So I Have Thought of You
Page 31
Please may I congratulate you on your American expansion, I had to go to Dallas and Austin earlier in the year and looked up at the buildings and wondered how Duckworths in Dallas was getting on –
best wishes
Penelope
[postcard]
29 October [1979]
Thankyou so very much for your congratulations* – One of the first pieces of advice you ever gave me was to write short novels because you didn’t believe people really wanted to read long ones, and I’m very glad I took it –
best wishes Penelope
25 Almeric Road, sw11
[postcard]
3 December [1979]
Please, are you thinking of reprinting The Bookshop? best wishes Penelope
Francis King*
[postcard]
28 January [1978]
- I’m just in Bath tracking down one of LPH’s secretaries – it is more like the Aspern Papers all the time – I wanted to thank you very much for interceding with Norah,** as it must be a result of your letter (although she doesn’t say so) that she now writes to me to apologise for her delay (18 months) in answering – but she had found great difficulty in finding a kennelmaid. If I was a true biographer I suppose I should offer to take the job, I like dogs from the point of view of character but couldn’t (as it seems Norah does) prepare them for Crufts – anyway she tells me to come and see her – meanwhile Lord David writes to the Radio Times to point out that only he can interpret &c. Well, that’s my progress report – Penelope
Thankyou also for your kind words about my biography – I expect my uncles were dislikeable, but I loved them and got used to them.
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
29 January [1978]
Dear Francis King,
Thankyou very much for letting me see Norah’s letter, which I’m returning as soon as possible, as it seems to me you’ve suffered from being so generous in these matters. It was very good of you to write, as I think otherwise nothing would have happened at all – Norah is a nice person, and good, and brave, what more can one want? But she is also rather forgetful I gather. Anyway I’ll go to see her in February and if you want I could always ask again about the C. B. Kitchin papers.
I feel very much encouraged, because as you know I’m not a professional writer but only very anxious to write one or 2 things which interest me, and if Norah doesn’t want anything published I should still like to get all the material together as far as possible – I could always leave it to you in my will! A primary biography by people who know the subject and are really fond of him or her is a protection, I think. Perhaps artists should be judged by their work, but it’s only too evident that they aren’t.
I can’t understand why Norah’s solicitors haven’t settled the Dreda-Owen case by now, as all the evidence must have been deposed long ago – I think it must be a matter of settling out of court. But I discovered at Bath that the bank actually locked Leslie in a room and made him sign a will, as they were dreadfully worried that he’d be made to sign his property away and would then be murdered. That was why the will was so short. Someone said that Leslie must be looking down on us all and dictating the plot himself as it goes along – which I think you also suggested. But I don’t know that the eventual sum was as large as all that, as a lot was made over to a relation who couldn’t make his farm pay. – Many examples of generosity, and apparently he always paid a third of the expenses at Fletton Tower anyway, and offered several people (besides myself!) money so they wouldn’t have to work too hard, but no-one accepted it (or no-one I’ve met) because it would be a destructive thing from the point of view of friendship – I now have to write to an ex-professor at Bristol, August Closs (surely no-one would dare use this name in any novel) – who was one of the people Norah asked to go to Avondale after LPH died and choose something from his possessions – he’s said to be very difficult, but has many LPH letters which he’s always intending to sort through – however I refuse to be put off by these ups and downs – I’m afraid you’ll be getting tired of all of this, and should like to thank you once again – best wishes Penelope
(I expect you saw the Michael Joseph Lady Ottoline’s Album, and I think the photograph on p. 76 of David Cecil and LPH says volumes – poor Leslie would never take off his shoes on the lawn of Garsington but Lord D. has –)
[postcard]
3 February [1978]
Thankyou so much for your letter. I’d love to come to dinner on Feb 8th and shall look forward to that.
Almost giving up, as I hear (completely unreliably) that the spirit of L.P.H. appeared at a séeance and said he would wish to abide by Lord D’s opinion. But if you would give me Mary Wellesley’s address (I was told she lived in London) I should be most grateful – Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
12 February [1978]
Dear Francis,
Thankyou so much, I did enjoy Friday evening. I feel in a certain sense I was there under false pretences as the quest for LPH is proving a bit beyond me, but I shall go a little farther with it anyway, and meanwhile it was really kind of you to invite me.
I can’t find the red setter results in the paragraphs about Crufts, and they too are sensational, with references to poisoning and dognapping. Where will it all end?
At this moment I’m frustrated in every direction, as I can’t persuade your PEN doyenne, Mrs Watts, to part with information about the PEN early days (which I need for something else I’m doing) as it’s the most important chapter of her book about her mother, Mrs Dawson Scott, and she still (I think after 20 years) can’t find a publisher. (Mrs Dawson Scott also used to receive spirit messages, I remember, but this doesn’t help me much.)
I can’t think why I go on doing these things, but in any case I’d like to say once again how much I enjoyed myself –
Yours sincerely –
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
25 February [1978]
Dear Francis,
I went up to Peterborough yesterday and hope you won’t mind my writing to tell you how things went at Fletton Tower. Norah (who went to St Hilda’s by the way, not at all like Eustace’s Barbara) was wonderfully kind, and every now and then quite unpredictable. Like her brother, she is a magnificent person. – She still has a very slight Northamptonshire accent, which LPH eliminated, as it would not have done for Lord David.
