by Jan Struther
The Last Day of the Holidays
The last day of the holidays dawned relentlessly wet. The last day down at Starlings, that is, which for Vin was what counted. Judy liked London equally well, and Toby lived in a landscape of his own; but for Vin the twenty-four hours in London on his way back to school were only a kind of twilight, with one foot already in the grave. There was always some treat to mitigate it—the circus, a theatre, or a music-hall; but even this, enjoyable as it was, had a tinge of the macabre in its glory, like the pomps and splendours of a funeral feast.
Not that he disliked school; but it had to be regarded, he found, as another life, to be approached only by way of the Styx. You died on the station platform, were reborn, not without pangs, in the train, and emerged at the other end a different person, with a different language, a different outlook, and a different scale of values. That was what the stray grown-ups you met in the holidays did not seem to understand when they asked you the fatuous and invariable question, “How do you like school?” It was impossible to answer this properly, because the person of whom they asked it never, strictly speaking, arrived at school at all.
The reverse process—getting back into his home skin—though not in the least painful, was almost as difficult For one thing, he had always outgrown it a little, and, like his home clothes, it had to be adjusted. Sometimes, before it was a comfortable fit, nearly a week had gone by; he was almost half-way to the half-way mark—that significant water-shed beyond which the days raced downhill in a heartless torrent.
However full the children packed them, however early they got up, however late, by various ruses, they contrived to go to bed, the holidays were always far too short. There was never time to carry out more than three-quarters of the plans they made. Some of these—such as building a tree-hut or exploring the mill-stream to its source—never got started at all; others they had to leave half done, such as the cardboard castle which had been lurking for two years in a corner of the boxroom, roofless, but with a practicable portcullis. Somehow it never seemed possible to finish things like that during the next holidays. There was always some newer craze.
This time their main occupation had been fitting up one of the outhouses like the cabin of a ship, with built-in bunks, straw palliasses, and a locker full of imaginary charts. (Vin drew the charts, Judy painted them, and Toby put in the casual dolphins.) But they had also made a brick-kiln in the kitchen garden and baked in it at least a dozen quite satisfactory bricks. Not enough to build anything with, it is true, but enough to give them a reassuring feeling that if they were ever wrecked on a desert island they would soon be able to run up a house or two: always provided, of course, that the island had a clay soil. And they had dammed the stream, and undammed it again; and watched the woodmen cutting and splitting young chestnuts for palings; and watched the blacksmith, and the wheelwright, and the man who came to mend the roof; and walked over to Loddenden to have tea with Old Jane; and had a bonfire, the day Vin caught a bream, so that they could cook it in the embers, wrapped in wet paper.
For the last day they had made at least six different plans, but they were all out-of-door ones and it was obvious that they would all have to be abandoned. The sky was black and sagging, like an old tarpaulin. A big cross-channel plane was labouring unsteadily southward against the gale, flying so low that it looked as though it would barely clear the chimneys. Below the high wooded ridge on which their house stood the green and silver network of the Marsh lay blurred with rain, its dykes swollen and many of its pastures already merged in flood.
It had evidently got to be an indoor day. And because it was the last one they took turns, in order of age, at choosing what to do. Clem, who came first, chose darts; they played Round the Clock, and Nannie, as usual, won. Mrs. Miniver chose Letter Bags (a game which is to all other letter-games as dry-fly fishing is to a string and a bent pin). Nannie, most popularly, chose toffee-making on the nursery fire; and by the time that was set aside in biscuit-tin lids to cool, lunch was ready.
Afterwards they took another look at the weather. It was quite hopeless. The wind, no longer squally, had risen to a steady roar. The trees were straining, the lawn sodden, the Marsh completely blotted out Vin chose charades, and Judy said she had been going to choose dressing up, so they combined the two; and that, of course, lasted them easily till tea-time.
