The Children's Book

pomp, circumstance and amiability, to lay the foundations of the Entente Cordiale in 1904. In Germany the Social Democrats won an election and argued over the principle of wearing knee-breeches to pay an official call on Kaiser Wilhelm, who believed they were a gang of traitors. In 1903 H. G. Wells joined the Fabian Society with the intention of shaking it up. A lunatic penetrated the Bank of England and fired shots at the Secretary, Kenneth Grahame. Grahame left the Bank in 1908: the Bank seemed to think he was more interested in writing stories, and messing about in boats, than in the national economy. In Manchester Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union. She was, the editor of the Labour Leader told her daughter Sylvia, “no longer sweet and gentle.” Patty Dace was interested, but did not join. In London there was a Festival of the Music of Richard Strauss; Anselm Stern and his sons came over and accompanied Dorothy, Karl and Griselda to the performances. Griselda was excited by the music. Dorothy was not.

Herbert Methley published Mr. Wodehouse and the Wild Girl. This was a mystical, fleshly, atmospheric tale of the doomed passion between the solitary poet (“my name is a version of Wodwose, the Green Man, the Man of the Woods”) and an earthy, even muddy, child of nature in Romney Marsh. It was briefly successful and had some good reviews, before the police and the censors descended on the bookshops and burned their stock. Phoebe Methley said to Marian Oakeshott that she knew she should be very angry, and that censoring serious literary work was wrong—“but I am glad, I have to say, that people aren’t reading it and asking me questions. And that wild girl, in my view, resembles no one, living or dead, except the inner tremolo of Herbert’s strung-up sensibility—but I wouldn’t like to be anyone who thought it was based on her, even ever so slightly.”

“Shall I read it?” asked Marian.

“I’ll lend it to you. Wrapped in brown paper, wrapped in newspaper. Keep it in a drawer. You’ll find you don’t really want to read it in bed. Or so I imagine.”

At the end of the year Dorothy had passed all parts of the Preliminary Exam except Physics, which she was to resit. Griselda had matriculated. Julian had his First—neither the best, nor the worst First, a gentlemanly First. Karl had passed Part I of the Maths Tripos. Tom had failed again. Philip was working on a new, silvery blue glaze.

34

When Geraint, or Gerry, Fludd left Purchase House he wanted, he thought to himself, deliberately using the cliche, to shake its dust from his feet. His mind was full of images both mocking and distasteful. The holes in the long dirty carpets in the corridors. The vacancy in his mother’s large eyes. Pomona being skittish or girlish. Half- cooked fish (before Elsie came) and watery porridge. Clutter, as though the workshop was trying to infest the living space with drying knobs of clay and smears of engobe. He needed to get out, and he had got out. Now he was calmer, and had his own life, he began to feel he might have responsibilities.

This feeling was inextricable from his need to continue to visit the Cains, which was easy for him to do, because his sister was there. But after some time he began to be really interested in Imogen’s future, as opposed to appearing to be so. She was good-looking, in an elongated, old-fashioned way, and her slow speech and gestures were less mannered, more natural. She appeared to have talent. She was worth helping. And if he helped her, intelligently, he would be helping those abandoned helpless ones in the Marshes. His father might be a genius but he was the exact opposite of a good businessman, even more a good salesman. He did not appear to want to part with anything he had made. And he might turn Philip Warren into a copy of himself. Geraint visited the Cains when Prosper came back from his visit to Berlin. He said he thought there should be a showplace somewhere in London, where Imogen’s work could be displayed and sold—and the work of the Purchase potters also, and possibly other selected artists who had been at the Royal College with Imogen. Somewhere perhaps in Holborn or Clerkenwell. It could combine a studio with the display—so Imogen, perhaps, and a potter, maybe—could be seen working, and could explain the work to interested visitors. He had talked to Basil Well-wood, and Katharina, and they were interested in investing in the project. And he himself could help with managing.

