C/O Mrs Clive
Brympton D’Evercy
Somersetshire
Thursday, August 3rd 1939
Dear Daddy,
I think I told you all the news up to Sunday.
I’ll report for Michael first. He has a wonderful time in the farm most of the mornings playing in the barns and hay-lofts when it is showery, and the children have built a beautiful Peter Pan house in the woods. It holds five of them and is furnished with boxes for seats and table and has a first rate fire-place covered with an iron grating to hold the pots and pans and is finished off with an iron pipe chimney and a coal chute and larder. A garden has been plotted out around it and they have a clothes line and garden gate, the whole thing being completely screened on all sides by trees and shrubbery. Yesterday they cooked their “dinner” there – soup made out of potatoes and carrots; stewed plums; baked apples. What a game!
Apart from falling into the pig wash he has had no mishap up to date. We have been swimming in the little swimming pool and rowing on the lake, and on Tuesday we spent the day at Weymouth, having a bread and cheese lunch at an inn en route and tea at Sherborne on the way home.
We only had time for a mere glance at the Abbey and School which was a great pity as the Abbey especially was lovely. However, I bought a guide book for myself and you!
Another church we inspected was the parish church of West Coker, a village very near here, about two miles across the fields, I should think. It was most surprising. Very beautiful of course, but what amazed me was the Lady, Altar and Lady Chapel. So very definitely not just a place where “ladies may sit”. The altar was all blue and had an odd sort of frontal decorated with four circles and wings and eyes. The four circles interlaced . Each had four wings at regular intervals on the circumference and human eyes in between the wings embroidered on the gold circumference. Presumably a representation of the four Beasts (?) but there were no heads. What do you think? (I imagine that this was an attempt to represent the Seraphim as described in Ezekiel 1: 15-21). The reredos was blue and in the centre was a representation of Our Lady holding the Holy Child and standing on a crescent moon. All is done in bas-relief and coloured. Each side were similar representations of the Annunciation and Visitation. All most unusual, I thought for the country at any rate round here.
While we were at Weymouth Mr Millar called. I was so sorry we missed him, but we are going to try to return his visit if we get the chance. Ilminster is 11 miles away, I believe. If we get the car again it will be easy, but we may have to get a bus from Yeovil which is not so good when we have Michael with us as there is bound to be a lot of walking as well.
Yesterday we entertained Malcolm Grey to supper. He came over from the camp about 7:30 and we fed him with sausages, bacon and kidneys, apple pie and blancmange. He is not getting a lot to eat in camp and he was glad of the meal. The left-over sausages we spread with mustard and salt and wrapped up for an early morning snack. Cyril also gave him some cake and biscuits and fruit in his various pockets to keep him going. He seemed very happy to have the chance of a change as usually he stays in camp too tired to go as far as Yeovil (three miles away) when there is nothing to do there but walk about. Next weekend he hopes for weekend leave and will go back to Fulham. He says 120 boys have been sent to Plymouth with pneumonia so far. Now that the weather is improving they hope that that is the lot. They are still under canvas but the next lot will have huts.
Michael and I had a dip this afternoon. He has to stand on the steps all the time as the water is much too deep for him to stand. I must say I feel a bit doubtful about it as the weeds cling to your legs as you swim and the sides of the “bath” are overgrown with brambles and nettles. Most “unsporting” of Mrs Clive, we told her, as one must simply sink or swim once the steps are left behind.
We hope that a visit to Forde Abbey will be arranged for us. Mrs Clive asked if we’d like to visit Mrs Brain as well, but our holiday is too short for much visiting, and Michael would get bored and I don’t like to leave him to the mercy of the farm boys. Mrs Clive herself loathes visiting unless it is to a very great friend like Mrs Roper, and she is a very vague person about time.
We hear amusing stories about her sometimes. She once had a very unwelcome duty visit to make. It was a tea engagement to return to some new comer in the district. She ordered the car for 4 o’clock when she gave her orders in the morning, and then went off to spend her day in the garden. Coming out of the Priest-house (which is now a sort of store house and museum) about 4:20 in the afternoon she was surprised to see the chauffeur and car drawn up.
“Why have you got the car out, Trask?” she asked.
“You ordered the car for 4 o’clock, Ma’am” he told her.
“Did I?” she said. “Why did I do that now?”
“You were going out to tea, Ma’am, and I was to get you there by 4:15.”
“Was I? Oh yes – what a nuisance, I had quite forgotten.”
With that she put down her basket, drew off her gloves, and got into the car. She poked the wisps of hair into her hat, looked at her hands, wiped them on her stockings, took off her shoes one by one and tipped the mould and dust out into the car and put them on again. “I suppose I look fairly presentable for tea, don’t I, Trask?” she asks, and off she goes. Greeted by her friends at the door, she apologised profusely, and explained that “some wretched people called to be shown over the house and she could not possibly get rid of them – had to push them out in the end!”
Another time she had a luncheon engagement for 1:30 about 60 miles away. She asked how long it would take, and the chauffeur said two hours, and should he have the car round by 11:30? “Nonsense” she said. “I can’t possibly leave the garden all day like that, I’ve so much to do. I’m sure twelve will be soon enough.” So at about 12:15 she set off. At 1 o’clock they were still miles from their destination, and she said – “I’m going to be late, Trask. You must stop at a phone somewhere, and I must phone up. I don’t know what I can say. Something must have gone wrong with the car. What sort of things do go wrong with cars?”
“Well, Ma’am” said the faithful chauffeur, “there is always the ignition.” “Ignition” she replied, “What’s that? How long does it take to put right?” “That’s all according” he explained, and went into a few technical details. “Oh all right, that’ll do. Stop at the next phone.” She said. When they arrived at the lunch engagement nearly half an hour late, the chauffeur was asked by his comrades below stairs how the car was? Had he had much trouble &c putting it right? And the trusty fellow replied that the car was now running beautifully.
I can’t vouch for the truth of these stories, but they are so like her (and “Lord Emsworth” One of the characters in the stories of P.G. Wodehouse) that I am sure there must be more than a little foundation for them, and any way they do make good stories, don’t they?
I must finish now, as it is really late, and one of the lamps has burnt out already.
Your loving daughter,
Veronica
