The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 86
When are you going to take another European holiday, or sabbatical??? We’d so love to see you over here. Only 4 hours from express by Waterloo we are---so you see it’s easy. But I imagine Leo would prefer to cruise up in his own Daimler. Ted joins me in sending much, much love and telling you to come visit us soon.
Keep writing!
Love,
Sylvia
TO Marion Freeman
Wednesday 28 March 1962
ALS (aerogramme), Smith College
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
March 28, 1962
Dear Aunt Marion,
I don’t think I ever wrote to thank you for the lovely card and baby gift you sent---I have been mum as a cow these last two months & hardly written a word. We have been having terribly, typically English weather: dark, cold and wet. Both of us seize every nice day or hour to work out in the garden. We are very amateur, but very enthusiastic, and hope eventually to supply all our own vegetables plus a surplus for the local green grocer. But this first summer I expect we will be mostly learning from our mistakes. They say it is the coldest March since 1909 and I believe it!
The children are so much fun. Frieda is putting together little sentences and can say “daff-dee” for daffodil, and our daffodils are about the only sign of spring. We have an acre of them & I can see the early ones now, blowing & yellow as stars in the grey rain. Very cheering.
Nicholas is a very good baby, only crying when he is hungry, & smiley and patient. Frieda is at a really pretty stage and a good companion when I am baking or gardening, playing happily & imitating everything I do.
I hope you have got well over the pneumonia mother said you had---I learned from my own experience with it that the drugs make you feel so fine you want to be to work in a minute, when you really need to take it easy for a bit longer. I feel if the spring just sets in, and I can get the babies out in the sun, everything will be wonderful. Ted just came back from a day in London last night to do some children’s broadcasts for the BBC educational radio programs. They like his work, & it gets to a lot more children than regular teaching plus being no strain: no discipline or any such problems.
We are looking very forward to seeing mother over here this summer. It should be a real vacation for her this time, just sitting in the garden & playing with the two babies. I have a local woman in to clean 3 mornings a week, or I don’t know how I’d cope with our big house, grounds, two babies & my work & Ted’s secretarial work. Life is very busy & lots of fun. I so enjoy the Woman’s Days. They make me quite homesick, with all the lovely American recipes & how-to-do things!
Pass on my love to Ruthie & her brood.
Lots of love,
Sivvy
TO Helga Huws
Thursday 29 March 1962*
TLS with envelope, Helga and Daniel Huws
Dear Helga,
The green sheet is me. Somehow these bilious colored lettersheets of Ted’s multiply rather than diminish. I have mentally written you half a dozen letters since Christmas, but am only just now surfacing from the cowlike stupor I seem to enjoy immediately before and after a baby. I am delighted with our Nicholas; Ted is cooler. I think he secretly desires a harem of adoring daughters. Nicholas is very much a Hughes: oddly like photographs of Ted’s brother Gerald, dark, quiet, smily. Our house is so big now that he doesn’t live with us, or on us, as Frieda did in London, so he perhaps seems thereby more of a stranger & relatively no trouble. Frieda would tear him to bits if she could get her hands on him; she’ll say “ear” and try to pull it off like an anatomy student. I had a lot longer & harder labor with Nicholas---he took all day & just emerged five minutes before midnight. Luckily I had said I wanted gas & air, so was very sociable & chatted with Ted & the midwife with none of the blind mindless gripes, but the gas & air ran out just as the baby stuck when the pushing part began. My old luck. His head stuck & the midwife afterwards said she thought it would be an emergency, but I was too dumb to worry. The doctor was called, but minutes before he came, Nicholas flew into the room in a wall of water which soaked everyone present, blue, frowning, with a low dark brow. Ted & I were stunned at his being a boy: it took us twenty-four hours to adjust. Luckily his low brow was only a temporary phenomenon, a result of his fight to get out, & the skullplates shaped up very nicely overnight. He is angelic, no colic, no tantrums, as with Frieda. 9 pounds 11 ounces at birth. Or have I told you? I am so blank I’m not sure if I’ve written about him really, or just in my head.
