I Ordered a Table for Six

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Good,” thought Letty, “except for the letter to Meggie, and hearing that Mr. Earl can’t come, that seems the lot.” She debated whether to go up to Gerda and try on the black and silver frock, or to get Meggie’s letter out of Mrs. Framley. If she could do the latter she ought to be able to slip out for that hour with Jim, for the frock could wait until to-morrow; but she did not like to ask for the letter to Meggie. If she asked for it, it was tantamount to saying that she withdrew her objections. It was all a quibble, for she well knew she could no more prevent Meggie coming to London than she could prevent the moon rising. “What you want, my girl,” she said out loud to her reflection in the mirror, for she was tidying her hair, “is a way of asking for the letter and saying it should never be written at the same time.” And even as she spoke an idea came to her. She smiled in congratulation to her reflection. “Of course. Quite bright to-night for you.”

  Adela was in her sitting-room. In the old days when she had all the house it had been the maid’s sewing room. Now, furbished up with such things from the lower floors as had been considered sufficiently substantial to stay in London, when the more frail and the most valuable things went to store, it made a snug, if obviously makeshift, sitting-room-dining-room. Adela was in an arm-chair drawn up to the fire. She was reading a letter. She gave a little start as Letty came in, and just too hurriedly folded the letter and put it in her lap and laid her hands over it.

  Letty thought: “Paul must have written. I suppose he would write now that he’s coming home. I expect he always was the sort who only wrote when he wanted something.”

  “Well,” said Adela. “Have you telephoned Mr. Hinch?”

  Letty gave the message and was filled with the same unease. She did like things clear and straightforward, and it disagreed with her nervous system when they were not. There was nothing clear and straightforward about being told to ask a man to complete a party, and to feel the news he could not come was what was hoped. Adela said: “How tiresome,” but she relaxed as if something had fallen into place. “Have you rung the restaurant, and Mr. Penrose’s secretary?”

  Letty, since the end of her first week at her first job, had decided there were many things better arranged by secretaries in their own way. The list of those things varied with different employers. Mr. Simplon, the theatrical agent with whom she had started as shorthand typist, and who had died in a mental home, had needed to be treated as permanently out. His visitors were unemployed theatrical people, and as Mr. Simplon never knew of any jobs for anybody, seeing people who wanted, and even expected them, threw him into a frenzy. All letters for Mr. Simplon were either bills or letters from theatricals with stamped envelopes and photographs enclosed. Beyond a little money for himself, and small salaries for Letty and an office-boy, Mr. Simplon had no income, so why show him bills, and of course there were no more jobs for those who wrote than for those who called, so why bother him with the letters? Instead, Letty stuck “Out” each morning on Mr. Simplon’s door, and went in every hour or so to see he had plenty of cigarettes and crossword puzzles, and settled herself behind the office desk and said as instructed by the office-boy, “Nothing to-day, dear,” or “Come in again next week, dear; I think Mr. Simplon will have something for you,” and in between whiles kept up her typing speed by writing hopeful, but non-committal, letters to the owners of the stamped envelopes. It was grand training which had stood her in good stead, and she always had the nice feeling that she had been an excellent employee, for after all no one could say Mr. Simplon had been worried into a lunatic asylum.

  After Mr. Simplon she went as second secretary to a rich female Conservative Member of Parliament. Letty only had to see her employer on unimportant Thursdays. Thursday should have been the first secretary’s half-day, but she never took it when anything important was going on, not trusting Letty’s youth. But the first secretary taught Letty a lot. “She splits her infinitives. Put them right and say nothing, she never notices.” “Use double-spacing for her speeches and very black type. She ought to wear glasses and she won’t.” “If ever on a Thursday she dictates a speech to you, she’ll stop to discuss it. When she does that, ask her to explain something. She’s too clever for her audiences half the time, and just looking puzzled, or asking some silly question, even when you know the answer, often enough makes her go back on the whole speech and simplify it.”

