Darling Pol

by Mary Wesley

  Give my love to Robert d’Alsace, and bear in mind a broken jaw if you see him.

  I love you.

  Eric

  Chelsea – 25.8.45

  Sat. 10pm

  … The day began with a speech by Mrs Devos on equality, spoken through the bathroom door. This is not a moment at which I am abordable on that subject or any other …

  We had both better toughen up; because it is clear to me that we are in for the hell of a time. And I want my Hyacinthe-Dominic to be born.

  Sun. noon

  I met Antonia White (author of Frost in May) and took her telephone number, as she was Tom Hopkinson’s wife (one of her three annulments) and is by now a mistress of money-making as a freelance. Her eyes were even more glazed than they used to be by the fear of being hurt; which in her case leads to lunacy …

  The newspapers are full of awful warnings about domestic fuel. I’ve registered with Bull, and … shall sing and dance about returning soldiers, expectant mothers and god knows what not. Likewise there is no chance of a telephone ‘for months’, unless I get a word from Admiralty or MOI – which I shall try! …

  This week I’ve appointments with Courtauld, the Bank’s press man, and the Kemsley features editor … I see Sydney Bernstein is back in business – he’s worth trying …

  Boskenna – 26.8.45

  My love,

  … It is yet another grey day with fog horns. I am in a fair way to give up smoking. At least that’s how I feel this morning. Nausea …

  Chez Devos – 27.8.45

  Dearest love,

  A brief word because I am just going out to see Bull the Coal Merchant: and Harry at the Bank to steal some typing paper …

  Robin Feddenfn99 called (for the second time) yesterday, with no ostensible purpose. His wife is in league with mine. Are we getting action at last?

  Boskenna – 27.8.45

  … No letters from you this morning. I felt madly sick all yesterday … I am slightly less sick today and … I am thinking very hard about H-D. The more I think the more inconvenient they seem to be.fn100 It isn’t as you know that I don’t want them, it is the problems we have already looked at. That it’s very unfair on you even if you get started straight away with a good job. That it may turn out to be unfair to them. That thinking it over here I believe it might make things very much more difficult for Roger and Toby to be with us and I am sure that I should not be able to laugh off a bogus story about it.

  At the moment I am afraid of the difficulties, probably because I am away from you and feeling ill. I want our children to have the very best start we can give them and this doesn’t seem to be it! In a year or eighteen months’ time when we’ve got established I would leap at it.

  I have talked to Betty who is prepared to help and in such a case is a very loyal friend. She is naturally in favour of riddance as indeed I was for her in the same case. Nor do I blame her. Mrs Grant I also told. She was heavenly, and most concerned.

  Please My Love, don’t think I’ve been influenced or have panicked. I haven’t. I’ve just been thinking hard and unemotionally. We are only starting our Alpine climb and I want to be a help to you not a drag.

  Oh my Darling I love you … Think about it too and let us decide when I get back to you on Friday night. Don’t worry about ways and means as they are all set, safe and painless. I love you more than I ever imagined loving could be. I miss you dreadfully and you have made me happier than I ever dreamed I could be made …

  If I have worried you writing this please ring me up (reversing the charges).

  M.

  Boskenna – 28.8.45

  … I saw Mrs Grant for two minutes on my way back from P-Z … She was in pleine déshabille with her wig hanging on the bed post. She sent you her love.

  Yesterday all the children changed clothes. Roger truly revolting as a female impersonator with his aertex pants hanging down but Toby alarmingly pretty in a sun bonnet and wide skirt! The new cook arrived at midnight and left again this morning having received a summons that her children are ill …

  I worried all night about having written to you of what I am thinking of H-D, i.e. putting them off. But I think I’m glad I told you. I want to be in your arms to discuss it all. Writing is most unsatisfactory and I writhe at separation … Three more days.

  M.

