Page 174 - Life of Gertrude Bell

i56 GERTRUDE BELL
she would kill herself. He wrote to her and to Gertrude as he
made his way towards the Middle East. To the latter: ‘As for your
delightful letters, I have had, as you know, one batch-the [one]
which contained the ultimatum —my dear, I have read it —God
knows—but of that I cannot write.’ And later: ‘As to the things
you say of some future in far oft* places, they are dreams, dream
woman—we must walk along the road — such heavenly madness
is for gods and poets —not for us, except in lovely dreams.’
On April 20th, another letter:

My dear, Tonight I pack up all your letters and leave them
addressed to you ... Tomorrow, if the weather moderates, I
am embarking on a collier, the ‘wreck ship’, or wooden horse
of Troy —which we are going to run on the beach and dis­
embark by an ingenious arrangement... If I can get ashore, I
can help a good deal in the difficult job of landing enough
troops to storm the trenches on the beach—and to see the most
dashing military exploit that has been performed for a very
long time ...

The next day, as he was due to embark, there was a brief, affection­
ate note with a suspicion of presentiment: ‘So many memories my
dear queen, of you and your splendid love and your kisses and
your courage and the wonderful letters you wrote me, from your
heart to mine — the letters, some of which I have packed up, like
drops of blood.’ Now the passion was as much his as hers, and
promises made in the heat of the moment looked only too likely
to be fulfilled:
My dear, don’t (this is what weighs me down) don’t do what
you talked of—it’s horrible to me to think of it —that’s why I
told you about my wife [her threatened suicide]—how much
more for you — don’t do anything so unworthy of so free and
brave a spirit. One must walk along the road to the end of it.
When I asked for this ship, my joy in it was half strangled by
that thing you said, I can’t even name it or talk about it. As we
go steaming in under the port guns in our rotten old collier,
shall I still think of it... Don’t do it. Time is nothing, we join
H
i.. up again, but to hurry the pace is unworthy of us all.

And finally the answer to the question which must spring
irresistibly to mind: