Introduction
Previous: early 1927
Next: second half of 1927
The story so far: Dorothy Hibbard, daughter of a manufacturer of safes for Wall Street, has been brought up in Europe by her rich aunts after her mother’s early death and her father’s remarriage. Having run out of things to do in Paris and London, and failed to find love in either city, she is now exploring Penang in Malaya. She has fallen out with the friends who had invited her in the first place, but in compensation has developed her own social network, including several people who are connected with the Hibernia rubber plantation and its Chairman, Lt-Col William Henry Whyte. It is early June 1927. Now, read on…
(And many thanks to Zen Cho for providing me with details about Pulau Tikus, rongging / ronggeng, the meaning of “Ketchil”, the chi-cha or cicak lizard, and the wayang.)
I went back to the E & O and John Woods was staying there. I saw a lot of him; he drove me anywhere I wanted to go, and it was he who arranged for me to meet Billy Whyte. I had been hearing a lot about Colonel Whyte on Hibernia, which was the estate he had opened up himself. He was at this time Chairman of the board of Directors. He had hurt his back playing polo and John Woods knew he wasn’t riding and wanted me to meet him as he was sure he would mount me [on one of his horses, obviously]. It was June 9th when I went back to Penang, and I didn’t meet Billy till the 11th. He was still in hospital at first; John Woods went to see him and told him about me; he told me himself later that he wasn’t at all interested in meeting me!
The E&O is the Eastern and Oriental Hotel in Penang.
John Lowe Woods (1899-1956) is the subject of a biography, An Irishman in Malaya, by D.E. Moreton, published in 1977. He was the son of surgeon and MP Sir Robert Woods (1865-1938), the leading shareholder in the Hibernia estate.
Dorothy had been staying on the Hibernia estate with her friends Enid and Michael Corbet-Singleton from 28 May to 9 June.
Billy Whyte, Lt-Col William Henry Whyte (1880-1949), the chairman of the board of directors of the Hibernia estate and also the commanding officer of the local militia, was of course my grandfather. Dorothy also wrote a standalone piece about him which summarises a lot of this entry.
On the 11th John had us both to dinner at the Runnymede, and I liked Billy very much. He offered me his ponies to ride at once, so it was arranged for the next afternoon. The following day, Sunday, John Woods drove me out to the swimming club and Jack Davis was there. We got two boats and paddled out to the little island and landed there. Then we started to work our way round the island; there was quite a heavy sea and it was very rocky. At one place Jack thought we’d better go back but I was sure I could manage it. Somehow I lost my footing and fell and the waves flung me about on the rocks but Jack jumped down and helped me out. I was covered with cuts and scratches but we got back to the boats and I managed to paddle back and then swim in from the raft while Jack later went back for the boats. I painted iodine on the scratches which was quite agonising.
I have been unable to identify Jack Davis, or his sister Girlie who is mentioned below, which is frustrating as Dorothy was clearly close to the Davis family.
The Penang Swimming Club is one of the venerable institutions of the city, founded in 1903. Shamefully, it did not allow Chinese members at that time and the Penang Chinese Swimming Club was founded in 1928, Dorothy’s second year in Malaya. (Thanks to Zen Cho for this.)
Zen Cho tells me that the island is clearly Pulau Tikus, which is also the name of a district of Penang.
However he took me up to the Crag for tiffin, and at five I was to ride. The ponies were waiting in a coconut grove and a Mr. Callaghan rode with me – I don’t think John rode. He just waited patiently for me; really he was angelic. He was engaged to a girl called Lydia, whom he afterwards married. He left next morning – for Ipoh, I think, he was in a law firm there; at least he certainly was later, and I think he was at that time too. By that time I was feeling rather sorry for myself, stiff and sore and sunburned, and I rested most of the day till Colonel Whyte came for me and took me out to his place, Udini, to ride. I had the little mare I’d ridden the day before, always known as the Baby pony – I don’t think she had another name. I rode alone, and then went back to the bungalow for a drink, and Billy drove me home. He was sharing with two men named De Buriatte and Bishop.
John Woods married Lydia Barton Sheehan (1903-1982) in January 1928. I don’t find a record that they had any children.
Udini House is a rather swanky residence, though now derelict.
Ernest Arthur De Buriatte (1887-1953) later succeeded my grandfather as commander of the 3rd Battalion, Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, the former Penang & Province Wellesley Volunteer Corps; he was also a lawyer and served on the Straits Legislative Council.
