An Accidental Man (55 page)

My dear Ludwig,

you will be glad to receive this letter from us to say that Mom and I have decided after all to see it your way. I am sorry that I was not able to talk to you properly on the telephone. I cannot speak with any power on that instrument and you too seemed unable to explain yourself upon it. We must see each other and as you have declared yourself so inflexible we have no choice but to give way. We think in any case after yet further reflection and after a long talk with Mr Livingstone that it would now be inadvisable for you to return. As Mr Livingstone put it, as far as the USA is concerned you are finished. Having in view the lapse of time and your determination not to avail yourself of the suggested expedients, your return here would almost certainly involve you in a court case, prison, and all the subsequent misery of being an outsider in this society. Your chances of further study would probably be nil. We spoke with Mr Livingstone about the parable of the talents, and we think now that you are acting certainly wisely and possible rightly in staying at Oxford. We have all prayed about this. (In fact the whole congregation prayed for you last Sunday, though without having been given any details.) And I trust and believe that we have reached a just decision. This is not what your mother and I would most have wished for you, as you know, but I hope that you will feel that your parents are able to face new and alien facts without a failure of their love for you — and that love now unambiguously dictates a surrender of our former position. Equally we have come to feel that we cannot further oppose your marriage. I trust you have not communicated our misgivings to your pretty bride. Parents should not withhold their countenance on such an occasion except in extreme circumstances which we feel do not obtain here. Our instincts were to caution you. But that done, we have done our duty and are now resolved to accede cheerfully to your firm and declared wishes in this matter. After all, as you say, we cannot judge the young lady without meeting her and this we are determined to do very shortly. We had decided that we would attend the wedding, but now feel it unnecessary and undesirable to wait for so long. So we are booking a passage on the boat, tourist class, for the end of next week or the beginning of the week following. We will send details by another post. We trust you will make bookings for us in a modest hotel. It will be a great joy and blessing to see your face and to meet your no doubt charming wife-to-be. Your mother joins with me in sending our most cordial love.

Your loving father,

J. P. H. Leferrier

My dearest Gracie,

I cannot go through with it. I am sending the ring back to you not to put upon your finger but because you paid for it and it is yours. I have been in hell these days and I hope you will — yet how can you — forgive me for my failure to communicate — and for what I communicate now. I cannot marry you. The deepest sources of my spirit, the most sacred things I know, simply forbid it. I love you and perhaps I shall always love you — but that makes no sense. If I leave you now, as I must, it will be my duty, as well as the order of nature, to forget you. Of course I cannot forget you, but I mean that my feelings must cool, must cease to be love, love must die, my love and your love, which seemed the greatest thing in the world. At least it seemed to be a monument which nothing out-topped. I had never loved so before, and I think you had not, and there was, alas there is, a glory which can never be again. I love you more at this moment as I write than I have ever done in all our happy times. But it cannot be, Gracie. What makes it so bitter is that there is not, I believe, any fault in our love. It is just that I am not in my right place in the universe. And if I married you I would be increasingly not in my right place, and this would be true to eternity however happy we were together. There is a completeness I must seek elsewhere or else fail utterly as a man. Perhaps it is not in my stars to marry at all. I know now that you would come anywhere with me and share my fate, and this knowledge is precious. But wherever I now go in life I must go alone. To marry now would be to enter a realm of compromise which I am commanded not to enter. And since I am not a gentleman volunteer I have no choice but to obey. When I think of your sweetness and your perfect love for me and your grief my will faints. But I must speak truth now or become everlastingly corrupt. Please do not try to see me, it would only increase the pain. Pardon me. Please tell your parents. If there is lost expense over the wedding clothes I will pay — Oh Gracie —

Ludwig

Dearest Hester,

Gracie has definitely broken with Ludwig. I don't know the details, but she came to the conclusion (which of course I knew all along) that he was simply not the right man. I must say I am very relieved indeed. In fact he has behaved very oddly and irresponsibly, just clearing off to Oxford and shutting himself up with his books. Well, let him stay there, say I. I always thought him a conceited priggish humourless young man, and he is after all a foreigner. I doubt if we should have got on at all well with his family, and there would always have been the threat of his taking her back to America hanging over our heads. Gracie is very relieved too at having had the courage to terminate this situation and to be
free
once more. She is delighted to be back again in her own world. She is quite restored and gay. I wonder if you and Charles and Sebastian could come to dinner next Tuesday? Gracie will be here and she joins with me in looking forward
very much
to that. I will telephone. You and I must meet soon to discuss things.

With love

Clara

Funny old Char is still being stiff and proud about our scheme, but she'll come round!

Dear Dr Seldon,

thank you very much for seeing Gracie and for, partially at least, reassuring us. I did not realize it took such a long time for somebody to die of starvation. She still refuses to eat and lies all day on her bed crying and talks a good deal about suicide. We have done all we can and hope that she will recover soon or we shall have to cancel all sorts of arrangements. I am glad that you think she is not a suicidal type. But when you send the prescription for the sleeping pills please be sure they are not the kind you can kill yourself with. We do not leave her alone. Thank you so much for coming. I am sorry that she refused to talk to you.

Yours sincerely,

Clara Tisbourne

Dearest Hester,

is it true that Gracie and the Leferrier boy have broken it off? Someone told me this at a party, but I could hardly believe it, after the dresses are made and everything. What a blow to poor Clara. But perhaps it is just a rumour, I hope so. And what on earth is this about Charlotte living in a lodging house at Shepherds Bush with a drunken woman who beats her? Surely Charlotte is too old for games of this sort, but really one can expect anything these days.

