18th June 1933 - Terrick to Mary

Dinard

18th June 1933,


Dear Mary,

A man and his wife have arrived with a tandem bicycle!  Ian and I nearly fell overboard laughing when we heard of it.

I may be going back to Mentone, curse it!  The man there is the fellow who has been in charge here for the last three years and he is arriving today because there are only three people in Mentone.  The Poly want to get out of having a man at Mentone, but if the hotelier makes no objections to having a rep. free with so few people they will have to.  I should like to have tackled a season here because it is so complicated, but obviously Franklyn of Mentone is the proper fellow for the job.  The Staff Manager wrote: "We want to make it quite clear that this is no reflection whatever upon yourself.  We feel however that with large numbers at Dinard and in view of Mr Franklyn's seniority and previous experience at Dinard, it will be in the interests of all concerned to move him from Mentone where at the present moment there are only two or three clients."

Which was a comfort because when I started reading the letter I thought something must be wrong with what I was doing.

I especially want to stay here now that Ian has arrived.  We get on perfectly together when I am in my more irresponsible moods.

Knowing the gay time we had had together at F.W. I was expecting to find him rather a handful now that I should have to prevent him doing things that I had done with him last year.  But he, like the good fellow he is, also saw the difficulties of the situation and came here pretending to be a reformed character!  I believed him but was a bit cynical about its lasting, but when it turned out that not only had he been kicked out of his home by his family but that, as far as I could make out, his nefarious career had lasted practically up to the day he left London, I began to wonder when and how his reformation had started.

He is a graceless fellow, but, like Falstaff, one can't help liking him.

He has a girlish pink and white complexion, a small mouth and golden hair and looks at first as though sugar wouldn't melt in his mouth.  You soon find a devilish twinkle in his eyes, a lack-a-daisicalness in his bearing, and then his tiny mouth opens to an incredible extent and he lets out a hearty, cynical laugh that makes everybody laugh too.  There is only one Ian.  I must put him in a book one day.

I should rather like to stay here as first assistant, though I feel that with Ian here to encourage my frivolous side my resolution would be in smithereens in no time.

Talking about the resolution it was broken in deed but not in spirit last week with two people but public kissing didn't count towards the hundred so I don't consider theses flippancies as breaking the resolution, it takes a proper flirtation to count for each.  But I admit that the ideal is not to do it at all so I now swear off doing it in fun or for any reason whatever.

I haven't written Norah yet because I have not had the time.  It has been work from early morning (5 o'clock this morning!) till sometimes after midnight.  I don't mind the excursion part of it and can even put up with doing the accounts but the part that bores me so is the part I used to enjoy most: entertaining the people in the evening.  They are all so platitudinous and undeveloped mentally.  Why doesn't the Poly have more people like you who make one think?

I think I have only met one other interesting person in the parties and that was a girl called something Martin who looked like a scivvy, talked like one and was a film scenario-writer.  She is not one of the 89 (or 90) and never could be, but she interested me far more.  She had the vitality, genuineness and ambition that are the ground work of the characters of great people.

Do you remember my telling you about the girl who sent me "The Small Dark Man" to Fort William?  She wrote to me in Nice to say that she and her friend (who were at F.W. last year) were going to book for Nice.  I wrote back and said I should be here all summer so they booked for here for 4th August to my annoyance.  But now poor things they look likely to be done in the eye.

Anyhow if there are only two or three clients at Mentone I shall be able to finish "Edwy" which I should never do here.

Here are two photos.  The pencilled remarks are by the clients who took them.  Please send them back.  I sent you a post-card of the Manoir de la Conninais. Why do you want one of your photos back? If it is only because I've "got too many as it is", I assure you I haven't.

Ian saw the two photos of you in your jumper on my desk and made complimentary remarks, but that is just his manners.

We were going out to the island of Cézembre this afternoon but had to cancel it as the sea is too rough.  The party are expecting me to arrange entertainments for them in the hotel but I have said I am "too busy".

How long will it take you to complete your elocutioning course?

Paul is now rep in Keswick.  He is trying very hard to get a better job so that he can marry Brenda.  He nearly got one at £200 a year just before he left London.  He proposed to her in parting and got "an encouraging reply".  Her particularly doesn't want to be out of town just now, chiefly because it handicaps him on the job-hunt, but also because an ex-fiancé of Brenda's who has lately started writing to her again is coming back from China.

I forget to whom I said that you were older inside than out.

Life is a funny thing.  There is no sense in it - that we can see.

What a platitudinous remark!

It is a shame your father died.

It is quite a shock isn't it when one first finds that one's parent or parents are not omnipotent, omniscient and have all the money in the world.  It is then that one really stops being a child.  For quite a time my sister did not realise that she ought to be helping with the darning etc.  She used to sit and read all day as if such jobs did not concern her.  My mother used to say that she was "a visitor in the house".  I went away from home for a short time and came back to find Eileen making her own clothes, darning socks, washing things and being amazingly useful all of a sudden.

My successor is due to arrive in three-quarters of an hour.  he may know if I am going to Mentone or not.  I'll go and meet him, post this on the way as the post is just going, and send you a card as soon as I know what is happening to me.

Love

Terrick  xxx