by Mary Wesley
Thornworthy – 21.7.57
… The Germans are now telegraphing madly – Prince George of Hanover for a senior Salem boy the latest, so you may find the house full of Germans instead of the present French/Belgian population when you come …
There is deep envy felt among them all for the English school system and they are British imperialists to the last child! Too comic for words. My horrid French child who shaves, but does not wash, is lost outside a town and walks twice a day to Chagford – returns as bright as a button and does, to be fair, what I tell him …
Authors’ Club – 21.7.57
… I am feeling a trifle more cheerful, having been rung up and asked to lunch by Rosemary Beddington … (I refused sherry, and enjoyed a good, icy hock. Nothing after. I am NOT a drunkard, so please don’t tell me I am.)
He [Jack Beddington] drove me here in a gearless Rover; which made me worry very little about their £200 … Funny stories about being called in as official valuer for objets d’art on which Bill Astor had lent your friend S. [Simon] Harcourt-Smith £6000. Value established £800. Embarrassment …
Thornworthy – 22.7.57
… Christmas candidate is arriving it appears on September 1st until Christmas, ten guineas a week and I think a bit more for tuition. You are to teach him. He does not sound a bit boring as he has been turned out of every school in Switzerland! He is half Polish, half Swiss and his mother writes delightfully …
Do not tell H. or C. anything, both are treacherous …
I shall be in your arms again very soon. Don’t tell me like Tom Paynter did that I look tired. He got a very sharp answer!
I took Biene for a ride this afternoon. The moor was wet and beautiful. I rode Sunshine, she a pony which tried to make off with her but she remained aboard. Fitzrandolph [German friend] has written that he has told Schacht to send the other girl here too, so I replied he had better look sharp as Prince George is persecuting me on the telephone. This is an extraordinary whirligig. Vive le snobbism. Never again the Universal Aunts and their percentage! I must stop and get supper and push the boys into baths. Thierry smells awful. How do I get a nice winter talk on all this on the BBC?
Lady W. [Waller] got a sharpish retort from me in plein village this morning – something about the post. The village were delighted. Poor old thing, it comes of having those enormous English feet.
I love you …
M.
Thornworthy – 23.7.57
Pebble’s 11th Birthday
Last night the above mentioned fiend went off hunting quite alone and was eventually found by Biene who dragged him out of the forest and all the way home by the collar. By this time I had lost my voice shrieking and breath whistling … Into the bath they went. The girls are delighted. Giselle washes seven pairs of knickers at a time. Biene also. A spectacle worth seeing! …
When you come home you will find the dear geese everywhere as they have a food shortage, and adolescents everywhere except in your room and our bedroom …
I have had no time to confess to my nasty thoughts and actions so take communion anyway and too tired for lust … I love every bit of you and I never said you were a drunkard! You are not …
Clapham Common – 24.7.57
… My tuition fees are 10/-an hour, or £3.0.0. a week for a lesson a day … isn’t that right? …
To hell with the geese. I want to help with the adolescents. Please assign me chores. I want you really to have some let-up, and I have 4 days. E.g. I can do stoves, breakfasts and all washing-up with the girls. This is an order …
My work at The Times is very easy: practically non-existent, and I talk too much in the canteen. Some find me funny, some have begun to stiffen their lips. Who cares? …
My point about the Catechism was that I know it points to something psychologically right when it says: don’t rely on yourself … But (relics of protestantism – incidentally Luther invented Original Sin, one of my favourite doctrines) I cannot think that anything but will is effective – and my will fails. I suppose I don’t believe enough in God for him to help me?! I don’t think I believe in anything at all, except the difference between Good and Bad; and that is wholly mysterious, which I call God. Sometimes I prefer Bad. As for Christ and so on … well, it sounds true. But are other religions untrue?
