Chapter XIII

The diary which Teixeira kept for me during my absence in South America was, so far as I am aware, his first venture in this kind of literature. Approaching it with trepidation, he abandoned it with loathing. The mystery of a double cash-column quickly palled; and he was not long intrigued even by printed reminders of the moon’s phases and of the days on which dividends and insurance-policy renewals became due.

30 December 1920.

As a large number of these Diaries circulate abroad it may be
well to point out that the Astronomical Data, such as phases of
the moon etc. are given in Greenwich time.

_Perhaps it may be as well, ~Teixeira concurs, 30.12.20~._

31 December 1920.

_I did not see the old year out. I played 1/- bridge in the
afternoon at Captain Cave-Brown-Cave’s, with him, Captain B.
and Dr. F. and won_

_£—18.0._

_which at normal points would have been_

_9.5.0._

_(I presume that is what the right-hand column is for. But the
left-hand column? Ah, that left-hand column!...)_

_The last that I saw of the old year was a 68-7-0, grey-haired
parson in pumps and a prince-consort moustache and whiskers
waltzing a polka, or polkering a waltz—in short, dancing
something exceedingly modern—with a 15-7-0 flapper. Then we
went to bed, wondering how Stephen was spending his New Year’s
Eve, on board the ~Almanzora~, in a south-westerly gale._

Saturday, 1 January.

_When at 5.30 I switched on my light and rose, I saw a
leprechaun standing on my writing-table, looking like a little
sandwich-man. Fearlessly I approached; and he changed into a
bottle of ~eau-de-Cologne~ with an envelope slung round his
neck, inscribed, “To my Best Beloved.” Mark ~[my wife’s]~ bold
capitals. And show me another couple whose united ages amount
to 117 years or more and who still do this sort of thing. O
olden times and olden manners!..._

Monday, 3 January.

_Bridge at Cave’s with Captain B. and Dr. C._

_~[My wife]~: “What did you talk about at tea?”_

_Tex: “Jam.”_

_This question and answer never vary, after my return from a
visit to the C.-B.-C’s...._

_I foresee that this compilation is going to rival the ~Diary
of a Nobody~. And I am pledged to keep it up until the 7th of
March. Kismet! Or, as the dying Nelson said, “Kismet, Hardy.”_

Wednesday, 5 January.

Dividends due

_What dividends?_

Sunday, 9 January.

_Thank goodness that I have only space to thank goodness that I
have only space wherein ... ~ad infinitum~...._

Thursday, 13 January.

_Received from Stephen’s mother his letter to his mother...._

_Received from Lady D. Stephen’s letter to ~[her]~ and wrote
to her in appropriate terms, expressing doubts upon Stephen’s
dietary while crossing the South-American continent, where
there are neither fish nor eggs, save the eggs of condors and
hummingbirds...._

Friday, 14 January.

_... My bank-balance is overdrawn, but I make 19/6 at bridge._

_... Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Martin arrive. I do not know if this is
the ~Daily News’~ Irish correspondent whom the Black and Tans
wanted to murder._

Tuesday, 18 January.

_Begin Couperus’ ~Iskander: The novel of Alexander the Great~;
two enormous volumes, which I may hardly live to translate.
It is a great joy to see this artist building up his story
with firm and elegant perfection from the very first page,
with conviction and a fine self-confidence, no grouping, no
floundering, no hesitation...._

Saturday, 23 January.

_Need something happen every day at Ventnor? Danged if there
need!_

Monday, 24 January.

_... The new rich arrive, Rolls-Royce and all._

Tuesday, 25 January.

_Those new rich! So new, so rich, so drearily unostentatious!
Young new richard bald, pan-snayed, ill-dressed; young new
wife and sister-in-law dowdy; young new secretary without a
dinner-jacket to his backside; young new baby and young new
nurse all over the place; young new Rolls-Royce, careering over
the island, the only sign of wealth._

_If only there were a few diamonds, a few banded cigars, a few
h’s dropping on the floor with a dull thud, one could at least
laugh. But the drabness, the gloom of these particular new
rich: O my lungs and O my liver!..._

Thursday, 27 January.

_It is terrible, the number of people who come to this hotel;
and I regret the pleasant, non-“paying” days when we were six
visitors and three musicians, with a full staff of servants
to wait on us. There are now over thirty people at meals, one
uglier than the other. And as soon as one goes two others take
his place...._

Sunday, 30 January.

