The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘If her dinner-time is punctually at six she most probably has. She was removed from your house at six-thirty precisely.’

  ‘Oh! Where is she, please?’

  ‘It is no concern of yours where she is.’

  ‘You brutish Hun, of course it is a concern of mine. In this weather. She will catch cold, she will get bronchitis. These dogs have frightfully weak chests. Savage – kaffir – fuzzy wuzzy – you –’

  ‘To call me all these things will not advance the cause of Millicent, very far from it. She is now in my power, and you had better be nice to me.’ Heatherley leant towards her with a horrible leer.

  ‘I shall tell Florence about you coming into my bathroom when I have nearly nothing on,’ she said. This shot appeared to have gone home. Heatherley looked quite disconcerted.

  ‘The bulldog,’ he said, after a pause, ‘will be returned to you in perfectly good condition so long as you have been obedient to us and stuck not only to the letter but also to the spirit of our instructions. Otherwise, I regret to inform you that not only will she be vivisected for several hours and then put, as Greta was put, still alive, into the main drain, but that, long before you can act, you also will have ceased to live.’

  ‘Devil. I must say I shouldn’t care to be you, after you are dead. Would you like to hear what will happen to you? Well, you’ll lie on a gridiron to eternity and baste – do you hear me, B A S T E.’

  ‘Instead of abusing me, and threatening me with the out-worn superstitions of a decadent religion, it will be better for you to listen to what I have to say.

  ‘For the next three days and nights either Florence, or Gustav, whom you know as Winthrop, or I myself will be watching you like lynxes; you will never be out of the sight of one or other. Florence will take night duty and sleep in your room. Gustav and I will take turns by day. If you make the smallest sign to anybody, or convey any message to the outside world, we shall know it, and within half an hour the bulldog Millicent will be wishing she had never been born.’

  ‘How do you mean Florence will sleep in my room? There’s only one bed.’

  ‘It is a very large one. You can take the choice between sharing it with Florence and having another bed made up in your room.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Sophia shuddered. Then she rang the bell, and feeling uncommonly foolish, went into her bedroom, where she told Elsie that she had been suffering from nightmares, and that Miss Turnbull had very kindly consented to sleep in her room.

  ‘Oh, and Elsie, tell Mrs Round that I have taken Milly to the vet, to be wormed, will you? She’ll be about three days.’

  ‘Yes, m’lady. We were all wondering where Milly had got to.’

  When Elsie had gone, Heatherley came out of the bathroom and said, ‘One last word. I warn you that you had better act in good faith. It will not avail you to do such things as, for instance, write notes in invisible ink on match-boxes, for we shall act on the very smallest suspicion. Your telephone here is cut; please do not have it mended. It will be the safest from your point of view, and that of your bulldog, if you were to see nobody at all except the personnel at the Post. Of them, I may tell you that ninety per cent are members of my corps, and will assist in keeping you under observation. Miss Wordsworth received last night in an omnibus a piqûre that will incapacitate her for a week at least.’

  ‘I see, you are white slavers as well as everything else.’

  ‘Mr Stone, as you are aware, has gone away on holiday. You will sit alone in the office, and either Gustav or myself will often sit there with you. When you think you are quite alone, one of us will be watching you through a rent in the hessian.’

  Sophia lay awake all night. Florence did not, it is true, snore so loudly or so incessantly as Milly, nor was her face so near to Sophia’s as Milly’s generally became during the course of a night. What she did was to give an occasional rather sinister little ‘honk’ which was far more disturbing. But in any case Sophia would probably have lost her sleep. There seemed to be no way out of the quandary in which she found herself, look at it how she would. Even supposing that she was anxious to sacrifice Milly to the common good, which she was not, very, it seemed to her that she would only have time to give one hysterical shout before she was herself overpowered, gagged, and put down the drain, or, if in the street, liquidated in some other way. Then her secret, like Scudder’s, would die with her, for it was too late now to begin keeping a black notebook. The prospect was discouraging.

