Love in the Blitz
It’s been a wearing day – my father has suggested that a Good Way to end Italian intervention would be to dress the Pope up in Full Regalia & send him between the French & Italian armies saying ‘Shoot if you dare!’ (A Beautiful Thought in its way.)
Wednesday 12 June Yesterday evening my father & I walked to Primrose Hill for air. He was peering over fences at potato-patches in an ecstasy of dig-for-victory enthusiasm – but I was looking wistfully at the mollockers in the long grass & thinking that the nobleness of life would be to do thus if you & I could do it. Oh! my God, the Dragon School has just notified us of a violent epidemic of measles & Dicky is coming home on Saturday for a fortnight! where’s that kindly & protective providence you told me about?
Friday 14 June I’ve just fled upstairs to escape the 1 o’clock news. Cowardly, dear? – but the tension here is growing & growing, & I’m so terrified of my father’s deciding suddenly that we are to go away – to Canada or God knows where. If that happened, then that dream I’m always having about not being able to get to you would be real, darling. Oh! God. I’m bereft of all words at that thought.
My mother is eating off a low stool with a slit in her petticoat – a gloomy business – & my father sits & speculates upon our chances of survival when the Germans occupy London. Tomorrow Dicky will be here to give us a taste of Nazism in the Home. Tired of all these, for restful death I cry … as I said in one of my best sonnets – adding hastily however – save that to die I leave my love alone.6
Saturday 15 June I’ve been keeping out of my father’s way – & last night he commented on it – acidly – & then took on a martyred air, & today he keeps coming into my room & asking me to go downstairs & talk to him. It’s exactly as I told you, darling. I can’t escape – and every time I’m with him, I simply quiver with fury – because he took me away from Cambridge, darling – and I can’t bear it. Dicky has come home today, doubtless to spread measles & havoc. There is no light … no light.
I had a letter from Aubrey this morning. There’s no question of MI. Dr Weizmann’s son is in exactly the same position, it seems – and Dr W has had a Cackle of Cabinet Ministers pulling wires All in Vain. However, he hopes to get to the Near East & establish himself as an Asset when he gets there. His training ends on Friday & then he gets a fortnight’s leave.
We had a diversion yesterday in the shape of a fat little refugee rabbi who came to instruct my mother in the Art of Mourning. (She ought to Know All by now – she’s had enough practice, poor woman, but she’s so frightened of Leaving Anything Out, that she always likes to have a Spiritual Guide to Hold her Hand.) He was small & round and his features were richly curved – & he thought up a perfectly incredible number of things which my mother ought to be doing – & then when he got home he remembered yet Another – & he telephoned to tell my mother that she must on no account wear leather on her feet (Give me a shoe that is not leather soled! – or a bedroom slipper, for that matter) lest we should all Perish or be Cast into Hell. It was obviously a matter about which he felt strongly.
I’ve done nothing since I left Cambridge but let my melancholy sit on brood – and read crime-stories – the bloodier the better. I’m suffering from an infinite prolongation of the feeling I have in Cambridge when you’re an hour or two late. I haven’t smiled since I left you standing on the station in your white shirt & blue jacket which I could see for such a long time after the train had started moving.
Darling, Colonel Nathan’s peerage makes me feel awkward & embarrassed with Joyce. You see, I think it’s ludicrous – & she thinks it’s Just & Proper. (Of course I didn’t tell her I thought it was Ludicrous – you have learnt by now that I don’t invariably Tell All, haven’t you?) So there’s an Enormous Gap between her Idiom & Mine on the subject – even in jest.
Sunday 16 June Col. Nathan a peer, darling! However the Hon. Joyce will carry her courtesy title with an air – & doubtless (I mean Mrs N (as was) of course) Her Ladyship’s F. H.7 will become more formidable by several inches.
I had tea with Joyce and her mother today. I peered wistfully at the exquisite square inch of tea-butter and, like Marie Antoinette, decided that the common people had better eat cake. I saw the report in the evening paper when I got home. I rang Joyce up to rebuke her for failing to Tell Me All. She said there wasn’t a word of Truth in it – and half-an-hour later rang me up to say that it was now official. Can’t you imagine the Colonel coming home & coyly unburdening himself like a bride announcing that an Heir has been arranged for? How Fantastic!
