Guy gave me an almost imperceptible raise of an eyebrow and then stood up to meet his new boss. “Mrs. Porter,” he said, sounding awfully professional and using a slightly lower voice than usual, “how do you do?”
Mrs. Porter looked at him from under her hat and then blinked. “How do you do?” she said softly. Then she blinked at him rather quickly twice more. I watched, mesmerised, as she appeared to be batting her eyelashes. “I thought you might be old and rather frightening,” she continued, “but your wonderful Miss Lake promised me that you’re not in the least.”
I smiled limply.
“Miss Lake is very kind,” said Guy.
Mrs. Porter reached across and squeezed my arm as if we were the closest friends. I wondered if I had inadvertently declared some sort of lifelong allegiance to her in the one minute since we had met.
I hadn’t a clue what was happening, but it was impossible not to be charmed. I wondered if she was having the same effect on Guy.
“Please, do sit down, Mrs. Porter,” he said. “May I offer you a glass of water?”
He could as well have offered her the finest champagne. Mrs. Porter said how lovely that sounded, but she had just had the most wonderful lunch. “We had the scallops,” she added.
“Marvellous,” said Guy. “Now, Mrs. Porter, may I—”
“Stop!” cried Mrs. Porter. “You must call me Egg. Absolutely everyone does. But I shall call you Mr. Collins, because you are in charge.”
She looked thrilled.
“Oh,” said Guy, looking slightly less ecstatic. “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Por—”
“Egg!” cried Mrs. Porter again, sitting down at the table. “And we shall be friends.”
Guy’s expression gave nothing away. We had of course talked about what our new owner might be like, but being told to call her Egg and becoming best friends had not been discussed.
“What a day this is,” Guy said, which could have meant anything. “Now, I don’t know how much time you have, but we thought you might like to hear our current plans for the magazine. I imagine you’ve been through the financial side, although naturally I can run you through whatever you are keenest to know.”
Mrs. Porter laid her hand on his arm. “Not at all,” she said. “I’m sure that sort of thing very much looks after itself. I’ve hardly had a chance to read your darling magazine yet. Of course I have the current issue, which is such a delight—the article on making a child’s toy out of felt was quite the sweetest thing, but I must confess to a failure on my part not to have been a regular reader to date.” She said to date with great sincerity. “There is one thing,” she added, “and that is that I should very much love to meet all your staff.” Now she reached over to me and patted my arm again. “I want everyone to know how super I think your magazine is and what a tremendous job you are all doing. They mustn’t worry about a thing. I shall just say hello and then leave you all to carry on doing whatever it is that you do. Oh, it is exciting, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Porter turned her thousand-kilowatt smile on us both.
“Very much so,” I said, strongly. It was impossible not to be swept along with her enthusiasm. I noticed Guy smile ever so slightly at me and then nod respectfully at his publisher.
“Indeed,” he said, standing up. “Shall we?”
Cressida “Egg” Porter smiled at him as if she had fallen quite entirely in love.
“Thank you,” she whispered, lowering her eyes.
I leapt to my feet to open the door and Mrs. Porter glided into the corridor, leaving Guy to follow in her wake. He had just a second to glance across at me and give the faintest of winks before guiding Mrs. Porter along to her right.
“Might I suggest we begin with the Art Department?” he said smoothly. “And two of our most long-serving and highly respected members of staff?”
Half an hour later, it was apparent that the sheer force of Mrs. Porter’s delight at finding herself the owner of a magazine had knocked the entire Woman’s Friend team for six. Having been given the full tour, other than Guy’s own office, even though Mrs. Porter had accused him of not sharing where the “real magic” of publishing took place, everyone congregated in the journalists’ room so that Mrs. Porter could say a few words.
At this point the only word I could find to describe the general expression of all of us was groggy, as if we had gone mad on fine wines or loitered for too long in the perfume section in Selfridges. Everything around Mrs. Porter was rather giddy and fuzzy and entirely otherworldly.
It wasn’t just me. Being with her seemed to make people who didn’t usually say things like How lovely suddenly start saying, “How lovely.”
Perhaps it was because we had all been expecting someone rather full of herself, or it could have been that despite the odd idiosyncrasy such as Mrs. Pye’s penchant for French, we were a down-to-earth crowd and not used to someone wafting in from The Dorchester and telling us how adorable we all were.
