sound of it.)
It will remain a mystery that the island never fell to the enemy. It was dive-bombed night and day, the people hiding deep in caves and (I gather) quarrelling incessantly and threatening each other’s authority most of the time. There was almost a revolution. Then, in limped the battered British convoys with flour and meat and oil and sugar, and the pipes all playing and the cliffs black with cheering crowds.
(Willy: Now it’s military history. She’s holding back.
Dulcie: She’s going to be a British blimp in middle age if she’s not careful. What about the honey moon?
Willy: I think she’s coming to that.)
We arrived here by sea from Rome. We flew to Rome from East Pakistan and we arrived in East Pakistan from Bhutan! I think we were the only tourists. The king of Bhutan is pretty insular but he let us in because he was at Christ Church with Eddie. Not that they met. Then or then. He’s an insular king—like you and Thomas Hardy. And maybe George VI.
London tomorrow. We’ll be in Eddie’s old London pad until we can find somewhere else. The Temple’s bombed to bits still. I think—but don’t spread it—that Eddie wants to come back to live in Hong Kong and so do I, especially if you and Dulcie stay. Don’t be lured back to the dreary Donheads.
I’m sorry. I run on with no means of stopping—Oh, God—History!
(Willy: I think she’s stopping.
Dulcie: You’ll be late for Court.)
I have so much to tell you, my dear godfather I’ve known since Old Shanghai. This was to have been a simple letter of thanks. Thanks for being such a prop and stay at the wedding, for giving me away, for being so diplomatic at Le Trou Normand about Amy breastfeeding (tell Dulcie sorry about that, I didn’t know it would upset her) and especially when Mrs. Baxter was sick. You were wonderful. I’m afraid my Edward kept a seat near the back! He was silent for a long time but as we passed through Sikkim en route for Darjeeling and we saw slender ladies plucking tea leaves with the very tips of their fingers—their saris like poppies in the green, their little heads bound round with colours and I was transported with joy—he said, “I am not enough for you.”
Oh dear—I have been carried far away. Please, dear Uncle W, don’t show Dulcie this. Well, I expect you will.
In Dacca Eddie bought me a red chair. The old, old man who sold it lived far down the back of his shop in the dark, his eyes gleaming like a Maltese plague rat. The chair is to be sent to the Inns of Court, The Temple, London EC4!
Oh—I don’t seem to be able to concentrate on thanking you. If only Ma and Pa were here. “You are my mother and my father,” as the Old Raj promised India, or rather they said, “I am.”
Isn’t it odd how Hong Kong holds us still? Isn’t it odd how the “Far East” has somehow faded away with the Bomb? Do you understand? Now the British live out there by grace. I shall call my first daughter Grace.
I promise, dear Uncle Willy, to grow more sage: more worthy of your affection. I shall grow tweedy and stout and hairy, with moles on my chin, and I shall be a magistrate and open bazaars in support of the Barristers’ Benevolent Society. You won’t be ashamed of me.
Thanks for liking Eddie, with much, much love from
Betty x
(Letter left in Judge Pastry’s Will to Her Majesty’s Judge Sir Edward Feathers QC, residing in the Donheads, carefully dated and inscribed and packed in a cellophane envelope, and bequeathed to Edward Feathers’s Chambers where it may still be mouldering.)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Y ou are grinning all over your face, Mrs. Feathers.”
“I’m happy, Mr. Feathers. I’m writing to Pastry Willy.”
“About a hundred pages, at a guess. Come on. It’s a picnic.”
“Picnic?”
“On the cliffs, Elisabeth. With the local talent. Well, the local English talent. Quick. No ‘PS xx.’ Envelope, stamp and off. Silver salver at the portcullis. Take your
It will remain a mystery that the island never fell to the enemy. It was dive-bombed night and day, the people hiding deep in caves and (I gather) quarrelling incessantly and threatening each other’s authority most of the time. There was almost a revolution. Then, in limped the battered British convoys with flour and meat and oil and sugar, and the pipes all playing and the cliffs black with cheering crowds.
(Willy: Now it’s military history. She’s holding back.
Dulcie: She’s going to be a British blimp in middle age if she’s not careful. What about the honey moon?
Willy: I think she’s coming to that.)
We arrived here by sea from Rome. We flew to Rome from East Pakistan and we arrived in East Pakistan from Bhutan! I think we were the only tourists. The king of Bhutan is pretty insular but he let us in because he was at Christ Church with Eddie. Not that they met. Then or then. He’s an insular king—like you and Thomas Hardy. And maybe George VI.
London tomorrow. We’ll be in Eddie’s old London pad until we can find somewhere else. The Temple’s bombed to bits still. I think—but don’t spread it—that Eddie wants to come back to live in Hong Kong and so do I, especially if you and Dulcie stay. Don’t be lured back to the dreary Donheads.
I’m sorry. I run on with no means of stopping—Oh, God—History!
(Willy: I think she’s stopping.
Dulcie: You’ll be late for Court.)
I have so much to tell you, my dear godfather I’ve known since Old Shanghai. This was to have been a simple letter of thanks. Thanks for being such a prop and stay at the wedding, for giving me away, for being so diplomatic at Le Trou Normand about Amy breastfeeding (tell Dulcie sorry about that, I didn’t know it would upset her) and especially when Mrs. Baxter was sick. You were wonderful. I’m afraid my Edward kept a seat near the back! He was silent for a long time but as we passed through Sikkim en route for Darjeeling and we saw slender ladies plucking tea leaves with the very tips of their fingers—their saris like poppies in the green, their little heads bound round with colours and I was transported with joy—he said, “I am not enough for you.”
Oh dear—I have been carried far away. Please, dear Uncle W, don’t show Dulcie this. Well, I expect you will.
In Dacca Eddie bought me a red chair. The old, old man who sold it lived far down the back of his shop in the dark, his eyes gleaming like a Maltese plague rat. The chair is to be sent to the Inns of Court, The Temple, London EC4!
Oh—I don’t seem to be able to concentrate on thanking you. If only Ma and Pa were here. “You are my mother and my father,” as the Old Raj promised India, or rather they said, “I am.”
Isn’t it odd how Hong Kong holds us still? Isn’t it odd how the “Far East” has somehow faded away with the Bomb? Do you understand? Now the British live out there by grace. I shall call my first daughter Grace.
I promise, dear Uncle Willy, to grow more sage: more worthy of your affection. I shall grow tweedy and stout and hairy, with moles on my chin, and I shall be a magistrate and open bazaars in support of the Barristers’ Benevolent Society. You won’t be ashamed of me.
Thanks for liking Eddie, with much, much love from
Betty x
(Letter left in Judge Pastry’s Will to Her Majesty’s Judge Sir Edward Feathers QC, residing in the Donheads, carefully dated and inscribed and packed in a cellophane envelope, and bequeathed to Edward Feathers’s Chambers where it may still be mouldering.)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Y ou are grinning all over your face, Mrs. Feathers.”
“I’m happy, Mr. Feathers. I’m writing to Pastry Willy.”
“About a hundred pages, at a guess. Come on. It’s a picnic.”
“Picnic?”
“On the cliffs, Elisabeth. With the local talent. Well, the local English talent. Quick. No ‘PS xx.’ Envelope, stamp and off. Silver salver at the portcullis. Take your
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