‘Baste?’ said Sophia.
‘Baste. Whenever I have time, perhaps say once in a million years, I will bring you a drop of water on the end of my finger. Apart from this, your pleasures will be few and simple.’
‘What I’m wondering is,’ said Rudolph, ‘how much you and Lady Beech will enjoy such purely Catholic society for so uninterrupted a spell?’
At dinner that night, Luke’s information was that a huge scheme of appeasement, world-wide in its implications, was even now being worked out. He said the wretched Socialists were not making things easy for Our Premier, but that he was too big a man and the scheme too big a scheme to be thwarted by pinpricks in Parliament. Parliament and the Press might have to be got rid of for a time whilst Our Premier and Herr Hitler rearranged the world. In any case, there would be no war. The next morning poor Luke was so wretched that Sophia felt quite sorry for him. He really seemed astounded that Herr Hitler should be prepared to risk all those wonderful swimming pools in a major war.
When the Prime Minister’s Speech and hoax air-raid warning were over, Sophia went round to report at the First Aid Post. Here, in a large garage under St. Anne’s Hospital, cold, damp and dirty, pretty Sister Wordsworth was bringing order out of confusion. She really seemed pleased to engage Sophia, in spite of her lack of qualifications, and told her that she could come every day from one to seven. The work was simple. Sophia was to sit behind a partition of sacking, labelled Office, to answer the telephone, count the washing and do various odd jobs. In the case of raids, Sister Wordsworth assured her that while she might have to see knee joints, she would have no intimate contact with them.
Henceforth Sophia’s life was sharply divided in two parts, her life behind the gasproof flap of the First Aid Post and her own usual unhampered life outside. Sometimes she rather enjoyed her sacking life, sometimes she felt that she could hardly endure it. The cold stuffy atmosphere got on her nerves, she was unaccustomed to sitting still for hours on end, and what work there was to do, such as counting washing, she did not do very well. On the other hand, she liked all the people in the Post, and habit once having gripped her, as it does so soon in life, she became quite resigned and regarded the whole thing completely as a matter of course.
3
Rather soon after the war had been declared, it became obvious that nobody intended it to begin. The belligerent countries were behaving like children in a round game, picking up sides, and until the sides had been picked up the game could not start.
England picked up France, Germany picked up Italy. England beckoned to Poland, Germany answered with Russia. Then Italy’s Nanny said she had fallen down and grazed her knee, running, and mustn’t play. England picked up Turkey, Germany picked up Spain, but Spain’s Nanny said she had internal troubles, and must sit this one out. England looked towards the Oslo group, but they had never played before, except little Belgium, who had hated it, and the others felt shy. America, of course, was too much of a baby for such a grown-up game, but she was just longing to see it played. And still it would not begin.
The party looked like being a flop, and everybody was becoming very much bored, especially the Americans who are so fond of blood and entrails. They were longing for the show, and with savage taunts, like boys at a bull-baiting from behind safe bars, they urged that it should begin at once. The pit-side seats for which they had paid so heavily in printer’s ink were turning out to be a grave disappointment; they sat in them, chewing gum, stamping their feet and shouting in unison, ‘This war is phoney.’
Week after week went by. People made jokes about how there was the Boer War, and then the Great War, and then the Great Bore War. They said Hitler’s secret weapon was boredom. Sophia hoped it was. She had long cherished a conviction that Hitler’s secret weapon was an aerial torpedo addressed to Lady Sophia Garfield, 98 Granby Gate, S.W., and she very much preferred boredom.
Sophia had two friends in the Cabinet. They were called Fred and Ned, and as a matter of fact while Fred was in the Cabinet, Ned had not yet quite reached that sixth form of politicians and was only in the Government, but Sophia could not distinguish between little details like that, and to her they were ‘My friends in the Cabinet’. She often dined with the two of them and found these evenings very enjoyable because, although they both had young and pretty wives, it seems that the wives of Cabinet Ministers race, so to speak, under different rules from ordinary women, and never expect to see their husbands except in bed if they share one. So Sophia had Fred and Ned to herself on these occasions. As she liked both male and female company, but did not much like it mixed, this arrangement suited her nicely.
