I Ordered a Table for Six

by Noel Streatfeild

  Meggie gave the car door an impotent shake.

  “How can I help minding? Tom was an awfully good son, and he was going to marry a young lady from Southampton called Gladys.”

  The doctor gave her hand an affectionate squeeze.

  “What your uncle and aunt say to your village expressions I don’t know. A young lady indeed!” There was no sign of her spirits lifting, so he tried again. “What are you doing out so early? Miss Jones given you a holiday?”

  For a second he had rekindled her pleasure.

  “I’m going to Mr. Rose about bits for Hardy’s Sunday dinner, because to-morrow I’m going to London. I’m staying the night to go to a party.”

  “To London! My dear child!”

  Meggie missed his surprise, and the anxiety in his voice.

  “I don’t really want to go now. Funny, when the letter came I felt I should burst, I was so pleased, and now it seems awful me dancing and Tom drowned.”

  “Whose party is it?”

  “Mummie’s.”

  “Oh!” His exclamation was full of withheld criticism. He gave her hand a parting squeeze. “Enjoy yourself.”

  “Shall I go and see Mrs. Wetherby, do you think?”

  “Ask your uncle. He got the news early and has been with them ever since. Mrs. Wetherby turned a little faint. That’s why I was fetched. She’s all right now. Brave couple the Wetherbys.”

  Meggie remounted her bicycle. She could no longer feel spring in the morning. She was cold now, and in the wind she smelt the sea, a heaving green sea which had sucked Tom down and buried him. Tom, who had looked so nice in his sailor suit, and who on his leave had helped his father in the bar, as if, so the village said, he had never been away. Tom, who had given her a length of string with every different knot they used in the Navy tied in it—lovely knots that made the string look like a piece of embroidery. Tears dripped down Meggie’s cheeks and she could not see. Angrily she dashed them away with the back of her hand.

  Mr. Rose saw her coming, and saw by her face that she had heard the news.

  “Mornin’, Miss Meggie. Bad about Tom.”

  Meggie stood her bicycle against the kerb and came into the shop.

  “It’s awful. I feel as bad as if it was someone belonging to me.”

  Mr. Rose found a scrap of meat and gave it to Hardy.

  “You didn’t ought to feel that way. It don’t do any good. Everybody wearin’ a long face won’t help anybody.” Meggie saw the clock. It was ten minutes to ten. She hurriedly explained the object of her call. Mr. Rose began rummaging in his drawers, and laid a bone and some scraps of meat on a piece of newspaper. “Fancy you going to London! Aren’t you afraid?”

  She smiled at that.

  “Of course not. Mummie’s there all the time, and she’s not a bit afraid. As a matter of fact I don’t really want to go now, because of Tom.”

  Mr. Rose rolled up Hardy’s dinner.

  “That’s foolishness. What good’ll it do the Wetherbys if you don’t go to your party?”

  “I was very fond of Tom. It would be a sort of mark of respect if we all just stayed at home for a day or two, wouldn’t it?”

  Mr. Rose handed her the parcel.

  “Wouldn’t suit the Wetherbys, that wouldn’t. The Marquis will be openin’ same time as usual, and it won’t help if we all stops at home grievin’ for Tom. No, Miss Meggie, the world ’as to wag on, no matter what ’appens, and carryin’ on the same as usual is what we all on us ’as to do, and many ways it’s the hardest.” His tone was gentle, but there was the faintest reproof behind it. He had known Meggie long enough for that. “A face like what you wore when you came in here just now isn’t ’elpin’ nobody.”

  Meggie took the parcel and gripped it as if it were something to cling to.

  “But you can’t smile when dreadful things happen. You feel sort of desperate and you have to show it.”

  “Not everybody doesn’t. I dare say there’s been times when Vicar and Mrs. Framley have had things, maybe hard things, troublin’ them, but I’d dare swear they kept long faces from you.”

  Meggie raised her eyes. He was puzzled by the startled look in them.

  “That’s perfectly true, Mr. Rose. Funny, I never thought of that before.” She pulled back her shoulders. “When I’m going to mind about things, like minding about Tom, I’ll try to mind by myself.”

