Saturday 17 April Darling, if any more people look like getting married before us I shall Lay Aside my Dignity and Scream. There’s yesterday’s Times Blazoning Forth the Betrothal of Matthew Waley-Cohen (men must be Scarce in the West Country, my love) to a Junior Subaltern in the ATS. I forget her name but it begins with ‘W’ and it might be Jewish & it might not – though I expect it is – The Waley-Cohen Character – a Marked Inclination to Toe the Line.
Monday 19 April Darling, what shall I say about my Godchild? She has immense, squinting, grey eyes and a sort of Chinese mop of auburn-tinged heavy hair and her cheeks bulge like a couple of tennis balls. Conversation at lunch, darling, was Domestic, Maternal & Grandmaternal. There we sat, my love, Isobel, Mother, Grandmother, Godmother & Mother’s ’Elp, in Debenhams eating the dreariest food I’ve ever set eyes on this Many a Long Year & talking Sawdust nothings. Ismay says that more than half of Charles’s letters get lost, but I don’t believe it, darling. I had hoped that she would provide me with some Copy, my dear love, but she’s Too well-Bred! I remarked on the little pearl brooch that Isobel was wearing & Mrs Levy said that Ismay had had one rather like it but had lost it at a dance. ‘A Court Ball, Mother,’ said Ismay Reprovingly & with Dignity. What can you do with a girl like that, my dear love?
I suppose my time in the Civil Service hasn’t been entirely wasted, my dear love. I have learnt several valuable lessons – one of the most important being that nine out of ten people in the world work not because they want to but because they have to – & how they hate it, darling. It is something to have learnt that, isn’t it, my love? If I’d stayed up at Cambridge, perhaps I’d never have known.
Tuesday 20 April Jean has Come Over All Back-to-the-Land, darling. She’s buying some land in the Home Counties and she intends to grow Recherché Vegetables on it. Well, well, well! I’m lunching with her today at a Kosher Restaurant, my love. I don’t feel like lunching with anybody. I should have preferred to read The Idiot8 all by myself in a Dark Corner.
Wednesday 21 April Darling, Joan Pearce’s Young Man, who has been in W. Africa for 2½ years is expected home any day now. She is Glowing with Satisfaction, darling.
I never liked him. He once attempted to drop a miniature sausage down my neck in a fit of Tipsy Bonhomie at Joan’s 21st birthday party. (I’m glad alcohol never has any effect on you, my dear love.)
Thursday 22 April You know, my dear love, there isn’t the slightest doubt that Dostoyevsky is the greatest novelist that ever lived. Coming to work this morning I was reading The Idiot and the effect was so tremendous that I felt quite stupefied and bewildered when I looked out of the window to find that the bus had drawn into the kerb at my stop.
Darling, if there were any sun I should like to be lying in it – but not alone. I want to lie in the sun with you, my darling, & I want you to undo the buttons of my dress & slip your hand inside my brassiere as you did on that first day when you touched my naked breast, my darling, & excited me so much that I could only gasp & beg you not to make me get up & go to the pictures. Do you remember, my dear love? You didn’t excite me completely then – that came afterwards but you made me realize for the second time in my life (the first, as I’ve told you, darling, was in your room at Victoria Road) the overpowering joy that you could call up from my body & my spirit. These are but fancies of an idle brain, my dear love, because there is no sun & you are still many thousands of miles away.
Friday 23 April There’s a tremendous commotion going on in the house because Aunt Teddy has just come back to Take Shelter from the Guns for the Night. Whether this will Prolong itself into a 6 months’ visit is impossible to foretell, darling, but I shouldn’t wonder. Last time she came to stay it was for a weekend but it was 18 months before she left.
