by Doreen Bates
Now for half an hour I have the house to myself. Wyndham is up north; he went to Liverpool yesterday. Rosa has gone out. Margot has not come home from Brownies. I can do as I like – cry, laugh, read poetry aloud or go to sleep. It is a relief, quite different from being solitary in a crowd (as in a train or restaurant) when you feel the Eye of Society on you to note and disapprove the slightest deviations from the ordinary.
Yesterday I felt completely worn out, so weary that to breathe was an effort. I have been reading Middleton Murry’s Shakespeare in the course of which he has some remarks on Macbeth. For the first time, and with appalling clearness, I saw my own attitude to K reflected. There are times when it is only lack of power and not of will that prevents me from leaving her to what I should regard as worse than death. If E was prepared to abandon her I should have no scruples at all. I suppose if we did we should be no happier than Macbeth and his wife after the murder. I said to E at lunch, ‘What should Macbeth have done?’ He said he should just have stuck to his job. He said also that women had no social conscience and that accordingly I could never answer the question. I don’t know whether he knew what was in my mind and how truly he spoke. Probably not.
Possibly the best thing I could do would be to chuck E and start working hard at something. After all, he has probably saved me from a peke and parrot obsession in middle age and that is all you can ask of any man, even a husband. Anyway, I shall not be able to go on indefinitely at this tension – the struggle to subdue my feelings and cope with them secretly and solitarily will end either in death for me or my love for him.
FRIDAY 23 OCTOBER
Lunched with E. I declined to meet him tomorrow for coffee. I am going to ballet with Margot at Sadler’s Wells. It just unsettles me to see him. I always hope against hope that he will want to do something. Yet this is the first time I have of my own will refused an opportunity to see him for however short a time.
I don’t know what to do. I feel emotionally exhausted. I love him but I must heave myself out of this cul-de-sac – this vicious circle of love and hate. To do this I must either divert some of my energy from him (so that the little he wants or is able to do is enough for me) or, if this is too difficult, he must be completely sacrificed. Pervading temporary fluctuations of feeling I have a conviction that I shall die before I am 40. This conviction first became conscious in 1935. It was also an element in the depression which made December 1934 so hideous. This is curious because now it doesn’t depress me – if anything it adds intensity to happiness and there is release and peace in the thought. Still, I would like a baby first to make a testament – and well, we shall see.
TUESDAY 3 NOVEMBER
A wet dismal day which varied only with the change from drizzle to heavy rain. I wore my new skirt and jumper to liven me up. They are successful but too warm for today, tho’ at times comfortably cosy. Lunched with E. We talked towards the end about Pasteur and chemistry and the structure of substance and he said, ‘I am glad to have found something to wake you from your torpor!’ He pronounced my jumper quite cute and observed, ‘You do like to lay mines in people’s paths, don’t you? If I hadn’t noticed and remarked that you had a new skirt and jumper you would have given me a silent black mark.’ This had an element of truth, tho’ I didn’t admit it.
WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER
Dinner at a new place, Red Lion Restaurant, with E. It is a quiet place with candlelight only, a pleasant change from Flemings and Bertorelli’s – about the same price. I told him the analogy I had prepared to explain my ‘torpor’ – if you have a fire and no coal and you want it to burn long but not fiercely, you heap wet newspaper balls on it. He said I was livelier, having pinched me (merely as a test).
SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER
I lunched with E on Thursday and as we were going down the escalator he said, ‘I’ll take you to the Science Museum on Saturday afternoon – quarter to one at South Kensington.’ We went first to the Science Museum. It is surprisingly interesting. He took me up to the very top to representations of Pasteur – tartaric acid and bismuth crystals, a model of a distillery. On the second floor, clocks, mathematical objects with string and plaster models as for drawing, electric machines; 1st floor, steam and sailing ships from an Egyptian boat from a tomb to the Queen Mary. On the ground floor railway engines and a pendulum to show the twist of the earth. In the basement, most fascinating to me, the children’s section with things to work. Outside we passed the Museum of Practical Geology which is not so bad as it sounds. It has a magnificent entrance and E went straight to some fine photographs of Shropshire. We didn’t stay there but went on to the Natural History Museum to see crystals. They are beautiful but most complicated, so fantastic and yet regular in structure and colouring. It seems impossible that they are just natural and effortless. It was nearly 5.0 so we went to Victoria for tea. I was so tired I could hardly stand in the underground but E was quite satisfied. He appears to judge the success of an expedition by the degree of fatigue it occasions. I enjoyed the afternoon which is the first we have spent together since Hereford 8 weeks ago today.
