I Ordered a Table for Six

by Noel Streatfeild

  Alice saw the clock; it was not so long now before Andrew would have to start for the station. She tried to be kind.

  “Are you sure you’ve got all you want, dear? Let us know at once if there’s anything you need.”

  Andrew’s face lit up. This was more like it.

  “I’ve absolutely everything.”

  “And you will write? You may find when you get to your”—she fumbled for the words—“operational unit, that there are things you need.”

  Andrew, encouraged, came and sat on the edge of her bed.

  “I shan’t want anything. I’ll have a wizard time.”

  “I hope you’ll like the men you are with.”

  “Sure to like some of them.” He hesitated, wondering if she would be interested. “Did I ever tell you what they call me? Dormouse!”

  Alice vaguely recalled the mad tea-party, and the dormouse telling some story about treacle. She had always thought the book over-rated, and as far as she could remember, the dormouse’s chief claim to fame was its dullness. She gave a light laugh.

  “Fancy, dear! How very odd!”

  “It is, because it’s what I was called at school, and no one who was with me there trained with me.” Alice stifled a sigh. “Now when I start a story everybody’s heard, or when I’m flapping about something, they say: ‘Put the old Dormouse in the tea-pot.’”

  “How very amusing.” Alice racked her brains for the interested thing to say. “It’s so lucky, Andrew, that you like flying. I always hated it.”

  “Oh, well, you’ve only gone to Paris in a bus, with a horde of people. That’s where a fighter’s so grand.” His face lightened and Alice saw with unbelieving eyes that for a moment he was not plain nor stupid looking; the word that sprang to mind to describe him was transfigured. He forgot he was speaking to her and so, for once, she heard him clearly, and not from behind a wall of shyness. “Alone up there, without people to put you off and make you think you’re an ass. Besides, I don’t do it badly.” His voice held wonderment. “That’s true, I’m not shooting the line.”

  Martin came in. The years had shrunk her, but she was otherwise the same Martin who had pushed eleven-years-old Andrew up the stairs and told him to be quiet. “Mrs. Foster’s here, Mr. Andrew. She’s gone into the garden because she’s got Bill with her; she wouldn’t bring him in the house when I told her your mother had one of her days.”

  Andrew sprang up, shaking the bed and making Alice’s temples throb.

  “Ruth here! I say, that’s grand of her.” He bent over his mother. “I say, I’m awfully sorry I didn’t know you weren’t feeling good, and I’ve been jawing.” He paused for her to say she had enjoyed it, but instead got a patient smile. He was embarrassed. Lord, what had he been saying; lucky none of the mob had heard him or he’d soon have been told to shut the hanger doors. He gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, murmured good-bye, and clumsily pushed his way out of the room.

  Martin drew the curtains nearest to the bed, and smoothed the eiderdown.

  “Now you have a nice rest, ’m.”

  Alice closed her eyes.

  “Yes, I will, Martin. Of course I’ve enjoyed Mr. Andrew being home, but it’s tiring.”

  Ruth was on the lawn. Four-years-old Bill was hissing up and down being a train. Ruth’s face glowed as Andrew came out of the house.

  “I know we said good-bye yesterday, but I dreamed about you in the night, and I woke up this morning feeling I must have another look at your old mug. I told Robert and he said why didn’t I pop round, he’d got a surgery and I could have the car.”

  Andrew hugged her and pulled her hand through his arm.

  “It’s grand of you to make it. I’m cheesed off at having to go to London, such a foul waste of a day’s leave. Where’s Barbara?”

  “Asleep in her pram. Nanny said last night she had a look of you.”

  “Hope she hasn’t. I’d like her to grow up a lush bint.”

  Bill threw himself at his uncle.

  “Uncle Andrew, will you be a German bomber, and I’ll be a Spitfire what shoots you down.”

  “If you’re going to play that sort of game,” said Ruth, “go a bit farther from the windows. Grandmother’s got a headache.”

  In the kitchen-garden a great air battle took place, Andrew zooming about making appallingly realistic noises, while Bill chased him, screaming with excitement. Andrew was at last brought down, or rather, out of consideration for his uniform, made a forced landing in a greenhouse. Bill promptly sat on him.

  “You’re dead, you’re absolutely dead, and I did it.”

  “Well, if he’s dead there’s no need to sit on him,” said Ruth. “Get up, Andrew, and let me give you a brush. You run up to the drive, Bill, and see if grandfather’s car is at the door.”

  Andrew and Ruth, once more arm-in-arm, sauntered back towards the house. It seemed to Ruth the wind had turned colder; she shivered.

  “Write as often as you can; I’m bound to fuss a bit.”

  Andrew nodded. He and Ruth had always fussed about each other. He worried now whenever there was an air raid anywhere in her vicinity.

