["In those first seven years there is no free choice. There's\na set-up, and we're stuck with it. Wxxx Our unfinished brains\ncan't possibly evaluate, or compare. Life can be beautiful or\nawful, lonely or crowded. The adults make all the decisions,\naffected, inevitably, by their own moods and conflicts. We\nhave to go along with it. Whatever is, is -- and it's all\nwe know.", "And so it was normal that I should have two mothers --\nH.D. my real mother, and Bryher who had taken charge. No visible\nhad \"run away\" from me, I was told --\nfather, he was in limbo, and x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x

She was a poet, which seemed to have a lot to do with the
fragile disposition and closed door. I didn't discern anything
special about that, however. I knew no other children, or other
mothers. We lived a tumultuous but essentially closed in life.
It was all I knew, and for all I knew everybody's mother was a poet.

"Run ahead, run ahead!"

eager

I was off, I was an untethered pony. In fact there was no
holding me. She followed with long strides. Even so, her pace
was too leisurely for me. I was too rambunctious for her.
We turned around at the Chateau de Chillon and came home the
same way, along the lake, up the steep stone steps by the bird
feeding rock. Time for lunch. We'd both had our constitutionals.
essential
She had her break away from the closed room and
the sacred "work" I'd run off my energy. Most importantly,
we'd had our time together, just the two of us. And so it was,
every day, even in the rain. Then she wore a silvery grey cape,
I a green slicker with a souwester which earned me the nickname
of Frog. The換了穿了穿的衣裳。

Once back in Riant Chateau, Bryher took over again.

"Change your shoes, wash your hands, brush your hair."

She was the executive member of the family, to all
purposes the head of their household. My second mother, really
forever
more of a father figure, always issuing commands and getting
everybody into line. She was always in charge, whereas the
her husband
man of the house, Robert McSalmon, had no say at all. Not that
he was there much. He came and went, a visitor, a transient,

24

Rodeck. In the typescripts the three remaining poems are grouped
together under the heading "Three Poems," apparently in this order:
"The Dancer," "The Master," and "The Poet." This order seems best.
For "The Dancer," with its tribute to the achievement and perfection
of the female artist, prepares the way for an allusion to this poem
in the middle of "The Master," recognizing by implication that the
knowledge of herself brought about by Freud had made possible that
intrepid assertion of feminine integrity.

"The Master" reveals, with an intimacy and anguish beyond any-
thing in her prose *Tribute*, how Freud taught her to accept and
understand the ambivalent responses of her nature as a part of God's
creation:

I did not know how to differentiate
between volcanic desire,
anemones like embers
and purple fire
of violets
like red heat,
and the cold
silver
of her feet:

I had two loves separate;
God who loves all mountains,
alone knew why
and understood
and told the old man
to explain

23

four years ago.

He had some kind of break-down or crise and went
into the church. I see him now occasionally, in fact,
he seems to be filling out--you know how it is--bits
in the waste-land of the pattern.¹⁴

Then the proposed volume concludes with "Magician"--a long
and subtle evocation of the spirit of Jesus as evidenced in his
effect upon his followers and audiences. This poem, however,
does not derive from her Freudian sessions: it was published
earlier, in January of 1933 (her sessions began in March), and
the strength of the poem shows what Freud himself appears quickly
to have understood: that H.D. needed chiefly the counsel that
would bring forth in her the poems of the future. Since she was
determined not to publish her poem on Freud, "The Master," she
transferred this title to "Magician" in her later typescript, per-
haps in this way indicating to herself the service of healing that
the later Master had performed in Vienna. *A Dead Priestess Speaks*
conveys its sense of resurrection by moving from Greek masks to-
ward a personal voice, in a volume that moves at the same time
from Greek to Christian themes.

Her typescripts show that, earlier, H.D. had experimented with
another arrangement of her uncollected and unpublished poems, in at
least four groupings. Most significant of all is her suggestion
for "Part IV": "The Priest," "The Master," "The Dancer," and "The
Poet"--all four highly personal poems and all speaking in an open
voice about another human being for whom the speaker feels a strong
attachment. "Priest," we may say, has exorcised the ghost of Peter

26

But the exact identification is not so significant here as it is
with the other three poems in this kind, for the Dancer is ob-
served only in performance; the symbolism arises from her role
on the stage, not from any personal relationship.

What seems more certain is that H.D. in "The Poet" has paid
a calm and measured tribute to the memory of D.H. Lawrence. Many
of the details in this poem are private and obscure, but enough
emerges to make the identification of the male poet fairly clear.
"There is death / and the dead past:" she writes, "but you were
not living at all and I was half-living"--alluding apparently to
the years immediately after Lawrence's death (in 1930) when her
creative powers were blocked. "I don't grasp his philosophy,/and I don't understand," she says,

but I put out a hand, touch a cold door,
(we have both come from so far);
I touch something imperishable;
I think,
why should he stay there?
why should he guard a shrine so alone,
so apart,
on a path that leads nowhere?