  From there Letty went to Lady Falls, who was about to run a pet charity for the Member of Parliament. Letty did not want to move, but neither the Member of Parliament nor the first secretary wanted a muddle made of that charity, so Letty was more or less ordered to go. Lady Falls was an old pet, wrapped up in her grandchildren, incapable of a clear thought. Letty ran the charity very nicely until the old lady died. She died cosily, convinced that whatever she had or had not done well in her life, that charity had been really splendidly organized.

  It was a mixture of the Member of Parliament being abroad, and the unsettled state of Europe making employment difficult, that drove Letty to Adela. Adela advertised for a secretary, and Letty answered the advertisement. She took the job because the money was right, and because it was the only one she could hear of in which she was to live in. She had lived in since Mr. Simplon, and had decided that though it cramped your independence, it was far preferable to a pokey flatlet, or going to and fro to Eltham every day.

  Working for Adela in those pre-war years had been a hard patch in Letty’s life. She had not become twenty-one until she had been with her some months, and that Adela lived on the extreme edge of a mental breakdown escaped her. She knew her story but was incapable of imagining the frenzy which Adela was holding off by sheer will power. Actually Letty’s total incomprehension of this fight was probably a help. An older and more imaginative type might have sensed what was happening, and watched, and perhaps suggested doctors, and by trying to be a prop weakened the fragile prop built of training and social custom which was all that held Adela upright. Letty, bounding through her days, calling, in her mind, Adela’s nerves temper, nosed like a dog after a rabbit for things for her employer to do. “She’s had a bad time,” she thought, “and she doesn’t want to be able to brood—not that she looks the brooding sort, but you never know.” She also told herself that there was nothing like not having an idle minute for keeping people quiet, especially people apt to blaze up about nothing, like Adela. So it was an appointment at the hairdresser one minute, and with the dressmaker the next, and Adela was pushed to lectures and bridge clubs, and as often as possible, and the cook’s temper would stand, she had guests to lunch and dinner. It had been hard work, for Adela really wanted to see no one and go nowhere, but all Letty’s training rose to the surface; she was a secretary and it was her job to arrange her employer’s life as she thought best.

  Since those early days, when Adela had neither the strength nor the will to protest, she had by degrees cast off a good deal of Letty’s domination; but a lot remained of which she was totally unconscious, and to which Letty was so accustomed that she was unaware that she influenced it. Arranging that Andrew Bishop should attend the party and that cocktails should be served at the house was second nature to her, and it never struck her that in answering “Yes” about both the restaurant and re-ringing of Mr. Penrose’s secretary she was a liar.

  “Shall I take down the letter to Meggie’s aunt? I ought to get it off to-night to give her time to telephone if she has a contrary suggestion to make.”

  Adela closed her eyes. “Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith,” she went through to “So that in all things, as is afore-said, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.” Then she said in a sweetly die-away voice:

  “Naturally it’s to Meggie I shall write. I want to have the fun of telling her of the treat I have planned.”

  Letty almost choked holding back words. “One day I’ll strangle her,” she thought, “when sh
e uses that voice. Meggie’s treat indeed. Fat lot of treat an air raid’s going to be.”

  “Dearest Meggie,” Adela dictated, “you remember Aunty Millicent and Uncle Gardiner. Well, Uncle Gardiner is over in London to see me about my Comforts for the Bombed.”

  “And that’s a lie,” thought Letty, “for if that’s all he’s over for why haven’t we seen him yet?”

  “Uncle Gardiner particularly wants to see you, as he wishes to be able to tell Aunty Millicent how you look now you are nearly grown-up, and so I have arranged to give a little party for him on this coming Friday, and you are to come up for it, and stay the night. Will you tell Aunt Jessie that I want you to catch that train which should get to Paddington about eleven. I will send Miss Smithson to meet you. She will bring you here to luncheon, and afterwards take you to the hairdresser so that you look tidy for the evening. Will you tell Miss Jones that you are to bring up that white dinner frock with the blue cornflowers printed on it, and will she be sure to pack the blue shoes, and the blue hair-ribbon that I ordered with the dress, also your white evening bag. You can travel in your fur coat and that will do for the evening.

