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Admiralty Yacht, off Colonsay.—She enjoyed Ardgowan, but the guests at Penrhôs have been dull. While the yacht was at Holyhead she went for walks with Winston, whose opinion of Montagu has improved. She has sailed with them as far as Colonsay, and will go home on Tuesday. Asks about his stay at Hopeman, and discusses Dorothy’s engagement. Some friends will be at Penrhôs when she returns, but afterwards her family will be alone till they leave for Alderley in early October.

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Transcript

Admiralty Yacht
Off Colonsay Sept 10th 1913

Thank you so much for your letter which I loved getting and meant to answer ages ago, but I’ve been leading such a dull life since I left Ardgowan (where it was quite fun owing to Geoffrey and Mrs Ridley whom I found) that I hadnt the heart to inflict an account of it on you. The only people at Penrhos were Gertrude Bell (as usual most full of dewdrops about you also old Chirol in the same state of mind, it sounds a dreary kind of compliment to have repeated, but really it means a good deal as those two very rarely admit any good in a political head of a department) then when she left Barbara MacLaren (very nice and restful to live with) and Bear Warne {1}. He got terribly on my nerves after a week’s tête a tête, for it was practically that, by his blatant, pretentious stupidity I could hardly bring myself to speak to him with decent civility, he never begins to understand what one means. You can imagine what a relief the advent of the yacht was on Saturday {2}, she stayed two days at Holyhead, both marvellous golden sunny blazing days, and I had two long walks with Winston and very good talks to him. He is in very good form just now very happy and full of schemes. He likes you very much now. Then Sunday night we left and after a dull day at Barrow in Furness arrived here yesterday morning. A most wonderful, lonely enchanted place, with delicious sandy and rocky little bays looking quite glo-rious yesterday in brilliant clear weather and even to day full of charm and mystery in spite of thick obliterating Scotch mist. We stay here I hope till Sat then move South to Greenock. On Tuesday I go home. I am always very happy here, I love the life with long intervals of {3} of drifting about and then one goes to divine inaccessible places. Did you have fun at Hopeman {4} and what did you think of the place and of Margot and of them all generally.

Dorothy. Arent you thrilled by her engagement {5}. Did you know about it before? Do you know him at all. I am astounded by it, I always think he is rather a boring man, not because he’s very stupid but I think he has a dull mind and always rather a boring point of view. If I were married to him I should never want to hear what he thought about anything, and should always be irritated by his opinions. However she seems delighted by him and very happy and as he’s as nice as can be I expect it will be a huge success. I think its larks his being a brewer and a Conservative and an Anti-Suffragist, I wonder if he will be converted. Dont tell Geoffrey what I say, this is hardly a necessary warning as you arent at all likely to.

When are you leaving Scotland.

I shall find such a strange collection of people when I get home, Mikky, Bluey, Mr Wedgewood Benn, Mr Smyth. I wish you were going to be amongst them, then after they go we shall be alone till I leave on about the 6th of October and go to dank Alderley for ever and ever.

There were thousands of things I wanted to say to you when I started writing, but I’ve now forgotten them and the babblement that’s going on makes writing hard.

Your
Venetia

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Written in pencil and ink (see below).

{1} ‘Bear Warne’: reading uncertain.

{2} 6th.

{3} The first sheet, which is in pencil, ends here. The rest of the letter is in ink.

{4} Montagu did not, in the event, go there.

{5} Dorothy Howard had become engaged to Francis Henley. They were married on 14 October.

Wallington, Cambo, Northumberland. - Glad that the work [on the new house] is going on 'so steadily and quickly' and that Miss Waterfield [artist and horticulturalist, sister of Aubrey Waterfield] likes the site and view so much. He and Caroline are hosting 'an immense young dinner party today': George, Janet, and Dorothy Howard from Wallington; Charles and Mary, [Francis Dyke] Acland, Hilton Young and Gertrude Bell from Cambo. Wishes Elizabeth could 'carry out her kind wish about old Mrs Thompson of Harwood [see 46/99]'. Has written to instruct the second five hundred pounds to be paid; gives advice not to sell stock in the last ten days of the quarter.

Alderley Park, Chelford, Cheshire.—Responds to his letter from Port Said (B1/54). Is helping with a children’s play. Refers to their current guests, and to her visit to the United Kingdom Alliance bazaar at Manchester. Sends news of the Prime Minister and other friends.

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Transcript

Alderley Park, Chelford, Cheshire

October 23rd 1912 (Oliver’s birthday)

Thank you for a letter from Port Said {1}. I am sorry you were being so much bored by your journey, and not even able to muster up sufficient energy to embark on the glorious, tho’ stodgy list we gave you. Isnt Marriage {2} good, I think it is much the best he has written, I am glad you read Lycidas again. I was afraid that by insisting on reading it to you I should have for ever have put you against it. Mikky thinks it is the best poem in the whole of the English language, and knows it by heart. Have you come across some rather nice, coloured, fruity ones in the Oxford Bk by Andrew Marvell {3}.

My life has continued in the same peaceful, uneventful way, since I last wrote to you, I have hunted once, but otherwise I havent seen a soul except father and mother, and not much of them as most of the time I was quite alone. I do love it, and really resented their return and the necessity of spending more than 5 minutes on lunch or 5 on dinner. I have got so used to myself, and when I am alone like myself so very much and have such fun and am so amusing to myself!

