VIII
Reggie and I wrote to each other regularly. I gave him the local news, and tried to write him the best letter I coulda€“letter writing has never been one of my strong points. My sister Madge, now, was what I can only describe as a model of the art! She could make the most splendid stories out of nothing at all. I do envy that gift.
My dear Reggiea€?s letters were exactly like Reggie talking, which was nice and reassuring. He urged me at great length, always, to go about a lot.
a€?Now dona€?t stay at home moping, Aggie. Dona€?t think that is what I want, because it isna€?t; you must go out and see people. You must go to dances and things and parties. I do want you to have every chance, before we get settled down.a€?
Looking back now, I wonder whether at the back of my mind I may not have slightly resented this point of view. I dona€?t think I recognised it at the time; but does one really like to be urged to go about, to see other people, a€?to do better for yourselfa€(that extraordinary phrase)Is it not nearer to the truth that every female would prefer her love-letters to exhibit a show of jealousy?
a€?Who is that fellow so-and-so you write aboutYoua€?re not getting too fond of him, are you?a€?
Isna€?t that what we really want as a sexCan we take too much unselfishnessOr does one read back into onea€?s mind things that perhaps werena€?t there?
The usual dances were given in the neighbourhood. I didna€?t go to them because, as we had no car, it would not have been practicable to accept any invitations of more than a mile or two away. Hiring a cab or car would have been too expensive except for a very special occasion. But there were times when a hunt for girls was on, and then you would be asked to stay, or fetched and returned.
The Cliffords at Chudleigh were giving a dance to which they were asking members of the Garrison from Exeter, and they asked some of their friends if they could bring a likely girl or two along. My old enemy Commander Travers, who was now retired and living with his wife in Chudleigh, suggested that they should bring me. Having been my pet abomination as a small child, he had graduated from that into old family friend. His wife rang up and asked if I would come and stay with them and go to the Cliffordsa€dance. I was delighted to do so, of course.
I also got a letter from a friend called Arthur Griffiths, whom I had met when staying with the Matthews at Thorpe Arch Hall in Yorkshire. He was the local vicara€?s son, and a soldiera€“a gunner. He and I had become great friends. Arthur wrote to say that he was now stationed at Exeter, but that unfortunately he was not one of the officers going to the dance, and that he was very sad about it because he would have liked to dance with me again. a€?However,a€he said, a€?therea€?s a fellow from our Mess going, Christie by name, so look out for him, wona€?t youHea€?s a good dancer.a€?
Christie came my way quite soon in the dance. He was a tall, fair young man, with crisp curly hair, a rather interesting nose, turned up not down, and a great air of careless confidence about him. He was introduced to me, asked for a couple of dances, and said that his friend Griffiths had told him to look out for me. We got on together very well; he danced splendidly and I danced again several more times with him. I enjoyed the evening thoroughly. The next day, having thanked the Travers, I was driven home by them as far as Newton Abbot, where I took the train back.
It must have been, I suppose, a week or ten days later; I was having tea with the Mellors at their house opposite ours. Max Mellor and I still practised our ballroom dancing, though mercifully waltzing upstairs was out of fashion. We were, I think, tango-ing, when I was summoned to the telephone. It was my mother.
a€?Come home at once, will you, Agatha?a€she said. a€?Therea€?s one of your young men herea€“I dona€?t know him, never seen him before. Ia€?ve given him tea, but he seems to be staying on and on hoping to see you.a€?
My mother was always intensely irritated if she had to look after my young men unaided; she regarded such entertainment as strictly my business.
I was cross at coming back; I was enjoying myself. Besides, I thought I knew who it wasa€“a rather dreary young naval lieutenant, the one who used to ask me to read his poems. So I went unwillingly, with a sulky expression on my face.
I came into the drawing-room, and a young man stood up with a good deal of relief. He was rather pink in the face and clearly embarrassed, having had to explain himself. He was not even much cheered by seeing mea€“I think he was afraid I shouldna€?t remember him. But I did remember him, though I was intensely surprised. It had not occurred to me that I should ever see Griffithsa€friend, young Christie, again. He made some rather hesitating explanationsa€“he had had to come over to Torquay on his motor-bike, and thought he might as well look me up. He avoided mentioning the fact that he must have gone to a certain amount of trouble and embarrassment to find out my address from Arthur Griffiths. However, things went better after a minute or two. My mother was intensely relieved by my arrival. Archie Christie looked more cheerful, having got his explanations over, and I felt highly flattered.