Imogen said she had thought she should leave South Kensington and set up on her own. Major Cain said he hoped she would not—it was good for Florence to have her company—she should feel more than welcome to stay at least until this excellent idea had been put in place, and was running. Geraint looked at Florence, to see if she was happy. He did not think her expression was one of pleasure. Much of the smiling poised calm he had loved her for had vanished lately. But he still loved her, doggedly. He thought of her in the beds of the women he visited, and he remembered this now, as he looked at her, and flushed. “What do you think?” he asked her. She said it was a clever idea, and she wished she had a talent, as Imogen had.

The showroom was set up in a street in Clerkenwell where other artisans already worked and showed. It had a plate-glass window and display shelves and cabinets (made by furniture students) in elegant modern Arts and Crafts forms. There was a counter which was more like a long hall table, also in pale wood, and behind the counter, a recessed space in which Imogen’s work table, with blow-pipe and leather bags, was set up, next to a wheel for a potter. Various young women from the college came and threw pots from time to time. Geraint brought in young men from the City and Basil Wellwood himself came, and bought large vases by Benedict Fludd, which Geraint had had transported from Lydd. There was argument over what to call the place. Geraint thought of “Kiln and Crucible,” which Florence said sounded industrial. Imogen, who had been working on some small silver, walnut-shaped boxes, said “Why not The Silver Nutmeg?” and that was agreed on. They made a strange tree, from bronze and silvery wire, about five feet high, which they stood in a large jardiniere, made at Purchase by Philip and Benedict, in a glaze shading from pale sea-green to deep indigo, painted around with a prancing dragon with fourteen legs, whose teeth closed on his own scaly tail. Imogen hung this tree with small gold and silver objects made by herself and other silversmiths and from the top branch she hung the Silver Nutmeg and Golden Pear, smooth and glowing.

Geraint liked fixing things. He believed he was the prime mover behind the summer crafts camp in 1904. One idea led to another. If there was a camp in and around Purchase House—a camp where people could come and make things, and other people could come and learn, then the carpets might be replaced, and the furniture spruced up, and the house full of talk and work instead of female lethargy and retarded tocking clocks. It came into being in his mind—tents in the orchard, for men and for women—classes in the empty stables, painting, weaving, Imogen at a table in the harness room, surrounded by a circle of eager learners, classes at all levels from elementary to masters, in making pots … He thought about the studio in the dairy, and his father in the studio. He was a man of moods, Benedict Fludd, many of them evil, more of them morose, some of them manic. In one of his good moods—by which he meant manic—his son thought, he might be got to agree. There would then be the problem of the mood he might be in by the time the camp was set up. Geraint quailed. He went to talk to Prosper Cain who suggested that the summer camp should be set up elsewhere—they might ask Frank Mallett and Dobbin and Miss Dace if they could suggest a site—but it should be set up in reach of Purchase House, so that Fludd could perhaps give a lecture on his work—or a demonstration—and so could Imogen. It would be good for Pomona to have something happening—she must be given employment.

The person who helped out—instigated by Dace, Mallett and Dobbin—was Herbert Methley. A neighbouring farmer had just died, and his widow was happy to let the run-down farm buildings to the proposed camp to make studios for classes. She would provide milk, bread, apples and cider. There was plenty of room in the meadows for tents, there was a farm pond even if there was no river, the bathing places of Dymchurch and Hythe were within reach. Methley proposed some lectures on the Art of Writing. Wood-carvers and landscape painters were suggested. Geraint went, with Prosper Cain, to Purchase House, where they ate a lamb pie, cooked by Elsie, and surreptitiously studied Benedict Fludd. They asked if he would, when the camp was in place, spare Philip to help with the pottery classes and perhaps even lend his kiln to fire the work of the pottery enthusiasts. Fludd said Philip was more than busy, and he did not propose to put his kiln in danger. But his mood was not savage. Geraint had