by Doreen Bates
SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER
I am 29 and a half now. It seems quite impossible that in six months I shall be 30. I don’t really mind because I am not standing still. I have so much energy now. I don’t get so thrilled and excited as I did but I get disappointed less. I am more discriminating and I don’t (much) try to do things because they are done.
A queer day – last night asked E whether he was always honest with me or whether he sacrificed honesty to kindliness (as he had confessed he did with most people). He said he was, though I should probably find it difficult to believe him. It is a barrier between us that I can never quite overcome. I expect it is as much my fault as his. I have an intense yet just selfish pride. It flares up and makes me say things which must be quite misleading. He said today, ‘I must start going to theatres again.’ Now I was really very glad as I love going to plays – I love doing anything with him. But all I said was, ‘Why?’ – at once suspecting (as he guessed) that I had jumped to the conclusion that he proposed it because I wanted it. It is stupid – even if he had it would have been sweet of him. In addition I find it almost impossible to confess to him what I mean. I have to grind out every word. It is partly because I can’t express exactly what I mean and I shall give the wrong impression, but it is also due to some emotional block. I must try to get rid of it. It is unfair to him as I grumble when he doesn’t say what he feels and I always expect him to guess how I feel. He agreed that it would hopeless if he couldn’t read my face. He was nice.
MONDAY 28 OCTOBER
My changes of mood almost amount to dissociations. I got up this morning light-hearted and gay and completely in love. E came to talk to me and I wouldn’t listen but frisked and interrupted till he pretended to be cross. We lunched at Stewart’s and I bickered and chirped altho’ he complained of a liver. We walked back. I was still lively at University College until after doing Visual Acuity and Colour Vision I suddenly felt I must sit down – felt completely done.
Read Mary Butts’ book on Cleopatra in the train. I feel an overwhelming attraction to Greece and Rome. I can’t resist a book on them and they get me like a spell even now.
WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER
To Joad’s lecture – Plato again, after dinner at Craig Court. E was sweet. We talked of us. I can talk much more easily now. I am not so emotional and worked up. I told him I had lost the terror I had last year at the uncertainty and precariousness of it all which used to spoil some of our loveliest moments for me. I am learning to take things as they come and be thankful for any happiness without grieving that it doesn’t last. I asked him if he would have liked me as much as a man. ‘No,’ he said and I pretended to be cross – really was in a way. He said we get this perfection because we’re complementary to each other. Of course, he’s right. He has been wearing his fine new brown suit all the week and a green shirt and tie that make his eyes look green.
SUNDAY 10 NOVEMBER
I have just been meditating in the bath, starting from the thought that E was married 11 years ago today. Not dismal and weepy – not even hating K – but calculating and bitter and mercenary. Made an imaginary speech to him – ‘Do you ever look ahead to the day when either I can’t go on as we are, or K finds out and says, “I can’t live with you if you go on being unfaithful,” and you won’t leave her and so give me up? You think I should soon get over it – catch another man, marry, have babies and live happily ever after. That is a convenient picture, and you see yourself pining in silence for the rest of your life. Well, it’s not true. Even if I didn’t lose balance at the beginning and take an overdose of aspirin, you can’t make a woman love you and then expect her to throw away that love like an old pair of stockings, and buy a new pair – either in the shape of a “man” or just “other interests”. The older I get the more difficult it is. It is convenient for you to go on as we are. You don’t do badly – you have it both ways – someone more or less efficient to keep your home – your house (you have the pleasures and privileges of a householder), the approval or tolerance of your relations and hers – and the pleasures of love in your spare time. Before we loved you had the worst of it, I grant you that. I don’t doubt it was hideous, but now it is I who suffer more. You simply have the discomfort of deceiving K. Don’t you think I am a fool? The only explanation is that I love you so much that I should not get over it to the end of my life (even if I go on living).’ It would hurt him if I said these things. Does he think of them? I don’t know.