They took her to dine at the Carlton, and talked a great deal about the political prospects of their various acquaintances, and it was talk which Sophia was very much accustomed to, because it had begun years ago, when she was a young married woman taking Fred and Ned out to tea at the Cockpit; only then it had been a question of Pop and coloured waistcoats, and the Headmaster in those days had delivered his harangues in Chapel instead of on the floor of the House. She told them all about her Post, and Ned wrote things down in a notebook, and promised that A.R.P. should be reconstructed on the exact lines suggested by Sophia. She knew from experience how much that meant. Then Fred asked her if Luke was in the Tower yet, and this annoyed her because, while it was one thing to say to Rudolph in the privacy of Kew Gardens that Luke was an awful old fascist, it was quite another to have Fred, that ardent upholder of Munich, being facetious about him; so she turned on poor Fred with great vigour, and gave him a brisk résumé of the achievements of the National Government. She very nearly made him cry, and was just coming nicely into her stride over the National Liberals, of whom Fred was one, when Ned came loyally to his rescue saying ‘Ah, but you haven’t heard of Fred’s wonderful scheme, all his own idea, for fixing Dr Goebbels.’ And he proceeded to outline the scheme.
It appeared that Fred’s idea, his own unaided brainwave, was to invite Sir Ivor King, the King of Song, to conduct a world-wide campaign of songful propaganda.
‘Harness his personality, as it were,’ Fred explained, warming to his subject, ‘to our cause. He’s the only chap who could bring it off, and it would be wicked not to use him – why, he is one of our great natural advantages, you might say, like – well coal, or being an island. They’ve got nobody to touch him over there. Now my idea is that he should give out a special news bulletin every day, strongly flavoured with propaganda, of course, followed by a programme of song. See the point? People will switch on to hear him sing (for the first time for two years, you know), and then they won’t be able to help getting an earful of propaganda. We’ll have him singing with the troops, singing with the air force, singing with the navy, jolly, popular stuff which the listeners all over the world can join in. You know how people like roaring out songs when they know the words. Besides, the man in the street has a great respect for old Ivor, great.’
According to Fred, he and the man in the street were as one, which was strange, considering that, except for the High Street, Windsor and The Turl, he had hardly ever been in a street.
‘When you say listeners all over the world can join in, you mean English listeners?’ said Sophia. She wanted to get the thing straight.
‘By no means,’ said Fred, eagerly, ‘because, you see, the strength of this scheme is that it will be world-wide. I confess that, to begin with, I forgot that it’s not everybody who can speak English. Then of course I remembered that there are Chinks and Japs and Fuzzy Wuzzies and Ice Creamers and Dagos, and so on. Ah! but we can overcome that difficulty. Is there any reason why he shouldn’t learn to make those extraordinary sounds which they think of as music? Of course not. No. The old chappie is full of brains and enterprise – take on anything we ask him to, you bet.’ And Fred began to give what he thought an excellent imitation of un-English music nasal sounds of a painful quality. A county family who were dining at the next table told each other that this could not be the Minister for
Propaganda, after all. Ned beat two forks together as an accompaniment, and they assured each other that neither was that the Member (so promising, such a career before him) for East Wessex.
‘The old King is coming to my office tomorrow. I am seeing him myself,’ Fred continued, when this horrid cacophony came to an end.
‘He will be wearing his curly, butter-coloured wig,’ said Sophia.
‘We must see that he has a black one made. Don’t want any Aryan nonsense in my scheme – I always think Propaganda is awfully un-English, anyway, but what I say, if you have it at all, for the Lord’s sake have it good. And, by the way, Sophie, this is all most fearfully hush-hush, you know. Leakage and all that – not a word to Luke or anybody. The element of surprise is vital to the scheme.’
‘I see, the old gentleman is your answer to Hitler’s secret weapon.’
