I am now completely packed up except for the clothes I am wearing and another dress which, even in this cool climate, is quite a problem. I can see that I shall have to sit in a blanket, waiting for my underwear to dry, next washing day. Ah well, it won’t be the first time in my life!
You know, I am so looking forward to seeing you, no matter what storm descends on our heads. We will get some laughs out of it, never fear, and show them who will win out in the end.
On 5 April, Avadh received Helen’s letters of 31 March and 1 April in which she responded lovingly to his earlier letter baring his soul about being torn between India and England. Seeing the depth of her commitment and determination, he realized that his more recent letter telling her not to come to India and that they should delay their marriage was, to say the least, hurtful. He wrote: ‘I am going to give you a cable this afternoon, saying that if my last Sunday’s letter is very inconvenient, you can cancel it – I am afraid, I do not know, how much we will have to face – but if we are both prepared to face it, then we might as well and hope for the best.’
Today people are warned to think twice before pressing ‘send’ on their emails. The same should apply to dropping letters into post boxes.
*
On 8 April, Avadh responded to Helen’s determination to come to India. Despite the high emotional stakes, his tone is moderate and slightly ironic.
Where Angels fear to tread in, Devils do and that is what you have decided to do. Not that I very much disagree with your decision, only sometimes, I shudder to think what will happen if we really get pickled. But I suppose we can hope for the best and I hope you will curse me a little less than infinite amount, if due to some unfortunate circumstances we found ourselves together in an unfortunate position. Nevertheless, for the moment, I am happy at the prospect of being able to put my arms around you at a near date. I hope you will forgive me for rattling you like this and I hope I will not have to do it again. Can you tell me whether you still love me and like me, in spite of all this. I personally think that you must be a really sweet sweetie for doing so.
On the 13th, Helen wrote to reassure him:
Of course I love you dearly still. I do understand the various stresses and strains which make you undecided about my coming and had I not been in such an awkward fix myself, I should certainly not have sailed, but waited for you here. However being with you will in one way help – as the various difficulties come up, two brains can be pressed into service to deal with them instead of one, as at present. At the moment I’m such a long way away that all the news I get is so stale as to no longer be news about which one can do anything, but more like history!
Of course, I write to you every day, you devil. Look at the dates on my letters and you will see. Even on days when I have felt like slaughtering you or even thought of suicide myself I have always written!
I often chuckle to myself when I think of our life together. I’m sure we shall have some fun and enjoy it, even if we get into some on holy messes at times. We must try and write a detective novel, or at any rate a short novel, together, if I have a little leisure. As far as I can see at the moment, I am going to be pretty busy, if I take a job, keep house, and deal with my favourite devil as well, but we must try and squeeze a little time. I have a very real urge to learn to write fairly well and wittily and you can already do so, so perhaps between us we can make something of it. Anyway, we shall probably tear up literally acres of the laboratory notepaper. Pay for our own paper – how shocking – I should think not – professor’s perquisite when composing novels.
Avadh never did collaborate with Helen on a novel but he was endlessly supportive of her writing and always insisted she keep for herself any money she earned from books. He also supplied his used course notes for her to type on the blank backs of the pages.
On 9 April he wrote:
My dear Chutney,
Don’t be afraid of reading this letter – there is nothing in it to rattle you, even though it is a long one.
Yesterday I received two of your lovely letters. First of all I want to tell you that I love you very much and do want to marry you and live with you and etc., etc. (no emotions cloud my judgment?). And if I wrote some other things, it was only because I was very depressed and did not know how to handle the situations and circumstances and also whether I would finally make you happy, if things did not take a smooth shape.
Anyhow, don’t think that I am not happy that we shall see each other within a month, the very thought of holding you in my arms again and talking to you nonsense in person makes me forget everything – such devilishness you have around your person and soul (no offence?).
I had been thinking that so long as Kashi remains with my father, I should not send a maintenance to her. But the present situation demands action (at least that is what I think) and on my own counsel, I am sending a registered letter telling her that I had fixed maintenance of [a percentage] of salary minus income tax and am sending her the money. If she accepts it – she accepts the situation and her parents can at best try to get a little more out of me – if she does not – then we shall think about it.
Late in the evening of Friday 14 April, Helen wrote:
The reason I am so late is firstly I was late from work because everyone came to wish me goodbye and good luck, and after everyone was gone, I felt a little bit sad and walked all round the office and looked at the sample tins and fingered them and said their specifications to myself and thought how stupid it was to have only knowledge of a trade which is of no use in a house. However, after a while I thought of my new life and how, despite troubles which may come, it would be happy and interesting and I felt better, and came home.
After tea, I looked at the avalanche of replies I had after advertising for a parasol. However, I got lost in Hoylake when looking for the house of one of the replies and I am only just home now. I have not yet seen what I want, but I have heaps more replies to look at tomorrow. Press on regardless! I said I would be nearly drowned in parasols, didn’t I!