  Chelsea – 28.8.45: 12 noon

  … Am I having this baby, or are you? My imagination is affected, and I see babies everywhere. As I walk in Battersea Park they sprout like mushrooms around my feet, in far greater numbers than ever before …

  There is a beautiful poem by David Gascoyne (who seems to be very good) which you must read me aloud:

  Death died and Birth was born with one great cry

  And out of some uncharted spaceless sky

  Into the new-born night three white stars fell …

  [Four more verses quoted]

  I’ve just had such a good lunch from Mrs deV (cod) that I’ve lit the last of your cigars, except for two at luncheon tomorrow with Rickatson-Hatt. I am also seeing John Hanbury-Williams, and Antonia White is coming to dinner at the Phoenix tomorrow …

  Robin has taken the house in Radnor Walk at the corner of our terrace … I decided that he couldn’t be an emissary. No reason why he shouldn’t be an intermediary? …

  Try to sleep on the train. I shall be on the platform …

  E.

  31 Smith Terrace – 28.8.45: 2pm

  Letter 2 – Read other letter first.

  … Half-an-hour after posting my letter about maternity, your letter [of 27 August] arrived. Which made me, I am glad to say, laugh …

  I agree that it looks – even if my circumstances improved – unfair on everybody. It probably can’t be done. I shall hate getting rid of it; and I dread the personal experience for you. But it won’t make any difference to us, nor hurt our relationship. All told I agree …

  I love you.

  Eric.

  Mary’s abortion was carried out illegally, in a private house in London, by a doctor who was probably unregistered. Many years later she said that she had lost her nerve and it had been a cowardly decision made largely out of fear of further family disapproval. Her parents’ criticism of her divorce intensified when they realised that she had fallen in love with a married man who was, in their view, ‘German’. Following this crisis, in September 1945, Mary decided to leave Boskenna after five years as a house guest of the colonel, and move into rented accommodation in London with Eric. Shortly afterwards he was recalled to the Royal Marine Barracks in Plymouth to be discharged.

  39 Smith Terrace, SW3 – 17.9.45

  My Darling,

  I am missing you. But I am not unhappy. This is something to do with the house. Having our own house … It’s turned into a hot summer day and I have the front door and all the windows open and warm air pelting in.

  There is a tremendous brouhaha and a crowd of jewish children and their parents in the synagogue. A good rivalry from the Connolly’s [an Irish pub].

  Boskenna has sent me four huge cucumbers and a lot of sweet-corn. My parents were almost calm this morning and order is slowly emerging from chaos. I love our house …

  M.

  Royal Marine Barracks, Plymouth – 18.9.45

  … My dearly beloved Joefn101 was here, which was fatal. Joe broke the bathroom door, Joan (his wife) said she had always disliked me, and I fell tidily and politely on my head in the middle of a sentence. Then Joe drove me home …

  The Mess was bombed, but is still agreeable … Colonels are agreeable, and people present arms wherever you go so that you have to salute backwards …

  Royal Marine Barracks, Plymouth – 19.9.45

  Darling,

  My transport is ordered and it is agreed that I should return to you by the Riviera [Cornish Riviera Express] tomorrow …

  I am having a very gay and friendly dispersal. They gave me £60 this morning because I get 56 days paid leave, and there will be more to come:
and probably a full gratuity as a major.

  Last night there was a farewell cocktail party for the Chief Wren. After she had had drinks she cried out ‘I must meet Siepmann’ – and confided to me that she was called Dicky and used to play the piano at the Gargoyle. Then an incredible amount of drinking in various clubs and rooms, but I went to bed sober …

  I’m glad you’ve seen Paul Ziegler. A demain!

  … Eric

  After six weeks in London Mary returned to Boskenna to look after her children.

  39 Smith Terrace – 13.10.45

  Darling,

  It turned out a beautiful day and now the moon is a yellow scrap of finger-nail in a luminous sky above the little houses with their lighted windows …

  I’ve just come back from job-hunting … What do you think of the strike?fn102 A split in Labour between the Trades Unions and the communists brings the Russian danger near. Pentman went to Hamlet at the Arts last night with the Tass Agency man and says that the Russian was ‘against everybody (tout le monde était des salauds) and that they are determined to plough their own furrow, and paradoxically most suspicious of their allies.

