Henrietta's War (6 page)

March 20, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Whatever the meetings of our Drama Club may be, they are certainly not dull. Our club has the charming and original custom of leaving the choice of a play to the members themselves, instead of to a committee, and though this leads to a certain amount of confusion and delay, it adds a good deal to the gaiety and excitement of the members' lives; and, after all, what else is a Drama Club for?

‘Now, about a play for the spring,' said the chairman.

‘
Charley's Aunt
,' said Colonel Simpkins loudly.

‘I suggest a Noël Coward play,' said Faith, conscious that she had the clothes to carry it off. ‘What about
Design for
Living
?'

‘It's very improper,' said Savernack.

‘It's very funny,' said Faith.

‘Whatever happens, we must keep this club
clean
,' said the Admiral, looking as he does when he stands at the end of a pew waiting for the bag to come to him.

‘I always think
Private Lives
sounds a nice, homely play,' said old Mrs Simpkins. ‘Not that I've seen it, of course.'

‘What about
Cavalcade
?'

‘Wouldn't the train be rather difficult?'

After this there was silence until a stranger got up and said, ‘Mr Chairman,' in a contralto voice which commanded attention. I could only see her top half, which was hung with beads and suggested that the bottom half had a longish skirt and sandals.

‘Who's that?' I whispered.

‘Mrs Whinebite' whispered Lady B. ‘Taken Gorse View for six months.'

‘My suggestion for the club,' said the new tenant of Gorse View, ‘is “Mourning Becomes Electra”.'

‘Isn't it rather long?' said the Conductor, who was the only other person in the room who had ever heard of it.

‘It lasts four hours,' said Mrs Whinebite.

‘Good God!' said Colonel Simpkins.

‘I don't think people would like missing their dinners,' said Lady B, who certainly wouldn't like missing hers.

‘We might have a snack-bar,' said Faith. ‘Ah, but would they let us have a licence?'

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,
please
,' said the chairman. ‘What is the subject of this play?' he said, turning to Mrs Whinebite.

‘Incest,' she said simply.

‘Oh, dear!' said Lady B.

‘I will have this club kept CLEAN!' shouted the Admiral.

‘If this club isn't prepared to do Good Stuff, then it isn't worth bothering about,' said Mrs Whinebite.

‘I will have this club kept CLEAN!'

‘If you call a lot of perverted balderdash Good Stuff, Madam, then I'm sorry for you,' said the Admiral stiffly.

‘Sir! You have insulted my wife!' said a little man shrilly from the back of the hall.

Here we had the makings of a Good Row, and there is nothing our club enjoys more. Knitting was laid aside, and several people who had been asleep woke up, and said, ‘What's happening?' in a pleased and excited way.

‘I'm sure Admiral Marsdon intended nothing of the sort, Madam,' said the chairman but was interrupted by Mrs Whinebite and her husband leaving the hall.

I was surprised to see that she wore high-heeled shoes and a short skirt, which just shows that you can't judge people's bottom halves by their tops.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

March 27, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Meat rationing is not in full swing. As a matter of fact, it has turned out to be a good deal better than we feared, but during the first week we were all convinced that we wouldn't get nearly enough to eat, and we endured strange and unnecessary privations. Never having been what you might call carnivorous, it was not the smashing blow to me that it was to some, especially as I could have curried lentils and rice as often as I liked.

But Charles is one of those people who like what is called good, simple English fare, which means two nice lamb cutlets, followed by kidneys on toast, and in case the news has not reached you on your far-flung battle-line, Robert, I may as well tell you that kidneys, though not actually rationed, are more precious than rubies these days. Though he is far too noble to grumble, he does look a little wistfully at the unlikely-looking dishes which are put before him.

‘What is this, Henrietta?'

‘Well, dear, it's a tiny teeny little bit of mutton mixed up with some spaghetti and tomatoes.'

‘I see.'

Lady B, who is wonderful cook, is perfectly happy tossing up one delicious omelette after another.