We love the song books. We are waiting any day for a builder to rip up our damp wood floors, lay a cement & bitumen foundation & lino tiles in the playroom & hall, so there will be a washable rugless passage from front to back of the downstairs, childproof. Then I shall agitate for a second hand piano. The song book has all my own childhood favorites & I long to play to Frieda.
I wish we could see you. This winter is very grim. I feel cheated of all my summers since we came to England---London summers don’t, somehow, count. And now we are chafing at rain & sleet & a fixed east wind which slices malevolently all round our ancient back door straight back through the house. I got very morbid when the doctor told me I had CHILBLAINS. Have you ever had them? I thought they were a Dickensian disease & had been so proud I was stoic against the cold, that I was utterly demoralized not so much by the stingy itchy sores themselves but by the idea the cold had secretly got at me when I thought I was winning out. When will you have your kitchen & bathroom wing built on? It sounds marvelous. I think we will become devout gardeners if we can ever bring a vegetable or flower through all the plagues and blights the books say awaits them. Then we think of hens, hives, mushrooms. In the one or two nice days I’ve been happily scratching myself up in ignorant pruning of rosebushes & brambles. No leaf in sight. Only daffodils, startling & foolhardy in this graveyard weather.
No real friends here, only nice neighbors, a pleasantly gossipy if catty Irish banker’s wife; we must look awfully queer to the locals. Do write. About you, the children, anything.
Love,
Sylvia
TO R. B. Silvers*
Sunday 1 April 1962
TLS (aerogramme), Library of Congress
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
April 1, 1962
Mr. R. B. Silvers, Editor
HARPER’S MAGAZINE
49 East 33rd Street
New York 16, New York
USA
Dear Mr. Silvers,
Thanks very much for your letter.* I’m happy to hear you like Leaving Early and Private Ground.* I am having a first book of poems come out in America this spring, but these poems are both too recent to be in it, and probably won’t get between hard covers for years.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO George MacBeth
Wednesday 4 April 1962
TLS, BBC Written Archives Centre
Court Green
North Tawton
Devon.
April 4, 1962
Dear George,
I am sending along this batch of recent, unpublished poems* for your perusal.
Did you see the excerpt from the report of the police commissioner in a recent Time magazine?* I particularly enjoy “Afterlife”. “Mother Superior” and “Ash”* make my hair stand on end: I think they are fine.
All good wishes from Ted and myself. We are very grim in this blustery lead extension of March & up to our ears in unset onion sets & unseeded seed potatoes.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
George MacBeth, Esq.
Talks Department
THE BBC
Broadcasting House
London W.1
TO Marvin Kane
Saturday 7 April 1962
TLS, Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Devon.
April 7, 1962
Dear Marvin,
It was so good to have your letter and hear you are coming down this week. I have duly booked you a double room for Tuesday night at our local North Tawton manor, the Burton Hall Arms, about 5 minutes from us. It manages to squeak in the AA* book so shouldn’t be too fearsome.
I shall meet you at the station Tuesday at 2:49. Look for somebody covered with straw and red mud. The weather has been so horrid I only hope something better turns up by the time you do. Gale winds have carried off our lettuces & large spiders are appearing everywhere, most frequently in my coffee cup, before breakfast.
We are looking so forward to seeing you!
Till Tuesday, then
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 8 April 1962
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Sunday: April 8
Dear mother,
Honestly, the reason I have been so slow in writing is that I have said to myself: I will write tomorrow, then it is sure to be a sunny day & how cheerful I will be. Believe it or not, we havent seen the sun for three weeks. I realize now I must have geared myself to last till April 1st, when I thought spring must by the law of averages appear. Well, it has just gone on with black days, rain, howling gusts from the north and east without relief. I’ve only had the children out one day, three weeks ago. I am simply fed up with winter. At least it is supposed to have been the coldest March in over 70 years. We are also having our floors done---all last week & all this next, workmen are hacking about. They have cemented the playroom & this week will cement the floors in the downstairs hall. I just learned that it will take two weeks for the cement to dry properly before the lino can be put down. So by your birthday, I expect things will be settled. I have been painting odd bits of grubby wood furniture---a table, a chair---white, with designs, very primitive, of hearts & flowers, which cheers me up & should look gay in the playroom.
