Gilbert

by Michael Coren

  An essential part of Gilbert’s dress was the ubiquitous sword-stick. The sword, the walking stick and the cane were to arise time and again in his writing, a symbol of romantic chivalry and pure indications of noble gestures. In an essay entitled “The Universal Stick” he would write “The stick is meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock a man down; partly to point with like a finger-post, partly to balance with like a balancing pole, partly to trifle with like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a club of a giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and an extra leg.” He always wished to fight with his weapon, and was prepared to kill; that, of course, never happened. He would have to be content with archaic notions as he marched or waddled down the streets of west and central London, settling for the finger or the leg rather than the cudgel. The stick which he carried in his early twenties was a rapier inside an elegant and sturdy outer cane. One disadvantage such an object did have was essential to its design; so as to be available for a rapid and surprising defence, it was possible to draw the sword from the stick by simply twisting the handle and pulling. Hence it was similarly easy to fidget with the device, and watch helplessly as the cane rolled on to the ground, leaving the owner grasping a naked blade, much to the shock and embarrassment of all present. There were few of his friends who had not at least one memory of Gilbert standing with a child-like smile as some eager young helper rushed to retrieve half a sword-stick. As the entrance to Fisher Unwin was at the top of a set of stone steps the noise of a falling cane would be apparent to all in the vicinity. So common did the accident become that when the rattle of an object bouncing from step to step was heard through a closed door only a round of smiles would follow, from his fellow workers at the publishing house, everybody knowing that it was only Chesterton being Chesterton. He was already a man apart, liked by everyone but understood by not a soul. If Gilbert was content and optimistic, he was still lonely.

  He was still in regular communication with Bentley and Oldershaw at Oxford, both cutting their own figures at the University. They were first-class debaters, becoming presidents of the Oxford Union, and had developed oratorical skills which the young members of the J.D.C. would have looked upon with awe and admiration. Bentley had always been Gilbert’s most important influence — he was to remain a constant and consistent friend — but it was Lucian Oldershaw who now turned Gilbert’s life towards other directions. Oldershaw was one of nature’s young romantics, falling in love without undue difficulty, and relishing the challenge of courtship. His heart was broken by one girl in an area of London called Bedford Park; through her he came into contact with other families in the suburb, and other attractive young women.

  Bedford Park in the late-nineteenth century was typical of one of the outbursts of the Victorian obsession to improve, progress, perfect. It had not evolved, as most London suburbs had done, but was constructed to an idea, an ideal. It was the first garden suburb in the world. Based upon a dream and plan by Jonathan Comyns Carr, who was financially ruined by the project, the architect was Norman Shaw. It was near Chiswick, not too far from Gilbert’s home, and had a reputation in London for being an artistic colony, or at least a colony of people who would like to be thought of as artistic. Rows of red-brick buildings stood in good order around one another, having as their centre a village green, although this was certainly no village. There was a note of the ludicrous about the whole thing. To live there carried an impression; Bedford Park was said to be bohemian, full of doctors and lawyers and writers, with middle-class thinkers announcing their thoughts to their friends in the pub and in the frequent parties and dances which were arranged. It also contained some of the cheapest middle-class housing in London, less idealistic than the villas of Bedford Park, but rather more practical.

  Economy had been the motivation behind the Blogg family moving to No 6 Bath Road, Bedford Park, and the Blogg family had been the motivation for Mr Oldershaw coming to Bedford Park. He had fallen for the daughter, Ethel, and was eventually to marry her. Her family was respected in the district for its hard work and intellectualism. Their name, provoking a grin in those hearing it for the first time, was considered to lack the gentility of the expected residents of Bedford Park. In fact it was the anglicised version of de Blogue, the title of a family from France which had moved to England many years ago. Blanche Blogg, the mother of the family, had lost her diamond merchant husband and was a deeply unhappy woman; all three of her daughters had to go out to work to support the family in its fairly meagre circumstances. The brother of the three, Knollys, was a difficult man; self-obsessed, perhaps neurotic and undoubtedly spoilt by his mother. Ethel, Oldershaw’s love, was secretary to a panel of doctors, Gertrude worked for a period as secretary to Rudyard Kipling, and Frances Blogg, the eldest of the girls, was a secretary at the Westminster office of the Parents’ National Educational Union, whose aim it was to single out the high-flying children in Britain’s schools and ensure that the best young minds were taught by the best older minds. Gilbert went to the Blogg household to attend a debate with Oldershaw and was introduced to some of the family, but Frances was not present

  The secretary of this debating-club always proved her efficiency by entirely refusing to debate. She was one of a family of sisters, with one brother, whom I had grown to know through the offices of Oldershaw; and they had a cousin on the premises, who was engaged to a German professor and permanently fascinated by the subject of German fairy-tales. She was naturally attracted also to the Celtic fairy-tales that were loose in the neighbourhood; and one day she came back glowing with the news that Willie Yeats had cast her horoscope, or performed some such occult rite, and told her that she was especially under the influence of the moon …

  He mentioned this dialogue to Frances, who announced that she herself hated the moon

