Henrietta's War Read online

  Colonel Simpkins said soothingly that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  February 21, 1940

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  A few days ago I took Mr Perry for a walk along the sea-front as far as the rocks. You couldn’t call it a spring day, but it was the sort of day which makes you feel that spring may not be so very far away after all. Mr Perry, who hates the cold, was frisking along in a light-hearted manner, looking very handsome in his little coat, and a redshank on the marsh was giving its strange, questioning cry. I was just trying to decide whether it was saying ‘Why?’ or ‘Who?’ when I saw Faith rushing along the path towards me. She was gasping for breath and her face was quite white.

  ‘What is it?’ I cried.

  ‘Mine!’ gasped Faith, seizing me with both hands.

  ‘What is yours, Faith, dear?’ I said gently, for indeed, Robert, I had begun to think she had lost her reason.

  ‘Mine, you fool!’ she shouted, and with one shaking hand she pointed towards the sea. Then she pushed me aside and rushed on.

  I looked where she had pointed and there, bobbing up and down not far from the shore, and drifting steadily towards the rocks, was a large, round, black object.

  I stood rooted to the spot with horror, and felt the palms of my hands go damp. Nobody in the world is more frightened of being blown up than I, but there is just one thing I am more frightened of still, and that is a big BANG. To my mind, when threatened with a bang there is only one thing to do, and I did it. I sat down on the ground, put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes tightly, and began singing the ‘Pilgrims’ Chorus’ out of Tannhäuser as loudly as I could.

  Mr Perry came and sniffed delicately at my ear, and I stopped singing for one moment to say, ‘Go home, Perry, darling,’ and opened one corner of my eye to see him saunter off in a nonchalant manner. Then I began singing again.

  How long I sat there I do not know, but it seemed hours, and I was beginning to get very hoarse when I felt a light tap on my shoulder and opened my eyes to see Colonel Simpkins bending down and peering at me with a red, anxious face.

  ‘My dear lady!’ he said. ‘Are you ill?’

  Without stopping singing, I pointed at the sea. The mine was now only a few feet from the rocks.

  ‘Good God!’ said Colonel Simpkins, and then he began methodically emptying his pockets. First he took out a gold half-hunter watch, then his money, a note-case, his ration-books and his identity-card and laid them in my lap. Then he removed his Special Constable’s badge and put it with the other things.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I cried, but his reply was inaudible.

  ‘I can’t hear what you’re saying!’ I yelled.

  ‘Then take your fingers out of your ears,’ he shouted irritably, and began walking down the beach.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that, Colonel Simpkins!’ I shrieked. ‘Oh, please, please! Think of Mrs Simpkins!’

  ‘You get down the other side of that bank and cut along,’ he said kindly, and walked on.

  ‘Oh, what a tiresome old man you are!’ I cried, capering about on the bank with my fingers in my ears. How could I cut along and leave him to be blown to smithereens? And yet, on the other hand, how, oh, how could I find the courage to follow him?

  Suddenly a large wave lifted the mine in the air and swept it towards the rocks. I uttered a loud scream and took a flying leap down the other side of the bank. The next thing I remember was Colonel Simpkins forcibly removing my fingers from my ears and telling me that it wasn’t a mine, but a barrel.

  ‘I rather suspected it from the first,’ he said.

  ‘Then why did you remove all your valuables?’ I said crossly, helping him to pick them up, for they were scattered all over the path.

  By the way, Robert, is there a Special Medal for Special Constables?

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  ‘ Think of Mrs Simdkins’

  March 6, 1940

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  We have had a jumble sale to collect money for the Sewing Bee, which has sewn with such industry that it has run short of flannel. The sale was conducted with terrifying efficiency by Mrs Savernack, and enough money was raised to buy flannel for at least a million hot-water-bottle covers, not to mention shirts and pyjamas. Lady B says that had she known jumble possibilities, she’d have had one for herself years ago.

