I shall miss her very much indeed (as I know you will, for she was truly devoted to you), she was so shrewd, so kind, so amusingly unkind, so sharp, such fun, so naughty (‘amn’t I naughty’), that must be very Scotch to say ‘amn’t I’, and altogether a real person, a character, utterly Mrs Ronald Greville and no tinge of anything alien.
It is terribly sad to think that she has gone, and such a strong personality had she, that I know when I pass a great blind hideous mass of masonry like the Dorchester Hotel, that I shall think of her sitting unbowed by war or illness in that ugly sitting room surrounded by ambassadors & statesmen.
Do you remember those wonderful weekends at Polesden? I shall look forward to talking them over someday when we meet again, they seem so far off and delectable & idle and rich and careless, & yet I remember one was deeply worried at the same time.
I cannot tell you how deeply touched I am at your kindness in writing – there was nobody else who would have thought of it, & I have been ill and am still in bed, but beginning to feel extremely depressed, which shows convalescence, I believe – so hope to be getting up in a few days.
It must have been dreadfully sad at the funeral at Polesden – she was really so lonely in her living, so utterly without family, I felt too sad for her sometimes.
With again my thanks, I am, Yours very sincerely,
Elizabeth R
30 September 1942 to Arthur Penn
Balmoral Castle
My dear Arthur,
Many thanks for sending me the information about Mrs Ronnie’s will* – Poor old lady, I felt there was nothing much but will power left when she came here in August, and she had plenty of courage.
Will you write to Mr Russell saying how touched I am to be remembered by Mrs Greville etc and tell him that when he has any more information for me, to write to me direct. It is much simpler and better, and to have things on paper is also an advantage. […] I won’t say a word to anybody about the legacy and hope to keep it quiet.
I have stopped the box just in time, so hurriedly enclose this letter.
I am beginning to feel better, but have narrowly escaped death from the antidote for pneumonia. The cure is not the berries, nor is it OK, in fact I must ask Peter Cheney† to invent a word to describe it, because I don’t know one bad enough! ER
30 September 1942 to King George VI
Balmoral Castle
My Darling Bertie
[…]
I do wish that you were here darling, or that I was with you; tho’ of the two alternatives I would prefer you to be here with me! I feel that I am getting on so slowly. Three whole days since you went, and I really feel just the same. In fact today I have felt very tired, a heavy yet empty head and limbs, & very conscious of them. But I daresay tomorrow I shall feel quite different again.
Did you read Edward Halifax’s speech in America about ten days ago? One of his good ‘Christian’ speeches, I thought bits of it were excellent.
Do read ‘St George or the Dragon’* if you have time. It is really worth reading, & it is well divided up so you can take your time over it.
The children’s colds are better, & Margaret is looking less pale – Lilibet had a coughing fit out stalking today, half because she wanted to be very quiet! Just the end of her cold.
Well darling angel, I must stop, and shall be speaking to you on the telephone tomorrow morning, long before this letter is posted even!
Goodbye Bertie darling, I do hope you’ll have lovely weather next week, how I wish I was to be there,
from your very very loving
Elizabeth
7 October 1942 to Arthur Penn
Buckingham Palace
My dear Arthur [ …]
There are two things I would be grateful if you would do for me.
1. Find out what Battalions of my regiments† are in this country who can have plum puddings at Xmas. I am sure it would be easier to find out from the Colonels – Black Watch, London Scottish (by the way, why didn’t the old silly tell me that One Bn was going abroad), Yorkshire Light Infantry, and of course the Bays are away.
The Toronto Scottish and Saskatoon Light Infantry and Black Watch are still mouldering out their lives in the South of England I suppose. Can I have the information pronto, as the puddings must be ordered at once.
2. Would you write a nice note to the RAMC man to thank for the Brooch? Please tell him that I was hoping to thank them personally at a gathering in London, but circumstances intervened, and so I write instead.
Wildish weather here. […]
ER
10 October 1942 to King George VI
Balmoral Castle
My Darling Angel
[…]
It is really terrible what the Germans are doing now in Europe, they seem to have lost every vestige of decent behaviour, or I suppose it’s really that they know that all their sham & pretence of taking a little country purely for its own good is wearing thin, & their true nature is coming out. Beasts.
As for the way they are treating the Dieppe prisoners,* it is pure barbarism, straight back to the savage age from which they have never emerged.
I do think that it was a great mistake for us to threaten to treat their prisoners the same here. It is very lowering and schoolboy & tit for tat, which is never the slightest use. Because they murder & rob, is no reason why we should follow this bad example. I was very distressed when I read it in the paper.
It will be a great relief when ‘something’ happens at last, for I am sure it is very hard & bitter and nerve-racking for all the people in this country who know nothing of plans, to see month after month going by, & nothing great happening, & only hearing how the brave, the magnificent, the practically holy Russians are fighting the whole German army. We want the headlines ourselves – and a few decent press correspondents who can write about decent men in decent English – the stuff they send is awful, don’t you think? Darling, couldn’t you send a special message, short & to the point, to the millions of loyal Indians whom nobody ever hears of? It would remind the Americans too, that all Indians are not traitors, & that the King still means something in India. I don’t suppose your ‘advisers’ would like this idea – much too straightforward and not nearly cringing and roundabout enough.
