The Diary of a Provincial Lady

by E M Delafield

  Mrs Vallence is in the kitchen on my return and instantly informs me that she isn’t going to say a word. Not a single word. But it’ll take her all her time, and a bit over, just to get things cleaned up.

  I give a fresh turn to the conversation by suggesting that I am anxious to learn as much as I can in the way of cooking, and should be glad of anything that Mrs Vallence can teach me, and we come to an amicable agreement regarding my presence in the kitchen at stated hours of the day.

  Indulge in long and quite unprofitable fantasy of myself preparing and cooking very superior meals for (equally superior) succession of Paying Guests, at the end of the war. Just as I have achieved a really remarkable dinner of which the principal features are lobster à l’Américaine and grapes in spun sugar, Winnie comes in to say that the grocer has called for orders please’m and Mrs Vallence says to say that we’re all right except for a packet of cornflour and half-a-dozen of eggs for the cakes if that’ll be all right.

  I give my sanction to the packet of cornflour and half-dozen of eggs and remind myself that there is indeed a wide difference between fact and fancy.

  This borne in on me even more sharply at a later hour when Mrs Vallence informs me that gardener has sent in two lovely rabbits and they’ll come in handy for to-morrow’s lunch and give me an opportunity of seeing how they ought to be got ready, which is a thing many ladies never have any idea of whatever.

  Do not care to reply that I should be more than content to remain with the majority in this respect.

  October 21st. – Aunt Blanche tells me very seriously to have nothing to do with rabbits. Breakfast scones if I like, mayonnaise sauce and an occasional sweet if I really feel I must, but not rabbits. They can, and should, be left to professional cooks.

  Could say a great deal in reply, to the effect that professional cooks are anything but numerous and that those there are will very shortly be beyond my means – but remember in time that argument with the elderly, more especially when a relative, is of little avail and go to the kitchen without further discussion.

  Quite soon afterwards am wishing from the bottom of my heart that I had taken Aunt Blanche’s advice.

  This gives place, after gory and unpleasant interlude, to rather more self-respecting frame of mind, and Mrs V. tells me approvingly that I have now done The Worst Job in all Cooking.

  Am thankful to hear it.

  Rabbit-stew a success, but make my own lunch of scrambled eggs.

  October 24th. – Obliged to ring up Cook’s uncle’s neighbour and ask him to convey a message to the effect that petrol will be insufficient to enable me to go and meet her either at station or bus stop. Can the uncle convey her to the door, or must conveyance be hired?

  Aunt Blanche says that Robert has plenty of ARP petrol, she supposes, but Robert frowns severely on this, and says with austerity that he hasn’t plenty at all – only just enough to enable him to perform his duties.

  Aunt Blanche inclined to be hurt at Robert’s tone of voice and, quite unjustly, becomes hurt with me as well, and when I protest says that she doesn’t know what I mean, there’s nothing the matter at all, and she’s not the kind of person to take offence at nothing, and never has been. I ought to know her better than that, after all these years.

  Assure her in return that of course I do, but this not a success either and I go off to discuss Irish stew and boiled apple pudding with Mrs Vallence in kitchen, leaving Aunt Blanche looking injured over the laundry book. She is no better when I return, and tells me that practically not a single table-napkin is fit to be seen and most of them are One Large Darn.

  Receive distinct impression that Aunt Blanche feels that I am solely to blame for this, and cannot altogether escape uneasy feeling that perhaps I am.

  (Query: Why? Is not this distressing example of suggestibility amounting to weak-mindedness? Answer: Do not care to contemplate it.)

  Can see that it will be useless to ask Aunt Blanche if she would like to accompany me to village, and accordingly go there without her but with Marigold dashing ahead on Fairy bicycle and Margery pedalling very slowly on minute tricycle.

  Expedition fraught with difficulty owing to anxiety about Marigold, always just ahead of me whisking round corners from which I feel certain that farm lorry is about to appear, and necessity of keeping an eye on Margery, continually dropping behind and evidently in utmost distress every time the lane slopes either up or down.