  “Please give my love to Uncle Freddie and Aunty Jessie, and remember me kindly to Miss Jones.

  “Your very affectionate Mother.”

  Mr. Earl telephoned at dinner-time as promised. He sounded quite hurt at the invitation. He scarcely went out at all these days. He thought it was the duty of people who were not being of use to remain under cover; after all, it doubled the work of the wardens and so on if there were an air raid and the restaurants were jam-full of people. He sometimes slipped out for a game of bridge, but only to his club, or to friends where he could stop the night if things got bad.

  Letty took this message while she was eating her supper. Her supper tray was carefully laid on a little table by her electric fire, but she seldom ate it off the table. Her idea of a cosy way to eat supper was to sit on the bed with a pile of cushions at her back, and the electric fire standing on a chair beside her so that it practically singed her legs and the bedclothes.

  Her supper finished, she rearranged the bed, and put the tray on the table and the fire in its place, and pulled her fur-lined boots over her shoes, and put on a thick overcoat, gloves, and a woollen hood. She took up her torch and Meggie’s letter and went to Adela.

  Adela, too, had finished eating and was smoking a cigarette over her coffee. Letty gave her a pen, and Meggie’s letter, and Mr. Earl’s regrets—devoid of his views on keeping under cover. She watched her sign the letter and took it from her, blotted it, and then, although she was longing to get out to Jim, she could not resist saying:

  “What men shall I try to-morrow?”

  Adela turned her face towards the fire.

  “I’ll let you know. I believe a friend has a son home on leave, if so I’ll see if I can get him.”

  Letty licked the flap of the envelope. There was no question but Adela was up to something. In the ordinary way it did not matter to Letty who she knew, but Meggie’s coming made the choice of guests important. However, there was nothing she could do at the moment, and probably nothing at all, for it was most unlikely telephoning to this unknown man would be left to her.

  “I’m just slipping out to post this letter.”

  Adela nodded, and then as Letty reached the door called after her:

  “Order a Daimler for Friday. We can’t all squeeze into the little car, and I can’t waste my petrol on the big one. And ring Antoine’s and make an early afternoon appointment for Meggie, and don’t forget she’ll need her nails done; they are always a disgrace.”

  “Isn’t that like her?” thought Letty as she fumbled in her pocket for her handkerchief and tied knots in two of its corners. “She knows I always write everything down, and she always chooses a moment when I’ve got nothing to write on to give me things to do to-morrow.”

  Jim was waiting at their corner table in The King’s Arms. His pipe hung out of his mouth, and his whole attention seemed focused on the shove-halfpenny game at the next table, but even as Letty opened the door he raised his head and gave her his lop-sided slow grin. He just waited to push her into a chair, and then with no words he went to the bar and came back with her glass of shandy and his tankard of beer.

  “Any news?”

  Letty made a face. “There’s a party on Friday for Mr. Penrose and she’s bringing Meggie up for it.”

  Jim smiled at her with amused affection.

  “Well, she’s Her child; you can’t stop her.”

  “Oh, I’m not criticizing; I just think it’s an unnecessary risk.”

  “Perhaps there won’t be a raid. Who else is coming to the party?”

  “It’s not at the house; it’s at that posh place La Porte Verte.” Letty giggled. “I may be going myself.”

  Jim’s face changed.

  “Why? You’ve finished for the day by then.”

  Letty explained about Claire.

  “I’d like her to go, because she works like a slave and a change would do her good. She’s the one whose husband was killed at Dunkirk; but I must say I’d rather like to have a squint at La Porte Verte, just for fun. I’ve never been to one of those really slap-up places.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to go.”

  Letty stared at him.

  “Why ever not?”

  Jim was never free with words.

  “Just because I don’t.”

  “That’s a silly sort of answer.”

  “It ought to be good enough.”

