Running to Paradise (17 page)

Hope
you got my letter posted in Port Said. Bombay hot but fun. Thought you’d like this picture — interesting positions, don’t you agree? Don’t let the matador see this either, it might give him ideas. Salt water seems to have got into my typewriter — was it sabotage or just fate?

Love,
B

*

Cuckoo Farm, Dorset

24th
April 1933

Dearest
Char,

Home
safely, but the train so hot and crowded. Arrived here to find Paul packed and waiting to leave — an offer of a job in America, he claims. I shan’t be sorry to see him go, but one does expect a little gratitude.

Now
dear: I had a long talk with Algy last night after you had gone to bed. He says that as far as he’s concerned, the baby is his and will be brought up in exactly the same way as Ann and Evie. So there’s no more need to worry, is there, on that score. People will talk, they always do, but if you and Algy maintain a united front no harm can come to the child, and it is his, or her, welfare that is of importance now. Algy understands this and I hope, my darling, that you do too. What you must now do is build up your strength, and no more visits to back street quacks or any tomfoolery of that sort. Dr Scott says he’s very pleased with your progress, but you must rest and remember to take your iron tonic. Such a good idea to stay with Phyllis at Angmering. She’s just the person you need: bracing and a good sort, but always so kind. Roo says Phyll and Ronnie’s new house is quite lovely.

Pa
writes, ‘why doesn’t Char convalesce at Amberley — country air and peace is what she needs now.’ Why he should be under the impression anyone would find Amberley peaceful I cannot imagine. The Russian woman, I understand, has a continual stream of indigent relations staying there. Bobby Prescott (you remember him, dear, you and he used to have lessons together. He’s grown into such a nice young man) says he was woken up, when staying there the other day, by someone playing the balalaika under his bedroom window at four o’clock in the morning.

Give
my love to dear Phyll when you see her.

All
my fondest love,

Yr
loving Ma

PS
. Paul has taken my Browning!

*

Temple Court, Angmering, Sussex — 15th May 1933

Dreamy,
warm days of early summer. The shadows are spreading across the lawn and in a minute I must go in and change for dinner. Meanwhile, the woodpigeons coo in the shrubbery, Adam playing with a puppy, shouts with laughter from the rose garden and I just lie back and watch the smoke curling out of the chimneys and the swallows swooping and diving as they build their nests under the eaves.

It
’s months and months since I last wrote this diary; not since Barny went away. Next week I must go back to London and start life again. I feel so damned tired, though. I’m sure this baby will be a giant. It feels heavy already. Algy has a new girlfriend, Daphne Portman: dark, and rather clever, and mad on Algy (of course). He brought her down to meet me last weekend. ‘And what about Edwina?’ I asked.

‘
She is beginning to get a bit tiresome,’ he said.

Since
my illness he’s been so polite. Will he be rude again once the baby’s born? I hope so. Phyll said the other day, ‘Oh Char, you are lucky to have such an attractive husband.’ If she only knew...

*

From the
Times
, Monday, 2nd October 1933.

CHARTERHOUSE: on 29th September, to Charlotte Mary Charterhouse, wife of Algernon George Charterhouse of 3 Cheyne Square, Chelsea, London SW3 — a daughter.

Cuckoo
Farm, Dorset — 14th October 1933

The
baby turned out to be a girl after all — oh God! We’ve called her Sophia; I don’t know why, except Algy seems to like the name. She’s enormous, ginger haired and very quiet. Yesterday, Nurse put her on my knee: she opened her eyes and looked straight into mine and smiled. Only wind, of course, and she was really looking at the brooch I was wearing, but suddenly I saw Barny on New Year’s Eve. ‘That’s a rather childish game, isn’t it, can anyone join in?’

I
’ve no milk, thank God, so no ghastly feeding sessions.

‘
You must rest,’ says Dr Scott, ‘until you’re really strong again, and I would strongly recommend no more children.’ But I’m sick of resting, I want to live again. Ma drives Nurse mad, me too, but the autumn trees are lovely and I’m getting my figure back at last.

*

Mayfield Park

Morpeth

Northumberland

18th
October 1933

Darling,

How are you both? You are resting I hope and eating properly. I wonder how Nurse Gallop and your mother are hitting it off! The weather up here has been marvellous and we’ve had several good days. I bagged six brace yesterday — not bad! Per and Bunny have now joined us, both in great form, and send you and Sophia their love; the rest of the party rather mediocre.

By
the way, I think it only right to tell you that a chap called Peter Steerforth appeared on Sunday with some girl in tow. He’s rather thick with Per and told her that Barny Elliott is expected back at any moment. Apparently he sent this chap Steerforth a cable from Madrid threatening to park himself at his house in Flood Street again. Everyone here says he’s the most frightful sponger.

Back
Sunday and will be down the following weekend to bring you home.

All
love,

Algy

*

Flood
Street

6th
November 1933

Char
—

She
’s lovely...I saw her today in Chelsea Gardens. She was lying in her pram looking up at the trees and singing a little song to herself. She’s mine, isn’t she? She must be, she looks like my grandmother and anyway she’s going to have those eyes.

‘
Good afternoon Mr Elliott,’ says Nanny, looking up from her knitting. ‘Back already?’

‘
Yes,’ I say, raising my hat and sitting down beside her. ‘I see there’s been an addition to the family; how delightful.’ Nanny purses her lips and goes on knitting.

‘
May I buy her a bunny rabbit?’ I venture timidly.

