Page 52 - Life of Gertrude Bell

I
40 GERTRUDE BELL

ship to Eton. She had hardly seen Hugo in two years. In July 1891
he had written from boarding school: ‘My dearest Gertrude, I
wish you many many happy returns of your birthday, and I hope
you will like my present... There was a cricket match here on
Saturday against Sunningdale ... Aren’t you sorry that Eton
were beaten at Lords?’ Hugo was not much of a sportsman,
preferring the excitement of music to that of the rugger field and
cricket pitch, but to mitigate the inevitable bullying of public
school and to impress Gertrude, who was keen on practically
all sports and had an appreciative eye for the skills of her white-
flannelled countrymen, he pretended an interest. From Eton he
wrote to sister Elsa ‘ ... will you ask Gertrude if she would mind
giving me some instruction in general history and literature in
the holidays. I intend to do a lot of sap then.’ And to Gertrude
herself: ‘Next week we have to do a copy of Latin verses on
Verona i.e. a description of the City, mention of Catullus who
was born there, and the story of Romeo and Juliet. Could you
give me some help in the first of these?’
In April 1893 she was off on her travels again, this time with
her father. They set out for Algiers to visit uncle John Bell’s
widow Lizzie and her daughters, travelling through France by
train to the Mediterranean and returning by way of Switzerland
and Weimar in Germany where her brother Maurice was staying
to improve his German.
From Nimes she wrote: ‘Took a carriage and drove past the
Arena and to the garden where lies the Temple of Nymphs. The
frogs croaked and the little owls screamed in the trees, and the
warm scented night with all its sounds was so like those other
nights in a far away garden where the owls scream. I cried and
cried in the Temple of the Nymphs, and filled the Roman baths
with tears which no one saw in the dusk.’ Persia came fitfully to
her thoughts as it would time and again on her restless voyage,
pressing on by train and boat as if, even in the summer of youth,
she must wander if only to escape. From Avignon she wrote
to grandmother Laura Olliffe in London: ‘The Pont du Gard
sends you a little piece of Thyme to remind you of your visit
there. What a place it is I Papa and I had a delicious day there
On Thursday April 20th they went to Arles. Next day they were
in Marseilles, and the next they crossed to Algiers.
The stay at Mustapha Rais with aunt Lizzie does not seem to
have been an unqualified success. She told her stepmother: