Hilda and Vicky stayed with us over Easter. We were very surprised they did not bring Ted’s parents, but hope Uncle Walter may bring them later. Evidently the long winter, arthritis, and the prospect of the day’s trip put Edith off … Hilda and Vicky pitched right in with dishes and cleaning, so were no extra work; they are both very lively and nice …
My book should be out in America May 14. Do send any clippings of reviews, however bad. How I would love Mrs. Prouty to come. We have a very fine, pompous hotel in town on the hill … Do tell her! …
You must be full of plans for Warren’s wedding. How soon could they think of coming? I wish somebody could come around Easter next year to admire the daffodils. Of course, early September is lovely, with apple pie every day for breakfast …
I wouldn’t leave this place for a million dollars. It is a miracle we found it, and you were instrumental in minding Frieda and freeing us at just that time …
Lots and lots of love,
Sivvy
MAY 4, 1962
Dear Mother,
These photographs are meant for a late birthday surprise. We took them Easter Sunday, the first day of real spring. I think you can see some of the reason I am so happy. This is just the very smallest corner of our daffodils. Frieda is an expert at picking handsome bouquets—you simply mention the word “daffodil,” and she is off. You will love the children. Nicholas smiles and laughs, and is wonderfully responsive to attention and kind words; Frieda thirsts for knowledge and laps up every word you tell her …
… Now it is spring, it is just heaven here. I never dreamed it was possible to be so happy….
We have the Sillitoes here now—Alan, his American writer-wife Ruth and their month-old son, David. They are marvelous guests—Ruth helps cook, Alan washes up; they take walks on their own, and our life proceeds as usual. I don’t feel a drudge, because they chip in, and I work in my study as usual in the mornings …
Our daffodils are waning, but our cherry trees are coming into bloom—better than Washington! Bright red leaves and fluffy, round, pink blossoms. It is like a little garden of Eden. Lots of love to everybody.
x x Sivvy
MAY 14, 1962
Dear Mother,
I hope by now you have received the color photos and have some idea of our lovely daffodils that have now vanished. We earned about $17 or so by selling them, very small in amount, but we are proud of it because it makes it seem as if the place is “earning.” If we have a good apple harvest, we should earn some more …
My book officially comes out in America today. Do clip and send any reviews you see, however bad. Criticism encourages me as much as praise….
We have a nice young Canadian poet and his very attractive, intelligent wife coming down for this weekend—they’re the ones who took over our lease for the London flat. Then Ted’s parents will probably be driven down by his Uncle Walter for the next weekend …
Nicholas has, for some reason, been crying at night, so I am rather weary. I think my firm resistance to the long, hard winter has hit me now that it is nicer and I can relax. I just don’t want to do a thing, or rather, I want to, but don’t feel like it. I have had my mending stacked up for months and am tired of my own cooking, with no energy to try any of the exotic recipes I get in my beloved [Ladies Home] Journal. O pooh. We have huge amounts of wonderful legendary rhubarb, which we inherited. Have you any canning advice? Maybe you will supervise some of my canning this summer. We have a fine, dark “wine cellar” which asks to be crammed with bright glass jars full of good things …
Love to all,
x x x Sivvy
JUNE 7, 1962
Dear Mother,
Forgive me, forgive me for what must seem a huge silence. I have reached, I think, the last of my “guests” with six days of Ted’s mother, father, and Uncle Walt. That is partly why I have been so quiet. They were the end of a long string … Ted’s mother stayed with us and the men stayed up at the Burton Hall hotel … I made a few big meals for everyone, and we ate at least half of our dinners out. Mrs. Hughes is very sweet and did a whole pile of darning on Ted’s socks (!), which I have no patience for. As she sends him these big wool things, she is an expert at doing it, and I felt it was a good way for her to feel useful with no real strain. They went on car-jaunts with Walt and were immensely impressed and proud of our place. I am glad they, like you, have had a part in helping us get it.
This is the fourth day in a row of absolutely halcyon, blue, clear hot weather. I took off from my study the last three days and had a little Lookout Farm. I weeded all our onions and spinach and lettuce—out in the garden from sunrise to sunset, immensely happy, with Frieda digging in a little space, “helping,” and Nicholas in the pram sunbathing. This is the richest and happiest time of my life. The babies are so beautiful….
Just now the two laburnum trees are in full bloom and sit right in front of my study window. Isn’t it odd that I’ve written about Golden Rain Trees in my book and now have six—two out front and at the side of my study and the rest about. I am praying some apple bloom hangs on till you come. I can’t wait to see the place through your eyes. Work inside the house has come to a standstill with the demands of the big gardens, so I hope you’ll overlook minor cracks and peelings….
I’d like to get into a long work, which I’ve been unable to do with all the spring interruptions of other people. O it is so beautiful here. Bring Bermuda shorts for wear about the garden; we’re pretty private. (Of course, no one wears them in town!) And one warm outfit. Thanks a million for the molasses! I’ve made mountains of ginger-bread. I’m learning to do gros point tapestry for cushion and seat covers. Wonderfully calming.
