In the summer and autumn of 1921 Teixeira enjoyed better health than
at any time in the last seven years. He supported without ill-effects
the strain of incessant luncheon and dinner-parties during the visit of
Couperus to London; he moved from house to house, staying with friends;
he completed his unfinished work and laid ambitious schemes for the
future.
_I have written to Couperus, ~he told me, 13.5.21~, preparing
him to be entertained by the Titmarsh Club and by the
Asquiths...._
_You might tell me in an early letter what to do in proposing
~[him]~ for temporary honorary membership of the Reform Club
and when to do it...._
_My dear Stephen, ~he writes, 16.5.21~;_
_My dear Stephen, ~he repeats~;_
_The second allocution sounds almost superfluous; but I will
not waste a sheet of Ryman’s priceless Hertford Bank. I
intended the “M” of “My dear Stephen” to form the “M” of “Many
thanks for your letter of the 14th.” However, you may remember
that the only difference between Moses and Manchester is that
one ends in -oses and the other in -anchester; and there you
are...._
_I am calling on the Netherlands minister at half-past eleven
this morning.... Bisschop (of the Anglo-Batavian Society) rang
me up on Saturday evening.... There is to be a council-meeting
at 4 o’clock on Friday at the International Law Association in
King’s Bench Walk.... If you are back by Friday and likely to
be at home, I’ll come on to see you from there. And I’ll write
to you to-morrow about my call on Van Swinderen...._
_P.S. to my former letter, ~he writes on the same day:~ Van
Swinderen was most charming. He at once offered to have the
Dutch reading at the legation.... I said that, if Van S. would
make it an invitation matter, he would be doing a great honour
to C. and giving a very welcome reception to the Dutch colony
in London...._
_He leapt at this; said he would give a dinner to twenty of la
~crême de la crême~; he could manage thirty at two tables; and
ask up to a hundred to the reception...._
_Everything is provisional to Mrs. Van Swinderen’s agreement;
and I am to lunch there on Friday and hear more...._
When Couperus returned to Holland, my correspondence with Teixeira was
suspended. We were meeting or communicating by telephone almost daily;
and it was only when we left London to stay with friends that the letters
were resumed.
_Weather hot and stuffy, ~he writes, 1.8.21, from Sutton
Courtney~. Lawns running down to a perfectly full river and
absolutely dry: and I with not much to tell you...._
_I am sleeping beautifully and eating lightly; and I feel too
indolent for words._
_Good-bye and bless you!_
_My wife, ~he writes, 5.8.21~, pictures me surrounded by people
who, if she broke my heart by dying, would thrust women of
forty on me, “dear, dearest Mr. Tex,” to look after me. Is it
not a beautifully witty tag to a letter? I think so...._
To my reproach that he had left London without saying good-bye to me, he
replies, 16.8.21 with complete justification:
_As our logical neighbours across the channel say:_
_“Zut!... Zut!... Et encore zut!...”_
_Had you profited as you ought by the careful bringing up which
your kind parents gave you, you would have known that it is for
those who go away to say good-bye, for those who arrive to say
good-day. You left London before I did. I say no more in reply
to your reproaches...._
_If ever you leave London, however, at about the same time
as I, remember, will you not, the etiquette (French) and the
punctilio (Italian)?..._
_... If you think that I have much to tell you, ~he adds,
20.8.21~, you are mistaken. Y’day I went for a stroll, turned
up a footpath which I imagined would bring me back here, found
that it didn’t, after I had gone much too far to turn back, and
plodded on and on—my apprehensive mind full of a picture of
myself being devoured by onsticelli and stercoraceous geodurpes
amid a fine setting of ferns and bracken—until I reached
Abingdon. It might have been Oxford, so exhausted was I._
_A boy was bribed to fetch me a car and I returned just before
the search-party set out for me. I roam no more. There is a
lawn here: let me walk up and down it...._
_I do not despair about Ireland because I never despair about
anything._
_And I am ever yours,_
_Tex._
_Your letter of the 23rd, ~he writes, 25.8.21~, found me still
here. (The Wharf, Sutton Courtney): I go to-morrow to the
Norton Priory till Monday ... and longer if they will have me
longer. Then back home; and to Sutro’s for a brief week-end on
Saturday._
_Yes, I know Lancaster, its castle, where I have, and its
lunatic asylum, where I have never, stayed...._
_It were useless for me to pretend that I have not mislayed
your list of addresses. I may find it in some other suit; but
you might notify me of your next movement whenever you write.
But do not translate m.p.h. as miles per hour. Master of
phoxhounds, if you like, or miles per horam; but we English say
an hour and not per hour...._
_M. sent an enormous 120 h.p. (hocus pocus) land-yacht
to meet me at Portsmouth, ~he writes from Norton Priory,
27.8.21~, relieving me of the worst part of the journey....
