by Doreen Bates
DJ is going to Holborn and we are having LI Wyn-Griffiths (who is apparently literary). I am sorry I didn’t go to hear his paper on Wed to see what he is like.
I haven’t seen E since Thursday. I am hoping to have tomorrow, Wed, Friday, Monday and Tuesday with him but only in single days. I wish we could go away at any rate for the weekend. It isn’t just fucking that I like. It is the peace and freedom, not having to catch trains and go home and be someone quite different. Still, I see his point and it will strengthen our position with K more than if we had just deceived her to enjoy ourselves.
SUNDAY 26 FEBRUARY
On Friday we had a lovely day. There was a cold wind high up but the sun burned my face. We started very early and went to Whipsnade. We got there before 11.0 and stayed till 2.30. It is a lovely place, roomy and unspoilt with fields and woods and hills, all the top of Dunstable Downs with a fine view towards Ashridge. We both liked it and I wondered why we had not been there before.
Ashridge Woods, near the monument to the Duke of Bridgewater
We walked from Whipsnade to Tring station. It is wooded and beautiful, mostly beeches. We found a path (or rather E did – he was very clever at finding the way) through the woods which ran straight to Albury, about a mile from Tring station. We reached an obelisk to the Duke of Bridgewater and found we had 20 minutes to spare. E sat on a tree trunk and we loved a little. It was nice after so long. I was surprised as I did not think he would want to, although I had been wanting to rumple his hair for weeks.
SUNDAY 5 MARCH
E said yesterday at coffee (in reply to my question) that he had about a month in his mind when he said in his note that he did not think I should have to wait long to settle the baby question, so that means, roughly, some time this month unless something more happens.
SUNDAY 19 MARCH
It is 10 days since I wrote and there is so much to note. It has been an interminable and nightmarish week since last Sunday.
First, on Thursday E and I went to see Capek’s last play, The Mother. We had dinner at Slater’s and also a bottle of Barsac. The Capek was good: a fairly stated conflict between a woman (whose value is life, and life before everything) and the men, her husband and sons, who have other values – honour (the husband), knowledge and science (the doctor), communism (one twin), fascism (the other) and altitude record (the airman son).
It was a lovely evening with him, completely harmonious, lovely at the time but even lovelier in retrospect compared with what has happened since.
On Monday afternoon R phoned me and said W was worse. It was his neck which had somehow jerked and hurt excruciatingly. The spasm passed and was succeeded by a permanent burning ache. M and I had to sit up with him Monday and Tuesday nights. Monday night was awful. He didn’t get more than 2 minutes sleep on end and that in spite of having a morphia injection, a full dose of nepenthe, 2 aspirins, 2 cachets, a huge dose, bromide and some pink things. On Tuesday morning he was half crazy with pain. Then happened one of the gleams of light which just now and then make one feel the possibilities of humanity. R came in and spoke to him. He collected himself and smiled at her. I was tired after a broken night and it just finished me. It was the perfection of married love – infinite and miraculous. From that moment he was a little better. Without any more drugs he slept for 2 hours on Tuesday morning. He had nepenthe at 1.0 in the night and slept fairly peacefully and was quite lucid. On Wednesday I stayed home in the morning and R and I took him to Guy’s. He had X-rays on Thursday and a quarter of an hour’s deep ray treatment on Friday. Today when we saw him he seemed a little better and said the intervals between the pain were getting longer. It is another growth, apparently, on his neck. One can’t look ahead but the treatment was marvellously successful on his back so we are all hoping. But it was awful to see him in such pain and he can’t move his head without agony even now.
That has been one side of the nightmare. The other is more far-reaching. Since last Sunday Hitler has invaded and annexed Czecho-Slovakia and sent an economic ultimatum to Rumania. Chamberlain made a strong (but slow) speech on Friday night condemning the German action. Everyone seems to realize the value of German promises now. Daladier has been given dictatorial power in France. It seems to be merely a question of where an attempt is to be made to stop Hitler. Unless he comes to his senses war seems to be inevitable. Things move so rapidly – Bohemia and Moravia one day, Slovakia the next. It is impossible to look more than an hour or two ahead. It seems incredible that he should precipitate the whole of Europe into a war, which must be appalling for everyone.
