First letter available

 22 Mar 1923

Darling Hub

That was a splendid train I came home by.  It arrived at Waterloo at 6.09 and I was home by 7.00 so I went straight for Mrs. Box and she was remaining till Mrs. Burton comes to sleep.

I do hope you will be comfortable dear and find congenial companionship.  I shall be glad to know your news but I don't want to worry you to write epistles.  One thought only I have and that is that you get well and take life easy in the doing of it.  Best love dear from your loving wife Elsie.

Billy sends his love. I'll send some PCs and other extras like tennis racket as soon as possible.

 

28 Mar 1923

Dearest Hub

Just to let you know I am staying with Mont for the weekend before returning to the world of work.

Shall try hard to get packing through this week as the sooner it’s done the better and the sooner we start building for the future that better.  It is useless looking back, isn’t it?

Mont and Lil are very sympathetic for you and hope you will soon be on the mend. I shall probably stay with them quite a lot while you are away dear.

John is a lovely child and so merry and now that Teddy has grown out of his trying ways it will give me an interest as well as a change.  I hope your dressing gown arrived safely.  A sports coat from Workings is being sent off on Thursday and I shall also send you some vests.  If there is anything else you would like please let me know dear.

Your mother called to see me yesterday morning and was nice to me and sorry for the way she has treated us both. 

 

7 April 1923

Dear Hubby

Just a note to let you know all business transactions are through and I have handed over possession of number 19 Dalmore Road to the new tenants.

Of course, it has been a trying time and I’ve had no end to do; with the results I nearly departed this life on Thursday morning.  This is the second time within two years so shall have to go very slow for a bit as my mechanism is very run down.  However, I’m home and in bed so am on the mend already.  Glad you are better.  Hope you received sports coat safely.  Shall send your tennis racket and fruit in a few days.  Will write again in a day or two but I haven’t any news of the kind you seem to respect.

Best of luck to you Elsie

 

 

 

15^th April 1923

Dearest Hub,

I’ve had another a heart attack, another Dr. and have another medicine but in the same bed and today I feel decidedly stronger but shall have to go very slow for some time.

I managed to write a few absolutely necessary letters and that’s about all but I am still optimistic about myself and that matters in general.

I wrote to Dr. Martin about the smokes question as I felt postage was an added expenses and unnecessary apart from the fact that you might find yourself quite minus some days through my inability to get into the town.

I’m glad you seem to be comfortable.  If you would like your flute just to say so and I’ll send it together with some music.  Also, would you like your tennis rackets and shoes?  I have these are with me.

But your educational books papers and documents etc have gone to 31 Idmiston to be stored.

I haven’t had time or health to sort anything so packed everything and corded the boxes and there they are for your inspection etc. when you are well.

What kind of news do you expect I wonder.  Is it from the LCC or the CJD?  If so, there is nothing doing.  But did you seriously expect anything?  As you know I never did.  Why should they worry about us?  I shall probably write to the LCC again, re. your position but I must think it out.

Love from Billy Dib and Elsie Dib to Bobby Dib.

27 April 2023

My dear Rex

This it is just a note of to let you know I am better and get up for a few hours every day but I am very weak still and I fear I shall be for a long time.  I have to avoid fatigue, excitement and worry of any kind and in fact some have to maintain an absolute calm to avoid another attack which might at any moment come on.

I was very sorry you seemed to suddenly become unhappy with your surroundings as I had previously thought you were happy.  I did not know the place was what you said of it and it caused a shock.  However now you are there I want you to try and get well before coming out, if only there for my sake.

Cannot write more now.

My love to you Elsie

 

May 1923

Dear Rex

I have your letter card of the 28^th and am answering the same as Elsie is not permitted to have anything to do with correspondence and business matters.  I regret to have to say that she is and has been very seriously ill for the past month and it looks very much that it will take some considerable time before she is likely to regain her proper health once more, consequently all correspondence will have to come through me.  When she wrote you last, she was as we hoped on the mend but she has had a relapse and the Dr. was with her twice on Sunday for some time.

I enclosed you a packet of letters cards for your use.

I want you to realise that you are at “The Old Manor” entirely for your personal benefit to enable you to regain health and strength to fit you for the future and I also want you to realise that your personal home has been sold the proceeds of which are paying for your maintenance at “The Old Manor”.

When those proceeds are exhausted and they cannot possibly last long as Elsie had to clear up all outstanding debts.  We hope they last to enable you to stay where you are there for three or four months after which you must look to your father for a home.  He is responsible, I am not and I must tell you here that I absolutely forbid you my house for the future

Yours truly Edward J Marvin  {Elsie’s father }

 

11^th May 1923

Dear Rex

Again, I am a little better and am endeavouring to carry out my intention of sending your flute (the lower pitch) together with some music the rest shall follow when I am able to sort mine from yours.  It is still in a hopeless mess.  Also, I will send you your tennis racket, shoes and anything else of use that I can find

I am sorry to keep you waiting so long, for it must seem long but I have been so ill that all mother’s and Minnie’s spare time has been taken up with me and today there is my luggage together with what I have of yours unpacked and it must wait a little longer. I feel as if the little I do at a time costly so dearly.  And of course, no one can sort but me, even though they have to handle things for me.

I am glad you feel stronger in yourself and that you have decided to stay at the Old Manor for a while longer.  It means everything to you if Dr. Martin can’t pass you fit as I suspect you see for yourself.  I don’t know how the money question stands, that also has to wait till I can go into the question.

I have practically paid all outstanding accounts with Pa’s aid, at all times, when well enough, but I have no idea what I have left and the tenant at number 19 owes me a little more but that will be settled shortly I expect.

I employed a solicitor so all is in order.  Do you hear from your home.?

You have told me nothing of them and of course I hear nothing from them, not even Lettie, only Lionel.  I wrote to him as I felt I could not write to 31 after their exceedingly unkindness and lack of even the help that a little sympathy and understanding gives.  I am sorry if I sound a bit depressing but what have I not suffered and still do for that matter and they could have saved me so much.

With love from Billy the Happy and from me Elsie

 

17^th May 1923

Dear Hub,

Just to let you know the good work is progressing this time and I am mending.  Results, I have sent you your second parcel, flute and music, tennis racket and shoes, and plenty of writing paper, envelopes, sketching block, scribbling pad, pencils, brushes and paints also stamps, so a dull round has possibilities of becoming interesting, hasn’t it?