The evening wore on as we talked. In the sacred code sign, common between women, the question was raised between mother and me as to whether this unasked visitor was going to be invited to stay to supper, and if so what food there was likely to be in the house. It must have been soon after Christmas, because I know there was cold turkey in the larder. I signalled yes to mother, and she asked Archie if he would care to stay and have a scratch meal with us. He accepted promptly. So we had cold turkey and salad and something else, cheese I think, and spent a pleasant evening. Then Archie got on his motor-bike and went off in a series of explosive bumps to Exeter.
For the next ten days he made frequent and unexpected appearances. That first evening he had asked me if I would like to come to a concert at Exetera€“I had mentioned at the dance that I was fond of musica€“and that he would take me to the Redcliffe Hotel to tea afterwards. I said I would like to come very much. Then there was a somewhat embarrassed moment when mother made it clear that her daughter did not accept invitations to come to Exeter for concerts by herself. That damped him a bit, but he hastily extended the invitation to her. Mother relented, decided she approved of him, and said that it would be quite all right for me to go to the concert, but that she was afraid that I could not go to tea with him at a hotel. (I must say, looking at it nowadays, I think we had peculiar rules. One could go alone with a young man to play golf, to ride a horse, or to roller-skate, but having tea with him in a hotel had a kind of risque appearance which good mothers did not fancy for their daughters.) A compromise was made in the end, that he might give me tea in the refreshment room on Exeter station. Not a very romantic spot. Later, I asked him if he would like to come to a Wagnerian concert that was to take place at Torquay in four or five daysa€time. He said he would like it very much.
Archie told me all about himself, how he was waiting impatiently to get into the newly-formed Royal Flying Corps. I was thrilled by this. Everyone was thrilled by flying. But Archie was entirely matter-of-fact. He said it was going to be the service of the future: if there was a war, planes would be the first thing needed. It wasna€?t that he was mad keen on flying, but it was a chance to get on in your career. There was no future in the Army. As a Gunner, promotion was too slow. He did his best to take the romance out of flying for me, but didna€?t quite succeed. All the same it was the first time that my romanticism came up against a practical, logical mind. In 1912 it was still a fairly sentimental world. People called themselves hard-boiled, but they had no real idea what the term meant. Girls had romantic ideas about young men, and young men had idealistic views about young girls. We had, however, come a long way since my grandmothera€?s day.
a€?You know, I like Ambrose,a€she said, referring to one of my sistera€?s suitors. a€?The other day, after Madge had walked along the terrace, I saw Ambrose get up and follow her, and he bent down and picked up a handful of gravel, where her feet had trodden, and put it in his pocket. Very pretty I thought it was, very pretty. I could imagine that happening to me when I was young.a€?
Poor darling Grannie. We had to disillusion her. Ambrose, it turned out, was deeply interested in geology, and the gravel had been of a particular type which interested him.
Archie and I were poles apart in our reactions to things. I think that from the start that fascinated us. It is the old excitement of a€?the strangera€?. I asked him to the New Year Ball. He was in a peculiar mood the night of the dance: he hardly spoke to me. We were a party of four or six, I think, and every time I danced with him and we sat out afterwards he was completely silent. When I spoke to him he answered almost at random, in a way that did not make sense. I was puzzled, looking at him once or twice, wondering what was the matter with him, what he was thinking of. He seemed no longer interested in me.
I was rather stupid, really. I should have known by now that when a man looks like a sick sheep, completely bemused, stupid and unable to listen to what you say to him, he has, vulgarly, got it badly.
What did I knowDid I know what was happening to meI remember picking up one of Reggiea€?s letters when it came, saying to myself, a€?Ia€?ll read this later,a€and shoving it quickly into the hall drawer. I found it there some months afterwards. I suppose, deep down, I already knew.
The Wagnerian concert was two days after the ball. We went to it, and came back to Ashfield afterwards. As we went up to the schoolroom to play the piano, as was our usual custom, Archie spoke to me almost desperately. He was leaving in two daysa€time, he said: he was going to Salisbury Plain, to start his Flying Corps training. Then he said fiercely, a€?Youa€?ve got to marry me, youa€?ve got to marry me.a€He said he had known it the first evening he danced with me. a€?I had an awful time getting your address and finding you. Nothing could have been more difficult. There will never be anyone but you. Youa€?ve got to marry me.a€?
