Well, never mind. Only a fortnight now and I shall be seeing you. Praise God (or whatever it is) from (if direction exists) whom (if personality exists) all blessings (if that word corresponds to any percept of objective reality) flow (if Heraclitus and Bergson and Einstein are correct in stating that everything is more or less flowing about).Your ever faithful Jack
23. The Same to the Same
4.12.28
Bungie Dearest,
Just a line to say that the unexpected has happened! Merritt is all over the book!!! Thinks it’s the biggest thing that ever happened, and has offered me a first-class contract (£100 advance, 10 %, to 500, 15 % to 1,000 and 20 % thereafter, with a firm offer for the next two beginning at top previous rate), on condition he can get it into print instanter to publish before the end of Jan. The man’s as mad as a hatter!
I nearly sent round to get him certified, but instead found myself accepting the terms. When you consider the frightful flop Deadlock was, you realise that the thing is sheer stark raving madness, but who cares?
Damn it, I always believed there was something in the book, but I thought I was a fool to think so. But how can he ever imagine that it will sell!. . But that’s his funeral.
He says it must have a new title. Try and think of something that will look well on a jacket, there’s an ingenious cherub. It’s fearfully urgent, because he’s got to get his travellers out with it at the beginning of next month.
Lathom’s portrait of Miss Milsom is the wickedest piece of satire you ever saw. She, fortunately, does not see it at all. In fact, she lugged up the parson to have a look at it yesterday. Perry, though a parson, is no fool. He looked grave, said that it was a striking picture, and added that Mr Lathom had a great gift which should be put to great uses. Lathom grinned, and Miss Milsom began to babble about the Academy and Mrs Harrison’s portrait, at which Perry looked graver still. I suppose he thinks that idiots should be charitably protected from themselves. Lathom is in wild spirits and is working like something inspired. O si sic omnes, meaning me!
Jim reports that he is toiling away like stink and really sticking to it. I hope so. He will be at home when term ends, so you will meet the white-headed boy of the family. I trust you will be able to bear with us all. He is inflicting on us a friend of his who went down from Caius this year — man called Leader — one of those infernally high-spirited youths who bounce all over the shop like Airedale puppies — he rouses all my worst instincts, but is perfectly harmless. He is now in London, at St Anthony’s College of Medicine, and I suppose one of these days he will muddle through his hospital work and be turned out as a genial G.P. — ‘Dr Leader is such a nice, cheerful man; he makes you feel better the minute he comes into the room.’ I hate cheerful people. Still, he and Jimmy will amuse one another, and we shall have a chance to get off on our own a bit.
Bless you, Bungie! I am counting the days till we meet.Your own Jack
24. George Harrison to Paul Harrison
15, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater 20th December, 1928
My dear boy,
A line at Christmas-time to send our best love, and to say that all our thoughts are with you. Next Christmas, if all goes well, we shall have you back, and things will seem more like themselves. Here, of course, a sad shadow is cast on our festivities by the illness of the King. There are distressing rumours, but I feel a great confidence that he will pull through in the end.
In spite of this feeling of depression and anxiety, we have decided to make a little jaunt over to Paris. Margaret has seemed rather restless lately, and I think this small excitement will do her good. I am such a quiet sort of old fellow, that I fear she finds her life a trifle dull at times. A visit to the ‘gay city’ will set her up again, and it will be beneficial to me, too, to be shaken out of my rut. We shall be staying at the Hotel Victoria-Palace in the Rue —; it is a pleasant, respectable place, and not dear, as Paris hotels go. We shall do a theatre or two and perhaps go up to Montmartre to see the ‘night-life’ one hears so much about. Young Lathom says he may be running over to Paris for a few days, and, if so, will look us up and show us round the town. It is kind and attentive of him, and we shall appreciate having an up-to-date cicerone, for my own memories of Paris are very antiquated, and I expect everything is very much changed.
I was very glad to hear that your work was progressing so well and that your action in the matter of the man you dismissed was approved of. Leniency in such a case is always a mistake, as I have found out from bitter experience.
We are doing better over here than we had really any right to expect under the present depressed conditions. I think we shall secure the contract for the Middleshire High-Power Station. If so, that will mean a big job, which will probably take me away from London in the spring.
I am really wondering whether, before this happens, I ought not to take some steps about replacing Miss Milsom by somebody who would be a more suitable companion for Margaret. Miss Milsom has always seemed to me a very tiresome woman, and lately she has been getting altogether above herself. She consults these psycho-analytical quacks, who encourage her to attach an absurd importance to her whims and feelings, and to talk openly at the dinner-table about things which, in my (doubtless old-fashioned) opinion, ought only to be mentioned to doctors. Besides, she is very lazy and untidy, and, instead of putting her mind to the housework, she litters the place with wool and bits of paper which she calls ‘art materials’ and she borrows my paints and forgets to return them. There is no harm, of course, in her doing needlework and making calendars, if it does not interfere with her duties, but she has frequently been very impertinent when I have had occasion to speak about the unsatisfactory cooking. Lathom has been painting a picture of her — a very clever thing, certainly, but it seems to have turned her head completely. However, Margaret wishes to be kind to the woman, and says, truly, that she would find it hard to get another post, so perhaps it will be better to put up with her a little longer and see if the situation improves. She is certainly most loyal and devoted to Margaret, and that outweighs a great many drawbacks.
Well, I must not worry you with these small domestic matters. I hope that you will be enjoying a very happy Christmas in your exile, and that our little offerings have arrived quite safely. By the way, your plum-pudding was not, I can assure you, an example of Miss Milson’s culinary genius. I attended to that important matter myself — otherwise you might have found many strange things in it — such as glass beads or stencil-brushes! The calendar, however, was all the lady’s own work. She wonders regularly every day whether you will like it, and whether your colleagues will think it was painted for you by your fiancée. She means kindly, poor woman, so, if you have not already expressed your hearty delight, pray do so, and assure her that the masterpiece has an honoured place on your walls.With much love, Your affectionateDad
25. Note by Paul Harrison
I can find only one letter for the next few weeks with any important bearing on the subject of this inquiry. My father and stepmother were in Paris from the 15th of December to the 7th of January. I received a few picture postcards with accounts of places visited, but they contained nothing of any moment, and I did not preserve them.
Lathom joined them on or about the 28th of December, and spent the Jour de l’An in their company. I believe that Mrs Harrison wrote several letters to Miss Milsom from Paris, but these I have been unable to secure; in fact, I am informed that they have been destroyed. I visited Miss Milsom (see my statement No. 49), and questioned her as tactfully as possible on the subject, but could only get from her a rambling diatribe, full of the same demented prejudice she has always displayed against my father, and, in the absence of any direct evidence (such as the original letters would have afforded), I feel bound to ignore her remarks. Indeed, it is obvious that nothing which Miss Milsom says later than April, 1929, is of any evidential value whatsoever, and that all her statements, without exception, must be received with extreme caution, except in so far as they tend to prove the influence exerted, consciously or unconsciously, by her upon my stepmother.