XXXIII
Bath
March 24, 1918
Here I am with Mr. Lane, spending the weekend. It's a wonderful spring Sunday—no hint of war or anything but flowers and sunshine. An hour ago I halted outside the newspaper office and read the latest telegrams of the great German offensive. It seemed like the autumn of 1914, reading of death and not being a part of it. They'll not take very long in letting me get back to my battery now. One's curiously egotistic—I feel, if only I were out there, that with my little bit of extra help everything would go well.
Yesterday we went to Batheaston Manor, a fine old Jacobean house, to tea—the kind of house that one has dreamt of possessing. There were high elms with rooks cawing and green lawns with immaculately gravelled paths. Inside there were broken landings and rooms with little stairs descending, and panelling, and pictures—everything for which one used to care. The late Belgian Minister to England, Count de la Laing, was there—a sad, courteous man. As we walked back with him to Bath along the canal, he remarked casually that all the art treasures in his château outside of Brussels had been shipped to Germany.
We spent the afternoon seeing the King's pictures—mostly Gainsboroughs—which have been brought to Bath from Buckingham Palace. From here we went to tea with an old lady, Miss Tanner, who rode on her lonesome through Persia many years ago and consequently has gained a Lady Hester Stanhope reputation and, what is more important, a splendid selection of Eastern rugs and silverwork. After that we walked home by way of the great crescent which forms the scene in The School for Scandal.
An odd day to dodge in between experiences of European war! I have to pinch myself awake to remember what is happening at this moment in the Front-line trenches. Probably within a few weeks I shall be there—and feeling very much more contented with myself than I do now.