MONDAY 16 NOVEMBER
Just a short entry because the last few days have been full and unexpected. On Friday Mr Zimmer* came to dinner. He was more expansive about Germany than he has ever been. Beneath his discreet remarks you can see he dislikes the ‘extreme’ policy of the government. He thinks it will become less extreme. May he be right!
On Sat I met E at Waterloo and we had coffee – at least he had coffee and I had China tea. We stayed longer than we meant talking of rearmament and Baldwin. On the way back to the station he said, ‘What about going to Eastbourne tomorrow?’ I was quite staggered but couldn’t believe it.
Yesterday I waited by the phone for 20 minutes round 10.0 for E to cancel the expedition. He didn’t and I found him at East Croydon. It was fine, tho’ sunny only in gleams and was blowing very hard from the west. At times the gusts almost swept me off my balance and it was hard going against the wind. We walked straight up to Beachy Head and over the Seven Sisters. On the Second (from Birling Gap) E’s cap blew off and trundled before the wind towards the edge. I was horrified to see him run after it – my heart almost stood still. On Crowlink we looked at the thorn bush which sheltered us before – the occasion of the second poem I wrote about him.
Crowlink
On the Fourth Sister I lay down for a few minutes’ rest from the wind and immediately felt sleepy. E said I must sleep there in sight of a house (the coastguard cottage which seemed to be inhabited as smoke circled from the chimney).
TUESDAY 17 NOVEMBER
[continued]
I toiled up and down the Fifth Sister and nearly at the top of the Sixth E, who was ahead, found a sheltered spot behind a gorse bush and we sat down to rest. He kissed me most deliberately and I was surprised to find almost immediately I was almost aching for him. It was simply a physical pain. We loved for a while, I don’t know how long – there on the Sixth Sister, with the grey sea on one side and the grey sky overhead and the west wind roaring around us. We went on to Exceat Bridge and by road to Seaford where we had a big leisurely tea, walked along the front and caught the train back.
TUESDAY 24 NOVEMBER
A whole week since I last wrote, and a full week.
I ought to have happed last Sunday week – 15th – and haven’t yet – the latest I have ever been. I have felt strangely tranquil about it, tho’ it was only this evening that I decided not to have an abortion if it is a baby. I should manage and I do want one tremendously at bottom. This feeling of certainty and acceptance is quite independent of E, whatever he may say or do, or not do. If only I could be sure of my health and my life I would have no qualms about doing it deliberately even if this is nothing.
THURSDAY 26 NOVEMBER
This morning I had a poem just beneath consciousness on the theme of the Sixth Sister – grey sky, wild sea, west wind and strong earth – the sowing of the seed, gay and full of joy, no one but ourselves in
the world; the one small seed falling where it could grow – his gift to be cherished and fed and warmed and rendered again as a new life. So it murmured in my mind emerging a phrase here, a line there, forging itself a rhythm beneath the typists’ chatter, the crackling of the fire and the smell of paint. Then before I had put down a single word, the hope that had stimulated the whole feeling was destroyed. Still, tho’ no opportunity comes now I know my mind, if it should come. I’ll not refuse it. I’ll not do anything to prevent the seed from growing. And perhaps – this is tentative – next Sept I’ll ask E to give me one deliberately. I should have a baby when I was just 32, not too late maybe. I shall save up. He said £150 but I think £100 will be ample. It is a long time and I will not think of it again except for a minute now and then.
SUNDAY 29 NOVEMBER
I met E at 12.20 yesterday for coffee. We talked hard for 35 minutes. He had to catch the 12.59 as K’s aunt is still very ill – it seems only a question of waiting for the end. What a year! I feel unpardonably impatient about it. My own good health makes me callous perhaps. But still, how simple and more satisfactory to have a nurse. The main reason why she won’t is that she wants to leave more money to K, which is not a reason to impress me. However much she gets won’t make any difference now.
