Gertrude Bell

by Georgina Howell

  Gertrude exuded energy; she talked volubly; she laughed a lot. She was in her element. Six troubled years later, Doughty-Wylie would recall the occasion: “GB walking in covered with energy and discovery and pleasantness.” By now rather a famous Englishwoman, she was at once the centre of attention. Everyone was curious to meet this traveller and linguist, whose latest book The Desert and the Sown was being widely discussed. A brilliant conversationalist and a confident storyteller, she dominated the afternoon, amusing everyone with her descriptions of Ramsay’s chaotic mode of travelling. He might have been the prototype of the absent-minded professor, losing track of his luggage and clothes along the way, regularly leaving his drawings and rubbings under a stone somewhere on site. Gertrude had got into the habit of doing a tour of the dig each time they left, picking up the papers and notes he had scattered about, while Mrs. Ramsay would run along behind him with his Panama hat and cups of tea. On one occasion he asked Gertrude: “Remind me, my dear, where are we?” Without his wife or Gertrude he was incapable of remembering the name of his hotel or its location.

  “The ‘Wylies’ are dears, both of them,” Gertrude wrote to Florence, adding that it was particularly to the quiet Dick that she had “talked long” of things and people. He was fascinated by the Middle East and had great affection and respect for the Turks: the previous year he had taken his wife on a tour of Baghdad, Constantinople, and the ancient city of Babylon. Gertrude and he had left the table to discuss the Sufi philosopher and theosophist Jalal ad-Din Rumi, whose tomb at Konya is still visited by tens of thousands of disciples each year. The mystic Rumi gave himself to the composition of poetry and the rituals of the whirling dervishes. Doughty-Wylie was profoundly moved by the world of Islam, and was impressed to see that Gertrude knew much of the poetry by heart. She had first read with Henry Cadogan Rumi’s lines of yearning for his spiritual home: “Ah, listen to the reed as it tells its tale; / Listen, ah listen, to the plaint of the reed. / They reft me from the rushes of my home, / my voice is sad with longing, / sad and low . . .”

  She was to meet Dick and Judith several times at Konya, and they helped her in many small ways. But that was all there was to their first encounters. This expedition came to an abrupt end because of the worrying condition of her servant Fattuh. On a previous archaeological trip with Gertrude, he had rushed eagerly after her into a ruined building and hit his head on the lintel of a low doorway. He now collapsed, and it transpired that he had been suffering agonizing headaches ever since the accident. Gertrude, who did nothing by halves, telegraphed the British ambassador in Constantinople and Ferid Pasha the Grand Vizier, explaining that Fattuh needed specialist attention. She prepared to take him to a hospital there without further ado, said her goodbyes to the Wylies, invited them to visit her at Rounton sometime, and departed. No sooner was Fattuh safely in the hospital and on the mend than she was cruising the Bosporus on the embassy yacht and meeting the Grand Vizier—“He is a very great man, and . . . moreover he was kinder to me than words can say.”

  She arrived home in August 1907, and was reunited with her French maid, Marie Delaire, who had come up to London to help her buy a new autumn wardrobe. Soon afterwards she was back at Rounton, sitting in her study with Professor Ramsay, who had arrived with his wife to work with his hostess on The Thousand and One Churches.

  Knowing as many notables as she did, and since her great friend Chirol wrote regularly for The Times, it is not surprising that she kept a cuttings book. Into it she was soon pasting an account of Doughty-Wylie’s latest heroic venture. In the volatile mood engendered by the Young Turks’ nationalist rebellion, fanatical mobs in the Konya area were now slaughtering Armenian Christians, leaving corpses scattered across roads and railway tracks. Donning his old uniform, Doughty-Wylie had collected together a body of Turkish troops and led them through Mersin and Adana, pacifying the murderous crowds. Wounded by a bullet, he went out on patrol again with a bandaged right arm. His initiative was said to have saved hundreds if not thousands of lives, and he was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. Most unusually, the Turkish authorities also decorated him for valour, awarding him the rare Order of Majidieh. Gertrude’s letter of congratulation was only one of many he received from all over the world, but he must have answered it warmly, for a year later they were in regular correspondence, Gertrude sometimes addressing her letters to them both and sometimes to him alone. It seems that the Doughty-Wylies did visit the Bells at Rounton, in 1908: “he is very nice,” Gertrude noted almost shyly. Given her usual expansive way of expressing herself, the four words are notable for their brevity, as if she were suppressing whatever else might be said or felt about him.