Fletton Tower was built I should say about 1850, but the Hartleys went there in 1900, and everything, down to the tablecloth-presses and brass light-fittings and glass shades, and all the baths &c, are as they were, unchanged. It seems to me that you as a connoisseur of atmosphere have a duty to go there, particularly as Norah was very fond of CBK, and thought him one of the most interesting people she’d ever met. (Incidentally LPH’s cellar was full of Burgundy when he died because CBK kept sending it to him although he knew LPH only liked claret. Why?) – Also you would be much better than me with the dogs – I rather like dogs, but these are deerhounds (NOT setters) – 6 foot high when they stand on their hind legs, as they frequently do – other older ones are in large baskets indoors, where they appear to be dying – but all go out to the kennels (the old stables) at night and then Norah is alone in vast Fletton Tower. She’s lived there all her life (since 1902) and keeps her files where she once kept her toys.
On the other hand there is a large staff during the day, and I see now that I was quite wrong in thinking that LPH’s idea of a household was assimilated to Henry James’s great good place or the Cecils – though I still think they played some part – at Fletton there is a gardener, chauffeur, cook and parlourmaid who wears a cap and apron in the evening – their average length of service is 50 years – the woman who comes in to clean has been there a mere 15 years – Norah is fanatical on the naturalness of the master/servant relationship and read me a long address by old Mr Hartley on this subject. So although it seems LPH didn’t li
ke Fletton as a house, he never really escaped it.
The gondolier (Pietro Busette, now dead, you remember the oil portrait) actually came to stay at Fletton, although he didn’t know one word of English, and had to make signs (what signs?). However, I mustn’t go on and on as I made notes of everything (in P’borough waiting-room) but thought you might possibly like one or 2 points – there was an unsigned will in the 1950s, simply appointing Walter Allen as lit. executor and leaving him all mss – so Norah followed these wishes in 1972 – but asks me ‘is Walter Allen dead?’ All mss eventually went to Cyril Connolly, as Christie’s adviser on 20th century mss, and he deposited them at Christie’s, where they still are, but can’t be sold yet because of death duties (I don’t understand this) – when they are, Christie’s thinks they’ll go straight to Texas. The law case is no further forward, I didn’t like to press for details, but nothing was said about illegitimate daughters, indeed Norah kept saying that the only descendants were Cousin Maurice and family, and she says the plaintiffs are really the same as the man who tried to murder Leslie with veronal, causing his collapse in 1971. She thinks the bank is slow, but I believe that they’re waiting, knowing very well that these people were relying on getting a settlement quickly, and will collapse if the proceedings drag on. – She also told me a lot about LPH’s childhood and I was able to get a clear picture – no Miss Fothergill, though, they each had an equal amount of money, held in trust. – She said that LPH hadn’t really needed her during his middle successful years, but she now says how lonely he had been at the end, and wished she had gone up to London more. (I don’t believe Lord David went at all after LPH began to drink so heavily). I said that you had continued to see him, and she said she felt very grateful to you. – She asked him whether he really ought not to get rid of the murderous manservant, and he gave the inimitable LPH smile and said ‘my dear, he’s no worse than the others.’
There are thousands of letters, albums and photographs and I do not know what will become of them. Lord David presides over all. Norah didn’t even ask me to promise not to write anything, which I appreciated because it’s nice to be trusted. But she does agree that it would be a good idea to collect all the possible material and she told me to try the Radfords (the last Avondale couple) and Princess Clary (hopeless, I can’t get to Venice and I daresay she wouldn’t ‘receive’ me), but apparently she is the only one, apart from Lord D., who could describe the Venetian period. (She’s about 80). So that, if you could let me know the addresses of Mary Wellesley and the doctor, I would be very grateful – I haven’t forgotten that I’ve asked you a lot of things already.
When I saw LPH’s desk and the cyclamen transplanted from Avondale in one of the flowerbeds opposite the stables, I felt like crying, he was such a good friend. – The temptation to make it into a novel, if biographers are not allowed, is very strong, but I shan’t do what I’ve undertaken not to. – And really he did destroy himself, and it turned out to be right when he told me (and many others I expect) that Eustace and Hilda was ‘meant to be my own tragedy’.
This is quite enough, you’ll say –
best wishes
Penelope
Norah tells me that she hardly ever gives permission to use any unpublished letters – wouldn’t let any LPH/Ottoline Morrell letters be printed, for example, so it perhaps doesn’t matter so much that mine are all at the bottom of the Thames.
[postcard]
10 March [c.1978]
This is just to thank you for putting me up for PEN. Lettice suggested I might join and I know one can’t go wrong in following Lettice’s advice, she is splendid – it was very kind of you – best wishes Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
12 April [c.1978]
Dear Francis,
Thankyou so very much for the photocopies of your letters. I knew you were a good friend of LPH’s, but not how much you did for him. I don’t know how you managed it, because some of his books seem to me irredeemably bad, in a quite distinctive way, and yet they’ve always got something readable about them. I see also how tactful you were, and that was necessary, because he minded intensely about them.
