1959
'The sun on one's tummy is so delightful.'
'The sun on one's tummy is so delightful.'
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Here we are again, in yet another New Year. I was sitting up watching television on New Year's Eve, and someone on the B.B.C. staff said he wished his viewers the old wish 'that you may live every day of your life'. And that's about the best thing I can wish you, I think; and I have a shrewd suspicion that you, of all people, may more nearly live up to that exciting, interesting, and desirable method of going from day to day, than most of us do.
As for me, I have started off very nicely with a bad cold and sciatica, in spite of making an interim resolution in the middle of September, when I had it last, never, never again to get sciatica. That's my trouble – I never take my own good advice. I am still in the throes of painting the kitchen . . .
Rosalind's whereabouts get more and more complicated. I had a letter from Florence Olsen this week in which she said she had hoped Rosalind might have spent Christmas with them in Antigua, but Mr Akin won't fly anywhere, so now she is hoping perhaps Rosalind might stay with them in March. And you say, '? Montego Bay', but Montego Bay is quite a big place, and according to last year's letters it is getting jam-packed with enormous Hilton-like hotels. Anyway, don't you worry: I'll get a letter from her sooner or later, and then I'll know. In the meantime she will just have to go on thinking me rather remiss, I dare-say, although actually I have sent two letters and a card to the Hotel Casa Blanca with my fingers crossed.
From the material point of view I had an absolutely bumper, or vintage year. You remember that old song about the Twelve Days of Christmas and what 'my true love gave to me'?
Similarly, my Christmas was full to overflowing with gifts on the same bountiful scale. I had
seven bottles hooch,
six pounds chocolate,
five dollars, pairs stockings, pounds nuts,
four pocket handkerchiefs,
three tins talcum, bottles hand-lotion,
two parcels food, hanging-baskets for flowers,
one fountain pen, box writing paper, lipstick,
rouge, foundation lotion, face-powder,
cold cream, and £1 note.
It was grey all over Christmas, but warm enough to sit in the garden, had it been a little more cheerful. Of course, after three days of this greyness it had to break into a chill rain, and it has been wet ever since. I don't mind, so long as it isn't too cold: you and your nice bright cold clear days, they give me chilblains even to think of them. And you needn't tell me the climate is dry and therefore it doesn't feel cold – I spent four days in New York when it was cold, and I froze to death from the soles of my feet upwards, and this is only my ghost writing to you now, so there . . .
I have been rereading Robert Benchley, who always seemed such a pet . . . That, and another Gerald Durrell book about animals, made up most of my Christmas reading, because what with the painting and not being able to sit down very long (the back) to read anyway, and having this ghastly knitting still on the go, my reading has been very poor of late. I am still delving in the Philosophies + of Bertrand Russell, but my enthusiasm lags in the most surprising way after the first thousand pages.
Well, now, this being the first letter of my New Year, I must resolve not to pour out my selfish miseries into your ear, which is probably all too stuffed up with such vapourings already; and of course my usual
+
Philosyphy X
Philosophy
Phylosophy??
Well – take your pick. FW
New Year resolution, to be properly grateful to you for all your kindnesses and your bright letters and for always being there when I want you. That's one resolution, anyway, that I have kept faithfully for the last – oh, it must be ten years at least. Who would have thought, back in 1949 when you wrote me such a rude letter in answer to my first one (and I have it still, so don't contradict me, you!) that when 1959 came around we would still be at it, mellowed by time perhaps, but still dashing off letters at high speed and tossing them at each other with gusto.
As I have said before, bless you for your end of the gust,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . I loved your story of the dignified collie visiting your neighbours. How angry the cats must have been, to be so ignored. The tenant of the flat below ours, has a little corgi puppy, and you know how pugnacious they are. This one hates Freckleface with a penetrating hatred, and we are forever opening the back door because of the din, and finding Freckles sitting nonchalantly on a step washing his face, with Roger (what a name – I call him Podge) two steps lower, barking and snarling his head off, but not coming too close. Well, last night he apparently pulled all his courage together and came right up – and of course, Frecks just slapped him one, and the puppy went howling and screaming down to his own back door. Awful Fact of Life for a puppy to discover – Cats May be Teased, or Played With, but They Should Not be Attacked Unless One is Wearing Chainmail.
. . . We went to the Fagans' for dinner on Sunday and Mrs Fagan forgot to light the oven so that the chicken was red and raw, and the Christmas pudding tepid. We had them home on Wednesday and of course Mother wasn't going to be outdone, so we had
1 Her prize winning tomato soup with cheese, cream and sherry.
2 Grilled lamb chops with fried apple rings, baked celery with egg sauce and creamed potatoes.
3 Peaches with meringues and cream topped with chopped nuts.
4 Biscuits and cheese, pecan nuts, coffee and chocolates.
Rosalind having sent us four half-bottles of assorted 'hooch' for Christmas, we were able to give our guests sherry before dinner, and champagne during the meal. I forgot to ask them if they wanted a liqueur afterwards, which was just as well as we don't want them to get the idea we are millionaires. Thursday night dinner reverted to normal – bangers and spuds with tinned peas. For the benefit of the uninitiated, bangers are sausages, and spuds, potatoes, and tinned peas are horrid the world over . . .
It's a very cold crisp day with lots of sunshine and what snow there is, frozen hard. As you know I don't like cold weather so you will please arrange for a warm wind to come across next week, because I go to London on the 24th and have no intention whatsoever of freezing to death. See to it, please: I am sure you can't have anything else very important to do.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
First, thank you for your latest letter (January 25th) and for your helpful suggestion as to how I may win a fortune, by writing up my brother's wartime reminiscences in the style of Jane Austen. Starting, for instance, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Sergeant inspecting the troops is in need of a bribe'? But how to reconcile the Jane Austen style with your advice to omit no bad words, slang or other interesting phrases? When I have overcome that snag, I will get to work . . .
But now, to London, beloved London. I took with me one Dorothy Smith, and as her personality and presence had a lot to do with my enjoyment of the weekend, I must first tell you a little about her. She has been a very good friend of ours for many, many years and is, I should guess, in her early or middle fifties. She is what you would call 'homely', although she has always had, as long as we have known her, most beautiful grey hair. She is one of the very few people living in Bournemouth who was actually born and bred here. She has a responsible and well paid job at the Town Hall acting as Secretary to the Mayoress . . . and knows everybody in the town of any importance. With all this, she is terribly 'Missyish' and provincial. I was wondering on my return on Tuesday, whether my violent reaction against the stodginess of Bournemouth is not, in itself, a symptom of the same provincialism, but oh dear, I do hope not. We saw, in a shop window, a delicious confection of a pink tulle and ribbon hat, spangled with diamonds, designed by Dior, at which I exclaimed in delight. Dorothy looked seriously, and said, seriously, 'But you couldn't wear it in Bournemouth, dear.' She was most hurt when I snapped, 'I couldn't afford it anyway, and I am quite sure that if I could, I would wear it where I pleased and let Bournemouth care what it liked.' Everything we saw, did, listened to, ate – is related to Bournemouth.