Wednesday 28 April You know, darling, just as an experiment I’ve tried a New Line with Dicky. I’ve tried to make him see the Error of his Ways by explaining in great detail the Ethical & Social Enormity of his Conduct – and it’s really painful to see, darling, that what I say doesn’t strike a spark. He simply doesn’t understand about Right & Wrong. He watches me with his hard, black eyes and then when I’ve said all I can closes the subject with some cheap, cynical sneer. Oh! Darling, he’s one of the most convincing pieces of evidence that Ouspensky Has Something when he says that there are some people who can’t progress spiritually – because they have no real desire for spiritual progress – however favourable their opportunities. Dicky has had every possible opportunity – and yet he is so sodden in self-conceit & materialism that there’s an impenetrable barrier round him. Perhaps it amuses you, darling, to hear me discuss a child’s character so solemnly – but (and this is what everyone tends to forget because he has a deceptively childish appearance) he is nearly 15 & in some ways he’s an old 15 too. Oh! darling, it causes me an immense amount of distress & anxiety because I can foresee that one day Dicky is going to give my parents a shock from which they’ll never recover. &, though it will be largely their fault for not whipping it out of him in time, I don’t want it to happen.
Saturday 1 May Darling, Nurse is going to have another baby. I’m sorry for Nurse, darling. Allan is a fanatical Roman Catholic & Contraception, in his eyes, is the Instrument of the Devil – so Nurse will have a baby every 10 months until she grows too old. Oh! well, if Mrs Gaster survived 16 I suppose Nurse will too – and anyway, Who Am I to Talk?
I had lunch with Miss Malyon today & I said wearily with my mouth full of smoked salmon that I felt as though I were getting to the end of my rope. She said it astonished her that I could be so ‘entertaining & bursting with mental vitality’ if I felt like that. I looked at her in amazement, darling, because it seems to me that since you left I have been duller than a clod & older than a boat. She told me that the other day after one of our coffee sessions Mr Murray had remarked that you were lucky because I was such good company & that she’d replied that our coffee sessions brighten up the whole day & he agreed. All I can say, darling, is that some people are easily pleased – and I am not referring to myself.
Monday 3 May Yesterday was a good day, darling. I was wrong when I said Mrs Eban & Mrs Halper were indistinguishable from one another, my love. They are only superficially alike. Both are voluble – but if you scratch below the surface, darling, you find in Mrs Eban a high degree of intelligence & humour – a sincere desire to understand her fellow creatures & her children (though it must be admitted, my love, that her desire doth outrun her performance) and a fundamental honesty & forthrightness. Mrs Halper is quite another matter, darling. She’s bigoted & stupid & fanatical. She is also a Social Climber of no mean effort & achievement & she has no sense of humour whatsoever. Her philosophy of life is that all Jews are Gods & all Others Devils at worst and Riff-Raff at Best. Bearing all this in mind, darling, it will not surprise you to hear that she & I differed violently on the Jewish Question.
Tuesday 4 May Dr Minton has just been to see me. He says I am suffering slightly from a ‘hyper-thyroid’ due to my ‘psychological condition’ & that I must stay in bed for a week & sleep as much as possible. He was so kind, my darling. He says, my dearest love, that constitutionally I’m perfectly normal & healthy & that once we are married and the fear of separation has been taken away from me I shall enjoy a physical robustness & vitality such as I have never enjoyed. He says that his only effective prescription would be a telegram to you Ordering You Home. If that could be arranged, he says, he guarantees that in a week my thyroid glands would be behaving with perfect decorum. Oh! God. I know he’s right, my darling.
Jean dined here last night, my love. You know, darling, I like her so much better now that she has abandoned casual wantonness for Square. Darling, it is an appalling limitation in me that I can’t accept a promiscuous outlook in my friends. I’ve tried to be Enlightened & Broadminded & Tolerant but it’s No Good. I hate it, darling, & I can’t even pretend that I don’t.
Friday 7 May Darling, my nerves are screaming like scorched b
rakes this morning. I hadn’t really conceived that anything so damnable could happen as not getting any letters this morning, but I was quite wrong, my dear love. That is precisely what has happened.
Mum & Pa are in a Resentful mood this morning, my dear love, because I’m feeling less well than I did yesterday. Mum talks of taking me to a nerve specialist, but what the Hell is the good of that? Dr Minton knows & I know & Mum knows what’s the matter with me – one letter from you, my darling, will do more good than all the Neurologists in the world.
