Page 46 - Life of Gertrude Bell

34 GERTRUDE BELL

at the foot of the Alburz mountains, and visit every gorge formed
by a stream of clear water running down from the snows ... We
often had tea or a moonlight picnic in beautiful gardens, whose
gates were hospitably opened to European visitors.’ Rosen
remembered Cadogan as ‘an unusual type of Englishman’,
devoted to books, music and conversation. When visiting the
German minister’s house on one occasion he issued instructions
at the gate that no other visitor should be admitted while he was
within as he would be listening to Frau Rosen’s music or reading
poetry to his hosts. Rosen recalled the moment when the English­
man and Gertrude came together in a manner which transcended
their hitherto uncomplicated companionship. They were at a
picnic and while the other guests talked Gertrude and Henry
Cadogan wandered ofF together and he saw him lift her up on to
a gate where they sat oblivious of the rest of the company, reading
verses of Hafiz to each other. At that moment he thought he
divined a deeper involvement.
Coincidence is hardly to be avoided in a social circle as wide
and contiguous as that in which Gertrude moved. Almost every­
one she knew was in a position of some power or influence.
Almost every branch of her family contained a noted politician,
diplomat or scholar. Everywhere she went she met somebody who
could smooth her path or afford her a useful introduction. It was
no surprise to her, therefore, to discover that Dr Rosen’s wife was
the daughter of Monsieur Roche who was a lifelong friend of her
stepmother’s. Needless to say, Gertrude’s mother and father also
knew the Cadogans and young Henry was, in any case, an old
friend of Mrs Norman Grosvenor, so that it would not be difficult
to find out about him. The romance flourished and the elated
couple rode across the Kavir desert and along watercourses of the
Lar to the whitewashed tower where the Zoroastrians flung their
dead for the vultures to devour; they visited the racecourse, and
sat in the long grass ‘looking at the lights changing on the snow
mountains’ and reading Catullus. There was a party to celebrate
the Queen’s birthday on May 24th. ‘We had tents, provisions and
a band in the garden but oh! the people are so dull.’ At dinner
Gertrude was seated next to a Persian who had been at Balliol
for four years and an old bearded man with whom she spoke in
‘ollendorfian’ Persian. ‘Mr Cadogan and I agreed that it would be
perfectly delightful if all the horrid colleagues had not been there.’
She had reported her every move to her parents in the usual