TUESDAY 1 DECEMBER
I met E at 6.15 and we dined (largely) at Bertorelli’s and had Barsac to drink. It was a pleasant meal and I liked him. I heard more about the aunt (who now has a nurse) and we talked about Macartney’s Walls Have Mouths which he found interesting and has just finished. Joad was lecturing again, mainly on Russell’s views. I caught the 9.27 from Waterloo as usual. As I walked along the cliff I saw a red glow in the sky and thought ‘looks like a fire, but it’s probably the Astoria’s neon lighting’. At the end of our road I happened to look north and saw an angry red glow. When I got home Rosa greeted me as if I had survived an air raid – ‘I’m so glad to see you …’ etc. The Crystal Palace was on fire. It had been burning since 7.30! The 6 people in my carriage hadn’t noticed it as we passed so close to it! You could see from our garden a huge red glow with flames shooting high now and then, clouds of smoke and the tower dark against the light. It was a magnificent sight especially in its contrast to the other parts of the sky. I suppose I should have been horrified to see from near, but as we saw it it was beautiful. There is a splendour about fire which compels admiration. It has strength, power, remorselessness, beauty and purity and a certain inevitability. I can understand the Parsees and other fire-worshippers. It is a fine symbol of the absolute.
THURSDAY 3 DECEMBER
Mild and sunny, a pleasant day. Everyone is talking about the dispute between the King and the Government about Mrs Simpson who has apparently been his mistress. It was a bombshell – all this morning’s papers wallowing in it and all the placards shouting it. I can’t imagine why it has been allowed to appear. It is of course impossible to judge without knowing his motives. I am sorry for Queen Mary and Baldwin, for that matter. Poor old man! He is having a rough passage on the whole.
SUNDAY 6 DECEMBER
I had coffee with E yesterday and felt rather dismal. The aunt still lingers, and may for a fortnight. He said he tended to like people with high cheek bones (arising out of a discussion of the King and Mrs Simpson) and said mine were. I then had some lunch and went to the National Gallery to look at the Rembrandts. I felt absolutely hemmed in with immediate frustrations – everywhere seemed black – home politics, foreign politics everywhere, business, the office and relations with E. I thought perhaps in the calmer, less disturbed atmosphere of the seventeenth century I might find peace and sanity. The pictures were beautiful. I found the difference between the self portraits at 84 and 54 not so depressing as before. There is an arrogance about the younger that has given place to an understanding and wisdom in the older.
I got to the Vic at 2.28 and got a seat in the gallery – As You Like It. I went almost entirely to see Edith Evans’ Rosalind. I didn’t like James Dale’s Jaques, tho’ the character is refreshing – he is the vinegar that brings out the flavour and keeps the whole thing from over-sweetness. William Devlin’s Duke was quite unusually sinister – an undiluted villain. Edith Evans was delightful. Her voice is not good – in fact, it is cracked and unmusical – but her vitality and invention are gorgeous. Her Rosalind just flattens one out. She roars with laughter or rolls on the floor of the forest and produces the daring and ingenious remarks with complete spontaneity. Moreover she conveyed a belief in her love for Orlando. She makes all the incredible ingredients of the plot seem natural or unimportant. I have never seen the gay vitality of Rosalind so adequately expressed. It was perhaps because the play was a comedy, a withdrawal from reality, that yesterday it did not succeed so well as Rembrandt’s pictures in making me forget myself. One should be in a gay mood to enjoy the comedies to the full.
THURSDAY 10 DECEMBER
A cold, dark, gloomy day, depressing, but no fog. Everywhere a sense of expectancy waiting for the King’s decision. It was in the papers at 4.45 – abdication. A pity. A sorry business from every angle.
WEDNESDAY 30 DECEMBER
I am feeling not dismal (tho’ I could) but edgy and nervy with the effort not to be dismal. I lunched with E after not seeing him for a week. Yesterday morning he phoned to say he couldn’t meet me till today as the aunt had died an hour before. He had had an awful Christmas, just waiting. Today he was tired, worn out. He told me about it. He also talked about the P&O cruises. It needed all my self-control to prevent me saying things I should have regretted. He will probably go for a cruise next year – I hate the idea of his enjoying himself with K. This is mean and ungenerous and jealous but there it is. If only … it isn’t as if K has a particularly happy time – I can’t prevent myself from hating her. It is only cunning that prevents me from railing at E. Heavens, if it were only me or her that was going to be buried on Friday.