  She really had an obstinate objection to all those natural forces that seemed to be sterile or aimless; she disliked loud winds that seemed to be going nowhere; she did not care much for the sea, a spectacle of which I was very fond; and by the same instinct she was up against the moon, which she said looked like an imbecile. On the other hand, she had a sort of hungry appetite for all the fruitful things like fields and gardens and anything connected with production; about which she was quite practical. She practised gardening; in that curious Cockney culture she would have been quite ready to practise farming; and on the same perverse principle, she actually practised a religion. This was something utterly unaccountable both to me and to the whole fussy culture in which she lived. Any number of people proclaimed religions, chiefly oriental religions, analysed or argued about them; but that anybody could regard religion as a practical thing like gardening was something quite new to me and, to her neighbours, new and incomprehensible. She had been, by an accident, brought up in the school of an Anglo-Catholic convent; and, to all that agnostic or mystic world, practising a religion was much more puzzling than professing it. She was a queer card. She wore a green velvet dress barred with grey fur, which I should have called artistic, but that she hated all the talk about art; and she had an attractive face, which I should have called elvish, but that she hated all the talk about elves. But what was arresting and almost blood-curdling about her, in that social atmosphere, was not so much that she hated it, as that she was entirely unaffected by it. She never knew what was meant by being “under the influence” of Yeats or Shaw or Tolstoy or anybody else. She was intelligent, with a great love of literature, and especially of Stevenson. But if Stevenson had walked into the room and explained his personal doubts about personal immortality, she would have regretted that he should be wrong upon the point; but would otherwise have been utterly unaffected …

  Frances was twenty-seven when she met Gilbert. She was small and prone to ill health. As Gilbert was already becoming fleshy and plump, her tiny frame and height of just over five feet two inches appeared toy-like in comparison. Later, Ada Chesterton, Cecil’s wife, was frequently to be unfair to her sister-in-law, and described
her first meeting with Frances in darkened tones. “She had a queer elusive attraction in those days, with her pale face, quite devoid of powder or the least tinge of make-up, and curiously vague eyes. She looked charming in blue or green, but she rarely wore those shades, and usually affected dim browns or greys. We did not find much mutual ground of understanding …” There is without a doubt a mystique about the young Frances Blogg, and in the photographs of her of the period her eyes seem to be constantly focused on a thought, a subject, far beyond the camera and the photographer; it was as though she were looking deeply into the future, searching for a safe place to look. Her hair is more often than not tangled, blown in directions it does not appear to be comfortable with. It is a happy face though, probing but contented. Foremost, it is a face of understanding, of depth. Gilbert fell in love with her at first sight, even though months of diffident anguish would ensue before either of them could or would announce their feelings. They flirted harmlessly, exchanging smiles and giggles; at social gatherings they would wander around, waiting for the chance to begin conversation with each other, disguising these meetings under the cloak of chance.

  Gilbert’s notebooks began to be dominated by this all-embracing theme: love, love of a woman, his love of a woman, his love for Frances Blogg. The entire process seemed quite natural to him, with no particular surprises or shocks. He suffered all of the expected pains of young and first love, but nothing to cause particular alarm. Because although the two people were shy to the point of pretended non-recognition at times, both knew that their respective emotions were reciprocated. Gilbert wrote in his notebook of the Blogg household

  An Afternoon Call

  Three sisters, and there has been a quarrel.

  The eldest is dignified and very uncomfortable.

  She talks with an exaggerated friendliness and triviality,

  Dealing bravely with the social embarrassment.

  Another seems moody and fretful,

  But shakes it off bit by bit

  And comes to her sister’s help,

  Smiling against her will.

  The third sits and reads Tennyson

  As one reads Tennyson when one is very angry,

  With no work except when questioned.

  Probably they were all wrong in the quarrel.

  (In all family quarrels and most other ones everyone is wrong.)

  But would anyone decide for me

  Which I felt most for

  And should most have liked to assist?

  He did not need any help in deciding. He wrote of Frances just a little while after the lines of the sisterly argument

  A harmony in green and brown. There is some gold somewhere in it, but cannot be located on examination. Probably the golden crown. Harp not yet arrived. Physically there is not quite enough of her to carry all that temperament; she looks slight, fiery and wasted, with a face which could be a Burne Jones if it were not brave: it has the asceticism of cheerfulness, not the easier asceticism of melancholy. Devouring appetite for sensations; very fond of the Bible; very fond of dancing. When she is enjoying herself thoroughly, one has the sense that it would be well for her to go to sleep for a hundred years. It would be jolly fine for some prince too. One of the few girls … who have souls …

  The world of Bedford Park, epitomised by the versatile Blogg sisters was a fitting home for Gilbert. He was surprised to discover that while he and Bentley and Oldershaw and their friends had been organising a life of tea and debating around St Paul’s, other fraternal units of young people had been doing the same, with their own particular leanings and penchant. The Blogg family had been at the centre of a debating circle known as the I.D.K. When curious friends and acquaintances enquired for what the initials stood, as they always were supposed to do, they were told quite firmly “I don’t know.” The confusion which followed (“What do you mean, you don’t know, you’re a member aren’t you?” “Yes, that is why I tell you ‘I don’t know.’” And so on) caused uproar and hilarity amongst the informed members; it was only the most subtle and aware of minds which instantly realised that I.D.K. stood for exactly that: “I Don’t Know.” It was a delightful piece of light-heartedness, and appealed directly to Gilbert’s sense of the absurd.

