MANUSCRIPT: Five Manuscript Diaries.
Five volumes of autograph diaries of self-proclaimed 'Artist in Emotions' Marie Kate Nina Marguerite ('Margie') Baxter (later Few) of Hetherwood, Reigate, Surrey, titled by her 'The Adventures of "Richard", written in the style of a romantic novel.
Hetherwood, Reigate, and Shalford, Surrey; Paris, France. The five volumes numbered 20 (November 1906 to January 1907), 25 (November 1907 to February 1908), 30 (December 1908 to July 1909), 31 (July and August 1909) and 36 (March to December 1911). The five volumes, totalling upwards of 900pp., in folio notebooks (not uniform) with labels on spines and front boards. With occasional pen drawings in the text, and other matter, including postcards, newspaper cuttings, programmes, tipped in or laid down. Internally good and tight, on lightly-aged paper, in worn and pitted bindings. The diaries of a socially ambitious, middle-class young woman with a talent for self-dramatisation, living a life of ease in snobby Reigate, written in an energetic and high-spirited style more than a little reminiscent of the Mapp and Lucia novels of E. F. Benson. Vol.25 contains an account of a trip to Bristol and Clifton College with 'Reggie', and vol.30 an account of a visit to Oxford with 'Dot & Joyce'. In vol.31 she travels up to Glen Rothes. The last of the five volumes (vol.36) sees Margie Blake married, and moving in grander circles in Paris; it also contains an account of 'the Coronation Progress' of King George V, with copy the programme laid down. In 1921 Marguerite Few published in Cambridge 'Laughing Gas and Other Poems', and vol.25 contains the autograph poems 'Ode to Someone Else's Aunt' and 'Ode to - a collar!!!!' Vol.30 contains 'The Scratch of the Season', which 'celebrates the ferocious Badminton quarrel between Mrs Mates & Miss Caster, - the which poem was sent anonymously to Luther Bidlake by Madeleine & me, - as he was Match Secretary, & had originally made known to us the reason of the Dispute'. Loosely inserted in vol.30 is another autograph poem (2pp., 4to), beginning 'Now cease ye female gossips from embroidering your Tates'. The title of the first volume, accompanied by quotations from Nietzsche and others, is typical of Baxter's ebullient style: 'Vol. XX. Nov. 06. "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel". The Diary of "Richard" Baxter, a plain girl - sometime Poet Laureate at Allenswood, Wimbledon Park. Written at Hetherwood & other places'. At the head of the first page of Vol. 25 Baxter styles herself 'MARGIE BAXTER | ARTIST IN EMOTIONS'. Vol. 31 is subtitled 'Volume 31 of the Alarums & Excursions of Margie, with an account of her adventures in sundry places with sundry people.' According to her husband's entry in Who Was Who, Margie Baxter's mother was 'Marie, elder daughter of late Peter de Mauritz, Russian Privy Councillor and Private Sec. to Empress of Russia', and her writing style reflects her exotic origins. At the start of Vol. 20 is a long account of a house party 'at Holman's', in a style strongly reminiscent of a romantic novel. It begins: 'Alas! for Luther Bidlake! - I have met the Man! (I think.) Having cried "Wolf! Wolf!" at intervals of two weeks for the last three years, I feel slightly mistrustful of impressions received. He is David Cree. It happened thus [...]'. The account contains the following characteristic passage: 'At this point the gentlemen came in. I heard David all the way upstairs. He was talking very noisily & behaving worse than ever. We three exchanged glances, & I put on my most chilling expression. David threw himself down on the floor as near me as possible (I was sitting between Joyce & Mrs Holman.) He began to stare in an expiring-frog-upon-a-log kind of fashion, talked to or at me the whole time. Presently he announced, with a bang of his huge fist on the floor, that: "I give you up! You're absolutely hopeless!" The noise grew so great that Mrs Holman whispered to me that if I sang it would quiet them down. So I sang. I asked Reg to take second. We were singing the "Willow-waley-o" duet out of Patience. I quizzed Reg about his expression. He stopped dead, rose from the piano, refused to continue. All the men stared at him. It was an extraordinary exhibition of temper. David came & apologised for talking while I was singing. He leant on the piano & stared into my face in the most foolish manner. I told him to go away, & he went. He & Reg & the Eccles sat on a sofa & listened. David stared. Reg glared. The Eccles seemed faintly amused. I sang & sang & sang. They applauded & demanded yet more.' Following this incident she has her fortune told by 'Mrs Sinclair', who says that she will 'marry a diplomat in less than two years, & should have a personal influence over two-thirds of Europe. (which is just the sort of career that would suit me exactly!!!!)'. On 17 December 1907, in Bristol: 'This morning Reg took me to see his Boys' Schools. It was most embarrassing. They all stood up when we came in, saluted, & said in perfect time: "Good morning ma'am!" I have never been so taken aback in my life. Then all the boys stared at me, & one little wretch tried to make me laugh. I have faced an audience of six hundred grown men in the heart of London, but these some & 6 boys made me feel a perfect fool. Curious thing.' Flirting is a theme throughout the volumes. On 4 December 1908 she writes: 'Well, I felt it in my bones that Harold Gabell was going to be a nuisance - & I was right. He has got to he engratiating [sic] stage, & is most leechlike. The worst of it is that he is so abominably clever. He works me into a temper, & then makes me laugh, & he has alienated Kenneth.' On 10 August 1909 she writes, of her future husband: 'Robin Few asked me to marry him, & I said no. It was simply horrible. I would have spared him the pain, but when I think of Kenneth I'm glad I did it.' The proposal takes place while punting on the River Wey, near Shalford. 'It was the sweetest spot where we anchored [...] Robin's conversation ran out, & he began to stare openly. I opened my book, & announced my intention of reading. My impressions of the story, however, are vague, because I kept catching sight of Robin Few over the top [...] Robin Few then deliberately sat up, & fixed me with his eye. I wouldn't look up from my book, though the page was a blank, & I felt very, very frightened. | "BEFORE WE GO HOME MARGIE", began a strangled voice that I recognised as Robin's . . . (I knew I was done then, but pretended I had not noticed.) | - "Must we go home?" I asked lazily. | - "Margie, will you answer me one question?"' [...] He could not wait. Had loved me for two years, & felt he could not go through another Paris season having nothing & everything.' The beginning of vol.36 sees the Fews married, and staying in Paris, where she is able to indulge her snobbery on a grander scale. On 11 October 1911: 'We had tea with Mrs Newton, & met a really nice Vicomte de Villeneuve who was half Dutch & half French, a widower with two little boys. He said he had fought against us in the Boer War of 1899, & told us how during the armistices he used to ride in & smoke with the Royal Horse Artillery.' The last volume contains rumblings of future trouble. Mrs Few writes from Lancaster Gate, London, on 8 April 1911: 'Cyril Rattigan [with whom she had 'fallen head over ears in love' after Robin Few's proposal in the punt] is coming back into my life. Somehow, I always thought he would, although it seemed too good to be true.' By the end of the last volume she is becoming blasi. On 10 August 1911 ('Two years to-day since Robin proposed to me') she writes 'Living with Robin, & seeing the world, I am grown critical.' At the end of the volume is a long list of 'Married Allenswood girls of my time', including 'Eleanor Rooseveldt. [sic] (Mrs Franklin Roosevelt.)'
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