asks about evacuees—has heard all about them from Blanche—and tells me about his great-niece in Shropshire. She is sitting in her manor-house waiting for seven evacuated children whom she has been told to expect; beds are already made, everything waiting, but children haven't turned up. I suggest that this is reminiscent of Snow White and seven little dwarfs, only no little dwarfs.
Uncle A. appears to be immeasurably amused and repeats at intervals: Snow White and no little dwarfs. Capital, capital!
Tea is brought in by Mrs. M., and Uncle A. declines my offer of pouring out and does it himself, and plies me with hot scones, apricot jam and home-made gingerbread. All is the work of Mrs. M. and I tell Uncle A. that she is a treasure, at which he looks rather surprised and says she's a good gel enough and does what she's told.
Can only remember, in awe-stricken silence, that Mrs. M. has been in Uncle A.'s service for the past forty-six years.
Take my leave very soon afterwards and make a point of stating that I have presently to go on duty at A.R.P. Canteen, to which Uncle A. replies solicitously that I mustn't go overdoing it.
He then escorts me to the lift, commands the hall-porter to look after me and call a cab should I require one, and remains waving a hand while lift, in a series of irregular leaps, bears me downstairs.
No cab is required—hall-porter does not so much as refer to it—and take a bus back to the Strand.
Bathroom has now familiar notice pinned on door—"Occupied"—which I assume to be Serena, especially on finding large bunch of pink gladioli in sitting-room, one empty sherry-glass, and several biscuit crumbs on rug. Moreover, black-out has been achieved and customary sheets of paper pinned up, and also customary number of drawing-pins strewn over the floor.
Serena emerges from bathroom, very pink, and says she hopes it's All Right, and I say it is, and thank her for gladioli, to which she replies candidly that flowers are so cheap nowadays they're being practically given away.
She asks what I have been doing, and I relate my experiences—Serena carries sympathy so far as to declare that Mr. Weatherby ought to be taken out and shot and that Mrs. W. doesn't sound much of a one either, but Uncle A. too adorable for words.
She then reveals that she came round on purpose to suggest we should have supper at Canteen together before going on duty.
Am delighted to agree, and change into trousers and overall. Greatly relieved when Serena ecstatically admires both.
Extraordinary thought that she is still only known to me as Serena Fiddlededee.
1.30 A.M.—Return from Canteen after evening of activity which has given me agreeable illusion that I am now wholly indispensable to the Allies in the conduct of the war.
Canteen responsibilities, so far as I am concerned, involve much skipping about with orders, memorising prices of different brands of cigarettes—which mostly have tiresome halfpenny tacked on to round sum, making calculation difficult—and fetching of fried eggs, rashers, sausages-and-mashed and Welsh rarebits from kitchen.
Mrs. Peacock—leg still giving trouble—very kind, and fellow workers pleasant; old Mrs. Winter-Gammon only to be seen in the distance, and Serena not at all.
Am much struck by continuous pandemonium of noise in Canteen, but become more accustomed to it every moment, and feel that air-raid warning, by comparison, would pass over my head quite unnoticed.
October 3rd.—Old Mrs. Winter-Gammon develops tendency, rapidly becoming fixed habit, of propping herself against Canteen counter, smoking cigarettes and chattering merrily. She asserts that she can do without sleep, without rest, without food and without fresh air. Am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that she can.
Conversation of Mrs. W.-G. is wholly addressed to me, since Mrs. Peacock—leg in no way improved—remains glued to her box from which she can manipulate Cash-register—and leaves Débutante to do one end of the counter, Colonial young creature with blue eyes in the middle, and myself at the other end.
Custom goes entirely to Débutante, who is prettyish, and talks out of one corner of tightly-shut mouth in quite unintelligible mutter, and Colonial, who is amusing. Am consequently left to company of Granny Bo-Peep.
She says roguishly that we old ones must be content to put up with one another and before I have time to think out civil formula in which to tell her that I disagree, goes on to add that, really, it's quite ridiculous the way all the boys come flocking round her. They like, she thinks, being mothered—and yet, at the same time, she somehow finds she can keep them laughing. It isn't that she's specially witty, whatever some of her clever men friends—such as W. B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling and Lord Oxford and Asquith—may have said in the past. It's just that she was born, she supposes, under a dancing star. Like Beatrice.
(If Granny Bo-Peep thinks that I am going to ask her who Beatrice was, she is under a mistake. Would willingly submit to torture rather than do so, even if I didn't know, which I do.)
She has the audacity to ask, after suitable pause, if I know my Shakespeare.
Reply No, not particularly, very curtly, and take an order for two Welsh rarebits and one Bacon-and-sausage to the kitchen. Have barely returned before Granny Bo-Peep is informing me that her quotation was from that lovely comedy Much Ado About Nothing. Do I know Much Ado About Nothing?
Yes, I do—and take another order for Sausages-and-mashed. Recollection comes before me, quite unnecessarily, of slight confusion which has always been liable to occur in my mind, as to which of Shakespeare's comedies is called As You Like It and which Much Ado About Nothing. Should be delighted to tell old Mrs. W.-G. that she has made a mistake, but am not sufficiently positive myself.
Moreover, she gives me no opportunity.
Have I heard, she wants to know, from poor Blanche? I ask Why poor? and try to smile pleasantly so as to show that I am not being disagreeable—which I am. Well, says Granny Bo-Peep indulgently, she always thinks that poor Blanche—perfect dear though she is—is a wee bit lacking in fun. Granny Bo-Peep herself has such a keen sense of the ridiculous that it has enabled her to bear all her troubles where others, less fortunately endowed, would almost certainly have gone to pieces. Many, many years ago her doctor—one of the best-known men in Harley Street—said to her: Mrs. Winter-Gammon, by rights you ought not to be alive to-day. You ought to be dead. Your health, your sorrows, your life of hard work for others, all should have killed you long, long ago. What has kept you alive? Nothing but your wonderful spirits.
And I am not, says Mrs. W.-G., to think for one instant that she is telling me this in a boastful spirit. Far from it. Her vitality, her gaiety, her youthfulness and her great sense of humour have all been bestowed upon her from Above. She has had nothing to do but rejoice in the possession of these attributes and do her best to make others rejoice in them too.
Could well reply to this that if she has succeeded with others no better than she has with me, all has been wasted—but do not do so.
Shortly afterwards Commandant comes in, at which Mrs. Peacock rises from her box, blue-eyed young Colonial drops a Beans-on-Toast on the floor, and Society Deb. pays no attention whatever.
Granny Bo-Peep nods at me very brightly, lights her fourteenth cigarette and retires to trestle-table on which she perches swinging her legs, and is instantly surrounded—to my fury—by crowd of men, all obviously delighted with her company.
Commandant
