I Ordered a Table for Six

by Noel Streatfeild

  Jim came back and sat down.

  “Doesn’t look like being much. There’s a bit of very distant gunfire; you can see the flashes but can’t hear anything.”

  Letty was mentally removing Jim’s scarf and collar and tie, and seeing his head emerging from a sailor’s collar.

  “Did you wear sailor suits when you were a kid?”

  Jim, whose mind moved leisurely, took his time to jump from the air raid to his childhood.

  “I did have one. It was for a wedding. I hated it.”

  “Made you look different from the other boys, I suppose. Funny how men are about clothes. I bet you liked it when you got your scholarship and went to a place where you wore uniform. Mind you, I liked it myself at first when I won mine. I’ll never forget the first morning I walked down our street in my school coat and beaver hat with the crest in front; thought I was somebody that day, but in no time I was pleased for Sundays and half-holidays when I could get into something different. You never felt like that, I suppose?”

  Jim relit his pipe. He seldom followed Letty’s thought processes, nor could he have understood her need for a clearer picture of his life before she knew him. She had always, without his being aware of it, drawn snippets of history from him. She had heard about his curls and how for very shame he cut them off himself. She had heard of how he had saved his pennies to buy Meccano sets. He had told her a little about his father, who died when he was eleven, and quite a lot about his mother, who was now living with a sister in Devonshire. She could see quite clearly the sober, hard-working little boy he had been, with the same blue eyes and square chin he had to-day. She could picture the rather dull expression he had worn, which had led his masters to turning on him with sharp questions, only to learn to their discomfort that the dull look was purely external, and that a good brain, slowly garnering knowledge, lay behind it. There was a distant rumble of guns.

  “I ought to get you a tin hat, Letty. I don’t like you being out with bits of shell flying around.”

  “I’d never wear it. I like something to keep my ears warm.” She leant forward and looked up at him. “Do you ever wonder about me when I was a kid? How I looked, and all that? Fancy, there was I at Eltham, and there were you at Brockley, and we never met.”

  “Never should have met if it hadn’t been for you turning that torch up to the sky.”

  “Lot of nosey-parkers you wardens were in those days. Had to make work for yourselves. All the fuss about lights and torches that first winter.”

  “We got you all trained up. Don’t catch any one turning a torch to the sky these days.”

  “Didn’t need a warden to teach us that. Since September bombs have taught us.” She grinned. “Can see you as plain as anything. ‘Keep that torch down,’ you said, so I turned it on you to see if you were a policeman.”

  “Funny you knew me again when I came about that light in a bathroom.”

  Letty had an inward smile at the denseness of the man. Recognize him! Why, even though she was half-way up the stairs when Gills had opened the front door, she had known whose voice it was, and her heart had felt as if it had missed a beat. She had made it look natural enough her coming back to the hall, and Gills had needed no hint to make him turn the light trouble over to her; he had very little to do with the flat, and bathroom lights were not his province. Letty had known from the serious expression on Jim’s face while he examined the faulty bathroom black-out that he was not the sort to combine duty with pleasure, just as she knew with every nerve in her body that it was a necessity that she saw him again. It was a piece of luck that typing had come up. Jim said that he had written some hints for maids and such, to help them to see the black-out was done properly, and that he would send it to her, but that he would be grateful if she could let him have it back, as it was the only copy he had. It had been easy after that. Letty had made a couple of dozen copies of his hints, and that had led to other typing for his post, and seeing she was working for the post made her almost a warden, and so she was properly introduced, and not picked up. He had asked her to come out to tea with him one Sunday. Tea on an occasional Sunday was all they had managed at first, but it had not taken Jim long to know he needed Letty every bit as much as she had known from the beginning that she needed him, so he had suggested The King’s Arms. He had really never proposed to her. He hated wasted words, and it would certainly be wasting words to tell Letty he had to marry her, or to ask her if she wanted to marry him; their need of each other sang through the air between them.

