Dear Mr Bigelow
Page 31
So, a very Happy New Year to you dear Mr Bigelow, and don't you go and get engaged: I couldn't stand it.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
December 27th 1958
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Well, we can put it off no longer: the engagement party. You may remember in last week's letter I told you Audrey has asked me to go and keep her mother company and help wash glasses? Well, although I have seen forty summers and a few, I must still be as naive as when I was sixteen, because I thought she was joking . . . . . . By one o'clock I was very, very tired of collecting dirty glasses and washing them and bringing them back clean and collecting dirty glasses and washing and bringing them back . . . . . . was quite giddy with such a dizzy round, so I said I was tired and made my brother take me home. He was furious, as well as not being in a fit state to drive, really. However, we met nothing on the way, and he promptly turned around and went back and got home in the end about 3.30 and woke me up with his noise. The cat woke me up about 4.30 wanting to go out, and Mother dropped some-thing heavy like the flatirons about 6.30 a.m., so whoever may have thought the party a success, it was not me. At least, not after, say 11 p.m. when the glamour of all those crystal glasses began to pall.
Audrey was very prettily overdressed, as usual, in a pale blue satin Empire line evening dress, heavily embroidered with pearls and diamanté and silver-thread. She sported a pair of earrings five rows of diamonds thick and about three inches long. Fortunately her dress was topless, so there were no shoulder-straps to get caught up in the ear-rings, and no monkeys to swing from them, either. As if all this glitter wasn't enough, she had a pink and gold embroidered chiffon stole in clouds around her. She also wore the engagement ring, quite a pretty thing and not, I should imagine expensive, poor Mac. I wouldn't expect or wish it to be otherwise, but cattily I did wish she hadn't worn three enormous rings set with at least fourteen stones, on the third finger of her other hand! Just for that one evening, anyway. As you may imagine, I am not terribly enthusiastic about Audrey, being rather averse to being so prettily ordered about.
Mac's friends were there in force, and the general opinion seemed to be it was about time he got engaged. He has two groups of friends: the West Hants Club group – they were the ones at the party – and the other group, who were acquired through his work and his family. This latter group is, I think, a bit dismayed by the engagement, whereas the former think it an ideal arrangement. To my horror, I cannot get much enthusiasm worked up, nor show great happiness. With my mind I wish them happiness; with the rest of me I am selfishly watching my own dismal future and feeling very, very glum about it and, possibly as a result, blaming that on Audrey, which I quite realise is terribly unfair of me . . .
Now I will finish this and get it posted. I do hope you will have had a happy, merry Christmas, with plenty of good cheer and visits from all your friends, and a letter from Rosalind bang on the right day; and of course I do hope you have a very Happy New Year, with good health and a sufficiency of sleep to keep you well and happy and full of ideas with which to prod me into a rude reply.
Bless you, and thank you for everything,
Affectionately,
Frances W.
1959
'The sun on one's tummy is so delightful.'
BOURNEMOUTH
January 3rd 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Here we are again, in yet another New Year. I was sitting up watching television on New Year's Eve, and someone on the B.B.C. staff said he wished his viewers the old wish 'that you may live every day of your life'. And that's about the best thing I can wish you, I think; and I have a shrewd suspicion that you, of all people, may more nearly live up to that exciting, interesting, and desirable method of going from day to day, than most of us do.
As for me, I have started off very nicely with a bad cold and sciatica, in spite of making an interim resolution in the middle of September, when I had it last, never, never again to get sciatica. That's my trouble – I never take my own good advice. I am still in the throes of painting the kitchen . . .
Rosalind's whereabouts get more and more complicated. I had a letter from Florence Olsen this week in which she said she had hoped Rosalind might have spent Christmas with them in Antigua, but Mr Akin won't fly anywhere, so now she is hoping perhaps Rosalind might stay with them in March. And you say, '? Montego Bay', but Montego Bay is quite a big place, and according to last year's letters it is getting jam-packed with enormous Hilton-like hotels. Anyway, don't you worry: I'll get a letter from her sooner or later, and then I'll know. In the meantime she will just have to go on thinking me rather remiss, I dare-say, although actually I have sent two letters and a card to the Hotel Casa Blanca with my fingers crossed.
From the material point of view I had an absolutely bumper, or vintage year. You remember that old song about the Twelve Days of Christmas and what 'my true love gave to me'?
