Lydia anxiously inquired what had happened to the chicks, and was assured that they had escaped injury.
“A dozen in a box seems rather a lot,” said Lydia.
“Keeps them warm,” said Doris Phipps. “Look through the holes, miss, you’ll see they’re all right.”
Lydia bent over the boxes, and through round holes in the sides saw tiny fluffy restless bodies moving about, cheeping softly all the time.
“Going to General Waring’s place, they are,” said Lily-Annie. “He’s a lovely man.”
“I’m going there too,” said Lydia, suddenly seized with ridiculous compassion for these frail, undaunted objects, going about the world alone and changing trains for an unknown destination, though a moment’s reflection would have told her that they were having a much easier journey than she was, having no luggage, no tickets, no anxiety about their present and a complete want of interest or curiosity about their future.
“Ow,” said both girls, much impressed. “Well, we’ll be along, don’t you worry,” and the truck rolled on to the far end of the platform.
As the chicks, like herself exiles from Southbridge, were wheeled away, Lydia felt the darkness thicken round her. No light came from a heavy clouded sky, the station lamps were few and very dim. Again she began to wonder what the Warings would be like and contemplated hiding till the 5.10 had gone and waiting for the next train and Noel, when a tall man in uniform surged out of the thick gloom.
“Noel!” she said, with great relief.
The figure stopped.
“I am so sorry, but my name isn’t Noel. Are you looking for someone?” it said.
Lydia stared madly through the darkness.
“Philip!” she cried.
“I am honoured,” said the voice, “but who is it? Not Lydia? Oh, my Lydia!”
“Oh gosh! how pleased I am,” said Mrs. Merton, grasping Philip Winter’s arm with both her hands and shaking it violently.
“Not pleaseder than I am,” said Colonel Winter, putting his other arm round Mrs. Merton and giving her as close a hug as the thickness of a British warm will allow. “My precious Lydia, what the dickens are you doing here?”
“Or you, either? Oh, Philip!” said Lydia.
The 5.10, though so late that it was only so by courtesy, steamed in. No one could hear a word, milk-cans clanked, Doris Phipps and Lily-Annie yelled unintelligibly, Bill Morple came bumping down the steps from the high level with a perambulator, two dogs on leads had a friendly quarrel, the engine let off steam at high pressure.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” shrieked Lydia.
“LAMBTON,” Philip shouted.
“Hurrah!” said Lydia. “Come on,” and she got into a carriage followed by Philip. Doris and Lily-Annie pushed the luggage in, overjoyed at the sight of what they very rightly took to be Ro-mance. Lydia was feeling in her bag, but Philip, with a man’s contempt for the whole question of small change, gave the girls the coin that felt largest in the dark. With the exquisite, imperceptibly gliding motion of the Best Line in the World, the train moved out of the station, and Philip and Lydia found themselves alone in a carriage which was so lighted that anyone could read or knit if they held book or work well away from themselves into the middle of the compartment, and smelt of cold dirt and tobacco.
“How much did you give them, Philip?” Lydia asked, still fumbling in her purse.
“By the feeling, a half-crown,” said Philip, “but it may have been a florin. It’s no joke trying to feel a milled edge with gloves on.”
“Here you are then,” said the honest Lydia, pushing some money at him.
“Good God, my girl,” said Philip, shocked. “Hasn’t Noel taught you never to give money to men?”
“Oh, all right,” said Lydia. “Besides, you’re a colonel now, so I suppose you can afford it.”
“I’m only a colonel because I had an unfair start at the beginning of the war, having territorialled so long,” said Philip. “And any way, it’s lieutenant-colonel, though I keep this in the background. But I do like getting more pay. And what’s more, that aunt of mine died and left me some money, so I am quite well off. I used to think I’d start a school with it if she did, but this doesn’t seem a good moment. Besides I don’t think the Army would let me go. What are you doing now?”
Lydia said that she and Noel had been moved about a good deal and now expected to be in this part of the world for some time, as he had an important job at the hush-hush camp. Philip said he hoped to be there for some time too and was living at the camp for the time being. Lydia asked if it was in a tent or a hut.
