Lady Waring highly approved the idea. She was going to Winter Overcotes at once for a committee and would not be back till the 5.10, but the girls might drive to the village and sound Nannie about it and bring up the chickens’ ration of meal which had sent a postcard to say it was at the station.
On their way down the back passages to the stable yard Leslie and Lydia met Selina, who said she had happened to hear Miss Leslie mention they were driving Crumpet to the village and would they mind taking a pair of curtains her ladyship had given her for her mother. Leslie said certainly and Selina had better put them in the cart.
“And I was upset, madam,” said the tender Selina, “hearing about Miss Octavia’s fiancé. Fancy losing an arm. I had an uncle lost his leg in a boiler explosion and all the skin taken off his face. It was terrible, Miss Leslie, enough to give you the creeps, but my auntie said it was the Lord’s judgment on uncle. Oh dear, what will Miss Octavia do?”
“I expect she’ll be awfully pleased,” said the truthful Lydia.
“Oh, madam!” said Selina.
“To get him back, I mean,” said Lydia. “Do you think your mother will take him, Selina?”
“I’m sure she will, madam,” said Selina. “Mrs. Graham didn’t send her little boy after all and mother and me turned out the best room only yesterday. She will be upset when she hears about Miss Octavia’s fiancé. If you are going there, Miss Leslie, will you tell her I’ll be sure to be down before tea to help her with the curtains.”
She ran into the house, got the curtains and was out with them before they had begun harnessing Crumpet. As she crossed the stable yard Jasper came round the corner.
“That old bundle’s too heavy for you,” he said. “I’ll take it. Take you too for that matter, one under one arm, one under t’other. I’ll harness old Crumpet, Miss Leslie, and bring him round to the front.”
Lydia and Leslie looked at each other and walked back to the front of the house. After an interval, during which either of them single-handed could have put the pony into the cart and taken him out and put everything away again, a patter of hoofs was heard and Crumpet trotted up, Selina driving and Jasper walking beside with his long stride.
“I am sorry, I’m sure, Miss Leslie,” said Selina getting out. “It’s that Jasper, Miss Leslie, he’s enough to upset anyone.”
“I like to see you driving old Crumpet,” said Jasper. “Whoa, old Crumpet, keep still. I’ll hold him till you’re settled, ladies.”
The ladies got in, Selina shut the little back door, and the trap rattled away.
“You’re a nice old bundle for a man to put his arm round,” said Jasper.
“Don’t talk about arms, Jasper,” said Selina, her eyes dewy, “poor Miss Octavia’s fiancé has had his arm cut off by those Free French. Miss Lydia was telling about it at lunch and to think of him a clergyman too, it doesn’t seem right, and I——”
“All right, my girl, you was upset,” said Jasper grinning. “But I never heard a clergyman needed two arms to marry people with.”
At this Selina shrieked and fled into the kitchen passage.
As the ladies went down the drive they overtook Sergeant Hopkins striding in a purposeful way towards the village, accompanied by Private Jenks, who was still waiting for a vacancy at the Barchester General. Outisde the post-office Matron was licking some stamps onto her letters: her own phrase.
“Good afternoon, Matron,” said Leslie checking Crumpet in his career, “I haven’t seen you lately.”
Matron said they had been very busy in the hospital.
“But this afternoon,” she added, “you find me having a little jaunt, Miss Waring. I am going to tea with old Mrs. Allen. Such a wonderful old character. As I said to Nurse Poulter, quite one of the old type, just one’s idea of a duchess.”
As Lydia had never met a duchess and Leslie only knew a very dowdy dowager who worked on one of her committees and unbelievably wore a black bonnet, they could not see Nannie Allen in the role, but agreed fervently with Matron.
“We shall be looking in on Nannie when we’ve got the chicken rations and done the shopping,” said Leslie, “so perhaps we can give you a lift back.”
“Well, to that I shall not say no,” said Matron graciously, “for as I was saying to Nurse Poulter, it may be all downhill to the village, but say what you will it is all uphill coming back. She has a very nice piece she recited at the men’s last concert about the road winding uphill; sweetly expressive it was. It is au revoir then.”
