by Rose Tremain
Once settled on her own, she felt suddenly alive and energetic. In London, her parents had used her, she always thought, much as they used things that happened to be at hand – a bell pull, a cushion, a snuff box. They gave her a kind of grudging attention, became irritated when she got in the way and never bothered to conceal their disappointment that she wasn’t more clever and more attractive than she was. But now, mistress of her own small sitting room, going out wherever and whenever she pleased, Mary Reader discovered in herself a desire to communicate with the people in whose midst she now lived, to establish herself in this new community. So she went to church, she joined the Women’s Institute, she became a member of the Fête Committee, she wrote a couple of poems for the parish magazine.
By the time war began, most people in Hentswell (which she learned to pronounce Ens’l as all its occupants did) knew her by sight or by hearsay and most of them thought her ‘odd’. Mrs Dart, on whom she was a regular caller, told her friends that Miss Reader never seemed to realize that ‘you’ve not got all day to waste, have you?’ but said that she thought her neighbourly, ‘which is more than you can say for some’. The vicar’s wife thought her ‘gifted’, the shopkeepers found her very polite, and the Misses Groves from across the road thought her cottage delightful. Up at the big house, Madge and the Colonel barely knew of her existence. Until the morning, a blustery November morning, that she pedalled up their drive on her bicycle and rang their doorbell.
It was one of the rare occasions that Madge and the Colonel breakfasted together. Madge was glancing at her Daily Mail and the Colonel was reading his Times. Sadler had served them and gone back to the kitchen where Vera was making him his third cup of tea of the morning.
‘Flamin’ front door,’ said Vera, cocking her head towards the passage. Sadler had taken off his jacket and Vera picked it up for him. ‘’Ere.’
He put it on, told Vera to keep his tea warm.
Sadler knew Miss Reader by sight. He’d seen her in the village and once in the Public Library in Norwich where he went once a week to change Madge’s book. But he was surprised to see her standing at the door. People seldom called on the Bassetts uninvited.
‘Good morning. You’re wondering what on earth I’ve come about, I expect!’
She talked, Sadler noticed, as if there were exclamation marks after everything she said.
‘I’m sorry to call early! I expect everyone’s having breakfast, aren’t they?’
‘May I say who it is?’
‘Oh yes. Mary Reader. Miss Reader!’
‘Yes?’ Sadler waited, as he had been taught, for her to state her business.
‘Well! Are they in? Colonel and Mrs Bassett? I’d like to see them both really. I’m a billeting officer.’
‘Will you come in?’
She was wearing an old blue Burberry. It might have been a uniform. And galoshes. It was a cold, rainy morning so she was wearing galoshes.
‘Oh your hall,’ she said as she stepped in, ‘what a wonderful floor! I should have come in the back door with my muddy boots. I must take them off. I’d hate to spoil your lovely floor!’
Sadler took them from her and showed her into the drawing room. Then he put the galoshes in the cloakroom to dry off and went and knocked at the dining room door.
‘Come in.’ The Colonel’s voice always sounded particularly gruff from behind The Times.
Sadler went in, opening the door almost noiselessly and shutting it noiselessly behind him.
‘Excuse me, Madam, there’s a Miss Reader at the door. She’d like a word with you both, at your convenience.’
‘Who the hell’s Miss Reader, Madge?’
‘I’ve no idea, Geoffrey.’
‘You must’ve. She must be one of your Bridge group.’
‘What does she want, Sadler?’
‘She’s our local billeting officer, Madam.’
‘Oh lord! Here it comes, then. You were quite right, Madge.’
‘Show her in here, Sadler, will you? Anyone who calls this early can watch us eating. And bring some more coffee for her.’
‘Very good, Madam.’
Sadler found Miss Reader examining the pictures in the drawing room.
‘I hope they don’t mind my looking. I’m a terrible one for nosing!’
‘Will you go into the dining room?’
‘The dining room? Oh yes, of course. I realized as I came up the drive. You’re much too early, I said, you’re bound to be disturbing their breakfast.’
‘Can I take your mackintosh?’
‘Oh yes, thank you. Thank you very much.’
She smiled at Sadler as she unbuttoned it, and he wondered why. Nervousness, no doubt, because her hands were shaking and she seemed to be very hot.
‘Follow me, will you?’
He showed her in, saw the Colonel get up, still holding his newspaper and Madge put down her Mail and take off her reading glasses.
‘Come in, come in,’ said the Colonel, ‘sit down, will you?’
Sadler shut the door quietly once again and went back to Vera.
‘What’s the matter with them?’ Vera said when he asked her for more coffee, ‘they been ’avin’ a piss up?’
Mary Reader sat down. She looked from Madge’s face to the Colonel’s, both observing her sternly, and felt faint-hearted. She knew that, once she had introduced herself, she’d have to come straight to the point. She would have liked to seize on something in the room, a picture or a bit of furniture – things she knew something about – and talk about it for a while, letting her body settle down, allowing herself time for the right words to come into her head. But they were waiting. They wanted her to say what she had to as quickly as she could, say it and be gone. She dreaded starting because she knew each bit of speech would be punctuated by this nervous laugh of hers that irritated everyone who heard it. She wished she had never learnt to laugh.
