They had gone to Venice. He told me that the Doges. She was so terribly ignorant, she used to say, as if that were not one of her charms. And then-he opened the next volume-they had come back installment loan easy Kentucky to London. I wore my wedding dress. He read on rapidly, filling in scene after scene from her scrappy fragments. To an evening party at the Lovegroves. Did I realize my responsibility, Lady L. And she, of course, was more often alone. It had been a great grief to her, apparently, that they had had no children. Life had been so full, so rich as it was.
That year he had been given a minor post in the government. A minor post only, but her comment was: “I am quite certain now that he will be Prime Minister! He paused here to speculate upon what might have been. Politics was a gamble, he reflected; but the game wasn’t over yet. Not at fifty. He cast his eyes rapidly over more pages, full of the little trifles, the insignificant, happy, daily trifles that had made up her life.
One of the delights of travelling with Angela had been that she was so eager to learn
He took up another volume and opened it at random. I let the chance slip again. But it seemed selfish to bother him with my own affairs, when he has so much to think about. And we so seldom have an evening alone. Oh, here was the explanation-it referred to her work in the East End. He was so kind, so good. He made no objection. She had told him that she felt so idle, so useless. She wished to have some work of her own. She wanted to do something -she had blushed so prettily, he remembered, as she said it, sitting in that very chair-to help others. He had bantered her a little. Hadn’t she enough to do looking after him, after her home?
Did my best to find a job for Lily
Still, if it amused her, of course he had no objection. What was it? Some district? Some committee? Only she must promise not to make herself ill. So it seemed that every Wednesday she went to Whitechapel. He remembered how he hated the clothes she wore on those occasions. But she had taken it very seriously, it seemed. The diary was full of references like this: “Saw Mrs. Jones. She has ten children. Husband lost his arm in an accident. His own name occurred less frequently. His interest slackened. Some of the entries conveyed nothing to him. For example: “Had a heated argument about socialism with B. M.” Who was B. M.? He could not fill in the initials; some woman, he supposed, that she had met on one of her committees.
M. made a violent attack upon the upper classes. I walked back after the meeting with B. M. and tried to convince him. But he is so narrow-minded. M. was a man- no doubt one of those “intellectuals,” as they call themselves, who are so violent, as Angela said, and so narrowminded. She had invited him to come and see her apparently. M. came to dinner. He shook hands with Minnie! B. M. Presumably he was one of those tame working men who air their views in ladies’ drawing-rooms. Gilbert knew the type, and had no liking for this particular specimen, whoever B. M. might be. Here he was again. M. to the Tower of London. He said revolution is bound to come. He said we live in a Fool’s Paradise.
