14th October 1936 - Terrick to Mary

Wesley Rectory
Leyburn
York


14th October 1936


My Darling Girl, it is 9.30 p.m.  My mother and I are sitting in the drawing room, she telling her fortune and I writing to you, while my father is at a parish whist drive to raise money for a seat at the village bus stop.

I need you so much now that I don't know what it will be like when I have to go away for reunions after we are married.  We must have a telephone so that I can ring you up - if you aren't out rehearsing or reading plays, or still learning to cook.  I wasn't going to ring you up till the weekend because I thought you were out every evening, but now I know what time you are going to be in.

I think I am spoilt.  It isn't always easy for me to realise how much you mean to me.  It is like a ship that has been long at anchor forgets what the wind and waves can do to it. I can't imagine my life without you, which is very wrong because I don't deserve you and so ought to be always on the watch that I don't lose you.

You wouldn't like the look of me now if you could see me because my hair is plastered down with anti-scurf mixture.  What do you look like? And how are you doing your hair now? Still in a plait that will fall off every time I kiss you?

This afternoon we all three went to tea with the Croke-Yarboroughs.  On Saturday afternoon I am going beagling with them if it is fine.  I wish you could come too.  It would do you good to pad behind me over the fields and loose-stone walls.

Yesterday we went to Harrogate.  My father went to "Mutiny on the Bounty" which he loved - it is just the kind of film he likes best - and Mummy & I went to "We Three" [These Three].  What marvellous actresses these two girls are.  They make a great song of Bonita Granville, but I think the other girl was just as good.  I wish I had seen who the director was, he must have been very clever and very patient.  The sill aunt was good too.  You have seen it, haven't you?

Tomorrow we all go to tea with Rosemary at the Camp.

I should think that you would learn a lot from the contrast between the methods of Hoch & Smith.  I should say that was decidedly your line.  You would possible be even better at producing than at acting, because you like bossing.  I should love to come to some rehearsals.

My father was very thrilled to hear about Mrs Pearse.  if her name was Carrie Lucas he was a great friend of hers apparently he caused a scandal at a dance by picking her up when they were walking out in the garden and carrying her to an arbour, not realising that dozens of people could see.

Here is a handkerchief that you lent me.  Mummy says I had better enclose it in this letter as I am sure to forget to give it you otherwise.  They often talk about you; and they haven't said a single word about thinking it silly to get engaged, much to my surprise.  My mother thinks that you have a lovely complexion.

We must go to sales this winter.  Are they ever held on Saturdays?  I don't want you to choose everything alone, besides I can't see you nodding your head or lifting your eyes in the right place.

I shall know today what time I shall be arriving at King's Cross on Monday.  Probably you will be too busy rehearsing to come, & if so when is the very soonest I can see you?  I could run a mile to meet you.  Just to be able to walk up to you seems too easy.  All the best fairy tale princesses had hedges of thorns, or rings of fire or walls of ice around them, so that for any ordinary girl inside no one would have gone to the bother of breaking through; and also no ordinary prince or swine-heard would have had the guts to take it on even though the princess (or goose girl) inside was beautiful.  It was a way of ensuring that only the brave won the fair.  And I do feel that every time I come to see you I should have to swim the Thames, push the O.V. gate off its hinges and climb up to the window of your room, just as an outward & visible sign of how wonderful you are to me and how brave for your sake I am prepared to be.

Goodbye, my darling.  I expect you are too busy to think of me as much as I think of you.  I wish I could put all I think about you into words, but most of it is dreams for the future: what we shall do when - which is rather a waste of time, and also it is much better to surprise you than to let you know years in advance.

All myself, body & soul

Terrick
        XXX