by Diana Cooper
In the morning I went to Holcombe to my old dairymaid Doris and brought home three Khaki Campbell drakes which she had got for me, price 12/6d. each. I had expected to pay a guinea each. After dark they were thrust into a black hold with twenty-one ducks (their wives). It will be O! what a surprise for both sexes. Tomorrow I’ll let them out and hope the drakes decide to stay in their new home, where their domestic happiness is assured until I eat them.
Latest Prince news: this morning it was my fate to lead Prince (87 in the shade) up and down the mangel-drills and it wasn’t a bed of roses.
Often came enclosures neatly cut from papers and pasted by Conrad on a spare sheet of paper:
Here is another newspaper extract: “Canon Hayes in the witness-box said: ‘It is an abominable lie, and here before the Court I declare most solemnly that in my life not at any time has even the shadow of a dishonorable thought towards a woman come even remotely towards my mind.’”
Bravo, Canon! I wish I could say the same.
Norah won the second prize for butter. Mrs Pobjoy was first, and Mrs Pobjoy is the brightest star in the butter firmament.
Periodically there was an account of the Mells Women’s Institute activities and, more quaint, the Bright Hour Association at Vobster, a nearby village. Lady Horner was the Lady of Mells Manor, and Mrs Gould was her cook. With the Mells guests, they carried away the prizes impartially in the Bright Hour competitions.
Today’s competition: “Eating an eggcupful of jelly with a wooden skewer.” Lady Horner in chair ably supported by Canon Hannay and Lady Wilson. Roll call answered to “Uses of Eggs.” Lady Wilson told the famous story of “The Happy Prince.” Prizes won by Lady Hulton and Mrs Gould.
We no longer shopped at Woolworth’s. Conrad gravitated towards Cartier’s and there bought me a powder-box for my handbag, in black enamel with baroque stones. There was a looking-glass and lip-salve inside. I lost it at once and had to confess. Another was quickly offered. I wrote:
Darling Conrad, I think that if you give me a box to paint my face with, I shall lose it as I have twenty other valuable ones. Would you like the present to be part of a suite of furniture—white-and-gold sphinxes and swans holding cushioned curves? I couldn’t very well lose those. It’s prodigiously expensive.
Conrad replied:
Norah got nothing except her portrait in the News Chronicle. She was the only dairymaid photographed out of hundreds. It is better than a prize. I really don’t mind the butter being rancid as long as I have a pretty dairymaid.
Last night at dinner I told the Marchioness the fun we had had shopping together, but she seemed unable to capture our rapture, and she said rather gravely: “Do please be careful. You mustn’t spend too much of your money on presents for Diana.” And I answered: “I’m afraid your advice comes too late, as I find giving Diana jewellery just the most roaring, stamping, cracking, galloping fun I ever had in my life. It is a pleasure I don’t mean to deny myself.”
We’ll talk over the suite. How lovely it sounds! Only I don’t like your saying “part of a suite.” Isn’t that niggardly? Stolen suites are best.
The mangels are gathered in (statement enclosed) and I’ve been pulling swedes today. It’s harder to pull swedes than mangels.
The income tax man has repaid the Canadian money. It is less than I reckoned (£49.6.8) but it’s a gift. Let’s blue it together and buy you a paint-box for your face from Cartier, which you can lose when you like. We could put your address in it, then only a robber would keep it. The other money would roll up for your drawing-room’s sphinxes or swans. I’d rather like to do this.
You were right not to reread your letter. It was incapable of improvement. I had hoped you would write but I knew it was wrong to hope, as you wouldn’t write if you were happy and amused. Now it looks as if I was grumbling that I only get the worst of you. If it was true I did, I could only be flattered. And indeed, dear Diana, if you so choose, depression, melancholia, crying-fits, cancer-trouble and suicidal leanings can all be put on me. I’m as tough as an old bull and I can bear troubles, as long as they are other people’s, with equanimity. And I can listen with more attention than you give me credit for, perhaps with sympathy, but it is rash to claim that.
