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Noel Streatfeild
I ORDERED A TABLE FOR SIX
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Also by Noel Streatfeild
and available from Bello
The Whicharts
Parson’s Nine
A Shepherdess of Sheep
It Pays to be Good
Caroline England
Luke
The Winter is Past
I Ordered a Table for Six
Myra Carrol
Grass in Piccadilly
Mothering Sunday
Aunt Clara
Judith
The Silent Speaker
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To
MR. AND MRS. SIDNEY GUTMAN
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“I SHALL,” thought Mrs. Framley, “give a little party for him.”
Adela Framley had come downstairs to her office. There are few things which are pleasurable in a war, but walking to what had been the breakfast room, and was now her office, was a daily source of happiness to Mrs. Framley. Her route lay through the main passage where the unpacking was done, and through the big dining-room, which was now the work-room. As she passed, women straightened their backs or raised their eyes from needles and sewing-machines and smiled. To everybody in the building she meant a lot. She was Mrs. Framley who ran “Comforts for the Bombed.” They might say this and that about her for her story was no secret, but during the hours while her workrooms were open she was the organizer and founder and therefore a personage. For nearly four years her sense of inferiority had been so absorbing that the fibre of her nature had shrunk. Since she had founded her comforts fund it was expanding, not to its old shape and size, but enough to give some relief to her contracted nerves.
Adela Framley put the letter she had just read back in its envelope, and rang her bell on her desk. Ringing that bell was another of her sources of happiness. It was a bell that had been especially fixed for her office. A loud bell that rang wherever the “Comforts for the Bombed” ladies worked. She had said that she had fixed it so that it would not confuse the servants, but that was less than a half-truth. The servants might just enter into the subject, but what she really wanted it for was the delight of knowing that as it shrilled a whisper ran through the house: “There’s Mrs. Framley’s bell.” “Where’s Miss Smithson?” “I say, do you suppose Miss Smithson heard that? That’s Mrs. Framley’s bell.”
The first months of the war had been hell for Adela. She was not a woman with special qualifications, and yet she was not at any time, and certainly not during the past three and three-quarter years, able to sit in a back seat. She had allowed the war to come on her without a prepared niche; other women were already in A.R.P., or V.A.D.s, or some such. There were plenty of places where Adela could have been useful, and she had tried most of them, but her ingrown sense of inferiority, of people whispering and nudging, prevented her staying long in any of them. Her fellow-workers were uninterested in her, the war was bringing most of their dreams down in ruins, and they had no time to consider their fellow-workers. The best they could do was to be unceasingly ribald, which was their offering to the country’s morale. Life was already so ghastly and was about to be so much worse, what was there to do but laugh? Break up your home. Send your children overseas or to the country. “Keep them happy, keep them safe.” They expect 30,000 casualties a night. They say the Germans are going to use compressed air which finishes anything and anybody within two miles of it. They say they’ve got a new kind of gas. Agnes’s only boy has been killed. All right for the other women to smile, however artificially, but Adela’s tragedy was not made by the war. She looked for snubs and slights because of her story. She had no conception that though once she had been a fortnight’s gossip, her tale was now an inconsiderable fragment in a world where all was suffering. No one snubbed her, no one slighted her, they simply were not interested; but wrapped in a cloak of egoism, she waited for the deferring to herself which a lifetime of wealth had taught her to expect, and when it was not forthcoming blamed her history, and people’s cruelty, and swept bitterly hurt from a dozen jobs.
Millicent Penrose’s letter had come like a shaft of sunlight piercing the clouds of a black day. Adela and Millicent had been together at a finishing school in Paris. They had been great friends, and even when Millicent went back to America, and married her enormously wealthy Gardiner Penrose, and Adela had returned to England and married her comparatively poor Philip Framley, the two women had kept up their friendship. Millicent came to Europe most years, and they exchanged gifts at festivals. Millicent’s letter had arrived in May, 1940. Gardiner, she said, was taking this war to heart. Perhaps Adela had never known, but Gardiner’s people came way back from Quaker stock. It seemed like a part of that had stuck, and Gardiner just could not bring himself to feeling any war was right. On the other hand he just hated that Hitler so he could not sleep for thinking of him. Gardiner was just mad to help the suffering. Adela knew how rich he was; couldn’t she figure out some special way in which Gardiner could help?