Leslie flicked Crumpet and they were soon at the station where the chicken ration was sitting waiting for them, also a parcel from the Winter Overcotes ironmonger, which appeared to consist entirely of corners. Lydia said it looked as if one of them would have to walk back if Matron was coming, but Leslie said one never knew how much Crumpet’s cart would hold till one tried. As Lydia sat screwed sideways, Selina’s bundle of curtains looming over her, one of the largest corners of the ironmongery sticking painfully into her legs, and one end of the sack of chicken ration on her lap, she did not really see how Matron was going to fit in, but if Leslie said so she was probably right.
Turning into the High Street again, they saw Philip Winter at the far side of the road.
“Hi! Philip!” said Lydia in a powerful voice.
Philip came across the road and expressed his pleasure at seeing the ladies. Lydia inquired what he was doing. Philip said having his afternoon off, and he had thought of walking up to the Priory and inquiring if anyone was at home.
“Well, we aren’t,” said Leslie, “and I’m afraid no one else is, because Uncle Harry is in London and Aunt Harriet is in Winter Overcotes. Lydia and I are taking some curtains to my old nurse, who was George Waring’s nurse too, and if you cared to come with us we might all go back together.”
This seemed to Philip quite a good way of spending his afternoon, so the whole cavalcade, Crumpet reined to a footpace (which we may say was accomplished without any difficulty as it was exactly the pace he would have chosen if consulted), Philip walking beside, proceeded to Ladysmith Cottages. The ladies got out and the curtains were unloaded.
“Can Philip come in?” said Lydia to Leslie. “He’d love to see Nannie.”
“Would you care to come in, Colonel Winter?” said Leslie. “It is such a treat for Nannie to see people. She lives quite alone.”
Philip said he would love it, but what about the pony.
“Oh, Crumpet. I’ll tie him up in the lane,” said Leslie. “He knows it quite well.”
Crumpet having been stabled in an old cartshed in the little lane, hardly more than a cobbled passage, that ran up beside No. 1 Ladysmith Cottages, the travellers approached the house, from which came a noise of hammering and men’s voices.
Leslie, wondering what on earth Nannie was doing, opened the front door and walked in. There was no one in the sitting-room and as the noise appeared to proceed from the first floor front, Leslie led the way upstairs and looked in. Everything in the room was dust-sheeted except one easy-chair, in which Nannie sat enthroned and wrapped in shawls. On a step-ladder near the window Sergeant Hopkins was screwing a block of wood on to the wall, while Private Jenks on the floor was shortening a length of brass curtain rod with a hacksaw. The two warriors looked slightly confused by the appearance of an officer and two ladies, but Nannie entirely unmoved said in a general way, “Have you wiped your feet?”
“I’m very sorry I haven’t, if you mean me,” said Philip, “because I was carrying a very large bundle of curtains and couldn’t see the doormat. But I’ll go down again and wipe them at once.”
“How often have I told you,” said Nannie, apparently taking Philip for one of her ex-charges, “it’s no good waiting to wipe your feet till you’ve dirtied the stair carpet.”
“Nannie,” said Leslie, agitated by the far from benevolent reception that Philip was getting, “this is Colonel Winter, from the camp. You remember I told you Uncle Harry asked him to dinner. He wanted to meet you.�
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“Well, here I am,” said Nannie, “and I’ll thank you to bring the curtains up, sir. These young fellows are putting up a nice new curtain-rod for me and I must get the curtains up before the black-out. It’s a nasty dull day too, so there’s no time for dawdling,” said Nannie sharply, and apparently under the impression, a not uncommon one, that the hour of the black-out varied with the state of the weather. “I’ve had trouble enough as it is, having to put dust-sheets over my furniture with them messing everything up with their sawdust.”
Philip, much struck by the commanding qualities of his hostess, obediently went downstairs, while the two workers exchanged grins.
“And don’t dawdle, you boys,” said Nannie, exactly as she had said it to Master George and Master Cecil and Master David and many other of England’s gently nurtured or gilded youth.
“Selina asked me to say she’d be down before tea to help with the curtains, Nannie,” said Leslie. “Aren’t you too cold up here?”