THURSDAY 31 DECEMBER
Lunched with E. He was less tired. I didn’t feel so abysmally miserable about him this afternoon. I decided I would wait a fortnight and then tell him I must either do more or not see him. I wish he would tell K and take the chance of having to stop altogether. I might just have a baby and be able to get over the break.
On the whole this year I have been better – less extreme, not the same heights of ecstasy nor the depths of despair.
1937
SUNDAY 3 JANUARY
I did not begin earlier mainly because I felt dismal. Now, having listened to Much Ado on the radio, I feel livelier. It is the first Shakespeare I have heard in this way for years and it was by chance I heard it today. Following it with a book I think it is the best way to hear and understand the language. You can follow it undistracted as you cannot in the theatre. A lovely play, tho’ Beatrice’s bickering rises to rudeness at times. Still, so completely light-hearted and subtle too – almost a parallel to the music of Figaro.
SATURDAY 23 JANUARY
Lunched with E and arranged to meet him at King’s Cross on Wed for half a day’s leave. He left London at 2.0 for Sheffield today. I have read Suttie’s book on psychology – Origins of Love and Hate. It is interesting and original. He admires Freud as a psychotherapist but disagrees with his theory.
In spare time I am indulging in daydreams about a baby, but they are practical and not dismal.
TUESDAY 26 JANUARY
I dreamt last night I had a baby – for the first time to my knowledge. It lay in my arms as I nursed it with a big pale serious and almost sad face. I was so happy in my dream. Oddly, it talked like a grown-up sensible person and discussed things such as the time it should be fed. Its conversational style resembled M’s.
SUNDAY 7 FEBRUARY
A long gap due partly to lack of time between events, partly to a slight upheaval which I felt I couldn’t write down.
On Monday evening we had dinner at Flemings and E read to me his reply to my Budget Statement* for 1936. I copied it to keep. We talked about it
on Wed evening but without reaching any decision. He doesn’t want me to have a baby but I am not sure I shall accept this. We arranged to have a day’s leave on Friday and intended to go for a walk and continue to talk the situation over. It rained and we stayed in town and I did not talk again. So it is still unsettled.
WEDNESDAY 10 FEBRUARY
I met E at Chancery Lane. He had a chill and seemed in low spirits but I felt quite lively, possibly the anticipation of a day on Friday with him.
On Monday he was wearing a new overcoat so we went to Bertorelli’s and had some Barsac. There was no lecture so we talked there till 8.30 and then walked to Waterloo. We discussed the situation till he was sick of it (I think) and I had said more than I meant. Still, I feel more strongly than ever that I want a baby and I did my utmost to persuade him. K is of course the difficulty. She has an extraordinarily tenacious hold on his mind – quite unconscious on her part.
FRIDAY 19 FEBRUARY
A red-letter day to open a new book. Now, while I am waiting for Margot to finish her bath before I have mine and while my head is aching and my stomach feels sick I am rejoicing in the thought of this day. And the main reason for all this emotional flag-waving is simply that E felt sufficiently stimulated by me and his ductless glands to enjoy a little love-making. Perhaps I should feel humiliated that such a physiological event could elate me. But I don’t. I just loved him and rejoiced that he loved me. It was precious after all our heart-searchings and discussions and arguments of the last few weeks. We had arranged to meet at Guildford this morning. By the time I got there and found E waiting for me it had almost stopped raining, tho’ the air was wet and the sky still grey. We decided to walk and I bought some chocolate wholemeal biscuits before setting off up the Portsmouth Rd. We turned off the main road to the right, along Sandy Lane. This took us to the Pilgrims’ Way which we followed to Compton. The path, tho’ wet, was not very muddy except in patches. We paused under a holly tree to look at it and E kissed me. When we reached the road we turned left to Compton village to look at the church which we had both intended to visit for years. It is most fascinating and took one hour and forty minutes to explore.