The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 47
xxxxx
Sivvy
PS* – So pleased about your prize – the first time I’ve ever know of anyone to win one of those things – good for Dot for spotting it! And I’m very touched at you putting it in the bank for the first grandchild. Either Nicholas * Farrar Hughes or Frieda Rebecca (to be probably called Rebecca – I’m bored by Katharine). Wouldn’t you like a Becky? And the Frieda after Aunt Frieda? All sorts of signs point to a Nicholas – he’s patron saint of pawnbrokers & wolves (which does appeal to Ted). Don’t forget to tell us how much our bank account total is at the 5¢ when you’ve put those last checks in. So I can keep a record here – I love to see it grow & we hope always to leave it there.
xxx
s
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 24 January 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
‘Stair’, ‘HALL’, ‘BATH’, ‘Sink’, ‘Stove’, ‘KITCHEN’, ‘Fridge?’,
‘Tiny closet’, ‘BED ROOM’, ‘LIVING ROOM’.
SP has added red pencil lines indicating ‘paper on walls’; with captions:
‘Two windows, one small, kitchen are big, overlooking backyards’;
‘Ted will build twin bookcases to the ceiling in these alcoves’
(with arrows pointing to alcoves in livingroom);
‘Three big windows overlooking green square, trees –
full of light & airy’;
and ‘3 Chalcot Square, London N.W.1’>
Sunday, January 24
Dearest mother,
Ted & I are back at the Beacon again on what should be, if all goes well, our last trip for a year. We have found the best way of getting up from London: a 4-hour express to Manchester, then a 1-hour train to Hebden Bridge, & the bus up to the moor-tops. I simply can’t travel long distances on the busses here: they are unbelievably cramped & take twice as long as trains & stop at “tea-shops” where not even the tea is drinkable. I always make a picnic when we travel, take along a bottle of milk, a loaf of Jewish rye bread, sliced & buttered, cheese, fruit chocolate & occasionally hardboiled eggs. I have been eating well, as we buy our food in London to cook at Helga & Danny Huws’ place where we stay, & Helga is a cook after my own heart: makes marvelous applesauce, a sort of yoghurt pudding with lemon juice & sugar, and once, at the start of our long, exhausting search when I was very downcast brought out a tin of “pepper-bread” (the nearest I can translate: her German sounded like pfeffer-brot), a spicy gingerbread with glazed almonds on it, & little crescent sand-tarts from a tin in her nursery cupboard. I must say all her Germanic-ness, her German talk to the adorable little baby girl Madelin & her rigorously clean housekeeping has sustained me through a very difficult period. I think I will give her a little wooden peppermill as a thank-you present & look forward to trying out Dot’s carrot fruit-cake & my Christmas cookies next year: she will be a wonderful appreciator of them. Of course she puts up with a lot of things I could never countenance, such as no bathroom (only a toilet in the basement & no tub in the house) & no good heating & no good parks or gardens nearby, but the baby is spotless, in fine health.
I meant send the mail on here to the Beacon. After February 1st to 3 Chalcot Square, London N.W.1. I have drawn a little plan of the apartment. You can see it is small, but such a clean, new place (except for the 100 year-old floorboards) that the brightness makes up for it all. The tiny bathroom is newly put in, the walls scraped, the doors new & painted white, the woodwork white & the three windows in the front overlook a quiet green square instead of opposite housefronts: a rare blessing except in the Society Squares in the wealthy sections. As I say, we have ordered marbled black linoleum (quite expensive: 12'4d. about $1.75 a square yard---how does that compare to home prices?) for bathroom, hall & kitchen, which are so small it won’t amount to more than $30. The landlord offered to paper the whole place, allowing a price of abt. $1.50 an 11 foot roll. We spent a morning at the hugest paper store in London Friday & for all the choice could find only about 3 papers we liked among the horrible, badly drawn assortment---even the very expensive ones suffered from a grim Victorian hangover. But those we picked we liked very much, especially the bedroom paper of roses on white. By having half the house papered & planning to paint livingroom & hall & two short walls in the kitchen ourselves (probably white as background to pictures) over a lining paper they will put up, we think the landlord will allow us the extra shilling per roll on the more expensive paper we chose. The kitchen paper is washable, & we’ll go over the bathroom paper with one of the waterproofing preparations they have here. We’ll paint the bedroom & livingroom floors a whited grey---or Ted will, for he’ll do the heavy work. Our stove & bed are ordered to come February 1st, Monday. The papering & linoleum should be done by then. I am of course prepared for things to be held up or go wrong here & there, but hope for the best.
