12 Dec 1921

12 December 1921

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

   Do you ever see all those people who used to go [to] Garsington? It seems like fifteen years ago - a Christmas morning when I came in & you were sitting up in bed covered with bright beads, little gay silk handkerchiefs, ribbons, cards, dividing your presents. You were so very sumptuous. I must say Garsington is my beau ideal of a house. Ottoline did bring it off amazingly. The appearance of the table was perfect always and the very scent was right. I shall always admire her for that. It was a triumph. Because she consulted nobody. It was all her own, and she took it so lightly - as a matter of course. I think of her breakfast cups now & her spoons with the tenderness of a burglar. I must say I do love civilized ways. At the same time driving out to Garsington in an open cart on a snowy night was rather a price to pay . . . and hard to forget - equally hard . . .
   So you have seen little Mamselle Sullivan. Isnt S. a very proud parent? I am sure he will be absorbed in his baby. Where do they live now? What a pity it is you cant get a house in St John's Wood. I think it is the one darling part of London. And I am always seeing such houses advertised on the back pages of the Sunday Times and the Observer. They sound ideal. Don't you prefer it to Hampstead? It has a charm. But perhaps that is because I lived there in Carlton Hill for a long time when I was young and very very happy.? I used to walk about there at nights - late - walking and talking on nights in spring with two brothers. [To Dorothy Brett, 13 December 1921.]