The New Negro by Alain LeRoy Locke — Read

It probably came as a surprise to Mary Locke that her son was taking such an extensive trip at the end of his first term. The previous month she had written and asked for money and he had written back that he was broke. Mary had been strapped for funds since his leaving, since fewer students were coming to the after-school tutoring and music lessons she relied on for extra money. With some justice, she might have felt that given his full scholarship, he could help her out financially and reimburse her for the money she had sent him the previous summer when he could not find work in Cambridge. But Locke's mind was made up about his vacation: he had sent his mother £18 in October and was not about to sacrifice his vacation with Downes to send her more. And he justified the vacation trip by arguing it was cheaper to live outside of Oxford. In fact, it was: he and Downes were able to board for a pound a week each while living at the Bay View Inn on Jersey. But economizing was not the major motivation. Away from Oxford, he would avoid the southerners and would be able to spend time alone with Downes, his closest friend at Oxford and probably his lover by this time. Perhaps if the affair blossomed on the trip, his creative abilities might flourish, and, in the shadow of "the beautiful cathedrals that we want to see," he might become a short-story writer and escape an academic career altogether.

True to Locke's word, he left for London on December 7, where he and Downes stayed again at the Ward Hotel, seeing the sights for five days, until they "crossed the English channel-and such a crossing-a terrible gale-decks awash all the way over-I was not seasick only sick of the sea." After landing safely, they spent the next three weeks on Jersey, "a beautiful island-cliffs and sun and sea … flowers are blooming here-imagine it," as he wrote to his mother along with best wishes for a happy Christmas. Locke did not write his mother again until January 3, perhaps a result of Downes's impatience with Locke's letter writing. That impatience may signal that Downes saw loosening the umbilical cord with Mary as a condition of their greater intimacy. Locke also may have refrained from writing because there were few interesting sightseeing details to relay to his mother while he was sequestered with Downes on Jersey.