  Meggie’s resolution to mind alone lasted as far as the Vicarage. With her chin up and her mouth bent into a smile, she forced, even when again passing The Marquis, thoughts of Tom away, but in the seclusion of the Vicarage drive she broke down. She leant her bicycle against a tree and dived behind some laurels. The ground was soaking and deep in dead leaves, but she crouched down hugging Hardy to her.

  “Oh, Hardy!” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I shan’t count you as a person, and I simply must mind to someone. Poor Tom! Oh, poor Tom! I do think it’s so miserable to die when you aren’t old and like it so much being alive.”

  The gardens ran down to the Thames. Noel leant against the railings and stared at the passing tugs. The afternoon was drawing to an end, and the water was dark with the coming night. Out of the greyness the shape of bridges and the outline of buildings stood with gaunt beauty. It was cold in the gardens, and the river was at her grimmest, hurrying by with an occasional harsh slap at the stonework; there was nothing friendly in the sound.

  “Hallo! All on your lonesome?”

  Noel half-turned his head. The girl beside him was pretty; brown hair and blue eyes, and though she had on a lot of make-up it was well done. She wore a far too tight black dress and a three-quarter length coat of silver fox, a ridiculous black hat, utterly transparent stockings, and patent-leather shoes with the highest possible heels. She looked too nice for Noel to dismiss her curtly.

  “Sorry, it’s no good wasting time on me. I’m cleaned out.”

  She studied him to see if he were speaking the truth and decided that he was.

  “That what you’re looking so down in the mouth about?”

  “Partly.”

  His tone was so dejected that she drew up beside him and leant her back against the railings.

  “Not going to throw yourself in, are you?”

  “Don’t be silly! I haven’t the guts, and if I wanted to finish myself off I’ve got a revolver, and if I wanted to drown myself I shouldn’t choose these gardens with these damn’ great railings to climb over.”

  “All right, don’t lose your hair. I only asked.”

  “What are you doing here, if it comes to that? Not much trade about, is there?”

  She pointed to a small sealyham snuffing at the grass. “I have to take George out, see?”

  “That’s a thing I never can understand. What do you girls want with dogs? Keeping the poor little beggars sitting on the kerb half the night.”

  “I like that! Why shouldn’t we have dogs same as everybody else? George has a damn’ sight better time than I do. I never take him out when it’s wet or cold. He sits at home in the warm. Never mind what happens, he never goes short. He has more than half of my meat ration.”

  “You live round here?”

  “Do now. I was in Mayfair, but that went last October.”

  “You hurt?”

  “No. Funny I wasn’t, though. It was a nasty raid. I’d been out, but there was nobody about, so I was on my own, see? Well, presently it gets beyond a joke, so I picked up George and we sat on the stairs. Hadn’t been there half a minute when a bomb falls and brings in the whole front of the house. Funny the way it missed us. There was everything down, windows and ceilings and all; but there was nothing hit the step George and I were on. But we were trapped, see?”

  “Were you dug out?”

  “No, funny we had a bit of luck. Another bomb fell and there we were in the cell
ar, and there was a hole, and we’d nothing to do but climb out into the street, see?”

  Noel eyed her coat with an experienced eye.

  “You didn’t lose your clothes.”

  “Yes, I did, lost everything except what I had on. I was wearing this coat. Bit of luck, wasn’t it? The warden took me to a place and said they’d fit me out and all that. He was kind, that warden. I didn’t stay where he took me, though; there were no girls like me there and I felt awkward.”

  “What happened to you then?”

  “I’ve a friend, she got me a room in her house, and some of the other girls were wonderful to me. Between them they fitted me out. I’ve bought the rest since.”

  “Not much of a time for making money, is it?”

  “Well, it’s bad in some ways, the black-out and the raids starting early, but there’s lots get kind of worked up and need their minds taken off things, see?”

  “I’ll say there are.”

  She looked at George.

  “I must be moving. George has to have his bit of run in the gardens, or his inside acts up, and that’s awkward in flats.”