N. arrived from town before dinner, bringing with him a ...
stockbroker.... They go up on Monday morning, but I stay on
till Wednesday, like a gay limpet but a perfectly moral: M’s
brother comes down on Monday._
_For the rest, I have the same room, but have not yet cracked
my skull against the canopy of the same fourposter; and I am
perfectly happy...._
_Your original waybill is found, ~he adds, 30.8.21~; but
I have the receipt of no letter from you to acknowledge. N.
... went up after breakfast y’day and brother R. M. came down
before dinner. He is a pleasant New Zealander and took a lot
out of me at bridge._
_Life here pursues its quiet course. I accompanied M. and W.
to the sea’s edge yesterday but found the effort of ploughing
through the shingle tolerably exhausting and shall not repeat
it to-day. Indeed, the whole family, Miss T. included,
are bathing now and I am writing twaddle to you under the
pear-tree._
_And, as I live, I think I’ll write no more. I have no more to
say; and the papers have just come. I leave here after lunch
(eon) to-morrow, spend an hour or two in Chichester cathedral
and arrive home in time for my bread and milk...._
On his return to Chelsea and a typewriter, he says, 1.9.21:
_You will be pleased to receive a letter from me in legible
type, instead of in that hand which is becoming almost as
crabbed as yours. And I continue to address you at Bamborough
Castle, though that stronghold figures as something very near
Zambuk Castle in your letter of 30 August._
_N. filled me with fears of internecine feuds within your
fortress, of bloody strife for the one shady nook of the
orchard and so on. You say nothing of these things; and I
assume that there has been no slaughter in your time. There
was a horrid game when I became a British kid in the early
seventies: I am king of the castle! Get out, you dirty rascal!
I trembled at the thought of you and N. playing this game
against ruthless border clansmen. All’s well that ends well...._
_I lost twenty goodish guineas at three-handed bridge after
Brother Roy arrived. He wanted to can everything on the estate:
the apples, the pears, the fleas on the dogs’ backs, the
flyaway ducks. He wanted to introduce New Zealand mutton-birds
into this country...._
_I had a tooth out yesterday, ~he writes, 3.9.21~,—until then
I had thirteen of my own left, an unlucky number—and was not
at my best.... The tooth was extracted at a high cost, in the
presence of a dentist, an anaesthetist and my body-physician
but without unpleasant consequences. And this afternoon I go to
the Sutros for a brief week-end._
_I have no news, except that I have bought some most attractive
socks, or half-hose...._
_... I have no news, ~he complains, 12.9.21.~ I write to you
simply out of friendship and duty. I spent five hours at the
Zoo y’day.... We lunched there; so did most of the beasts,
heavily. You should have seen S. staggering under the weight
of about nine pounds of the most expensive oranges, bananas,
apples and onions, not to mention sugar, monkey-nuts, and two
raw eggs. Say what you will, it is laffable to feed a small
monkey with slices of apple till he has both pouches full, all
four hands and his mouth. When you hand him the eighth slice,
you wait in breathless expectation...._
_I had a tooth extracted last week, reducing the number of my
real teeth to twelve. To-day the number of my pseudo-teeth is
to be increased to eighteen (quite correct: they swindle you
out of a couple) and I propose to lunch at the Reform Club with
many gaps in my mouth._
_I have arranged terms for two luvverly rooms at the Tregenna
Castle Hotel, St. Ives, from 1 November to 1 April. Rooms face
south, away from the beastly ocean; breakfast in the bedroom;
baths ~a volonte~. We hope to be well and happy there. I must
see much of you before you go to Sweden...._
_... I rejoice to hear that you are going to Copenhagen. It is
a charming coquette of a little city, with which you will fall
head over ears in love._
_Not to take a second risk, I send this to Crosswood, ~he
writes 13.9.21~, and I beg you to lay me at the feet of your
gracious chatelaine; and, if E. is there, you can give her the
love of her Uncle Tex._
_At the Reform Club ... I played a little bridge ... and won
29/-; then, finding my rate of progress rather slow, I veered
off to Cleveland Club and won £7.12.0 more. This satisfied
me; and I came home, ate two little fillets of sole, some
apple-sauce and custard and (damn the expense) a ha’porth of
cheese and so to bed._
_To complete my ~Diary of a Nobody~, I am glad that you have
changed your name from Gowing to Cumming and I am_
_ever yours,_
_Tex._
_Many thanks for your letter of y’day, ~he writes, 14.9.21~,
bearing traces of the pear skin and plumstones therein
mentioned, not to speak of a spot of butter and a small burn
from your after-brekker cigarette._
_I have crossed Shap in a swift and powerful railway-train,
with a whiskered and spectacled judge of the high court, in the
opposite seat. I remember old Day’s teaching me how to observe
whether one were going up hill or down by watching the roadside
rills:_
_“Water invariably flows downwards,” said he, gravely...._
_Ecclefechan I don’t know and don’t want to; Carlisle, I do;
Gretna Green I do: I never want to set eyes on either again.
