Necessity does not make stranger bedfellows than some of the changes
brought about by War. Who, for example--and certainly not such a born
sun-worshipper as I--would ever have dreamt that a time would come
when we in London and the Eastern counties would desire rain and wind
with a passionate keenness once reserved solely for fine weather? Yet
so it is. By reason of that foolish invention of flying we now, when
we go to the window in the morning and lift the blind, are dashed and
darkly thoughtful if no sky of grey scudding misery meets our gaze.
"Please Heaven it pours!" we say. Just think of it--"Please Heaven it
pours!" What a treachery! It may even come that we include prayers for
storms in the Liturgy.
In default of bad weather we may have to Take Cover; and it is when
we Take Cover that discoveries begin and long-postponed adventures
fructify. For years and years, for example, I had looked down that
steep hill by the Tivoli site in the Strand into the yawning cavern
that opens there, and wondered about it. I had thought one day to
explore it, but had never done so, any more than I have yet proceeded
further towards a visit to the Roman Bath, also off the Strand, than
to threaten it.
But I shall get to the Bath yet, because already, thanks to the
intervention of the Hun, I have become intimately acquainted with
Lower Robert Street, and the next step is simple.
In the ordinary way, short of desperate impulse and decision--unless
by some happy chance I had relinquished the burden of this pen and
taken happy service with one of the wine merchants who store their
treasure there--I should never have entered Lower Robert Street at
all, for it goes nowhere and runs under the earth, and it is damp
and mouldy, and the only doors, leading to this vault and that,
are locked. But for all these disabilities Lower Robert Street is,
in Gotha and Zeppelin times, a very present help and refuge. There
assemble, with more or less fortitude and philosophy, the denizens
of the Adelphi, thankful indeed that the brothers Adam established
their streets and terrace on so useful a foundation; and there twice
recently have I joined them. And an odd assembly we have made, ranging
as we do from successful dramatists to needy journalists, with an
actress or so to keep us manly.
There for long hours have we waited until the "All clear" has
sounded--or, at any rate, some have done so. As for myself, on the
last occasion, taking advantage of a lull in the uproar, I crept away
to bed, and, after falling into the sleep of exhaustion, had the
ironical experience of being rudely awakened by the reassuring bugles
and my night again ruined.
Having taken cover only in Lower Robert Street, which is open to
all, I cannot with any personal knowledge speak of the camaraderie
of private basements; but I suppose that that exists and is another
of the War's byproducts. I take it that, in the event of a sudden
alarm, no householder with a cellar would be so inhuman as to
refuse admittance to a stranger, and already probably a myriad
new friendships and not a few engagements have resulted. Our own
camaraderie is admirable. The federation of the barrage breaks down
every obstacle; while a piece of shrapnel that one can display is more
valuable than any letter of introduction, no matter who wrote it.
Hence we all talk; and sometimes we sing too--choruses of the moment,
for the most part, in one of which the depth of our affection for our
maternal relative is measured and regulated by the floridity of the
roses growing on her porch.
And yet, when at last friendliness is upon the town, there are
people--and not only alien Hebrews either--who have been hurrying away
from London! When London has become more interesting than ever before
in its history there are people who leave it!
Personally I mean to cling to the old city as long as it will cling to
me; but even now across one's aching sight comes a "dream of pastime
premature" which shakes such resolves a little. Peter, for example,
has been having a disturbing effect on me. Only now and then, of
course--when I am not quite myself; when the two and thirty (what
remains of them) are not so firmly gritted as they should be; when
even London seems unworthy of devotion.
But these moods pass. You will admit, though, that Peter has his lure.
I read about him in the _Tavistock Gazette_, one of the few papers,
I fancy, which does not belong to Lord NORTHCLIFFE; and this is
how the lyric (it is really a lyric, although it masquerades as an
advertisement) runs, not only in the paper but in my head: "To be
let, by Tender" (this is not an oath but some odd legal or commercial
term) "as and from Lady Day all that nice little PASTURE FARM known as
HIGHER CHURCH FARM, situate in the village of Peter Tavy." Now what
could be more unlike London under the German invasion and all that
nasty little tunnel known as Lower Robert Street, than Peter Tavy?
But I must not be tempted. I must stick it out here.
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