THE ZEPPELIN NIGHT
When I said it had been "a crowded day" I only meant at the time
crowded with the little affairs of the Verdeley family. My finding
out first of all about that unforgivable Incubus and his "Lonely
Subaltern" trick and our quarrel for one thing! And, for the other
thing, my coming unexpectedly upon Nancy's romance. For it is a
romance. How they have managed it in such a short time I don't know.
But here she is actually engaged. Ahem! I _mean_, of course, having
an understanding with this Captain Masters, whose name we hadn't
heard a fortnight ago.
Really it reminds me of that old poem:
"_A roving eye, a soldier's mien,
A doublet of the blue,
No more of me you knew, my love--
No more of me you knew._"
In this case, of course, the doublet is made of what the _London
Mail_ tells you is the only key to a woman's heart--khaki!
_How_ I should like to know every detail about just how it all
happened! I must get Nancy to tell me every atom of that as soon as
the "understanding" has blossomed out into a proper engagement.
Yes, here's Nancy, if you please, only just twenty and flying
straight in the face of our parents' will that sent us down to this
God-forsaken place on purpose so that we mightn't rush into the
madness of an early love affair before the age of twenty-five!
What would our parents have said to this?
However, those two bombshells are not the only ones that have fallen
on this place to-night. Between eleven o'clock and half-past we had,
by way of a little change, some real ones!
An air raid over Mud Flats! That is the latest!
I heard the sound of "bang, bang, bang!" outside when I was in bed.
Immediately I popped up and slipped on my dressing-gown and nipped
across the passage to Evelyn's room, which looks out on to the front.
Nancy was there already. Then out bounced Aunt Victoria in a million
shawls and an eider-down and a most worried look, and her grey hair
like a bird's nest with hoar frost on it. All this time "bang, bang,
bang," was still going on outside, with a deep "Brrr--Rroum!
Brrr--Roum!" that we seemed to hear in our bones, first of all. We
were told afterwards that these were the guns from the cruiser in the
Bay outside Mud Flats.
And then we heard a tap at Evelyn's door, which we'd left open.
And then, looking up, we beheld the weirdest little figure in
bright-blue-and-cream-striped pyjamas, with red hair standing bolt
upright on end, like a baby's just rumpled from its cot.
"Don't be frightened! I say, it's quite all right," said a voice
that I suppose was intended to be awfully encouraging and dauntless,
though, as a matter of fact, all of us girls were far more excited
than frightened.
"The thing's gone over now! And, anyhow, you have got a man in the
house." This was, if you please, our awful Incubus--the Lascelles
boy!
I suppose he was the only object in pyjamas that Aunt Victoria had
ever seen in her life (since I know she said that our uncle Edward
always used to wear a good old-fashioned nightshirt). So possibly
she thought that Mr. Lascelles had gone into mufti and was wearing
the very latest and "nuttiest" thing in lounge suits. (She really is
as ignorant as that about men!) What I mean to say is that she
didn't look in the least shocked: she who always used to consider it
a sign of being extra nice to be shocked at everything but an
overcoat! Isn't it funny? And it was actually she, if you please,
who suggested that we should all have cups of cocoa and pieces of
cake to help us to "compose ourselves" before we went off to sleep
again: not only that, but that she meant Mr. Lascelles as well, of
course! So there he stayed, looking something like an illustration
of "_Toy-Town_" in _The Sketch_, and bustling about in that zebra
pyjama-suit, and that hair, handing cups and gobbling cake, and
jabbering away to all of us--I mean, of course, to all of them.
Neither of _us_ has spoken a word to the other since that echoing
moment when I slapped his face for him in the dining-room, and I
don't see any particular reason why we ever should speak again.
I am not going to apologise for having lost my temper with him: he
deserved everything he got--and I don't suppose he is going to
apologise for his "Lonely Subaltern" trick--so there we shall remain.
I forgot to say that, of course, both the servants were crowded in as
well to that Zeppelin cocoa party in Evelyn's room. Mary, the
housemaid, was the only one of our party who seemed at all
hysterical. She came in Hinde's curlers and pink flannelette. She
began to whimper about this being the end of everything, and how we
had all come to the last hour of our lives.
This was when cook, in a grey golf-cape and carpet slippers, rounded
on her, and said: "Well, if it is the last hour, it has come at a
very good time for you, and don't forget it! Wasn't it your evening
out? Didn't I see you, with my own eyes, trapesing down the market
place with Lance-Corporal Gateshead going to the pictures?"
(I forgot to explain that, among other changes, there actually is a
Picture Palace at Mud Flats now, for the benefit of the soldiers.)
"And even if you do get killed by them Germans to-night, at least you
saw the new film of Charlie Chaplin the last thing before leaving!
So I don't see what you have got to complain of, you ungrateful
thing!" said cook. "If you was like poor old Mr. Penny, now, who had
that bad attack of screwmatics for his last evening----"
That suddenly reminded us of poor old Penny--the only member of the
entire household who wasn't gathered there in Evelyn's little room.
"I wonder if he has slept through all this racket?" said Aunt
Victoria, rather anxiously. "If not, I am afraid he must have been
rather terrified, poor old man."
"Penny? Is that your old gardener chap with the wig--the one who is
always nosing round the camps for leaf-mould and groundsel for your
canary, and that sort of thing?" said the Incubus quickly. "Sleeps
in the attic, does he? Well, I will just pop up to him."
And off he popped in his red Turkish slippers.
We heard voices from Penny's room, Penny's sounding rather angry.
Presently the Sight in pyjamas came down, and said: "He's all right.
He wasn't frightened a bit, unless he is scared by my language!"
"Language!"--just fancy, to dear old Penny, our faithful old servant!
In the middle of a Zeppelin Night! Did you ever hear anything so
disgraceful?
I think even the Incubus noticed my look of stony disapproval, for he
went on rather hastily to explain: "I told the old Johnnie he'd
simply got to keep his skylight covered. He'd lighted his lamp, just
to hearten himself up, he said----"
Poor old fellow! As if he knew what he was doing in his nervousness
and flurry!
--"But there was light enough to see beyond the Martello Tower. I
don't think it will happen again," wound up that interfering parrot
of an Incubus. "Good-night, everybody!"
Everybody said "Good-night," except me. I hope he noticed that I
didn't even look at him. When I got back to my own room and went
straight to the glass to see whether I had been looking as dignified
and mature as I'd been feeling, I was annoyed when I saw myself.
What with my two fat golden plaits hanging down on each side of my
face and the soft muslin collar on my sky-blue dressing-gown and the
pale pink ribbon showing from my nightie, I looked years and _years_
less than my real age. I might have been fifteen-and-a-half!
Girls? Can you _imagine_ anything more maddening?