Similarly, my Christmas was full to overflowing with gifts on the same bountiful scale. I had
seven bottles hooch,
six pounds chocolate,
five dollars, pairs stockings, pounds nuts,
four pocket handkerchiefs,
three tins talcum, bottles hand-lotion,
two parcels food, hanging-baskets for flowers,
one fountain pen, box writing paper, lipstick,
rouge, foundation lotion, face-powder,
cold cream, and £1 note.
It was grey all over Christmas, but warm enough to sit in the garden, had it been a little more cheerful. Of course, after three days of this greyness it had to break into a chill rain, and it has been wet ever since. I don't mind, so long as it isn't too cold: you and your nice bright cold clear days, they give me chilblains even to think of them. And you needn't tell me the climate is dry and therefore it doesn't feel cold – I spent four days in New York when it was cold, and I froze to death from the soles of my feet upwards, and this is only my ghost writing to you now, so there . . .
I have been rereading Robert Benchley, who always seemed such a pet . . . That, and another Gerald Durrell book about animals, made up most of my Christmas reading, because what with the painting and not being able to sit down very long (the back) to read anyway, and having this ghastly knitting still on the go, my reading has been very poor of late. I am still delving in the Philosophies + of Bertrand Russell, but my enthusiasm lags in the most surprising way after the first thousand pages.
Well, now, this being the first letter of my New Year, I must resolve not to pour out my selfish miseries into your ear, which is probably all too stuffed up with such vapourings already; and of course my usual
+
Philosyphy X
Philosophy
Phylosophy??
Well – take your pick. FW
New Year resolution, to be properly grateful to you for all your kindnesses and your bright letters and for always being there when I want you. That's one resolution, anyway, that I have kept faithfully for the last – oh, it must be ten years at least. Who would have thought, back in 1949 when you wrote me such a rude letter in answer to my first one (and I have it still, so don't contradict me, you!) that when 1959 came around we would still be at it, mellowed by time perhaps, but still dashing off letters at high speed and tossing them at each other with gusto.
As I have said before, bless you for your end of the gust,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
January 17th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . I loved your story of the dignified collie visiting your neighbours. How angry the cats must have been, to be so ignored. The tenant of the flat below ours, has a little corgi puppy, and you know how pugnacious they are. This one hates Freckleface with a penetrating hatred, and we are forever opening the back door because of the din, and finding Freckles sitting nonchalantly on a step washing his face, with Roger (what a name – I call him Podge) two step
s lower, barking and snarling his head off, but not coming too close. Well, last night he apparently pulled all his courage together and came right up – and of course, Frecks just slapped him one, and the puppy went howling and screaming down to his own back door. Awful Fact of Life for a puppy to discover – Cats May be Teased, or Played With, but They Should Not be Attacked Unless One is Wearing Chainmail.
. . . We went to the Fagans' for dinner on Sunday and Mrs Fagan forgot to light the oven so that the chicken was red and raw, and the Christmas pudding tepid. We had them home on Wednesday and of course Mother wasn't going to be outdone, so we had
1 Her prize winning tomato soup with cheese, cream and sherry.
2 Grilled lamb chops with fried apple rings, baked celery with egg sauce and creamed potatoes.
3 Peaches with meringues and cream topped with chopped nuts.
4 Biscuits and cheese, pecan nuts, coffee and chocolates.
Rosalind having sent us four half-bottles of assorted 'hooch' for Christmas, we were able to give our guests sherry before dinner, and champagne during the meal. I forgot to ask them if they wanted a liqueur afterwards, which was just as well as we don't want them to get the idea we are millionaires. Thursday night dinner reverted to normal – bangers and spuds with tinned peas. For the benefit of the uninitiated, bangers are sausages, and spuds, potatoes, and tinned peas are horrid the world over . . .
It's a very cold crisp day with lots of sunshine and what snow there is, frozen hard. As you know I don't like cold weather so you will please arrange for a warm wind to come across next week, because I go to London on the 24th and have no intention whatsoever of freezing to death. See to it, please: I am sure you can't have anything else very important to do.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
BOURNEMOUTH
January 31st 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
First, thank you for your latest letter (January 25th) and for your helpful suggestion as to how I may win a fortune, by writing up my brother's wartime reminiscences in the style of Jane Austen. Starting, for instance, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Sergeant inspecting the troops is in need of a bribe'? But how to reconcile the Jane Austen style with your advice to omit no bad words, slang or other interesting phrases? When I have overcome that snag, I will get to work . . .