Friday 21 June Oh! darling, it was fantastically selfish of me to suggest that you should come to London on Saturday – but when it’s a matter of keeping you with me or having you back again soon, I have no morals – I’ve always felt in complete affinity with Cleopatra when she turned her ship round – knowing Antony would follow her – although it meant shame – shame – ever for ever – and she knew it.
Monday 24 June I went to Kilburn with my mother this morning to buy vegetables (vegetables are cheaper in Kilburn, darling!) & now I Know All. You burst open pea-pods & taste the peas & unless they’re a Solace in the Raw, you Reject them – you squeeze cabbages & unless they squeak, you say in a voice of withering scorn, that they Have no Heart – and cast them from you – a lettuce that you can’t stub your finger on is No Good – & when strawberries are two shillings a pound, you lose Heart & decide that you might as well have done your shopping at Swiss Cottage & saved a 2d bus fare.
Tuesday 25 June Oh! darling, things that love night love not such things as these. The sirens started screaming at 1.15. (Sirens are louder here than at Girton Corner.) I got up to see what my parents were doing – and Pa took such exception to my suggestion that we should all stay in bed, that I put on my new dressing-gown, wrapped my eiderdown round me & followed him to our outside shelter. It was a clear, still night and the stars couldn’t have been more sharply focussed if there had been a frost – half a moon & little greyish clouds. We packed into the shelter like chocolate stick-biscuits in a round tin. We sat in deck-chairs – large deck-chairs – & my feet didn’t reach the ground – but Stanley chivalrously stretched out his legs & let me rest my feet on his slippers. We sat quite silently for the most part – the only sound was the rumbling of poor old Wright’s recalcitrant digestion – & occasional bursts of impromptu & heavy jests from Pa. At about 2.30 (the shelter is distempered concrete & as bare as a picked bone, and I was getting colder & colder), I was suddenly doubled up with cramp – (Nurse said nastily that it was due to my being out in the rain on Sunday. I pointed out tartly that there hadn’t been a drop of rain anywhere except on the pavement by the time we got out of the house!). Anyway, I quaffed a sherry glass full of brandy & warm water in one nose-wrinkling gulp & went to bed. The All-Clear sounded at four – but I never heard it – the brandy having done its work – but that was only the beginning of things for my parents & Stanley – because poor old Wright had a heart-attack & they had to summon a doctor & send him off in Mrs Wright’s care, to hospital. So this morning everyone here is a little blear-eyed & vague.
Wednesday 26 June Darling, I’m almost angry with you. Here are the papers all buzzing with vague & terrifying reports of continuous raids on the SW – and no letter of reassurance from you this morning.
I spent a fantastic afternoon with Joan at her crazy school yesterday. The children wear purple shorts and white shirts – the garden is a carefully cultivated wilderness – the school-building, rambling, beautifully furnished, with a touch of arty-craftiness here & there. The staff sits about on tree-stumps Musing upon Life in rather uninhibited clothes. (Joan tells me that the Headmistress, who is nearly 83, and of titanic dimensions, appeared in the air-raid shelter on Monday night in a pair of trousers all tied together with safety-pins – declaring that her zip fasteners had been sabotaged either by one of the children or the staff – and after seeing the school, I can well believe it.)
Joan told me, more in sorrow than in anger, that she had met Joy Blackaby at her interview with the Cambridge County School, & the first thing Joy had said to her was that she’d seen me one day mollocking abandonedly in KP!8 Joan said that in Cambridge of all places there was no excuse for Public Mollocking, because the facilities for kissing & clipping at home were unlimited. I agreed in principle – but I pointed out that in my case, there was a factor which had never entered into her relationship with Ian – Time fear. I said that taking a short-view, she too had often heard time’s winged chariot hurrying near – but that against this – she had a confident feeling of permanence which made it unnecessary for her to hang on to the reassurance of physical contact. Because she has a sense of having all life before her, darling, she never has that terrifying ‘Is he really here?’ doubt – nor the crushing fear that every moment of Solace may be the last. She couldn’t see why I should assume that you’d stop wanting me as a Solace one day. She said that, from what she had seen of us together, our regard for one another was unhurried & restful & built on more permanent foundations than most people’s. I said that mine was – but that you had warned me from the very beginning that yours might not be – but I hoped to God she was right – whereupon she withdrew her censure of my public behaviour, & added that she was sure that, ultimately, All Would be Well.
