13th October 1936 - Mary to Terrick

OVS
Tuesday

Darling - This, I'm sure you will agree, is not only touching - but demonstrates the great feeling & esteem in which I hold you - (as well as a slight softening of the brain).  I can't help writing to you, any more than I can help phoning you sometimes on the most weak excuses.  It's just the nearest I can get to you for half an hour once a day.  I have put off writing until fairly late because I thought a letter might come by this evening's post - but it hasn't.  (I think perhaps you have forgotten me after all.)

I most rashly invested in a 2/- recipe book today to write my apple-pie & Yorkshire pudding in - the Staff are afraid I'm taking "this marriage business" too seriously!

We had an awful rehearsal last night - (in comparison with Sunday) Smith is so soft with everybody - & only about 6 turned up.  His ideas are so old-fashioned - & you must have personality to produce properly - which he certainly hasn't.  Every time Lorenzo had something romantic to say to Jessica, Smith says "turn your toes out so, and rest one hand on her shoulder"!!  It's all I can do to hold my suggestions in as it is.  But I did jokingly tell him at the end that the only way you  could get their love over to the audience was to have them facing each other squarely!!  They haven't got a Bassanio yet yet at all - and I doubt (even with my acting ability!) if I can get enough love into Portia's lines with him, if they decide on just anybody.

I have just phoned Ren. but he wasn't in - so I left the message asking him down next weekend.

Every time the 'phone goes I think it may be a long distance from Wensley - you in expansive mood - & today is the last evening I shall be in after 7 this week - except Friday when I get in at 9.40 after cooking.

We have got to queue for the Old Vic. tomorrow - every seat is booked - think of us eating our oranges in the "gods" for 6d.

Of course, I should really be getting on with your jumper now instead of simply wasting yours & my time in filling space because I don't want to let you go. - Oh, my dearest one this is most awful - the days are dragging interminably.  Life without being able to see and talk to you is the most dreary thing I can imagine.  My heart aches already and there's another whole week to go yet.  Four weeks ago this week was Fort William - four weeks ago tomorrow night was the most wonderful night of my life - oh, why, why, why can't I live with you now for always? - everything seems so insignificant compared with having each other.

- Oh my darling I love you until I hurt myself with the immenseness of it - I'm swallowed up in the tide of it - I'm losing my reason with the very unreasonableness of it - and if you ever find it in your heart to leave me for more than 7 days again, I shall come with you.

- Please want me so much that you can't live without me.

Mary

12th October 1936 - Mary to Terrick

O.V.S.
Oct 12th 

My very dearest One, why I'm writing to you again today is beyond me - but I've been looking forward to doing it all this afternoon.  You see Monday is usually the first day I start looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday - so I'm doing this instead.  Wensleydale gets about a hundred miles further away every 24 hours - and every 20 miles you grow more and more perfect!  Today has been as if it just ran straight on after Friday.  The only time in my life now when I have a real holiday or rest, is when I'm with you.  All the other times I fill in feverishly with something else to stop me missing you.

We had an amazing day yesterday.  We all cycled to Shepperton station to catch the 2.42 & saw the train moving out as we came round the corner (Jack saying I looked like a monk on a donkey!) So we sat on the platform being thoroughly ridiculous for half an hour.  The twins getting into carriages & pulling all the blinds down & making Graham cycle backwards & forwards to Dunally to get newspapers & books & wool & apples.  We eventually got to Belgrave Court, Chiswick, Freda & George & a few others were there too.  I did so wish you had been with me because it was so interesting.  It's a very nice flat taken by itself - but I think it's horrid having to look out on hundreds of back windows just like your own & prambulators etc. - & all the drain pipes going up outside.  I've come to the conclusion I'd almost rather live in a large converted house with big rooms looking out on a small garden.  They have a bedroom about the size of Jack's, very nicely done in lovely walnut - 2 single beds pushed together - h& c - but not much room to walk in; a kitchen the size of our scullery - complact but cramped; a small lounge with the only fireplace (all very nicely centrally heated - no expense) & book case, spare bedroom - & dining room furnished with most lovely birchwood refectory table & side-board - all very Norweigan - with chairs copied from a 16th century one they saw somewhere.

