Letters to a Sister (30 page)

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 24 July, 1958

Dearest Twin,

This is to send my love for tomorrow, tho' I shall see you later. I forget which year you will be entering on; I prefer to forget that about both you and me, so don't tell me. Our age grows too formidable. But, whichever year it is, I do hope it will be a good one for you. Perhaps your sight will be improved in it by the cataract operation; I hope so. Anyhow, I hope we shall meet a lot.

Did you hear my voice (but not in the sung parts, as that
was confined to the choir and clergy) in the High Mass from All Saints' [Margaret Street] on Sunday at 9.45? I don't expect so. But I was there, and felt I was broadcasting. It was a beautifully done service, and I expect came over well. I liked Fr Ross's
³³⁵
sermon, too…. My City dinner with John Betjeman was fun, as his company always is. We drove back to his flat in the City together afterwards, and he talked about the things no one else but you and Dorothea ever wants to talk about (anyhow with me) such as confessions, beliefs, communion…

I am so glad you enjoyed ‘Frankly Speaking'.
³³⁶
I thought my interrogators
³³⁷
very intelligent and civilized and easy to discuss with. Why does——say I ‘made short work of them'? I don't know what she means. Nor by saying that she and a friend of hers were disappointed that I showed no ‘faith'—didn't like H-bombs but had nothing to recommend instead, etc. etc. ——never will, I fear, think I show ‘faith'. It would sound conceited to tell her of all the clergy and laity who found it in
Trebizond,
which I meant to be about the struggle of good and evil, its eternal importance, and the power of the Christian Church over the soul, to torment and convert…. [She] found none of that in it… she only thought I was ‘mocking'____I expect we are too different. A young woman I didn't know came up to me at the Empire Hall & told me reading
Trebizond
at a crucial moment in her life had decided her for the right course, and she had always wanted to tell me. -would be puzzled by this, and by the clergy who read bits of it to doubting ordinands, with successful results. But to tell her this would sound like conceit.... I have had several letters about ‘Frankly Speaking'. Roughly, the educated ones liked it, the non-educated didn't. Some of these were angry that I didn't like Sabbatarianism; others thought I spoke lightly of serious things. I suppose it relieves
their annoyance to write, but I wish they wouldn't. But I am told the B.B.C. gets angry letters and telephone calls all day from people who haven't liked a programme. What a lot it must cost them. And they are usually poor people; I expect the rich just switch off. I think the poor feel they have paid for something and aren't getting their money's worth, so complain and feel better.

Lying.
I think generally wrong, except in the case of small polite lies about being pleased to see people, sorry we can't, etc. But some lies I should think right; e.g. if it was the only way to save a victim from his pursuers or aggressors. I should certainly say I didn't know where he was, even if I did. I might also lie to save someone being badly hurt by something said about them. I don't think I should bother about lying for my country, even if I knew what lie would help it. Nor for my Church. If I could by a lie abolish the use of nuclear weapons, I would, but I can't think of any lie which would achieve this, can you? This would be to save the human race. I don't see why a woman's character should be shielded more than a man's. I shouldn't try to shield either unless something very terrible would be done to them if unshielded. I don't call it lying to say I believe something in order to remain a clergyman, as religious belief is too uncertain and shifting a ground (with me) to speak of lying or truth in connection with it. One believes in patches, and it is a vague, inaccurate word. I could never say ‘I believe in God' in the same sense that I could say ‘I believe in the sun & moon & stars.'

Did you hear, by the way, the story of Darwin & the
Beagle
voyage?
³³⁸
I wonder if clergy and other Christians really told him that ‘immutability of species' was stated in Genesis. I can't think where. I don't remember anything about it at all, do you? If it became a religious doctrine, I
wonder why, and when? But their whole conversation, including the Ark story, sounds too fantastic to be true. I must look it up.

Yes, Trebizond in my novel stood in Laurie's mind for the Christian Church. I thought I made that clear. I think the questioners asked did it stand for an ideal city or something, and if I had had longer notice I would have been able to explain more at length. These snap answers are unsatisfactory.

My House of Lords lunch with Lord Pakenham was amusing, but the part of the debate we heard afterwards in the Lords was deadly dull, all about motor car testing, tho' they had meant to discuss the Middle East, I should hate to be a life peeress.