I got a letter and a Character from Miss Bradbrook this morning. She is serving her country by pounding mangle-wurzels and working for the Hush-hush from nine-till-five every day. Only Miss Bradbrook could have thought of such a Beautiful juxtaposition of labours – turning mangle-wurzels into cattle-fodder – and hearing All – at one fell swoop. She’s a wonderful woman. My Character is on a very high Plane, darling. I’m looking forward to showing it to you. She advises me to get into the Civil Service if I can, because I’ll only be allowed to take up my research where I left off if I’ve been doing war-work in the interval.
Thursday 27 June I have been to Kilburn again for vegetables. Cauliflowers have risen in price, whereas beans have Gone Down. The situation on the Asparagus Market remains unchanged.
I’m seeing the Secretary of the Appointments Board tomorrow to Tell her All. I liked the sound of her voice over the telephone – which is encouraging – voices make a lot of difference. Did you hear the Princess Royal asking us to join the ATS on the Wireless? ‘Over your dead body!’ I replied sullenly. ‘If it’s the last thing I do.’ (Aren’t everybody’s idioms but ours silly, dear?)
Then Aubrey rang up to ask if we could meet for tea instead of lunch, as his cousin Charles had decided to get married. I said oh! wasn’t that rather surprising? – to which he replied Yes and No. Charles, it seems has been Walking Out for eighteen years – but, Aubrey says, after you have been Walking Out for eighteen years, people just assume that you have Got into a Rut, and stop wondering about Intentions – (what a Solace, darling, we’ve only got seventeen years to go!) & when you have an over-night whirlwind courtship with your wench of eighteen years standing, and get married the next day – it is, on one plane, surprising, although, on another, you’ve really been expecting it all along. This is the gist of what Aubrey said, though perhaps he didn’t say it quite in those words.
Later: Aubrey arrived at the Cumberland rather late. He was delayed by the wedding. It’s a Beautiful story, darling. It seems that Charles and his lady would have gone on Walking Out quite happily for another eighteen years, had it not been for his parents & the lady’s. She is a Palestinian &, as such, subject to the Alien curfew. ‘Poor Shulamite,’ said her parents, in sorrow (Shulamite, believe it or not, is her name.) ‘How inconvenient’ – and they called on Charles’ parents, who forthwith sent a wire to Charles saying, ‘Be a man Charles – marry her – or she’ll have to go to bed every night at 10.15.’ So Charles called on her & said ‘What are you doing on Thursday, sweet chuck?’ & she said she had a short-hand exam in the morning but that she was free in the afternoon. ‘All Right,’ said Charles, ‘we’ll get married in the afternoon.’ And they did – in the presence of Aubrey & his mother. The ceremony lasted 15 minutes & then Charles went over to the cash desk & handed over £2. 4. 6½d (Aubrey says you can do it for 7/6d if you really try – but Charles decided to do the Big Thing for once in his life. Aubrey says he is disgustingly rich – and incredibly parsimonious in the normal way). Aubrey arrived for tea looking harassed & a little disillusioned. He says he now knows why so many people prefer to Live in Sin. Registry Office Marriages – culminating in a sordid little transaction at the cash desk are, he assures me, no solace at all. What an anti-climax, dear, after Walking Out on a Higher Plane for 18 years!
Friday 28 June I have had an eventful day, darling. I arrived at Bedford College much too early for my interview – so I went into the Botanical Gardens to smoke and muse. Then I went in to see Mrs Woodcock who was wearing a beautiful emerald ring – & was efficient & soignée and altogether quite a solace. She said the Higher Grades of the Civil Service were obviously The Thing. The Civil Service, she went on, loves Classicists & Economists & distrusted English Specialists but, she added consolingly, they were very partial to firsts. Then I told her about my mother being an Enemy Alien & she was in Great Sorrow & went into muse – out of which she emerged suddenly to ask briskly whether I knew anyone with Influence. I said, without enthusiasm, that I knew Lord Lloyd. ‘Ask him to write a covering letter to your application – saying that your family is well known to him and is All Right.’ She finished up by suggesting a teaching job in a boy’s school, if Lord Lloyd couldn’t help.
