ADELAIDE SPENSER PAUSED in front of Barlow’s plate-glass windows less to inspect the carpets than to admire her hat. It was essential today not to lower one’s standards. Thomas had been quite impossible last night; but then, poor dear, though he would not admit it, he did not really like raids. He had been so rude at dinner that Kate had given notice and it had taken hours of patient listening to her grievances before Adelaide had contrived to smooth things over. As reward she had spent the last hour trying on models that sat upon forlorn stands, simply crying to be bought and worn. Normally she would never have purchased anything so obvious as this tricolour ribbon, but in an autumn when people seemed to welcome drabness with a sort of gaiety, the bright blue and scarlet cheered her up. If her husband were to accuse her of extravagance she would quote the words to him that he had used about stocking up the cellar: “It will be double the price that it is now, next year.”
The central display was not a still life of those amazing waxlike figures with impossible dresses and a parchment smile but a large piece of glass covered with torn and dirty netting. “In spite of a bomb dropping in the immediate neighbourhood,” a notice said circumspectly, “there was no splintering.” The shop windows themselves had been fitted with a device resembling a spokeless wheel. The bright green gloves arranged above a minute black handbag looked infinitely brave or absurdly anachronistic according to one’s mood. A driver put his brakes on suddenly and she looked up at the screech, thinking that it was another warning; but the skies were clear and the sound passed into the ordinary rumble of wheels.
It was a good thing that she had asked her sister-in-law to meet her at the Warming Pan, Adelaide thought, as she crossed the road and turned into a side street. Poor Alice never knew, with her diets and her ideas, whether she was eating toast or the plump breast of a partridge. Anything other than “good plain food” would be wasted on her, so difficult in these days when luxuries could be obtained with ease but eggs had almost disappeared. She must remember to stop at Parke’s on the way home and get some more canned fruit. Mrs. Spenser had begun stocking her larder directly after Munich when any fool could have seen that there was bound to be a war. Alice had had conscientious scruples. Adelaide could still see her sister-in-law’s blue eyes, which must have been faded before she was out of school, and hear the excited voice, “Oh, Adelaide, isn’t Mr. Chamberlain wonderful? I knew if we prayed enough we should have peace.”
“How does being an ostrich save one from disaster?” Adelaide had wanted to reply, having already ordered sixty pounds of marmalade; but arguments were bad for the complexion and the best way to deal with relatives, she had found out by long experience, was to sit quietly, say nothing, and treat herself to a good dinner afterwards.
The marmalade had proved invaluable. Mrs. Spenser had locked it up in the tall cupboard where she had formerly kept her summer clothes, doling out an occasional pot as if it were gold in substance as well as colour. She had bartered five pounds of it for eggs; it made such a difference both to Thomas and his temper if he had his usual breakfast. Yes, it was amusing to reflect that she was probably responsible for his recent promotion. When his colleagues had been evacuated, he had realized so well the horrors of a country billet that he had fought for a transfer and got his Department. Dear Thomas, he was so proud, he thought it was merit!
There were no cakes in the Warming Pan window and only a small tray of pastries on the counter inside the entrance. The numerous empty seats were a sign of war. Formerly it had been so crowded at noon that shoppers had often had to share a table. Adelaide glanced round, picked out the best place by the wall, and then, knowing that Alice would be late, she opened her newspaper at the crossword page and felt in her handbag for a pencil. The only people in the room were Mr. Rashleigh, whom she knew by sight, and a few shopgirls. Normally Miss Tippett discouraged them, because it was rather distracting to sit down for a cup of coffee beside the woman who had just been fitting you with shoes; but today everybody was welcome. This part of the West End was absolutely deserted. Seeing a regular customer at last, Selina trotted up, all smiles.
“Good morning, Mrs. Spenser, so you haven’t left London? I was beginning to be afraid that you had joined ‘the great migration’ yourself.”
“Dear me, no! I always preferred a florist’s window to a garden, and I positively hate cows. I suppose the war has made a lot of difference to you? How are things getting on?”
The correct answer should have been “Splendidly, thank you,” but Selina hesitated, in spite of her resolution. “We mustn’t grumble, of course, but the times are a little trying.”