I am so thankful that you had a good week at dear little Appleton, I was miserable to miss it, as I love Sandringham in October, & the partridge days.
I shall send this by bag today, but am not sure if you will get it tomorrow or Monday when you return.
Why won’t those people in W. [Whitehall] answer? It’s those cowardly secretaries of yours darling, they are all getting very Foreign Office & dithering, and are really not firm enough.
Letting down the Monarchy and all that! Well, well! Goodbye darling from your very loving Elizabeth
PS Rather a silly letter, but I feel a little silly.
12 October 1942 to Arthur Penn
Buckingham Palace – internal
My dear Arthur,
1. And much the most important. Thank you very much for the book. The author definitely knows his potatoes, and I think the whole story is absolutely the berries. The way that dame Pearl gets a ripple on, there was a baby for you – oh boy.*
2.Will you contact that old geezer Hartigan and ask him the form about foreign bodies who wish to affiliate. If it’s OK by the R.A.M.C. I am all in favour of bringing in any link with the Colonies etc. But don’t you have anything to do with a phoney set up like the War Office. They would only pull a fast one on me, and I’m just not taking any. Get that?
3.OK to Lord Hampden’s request.
4.Tell that mug in the Scottish office that he may have a photograph for the Land Galy’s [Girls’] carnival in Glasgow. […] put it on the train to Bonnie Scotland and I’ll OK it, if it’s OK.
And may I ask what the hell the Ministry of Information means by hiking photos of me around. Tell ‘em where they get off. Tell ‘em to scram, and goddam quick. […]
&
nbsp; Be your age Arthur. I’m through now – nothing like a good business letter to clear the brain. ER
13 October 1942 to Queen Mary
Balmoral Castle
My Darling Mama
It seems rather a long time since I last wrote to you, and this stupid illness having kept me in bed so long made letter writing rather difficult. I am feeling much better, and am coming south next week, tho’ I have promised the doctors not to do very much for a few weeks.
I want to ask you something very private. We have invited Mrs Roosevelt to come over here and see something of the work our women are doing all over the country.* She will stay with us a couple of days, and then go all round the place. I wondered whether by any chance you would care to have her for one night at Badminton when she is down in the West Country?
I do not know if this would be at all possible, or if you felt able to invite her, tho’ I am sure she would love to come & see you. The whole affair is such a deadly secret owing to the flying risk, that nobody knows of this visit at all, except us and the American Ambassador & Lady Reading (inevitably!).* If you smiled upon this idea, would you send me one line darling Mama, and I will get hold of her programme & suggest a date to you. She may possibly arrive towards the end of next week, and spend the first few days in London. I am glad that she is coming over, because she is a practical, intelligent woman, and will probably take hints back with her that will help the American women to organise themselves for war.
I have told nobody of this proposed guest, & only hope that people will be discreet, tho’ I do think that official people in London are terribly talkative. […]
I must tell you that Mrs Greville has left me her jewels, tho’ I am keeping that quiet as well for the moment! She left them to me ‘with her loving thoughts’, dear old thing, and I feel very touched, I don’t suppose I shall see what they consist of for a long time, owing to the slowness of lawyers & death duties etc, but I know she had a few good things. Apart from everything else, it is rather exciting to be left something, and I do admire beautiful stones with all my heart. I can’t help thinking that most women do!†
The country is looking divinely beautiful up here. Golden birches and scarlet rowans flaming against the russet of the bracken & the brown and blue hills. One or two lovely days lately, after a truly bad August & September.
Is it not terrible the way the Germans are behaving all over Europe. The mask is off at last, and the true savagery is emerging now that there is no need to pretend that all these small countries were taken over for their own good. Murders & deportations, children sent away from their families, & now the unspeakable treatment of prisoners.
I must admit, that I think our retaliating was a very great mistake – if the Germans murder & steal, there is no reason why we should; & I am sure that it puts us in a bad position to treat the German prisoners here badly. I do pray that some solution will be found, for it is so awful to return to the bestiality of the Middle Ages.*
I do hope that we shall meet again soon. I still cannot quite believe that George’s dear, vital spirit is not still with us. As time goes on, one misses him more and more, and I do grieve to think of the great blank it must mean to you. He is indeed a terrible loss to us all.
With my best love darling Mama
ever your loving daughter in law
Elizabeth
16 October 1942 to Osbert Sitwell
Buckingham Palace
My dear Mr Sitwell,
I am so deeply grateful to you for your great kindness in sending me your Autobiography to read. I have just finished the first volume & cannot begin to tell you how fascinating I have found it. […]
I was very touched that you wished me to read it in typescript, very pleased too. I immediately felt better after the first chapter, & called for a steak half way through the second, and have never looked back since. So I am doubly grateful to you – first for the sparkle and glitter of your autobiography, all a’shimmer with sumptuous and lovely words, & secondly for such an aid to convalescence. I read it at Balmoral, where very fortunately, I was ill, I really rather enjoyed my three weeks in bed – the first time that I have been laid aside in peace & quiet since the war. I needed it very badly, & it was heaven seeing nobody at all except a nice tactful nurse & a Scottish doctor or two.
