by Doreen Bates
WEDNESDAY 3 AUGUST
Last night dinner with B at the Strand Palace. He was very sweet to me and as generous as usual. ‘Our last social meeting’ according to him. He will dramatize himself but there is no harm in it perhaps. He is like a little boy. I wish I could give him what he wants – anything short of complete love won’t do. I feel so mean about him. I have never failed more utterly in a relationship with anyone. Yet it is beyond my power to love him. At lunch with E today it was quite clear to me. Quite a dull lunch – we were both hot and stuffy – and yet I was never more sure I loved him and would love him exclusively. It is in the minor moods – dull, weary, indifferent, boring – that I am most certain. There is no intoxication, no ecstasy, yet always that harmony, at-one-ment.
THURSDAY 18 AUGUST
This new book will not start off with a flourish, rather with a misgiving, a heavy, ominous wonder about what the next six months will show.
I did not see E today. K had an appointment at 12.0 to see the heart specialist at Guy’s. I felt dismal on Monday night but better on Tuesday and yesterday mainly, I think, because E talked about her. Her weight is down to 7 stone 3lbs and she says she feels no better than when she went into the hospital. Margot thinks it is psychological in origin.
SUNDAY 28 AUGUST
When I had coffee with E I was cheerful, even unusually so, partly because I still hoped I might have a baby from the midnight walk (I haven’t), partly because I did like him so. But he said K won’t go away without him, which reduces the possibility of our going away to nil. When I tell him how much I want a baby he doesn’t say a word – but just looks as if he wishes I were at the bottom of the sea – well, perhaps not me, but the baby anyway.
MONDAY 29 AUGUST
E was heavy at lunch. I wondered what was filling his mind and was not surprised to find it was the thought of war. Gardening yesterday he kept thinking it wouldn’t be finished. Still, he made me a little cross by looking at personal matters (my personal matters) from a height, pointing out how small and unimportant they were at such a time. It is appalling to consider. I dreamed of war last night.
Called to see Wyndham (who was in good form), who thought it wouldn’t come to anything.
SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER
K went to Eastbourne for a week by herself on Friday morning so we have had 2 lovely evenings.
On Friday we decided to go to the Lyric at once to see Charles Morgan’s play, The Flashing Stream, which had begun the night before. We easily got into the gallery. It was very good, one of the best modern plays we have seen together. It is a good subject – single-mindedness (in this case a passion for mathematics). The love story is good and so satisfactory. Nothing is better than collaborating at work as well as being in love. It is a good play because its concrete plot (the experiments on the torpedo) is adequate and yet (like the Wells film Things to Come) it transcends its framework. E was just the person to see it with.
Yesterday afternoon we fed at the Corner House before going to see Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy. E had had too much wine but the play was easy. The theme is good, a study of values, mainly on their conflict in the mind of a boy who took up boxing for money and rejected music. Here again the play goes further than the plot.
Marjorie Rogers* has missed promotion. I am sorry. I wish the women were a better lot. Now and then I feel rather bad about it. Ought I to have tried hard just on principle because not bothering is letting other women down? If I were a man it wouldn’t matter at all.
SUNDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
A gap filled with a week’s holiday at Herne Bay in the middle – Wed 7/9–Wed 14/9. But the main thing has been the international situation over Czecho-Slovakia which has made us listen in to the news and read the papers anxiously every morning to see whether war appears to be nearer or further. I have dreamed over and over again of air aids. Everyone is talking about Hitler. Whitehall and Downing St have been packed each time we have bus-ed from Victoria to Charing Cross. Aunty Paul and Rosa have been to an intercession service in Westminster Abbey. Chamberlain flew to see Hitler on Thursday but no one knows what happened. All this made us rather pre-occupied at Herne Bay.
SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER
We have till next Saturday in peace anyway. On Friday it looked hopeless as Chamberlain came home. It remains to see whether the Czechs accept Hitler’s ultimatum. I cannot imagine why he didn’t accept Chamberlain’s plan which appears to give him the essentials. My feeling, which is the same as that of many people, is that if we are ever to stand up to him now is the time and not in 2 years when he wants Tanganyika. The responsibility of deciding is appalling but is equally serious whichever way we decide. It looks as if force is the only language a madman can understand but it is so insane of the Germans to allow themselves to be dragged into a war they don’t want.
E was coming home today. The war scare has upset him according to his letters.
WEDNESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER
E telephoned and I went at 11.35 not having seen DJ. Caught the 12.09 from Clapham Junction to Sunbury. He got in at Teddington. It was lovely to see him, very freckly. We talked and talked and talked about the international position. We walked from Sunbury to Weybridge and back seeing something of the river and ferried across once.
We had a scanty picnic lunch and tea by the ferry. Coming back we got lost and walked ever so far so that we only just caught the 6.35 from Sunbury. I was very tired but it was good. He has too much imagination. I love him so much.
The Weybridge ferry
There is a glimmer of hope. Chamberlain made a good speech in the Commons and in the middle of it got a message that Hitler had invited him to Munich to a conference with Daladier and Mussolini. What makes me a little hopeful is that it is Hitler’s invitation. He has postponed mobilization for 24 hours. After seeming hopeless this morning there is just a possibility that he will see reason.
