by Doreen Bates
THURSDAY 25 FEBRUARY
In bed at home again and I must just note some events of this unexpected week. So, briefly: on Tuesday it was cold but sunny. I met E at Clapham and it was so fine that we decided to walk instead of staying in town as we had planned. We went to Shoreham (Kent) which is in the Downs and far enough away to be quite unspoilt.
We walked to the hill top and, keeping to the tiny roads, followed a twisty course. I am hazy about exactly where we went, except that we reached Kingsdown and passed a Youth Hostel. We picnicked on the road sitting on a fence and almost at once turned up a steep narrow lane with banks through beeches. The path led eventually to Wrotham but a mile from there we turned back. Before we left the beech wood E loved me till I felt quite dissolved away.
Yesterday morning it was dry and we caught the train to Steyning. It was raining slightly when we reached Steyning. We first explored the church. It was unheated and we felt frozen in it. In spite of this we looked at it carefully as it was old and good. It was raining harder when we emerged and we were cold. E then had the bright notion that we should have a hot lunch in Steyning before starting to walk and keep our sandwiches for today. We did – a very good lunch at a guest house. We warmed ourselves by the fire and had excellent roast beef. We felt warmed and revived.
The bridge at Shoreham
MONDAY 1 MARCH
[continued]
We could see that the top of the Downs was shrouded in mist and we very soon reached it. When we walked along the edge of the Downs we could not see how far below was the valley. We consulted my compass when the path disappeared but we were never lost and in fact walked in a direct line for the trees on the top of Chanctonbury. The first indication that we had reached the ring was suddenly coming up against the very distinct 2 circular banks of the outer rim of the camp. It was dramatic in the mist. A few minutes later we reached the trees. It was very wet beneath them as the mist was dripping off their branches in heavy cold drops. From this highest point we gradually descended keeping due west to Washington village where we were wet and uncomfortable and it looked as if it wouldn’t cease to rain before morning. We cast an appreciative eye over the church. E sat down in a pew and gave forth a paean of misery. His shoes were full of water; he was cold and wet; the rain had come through on his shoulders, he thought (it turned out later that it hadn’t); he had developed neuralgia (later it became clear that he had just had one twinge, but it might have been the prelude to hours of agony). He consulted his 6-year-old bus timetable and we waited till 4.30 and then made a dash in the rain to the bus stop to catch one to Storrington. It was raining harder than ever and we had 5 minutes’ walk against the wind. By good luck, at the bus stop, there was a telephone kiosk in which we sheltered until the bus came.
It was still raining at Storrington and we didn’t know of anywhere to stop. We were just having a look round when I saw the Old Forge Tea Room. It had a good fire and looked inviting so we went in and asked whether they could put us up. They couldn’t but the proprietress told us of a Miss Joys who might take us. We found the house but Miss J was out and a forbidding old lady eventually opened the door 3 inches and told us the rooms were let. We went back to the Old Forge for tea hoping they would enquire our luck. They did, and then the proprietor told us to try the Old House guest house and eventually telephoned to them and fixed us up while we had tea and warmed ourselves at the fire. It wasn’t raining quite so hard when we emerged for the 5 minutes’ walk to the guest house. The woman was expecting us and we were as comfortable as we have ever been – a gas fire in the bedroom, hot water, a big log fire in the dining room and another in the lounge, which had a wireless. After supper E read one or two of the essays in The Olive Tree (Aldous Huxley) to me and at 10.15 we went to bed. We had two pennyworth of gas fire which was comfortable and we sat in front of it for 10 mins. Then we went to bed and loved for 40 minutes, E told me at the end. I loved him altogether so I can’t remember what we did. I can just remember feeling as I put my hands up and down his back how the five and a half months since we slept together last vanished. It was odd to feel how still the warmth and cool of his back varied in the same way and had done ever since last September. Afterwards he said, ‘I suppose it’s all right,’ and I hoped inside that it wasn’t and I should have twins, although I don’t sensibly want them next Nov. I shan’t have any money and Nov is a horrid month. E told me to try the tube Dr Malleson gave me. I did, because he said so. It was warm in bed and we both slept well, tho’ the traffic awoke me in the morning.
THURSDAY 8 APRIL
More than a month since I wrote here, most of which was occupied by a Hellenic cruise. We got home exactly a week ago and since then I have been to three rehearsals of Jonah and the Whale, done a good deal of work at the office, lunched with E four times and had coffee with him on Sat. He is busy preparing to move to the aunt’s house where he will have a room of his own for a study. It irritates me to hear him on decorations, stoves, boilers, gardens etc – I suppose because it arouses my envy and I loathe feeling envy. Still, I liked him today. Without knowing how I love it he read me just a page of Shaw’s Village Wooing which I like best. I haven’t finally decided about a baby. I want one (or two) so much, and for such mixed reasons. There is an element of just wanting my baby, pure and simple (this is offset by knowing what a nuisance and bother and tie it will be), an element of wanting his baby – something of him I should have the right to love and look after and help, an element of wanting to make something concrete out of our love which will last longer than either of us – a challenge to try for this thing, so much more difficult and painful than anything I have ever tried to do – perhaps, too, a suspicion of rivalry with K, to do something which she wouldn’t do even in her much easier position for doing it, and connected with this a desire to show him it can be done. Finally and impersonally the belief that our baby would be worth producing, i.e. it would at least not reduce the baby standard and ought to be above average. Against all this is to be set physical pain, sacrifice of time, freedom, money, opportunity for things I like doing, comfort at home, the esteem (such as it is) of other people and the possibility of alienating them and, worst, the upsetting of the family. Well, I don’t know, but how I long to surrender to a desire which grows stronger every week.