They had an interesting evening with Mrs Churchill, darling. Pa’s Appeal was, as he is the First to Admit, Squinting Modestly Down his Nose, Eloquent. Mrs C was Tremendously Moved (This is Mum’s version) and when she heard that Pan & Dicky were at Harrow, her Cup was Full. Mum & Pa found her very charming, darling. She is very soignée and attractive looking &, it seems, has a very warm manner & a keen interest in everything that goes on around her. Pa Dreams that she may say to her husband at the Conjugal Board or even in the Conjugal Bed, darling, that she heard a man the other day who didn’t make speeches – he Conducted Symphonies in prose of his own composition.
Darling, Dr Minton has just been to see me & he says I must go away for a week or ten days & that right rapidly. The only place where I can go at such short notice & where I know I shall feel as much at home as though it were my own house, darling, is Girton Corner, so, watched over by Mum, Pa & Dr Minton I telephoned Mrs Turner who says she’ll be glad to have me at once and for as long as I like. I’m waiting until tomorrow afternoon, darling, in the hope that I shall get some letters before I go.
You see, my darling, I am yours for better, for worse, and I can’t live without you. I can only drag my slow length along like a wounded snake and wait for you to come home to me carrying the gifts of love and life in your hands.
Sunday 9 May Darling, Mrs Turner is Treating me with Sanatogen9 but I had to stop taking it as the taste is so closely associated with you &, besides, I’m not sure how it would go with Bromide, Valerian & Iodine.
How do you get on with our parrot, Alfonso, darling? Aubrey finds him Anti-Social. He says that the Parrot practically Vomits with Loathing at the sight of him.
Tuesday 11 May Darling, I had lunch with Nancy Bailey & mercifully she is unchanged & wholly delightful. She told me, in the Deepest Confidence, darling, that she was beginning to get quite Alarmed about meeting old friends because of the Change that seemed to Come Over Them in Practically no Time. She said that she had recently met an old school friend whom she hadn’t seen for years. She had been looking forward enormously to the meeting, had Parked her Daughter on a Neighbouring Great-Aunt & Pranced Off to the Appointed Place in High Jubilation. She had expected the friend to be in WRNS uniform, darling, but she wasn’t. Nancy remarked on it casually & the girl confessed that she had been Cast Out for sleeping with 12 different men in a fortnight!
Wednesday 12 May Oh! darling, I can’t wait for your Stinging Rebuke (I hope it lashes me to the marrow) for trying to lead you astray in the matter of wild oats. Every now & then, my darling, my Conscience compels me to give you an Opening, lest you should need it at any time but oh! God, do you know what it costs me to do it, darling? I expect you do. After that I Wait in an Agony of Apprehension & Emotional Turmoil. Not only do I not want you, with all my heart, to Sow Wild Oats – the very thought of it makes me Feel Ill. Ergo, my Gesture has no value.
Thursday 13 May My darling, today has been an eventful day. First there was the news about the end of the fighting in Africa. May I dare to hope, my dear love, that that may mean that you will come home soon? Oh! please dear God that it may.
I forgot to tell you, darling, that when I went into Girton yesterday evening, I met Matron (the old Battleaxe) in the corridor & she said: ‘Ah! Alexander – the girl who used to telephone to Cairo once a week. You’d better come to tea tomorrow.’ So I did, my love. She gave me 3-decker sandwiches with one hand and waved the Union Jack with the other. ‘She said: ‘You never liked Egypt, did you? I expect it was the Egyptians – A poor lot – but show me a nation that isn’t a poor lot – except us, of course.’ There isn’t a fraction of tongue in Matron’s cheek, darling. She’s an Outpost of Empire. I can’t think of a more incongruous place to plant it. She made Short Shrift of my Thyroid: ‘Nerves,’ she said succinctly. ‘Always were a bundle of nerves. Thank God the First Year are a Healthy Lot.’
Portress, darling, is unchanged in spite of having lost 19 teeth and being Resplendent in a brand new set of Dentures – which she showed me with Immense Pride.
