I
Extracts from letters that Bobby Galleon wrote to Alice Galleon about this time:
“... But, of course, I am sorrier than I can say that it's so dull. That's due to charity, my dear, and if you will go and fling yourself into the depths of Yorkshire because a girl like Ola Hunting chooses to think she's unhappy and lonely you've only yourself to thank. Moreover there's your husband to be considered. I don't suppose, for a single instant, that he really prefers to be left alone, with his infant son, mind you, howling at the present moment because his nurse won't let him swallow the glass marbles, and you can picture to yourself—if you want to make yourself thoroughly unhappy—your Robert sitting, melancholy throughout the long evening, alone, desolate, creeping to bed somewhere about ten o'clock.
“So there we are—you're bored to death and I've no one to growl at when I come back from the City—all Ola Hunting's fault—wring the girl's neck. Meanwhile here I sit and every evening I'll write whatever comes into my head and never look back on it again but stick it into an envelope and send it to you. You know me too well by now to be disappointed at anything.
“I'm quite sure that, if you were here with me now, sitting in that chair opposite me and sewing for all you were worth, that the thing that we'd be talking about would be Peter. If, therefore, these scrawls are full of Peter you won't mind, I know. He's immensely occupying my attention just now and you love him as truly and deeply as I do, so that if I go on at length about him you'll excuse it on that score. You who know me better than any one else in the world know that, in my most secret heart, I flatter myself on my ability as a psychologist. I remember when I told you first how you laughed but I think since then you've come round not a little, and although we both keep it to ourselves, it's a little secret that you're a tiny bit proud of. I can see how brother Percival, or young Tony Gale, or even dear Peter himself would mock, if I told them of this ambition of mine. 'Good, dear, stupid, old Bobby' is the way they think of me, and I know it's mother's perpetual wonder (and also, I think, a little her comfort) that I should be so lacking in brilliance when Percival and Millie are so full of it.
“You know Peter's attitude to me in these things—you've seen it often enough. He's patronising—he can't help it. That isn't, he considers, my line in the least, and, let me once begin to talk to him of stocks and shares and he'll open all his ears. Well, I can't blame him—but I do think these writers and people are inclined to draw their line a little too sharply with their Philistines—great big gulf, please—and Artists. At any rate, here goes for my psychology and good luck to it. Peter, in fact, is so interesting a subject if one sees anything of him at all that I believe he'd draw speculation out of any one. There was old Maradick talking about him the other night—fascinated by him and understanding him most amazingly well—another instance of your Philistine and Artist mixed.
“But I knew him—and knew him jolly well too—when he was about twelve, so that I really get a pull over the rest of you there, for it adds of course immensely to the interest and if ever child was Father of the Man, Peter was. You know how we both funked that marriage of his for him—you because you knew Clare so well, I because I knew Peter. And then for a time it really seemed that we were both entirely wrong. Clare's is a far simpler personality than Peter's, and if you work along one or two recognised lines—let her have her way, don't frighten her, above all keep her conventional—it's all right. Clare was, and is, awfully in love with him, and he madly with her of course—and that helped everything along. You know how relieved we both were and indeed it seemed, for a time, that it was going to be the making of both of them—going to make Clare braver and Peter less morbid.
“Well, it's since you've been away that everything's happened. Although the baby was born some weeks before you went, it's only lately that Clare has been up and about. She's perfectly well and the baby's splendid—promises to be a tremendous fellow and as healthy as possible. You can imagine, a little, the effect of it all on Clare. I don't suppose there's any girl in London been so wrapped in cotton wool all her life, and that old ass of a father and still more irritating ass of a mother would go on wrapping her still if they had their way. The fuss they've both made about this whole business is simply incredible—especially when the man's a doctor and brings Lord knows how many children into the world every week of his life. But it's all been awfully bad for Clare. Of course, she was frightened—frightened out of her wits. It's the very first time life ever had its wrappings off for her, and that in itself of course is a tremendously good thing. But you can't, unfortunately, wrap any one up for all those years and then take the wrappings off and not deliver a shock to the system. Of course there's a shock, and it's just this shock that I'm so afraid of. I'm afraid of it for one thing because Peter's so entirely oblivious of it. He was in an agony of terror on the day that the baby was born, but once it was there—well and healthy and promising—fear vanished. He could only see room for glory—and glory he does. I cannot tell you what that boy is like about the baby; at present he thinks, day and night, of nothing else. It is the most terrific thing to watch his feeling about it—and meanwhile he takes it for granted that Clare feels the same.... Well, she doesn't. I have been in a good deal during these last few days and she's stranger than words can say—doesn't see the child if she can help it—loves it, worships it, when it is there, and—is terrified of it. I saw a look in her eyes when she was nursing it yesterday that was sheer undiluted terror. She's been frightened out of her life, and if I know her the least little bit she's absolutely made up her mind never to be frightened like that again. She is going to hurl herself into a perfect whirlpool of excitement and entertainment and drag Peter with her if she can. Meanwhile, behind that hard little head of hers, she's making plans just as fast as she can make them. I believe she looks on life now as though it had broken the compact that she made with it—a compact that things should always be easy, comfortable, above all, never threatening. The present must be calm but the Future's absolutely got to be—and I believe, although she loves him devotedly in the depths of her strange little soul, that she half blames Peter for all of this disturbance, and that there are a great many things about him—his earlier life, his earlier friends, even his work—that she would strip from him if she could.
“Well, enough for the present. I don't know what nonsense there isn't here. Into the envelope it all goes. I've been talking to you for an hour and a half and that's something....”