By the way, don’t send us back the 3 stories of Ted’s from Mlle, as I asked in my last letter unless it’s too late. We wondered if we gave you the dregs of our checking account (abt. $25) after I’ve paid the few bills I’m still waiting to get from it, if you’d send out a few stories to American places on our instructions? Or if this would be too much bother. It’s only 9¢ to send out a heavy ms with no letter marked “Educational Matter” under the new law, & 9¢ for the enclosed stamped, returned-addressed envelope. Let us know if you’d be willing to do this. Have Ted’s 2 stories come back from the NYorker yet? Or my 3 from the Atlantic? * Did you find the manila envelopes we made out for Ted’s stories in the bookcase in your room? As I say, do send on any bills & any letters of acceptance or rejection. Ted’s poem ‘Tomcat’* came out in the Jan. 9th NYorker we hear. Did you get a copy forwarded from them? Or can you get one? Do cut out the Ladies’ Home Journal article on babies* & send it on. There are only British women’s magazines on the usual newsstands here & they are awful. Next Christmas you might think of a subscription to the LHJ for me, or the NY! I need a constant flow of Americana to enrich my blood!
Went to bed at 10 last night & slept 12 hours. Feel fine now. I try not to get out-of-temper with things up here: no eggs in on a Sunday, all the fry-pans filthy with old grease & rinds & stuck back in the oven. Mrs. H. never gets up till afternoon & I find myself in the position of being unable to eat most of her cooking: over-stewed meat in a leaden, burnt piecrust, canned apples in the same sort of crust, ugh! She just won’t learn. I find myself particularly sensitive now & yearn for a little of your delicate tasty mothering, full fridge & marvelous snacks. Luckily we are only 1 mile from a magnificent open market & shopping center. Bought chicken livers (cat-food here) at less than 50¢ a lb & made myself a great panful with bacon in London. Will see my doctor the 1st week in Feb. when we move in & meet my midwife then & tell you all about it. Do write often to make up for your absence. Your letters are a tonic.
xxx
Sivvy
PS: Ted’s revision of his children’s book MEET MY FOLKS! has been definitely approved of by TSEliot & the Faber editors, & his 3 stories SNOW, SUNDAY & THE RAIN HORSE will appear along with those of 5 other new authors in an anthology called INTRODUCTION* put out by Faber next fall (not any money in this to speak of, abt. $60 for the right to use the lot, but a good start!)
Do write more about your program for remedial reading: PLEASE say your giving up summer-session won’t mean a change in your plans to come to England in ’61!
What poems did Harper’s reject?
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 27 January 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1
Wednesday, January 27th
Dearest mother,
Received your forwardings, being Ted’s proof of The Rain Horse from the London Magazine, my proof from Harpers of “Mushrooms” & the other bits. Many thanks. The Harper’s magazines * with Ted’s story in ha
ven’t come yet: we’re looking for them eagerly. Did you give a copy of the Magazine to Mrs. Prouty? I’m about to write her.* We’re going down to London over the weekend to paint the floors & livingroom & hall walls of our little flat, although the bed & stove aren’t ordered till Monday the 1st when we officially move in. The smallness of the flat has one advantage in that it will be easy & inexpensive to fix up very prettily. Do say what you think about what I told you of the bed & stove & how prices compare with American. We will wait until we are settled before looking for a refrigerator: I don’t suppose I shall be able to get the American size. Most of them here are half that height, with very small freezer units. The most expensive of the models I’ve looked at is about $175. Is that outrageous? I really don’t want to waste money getting these few main things second hand, as I am no judge of quality about machinery & will need a lot more experience before I become one. As I said, the Guggenheim will pay for these 3 big items, bed, stove & fridge, & keep us for a good six months, so Ted will have some time to make up for the loss of these two tiring months traveling & flat-hunting to do some really concentrated writing. We hope to be able to rent a windowed storeroom during the day, or something equivalent, from the lady upstairs in the attic,* or, if not from her, nearby, for Ted to write in. And in a year, or a year & a half, locate a bigger place in the same area, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the pleasantest in London.
I made a mushroom omlette for breakfast & have been having a very pleasant & relaxing day, our trunks being packed & sent off to London at last. Ted has constructed a bird-feeding station & a clothesline wrapped with bacon rinds just outside the picture window, so against a backdrop of blue-misty green fields and blurred trees, I have been watching the marvelous little birds come: tiny robins, round, with a patch of warm orange like a bib; blue tits, smaller-than-sparrow-size versions of our jays; and the lovely multicolored chaffinches. I feel in very good health: quite recovered from my London stays, washed, shampooed, well-fed. I start the day with orange & grapefruit juice, drink lots of milk, eat brown bread, bananas. In a bit I shall make your nice apple crisp for dessert tonight, to have with steak & new potatoes. I am taking iron pills & every so often sleeping pills (not barbiturates) like those you gave me, for the baby kicks so much at night (it seems to wake up then) that it keeps me awake & then I’m always having to get up to the bathroom. So this way I can assure myself of a good night’s sleep, which is really the foundation of my health: when I am as rested as I am now I feel I can cope with anything, while when I allow myself to get tired, I feel very homesick & blue. I really look forward to next week, settling in, and having sometime just to rock back & forth looking happily ahead to the baby! I have been rushing about so much I hardly notice being pregnant at all. I am an impressive size now, & got out the pretty red-quilted reversible top this week, the roomiest of the things we bought, which I had been saving, & feel quite new in it: a pleasant change. My only actual symptoms are a tendency to backache after standing, or typing (walking doesn’t tire me: I manage two or three to five miles a day) & occasional heartburn which is evidently natural: I haven’t much room for a stomach & have a very good appetite. Am looking forward to having the baby at home: I’d hate to be in a crowded hospital here for 12 (!) days, eating tasteless food. Ted will take wonderful care of me & is a fine cook in his own right. Can you get used to Frieda Rebecca as a girl’s name? I think I’ll write Aunt Frieda about it, as I’m sure it would please her to know I want to name my first girl after her (even if this is a Nicholas Farrar, as I’m sure it will be). Isn’t it wonderful to have a children’s book ready to be dedicated to whoever it is!
