Rough Magic

by Paul Alexander

  On Saturday the 15th, Murphy took the Hugheses cottage-hunting. One possible future plan for their domestic arrangements had Sylvia living with the children for six months not in Spain but in Ireland, while Ted traveled to Spain. They had discussed this scenario before coming to Ireland; once there, Sylvia seemed even more intrigued by the idea. To accomplish the move, Sylvia agreed in principle to rent a cottage beginning November 1 from Kitty Marriott, a friend of Murphy’s. With the deal struck, the three of them—Murphy, Plath, and Hughes—whiled away the rest of Saturday. That night, they ate a huge supper prepared by Seamus’s mother; for the meal, they were joined by Thomas Kinsella, an Irish poet who had just driven from Dublin. During supper, an awkward moment occurred when Plath brushed her knee against Murphy’s in such a way that Murphy would later accuse her of “rubb[ing] her leg against mine under the table, provocatively.” Besides Sylvia and Murphy, no one knew about the incident. Following supper, no doubt mindful of Yeats’s mysticism, the company began to talk about the Ouija board, which Ted and Sylvia volunteered to demonstrate. Murphy refused to be involved, and Sylvia soon lost interest, but Ted and Kinsella stayed up for hours communicating with spirits and writing poems based on information given to them from the other side.

  After his night at the Ouija board, Ted was walking along a hallway in Murphy’s cottage when he saw the face of a portrait suddenly change. He read this paranormal transformation as a sign that he should leave the cottage—indeed Cleggan—at once. Three days before he and Sylvia had planned to go back to England, or so she would claim to a friend, Ted picked up and left. If he related this tale to Sylvia at Murphy’s cottage, she may or may not have believed him. Certainly, Sylvia could only feel his sudden departure was an abandonment. After their semi-idyllic day at Coole, and in the middle of their reconciliation trip, Ted just disappeared. She tried to explain to Murphy where Ted had gone, although she did not repeat the story of the portrait whose face changed. Instead, she told him that Ted had decided to go alone to County Clare to visit the American painter Barrie Cooke. Nor did she relate the portrait episode to her mother in her September 23 letter. Ted had deserted her in Ireland, Sylvia declared; he said that he was going hunting with a friend and never came back. In her heart, of course, Sylvia believed that Hughes had returned to London—and Assia. Whatever she did or did not believe (or know, for that matter) became academic. The fact was, Ted had left her.

  Murphy responded curiously. Construing that Sylvia had somehow masterminded all this as a way to spend time alone with him, Murphy all but charged her with wanting to have an affair. He insisted then that she join Kinsella in driving back to Dublin. Astonished and hurt, Sylvia went with Kinsella the next morning; she remained in Dublin for two nights with Kinsella and his wife, Eleanor, whom she found unusually understanding.

  On the 18th, Sylvia returned to Court Green to find a letter from Ruth Barnhouse, to whom she had written about her problems with Ted. Unflinching in her recommendation, Barnhouse demanded that Sylvia not wait for Ted to grow out of his immaturity (or, more to the point, tire of Assia) but file for divorce at once. Besides Barnhouse’s letter, Sylvia also discovered a telegram from Ted. Sent from London, it said only that he might come to Court Green within the next week or so As she read his—to her—spineless message, Sylvia became furious. It was bad enough that Ted had deserted her in Ireland. Now he could not even face her. Instead, he spent his time—and their money—in London with Assia.

  When she realized that Ted did not intend to come back to Court Green, Sylvia came closer to having a breakdown than she had in years. Desperate to speak with someone, she approached Winifred Davies, who one evening in mid-September spent three hours talking to her. Several days later, Davies related the episode to Aurelia by letter. She wrote:

  Sylvia came up here in great distress the other night when Ted did not come back. . . . [I]t seems to me that Ted has never grown up. He is not mature enough to accept his responsibilities, paying bills, doing income tax, looking after his wife and children, so Sylvia has taken over all that practical side of the partnership, of necessity. . . . He wants to be free for parties, traveling, etc. . . . It seems to be that success has gone to his head. I feel awfully sorry for them all but I do not think Sylvia can go on living on a rack and it will really be better for the children to have one happy parent rather than two arguing ones, especially as he has taken such a dislike to Nicholas.

