I liked him so much, darling, that I believed (in spite of his short-lived first marriage, in spite of the fact that Victor, who knows him slightly & who has psychological acumen far beyond his years said: ‘Oh yes, grand company but thoroughly unreliable with women’) that he would make Joan happy. Now, I don’t know what to believe, darling. Joan may love him in her own way, darling, but it’s not love as I understand it. If I felt sure, even of her love for him, I would say perhaps she’ll be happy in spite of everything – but I’m not sure even of that. Oh! thank God, my darling, that I’m going to marry a man whom I trust in my soul – a man who has proved his unselfishness & miraculous gentleness and consideration over a period of years. Darling, I didn’t know how wonderfully & miraculously lucky I was until I saw Joan’s dark startled eyes tonight against a painfully white, drawn face. It’s the most terrible experience I’ve known – since the Blackpool business. In a way it’s worse than that because, in that instance, I had my knowledge of the essential goodness and rightness of my love for you to hold on to and the unshakeable certainty that of all the men I’d ever known you were the most honourable and the kindest. I must put out my light now, darling, I hope to God I shall be able to sleep.
Tuesday 1 September Darling, I was feeling so ill when I got home tonight that I went straight to bed. Then Joan came home & we talked for a very long time & I implored her not to be wanton any more with Robert until they were married – because, darling, I just can’t bear to think of what might happen to her mental & physical health if she had to go through all this again. I got quite hysterical, darling, & I couldn’t stop crying & the perspiration was soaking through my pyjamas – But I think it’s going to be alright now, my dear love, and I feel happier about her than I have for weeks. She was even able to laugh and tell me that Mr Morris (her Principal & the husband of the Female Weeder, Grade III, you remember, my love?) had Found a Candidate for her Hand – a Farmer who was Contemplating Taking a Wife come Dung-Slinging time. I’m going to talk to Robert, darling, & try & make him see my point of view. It’s worth it, my dear love, for Joan’s sake. Please tell me that I’ve acted rightly & fairly for Joan’s interests in all this. It matters to me so much that you should not think that I’ve been stupid or unkind or muddle-headed. It’s one of the hardest things in the world to know how to act when one’s friends are in trouble, darling.
Poor Sheila, she wrote me such a sad letter yesterday saying that it would be the second anniversary of her wedding in a few days’ time and that she felt like Hell though she was trying to keep her sense of proportion & to remember how much more trying conditions were for Allan.
Darling, I’m as limp as a dishcloth after my terrific emotional catharsis but, in a way, I’m tremendously relieved because there’s a hope that Joan’s tangles may, after all, straighten themselves out easily & naturally. Oh! my darling, I’d gladly give 20 years of my life to have you here now – for an hour.
Thursday 3 September I’ve had another letter-card from Aubrey, darling. He says the Smouthas have Migrated to Palestine. This is how he describes them: ‘… a family of indecent opulence, even for Egyptian Israelites, but full of resigned benevolence towards the Universe as long as it was prepared to conduct itself on sound business lines at a round six per cent.’ A description of almost terrifying clairvoyance, darling. He also says, darling, that on seeing his portrait in Oils you remarked, in the presence of the Artist, that it was a good likeness in itself, but that it wore an Unwonted Air of Indigestion.
Monday 7 September Darling, Helen Huxley told me a very sad story about Ram Nahum. Did you know Winifred Lambert? I only knew her by name. She married Mouse Vickers during one of his leaves. They only had a week together when he was whisked off to Greece where he was taken prisoner. She was living with Nahum when they were bombed, and, as I think I’ve already told you, she wasn’t killed, but had to have both legs amputated – and now, darling, her husband is bound to find out that she was sleeping with Nahum on the night that he was killed. This sort of thing makes me furiously angry, my darling. I can bring my relativist judgement to bear on cases of infidelity where the husband is overseas and is indulging in the same sort of thing himself – but I can’t swallow this, darling. I think nine out of ten women of our generation are lacking in guts. Because their husbands or their lovers are away and because they’re lonely & unhappy, they drift into casual liaisons without any thought of what repercussions it may have on the men who have been uprooted, whose professional training has been suspended & whose whole lives have been unsettled & disorganized. Damn them, lewd minxes. It was a real comfort to hear Helen talking of her fiancé with serenity and unshakable loyalty after he’d been in India for two years. It almost looks, my dear love, as though loyalty were a dying virtue – It’s all part of the Dead Hand of Cynicism which is so dangerously fashionable. The Theory is: nothing matters anyway so what the Hell? Oh! darling, it makes me so unhappy. What signs are there in all this that there is any hope of a brave new post-war world?
