wedding ring the beautiful old signet ring which he wore —a red stone set in a very delicately designed gold setting. It had belonged to his great-grandfather, a Spanish sea-captain.
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party wrote to me congratulating me, and the friend I had met before Merfyn’s birth undertook the duties of a godfather, and presented the baby with a Bible inscribed with flippant verses. The occasion was unique, I suppose, and a good opportunity for the display of wit and philosophy, and I enjoyed reading about it in dward’s letters after the event. As was natural, his work suffered a good deal during this last term and it was no surprise to Edward, though a bitter disappointment to his father, when he got only a second-class degree. This, and the natural antagonism of their natures, made life at his home — when he returned from Oxford — no longer possible. Even I, to whom outside circumstances mattered little, had begun to feel the strain of living in that uncongenial atmosphere. It was not long before an open break occurred between Edward and his father, and we looked about for somewhere else to live.
We were very poor. The £250 which we had been depending on was almost gone, and the essays Edward contributed to one or two literary weeklies had earned only about £80 during
the year. But Edward with his tall graceful figure and handsome sensitive face, wearing the elegantly negligent and for him very becoming style of dress of the young aesthete of day, did not at all look the part of the impecunious husband and father, and Mr Thomas’s puritanism rose almost in hatred against his son.
Edward on his side did nothing to placate his father’s anger and intolerance, and refused to consider going into the Civil Service, and only answered his father’s bitter anger with sneers at those very qualities which Mr Thomas most prided himself upon.
With Mrs Thomas it was different. She was no doubt troubled by this new phase in her son, and his circumstances must have been a continual source of anxiety to her, but she had always a far wider outlook on life than her husband, and a generous tolerance and sympathy for the young, which she now extended during this difficult time for Edward. Indeed there was a spiritual understanding between these two which though never expressed, and by his mother hardly recognized, was never violated, but was sustained
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growing intensity to the end of Edward’s life.
As I could not go house-hunting it fell to Edward to find a new home for us. He found, in a new street in what was obviously doomed to become a slum, a half-house of whichmthe rent was seven and sixpence a week, and to this we moved.
It had a good sitting-room which, very much to the builder's surprise, we chose to have distempered a warm grey; a bed-room which just held our bed, the child’s cot and a chest of drawers; and a little kitchen with steps leading from it to a tiny squalid back-yard, used by the downstairs people for keeping ramshackle rabbit hutches and hanging out washing which was always wet and never clean.
There was a notice printed in the rent book which at first puzzled me — "Broken
windows must be repaired by the tenant," but we had not been there a week before we understood the significance of this regulation.
The downstairs people frightened me rather because of their way of moving out in the middle of the night. Very seldom did the downstairs tenants stay longer than a
fortnight, because, as I heard later, they could not be sued for rent under a fortnight’s tenancy. Sometimes they were quiet, but more often noisy, quarrelsome, rough men and women and pale dirty children, often with a poor frightened dog tied up to a barrel in the back yard. All were terribly poor and degraded.
Here we lived for a few months. During that time Edward was out a great deal looking for work, going from one editor's office to another, sending in his card; sometimes being received courteously and sometimes not; sometimes given a book to review or the half-promise to accept an article. He returned trom these dreadful expeditions tired and depressed and angry, hating himself for his failure, hating the polite indifference of
some of the people, hating more the sympathetic interest Which others, who refused him work, put into their voices. But a few there were who were not indifferent to the reserved, shy, sensitive young man, who looked so proudly careless of their favour, and who refused to ingratiate himself, but whose heart was full of angry humiliation and despair. One stands
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out among the rest as coming out to meet Edward with friendly understanding from which the hint of patronage was entirely absent. He was the literary editor of a great daily newspaper whose literary page was written by men of distinction, and earned for its editor a great name in journalism. This man was attracted to Edward by the very qualities which others had found so disconcerting, and divined by his sympathetic understanding of Edward’s austere sincerity the intellectual power in him. He became our friend and benefactor.
The work which he gave Edward was the mainstay of our life for many years, and Edward made, on that page, a name for himself as a critic of belles lettres, and particularly of contemporary verse. His name was H.W. Nevinson.
[Is this the husband of the suffragist ? Nevinson and father of Christopher Nevinson?]
How anxiously I waited for Edward’s homecoming on these days, and how with the first glance at his face I knew what the day had been. If it had been a bad one there was no need of words, and none were uttered. I could do nothing, for if I said one word which would betray that I knew what he had endured and was enduring, his anger and despair and weariness would break out in angry bitter words which would freeze my heart and afterwards freeze his for having uttered them.