  Soon afterwards, Sylvia wrote to her mother that she had enjoyed a wonderful four days in Ireland. Then, after telling her that she planned to go back there to spend December, January, and February, she made, for the first time to Aurelia, the more startling revelation that Ted had never really been fond of Nicholas. On one occasion, Sylvia wrote, Nicholas had fallen out of his pram after Ted refused to buckle him in, although Sylvia had told him to. Amazingly, Ted did not even bother to get up to see about him. Hearing Nicholas screaming in another part of the house, Sylvia ran to find him sprawled on the floor. Some time later, Ted admitted to her that he had never wanted children, but had not been able to muster the courage to tell her. Curiously, he did seem to approve of Frieda—Sylvia believed she flattered him— and was happy to have her. Yet he now chose to live with a woman who, because she had had numerous abortions, was probably barren.

  Through the rest of September, Sylvia became deeply depressed. She began to smoke cigarettes and often broke down weeping when she was by herself. To vent her rage, she wrote Murphy an angry letter; she still planned to move to Ireland temporarily, she said, but she did not wish to have anything to do with him. Actually, her anger at Murphy was nothing compared to the way she felt about Ted. Her list of complaints about him was endless. He wrote checks he never recorded in their books. He spent huge sums of cash drawn from their bank account without her knowledge. He used up her Saxton grant before she could properly renovate the cottage, her home in the future for a full-time nanny. He would probably try to retain custody of Frieda, if there was a divorce, since he favored her over Nicholas, whom he rarely ever touched. And, finally, because of Ted’s history of violent behavior, Sylvia now worried that she and the children would need protection from him indefinitely. Nor was his behavior improving. Lately, through the mail, Sylvia had been receiving police summonses for traffic tickets that, according to Sylvia, Ted had gotten but refused to pay.

  On September 25, Sylvia went into London to confer with a lawyer, Charles Mazillius of Harris, Chetham and Company. From Mazillius, Plath learned that in England a wife was entitled to one-third of a husband’s salary, although, if he refused to pay, she would have to sue—a lengthy and expensive process. Second, since Ted had deserted her and his children, Sylvia could register their joint banking accounts in her name alone. By Sylvia’s calculations, all of the seven thousand dollars they had earned the year before, of which her income from writing accounted for about one-third, was gone. Mazillius had also offered his opinion of Ted: he was worthless. Sylvia would be better off if she just got rid of him. Because no one knew where Ted was, Mazillius would have to hire someone to search for him before he could serve him with papers. Sylvia felt sure that Ted would try to avoid being found. Indeed, as of September 29, she had not heard a word from him since Ireland, except for his telegram. Back at Court Green, Sylvia wrote to Aurelia and instructed her to withdraw the one thousand dollars in her and Ted’s Boston account; she should send the money to her in two five-hundred-dollar checks as “gifts,” one in September and one at Christmas.

  On the day after her conference with Mazillius, Plath secluded herself in her study in the morning and wrote a poem. September had been a good month for her poetry. The New Yorker published “Black-berrying,” The Listener “The Surgeon at 2 a.m.,” and The Observer “Crossing the Water.” Also, Howard Moss had accepted “Elm,” which he planned to run as “The Elm Speaks.” So, she felt confident as she worked on her poem that morning. Entitled “For a Fatherless Son,” the poem is a monologue spoken by a mother to her infant so
n, who soon, she tells him, will notice an “absence” emerging beside him. In the meantime, she wants him to know that she loves his “stupidity.”

  Three days later, Plath wrote Olive Prouty to tell her about Ted, although, judging from Prouty’s comments in August at the Connaught about unfaithful men, Plath suspected that she already knew. Ted had deserted her, Sylvia told Prouty, for—naturally—another woman. At the moment, Sylvia believed Ted had become a stranger who had assumed the name of the man she married. Regarding the night at the Connaught, Sylvia now remembered it as her final happy night with Ted; “happiness” was a word that no longer held meaning to her.

  The next morning, alone in her study, having drunk cup after cup of coffee to counteract the sleeping pills she had started to take at night, Plath wrote “A Birthday Present,” a rambling, energetic monologue. Several days later, at the very end of September, Ted finally appeared at Court Green, out of the blue. Sylvia had not seen him since Ireland and was enraged by his mere presence. He would have to come another time to gather his belongings, she said, and ordered him to leave immediately.

