Letters to a Sister (3 page)

These final years of Rose's life brought radiant fulfilment to her in many ways. Her spiritual ‘exile' and the torments of remorse and contrition were left behind, and in profound thankfulness for the Christian life with its ‘new dimension', as she called it, she longed to share with others her blessed experience of forgiveness. In this frame of mind she wrote
The Towers of Trebizond.
Its resounding success caused her intense joy. Many greeted it as the best novel she had ever written, while perceptive readers prized its deeper meaning.

But its message was in some ways cryptic, and much of its light relief invited misinterpretation. Among Rose's closest friends were several who delighted in
Trebizond,
but found its end unsatisfying, and they urged her to write a sequel. Yes, she would write again of the conflict of good and evil in the human heart. There would be a different set of characters but again the story would begin in England and then move southwards, this time to her beloved Venice. Perhaps it was Rose's mermaid blood, like that of Ellen Green—the willowy heroine of
And No Mans Wit
—which inevitably made her such an ardent Venice-lover. Her first enchantment had been as a little girl in 1892, when she was taken there for a visit with her sisters Jean and Margaret. Staying in Venice more than sixty years later was still ‘like living in some lovely poem'. Rose was on the crest of the wave of
Trebizond'
s success when her new novel began to take shape in her mind. When she died, in October 1958, only one chapter of
Venice Besieged
had been written, but there was also a notebook of rough jottings. How tantalizing! Yes, but a challenge to the imagination that the finished ‘Venice-book' could never have been.

In the complete first chapter, which begins with a road accident near Stonehenge on a midsummer night, one gets to know the characters. The notes take them on to Venice, and show the wealth of scholarship and fantasy and wit Rose would have interwoven with the ingenuities of the plot. How would it all have ended? These fragments do not provide a definite answer, though there is just a hint that eventually catastrophe and chaos would have been superseded by redeeming love. Unavoidably one is left with many unanswered questions, but with a unique glimpse behind the scenes at the process of Rose Macaulay's art.

CONSTANCE BABINGTON SMITH

In the train
Easter Day [4 April], 1926

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am en route for Petersfield,
¹
going by train to Godalming, and bicycling the last 20 miles from there. It is lovely country from there, and a perfect day, so it should be a nice ride, especially as I have left lots of time to loiter and explore by the way….

I went to Grosvenor Chapel on Good Friday, where Mr Underhill
²
gave quite good addresses, very practical. He seems a good man, on the whole, I think; I'd never heard him before….

Another advantage of the wireless, according to an article I read yesterday by the Editor of the
Church Times,
is that it is saving family life from boredom and irritation. No longer, he said, does the husband have to sit in the evenings and listen to inanities from his wife about the neighbour's baby or the servants; he and she can now both sit in silence, with the phones on their ears. I quite agree…. I'm not sure if you meant that wireless or work was the most splendid invention that has ever been, you put it ambiguously. If you meant work, I don't agree (I'm not sure about wireless, either, though I love to have it—but it's a better idea than work, anyhow!). Of course it all depends on the work. There is dull, and interesting work. Mr Underhill was saying on Friday that the dullest lives he had ever seen were those of working mothers, always at some dull household chore from morning till night, and scarcely ever getting out, and never going away. He worked in a poor parish for 25 years, so knows about it. I'm sure they
wouldn't agree with you about work being a good invention. I read a rather interesting novel the other day, by a friend of mine, called
The Question Mark.
³
It is about the world some thousands of years hence, when everything gets done by machinery, so no necessary work is left to do. Consequently work is only done by the intelligent and highly educated, and the others, the ‘normals', concentrate on sport, sensation, and sex interest, and get generally demoralised. This person agrees with you, apparently….

Very much love.
  
R.M.

