So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald. Penelope Fitzgerald

turns out the ordinands are all late vocations – men of advanced years – thank heavens they’re away. We discussed life-spans at dinner – one of them said his father knew Newman well – On the other hand it must be admitted that it’s beautifully quiet here, just the birds, and as all the clerics are really on holiday, I have the Gothic library almost to myself, and my room with a desk, and no-one disturbs you at all between meals, and I’ve done a lot of work already, and the whole house, including all the shelves on all the landings, is full of wonderful old books, memoirs and novels (I’ll have to give up the resolution to stop reading Victorian things) and busts of Mr Gladstone; and the clerics are very kind really and quite restful. – I’ve now actually had a bath – the bathroom has a queer brass column to let down into the plughole instead of a plug, and a brass soap dish with holes in it.

      Thankyou so much for taking charge at the week-end – I really felt proud as I said good-bye at having two such gorgeous daughters, in fashionable nighties. Well, I shall certainly get all my work done here easily, and shall rush back to see the twins: of course, I shall be able to baby-sit, if you would like to go out. Do hope house-keeping money &c is all right and I forgot to show you the plums – they were for Sunday lunch. I don’t think Ria will need to get very much.

      much love darling,

      Mum

      

       St Deiniol’s Library

       Hawarden

       Chester

      14 July [1969]

      Dearest Tina,

      Thankyou so much for your letter, I was so pleased to have one as all the clerics seemed to have one (many with Church Repair Fund on the envelope) and they were glanced at amid the tapping of eggshells. Many more clerics have arrived – some quite nice, including Father something or other (Anglican I think) who is sportingly running a hostel for religiously minded youth at Sussex University, with no money and discouragement from free-thinking authorities. Unfortunately he squints so hard that it’s hard to tell if he’s addressing you or not. Others clearly think I shouldn’t be here at all, and I do see that my Swedish beach dress, which I’m defiantly wearing as it’s nice on a hot day, is too short for my years, but they’ll just have to put up with it, you and Maria both said it was all right. The Warden and his wife come back on Tues: – hope she won’t speak to me about this dress. It’s when I sit down it gets a bit short, so I try to draw in my old oak chair rapidly at meal-time, but this won’t do, as the clerics feel they ought to push in my chair for me and worse still, half get up when I come into the room and bow frequently (like Daddy).

      No TV in common-room though I think there’s one in staff sitting room (all the maids are very kind and nice but wear very long skirts and white aprons) – and radio doesn’t work – hasn’t for many years I should say. There are some little figures in a glass case which I at first thought might be pin-football, but turns out to be a model of St Deiniol’s in the 13th century made entirely of edible materials (i.e. marzipan). I asked the sub-warden when he meant to eat it and he replied oh, not yet, we’ve only had it for three years. Everyone nodded, and an ancient vicar who comes here every year said we hope to keep it indefinitely.

      Bells go at 8.45, 11 (tea and digestive biscuit), 1, 4, and 7.30 but quick as I am into the old oak dining-room or common-room (for tea) I’m always last. Can it be they’re sitting in there waiting for the bell?

      The meals are very nice but small – the clerics finish their platefuls in 30 secs. flat – of course they’re used to semi-starvation in country vicarages as I know well enough, and I suppose the ordinands are kept on a low diet – but I’m not complaining or buying biscuits (though you were quite right about this) because I’m steadily reducing round the waist.

      It turns out that the Rev: Mr King doesn’t wear a wig, but just brushes his hair forward, a human weakness – he’s studying mediaeval Latin breviaries: but another little man has arrived from London University (studying nineteenth-century church documents and letters from some Tractarian, so he says) who really does wear a ‘piece’ and a Madras jacket from the C&A and tells me he uses Ambre Solaire: clearly he’s regarded as worldly by the others.

      After lunch Warden and wife have now arrived, and it’s such a relief, as she’s very nice – wears a long crimplene dress, but clearly doesn’t mind what anyone else wears and is cheery and motherly – and has quite a lot to do I imagine because the Warden it turns out is blind and very stout – and she has to manage him as well as the ordinands. One of the clerics points out to me quietly that all the drawers of the dressing tables are lined with pages of the Radio Times in Braille. And this is true.

      I’m so glad she’s come – there was much more for lunch as a result and I can decline the invitations (from an ancient cleric) to visit

      

      1. Mr Gladstone’s seat in the parish church, on which Archbishop Benson collapsed and died.

      2. The dog cemetery in the castle grounds where the tomb of Mr Gladstone’s favourite dog may be seen.

      

      I shall go to this later, and I’m always in and out of the parish church anyway, as there are fine windows by Burne-Jones – the west window is the last one he ever designed – and I want to see them both morning and evening, to get the different lights through them. I’m still mindful of not getting sunk in Victorianism – but I do do modern literature courses, indeed I find everyone else strangely reluctant to undertake them, so perhaps as I’m here it’s all right to ‘give way’.

      When you say you can’t stop laughing in church, is that because you’ve come to feel the whole thing is absurd? I do hope not! (I thought of this this morning when I was counting my blessings, one great one being that all 3 children are still believers, as we used to call it.)

      It really is restful here and I shall easily get all my work done and a bit of Russian. It’s a ridiculous but most peaceful and regular existence and very calming to the nerves. But I do worry about you and the twins in this heat, it must be so sticky pushing the pram. I shouldn’t think it’s any hotter on the Costa Brava.

      I’ll make a daring expedition now to post this in Hawarden sub post-office,

      much love always

      Ma x

      

      Thankyou for getting in supplies: I’ve told Da that if an answer comes from Spain he must read it to you at once.

      

       Beach Hotel

       Attakoy

      Thursday [summer 1969]

      Dearest Tina,

      I’ve decided in the end to write to Poynders G. as the post here doesn’t inspire me with confidence – we do have a Guide Bleu (borrowed) which says that the post in the larger cities works ‘as with civilised nations’ but I don’t believe this.

      There is too much to see here, and Daddy is being very good and although he is so deliberate and keeps saying he’ll just finish his cigarette or walk to the end of the beach (not much of an ‘end’ as the whole coast is strictly divided into lengths of greyish sand and bluish sea and each one is a private beach) – the next one, Turk Camping, is much gayer with loud songs and games but I am glad to be quiet here. Each room has a balcony where you can sit and have a glass of acid Turkish wine and it was built on the site of an old farm house so there are nice willow and plane trees, with leaves that make different noises in the night breeze.

      You get into Istanbul on the public minibuses and taxis and more and more helpful and unintelligible people squeeze in as you get nearer to the city. You arrange what you’re going to pay before you start so it’s not worrying, and we’re getting very good with the phrasebook. The Turkish for ‘station’ is ‘tren’ but what is ‘train’ I wonder? Old Istanbul is very dirty and seedy but tipico beyond words and rather like Spain used to be (except not the trouble about