  “I’ll write. Father’s taken a half morning off to drive me to the station. Pretty decent of him.”

  “Marvellous!” Ruth could not keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “We aren’t honoured with much of their company. Nothing will ever make them like Robert. It’s bad enough his being a doctor, but a poor one with a panel practice makes them feel sick.”

  Andrew was distressed. Ruth could never do wrong in his eyes, but since she had married Robert she said things which made her sound as if she were criticizing her parents.

  “It’s natural in a way. You’re their only girl, and they hoped you’d fall for something rich. I can see it’s sickening for them that you and I don’t like the sort of people they think important. Michael would have.”

  Ruth gave him a look, half amused and half anxiously maternal.

  “You like everybody, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. I’m scared of a clever job, but that’s because I’m such a dim myself.”

  Ruth gave his arm a shake.

  “Funny old idiot, aren’t you? I do hope you’ll be careful whom you marry, Andrew.”

  He was used to her habit of leaping from thought to thought, but this surprised him.

  “Marry!”

  She sounded almost impatient.

  “Yes, marry. One day there’ll be peace, and then father will turn you into a nice business man, and you’ll have to settle down with a wife and rows of children.”

  They were passing the rockery. Andrew paused.

  “Look, the blue primroses are out.”

  Ruth pulled him on. She laughed, but there was a frightened exasperation at the back of it.

  “You’re getting awfully vague. I suppose it’s being alone in the air so much.”

  “I didn’t mean to be vague, but there didn’t seem to be an answer to all that rot about marrying. Of course I’ll go into the firm after the war, but now, you know, being a pilot and all that seems everything. I can’t imagine a time after the war.” He looked at his watch. “I must hurry. Father said eleven-fifteen, and it’s nearly that now.”

  Ruth and Bill watched the car carrying Andrew away. As it reached the corner of the drive he looked through the window at the back and waved. Bill, who had said several things without his mother hearing them, tugged at her coat.

  “Do listen, mum. I said, why doesn’t Uncle Andrew come and live with us?”

  Ruth took her car key out of her pocket.

  “It’s a good idea. I wish it could happen. We’d see nothing hurt him, wouldn’t we?”

  Bill jumped on and off the running-board.

  “Is a German going to hurt him?”

  “Get into the car, old man.
No, I should think Uncle Andrew’s more likely to hurt a German.”

  Bill scrambled in beside her.

  “Then who’s going to hurt him, mum?”

  Robert believed in always replying to any sensible question asked by a child. Ruth, wishing she had not spoken her thoughts out loud, struggled to find a reply that would satisfy Bill.

  “Some people only need looking after when they’re little, like you, and others, like Uncle Andrew, need looking after always.”

  Bill lolled back enjoying the sliding feel of the leather seat. “Why does he, mum?”

  Ruth started the car.

  “I don’t know, Bill darling. I dare say mum worries about things too much. Shall we stop at the sweet shop and see if they’ve got any chocolate?”

  Meggie was having tea with Adela. While making a hearty meal, she poured out a history of her recent doings. Adela waited for a pause, and stopped the flow.

  “I want you to remember to-night, dear, that you’re not a little girl any more. You’re nearly seventeen, and that’s a young woman. Uncle Gardiner, being American, is used to girls of your age behaving like grown-up people, and I don’t want him to go back to Aunty Millicent and describe you as gauche.”

  Meggie paused with a scone half-way to her mouth.

  “Oh, but, Mummy, you haven’t seen me in that lovely blue and white frock! I put it on last night to show Uncle Freddie and Aunt Jessie and Jonesy, and, of course, the maids, and, do you know, I looked so old that I don’t believe they recognized me, not for a minute. Nobody knew I was putting it on, and after dinner, while they were listening to the news, I crept into the drawing-room all dressed up, except for my hair ribbon. They stared at me as if I was a ghost, and then Aunt Jessie said: ‘Bless my soul, child,’ and Jonesy knitted hard, and when I said didn’t she think I looked awfully grand, she looked at me as if I was a stranger. Uncle Freddie said: ‘Very grand, but we like our own untidy Meggie best.’”

  “I dare say, dear.” Adela struggled not to be aggravated, “but fine feathers don’t make the grown woman. It’s manner, way of talking, savoir faire and poise.”

  “I’ll tell you something: I’d feel much more poised if I didn’t wear that hair ribbon. Now, that makes me feel very young.”

  “A ribbon round the hair is a charming fashion for young girls.”

  Meggie sighed. “Of course I’m not arguing about wearing it, but I can’t pretend I like it myself.”

  “You mustn’t forget, dear, that you’ve been living quietly in the country and are rather out of touch with things. There are other subjects to talk about than your uncle’s parish.”

