Page 144 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)

128 GERTRUDE BELL
heavily for advice and guidance. He told her that it was ‘perfectly
easy’ to get to Najd that year, and she told her stepmother: ‘I will
let you know anyhow from Madcba —look for it on the map cast
of the north end of the Dead Sea.’ She intended to take the
routes due south from the Damascus oasis previously followed by
Leachman and another traveller Musil, thus avoiding the Hijaz
railway. A last-minute hitch made her change that plan, however.
Fattuh became ill again and the idea of a long desert journey
without her trusted servant was out of the question. She therefore
took a route which curved round the Druse mountains through
the lava tracts north-east of the Dead Sea and thence to the
railway. Fattuh was to rest up and make his way by rail, some
three weeks after her departure, to the village of Ziza where she
would meet him. While these elaborate plans were being laid she
kept up a lively, untroubled correspondence with her parents
while unburdening her heart to Doughty-Wylie in Albania and
her soul to Cliirol in Delhi.
Towards die end of November she received a number of
letters that can have done little to lessen her desire to see the
former again. ‘How are you my dear ... feeling the desert and the
journey and die adventure on you —but well I hope and stronger
... And so you start—God go with you —and the luck of the
world ... I am nervous about you somehow, lest things should
go wrong. And I tell myself I am a fool—why should they go
wrong? Yes — I’m very fond of you—I think, I have thought for
a long time, that you are delightful and wise and strong, and
such as my soul lovedi. And in thought, on a swifter camel, into
the desert I go with you ... I shall go on writing, but for tonight
goodbye, my dear, keep well, be happy ... and don’t forget me
and our talks at Rounton ... ’ That was dated November 21st.
Two days later he wrote: ‘Tomorrow probably you’ll be in
Damascus, and then begins the real adventure ... I can follow
you by memory fairly well. A little south of Maan and from there
to Hail is surely a colossal trek. For your palaces your road your
Baghdad your Persia your O’Conor and your Fars ... I do not
feel so nervous —but Hail from Maan—Inshallah! ...Yes you
are a rolling stone — so are all people worth having—if not in body
then in mind-for after all it is the mind that really matters ... ’
And then, congratulating her on her latest book, The Palace and
Mosque at Ukhaidir which had just been published, he went on in
the way of those who live out their passions and desires in the