  Suggestion that she might like to push tricycle for a bit only meets with head-shakes accompanied by heavy breathing.

  Am relieved and astonished when village is achieved without calamity and bicycle and tricycle are left outside Post Office whilst M. and M. watch large, mottled-looking horse being shod at the forge.

  Mrs S. at the Post Office – having evidently been glued to the window before recalled to the counter – observes that they look just like Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, don’t they?

  Can see no resemblance whatever, but reply amiably and untruthfully that perhaps they do, a little.

  Long and enthralling conversation ensues, in the course of which I learn that Our Vicar’s Wife has Got Help at last – which sounds spiritual, but really means that she has found A Girl from neighbouring parish who isn’t, according to Mrs S., not anyways what you’d call trained, but is thought not to mind being told. We agree that this is better than nothing, and Mrs S. adds darkly that we shall be seeing a bit of a change in the Girls, unless she’s very much mistaken, with the gentry shutting up their houses all over the place, like, and there’s many Girls will find out that they didn’t know which way their bread was buttered, before so very long.

  I point out in return that nobody’s bread is likely to be buttered at all, once rationing begins, and Mrs S. appears delighted with this witticism and laughs heartily. She adds encouragingly that Marge is now a very different thing from what it was in the last war.

  Hope with all my heart that she may be right.

  A three-shilling book of stamps, then says Mrs S. – making no effort to produce it – and can I tell her what Russia is going to do?

  No, not definitely at the moment.

  Well, says Mrs S., Hitler, if he’d asked her, wouldn’t never have got himself into this mess. For it is a mess, and if he doesn’t know it now, he soon will.

  Can see that if Mrs S. and I are to cover the whole range of European politics it will take most of the day, and again recall her to my requirements.

  We discuss the Women’s Institute – speakers very difficult to get, and Mrs S. utterly scouts my suggestion that members should try and entertain one another, asserting that none of our members would care to put themselves forward, she’s quite sure, and there’d only be remarks passed if they did – and rumour to the effect that a neighbouring Village Hall has been Taken Away from the WI by the ARP. The WI has pleaded to be allowed to hold its Monthly Meetings there and has finally been told that it may do so, on the sole condition that in the event of an air-raid alarm the members will instantly all vacate the Hall and go out into the street.

  It is not known whether conditions have been agreed to or not, but Mrs S. would like to know if I can tell her, once and for all, whether we are to expect any air-raids or not, and if so, will they be likely to come over the Village?

  Can only say to this that I Hope Not, and again ask for stamps which Mrs S. produces from a drawer, and tells me that she’s sorry for Finland and is afraid they’re in for trouble and that’ll be three shillings.

  Horse at the forge still being shod, and evacuees Marigold and Margery still rooted to the ground looking at it. Am about to join them when smart blow on the shoulder causes me to turn round, very angry, and confront Miss Pankerton.

  Miss P. is in khaki – cannot imagine any colour less suited to her – and looks very martial indeed except for pince-nez, quite out-of-place but no doubt inevitable.

  She has come to meet her six young toughs, she says, now due out of school. Regular East End scall
ywags, they are, but Miss P. has made them toe the line and has no trouble with them now. I shall see in a few minutes.

  And what, asks Miss P., am I doing? A woman of my intelligence ought to be at the very heart of things at a time like this.

  Fleeting, but extraordinarily powerful, feeling comes over me that I have often thought this myself, but that this does not in any way interfere with instant desire to contradict Miss P. flatly.

  Compromise – as usual – by telling her that I am not really doing very much, I have two very nice evacuated children and their nurse in the house and am a good deal in London, where I work at a Canteen.

  But, replies Miss P. – in voice that cannot fail to reach Mrs S. again at Post Office window, which she has now opened – but this is pure Nonsense. I ought to be doing something of real importance. One of the very first things she thought of, when war broke out, was me. Now, she said to herself, that unfortunate woman will have her chance at last. She can stop frittering her time and her talents away, and Find Herself at last. It is not, whatever I may say, too late.

