Dear Mr Bigelow
Page 29
Last night, Thursday, I went to the theatre to see a new all-negro show, Simply Heavenly. Rather a mixed-up sort of thing, with some attractive dancing if you like negro style, and some very lively singing and some very loud playing in the orchestra pit. Afterwards, I motored to the Town Hall to await the arrival of my brother, with the ballot boxes from his polling station. It was rather fun sitting there in the warm darkness, watching the cars and taxis come sweeping around the drive and up the incline to the Town Hall entrance, where police and a few interested spectators clustered around to see what had happened as each arrival put their result up on the board. Made one feel quite part of the city. I got out after a time and wandered around, just looking and listening, simply dripping with my silver foxes – or dropping, which is nearer the right description for what they do! – and feeling quite pleasantly detached from all the hullabaloo. As you know, when there's any hullabaloo I'm usually in the middle of it . . .
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
May 24th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . We had a Visit Royal at home on Sunday. Mac and I had worked very hard indeed in the garden over the weekend, and it looked quite lovely, for the weather has not been warm enough, as yet, to turn the moss brown, so we still have good green lawns between the flower beds, and all the bluebells are out and some bright yellow flowers, and even the hedges are sporting blossoms. So I said why didn't Mac bring Audrey along that evening to see the garden. Mac, who was by then all dressed up to go calling on her, hummed and ha'ed and went off. A little later, I was indoors when the telephone went. It was Mac, calling from Audrey's home. Had I told Mother Audrey might be coming? No, I hadn't, did he wish me to tell her or to warn her? Well, it was a little difficult – they were just about to have dinner at the Fagans', and then Audrey would have to change, as she was wearing slacks. I said I was wearing my gardening dress and would have to apologise when Audrey arrived, as all our tiaras were in the pawnshop at the moment so she must excuse us for not being properly dressed. Mac, who was getting more and more pompous every minute, decided it was safer to ring off, and did so. Mother and I hastily had our after-dinner coffee, and were still drinking it when Audrey arrived – still in her slacks!!
Mind you, Mr Bigelow, Audrey IN slacks is the equivalent of me in Ascot high-style . . . The slacks are green tartan and the cardigan to match is the best cashmere wool, and the shoes are handmade, and there is a special rustic sort of wristwatch being sported, to be in the right key. I, of course, was still in my gardening dress. That is, I was wearing a plain green woollen dress that has been knelt in, sat in, fallen in over a period of years. It was clean – well, fairly – but hardly straight out of the band-box. My face was fairly clean, too, but only lightly dusted with powder and a swipe of lipstick. The false eyelashes I always intend to buy and try were where they always are when I want them – still in the shop. And my hands looked, I daresay, as if I had been gardening. Understandably!
When she was leaving after her Royal Tour of Inspection, Audrey said she and her family sit and think of all the things I do, and feel so terribly lazy. Not really, all that eyelash stuff to put on and off all day . . . I daresay you can't expect to have bits of pottery, and embroidery, and cushion covers, and upholstery, and paintings, and gardens, and garden gates and look like something straight out of a beauty-shop-cum-dressmaker's . . .
Now I must dash out and post this . . . I will leave you with my usual best wishes for your health and happiness, extended on this occasion to include the cats and/or kitten/s, from your most regular correspondent, the
One and Only (Original)
Cat Nori
(and a stray, at that!)
BOURNEMOUTH
June 14th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Oh dear, Mr Bigelow – after all my scoffing at Audrey's father and his love of popping in to hospitals to have a check-over or a cardiograph – he went and died on Monday! Apparently his action (or lack of it in this case) astonished everybody including the panel of specialists who have been attending him at great expense. Having decided that the only thing wrong with him was mental, they kept him under heavy drugs for three or four days to 'give his mind a rest' and at the end of it, his heart just stopped. Nobody was expecting it; he was all alone in his London nursing home and his family here in Bournemouth. I cannot pretend to any sorrow, first as I had never met him, and second, as I did not like anything I heard of him. But no doubt it will complicate things for my brother. Whether he is pleased at this possible solution of his problem or not, I do not know, for he is a clam on the subject. It did occur to me to wonder whether one of the attractions of Audrey was her inaccessibility? For you may remember, Father was heavy-handed and refused to allow men in the house. So Mac used to sneak in when Father was away, and when he wasn't, Audrey would telephone in a hushed whisper. All very intriguing and the sort of thing I loathe.
Now it's six o'clock and the mail goes at that hour, so whether or not you have your full quota of miseries and moans this week, I must finish and get this away.
I had a letter from Rosalind in Lisbon; have my 'plane ticket and £20-worth of French francs ready for July 15th, so roll on the date.