‘I wouldn’t go quite so far as that, but I can tell you we are expecting some pretty fruity results. I mean it’s a world-wide scheme you see, not just a pettifogging little affair confined to England. And by the way,’ he got out a notebook. ‘I must remember to tell the police they had better keep an eye on the chap. Think what a coup for the Huns if he got bumped off or anything; I should never get over it.’
Sophia rang up her enemy. Olga Gogothsky (née Baby Bagg) had been her enemy since they were both aged ten. It was an intimate enmity which gave Sophia more pleasure than most friendships; she made sacrifices upon its altar and fanned the flames with assiduity.
‘Hullo, my darling Sophie,’ Olga purred, in the foreign accent which she had cultivated since just before her marriage and which was in striking contrast with the Eton and Oxford tones (often blurred by drink but always unmistakable) of Prince Gogothsky. ‘Yes, I have been back a fortnight; such a journey, darling. And where did you go for the summer? Just quietly with dear Lord Maida Vale? Delicious. Me? Oh, poor little me, I had a very banal time with Pauline Mallory you know, the poetess, in her villa at Antibes. Crowds and crowds of people, parties, nothing else. You can imagine how that palled on me, dearest. Happily my beloved old Ambassador was there. He has her little villa, in the garden, and there he writes his memories. He is sweet enough to say that I inspire him in his work; he read it to me – so interesting, and written, how can I express it, with such art. The old days at the Montenegrin Court – so picturesque. You can imagine. Then Baroness von Bülop was a great friend of his, and he told me some fascinating things about her and her beautiful aunt which were rather too intime for cold, cold print. Well, what else – oh yes, Torchon was painting my portrait – he sees me as a Turkish slave girl which is very interesting because when Fromenti cast my horoscope he said that is what I used to be in one of my former lives. (In the Sultan’s harem, I was his favourite wife.) Besides all this, I managed to get in a little writing, so you see my time was not quite wasted after all.’
Olga’s writing was an interesting phenomenon, rather like the Emperor’s new clothes. She let it be known that she was a poetess, and whenever, which was often, her photograph appeared in the illustrated press, the caption underneath would announce that very soon a slender volume might be expected from her pen. Sometimes even the subject-matter would be touched upon: ‘Princess Serge Gogothsky, who is at present engaged upon a series of bird studies in verse.’
‘This beautiful visitor to our shores is a lady of great talent. The long epic poem on Savonarola from her pen will soon be ready for publication,’ and so on.
Once, for several weeks on end, Olga sat alone every evening at a special table at the Café Royal and wrote feverishly upon sheets of foolscap which she tore up, with an expression of agony on her face, just before closing time. Her work always seemed to be in progress rather than in print.
Sophia asked what she was doing as war work.
‘Dearest, I must tell you that it’s a secret. However, when you hear that I have an appointment under the Government, that I have to undertake great responsibilities, and that I may often be called out in the middle of the night without any idea of where I am to go, you may guess the kind of thing it is. More I cannot say.’
‘Sounds to me like a certified midwife,’ said Sophia crossly. It was really too much if old Baby Bagg was going to assume the rôle of beautiful female spy, while she herself had drearily admitted to working in a First Aid Post, all boredom and no glamour. Olga lied with such accomplishment that there were some people who believed in her tarradiddles, and Sophia had often been told what a talent for verse, what a delightful touch the Princess had.
‘No darling – what a charming joke, by the way, I must remember to tell my dear Chief. No, not a midwife. Though I’m sure it must be far far more exhausting, my Chief is a regular slave driver.’
‘Oh, you have a Chief?’
‘I only wish I could tell you Who it is. But there must be no leakage. What a wonderful man to work with – what magnetism, what finesse and what a brain! I must allow I am fortunate to be with him, and then the work is fascinating, vital. What if it does half kill me? There, I mustn’t talk about myself. Tell me, what are you doing in this cruel war?’
Sophia said that she too had an important job under the Government.
‘Really, my darling, have you? A First Aid Post, or something like that, I suppose?’
‘Ah well, that’s only what I tell people, actually of course it is an excellent blind for my real work. I wonder you don’t adopt this idea, say you are working in a canteen, for instance. I’ll forget what you’ve just told me if you like, and spread it round about the canteen!’