I have not been able to trace Mr Bishop.
On Tuesday I rode at 6:50 a.m. hiring a car to take me out, and Billy dropped me – after giving me breakfast – at the hotel on his way in, as he was going to the mainland for a few days. But I still rode his ponies each day, either the Baby pony or Angsenna. One evening the Buckwells took me to a Malay Opera – wayang – which was an incredible mixture of Western and Eastern music, costumes, and songs.
Today the word “wayang” usually means a performance with puppets, but Dorothy does not mention any; it’s a shame that she does not give more details.
Next day I rode with De Buriatte and the Arthurs, great friends of Billy’s. The next two days everyone watched cricket as the Australians were in Malaya and were playing a Penang team. Billy reappeared on the first day; he loved cricket and explained a certain amount to me, but I’ve never really understood it very well. Still it was pleasant sitting in the shade watching it, and then we all had tea, with several people including a very nice girl called Brenda Whitehead. Then Billy gave Mrs. Buckwell and me dinner at the Runnymede and we went to a rongging [a dance with poetry, normally spelt ronggeng these days] by the Malay company of the Defense Force (which Billy had run for some years but was now about to give it up.) I enjoyed that; I loved the music and the two dancing girls. Several of the Englishmen danced with the girls and also several Malays, one who was quite beautiful in a baju and trousers of royal blue Chinese silk and a sarong of mauve and grey and a wine-coloured cap.
I have not been able to identify the Arthurs.
The Buckwells are Robert Leighton Buckwell (1873-1952) and his wife since 1912, Dorothy Marie Wills (1889-1964). They had five children born between 1914 and 1922.
The June 1927 cricket match between the Malay team and Australia was a historic victory for Malaya, their first against one of the major cricket-playing teams. They won by 39 runs; as my understanding of cricket is even less than my grandmother’s, I have no idea what that means.
My best candidate for the “very nice girl” is a Brenda Ernestine Morton Whitehead (1910-1985), but she would have been only 16 which seems young to be traveling on her own, especially since she married in Surrey, England, in early 1928.
My Engagement
Then we took Mrs. Buckwell home and Billy asked me to go for a drive, and to my amazement he proposed. They say one always knows, but in this case I wasn’t prepared at all and could hardly believe it. I said no at first, being so taken by surprise. Anyway he realised I was unprepared so he took me home and left me to think it over.
They had met just over a week before. We don’t have the precise date of Billy’s proposal, though Dorothy gives us the date when she accepted below.
I can only speculate on why Billy proposed to a woman who he had known for barely a week, but he must have been reflecting for some time on the future of the Whyte family estate at Loughbrickland, Co. Down, which is where I am writing this particular note. The estate was entailed in the male line, which at this point was Billy and his two living brothers. He was the seventh of his father’s nine sons, but by 1927 only two of the other eight were left. Tim, his older brother, lived in London and was not married (family lore suggests that he was an alcoholic); he died only a few years later. Maurice, his younger brother, had been married since 1921 but showed no signs of having children, and indeed never did. (Their three married sisters had nine living children between them.) Loughbrickland at the time was lived in by Magda, the widow of his older brother George, and her daughter Esther (known as Bunty).
Billy may also have felt that his deafness was an impediment to finding the right woman. Dorothy makes it clear elsewhere that it never bothered her (she does not even mention it here), but also says that one of Billy’s previous girlfriends had rejected him for that reason, and her own relaxed attitude to his disability must also have been part of his incentive to propose.
He was also about to give up his steady job as commander of the local militia to try and make a go of full time rubber planting, and preparing for one change sometimes makes one think about another. And another possible factor, frankly perhaps the biggest, is that he was 47 and had waited long enough.
The next morning the Buckwells and I went up the hill, children and all, for a walk. John Woods had wired to ask if he could see me that day and I’d wired back yes, for tiffin. So he came to the hotel and afterwards we went for a drive. When we got back I changed into riding things and De Buriatte came for me and we went out to Udini and rode; Billy was out, having to look after General Fraser and his daughter all day. They came back and then as the Frasers were to drop me at the hotel I had to go with them at once. But later Billy, who had been dining with them, came in to see me at the hotel and we went for a drive, and talked and found out a bit more about each other.
