Chapter V

The first five months of 1916 were a time of relatively good health for Teixeira; and our correspondence contains little more than an invitation, which he acknowledged in departmental language.

I wrote:

_Tuesday, Jan. 4th, 1916._

_Though long I’ve wished to bid you come and dine,_
_Your way of life stood ever in the way;_
_For you, I gather, go to bed at nine_
_And rise at five (or five-fifteen) next day._

_Yet Tuesday brings my chance. At half-past eight_
_I go to guard my king; but, ere I go,_
_With meat and wine I purpose to inflate_
_My sagging stomach for an hour or so._

_Then will you join me? Seven o’clock, I think:_
_The Mausoleum Club is fairly near:_
_Whate’er your heart desire of food and drink,_
_And any kind of clothes you choose to wear._

_S. McK._

_We should be glad, ~replies Teixeira~, if this application
could come up again in say a fortnight’s time._

_A. T._
_Trade Clearing House._

When next I was summoned for duty as a special constable, the application was submitted again; and Teixeira dined with me at the Reform Club. Later in the year, though he had been warned by William Campbell, the greatest friend of his middle years, that a man who laughed so much would never be admitted to membership, I was allowed to propose him as a candidate; and from the day of his election he became one of the most popular figures both in the card-room and in the south-east corner of the big smoking-room, where his most intimate associates gathered.

His hours of work, to which the first stanza refers, have already been mentioned; his methods call for a word or two of description. The library in Cheltenham Terrace looked out over the Duke of York’s School and was lined with book-cases wherever windows, fire-place or door permitted. The furniture consisted of a sofa, which was used for hat-boxes and more books; a writing-table, which was used for anything but writing; a revolving book-case, filled with works of reference; and the editorial chair from the office of _The Candid Friend_. Seating himself in dressing-gown and slippers, between the fire-place and the revolving book-case, Teixeira dug himself into position: a despatch-box under his feet raised his knees to an angle at which he could balance a dictionary upon them, with its edge resting on a miniature bureau; on the dictionary rested a blotting-pad; and every book that he needed was in reach either of his hand or an elongated pair of “lazy-tongs”; scissors, string, sealing-wax, india-rubber and knives were ingeniously and menacingly suspended from nails in the revolving book-case; on the top stood cigarettes, matches, a paste-pot and a vast copper ash-tub; and the colour of his violet carpet was chosen to conceal the occasional splashings of a violet-ink pen. With a telephone on one side to put him in touch with the outside world and with a bell on the other to secure his morning coffee, Teixeira could work without moving until evicted by force.

In the beginning of June, he was ordered to Malvern.

_No news, ~he writes on the 10th~, except that I have arrived
and had some tea...._

_There are hawthorns at Malvern and rhododendrons of -dra but
also the most bloodthirsty hills. And there was an officer
in the train who told me that the feeling in Franst was most
“optimistic”._

_The proprietress of this hotel pronounces my name Teisheira.
This must be looked into._

_I s’pose I’m enjoying myself, ~he writes next day~. I feel
very restless._

_~[My cook]~, I forgot to tell you, was mounting guard over the
dispatch-box like a very sentinel, with hands duly folded: a
most proper spectacle. I nearly died, but not entirely, hunting
for my porter up and down the length of the longest train you
ever saw (I am sure this must be correct, in view of the fact
that you never did see this particular train)...._

_This hotel is not so uncomfortable: I slept eight hours; I
have a writing-table in my room; my bath was too hot to get
into; these are signs of human comfort, are not they? Nor
is the food nasty. Fortunately, there is not much of it. I
ordered me a bottle of Berncastler Doctor. They brought me
Liebfraumilch. I waved it away, saying that hock was acid and
gave me gout. Then, persuaded to be a Christian, I sent one
running after it before the doctor was opened and drank two
glasses; and it was delicious; and I have no gout._

_Why I sit boring you with this dull stuff I do not know: it is
certainly not worth including in the Life and Letters._

Two days of solitude set him athirst for companionship.

_Good-morning, fair sir, ~he writes on 12.6.16~. I hope this
finds you as it leaves me at present, a little improved in
health. But I would not wish my worst enemy the weariness from
which I am suffering.... Picture me buying useless things so
that I may exchange a word with a shopman; for no one talks to
me here. Also the weather is bitterly cold._

And next day:

_I have ... talked at length to a highly intelligent Dane, with
a massy pair of calves that do credit to his pastoral country.
But he has returned to town this morning._

_They play very low at the club, fortunately, for I lost 13/-,
which would have been £10, had I been playing R.A.C. points.
Also they make me too late to dress for dinner, which doesn’t
matter: nothing matters in this world._

_For the rest, I have reason to think that I shall begin to
cheer up from to-morrow and to remain cheerful until Saturday.
That is “speech-day”—I presume at Malvern College—when I expect
to see an awful invasion of horribobble papas and mammas._

