by Mary Wesley
Darling, I thought it might be wonderful idea to take it and furnish it with my furniture and your books and either live in it if you come home soon to write plays, or if you are still in France I would have it with a lodger, some trusty girl friend who would pay her share and chaperone as well … It is quite incredibly cheap for nowadays and I’d love to snap it up if it’s as nice as it sounds … One could let it for ten pounds a week until we wanted it for ourselves quite easily … It would save you the £100 a week in hotels when you’re on leave … It does seem rather putting the cart before the horse but houses and rents are going to be impossible – worse than they are now after the war … Do let’s go and see it when you are back … The present owner has sworn to offer it to no one else.
Her next piece of useful information is that there is what sounds a lovely pub in Devonshire for leave. Ponies to ride, lovely country and perfect peace. Let me know exact dates if you can … Carol wants to come for a week in April and it would be nice for me to fit him in while you are home …
The Duke arrives today. The Duchess to follow later. How tedious …
Boskenna – 14.3.45
My love,
… I have my first crop of freckles for your return since I escaped into the sun yesterday and lay hidden basking behind a rock.
I have reached a high peak of irritation and intollerance [sic] with the late Mrs Dunkerley whose yardstick only measures by money and who is so tough she pleasures in hurting people who love her for her own good. No news and none from you since there is a gap caused by my getting your last letter so quickly from Paris.
My children have put on order, what they call ‘a real screecher’ [a V1]. They say they would like one very much and are disappointed that I cannot guarantee the date of delivery. They have talked about it so much that various members of the household were for some days under the misapprehension that it was already en route.
At the moment I am despondent and feel time apart from you is time wasted and I’m in a state of violent impatience and feel unreasonable.
I do not think I am much good at separations after the first two or three months, it is only tolerable if I am very busy which I am not at the moment or when I have just had one of your letters … I love you,
M.
Toulouse – 18.3.45
Darling –
Of course, take the house quickly. It is high time we cut our cloth to suit our coat (or, as you say, put horse before cart). We must be together; or have the means; or at any rate the certainty of being together – and this will be a great help.
Not that I shall let you loll, or ever trot around London for long (without me). This makes it more urgent than ever that I should return by September, at latest. (I am writing to R. Marines about my status; I don’t believe they’d object to my doing civilian work e.g. journalism, that could be interpreted as helpful to the war effort.)
All these details need to be settled when I come to London; so let’s settle that detail first. I’ll definitely apply for leave in the first week in May, and suggest that I also do a week’s work at MOI as there is much to be settled. That would mean, reach London on April 30th. But now you must come up on Friday, and we’ll see the house – and go together to Devonshire on the Saturday!
What excitement.
Incidentally, these dates are cobwebs; as I don’t want to apply for leave yet: but I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve done so, and have confirmation. All we can do is to plan firmly according to these dates, and trust to carrying it off – which we will.
I am immensely stirred and excited about the house.
Finances are, temporarily, catastrophic. I got no reply about tax and other mysterious reductions. If I get a rebate, I can pay you the £100 I owe you. If not, I’ll allot you £20 monthly from May to September …
Apart from that, I can allot a further £20 as from May, as originally planned, for our mutual future i.e. for house and saving, if any. I’ve no furniture.
I am inclined, my darling, to throw in my hand and supply evidence for my wife; thus committing myself to a fine of 30% of income, for the rest of my life, for the folly I committed.fn53 In relation to the folly, it seems moderate … Personally, I am much attracted by the idea of setting up house together (the house, of course) and not giving a damn; especially as you’d presumably keep your children in Cornwall, and go to and fro until we’d worked out our future. So that nobody but our friends would clearly know what we were up to. But I don’t know how far you’re affected by your commitments – (a) conventional – i.e. family (b) matrimonial – i.e. how it would affect children, etc.?
