I can imagine the fuss the people in Whitfield made about your visit to New York. If they only knew the reason, huh! Anyway, Cora Macfarlane is full of it. That woman never had a kind word to say about me when I was going to school. She always thought I would come to no good. Not for a moment would she ever had believed that “I would some day make something of myself.” What baloney! She was always complaining to Father that I was bothering her Ralphie. You remember Ralph Macfarlane? That drip! He used to sit beside me and stare at my legs. But his mother was so worried about her Ralphie. He is in Toronto now, isn’t he? And married? It makes you wonder.
By the way, and I meant to say this right off the bat — we are going full network next month and the agency has sold the program to a number of Canadian stations including Toronto, though I can’t remember which one. So, you can tell the good folks in Whitfield that they can tune me in and let Cora Macfarlane put that in her pipe and smoke it!!!
Have to go now. Les is taking me to the new Ginger Rogers movie at the Loew’s. I get such a kick out of looking at her in those gorgeous gowns. You’re probably thinking that it’s now my turn to get mixed up with a married guy, but don’t worry, I’ve been burned before. This is just a date. Once in a while it’s nice to go out with a man. I like the smell of their shaving lotion and the way they can steer you through a crowd. Those are little things I miss. Anyway this is not serious. I told Les that it’s just a friendly date and not to get his hopes up for anything “hot and heavy.” Please take care of yourself, sister!
Love, Nora
P.S. I was talking to Evelyn and she said that it might be a good idea for you to have some kind of examination in a few weeks. Just to make sure everything is okay “down in the wheelhouse,” as she puts it. Maybe you could go to Toronto and have that done. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
San Remo Apts.
1100 Central Park West
N.Y.C.
25/8/35
Dear Clara Callan,
My, aren’t we formal and “standoffish” when we apply our signatures to letters to friends! Well, Clara Callan, I am glad that you are safely back in your little village of “six hundred souls” and are busy “putting things in order.” Why do I imagine that you spend a good deal of time “putting things in order.” Not that I couldn’t use a little bit of that around here (thank God for Eunice). But you do strike me as the type of gal who is inordinately fond of tidiness, though obviously you have an intriguing secret life.
Never mind, I am only kidding. This is just old half-sloshed Evelyn speaking and you musn’t take offence. Let me just say this and I mean it. I very much enjoyed meeting you even under the difficult circumstances surrounding your visit. Yes, you are a tidy severe person and English or Canadian or Canadian-English or something. But you are also quite a nice person and the funny thing is you don’t realize it. I hope you have been told by someone besides me just how nice you really are. There now, you are shocked, but you shouldn’t be. You see yourself as the dry spinster schoolteacher, but you are obviously much more than that and you should know it. What do you do for amusement on say, a Wednesday night in that village?
You and that sister of yours! What a pair! And how different! Yet you complement each other so remarkably well. Let me tell you about Nora and me since I could see by your furrowed brow that you were trying to puzzle out what was going on between us. Nora is beautiful in her own way; she turns men’s heads, and women’s too, believe me. She is also a wonderful trooper with the proverbial heart of gold. She is tough but innocent. Of course, she can be an utter birdbrain. She is far too simplistic and actually believes in the stuff I write for her. She thinks it helps a lot of people get through their day, and for all I know, she may be right, though God help the nation if she is. But Nora is also shrewd and honest. The radio business is filled with ambitious but dishonest people, but even the most corroded hearts down here like your sister.
Never sell Nora short! I saw you looking at her a few times and probably thinking, “My, how my sister has become a vulgar little American broad!” Of course, you wouldn’t have put it in so many words, but you know what I mean. And yes, it’s easy to see Nora as just a pretty little thing acting in this dopey radio show for housewives. But the fact is that she puts so much of her own goodness (I can think of no other word) into those fifteen minutes every day, that the damn thing sounds almost authentic. Innocence like that can be truly frightening. Well, I guess you can now see why I am so fond of her.
Now to other things. I’m glad you enjoyed the poetry books. I like Bogan too. She writes with a clear unsentimental voice and that is what appeals to me in her work. Millay’s latest poems are a little spongy for my taste. You would probably enjoy Elinor Wylie. And let’s not forget the boys! How about Eliot and Pound? Have you read anything by them? Or Wallace Stevens? He’s interesting and intricate. A little cerebral for me but he’ll put your brain to work. Maybe you could look for some of their stuff in Toronto. What a funny name for a city by the way! Is it Indian or what? And how far away from this city are you? Nora keeps reminding me that Canadians do not live in the bush, and of course I realize that, but I just wondered how close you were to bookstores and concerts and things like that. I was only up to Canada once. I was twelve. Good Lord, that was thirty-five years ago! My father, a kind, gentle wonderful man (unfortunately I take after my mother) took me up to Montreal on the train and then we had a boat ride down the St. Lawrence River. We stayed in a big hotel on a cliffside in Quebec City and I thought it was all thoroughly enchanting. It was like living in a castle and the French-Canadian maids were so nice to me, though I’m sure I must have been an awful brat. But that’s my only experience of your fair country. Perhaps one of these days I will get up to that village of yours and see how it matches Meadowvale, U.S.A.