We have been heartened immensely by all the marvelous packages which arrived this past week from you & Dot. It is better than Christmas. I don’t know how you do it!! I am resplendent in my new blue sweater & black jerkin (which will be marvelous in spring over all my smashing blouses), and Frieda hasn’t taken off the little red knitted hat bandeau since she got it. She has been riding her Gee-gee rocker, which I got her for her birthday from you & she loves it. She is just big enough to manage it, so it will last her for ages. We have had a pleasant birthday with her---last Sunday. Taught her to say “Birt-dee” & “Me two”. She blew out her candles & was delighted by colored soapbubbles we blew. We gave her a set of wooden American alphabet blocks. She got piles of cards & carried them all about. Loved the little cow-jumped-over-the-moon card. Honestly, how did you find time to do all that knitting! I think F’s dark blue sweater with the silver buttons is the nicest style yet on her; I love the collar. And the slippers! One small suggestion---I wouldn’t send toothpaste with clothes, the tube always squashes; luckily it congeals & doesn’t get over anything, but it’s a bit of a risk.
The store in Exeter informed me they have sent off the rose blanket to Margaret’s address in New York. Do let me know when it arrives and if it is in perfect condition---I’ve had it insured. Hope they like it. I am so sorry to miss their wedding. Imagine, Ted has the chance to go to anywhere in the world for 10 days at the expense of the Alitalia jet lines. It sounds very queer, but one of their public relations men is a poet & offered the trip to Eliot & Auden who I think declined & Ted was next on the list. We have a great aversion to flying separately, if at all, & I think Ted is so involved in his garden that he won’t go after all. I know where I would go---straight to Egypt & sun all week under a pyramid.
We have been very grieved by the news that George Tyrer, the bank manager, was retired after his last heart attack. They move to the outskirts of London in 5 weeks. I feel very sorry for myself, as Marjorie has been my best & only friend here so far & I liked her pretty 16 year old daughter Nicola who was at school in Oxford. They have sold us some beautiful things which just complete our livingroom---a brass coal scuttle like an embossed helmet, a round brass engraved table & an antique Elizabethan dropleaf table which goes perfectly under the French window in no space at all & opens out generously for writing on.
Now that the weather is going to be supposedly more springlike we shall have some friends down from London, so I shall have some company. A young American boy & his wife are coming Tuesday, he to do a BBC interview with me for a series on why Americans stay in England. It better be sunny by the time he comes, or I won’t have so many reasons! I am glad to hear you have had your moles off: I did see a doctor about mine, but he said they were healthy. He gave me the address of a very fine London surgeon so I can have them off when I want---the one on my chin I’ll be gladdest to get rid of. Maybe I’ll treat myself to it the summer after this, when I can leave the babies for a few days. I look so forward to you coming! I have just got winter-tired these last days---don’t want to see another dish or cook another meal. My poetry book is officially due out May 14th.* It is very handsome, as I think you’ll think when you see it--no errors in this one. Knopf seem very enthusiastic about it. Ted’s children’s programs are so wonderfully received he has a running request for as many as he can provide. Frieda is prettier every day. I was so distressed to hear little Pell is diabetic.* However did they find that out? I am enjoying my Bendix so much! I don’t know how I ever did without it. It is so nice to hear it rumbling & think it is doing all my work for me. I washed Frieda’s blue snowsuit in it & it came out lovely.
Well, I hope by the time I write again I may have all my seeds planted & be out with my babies. Our daffodils & jonquils are wonderful: I’ve picked about 300 these last 2 weeks & they’re only beginning. Once a week I pick for
Lots of love to you & Warren.
