Homing (5 page)

“But Ribbentrop built the Anti-Comintern Pact
against
Russia!” Virginia pointed out.

“But Russia is holding military staff talks with
us
!”
Dinah spluttered at the same moment.

“Us have got caught in the middle again,” said Bracken, taking his glass from Jeff’s ministering hand. “It looks like,” he added, and drank.

“But what does it
mean
?” Mab asked helplessly, looking from one to another.

“It means we have been double-crossed,” said Bracken quietly. “If Russia undertakes to sit on her hands and not join in with us, there won’t be an Eastern Front. So Hitler will go for Danzig, Poland will scream for help, and England and France will be at war with Germany—again.”

“When?” said Sylvia.

“Before you can say Scat.” Bracken drained the glass and set it down. “Well, no, not before Ribbentrop signs the pact. And even now the Russians could throw a monkey-wrench. Jeff and I are going down to the Shop to have another sniff round, but I advise the rest of you to take a lot of aspirin and try to get a night’s sleep, this is going to be a rough week.” He caught Mab in a protective arm, hugging her against his side. “Well, sweetheart, we had our birthday party, anyway, they can’t ever get that away from us now!” Still holding Mab, he bent and kissed Dinah’s upturned face. “Don’t wait up,” he said, for what seemed to her the millionth time since she married him.

Virginia followed her brother out into the hall.

“Bracken—no fooling, should I get Mab out of here early tomorrow?”

The light struck him full in the face as he paused to look down at her, haggard, handsome, with the swinging Murray carriage which was almost a swagger, and her heart cramped with love for him, for Bracken, the ultimate wisdom and authority in the long family story. Instinctively she reached out and caught at his coat with a small cold hand, and felt his close over it, steady and comforting.

“Don’t scare her,” he said. “Take it easy. It will footle along till Wednesday, in Moscow.”

“But people say the German planes may come over
before
the declaration—”

“Not tonight. Not even tomorrow,” he said, and kissed her, and picked up his hat and briefcase and collected Jeff with a glance and they were gone, back to the tickers and the monitors and the cryptic, understated world of Fleet Street which
sometimes
knew so much more than ever appeared in the headlines.

As Bracken had foreseen, Tuesday produced nothing beyond world-wide shock and bewilderment—while they waited for Ribbentrop to arrive in Moscow. Everybody rallied slowly, and someone in France had the wit to raise the question if Russia had now joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, which caused a few snickers. And Bracken said to sit tight and let Mab have her Wednesday matinée, because the good Lord knew when she’d ever get another.

“‘Look thy last on all things lovely’,” said Virginia wryly. “Suppose the Poles should give in after all.”

“The Poles aren’t bluffing, whoever else may be,” said Bracken. “They’ll fight.”

“One man,” said Virginia through her teeth. “
Just
one
man,
gone mad! What about Camilla in Berlin? Are you going to bring her out now?” Camilla was the Richmond cousin, favourite of the fabulous Aunt Sally, wife to Johnny Malone who headed Bracken’s European staff.

“Johnny’s staying—for a while. She won’t come.”

“Not even a British bomb can recognize American neutrality in a Berlin shelter,” Virginia objected.

“They’ll both come out when our Embassy leaves—and it will eventually. The British wives are coming now, though it’s not official yet.”

“Then you do think America will come in.”

“She daren’t let him win this one,” said Bracken.

When the British Cabinet had met on Tuesday it announced that the British guarantee to Poland would stand, whatever the Russian-German agreement might prove to be. No one was surprised at that except Germany, who had confidently expected the Western Powers to cave in in consternation. The Nazis never were any good as psychologists, said Johnny Malone reporting from Berlin by telephone, and he added that no one in Germany really expected war—they were saying in the Wilhelmstrasse that Hitler always got what he wanted without it.

Luncheon was going forward in Upper Brook Street before the matinée, when Ribbentrop arrived in Moscow at midday on Wednesday. Dinah’s niece Mona Campion, who was a year younger than Evadne, had telephoned Dinah rather
impressively
that morning to ask if she might bring a guest to lunch, and was assured that everyone would be delighted.