  Can only gaze at Miss Pankerton with horror, but she quite misunderstands the look and begs me, most energetically, to pull myself together at once. Whitehall is Crying Out for executives.

  I inform Miss P. that if so, cries have entirely failed to reach me, or anybody else that I’ve met. On the contrary, everybody is asking to be given a job and nobody is getting one.

  I have, says Miss P., gone to the wrong people.

  No, I reply, I haven’t.

  Deadlock has evidently been reached and Miss P. and I glare at one another in the middle of the street, no doubt affording interesting material for conjecture to large number of our neighbours.

  Situation is relieved by general influx of children coming out of school. Miss P.’s toughs materialise and turn out to be six pallid and undersized little boys, all apparently well under nine years old.

  Am rather relieved to see that they look cheerful, and not as though bullied by Miss P., who presently marshals them all into a procession and walks off with them.

  Parting observation to me is a suggestion that I ought to join the WAA CS and that Miss P. could probably arrange it for me, at which I thank her coldly and say I shouldn’t think of such a thing. Miss P. – quite undaunted – calls back over her shoulder that perhaps I’m right, it isn’t altogether in my line, and I’d better go to the Ministry of Information, they’ve got a scheme for making use of the Intellectuals.

  Should like to yell back in reply that I am not an Intellectual and don’t wish to be thought one – but this proceeding undignified and moreover only very powerful screech indeed could reach Miss Pankerton, now half-way up the hill, with toughs capering along beside her looking like so many white mice.

  Turn to collect Marigold and Margery – both have disappeared and are subsequently retrieved from perfectly harmless-seeming lane from which they have mysteriously collected tar all over their shoes.

  Make every effort to remove this with handfuls of grass – have no expectations of succeeding, nor do I – and say It’s lucky it didn’t get onto their coats, and proceed homewards. Find tar on both coats on arriving, also on Marigold’s jumper and Margery’s socks.

  Apologise to Doreen Fitzgerald, tell her I’m afraid she may find it rather difficult to remove, and she answers bitterly Certainly I will, and I feel that relations between us have not been improved.

  Situation with regard to Aunt Blanche is fortunately easier and at lunch we talk quite pleasantly about Serena – whom Aunt Blanche still refers to as Serena Fiddlededee – and National Registration Cards.

  Do I know, enquires Aunt Blanche, that if one loses one’s Identity Card, one is issued with a bright scarlet one?

  Like the Scarlet Woman? I ask.

  Yes, exactly like that, or else the Scarlet Letter – Aunt Blanche isn’t sure which, or whether both are the same, but anyway it’s a scarlet card, and even if lost Identity Card reappears, the scarlet one cannot be replaced, but remains for ever.

  Can only reply, after a long silence, that it sounds perfectly terrible, and Aunt Blanche says Oh yes, it is.

  Conversation only revives when infant Margery abruptly informs us that she made two of the beds unaided this morning.

  Commend her highly for this and she looks gratified, but have inward misgiving that her parents, if they hear of her domestic activities, may think that I have made her into a household drudge.

  Offer her and Marigold the use of gramophone and all the records for the whole afternoon.

  Aunt Blanche, later, tells me that she does not think this was at all a good idea.

  Second post brings me letter from Serena. I am much missed at the Canteen, and Mrs Peacock has said that mine is a bright face, and she hopes soon to see it back again. (Serena, to this, adds three exclamation marks – whether denoting admiration or astonishment, am by no means certain. Do not, in any case, care for Mrs P.’s choice of descriptive adjective.)

  The underworld, Serena informs me, is a seething mass of intrigue and Darling and the Commandant have made up their quarrel and are never out of one another’s pockets for a single instant, but on the other hand Mrs Nettleship (First Aid) and Miss Carloe-Hill (Ambulance Driver) have had the most tremendous row and are not speaking to one another, and everybody is taking sides and threatening to resign as a protest.

  Serena herself hasn’t slept for nights and nights because there’s been a ping-pong craze and people play it all night long, just outside the Rest-room, and J. L. has taken her out to dinner and to a dreadful film, all full of Nazi atrocities, and this has ensured still further wakefulness.

