It’s been so long since I’ve written in you. I can’t seem to get into the rhythm of “daily recordings” as Father recommends, and life has been terribly busy. But I am glad you are here, and when I come to you, I feel so much better.
The world is topsy-turvy. Even here in Derbyshire, we feel it. Father gave a full lecture tonight on the “state of affairs.” He does this more often lately. He has always wanted us to be informed and aware, but there’s now an urgency to his manner that concerns me.
It upsets Mother. She says we should be spared such talk. But even though it’s unnerving, I’d rather know. Besides, Father has always been this way. Whenever guests come, Caro and I stay at the table. We never speak, but we listen. We’ve listened to King George VI, Sir Churchill, Prime Minister Baldwin, Dr. Dalton, and so many others I can’t begin to name.
Tonight Father walked us through what’s going on in Germany. They elected a new chancellor in January of this year, but then by bullying and intimidation he became dictator in March. Now Herr Hitler refuses to pay the reparations outlined in the Treaty of Versailles. I gather if he doesn’t repay England the money Germany owes her, she can’t repay America. It starts a whole chain of events. But worse than going back on a signed treaty, Hitler is rearming Germany. He walked out of the Geneva Disarmament Conference in October, and Father is concerned because every other country, including ours, wants disarmament. The current prime minister, MacDonald—he’s never come for dinner—wants peace and has based his government on that and a balanced budget. Rearming England would run a deficit, especially with no reparation payments coming in.
Father says Sir Churchill is apoplectic. He hasn’t been here to stay for a long while—so I haven’t heard him myself—because he’s sequestered or something. When I asked what that meant, Father said Churchill is out of favor at present and is concentrating on his writing. I understood that—I constantly say things that get me “out of favor.”
How much of this is real, Beatrice? That’s what I want to know. Father’s opinions counter Prime Minister MacDonald’s. Despite Germany’s actions, most believe peace will remain. In fact, a man just won a seat in the House of Commons from East Fulham on a platform of peace and passivism. He supports disbanding our entire armed forces, and he won in a landslide.
Who is right? Who is wrong? Do they even see the same thing?
To drive his point home last night, Father told us that Herr Hitler endorsed a one-day boycott of all Jewish shops and businesses last April 1. He also forced book burnings all summer and into the fall.
Books. I can’t imagine burning books. What is next?
When I asked that question, Father stared at me hard. I could tell he agreed, but he wanted me to take my thinking to its logical, abhorrent conclusion. I shuddered because I suppose I know—the Jewish people.
After all, he banned them for a day, didn’t he?
Fifteen
After calling it quits at four in the morning, I woke early Monday. I credited adrenaline. Mat was to arrive at noon and there was a lot to do before then. I had only read the diaries as far as 1938 and, in my exhaustion, felt I’d missed much.
Before I let Mat dig into the private lives of Margo and Caro, I had to better understand what he would read, what he might find, and where it would lead him. I had to protect them as best I could—I had to protect myself. I loved them.
I heard Mom moving about outside my room as I dressed. When I was growing up, she always had a ritual at home, and alone here now she seemed to maintain it. As she moved from her bedroom to the kitchen, she would stop by every room touching base. “Freshening,” she called it. If a glass needed replacing or I’d left a bowl in the upstairs sitting room, she’d carry it downstairs. When I was in high school and would take full meals up to my attic rooms, she started carrying a laundry basket through the house each morning.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but after reading Caro’s letters and Margaret’s diaries and learning how much they cared—yet how often they misunderstood and missed each other completely—I realized Mom’s “freshening” was a form of care. She was reaching out to me, perhaps, in the only way she could back then—yet I never saw it.
Once dressed, I headed straight to the attic and perched on the same stool I’d vacated only a few hours before. I pulled the 1934 pile to me to start again. My 2002 was their 1934—the year that changed everything.
That summer, at sixteen years old, Caro and Margo split for the first time. The we became me and you.
29 August 1934
Dear Beatrice,
You thought I forgot about you, didn’t you? I’ve been sick. This is the first time in over a month I can sit up in bed. The first time in a month Mother and Mrs. Dulles have left me alone. I can’t blame them.
They thought I would die. Everyone did, I gather. I have to confess, at times I wished it myself. There were long stretches of between-time in which my throat felt seared shut and my brain swelled much larger than my skull could hold. The heat and pain consumed me and I wanted it to stop. Father sometimes quotes Dante’s The Divine Comedy to us and a favorite line is, “The path to paradise begins in hell.” Paradise to me was simply relief from that hell—by any means possible—and I’ll confess this to only you—I prayed for death.
What I didn’t know until this morning, however, was how close I actually came and how it affected everyone else. Mother put her hand on my head this morning, declared my fever gone, and promptly burst into sobs. She frightened me. Only after she left did Betsy explain that two nights ago, she had to change my sheets three times. I kept sweating through them and Dr. Barlow declared me past hope.
Father just left me. I think Mother sent him up to make sure her newfound hope had foundation.
“Dr. Barlow said if you survived Sunday night you’d heal fast. You’re cool to the touch and your eyes aren’t glassy.” It felt like Father was making an official pronouncement over me.
I expected him to nod and leave, but he didn’t. He dropped onto the edge of my bed. “It’s awfully good to see you, my dear.”
That’s when I comprehended how bad things had been and why Mother looks pale, thin, and haggard, and Mrs. Dulles only slightly less so.
“It’s awfully good to be seen.”
Father ran his index finger down my cheek and tapped the tip of my nose like he did when we were little. “I’ll go find you something to eat. We need to get a little colour back into you.”
Mother met him at the door.
He pulled her into a hug. “Time for you to get some rest, Ethel. You must breathe again, perhaps even sleep. We didn’t lose her.”
3 September 1934
Dear Beatrice,
“We didn’t lose her.”