by Mary Wesley
M.
Boskenna – 13.4.45
Friday the 13th indeed. It is a terrible blow President Roosevelt popping off. What is the feeling in France? Here, first reactions seem to be blank dismay. I am praying hard that the next chap will be pro-French …
Publicity over my case has been polite. Non-committal in The Times and Telegraph and ‘Wife fell out of love in Cornwall’ in the Western Morning News. Everyone has seen it except me but I’m told by Mrs G. that I came out of it unsullied and she remarked that so unspotted was my reputation that she would have to revise her opinion of me.
No other repercussions as yet. Tomorrow’s post will bring them no doubt. On being told last night that a silly old woman who has a kindergarten Roger used to go to, is saying that she had to ask me to take him away as he consistently used foul language calling her a Bugger I flew into a tremendous rage and with Betty’s help typed off an exceedingly pompous stinker in my name and Carol’s. (Actually I took him away from her to send him to the village school as he learnt nothing and being a silly old snob she was furious.)
It was such a pleasure to do it the very day of the divorce and I knew you would have laughed at the mother-tiger demonstration. In point of fact it’s going to make an enjoyable village row as the whole of Boskenna is up in arms as all the men adore him all the more since they taught him any ‘foul language’ he knows. He’s a quick learner too.
The theory that nothing ever happens in the country has always struck me as ludicrous. There is a far greater proportion of husbands chasing wives with hatchets (and vice versa), madness, poison pens, scandals and intrigue … and so forth than in towns.
Colonel Paynter is setting off to London next week to take Jean Batten out dancing. I do love his utter lack of self-consciousness at eighty-one …
Boskenna – 14.4.45
… This morning very sweet letter from my father and mother. Greatly concerned about my financial future. They are very heavenly people but I’m determined not to be a drag on them. My love for them has always been a reversal of roles – more parental than filial. Also an explosion of denials over the telephone from Roger’s ex-school mistress which nearly damaged my eardrums …
Boskenna – 19.4.45
Darling,
Two days of heat wave and how I wanted you here. July heat, yellow gorse pouring in torrents down the cliffs into very blue sea and all the bluebells coming out as well. We have lain frying on the rocks, so hot that we’ve had to pop into the sea every twenty minutes. The water is icy so the bathing consists of an inelegant duck and no more. But it was lovely and I am biscuit already …
Bathing is rather spoilt since the rocks are covered with oil from sunk ships, a disaster which took place some time ago – but the oil sticks.
I have complicated my life by co-opting a young rook which fell out of its nest. It has a voracious appetite and wakes me at dawn with raucous demands. It also snores and sleeps in a basket at the foot of my bed. True hates it.
You were right when you said unless I got a full report of my case I would never know what had really happened. It arrived on Sunday and the shock of finding who witnessed against me was a bigger blow than I’ve had for a long time.fn63 It made me very unhappy and spoilt something I believed in and loved. I won’t write anymore about it but I will tell you when I see you.
It has its funny side as when I read the thing I was sitting in the garden with Betty. I was sobbing with rage and misery when there arrived two small boys who had come to tea with Roger. They were aghast! Emotion being infectious the tea party turned into a free for all in the garden and they all got into brittle moods and teased Roger, who goaded beyond endurance attacked his persecutors, and hurling a heavy fir cone at the largest boy who is twelve drew blood in terrifying quantities and gave him a lump on his head the size of a pigeon’s egg.
His expression of detached satisfaction as he watched me bathing and plastering his weeping victim gave me great pleasure. The only smear on an otherwise perfect situation was that the wound was at the back of the head …
There was a meeting last night to form a committee for the Welcome Home of the men from the parish who have been at the war. I missed it but Betty’s account is good. Feeling ran riot as many of the committee have kept their sons at home.
No news from you for weeks. I miss your letters and the gap seems immense.
I have been thinking much about fidelity and come to the conclusion that all I need to concern myself about is my own. I feel confident of attending to it satisfactorily. To be unfaithful would spite my face. And faith.