I told him it was impossible, that I was already engaged to someone. He waved away engagements with a furious hand. a€?What on earth does that matter?a€he said. a€?Youa€?ll just have to break it off, thata€?s all.a€?
a€?But I cana€?t. I couldna€?t possibly do that.a€?
a€?Of course you could. Ia€?m not engaged to anyone else, but if I was Ia€?d break it off in a minute without even thinking about it.a€?
a€?I couldna€?t do this to him.a€?
a€?Nonsense. You have to do things to people. If you were so fond of each other, why didna€?t you get married before he went abroad?a€a€?We thoughta€“a€I hesitateda€“a€?it better to wait.a€?
a€?I wouldna€?t have waited. Ia€?m not going to wait either.a€?
a€?We couldna€?t be married for years,a€I said. a€?Youa€?re only a subaltern. And it would be the same in the Flying Corps.a€?
a€?I couldna€?t possibly wait years. I should like to be married next month or the month after.a€?
a€?Youa€?re mad,a€I said. a€?You dona€?t know what you are talking about.a€?
I dona€?t think he did. He had to come down to earth in the end. It was a terrible shock for my poor mother. I think she had been anxious, though no more than anxious, and she was deeply relieved to hear that Archie was going away to Salisbury Plaina€“but to be presented so suddenly with a fait accompli shook her.
I had said to her: a€?Ia€?m sorry, mother. Ia€?ve got to tell you. Archie Christie has asked me to marry him, and I want to, I want to dreadfully.a€?
But we had to face factsa€“Archie unwillingly, but mother was very firm with him. a€?What do you have to get married on?a€she asked. a€?Either of you.a€?
Our financial position could hardly have been worse. Archie was a young subaltern, only a year older than I was. He had no money, only his pay and a small allowance, which was all that his mother could afford. I had only the solitary hundred a year which I had inherited under my grandfathera€?s will. It would be years at the best before Archie was in any position to marry.
He said to me rather bitterly before he went: a€?Your mothera€?s brought me down to earth. I thought nothing would matter! We would get married somehow or other, and things would be all right. She has made me see that we cana€?t, not at present. We shall have to waita€“but we wona€?t wait a day longer than we can help. I shall do everything, everything I can think of. This flying business will helpa€|only of course they dona€?t like your being married either in the Army or the Flying Corps while you are young.a€We looked at each other, we were young, desperatea€“and in love.
We had an engagement that lasted a year and a half. It was a tempestuous time, full of ups and downs and deep unhappiness, because we had the feeling that we were reaching out for something we would never attain.
I put off writing to Reggie for nearly a month, mainly, I suppose, out of guilt, and partly because I could not bring myself to believe that what had suddenly happened to me could possibly have been reala€“soon I would wake up from it and go back to where I was.
But I had to write in the enda€“guilty, miserable, and without a single excuse. It made it worse, I think, the kindly and sympathetic way that Reggie took it. He told me not to distress myself; it wasna€?t my fault he was sure; I could not have helped it; these things happen.
a€?Of course,a€he said, a€?ita€?s been a bit of a blow for me, Agatha, that you are marrying a chap who is even less able to support you than I am. If you were marrying somebody well off, a good match and everything, I should have felt that it didna€?t matter so much, because it would be more what you ought to have, but now I cana€?t help wishing that Ia€?d taken you at your word and that wea€?d got married and that Ia€?d brought you out here with me straight away.a€?
Did I wish also that hea€?d done thatI suppose nota€“not by that timea€“and yet perhaps there was always the feeling of wanting to go back, wanting to have once more a safe foot on shore. Not to swim out into deep water. I had been so happy, so peaceful with Reggie, we had understood each other so well; wea€?d enjoyed and wanted the same things.
What had happened to me now was the opposite. I loved a stranger; mainly because he was a stranger, because I never knew how he would react to a word or a phrase and everything he said was fascinating and new. He felt the same. He said once to me, a€?I feel I cana€?t get at you. I dona€?t know what youa€?re like.a€Every now and then we were overwhelmed by waves of despair, and one or other of us would write and break it off. We would both agree that it was the only thing to do. Then, about a week later, we would find ourselves unable to bear it, and we would be back on the old terms.
Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We were badly enough off anyway, but now a fresh financial blow fell upon my family. The H. B. Chaflin Company in New York, the firm of which my grandfather had been a partner, went suddenly into liquidation. It was an unlimited company too, and I gathered that the position was serious. In any case, it meant that the income which my mother had received from it, which was the only income she had, would now cease completely. My grandmother, by good fortune, was not quite in the same situation. Her money had also been left to her in H. B. Chaflin shares, but Mr Bailey, who was the member of the firm who looked after her affairs, had been worried for some time. Charged with the care of Nathaniel Millera€?s widow, he felt responsible for her. When Grannie wanted money she merely wrote to Mr Bailey, and Mr Bailey, I think, sent it her in casha€“it was as old-fashioned as that. She was disturbed and upset when one day he suggested to her that she should allow him to reinvest her money for her.
a€?Do you mean take my money out of Chaflina€?s?a€?
