Love in the Blitz

by Eileen Alexander

  Robert hasn’t contributed a penny to her support or Susan’s during the past 6 months, darling, & she naturally doesn’t want anything from him. Dr Minton has given her a medical certificate saying that she will be unfit for work in the Ministry of WT for 3 months & in that time she hopes to find a job at Oxford or Cambridge & to settle there with Susan. To explain to her parents the fact that Robert never went to see Susan, darling, she told them he was in Antwerp, but now, of course, they know the full story.

  You know, darling, I must have blundered miserably last time Joan was in trouble because I’m the only one of her friends who knew nothing of what was going on. She has avoided me consistently ever since she came back to London & yet Sheila, Celia & Horace & Ally & Lennie were fully au courant. Not that that matters, my darling, but I think she would have found, if she’d come to me sooner, that I had learnt my lesson. I wouldn’t have Recriminated, my darling, I’d only have tried to understand.

  Darling, the breaking up of marriages in our generation leads Victor to the bitter conclusion that there is something wrong with marriage but it leads me to the conclusion that there is something wrong with the general attitude to marriage. So few people seem to realize, my darling, that it’s a solemn undertaking & a sacrament. Oh! darling, darling, the more I see of other husbands, the more completely & wonderfully I love my own.

  Thursday 13 September My darling, I’m numb & bewildered. Things have happened today through a sort of mist. Mum & Pan & I set off early this morning for London. We went shopping & then to ‘Baron’s Court’ – a great, empty echoing house. We’d only been there a few moments when the telephone rang. It sounded strange and very loud. I answered it. It was Mr Martin who used to be Head of Shell in Cairo. I couldn’t understand why he should ring us, my dear love, but I thought it kind of him & said: ‘How nice! You’re the first person to speak to us on the telephone in our new home – I’m sure it will bring us luck.’ God! What Dramatic Irony, my darling. He said unhappily, ‘I want you to go back to Twickenham immediately. Uncle Felix is with me. I’m afraid we have bad news for you.’ Oh! darling, darling, I suddenly saw the room spinning round me – I thought something must have happened to li’l Kate or to you, my darling. I never thought of Pa because somehow he was so robust & so full of zest & vitality that I never associated him with sickness or death – but Mr Martin told me that it was Pa, my very dear love. He died of a heart attack last night.

  I don’t know how I managed to spin a tale to Mum – I told her that Pa had been taken ill & that Uncle Felix wanted her to go back to Riverside to talk about flying back to Cairo. I don’t know how Pan got us home, my darling. Mum looked like a ghost & all the way home I was thinking of the pity of it. All his life, my dear love, he has worked & planned to settle in London & now this has happened on the very day that we took over the new house.

  When I came into the house, my darling, & looked at li’l Kate dimpling in her pram, I cried because it was so terribly sad that she wouldn’t remember Pa who loved her so & was so proud of her. Uncle Felix came soon after we got home, with Dr Minton. (I tried frantically to get Dr Minton on the phone, my love, but no one knew where he was – actually, of course, he was on his way here.) Uncle Felix told Mum, darling, & she set up a wild & desolate keening that it broke my heart to hear: ‘My darling Alec – you can’t leave me – I need you.’ Then, darling, she clutched pathetically at Dr Minton’s hand & said: ‘You & I will go to Cairo tomorrow, David. We’ll save him. He can’t die when we’re with him can he?’ Dr Minton gave her an injection of morphine, my love, & we undressed her & put her to bed. She sobbed & struggled & at last fell asleep. Dr Minton thinks she should sleep for 15 hours – he made it a very strong dose.

  Oh! darling, darling, though I have been angered by Pa so many times, though I have even had little hot spurts of hatred for him once or twice, by and large I had a tremendous respect for him and affection too. I’m desolate now to think that I’ll never see him On the Scent of the Chocolate ration again – that I’ll never again be exasperated by his old, old stories – that I’ll never again enjoy the rich humanity of his political & philosophical views. He was a Great man in his way I think, my very dear love, & the world is the poorer for his loss. I rang your parents & spoke to your mother.

  Friday 14 September My darling, Nellie cabled this morning to say that we could regard Riverside as our home for as long as we liked so we’ll be staying on here for a week or two anyway. She’s coming here for the night today.