That was how “Comforts for the Bombed” had started. It had begun, with materials bought with Gardiner’s money, as working-parties for comforts for hospitals; but as soon as the large-scale air raids started it had taken its title and its raison d’être. The Lord Mayor’s Fund, the American Red Cross, and “Bundles for Britain” were doing the backbone of the work, but there were still odd charities thankful for what “Comforts for the Bombed” could send. The charities were varied, and by no means all were serving a useful purpose. In many cases their efforts overlapped what was already being done. Some under a guise of holiness were merely continuing their peacetime rôle of robbing the charitable gullible. To Adela it did not much matter what happened to her comforts once they left her workrooms. All she asked was that her workers worked at fever heat, and a continual flow of cars stood at her door, with energetic women round them stuffing them with packages.
Lettice Smithson—Letty to those who knew her well, which was certainly nobody attached to “Comforts for the Bombed”—had sprung from the cutting-out table almost before Adela’s bell had sounded. Materials in bulk were hard to come by, and Letty was loath to leave the two hundred pairs of women’s knickers which the electric machine was about to cut out of some vividly striped cotton. The workers had run low of comforts on which to work; if there was one thing, as Letty knew only too well, which made Mrs. Framley what was called officially “nervy,” and privately by Letty downright bad-tempered, it was to see her workers idle. Hurrying through the workroom, snatching up her pencil and note-book as she went, Letty thought bitterly: “She would ring now.”
Sitting beside Mrs. Framley with an alert expression on her face, and even her pencil attempting to look as if it would like to write, Letty blinked to keep back tears. It is queer how minute a straw can, if added to enough other straws, bend the back of even the most courageous and stout-hearted camel. On the face of it Adela’s words, “Mr. Gardiner Penrose is in England, so I shall give a little party for him,” were not straws at all, but to Letty they appeared an entire rick. Even as they were spoken, things held at the back of her mind all day flooded her consciousness. Her head ached, that corn was giving her gyp, none of the workers who made up the women’s knickers were going to like making them of stuff with that loud stripe, every one of them would have to be separately soothed and told once more how appallingly difficult it was to get materials at all, and though it was probably quite true that there were still wonderful bargains in the shops, “Comforts for the Bombed” bought wholesale, and she could not just pop along to Harrods’ or John Barker’s, no matter what any
body thought they had seen.
Letty’s position in “Comforts for the Bombed” was difficult. Where all the other workers were voluntary, she was Mrs. Framley’s gift. She did not mind being a gift; she was in fact grateful that she, who hated changes and yet was patriotic, could find her peacetime work dissolving into a full war-time occupation. It was not altogether work of which she approved, for she, being intelligent, felt as the war went on that the sensible thing would be to send all the “Comforts for the Bombed” ladies over to the W.V.S. workrooms, and for Gardiner to hand his funds to the American Red Cross; but that was a private thought, never put into words; and though she thought it would be common sense, not even patriotism could make her wish it would happen, for if it did, back Mrs. Framley would be as she was in those awful early war months, and no secretary, however high-idealed, could wish to live those months again. As her own contribution to the war effort, Letty gave secretly immense time and trouble to the sorting of the charities supported by “Comforts for the Bombed.” It was she who kept the books, and had the task of writing labels, and nobody but herself knew how often great bundles of stuff that Mrs. Framley decided should go to one place did actually go to another. One of the disadvantages of being somebody’s gift was that it made those who were not the gift of another, but gave themselves, apt to think that the worker who had been presented to them should do all that was lowly and unpleasant. This would have suited Letty perfectly, for she never held herself highly, and seldom saw her square face and wide grey eyes in a mirror without thinking of the ladies in “Comforts for the Bombed” rather as a shire horse must regard a string of