She says that ‘gals’ never get asked anywhere unless they are good at games. I hate the idea of being asked somewhere to ‘make up a four at tennis’. I’d much rather not go away to stay anywhere if I thought I was being asked to make even numbers for tennis of all blasted games. Why they can’t sit & talk like normal humans I can’t imagine. They are always driving you to ‘do something’. Goodness it does make me angry. I hate Bridget more than I ever have before. She is perfectly bloody.
Tom is back from Germany & has been down to Wycombe.
Well dear, do write.
The Forfar ball is on Friday. I hope it will be nice.
Much love from Henderson
Darling Honks
Thank you so much for the really wonderful gift, they are things I have always longed for but I have never afforded them as Blor always makes me buy woollen combies. They are such heaven, thank you a million times.
I had measles all through merry Xmas. It was so awful I nearly died of the horror of it.
This letter has been disinfected by Blor putting it in the oven, at least it will have been by the time you get it. The one I wrote to Bridget I specially didn’t have done.
You are kind to have sent the gorgeous gift, goodness you are.
Tuddemy says they are pretties, like the adverts.
Much love from Debo
I am still in bed for seven days as the doctor says I shall get bronchitis if I get up which makes Muv furious. I have also had some glorious medicine.
Dear Miss Measles
Oh those little armless hands* I simply adore them. Rodd thinks they are awfully sinister & they terrify him but I wear them the whole time.1 It was kind of you.
Poor Miss how awful about yr blindness, of course one can’t help wondering what sort it is when remembering yr awful reputation.2
Yes it is very nice here – Rodd spends his time making hats for Helen,3 & SHE WEARS them. So we are happy.
Love from Get on & get out of here.4
* The little armless hand
It lies upon the land
It cannot hold
It cannot mould
Nor rub an aching gland
It lies alone & makes no moan5
Dearest young Hen,
How I do love your delicious gift of face cream, it really is just what I wanted dear thank you so much.
I was amazed at your letter in the Fem’s writing, it seemed so extraorder to see Honnish terms in a non-Hon’s handwriting.
How simply wretched for you having measles, poor old Hohon.
The baby1 is terribly strong already & you could have seen it and me any time if you hadn’t been a young germ carrier.
We had the most heavenly Xmas you can image. Yr Hen had in her stocking: E. Arden bath salts & hand lotion, L. Philippe lipstick, Atkinson scent, Turkish delight, two boxes of chocolates, a book and 1s worth of cream which she drank down at one gulp. The poor Babe hung its sock but didn’t get a damn thing! Luckily it didn’t seem to notice.
Dear you can’t imagine how sweet it is, I long for you to come & see it. She hasn’t got any of the disadvantages of so many babes such as excessive redness & baldness & smelling of sick.
Yr Hen is loving her delicious time in bed, tho of course it isn’t nearly such heaven now as over the Xmas hol when Esmond was here all the time;2 but Id is coming today & I hope lots of people will be scramming down here.
Well dear
Not much news
So cheer ha.
Love from Beery
Darling Nard
I had great fun my last week in Vienna, Heine Bleckmann took me out a lot, & I also met some other friends who I went out with; so I saw quite a lot of the life in Vienna.
Of course hopes are high here about the Reichstagsrede;1 and the evening on which it came out that Schuschnigg2 was with the Führer, Vienna was in an uproar. No-one could think of anything else, & the first thing everyone – taxi-men, shop assistants or friends – said to one was ‘Haben Sie gehört? Der Schuschnigg ist beim Führer!’3 I do hope the result won’t be a disappointment. Poor Austria is such a tragic country, & the people here really such heroes, I had never realized how really heroic the Kampf [struggle] here is until my time in Vienna. I have never met such fanatics in Germany as I have here. Several times young men have come up to me & said, ‘May I kiss the hand the Führer has touched?’ – not at all in a gallant or complimentary way, but merely because they do really so worship him, rather like a Christian might kiss a bit of wood which Christ had touched. And they all talk of ‘draussen im Reich’4 with bated breath, as if they were talking of Heaven.
Do write – to [Pension] Doering.
Best love from Bobo
Dearest Hen,
Thank you so much for writing.1
We are going tomorrow morning, so I do hope you will write to yr hen. Please give my love to Muv, & thank her for her letter & for offering to help with the house, but as a matter of fact Esmond has already arranged for Peter Nevile to try & let it for us. If any of you hear of a likely person, would you let him know? They would have to keep Rose on at £1.1.3 a week (the 1/3d is insurance).
Love