Mrs. Mahoney was smiley and polite, which I knew meant she was reserving judgement, while Mr. Brand looked understandably unsure when Mrs. Porter told him his illustrations for next week’s lead romance story were worthy of the Louvre. Hester’s eyes became permanent soup plates, and at one point I thought Mrs. Pye might actually genuflect when Mrs. Porter admired her frock.
Mrs. Shaw and Miss Peters both lost the power of speech, and it was left to Mr. Newton to show a hitherto unknown strength of character and ask Mrs. Porter if she had enjoyed her lunch. When Mrs. Porter confirmed that she had, everyone looked about as glad as if they’d heard a loved one had been the last person saved off the Titanic.
It was the oddest day of my working life.
“Mrs. Porter would like to say a few words,” said Guy, who was holding fast against the intoxication going on all around.
Mrs. Porter said, “If I may,” very shyly, even though she was the one who had suggested it and it was the whole point of Guy taking her to meet everyone.
“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you what it has meant to me to meet you all. You have made me feel so very welcome.” The entire team nodded, but none of us knew if we were supposed to say anything, so we looked at Guy.
“It is our pleasure,” he said, managing not to add, “What is wrong with you all?” which I had a feeling he might be thinking.
Mrs. Porter did another of her big blinks at him.
“You have all been so kind to me that I already feel as if…”—she paused for a moment and then clasped her hands together—“this is my home. I hope,” she added, while I couldn’t help thinking that our tiny little offices were probably absolutely nothing like Mrs. Porter’s home in the least, “you will not mind if I pop back to see you another time.” She looked at Guy. “I am afraid I must fly, as I have an engagement. I am so proud to be your new owner, even though I can never even dream to come near to your experience and talents. Thank you.”
Mrs. Porter ended with a flourish of modesty and we all broke into applause because it felt the right thing to do, and anyway, we were now so inebriated we had completely forgotten that rounds of applause didn’t happen in a normal office on an average Tuesday afternoon.
“Thank you, Mrs. Porter,” said Guy. “Let me show you down to your car. Thank you all.”
Then, and in a cloud of wonderfuls and oh it’s so lovelys from Mrs. Porter, he escorted her away.
There were a few seconds of silence until we heard the office doors shut.
“Divine,” said Mrs. Pye faintly.
“She liked your frock,” said Hester, sounding impressed.
“Divine,” said Mrs. Pye again.
“A lovely lady,” said Mr. Newton. “If I can say that in the most respectful of ways.”
“Do you think Mrs. Porter knows the royal family?” said Miss Peters. “Only don’t you feel that she probably does?”
“Breeding,” said Mrs. Shaw. “That’s what it is. They talk to everyone as if they are equals. That’s what they say about the King and Queen.”
“We are all equals,” said Mrs. Mahoney. “Other than their majesties, of course.”
A hubbub of opinion broke out with everyone speaking at once and Mrs. Porter getting mixed up in a general debate about the aristocracy and how everything in society was going to change after the war.
When Guy returned a few moments later, emotions were high. Guy, though, was a picture of calm. “Well done, everyone,” he said. “Mrs. Porter said to say once again how very impressed she was.”
I had a feeling Guy had probably reached a full tank as far as excitable hyperbole went for one afternoon.
“Mr. Collins, when shall we see Mrs. Porter again, do you think?” asked Hester.
“I’ve no idea,” said Guy, underestimating the impression Mrs. Porter had made. “She said you all put her mind entirely to rest, so perhaps not for some time.”
Hester’s face fell, as did those of one or two of the older members of the team.
“She did ask if we could send her some back copies,” he added, “so could you see what we have, please. I have a forwarding address. And now we’d all better crack on. Well done, again.”
Guy then left to go off to a meeting, and it was something of a relief to get back to the quiet of my desk and focus on work. Being in the company of Mrs. Porter was rather exhausting.
I sat down in my chair and paused for a moment before starting to tackle the towering piles of letters in front of me. I wondered what Mrs. Porter would make of our problem page. I was sure that rich and titled people had their fair share of concerns, as the war and the losses it brought meant difficult challenges for people from all walks of life. But there was no doubt that while we were all in it together, things were not the same for everyone, not by a long chalk.
Mrs. Porter had been delightful and more than generous in her praise for us, but her world seemed a million miles away from the vast majority of problems we received.
I leaned forward and took a pile of readers’ letters from the URGENT box, hoping to make a decent stab at getting through them by the end of the day. As I carefully opened the first and read through it, it brought me back to the real world with a serious crash. If Mrs. Porter’s visit had been like spending half an hour in fairyland, this reader’s reality was a horror story.
