Of course, I was saddened to hear that you had had my blood cleaned off your suit – but I do see the position. It would have been a fine gesture to arrive at Ismay’s wedding all spattered with it – but it might have caused Comment or even Gossip – and then – Reputation, Reputation, we’d have lost our Reputation – which would have been a pity – but it was uncommonly civil of you to say you wouldn’t let anyone else bleed on it. If anyone tries, just push her onto the ground, and let her bleed on that!
I haven’t had an answer to my letter to Miss Sloane (Leslie’s Secretary) yet – but I pressed obligingly but firmly for a job either with the War Office or the Censorship, on the outbreak of War – (if such there be). I could not possibly spend the illimitable duration of a modern war in the family bosom – we would worry one another around in circles all the time, until one, or all of us, dropped down dead, from nervous exhaustion. If I have a paid job in the government, I shall have to go where I’m told, and no-one will be able to do anything about it, which sounds incredibly selfish – but actually will be better for all of us.
(By the way, I hope our Aubrey is safely back from Geneva.8 Joyce has had two post-cards from him since he left England. I have had one letter – which of us is better off? It is hard to day. I wrote him a very silly letter, to which I have not, as yet, had any answer – but I hate to think of him perishing in a mined Swiss Mountain Pass – or being drowned by conquering Nazis in Le Lac Léman. Oh! dear, what a woeful thought.)
Wednesday 29 August If there is no war, we leave here next Tuesday evening and hope to arrive in London on Wednesday morning – (bless we the Lord. Let’s praise & magnify him for ever, if we are able to proceed according to plan). Excavations on my tooth are scheduled to begin on Thursday 7th – but I don’t think my chin will be quite itself again in time for Ismay’s wedding. It is getting paler – but slowly. Eventually I think it will disappear altogether (I mean the redness – not (I hope) the chin!) but not for some time, yet.
Friday 31 August Your letter has just arrived, Gershon. Your reprimand was more than justified and, in the circumstances most kindly expressed. From now onward, the expression ‘I shall never be the same again’ will be wiped from my epistolary slate for ever, though it is only fair to warn you that, after taking this drastic step, I shall never be quite the same again! And there is a condition attached. ‘Sweet-darling’ must be immediately erased from your vocabulary. It does not suit you – or me – and it is not funny.
I thought, like you, that we had the Führer in a corner – but now I don’t know. I don’t understand anything, & I want to say – I’m glad you only feel a healthy glow. My inside is now minced as well as mashed. Thank you for your solicitous advice about what I should do in the event of war – (in this, you and my parents are at one – we have established an armed neutrality on the subject – there’s no point in arguing with them until I hear from Miss Sloane). I could not possibly stay here more than a week or two if there was a war. I am perfectly healthy now – but in a very dangerous state of restlessness because I have nothing to do. When I say dangerous, I mean that I haven’t forgotten that nine weeks ago I was sure I was going mad, (this state of mind was only indirectly due to the accident – ever since I was eleven or twelve, at all times when my mind was not fully occupied with work which was tough & impersonal, I have watched myself fearfully for signs of a lack of mental equilibrium – I don’t know why – I just did) and unless I have some very definite and absorbing work to do, soon – I shall get worse.
I had a letter from Jean this morning. She has been mobilized – at which she is not amused – nor am I, for that matter. As a member of the auxiliary air force, she will spend the entire duration of any war training recruits at humming aerodromes all over the country. She is the only one of my 52 first cousins (except Victor, whose face I slapped, but with whom I am very friendly for all that – which, on the whole is magnanimous of him) of whom I am really fond. Victor is in Corsica – no-one quite knows why – but he’s like that. I fancy, if there’s a war he’ll have to stay there. As he has literary aspirations, he will probably write a book – after all Boswell did.
Now that Ismay’s wedding is post-poned, (sorry – wrong word – I mean now that it is a ‘fait accompli’) I presume that we shall not leave Clunemore on the 5th, unless something absolutely definite happens one way or another before then – but I don’t know. If the status quo is maintained, during the next few days, perhaps you would very graciously go on writing to this address – also, if war breaks out. If anything unexpected happens in the way of a Peace conference or the like – then I expect my address as from Tuesday, 5th will be ‘The Mayfair Hotel, Berkeley Square, London W1’ (Note the forward manner in which I now just take it for granted that you are going to write to me! Oh! Indubitably, I am not what I was! Hubris again, Eileen – oh! Nemesis is close at hand – beware).
Oh! by the way, to revert to this photograph question. When we last met, you asked me for a photograph of my countenance, if and when it returned to its old ‘chubby’ symmetry. (Ill as I was, I was touched at your choosing the word ‘chubby’ in preference to ‘fat’. These are actions that a king might show.) On the strength of this request, I bullied you into having your photograph taken for me. Now I feel in duty bound to ‘fulfil my obligations’ if you wish to hold me to them. (It most certainly is not too late to withdraw – negotiations have hardly started. I can’t even have proofs taken, until my broken tooth is restored – but let me know, and I shall, in all my best, obey you, sir.)
1 A reference to ‘The House of Fame’, a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343–1400).
2 Beth Din or ‘house of judgement’ is a rabbinical court of Judaism.
3 In 1935 Mussolini had brutally invaded Abyssinia in defiance of the League of Nations, driven the Emperor Haile Selassie into exile and proclaimed a new Roman Empire. Fearful of war with Italy at a time of the growing German threat, Britain, like France, had shied away from effective sanctions and allowed Italian warships unhindered access to the Suez Canal.
4 From ‘Intimations of Immortality’ by William Wordsworth (1770–1850).
5 Leslie Hore-Belisha, Secretary of State for War. An old friend of the Alexanders, he had holidayed with them at Drumnadrochit.
6 Neville Henderson, British ambassador to Germany 1937–39 and a supporter of appeasement. The telegrams reported Hitler’s determination to invade Poland and blame England for any consequences.
7 From The Raven, a narrative poem by Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49).
8 On the outbreak of war, Aubrey Eban was at the 21st Zionist Congress in Geneva.
With the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, war had become all but inevitable. On the same day that German planes bombed Warsaw, Britain’s army was mobilised, and as the evacuation of mothers and children from major cities began, and London sank into the darkness of the first blackout, the country waited every hour for the declaration of war that still did not come.
At 9 a.m. on Sunday 3 September, after another two days prevaricating, Chamberlain finally bowed to Cabinet and parliamentary pressure, and an ultimatum was delivered to the German government. At 11 a.m. it expired unanswered,