A few days later, she wrote: ‘After battling round Hoylake and West Kirby, I managed to buy a parasol– a Japanese one – which I hope will last me through this hot season at least. I was offered one or two silk or cotton ones but the cost of £2 or £3 seemed absolutely excessive so I was glad to get a Japanese one. I nearly bought a straw hat instead – but it would hardly go with the dainty costume I shall wear in India!’
That weekend, she triumphantly told Avadh that she had managed to sell his radio for the remarkable sum of £20, which she would bring out with her to add to their funds. She added:
I have written another article, which Avril is going to get typed for me. I shall spit on it for luck. It is on the work of typists. I can see that if we can afford any pocket money, all my share will go on postage for articles. If I can write small 1000 word articles on things Indian, in an interesting manner, I know I can sell in England as much as I can write. India is news at present.
On 12 and 14 April Avadh wrote in some detail about plans for Helen’s arrival. She would arrive in Bombay and almost immediately she would take a Hindu name, which was apparently straightforward to do and a prerequisite for marriage. The wedding would be a little later, likely with Avadh’s friend Venket as the only guest. Because May and June temperatures in Ahmedabad could reach 46° C (115° F), he proposed they go to a hill station 80 kilometres from Bombay for a couple of weeks and then go north to be married. While Avadh had to return to Ahmedabad after that, Helen could stay in Bombay and get a job. This would save money because they wouldn’t have to buy as much for the flat while they waited to find out if Avadh had been awarded the fellowship back in England.
He added that, if they went to England, Helen would likely have to work until all their debts were cleared and then perhaps part time after that. He wasn’t sure how expensive married life in England was but he hoped that she wouldn’t ask him to stop smoking his pipe.
Helen replied on the 17th:
It would seem sensible to stay in Bombay and at least work through the hot season; I should like to get a job before we went to the hills – arranged to start as soon as I came back from the hills. If you can fix the marriage bright and early after I land, please do.
Love, I don’t know what you think you must do to the flat to make it habitable for me – the only things I can think of are to add another bed, if yours is not wide enough. I have stacks of things in my luggage from which I can make the flat look pretty – and I don’t know what you are doing your cooking on, but I gather you have something, and probably I can manage on it. I think we have two chairs, haven’t we – that would be two beds and two chairs more than our family had when we started in Liverpool.
Avadh was still slightly nervous at the prospect of entering into a second marriage when his first had failed, and he returned to a topic he had raised several months earlier:
You ask me to write to my father, that I have to marry you for your sake. (1) I am not marrying you for your sake but for my sake. (2) My father or brother will only move (if they move at all) for my sake – do not take it ill – but in general people are prejudiced here against marrying an English girl. You remember I told you once. This prejudice is because in the days of British rule in India, certain English women married Indians and after a few years got a damagingly high maintenance from the courts. Otherwise even in the past, some English ladies who married Indians remained admirably devoted to their husbands but people here, who are still unaccustomed to go to courts for separation or divorce, look and remember only the facts which glare in their eyes. I have not written this to hurt your feelings; I love you and trust you but my people will change their opinion only after they have seen you (of that I am sure) and when I have been with you a good long time and happy with you.
I would never ask you to live with me if you felt miserably unhappy with me. In one of my letters, the letter of 1st January – which I had written on the train while going to Poona, I had asked you to promise me that you will not go to court under such contingency but that we shall separate by mutual consent. [That page of the letter is missing.] Probably no one talks about a prospect of failure of marriage with his own sweetheart, and yet I have done so, once again, because I remember you saying once to me in Liverpool, that nobody does ever talk about such a thing.
On a lighter note, the next day he complained that she has sent him inconsistent measurements for the clothes he was having made for her. ‘Now please be a little less fickle in your physical changes, otherwise your clothes will have to be changed so often, that I shall go bankrupt, or else you will have to be dressed like Huckleberry Finn.’
Helen reacted strongly but with understanding to Avadh’s request for assurance that she would never sue him.
Today I received sections 2 and 3 of your letter of April 14th, of which I had the first bit yesterday. It was a nice letter and I shall now proceed to chop off your head!
I am sure that several times before I must have told you that decently bred old families like mine never go to court, except to defend themselves, or if driven to it by utter despair. The only thing I can think of that would ever lead me to take court action would be if you left me with hungry children to feed. If it was only I who was left and I could work at all, I should not ask for myself. Since I know perfectly well that you would never let children starve while you had a ha’penny in your pocket, you are perfectly safe.