“Unnecessarily so,” Adelaide’s voice was firmer than she intended, “when you think that we could have stopped the whole affair in 1933 with a thousand British policemen.”
“It was hard to know what to do for the best,” Selina ventured cautiously. It was an unbreakable rule, always be neutral with customers. “But I am sure that the Government meant well,” she added loyally, “all of us wanted peace.”
But it isn’t a static thing, Adelaide longed to reply; it isn’t the name of a virtue to be copied out in coloured inks and hung in a school hall. A louse is no respecter of persons; think what a single dirty basement can do to a town. Cause and effect, however, would be rather beyond Selina’s comprehension. “How is your partner?” she inquired instead. Angelina always had such a smart haircut. “I missed her as I came in. I hope she hasn’t left you?”
“Oh, no,” this time Miss Tippett could reply without hesitation, “I really don’t know what I should do without her. She is so very good with the Food Office. I suppose all these regulations are necessary,” she glanced up tentatively because Mrs. Spenser’s husband was in some Ministry, “but I am so stupid, somehow, about forms.”
“Well, they have to find work for all these women volunteers to do, and besides, they love adding another straw to the burden of us poor taxpayers,” though it would be much simpler to tip the butcher, Adelaide thought—and how such a suggestion would shock the Tippett. “I’m waiting for my sister-in-law,” she added, “she went dashing off to the country last June and… it does amuse me… this is the first time she has ventured up, even for the day.”
“I read in the papers this morning that it would take three and a half years of the present raids to demolish London; but I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if we shall have any customers left by the end of the month.” Selina could not help her anxiety showing, but Mrs. Spenser might have a little information. “Do you imagine that the Ministries will set up new departments? They took over Barlow’s in the last war, one of their buyers told me, and had over four hundred clerks there.” It would mean a steady flow of lunches even if they had to provide a cheaper type of meal.
“Hardly in London at the moment.” It was extraordinary, Adelaide thought; one should not exaggerate but the poor old Tippett seemed to have no sense of personal danger. “Still, we have reached our level in this district, all the nervous people must have left.”
It was another rule, never talk too long to a customer, who might get bored or, worse, too communicative. With a final “Well, we are glad to see you here again,” Selina started back towards her pay desk, stopping to greet Rashleigh as she passed him.
Horatio had his special seat and had made an art out of taking an hour for lunch. He was delighted with the invaders; shopgirls chattered so gaily and had such smart clothes. “Don’t bother about my order, Ruby,” he would say, “serve these young ladies first. They are in a hurry and I am a vassal to Time….” Then he would hand the menu card to them with a smile and a little bow, hoping that they would speak to him, which they never did. He wished, he could never say how much he wished, that his dear wife Margaret was alive.
“It’s cold today, I should not be surprised if we had some sleet.”
“Cold, Miss Tippett, it’s freezing! Snow is for the young and for the artist, but at my age, well, all I can think about is summer.” Just saying the word made him see a meadow full of buttercups and wild parsley.
“Yes,” Selina answered a little absently, for it hardly seemed possible that June would ever come again and—had she seen Ruby wiping a fork upon the inside of her dirty apron or was it imagination? Oh, dear, how careless the girls were getting nowadays, but if she spoke to them they started muttering about some factory. “I hope you were not too badly shaken last night?”
“To think that I should be able to live to stand the terrible noise.”
“Have you tried ear plugs? They do say they give relief.”
“But if anything should happen,” Horatio objected happily, for Selina seemed to be in one of her rare conversational moods, “I think I should like to be aware of it.”
“Isn’t it better to trust to Fate?” It was astonishing to find the old clinging with such tenacity to life. What could poor Mr. Rashleigh get out of the days, she wondered; wouldn’t it be glorious to pass suddenly to a legitimate, eternal rest? Angelina did not believe in heaven any more; that was very brave of her, of course, but terribly comfortless. “We have a nice piece of mutton today,” she said solicitously, “be sure you get a slice.” She stepped aside quickly to allow a woman to pass, who, as she expected, went up to Mrs. Spenser’s table.
“It’s a snorter, that word,” Adelaide said, looking up from her crossword puzzle, “and how are you, Alice, after all this time?” Her sister-in-law had already acquired, she decided, the provincial look of the “cheap day-return” shopper.
