A Very Private Eye: The Diaries, Letters and Notebooks of Barbara Pym

  22 July. After supper I wrote about four foolscap pages of my new novel. I don’t quite know what to think of it – I can’t feel it’s really as good as Some Tame Gazelle, but it may stand a better chance of getting accepted.

  24 July. Naturally I’ve ceased to miss Henry so agonisingly, but I still hope – though faintly – to hear from him. When I think of him apologising for being irritable with me, and standing in the room in the early hours of the morning, looking like an unshaven Russian prince with a turquoise coloured scarf round his waist – of course I love him!

  I have now written 8 chapters, or a hundred pages of my new novel, and feel that I am getting into it. I have worked hard at it today and yesterday.

  14 August. Last Monday I had a letter from Jonathan Cape – saying that he was interested in my novel Some Tame Gazelle and thought he might be able to offer to publish it if I would make some alterations. They are quite minor ones – so I hope I shall soon be able to send it off again. And then – I dare not hope too much, but it would be marvellous if he took it.

  To Henry Harvey

  I imagine you are at 30 Banbury Road?

  Morda Lodge,

  Oswestry,

  Shropshire.

  20 August 1936

  My poor Henry:

  Thank you for both your pathetic letters. They were a good deal better than nothing. I doubt if either of us will ever be the same again after Gerard and as you’ve had the examining as well you may be worse off. But I don’t think you will be, because your heart will be quite whole and you will have £37.103.

  I am quite worn out although we have only just come back from the sea. I daresay Jock has told you about Jonathan Cape and my novel. He is going to consider it again – after I have made a few alterations. They are quite minor ones, but so wearying to do. I’m sure I know it almost by heart – certainly the first few pages. I am greatly cheered about this, but only vaguely hopeful. Why should Jonathan Cape want to publish my novel, when Macmillan and Methuen didn’t? (I don’t count Chatto and Gollancz as nobody but a fool would have published it in its early form.) And anyway I’m only twenty-three. But all the same I shall probably cry if Cape don’t take it. Adam and Cassandra [Civil to Strangers] are getting on quite nicely, though I haven’t done much to them lately. Adam is sweet but very stupid. You are sweet too, but not as consistently stupid as Adam. But I wish you were here to show me where to put commas and to help me with my novel. I can type frightfully fast after doing Gerard, but find that instead of being able to type words like Archdeacon and Belinda I want to type Langbaine and Archi-typographus.

  I am all alone in the house, except for the wireless, which you despise so much. I am writing rather slowly and laboriously and every time I think of something nice to say I stop and consider it well before I put it. I don’t believe letters should be written like this, especially from people like me to people like you. It would be better if I could write you a poem and I have written one or two fragments since I last saw you. But I don’t think I shall own them. Your little poem was very touching and far more acceptable to me than your letters in the style of Joyce. I wish I knew something about the modern poets. Nobody will listen to me (except Jock) when I say that I am very fond of Young’s Night Thoughts. I wish you would teach me about them and tell me which ones to read and how to understand them. Even the Finns know more than I do. You ought to try and educate me in things I don’t know about.

  I hope you have recovered from your spleen. I haven’t been really unhappy since the week after you went.

  Just such a letter might poor Elsie Godenhjelm write to you, only perhaps she has more respect for you than I have – though I have still a certain amount. I hope you will think this is a nice answerable letter although it is rather dull. (Very dull, I think, on reading it through – but there is not much news and I have forgotten how to write a real love letter. I have now for so long mistrusted the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.) And at present I don’t really pine for you – I mean my eyes don’t prick with tears every time I think of you as in July.

  Take care of yourself and be happy. All my love,

  Barbara

  30 August. I wish my diary were as interesting and instructive as Anthony à Wood’s. It must be dull reading with nothing but the falseness of Henry in it. There should be more talk of prodigies in it and more intelligent accounts of what I have been doing.