  “There’s Hardy. I think everybody likes talking about dogs, don’t you? Then there’s Barnabas, but I don’t see him much now he’s up at the farm.” Meggie took another scone. “You didn’t want me to talk about the war, did you? Jonesy makes me do general knowledge, reading the leaders in The Times and all that, but I’m not awfully good.”

  Adela curbed herself with difficulty. She was to blame, she supposed, in having permitted Meggie to run wild in the country, but really, even allowing for that, she was deplorably schoolgirlish.

  “I don’t want to dictate to you what you should talk about, but I do want you to realize that outside people are not interested in one’s private concerns. You do harp so on what your uncle and aunt and Miss Jones have said, as if they were authorities on all subjects, but they’re not, they’re just ordinary people.”

  Meggie considered this.

  “I don’t believe anybody seems ordinary to you if you’re fond of them, do you? I suppose to other people you’re just an ordinary mother, but to me you aren’t.”

  Adela had to pause to find an answer.

  “You’re such an enthusiastic child.”

  Meggie cut herself a piece of cake.

  “Don’t worry, Mummy. I’ll be most awfully grown-up to-night. I’ll tell you something that would make me look grown-up straight away. When you have your cocktail, could I get Gills to mix something for me that looked like one and wasn’t? Any one would think I was twenty if they saw me drinking what they thought was a cocktail, wouldn’t they?”

  “I really must teach you something about drinks. A young girl is such a nuisance when she doesn’t know anything.”

  “I needn’t drink things just because I’m grown up, need I?”

  Adela was annoyed at her tone.

  “Of course.”

  “Not if I don’t want to? I mean, I have tasted things and I hate them.”

  “Not if you don’t want to, of course, but you will want to.”

  Meggie stared at the fire and chewed her cake. After a time she said:

  “It’s funny, but from things you’ve told me, it looks as if ‘me’ grown up is going to be quite different from ‘me’ now. When you got me those new clothes last autumn, and I had to be fitted, you said that when I was grown up I was going to love trying on pretty clothes. Well, that’s going to be a very changed me. Then you told me once that when I was grown up I’d be pleased when I was asked to the right sort of houses, and that I’d understand what a right sort of house was. That’s often made me think. I’ve got a terrible long way to go before I understand anything of that sort. Then now you say when I’m grown up I’m going to like drinking cocktails. Well, here I am, almost grown up, and I haven’t even started to like them. Then, I may as well tell you the whole awfulness right away, so you aren’t disappointed in me; I’m going to try, of course, but truthfully I don’t know what poise, or savoir faire or things like that feel like, so it’s going to be difficult to know when I’ve got them.”

  Adela had put up with quite enough. It was lucky the child was pretty, for really she was almost a simpleton.

  “Well, if you’ve had enough tea, run along, dear. You are to let Gerda dress you in plenty of time, so that she is free afterwards to attend to me. Your hair looks charming.”

  “Have I got to wear that ribbon round it?”

  “Yes. Let me look at your hands.”

  Meggie held her hands out and chuckled.

  “My nails have been enamelled pale pink like you said. They feel grown-up hands all right.”

  Adela looked at the long, thin hands. They had been well tidied, but there were signs Meggie was a gardener.

  “Do you put on that cream every night?”

  “Not quite always. I do try, and so does Jonesy to remind me, but we’re not very cream-minded at the vicarage. I’ve even prayed about it. Uncle Freddie says it’s a very great help to mention sins of omission, so I say: ‘And please, God, do make me think of Crême de Séduction, because without a jog I’m apt to forget it.’”

  Adela was strained and nervous. She was sleeping abominably, and at all times a very little of Meggie went a long way. She closed her eyes and controlled herself with a few words of the Athanasian Creed: “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.” She opened her eyes and said sweetly:

  “Run along, child.”

  Meggie went to the door.

  “And can I ask Gills to mix me a drink that will look like a cocktail?”

  “Yes, dear. And, Meggie, close the door quietly.”

