Chapter VII

In the middle of May I cabled to Teixeira in code, asking him to forward no more letters; and I did not hear from him again until my return to England in the second week of June.

As soon as I was ready to take his place, he went to Harrogate for a cure and remained there for six weeks. For part of the time I took his place in another sense of the phrase. At the end of July the Air Board commandeered my flat; and, until I could find, decorate and furnish another, Teixeira and his wife most kindly placed their house at my disposal. This will explain the following extract:

_Harrogate: 15 July, 1917._

_Here is the key. Come in when you like, make yourself as
comfortable as you can and forgive all deficiencies. I feel a
compunction at not having the physical energy to “clear” things
a bit for you; but there you are...._

_I have started my cure, ~he writes on 18.7.17~, which promises
to be a most strenuous, arduous and tedious affair. I have to
take daily two soda-water tumblers of strong sulphur water and
two ordinary tumblers of warm magnesia water; and on alternate
days (a) a Nauheim bath and (b) a hot-air bath...._

_It is raining steadily. This doesn’t matter. But that
sulphur-water, on an empty stomach, at 8 a.m.! Two-and-twenty
ounces of it, hot! The stench of it! It is said to remind one
of rotten eggs; but, as I have never smelt a rotten egg, it
reminds me of nothing and only suggests hell._[5]

Sugar seems to have been more scarce in Harrogate than in London; and Teixeira’s appeals and contrivances were always pathetic and sometimes frantic.

_My wife did manage to get half a pound of it flung at her
head this morning, ~he writes on 19.7.17~. I had so entirely
forgotten the essential rudeness of the people of Yorkshire
that its discovery came upon me as an utter surprise. I amuse
myself by overcoming it with smiles. Smiles are unfamiliar
symptoms to them and take them aback._

_You may tell Sutro that I have bought a dozen silk collars._

After weary weeks of nauseating treatment, he writes:

_It will be an awful sell if this cure ends without doing me
good. Still I always hope. Whatever happens I shall want at
least a week’s after-cure which I should probably take here:
simply a rest and air, without any waters or baths. But what is
your Cornish date?_

I replied, 27.7.17.

_By this time you will have seen that our minds have been
working on parallel lines towards the same conclusion that an
after-cure is quite essential. It will suit me perfectly well
to stay here until, and including, Friday the 24th, or later if
you like. My Cornish arrangements are quite fluid...._

_For all your pagan pose, ~he writes~, you are a fine old Irish
Christian gentleman, as is proved by your suggestion of an
after-cure, dictated no doubt at the identical moment when I
was writing my answer to it. At any rate, I prefer to think of
you as a Christian brother rather than as a Corsican brother.
As I said, I shall probably take that after-cure, but take
it at Harrogate, which is about as bracing a spot as any in
the three kingdoms. To go straight to the sea might set up my
rheumatism again, if indeed it is suppressed; there is no sign
yet of that desiderandum...._

It is necessary to insert my letter of 30.7.17 in order to explain Teixeira’s reply to it.

_I went home for the week-end, ~I wrote~, and travelled up this
morning with C. H. C. has a new and most amusing game. It
consists of inviting people to stay with him for the week-end
and encouraging them to bathe in the river Thames and only
disclosing, when the damage has been done, that the bed of that
ancient river is richly studded with broken bottles. There was
a small boy in the carriage with one badly injured foot as a
result of C.’s pleasantry. I did a conspicuous St. Christopher
stunt and carried the boy on my shoulders the entire length of
the arrival platform at Paddington...._

_I, ~Teixeira answers, 30.7.17~, once carried Willie
Crosthwait, then aged 14, the whole length of the Euston
departure platform. That beats you (and perhaps caused the best
part of my present troubles). He is now an army chaplain; and I
sit moaning at Harrogate._

_Ululu!_

My eviction took place in the first week of August; and on 3.8.17 I wrote to Teixeira:

_I am thinking of moving to Chelsea on Tuesday.... You may
remember a story of Benjamin Jowett in connection with
two undergraduates who persisted in staying up at Balliol
throughout the Long Vacation. Jowett, by way of gently
dislodging them, insisted first that they should attend Chapel
daily. The undergraduates grumbled, but obeyed. Jowett, seeing
that his first attack had failed, arranged with the kitchen
authorities that the food served to these recalcitrant young
scholars should be entirely uneatable, and in the course of
time their spirit was so much broken that they left him and
Balliol in peace. He is reported to have said, as he watched
them driving down to the station: “That sort goeth not forth
but by prayer and fasting.” So with me. I have manfully
withstood the stalwart labourers who break walls down all
round me throughout the night; but, when the porters are paid
off, the maids deprived of their rooms, the hot-water supply
disconnected and the gas cut off at the main, I feel that I may
retire with dignity and the full honours of war...._

_Make yourself as comfortable in Chelsea as you can, ~he
answered on 4.8.17~. As at present advised, we return on
Wednesday fortnight, the 22nd...._

_The days here speed past on wings, thanks to their monotony.
Waters at 8; again at 10.30; a bath or baths at 11; lunch at
1.30; a jog-trot drive from 3 to 4; bridge; dinner at 7.30;
massage at 9; all this with unfailing regularity. I believe
far more in my masseuse (she lives at this house) than in my
doctor. It will amuse your father to hear that this genius is
prescribing for me in the matter of rheumatism, neuritis and
fibrositis in the arm without having once had my shirt off!
I make suggestions, at the instance of the masseuse, and he
promptly annexes them as his own:_