  I detest anti-rural materialism: but I find unfettered capitalism callous …

  9pm. Kippers arrived, and I cooked them while Christinafn103 made a salad which emphasised your absence. So did her talk of goings-on at Boskenna in summer ’44 – don’t blame her, she is loyal! I am amused at her mother’s notion of a you so undo-mestic that there would be no meals, as you’d be at the ‘400’ every night …

  Boskenna – 14.10.45

  Dear love,

  I am rested and good tempered but I miss you. It is rather a nice day. Warm, absolutely still and grey. I spent the afternoon yesterday with Mrs Grant who was very sweet and sent you her love and begs you to come down in time to lunch on her birthday. I said it depended on how busy you are.

  I sat by the fire after dinner with Betty and the dogs and she ceased being irritating. The dogs went frantic seeing a ghost and there was so much bristling barking and growling that we were driven to bed, I suspected a mouse.

  The children are being very sweet. Toby claims to be ‘very good’ at what he calls ‘figures’ at school which he cannot get from me. I trust he will be – but he’s an awful liar.

  Paull [sic] Hillfn104 is going back to India which seems to be his dream opportunity for trading – the RAF Transport Command does little else. Anyway he’s left. He was fatter than ever, one of those rogues you really can’t help liking …

  I love you and miss you badly and I can’t think parting is necessary to make me realise it but they do rub it in. I miss this Sunday morning with you. Remember my last Sunday and the beauty of Battersea park in what was practically the dawn. It’s not nearly so autumnal here in the country. London leaves are always the first.

  Look after yourself my dear love and do not doubt me or my love which is with you and forgive the emotional storm I set going over my parents. You were so wonderful over it and I never said thank you properly.

  I wish I were in your arms this minute.

  M.

  Boskenna – 14.10.45

  I am sitting by the fire with the dogs by candlelight – this romantic inconvenience due to the eccentricities of the electric light plant. It is very quiet … and the Colonel asleep in his library … he made some remarkably filthy soup especially for me for dinner so I feel a little sick. The bulbs are already coming up in some of the flower fields and I saw several spring flowers

  Boskenna – 15.10.45

  … Paul Hill said the services voted Labour to a man purely on the grounds of quicker de-mobilisation, and that troops are being poured into the Middle East and particularly into Palestine because Turkey is so uneasy expecting Russian to pounce, and that out there war is expected at any minute …

  I must get the children installed in London – with Carol if we have no room for them – as it will be better for them after the winter than staying here. I look upon the village school as social education but they learn nothing else that I can see. Roger is a slow learner but once learnt never forgotten. Toby is capricious.

  I should love to hear Christina’s version of summer 1944. She behaved in a highly hysterical fashion because Dennis Bradley, who was here with a nervous breakdown, did not make a pass at her …

  39 Smith Terrace – 15.10.45

  … I think your homecoming will be alright this time … because the first time I was drunk, the second time you were brooding, and the third time I was greeted with all this stuff about your parents and Paul and Hans and god knows what …

  11pm. There has been an important development in my family finances. For the moment all I can say is that it makes our immediate future less uncertain … It is all on a modest scale, so don’t suppose that I’ve been left a fortune …

  I’ve taken seats for Noel Coward’s revue for the 26th Ça va? Possibly Bentley’s, followed by Wilton’s first and Ritz afterwards? …

  Christina tells me that to all outward appearances you are a self-assured glamour girl with a Berkeley girl appearance sitting in the Ritz in a purple dress, and that Dennis Bradley was madly in love with you, at a period when Boskenna-ites went from bedroom to bedroom, but that you kept apart and were apt to ‘snap people’s heads off’ …

  Boskenna – 16.10.45

  My Darling,

  I feel cheerful today and vigorous. I must be re-acclimatized. It’s blowing a splendid wind and the sun is shining.

  I fetched Gluck and Edith out to lunch yesterday. They were agreeable. After tea I read Keats to Toby who begged for more.

  I miss you.

  I have two bottles of gin and hope for another next week for our party and have written to Barbara to speed up the Cider.