‘
You must do what you think fit, sir,’ says Nanny rising to her feet. ‘We are going home for tea.’

Can
I see you? What about dinner on Thursday? I’ve so much to tell. China was pretty hellish, but exhilarating all the same.

Barny

*

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 10th November 1933

I
won’t see Barny, I won’t. Why in God’s name should I? How
dare
he smarm round Nanny in the Park? He rang twice yesterday, but Vera told him I was out. Algy, forgetting all his promises, said last night at dinner, ‘If that bastard comes round here I’ll break every bone in his body.’ He couldn’t, of course, B’s much stronger than he is, but how dare he when I have to put up with all his ghastly girls.

Drove
to Brooklands today with Tom Carstairs, a cousin of A’s. Such an amusing boy, with curly brown hair and bright, blue eyes. He’s just down from Oxford and he’s absolutely mad on cars. I think he might be falling for me...

3 Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 15th November 1933

I’ve seen Barny. He appeared, drunk, late last night. He must have known somehow A was away. I was dead beat after hunting all day with the Surrey Union, and on my way up to bed, when the front door bell rang. Vera, in her dressing gown, let him in. He looked ghastly — unshaven, unwashed and ill. I told Vera to bring black coffee and dragged him into the library.

‘
I want to see my daughter,’ he kept on saying.

‘
You can’t,’ I said. ‘She’s asleep and she’s not your daughter anyway,’ but he simply wasn’t taking anything in. Is this the man who took me to Jarrow? I sat him down on the library sofa and when Vera brought the coffee, I whispered to get a taxi from the rank outside. By this time B was shivering and as he drank the coffee, some of it dribbled down his chin.

I
felt sick and waited. By the time Vera put her head round the door to say the taxi had arrived, he’d subsided into incoherent muttering. Between us we managed to get him up off the sofa and downstairs to the front door and the taxi driver got him into the cab.

‘
You’re a heartless, bloody bitch,’ he shouted out of the window of the taxi, ‘but I’ll be back.’

Vera
and I tottered into the house and Nanny appeared. ‘Hot tea and brandy by the nursery fire, I think, Mrs Charterhouse.’ How marvellous she is: thank God she refused the Pimlico greengrocer.

*

Flood Street

15th
November 1933

Char,

I’m abject! Now you see what a hopeless contender for the marriage stakes I would have been. I really am most frightfully sorry. I have these bouts from time to time, you know, but swinish of me to have inflicted one on you. Will you ever forgive me? I suppose not.

I
’ll be out of town for a week or two; my grandmother has died at last — grandfather died in May — and I’ve to go to Oxford and sort things out. When I return
please
see me. I promise I’ll be good. You’re stronger than I am, darling, and thus you can afford to be magnanimous.

B

*

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 4th December 1933

Algy
and I have barely spoken for a fortnight. Then last night he came into my bedroom, took off his dressing gown and climbed into my bed. I told him to get out and go and find Daphne. I was sure she’d be only too glad for anything he had to offer. He took no notice and pulled my nightdress off my shoulders. ‘You’ll sleep with any man in London,’ he said, ‘so why not me?’

I
managed to get hold of the carafe of water from my bedside table and poured the contents over his head, then while he was spluttering and shouting imprecations, I dashed out of the room and upstairs to the nursery. In the end I spent the night in Nanny’s bed.

To
Harrods this afternoon Christmas shopping. Ann so funny talking to Father Christmas. Evie wouldn’t. ‘Take the horrid old man away,’ she shrieked.

Per
says Barny’s back, but no word. She met him at the Café Royal looking rather subdued, she said. He told her he was on the wagon and she thinks this must be true; he’s dining with them tomorrow night.

What
is going to become of me? I feel like a mouse in a treadmill. ‘You must eat,’ says Pa at dinner last night. ‘Your Great Aunt Connie was locked up because she wouldn’t eat.’ I said a lunatic asylum would be a rest compared to what I have to endure.

*

The Carlton Club

Monday,
11th December 1933

Dear
Char,

I
have decided to spend a few nights at my club. We simply cannot go on like this. I find I am no longer able to think properly and this is beginning to affect my work. Also these continual scenes cannot be good for the children. Will you please arrange for Vera to pack a bag for me — I shall need a white tie.

I
will ring you in a day or two, when perhaps we can discuss our future in a more or less rational manner.

Yrs,

Algy

The Carlton Club

Friday,
15th December 1933

My
dear Char,

I
’m sure you will agree our dinner last night was an unmitigated disaster and should not be repeated. It only serves to prove my point: that until you consent to give up this rackety, futile life you’ve been leading these last months, there’s no hope for our marriage. You’re never at home and therefore unable to attend to the smooth running of the household, rarely bother to visit the children in the nursery and flatly refuse to conform to even the basic behaviour any normal man is entitled to expect from his wife. This latest nonsense of becoming a Socialist (presumably at the instigation of that slimy bounder, Elliott, in a ludicrous attempt to humiliate me) is simply the culmination of a series of self-centred, hysterical and hostile acts towards a husband who has always done his best for you and yours.

I
’m sorry if this letter appears harsh; it’s not intended to upset you, but to try and make you understand how impossible it is for us to continue in the way we have been. For the immediate future I suggest I take Ann and Evie to Father’s for Christmas. It can’t be good for them to witness the sort of scenes that have become a daily occurrence at home. Old Nanny Briggs will be there and Father and Anthea will, they say, be delighted to have us. I suggest you take the baby and Nanny to Amberley, unless you would prefer your mother’s; we will then be able to shut up the house.