A Notable Woman

by Jean Lucey Pratt

  And at that moment the phone rang. Lydia. She has met a living Woffington, through her sister at Ealing. She is to bring him to tea on Sunday.

  Tuesday, 24 July

  More sugar has arrived from Barbados. Used some of my rhubarb to make more preserve.

  Then Lydia and the living Woffington. He is elderly, pleasant, garrulous, and a Theosophist.196 One is tempted to dismiss him as insignificant and a bore. But Lord, how arrogant, how cruel that sounds! I must not let my impatience blind me to the miracle of having met, entertained and shaken by the hand a living Woffington. He cannot trace ancestry beyond a grandfather sailor who died at sea, but apart from his own family he knows of only one other Woffington – in Auckland, New Zealand. He is very probably a descendant of Peg’s family. Has put me on the track of two more portraits which I must try to chase up tomorrow. But doesn’t seem to have discovered more about her than I have (thank goodness!).

  Wednesday, 1 August

  Rereading Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Lorelei seems to have missed something in this life. I mean, what halfwits all her men were. I wish I could meet gentlemen like Lorelei’s gentlemen, but if I did they wouldn’t even give me a bangle, so I get quite depressed.

  Enid came and left a bag full of chewing gum on the sitting room table. She must have heard me typing and stolen away, thinking I was working. Now my ordeal begins. If I can do it – what an achievement! Very wisely she advises, ‘Don’t rush it, beware of wind, and try to keep your mind off smoking. Just don’t think about it or talk about it, and do and say nothing to bring emphasis on the subject. Refuse quietly when offered one. You’ll put on weight, your nerves, sight, breathing and health generally will improve. In fact, the benefits are so great that if you can only make the effort and stick at it, you’ll wonder why you haven’t tried before. Phone when you feel your grip slipping and in need of a pep talk. Shall follow your progress with interest.’

  Of course I’ve since been smoking like a kipper. But here is the real kind of help needed. She never lectured or tried to persuade me to stop, but only when asked told me how she had given it up herself. She smoked since she was 14 and is now over 40. So it can be done. Whatever is that society for alcoholics called? They support each other when trying to break the drink habit. Something of the same could be organised for smokers.

  Periods are behaving oddly: three in eight weeks and a flood on Monday when I woke. Can it be the ‘change’? Am 43 in October. Suppose it is possible. But feel a little wistful. If it is, now there’ll be no chance at all of my ever making good as a woman, wholly.

  Sunday, 5 August

  Work began again on the cat book. The first chapters seemed awful on re-reading and I’m glad I haven’t yet shown them to anyone. Have been trying to tighten them up, set the pattern. It is a book about Dinah and cats, not me and Wee, though I and Wee have to be there in the background – but faintly, just shadows, the twist of chimney smoke, a lighted window. And talking of smoke, I simply cannot start this breaking campaign while at this sort of work. I tried, and I think if I were just doing the ordinary household round and social activities I could do it. After several hours of chewing it is a mistake to have even one – it only starts the craving again. I can see what Enid means when she says she found she had to give it up altogether. It is all or back where you were. And I still must have ‘just one’ when writing.

  Yesterday came letter from Fry’s, the people who look after my income tax, telling me what expenses I should submit in connection with work for Lovely Peggy. Have been busy at it all this bank holiday weekend. Quite enthralling. I find they come to over £300 in past three years. All this somehow makes me feel taller. I really am in the grown-up workaday world now. And it pushes me yet more surely towards the writing, and writing-only track.

  Monday, 6 August

  Managed to stop smoking from 11 a.m. until after tea.

  Sunday, 9 September

  Babs arrived home last Monday morning, bubbling over with her holiday. She brought back for me cigarettes, Sun Maid raisins, chocolates and a very pretty silk chiffon scarf. I was overwhelmed. I really had not thought of her bringing anything. She seemed genuinely pleased to be ‘home’ again and has settled down to temporarily quiet life with a wonderful philosophy. Her exam results arrived. She has passed in French and German, which means that she has her school certificate. This is a new version. All that is required for it is a pass at credit standard in one subject! It seems like money for old rope to me. Nevertheless it is an uplift to know she is through, and we celebrated by going to see the film Tea for Two, but came away with headaches.