She is speaking in imagination before "your small coptic temple"
which

is left inland,
in spite of wind,
not yet buried
in sand-storm . . .

My children have grown up. And H D is in another ascendancy, more widely recognized than she ever was in her lifetime. A whole cult has evolved, and devolved on me. The A whole new generation is facinated by her work, her life and her loves, her circle of friends -- the entire epoch from 1910 onwards, through World War I, the 20's, the... and finally World War II. The next great burst of creativity.

They're very dedicated, all these professors and students, scholars, biographers, and anthologists. And they produce. I receive university dissertations, literay magazines, xeroxes of lectures. I write letters answering their queries as best I can.

Books, books, old and new -- the family wall. I must impose structure on that part of the library. Should the magazines stand alongside the books? On the basis of subject matter, yes. And no, it makes an untidy line. I stack them elsewhere. Then I run into more trouble. My collection includes friends as well as family, and friends of friends, whole an... circle, diversified, ramified. I try to alphabetize. T for Toklas, the autobiography of. It really belongs under S. Now, how to organize Gertrude? Her own works are one thing, the biographies and studies essentially another. And Published in Paris, where should that go? I clear the whole shelf and dust everything rigorously. And I skim indexes, an insidious pursuit. I'm soon lost, as is the rest of the morning. I leaf back, dip in, read on. I meet myself.

Douglas, Norman -- another unresolved classification.

Grand Old Man by Nancy Cunard, and a thumping biography by Mark
Holloway. The classic, South Wind in Penguin paperback. Somewhere
I have a genuine early edition. I can see it in my mind's eye, but
I can't see it here. Maybe it is in the city. My problem is
compounded by two homes, two libraries. I can't recall seeing it
there either. Somebody borrowed it, probably -- euphemism for
carrying it off, forgetting to return it.

The Sitwells, another unwieldy heap. Their own works,
their lives
and NUMBERLESS BIOGRAPHIES. Books by them, books about them. By
and about, yes that's where I must set the division.

Published in Paris, now where in the world should that go?

I clear the whole shelf and dust vigorously. And I start
skimming indexes, an insidious pursuit. It's impossible to stop.
I'm lost, as is the rest of the morning. I leaf back, dip in,
read on.

Time distorts memory. It also illuminates and explains.
Hindsight is a tremendous force. By living in the present and
racking my brains, I'm beginning to understand the past.
Just beginning.

We're all cameras. I wish I were Christopher Isherwood's --
on target, holding to continuity. My equipment is ramshackle,
free wheeling, fitted with all the wrong lenses -- telescopic
where it should be wide-angled, zoom where it should have pulled
away. I've ended up -- and also started -- with a very odd bag
of film clips. Much of it is fuzzy, light-struck, or nearly blank.
Endless footage covers events I would prefer to erase; awful at
the time; or worse, plain boring, nagging, dragging. Pull it
out nonetheless, run it through the Movieola. Cut and edit.
Never enlarge or glamorize. Review once more in terms of current
experience. Do some research and splice it all in. Unexpected
sources can light up the murkiest sequences. Television for
instance. The series Upstairs/Downstairs recaptured a whole
era, a desperate one for me, and, being well out of it, I
was enthralled. I catch reruns whenever I can. World War
II documentaries redefine those long years. Winston Churchill's
speeches rouse, rally and terrify me all over again. A more
intimately known face returned to haunt me during the CIA shake-ups
during the CIA shake-ups of 1974/75 -- my former OSS boss, Jim,
ravaged, beside himself with ire, none of it aimed at me.
Immediately I was back there, in our cramped office with a
flying bomb poised over my typewriter. I'd hardly given him

a thought during the interim years. Now the beauty of it was that I could turn him off. Of course I didn't. I followed his trials and travails in the newspapers too. And read the books that started appearing *KOMING* & Co., culminating in an avalanche. Cross and double cross, Bodyguard of Lies, a Man Called Intrepid. spy and counter spy. They keep coming. Now it can be told, and is, an infinitium. Telling me more than I ever knew when I was in the midst of it. And going even further back into my obscure stint at Bletchley Park, the code breaking centre. *Enigma*, *Ultra-Secret*, *Ultra Goes to War*. I buy them all, as a matter of dogged duty, and read parts of them, less doggedly; they can be as heavy as the activities they expose. They fill a shelf of their own. This was my life, a phase of it, spurious, and by its very nature, transitory. Espionage is not in my genes. Literature is; no disputing the fact of being a poet's daughter.