Duff and Conrad were naturally my repositories of hypochondria. I could not alarm my mother or victimise less tried friends with outpourings of gloom and despondency. To one of these Conrad replied:
I was unhappy to hear you had had melancholy again, but I like you to tell me about it. The first object of life is a quiet mind and you haven’t got it, and I am terribly sorry for you. It doesn’t help to say that it is idiotic. I suppose we both know that in reason you have less cause for despondency than anyone in the world. No one so beloved as you, no one with more grounds for being pleased with themselves than you, and I never have known anyone so free from self-complacency. I believe you are if anything too brave and uncomplaining about it. Depression of the spirits is an illness like any other (only worse for the patient) and I believe it has a physical cause. I mean that the disorder is situated in the spleen or bile or gall or something like that, and can be cured completely. My opinion is that you ought to see what doctors can do. The difficulty is to find good ones. So many are silly men, but not all. I don’t believe you ought to go on too long simply trying to fight it down. One is wise to be sensible about health, and wise and sensible I think you are.
When Peter the Great came to pay a visit to Frederick William I, he brought with him four hundred soi-disant ladies and nearly all of them (nearly all!!) carried richly-clothed babies in their arms. So says Wilhelmina, daughter of Frederick William, who was present on the occasion. I find it hard to believe. She might be a woman prone to exaggeration, but it would be quite eccentric enough to bring twelve women and six richly-clothed babies on a visit.
I wrote to Conrad:
I meant to write on Monday, and here is Friday and I’ve done nothing about it, due to feeling too miserable, nervous, melancholic and insane. I got the doctor in the end, very ashamed at doing so, and he said that I was quite well but had better see a mental specialist. I haven’t faced that yet, thinking every night to wake up metamorphosed. One day soon, of course, it will happen and I shall look forward again. Every afternoon when there is no matinée I go to sleep with a hot pad on my chest, and I drink maté tea, full of glucose, and at night it’s the sedative, so I must get new-spangled ore by next week.
Nothing to report, but a lot of love to send you and thanks too for a beautiful encouraging letter. I make too much “to-do” about everything, I know. If it’s not one thing it’s another. If I were told by God (directly) that the scheme of the Universe was sensible and Eternity perfectly charming for all, I should worry that perhaps I wasn’t going to like that kind of thing.
Conrad replied:
But, O dear Diana, this waking early and worrying about what may happen to us all but has not happened yet! It’s no good scolding you. I might as well scold a camel for having a hump on his back. But all the same, how wrong it is! It’s your only fault and it is one only against yourself. I pray always for you to enjoy a serene mind.
It was silly to groan as I did. I had always sung a song of Willow, sigh on sigh, and waning youth was not enlivening me. Yet age was no bogey. The youngest of a family remains a baby until she dies. I still automatically sat on the strapontin, accepted inferiority as normal, loved chocolates, found many books “too grown up,” and until now I had relied upon being older to understand better. Forty years had dragged my face, no doubt, but I had not counted them. They had not brought me grey hairs or weariness. Some are born old, some achieve it naturally. I had it almost thrust upon me, lately, with a jolt of surprise. Those middle years were so full of riches that I should have been thanking my God, my stars, my husband and my conditions with ardour, night and day, but born with me was a rift in my defences that could not be mended, so the jeremiads are lightened only by snippet-anecdotes and shining love. I wrote to Duff:
I’ve worked my silly self “up.” Black cats cross my path. I am so afraid of harm befalling you. It’s 11 o’clock and I’ve just come home, promising myself the treat of writing at your comfortable table. I light my way into your room and find it decked in white, not for Eastertide like the cherry-tree, which would be seasonable, but shrouded against the sweep. I rush to my own library and find it the same. The baby increased my apprehensions by informing Mother that: “Papa will come back, I know he will, in a few days.” My blood ran cold. I’m bound to be in more distress than ever I can tell you, when you are away. I pray you’ll be happy and make my fears and desolations worth while. Our freedom binds us. I know I am as glad to hear that front door banged by your hand after a long day’s absence as after eight months, my longest separation from you, and in the same way (badly expressed!) every day you are away holds an unchanging degree of pain. Remember me and come back soon.
