I COULDN’T have been asleep many minutes (though, when I come to think
of it, no one ever is, in London), because I had waited up till eleven
for Abigail.
It was like this: the day before, cook had asked me if she might stay
out till eleven that night, as she wanted to go and see an old lady in
whose employ she had once been. The old lady was seriously ill; she
couldn’t get her off her mind; and she felt she ought to give her what
little pleasure she could, as she wouldn’t be likely to get over it.
I begged her to take the whole afternoon; such affection was really
touching. I saw myself in a few years’ time, decrepit, aged, and
infirm, being visited by a crowd of devoted retainers, who murmured one
to another:
“She had her faults, goodness knows, but at least we will scatter seeds
of kindness!”
In any case, I was pleased for cook to take some extra time, as she is
invariably home early—the Naval Division at the Crystal Palace have to
be under glass by nine o’clock.
She thanked me, but declined the afternoon, as she thought half-past
nine or ten in the evening would suit the old lady best; she was in a
West End nursing home. It seemed late to visit one who was so aged and
so ill, but, of course, I gave the extended leave.
She returned at 10.55, looking very bright, a bunch of roses in
her coat-belt, a box of chocolates dangling from her finger, and a
programme in her hand.
Yes, thank you; she had had a lovely time. The old lady?—er—oh, yes!
she was getting on nicely, thank you.
* * * * *
Next day, Abigail came to me, also asking for an eleven o’clock
leave. It transpired that she was expecting a little orphan cousin
to arrive that night from Blackpool; _such_ a sad affair—child left
without a father when it was only four years old—she was eight now.
No, she hadn’t ever seen the little cousin, but she felt it was such a
distressing case that it was her duty to do what she could.
I hinted that eleven o’clock at night seemed rather late for one who
was so young and so orphaned to be up and about, and likewise offered
her the afternoon. But she said the train didn’t arrive sooner, and the
trains were often late. So I gave her till 11.0 p.m. to welcome the
pitiful orphan.
She also arrived in at night looking radiant. Under her mackintosh
she was wearing a pink chiffon dress, edged with swansdown; a bandeau
of sparkles was on her hair, a horseshoe of the same make adorning
the back of her head; she carried a fan, and some flowers that had
evidently been worn on the dress.
I am glad to say that she, too, had enjoyed herself immensely, and the
desolate relative had been most pleased to make her acquaintance.
After that I retired.
* * * * *
And then I conclude it was the bang that did it; at any rate, the whole
household woke with a start, and with one accord the feminine portion
precipitated itself downstairs and on to the front door mat, and peered
out into the dark road in the hope of seeing _something_!
The masculine element, being gifted with a faculty for keeping cool,
calm and collected in any emergency, stayed to gather up a few wraps
and rugs and overcoats and anything else he could lay his hands on in
the dark (including his disreputable old gardening jacket), which he
brought down and distributed among us, as we had not stopped for much
in the way of clothing.
At that moment Virginia and Ursula rushed along the road from their
own house and joined us. Virginia was clad in a nightdress, with a
mackintosh over it and a sumptuous pale blue kimono (covered with brown
and black flying herons) on the top of the mac. Ursula was wearing her
heliotrope dressing-gown, an ostrich feather boa, and an eiderdown
quilt.
They both apologised for calling so late (it was past midnight), but
said they felt they should just like to talk things over.
While I was bidding them welcome, Miss Quirker (from round the corner)
appeared; likewise Miss Thresher (a secondary-school mistress) and her
friend Mrs. Brash, who share a flat near by; and in the rear came Mrs.
Ridley, the doctor’s widow from across the road.
They all said they had come because they could see “it” better from my
house, which stands on a high point, overlooking London one way, and
Kent from the other side.
Each caller was grateful for the loan of a blanket.
Meanwhile, in far less time than it takes to write all this,
fire-engines and ambulances, and policemen and motor-cars and
pedestrians appeared as by magic from nowhere and went tearing along
the road. Yet, crane our necks as we would, not a glimpse could we
catch of “it.”