I have a desolating memory of brown fields between Carlisle
and Gretna Green. By now you have, I expect, seen as much
of England as you wish to see in the course of your natural
life...._
_To-day, seized with a sudden lech for art and beauty, my wiff
and I are going to Hammersmith to hear ~The Beggar’s Opera~...._
_I have again lost your waybill, ~he writes, 16.9.21~, and
cannot tell if this will still find you at Glow-worm Castle._
_~The Beggar’s Opera~ was a great affair._
_Little has happened to me since._
_But to-day Mrs. Asquith and her daughter are coming to play
different forms of the game of auction bridge at the Cleveland
Club._
_And to-morrow ... ah, to-morrow! To-morrow I am going to stay
for the week-end with a hostess, at or near Marlow, whose name
I do not even know.... I am promised a perfectly good end;
but so were any babies of old who ended in being eaten by the
ogress._
_We are never too old for adventures; but pray that I come
safely out of this one._
On 30.9.21 he writes:
_Very many thanks for ~The Secret Victory~, with the delightful
dedication and preface. I am not at all sure that I shall not
read the book again._
_I have just returned from an interview with the local
income-tax brigand which filled me with some apprehensions....
After a ... jest or two, I left the brigand’s cave
unscathed...._
_I go to the Wharf to-morrow for a week and may stay on a day
or two longer, if pressed: I always do, you know...._
I had been invited to deliver some lectures in Sweden and Denmark.
Teixeira was good enough to read the manuscript of these, as of almost
everything I wrote. With his letter of 3.10.21 he returned the first:
_Here is your lecture ... I really cannot suggest any cuts. My
one and only lecture read 2¾ minutes: this is no reason why
yours should not read an hour and a quarter. Does any one want
to go and sit in a hall, with free light and warmth thrown in
for less than an hour and a quarter? No; the Swedes will admire
your fluency and be pleased with you._
On my return to England, he asks, 14.11.21:
_When do we meet? We have decided to leave on the 30th. I can
lunch with you to-morrow, if you like, and bring you your two
Ewald books._
Teixeira’s departure to Cornwall, already delayed by his wife’s illness,
had now to be postponed again, as he was prostrated with ptomaine
poisoning.
Both invalids were sufficiently recovered to face the journey on 2
December; and, next day, Teixeira sent me news of his safe arrival:
_Tregenna Castle Hotel,
St. Ives, Cornwall,
3 December, 1921._
_My dear Stephen:_
_Thanks for your letter that reached me just before I left
town. This is my address: what else would it be? And the
enclosed ~[an invitation to lecture]~ is sent to show you that
you are not the only Beppo on the peach (damn your British
metaphors!): you might not believe it otherwise. But you may
picture the courteous terms in which I declined._
_There is nothing for nervous dyspepsia or gastric
horribobblums like seven goodish hours in a swift and powerful
railway-express. I have been free from pain or sickness for the
first night since Wednesday week. But I slept little. From 1
a.m. onwards I spent a sleepless, painless night._
_The hotel is comfortable and commodious in an old-fashioned
country-house way; no central heating, but big fires; a certain
amount of intrigue with Lizzie the chambermaid to secure a
really hot bath: you know the sort of thing; immense grounds, a
very park of 100 acres, which I shall never leave, because, if
I did, I should never get back: we stand too high._
_Bless you._
_Ever yours,
Tex._
It was the last letter that I ever received from him; and on Monday,
December the fifth, as I was in the middle of answering it, a telegram
informed me that he had died that morning. As he was getting up, he
collapsed in his wife’s arms and slipped, unconscious, on the floor.
Death was instantaneous and, it may be presumed and hoped, painless. He
was buried in the Holy Roman Catholic Cemetery at St. Ives; and a requiem
mass for the repose of his soul was said at the Brompton Oratory.
Even those with best cause to suspect how nerveless was his grasp on life
could not readily believe that one who loved life so well was to enjoy no
more of it. “He was spared old age,” said one friend; but to another Tex
had lately confessed that he would like to live for ever.
Before he left London, we said good-bye for five months: he was to
winter in Cornwall, I in the West Indies. In seeing again the exquisite
handwriting of these many hundreds of letters that commemorate our
friendship for the last six years of his life, I at least cannot feel
that his voice has grown silent or that his laughter is at an end. The
big, solemn figure is vividly present; the favourite phrases and the
familiar gestures are stamped for ever on the memory of any one that
loved him.
I am writing four thousand miles away from St. Ives: and it may be
possible to fancy that he has been ordered to remain there longer than we
expected. This time there may be no diary; perhaps the only letters will
be those already written; he may seem not to hear all that he once loved
hearing; but, wherever he has gone, his personality remains behind.
It was an old-standing bond that the survivor should write of the other.
I have tried to make Teixeira paint his own portrait. If his letters
have failed to reveal him, what can I add? His literary position is
unchallenged; those who knew him how slightly soever knew his humour and
wit, his whimsical charm, his understanding and toleration. Those who
knew him best had strongest reason for loving him most deeply. Those who
knew him not missed knowing a ripe scholar, a fine and tender spirit, a
great and gallant gentleman, a matchless companion and the truest friend
on earth.
_BERBICE,
BRITISH GUIANA_
15 February, 1922.