  And immediately looked like a fashion-plate

  We had a White Elephant Stall, too, and it did a roaring trade in Indian brass bowls, brass trays, and little brass figures of animals which people, who now have to do their own housework, have got tired of cleaning. Some of our drawing-rooms now have a sad, depleted look, but better six Polish shirts than one Benares tray, as Mrs Simpkins said bravely when she saw her favourite piece borne away by the charwoman.

  Faith took a fancy to a jumble hat and insisted upon buying it. Mrs Savernack made her pay five shillings for it, though it was marked at sixpence, which I thought rather unfair, but Faith said it was cheap at the price. Lying there with the jumble it looked an awful hat, but Faith gave it a tweak and a pinch and put it on her head, and immediately looked like a fashion-plate. And some people think her stupid!

  On Sunday, when I was out for a walk, a sudden gleam of sunshine on the sea made me sit down on the leeward side of the shelter to enjoy it.

  In there already was a master from the preparatory school which has evacuated itself upon us, and some boys in red caps. He was reading to them out of the Sunday paper about the boarding of the Altmark, and if it had been a Boy’s Book of Adventure it couldn’t have been more exciting. When he got to the part where the sailors said, ‘Are there any British down there?’ and the prisoners shouted, ‘Yes!’ and the sailors said, ‘The Navy is here,’ the little boys cheered shrilly. I wanted to cheer too, but I knew it would have embarrassed them if I had. Ladies mustn’t cheer, so I didn’t. Then the questions began.

  ‘They jumped down on the Altmark’s deck, didn’t they, Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Peter.’

  ‘With cutlasses, Sir?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Oh, Sir! In their teeth, Sir?’

  ‘They might have.’

  ‘Coo!’

  ‘I’m going into the Navy,’ said one little boy truculently.

  ‘You’ll have to work harder at your arithmetic, Colin, or you won’t pass the exam,’ said the master, rather brutally.

  ‘You wanted to go into the Navy yourself, didn’t you, Sir?’ said Colin, pulling the master off his high horse with one fiendish tug.

  ‘Yes. I got ploughed for my eyesight.’

  ‘Didn’t those chaps have anything to eat but black bread and tea, Sir?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And no milk or sugar in the tea, Sir?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Germans are dirty swine, aren’t they, Sir?’

  ‘Well – ’

  ‘So are the Norwegians, aren’t they, Sir? Because they knew all the time our chaps were on board, didn’t they, Sir?’

  ‘Well –’ ‘

  ‘They are dirty swine, aren’t they, Sir?’

  The master looked round the shelter like a hunted stag, and I got up and walked away. I thought he might find it easier to answer these questions if I wasn’t there.

  My dear Robert, had you ever thought what problems this beastly war must cause to teachers of History who love both their country and the Truth?

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  March 13, 1940

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  This has been Marmalade Week. Every housewife in the place has been going about with a wild look in her eye and sticky fingers, and as you walked down the street a delicious smell of boiling oranges came wafting from kitchen windows.

  This year, thanks to our Adolf, it is a rough-and-r
eady sort of brew, and my heart goes out to dear old Mrs Simpkins, whose marmalade, cut up by hand and with two pounds of sugar to every pint of pulp, used to be her pride and joy.

  Faith, who must be in the mode or die, became Marmalade-Conscious for the first time in her life. Up till now, except for eating it at breakfast every morning, she has left the whole thing in the hands of her capable cook, but this year sugar became a burning question that it was impossible to ignore. She was further inspired by a picture in a sales catalogue of a particularly fetching sort of smock entitled ‘When my Lady goes a-Cooking’, and sent for one in powder-blue.

  ‘I am making the marmalade myself this year,’ she said nonchalantly one afternoon at the Sewing Bee.

  Every woman in the room laid down her needle and said, ‘How much?’

  ‘Oh, about eighty pounds,’ said Faith airily, without looking up from the rather bad herring-boning she was doing on a bed-jacket.

  There was silence while people counted up the members of Faith’s household and did a short sum in their heads.

  ‘Where are you going to get the extra sugar from?’ said Mrs Savernack, who always does sums quicker than anybody else.

  ‘Aha!’ said Faith roguishly.