Miss Quirker—who always seems to have special and exclusive information
about everything—said the creature was exactly over her bedroom
chimney when the bomb was dropped; she heard a strange whirring noise
(described most graphically), and turned on the electric light for
company; then there was a _brilliant_ flash in the sky (yes, she could
see it above the electric light), and the bomb fell—she was sure
it was in her back garden. She looked very pleased with herself and
superior, to think that she had been singled out by Fate for this
special and distinctive visitation.
The man of the house, after bidding us stay just where we were as he
wouldn’t be gone a minute, hied him buoyantly down the road in company
with neighbouring masculines—to find the bomb, I suppose. He soon
returned, however, with the exceedingly flat information that a gas
explosion had occurred in a house further along, though they couldn’t
tell whether it was due to the geyser or the cooking-range, as they
couldn’t find either.
[Later on, the remains of a geyser and part of a porcelain bath were
picked up about six miles off, in the Walworth Road; and I understand
that the police at Sevenoaks found the remnants of an alien gas-stove
wandering about in a suspicious manner, and promptly interned it. But
this is by the way.]
“Only a gas explosion!” exclaimed everybody in doleful disappointment.
Mrs. Brash certainly looked relieved; but then she is a very nervous
little woman with a weak heart.
“Well, I call it _too_ bad!” said Virginia. “Every solitary relative,
friend, and acquaintance I possess, even to the third and fourth
generation, has had a Zepp cross ‘right over their very road’; and
every person I’ve met during the last twelve months boasts and brags
of the way they’ve had them ‘exactly above their heads.’ And yet, do
what I will, I can’t get a sight of even the tail of one.”
“Just my case,” said everybody else in chorus; “I seem to be the only
one in London who hasn’t seen one.”
But Miss Thresher cut short our bemoanings over the hardness of our
lot, by saying in her head-mistress voice—
“I’m afraid an excess of untutored imagination is one of the weaknesses
of this age. We, however, can console ourselves with the knowledge
that at least we are _truthful_; and truth, after all, is the greater
asset”—looking witheringly at Miss Quirker.
I replied, “How about some hot coffee?” It was the most appropriate
remark that I could think of on the spur of the moment.
Cook promptly offered to get it, while I went after tea-gowns and
dressing-gowns and similar symbols of propriety for our shivering
guests, who looked a trifle nondescript now that the lights were on.
The man of the house had returned to assist at the explosion.
If Miss Thresher hoped that her last remark would quelch Miss Quirker,
she was mistaken nothing can suppress that lady, and nothing is sacred
to her. She will stalk up to your secret cupboard, no matter how boldly
you may have labelled it “strictly private,” and drag out into broad
daylight the most disreputable skeleton you keep in it, the one you
packed away at the very back of the top shelf—and then be pained at
your ingratitude!
As I entered the room with an armful of apparel I heard her saying
to Miss Thresher, “Why don’t you put a flounce on the bottom? Those
cheap flannelettes always shrink in the wash.... Oh, flannel is it?...
Really! no one would ever think you gave that much for it, would they?
At any rate I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t have them right down around my
feet.”
* * * * *
To change the subject I asked Virginia why she had put her mac. on
under her kimono, when obviously the correct order would have been to
wear it outside.
She said she concluded it was sheer genius and originality made her do
it, for she had never worn such a combination in her life before; and
the same must have applied to Ursula, for, looking back on a varied
and chequered career, she could never remember seeing her sister, even
once, promenading the highway in an eiderdown before.
At the same time, she inquired why it was that _I_ had stood for a
quarter of an hour on that doormat, clasping feverishly to my chest a
pair of satin slippers and a bath towel, and clinging pathetically
to a bedroom candlestick; when obviously any candle would have blown
out had I attempted to light it, and the bedroom slippers would have
been more usefully employed on my shoeless feet; while as for the bath
towel...!