‘I’m one of the billeting officers for this district …’ she began.
‘I see,’ said Madge.
‘You’ve heard on the wireless, I expect – and in the papers – children are being sent out of London.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a nightmare for the authorities, as you can imagine!’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘It’s quite beyond me how they cope at all; trains and schedules, you know! And of course, so many of the children are unaccompanied.’
‘Well, I’d heard that, but I do find it hard to understand,’ said Madge. ‘I mean, you’d have thought – for young children – the mothers would go with them.’
‘Well, you see it’s impossible for many of them. I expect you’ve heard – on the wireless – it’s mostly children from the East End, the vulnerable industrial end and the docks, you know. And of course the mothers are working.’
‘Oh I see. Yes. Well, I suppose it is difficult for them.’
‘So that’s where I – we – come in. It’s our job to find homes for the ones who are being sent. The reason …’
‘Well, I know,’ interrupted Madge, ‘I mean, I imagine that’s why you’ve called, isn’t it? To ask us to take in a family? But I think I should explain that the Colonel and I have never had any children ourselves and so we don’t know anything at all about looking after them. Not the first thing, do we dear?’
The Colonel was embarrassed. He began digging into his hairy ear with his little finger.
‘No, no. I’m afraid we don’t.’
‘No, do forgive me,’ Miss Reader went on. ‘I didn’t want to sound as if I was ordering you. We never approach people like that. There’s nothing obligatory at all. It’s just that I believe everybody should be approached, you see. Everybody! I don’t want to sound naive, but I’d like to put it very simply …’
Miss Reader was recovering now and her determination began to return.
‘You see, it’s everybody’s war. That’s what I believe. And in the circumstances it seems only right that all the burdens
should be shared. It’s a very naive view, isn’t it? I mean of course we can’t all join the Expeditionary Force or become Florence Nightingales. Of course we can’t. But we can do something to help, all of us, can’t we?’
She paused, but the Colonel and Madge just looked at her in silence.
‘Quite a few people in Ens’l have helped us out,’ she went on, ‘in fact we’ve been amazed by people living in quite straitened circumstances themselves opening their doors – a woman with five of her own taking in two more, that kind of thing. And it just seemed only right to ask you … because there’s so much room here, isn’t there? I discussed it with my colleagues of course and they agreed that it was only fair to ask you, to give you the chance …’
‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ said Madge, ‘but as I explained, we … well, we don’t know about children, do we, Geoffrey? We’ve never had the experience, you see.’
‘No, no. Don’t misunderstand me. Of course, knowing your circumstances as I do now, I wouldn’t dream of burdening you, not with a young family – it simply wouldn’t be fair. But you know it’s often the older ones – only children, that sort of thing – that are the most difficult to place. Quite a few of the younger mothers will take on children the same age as their own, but it’s the older ones, the elevens, twelves and thirteens that are very hard to accommodate. Boys especially, though some are taken on by the farmers; unpaid labour, really! But most mothers choose girls. Less trouble, I suppose, and helpful in the house.’
Miss Reader waited once more for one of them to speak, but they still sat there watching her silently.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I won’t take up any more of your time! I would just say that I’d be very grateful if you’d give it some thought. Just think it over and talk about it and I’ll come and see you again, if I may. Next week? It’s a paradise here, isn’t it? A real paradise! You’d be giving a child such a marvellous experience, I’m sure …’
She got up. Madge smiled at her.
‘Won’t you have some coffee?’
‘Coffee? Oh no thank you. You will think about it, won’t you?’
‘Yes, we will,’ Madge said.
‘We’re expecting new arrivals next Thursday or Friday. We don’t know how many yet, but we do know that every home that is offered will be welcome.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘Well …’
‘Shall I ring for Sadler, Madge?’
‘Yes, Geoffrey. Good bye Miss … er …’
‘Reader. Yes. Miss Reader. Goodbye.’
They heard her talking to Sadler in the hall. They sat in silence looking at each other until they heard the front door close behind her. Madge sighed.
‘Oh dear, Geoffrey. Doesn’t it make your heart sink? Children. Spoiling the house, waking one up at night. We’re too old …’
‘We’ve no obligation, Madge.’
‘Yes, I know that’s what she said. But haven’t you seen that type before? They never give up.’
‘We needn’t let her in.’
‘Oh don’t be silly, Geoffrey. One can’t do that. Anyway, maybe she’s right, it is everybody’s war.’
The next morning, Madge woke feeling very tired. She’d lain awake until it was light, wondering what it might do to her, a noisy, clumsy, probably dirty child, someone else’s child in her home, looking to her for care, even for love. I’ve none to give, she thought. No love, none at all. She resented being asked for it, always had done, except by Geoffrey and his demands were so very reasonable. She believed a child in her house would bring her intense unhappiness, make her tired and old and sour with hatred and guilt. And yet she had thought, lying there, one minute hot, the next cold all through the night, she had thought what a selfish thing I’ve become. To the women who are sending husbands or sons to die, what a small favour this would seem. A home for one homeless child. Nothing more. Just a home. And not even money to worry about. All the money I want. Thousands and thousands of pounds.
