_To Miss Muir Mackenzie._
Miss Muir Mackenzie, who was staying at Winchelsea, had reported on
the progress of the preparations at Lamb House.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Thursday [May 19, 1898].
Dear Miss Muir Mackenzie,
Forgive the constant pressure which has delayed the expression of my
gratitude for your charming, vivid, pictorial report of--well, of
everything. It was most kind of you to paddle again over to Rye to
minister to my anxieties. You both assuage and encourage them--but with
the right thing for each. I am content enough with the bathroom--but
hopeless about the garden, which I don't know what to do with, and shall
never, _never_ know. I am _densely_ ignorant--only just barely know
dahlias from mignonette--and shall never be able to work it in any way.
So I shan't try--but remain gardenless--only go in for a lawn; which
requires mere brute force--no intellect! For the rest I shall do
decently, perhaps--so far as one can do for two-and-ninepence. I shall
have nothing really "good"--only the humblest old fifth-hand, 50th hand,
mahogany and brass. I have collected a handful of feeble relics--but I
fear the small desert will too cruelly interspace them. Well,
_speriamo_. I'm very sorry to say that getting down before Saturday has
proved only the fondest of many delusions. The whole place has to be
mattinged before the rickety mahogany can go in, and the end of
that--or, for aught I know, the beginning--is not yet. I have but just
received the "estimate" for the (humblest) window-curtains (two tiers,
_on_ the windows, instead of blinds: white for downstairs etc.,
greeny-blue for _up_, if you like details,) and the "figure" leaves me
prostrate. Oh, what a tangled web we weave!--Still, I hope _you_, dear
lady, have a nice tangled one of some sort to occupy you such a day as
this. I think of you, on the high style of your castled steep, with
tender compassion. I scarce flatter myself you will in the hereafter
again haunt the neighbourhood; but if you ever do, I gloat over the idea
of making up for the shame of your having gone forth tea-less and
toast-less from any door of mine. I wish that, within it--my door--we
might discuss still weightier things. Of an ordinary--a normal--year, I
hope always to be there in May.
Deeply interesting your Winchelsea touches--especially so the portrait
of my future colleague--confrere--the Mayor--for the inhabitants of Lamb
House have always been Mayors of Rye. When I reach this dignity I will
appoint you my own Sketcher-in-Chief and replace for you by Chateau
Ypres (the old Rye stronghold) the limitations of Chateau Noakes. I
express to you fresh gratitude and sympathy, and am yours, dear Miss
Muir Mackenzie, most cordially,