Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘Still writing on foreheads?’ Mary inquired when they were settled down in front of her gas stove.

  ‘It’s all very well for you to laugh, just wait until you’ve got a crushed tongue and slight oozing haemorrhage like one of the patients we had in yesterday – you’ll be only too glad to have me writing on your forehead.’

  ‘How d’you mean, yesterday? Was there an air raid – I never noticed a thing.’

  ‘Darling, you are so dense. Practice of course. The telephone bell rings, and I answer it and it says “Southern Control speaking. Practice air raid warning Red, expect casualties.” Then, some time later, a lot of unhappy-looking people are brought in out of the street in return for threepence and a cup of tea. They are labelled with a description of their injuries, then we treat them, at least the nurses do, and I write on their foreheads and take them up to the canteen for their cup of tea.’

  ‘With their foreheads still written on?’

  ‘Well, they get threepence, don’t they? First of all, we used to practise on each other, but then Mr Stone very sensibly pointed out what a shambles it would be if there were a real raid and real casualties were brought in and found all the personnel tied up in Thomas’s splints, and so on. Think of it! So they work on this other scheme now; it seems much more professional too.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is, if there’s a raid I hope I shall be allowed to die quietly where I am.’

  ‘Don’t be defeatist, darling,’ said Sophia.

  The next day Sophia, looking, she thought, really very pretty and wearing another new black hat, went off to the Horse Guards Parade where, in the presence of a large crowd, of the microphone and of cinematographers, she handed over to Fred, who accepted it on behalf of the Nation, a cardboard model of Vocal Lodge, the Shrine of Song.

  Fred made a very moving speech. He spoke first, of course, about Sophia’s enormously generous action, until she hardly knew where to look. He went on to say that the Shrine of Song would be a fitting memorial to one whose loss was irreparable both to Britain and to the whole world of art; the loss of a beloved citizen and venerated artist.

  ‘And we must remember,’ he went on, warming to his work, ‘that Death never has the last word. When we think of the King of Song, when we pay our pious pilgrimage to Vocal Lodge, it is not of Death that we must think but of that wonderful old spirit which is still watching over us, merged with the eternal Spirit of Patriotism. The work he would have done, had he lived to do it, will now be left undone. But will it? Those who love him – and they were not confined to this country, mind you, they mourn as we mourn in palaces and cottages the world over – those who loved him know that before he died he had intended literally to devote every breath in his body to an Ideal. He knew that if our cause is lost there will be no Song left in the world, no Music, no Art, no Joy. Lovers of music everywhere, yes and inside Germany too, will remember that the greatest singer of our time, had he not died so prematurely, was going to give his all in the struggle for Freedom. Many an Austrian, many a Czech, many a Pole, and even many a German will think of this as he plays over the well-loved gramophone records, fearful of the creeping feet behind his windows, yet determined once more to enjoy, come what may, that Golden Voice. The cause of such a man, they will think, as they listen to those immortal trills, to that historic bass and of such an artist, must be indeed the Cause of Right. Who can tell but that the King of Song will not finally accomplish more in death than he, or any other mortal man, could ever accomplish in life.

  ‘Oh Death! Where is thy sting? Oh Grave! Where is thy victory?’

  This speech, which was extremely well received, put Fred back on his feet again with everybody except that irascible fellow who indicates daily to Britain what she should Expect.

  ‘We learn,’ he wrote the following day, ‘that Vocal Lodge has been presented to the Nation to be kept as a Shrine of Song. How do we learn this news, of Empirewide interest? Through the columns of a free Press? No! A Minister of the Crown withholds it from the public in order to announce it himself in a speech. Praise Lady Sophia Garfield, who gives. The clumsy mismanagement of the whole affair is not her fault. Examine the record of this Minister. It is far from good. We should like to see him offer his resignation forthwith and we should like to see his resignation accepted.’

  However, all the other newspapers as well as Fred’s colleagues thought that it was first-class stuff and that he had more or less atoned for so carelessly mislaying the King. He was extremely grateful to Sophia who had given him the opportunity for turning Sir Ivor’s death to such good account. He and Ned took her out to dinner, fed her with oysters and pink champagne, and stayed up very late indeed.