THURSDAY 14 NOVEMBER
Dismal on Monday – ‘calculating’ I told E – but really just hopeless. Slightly better on Tuesday and yesterday – we had dinner at Museum Garden. E explained Eddington (Time) at lunch and dinner.
There was no lecture last night so we went to the Vic to see The Three Sisters. It was almost empty and we were in the second row of circle. The play was exceedingly well done – produced and acted. I have learnt to understand Chekhov plays since I first went. The first time it just passed over my head, making practically no impression – little more than ‘about 3 sisters who wanted to go to Moscow’. The beauty of his artistry, the truth of his observation and the profundity of his view of life – the sorrow, the pity and the humorous detachment in his approach – the cunning counterpoint of his literary symphony – the power and weight and significance he can throw into the simplest and most trivial conversation. Uncle Vanya (Croydon Players) was the first I began to appreciate, then Seagull and Cherry Orchard and now The Three Sisters. I think it is the saddest of the four, or perhaps I was in a mood to be moved easily to sadness. I could hardly bear the 3rd Act. The first is so full of hope and youth and ambition and selflessness – the third is old and weary and disillusioned and hopeless. Olga – Nina – (the only bright thread is Masha’s love for the Colonel and that merely accentuates the hopelessness of her love and the despair of the others) – the Doctor (whose drunken despair made the audience laugh – hideously) – worst of all, Andrey, disappointed but reconciled to the loss of his academic ambitions – disillusioned but still deceiving himself about the failure of his marriage. I wanted so much to cry – as it was I did my best, not very successfully, to deceive E.
SATURDAY 16 NOVEMBER
In the middle of dictation E came over to say he had had his move – to Finsbury 2. It was really better than I had hoped. I was afraid it might be Wimbledon or Hounslow. At any rate he will be in town with a reason. We have said we will lunch together on Tuesday and Thursday, and with lectures on Monday and Wednesday it won’t be too bad.
He was unexpectedly free this afternoon so we went to Romeo and Juliet – the last 2 seats in the gallery, right round at the side. It was well done on the whole, tho’ I didn’t care for Laurence Olivier as Romeo – a hopeless part. We thought Peggy Ashcroft good especially at the beginning. Edith Evans and John Gielgud as Nurse and Mercutio better than the lovers – both gorgeous parts. An unequal play with some marvellous lines. Tea afterwards at Lyons in the Strand. I said, ‘I do want a baby like you – if it were not for the parents I would have one.’ He said, ‘You can’t go to Moscow’ – referring to the sisters. I love him so much, but it doesn’t plague me so much. I just glow all through with love – to be with him colours a whole day so that I feel nice to everyone.
I must cease to dream idle dreams and be thankful for all I have got. He said, ‘I can never forgive a woman for just not wanting a baby, though I understand her not having courage to have one.’
FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER
We talked about Free Will at lunch – he gave me a lecture about it. Tonight I loved him terribly. I do wish I could express to him how dear he is – he looms up and grows enormous – he fills the whole of my mind. All my dismalness and discontent just fades away and I feel that just to be with him for that short time is worth anything. In a way it is nicer not to be able to complete it – to have to keep apart and alert. I know more how much I love – I see and understand and feel into his mind. Being in love makes one feel that everything is worthwhile �
�� that there is something to live for. Dangerous, because precarious, but splendid and transcendent.
SATURDAY 30 NOVEMBER
We lunched at Mandes and walked back thro’ the Park. I was a little gloomy. It is hateful to break with the past – Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park are full of memories – almost every tree. For 3 summers we lunched, read plays, talked or just lazed – the grass and the leaves, the trees and the slopes, the water and the ducks, pigeons, sparrows and squirrels, Epstein’s Rima and the Speke obelisk – they are all bound up with us. Even if we go back together it will not be the same as the regular routine of bus and rush, then an hour of leisure, E’s stern decision to go back and my grumble.