Indeed the best bedroom, doing its best to keep within the fuel target, was as piercingly cold as a room which has not lately been used and has no fire is likely to be in the depth of winter.
“It’s healthy,” said Nannie. “And you know what the Government said, Miss Leslie, about using our fuel to fight the Germans.”
The irrepressible Private Jenks said he’d fight Hitler with a nice big bonfire if he had his way and he knew who’d be the guy.
“If you’ve finished messing about with the curtain-rod, Jenks,” said Nannie, “you can go down and put the kettle on. You know where it is. And mind, no carryings on with Marigold. I’ll give you all a cup of tea,” she added to Leslie.
“Here are your curtains, Mrs. Allen,” said Philip, who having met Private Jenks on the stairs had taken the opportunity of inquiring his hostess’s name.
“I’m much obliged, sir,” said Nannie. “Now, Hopkins, have you finished?”
The sergeant, who had just put the second bracket for the curtain-rod in place, came down the ladder and said, looking at Philip, that he didn’t think he’d stay to tea.
“Nonsense,” said Nannie. “Who’s to help Jenks get the curtains up and put my step-ladder away? Now, you all come down and get your tea.”
Her company, now well under her thumb, meekly obeyed and followed her downstairs, just as in their different social spheres they would have obeyed their nurse or their mother. In the sitting-room Selina, who had arrived unheard during the conversation upstairs, was putting out the tea-things and looked slightly puzzled as the large company came into the room.
“Lay for all,” said Nannie, sitting down in her special chair at the head of the table. “You’ll please to sit next me, sir,” she said to Philip, “and Miss Leslie the other side of you. Mrs. Merton, will you please to come on my other side and leave a place for Matron next me. Selina and you boys can sit at the other end. Is the kettle boiling, Jenks?”
Although Nannie’s lofty ordering of the guests made it sound as if the table were at least six yards long, it was in reality of a size which made above or below the salt very much the same. Lydia found herself next to Sergeant Hopkins, with Private Jenks beyond him. Selina brought in the teapot and squeezed in between the soldiers.
To add to the glory of the scene, Marigold Smith, the young lady of fifteen who acted as occasional handmaid to Nannie, brought in the kettle, nicely on the boil, and placed it on the hob by the fire to replenish the teapot. At the sight of three men in uniform, one of them being a real officer, she was taken with a fit of that self-consciousness which can only express itself in giggles and writhings of the body.
“That’s enough, Marigold,” said Nannie. “You can go home now.”
With a final wriggle in which she appeared to be doing her best to burst out of all her clothes, Marigold left the sitting-room and could shortly afterwards be seen outside still giggling with her friends in the street.
“Now you needn’t look at your watch, Miss Leslie,” said Nannie. “It’s only a quarter to four and you’ll get back before it’s dark. And what’s Mr. Cecil doing now?”
There was an emphasis on the word now so sinister in its implications that Philip said half to himself, “Go and see what Master Alfred is doing and tell him not to.” Leslie swiftly turned her head and smiled at him before answering Nannie that she hadn’t heard from him for some time.
“If we was away anywhere, like Brighton after the chicken-pox, I always made my young gentlemen write home twice a week, Sundays and Thursdays,” said Nannie. “But Mr. Cecil was never a one for writing.”
Lydia could see that Leslie had flushed angrily at this sideways attack on her brother, whose long letters were part of her life, so over Matron’s Banquo seat she obligingly flung herself into the breach.
“Of course he writes, Mrs. Allen,” she said, “but when people are at sea they can’t post their letters so often and even people on land can’t always. Octavia Crawley——”
But before she could finish there was a knock at the front door. Selina went out and came back with Matron, who included the whole company in a gracious smile which had the effect of making Sergeant Hopkins and Private Jenks look rather sheepish.
“You’ll please to excuse my not getting up, Matron,” said Nannie, “it’s my legs.”
As everyone present had seen her walk downstairs unassisted and quite briskly, this statement deceived no one except Matron, who sidled, for no other mode of progression in the tightly packed room was now possible, into the seat next her hostess.