Darling, the fact is, that we planned a journey across Alps which it takes 18 month to cross; but that we are gravely tempted, and possibly wise, to settle on the lower slopes. I don’t want to lose you, in the Alps, or anywhere else.
Your letters are miraculous. Three big whoppers, all in one week; and Bystander [now The Tatler ] (which I like) and adorable snapshot of you (looking angelic) …
Tell Mrs Grant there is plenty to put in those bodices; at least, that I’m satisfied.
love you.
PS
My STOMACH – everybody at Grand Hotel ill, so that they sent for a doctor, suspecting sabotage and sacked the cook. We used to eat badly. We now eat badly.
Coffee comes in couples: very welcome. No cigarettes.
BOOKS – I’d like Bowra’s,fn54 Apollinaire and the latest Aldous Huxley.
Darling, can I send you anything? Do you see French weeklies?
Local authoress – is introducing into her novel – an English major, who is tall, THIN – blue-eyed, and CHINCHILLA HAIR!! (What is chinchilla?)
Boskenna – 19.3.45
My love,
… As far as I know your cheque passed quite alright. I’ve had no remark from my bank. I’ve had a surfeit of what Colonel P. calls the Ducal Invasion for the last week but mercifully Geordie has arrived and taken Elaine to stay at St Ives where they are at a moderately safe distance. He is rather nice and far less stupid than is supposed …fn55
I think it a good thing that your play becomes funnier and funnier. Laughter is after all the strongest weapon. I trust you are disguising Colonel P. to some extent, since I have lived under his roof for four years and love him dearly. Also he has much goodness.
I am touched by your consideration in telling me that your blonde is dyed and happily married. Delighted to hear it!
After weeks of heavenly sun – the last two days of which were so warm I sunbathed naked – it is howling and blowing and what the Cornish call ‘a nice drop of rain’ is falling. It would not disgrace a monsoon …
Mary
Toulouse – 19.3.45
Darling,
Please don’t be silly.
I gather from your gloomiest letter (written so soon after the house excitement) that (a) you are lonely and (b) la ex-Dunkerley told you not to marry me, because I hadn’t got any money.
I am not much astonished (though upset by) the discouragement, as I had seen the clouds gathering …
Well, if you find anybody richer, whom you really want, let me know. Meanwhile, we know that it will take me a year to make the thing practicable; and that’s a hell of a time (incidentally, a good many other people are facing that problem) …
This has the makings of more than an affair … Please know … that you can transform my life …
Second; what are the implications of your doubts? If you can’t stand it what happens? Do you cease to write, fall into the arms of the ‘premier venu’, or just lose faith? It’s all rot. What you’ve got to do is help me to make it bearable for you, as quickly as possible; but it won’t be quick, and it won’t be easy, and it isn’t even certain …
I love you. Remember that. As I never loved even Benita (and I loved her) because we were still cynical, as only the young or the born-old (like Dunkerley) are. You have stirred me in some way that no one else ever has …
As to money and the w
orld, of course we’re in the hell of a mess. It’s taken me 42 years to make the mess. That if you remember was one of the things that appealed to us …
Boskenna – 22.3.45
… Lovely sun again but we are getting too much of the Ducal party who are shattering in their relentless pursuit of pleasure which is only an attempted escape from boredom. How terrifying non-working uncreative people are. I’ve reached the point when I would gladly call for the tumbrill [sic] …
I have a very good feeling about us, and don’t worry we’ll get disentangled perhaps sooner than later …
All my love,
M.
Boskenna – 24.3.45
… I am so glad, so excited that you think the house is a good thing for us …
For your leave I am writing to Devonshire, and if I fail to get rooms there (from the 5th to the 14th) you can I think come here, it will be heaven by then and Betty will most likely be away …
Incidentally about finances, you owe me £60 not £100 and I have quite enough for a few days in London.
