Page 166 - Life of Gertrude Bell

148 GERTRUDE BELL
Shakcspear say and think, but what Lord Crewe says and thinks,
and that his Lordship is uncommitted.’
Although Gertrude and Shakcspear were naturally keen to
meet, for they shared a common knowledge of the tribal dispo­
sitions and conflicts of Arabia which was unique among their
contemporaries, there is no evidence that they did so. They
certainly corresponded, however, and they both spent a lot of
time at the Royal Geographical Society where the director, Dr
Scott Keltic, pressed them into giving accounts of their journeys
while they worked in the map room and sorted through their
unique photographic records of central Arabia. But they were
too busy in other directions to prepare detailed and illustrated
lectures. Shakespear was fighting a daily battle with the India and
Foreign Offices, writing long reports which stressed the urgent
need for a treaty with the rising star among the desert princes,
Ibn Saud, and being told that such an agreement was neither
desirable nor possible. He also spent a good deal of time at his
parents’ home in Brighton, while Gertrude travelled between
Sloane Street and Rounton. She also devoted herself once more
to the activities of the suffragettes, joining Janet Courtney,
Millicent Garrett Fawcett and others, to warn that ‘militant
victory is empty if it demonstrates the effectiveness of lawless
violence’. And Doughty-Wylie still occupied her mind. Never­
theless, the two travellers found time to play a protracted game
of hide-and-seek with Dr Keltie.
On June 13th, Keltie had written to Gertrude:
Dear Miss Lothian Bell, I am very much interested to see your
letter in to-day’s ‘Times’. I did not know you were back ...
May we look forward to your giving us a paper at the beginning
of next session at one of our meetings ... with maps and slides?
A week or so later she wrote to acknowledge the Society’s
decision to award her its gold medal and the attendant monetary
prize: ‘Dear Dr Keltie, The Geographical Society is doing me far
too much honour and I feel profoundly that my travels have not
deserved the recognition which they are about to make to me.
But since they are determined about it I must express my very
grateful thanks. Yes, of course I will come to the meeting on
Aug 26th. I think I should probably like to have the money in
the form of an instrument, but will you let me have a day or two
to consider the matter?’

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