Tuesday 8 September Darling, Jean is contemplating marrying Square when he gets back from Canada. (He flew over with the first Lancaster – which is no secret, my dear love, as his photograph was in all the papers – at least there was a photograph of the Lancaster in all the papers and an indeterminate blur beside it, part of which (Jean says) was Square – but they do say Love Distorts the Vision, my darling, though, in my own case, I’ve discovered that the assertion is pure nonsense.) Square would be rather entertaining as a cousin-in-law, darling. He is a man of exceedingly good taste – in furniture, pictures & food & at the same time, he’s a simple soul. When anybody else thinks of getting married, darling, I always prop the Candidate Up against a Wall next to my Solace, and he (the Candidate) always topples down in an inconspicuous & uninspiring heap – and I give an ineffably smug and happy little private smile – but don’t tell my friends, darling, they mightn’t like it. (Joan Suspects, darling, and has occasional Bursts of Fury but No one else Knows – except you.)
Wednesday 9 September Darling, two Beautiful things happened while I was at the War Office. A Peppery Colonel at another desk answered the telephone and said: ‘Hot Baths? Hot Baths? What on earth are you talking about? Oh! Horse Guards.’ And then a very High Horse Guards Official was put onto my major who said: ‘I don’t know why you aren’t getting boiled sweets from your NAAFI sir … no, sir … of course, sir … Will Barley Sugar do, sir? … Certainly, sir.’ That Lifted the Pall of Gloom a bit, my dear love.
Sunday 13 September I am reading Crime and Punishment, darling. What a Titanic figure Dostoyevsky is, darling. What a master of Symbolism at its highest. With what infinite subtlety and sensitivity he explores every cranny of delicately balanced minds. Oh! darling, there’s no doubt that he’s the greatest novelist of all time.
Darling, a telegram has just arrived for Joan from Ian. My mother opened it by mistake. It just says: ‘Count me out. All the very best.’ Oh! darling, I don’t know why this makes me feel so unhappy – but it does. I think that, if Joan had waited steadily and unwaveringly for Ian, everything would have been alright when he got back. But it’s not in her nature, darling, to cut the erotic element out of her life altogether for years at a stretch. She simply can’t do without it (though she’d never admit that, my love) but I’m so sorry – so sorry.
Darling, I had a very happy afternoon with Edith Carlyon. She was rather tired & depressed I think & she wasn’t bubbling over with anecdotes but she told me that one night when Ninette de Valois was making a fantastically silly speech at Sadler’s Wells – introducing a new choreographer & saying ‘you see how it is – I mean, one doesn’t run a theatre for one man’s plays’ and Dauntless old Lilian Baylis – who had been sitting in the front row of the stalls bellowed across the footlights: ‘I think you’re forgetting Mr Shakespeare, dear,’ which rather appealed to me.
Wednesday 16 September Darling, Joan came to dinner tonight. She’s spending a fortnight with Doris
Spicer, a family friend. I’ve told you in my letters, darling, though they may not have reached you yet, that Robert wants her to leave here and live on her own. Last time we talked about this she was determined not to do it because she knew how much it would hurt my parents – but now it’s quite obvious that Robert has talked her round & she’s determined to go, whatever the cost. I feel very resentful about the whole thing, darling, because though I can see her point of view very well, I think Robert makes very exacting demands on her all along the line – and she capitulates every time. It seems to me that he takes everything he can get & is prepared to concede nothing in return – not a very happy foundation for marriage. He is determined to get married in his own time – not in Joan’s – and oh! darling, there’s a lot more in it than that, but I’ve told you all about it in my letters. I wish I could persuade myself that Joan was old enough and wise enough to look after herself – but she’s not, my darling, and Robert’s attitude to women is extraordinarily callous and hard-boiled. He may be a Man of the World and very experienced and all that – but there’s none of the gentleness and tolerance and wisdom of my dear love about him – none at all. Oh! I’m worried for Joan, darling – so worried.
