Henrietta Sees It Through (22 page)

‘What enthralling conversations you and Charles do have in the night!'

‘We thought Perry would look rather sweet. So would Fay, of course,' I added hastily.

‘Fay couldn't hand round the bag,' said Lady B firmly, ‘she's a girl.'

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

February 7, 1945

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

It was the Conductor's birthday last week, and he and Faith gave a lovely party. When we all got invitations on pre-war At Home cards with ‘Games' in the right-hand corner, there was a good deal of talk and excitement.

‘Games? What games?' said Colonel Simpkins, joining a little group outside the grocer's.

‘I suppose they don't mean bridge,' said Mrs Savernack rather wistfully.

‘Of course they don't mean bridge,' said Mrs Whinebite. ‘They've asked Henrietta.'

Just then we saw Faith coming down the Street, pushing Little No-well in her pram. Little No-well was wearing a pink bonnet with nose and cheeks to match, and looked adorable.

‘Hi, Faith!' shouted the Admiral. ‘What are these Games at your party?'

Faith came quite close to us, opened her blue eyes very wide, and said, ‘Kissing Games', in a low, mysterious voice, and then wheeled Little No-well rapidly away down the Street.

‘God bless my soul!' said Colonel Simpkins.

‘But I don't
like
kissing,' said Mr Savernack, looking quite ill. ‘If anybody kisses me, I shall be extremely annoyed.'

‘I don't suppose anybody will,' said Mrs Savernack. ‘Don't get in a State, Bernard.'

I could hardly bear to wait for the party, partly because I hadn't been to one for so long, and partly because I was so longing to wear an evening dress again. I decided on the red one which you used to like, Robert, and which hasn't had an outing since you and I danced at the Savoy just before the war; the time you stole a white carnation out of one of the vases for your buttonhole and I was cross with you. Do you remember?

Well, the day of the party came, and I was so determined not to be hurried over dressing that I started having a bath directly after tea. I put some of my most alluring bath salts into it, and took a long time over my face and hair, and finished up with a little dab of scent behind the ears. I felt positively pre-war until I put on my only pair of evening stockings and found a ladder an inch wide reaching from ankle to knee. Breathing a prayer that none of the Games, kissing or otherwise, would expose the legs, I hurried downstairs.

The day of the party coincided with Evensong's night out

‘My word,' said Charles, ‘you have got yourself up like a ham-bone!'

I could hardly take my eyes off Charles, whom I had not seen in a dinner jacket for years. He said he hoped that he wouldn't be called upon to stand on his head, as the moths had eaten a neat round hole in the seat of his trousers.

Unfortunately, the day of the party coincided with Evensong's
night out, and by the time I had pinned up my skirt, dished up the dinner and washed up afterwards, my hair had come adrift, my eye-shadow had disappeared and my hands smelt of cabbage. However, there was no time to repair these ravages, as it was time for us to call for Lady B, who hurried out to the car with a shawl over her face.

‘Of course, you're mad to come out,' said Charles crossly.

‘Nonsense, Charles!' said Lady B, who was attending the party against her doctor's orders. ‘It's done me good already. I'd forgotten how nice I looked in black velvet.'

‘Before the evening's out,' I said in a very determined voice from the back of the car, ‘I am going to kiss Mr Savernack.'

‘Why Mr Savernack?' said Lady B.

‘Because he hates it.'

‘Then why kiss him, poor brute?' said Charles.

‘I want to see what happens. He might find he liked it, after all, and sort of come to life.'

‘Like the Sleeping Beauty,' said Lady B.

The party, when we got to it, was lovely. The house was warm, and everybody was so pleased to see everybody else in different clothes that they went round congratulating each other on each other's appearance. Mr Savernack, with a determined, non-kissing expression on his face, went and wedged himself into a corner, thereby missing a lot of fun, because the Kissing Game didn't come on for a long time.

The Kissing Game was simple and very enjoyable. Somebody was blindfolded and stood in the middle of the room and pointed and said, ‘Abe, are you there?' If it was a man, he said, ‘Rebecca, are you there?' and then Abe (or Rebecca) got sheepishly from his or her chair and played Blind Man's Buff singles until caught, and kissed, to the joy of the beholders. When it came to my turn, I was blindfolded and turned round twice, but I felt the fire at my back,
and knew that the cowering Mr Savernack must be on my right, so I pointed firmly in his direction and said firmly, ‘Abe, are you there?'

There was a scuffling noise and no answer, so I took the bandage off my eyes and found Mr Savernack had deceitfully crept from his corner and was sitting between Charles and Lady B with a hunted expression on his face.

‘You mustn't cheat, Henrietta,' said the Conductor, and he tied me up and twiddled me again, but this time so far from the fire that I didn't know where I was; but Lady B and Charles coughed in an obliging way, so I soon got my bearings and crept over to where I knew my victim must be.

‘Abe, are you there?' I said, pointing an accusing finger.

There was a strangled cry and the door slammed, and Mrs Savernack said, ‘I don't think he's feeling very well.'

As I couldn't very well pursue Mr Savernack into the hall, I went on with the game and eventually collared Colonel Simpkins, who behaved in a most gallant manner and said he couldn't think why we hadn't started kissing each other years ago.