  Darling, I read Mum Pa’s last letter to her (she had 5 this morning) written on the day he died & I think it brought her comfort. It was so gay & zestful, so full of hopes & plans for the new house – where, he said characteristically, he knew he would be welcomed like a King. It’s lovely, darling, that his Superabundant vitality was with him up to the last moment.

  David & Sylvia were heartbroken at the news. ‘We loved him like a second father,’ Sylvia said & I’m sure it’s true. Horace said: ‘God! It’s bloody unfair – Alec of all people. He had Guts enough for 10. I can’t believe it.’ His friends are pouring in their sorrow & sympathy – if he knows that, my darling, I think he will be happy – like a schoolboy with a 1lb box of assorted chocolates.

  Mum is terribly weak & sad, my darling, but she’s no longer delirious. She finds comfort in his love & the tenderness of his letters – as I should do if I were her, my sweet Solace. There’s no richer thing in life than to be loved by a good man & Mum will always have that.

  When we give Kate his last present – (It’s very rare, darling, & priceless in value – it’s Ptolemaic – perhaps Cleopatra wore it) we must tell her how he loved her & how he longed for his 6 o’clock chat with her each day – & how he was wise & humane & saw in the Labour victory the dawn of a great future for all men.

  Saturday 15 September I was overwhelmed again with the realization of his wonderful capacity for friendship – a unique gift that, my darling. I have never known one man loved so much by so many people. I’m so glad, my darling, that in these last five years I’ve come to appreciate Pa. I think he knew that the resentment of my childhood & adolescence had been replaced by a feeling of warmth & intellectual ethical kinship. It would have been terrible if he had died before I had learned to know him as he really was. You helped me there, my darling, & that is another tremendous debt of gratitude that I owe my dearest lord. I have never loved you as much as I do now, my darling, & I think my love for you is helping me to help Mum.

  Thursday 8 November This evening Joan came to dinner. She seems to have got to the stage of being bored with Robert, darling, I think owing to the fact that he informed her parents that Joan had rushed him into marrying her & now wanted to get her own way as usual by rushing him into leaving. Blod (as Joan calls her) was the Last Straw – anyway, darling, she has hardened considerably towards him since I saw her last & she is now determined that he will not see Susan again until she’s grown-up.

  Tuesday 13 November This morning, love, Joan rang me to read me a letter she’d had from Ian. He sounded lonely & much hurt by what had happened to her. He said he hoped she wouldn’t mind his writing, darling, ‘but I’m never very good at knowing when I’m not wanted’. I think it’s not impossible that Joan might marry Ian yet, my dear love, & if she did she’d be her Cambridge self again & all the rest would dissolve like a nightmare.

  Sunday 25 November Bernard told me on the telephone that Joyce has been deprived of her Appendix with Complications. He also asked me to dinner, an invitation which I accepted, love, mainly out of curiosity – I wanted to see how the Menage worked without Joyce to Keep a Curb on the Cook.

  It was a fascinating evening, my dear love. First of all the house, in spite of its extensive dilapidations, is perfectly beautiful although it’s semi-furnished in a hotch-potch of styles. Then, darling, there was something exquisitely ironic about the Elizabethan proportions of the meal which their Tatty but Accomplished Cook set before us. A who
le sole each followed by a stew garnished with mountains of potatoes & cabbage & a largish Flan – & the soup he had was elephant soup & the fish he had was whole. Finally, my love, over Rare Old Brandy & Coffee (the Brandy being brought up lovingly from the cellar all authentically Cob-webbed) he told me many things with a kind of Gargantuan simplicity.

  He told me how his Old Boy had Conned Joyce’s Old Boy into Coughing Up at least half of what he (Sir Robert) was proposing to settle on Bernard. He informed me that while Joyce assured him that his bed was the first she had ever shared, he couldn’t give her the same assurance but that she didn’t seem to mind which he thought was decent of her. He whispered that he thought Ursula was a Phony but that she & Joyce were still ‘Very Thick’ – he asked me what I thought of the Mosley affair (to which I gave a Diplomatic answer, darling) & wound up by saying that you were a Good Chap. Then, darling, he Wrapped me up in one of his Looted American Army Windjammers with four linings & took me home on his motor cycle – the worst thing about that, darling, was the horrible sense of not being shielded from the tarmac in any way, having to come into quite physical contact with B. by holding onto his coat & having icy spirals of winter draught licking my bottom throughout the journey. However, we got back alright, darling, & I am thanking Heaven fasting for a Good Man’s Love.