Love greater than I have ever felt comes to you with this.
M.
Boskenna – 21.4.45
My darling,
Three weeks’ silence on your part and I am depressed for lack of news … Do not be angered – I have been made miserable this week by the backwash of my divorce but that is over now leaving only mental fatigue.
I lunched yesterday with Romie at St Ives and found her also in a state of deep unreasonable gloom, her husband has been away a year, Betty also is gloomy. We all fully realise it to be sex, my dear, let’s face it, and the spring as Germaine Halot once said to me …
The apple blossom in the orchard by the sea is breath-taking. I fled there by moonlight two nights ago after reading the concentration camp atrocities in the press. For the first time in my life I am thankful for the American gift for publicity. The world and England especially should take count, and if we do not we deserve another war …
Mrs Grant, Alec and a woman who has been running welfare in Belgium are lunching here tomorrow and Ronnie Emanuelfn64 is coming to stay for a few days on Monday. Colonel P. set off to London this morning …
In two in the morning glooms I have given you fish poisoning in Marseilles, fatal accidents in your prison van, changes of heart, death from a strayed English bomb aimed at the Germans near Bordeaux and various other imaginary fatalities. The logical outcome of the spin of sadness I’ve had over my personal backwash from my case …
Now I must go and dig for worms as (my rook) is reproaching me …
Hotel Castiglione, Paris – 23.4.45
Mary darling,
I am indeed ashamed of my silence. All sorts of things have been going wrong … The position now is – no leave is possible till, anyway, June …
The complications have been incredible. Firstly, money; for some obscure reason they stopped paying me altogether last February. I certainly can’t afford to move until it has all been put right …
But there have also been incredible complications in my office … Alas I seem right back where I began; having had to get rid of my French assistant to make way for Anne-Marie – who proved impossible (unbelievable mess-up, including politics …) and whom I’m hurrying back to sack, which will leave me with no one even to wrap up parcels …
I’ll tell you all about it one day. One detail – my American lieutenant left, leaving one local girl (pregnant) on my hands …
Outside my window, at the corner of the rue d’Anjou is displayed in large blue letters … M.A.R.Y. (dressmaker?).
Two letters intercepted here give me joy and stability.
Jimmy Beaumont, dashing through Toulouse, observed that you’d been at first a plain fat girl, and then that you’d become a beauty. He wondered what had happened next. I didn’t tell him …
Maurice Bowra has just turned up in this hotel and I am trying to lure him to Toulouse …
E.
Boskenna – 28.4.45
My Darling,
Great feelings of bitter disappointment that your return is put off made me feel sick all yesterday. Delayed action, since my first reaction on getting your letter was immense joy on hearing from you at all! Also I am peevish with Ronnie Emanuel who now seems reluctant to part with his house. However there must be other houses and I am sending out my spies. As soon as you know definite dates for your leave will you tell me? Then I will get to London a few days befor
e you and snoop around houses, and find us somewhere to stay in London and if you would like to go to Sylvester’s cottage again I could perhaps lay that on too. We could come straight here for one night, from London, you could see the full horror of Roger and Toby and I could collect immense quantities of provisions to take to the cottage.
Like you I desperately want a house. I am sick of living in other peoples [sic] however nice. But until we are together and can discuss ways and means and probable dates I can’t really do much more than dream. Supposing you do get back finally in September I would like to have the house a month or so before so that I can move in furniture and muster the army of ‘little men around the corner’ to hang curtains and mend the furniture broken in the move …
Colonel P. returned very sprightly from London last night and meeting him I also met Hugh and Constantia passing through to Scilly on leave. A mixed pleasure for Hugh since it was he who was witness in my case. He eyed me rather like a horse passing a tractor. They are coming here for the night on their way back.
Having bowled the old boy [Hugh] off his feet in a totally unexpected attack I feel revoltingly magnanimous.