I wasn't a bit envious - it's not really what I want at all - although very nice in its way.

Heavens - your family will think you're about to introduce a mad woman into the family, who can write 4 pages on two consecutive days.  I feel a bit surprised myself.

I must go now and change for dinner - I've been taking prep. all this time.

I love you very very much - & it's all I can do these days to think of waiting for you till next Spring - let alone next Autumn - it would spoil the wedding a bit if they had to fetch me from an Institution for Broken Spirits, wouldn't it?

A week today & you'll be getting nearer & nearer.  I shall manage to live till then - but in what manner is a matter for anxious conjecture.

My dearest - I send you my heart - 

your Mary Pleasant
                           xxx

12th October 1936 - Terrick to Mary

Wensley Rectory
Leyburn
Yorks


12th October 1936


My Darling

This time last month we were at Fort William.

We have just come back from a drive to Blackpool & Lytham St. Annes.  Blackpool seems to be quite a pleasant place, but probably only because it is the off season.  There is a marvellous Amusement Park there, with roundabouts, chairoplanes, switchbackts etc, which you would revel in.

I have just read the Telegraph crit of "Charles the King".  It seems to be marvellous.  We shall miss "As You Like It" because it comes off on Wednesday to make room for something else.

On Saturday we went into Harrogate & I got a book of the official account of "The Mutiny on the 'Bounty'".  It can't help being interesting but it is the worst written book I have ever read.  I'll bring it down with me.  My father has "Albert the Good" here which I shall start tomorrow.  It has the most quaint illustrations.

I have done a little of Sydney & Co, not much.  Up here I am at my worst.  I potter mentally among a lot of different interesting but useless things.  I have, however, written out practically all the plot of my novel.  What makes me lazy is the fact that I am always stuffed so full of food that I lie back half asleep most of the time.

Rosemary was here yesterday, full of beans now that she's not under the depressing influence of her pompous husband.  We are all going to tea with her at the Camp on Thursday.

Let's go & see "Charles the King" next week.

Pa & Ma like your photograph very much.  I keep it by my bed a& try & make it do.  Rosemary asked after you.

I am dying to hear how you got on with the German producer, do write soon about it.

It is just half past six so I must stop if I am to catch the post.  I'll write you another letter very soon.

I love you more than ever.

Your

Terrick

XXX

10th October 1936 - Mary to Terrick

Dunally

Oct 10th '36


My very own dear love - I am missing you more just at the moment than I have done since Tuesday.  I am sitting propped up in my hard bed after a bath, with my bottle between my legs, my hair in two stiff "berubberbanded" plats - & my ring opulently displayed on my finger because you aren't here.  I have been knitting all the evening while the family drifted in and chased out in ones and twos. The Lingwood boys, Flip & Graham suddenly shot off to the pictures - Jack, Jill, Lottie & Paget to a posh 21st at Cookham - and Mummy & Mr Lingwood have been playing patience ever since.  But it has really been a lovely day because it began with a letter from you this morning.  It was so nice to be given a picture of you sitting round the fire with your father & mother - eating lots for tea - & going off in the car with your father - and wearing your plus fours all day, and doing nothing.  When the emptiness beside me and in me grows unproportionately large, it always helps me on for a little while to think of the good it's doing you.

I had another lovely cooking lesson on Friday.  I had to go shopping in the lunch hour to buy my flour and margarine - the man in the shop asked if I was going to "try my hand a cooking"! - I suppose because I had to ask for "that kind of white sugar that isn't lump"! I also bought a pie dish for it - so I feel it's your turn next time to buy a hammer or ash tray.  I also had to go to the fruit shop to ask for enough damsons "to fill this pie dish". But I feel all this experience is invaluable to me.  My pie was quite successful, & we had it for lunch at school today.