Thursday 17 September Darling, I had a very interesting lunch at the Egyptian Embassy. It started badly because the taxi driver took me to the wrong door and a startled Irish Maid in Curling Pins opened it a crack. I looked a little surprised and said I was expected to lunch. ‘Oh! No, indeed you’re not,’ she said. ‘Lady Jessel is expecting nobody.’ I apologized, darling, and Fled Precipitately. Amr Bey, the world squash champion was at lunch. I didn’t speak to him much. He is a dapper little man & his English is better than the Ambassador’s, which is saying something. Nashat Pasha was in Berlin for 10 years, darling. I asked him what he thought of the German Leaders. Of Goebbels he said: ‘He’s a brilliant man – a mind as sharp as a razor. One of the most fascinating conversationalists I have ever met – but no morals unfortunately.’ He said that Hitler only had two ideas – one was that he was a Great Man – The other was that the Jews were the Curse of the Earth – any other idea he might have only entered his head on a short lease or could be blown in and out by the lightest breeze. ‘He never tells a lie or intends to break his word,’ he said. ‘It’s simply that he becomes a whole-hearted supporter of any scheme that’s put to him (except if it affects the Jews or himself) until someone comes along with a new one which drives the first one out of his head.’ He added: ‘He’s house-painter.’ I forebore to remind him, darling, that Christ was a carpenter, but I did say: ‘Oh! but surely that needn’t necessarily have anything to do with it’ – and he said: ‘Oh! but I mean he’s a house-painter in character – though he is no longer a house-painter by profession.’ Of Goering, he just said, ‘Pouff’ and I felt that there really wasn’t much more he could say. I was rather amused by all this, darling, it’s rather heartening too because unless he was absolutely certain in his own mind that if ever he were sent back to Berlin, there would be new political leaders, I doubt if he’d have thought it advisable to give us the Low Down on the Unheavenly Triplets!
Sunday 20 September Darling, Pa was very funny at lunch today about the Finns and the war. He said that the Finnish Ambassador had pointed out in Washington that the Finns had never accepted the German attitude to the Jews. The Jewish population of Helsinki, he said, is carrying on normally – his shop will shut on Yom Kippur as usual!
I’m so terrified for Joan, my darling. I was talking to Mr Murray the other day & he said that he thought that the only thing to do in a case like hers was to try and shock her out of it – which is what I did, darling, but it was no use. The history of her relationship with Robert, my love, has been a shattering blow, not to her but to me – So much so that I simply find myself unable to talk to her now. I expect I’ll get over it, darling, but for the moment I find the whole situation unendurable. She has thrust aside every consideration which seems to me to be important – loyalty to her family & friends, personal fastidiousness and honesty, her sense of proportion and values – everything. Do you know, darling, that when she read Ian’s telegram, which distressed me so much when it arrived, she just laughed and said: ‘How like him to make a Lavish Gesture at this stage of the proceedings.’
Darling, my sense of loyalty to Joan is undergoing a severe strain. I think she is a lesser person than she was and that she’s let herself down almost irrevocably. If she leaves us just so as to be able to sleep with Robert with less subterfuge and inconvenience, I know I shan’t be able to swallow it. Life is so damned complicated. Oh! My very dear love, I want to be married to you and to live and work beside you and to sleep in your arms. I want to hear you say to your friends, ‘This is my wife.’ I want to learn to be a clever wife and a clever lover from you, my darling. I want to be alive again.
Tuesday 22 September Darling, I’ve had a terribly distressing evening. Joan, who intends never to come back to us, has been trying to enlist the co-operation of David & Sylvia & Jean in making things easier for her with my parents & me. She has told them half-truths & has made it appear that I’m taking up a wholly unreasonable attitude. David came to do a couple of hours’ Greek with Pan this evening & we discussed it at great length – and I could see more & more clearly, my darling, that Joan had simply ceased to give a damn for any of the things I care about & there isn’t any longer any common ground on which we can meet. I believe that her relationship with Robert will lead to nothing but another debacle. (Oh! my dear love, how glad I should be to be proved wrong.) I should have liked to have saved her from that but as it doesn’t seem as though I can – she must go her own way. There is no point in our meeting and recriminating over and over again. She said to Jean that it was all very well for me to condemn her for adopting a line that would hurt my parents – but that if I wanted something & I could only get it by hurting them, I’d jolly well hurt them and be damned. Is that true, my dear love? I don’t believe it is, but I suppose I’m as much given to self-deception as the next person & I think in some ways you know me better than I know myself & are therefore more competent to answer my question. David says it’s no good my distressing myself – that Joan is old enough to lead her own life & that she’s the sort of person who, if the Robert affair does end in disaster, will recover from it quite quickly & be quite happy with someone else. That may be true, darling, but in the meantime she has jettisoned every standard that she’s ever professed. I don’t ask that she should have my standards, my darling, I only ask that she should stick to her own – and that is exactly what she isn’t doing. Oh! God. I am unhappy, darling – at the moment I feel very bitterly resentful – but in time I shall get over that & perhaps I shall be able to meet her on casually friendly terms.