  There was a nearer rumble of anti-aircraft guns, and then in quick succession the guns in the neighbourhood fired. The largest rocked every glass and bottle in the bar.

  “All right, all right,” the barman’s voice was jovial; “no need to get rough.”

  “Hope to Gawd that’s hit one of ’em,” said a woman.

  Her companion, a faded lady wearing a fur coat which time had worn so hard that it was like an unevenly grown bed of seeds, raised her glass of port and looked sancti-moniously at the ceiling.

  “No need to call on Gawd, dear. Like all other Englishmen, He knows how to take it, and He’ll settle with them in His own way.”

  Jim got up.

  “Come on, Letty; I’ll see you home.” He nodded to the barman and barmaid.

  “Good-night, George,” said Letty, then to the barmaid, “Good-night, Agnes.”

  As the door closed, Agnes sidled up the bar to George.

  “Nice way with her, hasn’t she? She makes me think of a glass of stout. You know, kind of strengthening.”

  Out in the street, Letty tucked her arm into Jim’s. There was the throb of the engines of a distant bomber, and every few moments the sky was white with gun flashes. They walked in silence, wrapt in the pleasure of the contact of their bodies. Three doors up from Adela’s house they stopped, and Jim drew Letty to him. He kissed her, savouring the yielding softness of her lips. Letty relaxed and gave all of herself that could be given in a kiss, but conscious, more than ever before, of what a feeble business kissing was, for a woman and a man in love.

  “Oh, Jim,” she whispered, “why isn’t the war over. Even as things are, why don’t we take a risk?”

  Jim kissed her again. When at last he freed her mouth he drew her along to her own door.

  “Terrible to be out of work, and to see your wife and perhaps a kid going short.”

  The guns broke out again. Letty raised her voice; her square chin was raised to the sky.

  “Still more terrible, if you ask me, to have you go in the Navy”—she felt her voice might be unsteady, and paused—“and perhaps not come back, and leave me never having been your wife.”

  Eltham and Brockley standards of respectability chained Jim’s tongue. He could not thrash out his need and hers with the crudity of Mayfair or Bermondsey. Getting into debt, unemployment, and an unknown future were bogies which Jim had been brought up to think the worst horrors which could befall mankind, and happiness of any sort impossible where they existed. He gave Letty a hug and then a friendly push.

  “You hurry along under cover. See you Thursday.”

  Adela had waited to be sure Letty was safely out of the house, then she went to her bedroom where she had her private telephone. She had in her hand the letter she had been holding when she had dictated Meggie’s letter. After some difficulty she got a call through to East London. A soldier-operator answered her. He believed Mr. Deeves was in; would she hold on, please?

  Adela waited. She half hoped Noel would be out. Of course he had written a very nice letter at the time about Paul, in fact she had been quite touched; but she had not wanted to see or hear of any friend of Paul’s. She wondered why he had written now. He did not say that he had only just come to London. There was nothing in the letter but common politeness: wondering how she was, if she was safe, and if he might perhaps look her up when he got time off and w
as up her way. It looked as if he must have been hearing from Paul, and as if he did not mean to drop Paul. The beginning of April, which Adela could not bring herself to face, except in scared flashes, was getting cruelly close. By the beginning of April she would be glad of any person who did not mean to drop Paul.

  Noel’s voice came over the wire. Adela, because she was so loathing her first contact with Paul’s past, was at her most formal.

  “Is that you, Noel? This is Mrs. Framley. I got your kind letter. I was wondering if you can get away on Friday night.” She explained the details of her party.

  Friday was a possible night for Noel. He would be at the house by seven-thirty. He would have to find out about trains back, but if the party was ending early that ought to fit in grandly.

  Noel put the telephone back on its stand. He was alone in the passage. He felt in his breast pocket and brought out a tiny jade elephant. He stood it on the palm of his hand. He spoke to it in a whisper.

  “You’ve done your stuff so far, old cock. The lady sounds stiff but she has asked me to dinner on Friday. Now put the joss on again, and give me a chance to see her alone, and mind you catch her in a good mood.”