I came home by bus with Grannie & Hell this afternoon.  Helen, apparently, is going to Breslau, although the Consul warned Uncle Edmund that the family doesn't even go to the theatre or employ a maid! - So I shouldn't think Helen's in for too good a time!  Also Cecil Wiscon (the short man at the sherry party) has had his engagement with the German girl broken off & doesn't seem to care a bit (Grannie says!) - He's got about £200 of hers to send back.

Miss X was exceptionally nice to me this morning & asked whether I'd rather go to the theatre or have a present for my bottom-drawer, because I'd been so good this term!  Something must have weakened her brain - because she has already told me I bluster, am too officious, and have lost my usual cheerfulness this term!

Next Wednesday (to fill my blankness) Patricia & I are going to "The Country Wife" at the Vic & I had thought of seeing "A Tale of Two Cities" at the Richmond - but perhaps that would be a bit extravagant.  Will you come to Richmond one evening the week you get back and see "Mr. Deeds goes to Town"?  Also Charles I sounds rather good, doesn't it?

I have got on to the 3rd story in the new Arabian Nights - but the plots  seem to dwindle off in them all - & Prince Florizel give me the pip - with his "Alas!" every two minutes.  I suppose Stevenson is old-fashioned too - but I'd never thought of him as being so before.

My new brown dress is fairly nice - but I think it makes me look a bit pompous.

Tomorrow evening after tea at Ken's new flat, I meet Kathleen Hayes to go to Kilburn to interview this marvellous Stratford producer who's going to put on scenes from Lear for the Drama League Festival.  I hope he doesn't take us all off to the White Slave Traffic!

*         *         *          *

This is Sunday morning just before lunch.  Mummy has had a dreadful cold all the week and had an awful attack of asthma during the night.  She called me for aged until I woke up - & then I never know what to do.  I think it's one of the worst feelings you can have to watch someone suffer & not know how to help them.  However, she's better this morning, although she still has a rotten cold.  I have made another exquisite apple pie and some dumplings.

We've got to leave here soon, so I must get this finished in time to post it when we go.

I'm sorry it's all in pencil, but I've lost my pen somewhere at school.

We're going to ask Ren down next weekend - it's going to seem an awful long time before then though.

Write to me soon, my dearest dear, - I think of you and long for you a hundred times a day.

Yours, with all my heart for always.

Mary Pleasant

9th October 1936 - Terrick to Mary

Wensley Rectory
Leyburn
Yorkshire

9th October 1936


My Darling Girl,

I hope you were thinking of me at all the times I was thinking of you yesterday - and to-day.

The journey was very good.  I had a middle seat as I had to reserve in advance - I always find myself a corner - but it had arms on each side and was very comfortable.  The whole train is silvered and very well upholstered inside. We averaged 71.65 m.p.h. to Darlington which was the only stop.  In the compartment we had one non-descript man, a sailor, two drunk Seaforth Highlanders and a quiet pompous-looking businessman reading business papers.  The two Scotsmen went to sleep before the train left King's X and one of them sank gently onto the businessman's shoulder.  His expression of disdain and disgust was a scream.  He kept jolting the soldier who at last rocked over onto his friend.

We got to Darlington at 8.45, three minutes ahead of time.  I had to wait ¾ hour as my father was preaching at the Harvest Thanksgiving at Bedale.  We got home just after half past ten, had supper, talked & went to bed.

I have just had my porridge-and-cream breakfast.  My mother is fattening me up so I have also had two herrings, an egg and two rolls.

It is Fair Day at Leyburn to-day so I'll post this letter there.  The Wensley morning post has been made earlier.

Already I have had a political argument as a result of the Daily Mail's attitude to the Spanish War.  I forgot that it is a waste of time.  I'll just sit an listen for the rest of the holiday.