  A new warmth entered their correspondence as it shuttled to and fro between Mesopotamia, where Gertrude was embarking on one of her most important exploratory journeys and archaeological projects—the drawing and measuring of the enormous ruined palace of Ukhaidir—and Addis Ababa, where Dick was now consul. And then, in spring 1912, he arrived in London without Judith, who was visiting her mother in Wales, to take up the appointment of director-in-chief of the Red Cross relief organization. He was staying in his old bachelor flat in Half Moon Street, as he did when his wife was not with him. It is possible that Gertrude and Dick had met once or twice in London during the five years since their first meeting, for it took her no time at all to decide that she had to be in London too. She had been asked to give a lecture, she told Florence, it was high time she saw her cousins, and she needed a lot of new clothes for the summer. She shot up to town and launched herself into one of the happiest times of her life.

  Gertrude’s large circle of well-heeled friends and vivacious Stanley cousins provided her with a perfect opportunity to absorb the weary soldier into her orbit. He was serious in mind and grave in demeanour. She felt there was little laughter in his life. He met through her a more lively, stimulating group of people than he had ever known, perhaps more intellectual and witty, probably more appreciative of music, books, and painting than his army friends at the club. It was known amongst them that his marriage was not entirely congenial; and after all he had been through, he was content for a while to drift, to escape his old friends and colleagues for days and evenings of a thoroughly unpredictable kind. In groups of family or friends, Gertrude and he went to plays, to the music hall, to museums and exhibitions, listened to bands and concerts in the park and joined in vociferous arguments about art and literature. He went to see Gertrude lecture, something she did with style and confidence, her humour as much as her erudition carrying her audience with her. On a walk in the park or on the way to an “at home” or restaurant in the West End, Doughty-Wylie would tower over Gertrude; and they would fall behind, deep in conversation, their bursts of laughter sometimes causing her cousins to look back over their shoulders and wonder what they found so funny. After dinner, the two of them would tend to draw apart, talking and laughing late into the night, veiled in the smoke from her long ivory holder. Seeing Gertrude in her pearls and diamonds, her green eyes sparkling, her beautiful hair brushed and pinned up, and wearing one of her new French evening dresses, her family must have realized with a jolt just how pretty she could be—and how flirtatious.

  She was not just amusing herself any more. This was becoming the most important relationship in her life. She found in Dick Doughty-Wylie a combination of irresistible qualities. Like his uncle, the ascetic Charles M. Doughty whose Arabia Deserta was her constant companion, and like the Bedouin she had come to admire and love, he was both spiritual and unflinching. The flicker and pulse of sexual attraction between them grew stronger with each meeting. The bond was growing—she knew he felt it too. She made no plans to go abroad that year, and by January 1913 she was writing to Chirol to tell him that she had turned down an invitation to go on a scientific expedition to the Karakoram mountains in China: “The nearer I came to it, the more I could not bear it. I can’t face being away from home for fourteen months. My life now in England i
s so delightful that I will not take such a long time out of it.”

  She had waited so long for this happiness. And in the excitement of their mutual attraction and interests she found it easy to forget the existence of Judith. From her initial meeting with the Doughty-Wylies in Konya, she had described him in her letters home as “a charming young soldier” with “a quite pleasant little wife.” Any woman reading this description of the consul and his wife would have been alerted by the egregious word “little.” In Gertrude’s system of values, “little woman” would be a phrase used more frequently as time went by, and always in a pejorative sense. “A nice little woman” was one of her deadliest assessments. The phrase had become family code for an unimportant, irritating person—often, unfortunately, attached to a “useful” man. In the case of Mrs. Doughty-Wylie, a trained nurse, this was wide of the mark indeed. When Dick had undertaken the relief of twenty-two thousand refugees at Konya, Judith had organized three makeshift hospitals for the sick and injured. But it was no secret that the Doughty-Wylies had a difficult marriage. Judith was surely not unaware of his philandering, but she was no complaisant wife, as she was to prove.

