Golly, love, it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning. And I was supposed to be going to bed with a sympathetic bolster. But it really has been nice, spending a long evening with you after such a wonderful day.
I got a letter from you this morning that ended ‘My love as always’. That’s why it’s been such a gloriously happy day for me.
Red
LETTER 138: TO BETTY (FROM ‘UNCLE HANS’), 23 OCTOBER 1967
Utrecht, Holland. Thursday evening.
My very dear child,
You will be greatly surprised to hear from me. I have played no part in your life, living as I do in another country. You will have heard of me, a long time ago, from your father, but your recollection will be vague, if indeed you remember me at all. I am old now, and long retired from work, but, thanks be to the good God, I keep very well. I have my garden, which keeps me busy, and now and again I still win a prize at our annual show with my flowers. Joanna, too, is blessed with good health although her sight is failing somewhat (a great trial, since she was always so fond of embroidery). The children, of course, are now grown up and scattered, and we see little of them. Gretel has two lovely children.
I have always taken a great interest in you. I have on my writing desk (you will hardly believe this) a small framed photograph of you when you were at school – must be over thirty years ago. It has always stood there, between the two inkwells. Your father sent it when you first went to boarding school. I love that picture. You were so small in your new uniform, so neat, so tidy. The expression on your face always brings a smile. You look so serious, my dear! And just a little fearful, as might any child at a new school. There is an elfin wistfulness about you that is very appealing. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, your ears did stick out a bit, didn’t they? I am sure you did everything you were told in those days, and observed strictly what must have been a strict school discipline. Life has its disciplines, too. You were no rebel against conventions in those days, of that I am sure, but you have become one since. This is why I am writing.
You grew into a beautiful woman. You were talented, intelligent, charming, but never lost the bubbling mischief and curiosity of the young girl. I heard of your marriage with profound pleasure and my heart warmed towards your husband for his good taste in choosing my favourite niece for his bride … I was shocked when, a few years later, I learned that you had left him and returned to your parents with your two babies. I felt you should not have done that. I heard the story, but it seemed to me, judging the case from a distance, that the man was ill of a sickness that needed not the attention of a hospital but the care and devotion of his wife. You gave him that for a time but were not prepared to go on doing it. You broke a vow made before God, and that can never be right. You made two mistakes, the first in marrying a man you did not wholly love, the second and greater in deserting him in his trouble. With patience you could have made him well, but instead you left him to rot. I myself was once very ill with a sort of nervous and mental exhaustion, for a long time – it was during the Occupation, when I lost my business and we all suffered not only privation but a great loss of pride – and I must have been quite insufferable. But Joanna never left my side, and you see I am today winning prizes at flower shows and a happy man. Joanna does not know I am writing to you: she is sitting by the fire, knitting something for me for the winter. It has been a good life, with her. I am very grateful.
Back home, you spent the early years bringing up the children. They were your whole life, and you spared yourself nothing and sacrificed much to prepare them for the world they must enter. You were a devoted mother, and not only a mentor but a companion. The two girls, now grown up and attractive and confident and assured, are themselves testimony to what they owe to you. They are a mirror of yourself. All of us who knew the unhappy background, the loneliness you must often have felt but had to hide from the children, feel wonderfully proud of you. You showed rare courage and determination. Your children do you credit.
It was the natural instinct of a mother that prompted your care and attention for Jane and Anne. But you had another natural instinct: the instinct of a woman to show tenderness and affection to people to whom you were attracted, sometimes because of their own inherent charm, sometimes because of some attribute that appealed to you.
I now hear, with dismay, that you are sick of an old passion. I beg of you to say no. You are not entitled to any man but your husband. You are not entitled to say that life has given you a raw deal and you must find happiness where you can get it. Can you look at Jane and Anne and truthfully say that life has given you a raw deal? Can you think of the hundreds of women in your own town who must envy you the opportunities and achievements and experiences you have had, and still say that life has given you a raw deal? Of course it hasn’t. You have a better life than most. It is not complete, but it would be folly to wreck what you have and opt for anything less permanently satisfying. You are approaching the age when you will want only to be peacefully settled in your own home, to enjoy the security you have earned and have the love and respect of your children and friends. You won’t want men throwing pebbles at the windows. The present unrest you feel will die, and when it does you must not find yourself stranded in strange surroundings. To embark now on a voyage of endless drifting with no harbour in sight, to jettison dignity and pride and self-respect as you go, is asking for shipwreck. Please don’t do it. If you hurt yourself you hurt Jane and Anne and all of us. You are a limb of the family tree; when you are distressed so are we all. We love you.
Stay with old Red. He’s dotty about you, we know. But at least he’s harmless.
Joanna has been looking at me over her spectacles these past few minutes, but saying nothing. She must be wondering what I am doing. I have lost track of time while I have been writing, but dusk has fallen and the street lamps are lit. It must be past the hour for supper, so I must end my letter before Joanna gets too curious. It has been just between the two of us, this letter, you and me. You will have decided that I am an old busybody, meddling in your private affairs when I have no right to. But I have, dear. I have that right because I love you. And I want to go on thinking of you as the embodiment of all a good woman should be. That’s why I’ve written. I know you will not disappoint me.