_... To bed at 5, with my “special dinner” at 7, John Francis
Taylor’s meal: “Give me some milk; and let the milk be hot.
And give me some bread; and let the bread be inside the milk.”_

Monday, 31 January.

The Insurance herein contained is not valid until your name has
been registered.

_I don’t care. Yer can ’ave the insurance._

_The new rich have some business visitors._

Tuesday, 1 February.

_... Departure of the new riches’ little thyndicate of friends._

_Arrival of the dividend on my Benson & Hedges’ 10% 2nd
pref., the only shares wherein I have ever invested that have
ever paid any dividend whatever. Lord, how I have moiled
and toiled to sink money in stumer companies! Shrewsburry &
Talbot Hansoms! Galician Oilfields! Rubber substitutes! Cork
substitutes! Tampico-Panuco Deferred! United Transport Co.! In
the three last I still have holdings: about £250 in all. And
the things that I have inherited: thousand of dollars’ worth of
Mexican (and Turkish and Hungarian and Russian) rubbish, which
would barely fetch a tenner, all told!..._

Thursday, 3 February.

_... The new arrivals include a long, lean man ... and his
wife. His hair is dyed to suggest 55; he is probably a
cadaverous 77. He comes down to dinner in a white tie and
tails. His digestion is of the weakest. He refuses soup, leaves
the fish, refuses a cutlet, leaves the goose and seems to
dine mainly on ~crême Beau Rivage~, which is a ~crême carmel~
decorated with a blob of whipped cream and angelica. His
conversation with his wife consists purely of whispered smiles._

Friday, 4 February.

_I received letters from Stephen to me and from Stephen to his
mother. I have still to receive a letter from Stephen to Lady
D...._

_On his return he will borrow from me Frank Harris’ second
series of ~Contemporary Portraits~, just arrived from New York._

_There is no bridge at the Home-Sweet-Homes. I go to the club,
play with P. the local solicitor; Dr. W., of Harrogate; Mr. S.,
of the same and win the sum of £——2½ d._

Saturday, 5 February and Sunday, 6 February

_An episode of “And oh, the children’s voices in the lounge!”
was followed by my going to the office and saying:_

_“I am going to bed lest these children be the death of me. May
I have a special dinner, please?”_

_“Certainly. What would you like?”_

_“Send me some milk and let the milk be hot. And send me some
bread and let the bread be inside the milk.”_

_Next morning, having slept eight hours and fifteen minutes, I
went to the manageress and:_

_“People,” I said, “are far too proud of their children and
too fond of displaying them in public.... There is nothing
wonderful about parentage and nothing clever. Most people are
parents. I have been one myself.... Children should be seen and
not heard.... If they raise their voices in the public rooms,
they should be sent to their bedrooms. Some would suggest the
coal-hole; but I, as you know, have a gentle heart.... Remember
that we live in an age of reprisals. The privilege of screaming
and yelling is not confined to children. Adults enjoy equal
rights. Next time a child raises its voice in my presence, I
shall in quick succession bellow like a bull, roar like a
lion, howl like a jackal, laugh like a hyena. If you drive me
to it, I shall copy all the shriller domestic animals.... The
matter is now in your hands.”_

Monday, 7 February.

_Peace reigns at Ventnor...._

Wednesday, 16 February.

_... I start my sock-and-tie stunt, which consists in
“copycatting” daily, Austin Read seconding, an absurd young man
of half my age. Thus do the elderly amuse themselves for the
further amusement of a limited circle...._

Tuesday, 22 February.

_Stephen’s letter of 20.1.21 to his mother arrives. ~[I
again varied my itinerary and had decided to make my way to
Valparaiso through the Straits of Magellan rather than across
the Andes.]~ So he is travelling in the wake of H.M.S. Beagle
and the late Charles Robert Darwin! He’ll be perished with
cold; but he’s more likely to get a fish or two to eat...._

Sunday, 27 February.

_Stephen’s birthday. His health shall be drunk in brimming
barley-water; and, though I believe he has already had a
birthday-present, he shall have a copy of ~The Tour~ the moment
it arrives. Good luck to him!_

_P.S. Absolutely a good notice of ~The Tour~ in the ~Sunday
Times~. My wife says that the critic must have been drunk._

Monday, 28 February.

_Arrival of a terrible Yorkshire group, two men and a woman....
They foregather with ... a man who appears in carpet-slippers,
like Kipps, and talk of nothing but food, in broad Leeds._

Tuesday, 1 March.