So as he ate the evening meal in silence, I talked quietly about the doings of the day, of the baby, of the walk we had been: and soon in our pretty room he would lie back in his big Oxford chair by the fire, smoking his pipe, while I sat on a stool near and sewed; and gradually the weariness would 20 out of his face, and the hard thin line of his mouth would relax to its lovely curve, and he would speak of an essay that had been suggested to him by something he had seen in London, or of a notable volume of poems that Nevinson had promised he should review for the Daily Chronicle. Then I would slip from my stool to the floor between his knees, and he would put out his hand and rest it on my neck, and I would know that the cloud had passed.
But sometimes when his spirit had been more than usually affected by the too great strain that his circumstances put upon it, the cloud did not pass, and my chatter ran dry in the arid
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silence. After a ghastly hour or two with the supper still uneaten on the kitchen table he would say: ‘Go to bed, I’m not coming,’ and I would know that he would sit up all night, and in the morning would be deeper in despair than ever — or he would go out and walk till morning, and perhaps from the silence of night and from the natural sounds of early dawn, and from the peace of solitude and the beauty of intangible things he would find healing and calm. I did not sleep on these nights but took my baby into bed with me, and in suckling him and holding him close, hope and comfort came to me again.
Some days Edward would be at home all day writing and reading, happy and eager with the impulse for creative work which gave him greater satisfaction that anything else. If the weather was fine he would break off his work in the afternoon and putting Merfyn in his pram we would set out for Wimbledon or Richmond Park, somewhere where we could sit on grass and look at trees and clouds and hear birds. There the baby would play himself to sleep while Edward read a book for review, or aloud to me, and we would return in the evening laden with flowers and branches of leaves or berries for our room. Some of the days at home were idle and hopeless — no commissioned work to do, and no impulse for original work ~and on these days the squalid surroundings obtruded upon our spirits, and the harsh voices of the other tenants and the crying of children sounded inhuman like the sounds of hell. One of these days I remember very well. I had not got into the routine of housework and looking after the baby, and I asked Edward to peel the potatoes for the mid-day meal. This he angrily refused to do. But at dinner he praised my cooking, and I, still hurt by his unkindness, could not restrain a few tears at the welcome change of mood. Seeing my distress he jumped up from his chair, ran down the stairs into the street, and returned in two minutes with a bottle of cheap wine. Never was so homely a meal turned into such a joyous banquet. Even the baby sitting in his high chair joined in, for Edward dipping his finger in the wine let Merfyn suck 1€, and
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though he looked more surprised than pleased at the taste, he grinned at the joke when he saw us laughing.
Often we were quite reckless with money. Once when a cheque was bigger than we had expected we bought a beautiful and costly brass lamp made in the William Morris workshops. At other times we were so poor that when Edward was out tor several successive days I lived on the remains of a Christmas pudding Mrs Thomas had given us. But I was strong and healthy, and both my baby whom I was nursing and I flourished.
It was a queer hand-to-mouth way of living, but when we had enough money we entertained our friends and had many evenings of lively talk with beer and pipes as the inevitable accompaniment. In this way I met some of the Oxford friends who had written to me, especially three or four whose friend-ship for Edward lasted all his life, and was extended to me after his death. These young men brought others with them. and I looked forward to these evenings when our room was full of eager talkers and lively wits who were all about our own age, and all enthusiastic adventurers into life.
When we had not enough money for anything else we lived on bread and cheese and tea. I remember having only nine-pence one Saturday to buy provisions for the weckend. It is the only time in my life [have bought a pennyworth of butter
.Yet little by little Edward’s work was increasing, and before we left London he had published his first volume of essays for which he got a small sum on account of royalties. This volume still sells a few copies a year.
[Under Storm's Wing, pp.80-84.]
LETTERS FROM PATTEN ROAD
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Janet Hooton, née Aldis, to whom most of these letters are addressed, was a girlhood friend and confidante of Helen's. Janet and Helen remained friends all their lives. Edward and Janet's husband, Harry Hooton, also became close friends.
TO JANET ALDIS
2January 1896 6 Patten Road Wandsworth Common
Dear Pal,
May 1896 be the happiest year you have ever spent, may you succeed in all you do, and may the happy events foretold by the spirits arrive soon. When you next hold converse with the inhabitants of Borderland, you might ask them if any such event is in preparation for me. I already guess their short but decided answer. No! I send you a picture of myself. Did I ever look like that? Heaven forbid! Perhaps I will when I am a full blown old maid, delivering a lecture to an audience like myself, old maids of uncertain ages, on the advisability of remaining single. We had a very quiet, but very happy Christmas. I long to see you especially today because I feel rather dumpy, and you who would blow me up to the skies for thus feeling without the least cause, would do me good. I have begun a diary and I can relieve my feelings, by writing down exactly what I want to say to anybody who would be fool enough to listen.
