Love in the Blitz

September 1939–April 1940

With the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, war had become all but inevitable. On the same day that German planes bombed Warsaw, Britain’s army was mobilised, and as the evacuation of mothers and children from major cities began, and London sank into the darkness of the first blackout, the country waited every hour for the declaration of war that still did not come.

At 9 a.m. on Sunday 3 September, after another two days prevaricating, Chamberlain finally bowed to Cabinet and parliamentary pressure, and an ultimatum was delivered to the German government. At 11 a.m. it expired unanswered, and the country finally, and unheroically, stumbled into war. Six hours later, an even tardier France followed suit. The long ‘half-time’ of peace was over.

This would be the last summer the whole Alexander family would spend together at Drumnadrochit. That Sunday morning they sat around the wireless and listened to the prime minister’s broadcast to the nation, and as their holiday neighbour, Mrs Ironmonger – an aspiring Lady Novelist who had tormented Eileen with her unpublished manuscript – hurried back to Liverpool and ambulance duties, and her son to his Territorial unit, a frustrated Eileen was left in her Highlands limbo, with her parents, brothers, family nurse and the Alexanders’ customary gaggle of hangers-on, wondering what she was going to do.

In these first weeks of the ‘Phoney War’, when no German bombers came, and the RAF dropped leaflets on Germany, and city evacuees drifted back to their homes, a curious sense of anti-climax settled over Britain. On 4 September the first advance units of the British Expeditionary Force had sailed for France, but the only real fighting was taking place a thousand miles to the east, where a doomed Poland fought on alone.

When more than a month later Eileen finally returned with her mother to London, before going on to Cambridge to begin her research on Arthurian Romance, it was certainly the normality of home-front life rather than its strangeness, that would have struck her. The Emergency Powers Act (Defence) had given the government dictatorial powers over the whole gamut of national life, and yet while barrage balloons floated above London, air-raid wardens patrolled the blacked-out streets and everyone now carried ration books, identity cards and gas masks, the cinemas were again open, rationing – except for petrol – had not yet begun, the gas and bomb attacks had not materialised, and ‘everything that was supposed to collapse’, as Eileen’s great friend Aubrey Eban recalled, ‘went on exactly as before’.

It was the same when Eileen moved into her rooms at ‘Girton Corner’ in the middle of October, with Cambridge very much the Cambridge she knew and many of her old friends still up. On the outbreak of war, Parliament had brought in conscription for all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one, but Gershon’s age group had not yet been called up and he was back at King’s, studying law, starring in union debates alongside Aubrey, and exchanging notes and letters with Eileen, just three miles down the road, as if the war did not exist.

War, however, was closing in. On the day that Eileen and her mother had left Drumnadrochit for the Mayfair Hotel in Berkeley Square, Poland finally succumbed, and German armies began their move from east to west. In December the Battle of the River Plate gave the British public a rare victory but the New Year brought little else to cheer. Abortive plans to help Finland and simultaneously deny Germany Sweden’s iron ore would lead to the chaos and humiliation of the Norway campaign. Merchant losses at sea prefigured the long and desperate fight against the U-boat that lay ahead and by January the first food rationing – sugar, butter, bacon – was introduced. Before the New Year was a week old, too, the Alexanders’ much-loved old friend, Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of State for War, bitterly at odds with his own generals, had been sacked.

As Eileen prepared to return to Cambridge after the Christmas vacation, across the Channel the BEF dug in along the Belgian border next to their French allies, and waited for an attack they were ill-equipped to resist.

2
‘No time to sit on brood’

Friday 1 September 1939 On hearing Hitler’s ‘peace’ proposals over the wireless last night, I begin to feel a warm glow at the idea of punishing the insolent brute, as well! The beautiful impertinence of the suggestion that – (given twelve months for the dissemination of Nazi propaganda & terrorism in the Corridor) he would like another of those now-notorious cooked plebiscites – is really almost inspired! I don’t think even our simple-minded Neville would fall for that one again, somehow. Do you?

I have now heard from Miss Sloane. There is nothing but clerical work at the War Office for the present – but she advises the Censorship. I should apply immediately, she says & I shall probably have to take an exam, soon. Thank God for that. Can’t you see, Gershon, how I come to life again, at the very prospect of something to do?

I had a pathetic card from Ismay this morning. She is staying in Sussex with Charles. He can’t be far away from London, as he expects to be called up any day.