If all I had wanted from you was money, I could have fixed that long ago! All I want is a loving and gentle husband whom I can trust – and I think I have found that. When you talk about Indians who have married English ladies and have been double-crossed, I can tell you in a flash what has happened. To begin with, until after this war, Indians visiting this country had very little opportunity indeed to meet nicely brought up English girls. The only women they met were the daughters of their landladies (who were usually lower working class women) or they met prostitutes or at the best casual street women and these women fastened themselves to them like leeches with the sole idea of making as much money out of them as possible. With the commencement of the British Council and many similar organizations during the war, the position has changed considerably, and, as you know, a good many girls of excellent social standing are now able to meet Asiatic people quite freely. I can say quite frankly that before the war no one except a European would have had the slightest chance of meeting anyone like myself – and even Europeans did not stand much chance.
I can understand how you feel, my dear, and have, therefore, answered you patiently, but frankly my pride is stung that you should think that I would stoop to such a contemptible trick.
On the clothing question, she answered:
I am undoubtedly quite crazy with regard to my measurements. Probably I did one lot with clothes and shoes on and the other lot with them off. Here are my findings:
Chest 32 inches;
Waist 25 inches (perhaps you had better make it 25½ inches to allow for an undergarment);
Waist to ankle 42½ inches (this leaves only about 1 inch from the floor when I have flat-heeled shoes on).
If there is any doubt about it, have everything made a little larger – an hour’s sewing on my part could alter, say, the waist and length, if necessary.
On Saturday 15 April, Avadh wrote a letter expecting it to be the last Helen would receive before she left home. It pledges his enduring love once more and assures her that they will make decisions about their future together. On the 17th, he wrote a similar letter to be delivered to Cabin 8 (Promenade Deck) of the Jal-Azad at the Royal Albert Dock in London.
Helen received his letter of the 15th just four days later and was delighted:
It really was the most beautiful letter that ever a wife-to-be could hope to receive. It touched my heartstrings and I know that I shall never regret being married to you. I love you, my dearest, my darling, and my sad heart has been made very happy by you. I am really looking forward to coming to you as I have never looked forward to anything in my life. I feel we are real partners as well as lovers.
Now I shall tell you something which I had intended to keep secret until I saw you at Bombay, but it might rest your mind a little. When I land in Bombay, after paying customs etc., I should have with me about £60 [roughly the equivalent of £1,500 today] made up as follows: – £20 wireless, £13.10.0 gifts (about which I had forgotten!) And about £25 miscellaneous savings which I have made over and above the various expenses for which I have had to save such as £20 for my passage. These odd savings had been made up of sixpences saved in a box and all sorts of small oddments like a 5/- occasionally paid into my banking account. This means that I shall arrive in Bombay with the best part of my return passage in my hand (barring being robbed or something dreadful occurring). I did not know I was so rich until I scraped together every pie [1/192 of a rupee] I possessed on Monday last, ready to put it into travellers’ cheques.
It is now 11:30 PM and my eyes are drooping, so that I can hardly write and I must, therefore kiss you good night. Sleep well, my heart, we shall soon be walking up the avenue together. Be of good courage and don’t worry.
Ever your own loving,
Chutney
Chapter Fourteen
I am wishing all the time that you were with me because you would like the peace aboard ship – and, of course, because I am longing to be with you.
At last, on Friday 21 April 1950, Helen said her goodbyes to her family and caught a train to London to start her long voyage to India. She must have been nervous – anyone would have been – but at the same time mightily relieved that no more spanners had been thrown in the works. She had no idea what reception to expect in India, given that Avadh’s first wife was still staying in the family compound near Delhi, but at least she knew that Avadh would be there waiting for her in Bombay. That evening she wrote to him:
My dearest Loving one,
This is written in a funny little hotel bedroom in L
ondon, resting the paper precariously on my suitcase. This evening Tony will come and have dinner with me, but, in the meantime, I feel I must write to you because at this minute I feel like the wise men in the Bible who had only a star shining in the east to guide them through the darkness. They knew that what they would find at the end of the journey would be worthwhile, but they were mortally afraid of the Desert before them. You are my star – in fact, you are now my life, you scallywag. I have just read again your dear last letter to me and it gives me new courage to help me on my way. I just love you and love you and I couldn’t live without you and I am glad I’m coming to you. Damn the heat and all the other woes. What are they, anyway, but things that can be got over?
I do not know exactly when or where I shall dock in Bombay, but now that you know that I shall sail tomorrow, 22nd, you will be able to check my arrival with Scindia. There is a dock strike here and before I post this I shall just check that it will not delay the sailing. I shall be looking for you so hard when we reach Bombay that the porters will steal all my oddments – and I can’t even kiss you when I see you – wot a life!
Leaving England and my family is a very big wrench, but I was in such a mess I had little option. The thought of being with you, however, more than compensates for these things and I can hardly believe I am so near to seeing you.
Good hunting, petkins – that is another way of saying good luck in all your endeavours. We are not going to sink – we are going to swim strongly together. As Mr Churchill used to say ‘We shall not falter nor fail’.
Passage Across the Mersey Page 20