SUNDAY 8 DECEMBER
Yesterday K had a ballet rehearsal and we hoped to have a good long afternoon – then Elsie (E) decided to have her half day! It is like getting at him through iron bars. If it isn’t one obstacle it’s another. Altho’, as he said, Elsie doesn’t have much of a time and it is cruel to grudge her. Still, if only she would find someone or something else to amuse her if she must have Sat. As it turned out it was thick fog – like night. He hadn’t to meet Elsie till 4.0 so we went to see the Chinese Exhibition at the BM. It was interesting and there were some lovely things and a few funny things, all giving the impression of highly developed civilization – nothing could be less primitive – all elegant, formal – you couldn’t imagine them being at the Anglo-Saxon stage – or Homeric. The weakness being that the manner mattered more than the matter.
WEDNESDAY 18 DECEMBER
Bitterly cold but no wind. Slight mist and a red sun which melted the frozen grass at midday. A perfect day for a winter’s walk. Met E at Victoria and he just said, ‘10.25 from Marylebone.’ We went separately for discretion and caught the train to High Wycombe. It was very slow. We didn’t get there till 11.45 but we didn’t mind as far as Gerrards Cross as we had the carriage to ourselves. We loved gaily and vigorously – parting to sit respectably in our opposite corners at each station.
A good route by footpath to Hughenden – we bickered and smacked (or E did) and admired the birds. Just inside the Park a flock of yellowhammers – we had never seen so many at once – were dipping and splashing in the thawed puddles of the path – then flying into the trees to dry and wipe their beaks. Lovely! Hughenden church with a row of fifteenth-century cottages apparently only half occupied. We walked all round the church observing the graves of Disraeli and his wife. Inside the finest thing was the font – like a stone tub but beautifully carved round the top, and one of the panels had a lily – why didn’t the mason put something in each?
Hughenden church
In a shadowed corner E held me in his arms and kissed me. This is the third church he has loved me in – Church Stretton, Fingest, Hughenden. There is something so beautiful about doing this in a silent church. It sanctifies it, as it were – makes it sweet and holy and purifies it of connection with Eastbourne Terrace or biological mating or suburban respectability. It makes it as-it-were an offering – a tribute – a testimony to the creator who could imagine his creatures rising to such heights of feeling, which transcend so completely the material ends of the activity and signify so much more than the poor manifestation which is, after all, rather absurd and inconvenient. In his arms in that quiet church I loved him so much and, because of him, the whole world. I have never felt more complete and fulfilled and at the same time less self-conscious or self-concerned.
TUESDAY 24 DECEMBER
I dreamed last Thurs night an appalling dream. I went to see K. After a nightmarish muddle of buses I found the house – a box-like suburban villa. She was cold and disagreeable. It was like beating one’s hands on a stone wall. E seemed to be there, but just vaguely uncomfortable on his own account. Then, altho’ neither of them told me, I knew she was going to have his baby. I just felt hopeless – absolutely knocked out – utterly desolate. A hideous dream!
1936
MONDAY 6 JANUARY
Epiphany – Twelfth Night – the day of adoration and promise. Rarely has it lived up to its past, but today has been a day of joy. My heart sang. At 12.0 E rang up and ordered 3 tickets for the play for Mrs Shaw and said, ‘Lunch today?’ We went to Hills – a lovely gay hour. I grumbled at the parents – said we had inherited both sets of bad qualities – irregular features, weak eyesight, big feet. He said, ‘Where did your rich colouring come from? And your skin? And the poise of your neck?’ We have arranged to go to the Prom on Wed and for a walk on Sunday. He said he had wanted me badly – couldn’t sleep last night and had made up a low limerick. I forget it but he told me on the station. He said he couldn’t write poetry. I felt like a creature newly created. I trod on air. The sun shone for me – Oh, my love, how my heart sang!