  Monday 10 December Today, love, I listened to a lecture on Famous English letter writers on the Forces programme. I especially enjoyed Horace Walpole’s description of a public execution – but on the Whole, darling, I thought they had Nothing On Me. (I was ashamed of myself, my love, but the thought did cross my mind. Aren’t I Orful?)

  Tuesday 11 December David rang tonight, darling, with heartening news. He has got the Chair of Philosophy in New Zealand & if Cardiff will release him, he & Sylvia will be on their way in February. I’m so glad for them, darling, although I shall miss them terribly. Five years is a long time – on the other hand it will give us an incentive for going to New Zealand which has always been high on my travelling list.

  Friday 14 December It’s nearly midnight, my dear love. Miss Bradbrook left late & my heart sunk to see her go. It struck me as she went out of the door, my love, in a lumpy old red leather coat with an RAF Scarf with maps of Germany on both sides (‘pure silk and NO COUPONS in all the shops,’ she said with wicked glee) with her hair all wispy & homespun stockings ridging about her ankles that it was a strange thing that a woman with a mind as delicate & graceful as a Dresden shepherdess should bundle herself up in rags so ungainly.

  Wednesday 6 March 1946 My darling, your telegram & letters 36 & 37 arrived in the best possible sequence – the telegram first & then the letters so that instead of being disappointed at not having you home as soon as I’d expected (though I’d have been very pleased that you were going to the Trials, love, anyway) I was enchanted at the thought of having you home so soon that you felt it necessary to warn me of a postponement by telegram.

  You know, my dear love, though I’m dazed with happiness at the unbelievable idea of being with you always from now on without the shadow of separation clouding my delight, I’m a little afraid, because I think that when we’re always together you will find the little things that irritate you about me more irritating because you will see more of them. Once, my darling, when you were crazy with me about something – oh! before we were married – you said I was like your mother – & I was suddenly terrified because your mother irritates you so much by & large that you couldn’t live with her for very long possibly.

  Oh! darling, darling, I love you so much – it’s painful you know to love anyone as much as that because not only does it hurt horribly when you anger them but it hurts even more when they anger you. When I get angry with you over money or over not being socially attentive to people with whom you haven’t much in common or anything of that sort it’s worse than the most acute form of toothache or wanting to see Duncan so much that you think you’ll die. Because you feel inside: ‘Oh! God, I love him more than life – more than everything that makes life rich & wonderful & exciting & I’m angry with him as if I hated him. How horrible. How perfectly horrible.’ It’s as though someone had taken hold of my legs & were tearing my body in two.

  Tuesday 26 March This time two years ago, my darling, there was such a hustle & bustle at Harley Rd – & you came in and kissed me goo’ morning which made the morning reassuringly like other mornings because after all there should be continuity in love – a natural imperceptible progression up a gentle slope so that when you get to the top of the hill & find yourself with your love bestriding the narrow world like a colossus you are not tired or sore-footed or puffed but rested & exhilarated by the warmer, fresher, cleaner air.

  I am lonely for you today, my darling, and yet I feel that you’re with me. I really have felt since our marriage that we can endure no breach but an expansion like gold to aery thinness beat. Before we were married you were my love but I often lost you for long stretches of time but now if we are two we are so two as stiff twin compasses are two.

  Darling, when I think of my love for you I realize what Milton meant by ‘He for God only, she for God in him’ the essence of the Christian concept of love for God is humility – I am essentially a spiritually proud person though I fight against it – but I love you humbly and with wondering gratitude, my darling, & through my love for you I am brought nearer to God. Thank you! oh! thank you for your love.

  1 In March 1945 Aubrey Eban would marry Suzy Ambache, the Egyptian-born daughter of a wealthy pioneering Zionist family, in Cairo. Nachman Ambache, a Cambridge acquaintance, was Suzy’s brother.

