pointed at the Memoir where it lay on a low table by one of the fireside armchairs.
“Of course. We’ll leave you to it, then.”
They took their drinks and headed off. I wasn’t sorry to see them go. I’d had enough of Sellick’s conjuring tricks for one evening and felt on surer ground with the Memoir: the dead do not dissemble. Tomás brought me some coffee and I sat down with it in the armchair beneath a standard lamp. I opened the Memoir and rejoined Strafford in the year 1909.
MEMOIR
1909‒1910
I remember that misty day at the end of August 1909 more clearly than I remember many of the days I pass here in my retirement. I collected Elizabeth from Putney and loaded her trunk into the car whilst Aunt Mercy pressed parting gifts and wishes upon her niece. Elizabeth wore a tweed dress, with a cape and a bonnet tied under her chin to ward off the chill of a long journey. I sounded the horn in farewell to Mercy as we drove off, alarming a passing dray but, strangely, settling Elizabeth’s nerves. She confessed that she had been feeling somewhat apprehensive about meeting my family and was positively relieved that we were now on our way.
We passed down through Surrey and Hampshire and stopped at Salisbury for luncheon in a cosy tea room by the cathedral. The grey mist on the green with the great spire above minded Elizabeth of the Melchester of Hardy, whose Wessex we were about to enter. I remarked how odd it seemed to me that one so young as she should read the poems of one so old and sad.
“Mr. Hardy is not such a sad man ,” she replied. “He is merely resigned to the poignant sense of loss with which every eager enterprise must one day be remembered by those involved.”
“That’s an old thought for a young head.”
“Perhaps, but my awareness of it will not dim my enthusiasm—or any happiness it can bring.” The set of her chin told me that she was to be believed. “Tell me in thirty years if it is so.” My hopes still to know her thirty years on took wing at that remark. It
P A S T C A R I N G
69
was as well for my peace of mind that I did not know how vain those hopes were or how right she was.
We travelled on until the chalk and pale green of Dorset changed to the red earth and deeper green of Devon and, when we reached Exeter in the late afternoon , we found the sun shining there as if it had done all the day.
“Now we are entering your kingdom,” Elizabeth said as we drove slowly over the bridge across the Exe.
“Hardly that,” I replied, “merely my constituency, too rarely visited since I became a minister, and my home, which I am always glad to return to.”
“Your mother will be pleased to see you.”
“And you,” I reassured her, hoping that I was right.
Beyond Exeter, we went by winding lanes on which cars were a rarity. It was early evening before we passed through the village of Dewford on the banks of the Teign , turned onto the Barrowteign estate and sighted the big old house among the beech trees, as familiar to me as it was strange to Elizabeth.
My mother greeted us and at once turned her warmth and charm to ensuring that Elizabeth felt welcome. Robert we found in the drawing room, sucking on his pipe and looking more like the squire of the neighbourhood than when last I had seen him, yet with his bluff good humour unimpaired. Before there was time for any awkwardness to arise, little Ambrose tottered in with his nanny and, by the time his mother appeared, was being dandled on Elizabeth’s knee to his evident delight. Florence looked askance at this and her apparent resentment of the possible admission of a female rival to a family over which she seemed rapidly to be gaining dominion was the only jarring note in an otherwise harmonious homecoming.
Of Elizabeth’s political activities we naturally said nothing, beyond alluding to her suffragist sympathies to my mother, who took these to be comparable with her own and still counselled against mentioning them
“Of course. We’ll leave you to it, then.”
They took their drinks and headed off. I wasn’t sorry to see them go. I’d had enough of Sellick’s conjuring tricks for one evening and felt on surer ground with the Memoir: the dead do not dissemble. Tomás brought me some coffee and I sat down with it in the armchair beneath a standard lamp. I opened the Memoir and rejoined Strafford in the year 1909.
MEMOIR
1909‒1910
I remember that misty day at the end of August 1909 more clearly than I remember many of the days I pass here in my retirement. I collected Elizabeth from Putney and loaded her trunk into the car whilst Aunt Mercy pressed parting gifts and wishes upon her niece. Elizabeth wore a tweed dress, with a cape and a bonnet tied under her chin to ward off the chill of a long journey. I sounded the horn in farewell to Mercy as we drove off, alarming a passing dray but, strangely, settling Elizabeth’s nerves. She confessed that she had been feeling somewhat apprehensive about meeting my family and was positively relieved that we were now on our way.
We passed down through Surrey and Hampshire and stopped at Salisbury for luncheon in a cosy tea room by the cathedral. The grey mist on the green with the great spire above minded Elizabeth of the Melchester of Hardy, whose Wessex we were about to enter. I remarked how odd it seemed to me that one so young as she should read the poems of one so old and sad.
“Mr. Hardy is not such a sad man ,” she replied. “He is merely resigned to the poignant sense of loss with which every eager enterprise must one day be remembered by those involved.”
“That’s an old thought for a young head.”
“Perhaps, but my awareness of it will not dim my enthusiasm—or any happiness it can bring.” The set of her chin told me that she was to be believed. “Tell me in thirty years if it is so.” My hopes still to know her thirty years on took wing at that remark. It
P A S T C A R I N G
69
was as well for my peace of mind that I did not know how vain those hopes were or how right she was.
We travelled on until the chalk and pale green of Dorset changed to the red earth and deeper green of Devon and, when we reached Exeter in the late afternoon , we found the sun shining there as if it had done all the day.
“Now we are entering your kingdom,” Elizabeth said as we drove slowly over the bridge across the Exe.
“Hardly that,” I replied, “merely my constituency, too rarely visited since I became a minister, and my home, which I am always glad to return to.”
“Your mother will be pleased to see you.”
“And you,” I reassured her, hoping that I was right.
Beyond Exeter, we went by winding lanes on which cars were a rarity. It was early evening before we passed through the village of Dewford on the banks of the Teign , turned onto the Barrowteign estate and sighted the big old house among the beech trees, as familiar to me as it was strange to Elizabeth.
My mother greeted us and at once turned her warmth and charm to ensuring that Elizabeth felt welcome. Robert we found in the drawing room, sucking on his pipe and looking more like the squire of the neighbourhood than when last I had seen him, yet with his bluff good humour unimpaired. Before there was time for any awkwardness to arise, little Ambrose tottered in with his nanny and, by the time his mother appeared, was being dandled on Elizabeth’s knee to his evident delight. Florence looked askance at this and her apparent resentment of the possible admission of a female rival to a family over which she seemed rapidly to be gaining dominion was the only jarring note in an otherwise harmonious homecoming.
Of Elizabeth’s political activities we naturally said nothing, beyond alluding to her suffragist sympathies to my mother, who took these to be comparable with her own and still counselled against mentioning them
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