“Oh, Adelaide,” Alice fumbled with her coat and draped it over her chair so that a sleeve, of course, trailed on to the ground. Her hands trembled as she piled her parcels up on a vacant chair. “It’s terrible.”
“Well, Alice, I told you, you wouldn’t like the country, not with your tendency to rheumatism. Why don’t you move home to your flat? If we have a direct hit,” she shrugged her shoulders, “they say we won’t feel anything, and otherwise I just put wax in my ears and forget all about it. Do you know, I slept right through the alert last night?” She sat back, the pencil still in her hand, with the newspaper covering the table. “I suppose you can’t think of a crested sea bird with six letters? Puffins have no crests, and there are seven letters in penguin.”
“No, Adelaide, do you know …”
“Soup?” Ruby inquired, her pad swinging from her belt like a bunch of keys.
“Yes, two soups; I expect it’s tinned but we must eat something, and afterwards—will you have mutton, dear, whilst we can get it or do you want a macaroni cheese?”
“I’d prefer a health salad if they still have them.”
Ruby nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. “Up to now they have been very good about serving fresh food, but gradually I suppose we shall have to get used to cans.”
“Yes, but …” Alice leaned forward, and her old felt slipped almost to the back of her head. She might have put on something decent for the trip, Mrs. Spenser thought; once you let go, it was overalls and dressing gown in no time. “Really, Alice, you can’t like those dismal fields, and I miss our little solitaire parties of a Friday, I do really; why ever don’t you come back to town?”
“Listen, dear, I am trying to tell you something awful….”
“Don’t say that your evacuees have measles; you know how very susceptible I am to any infection!”
“I’m trying to tell you,” Alice shouted, almost in tears, “that I’ve just been machine-gunned!”
“What, dear?”
“Machine-gunned. In the train. It doesn’t seem natural.”
“Nonsense. Danger is the spice of life, and we won’t give that man the satisfaction of thinking that we mind his antics.”
“I know you were born to be a general’s wife, dear, but I cannot think that being machine-gunned is an antic. I don’t mind telling you, now that it is over, I was frankly nervous.”
“Of course, I didn’t say that it was pleasant, but what exactly happened?”
“Well, I woke up this morning with a queer feeling. First of all my alarm didn’t go off, or rather it did; it woke me up at midnight and I forgot to set it again so I had a tearing rush to get to the station in time….”
“Alarm clocks are like the Government, always unreliable; they will explode at the wrong moment. If only we had been sensible in 1933 … and even Thomas was worried … there would be no Luftwaffe now peppering us with holes.”
“Perhaps, but I thought something must be wrong when the nine-five went off exactly to the minute, because you know how late the trains are nowadays. I had a beautiful corner seat and I had just taken out my library book when the old man opposite began to snort. Adelaide, he was eighty if he was a day and he had whooping cough.”
“How truly awful!”
“Yes, dear, I jumped up, grabbed my bag, and forced my way along the corridor, but by that time every compartment was crowded. At last I did find a seat beside a very old lady. She seemed to want to speak to me, and these days we must be democratic. Poor thing, her sailor grandson had just come on leave and had gone to the bookstall for a paper. Whilst he was there the train started.”
“It doesn’t sound a very auspicious beginning to your trip.”
“No, and it jolted so much that I couldn’t read, but fortunately I had my knitting.”
“To quote a platitude, the modern woman’s opium.”
“Oh, Adelaide, no, it’s not quite that,” Alice gave a little horrified giggle, “but we stopped suddenly in front of a little wood. Have you ever thought how dreary one of those, I think they call them coppices, looks in autumn when everything is damp but there is still a tattered leaf or two clinging to the trees?”
“No, Alice, I always took a strong line about the countryside, particularly in October. It is a month only to be endured in England by the fireside.”
“I sat there, thinking of Nature and of how it dies and is reborn with the bluebells and I remembered Mr. Chamberlain and how we prayed for peace. Why do you suppose that with all of us praying so hard, the war broke out as it did?”
“Because if people make guns it is human nature to want to use them.”
“If only machines never had been invented! What we ought to do is to get together round the Peace Table and agree to give up machines, all of us, altogether.”
