The Greatest Works of E. M. Delafield (Illustrated Edition). E. M. Delafield
is a Brigadier.
Brigadier Zonal, says the porter, lives on the second floor, and his niece and her friend are staying there. The niece is Miss Armitage, and the other lady is Miss Fairmead.
Everything, I tell the porter, is explained. It is Miss Fairmead, of course, and would he ask her to speak to me? Porter—evidently man of imperturbable calm—replies Very good, madam, and I assure the caretaker—still hovering—that the name may have sounded like Mr. Pearman but was in reality Miss Fairmead. She replies that she did think of its being that at one time, but it didn't seem likely, somehow.
Consider this highly debatable point, but decide to let it drop and thank her instead for her trouble. (Trouble, actually, has been entirely mine.)
Explanation with Felicity Fairmead ensues. She is in London for two nights only, staying with Veronica Armitage, whom I don't know, in her turn staying with her uncle Brigadier Zonal, who has kindly offered hospitality to Felicity as well.
She and Veronica are leaving London the day after to-morrow, will I come and lunch to-morrow and meet Veronica? Also, naturally, the uncle—who will be my host.
Agree to all and say how glad I am to think of seeing Felicity, and should like to meet Veronica, of whom I have heard much. And, of course, the uncle.
November 13th.—Lunch—at Brigadier Zonal's expense—with Felicity, who is looking particularly nice in dark red with hair very well set. Veronica turns out pretty, with attractive manners, but is shrouded in blue woollen hood, attributable to violent neuralgia from which she is only just recovering.
Uncle not present after all, detained at War Office on urgent business.
Felicity asks respectfully after my war work—am obliged to disclaim anything of national significance—and immediately adds solicitous enquiry as to the state of my overdraft.
Can only reply that it is much what it always was—certainly no better—and my one idea is to economise in every possible way, and what about Felicity herself?
Nothing, declares Felicity, is paying any dividends at all. The last one she received was about twenty-five pounds less than it should have been and she paid it into the Bank and it was completely and immediately swallowed up by her overdraft. It just didn't exist any more. And the extraordinary thing is, she adds thoughtfully, that although this invariably happens whenever she pays anything into her Bank, the overdraft never gets any smaller. On the contrary.
She has asked her brother to explain this to her, and he has done so, but Felicity has failed to understand the explanation.
Perhaps, I suggest, the brother wasn't very clear?
Oh yes he was, absolutely. He knows a great deal about finance. It was just that Felicity hasn't got that kind of a mind.
Sympathise with her once more, admit—what she has known perfectly well ever since long-ago schooldays—that I haven't got that kind of mind either, and enquire what Veronica feels about it all.
Veronica thinks it's dreadful, and most depressing, and wouldn't it cheer us both up to go out shopping?
Personally, she has always found that shopping, even on a tiny scale, does one a great deal of good. She also feels that Trade ought to be encouraged.
Felicity and I readily agree to encourage Trade on a tiny scale. It is, I feel, imperative that I should get myself some stockings, and send Vicky a cake, and Felicity is prepared to encourage Trade to the extent of envelopes and a hair-net.
Veronica, in the absence of the uncle, presides over a most excellent lunch, concluding with coffee, chocolates and cigarettes, and gratifies me by taking it for granted that we are on Christian-name terms.
Felicity looks at me across the table and enquires with her eyebrows What I think of Veronica? to which I reply, like Lord Burleigh, with a nod.
We discuss air-raids—Germany does not mean to attack London for fear of reprisals—she does mean to attack London but not till the spring—she hasn't yet decided whether to attack London or not. This war, in Felicity's brother's opinion, is just as beastly as the last one but will be shorter.
Enquire of Veronica what the uncle thinks, and she answers that, being in the War Office, he practically never tells one anything at all. Whether from discretion, or because he doesn't know, Veronica isn't sure—but inclines to the latter theory.
Shortly afterwards Felicity puts on her hat and extremely well-cut coat—which has the effect of making me feel that mine isn't cut at all but just hangs on me—and we say goodbye to Veronica and her blue hood.
Agreeable hour is spent in Harrods Stores, and I get Vicky's cake but substitute black felt hat and a check scarf for stockings. Felicity, who has recently had every opportunity of inspecting woollen hoods at close quarters, becomes passionately absorbed in specimens on counter and wishes to know if I think crochet or knitted would suit Veronica best. Do not hesitate to tell her that to me they look exactly alike and that, anyway, Veronica has a very nice one already.
Felicity agrees, but continues to inspect hoods none the less, and finally embarks on discussion with amiable shop-girl as to relative merits of knitting and crochet. She eventually admits that she is thinking of making a hood herself as friend with whom she is living as P.G. in the country does a great deal of knitting and Felicity does not like to be behindhand. Anyway, she adds, she isn't of any use to anybody, or doing anything to win the war.
Point out to her that very few of us are of any use, unless we can have babies or cook, and that none of us—so far as I can see—are doing anything to win the war. I also explain how different it will all be with Vicky's generation, and how competent they all are, able to cook and do housework and make their own clothes. Felicity and I then find ourselves, cannot say how, sitting on green sofa in large paved black-and-white hall in the middle of Harrods, exchanging the most extraordinary reminiscences.
Felicity reminds me that she was never, in early youth, allowed to travel by herself, that she shared a lady's-maid with her sister, that she was never taught cooking, and never mended her own clothes.
Inform her in return that my mother's maid always used to do my hair for me, that I was considered industrious if I practised the piano for an hour in the morning, that nobody expected me to lift a finger on behalf of anybody else, except to write an occasional note of invitation, and that I had no idea how to make a bed or boil an egg until long after my twenty-first year.
We look at one another in the deepest dismay at these revelations of our past incompetence, and I say that it's no wonder the world is in the mess it's in to-day.
Felicity goes yet further, and tells me that, in a Revolution, our heads would be the first to go—and quite right too. But at this I jib and say that, although perhaps not really important assets to the community, we are, at least, able and willing to mend our ways and have in fact been learning to do so for years and years and years.
Felicity shakes her head and asserts that it's different for me, I've had two children and I write books. She herself is nothing but a cumberer of the ground and often contemplates her own utter uselessness without seeing any way of putting it right. She isn't intellectual, she isn't mechanically-minded, she isn't artistic, she isn't domesticated, she isn't particularly practical and she isn't even strong.
Can see, by Felicity's enormous eyes and distressed expression, that she would, in the event of the Revolution she predicts, betake herself to the scaffold almost as a matter of course.
Can only assure her, with the most absolute truth, that she possesses the inestimable advantages of being sympathetic, lovable and kind, and what the devil does she want more? Her friends, I add very crossly, would hate to do without her, and are nothing if not grateful for the way in which she always cheers them up.
Felicity looks at me rather timidly—cannot imagine why—and suggests that I am tired and would it be too early for a cup of tea?
It wouldn't, and we go in search of one.
Realise