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HE little lady who needed to be loved, but did not know it, discovered
me quite by accident. This story is a series of accidents; if it had
not been for the _ifs_ and the _perhaps's_ and the _possibilities_ there
wouldn't have been any story to tell.
I was empty when she found me, for my late tenants had grown frightened
and had moved into the country on account of airraids. They said that I
was too near the giant searchlights and anti-aircraft guns of Hyde Park
Corner to be healthy. If they weren't killed by bombs, sooner or later
they would be struck by our own expended shell-cases that came toppling
from two miles out of the clouds. So they had made their exit hurriedly
in November, taking all their furniture and leaving me to spend my
one-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Christmas in the company of a caretaker.
It was shortly before Christmas when I first saw her. Night had settled
peacefully down; it was about nine o'clock when the maroons and sirens
began to give warning that the enemy was approaching. In an instant,
like a lamp extinguished, the lights of London flickered and sank. Down
the forests of streets innumerable doors swiftly opened and people came
pattering out. Dragging half-clad children by the hand and carrying
babies snatched up from their warm beds, they commenced to run hither
and thither, seeking the faint red lights of shelters, where cellars and
overhead protection might be found. Policemen, mounted on bicycles, rode
up and down the thoroughfares, blowing whistles. Ambulances dashed by,
tooting horns and clanging bells. From far and near out of the swamp
of darkness rose a medley of panic and sound. Prodding the sky, like
detectives with lanterns, searchlights hunted and turned back the edges
of the clouds. Then ominously, with solemn anger, the guns opened up
and in fierce defiance the first bomb fell. The pattering of feet ceased
suddenly. Streets grew forlorn and empty. The commotion of living and
the terror of dying were transferred from the earth to the air.
I was standing deserted with my door wide open, for at the first signs
of clamour the old woman, who was supposed to take care of me, had
hobbled up from her basement and out on to the pavement in search of the
nearest Tube Station. In her fear for her safety, she had forgotten to
close my door, so there I stood with the damp air drifting into my hall,
at the mercy of any chance vagrant.
The guns had been booming for perhaps five minutes when I heard running
footsteps entering the square. Our square is so shut in and small that
it echoes like a church; every sound is startling and can be heard in
every part of it. I could not see to whom the footsteps belonged on
account of the trees and the darkness. They entered on the side farthest
from me, from the street where the red motor-buses pass. When they had
reached the top, from which there is no exit, they hesitated; then
came hurrying back along the side on which they would have to pass me.
_Tip-a-tap, tip-a-tap, tip-a-tap_ and panting breath--the sound of
a woman's high-heeled shoes against the pavement. Accompanying the
_tip-a-tap_ were funny, more frequent, shuffling noises, indistinct and
confused. Three shadows grew out of the gloom, a small one on either
side and a bigger one in the centre; as they drew near they resolved
themselves into a lady in an evening-wrap and two children.
I was more glad than I cared to own, for I'd been feeling lonely. Now
that peace has come and we've won the war, I don't mind acknowledging
that I'd been feeling frightened; at the time I wouldn't have confessed
it for the world lest the Huns should have got to know it. We London
houses, trying to live up to the example of our soldiers, always
pretended that we liked the excitement of airraids. We didn't really; we
quaked in all our bricks and mortar. One's foundations aren't what
they were when one is a hundred-and-ninety-eight years old. So I'm not
ashamed to tell you that I was delighted when the lady and her children
came in my direction. I tried to push my front-door wider that they
might guess that they were welcome. I was terribly nervous that they
might pass in their haste without seeing that I was anxious to give them
shelter. It was shelter that they were looking for. In coming into the
square they had been seeking a shortcut home.
They drew level without slackening their steps and had almost gone by
me when, less than a quarter of a mile away, a bomb crashed deafeningly.
Everything seemed to reel. Far and near you could hear the tinkling of
splintered glass. The world leapt up red for a handful of seconds as
though the door of a gigantic furnace had been flung open. Against
the glow you could see the crouching roofs of houses, the crooked
chimney-pots and the net-work of trees in the garden with their branches
stripped and bare. The lady clutched at my railings to steady herself.
Her face was white and her eyes were dark with terror. The last bomb had
been so very close that it seemed as though the next must fall in the
square itself. One of the searchlights had spotted the enemy and was
following his plane through the clouds, holding it in its glare.
“Mummy, it's all right. Don't be frightened. You've got me to take care
of you.” It was the little boy speaking. Then he saw my _To Let_ sign
above and pointed, “We'll go in here till it's over. Look, the door's
wide open.”
He tugged on her hand. With her arm about the shoulder of the little
girl on the other side of her, she followed. The glow died down
and faded. Soon the square was as secret and shadowy as it had been
before--a tank full of darkness in which nothing stirred.