Your devoted Uncle Hans
Betty replied in the same style, as if she were his niece, trying to explain her worries and confusions about her feelings for AW – and for other people.
After months of being convinced it was all off, that Betty was moving out of his life, the year was ending on a better note, apart of course from the divorce proceedings, which were growing nastier all the time.
LETTER 139: TO BETTY, 23 NOVEMBER 1967
Wednesday
Betty NcNally, I am going to hug you next time we meet. Yes, strong and purposeful, that’s me. A man who does not waver in his intentions, a man of iron resolution …
My mind was quite firm. I had asked her not to write, and I was determined that, if she did, I would return the letter unopened. Without hesitation, back it would go to her. This was an inflexible decision … what was the point, anyway, in listening to anything she had to tell me? I had no way of knowing whether to believe or disbelieve, and I had been on the rack of doubt and despair long enough. For deceit there can be no forgiveness, and for untruths no pardon. Yes, I would send it back unopened. That would teach her a lesson she would never forget. But, Betty, I was also a man in love, and a man in love cannot be disciplined. Sight of your familiar handwriting on the envelope was too much to be borne with indifference. Your letter was torn open eagerly, as all others have been. It was not addressed to me, even, but I claimed a power of attorney for your uncle, and besides I wanted desperately to know what you had to tell him. You are a very clever little girl. You respect my wish not to correspond, but write to me by proxy. That lets me out of my iron resolve, too, and without loss of face, because how could I return a letter that was never sent to me?
&
nbsp; So I read your letter with no sense of eavesdropping. I cannot now forward it to your Uncle Hans. He died while I was reading it. Betty love, it was a beautiful letter. You chose your words with great care and you meant exactly what you said. It was written at some cost in anguish of mind, and not without some heart-burning. I know, love, I know. You had to refer to past episodes that must have been painful to recall and relate. It was courageous of you to write so openly and frankly. I could not but regard it as an expression of your trust and confidence. I am humbled and contrite. Betty love, I understand now. I didn’t before. It had been a bad time for both of us, because when I hurt you, I bleed too. Each of us has something to forgive. I cared for you more than you wanted me to. I was roughly forging ahead too far while you were gently applying a brake. We have been pulling apart … of course you are right. It is a matter of balance and adjustment. Somewhere midway we had found a common ground of respect and friendship and affection. We have both strayed from it recently and lost track of each other in a lonely and frightening wilderness. It has made me realise that a life in which you have no part is a life without meaning. You too found, in lesser degree, that you were losing a friend you valued. Now you have called me back, and I come gladly.
Yes, we have our differences of character and outlook and, above all, background. I think you are shallower and more superficial than I, more cautious, but only because you are afraid to venture, to risk a mistake. You don’t permit yourself dreams. You are capable of great depth of feeling, but lack the sense of security that would let you express it freely and fully. I too like to keep my feet firmly planted – you have seen me climbing a wall – but that does not stop me from indulging the most heavenly flights of fancy. My dreams become very real, and for two years they have been centred on you. Your influence on me is too profound, I know. I ought not to be so obsessed, I know. But I have liked to have you in my thoughts all the time. When we are friendly, this helps a lot to make a lonely life tolerable; it keeps me happy and inspired even when I am not seeing you. When we are not friendly it makes life hell for me, for I have lost the knack of shutting you out. You are everything to me. I would give my life to save yours. There are social differences of which I am acutely aware: you belong to a class where the common term of affection is ‘darling’, overworked until it becomes meaningless; in my world we say ‘luv’ and mean it. Yes, of course there are differences between us, but one complements the other. What I lack, you have. What you lack, I have. Together we are complete.
I will always remember October 1967, not because it was the wettest on record, but because it was the gloomiest. I could not work at the book. I tried once or twice but my gaze would wander through the window to the hills or at the sodden garden. I watched TV without seeing it. If I went out I took my thoughts with me, and they were bleak. Every night I tortured myself by playing Lara’s song before going upstairs. There must not be another October 1967.
Let’s forget this misunderstanding, please love. Let’s not mention it again, and roll a heavy boulder on the buried past. Let’s meet again as though it had never happened. I never stopped loving and wanting you in the darkest hours. I declined to see you last Saturday because it seemed to me that another meeting would have meant another parting, and that I could not face. I have a thin skin, and bruise too easily, as you now know. Yet I spent the afternoon hovering around Goat Gap with two apples and a box of liquorice allsorts, just in case. I wanted you to come to me.
Please let me see you soon. Please use the enclosed letter card to tell me when – it is designed to save you time in correspondence. Any time, any day, but soon. I have no other news, except that I have bought a new pair of braces and go to the Palace on November 23rd. I am not given an alternative. Ordinary suit will do. Wish you were going with me to make sure my flies were buttoned up.
In my darkest hours of depression I kept recalling a saying I heard when I was boy, and have never forgotten:
‘keep a green bough in thy heart,
And God will send thee a singing bird’
He has, with your letter and gift of books. Bless you.