I almost forgot to tell you, darling, about Matron’s fantastic remark about Jewish Atrocities on the Continent. She asked me if I thought the stories that were being put about were true & I said gravely & sadly that I was afraid there was no doubt that they were – the evidence was so overwhelming. She said: ‘How dreadful. I wish you hadn’t told me. I felt better as long as I could believe that they were exaggerated.’ Darling, that is so much the attitude of the Government & of all but a very few enlightened humanists (& they are to be found mainly in the House of Lords & the Universities) that it made me feel rather as I feel when I hear my contemporaries discussing their Sex-Lives, that I am battering my head against a brick wall.
Friday 14 May Darling, I’m cross with Adele for her attitude to Aubrey but I too can understand how it came about. Nevertheless, Adele has all the Temperamental Attributes of a King’s Mistress without the necessary Compensating Charms. (Not that I’m complaining of that, my love, considering the Intimacy in which you Twain are Placed.) As for Aubrey, darling, his Manner (which I richly enjoy) is his Misfortune and I know very well that that is why his young woman left him & why Joyce never took him seriously. He is too much the Grand Seigneur: He has never learnt how to Come Off It – & one thing a girl needs more than another (& Adele is no exception) is a man who can be boyish from time to time. (It’s one of the things, my darling, that Mum loves so supremely in Pa.) Aubrey Gambols at times but he Gambols like a Loveable Elephant & not like a very merry, giddy, frisky, jolly little lamb – until he learns to do that, darling, mark my words no woman (& again Adele is no exception) will ever love him.
Sunday 16 May My darling, I arrived home to find letters 107, 108, 109 & 109B. Oh! My dearest love, if I’d had them in their proper order I don’t think I should have been as ill as I have.
Thank you for not Spanking me for my letter 149. I think you know what it cost me to urge you with as much enthusiasm as I could muster (did you notice much enthusiasm, my love?) to Sow a Wild Oat if you felt you must. Thank you, oh! thank you, my dearest love for not feeling that you must.
Victor was here when I got back, my darling, & apropos of Joan & Robert he was saying that the nearest thing a man could get to chastity was to remain faithful for the sake of love. He said that no man who was not sexually sub-normal could be wanton with a woman without undergoing a deep psychological change, however casual the encounter & that thereafter his love relationship must be to some degree imperfect. He said, my darling, that he would remember bitterly for all his life what he had lost by drifting into a loveless relation at a time when love had ‘played hell with him’. So, darling, for your sake as well as mine I shall never again urge you to Sow Wild Oats & I’m trembling with love and gratitude because you have asked me not to.
I’m sorry to Contradict you, my love, but Bernard Lewis is right about your potentialities as a scholar – you have much greater depth than Aubrey. Memory & concentration, my darling, can be acquired. Receptivity & understanding cannot. Aubrey is a Doctor Johnson but you are a Plato. Don’t contradict me, darling. It is my business as a humanist to distinguish between the Johnsons & the Platos of this world. At the risk of sounding complacent, my love, I must ask you to Apply to My Tutors who will tell you that I am Good at It.
My darling, I had hoped that we should not discuss the unbearable possibility of your capture & death but since you have referred to it I
can’t leave it at that, my dearest love. If you were missing, my darling, of course I should not give up hope of your being a prisoner of war. Just as I couldn’t endure to live without you so I couldn’t bear to die while there was a possibility of your being alive. In the event of your death, my darling, you must please understand that there would simply be no shadow of a possibility of my being a happy wife & mother or even a useful member of society. I’m deadly serious, my dear love, when I say that without you I am nothing – unless you understand this you will never understand my love. I don’t believe in an afterlife (though I am very much inclined to believe in eternal recurrence) & therefore I don’t believe that in such circumstances, my death could cause you any pain. As for my parents, my dear love, their grief at my death would be painful – but it would pass. Their grief at my desiccation & shrivelling up if you were dead would last as long as They or I lived. If we had children, my darling, that would be different. I would not desert the responsibilities that you had left me but we have none, my dearest love, & I can’t live without you. I can live away from you, but not without you altogether. As for marrying someone else. Oh! God! My darling, you must see how wildly fantastic that suggestion is – but, don’t worry, my dear love, I am Confident that we shall be together in time & have such joy of one another that all the world will wonder at it.
Love in the Blitz Page 42