One evening as we were eating a miserable bit of egg on toast for our 'dinner' in the hotel (D's economy) and were discussing what theatre to go to on Monday, a man sitting nearby leaned over and said, 'Let me recommend Expresso Bongo,' and he and I got into cheerful conversation. Dorothy was horrified; just sat there all taut and unhappy: goodness knows, her expression said, what would happen to my poor friend if I weren't here to keep her on the rails. Who knows, I might have got to talk to all sorts of interesting people! Many years ago, when I was a very shy 16, I used to know a family who had two friends, and we all used to go out walking in the country sometimes, and these two and their friends (there were us and two girls, me much younger than Cora, and three young men) were so witty, and bounced the ball of fun between them so gaily, I used to be both spellbound and tongue-tied. Now that I could at least hit the ball back sometimes, I have lost touch with them all, and it breaks my heart.
On Sunday morning, in London, I wrote Mrs Lucille Williamson in Marianna, Arkansas, and told her I knew I should have brought a dictionary to town with me, for there I was, writing to thank her for the $5 she sent me to pay for my ticket for M.F.L., and with no dictionary to help me to find adequate words with which to praise it. I had, as you know, been growing more and more depressed as everybody, and everything I read, confirmed the belief that Rex Harrison was not acting in My Fair Lady, but had gone skiing or sun-bathing or just off for a fit of sulks. In fact, going up to London in the train I was reading Punch, and there was a joke in it about the faces in the leading parts being so strange the audience had no chance 'To grow accustomed to their face' as the song had it, and the management had been asked to put a noticeboard outside Drury Lane reading 'All Star Cast Fridays'. Well, we went Saturday and there was an all-star cast that night, which made my fears groundless and my enjoyment that much greater. And great it was, indeed. Only one small thing was lacking – the wonderful shock it must have been to those seeing it for the first time, before all the publicity and ballyhoo had made it common knowledge of everybody in England. It was a play made by three things: the music, Rex Harrison, and the wonderful sets and costumes of Cecil Beaton. In his way, Stanley Holloway was better even than Rex Harrison, but his way wasn't completely and 100% suited to the play – he wasn't Doolittle, he was Stanley Holloway giving a wonderful performance on a music-hall stage. As such, he tended to divide the play into one part in which you could almost (as almost as an audience should be able to) believe you were looking in on a scene from real life; and the other part, in which some-body sang jolly songs and everybody danced and was funny, and the singer's personality came out and buffeted you as you sat in your seat in row S and wriggled because your back was hurting! Julie Andrews was very sweet and sang very nicely, and when you have said that, you come to a full-stop. She had nothing of the dignity and grace of Wendy Hiller in the film.* which led one to believe it quite possible for Eliza to be mistaken for a Hungarian Princess, at the ball. Julie Andrews was a very pretty, well-behaved little miss who could have been anybody, but was more probably nobody. However, please don't take these comments as being of the slightest importance as criticisms – the play was everything it was boosted to be.
* Editor's note: Frances is referring to the film Pygmalion (1938). The movie of My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn, was not released until 1964.
On Monday night we went to see the 'after dinner farrago' which is called At the Drop of a Hat. This is an intimate show in a very small theatre, and the props, as a pretty contrast to the enormous stuff at Drury Lane, consisted of one grand piano, one piano stool, and a very cheap standard lamp, the whole surrounded by plain, plain curtains which looked as if they were made of grey flannel suiting. The cast here is two – Donald Swann, who writes the music and plays the piano, and Michael Flanders, who writes the lyrics, does the talking in between-times, and doesn't need a piano stool to sit on as, poor man, he provides his own wheelchair. Here, unfortunately, the 'shock' was again missing, for I knew well about eight out of the sixteen or seventeen songs they sang. We had chosen (well, I had) to see this as being the only possible thing, after Saturday night at My Fair Lady; everything else would have been anti-climax.
Now I must finish this.
Best wishes, and don't catch any of your neighbours' colds, sinus infections or just plain germs.
Very truly,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . In London this week there is an exhibition of paintings done by stars of stage, screen, and radio. Amongst them was one which I did consider buying as a present for the Olsens, but changed my mind on seeing the price. Spike Milligan is the author of The Goon Show on radio, which I believe was very successful in the States. It is one of those mad non-sequitur programmes that I enjoy for about ten minutes and then feel surfeited. I should like to see his painting entitled Semi-mortgaged Property in the Cotswolds, though.
On my return from London it was a little disconcerting to be taken to task for going away because, in my absence, neither Mother nor Mac slept a wink for fear the cat should die in the night (he had a terrific fight) and then, when he seemed a little better, for fear he would want to go out, and squeak to that end, and they wouldn't hear him and the consequences would be unpleasant. Also, a new ash pan for the kitchen boiler had arrived and neither of them could fit it to the old fitment. They are now sleeping like small babes because I get up and let the cat out, and the ash pan is fitted and in place. Just like that . . .
A most horrid suspicion is creeping into my mind that Mac's fiancée is going to back out of her operation. She said last Sunday, in telling us all about her visit to the London specialist, that it was an easy job because the hole in her heart is situated on the outer wall, and that she would be only three weeks in hospital. Later on, she said, 'Oh, I couldn't bear to be away from home when the daffodils are in bloom', which, had I not heard it with both my ears, I would not really have believed as an excuse for putting off, or cancelling, an essential operation. Later, my brother announced that she was going to try to find out how much it would cost, because she feared it was going to be too expensive. I had asked her why she didn't have it done under the National Health Scheme, and she had been quite snappy and said she couldn't because she'd have to go in at the surgeon's convenience, and might even have to go into a public ward with other people! Now Mac says she is trying to get another appointment in London, and this time she won't take him with her, but her mother. If, having got Mac engaged to her because, as it was then, she was going to have the thing done and had only a fifty-fifty chance of survival and need-ed all the love and support she could get, she is now calling the whole thing off, I am afraid I shall be so angry I shall have to say nothing whatsoever, for fear of saying something I might later regret. After all, both her doctors have told her she must have it done before the emotional upset and excitement of a wedding, and that it should be done at once because of her age, and that if it isn't, with care, in about five years' time she'll find she won't be able to get up and down stairs. If Audrey thinks she can hold my brother and have him at home every night reading a good book because he has an invalid wife who can't go out with him, she just doesn't know my brother. Probably she doesn't. Having got over the initial shock and unhappiness the engagement gave me, and brought myself to a state of resignation, if nothing better, this comes as quite a setback. Audrey is, I think, working herself up into a state over this thing – she was describing luridly on Sunday what they were going to do to her. I said, 'But surely you'll be under an anaesthetic?' 'Oh yes, of course I shall.' 'Well then, you won't know a thing about it, so why worry?' Anyway, I was so annoyed with the silly creature on Sunday, believing that in her heart of hearts she is finding excuses because she's scared, I went straight to the telephone and made an appointment to visit the dentist, just to prove to myself that although I, too, might be scared, I could make myself do unpleasant things.