SUNDAY 11 APRIL
Jonah last night. I didn’t feel nervous until we were waiting behind the curtain for ‘God Save the King’ to finish. Then I felt my mouth go dry. Everyone is friendly. The show seemed to go well. I watched Act 1, Scene 1 and Act 3 from the front. The lighting and scenery are effective and sometimes beautiful. It is a play which has grown on me.
TUESDAY 13 APRIL
It has been cooler – not cold, but a slight east wind. Lunched with E and gave him my Pros and Cons re a baby. I was unreasonably depressed because on Friday he said he would come to Jonah last night if there were to be no lecture. Yesterday he phoned to say Joad began next Monday but he was tired. He had been messing about all day on Sunday with this confounded move and then had sat up writing till 12.0 and was too tired to come. ‘He would like to come but thought it would be foolish!’ I felt cross and injured – unreasonable perhaps, but natural! It isn’t the particular fact but the condition of which it is a symptom. Today he suggested going to Anna Christie on Wed to make amends.
The show went better on the whole; the Prologue (I think) and the first Act certainly. The second act was slightly dashed by Bilshan’s mistake. He changed for the third act and forgot his entrance at the end! The hall was fuller but not so discriminating, tho’ more expressive, which assisted the players. BR had to do the whale as Stuart Bull had a professional engagement at Eastbourne. He sent a telegram – ‘Love to all. Good luck brother whale. A whale.’ I enjoyed it and was glad to be distracted after feeling so dashed by E.
SUNDAY 18 APRIL
I didn’t meet E yesterday as he is moving on Tuesday and is busy this weekend. He is sacrificing the spring to it but perhaps it will be w
orth it. We went to Anna Christie on Wed night. The play was better than I remembered except for the last act which seems wrong.
We discussed (in bits) the question of a baby. He had read my Pros and Cons. He admitted that I had stated them reasonably but he thought I underestimated the cost. Anyway, he wasn’t prepared to face the cost. After some amount of questioning it appeared that the cost for him consisted of (1) knowing the cost to me and not being able to do anything active, (2) having to tell Kathleen or deceive her. This (2) was the decisive factor. I pushed him about this perhaps further than I should have done and he accused me of being coldly logical when it suited me. Still, I had to know what was in his mind. It made me dismal for 2 days to realize that the chief obstacle is not due to consideration for me or for the baby but simply to his reluctance to tell K that someone else is prepared to do in more difficult circumstances what she was afraid to do. It is extraordinary how in his attitude to her he contradicts his most serious principles – he makes a kind of emotional exception of her whenever his feelings about her conflict with his principles. I was so unhappy at seeing the true position so vividly that on Thursday I didn’t mention the question at lunch. We were both conscious of it between us and waited for it to crop up, like a wild animal dozing.
On Friday I felt better. It is as if I am driven on, knowing that I may, by my own act, destroy what remains of our relationship, but indifferent to anything but this unconscious concentration of energy. I said, ‘Do you think I am right – for me?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Do you think I am right abstractly, apart from me and you?’ He said, after half a minute, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Why?’ because I wanted to see what was in his mind. He said, ‘Because I believe that the most promising need of the world is for good babies.’ We left it at that. I think he meant these answers. If he did, he must be suffering from a clash of 2 opposite wishes. I felt sorry for him, but even if it were certain that my action were to turn his love to hate I could do nothing else. He said on Wednesday, ‘You are so restless, a sort of divine restlessness,’ but he resents my placing him in this dilemma he has so successfully avoided up to now. I believe he should have faced it 3 years ago but when it affected only me I had patience and yielded everything to K. But I can’t do it when the life of my child is at stake – how could I? How can he weigh the two and decide for her? ‘My intellect and my feelings pull different ways.’ I was surprised when he explained that his feelings led him to sacrifice the baby. I feel hard – cruel on Thursday. I almost lost faith in myself – it is difficult to be so sure when everyone would condemn me. But if I am prepared to put up with the suffering it will bring I haven’t really much compunction if she is told what only her own lack of imagination can have prevented her from realizing years ago. I think that this lack of imagination should also prevent her from suffering unbearably. I suppose he would say in reply (or think more likely), ‘It is only your own blind selfishness that prevents you from realizing how much she would suffer.’ It is true.