I hope Warren and Margaret got our little telegram of good wishes, which I sent to the New York address. [Warren and Margaret were married June 2, 1962.] … I felt very, very sorry for myself at not being at the wedding and look forward to a full account from you in the next day or so. Even down to the last minute I considered squandering our savings and flying over by jet! Tell me all about it!
We’ve been doing quite well (although we don’t seem to be working). I’ve had a long poem (about 378 lines!) for three voices accepted by the BBC Third Programme (three women in a maternity ward, inspired by a Bergman film), which will be produced by the same man who does Ted’s plays and who’ll be down here to discuss production with me!
Ted did a beautiful program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war, saying how shocking it was no book of his was in print. In the next mail he got grateful letters and inscribed books from the poet’s 75-year-old, impoverished mother and a suggestion from a publisher that Ted write the foreword to a new edition of the book. Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us. His death is really a terrible blow and we are trying to resurrect his image and poems in this way.
I have been asked to do a short talk for a program called “The World of Books,” and Ted’s children’s programs are classics…. His radio play, “The Wound,” will be broadcast a third time this summer (which means another blessed $300 out of the blue). We are trying to save a bit now while I still have one more installment of my grant. Perhaps in a couple of years, we’ll do a poetry reading tour in America and earn a great pot. They pay one to two hundred dollars a night!
Love to All the Plaths,
Sivvy
JUNE 15, 1962
Dear Mother,
Well, this is the last letter I will be writing before you come! … I have been working so hard physically out in the garden that I am inarticulate and ready for bed by evening, hence my long silences. I don’t know when I’ve been so happy or felt so well. These last few days I have been weeding our strawberry patch and setting the runners, just as I did on Lookout Farm, and at night I shut my eyes and see the beautiful little plants with the starry flowers and beginning berries. I love this outdoor work and feel I am really getting in condition….
Today, guess what, we became beekeepers! We went to the local meeting last week (attended by the rector, the midwife, and assorted beekeeping people from neighboring villages) to watch a Mr. Pollard make three hives out of one (by transferring his queen cells) under the supervision of the official Government bee-man. We all wore masks and it was thrilling. It is expensive to start beekeeping (over $50 outlay), but Mr. Pollard let us have an old hive for nothing, which we painted white and green, and today he brought over the swarm of docile Italian hybrid bees we ordered and installed them. We placed the hive in a sheltered out-of-the-way spot in the orchard—the bees were furious from being in a box. Ted had only put a handkerchief over his head where the hat should go in the bee-mask, and the bees crawled into his hair, and he flew off with half-a-dozen stings. I didn’t get stung at all, and when I went back to the hive later, I was delighted to see bees entering with pollen sacs full and leaving with them empty—at least I think that’s what they were doing. I feel very ignorant, but shall try to read up and learn all I can. If we’re lucky, we’ll have our own honey, too! Lots of people are really big keepers in town with a dozen to twenty hives, so we shall not be short of advice. When we have our first honey, I think we shall get half a dozen hens.
Luckily I have lots and lots of work to do, like painting furniture and weeding, because I am so excited about your coming I can’t sit still! I wish now you had seen the house in its raw state so you would see how much we have done. Of course, there is still an immense deal to do, and my eyes are full of five-year plans….
Frieda and Nicholas are getting brown and are so wonderful I can’t believe it. They are such happy healthy babies. I adore every minute of them.
Ted and I are arranging a day in London about a week after you come to do a broadcast, see an art exhibit, and, maybe, a foreign movie. It’s exciting as a safari to Africa to me to think of a day away! …
When you come, I really must sit in my study in the mornings! Six weeks seems such a short time. I realize how terribly much I have missed you (and Warren, too!) now that the time draws close to see you again.
Lots of love and a smooth trip!
Fond wishes from us all,
Sivvy
The welcome I received when I arrived the third week in June was heartwarming. The threshold to the guest room I was to occupy had an enameled pink heart and a garland of flowers painted on it. Frieda recognized me; “Baby Nick” went happily into my arms.
After the first few days, however, I sensed a tension between Sylvia and Ted that troubled me. On July 9, when Sylvia and I left Ted with the children in order to drive to Exeter for shopping and lunch, Sylvia said proudly, “I have everything in life I’ve ever wanted: a wonderful husband, two adorable children, a lovely home, and my writing.” Yet the marriage was seriously troubled, and there was a great deal of anxiety in the air. Ted had been seeing someone else, and Sylvia’s jealousy was very intense.
I thought it best to leave and took a room with the midwife, planning to remain there until the time of my scheduled return to the U.S.A. I visited the house daily and spent a great deal of time with the children.
When I left on August 4, 1962, the four of them were together, waiting for my train to pull out of the station. The two parents were watching me stonily—Nick was the only one with a smile. It was the last time I saw Sylvia.
Soon afterward Mrs. Prouty and her sister-in-law arrived in London and invited Sylvia and Ted to join them there. To avoid difficult explanations, Sylvia and Ted, for the time being, put their marital torments aside, and together made the trip to join Mrs. Prouty for what she had planned to be a gala occasion.