“Neither, thank God,” said Philip. “Tents are out of date and as for Nissen huts, the worms they crawl in the worms they crawl out, I mean water streams up, down, by, with and from those infernal creations and all one’s food and bedding taste and feel damp. No, we’ve got a nice old house called the Dower House between Lambton and Worsted for our headquarters, and there the important people, which includes me, live in a chastened kind of luxury. Is Noel coming there?”
Lydia explained that they were looking for lodgings and had been invited to Beliers Priory for the present.
“Beliers Priory?” said Philip. “I carried a suitcase for a girl who lived there. Waring her name was.”
Lydia said the people she was going to stay with were called Waring, and then the conversation passed to really interesting subjects, for Philip Winter had been senior classical master at Southbridge School before the war and was a great friend of Everard and Kate Carter, and he wanted all the news of the school.
“And Mrs. Birkett says Rose is going to have another baby, that’s three,” said Lydia, when she had given him all the gossip she could remember. “I say, Philip, do you remember the day we cleaned out the pond at home and Rose broke off your engagement and you threw your ring into the pool.”
“What a day!” said Philip. “I was never so glad in all my life.”
“Do you know, they were clearing the channel of the stream the summer after the war began,” said Lydia, “and Twitcher found it. You remember Twitcher the gardener that married our old nannie. I meant to tell you, but I got married to Noel and forgot. I’ll give it you. And then when you get engaged again you can use it,” said the practical Lydia.
“God forbid!” said Philip.
“It’s a very pretty one,” said Lydia.
“It is,” said Philip, thinking of all the trouble that a young assistant master who could then ill afford it had taken to have a ring made with little diamond petals round a ruby core, to look as like his love’s name as possible. “Look here, Lydia, you give me the ring, to warn me against getting engaged to anyone as silly as Rose again. And when I do get engaged to a very nice, sensible girl, I’ll send it back to you.”
“Like a secret code,” said Lydia, taken by the idea.
By now the train had got to Lambton. Between them they carried Lydia’s luggage to the exit.
“There’s to be a taxi to meet me,” said Lydia.
“For me too,” said Philip. “I’ll ring you up soon. Give Noel my love.”
“Beg pardon,” said Mr. Coxon from the garage, “but are you for the Priory, miss?”
Lydia said she was.
“And you for the Dower House, sir?” said Mr. Coxon. For although the Dower House’s name for the duration was Camp XZ 135, and people who wanted to ring it up had to ask the exchange for that number, and people who lived there were supposed, when rung up, to pretend they did not know where they were, the original inhabitants saw no reason for such silly goings-on.
Philip said yes.
Mr. Coxon embarked upon a long, rambling statement, the gist of which was that her ladyship had ordered the taxi and a gentleman from the Dower House had ordered the taxi, and there wasn’t but the one taxi, and no one could expect a taxi to go to two places at once, but as the Priory was, in a manner of speaking, on the way to the Dower House, the gentleman had better get in along of the young lady and he’d take
him on to the Dower House when he’d taken the young lady to the Priory, but first he must get them chickens on board. So Philip and Lydia got into the taxi, by no means sorry to have a little more of one another’s company.
Coxon collected the boxes of chickens and in ten minutes they were at the door of the Warings’ wing. Philip got out to help Lydia with her bags, which in the darkness, with three unknown steps to the door to be negotiated, caused a little delay. Just as he was going to say good-bye the door was opened and Sir Harry appeared in the subdued light of the little hall.
“Come in, come in,” he said hospitably. “We mustn’t show too much light. Coxon, wait a minute, will you. I want you to take a note down to the village for me. Come in, Mrs. Merton. Your husband I have already met.”
“I am sorry, sir,” said Philip, “but there is a mistake. My name is Winter. I am an old friend of Mrs. Merton’s. We were in the same train, and when we got to the station the taxi driver said he would drop her first and take me on to the camp.”
Sir Harry apologized, saying that he had only met Major Merton once and they were about the same height and looked much the same in the black-out.