SATURDAY 25 MARCH
An eventful week. W is slightly better. The treatment appears to be producing results. The pain is less intense and lasts for a shorter time and is less frequent. He is sleeping better and beginning to take an interest in things – reads the paper and writes short notes to R.
On Wed E and I went to see Priestley’s Johnson Over Jordan. The play was good. I liked it best of all the Priestleys. It was skilful and well constructed as usual. But it had conviction and a sense of personal urgency in it. I thought the first two acts completely successful. The unsuccessful side of life – office and appetites – was exactly shown. The last act – the values, what ultimately lasted – was for some reason much more difficult to express. His choice was good – books, cricket, a good marriage, children, friends – but although now and then he succeeded, on the whole, for me, the tension snapped. What made the play more enjoyable for me was the feeling that E was enjoying it too. Indeed, he liked the last act best. Ralph Richardson was magnificent in spite of having almost no voice.
TUESDAY 4 APRIL
I have been dismal about E. He told me on Friday that K has volunteered to do her original job at the Government Lab if war breaks out. She ‘wouldn’t leave him to face the music alone’ – naturally. I was edgy and strung up anyway but this was the last straw. She can face a war but not me! My self-control snapped and I said more than I intended, or meant, in a way. He was cross and I cried off and on all the afternoon and evening. I am still dismal but quieter about it. On Sat it was all right between us but the most appalling thing would be for her to spoil our love and that depends on us.
EASTER MONDAY 10 APRIL
The international position seems worse. M had an urgent letter this morning from the London County Council about evacuation. There was a cabinet meeting at 11.0 and Parliament is to be recalled on Thursday. The tempo of disaster seems to be accelerating. The insanity of it is appalling.
SUNDAY 16 APRIL
Roosevelt made an appeal for peace to Europe yesterday. It should do good but it may not turn Hitler and Mussolini from their objects. It may however influence public opinion, even in Germany and Italy. Ever since Good Friday, through the sunny days and fresh starry nights of this miraculous spring, when the leaves have burst so swiftly, I have felt the lines of de la Mare as a running background like a small clear stream: ‘Look thy last on all things lovely every hour.’ The knowledge that one may not see another spring – or even the autumn, which will bury these new leaves – makes one’s eyes clearer, reveals their beauty more poignantly. It should always be so but it isn’t. Unless one lives precariously one inevitably takes things for granted.
MONDAY 1 MAY
Yesterday I went through a downpour to see Ella at Richmond. Ella seemed more cheerful now that she has fixed to go to Pretoria next Christmas. She wants to sublet her flat furnished for a year. If I can have a baby it might suit me temporarily. It would be so lovely, tho’ extravagant. A civilized place to live and so convenient for E and not too far from town. Well, there is nothing to do but wait for him, and I may wait for ever.
THURSDAY 4 MAY
The hope of a baby gets fainter. E does nothing still. And Whitsun is only 3 weeks. If M and I have to keep the family going it can only be here and if I stay here I don’t see how I can have a baby. I try to cheer myself up by remembering that I have had already more than most women, or many women – a m
an to love and be loved by for 6 years, from a distance except for woefully short times, but I have known ecstasy and I must be thankful. Van Gogh’s saying has kept running in my head since Tuesday when M read it to me – ‘It is difficult to die but it is more difficult to live.’
MONDAY 8 MAY
Lunch with E. He said he had overworked gardening during the weekend. Later – no, he hadn’t read my letter (which I gave him on 21st March). He had meant to but was too tired. Anything – even gardening – serves as a pretext for not doing anything. I cannot understand him. I think he treats only me in this way. It is a symptom of conflict, of course, but he should have made up his mind what is right to do by now, and once decided there is not any point in putting off the doing.
