5th March 1933 - Mary to Terrick

Saunton
Christchurch Road
East Sheen


Dear Terrick

- You may be glad to hear that your 23 page composition considerably brightened one of the wetter days we've had this winter.  I perused it in the bus with the rain streaming down the windows which were hot & steamy with the evaporation & mixed breathing of the mass. - It was a lovely letter - I chuckled & simpered and roared one after the other (even at the bits that you didn't mean to be humourous) until Jack gave me a subduing glance.

I simply shook at the "neater, sweeter, maiden" - wherever did it come from? - it's lovely - only at first I read it as "neater, cleaner, maiden" - which would, perhaps, have been equally appropriate - I showed it to Jack - so now he quotes it on every occasion!

First of all I'll begin with the general news - personal always comes better at the end - you escape quickly after it.

All this week it has poured & poured - floods are up everywhere - but this afternoon has been lovely - just like the one Norah took us out in the car - do you remember?  Last Wednesday we saw Children in Uniform - the play - very goo indeed - & it's really wonderful the way the girl repeats the samd peak of emotion at each performance - as she must do - but (perhaps because they only had to express themselves once) the German acting gets inside you more - their faces and the whole atmosphere portrays more feeling in the film - & of course, I missed the German language.  I don't think all that's meant can be said in English.

This Wednesday we want to see "The White Flame" at the Rialto - it's directed by the sam girl as The Blue Light - & contains some marvellous ski-ing photography.

Just after I'd posted your letter last Saturday Jack bashed the car into the back of a G.W.R. lorry - completely bashed the radiator in and smashed off a headlamp - so it's in dry dock for the week being repaired - & will leave a stain on our characters with the insurance people!  So we didn't get to Cambridge after all.  My evening with Roger wasn't as dusty as Mervyn Spraig was there - he's horribly rude & egotistical - but a decided improvement on Roger - who, however, I'm going to dance with next Friday at the same place as the 29th one - it'll be the second dance in my life that my partner's paid for my ticket - I'm getting on! - We've got a party on Easter Saturday - but I suppose you're sure to be away - aren't you?  Our play for the Church has been dropped through at the moment - for lack of male characters - am most disappointed.

Norah asked after you on Wednesday - she's quite OK again & is easily the nicest person I know - I wonder if I shall ever find anyone who will mean such a tremendous lot to me - she's always been my one great driving force - & has thus caused much controversy & discussion amongst my "never-understanding-but-all-for-the-orthodox" relations.

At the moment we're listening to the inauguration of Rosevelt - relayed from America + + + +

I've had my summer programme - heaven only knows where the money's coming from - but I've started saving anyway.  Norah says it's too early to decide yet.

I've finished my jumper & am starting another - navy & white.  I'm going to have a new summer coat (I hope you're interested in all this) - either plain grey or black & white flecked - I'm afraid the latter would make me look a bit too much of "a fine upstanding woman"!! - anyway I shall have to have a new hat - whoopee!

I'm sorry about my "effect" remarks - but it only goes to show what a certain part of me is really like - doesn't it? - Because I do do some things for effect - it's a horrible habit - but, you see, I should be so horribly dull if I didn't -& it wears off considerably as I get to know a person better - anyhow I'll try & remember not to mentally bring you down to my level again - please forgive me - & go on getting cross with me over little things like that - won't you?  It's so good for me - & it makes me think such a lot more of you - & you simply can't like a person unless you respect them - so treat me exactly how you feel my extreme youth should be treated - won't you?  even if I jib?

All this week I've been most annoyingly content - it's not a resigned content - but more a feeling of rightness & fullness of life in general.

Perhaps Mr Bernays did it for me.  I spent a most satisfying day with him last Sunday - oh - you would like him - although he probably wouldn't think much of you.  He's the most perfect man I know (what a funny couple he & I make!).  We discussed everything - specially things I'd wanted to ask a sensible person for ages - such as God & shorthand & men & religion & Capitalism & flat-roofed houses - he was really most helpful in everything, the conversation would have amused you tremendously! but I don't think it would have been very good for you!

He's especially keen on my getting married! - In fact he thinks it's the most likely thing to save my soul - mostly because I think he so badly wants to perform the actual ceremony - but I told him I didn't think the reason was worth the effect.