Sir Theodore Fraser (1865-1953), like myself an alumnus of Clare College, Cambridge, was in the process of formally retiring as General Officer Commanding Malaya Command, with his term of office ending on 9 June and his successor taking over on 16 June. Billy was one of his key officers as commander of the 3rd Battalion, Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, which was the Penang branch of the British local militia. We know that Dorothy and Billy had only met on 11 June, and the above paragraph is set after Billy’s proposal about a week later but before Dorothy’s acceptance, so Billy must have been being nice to his newly retired ex-boss.
Sir Theodore’s daughter Elizabeth Dorothea Fraser (1905-1990) married the following year, 1928. He also had three sons, born between 1906 and 1913, the middle one being the civil servant Bruce Fraser.
Next morning he sent his car for me and we rode – I mean I did. Then I bathed and changed there, having brought other clothes, and had breakfast, just the two of us as the other men had left. He left me at the hotel but in the afternoon he joined me at the Buckwells – they were great friends of his and I liked them very much. There were two small children; I forget the boy’s name but the little girl was Dorothy, after her mother, and she and I became great friends.
The two youngest Buckwell children were Geoffrey Leighton Buckwell (1922-2002), who grew up to be a doctor in Australia, and Dorothy Marie Wills Buckwell (1923-2014), who also ended up in Australia and married an Alfred McLeod.
All these days that I was seeing more and more of him I also liked him more and more, but he really had taken me by surprise. Since I’d been in Malaya I had had several admirers – I haven’t mentioned them all – and I’d staved off several proposals; I quite realised that most of those men were just homesick and any reasonably presentable girl was sure of being asked to marry quite often; I didn’t like it, though and usually managed to prevent it. I remember one man after I was engaged telling me that he himself had been trying to propose to me, and I said yes, I knew it, which rather annoyed him but was quite true – I’d been steering him away for all I was worth.
Dorothy had already been engaged once, briefly, to Loïc Petit de la Villéon (1896-1978) in 1923. She has mentioned a few other boyfriends, of whom the most significant (both personally and more widely) was Alan Bott (1894-1952) in 1925-26. From what she wrote in her diary the day before her 28th birthday, she too may have felt that she had waited long enough.
A perfectly strange man sent me a note to say that he heard I was writing a book and that he would like to meet me and talk about it. I sent back a note to say I was not writing a book, and that I was very busy. Nevertheless he pursued me and ended by asking me to drive to Singapore with him! But the refusal he got finished that episode.
Any way after a few days of seeing almost no one but the Buckwells and Billy, I wrote in my diary that somehow we seemed to be engaged! That was on June 23rd; I’d met him on the 11th. I wrote a long letter to Zora at once.
Dorothy accepted Billy’s proposal twelve days after first meeting him. They remained married for 21 years, until his death in 1949.
Zora was Dorothy’s beloved aunt Lily Gordon Wickersham, who lived from 1870 to 1956; she gave Dorothy an allowance until her marriage. She is buried in the same grave as her mother, her sister, her brother-in-law and her niece Dorothy in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey; I tracked it down in September 2022, on the day of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
Billy always had a certain number of official engagements [as commanding officer of the local militia], but he was very thoughtful about arranging things for me to do – Bishop came and dined and danced with me at the hotel, and Bill Taylor, a great friend of Billy’s, took me to watch polo one afternoon and introduced some naval officers, one of whom asked me to lunch on his destroyer next day. We then went to the Rifle Range where Billy had had to be that afternoon. That evening I went to dinner at Judge Hastings Rhodes (I think he was a judge, anyway a lawyer) whom I’d already met at the Buckwells; I imagine he’d invited me before I got engaged, as Billy was not among the guests. Hastings Rhodes drove me home and professed to be heart-broken at my engagement, but I took that with several grains of salt. I said that we – Billy and I – were going to announce it so people would know it was hands off me.
I have not been able to identify Bill Taylor; it is too common a name. In the next extract Dorothy tells us that his full name was William A. Taylor, and implies that he left Penang later in 1927, but that doesn’t help much.
Stanislas Matthew Hastings de Rhodes (1881-1929) was not a judge but was one of Penang’s best known lawyers. had been appointed Solicitor-General of the Straits Settlements in 1910, and married Lizzie Thurston Price (1880-1963) in Colombo shortly after. After war service he returned to Penang to practice as a solicitor. His wife divorced him in 1921, so in 1927 he was available as it were. But he died unexpectedly in April 1929.