MONDAY 3 OCTOBER
The immediate possibility of war has passed; peace has been precariously preserved by giving Hitler what he wanted. The relief was immense. You could feel London breathing again. Whatever one may think of the rights and wrongs of the dispute and of the methods of dealing with it, it is something to live for a few more weeks or months. I lunched with E and felt depressed after it. He was no better than last week. He is just sunk in a torpor of pessimism. It is not that I don’t sympathize with him. What I can’t understand is that he should be so inactive. I just felt hopeless. He is content to go on for ever as he is. Nothing is more repulsive to him than the necessity to make a decision and to act on it. His attitude to politics is just as his attitude to our own affairs. He is completely paralysed except when everything combines to produce the right conditions for him; this is as likely to happen as that I should have a baby without his help. I considered the alternative of having someone else’s, but I love him so. I don’t know what to do. His inertia, whether you look on it as a virtue or a vice, drives me almost crazy at times. My feelings are natural and right but at times they make me appear even to myself as a monster. They clearly are a nuisance to him, but what can I do? How can I, week after week, year after year, be patient without emotional death? I try and try for his sake to curb my feelings, or at any rate their outward expression, but I can’t do it for ever.
THURSDAY 20 OCTOBER
I have been better. We have talked about pacifism hard at lunch every day and it is worthwhile. He is making quite an effort to reach an opinion on it. Whether it will come to anything practical is doubtful. But he is not complacent.
I have agreed with Margot that she would look after the child if I die. This should make it easier for K. Margot thinks it would be impossible if K took it. It is still, of course, the last subject E wants to talk about.
WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER
Last Friday E said he thought it wouldn’t be long before we could tackle K about a baby. I have decided to write to her first, an account of the facts from my point of view. I have got some satisfaction out of writing it
(it isn’t finished), but now she has neuritis in the neck!
Had an interview this morning with Madeleine Herring (beauty business). She used to be with Elizabeth Arden. She is smart and pretty and about my age. The business doesn’t flourish but so far she has had an allowance of £500 pa from a man. They are still fond of each other and he is the only man for her but as she hasn’t seen him for a year, things look pretty serious. I sympathized with her. A safe job is something. It must be appalling to be dependent.
TUESDAY 8 NOVEMBER
I am investigating life assurance policies. It is a nasty job as I hate their little books but Margot and E and Elsie have been to some extent helpful and it is all in the right direction.
SUNDAY 20 NOVEMBER
I took Rosa up to town this afternoon to a concert (LSO) at the Queen’s Hall. We were in the front row, just by the first violin. It was not the highest brow but we both enjoyed it – first, Overture to Prince Igor, short and loud but cheerful – Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Introduction to Act II – Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto played by Helmann, a young willowy creature who struck me at first as affected, but he could play. He appeared, however, to be too feeble to produce such a colossal performance. Schubert’s Unfinished (I think it was the first time I heard it properly played and not on a barrel organ or in the street or in a Lyons Corner House). Finally Tchaikovsky’s Waltz from The Sleeping Beauty which made one want to waltz. I wanted for the first time to waltz with E. I could feel how nice it would be. It is the rhythm shared with another person, but with anyone else unthinkable – heavenly with him. There are times when I feel just as much desire to dance as I did at 15, but only with him or alone.
SUNDAY 27 NOVEMBER
Coffee with E yesterday and I gave him the draft of K’s letter for observations. I have felt a shoot of dismay every time I have thought of it since. But it has to be done if we are to get on, and the sooner the better. But I shall need some determination for he just wants peace at any price and all the action will have to come from me. I wish he wanted it too and that I didn’t feel as if I were badgering him into doing something hateful.
TUESDAY 29 NOVEMBER
E has not mentioned my letter to K. He might have forgotten all about it. I do wish I could feel the same placid contentment with things as they are. I wonder whether he would be much different if there were no impediments. Of course he would give more what I want but I am not sure he would want more. It would be easier for me if I were older and less vigorous. At times I just long for him, not merely physically, but to do things with him. I try to overcome the craving. I tell myself that most people have not enjoyed the happiness I have had already, but this is no good. The more I count my blessings the more I want to repeat them. The most effective method is to remember that unless he wants it too there would in any case be no pleasure for me and he certainly can’t want it much or he wouldn’t go on so undisturbed day after day, week after week, month after month. There is an inertia in his nature which defeats me. I feel about as unable to break it down as the Atlantic is to wash away the granite cliffs of Cornwall. I wish so utterly at times that I shared it. My vitality is like an engine spinning its wheels in mud. I might just as well switch it off for all the progress I make, and sink resigned into the bog. But I can’t. It is against my nature. I have to go on struggling so far. I imagine from this angle he and K are completely suited. At bottom it is perhaps a question of physical energy.
SUNDAY 4 DECEMBER
8 years ago yesterday I went to Paddington 1 and saw E for the first time in the room on the 5th floor now occupied by Wild. 3/12/30 – perhaps the most promising day I have experienced, tho’ I didn’t know then what it would begin.
