Subject: nuptial flight
From: Diego M. Dell'Era (dellerad@sinectis.com.ar)
Date: Mon May 14 2001 - 08:41:57 GMT
Hi everybody.
I'll transcribe a passage from a biography by T. S.
Matthews titled "Notes towards the definition of
T. S. Eliot". Considering that Eliot is somehow present
in Salinger's poetics and in Seymour's words, I thought
that this excerpt would not be altogether off-topic:
--- Kind man that he was, devotedly, desperately kind, as if he knew that in this howling world only kindness could be of any use at all, Eliot was, shall we say, an awkward leave-taker. He broke the news to his wife that he had left her by writing her a letter, delivered by a lawyer; and after their separation, in spite of all her pleas he saw her only once again, and that was her doing, not his. When at the last minute he told John Hayward that he was leaving their flat because he was going to marry his secretary, Valerie Fletcher, there are a number of conflicting versions of how and when he let Hayward know.The official version, vouched for by the present Mrs. Eliot, is that, two days before the wedding, Eliot and Hayward had a long talk in Hayward's room. While this talk was going on, Valerie Fletcher, unbeknownst to Hayward, was also in the flat, in another room. Hayward took the news that Eliot was about to leave "extremely well." Eliot left with him a letter saying that he would pay £300 a year of the £470 rent of the flat for the next four years, until the lease expired. And he performed this promise. But Hayward put about other versions of Eliot's nuptial flight.
One has Eliot breaking the news in a letter which he hands to Hayward and then "hovers about" while Hayward reads it. When Hayward says, "Sit down, my dear Tom, and let's talk about it," Eliot replies, "Oh, no, no, I can't, the taxi is waiting."
Hayward told Moura Budberg that Eliot had been stealthily removing his belongings, piecemeal, for weeks before his actual departure, then telephoned to say that he had married Valerie and was not coming back. Hayward was so staggered that he hung up without saying a word. What particularly angered him: "Think of the treacherousness of a man taking all his shirts and all his ties, little by little!"
Hayward told his sister a somewhat different story the very day of Eliot's marriage, or perhaps the day after, but before there was any news of it in the press. She and Hayward were giving a children's party in the flat, and inquisitive reporters kept coming to the door and being turned away. Eliot, he said, had gone off supposedly on holiday but secretly planning to get married; the French housekeeper at the flat had wondered why he said "Adieu" to her instead of "Au revoir." He telephoned the news of his wedding to Hayward, who said, "I'm delighted to hear it but why didn't you tell me?" "Because I thought you'd be so cross."
Hayward gave Christopher Sykes still another version. On the morning Eliot left, very early, he came into Hayward's room and gave him a letter, saying, "I've got to go away, and I want you to read this." Hayward: "All right, I'll read the thing." "Aren't you going to read it now?" "Yes, but -" "But you ought to read it now." Hayward read it, then said, "Well, that's fine, but why didn't you tell me?" "Oh, because I thought you might be angry." "My dear old Tom, I couldn't be angry with you" Then Eliot leaned forward, put his arm about him and kissed him, saying, "Oh, I knew I could always rely on you." Hayward said later, with a resigned grin, "Since I am the most un-homosexual man in London, I found this a most offensive gesture."
Be all these uncanonical gospels as they may, and however and whenever Eliot actually quit the premises, he and Valerie Fletcher were married in St. Barnabas's Church, Chelsea, at six o'clock in the morning on January 10, 1957, and flew to Nice for their honeymoon.
----
diego d.
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