II
In describing my life I am struck by the way it sounds as though I and everybody else were extremely rich. Nowadays you certainly would have to be rich to do the same things, but in point of fact nearly all my friends came from homes of moderate income. Most of their parents did not have a carriage or horses, they certainly had not yet acquired the new automobile or motorcar. For that you did have to be rich.
Girls had usually not more than three evening dresses, and they had to last you for some years. Your hats you painted with a shilling bottle of hat paint every season. We walked to parties, tennis parties and garden parties, though for evening dances in the country we would of course hire a cab. In Torquay there were not many private dances except at Christmas or Easter. People tended to invite guests to stay and make up a party to go to the Regatta Ball in August, and usually some other local dance in one of the bigger houses. I went to a few dances in London during June and Julya€“not many because we did not know many people in London. But one would go occasionally to subscription dances, as they were called, making up a party of six. None of this called for much expenditure.
Then there were the country house parties. I went, nervously the first time, to some friends in Warwickshire. They were great hunting people. Constance Ralston Patrick, the wife, did not hunt herself: she drove a pony carriage to all the meets and I drove with her. My mother had forbidden me strictly to accept a mount or ride. a€?You really dona€?t know very much about riding,a€she pointed out. a€?It would be fatal if you went and injured somebodya€?s valuable horse.a€However, nobody offered me a mounta€“perhaps it was as well.
My riding and hunting had been confined to Devonshire, which meant scrabbling over high banks rather like Irish hunting, in my case mounted on a horse from a livery stable which was used to fairly unskilful riders on its back. The horse certainly knew more than I did, and I was quite content to leave it to Crowdy, my usual mount, a rather dispirited strawberry roan, who managed to get himself successfully over the banks of Devon. Naturally, I rode sidesaddlea€“hardly any woman rode astride at that time. You feel wonderfully safe on a side-saddle, your legs clasped round pommels. The first time I ever tried to ride astride I felt more unsafe than I could have believed possible.
The Ralston Patricks were very kind to me. They called me a€?The Pinklinga€for some reasona€“I suppose because I so often had pink evening dresses. Robin used to tease The Pinkling a lot, and Constance used to give me matronly advice with a slight twinkle in her eye. They had a delightful small daughter, about three or four years old when I first went there, and I used to spend a good deal of time playing with her. Constance was a born match-maker, and I realise now that she produced during the course of my visits several nice and eligible men. I sometimes got a little unofficial riding too. I remember one day I had had a gallop round the fields with a couple of Robina€?s friends. Since this had happened at a momenta€?s notice, and I had not even got into a riding-habit but was in an ordinary print frock, my hair was not up to the strain. I still wore, as all girls did, the postiche attachment. Riding back down the village street, my hair collapsed completely, and curls dropped off at intervals all the way. I had to go back on foot to pick them up. Unexpectedly this produced a rather pleasing reaction in my favour. Robin told me afterwards that one of the leading lights of the Warwickshire Hunt had said to him approvingly, a€?Nice girl youa€?ve got staying with you. I like the way she behaved when all that false hair fell off; didna€?t mind a bit. Went back and picked it all up and roared with laughter. Good sport, she was!a€The things that made a good impression on people are really very odd.
Another of the delights of staying with the Ralston Patricks was that they had a motor car. I cannot tell you the excitement that this produced in 1909. It was Robina€?s pet delight and treasure, and the fact that it was temperamental and broke down constantly made his passion for it all the greater. I remember one day we made an excursion to Banbury. Starting out was rather like equipping an expedition to the North Pole. We took large furry rugs, extra scarves to wrap round the head, baskets of provisions, and so on. Constancea€?s brother Bill, Robin and I made the expedition. We said a tender farewell to Constance; she kissed us all, urged us to be careful, and said she would have plenty of hot soup and home comforts waiting for us if we returned. Banbury, I may say, was about twenty-five miles from where they lived, but it was treated as though it was Landa€?s End.
