Growing Up

by Angela Thirkell

  “Hallo, Philip,” said Lydia.

  Leslie suddenly felt glad that the kitchen pipe had burst.

  “Hallo, Lydia,” said Philip, not to be outdone. “How are you and Miss Waring?”

  This was said not so much in conventional greeting as with a wish to know if London and her work had tired her. Leslie felt this and thanked Colonel Winter.

  “I say,” said Lydia, “you ought to say Philip and Leslie.”

  “I always do, to myself,” said Philip and then suddenly thought that it sounded rather familiar, so that he was reassured when Leslie added, “So do I. You see, I never hear you called anything else, except by my uncle and aunt, and they don’t christian name. Uncle Harry adores Lydia, but he always calls her Mrs. Merton.”

  “But Lady Waring does call me Lydia,” said Mrs. Merton proudly.

  “That,” said Leslie, “is most unusual.”

  “Do you think,” asked Philip, “that I could have my lunch at your table, Leslie? I address myself to you rather than to Lydia because I want to get used to saying your name at once. I love all those names that haven’t any gender, like Leslie and Lindsay and Cecil and Evelyn. Not Esmé, though. One must draw the line somewhere.”

  “Of course you can lunch with us,” said Leslie, avoiding in a cowardly way the use of his name. “As a matter of fact, my brother was to have been a girl called Cecil, and when he turned out to be a boy my people were struck all of a heap and couldn’t think of any boys’ names, so they kept Cecil, and it was such a success that next time they chose another name like that and didn’t mind what the baby was.”

  “And it was you,” said Philip, somehow touched by the thought of Leslie as a baby, a thing he never much liked except to please Kate Carter.

  “Yes,” said Leslie, which seemed to him a very noble, simple and moving statement, besides being true.

  “Another great advantage of having lunch with you,” said Philip, addressing himself to the whole company, “is that I am not having lunch with my gallant and insupportable friend behind me. And yet another is that I am going to pay for you both. This is because I am rich to-day. I have just had a cheque from the Oxbridge University Press for one pound three shillings and eightpence, representing a year’s royalties on that Horatian bantling of mine. Not a gold mine, but so far a permanent source of income.”

  “Horace makes me think of that summer you were with the Birketts at the Rectory,” said Lydia, “and that beast, Miss Pettinger, set us a whacking great ode of Horace to do. Everard was there for Whitsun and he helped me. I do think it is marvellous to be able to get all the words into the right order.”

  Philip said it was really only a trick, backed by a slight acquaintance with the Latin grammar, and they fell to talking about the summer at Northbridge Manor and how lovely and odious Rose had been. Leslie felt out of it and was cross with herself for being so self-conscious, when luckily the arrival of Mrs. Pollett with the menu brought a common interest into their lives.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Pollett,” said Leslie. “This is Mrs. Merton who is staying with us, and Colonel Winter.”

  “Mrs. Pollett and I are old friends,” said Philip. “She gives me gin in the bar when there isn’t any, and on Christmas Eve I kissed her under the mistletoe.”

  “Kiss and don’t tell, Colonel Winter, as the saying is,” said Mrs. Pollett, with an appreciative giggle. “With a gentleman like you it’s just a bit of fun, but there’s some that if they tried it would find themselves on the wrong side of the door pretty sharp,” she added, with a jerk of one fat bare elbow towards the mess table, a gesture rightly taken by her audience to indicate Captain Hooper. “No fish to-day, Miss Waring. There’s a bit of liver, but I’m not letting those gentlemen know.”

  Liver was gratefully accepted, beer ordered, and they began their lunch. Leslie was still feeling out of things and though she didn’t mind listening, a fear of appearing sulky made her smile till she thought her face would be struck so. Philip felt a constraint, could not quite account for it, and wondered if he had said or done the wrong thing.

  Before they had finished the liver (which was extremely good, as Mrs. Pollett had a passion for garlic which she grew and used with exquisite art), the door opened and a spare, anxious-looking officer came in; a major by his badges.

  “Oh, Hooper,” he said, “will it be all right if my wife joins us? She is just down for the day, and Mrs. Pollett told me there wasn’t a separate table free.”

