father, Alexander Mosley. Sir George telegraphed Dollie:
Royal Hospital Chelsea
Miss Mosley, Library Ramp, Gibraltar.
Your letter and telegram received. Jack on Mongolia. We have telegraphed Port Said all we could to prevent him going to Gibraltar but he is intent on learning your unbiased decision from yourself and I recommend your telegraphing decisively to Marseilles your unbiased personal decision about seeing him disclaiming all other influences. We will do our best from here. Show this [to] your father, George White.35
It seems that Dollie then informed her father and came to a decision, because Sir George received two telegrams despatched within minutes of each other. The first, from Dollie’s father, was blunt:
Mar. 6th [1907] At 10.15 a.m. Received 1.00 p.m.
Regret [your] sons proposed action which must inevitably end in grave scandal positively refuse allow him enter my house have done my duty in warning you and am not responsible consequences.
Alexander Mosley.36
The second demonstrated that Jack did not have a monopoly in the future partnership on precipitous decisions:
Mar 6th. Gibraltar at 10.25 [1907]
To: Sir George […] Royal Hospital Chelsea
Have shown your wire to father decided to marry at once against every ones wish nowhere to go will you take me in will wire Jack meet me London – Dollie.37
Sir George replied to her demonstrating the innate kindness of the man together with a commendable lack of animosity towards Alexander Mosley (or Jack, for that matter). He telegraphed her that same afternoon, dispensing with the conventional foreshortened telegram style presumably to ensure that she understood the import of what he wanted to say:
I cannot bear to think you may be taking this vital step to prevent trouble with Jack at Gibraltar without whole heartedly wishing it yourself. Your last telegram suggests this to me. I advise your writing a letter to him here saying exactly what your feelings are as regards marrying him. Wire to him Marseilles that you have written fully here that if he comes Gibraltar you will not see him and he will irrevocably alienate you. If this and what I will wire to him does not keep him from Gibraltar nothing will. Don’t leave your home until you hear from him and also from me from London.
George White – dispatched 6/3/07 5.30p.m.38
Dollie responded in kind in a letter:
I cannot thank you enough for the fatherly interest you have taken in me and for your kind telegrams. […] I am prepared to marry him at once, but I am not disposed to undergo all the worries of another engagement – this would have to be with yours and Lady White’s consent and in your house as my father refuses to have anything to do with it and blames me very much for all the worry I have brought on him and my people. So hoping that we have been successful in stopping Jack at Marseilles and that he has come away with leave and not placed you in worse troubles over me.39
The fact that she was concerned that White might have returned from India while absent-without-leave seemed to be of concern to both Dollie and Sir George; it is an indication of their opinion of his intemperateness. It has not been established what aroused Alexander Mosley’s grievous antipathy to White, but it is unlikely that religious differences were the underlying cause, although Dollie was a Roman Catholic, probably from her mother’s side, which was Spanish. She had written earlier to Lady Amy that ‘father is still very, very angry with me and will listen to no reason, he declares if Jack turns up he will hand him over to the police’.40 It is obvious in that letter that her mother, on the other hand, was well disposed to the Whites. Dollie wrote that ‘Mother is so grateful to you for all you have done for me.’ 41 This, of course, would be surprising if it were otherwise; Sir George, as war hero and as Governor General of Gibraltar, would have established the White family as the cream of high society there. It is probably a good example of Jack White’s ability to exasperate people in even the most favourable of circumstances. White himself often appears puzzled at this tendency of his. He describes a meeting on his earlier mission to Dollie and a subsequent contretemps he had over some religious point of dogma with a Reverend Mother in Kensington Square who was Dollie’s spiritual director. He said to himself, that he was a ‘Fool, having gone to such trouble to get the girl, to be obstructive over these premature details’. But he appeared to be pathologically incapable of compromise on certain beliefs:
I was willing to give up all I had gained [Dollie] rather than compromise the right of my hypothetical hopefuls to extend this new consciousness free of dogmatic shackles. Rome too stood pre-eminently for the subordination of the inner light to external authority, individual vision to collective prudence. Rome was the enemy despite this charming and remonstrant lady.42
Although he was describing his new-found enthusiasm for some kind of divine guidance, he reveals his inability to grasp any notion of diplomacy or compromise. When he concedes that he ‘fell in love’ in Monte Carlo but did not admit it to himself until the object of his attentions informed him he had a soul the ‘size of a peanut’,43 Alexander Mosley’s reservations appear to be well founded. White’s honesty in reporting the fact that he could consider a relationship with another woman and, at the same time, cause havoc in his amorous pursuit of Dollie, is remarkable for its frankness. One can only speculate that this dalliance caused the seeming delay in his arrival that the telegrams refer to: Lady Amy complains to him at one stage, ‘have not written or forwarded letters as expecting you daily’.44 Several undated copies of telegrams record Lady Amy’s attempts to contact her son, until she finally writes to Dollie announcing that she had ‘received letter from Jack last night first communication since Sunday saying he expected your answer to his letter sent via Mongolia [the ship carrying him from India] […] wired him previously your letter awaiting him here’.45 White responded, somewhat enigmatically: ‘insist seeing Dollie this condition come home inform Marseille’.46 This appears to say that he is demanding to see Dollie whatever the consequences. In return, his mother tells him that ‘Dollie has written me imploring you not to go to Gib now and appeals to you not to place her in a false position.’ She continues that this ‘would destroy every vestige [of] hope Come home direct’.47 White appeared to finally relent, and Lady Amy reported to Dollie:
Mar. 11th. 8p.m. to Miss Mosley, Library Ramp. Gibraltar.
Yours received. Jack wired from Marseilles Saturday begins. [‘] Never dreamt of going unasked [to] Gibraltar please write removing false impression if created by you. I remain here [’] ends. I then wired again urging him come home. We have heard nothing his movements since. Did you wire to him Marseilles saying you had written to him fully here [?] Amy White [emphasis added to indicate White’s words].48
Lady Amy finished the correspondence by advising both parties that arrangements would have to be formalised before they were admitted to the White household. In a telegram to White she wrote on 16 March 1907:
Captain White care King Company Marseilles.
Your letter wire received. Had expected you here daily. Letter from Dollie for you been here several days. She writes most hopefully for you. But father won’t invite her here till all preliminaries definitely settled with you both. Come wire movements, Mother.49
A similar message was despatched to Dollie. Surprisingly, because of all the concerns, White ‘went home overland from Monte Carlo and stayed’, as he said, ‘with my people at Chelsea Hospital. From there I corresponded with Gibraltar and things began to come right’.50 However, further disruptions had to be faced before matters were completely resolved; the intransigence of the Catholic Church in insisting on the offspring of a mixed marriage being