We went to the Old Vic to see Man and Superman. It was the last day. He only knew that on Friday when he mentioned it casually. He didn’t think he could manage to go but before I rang for the typist yesterday morning he rang up and said he could get there at 2.25 – he must go home first. The play was good, most entertaining. It has plenty of life in it yet. He liked it. I love to see him like a thing. He likes sufficiently little for me not to grow blasé in this enjoyment. Some rather flippant discussion on Shaw’s seriousness or lack of it.
THURSDAY 8 DECEMBER
A nice discussion about schools and teaching with E at lunch. It is such a pity he has no outlet for his ability in this direction. Children would be better than nothing … well, but wait.
MONDAY 26 DECEMBER
I have been waiting for an opportunity to bring this up to date. Now, while W is asleep and Margot and Rosa are out walking in the snow I am sitting by the fire trying to fend off a cold and making the most of the quiet.
Most important not to let slip is Friday afternoon. It was a horrid day, cold, the snow frozen in some places, in others a dirty mess, half frozen, half thawed. We had the afternoon (and Sat) as privilege leave and arranged to meet at Green Park station at 1.30. We had an ABC lunch but more leisurely and he told me about ice expanding, and light. So we went at perhaps 2.45–3.0 to the Spanish Art Gallery to see the Greco to Goya exhibition in aid of the Spanish Red Cross. We paid 5/-each and had an illustrated catalogue. It was very warm and in 2 big, lofty rooms of what was once a private house in Chesterfield Gardens. The bigger had a gorgeous plain crimson carpet.
There were a lot of pictures, perhaps 40, and 70 of Goya’s drawings of Spain in the Peninsular War. We looked at 3 of the El Grecos – the Virgin and St Anne, Christ with His Cross, Magdalen and the Angel – all good but the first nicest. Then went to the Goya drawings. I was glad to come back to the crimson-carpeted room and look again at the El Grecos.
Another view of humanity – the spiritual and mystical. Impossible to account for the fascination El Greco has for me. His universe is completely alien and, in a way, nonhuman. But he imposes belief, he takes you into the world of his creation and compels you to see and feel that it is authentic. It lives, it is not a cardboard drawing in 2 dimensions. It has depth, reality, vitality. Possibly it is as an escape from the rational hopeless world of science that El Greco’s world of miracles and visions and fantastic colours and lights appeals.
Tea at the ABC and E gave me back my letter with criticisms and said I mustn’t do anything until he had broken the ice. He said I must make it more objective. I was really incapable of discussing it seriously. Every time I thought of him or of the baby or of the El Grecos I wanted to cry. It was a lovely afternoon, lovely. ‘Nice,’ I said at Victoria. ‘Very nice,’ he said.
1939
SATURDAY 14 JANUARY
E has been having his General Inspection Thursday, Friday and today so our lunches have been a bit cut. Tuesday’s was nearly all on a technical point. I took him Mrs Bond’s annuity deed for comment. It was nice to see him go for it like a dog with a bone, screwing up his nose and one eye when he got a really good idea. Although he finally agreed with me, it was quite entertaining.
TUESDAY 31 JANUARY
It is perhaps fortunate that it is too cold to write much tonight as what I write will be a moan. E makes me so hopeless. Since I gave him my letter to K to read about 16th Nov he has voluntarily referred to the matter once only and then when I was too tired and full of El Greco to discuss with any sense at all. I shouldn’t mind so much if he gave any indication that he was in the slightest degree interested – if he said, ‘I can’t do anything now, or for 6 weeks,’ or, ‘I just don’t want to do anything,’ or, ‘It isn’t worth the unpleasantness for me,’ or, ‘I think we shall have a war and I’m not going to start a baby.’ But he doesn’t make the smallest concession; he is just hard, as hard as granite. You would think he might show a tiny bit of consideration for my weakness – he must know after reading my diary how this uncertainty gets me down. I even find myself thinking of Buckmaster – how he would despise me! ‘He flatters you with chocolates’ – perhaps, but it was an honest kind of flattery based on a genuine wish to give me pleasure. It is the wish and not the chocolates that would comfor
t me now.
Hitler made another speech last night, more moderate than might have been expected. Apparently the economic position in Germany is getting desperate.
WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY
I must just answer some of the questions I have asked during the last few weeks. E does realize that it matters to me. He does intend to tell K as soon as he thinks she can stand it. He opened the subject yesterday and wrote me a note last night. He feels too pulled in half to go away next week but suggests using up our leave in days. Of course, I am disappointed but if he wouldn’t be happy I wouldn’t, and I am comforted by his resolution to tackle the general position soon, and also by his admission that the present stage is hard on me. He is nice. When I am dismal I tend to blame him unfairly.
SUNDAY 19 FEBRUARY
I took R to the Westminster yesterday afternoon to see The Doctor’s Dilemma. I hadn’t read it or seen it before and we both enjoyed it. There is a tremendous vitality and liveliness about these early Shaws which just sweep one along and it was well done on the whole. Moreover, he does raise and discuss interesting subjects and themes at least in this play – the satire on medicine (which I expected) and the moral questions of whether to save a good artist who is a scoundrel or a good man who is not particularly gifted, a hopelessly difficult problem.