I am really sorry I could not have them sent before, but they had to be found first and I have been so ill I could not even tell anyone where to find them.  Glad you feel well.  Hope you will enjoy Whitsun in a quiet way.  I shall if I remain as well as the last few days.

Love from Elsie

 

31^st May 1923

My dear Rex

Again, I am bed but this time I think it is a chill as a result of the continued cold weather.  And of course, I was far from recovery of the old complaint so it made me rather worse than otherwise.

However I’m mending.

I thought you would be so pleased with my parcel as I imagined time hanging rather heavy with you and I felt the flute wouldn’t satisfy you all day.  I don’t see any objection to writing if you feel inclined.  It ought to be a relief and surely, you’re not obliged to show everything you do unless you wish.

I am glad you are better in health. The question as to how long you are there lies mostly with you, I think and what impression you give Dr. Martin and Co.  Next comes the question of finance.  Funds are running out.  But that is still secondary for the moment.

However, you formulated a programme for carrying out when you leave Salisbury?

Are you thinking of relying on your flute and a travelling existence or what?

Or is your father being active on your account?  I should be so worried about it all if I  dared to allow myself but as you may imagine from my short letters I am merely drifting in an endeavour to regain my health.

Please let me know what your ideas on the question are also I should like to hear news of the family if any.  Has Margaret’s baby arrived and is Marian going to Australia soon etc..

I hear nothing from anyone despite the fact of my illness but no matter.  It is usual for them.  Even Lettie has not written and she had the opportunity when returning the music she borrowed.

That gave me the signal to write to Lionel.  { Don’t} Bother about years gone by.  It is the present we have to do with.  And lately he of all of your people has been nice to me and again in the inability of your father to consult (he being old, according to Marian) I wrote to the next responsible person and asked him to be an intermediary.

I don’t seem to have much news of interest to write about I am afraid but like you while trying to improve my health I don’t go out much or do much.  Perhaps though they are better times in store.

I am going to hope so.  I am happy and cheerful mostly but of course this is despite the above conditions.

Love to you and I shall expect a letter mind next time

Your loving wife Elsie.

 

3^rd July 1923

Dearest Hubby

Letters are so few and far between in these days that we might almost have been strangers.

But then, time is a difficult.  I seem to have been deluged with correspondents during the past fortnight, some on your account, and my days have been filled with scribbling.  Then I have done some needlework for a bazaar to be held next autumn, also some needlework for myself.  Of course, I am delighted to be well enough for any form of work.  After weeks of awfulness when to write a few lines has to court a mild but none the less a wretched attack of nerves and heart it has been quite wonderful.  I am to risk the railway journey tomorrow.  I hope all goes well as I am growing anxious to see you, old boy and as it may have to take that journey alone, I have got to try myself with the company first.  By the way, you have never asked when I am going to see you, but while I have expected you to, I have been almost glad you did not as of course I would have had to refuse.

Sometimes I wonder if you realise what this tremendous change in our circumstances means to me.  But there!  As during the past months so now, I feel of that to worry you is to retard your recovery, so let’s say nothing about it.  Only it does make letter writing so difficult.

One thing I must mention and that is the coming change.  Money having run short I have had to apply to your father to do something in your interest and I believe he has written you on this matter.  Also, I have put Dr. Martin into communication with your father so that they can arrange what is best to be done as Dr. Martin does not yet consider you’re fit enough to return to your old work or take up any new.  It maybe I shall not hear very much concerning you from your people, dear, so please let me know what is going on won’t you.

We are not on good terms and they have led to me suffer so and have neither offered sympathy or help until they must.  However, no matter.  At present, the subject of you and your health is everything.  Personally, I hope you’ll come back to London, into a hospital where I may come and see you and then perhaps, we can talk about the future a little bit, for that matter, the present also.  But as you always say “put first things first” and that is exactly what I am trying to do and I hope you do also. 

With much love to you Hubby and I hope soon to hear you are comfortably settled in new quarters

Your loving wife Elsie.

 

20^th July 1923

My dear Rex

I wrote you a long letter a few days ago and then decided not to post it as I am not sure where to send it as there is a possibility of your having left Salisbury by now.

Beyond hearing from your father that it was his desire that you should go to the Maudsley I know nothing so must wait until I have news either from or off you.

I have asked you several times what your proposals for the future are but so far you seem to leave it always in the hands of others and they don’t seem to do much.  I suppose this is natural.  Most men and women too for that matter have to push their own way along in this world and if obstacles get in the way, well then, they just mow them down.  I am afraid you have stood on one side too much, old boy and of course no one understands this method.  Result, one gets left behind in the race.

However, it’s never too late to mend.

While waiting for you I shall just go on adding to my sphere of usefulness.

There is always plenty to do if one likes to do it.  So far, I just do some domestic work like jam making and needlework, and then I sing a bit and play the piano and for the rest live out of doors for the sake of the air.

It is cricket week here so like the rest of Maidstone I have more or less lived on the cricket field with different friends every day.  I shall not write news of any more importance and till I hear from you.  Until then my love to you Elsie. 

 

26^th July 1923

My dear Rex

I hope you have had a satisfactory reply from the Maudsley hospital or Dr. Martin.  I shall be most anxious to know the result.  Of course, Dr. Martin has not anything bad to report of you but it seems there is something not quite right as it should be old boy, or the necessity of going elsewhere would not arise.  However, it cannot be serious so all that is necessary is to see the matter through and you quite be yourself again.  Personally, I am convinced you live too much in the past and worry far too much about other people’s thoughts and actions and assume just miles too much responsibility with regards to them.  And all the while the people themselves neither worried themselves or you except so far as you cross their paths and make it unpleasant momentarily.  As you yourself have often said “brains are given us to forget with”.  And you are all the time using yours to remember everything and the task is too great for any human piece of machinery.

And so, like all overtaxed machinery it has run a bit wild.  I wonder if Dr. Martin ever says something of this kind to you?  I expect you have realised and perhaps with considerable distress, that trust in Scotland Yard etc. and other “powers that be” was quite useless and that your personal worries were nothing to them.

Such is life but you could not see it unfortunately.  However, that is all past like many other things and it is the future we have to face.

