Letters to a Sister (21 page)

Your loving Twin

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 28 August, [1956]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am glad you are getting on with
The Towers,
and like it. John Connell told me today that he supposed Laurie to be a man till the mention of Vere; he thought Vere a male name so that L. must be female. Actually Vere, like Laurie, can be either. He likes it, and is reviewing it in the
Evening News
soon. I also met Paul Dehn in the street, he is on the ‘Critics' just now, and says they want to do the book, not next week, as they are doing the Edinburgh Festival, but probably the week after. We must listen to that. I expect the two Sunday papers may do it this Sunday, or possibly not; if so I will bring you
Sunday Times.
The reviews will be interesting. Some people think it is mainly funny, which I didn't mean, though no doubt a few jokes got in as I wrote. I am a little nervous about R.C.s, tho' not really about Moslems. I had a letter from Stewart Perowne, whom I mention in the Jerusalem part, as he was there when I was; he is very pleased at being in a book, and I hope the others I mention will be too; I don't say any harm of any of them.

An odd thing seems to be happening to me, I am getting Lower Church. Where will it end? Perhaps in All Souls',
Langham Place, sitting under Mr Stott.
¹¹⁴
I am getting annoyed with all these absurd extreme Anglo-Catholic ways. Not with incense etc., but with such absurdities as [those which] Kensit mentions, which are copied straight from Rome, and with the materialistic view of the sacraments; I am not pleased when the bell goes during consecration. Actually I suppose it isn't Low but Broad that I am growing increasingly, though always pretty broad before, but now so broad that all the bowing & holding up trains that goes on at All Saints' [Margaret Street] worries me. It is time I returned to St Paul's and Grosvenor Chapel; All Saints' is too high for me.

Do you mean that 40 bombs over remote seas will make us ill in Britain? It must be stopped at once.

I am rather sorry Archbishop Mathew is abroad in the Aegean just now, when all the hierarchy must be agog to get Westminster and the various jobs that will become empty owing to the general post.
¹¹⁵
He should have been in the Cathedral at the Requiem, with the other bishops etc. Still, he certainly wouldn't get Westminster. I wish he would; it would be splendid for the Church.

Someone writes that my book is very persuasively Anglican. I hope it is. How splendid if it was read by chemists, who took my criticisms of unlabelled Pills to heart! It is a very silly and dangerous practice.

I shall come on Friday. I do feel pleased that you like
The Towers.
I should have been very sad about it if you didn't.

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 10 September, [1956]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am very glad Miss B——liked
Trebizond,
and that it both amused her and increased her sense of sin. What a lot you have done for her to develop and change her attitude towards life. She must be very fond of you.

I do feel glad you like the book; that matters more than any one. One this morning from——, the most enthusiastic I have had, saying it is the most ‘improving' book she knows. I had a very nice letter today from the Bp of Tewkesbury,
¹¹⁶
… I hadn't been sure if he'd like it, but he does. My unre-ligious friends seem to like it too; I have a lot of nice letters from them. I wonder how Gilbert Murray is getting on with it; he was going to read it to cheer himself up. I shall probably call on him when I am in Oxford, and he may tell me. I go on Thursday [to Oxford, and].... on Sunday I go on to Droitwich Spa, to keep Eric Gillett company while he swims in the briny baths; I shall be back on Tuesday. I will write from either Oxford or Droitwich….

Dorothea says she doesn't think she has improved muscularly, tho' she has learned better how to manage to do things.
¹¹⁷
It is very depressing for her. Still, much better than being dead, like Janet Trevelyan & so many others.

I noticed that
Trebizond
isn't going to be done on the ‘Critics' next week, I believe because Veronica Wedgwood was going to do it and is off the ‘Critics' this week because her father died. Perhaps she will come back the week after. Instead, they are doing
The Red Priest,
¹¹⁸
which sounds an odd book….

Raymond Mortimer wants me to go on about Laurie in
another book, as he liked her idiom of expression. I wonder. It would have to be about something quite different, another set of experiences and encounters, and people and animals. My camel and ape are immensely popular, by the way. It is a great thing to put in something for everyone….