I neglected my heritage for far too long. I was fully aware of it, sometimes proud, often baffled or overwhelmed. But it was for 25 years not my main concern. I had my own life to lead. Later, I was preoccupied with marriage. A quarter of a century which sounds portentous and is -- and what it takes to from cradle to college four times over. During the earlier part of this era my mother was still alive, and working in close affinity with Bryher and Norman Holmes Pearson. Their literary marriage a trois continued after her death. They didn't need me.

The balance has shifted. Norman died in 1975. Bryher lives on in self-imposed isolation, but off from the world, human contact and all her former interests.

Knightsbridge -- where was the bridge, where were the knights?

And Piccadilly Circus turned out to be a noisy junction full of
traffic; no animals~~, no clowns. London could be very misleading.

Grandma patiently fielded my questions and trundled me around
the town. Madame Tussaud's, the Tower of London, the Zoo. We
rode the buses,
explore~~d~~x~~y~~z~~x~~k~~y~~t~~k~~e~~x~~k~~e~~ open topped double-deckers. Standing up
front, gripping the rail, I pretended that I was a Viking sailing
into the unknown.

b ~~The McAlmons~~ had retreated to the bosom of Family.
duty permitted.
Bryher called on us whenever she ~~got away.~~. Her
presence was mandatory at meals, especially at tea. The mornings
were taken up with shopping, afternoons with a run in the car.
With luck, Family subsided after tea and Bryher ducked out. She
never knew just when, or whether that could be. Her visits were
very rushed and furtive. She never took her eyes off her watch.
As soon as she arrived she started fussing about leaving in time
to dress for dinner. She wasn't herself. It was impossible to
talk to her. Sometimes Bob came along. He always sat off in a
corner, moody and constrained. I couldn't do anything with
him either.

"Family wants to meet It," Bryher was saying.

I was in my room, out of earshot so she thought. People
were always calling me It. No offense. I listened more closely.
She reeled off the morning ~~fame~~. programme.
Shopping and the dressmaker, the flower shop, Harrods
and Wooland's, a walk if Family was up to it, otherwise ~~xxxix~~
the Rolls -- and eleven fifteen at the Albert Memorial. Eleven
fifteen ~~sharp.~~

"Today," my mother said, and in the same breath, "not today"
She didn't make sense. She was in a frenzy. She had
abandoned her typing, an unheard of breach of routine. She
let go
the breakfast tray without collecting the crusts.

She rummaged through the cupboard and selected a prissy blue
dress with ruffles, which she made. She made me wash
my face and hands although I'd already done it.

"No not today," she said again when I protested
that the birds would starve and the sheep would be sad.

"Today you're meeting the Family."
Not we, you.
I visualized a huge Victorian family, Mama and
Papa, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, all bearing down
on me at eleven-fifteen-sharp at the Albert Hall. And they'd
carry me off, goodness knew where, and I didn't want to go.

I had to wear a hat, the awful one with ribbons, which
she yanked hard around my chin.

"You're strangling me."

She took no notice.

"Come on now, we're late."

We must have got there at ten-fifteen-sharp, for it was a
very long wait. I broke the tension by running round and round
the preposterous monument, inspecting it from every angle.

"Where's the family?"

stay
"Oh can't you be quiet. Do sit down still."

We sat, forever, it seemed, as impulsive as the sculpted
elephants.

We sat as impassive as the sculpted elephant.

"There they are!"

A large XEXX lady in black fur, Advancing with quick tiny
a hasty trundle.
steps as she was running. Bryher at her side, eyes fixed
on the Albert Memorial. And just behind them a shiny Rolls-Royce
with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel, so near and so slow that
it seemed to be nuzzling them along.

Bryher waved. H D turned away and strode off into the
distance, pretending to be invisible.

I forget the exact words of our introduction; probably they
were unnecessary. The old lady suddenly enveloped me. She was
rosy and smelled of lavendar water. Her coat was as soft as a cat.
She said something about a little run -- and the three of us were
bolt upright
in the back of the car, with the chauffeur tucking us into a
shaggy blue rug.

"Once around the park, Steer."

His name really was Steer. I didn't take in that comic
significance until later.

Round the park, past familiar scenes, The Rotten Row, the
sheep dell, Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch. A stately progress,
BNEWXKAM so smooth that I began to feel seasick. I'd never been
in a car other than a taxi; this was a miniature rolling palace.
Children should be seen and not heard was one of Bryher's favorite
sayings. I sensed that I was there on approval, I answered
polite questions in even more polite monosyllables, and sat very
still, overwhelmed by the closed windows, the rug, and the slow motion.

"There, don't run away. They're coming -- see!"

I saw Bryher HERE. And a plump lady in black fur, top heavy on dainty shoes, advancing with small hasty steps. And, nuzzling them along, a huge shiny Rolls-Royce with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel.

Bryher waved.

H D turned away and strode off, pretending to be invisible.