For myself, I have taken on a fresh lease of life, and I found that the only way to make the best of things is not to look back and not to look very far forward.  As far as a kind of middle age will allow, I am keeping busy.  I can do quite a lot but I have to take a good long rest between the various efforts.  This week has been a test of endurance and the above conclusion is that the results.  I simply have to keep my mind occupied and so have taken on the needlework supervision for the church institute and I am helping with the infant and maternity welfare centre and in connection with these activities there are fates and bizarres, two of which fall in this week and so I have been pretty busy.  Minnie goes for her holiday on Saturday so next week I shall be busy at home.  None of the above quite fills the gap in my life, but it is better than nothing and it has helped to make me keep a sane and healthy outlook.

As to CS {Christian Science} question, I must repeat it has been a wonderful help, in fact putting doctors and clergy aside, much as they did for me, I know for a positive fact, that but for their knowledge of understanding I gained from CS, I should not be alive today.  Even with death staring me in the face I remember what I had learnt and that’s alone saved me.  But, as to the organisation I am neither interested nor prejudiced, for or against.  There is no society within miles of Maidstone and I don’t have their literature, neither have I written or received letters from any one at Norwood.  I think I cannot swallow the unique position occupied by Mrs. E or her claims as regards herself.  But nonetheless I believe what she taught.

So you see Rex, there is certainly nothing for you to worry about as regards me.  That I am well again, I am more than happy to say and also, I am very grateful.  Life - perhaps I ought not to use that word, has treated me badly, but I shall not owe it a grudge, neither do I owe any particular person any, least of all you. I consider your experiences have temporarily proved too much for you but there is no reason why you should not get the better of them in the long run.  Enough for the presence.  If I don’t write to you as freely or in any way different to what you expect, it is because I don’t want in any way to interfere with the chance of your complete recovery.  I am glad you seem so physically fit. 

Love to you Hubby. Love from your loving wife Elsie

 

 

To the Maudsley Hospital

3 Aug. 1923

My darling Hubby

I am glad you are in London as I feel I can now come and visit you and shall arrange to do so as soon as possible.  What are the visiting arrangements at the Maudsley?

May I come at any time, or, must I write for permission.  It is strange that you should be at the Maudsley after all and by your father’s doing so, after his decision of last Christmas.  Why did he prevent then and actually beg for it now?

To such a pass can wrong thinking bring one.  Last Xmas I could have paid for you to go there and at the same time have saved my home and yours.  Now everything is gone and you have to live either by charity or the renewal of your pension.  I have just received a communication from the Maudsley asking for your papers (military) but shall have to refer them to 31 Idmiston as I have nothing personal to you here.

They were sent at the last minute to your people as Pa concluded at once, they were the proper people to handle your affairs, as I was out of action.  I think they are to be found in the black trunk or in the Mexican antiquities’ cases.  I sorted nothing but packed everything meaning to go through them later but was taken suddenly ill and the above was the result.  Why are you in bed I wonder?

Are you not so well, all was the journey rather much for you?

My health is not quite so good again, I am sleeping so badly but perhaps this is worrying on your account.  Anyway, I feel relieved to know where you are.  My love to you Elsie

 

10 Aug. 1923

My dear Hubby

Your last two letters make it increasingly difficult to write to you.

You say that you are well according to Dr. Martins opinion and yet if this is true why do you write to me in a tone of fault finding and law giving that you have adopted?  To me who have suffered so much on your account and whose position today is due to your own actions or as you have say the actions of others, who in persecuting you, have managed to hurt me also.  In either case it is through you, directly or indirectly that I am in the unfortunate position I am in today – still young, married, separated, homeless and penniless.

I prefer to think of you as an invalid even though the nature of your invalidism has something of mental trouble included.  It would account for so much that is mystifying in you.  However the sooner there is no trace of ill health of any description the better and I hope this may speedily be realized.

I would not hurry this cure though for it is so necessary for it to be thorough as there is so much to be done afterwards to regain what we have lost.

As to my attitude in the future.  How can I say?  Everything depends on you.  That I am not separating myself from you is shown in my action and providing for you as long as possible and in fact doing everything it was humanly possible to do in your interest under the most difficult circumstances in which we found ourselves.  That Salisbury was not quite the kind of place which you or I imagined it to be was certainly no more my fault than yours and it was only your letters received some three or four weeks after you went there that told me the nature of it.

However, I want you please to remember that you went there of your own free will knowing for what purpose, and having got there, no one but yourself could keep you there.  You might have left at any time and I don’t see that Dr. M could have withheld the necessary expenses since I always paid in advance.  There was never any question of my dumping you, the thought is utterly absurd.

Seeing that you have gone to the Maudsley hospital after all, I do feel it to be a thousand pities you have not gone at Christmas last when you yourself were quite willing but this of course was prevented by your people’s action.  And my inability at that particular time to decide the advisability for you independently of anyone else.  I still have your father’s letters to me.

However, in no way do I seek to excuse myself, to excuse would be to admit a weakness and a sense of guilt which I do not feel at all.  In everything and in every way, I sought to do nothing but the right as opportunity presented itself.  I was always groping in the dark with things that seemed too big for me to handle alone but since help of any description was always refused and I had to do what seemed right to me at the time and did it.  Therefore, I seek no forgiveness of anyone.  What has happened, happened because there was no alternative.  There was never more than one door open at a time and I passed through because to hold back only spelt worse confusion.  Forgiveness is for others to us and for me to give but the past has always found me were ready to do so and I am not changed.

Please don’t say anything more on the subject of Christian Science, to me it is simply practical Christianity and is to be found in all denominations and creeds for that matter if only one is prepared to look to fundamentals only.

As I have always said I may be a Christian Scientist but I am not, nor have ever been an Eddyite.  The vicar here does not differ from me in belief, he visited me many times when I was ill and I was prayed for, for many weeks so it looks as if I were still Church of England doesn’t it?  He is a broad churchmen and a thinker.

My love to you Rex and the best of wishes for your recovery from your loving wife Elsie.

 

27 Aug 1923

Dear Hubby

I am sorry to have to tell you I’m ill again and have been for the last 10 days.  The least said about it the better I suppose since it’s no use telling one invalid about the symptoms etc. of another’s complaint.  Pa and Ma were away and had to be sent for hurriedly, however I am still here and suppose I may remain yet a while longer if I am careful.