  The happiness that Gertrude felt could not last for ever. Judith was expected in London, the date was set, and in due course she arrived. Gertrude returned to Yorkshire, downcast, confused. In the meantime, she threw herself into gardening and archaeological study, and as the summer of 1913 turned into autumn she spent long days hunting—doing anything and everything she could think of to pass the time until she saw him again. The zenith of each day was the arrival of the post which might, and frequently did, contain letters from him.

  Writing an article or drawing a church in her study, she would fall into a reverie, chin on hand, then come to with a start. Having ordered the gardeners to get on with their work, she would wander off into the woods leaving them unsupervised, with a drain half dug or planting programme unspecified. She was happy one moment, sad the next. Dick and she had become so important to each other that she was constantly wondering if, and on what terms, she could improve her situation. If only she could persuade him to leave Judith to be with her, she felt that she could withstand the ostracism that would follow. Much as she dreaded Hugh’s and Florence’s disapproval, if she and Dick could stand firm and constant to each other for long enough, she speculated, her parents would probably capitulate. Then she would fall to considering her lover’s situation. Distinguished soldier-statesman that he was, he would lose wife, career, and reputation all in one. Her unsatisfied longings always brought her back to this station of the cross: he had never given her any cause for hope on this score. This left her, in the reflective moments that pressed in on her more and more frequently, with a sense of agonizing loneliness and depression. She lived for their next meeting.

  A devoted family woman, feminine in her tastes, Gertrude loved the company of children and young people. How unjust that she had never had a happy affair, let alone a husband or child. In her bleakest moments, she would face up to the fact that, despite all her triumphs, she had never come first with anyone—except, perhaps, her father. She knew that her confrontational manner and quick, impatient responses alienated many men, but she didn’t mind that. Anyone that she could intimidate could be no life partner for Gertrude. As she had grown older and her list of achievements longer, her requirements grew more exacting—indeed, they were almost unmatchable. She wanted a handsome, clever man who was larger than life, with accomplishments at least the equal of hers; a brave man who could fight and hunt and quote poetry, who had read the great books of civilization, spoke foreign languages, and appreciated the theatre and the National Gallery; someone who was at home in London and in foreign society, who was well travelled, who knew the distinguished politicians and statesmen she herself knew. She was looking for a hero—and why not? She was, after all, a heroine. She felt no doubt that Doughty-Wylie was her true match.

  Confused by emotions that she had hardly ever experienced before, she was existing in a state of perpetual impatience. She ended it by deciding to invite him to Rounton.

  She rationalized this move to herself time and time again. It would hardly be a social indiscretion for him to stay without his wife. She could ask both of them at a time when Dick had indicated that Judith would be in Wales. Gertrude was constantly entertaining friends and family; every weekend brought a different house party, and he would be just one of the crowd. In the autumn and winter there were hunting and shooting, the races, dances, and the houses of their neighbours to visit. When the lake froze, there were vicious games of ice hockey in which she played a major part. But she would invite Dick in July, when picnics, tennis tournaments, hacking, fishing, seaside visits, boat trips, and jaunts to ruined abbeys filled the days. However, while she could bring Dick into this life without comment from friends and neighbours, she was cautious about the attitudes of Hugh and Florence. Not for the world would she have upset them; indeed, she ached for their approval. And there was not, of course, the faintest hope that those two pillars of society, who adhered to all the rules of social conduct, would approve of her plans. There was also—no mean consideration—her own sense of honour, one so inviolable that it would compromise the affair at every stage. Gertrude was no hypocrite. She did not intend to break the rules. As an outsider looking in, she saw marriage as sacrosanct. She did not intend to start a sexual relationship with him, merely to continue the exquisite mutual delight of his attractive and attracted presence. For once in her life, perhaps, she did not allow her head to rule her heart.