  Sophia, when at last she got home, was surprised and bored, as well as rather startled, to find Greta in her bedroom. She never allowed anybody to wait up for her. Greta seemed very much upset about something, her face was swollen with tears and it was several moments before she could speak.

  ‘Oh Frau Gräfin, don’t let them send me back to Germany – they will, I know it, and then in a camp they will put me and I shall die. Oh, protect me, Frau Gräfin.’

  ‘But Greta, don’t be so absurd. How can anybody send you back to Germany? We are at war with the Germans, so how could you get there? You might have to be interned here in England if you didn’t pass the tribunal, you know, but I will come with you and speak to the Magistrate and I’m sure it will be quite all right. Now go to bed and don’t worry any more.’

  Greta seemed far from being reassured. She shivered like a nervous horse and went on moaning about the horrors of German concentration camps and how she would certainly be sent to one, unless an even worse fate was in store for her.

  ‘You’ve been reading the White Paper,’ said Sophia impatiently. ‘And it should make you realise how very, very lucky you are to be in England.’

  ‘Oh, please protect me,’ was all Greta replied to this felicitous piece of propaganda. ‘They are coming for me; it may be tonight. Oh please, Frau Gräfin, may I sleep in your bathroom tonight?’

  ‘Certainly not. Why, you have got Mrs Round in the very next room, and Rawlings next door to that. Much safer than being in my bathroom, and besides, I want to have a bath. Now, Greta, pull yourself together and go to bed. You have been upset by poor Sir Ivor’s death, and so have we all. We must just try to forget about it, you see. Good night, Greta.’

  Greta clutched Sophia’s arm, and speaking very fast she said, ‘If I tell you something about Sir Ivor, may I sleep in your bathroom? He is –’ Her voice died away in a sort of moan, her eyes fixed upon the doorway. Sophia looked round and saw Florence standing there.

  ‘Well, that’s all now, Greta. Good night,’ Sophia said. Greta slunk out past Florence, who did not give her a glance but told Sophia that she had come in search of an aspirin.

  ‘I had to go off duty, my head ached so badly.’

  ‘Oh, what bad luck. Would a Cachet Fèvre do as well? I’ve just been having such a scene with Greta; she has got it into her head that somebody is going to take her back to Germany, silly fool. I wish to goodness somebody would, I’d give anything to get rid of her.’

  Florence said it was always a mistake to have foreign servants, thanked her for the Cachet Fèvre, and went upstairs. Sophia had rather been expecting that now Luke had gone perhaps Florence would be moving too, but she showed no signs of such an intention. However, the house was large, and they very rarely met, besides, she did not exactly dislike Florence; it was more that they had so little in common.

  ‘ST ANNE’S HOSPITAL FIRST AID POST

  ‘My own darling Rudolph,

  ‘Florence has joined the Post, did I tell you, and it really is rather a joke. All those terribly nice cosy ladies who have such fun with the Dowager Queen of Ruritania and whether she had Jewish blood, and whether the Crown Princess will ever have a baby and so on, are simply withered up by Flo who says she finds extraordinarily little pleasure in gossiping nowadays. They had rather fun
for a time, coming clean and sharing and being guided and so on, but they never really got into it. The last straw was that Miss Edwards said she simply couldn’t tell fortunes any more when Florence was there because of the atmosphere, and Miss Edwards’ fortunes were the nicest thing in the Post, we all had ours done every day. Anyhow, it seems that last night the nurses went to Sister Wordsworth in a body and said that although of course Florence is very, very charming and they all liked her very, very much, they really couldn’t stick her in the Treatment Room another moment. Sister Wordsworth is wonderful, she never turned a hair. She sent for Florence at once and asked her if, as a great favour, she would consent to take charge of the Maternity Ward, which is that little dog kennel, you know, by the Museum, with a cradle and a pair of woolly boots. As it happens, Florence is very keen on obstetrics and she was delighted. So all is honey again and the Dowager Queen of Ruritania and Miss Edwards reign supreme. Sister Wordsworth says that the head A.R.P. lady in these parts is a pillar of the Brotherhood, and sent Florence with such a tremendous recommendation that she can never be sacked however much of a bore she is.

