So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald. Penelope Fitzgerald

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СКАЧАТЬ man, terribly strict, who won’t permit her even to play for school services unless everything is perfect, so she has to come for an hour every day.

      The pony is called Nutty, and is in a field opposite the house, and a TV set has now been acquired as otherwise the girls were never in, but they’re asked after supper if they would like to watch, after they’ve helped with the washing-up, I can see that Maria’s amazed at this. Hoping to go to Wordsworth’s cottage this afternoon, it’s only a little way away at the other side of the lake. There are 2 nice Jack Russell terriers and an old cat, which looks nice, like a black and yellow fur rug.

      Maria and Susan are out doing the shopping, but Maria is rather cross because I haven’t enough money for postcards. I hope she soon won’t be. We’re thinking of you so much, darling Love Mum

      

       Old Terry Bank

       Kirkby Lonsdale

      2 August [1967]

      Dearest Tina,

      In the excitement of going away I don’t believe I ever gave Daddy our address, I’m so vexed as he won’t be able to write, or to forward your letter, when it comes, but then I expect we’ll be back in London by that time, especially as poor Willie has had bad news about her mother and may have to go to Norfolk to see her in hospital, but in spite of this we are having a lovely holiday so far, wonderful mild sunshine, there’s a kind of arch out of the yard at Willie’s house and you see all the hills and clouds framed through it. Of course Ria’s still in blue jeans, already very muddy, and they are going out this morning with the pony, Nutmeg, who clearly has everybody’s measure exactly, and a lovely new green bike Susan has which I daresay Ria will prefer, up the hill tracks. We did miss you very much at Wordsworth’s cottage yesterday, it was lovely and sunshiny there too, it’s built into the hillside so that you go into the front door at one level and out of the back-door halfway up the hill. Ria read out of the guide – but very firmly, and we also had Dorothy Wordsworth’s diaries, how they managed the cooking &c. I can’t think, but we saw W’s gun, sandwich box, waterproof hat, skates and the flat-irons and goffering irons and stew-pots they had, and wash-jugs and basins – but all the walking – 12 miles to see Coleridge, 2 miles to get eggs – and they often seem to have felt ill – I didn’t realise until yesterday that Dorothy was insane for the last 20 years of her life and Mary Wordsworth went on looking after her, even after Wordsworth died, she must have been a saintly woman. The cottage rent was £8 a year, their income was £80, and tea cost 15 shillings a pound, and there were locks on the tea-caddies. They had to make their own candles out of mutton-fat in candle-moulds, and yet they did all that reading and writing – Shakespeare and sermons aloud in the evening, and Coleridge came over and read aloud his new ballad – the Ancient M! – and she doesn’t say what he thought of it!

      We had a nice picnic by Grasmere and Susan and Maria swam in the lake and could see clear down to the bottom. Mrs Spyra seems far away.

      Willie and Mike fell in love with the Gorges of the Tarn and want to go and live there for a year in a quaint cottage or auberge, sending the little girls to a French school. I do wonder what you are thinking of Froggyland this time

      much love

      Mum

      

       Old Terry Bank

       Kirkby Lonsdale

      6 August [1967]

      Dearest Tina,

      To begin with, some little bits from the newspapers (obtained with

      great difficulty as they aren’t delivered here)

      

      1. Lord Robens has been more or less completely blamed for the Aberfan disaster, but sulks and more or less refuses to resign.

      2. Dymock and Oldenshaw on the Fellows have made up their disagreement.

      3. Harvey Smith’s O’Malley has been nobbled at the Royal Lancashire Show – he has twice been let out of his box at night, although Harvey had secured it with string, and ate a lot of grass in the show grounds and couldn’t jump properly next day. But Harvey S. won everything with Harvester. However it’s felt that ‘competitors’ dislike Harvey Smith so much that an unsuitable element is being brought into the gentlemanly sport. Of course we get all the Lancashire papers up here which report all this at length.

      

      Maria is snoozing after more violent exercise – long walk taking turns with the pony and a swim in the icy cold lake above the house – the old Scotch Road where as I think I told you the Young Pretender retreated during the ‘45.

      Also she had to help cook the supper and wash up! As poor Willie’s mother is dying and she had to hurry down to gloomy Ipswich General Hospital to see her, leaving everything at sixes and sevens. But Susan, the 13 year old, is managing very well, especially as Mike who has returned for the weekend is queerly strict and has inspections to see that the rooms are tidy and makes everyone change for dinner. I feared he mightn’t pass Ria’s orange bloomer suit which looks a bit voyant in Westmorland. Many strange relations (vets from Canada &c) have arrived and help themselves freely to everything, even the sanatogen tonic wine and the spinach from the garden, but they’re all quite childish and love playing ball in the yard after dinner so the girls are in fits of laughter.

      Back to London tomorrow which I am afraid will be dull for Ria, but she can start revising her clothes to go to Italy: Willie rang up from Ipswich and asked us to stay longer, but I’m getting so asthmatic up here that I actually coughed up blood in the night (complain, complain) and anyway with all this trouble about her mother I daresay she’d like to be clear of visitors for a while, but it certainly is a nice place for Maria, and I’m getting very attached to Nutmeg.

      Hoping to find a letter from you when we get back –

      very much love Mum

      

       185 Poynders Gardens

       London, sw4

      9 August [1967]

      Dearest Tina,

      Many thanks for nice long informative letters, which we are reading eagerly. So glad the water is back, and I quite see there is nothing to do either in Metz, or on your day off, so it looks as though this time will have to be written off, except for the study of literature française. It was all very well for the Austrian girl as apparently she had some relations or friends in Metz. So glad too that the bites are somewhat better, but surely if you run out of medical supplies, such as elastoplast, the Comtesse would give you some? But perhaps the aristocracy don’t have such things. Haemophilia?

      Feel the anti-German thing is definitely bad, but agree that all must be attributed to living in Alsace-Lorraine (don’t forget La Dernière Classe!) But perhaps better not to say so.

      The whole valley of the Lune (where we were with Auntie Willie) has now flooded owing to heavy rains and cottages are being carried away, just a day or so after we left. I think Maria really did enjoy it, and felt pleased when she cantered briskly about on the pony and explained to Mike (who has a mania that town children can’t do anything, and do ‘damage’ all the time) that ‘Tina had taught her’. Fortunately asthma reduced my impulse to get СКАЧАТЬ