  There was a lot of ugly muttering in corners after this, and several people said that Admiral Marsdon, our Food Controller, who is one of Faith’s most ardent admirers, ought to be reported to the police.

  ‘Where did you get the sugar, Faith?’ said Lady B as we walked home afterwards, but Faith only laughed and asked us to what she was pleased to call a Marmalade Rout on the following Thursday.

  Admiral Marsdon, who hands round the bag in church, is one of those people on whose integrity one would stake one’s very life; but when Lady B and I saw him walking up the drive in front of us on the day of the Marmalade Rout, we both had twinges of doubt.

  ‘Wonderful little woman, isn’t she?’ he whispered to me in the hall.

  ‘Wonderful!’ I said bitterly, thinking of my meagre row of jars, and Charles, to whom marmalade is dearer than life itself.

  In the kitchen we found Faith, looking quite lovely in her powder-blue smock, and the Conductor, looking fatuous. On the table was a pile of oranges which nearly reached to the ceiling, and a perfectly inadequate supply of sugar.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the sugar?’ said Lady B.

  ‘Aha!’ said Faith.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying “Aha”!’ I said crossly.

  ‘She’s got some special method,’ whispered the Admiral, his face alight with admiration. ‘I’m here really in an official capacity – as Food Controller, you know.’

  Lady B and I exchanged guilty looks. To think we had so cruelly misjudged one who hands the Bag.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ said Faith, and the Admiral and the Conductor clapped, ‘I will now disclose my methods, and I really can’t think why none of you thought of it before. There it is!’

  With a sweeping gesture she pointed to two rows of little bottles on the dresser. Lady B picked one up and peered at it closely. Then she handed it to me in silence . . . It was saccharine.

  Stirred steadily in waltz-time

  Faith was a little disappointed when we told her that her method wouldn’t work, but took it in good part, and the Marmalade Rout, which ended in making thirty pounds instead of eighty, became quite a hilarious party, with cocktails at the end. We all put on aprons and helped. The Conductor turned out to be quite a Marmalade King in his way, and stirred steadily in waltz-time to the Jewel Song from Faust.

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  P.S. Lady B’s granddaughter Hilary is home on leave. She has become a Cook-Sergeant-Major in the V.A.D.s, and Lady B is entranced.

  March 20, 1940

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  Whatever the meetings of our Drama Club may be, they are certainly not dull. Our club has the charming and original custom of leaving the choice of a play to the members themselves, instead of to a committee, and though this leads to a certain amount of confusion and delay, it adds a good deal to the gaiety and excitement of the members’ lives; and, after all, what else is a Drama Club for?

  ‘Now, about a play for the spring,’ said the chairman.

  ‘Charley’s Aunt,’ said Colonel Simpkins loudly.

  ‘I suggest a Noël Coward play,’ said Faith, conscious that she had the clothes to carry it off. ‘What about Design for Living?’

  ‘It’s very improper,’ said Savernack.

  ‘It’s very funny,’ said Faith.

  ‘Whatever happens, we must keep this club clean,’ said the Admiral, looking as he does when he stands at the end of a pew waiting for the bag to come to him.

  ‘I always think Private Lives sounds a nice, homely play,’ said old Mrs Simpkins. ‘Not that I’ve seen it, of course.’

  ‘What about Cavalcade?’

  ‘Wouldn’t the train be rather difficult?’

  After this there was silence until a stranger got up and said, ‘Mr Chairman,’ in a contralto voice which commanded attention. I could only see her top half, which was hung with beads and suggested that the bottom half had a longish skirt and sandals.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I whispered.

  ‘Mrs Whinebite’ whispered Lady B. ‘Taken Gorse View for six months.’

  ‘My suggestion for the club,’ said the new tenant of Gorse View, ‘is “Mourning Becomes Electra”.’

  ‘Isn’t it rather long?’ said the Conductor, who was the only other person in the room who had ever heard of it.

  ‘It lasts four hours,’ said Mrs Whinebite.

  ‘Good God!’ said Colonel Simpkins.