  Monday, 10 September

  I have too many cats. Not for my own sake – I would willingly undertake more – but theirs. Each cat wants all of one’s attention and would blossom wonderfully if they had it. They are great egoists. They like being adored more than anything and just hate you to adore any other cat.

  I am entering the Black Babies for the cat show in October. Why I can’t think. They won’t stand the ghost of a chance against pedigree cats. I wanted to enter them as household pets, but there is no class in this section for kittens under nine months. It will be interesting and good experience for me, though I wonder if I should submit such innocents to an ordeal of this nature.

  Thursday, 20 September

  With enormous effort I finished the kitchen on Sunday and laid new carpet. Then began on Monday to tackle Peg’s index. The vilest job. B. very good, took over housework and meals. Has been having driving lessons all this week and is to take a test tomorrow. She is absorbed and bothered with this and her own affairs. Don’t think she has a clue as to how hard her poor aunt has been working! Adolescence seems such a long way from me now – I find it very difficult to remember how one felt and thought then, and the limitations of one’s knowledge and experience and understanding. I of course am aching for sympathy – for someone to moan to.

  And now this morning I wake to find election date settled for 25th October. It is really shattering. I phoned Halliday [editor at Hurst and Blackett]. It would be madness to publish in October now – in fact the scheduled day was the 25th! It has to be postponed again, until February. I feel like the donkey after the carrot.

  Sunday, 23 September

  The thought that really weighs me down is: no hope of any earned income now until next June. If I start thinking of the future it terrifies me. Suppose Peg flops. Suppose I can’t place the cat book. Suppose I fail with Sadleir. Suppose in short I find I am a fraud and that the fact I have got as far as I have with Peg is just a lucky fluke.

  But the point is, I do not believe that. Peg was an honest piece of work and I believe it has something. I believe it has a chance, if circumstances are kind and we are not, for instance, plunged into revolution with the Tories in power in February. I’m beginning to believe also that I can write. What I’m trying to confirm in myself is a determination to go on. I may know by this time next year the extent of Peg’s success or otherwise. All I can decide now is to hammer down my fidgeting, fretful doubts. Give me grace that I may live in truth – which is suspense, which is adventure: movement, growth, uncertainty, risk and danger. I must not be afraid.

  ‘Tomorrow I shall be an author!’

  Lovely Peggy, published under a pseudonym in 1952.

  41.

  A Deadly Sting

  Thursday, 4 October 1951 (aged forty-one)

  This delicious hour must be shared. Free again to pursue my own interests with a clear conscience. Tea alone, once more relaxed on sitting room sofa, as I have not been, it seems, for months. Dear little B.! Really I am very fond of her but one can have too much of unadulterated adolescence. It is not good for adult or adolescent. The gap, which has to be bridged, is too wide. The adult has not stopped growing any more than the youngster – they may be a little further ahead, growing in a different way, and it is as important to allow for their growth as for the child’s. Summer is over.

  Wednesday, 10 October
<
br />   I must get a grip on myself about this coming cat show. Was yesterday prostrate nearly all day with tummy pains and first day of period – I’m sure it was nerves. It had struck me all of a heap the evening before what misery it may be for the kittens: two whole days, confined and submitted to the public gaze. I felt I ought to cancel their entries and abandon my scheme. They won’t stand a chance against pedigrees, though their coats are improving and I may with luck get them past the vet.

  I feel better today and I must persevere. Have ordered a taxi to take us the whole way on Friday – cannot risk early morning congestion on Green Line. They are so sweet, submissive, affectionate, so totally unaware of what lies ahead for them. If I can only get good homes for them at the show, all the botheration and panic will have been worthwhile.

