14 October 1940 – 20 October 1940

Our private luck has turned. John says Tavistock Square is no more.* If that’s so, I need no longer wake in the night thinking the Wolves luck has taken a downward turn. For the first time they were rash and foolish. Second, an urgent request from Harpers Bazaar for an article or story. So that tree, far from being barren, as I thought, is fruit bearing. And I’ve spent I don’t know how much brain nerve earning 30 gns. with three little articles. But I say, the effort has its reward; for I’m worth, owing to that insect like conscience and diligence, £120 to the U.S.A. A perfect day—a red admiral feasting on an apple day. A red rotten apple lying on the grass; butterfly on it, beyond a soft blue warm coloured down and field. Everything dropping through soft air to rest on the earth. The light is now fading. Soon the siren: then the twang of plucked strings . . . But it’s almost forgettable still; the nightly operation on the tortured London. Mabel wants to leave it. L. sawing wood. The funny little cross on the church shows against the downs. We go up tomorrow. A mist is rising; a long fleece of white on the marshes. I must black out. I had so much to say. I am filling my mind slowly with Elizabethans: that is to say letting my mind feed like the Red Admiral—the siren, just as I had drawn the curtains. Now the unpleasant part begins. Who’ll be killed tonight? Not us, I suppose. One doesn’t think of that— save as a quickener. Indeed I often think our Indian summer was deserved: after all those London years. I mean, this quickens it. Every day seen against a very faint shade of bodily risk. And I returned to P.H. today; and am to transfer my habitual note taking I think—what I do on odd days—to random reading. The idea is, accumulate notes. Oh and I’ve mastered the iron curtain for my brain. Down I shut when I’m tied tight. No reading, no writing. No claims, no “must” I walk—yesterday in the rain over the Piddinghoe down—a new line.

The most—what?—impressive, no, that’s not it—sight in London on Friday was the queue, mostly children with suitcases, outside Warren Street tube. This was about 11:30. We thought they were evacuees waiting for a bus. But there they were, in a much longer line, with women, men, more bags, blankets, sitting still at 3. Lining up for the shelter in the night’s raid—which came of course. Thus, if they left the tube at 6 (a bad raid on Thursday) they were back again at 11. So to Tavistock Square.* With a sigh of relief saw a heap of ruins. Three houses, I should say, gone. Basement all rubble. Only relics an old basket chair (bought in Fitzroy Square days) and Penman’s board To Let. Otherwise bricks and wood splinters. One glass door in the next house hanging. I could just see a piece of my studio wall standing: otherwise rubble where I wrote so many books. Open air where we sat so many nights, gave so many parties. The hotel not touched. So to Meck.† All again. Litter, glass, black soft dust, plaster powder. Miss T. and Miss E. in trousers, overalls and turbans, sweeping. I noted the flutter of Miss T.’s hands: the same as Miss Perkins’. Of course friendly and hospitable in the extreme. Jaunty jerky talk. Repetitions. So sorry we hadn’t had her card . . . to save you the shock. It’s awful . . . Upstairs she propped a leaning bookcase for us. Books all over dining room floor. In my sitting room glass all over Mrs. Hunter’s cabinet—and so on. Only the drawing room with windows almost whole. A wind blowing though. I began to hunt out diaries. What could we salvage in this little car? Darwin and the silver, and some glass and china. Then lunch off tongue, in the drawing room. John came. I forgot The Voyage of the Beagle. No raid the whole day. So about 2:30 drove home. Exhilaration at losing possessions—save at times I want my books and chairs and carpets and beds. How I worked to buy them—one by one—and the pictures. But to be free of Meek., would now be a relief. Almost certainly it will be destroyed—and our queer tenancy of that sunny flat over . . . In spite of the move and the expense, no doubt, if we save our things we shall be cheaply quit —I mean, if we’d stayed at 52 and lost all our possessions. But it’s odd—the relief at losing possessions. I should like to start life, in peace, almost bare—free to go anywhere. Can we be rid of Meek, though?