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By Root 2160 0

again, and again—“He has a good voice,” said the doctor. “And strong limbs,” said the midwife, circling a puny thigh with one hand, wiping the crimson male organ. Blood and water were everywhere. Olive felt it well out. And the afterbirth, so all was well. The midwife bundled up the bloody sheets, and mopped the floor, and washed the mother, and arranged her under a pretty counterpane, tugging a comb through her sweat-tangled hair. She tickled the swathed child under his chin. “Now we’ll fetch Daddy, now you’re fit to see.” She put him in the cot—not new, but prettily decorated with starched sheets and ribbons. She went to look for Humphry who was consuming his bowl of broth, watched intently by Violet, to whom he was describing the funeral, the weather, the music, the flowers.

Humphry tiptoed into the bedroom, in the traditional manner. Olive looked at him from far away, her hands inert on the counterpane. The midwife showed him the boy, who had reddish hair, not very much, and strong features, a brow, a big mouth. What shall we call him, Humphry asked Olive. She shifted the bleeding sack of her body. You choose, she said. Humphry was thinking of Shakespeare, for the article he would write about the Transvaal. He was thinking about England. He hesitated between Harry and George. “Cry God for Harry, England and St. George.” Harry was more dashing. Harry was a good no-nonsense English name. “Harry,” he said, and Olive smiled, and said Harry was a good choice, she too had been considering Harry. Harry Basil, she suggested, thinking of Basil’s forthcoming generosity with Tom’s school fees.

15

In the New Year of 1896, Humphry went to Portman Square to take home his two eldest children. Phyllis, Hedda, Florian and Robin had been taken by Cathy the maid to visit her family on a farm near Rottingdean. Phyllis had looked plaintive, and sulked a little. She preferred being the youngest of the big children to being the eldest of the small children. Violet tried to suggest that the Basil Wellwoods might find room for her, it would do her good to be more independent, but nothing came of that. Dorothy was grim and tense during these discussions. She wanted to be with Griselda, and having Phyllis around was quite exactly not being with Griselda. Tom would rather have stayed at home; he did not have interests in common with Charles, who was a year older than him, but they did not quarrel, either.

It was decided that Humphry should approach his friend Leslie Skinner, who worked with Karl Pearson in the Department of Applied Mathematics at UCL, to find a good tutor to take both Charles and Tom, and coach them for the entrance exams of Eton and Marlowe. Toby Youlgreave had agreed to help them with history and literature. Tartarinov was doing well with Tom’s Latin, and Humphry was happy to suggest that he reciprocate his brother’s hospitality by offering space to Charles in which he could come and polish his classics. Basil and Katharina felt that what young women needed was accomplishments—music, manners, painting and drawing. They offered to invite Dorothy to share Griselda’s art lessons. Griselda had been reading The Mill on the Floss and had persuaded Dorothy to read it too. They sat in Griselda’s bedroom, indignant Maggie Tullivers, for whom maths and Latin and literature were not considered.

They all went to tea with Leslie and Etta Skinner, in their narrow parlour in Tavistock Square, to meet the maths tutor Leslie Skinner thought might do the job. They all went, because Humphry combined the tea with a visit to the British Museum, and he enjoyed Dorothy’s company on such outings. He took them to see Viking gold and the Elgin Marbles, and made them all shudder in front of the Egyptian coffins with dead men and women bandaged inside them.

The parlour had dark green Morris & Co. wallpaper, spangled with scarlet berries, and a Morris set of spindly Sussex settle and chairs, with rush seats. There were woven rugs on a dark floor, and high shelves of orderly books. The possible tutor was already present, a young German, from Munich,