  7 September. A very pleasant day with Henry, Jockie and Mr B. They came for me at about 9.30 – having spent the night at the Wynnstay. We went to Port Meirion. This is a very charming, very Henryish place with pink and blue and yellow Italian villas and statues all about in odd corners. Henry was very nice and it was all very pleasant. He goes back to Finland on Tuesday. I envy Elsie Godenhjelm – after all I love him too!

  1 October. In the morning I finished (typing) Chapter XIV of Adam and Cassandra. I have now reached p.170 and think I can finish it. It seems to get better as it goes on, I think.

  1937

  On 12 December – a Sunday – Henry Stanley Harvey married

  Elsie Beatrice Godenhjelm in Helsingfors at the English Church.

  So endete eine grosse Liebe.

  3 December. Oxford. I was having lunch with Denis Pullein-Thompson in Stewart’s. We had been to a sherry party and were still feeling the effects of it. I was talking like a Finn. When we had almost finished lunch a young man came and stood by our table. He was about my height, slight and dark with a quizzical, rather monkey face. He wore a camel hair coat and a spotted tie and looked sleek and neat. Denis introduced him as Jay and me as Päävikki Olafsson. He sat down with us. I went on talking like a Finn. After a while Denis had to go to an OUDS rehearsal so Jay and I were left alone. I gave up being a Finn. We talked about my writing. He said that he sometimes wrote poems and that he thought it might be a good thing to spend five years writing a novel. I said I couldn’t do that. He asked me to go back to his rooms in Balliol, which I did. He asked me what I would like to drink but I wanted nothing. His rooms were rather untidy, with papers and letters all over the table and desk and a rather ill-drawn map for some subject of Pass Moderations. The books were just work books. We sat on a sofa – he took my hand and told my future and then kissed me. I was surprised – it was the first time anyone so much younger than he had done such a thing, for he was only eighteen and I twenty-four.

  He had so much charm and a kind of childish simplicity, combined with Continental polish that was most appealing.

  He stole my handkerchief – a Woolworth’s 1½d paisley – and wouldn’t give it back. Before I went he put some German and Hungarian records on the gramophone and made me say that it would be Auf Wiedersehen and not Adjö. He came out into the rain and walked with me to the bus stop, arm in arm, with fingers linked. I was happy.

  4 December. I went back to Oswestry and later had a letter from him

  I went to a ball at the Austrian Legation last night. Everyone wore peasant dress or pre-war Austrian uniforms. Occasionally swarthy Hungarians smashed their glasses against the wall. It was your party. I wish you could have been there. They played nothing but Viennese waltzes, and Bauermusik.

  Next Friday I leave for Kitzbühel. I’m afraid the atmosphere will be anything but central European, but I’ll send you a postcard of some mountains and some peasants.

  I send you a handkerchief that you may dry your tears when you read Werther. I’m afraid it’s not as nice as yours but it will make up for it. When am I going to see you again my ‘vaend at Elske’ Vikki – when do you come to London? and when you come will you be a Shropshire spinster? a Finnish student? or just a novelist up to see her publisher?

  Servus

  Jay

  1938

  January. Hilary went back to Oxford and met Jay – a funny little thing but rather fascinating, she said. After they met he wrote to me, saying that her voice had reminded him of mine. And

  I am angry with you. You have been in my mind al
l day and stopped me concentrating on Louis XVI – I simply can’t believe that I’ve only seen you once for an hour and a half. What will you be like when I see you again? Budapest is on the wireless, the songs have all been very melancholic so far – I feel very Hungarian. Write to me and tell me what you’re doing and thinking, and don’t forget to tell me when you’re coming.

  This was especially welcome at this time because I was still feeling rather unhappy and lost about Henry’s marriage – I was thankful for any interest to be taken in me.

  25 February. I went to Oxford. After tea I went shopping and when I came back there was a light in my room. I went in and saw someone standing in a camel hair coat with his back to me. He turned and faced me and held out his hands to me. I scarcely knew him as we had only met once before. Soon I was talking rather nervously and rapidly and found out that he was writing for a newspaper called Oxford Comment, that he hadn’t been well and was going to Spain in March. He thought perhaps that I was disappointed in meeting him again but soon we had our arms around each other and I knew it wasn’t so.