You know, darling, I have an idea that Dicky will finish up as am Ambassador! His Diplomatic Machinations are so expert – even at the age of 14. On Sunday night he Took One Look at the Overcrowded & Stifling Overflow of the Synagogue & decided to go home, but he knew there’d be an uproar afterwards if he just walked out – like that – so he Pondered, darling, and a Great Thought Came to Him. He Came Over Faint, Rushed into the Street, Seized the First Passer-By and said dramatically: ‘Take me back to 9 Harley road, I’m ill.’ The Passer-By, presumably Stunned by the Suddenness & Unexpectedness of the Onslaught, complied meekly. When he got him inside the house, Dicky instructed him to ring up Dr Sillcock & tell him to Attend upon him Immediately. Dr Sillcock came, Diagnosed Nerves, took his temperature (which was 99 and no wonder considering the Dimensions of his Dinner!) and left – and Dicky Retired to Bed Triumphant – getting from my parents a due measure of hush-voiced sympathy instead of the Spanking he so Richly Deserved. I hope they make use of his Special Qualities at the Peace Conference! There’s no doubt about it, my dear love, Poor Academic, Brilliant Pan will be left standing by Dicky, who has as much real intellectual capacity as could comfortably be fitted into a pea-nut shell. How like Life, Life is, darling, as Mis
s Carlyon was wont to say with such Profundity.
Friday 25 September Joan came to dinner this evening, darling, & Robert fetched her soon afterwards. I could find nothing to say to her, my love. I just felt desperately uncomfortable and inarticulate the whole time she was here. Oh! God, I hope I get over this soon, darling. Joan is too old a friend to break away from because of one mistake – one act of thoughtlessness.
Oh! Darling, Jean has just told me that she may be able to hold out prospects for me in your part of the world. To present Pa with the offer of really important & responsible work for me, my dear love, would be the best way of persuading him & my mother to take me to you or even to let me go to you alone. We could live together in the Bungalow, my darling, and we could be so incredibly happy. Oh! God be good to me and take me to my very dear love, to live with him and sleep in his arms as his wife.
Sunday 27 September My mother is too far-seeing by half, darling. She came in just now to ask me if I’d quarrelled with Joan. She said she’d felt there was something queer in the atmosphere when Joan was here the other night. I said I hadn’t, darling & it’s true. Oh! darling, I’m going to make a real effort to smother my prejudice & resentment. The other night, when she was here, my mother asked her if she was thinking of getting married. She said: ‘Oh! no, Robert may be going to America soon – I wouldn’t go with him just as a wife – and I haven’t a job to go to.’ Now, darling, she’s always said that she wanted to give up working when she & Robert were married & have a child. It looks frighteningly as though Robert doesn’t want to marry her. That wouldn’t matter, darling, if it weren’t for the fact that he asked her to marry him before he slept with her and that she undoubtedly wants to marry him. If she’d gone into her relationship with her eyes open it would have been a different matter – but she didn’t – and because Robert is completely insensitive to the emotional implications of a woman’s love (you’ve forgotten more about that, my darling, than he ever knew) his actions are likely to be terrifyingly unaccountable. Oh! darling, I can’t be angry with Joan. I have no right to pronounce judgement on the validity of her love. Whatever else it may be it is a predominately generous kind of love and if you’re bent of giving everything he wants to a particularly selfish and grasping kind of person you can’t help hurting other people in the process – but oh! I do wish. Darling, that she’d loved someone gentle and kind and protective – Someone a little like you, my dear love.
Love in the Blitz Page 34
