The House by the Sea Read online

  I think of my mother, late in her life having to take on the housework and cooking, the immense daily effort, and the determination not to be “downed.” Yet she was in the last years like a wild bird caught in a net, struggling, struggling, and at times only a kind of fury kept her going. I think of Céline, who also had been used to servants, working so hard to cook the midday meal, insisting on keeping up the vegetable garden and on canning fruit in the summers well into her seventies. I think of Rosalind, crippled with arthritis, making a supreme effort to get dressed each day. Growing old is, of all things we experience, that which takes the most courage, and at a time when we have the least resources, especially with which to meet frustration. I had a letter from Pauline yesterday in Brussels. She is dismayed because her daily routine of walking in the park and sitting on a certain bench to read for an hour or two is frustrated by a talkative woman who will not leave her in peace! I understand so very well how this small frustration may become real distress.

  But at least Anne, here on the island, is surrounded by so much love and kindness that for her the struggle is not harsh or bitter. I am thankful for that. She is ending a life spent all in giving, spent for others, as the beloved queen of a tiny kingdom.

  Monday, August 11th

  WE DROVE back on Friday, all the way in one sweep on a blessedly cool day, pouring rain for the last hour. It was a deluge, so of course the garden is beaten down. But the rain was so sorely needed I cannot complain. It is only that this summer is rather a listless and unilluminated one for me. Much as I love being with Judy, the fact that all holidays are spent with someone no longer quite there, that there can be no real conversations, no exchange about books, politics, the garden, whatever is close to the surface in my mind, ends by making me feel empty.

  I rushed out in the rain and had an orgy of picking before supper that night … the zinnias are glorious, bachelor’s buttons, tobacco (lovely purples and lavendars as well as white), some great spires of delphinium, pale lavendar and bright blue, that Raymond gave me for my birthday.

  Next day Phyllis came to fetch Judy and after they left I ran around madly catching up on everything at once. The desk! Staking all the tall flowers in all the garden! Getting in food! Saturday spent itself on all that.

  Yesterday I felt exhausted and only managed to write nine short letters in the morning—I used to do at least twenty on Sundays. I used to be able to work at my desk after supper. Never mind! I have an idea that this year of losses and good byes is a transition and that next year I shall have more energy and start a new phase. I have to believe it.

  Wednesday, August 13th

  AT LAST a whole day for myself! I lifted my head just now after typing for an hour, and heard the absolute silence—there is not a breath of wind, the sea the most radiant pale blue. The lobster boats creep by, hardly making a sound. And then I heard the slight gentle whirring of crickets, that sound of late summer with autumn already in it. Bliss!

  Yesterday I had two sessions here for the certification of the two Union Graduate students for whom I am an adjunct as they work for PhD’s—a rich, complex day. I felt grateful, when it was over, for all that came into the house with these twelve people.

  Thursday, August 14th

  YESTERDAY did turn out to be what I call a “real” day, as I worked quite well, three pages, and that is all I can do on these very concentrated portraits of friends. In the afternoon I cleared out a whole new flower bed, possible because the old apple tree has been cut down.

  In the mail yesterday came a letter from a semi-invalid lady who lives in New Mexico. She had found the excerpts from the Journal in the August Reader’s Digest … this is the first response to their selection and I am eager to see whether there will be any more. She lives on $105.00 a month welfare. I was stunned to read that when she managed to save enough to buy one paperback book she sorely wanted, the social worker was furious! We hear so much about those who cheat on welfare but not enough about how those who do not cheat are robbed of dignity and cheated of their souls’ needs. Thank goodness I could send two of the books she hoped might be in paperback and are not. I presume she will not be scolded for having a gift book in her house.

  It is going to be a terribly hot day and I think I shall wash Tamas instead of gardening this afternoon. He hasn’t had a bath since his operation; he will enjoy getting wet and cool today. He is molting (if that is the word) and I comb huge quantities of soft underfur out each day. I really should make it into a soft pillow.