I read a lot of [Robert Louis] Stevenson again, and a ‘Genji’ or two, & Beckford’s Travels (which you gave me some years ago) & I found some heavenly stories by F. Marion Crawford,* in which the hero and heroine always went through terrible trials, but always won through to an intricate but happy ending. And after a few horrid modern books by horrid journalists, I was pining for something good when, hooray! Your letter arrived offering to let me read the autobiography.
The country was looking so beautiful. The grass & the bracken yellow & brown & rusty, & the birches and rowans golden & blazing against the dark hills – most satisfying & soothing. […]
I am Yours very sincerely
Elizabeth R
19 October 1942 to Queen Mary
Balmoral Castle
My Darling Mama
Thank you so much for your telegram & letter. I have told the American Ambassador of your invitation, and asked them to write direct to you at Badminton the moment the programme of visits has been settled. Mrs Roosevelt is now leaving on the 20th, & by way of arriving evening of 21st, but of course everything depends on the weather. She will spend some days in London, & is going to Chequers† for the weekend. I am sure that she will be so pleased at being asked to visit you.‡
We are leaving for London this evening, and I must admit that I do not look forward to London life again. It is so dreary at Buckingham Palace, so dirty and dark and draughty, & I long to see the old house tidy and clean once again, with carpets & curtains & no beastly air raids. I feel so sorry for poor Mrs Ferguson & the housemaids, for it is most depressing having to look after a house that is half ruined!
I am putting Mrs R in my own bedroom upstairs. I have had some small windows put in, and she can use Bertie’s own sitting room as mine is dismantled and windowless. It is quite a problem to put up one guest nowadays! She is only bringing a secretary with her, & travels very simply and quietly.
Much love darling Mama, ever your very loving
Elizabeth
PS I was deeply interested to read David’s letter to you & Bertie. It is a good thing to communicate, but what a typical ‘attitude’! We are always in the wrong!
2November 1942 to Queen Mary
Buckingham Palace
My Darling Mama
[…] I wonder how the visit [of Mrs Roosevelt] went off, and if you found her agreeable and clever. I thought her a charming guest when she stayed here for her short visit, so interested in all our war efforts, & so understanding and sympathetic of our ideals and difficulties. I only hope that she is not seeing almost too much in such a short time! […]
I have seen Marina and Paul several times – poor Olga I am sure has a very difficult time with Paul. He mopes & sulks I imagine, partly because he is hurt at his position, & partly because he was in the wrong (through pure sense of duty), & that is always bitter. I am sorry for him tho’, & do hate to think that our old friend is in such a position. Marina seems much better, and still very brave, & trying to take up the threads of her life again. Poor darling, one’s heart aches for her in that little house, with such very lively children! The new governess looked very nice, & Marina likes her enormously which is most fortunate.
We are here, now, and it is rather unpleasant; cold and dreary (but of course not too bad). I feel complaining when one thinks of the discomfort of most people’s lives, and we are really very lucky.
Much love darling Mama,
ever your loving
Elizabeth
2 December 1942 to Sidney Elphinstone
Buckingham Palace
My dear darling Sid
I was just taking up my pen to write to your wife, my sister, Lilibet’s aunt, Joh
n’s mother, Fox’s mistress (that reads bad) etc, when your letter & the charming book* arrived, so I am writing to you instead. Thank you a thousand times for your very kind thought in sending it, the illustrations really are marvellously good, and John’s talent is remarkable. How clever of him to have done it, I am sure that the book will have a great success.
The woodcock is specially good, and altogether the drawings are a triumph.
I should love to write and tell him so – will you be very kind & send me his address?
Also, can I send him a photograph of myself? I have got one which he likes, & which he wanted kept for him.
I was starting a letter to May for two reasons, one to thank her for a delightful letter, I will write to her in a few days, & the other to say that yesterday I saw a little man who had escaped, & who had been a long time with John in Germany. He said such very nice things about him, & how much he had done to keep up morale by being cheerful himself, & he would be very glad to write to you & tell you anything he could. This man, Major Challoner, is a funny nervy little man, intensely energetic & capable & talkative, and perhaps you would be able even to see him later on.
I enclose his address, in case you or May would like to ‘contact’ him. I am sure that John would be a help to other less courageous ones, & the fact of the book being achieved shows great determination & grit. We had the pleasure of the company of your youngest daughter* for a Sunday at Windsor. She was her usual depressing unattractive self, and that unfortunate lack of any kind of sense of humour is really very trying. It must be sad for you when she comes home for the hols, dreary & downhearted, & frowning at those dirty stories of yours.
London is HORRIBLE. Cold and dark. Can you get coal from your own pit,† or is it all whisked off?
Counting One's Blessings Page 35
