Sarah Morris Remembers

by D. E. Stevenson

  I was very unhappy about Willy: the factory was completely blacked-out, so he seldom saw the light of day, and his hours of work were long and arduous; he was pale and haggard and depressed; his clothes were shabby and dirty. Sometimes he turned up at the flat, looking like a tramp, and I made him have a bath and gave him a good meal. I washed his clothes and mended them and tried to cheer him up.

  “Lewis says the war will be over soon,” I told him.

  “Lewis is wrong,” said Willy. “This phoney war will turn into a real war and London will be bombed. Hider is just biding his time. He can break through the Maginot Line whenever he likes. The French have ‘no stomach to this fight’; they’ll crumple up and leave us in the soup. Before we know where we are the German Army will be at Calais.”

  “My dear boy!” exclaimed father in alarm.

  “Well, you’ll see,” said Willy.

  We did “see.” Not many months passed before Willy’s prophecies all came true

  Chapter Twenty-One

  One morning when I was in St. Rule’s air-raid shelter, putting things in order after a bombing raid, Mrs. Hetherington came in to help me. She asked how I liked living in London. Usually I replied cheerfully and not very truthfully to this question (because people didn’t really want to know), but to-day I was feeling so depressed that I told her I was lonely and hadn’t enough to do.

  “How would you like to help me with an Augean labour?” asked Mrs. Hetherington, smiling.

  “You mean . . . cleaning stables?”

  “Worse,” she replied. “Dirty people are worse than dirty animals. Don’t bother about it, Miss Morris. It was silly of me to mention it.”

  “But I’d like to help you!”

  Mrs. Hetherington looked at me doubtfully.

  “Please tell me about it,” I said.

  “Oh well . . . it’s a girl called Susie Dowles. I’ve known her for years – she was in my Sunday School class when she was little – so I’ve always been interested in her. Her parents are both dead but they left Susie their basement flat so she took her grandmother to live with her. It was very good of Susie – at least I think so.”

  “Is the old woman bed-ridden?”

  “Oh, dear me, no! She’s very spry.” Mrs. Hetherington sighed and continued. “Susie works in a munitions factory and gets good pay. She keeps the flat beautifully clean – she’s prond of it, you see.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, about three weeks ago Susie was knocked down in the street and was taken to hospital. I’ve been to see her several times and I’m glad to say she’s better and she’s going home to-morrow . . . but unfortunately Mrs. Dowles is a dirty old woman, so Susie’s nice little flat is sure to be in a mess.”

  “You’re going to clean it up for her?” I suggested.

  “Yes. I just thought Susie won’t be feeling very grand and it would be horrid for her to come home and——”

  “Of course it would!” I exclaimed. “I’d like to help you, Mrs. Hetherington.”

  “It won’t be a very nice job,” said Mrs. Hetherington in warning tones.

  Mrs. Hetherington drove me to the scene of our Augean labour in Mr. Hetherington’s little car; she had brought pails and scrubbing brushes and other cleaning materials and a box of groceries. Old Mrs. Dowles was out when we arrived but a neighbour had the key of the little flat and let us in.

  “I’ve cleaned up Susie’s bedroom,” said the woman. “It wasn’t too bad, reely, but I just couldn’t stomach the kitching. That old woman is a reg’lar slattern – an’ I don’t care who ’ears me say it! You ain’t goin’ ter do the kitching with your own ’ands, Missis ’Etherington?”

  “Yes,” replied Mrs. Hetherington.

  “Well, rather you than me!” said the woman.

  It was a small basement flat and quite nicely furnished . . . but when we opened the door of the kitchen the smell of dirt and decaying vegetable matter came out to meet us in a wave.

  Mrs. Hetherington threw open the window and said, “Go home, Miss Morris.”

  “Did you say ‘go home’?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Yes, it’s even worse than I expected. The floor is filthy; the sink is full of dirty pots and pans and dishes; the smell is intolerable.”

  “I know, but——”

  “It isn’t a stable, it’s a pigsty – no, it’s worse! Please go home.”

  “I’m going to help you.”

