Gertrude Bell by Georgina Howell Page A

that an essay she had written on Cromwell did not merit his usual comment of “Excellent” because she had assumed facts without proving them and ignored counterarguments, she wrote home indignantly to justify herself to her father: “The fault of my essay is that I tried to prove that Cromwell was
right
when I need only have proved that he was
not wrong
.”
    She now had plenty to do, she felt, and begged Florence to let her give up embroidery and piano lessons. Her learning to play, she said, was a “pure waste of time,” craftily adding, “Fancy the amount more books I could read in the practising hour.” Her stepmother, who believed that nothing was to be gained without persistence, did not succumb to this tempting prospect, and wrote that she must continue. Gertrude allowed a few weeks to pass, and then set to work on her father. Hugh interceded—as he always would intercede on her behalf—and she was at last allowed to give up the piano, if not the embroidery needle.
    If she regarded those two skills as optional, she was falling in love with poetry, a pleasure that would endure throughout her life. At fourteen,she had snubbed her cousin Horace because he hadn’t read Robert Browning’s latest volume. Now she was writing home to say, “I’ve done Milton most of today. I always feel I could stand on my head for want of a better outlet for my delight after Lycidas or Comus. It’s very difficult to keep the knowledge of all that exquisite beauty to myself without discussing it with anyone.”
    In her stream of letters home, the difference in her relationship with her father and that with her mother was becoming apparent. She still depended on her father’s judgement on the larger questions, and now wrote to him specifically to ask his opinion of Home Rule for Ireland and the fate of Gladstone and the Liberal Party. She would write to Florence in a different vein when she wanted a new cotton dress, for instance, so that when she was taken to visit Maurice and her cousin Herbert Marshall at Eton she would look her best. She was now a very attractive young woman. Her green gaze was rather confrontational and her nose was a little sharp, but she had a strong, slim figure, a good carriage, and bundles of beautiful, untidy auburn hair.
    Her two history teachers, Mr. de Soyres and Mr. Rankine, felt that she was a brilliant pupil, as did Mr. Cramb, the history master. She had earned the right to go further with her education, they decided, and in her last term she wrote to ask her father if she might go to Oxford. Hugh and Florence had some way to go before they would be convinced. Florence might have given way on Gertrude’s schooling, but Oxford she had never considered for a daughter. Having travelled up to London to discuss the issue with Mrs. Croudace, though, it was finally agreed. Gertrude was enrolled at Lady Margaret Hall, one of the two women’s colleges at Oxford, in 1886.
    Meeting the alarming Lady Stanley, a founder of Cambridge’s Girton College, Gertrude told Florence: “I felt rather guilty when I shook hands with her—rather as if ‘I’m not going to Girton’ were written on my forehead, but she didn’t say anything!”
    In 1885 she heard that her grandfather Lowthian had been made a baronet. She wrote to congratulate him, but told Hugh: “I may say to you I suppose that I am very sorry indeed, it’s a great pity. I think he quite deserves to have it only I wish it could have been offered and refused.” Unknown to her at the time, Hugh had not been informed. “Imagine my astonishment at opening my Times,” he had written to his mother, “tosee the announcement that the Pater is to be made a Baronet! Why have you none of you written to me?” Although he added, “I am pleased that the dear clever Pater’s merits should be recognised,” the note of hurt feelings is clear. Hugh