Page 275 - Life of Gertrude Bell

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power: at one time Hogarth, at another Wilson, at another me,
at last Sir Percy Cox. She changed her direction each time like a
weathercock: because she had no great depth of mind. But depth
and strength of emotion —Oh Lord yes. Her life had crisis after
crisis ... A wonderful person.’ Coming from a man who freely
admitted the fraudulencc of his own claims and promises it was
an impudent judgment. But Lawrence was a highly intelligent and
perceptive man and he had seen in Gertrude that fatal, essentially
feminine fault, an inclination to believe the men she liked, and to
cease to believe them when she stopped liking them.
She went home to England again in 1925. Her trip less than two
years before had been official and she had had little time to see
friends and relatives. This time she went on well-earned leave,
arriving in the hottest days of June. Janet Courtney, with whom
she spent several days in London, was staggered by her appear­
ance, by her ‘white hair’ and ‘skeleton-like’ body. But it must be
remembered that Janet had not seen her friend for five years.
Gertrude had gone through many an ordeal in that time and her
blood had been thinned by the terrible heat of the Iraq summers.
Her niece Pauline Trevelyan, daughter of her sister Molly, was
nineteen years old when Gertrude arrived home in July and she
was to recall her aunt’s appearance in London with affection and
no sense of shock. ‘She had become so acclimatised to the great
heat of the East that even in that London summer weather she
needed a roaring fire and wore a fur coat all day—a beautiful fox-
skin full length coat, echoing the colour of her hair. She would
stand with her back to the fire smoking a Turkish cigarette in a
long holder, and discoursing on such a wide range of subjects —
people past and present, history, letters, art and architecture, her
travels, archaeology, our family—and how devoted she was to all
at home, above all to her father ... ’ Gertrude’s generosity, her
willingness to spend so much of her precious time at home with
her niece, taking her to see the Assyrian exhibits at the British
Museum, the Constable paintings at the Victoria and Albert, all
the time explaining and conveying her own excitements and
knowledge, made a lasting impression on her young companion.
Mrs Dower, as Pauline Trevelyan became, remembered her aunt
as the Hogarths and others remembered her, for her immense
capacity for enjoying life, and for imparting her exhilaration to
others. ‘Gertrude’s greatest interest was people, and wherever she
went she made friends, lifelong friends who never forgot her,’