  “No. It isn’t fair.”

  “Isn’t fair?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Susie is a friend of mine but she isn’t a friend of yours, so it isn’t fair. I shouldn’t have asked you to——”

  I laughed and took off my coat.

  “I’d rather you went home,” said Mrs. Hetherington earnestly.

  I put on my overall and tied up my hair in a clean duster.

  “Oh well,” said Mrs. Hetherington with a sigh. “If you really feel you can bear it . . . but if we’re going to scrub the floor together you must call me Pam.”

  Half an hour ago I couldn’t possibly have called her “Pam” but now I felt differently. “That will be lovely,” I said. Then, when I saw her looking at the mess in despair, I added briskly, “Come on, Pam! We must do the cupboards first, then clean the dishes and put them away. After that we’ll scrub the floor.”

  “I would have started with the floor – but of course you’re right, Sarah,” replied Pam, smiling.

  Fortunately there was a gas-geyser which produced plenty of good hot water so we got on none too badly. We scrubbed out the cupboards, washed the dishes and put them away, and sat down to have a cup of coffee before tackling the floor. There is no better way of making friends than working together, so by this time we were very comfortable.

  “I never thought you were like this,” said Pam, as she helped herself to sugar from a packet.

  “Neither did I.”

  “You mean you didn’t think I was like me?”

  “No. I mean, yes, that’s what I mean.”

  “I’m shy,” she explained. “It’s wrong and silly but I can’t help it. Sometimes I feel as if I were tied up with cords.”

  “Surely you weren’t shy of me?”

  “I’m always shy until I get to know people and you looked as if you were miles away – as if you were lost! Don’t tell me why, unless you want to.”

  I wanted to . . . so I told her about Charles.

  “Oh dear, how dreadful!” said Pam, looking at me with soft, velvety-brown eyes. “No wonder you have that tragic look! It’s so awful not to know, isn’t it? I can sympathise because of Gilbert. If I knew exactly what had happened to Gil it would be so much easier to bear.”

  “I thought you knew what had happened.”

  “Everyone else thinks he’s dead.”

  I understood what she meant. Other people thought Charles was dead but I was sure he was still here in this world – somewhere – and that some day he would come back to me. I was sure . . . otherwise I couldn’t have borne to go on, day after day, month after month . . . but just sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wasn’t quite sure and I was swamped in a wave of misery and despair.

  “Gil was ‘lost at sea,’” said Pam. “It sounds so – so forlorn, doesn’t it? ‘Lost at sea.’”

  “Yes,” I said sadly.

  “Gil and I have always been close together. Even when he was a tiny baby we understood each other perfectly . . . and we went on understanding each other; we didn’t need words. Gil is part of me – just like my hand.” She looked at her hand and added, “I would know if my hand were dead, wouldn’t I?”

  “Do you think that kind of feeling can be trusted?”

  “Yes, I do,” she declared. “I think that kind of feeling is absolutely real . . . so if you feel in your bones that Charles is alive I’m sure he’s alive.”

  For a few moments I couldn’t speak.

  “Gil was in the Navy,” continued Pam. “He always wanted to be a sailor. He
had just got his commission as sub-lieutenant – he was so pleased and proud! His first voyage was in a destroyer bound for Malta. One night in the Mediterranean he disappeared. Nobody saw him fall overboard. He just . . . wasn’t there . . . in the morning. ‘Lost at sea.’”

  “Oh, Pam! Was it a storm?”

  “No, it was dark and misty.” She hesitated and then continued, “There were two of them. Gil’s great friend, Sam Liston, was in the same ship and disappeared at the same time. I mean they were both . . . gone. The Listons have no hope. They accepted the official statement that the boys fell overboard and were drowned.”

  “Perhaps they were picked up by a fishing-boat.”

  She sighed and said, “Perhaps. At any rate Gil wasn’t drowned. When he’s in the water he’s in his element – like a seal. Besides, I’m sure he’s alive.”

  “Pam, are you sure all the time? Even in the middle of the night?”

  “Yes, all the time.” She hesitated and then added, “Thoughts that come in the middle of the night aren’t your own real thoughts.”