I skipped along merrily. Family wasn't so daunting after all, just one old lady, OLD LADY rosy and benevolent, smelling of lavendar water. She enveloped me. Her coat was as soft as a cat. She said something about a little run, and the three of us were in the back of the car. The chauffeur tucked us into a shaggy blue rug.

Steer because he steered, so I thought. That really was his name, however, John Steer.

I'd never ridden in a car other than a taxi. This was a miniature rolling palace. The seats were of squishy beige leather, and set high. We perched bolt upright.

Round the park, past familiar landmarks; The Rotten Row, the sheep dell, Hyde Park Corner. A stately progress, so slow and smooth that I began to feel seasick. The old lady asked a lot of polite questions which I answered in even more polite monosyllables. We got along fine. Bryher's nervous glances kept reminding me that I was there on approval.

Around, past the Albert Hall, stopping at Knightsbridge.

"Lunch will be at 11 one fifteen sharp, Dolly, don't be late."

She squeezed my hand.

"Goodbye darling, remember you're coming to tea."

✓ "She's nice"

told my mother

And I **chattered** about **me** the big car and her fur coat and
the invitation to tea.

She really wasn't very nice to H D. "That Woman" and the
misbegotten child she'd at last brought herself to meet.

Dolly had always been a handful. The unsuitable nickname
sprang from wishful thinking. **Mama** wanted a dear little girl,
a toy. Early in life Dolly was a hellion. She hated dressing up,
insisting that she was really a boy; she **chattered** and **chortened** to run away to sea.
She neglected her beautiful dolls and clamored for a carpentry set.

And she always had her nose in a book. Mama considered reading
morbid, and discouraged it as much as possible. Dolly was as
wiley as a secret drinker. She read under the covers or under
the bed itself, and in the bathroom and up in the attic. Dada

was an accomplice. When she was naughty he bribed her with books --
nothing girly, ever; adventure stories, historical novels by G A

She acquired an extensive library. if at
Henty. A truce was achieved, **zzzzzz** cross purposes with Mama.
Dolly became good for the wrong reasons.

She was Dada's girl, very much so. , inheriting both his
pragmatism
**business** and his adventurous spirit. He was a colorful
personality in those days. Later, when his business goals were
attained, he strove for respectability, and attained that, too.
As a young man he was of course, and above all, enterprising.
He founded his company, parlaying a couple of beat up freighters
into a major shipping line. He was unconventional. He climbed
mountains, and became a member of the Swiss Alpine Club. He
travelled extensively, riding camels and mules in wild terrains.

A buxom Yorkshire farm girl accompanied him. Dolly was born
out of wedlock.

A comparatively recent member of the Cos Club, I am honored to be chosen as a proposer for Joanna Lerner Townsend.

Her father is the eminent writer, Max Lerner. He and her step mother, Edna, are old and treasured friends. I have known Joanna for many years -- intermittently, because of most of her lived life abroad -- always with affection and admiration.

I spent last Thanksgiving with the whole family, and, once again, I was impressed by her charm and capability.

is familiar with the Cos Club. She enjoyed the Cos Club as a guest. Her husband anticipates a transfer back to the States. She is eager to become a member, and enjoy its perfect balance of graciousness and cultural stimulus.

She thinks of herself as an under achiever. She feels apologetic for not having a complete, continuing career. "Just a housewife" -- establishing households in faraway places; adapting, adjusting; raising a family; being a hostess; helping her husband, a high ranking executive with Esso oil. She has, moreover, given time and talent to volunteer projects -- social work, book clubs and concerts; she is, among other things, an accomplished flute player.

Her children are already established in schools over here.

She looks forward to a new beginning yet another new phase of life. The Club would give her invaluable support. and, for her part, she would contribute

I recommend her most highly as lively awareness, appreciation, and charm. I recommend her most highly.

to the servants. He was abstracted, living in another world, his
business. He knew exactly where every one of his ships was at any
given moment -- this one in Hongkong, that one docking at Tilbury
early tomorrow, another in dry dock. He left for the City at
8 sharp, in the "other car" the Lanchester, and returned for lunch
at exactly 5 minutes to 1. Neither weather nor traffic ever affected
his schedule. He was obsessive about punctuality. "In one more
minute they will be late" he would say, pacing up and down,
scrutinizing his watch.

Young John was -- or was supposed to be -- their pride
and joy, their only son, late born and all the more to be treasured --
heir to the title, the business, the family fortune. It was all too
much for him. He turned maverick, with a vengeance -- deliberately
and unnecessarily obnoxious, unkempt, unwashed; his finger nails were
bitten and black. He was tall and gangly, and flounced. Where are
you going? OUT, was the tenor of these conversations. And he put
his feet up on the antique furniture and whistled in the hall and
talked in monosyllables and was awful. Yeah In spite of it all or
because of it all, this maverick oaf was a fine surrogate uncle, we
had rapport. He had two consuming interests, neither connected with
the Ellerman shipping lines. A passion for musical comedy -- he
took tap dancing lessons in some Shaftesbury Avenue studio, and
practiced routines accompanied by a terrible singing voice, in the
thought he was terrific.
home. I wasn't a dancingking. And he had a serious side which
he wasn't permitted to cultivate -- a genuine gift for zoology.
Circumventing house rules, he used to take me to the Zoo, on a
germ-laden 74 bus moreover.

He understood animals, weally communicated with them, and was
on pally first name terms with their keepers. Whether it was the
rhythm of his step, a friendly smell, magnetism, osmosis -- he
exerted it and the most diverse creatures all responded in their
idiosynchratic ways. He's coming, he's there the signal went out.
shot out
Porcupines ⚡️ from their sleeping quarters, x scrabbled against
the wire netting, swarmed over eachother for his attention. Maggie
and Maudie, two unapproachable giraffes, spent their days with their
backs to the audience, unresponsive, motionless. For us, they turned
around, bent their necks and reached over to curl their black tongues
around locust beans while John rubbed their furrowed brows. Hippos
waddled from their murky tanks and opened their jaws wide.

had the makings

The boy was a genius. He ⚡️ of a Julian Huxley,
he should have pushed on, followed his bent, his star. No, that
would never do. The scion ⚡️ however miscast, must follow in his
father's footsteps. Ironically, the true successor was right there.
The deplorably misnamed
Dolly was very much her father's daughter. She had an excellent
head for business, and executive drive, and, paradoxically the
Cassandra-like
same forebodings of doom which kept Sir John's operation on the track.
Nowadays she would be running the office and doing it very well --
Those days were different. There were no career girls. Daughters
of the house stayed home. They made themselves pretty, played the
piano, poured tea. When they left home, it was with a husband.
Daughters were an extension of their mothers.

There was -- and surely still is, somewhere and I wonder
where -- a portrait of the young Dolly, painted by Sir Luke Fildes.
Sweet sixteen, in a white tulle gown with a blue sash, heavy plaits
coiled around her ears and pearls on her neck -- totally unrecognizable
except for the eyes.

fresh cut grass, sweet smelling, and just beyond, half a dozen dead
sheep. Then we were diverted by a <u>messily</u> continuing drama overhead
a couple of tiny silver gnats chasing each other, dodging, streaking
off -- a dog fight, totally un doglike -- and a trail of smoke
and a white blob the size of a pin floating slowly <u>downwarp</u> -- he,
at least escaped, one airman, whether Jerry or one of ours, we
didn't know.

I remember horses in London. Not the chic sporty ones
in Rotten Row, but the honest to goodness working kind. At least
half the commercial traffic was horse drawn. Milk deliveries
and coal carts and the <u>dauntmen</u>, as garbage collectors were called.
Huge patient cart horses sometimes waiting for hours, blankets
over their shoulders, and noses strapped deep into feed bags.
Smart frisky little drays. The shiny Fortnum & Mason van.
They slowed traffic and clogged intersections.

At dusk, after the rush hour had subsided, the resonant
clip clop of hooves went echoing on. Muffled, a slow shuffle
and a whinny and a whoa on foggy nights, those pea soupers which
set in with great regularity.

"Very bad out tonight, Milady," the butler would say.

We didn't need to be informed. It was bad in. Windows were
closed tight, doors only opened for essential comings and goings.
But the fog got in, pervaded the whole house. A huge house, we
could hardly see the top of the main staircase. It settled in
the hall, the footmen loomed like ghosts. An acrid miasma which
even filtered into the dingling room.

Milady suffered from respiratory problems. She gasped
and choked, couldn't enjoy her dinner. Course after course
was taken away.

Thickly carpeted stairs, huge empty vases on every landing, another set of pannelled doors.

"Miss Winifred and Miss Winifred's ward, Milady."

Milady sat at a round table, barricaded by heavy silverware. She wore lace and pearls, and her hair was exquisitely curled. She seemed to be expecting a lot of guests. AXEDEEM spindly tables WERE set with fine china and doilies. A double tier trolley was laden with little cakes of all shapes and colors, and tiny triangular sandwiches. We negotiated the obstacle course -- I'VE BEEN KILLED OF KICKING OVER X X X tables -- and Bryher shook hands, which SEemed a odd considering that they'd been together most of the day. I got a peck on the cheek.

two
And we were seated at these perilous little tables.

"Milk? Sugar -- one lump or two?"

She used tongs, not fingers.

The footman carried the cups to us and handed round a plate of sandwiches. He stood at attention until we finished the last bite, and brought on the next course. AM Eclairs, cup cakes, fruit cake, standing at attention between each serving.