racehorses—pretty, useless creatures, born to expect nothing but fun. Not that all the “Comforts for the Bombed” ladies were pretty, many of them were old and had lost what prettiness they ever had, but into “Comforts for the Bombed” drifted those rich who had not the face to be doing nothing for their country, but who dreaded the really efficient organizations where if you said you would work every other afternoon from two until four you were expected to turn up or were politely got rid of. There was nothing like that about Mrs. Framley’s organization; you came and went as you liked, and there were no nasty questions when an unexpected game of bridge was your only excuse for staying away. This attitude of mind of the majority of the “Comforts for the Bombed” ladies was what made Letty’s life so troublesome. Work, and plenty of it, had to be waiting every day for an unknown quantity of women. How to combine this state of things with the correspondence and telephoning, as well as Mrs. Framley’s private letters, together with being at everybody’s beck and call: “Oh, Miss Smithson, there’s such a nasty crate come of that new material, and I’m such a fool with a hammer.” “Oh, Miss Smithson, the wash-basin has something stuck in it and the water won’t run away.” “Oh, Miss Smithson, I’ve upset a whole box of pins. Do you mind? I would do it, but I’ve such a stupid, easily-tired back.” How to combine all this and yet run the charity so that it helped rather than hindered the country’s war effort caused Letty to face each new day as if it were a dragon, and she, with her stubborn chin raised high and her shoulders back, St. George.
This party for Mr. Penrose was not the only trouble Letty saw looming ahead. If Mr. Penrose was in London he would, of course, visit the workrooms supported by his money. He would probably not only visit the workrooms, but he would want to see the other end of the work. He would go in a car with Mrs. Framley to South and East London, and almost certainly Mrs. Framley, wishing to show how busy “Comforts for the Bombed” were, would make a round of all the charities she supposed they supported. Sitting there with her pencil poised, thoughts ran in and out of Letty’s brain. Should she fly round with a few things to each of the charlatan charities? Should she make a list of those they really supported and try to get Mrs. Framley to stick to visiting them? Most of all she thought of the evening; the held-back tears were ready to flow for that. A party, even a small party, meant an evening of letters. Tuesday was not a night she was officially out, but she usually managed on Tuesdays and Thursdays to slip outside for what she called “a breath of air.” Up the road was The King’s Arms, and waiting in the saloon bar just in case she turned up would be Jim. It gave Letty many a laugh to herself to think what Mrs. Framley would say if she could see her sitting in a public-house with a glass of beer in her hand. Not that it was not rather a surprise to Letty to find herself in such a place. Nicely brought up in Eltham, her standards had not included public-houses, but Jim had changed her outlook. Not that Jim was a drinking man; in The King’s Arms he had a small glass of beer and Letty one of shandy, but Jim was a man of common sense, and where else, as he pointed out, could he hang about on the chance of Letty turning up. The King’s Arms was superior, warm, and as cheerful as the black-out allowed, and no harm was done if he sat there in vain. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and every other Saturday night, Jim was a part-time warden. His hours were eight until midnight unless the raid was very bad, when he stayed on until the “all clear.” Every half-Saturday was Letty’s, and so were Sundays, but Tuesdays and Thursdays were stolen, little oases of pleasure to refresh her for the week. She had thought this Tuesday as good as snatched. It was easier to slip out now the black-out was getting later, even when there was an early siren it had been possible to snatch an hour, for Mrs. Framley’s dinner and her supper on a tray were served at half-past seven. Now this wretched party had to turn up—letters, telephone calls, and a whole lot of talk about it. Letty swallowed hard. What a weak creature she was, she told herself, going on like this; you would think Jim was in the Army and only had occasional leave; but there it was, what with the two hundred pairs of women’s knickers, and unpleasantness about some missing scissors, and having had a rushed morning, she was not in the mood to stand disappointments and that was a fact.
