PASSING BY

BY

MAURICE BARING

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

1921

From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor

Friday, December 18th, 1908. Gray's Inn.

I went to the station this morning to see the Housmans off. They are leaving for Egypt and intend to stay there a month or perhaps two months. They are stopping a few days at Paris on the way.

Saturday, December 19th.

My Christmas holidays begin. I am spending Christmas with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Ruth. I have to be back at the office on the first of January.

Thursday, January 1st, 1909. Gray's Inn.

Received a post-card from Mrs Housman, from Cairo.

Monday, February 2nd.

Received a letter from Mrs Housman. They are returning to London.

Sunday, February 8th.

The Housmans return to-morrow. They have been away one month and twenty-one days.

Monday, February 9th.

Went to meet the Housmans at the station. They are going straight into their new house at Campden Hill and are giving a house-warming dinner next Monday, to which I have been invited.

Tuesday, February 10th.

Lord Ayton has been made Parliamentary Under-Secretary. I do not know him but I remain in the office. He is taking me on.

Monday, February 16th. Gray's Inn.

The Housmans had their house-warming in their new house at Campden Hill. I was the first to arrive.

On one of the walls in the drawing-room there is the large portrait of Mrs Housman by Walter Bell, which I had never seen since it was exhibited in the New Gallery ten years ago. It was always being lent for exhibitions when I went to the old house in Inverness Terrace. While I was looking at this picture Housman joined me and apologised for being late. He said the portrait of Mrs Housman was Bell's chef-d'oeuvre. He liked it now. Then he said: "We are having some music to-night. Solway is dining with us and will play afterwards. He plays for nothing here, an old friend; you know him? Miss Singer is coming too. You know her? She writes. I don't read her."

At that moment Mrs Housman came in and almost immediately Mr and Mrs Carrington-Smith were announced. Mr Carrington-Smith is Housman's partner, an expert in deep-breathing besides being rich. Mrs Carrington-Smith had lately arrived from Munich. The other guests were—Miss Housman (Housman's sister), Lady Jarvis, Miss Singer, whom I was to take in to dinner, a city friend of Mr Housman's, Mr James Randall, a little man with a silk waistcoat, and, the last to arrive, Solway. I sat on Mrs Housman's left, next to Miss Singer. Carrington-Smith sat on Mrs Housmans right; Housman sat at the head of the table, between Mrs Carrington-Smith and Lady Jarvis. Miss Singer talked to me earnestly at first. She is writing on the Italian Renaissance. I told her I was ignorant of the subject, upon which her earnestness subsided, and she smiled. Then we talked of music, where I felt more at home. She had been to all Solway's concerts. She is not a Wagnerite. Just as we were beginning to get on smoothly there was a shuffle in the conversation and Mrs Housman turned to me.

I told her we had a new chief at the office—Lord Ayton.

"We met him in Egypt," she said. "He had been big-game shooting. I had no idea he was an official."

I told her he was only a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. At that moment there was a lull in the general conversation and Housman overheard us.

"Ayton," he broke in. "A pleasant fellow, not too much money, some fine things, furniture, at his place, but he won't go far, no grit."

I asked Mrs Housman what he was like. She said they had made great friends at Cairo but she did not think they would ever meet again.

"You know," she said, "these great friends one makes travelling, people, you know, who are just passing by."