In the Slough of Despond so perpetually stumbled into by this poor Christian, Conrad’s letters, with their healthy farm tang, were as helpful as the firm hand of Faithful.
Took the cows to bite down hard the old grass which rots and forms a mat. Believe me, Diana, the pastures of England are not grazed down hard in autumn as they should be.
I live here with Father Felix, a Benedictine monk and a sad serious man. He has not smiled since he came, and God knows I’ve been funny enough to make a cat laugh its ribs out. When I go to bed he sits up and says his Office. When I light the bedroom candles he says: “Oh, I haven’t said my Office.” Then I say: “Not said your Office, Father? That’s bad. You must say it now.” When I am snug in bed I like to think as I go off to sleep “There’s a monk downstairs saying his Office.” You mustn’t think that I don’t like him. I am very fond of him indeed, and I have promised to go and stay with him in his monastery, where he assures me that “no one will worry you.” If so, it will be pleasanter than some of the houses I stay in.
My No. 1 pig was marked “AAA” i.e. perfection, the very flower and nonpareil of pigs, and paid for at 13/-a score. My first thought when I heard of the AAA pig was of you. “How pleased Diana will be” rushed like a flood into my mind.
Father Felix in his Collins says: “I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing you in detail at some later time.” See me in detail? It’s a vile phrase, isn’t it?
Queen Mary came to lunch with B’s mother and wore (Queen Mary did) a very large fur collar dyed purple and a toque made entirely of artificial pansies.
Talking of Queen Mary, when the Queen went to Holker she brought nine people with her—two dressers, one footman, one page, two chauffeurs, one Lady in Waiting, one maid to Lady in Waiting, and one detective. The Lady in Waiting wrote before and made these requests:
(1) A chair to be put outside the Queen’s bedroom on which the footman or page could sit by turns all night. N.B. the page was a man about fifty years old.
(2) Fresh-made barley-water to be put in the Queen’s bedroom every two hours during the day.
(3) Ice in the bedroom at 11.30 p.m.
(4) Six clean towels every day. The Queen brought her own sheets and pillowcases.
Then I took the cows on the Green and did the crossword and finished it, and read some of your Tchekov. You don’t know what a fountain of pleasure these books are to me and especially suitable for reading on the Green.
Social news: A vet came to see a sick cow called Isis. As animals can’t talk, diagnosis must be difficult, but this is what he says: “Perhaps it’s indigestion, or perhaps it’s tuberculosis of the spine, or perhaps she’s swallowed a piece of wire which is working towards her heart. Anyhow give her a red drench” (a powerful purge, though constipation never seems to me to be apparent in cows).
I’ve finished Winston’s book and can turn again to Oblomov. How good the bit is when they discuss what the different kinds of itch forebode, and one man says that an itching of the back of the neck presages a rise in the price of butter.
Liz Paget’s thigh being tweaked by the Italian makes me think of Lord Uxbridge’s leg lost at Waterloo. I told Liz at Plâs-Newydd that I’d send her the poet Southey’s epitaph on the leg, and never did. Here it is:
This is the grave of Lord Uxbridge’s leg.
Pray for the rest of his body, I beg.
I can’t say that I think the lines either good or amusing. Southey was Poet Laureate and I suppose that it was the best he could do. Masefield would probably do even worse. Leg-pinching is commoner among the upper classes than anyone would at first suppose.
Topper, the new horse, has turned out a confirmed and incurable kicker. It was a well-planned swindle. There’s tricks i’ the world, and men who sell horses are a byword. My own carter said to me: “You have been properly sucked in, sir.” I thought it unkind, as Topper was his recommendation. She was in fact bought to please him.
Bognor is a lovely memory. If ever I say: “Verweile doch, du bist so schön” to the fleeting moment, it will be due to a fine day at Bognor in your sweet company, and quite certainly not to watching men at work on anti-coast-erosion operations.
I used to say that all Duff’s loves had cows’ names—Daisy and Betty and Dolly and Molly. Conrad wrote:
You may like the enclosed list of cows. Many will recall faded beauties of your husband’s seraglio. Old Fillpail (Lot 3) is for me, but what of Lot 40—Handlebars? I hardly feel that I could love a woman called Handlebars, but Duff is a lion-hearted man. He is afraid of nothing.