As regards failure, I am not so much a failure as forgotten. Ryanfn37 came up, meaning to be polite: ‘I’m supposed to have known of you … the name meant nothing to me.’ I thought my name was infamous, which is a sort of fame. Nothing of the sort. I sit in Clapham, in total obscurity. One feels it in a town. I am of course depressed; but don’t think I am hopeless …
Nick means well. I am taking dinner off him tomorrow, chez Stucley. I find him quite intolerable: may never see him again. But one cannot refuse a gesture, at least I can’t.
On Monday evening Charlie [Siepmann] rang me up at The Times. Harry is ill and I was to lunch with him … and Janey [Mrs Charles Siepmann].fn38
I decided to accept nothing. I had them to lunch ‘at my club’s ladies annexe’fn39 (alias Whitehall Court!) and gave them cocktails (none for me) and lunch and a bottle of wine. This set me back a fortnight, but I think it was the right thing to do …
They have a suburban house and a farm in Vermont … They were very jealous and I was thoroughly jealous, especially of [their son] Jeremy’s schooling for Harvard and musical brilliance. I MUST get into a position where Billy has a more cultured environment than we can offer him, in our isolation. We can stay at Chagford; but we must achieve a position, and freedom and travel …
Anyway, I am not devoured by self-pity, as I concluded, from some remarks, that Harry is. He has another bout of lung-trouble, but he has to live another 5 years till his Insurances mature, for which purpose he has monkey-gland injections.
I am both uncharitable and unChristian. And I am ashamed of my analysis of what I really want. What I really would like is Money, Success and Popularity … Perhaps you are less attached to the world than me? Mangan says you are potentially a ‘contemplative’ which – for some reason – makes me very angry. I didn’t marry a contemplative, but a buccaneer who seems to disappear whenever The Saint looms up. I must give you back your confidence, and you will be my Saint-Buccaneer …
Jack Beddington just rang up; lunch next Monday, which will be nice. I really like him …
Thornworthy – 24.7.57
My Darling,
… Appalling long telegram from Herr Muller in German to whom I wrote so rudely. The son is arriving August 1st. I am just back from Exeter where the girls ‘wanted to look at the shops’. They were mostly shut but this did not seem to impair their pleasure! They are now playing tennis. Biene attired in very short shorts looking like a Valkyrie. Michel is now on Christian name terms with Potter [local farm worker] and calls him Sidney, and they fish together …
Comrade Schacht has written to Biene to say he is arriving with Comrade Frau Schacht on August 25th to fetch her home. Either so appalled by Fitzrandolph’s description of the charms of Thornworthy or the reverse, no one knows! He will discover his little daughter has learned to iron, wash up and make her bed, even if she has not learnt much English …
Have you safely weathered your lunch with H. & C? Not long now to August 9th …
Clapham Common – 25.7.57
… I’m off! It flows … This is my free day and I’ve worked till 2pm and done 1500 words and I like my story …
I’ve had my first brisk exchange at The Times – about starving the Germans. I cannot pipe down. Must I? No, not necessarily. But I had better lie low. I tease the idiots.
If I can only succeed in my work, Billy’s situation and yours will automatically become normal. We are too isolated. I have isolated you. But I shall transform our lives. It is NOT too late, please God.
All this because I’ve done two and a half hours work. I do enjoy writing though, when once I start! …
I expect my letter yesterday disgusted you …
>
Thornworthy – 25.7.57
Your Tuesday’s letter arrived today and saddened me. I do understand. Naturally Will is nothing (unless it turns you into a destroyer) without God …
I am enjoying what I am doing because I am doing it well. I shall not stay in bed for breakfast as I like to get up but shall be deeply grateful for stoves, geese and above all conversation at meals as I am at the moment carrying all five and it’s quite hard to do …
Of course you believe enough in God for him to help you. I hope Billy won’t grow up with the same ideas you had about your elders but be himself. It’s as though I wanted to be the Clerk of the Drapers’ Company when you tell me you are jealous of Charlie and Jack Houseman.fn40 Pah! Sorry to be so furious …
Living here at the moment is like expecting the Germans to invade in 1940, only this time the threats come by guttural telephone instead of the wireless and I reply sharply, ‘Can he do housework?’ It’s frightfully funny …
When you arrive I shall have Biene and Giselle … two French boys quality yet unknown and one German ditto, being trained …
We have petit déjeuner (no, not like cooked breakfasts), a hearty lunch, tea if they want it and a good supper. Tomatoes and chocolate biscuits are very popular and they spend all their money on sweets and don’t have spots! Curious …
Do not be angry with me, I cannot bear it.