The coffee came at that moment. I remembered that some time ago the
kitchen had been very interested in an article in one of the dailies,
giving various directions as to what should be done in the case of
bombs overhead. I forget a good deal of it, but I remember you had to
lay mattresses all over the top floors before you came downstairs, and
you had to dip a cloth in hyposulphate of something, and hold it to
your nose as you came down to seek a place of safety.
The servants were rather taken with the mattress idea, said how simple
it was, and that, as they had five mattresses between them, they would
cover a good deal of floor space. I even generously offered them the
two off my own bed, if they would come down and fetch them as soon as
the Zepps were heard, so long as they undertook to place them carefully
above _my_ head.
When Abigail brought in the trays, I asked how many mattresses she had
laid down.
“I never gave ’em a thought,” she owned up; “my two legs seemed all
that mattered, for I was sure I saw the Zeppelin-thing looking straight
in at my bedroom window—such sauce!”
“Untutored imagination again!” murmured Ursula in my ear.
Nervous little Mrs. Brash said that was just the difficulty; when it
actually came to the point you could think of nothing that you ought to
remember. Wouldn’t it be well to talk the subject over and decide a few
things—merely to be prepared—now that there was a group of us together.
Miss Thresher, who loves the importance of being in any sort of office,
enthused over the idea; said we had better have a committee meeting
there and then; to be forewarned was to be forearmed, she told us, with
an impressive air of wisdom. She said she would be Minute Secretary,
and we must draw up schedules stating definitely and clearly what a
woman ought to do, first by way of preparation beforehand, and secondly
when the crisis actually arrived.
Miss Quirker endorsed this, and remarked in an aggrieved tone (in my
direction) that she should have thought the women’s papers would have
dealt comprehensively with so important a subject long ago. She added,
however, that she thought “crisis” was far too respectable a name to
give them; had she not been a staunch Churchwoman, she would have
called them something far more vividly appropriate. I didn’t hear the
end of this, because I slipped away to find the man of the house, as I
had heard him return indoors.
Opening the study door, my eyes fell on such an upheaval that for the
moment I felt certain a gas explosion must have been at work there.
But no! He explained (turning out yet another drawer) that he was only
looking for some insurance policies, as he wasn’t quite certain what
was the attitude of the companies towards geysers. I pointed out that
it didn’t matter as we hadn’t one; but he went on looking, and his face
wore that tense expression seen on most men when hunting for the family
screwdriver, or the pair of black gloves kept for funerals. Having
found the policies at last (in the drawer where they had always been
kept, by the way), I left him in peace, to peruse them at his leisure.
* * * * *
The Ladies’ Committee was well under way when I returned to the
dining-room, and as is the correct thing at such gatherings, everybody
was talking at once and on the most diverse topics. I consider myself
rather great on ladies’ committees; I’ve even occupied the proud
position of being in the chair, on occasion. And the more I see of
them the more I am lost in admiration of the courage, versatility, and
insuppressibility of my sex.
Why, there’s no man living who could trail as many totally irrelevant
topics across the agenda, and in defiance of a politely pleading
chairwoman too, as can the littlest and frailest woman at any ladies’
committee you like to name.
As it was, the only one who seemed within a hundred miles of Zeppelins
was poor Mrs. Brash, who was explaining to Mrs. Ridley—
“It isn’t that I mind dying: we all have to die _some_ day: but I do
prefer to die _whole_.”
Of course the doctor’s widow pooh-poohed this as nonsense, and asked
severely what would become of surgeons if everybody felt like _that_!
Miss Thresher couldn’t find a suitable heading for her schedule,
till Ursula suggested “Antizeptics.” Mrs. Ridley thought the medical
profession might not approve of the unprofessional use of the word;
but it was accepted by the majority, and then we all settled down
wholeheartedly to attack the problem from every point of view—which
included, among other things, borax as a preventive for moth, Queen
Mary’s graciousness, a comparison of the respective merits of local
butchers, economising on corsets, and the War Loan.
Perhaps you can’t see how these came in, but it was simple enough.