Very much love.

E.R.M.

[Probably 24 September, 1956]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am still getting some very nice letters about
Trebizond.
I get to feel almost like a priest, with so many people writing to say how much I have helped them in their religion. One writes ‘That a person like you etc. should affirm publicly in August 1956 that she believes there is such a thing as sin, and that she is agin it, must hearten many also-rans who had a suspicion all along that this might indeed be so. It will enliven their endeavours to stick to their notion that “what we have to gain is not one battle, but a weary life's campaign”, and that it seems, on the whole, better to wear our souls away in a doubtful attempt to see the job in hand through to the finish.'

So many people have alluded to the religious parts as improving that I think they must be, to a certain number of people, and I am very glad of that. I had a letter from Fr Johnson, but he had only got a little way, and wants to write again when he has read it all.
¹¹⁹
I feel he may not wholly like it; his own religion is so unquestioningly devout and single-minded, and I don't think he had ever been troubled with doubts. I fear he may think the ape irreverent, and much of Laurie's thoughts & conversation, and other people's. I should be very sorry if he was hurt by any of it, he is so old,
and has been so kind to me, and such a constant correspondent for the last 6 years.

Reviews go on coming in; the best
heading
yet was ‘Mad camel plays a big part in unusual book', which seems rather to overstate the camel's part.

I hope you have time to enjoy this weather; each day begins with fog, which gradually clears and leaves warm sunshine. The trees in the parks are lovely & golden.

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 30 October, [1956]

Dearest Jeanie,

… No, thank you, no flue. Of course if it was from the man I met at dinner last Thursday, I wouldn't start it till this Thursday, so the danger isn't over, but I don't think I shall get it, I have imbibed so much Antistin this last week. No, I certainly shouldn't let you come up, you would catch it; better feel morbid than get flue. Have you got an interesting book to read? This is the best antidote to brooding that I know. Especially a really exciting or interesting novel. If ever you are long without regular work, you must lay in a good supply of these; there are lots of them, as they needn't be new of course. But I hope you will be able to begin work again soon. If not, I can bring you down some books, and you could also begin your Reminiscences. How exciting about the Palace on the 27th!
¹²⁰
I had been meaning to ask you when it was to be. How early in the day, though. You will have to start about 8.0, I suppose, much too early. What a mercy it wasn't arranged for the time you were laid up! It
is the chance of a lifetime. Perhaps if you had been ill, I should have been allowed to receive it for you, like posthumous V.C.s.

John Betjeman rang me up this morning to tell me that he had heard from Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, who accompanied Princess Margaret to Africa, that she (Princess M.) was absorbed in
The T. of T.
all the voyage, and kept reading bits of it aloud to her companions…. Later I met Lady E.C. at lunch, and she told me this herself, adding that all the officers on the
Britannia
had a copy with them, and all were absorbed in it: this, I think, must be an over-statement. (I didn't hear that the crew read it.) I feel this is real fame, to be read aloud by royalty. She said she would like to meet me. As a matter of fact, I have met her once, at Mark Bonham Carter's wedding reception. My head will be quite swollen if this goes on. The Cabinet, the Bench of Bishops, Royalty, half Crockford, a number of the Roman hierarchy—why not the Pope before long? Nasser too, I hope, and possibly Krushchev. It might do these last two good. I went to a meeting of Hungarian protest on Sunday,
¹²¹
all very eager & noisy. It was got up by Arthur Koestler, to express sympathy. I see that undergraduates are already dashing off to Hungary with medicines for the wounded, and having a grand time. And now Israel invading Egypt. I hear we have a battleship outside Port Said, waiting; I wish it would go away and not meddle.

I saw a splendid film yesterday,
The Battle of the River Plate,
in Technicolor. Really beautiful, & most life-like. The final self-scuttling of the
Graf Spee
was a splendid sight. So were the battleships and the ocean and Montevideo harbour. Awful killing and wounding by shells, of course, and after the battle would the captain and commanders and other officers have seemed quite so jubilant, with all that agony on board? The German commander, Langsdorff, was made a
humane and nice man, who treated all his merchant-sailor captives kindly, as actually he did, fortunately….