How much nicer everything would be if you were here!  I have got your photo beside my bed, but it is not as satisfactory as the original.

This letter is to be instead of me for this week-end.  I reach out my heart to you and kiss you, my darling friend.

Oh Mary, I do look forward to the time when I shall not go off by myself but with you there to make life double.

All my love

Your Terrick

XXX

2nd October 1936 - Terrick to Mary

35 Nevern Place
S.W.5


2nd October 1936


Pettootie Darling,

I have just rung up to arrange about tomorrow, hoping that you would be back from your class; but as you aren't I have left a message for you to ring me in the morning so that you will be put off the scent of expecting this letter.

Your letter this morning was enough to make any man leap out of bed with a glad cry.  You certainly are the nicest of girls otherwise you couldn't write such nice letters.

How have you got on at your class?  I picture you toiling up the hill with rabbit pie under one arm, [Interval to speak to you on the phone] a nice pudding under the other and a beef olive in your handbag.

Now our conversation has spoilt this letter. When we are talking on the phone I much prefer listening to you talking to saying things myself, and am, I know known to start off into a monologue.

This morning I had a fitting of my new suit.  The fitter seems to be a very good man  I think it is going to be a good job.  Then to be absolutely the perfect businessman (west end version) I had to wear a hard collar with long points and a black homburg hat bound all round.

Digby goes off to Paris tomorrow to see his mother.  He is a funny fellow, very unlucky in his relatives.

When I go north I shall go by the Silver Jubilee to Darlington as the only alternative is a Pullman to Harrogate which takes three quarters of an hour longer to do a journey fifty miles shorter.  I shall get to Darlington at quarter to nine and home at about half past.  I like walking into the hall with the rather dim light & putting down my bag and then going into the drawing room where it is all light and quiet and exactly the same as the last time I was there.

Prager wants me to go to dinner with him on either Monday or Tuesday so let me know which day will suit you best to come up.  

Goodnight darling.  Sleep well, dream of me, and come down to breakfast to find this on your plate.

I am glad you have a roof to your mouth.  It would be very difficult phoning to you if you hadn't.

Your future lord & master

Terrick

xxx

1st October 1936 - Mary to Terrick

School

Oct 1st 1936

My very own dearest one- I have just got 20 minutes before the gong goes for dinner - & after that I go off to Shakespeare - so it is now or never that I must write this letter to you today.  It isn't really to say anything important because I can't imagine what I'm going to put next.  I only know that every empty minute, every blank moment of my days are filled with the wary thought that I shall have to go without seeing you for 12 days.  Dearest dear, I'm such a helpless fool - you would laugh and be just a bit cross with yourself for loving me, if you could only understand what a tremendous capacity I have for "missing" you.  I am so frightfully lucky to see you as much as I do - perhaps that's why I so often feel that we have really been married for a long time.  But I have grown to rely on seeing you so much, that it makes my heart rumble away inside me to think of your going such a long way away without me.  Perhaps it will be better when you have really gone, & when I can think of all the good your porridge & cream are doing you - and of how much you are enjoying it - but just now it seams like immeasurable distance until I wait on Kings X platform to meet your train in.

I loved yesterday evening & walking back through the park with you.  I was thinking today that the better you got to know a person the less you talked to each other - which seems such a pity - do you think when we're married we shall only remark on everyday things? - and what time we're going out or coming in etc?  Because I used to discuss this & that with you far more than I do now (to keep up your interest!)

- It is nearly time for me to go - & I haven't really told you anything in this letter yet - but it makes me feel a bit better even to think of your getting this in the morning.  Do you think you could just send me something, to show you had thought of me, nearly every day, when you're at Wensley?

- My darling heart - you mean so much to me - not only as a lover - but as the most perfect friend a woman could ever have.  To think that one day we shall spend our whole lives together, makes all these times of separation seem shorter - I love you and want you by me for always so very, very much - 

Your

Mary Pleasant