On 12 December – a Sunday – Henry Stanley Harvey married
Elsie Beatrice Godenhjelm in Helsingfors at the English Church.
So endete eine grosse Liebe.
3 December. Oxford. I was having lunch with Denis Pullein-Thompson in Stewart’s. We had been to a sherry party and were still feeling the effects of it. I was talking like a Finn. When we had almost finished lunch a young man came and stood by our table. He was about my height, slight and dark with a quizzical, rather monkey face. He wore a camel hair coat and a spotted tie and looked sleek and neat. Denis introduced him as Jay and me as Päävikki Olafsson. He sat down with us. I went on talking like a Finn. After a while Denis had to go to an OUDS rehearsal so Jay and I were left alone. I gave up being a Finn. We talked about my writing. He said that he sometimes wrote poems and that he thought it might be a good thing to spend five years writing a novel. I said I couldn’t do that. He asked me to go back to his rooms in Balliol, which I did. He asked me what I would like to drink but I wanted nothing. His rooms were rather untidy, with papers and letters all over the table and desk and a rather ill-drawn map for some subject of Pass Moderations. The books were just work books. We sat on a sofa – he took my hand and told my future and then kissed me. I was surprised – it was the first time anyone so much younger than he had done such a thing, for he was only eighteen and I twenty-four.
He had so much charm and a kind of childish simplicity, combined with Continental polish that was most appealing.
He stole my handkerchief – a Woolworth’s 1½d paisley – and wouldn’t give it back. Before I went he put some German and Hungarian records on the gramophone and made me say that it would be Auf Wiedersehen and not Adjö. He came out into the rain and walked with me to the bus stop, arm in arm, with fingers linked. I was happy.
4 December. I went back to Oswestry and later had a letter from him
I went to a ball at the Austrian Legation last night. Everyone wore peasant dress or pre-war Austrian uniforms. Occasionally swarthy Hungarians smashed their glasses against the wall. It was your party. I wish you could have been there. They played nothing but Viennese waltzes, and Bauermusik.
Next Friday I leave for Kitzbühel. I’m afraid the atmosphere will be anything but central European, but I’ll send you a postcard of some mountains and some peasants.
I send you a handkerchief that you may dry your tears when you read Werther. I’m afraid it’s not as nice as yours but it will make up for it. When am I going to see you again my ‘vaend at Elske’ Vikki – when do you come to London? and when you come will you be a Shropshire spinster? a Finnish student? or just a novelist up to see her publisher?
Servus
Jay