A. left in his yacht. He said he would be back in London by the first of October. He is stopping at Plymouth on the way.
Mrs Housman asked me if I had finished _Les Misérables_. I said I had not gone on with it. She read aloud from it in the afternoon.
I leave to-morrow to stay with Aunt Ruth. I have to be in London on the 19th. Lady Jarvis went to the village, we stayed in the garden. After dinner, Mrs Housman sang some Schubert. She leaves Cornwall at the end of the month and then goes to Florence, where she stays rill Easter or perhaps longer.
_Monday, October_ 3_rd. London, Gray's Inn_.
Cunninghame and A. both came back to-day. Cunninghame asked me to dine with him to-morrow.
Dined with Cunninghame alone in his flat. He said that he knew I had some R.C. friends, perhaps I knew a priest. I said the only priest I had ever spoken to was Father Stanway at Carbis Bay. He said he wanted to consult a priest about certain rules in the R.C. Church. He wanted to know under what conditions a marriage could be annulled. A friend of his wanted a married woman to get her marriage annulled as her husband was living with someone else. He wanted to know whether the marriage could be annulled. I said I knew who he was talking about. He said he had meant me to know. He had promised A. to find out from a priest. A. had been told by her that it was out of the question to get the marriage annulled. It had been a marriage entered into by her own free will and performed with every necessary condition of validity. Of course she was very young when she was married and didn't know what she was doing, but that had nothing to do with it. Her aunt and the nuns in the convent where she had been brought up had thought it was an excellent marriage, as he was well off and a Catholic. Cunninghame begged me to go and see a priest. I said I did not know how this was done. I suggested his asking his cousin, Mrs Caryl. He said she was in Paris and that would be no use, it would not satisfy A. I said I would think about it.
I asked Tuke where and how one could find a priest who would be able to tell one the rules of the Church with regard to marriage. Tuke said any of the Fathers at Farm Street or the Oratory. In the afternoon I went to the Oratory, sent in my card and asked to see a priest. I sat in a little waiting-room downstairs. Presently a tall man came in with very bright eyes and a face with nothing but character left in it. I told him I had come for a friend. It was a case of divorce, or rather of annulment. I knew his Church did not tolerate divorce. I was, myself, not a Catholic. It was the case of a lady, a Catholic, who had married a Catholic. The husband had always been unfaithful and was now almost openly living with someone else. Could the marriage be annulled? The priest asked whether she desired the marriage to be annulled. I told him she had said it was impossible. He asked whether the marriage had been performed under all conditions of validity. I said I did not myself know what these conditions were, but that she had expressly said that the marriage had been performed with her own free will, with every necessary condition of validity. I knew she thought it was out of the question to think of the marriage being annulled, but there was someone who was most devoted to her and wanted to marry her, and he was not satisfied with her saying it was impossible. He wanted the decision confirmed by a priest and that was why I had come. The priest said he was afraid from what I had told him that it was no use thinking of annulment. It was clear from what I had said she knew quite well the conditions that make it possible to apply for the annulment of a marriage. He said he was sure it was a hard case. If I liked he would lend me a book which went into the matter in detail. I said I would not trouble him. It would be enough that I had seen him and heard this from him. I then went away. I went straight back to the office and told C. the result of my visit. He was most grateful to me for having done this. He said he was dining with A. to-night. He said A. was in a terrible state.