By the way, wouldn’t you agree that the worst thing about the opening of Howards End isn’t so much the letter itself (as a method) as the ‘One may as well begin with’. It makes me feel resentful. Why begin at all, if that’s how he feels about it.
Anyway, apart from the interest of your letters, they encouraged me, as I felt at a loss, being checkmated by the doctor and Mary W., although I’ve now had another letter from her saying she remembers meeting me in 1952 (the time dimension is getting alarming but I think she must keep diaries) – as a matter of fact I do remember the occasion as it was a little dinner for Augustus John, then very ancient, and he collapsed completely and John Russell and I had to drag him out to the pantry to revive him, I can’t think this is a particularly sympathetic incident but it’s more friendly than her other letter. She says ‘no need to answer this because you must get on with whatever you are writing at the moment’ and I’m not too sure what she means by this.
I have written now to Roger’s brother Colin, and to Lady Aberconway, who I’m sure won’t answer, but who is said to be thinking of depositing her LPH letters in the British Library (probably on reserve for the next 50 years). As to Venice and Compton Bassett, the background of The Boat, I’m stuck at the moment, Colin (Haycraft, not Radford) writes to say How Is It All Getting On and I find it hard to explain how difficult it is. And yet I feel there’s the story of a whole era there, and LPH was so much nicer than Forster.
Meanwhile I daresay Lord David has tottered up to Fletton Tower to tear up the rest of the letters, just as the last daffodils come out. – I suppose there might be some at Hamish Hamiltons but I don’t like to ask again, as Raleigh Trevelyan was so discouraging, though I’m sure he never means to be.
I’m afraid this letter is very disjointed, but I must just say one thing about the Harness Room – LPH told me and I’m sure many others, and actually wrote to Peter Bien, that he wanted to persevere with his central idea (which he believed was also the central idea of Wuthering Heights) that it is the supreme experiences which make life worthwhile, but they are always destructive, whether they are what is usually called moral or not; (that’s why Hamish Hamilton should have let Timothy go down with his boat) but he didn’t want to express this idea in a specifically homosexual novel because it would raise totally different and irrelevant issues – as it always does. That, I’m sure, was part of his uncertainty over the Harness Room, and why he felt on surer ground with the Hireling.
No-one who is brought up an evangelical can quite learn to trust earthly happiness, it must destroy you somehow.
Well, thankyou again, and I’m sure you won’t mind if I write to tell you any further progress – best wishes Penelope
I will keep an eye out for May Sinclair. There are some letters of hers in the Berg NY collection aren’t there?
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
2 June [c.1978]
Dear Francis,
This is really to say how much I liked your Bernard Leach review, partly as a long-term potter (we’re going to have a raku firing here in Battersea which I daresay will blow us all up and end our troubles in this world) and also as an ex-pupil of Edmund Blunden, – I did like your reference to him.
I never give up about LPH, and went to Derby last week-end to see the Radfords, who told me a lot of things I didn’t know before, but the difficulties get greater and greater and some of them are, so to speak, ‘not fair’ e.g. this Sitwell biography which is coming out, and which Sacheverell S. says is going to send him down with gray hairs to the grave &c is I am sure going to upset Norah very much and cause more wholesale destruction of letters &c. Well, – ‘publishing scoundrels!’
best wishes,
Penelope
It must be terrible for poor Colin* and I don’t see how he can keep
going – I mean the euphoria, the confidence, the cigars &c, on top of so much wretchedness.
25 Almeric Rd
London, sw11
[postcard of motor buses at junction
of Northcote Road and Battersea
Rise c.1913]
9 June [1978]
It would be so nice if you came to dinner one day – this part of Battersea is seedy, but not so very far from Kensington really – I assume that you’re very busy but would 19 or 20 June be any good? – Thankyou for your letter, it made me rather sad though –
Penelope
25 Almeric Road
London, sw11
13 June [1978]
Dear Francis,
Yes, please do come on the 30th – if I’d known, or paused to reflect, on what it really means to be a theatre critic, I wouldn’t have had the courage to ask you, so I’m glad I didn’t – I do remember now that Mrs Trewin told me they frequently had to take a helicopter from Battersea, to get there in time – but if the 30th is free, that would be very nice, and I’ll send you a card later to say how to get here, it’s not too bad really.
I feel I ought not to worry you any further about LPH matters, which get worse and worse, (e.g. it turns out that Paul Bloomfield, an essential witness as he can recall LPH at Harrow and Balliol, has had (like many others I’m afraid) a wounding quarrel with poor Colin, perhaps all these differences may be made up now). But please could you tell me some time how to write to a Principesa (this is the Principesa Clary) no-one knows how to start the letter – the Italian Institute doesn’t know – the only guide I have is Dylan Thomas’s letters to Marguerite Caetani and they are not a very safe one I feel – and it’s easy to annoy people, however nice they are –
But in any case, please put down the 30th –
Yours
Penelope
Colin writes that he’s composing a Latin epitaph for Joshua – I don’t know whether that would make him feel better or worse –