- Let me see - I really had heaps more things much more interesting to tell you - I'm sorry this is so scrappy & "me-y".

- I do hope you'll be coming back soon - it's so much nicer being able to talk isn't it? - specially about things like "forces of nature" & Capitalism - because, you see, I'm not particularly intelligent - in fact the other day I summed myself up rather aptly as "simple, but interested" - I can listen to people for ages - & it's the thing I like doing best with you - probably because it's the thing you do best! - & I don't agree with half you say - but - oh - I don't know - perhaps I'm weakly opinionated.

- But I msut stop running on like this although paper is such a beastly temptation.

- You're not to send my photographs to the family - just because "they wouldn't think it out of the ordinary" - you gave me the very reason I wanted! - & please, please don't treat me as "final" - you can't possibly know - & I should never forgive myself if I let you down - & you make it so difficult for me when you say things like that - but thank you, all the same, for thinking of me as you do.

- Write again one day - unless you choose to arrive in person instead!!

- My love to your "human decaying vegetation" at the hotel!

Mary Pleasant xxx

P.S. Don't take me too seriously & remember I'm hopelessly young & inexperienced!  Poor old thing - I'm rather inconsistent - ain't I?

P.P.S.  I'm going to have a tooth out - 1st molar - top jaw - right section - next Thursday at 5.30pm - think of me!  I'm such a beastly coward when it comes to someone else hurting me!

After 24th Feb 1933 - Terrick to Mary

Only a small of this letter, which was written in response to Mary's of 24th February, remain



Pages 15-16

Sorry I make you cross about the way I treat your photos but you'll have to lump it.

I don't think you quite grasped what I meant about sending them to the family.  It would be nothing out of the ordinary, I always do send them photos to illustrate my letters if I have any to send.  And since you have figured largely in them these last three months it would be the natural thing to do.  The reason why I put in that bit about them thinking you "the latest" was because I wanted to emphasise the difference between that and "the last", the ultimate, the final.  In my mind what I was telling you was the last bit; the other was merely contrast for the sake of emphasis.  Still I'm sorry and I won't send them if you don't want me to.  What else I do with them is not foolish but extremely sensible.

24th February 1933 - Mary to Terrick

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

21st February 1933 - Terrick to Mary

Hotel Brice
Rue du Maréchal Joffre
Nice (A-M)

21st February 1933

Dear Mary Pleasant,

“Edwy the Fair” is finished!  You can’t imagine how bucked I feel.  “Edwy” is the most important thing of all.  I would rather see it acted than have anything else in the world.  I pretend to people that I write it when I have nothing else to do, even to Paul.  But in reality I think more of it than anything else I am interested in.  Whenever I travel, whatever I forget to pack, the MS of “Edwy” is never forgotten.  Sometimes I have been months without writing a word because I have felt that I could not put my best into it.
While I am here I shall improve parts of it and write out neatly what i have not yet typed and then – I’ll see what I can do with it.
On Monday I bought a “Sunday...

much of next pages missing – fractions which remain:  

...only a nice sunny day yesterday and good bookings for today’s excursion soothed me.  It rained for the whole of to-day’s trip except just at tea and lunch but the people didn’t mind much fortunately.

...none of them use their own complexions.  Their eye-lashes are beaded and thin lids tinted.  Très elegante, très chic, but comparing them with you I couldn’t help chuckling and quoting to myself :
“I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden, 
In a cleaner, greener land.”

...posing pitifully and hating myself as I did it; just because I thought you would think me easily put off if I said: “Oh, all right; don’t if you’d rather not.”

And on that hill on Sunday too, I was saying to myself as I was talking to you: “You are behaving like a cracked idiot.  Why can’t you say it naturally, as you think it?”

I am glad you dislike – or like less – the Terrick FitzHugh whom you meet.  He is an ass.  I loathe and despise him.   But when I am with you I am so afraid that you will dislike the real T.F. that I hide him behind this fellow.

Now I have done it!  When I started this letter I meant to tell you that I was unnatural and posed whenever I meet you, but I did not intend to tell you it all.  There is a limit to what you should show to other people.

... enough, a perfectly ghastly business, but now I have invented a way, hopelessly unorthodox, that I think will do away with that difficulty, so I haven’t a care in the world.
All the same I am not so contented with being in Nice as I ought to be.  I feel a bit of an exile with you in London and Paul there doing my work in the scheme.  The rolling stone is gathering a spot of moss, and about time too.