Allow me one last word. I was only too glad to help out last month and not for a moment should you feel indebted. As kindly old Aunt Mary says, “What are friends for after all?” Keep in touch, Clara Callan.
Love, Evelyn
P.S. I don’t know if your sister has told you, but we’ll be on the Canadian airwaves next month. Further evidence (as if we needed it) of the decline of Western civilization.
Friday, September 5
The first week of school in, and as I left, Milton was whistling in his office, happy to have the first few days over and done with. Milton is looking tanned and robust from his summer at the cottage, and he seems altogether more confident than he did this time last year.
Met Ella Miles who was moping in the schoolyard. She has not been happy in Milton’s classes these past two years, and now it seems customary for her to begin each September with a litany of complaints about Milton’s teaching, followed by a carol to those rapturous days when she sat at the front of my Senior Second row. Those days, of course, were not as blissful as Ella remembers, and she often tried my patience. Ella has a nasty side, a cruel spirit, though I chose to overlook it most of the time because she loved words and she wanted so much to please me. Perhaps I felt sorry for her and her mother working at McDermott’s, dusting those coffins and throwing out the dead flowers. There is no doubt about it; Ella was a favourite and I let her get away with things.
“Do you remember, Miss Callan, when I won the Recitation Prize?”
“Indeed I do, Ella.” And I did.
Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning against the bosom of the urgent West,
That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding
Whither away, fair rover, and why thy quest?
Twenty-four such lines delivered with proper emphasis and without error in the town hall on a hot June night. No mean feat for a ten-year-old, and she has never forgotten the excitement of winning something.
“I liked your classes so much, Miss Callan. I wish you taught the senior forms instead of Mr. McKay.”
But Ella is no longer the blonde little girl with the scruffy ears who likes re
ading poems and writing stories about animals. Behind the simple dress, a girl is turning into a woman. I could see it too in her pale bitter look, that power to bestow or withhold. Already a little sexual creature. She will be a handful for Milton this year.
Whitfield, Ontario
Sunday, September 8, 1935
Dear Evelyn,
It was good to hear from you. I suppose you are right. I have always treated Nora a little too disdainfully, in the manner of older sisters everywhere, but perhaps because of my nature which leans towards the judgemental. I always thought Nora’s work in radio shops and so on was not as high-minded as teaching. I’m afraid I always saw her as a shopgirl and amateur actress, and I was wrong to look at her that way. She worked much harder than I ever have and has been more successful than I could ever hope to be. As you rightly point out, she has succeeded in a difficult and competitive business, and lately I have begun to wonder if all along I wasn’t just jealous. I always thought Nora took too many chances and was riding for a fall. Perhaps I was too influenced by my father who was also not terribly sympathetic to Nora’s ambitions. To be honest, Father didn’t care for Nora as much as he did for me. I was his favourite and I saw that from very early on. Now, however, I could be just jealous of her confidence and accomplishments. This innocence you mention often put me on the wrong track. I think that’s what you may have been referring to, and you’re probably right. I suppose that kind of close observation of another person is part of what makes you a writer, isn’t it?
You’re correct too about my being a bit fussy. I can’t seem to help it and it sometimes worries me a little. I doubt that I will every marry. To begin with, there is no one within shouting distance. I can’t see myself married to some young farmer in the township, bearing a brood of six sons and daughters, baking pies and canning fruit on September afternoons. I shouldn’t say I can’t see myself doing all that. In fact I can, but I don’t think it will happen. Of course, there is a side of me that would like that, but on my own terms. More fussiness, I suppose. I think I can make a good life for myself here with my teaching and my house. But there are things that tear away at me sometimes. Longings for I know not what. Well, enough of that.
You asked me what I do on Wednesday nights here in Whitfield? Well, let’s see. You might find me reading some awful library novel by Louis Bromfield or Pearl Buck. Or washing my hair. Sometimes I play the piano. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of lovely wasteful hours dreaming across the keyboard. I was once considered to be “quite accomplished.” What that means in these parts is moderately talented. It is the talent of the woman who is asked to accompany the soloist for “The Holy City” at a wedding or the carols at the Christmas concert. I don’t play nearly as much as I used to. So there you have my Wednesday nights and something tells me that they are not that different from most people’s. Don’t most of us live out our lives in fairly quiet and simple ways?
I used to go to church, and I miss that. I wasn’t active in church things like the Women’s Auxiliary and the Missionary Society, but I always looked forward to the Sunday service. I used to go with my father and we sat four rows from the front and I liked everything about it except the mingling at the end by the church door. I always wanted to get away from that. But during the service I enjoyed the hymns and the readings and even Mr. Cameron’s gentle sermons. I loved all that since childhood, and believed that God was listening to us there each Sunday morning in Whitfield, Ontario. Then one Sunday last winter, I just stopped believing, and this has been a great loss to me. Far greater than I might have imagined. And I can’t retrieve my faith. It has vanished as surely as one’s belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Do you still believe in God, by the way?