  “What are they?”

  “Whispers from the devil.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Remember it in the middle of the night,” said Pam, nodding.

  We were silent for a few moments.

  “Come on!” cried Pam, jumping up. “We’ll divide the floor in half and have a race.”

  “But we must be thorough,” I reminded her.

  Minnie would have cleaned that floor in half the time but she couldn’t have done it more thoroughly. We discovered that beneath the dirt there was good sound linoleum so it was worth doing well. The race was a dead-heat and we were just about finished when the door opened and a young woman walked in. She stood and looked at us – and looked round the kitchen – then she sat down on a chair and burst into floods of tears.

  “Susie!” cried Pam, throwing down the scrubbing brush and rising from her knees. “Susie – dear – what’s the matter?”

  “Angels,” sobbed the girl. “Angels in my kitching – that’s wot’s the matter! Angels straight from ’eaven!”

  “It wasn’t much,” declared Pam earnestly. “We were just – just tidying up a bit, that’s all. Susie, don’t cry like that; it wasn’t anything – really.”

  “Wasn’t it!” cried Susie. “Wasn’t it nothin’? Don’t I know wot this plaice looks like when granma’s bin ’ere alone for a week – never mind three! All the w’y ’ome in the bus I wos thinkin’ wot it would look like, with the floor grimed an’ the sink full of stinkin’ dishes! All the w’y ’ome in the bus I wos thinkin’ wot a pity there wasn’t no miracles nowerd’ys . . .”

  “Don’t cry, Susie!” said Pam, patting her back gently. “Please don’t cry. Look, this is Miss Morris——”

  “It ain’t!” exclaimed Susie hysterically. “It ain’t Miss Morris an’ it ain’t Missis ’Etherington. It’s two angels stright from ’eaven that’s bin doin’ a miracle in my kitching, that’s wot it is! If I lives to be a ’undred I won’t never forget this day. It’s the wonderfullest thing that ever ’appened to me. . . .”

  Pam and I were very silent going home in the little car but presently she said, “It has made me feel very humble, Sarah. I wonder why.”

  “It’s always humbling to get more than you deserve.”

  “Yes, you’re right. We were overpaid.”

  I certainly was overpaid a hundred-fold for my part in the cleansing of Susie Dowles’s kitchen; I had made a friend. Never before had I had a friend like Pam Hetherington, a friend much older than myself, intelligent and well read, a friend to whom I could say anything I liked and be sure of finding sympathy and understanding. Why had I thought her plain and uninteresting? I realised now that, in her own unusual way, Pam was beautiful.

  I wasn’t lonely now and when I woke up in the middle of the night I remembered what Pam had told me and said a prayer to exorcise the devil and all his works.

  Our friendship wasn’t one-sided; I was able to help Pam quite a lot in the parish of St. Rule’s. Sometimes in the evening, when father was at the air-raid shelter, Pam came and brought her mending-basket and we sat by the fire and talked. She knew I was “safe” so she could tell me things she wouldn’t have mentioned to anyone else.

  One evening, when we had been sitting together for some time in companionable silence, she said, “You’re lucky, Sarah. I mean lucky to have your father. He’s a good kind human man; it isn’t easy to live with a saint.”

  “Father admires him tremendously.”

  “Oh, so do I!” declared Pam. “And I love him tremendously, too . . . but his standard is too high for an ordinary, worldly mortal like me. That’s the trouble.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was September and the Battle of Britain was at its height when Lottie rang up and said she would come to lunch.

  “I suppose you can give me lunch?” she said doubtfully.

  “Yes, of course, Lottie! It will be lovely to have you.”

  “I want to see you, Sarah.”

  “Yes, do come, Lottie.”

  I felt quite excited at the prospect of seeing Lottie. I hadn’t seen her since we left Fairfield. I had asked her to come several times but she had said she was much too busy.

  Lottie arrived in a taxi at one o’clock. She was beautifully dressed and her manners were sophisticated.

  “What a ghastly little den!” she exclaimed when she saw the flat. “I don’t know how yon can bear to live in such cramped quarters.”