For some reason I went back to Hibernia next day for a few days; I can’t think why – no, it was the day after; in between there was my luncheon on board HMS Woolston with Mr. Todhunter; that was very interesting as he showed me all over the ship, with the torpedoes and all. Yes, I did leave for Hibernia that afternoon; Billy came with me as far as Parit Buntar by car. Mr. Grierson was there when I arrived, and when he’d gone I gave them three guesses as to the man I was engaged to, and Michael guessed at once. Enid wasn’t very sympathetic but she was expecting and not feeling her best. I still don’t know why I went – unless possibly Billy was going to be terribly busy, or away, or something like that. Anyway I said I missed him very much, and when a nice girl whom I met asked me to go to stay with her in Taiping I refused; as I said in my diary I didn’t mean to leave Billy again. Michael and Enid had some engagements which didn’t include me, but Jacques rallied round nobly. One day he took me to the burn on Holyrood Estate. It was a most impressive sight, a great clearing half a mile wide going up in flames and smoke; it was uncanny, and made one think of Hell. Another evening we all went to a Malay Opera, I suppose in Taiping. Jacques couldn’t have been nicer and I said in my diary I could talk to him much better than to Enid.
HMS Woolston was one of the destroyers deployed on the Yangtze River after the Nanking Incident in May 1927. By June, things had calmed down.
Parit Buntar is about halfway between Penang and the Hibernia estate.
“Mr Grierson” is probably Douglas Foster Grierson (1889-1970).
Morice Grant Corbet-Singleton (1894-1963), consistently referred to as “Michael” by Dorothy, had married Enid Mary McIlwraith (1903-1957) in December 1926, only a few months before. Their son John was born on 2 March 1928, so Enid would have been very newly pregnant in late June 1927.
Unfortunately I have no idea who Jacques was.
I went back to Penang on June 30th; Billy met me on the way and came on in my car. He told me our engagement was to be announced to the Hunt Club next day after the ride; we had already told a good many people, including of course the Buckwells.
The Hunt Club as I remember was really just a riding club; I don’t think there was anything to hunt on the island. But they used to have rides about once a week, I think. This was my first. Billy was just allowed to ride again after his polo accident. Anyway we started off gaily, Billy on Angsenna and I on the baby pony – she had a good mouth, whereas Angsenna, who had been raced a lot, was inclined to pull. But even the baby pony was excited and bucked a lot and I was so afraid I’d come off disgracefully, but I managed to stick on. Then as we came into a more open space – we’d been going through trees before – something made me look round and there was Angsenna on the ground and Billy just picking himself up; she’d put her foot in a hole. I said: “Oh damn!” and rode back. He had hurt his shoulder; though I had no idea then how badly, and we pulled out of the ride and walked our ponies quietly back to Bill Taylor’s.
As we got near we saw a man sitting on the running-board of a car talking to a lot of Malays in their own language; judging by the roars of laughter he was being very witty. It was Sir Hugh Clifford, the Governor. Billy introduced me and then dismounted with great difficulty on the off side. I could see he was in pain but he insisted it was nothing. Sir Hugh was very charming and made pretty speeches about my name meaning Gift of God and so on, and he asked me for the second dance at the Ball next night. Then the riders began to appear and Bill Taylor announced our engagement and everyone congratulated us.
Sir Hugh Clifford (1866-1941) had only just taken up office as Governor of the Straits Settlements, on 3 June 1927. But he had previously lived in Malaya for twenty years, from 1883 to 1903, and had written several books about his experiences, as well as learning the language well enough to quip impromptu humorous poetry. He is rumored to have inspired Noel Coward:
In the Malay States there are hats like plates
Which the Britishers won’t wear
At twelve noon the natives swoon
And no further work is done
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
The name “Dorothy” of course comes from the Greek Δωροθέα, meaning “God’s gift”.
