Love Leaves You Tongue-Tied

I have been going through some more of my great uncle Percy's letters. There are hundreds of them: yellowed and bound together with string. His handwriting was immaculate, though not always easy to read with its lavish loops and personal flourishes, but I managed.

A few days ago I found a bundle that still smelt faintly of perfume. They were conveniently in order and they made for riveting reading. It was a series of correspondences with a lady named Mabel Guthrie of 10, Railway Cottages, Cheltenham, Glos. and it seemed my great uncle was very fond of her.

This is significant as Percy never married and as far as anyone in the family is aware there never was any prospect of a first Mrs Percival Augustus Seymour. But these letters reveal the old relative had not always been such a confirmed bachelor and had, indeed, had a serious crisis of faith in that regard.

Great uncle Percival Augustus Seymour, KBE, MBE, BBC, IBM, AT&T, was travelling from London by rail to visit a friend in the country, a Colonel Price-Price, when a young lady entered the carriage he had had to himself, till then, at Swindon.

Percy, being a Seymour, stood when she entered and nodded respectfully before returning to his Times crossword.

It was the crossword which broke the ice, if such an expression were around then. The lady could see my uncle struggling with one of the clues (which clue I am afraid my uncle did not record for future generations) and she, it appears, could not help but offer her services.

Even today, suggesting to an English gentleman that he might need assistance with the Times Crossword, especially a gentleman who is travelling by rail, is frowned upon; in my uncle Percy's day it would have been downright shocking. But as has been previously stated in this and other blogs, my uncle Percy was a Seymour. His easy manner had been forged in countless diplomatic emergencies, international crises and other epoch shaping events. He merely smiled and politely declined.

But the lady, who introduced herself as Mabel, was not able to contain herself.

"Is it one of Jack's?"

Even a man of such mental acuity as my uncle was thrown by this. It transpired that Jack Heap had compiled the crossword Percy was struggling with. And Mabel knew him well. In fact, after some subtle probing by my uncle, who had learnt the art of questioning in the course of training for a number of special missions overseas, prized from Mabel that she was herself a compiler of crosswords.

He was fascinated by this and struck up a conversation with his companion and the last two hours of the journey flashed by in mere moments. They parted briefly on the platform for Mabel was being picked up by her sister and Percy had a car waiting, but Percy called Mabel back and asked her if she would like to dine with him the following evening. She gushed and said she'd be delighted. Though not quite so concisely. Her exact reply, as recorded by my great uncle, was: "I'd be . . . the sensation of pleasure to a high degree. Nine letters."

My uncle replied, with the usual Seymour quick wit, that he was esteemed with a high level of credit — eight letters, second and fourth letters 'o' — that she had so graciously accepted.

The following evening, after a morning spent walking briskly and an afternoon wiled away fishing, my great uncle Percy arrived at the local country pub to find Mabel already there.

"My dear lady, I am not late, am I?"

"No, not at all. I arrived prior to the appointed time, five letters."

My uncle Percy replied that he had been looking forward all day to the 'to search for gold, eight letters' of continuing the conversation of the day before. It is not recorded what the meal was but it must have gone well for he took leave owed to him by the Ministry of Defence, for whom he was working at the time, and stayed in the country with her. He was, in his own words, subjected to magical influence, nine letters, by Mabel while she, for her part, admitted to a feeling of 'the name given to the effect of a force that causes an object to tend towards another, ten letters', that left her scrabbling for words, though there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.

After a few weeks of this, Percy was recalled to London after Soviet troop movements caused within the Ministry 'an establishment or business of commercial standing', but Percy and Mabel kept up their correspondence. However, the separation did seem to put some strain on the relationship. Though, to be precise, accurate, exact, it was more the strain of him having to decipher Mabel's increasingly cryptic messages and having to come up with his own in order to impress her.

This led in my great uncle, from a letter to a friend sent at the same time, to feelings of 'phonetic emphasis placed on words or syllables by means of a special effort made in their vocalisation, six letters'.

The emotional and intellectual toil of his relationship with Mabel was removed from him when he was sent to the Balkans to construct a spy ring. His letter to Mabel, breaking off the romance, I have decided to reproduce in its entirety here:

Dear Mabel,

'That which acts as an agency, instrument of power or means, eight letters', by whom I am 'to be occupied or devoted to, eight letters', has seen fit to send me abroad on 'a series of religious services designed to convert non-believers, seven letters', of great importance to national security. I may be gone for some months, even years. I am greatly 'to disturb, disorder or over turn as in a pitcher of milk or a house of cards, five letters', and I 'to display a sense of sorrow, six letters', that I must 'to train away from a habit, five letters', our 'connection between two or more things, twelve letters', and to 'the extremity or last part of something that is broader in length than breadth, three letters', all 'agreement and conformity, fourteen letters', 'immediately, without delay, nine letters', for I may have no 'junction of two electrical conductors, seven letters' with anyone except my immediate 'greater in quantity or amount, eight letters'.

I will never 'to fail to think of, six letters', you. I hope you 'to be fully cognizant of the facts of a matter, ten letters', and do not 'the expression of extreme dislike, four letters', me too much.

'An expression of farewell when leaving the company of another or others, seven letters'.

Percy.

Mabel's reply:

Dear 'the flesh of a mature sheep' brains.

Go 'to heat a liquid till it becomes agitated and begins to turn into a gaseous state, four letters' your 'the position or place of leadership, four letters'.

Mabel

[No further correspondence.]