The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

by Helene Hanff

  I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I described something-or-other in Central Park and my hostess looked at me in horror.

  “You mean you actually go into Central Park?” she asked. “I thought people got killed there.”

  I said I was in it almost every day, and offered to take her and her husband on a guided tour of it if they ever came to New York. And then they told me that last year they spent three days at the Plaza Hotel and never left their hotel room for fear of being killed. They didn’t walk down Fifth Avenue. They didn’t see the park, even from a hansom cab. They didn’t set foot in a single skyscraper. They didn’t get on a sight-seeing bus.

  They never left their room.

  “We were too terrified,” the wife said.

  Since I arrived in London, three college boys have been found shot to death as they slept at a camp site; a girl was found stabbed to death in her flat; and there are signs all over town reading LOCK UP LONDON. I asked PB about them, he said they’re part of a campaign to get Londoners to lock doors and windows when they go out because of the wave of robberies; three of his friends’ flats were robbed in one weekend.

  Crime is a hundred times worse in New York. We probably have more murders and muggings there in a week than London will see in a year. Still, for what it’s worth, no umpire or fan in Shea Stadium will ever take his eyes off the baseball diamond long enough to make a pass at a girl. And no New York dog will attack three children on the street, killing one of them, which happened here last week.

  I mean things are tough all over. Tougher in New York. But not so tough as to justify two Londoners huddling together in a hotel room for a weekend, declining the only chance they’ll ever have to see the one fabulous city the twentieth century has created.

  One of these days I’m going to write a book about living in New York—in a sixteen-story apartment house complete with families, bachelors, career girls, a ninety-year-old Village Idiot and a doorman who can tell you the name and apartment number of every one of the twenty-seven resident dogs. I am so tired of being told what a terrible place New York is to live in by people who don’t live there.

  Wednesday, July 7

  PB took me to Syon House, the ancestral home of those miserable Northumberlands who tried to make Jane Grey queen and sided with Mary of Scotland against Elizabeth. The rose gardens there are beyond anything I’ve seen: acres of roses in a spectacular rainbow of colors. PB told me he spent the weekend with friends in the country who had a double rose garden and didn’t offer him so much as a bud to take home. Londoners miss their gardens, he and the other tenants in his building do a little gardening in pots on the roof.

  We went from Syon House to Osterly Park, another ancestral home, I forget whose. I’m learning a little about Nash houses and Wren churches; today at Osterly Park it was Adam walls: polished wood panels covered with intricate marquetry. You can examine a single wall for hours and not see all the details in the carving. In a century dominated by watches, cars, planes, schedules, it’s hard to imagine an age in which men had the endless time and patience needed for such work.

  Driving home, PB told me he worked in Hollywood off and on for years as a consultant on films with English locales. The notion of PB in Hollywood in its heyday, when it was a synonym for everything tasteless and overdone, was grotesque at first, but then I realized he’s one of those originals who would be at home in almost any setting; nothing rubs off on him. He’s been everywhere and knows everybody, he’s very social—there are always a dozen invitations propped up on the mantel—but he seems always a little apart from those around him.

  He told me he once spent months hauling an American architect all over England for the Essex House in New York. The Essex House was doing over its cocktail lounge and wanted to re-create an English pub.

  “They sent a chap over here to see me and I drove him round the country to see all the best of the old pubs. He went back to New York and drew up the plans and sent them to me. I’ll show them to you when we get home.”

  We got back to Rutland Gate and he showed me the drawings and they were marvelous: a pub with wood-paneled walls, antiqued wooden tables and benches and a high, old-fashioned wooden bar with kegs above it. The pub looked warm and mellow and the woods burnished in the glow of old-fashioned lamps that swung from the ceiling.

  “Is the pub still there?” I asked.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “I’ll go see it when I get home,” I said. “Did he write and tell you how it looks?”

  “Oh, yes”—in that light, noncommittal voice—“the Essex House did the pub in lucite, chrome and black leather.”

  He goes to Wales for a week on Saturday. I’ll be gone when he gets back.