Do you remember Janet?, when I saw you last I told you of a plan I had made regarding the boy who father is taking up, and who writes Nature sketches. I think it will succeed although it will take ages, for he is fearfully shy, and I am likewise afflicted. He wants a girl friend and I want a boy friend, and as I like him (or at least what I know of him) and I think he likes me, I think it would be good for both of us if we could be friends. I wonder if we shall. I can see you Janet
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as you read this, with a broad grin overspreading your face. And my grin is even wider than yours. Mary is going to be very gay, having had three invitations to dances already. | have had one invitation, a dance, to which it is very doubtful I shall go because it is to be given such a long way out of town, and the getting home late would be so difficult.
Please give my love to all your family. How very, very kind it was of Aunt Emily [Janet's mother] to send me such a lovely present. Please give her my love, and many wishes for a bright and happy New Year. Please give my love to all the family. I do want to see you all, and I will some day even if I have to sell my soul for the railway fare. Would that I had a bike! Give my love especially to Maggie. I wish I knew her better. I feel as if we two have a tiny bit in common, only don't tell her] said so. And last to you, to whom I send this gift with heaps of love and New Year wishes.
Yours very affectionately Helen
6 January 1896 6 Patten Road Wandsworth Common My dearest Janet,
As you will see when you get this letter it is no go. I was so excited when I got your letter, for I was sure they would let me go. But I asked Mother, and she said I was to ask Father, and Father said I could not afford it, and it would not be worth while for such a short time. For I said I would only go 'til Friday so that Mother need not be long without me. What he means by not 'worth while' I don't know. I would rather spend my money on seeing you now even if only for a few hours, than on anything else in the world. And so when | heard my verdict I was so bitterly disappointed that I retired to my room and wept many a briny tear. Are you ashamed of me? If you are small blame to you. They simply can have no idea how much I want to see you, or else they would have
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me go. | don't know why it is myself but I feel I must talk you, and hear you talk or else I shall do something desperate. talk to Mary, and when I am blazing away and think for ce that she is being or trying to be sympathetic, she asks, at are you going to wear at Mrs Jones's dance?' So I keep my feelings and thoughts to myself, and I feel as if I cannot contain them any longer. Weeping is not strong enough for how I feel, so if there are any smudges on this letter you will know they are tears. How jolly of Aunt Emily to say she would like to have me, and how jolly of you to write me such nice letters.
I and the Thomas boy are very slowly making our way. He wrote and asked father if I might go out with him on one of his long walks. To my surprise he said I might. So I was in a great state of elation. But to my disappointment Edward never turned up for me. And when he came last night and was asked the reason, he said he had never dreamed I would be allowed to come. But he is going to take me someday this week to some lovely woods he knows. Last night I was in a furious rage because Edward asked me to go to his home this afternoon, and he would show me some flowers and nests he thought I would like to see. So I gladly assented. But that little plan was soon put a stop to, for mother would not let me go by myself, and there was nobody to go with me. Did you ever hear such awful tommy rot in your life? I call it very wrong. Mother says What would Mrs Thomas think? I say if she thought till she was tired, she could not possibly think of any wrong. I feel so cramped in. I want to expand my ideas and views, but how can I? When I appeal to Mary she says lke a good obedient girl 'Mother knows best' in which I do hot agree with her. I know Mother has been brought up in the narrowest groove, and I have often wondered how it is that her ideas are so broad as they are. So now I have to wait until Lance [Helen's brother, six years younger than herself] can go with me, to play propriety I suppose...Here I am eighteen years old, and in a great state of elation because I am going out with a boy. It is disgusting and immoral and a dis-
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grace. Why we may go walks together, and not go to his house where there is all his family I simply cannot imagine, It is too deep for me. When I have children [ shall bring them up in a very different way, there will be no Mrs Grundy always looming in the distance.
I am getting dreadfully teased about Edward. I am very glad to be able to afford them a little amusement. Poor dears, if such a little thing amuses them they must be badly off for entertainment. I am going to ask Edward what his views on the subject will be. [rather think he will be very broad minded, He looked awfully amazed when my mother said I could not go with him to see his books. Enough about my affairs and such like foolishness. —
Yours ever Helen
3 April 1896 6 Patten Road Wandsworth Common My dear and helpful Friend,
The cup of bitterness has been drunk even to the dregs. All is over and Father is at rest with Philip. He slept and knew nothing. No pain, no knowledge of anything. Like a little child he slept and never woke. It was as we had prayed to God it should be, He heard us and has granted our prayer. Mother was not there but sleeping peacefully with me, and when she was called it was over. Our cousin Charley, so faithful always to us, so brave and true, was with our dear one, and he heard him sigh gently and then silence.
The dear little mother so brave and strong "til now became for a few hours quite delirious, and wanted to go to him, but it was best not, and after a few hours' terrible agony of mind, she slept. I have prayed all the time that when the end came I should have the strength for her. And again God was good, and she found help and strength in me, though what it cost me God only knows. She and I were by ourselves, for she
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chose me to be with her, and in all this terrible time it was a i of joy that after all she should want me.
