Henrietta Sees It Through (13 page)

‘Three Dots and a Dash,' said Faith dreamily. ‘It sounds like Quads.'

The Conductor gave a strangled cry and Lady B patted him on the knee.

‘Well,' I said, ‘I wish my knitting looked as much like a baby's bootee as the Conductor's crochet looks like a pram rug.'

Everybody looked at my knitting in silence. It was slightly grey from repeated unravellings, and not in the least like a baby's bootee, or anything else.

‘You must persevere,' said Lady B. ‘The only thing with that sort of knitting on two needles is to follow the directions blindly. Sometimes it suddenly turns out all right.'

We worked in silence for a little, and then the Conductor went to get Faith's Ovaltine. Lady B and I watched wistfully while she drank it.

‘Is it nice, Faith?'

‘
Delicious
!'

‘She gets extra meat, too,' said the Conductor proudly.

‘If anybody gets extra milk, it ought to be Henrietta - she's so thin,' said Lady B.

‘Henrietta is one of the people who are not worth preserving in the world today,' said Faith. ‘She isn't going to have a Baby, and she isn't doing War Work.'

‘She looks after Charles,' said Lady B.

‘Lots of us could look after darling Charles,' said Faith. ‘He had a hole in his sock yesterday.'

I was just thinking of a stinging retort, when suddenly my knitting came out. ‘Look, look!' I cried. ‘It
is
a bootee!'

And so it was, Robert.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

December 1, 1943

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

Although you are the same age as I am and therefore it is not the slightest use trying to persuade you that I am in my early thirties, I am not going to tell you which week I had to go and register, because I don't see why the Censor, who is no doubt enjoying this letter, should know the horrid truth.

Anyhow, when the Saturday for the forty-you-know-whats arrived, I had to leave my work undone, and a cold lunch for poor Charles, and mount the bus for a Journey to our Cathedral City which was most assuredly not Really Necessary.

‘Are you going to Register?' I whispered to Mrs Whinebite, who came and sat beside me.

Mrs Whinebite looked at me with cold dislike.

‘I am going to the dentist,' she said. ‘I registered
ages
ago.'

‘I suppose you're all off to Register?' said little Mrs Simpkins, getting in, rather out of breath, with her shopping basket. ‘Ah, me! What a thing it is to be young!'

‘Register?' said Mrs Savernack in her loud voice. ‘You must be younger than I thought, Henrietta.'

‘My dear, I
am
surprised,' said the Admiral, leaning confidentially towards me. ‘I had no idea you were so long in the tooth.'

These remarks saddened me, and quite spoilt my ride in the bus, which I usually enjoy.

At the Labour Exchange I was interviewed by a Young Person whose lips were painted where her lips were not.

‘Have you any children under fourteen?'

‘No.'

‘Any help in your house?'

‘Part-time help.'

‘How many people do you look after?'

‘One.'

The Young Person, looking disdainful, wrote down the answers. ‘Here's an Idle Creature, I could see her saying to herself, and I had to admit that from the answers I had given there seemed no reason why I shouldn't be whipped into a factory tomorrow. I opened my mouth to explain about Charles, and the secretary, and Matin's departure, and Evensong's chest, and the garden, and then I shut it again. There's not to reason why, there's but to make reply at interviews of this kind, and I shall enjoy another ride in the bus, and a jaunt to our Cathedral City to explain these matters later on.

I was interviewed by a Young Person

‘Your Registration Number?' said the Young Person.

I felt myself getting pink. ‘I'm afraid I've done a very silly thing,' I said. ‘I've left my identification card at home.'

‘Can't you remember the number?'

‘No.'

The Young Person gave me a Look. ‘What were you before you were a housewife?' she said patiently.

‘An artist.' The word echoed sadly round the bare little room, and several of the forty-you-know-whats, who were waiting, leant forward to get a better look.

When I came out Mrs Whinebite was furtively crossing the road to the Labour Exchange. There are times when
one simply has to behave like a gentleman, so I stooped down to tie my shoelace, and saw her, out of the corner of my eye, skip nimbly into a tobacconist's a few doors further down.

Coming home, Mrs Savernack sat next to me in the bus. I hadn't forgiven her for her remark on the journey out, so I said, ‘I didn't care for that girl's make-up, did you?'

‘What girl?' said Mrs Savernack.

‘The girl at the Labour Exchange.'

Mrs Savernack is fifty-five and unable to tell a lie. ‘I haven't been to the Labour Exchange,' she said crossly. ‘I went to try on my new coat.'

After turning round and asking Mrs Whinebite for a detailed account of her experiences at the dentist's, I felt that honour was satisfied, and settled down to enjoy the drive home. But the savour had gone out of it somehow. I felt every day of my forty-you-know-what years. I had rheumatism in my arm, and my face, reflected in the glass of the bus window, looked lined, anxious and thin. When we reached home the bus conductor assisted me onto the pavement as though I were a very, very old lady, and told me to mind the kerb. There was a cold east wind blowing down the Street, and as I hurried along, with shoulders hunched to my ears, I asked myself What I had Done with My Life, and what there was to look forward to but old age, decay and decrepitude.