M.
Clapham Common – 26.7.57
… Nick has offered me a bed! It would be far more convenient, and I thought of going there after coming to you as I can forward my interests and meet people (he lodges with Aidan Crawley, a famous TV News man) during September, to build up connections for freelancing from Devon … and cultivate Panorama, Brains Trust etc. This is suburbia, but from Hertford Street one can ‘drop in’ on Margery Vosper, ABC TV etc. What do you think?
I must say I withdraw my nastiness (if not, altogether, my suspicions) about Nicky … He is a mystery. He pronounces his own street Hurt-ford Street! What is this? …
I shall be with you in a fortnight, and you will have breakfast in bed.
Amusing too about the Schachts … I attribute much to your having charmed Fitz! You can tell him to send Biene again when I am there, and she shall learn English …
I think of sending my Hitler play to Jack Haussmann [Houseman]; but none of them are eager to keep in touch with me, so my pride opposes …
I need another suitcase; and where do I get the handle of yours mended? …
I’ve read three Jane Austens, and quarrelled with a colleague on The Times.
All my love,
E.
Thornworthy – 26.7.57
Friday early
… I must have sounded so ungrateful in my letter yesterday, please forgive me. It is only that this is my show and since you decided to go to London … it has been very much ‘go it alone’ …
I could not possibly give up as then the whole thing would disintegrate and my authority be lost. As it is all’s well and although you never believed in it I can and am doing it.
I believe in your talents but not in your envy. You are far too generous, too wide in your outlook. Ordinary people drive one to contemplation perhaps. That is what Mangan saw …
Thornworthy – 26.7.57
Your yesterday’s letter and Thank God it flows! My spirits soared …
Smartie Pants [Thierry] has been trying to get off with Huey Hughes’ young lady. Result, Huey Hughes on sentry go (looking rather formidable) in Chagford Square and les pants stays up here. What has occurred will be told me by the hairdressers who are in stitches of laughter.
Biene fortunately has another interest besides riding – painting. She is a most easy and amiable child, if anything so large can be a child …
If Toni [Antonia White] doesn’t answer she is in a huddle trying to finish her book and having taken on three extra translations to allow her to do so.
I hope your gardening knowledge enables you to appreciate my joke about Malcolm [Muggeridge]. I do want the article back all the same and it certainly never came here!
Thornworthy – 27.7.57
… Thank goodness the book is started. It’s up to you. I see no prospect of any work chez Nicky and it’s extremely noisy also no difference between addresses. The one where you are is becoming chic and the one where he is is The Red Light.fn41 Popping in as opposed to work seems to be the problem. Loneliness at 2 am or pm is general. Whatever the address. Also Nicky is a prize-winner at getting on one’s nerves as you know …
I seem to be writing you some very nasty letters! … This continual moving of addresses is the usual when we are separated … Be of good courage I beg. Don’t imagine my spirits do not also meet the depths because they do daily. Whose would not …
At this stage the correspondence was evidently supplemented by a number of sharp telephone conversations.
Thornworthy – 27.7.57
I am sorry my letters are stupid. I had better stick to my chronicle and shut up because although I think I can imagine your difficulties how can I really? Jack may be a good advisor. Marks and Spencer sell excellent suitcases. If you can find a cobbler nearby he would mend the handle of the suitcase …
A jolly German comrade from the Argentine telephoned this morning to check up that Biene was alright … The German boy’s father has written an ecstatic letter to say my name ‘rings loud in Hamburg’ at least this is Biene’s translation, and that he wants to send his boy by air to Exeter via Paris, will I check up? I did check-up and Exeter airways screamed ‘for God’s sake don’t let him, everyone is getting stranded in Jersey’. One must admit a certain honesty in the English …
[Yesterday] all the boys were making themselves far too much comme chez eux. So to their intense astonishment they found themselves washing up, standing up when I come into the room etc. ‘My husband and sons always do’, so now they do so too and, ‘I don’t give a fig for what they do in Paris or Brussels’. Delight from the girls and general amiability all round.