Now to pop this in the pillar-box. Last week it was foggy and as I left the Baths I saw the postman just emptying the box, so I ran like the wind and caught him with your letter, and said, 'Don't know why I rush like this, for undoubtedly the poor letter will only sit in London Airport for a week waiting for the weather to clear.' However, I do hope it didn't, and that you got it on time, and that this too will arrive on Tuesday.
Look after yourself.
Most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Since writing most of the above, I have developed – to go with the sciatica, which I have had so long now I've almost got accustomed to it – a nice little boil or abscess at the side of one eye, and you can guess what happened to that. I went to the dentist this morning, wearing a black eye patch and a jaunty expression, and when Mr Samson said 'What the!' I remarked primly that I hadn't liked the expression on his receptionist's face over the telephone last week when I rang up to cancel my appointment because a cashier was ill, so I didn't intend to give her another chance to say 'Oh, she'll seize any opportunity to cancel an appointment', so there I was. When I left, Mr Samson suggested he would prefer to see me next week wearing my usual rosecoloured spectacles, because I really wasn't the pirate type, and naturally I practically screamed with delight at his suggestion, and kicked myself for not thinking of it before . . .
What ghastly bad luck Mr Dulles is having. As you probably know, his policies are generally, in Europe, regarded with horror and loathing, and as the man whose ideas they are, he is, to put it mildly, not popular. But now that he is so ill, none of the papers I have seen has mentioned a single word against him, and they have all gone out of their way to praise the tenacity and integrity of his character, and the way he has fought against this ill health for so long. I daresay it is all part and parcel of the policy of not hitting an adversary when he is down, but it doesn't always hold good these days, especially in politics and in journalism. I watched the Small World interview on television the other evening, between Mr Truman and Lord Attlee, and was reminded of it, when news of Mr Dulles came through, for Lord Attlee remarked that in American politics you never knew who was going to be the next Head of the State, and therefore it was never possible to train somebody for the job. For, of course, Mr Dulles doesn't seem to have anybody trained to do his job – nor has he ever given any signs of intending anybody else could do it; but in the long run surely this is a short-sighted policy, because we all pop off in the end and it's very bad management to leave a vacuum behind us that is too large for Nature to fill without indigestion. I was disappointed in this Small World interview: I had expected more devastating frankness from Mr Truman, and had not expected so wide a grin, nor so squeaky a voice and so obvious an intention of 'being pally' as was displayed by Lord Attlee. I am told his voice was not previously so high, and had probably been affected by the slight stroke he had suffered some time ago, but I still feel that, of the two, Mr Truman had more natural dignity. And again, Truman had his study as a background; Ed Murrow had well-filled bookshelves – and poor Attlee had a large bit of plain curtaining, and a tray of tea-things! We did look poverty-struck, I must say!
. . . I told Mr Samson, who knows the family, that Audrey Fagan had asked me to tell him she was engaged, when I was there this morning . . . When, quite casually, I said something about my brother, Mr Samson could not hide his surprise, and said he thought Audrey could not make up her mind which of two men she knew, to marry. I said he was certainly thinking of two other men, probably in Audrey's pre-Frank experience, but it gives furiously to think, doesn't it! How wonderful to have two at a time anxious to marry one, and not being able to make up one's mind one way or another. Apparently she made it up a third way, in the end. Anyway, Audrey rang me at the office today to ask how my face was, and to tell me she was, after all, having the heart op. Now due to go to hospital the first week in March, and to stay about five weeks; so that's that, and I, like poor Audrey, will be glad when, say, the second week in March is over, and she has had the preliminaries and the main bout and has then only to get well again.
Oh – great news, the sun has twice appeared this morning, for the first time for nearly three weeks. It's amazing what a difference it makes to one's cheerfulness, and as it is just this second shining again, I will finish this letter off and post it while, like the sun, I feel cheerful, and hope when you read this you will wear a matching cheerfulness.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . This week, Mac has gone up to London (4 a.m. and if you think he didn't see that the whole household was awake to see him off, you don't know my brother) to be there and sit chewing his fingernails for eight hours while they deep-freeze, operate on, and unfreeze Audrey. What good he thinks he will do, I haven't a clue. However, he has taken with him a tiny basket, made in purple and yellow and green, and filled with a little polythene beaker. I cut all around the beaker, down to a depth of about one and a half inches, and then turned all this down, so that as the frills I had made tried to bend back, they came into the edge of the basket and were held firm. This held water, as the basket did not. Next, remembering that tiny black cat I sent you, I bought another one and sewed him to the edge of the basket, sitting at one side where the handle came up. Then, about thirty little silver horseshoes were sewn around the edge and up and down the handle, or hanging like catkins on tiny twigs. Once again, I filled the container with moss, and into this stuck short mauve and yellow freesias. I tried to get white heather but there wasn't any, and as it took me two whole lunch hours to get the other ingredients, I gave up and bought freesias because they look lovely, and smell delicious, and when Audrey comes around she won't feel like looking at anything, but she will still be able to smell.
He rang us about half past six, to say the operation had been successful and essential, as Audrey had a hole about two inches long in her heart. Now the 48 hours immediately after the surgery will be the crucial ones, but we all hope that Audrey will realise that if she can but stick the pain, the future is bright for her. Mac sounded as though he was about ready for a hospital bed himself! That's the trouble with men: they are so brave in battle when there are no women about, and go so to pieces when some female person is handy to take the responsibility! Mac's usual method of dealing with a crisis is to drink too much, which may help him temporarily, but is never a solution to anything, really. He picked me up at the Murrays' Saturday evening, very solemn and dignified and not speaking to his sister (nothing unusual) but it wasn't until he got in the car and tried to start it a) by turning off the heater, and b) by pulling out the choke, that I realised anything was wrong . . .
All for now: I shall go up and see Audrey myself on Sunday the 22nd, and stay until Tuesday to visit Lucia Watson, from Alton, who will be there for a couple of days on her way around the world.
I hope you are well and hale and hearty, also duly optimistic in this fine spring weather we are having.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . Last Monday at French class, before we finished the lesson, the teacher read out the results of the end-of-the-year test we had taken, the week before. The marks ranged from 45, to 66, gained by the woman with the photographic memory; 72, the little coloured woman who sits in front of me and is a wizard at grammar and parts of speech; to 81, a man who has a good knowledge of French but comes to the beginners' class because his wife is starting there. This having been done, and everybody having congratulated Mr Boothe, we go on with something else. Suddenly, one of the other students said, 'Mr Watts – you haven't told us how many marks Miss Woodsford got.' Mr Watts looked up and remarked mildly that he'd had several very poor papers. This coming home to roost, I suggested that he'd said enough and let's get back to work. This made no difference to Mr Watts, who continued browsing through his records. Eventually he found it, and said, 'I feel sure I gave you Miss Woodsford's marks – she got 86 and was top.'
!!!!!!
. . . Latest newsflash. I have just come into my office after talking in the hall with a very small customer who is learning to swim. She tells me she is now learning the creep. And, so far as I know, she is no relation of my mother's . . .