Your long letter arrived and I see your point of view hasn’t changed a bit since we parted but I cannot attempt to answer it.  Just one wee had little remark though. Why go over the past so much?  To me it is almost dead.  I am sure people don’t mean half of the ill they seem to create and it is useless to assume so much responsibility regarding them.  At the right time and in the right way justice is metered out to all and it isn’t any individual persons business.  We have ourselves only to account for and that’s quite a big enough business for anyone seeing how complex we are.

Bye bye for the present as I cannot write much.  Hurry up and get better and if you don’t hear from me or anyone just know that no news is good news I’m not allowed to write very much.

Love to you Elsie

~~~~~~~~~~

Written to 31 Idmiston Road  That is Rex’s parent’s address

5^th Sept 1923

My Dear Rex

This is just to let you know that I have received your letters and phone message that I cannot write you as I am only just beginning to recover from an awful attack of the old complaints and I am very depressed.

I feel I need a lot of enlightenment; things have taken such a sudden turn and the question that haunts me is if there is and never been anything wrong with you mentally as so many people seem to believe,  why??? have you are allowed things to take such an appalling course and caused me such untold suffering!  But there, don’t answer this just yet, letters and letter writing worry me and when I am not strong enough all my letters are opened and read first.

I thought to have visited you at Maudsley but my illness prevented me, now we shall have to wait a while, Elsie.

10 Sept 1923

My dear Rex

This is just to let you know I am better again although a long way from being well.  However, I am able to walk so for this small mercy many thanks I say, but I shall have to go slow for a long time I fear as this relapse has taken so much strength and I have none to spare.

I am not going to attempt to write you at length apart from the fatigue it causes may I could never begin to say what I should like and even then, it might read differently at your end.

In many ways I am most awfully glad you are home, it has lifted a weight from my mind but when your surprise news came the morning you left the Maudsley, and that of your own will, one thought and the one only, was in my mind. If you could do this now, why had you not done it before?  Surely it would have been better to wait just a little longer and get your discharge officially?

Have you hopes of the LCC reinstating you at the gas testing?

I should be glad to hear they have as you will need some means to pay for board and lodging while you look for further work or do more experimental work on wireless.

Anyway you have my best wishes for another and perhaps happier start in life and at least for the moment you haven’t me to worry about.  I have a home and in time I hope to regain my health.  I think a lot of it as 7 Barton Road, we were so short a time Dalmore Road.

No more for the present.  But once more good luck to you and love from Elsie.

19^th Oct 1923

My dear Rex

I am very sorry this long silence on my part should have been necessary also that I personally could give you no warning of it especially so, as it seems to have created a certain amount of ill feeling on your part.

However, it was absolutely unvoidable.

I have lived on the rack for so many months on your account, carrying on a fairly extensive correspondence in my endeavours to find out the true state of affairs while suffering most of the whilst the most distressing ill health.  That once I knew you were safely at home I just collapsed and could do no more

Dr. Warren was very concerned and told Ma and Pa, also Mont whom he asked to see, that unless I could have absolute rest and quiet he would not be answerable for the consequences and has wrote a medical certificate to the affect that I was to do no correspondence or receive any for three months.

And this certificate was to have been sent to you but it was thought to be rather alarming and might make you feel you must see me at any cost, so, that being undesirable for many reasons it was decided the certificate should not go.  I have a of course heard of your telephone messages to Mont and Pa and am sorry for you took the threatening attitude with Pa as of course this will not help matters.

Unfortunately, and the fact has to be faced, this house is closed to you.  Your behaviour last Xmas, account for it as you may, was such that both my father and mother were terribly offended.

Now, added to that they will never forgive you I fear, for the way they feel you have treated me.

As Pa says, you have never done anything to improve your position or status in the world of business despite his repeated offers to help and apart from that in no other way have you tried to provide for me.

Now as to my feelings. What can I say?

After such suffering as I have endured it is difficult to feel at all and yet I suppose I do, for despite everything I want to see you on your feet again and I want you to win successive even though it is without me this time.

I did all I could to save you from the present position before we parted.  While you were always content with the thought that we might have to part with our home someday, I worked, planned, owned and saved when I could and did all in my power to save it.  Did it never occur to you what an unfair division of labour and responsibility ours was?  To go back to early days.  It was I who worked to pay back the first loan we accepted when you went into the army. I could have left it for you when you returned home.

I worked and saved too when we were both at Barnes to make things more comfortable and my savings went when Resonance smashed.

And since then, have I not worked and worked to help in the struggle for existence always looking for happier times when you should be in a position to support me as other men.

Instead, the worst happened.  You throw away the only small but certain income we ever had for the sake of your own whim or programme utterly regardless of me, thereby causing me endless anxiety and misery and innumerable fears while I continued to run the home, teach, bear a little of the others burdens (Marian’s) and all for what purpose?

Those last months will always be a nightmare to me.  All the responsibility of our affairs, those wretched official interviews, the utter lack of sympathy and help from your people and finally the burden of you yourself and the parting with all my hopes, home and everything.

Has any woman had more to bear I wonder?  I think not.  At least, no one can do more than risk one’s life in endeavour to stick to the path of duty until there was nothing left to do.

That is what I did and all the while you have not understood or if you did you have been callously indifferent.  What induced you to suggest that my illness might be mental?  The silence preserved?  Or some outside suggestion?

No Rex there is nothing of that about me neither has there ever been anything approaching hysteria as has been hinted that once or twice during our married life.  It was just a case of being worn out with worry, anxiety overwork and lack of sleep and a thousand fears.

To the strongest a crash was bound to come and it happened to me the day before I left Dalmore Road when for two or 3 hours I fought for my life.  As the Dr. said my nervous system was so played out and my heart was tired and I had no strength left to help me. I have had many attacks since I came home but at last, I seem to have gained the upper hand of them and to have put on weight but I am still a very useless person.

My heart still races at a terrible speed if I get the least bit excited or do anything but the lightest work but my nerves are decidedly better

Well, I think I have accounted for myself.  That I have not written this before is due to the fact that I believed you ought not to be worried if your stay at Salisbury and the Maudsley hospital was to do you good.

Now that you are recognised to be well though it is but fair you should know -  I wish you could have known earlier.  As to the future, there is no telling what life may have in store for us.

