Henrietta Sees It Through (8 page)

‘What Henrietta means,' said Lady B, ‘is that one day women are being told that their place is the Home, and the next minute they have to man the guns.'

‘And if they get their legs blown off, it's supposed to matter less to them than it does to a man,' I said.

‘And as soon as they've got used to manning the guns, the war will end, and they'll be told their place is the Home again,' said Lady B.

‘Bad luck, of course,' said the Admiral, ‘but War is War.'

‘I wonder how men would like it if they were whipped out of the Navy and Stock Exchange and things of that kind, and made to push babies about in prams all day,' said Lady B, who was warming to her subject.

‘Of course, I always maintain, that Woman's Place is
not
the Home,' said Mrs Savernack.

‘Oh, yes, it is,' said Lady B. ‘And most of the nice, sensible women were in homes before the war, and too
busy to come out of them; and that's why we have so few women Members of Parliament. But 'pon my word, if the country had been ruled by women for the last twenty years, they couldn't have made a worse mess of it than the men. When peace comes, I really think we'll have to put the men to pram-pushing, and see what we can do about it.'

The Admiral mopped his brow. ‘You weren't a Suffragette before the last war by any chance, were you?' he said.

Lady B twinkled at him. ‘We were abroad at the time,' she said, ‘but I'd have liked to be one.'

‘She'd have chained herself to the railings,' said Colonel Simpkins, looking helplessly at the Admiral.

‘I certainly would,' said Lady B.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

November 18, 1942

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

Our wine merchant, who is always rather kind to us because he used to play cricket with Charles's father, was kinder than usual this month and sent us an extra bottle of gin, so we asked Faith, who is home on leave, and the Conductor to drinks on Saturday night. Lady B came too, and it was quite pre-war and the greatest fun.

In the middle the Linnet, who had got a day off, walked in looking so radiant that I knew something must have happened. ‘You'd better tell us straight away,' I said as she stood there smiling and blinking in the light.

‘Who is it?' said Charles sternly.

‘Philip,' said the Linnet, and there was a silence, because nobody could think of any adequate reason why she shouldn't be engaged to Philip, who is very nice.

‘He hasn't asked my consent yet,' said Charles, who has confided to me more than once that he was looking forward to throwing his weight about over his daughter's engagement.

‘Sweetie Pie, he's coming to see you as soon as he can get some leave,' said the Linnet soothingly.

‘Mind you, there's to be no question of an engage ment until I have interviewed this young man,' said Charles pompously.

‘Don't be tiresome, Charles,' said Lady B, who loves a romance. ‘Come here, Linnet, and let me kiss you.'

The Linnet was folded to that warm and loving bosom, and I stood, with the cocktail shaker in my hand, prodding gently at my emotions as one prods with one's tongue at a tooth which may begin aching any minute. I was pleased and surprised to find that, contrary to all I had been told of a Mother's Heart on such occasions, mine was like a Singing Bird, and my eyes filled with joyful tears, so that I overfilled the Conductor's glass and it all ran down over his legs.

‘Look what you're doing!' yelled Charles, and the Conductor sucked his knee so that not a drop of the precious fluid should be wasted.

The Linnet was folded to that warm and loving bosom

You have always said, Robert, that there is only one thing more depressing than a woman talking about her daughter's wedding, and that is a woman talking about her daughter's engagement, so I will lay off the Linnet and begin on Faith, who is neither my daughter nor engaged, though, of course, we all hope she will fix things up with the Conductor some day.

After all the excitement about the Linnet had died down we found ourselves in a very emotional state, and the Conductor fixed Faith with a mournful gaze so full of dog-like devotion that Charles cried, ‘Why, in God's name, don't you marry the man, Faith, and put him out of his misery?'

‘I don't know,' said Faith, opening her blue eyes very wide.

‘Well, it's time you did,' said Charles crisply.

‘Don't be harsh with her, Charles,' said the Conductor.

‘He isn't being harsh!' cried Faith. ‘He couldn't be! Could you, my Angel Kiss?' and she threw herself into Charles's arms.

The Conductor winced, and I wondered whether it would ease the situation if I were to throw myself into his arms. I looked at Lady B. The same thought, I could see, had crossed her mind but, catching my eye, she gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. The Linnet, who was the only person present who could have made this gesture with success, was lost in a happy dream, so the only thing was for Lady B to get up and say it was time to go home.

I think the Conductor must have been upset, because he left his mackintosh behind. He rang up later to ask if it were there, and we said yes, hanging on the banisters, and after dinner he and Faith came round to fetch it.

‘This isn't my mackintosh,' said the Conductor.

We said it wasn't ours either. Then Charles said might it be Lady B's? And I said no, Lady B's was a grey one.

‘Well, I must say it's all very
peculiar
,' said Faith, looking at us in a meaningful sort of way.

‘I hope you aren't accusing us of stealing the mackintosh?' I said.

‘Not stealing exactly,' said Faith, ‘but, of course, with the Linnet getting married you're bound to be short of coupons.'