One of the French boys’ mama’s has written that she hands me her authority and please will I see that Phillippe does this, that and the other … Not to run up debts was one of her commands! And I am to grab all his money at once otherwise he will spend it. She writes extremely funny letters. I wish she were coming not the son! …
My darling, Vive the love story, use my horrible mannerisms as much as you like, I must cook supper …
Thornworthy – 28.7.57
… Trooping out of mass this morning like sardines emerging from a tin we ran into Lady Waller with two others emerging from the church. ‘Oh! What a dreadful lot of Romans!’ I was unable to resist laughing outright and saying ‘Yes, isn’t it splendid!’ She took it in very good part.
The bus strike Thank God is ending so that tomorrow Biene and Giselle can expedite to Torquay which they long to do …
Michel had his second bath since he’s been here and the drain was nearly blocked. Meggy, who always produces the home truths, says ‘the Belgians are the dirtiest people in Europe’. I think it’s just boys myself …
Biene is charmingly frank and childish and says her mother has taken her to see so many sights and churches that she never wants to see another! Keine Kultur. She is reading an English book borrowed from Ann Ruegg about horses. Michel reads about fish. The others read Simenon or Steinbeck. They are quite extraordinarily uneducated and ill-informed for 16–17 year olds.
My success with Fitzrandolph was purely snobbish. He was in Ribbentrop’s Embassy and deeply impressed by my family and social connections, as he imagined them to be. His wife has married an English millionaire who lives in Switzerland. Imagine Peter Ustinov acting a Mittel Europo [sic] and that’s Fitz …
I want my Billy back and it would be sheer heaven to have Alice – even for a week. Father Millerick has lent me the Life of Abbé Pierre. I hope it is good and not just journalism …
Thornworthy – 29.7.57
… No wonder the Ger
mans lost the war! Long letter from Prince George to tell me the boy is coming but not giving me the date. Am now in communication with his grandmother in Stuttgart. The parents are in Paraguay, ahem …
I too took communion, having confessed to God of many things, lack of charity mostly …
Clapham Common – 30.7.57
… Three letters yesterday and two today! … Which cannot console me for my stupid remark on the telephone. My vanity, if you please, was nettled by your assuming that you had sent me a ‘tart note’. None of your letters was tart …
Remember that when I met you I consciously reverted to my childhood’s values: and my parents, as it happens, thought a very great deal of the world (of which they knew little) and of success (though not of money) …
I am going out to cheer myself up with a shampoo, and lunching with Nat and the Liberal MP in charge of publications. As I say, I am ready to run a News-Letter from Chagford …
The crux is that I’ve only done a chapter and a half since I came to London! It’s the old story … It is a matter of Will. (That is my problem. Can God help?) …
[My accountant] thinks the Tax idiots are unlikely to worry or investigate a ‘writer’s’ position showing a dead loss as this is not uncommon among writers.fn42 I’ve told them to buck up as rates and telephone approach …
I can’t rise above it, except by finishing book. So I will finish it – but when one can’t absolutely tell. I’ll have to begin it first of course. (‘First chapters’ have been my life story …)
Thornworthy – 30.7.57
… I am fighting furiously to prevent the invasion of the older Comrade Schachts as I am far too busy for them, he, however, with hideous guile is trying to infiltrate his elder daughter and friend for Biene’s last week …
I have replied that if they share a room and help wash up I will. During that particular week two more will make no odds at all but £20 will!
Roger arrives the 11th or 12th. Toby about then too. Perhaps we shall hear some English spoken?
Am reading about Abbé Pierre. Catholic Book Club journalism but what a story!