  About the Union Graduate meeting day before yesterday—in both cases the talk was extremely interesting. But I myself learned more from the second two hours, when we were dealing with a thesis on myths from a feminist point of view. I feel Karen is doing seminal work here. I learned something about words—one of her advisers questioned the use of “feminine,” an adjective debased (she feels) by the way men have used it. She preferred “female.” Some of us felt that that was too sexual to be used in all instances. We never did come up with a newly minted word that might fill the bill.

  In microcosm, this discussion told me a lot about what the feminists have accomplished in the last few years. There is a new confidence about being a woman; there is, above all, a new and valuable communion between women. I sense that we now want to help each other, that old jealousies have given way to a need to embrace and work with other women. When I was young, a woman poet had to contend not only with the jealousy of male poets and reviewers, but also with the reserve (and perhaps even jealousy) that successful female poets felt toward other female poets. There is also a rigorous intellectual coming to terms with language and with all the trite ideas about women; so the deepest challenge may be just this “demythologizing,” as Karen calls it, as a first step, and then the construction of a more valid mythological framework. Lastly, these young women are determined to have children as part of a fulfilled life and to do original work as well. I admire them wholeheartedly. But I am always up against my own hard view that it is next to impossible to lead a fulfilled life as a human being and do original work of the highest caliber, if one is a woman.

  Saturday, August 16th

  AT LAST I am living what I think of as my real life for the first time this summer. It may be that quite simply the clearer air has achieved this miracle, that really blue sea yesterday. I woke at four and had a good long restful think about everything, until six, when I got up. One of the things I thought about was Lois Snow’s A Death with Dignity, When the Chinese Came … a remarkable document about Edgar Snow’s death of cancer of the pancreas and the way in which his Chinese friends, including Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, helped in every conceivable way. We think of a communist country as depersonalized, making machines of men; so it is moving to read about what life is like in a Chinese hospital, where nurses and doctors are truly concerned about the human being, where the human has not simply become a ticketed disease. And of course in the Snow case all this was carried to its limit, as Mao sent two of his great specialists for cancer, four nurses, and two chauffeurs all the way to Switzerland to stay and help in every possible way in the last weeks. How rarely are true friends of any country cherished in this way!

  How ironic that Nixon, responsible for Snow’s persecution as a Red in the bad old days, should write him a warm letter just before he himself went to China in that false blaze of glory, not earned and merely expedient.

  This is the first book I have read in months that has given me a lift. It is possible, then, that the mechanics of dying, or even being seriously ill, need not be so isolating and so devastating for families, always kept in the dark about what is really going on. In China nurses and doctors work together (doctors even help nurses make beds) and every day there is an open meeting with all present, including the family, to talk about what is really going on and what can be done to alleviate pain.

  I am so grateful to Mary Tozer for sending me this book and shall now order copies to send around. Let good news spread!

 
; I got up at six and went down in my rubber boots to get some deep watering done at the roots of the azaleas and to pick flowers, with a lovely sense of time, early-morning time, able to do it slowly and enjoy it. I brought in sprays of cosmos, delphinium, marigolds, zinnias, a few early asters. I made a little bunch for the kitchen, all yellow and blue, with some Chinese forget-me-nots as well as bachelor’s buttons in it. The house feels worthy of flowers as the Withrows came to clean yesterday and all the withered petals that litter up the floor have vanished.

  I had breakfast in bed, rejoicing in my sweet companions, Tamas waiting patiently beside the bed for a piece of toast and Bramble purring at my feet. She is away so much in summer, hunting in the field, that I treasure her rare visits. When I got up, I changed the sheets and put a laundry to soak.

  And all this was accomplished with real happiness. Somehow a cloud has lifted in my inwardness. Perhaps it is partly that the piece on Rosalind is coming out. And also that I feel the book emerging at last as a whole. I am eager now to start on a preface.