  Throw the cheese away. I rather suspected it had gone wrong before I left. Je t’en ferai un autre.

  Salad Dressing

  1 tablespoonful sugar, 1 teaspoonful French mustard, 1 teaspoonful vinegar, 1 tablespoonful medicinal paraffin. And a little chopped garlic. Churn it all up …

  Last night I took Colonel P. to the account’s meeting of the Victory Sports in the village. They had £7–7-6d in hand [£7.37p] and should have been pleased but a lot of harsh words were bandied and muttered and I was hard put to it not to let go and laugh.

  My prescious [sic] take care of yourself and eat something besides Kippers! How I love you. I won’t nag – but come and eat some cream here if it’s at all possible. I want to be gripped and feel very close, my sweet love, I love you.

  M.

  In bed – 17.10.45

  … I met your father in the King’s Road this morning; and we said good morning …

  Today I wrote a 2000 word article on Dostoyevsky, and I enjoyed writing it. This is probably the only subject on which I am reasonably well-informed …

  The development of a remarkable fruit – rhaspberries with an ‘h’ – is noted with glee; it is kind of rhubarbish and rheumatic, and it grows on me. I am also fond of autom – rather medieval and Latin; also burdon … Darling, what a speller! Now you can attack my cooking …

  I cut out a ludicrous piece about finance by Beachcomber [celebrated humorous columnist on the Daily Express ] and took it to Harry and told him I’d written it (seriously) and got 3 guineas for it. He was tremendously tickled: he said ‘It doesn’t mean anything!’ and proposed to circulate it [round the Bank of England] for comments. It never occurred to him that I hadn’t written it, or that it wasn’t serious. He was tremendously superior and jeering. Finally, Humphrey Mynors was called in.fn105 He read it through and said ‘Beachcomber’! Harry really is becoming absurd and inhuman. He made a disgusting speech to me about Jews …

  Boskenna – 18.10.45

  … I am surrounded by children at the moment. I love Roger best. He is at school bless him. Toby’s ears are filthy in the bright sun … How they all giggle. They mock me. It seems impossible for me to be both loved and respected by my children …

&nbs
p; 39 Smith Terrace – 18.10.45

  Darling,

  Your letter is a great joy, and so too is your existence. Never was anything truer built up on the slim foundation (to most outward appearances) of ‘high-class prostitution’ and drunken impotence! …

  I have just seen John Myers at Rank’s … Also Tony Downing, his stooge, an international pansy whom (disguised as a Group-Captain) I had luckily entertained to an agreeable dinner at the Crillon in Paris. He had given me a personal letter to Madame Worth, Patou or Schiaparelli to get your scent I remember …

  Boskenna – 19.10.45

  … I am amused at my father’s oldest sister’s request that I should pass on the family lace, veils and christening robe to Constantia. She is the Queen snob of that generation and was enchanted when I married a peer. With malice I have pointed out that the christening robe is really a Mynors’ one and should instantly go to either Roger or Humphrey. I have made a bed jacket out of a lot of the lace and certainly shan’t part with that. I think it’s very funny …

  I have a chicken, a duck and eggs and cream cheese for us to take back, also gramophones and wireless …

  In November 1945 Eric and Mary were able to live together in public for the first time, as Mary’s divorce had been finalised.

  39 Smith Terrace – 12.12.45

  Darling,

  … Delighted that Toby accepts me as your lover. Don’t read them any Grimm fairy-tales about wicked step-fathers, and perhaps I’ll get away with it.

  Most agreeable luncheon with Malcolm Muggeridge at the Authors’ Club. I was greeted as the author of the ‘Letter to Priestley’ and met Hugh Kingsmill.fn106

  I was immediately made a member of the Club which has a view of the Thames, a library and a Silence Room (with a coal fire) for writing, and this coterie of (right-wing?) journalists. It is on the 11 bus route, and the cheapest club in London. It provides a solution to the problem of my ‘study’, and the children shall have an upstairs bedroom! …

  I heard Kingsmill – behind my back – inquiring whether ‘Siepmann has a publisher for his French book?’ An occasional push is most welcome.