_“Tell me, doctor, may I do so-and-so?”_

_“You ~are~ to do so-and-so; and this very day!”_

_The doctors here generally have the very worst name; but there
is nobody to pull them up or show them up._

_The place teems with people whom I know and don’t want to see._

_The rain it raineth every day and all day...._

_My cure is now over, ~he writes on 12.8.17~; it has been long
and costly; it has done me no good at all. Indeed my main
affliction is worse; certain movements of the right arm which
were possible with comparative ease before I came down are now
nearly impossible. On Saturday, at the final consultation, when
I took leave of my doctor and paid him five guineas, he told
me for the first time that I have no neuritis but that I have
bursitis. All the while, mark you, he has been treating me for
fibrositis. It is a consolation to know, however, that I have
no arthritis. What I have been having is what the vulgar would
call a hi-tiddlyhitis high old time...._

A week later I went again to Cornwall on leave.

_Do devote yourself, ~wrote Teixeira, 25.8.17~, at any rate for
the first ten days of your absence, to becoming very well and
strong. I have never seen you quite so ill as yesterday and I
was infinitely distressed about it. Treat yourself as though
you were an exceedingly old man like me. Then when you have
entered upon your rejuvenescence you can begin to play pranks
with yourself again...._

Later he added:

_Be careful not to honour the Atlantic with more than one
immersion a day...._

_~And, 30.8.17.~ I am exceedingly busy, but I am enjoying it
all. My health is as bad as ever and I have recovered my famous
lead-poisoning hue. I expect you, however, to return with the
bloom of roses and the stains of coffee on your cheeks. So make
up your mind to sleep and do it...._

In the first week of September there began the most persistent series of air-raids that occurred at any stage during the war.

_Last night, ~Teixeira writes, 5.9.17~, was made hideous by a
pack of confounded Germans who came over London and created no
end of a din. I looked out of the window, saw one shell burst
in a south-easterly direction, debated whether to go below or
remain in bed and remained in bed._

_~[My cook]~, from her basement, appears to have obtained a
much clearer aural view:_

_“Didn’t you hear them two raiders firing bom-m-ms at each
other, sir?”_

_There spoke your Sinn Feiner: they were both raiders to her.
The row lasted for over two hours; and I feel an utter wreck.
Lord knows what mischief the brutes have done this time._

_Vale et nos ama._

Next day, in a letter dated, _City of Dreadful Nights_, he adds:

_Last night no air-raid was possible, because of an appalling
thunderstorm, which kept me awake for another three hours. If
you have ever heard thunder rolling for fifty seconds without
intercession and giving sixty of these rolls to the hour, you
will know the sort of thunderstorm it was._

This description prompts him to an anecdote:

_“Then there’s Roche, the resident magistrate. Don’t go
shooting Roche now ... unless it’s by accident. What does he
look like? Well, if ye’ve ever seen a half-drowned rat, with a
grey worsted muffler round its neck, then ye know the kind of
man Roche is!”—Speech quoted before the Parnell Commission._

On my return from Cornwall, my flat was not yet ready for me, but the Teixeiras’ hospitality allowed me to continue staying with them.

_You will be as welcome on Thursday night as peace at
Christmas, ~wrote Teixeira, 9.9.17~. ~[My cook]~ is away on a
holiday and there is a possibility that she will not be back
by then; and in the meantime there is nobody else. You may,
therefore, have to submit to a modicum of discomfort: ... your
boots will probably have to accumulate to some extent before
they are cleaned on the larger scale. You have so many boots,
however, that I venture to hope that this will not incommode
you unduly._

This welcome was seasoned later by a story which Teixeira invented, describing his efforts to dislodge me. According to this, he used to fall resonantly from his bedroom to his study at 5.0 each morning and, if this failed to rouse me, he would mount the stairs again and continue to throw himself down until I waked. At 6.0 a cup of tea would be brought me; at 7.0 the morning paper; at 8.0 my letters. When I went to my bath at 8.30, Teixeira used to assert that he flung my clothes into a suit-case, tiptoed downstairs and laid the case on the doorstep. His tactics failed because I only waited until he was locked in the bathroom before creeping down and retrieving the case.

As our leave was over for the year, there was no further exchange of letters save when one or other was absent from our department.

_I have read the new Maeterlinck play[6]—a good theme
infamously treated, ~I find myself writing, 27.12.18~. I beg
you to scrap the third act and with it your regard for M’s
feelings; then rewrite it with a little passion, a great deal
of fear and unlimited un-understanding horror. The invasion
of Belgium wasn’t a Greek tragedy where the afflicted prosed
and philosophised—with a chorus dilating on cattle-yas; it was
noisy, bloody and, above all, unbelievable. Maeterlinck has
brought no nightmare into it...._

_Letter just received, ~he replied next day~. You are a highly
illuminated and illuminating critick. Your remarks upon that
play are exactly right (as I now know, having just read my
first three Greek plays)...._

_I enclose, ~he writes 10.8.18~, 1¾ chapters of the Couperus
classical comedy-novel ~[The Tour]~, which I amused myself
by doing because you insisted so emphatically that the book
should be done. But I will go no further till I have your
verdict. Don’t trouble to do any work on this; the marginal
refs. were merely inserted as I went along. Just see if the
thing is the sort of thing that’s likely to take on; and talk
to me about it when you see me...._