THURSDAY 11 MAY
I hate myself. I don’t know what to do. I am so horrid to E. I was just beastly to him at lunch, and he was patient and dismal. I felt so desperate. I hoped we might go and look at the 2 cottages between Reading and Oxford on Sunday and I got a bus time table and they fitted well, and then this morning he had a letter from Elsie saying she was coming on Sunday. He couldn’t help it. Moreover, Elsie has a miserable time and she didn’t know and couldn’t help it. But it seemed just the last straw. It wasn’t merely the expedition in itself. It was partly just a symbol of what is always happening. We no sooner think of doing something, and that not often, then along comes an obstacle. Also, she may stay weeks and what chance is there that K can be talked to then? This may be the final hindrance to a baby this year. I suddenly felt as if I couldn’t possibly go on. I couldn’t face another single week of this suspense.
I don’t know what to do. I suppose I want a holiday. It is the effect of the strain at home + suspense + the effort to keep going superficially. I feel a kind of moral and emotional giddiness, almost a mental dissociation. I can only cope with the misery of the suspense by burying it and being quite different on the surface. This involves me in conversations and discussions and superficial relationships with other people that are almost like dreams. I can talk and bicker and laugh almost automatically and hardly realize what effect, if any, I am producing. It doesn’t matter so long as there isn’t any effect, but I am afraid of complications when I sit down and try to think with my whole mind. I fluctuate wildly between knowing what I want to do and what is right to do but not being able to do it, and not caring what I do or not even noticing what I do. I have reached the point when I must resolve this uncertainty even if I ruin my hopes.
TUESDAY 16 MAY
Today E and I have been to Moulsford to look at a cottage and it was a lovely day. The cottage was falling to bits but the village was lovely and we walked back to Cholsey station round the Downs. We had lunch at Mead Cottage which is a Guest House – an excellent lunch. There was a most unexpected glimmer of gaiety about the expedition which was strange. In the train he felt fuck-ish. I was surprised but it was lovely. He bruised my mouth. Just a few minutes – a spark as it were – but sweet. Coming back we got down to serious discussion about my letter to K.
The bridge at Moulsford
WEDNESDAY 17 MAY
Lunch with E. We talked about Ouspensky and cottages and little else as the ABC was full and it was impossible to continue about my letter.
THURSDAY 18 MAY
We had lunch at Hills and got the position clearer. It now appears that K has been making an effort to be nice to him since Nov 1937 and he thinks it would be possible to arrive at a satisfactory, or fairly satisfactory, modus vivendi. In fact, it seems that he is and will be happy living with her. He doesn’t want anything else. She has become a ‘great part of his life’. Apparently lunches and an odd day or evening out is all he wants of me. He is certain she could not reconstruct her life without him. It seems just hopeless. The only satisfactory solution for him is her death or my death, it doesn’t matter which. I feel nothing but a problem for him. But I still want a baby. I don’t care if I die having it. I rather hope I would if it lived. Margot would look after it. I have altered the letter to leave out any suggestion that he feels about our love what I feel. It seems just a question of whether they can decide together, ‘Well, we have each other. Poor thing, let her have a baby if that’ll satisfy her.’ Heavens – it would be easier to cope with vindictiveness than this subtle pacifism. Or would it?
SUNDAY 21 MAY
I feel a bit better now, sufficiently better to be able to write something down. I was worst on Friday evening and night. I didn’t sleep till after 2.0. Just as I would become quieter I would get a hallucination, his voice saying, ‘You could have my right hand if it were only me,’ the feel of his hair under my fingers. Yesterday I felt it would be safe to have coffee with him as I hadn’t any tears left. He agreed that what he wanted now was an honest quiet life with K. I suggested that therefore all his dilemma meant was whether my baby would disturb his quiet life enough to prevent him from giving it to me if, in any case, we stopped finally. He said he thought we ought to tell her and he wasn’t sure that to get his quiet life would be the best thing for him in the long run. I said I wanted to make sure of the minimum – a baby – even if I lost him. It would give me something to live for. He told me I was panicky and that I might have more than the minimum – it depends on K. I was going to say, ‘A fortnight more and then we part, with or without a baby,’ for I felt I couldn’t continue with this strain. But I didn’t, since he seems definitely to want a 3-cornered discussion.
