London
John M. Watkins
21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C. 2
1921
CONTENTS
| Part I. | 7 | |
| Part II. | 63 | |
| Part III. | 81 | |
| Part IV. | 102 | |
| Part V. | 151 |
PART I
Sunshine and a garden path . . . flowers . . . the face and neck and bosom ofthe nurse upon whose heart I lay, and her voice telling me that she must leaveme, that we must part, and immediately after anguish—blotting out the sunshine,the flowers, the face, the voice. This is my first recollection of Life—the painof love. I was two years old.
Nothing more for two years—and then the picture of a pond and my baby brotherfloating on it, whilst with agonised hands I seized his small white coat andheld him fast.
And then a meadow full of long, deep grass and summer flowers, andI—industriously picking buttercups into a tiny petticoat to take to cook, "tomake the butter with," I said.
And then a table spread for tea. Our nurses, my two brothers, and myself.Angry words and screaming baby voices, a knife thrown by my little brother. Rageand hate.
And then a wedding, and I a bridesmaid, aged five years—the church, thealtar, and great awe, and afterwards a long white table, white flowers, and awhite Bride. Grown men on either side of me—smilingly delightful, tempting mewith sweets and cakes and wine, and a new strange interest rising in me like alittle flood of exultation—the joy of the world, and the first faint breath ofthe mystery of sex.
Then came winters of travel. Sunshine and mimosa, olive trees against anazure sky. Climbing winding, stony paths between green terraces, tulips andanemones and vines; white sunny walls and lizards; green frogs and deep wellsfringed around with maidenhair. Mountains and a sea of lapis blue, and early inthe mornings from this lapis lake a great red sun would rise upon a sky ofmolten gold. In the rooms so near me were my darling brothers, from whom I oftenhad to part. Beauty and Joy, and Love and Pain—these made up life.
At ten I twice narrowly escaped death. From Paris we were to take the secondor later half of the train to Marseilles. Late the night before my fathersuddenly said, "I have changed my mind; I feel we must go by the first train."This was with some difficulty arranged.
On reaching an immense bridge across a deep ravine I suddenly became acutelyaware that the bridge was about to give way. In a terrible state of alarm Icalled out this fearful fact to my family. I burst into tears. I sufferedagonies. My mother scolded me, and when we safely reached the other side of thebridge I was severely taken to task for my behaviour. The bridge broke with thenext train over it—the train in which we should have been. Some four hundredpeople perished. It was the most terrible railway disaster that had everoccurred in France.
A few weeks later, death came nearer