  2 Eileen and Gershon’s daughter, Katherine Ellenbogen, had been born three days earlier on 16 February.

  Postscript

  It was 1947 before Gershon was finally demobbed and could pick up again his plans for civilian life and the law. For three years Eileen had kept herself going with dreams of what their future would hold, and among all the disruptions of war and the emotional turmoil of her friends’ lives, there was something deeply touching about her idealism, about her faith in Gershon and their future life together, her determination that they would not repeat the mistakes of others.

  Those surviving letters from the early years of her marriage suggest a life of physical and emotional fulfilment, and yet whatever Eileen believed of herself at the time, she was no Natasha Rostova, happy to slide into a dull, matronly domesticity as conventional wife and mother. There were hopes at one point that she might take up her research again but that came to nothing, and though she translated Simenon’s novels, wrote scripts for the BBC Education Programme, appeared on Woman’s Hour to reminisce over the childhood Cairo she had once loathed, and eventually brought out her book on vinaigrettes – she had the best collection in England, one review noted – those arguably, if we did not have the letters, might seem slim pickings from a woman of her dazzling abilities.

  The only thing Eileen had ever wanted, she had written in 1939, was to be a ‘Cambridge don’, but as Gershon’s career at the Bar began to prosper, and they could at last set up home together in an Aladdin’s cave of a flat on London’s stylish Montagu Square W1, it was another side of her character that flourished. There had always been a taste for what she called the ‘willy-nilly’ – a quirkiness – about Eileen, and as she grew older this was given an ever freer rein. She would spend most of the mornings in bed – she was not to be phoned before lunch – made jewellery and tapestries (not very well, her sister-in-law remembers), ran a market stall with Gershon on the Portobello Road, and – the old Eileen! – talked. ‘She loved to entertain her large circle of friends,’ the congregation at her funeral in Golders Green were told in 1986, after she had died from lung cancer: ‘an evening at the Ellenbogens was always an immensely stimulating as well as enjoyable experience. Even in her hospital bed during her last illness, Eileen, however weak and tired, not only took pleasure in the visits of her friends, often half a dozen at a time, but regaled them with
a conversation which never lost its sparkle.’

  It is a shame that we cannot hear that voice – the BBC recording of her Woman’s Hour appearance has not survived – but the son of an old Girton friend of hers, who knew Eileen in her later years, likened conversation with her to being hit by an ‘intellectual tsunami’, and that is just how her letters read. Across a gap of eighty years they draw us back into a love story as raw and immediate as if it were happening now. ‘I once thought that I had a Genius for writing,’ she had written in 1943, ‘but I find instead I have a Genius for love.’ She was only half right. She had a genius for both.

  Dramatis Personae

  Aaron ‘Alec’ Alexander He was married to Victoria ‘Vicky’ Mosseri, and had three children, Eileen, the oldest; Lionel, at Harrow when the letters open, and Anthony (‘Dicky’), at the Dragon School at Oxford, and the bane of his sister’s early life. With them was also the children’s nurse from Egypt.

  Theresa Alexander The widow of Louis Alexander, and the mother of Eileen’s cousins Jean and Gerta, ‘Aunt Teddy’ is one of the great comic creations of these letters. There was scarcely a month when the Alexanders’ home was not swelled by one guest or another, but while the likes of Mrs Seidler, an Austrian refugee with a complicated domestic life, or Eileen’s naval cousin, Victor Kanter, might come and go, the ‘lone, lorn’ Dickensian figure of Aunt Teddy would prove an almost immovable object in the overcrowded and long-suffering Alexander household.

  Joan Aubertin The clever and engaging descendant of a French prisoner of war from the Napoleonic era, and the daughter of an estate gardener, Joan Aubertin had come up to Girton with a Major County Scholarship and a college exhibition in the same year as Eileen. In the summer of 1939 she took a first in English and after a spell as a teacher came up to London, where she remained at the heart of a circle of Eileen’s Girton friends (and enemies) – Joan Pearce, Elizabeth Clark, Joyce Nathan, Joan Friedman, Sheila Falconer, Rosemary Allott – who would be reunited by war.