He was evasive. He said that you had to watch investments, that it was awkward for her, being English by birth and living in England, as the widow of an American. He said several things which, of course, were not the real explanation at all, but Grannie accepted them. Like all women of that time, you accepted completely any business advice that was given you by anyone you trusted. Mr Bailey said leave it to him, he would reinvest her money in a way that would give her nearly as much income as she had now. Reluctantly Grannie agreed; and therefore, when the crash came, her income was safe. Mr Bailey was dead by that time, but he had done his duty for the partnera€?s widow, without giving away his fears about the solvency of the company. Younger members of the firm had, I believe, launched out in a big way, and had seemed successful, but actually they had expanded too much, had opened too many branches all over the country, and spent too much money on salesmanship. Whatever its cause, the crash was a complete one.
It was like a recurrence of my childhooda€?s experience, when I had heard mother and father talking together about money difficulties, and had pranced down happily to announce to the household below stairs that we were ruined. a€?Ruina€had seemed to me then a fine and exciting thing. It did not seem nearly so exciting now; it spelt final disaster for Archie and myself. The ?￡100 a year I had belonging to me must of course go to support mother. No doubt Madge would help also. By selling Ashfield she might just be able to exist.
Things turned out to be not quite so bad as we thought, because Mr John Chaflin wrote from America to my mother and said how deeply grieved he was. She might count on an income of ?￡300 a year, sent to her not from the firm, which was bankrupt, but from his own private fortune, and this would last until her death. That relieved us of the first anxiety. But when she died that money would cease. ?￡100 a year and Ashfield was all I could count upon for the future. I wrote and told Archie that I could never marry him, that we should have to forget each other. Archie refused to listen to this. Somehow or other he was going to make money. We would get married, and he might even be able to help support my mother. He made me confident and hopeful. We got engaged again.
My mothera€?s eyesight became much worse, and she went to a specialist. He told her she had cataracts in both eyes, and that for various reasons it would be impossible to operate. They might not grow fast, but in time would certainly lead to blindness. Again I wrote to Archie, breaking off the engagement, saying that it was obviously not meant to be, and that I could never desert my mother if she were blind. Again he refused to concur. I was to wait and see how my mothera€?s eyesight got ona€“there might be a cure for it, an operation might be possible, and anyway she wasna€?t blind now so we might as well remain engaged. We did remain engaged. Then I had a letter from Archie, saying, a€?Ita€?s no good, I can never marry you. I am too poor. I have been trying one or two small investments with what I had, and ita€?s no good whatsoever, Ia€?ve lost it. You must give me up.a€I wrote and said I would never give him up. He wrote back and said I must. We then agreed we would give each other up.
Four days later Archie managed to get leave and arrived suddenly on his motor-bicycle from Salisbury Plain. It was no good, we had got to be engaged again, we had got to be hopeful and waita€“something would happen, even if we had to wait four or five years. We went through emotional storms, and in the end, once more, our engagement was on, though every month the possibility of marriage receded further into the distance. It was hopeless, I felt in my heart, but I wouldna€?t recognise it. Archie thought it was hopeless too, but we still clung desperately to the belief that we could not live without each other, so we might as well remain engaged and pray for some sudden stroke of fortune.
I had by now met Archiea€?s family. His father had been a Judge in the Indian Civil Service, and had had a severe fall from a horse. He became rapidly ill after thata€“the fall had affected his braina€“and had finally died in hospital in England. After some years of widowhood, Archiea€?s mother had remarried William Hemsley. No one could have been kinder to us or more fatherly than he always was. Archiea€?s mother, Peg, came from Southern Ireland, near Cork, and was one of twelve children. She had been staying with her eldest brother, who was in the Indian Medical, when she had met her first husband. She had two boys, Archie and Campbell. Archie had been head of the school at Clifton, and had passed fourth into Woolwich: he had brains, resource, audacity. Both boys were in the Army.