  Letty had never seen Jim in that mood, and was not certain that he was not joking.

  “Old silly, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not joking. I don’t want you to go.”

  “Well, I’m afraid that won’t keep me at home. It isn’t often I get a chance of a bit of fun and you ought to be pleased.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  Letty’s natural good humour rose to the surface.

  “Anyway, don’t let’s quarrel about it. Most likely Mrs. Hill will turn up. I’m to have Her black and silver dinner dress altered, and I’ll get that whether I go or not. It’s a lovely dress: black with heavy silver embroidery at the wrists and at the neck. I shan’t look much in it, but a good dress always shows its money.”

  Jim took a gulp of beer.

  “Glad you’re having the dress, but I hope you don’t wear it Friday night.”

  Letty patted his arm.

  “Drop it. I didn’t come here to argue. I’ve heard enough of that all day. The workers have got to make up some striped stuff into knickers and they don’t like it. Anyway, we’ve had enough about me; what’s your news?”

  “I saw Mr. Bolton again. He says he thinks he’s got somebody.”

  There was some beer spilt on the table. Letty found herself drawing a path through it.

  “I thought once you were reserved you’d go on being. Besides, you’re a warden; isn’t that enough?”

  “Not for me. I told you I was never going to let things rest.”

  She glanced at him, at the pipe hanging from his mouth, at the solid contentment in every line of him.

  “So it’s the Navy?”

  “Like I’ve always said.”

  Letty swallowed some shandy.

  “What you want me to say? Hip, hip, hooray?”

  “I don’t see there’s any cause for you to say anything. I’m not out yet, and I can’t put my name down for the Navy till I am. This chap Mr. Bolton has got has been foreman in a factory that makes our sort of stuff. He’s working now; he’s got to give his notice.”

  Letty drew another path through the spilt beer.

  “I know we’ve talked of that often enough, but I can’t see why you’ve got to do it. You’re on war work, making something I mayn’t know about, and you’re a warden when you
get home at night. What more use do you think you’re going to be in the Navy?”

  “They can use engineers.”

  “But not more than they can in the factories.”

  “I want to get at them.”

  “Well, so you are, making whatever your place does make.”

  “I’m tired of standing around watching stuff dropped on us, and no way to hit back.”

  Letty gave her shoulders a dreary, resigned shrug. She felt a lump in her throat and hastily swallowed some shandy to dispel it. When she raised her head she managed a smile.

  “You’ll look a scream in a sailor suit.”

  “There she goes,” said one of the shove-halfpenny players.

  Letty and Jim listened. In the distance was the rising and falling wail of a siren. It gathered in volume until the air rocked with sound.

  “All right, we heard you the first time,” observed another shove-halfpenny player, and gave his coin an expert push.

  Jim got up.

  “I’ll just step out and see if it looks like being much; if it does we’ll be moving.”

  Letty, left alone, stared round the room. Funny, she had got fond of the place. She liked the barman, George, and the ginger-haired barmaid. There were good solid double black-out curtains over the doors, so there were quite bright lights behind the bar, and they shone glowingly on the bottles, giving a festive air, very comforting after the black streets. How often had the mixture of those glittering bottles, and Jim, produced a clutch of pleasure at her heart which had almost hurt. How much she treasured these snatched times; how unspeakably drab life was going to be without them. Still, of course, she knew how Jim felt. It often made her feel mad to hear the bombs whistling, and she had sometimes thought how much better she would feel if only she could fire a gun. Still, it was bad news, no getting away from that. Whatever Jim had thought, she had been certain he would never be released. How like the old idiot to let her sit there drivelling on about the party when he had got a thing like that to tell her. Funny, him not wanting her to go. She had never known him act that way before, but, come to that, she had never been going to a place like La Porte Verte before. Most likely he had heard some silly gossip about the place at his wardens’ post. There might be talk, there often was, about smart places, and people like Jim and his wardens took account of things said, not knowing that in the West End funny people, and the best sort, all went to the same places and thought nothing of it.