  Before Captain Hooper could answer, the officer was overborne by what was evidently his wife, not really taller than he was, but by her commanding presence and general air of complete adequacy for any kind of surroundings, giving the impression of being about six feet high. Having swept her husband aside she stood, rather like a heroine of opera making her entrance, surveying the room and its inhabitants and affording to them all the majestic spectacle of a purple checked coat thrown open to display a green checked suit and orange jumper, all rather on the tight side. Her auburn and deeply waved locks, knotted in a bun behind, were crowned by a red felt hat with a green feather. Black shoes, gloves and super-bag completed her toilet.

  “Well, wonders will never cease,” said the apparition, “and little did I think when I arranged to come down and see Bobbie, who cannot understand, poor pet, that a woman is far busier than a man in this war, that I would find an auld acquaintance here, coincidence if you like, but believe you me, my life is one mass, simply one mass of coincidences. As I was saying to Bobbums when he met me at the station, I simply cannot move a step without falling over someone I know, and when he told me Sir Harry Waring was the big noise here, of course I said, Well, there you are, Bobbie, talk of a coincidence and it’s practically my second name, for who was Bobbie billeted with a couple of years ago, though it seems fantastic to talk of a couple of years still the war has been going on more than three years now though I always say the tide will turn, but the Villarses at Northbridge, cousins of Sir Harry’s my dear. Well, I ask you.”

  During this interesting aperçu of life and her relationship to it, Captain Hooper had been eyeing the new arrival with a marked want of favour. But as he was a captain and the lady’s husband a major, he had to make the best of it.

  “Delighted to meet you again, Mrs. Spender,” he said. “The Major has sprung quite a pleasant surprise on us. Come and join our little party. Captain Gumm, our dental bloke, have ’em out as soon as look at you; Mr. Wagstaffe, Signals; Mrs. Major Spender. The Major and I were billeted together with the Reverend Villars and his wife, to whom Mrs. Spender reludes.”

  Mrs. Spender then took a seat which automatically became the head of the table, so far as a circle can be said to have a head, and from this point of vantage surveyed the neighbourhood. The two nondescript commercials had no interest for her except in so far as anyone not in uniform was probably a spy or fifth-columnist, but the sight of yet another officer lunching with two ladies aroused her curiosity. As there was a lull in the general conversation she did not voice this sentiment, but gave her husband an interrogative glance accompanied by a slight jerk of her head towards Philip’s table, meant to express a desire to know all about him.

  “I’m afraid there isn’t any, my dear,” said Major Spender, looking anxiously about on the table.

  “Any what?” said Mrs. Spender.

  “You were looking for the mustard, weren’t you?” said Major Spender anxiously.

  “Now, isn’t Bobbie a dear old silly,” exclaimed his lady. “Not mustard, Bobbums, though well you might have thought so, for what you do need with all this American tinned stuff, though it is wonderful of them to lease-lend us all their Spam and what not, is mustard. I must tell you, Captain Hooper,” she continued, drawing the whole table into her remorseless orbit, “what our second boy says, a bright lad, though I says it as shouldn’t, considering he is only seven, seven last birthday. When all this tinned meat and so forth began to come over, and mind you, at the cost of men’s lives, as I always say t
o anyone who prefers fresh meat, the kiddies thought it was ham. So I said to Billy, he is the eldest, you know, and doing quite too marvellously at his prep. school, said she, coming all over the proud parent, I said to Billy, ‘Billy, this isn’t ham, it’s Spam,’ and Jimmy, that is the second of course, thought I said, ‘It’s Pam,’ not ‘It’s Ssspam,’ you see, just the tiniest, weeniest difference in pronunciation but that boy’s hearing is so acute that believe it or not he can hear the grass grow as the saying is, so he called it Pam, and the expression has quite caught on, if you take my meaning, in the family, so whenever one of the kiddies says, ‘Can I have some more Pam, Mummie?’ we all laugh like anything. Well, it’s laughter that will get our little friend Adolf down in the end, mark my words. Guns and planes are all very well and of course we owe a deep debt of gratitude to them and of course to the R.N. which ought to come first, for I always say that wherever you see the sea, that is the Front Line, even if it’s only Torquay, though in spite of being so far from London it has suffered terribly, though I mustn’t mention how, but Mr. Wagstaffe being Signals,” said Mrs. Spender, who had a quite royal memory for names and faces of Army people, “will bear me out, hush-hush, Mr. Wagstaffe, is the word, but it is our wonderful gift for laughter and seeing the funny side of things that will get friend Adolf in the end, even if it’s only little me as says it. I wish you could see our kiddies. Clarissa, she’s the girl, is getting her second teeth all crooked and I wish Captain Gumm could have seen her first teeth, just like a dainty little row of pearls, said she coming over all weepified. No, Bobbums,” said Mrs. Spender, who with rare tenacity of purpose always came back to her original thesis, “not mustard, you silly old goose, but WHO ARE THEY?”

