Henrietta's War (10 page)

August 14, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Do you remember Barton's Bell? It is the old ship's bell which used to ring at regular intervals during the day for the workmen to knock on and knock off their work.

Its sonorous and mellow tones were very dear to us all, and when they stopped ringing it at the beginning of the war our lives immediately became horribly disorganized. Nobody ever knows quite what the time is now, and a lot of people, who had managed quite comfortably up till then, have been forced to buy watches.

Charles says the general public nowadays is far too ready to use expressions such as ‘sub-conscious', ‘inferiority complex', and ‘escape neurosis' without understanding their meaning, but the only way I can think of to describe what happened when Barton's Bell began ringing the other afternoon is to say that it took several minutes for the sound to penetrate from our sub-conscious to our conscious minds.

I was doing a little ironing at the time, and looked at my watch to see if it was right for six o'clock, and found it was half-past four. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't heard the Bell for about nine months.

‘Parachutes!' I cried, and rushed out on to the roof expecting to see the sky full of white mushrooms with gentlemen in pale-blue overalls dangling from them. It was empty.

Then for one ecstatic moment I thought the war was over, for Barton's Bell was rung hilariously in November 1918. But on second thoughts I decided that this was just wishful thinking, and that reminded me of Charles, for wishful thinking is another of the expressions which irritate him on the lips of the ignorant. So I rang him up at his surgery and asked why Barton's Bell was ringing.

‘I don't know, I'm sure,' said Charles rather crossly, and rang off.

Determined not to miss any excitement which might be going, I hurried down to the end of the garden and looked over the wall just in time to see the Fire Brigade go by. After it came a crowd of people. Everybody who had a uniform, an armlet, or a badge seemed to have put it on, and was surging along the road with a do-or-die expression on his or her face.

The Home Guard was there, carrying rifles and looking happy; V.A.D.s, A.R.P.s, W.V.S.s
6
, A.F.S.s
7
, and a sprinkling of Girl Guides, Boy Scouts, and St John Ambulance Workers. The Transport Drivers were grinding along one behind the other in bottom gear.

‘What's happening?' I shouted over the wall.

‘We don't know!' they shouted back.

‘Is it an Invasion, Admiral Marsdon?' I said, for I felt he would know if anybody did; but he only looked mysterious and put his finger to his lips.

Faith, lovely in her siren suit, was walking hand-in-hand with the Conductor. They looked too happy to be much use to anyone. I couldn't see Lady B anywhere, but Mrs Savernack, wearing Mr Savernack's 1915 tin-hat, was marching with the Home Guard. She had got hold of some sort of blunderbuss and was carrying herself proudly. The Home Guard looked a little uncomfortable, but none of them liked to tell her to go away.

The Home Guard looked a little uncomfortable

I watched this cavalcade out of sight, and was reflecting wistfully that I seemed to be the only person without a badge or a uniform, when Lady B came trotting round the corner, looking unusual in V.A.D. uniform and her head tied up in a towel.

‘I was having a perm,' she panted, ‘when the bell started, and Madame Yvonne said, “I'm afraid that is the signal for Invasion, Madam, but don't be frightened.” “I'm not frightened,” I said, “but get me out of this or I shall miss all the fun. ” '

The last person to arrive was Colonel Simpkins, in a state of exhaustion. He had been caught inspecting the defences on the beach, the wrong side of the barbed wire, and had to run a mile along the pebbles before he could get back to the parade.

In the end it turned out to be the railway embankment on fire, and the Fire Brigade, with speed and efficiency, dammed the brook and put it out. The owners of the house near by, who, fearing for their thatched roof, had not unnaturally rung up for the Fire Brigade, looked a little dazed when they saw about two hundred people and seven motor-cars pressed into the lane outside their house.

‘It was the sparks we were afraid of,' they said apologetically to the silent crowd at the gate.

Perhaps next time it will be the real thing . . .

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

August 21, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
There has been a sad falling-off in garden sherry-parties this year. We usually have a great many, because M practically everybody here is garden-proud, and when summer comes it is their delight to give parties, in the touching belief that other people who are garden-proud too will enjoy drinking sherry and wandering up and down the paths saying ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!'

Well, they probably do enjoy the sherry, but to say that they enjoy the beauties of another person's garden is just silly, because nothing fills the Garden-Proud-Person with such insane hatred and rage as witnessing results which he has been unable to achieve himself.