  Left alone, Adela tried to relax, but it was hopeless; thoughts tore in and out of her mind these days, and there seemed no way of controlling them. The best plan was to think hard of some harmless subject, and even that did not always work. So often a train of thought started in one direction, and shot into that seething, whirling mass of scared thought which was always at the back of her brain. She fixed her mind upon her party. It was a nuisance having to have it just now, for really she felt so on edge she was not in the mood for small-talk. However, of course she had no alternative but to entertain
Gardiner. Americans expected to be entertained properly. It would have been better if she could have asked him to dine in the house, but really, what with the tiresomeness of getting food, and with all the house, except the flat, given over to “Comforts for the Bombed,” it was impossible. She hoped Meggie would behave sensibly, she disliked the enfant terrible type, and so she was certain did Millicent. In a way she wished she had not brought the child up to town, she was still rather young. Fortunately she was charming to look at in a girlish way. Perhaps she had led Millicent to think Meggie had grown into a different type from what she actually was. Without thinking of that time in Bermuda, for the end of that holiday led her up the very paths of thought she most wished to avoid, Adela thought of Millicent. It was long before the Bermuda time that there came something into Millicent’s manner which had forced her, if not to brag, certainly to exaggerate. Millicent had always been a fine audience, and she still was. She sat saying “Yes” and” Surely” and “Well, isn’t that perfectly grand,” but her replies lacked conviction, and she had an increasing wish to pat and to be kind. Of course, Adela reminded herself, she had lost Philip, and a widow with two children to rear does bring out in some people a wish to pat and to be kind. But against the loss of Philip she was rich, and very good-looking, and she had, for what it was worth, the cachet that went with the name Framley. At school in Paris Millicent had been so full of admiration. She had admired Adela’s looks, and what she called “her English accent,” and her tweed coats and skirts, but nowadays, somehow, she never admired, except, of course, Meggie; she had been quite ridiculous in her admiration of her. It was impossible now for Adela, looking backwards, to remember when Millicent had begun to change. But there had been a change in her, almost a change of temperament. She had always been gay and amusing and she still was, thank goodness, which made being with her so delightful. Yet, in spite of a surface gaiety, she had lost a light way of thinking of life which had been part of her as a girl. Now and again she had said things which had startled Adela because they were so serious, almost what she called “churchy,” and when that happened she felt as if their friendship were drifting apart. She supposed the change in Millicent was due to Gardiner, whom she considered a nice but very dull man, taking a quite unnecessary interest in the world’s troubles. In her way Adela was really devoted to Millicent, and set a greater value on her friendship than she had any idea of. She hoped that Millicent felt the same fondness for herself that she always had; she seemed to, but when people changed so much with the years one could never be quite sure. “I hope Gardiner takes to Meggie,” Adela thought, “and carries a good report of her back to Millicent. I shall probably be very glad to send her over when the war finishes. It would really be splendid if she married over there. I might take her over myself. Millicent’s girls aren’t about now they’ve married, but I expect she could find someone with girls to take her around. I don’t quite see what I’m to do with her here.” There was Adela fallen, splash, just as she always did, into the very thoughts she was struggling to avoid. She was going to think about Paul whether she wanted to or not; it was as if she could see a visible object about to crash on her, and she made an unconscious gesture, raising both hands as if to ward it off. She got up and wandered round the room, trying by action to steady her mind. By habit she was reciting the Athanasian Creed, but she knew it too well, she could say the whole of it with her lips, while her mind worked up and round and down the unwanted subject. “I can’t see him. I won’t see him,” she whispered. “I can’t start everything all over again. Besides, now it’s going to be fifty times worse. I’ll be watching and prying, I shan’t be able to help myself. I couldn’t stand the shame twice. I suppose he’ll go in the army. I suppose ticket-of-leave men, or whatever they call them, are called up like everybody else; but Paul will be a failure in the army. He’ll always be taking leave when he shouldn’t, and he’ll take money which isn’t his, and then he’ll come here.” She broke off and marched up and down the room, her hands linked together, one palm beating the other. “I wonder if Noel will help? He wrote a nice letter, and sounded as if he were quite fond of Paul. I don’t remember him very clearly, but he can’t have been like the others, for he wasn’t mixed up in the business. His writing out of the blue like that does sound as if he might have heard from him. I wish I could think how to put it to him. Of course the sensible thing would be to send a solicitor to meet Paul, and tell him he can have an allowance on condition he doesn’t try and see me. But that wouldn’t do any good with Paul. The sort of allowance I can afford now with the income tax where it is wouldn’t keep him quiet, and then he’d be along asking for more. Odd fifties and hundreds are what Paul likes. I suppose I could arrange to let him have what he wants through the solicitors, but they’re so difficult, and it’s going to be so hard to explain to them. Why, my own family are expecting me to see Paul, let alone what Fred and Jessie think. I don’t believe Paul ever had a friend that you couldn’t pay to do things. I’ll see what this young man’s like. After all, when I saw him he was very young. He may have grown much more responsible, and if he’s possible I shall have to trust him. I don’t know if he can get leave to meet Paul, but he might know somebody else who would.” She was by the mantelpiece fiddling with the jade ornaments. “If this boy is possible I think I shall tell him right out what I want. After all, if I’ve got enough just to live on, I don’t care what I pay, or who I pay it to, as long as I neither see nor hear of Paul again.” She was across the room peering into the street but seeing nothing. “I know the family would tell me I was crazy, and I ought to do everything through a solicitor, but they wouldn’t approve of my not seeing him.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’m off on that again. If only I could make up my mind to something. It’s early, but I’ll go and bath, and see to my face, and I’ll take a dose of that nerve mixture, or I shall be a rag to-night.”