Red
The card AW enclosed was for them to meet at Ingleton – and he also invited her to the pictures at Morecambe to see South Pacific. But she said she had already seen it.
For his trip to London to receive his MBE he went with his son Peter, who happened to be in England at the time.
LETTER 140: TO BETTY, UNDATED
[On a postcard]
Thursday 12.30 p.m.
WRITING THIS ON EUSTON STATION, HOMEWARD BOUND.
UNEXPECTEDLY, EVERYTHING REALLY HAS BEEN SUPER, AFTER ALL * FAST, QUIET TRAIN * COMFY HOTEL * FIRST JOURNEY ON THE UNDERGROUND * GOOD MEAL IN LEICESTER SQUARE * WALKING TOUR OF CENTRAL LONDON * SAW CAMELOT * GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP * SAW PETER OFF (RATHER SADLY) * BUCKINGHAM PALACE INTERIOR MAGNIFICENT * HAT (3 POUNDS) UNNECESSARY * BUTTONS DOUBLE-CHECKED * ONE-THIRD IN LOUNGE SUITS * CEREMONY GLORIOUS, LIKE HOLLYWOOD SPECTACULAR IN CINEMASCOPE * NOW, BEST OF ALL, BACK HOME TO MY LOVE, TO COLLECT A PROMISE. SOON, LOVE X
Part 13
The Divorce, 1966–8
The separation and divorce turned out longer and more complicated than AW had ever expected. He wrote copious letters and notes to his lawyers in Lancaster – picking a firm well away from Kendal, in case there might be any leaks – and kept exact copies of every letter, and their replies, filing them away carefully, as a good municipal accountant should. He was used to writing such letters in his office work, and well understood the bureaucratic mind, but it did not spare him from anger and fury and personal comments when things turned against him.
Things got complicated when Ruth decided to fight the case – and accuse him of various misdeeds. Financially, there were also complications in connection with his charitable contributions – and by now he was giving away a great deal of his royalties to animals. Ruth suspected this might be a ruse to keep money away from her, or was the work of the ‘Other Woman’, not that Ruth appears to have known who Betty was until it was all over. References to Mary Burkett and her status in the town were mentioned several times in the legal letters flying back and forwards as that rumour continued.
LETTER 141: TO HIS LAWYERS, OCTOBER 1966
38 Kendal Green
Kendal
Your ref: GCH/EM October 1966
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter of the 12th.
Referring to your first paragraph, it seems that perhaps you read too much into my previous letter, when I said that it appeared likely that my wife and I could agree on my terms. I did not suggest that a reconciliation was likely.
I have given some thought to the two exceptions to my original offer, mentioned in your second paragraph. Dealing with (b) first, this is the matter that led me to say previously that I thought agreement could be reached. Yes, I will give way on this point and offer 7 pounds a week from the date of separation (instead of 5 pounds increasing to 7 pounds at age 65). I must say, however, that I regard the amount as excessive, since it provides much more for my wife than it leaves me for living expenses out of my Corporation pension and especially as she has stated her intention of obtaining employment, but I will concede (subject to what I say later) in expectation that I shall continue to derive royalties during the next five years. If this latter source of incomes ceases I shall be in an impossible position, but the risk is one I am prepared to take to bring these distressing negotiations to a close. Perhaps it would be permissible to draft an ‘escape’ clause?
With regard to (a), my offer was to provide up to 1000 pounds to buy a house in Blackburn, the title deeds of which could be in joint names so that in the event of the death of one the title would revert to the survivor, and, further, that no rent would be payable for long as my wife remained sole occupier. This offer is so obviously fair and indeed generous that I am completely at a loss to understand why exception is taken to the conditions, which seem to give my wife absolute security. I think I
am entitled to an explanation of the reason for the exception taken on this point, and should be pleased if you would try to obtain one.
My wife is not, in fact, now living with me, having left me six weeks ago to rent a cottage temporarily outside Kendal. She is determined not to return, and in view of her insistence on what seems to me an excessive demand, I intend to start divorce proceedings with your kind help and advice. It must be clear that the agreement finally arrived at does not preclude me from taking such proceedings (you have promised to safeguard my position in this respect), and I am wondering further whether the whole agreement should not be stated as being operative pending the hearing of a divorce action – but perhaps you would consider this superfluous.
I am sorry to write at such length, but wish to avoid a further visit to your office at the present time.
Yours faithfully,
AWainwright
LETTER 142: TO HIS LAWYERS, 8 DECEMBER 1966
Dear Sirs,
In reply to your letter of yesterday’s date, I confirm my agreement to the removal from 38 Kendal Green of the items listed in the schedule enclosed therewith.
I am pleased to learn that the preparation of the Separation Agreement is proceeding. There is one matter (which need not delay it), namely, that I want it clearly understood by my wife and her solicitors that I consider myself the aggrieved party in the separation, that I refute absolutely as groundless all allegations of immoral or inconsiderate behaviour admitting only to an incompatibility of temperaments, and that the separation has taken place against my wishes and requests. If possible, I would like to see this embodied in the document above my signature; if not possible, I will attach a signed statement to this effect to the document to be read as part of it.
The Wainwright Letters Page 25