Miss Quicker said that, after all, explosions that you thought were
Zeppelins weren’t so bad if they enabled you to get such good coffee as
mine; and might she have a third lump of sugar, please? it was such a
treat to get a really sweet cup of coffee; she had given up sugar at
home as she was economising on it.
Being the hostess, I couldn’t exactly tell her that I, too, was trying
to economise on mine.
From the high price of sugar we naturally floated on to the ruinous
tendencies of butcher’s meat, and Mrs. Brash explained the trouble she
had with her butcher because he wouldn’t send home all the bones.
Mrs. Ridley had similar harrowments to relate about her butcher, but
his vice took the form of sticking to the trimmings from the joints,
which she was sure he sold at a good price for soap-making, now that
fat was so scarce and soap likely to be dear. She knew it because—as
she reminded us—she was the treasurer of the “Women’s League for
Encouraging the Troops to Wash,” and it came very hard on their funds.
What it would cost them for the cakes of soap they were going to send
out no one would believe! (No, they hadn’t sent any yet; but of course
they were going to, when they got enough members, and, by the way,
would _I_ join?)
She didn’t mind a fair charge, of course (we all murmured agreement).
War was war, and we must expect to pay something extra to help the
King keep going; he had his family to provide for like any other man.
Neither did she grudge one solitary penny that went to Lord Kitchener
(hearty applause). No, indeed! But what made her blood boil was to
feel that she was actually washing her hands with her own ribs—and at
one-and-threepence-halfpenny a pound, too!
Virginia suggested she should try a rather less heating soap; but she
was drowned by Miss Thresher, who said firmly, “Borax; that’s what you
ought to send to the troops. Not only would it soften the water for
them, poor things—and no one knows better than I do what awfully hard
stuff that German water is; nearly scraped my skin off when I went up
the Rhine two years ago—but they would find it so useful to put in with
their woollen things that we’ve been knitting them, to keep out the
moth.”
My reminder that our troops were not as yet, alas! drawing their
water from German cisterns was unnoticed; for the mere mention of
moth produced extraordinary animation. Was borax good? Weren’t they a
perfect nuisance? and so on. I said I always put it in with my furs,
and never had a moth near them.
“I wonder if that’s what they put with Queen Mary’s furs,” said Mrs.
Brash. “I never saw more lovely sables than those she had on when she
came to the hospital yesterday.”
Miss Thresher verified this last statement, absolutely superb they
were, and Miss Thresher had a right to speak, for the Queen had bowed
straight at her, as she stood on the kerb, “as near to her as I am to
you.”
Miss Quirker said that for her part she didn’t think there was another
woman in the world so gracious as Queen Mary—except of course Queen
Alexandra. She would bow to anyone she saw, no matter _how_ shabby they
were.
Mrs. Brash hurriedly said what she so much admired in Queen Alexandra
was her figure.
Miss Quirker continued, “Yes, and speaking of corsets I want to tell
you of another economy besides doing without sugar to help the nation.
You should buy your corsets several sizes larger than usual, and then
when they are getting worn, you can turn them upside down and wear them
the other way up. It’s so saving.”
Ursula said she quite believed it, because she knew, if she turned her
long corsets upside down, they would reach high enough up to support
the military collar at the back of her neck, and thus save boning.
I felt it was high time we got back to “Antizeptics,” and suggested
that we should put something in the first column of the schedule, which
was headed: “Things to place in readiness beforehand.”
Mrs. Brash announced that she wasn’t ever going to take her clothes off
any more till the war was over, if this was the sort of goings-on we
were to expect.
General opinion, however, was decidedly in favour of, at any rate,
removing the outside frock, simply because we none of us saw any
prospect of ever being able to afford to buy a new one.
Then we all said what we thought ought to go into that column. Woollen
undies, a fur-lined coat, a thick dressing-gown, a raincoat, a
travelling rug, and all sorts of other things, were to be placed _close
to the bedside_. This was insisted upon as a matter of the greatest
importance; otherwise, in the dark, we should never find anything, and
of course it wouldn’t be safe to have a light.