We proceeded seven miles quite happily, cautiously at about twenty-five miles an hour, but free from trouble. However, that was only the beginning. We did eventually get to Banbury, after changing a wheel and trying to find a garage somewhere, but garages were few and far between in those days. At last we got home, about seven oa€?clock in the evening, exhausted, frozen to the marrow, and frantically hungry, having finished all the provisions long before. I still think of it as one of the most adventurous days of my life! I had spent a great deal of it sitting on a bank by the roadside, in an icy wind, urging on Robin and Bill as, with the manual of instruction open beside them, they struggled with tyres, spare wheel, jacks, and various other pieces of mechanism of which they had had, up till then, no personal knowledge.
One day my mother and I went down to Sussex and lunched with the Barttelots. Lady Barttelota€?s brother, Mr Ankatell, was also lunching, and he had an enormous and powerful automobile of the kind which in my memory seems to be about 100 feet long and hung with enormous tubes all over the outside. He was a keen motorist, and offered to drive us back to London. a€?No need to go by traina€“beastly things, trains. Ia€?ll drive you back.a€I was in the seventh heaven. Lady Barttelot lent me one of the new motoring capsa€“a sort of flat thing halfway between a yachting cap and that worn by a German Officer of the Imperial staff,a€“which was tied down with motoring veils. We got into the monster, extra rugs were piled round us, and off we went like the wind. All cars were open at that time. To enjoy them one had to be pretty hardy. But then, of course, one was hardy in those daysa€“practising the piano in rooms with no fires in the middle of winter inured you against icy winds.
Mr Ankatell did not contain himself to the twenty miles an hour that was the usual a€?safea€speeda€“I believe we went forty or fifty m.p.h. through the roads of Sussex. At one moment he started up in the driving seat exclaiming: a€?Look back! Look back! Look back behind that hedge! Do you see that fellow hiding thereAh, the wretch! The villain! Ita€?s a police trap. Yes, the villains, thata€?s what they do: hide behind a hedge and then come out and measure the time.a€From fifty we dropped to a crawl of ten miles an hour. Enormous chuckles from Mr Ankatell. a€?That dished him!a€?
I found Mr Ankatell a somewhat alarming man, but I loved his automobile. It was bright reda€“a frightening, exciting monster.
Later I went to stay with the Barttelots for Goodwood Races. I think that was the only country house visit that I did not enjoy. It was entirely a racing crowd staying there, and racing language and terms were incomprehensible to me. To me racing meant standing about for hours wearing an unmanageable flowery hat, pulling on six hat-pins with every gust of wind, wearing tight patent-leather shoes with high heels, in which my feet and ankles swelled horribly in the heat of the day. At intervals I had to pretend enormous enthusiasm as everyone shouted a€?Theya€?re off!a€and stood on tiptoe to look at quadrupeds already out of sight.
One of the men asked me kindly if he should put something on for me. I looked terrified. Mr Ankatella€?s sister, who was acting as hostess, at once ticked him off. a€?Dona€?t be silly,a€she said, a€?the girl is not to bet.a€Then she said kindly to me, a€?I tell you what. You shall have five shillings on whatever I back. Pay no attention to these others.a€When I discovered that they were betting ?￡20 or ?￡25 each time my hair practically stood on end! But hostesses were always kind to girls in money matters. They knew that few girls had any money to throw about. Even the rich ones, or the ones who came from rich homes, had only moderate dress allowancesa€“?￡50 or ?￡100 a year. So hostesses looked after the girls carefully. They were sometimes encouraged to play bridge, but if so someone always a€?carried thema€?, and was responsible for their debts if they lost. This kept them from feeling out of it, and at the same time ensured that they didna€?t lose sums of money which they could not afford to lose.
My first acquaintance with racing did not enthral me. When I got home to mother I said that I hoped I would never hear the words a€?Theya€?re off!a€again. When a year had passed, however, I had become quite a keen racing fan, and knew something about the runners. I stayed later with Constance Ralston Patricka€?s family in Scotland, where her father kept a small racing stable, and there I was initiated more fully into the sport and was taken to several small race meetings, which I soon found to be fun.