  On the morning of October 1, Plath awoke around five, drank her coffee, and, alone in her study, wrote the longish poem “The Detective.” The next day, the same routine resulted in “The Courage of Shutting-up.” Over the ensuing week, Plath wrote the five poems— “The Bee Meeting,” “The Arrival of the Bee Box,” “Stings,” “The Swarm,” “Wintering"—which she collectively called “Bees.” By writing these poems, because the subject of bees was obviously tied to memories of her father, Plath seemed to be announcing, at least to herself, a resolve to tackle once again the issue of the father, something with which she had toyed since her year of therapy in Boston. Finishing “Wintering” on the 9th, Sylvia wrote her mother, not to discuss “Bees” but to respond to Aurelia’s suggestion that she move home. America was out of the question, Sylvia said. She did not want to flee from Ted or his fame. Instead, she would stay in England. Anyway, she could not be around Aurelia just now. “The horror of what you saw and what I saw you see last summer is between us,” Sylvia wrote, “and I cannot face you again until I have a new life.” As for the fifty dollars per month that Aurelia had offered, Sylvia could not accept it. She also really did not need it, because Ted had finally agreed to pay a yearly maintenance of one thousand pounds. That sum would at least cover the children’s needs and allow her to support herself by writing.

  Sylvia found out that Ted had agreed to the maintenance when he came to Court Green on the 4th to pack his clothes, books, and papers. Ted took longer to pack than Sylvia had expected; indeed, his visit turned into a nightmarish week during which, Sylvia wrote Aurelia, he nearly murdered her as he tried to force her to give him the last installment of her Saxton grant. Sylvia refused, for she now planned to use that money, combined with a one-hundred-dollar birthday check from Aunt Dotty and a three-hundred-dollar birthday check from Olive Prouty, to hire nannies. At one point during his Court Green stay, Sylvia also said Hughes made an admission: he and Assia had speculated that, in light of her past emotional problems, Sylvia might have already killed herself. If she were dead, Hughes told Plath, he could sell Court Green and take Frieda. (He did not mention Nicholas.) Ted had another reason to hope for Sylvia’s suicide. David Wevill had recently tried to kill himself when Assia left him for Ted.

  At last, the day arrived—the 11th—for Ted to go. That afternoon, Sylvia drove him to the train station. In a parting shot, Ted told her that he had not hated living in London—one reason they had bought a house in Devon—he had hated living with her. At Court Green, Sylvia was so relieved Ted was gone that she went about the house singing. The following day, writing her mother, Sylvia claimed she was thoroughly happy, more than she had been in years. Now that she knew Ted would not fight a divorce, she could get on with her life. If Ted wanted to marry Assia, which Sylvia expected he would do when both divorces were final, he would have the honor of being Assia’s fourth husband. Which was just fine with her. Sylvia only wished that Ted, whom she now regarded as a bastard and a criminal, had overcome his cowardice and admitted to her years ago that he had wanted to leave her—another recent revelation. That way, she could have started dating someone else, a man who would appreciate her for who she was.

  2

  As if the only way she could cope with her separation from Ted was through writing, Plath began to produce poems at a pace she never had before. On October 10, she wrote “A Secret,” a biting, acidic poem about the public disclosure of a secret. On the 11th, in the morning before she drove Ted to the Exeter train station, she finished “The Applicant,” a poem that, after one false start, seemingly wrote itself. Replete with savage wit and irony, “The Applicant” is a surreal monologue spoken by a sort of pseudo-marriage broker to a man whom he wants to set up with a woman. Plath chose to write such a poem on the 11th, the date that, essentially, marked the end of her marriage to Ted Hughes.

  On the 12th, Plath returned to a familiar subject—the father. In the eighty-line poem “Daddy,” which was originally called “Daddy, Daddy, Lie Easy Now” and which shaped up quickly as she hurried through draft after draft, Plath unleashed a fury made acceptable to the reader only by the poem’s singsongy cadences. Speaking directly to her dead father, the poem’s narrator admits that she had considered him to be godlike (the way Sylvia had once seen Ted) and accuses him of being a German Nazi. Then the narrator, turning her logic in on itself, confesses that she loves him—her father—because “[e] very woman adores a Fascist.” This is why, she says, she married whom she did—someone like her father. Now, the marriage has ended, and she’s fed up. “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through,” reads the last line. Ultimately, it becomes clear that what she is through with is varied and complicated—her father, her husband, perhaps even her life.

