Wednesday
Chiswick
Angel,
Your last two letters, delightful as they were, have brought me some pangs because by now you will have had my letter telling you the date of our leave. And I’m afraid all your lovely day dreams will have to wait a bit now until they are fulfilled, won’t they? I’m afraid, too, that I have misled you a little bit in regard to leave, although in view of the month’s delay it seems very little to worry about. February 4th is the last time we are on duty, but leave doesn’t begin until 9am on the 5th. As we are actually on the job until 9am, and not just stand-by, I don’t see how we can get away early so it looks as if the 10.30 train will be the earliest I can catch.
So now we’ll have to rearrange the picture of the first day because I won’t be at home until the middle of the afternoon. Will you have a try, this time, at painting a word picture of our first night? You try and then I’ll see if I can add to it. I should say I’ll be home between 3 and 4. I’m so sorry I will miss your birthday, sweet, for it would have made a nice celebration. I am still kicking myself for helping to get you all worked up like this, angel, and then bringing you down to earth with a bump. The postscript to tomorrow’s letter will be vitriolic, I’m afraid! Never mind, love, you’ll soon be looking at the calendar and marking off the days with all the anxiety of an unmarried girl waiting for vapours. Sorry!
So I let you down in your dream, did I? I’m sorry, angel, but believe me I’ll do my best not to repeat that performance in real life. Your letter with all its references to your desires played hell with John who hasn’t been the same lad since. No wonder your body is one big ache. I love every little inch of it. Oh, angel, angel!
Apart from these things, one of the best bits of news I have had from you is that you have at last mastered the art of not letting Mother get you down. I haven’t written her yet because you have to be in the right mood for that, but I must get down to it. I wasn’t surprised to hear that Sunday went off without a nark. Those days usually do when other helpful people are there.
I’m interested to see Michael’s drawings. I think they are quite good, don’t you? For some time I haves sensed his reactions to school, just as you describe them. It is the reaction of most little boys I think, so don’t worry.
Thank you once again for the weekend letter. I had such a lovely picture of you in the bath, with your shy eyes. You are still shy of me, aren’t you, completely nude in harsh electric light, but not in the half-light of the fire. Oh, angel, I love that shy expression of yours, because it has, too, so much of your love in it. I can feel our still damp bodies pressed close together after a communal bath, even now. And I have a picture, too, of that little dark island, which is so much mine, waving as the tiny waves lap it. Oh, sweetheart mine, please, please be well and strong when I come home because you’ll need all your strength. Your description of your dress rehearsal was lovely and I got quite conceited to think I mean so much to anyone. Never mind, angel. In a month you’ll have eight full evenings in which to dress up for me, and eight more in which I can undress you! Yes, darling, I did get your letters and by now you will have had a letter full of heavy fun about the price of your frock. Of course the price was right.
Eric seems to be developing into the typical uncle and I’m glad. It will do him as much good as the children and I’m glad, too, that the children are gradually becoming natural with more and more adults outside ourselves. It will help to broaden and develop their minds. Wouldn’t Wendy love to have Ernest drawing for her for hours on end!
How are you feeling after your big wash? You only said what you had done to the clothes and not what they had done to you. Tell me honestly, sweet, what you think of yourself after such a heavy day.
Wendy’s preference for figures is weird, isn’t it? Most little girls shine more at drawing and reading than at sums. Easy to see she’s the daughter of a free-lance! Aye, the lance was free enough in those days, wasn’t it, even if you did hate the walls, and the hedges and the shore and the canal bank. You ungrateful hussy. Sweetheart, I just heard you sigh as you do when I take poor shrunken exhausted John out and I felt that little shudder run right through you too.
Precious, my own, I adore you, but the postman won’t wait while I write more. Darling, darling, I do hope your blues are not very bad. Try to keep your chin up for one more month. After this week time will begin to move again.
All my love, sweetheart, and do take care of yourself.
Ever yours,
Arthur X
P.S. I meant to say that your last two letters were two of the nicest you have written for a long time. I could feel the pep in today’s letter. Keep it up, sweetheart.
Jan 061943