  Thursday, July 8

  Mary Scott took me on a walking tour of Knightsbridge and Kensington, we went to Harrods first because I’d never seen it. It’s an incredible store, you can buy anything from a diamond necklace to a live tiger, they have a zoo. I thought of Chester, the sheep dog who lives in my building, he came from Harrods.

  On the ground floor there’s a florist’s shop, and if you want to buy a dozen roses you can choose twelve roses individually. You can pick all buds or all open blooms or half and half, and you can buy one of every color in stock. I ran amok rounding up twelve to send to PB to brighten his flat before he leaves for Wales. Didn’t know any other way to thank him.

  We wandered the mewses and closes and poked into hidden gardens and alleys. Chelsea, Kensington and Knightsbridge all seem to me self-consciously charming, compared with Regent’s Park. The Scotts live out that way and I told Mrs. Scott if I were able to take a flat in London it’s out Regent’s Park way I’d want to live. She said it’s not called Regent’s Park, it’s called Marylebone.

  They have a spacious flat on Gloucester Place and she’d made a beautiful salmon mousse for dinner, loaded with cream. Salmon is a great delicacy here; people serve it as a compliment to their guests the way they serve filet mignon or lobster at home.

  Got back here about ten and have had the Lounge to myself for an hour but my luck just ran out. A woman just came in looking for somebody to talk to. She says Be sure and see the Temple, locate Middle Temple Lane and you’ll see two large white doors leading into the Temple, the Inner Temple and Middle Temple Hall, and the porter will show you the room where Dickens wrote Great Expectations. Doesn’t seem the time to tell her I found Great Expectations very boring, it’s the sort of conversation-stopping sequitur you learn is really non sequitur.

  She says the Knights Templar were buried under the floor of the church and that’s why it’s called the Temple. She says the church was destroyed during the war and after the war all the Knights’ bones were dug up and they’re now in a common grave under the floor of the rebuilt church. It’s a good thing I want to see all this, because if I didn’t plan to I’d have to keep out of the Lounge, I gather she spends all her evenings in here.

  Two women just came in—early thirties, very neat, they may be schoolteachers; they’re from Toronto—and it seems the Temple woman sent them somewhere on a day’s outing and they are now telling her How Right She Was. Greenwich-by-boat. Maritime Museum.

  Temple woman says This will interest me because I’m an American, she says there are Pilgrim artifacts at Greenwich, the Pilgrims took ship from there. Always thought it was Plymouth. Didn’t say so. I’m controlling an insane impulse to turn to the three of them and say chattily:

  “Did you know that when the Pilgrim Fathers caught a Pilgrim having a love affair with a cow, they not only hanged the Pilgrim, they also hanged the cow?”

  One of the teachers wants to know Am I the writer? They’ve heard such a lot about me at the desk. If they should be able to get a copy of my book tomorrow would I be kind enough to autograph it for them? Soitinly. Told a woman the other night she was passing up a chance to own the only unautographed copy in existence, she just looked at me baffled, nobody understands me.

  Fr
iday, July 9

  Russell Square

  A man came by at 10 A.M. to interview me for Radio London and I dragged him and his tape recorder over here, I’m not sitting in a dark hotel lobby on a sunny summer morning.

  He told me a play was done here last season about Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton and a script was sent to Buckingham Palace. It came back to the producers office with a note:

  The Duke of Edinburgh thinks you’ve treated Lady Hamilton very shabbily. The Queen reserves judgment.

  Everybody over here has a Philip anecdote for you, they’re proud of the fact that he’s so unstuffy. It’s appealing how people regard the Royal Family as relatives, it’s a kind of Cousin-Elizabeth-and-her-husband-and-the-children attitude. So everybody feels free to criticize them, what else are relatives for? Elizabeth, Philip and Prince Charles all very popular. Feelings mixed about Princess Anne; most people I’ve met are defensive about her. You ask an Englishman:

  “What’s Princess Anne like?” and the Englishman says:

  “Well, you must remember she’s still very young, she’s new to all this, after all she’s only twenty, you can’t expect—”

  And all you said was: “What’s she like?”

  But they’re very impressed by her horsemanship, they tell you with great pride: “She’s good enough to ride for England!”