  She turned about miserably racking her brains until she was called, when the sight of Florence sitting up in bed, and disposing of an enormous breakfast, quite put her off her own. For a moment she forgot her troubles in the fascination of seeing how Florence fixed herself into the stays, but with so many so much weightier affairs on her mind, Sophia hardly got the best advantage from this experience. For one thing she was tortured by wondering who would give Milly her morning run and whether she would do all she should. If she was being kept, like the old gentleman, underneath the Post, there was unlikely to be such a thing as a bit of grass for her, unless some kind of subterranean weed grew beside the main drain. Then there was the question of food.

  She had sent Florence to Coventry. Florence, she considered, having lived with her all these months and accepted her fur cape, only to repay by kidnapping Milly, had proved herself to be outside the pale, what Lord Haw-Haw calls ‘not public school’. Sophia would not and could not speak to her, so she would have to discuss Milly’s diet-sheet with Heatherley, and meanwhile she decided that she would take a dinner for her in a parcel when she went to the Post.

  She and Florence spent a dismal morning together in Harrods, where, whenever Sophia saw somebody she knew, Florence threatened her with the barrel of a gun which she kept in her bag; after this they went off, still in silence and rather early, to the Post. Sophia was clutching a damp parcel of minced meat which she deposited in the Labour Ward when they arrived, and hoped for the best. She thought it was a gesture rather like that made by primitive Greek peasants who are supposed to put out, in some sacred spot, little offerings of food for the god Pan.

  Heatherley’s predictions were correct. Sister Wordsworth was off duty, ill, Mr Stone was away on a week’s holiday, and Sophia sat alone in the office. Heatherley and Winthrop took it in turns to watch over her, and the first thing she saw when she came in was a dreadful, unwinking, pale blue eye pressed against a tear in the sacking. There was nothing to be done, nothing whatever. She felt quite sick, and the hours dragged away slowly. Even Macaulay’s History of England held no more charms for her, the landing of the Prince of Orange among the rude fisher-folk of Torquay with a background of ghostly future villas was a painted scene which could not have much interest for one who sat on such a powder-barrel as she did. The question uppermost in her mind now was ‘What is going to happen on Friday?’ but the more she thought, the less she could form an opinion. Perhaps it was only that on that day Florence and her corps of spies were leaving the country; she felt, however, that it was something far more sinister. The assassination of some public man, for instance; although it was difficult to think of any public man whose assassination would not greatly advance the Allied cause, and the same objection, multiplied by about twelve hundred, would, of course, apply to blowing up the Houses of Parliament. In Sophia’s opinion, this would no longer even be an aesthetic disaster, since they had been subjected to the modish barbarism of pickling.

  That evening Fred dined with her, a long-standing engagement. She was told that she could choose which of her three chaperons should attend her on this occasion, and chose Heatherley. He was the one she hated the most, because she was quite certain it was he who had thought of abducting Milly, and she hoped to be able to tease him by talking about Germany with Fred and at him. Unfortunately this did not work out very well. A Fred racked with ideals, and in the grip of Federal Union, was quite a different cup of tea from the old, happy-go-lucky Fred who used to j
oin with her in blasting abroad, its food, its manners, its languages, its scenery, and the horrible time one had getting there.

  ‘I can’t see eye to eye with you, my dear Sophia,’ he said pompously, when she thought she had worked him up to better things. ‘I think of all foreigners, even Germans, in quite a different light now. To me they are our brothers in Union. Whatever happens, don’t you see, we must finish the war with a great glow of love in our hearts – the punishment we are giving them should be quite in the spirit of “this hurts me more than it does you”.’

  Heatherley gave a loathsome snigger.

  ‘I beg your pardon? Of course, Mr Egg, as you come from the United States of America, you can tell us all about Federal Union from experience. I am sure you must think highly of it?’

  ‘It works very badly over there, and would be quite useless in Europe. In Europe you have one Power so far in advance of all the rest that ethical sense as well as common sense would put the other countries in complete submission to its dictates.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I always say,’ said Sophia, ‘but, of course, it will be an awful bore having to rule over those fiendish foreigners, and I rather doubt if we can be bothered. Perhaps we could make the French do it for us.’