Miss Thresher and Miss Quirker had a small sub-committee on the subject
of stockings—should they be worn all night in bed? Miss Thresher said
obviously it was the only sensible course. Miss Quirker objected that
she should kick hers off in her sleep in any case, hers was such a
delicate skin (as a child people had always remarked on it), though
probably women less sensitive than herself might be able to endure
them. But if she lost hers among the bedclothes she would never find
them in the dark.
Eventually they compromised by agreeing to safety-pin a pair to the
front of the nightdress (as they fasten your handkerchief to you in
the hospital), so that at least they would know where to find them in
case of precipitate flight.
Meanwhile the question, “Should hats be worn?” necessitated Ursula and
Mrs. Brash going into another sub-committee on the lounge. Mrs. Brash
favoured a shawl—preferably white—being draped over the head; it was
more suited to the _négligé_ condition of the hair. This led her to
consult Ursula about the winter’s hat she was evolving. She had had
an _exceedingly_ good white and black crinoline hat the summer before
last, and the winter before last she had had a _very_ lovely violet
velvet toque—the rich deep colour favoured by Queen Alexandra.
Last winter she had taken the violet velvet from the hat of the winter
before, and put it over the crinoline hat of the summer before (you can
follow this, I hope?), and everybody had admired it. Now she proposed
to return the violet velvet to its original toque, only this time she
would smother it with some violets she had by her, and she had a really
beautiful little sable skin which she proposed to put round the brim.
Did Miss Ursula think the violets and the fur would combine well?
Ursula said she herself didn’t care for fur and flowers in combination,
because she always associated sables with snowy northern regions,
whereas violets suggested soft spring days and awakening woods and
gardens.
Mrs. Brash, who had never thought of putting things together in that
way before, said how very poetic it was. Then would Miss Ursula think
that quills would look better? After all, birds and flowers went
together.
Ursula agreed, and added that she had even found the neighbours’ fowls
scratting up the white violets one day. Mrs. Brash seemed to feel that
was conclusive proof of the desirability of the combination. And in
that case, should the quills tilt outwards or inwards? No, she didn’t
mean inside the hat, of course, but across the top or off the head?...
Yes, perhaps it would be the best to tilt them backwards, and she
should fasten them with a large cameo that had belonged to the late Mr.
Brash’s mother (prolific details as to the grasping character of Mrs.
Brash, senior, who had never given her a thing except this cameo).
Finally, she aired her only anxiety—would the shape of the
winter-before-last toque still be worn this winter? Ursula assured her
that the shapes of the winter-before-last will be worn till the war is
over, and by that time we shall have become so attached to them that we
shall refuse to part with them.
* * * * *
After we had collected a fairly comprehensive pile of clothes—including
most we possessed—and placed it all close beside the bed, jewellery
came under discussion. Naturally no one wanted to lose even the
smallest tiara, and we were all quite sure the Government wouldn’t
include jewellery in the insurance. So we collected our trinkets and
placed them on top of the garments. It was astonishing how much we each
seemed to possess, and how careful we were to enumerate it all. Mrs.
Brash enlarged tearfully and at great length on the diamond necklace
her late husband had given her.
This opened up a wider question. How about silver plate? Yes, how about
the silver? each one echoed. Was it likely we were going to hand over
our teapots, shoelifts, candlesticks, pin-boxes, spoons and forks,
hair-brushes, entrée-dishes, and photo-frames to the enemy? No, indeed
not! So we all lugged our plate-chests to the bedside; though Miss
Thresher said she should put hers all into a laundry bag and hang it on
the bedpost; it would be easier to carry that way.
Then a number of side issues cropped up. Virginia had just invested in
the War Loan; there was her scrip. Mrs. Brash couldn’t think of leaving
behind the portrait of her great-grand-uncle, the admiral (always thus
referred to, as though no other had ever existed), whereupon we all
remembered we had ancestral portraits calling for preservation—after
all, it doesn’t look well if you haven’t!
