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Hugo joined a society of New Poets. They used to meet and read poetry aloud in a room behind Leicester Square. Hugo was interested in metres. He used to spend days in the British Museum reading old Renaissance poets who did tricks with metres, and he started to translate the Greek Anthology. Some of his verses, were, I think, very beautiful, and George thought so too. But he wanted to do more than that. He had not found He had not yet what he wanted to do.
In February he had an offer of work in the Inland Revenue. He refused it, and gave up the idea of the Civil Service. He thought again at this time of a post in a museum, and began to qualify for that.
I was learning dancing now, with a Russian lady called Ivanovna, who had been in the Russian ballet. I loved those lessons, and they filled in the time when Mollie was at work. I should like to have done some definite work too, but I did not know what to do, and I was happy just waiting and being alive.
That spring and summer we were very gay, and our party had grown larger now, for Anthony Cowper had work in London too, at the Chancery Bar, and Ralph Freeman was in the Foreign Office, and we all enjoyed ourselves. We danced a great deal. We all liked dancing.
And Ralph Freeman had a sister Daphne who used to come too, when we liked; and we went to theatres, almost always in the pit, and to races in Anthony Cowper’s car. Sometimes I rode with Guy in the Park before breakfast, and sometimes we went down to Richmond and had supper on the river in punts.
Often we went to Yearsly for the week-end, and Yearsly was always the same, and Cousin Delia always the same.
I think of that summer often when I am in London in June; the scent of limes and chestnut trees, and dust, and the fresh green of the trees, and the watering carts in the streets, and people coming out of houses in new clothes, pretty summer clothes, light-hearted people as we were then. Hugo had a lavender-coloured tie that summer, and George used to chaff him about it; and Guy had a light grey suit; George said it was too light a grey. Walter used to say that they must have spent a great deal of money on clothes, but I don’t think they did. Their clothes amused them, among other things. So did my clothes and Mollie’s, and we saw no harm in that. I see no harm even now.
It was like the old days at Yearsly in one way. We lived in the present. We did not look ahead much or wonder what was going to happen. The days passed so quickly, one behind the other. It was the long hot summer of 1911. Life was very full and very sweet.