We went for a long walk with Frieda first thing in the morning, it was so lovely—the hedgerows a tapestry of oak leaves, holly, fern, blackberry leaves all intertwined; the green hills dotted with sheep and cows, and the pink-plaster farms very antique. Frieda is a great walker, as you know….
Tell Warren The New Yorker just bought a poem of mine I wrote here called “Blackberrying,” about the day we all went blackberrying together down the land that sloped to the sea … I don’t know when they’ll print “Tulips”—probably in the season. I’ll send for a copy of my awful first ladies’ magazine story—very stiff and amateurish. It came out my birthday week. I got a very sweet fan letter for it in which the woman, also a writer, took me for an expert on Canada and Whitby, the sailing port I visited for a day. Very flattering!…
x x x Sivvy
NOVEMBER 20, 1961
Dear Mother,
… Don’t worry about my taking on anything with the Saxton. Just between the two of us (and don’t tell anyone), I figured nothing was so sure to stop my writing as a grant to do a specific project that had to be turned in at the end with quarterly reports—so I finished a batch of stuff this last year, tied it up in four parcels and have it ready to report on bit by bit as required. Thus I don’t need to write a word if I don’t feel like it. Of course, the grant is supposed to help you do writing and is not for writing you’ve done, but I will do what I can and feel like doing, while my conscience is perfectly free in knowing my assignments are done. Guggenheims, such as Ted had, are much easier. They ask for no reports or work; once you get it, you’re perfectly free. Anyhow, I’d never have applied for a Saxton unless I’d gotten something ready; I don’t believe in getting money for something you haven’t done yet—it’s too nerve-wracking….
Did I tell you I got 100 pounds ($280) for about 130 pages of poetry manuscript of mine from a bookseller in London who is buying stuff for the University of Indiana? They’d already bought about 160 pounds’ worth of Ted’s stuff, and he got 80 pounds from some other dealer, so we’ve made a good bit off our scrap paper. Needless to say, this comes in very handy just now.
Take care of yourself these grim, dark days. Love to you and Warren.
x x Sivvy
DECEMBER 7, 1961
Dear Mother,
It is a marvelous, crisp, clear December morning, and I am sitting in the front room with Ted and Frieda, overlooking our acre of grasses, which are white with frost. After a week of black, wet, sunless weather, everything seems suddenly bright and Christmasy. I am trying to get off the bulk of my American Christmas cards by ordinary mail today, so I will be a bit saving.
The reason I haven’t written for so long is probably quite silly, but I got so awfully depressed two weeks ago by reading two issues of The Nation—“Juggernaut, the Warfare State”—all about the terrifying marriage of big business and the military in America and the forces of the John Birch Society, etc.; and then another article about the repulsive shelter craze for fallout, all very factual, documented, and true, that I simply couldn’t sleep for nights with all the warlike talk in the papers, such as Kennedy saying Khrushchev would “have no place to hide,” and the armed forces manuals indoctrinating soldiers about the “inevitable” war with our “implacable foe” … I began to wonder if there was any point in trying to bring up children in such a mad, self-destructive world. The sad thing is that the power for destruction is real and universal, and the profession of generals, who, on retirement, become board heads of the missile plants [to which] they have been feeding orders. I am also horrified at the U.S. selling missiles (without warheads) to Germany, awarding former German officers medals. As the reporter for the liberal Frankfurt paper says, coming back to America from his native Germany, it is as if he hadn’t been away. Well, I got so discouraged about all this that I didn’t feel like writing anybody anything. Ted has been very comforting and so has Frieda. One of the most distressing features about all this is the public announcements of Americans arming against each other—the citizens of Nevada announcing they will turn out bombed and ill people from Los Angeles into the desert (all this official), and ministers and priests preaching that it is all right to shoot neighbors who try to come into one’s bomb shelters. Thank goodness there is none of this idiotic shelter business in England. I just wish England had the sense to be neutral, for it is quite obvious that she would be “obliterated” in any nuclear war, and for this reason I am very much behind the nuclear disarmers here. Anyway, I think it appalling that the shelter system in America should be allowed to fall into the hands of the advertisers—the more money you spend, the likelier you are to survive, etc., when 59 percent of taxes go for military spending already…. Well, I am over the worst of my furore about all this. Each day seems doubly precious to me, because I am so happy here with my lovely home and dear Ted and Frieda. I just wish all the destructive people could be sent to the moon….