Next it was Toby’s turn. But all he wanted apparently, and he wanted it with a consuming urgency, was to be left alone in a corner with eight elastic bands and an old photograph frame: he said he had had a good idea at tea. So the rest of them had a concert, with Clem at the piano. They sang “Camp-town Races” and “The Ash Grove” and “Rolling Down to Rio” and “Alfonzo Spagoni” and “Cockels and Mussels” and “A Bicycle Made for Two.” They were going to sing “Home, Sweet Home,” but Vin suggested that it ought to be pronounced “Hume, Sweet Hume,” like the surname; and after that, because they were just in the right mood for silly jokes, they laughed too much to be able to sing it at all, so the concert came to an end.
So far as they knew, Toby had been paying no attention. But when the noise of their own laughter had died away they became aware of a small reedy voice singing in the far corner, accompanied by a confused twangling sound. It was Toby, blissfully sweeping the strings of his good idea.
“‘Carry me hume’” (he sang) “‘to Old Virginny. …’ Tck! That end band’s come loose again.”
When the two younger ones had been taken off to bed, Vin went to the window and peered out at the dripping garden. The rain had stopped at last; a few torn clouds were racing past in a clear moonlit sky. But it was too late now. The holidays were over.
In Search of a Charwoman
About once a year Clem rather ruefully suggested, and Mrs. Miniver reluctantly agreed, that it was about time they asked the Lane-Pontifexes to dinner.
There was nothing really the matter with the Lane-Pontifexes. They were quite nice, intelligent, decent people; she was personable, and he was well-informed: yet for some mysterious reason one’s heart sank. Their company, as Clem said, was a continual shutting of windows. They asked the Minivers to dinner about every two months; it was impossible, without being churlish, to get out of it more than three times running; and eventually, of course, they had to be asked in return. This acquaintanceship had lasted, neither waxing nor waning, for nearly ten years, and there seemed to be no particular reason why it should ever come to an end. Clem said it was part of the white man’s burden.
Undiluted Lane-Pontifex was not to be thought of, so they generally made it an excuse for asking as many people as their dining-room table would hold, and that meant getting Mrs. Jackman in to help with the washing-up. On the morning of the dinner-party Mrs. Jackman sent a message to say that she couldn’t come after all, as her mother was queer. So Mrs. Miniver, fervently wishing that the queerness of Mrs. Jackman’s mother had not happened to coincide with the imminence of the Lane-Pontifexes, set off in search of a substitute.
She crossed the King’s Road, turned up Skelton Street (which is not one of the streets that Chelsea shows to American visitors), and approached the towering red-brick jungle which is known as “the Buildings.’ Among the branches of this forest, theoretically at any rate, desirable and efficient charwomen hang in ripe clusters for the plucking; but the plucking is not so simple. The architectural style of the Buildings is Late Victorian Philanthropic. Each clump is named after a different benefactor, and each block in each clump is distinguished by a large capital letter. Mrs. Miniver entered the maze by the nearest gateway and then hesitated. She had heard of Mrs. Burchett through a friend, and she thought her address was No. 23 Platt’s Dwellings; but she had reckoned without the alphabetical factor. She tried No. 23 in D Block, which happened to be near at hand, and after that she tried No. 23 in Blocks E, F, and G. But either the inhabitants genuinely did not know Mrs. Burchett’s address, or else some esoteric code forbade them to reveal it. No. 23 was in every case on the fourth floor; a
nd as she climbed up the steep stone stairs of Block H Mrs. Miniver felt inclined, quite unfairly, to blame the whole business on to the Lane-Pontifexes.
This time, however, she was more successful. A large, neat, cheerful woman came to the door, with her hair piled up on the top of her head like a whipped cream walnut. Obviously a pearl among charwomen—a capable pearl. Yes, she was Mrs. Burchett. Yes, she had often worked for Miss Ducane, and was glad that Miss Ducane had recommended her. Yes, she would certainly come along this evening and give a hand.