The Marchesa Origo was brought over from the Manor for sherry. She is highbrow to the marrowbones and a siren to chaps. I showed her over the farm and dairy.
Then I got ready for Longleat. I felt less shy as it got nearer, and marched as bold as brass into the great salon carrying my cheese under my arm. They were all assembled waiting for me, viz. Lord Bath, two Weymouths, two Nunburnholmes, two Stanleys, Lady Alice and Sir Hugh Shaw-Stewart, Miss Stevenson (a Wiltshire character), Sir Aubrey Hugh Smith, children, and five or six others never identified. I walked in and said: “Lord Bath, many happy returns of the day and please accept this truckle cheese made on my own farm.” A WOW! Effet bœuf. Sensational silence and then a bout of applause and chatter. I escaped into a corner with Lady Weymouth and hit back a quick sherry.
Luncheon went splendidly. Lady Wey (on my left) a real good crack. Roars of laughter. Lady Wey lovable and lovely. I stayed until 3.30 when I refused a kind invitation to stay for the picnic and took a tender farewell, Lord Bath holding on to my hand and patting my shoulder. Renewed thanks for the cheese and: “So kind of you to come.” Grand finale: Lord Bath and Lady Weymouth on the perron waving handkerchiefs and blowing kisses until I was out of sight. I left in a blaze of glory. A red-letter day.
Conrad did not smile for effect or misplaced good manners. His silent laugh was better far than civil grinning, but strangers found the still face alarming, and this increased his shyness in new surroundings.
I mind the country house visiting and the parties less than I used to. You must keep me up to my mark. It’s good for me and best for me to be where you are. But even when it all comes right and I’m next to you, and the hock and lobster pilav are good, I’m not enjoying it much. I would rather be having cocoa with you in Goodge Street and walking together through the rain to bad seats at a second-rate cinema. I can’t explain why and you must think me wrong in the head.
R’s hiccoughing during dinner last night was terrible. It was nice when you came to fetch me to breakfast. No one else before has seemed to notice whether I am at breakfast or not.
I had the same idea (too late, too late) of you driving me to Cheltenham, foie gras luncheon together on a fallen oak in Wychwood Forest, robins, holly, squirrels, babes-in-the-wood touch. I’m an incurable romantic.
I make Caerphilly every day. I make it rather badly and it is a great sweat. But if I lived in London and only strolled about Clubland I should be miserable, and drinking and drabbing would be a great temptation. I don’t believe you would
be so fond of me, and you wouldn’t get presents of eggs. And I think being a novelist like Maurice Baring or Evelyn Waugh hardly a fit occupation for a man. Just scribbling. So I suppose it’s got to be farming, sweat or no sweat.
On and on Conrad wrote of everything beneath the sun—of what Dr Johnson said derogatory about Lycidas, of Spinoza’s house (asking for a picture of it when I went to The Hague), of religion and country matters, the farm ever the background. I think that we never finished with Prince, and the tale of the dread change, the awful dissolution, was never told.
Tomorrow Prince performs the trivial task and draws a hogging sow to the boar. Let not ambition mock his useful toil and destiny obscure.
After tea I was arranging to move the statue of Immanuel Kant from above the fireplace to make room for your sheep-shearing picture. It is to have the best place, where I can feast my eyes continually on it.
Norah went off to the Bath and West Show with her butter and cheese amidst a flutter of handkerchiefs and cries of “Good luck!” and “Don’t forget to telegraph!” She only goes as far as our country town and is back again tomorrow.
Historicus [Duff’s pseudonym]’s letter was much to the point and good. You notice that he made an error of ten years in calculating how long ago the Franco-Prussian war was. Figures aren’t the Financial Secretary’s strong point. Homer nods sometimes.
Her Grace wrote me a very sweet letter—slightly nuts, or it wouldn’t have been in your mother’s style.
Slender continues ill and stands about staring and eats sparingly. I said to Ernest: “Does Slender eat her cake?” He said: “Well, she’s not exactly cheese on it.”