als in which her poems
appeared were _The Observer_, _The Sunday Times_, _The Daily Chronicle,_
the _Westminster Gazette_ and _The New Witness_. Personally I have
never much admired Frances's verse, but a professional journalist
might have been quite pleased at "making" all these papers. Not one
poem ever appeared in a Parish Magazine so far as either Dorothy or I
have been able to ascertain. The point is not a very important one
but the sneer is symptomatic.

A curious magic pervades _The Chestertons:_ succulent sausages appear
in the kitchen at Overstrand Mansions, and flowing torrents of beer,
so that Gilbert can steal away from an unsympathetic wife to consume
them with his Fleet Street friends. A studio materialises in a meadow
at Beaconsfield. Can we imagine Gilbert cooking or even ordering
sausages, getting beer to the flat, designing or discovering the
studio? Anyone thinking about what really happened would realise that
Frances ordered the beer and sausages, Frances built the studio. But
that is not the sort of thought we are to think about Frances.

About her we are told: that she always wore the wrong colors: that
she gave Gilbert insufficient and indigestible food: that she did not
know what work meant: that Mrs. Belloc thought Gilbert ought to beat
her: that she kept the journalists away when Gilbert was dying (in
point of fact both telephone and door bell were so near the sick room
that the use of both had to be avoided): that she did not give her
guests enough to eat at his funeral: that she actually sought the
quiet of her own room instead of staying downstairs to receive
condolences when her husband's coffin had just been lowered into the
grave.

With all this spate of detail, we are not told that Frances left
L1000 to Mrs. Cecil plus L500 for her Cecil Houses.

Even if I could have ignored the attack on Frances, I should be
obliged as his biographer to deal with the attack on Gilbert--more
subtly but no less certainly made. The story of the marriage affects
Gilbert as much as Frances, and the book culminates in the final
assertion that his drinking killed him. Here are the comments (sent
to me by Dorothy) of the doctor who attended Gilbert and Frances from
1919 until they died:

"Today Dr. Bakewell came in and answered the questions about the book
which we asked him.

"(1) He says that the idea that G.K. was better when drinking in Fleet
Street because the stimulus of conversation would eat up