Anyone reading Sachie Sitwell’s books about pictures and tapestry would, I think, imagine him to be a very deliberate and contemplative sightseer. The opposite is the case. He is magnetic. The moment he enters a picture gallery, he seems to be drawn swiftly across it by an invisible ray in the direction of one particular picture. Before his companions are even acclimatized to the atmosphere of the room, he has absorbed everything in that first picture and has shot across the room in another direction. Meanwhile the rest of the party are slowly assimilating the beauties of the various pictures one by one, and it seems that Sachie must have missed at least half of these. Not at all. In talking over the day, it appears that, far from having seen only those few things which seem to have attracted him, Sachie’s eye has caught everything else which is worth while in the rooms through which he has passed. Sightseeing with him demands great quickness in the uptake.
Rex Whistler is the perfect travelling companion. He follows no prearranged plan: he is ready to respond to any unexpected invitation. When one drives out in the morning with a certain destination in mind, Rex soon wearies of the important road which leads to it and is attracted by some side road which appears to meander nowhere in particular. He turns into this. From it there diverges another byway far smaller than the first. Then yet another. Rex finds each one quite irresistible and we soon become lost in a tangle of little old roads, each narrower and more forgotten than the last; and more than once our roads have become footpaths which end in a single plank across a stream. Then we get out of our car and wander lazily through some very remote piece of country. Two or three hours later, we laboriously back the car out of the cul-de-sac in which we had left it, and regain our original road. So much of the day is spent in these unpremeditated détours, that night is sometimes falling by the time we reach our ultimate destination; and this adds immensely to the first view of a very beautiful scene. I shall never forget the colour on the walls of Milton Abbey when Rex and I first saw it after one of those long wandering days. A richly coloured lichen always grows on those stones; but that evening the sun was setting through a crimson mist and in this light the walls looked like some palace in The Arabian Nights, inlaid with gold and precious stones.
Another evening Rex and I arrived at a little chapel buried in a wood on the borders of Hampshire. We left the car in the road outside the rectory and asked for the keys. Armed with these, we penetrated into a deep dark forest, and felt our way along a very narrow footpath. It led to a deserted churchyard where, thrown wildly across the graves and shattering the tombstones, there lay an enormous uprooted yew tree, its roots and its torn branches tragic in the twilight. Behind it was a little fourteenth-century chapel. After fumbling for some time with the padlock, we made our way at last into a completely dark interior, upon the walls of which could faintly be guessed several seventeenth-century figures in high relief, some of them in clothes still brightly painted. We could not think what they were, and so we lit match after match beneath them; and as each little flame shone for a moment and then went out, we saw one after another the flickering faces of the long-forgotten members of the family of Evelyn the diarist. I have often been in that chapel since, but I have never seen so much there as I did that night.
On one of our many excursions up by-ways leading to footbridges, Rex and I once saw a very charming little rectory house. It stood high at one end of a tiny valley hidden in the downs, and curved lines of willows indicated the course of a shallow chalk stream. The Regency French windows of this parsonage house looked across the village churchyard into a distance which was indescribably peaceful. The memory of this place haunted us for years, and at last we learnt that it might be possible to buy our little fairy-story rectory. We decided to go to see it. It was a grey and dreary winter afternoon and of course we arrived several hours later than we had intended. I left Rex drawing in the churchyard and walked alone to the rectory. The garden was a wilderness. Sombre yews and laurels had encroached on to the white gravel path; and in the untidy grass patch in front of the house, could be seen the ghosts of flower-beds which must have been forgotten for many years. The front door looked as if it had never been opened. It had the appearance of a dead door left in some fragment of wall in a ruined house. I gently pulled the bell, and felt sure that it did not ring. After a few minutes I pulled again, this time sharply. And now there sounded through the house the hollow bone-like rattle of broken wires, jostling each other ineffectively through the emptiness within. I heard immediately the approach of slow faltering footsteps, and a shaky voice said, ‘ Is anybody there?’ I announced my name in tones of bright friendly panic, and then began a prolonged fumbling and pushing of bolts and bars. It did indeed seem that the door had not been opened for years. At last after a great effort it gave, and
