An Accidental Man (13 page)

As ever,

your devoted brother

Matthew

Dear Ludwig,

I'm sorry we've kept missing each other. I hope you got the note which I left on the door of the flat. I shall be back there on Friday. I've been in the East End job-hunting. I want to find something straightforward to do for other people. I can't express to you how sick I got of philosophy, much more so than when we last talked. I said then it was rubbish. I think now it is muck. More of this when we meet. I haven't said, and I say now, how good it is that you are marrying Gracie Tisbourne. Good for her, since she is getting a first class chap, and good for you since you are getting what you want. I wish you happiness, and the things which are more important than happiness. You know what they are. About my father: I cannot think very highly of Miss Ricardo as a companion for him, but I am glad that he is where you are. My intuitions about him and you at Cambridge, Mass, were just ones. Do stay by him. At present I can do nothing for him, except keep clear of him and also of Dorina and Uncle Matthew. In families people are often automatically gifted with an ability to cause awful pain by moves which are innocent in themselves. I don't know how much you have studied, and if so understood, our curious scene. Anyway,
stick to Dorina
whatever happens as well as to father. She is probably best at Valmorana for the moment and so long as you go there father will feel easier about her. Excuse all this family rot. When we meet let us talk about quite other things.

Yours

Garth

My little bird,

How is it with you? I think about you constantly. I will send Ludwig over with some flowers. When you have the flowers, will you please send one back to me the way you used to? Your husband is still a sentimental old silly where you are concerned. I miss you horribly day and night. You know I told you in that note about having chucked up my job. Well, I think I will stay on a little longer in the Ricardo lodging house so as to get some money by letting the flat while I look for a better job. Mitzi is a blousy old whore but kindly and lets me have the room cheap. I believe she is having some sort of romance with her photographer. As I expect you have heard Matthew has turned up again. He came round late one evening, rather hang-dog. I'm afraid I was somewhat brisk with him and indicated in the politest possible way that he should keep clear of my affairs. I rely on you to support me in this. (Please, Dorina. Important.) I haven't seen him since but he has written me a hypocritical letter, wherein he says incidentally that he would rather hobnob with ‘diplomatic cronies' than be seen dead with ‘old acquaintances'! (That might interest Mavis.) I fear he has become quite incurably grand and will not be met with in our little world any more.

About us, it may be better at the moment to continue things as they are. I feel you are
resting
at Valmorana and you are safe there. If the Tisbournes suggest your going to their place, for God's sake don't go, they are prying peepers and first class trouble-makers. George very kindly announced he would find me a job! I told him to go to hell. Rest well, dear child, and become better in your heart and your soul. Quietness will make you feel whole again and will dispel those anxieties which made us both so naughty. Then you will come back to your tiresome old husband who loves you — who loves his dearest little bird so much. Let me know, as always, how your days go, what you do. I so much want to know that, to be able to picture you.

Ever, ever, ever,

Austin

Dearest Patrick,

grandma's funeral was a riot, I wish you'd been there. The graveyard bit was gloomy of course and I found myself shedding tears. Poor old thing, she never had much fun. Aunt Charlotte cried and mama patted her face (her own face not Aunt Char's) with a
black
hankie. Papa wept a bit, would you believe it, I was quite shaken. He is very
sensible
. (The French word.) He never got on with grandma of course, but he took it all in a literary sense. He was talking about mortality and so on in the car, the brevity of life and all that. That was in the car
going
. In the car coming back he was enormously cheerful, as indeed we all were. Aunt Char looked twenty years younger. Mama was chattering about the Spode dinner service and the Georgian silver. Then everyone came back to our house and there was a sort of
party. Sir Charles
had come. (I cannot get used to his elevation.) (We were spared Hester, Sebastian and your beloved.) And a lot of rather chic people I didn't know, and some of the linen people from Ulster, only they sheered off when they saw the
drink
! You see, everyone stood around for a while trying to be solemn, and then we heard a burst of gay laughter from the kitchen where papa and Sir Charles had opened a bottle of champagne. Then we all converged on the kitchen and there were drinks all round, and people were sitting on the kitchen table and draped round the hall and stairs with glasses in their hands and corks were popping, it was quite a wake. Ludwig was there of course and he obviously rather disapproved, but he had a drink to please me and then cheered up. Yes, of course he is too good for me, and I thank heaven fasting. He will be a good
husband
— dread word — you see how old I have become that I can even utter it. He is clever and wise and sweet, and if he is solemn his other half will provide the laughs. I am glad, chicken, that you are jealous! But fear not for our alliance, that is eternal, and a brother is forever. Oh dear, Ludwig wants me to write to his parents and I don't know how. I suspect they are
difficult
, (religious!), so unlike our dear parents whom you were so idly knocking.
Ours
have, so far as I know, never prevented either of us from doing anything that we wanted ever, which is not bad for aged Ps. As for your
curiosity
about what Lud and I are
doing
, you must
reck your own rede
and be contained! Best of luck with Ralph Odmore whom I always think of (sorry, lover boy) as a grubby urchin. But of course he's huge now. I suspect he's cleverer than Sebastian. Only I can't help hoping your being hooked on your own sex is just a phase, and you aren't going to be like Oliver, I think the other sex is always more fun. Write soon. Much love, little one. Your matronly sister,