When I look back on this letter, I can see that I’ve been rambling, and I’m tempted to tear it up and start again, but I simply haven’t the energy. Some things have happened to me this year that I am still trying to deal with and some day perhaps I will find the courage to tell someone. Meantime, please forgive this rather incoherent letter. It was very good to hear from you, Evelyn, and I hope I may again soon.
Clara
P.S. Yes, I have read some of T. S. Eliot though I couldn’t make head nor tail of his poem The Waste Land. I suppose I’m just not smart enough. I will look for books by Pound and Stevens the next time I am in Toronto, which, since you asked, is a two-hour train ride from here.
P.P.S. Toronto is an Indian word for “meeting place.” How about Kalamazoo or Milwaukee as “funny” American place names?
135 East 33rd Street
New York
September 15, 1935
Dear Clara,
How are you feeling anyway? Haven’t heard from you in a while and thought I’d drop you a note. I’m a little bleary-eyed today and didn’t even make church this morning. Last night we had a party at Evelyn’s to celebrate our first week on the network, and I had a little more champagne than was probably good for me. It was a swell evening except at the end when Les, who insisted on bringing me home in a cab, decided to make a fool of himself outside my apartment building. First he wanted to come up for a drink, and I said no it was late and not a good idea anyway. Then he started going on about how much he loved me and couldn’t live without me. Brother! Right there on the street at two o’clock in the morning. Finally I got rid of him, but I can’t imagine how he is going to look me in the eye tomorrow morning after that performance. Give a normally nice guy a few drinks and he turns into this many-handed monster who won’t take no for an answer. I’m really furious about this though I blame myself too. I should never have gone out with him in the first place. But I liked the guy and I thought I made it clear that it was just friendship. On Thursday night we had tickets for “The Fleischman Hour” and we went to the show and had a wonderful time. Went for a bite afterwards and it was terrific. He was a perfect gentleman. Now this!!! As you can tell, I’m really disappointed in him. And the party at Evelyn’s had been so much fun! I don’t know. It seems that men, however nice they seem to be, have only one thing on their minds. And the married ones are the worst!!!
How about you? I hope your love life is more tranquil these days and that in any case you are being “careful.” How is school with dear old Milton McKay? Is he as boring as ever? Honestly, I don’t know how you can work with somebody like that, but I guess you must be used to him by now. Well, I have to get busy and read over tomorrow’s script. This headache is just about gone. Who invented the aspirin tablet anyway? He deserves a gold medal. Big crisis coming up this week in the show. Maddy, the pregnant girl Alice caught stealing money from the church’s collection plate, disappears!!! The boy, who is probably the father of the child, has been around the house several times and it looks as if he has persuaded Maddy to run away with him. Effie is glad she’s gone because she is jealous, but Alice and Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim are worried about her because she is so frail and vulnerable. Anybody in Whitfield caught the show?
Love, Nora
P.S. Do you remember Jack and Doris Halpern? Got a nice letter from them. They are living in Chicago now where Jack works for NBC. Doris is expecting, lucky girl.
San Remo Apartments
1100 Central Park West
N.Y.C.
22/9/35
Dear Clara,
Thanks for your letter about life in Whitfield, Ontario. I have been unable to locate it exactly on the map of the world, but I’ll take your word that it exists and is, in fact, a two-hour train ride from Toronto. And touché about American place names!
You asked if I believed in God? Well, it’s not a question you are asked every day. Only certain types of people want to know the answers to such questions and it would seem that you are one of them. Anyway, your question set the memory wheels in motion and I thought of when I was a girl at this Episcopalian boarding school for well-to-do young ladies in the green hills of Connecticut. I had what you might call a religious experience there. I had another kind of experience too, but maybe we’ll
leave the recollection of that for another day. Both of these momentous events occurred when I was an overweight and very serious thirteen-year-old.
On the faculty of Eden Hall was this wonderful old dame, Miss Barrett. She looked exactly like your standard-issue girls’ schoolteacher of the time: a tall henna-haired spinster with glasses on a chain across her flat chest. Eden Hall was a very religious school in those days; we had chapel every day and twice on Sundays. We also had a regular class in Scripture taught by Miss Barrett. She talked about God as if He lived next door. One winter night I was walking back from Study Hall to my dormitory. It was one of those clear mid-winter nights and I stopped to look up at all these stars. I was the kind of fat, sensitive kid who would do that. I was standing there admiring all that celestial glory when Miss Barrett arrived from behind a tree. She was wrapped up in her long coat and tam and gloves and carrying binoculars.
“You enjoy looking at the heavens, do you, Dowling?” she asked. Looking at the heavens! I really liked the sound of that expression. I can’t remember what I said, but I recall Miss Barrett saying, “Did you know, Dowling, that great men have looked at such skies through the ages and have been both consoled and terrified by what they saw.”
Good old Barrett. She had this terrific voice and there in that icy clear night it was coming through to me. This is what she quoted to me.
Within its deep infinity I saw
ingathered and bound by love in
one volume the scattered leaves
of all the universe.
— Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.
Clara Callan Page 11