I have written to the Censorship office, telling them how clever & useful I am, and how silly they’d be not to have me. I intended to write the letter myself, but I turned all bashful at the last minute & couldn’t take the responsibility for such a lot of lies, on my own shoulder – so Dad dictated a gem of a document. If you only knew what a mine of precious ore you’d held, bleeding down the front of your suit, ten weeks ago – you’d never have sent the suit to the cleaners.

I presume that owing to the outbreak of hostilities between Germany & Poland this morning – the declaration that we are at war, will be put before the House this evening.

You are likely to have a great deal to do, and worry about during the next few weeks. Please darling, if you are bothered or busy, don’t attempt to write me long letters. I’d be glad of post-cards – to know how you are, and letters if and when you have time – but I’m no longer an invalid who has to be humoured – and all men who are likely to be conscripted will have to think primarily of themselves now, and not of spoilt & idle women to whom they have already been over-indulgent.

Saturday 2 September We shall not be leaving here on the fifth, and I shall stay here until I have definite work to do – which I hope to God will be soon.

Sunday 3 September We have just been listening to Chamberlain’s announcement that we are at war. There is nothing more to be said except God bless you and keep you, and everyone else who is going to help in blotting out slavery & brutality, from too much sorrow and pain. I’m afraid this sounds banal – but I mean it, Gershon.

Let me have news when you can – because I shall be worrying and wondering, at all times, about the whereabouts and safety of all my friends in vulnerable areas – but once again let me reiterate that a post-card will be enough if you haven’t the time or the inclination for letter-writing.

You must be worrying a great deal about your parents. Has your younger brother been sent away to a place of safety?

Under the new Conscription Act1 – I suppose you will soon have to start training for a commission.

This declaration of war has had an astonishingly Cathartic effect upon me. ‘I have not youth nor age – but, as it were, an after dinner sleep, dreaming of both.’ The rain is coming down in a thin drizzle and there are wisps of fog crossing the tops of the hills. It is very dark.

We are as safe here as we could hope to be anywhere. Don’t worry about me, please. I am getting better astonishingly quickly, and soon, I hope – I shall be perfectly fit to do useful work wherever I can be of help.

I hope you are less thin & tired than when I saw you last. Forgive my clucking (nature will out) but do take a tonic if you’re not – an army marches on its stomach, after all – & people with concave tummies have to crawl along on their ribs – which is uncomfortable.

Good luck, Gershon darling, and (as Miss Sloane said) may we soon meet again in Peace.

Don’t be alarmed at the solemn, not to say sententious, tone of the last part of this letter. I can & shall smile still, but I did want to say just once, quite seriously, what I was thinking. It won’t happen again.

Monday 4 September I hope you weren’t disturbed by the Air Raid Sirens last night. I hope you never will be.

I hear the Government urgently wants Graduate University students (men) urgently for all kinds of work. Mum says they broadcast a request for volunteers, while I was having my walk.

I have a premonition that you were born to be the Brains behind this war – be guided by it, Gershon.

Wednesday 6 September I had another letter from Joyce this morning. She is definitely going back to Girton next term. I think she’s wise. I would do the same, were it not that I feel compelled to try & be as useful as possible – and I shan’t do that by digging myself deeper & deeper into the middle-ages. I simply cannot go on living on my parents any longer – though they would, not only willingly, but gladly, go on supporting me in luxury forever. I have, however, written to the Mistress of Girton,2 asking her if there’s any work I can usefully do in Cambridge – and to Miss Bradbrook. I’d be happier there, than in a strange sea-port, prying into other people’s private letters. But if neither the Censorship nor Girton can make use of me, then I think I’ll write to Dr Weizmann & see if he can include me in his scheme for organizing Jewish brain power!! The old boy is about as fond of me as the Chief Rabbi is (I have found it necessary at times to use the same methods of intimidation upon him – when he comes over the heavy leader and martinet) but surely he won’t allow personal prejudice to interfere with the Public Weal – what d’you think?

I shall only apply to Leslie in the very last resort – if no one else will have me at all – but I’m determined to get some work to do, somewhere – soon.