  ‘I don’t think people would like missing their dinners,’ said Lady B, who certainly wouldn’t like missing hers.

  ‘We might have a snack-bar,’ said Faith. ‘Ah, but would they let us have a licence?’

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please,’ said the chairman. ‘What is the subject of this play?’ he said, turning to Mrs Whinebite.

  ‘Incest,’ she said simply.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Lady B.

  ‘I will have this club kept CLEAN!’ shouted the Admiral.

  ‘If this club isn’t prepared to do Good Stuff, then it isn’t worth bothering about,’ said Mrs Whinebite.

  ‘I will have this club kept CLEAN!’

  ‘If you call a lot of perverted balderdash Good Stuff, Madam, then I’m sorry for you,’ said the Admiral stiffly.

  ‘Sir! You have insulted my wife!’ said a little man shrilly from the back of the hall.

  Here we had the makings of a Good Row, and there is nothing our club enjoys more. Knitting was laid aside, and several people who had been asleep woke up, and said, ‘What’s happening?’ in a pleased and excited way.

  ‘I’m sure Admiral Marsdon intended nothing of the sort, Madam,’ said the chairman but was interrupted by Mrs Whinebite and her husband leaving the hall.

  I was surprised to see that she wore high-heeled shoes and a short skirt, which just shows that you can’t judge people’s bottom halves by their tops.

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  March 27, 1940

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  Meat rationing is not in full swing. As a matter of fact, it has turned out to be a good deal better than we feared, but during the first week we were all convinced that we wouldn’t get nearly enough to eat, and we endured strange and unnecessary privations. Never having been what you might call carnivorous, it was not the smashing blow to me that it was to some, especially as I could have curried lentils and rice as often as I liked.

  But Charles is one of those people who like what is called good, simple English fare, which means two nice lamb cutlets, followed by kidneys on toast, and in case the news has not reached you on your far-flung battle-line, Robert, I may as well tell you that kidneys, though not actually rationed, are more precious than rubies these days. T
hough he is far too noble to grumble, he does look a little wistfully at the unlikely-looking dishes which are put before him.

  ‘What is this, Henrietta?’

  ‘Well, dear, it’s a tiny teeny little bit of mutton mixed up with some spaghetti and tomatoes.’

  ‘I see.’

  Lady B, who is wonderful cook, is perfectly happy tossing up one delicious omelette after another.

  Mrs Savernack, that woman of action, took out a gun-licence. If she can’t get meat at the butcher’s, she will go out and shoot it. The rabbits which for years gambolled happily in the fields at the back of the Savernacks’ house have received a rude awakening, and Mrs Savernack, flushed with success, has begun to turn her thoughts to bigger game. Farmer Barnes, wisely perhaps, has moved his cows to another field.

  But the one who is really enjoying the meat rationing is Mrs Whinebite. Not that it actually makes any difference to her, for she and the unhappy Julius have been vegetarians of the most violent order for years, but it gives her the chance to show off in the way vegetarians are so fond of doing. She wanders about the countryside, singing folk-songs, with her hair coming down and her hands full of the most revolting fungi.

  ‘Surely you’re not going to eat those?’ said Lady B, her eyes wide with horror, when we met Mrs Whinebite one day in Harper’s Woods.

  ‘Why not, dear lady?’

  ‘Because they look poisonous to me,’ said Lady B.

  ‘They may look poisonous to you,’ said Mrs Whinebite, ‘but as a matter of fact they are extremely nourishing as well as delicious. Julius and I have practically lived on fungi ever since we were married, and we haven’t had a doctor in the house for ten years. Not once!’ she said, looking at me defiantly.

  I said how nice.

  ‘If everybody lived as we do,’ said Mrs Whinebite with triumph, ‘your husband wouldn’t have any patients.’

  I said I supposed people would still break their legs from time to time.

  ‘Break their legs!’ she said scornfully, and made a dive for a vermilion mushroom growing from the root of a dead tree.

  Colonel Simpkins always does the shopping for Mrs Simpkins, and I met him yesterday on the hill with his basket.