‘Delicate little me!’ cried Olga, ‘in a canteen! But darling, who would ever believe such an unlikely thing – they would at once suspect goodness knows what. Well, dearest, I see the Chief waiting for me in his great car with the flag and priority notices, I shall feel quite important as we whirl away to Whitehall. I must fly, darling. Goodbye. I will visit you very soon in your little First Aid Post. Goodbye.’
Sophia then telephoned to her friend, Mary Pencill.
‘Now, Mary, listen. You’ve got to come and work in my First Aid Post,’ she said. ‘It’s perfect heaven. You can’t think what heaven Sister Wordsworth is.’
‘No, thank you, Sophie. I don’t intend to work for this war in any way. I don’t approve of it, you see.’ Mary belonged to the extreme Left.
‘Gracious, just like Luke. He doesn’t approve of it either, nor does Florence. You are in awful company. So why are you in this awful company?’
‘I can’t help it if Luke happens to be right for once. It’s sure to be for the wrong reasons if he is. All I know is that everything decent and worth supporting has been thrown away – Spain, Czechoslovakia, and now we’re supposed to be Fighting for the Poles, frightful people who knout their peasants. Actually, of course, it’s simply the British Empire and our own skins as usual.’
‘I’m fond of my skin,’ said Sophia, ‘and personally I think the British Empire is worth fighting for.’
‘You can’t expect me to think so. Why, look at our Government. Your friends Fred and Ned, for instance, are just as bad as Hitler, exactly the same thing. What is the use of Fighting Hitler when there are people like Ned and Fred here? We should do some cleaning up at home first.’
‘Anyway, it’s Hitler and Stalin now, don’t forget the wedding bells.’
Mary had gone P.O.U.M, so she grudgingly conceded this point. ‘Ned and Fred are practically the same people as Hitler and Stalin,’ she said.
‘I never heard anything so silly. Poor Fred and Ned. Well, I mean the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just suppose now that the Ministry of Information had forgotten to tell us we had been beaten, and one day in Harrods we saw a little crowd gathering, and when we went to look it was Hitler and Stalin. Think how we should scream.’
‘I expect you would.’
‘So would you. Now, my point is, I often see Fred and Ned in Harrods, and I don’t scream at all, I just say “Hullo duckie” or something. See the difference
?’
‘No, Sophia,’ said Mary disapprovingly, ‘I’m afraid you don’t understand the principle.’ She loved Sophia but thought her incurably frivolous.
‘Another thing,’ she said; ‘why have you left the Left Book Club?’
‘Darling, I only joined to please you.’
‘That’s no answer.’
‘Well, if you want to know it’s because the books are left.’
‘Sophia!’
‘I don’t mean because they are Left and I can’t get Evelyn Waugh or any of the things I want to read. I mean because they are left lying about the house. Ordinary libraries like Harrods take them away when one has finished with them. I don’t want the place cluttered up with books, so I have left. See?’
‘Really, your life is bounded by Harrods.’
‘Yes, it is rather. I had rather a horrid dream, though, about its being full of parachutists; my life is slightly bounded by them now, to tell you the truth, I think they are terrifying.’
‘Nonsense, they would be interned.’
‘That’s what Luke says. Still the idea of those faces floating past one’s bedroom window is rather unpleasant, you must admit.’
‘By the way, I saw Rudolph last night coming out of the Empire with that foreign woman.’
‘Who?’
‘The one who always wears star-spangled yashmaks.’
‘Oh, you mean Olga Gogothsky; she’s no more foreign than you or me – although she does pretend to have Spanish blood, I believe.’
‘Really – Government or Franco?’
‘Baby Bagg. You must remember her at dances.’ Sophia was only fairly pleased to hear that Olga had been out with Rudolph, who had announced that he was going to play bridge at his club.
‘Anyway, she looks too stupid.’
‘She has just told me she has got an important job under the Government, I simply must find out what it is.’
‘First Aid Post, probably,’ said Mary. ‘You haven’t told me yet what you do in yours?’
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