Page 39 - Life of Gertrude Bell

EUROPE AND LONDON *7
lasting friendship with the most learned of all English men of
music, Donald Francis Tovey.
The word most frequently used by Florence to describe her
own happiness in the family life of which she had become the
centre was ‘radiant’. Hugh was away for much of the time and
often appeared at Red Barns only on Sundays. ‘He was big
brother, comrade and teacher in one,’ according to his wife, and
when he was with his family he entered into their childhood high
jinks with enthusiasm, though he preferred to sit with Gertrude
and talk philosophy, religion and politics. The children created a
world of their own in the garden at Redcar: a derelict outhouse
which they called their ‘Wigwam’; and the family adults and
servants were regularly invited to tea with its occupants, which
included a pet raven known as Jumbo. Carefully worded invita­
tions to parents, Gertrude, Maurice, grandparents and Bobby the
bootboy were always replied to with ceremony. ‘I shall have much
pleasure in accepting your kind invitation to tea on Saturday
23 rd,’ responded Bobby to one such request for his company,
while grandma Olliffe addressed her reply to ‘Monsieur et
Mesdames de Viguevamme’; ‘Lady Olliffe will do herself the
honour of taking tea with her young friends at 5 o’clock this
evening.’
The children called the garden ‘Paradise’. Their young lives in
that secure devoted world came close to the description of their
choosing. Only poor Hugo suffered the ordinary torments of life
at this period. Just before Gertrude returned to Redcar in the
summer of 1889 Florence had a letter from him which said,
‘Dearest Mammy, It really isn’t such a terrible thing to have an
Eton jacket all die week, is it? The boys say that I am a swell, but
it’s better to be that than a guy ... ’, and a few days later, T have
quite got over my homesickness now, but when I think of
Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat it makes me feel rather unhappy and
inclined to cry.’
Gertrude’s time with the children during the summer holiday
was restricted by a scheme which her stepmother had conceived
soon after the birth of her last child, Molly. ‘I had no more
children,’ she wrote, ‘those three were all-sufficing to me, and
brought me, as they have done ever since, unalloyed happiness.’
She began to return to wridng plays and to embark on a project
of sociological research which if not unique in its day was
certainly remarkable. She assembled a group of ladies in and