All this time Billy was suffering a great deal of pain but wouldn’t say anything because, he told me later, I was enjoying it all so much. I should have seen it for myself, but he smiled and looked happy and I really didn’t realise. He drove me home and was to come back to fetch me to dine at the Runnymede, but De Buriatte came instead and said that Billy couldn’t get into a shirt so would I dine there instead. So of course I did. I didn’t stay late and next morning I heard from Mrs. Buckwell that as soon as I’d left they’d taken him to hospital. I went there to see him; he’d gone to have an X-ray, but soon came back. No bones broken, but his shoulder was dislocated – which is quite agonising, I’ve always heard. How he had kept up the day before I can’t think; he had such courage and self-control. They didn’t put back his shoulder perfectly; it was never quite the same as the other, but at least it didn’t hurt him so much once they had put it back. Anyway he was well enough – or anyway he pretended to be – to dine at the Buckwells’ and go to the Ball. He looked very smart in uniform, though he couldn’t get his right arm into the sleeve and had to keep it inside and have the sleeve pinned up.
How grim for poor Billy!
When we got to the Ball Sir Hugh saw me almost at once and put over my head a long necklace of Ceylon moonstones, all colours, very pretty indeed – my first wedding-present. We sat out my dance with him. The other people at the dinner, the Arthurs, “Ketchil” Magill, Bill Taylor and the Buckwells themselves, were also at the Ball, of course, and I met many more people. At supper we were at the Governor’s table and everyone drank our health. Someone gave me a tiny Chi-cha lizard in a sherry glass but we set it free. Of course I was presented to Lady Clifford too – she wrote under the name of Mrs. de la Pasteur and one of her daughters was E. M. Delafield, but I believe she was never mentioned. I said Lady Clifford was rather stiff and I supposed she was shy, and I think I was right.
I have not been able to identify the Arthurs or “Ketchil” Magill. “Ketchil” means “Little”; was there a Big Magill too?
Zen Cho tells me that the lizard “would most likely have been a house gecko. They are very common here and make a sound like someone tsking very loudly — if you hear the cicak’s call after you’ve said something, that’s the cicak agreeing with you! (There are other kinds of lizards here so it’s just possible it was a different species, but when people say cicak they usually mean this kind.)”
Lady Clifford was born Elizabeth Lydia Rosabelle Bonham (1866-1944), and wrote a dozen or so novels under her first married name, Mrs Henry de la Pasture, the best known being The Unlucky Family. Both she and Sir Hugh Clifford lost their first spouses in 1907, and they married in 1909. Her older daughter Edmée (1890-1943) was indeed better known as E.M. Delafield, author of Diary of a Provincial Lady.
Billy still had to stay at the hospital at night but could come out by day. One day we went to the Rifle Range to watch the shooting; especially the Superiority of Fire competition, designed by him, and for which he had given a cup. The next day we went up the hill to lunch with the Cliffords. Billy had had a bad time with his arm the night before; it had slipped out of the sling and given him great pain and they had to dope him to get him to sleep again. Later I got some webbing which made a more comfortable sling. Anyway we went to the luncheon, with lots of other people – the Arthurs among them – Billy should have been among the important people but Sir Hugh had him put by me; of course it was all arranged according to protocol and I was of no importance till we were married. After luncheon Sir Hugh gave me one of his books “The Further Side of Silence” with a very nice inscription. After luncheon Billy and I went to see Mrs. Gossip, Dr. Gossip’s wife, who had been ill.
Dr James Gossip (1889-1977) was from Inverness, and had moved to Penang in 1920; his wife, born Elsie Marguerite Grange (1897-1980) was from Lancashire. They married in Penang in 1923.
I usually – or always, I think, if we weren’t out together – helped Billy with his meals at the hospital as it was difficult for him with the use of only one arm. Then I went back to the hotel for my own. One evening the American Consul came and talked to me; I forget his name.
The American consul appears to have been Samuel Gale Ebling (1893-1981), originally from Ohio. He had already been posted to Paris and Stockholm, and went on to serve in Colombo, Germany, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Turkey and Angola.
Several times I rode, once with Mr. Arthur – I always rode the baby pony. Dr. Gossip came to see me and told me that Billy was doing very well and that it did him no harm to go out – I said that comforted me, so I must have been wondering about it.
Billy got me a lovely ring, diamond and sapphires, which were his favourite stones.
One day his shoulder wasn’t comfy and they did another X-ray, but said it was quite all right.
I went on another of the Hunt Rides but rode Angsenna, who got very hot and kept stumbling, so Girlie Davis and I pulled out and went back to where Billy was waiting in the car. By this time Billy was able to get his clothes on properly, about ten days after his accident.