_... “Ah had hum-und-eggs to my breakfast this morning. Ah
was always partial to hum-und-eggs for breakfast.... Ah had
new potai-i-toes ut the dinner. Ah said to McKanner, ‘These
are too good to pass.’ We had summon with ’em, summon und new
potai-i-itoes.”_

_They seem to be bank-managers and to have dined with Reggie at
some London City and Midland Bank-wet...._

Thursday, 3 March.

_T. takes me to East Dene, the childhood home of Swinburne, now
a convent of the Sacred Heart. I am shown over the entrancing
grounds by the Mother Superior. Before taking me into the
chapel:_

_“You are not a catholic, I suppose?” she asks._

_“Indeed I am.”_

_“I mean, a Roman catholic?”_

_“Reverend mother, are there any others?”_

_“Oh, they all call themselves Anglican catholics nowadays!”_

_Then on to Craigie Lodge, where Pearl Hobbes pesters the
tenants with trivial spirit-messages._

_Home, feeling cold as death...._

Saturday, 5 March.

_... I am correcting proofs of ~The Three Eyes~ for Hurst &
Blackett. Altogether I shall have four books out this spring._

_~The Tour~, Butterworth._
_~The Three Eyes~, Hurst & Blackett._
_~Majesty~, Dodd._
_~More Hunting Wasps~, Dodd._

_Not so bad for an owld, infirm mahn!_

Sunday, 6 March.

_It is pleasant to see the sun gain strength daily, with
every sort of flower appearing, almond-blossoms in full
swing, cherry-blossoms hard at it and pear-blossoms making a
beginning._

Monday, 7 March.

_Departure of ~[the married Yorkshire visitors]~._

_“Thank God, they’re gone!” the survivor is heard to say._

_Arrival of the survivor’s women-folk. He sees them to their
rooms and comes down to gloat over some woman. When his wife
returns to the hall:_

_“Hullo, Helen!” he says. “Are ye dahn olready?” And repeats
the bright question: “Hullo, Helen! Are ye dahn olready?”_

_What a people, the men of Yorkshire!..._

Wednesday, 9 March.

_I begin a collodial sulphur treatment ... for that picturesque
right leg of mine. Irving’s left leg was a poem (Oscar Wilde);
my right leg is a money-box, adorned with three patches the
size of a shilling, a sixpence and a groat, all very nice and
silvery. I asked ~[the doctor]~ whether it was leprosy or
dropsy. He said it was soriasis, scoriasis, scloriasis: I don’t
know which and I don’t care._

Thursday, 10 March.

_The ~[other Yorkshire visitors]~ are to go on Monday, when I
can say:_

_“Thank God, they’re gone!”_

_And I pray that the table next to ours may not be given to
people with provincial accents. Let it be noted that the
friend of “McKannar” is manager of the—branch of the L.J.C.M.
at Leeds, so that, when I go to live at Leeds, I may bank
elsewhere...._

Friday, 11 March.

_At the club, I win 1861 points at bridge in 90 minutes._

£. s. d.
_In money, at 2½d the 100, this represents_ _4_ _0_
_At the Cleveland it would have represented_ _9_ _12_ _0_
_At the Reform Club it would have represented_ _2_ _8_ _0_

Sunday, 13 March.

_John (“Shane”) Leslie’s book on Cardinal Manning seems to
me very good. Leslie is very nasty to Purcell, who no doubt
deserves it._

Monday, 14 March.

_Departure of ~[the last Yorkshireman]~, leaving his
women-people behind him. He asked for it and he shall have it:_

_“Thank God he’s gone!”_

_He used to stare at me till I devised the retort: closing my
eyelids and yawning at him like a lion._

_I think I must talk to Reggie about him some day._

Tuesday, 15 March.

_... The hotel is filling up madly for Easter. There will be
more here then than at Christmas. Help!..._

Thursday, 17 March.

S. Patrick ☽ First Quarter, 3.49 a.m.

_Well, I went to church to pray for Ireland: what else was
there to be done?_

_Stephen’s return seems to be unduly delayed; and I’ve
forgotten the name of his ship._

Friday, 18 March.

_The sun shines in the morning._

_The rain falls in the afternoon._

_I play a little bridge._

_The sun shines all day._

_Thank God, a letter from Stephen and an end to this beastly
diary!_