[2,] St Andrew's Mansions,
⁴
Dorset St, W.1
18 April, [1926]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I am glad you have got a member into the Have-Not League.
⁵
Is she the only one besides you? I'm sorry you can't get any of your own family to join: I feel we ought, but also that we shan't. When the moment comes to decide whether to go a walking tour in the Pyrenees (or whatever our form of luxury may be at the moment) or to give the money away, I feel I always decide on the selfish side. It is very bad; I feel rather like St Augustine, that perhaps I shall be better when it matters less, at some future date, perhaps when I am too old to go about etc.

This day last year was our first day at Soller, I believe—I mean the day after the first night. Do you remember how exquisite it was, waking to the sound of bells, and going out on the terrace with the wistaria to the lavatory (tho' perhaps the less said of the lavatory itself the better) and coming down
to coffee and
ensaimada,
⁶
then going out into the town. I forget if we climbed the Puig Mayor that day or another, but everything we did was lovely. Possibly we drove to Miramar….

Much love.
   
R.M
.

Thursday [22 April, 1926]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I still am rather fevered and coldish—hope not flueish. ... I stay in, and listen to the wireless. Those horrid Australians
⁷
were speaking this afternoon, about what a ‘pure' and noble game cricket is. They didn't say how or why it was purer than football, hockey, tennis or golf. Cricketers are conceited.

Then I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury
⁸
at some meeting Eleanor is at
⁹
—less offensive but equally dull. At least, as a Christian, he knows that it's not true that ‘Britishers always play the game, in life as well [as] on the field'. I wonder if people who say that ever read the papers, and see what Britishers do in the way of fraud and wickedness. But of course I don't really know what ‘playing the game' means. Much love.

Your loving
R.M.

2, St Andrew's Mansions, Dorset St, W.1
3 May, [1926]

Dearest Jeanie,

… The strike is over my head, and I don't think anything
sensible about it, except that it seems inevitable now.
¹⁰
A man I know
¹¹
who was one of the recent Coal Commission spent ½ an hour a few nights ago explaining the position to me, and if I were to try and pass what he said on to you it would take many sheets of paper. It would take less time to tell you what Mr Trowles, my char's husband, thinks, as the thoughts of the poor & simple are shorter than those who know more of the subject.
He
doesn't see why the miners who are only pushing trucks and ponies about above ground should get so much more than other working men as they do, though he thinks that those of them (a small proportion) who go down into what Mrs Trowles calls ‘the bowels of the earth' should not have any reduction of wages or increase of hours. The proposal, isn't it, is to lower wages to only 20% above prewar level, instead of 33⅓% as it now is. But I forget if this means purchasing power or actual coinage—so little do I know of the subject, even after Sir William Beveridge's exposition.

But I must say I do object on principle to general strikes to settle questions concerning a particular industry.

I suppose the chief thing about the mining question is, where is the money to come from? At present coal isn't paying its way at all, but [is] being worked at a loss, until the new improvements can be carried out. I don't think it would be a good thing to continue the subsidy, it's such a heavy burden on tax-payers. I wish the Union would consent to the 8-hour day, which would, they say, make all the difference to production. But they seem firm on the 7 hours...

Much love.
   
E.R.M.

p.s. What do you do with mawkish female admirers who vent their passion by leaving you expensive flowers and begging
you to have meals etc. with them? I get them through my books, and they are becoming (one in particular) a problem. I don't like being rude, yet it bores me to see her, and I haven't time either. Yet, as she says, I must have lunch somewhere, and can she join me at it. I think I must pretend to have gone abroad or something. She asks if she may become, if possible, one of my friends.
What do I say?
She mayn't, but I must convey this politely if possible. So far I've not answered the letter. She called to see me, with lilies of the valley, and I went out to lunch to get rid of her, and she had it with me. Writing books is a terrible magnet for such as her. They are so very boring, as a rule. I suppose no-one who wasn't would force their way into people's lives like that. Now that she has seen me, she is
worse
than ever. Do you have them too, or is everyone you know too busy? I'm really too busy myself, but one's own busyness doesn't deter people. Anyhow I have enough friends already, and I do resent people thinking they can become friends merely by pushing their way in. As a matter of fact I select my friends with great care, and only have those who please me a great deal. There must be a way out of these problems, I wish I could hit on it. I must ask other novelists what they do.