For myself, I am not binding myself to any programme.  Everything depends on you Rex and your own endeavour.  Though not actively, I shall still help you with my thoughts and good wishes.

One little word in closing. It will make matters easier.  Trying not to think hardly of my people but if possible, try to see from their point of view.  I think their attitude is quite consistent with that of 999 parents out of every 1000.  I think you forget sometimes that they are providing for me and that I have no one else to look two until such a time as you may be able to again for.

Also, I would like you to understand that as Pa puts it -I am a free agent.  He will provide for me while I care to accept but my affairs are entirely my own and he will not interfere.

And now I must close.  It has been a considerable effort to write this.  However, it may help you to understand many things I shall be glad to hear from you and I hope your letter may contain good news re. the LCC.

Love to you from your wife Elsie

31 Oct 1923

My Dear Rex

I hope your notice to resume duty has come through by now from the LCC.  Are you working for Lionel as well or was that little deal of £15.00 just a chance affair?  Of course, every little helps but it would be very satisfactory if you had a definite understanding with Lionel or his firm.

I am so very sorry you still persist in the habit of seeing so many faults and failings in others.  It makes your letters so very disappointing.  If the statements you make were even true it would be harrowing to be constantly reading about them but as I have so often said, they are not, at least neither you nor I have any proof of them.

As far as many people are concerned, we are still in their debt, not they in hours and there are abundant proves of this fact.  So, you see, if the ugly word “looting” is to be applied it is to us not to them.  To this day, it hurts my pride and I’m sure it is a proper pride, to think we have accepted as much as we have and that unfortunately have still to do so.  Please do not mention this subject again.

As to your mention of Christian Science I quite fail to see what it has to do with us.

Concerning our affairs which is much more to the point.

I know of no such business transaction except between one branch of our family and another of the same family, where a sale of furniture etc.  could be made with conditions for buying it back should one desire to do so.  Even so, how would you propose to buy it since neither of us have the money.?

The sale of our home was a compulsory one to meet the bills falling due in March last, also because we had not even £5.00 left to carry on with.  Surely you do not need reminding of this fact.

But for my war savings certificates the sale would have taken place at least two months earlier while we were at Barston Road and under these conditions we should have realized only about half the money as it is I received, or rather shall have received when the final payment is made £200 plus a covering amount for the Linoleum & gas fittings.

As to how the money was spent, the following is a rough account.

 

Bills are due March 25   at least	£60
Dr. and specialist fees	£10
Travelling and clothes	£5
Board washing tobacco etc.  At Salisbury	£56
	Total for you £71
Solicitors’ fees Stapleton fee for letting My excess travelling and board for fortnight Removal of personal belongings etc. Roughly and underestimates rather than an over estimate	£15.00
My doctor’s fees	£30.00
	£175

 

The rest I have not received and I believe I still possess about £2.00 in the bank.

As to what I saved of our home the following is a list.

The best tea set -wedding present

Silver

Your water colour pictures and that there to oils from 31 Idmiston Road

All the books -you have the scholastic I have the standard works and novels

My Indian table and machine

Your despatch case

Writing desk

Cigarette box

Crayon sketches

And of course, all my personal belongings

If there is anything of the above list you would like forwarded to you just let me know and I will send them.

Now as to my coming up to town to see you.  I did not say I was nervous of meeting you but that I was nervous of myself.  A very different matter.  So far, I have not travelled alone anywhere since my illness added to that I’d do not yet feel strong enough to stand the fatigue of a day in town, so it would be most unwise to attempt it just yet.  I must let you know when I can as to your postscript, I think the least said about it the better since it raises all the old arguments as to whether you were or were not responsible for your own actions.  You saw the only doctors I saw and it was at their suggestion and with your own consent you went to Salisbury. You yourself started a ball rolling when you sent me to the vicar of Emmanuel church.  I sent you nowhere. Had you pleased me, you would have gone away weeks before when with a little engineering I could have afforded to have paid for you out of the housekeeping and perhaps have saved the home.  It could have been done but like everything else that was suggested you waved everything on one side and start your own policy of “being on the spot to manage your own affairs”.

I might say to you “why did you waste £56.00 of our home if on arrival at Salisbury you found it to be the wrong place for you”?

You were not obliged to stay and yet you let me pay for you all that while and I suppose would have allowed me to continue if funds had stretched to its.

As I said above, the least said about it the better.  You have the future before you, try and make good in it and leave the past alone.

Love from Elsie

 

6 Nov 1923

My Dear Rex

This correspondence concerning the unhappy events of the past year is doing me no good and it must stop at once if I am to be given the chance to get well.  As my Dr. says every reference to the trouble is like keeping open a severe wound and to be candid, I am tired of it.  I have suffered more than enough and I’ve sacrificed enough and I don’t mean to go on with it.  All the troubles are traceable to the way in which you behaved when you believe yourself to be poisoned last year had you ever listened to my advice things might have been very different but so bent where you are in carrying out your own programme for nothing - not my health and certainly not my happiness had the slightest weight with you.  Now with one breath you say everything was all a mistake and almost in the same breath you want to look for someone or a group of people on whom to lay the blame.  If you want to look for someone who doubted your sanity then look first at our immediate relations with one exception your mother.  She preferred to blame me for everything she didn’t like or couldn’t understand.  I suppose this is natural with the majority of mothers.  Then to your acquaintances and colleagues in business and finally to me if you will, but please don’t expect me to justify any of it.  As I have said many times before all the effort I have left in me is to try to overcome my own physical infirmities and am afraid I still have a long struggle before me.  But it can be lessened if I can be freed from anxiety and worry.  Now then what are you going to do?  Give me the chance.

If so, then we will agree to forget the past.  I’ve always found it quite easy to forgive and make a new start.  Apparently, you have already done so by returning to your gas testing.  I am really glad you have done this.  You did not say to which station you are posted.

As to the question of my joining you, that you must see it quite impossible for some time to come I want a home to come to and a husband who can keep me, I shall not work again, except in my own home.  When Rex, you can offer me that we will discuss the matter further.  In the meantime, I stay here this letter may seem abrupt.  It has to be.  I cannot write at length; it is so fatiguing.

With my best wishes to you for your birthday tomorrow and may you have many happy returns and with my love to you

Elsie

 

20^th Nov 1923

My Dear Rex,

Your proposition coming on top of my last letter is somewhat surprising but nevertheless I have thoroughly considered it before replying.