Now about your air-raid adventure. How damnable! But I really don’t see why you, and millions of other people (many of them a lot more uncontrolled than I am), should be submitted to this kind of experience, while I sit snugly in the North feeling safe. It simply isn’t good enough, Gershon. I’m a physical coward of the first magnitude – but so are thousands of others – it is not customary to pander to fear. No doubt I, like everyone else, would soon get used to the sound of Air Raid Sirens, and the dazzle of incendiary bombs. If being a nice girl entails being regarded by one’s friends as on a mental level with an evacuated schoolchild of tender years & snivelling habits – I wish I weren’t a nice girl. I know I’m not ‘self-composed in crises’ – but it’s about time I learnt to be, & this seems to me a good opportunity to begin.

Sir Robert has now definitely cancelled Exmoor. I am relieved. I don’t think it would have been quite my milieu. Where Joyce would shed grace on the county – I would spread disgrace. She has poise & charm & savoir-faire. Pertness, clucking and tactlessness are very poor substitutes for these – and anyway Old Bob never bothered much about me until I got a first. (As a matter of fact, that’s very unkind, not to say unjust. I withdraw it all.)

Friday 8 September It’s funny that you should refer in your letter to the myriads of first cousins who have a claim on the Alexander hospitality – because only yesterday we had a wire from Jean’s mother to say that we may expect her, (Aunt Teddy), Jean’s sister & Jean’s niece (aged two – Ye Gods!) on Sunday morning. So the family circle is due for expansion soon.

My future was the subject of much discussion yesterday between my parents and myself. They lean towards the suggestion that I should stay here until term begins & then go back to Cambridge for Research as long as they can afford to keep me there. The cultural work of the Nation, says my father with a wide arm-swing, must go on. How I wish my conscience would allow me to believe that they’re right. Other suggestions were that we should all go back to Egypt together as soon as it’s practicable – but I’d see myself dead before submitting to that.

I was very startled at your talking about conscription as though you thought a few months was the maximum length of time, you could hope to be left at liberty. I think it would be fantastic of the government to make a soldier of you – you’d be invaluable in all sorts of other ways – but unless you bring yourself to their notice – they’ll never find out. O mon dieu, quelle vie.

I had a long letter from Ismay yesterday. She had five days of honeymoon – then Charles wrested from her. He’s back again now, with ten days’ leave – then he’s due to go away again – she doesn’t know where or for how long. Poor Ismay – her sang-froid has completely deserted her. She almost clucked (but not quite, because, like Joyce, she’s too dignified ever to sink as low as that, even though she has just cause. I wish I were a little more like my friends).

Thursday 14 September The war has brought solace to one person of our acquaintance, anyway. Joan Friedman. Raphael Loewe has written to tell her that his country calls, but that he’s probably too short-sighted to be of much use. This, after a silence of several months (I suppose he had to work off his patriotic zeal on someone). Dear Joan – though she doesn’t know it, she’s got a Jocasta complex about Raphael (is there such a thing?) You see, she loves him like a mother – but unfortunately she doesn’t realize it – which, in its way, is a pity.

(By the way, darling, are you too short-sighted to be of much use to the British Army? It’s a beautiful thought anyway.)

Friday 15 September Did you ever meet Mrs Crews? She was famous for a number of things. She’s an authority on Judeo-Spanish and is adored by the Loewes, though she has a pretty poor opinion of them. Sidney Berkowitz says she has the nicest legs in Girton. (I’ve never noticed them myself – but I feel that in matters of this kind, Sidney would probably be competent to judge.) She has the worst sherry in Cambridge (3/6d a bottle, and proud of it) and she’s wireless-crazy, & gives as a reason for her separation from her husband that ‘he was a National & Regional man y’know’. She is in the Censorship now. (She was on the reserve staff last September.) So if I did become a censor, I shouldn’t be completely alone. I’m very fond of Mrs Crews.

Saturday 16 September I have just heard, from the mother of a friend of mine, who is a Cameron Highlander (one of the few regiments still to wear kilts, even in battle), that he has been issued with a pair of gas-proof pants to wear under his kilt. (The official army name is ‘proofed nether garments’.) The legs unroll to make protective gaiters which are buttoned under the instep! Let it not be said that England doesn’t look after her warrior sons.