More tomorrow when we meet. What a difference it makes to life to be able to say that! It is one of my greatest pleasures.

Very
much love, from your loving
Twin.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 2 August, [1958]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I said I would look up my birthday collect (for St Peter's chains). It is a nice one: ‘O God, by whose power blessed Peter the apostle was loosed from his chains, loose us, we beseech thee, from the chains of our sins, and mercifully put away from us all evil things.' A good introit, too. The Lesson, of course, is about Peter coming out of prison. The Gospel is the one R.C.s like so much, about ‘upon this rock I will build my church'. I wish we had this feast in the B.C.P. Perhaps Lambeth, or the Commission on liturgical reform more likely, will put in a few more Saints' Days….

I hope you are getting on with the Church Diet.
³³⁹
I should
think you were almost out of the Abbots now, and almost on to Abel. What a lot you will know when you have finished it—except that at 90 you may not take it all in so well….

[No signature]

Three weeks after this Rose set off on her last trip abroad, a cruise to the Aegean Islands and the Black Sea, starting from Venice and ending with a second brief stay there.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 17 August, [1958]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I leave for Venice Thursday 11 a.m…. Mind you cable in case of illness or anything.

I am sending you a mixed packet of papers—some bits from
Sunday Times,
Father Ross's… views on future life as I am investigating what people think about this, and an answer from
Catholic Herald
about what it is permissible to believe about evolution and the method of Eve's birth. I don't expect any one does believe it, actually. By the way, I looked up the Greek for Matt. 5, 32, and Knox's trans, is a quite impudent invention.
³⁴⁰
The Greek word means ‘apart from',
not
'whether or not'. It always seems odd that, knowing it would be read by Greek scholars who know what the original says, Knox should have the audacity to mistranslate as he
does. Still, I suppose he was between devil and deep sea, and better be despised by scholars than rebuked by the Vatican and perhaps have his trans. withdrawn….

Poor Fr Derry failed to get anyone to take the Grosvenor Chapel services today, so nobly returned from his holiday in Devon for today, and has just gone back there again. I think he might have left it untaken when he found no one he wrote to could come. I told him he could probably have got a Free Church minister to take the early mass, tho' I suppose they have their own services at 11.O. I should do this in his place, and risk reproof by the Bishop and congregation.

Very much love….

Your loving
E.R.M.

Venice
³⁴¹
25 August, [1958]

Perfect weather, charming little pensione—I am breakfasting in the garden under vine trellis. I had a comfortable journey. Venice seems full of acquaintances. Yesterday I went to the little Anglican church at 8.30, and mass at St Mark's later. I have seen a lot of things I wanted to see. This morning I shall go and bathe on the Lido. On Wednesday the
Hermes
sails from here for Greece & Black Sea. I pray I shan't miss it!… Yesterday I kept Uncle Regi's
³⁴²
centenary! He can never happen again.

V. much love.

E.R.M.

S.S.
Hermes
³⁴³
29 August, [1958]

... We are just back from Delphi, where we had a heavenly afternoon and evening. Very hot, and some steep climbing, but so beautiful. Now it is dark, and at midnight we go through the straits of Corinth, for Athens & Daphni. It is a very successful cruise, with such nice people on it. I am glad to have got to know better Lady Diana Cooper, a very charming and beautiful person. The crew are all Greek, and talk hardly any English. The Chaplain
³⁴⁴
is Low Church, and works in Rochester Diocese. However, he held an early celebration for St John Beheaded this morning, which he said he could not have done in his own parish. Last year the chaplain had daily mass and compline in the evenings. A Presbyterian passenger says they only have communion 4 times in the year. The Lambeth Report was dull, I thought. But sensible on birth control
³⁴⁵
….

V. much love.

E.R.M.