I have a letter from Fr Johnson, much vexed with
The Times Lit. Sup.
for saying I had not so far found an answer to my religious problems.
¹²²
He says I
have,
and that I ought to write to the
T.L.S.
and say so.

Very much love for the Saints & Souls. Can you get to church for them?

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 Gunpowder Plot
[5 November], 1956

Dearest Jeanie,

Thank you
so
much for my first paintbox, which seems to have every needful colour for castle, earth, rocks, sky, sea & trees.
¹²³
The gold for the star and for the streak of dawn in the sky I can get in a little pot separately. Thank you so much, I hope it wasn't expensive, let me know when I come. It is hard to find the gold streak in the sky at present. Our Mass this morning at St Paul's was a requiem, praying for those who were being killed in Hungary and those going to be killed soon in Egypt, and praying very sadly for those in authority,
³
that they might behave well and wisely. But, having already behaved so ill and unwisely,
¹²⁴
is there much hope of change? I understood Gaitskell to mean that the Tories should have a new P.M.
¹²⁵
But, if Eden resigns, his government would and there would have to be an election. After all, the whole Cabinet was involved in this
madness, and not one of them has resigned so far; Nutting wasn't in the Cabinet, of course.
¹²⁶
The Universities are being useful in protesting; so are the clergy. Canon Collins rang me on Friday night at 10.30 about the protest Christian Action had drafted for the Press; he sent it me later, and I made some suggested alterations, which several people are doing. Of course it won't affect anything, but I think the more Christian protests are made the better. Of course the R.C.s will be too full of Hungary to bother much about Egypt, except for a few individuals, such as Lord Pakenham, Christopher Hollis, and any Liberal or Labour ones.
The Observer
was v.g., and said all we wanted. I think the opposition is so wide & strong that Eden can't go on with it long….

What nonsense [some people do]… talk. It sounds so second hand, the kind of thing the clergy repeat in pulpits, that the one thing God can't forgive is despair. Why should it be? And how... [is one to] know, anyhow? When one sees the appalling things done all the time, despair seems a very mild offence. I should say God would far rather Eden despaired than attacked Egypt. I hope E.
will
now despair a bit, after all that has been said about him. I rather wish the Labour members wouldn't behave like angry taxi-drivers, all that booing, cat-calling and gesticulating. Still, I suppose most of them are brought up to be expressive when angry, and it adds colour to the scene. I'm glad we get these frequent news bulletins. Each time I hope we shall hear Eden's voice apologising and saying he sees he made a terrible mistake and has ordered the immediate recall of planes & troops, since he sees that people don't mostly like it. But they say that being attacked makes him more obstinate, and the troops seem to be ‘getting on very well', as the [
Evening] Standard
puts it.

My Xmas card verses aren't very good, still they are about
the picture, and about Christmas.
¹²⁷
I foresee not sending any of them, if this war develops. Already people are raiding petrol, in case of rationing. A few more oil-pipes cut, and we are for it. Then I shall have to go to weekday Mass next door at the R.C. church, usually, as walking a mile each way so early is too tiring, and bicycling too chilly. But I can't really believe in a war, can you? I
think
it will be over in a week or two—tho' the disgrace won't.

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 [4 December, 1956]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I return this foolish Postal Order, as, if we
are
to begin paying one another for all hospitality received, I owe you far more than this for all my fish dinners at Romford. I won't start discussing whether you really think we should all pay each other for hospitality, as I am sure you don't. If we started that, I should be ruined soon, with all the lunches, dinners, drinks etc. that I go to with people. I don't even repay them in kind, as I seldom give parties myself; I ought to more. I am now just going out to lunch at the Café Royal, then tea at St Paul's Deanery with the Dean,
¹²⁸
and later dinner at someone's house, so it would, according to you, be an expensive day for me. The only thing I shouldn't pay for is
the
Messiah
in St Paul's after tea, which is free. Princess Margaret will also be at tea
8c Messiah.
I shall sit far back and leave early, as the
Messiah
is too long.