Chapter VI

On Holy Saturday, 1917, I was asked by the deputy-chairman whether I would represent the department on the mission which Mr. Balfour was taking to Washington with a view to coordinating the war-organization of Great Britain and the United States.

For the next two months Teixeira and I communicated whenever a bag passed between the British Embassy and the Foreign Office, overflowing into a brief journal betweenwhiles. He also disposed of my varied correspondence with uniform discretion and with a courage that only failed him when unknown mothers asked him if I would stand sponsor to their children.

_The enquiries into the cause of your absence, ~he writes on
12.4.17~, have been distressing. More people ask if you are ill
than if you are being married. The unit of the last idea was
Sutro, who then went off to Davis and found out what he wanted
to know...._

_13 April._

_The work is pretty stiff and I doubt if I can make this
desultory diary as gossipy as I could have wished. And, after
all, it will seem pretty stale and jejune by the time it
reaches you...._

_Your whereabouts are known now in the dept. and will be at the
club to-morrow, if any one asks me again. Hitherto great wonder
has reigned; but the “no blame attaches to his name” stunt has
worked exquisitely._

The figure of Max Beerbohm’s caricature is seen in the following paragraph:

_I have ordered eight new coloured shirts, bringing the total
up to 23. Then I have about a dozen black-and-white shirts;
and only seven dress-shirts, I find. This makes 42 in all. My
father’s theory was that no gentleman should have fewer than
eighty shirts to his name. Times have changed; and we are a
petty and pettyfogging generation of mankind. On the other
hand, I have 33 ties, exclusive of white ties. I feel almost
sure that my father did not have so many as that. And I outdo
him utterly in boot-trees, of which I have just ordered a pair
to be marked “L8” and “R8,” meaning thereby that it is my
eighth pair. ~Sursum corda.~_

Teixeira believed with almost complete sincerity that he would die on 21 April 1917. The origin of this belief he never explained to me; and I do not know whether he confided it to others. This accounts for the following entry:

_Shall I live, I wonder, till the 22nd, to write to you that I
am still alive? When I allow my thoughts to dwell upon 21.4.17,
now but six brief days off, there rises to them the memory of
the horrible Widow’s Song which Vesta Victoria used to sing. I
will start the next page with the chorus; for you, poor young
fellow, know nothing of the songs that brightened the Augustan
age of the music-halls._

_Read and admire:_

_He was a good, kind husband,_
_One of the best of men:_
_So fond of his home, sweet home,_
_He never, never wanted to roam._
_There he would sit by the fire-side,_
_Such a chilly man was John!_
_I hope and trust_
_There’s a nice, warm fire_
_Where my old man’s gone._

_Gallows-humour, my dear executor, gallows-humour!_

_16 April._

_Yesterday being a fine day, I have caught cold. A bad
look-out, executor, a bad look-out!_

_Adieu, cher ami._

_You will observe a brief hiatus, ~he writes on 19 April,
1917~. A letter begun to you on the 16th is reposing in my
drawer at the department, where I have not been since then,
having succumbed to an attack of bronchitis. And ~[my doctor]~
will not let me out till the 21st (“der Tag!”) at the earliest._

_Der Tag_ was reached ...

_21 April, 1917._

_It was a comfort and a joy to read this morning that your
party has arrived safely at Halifax. I propose to pass this
bloudie day without any cheap philosophizing. I am about cured
of my bronchitis, I think, though fearsomely weak; and, if
I “be” to “be” carried off to-day, it’ll be a motor-bus or
-cab that’ll do for me. Look out for a letter from me dated
to-morrow. I hope the voyage has done you all the good in the
world...._

... _and survived_.

_22 April, 1917._

_Ebbene, caro mio Stefano! You will be able to tell your
grandchildren that you once knew a man who for twenty years was
convinced that he would die on the day when he was fifty-two
years and twelve days old and who lived to be fifty-two and
thirteen...._

_Bottomley has turned against the new government and is
adumbrating his ideal government. He retains the present
foreign secretary, but nominates H. H. A. as lord chancellor
and Sir Edward Holden as chancellor of the exchequer. He wants
Beresford as minister of blockade. Oof!_

_Robbie Ross has a story of a German poet, one Oskar Schmidt,
“a charming fellow,” who, armed with the best letters of
recommendation, went to Oxford and spent several agreeable
weeks there. The fine flower of his observations was:_

_“Der Oxfort oontercratuades, dey go apout between a melangolly
and a flegma.”..._

_24 April, 1917._

_Your name appeared in the ~Times~ yesterday; and I am now
able to read daily, or I hope, shall be, how Mr. McKenna
bowed, raised his hat and, escorted by cavalry, took his first
cocktail on American soil. I do hope that you are not only
having the time of your life but feeling amazingly well. J.
pictures you a victim of indigestion; but I, knowing your
justly celebrated strength of character, have no fears on that
score. ~Cura ut valeas.~_

_4 May, 1917._

_This is a private-view day. The sun is blazing truculently. I
am wearing a new shirt, white with black and yellow lines (the
Teixeira colours), and the white hat and all’s well in God’s
dear world._

That these sartorial efforts were not wasted is shewn by the next entry:

_5 May, 1917._

_... From yesterday’s Star:_

_“Society Sees the Pictures_

_“The beautiful spring day induced one Beau Brummel to sport a
white box-hat”!!!_