2, St Andrew's Mansions, Dorset St, W.1
17 May, [1926]

Dearest Jeanie,

… I wish I understood more about the strike … I mean, the miners' strike—I do understand the other,
¹²
I think, and don't approve at all. The men didn't want to come out a bit, so everyone says, but they had to obey their Unions or get into trouble with them, which they can't afford. To make it more palatable, the Union leaders spread the quite untrue report that the lowering of miners' wages was a prelude to
an attack on other wages. I saw this in a leaflet that was being sold. The question was raised in Parliament, and [J. H.] Thomas didn't attempt to deny that it had been a fabrication for propaganda purposes. I do dislike that man. I heard him in the House the other day, and thought him
very
cheap and insincere and unfair.

According to Mr Trowles (my char's husband) the story was widely believed, but even with it he said he knew very few working men who wanted to come out. It was obviously wrong of the Unions to tell them to, as most of them broke contracts to do so. It would have been thought very wrong if employers had broken their contracts with their men by sacking them without due notice for no fault of theirs, just because they disapproved of the way some other men in another trade were behaving, and this was just as mean, I think, and quite as illegal. Also very silly, of course, as it could do no good.

Of course the miners' is a quite different question, and far more difficult. In fact, too difficult, unless one is a coal expert. The agreement of 1921, by which they got these wages, automatically ended on May 1st 1926, and trouble was bound to come. Last year the Government spent 23 million pounds, which the country can't afford, on subsidising the coal industry, and obviously that can't go on indefinitely, though I think it should for a time. The fact is that it is not at present, under present conditions and with present wages and hours, a paying industry, and mine after mine will have to be closed down unless the men can produce more somehow. Also if the present wages continue, there will be more unemployment, as so many can't be employed. Of course the reductions don't affect the lower-grade men; no-one under £2:5 a week is reduced at all, and these not much. The cuts only seriously affect the £3:18 to £4:15 men—i.e. those who do the actual deep pit work, and some of the high-grade men on the surface. These could lose about 10/- a week, which is hard on them, but they would probably re-win it when coal
paid better. A Welsh girl I know whose family are all miners says her father and 3 brothers each earn about
£4,
& share a house, so get £16 a week; but this is exceptional luck, of course. Of course the whole wages question seems to me so difficult, because
I
don't see how anyone can raise a family on under £3 a week, and yet they do. I mean, I would raise
all
wages, if industry would allow, not especially to miners, who are better paid already than most, in the high grades. When this agreement was made, in 1921, cost of living was 268%. Now it is reported to be 168% (above pre-war cost, this is, of course). So, a man who was now reduced from £4 to £3: 10, would actually in buying power be better off than in 1921—he would lose ⅛ of what he earns, but has gained more than that in purchasing power. But still, no-one wants to lose any money, and one can't help feeling they have a good case and are wise to fight it. The only possible end is more Government subsidy, I think. I believe it's true that the coal-owners are going bankrupt and can't pay more.

Of course we hate governments, because they make us do what we don't like, it's what they're for. They're all silly, too. I hated the
British Gazette,
horrid little paper. I prefer a Liberal government on the whole. But no gov. can solve the coal question well…

[The end of this letter is missing]

St Andrew's Mansions, Dorset St, W.1
Whit Sunday [23 May], 1926

Dearest Jeanie,

... I disposed of my admirer by, when she insisted on lunching with me, arranging with some other friends of mine to turn up and lunch with us, so that there could be no private conversation and so that it must have been obvious to her I didn't mean to be alone with her. She has taken the hint, and
subsided into silence—I am so glad, because I began to fear her skin was too thick for any hint, and that I should have to be unkind straight out, which I never like. If one
can
settle an affair politely, so much the better.