MONDAY 22 MAY
I liked E today. He had written me a little note to say he might not be able to break the ice with K yesterday and quoting from The Flashing Stream which I lent him on Saturday – some relevant quotations on both sides of the argument, impartially. It is so like him and I could just see into his mind so clearly. It was sweet, so oblique and illuminating, like a shaft of light through a blind. Of course, he didn’t break the ice, but this time it was perhaps not procrastination.
WEDNESDAY 24 MAY
E has said nothing to her yet – says he will speak at the weekend. I feel now that it will be useless, a mere emotional tangle from which none of us will be better off, but he thinks it is best.
FRIDAY 26 MAY
A lovely light day, a day of gaiety and sweetness and sunshine and exhilaration. And yet it may have been our last expedition together if K makes things impossible. I would not have believed it could have been so shadowless, and yet it was. We went to Merstham, walked along the road to Gatton and through the Park. A perfect afternoon. I wore my new sandals and he jeered at them, but he said, ‘There can’t be many people with nicer legs than yours.’
A crowded, odd morning. Coffee with Griff and Coleridge (SKC). We talked literature. SKC has a marvellous memory and quoted stanzas of Browning and Swinburne and Omar Khayyam. WG suggested a good psychological and literary research would be Fear in Wordsworth, through his life. SKC said he had never got over Swinburne. He is related to the poet via a brother. When we got back WG gave me a review to read from the Times of Freud’s book on Mores and promised to let me see it if he gets hold of it. From that to Egyptian history, archaeology, Maiden Castle. Then SKC took me, on the way to catch the train, to a sherry bar in Shepherd’s Market, a thrilling place through an arch, oak beams and so on. It was a pleasant interlude and he was most careful to let me catch my train. On the whole I like him.
TUESDAY 30 MAY
He is as far off as ever, but so unhappy, wretched, trying to make himself talk to K. I felt awful, had dreadful misgivings, felt brutal. I am certain of what is best for me – for me, and to do. But ought I to try to bend others to make it possible? The only thing I can do to relieve him is to close our relationship and forgo the baby. I cannot believe that this is right, either for him or for me. But this is unbearable for both of us. I have been able to smother my thoughts in 2 ways – (1) by ironing, washing up, playing etc, (2) by remembering the line in one of the Psalms – ‘Be still then and know that I am God.’ It can have an hypnotic effect. I loved him more than ever today.
WEDNESDAY 31 MAY
So no further. He will not agree to my having a child without telling K even if I do not see him again. He seems certain that discussion and truth between all 3 is the only right thing but he cannot make himself take the first step. I believe he will, but when? I don’t know how long he would have been content to go on as we were in 1936 or 1938. There is no more I can do but wait passively with as little worrying as I can manage. ‘Be still then …’
Maybe if he fails I will adopt a child but this would be second best, far behind my own.
FRIDAY 2 JUNE
Still no further in our way. But I feel comforted by the fact that E will not accept my suggestion to give me a child and ‘wash his hands of me’. He thinks it possible to do more than this in time. He has had to bend himself up. I have had a poem running in my mind since lunchtime, in and out. I have written down something. It is not good but it is true. If I could but express it. It is for him but it is about me. It began when he said that he agreed that our meeting is as Ouspensky’s best type but also that it usually led to tragedy. This he was trying to avoid. Later what moved him most strongly to give me a child was that I should not be wasted. I must try to be patient and let him go on as he can at his own pace. It is resolved, I believe; he says he waits only for courage. I shall give him my poem in spite of its inadequacy.