There was no general astonishment when she swept in with Michael Keane in tow—both of them radiant and foolish and newly engaged. Michael was in uniform, expecting every minute to be recalled to his ship. Only an hour before, they had bought the ring which was on her finger, and healths were now drunk and a gala atmosphere prevailed, as though Hitler had never been heard of. Bracken, of course, was at the office, but Jeff had been given the afternoon off to accompany Mab and Sylvia to the theatre.

Mab had always admired her cousin Mona for her rather Titian beauty and her royal self-possession—Mona was said to look like Dinah as a girl, but in Mona everything was underlined with a very modern, hoydenish vitality. Her hair and eyes and teeth shone with health, she moved like a colt, she spoke in italics, she dressed in strong colours. There was no one, Mab always thought, so
alive
as Mona, right down to her fingertips, never tired, never bored, never at a standstill.

To look at her now, you would think nobody had ever been in love before. She herself had just invented it, and happiness
surrounded
her like a spotlight. You would never know, to look at her now, that if war came, she would be driving an ambulance in London, no matter what came down, and that the man she was so in love with would be somewhere at sea in his ship, not heard from for weeks at a time. And it wasn’t just putting on a front, Mab thought, Mona really was happy, and she had really forgotten all about the war.

But after the others had left for the matinée, Dinah and Virginia found out how much Mona had forgotten the war. Mona wanted to marry Michael now, at once, this minute, before he could be snatched away—and Michael wouldn’t. They sat hand in hand in the drawing room, presenting their case to Dinah and Virginia, because Mona said Mummy (who was Winifred, Countess of Enstone) was no use at all and only agreed with Michael.

“And what do you want us to say?” Dinah asked, ruefully aware that her own decision and Virginia’s had been made so freely, without pressure, years before even the Kaiser was being a nuisance.

“I want you to help me make him understand that even if we had only twenty-four hours together, even if he was called back the next day, everything would be different if we had got married
first
!”

“Everything would certainly be different,” said Michael, not releasing his hold on her hand, “if I were posted missing, or lost a leg.”

“But that’s
old-fashioned
!” Mona pointed out. “If they bomb London and I’m out with the ambulance I stand about as good a chance of losing a leg as you do! We just don’t
think
about that any more!”

Michael did not visibly wince, but his eyes sought Virginia’s, dark and troubled and stubborn.

“If I had even a month in the clear now,” he said reasonably. “But I’ll be off this week, as sure as you’re a foot high. Don’t think it wouldn’t be easier to do it her way—if there was time to get a licence, even.”

“My dears,” said Virginia, striving for equanimity, “Dinah and I aren’t qualified any more to say one way or the other. We never had to face the things you do.”

“But if you did—?” Mona hung on the answer.

“I’m old-fashioned too,” Virginia confessed. “I still think the man is boss, and what Michael decided would settle it for me.”

When the matinée party emerged from the theatre that
after noon
they at once bought the evening papers, which told them very little. Bracken was quiet but undaunted at dinner, where they were joined by Mab’s parents who had cut short their holiday in France and returned full of hair-raising stories about crowded travel conditions homeward bound from the Continent.

Instead of reclaiming Mab from Virginia’s care, Irene’s main concern was now to make sure that Basil, who was at their house in Sunningdale with his nurse, should be removed at once to greater safety at Farthingale. It was arranged that Virginia should pick him up on her way back and keep both children,
with Basil’s nurse, and Mab’s governess, in Gloucestershire until—well, until things Cleared Up.

Irene was anxious that they should leave London tomorrow. She of course would remain at their flat in Sloane Street with Ian, whose leave from the Home Office was not up until Monday, although he had been assured on the telephone that he would be very welcome there sooner. Lighting restrictions were to begin at once, he learned when he rang up his chief to report his return, and the first notice went out on the late news that evening. Ration cards were printed and ready to be issued, he told them—meat, ham, bacon, sugar, and fats would be cut at once. Evacuation from the cities of children on the Government plan when it started would interfere with all private arrangements for travel, which should be carried out at once, said Ian, eyeing Virginia severely.