… Today came a big Christmas parcel from you with the two Ladies’ Home Journal magazines, which I fell upon with joy—that magazine has so much Americana, I love it. Look forward to a good read by the wood fire tonight and to trying the luscious recipes. Recipes in English women’s magazines are for things like “Lard and Stale Bread Pie, garnished with Cold Pigs Feet” or “Left-Over Pot Roast in Aspic.”
… I feel so thwarted not to be giving out anything but cards … as I love buying presents for people, but we have felt we need to really pinch this year to weather the piles of bills for plumbers, electricians, extra heaters, coal, land tax, house tax, solicitors, surveyors, movers, and all the mountainous things. As if to sanction our move, we have been very lucky in earning money this fail—my Saxton, in four installments, is ample to live on … Each September we plan to pay you and Ted’s parents back each $280 of your loan, which has been such a help in saving us tons of mortgage interest …
We have two more Pifcos (electric heaters), making four now. The cold is bitter. Even my midwife said it was too Spartan for a new baby and to warm things up. The halls are hopeless, of course, but the Pifcos do a wonderful job in closed-off rooms. The cold seems to keep us healthy—not one of us has been taken with a cold yet (knock on wood). We look fat as bears with all our sweaters, but I find this nippy air very bracing and so does Frieda. Her fat cheeks bloom, even though her breath comes out in little puffs. Much healthier than the overheating we had in America …
We had a lovely time laughing over the take-off issue of Mademoiselle; and now I am embedded with the Journals, especially delighted with the apple-recipe issue….
I hope Warren is having a peaceful and pleasant year and isn’t too overworked. I feel dreadfully lazy myself. I really write terribly little. I remember before Frieda came, I was like this; quite cowlike and interested suddenly in soppy women’s magazines and cooking and sewing. Then a month or so afterwards I did some of my best poems.
I rely on your letters—you are wonderful to keep them so frequent in spite of your load of work and being sick. All of us send love.
Sivvy
DECEMBER 15, 1961
Dear Mother and Warren,
It seems impossible that it is only ten days to Christmas. I have been so immersed in household fixing and thinking of the arrival of the new baby that I’ve done little but get off a few cards …
… I can’t tell you how much we like it here. The town itself is fascinating—a solid body of inter-related locals (very curious), then all these odd peripheral people—Londoners, ex-Cockneys, Irish. I look forward to getting to know them slowly. There’s the bank manager’s wife, the doctor and his family, and the redoubtable nurse who doesn’t miss an addition in every house visit. The bank manager’s wife has a daughter of fifteen in Oxford and says there are no children her age here at all. But I should be much luckier. Every time I visit the doctor’s surgery, I see a raft of new babies; most of them very attractive little things.
… It will be our first Christmas on our own as heads of a family, and I want to keep
all our old traditions alive. (I wish I had a Springerle [patterned rolling] pin!) We ate a batch of apricot “half-moons” last night—how I love them….
In spite of our fabulous bills, back taxes, and National Health, we are doing surprisingly well. My New Yorker contract for poems was renewed for another year, and I’ve been asked to be one of the three judges for the Guinness contest I won this year. Ted and Frieda send lots of love and so do I.
x x x Sivvy
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1961
Dear Mother,
I am sitting in our living room by a crackling wood fire, our mantel still gay with red candles and about fifty Christmas cards; our fat little tree with its silver birds and tinsel and spice-cake hearts still up, and the new, red corduroy curtains I have just finished drawn, making the room bright and cheerful, like the inside of a Valentine …
The midwife suggested I get a thermometer to see the temperature of the new baby’s room. I was amazed. The general level of the house—in halls and unheated rooms—is about 40° (38° in our bedroom in the morning!). An electric heater gets it feeling very hot at 50°–55° … It all depends on what one gets used to.