“And what a pleasant abode, Mrs. Allen,” said Matron. “So snug and cosy. And such a pleasure to have tea before the black-out. I do find the black-out quite the most trying part of the war, don’t you?”
Having vindicated her dignity by not getting up to receive her guest, Nannie was in a mood of regal condescension and said Matron must have quite a time getting the hospital blacked out. Matron said she had some very good helpers, two of whom were not a thousand miles away from this very spot, which caused Sergeant Hopkins to choke into his tea, upon which Selina slapped his back and her mother frowned at her. Private Jenks was heard to say, in a low but audible aside, that he wouldn’t mind choking himself if Mrs. Crockett would slap him.
“What were you saying about Miss Octavia, madam?” said Nannie to Lydia, to cover her daughter’s low behaviour.
“Oh, she didn’t hear from Mr. Needham that she is engaged to for ages,” said Lydia, “and when she did hear it was to say he had to have his arm off.”
She was then able to reflect that this was not a comparison calculated to cheer Leslie.
“That comes of going to the front,” said Nannie, finally. “I could have told him.”
Matron asked where.
“I don’t exactly know,” said Lydia, “because he isn’t allowed to say where he is. Somewhere in North Africa. But anyway he’s back now, because letters take so long.”
This elliptical mode of expression was understood by all her audience, except Matron who said she meant where.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lydia, “because Octavia didn’t say. But I expect she’s seen it now, so she’ll be able to tell me.”
“Indeed not, madam,” said Nannie. “A young lady to look at a gentleman’s arm he’s had off! I never heard of such a thing.”
Matron, much interested professionally, said it all depended where. If of course it were at or below the elbow it would be easy by just pulling up the coat-sleeve. If it were higher, or at the shoulder, at which her eyes gleamed slightly in spite of her very kind disposition, it would of course be less easy. Nannie said she never allowed such goings-on, not in her nursery.
“But Tommy’s a clergyman, Mrs. Allen,” said Lydia.
Matron said that was indeed shocking. To Sergeant Hopkins the idea of a padre losing an arm appeared to afford a certain cynical satisfaction, while Selina, who was already familiar with the sad story, began to wipe her lustrous eyes.
Nannie said she won
dered where it was done.
Leslie, interpreting correctly her old nurse’s question, said it was in Africa, fighting with the Free French.
“I knew those French were at the bottom of it,” said Nannie. “When I was abroad with Lady Emily Leslie and Miss Agnes and Mr. David I wouldn’t let them play with the French children on the beach. They never played fair, beach cricket, or running races, or whatever it was. And now poor Miss Octavia’s young gentleman’s had his arm cut off fighting them. Still, there’s wonderful artificial legs nowadays.”
“But I never said Mr. Needham was fighting with the Free French, Nannie,” said Leslie. “I said fighting with them.”
Conscious that her explanation, though perfectly clear to everyone present, was wanting in precision, she looked at Philip, next her, for help.
“What you said was that he was fighting with them,” said Philip, “because I heard you with my own ears. But I quite see your point.”
Private Jenks said his uncle had a hook instead of a hand. “Came in handy in all sorts of ways, it did,” he added. “He wasn’t born like that of course.”
Matron said the work that was being done for our mutilated men was quite wonderful. A Canadian convalescent, she said to Lydia, whom perhaps she felt alone to be worthy of her confidence, had come in with an artificial arm that was as you might say as large as life and twice as natural except when the elbow occasionally bent the wrong way. While they were engaged on this enthralling subject Nannie gave Selina a a mother’s look which informed her that those boys had better get the curtain up and fold up the dust-sheets and leave the quality to itself. Leslie, seizing her opportunity, asked Nannie if she would be able to take this Mr. Needham, who was engaged to Miss Octavia and had lost his arm, as a lodger. The doctors had ordered rest and quiet, and Nannie knew that these advantages were impossible in an hotel or ordinary lodgings, and poor Mr. Needham had no home to go to.
“I won’t have anyone fighting here,” said Nannie, “not the French nor anyone. I always said to my young gentlemen, ‘Now if you want to fight go in the garden, for in the nursery I will not have it.’”
Growing Up Page 19