G.

Yes
, about the aged Ps not getting imbrued in the Gibson Grey mess. As I think ma told you telephone-wise, Matthew is back. There's another man I want in my net! I'm told he's got fat, though.

Dearest Clara,

I was glad and sad to hear of Gracie's engagement. Our age-old plan for our young had something too-good-to-be-true about it, hadn't it? I think, probably from some time ago, they had both deeply decided otherwise, and I daresay they are being sensible and it serves middle-aged dreamers right! As Charles is always telling me, one shouldn't dream too much about other people's destinies, even if they are one's children. I hope Gracie will be very very happy and I look forward to meeting the boy.

I am told Matthew Gibson Grey is in England. Is this true? Do you know his address? Charles is very keen to get hold of him about some government thing, to serve on a comission or something. I thought he was going to join a religious order in the east? I suppose that was just a legend. Matthew is the sort of person who generates legends. Poor Austin can't be too pleased. Even if the old story about Betty isn't true, Austin can hardly want Big Brother as a spectator of his current catastrophes. But perhaps Matthew is only passing by? Will we see you at the Mill House this weekend? Mollie says she has invited Penny Sayce again but
not
Oliver and Henrietta! (Apparently Geoffrey cannot stand Oliver.) We count on you for the weekend following, of course. Charles sends love. He
did
enjoy himself at the funeral!

Au revoir and love

Hester

I gather Garth Gibson Grey is home too and has become a drop-out. I'm so terrified Ralph will be one. Thank heavens he and Patrick are pals now. Patrick will be such a steadying influence.

My dear Charlotte,

I should have written to you much sooner to say how sorry I was to hear of your mother's death. These are not empty words, and it is not just that in every death we mourn our own. I saw little of her lately, but I recall with gratitude her vigour and directness in the days when she used to help me financially with my girls. Her charity was always judicious. I only wish I could have recruited her as a fellow worker. She came of a good breed, and it is only sad that so much energy and character had to be confined to the narrow field of family life. What a general she would have made!

On another topic. I am so worried about Dorina. Clara has invited her. She won't go. (You know why.) I think indeed she cannot go to Clara's, but she does desperately need to see somebody other than me. In a way I am the last person who can help her at present. She is fond of you and respects you. Will you not come and see us, especially now that you are more free? Ring up soon about this. Only don't tell D. I asked you to come!

I hope it's in place to add that I am so glad that you will now be in easier financial circumstances! One does like to see the big money going, for once, to those who deserve it and are one's friends! Forgive this faintly cynical note, which issues, as you know, from affection! Come soon. With love,

Mavis

PS Is it true that Matthew has come home? Could you let me know if you hear anything about him?

My dear father,

I grieve deeply at the pain which I am causing to you and to my mother, and I beg you to forgive me and to try to understand. This is not anything hasty and surely you know me well enough to realize that ‘the pleasantness and ease' of England is not something which could tempt me away from my duty if I thought that it lay elsewhere. I cannot be an active partner in an iniquitous proceeding. That this war is an unjust war and a crime I have many times argued to you and I will not rehearse the arguments. We see this differently. All right. But granted that I believe what I do believe, I cannot be morally justified in donning the American uniform. I should regard myself with abhorrence, as a murderer, if I were to let conventional attitudes or public opinion or even my love for you lead me to be a slaughterer of the innocent. If ever I saw my duty plain before my face it is here, and I cannot do otherwise than refuse this summons into a place of wickedness.