… Our Christmas was the happiest and fullest I have ever known … We trimmed the tree and set out our amazing stacks of gifts on Christmas Eve. Then Christmas Day we started the three of us off with our daily ration of soup plates of hot oatmeal (something you and grammy taught me), then led Frieda into the living room, which she had not seen in its decorated state. I wish you could have seen her face! …
… The Fox Book Ted had to read immediately. He said it was the most beautiful children’s book he had seen; and it means so much to me, being set in New England. His very favorite presents were the Fox Book and Warren’s tools, which he hasn’t put down since he got them. He’s been fitting in the staircase carpet clips with them today and says they’re marvelous and “very American,” meaning streamlined.
… I spent the rest of Christmas making my first simply beautiful golden-brown turkey with your bread dressing, creamed brussels sprouts and chestnuts, swede (like squash, orange), giblet gravy and apple pies with our last and preciously saved own apples. We all three had a fine feast in the midafternoon, with little Frieda spooning up everything. Then a quiet evening by the fire….
x x x Sivvy
DECEMBER 29, 1961
(SECOND INSTALLMENT)
Dear Mother,
… All through this I’ve not said anything about Warren’s engagement. How wonderful! I wish he and Maggie would visit us after they’re married. They could stay at the local inn we dined at if they found our place too noisy with babies, as they well might! Do send a glossy of Margaret’s Bachrach picture. I’m sure we’ll love her … What fun for you to have all the traditional trappings for one of your two children (diamond ring, Bachrach, and, I imagine, a very formal wedding) … Wish so much I could attend. Do you think it will be this June? You must give me some notion of what they’d like for a present….
We’ve had two days of storybook weather. The merest dusting of snow on everything, china-blue skies, rosy hilltops; new lambs in the fields. It’s the second coldest winter this century, the farmers say. Took Frieda for little trots on Dartmoor this week…. You should see her mother her babies—feed them her biscuits, hold up a clock to their ear so they can hear it tick, cover them up. They couldn’t have come at a better time to get her used to the baby idea. She is so loving; I’m sure she gets it from us! …
x x x Sivvy
JANUARY 12, 1962
Dear Mother,
Well, Nicholas/Megan was officially due yesterday, and no sign. So this baby will probably delay a few days like Frieda and keep us all in suspense. I’ve so enjoyed your long, newsy letters! I’ve felt lazier and lazier and more and more cowlike … I’ve given up all pretence of working in my study these last weeks; I am simply too ponderous….
Ted and his poet-twin here, Thom Gunn (who actually lives and teaches in Berkeley), are bringing out an anthology by half a dozen American poets for Faber. Faber is also bringing out a paperback edition of their own selected poems.
My little shilling anthology of American poets I edited for the Critical Quarterly here has got very good reviews and seems to be selling well.
Each day I bake something to hide away for Ted and Frieda when I’m recovering from the new baby. I have a box of sand tarts cut in shapes, trimmed with cherries and almonds, a box of Tollhouse cookies and a fruitcake. Tomorrow I’ll try an apple pie with the very last of our apples.
I hope Warren takes all I write you for himself, too. I love hearing about Aunt Maggie. We’d so like to see them here. Don’t worry about money for them! Ted and I had nothing when we got married and no prospects. And in five years all our most far-fetched dreams have come true….
… I am having the baby in the guest room, where you’ll be, and we have fixed it up quite comfortably, although the old rug is shabby. We’ve painted the floor, and I’ve made curtains.
… Of course, Frieda will remember you! Deep down, if not obviously … I’ll write Dot and everyone as soon as the baby comes.
Lots of love,
Sivvy
JANUARY 18, 1962
5 P.M.
Dear Mother,
By now I hope you have received the telegram Ted sent this morning with the good news of the arrival of our first son, Nicholas Farrar Hughes (I almost wrote Nicholas/Megan!), last night at 5 minutes to midnight, making another 17th date in our family, after Ted’s August 17. I am sitting in bed, feeling fine and refreshed after an afternoon’s nap; Nicholas in a carry-cot at my side, getting pinker and pinker. He looked very swarthy to me when he arrived, like a wrinkled, cross, old boxer, and still is a Farrar type, although Ted suggests his head shape resembles Daddy’s. Now he has turned quite pink and translucent.