AUGUST 17, 1962
Dear Mother,
… We did go to London, had cocktails, dinner, and saw Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, a play which has run for over ten years. Mrs. Prouty put us up at her hotel, the Connaught, and it is the loveliest hotel I’ve ever stayed in—very intimate, clean, yet antique-feeling. No great impersonal grandeur … It was wonderful to see Mrs. Prouty again … She asked Ted and me about our work with her usual insight. She means an immense deal to me. I hope you drop over to see her now and then; her loneliness must be appalling.
… We now have with us a young American writer, who was evicted from his London flat, and his wife. They are fantastically neurotic. She has dozens of illnesses, all untreatable because she has decided she is allergic to any medicine that might help. For instance, she has ulcers, she says, yet claims she can’t swallow milk; and has migraine, but is allergic to codeine; and she is fanatic about food … They are living in the guest room—I said we would take them in rent-free for a month or six weeks until they were rested enough to look for another flat if they would help pay for the food and help with the children. However, when they took over the day we were in London, it nearly killed them. They have said they will stay while we go to Ireland, which would be wonderful as the children get on beautifully with them, but I have grave doubts as to their staying power. I shall ask them to tell me now, so I can hire a nurse if necessary. I simply must go to Ireland and sail for a week. Mrs. Prouty is scheduled to come to dinner here, Sunday, September 9, and we hope to leave the next day.
It was very kind of you, Warren and Margaret to remember Ted’s birthday.
I have seen the doctor’s wife, whom I very much like, about riding lessons … and we may take them together. Someday I would like a pony for Frieda.
Lots of love to all,
Sivvy
These letters were, of course, written under great strain. They were meant, as were her many phone calls to me during this period, to reassure herself as well. They are desperate letters, and their very desperation make it difficult to read them with any objectivity; I could not, at the time. But I must ask the reader to remember the circumstances in which they were written and to remember also that they represent one side of an extremely complex situation.
AUGUST 27, 1962
Dear Mother,
… I hope you will not be too surprised or shocked when I say I am going to try to get a legal separation from Ted. I do not believe in divorce and would never think of this, but I simply cannot go on living the degraded and agonized life I have been living, which has stopped my writing and just about ruined my sleep and my health….
… I feel I need a legal settlement so I can count on so much a week for groceries and bills and the freedom to build up the happy, pleasant life I feel it in myself to make and would but for him …
I have too much at stake and am too rich a person to live as a martyr … I want a clean break, so I can breathe and laugh and enjoy myself again.
The woman Winifred [the midwife] got for me came one morning, then sent her husband to say it was too hard work. Well, I have Kathy for the time being and really couldn’t afford anyone else now.
The kindest and most helpful thing you can do is send some warm articles of clothing for Frieda at Christmas. I have plenty for Nicholas, AND a big bottle of Vitamin C tablets for me … I can’t afford another cold like this one.
I do hope Warren and dear Maggie will plan to come in Spring and that I can have Marty and Mike Plumer as well. I try to see the Comptons weekly and have met some nice couples with children there.
I would, by the way, appreciate it if you would tell no one but perhaps Margaret and Warren of this and perhaps better not even them. It is a private matter and I do not want people who would never see me anyway to know of it. So do keep it to yourself.
I am actually doing some writing now Kathy is here, so there is hope. And I feel if I can spend the winter in the sun in Spain, I may regain the weight and health I have lost this last six months. I meant you to have such a lovely stay; I can never say how sorry I am you did not have the lovely reveling and rest I meant you to have …
Tell Dotty [my sister] to go on writing me; she means a very great deal to me. I love you all very very much and am in need of nothing and am desirous of nothing but staying in this friendly town and my
home with my dear children. I am getting estimates about rebuilding the cottage so I someday can install a nanny and lead a freer life.
Lots of love,
Sivvy
SEPTEMBER 23, 1962
Dear Mother,
Thank you for your letter … The children are fine. Nicholas has cut his first tooth and is the most energetic, bouncy child imaginable. He crawls all over the playroom, playing with Frieda’s blocks, much to her consternation. “Put in pen, put in pram,” she tells me to do with him and gathers all the toys he seems to like in a little heap out of his reach …
I had a wonderful four days in Ireland, treated to oysters and Guinness and brown bread in Dublin by Jack and Marie Sweeney of the Lamont Library, Harvard; then two eggs, homemade butter and warm milk straight from the cows every breakfast in wild Connemara, about 50 miles from Gal way…. My happiness was compounded of the sailing, the fishing, the sea, and the kind people and wonderful cooking of an Irish woman from whom I bought a beautiful handknit sweater … I also was very lucky in finding a woman after my own heart, one of the sturdy, independent horse-and-whisky set, with a beautiful cottage (turf fires—the most comfortable and savory fire imaginable), her own TT-tested cows and butter churn which she will rent to me for December through February and show me all the sea walks. Spain is out of the question…. I think this Irish woman and I speak the same language—she will live next door in a cottage of hers. She loves children, and I have no desire to be in a country, alone, where I do not even speak the language. I will try to rent [the house] for these months…. I want to be where no possessions remind me of the past and by the sea, which is for me the great healer….