Now, I must get back to work. I do hope your cold weather has passed, and that you will have a fine, crisp, sunny Easter; and, of course, hope that the Easter 'egg' will arrive in good shape and be acceptable as a token of my respectful esteem and good wishes.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
This week I have been glancing through some of your old letters, and quite fascinating reading they have made, and I must thank you again (out of date, it is usually the one New Year resolution I do keep) for taking so much trouble over writing to me . . .
What a to-do about Dame Margot Fonteyn!* I had no idea the nation as a whole was so proud of her, and although Latin-American politics are right beyond my ken (except that vaguely I disapprove of them) I am glad the public opinion over here was strong enough to force the musical-comedy police in Panama to release her so promptly. I know we always tend to think of the nations around that part of the world as being childish, theatrical – musical-comedy, as I said – but I daresay it feels just as painful to be shot by a musical-comedy policeman as by a serious one in a more Nordic country. That horrid man, Aneurin Bevan, said in the House yesterday that 'The British public, having seen her in the role of the swan, did not appreciate seeing her in the role of a decoy duck', which I thought was very witty and quite true. I think it is very fortunate these days that a law was passed here several years ago, to ensure that when British Nationals married citizens of other countries, they did not automatically lose their British Nationality. After all, girls who married G.I.'s and found their marriages foundered, are always regarded as being English (or British, if you prefer) and looked at a little askance by Americans who may dislike my fellow countrywomen, and automatically regard the break-up of such marriages as being the Britisher's fault. And I am sure an Englishwoman married to a Spaniard or Italian or Frenchman, who got involved in police proceedings, would suffer the same way – however long she had lived in her husband's country she would still be looked upon as a foreigner. That being so, I think it is right that she should have what protection she can get from the country she is regarded as belonging to. Or do I get too involved?
* Editor's note: the British ballerina had been detained in a Panama City jail following the disappearance of her husband, Dr Roberto Arias, who was suspected of planning a coup against the government of President Ernesto de la Guarda.
. . . And now to go out and prowl around to see that all is well, which I hope you are, and will remain so until I can so abjure you again, next week.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
There is a nasty niggling feeling in the back of my mind this week that you aren't well. I'm hoping that it is just indigestion and without any foundation in fact. Anyway, as I am starting this letter midday Tuesday, no doubt my fears will be allayed before it is time to post it.
Last weekend I went with my brother to his tennis club, where each year are played the All England Hard Court Championships. I saw the women's finals, and most of the men's finals as well, leaving at 1.15 p.m. to go home for luncheon, my brother staying behind for another hour and a half to the bitter end. You will see from this blasphemous behaviour on my part that I am not such a fan of any sort of sport that I am willing to go without my lunch for it!
. . . Anyway, I was confirmed once more in my firmly held belief that sport is sport and should be enjoyed, and never confused with war, national pride, face-saving, or a spirit of I-hate-you-let-me-do-you-down-ishness. If you lost a race in your yachting career, I daresay that privately you were disappointed, but it wasn't the end of the world, and I doubt very much whether you went into training, spent long hours studying your opponents' tactics in order to circumvent them – in short, you did not rearrange your whole life merely in order to beat them. I am, I fear, very rude when people come to me and ask for subscriptions to start some sort of body or another to train more and more youngsters to top standard, so that we may win another couple of bronze medals at the next Olympic Games and so come that much nearer the records held by your nation and Russia. I couldn't care less, as the saying goes, who owns the medals, or holds the records . . .
Last weekend I sprayed my rose bushes once more. It is a task which is done regularly, like winding clocks or changing babies. I was finishing the last bit of fluid by spraying it over a large, thick, bush of veronica which is soon to be smothered with pink and white roses which for years have used it as a prop. Suddenly there was a terrific bit of hysteria and beating of wings, and out of the bush flew a blackbird. On looking closely inside the bush, I found a nest with two nice warm eggs in it. Well, since then I have been most careful, and each morning when I go down the garden to put food out for the birds, I go three sides of a square to reach the lawn without passing close to this bush – and in spite of such kindness on my part, the silly bird flies off in a tizzy every morning. Mother says she doesn't, when she goes down. And certainly she doesn't turn a feather when the cat goes and sits bang underneath the nest. But me, I remain the villain of the piece, come what may. I hope the eggs hatch out satisfactorily, after such sudden spells of chill.
Our cuckoo is back. I heard him in our garden – wretch, I hope the blackbird was safely in position – on Wednesday morning, as I went down the steps, and called out to ask Mother if she had heard him. And she hadn't! First time for years I've beaten her to it, and she was much put out.
While I remember, don't feel hurt when Rosalind rushes out and gets herself fitted behind the steering-wheel of your car. She hated it when I drove, when we went on that touring holiday together years ago. You should just sit there at her side and bow graciously to the public as you pass, for it isn't often enough these days you have so charming a chauffeuse, and you should make the most of the chances when you get them . . .
Which is the end for this week. I sincerely hope that by next week I shan't still be labouring under a 'hunch'.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . The How-Harassed-Can-One-Get Dept. On Wednesday evening, my brother asked me if I could possibly mend a shirt of his. The shirt had a sort of strip of knitted ribbing around the waist, and the elasticity of this had long since departed. So on Thursday I bought a length of very wide elastic used for edging lumber jackets and things like that. Immediately after dinner on Thursday, Mac took off the offending shirt, draped it negligently over the back of his armchair, and went to sleep in the chair in his undervest (unlike his sister, who always drinks her tea with her little finger cocked, my brother was brought up in a gutter!!) as, I took it, a delicate hint that he was waiting for his shirt to be mended before going out to the club . . .
We had dinner, or supper if you prefer it, with the Fagans on Sunday. Mother remarked later, 'Wasn't Audrey painful?' and I must admit, I quite agreed with her. Poor Audrey, she has been an invalid for so long, and the household revolved around her health, that she is more than a little bit of a – oh dear, I've forgotten the word. It isn't kleptomaniac, nor is it – perhaps it is hypochondriac? – anyway, she is so centred on her health and appearance that nothing else interests her. At intervals of about five minutes she would butt in on any casual conversation going on to ask if we were quite sure we thought she looked better, or hadn't we admired the way she had cut up the radishes, or didn't we think she'd done the flowers well, or were we sure we thought her colour was better, and how worried she was getting because she had regained all the weight she had lost through the operation period, and was now wondering whether she was going to get fat. As she currently weighs 103lbs and is my height, her legs and arms look like well dieted matchsticks at the moment, and I told Mac privately to stop her being so silly as to even think of dieting until she has put on another twenty pounds or so. Oh, I get more and more worried about the whole thing, for from my own observations and knowledge of my brother, I think he is getting very restive and bored but hasn't the courage to say so or make a break for it.
It's horrid of me to be so critical of Audrey, I know, and when I look inwardly I see so many facets of my own character that I just loathe – my boastfulness, for instance; and my inability to keep quiet about something that may hurt somebody else's feelings; my habit of riding over other people's wishes with the blissful belief that I am doing it for their good – that I do realise I am in no position to be critical of Audrey or anybody else. And I suppose there is always the doubt whether my knowledge of my own character is as accurate as I feel; whether my deep belief that I do almost everything just a little better than average but not well enough to be good at it, is a true belief or not; perhaps I am just being falsely modest? Oh, I don't know, and if you have got this far through this paragraph I don't suppose you can sort it out for me, either! What I feel is this, I have a reasonably good idea, deep down, of my abilities as such and of my faults. Has Audrey any idea of hers? Does she ask for admiration all the time because she really feels insecure and wants reassuring?