“I shall bring Meggie up for it,” said Adela.
Letty’s hand which held her pencil dropped into her lap. Her head turned with a startled jerk.
“Meggie! But she’s a child.”
Adela knew that people would say she ought not to bring Meggie up to town. She knew she was going to be argued with; but she intended to have her up nevertheless. Throwing out her intention in that casual way to Letty was a feeler for reactions. Naturally what Letty thought mattered nothing to Adela, except that she liked to be sure of permanent general esteem, but in replying to her she would find suitable retorts with which to confound more important arguers. It was ridiculous if there was a fuss; whose child was Meggie anyway? It was true she was technically still a schoolgirl, but only just, she was almost seventeen. It would do her good to have a little gaiety; the child was pretty enough, but buried in that old house she was a thorough country mouse. In any case the point was, though doubtless no one was likely to consider it, that her mother wanted her; she must produce one child of whom Gardiner could speak when he got back to Millicent.
Because of illness, and the unsettled state of Europe, and latterly, of course, the war, Millicent had not visited England since nineteen thirty-six. Adela had spent the Christmas of thirty-six and the first half of thirty-seven with her where she was staying in Bermuda. It had been a lovely, unforgettable, carefree time in which the two friends had hours in which to sit and talk, Millicent of her family, and Adela of hers. Millicent just chatting, but Adela, because she had accepted the invitation to Bermuda to escape responsibility, and to avoid giving in to Paul’s importunings, bragging of hers, especially bragging of Paul. Hot sunshine drugged her as she talked, and allayed the nagging fear which had been with her since she had last seen Paul; so drugged was she finally that as she bragged she believed her own boastings, and day by day built herself a new son. So it was that the news in the cable came to her as a terrible shock, from which even now when over-tired she suffered. Just one thing bore her up: Millicent must not know of her shame. It had been easy to keep the truth from her, to account for her hurried journey home, her white face and tremblings, by a story of illness. �
�Don’t worry now,” Millicent had said as she kissed her good-bye, “I reckon you’d have had another cable by now if he were worse. Maybe he’ll be that well he’s up to meet you by the time you dock.” Walking the deck one night on that journey home, a thought came to Adela; a legacy from the story she had told Millicent. A thought so shocking that her feet faltered and she had to struggle to the ship’s side and lean against the rails. It had been a starlit evening, the sea purple black, and such a sense of infinity in the night that even Adela had to speak the truth to her soul. “Illness! I wished it was illness. I wished my son were dead.” Then actual whispered words were drawn from her: “It’s true. I do wish Paul were dead. Oh, dear God, it’s true.”
“Meggie’s scarcely a child now.” Adela’s voice was cold to show Letty that though she was prepared to discuss Meggie corning to town, it was condescending of her, and more than Letty had any right to expect. “I particularly want Mr. Penrose to see her. When Mrs. Penrose was last over she was only a little girl. One of the first things she’ll ask Mr. Penrose when he gets back is how she looks now.”
Letty forgot herself, the two hundred pairs of women’s knickers, her aches, her disappointments, even her place, that nebulous yet clearly understood position in which she was poised in relation to Adela. Her words were blurted out.
“If he’s all that keen to see her I should have thought he could go down to the country. It’s a bit too much to expect you to bring her to a place where there are air raids, just so that he can tell Mrs. Penrose how she looks.”
Adela often wondered why she put up with Letty; she wondered now.
“Really, Miss Smithson! That’s scarcely the tone in which to speak of my friends, or my plans. Fortunately we don’t all live in continual fear of air raids, as you evidently do yourself. This house has not been hit yet, and I see no reason why the Luftwaffe should choose Friday for its demolition. I shall naturally take every precaution, not only for Meggie but for all my guests. I shall give my party at La Porte Verte, which is underground, so that if there should be a raid it’ll act as a shelter.”
I Ordered a Table for Six Page 1