Dicky’s Disgrace culminated at lunch time in his throwing one of the dining-room chairs at Pa & then telling him to go to bloody Hell. I did not participate in this exchange of badinage – as I haven’t spoken to Dicky for nearly a week – but I was, in a sense, the onlie begetter of the Scene9 – as it arose out of the fact that it was about time Dicky apologized to me for being such a sorrow. This morning my mother spoke to me about Dicky, saying that I wasn’t really very fair to him – then, darling, I could see a struggle Going On Within – and finally she said – as though she were quoting the scriptures – ‘Gershon told you that he didn’t think you were just to Dicky.’ It was very beautiful to hear my mother citing you as the Ultimate Authority, dear. I hope she does it again – often. Something has gone wrong with the style of this letter – perhaps it’s because I’m tired – and oppressed with the frightening knowledge that I can’t do without you, my dear love – and what’s going to happen to me?
Saturday 29 June Aubrey rang up this morning to tell me that Dr Lewis is getting married on Monday. He wanted to know if you were in London so that he could ask you to be his best man. Oh! darling – I wish he could get hold of you before Monday. Not knowing when I’m going to see you again is driving me mad – & that’s not just a manner of speaking, either.
I had a letter from Mrs Woodcock this morning suggesting that I might like to teach in a school in the Midlands. English up to University Scholarship standard & Scripture & Games throughout the school!!
I had a Civil Service form to fill in this morning. They want to know if I’m a specialist in anything. ‘Medieval Romance’ looks so helpful, dear! They also want to know All about my health. Well, they asked for it – I’ll show ’em.
Oh! Dicky has just been in to ask for an Armistice. I gave way without much enthusiasm – but because I thought you’d like me to, &, as I said once before – being your slave what should I do but tend upon the hours & times of your desires?
Sunday 30 June Darling, following my newly learnt lesson of telling you All, I want you to listen to me tolerantly & patiently now. I’m so frightened that my hand is shaking – but because, you are, after all, my friend as well as my Young Fellow, I don’t believe you’ll be angry with me. (Please don’t be angry with me, my dear love.)
Do you remember, when we were walking from Grantchester one afternoon, you said ‘If your father were to ask me my Intentions, I know what I’d say to him’? Well, I wanted to ask you then, what you would say, not because I didn’t think I knew the answer, but because I hoped I might be wrong – but I didn’t ask because I felt then that indecision was better than crushing certainty. Now, however, I want to tell you what I believe to be the reasons for your Absence of Intentions, and to ask you if I’m right, & if, as far as you can judge at present, these obstacles will always be insurmountable. And here they are.
a.) My inadequacy as a Solace – the fact that you’re afraid that if you were with me always, you’d be made restless & irritated by my clucking & possessiveness & would become obsessed with the idea of breaking free.
b.) You are in no position financially to have any Intentions. (Note – the present war-situation might over-ride that consideration, if your Intended-as-might-have-been were economical, practical and useful-about-the-house. It’s a Heartly Sorrow to you, (though perhaps not for this reason) that I am none of these things.)
c.) You have a very strong feeling that I wouldn’t be a success with your family. I am not Orthodox enough – or useful enough – or adaptable enough.
d.) As circumstances make it possible only for us to meet sporadically, you may at any time meet another & more adequate Solace.
That is how I interpret your attitude to the situation, darling. Am I right? Whatever you say will make no difference. I am yours now and hereafter and for ever, on any plane you will – but I feel it’s cowardly of me not to ask you what you really think – & I know that whatever you say will be generous & kind, as everything you have said to me has always been.
Do you remember, as well, that when I told you about my recurring dream about our being separated by a room-full of people, you said that it was because I realized, as you did, that there was something standing in our way? Did you mean any of the things I’ve mentioned, dear – or something else – and, if so, what? I believe, you know, that I could make a success of being a permanent Solace to you – because I’d put every ounce of energy I had into trying to be what you wanted me to be – but if you don’t, darling, it’s no matter. I haven’t any will but yours.
I’m so exhausted by this avowal, Gershon, that I feel as if I’d had a baby – limp & wan & panting! I am, I mean – not the Baby!
In the evening Norman Bentwich came to sherry. He has a job in the Ministry of Information. In the event of London’s becoming a besieged city, his job is to Keep the Population calm with Soothing News-bulletins. Horace, if he knew of this, would Snort and call him an Eye-wash-monger – I feel. Horace & Norman were at St Paul’s together – they are no Solace to one another on any plane whatever. Norman Wilts visibly at the mention of Horace’s name – Horace Seethes at the mention of Norman’s – it is all very Intense & Concentrated.
This morning Mrs Seidler suddenly arrived here – she is coming to live in London. My parents are thinking of offering her a home with us, (She wants to live with a family as her husband is likely to be interned any day, and she has no friends in London) but Pa wants to think over the position before actually suggesting it to her.