I have been very busy and for almost the first time in my life have had too much to do and not enough time to do it in. This is, I suppose, too often the case with you, for you to realize what a glorious sensation it is, it is my idea of one kind of happiness. My character has completely changed and you will hardly know me when you come back, I have developped† a sense of parochial responsibility and am becoming a thorough busy-body. The only thing that saves me from drifting into a life of Girls Clubs and sewing classes is firstly that I do it extremely badly and secondly that I am not here long enough on end. But I am doing my best and have 8 school children once a week to rehearse a children’s play and the rest of the time I am engaged on stitching vast Persian trowsers for them to wear. It absorbs all my interest and thought and I forget that no one else can possibly care a damn about it, and inflict it on people as I have done on you. Our solitude has been broken into by the arrival of an Admiral and his wife, 2 neighbours, your friend Mr Milne and an energetic woman called Mrs Grosvenor who is going to deliver a lecture on the advantages that an educated woman would have if she were to emigrate to Canada. That really means I suppose the chance of marrying some dreary fruit farmer, who is just rather less beastly than the other people out there. I should hate to be an educated woman in Canada.

Violet did chuck the United K. A. {4} she wrote and explained to Dorothy what her temperance principles were and after hearing them Dorothy said she would rather not have her. We went and bought things from her and found her in the most dismal surroundings with Aurea as her only human comfort. I had never seen A. before, she is hideous, and Dorothy treats her as tho’ she were a half-wit. I did feel sorry for her, she can have not a particle of fun in her life.

Dorothy was brisk and business-like and quite unselfpitying (if I had been in her shoes I should have groused to everyone about the horror of it) realising how damnable a Manchester bazaar was, but just doing it because it had to be done.

The P.M. has been quite ill with a boil on his shoulder, but is better again now, I havent seen him but I am thinking of going up to London next week, if I can get out of my groove, and I shall then perhaps see him. Mikky and Bongie come here the Sunday after {5}. Doesnt it seem odd to you to think of us all doing the same old things and seeing the same people over and over again, when you are in much a different atmosphere. You must now rather sympathise with Margot’s boredom at the regularity and unchangingness of our lives.

I meant at the beginning of this letter to tell you that I had a very bad cold, not so as to try and get a little sympathy 3 weeks hence, but so as to warn you that it would be dull, foggy reading, and to advise you not to embark on it unless you were feeling very charitable, but by the time you read this warning you will be near the end.

I must stop now, as considering the material at my disposal I have written far too much already.

Perhaps if I write again I shall have something more interesting to tell you about than what I have been doing here.

Yrs
Venetia

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{1} MONT II B1/54.

{2} A novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1912.

{3} The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900) contains seven poems by Marvell, as well as Milton’s ‘Lycidas’.

{4} Dorothy Howard had asked Violet Asquith to open a bazaar at Manchester in aid of the United Kingdom Alliance, a temperance organization. See Lantern Slides, pp. 337-8.

{5} 3 November.
 

18 Mansfield Street, Portland Place, W.—Invites him to join her ‘anti-yacht’ party at Penrhôs at Whitsuntide. Asks whether he has managed to convert Violet to Dorothy’s cause (i.e. temperance). Is seeing Sir Herbert and Lady Jekyll this afternoon, and dining with Geoffrey and Captain Guest.

(Dated Sunday.)

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Transcript

18 Mansfield Street, Portland Place, W.
Sunday

I am starting an anti-yacht party at Whitsuntide, just to show them that in spite of Winston its still possible to have fun in England. Will you come? Either for actual Whitsunday itself {1} or for the following week, which ever suits you best, {2} or both. Dont say you are going to Geneva for the Alpine Crow or to Italy with Geoffrey because you really are pledged (ever since last summer) to come to Penrhos. Its the nicest time of year there and ought to be delicious. There is only one legitimate excuse for you and that is if they after all dont go on the yacht and you want to go somewhere with the Prime.

Have you managed, on this glorious day, to convert Violet to Dorothys cause {3}? I’m afraid it will be difficult.

It is a waste being in London. I am reduced to Kew with Sir Herbert and Lady Jekyll this afternoon, and Geoffrey and Captain Guest to dinner.

Yrs
Venetia

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{1} 26 May.

{2} Comma supplied. The next two words are interlined.

{3} i.e. temperance. Dorothy Howard’s mother, the Countess of Carlisle, was a prominent temperance reformer.

Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth. - Julian is very well; thinks the nurse is very good with him. The Dalrymples will be coming just as Elizabeth returns; on Wednesday the Parsons and 'young Hugh Smith' are staying the night, and go on 28 November; Mrs Cookson and Miss Pease will visit at the beginning of December. After the Christmas parties the following week, they will go to London on 17 or 18 December and stop a day on the way to Welcombe; thinks Julian had better go straight through with the servants. They have had a very interesting letter from Robert about the [Indian] 'cave temples'. Remembers that the Stows [?] used to come as boys to Wallington sometimes. There was a 'northern Area WLA [Women's Liberal Association]' meeting at Alnwick on Saturday; Sir E[dward] Grey could not come so Charlie spoke instead; Dorothy Howard spoke, and Mary presided. Has been 'much agitated about politics'.