If you throw in your hand and supply the evidence, I am all in favour of it. I don’t think we shall ever get anywhere otherwise. You know what I want to do about the evidence and I know how to do it without publicity.fn56 If you let me do it, it would make the fact of our setting up house just one sharp blow to my family and leaving the children here for the present. I know I can manage C. It seems much easier to be honest about it, I have a horror of being furtive. And if you are with me I won’t mind the alarms. If your case has begun by the time you come home and mine is nearly over, which it will be, it will make things a great deal simpler …
Chinchilla is a variety of rabbit. Its fur is slightly like your hair in colour but very soft and silky which yours is not thank God! …
Carol is coming here from the 3rd to the 9th and I am going to stay with Romie B. at St Ives. I twitted him over the telephone this morning with having Victor Russell [sic] as his council [sic] which I can’t help thinking is very bad taste since I’ve known Victor since I wore pigtails and his daughter is one of my dearest friends and Toby’s godmother. I should have thought there were other KC’s.
Mrs Emanuelfn57 and a boyfriend have arrived to swell the Ducal party. We are in for visitors for weeks …
Boskenna – 25.3.45
Vera Emanuele [sic] Guy Trundle,fn58 an ex-or comeback flirt of hers, arrived to stay yesterday, and Alec, Billy Bolithofn59 and the Sutherlands came to dinner as well as various neighbours. We had quite a party and I was amused when Vera loosened by gin started to tell me how nice you were and fishing wildly for information, which she didn’t get, tripped herself up and started abusing Pauline for being such a gossip. The very fact that I am completely indifferent to her affairs acts as a violent stimulous [sic] to her anxiety about mine. But she goes hungry …
Reading The Jungle Book to my children I reduced myself to tears and a lump in my throat at the tragic passage when Mowgli is turned out of the wolf pack, only closing the book to see Toby sound asleep in his cot and Roger very nearly so and utterly unmoved! …
Toulouse – 25.3.45
Mary darling,
… The Pyrenees have just appeared, patched with snow. I am in a new room with a view over the rooftops. Also in new offices. Tomorrow to Montpellier for my last photographic show. Back here to meet Anne-Marie – my parachutist assistant – who is due to arrive, and to get the office going. Then in 10 days, I shall feel fit to report that the wheels are turning and to apply for leave …
After 4 days of an odd wind called ‘d’autan’ (nobody seems to know the origin of this word) there was a purge of rain and blackness. Suddenly the sun has appeared with the mountains. The wind plays havoc … Even the waiters have been putting the wrong dishes on the wrong tables, in a kind of gloomy daze . .
The Pyrenees are now white and slate, and the sky very blue. Damn that wind, it’s still blowing this paper about, but I refuse to shut the window.
I can love you very much.
E.
This letter from Eric was followed by one month’s silence, which alarmed Mary.
Boskenna – 28.3.45
God knows, since I’ve forgotten, what I wrote to you my Darling that has put you on such a tack [reply to Eric’s letter of 19.3]. Reading between the lines you have grasped the wrong end of the stick. But what matters is that you are upset. So am I. Very … I am angry with you too for the violent insult you deal me in implying that I could be influenced by them [the Dunkerley crowd] or their standards … The only enjoyment I have derived from them is in snubbing them when they have tried to talk about you. None tried more than once …
Dunhill’s write that they sent your cigars the day I ordered them and suggest that they are delayed not lost. Your cigarettes have been delayed by a V. bomb which fell on their warehouse but should reach you soon …
Claire and her unfortunate duke have left and Vera and her flirt are leaving on Friday … Roger sighted Vera and Claire together, shook his head and remarked all too clearly ‘They have the same face.’ There he is almost wrong as Vera has some heart whereas Claire has none. There have been some tragic effects of war in the neighbourhood [mutilated soldiers or civilians] which combined with the approach of my case have given me silly nightmares. Otherwise I am very well and have completely changed colour from lying in the sun …
Boskenna – 28.3.45
My Love,
This is to send you a little midnight love. I wrote this morning when I got your letter about doubts. No good in saying much more about it … I am very sleepy and I love you. Goodnight.