My darling I am most worried about all your office troubles, wishing I could help, and only able to write constant reiterations of growing love.
M.
Toulouse – 29.4.45
Mary darling,
Now that I am back in Toulouse, it is more difficult to write clearly than ever!
… All this is puzzling to you, and you must read between the lines … Favourable developments are A. Money … Establishments in Paris thought I was bound to get back my £80 tax after all, agreed that MOI owed me arrears of salary … and announced a rise of pay (of £50!) … It looks as if I shall recover about £300 by May 1st – which is sorely needed. (I am sorry that you, too, have suffered on the wayside.)
B. Finally I put out some grumbles about leave and was instantly greeted with: ‘Certainly, you are entitled to it’! So I can come as soon as I can get my office going. But when will that be? I am now single-handed …
Anyway, something will happen soon. It’s quite possible that I shall return jobless – only keep that private …
As for Spring – the White Russian maid on this floor said this morning that she expected me to commit suicide any day now. Apparently, my ‘cafards’ are obvious …
In Toulouse French political complications and British office politics began to defeat Eric.
Toulouse – 1.5.45
… I came with a plan to avoid the obvious dishing out of brochures and propaganda German-wise. I cultivated the Résistance and set about a reportage on them. Alas, I found that that the New France is not the Résistance, and that the Résistance itself – whatever its past – goes around with what is called a chip on its shoulder and positively refuses to be understood! There are schisms of the past involving us, about which you learn painfully. (I have just been told pat: ‘the English did nothing for the Résistance’.)
The result is that, having gained little ground there, I find myself assailed by the bien-pensant and soi-disant anglophile element for having neglected them for – this is the latest, from an official source – the communists! I’ve fallen between two stools. Worse, I’ve become disgusted, hating Toulouse, rather weary and disillusioned about France …
Boskenna – 3.5.45
My Darling,
Your first letter back in Toulouse came quickly. I love you, and am deeply sorry you have struck a boggy patch. Please don’t worry too much or get too depressed and exhausted as it won’t last …
Betty and I have been gardening, a useful outlet for spring energy. It is an enjoyable one too, but usually complicated by the assistance of three or four children, two dogs, one pony and two rooks. Each has a different conception of horticulture and most of the time is spent in stopping unnecessary pruning and digging … The pony treads on everybody’s feet but it provides manure, and the rooks tweak precious buds off the rarest shrubs and keep up what is obviously an uncomplimentary commentary …
It’s a miracle to me how any work ever gets done in this place. The Cornish are natural child lovers which I am not. Each workman has a child attendant. The carpenter spends half his day looking for stolen tools, the mechanics in teaching the inside workings of the tractor, and the ploughman never seems to be without some odious child shrieking and swaying on the horse pulling the plough. Betty and I on the other hand are constantly seen racing for cover at the sound of infant voices.
There is a good deal of nursery satisfaction on the demise of the dictators.fn65
Yesterday evening we had to do a long round to collect money for the returning soldiers of the parish and combined it with a sightseeing tour for Gluck and Edith Shackleton.fn66 It was an exquisite evening and most agreeable. We went to Penberth which was looking very pure and friendly, then to the Cades open-air theatre at Porthcurnow. Have you seen it? It’s wonderful. A little amphitheatre on the cliff and the backdrop is the sea and rocks and the whole thing a mass of flowers. Then to a farm near Nanchisel [Nanjizel] where Betty went in to extort money while I took Gluck and Edith for a walk. The cliffs were bewitched and we got lost. Gluck and Edith were poor performers over the banks and had some inelegant falls. It was very wild and beautiful and exhausted swallows were arriving from Africa, in the distance the Scilly’s [sic] lay sharp and black in a steely sea. Next to Porthgwarra where an old lady of eighty was persuaded to show her china collection and finally to the pub at Sennen where we ate and drank and laughed a lot and none of the fishermen stopped playing darts to listen to the news.