As for obtaining exemption, I do not see that, since I am not a pacifist, I could do so on any ground allowable by the tribunals. This is a matter on which I have reflected for years and about which I feel clear. Meanwhile do not fear that I shall be extradited. The British government is very unwilling to extradite any American ‘objectors', and my having been born here makes extradition unthinkable in my case. I feel there is moreover nothing improper in my now presuming upon the ‘accident' of my ‘English' birth, for it seems, in all the circumstances of my having come to study in London, together with the crisis which has overtaken me here, to be no accident after all but a disposal of destiny for which I should be humbly grateful.

It is indeed arguable that I ought to come home and be martyred, tear up my draft card, refuse to join up, as many others have so admirably done, and then let them do their worst. That would be to act the Socratic part. Socrates did not allow the laws of Athens to force him into wrong-doing. He kept on speaking the truth and was prepared to take the consequences. I have thought long and carefully about this and have decided that this particular martyrdom is not enjoined upon me. I do not dread, indeed I would welcome, a term in prison, but if I were to drink of this cup I should lose my passport, my access to Europe, and possibly any further chance of pursuing my studies. I would find myself forced to become a full-time protester. And this, I am certain, is not my task in life. You, who have so often bid me ponder the parable of the talents, should understand this. Plato said that justice was doing one's own job. I must pursue my chosen studies and develop my mind and make it fruitful or else perish in my soul. I could not live the life of protest. I am not in any sense a group man. I should become rancorous and ultimately vapid. I am a contemplative and could never be a man of action. I know myself, and the
duties
which being myself imposes. Please please understand that this is not an idle or frivolous decision, but engages all the deepest things that I am. I make it as before God.

I have a piece of news which I hope will give you pleasure and seem to you like a hopeful sign of some later time when we shall have survived these woes. I have become engaged to be married to an English girl. Her name is Grace Tisbourne. I enclose, as you will have seen, a photograph of her. (It isn't a very good one. She is much more beautiful than that.) Her family are very good, her father is a high civil servant, her brother is at a private school (what they call a public school over here) and she is a wonderful and sweet girl. She would like very much to write to you and will probably do so in a little while. Do rejoice with me if you can in this. And see that now I
must
envisage a time when we shall all be united in peace and happiness in Europe. Please see it this way. I love you and I honour you and if I could obey you I would. But I must first obey my conscience, as you yourselves have always taught me to do. Please understand that my decision is firmly taken. And please write soon and forgivingly to

Your loving son

Ludwig

My darling husband,

thank you for your sweet letter. No Louis and no flowers however. Never mind. I miss you terribly too. In a little while we'll meet, but not yet. You are very understanding, who else would understand so well? There is a sort of nothing here, a nothing in me — I'm sure everyone else thinks that something definite is up, whereas — Oh I am a tiresome girl to you and you must forgive me! I just have to be alone for just a bit longer, just breathing, existing. You like to know what I do. I do little things. Today I worked in the garden. I clipped the privet hedge and mowed the lawn. And I painted a cupboard and stuck some pictures from magazines on to the door of it. It is very pretty. You shall see it. I will do one for us. I am rather worried about your letting the flat, though I suppose it is necessary, is it? It seems silly to say it, but it sort of cuts off our retreat for the moment, I mean it is home after all. I know I left it but it is there. You will think I am being very stupid, but I feel suddenly homeless. Please let this time be short, and don't let anyone get into the flat that you can't easily get out again, will you. Had you not better take legal advice about it? And do be careful who it is, the tenant I mean, there's so much of
our
things in the flat, there's letters and things and all your old stuff in that trunk and private things. Don't destroy anything please, but lock it all up somehow won't you. I do hope you will soon get a better job, I'm sure you were right to throw up the other one, and go back to the flat again. I liked to think of you there in
our
place. I hope you are comfortable where you are. I think Mitzi Ricardo is a nice person. Give her my best wishes. And give my love to Garth. Don't worry about Matthew. He won't come here. So we are in our seclusion and all is well. And of course I won't go to the Tisbournes. I am not too troubled with the strange things, and I am reading a lot. I will send you a book at the weekend. I would like us to be reading the same book. Forgive me and don't stop loving me, as indeed ever and ever I love you.