  Heatherley smiled in a superior way. He seemed far too comfortable to please Sophia and she greatly feared that his plans, whatever they were, must be maturing satisfactorily for him. She made no attempt to communicate in any way with Fred, knowing that, quite alone and uninterrupted, it would have taken her a good hour to explain the whole matter to him. Fred liked to get to the bottom of things, to ask a hundred questions and to write a great deal in his notebook; his particular temperament rendered such devices as tapping on his leg in Morse Code (even had Sophia been sufficiently expert to do so) much worse than useless. She very wisely left the whole thing alone.

  The evening was not a great success. Fred asked where Milly was, and when told about the vet, reminded Sophia that she and Abbie had been wormed together less than two months before. He went on to tell her what a strain it was on a dog’s inside, asking what evidence she had of Milly’s worms, until poor Sophia could have screamed. Then they listened to the King of Song, but he was not really much in form. At the end of his programme, however, there was a drop of comfort for Sophia when he sang, very distinctly, ‘Milly is my darling, my darling, my darling, Milly is my darling, the young bow wow dear,’ after which she heard, or thought she heard, a rumbling snore. If Milly was with the old gentleman that would be nice for both of them, and especially, of course, for the old gentleman. At last Fred took his leave, after which Heatherley escorted Sophia, who was by now very sleepy in spite of all her cares, to join Florence in her bedroom.

  This was the end of the first day.

  14

  The next morning Sophia, having enjoyed, from sheer exhaustion, an excellent night’s rest, awoke feeling more resolute. She had often heard that the Germans are the stupidest people in the world; when she remembered this and also the fact that, until she had found out that they were spies, she had always looked upon Florence, Heatherley and Winthrop as being the greatest bores she knew, it seemed to her that it should be possible to outwit Truda, Otto and Gustav, even if they were three to one against her. She stayed in bed until it was time to go to St Anne’s, thinking very hard.

  Clearly the first thing to be done was to write out a concise report of her situation, and this she must keep handy in case she had an opportunity, unobserved, of giving it to some reliable person. Hatred of Heatherley, even more than fear, lent her courage and cunning, and when she had been at the Post a little while, she put down her handkerchief over a stump of pencil on the table. Presently she picked up both handkerchief and pencil and went off to the lavatory, the only place where she could be out of sight of the unholy trinity, one of whose members followed her to its very door. Here she wrote, very quickly, on her handkerchief, ‘Spies. Milly and Ivor King imprisoned below Post. Tell police but act carefully. I am watched. No joke.’ She had to waste valuable space and time in saying ‘no joke’ because she knew that if this missive should happen to reach any of her friends they would be sure to think it was one and act accordingly. The trouble now was to think of somebody to give it to, as, although she felt certain that Heatherley was bluffing when he said that nearly all the nurses were his fellow-spies, she did not know any of them well enough, now that Sister Wordsworth was away, to be positive beyond doubt of their integrity. She thought that if, by the next day, nothing else had turned up, she would, as a last resort, give the handkerchief to one of them; meanwhile she hoped for luck.

  The sister in charge of the Treatment Room brought a Mrs Twitchett into the office. She was one of those fat women whose greatly over-powdered faces look like plasticine, and whose bosoms, if pricked, would surely subside with a loud bang and a gust of air. The sister introduced her to Sophia, saying that she had already been taken on at the local A.R.P. head-quarters as a part-time worker for St Anne’s; Sophia’s business was to note down all particulars on the card index.

  ‘Emma Twitchett,’ she wrote, ‘144 The Boltons. Qualifications, First Aid, Home Nursing and Gas Certificates. Next of kin, Bishop of the Antarctic. Religion, The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion.’

  Here Sophia looked up sharply and saw, what in her preoccupation had not hitherto dawned on her, that Emma Twitchett was none other than Rudolph. For the first moment of crazy relief she thought that he must know everything and have come to rescue her, Milly and Sir Ivor. Then she realized that this could not be the case. He was merely bored and lonely without her, and was hoping that he would get back into favour by means of an elaborate joke. It was absolutely important to prevent him from giving himself away in the office, while under the impression that they were alone. Sophia was only too conscious of the eye in the hessian. As soon as she had scribbled down Mrs Twitchett’s particulars, she hurried him out into the Post.