Let me be quite frank and fair.  The financial its position is not satisfactory even if I were in robust health but with the competence I have in my management, I might have dared to risk it but for other considerations to me far more important.

Firstly, I want a husband I can respect and trust. 

Secondly, I want an altered the frame of mind in you that is not constantly seeing or imagining evil or imparting motives to others.  That atmosphere is stifling and is neither good form at all for me or you.

And thirdly, I want a home of my own even though it is very small.  In all the experience of others I cannot find any who have found comforts in diggings for worried couples.  The lodgers generally have much to overlook and for the wife of the lack of responsibility and interest becomes intolerable.

The last consideration I have talked over with you many times before and no more need be said.

As to the former ones, unless there was enough something very wrong with you, then you were abnormally blind if you could not see that such treatment as you dealt out to me during the last six months we were together was bound to kill all the softer feelings I had for you unless some adequate reason could explain your conduct.

You called it turning me into “steel” and “adamant”.  To me, it was bearing a double burden with the one whom I should have looked to  bear it with me, deliberately forcing it on my shoulders.

What of all the fears you fostered concerning the poisonous and cutthroats etc., Who were laying in wait to trap you and me also, and what of the poisoned foods you seem to think got in to our home?  I might have left you out of fear but I didn’t.  I had tried to give you the rest I thought you required instead, and shouldered the entire burden of the move from Barston Road while teaching and running my own home as well.

What of all the incessant talk about Jews, Christian Scientists, L C C officials and even state officials who were all according to you, out to crush us out of existence, to say nothing of the accusations you made against my people and your home?

What of the mysterious silence you made about your plans for yourself which in accordance with your repeated statements that “I was to act as if you did not exist” you left me to face the selling up of our home.  You pretended reliance on Scotland Yard.  What did they do to help you?

If I am to regard all this as a mistake whose is it?

You watched me overwork myself and you spared me no agony of mind or responsibility and now you say come back and help you to make good, and this before I have recovered from the shock and the awful ill health consequence on it all.

No, I must have time to forget and recover and perhaps regained some of the affection and confidence I had for you up to 18 months ago for.

Up to the present, as I have said before, I have made no programme as to the future but now I am going to.

I shall not consider the proposition of returning to you for at least the year, Rex.  In that time you may see differently about all these enemies and if they were really in existence you may have become friends.  You will have time to cement your position and have found other work, my being with you won’t help to find you that, and the prospect of having a wee home of our own will have become possible.  In a year you can save a lot if you will.  Is not my admiration still worth winning.?

I may be quite strong and well again and the miserable past 12 months will have faded into the background as all miseries do with healthy minded folk.

One other restriction I must impose and that is, no correspondence.  So far, every letter we have written has been a repetition of the wrongs and grievances and to my mind is a destructive policy.  Personally, they are a great tax on my health and energy and I an equally sure they cannot be doing you any good.

Now then, we will close this chapter and when the enemy is, real or imaginary is dead and you have settled down to serious and steady work, I want to feel you will keep it this time, we will discuss the question of a new home and you’re having done your part.  I shall not fail in my part to make it a real one.  With my sincere good wishes to you Elsie

 

22 Dec 1923

Dear Rex

This is just to wish you a healthy and a comfortable Happy Christmas and a bright and Happy New Year.  I am well and shall be spending a very quiet Christmas just the three of us and Billy who is the only pet of the household.  All the others are dead.

The enclosed is a book which they thinking people of Maidstone are interested in.  I am sending it to you for something to read over the holidays.  Doubtless you will recognise the writer as a friend of Gerald’s.

While I think of it do not use the phone, it is so disappointing.  Although you seem to doubt it, according to Minnie, I was out when you phoned.

I am glad Paul was successful.  He deserves it, to have ventured so much at his age.  It just shows what can be done doesn’t it? And to my mind is encouraging.

There is still time for you with your varied knowledge.  With the best of good wishes for success and happiness. Aim high and never allow yourself to be discouraged.  There are lots of opportunities if you like to look for them and don’t mind hard work.  Elsie

Reference to Paul being Paul Montford, the Sculpture, who had taken his family to Melbourne in Australia and acquired the challenge of designing and making of the World War One memorial.

31 Dec 1923

A card.

Thanks for the book I’m reading it.  I think I prefer psychology for the religious or rather than the medical point of view though I rather liked PM.

Good luck and good wishes to you in the new year.  Elsie

24 and Jan 124

My dear Rex

I am returning Corries letter as promised.  I was glad to see the young man has “ found himself” and seems to have a future before him.  I suppose there is nothing like really hard manual labour to set a man up physically and mentally too, for that matter for the one reacts on the other.  To find one’s “mobile stable equilibrium” a la Mary Boole, it is necessary to swing as far one way as the others sometimes to find one’s balance.

I am trying it myself and would recommend it to you.  For myself, overmuch nursing ill health and worry has so affected me that I could not look at it in anyone else without feeling physical nausea even to the extent of a further threatened nervous breakdown.  So, I am trying a round of pleasure and I get in as much as my present state of health will allow an opportunity give me.

Maidstone seems particularly gay and I find people very friendly disposed so I go to a great many parties and other entertainments.  In addition, I have taken up a certain amount of work, teaching needlework singing etc.  to girls in the different neighbourhoods.

I get tired, but apparently healthily so, for I am sleeping much better and with some better weather I ought feel myself again before very long.

Pleasure of this kind will never become necessary to me and will never make up to me for the loss of my own home but undoubtedly it is proving a cure and I cannot but feel that a real change of occupation or shall I say a very much more active life would probably do you all the good in the world.  So far you have lived in your mind and in the pages of the newspapers and books with the one little exception when you were in the army but when there, it was office work not active service.

Failing actual manual work, I suppose there isn’t much in the farming life to be found in England especially when it must be combined with your gas testing.  Couldn’t you teach?  Anyway, of one thing I am certain a very full day is better than too much time in which to do nothing but thinking or reading. 

This brings me to the point in question Rex.  On the phone you asked me what I was going to do to help or words to that effect.  And I must repeat, I can do nothing at this stage, it all lies with you.  I’m not a woman with private means, although members of your family have often behaved and talk to me as if I were because my people are comparatively well to do; it is by no means the same thing let me remind you.  And, my opportunities and capacities are turning out diminishing, not increasing with my years.