Goodwood, of course, had been more like a garden partya€“a garden party going on for far too long. Moreover there was a lot of ragging going on; a kind of ragging I had not been used to. People broke up each othera€?s rooms, threw things out of the windows, and shouted with laughter. There were no other girls there; they were mostly young married women in the racing set. One old Colonel of about sixty came barging into my room and crying, a€?Now then, leta€?s have a bit of fun with Baby!a€took out one of my evening dresses from the cupboarda€“it was rather a babyish one, pink with ribbonsa€“and threw it out of the window saying, a€?Catch, catch, here is a trophy from the youngest member of the party!a€I was terribly upset. Evening dresses were great items in my life; carefully tended and preserved, cleaned, mendeda€“and here it was being thrown about like a football. Mr Ankatella€?s sister, and one of the other women, came to the rescue, and told him that he was not to tease the poor child. I was really thankful to leave this party. Still, it no doubt did me good.
Amongst other House Parties I remember an enormous one at a country house rented by Mr and Mrs Park-Lylea€“Mr Park-Lyle used to be referred to as a€?The Sugar Kinga€?. We had met Mrs Park-Lyle out in Cairo. She was, I suppose, fifty or sixty at the time, but from a short distance she looked like a handsome young woman of twenty-five. I had never seen much make-up in private life before. Mrs Park-Lyle certainly put up a good show with her dark, beautifully-arranged hair, exquisitely enamelled face (almost comparable with that of Queen Alexandra), and the pink and pale blue pastel shades which she worea€“her whole appearance a triumph of art over nature. She was a woman of great kindliness, who enjoyed having lots of young people in her house.
I was rather attracted to one of the young men therea€“later killed in the 1914-18 war. Though he took only moderate notice of me, I had hopes of becoming better acquainted. In this I was foiled, however, by another soldier, a gunner, who seemed continually to be at my elbow, insisting on being my partner at tennis and croquet, and all the rest of it. Day by day my mounting exasperation grew. I was sometimes extremely rude to him; he didna€?t seem to notice. He kept asking me if I had read this book or that, offering to send them to me. Would I be in LondonWould I care to go and see some poloMy negative replies had no effect upon him. When the day came for my departure I had to catch a fairly early train because I had to go to London first and then take another train on to Devon. Mrs Park-Lyle said to me after breakfast a€?Mr S.a€?a€“I cana€?t remember his name nowa€“a€?is going to drive you to the station.a€?
Fortunately that was not very far. I would have much preferred to have gone in one of the Park-Lyle carsa€“naturally the Park-Lyles had a fleet of carsa€“but I presume Mr S. had suggested driving me to our hostess, who had probably thought I would like it. How little she knew! However, we arrived at the station, the train came in, an express to London, and Mr. S. ensconced me in the corner seat of an empty second-class carriage.
I said goodbye to him, in friendly tones, relieved to be seeing the last of him. Then just as the train started he suddenly caught at the handle, opened the door, and leapt in, closing it behind him. a€?Ia€?m coming to London, too,a€he said. I stared at him with my mouth open.
a€?You havena€?t got any luggage with you.a€?
a€?I know, I knowa€“it doesna€?t matter.a€He sat down opposite me, leant forward, his hands on his knees, and gazed at me with a kind of ferocious glare. a€?I meant to put it off till I met you again in London. I cana€?t wait. I have to tell you now. I am madly in love with you. You must marry me. From the first moment I saw you, coming down to dinner, I knew that you were the one woman in the world for me.a€?
It was some time before I could interrupt the flow of words, and say with icy coldness: a€?It is very kind of you, Mr S., I am sure, and I deeply appreciate it, but I am afraid the answer is no.a€?
He protested for about five minutes, finally urging that we should at least leave it, so that we could be friends and meet again. I said that I thought it was much better that we shouldna€?t meet again, and that I would not change my mind. I said it with such finality that he was forced to accept it. He leant back in his seat and gave himself up to gloom. Can you imagine a worse time to propose to a girlThere we were, shut up in an empty carriagea€“no corridors thena€“going to London, two hours at least, and having arrived at such an impasse in the conversation that there was nothing for us to say. Neither of us had anything to read. I still dislike Mr S. when I remember him, and have no proper feeling of gratitude such as one was always taught should be felt for a good mana€?s love (Granniea€?s maxim). I am sure he was a good mana€“perhaps that was what made him so dull.