Monday 18 September My future seems to be taking shape – but (as I may have said once or twice before) no man should be declared happy until he is dead. The censorship doesn’t want me at present – but if I’ll fill in a form all about the colour of my hair & my mother’s nationality and take their exam at my own convenience – they’ll put me on their waiting list. The Mistress of Girton says – come to our arms my beamish girl3 – there are, at present, no specialized war jobs for girls under 25 – so stick to Research. I’ve written back and said that if she’d arrange for me to live in college, I might consider it. My father expands & talks about the cultural work of the nation – a theme he’s expatiated on before. (Spare a prayer, in these Holy Days, Gershon, that the college will have a room for me. Your influence above, is more pronounced than mine, I feel sure. You don’t hare off to Prunier’s to eat curried crab as soon as you set foot in London – nor do you go hatless to synagogue – nor are you saucy to the Chief Rabbi. Any request from you would doubtless be listened to with courteous attention.)

Later I had a long and wholly delightful letter from Aubrey, and one from Miss Bradbrook saying – Come back. Aubrey, like the rest of us, has offered his services to the Government and is finding uncertainty wearing and discouraging. He asks nicely whether I know anything of you.

Offering my services as a sandbag is a very good idea. I felt sure that your fertile invention would produce some really helpful suggestions about my future – and it did! I shall set about it at once.

Aunt Teddy, her daughter and granddaughter are now in our midst. The child is surrounded all the time by hordes of clucking women, asking her if she loves them (poor little devil), but she likes me best, because I take no notice of her & she keeps asking me to go for walks with her!

Oh! Gershon, I want to Research in Cambridge – but there are grave difficulties. The college can’t house me – and my mother sends feathers flying with her clucking at the thought of my living in lodgings with bombs banging about. (The beautiful rooms she’d chosen for me are now out of the question on financial grounds – and I’d have to live where the College sent me – and like it.) My parents and I are going to have a session to consider the problem, this afternoon. I’ll let you know the results.

My parents and I have now sat down to this question of Cambridge or not Cambridge. It is damned difficult. My father says, ‘We cannot commit ourselves,’ (with term 2 weeks away!) My mother says, ‘If they’d have you in College, you could leave tomorrow if you liked,’ – and points out that I’d be as miserable as sin in strange lodgings – not being able to go out at night, and having to sit alone in a probably hideous room – going mad. Then she cries at having to oppose my dearest wish – at this point I cry too – at having to oppose her – and my father relents and says, ‘Well, write to the college and ask them what sort of lodgings are available – and where – and then we’ll see’, – and then the wireless announces the sinking of the air-craft carrier Courageous4 – and Dad says, ‘Look at those poor people,’ – and I do – and feel a cad, & cry a bit more.

Yesterday, I cured all my humours by cleaning my vinaigrettes.5 I haven’t had the heart to look at them since the war started. They are looking lovelier than ever – bless them. May they never be subjected to the ordeal of fire.

Thursday 21 September Today or tomorrow I expect to hear from Girton whether they will allow me to live in the gardener’s cottage in the grounds, until something more satisfactory can be arranged. I don’t expect, for a moment, that this will seem to them a practicable suggestion. A month ago, I was their blue-eyed darling, & the trouble they took over me, one way or another, was phenomenal. Now their sense of proportion has undergone a violent readjustment. They think I ought to go back (for my own sake) but they don’t care a damn if they never see me again – and the twitterings of me & my parents are a matter of superlative indifference to them (and I can’t say I blame them).

I’ve cried so much during the last week that I really begin to feel, as Shelley would say, like a cloud that has outwept its rain!6

Actually, of course, I am fussing disquietingly about very little – what on earth does it really matter whether I go back to Cambridge or not? At this moment I see it as a life or death question – but once a decision is made, I’ll get used to it. Oh! I shall get used to it shan’t I, Gershon? Instead of being secure & pampered, I might have been a Central European or German Jewess, mightn’t I?? – and then I’d have had something to cluck about. This happy thought, instead of restoring my sense of balance, only adds humiliating self-disgust to my other discomforts. I wish you were here – and you could shake me until my toothless gums rattled together – it’s the only fitting treatment for me.

I had a letter from Miss Bradbrook. All the double sets of rooms are being converted into single bed sitting rooms (poor Joyce!) – and Miss Bradbrook says they’re living like pigs. It must be pretty bad, for her to notice anything because, in the ordinary way, she has a Soul above Space – but there you are – the war has changed a lot of people.