“Nonsense! Somebody would invent a new lot next day. What is wrong with us is that we pigeonholed our foreign information. Thomas had a friend, you know, who went on a very dangerous expedition, and when he came back what do you think he found? All his reports in an official’s drawer, never even opened.”
“There must have been some mistake.”
“Oh, no, there wasn’t. They just knew he was telling them the truth and they didn’t want to read it. He went off to the States, saying he was sorry that he had been such an idiot for twenty years. He warned us, ages ago, there would be a war.”
“It was Mr. Chamberlain’s heart,” Alice protested conscientiously, “he was just too great a man to think about bombs.”
“Then the proper place for him was in a bird sanctuary. After all, I value my life if you don’t value yours.
And a thousand planes at this moment would be worth all the good thoughts in the world. But tell me, what happened about your machine gun, did you actually see it?”
“No. We went on sitting and sitting and I heard a very funny noise, just between us and the little wood. A man in our compartment went and put his head outside the corridor window. Then he came back and said, ‘Do you hear that noise?’ and I said, ‘Oh, yes, it must be a threshing machine.’ You know it was a kind of popping sound. He looked at us and asked, ‘Do you know anything about threshing machines?’ and I said, ‘No, ’and then he sighed and said, ‘Do you mind if I smoke my pipe? ’I said, ‘Please do,’ and then I dropped a stitch and it took me quite a while to pick it up again.”
“And all that time you were just sitting still?”
“Well, dear, what else was there to do? Besides, I was so busy picking up the stitch. I do want to get it finished for Hyacinth’s birthday. It is rather a nice shade.” Alice delved into the knitting bag. “Do you think she will look well in rust?” She was always conscious of her sister-in-law’s appearance, and though she despised concentration upon such worldly things there were wild moments when she hoped that her daughter might grow up into the same neat smartness. “You’re always telling me not to be afraid of colour, but isn’t this a shade too bright?”
“I’m sure Hyacinth will look charming in it,” whatever the child wore it would make no difference, she had a permanently red face and a worried expression that did not match either her rural cheeks or inappropriate name, “but, go on, do tell me, what happened next?”
“After a time the train began to move again, ever so slowly, and we came to a station. The man with the pipe went into the corridor and said, ‘Jerry got the signaller all right; look, they’re taking him away,’ but all I could see was a crowd.”
“How dreadful!”
“Then the guard came along and told us, ‘Got ’im in the ’and, they did, but it don’t amount to much,’ and my old lady fussed and asked if there was a ladies’ waiting room at King’s Cross and did I think her grandson would have to wait long for a train?”
“What a morning!”
“Yes, it really has made me feel quite funny. It is so—well—what you wouldn’t expect. Taking the nine-five and being shot at, it’s so unreal, and I think unnatural things are very unwholesome. Yet I used to feel the Germans were far more moral than the French.”
“Oh, Alice, the danger of preconceived ideas! How often did I tell you not to associate the word ‘discipline’ with morality until you had found out what the Germans meant by it.”
“Perhaps I was wrong, Adelaide,” Alice agreed, doubtfully, “but we are suffering from too much freedom. Don’t you think we are?” she pleaded eagerly with her eyes fixed on Adelaide’s tricolour ribbon.
“The only discipline in the world that is safe,” Mrs. Spenser pronounced, “comes from liberty. Why do you mind it so much?” It was useless arguing with Alice, whose thirst for submission was such that she enjoyed the war unconsciously because of the restrictions it imposed.
“I never have felt that we should be free to follow our own whims,” Alice said, crumbling her roll, “but to finish the story, we arrived two hours late. And then, my dear, there was the poor old lady, looking so forlorn, standing on the platform beside her grandson’s kit bag and naval gas mask. Of course, she couldn’t have been a fifth columnist, but you know what people are like nowadays and I can’t describe how they stared at her. I got her a porter eventually and told him to take her to the waiting room. Do you think the grandson would turn up?”
Ruby banged down two plates of pudding with even more vehemence than usual. Several of the shopgirls were already buttoning their coats. Horatio continued to sip his coffee very slowly, for even an empty Warming Pan was livelier than his own room. He wished he were not so deaf; had he caught the phrase “machine-gunned” in the conversation at the adjoining table? And what had happened now? Even he could hear the shouts. “Oh, how wonderful, Miss Hawkins; where did you discover him, oh, isn’t he sweet?”
