Love in the Blitz Read online

  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.

  In the afternoon my parents took me to Christie’s to see the things that people had sent. The jewellery was rather staggering – colossal diamond necklaces – and superb single-stone rings – as well as smaller things running the whole aesthetic gamut from Horrified Sorrow to Extreme Solace.

  Monday 8 July Good morning, my dear love. Thank you for your letter. You’re right, you know – my mother in her twenties was very much the sort of girl you describe. Leslie H. B. realized this when he said ‘If I could meet a girl who was what you must have been at twenty, Vic, I’d marry like a shot’ (His idiom – not mine). And the look he gave me as he said this – spoke volumes for my inadequacy.

  I’m more grateful than I can say, darling, for your just and generous summing-up of the situation. It seems to me that if I make up my mind to be a little less inadequate as a Solace – it will be something to keep me busy – & I think that, in future, if I’m busy, I shall be well, and that will be a Solace to you, won’t it? You see, now there’s nothing organically wrong with me. It’s just that my mind is being pounded down ceaselessly with the fear of not seeing you – & the endless hammering tires me so much – that by the end of the day, I do feel ill. The Victorians called it a decline, dear, but stronger women than the milk & water heroines of Victorian fiction have suffered from the same thing. After all, Lady Macbeth’s madness dated from the time when ‘my lord went into the field’.

  I’m going to learn to be useful. (You’re right, darling, I can be useful – but it bores me.) Furthermore, if, at any time you want me to dance with you, I shall. (But you wouldn’t really like to dance with me, would you, darling? No? Thank you.)

  Nevertheless, my dear love, although, now, I know exactly what you want from a Real Solace, I shall try to be more like the girl you want. (Not as an affectation, dear. (Heaven forbid!) What I want to do is simply to make use of certain characteristics ‘that I have of my own’, which aren’t developed at all because I wasn’t interested in them – but they are there.)

  Strangely enough, Gershon, one of the things that I value most highly in you is the fact that your affection for me does not blind you to my shortcomings … (Incidentally, dear, ‘In love’ is not my idiom – because its opposite is ‘out of love’ – whereas the opposite of ‘to love’ is ‘not to love’ which is less frighteningly consecutive!) That is why you are incontestably my friend as well as my Young Fellow – because, though my feelings are a sorrow to you on one plane, you are able to meet them with wonderful sympathy and understanding on another – whereas, if your regard for me were uncritical – you’d be so shattered when you found me out, that you’d cast me off at one fell swoop.

  I often feel that you think that my affection for you is blind & undiscriminating – but, as a matter of fact, darling, it isn’t. The things for which I love you are real – your tolerance & understanding – your infinite patience with me – your unswerving sense of honour – which has led you scrupulously to keep me abreast of what you were feeling from the very beginning of our friendship – the subtlety and delicacy of your mind – the broad sweep of your humour – and your charm, of which other women must have been aware before me. Besides these things, what do the qualities in you which frighten me, or which I don’t understand, matter?

  For instance, we’ll never agree in our estimates of the significance of physical love. I am not able to understand, but I have learnt to accept, that you would not regard kissing another girl as an irrevocable act of infidelity on every plane. If I were to kiss anyone but you, it would be an irreparable betrayal – because, to me, a kiss is a symbol of complete surrender. It is something so personal & intimate, that to kiss anyone I didn’t love would be nothing less than obscene. (It makes me feel ill to think of it!) But, darling, I do realize that you feel differently about this – just as lots of people feel differently about the actual presence of the body & blood of Christ in the bread & wine of Christian communion – & I’m not less fond of you for that.

  I had a letter from Aubrey this morning. He’s being moved, Mess & all – and he was all-of-a-flutter because his CO had asked him to go to the pictures with him. It is all Very Beautiful.

  Lord Lloyd wrote this morning to say that he’d be glad to give me the letter of recommendation I need – so I’ll be able to send my Comic Form to the Central Register12 within a few days – and then I really shall feel that I’ve taken the first step towards economic independence. (What a Solace!)

  Wednesday 10 July Ismay’s dear little Charles has at last been transferred from an OCTU13 darling, stripes and all. She’s asked me to have lunch with her one day to celebrate his Rise.

  Darling – there is one point arising out of your last letter which I want to make clear. You say that you would like your perfect Solace to be the kind of woman who would not allow her own personality to be submerged if it ran counter to yours at any point – & I don’t think it’s just a fancy of mine to suppose that you believe that my personality would be so submerged. Well, dear, I should always want, with you, to put your wishes before my personal
inclination (as in the instance when you were so angry with me because I went to the theatre, in accordance with your spoken wish, instead of going for a walk as I wanted to – it’s a trivial instance but ’twill serve) though often (as on the occasion when I wouldn’t let you leave me – to write vitally important letters) my own selfish wants might overrule this – but, darling, if an ethical principle were involved in our conflicting wishes, then I should not want to give way to you – but, because I have absolute confidence in your moral dependability – I don’t believe such a conflict could ever arise between us – if I thought it could, I couldn’t love you.

  Looking back on everything I’ve said to you in the last few months it occurs to me that I haven’t a shred of dignity left in the world. (You know, I think I did once have a kind of dignity, in spite of being dumpy & silly-looking.) I wish I still had a little.

  Friday 12 July Darling, you should see Nurse’s Air Force Hanger-On standing sentinel at the gate while she’s pinning the last curl in place – (Tides – Seasons – Armies must wait while Nurse pins her curls into place. She has no Uncertain Opinion about her looks. She bought a new cotton dress the other day & came into my room to show it to me. I was wearing my blue & white checked dress at the time, & I remarked that hers was very much more attractive than mine. ‘It all depends on who wears a dress,’ she said, tossing her head. ‘Now you might look very silly in this dress, while I think I’d look rather nice in yours’ & she left me gasping. Darling, I know I’m plain, but there are kinder ways of saying it, don’t you think?)