THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (Illustrated Edition). E. M. Delafield
have been agreed to or not, but Mrs. S. would like to know if I can tell her, once and for all, whether we are to expect any air-raids or not, and if so, will they be likely to come over the Village?
Can only say to this that I Hope Not, and again ask for stamps which Mrs. S. produces from a drawer, and tells me that she's sorry for Finland and is afraid they're in for trouble and that'll be three shillings.
Horse at the forge still being shod, and evacuees Marigold and Margery still rooted to the ground looking at it. Am about to join them when smart blow on the shoulder causes me to turn round, very angry, and confront Miss Pankerton.
Miss P. is in khaki—cannot imagine any colour less suited to her—and looks very martial indeed except for pince-nez, quite out-of-place but no doubt inevitable.
She has come to meet her six young toughs, she says, now due out of school. Regular East End scallywags, they are, but Miss P. has made them toe the line and has no trouble with them now. I shall see in a few minutes.
And what, asks Miss P., am I doing? A woman of my intelligence ought to be at the very heart of things at a time like this.
Fleeting, but extraordinarily powerful, feeling comes over me that I have often thought this myself, but that this does not in any way interfere with instant desire to contradict Miss P. flatly.
Compromise—as usual—by telling her that I am not really doing very much, I have two very nice evacuated children and their nurse in the house and am a good deal in London, where I work at a Canteen.
But, replies Miss P.—in voice that cannot fail to reach Mrs. S. again at Post Office window, which she has now opened—but this is pure Nonsense. I ought to be doing something of real importance. One of the very first things she thought of, when war broke out, was me. Now, she said to herself, that unfortunate woman will have her chance at last. She can stop frittering her time and her talents away, and Find Herself at last. It is not, whatever I may say, too late.
Can only gaze at Miss Pankerton with horror, but she quite misunderstands the look and begs me, most energetically, to pull myself together at once. Whitehall is Crying Out for executives.
I inform Miss P. that if so, cries have entirely failed to reach me, or anybody else that I've met. On the contrary, everybody is asking to be given a job and nobody is getting one.
I have, says Miss P., gone to the wrong people.
No, I reply, I haven't.
Deadlock has evidently been reached and Miss P. and I glare at one another in the middle of the street, no doubt affording interesting material for conjecture to large number of our neighbours.
Situation is relieved by general influx of children coming out of school. Miss P.'s toughs materialise and turn out to be six pallid and undersized little boys, all apparently well under nine years old.
Am rather relieved to see that they look cheerful, and not as though bullied by Miss P., who presently marshals them all into a procession and walks off with them.
Parting observation to me is a suggestion that I ought to join the W.A.A.C.S. and that Miss P. could probably arrange it for me, at which I thank her coldly and say I shouldn't think of such a thing. Miss P.—quite undaunted—calls back over her shoulder that perhaps I'm right, it isn't altogether in my line, and I'd better go to the Ministry of Information, they've got a scheme for making use of the Intellectuals.
Should like to yell back in reply that I am not an Intellectual and don't wish to be thought one—but this proceeding undignified and moreover only very powerful screech indeed could reach Miss Pankerton, now half-way up the hill, with toughs capering along beside her looking like so many white mice.
Turn to collect Marigold and Margery—both have disappeared and are subsequently retrieved from perfectly harmless-seeming lane from which they have mysteriously collected tar all over their shoes.
Make every effort to remove this with handfuls of grass—have no expectations of succeeding, nor do I—and say It's lucky it didn't get onto their coats, and proceed homewards. Find tar on both coats on arriving, also on Marigold's jumper and Margery's socks.
Apologise to Doreen Fitzgerald, tell her I'm afraid she may find it rather difficult to remove, and she answers bitterly Certainly I will, and I feel that relations between us have not been improved.
Situation with regard to Aunt Blanche is fortunately easier and at lunch we talk quite pleasantly about Serena—whom Aunt Blanche still refers to as Serena Fiddlededee—and National Registration Cards.
Do I know, enquires Aunt Blanche, that if one loses one's Identity Card, one is issued with a bright scarlet one?
Like the Scarlet Woman? I ask.
Yes, exactly like that, or else the Scarlet Letter—Aunt Blanche isn't sure which, or whether both are the same, but anyway it's a scarlet card, and even if lost Identity Card reappears, the scarlet one cannot be replaced, but remains for ever.
Can only reply, after a long silence, that it sounds perfectly terrible, and Aunt Blanche says Oh yes, it is.
Conversation only revives when infant Margery abruptly informs us that she made two of the beds unaided this morning.
Commend her highly for this and she looks gratified, but have inward misgiving that her parents, if they hear of her domestic activities, may think that I have made her into a household drudge.
Offer her and Marigold the use of gramophone and all the records for the whole afternoon.
Aunt Blanche, later, tells me that she does not think this was at all a good idea.
Second pest brings me letter from Serena. I am much missed at the Canteen, and Mrs. Peacock has said that mine is a bright face, and she hopes soon to see it back again. (Serena, to this, adds three exclamation marks—whether denoting admiration or astonishment, am by no means certain. Do not, in any case, care for Mrs. P.'s choice of descriptive adjective.)
The underworld, Serena informs me, is a seething mass of intrigue and Darling and the Commandant have made up their quarrel and are never out of one another's pockets for a single instant, but on the other hand Mrs. Nettleship (First Aid) and Miss Carloe-Hill (Ambulance Driver) have had the most tremendous row and are not speaking to one another, and everybody is taking sides and threatening to resign as a protest.
Serena herself hasn't slept for nights and nights because there's been a ping-pong craze and people play it all night long, just outside the Rest-room, and J. L. has taken her out to dinner and to a dreadful film, all full of Nazi atrocities, and this has ensured still further wakefulness.
Serena ends by begging me in most affectionate terms to come back, as she misses me dreadfully, and it's all awful. Have I read a book called The Confidential Agent? It's fearfully good, but dreadfully upsetting, and perhaps I'd better not.
(If The Confidential Agent had not been on my library list already—which it is—should instantly have put it there.)
Am asked by Aunt Blanche, rather apologetically, if that is a letter from Serena Fiddlededee? She didn't, needless to say, look at the envelope, nor has she, of course, the slightest wish to know anything about my private correspondence—but she couldn't help seeing that I had a letter from Serena.
Have too often said exactly-the same thing myself to entertain slightest doubts as to Aunt Blanche's veracity, and offer to show her Serena's letter at once as there is nothing private about it.
No, no, she didn't mean that, Aunt Blanche assures me—at the same time putting on her spectacles with one hand and taking the letter with the other. When she comes to J. L. Aunt Blanche emits rather inarticulate exclamation and at once enquires if I don't think it would be a very good thing?
Well, no, on the whole I don't. It doesn't seem to me that Serena cares two straws about him.
Aunt Blanche moans, and says it seems a very great pity, then cheers up again and declares that when J. L. gets into uniform and