Venice
³⁴⁶
14 September, [1958]

Back in Venice, after a wonderful voyage. I think the Greek islands (3) were the most delightful of all—marvellous bathing, temples on mountains (I rode up on a donkey), charming little towns where one bought mementoes, hot sunshine.
Trebizond was like coming home. Russia like a ridiculous fairy story, full of sanatoria & resting workers. Istanbul wonderful from the sea, not so attractive inside; ship life entertaining and comfortable, such nice people. Of course Venice is better than anything else.... I have to write an article on the cruise for the
Queen
magazine now.
³⁴⁷
…

Very much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 22 September, [1958]

Dearest Jeanie,

… Life is closing round me again, now that I can no longer live like a lily of the field but must toil & spin. No doubt it is better for one, mentally and morally. And it is nice to get daily early Mass again and have it properly taken. If one lived in the country and had no choice of churches and a Low Church vicar, one's spiritual life would have to be very intense if it was to remain alive.... If I was a clergyman I would live in Venice, try and get the job of regular chaplain to the English church, and spend the week trying to convert the natives, tempting them with clouds of incense and a great number of images and processions. Tho' actually I believe non-R.C. processions aren't allowed there. But anyhow the English would come, or some of them, and I should quietly seduce some Italians, perhaps with little presents….

It was lovely seeing you again. V. much love.

E.R.M.

25 September, [1958]

Dearest Jeanie,

... I didn't hear about the people sitting outside Aldermaston, and don't know what good they hope to do.
³⁴⁸
That is the worst of
The Times,
it ignores so much folly that one likes to hear about. For other reasons, the evening papers probably also would ignore this, thinking it anti-nuclear-weapon. The
News Chronicle
is the best paper for these enterprises. J. Cameron today is v.g.
³⁴⁹
He puts things so well and incisively.

My distaste (general, of course, by no means universal) for the Low Church way of celebrating Holy Communion is that it so often seems to me slovenly and unceremonious, and the service read too slowly and expressively, the priest seeming to put his own personality into it instead of saying it in a level, colourless way so that one gets the meaning without emphasis or the intrusion of personality. Also, I naturally prefer the order of prayers (and the additions) that I am used to and take for granted. And I prefer the celebrant to pray facing the altar, not facing either south or towards the congregation, except when addressing us. If I found the Low way as good (for me) as the High, I would go to St Paul's, Baker Street,
³⁵⁰
much my nearest church. (Except that it only has Sunday services, another defect of Low churches.) As it is, I am very lucky to have Grosvenor Chapel so near. Even if I had to walk I can do it in 13 minutes, and in the car it takes about 5 or 6 only. And All Saints' is very little further (tho' earlier). Fr Derry... is educated, intelligent, and... preaches
well. And the Chapel itself is a charming one. So I am v. lucky….

I asked Gerard Irvine the other day what he thought about life after death. He said he thought purgatory would be a state of trying to get used to being with God, which would inevitably be painful at first, and to some people very tedious and unrewarding. After a time he thinks one would get used to it and it would cease to be painful and one would get to like it, or else become quite worn down by it and at last crumble away.
³⁵¹

V. much love.

E.R.M.

20, Hinde House, Hinde St, W.1 [29 September, 1958] Michaelmas

Dearest Jeanie,

... A young man who was in the German Embassy
³⁵²
and is now in Bonn is staying here for a few days at the Embassy and wanted to see me, so he and I and Gerard Irvine drove about on Saturday showing him extreme Anglican churches, which he likes; he nearly joined our Church when in London (he is a high Lutheran) but when sent back to Germany could find no English churches at all high, which are the only kind he likes, so now is on the verge of Rome, at present hesitating because his father doesn't like it. We did our best to persuade him into C. of E. but our influence will wear off once he is back in Germany, and he will pope soon.... I took him yesterday to St Mary's, Bourne St, about the highest church in London, which he liked. The preacher (the vicar
³⁵³
) said
we needed things to remind us of the church festivals, which we might otherwise forget—such as Easter eggs, gooseberry pie on Whit Sunday, midnight Mass and carols at Christmas, hot cross buns on Good Friday. He said if hot cross buns didn't remind him what day it was, they would choke him. His idea was that all these symbols are [in the nature of] sacraments, calling us to Church life. Do you remember the young man whose faith died and who was going to keep Good Friday like an ordinary day, but when his cook came in & asked him what time he would like lunch, he came to himself, exclaimed
Lunch
on Good Friday!” and rushed off to the 3 Hours…