  Serena ends by begging me in most affectionate terms to come back, as she misses me dreadfully, and it’s all awful. Have I read a book called The Confidential Agent? It’s fearfully good, but dreadfully upsetting, and perhaps I’d better not.

  (If The Confidential Agent had not been on my library list already – which it is – should instantly have put it there.)

  Am asked by Aunt Blanche, rather apologetically, if that is a letter from Serena Fiddlededee? She didn’t, needless to say, look at the envelope, nor has she, of course, the slightest wish to know anything about my private correspondence – but she couldn’t help seeing that I had a letter from Serena.

  Have too often said exactly the same thing myself to entertain slightest doubts as to Aunt Blanche’s veracity, and offer to show her Serena’s letter at once as there is nothing private about it.

  No, no, she didn’t mean that, Aunt Blanche assures me – at the same time putting on her spectacles with one hand and taking the letter with the other. When she comes to J. L. Aunt Blanche emits rather inarticulate exclamation and at once enquires if I don’t think it would be a very good thing?

  Well, no, on the whole I don’t. It doesn’t seem to me that Serena cares two straws about him.

  Aunt Blanche moans, and says it seems a very great pity, then cheers up again and declares that when J. L. gets into uniform and is sent out to fight, it will probably make all the difference, and Serena will find out that she does care about him, and one can only hope it won’t then be too late.

  Perceive that Aunt Blanche and I hold fundamentally divergent views on what does or does not constitute a successful love-affair, and abandon the topic.

  Evening closes in with return of Cook, who looks restored and tells me that she enjoyed her holiday and spent most of it in helping her uncle’s second wife to make marrow jam.

  Enquire of Robert whether he thinks he can spare me if I return to London on Thursday.

  He replies that he supposes he can, and asks what I think I shall do, up there?

  Write articles about London in War-Time, I suggest, and help at WVS Canteen. Should like to add, Get Important job at Ministry of Information – but recollections of Miss Pankerton forbid.

  Robert seems unenthusiastic, but agrees that he is not likely to be much at home and that Aunt Blanche can manage the house all ri
ght. He incomprehensibly adds: Who is this Birdie that she is always talking about?

  Can only enquire in return: What birdie?

  Some name of that kind, Robert says. And a double-barrelled surname. Not unlike Gammon-and-Spinach, and yet not quite that. Instantly recognise old Granny Bo-peep and suggest that he means Pussy Winter-Gammon, to which Robert replies Yes, that’s what he said, isn’t it?

  Explain old Mrs W.-G. to him in full and Robert, after a long silence, remarks that it sounds to him as though what she needed was the lethal chamber.

  October 26th. – Robert leaves me at the station on his way to ARP office, with parting information that he thinks – he is not certain at all but he thinks – that the gas-masks for the inhabitants of Mandeville Fitzwarren are now available for distribution.

  Train comes in late, and is very crowded. Take up commanding position at extreme edge of platform and decide to remain there firmly and on no account join travellers hurrying madly from one end of train to the other. Am obliged to revise entire scheme of action when I find myself opposite coach consisting entirely of first-class carriages. Third-class, by the time I reach it, completely filled by other people and their luggage. Get in as best I can and am looked at with resentment amounting to hatred by four strangers comfortably installed in corner seats.

  Retire at once behind illustrated daily paper and absorb stream of Inside Information from column which I now regard as being practically omniscient. Can only suppose that its special correspondent spends his days and nights concealed in, alternately, Hitler’s waste-paper basket and Stalin’s ink-pot.

  Realise too late that I have placed bag in rack, sandwiched amongst much other luggage, and that it contains library book on which I am relying to pass the journey.

  Shall be more unpopular than ever if I now get up and try to disentangle bag.

  Postpone things as long as possible by reading illustrated paper all over again, and also printed notice – inconsiderately pasted over looking-glass – telling me how I am to conduct myself in the event of an air-raid.