But now, to London, beloved London. I took with me one Dorothy Smith, and as her personality and presence had a lot to do with my enjoyment of the weekend, I must first tell you a little about her. She has been a very good friend of ours for many, many years and is, I should guess, in her early or middle fifties. She is what you would call 'homely', although she has always had, as long as we have known her, most beautiful grey hair. She is one of the very few people living in Bournemouth who was actually born and bred here. She has a responsible and well paid job at the Town Hall acting as Secretary to the Mayoress . . . and knows everybody in the town of any importance. With all this, she is terribly 'Missyish' and provincial. I was wondering on my return on Tuesday, whether my violent reaction against the stodginess of Bournemouth is not, in itself, a symptom of the same provincialism, but oh dear, I do hope not. We saw, in a shop window, a delicious confection of a pink tulle and ribbon hat, spangled with diamonds, designed by Dior, at which I exclaimed in delight. Dorothy looked seriously, and said, seriously, 'But you couldn't wear it in Bournemouth, dear.' She was most hurt when I snapped, 'I couldn't afford it anyway, and I am quite sure that if I could, I would wear it where I pleased and let Bournemouth care what it liked.' Everything we saw, did, listened to, ate – is related to Bournemouth.
One evening as we were eating a miserable bit of egg on toast for our 'dinner' in the hotel (D's economy) and were discussing what theatre to go to on Monday, a man sitting nearby leaned over and said, 'Let me recommend Expresso Bongo,' and he and I got into cheerful conversation. Dorothy was horrified; just sat there all taut and unhappy: goodness knows, her expression said, what would happen to my poor friend if I weren't here to keep her on the rails. Who knows, I might have got to talk to all sorts of interesting people! Many years ago, when I was a very shy 16, I used to know a family who had two friends, and we all used to go out walking in the country sometimes, and these two and their friends (there were us and two girls, me much younger than Cora, and three young men) were so witty, and bounced the ball of fun between them so gaily, I used to be both spellbound and tongue-tied. Now that I could at least hit the ball back sometimes, I have lost touch with them all, and it breaks my heart.
On Sunday morning, in London, I wrote Mrs Lucille Williamson in Marianna, Arkansas, and told her I knew I should have brought a dictionary to town with me, for there I was, writing to thank her for the $5 she sent me to pay for my ticket for M.F.L., and with no dictionary to help me to find adequate words with which to praise it. I had, as you know, been growing more and more depressed as everybody, and everything I read, confirmed the belief that Rex Harrison was not acting in My Fair Lady, but had gone skiing or sun-bathing or just off for a fit of sulks. In fact, going up to London in the train I was reading Punch, and there was a joke in it about the faces in the leading parts being so strange the audience had no chance 'To grow accustomed to their face' as the song had it, and the management had been asked to put a noticeboard outside Drury Lane reading 'All Star Cast Fridays'. Well, we went Saturday and there was an all-star cast that night, which made my fears groundless and my enjoyment that much greater. And great it was, indeed. Only one small thing was lacking – the wonderful shock it must have been to those seeing it for the first time, before all the publicity and ballyhoo had made it common knowledge of everybody in England. It was a play made by three things: the music, Rex Harrison, and the wonderful sets and costumes of Cecil Beaton. In his way, Stanley Holloway was better even than Rex Harrison, but his way wasn't completely and 100% suited to the play – he wasn't Doolittle, he was Stanley Holloway giving a wonderful performance on a music-hall stage. As such, he tended to divide the play into one part in which you could almost (as almost as an audience should be able to) believe you were looking in on a scene from real life; and the other part, in which some-body sang jolly songs and everybody danced and was funny, and the singer's personality came out and buffeted you as you sat in your seat in row S and wriggled because your back was hurting! Julie Andrews was very sweet and sang very nicely, and when you have said that, you come to a full-stop. She had nothing of the dignity and grace of Wendy Hiller in the film.* which led one to believe it quite possible for Eliza to be mistaken for a Hungarian Princess, at the ball. Julie Andrews was a very pretty, well-behaved little miss who could have been anybody, but was more probably nobody. However, please don't take these comments as being of the slightest importance as criticisms – the play was everything it was boosted to be.