. . . I do hope your cold is quite gone by now, or if not gone, then suitably reduced from king to pin size. Summer colds are the very devil, aren't they – I had one about four weeks ago and was delighted that it lasted only three days. Only, it didn't. It left a cough behind it which I have yet; so please take my advice, and if I am too late to exhort you not to have a cold at all, don't have a Bournemouth-type cold.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Well, well; you leave me breathless, even after knowing you so well all these years. I must try your excuse on my dentist next time I go there, and say airily that I didn't come when the six months was up because, after all, I might cross the Styx any moment and it hardly seemed worth the bother and I only turned up in the end because the pain was just too awful to bear any longer . . . You have been coming that old gag about 'not being here next year', I may remind you, Sir, since the early summer of 1949, and although I admit that on the basis of pure logic, you are bound to be right in the end, I am hoping that I shall be too old to enjoy the joke when you send me a spirit message saying 'See, I was right, after all'. Anyway, haven't you a set of store teeth lying around the house somewhere you can make use of ? I ask such a horrid question because I was recently reading a book about Elizabethan England, and it was quite the thing in those days to keep a set or two in the great houses, so that they could be loaned to any guests visiting you who would otherwise have found it hard to tear the joint apart with their gums. Awful thoughts that conjures up, doesn't it?
. . . Well, my brother and his fiancée and her mum are all back from Devonshire, with Mac's back a mass of bright pink peeling blisters from the sun. He had a touch of sunstroke, and could neither eat nor sleep from Monday night until Friday morning. When a friend of ours heard this, she was furious and said you would have thought with two women there, they would have looked after him a bit better. Poor Dorothy, she has been so fond of my brother for so many years, without the slightest hope, for she is plain, white-haired, and as prim as could be. I hadn't the heart to tell her the case is slightly reversed when Mac is at Audrey's home – there, he has to look after the women-folk. Chez-moi, we look after him. I will admit I haven't mentioned to anybody (not even Mac) that Audrey told me rather smugly that as there was no lift in the hotel Mac used to carry her upstairs whenever she wished to go up . . . . . . Do you think MacPherson imagines himself to be a twentieth-century Rbt Browning? After all, Audrey had a big operation to put her heart right – who needs to carry her upstairs???? Mother, too, had had a dicky heart for the last ten or twelve years, but does Mac go down the stairs to fetch the morning paper when it comes bouncing through the letter box, to save Mother's heart? Does he heck! And don't say it's Lurve or I shall puke, Sir . . .
The Fagans told me that when Mac had more or less recovered from his sunstroke – by the Friday, that is – he felt it was necessary to liven things up a bit in the hotel, and to that end he astonished the staff who had worked there for years and never once seen them, by persuading somebody to switch on the lights on the terrace, and organising a flood-lit tennis match (four torches, held at each corner by giggling guests) to amuse those who were not dancing . . . . . . He also behaved exactly as if he was at home – went off and played golf and came back at 2.15 p.m. for lunch, and just calmly talked the head waiter into serving him! That, I may tell you spoiled Yankee, is practically unheard of in England, where the hotel guests do as the staff say, or else . . . . . . Altogether, when he felt well enough, Mac behaved just like his father, who always organised hotels whenever he had to stay in one of the hated places, and in spite of it all, always managed to be extremely popular with the staff as well as with the guests, so that the whole hotel would be en fête during his stay.
We have a woodpecker just arrived in our garden. Not last year's Green Woodpecker, but an ordinary one with a red topknot. He is a bit shy at the moment, but we'll tame him, you see. I couldn't agree more with you over the way this spraying of crops is ruining bird and animal and insect life, and, believe fully that eventually it will ruin the crops as well. Ah me, nothing like the good old days, is there Mr B?
And on that nostalgic note I will leave you until next Saturday, and hope that you will not repeat your cold, nor your recent fit of the dumps. Isn't there a yachting week coming along soon to take your mind off miserable thoughts?
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Do you remember, some weeks ago, I lost the first page of one of my letters to you? And thought, finally, I must have packed it in error with that drawing of the monks?
Well, all this week I have been doing your weekly letter in bits and pieces, and last evening – Thursday – it was almost finished. For some reason I cannot account for, I folded it ready for putting in an envelope, and put it back into my desk drawer, so that it did not lie openly to the gaze of anybody who happened to pull the drawer out. As I said, it was folded in three, with only the plain back of the outer sheet visible. And this morning, Friday, it has gone.
Gone completely and absolutely. I have turned my office inside out and upside down, and it is nowhere. I looked in my boss's wastepaper basket, and it is not there. In mine, neither, nor in the large rubbish bin we keep in the hall and into which we empty our baskets.
Tomorrow I shall have to ask my boss if he went to that drawer. I do not for a minute think that, if he had done so, he would go so far as to open a letter and, seeing my address and 'Dear Mr Bigelow' at the top, read it. I know he would not. My only hope is that, having opened it and seen it was a letter of mine, he has put it away somewhere and is going to blow me up for leaving personal correspondence about. The only thing other than that is that one of the staff is going through my things when I am not here, and that is a horrible suspicion, and upsets me so thoroughly that, sorry though I am, you will have to go without your usual letter this week, as I just cannot concentrate on rewriting the whole thing. Even if this is right – and somebody is reading my letters – why take it away? True, in it I have, as usual, mentioned things that happened at work and have even told you of an incident in which my boss was concerned, but why take the whole thing away and, by so doing, warn me of what is going on? Oh, I feel sick and shivery at the whole horrid business.
I am sorry, I will write you twice next week if I can. But I just can't right now.
Yours sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Oh dear – I had hoped to have good news for you today, but alas, Friday got worse and worse as the day progressed.
When I found your letter had disappeared completely you may imagine I fairly panicked at the thought of unauthorised persons reading what is always a very private letter – I don't care a hoot who reads it your end for nobody in Bellport knows anybody in Bournemouth, so no harm is likely to come of their knowledge of little bits and pieces out of my life. But for the staff to read what I say about them, and about my boss and his family! That made me feel so sick I didn't eat for 24 hours, and even now, four days later, can get food down only with difficulty. For, in that particular letter, although there was nothing I have not already said to him in person, there were things about my boss and, especially, about his daughter-in-law, that I would give my eyeteeth not to have read by any other interested parties.