It was a relief when morning came and the shapes in her room began to swim out of the darkness and the birds in her garden started their chirping. The familiarity of her room and the precious knowledge that her garden still separated her from the shifting world outside lulled her and she slept. But on waking an hour or two later, the first thing she thought about was the child. Why me? she asked herself. There must be so many women like me who have been left alone. Why did they come to trouble me?
Madge sat up and brushed her hair. Her eyes smarted and the lids were puffy from lack of sleep. ‘Ugly old woman,’ she said to her face in the mirror held up to it. But with a bit of rouge on, from the little flat pot she kept on the bedside table, she felt better and rang the bell for Sadler.
He arrived almost at once, setting her tray down carefully on the bed and crossing to the windows to draw the curtains.
‘Before you go, Sadler,’ Madge said on impulse, ‘I’d like to tell you about something that happened yesterday. I’d like to know what you think about it.’
‘Yes, Madam?’
‘You remember that-woman who called while we were having breakfast? You spoke to her, didn’t you?’
‘She … informed me what she’d come about.’
‘What do you think, Sadler? I mean, do you think we should?’
Sadler was surprised by her question. He hadn’t known her long, but on more than one occasion he’d heard her say she felt uncomfortable – that was the word she’d used – uncomfortable with children. That she was still in doubt about her answer was odd. Even Miss Reader hadn’t been hopeful. ‘If you could only persuade them,’ she’d said to him, ‘it’s such a paradise here. You couldn’t give any child a more precious gift.’
Sadler had believed the matter closed and wondered only what they would do if the Government’s plea became an order.
‘It’s so difficult, you see,’ Madge went on, ‘to know what’s expected of one at a time like this. Don’t you agree?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘But you don’t think that at all really, do you? Of course you don’t. You think the Colonel and I should agree to take in a child, don’t you?’
Sadler was about to lie, but she cut him off.
‘And of course you’re right. I know you’re right. Why shouldn’t we share our home? Give someone’s boy or girl some nice memories. But would they be nice, Sadler? You see, we’ve never been close to any children, the Colonel and I. We’ve never had to handle them. We don’t understand children, only insofar as we were children once – I think. But it’s not enough, is it? I mean, the countless things one has to think up just to amuse them. All that, day after day … and we’re getting on, you know … we really are …’
She was quite distressed. Sadler waited a second or two before he spoke.
‘If you like,’ he said quietly, ‘if you thought it was my place, I could take responsibility. There were kiddies at my last job, the one in Scarborough. They were left on their own a lot and they used to come to me for games, to have a laugh. I learnt a lot about kiddies there.’
Madge frowned.
‘Really, Sadler? Did you? Could you, I mean?’
‘I’d be glad to try.’
And now she smiled. Because that might be different. That might alter the whole thing and make it bearable. If the child stayed in the servants’ hall, had its meals there, the kind of meals it’d be used to, she’d be glad to spend some of her time with it, take it shopping or for walks round the garden. Her conscience would be clear because she’d be paying for it all, and who knew if, under these conditions, she might not come to like the child.
‘It seems an awful lot to ask of you, Sadler.’
‘No. I’d be glad.’
‘We’d be on hand, of course, if anything went wrong.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And money, naturally. We’d see you had everything that was needed.’
‘Oh I doubt one extra would cost a lot.’
‘But extra for you, of course, if
you’re going to do two jobs …’
Sadler had saved her. When she’d finished her breakfast and the tray had been taken away, she turned her head from the light and slept an untroubled sleep till lunchtime.
The big house with its tended garden, its woods and its orchard, had stayed in Miss Reader’s mind as she looked out on Mrs Dart’s patch of scuffed grass. It stayed with her as she went round Hentswell from door to door and saw the cramped rooms where many of the new ‘vacuees’ would live. And by the end of the week, her determination had grown: she would place a child in the Colonel’s care or count herself a failure in the job she had taken on.
She was surprised to be greeted with a smile when she turned up at the house. Madge herself came out into the porch as she arrived and led her into the drawing room, where a fire was blazing.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come back, Miss …’
‘Reader.’
‘Miss Reader. You see, we did need time to think this over. I imagine everyone does, don’t they? But I didn’t want you to get the impression that we were set against it. I feel I must have given you that impression, didn’t I, when we last met? But as I explained to you, I – we’ve – never had children of our own, and coming out of the blue like that … But we’ve had time now to think it over and we do feel that you were quite right, it is everybody’s war and I wouldn’t like anyone to accuse us of not doing our bit. The only thing that I’ve been wondering about is the procedure – you know. I mean, does one simply sit here and wait for one or does one go and … choose one?’
Miss Reader told Madge to go down to the Reception Centre in the church hall early on Friday morning. The evacuee train was due in at nine and it was a question of first come first served, rather along the lines of a livestock auction, except that you didn’t pay – the Government paid you, eight and six a week for a girl and ten shillings for a boy. The children would be wearing labels with their names and addresses on; it was just a question of picking the one you wanted.