Yours irritably,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
July 5th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . I have unwittingly, apparently, created a precedent in Bournemouth. You know I applied last December 1st (the appropriate date) for a rise? Well, the wheels of Local Government grind exceedingly slowly, and very finely, but at long last therecommendation of my Committee was considered by the Establishment Committee this week, the latter being the one that controls all staff and salaries from high up. And they came to the conclusion that my Committee hadn't recommended a high enough grade for me! Also came to the conclusion that it wouldn't really be very nice to override my Committee and give me what they thought I deserved, so they just passed the Baths Committee's recommendation. Not, perhaps, very nice for me, since it is going to cost me the difference between £40 a year extra, which I shall now get, and £115 a year extra, which I might have got! But I was told that never before in living memory had such a thing happened, so on the whole I am both pleased with the Establishment Committee, and with all my friends at court, and, to a degree, with me. My new grading won't affect me until the 1st September: nine months from the time I asked for a rise. Excuse me while I go out and water my patience, which needs all the sustenance it can get these days . . .
I must post this now. Do you notice I have had the mechanic down to put my space-bar right on the typewriter? It used to jump two spaces instead of one, between words. Now it doesn't go one at all . . . . . . If only the window were not barred, I swear I would tip the wretched thing out into the area, honestly I would. One day when I dust the desk, I will accidentally sweep it off onto the floor and hope it will be so damaged as to be irreparable.
Next week, I shall probably be so jittery about Paris I shan't be able to type more than a postcard to you, so I am warning you not to expect too much: even now, I am having a fit of the trembles and can scarcely hold a pen, and on the typewriter my fingers get a sort of St Vitus's dance and come down all over the shop.
I do hope you are well and happy, busy with racing and cats, and collecting letters from Bournemouth and cards from all over Southern Europe.
Till next week, then, look after yourself.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
July 12th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
One day this week, when I was coming rather sadly to work, I met the postman and he handed me a letter. It was from Florence Olsen, and do you know, she said she was so envious of Rosalind, Matt Beall, and me in Paris she wanted to get in on the party and had thought of an idea – and enclosed a cheque for $25, to pay for a dinner for the three of us, with wine, in the
hope that she would be able to imagine us having a good time. Wasn't that sweet of her – and won't I, too, have a good time playing at hostess on her behalf ? . . .
We wangled Mother, all unsuspecting, into meeting Audrey's mother the other evening, and after we had seen their garden, we went to the country in their car – an enormous Jaguar which has done 700 miles so far. My brother drove, with excessive care which had me, used to him slewing around on two wheels in our tiny Austin, holding my sides to stop laughing and giving the game away . . . Mother was much taken with Mrs Fagan, and was soon showing her all our guilty secrets in the way of old snapshots, so that hurdle is now safely over. The pair of them – Mother and Mac – insisted on asking Audrey and Mrs Fagan in for a drink on our return, and of course I knew all the flowers were dead, as I had done them afresh on Sunday evening, Monday they were still all alive, Tuesday I worked late – and this was Wednesday, when they were dead. However, I don't suppose they noticed much. With the warm weather, the flowers need doing every second day, and that means 18 bowls of flowers a week, and that is quite a strain on me as well as on the garden.
Now I must write another letter, and start the evening rolling. I hope you are well and happy, and enjoying fine weather, bon appetit, and good nights of unbroken repose.
Most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
July 19th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Sunday evening last, I went down the garden and finished cutting the hedge – that bane of my life. I am five foot four inches tall, and so is the hedge, only the hedge is much thicker than I am, being at least three feet from one side to the other, and nobody ever managed to wrap their fingers around three foot as they might (if their fingers were long enough) around me in places. Now, I can only get at one side of the hedge, as there are garden sheds built up alongside the other side. So, in order to cut the far side of the top of the edge, I borrow the bathroom stool and plant it in the flower bed, as close to the hedge as possible, and mount it. Usually it then collapses and me with it, but now and then it only sinks a foot or so into the earth and, perched on top, I can hurl myself across the hedge and, by holding my arms outstretched, I can just reach the far side of the hedge with the tip of the shears. As you may imagine, this palls after a few seconds, and to do it every other week through the summer isn't my idea of a gay life.
About four years ago it was even taller than it is now, and one day I cut about two feet off the top of the hedge and the family wouldn't speak to me for weeks. So last Sunday when I eventually went indoors, I said innocently to Mother, 'Do you remember that terrific row we had some years ago when I cut off the top of the hedge? Well, get started, my dear, because I've done it again.' Only, this time I have cut off about three feet and the part I have sawn down is now only waist high. It is also raw and unkempt and looks ghastly. I was coming back up the garden after carrying an armful of chunks to the bonfire, when who should I see but Harry the Blackbird, having a wonderful time exploring the raw mess of hedge . . . . . . never knew such insects existed as he was finding in the morass! I knew magpies were inquisitive (acquisitive?) but now I know, blackbirds are too.
. . . By now I hope most sincerely that you will have heard about the Paris fiasco. When I went back to Les Invalides to meet Rosalind and Mrs Beall, only Mrs Beall turned up. I looked aghast, and she said there had been a message on the 'plane as it landed, that Mrs Akin's husband wanted her to stay on the 'plane and go straight on to New York'. So poor Rosalind went off for a night flight wondering what on earth catastrophe had caused this order, and wondering whether you were seriously ill, or one of her grandchildren . . . I will write you at length next week and tell you what I did and saw and where I went in my two days: the first was mostly taken up with accompanying Mrs Beall on shopping forays (you Americans!) and the next day she wanted to 'visit with' a girl she had known in Alton, one Dolly somebody or other, and I didn't feel like tagging along, so I spent the entire day on my own and quite enjoyed it, especially as the sun shone. Forgot to eat lunch! However, all that next week.