  Yesterday I had a letter from a young woman who is living alone, a film maker of some reputation. She wants to do a film on people who live alone, and will come next week to talk about her plans. I gather she has some doubts about the solitary life. I told her that I feel it is not for the young (she is only thirty-three). I did not begin to live alone till I was forty-five, and had “lived” in the sense of passionate friendships and love affairs very richly for twenty-five years. I had a huge amount of life to think about and to digest, and, above all, I was a person by then and knew what I wanted of my life. The people we love are built into us. Every day I am suddenly aware of something someone taught me long ago—or just yesterday—of some certainty and self-awareness that grew out of conflict with someone I loved enough to try to encompass, however painful that effort may have been.

  Monday, August 18th

  HAPPINESS has come back after a long time away, and I wake in the night, too excited to sleep, there is so much happening again in my head.

  Yesterday the Frenches came here (for the first time) for lunch and it was a just-about-perfect visit. They arrived early from Nelson, at about half past ten; luckily I had everything ready—lobster salad, tomatoes cut up with French dressing, stuffed eggs; the table looked sweet with a fat bunch of roses in the center. The Frenches are Tamas’ family—he went wild with joy, racing up and down and round the house, sliding over the rugs, as he only does if he is extremely glad to see someone! Win and Dot brought me a big box of corn, squash, and cucumber from their garden, and Cathy and her husband Mike came too, but not Bud. I hope he’ll be able to next time. He and Cathy were two of the dearest children I ever knew—Cathy with her lambs and sheep, the tender responsible care she showed even when a small child—(she put herself through business school with those sheep!). And Bud so fearless and loving with all animals.

  It was not a brilliant day as far as the weather went—a rather pale yet opalescent ocean, very very calm, under cloudy skies. We went right down the grassy path to the rocks. And Win, Tamas, the cat, Mike, and Cathy all ran about like goats, while Dot and I watched from above. It was low tide, so the rock pools could be explored; Mike found crabs.

  The Frenches are eager about everything they see, noting tiny flowers in the grass, as well as the quality of light. It is such a pleasure when people really observe.

  When we came back to the house, we had drinks in the library, and a good quiet talk about everything before lunch. Win is the sexton at Nelson as well as the mail carrier, and I take comfort in knowing that my grave is marked and that I shall go home to Nelson someday forever. There is nowhere I would rather be than under those glorious maples and right beside Quig.

  I want to recount this visit in its sequences because it was all so civilized, gentle, and life-giving to me. Lunch was greatly appreciated, and that pound and a half of lobster meat ($18.00 worth!) just about went around. I sent back with them a small plastic bagful for Bud to taste, as well as the Collected Poems for the library at Nelson.

  After lunch we had coffee on the terrace, possible because it was cloudy (otherwise it is too hot until around four, when the shade comes), and finally I took them round the walk through the woods, with Bramble following and Tamas running ahead. It’s the first time in a month that this has been possible because the deerflies have been so awful. Finally I brought the Frenches upstairs to my study, because I wanted them to see the bulletin board at the top of the stairs with all the photos of Nelson—including the one Mort Mace took of Bud and Cathy with a black lamb, and Tamas’ mother. Then, far too soon, they were off. As I turned back to the terrace, I realized that, far from being tired as I often am after entertaining friends, I felt refreshed and rested. I went down to take a look at the plums Win had noticed were ripening but, though a ravishing purple-blue, they are still as hard as stones. Then I came up and wrote a long letter to Pauline in French—all about the day. My head is waking up, for I wrote well in French this time. Lately it has seemed a great effort.

  Now that the Quigleys, Beverley Chamberlain and her mother, Helen Milbank, and the Frenches have all come here to see me, I feel the close ties with Nelson are not broken. On the contrary, I can provide, especially for the Quigs and Frenches, a kind of holiday escape now and then. Lovely!