  Meggie was feeding the birds when the postman brought her letter.

  “There’s one for you, Miss Meggie.”

  Meggie turned from her bird-table.

  “Thank you, Mr. Mills. It’s from Mummie. The poor birds are awfully hungry. We usually have an enormous piece of fat for them, and a coco-nut, and this year it’s just crumbs, and I can only get what’s swept off the bread-board because of the chickens. It seems to me simply awful that the birds have to go short because of the war. You see, there’s no way of explaining.”

  Mills had known Meggie when as a little thing she had stayed at the Vicarage for long visits. She had been a part of his background since she had come to live amongst them permanently five years before. Her interests were part of the network of interests which made up the village life. “Miss Meggie’s to use her bicycle and let the pony go; Vicar says ’tisn’t right to be feeding him just for pleasuring. He’s to go up to Corners for using to fetch round the milk.” “Miss Meggie’s Hardy has picked up something bad. If they can’t stop him vomiting he’s to go to vet’s.” “There’s been another big box come for Miss Meggie. Her mother doesn’t half set her up with clothes. Proper little fashion plate she likes to turn her out.”

  “Maybe they birds understand more’n you think for, Miss Meggie. If the Lord don’t let a sparrer fall to the ground but what He knows it, maybe He’s got ’is own way of lettin’ them hear about Hitler and that lot.”

  Meggie nodded.

  “That’s what I hope, but it’s expecting a good deal. You see, there’s not only the birds, there’s poor Hardy. He was always a dog with an enormous appetite, and though Mr. Rose is most terribly kind and saves every scrap of meat and bone that lies about in his shop, it’s not what Hardy’s used to. Then there’s Barnabas. Of course he looks all right, and he’s used to carts, but I believe he minds terribly my giving him a way. I think it would have been easier for him if I could have done what I wanted and stabled him here, and taken him to the farm every day and brought him back at night. That would make him just like you going out to work. Then Hardy and Barnabas and the birds are just my things, but think of the whole world. Dogs and cats and birds and ponies in Holland and Norway and Poland and Finland and France and Belgium, as well as ours; and though, of course, I mind about them less, there are the dogs and cats and ponies in Germany and Italy.”

  Mills shook his head. “We must take heart. It’s not for us to question God’s ways.”

  As Mills left her to deliver the rest of the Vicarage letters, Meggie opened her mother’s letter. In a moment, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, she had dashed through the open french window into the drawing-room.

  “Jonesy! Aunt Jessie!”

  Aunt Jessie was in the flower-room. All the year round she succeeded in keeping a small bowl of flowers on her husband’s desk. Now she was replenishing it with some blue primroses and a crocus. She stood squarely in her flat black shoes, her legs warm in their knitted stockings. She had on a shapeless black skirt and a deplorable jumper which she had knitted for a bazaar but which had “gone wrong” and was not fit to sell. On her head, thrown forward by a tight little bun of grey hair, was a navy felt hat, trimmed—because it had been so trimmed when she had bought it, and she had never thought to alter it—with a blue quill, which had not suited her style from the beginning, and was now fit for nothing but to clean a pipe.

  “What is it, child?” she called, but her mind was on her flowers.

  Meggie bounded in and pulled herself up to sit on the side of the sink.

  “Imagine! I’m going to London to-morrow morning. I’m going to stay the night. I’m to wear that simply lovely blue and white frock I’ve never had on. It’s a party for Uncle Gardiner. There’s snags, of course: I’ve got to have my hair done, and it’s going to have a ribbon round it like Mummie says is nice, and I simply hate.”

  Aunt Jessie had the crocus in her fingers but she had forgotten it. “A party! Oh dear! Your uncle won’t like it at all.”

  Meggie hugged herself and swung her legs.

  “I know he won’t, but you’re pleased, aren’t you? After all, I’m nearly seventeen. If it was peace-time I’d have come out this year.”

