Henrietta Sees It Through (21 page)

People hurried by, their faces in the dimmed lights looking like the dead; engines screamed, trains shunted, and a Voice of Doom kept booming through a loudspeaker. Everywhere people seemed to be saying goodbye, locked together in desperate embraces.

‘This,' I said aloud, ‘is what mankind has made of the beautiful world God gave to him.'

‘Pardon?' said an old lady standing near.

It was after nine when I arrived at the hospital. ‘I know it's long past visiting hours,' I said to the orderly in the hall, ‘but my train was very late.'

‘Are you Captain Anderson's mother?' said the orderly.

I was surprised at being taken for an American, for Charles always says I am the perfect example of the decayed and disappearing West Country gentry, but then I saw a twinkle in the orderly's eye. ‘Temporarily,' I said, and was taken upstairs.

George had cradles all over him to keep the bed clothes from touching him. The lamp beside his bed was shaded so that the light didn't shine on his face, but I could see that he looked very ill. ‘Only a minute,' whispered the nurse.

George moved his head from side to side on the pillow and muttered something I couldn't hear. I put my hand on his. ‘Hullo, George,' I said softly.

George opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘Hullo, Henrietta,' he whispered.

‘Hullo, George.'

‘Your hands are very cold.'

‘Yours are very hot.'

George sighed and shut his eyes. Was it for this that I had flung myself half across England? I shut my eyes, too, and prayed that I might think of just one simple, short, heartening sentence to comfort him in his pain and distress. My mind remained a blank.

Presently he opened his eyes again. ‘Hullo, Henrietta,' he said; ‘still there?'

‘Still here, George.'

‘Good,' said George.

‘I've got to go now, but I'll come back tomorrow.'

‘Good,' said George, and I disentangled my fingers and tiptoed away.

George was better next day, and he went on getting better. I stayed for a week, and before I left I got off some of the things I had thought up in the train, about America, and his mother, and the girl he's going to marry, and he enjoyed them all.

I arrived home with a heavy cold and a temperature and went straight to bed.

When Charles came home in the evening I said to him: ‘Every time I shut my eyes I see sort of flashes.'

‘What are they like?' said Charles, peering at the thermometer.

‘Stars and stripes,' I said.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

January 10, 1945

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

Charles and I decided that we would have a New Year's party, so we asked Faith and the Conductor to come to dinner. Charles says he enjoys having Faith and the Conductor to dinner, because he and Faith talk about hunting, and the Conductor and I talk about music and poetry and all that, and everybody is satisfied.

Faith and the Conductor were quite overcome when we asked them. They said it was years since they had been out to dinner and that they would hire somebody to sit in their house in case Little No-well should cry.

‘Don't be grand,' said Faith, ‘it will only make us uncomfortable if we feel we've given Trouble.'

I promised we wouldn't be grand, which was just as well, because the day before the party Evensong went down with her bronchials and left me to cook a chicken.

I am one of those people whose cooking goes to pieces if they are fussed or hurried, so I began preparing the dinner directly after breakfast and sent Charles to the hotel for his lunch. I always hope that when I cook a little dinner for friends I shall be like the Young Wife in the Women's Papers (who is generally alluded to as the Newly-Wed), who has everything ready in good time, and is discovered by her guests in the drawing room (alluded to as the lounge), wearing a smart gown and with each cocktail glass standing on a dainty doily. But somehow it never works out like that, and when Faith and the Conductor arrived I was making the gravy. Everybody crowded into the kitchen and stood round me, and I lost my head and made Lumps, but Charles brought me a cocktail and I felt better, and then we all went in to dinner, each bearing a dish.

‘You look very lovely, Faith,' said Charles, as he always does, and for the first time since I have known her Faith didn't say, ‘What, this old rag?' but looked at Charles and said, ‘I have brought my apron for the washing-up,' with a sort of limpid simplicity which shook us all.

‘This chicken is beautifully cooked,' said the Conductor.

It is for moments such as these that cooks live, so I said I was afraid there might be lumps in the gravy, just to show I wasn't puffed up.

‘I
like
lumps in the gravy,' said the Conductor, and from that moment the party went with a bang.

‘Do you cook cabbage the way they tell you in
Food Facts
?' said Faith.

‘No,' I said. ‘Do you?'

‘No,' said Faith.

‘The great art of washing-up,' said Charles, ‘is to have one to wash, one to dry, and one to put things away.'

‘I couldn't agree with you more,' said the Conductor. ‘Darling Faith gets quite annoyed with me sometimes for not going straight to the scullery with her. She doesn't realise how
very
important it is to get the table absolutely cleared first.'

‘A place for everything and everything in its place,' said Charles smugly.

‘But it's so lonely splashing about in the sink all by yourself,' said Faith. ‘I have to have somebody to talk to, otherwise I begin to imagine bits of fat floating about just under the surface of the water.'

‘Do you remember when we used to be able to buy rubber gloves for washing-up?' I said.

