The Trials of Radclyffe Hall by Diana Souhami (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📗

on – a nice state of affairs. Well, my Pig here you are in my dear country and for that I do thank God, and perhaps one day it may also be your country, who knows? …

P.S. Darling, if as you tell me, you only stayed when war broke out because you had promised me not to go in the event of war – then thank you. By so doing you have saved me fearful anxiety.

Evguenia was lonely in Exeter. Her skin complaint did not clear up. She spoke of John being all she had, and admitted to crying when they parted. She promised to go to Lynton if John became ill or ‘SOS’d’ for her. They wrote to each other every day. John felt that at last she was protecting her. She sent her £25 a month and more for heating. As ever, she was pathologically fearful about her safety. She told her to check out people’s political views before having anything to do with them because the university was ‘simply bursting with Reds’, and she sent her a police list of towns ‘prohibited to alians’. ‘Now please no Russian Blues over these forbidden areas’, she said. It was significant of God, she thought, that Lynton and Exeter were not on the list.

Dr Anderman told John to avoid worry and to lead a calm life. She worked at the Merano book, finished a first draft and with Una rode ponies, Harmony and Titbits, on the moors. Evguenia visited at weekends and stayed with a Mrs Widden. She socialized in a way that John and Una did not. ‘Florrie plays badminton with the local bourgeoisie who are just her calibre’, was Una’s way of putting it.

In the summer of 1940 Hitler’s blitz on Britain began. Italy formally declared war on Britain, and Paris was occupied by the Gestapo. Churchill broadcast to the nation and said Britain would fight until victory was assured. There were air raids and nightly blackouts. A German bomber plane was brought down four miles from Lynton. On an evening when Una saw a chink of light through a neighbour’s blind, she rapped so hard on the window she broke the glass and cut her wrist.

Exeter became a prohibited area for Evguenia. She moved again to Lynton and stayed with Mrs Widden. She felt trapped. John feared she would be captured if Hitler invaded.

John and Una became dissatisfied with the Imperial Hotel. The Devonshire cream was sour. Mr and Mrs Clivers tired of their complaints and asked them to leave. They moved to a house called the Wayside, owned by Jack and Molly Hancock. All their possessions were sent from Rye but there was nowhere to put everything and their rooms looked like those of people who have come down in the world. Lord Tavistock’s aviary got bombed, so they reclaimed Charlotte, the maligned grey parrot. They acquired a Pekinese from Barnstaple and Fido arrived from Paris, very fat, but ‘crazy with joy’.

Only John persisted with the fantasy that these new quarters would turn into a home for what she perceived as her family. ‘As Evguenia has for years refused to make a family life with us she must now continue to make one of her own’, was Una’s view. She did all she could to exclude her then criticized her for staying away. She objected to the way she played with Jane, John’s spaniel. The dog looked out for Evguenia, who took her for walks. Una said she could not be trusted to keep the dog away from a neighbour’s Labrador so Evguenia was stopped from taking the dog out. She hated the way it stayed shut in the bedroom, whining. Una saw her concern as a pose, a way of undermining John: ‘The implication is that John is cruel, confines Jane unduly, under or over feeds her, is too fussy over her, neglects her, is at fault because of her determination never to let her off the lead where there are dangerous traps, or traffic.’

Una fed John’s anxiety so as to make John provoke Evguenia. She became very good at it. Evguenia made a friend, Doris Woolley. Together they went to art classes and the cinema. Doris Woolley had lived in Cornwall and knew Dod Procter and the Newlyn group of painters. Una implied that Evguenia was having an affair with her. John watched and questioned Evguenia who lost her temper. Una then accused Evguenia of making John ill.

On a day in September when Evguenia went to Lynmouth with Doris Woolley, John told her to get a taxi home. Evguenia did not want to. John began weeping at the prospect of her being killed or arrested. Una told Evguenia she would get a taxi. ‘Are you a nurse or a fool?’ she said. Evguenia said she had to move to a different town. Una called Anderman. He sat for an hour with John and the following day took her for a drive. He tried to persuade her that it would be for the best if Evguenia left Lynton.

Few options were open to Evguenia. She had lost her friends, possessions and the city where she felt at home. Her status in England was fragile. There were only certain districts in which she was allowed. She was entirely dependent on John who retained her papers and was officially responsible for her. And John, never emotionally rational, was now ‘mercurial to an inconceivable degree’. She said she wanted to die and would welcome a bomb on the house. She had written nothing since she stopped smoking in May 1939 and felt that she would never write again. Tired and wretched, she spent much time in bed or sitting by the window knitting blankets in blue and green.

Una knew the root of her malaise: ‘This woman has fastened herself on to us, sucking every ounce of gain she can, sabotaging John’s health and spirit. This woman is callously killing my John.’

John would not let Evguenia go and Una made