The 3 stories Faber’s will publish in their anthology next fall are: SNOW, SUNDAY & THE RAIN HORSE (the only ones Ted’s sent them). Now, if you are willing, some notes for sending out stories (have the 2 NYorker stories come back yet?) Hold the Atlantic envelopes for the time-being & put SNOW, SUNDAY and THE CANING (wait to get this from the NewYorker) together with a manila envelope stamped with 9¢, marked “Educational Matter” & addressed to Ted c/o you, into a big manila envelope stamped with 9¢ & also marked “Educational Matter” & send the stories (in this order of arrangement: SNOW, THE CANING, SUNDAY) to: Miss Katherine Gauss Jackson,* HARPER’S, 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, New York. When the stories have come back from there, from the NYorker also send SNOW, THE CANING, & MISS MAMBRETT & THE WET CELLAR to Editor Edward Weeks at the Atlantic in the envelopes we made out (they’ve seen SUNDAY already). Is that too complicated? We’ve made some changes in Petty Quinnett & need to retype it before sending out again. Let us know if these 2 moves are clear. Forward all mail to our new address now as we’ll be working there from tomorrow on! We’ll pick up any that’s about to arrive here or at Rugby Street. Do write. Love to you & to Warren: how is he?
xxxxx
Sivvy
Did you get the 3 checks I sent? Has my monthly statement, with cancelled checks, come from my Weston Rd. checking acct. yet? I’d like to get that cleared up.
Since having the baby will cost me next to nothing, I plan to put Mrs. Prouty’s $300 into things which will make life easy for me and the baby: a layette (rubber sheets, etc.), a crib big enough to last a few years, a carriage (any advice?) diaper service & so on. Don’t tell her this, though – she’d be happier thinking I paid a doctor! Ted wears his lovely wool red & grey shirt all the time.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath & Warren Plath
Tuesday 2 February 1960
TLS, Indiana University
Tuesday
February 2nd, 1960
Dearest Mother, Warren & Sappho,
This is the first piece of mail to go out from our new residence. I am sitting typing at an old unpainted table loaned us by our friends the Merwins (who are loaning us chairs, a divan & china until we have leisure to find our own bargains), listening to hammers, clanking chisels, and the cries of children in the green square “Chalcot Square Gardens” the sign says below. These days will be given up to cleaning, painting & making shelves & shopping---the workmen are still with us, fixing the toilet cisterns & hot water taps (heated by a large gas tank on the wall in the kitchen) today. Yesterday they put the gas meters in, installed the stove, which is the most beautiful I have ever seen or worked on---four handsome burners which click to two positions “Full” or “Simmer”, so there is no problem about low heat without the gas going out, my grill below, with a separate flame (I don’t like floor-broilers, as there is too much kneeling or squatting to look at them---I just barely bend for this one) and then the roomy oven. This was a “reconditioned” model---used for a bit & completely made over. There isn’t a sign of wear on it, and, as I said, it is 50 dollars (£20) less than the exact-same streamlined model new this year except for the timer. Mine runs by electricity & is made so you can set it & cook a meal while you’re out all day. I wish you could see the stove! You will of course, in time. I loved putting out my beautiful pots and pans, Warren---I always think of you when I use them, which is often each day.
The bed came yesterday, too. Six feet six inches long & five feet wide---most of my sheets don’t tuck in at the side as the mattress is thick. We had a wonderful sleep on it last night, exhausted to the bone as we were from workmen arriving all day yesterday & all our trunks, suitcases & so on to be unpacked downstairs & carried up by armloads---the trunks are much too heavy to get up the narrow winding stair, especially as it is full of workmen’s tools. Ted did all that lugging of all our books & clothes. We learned today that when we bought the bed the warehouse made a mistake & quoted us a price $30 less than it should have been, but we were allowed to have the bed for the price we paid (59 pounds---the best, with two pillows amounting to about $170), which is nice. My pride and joy arrives Thursday: a beautiful refrigerator made by LEC, a British firm that does airplanes etc. Most of the friges here are diminutive---waist-high, with a table-surface top, about 3½ cubic feet capacity, a freezer just big enough for icecubes. Women here need a salestalk to
buy one---most of them just use “cold-cupboards”, the coldest windowsill or closet! At an expense of only about $30 more than the usual cupboard model, we are getting a marvel (abt.$200) with 6 cubic feet of space, a door inlaid with egg-racks, butter racks etc. and the biggest freezer I’ve seen yet here, going right across the top instead of at the side corner like our Willow Street freezer. It runs on electricity & is handsome. We looked at all sorts before choosing it, & think it a fine investment (do tell me your opinions on all this!)