Page 59 - Life of Gertrude Bell

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ROUND THE WORLD 47
read, so we shall see what we shall see. He is extremely keen about
the Hafiz book.’
The early part of 1896 was spent in London, much of it with
the Stanleys and Grosvenors. She attended a party at the home of
Lord and Lady Portsmouth where she met Viscount Haldane
and his daughter Elizabeth, ‘whom I have long wished to know’.
She and Elizabeth dined with the Stracheys, St Loc Strachcy
having just reviewed her Persian Pictures. Her sisters were now
living in London with her and attending her old college. ‘Moll
looked charming last night/ she wrote. She continued to work
hard during the daytime. ‘I studied my grammar this morning and
went to the London Library where I looked through volumes and
volumes of Asiatic Societies.’ A day or two later: ‘I stayed in and
read some most illuminating articles on Sufyism/
By springtime wanderlust had returned and she arranged to
visit Italy with the Grosvenors and Mrs Green, accompanied part
of the time by her father. She was back in London at the end of
April. ‘I went to the British Museum on my bicycle this morning.
It adds a great joy to my studies and I feel all the brisker for it.
The children have had a tennis court marked in the square. I am
just going out to see them play. They are looking blooming and
are such angels I However we will try not to be too foolish about
our family.’ Her stepmother was at Redcar at this time with the
‘dear friend of all of us’, Elizabeth Robins. ‘Give my love to
Lisa,’ wrote Gertrude. ‘I wish I could come and have a long talk
with her to-night over the fire.’ Her Arabic was coming on well:
‘I shall soon be able to read the Arabian Nights for fun.’ There
were more indications of her appetite for work and of her social
insularity in her letters and diary. ‘ ... I went up to the Museum
this morning and read a Persian life of Hafiz ... I think I got the
meaning of it with the help of a Persian dictionary, but a Latin
translation is not so clear to me as it might be ... I didn’t go to
Lady Pollock’s on Tuesday, because I had promised to go to a
party at Audley Square and I couldn’t combine the two un-
chaperoned ... I am going down to Caroline (in Kent) for
Whitsuntide. I want to bicycle down if I can get an escort, it’s
only 17 miles ... ’It seems she did not find an escort for she went
by train and took her bicycle with her to the wooded suburb of
Beckenham and she wrote home to Florence: ‘It is so perfectly
delicious here. I arrived all right and bicycled up from the station
in time for tea. Afterwards we went on a long expedition all