After that we had a delicious supper, and then it was time to go home. As I was going upstairs to put on my coat, I saw Mr Savernack standing in the hall, bang under the mistletoe left over from Christmas. I leant over the banisters and kissed his brow.

Mr Savernack shuddered and turned green, not in the least like the Sleeping Beauty, and Mrs Savernack, coming out of the dining room, said: ‘I really cannot think, Henrietta, why you are making this dead set at Bernard. He's not That Sort of Man at all.'

I said, ‘I know.'

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

February 21, 1945

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

It was so warm a few days ago that I took Lady B to sit in the sun on the cliff path. It was hard to believe, as we sat there basking, that only a few days ago we had been slithering and slipping about on icy roads, with our feet tied up in dusters.

‘This is very good for my bronchials,' said Lady B, closing her eyes and taking a few deep, rattling breaths.

‘One could enjoy it more if one didn't keep thinking of the Russians,' I said.

Lady B opened her eyes and looked at me severely. ‘I don't know what's come over you, Henrietta,' she said. ‘There was a time when you used to enjoy simple pleasures, but now you're always worrying because you aren't being bombed, or fighting on the Western Front, or starving in an occupied country, or being tortured by the Gestapo. Instead of thanking the Good God that none of these things is happening to you and enjoying His beautiful sunshine, you keep whipping yourself with knotted cords, like a morbid old monk. It makes me quite cross.'

‘Yes,' I said meekly.

‘I'm as sorry about the thaw for the Russians as you are, but you and me moaning and groaning on the cliff path isn't going to make it any colder in East Prussia.'

‘No,' I said.

‘And here comes Rosemary with her new baby,' said Lady B.

Rosemary, one of the many pretty young mothers who gladden our eyes in this place, wheeled her pram up to our seat and sat down. Inside the pram was a very new, pink baby. A little boy of four, looking dashing in a beret, was holding on at the side.

‘Of course, she's adorable,' said Lady B, after inspecting the baby.

‘And so good,' said Rosemary. ‘I wish Peter could see her.'

I looked at Rosemary. There were shadows under her eyes and lines on her face that used not to be there. ‘You must get tired,' I said.

‘Sometimes,' said Rosemary. ‘Jeremy is a handful these days.'

‘Not a handful,' said Jeremy with truculence.

‘Yes, you are,' said his mother calmly. ‘We have some battles, I can tell you,' she said turning to Lady B and me, ‘but I win in the end.'

‘Mummy wins in the end!' said Jeremy, shrieking with laughter.

‘It's all very well for you to laugh, you Imp,' said Lady B, ‘but you're wearing your mother out.'

‘Of course, I think children of between two and four are frightful,' I said.

‘I couldn't agree with you more,' said Rosemary.

‘And then, between five and six they suddenly get sweet again.'

‘I'm glad to hear it,' said Rosemary, standing up. ‘Come along, Jeremy; we must go home,' and she kissed her hand to us and wheeled the pram away.

‘There goes a good girl,' said Lady B.

‘All the young mothers ought to have George Medals,' I said. ‘Toiling away year after year, never off the chain, and always torn with anxiety about their husbands.'

‘I wish we could do something for them,' said Lady B.

‘At one time I wanted to start a Young Mothers' Club, where they could drop in of an afternoon with their prams and dump the children in a communal nursery and have tea in peace.'

‘Who was going to look after the children?'

‘Not me. But, anyhow, Charles said they'd all give each other measles and whooping cough, so I abandoned the idea.'

‘All the same, I don't see why we shouldn't give them an evening party when the children are in bed,' said Lady B, sitting up very straight and with a gleam in her eye.

‘Who would look after the children?'

‘Grandfathers,' said Lady B firmly. ‘Grandfathers and others.'

When Lady B makes up her mind to something it generally comes off, and so did this - in our house. Finding guardians for the children wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The Grandfathers came forward in a most gallant way, supplemented by Grandmothers and Others. Even the Admiral, who wasn't a grandfather, and now, alas! would never be one, volunteered to take on Jeremy the Handful and his baby sister. Faith had three mothers and their babies to spend the night in her house, because the Conductor is so absolutely reliable, and little Mrs Simpkins went with Colonel Simpkins because he was nervous of being left alone with twin girls of two.

Although we told them it was not in any way a grand party, the Young Mothers chose to come in long frocks. They said it was more of a treat that way. Charles insisted upon being present, although he was the only man. He said that as he had brought most of the babies into the world, he'd like to know who had a better right to be there than he. We had candles on the table and dessert, and what Charles calls Port of a Sort.

Several Grandfathers rang up during dinner to say the children were sleeping peacefully, and once Rosemary had a long, earnest conversation with the Admiral, in
which we heard her say: ‘And be
very
careful with the safety pin.'

Later the Admiral rang up to say the baby was now asleep and Jeremy had decided to go into the Navy.

At the end of dinner, when our glasses were filled, Charles stood up. ‘Ladies,' he said, ‘I wish to propose a toast, though only three of us here can drink it. “To the Unsung Heroines of the War - God bless their pretty faces.” '