  Bentley and Oldershaw had been resident speakers at the I.D.K. for some time, and Cecil Chesterton was to join their ranks. Gilbert adored the atmosphere immediately. Ethel Blogg was the secretary, Knollys Blogg the treasurer and Frances one of the founding members. Their debates were of a very high quality, given impetus by the new styles brought down from Oxford by Bentley and Oldershaw, the enthusiasm of the Bloggs and the growing brilliance of Gilbert, ever anxious to impress his new found love. In his Autobiography he described the Bedford Park set as “frightful fun,” an inviting scene where he felt at home, a place of belonging found once again. “It was called the ‘I.D.K.,’ and an awful seal of secrecy was supposed to attach to the true meaning of the initials. Perhaps the Theosophists did really believe that it meant India’s Divine Karma. Possibly the Socialists did interpret it as Individualists Deserve Kicking. But it was a strict rule of the club that its members should profess ignorance of the meaning of its name …” The sparkling conversation, the robust singing, the steaming tea, all contributed to Gilbert’s feelings of love. His emotions were deeper than mere feelings of satisfaction however; he missed Frances all the time they were apart. She travelled to work in Westminster each day by means of the new underground system, something to which Gilbert never managed to adapt himself. On his way to and from his publishing office he would stop by at Frances’s place of work and leave a letter or a few lines of poetry for her to read. If he managed to arrive at Westminster before she started work he would write a note of affection or a witty observation on her blotting pad. He had professed his love, she had returned hers. Doubt would not enter their relationship. She too was a poet, and acknowledged Gilbert’s ability; affirmation was precisely what he needed at this time. She was suitably impressed by his being published, and would not enjoy the I.D.K. debates until Gilbert would stand up and deliver his speech; his memory and organised mind fascinated her, his disorganised body charmed her.

  They began to write to each other on a daily basis, with the communication to lovers being the central theme and purpose of the day’s activities; all revolved around their relationship. Gilbert experienced the pains of love more strongly than Frances; he did not love her more than she loved him — nor would there ever be a visible lack of balance in their feelings for one another — but he was vulnerable to the upsets and insecurities of such deep emotions, to a greater degree than the often phlegmatic Frances. He had waited for a long time for the chasm in his life to be filled, and now that that appeared to have happened he was not going to let this sudden joy escape him. He held on hard, perhaps a little too hard, but that was understandable in a man who had been lonely for the past few years, constantly searching for a road back into his former happy state.

  In one of the last formal letters of his pre-marriage courtship with Frances he created a semi-authentic honour roll of the articles and qualities which he had accumulated for the battle of Frances’s hand

  … I am looking over the sea and endeavouring to reckon up the estate I have to offer you. As far as I can make out my equipment for starting on a journey to fairyland consists of the following items:

  1st. A Straw Hat. The oldest part of this admirable relic shows traces of pure Norman work. The vandalism of Cromwell’s soldiers has left us little of the original hat-band.

  2nd. A Walking Stick, very knobby and heavy: admirably fitted to break the head of any denizen of Suffolk who denies that you are the noblest of ladies, but of no other manifest use.

  3rd. A copy of Walt Whitman’s poems, once nearly given to Salter, but quite forgotten. It has his name in it still with an affectionate inscription from his sincere friend Gilbert Chesterton. I wonder if he will ever have it.

  4th. A number of letters from a young lady, contain
ing everything good and generous and loyal and holy and wise that isn’t in Walt Whitman’s poems.

  5th. An unwieldy sort of a pocket knife, the blades mostly having an edge of a more varied and picturesque outline than is provided by the prosaic cutler. The chief element however is a thing “to take stones out of a horse’s hoof.” What a beautiful sensation of security it gives one to reflect that if one should ever have money enough to buy a horse and should happen to buy one and the horse should happen to have a stone in his hoof — that one is ready; one stands prepared, with a defiant smile!

  6th. Passing from the last miracle of practical foresight, we come to a box of matches. Every now and then I strike one of these, because fire is beautiful and burns your fingers. Some people think this a waste of matches: the same people who object to the building of Cathedrals.

  7th. About three pounds in gold and silver, the remains of one of Mr Unwin’s bursts of affection: those explosions of spontaneous love for myself, which, such is the perfect order and harmony of his mind, occur at startlingly exact intervals of time.

  8th. A book of Children’s Rhymes, in manuscript, called “The Weather Book” about ¾ finished, and destined for Mr Nutt. I have been working at it fairly steadily, which I think jolly creditable under the circumstances. One can’t put anything interesting in it. They’ll understand those things when they grow up.

  9th. A tennis racket — nay, start not. It is a part of the new regime, and the only new and neat-looking thing in the Museum. We’ll soon mellow it — like the straw hat. My brother and I are teaching each other lawn tennis.