Not being even in the same country as you makes a distinct gap.  I don’t mean because you are a girl that I am keen on, but because you are a friend of mine whom I can enjoy comparing notes with and can take advice from on such matters as bath taps.

That is how it should be; and I never realised it – not properly – till just lately.
I have put the three snapshots of you in frames.  I keep them in a drawer when I am out in case they get damaged but when I am in my office-bed-room I prop them up where I can see them.

I think I shall send them, one at a time, home, for my people to look at and return.  They will be quite interested in my “latest” even though they won’t realise that it is my last. And first as I see now.

Well I’ll stop now before you get bored with this type of conversation.

Take care of yourself.

And write and let me know who – well, everything.  I don’t think we shall misunderstand each other as we did before.

How are the knives getting on?  I think perhaps it is best to say you know who is running it because some people are very suspicious of it.  It is not illegal and not a snowball which I believe is.  Did Paul send you the brochures?

Cheerio, old thing

If you have the impulse to write by return of post, don’t resist it.

Fitz

17th February 1933 - Mary to Terrick

(Typed on a P Ormiston & Sons postcard)

17th February, 1933.

‘Good Hunting’ old thing, and thank you ever so much for Wednesday.

Put your ticket in a safe place, won’t you?

7th February 1933 - Mary to Terrick

Tube

                                                                                                                           6.20 Tuesday

                                                                                                                          

Dear Old Thing

Thanks tons for letter – so glad you enjoyed Sunday – I hope you enjoyed Saturday too – because I did – ever so much more than I thought I was going to. 

– its funny how much more energy is needed talking to a male than a female. 

Please excuse this dreadful writing & paper (ah – station – Camden Town) – but I’m so down in the dumps this was the only way I could think of to cheer me up – you see I’m just on my way to see Rome Express with Reggie – Oh-Lord - & I’m absolutely dead tired & I ought to be so wide awake – but I wish I was on my way to your German lecture instead - & another blow is that I don’t think I shall be coming up next Saturday – you see Mummy’s wangled me the morning off to have my hair done so I shan’t be going tube – but still it won’t hurt us for once – But its very nice & cheering to see you sticking out from the crowd at Belsize Park (we’re just there at the moment!)

- anyway I’ll try & arrange something with Norah for Richard of Bordeaus.

- It is amazing how much more I think I like you when you’re not there – its because, I think, when you are there I try so hard not to because one of us at it is quite enough - & it would hurt so much more if I suddenly found someone I really did like! – (oh heavens what a fool!) – But I’ve come to the conclusion – that however much you say you like me I’m not going to really believe it until 

I’ve seen what you’d do if

(a)  I lost my temper & bit you

(b)  I burst into tears because I was tired

(c)  I was disagreeable & horrid because I was tired (or board!)

-& oh heaps more – you see at present I’m always on my best with you – one day you’ll have a shock! – Golders Green – must stop

- Love

Mary

3rd February 1933 - Mary to Terrick

Typed on P. Ormiston & Sons letterhead – I have endeavoured to make this look as much like the original as possible

                                                                                                                           February 3^rd 1933

Dear Sir,

With referance to my invitation of the 2^nd 1nst. my Honourable Female Parent has requested me to beg your most Esteemable company on the pending Sabbath at our Humble, (but Howsomever, Highly Respectable) Hovel Situate in the Suburb of Sheene; Your Visite to extend from as near the break of Dawne as the District Railway Co, can manage, to as late as your Unwashed Linen will suffer your Conscience to remain.

Your entertainment will consist entirely of listening to innocuos chatter of my Many, but Varied, Relations, with,perchance, a little enlightening repartee from Your Humble Servant thrown in.

Of course, what I really mean is, -- Will you throw in your lot with us next Sunday and trust to pot luck? – But I had a little time on my erstwhile busy hands.

Anyway,see you tomorrow 1.15 p.m. Looking forward to everything tremendously.

Be good.

                                                                                                                                             Love,

                                    

Mary (handwritten)

P.S. Hows Russia?

P.P.S. I’ve got a spot on the end of my nose, but still it doesn’t matter now, does it?