Love in the Blitz. Eileen Alexander. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Eileen Alexander
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Биографии и Мемуары
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780008311223
Скачать книгу
at me as often as you do. It is Very Beautiful of you.

      Monday 5 February I didn’t sleep last night, Gershon. Not on account of the Warning – but because you are reproaching yourself on my account. Listen, my dear love. I have known, ever since there was anything to know, exactly what your attitude was – and because of this there has always seemed a touch of irony in the kindly advice of Mrs Turner, Joyce & Joan Friedman who (in that order) advised me to take stock of my intentions before I went Any Further with you.

      I told Joyce (but not Mrs Turner or Joan) that I sincerely and honestly believed that in this matter I was not being unfair to you, because you knew and I knew that my Intentions would change according to your wishes. She said, yes, but I must consider the question of whether I would be prepared to make a drastic change in my attitude to marriage should the occasion arise. I said that it would be unfair to myself even to consider that question, unless the occasion arose – and I didn’t believe that it ever would arise. She said that she thought I was deliberately evading the issue – but I maintained that since my whole plan of living was based on the assumption that I didn’t want to marry, I dared not reconsider it, since I believed that you had shifted the basis of our relationship only because you thought I was safeguarded from being seriously hurt when it ended, by my views on marriage. And now you aren’t sure, are you dear, whether I am safeguarded by them? And neither am I – but that is my fault and not yours. After all, you told me very seriously, quite a long time ago to hang onto my independence, and you’ve often told me that you’d never met the woman you wanted to marry. So, darling, please believe that you have nothing with which to reproach yourself – and all I want, is that our relationship should go on until you are tired of it – and it won’t be any more difficult for me later than sooner – since it is quite clear in my mind (I hope) that the break must come – and, as far as I’m concerned, the longer it is put off, the better.

      I’m afraid all this sounds rather clumsy & solemn, darling – but I want to be faithful, even at the risk of expressing myself stupidly.

      Monday 19 February Last night you were wondering about Aubrey, darling. Wonder no more – I had a letter from him this morning – written in a barracks room which he was sharing with twenty vociferous & newly-inoculated privates – all singing ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’. He’d just had a meal consisting mainly of spinach. (‘Dear Leslie,’ he says in an embittered parenthesis – and I can’t say I blame him in the circumstances.) You shall see the letter when we meet – but I’ll keep it for the present so as to be able to answer it point by point – as is my way.

      Monday 18 March Oh! I’m so tired, darling. Mr Turner hammered on my door at seven, this morning – and it seemed such a short time since you’d left, that I thought you must have come back to collect something you’d forgotten! I almost said – ‘Come in, darling’, but fortunately I woke up, properly, just in time. Poor Mr Turner – he’d never have been the same again – and it would probably have disorganized the Administration of Justice at the Saffron Walden Courts (where he’s appearing today) very seriously. Think what he was spared – if only he knew!