The original plan we had thought of was that I would go on round the world, see the family, and then come back to Penang to marry him. But of course that was idiotic and we soon realised it, so we decided to get married quite soon and then go on round the world together.
Billy started having massage from a funny little one-eyed Japanese who seemed to do him a lot of good.
The more I saw of Billy the more I loved him and realised how thoughtful and considerate he was in addition to everything else. One day when we were on the Rifle Range I got one of my migraines and he was so angelic about taking me home at once.
One day we drove out to see a little bungalow we thought of taking for our first week of married life. I got a capricious fit and announced I didn’t want to change my name, but Billy only said placidly that I needn’t, that I could still be called Hibbard if I liked. So of course I decided I would change it after all.
I am really struck by this anecdote, and wonder how frequent it was for American (or British) women to keep their names after marriage at this point? Margaret Mead, born two years after Dorothy in the same city, kept her name through all three of her marriages, but I have the impression that that was unusual.
My own perception is skewed by living in Belgium, where it is practically impossible for either partner to change their name on marriage. My wife and I have occasionally had Belgian officials remark to us, “Oh! You have the same surname! What a coincidence!”
John Woods reappeared for a couple of days and we had a nice dinner at the Runnymede with him and the Buckwells and Girlie Davis and Billy and me. Then we danced at the E & O, though Billy couldn’t yet dance, at least he might have done it all right, but it was better not.
I met more and more people. One night Billy took me to the dance of the Eurasian Company of the Penang and Province Wellesley Volunteers and I danced a bit, but then he stopped my dancing any more, I’m not quite sure why.
Day after day we lunched and dined with friends, or had them come to one of the hotels, and we went for drives, and I rode, and swam at the Swimming-Club.
On July 20th I began to receive instruction, at the Convent in Penang. Madame Ste.—Eugénie was my instructress.
Dorothy had long been interested in Catholicism – she writes that she first thought of converting in 1919, eight years earlier. Her engagement to a Catholic spurred her to take the next steps.
One morning I was wakened by a terrific Sumatra (a terrific wind) I said it felt as though the house would blow down!
De Buriatte was upset at our engagement; whether it was just that he didn’t like me, or what, I don’t know, but he came round in the end.
I went each day to the Convent, but of course I had already read and studied a lot and Madame Ste. Eugénie was quite amazed at all I knew. But I found taking instruction a bit of a strain, as I said it was quite impossible to argue with the nun – I don’t think I really meant argue, I meant discuss, rather. She was a perfect darling but of course, quite certain that anything outside the Church was wrong.
The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, known as the Convent Light Street, was one of Penang’s great institutions until it closed in 2023, particularly well known for its girls school, though as Dorothy explains below it was also an orphanage.
I have not been able to identify Madame Ste. Eugénie.
One day we went to watch the Vickers gun shooting and I was allowed to shoot it – very easy as they did all the hard part.
Billy’s nephew Bay MacDermot (who was a month or so older than I) came to Penang and had tea at Udini and then we gave him dinner at the hotel – I think Billy was putting him up for the night, but I’m not sure.
Charles John “Bay” MacDermot (1899-1979) was the son of Billy’s oldest sister, Caroline Mary Whyte (1871-1969), and was my grandfather’s oldest surviving nephew (Bay’s older brother was killed at Gallipoli, where Billy himself was also wounded). Bay’s uncle on his father’s side, Percy MacDermot (1875-1955), had started the extended family’s tradition of rubber planting in Malaya.
Bay was indeed six weeks older than Dorothy, and died six months before she did in 1979. I did not know him, but I later got to know his widow Felicity well – she was much younger than Bay, born in 1923 and lived to 2012.
The next morning I didn’t want to go for my instruction, but I did go all the same, and said it wasn’t bad at all as we spent the time discussing all the unhappy marriages we had known – in French, which we usually talked; the nun was French, most of them were.
One day Billy was judging at the races and I went with Dorothy Buckwell; we sat in the Davises’ box.
One day I missed going to the Convent as I had to get a dress to be married in that morning; I did mean to go in the afternoon but was feeling very tired and Billy insisted on sending a note to say that I was too tired to go. However I was able to ride later that afternoon so I can hardly have been exhausted. That night the Volunteers gave Billy a dinner. John Woods was in Penang again and I dined with him, and later Billy and others from the dinner came and joined us, all having had quite as much as was good for them; but at least they were all very cheerful.