On Tuesday we part with all we now have of our dear one. He is to be near us, in the little Cemetery at Wandsworth I think. We only have to live one day at a time. The thought of a future without him is too terrible. The little mother who is so weak must now be our first care, we must do our best to fill up in part (for the whole world could not wholly make up for her loss) the blank that is now left.
Your letter dearest child was indeed good and kind and helpful. Thank you and thank dear Aunt Emily too. His last words were quite clear and it is our joy to know they were to the little mother. The doctor told her to go to bed, and father heard and opened his eyes and smiled so sweetly at her and said "Good night, God bless you' as they always say every night.
The nurses have both been very good and kind and the doctor a hero. We all love him dearly and so did father. He has been this morning and comforted mother like a woman.
Edward wrote him a beautiful letter. [See p.258] He never heard it, but we did and know if he had heard it he would have loved it, as I know he loved the sender of it. Edward's name was always on his lips, and it has made the dear boy very glad. I will show it to you some day, for I have it. Mother seemed to think that as the dear father could not have it, I had the next right.
Mary and Lance did not know till this morning. Poor little ones! they too are brave. Mrs Warner has taken Lance away for the day. Everyone is so good, so good.
I have not yet seen his dear face, but it is happy and peaceful. No trace of suffering. He looks Aunt Flora says ten years Younger, and his face is as noble and heroic to look at as his lite has been. As the doctor says it is not a mere splash in the ocean, his has been like a ship in full sail, often nearly wrecked but always brave and so overcoming all. Now he is in the Port which he longed to reach and all is well with him. He has crossed the bar, and he sees his Pilot face to face, and his
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look is honest and true and good. I seem to see God stooping to kiss him and saying, 'Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord'.
Is all this sense? I know not. I feel dazed and my heart seems to be breaking, but I am trying hard to be brave. I have not cried, I think if I could I would be stronger and more help, but my eyes are dry and burning.
Let not our sorrow sadden your holiday dear child. The sorrow would have been double if he was now suffering as he did a few days ago. He was tired and now rests.
Much love from us all to all, and much much from me to you.
Ever your loving friend
Helen
Written while Helen was working at her first job as nursery governess, away from home.
24 August 1896 Rotherfield
Dear old Janet,
It really was awfully bricky of you to write me such a long yarn, when in the midst of such gaiety and pleasure. I would have written soon had I been able, in fact have had several tries, but only beginnings, this I hope to finish.
You seem to have had a gorgeous time on the yacht, I can imagine it all. You madder than ever, cheekier, rowdier, jollier, much sought after by all, especially the males of the party.
And now you are up in Scotland having a good old spree there, and then to Berwick, and an unspeakably good old spree there too. You are a lucky beggar and no mistake.
And here with me the world jogs on as usual, and I am happy, but deadly homesick. Of course this sad time we have had heaps to do, and the days have seemed hours too short to get everything in. But now the worst is over and we seem to be getting out of the wood a little.
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Some time, I hope at the end of the second week I go home fora few days, and I count the hours and rejoice inwardly as each day goes by. It is such ages since I saw any of them, and when Mary came two weeks ago, I felt that I could not stand seeing her go off to home and leaving me here. However we had a jolly time, and talked our heads off. You see old girl I have never been away from home before for longer than a month, and it seems so strange not to be all together for the Summer holiday, this is the first time one of us has been away. A few days ago I felt too utterly wretched for anything, it was after Mary had been here, and told me of all the home doings, and how they wanted me to join them all. How Mrs Webb [Helen's employer] stands me at all sometimes I don't know. She is so kind, if she were less so, at times when I forget things, it would not make me feel so bad. Do you know the agony of trying hard, really hard to do your best, racking your brain to think if you have left anything undone, and are satisfied and pleased to think there is nothing, then when it is too late it suddenly flashes on you, you ought to have done so and so at such a time, and you are reproved and all your trying is useless, and life seems hardly worth living. ... Today I feel sure I have done all I ought to, at any rate my time has all been fully occupied till now 8.0 p.m., and when I go to bed and lic and think and wonder if in truth today has been as good as I think, I shall remember that Mrs Webb told me to do something, and I have not done it.
Thad an awfully exciting letter the other day from Edward. You must know he and father had often talked of a book Edward was to write, father would preface it, and it was all to be lovely. So quite on his own account Edward sent I think twelve or more perhaps of his published papers to Blackwood's to see if he would publish them in book form, under the title 'The Sweet o' the Year' (Tennyson). For a long time he heard nothing, and of course expected his mss. back every day. What was his joy when the other day Blackwood wrote to say he would like to have the book, if his enquiries about its saleableness proved satisfactory. He also asked E. if he would send
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