“Ian, what are they going to do about pets?” Sylvia asked into a silence, and Mab laid a cherishing hand on Noel. She had been waiting for Sylvia to bring that up. Noel would be safe at Farthingale with her, but lots of other dogs would have nowhere to go.

“Pets can’t be taken into public shelters,” said Ian promptly.

“I know that,” Sylvia replied equably. “But you can’t expect people to shut them up in the house and go cheerfully off to the shelters, Ian. If the house is knocked down by a raid, the dog or cat even if it isn’t hurt would be frightened out of its wits and would run and run and get lost, and the owner might never find it again.”

Ian looked as though animal A.R.P. was just one thing too many for him at the moment, and said there were plans, of course, to take care of all that, though it didn’t come into his department. The best thing was to send pets to the country, if you felt that way about them, the same as children.

“But you can’t explain to a dog, when you send it away,” said Sylvia, who was not usually an obstinate girl. “They would pine much worse than children. There ought to be places in London where you could leave a dog during a raid and call for it again—safe places with somebody in charge who has been trained for the job.”

“But you haven’t got a dog,” said Ian irritably. “And Mab’s animal is accounted for, she never lets it out of her sight.”

“I’ve got a bird,” said Sylvia seriously. “He means as much to me as Noel does to Mab. Lots of people who have birds in cages
won’t want to leave them alone in an empty house, they would be even less able to save themselves from fire or—”

“Send your bird with Mab to Farthingale, then,” said Ian. “She’ll look after it.”

“Ian, you don’t understand. You aren’t even trying. People count on their pets—people who can’t leave London themselves and have no country house to send their pets to. A person’s pet,” said Sylvia, voicing a profound truth which was to dawn on other people much more slowly, “is part of his own morale, especially for people living alone. They will need something to be brave
for,
even if it’s a dog or a cat or a bird. Whom should I get in touch with to find out what’s being done about this?” she insisted, for she had felt sick all through her First Aid course, and knew that she would be no good on an ambulance or nursing job.

“About
animals
?” said Ian, rather incredulous still, and—

“Yes,” said Sylvia, looking back at him levelly. “About animals.”

“Ask the nearest vet,” said Ian. “Or ring up the League for Something-or-other.”

Later that evening, when Jeff and Sylvia were alone in their room getting ready for bed, she said reluctantly, “Have I
disgraced
you, wanting to save the dogs and cats? Ian was very annoyed.”

“Well, somebody ought to save them,” said Jeff in his
unargumentative
way, pulling off his shoes. “The R.S.P.C.A. must know what’s afoot. Just start ringing up in the morning till you find something to join.”

“You don’t think it’s silly of me? I mean, everyone’s worrying about the children and the old people—”

“So somebody else should worry about the animals,” said Jeff.

“It’s the sort of work I might be able to do,” she said, still doubtful, for to her own dismay she had not so far found her niche in the volunteer services.

“Then what do you care what Ian thinks?” Jeff inquired sensibly. “There must be somebody wrestling with that problem, who would be glad of some help.”

“It was Midge’s idea,” said Sylvia, and got into bed with a sigh of relief and a glance at the cage on the table in the corner. Midge was an olive and gold canary with a highly trained Roller song, muted and sweet, never shrill, never tiresome. He was finger-tame, ate anything that was going, and had never known
fear. He liked a good thunderstorm to sing to, regarding it as some kind of orchestration arranged to set off his best notes. Sylvia said that an air raid would doubtless do him just as well, as an accompaniment.

At a little after 2 am the telephone rang, and while there was an extension in Bracken’s bedroom the bell ringing in the hall woke everyone up, especially Mab. And when Mab sat up in bed, alert and listening, Noel on his cushion in the corner roused at once and sat up too.

Lights came on, the bedroom doors opened, and people looked out at each other with white, silent faces. Bracken’s door opened last, and he was not surprised to see them all there, waiting.

“Jackson says the word has just come through from Berlin,” he said quietly. “They have signed.”

No one spoke, but Sylvia’s hand closed on Jeff’s sleeve, and Virginia laid a reassuring arm across Mab’s shoulders, drawing her closer. Dinah came through the door beside Bracken, tying the cord of her dressing gown.