SUNDAY 25 APRIL
31 today – well, it is less of a landmark than 30. Yesterday E and I went to Three Bridges, Worth church and round via the inn where we had raspberries and cream back to Three Bridges. It wasn’t just an expedition, tho’ it was that incidentally. I liked showing him the church. After Greece the pillars of the chancel arch looked quite Doric.
What we really went for was to get E’s attitude to a baby quite clear and after leaving Worth we adhered to this subject right till Purley station on the way back. He made a great effort to explain how he felt. Briefly, he is in a dilemma from which his one hope of escape is that I may come across someone else and have his children. He feels unable to face the ‘emotional responsibility’ which he would feel if I had his baby. K is an insurmountable obstacle. He thinks she ought to be told but he fears that if he tells her it will make everything impossible. He admits that if I don’t have a baby he sees no alternative but just to peter out. Last night I felt quite worn out with wrestling with him, and almost hopeless. I must admit that if I feel it should be, and he feels it shouldn’t he is as right as me. We have both only our own feelings to judge by. I felt the same this morning till about 10.15 when I revived. His feeling has not the same authority as mine. It is negative, and is the outcome of lack of faith – he foresees only difficulties he couldn’t face. I don’t see why I should have to start at the beginning again. I love him and always shall. We are suited to each other. Apart from and above physical attraction our temperaments harmonize surprisingly. We ought to have a satisfactory child. I shall attack him again tomorrow.
WEDNESDAY 28 APRIL
Such upsetting fluctuations of feeling (mainly due to physiological causes). On Monday I felt incurably despairing – almost frantic. I could have torn my hair like the people in the Bible. I met E for dinner before the lecture and gradually felt better. Yesterday at lunch almost tranquil. This evening we resumed discussion. I told him I thought it unlikely I could love anyone else and I didn’t feel like trying. He said he would like three months isolation ‘if K had to be approached’. He has definitely and finally decided that she must be told if I have a child. But he is still as much against it as ever.
E gave me a photograph of himself at twenty-six which he had come across. I shall have to give him his three months’ peace – which may develop into always.
E aged twenty-six
FRIDAY 30 APRIL
Lunched with E yesterday and today. We did not resume discussion. I merely asked him when he wanted to begin his 3 months’ peace. He said, ‘Not here and now. Shall I see you tomorrow or Monday?’ I am feeling weaker about the position. I fear that I shan’t have the strength of mind to do what I feel is the right thing against everyone’s judgement including his, and I shall just yield to the easier way. Yesterday he said, ‘In Christie’s words (from Anna Christie) “I think I go mad!!”’ I don’t see how I can force this dilemma on him. I wish I could get a sign from heaven!
MONDAY 3 MAY
I might have known I should pay for my joy yesterday with sorrow today. We had dinner at Beta and E was quite sweet. We talked about gardens and birds and pictures and he incidentally made 2 announcements which reduced me between them to the depths of misery – (1) Marjorie* had a son yesterday morning at 3.0 am, (2) Elsie proposes to come up next Monday for a coronation holiday, but ‘next week is as good as any time’. My fatal mistake is to be incurably hopeful. The thwarting of my quite unjustified hopes repeatedly plunges me into depths of gloom. I know this as my hopes emerge but it never saves me from disappointment. I just wished I was dead and at peace. I used to feel uneasy at my good luck in so many things, feeling obscurely that it couldn’t go on and I was bound to suffer somehow. Well, here it is.
WEDNESDAY 12 MAY
This is Coronation Day so I have some leisure to devote to this. So far as I am concerned the coronation has merely been an inconvenience. The gawping crowds in Oxford Street have impeded my attempts to get along and the sight-seers have made the tubes worse than they need have been. The decorations are on the whole poor achievements. We listened to the beginning of the service, which was effective. I feel sorry for the King who spoke excessively slowly and with obvious effort. I resented unreasonably W’s turning up the wireless to hear him better. It felt like looking through a magnifying glass at someone’s deformity.
Lunched with E yesterday. We are going to start our 3 months separation when Joad finishes Hegel or from 1 June. I feel the sooner we start the sooner we finish, but how hideous it will be. I must do something concentrated. I should like to write something.
FRIDAY 21 MAY
In the morning I went to see Dr Malleson. On the physical side she poked about inside me and asked a few questions and then said, ‘I can promise you as healthy a baby as any woman could hope for.’ On the practical side she thought K ought to have been told before – anyway, she should be told before I begin a baby. E probably had neurotic reasons for avoiding the unpleasant task but ‘your life is
as much involved as hers’, she said, when I suggested that telling her was for him to judge. She thought I should lose my job if the department got to know and this must be considered, but with luck I might be discreet and it would never come out. She would give me a vague certificate for 6 months – ‘a gynaecological condition requiring rest’, tho’ if they specifically asked for details she would have to give them. It would be expensive running a place of my own but on £350 p.a. I ought to do it easily. The cloud at home would blow over – she knew heaps of cases where it had, even with a most conventional family. Conclusion was – it would be a pity for me to be deprived of a baby just through ‘this jam’. And the cost of this moral support was a guinea, but I felt decidedly a step nearer.