  Noel, thankful for company, fell into step beside her.

  “I’ll walk with you. It’s cold.”

  “I’ll say it is.” She gave him a sideways glance. “What’s upset you? Don’t you like being in the Army?”

  “Matter of fact, I do. I was crazy to get in, and no end pleased when I got a commission. I wish to God they’d sent me abroad.”

  “Aren’t you getting enough war here—nice air raid most nights?”

  There was something natural and friendly about her. She was, too, a stranger; they would probably never meet again. Like all her kind she had a gift for listening, and heard too many confidences to remember much. He put his arm through hers.

  “My trouble, duckie, is that I thought the war was going to be the saving of me.”

  “Funny, quite a lot of you boys think that.”

  “I don’t expect they see things quite my way. I’m a bit unusual psychologically—I always was.” The girl looked round to see George was following; in her experience many men said they were unusual psychologically, the only difference was the way it took them. She had taken a fancy to Noel, but she was quite glad she was only walking with him, unusual psychologically often meant a lot of trouble. “I always seemed to be just messing about,” Noel went on, “and needing something or somebody to pull me together. I thought when the war started I’d found it.”

  “It’s a shame the way things have turned out. It’s better, though, for you in London than for some of the poor boys stuck in the country. You ought to hear the Canadians!”

  “I’d rather be anywhere than in London. You see, my trouble’s money. I never seem to be able to do without it when there’s anything to spend it on.”

  “What did you do before the war? Did you have a lot then?”

  “Not really. I was a motor salesman.”

  “Oh!”

  She was incapable of criticizing her fellow-mortals, but she knew her world, and men and their careers fell unerringly into their proper niches.

  “Well, it was damned difficult to get a job. I wasn’t doing badly, though, one way and another, but when I was twenty-one I had an operation for appendicitis. I nearly died, and I couldn’t get back with the same firm afterwards, and other things happened; anyway, I was damned glad there was a war. I was, really.”

  She had placed him. That “one way and another” struck a too familiar note, and Noel fell into his niche. Now he was there she liked him none the less. It pleased everybody to be asked about their illnesses, and she was born to please.

  “How long ago was your operation?”

  “Nearly four years now. Will be this summer. It was nineteen thirty-seven.” He stood still, unbuttoned his overcoat and took his jade elephant out of his tunic pocket. “Do you believe in mascots?”

  “Oh, yes! Why, there’s a Spanish girl I know, she wears a crucifix. Her mother put it on her when she was a baby, and when she was quite a little thing she told her never to take it off, and if she did something awful would happen. Well, would you believe it, the only time she had it off was when its chain broke, and that very night an incendiary burnt down the house she was in, see? And there’s another girl I know who . . .”

  Noel was interested only in himself.

  “Well, this came from China. A girl gave it to me, and she said it was supposed to be lucky to have it; and, do you know, it’s been most extraordinary the luck I’ve had since she gave it me. Why, even my appendix was luck.”

  “Funny kind of luck.”

  “Do you know, if I hadn’t had an appendicitis then I might have been mixed up in something simply frightful. I don’t mean I’d have been in the thing, but I might easily have been suspected of being, because it was friends of mine who were.”

  “Awful the way you can get mixed up in things without it being anything to do with you. A friend of mine had a cigarette-case left behind in her room by a friend of hers and, do you know, they said she’d stolen it. Mind you, she was silly, for she was a bit hard up at the time and thought she’d pawn it, but she knew where it belonged and was going to give it back. It was only borrowing, see?”

  “My friends got into a mess rather like that. I don’t believe they meant to do more than borrow, but they nearly killed a silly old woman. She’d a mass of jewellery and it wouldn’t have hurt her to have lent some of it for a bit. She was a vain old cow and thought everybody was in love with her. She used to give the most terrific parties, and we were all asked. That’s what I mean about my elephant; if I hadn’t had my appendix out I’d have been there.”

  The girl was playing with the elephant.

  “You’re a friend of those boys who nearly murdered the old woman in Eaton Square?”

  “Yes; I mean I was. How d’you know?”

