Feb. 24th 1933
Dear Terrick - I hate "Fitz" really but should never have the courage to blossom out into anything else wouldn't it create a sensation?
- Thank you ever & ever so much for the letter - since I've leapt from my comfortable chair every evening for a week to rush into the cold hall at sound of postman, I think I just about deserved one now - and thank goodness it really was worth all my anticipation when it did come. The post-card was tremendously cheering - was it done for effect - or from real inside information?
- Congratulations about "Edwy" - please please let me have it soon - you jolly well know I shall say exactly what I feel - don't you? - As a matter of fact I'm not expecting it to be very good - you always have such a tremendously perfect opinion of things you do, that perhaps you'd be nicer if the world in general did get an opportunity for telling you to scrap the first effort & try again - is this followable?
- But I may be wrong - so lets get general.
- Ever since you left its been trying to snow here - & today we had about 3 inches & a most dreadful blizzard that accumulated down my neck & melted - our feet simply squelched all the way home - so Jack was in a bad temper - Jill had just phoned from Kingston by-pass to say the car had broken down & Flip had retired to bed looking rotten - so this evening didn't start too well.
Your letter made up a bit - & also a pair of new stockings - the "holy" kind - like this (honeycomb drawing) - brown which I immediately donned.
- But at the moment we're all esconced around the happy family fire eating toffee deciding on a play Mumms wants us to get up for the Church!!!
- I'm glad Mr Frogg-Shaw fell too - I would have given anything to see you "gritting your teeth" & "vamping determinedly" - do you always get away with it?
- Why did you think about me whilst taking 3 women across Paris? - or did it just come?
(can't you feel me skipping through your letter again? - Horrible - I'll stop)
- Norah & I didn't go anywhere last Wednesday - she was a bit disagreeable, so we drove miles not saying anything & pulled up by the river & went to sleep on top on each other - When will you be sure where you'll be in the latter part of the summer?
- It would be so much nicer to come where you are again - but I'm afraid Norah doesn't want to go to ?? - & of course I can't come without her - anyway I shall have 14 whole days this year!! - Oh, just think! - sand & sun & bathing & dancing - wearing cotton frocks - no stockings - and just talking when & to whom I like - & singing & doing nothing for 14 whole days!! My heaven will be just like that - sometimes!
- one day I simply must must travel - to little places - & see if the things I've always imagined are as they should be - It will be the only way to stop me being just like everybody else - oh I mustn't settle down comfortably to raising children & seeing whether there's enough porridge for tomorrow - oh how dreadful - do you think I could ever be satisfied with that? - but I'm so frightened one day I shall find all my ambition gone - the office might kill it - or I might grow old & fat - & I always have been lazy!
- Hush thee, maiden - or chuck it, woman.
- I've just read an awful book - 10 chapters on the growth of a man's passion & then he finds out one of her legs is shorter than the other - and immediately he stops loving her - one physical fault kills everything -
It was really most worrying - because if I don't go to the dentist soon I shall probably be landed with false teeth & me, toothless, would be warranted to kill anything's passion!!! But I'm going to the dentist next week - in case!
I'm doing my very best for the scheme - and at varying times have posed as the managing director - or claimed you as a brother - but the inmates of suburbia will always be the worst to tackle - specially those who start by asking "What's the knife like?"
- Paul forgot my forms - but I sent him a p.c. on Tuesday - so I've got them now. Do you know how the other people are doing?
Tomorrow D.V. & the snow having melted, Jack & I have got the morning off to drive up to Cambridge - Jack to watch the Lent races - & I to see my cousin Verney - you won't think very much of him I'm afraid - (he loses his train ticket too) - but he's a dear in his way - & we have always given each other advice on private subjects - you know, sitting on the kitchen table & dangling our legs. - oh & tomorrow evening Roger is taking me to his amateur dramatic do. Let's hope he finds the 2nd bus fare with promptitude! - and to think 3 weeks ago I cheered myself with the thought that the Friday afterwards I should be dancing with you at the Grosvenor! -
- Sunday I'm going to lunch with Mr Bernays (my vicar) - over which we shall probably discuss my pointless life - he's a dear like that - it helps me a frightful lot.
- I can always get on with old men - perhaps that's why I get on with you?
- I say, old thing, in confidence, before I go up to bed - those snaps I've given you weren't meant to be looked at - honestly - just kept - there's such a difference - & they're all rotten too - oh, don't be such a fool - you do make me cross - & for heaven's sake don't send them to the family - honestly, old thing, I should never forgive you - please - you won't - will you? - They couldn't possibly be interested - & I steadfastly refuse to be called "your latest" - or even thought of like that - I won't, I won't, I won't - there's just you & me talking to each other & discussing things together over hundreds of beastly miles & directly you drag in "families" & "photographs" - yours or mine it's all wrong & I feel so very much the 89th - can't you see? - it makes me, at once, somebody just like 88 others - so I immediately want to run away from it - it just frightens myself inside me - or else hurts my pride - which is it?
- But I suppose it's just you - so I shall have to swallow it with all the nice bits!
- Easily the most likeable bit in the whole thing was the "bath tap" sentence - it made me so beautifully contented inside - (to compensate for my week of "cold halls" & "postmen"!) - & that - just that in all it's simplicity - is "just as it should be".
- Heavens - this is miles too long - & I must go to bed.
- My book is half there but is much to difficult to settle down on paper yet.
- I've written one or two more poems - but they're all rather bitter - & utter trash really I expect. I'll let you see them one day - only you won't laugh will you?
- I enclose my snaps - they're not bad, are they?
- Did you squeeze a sponge over your head?
- Love
Mary Pleasant
Come back soon
Return snaps as soon as poss please
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