Told each other boiler stories

‘Ha-ha!' said the Conductor. ‘Those were the days!' After that Charles and the Conductor told each other boiler stories, Faith telephoned home to find out if Little No-well was asleep and then it was time to wash-up. I washed, Faith dried, and the Conductor helped Charles to put things away. It was done in no time, but just as we were settling down in front of the fire the telephone rang, and Charles had to go out. As he had to go
past their very door, it seemed silly that they shouldn't go with him, so they said good bye and what a lovely evening it had been.

I sat in front of the fire for a bit, and turned on the news, and slept through it, and then I went to bed.

Charles came in about midnight. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?' I said.

‘Boy,' said Charles. ‘Nothing but boys nowadays. I don't know what the world is coming to.'

‘Little No-well will have a grand time when she grows up,' I said.

‘Nice evening,' said Charles, clambering into bed. ‘I always like having Faith and the Conductor - they're so interesting to talk to.'

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

January 24, 1945

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

I woke up suddenly last night and had the horrors. Horrors-in-the-Night, as everybody knows, are terrible. Remorse for all that you have done ill; regret (and this is even worse) for good that you have neglected to do; the ache of separation from those you love; and the silence of death - all these come crowding round you like goblins, and the knowledge that the whole thing is, according to Charles, due to wind in the lower bowel brings little comfort at two a.m., with the waves dragging across the shingle with a harsh and hopeless sound.

Since the war Horrors-in-the-Night have become well-nigh unbearable, and few people can remain in bed once an attack begins. Mrs Admiral once got up and made a cake during a bad bout, and I have more than once gone downstairs and played the piano until I felt better, but have had to give up this comfortable practice since our Evacuees came to live with us, for fear of disturbing the little boys, whose room is over the piano.

One of the nicest things about being married is that you have somebody to talk to if your Horrors-in-the-Night get completely out of hand, and though I always try to spare Charles, last night I found myself wallowing in such depths that the only thing was to lean out of bed and touch his shoulder.

Mrs Admiral once got up and made a cake

‘What is the matter, Henrietta?'

‘Everything is so awful, Charles.'

‘Have a soda-mint,' said Charles.

‘I've had one.'

‘Have you got War-Horrors or just ordinary Horrors-in-the-Night?'

‘Both.'

‘Poor Henrietta!' said Charles.

‘All this suffering,' I said, ‘and nothing but greed and violence to build on when the war is over.'

‘Have another soda-mint,' said Charles.

I had one. Then I said, ‘Why are we here? That's what I don't understand. Why be here at all when it all has to be so beastly?'

‘I suppose we just came, like mould on cheese.'

‘Then why do we want to be happy? Mould on cheese doesn't want to be happy.'

‘We've developed that way. In a few million years, mould on cheese may have all sorts of ideas.'

‘It's an interesting thought, Charles.'

‘And as for animals, they'll probably have moral aspirations.'

‘You mean that in a few million years dogs may be handing round the bag in church?'

‘Well - yes.'

There was silence for a few minutes while I digested this unique idea. Then I said: ‘Perry would look rather sweet, wouldn't he?'

‘You take everything so literally, Henrietta,' said Charles.

‘I can just see him in a black coat and stripy trousers—'

‘And brown gloves and brown boots to match his tan markings——'

Charles laughed and I laughed, and the soda-mint flew out of my mouth. I had to light my torch to look for it and found it, almost at once, sticking to the eiderdown.

Then Charles said, ‘For God's sake, let's get some sleep,' and in two minutes he was snoring gently. But I lay awake for a long time thinking of the human race growing like mould on cheese. It all seemed rather senseless and depressing, and it was a long time before I got to sleep.

The next day I went to see Lady B, who is in bed with bronchitis. She was sitting up, knitting socks for the sailors,
and though I couldn't exactly say she was thin, there was a frail, transparent look about her which frightened me.

‘How are you?' I said, and Fay peeped out from under the eiderdown and growled at me.

‘As well as any old lady of seventy-eight with bronchitis has a right to be,' said Lady B cheerfully. ‘Be quiet, Fay; it's only Henrietta.'

‘You're trying your hardest to get better, aren't you?' I said, the memory of my Horrors-in-the-Night still clinging to me.

‘Of course. Don't be silly, Henrietta. It would be very churlish not to try, when darling Charles is taking so much trouble over me.'

‘But you wouldn't mind if you didn't get better?'

‘Not a bit,' said Lady B, and began to count her stitches. When she came to the end of the line, she said: ‘You mind too much about people dying.'

‘I mind about you dying,' I said, and sat down on the end of the bed. Fay growled again. ‘Charles said in the night that we just
came
, like mould on cheese, and it all seems pretty silly.'

‘Mould my foot!' said Lady B briskly. ‘We are the children of God. Doctors and scientists often have those quaint ideas but even they don't really believe them, though of course they feel they ought to, poor dears. Now, pass me my knitting, Henrietta dear, and let's talk about something that
really
matters.'

‘Charles also said that in a few million years dogs might be handing round the bag in church.'