In addition to playing piano, for which she won 2 gold medals and then stopped playing, she became part of the circle around G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells. She was a member of the Fabian Society and attended Theosophy lectures. In 1907, not long before her marriage to Hughes, she had a brief affair with the sculptor, printmaker and typographer Eric Gill, with whom both she and Jack were lifelong friends. Jack rented a cottage in Ditchling, where Gill was located, in the summer of 1919, and Jack, Meena and Pat all stayed there.