“To tell you the truth,” she added with gusto, “I was just wishing summing like this would turn up. Not that I need to do cleaning at present, really, Burchett and the boys all being in work. In fact, my son Len, ’e says I’ve no business to go out to work at all, when there’s others wanting it more. But there—I don’t know whatever I should do if I didn’t. Every now and then I just feel I’ve got to ’ave a bit of a fling.” She tossed the whipped cream walnut so that it quivered. “Of course, charing. ... I suppose it’s on’y like clearing up somebody else’s mess instead of your own, but it does make a change, and you do get a bit of company. Burchett, ’e says, ‘You let ’er go, Len, and never mind the rights and wrongs. Coop ’er up too long, she gets ’ipped. And goodness knows,’ ’e says, ‘when your mother gets ’ipped there’s no peace for any of us till she’s worked it off summow.’”
She gave a large, good-humoured laugh. Mrs. Miniver liked her more and more, recognizing in her that most endearing of qualities, an abundant zest for life. It was rare, that zest, and it bore no relation to age, class, creed, moral worth, or intellectual ability. It was an accidental gift, like blue eyes or a double-jointed thumb: impossible to acquire, and almost impossible, thank heaven, to lose. To be completely without it was the worst lack of all—and it dawned on her in a flash that that was what was the matter with the Lane-Pontifexes.
“You’ll come at seven, then?”
“I shan’t be late,” said Mrs. Burchett, beaming reliably. It was evident that in spirit her sleeves were already rolled up.
Threading her way back between the serried barrows of Skelton Street, Mrs. Miniver asked herself which of them was right—Burchett or Len. Economically, Len, of course. But psychologically, Burchett: for pent-up volcanoes can do almost as much harm in the world as empty purses.
On the hall table there was a telephone message. Mr. and Mrs. Lane-Pontifex were extremely sorry, but they had both gone down with ’flu. Mrs. Miniver’s heart gave a leap, and she immediately felt ashamed of herself. As an act of penitence she went out to the flower shop and sent the Lane-Pontifexes a big bunch of jonquils and a note. But nothing could undo the leap; and as she walked home for the second time, she reflected what possibilities the evening now held; how many lovely people there were from among whom they could fill the two empty places—people whom they really wanted to see, who were merry or wise or comforting or revealing, whose presence either heartened the spirit or kindled the mind; people who opened windows instead of shutting them. And she reflected, also, how many of the most enjoyable parties were achieved by taking away the number you first thought of.
The First Day of Spring
It was a Wedgwood day, with white clouds delicately modelled in relief against a sky of pale pure blue. The best of England, thought Mrs. Miniver, as opposed to countries with reasonable climates, is that it is not only once a year that you can say, “This is the first day of spring.” She had already said it twice since Christmas—once in January, when they had driven across the Marsh to the sea and it had been warm enough to lie on the sand without a coat; and once in February, when she had taken the children for a lunch picnic in Kensington Gardens. The grass had been scattered with twigs from the previous night’s gale, and by the next afternoon it was snowing: but while it lasted that day had been part of the authentic currency of spring—a stray coin tossed down carelessly on account.
But this time, she thought (though she knew quite well that one said that every time), it really was spring. On her way downstairs she paused in the drawing-room to look at the plane branches which she had picked up on the Embankment when the men were lopping the trees. She did this every year, but she could never quite believe her eyes when they actually burst into bud. It seemed impossible that those neat emerald bobbles, those velvety, milky-green leaves, should have been implicit in the soot-black sticks—so much deader-looking than the polished brown twigs of the countryside—which she had brought in a month ago. She bent closer to look at one of the newest leaves (it was soft and half-spread, like a little pointed paw), got a cloud of yellow pollen from the flowers on to her nose, and went downstairs sneezing.
