‘What next? What will happen now?’
Then there was a stir inside the house; feet on the stairs, the
opening and shutting of doors.
Walter came in from the study. I had forgotten Walter; and Maud
came downstairs from her bedroom; I had forgotten that Maud was
staying with us just then.
They pulled me back from the window.
Maud said:
‘Quick, we must get the children downstairs.’
She went to the cot and picked Rachel up.
She said:
‘Ada has taken Eleanor down already.’
Walter said:
‘That’s right, Maud: that’s right. Hurry up, Helen, why are you
waiting?’
He took me by the shoulder and pushed me in front of him across
the room, turning out the gas as he passed, and I went where
he pushed me. I felt quite passive, and as though I were a long
way off, and looking on We sat downstairs in the dining-room;
the servants were there already with Eleanor. She was pink with
sleep and rather puzzled. They had wrapped her up in a rug, and
she sat on Walter’s knee. I took Rachel on mine; she was still
fast asleep.
We could hear the shrapnel like hailstones on the roof, and in
the street, and the long wail of the shells, and then between,
came the sound of engines, a droning sinister sound.
And I thought:
‘A bomb might fall and kill us any moment; it might fall now,
while I think.’
But it had no meaning for me at all, and I thought:
‘How funny we look sitting here in our dressing-gowns.’
For only Walter was still dressed, and I thought how funny the
old cook looked with her hair down her back, and I thought Maud
looked much nicer than she did in her ordinary clothes.
Maud was trying to talk to the maids, to distract their attention
from the noise, and I noticed the tremor in her voice.
And I thought:
‘How funny that is; Maud is quite frightened.’
Now came a dropping of bombs, louder, more reverberating explosions,
one after another. I counted seven in quick succession, then
there was a lull. Again we could hear the whizzing of the engines,
louder and louder, and then less loud, and again the barrage
and the wailing of the shells and again the pattering like hailstones
in the street.
Ada and the cook shuddered and shut their eyes.
Eleanor asked:
‘Why is there such a noise?’
Maud said:
‘Gun practice, my dear child. They are practising with guns.’
And she seemed satisfied, she was still half asleep.
And I thought:
‘Those bombs have fallen somewhere; they have fallen on something;
people must have been killed.’
But it did not mean much to me even so.
Maud said violently:
‘And they call this War. I don’t.’