  26 February. When I got to Balliol three blond Etonians like teddy bears were there. I was nervous and forgot my Finnish accent. They went soon after I came. Jay embraced me with such force that he hurt my nose and made it crooked.

  For some reason I was vaguely unhappy all evening – either because it was raining or because I had forgotten my lipstick, or for some other, less obvious reason.

  After dinner we went to see Ghosts at the Playhouse. It was quite the most terrifying play I have ever seen and I felt unhappy all the time. We talked in the intervals about ourselves and our ambitions. He said that he couldn’t bear to die without having done something by which he could be remembered.

  At the end of the play – which was horrible – we were both frightened and disturbed and walked back to my rooms apart and almost without speaking. There was a tremendous wind in Pusey Street, so that we could hardly stand. It was cold and refreshing.

  28 February. Jock depressed me about my Finland novel and I was in tears all the time I was at his flat, especially as I was also unhappy about Henry and my own life seemed pointless and just a waste of time if I wasn’t even going to be able to write. I went home and cried – there seemed to be nothing to live for.

  The next day I tried to pull myself together and succeeded in thinking about a new novel although I was still unhappy and thought I would have to get a job somewhere at once.

  3 March. I was better. A man came along the street singing and I threw some money to him. He wished me luck – I thought how I needed it. I did some writing and then read a book about the Oxford Group – For Sinners Only – which brought a curious kind of consolation as well as making me laugh. I thought how nice and easy it would be to be ‘changed’.

  I went to the Pacifist Meeting in the Town Hall. I saw Don Liddell – he and Jock were there selling literature and carrying posters. Just before it was about to begin I saw Jay standing up in the front. I felt rather excited although I had resolved to put him and all such diversions from me – but I managed to attend well enough to the meeting. The speakers were George Lansbury, Mary Gamble and J. Middleton Murry. After the meeting I talked to the Liddells and John Barnicot. We walked along the Corn. Just by Marks and Spencer’s Jay walked past us. I caught him up and asked him if he was going to sign the Peace Pledge. He took my hand and held it very fast. Walking along with him all my unhappiness vanished. We went into the the Randolph and, as it was only five to ten we were able to buy a bottle of Niersteiner to take back with us. In my rooms we drank wine and talked and loved and I made a half-hearted effort to convert him to Pacifism, though I wasn’t entirely converted myself. But he said that he thought there were worse things than war, and that if he thought all Beauty was going out of his life he would simply shoot himself.

  4 March. I met Jay by the Ashmolean and we leaned up against it and stood looking up at the Randolph and the blue sky behind it. We were like two people having a coltish flirtation. He bought me a bunch of violets and I gave him half a dozen – one for every occasion we had met. Then we parted, he to write an essay and I to write him a Betjeman poem:

  … Oh the sky is blue behind it

  And the little towers of stone

  Of the Randolph Hotel will still be there

  When this present day has flown.

  When Jay has quite forgotten

  That one early closing day

  He leaned against the wall with me

  And I would not go away.

  And I went back to my lodgings

  And there I made a shrine

  Of Oxford Comment and violets

  And the bottle that once held wine.

  And I took a glass I had used before

  And filled it to the brim

  And I thought as I drank of the night before

  When I had been with him …

  5 March. I went to lunch with Jay in Balliol. We had eggs with cream on top, chicken and chocolate mousse. And Niersteiner, of course. Just before three we decided to go out. Jean-Pierre Giraudoux came in for a moment to ask Jay to go on the river but he didn’t stay when he saw I was there. We walked out into the Broad and down Holywell and talked about going to Italy or somewhere in the Cotswolds. Up to town on the 10. 10, breakfast on the train … Ach, jenes Land der Wonne, Das seh’ ich oft im Traum.… When we got into the Botanical Gardens we lay down on the grass under a tree. There were branches of mistletoe in the branches so we kissed. After a while we went into the hothouses and looked at the goldfishes and the palms. Jay kissed me by the orchids and stole a spray for me. They were pinky-mauve with purple centres like velvet. I thought they had a sweet smell but Jay said they smelt like the tomb. I remembered Marvell and so did he:

  The grave’s a fine and private place

  But none I think do there embrace.