“But you must come in and meet my wife,” he said to Philip, “and have a cup of tea, before you go to the camp.”
Taking no denial, he hustled Lydia and Philip into the sitting-room. Here Lady Waring was writing letters and Leslie Waring knitting. Lady Waring welcomed Lydia kindly and introduced the two young women. Leslie was now more rested, but she looked so pale and languid that Lydia felt very sorry for her and tempered her usual handshake.
“And this is—what did you say your name was?” said Sir Harry to Philip.
“Philip Winter, sir,” said that gentleman.
“—who is going on in Coxon’s taxi to the camp,” said Sir Harry. “Colonel Winter, my dear. And my niece, Leslie Waring. I can’t think how I came to take you for Merton. He is dark and you are quite fair.”
“Ginger was my name at my prep. school, sir,” said Philip. “Also Carrots and Fireworks and a few other names.”
“It’s awfully difficult to tell in the dark,” said Lydia. “I met Philip at the station where I changed and I thought he was Noel for a moment.”
“Winter,” said Sir Harry, ransacking his memory. “Wait a minute. Why, you are the man who wrote that book about Horace. I liked it. I have to read my Horace with a crib now, just as if I were at school, but I liked your book very much.”
Philip, reddening to the roots of his red hair, thanked his host. His little book on Horace, published while he was still at Southbridge School, was his only literary child, and though he wished he could have rewritten it again and again, pruning, correcting, improving, it was very dear to him.
“Perhaps,” said Lady Waring, glad to find someone who could share her husband’s interest in the classics, “Colonel Winter will come over to dinner one evening, Harry.”
“I must thank you again, Colonel Winter, for carrying my bag for me last night,” said Leslie Waring with, so Lydia felt, a slight but unnecessary tone of proprietorship, though she at once blamed herself for the feeling.
Philip declined tea, as he was already due at the camp, and went away, with Sir Harry’s letter to be delivered in the village by Coxon. Lydia said good-bye to him with her usual warmth, which had the effect of making Leslie Waring think that Mrs. Merton and Colonel Winter seemed to be on very good terms, a feeling which she condemned as uncharitable.
Lydia, drinking her tea and talking amicably, took stock of her new friends. For the Warings she felt an immediate liking. Lady Waring looked the kind of person Noel would approve, well-dressed, good-looking, with pleasant manners. The General was just right for a retired soldier who was a country gentleman, with a fierce appearance, due perhaps to his grizzled moustache, high forehead and piercing blue eyes, and obviously very kind. About Miss Waring she had not decided. Her face and figure she admired; and if she was a bit floppy, perhaps that was because she was not well.
As for the Warings, they had both taken to their guest at sight. Lady Waring, amusedly observing a certain gallantry in Sir Harry’s manner to Mrs. Merton which suited him very well, hoped that this young woman would be a pleasant companion for her husband, who throve on, and indeed pined without, a little old-fashioned flirtation. Anything that made Sir Harry feel a little young and dashing was approved by his wife, who feared for him, above all things, the stagnation of a war-restricted life at home, with no fresh faces or conversation. And she was delighted to see that Mrs. Merton and Leslie were getting on so well, for she was anxious about her niece, who obviously needed to be taken out of herself, poor child. So that, as usual, Lydia was cast for the role of general utility.
“See you again, Mrs. Merton,” said Sir Harry when he had drunk two large cups of tea. “I’ve got to go to the British Legion meeting at six.”
“Don’t be late if you can help it, Harry,” said Lady Waring. “It looked as if there might be a fog coming up. And will you ring for Selina.”
“Can I have your keys, please, madam?” said Selina, when she had cleared away the tea-things.
“I suppose my big suitcase hasn’t come?” said Lydia. “I sent it off two days ago by passenger train, but that means nothing.”
“Oh, yes, madam; they rang up from the station this morning to say it was there,” said Selina.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Lady Waring. “Coxon would have brought it up when he fetched Mrs. Merton. I am so sorry, Mrs. Merton,” she added to Lydia.