Please write to me more often, darling. On the days when I don’t get a letter from you, I feel like a Gothic Ruin in an 18th century landscape – an empty shell, overgrown with the tangled ivy of Desolation – which sounds very picturesque – but as a matter of fact it isn’t.
Monday 1 July Darling, I’m in Solace – so please don’t answer my questions in yesterday’s letter – because I don’t want to be in sorrow all over again. Thank you.
Wednesday 3 July Oh! please let’s get this Intentions question settled in your next letter, darling. It’s no good being stern about ‘troubled sleep’. Last night I didn’t sleep at all, because I thought I was going to hear the Awful All this morning.
I had rather a Harrowing afternoon, yesterday. Joan & Ian came to lunch. It was their last day together before Ian left for Nyasaland10 – and during & after lunch, we all Glittered with Synthetic Gaiety – then after coffee, Ian said he’d have to leave at 4.30 for Croydon where his people are staying – and Joan went upstairs to put on her hat & she sat down & cried & cried & cried. Then she went into the bathroom to wash her face – & remarked that she’d better see Duncan while she was there – when we suddenly became Aware of a Strange Man on the Windowsill. (We found out afterwards that it was the Gardener trimming the hedge.) It was so fantastic that it broke the Tension & we laughed hysterically for at least ten minutes.
Then they went off to the Portuguese Embassy to get a visa for Ian for Mozambique – & at 4.30 I met Joan at the Cumberland. (She asked me to have tea with her somewhere detached & noisy – & it seemed the ideal place.) She behaved, darling, with marvellous dignity & courage. I have the most tremendous respect for her – perhaps more than for any of my other college friends. I wish I were more like her – & I know that, at the end of three years, she & Ian will resume their relationship as though he’d never been away. Their love is Serious, Complete & of a Certain Magnitude – and after Sorrow there will be Regeneration.
Nurse is a fool. I was trying to make Joan & Ian laugh at lunch (and succeeding, darling) by telling them how Sheila explained to me the other day that Allan failed in his Tripos because he would insist on sticking too close to the point. (I’d stick to it too, if I only had one point – I’d cling to it as a drowning man clings to a straw – wouldn’t you?) & Nurse, to whom none of my remarks were addressed, snorted & said: ‘I think you spend your whole life saying nasty things about the people you call your friends.’ Joan & Ian just stared at her coldly & my mother said ‘Well, I’d rather see her laugh than cry.’ Nurse gave us all a Comprehensive Dirty Look – and subsided. My idiom is so much Bessarabian to Nurse (Is there a Bessarabian language, darling? It doesn’t really matter – but I thought I’d like to know).
Friday 5 July I came home, wilting, to find Joyce waiting for dinner. She was looking very soigneé in pill red – & we had a pleasant evening talking of you and Mr Mosley (who is, after all, a close relative of Sir Oswald!11 – but his branch has Cut Oswald Off – so that, says Joyce rather uncertainly, is All Right). She described the absurd procedure of Lord Nathan’s investiture with insight & wit. (Joyce has the Right Stuff in her, hasn’t she, dear?)
Negotiations are almost complete for the transfer of Mrs Seidler from the Turner ménage to ours. I think she’ll be rather a Solace. Mr Turner rang me up last night. He’s joining the family in Devon today – They’re leaving for Canada from Liverpool in about ten day’s time. (They haven’t been told the exact date, of course.)
Did I tell you Jean’s Wonderful Private Information about Cambridge & the Fifth Column? ‘Cambridge is Full of the Fifth Column,’ she said portentously in a Sinister Whisper. ‘I am Privately Informed that whenever an Air Raid Warning is sounded – All the lights go on’ – then, when I seemed unimpressed she added, by way of explanation. ‘To help the Enemy planes to find their Way About.’ (Capital letters Absolutely Everywhere, darling!)
Saturday 6 July Joan doesn’t know what to do this vac. She wants some kind of job, I think. We are considering trying to find something to do together, as soon as I hear from Lord Lloyd & find out what my position is with regard to the Civil Service.
Yesterday, I was able to collect quite a considerable parcel of jewellery to send to the Red Cross. I found I had a lot of gold bangles and lockets & trinkets which could be melted down for their metal value & I sent, as well, a diamond & sapphire bar brooch – a brilliant brooch and a seed pearl & lapis lazuli necklace.