  She stopped herself from wondering how far that pleasure might take them in their private moments together, or what the consequences might be for her. By the time she troubled about that, she was too far in to deny herself the rare delight of his company. There must have been, initially, some self-deception as to the depth of her feelings for him, for she was still keeping from Hugh and Florence the fact that she was inviting Dick on the understanding that he would come without his wife. But Gertrude had to admit to herself that her intentions were not what they ought to be. Certainly, consideration for Judith mattered less than her growing intimacy with Dick. If Florence suspected anything, as she probably did, she may have reflected that Gertrude, at forty-four, was not of an age at which she could be told how to behave. And she would probably have looked back with pity at the twenty-four-year-old being separated from her fiancé, then having to come to terms with his death. The young woman’s total lack of bitterness or recrimination towards her parents over this tragedy may well have been lovingly recalled by her stepmother, but it may not have relieved her of feelings of remorse. Perhaps, remembering how she had never allowed the teenage Gertrude to visit those aristocratic houses where casual adultery took place, Florence sighed as she decided to look the other way.

  There was another woman in the house who may have suspected the truth. Marie Delaire could not have failed to notice her mistress’s anxiety about her summer wardrobe. There were a dozen fittings for new dinner dresses, hats to be retrimmed, linen skirts to be taken up, alterations to last year’s costumes, and a dozen filmy white blouses to be sewn with pin-tucks and edging: the new fashion was to wear your fine blouses with a string of pearls inside, so that they could be seen through the delicate fabric.

  And so Dick came to Rounton for a few days in July 1913. After the day’s excursion, the gallop across the fields, the noisy, cheerful dinner followed by coffee and card games in the drawing-room, the babble of voices would gradually diminish by ones and twos as the guests said good night and drifted upstairs to their rooms. Gertrude and Dick sat on by the fire together, talking and looking at each other.

  To her it was a dream: it would have been like this if they had been married. Her happiness was an intoxication. Here was the man she loved, here was the family she loved, in the house that she loved. Reserve after reserve was breaking down, but there must have been an awkwardness, too, an unspoken question about the night to come. Perhaps, obliquely, she
let him know where her room was. At last she went up to bed. Unpinning her hair, she heard him knocking softly at her door, and let him in. They stood, his arms around her, her heart beating fast, then sat a little uncomfortably on the bed. They talked, half in whispers. Grave as ever, he was difficult for her to read, but as always, she found there were no limits to what she could say. She explained her feelings: her happiness to have found the man she could love—and her misery to have found him already married. He pressed her to him, full of affection, and they lay down. Folded in his arms, Gertrude told him that she was a virgin. His warmth and attentive sympathy were boundless, but when he kissed her and moved closer, put his hands on her, she stiffened, panicked, whispered “No.” He stopped at once, assuring her that it didn’t matter, and when tears came into her eyes he comforted her for a few minutes and told her nothing had changed. Then he slipped away and out the door.

  The next day, another jarring round of distractions and entertainments wound to its end. It was impossible to speak to him for long, and then he was gone. His thank-you letter, written on 13 August, followed shortly afterwards—she snatched it from the hall table and ran upstairs to read it in private:

  My dear Gertrude

  I am so very glad you took me to Rounton. I so much enjoyed it, the people, the place, the garden, the woods, everything. They are a vital setting to my friend, however many other frames she fits in. And I am so glad you told me things, and found you could talk to me. It’s that I like—just openness and freedom to say and do exactly what one wants to do. In your mind I think there was a feeling, natural at first openings of doors, that it wasn’t properly appreciated. But it was—I love openness—I’ve always ever since those early Turkey days wanted to be a friend of yours—Now I feel as if we had come closer, were really intimate friends—I’ve gained so much and I want to hold it. The loneliness—why we are all born alone die alone really live alone—and it hurts at times—Is this nonsense or preachments? I don’t care—I must write something, something to show you how very proud I am to be your friend. Something to have meaning, even if it cannot be set down, affection, my dear, and gratitude and admiration and confidence, and an urgent desire to see you as much as possible . . .