  Feelings also mixed (this surprised me) about the Queen Mother. One woman told me:

  “Her public image is a masterpiece of press agentry. I once stood next to her at Harrods and caught her eye, and she has the coldest eyes I ever looked into.”

  Have to go back to the hotel to meet Nikki’s Barbara for lunch. She doesn’t like curry but she’s being magnanimous and taking me to a curry place near me on Charlotte Street.

  Later

  There was a thank-you note at the desk when I got back from Russell Square.

  The super roses arrived—they are on my desk as I write this and perfume the whole room. How very thoughtful—thank you. I just spoke to Jean Ely, she and Ted arrived at the Connaught last night. I thanked her for introducing us.

  Will be back on the 18th. Do be in London still.

  In haste—

  P.B.

  I leave Thursday, the fifteenth.

  VIA TELETYPE

  JULY 6, 1971

  TO NIKKI FROM HELENE VIA BARBARA TWO REQUESTS FIRST ANDY CAPP COMIC BOOKS OUT OF PRINT COULD YOU THINK OF SOMETHING MORE CULTURED FOR HER TO BRING YOU SECOND SHE WOULD LIKE NAMES OF TWO BEST INDIAN CURRIES SOHO IN THE NATIVE TONGUE ALIVE AND WELL

  TO BARBARA FROM NIKKI MANY THANKS FOR THE MESSAGE FROM HELENE HER POSTCARD SOUNDS LIKE SHE IS HAVING A BALL HAVE YOU MET HER YET

  NOT YET BUT AM HAVING LUNCH WITH HER THIS FRIDAY DO YOU HAVE CURRIES FOR HER

  NOT YET WILL CHECK IT OUT WITH MY INDIAN FRIEND AM JUST BACK FROM VACATION TELL HER I AM IN LOVE

  GOOD FOR YOU BI

  JULY 8, 1971

  1510 GMT LONDON

  TO BARBARA

  FROM NIKKI

  TWO CURRY NAMES ARE MURGI KARI AND MURGI MASALAM ALSO COULD YOU GIVE HER THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE FROM KEN MILLS ALL IS LOST ROOT FOR DODGERS IN WESTERN DIVISION OR BETTER STILL TAKE UP CRICKET HAVE FUN AND THANKS NIKKI END

  OKAY NIKKI WILL DO BI

  JULY 9, 1971

  TO NIKKI NEW YORK

  JUST HAD LUNCH WITH HELENE AND SCRIBBLED OUT THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE FOR YOU DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET SAYS HOW THE HELL CAN ALL BE LOST ITS ONLY JULY METS WILL START WINNING WHEN SHE IS HOME TO ROOT THEM THROUGH DUCHESS SAYS YOU ARE FORBIDDEN TO ENTER INTO BETROTHAL WITHOUT HER CONSENT SHE WILL HAVE TO LOOK HIM OVER FIRST END

  Saturday, July 10

  I think everybody who works should have Saturday afternoons off, but they have got goofy ways of managing it over here.

  Went down to Fortnum & Mason to buy small tokens of esteem for friends back home and by the time I finished it was lunch time. The store has an attractive coffee shop so I went there. There was a long line of people waiting for tables but a few counter seats were empty and I climbed up on a stool and picked up a menu. People were being served on both sides of me and the waitress was rushed. I waited till she’d brought everybody else’s tea-and-tart and when she finally turned to me, I said:

  “I’ll have a—” and she said:

  “We’re closed, Madam,” and I said:

  “You’re what?” and she said:

  “We’re closed.”

  And she pointed to a waiter who was carrying a standard to the door. He set the standard down in front of the long line of people waiting for tables and sure enough, the sign on the standard said CLOSED.

  At high noon on a Saturday with the store open and jammed with shoppers, the coffee shop closed. Which is what I call having a good strong Union.

  Did the Temple this afternoon. It was raining when I came out, I took a bus home. You have to watch it with these buses. A sign on the bus says DO NOT ALIGHT FROM THE COACH UNTIL REQUESTED TO DO SO. Believe me, it’s there for your health.