"Yes, Mama. No, Mama."

The conversation was stilted, and no wonder. Moreover, Mama was deaf. She spoke in a whisper. We had to shout to get through.

And Dolly this and Dolly that. In her quiet gracious way she did seem to be rather querulous. And, to the footman, "Henry, hasn't Master John come in yet?"

"No, Milady."

"When he does, I want to see him, but tell him we've finished tea."

"I can't face another row, come back with me, Monkey, back me up."

"Oh John, where have you been, Bunchy good evening, I didn't know
you were coming -- you're three quarters of an hour late for tea."

"It's all right, Mother, we don't want tea."

"We always have tea, I'll ring -- and Henry will have to go
all the way down -- so thoughtless. And you're the QUEEN OF THE
that cardigan's a disgrace, you haven't even
WITHOUT washing your hands after those filthy animals --"

"Oh Mama," Dolly would interject.

She deplored her kid brother's waywardness, yet felt -- so
rightly -- that he needed support.

Mutter, mutter. The poor boy stammered under stress.

"I beg your pardon, John."

"Oh nothing, never mind."

And out he would go, not slamming the door. A footman was
always hovering, to close it with due decorum.

And off to his room at the top of the house, sounding as if he
were falling up the stairs.

Depending on Mama's mood she would burst into tears, or pound
her fist in rage. It was disconcerting, seeing a grown up cry; she
did it so elegantly, mopping with a tiny lace handkerchief. Her
rages were alarming. The silver rattled, doilies went askew.

"Oh Mama," guiltily. "Oh Mama, vociferously, countering with
anger of her own -- which might lead anywhere, into all manner of
unrelated subjects.

A typical scene, re-enacted with endless variations. Thunderous
trivia -- whether to send for another pot of tea and when to order
the car; who was coming to lunch, and what to wear; John's

Around the park, the Albert Memorial again, and Knightsbridge,
where we stopped. Steer jumped out and opened the door, and I
helped us out of the rug and the car.

"Goodbye dear, remember you're coming to tea with me."

Bryher walked me back to the service flat. I could feel the
waves of relief. I'd behaved properly, the meeting was a success.

"Family" was a very nice lady. I couldn't think what the
nerves and fuss were all about. And she'd asked me to tea. I
was obviously "In"

"When are we going to tea?"

"Tuesday, at four-thirty sharp."

And I was being groomed, even more relentlessly than before.
As this was an indoor occasion, I had to wear my velvet party dress.
Sophie kept on brushing my hair. I was very excited. At last I
was going to see the Big House.

We stood on dazzlingly clean white washed steps and Bryher
seemed to be girding herself around. I studied the extraordinary scroll work on the rabbits and squirrels and grapes all caught up together in heavy iron loops. At last Bryher tugged the pully bell. The mahogany doors promptly swung open, manned by two sentinels, startling apparitions in black, with white gloves and bee striped waistcoats.

"Good afternoon, Miss Winifred" they said in the chorus,
unsmiling, absolutely poker faced.
They took our coats and ushered us up a carpeted staircase.

We recreated our morning outings, feeding the ducks and gulls on
the Serpentine, then strolling the flatlands of Hyde Park. When
family duties permitted, Bryher joined us in a grassy clearing.
H D sat on a bench, waiting and dreaming, surrounded by sheep.
I plunged effxtn into their midst, pretending to be a shepherd.
I wasn't allowed to hug them -- Xmt I might get my dress dirty,
and those were the days when little girls wore dresses all the
time, clean ones. I patted my new friends, and my hands came
away greasy. It was a citified, grey, lethargic flock.
Sometimes Bryher would join us, sometimes not, but we always
waited until lunch time.

Then one morning, our routine was abruptly changed.
Not today, H D said when I collected the crusts from the breakfast
table. Sophie was ironing my best dress and putting out my most
horrid shoes -- the shiny black ones -- with a pair of spanning
white socks. When my mother was nervous she was unable to
explain anything, or answer any questions. She was obviously
Eleven fifteen sharp Memorial
in total frenzy. "Tenxatock sharp at the Albert Mall, she said."
I protested that
Who said? and what was it all about. The ducks would starve and
the sheep would be sad. "Not today" WEXM she repeated. Then,
at last, as we were crossing the street, "you're going to meet
Lady Ellerman" Not we, but you.

We must have got there by ten fifteen sharp. It was a very
long wait. I broke the tension by running round and round the
preposterous monument, inspecting it from every angle.

"Where's Lady Ellerman?"

"Oh... please.... stay still."

Yes Milady, very well Milady, very good Milady.

