Beryl was always inscrutable, even to her husband. Graves told his friends that he had no idea what she was thinking as she cooked, shopped, typed his poetry, looked after their children and protected him from interruptions. His children were often outraged by their father's mistresses, and argued with him openly. Beryl says she stood up for herself, but her feelings were a mystery to others. Her children have said that she used to take to her bed with migraines, or tend the garden and the animals when his behavior got her down, but she makes light of it now.
People make too much fuss.
It would be different if he had wanted to set up house. I had a lot of things in my life that weren't to do with Robert. What do interest her are the forgotten gems she has unearthed in the process of ploughing through the muse poems. Another is his pained fantasy about David, one of the children of his first marriage, who died in Burma in 1943. A third poem, more mysteriously, is a slight piece about Graves' old friend Ava Gardner.