Dear Yours Cheerfully,
I am writing for your help, as I am desperate. I am married to a man who has a horrible temper. He is in the army now but posted near where we live, and when he comes home, which is most days, he expects little presents all the time and fancy food. I know that might not sound much, but it’s impossible to get hold of anything like that these days, even if we did have the money. It takes almost nothing for him to get very angry with me, and then he gets violent.
I have five children and they are all very scared of him. I manage to keep them out of his way as much as I can, but I am so worried he will turn on them.
I have a friend who says I could get away from him and ask for a divorce, but I don’t know if I dare. Can you help me? I’m sorry I can’t give you my address or real name. I don’t know what he would do if he found out about me writing to you.
Yours,
Mrs. “Enid Smith”
It was far from the first time I had read a letter like this, but it made me sick to my stomach, nevertheless. I would make sure we could find enough room to put some advice into the very next issue, and hope that Enid would be able to escape. What I really wanted to do was go round to wherever she lived and get her and her children out as fast as I could. The postmark on the envelope said Northampton, but there was no other clue to her identity.
This was the sort of problem I knew I would never get used to. There was only so much I could do, and there was never enough room in the magazine to help everyone who needed it. “We can only do our best,” I said to myself, “and leave it at work when we go home.”
This was something Mrs. Mahoney had taught me. Neither of us was any good at the second part. It was the part of my job that I struggled with the most. I hated leaving problems behind. Or rather, I hated having to walk away from women like Enid.
I thought for several moments and carefully typed a reply. More than anything, I hoped that Enid had somewhere safe where she and her children could go. Then I picked up her letter and went off to see Mrs. Mahoney. If anyone could squeeze an extra letter onto a page it was her. She and I had worked together on the problem page until I had taken it over, and there was no one more sympathetic to someone in trouble like this. The look on my face as I handed her the letter gave it away.
“Poor lass,” she said, shaking her head as she read it. “Leave it to me.”
If not being able to help with letters like this was the worst part of my job, working with Mrs. Mahoney was one of the very best.
It had been quite a day.
At the end of the afternoon, I reached for my hat and bag, and having said goodbye to my work friends, headed home. I would just have time to make a sandwich and quickly change into my Fire Service uniform before heading off to join Thelma on the telephones. If anything would help leave the sadness of the Woman’s Friend problem page behind, it would be spending the evening with her. I was well aware of how lucky I was, living with Bunty, and now to be joined by Thel and the children. Tonight it was a stark contrast indeed.
Once safely on the bus, I bagged the nearest seat and opened a letter from my friend Anne that I had picked up from the doormat before leaving the house earlier that day. As it was a fat package, I guessed it probably included a drawing by her daughter, Ruby, who was nearly six and keen on art, but when I turned the envelope over to open it, I noticed that the back had not been stuck down properly and a picture postcard had become wedged inside. The front had a cartoon picture of the outside of some English pubs and writing that said I’m taking my medicine!
Intrigued, I flipped it over, and not recognising the handwriting, scanned the card.
Dear Bunty
This in haste to thank you for your kind letter.
I was very pleased that you remembered me from when Bill introduced me to you and Emmy that time. I really am getting better, thank you.
Tea would be terrific! I’m back in London next week and will call you then.
Best wishes,
Harold
I gave a little gasp.
Harold?
Tea? Bunty? Terrific?
This was news!
Feeling guilty for reading a card meant for my friend, but also finding it rather intriguing, I covered it over with my hand.
Harold. I looked at the card again. Bill introduced me to you and Emmy. I racked my brain, and then it came to me. Just before I met Charles, Bunty and her fiancé, Bill, had tried to match me up with one of Bill’s old college friends—Harold. While he and I had not hit it off romantically, I remembered him as a smashing chap, a huge, friendly mountain of a man. As far as I knew, Bunty had not heard from him after Bill died, but from this postcard I assumed they had recently been in touch.
And now they were going to have tea. This was very cheery news. Romantic even, despite Bunts being very happy as she was, of course.
The only problem was that now I was going to have to sneak the postcard back onto the table at home, pretend I hadn’t seen it, and then feign total surprise should Bunty mention it.
Thelma was going to love this.
I looked out of the window and smiled to myself. The bus couldn’t get me back home fast enough.