Mrs Savernack, that woman of action, took out a gun-licence. If she can't get meat at the butcher's, she will go out and shoot it. The rabbits which for years gambolled happily in the fields at the back of the Savernacks' house have received a rude awakening, and Mrs Savernack, flushed with success, has begun to turn her thoughts to bigger game. Farmer Barnes, wisely perhaps, has moved his cows to another field.

But the one who is really enjoying the meat rationing is Mrs Whinebite. Not that it actually makes any difference to her, for she and the unhappy Julius have been vegetarians of the most violent order for years, but it gives her the chance to show off in the way vegetarians are so fond of doing. She wanders about the countryside, singing folk-songs, with her hair coming down and her hands full of the most revolting fungi.

‘Surely you're not going to eat those?' said Lady B, her eyes wide with horror, when we met Mrs Whinebite one day in Harper's Woods.

‘Why not, dear lady?'

‘Because they look poisonous to me,' said Lady B.

‘They may look poisonous to you,' said Mrs Whinebite, ‘but as a matter of fact they are extremely nourishing as well as delicious. Julius and I have practically lived on fungi ever since we were married, and we haven't had a doctor in the house for ten years. Not once!' she said, looking at me defiantly.

I said how nice.

‘If everybody lived as we do,' said Mrs Whinebite with triumph, ‘your husband wouldn't have any patients.'

I said I supposed people would still break their legs from time to time.

‘Break their legs!' she said scornfully, and made a dive for a vermilion mushroom growing from the root of a dead tree.

Colonel Simpkins always does the shopping for Mrs Simpkins, and I met him yesterday on the hill with his basket.

‘Do you know what I have here?' he said, holding it up and looking at me with round eyes.

‘Liver,' I said.

‘
Tripe
,' he said, in a low voice.

‘I believe it is very good if you boil it for several days,' I said.

‘Tripe,' he said

‘But think of the gas,' said Colonel Simpkins.

‘Yes, indeed,' I said.

‘I must say, I never thought I'd come to tripe,' said Colonel Simpkins sadly. Then his face brightened. ‘If you ask me,' he said, ‘I think this rationing is simply offal.'

And I had so
hoped
, Robert, that we were going to get through our first week of meat rationing without anybody making that joke.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

P.S. A 'phone message has just come for Charles asking him to go at once to Gorse View to see Mr and Mrs Whinebite, who are suffering from gastric influenza.

Gastric Influenza! . . . Ha!

May 29, 1940

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
It is nice to be one of those people who are told to keep in the open air as much as possible because it gives me the best possible excuse to neglect all duties and sit on the roof, which is what I am doing now. But it's all wrong to be here alone, without the Linnet and Bill and their friends sprawled about half-naked on mattresses, and you, with your hat tilted over your eyes, sleeping like one dead, and Charles arriving in a hurry with a glass of sherry in his hand and saying, ‘I never
saw
such lazy people.'

How happy we were, and how little we realized how nice it was to be lazy and happy, without fear and anxiety and horror knocking at the back of one's brain like a little gnome with a hammer.

Where are those children whose only anxiety then was to get nicely browned on both sides, like a fillet of fish? And where are you, Robert? I know you aren't where you were before, but where are you?

It's not much fun, you know, being a middle-aged woman, safe and protected, on a roof, thinking of other people in danger.

You will say that this is no way to cheer a Brave Soldier – and how right you will be!

You always like to hear about this place, so I will tell you that, outwardly anyway, it is just as it always was. On each chimney-pot sits a motionless seagull. Out at sea a few people are doing a little desultory sailing and sea-fishing, and one poor brute is having trouble with his outboard motor.

Most of the bathing-huts are painted now and look very fine. Faith, of course, has out-hutted us all. A bathing-hut, to my mind, is a small wooden sentry-box crammed with damp towels, sand-shoes, black spectacles, melting chocolate, and fishing-tackle, and with so many wet bathing-dresses on the floor it is difficult to find anywhere to stand. But Faith has procured for herself a sort of mansion in off-white, with pale-green china on hooks, and a kettle, and chintz curtains with lilies of the valley all over them, and six green deck-chairs with canopies and salmon-pink cushions.