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 16 April 1962
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Monday: April 16
Dearest mother,
I am sitting at the lovely oval dropleaf oak table we bought from the Tyrers, looking out hopefully over my acre of shivering daffodils & the lilac buds on this black, frigid day as if it would make spring come in earnest. It is colder than Scotland, colder than for 70 years, which is little consolation. Even the local people are very gloomy. I am in the red room, our most cherished & comfortable spot, which is completed beautifully by the handsome brass coal scuttle & brass round table, so its all dark reds, dark polished woods & gleaming brass, with these beautiful French windows looking over the front garden. I have just put both babies in bed---an energetic two-hours work: Nicholas now eats a bowl of runny cereal every night with beams and chuckles. He is so handsome. I put Frieda in her blue sweater with the silver buttons & she spent the afternoon on her Geegee rocker, also giving her bears & babies rides. I am now awaiting Ted’s return from a day-trip in London where he is making a BBC broadcast, a recording* & seeing Leonard Baskins show of engravings for which he has been asked to write the foreword,* an honor we think. I have a nice big Irish stew ready, with cheese dumplings, which he likes. We still have our bare concrete floors, & I am agitating to have them tiled before Easter---Ted’s mother & father & Aunt Hilda & Vicky were planning to drive down for the weekend. But probably or maybe they can’t be done till next week, in which case we shall ask them to delay a week, as it is very grim with just concrete & we don’t want them to see the house at anything but its best, since they’ll have that memory of it for a year.
I loved your big fat letter. Honestly mother, you should know me well enough & that I know you well enough not to think you connected the loan with the car! We had previously gone over our finances & discovered with joy that we thought we could pay both our parents loans back within a year from our purchase of the house, so I was on
ly delighted to hear you had something as nice to buy as that car which you must buy at $800. We would have sent the authorization anyway & independently. We have been so grateful at the help you & Ted’s parents have given us which enabled us to get away without paying any interest to speak of, & as soon as you both have your checks, it will mean we own the house, so you may imagine how eager we are to be on our own completely. We love the place so much our mutual nightmares have been about being forced for some reason to give up Court Green. Now we have the floors done, we shall rest with repairs for a year or so. Several rooms need replastering & repapering, but aside from this the place is in solid good shape. I am so excited about your coming. You will adore Frieda: she is just lovely. Very excitable however: she bursts into tears if you raise your voice & I look forward to her having playmates when the good weather starts, so she’ll get used to not being the only one. Nicholas is a darling, full of little responsive smiles & a talky coo. I never dreamed it was possible to get such joy out of babies. I do think mine are special. We had a young American I know, & his British wife, down last week, he to do an interview with me for the BBC on why I stayed here, & they brought an acquaintance with two of the most ghastly children I’ve ever seen---two girls of 5 & 6. They had no inner life, no notion of obedience, & descended shrieking on Frieda’s toys, running up & down through the house with mucky boots & jabbering. Their mother was a tearful, ineffectual character. They almost knocked us out. I felt I could kick them. They kept sneaking up to peer in the rooms & at the baby though they’d been told repeatedly not to. How I believe in firm loving discipline! But they were Australians, not English. Now we are planning to have several couples we like down in the next month. Honestly, I wish you knew how much I miss Warren & Margaret! I already love Maggie sight unseen from what I’ve heard of her, & think of what lovely times we could all have together. I have such lovely children & such a lovely home now, I only long to share them with loving relatives! That is the hardest thing about being over here---not having my own admiring relatives to appreciate my babies! Got a sweet letter from Mr. Crockett today---evidently inspired by my New Yorker poem (which I haven’t yet seen, the magazines are late) about the appendectomy. How sad about Steve’s retreat home. I must say I thought it odd he hadn’t applied anywhere in advance! As for the baby pictures of Nicholas, I quote a similar authority: ISN’T APRIL COMING SOON? The 26thish part. Be patient! There is also a little package of something you’ve seen already, but not in its present handsome form, which may arrive a bit later. So glad you liked the poems in Poetry. I don’t feel they’re my best, but it’s nice to get the “exercises” published, too. The “News from home”* is of course your letters, which I look forward to above all. I was so distressed to hear about the Ladies Home Journal!* I do hope they survive---I’ve always had an ambition to get a story in there! How I wish you could see us now with all the daffodils. I pick about 600 a week for market & friends & notice no diminishing. They are so heavenly. We even had an antiquarian come to visit our Ancient Mound last Sunday! If only this blasted cold black weather would clear up, I would feel like a new person. You must send pictures & a word by word account of Warren’s wedding. Tell me when the blanket gets to Margaret