Pièce 52 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Caroline Trevelyan

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Hotel Valescure, St Raphael, France [on headed notepaper for 56 Belsize Park, Hampstead, N.W.]:- She may think him a ‘very shifting individual’, but he has altered his plans: he has been here a fortnight and ‘scarcely had one fine day’, with steady rain, so he is ‘tired of the place’ and does not think he would like to stay even if the weather were to improve. The Elliotts left two days ago, the Grahams are leaving tomorrow, and Sandilands [James or John?] thinks of going to Cannes, where Robert ‘certainly would not care to stay’. Thinks of going to Naples and then, if it is not too cold, to Corpo di Cava, where he ‘had so satisfactory a time two years ago’ and can live for ‘fr. 5 a day’, half of the pension at his current hotel. If it is too cold he can ‘go to Capri or Amalfi, either temporally or for good’ Is as ‘well as anyone can be who has been unable to take a walk without getting wet through for a fortnight’. If he starts this afternoon he will reach Naples next evening, ‘after a few hours to lunch and rest at Rome’.

He and Sandilands went to see the Rendels yesterday, and he met Mrs Goodhart for the first time. Clare [Clarice] was there, and drove them up the hill; Daphne was in England ‘keeping house for Lord Rendel’. Lady Rendel had ‘assembled the 8 oldest fogies from the Canne[s] hotels and villas’ and sat them at two tables ‘to play two games of four-handed chess, of which she is the apostle’; this was in the next room to that where tea was taken, and Lady Rendel took Robert to the door to see them, ‘as one might show a hutch full of tame rabbits, or guinea-pigs’. She pointed out ‘one old fellow… deaf and in blue spectacles’, saying he had played the game forty years ago; Robert hopes he has not played it continuously 'for it is a game plainly invented by the Evil One for man’s torment’. Clare has ‘weakly’ agreed to play, but says Daphne has ‘refused to learn the rules’. Asks her to send his letters to the poste-restante in Naples until further notice; supposes she will be in London, or just on her way.