WEDNESDAY 15 JANUARY
Over a week since I last wrote here – the omission is due to (1) the weather having turned bitterly cold making it uncomfortable to sit up in bed writing (2) my having been very late from Sat till last night.
On the whole it has been a good period, and should be noted in detail to counteract low periods which are often noted in full. On Sat Margot and I took 6 of her Brownies to Hansel and Gretel in the afternoon – interesting in itself, and I have never seen it so well done so it was beautiful just to hear.
On Sunday I met E in the tube for Euston and we caught a hiking train to Castlethorpe. It was a perfect day – no rain, no wind and sunny – you could feel the warmth of the sun on your back. It was cold in the evening but the stars blazed.
We had a sweet, gay, glorious day and I didn’t get depressed at the end partly because we found a good place for tea and I got interested in the woman who lived there and didn’t think of me, partly because E tentatively sketched a plan to have a long weekend walking on Stane St from Dorking to Chichester next month and I began to look forward to it at once. We bickered and argued and fussed as we walked. In fact E said that 2 little girls walking sedately hand in hand along the road ahead turned round hoping to witness a violent quarrel. We kept to the road and made for Salcey Forest (shown on E’s new map). We climbed a little and found the country refreshingly unspoilt – up and down enough to break the monotony with trees (mostly ash) tracing their winter pattern against the sky. Lunch (not very extensive) on a gate in the sun. The forest was not too wet and we picked our way in through brambles and loved leaning against a mossy tree. We found a place for tea where the proprietress, Mrs Lay, welcomed us bringing an oasis of custom in the desert of the winter slump. We talked but it was almost time for the train. A lovely day, complete and satisfactory all round. We were both quite lively and serene.
On Tues (last night) the Rowes and family came to play games. I like the vicar but not Mrs R who is Bedford and very grooved and Victorian. I should like to spring my double life on her and watch the effect. My feelings would be quite incomprehensible to her but I don’t think they would be quite to the vicar.
MONDAY 20 JANUARY
Since Friday the King has been known to be ill. Everyone seemed to expect that he will not recover – it was taken for granted that there was no hope. There is a gloom and hush as if people are holding their breath to wait for the news. This evening the bulletin said his strength was ebbing away. I have never heard anyone say anything serious against him. There seems to be a real affection for him and sympathy with him in his difficult job.
This evening E. We dined at Museum Gardens and bickered. I scolded him and argued with him. He said I was a whole evening’s entertainment – it was quite sweet and funny. Joad is ill so there was no lecture. Before we left the fire he said, ‘I have never kissed you at Birkbeck,’ and did – just a little warm kiss.
TUESDAY 21 JANUARY
At midnight last night King George V died. Today the flags have been flying at half mast and all cinemas and theatres are closed. The gun in Hyde Park was fired 70 times at minute intervals. The shops are showing black only – even the exclusive lingerie shop in Park Lane showed a white nightie and a neg
ligee of white satin trimmed with black lace.
WEDNESDAY 22 JANUARY
A significant dent this morning – Wyndham said, ‘I see your friend Bertrand Russell at 63 has married for the 3rd time – his secretary of 25.’ Rosa said, ‘Is that the man who wrote that book you told me to read? I’ve no time for him. A man who has made a hash of his life is not worth reading.’ She is simply iron on that subject and yet quite broad on others.
TUESDAY 28 JANUARY
It was George V’s funeral and the office was closed so I met E at Clapham (avoiding the mad crowds in town) and we went to Bookham. We set off for Bagley Hill, leaving some hideous new houses and bungalows behind. Over a field full of flints we heard the first lark of the year, and then 2 or 3 at once. The wind was too strong for them to stay up long, but they persevered. The country grew broken and wooded till we climbed up to Ranmore, lunching scantily on his lunch only and then indulging more fully in each other. We loved for an hour, sweet and fierce, walked over the common and down to Abinger. Bus to Dorking for tea and then home. A lovely, quiet sweet day with some fierceness in our love.