  Tuesday, 16 October

  The cat show I enjoyed, after all, hugely. And the kittens I do believe liked it too. They settled down well and loved the attention and praise they got at intervals. They won no award: not even a commendation. As for parting with them – I couldn’t do it. Didn’t even try, and put the whole thing out of my mind when we arrived. On Sunday, definite plans materialised. I will keep them both, have Starlet spayed, but keep Tom-Tit entire and try to obtain for him British Blue wife and launch into breeding true black shorthairs. Meanwhile, plans are afoot to convert one of the sheds into a cattery. With window mended, door made to shut and draught-proof, roof tightened up and tarred, and walls creosoted, the inside wholly reorganised, cleaned and furnished appropriately with clean comfortable sleeping boxes and a slow burning paraffin heater, I shall be able to leave them all there happily while I go away for 2 to 3 nights.

  Sunday, 21 October

  Election. Much to my relief there is no Liberal candidate for S. Bucks. Every Liberal I have spoken to is still of the same mind – many like me will not vote at all on Thursday. I don’t think there is any doubt at all that the Tories will get in here. I hope in one way the Tories do get in, to see if they can clear up the mess they are always condemning. If they can’t they are sure to blame Labour for it. I do wish politicians in all parties could admit more freely and openly that they are all fallible, and have made mistakes and will make more. To hear them talk before an election you think they were individually suddenly the only people who knew all the answers and had never done anything wrong.197

  Friday, 2 November

  I was determined to start again at the British Museum this week. Set off at noon, lunched in Slough, looked in at Selfridges to find they no longer have pets department. It was 4 p.m. before I reached the BM. There I found confusion – the Reading Room is being repaired and readers are poked away among the catalogues in the old music room. I found this most disturbing. After five years I was just beginning to know my way around and where to find essential ref books and now all at sea again and cramped into the bargain.

  Friday, 9 November

  I met Pat M. on train this a.m. – my doctor’s daughter. She is a very clever little artist and now at the Slade. It is curious how with some people you sense a common bond from the start and are at ease and happy with them. But with my dear little B. there is always the under-current of suspicion and contempt. I’m sure she instinctively despises ‘arty’ folk – it is an inherited tendency and I doubt will never change now. All her friends are nice, but have the same ordinary tastes, although some of them may do more interesting things than B. ever will. Once she gets abroad again she will revert to type – she is conditioned to it now. The sad thing is that she thinks that because she has lived most of her life abroad she is unusual. But I have met no duller set of people than the English who live abroad, unless it be in the suburbs. Perhaps it’s because when I’ve gone abroad I’ve only met suburbia again there.

  Saturday, 5 January 1952

  Peg is at last in book form. I went to see publishers yesterday and received my copy. But publication is being postponed again. Bound copies have only just come from the printers and Halliday is very anxious to push the book as much as he can before it appears officially. Although these delays are heartbreaking, I should feel flattered that he wants to go to so much trouble. He does seem genuinely keen to give it every chance. As I am a totally unknown writer with no academic qualifications (nothing at all to help publicity) it means extra hard work and perseverance from him. I am grateful, in a way even relieved for this further respite. Publication is going to be something of a nervous strain. Not as agonising for me as a platform appearance, but it will bring similar tension and palpitations.

  Brother Pooh is sending me 5 pounds as an Xmas present, which I have already spent on a Parker fountain pen and a utility grey flannel Jaeger skirt. I resolved a little while ago to buy no more cheap clothes or jewellery, to wear out what I have at home, and try to concentrate on quality and grooming when the occasion calls for it. But God help me, grooming is a life’s work, and quality is getting almost beyond my means nowadays. I get more sluttish at home, and when I go out seem to have no time to prepare myself. To get one’s hair, hands, skin and clothes into decent condition after months of neglect needs at least a week’s hard work on them beforehand.

  Thank goodness tomorrow is Twelfth Night and I can take down decorations and cards. When Xmas is over they fidget me – so gaudy, so tawdry. We had a lovely display of cards this year between us. I wonder what I shall do next Xmas. B. will be in Barbados. N. may be abroad. I had another vision for Wee last week: to build a big studio room where the sheds are now, cover in the space between them and back door. There will be room for four visitors (two in each room) hanging space in one bedroom which would relieve congestion downstairs – oh, it would be marvellous. To have everything I needed for work around me, to hand, with room to spread typewriter and MS and books instead of having them scattered over floor, chairs, bed or sofa. Heaven, heaven.