Outside the air was delicious. She could feel it stroking her face as she moved through it, but there was no sensation of either warmth or chill. Walking towards Westminster (she was going to meet Clem for lunch near his office), she wondered why she found this particular temperature so charming; and decided that it was because, on a day like this, she came nearer than usual to losing her sense of separate identity. Extremes of heat and cold she enjoyed too, but it was with a tense, belligerent enjoyment. When they beat against the irregular frontiers of the skin, with all its weak angles and vulnerable salients, they made her acutely conscious of her own boundaries in space. Here, she would find herself thinking, is where I end and the outside world begins. It was exciting, but divisive: it made for loneliness. But on certain days, and this was one of them, the barriers were down. She felt as though she and the outside world could mingle and interpenetrate; as though she was not entirely contained in her own body but was part also of every other person in the street; and, for that matter, of the thrush singing on a tree in Eaton Square, the roan drayhorse straining to take up the load at Grosvenor Place, the cat stepping delicately across Buckingham Palace Road. This was the real meaning of peace—not mere absence of division, but an active consciousness of unity, of being one of the mountain-peak islands on a submerged continent.
Just beyond the entrance to the royal stables she became aware that she was walking behind, and gradually overtaking, a small, ragged boy. He was about Toby’s size, but probably older. His shorts, even though they had been hauled well up under his armpits, were still far too long for him, and they had a big cobbled patch on the seat; his grey jersey was dirty, skimpy, and threadbare; his legs were spindly, his hair mouse-coloured and closely cropped. He was not an attractive urchin: but what caught her eye were his accoutrements. He wore a sword made out of two pieces of broken lath, hung round his middle with string; his helmet was a brown paper bag with a pigeon’s feather stuck through it and “Brooks’s Stores” printed on it upside-down; and on his left arm he carried a home-made cardboard shield. His step was jaunty yet purposeful, as though he was setting off on some secret campaign in which he was confident of victory. (There were dragons in St. James’s Park, she knew, for those who needed them: she had lived near it herself as a child.)
By the time he reached the front gates of the Palace she had drawn almost level with him: she could see that the shield was roughly coloured with red chalk and tied to his arm with a bootlace. She was about to pass him when he caught sight of another urchin, similarly equipped, on the opposite pavement. It was evidently going to be a combined expedition. He gave a shrill yell of greeting and stepped off the kerb.
“Look out!” cried Mrs. Miniver, grabbing him by the shoulder. A taxi swerved with screaming brakes and avoided him by perhaps an inch. But the boy was unimpressed.
“I’m awright,” he protested impatiently; shook himself free, and dashed out again into the road. Mrs. Miniver watched him till he got safely over to the other side. Then she discovered that her knees were trembling and that she felt extremely sick. Behind her the sentries stamped and strode, met, turned, and parted, carrying out with beautiful precision their antique ritual. Sentries and cardboard shields: parallel gestures, it seemed, in a world of bombing planes and motor traffic. But perhaps the making of the gesture was what
mattered.
She pulled herself together and walked on. The water, a bright translucent curve, flowed steadily into the marble basin; the tritons, nereids, and dolphins gambolled along the frieze; the symbolic bronze statues held, a trifle sententiously, their heroic poses; and high above them all the gilt Queen sat calmly in the sun.
On Hampstead Heath
They went away nearly every week-end, either to Starlings or to other people’s houses, but about once a month they made a point of staying in London. On Saturday afternoon they would drive down to see Vin at school, and on Sunday the two younger children would take it in turns to choose a treat. This time it was Toby’s turn, and he chose Hampstead Heath because he wanted to sail his boat on the pond. Judy wasn’t particularly keen on boats, but a favourite doll Christabel had a new spring coat and she was quite glad of a chance to take her out in it.
It was a clear, clean, nonchalant kind of day, with a billowy south wind. The scene round the pond, as they burst upon it suddenly up the hill, would have made an admirable opening for a ballet—a kind of English Petrouchka or Beau Danube. The blue pond, the white sails, the children in their Sunday clothes, the strolling grown-ups, the gambolling dogs, the ice-cream men (hatched out prematurely by the unseasonable heat) tinkling slowly round on their box-tricycles—it all had an air of having been rehearsed to a perfection of spontaneity. The choreography was excellent, the décor charming: it remained to be seen whether any theme would develop.
