CLIV
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
[Telegram]
Although it is forty shillings a bottle I drink champagne to-night.
Presented as a sequence of letters, the work follows the responses of friends and relatives when a woman at her country home sustains a spinal injury and must remain flat for a long recovery. Correspondence records medical opinions, practical arrangements for nursing and household care, visitors and neighborhood support, and small domestic consolations such as reading aloud, recorded music, and an adapted form of solitaire. Through exchanges of news, requests, and observations, the letters map family connections and local characters while illustrating how community, resourcefulness, and affectionate concern reshape daily life during enforced convalescence.
[Telegram]
Although it is forty shillings a bottle I drink champagne to-night.