  “I read the Sunday papers, especially when there’s anything extra like that was.”

  Noel took the elephant from her and stuffed it back into his pocket. His voice was angry.

  “I don’t believe they meant to hurt her. The silly old bitch screamed, and they had to shut her up.”

  “It was bad, them having masks and pretending they’d gone home, and then hiding in the house. Looked planned, didn’t it?”

  “So the judge thought. Paul got five years and so did Sampson. Nicky got three. He’s out now. I haven’t seen him; somebody told me he’s in the Navy. Paul will be out next month. Sampson’s got a bit to go; he cheeked a warder or something.”

  She retucked his arm into hers and moved him on.

  “You’re a nice boy; you want to keep clear of that lot. They weren’t any good. Don’t you go looking them up when they come out, see?”

  Noel kicked at the path like an angry schoolboy.

  “That’s what I thought. I thought I’d be fighting somewhere long before they came out—or even killed.”

  “Now, you don’t want to talk that way. Nobody wants to be dead.”

  “Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind being killed in a war, if only it was quick. I never seem to stop making a mess of things.”

  “Just because you have made a mess of things it doesn’t say you’ve got to again. I shouldn’t wonder if you thought too much; never think unless you’ve got something nice to think about—that’s my motto.”

  Noel walked on in silence for a few moments, the longing to confide growing stronger at every step. Probably the business would not sound so bad spoken of out loud, and he would find he had been lying awake sweating for nothing.

  “I’m in a bit of a mess now, if it comes to that. I expect I’ve got the wind up about nothing—you know the way one flaps.”

  The girl made a soothing, sympathetic little sound; his confession meant nothing to her, but boys liked telling her sort thi
ngs. It was, she supposed, part of the general funniness of men that they felt easier for telling their goings-on to someone. She wondered in her dim, unconcentrated way of thinking how this young man would act after confessing. Would he be the sort that wanted to go on wallowing in it, calling himself all the foul names under the sun, or would he be the other kind who wanted whatever it was he had done made light of, and kind of laughed at? It was not often she heard confessions while walking, and she was not sure of her technique. It was, too, getting colder; she gave a mental shake of the head at herself. “I’m a daft one,” she thought, “wasting the afternoon, catching my death of cold.”

  Noel was encouraged by the sound she had made.

  “There’s a mess fund I have to look after. I jog round and pay the tradesmen and all that. What with one thing and another, I needed a bit of ready and I borrowed from the fund. Well, there’s not much harm in that. After all, I know what ought to be there and I’ll put it straight. But some things went wrong; someone who owes me money has been sent overseas and I can’t get at him, and my bank won’t let me draw any more, and I lost on some bets; and then someone’s got nosey and they want to see the books. I think I soothed them down. I said would Monday morning be all right, as I’d a bill or two to pay, and that was O.K.”

  “But will Monday be all right? Can you get the money back by then?”

  “Well, I don’t mind telling you I was damned near desperate. I tried everything—you see, it’s close on two hundred quid, but I think it may be all right. I’ll know to-morrow night.”

  “What’ll they do to you if you don’t get it back?”

  Noel shivered.

  “I shall get it back. I’d shoot myself rather than face Monday without it. As a matter of fact, it was rather a fluke your mentioning that Eaton Square case, because it’s Paul’s mother I’m hoping to touch to-morrow night.”

  “He looked ever so nice looking in his pictures.”

  “It was a snapshot of him made me think of trying his mother. I was sitting around wondering what the hell to do and I put on a gramophone record, and inside the case were some snaps. I’d no idea they were there. We’d been to a roadhouse, and we bathed, and someone took them. Paul and I came out of the water a bit before the others, and we’d a drink together. We had rum; it was not much of an evening for bathing, really. Paul was in the hell of a stew. He’d got into a mess and was being pushed off to Manchester. He was a lucky devil as a rule; he seemed to muddle in and out of things, but this time he was sunk. He was particularly in a flap because his relations had been at his mother; the old girl would cough up anything as a rule, but they’d scared her, and made her promise to go abroad, and only allow him three pounds a week to live on.”