FOOTNOTE:
[2] See "In Accordance with the Evidence."
II
It is as I feared: this writing, as a continuous record, will have to stop. My life is getting too full. I daresay its crowded outward happenings are a good thing for me; it is better, as the saying is, to wear out than to rust out; and I am beginning almost to enjoy change for change's sake.
My newest change is a removal. Pepper's latest cosmopolitan, Baron Stillhausen, wants to be rid of that Iddesleigh Gate house as it stands, and already I have taken Evie round to see it. It almost took away her breath: I didn't know how near delight could come to timidity—I almost said to dismay. When I said, "Well, darling, am I to take it?" she looked at me as much as to say "Dare you?"... I think I dare—though I have only to remember my own beginnings to be a little intimidated myself. I walked over to Verandah Cottage the other evening; a sign-writer has the place now; and it seems either very much more or very much less than four years since I lived there—sometimes hardly four months, sometimes half-a-lifetime.... But Evie will very quickly be turning up her nose at Well Walk. Already she had begun to shop quite freely. For getting to and from Pall Mall (I told you I was to spare myself physically for the present) I have bought a small runabout of a car. Really it is only an ordinary taxi, with a rather superior shell placed on it, and I have an agreement with a young fellow who has just taken his driving certificate; but Evie was talking about a livery for him the other night, and I was pleased. That is as it should be. It will be a joy to me to see her take her proper place....
So this record will have to be more and more a diary, jotted down as I can find opportunity for it. I need not say that the change to Iddesleigh Gate will be a larger undertaking than, say, Aunt Angela's installation in the little "circus" near King's Cross was. And there is the Consolidation. That is heavy work, and the heavier that at present we are working very much in the dark. In these present industrial troubles, for example, we do not quite know where we shall come out; we can only throw in our weight with the big natural forces that, in history as in dynamics, balance themselves in the end. The air is thick with dust of Schmerveloff's raising; and though all this dust may turn out presently to be like the comet's tail, packable into a portmanteau, for the present it certainly obscures our vision. We have to take into account, too, that even dust is not raised without a cause; and so in public we sit, Radicals all, in solemn inquiry into things, with plenty of Westminster stage thunder, while behind the scenes we get in good old Tory heavy work, not necessarily because we are Tories, but because Toryism serves a useful purpose just at present. Once or twice lately I have disobeyed my doctor, and stayed at the office for tea, so closely in touch have I had to keep with various Committees and Conferences; and we have had to keep our staff late too, which is rather hard on them, since they get none of the kudos. But the days when I could burn the candle at both ends all the time are over for me, I'm afraid.
Louie Causton rarely gets away early now; in that respect she was better off when she sat for the evening classes at the Art Schools; but she gravitates more and more to Pepper's side of the business. That bee she has in her bonnet about Evie's being jealous of her does not, I am glad to say, impair her business efficiency. The other day Pepper remarked on her distinguished carriage, and, as he never neglects appearances, he chooses her, when an amanuensis is necessary, for his more important consultations. The other night he took her and Whitlock to dinner before going to Sir Peregrine Campbell's. I can picture his dismay had it ever been suggested that he should take Miss Levey out to dinner. And Stonor and Peddie do not crack the old jokes they did at the F.B.C., about "Miss Causton's pal—Sir Peregrine," or "You know who I mean—that friend of Miss Causton's—the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs." Indeed there seem to be fewer jokes going about than there used to be. We are all getting older—Louie (save for those slender yacht-like lines of hers), Aunt Angela (whose self-satisfied humilities have rather lost their resilience since that night of her housewarming in the little "circus"), Evie (who now takes the prospect of a day and a night nursery as a matter of course, and has bills sent in to me quite naturally) and the rest of us. Even Billy Izzard, clean painter as he is, seems to be forcing his jokes. He has lately found an artificial amusement in balls and pageants, rather to the neglect of his work; and all this, slight as it seems—I mean the spread of the love of amusement—has actually more to do with Consolidation than you would guess.... But I must stop. I get Consolidation enough during the day without bringing it home with me at night. Evie has just knocked at the door. That is her signal that I have "consolidated" enough—as she calls this journal of which she has never heard.
1st March.—For the first time I make this frankly a diary. According to my agreement, we go into Iddesleigh Gate on Lady Day; as a matter of fact we are there now. My lease is for ten years. I got as many of Stillhausen's effects as I wanted at forced-sale rates; a good deal I didn't want. Evie went half wild with joy about a certain crystal bath; I about the Amaranth Room. It is extraordinary how few pieces it takes to furnish this last splendid apartment: a settee, a few chairs, a few cabinets, a bust or two, and the vast turfy carpet.... A smaller room would look half empty with twice the furniture. Billy says it's the proportions, and is puzzling about them, seeking what he calls "the unit," and taking now the length of a gilt Empire settee, now the height of a lacquered cabinet, now his own height, etc., etc. It is Evie's music room; she has begun her lessons; but it will be some time, I am afraid, before she makes very much of it. Billy threatens to quarter himself on us while he makes paintings of the whole house. Aunt Angela has two rooms on the second floor, with distempered walls; and she began her furnishing with a crucifix. My library is stately. The heavy, slow-moving doors scarcely make a click when they close, and a bell-connection down the passage warns me of the approach of anybody. I suppose Stillhausen found this useful; he was in the Diplomatic Service; and perhaps it is well that these stamped leather walls do not whisper secrets. There is a secret of my own that I keep in the bureau by the heat-regulator there. I am not sure that the fire would not be the best place for it. It is odd, by the way, that this impulse to burn these papers should lately have become almost as strong as the impulse to write them formerly was.