Pièce 80 - Letter from Venetia Stanley to Edwin Montagu

2 folded sheets

Alderley Park, Chelford, Cheshire.—The pantomime was a success. After their guests left they had a dull week, but more came on Friday, including the Prime. The amendments to the Franchise Bill are causing anxiety. Next week she is going to Switzerland with Oliver for a fortnight, after which she will be at Alderley and London till Easter. She and her mother are thinking of then going to Holland, so the search for the black-necked grebe (at Penrhôs) will have to be postponed till Whitsuntide.

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Transcript

Alderley Park, Chelford, Cheshire
Jan 7th 1913 Thursday

Thank you for your letter of the 18th {1}. I am glad you have at last had direct news of Violet, specially as I know she followed up her first short letter by a long one. I am also glad the books we suggested have been a success. I cant read what you say about Rhoda Broughton, but I gather it is depreciatory. I never suggested her as a first class writer, but she was I thought suited to a weak mental condition, the outcome of long arduous and hot days. I hope you will keep some to read, not R. Broughton, but some of the others for your return, as that is your moment of greatest need, specially as Peel has become such a bore.

Bluey tells me that whenever he goes into the India Office he sees letters from me to you lying about, but I suppose you get them eventually. I can imagine no worse fate than having on your return to read sheafs of month old letters intended for India.

I think I wrote to you last just at Xmas. I expect it was somewhat incoherent as I wrote very late at night after very busy days. I saw nothing of our delicious Xmas party as I was fearfully occupied with the Pantomime. It was a great success, I long to send you the fulsome and glowing account which appeared in the rather sycophantic local press. We were deserted on Monday {2} by everyone and left to the dullest flattest week I have spent for some months. My own resources failed me entirely and I could do nothing but wander amongst “the bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang”. However Friday {3} brought a fresh influx, Bluey, Geoffrey, Eddie, Sir John Simon, Bongie and the Prime. It was his maiden visit here and tho’ it rained as it only can rain here we had great fun. He and I went for a very dank chilly misty drive over the hills to Buxton {4} and put me through a sharp examination in Scripture. As you know it is not my subject and a few questions revealed the horrid fact that I couldnt name more than 2 of the 12 Apostles! This was a good deal used. I played a lot of chess with him and a certain amount of bridge, at both of which I was fairly successful. He seemed very well I thought, tho’ rather bored by the prospect of the coming Session. Geoffrey seems to think, I dont know how much he knows about it, that they wont even get the short holiday in February which was promised. Everyone seems rather anxious as to the result of the female amendments to the Franchise Bill. I wish I was going to be in London for I think it will be a most thrilling division, neither side seems to know at all what the numbers will be but at agree it will be very close. Bluey is most unhappy about it, but the P.M. takes the whole thing very calmly, even the possibility of having to promote a Bill which includes what he himself described as a disasterous† measure. I suppose he has some plan.

They all left us Monday and we settled down once again into our old life. Margaret Stanley and I were reduced to such a state that we have started re-reading the Inferno aloud. Its just the book for me, dwelling as it does entirely on the dead and on the horrible tortures that overtake them. We both of us translate the horrors with great gusto!

Next week I am going abroad to Switzerland with Oliver for a fortnight, then back here again till the middle of February and then London till Easter. Mother & I are thinking of going to Holland then, so we must postpone the search for the black necked | throated | crested {5} grebe till Whitsuntide, which is very early. Will it be too late for the bird?

I must stop now as we are going to read.

Yrs
Venetia

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{1} MONT II B1/59.

{2} 30 December.

{3} 3 January.

{4} Asquith wrote to Venetia on the 7th: ‘I shall always remember our mist- & rain-blurred survey of the three counties, thro’ wh. we drove on Saturday.’ (H. H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley, No. 6.)

{5} These three words are written one above the other and braced together.