But the letter, although that is by far the worst, is only one of many things. You must know that Thursday morning it looked as if it might rain, so I picked my umbrella out of the stand as I left home for the office, and as it was unfurled, I rolled it up as I walked to the garage. When I got to work, I hung it on a hook on my office door, and left it there overnight as it was fine when I finished work, and I remember thinking it might be as well to leave it in town and use it at midday on Friday, when I go home for lunch. So there it was, Thursday night, in my office. Friday evening, when I was morosely getting ready to go home about 9.30, I went to pick the umbrella off the hook, and thought, 'That's funny – I didn't remember seeing it had rotted, when I rolled it up yesterday.' And I unfurled it, and opened it, and oh Mr Bigelow, somebody must hate me to the point of mania, for the whole thing had been ripped to bits with a nail or a screwdriver, or something pointed, which had been pulled hard down each of the folds, towards the ferrule. When I showed it to my boss on Saturday morning, he – he hadn't altogether believed me before – in turn opened it, and dropped it as if it were hot, saying, 'This is the work of a madman!' as he did so. Even at second hand, you see, he felt some of the cold horror I got at this anonymous hatred.
Now that I look back, that first disappearance of a letter does not seem to be my carelessness in packing it up with your tie, or the monk drawing, as I decided at the time I had. Nor does it seem possible any longer to kid myself that the piercing of the gramophone diaphragm in a dozen places was done naturally, by the pitch of the noise when I played a record. I know when I found it, the engineer said it could not have been done naturally but must have been deliberate, but so naive was I, I refused to believe anybody would do such a thing. In my own mind I believe I know who it is: it may be that in my distress I am looking only at those straws which are blowing in the same direction, but I still feel I am right. Apart from never leaving anything personal about in future, I am in terror of what this warped mind may think to do with the two letters he has – blackmail of me is impossible and in any case I should go at once to the police; but he could send the last one to my boss's daughter-in-law if he wanted to be really cruel, for it would make all friendly relationships between them (very strained at the moment) quite impossible. When I can, I am trying to make a systematic search of the building, but there are thousands of places where a man could hide something, even if he didn't take it home, or keep it in his pocket. I have told my boss, and although I didn't tell him what was in my letter, gave him a hint that it concerned him personally; he was very upset but did not upbraid me.
Of course, he then said he thought somebody had been going through his office a long time ago, that was why he had a special lock on the door to which only he and I have keys – in my office, nothing locks, not even my desk.
Never mind: I'll send you a more cheerful letter on Friday, probably padlocked. But aren't people foul?
Yours distressed,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Don't tell me the postal authorities have taken to using pigeons instead of aeroplanes for their transatlantic mail? You should have received my last letter before Friday. We must claim a refund . . .
On Wednesday afternoon, while the audience was coming in for the water show matinée performance, as I was working with my office door open, I heard the hall man say, 'Does anybody own this?' When I went out, he had been referring to a tiny baby, not more than eighteen or nineteen months, who was rushing about the hall and up and down the entrance steps. The baby was wearing a crew-cut and a pair of stamp-size pants. After looking at him sideways, I said dubiously that I thought I had seen him before, only on the previous occasion he had been on the seafront and his tummy was fatter, too . . .
Anyway, eventually the infant wandered off and tried to push Mr Markson's enormous red Jaguar off the road, and as he – the infant – was then heading straight for the traffic on the main road I dashed out and stopped him, and asked where his mother was. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the beach and France, so holding one hand in mine, we set off to look for her. We had a long and vivid conversation, only one half of which meant anything at all to me, but he apparently enjoyed it for he kept bubbling over with laughter . . . When we reached a stall selling sweets, under the pier, I looked in and saw a young ticketcollector (deckchair tickets) and said, 'Please, do you know where this one belongs?' The man raised his hands in mock horror, and saying resignedly, 'What, again! Every day, that one. Every day. Come on, Buster, back to the Office.' So he hoisted the small baby onto his shoulders, and set off to the Beach Office where lost property of all sorts is kept, merely turning his head over his shoulder and saying to me, 'Really should have a strong chain on, this one.' To be such a well-known character by the time you aren't two, something to be quite proud of. And such a happy baby, too. I only hope its mother was equally happy; obviously she wasn't the worrying kind of parent.
My brother took his 16 assorted children from one of the Homes to the zoo at Bristol for the day on Monday. I asked him when he got home if he had managed to lose any of them, and he giggled and said no, but almost. Apparently when the coach-driver had arrived to collect them, Mac told him they would be 20 minutes late as there was such a long queue for rides on the elephant some of his kids wouldn't get one at all if they didn't have this extra time. Finally he said, he got the lot together, and was busy counting them for the second time when they were all safely inside the coach, when, presto, there were only 15. 'It didn't matter much,' said Mac, 'as I just went back to the elephant, and there was little Eric waiting for another ride.'
Incidentally, said brother is off on holiday again at the end of the month – to Scotland this time. He's done very well this year. A week at home while the national Hard Court Tennis Championships were being played at his club ground. Fine weather. A week at Salcombe. Very fine weather. A week for the Hampshire Tennis Championships at the club. Fine weather again, and now ten days for Scotland. He'll get home the day I start off on my holiday, so I daresay the odds are the weather will break the same day or am I being unduly pessimistic? Never mind, even if it rains in France I intend to enjoy myself, and can always buy a raincoat for the occasion anyway. Having taken the plunge, I am quite looking forward to it, and on consultation with my post office savings book, don't think I shall arrive home broke after all, which is a pleasant surprise . . .
Ah well. That's all for now . . . Don't become a recluse, now – you'll hurt half Bellport, if you do, for I am sure your many friends love to see you in their homes, if only to add a comfortable atmosphere, sitting sipping your punch by their fireside.
See you next Saturday,
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
Well, yesterday has been and went, as it were, and I hope that way out at Bellport it went well, with everybody highly satisfied, especially the leading actor of the day . . .
I sat up late the other evening to watch our wonderful Dame Margot Fonteyn dance on television. She, with Michael Soames, did a pas de deux from Ondine, which was a revelation. It was incredible how a mature woman in her early forties could, merely by dance movements and mime, portray the coy, skipping soul of a young girl. She was just wonderful. To follow her in the programme some brilliant mind got Richard Hearne to do his famous 'Lancers' dance, as a sort of contrast! I had not seen him do this before, so nearly rocked off the settee as he progressed. First of all, he sits at the side of the ballroom watching a set of dancers doing the Lancers. When they finish, he decides he'll take part, but when he reaches the dance floor everybody has vanished. So he dances a set by himself, peopling the floor merely by means of his eyes, watching the other pairs doing their steps as it is his turn, with his partner, to stand still for a few moments. The music gets quicker and quicker, with the inevitable consequence at last. I understand it is almost a classic of the theatre, this dance of his, and well it might be.
My brother's wedding date now seems to be fixed for August 6th 1960, that being the Saturday nearest to the day they met, says Audrey coyly. Her mother is busy giving them bits and pieces of furniture with which to equip a sitting room, Audrey's bedroom and a small bedroom-cum-'den' for Mac. In a way I suppose Mac is fortunate, for he won't have much to provide in the way of equipping a home. I am still giving advice, and never in my life has any of mine been accepted so quickly! Last week, I said I didn't like green curtains in their new sitting room, which is a cold room, and thought the curtains at that time in the dining room would look better, and the dining room, in turn, would look vastly improved if it had light chintz. 'The very idea!' said Mrs Fagan, so down come the curtains and she pops out the next morning to order new ones, expense no object.