  The driver is at one end of the bus with his back to the passengers. Theoretically, the conductor is at the other end, where you get off. But he also has to go through the bus asking new passengers how far they’re going and giving them tickets and taking money and making change, and the buses are double decker so half the time he’s upstairs.

  If he’s upstairs when the bus comes to your stop, DO NOT GET OFF THE BUS, just ride past your stop and wait till he comes down. Because if the conductor isn’t there to signal the driver when you’re safely off, the driver doesn’t really stop at your corner, he just slows down there and pauses, and then drives on, on the assumption that you’re safely off. I’m small and limber, I hopped nimbly off the bus and even so I nearly fell on my face, that bus took off with my left foot on the bottom step.

  I just phoned Jean Ely at the Connaught to thank her for asking PB to show me London. She said come to dinner Thursday night, she wants to hear all about it.

  Sunday, July 11

  I saved my three high spots—the Abbey, the Tower and St. Paul’s—for the last week and I’m glad I did. Knowing I’m going to see them has kept me from getting depressed about going home when I’m not ready to go home. Woke in high excitement this morning because Sheila and Nora and I were doing the Abbey this afternoon.

  It’s full of odd things nobody ever told me about—like a plaque to the memory of Major John André, “Mourned Even by His Enemies,” it says. “His Enemies” were us rebels. André was the British spy Benedict Arnold betrayed us to. The Americans caught him and hanged him just as the British had caught and hanged Nathan Hale a little earlier. But you wouldn’t believe how many American historians make a much bigger fuss over André’s death than they do over Nathan Hale’s. Nathan Hale was a poor farm boy. John André was a dashing British aristocrat—see. In class-conscious Philadelphia, where André was stationed, you’d better believe he was “Mourned by His Enemies.”

  It positively outraged me to find Henry Irving buried in Westminster Abbey when Ellen Terry isn’t. Henry Irving was one of those legendary actors like Garrick, he was the idol of London in the 1890’s. Ellen Terry was his leading lady. I got very fond of her through her correspondence with Shaw and I consider it pure male chauvinism to bury Irving in the Abbey while Ellen’s ashes, according to Sheila, are in the little Actors’ Church near Covent Garden Market, I’m going there.

  Sign of the times: there’s a long bench now placed over one grave so all you can see of the inscription is “Rudyard Ki.”

  We passed the War Office when we came out. It was hot today—eighty-four degrees, very hot for London. Outside the War Office, sitting on a horse in the hot sun, was a guard. He wore a solid brass helmet-and-noseplate, which must have been blazing hot. He was dressed in a heavy wool uniform, long leather gloves and leather knee boots, he had a Persian lamb saddle rug tucked around him and he was clutching a spear which was bending slightly from the heat. Bundled up for the Russian Front, all by himself on
a hot Sunday, he was guarding the atomic secrets of the War Office with a bent spear. Him and his fur-covered horse.

  Sheila says he’s there to please tourists like me, he’s the fancy-dress London we come looking for. Maybe so. But far away in Wales I could hear a light voice remarking:

  “They haven’t missed a night in seven hundred years.”

  On the way back to Highgate for dinner we stopped off at Waterlow Park; it’s so high above the city the legend on the park sundial informs you:

  THIS SUNDIAL IS LEVEL WITH THE

  DOME OF ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL

  and when you look across the hills the dome is level with your eyes.

  In the center of the park there’s a two-story house with a high balcony, Sheila told me Charles II built it for Nelly Gwyn. Nell bore him a son there and she kept asking Charles to give the baby a title and Charles kept putting it off. So one day, when she saw the King riding toward the house to visit her, Nelly walked out onto the balcony with the baby in her arms and called down to him:

  “If you don’t give your son a proper title this instant I shall drop him to his death!”

  And Charles II cried:

  “Madam, don’t drop the Duke of—!” and that’s how the baby got his title.

  Later

  Ena just phoned, they’re back. They want me to have dinner with them tomorrow night and then see their flat in Ealing. She and Leo will pick me up here at hoppusseven. Nobody over here says “six-thirty” or “seven-thirty,” they say “hoppussix” and “hoppusseven.” And “in” at home is “trendy” here and “give it up” is “pack it in” and “never mind!” is “not to worry!”