Next day when I went to the Convent there was some mistake and Madame Ste. Eugénie was never told that I was there till I’d been waiting nearly an hour and had to leave.
The Ralph Scotts – he was the Resident – asked us to luncheon but unfortunately for August 4th which we had decided on for our wedding-day.
Ralph Scott (1874-1962) was a career civil servant who had worked in Malaya since 1895. The Residency in Penang seems to have been his last job before retirement in 1928. His wife was born Charlotte Elsa Cleaver (1879-1961).
On Tuesday August 2nd I went to make a retreat at the Convent before getting married. Two days before, Sunday, I saw a good deal of Mr. Grierson and liked him very much; for some reason I thought I wouldn’t like him when I first met him. We, Billy and I, also went to the Buckwells; the children were most amusing over my engagement and couldn’t understand why Billy and I weren’t living in the same house and why we hadn’t any babies. On the Monday I went for an hour’s instruction to the Convent and the priest came in and said that Billy must make his confession before marriage. I said I didn’t think he would, but I agreed to get him to go to the father’s house either that evening or the next morning.
Billy was not very religious, possibly as a result of his wartime experiences; however he actually died while attending Mass in January 1949.
That afternoon Billy had to judge at the Races, and I went too, but not till I had rested and tried to get Dorothy Buckwell to come too. That day there had been a mix-up over the car and the sais [driver] had made a muddle and hadn’t collected Billy when he should have; I was most impressed by the way that Billy kept his temper, though he had had a hard time getting into Penang – I don’t know how he managed in the end. He still wasn’t feeling his very best, either. We saw Michael Corbet-Singleton, very worried as Enid felt so ill.
When Billy drove me to the Convent of the Dames de St. Maur the Father was there and none too pleased as Billy had refused to go to Confession. [Respect!]
Madame Ste. Eugénie took me first to the chapel, then to my room, a very nice airy one. I had instruction for over an hour and then she left me to read edifying books. I dined alone and very well – soup, two large cutlets with potatoes and beans, Malay curry, three boiled eggs, very nice fresh bread, vin rouge, cheese and fruit and cakes. Of course, as I said in my diary, I didn’t eat a quarter of it.
Then my little nun came for me and took me through the gardens and part of the school – I seem to remember that they had about 2000 children in different kinds of schools – not all boarders, of course.
I remember there were a lot of little Chinese boys who were there because their own mothers were dead and their fathers didn’t dare leave them to the mercies of the other wife or wives. At least that is how I remember it; I didn’t put that in my diary. Then we went to the chapel where she left me for a time, and then came back and took me to my room and kissed me good-night. As the electric light went off at 8:45 and I had only a candle I soon went to bed. How far away the world seemed there in the convent!
The next day I had some panicky moments wondering if I was doing the right thing [getting married, or becoming Catholic? Or both?], but finally I calmed down and I was received into the church, with conditional baptism, that afternoon. But that night I didn’t sleep well and I got a fit of coughing; Madame Ste-Eugenie came and gave me brandy – of all things! Another slight contretemps that day had been that the hat I was to be married in arrived and was far too large; the nuns – all French – were horrified and rushed me off in a rickshaw to the shop to get it put right!
Early on the morning of the 4th of August a note came from Billy and then Leighton Buckwell came to fetch me, as he was to give me away. When we got to the church Billy was there with Bill Taylor, his best man. Actually there were a good many other people too, but I didn’t know it at the time. The service was very short; the priest said: “Now you are married” and then went on with the Nuptial Mass. I had been to confession the evening before and to Communion at 6:00 that morning.
When we had signed the register Leighton said: “Mrs. Whyte;” and I looked at him perfectly blankly, much to his amusement. Then we went out to find a Guard of Honour of 22 of the Volunteers making an arch of steel outside the church door. Dorothy Buckwell threw confetti at as we passed her. We drove to the swimming Club where the Buckwells and Bill Taylor (he was usually known as Wat, as his initials were W.A.T.) joined us and we had breakfast. Then Billy and I came on to the Batu Feringhi bungalow where we were to spend a week. Bill – or Wat – had been wonderful, sending us all our letters and cables and lending us his cook.
Batu Feringhi is a beach resort on Penang Island.
Dorothy had met Billy 53 days before, seven and a half weeks. Now they were married.
Next: second half of 1927