Mother would have 'phoned me, had there been any letter from America by the second delivery this morning, so I must just go on hoping that you are well and happy and enjoying fine weather and the yachting which is undoubtedly going on, and that Rosalind's miserably worried flight to New York was QUITE UNNECESSARY! When I left, Mrs Beall was working herself up into quite a nice panic (she's the type) so I daresay the plans I have made to see her twice while she is in England will, like all my others this summer, come to grief. A veritable jinx, that's me. I had thought of cabling you, but it's a bit silly to wire 'Are you well?' because if you weren't, you couldn't answer and that might worry you. So I did not bother you in the hope of a letter, or some explanation from Rosalind which will, in any case, probably turn up early next week.
Yours most sincerely
and " worried,
Frances W.
PS Shop sign: 'MEUBLES,
PAYSAN et BOURGEOIS'.
My translation: Common & Middle-class Marbles.
NO?
BOURNEMOUTH
July 24th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Tuesday morning a letter came from Rosalind saying everybody at home was well, and it was Mr Akin's worry about the Near East situation that made him cable her to go straight home from Rome and not stop off in Paris to spend two days with me. This letter was a great relief to me, as you may imagine, for I had been waiting from midnight the previous Tuesday to hear you were alright. As I don't know him and cannot therefore have any knowledge of his good points to offset his others, it will be a long time before I forgive Mr Akin. Don't tell Rosalind this, please: it was bad enough for her to be so worried on the flight home.
I am so glad you weren't the cause of Rosalind's unhappy rush back to America.
Most sincerely,
Frances W.
PS Thank you for another Reader's Digest, and for the Yacht book – nice, cheerful photo of you.
BOURNEMOUTH
August 9th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Well, I spent Saturday evening, and most of Sunday, with Mrs Beall in London, and we went to the theatre (very bad, acting poor enough to have been outdone, easily, by the Upper Tooting Bec Amateur Dramatic Club in an off-season) and ate at Rules, an Edwardian restaurant off the Strand. We saw the tail-end of the changing of the guard, and went out to Hatfield, where all three of Henry VIII's children were 'kept' when young, and both Mary and, in her turn, Elizabeth were more or less exiled later in their young lives. It was a glorious house, full of many lovely things – a most delicious, carefully written letter from Henry VIII's young son to his royal father: just like any other little boy writing, in his very best hand, to show Poppa how he is progressing under his teacher. There were several pairs of enormous Chinese vases, but the only one I liked, the guide didn't mention. They were celadon green, pale and unearthly, with raised white swags of flowers on them. Now used as lamp bases. And in the great Library, I suddenly turned and looked out of one of the windows, and there below me was the most gorgeous garden you could imagine, spread out one storey below. Very lovely, and all the nicer for being so unexpected.
I also decided that Mrs Beall is a dear, but better taken in small doses for me! She fusses so it eventually gets me irritated and I'm hard put to it not to snap at her when, for the seventh time, she asks if I am quite sure a No. 9 bus will take her to Harrods. As she is inclined, unless restrained, to take the first bus that comes along, for fear she will miss the right one if she waits another second, perhaps she feels that information given her is only given to deceive, and not to help. She also talks – non-stop – in a staccato manner which eventually becomes rather tiresome to my ears – I don't mind the Middle-West accent, and after all, I have an English accent of my own so why should I object to somebody else's, but to have every word made quite separate, and fired out like peas from a peashooter, is som
ething less than musical . . .
It is Friday now, and another sopping wet day. When this goes on for long, and the turmoil and noise all day and all evening in the building never ceases, my poor boss gets almost into a breakdown. Today is his day off, thank goodness, so we can rush around without the certain knowledge that any minute the Heavens may descend on us (or on a hapless customer, it depends who happens to be in the way when the explosion occurs!). I have been issuing tickets for agencies, paying wages, doing returns of takings and cash, washing up, making beds, serving teas, showing Councillors around the building, discussing parties coming to the water show with Aldermen . . . . . . just as I reached that word, a knock on my door heralded in a policeman with a request to see one of the show people. He knew the man was here because his car was outside. So I had to fetch the man concerned, and of course the policeman wanted to interview him in my office, so I shot off to lunch a bit before I had intended to – although it was already my lunchtime, anyway. Then I came back, rushed in to finish your letter, and got called away to attend to somebody who had cut her foot, and then to attend to somebody else who was making an outcry because she couldn't take her itsy-bitsy little dog into the bathroom with her. And finally, at long last, back to say au revoir to you until next week, when please pray for finer weather for us before we all die of duck-feet, nervous breakdowns and plain drowning in depressed holidaymakers!