  “I’ve got used to it,” I replied. Compared with Riverside it was a “ghastly little den.”

  Fortunately she enjoyed her lunch (I had provided her favourite food) and afterwards when we were having coffee together she became more like herself and chattered happily about all she was doing . . . but she had said she wanted to see me, and I had received the impression that it was not just sisterly affection, so I asked if she were still quite happy with the Meldrums or would she rather go to Craignethan.

  “It would drive me raving mad to go to Craignethan,” she replied. “Besides, I’m busy with war work.”

  This was the first I had heard of Lottie’s war work.

  “I thought Father would have told you,” said Lottie. “The Fourth Downshires are in Larchester and the Meldrums are keeping ‘open house’ for the officers; I’m helping to entertain them. It’s war work to entertain the boys.”

  She went on talking about her war work and presently said in an off-hand manner, “You needn’t be surprised if you hear I’m engaged.”

  “Engaged to be married!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But, Lottie, you’re only seventeen!”

  “I’m nearly eighteen – and there’s a war on. Don’t be stuffy about it, Sarah. I came to-day because I want you to help me; I want you to prepare Father for the news . . . not say I’m engaged, of course, because I’m not, but just tell him I have a great friend. You could——”

  “I suppose it’s Tom Meldrum.”

  “Goodness no! Tom is all right to have fun with, and he dances divinely, but there’s nothing glamorous about funny old Tom.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “Ian Macnab,” said Lottie. “He’s marvellous, Sarah – absolutely marvellous. He’s Scottish, of course, everyone calls him Mac. He’s very tall and good-looking with dark hair and beautiful hazel eyes and he’s got a slight Scottish accent – most awfully attractive. He’s madly in love with me and very earnest. It’s terribly thrilling.”

  “Lottie, you shouldn’t——”

  “We had a concert the other night, just an impromptu concert in the music-room; Mac sang Scottish songs and I accompanied him on my guitar. He has a deep bass voice, it sounded marvellous; we had to give three encores.”

  “You’ll have to speak to Father and see——”

  “We have fun together. Mac takes me on his motor-bike and we buzz about all over the country. We went to Brighto
n and had dinner at a marvellous hotel.”

  “But, Lottie, you’re too young – really. Who is he? Where is his home? You aren’t serious about it, are you?”

  “Oh, I don’t want to be engaged just yet. Madeline says I ought to have some fun before I settle down with a ‘steady’. . . but all the same he’s terribly sweet,” added Lottie, smiling in a faraway manner.

  “Where is his home?”

  “At a place called Elgin; it’s hundreds of miles away in Scotland. He’s getting leave soon, and he wants me to go with him and meet his people. I can’t make up my mind whether to go or not.”

  “You can’t go without telling Father and asking his permission.”

  “I’ve told you I haven’t decided. Mac is sweet, of course, and he wants me to go with him terribly much, but . . . Oh, I don’t know!”

  “You will have to ask Father.”

  “Oh, Sarah, you are stuffy!” she exclaimed. “Things are different now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Girls can do as they like. They can go about and have lots of fun and nobody minds.”

  Lottie seemed so irresponsible that I felt quite desperate. “What does Mrs. Meldrum say?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Meldrum thinks he’s sweet.”

  “Does she know anything about him?”

  “I don’t think so. You see there are so many of them – I mean so many officers – but she thinks he’s terribly sweet.”

  I tried to find out more about “Mac” but it was hopeless. She was like water slipping through my fingers; she just repeated what she had said before: Mac was sweet and thrilling and his home was in Elgin. At last she became annoyed with me and rose to go.

  “I wish I hadn’t told you!” she declared. “You’re so stuffy, Sarah. You don’t realise there’s a war on.”

  I didn’t realise there was a war on! It was so funny that I had to laugh.

  “What are you laughing at?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer; if I had begun to tell her what it was like to live in London with sirens wailing and bombs falling I wouldn’t have been able to stop – and I didn’t want to quarrel with Lottie – so I just kissed her good-bye and told her to be sensible.