I may say that this photograph business has caused a terrific stir in our ménage. ‘Why do you want to have your photograph taken?’ asks Aunt Teddy, rudely & inquisitively. ‘What on earth do you want a photograph of yourself for?’ says nurse – adding more kindly, ‘It’s not like you to want to be photographed.’ ‘Is this quite the moment to be photographed my dear?’ says Pa. ‘Of course you’re looking more like yourself, and we haven’t had one of you for some time – but …’

My mother, who is the only one who knows why I had it taken, smiles kindly, although she thinks it forward, if not improper of me to give a photograph of myself to a MAN (other than Pa, of course). She might be less kindly if she knew the shocking spirit of barter in which the whole transaction has been carried out – but she doesn’t. I tell my mother more than you tell yours, – but not everything.

Saturday 23 September I lay in bed alternately musing and reading the book of Job. (I do not like the Day of Atonement service. I always read the Bible instead.) The only diversion which occurred during the morning was a letter from the Mistress (in reply to my letter to the College Secretary). She has investigated the matter of lodgings herself. I am to live at 130 Huntingdon Road, in a smallish single room (but who cares?) and she personally guarantees my comfort and safety – and Dad, purified by starvation, and intimidated by her august and brisk intervention, says, ‘Yes’.

Oh! Gershon, I am so happy (always bearing in mind that no man should be declared happy until he is dead) that I’m even prepared to admit that (in a non-erotic way, of course) I love you better than my country. (Does it matter which country?)

I am sorry to have to tell you that Aubrey also seems to have noticed that I love you better than my country. (It pains me that my most intimate feelings, however non-erotic, should be so patent to you both – but, no matter, I shall learn resignation in time.) I am led to this conclusion by the fact that in an eleven-page letter, yesterday, he devotes four lines of verse to the war and five pages to you.

He did not owe me a letter, Gershon, – he just caught sight of a reproduction of the Monna Lisa on his wall, (he spells his ‘Mona’) detected a facial resemblance between us – and so wrote me eleven pages of profuse strains of carefully pre-meditated art. (In a post-script he says delightedly: ‘Something really wonderful has happened – Gershon came in while I was out, saw my Mona (sic) Lisa and stuck a label on saying “Eileen” I swear that we have never discussed it before. So you see how I am proved right by the highest authority available. Who better could distinguish a genuine Eileen from a fraudulent reproduction?’)

SUNDAY 24 September Pa is leaving us today with the children. Mum & I still don’t know what day we’ll be leaving for London – but I’m writing to the Mistress to say that (war-work permitting) I’ll be in Cambridge on Oct 7th.

Monday 25 September My mother looked at the enclosed photograph, shuddered, and said, ‘My dear’, in a voice charged with meaning, and then handed it back to me in the manner of one lifting an earwig out of the soup. This was not encouraging, so I showed it to Gerta. She smiled and said, ‘you do look a hap’. Aunt Teddy glanced at it and said, ‘It’s a good likeness – but not flattering’, and if ever a voice implied that a good likeness of me was a painful sight, it was hers.

I think that, insofar as it doesn’t show my scars, my pink chin, or the bump on the bridge of my nose, it’s not too bad, considering the material upon which the unfortunate photographer had to work.

Tuesday 26 September There is now a further hitch in regard to my proposed return to Cambridge. The rooms which the Mistress so kindly offered me, have been let to somebody else – so chaos is come again. I’ve wired to Girton for advice, and I’m waiting to see what happens. Pa is seeing everyone in London, and has suddenly woken up to the fact that Drumnadrochit is a backwater. I think he will send for us soon.

Wednesday 27 September Nurse has come back from London – oh! dear, our peace is shattered again. Of course the first thing she did was to demand to see my photograph and, when I showed it to her, she giggled noisily – slapped me heartily on my sore shoulder and said, ‘I think you’d better have another one taken – he photographed the uglier side of your face by mistake.’ Nurse has taken the place of Lois as Hate No. 1 on my (at present) narrow horizon.

My father phones my mother twice a day – and writes to her twice a day – and, when the telephone rings, or the postman comes, she goes all pink & kittenish! They really ought to know better at their age – and after 24 years of married life, too. Anyway, I’m hoping to cash in on all this love, by getting away from here, very soon – so love on, my girls & boys, love on – and don’t, on any account, mind me.

