Scope and Content
"I am writing in my terrible handwriting so as not to disturb the invalids with a clattering typewriter.
Thank you very much for your kind birthday greetings and the lovely card which I much prefer to the stereotyped birthday card.
I am afraid this letter is going to be a chronicle of woes! To begin with, I was, as you probably wondered, caught in the middle of the terrible happenings in Zermatt. The only railway is a light mountain railway from Brigue up to Z. at the end of the valley. There is nothing beyond that but untunnelled Alps, and over the Alps is Italy. There is no road from Brigue to Zermatt either: only a one-way track running alongside the mountain torrent. The first lot of avalanches blocked both the railtrack and the road track: so we were entirely cut off from the outside world. At Z. itself the valley widens out considerably so the avalanches had a less steep incline then to roll down than in the Brigue direction. We had, however, plenty of them, and really terrifying. The noise is what I should imagine and atom bomb would make, but continuous. Everything comes down with it - trees, rocks, chalets: then there is just a colossal snowdrift with wreckage everywhere. One completely obliterated the railway station and an hotel (empty as it happened) adjoining. One hotel had a narrow escape, but many of the Swiss chalets were submerged and there were 8 deaths. All the males had to turn to and dig the snow to find the bodies. I must say everyone behaved in an exemplary manner. Well ... at the end of two weeks, a party was arranged to attempt to get through to Brigue (where the big trains run) on skis, 10 miles. Two Swiss guides led the party as they knew where the road track ought to be in the places where the snow had collected. About 15 of us, male and female, set off, armed with rations. I now know what Arctic explorers have to go through! Walking on skis is an exhausting business: it is a different thing skimming down a ski-track. And to add to our troubles, thick snow began falling when we had gone about 4 miles. We simply had to stop at a village which had escaped being avalanched, and stay overnight. Swiss snow is of course very thick, and the guides had all their work cut out to get along. But at length we did arrive at Brigue, and I had just time for a hot bath and a meal before catching a train for Paris. I intended staying with friends with Paris for a few days, but on arrival there was a message (several days old) from Richmond to say both Florence and Di were in bed with 'flu, and both very poorly. I rang up the airport at once, and caught a 'plane, and got here to find our good friend Mrs.Clatworthy (a doctor's wife I have known since my Kennington days) in charge, with a nurse coming in daily, and the excellent woman we have had coming in daily for about a year. (We always arrange for Mrs.Clatworthy to be on tap in case of illness or emergency when I am away from Richmond: she is a very capable person). Well, that was over two weeks ago. Temperatures have soared and such: one has seemed at her last gasp, then rallied: then the other has had a bad turn. And so it has gone on. The present situation is that Florence is getting up for a few hours every day, and walking, with assistance, into another room. But she is very frail: and she has become rather senile. But the Dr. says she has lots of vitality and will pull through gradually. Poor Di has had the worse time, and she is still very poorly. That throat trouble keeps her back, and she has a recurrent cough that nothing will shift. The Dr. has given her penicillin injections and lots of linctuses. And she is very weak as she has lived on brandy and Brand's essence and Bovril and milk now for a month. She simply cannot eat anything. But her temperature is down: I think she has got over the worst. It takes it out of young people when they have 'flu: so one can understand it hits the old very badly. There has been a lot about. Of course, I am tied to my post, more or less, under these circumstances. Mrs.Clatworthy went when I arrived: and we get along quite well with a nurse and our valuable woman. But there is a great deal to do with two sick rooms in a house: like a nursing home. The Dr. did try to get them into a nursing home at the beginning, but there was not a bed to be had anywhere!
Well, so much for our troubles!
So the House of Barton has ended! There were in many ways a tragic family. Florence and Di knew them from childhood. The two sons George and Willie (both Cambridge men) came to bad ends. George married a daughter of Sir William Pink and took orders: but both he and his wife became inebriates and died terrible deaths. Willie also became an inebriate, and ended up in a home for destitutes in Australia (during my time at A.). I remember Aunt Barty telling me of it, weeping, when the news came. It was the only time I ever heard the brothers mentioned: but Gertrude would never have intoxicating liquor in the house. The sister Isabel went off her head, and, according to F & D, was very callously treated by Gertrude. But I wouldn't know. I never regarded Gertrude, as Mr.Waddy does, as a saint. I thought she evaded issues, and sheltered behind other people, but worked to get her own way in little cunning strategems. I never believed in her simplicity. Of the family I preferred Aunt Barty: but she was really a pathetic character, living in a world of grandeur created by her imagination. She was quite obsessed with the picture of herself as one who had known everyone and talked with all the great ones of the earth. Titles adorned her reminiscences like jewels in a crown. I always remember how Constance Russell (who was a very penetrating woman of the world) used to sum her up when I talked with her at the Park. I see, by the way, that Miss Romola Russell was not at the funeral. Was she down with the 'flu? The Bartons used to claim they were most intimate friends of Romola. Well, it is all over now. I do hope I am not uncharitable in my judgements but I like to see things straight, without humbug. I suppose it's the strain of French realism in me!
And now Cooper is going downhill. I didn't know until this morning when I read your letter, and one from Newby Stanbridge, who says the trouble is a growth in the throat. I don't know when I shall get to see Sir A. Perhaps in a few weeks, when the situation here is clearer, I will write and ask him if he is well enough to see me.
My Nicholls research? Don't make me laugh. But I shall go to it eventually.
I had a 'phone call from the (now retired) Bishop of Bloemfontein this evening wishing me many happy returns. He arrived in England yesterday, and is staying at S.John the D. Vicarage. I told him I could neither see him, nor have him here, yet. He is here for six months. I am hoping to have him at Menton for a week or two later on: and we have scouted the idea of a motor trip to Naples from there.
I think I have earned my Peter Scott birthday card with this long letter. Do give my kindest remembrances to Mrs.Sexton, Mrs.Miles and the Davis's. I always felt on the happiest terms with the staff at the School.
Yours sincerely,"