Another round of cakes. Dolly looking choked up in her best
dress. The vastness and sumptuousness of the room, so big, so
stuffed. Petit point armchairs arranged in a circle at the far
end, as if for a conference. Porcelain statuettes on every edge
and ledge, and the painted heavens above, simpering angels among
blue skies and pink clouds. And paintings, sentimentalized out
doors, ~~exemplified~~ sheep, a morbid corpse of a deer. Expensive
suffocation. And the conversation such as it was. Yes Mama, no
Dolly, but Dolly, yes Mama.

unfamiliar

A portrait of Dolly, totally ~~unfamiliar~~ -- dolled up,
in white tulle and pearls, blue satin sash. Only her eyes were
recognizable -- she must have had some rapport wit Sir Luke Fildes.
"What are you doing to me?" she seemed to ask plead, "why am I here?"

He had also painted a little boy, pathetically well behaved,
unnaturally clean, blond, rosy. Master John.

"Thank you, Henry."

Her Ladyship dismissed him with a curt nod.

He was back again almost immediately.

"Sir John has returned from the city, Milady. He will receive Miss Winifred in the library." Another turning point, and the end of the tea party.

Henry led us down the staircase to the ground floor and
opened up yet another heavy door.

"Miss Winifred and her Ward, Sir John."

brown velvet

MISTAKES

Dusk had fallen, the curtains were drawn. The library was lit by a dim chandelier and a couple of equally ineffective top heavy lamps stuck awkwardly in corners. The room was as cluttered

as the drawing room, but with overbearing masculine panache. Rows
of uniform, leather-bound books in glass cases, which all looked
unread. A massive green baize table in the middle of the room; heads
surveying us
of stuffed deer ~~staring glistlessly down~~ disapprovingly. An elderly
bearded gentleman pulled himself out of a leather chair. He greeted
~~as if~~ though important
his daughter ~~axxif~~ she were a ~~remote~~ distant acquaintance. ~~Me~~ and
bowing
me like a miniature Duchess. ~~Me howed xiiiixii~~ low. All very
courtly and unreal. Nobody sat down.

Once again, I felt I was being inspected. I answered all
the ambiguous questions as politely as I could. Did I like London
better than Switzerland, what had I been doing, how would I like
~~shiny~~
to come to lunch, to have a run around the Park? My shoes were
beginning to hurt, the stuffed animals seemed to be hypnotizing
me in unison.

Saved by the bell. Henry, Charles and Paton at the door.

"The car is Sir John."

"Yes, tell Steer to run Miss Winifred and her ward home."

Inspected, accepted. That Woman remained persona non grata,
but good will was extended towards her daughter. Dolly had taken
on responsibility. Her marriage was breaking up. No hope of a
grandchild from that quarter. Faute de mieux, I was the near
substitute. They drew me in, enveloped me, smothered me. It
took time, and smacked of charity. For several years I didn't
even have a name. When addressed directly I was "You" They'd
discuss me via third parties -- Your Ward, to Dolly, Miss
Winifred's Ward to the servants. Eventually Lady Ellerman invented
a name, Bunchy. Rather on a par with Dolly, but harmless, at
least colorful and cheery.

The lunch party was postponed indefinitely. Mama had "one of her headaches", then I had a cold. Dada needed a holiday, so Steer drove them to Harrogate for a week. And, suddenly, we were packing up, preparing for our return to Switzerland.

Meanwhile, I met Master John, the renegade scion. He came to tea at our place -- crashed in, all arms and legs and falling over the furniture. A nervous youth, then aged 15, bearing no resemblance to the saintly portrait at South Audley Street. He stuttered, and whistled a lot. He seemed thoroughly unkempt. But he was friendly. He promptly christened me Monkey. "When you come back" he said "I'll take you to the Zoo."

Someone in the family had a movie camera. Odd strips and clips have survived to this day; they are in the Museum of Modern Art. Very odd indeed, foggy and jerky. Of no great interest to the general public. They can be seen by special request. One of these hilarious sequence shows the house in Eastbourne where they all lived before my day. With Bryher, she is dressed in men's clothes, doing a frenetic Charleston. So out of character, it couldn't possibly be. Nor is it. It is John -- at one stage of their lives, one particular camera angle, and in spite of a 15 year age gap, they were practically twins. In appearance. In temperament, they couldn't have been more different -- back in those days a few years later when I first encountered him. They were both mavericks, overpowered by the family and trying to fight free. On that basis, they were good friends, accomplices. They had the same friends.

When we returned to London the following year, he was enchanted
with his Monkey. He picked me up and swung me all around, and then
we settled down to a long discussion about dinosaurs. He promised
to write a book for me. He worked fast. And arrived a few days
later bearing it. I have it still. Twenty pages of typescript,
and pencilled illustrations of every species, bound in cardboard
with punched holes and bits of string. True to his other promise,
he also took me to the Zoo. No ordinary outing -- quasi uncle
and little girl -- for he was an expert, a potential Julian
Huxley. He knew all the keepers by their first names. They
jangled their keys and ushered us straight in among the straw
smells and back dens. A rush of nuzzles and we were surrounded
by a sea of quills, all laid back, benign. He really communicated
with preocupines. And with the other animals. At the mere whiff
of him, the first echo of his footsteps, they stopped whatever
they were doing, and came scuttling, lumbering, stalking.