All during the delivery, I felt it would be a boy—my notions that he was a much bigger and heavier baby proved true and no illusion—he weighed in at 9 pounds, 11 ounces, compared to Frieda’s ladylike 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and I had a lot more work with him than with her.
Woke at 4 a.m. the morning of the 17th with niggly contractions that came and went all day while I did as much cooking as I could till 5 p.m., just after Frieda went to bed, when they started to get very strong. I had a visit from both midwife and doctor during the day—both very kindly and encouraging. Then at 8:30, when the contractions were established at every 5 minutes, Ted called the midwife. She brought a cylinder of gas and air, and she sat on one side of the bed and Ted on the other, gossiping pleasantly together … while I breathed in my mask whenever I had a strong contraction and joined in the conversation. I had used up the cylinder and was just beginning to push down when the baby stuck and the membranes didn’t break. Then at 5 minutes to 12, as the doctor was on his way over, this great bluish, glistening boy shot out onto the bed in a tidal wave of water that drenched all four of us to the skin, howling lustily. It was an amazing sight. I immediately sat up and felt wonderful—no tears, nothing.
It is heavenly to be in my own home—I’m in the guest room, which is ideal. Beautiful clear dawn; a full moon tonight in our huge elm. Everybody … turned to stare at Ted when he came into town. Rose Key, our cottage neighbor, brought a little knitted suit and the banker’s wife sent a card and a towel. I gave the midwife my traditional carrot cake. She is a wonderful woman. You should see her with Frieda (we showed Frieda the baby this morning and she was terribly excited). The midwife and Frieda come in and “help” as the midwife fixes the baby, advising me to share the tasks, even if it takes longer. I didn’t even know Frieda could understand, but she did everything the midwife said—held the safety pins, kissed the baby, helped wrap him up and then sat and held him all by herself! She was just bursting with pride….
Now everything is quiet and peaceful, and Ted is heating the vichysoisse and apple pie I made to tide us over.
*
Later: Saturday, January 20. I have today marked as a
red-letter day because your exams will be over as well as all that extra work for your courses. I’m sure I’ve been as concerned for you about this as you’ve been about me and the baby. Hope all went well and that you have a lovely dinner at Dot’s. Loved the news clipping of Margaret. I look so forward to an amiable sister-in-law! … I only wish I could share in the fun and plans for the wedding.
… After both Ted’s and my first shock at having a boy, we think he is marvelous. He did look grim and cross at first, his head all dented where he had caught high up and had to really push to get out, but overnight his head and features altered. Already I can sense a very different temperament from Frieda’s—where she is almost hysterically impatient, he is calm and steady, with big dark eyes and a ruddy complection. Very restful and dear.
Well, Ted’s going to post before the weekend, so I’ll say goodbye for now. Do write me lots of newsy letters now you are more free.
Lots of love,
Sivvy
JANUARY 24, 1962
Dear Mother,
Well, Nicholas is a week old, and I have spent my first whole day up. Things have calmed down considerably, and by next week I think we will be placidly back to schedule. I had a rather tiring week as the first night the baby came, I couldn’t sleep for excitement, and the nights after that the baby cried all night (I suppose this is the one advantage of a hospital or a home nurse!), but now he is settling down to more of a schedule and the doctor gave me a couple of relaxing pills to get me to sleep till I got rested again. It is wonderful having all this room so Ted could have an unbroken night in our room and be ready to cope with Frieda … the next day. Now I am cooking again, sitting on my stool. I shall go on having my nap every afternoon and sitting in my study in the morning. This morning I took a hot bath first thing, put on proper clothes and feel very fresh. I simply wore through the seams of all the underwear and maternity skirts and tights I wore in the last months and looked like a great, patchy monster at the end. It is heavenly to have a whole wardrobe to choose from again….