“Angelina!” Miss Tippett rose from her desk with her eyes fixed incredulously on her partner’s arms.
At first only two scarlet gloves and the tip of a beret were visible, then Angelina set her burden carefully on the floor and stood up, smiling at her audience. Beside her sat a plaster bulldog, almost life size, with a piratical scowl painted on his black muzzle.
“Don’t scold me,” she appealed to the room, “wouldn’t he be lovely as a stand for bulletins? And I do think these days symbols are important.”
“Wherever are you going to put it?” Selina glanced helplessly from corner to corner; it was so like Angelina to spend money on a thing like that when they did not know where the rent was coming from. Oh, why were some people born with a sense of responsibility and others utterly, completely, and finally without it?
“Well, he’s too large for the mantelpiece”—Angelina looked lovingly at her partner’s desk—“you don’t think, Selina, if we moved the ledgers?”
“I am sure he would resent so obscure a position.”
“What about standing him in the fireplace?” Mrs. Spenser suggested, watching the Tippett’s embarrassment with delight. “Where did you find him?”
Angelina swept off the beret that was worn only as a concession to the weather and ran her hand over the short, white hair that made a felt cap of her head. “In a salvage sale, opposite the Food Office. I can’t keep a dog, I know, in the raids, but it’s so cheerless without one. I was afraid at first that you might be tempted to call him Winnie, but then I thought, no, here is an emblem of the whole of us, so gentle, so determined …”
“… and so stubborn.”
Angelina glanced up suspiciously, but Mrs. Spenser appeared to be perfectly serious. “Stubborn! Oh, I see what you mean, we don’t leave go, whatever happens. I should have thought that a better word was resolution. He must have a name, though. I shall call him Beowulf.”
“How gallant, Miss Hawkins, but I’m sure he is a gallant dog.” Angelina glared at Horatio, whom she loathed. Plaster is such bad taste, his mind was saying. “I bought him,” she retorted, “not as a symbol of gallantry but of common sense.”
An ugly woman, Horatio thought, and how she bullied her conscientious little partner, but at his age it was essential to keep upon friendly terms with everyone. “Ah, but you must not grudge us poor artists the luxury of dreaming about happier, courtlier days.”
“I am sure Beowulf’s monster wasn’t courtly,” she sniffed, bending down to lug the plaster object into the fireplace. An old fool like that would not know his history nor that Beowulf, unlike Drake, could be accepted by the proletariat. Had he not fought the dragon (merely a symbol no doubt for Viking dictatorship) to save the whole people? “You are right, Mrs. Spenser, the fireplace is just as good as a kennel.” They all giggled at her little joke. “You know, I envy, I positively envy, that ribbon in your hat to make a collar for him.”
Adelaide started forward, in mock haste. “Come along, Alice, I see it is time we moved.” She patted the head in passing, “Good-bye, Beowulf, guard us well.” Poor dear Miss Hawkins, how much happier she would be running a herbal garden with a terrier at her heels, yet how much more alive she was, though in a funny, childish way, than either Alice or the prim old Tippett! The preposterous bulldog that should have been simply vulgar really gave the bleak, dingy room an air of gaiety. He matched the feeding bowls, the “dog meals sixpence,” and the faded views of country cottages to be let that still decorated the shelf over the counter.
Selina walked over to the window and looked at the cakes. She supposed that they would have to restrict them one to each customer like the other places in the district. But it would almost break her heart. Life ought to be generous, she felt, wildly generous. That notice on the wall, “Careless Talk Costs Lives,” always reminded her of a morning in the last war when she had stood in line for hours to get new ration books. How bad-tempered Miss Humphries had been when she had got back late for lunch; the poor old lady had even hinted that Selina had spent the morning with Angelina, of whom she was so jealous. There were days when peace seemed the quick half-dreams she had if she woke up too soon and dropped off again for a few moments, and war was Time in all its ponderous duration. Yes, in spite of bombs, she would always see war as a queue and a yellow form with blank lines that had to be filled up with the stub of a broken pencil. People must live, but sometimes, waiting in line, she wondered why. She hoped that this wasn’t what the Vicar called “questioning God’s purpose,” but she really was puzzled. A remote hand of destiny hovered overhead, something that even the Government was unable to understand; and as a result, cakes were cut, they were down to thirty-seven lunches instead of a hundred and seventy, and the fewer meals they served, the more people seemed to eat. Perhaps she would feel better once the afternoon post had arrived. Oh, dear, what was the cause of the war and why had Angelina bought that appalling dog? It cheapened, really it did, the whole atmosphere; and how shrewd of her to bring it back at just that moment! She could not reproach her partner in front of both customers and staff.
