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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

December 13, 1921

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett

Why do all my fountain pens die? I care for them as if they were babies and they absolutely refuse to live. Is there such a thing as a real pen?

What a pity it is you can't get a house in St. John's Wood. I think it is the one darling part of London. And I always am seeing such houses advertised on the back pages of The Sunday Times and The Observer. They sound ideal. Don't you prefer it to Hampstead? It has a charm. But perhaps that is because I lived there in Carlton Hill for a long time when I was young and very very happy. I used to walk about there at night—late—walking and talking on nights in Spring with two brothers. Our house had a real garden, too, with trees and all the rooms were good—the top rooms lovely. But it's all the musical people who make St. John's Wood so delightful. Those grunting 'cellos, those flying fiddles and the wonderful pianos. It's like a certain part of Brussels. And then the house at 5 Acacia Road. It has memories—but it's page 164 not only precious because of them. It was a charming house.

Oh, this cold! I feel like an explorer sending you these lines before the snow kills him. It's fearful! One can't work; the brain is frozen hard, and I can't breathe better than a fish in an empty tank. There is no air, it's a kind of frozen ice. I would leave here to-morrow but where can one go? One begins the wandering of a consumptive —fatal! Everybody does it and dies. However, I have decided to leave this particular house in June, for another more remote. I passed it one day lately when I was driving. It's in the most superb spot. The forests are on both sides but in front there are huge meadows—with clumps of fir trees dotted over them—a kind of 18th century landscape. Beyond the meadows tower the gaunt snow mountains, and behind them is a big lake. It is to let in June. We shall take it for a year. My chief reason is for the haymaking. One will be in the very midst of it all through August. To watch—to hear—mowing—to see the carts—to take part in the harvest is to share the summer in a way I love. You will really swoon at the view—or at least I shall expect you to!! And we shall eat out of doors—eat the hay with trimmings and get a little boat and float on the lake and put up a hammock and swing in the pines and paddle in the little stream. Don't you love to paddle?

I must end this letter. It's so dull. Forgive it. Now a pale sun like a half-sucked peppermint is melting in the sky. The cat has come in. Even his poor little paws are cold, they feel like rubber. He is sitting on my feet singing his song. Wingley does not only purr; there is a light soprano note in his voice as well. He is very nearly human because of the love that is lavished on him. And now that his new coat is grown he is like a cat in a bastick tied with ribbon—He has an immense ruff and long curly new fur. Cats are far nicer than dogs. I shall write a cat story one day. But I shall give the cat to C.'s dressmakers, the Misses R. What appalling dressmakers they page 165 were! They seemed to fit all their patterns on to cottage loaves—life-size ones—or on to ham sandwiches with heads and feet. But it was worth it to have gone in to their house and heard them as one did.

Goodbye for now.
P.S.—Dearest Brett.
Your letter has just come.
Stop!
You are not to send a gramophone.
Please stop at once.

None of us can possibly afford such a thing. You will be bankrupt after it. Don't do anything of the kind! Only millionaires can buy them, I know. I scan the papers! But for the really frightfully dear thought a thousand thanks. Yes, I will go to Paris if Manoukhin answers. But I can get no reply. Which is disappointing.