Archie broke the news of his engagement to her, and sang my praises in the way that sons are apt to do in describing the girl of their choice. Peg looked at him with a doubtful eye, and said in a rich Irish voice: a€?Would she now be one of those girls thata€?s wearing one of these newfangled Peter Pan collars?a€Rather uneasily Archie had to admit that I did wear Peter Pan collars. They were rather a feature of the moment. We girls had at last abandoned the high collars to our blouses, which were stiffened by little zigzag bones, one up each side and one at the back, so as to leave red, uncomfortable marks on the neck. A day came when people determined to be daring and achieve comfort. The Peter Pan collar was designed, presumably, from the turned-down collar worn by Peter Pan in Barriea€?s play. It fitted round the bottom of the neck, was of soft material, had nothing like a bone about it, and was heaven to wear. It could hardly have been called daring. When I think of the reputation for possible fastness that we girls incurred, just by showing the four inches of neck from below the chin, it seems incredible. Looking round and seeing girls in bikinis on the beach now makes one realise how far one has gone in fifty years.
Anyway, I was one of these go-ahead girls who, in 1912, wore a Peter Pan collar.
a€?And she looks lovely in it,a€said the loyal Archie.
a€?Ah, she would, no doubt,a€said Peg. Whatever doubts she may have had about me on account of this, however, she greeted me with extreme kindness, and indeed what I almost thought of as gush. She professed to be so fond of me, so delighteda€“I was just the girl she had wanted for her boy, and so on and so ona€“that I didna€?t believe a word of it. The real truth was that she thought her son much too young to marry. She had no particular fault to find with mea€“I could no doubt have been much worse. I might have been a tobacconista€?s daughter (always accounted a symbol of disaster) or a young divorceea€“there were some about by thena€“or even a chorus-girl. Anyway, she doubtless decided that with our prospects the engagement would come to nothing. So she was very sweet to me, and I was slightly embarrassed by her. Archie, true to temperament, was not particularly interested in what she thought of me or I of her. He had the happy attribute of going through life without the least interest in what anyone thought of him or his belongings: his mind was always entirely bent on what he wanted himself.
So there we were, still engaged, but no nearer getting marrieda€“in fact, rather further off. Promotion did not seem likely to come more quickly in the Flying Corps than anywhere else. Archie had been dismayed to find that he suffered a good deal from sinus trouble when flying a plane. He had a good deal of pain, but carried on. His letters were full of technical accounts of Farman biplanes and Avros: his opinions on the planes that meant more or less certain death for the pilot, and the ones that were pretty steady and ought to develop well. The names of his squadron became familiar to me: Joubert de la Ferte, Brooke-Popham, John Salmon. There was also a wild Irish cousin of Archiea€?s who had by now crashed so many machines that he was more or less permanently grounded.
It seems odd that I dona€?t remember being at all worried about Archiea€?s safety. Flying was dangerousa€“but then so was hunting, and I was used to people breaking their necks in the hunting field. It was just one of the hazards of life. There was no great insistence on safety then; the slogan a€?Safety firsta€would have been considered rather ridiculous. To be concerned with this new form of locomotion, flying, was glamorous. Archie was one of the first pilots to flya€“his pilota€?s number was, I think, just over the hundred: 105 or 106. I was enormously proud of him.
I think nothing has disappointed me more in my life than the establishment of the aeroplane as a regular method of travel. One had dreamed about it as resembling the flying of a birda€“the exhilaration of swooping through the air. But now, when I think of the boredom of getting in an aeroplane and flying from London to Persia, from London to Bermuda, from London to Japana€“could anything be more prosaicA cramped box with its narrow seats, the view from the window mostly wings and fuselage, and below you cotton-wool clouds. When you see the earth, it has the flatness of a map. Oh yes, a great disillusionment. Ships can still be romantic. As for trainsa€“what can beat a trainEspecially before the diesels and their smell arrived. A great puffing monster carrying you through gorges and valleys, by waterfalls, past snow mountains, alongside country roads with strange peasants in carts. Trains are wonderful; I still adore them. To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and riversa€“in fact, to see life.
I dona€?t mean that I am not fascinated by the conquering of air by man, by his adventures into space, possessed of that one gift that other forms of life do not have, the sense of adventure, the unconquerable spirit, and with it couragea€“not merely the courage of self-defence, which all animals have, but the courage to take your life into your hands and go out into the unknown. I am proud and excited to feel that all this has happened in my lifetime, and I would like to be able to look into the future to see the next steps: one feels they will follow quickly on one another now, with a snowballing effect.
What will it all end inFurther triumphsOr possibly the destruction of man by his own ambitionI think not. Man will survive, though possibly only in pockets here and there. There may be some great catastrophea€“but not all mankind will perish. Some primitive community, rooted in simplicity, knowing of past doings only by hearsay, will slowly build up a civilisation once more.