“Excuse me, madam!” Selina looked up at Ruby, who was waiting by her desk. She was fingering a crumpled overall, one that was kept, normally, only for washing up.
“I see, madam, you’re wondering why I’ve got this on? It’s to save my black. You never really get the grease out of a dark skirt.”
“No, I suppose not,” Selina stared suspiciously at Ruby’s Sunday clothes; they never came out on weekdays except for some ceremony, usually a funeral.
“If it’s the same to you, madam, could I take my afternoon off today?”
“Why, certainly, if you can change with Cook.” There was undying feud between the staff, kept in check by another of Selina’s rules: never interfere in quarrels and never take sides.
“Considering the circumstances, Cook is quite willing.” Ruby began to sniff. “You see, it’s mee poor friend Connie.”
“I hope nothing has happened to her.”
Tears began to roll down Ruby’s cheeks, but instead of looking for her handkerchief she clutched her overall. “It was last night, madam. We had it awful bad our way. Do you know the Green Man at the corner of Station Road? It had two bombs on it. Parlour and all, there isn’t a fragment left; it was just blown to debridge.”
“Dear me, how tragic! I’m afraid I don’t know the neighbourhood. And your friend? Was she … ah, at the Green Man?”
“Oh, madam, no!” Ruby was shocked and reproachful. “That’s a public house and Connie never went to no pubs. She had the Stewdier opposite.”
“The Studio?” Selina had a vision of a photographer’s window full of big studies of grinning boys in uniform and those incredible postcards of little girls in white satin.
“Yes, madam, a Stewdier. Connie made the best jellied eels I ever tasted in mee life. Mee ’usband and I are partial to a bit of eel of a Saturday night. The last time I saw Connie,” Ruby gulped and dragged out a handkerchief at last, “she told me that the war had upset the supply like and she didn’t know ’ow she would keep going.”
Dear me, Selina pondered, why does Ruby pronounce whole sentences correctly and why as suddenly does stewed eel become stewdier? How fascinating dialects would be if one had the time for them. Still, this was a moment for sympathy, not study.
“There’s bricks from it,” Ruby commented with mournful satisfaction, “right the other end of the road. They turned the buses off this morning, that was why I was late; but I could see the blue flag, that means they’re digging for corpses. There won’t be anything left to bury but I thought if I went and stood there in mee black, it would show my respect for Connie. So I’ll take mee afternoon today, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, of course,” Selina said hastily. Somehow the idea had all the paralyzing quality of the raids themselves. It had come out of the fibre of old, roistering, plague-ridden London. Perhaps she had overdone her refusal to listen to bomb stories; it might relieve the mind. What a difference there was, however, between the inexorable earthiness of Ruby and those timorous lady customers who flustered everybody, asking, “Will they come tonight?” “Standing in my black”—what a pity she could not rush to Angelina and tell her all about it. It made her partner’s foolish purchase all the more annoying. Selina sighed, got up, locked the outside door, and hung up the sign, “Closed from two to three.” There would be just time to check over the ledger before they began on teas. She opened the book, but the silent room made her jumpy. If only Angelina had not bought that dog! Her hand jerked (she really must get some mittens to keep her fingers warm; surely in wartime they would be permissible) and her pencil rolled onto the floor. As she stooped to pick it up she found herself staring into Beowulf’s deep-set eyes. “Angelina,” she shouted, “Angelina, you must come downstairs.”
That placid, overfat plaster jowl was simply sneering at her. It was ridiculous to get as nervous as this; perhaps she had better go and make herself a cup of herb tea. Life—and she did not care whether the Vicar approved of it or not—life was simply unendurable.