  ‘Heatherley and Winthrop have also joined as stretcher-bearers, in fact the Brotherhood seems to be doing pretty well, just like I never thought it would. I wonder if Heth isn’t a bit in love with Florence, there was a form which looked awfully like his on the half-landing when I got back late from the 400 a day or two ago. I was too terrified to look again, so I ran to my room and locked myself in. Probably it was my imagination.

  ‘Love my darling, when are you going to have some leave,

  ‘SOPHIA.’

  The telephone bell rang and Sophia answered it. ‘Southern Control speaking. Practice RED, expect casualties.’ This meant that ‘casualties’ would be arriving from the street. She ran up to the canteen to warn Sister Wordsworth, who was having tea.

  ‘Thank you, Lady Sophia. Now would you go and ring up the doctor?’ said Sister Wordsworth. ‘If you hurry, you will catch him at his home address. He said he would like to come to the next practice we have here.’

  Sophia ran downstairs again. On her way back to the office she nearly collided with Heth and Winthrop who were carrying a stretcher.

  ‘Casualties already!’ she said, and as she was going on she noticed that the ‘casualty’ under the rugs on the stretcher was her own maid, Greta. For a moment she felt surprised, and then she thought that Florence must have asked Greta to do it; probably they were short of casualties. Greta was far too superior to be bribed by three pence and a cup of tea. She had a sort of bandage over her mouth, and had evidently been treated for ‘crushed tongue’, a very favourite accident at St. Anne’s. She seemed to have something in her eye, or at any rate it was winking and rolling in a very horrible way.

  Sophia, as she went to the telephone, giggled to herself. ‘Typical of them,’ she thought, ‘to treat the wretched woman for crushed tongue when really she is half blinded by grit in the eye. Let’s hope they’ll take it out and give her a cup of tea soon.’ As the practice got into full swing Sophia became very busy and forgot the incident. She never saw Greta again.

  7

  The sensation which was caused by the supposed murder of Sir Ivor King, the King of Song, at a time so extremely inconvenient to the British Government, had scarcely subsided when the old singer turned up, wig and all, in Germany. It happened on the very day that Vocal Lodge was opened to the public, a ceremony which, at the request of the A.R.P., was unadvertised, and which therefore consisted of Sophia, in a simple little black frock, dispensing cocktails to Fred, in his pin stripes, and a few other friends. The house was rather bare of furniture, owing to Lady Beech. Hardly had Fred arrived when he was called to the telephone; white to the lips he announced that he had had news which compelled him to leave for the office at once.

  The German Press and Radio were jubilant. The old gentleman, it seemed, was visiting that music-loving country with the express purpose of opening there a world-wide anti-British campaign of Propaganda allied to Song. This campaign, it was considered, would have a profound effect on neutral opinion, and indeed might well bring America into the war, on one side or another. He was received like a king in Germany, the Führer sending his own personal car and bodyguard to meet him at the airport, and he celebrated his first evening in Berlin by singing ‘Deutschland über Alles’ on the radio in a higher and then a lower key than it had ever been sung before.

  Lord Haw-haw succeeded him at the microphone, and in his inimitable accents announced that the Lieder König was too tired to sing any more that evening but that listeners should prepare for his first full programme of Song-Propaganda in two days’ time at 6.30 p.m. on the thirty-one meter band.

  ‘You must all be most anxious to hear,’ continued Lord Haw-haw, ‘how the Lieder König come to our Fatherland. (He himself will be telling you why he came.) Your English police, it seems, never realised that the body found on the Pagoda at Kew Gardens was, in fact, the body of a wigless pig. Had they not jumped so quickly to conclusions, had they not assumed, as, of course, they were intended to assume, that these bleeding lumps of meat did not constitute the mangled body of the Lieder König, they would not, I expect, have been in such a hurry to bury them. There must be many housewives, whose husbands are at present behind the lines in France, flirting with the pretty French demoiselles, and to whom your Minister of War, Mr Horribleisha, has not yet paid their pathetically small allowances, who would have been only too glad to dispose of these lumps of pig. For bacon is extremely scarce in England now, and is indeed never seen outside the refrigerators of the wealthy.