‘Well, I'm damned!' said Charles and shut the front door behind them more loudly than was strictly necessary.

Later the Conductor rang up to say the coat was his land-lady's, which he had brought along by mistake, and his own was at home, hanging in the hall. Charles thinks the incident may have drawn them closer together.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

January 13, 1943

M
Y
D
EAR
R
OBERT

Charles and I spent a very quiet Christmas without the children. We gave each other a book about Nelson which we both wanted to read, but our most exciting present was a sort of felt glove for putting coal on the fire. Its underside is black, to match the coal, and the top a sprightly green decorated with little felt flowers.

Charles and I were delighted with it because, ever since our home life became darkened by the Fuel Target, it has been our frugal custom to put coal on the fire with our fingers. Each time Charles finishes this domestic duty, he rises to his feet, with his blackened fingers held stiffly
before him, opens the door with his elbow, stumps upstairs to the bathroom, turns on the basin tap with his other elbow, and has a good wash. I, who have not been trained in such aseptic methods, and am not as clean as Charles, anyway, and often in more of a hurry, have other ways.

‘Look, Charles,' I said. ‘Black underneath, so as not to show the dirt.'

‘It's a
lovely
present,' said Charles, slipping his hand inside.

‘Now you won't have to open the door with your elbow any more.'

‘And you won't have to wipe your fingers on your knickers, Henrietta.'

‘They are black knickers, Charles.'

‘And I have
not
forgotten the occasion,' went on Charles sternly, ‘when I happened to be standing near, and you wiped your fingers on the trousers of my dark-blue suit.'

‘Charles, this is Christmas Day!'

‘Very well,' said Charles. ‘We'll say no more about it.'

It was Christmas afternoon. The fire, thanks to the glove, was blazing merrily. Perry was asleep in his basket, the telephone was mercifully silent and Charles and I, who had lunched lightly off soup, cheese and celery, reminded each other with pleasure of our friends who, after turkey and plum pudding, would by now be feeling stodged and flushed.

‘That glove,' said Charles, after a long silence, ‘ought to hang on a nail.'

It was the thought I had been keeping at bay for a long time. No housewife likes to be reminded of such things on a Christmas afternoon. Directly she hears the word ‘nail', her mind flies to the tool box, and she remembers, with a twinge of conscience, that it needs tidying, and that all the nails are rattling around on the bottom, instead of lying neatly in the empty cigar box marked ‘N
AILS
', which, for
some reason, is full of picture wire. From this unpleasant thought her mind leaps to the possibility that there are no nails. Did she not tell the gardener last week that he could take all he wanted to mend the greenhouse door? No gardener has ever been known to return a nail from whence it came, and the housewife feels pretty sure that, if there are any nails left, they are on the shelf in the greenhouse with the seed catalogues and the secateurs. How terrible, on a cosy Christmas afternoon, to have to walk down the garden in the rain to look on the shelf in the greenhouse! Surely there must be
one
nail left, leading a carefree rolling life at the bottom of the tool box? Or perhaps a tin-tack? No, the tin-tacks were all used up on the blackout in the bathroom . . .

‘If you aren't going to read that book about Nelson, you might let me have it,' said Charles, and I handed it over.

It would be so simple to get up from one's chair, go to the tool box in the scullery, find a nail, take the hammer in hand and with three deft strokes assure for oneself a sense of smugness and well-being for many months to come.

But could one be absolutely sure of the hammer being in the tool box? Was it not Matins who only yesterday took it for the linoleum in the hall? In which case, of course, it would now be in the kitchen drawer, or possibly on the dresser.

Charles laid down the book about Nelson. ‘If you will bring me the hammer and a nail I will do the job,' he said generously.

‘If you'll bring
me
the hammer and a nail I'll do the job myself,' I said. ‘In the meantime, if you aren't reading that book about Nelson . . . '

No man likes to hear his wife talk that way, and Charles looked hurt.

‘I am reading it,' he said; ‘and, anyway, I don't know where the hammer and nails are kept.'

At four o'clock Lady B arrived to spend the rest of Christmas Day with us. The telephone woke up and rang for Charles, and I went to put the kettle on for tea, so we left her in front of the fire, looking at the Nelson book.

When we got back, she said: ‘What a lovely glove for the coal! I've nailed it up for you.'

Charles and I stared at her and at the glove, hanging so neatly beside the fireplace.

‘Where did you find the hammer and the nails?' we said.

‘I've nailed it up for you'

‘In your tool box, in the scullery, of course,' said Lady B, opening her eyes very wide.

‘You're wonderful!' I said, and I gave her a hug because she hadn't said that the tool box wanted tidying, and most women would.

Charles produced a bottle of claret from the cellar, which I am beginning to think is like the widow's cruse, and, after our frugal meal, we sat and talked.

Lady B says she can
just
bear wearing woollen stockings during the day, but in the evening they rise up and choke her, and she has to go upstairs and change into a pair of silk ones with ladders.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

H
ENRIETTA

 

 

 

February 10, 1943