  On the weekend of the 14th, Sylvia and the children visited briefly with friends in Saint Ives, Cornwall. Home at Court Green, Sylvia came down with the flu, one of the worst cases she had ever had. Lifeless and feverish, she could barely force herself to crawl from bed. Fortunately, she did not have to; she kept a steady string of nannies to help her with the children. On the morning of the 16th, still sick, Plath wrote “Medusa,” a poem about a young woman who is victimized by a monster. That afternoon, she wrote her mother a letter in which she speculated that she was a “genius of a writer,” that she was writing the poems that would “make my name.” Then, in that same letter, Sylvia made some disconcerting revelations. To begin with, her first— secret—novel was finished and accepted. Also, she had already completed much of a second, and the idea for a third had recently come to her. Finally, Ted’s parents, Sylvia gathered from a recent letter of Ediths, were going to oppose the yearly maintenance Ted had agreed to pay. Though she had once considered the Hugheses her second family and Edith a lovely woman, Sylvia now expected them to try to torture her until she did what Ted wanted her to do.

  For her part, Edith wrote Aurelia that she was shattered by the goings-on at Court Green, although she expected that Aurelia knew more about the situation than she, because Aurelia had been there when the problems started. Yet Edith felt sure that Ted had arrived at his decision to leave after much anguish, since Court Green represented his and Sylvia’s complete financial portfolio. Still, the world oflFered so much opportunity, Edith said, that she believed both Ted and Sylvia would have a prosperous future.

  On the morning of the 17th, Plath completed “The Jailer,” a stinging lyric about a woman who wants the man in her life “dead or away,” neither of which seems feasible. The following morning, she produced “Lesbos,” a long domesticity-gone-haywire monologue inspired by her recent visit with friends in Cornwall. By this day, her fever had broken, and she felt well enough to write, besides “Lesbos,” four important letters: one to Peter Orr, the radio producer, to agree to record poems and an interview for the British Council; one to Olive Higgins Prouty to let her know that Ted had left her for good, that his final
desertion had settled her on suing for divorce, but that, despite these setbacks, she was writing with a vengeance; one to Warren to tell him that The Bell Jar—a secret because it was a “pot-boiler [that] no one must read . . . !"—was about to be published; and one to her mother to relate a recent episode in which a Health Visitor arrived to treat her for the flu and blurted out, “My, Mrs. Hughes, you’ve lost weight!” (Since last summer, she had lost at least twenty pounds.) But Sylvia hoped to get some help soon. Upon receiving a telegram from Aurelia, Winifred Davies was now searching for a live-in au pair for Sylvia. In the end, Sylvia blamed all of her trouble on Ted and had recently decided how she could get even with him—by writing a novel.

  As October passed, Plath continued to produce poems at an astonishing pace. On the 19th, she wrote “Stopped Dead,” a poem that Olwyn Hughes would later identify as a meditation on Ted’s Uncle Walter. The 20th brought “Fever 103°,” a stunning poem informed by her terrible fever, which had now returned. Then, on the 21st, she finished “Amnesiac” and “Lyonnesse,” the same day on which she wrote her mother one of the harshest letters she would ever mail her. Telling her that she did not want any money from her and that she did not wish to hear about “the world needing cheerful stuff [writings],” Sylvia attacked Aurelia for sending the telegram to Winifred Davies. Her business was her own, she wrote, furious—not her mother’s. In the future, Aurelia had to keep her advice to herself.

  In fact, Aurelia’s telegram prompted Davies to call friends until she found a young girl who was free to help Plath during days through mid-December. Twenty-two years old, a nurse, and the daughter of a middle-class family in nearby Belstone, Susan O’Neill Roe started working for Plath on October 22. Arriving in the morning around the time the children awoke, Susan remained the whole day to mind the children and clean the house. After a morning in her study, Plath prepared lunch, and they all ate together. In the afternoon, Plath napped, wrote some more, and drank tea with Susan, who left before supper. Once the children were in bed, Plath returned to her study to write for an additional hour or two.