Two anti social giraffes, Maggie and Maudie, spent their days with
their backs to the public. For us, they promptly shed their
sticking black
disdain and turned around and leaned out low, pushing tongues
intoxicated onto which we popped locust beans. Hippos
waddled from their murk.

Delighted with his responsive companion, he took me along
again and again. I soon looked on the keepers as my intimate
friends. And I knew the names and idiosyncracies of every animal,
who, in turn acknowledged me as an extension of John and treated
me as such. We roamed for hours, forgetting the world, and, most
unforgiveably, losing track of time.

manners; Dolly's friends, her new dress, her old dress, her terrible hat; Jack's insistence of having tea in the library. These matters preoccupied them relentlessly, and no one could agree on any of them.

A contentious family; warm, wonderful people; they could not get along with eachother. And so they fought on, and they fretted.

Health was another all consuming topic. Germs. And their livers. I never quite knew what a liver was, only that it must be some threatening omnipotent organ. They were always talking dicussing it, holding it responsible for every mood. Getting chills on it, taking pills for it, urging eachother to shake it up with exercise, feeling, looking liverish. Germs, chills, draughts. And always the eternal, inescapable proprieties.

"There's Princess Elizabeth -- without a hat!"

A happy blonde little girl, several years younger than I, through running again in her private garden, bouncing a ball.

Once more
"Round the park again, Steer." she called into her
"Very well, Milady."
When we passed the royal residence again, Princess Elizabeth had gone in to lunch.

Teas and hermetically sealed "outings" I was included, or
rather, dragged along to one or the other, sometimes both, several
An outsider, gradually but relentlessly turned into an insider.
times a week. And then I graduated to Luncheon -- it was never
called Lunch.

Sir John always came home to luncheon, at twelve minutes to
one, sharp -- no matter what. Rain, fog, or shine; traffic jams,
office pressures, no matter what, his car, the blue Lanchester,
rolled up to the white washed steps.

She once showed me her birth certificate. Mother: Hannah Glover.
Father: nil -- indicated by a wide inky slash. That was the way
they recorded such statistics in 1894. "You see," she said, "I'm
her Shame." And that accounted for the tensions and perpetual
bickering between them. On the other hand, Dolly was also her
pride, hers and John Ellerman's. And their joy and their pet.
Why didn't they marry? Was there a Mr. Glover? Possibly. It
has also been said that John kept postponing the marriage because
she was so wilful, bad tempered, quite impossible at times deeply
That I can well believe. Yet they were always devoted;
neither of them ever looked at anyone else. It must have been --
and I'm sure it was -- a truly romantic love story.

John became Sir John in 1910. The honor was not conferred
on him. He bought it for 25,000 pounds. It is considered it
an important thing to be a great man, and it is especially
an important thing for his climb to respectability.

Once, when he was a little boy, he went on as before. Annie was accepted as Lady Ellerman - reached by her name in every paper, and especially in the papers about Buckingham Palace. Dolly was the only child of a very old family, and she was brought up in the old way, by her governesses, by her voracious reading, and foreign travel. It was a sequestered life, but she knew no such children except cousins with whom she had nothing in common. She was always with Mama and Dada.

Why did they marry, at last?

Annie became pregnant. If the baby turned out to be another daughter, no matter. A son, however, would inherit the title -- if legitimate.

They didn't exactly rush into it. The ceremony took place in October, John was born in December. Dolly accompanied her parents to their own wedding. She wasn't a witness, nor was she apprised of it in any way. In later years she often wondered why they dragged her off to that bleak resort in Northern Scotland. It had to be a secret, across-the-border, runaway marriage. Close to home, even at a Registrar's office, the news would have been picked up by the press, blown up into a scandal.

John's birth marked the beginning of a new era. Convention and respectability took over. Dolly was sent to boarding school. She hated it. For the first time in her life, she was flung together with girls of her own age. They ~~were~~ considered her very odd indeed, and called her Napoleon. She was always pacing in military fashion, or standing apart, lost in judgmental thought.

They accepted her eventually, ~~and~~ She made friends, two in particular, sisters, Ethel and Doris Banfield from Cornwall. She visited them during the summer holiday. Mr. Banfield ran the little steamer which plied between Penzance and the Isles of Scilly.

"How interesting," she said, "my father is a ship owner too.

She visited them during the summer holidays. They took her fishing and shrimping. She scrambled barefoot over rocks. shield my Freedom; no Mama, no Dada, no governesses to reproverbesh.