I have not liked to bother Rosalind, who must surely have had enough on her hands with Mr Akin's nervous disposition and that threatened steel strike at Leclades, but perhaps now that she has visited you, you can pass on any news there is – whether the strike did start, or whether at the last moment it was averted. From your remarks about strikes and M. Kruschov [sic] I fear it is 'on', but hope I misread your mind.
Winter must be well on its way, for my sciatica and other bits and pieces of rheumatics have returned, and sent me scurrying back to my tin of ghastly salts. If only the pain wasn't in the right leg, I would have the darn thing off. Trouble is, it is my left foot which is the larger, so to have the right one (complete with leg) removed would not make me take any smaller size in shoes, and I can't right now think of any other good reason for doing away with the smaller leg . . .
I am late with this letter already, so will waste no more time except to send you my very best wishes, and hope you had (of course you did!) a very happy time with Rosalind.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . As I was wending my miserable way to the dentist this morning, I came across a very ancient parked motor car. It had screwed to the bonnet a neat plastic sign which read:
THIS CONVEYANCE (CIRCA 25BC) WAS REPUTEDLY COMMANDEERED BY HENRY V AT AGINCOURT TO REPLACE HIS FAILING HORSE. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH OR DESPOIL THIS HISTORIC RELIC.
It quite reconciled me to my visit!
He gave an injection for the filling, which was nice, but didn't stop me having to go out from home on an empty stomach. He – the dentist – was also a bit taken aback when, expecting nothing but gratitude for his pain-free drilling, he found me complaining bitterly of the noise. 'Might as well live on the boundary of London Airport,' I reported sourly, on coming up for air and a nice spit. So then we had a long and heated argument about politics and ethics, which was entertaining and hard work, as he is so much cleverer than I, I am hard put to it to stay even two rounds.
Oh yes, Freckleface has a new bed. Queen Elizabeth 1 didn't do better. I got rather fed up with my sleepless nights with this fat cat lying all over my shin bones; so I folded in three an old quilt, and placed it on the lower half of the tea-trolley which I use instead of a bedside table. On top of the quilt I put each night his little silk (artificial, in case you think I am quite mad) cover, and when he comes stalking in, he gets popped there, in his own little four-poster bed. The first night he objected strongly, and for nearly an hour after I had put out the light, whenever his purrs stopped suddenly, I would put down my hand and there would be his little face, just creeping out and up onto my bed. The second night he thought he was a bit of alright, and now he pops in with alacrity, and sometimes if I am awake in the night and I can hear him washing or turning over, at my side, I can hear also a little contented purr come up, before he sinks back into sleep.
On Sunday I took Mother, Dorothy Smith, and an elderly cousin of Dorothy's, to Kimmeridge for a picnic tea. It was so hot you wouldn't believe it. We went for a short walk along the top of the cliffs, until stopped by arriving at a barbed-wire enclosure where they were drilling for oil (Yes, oil in England and finding it too). We couldn't get any further because the cliff went straight up to the sky, or down into the sea, and we, not being spiders, could not follow suit in either direction. It was magnificent scenery, though, and well worth being polite to the guards on our biggest oil-well yet. We were glad to see they weren't making a terrible mess of the beauty. Yet.
Now I must get this off and back to work. Next week I shall be in Worthing without much time for writing. Never mind, I shan't be so brief as not to be able to wish you well, as I do now.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
If I can get a page of this letter done before I go away on Wednesday (Wednesday last, according to the date at the top, of course) then you won't feel you are being neglected . . .
Many thanks for your last letter, in which you ask for the impossible – my views on whether women prefer to be envied by other women, or desired by men. Do most women have to make the choice? It seems to me that by the time women have reached adulthood, their natures and character have formed, and they probably are no longer in a position to choose. Besides, are the two things alternatives? I think it is rather unhappily phrased anyway – you make it sound as though we are either cats or nymphomaniacs! Then again, your question suggests a woman is either immediately attractive to men, or not at all. So far as I know any desire I may arouse in men is something that grows gradually – that is guesswork: I don't go around asking Thomas, Richard or Harold 'Am I desirable?' Might have awkward repercussions. But I do think I might be envied by other women – a guess. I don't know. But as a reasonably happy person I can imagine myself the object of envy of women who, perhaps, think themselves less happy. Oh dear! Let's get out of this. I'll ask you one, 'Have you stopped kicking your cats?'
Last night I stopped up late (for me) to see which way the Election was running, and went to bed about 1 a.m. secure in the belief that Conservatives would be 'in'. As they are. The whole thing was shown on
T.V. from 9.30 p.m. to about 4 a.m. And again today from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.! The Socialist bigwigs, interviewed in the early stages of the count, were as confident as heavyweight boxers; and so looked silly in the end. The Conservatives were not interviewed at all (no reason was given us: they may well have refused, wily-birds) and so, today, nobody can say 'Oh, pride goes before a fall!' or 'Don't count chickens!' etc.
As you can see, I am at long, long last separated from my old typewriter; sitting in Worthing (halfway along the bottom edge of England) in the sun; and shortly stopping to get tea.
Au revoir until next week, and look after yourself.
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Cher M. Bigelow,
See how my environment affects me! Any minute now I shall burst out again in fluent, but fluent comme la Seine, French, and then you'll be sorry. Sorry you neglected your schoolboy languages the better to appreciate mine.
Still, yesterday I went out by myself, Mrs Bendle being a latish riser, and went into a small shop and asked for a little butter, and some bread, and please, that bottle of Chablis – was it sweet or dry? Having got so far, I plunged on and asked where I found the bus for Versailles. This was the end! All the customers were brought into the discussion, and the head of the house. There was gesticulation and jabbering and in the end I understood that I caught a bus from around the corner to Porte de Versailles, and from there to the Palace it was everybody for himself. So we took the train!
After trailing around Versailles, to find the Petit Trianon was shut for repair, we got lost (a little) and asked somebody the way. As somebody had already asked me (!) the way, it was poetic justice that this woman also was 'a stranger in these parts'. She in turn asked another passer-by who, but of course, was a stranger, so by the time we met up with a native of Versailles we had half the street blocked. I asked, so carefully, 'Pardon, monsieur – voulez-vous me dire où est la gare?' and he said 'Quelle gare? Il y a trois' [sic]. Not fair for two reasons. One, we had no idea there was more than one, and, two, we had no idea which of the three we had arrived at. So this meant thinking up some more French – 'the station for Les Invalides, please'. In the end, we got there, finally asking the way of a handsome young St Cyr cadet. Unhappily, nothing exciting happened – he just told us.
Yesterday, the Flea Market. It was not, to me, disappointing for there were a great many beautiful things to see. But everything we dared ask about was so expensive. I bought (for me, from you for last Easter, merci beaucoup, très beaucoup) a lovely alabaster powder bowl, which looks like a milky sky faintly touched with darker drifts of clouds. You may remember, a powder bowl has been on my 'wants' list for several years, and now I have it, and from time to time I take it out of its paper and stroke its lovely soft surface. Thank you very much indeed. My only other purchase was an old oval picture made of hair (human, one hopes) in an ebony and gilt frame. Probably they won't like the hair, so before I give it to the Fagans I shall have to replace the flower arrangement – all in hair, very clever, if a little macabre – with something more ordinary.