_Bless you._

_The hoped-for cheerfulness has not yet arrived, ~he laments
on 14.6.16~. I live in one of the most tragic of worlds. But
... I have had more conversation. The place of the Dane with
the fatted calves ... has been taken by a parson, a passon, a
parsoon, an elderly parsoon with the complete manner of the
late Mr. Penley in ~The Private Secretary~: he would like
to give every German a good, hard slap, I am sure. He is a
much-travelled man; and his ignorance of every place which he
has visited is thoroughly entertaining...._

_I am becoming popular at the club: they took 12/- out of me
yesterday. I must set my teeth and get it back though._

_The influx of odious parents, ~he writes on 18.6.16~, with
their loathy, freckled criminals of offspring has flustered
the waiters and is spoiling all my meals. What I do now is to
change for dinner after all and come in exactly an hour late
for meals. They have some way of keeping the food—such as it
is—piping hot; and so I do not suffer unduly for avoiding the
sight of some, at least, of the carroty-headed boys and their
thick-ankled sisters...._

_Ah well! I can begin to count the days until I am back among
you; and a glad day that will be for me! Nobody in the world, I
think, hates either rest or enjoyment so much as I do._

_Good-bye. I am going for a walk. I tell you frankly, I am
going for a walk. I tell you this frankly...._

On Teixeira’s return to the department, our correspondence was suspended until I went to Cornwall for a week’s leave in August. When I wrote in praise of my surroundings, he replied with a warning:

_You are probably too young ever to have heard of ... a
play-actress ... who brought a breach of promise action ... and
earned the then record damages of £10,000. She took a cottage
somewhere the other day and brought her mother to live in it.
The mother said, “This is just the sort of place I like; I
shall be happy here,” then fell down the stairs and was dead in
half an hour...._

_... Remember me to the Atlantic...._

The next letter contained a story from Ireland:

_Sligo, 18 August 1916._

_... Here, in this most distressful country, we are about to
experience again the blessings of coercion, administered by
Duke, K.C., and Carson, high priest of the cult. In Sligo, the
other day, two ladies treating each other in a public-house,
the barman intervened at the tenth drink, saying:_

_“Stop it now; ye can’t have any more; troth, I won’t sarve ye
again. Don’t ye know it’s Martial Law that’s on the people?”_

_Whereupon one of them enquired of the other:_

_“For the love of God, Mrs. Murphy, what’s he talking about at
all? Who’s Martial Law?”_

_To which her friend replied ~sotto voce~:_

_“Whist, don’t be showing your ignorance, ma’am! Don’t ye know
he’s a brother of Bonar Law’s?”..._

As official papers accompanied every letter, a trace of departmental style is occasionally visible in private notes:

_War Trade Intelligence Department, 23 August, 1916._

_“Harry Edwin” ate a grouse last night and drank many glasses
of port. You can imagine the sort of grumpy ~commensal~ that he
is to-day._

_A. T._

_“Harry Edwin.”
To see.
23.8.16._

_Seen and approved.
H. E. P._

_... Don’t overbathe, ~he adds as a postscript~. Why be so
reckless? You remind me of the London city “clurks” who arrive
in Switzerland one evening, run straight up the Matterhorn the
next morning. I believe that two per cent of them do not drop
dead._

_The Sehr Hochwohlgeboren und Verdammter Graf Zeppelin, ~he
writes on 25.18.16~, did some damage last night at Greenwich,
Blackwall (a power-station) etc. For the rest, no news. I am
picking up not wholly unconsidered trifles at the Wellington
and benefiting your Uncle Reggie ~pro rata~. ~[Bridge
winnings at this time were thriftily exchanged for War Savings
Certificates.]~ This morning I (pro)-rated the girl ... at the
post-office for not “pushing” those certificates. I said that,
whenever any one asked for a penny stamp, she should ask:_

_“May we not supply you with one of these?”_

_It went very well with the audience._

_This morning, ~he writes later~, I have bought my thirteenth
fifteen-and-sixpennyworth of Uncle Reggie. Mindful of my
injunction to “push” the goods, the post-office girl ... urged
me to buy a £19.7. affair which would be good for £25 in five
years’ time. Alas! Still, there are hopes._

In his preface to _The Admirable Bashville_, Bernard Shaw explains his reason for throwing it into blank verse: “I had but a week to write it in. Blank verse is so childishly easy and expedious (hence, by the way, Shakespeare’s copious output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do within the week what would have cost me a month in prose.” Pressure of work sometimes drove Teixeira to a similar expedient in rimed verse:

_Letter just received, ~he writes in haste on 26.8.16. to
acknowledge the account of a bathing mishap~:_

_With great relief at noon I found_
_That S. McKenna was not drowned._

_Many thanks for the pendant to these lovely ~verses~._

_P.S. I note—and we all note—~he adds~—that you never express
the wish to see us all again. How different from my Malvern
letters! Ah, what a terrible thing is sincerity!_