Colonel and Mrs Simpkins, who are as garden-proud as anybody, generally give two garden sherry-parties: one in June to admire the roses, and one in July to admire the antirrhinums. Of course, there are other flowers in their garden, but the roses and the antirrhinums are the
plats du
jour
, so to speak.

One year, flushed with success, they gave two more: one in September to admire the dahlias, and one in October to admire the chrysanthemums. But there was a good deal of ill-feeling about it in the place, and, anyhow, it was cold and wet on both occasions and Mrs Simpkins caught two chills.

This year they gave the antirrhinum one only. A lot of people said they had no right to do such a thing in wartime, but Mrs Simpkins made it all right with her own conscience by having a collecting box for the Red Cross to catch the departing guests at the gate.

Charles and I enjoyed ourselves enormously, as we always do at these occasions. But then Charles and I are no gardeners; so it was with no feelings of resentment, but only those of genuine admiration, that we wandered round the Simpkins' well-groomed paths, exclaiming at the beauty of their Orange Kings, Daffodil Yellows, and Orange Princes.

‘Aren't they
lovely
?' we said to Lady B, whom we found peering closely at some Fire Kings through her lorgnettes.

‘It's like a seedsman's catalogue!' said Lady B, with a contemptuous snort.

Charles and I looked at each other with our eyes wide open. To have a garden like a seedsman's catalogue has always been our wildest ambition. Besides, it was the first catty thing we had ever heard Lady B say, which just shows how, far from being an ennobling pursuit, gardening simply corrodes the character.

Peering closely at some Fire Kings

After that we found the Admiral stealing cuttings in the greenhouse and discovered that Mrs Savernack has a special handbag, lined inside with mackintosh, which she always takes with her.

Feeling a little saddened, Charles and I wandered off to the vegetable garden. There is nothing in the world as soothing as a well-cared-for vegetable garden. Charles says that people with nervous breakdowns ought to take campstools and sit in them all day.

The Simpkinses' is a particularly pleasing one, because it has flowers in it as well. Nasturtiums and Sweet Williams and Marigolds and Love-in-a-Mist – all the ordinary, cheerful, hardy flowers which nobody bothers about, and which Mrs Simpkins only picks when she is hard up for flowers for the house.

‘Aren't they
lovely
?' I said to Mrs Savernack, who came down the garden path towards us, her mackintosh-lined bag bulging with loot, and a satisfied expression on her face.

‘Pah!' said Mrs Savernack. ‘Common annuals!'

Charles and I have decided that the only people in this place who could possibly give a really successful Garden-Proud party, at which all the guests enjoyed themselves, are ourselves. We would give it at the bottom of our garden, where the bindweed has done so well, and there is that particularly fine bed of nettles.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

August 28, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
There are sad sights to be seen on our hitherto respectable beach now that the soldiery has taken away all the bathing-huts. Umbrellas and fishing-boats are used in a pathetic attempt at preserving the decencies, but I sometimes think it would be really less embarrassing if we did without them and just undressed on the beach in a carefree manner.

I have yet to see a more remarkable sight than Mrs Savernack taking off her clothes under a large sheet with a hole in the middle for her head to poke through.

When I got down to the beach this morning, having undressed in decency and comfort in my own home, I found a large crowd watching her in fascinated silence.

‘Hullo, Henrietta!' shouted Mrs Savernack, who imagined everybody was watching her because they wished they had thought of having a sheet with a hole in the middle themselves. ‘Going to have a dip?'

‘Yes, Mrs Savernack.'

‘You ought to bring a sheet down, like I do,' said Mrs Savernack in a hearty way. ‘It's absolutely splendid. Cool and cheap – and the best of it is that nobody has the slightest idea what you are doing,' and as she said this she stepped, first with one foot and then with another, out of an obvious if unseen garment.

‘Yes, they have,' I said. ‘I know exactly what you are doing now.'

‘Don't be silly, Henrietta,' said Mrs Savernack, unfastening her stays with a loud, clicking noise. ‘Now, where is my bathing dress? Just pass it to me, will you?'

I poked it under the sheet. Mrs Savernack stooped and picked it up, and after a series of contortions drew the sheet over her head and emerged ready for her swim.

When Mrs Savernack bathes she looks so like one of the comic characters out of a Noël Coward revue that it is difficult to persuade the Summer Visitors that it isn't a sort of publicity stunt. On this occasion a young man sitting near me clapped his hands and said, ‘Jolly good!'