Boskenna – 29.3.45
My Love,
We are speeding the departing guests to-day. Very nice too … I have made use of poor Vera by whipping off with some of her clothes which I liked … She and her sister have angered me past endurance by telling Toby to his face that he is beautiful. In an upset mood already yesterday I threatened her so venomously with physical violence that she was quite frightened …
Vera today at lunch said, ‘Now Mary Darling tell us how you fell in love with Eric.’ So I said, ‘I wouldn’t dream of telling you anything Vera Darling, it might spoil your version.’ Her boyfriend [Guy Trundle] most traitorously laughed and said, ‘Yes, it surely would.’ …
Boskenna – 31.3.45
Darling,
In a month very close to you there will be no danger of my writing to you something slipshod and misconstructable. I want your next letter since your last still stings, absurdly since you told me clearly you love me. And I love you, and am so absorbed in our mutual life. Really loving makes me more capable of solitude when I can’t be with you. Your letter hurt me because you chid me for wavering when I was far from any such lunacy.
Exhausted by last minute Easter shopping in Penzance with Betty this morning in the car which only starts with the cooperation of passers-by to push – heavily laden with children bottles of drink and food. A gale blowing and the little town crammed with people.
Claud has arrived for Easter and Phyllis Allen is still here. Carol coming on Tuesday and I am leaving. He has infected me with nerves over the case. So stupid. I wish it were over.
Claud says Sylvester battered his way into the Markham Street house after Pauline and Mark [Pauline’s lover] and beat Mark up in a big way. His nose was still bleeding days later.fn60
Alec’s agent has told him it is now ‘alright’ for him to stay at Boskenna again. He was foolish enough to tell this to Mrs Grant. I suggested he should come next week and put a notice in The Cornishman that ‘Lord S. [Swinfen] and Mr B. [Beecham] are staying together at Boskenna’.
I have the new Huxley [probably The Perennial Philosophy] for you but want to read it quickly before I send it to you if you don’t mind. Texts and Pretexts is also coming as between us Mr Wilson and I made a muddle …
A rocket has transformed the orators’ stand [Speakers’ Corner] in Hyde Park into a pit. Biddy sent a tremendous account of it. No ca
sualties.fn61 It will be nice if they are over as is likely when and if we take the house …
Such wonderful news from Germany. I am most profoundly thankful that you are not there … I love you more than the day you left Victoria and I miss you just as much.
My Love,
M.
Boskenna – 2.4.45
My Love,
I am so glad to get your next letter and relieved your gloom was mostly the wind. Mine was as you now realise Betty’s visitors …
Easter day was exhausting. Morning church with everyone cross … then a long drive to Alec through a gale with the roof leaking and the car behaving temperamentally. Too much to eat at Alec’s and when we wished to leave Colonel Paynter had vanished, it took two hours to find him …
(Last night) I dreamt of Pauline crawling up drainpipes …
C. is only here until Sunday as he has divorce nerves and wishes to be back in London in ‘good time’ for it. He is making very heavy weather over it and it is fortunate we are not meeting and that all he has had so far are quips over the telephone …
Later, 4th
I have reached St Ives … My leaving was funny as we all overslept and C. and I overlapped by an hour, which he particularly wished to avoid, feeling most unwanted and de trop and convulsed by Toby’s violent remarks on the situation. I went to lunch with Mrs Grant who restored me to good humour and we laughed a lot. On to St Ives in the afternoon where Romie is being very sweet to me. We also have laughed a great deal. Chiefly on the subject of bringing up little boys, which we both take very seriously and shouldn’t be a funny topic at all …
I’m sending you a snip about Harry. It’s very tremendous, isn’t it?fn62
I love you with all my heart, all the more so since it isn’t simple or ordinary for us. I want you badly and I believe in you.