At Norwood, I had worked up a nice little connection which given a fair opportunity I could have extended but your affairs cut the ground under my feet.

To begin again, means settling in a neighbourhood and waiting as before, and so you see a home and a piano would be necessary and the present I possessed neither.  Given both these I should still want to feel some degree of certainty as to your position or it wouldn’t be worth my while to try.  I couldn’t face another smash.

So you see Rex, it is entirely up to you, I most certainly cannot keep you so it is up to you to keep me and to do that you must obtain the position -  gas testing alone won’t do it especially while you have to rent furnished rooms and prices are still high.

Also, and this is not the least important I must know that you are well.  Call it nervous debility, effects of poisoning, delusions, paranoia or what you will, it was one and the same to me.

It wore me out and I am the only now for just recovering.

I am sorry you’re not very happy at home.  I should like to know you were comfortable.  Haven’t you thought of trying digs on your own in the neighbourhood of your work.?  It would take you away from the old atmosphere here of troubles and perhaps create a new interest.  Good wishes and love to you Elsie

PS with your spare cash couldn’t you take a course of training and qualify for a post of some kind?  Nothing ventured nothing gained. Why not a Secretaryship?

2^nd Mar 1924

Dear Rex

I had not read the Harnett case when you spoke to me over the phone the other day and I thought you referred to the case in John Bull which you sent me a cutting in your recent letter.  Hence my remark about it having nothing to do with you.  Since then, however I have read the papers and can see the drift of your mind but I still failed to see where you can claim a case against anyone as you were neither taken to a mental hospital by force nor had detained there except by your own consent.

Certainly, it was represented to you by certain doctors as being advisable if only to satisfy the council that you were fit to return to gas testing but I have never heard that they gave you a certificate to the effect that you were mentally affected or that you were not.  I have not received one.  I suppose though the Maudsley Hospital authorities made the necessary representations to the LCC to justify them in their recalling you to your work on their behalf.  All the allegations and innuendoes as far as I remembered, with the exception of the of Sir Frederick Knott’s report were made by word of mouth if so you have no evidence to speak of.  Still, it is your own business, and as before, so now I suppose you will go your own way.

I would just remind you Rex that it was entirely against my judgment and my wishes that you acted as you did over your illness in November 1922.  As I said then and now repeats, you should have left yourself in the doctor’s hands to diagnose your symptoms and if necessary, call for investigations.  It would have saved all the ensuing trouble.

I hoped you would have recognized your mistake or the trouble it has brought upon yourself, your family and me, and have set to work to forget and rebuild the home your action destroyed.  Apparently, you cannot see from this point of view and yet it is on this subject that any quarrel between us there exists.

I would also take this opportunity refuting the accusation your mother has levelled at me.

Until the September or October of 1922, I absolutely believed in you and despite are many ups and downs I still felt perfectly confident in your making a way in the world and getting recognition of what I considered your wonderful mental powers, and I actually believed we were as happy a married couple as could be found certainly amongst our own families, if not over a much wider field.  I remember voicing such thoughts to your mother in a drawing room at Barston Road that same September.  I sat on a little onetime music cabinet in the middle of the room, your mother on your green chair in the window.  I believe we were talking of Paul and Mary and struggles.  Anyway, I said “well Rex is very difficult at times, I suppose all clever people are”.  She cut in, with “I know, I know” and I continued “but I am still hopeful for I feel sure genius gets recognition sooner or later”, or words to that affect.

My first doubts of you occurred when you complained of foul play at Clapham Gas Station.  Somehow intuitively I knew it would have disastrous results but it wasn’t till November I spoke to your people of your strange behaviour and how worried I was on your account.  They just collapsed as if they had been hiding a guilty secret but even then, I did not dream of the cause.  After that came Margaret’s remark about your being exorcised and Marian’s fears for Bobby’s safety.

But still I saw nothing and feared nothing until Sir John Collie’s interview.  It was only then that light dawned, he was right about my being an ostrich – but I wasn’t intentionally so.

After that I saw you with my eyes wide open and I did not judge, I only tried to find out for myself what was the matter.  Dr. Robertson was no help for but then he was being primed and misled by your parents.  I found out many things, never mind how, and then came Marian’s remarked to me “Rex’s mad – but I’ll never tell the Doctor so.” Of course, I remonstrated with her for this seem to be unjust and by no means fair to you.  So, I said” if it’s time then we must get him well and your action is not right.” At the same time the funds ran out and you had no suggestions to offer other than the fallacy about Scotland Yard.

Your people refused to have you there, I couldn’t find a way to save their home so it had to go to help support you.  There it was, you played that wonderful game of cards which I must confess alarmed to me as much as anything. 

You sent me to the vicar of Emmanuel Church then. He advised to Dr. Waitland who interviewed you – the Jack.  The coming of Dr. Porter Phillips – I forget exactly how you continue to play the game but always you talk of the ace as if it were some fatality for someone.  It was really most alarming sometimes I associated it with the thought my death and this all but happened and I have several witnesses.  But as you said the other day I did not but it isn’t any thanks to you who left me to starve, but for the help of my people.

Now do you see the position I was and am in?

If you were not quite sane at the time we parted and by then even, I believed you were not, then everything was forgivable and I am the last person to withhold it.  There are people in Norwood who would I am sure tell how broken hearted I was when you had gone, even my letter to Marian if she kept it would reveal the agony I endured.

But if you were and are then, Rex, you have much to answer for.  Legally, I am your wife and yet for 15 months you have done nothing to support me in.  Certainly, you asked me to come back last December but what to?  Rooms on the barest pittance, no provision for a semi-invalid, and absolutely no certainty for the future except perhaps a continuous warfare with all and sundry.  Well, my Dr.  seeing the condition, I arrived home in and knowing something of the cause has advised me to become perfectly fit for contemplating a return to you.

Indeed, he has gone as far as to say that in three weeks I showed be in my grave unless the conditions were absolutely favourable.

Well, I gave you my answer and a year to prove your worthiness.  But you appear to have no appreciation of facts and already contemplate throwing up a small certainty in the way of income without which no one can’t live and keep a wife, for the precarious adventure of fighting a law case and obtaining damages.  Well, Rex, if this is your way of living and it is by no means the first time you have looked to it as one way of getting money, it is not mine.  I want no money from anyone that is not earned money and so you must not look to me for support.

Of course, I am aware that as long as I can be carried to a Law Court, I must appear if requested yet, I warn you my evidence will not help.  I have always stood for truth and truth no matter what the consequences would be all that I could speak, so Rex, if you still choose to fight, be careful how you use me.