  Thursday, August 21st

  IT OCCURS to me that there is a primal urge at this season to “put things up.” I feel it coming on, and must watch the crab apples and plums to be sure to catch the moment of ripeness. I think a crab-apple tree covered with small bright-red fruit is the most beautiful of all the fruit trees. It has a fairy-tale look about it.

  Sunday, August 24th

  YESTERDAY I had my first sail since I came here more than two years ago. It was an absolutely perfect sailing day, brilliant, sunny, just enough wind and not too much. And I, landlubber that I am, was fascinated by all the sailing lore, the atmosphere of kinship between the owners of boats, the whole world it becomes, once one is involved. Heidi, who had invited me, began to sail when she was over forty and progressed from small boats to this fine yawl that sleeps four, built for her by Bob Reed of Kennebunkport, the decks of teak, the mast, Sitka spruce, I think she said. Pixie is a good steady boat, and it was a grand day on the water! So relaxed and holidayish, I felt I had been away for a week when I got home after nine.

  Thursday, August 28th

  YESTERDAY Ed and Susan Kenney came for lunch. I had looked forward so much to their visit, and it was a beautiful hot, clear day, comfortable because of the low humidity, and a bright blue sea to welcome them. We plunged at once into talk about Elizabeth Bowen. Ed has written an excellent monograph on her work. (I discovered him through his review of her posthumous book Pictures and Conversations in The New Republic and had written to thank him for it.) Ed and Susan saw Elizabeth in Hythe and described the tiny house where she lived. The second time they went, she was ill and received them in bed, but her great gift for instant intimacy was at work as she lay with their year-old Jamie beside her. I keep that image of the dying old woman with little Jamie. And I was comforted by Ed saying she had written him to warn that she longed to hear but that she simply did not write letters. It may partly explain her long silence as far as I am concerned.

  Tuesday, September 2nd

  SUCH A TIGHTLY packed weekend … I shall never be able to sort it all out today. But there are things I must try to capture here this morning … a soft gray morning, well-suited to a quiet think.

  Lee arrived Friday afternoon, a round joyful bundle of energy and excitement as she set out to try to find a house near here. We saw three or four that afternoon, ranging from a gloomy Spanish stucco house, lost in the woods (I could see it affect her like a pall) to Helen Jones’ exquisite one in the woods also, near here—a house I have admired and that I hope she can have. It is hard to describe how good it will be, if it works, to have a real friend so near by. Lee is wonderful in all ways I am not. Besides being a fine artist in
mosaics, she knows how things work and loves to mend and make-go again, as she did with the cuckoo clock while I was gone. What fun to have a companion with whom to play! One of the few things I mind about living alone is having no one with whom to go to the movies, and I haven’t seen one for two years.

  I left Saturday morning to drive to Connecticut to meet Irene Morgan at a motel and then go together to see Eva Le Gallienne in the play she has so wanted to play in, The Dream Watcher, being briefly tried out at the White Barn Theatre. One of the haunting woes of these past ten years has been to know that her genius was locked up for lack of a play. It has been real anguish, for time is running out. Le G. is seventy-six now, though one would not guess that. She is in full command of her powers and has more to say, perhaps, than she ever has; so that the immense technical expertise is simply there to be used for a great end. How I had hoped the play would prove worthy! But I did not feel it was.

  It suffers from being a novel turned into a play … the author, Barbara Wersba, did the dramatization herself, and perhaps this was a mistake. The play depends on two actors, the old woman and a sensitive boy who is doing badly at school and needs “motivating,” as they say. Their conjunction is the action. Unfortunately, the boy, handsome in a plump little-boy way, did not have the necessary intensity. So the magic the play might have had simply did not happen. Le G. herself was magnificent, in a part that I felt almost too fitted to her—and that raised many thoughts in my mind. It seemed a kaleidoscope of bits and pieces of her great performances from Juliet to the Madwoman of Chaillot.