Another country house visit I paid was also a racing one, to stay with some old friends of my godmothera€?s in Yorkshire, the Matthews. Mrs Matthews was a non-stop talker, and rather alarming. The invitation was to a party for the St. Leger. By the time I went there I had got more used to racing, and in fact was beginning to enjoy it. Moreovera€“a silly thing to remember, but the sort of thing one doesa€“I had a new coat-and-skirt bought for this particular occasion. I was vastly pleased with myself in it. It was of a greenish brown tweed of good quality. It came from a good tailoring house. It was the sort of thing my mother said was worth spending money on, because a good coat and skirt would do you for years. This one certainly did: I wore it for six years at least. The coat was long and had a velvet collar. With it I wore a smart little toque in greenish brown shades of velvet and a birda€?s wing. I have no photographs of myself in this get-up; if I had I should no doubt think I looked highly ridiculous now, but my memories of myself are as looking smart, sporting, and well-dressed!
The height of my joy was reached when at the station where I had to change (I must, I think, have been coming from Cheshire, where I had been with my sister). There was a cold wind blowing, and the station-master approached me and asked if I would like to wait in his office. a€?Perhaps,a€he said, a€?your maid would like to bring along your jewel-case or anything valuable.a€I had of course never travelled with a maid in my life, and never shoulda€“nor was I the owner of a jewel casea€“but I was gratified by this treatment, putting it down to the smartness of my velvet toque. I said my maid was not with me this timea€“I could not avoid saying a€?this timea€in case I should go down in his eyesa€“but I gratefully accepted his offer, and sat in front of a good fire exchanging pleasant platitudes about the weather. Presently the next train came in and I was seen into it with much ceremony. I am convinced I owed this preferential treatment to my coat-and-skirt and hat. Since I was travelling second class and not first, I could hardly be suspected of great wealth or influence.
The Matthews lived at a house called Thorpe Arch Hall. Mr Matthews was much older than his wifea€“he must have been about seventya€“and he was a dear, with a thatch of white hair, a great love of racing, and, in his time, hunting. Though extremely fond of his wife he was inclined to be greatly flustered by her. Indeed, my principal memory of him was saying irritably, a€?Damme, dear, dona€?t hustle me. Damme, dona€?t hustle me, dona€?t hustle me, Addie!a€?
Mrs Matthews was a born hustler and fusser. She talked and fussed from morning to night. She was kind, but at times I found her almost unbearable. She hustled poor old Tommy so much that he finally invited a friend of his to live permanently with thema€“a Colonel Wallensteina€“always said by the surrounding County to a€?be Mrs Matthewsa€second husbanda€?. I am quite convinced that this was no case of a€?the other mana€or the wifea€?s lover. Colonel Wallenstein was devoted to Addie Matthewsa€“I think it had been a lifetime passion of hisa€“but she had always kept him where she wanted him, as a convenient, platonic friend with a romantic devotion. Anyway, Addie Matthews lived a very happy life with her two devoted men. They indulged her, flattered her, and always arranged that she should have everything she wanted.
It was while staying there that I met Evelyn Cochran, Charles Cochrana€?s wife. She was a lovely little creature, just like a Dresden shepherdess, with big blue eyes, and fair hair. She had with her dainty but highly unsuitable shoes for the country, which Addie never let her forget, reproaching her for them every hour of the day: a€?Really, Evelyn dear, why you dona€?t bring proper shoes with you! Look at those thingsa€“pasteboard soles, only fit for London.a€Evelyn looked sadly at her with large blue eyes, Her life was mostly spent in London, and was entirely wrapped up in the theatrical profession. She had, so I learnt from her, climbed out of a window to run away with Charles Cochran, who was heavily disapproved of by her family. She adored him with the kind of adoration that one seldom meets. She wrote to him every single day if she was away from home. I think, too, that, in spite of many other adventures, he always loved her. She suffered a good deal during her life with him, for with such a love as hers jealousy must have been hard to bear. But I think she found it worth it. To have such a passion for one person that lasts all your life is a privilege, no matter what it costs you in endurance.
Colonel Wallenstein was her uncle. She disliked him very much. She also disliked Addie Matthews, but was rather fond of old Tom Matthews. a€?I have never liked my uncle,a€she said, a€?he is a most tiresome man. And as for Addie, she is the most aggravating and silly female I have ever met. She cana€?t leave anyone alone; she is always scolding them or managing them, or doing somethinga€“she cana€?t keep quiet.a€?