Miss Quirker decided she would take the bedspread she had crocheted for
their forthcoming Red Cross bazaar (but didn’t intend to give it to
them now it was finished; it was far too pretty. Besides, the secretary
had only put her name in small type among “other ladies helping” below
the stallholders, and just think how she had slaved over that bazaar!).
Mrs. Ridley said that whatever else went, she meant at all costs
to save the presentation clock given to her late husband by a very
celebrated patient, whose name she was not at liberty to state. I’m
inclined to think this was mentioned as a set-off against Mrs. Brash’s
diamond necklace; the late Mr. Brash, though an admirable husband, did
not seem to have generated anything remarkable in the way of public
esteem, whereas the late Dr. Ridley was known to be anything but
generous.
Mrs. Ridley had no diamonds; but the clock was of solid granite, made
on the model of a pyramid. It was surmounted by a coy-looking sphinx,
representing about a quarter of a hundredweight of bronze metal.
Accompanying the pyramid—one at each end of the mantelpiece—was a pair
of heavy granite obelisks (like Cleopatra’s Needle, but just a size
smaller). It took both the servants to lift the clock every time the
mantelpiece was dusted, Mrs. Ridley explained with pride. Besides,
the obelisks were very useful to hang her knitting bag on, and so
appropriate too, with our brave lads out there rallying round and
defending the poor sphinx from the Turks. (Virginia whispered in my
ear, it was no wonder the bronze lady looked so cheerful.)
So of course these weighty items joined the jewellery at the bedside.
Other valuables rapidly suggested themselves; also more sordid things,
such as matches and candles, a tin of biscuits, and a small stove and
kettle, for use if we had to sit out in the road all night gazing at a
ruined home.
And of course we placed pails of sand and buckets of water close at
hand, to use if it should be an incendiary bomb. (I hoped I shouldn’t
hop out of bed straight into the water!)
Here Ursula reminded me that the pile of sand placed on the platform
of our London station several months (or was it years?) ago, for
Anti-zeptic treatment, was now sprouting luscious grass; obviously the
lawn-mower and garden-roller must be added to the bedside museum.
But I told her afterwards, she had better keep quiet if she lacks the
ability to grasp the strenuosity of any situation where a group of
conscientious women are conversing on the subject of “doing something.”
As it was, her remark only incited Miss Quirker to spend a tedious
five minutes in explaining to her how impossible it would be for a
single woman, with only one maid, to get the garden-roller upstairs,
and another ten in giving her recipes for exterminating grass; while
Mrs. Ridley went off at a tangent on the shortage of gardeners, and the
advantages of paraffin over fish-oil as a lubricant for mowing-machines.
I only succeeded in getting her back to the agenda, by begging her to
advise us, as she was such an authority on paraffin, whether to take an
oil-stove or a spirit-lamp for the outdoor encampment.
* * * * *
At length, when any ordinary bedroom must have been packed quite full,
and suggestive of a furniture depository, Virginia’s voice rose above
the babel—
“But what I want to know is, how am I ever going to get into bed?”
“You may well ask!” said her sister. “Look at the time! Just you come
along home with me. I’ll show you. Where’s my eiderdown?”
Miss Thresher besought them to stay a few minutes longer, merely to
decide what to do when the Zeppelins actually arrived. But Ursula said
they had got all their work cut out to get through the preparatory
stages of the schedule.
So the Committee adjourned.
As they went out, a figure came out of the kitchen side entrance and
made for the coach-house, carrying a big cardboard box.
“Is anything the matter, Abigail?” I asked.
“No’m! I’m only hiding all our best hats in the stable; I expect
they’ll be less likely to find them there.”
“But the Zepps aren’t exactly like burglars!” I said.
“No, I suppose they’re not,” she replied, “but when a creature like
that Kaiser gets nosing about among _the stars_, as well as trying to
rampage all over the earth, there’s no telling _what_ he’ll be up to
next. It’s as well to be prepared.”