The boutique is closing down. It was doing very well and I am quite sorry, but I just find I am too busy. Geoffrey is selling the pigs and thinking of setting up a market garden, and I can see I shall have to help him, as I am the only business head in the family! I wonder would you and Charles and Sebastian like to come down to the Mill House next weekend? Karen will be there and she joins with me in looking forward
very much
to that. Please come for dinner on Friday if you can. The garden is a dream and the young people can splash in the pool. Tell Sebastian to bring his swimming gear.

With love

Mollie

Dear Ludwig,

just to say that Oliver and I are having a super hol in Greece and even Kierkegaard is enjoying it, although a policeman did hit him yesterday with his truncheon because he was parked in a naughty place. I got a card, by the way, from MacMurraghue who says he will do us a paper on the Aristophanic Socrates, so now our glorious programme is complete. For once I almost look forward to term! (MacM. is back with his old ma and full of Irish gloom. He requests us to kick the Pope on our return journey. Always a bad sign.) Meanwhile Oliver and self, just leaving for darkest Peloponnese, are having, in every respect, a thoroughly Grecian time. (I know you are a tolerant fellow.) The ancients had the root of the matter in them, don't you think? Though I suppose I shouldn't say so to a man about to marry the sweetest girl in the world! Looking at the great Artemision Zeus in the museum today I was somehow reminded of you! That beautiful stern brow spoke of relentless things and absolutes. What has that either to do with the sweets of marriage?
and even Zeus etc. Excuse this letter, am drunk with ouzo and retsina. Oh the bright awful air of this country! No wonder the ancient Greeks were, contrary to what is popularly supposed, such a truly appalling lot.

With love to you,

Andrew

PS Oliver, who is writing his daily report to his sister, sends love. PPS Guess who we saw down by the Piraeus tucking into their avgolemono? Richard Pargeter and Ann Colindale! They blushed a bit when they saw us. Old
Annapurna Atom
was tied up by the quay. They must have sneaked off by themselves! Sorry, retsina bottle upset at this point. Drunk.

Dearest dear Gracie,

I am very sorry indeed to hear about the demise of your engagement. What happened exactly? What rotten luck. Though better not repent at leisure etc. I am personally sorry too, as I respect Ludwig. I do see though that perhaps after all he isn't quite our sort? I mean, definitely not a funny man. Ma implies telephonewise that you are prostrated; I trust she exaggerates as usual. What kind of philosophy can I offer you? One recovers from love. The echoes are faint at last. (At least I personally do not recover, but it is established that other people do.) Also, at your age you ought to recover. One must not weep upon the shore. The best cure for love I'm told is falling in love again. So lift your beautiful head up and look about you. (Seen anything of young Sebastian lately?)

I won't tell you about me. It might make you feel even sadder! Much much love from

yrs (glorified)

Patricius

PS Henrietta Sayce sent me a
large
stink bomb through the post. It soaked my desk and person. I fear her sports are yet but childish.

Cheer up, Sis.

Dearest Matthew,

you are being very kind (but of course you would be) and I am so deeply glad that you understand. To cope with Austin now is the least I can do for Dorina. It seems mad to say it, but I cannot help feeling that she somehow died for us, for you and me, taking herself away, clearing herself away, so that our world should be easier and simpler. And not to profit at once and grossly by that simplicity is our penance. It is, after all, a long way round and a long way through. But we will find the path, my darling. I cannot ask Austin to move at the moment. I honestly think that my concern stands between him and breakdown. For the present, I have to be absolutely available and absolutely there. I cannot ask about ‘plans'. We live from day to day in a denuded world the atmosphere of which I cannot quite convey to you, but some great Renaissance Italian could have painted it. I have never felt so
sorry
for anybody. (It isn't exactly pity and it isn't exactly compassion.) And being able to feel this empty aching sorriness does me good too as perhaps nothing else could. I know you will understand, and wait lovingly for this strange time to be over. If you can pray, pray for Austin now.

Ever, with so much love, your utterly devoted

Mavis

Dearest,

love is time's fool, one knows however much in bliss. Having achieved the universe I am all anxiety. Love lives with dread. In the instant I undo all, see myself, in the first moments of happiness, undone. We are young. Let us be cunning, O my love, to keep somehow what we have. This is the thing itself, or else it does not exist. Let us cozen it with a golden shrewdness. This is for a lifetime surely? Oh we are young, we are young. I have never felt this before as such an agony. We are pure in heart but cannot stay so. We are fine but will be made coarse, free but will be bound. If there are gods for this I pray to them and embrace their knees. Be ingenious, my very dear, and keep with me our present in our future, keep our great love forever, growing, changing, overlaid, besieged, surrounded, ageing, and yet in its heart utterly uncontaminated and clear as Grail crystal.

I'll see you this evening. This comes as usual by Williamson minor.

My dear Ludwig,

I am sorry to hear of the final termination of your engagement. Yet also I confess I am, for your sake, relieved. I am sure you have done right. There are moments when one must choose spirit rather than joy or be forever diminished. You are young and the choice for you is meaningful. When one is older distinctions become unclear and this perhaps is damnation. Thank you for telephoning me and for speaking so frankly. May I come and see you in Oxford? I will ring tomorrow morning.

Yours

Matthew

FATHER PLEASE CANCEL YOUR SAILING I AM COMING HOME LUDWIG.