“Well, my lady,” said Selina, “I thought the lady would like to find things nice when she got here, and Private Jenks happened to let drop that Sergeant Hopkins was going down to the station with the lorry, so I thought he’d better bring it up, so I’ll unpack it and see if anything wants pressing, if you’ll let me have the keys, madam.”
“Oh, thanks most awfully,” said Lydia, giving Selina the keys. “Oh, and please don’t undo the little blue case, because it has all the bottles and things in it. I can’t tell you,” she continued to her hostess, “how exhausting it has been to live in one’s boxes all the time as we have since I was married and never knowing if you’ll give offence by using your electric iron. But you would know even better than I do, because you must have lived in your boxes with Sir Harry for years and years.”
Lady Waring was touched. How many of the girls she knew would, she wondered, have realized that although she was over sixty and doubtless decrepit and mentally doddering by their standards, she had travelled a great deal and lived in all sorts of mild discomfort for her husband’s sake. And Lydia’s slight air of deference pleased her. Not that she wanted it for herself, but living as she did by older and by no means despicable standards of conduct, she approved courtesy to one’s elders. It might come from the heart, it might be only an outward form, but it helped to keep civilization going, and it was her opinion that if more people practised even the form of civility they would have a good chance of becoming Happy Hypocrites and be polite and kind off guard as well as on.
“I expect you would like to see your room,” she said. “Leslie dear, will you take Mrs. Merton up? We dine at a quarter past eight, Mrs. Merton, so if you are tired, do rest before dinner. If not, we shall be delighted to see you down here.”
The two young women got up. As Lydia looked back from the door she saw Lady Waring settling at her writing table where papers were ranged in pigeonholes, boxes, clips, and even on a spike, though it came from Magnum’s and had a painted base and cost fifteen shillings and sixpence. Sir Harry had gone out in the cold, misty, dark evening to do his duty. An uncomfortable little thought assailed Lydia, but she pinched it, and it disappeared for the moment.
“This is where you and Major Merton are,” said Leslie, opening a door.
Lydia drew a deep breath of delight. After more than two years of hotels, lodgings, furnished cottages, her own old home occupied by an insurance company, Noel with only his now cheerless chambers as a
background, her heart leapt at the sight of what she mentally called a proper bedroom. Good furniture, not so young as it was but well cared for, good rather shabby chintzes, good brocade curtains though faded and patched, the right engravings of ancestors after Reynolds and Lawrence on the walls, a large writing-table, a reading-lamp to each bed. It was like a plunge back into a past life.
“Aunt Harriet is a marvellous arranger,” said Leslie, gratified by the guest’s obvious admiration. “Of course all this part was the servants’ wing, but she has made it look quite ancestral. Still, I’m glad she’s got electric light and central heating—that’s thanks to the War Office. And——” she added, proudly opening what Lydia thought was a cupboard in the wall, but turned out to be a little recess with a fixed basin and an electric light of its own.
Lydia nodded gravely. Leslie’s “and” needed no amplifying with this enchanting vision before her.
“You open the door and the light goes on,” said Leslie proudly, “and when you shut it, the light goes off.”
“How can one be sure?” asked Lydia, the practical. “There isn’t room to shut oneself up and see.”
“I know,” said Leslie seriously. “I did think of that. But I put out the lights in the room and shut the cupboard door, and then I lay down on the floor and looked under the door which doesn’t fit very well, and there wasn’t a sign of light.”
“I say,” said Lydia, warming to anyone who did such sensible things, “do sit down and watch me unpack. I hate anyone to unpack this case for me, because it’s always full of things I’m ashamed of, like dirty handkerchiefs, or face tissues that one thinks one can use just once more.”
As she spoke she wheeled an arm-chair vigorously towards the fire that leapt and crackled in the old-fashioned grate.
“Thank you, I’d love to,” said Leslie, sitting down with obvious relief. But as if unwilling to let anyone notice her fatigue, she quickly continued: “It’s lovely to have proper fires here, and as there is unlimited timber we can be warm to the last, at least as long as Jasper is alive.”
Growing Up Page 9