  These last words she rather mouthed than spoke, in a hoarse whisper calculated to reach the furthest corner of the room. Captain Hooper and Mr. Wagstaffe ate their lunch in gloomy resignation. Captain Gumm, who had always wanted to join the Air Force, but had been forced into becoming a dentist by his father, who had a flourishing dental practice, was merely confirmed in a general grudge against the world. Major Spender, having told his wife as quietly and quickly as possible who Philip was, managed to switch her off on to coupons, and the rest of the meal passed peacefully. By this time Philip was suffering severely from suppressed amusement, for one can hardly use the word giggles when speaking of a colonel. Having done his best to get over this and partially succeeded, he looked at his fellow-lunchers. Though they had exchanged smiles they had evidently not found any difficulty in concealing their feelings.

  Considering this, it quite suddenly occurred to him that his Lydia, with all her sterling qualities and delightful defects, had very little sense of humour. How he could have known her so well for the past eight years or so without noticing this he could not imagine, unless it were that he had very little himself. Knowing his Lydia’s interest in philosophical discussions, and always enjoying her downright not to say bludgeoning methods of argument, he said to her:

  “Lydia, which of us would you say had a sense of humour?”

  Lydia, who, owing to her habit of taking most things as they came, was rarely taken aback, looked seriously at him.

  “If you mean me,” she said, “I don’t think I have. At least, not how you mean, or Noel. But I do laugh at things quite a lot, even if it isn’t your way. And quite often I laugh at things inside when it doesn’t feel polite to laugh at them outside.”

  On hearing this clear though jumbled statement, Philip felt, as he so often did, what an extraordinarily good fellow Lydia was, and would have hit her in a friendly way on the back, but that the time and place made it a most unsuitable action.

  “I expect Leslie’s got heaps,” said Lydia, looking at Leslie with something of a hen’s pride in a duckling. “I mean she is always seeing clever people in London that know about what’s going on everywhere and are a bit disillusioned—if that is what I mean,” she added anxiously.

  Philip, watching Leslie’s face, saw a flicker on it which told him that Lydia’s muddled explanation had gone very near the mark. He had a pretty good guess at her London world; men and women whose educated and partly trained minds, moving in a small set though many of its names were those of rising or risen stars, had no very great inner resources and through mental laziness preferred to spend their spare moments in idle or sometimes mildly malicious gossip about their circle, always, very gently, discrediting with crackling laughter those who had climbed highest. It all made him a little uncomfortable and he wished he had not spoken, especially when Leslie suddenly looked at him as if she had something to say, but said nothing.

  Mrs. Pollett had by now served them with not only the liver but some excellent castle puddings, made with some hoarded white flour, and produced some quite drinkable coffee, saying as she handed it, “Warmed-up’s good enough for them. I made this fresh for you.” Though Philip knew that her obliging preference of his party was dictated by feudalism rather than mercenary motives, he also knew that a tip is never unwelcome and gave her one which almost made her curtsy. They all thanked her for a very nice lunch and were about to go, when to her horror the macaw-like form of Mrs. Spender rose and dragging the unwilling Captain Hooper with her approached their table.