  I said that perhaps it would be nicer to have a marble vault together than a house in North Oxford.

  11 March. I went to lunch with Jay in Balliol. We had fish, duck and green peas, peaches and cream, sherry, Niersteiner and port. Jay was wearing his elegant East-End style suit, made in Savile Row – slate-blue with nice padded shoulders and trousers with no turnups, touching the ground at the back.

  Jay was lying on the sofa and I was sitting on the floor beside him when Woodrow Wyatt, the editor of Oxford Comment, came in. I remembered my Finnish accent. After he had gone away we were happy and then incredibly it was five o’clock and he had to go and see his tutor. I knew it would have to be goodbye and perhaps not even Auf Wiedersehen. I was calm and sat down at the table to write something on a farewell card. Jay stood in front of his mirror and combed his hair and put on his coat. Then he came up behind me and said ‘ Servus’. That was the last time I saw him.

  I inscribed a card of Boecklin’s Die Insel der Toten with our initials and the dates of our first meeting and our last and added a line from my favourite poem by Heine … Neuer Frühling gibt zurück.…

  I was pleasantly sad at leaving his rooms. I took a red anemone from my buttonhole and left it on top of his pale blue pyjamas. I walked round the room touching things. Then I walked slowly down the stairs.

  I walked out of the St Giles’ gateway in a happy daze and then into Elliston’s for tea. I was so happy I could hardly speak coherently to Ruth Brook-Smith and Alison Ross whom I met there. Still in the same state I went back to change to go to dinner at St Hilda’s. Just as I was ready to go out I saw that there were some flowers in the hall. Two dozen of the loveliest daffodils and with them a card from Jay saying in German that although he had to go away I knew that he had thought of me. I felt it was a perfect ending to what had been one of the happiest episodes of my life. I was so glad that I didn’t see him again in Oxford.

  Joint letter to Robert Liddell and Henry and Elsie Harvey in Helsingfors

  Oswestry

  early 1938

  Spring, the sweet spring, that season wherein everything
>
  reneweth itself, even the unhappy lover, Miss Pym

  Now it is spring and the garden is full of beautiful flowers, primroses, violets, daffodils, scyllas, grape hyacinths, anemones, und so weiter. And Miss Pym is looking out of the window – and you will be asking now who is this Miss Pym, and I will tell you that she is a spinster lady who was thought to have been disappointed in love, and so now you know who is this Miss Pym. Well now, as I am telling you, this Miss Pym is looking out of the window, and she is looking into the field opposite the house, where there are many lambs frisking, it being spring, the sweet spring, when maids dance in a ring. But this Miss Pym, although she is, so to speak, a maid, is not dancing in a ring, no sir, and she is not frisking, no buddy, no how. She is seeing an old brown horse which is walking with a slow majestic dignity across this field, and she is thinking that it is the horse that she will be imitating and not the lambs. Old brown horse, she says, we have had our moments you and I, and she is singing in a faded voice an old song she is remembering and it is all about great big moments of happiness and such. No, Jock, it is not about sin and such – you are not rightly understanding this Miss Pym. I must ask you to remember that we are here today and gone tomorrow, Heigh-ho.

  Well, as I was saying before you interrupted me, this Miss Pym is feeling oh-so-happy in this beautiful weather and she is sitting outside in the garden in a green deck chair and she is reading a book. She is reading the Poetical Works of Lord Byron – no, not the whole poetical works of this said Lord, but Don Juan – and you are thinking well, that is enough, nicht wahr? And she is beginning at the beginning of the poem and she is reading these lines:

  But if there’s anything in which I shine.