Colonel P. says the only difference the Victory is going to make is that we will gradually stop feeling guilty when we enjoy ourselves. I feel a great sadness and emptiness.
I suppose that is the effect of a war. There are so many shocks and disappointing surprises in the first years that one becomes battered into insensitivity and unable to rejoice. I remember how my mother cried when the milkman told her the last war was over. I suppose she felt as I do, that she’d spent it cramming food down the children’s necks so that they’d be ready for the next, and relief that my father wasn’t killed.
Hitler has had a full page obituary in The Times, which surely creates a precedent? And how beautiful Mussolini’s mistress looked lying dead in the piazza at Milan. Nothing seems quite real, or is it that I have the wrong yardstick for reality? …
Edith tells me that Yeats always said the infallible preventative for having one’s letters read, or steamed open by the postmistress, was to begin most formally and end the same, and then you could be as free as you pleased in the middle. I think it’s a splendid idea …
Toulouse 6.5.45
Darling,
Cats are jumping out of bags. Last night the new Vice-Consul said that he felt bound to warn me that the Consul and Vice-Consul at Bordeaux are gunning for me with a vengeance, and that reports are going to FO; so he strongly advised me to get my own reports in to MOI … He says that he was even warned against me in London, and that after getting to know me and seeing my work he had already reported favourably on me to Bordeaux – which had done him no good! He says that he attributes it to jealousy of ‘MOI’s power in the south-west’.
… I have cultivated the Resistance, and this doesn’t suit the Consuls at Bordeaux who are wildly pro-Franco and consider left French, as well as Spaniards, as red revolutionaries. There has been another spy in the region who has dug up that the Rector of the University accused me of ‘cultivating communists’ and that the Regional Directeur d’Information disapproves of me – he is a strict Catholic (and ex-Pétainist) (plus ‘anti-alcoholic’!) …
It’s quite obvious that I can’t last. I don’t know to what extent I can fight back, but it’s an FO versus MOI war and I’m on the weaker side and I don’t even expect much backing.
In fact I fully expect to be back in London and out of the MOI within a month. I expect that the Marines will release me, as there isn’t a
huge demand in the Pacific for 42-year-olds who’ve been abroad 4 years …
We will build a life. From now on, I shall not do second rate jobs. I must do what I consider worth-while … we must mobilise help in London, as I shall be running against a wash of préjudice. I have some friends around Harry … and Curtis Brown, the agent whom you met at lunch …
I am angry with Pauline, though I resented Sylvester’s cold rudeness. All she wants is to leave him, and trail back in a few months, I think. I agree he should beat her …
I think if Harry were convinced that the grave is in view he might help with rent etc. and getting started, on a limited scale. I don’t want to ask him, but it may be a solution. I must say I’d rather that grave than a wet one in the Pacific …
Boskenna – 5.5.45
My Darling,
Truly appalling weather, very cold and drenching wet (a ‘nice shower of rain’ to the Cornish) …
The idiotic false alarms of Victory day seem to be dying down a little. Who ever started them? There seemed an extreme absurdity in celebrating or talking of it before all fighting has stopped in Europe and all the countries are liberated. Betty in Penzance two days ago caught it badly – a rumour widely spread of ‘a four hour stand down and special announcement at 11.20’. She sent me a message, so I flew to the wireless at 11.20 and listened to a very interesting Geography lesson for schools on The Andes. She bustled back for lunch having lost her head and bought champagne. Sad anti-climax …
The gardenias I stole from Geordie Sutherland with his gardener’s connivance are flowering and scenting the whole house.
It may interest you that the whole of Gordon Dadds bills for my (divorce) case came to under £200. Very little isn’t it? … I found a house near here yesterday which may do for Ronnie and wrote him a stern letter either he move out of 17 Don Place by Sept. 1st or find me a house even nicer and cheaper than his. Of course if we saw it we might loathe it but I think not.
Germany’s unconditional surrender came into effect on 8 May.