  Monday, 14 January

  Peg book is being sent off to Allardyce Nicoll and will also go to professors Tillotson, Sutherland, Richardson. My dread now is to hear that Nicoll has turned it down because of grave errors or some sort of faultiness, and that other profs may turn it down too for reasons I haven’t thought of. Some grave, grave mistake that they couldn’t possibly excuse … 198

  Tuesday, 15 January

  Mr Halliday of Hurst and Blackett writes this a.m. that he will let me know as soon as he hears anything favourable. But oh God, supposing it isn’t? Where shall I put myself?

  When I say that I am writing about cats I feel, after Peg, that I’m being frivolous, and am apologetic. I feel for cats intensely and want the book to be taken as seriously as possible.

  Am sure N. is longing to lecture B. about sex, which N. always loves to talk about, suspecting that I am not frank or instructive enough with the young woman, and that B. may like a little wholesome information. But B. seems to me on the whole extraordinarily sensible about her relationships with young men and quite ‘safe’ to leave to find her own level. She is not at all silly about boys and likes to get to know them thoroughly. Though she hasn’t many boyfriends in England, she has a few, and is quite content to wait until she gets to Barbados for more harmless fun. I am sure she will keep her head all right: I do not have to fuss about it and give ‘little talks’, thank goodness.

  Sunday, 3 February

  I heard yesterday from Halliday that the Book Society are not going to give Peg their blessing, though there seemed to be people in the office who hoped that the committee would. Nor has Prof Nicoll time to read or write the foreword. So Peg must go forth alone, unchampioned. I was disappointed and disheartened. Yet perhaps it is a good thing. Humility is a valuable possession. I must not, cannot, expect too much. I do not deserve and could not support an avalanche-success. Though I hope, dear Lord, I hope I may have a little, enough to make me feel that the battle has been worthwhile, and encourage me to go on. I must be ready to go on whatever happens. Blinding failure itself must not send me backwards now.

  Thursday, 7 February

  The
King is dead. We shall now be singing ‘God Save the Queen’. I shall feel Victorian and expect to see soldiers in red coats. The idea of that shy, charming young mother Princess Elizabeth as Queen now is too massive to take in properly. One’s heart aches for her. What a formidable, fearful task.

  The news of the King’s death was unbelievable. I had heard nothing when I left for London yesterday about 2.30 p.m. The sight of flags everywhere at half-mast startled me, closed cinemas were puzzling. I thought: it must be the king, but I did not credit it. Now it is finished. The burden was too great – he was due to go, one saw it in his face. In spite of all that modern medical science could do, his time here was over, and he slipped away so quietly, out of our reach.

  I am more and more drawn to the theory of reincarnation. It explains so much, makes the pieces fit together. Have been to one meeting of local Theosophists with Lydia and may go to others – may even perhaps join. And now I think I have over-boiled the marmalade. What a curse. Last year I didn’t boil the marm long enough. Does one ever learn?

  A month today Peg makes her debut. Or so we hope again. Edith Evans has recommended it warmly, which will be used in the advertising.199 This is really better, to me, than a Book Society notice. I rejoice and bless Dame Edith. But I have also nearly £40 for proof corrections to meet. That will mean £140 to be cleared before I start getting anything. We can only trust in the Lord and wait.

  Have just read Robert Reid’s account of George VI in today’s News Chronicle. It is very moving. He was, in a way which materialists will not be able to recognise, a great man. He was shy, unambitious, there was nothing spectacular or compelling about him. He had overcome a shocking stammer. But he did it – he got on to his feet, made public appearance after public appearance, quietly, competently. He spoke always directly to the ordinary man. He knew and voiced the simple and important values of life. He did an uncommonly difficult job remarkably well. Think of it, all you reserved, bashful, unassuming folk: how would you tackle it if suddenly forced into the limelight? George VI may not be so overlooked by the historian of the future as Reid imagines. The King set us an example of real courage: the courage of a man who was afraid but still goes on, and comes through well. We need more examples like this. We cannot all be Churchills, but we can be Georges.