  ‘Again I ask, where is the Ark Royal?

  ‘Here are the stations Hamburg, Bremen and D x B, operating on the thirty-one metre band. Thank you for your attention. Our next news in English will be broadcast from Reichsender Hamburg and station Bremen at 11.15 Greenwich mean time.’

  For a day or two the English newspapers assured their readers that the loyal old ‘King’ was really reposing in his Catholic grave, and that the Germans must be making use of gramophone records, made before the war had begun, in order to perpetrate a gigantic hoax. Alas! The ‘King’ only had to give his first full-length broadcast for this theory to collapse. Nobody but himself could say ‘Hullo dears! Keep your hairs on’ in quite that debonair tone of voice.

  ‘I have come to Germany,’ he went on, ‘with the express intention of lending my services to the Fatherland, and this I do partly because I feel a debt of gratitude to this great country, this home of music where many years ago my voice was trained, but chiefly because of my love of Slavery. I have long been a member of the English Slavery Party, an underground movement of whose very existence most of you are unaware but which is daily increasing in importance. It is my intention to give bulletins of news and words of encouragement to that Party, sandwiched between full programmes of joyous song in which I hope you will all join.

  ‘Land of dope you’re gory

  And very much too free,

  The workers all abhor thee,

  And long for slavery.’

  After bellowing out a good deal more of this kind of drivel, the ‘King’ told a long story about an English worker who, having been free to marry a Jewess (a thing which, of course, could never happen in Germany), had been cheated out of one and sixpence by his brother-in-law

  ‘Now here is a word of advice to my brothers of the Slavery Party. Burn your confidential papers and anything that could incriminate you at once. Those of you who have secret stores of castor oil, handcuffs and whips waiting for the great dawn of Slavery, bury them or hide them somewhere safe. For Eden was seen entering the Home Office at 5.46 Greenwich mean time this afternoon, and presently the Black-and-Tans are to conduct a great round-up in the homes of the suspects. For the benefit of my non-British listeners, let me explain that the Black-and-Tans are Eden’s dreaded police, so called because those of them that are not negroes are Mayfair play-boys, the dregs of the French Riviera. They are a brutal
band of assassins, and those who fall foul of them vanish without any trace.’

  Now the sinister thing about all this was that Mr Eden really had entered the Home Office at 5.46 on the afternoon in question. How could they have known it in Berlin at 6.30?

  The Ministry of Information decided to suppress so disquieting a fact for the present.

  By the next morning, of course, every single window of the newly constituted Shrine of Song had been broken. Lady Beech having removed all her own furniture, books, knick-knacks and kitchen utensils in three large vans, there was fortunately nothing much to damage, except the ‘King’s’ tatty striped wallpapers. Larch and his fellow-domestics gave notice at once, and fled from the Shrine of Shame as soon as they could.

  Poor Sophia felt that she had been made a fool of, and wished the beastly old fellow dead a thousand times. She communicated this sentiment to the many reporters by whom she was once more surrounded, but unfortunately, once crystallised into hard print, it did not redound entirely to her credit considering that she was the ‘King’s’ heiress. The dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church, too, was very much displeased at having been bamboozled into allowing a Requiem Mass to be sung for the soul of a pig. Indeed Roman Catholics all over the world were aghast at the ‘King’s’ treachery, the more so as they had always hitherto felt great pride that one so distinguished should be a co-religionist, had regarded his enormous fame as being a feather in the cap of Holy Mother Church herself, and had never forgotten the pious deeds of his late wife, the posthumous Duchess King. At last Papist feeling became so strong on the subject that the Pope, bowing before the breeze, removed the body of the posthumous Duchess from its distinguished resting-place in the Vatican gardens, and had it re-interred in the Via della Propaganda. When a German note was presented to him on the subject, he gave it as an excuse that the younger cardinals were obliged to learn bicycling on account of the petrol shortage, and were continually falling over her grave. Equally furious and disillusioned were music lovers and fans of the ‘King’ in the whole civilised world. His gramophone records and his effigy were burnt in market towns all over England, his wigs were burnt on Kew Green, whilst in London his songs were burnt by the public hangman.