  Although it could not be said that Sophia had hitherto proved herself to be a very clever or successful counter-spy, she now made up for all her former mistakes by perfectly sensible behaviour. The luck, of which she had been so hopeful, had come her way at last and she did not allow it to slip through her fingers. She conducted Mrs Twitchett, as she always did new people, round the Post, chatting most amicably. She was careful to omit nothing, neither the rest room upstairs, the canteen, the ladies’ cloakroom nor the room with the nurses’ lockers. She hoped that Rudolph would notice, and remember afterwards, how Winthrop, without giving himself the trouble to dissimulate his movements, was following them closely during this perambulation. Sophia was only too thankful that it was Winthrop who, she estimated, was about half as intelligent as Heatherley. At last she took Mrs Twitchett to the exit and showed her out, saying ‘Very well then, that will be splendid; tomorrow at twelve. Oh yes, of course,’ she said rather hesitatingly and shyly, ‘Yes, naturally, Mrs Twitchett, I’ll lend you mine.’ She took out her handkerchief and offered it to Rudolph with a smile. ‘No, of course, bring it back any time. I have another in my bag; it’s quite all right. Good, then, see you tomorrow; that will be very nice. So glad you are coming; we are rather short-handed, you know.’

  She went back without even glancing at Winthrop who was hovering about inside the Post, and who followed her to the office. Then she sat for a while at her table trembling very much and expecting that any moment she would be summoned to the drain, but as time went on and nothing had happened, she took up her knitting. If she had a certain feeling of relief that, at any rate, she had been able to take a step towards communication with the outside world, she was also tortured with doubts as to whether Rudolph would ever see what was written on the handkerchief and whether, if he did, he would not merely say that women were bores in wars. Olga had certainly queered the pitch for her rivals in the world of espionage as far as Rudolph was concerned. Also, if he did have the luck to read and the sense to follow her directions,
would he be in time? He must hurry; she felt sure that after tomorrow any action which might be taken would be too late to save Milly and the old gentleman, certainly too late to catch Florence. Tomorrow was what the posters call zero hour. The rest of that day dragged by even more horribly slowly than the preceding one, and there was no sign from Rudolph. She could not help half expecting that he would have got some kind of a message through to her; when seven o’clock arrived and there was nothing, she was bitterly disappointed. Heatherley conducted her home in a taxi, dined with her and never let her out of his sight until Florence was ready to take charge of her. Sophia did not sleep a single wink; she lay strenuously willing Rudolph to read her handkerchief.

  On the morning of the third and last day, Sophia would have been ready to construe anything which seemed at all mysterious into a code message from Rudolph. But nothing of the sort came her way. She eagerly scanned her egg for a sign of calligraphy, however faint; it was innocent, however, of any mark. The agony column of The Times was equally unproductive, nor had Milly contributed to the dog advertisements; there was not even a mention of French bulldogs. Her morning post consisted of nothing more hopeful than Harrods’ Food News. In fact, it became obvious to Sophia that Rudolph had never read her SOS at all, or if he had that he did not believe in it. Two large tears trickled down her cheeks. She decided that if nothing had materialized to show that Rudolph was helping by four o’clock, she would abandon Milly and the old gentleman to death and worse in the main drain, and dash out of the Post on the chance of finding a policeman before she too was liquidated.

  Having made up her mind to some definite action, she felt happier. She jumped out of bed, dressed in a great hurry and led poor Florence, who suffered a good deal from fallen arches, round and round Kensington Gardens for two hours at least.

  When Sophia arrived at the Post, accompanied by a limping Florence, the first person she saw was Mrs Twitchett. Her doubts were dispersed in a moment and great was her relief. Rudolph must certainly be working on her side; it would be unnatural for anybody to go to the trouble of dressing up like that, twice, for a joke. Mrs Twitchett was busily employed in the Labour Ward, but found time, when Sophia came down from her luncheon at the canteen, to go round to the office and give back the borrowed handkerchief. Sophia put it away in her bag without even looking at it.