It was getting dark now, and in spite of the bus conductor's warning, I forgot the kerb and fell down. A passing soldier said, ‘Hold up, Mother,' and pulled me to my feet. I thought of my home, dark, cold, with the black-out not done, and the dinner uncooked. I stumbled up the steps and groped my way to the drawing-room door.

Inside it was a blaze of light. A cheerful fire was burning, and beside it sat Lady B with her knitting.

‘My dear Henrietta, what is the matter?'

‘Oh, Lady B! I feel so old!'

‘You mean you feel so cold. Come and sit down by the fire; your face is quite blue.'

‘Oh, Lady B! How sweet you are!'

‘Nonsense. Evensong's back. She's in the kitchen now, and I'm staying to supper. Why do you feel old? I'm seventy-six and I haven't begun to feel old yet.'

‘You never will be old.'

‘It's all in the Mind,' said Lady B.

I took off one shoe and held a cold foot to the fire. ‘Of course, what makes Registering so awful is that one is simply longing to go off and do something exciting,' I said.

Lady B laid down her knitting. ‘I know,' she said. ‘I often make up a story in my head that I'm forming a Women's Airborne Army.'

‘How lovely!'

‘But you ought not to grumble. You are at least looking after Charles. I'm just living in my little flat with my knife, fork and spoon and looking after myself. It makes me feel a very selfish old woman.'

‘How can you say that when you've knitted ninety-five jerseys for sailors?'

‘But I enjoy doing that,' said Lady B. Then Charles came in. ‘Hullo, Charles,' said Lady B. ‘Here's Henrietta feeling old.'

‘Well, we're all getting up-along,' said Charles. ‘But there's still a little gin left in the bottle.'

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

December 15, 1943

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

We have got a kitten. It is called General James Barton, after Brother James. We had to get it because of the mice, which had taken to scampering over our faces at night, but we felt rather apologetic to Perry, because his breed holds the Ratting Championship of the World, though the gift, somehow, seems to have passed him by. He did catch a mouse once, but only after Charles had hit it with a telephone directory. Perry was frightfully pleased with himself after this, his first kill, and carried the mouse, with low growls, to his basket, where he lay for the rest of the evening with one paw covering the corpse, and his head very erect, like the Monarch of the Glen.

The kitten is an entrancing creature with short grey fur and yellow eyes. When it arrived in its little hamper it began purring before we had got the lid open, and as soon as we lifted it out it made it perfectly plain that it liked us, and was pleased to come and live in our house.

‘Isn't it adorable Charles?' I said, as the kitten rubbed its little face against my cheek.

‘Not bad,' said Charles, who pretends he doesn't like cats.

The introduction to Perry was a ticklish affair. ‘Look, Perry, a darling little kitten!'

Perry looked at the kitten with disgust, and us with reproach.

‘Look, General James, a dear little black wog-pog!'

The kitten arched its back and spat, and Perry gave us a Look which said, ‘I know I am an Old Dog now, and no use to you, but you might have spared me this insult.' Then he turned, and began walking out of the room.

The kitten scampered after him and caught him up before he reached the door. It ran round in front of him
and barred his way. Perry stood rigid, looking over the top of its head. The kitten advanced two steps, and then put out a paw and patted Perry gently on the nose.

Perry looked at us in a bewildered way. ‘It's all right, Old Man, it wants to be friends,' said Charles.

Perry looked at the kitten, and the kitten again lifted a paw and laid it, light as a caress, on Perry's cheek. Slowly Perry's long, thin whip-tail began to wag, and Charles and I heaved great sighs of relief.

General James Barton had only been with us a week when he caught his first mouse. It was a very little mouse, hardly old enough to be out alone, but all the same it was a great triumph. He caught it behind the gas-stove while I was putting on the kettle for my hot-water bottle one night. He made a sudden dash, there was some dreadful squeaking, and he emerged with the mouse in his mouth like a sprouting brown moustache.

‘Oh, James!' I cried. ‘The poor little thing!'

James gave me a malevolent gleam out of his yellow eyes and took the mouse into a corner, where he began doing quite dreadful things. Feeling slightly sick, I went into the drawing room, where Charles was reading under his Anglepoise, like a stage star with the floodlights on.

A malevolent gleam

‘Charles, the General has caught a mouse.'

‘Good,' said Charles.

‘But he's behaving in the most horrible way.'

‘It is their Nature,' said Charles without looking up.

‘ “Nature red in tooth and claw”,' he added, with the satisfaction of one who quotes.

‘But I really don't feel I can go to bed and leave that torture going on in the kitchen.'

‘For the love of Mike!' cried Charles, laying down his paper. ‘There are enough awful things going on in the world without getting in a state over a mouse!'

I felt Charles was right, so I went to bed and left General James Barton to his horrid practices.

In the morning he was still playing with his mouse, now, happily, a rather dusty corpse. In the middle of breakfast he began eating it noisily just beside my chair, and its red entrails were spread over the carpet. Even Charles turned a little pale, but he still maintained that Nature Must Have Her Way, and that if we interfered with James's first Kill, he would probably become a mass of repressions and never kill anything else.

Two nights later our Gallant General (now known as Mouser Barton) caught another mouse. But by this time he had become quite blasé about it, and left his prey lying on the kitchen floor. It was while Evensong was away, and when I was getting the breakfast, I trod on it and it exploded with a horrid sound.