Eileen Alexander - Love in the Blitz

Sir Robert has now definitely cancelled Exmoor. I am relieved. I don’t think it would have been quite my milieu. Where Joyce would shed grace on the county – I would spread disgrace. She has poise & charm & savoir-faire. Pertness, clucking and tactlessness are very poor substitutes for these – and anyway Old Bob never bothered much about me until I got a first. (As a matter of fact, that’s very unkind, not to say unjust. I withdraw it all.)

Friday 8 September It’s funny that you should refer in your letter to the myriads of first cousins who have a claim on the Alexander hospitality – because only yesterday we had a wire from Jean’s mother to say that we may expect her, (Aunt Teddy), Jean’s sister & Jean’s niece (aged two – Ye Gods!) on Sunday morning. So the family circle is due for expansion soon.

My future was the subject of much discussion yesterday between my parents and myself. They lean towards the suggestion that I should stay here until term begins & then go back to Cambridge for Research as long as they can afford to keep me there. The cultural work of the Nation, says my father with a wide arm-swing, must go on. How I wish my conscience would allow me to believe that they’re right. Other suggestions were that we should all go back to Egypt together as soon as it’s practicable – but I’d see myself dead before submitting to that.

I was very startled at your talking about conscription as though you thought a few months was the maximum length of time, you could hope to be left at liberty. I think it would be fantastic of the government to make a soldier of you – you’d be invaluable in all sorts of other ways – but unless you bring yourself to their notice – they’ll never find out. O mon dieu, quelle vie .

I had a long letter from Ismay yesterday. She had five days of honeymoon – then Charles wrested from her. He’s back again now, with ten days’ leave – then he’s due to go away again – she doesn’t know where or for how long. Poor Ismay – her sang-froid has completely deserted her. She almost clucked (but not quite, because, like Joyce, she’s too dignified ever to sink as low as that, even though she has just cause. I wish I were a little more like my friends).

Thursday 14 September The war has brought solace to one person of our acquaintance, anyway. Joan Friedman. Raphael Loewe has written to tell her that his country calls, but that he’s probably too short-sighted to be of much use. This, after a silence of several months (I suppose he had to work off his patriotic zeal on someone). Dear Joan – though she doesn’t know it, she’s got a Jocasta complex about Raphael (is there such a thing?) You see, she loves him like a mother – but unfortunately she doesn’t realize it – which, in its way, is a pity.

(By the way, darling, are you too short-sighted to be of much use to the British Army? It’s a beautiful thought anyway.)

Friday 15 September Did you ever meet Mrs Crews? She was famous for a number of things. She’s an authority on Judeo-Spanish and is adored by the Loewes, though she has a pretty poor opinion of them. Sidney Berkowitz says she has the nicest legs in Girton. (I’ve never noticed them myself – but I feel that in matters of this kind, Sidney would probably be competent to judge.) She has the worst sherry in Cambridge (3/6d a bottle, and proud of it) and she’s wireless-crazy, & gives as a reason for her separation from her husband that ‘he was a National & Regional man y’know’. She is in the Censorship now. (She was on the reserve staff last September.) So if I did become a censor, I shouldn’t be completely alone. I’m very fond of Mrs Crews.

Saturday 16 September I have just heard, from the mother of a friend of mine, who is a Cameron Highlander (one of the few regiments still to wear kilts, even in battle), that he has been issued with a pair of gas-proof pants to wear under his kilt. (The official army name is ‘proofed nether garments’.) The legs unroll to make protective gaiters which are buttoned under the instep! Let it not be said that England doesn’t look after her warrior sons.

Monday 18 September My future seems to be taking shape – but (as I may have said once or twice before) no man should be declared happy until he is dead. The censorship doesn’t want me at present – but if I’ll fill in a form all about the colour of my hair & my mother’s nationality and take their exam at my own convenience – they’ll put me on their waiting list. The Mistress of Girton says – come to our arms my beamish girl3 – there are, at present, no specialized war jobs for girls under 25 – so stick to Research. I’ve written back and said that if she’d arrange for me to live in college, I might consider it. My father expands & talks about the cultural work of the nation – a theme he’s expatiated on before. (Spare a prayer, in these Holy Days, Gershon, that the college will have a room for me. Your influence above, is more pronounced than mine, I feel sure. You don’t hare off to Prunier’s to eat curried crab as soon as you set foot in London – nor do you go hatless to synagogue – nor are you saucy to the Chief Rabbi. Any request from you would doubtless be listened to with courteous attention.)

Later I had a long and wholly delightful letter from Aubrey, and one from Miss Bradbrook saying – Come back. Aubrey, like the rest of us, has offered his services to the Government and is finding uncertainty wearing and discouraging. He asks nicely whether I know anything of you.

Offering my services as a sandbag is a very good idea. I felt sure that your fertile invention would produce some really helpful suggestions about my future – and it did! I shall set about it at once.

Aunt Teddy, her daughter and granddaughter are now in our midst. The child is surrounded all the time by hordes of clucking women, asking her if she loves them (poor little devil), but she likes me best, because I take no notice of her & she keeps asking me to go for walks with her!

Oh! Gershon, I want to Research in Cambridge – but there are grave difficulties. The college can’t house me – and my mother sends feathers flying with her clucking at the thought of my living in lodgings with bombs banging about. (The beautiful rooms she’d chosen for me are now out of the question on financial grounds – and I’d have to live where the College sent me – and like it.) My parents and I are going to have a session to consider the problem, this afternoon. I’ll let you know the results.

My parents and I have now sat down to this question of Cambridge or not Cambridge. It is damned difficult. My father says, ‘We cannot commit ourselves,’ (with term 2 weeks away!) My mother says, ‘If they’d have you in College, you could leave tomorrow if you liked,’ – and points out that I’d be as miserable as sin in strange lodgings – not being able to go out at night, and having to sit alone in a probably hideous room – going mad. Then she cries at having to oppose my dearest wish – at this point I cry too – at having to oppose her – and my father relents and says, ‘Well, write to the college and ask them what sort of lodgings are available – and where – and then we’ll see’, – and then the wireless announces the sinking of the air-craft carrier Courageous 4 – and Dad says, ‘Look at those poor people,’ – and I do – and feel a cad, & cry a bit more.

Yesterday, I cured all my humours by cleaning my vinaigrettes.5 I haven’t had the heart to look at them since the war started. They are looking lovelier than ever – bless them. May they never be subjected to the ordeal of fire.

Thursday 21 September Today or tomorrow I expect to hear from Girton whether they will allow me to live in the gardener’s cottage in the grounds, until something more satisfactory can be arranged. I don’t expect, for a moment, that this will seem to them a practicable suggestion. A month ago, I was their blue-eyed darling, & the trouble they took over me, one way or another, was phenomenal. Now their sense of proportion has undergone a violent readjustment. They think I ought to go back (for my own sake) but they don’t care a damn if they never see me again – and the twitterings of me & my parents are a matter of superlative indifference to them (and I can’t say I blame them).