 Of course, if you begin to fight me, that is another matter but here you have even less grounds for a case or success.

So be advised in time, and to think twice before you leap or throw up an appointment.  Elsie

 

24 Mar 1924

Dear Rex,

What you ask is quite out of the question.  I could not face the worry and uncertainty of your health and position. You must prove to me your ability to keep me and no doubt this in itself would go far to restore my confidence and trust in you again, without which, life together would be impossible.

Please do not spend time worrying as to how and by what means you can persuade me to return.  My mind is quite made up.

Give your whole and undivided attention to the building of a position - my being with you would not help, it did not before – and so when you can show me something worthwhile then I will consider the proposition you have put to me.

Elsie

PS my people complain at you’re using this telephone, it is a source of annoyance as they are utterly refused to have anything to do with my affairs.

 

 

 

 

12 May 1924

Dear Rex

In answer to your expressed wish to know how I am, I write to let you know I am as well as can be expected but I have not yet recovered my strength.  I suppose it is a matter of time.

I usually get an active life but a limited one as I have to rest considerably to make it possible.

As to your otherwise wish to know the truth, I can tell you nothing I have not already told you.  In fact, I have hidden nothing.

Why try to read mysteries into facts that are as plain as daylight?

Nobody worries about ancestors, antiquities, intrigues or even politics except as a mild digestive unless their means of livelihood depends upon it.

Everyone is too busy trying to live and trying to make ends meet or where there is a surplus of the necessary, trying to find happiness or trying to make others happy sometimes. Life is too complex for people to worry about individuals for more than a few moments at the time.  So why continue to imagine so many people are interested in your undoing?  They never were and I am quite sure are not now or ever will be.

They, that is all interested, would far sooner see you on your feet and prosperous.  People are less troublesome so.

Anyway, these are my sentiments.  Go on trying but do please try to forget the unhappy past.

Elsie

6 Aug 1924

Dear Rex,

Your letters are so very distressing to me that I find they are most difficult in replying, hence my silence.  In the last letter but one from you say “you know now there is nothing wrong with me.  Isn’t it time you came to your senses and backed me up a bit?  Suppose I am fighting against the world”. “Are you disappointed because I am not beaten yet!  At all events be honest about it etc.”

Now, I have chosen these remarks because they should be answered if I am to be honest and I certainly do not wish to be otherwise.  So, in the first place I will be perfectly candid about the first statement and say that far from knowing there is nothing wrong with you I feel and believe quite the reverse.  Indeed, there is something desperately wrong with you Rex, and you could never go on with this interminable fretting out of enemies and fitting them into an imaginary design of your own for your own undoing.  Believe me the greatest enemy you possess is yourself and for the past year I’ve lived in the apparently false hope that you would recognise it.  Instead, you asked me to come to my senses and back you up.  It is appalling.

In the past I did my utmost for you until circumstances and poverty divided us.

Now, I have no longer the strength or the inclination to face the world as seen through your distorted mirror.  It would kill me.

No, the only thing I can think of is to try and make my own way in my own time and to advise you to do likewise since the possibility of pulling together is so impracticable and so remote.

Up to the presence I fear you have mistaken your mission in life.  In seeking to put the world to rights and expose its faults, an impossible task for one so little known, you have overlooked the duties and privileges lying close to hand.

How much you are to blame it is difficult to see personally.

I have preferred to think you’re not actually responsible, hence my continued though perhaps scanty correspondence.

Had there been no doubt no loopholes for an excuse then Rex, it would have been goodbye ages ago and perhaps I should have been spared much agony.  As it was, doubts concerning your condition or intention kept to me an invalid for many months.

In closing, let me repeat once more, that any question of my returning to you depends entirely on your being able to adequately provide for me and a feeling of confidence in you which your letters to date are very far from him inspiring.  I could never again face an ordeal such as you submitted me to from November 1922 to April 1923.  Goodbye, I shall not write to you again until I see a decided improvement in you and indeed, I should be much relieved if you would not write to me until there is, or until you recognise the desire and need for it.  Too much of our lives has been wasted already, in vain regrets and destructive output.

I hope to rebuild mine on my own efforts and initiative.  Why don’t you try also?  I shall be glad not disappointed to see you win.  Elsie

 

 

9^th Nov 1924

Dear Rex

It received your message on my return this afternoon but I cannot consent your suggestion to come and see me.  Indeed, it is out of the question, it would resolve itself into another such quarrel as we had  over the phone on Friday and would distress me beyond words and probably you too, since I cannot imagine you enjoy such conversations.

The truth is, own points of view lie poles apart, it is quite impossible for me to see with your eyes to attempt to do so would be to sacrifice, sense reason and truth itself.

For six mad months I’ve tried my utmost to enter into your mind at the same time trying to get you to understand mine, with what result?

Our home is gone the money wasted and we are separated.  Isn’t this enough to convince you of the madness of your schemes and actions?

Anyone could do as you have done, link up all the unpleasantness and animosity of a lifetime into one big conspiracy against oneself, but the greater majority prefer to treat them as coincidences and forget and as soon as possible.

This is the healthy way and the only way to success and happiness and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the money question which you try to persuade yourself place such part in my life.  Let me say that untold wealth would not get me back to you if you still cling to your wild beliefs in conspiracies, enemies, political intrigues etc. etc.

It is you and your point of view that matters and they will have to undergo a complete change before I again have anything to do with you.  When I parted with you at Salisbury, I did not know I had said goodbye but it is good bye unless this comes about.   Elsie

 

9^th June 1925

Dear Rex

Your news gave me something of a shock as all Sutton News of a like nature must always do to anyone and of course I quite realized what it must mean to you all and for your sakes I am sorry.  Doubtless your father’s death will bring about some changes and give you a share of responsibility.  I did not phone on my return home this morning neither do I intend writing further just now as any arguments at such a time seems to me to the out of place.

I am sorry about your Aunt Dolly -  can sympathise with her as the nature of her complaint seems to be similar to mine.  I only experience very occasionally reminders of my trouble now.  I suppose my age is in my favour but for nearly two years I was never safe from the attacks and I shall never forget the awful to stress of them nor the anxiety caused those about me.  I hope the news of your loss will not make her worse.     Elsie

 

22 May 1928

Dear Rex

It is useless to think of mending that which the logic of events has dissolved.  Here with the cheque you sent me.  I have had to manage without your assistance for over five years and can continue to do so.  Elsie

Enclosed was a cheque for five guineas which was not cashed.