VA. to Venetia Stanley Saturday 29 December 20 Cavendish Square, W.¶
Darling Venetia – I loved getting your letter. I know you will realize what we are all going through just now. I was wired for on Monday morning & arrived in an anguish of fear to find M. very ill. The baby was born at 3 that afternoon (Xmas Eve) very tiny & fragile from coming so much too soon but so vital & well-developed that the Drs. were very hopeful about it especially when it got over the criticai hours so wonderfully. It was a boy which I had longed for – such a darling – neat little nut-head about the size of Puffin’s fists. We went to bed quite happily – leaving the nurse triumphantly sanguine & it died at 6 the next morning – just flickered out from weakness & unreadiness for the world.
Margot had not one fear for it after the first few hours & of course we did not Jike to worry her with possibilities. Her anguish when she asked it in the morning will haunt me always. She never saw it alive – they caried it in afterwards & it lay in her arms. I’ve never feit such helplessness – such blind misery & agonizing ignorance. Her courage all through has been marvellous. Poor, poor darling how inexplicably cruel it seems that all her hopes & pain & looking forward should end in death. It has been an extraordinary expérience – I feel as if a hundred years had passed over me & all my own affairs which till now have been paramount in my life seem so dim & small & jarring & unimportant.
It is the first time I have been near anything real. Father & I motored yesterday to Wanborough thro’ the country all white & silent with snow & silent & it in the little churchyard there. I am glad this is over & M. has …. cite web|title= Page 121 Lantern Slides: The Daries and Letters if Violet BONHAM CARTER 1904 – 1914 Edited Mark BONHAM CARTER and Mark POTTLE, Weidenfeld & Nicholson London 1996.