  Aunt Jessie’s face did not lighten.

  “Does your mother say who’s coming to the party?” Meggie passed the letter across. Aunt Jessie read it. “She doesn’t give us much notice. Will I see you catch that early train? It might have been very inconvenient.”

  “’T isn’t Mummie’s fault. Look, it was written on Tuesday. I ought to have got it yesterday.”

  Aunt Jessie caught sight of the crocus in her hand. Its gold started a train of thought. A line on which the crocus and Meggie and the spring hung like three beads. She gave her face a twitch which with her was a smile.

  “Run along and tell Jonesy. She’ll want to get your suitcase down.”

  Meggie slid off the sink, and, standing behind her aunt, put her arms round her neck and laid her face against her shoulder.

  “Darling adorablest Aunt Jessie, I do love you. You are pleased I’m going to the party, aren’t you? I do hate everybody not to be pleased when I’m pleased.”

  It was unbelievable that such a seamed, battered face could look so soft.

  “Run along with you, child. Of course I’m glad you should enjoy yourself”—Aunt Jessie looked over her shoulder—“but you leave telling your uncle to me.”

  Meggie paused in the doorway and swung on the door-handle.

  “It wouldn’t be a thing he minded enough not to eat, would it?”

  Aunt Jessie snipped short the stalk of a blue primrose.

  “Well, you never know with a man who’s used to fasting, do you? I sometimes wish I’d married a low churchman.”

  “Darling Uncle Freddie, I wouldn’t want him altered one inch, except, of course, he ought to be fatter.”

  Miss Jones was on a step-ladder, sorting sheets in the linen cupboard. Although she was nearly sixty her rounded cheeks had the pink and white of youth; it was only when you were close that slight patchiness showed. Her hair was drawn back so tightly from her forehead that it looked as if it helped to keep the face wrinkles away. She had a trim appearance, in spite of squatness. Pince-nez on a gold chain, and winter and summer coats and skirts worn with high necked shirts and a tie, aided her precise, band-box effect.

  “Jonesy—”

  Miss Jones waved a silencing hand.

  “And take away the cotton sheets Mrs. F. gave to those evacuees, that should leave fifteen”—she counted the sheets again—“and does. Well, what is it?”

  Meggie burst out her news.

  “And I’m to wear that lovely frock with the corn
flowers on it. You said I never would, it was too good for a war, and now I will. Oh, yes, and I’ve got to take that awful hair-ribbon that came with it.”

  Miss Jones climbed down the step-ladder, sat on the bottom step, and held out her hand for the letter.

  “What does Mrs. F. say?”

  “She says Uncle Freddie won’t like it; but that’s because he thinks I’m still a child, and children shouldn’t go to parties, but I’m almost seventeen.”

  Miss Jones read the letter. When she had finished it, she folded it and put it in its envelope and looked at Meggie; but she did not see her as she was at the moment. She did not see the tall, slender Meggie wearing a scarlet polo jersey and navy slacks, and clumsy fur-lined boots; she saw the small Meggie whom she had first met just before her seventh birthday. She had not looked so different really. The brown-gold hair had been in short curls instead of flowing, in what Miss Jones considered the deplorable fashion chosen by her mother, to her shoulders. The blue eyes must have been smaller, but they held the same eagerness, the same ability to darken in moments of emotion. Miss Jones had just left a much-loved family with whom she had lived for fifteen years; she hated changes, and had not felt drawn to Adela, nor to living in London, but fewer families educated their daughters at home, she had to take what she could get, and a child of six offered a possibility of some years of work. She had stood in the hall while her boxes were taken off the taxi, outwardly composed, but inwardly as weak-kneed and shy as a new child at a school. Then there had come the patter of feet up the passage, and Meggie had flung herself at her, her small arms gripping her thighs, and her face upturned. “How d’you do? I’m Miss Margaret Angela Framley, but I’m called Meggie. Would you like to come up to my nursery to tea?”