* Editor's note: Frances is referring to the film Pygmalion (1938). The movie of My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn, was not released until 1964.
On Monday night we went to see the 'after dinner farrago' which is called At the Drop of a Hat. This is an intimate show in a very small theatre, and the props, as a pretty contrast to the enormous stuff at Drury Lane, consisted of one grand piano, one piano stool, and a very cheap standard lamp, the whole surrounded by plain, plain curtains which looked as if they were made of grey flannel suiting. The cast here is two – Donald Swann, who writes the music and plays the piano, and Michael Flanders, who writes the lyrics, does the talking in between-times, and doesn't need a piano stool to sit on as, poor man, he provides his own wheelchair. Here, unfortunately, the 'shock' was again missing, for I knew well about eight out of the sixteen or seventeen songs they sang. We had chosen (well, I had) to see this as being the only possible thing, after Saturday night at My Fair Lady; everything else would have been anti-climax.
Now I must finish this.
Best wishes, and don't catch any of your neighbours' colds, sinus infections or just plain germs.
Very truly,
BOURNEMOUTH
February 7th 1959
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . In London this week there is an exhibition of paintings done by stars of stage, screen, and radio. Amongst them was one which I did consider buying as a present for the Olsens, but changed my mind on seeing the price. Spike Milligan is the author of The Goon Show on radio, which I believe was very successful in the States. It is one of those mad non-sequitur programmes that I enjoy for about ten minutes and then feel surfeited. I should like to see his painting entitled Semi-mortgaged Property in the Cotswolds, though.
On my return from London it was a little disconcerting to be taken to task for going away because, in my absence, neither Mother nor Mac slept a wink for fear the cat should die in the night (he had a terrific fight) and then, when he seemed a little better, for fear he would want to go out, and squeak to that end, and they wouldn't hear him and the consequences would be unpleasant. Also, a new ash pan for the kitchen boiler had arrived and neither of them could fit it to the old fitment. They are now sleeping like small babes because I get up and let the cat out, and the ash pan is fitted and in place. Just like that . . .
A most horrid suspicion is creeping into my mind that Mac's fiancée is going to back out of her operation. She said last Sunday, in telling us all about her visit to the London specialist, that it was an easy job because the hole in her heart is situated on the outer wall, and that she would be only three weeks in hospital. Later on, she said, 'Oh, I couldn't bear to be away from home when the daffodils are in bloom', which, had I not heard it with both my ears, I would not really have believed as an excuse for putting off, or cancelling, an essential operation. Later, my brother announced that she was going to try to find out how much it would cost, because she feared it was going to be too expensive. I had asked her why she didn't have it done under the National Health Scheme, and she had been quite snappy and said she couldn't because she'd have to go in at the surgeon's convenience, and might even have to go into a public ward with other people! Now Mac says she is trying to get another appointment in London, and this time she won't take him with her, but her mother. If, having got Mac engaged to her because, as it was then, she was going to have the thing done and had only a fifty-fifty chance of survival and need-ed all the love and support she could get, she is now calling the whole thing off, I am afraid I shall be so angry I shall have to say nothing whatsoever, for fear of saying something I might later regret. After all, both her doctors have told her she must have it done before the emotional upset and excitement of a wedding, and that it should be done at once because of her age, and that if it isn't, with care, in about five years' time she'll find she won't be able to get up and down stairs. If Audrey thinks she can hold my brother and have him at home every night reading a good book because he has an invalid wife who can't go out with him, she just doesn't know my brother. Probably she doesn't. Having got over the initial shock and unhappiness the engagement gave me, and brought myself to a state of resignation, if nothing better, this comes as quite a setback. Audrey is, I think, working herself up into a state over this thing – she was describing luridly on Sunday what they were going to do to her. I said, 'But surely you'll be under an anaesthetic?' 'Oh yes, of course I shall.' 'Well then, you won't know a thing about it, so why worry?' Anyway, I was so annoyed with the silly creature on Sunday, believing that in her heart of hearts she is finding excuses because she's scared, I went straight to the telephone and made an appointment to visit the dentist, just to prove to myself that although I, too, might be scared, I could make myself do unpleasant things.