We have eaten splendidly and quite cheaply, really for none of our daily meals has cost us more than about 14s. or $2, and the helpings have been so large it has even been hard to get an appetite up for our second meal of the day, which is a picnic in our hotel room of bread and butter, cheese and grapes, wine and nuts and a little chocolate. Lummy! That makes us sound as though we were really stuffed!
Today we see the Louvre. I don't want to, but my companion is a woman of iron self-will, and what Lulu wants, Lulu gets. It is easier to go with a steamroller than against it and I don't really mind. When I do, then I stick to my wishes and get them usually by some devious means.
Paris is as lovely as always. At night the enormous plane trees on both banks of the river, rustling in the breeze, send up a harmonious accompaniment to the sudden rushing noise that is made by the traffic, held in leash by the red lights, suddenly being released and leaping forward like a corporate body, in one fighting, fierce surge. I have amused myself trying to picture Paris traffic rushing, six, seven, or even eight abreast, up the narrow, congested streets at home. To see two French drivers simultaneously flash around a corner into a narrow side street is, at once, an awe-inspiring sight because of their skill, and terrifying because of their lack of care for the safety of each other.
Today – Tuesday – Mrs B. had a cable saying her son was arriving in Scotland on Saturday, so we are going home on Thursday instead of Saturday. I don't really mind as she is rather overpowering, being immensely kind, but at the same time she must always be right, and she knows what's best for you. Right or wrong, she's still right, which can be a trifle wearing on her companion . . .
Today we saw, as all the museums were closed, an exhibition of young modern painters and sculptors. Mr and Mrs Olsen would have loved it! The American room had one 'painting' of which the top half was filled by a flattened-out acid drum still bearing the words 'Dangerous – the contents must be kept dry' and the rest of the canvas contained, under several layers of paint for varnish, the painter's old woollen pullover (unwashed where it was not covered by paint) some photographs of a ship at sea, a piece of wood, possibly the skirting board he had not used for firewood. In case you want to send an offer for this masterpiece, the artist responsible (? could one call him 'responsible'?) is Robert Rauschenberg.
Last-minute rush: we have seen another exhibit of modern paintings; the Impressionists, and the Louvre. Also went very expensively to the theatre and it turned out be to a French adaptation of one of Cornelia Otis Skinner's plays! As it was all a comedy of words, I was lost, utterly and throughout the whole thing – at top speed – got scanty words only and two whole sentences – 'Do sit down' and 'Who is this girl Frances?' Never mind, the Pierre Balmain dresses were wonderful.
All for now, back to work now.
All my best wishes,
Françoise W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . There has been on television a series of interviews to find out the English Woman's opinions on a poll recently taken in your country. I am not quite certain about the exact words, but they were either 'What do you think is the innovation which has made the greatest difference to your standard of living in the last ten years?' or '. . . . . . the innovation which has most greatly altered your way of living . . . . . . ?' The poll in the U.S.A. revealed that your ladies think a) barbecue cooking, b) polythene hairsprays, and c) power brakes, have had the greatest effect. I was fairly speechless at this, and looked up to see what the English housewife and business girl thought. Here were their choices:
1 Artificial flowers with electric lights inside, instead of the old-fashioned type of light which was a light, period.
2 Tinned cat food.
3 Composition soles for shoes.
4 Childbirth (the interviewer could not refrain from suggesting this had been going on for longer than ten years, but the young woman insisted she meant what she said – that today it is quite painless!). I am not going to try to prove her right or wrong.
5 Plastic mirrors for budgerigars. Yes, that is what the woman said.
6 Electrical gadgets, in particular, spin dryers. (Bless this one for an I.Q. way up, by sheer contrast, in the genius class.)
7 Special paper coated with sand, to use in the bottom of bird-cages and stop the chore of having to put fresh sand in every day.
8 Chinese restaurants, because one can eat good food, cheaply, there.
9 Television. (I thought this had been going on for longer.)
10 Artificial flowers to put in the garden in the winter, and so make the garden look blooming all the year around.
I give up. I bow the head in shame. I splutter. I laugh. I cry. I just plain don't believe it. The commentator, after these eleven interviews, looked at the camera with a dead-straight face and said dryly, 'I never cease to be surprised by the people I meet.' British understatement . . .
More next week; until then keep well and don't throw anything through the television screen.
And now, really au revoir,
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.
Dear Mr Bigelow,
. . . This last week has been full of event and excitement for me, even though the events were but small stirrings in a teacup, and the excitement a mere leavening of my spirits from the dull doldrums they had sunk into by last Saturday.
After as many 'will' and 'won't' announcements as there are petals on a daisy, at the end of last week it was finally (and tardily) decided that I should have some central heating in my office. Joy and huggings (self-huggings, have no fear, we are a highly respectable staff, alas) and I bounced home to tell the family my good news, and started tossing padded quilted overcoats out the window.
Then I must tell you about Mother's legacy. It hasn't come yet, and won't for some months yet, but we know how much. The cousin, true to her lifetime habits, was too mean to go to a lawyer to draw up her will, so she went to a neighbour and he did it for nothing, and did it with so many inaccuracies that it will mean a great deal of work and worry for the executors to get it probated and sorted out. One of the executors is a brother of Mother's. She has left him £200, which he says he will more than earn with all the work he will have to put in clearing up the will: besides, he has always looked after her financial affairs, and only last year (he told us) he put through a property deal for her which netted her £2,600 profit, so poor Uncle more than deserves his £200. Then she left the same amount to Mother!!!!!! And a few pounds here and there to the rest of her cousins. And the remainder to charity. A matter of some seventeen thousand pounds!! When I tell you that Mother remembered staying with this cousin and her mother when my mother was a little girl, and they served the batter pudding and gravy before the meat and vegetables 'because it takes the edge off the appetite and you save money on the meat, my dear' you may imagine how the cousin managed to save all this money . . .
Mother has already worked out what she is going to do with her fortune, and I have worked it out another way so already, you see, the money is bringing dissension to the family! Mother, bless her, suggested a fourway split; one quarter to each of us, and the last quarter to me as well to pay for the refrigerator, as every time she looks at it Mother apparently thinks, 'There is Norah's fare to America!' My idea is that Mother should give Mac £50 for a wedding present; put the same amount in my bank account, put £20 aside for television repairs, spend that sum on a wedding-outfit for herself; have a really good holiday, and if there is anything left after that, well, she could let me have £10, perhaps, towards the refrigerator, which would make me more than happy as I was glad to be able to buy it anyway, and have long since forgotten the money was ever in my account. Mac has produced no good suggestions, merely offering his post office savings account as a 'safe' (his word) place in which to put the money.
I remarked somewhat forlornly that I was already saving to get the fare to and from America for your Special Birthday in – what is it? 1963 – but at the rate I am going (I didn't mention this bit) you had best postpone 1963 until, say, 1969 if you will, please . . .
Now to say au revoir until next Saturday,
Yours most sincerely,
Frances W.