‘He means we ought to be on the job, seeing a lot of miserable D.P.s and weeping over them,’ said Cynthia.
‘I mean I’ve got an article to write,’ said Jeremy. ‘No ‒ no, I couldn’t touch a bite.’ He raised his hands in mock horror, at Tommy’s proffered chair, but before any one could move he slipped into the chair, beamed at the waitress and said sweetly; ‘Two eggs and lots of chips.’
‘They think it’s all a huge joke,’ I said to myself, and for the first time I felt ashamed, realising that Hugh had tried to put us off not because he was being modest, but because he was furiously angry that we should trample so insensitively over his efforts to help so many suffering people. I felt like crying at my stupidity and crass ignorance. To think that I had had the cheek to organise a sort of joy ride, when there were people really giving all they had in the cause.
I sat silently sipping my coffee, longing for the gay party to be over. Looking gloomily back, I thought, This is the one thing I’ve ever tried to do that’s worth while, and now they’ve ruined it. I hoped desperately that at any rate he would see that I was sincere.
Eventually everyone finished eating, and amid more backchat and laughter, we left the café and piled into our various cars. Tommy started off with a roar from his exhaust, and the others chugged along behind. As we reached the gates of the Home a wave of panic engulfed me.
No one else seemed to feel anything particular. Tommy was still talking about hotted up cylinders, Teddy was telling me how when he opened up the throttle his boat would pass anything, and Cynthia made appropriate comments to both.
The gravel drive crunched under the wheels of the car, and suddenly an unexpected twist in the roadway brought us face to face with the house. It was a lovely old building, Queen Anne, old red brick, with wide windows and a portalled door.
We climbed out of the car and waited for the others to arrive.
‘Nice place,’ said Tommy. ‘Pity these old places are all being turned into dumps like this.’
The others agreed, but I said nothing. The two following cars now drew up, and their occupants unloaded with a bubble of laughter and talk.
Tommy rang the bell, the door of the house opened, and we saw regarding us sternly, a rather fierce-looking woman wearing a large white apron that covered the whole of the front of her, and it wasn’t until she turned, beckoning us in, that I saw the severe grey dress underneath.
‘Come in, all of you, and I’ll take you round,’ she said with a certain lack of enthusiasm. ‘I’m Mrs. Moss, the housekeeper here.’
Fortunately she had rather a sobering effect on the throng. We all meekly followed her into the hall.
‘Gosh,’ whispered Jeremy in my ear, ‘she’s just like my old Nanny. Scares me stiff.’
The lower rooms, which had been the reception rooms of the house, had been converted into wards for the patients. The proportions and the wide windows gave them a spacious and dignified effect. The kitchen and stores were also down here, while the upstairs contained rooms for the staff and the operating theatre, which Mrs. Moss showed us finally, as the highlight of our tour.
I felt haunted by the faces of the patients we had seen; they sat in their neatly-made beds as though they were afraid that at any moment someone was going to say to them, ‘Get out and go back to your camp.’ In their expressions you could see they had long resigned themselves to the loss of home and liberty, and that they had very little ‒ some of them no ‒ hope for the future. Their lack of knowledge of English added to their general bewilderment.
As Mrs. Moss concluded her tour, there was a slight pause, and then a self-conscious scuffle, as everyone got out their cheque books. She looked at us with a mixture of contempt and surprise, and accepted the scraps of paper with a nod of the head in complete silence.
There was a pause, and then she said stiffly; ‘If you wait here, I will fetch the doctor.’
She walked away down the corridor, and the whole place became very silent. Everyone looked at everyone else in an anxious way, as if waiting for someone to make the first move.
It was Cynthia of course who broke the spell our consciences had laid on us.
‘Well, I don’t know about you characters, but I’ve never been so interested since we went round the Morgue last year.’
Everyone giggled, but I felt an agony of embarrassment and self reproach, and this increased a hundredfold when I turned round to see Hugh standing silently at one of the doors in the corridor. I felt sure he had heard the last cutting remark.
‘Thank you all for your money,’ he said gently. ‘Mrs. Moss will give you a cup of tea if you go downstairs now.’
The crowd shuffled past him, most of them making a few meaningless remarks. Jeremy said, ‘I’ll give this the treatment, old man,’ to which he replied with a nod, ‘Thanks very much.’
I waited, feeling I had to talk to him, that I had to explain that I wasn’t so frivolous and insensitive as he thought me.
‘May I have a word with you,’ I asked, moving up to him.
He looked down at me coldly. ‘Yes, sure,’ he said.
His hand was on the doorknob of his office, but he made no move to invite me into it. He waited for me to speak.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said with an effort.
Still he neither moved nor spoke.
‘I ‒ I would like to come and help,’ I struggled on. ‘I’m sure I could come and teach them English or something. I would come over from home two or three times a week.’
He looked at me, and I seemed to see a mixture of compassion and tolerance in his gaze.
‘Thank you,’ he said slowly. ‘We have all the help we need.’
He stood there, his hand on the doorknob, waiting for me to go. I could say nothing more. I turned away quickly, afraid he would see how hurt I was, and ran down the stairs after the others.
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