I wish you a very Happy New Year: and hope that it will be the happier for having given Miss Tucker2 notice. (ItHale, Emilyas director ('producer');v9Richard II;b3 does seem a tall order to expect you to produce Richard II with little girls between now and the middle of February!) YouShamley Wood, SurreyChristmas at;a5 see, I found your letter of December 27 on my return from Shamley. A dolorous visit it was: for I took to my bed there – the first Christmas Day I ever remember spending in bed – with a temperature. It was all the worse because they had no domestic staff at all, owing to the fact that they are moving next week to Hindhead. ThereMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff)during TSE's final Shamley Christmas;f6 wereMirrlees, Hopeduring TSE's final Shamley Christmas;d2 only Mrs. M., Hope who had been having some mysterious infection that sends her temperature up and down, and Jimmy James the housekeeper. How Jimmy ran the whole house and brought me all my meals is a miracle. I naturally came back as soon as the doctor let me – hiring a car to bring me from door to door. I got back yesterday; tomorrowappearance (TSE's)hernia;b9deferred operation for;a2 I go to University College Hospital, but they may have to keep me there a few days before operating, as I have a bit of a cough. And I am feeling very limp, so I hope that a fortnight in a hospital is what I need: it’s all I feel fit for.
I expect to be able to scrawl fairly early next week, and I shall arrange to have cables sent. IEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother);l2 do hope that Henry’s health will at least not deteriorate rapidly while I am laid up. This is only an interim note to send you my loving thoughts at the beginning of another year.
1.Misdated as ‘1 January 1946’ by TSE.
2.J. Josephine Tucker (b. 1902), headmistress of Concord Academy, 1940–9. Born in Richmond, Virginia, she studied English at Westhampton College, Virginia; Radcliffe College; Cambridge University; the Breadloaf School of English; and at the University of Virginia. Before coming to Concord Academy, she had been principal English teacher at the Foxcroft School, Middleburg, Virginia, and at the Hathaway Brown School in Cleveland.
3.HenryEliot, Henry Ware, Jr. (TSE's brother) Ware Eliot (1879–1947), TSE’s older brother: see Biographical Register.
3.HopeMirrlees, Emily Lina ('Mappie', née Moncrieff) Mirrlees’s mother was Emily Lina Mirrlees, née Moncrieff (1862–1948) – known as ‘Mappie’ or ‘Mappy’ – see Biographical Register.
2.HopeMirrlees, Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978), British poet, novelist, translator and biographer, was to become a close friend of TSE: see Biographical Register.