Thursday 28 September No letter from you by the first post, Gershon! Only nine pages from Aubrey, who is now an Intelligence Officer in embryo. I quote a vital passage from his letter below, to show how interviews with the recruiting board should be managed. Please learn it by heart & say it over to yourself every day before breakfast. Here it is: ‘… then there was the moment when a decrepit doctor with creaking joints asked me to take off my spectacles and read the letters on the board. “What board?” I asked innocently staring straight at it. This disability disqualified me from a Commission in the Observer’s Corps. Some capacity to distinguish an ally from an enemy is apparently regarded as an indispensable asset in war.’ Be as blind as you possibly can, Gershon, when your time comes. Aubrey’s account of his interview with the Recruiting Board has made me realize, (tardily perhaps) that there’s a war on, and that you may be called upon to go forth and get yourself killed in a dirty dug-out in France. I don’t mind telling you, that this is a possibility which I find singularly unpleasant to contemplate. It may be eccentric of me – but there it is.

Pa has just telephoned from London to say that he’s been appointed to a job in the Treasury as an expert in International Law. I gather that he starts work at once – so he probably won’t be coming back to fetch us after all. This means that he may be able to afford the rooms he and my mother originally chose for me in Cambridge – but everything is still very uncertain – he could give us no details over the phone as the appointment is still a secret – and I’ve no business to be telling you about it.

The three o’clock post has just come – with a letter from the Mistress saying that she’s cycled all round Cambridge trying to find me a home! She hasn’t succeeded yet – everyone is housing Bedford women & evacuees from the London School of Economics. She is writing to me again tomorrow. She is, with sympathy, mine sincerely … and I had the temerity to say that Girton wasn’t bothering about me any more. Bless her lily-white head. I hope all her cycling expeditions aren’t in vain!

Friday 29 September This morning I had a letter from Girton. They’ve taken rooms for me at Girton Corner. The main disadvantages are six children and high tea instead of dinner – but oh! if I could get back to Cambridge, I wouldn’t care if it were six boa-constrictors and no food at all! (You’re not the only one who’s willing to go without your meals in a Higher Cause!) Owing to sundry obstacles like clinging parents, and dentists who must be seen, I shall not return to my Alma Mater (if I ever get there at all – and I’m afraid to believe I shall) until Thursday, October 12th.

We leave here, inshallah, on Sunday 8th, and if you are moved to write to me in the intervening four days, my address (unless you hear to the contrary) will be ‘The Mayfair Hotel’, Berkeley Square, London W1.

Dad has started work at the Treasury. (It is therefore no longer a secret – when an Alexander is anywhere, it is difficult to look as though he’s not, and although all Government departments adore secrecy, and would have liked Pa to disguise himself as a puff of wind, they were reasonable, and saw his difficulty.) He is not coming back here, so Mum & I have arranged everything between us, (bless her!)

Sunday 1 October Your lyric outburst over my photograph was prettily written – but did you really like it? More and more people here seem to like it less & less – but, if it meets with your approval, I don’t give a damn. (I’m getting very independent in my declining years.)

Now let me sketch the evolution of my attitude to ‘darling’ for you. I think it will cause you to smile – but if perchance introspective anecdotes of this kind (and I am much given to them, I know) bore you – you have only to say so, and I shan’t tell you any more.

Go back a little in time to almost the eve of my Tripos, when I came out of retirement to go with Joyce and you & Aubrey to the Irish Plays. On the way home, as you may or may not remember, we had an altercation about the relative merits of the words ‘ostentatiously’ and ‘ostensibly’ in a given context. The altercation extended itself onto paper – and the last document in the case was a treatise by you on the subject, written on scribbling paper and handed to Joyce in Synagogue for delivering to me. Joyce gave me this erudite work, when I went to call upon her, the next morning – and, as she was interested in the controversy, I read her what you had to say. All went well, until I got to about the third page – and then I faltered and stopped – and then went on reading – omitting the word which had given me a shock. Joyce was quick to notice the pause, and wanted to know the cause. ‘How dare he,’ I answered obscurely, d’une voix mourante. It took her between 30 & 45 minutes to extract the reason of my distress from me – and when she did, her explanation of the phenomenon was not encouraging. ‘I expect it was just a slip of the pen,’ she said!! I must hasten to explain that at this time, I was living in a state of perpetual terror that my immoderate regard for you must be apparent to everybody – particularly you – and my interpretation of your use of ‘darling’, was that you had said to yourself, ‘Oh! well if it amuses her to be treated like a poppet, I don’t really mind one way or another,’ and had forthwith written it down. I couldn’t explain all this to Joyce – with whom I had spent hours, in the still watches of the night, protesting that I hadn’t any out-of-the-common preference for you at all – so I just sat at the bottom of her bed, crying piteously – and, of course, she was now more firmly convinced than ever, that I was quite mad.