  Captain Hooper, remarking Happy Days as a suitable combined greeting, said he wanted to introduce everyone to Mrs. Spender, and not having done so, basely deserted her and went back to his military duties.

  Leslie, bravely taking upon her the role of hostess, as representing her uncle and aunt for the time being, begged Mrs. Spender to sit down, named herself, introduced Lydia and Philip, and offered her guest a cigarette.

  “Now don’t let me be a spoilsport,” said Mrs. Spender, “but I never smoke. Why, I cannot tell you, for everyone knows I am the last person in the world to be faddy, but somehow it has just never appealed to me, and when I think of all our brave men risking their lives to bring tobacco I feel I am doing just a tiny bit to save the Empire. But Bobbie is a dreadful old chimney, such an old silly, so you’d love him. Bobbie,” she called to her husband, who was comfortably discussing the golf links at Fleece with Mr. Wagstaffe, “come over here. Miss Waring has kindly asked us to join her party. You know, Miss Waring, Bobbie was billeted with the Villarses at Northbridge a couple of years ago, and Mrs. Villars is a cousin of Sir Harry Waring, such a delightful woman, simply hospitality itself and so courageous. There was an air raid the night I stayed there and she was so splendid, and we had such a nice matey time in the dear old rector’s study, not that he is old of course, but being a rector, well you know what I mean, little me all in my siren suit and dressing-gown and wouldn’t go to bed till the rector absolutely forced her. You must tell Sir Harry, Miss Waring, what a really wonderful time his cousin gave us and then a really too marvellous sherry party another time when I was down there, I mean quite too marvellous.”

  Leslie said she had only met Mrs. Villars once and liked her very much.

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” said Mrs. Spender, much impressed. “A woman you simply could not help liking. People say I’m psychic, of course there may be something in it or there mayn’t, these things are not for little me to judge said she quite solemn all of a sudden, but I say you often know when you meet a person whether you like them or not. I suppose I’m funny that way but something tells me if I like a person or not right from the jump. And of course Mr. Villars, such a saintlike man, though a modern saint if you see what I mean, really not a saint at all, I mean a saint inside, not showing off about it as one sometimes feels the saints did in the olden times, not that I am irreligious, far from it, though I always say these things don’t need discussing because one just knows, but somehow a man like Mr. Villars who is really such an old pet, there now I’ve called him old again but you know what I mean, well, what was I saying, oh yes, a man like Mr. Villars really makes you think.”

  Leslie, as fascinated as a rabbit before a boa constrictor, said she had never met him, but heard he was very nice.


  “Nice,” said Mrs. Spender emphatically, “is hardly the word, if you see what I mean. I mean a man who does such wonderful good just by his mere influence, though mind you I don’t mean like an Indian by simply sitting and thinking of nothing. And all up-to-date too. Now the vicar at home, that is where we live if you see what I mean, for though Bobbie is away the children and I living there makes it seem like home, though we miss Bobbie dreadfully, don’t we Bobbums, is really quite bigoted, I mean like the Inquisition. We had quite an argument about this Beveridge plan, though it sounds exactly like beer-rationing if you take my meaning, or even tea and cocoa, and believe me or not he hadn’t even read it!”

  Lydia, who felt it was her turn, said she hadn’t either.

  “Nor had I,” said Mrs. Spender with great frankness, “but I always say it isn’t so much the actual words as the feeling one gets. I suppose I’m a bit different from other people, but you only have to mention a thing to me and I seem to see it, if you know what I mean. I don’t need to read, I just sense what things are about. It’s funny, but I’m that way. What, Bobbie?”

  Major Spender, who had vainly been trying for some time to break into his wife’s conversation, said they really must go if she was to catch her train.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before, Bobbie?” she said, getting up. “You know, Bobbie is such an old dear, but the most unpractical man that ever stepped God’s earth, though really when I say that one is hard put to it to know nowadays whose earth it is with all that’s going on, said she quite serious like. Well, good-bye all. Where’s my coat, Bobbie?”

  Her husband collected it from her seat and helped her into it, looking anxiously at the clock as he did so.