‘Marjorie!’ said Miss Ranskill, ‘Marjorie.’
But her old school-friend addressed Miss Jebb.
‘They’ve been pinching the sand again. How are we to win the war if people keep on pinching the ARP sand for their canary cages?’
‘Do you think they’re Fifth Columnists?’ Miss Jebb raised a face so anxious and birdlike that Miss Ranskill thought of a sparrow in a halo.
‘Everyone who gives ARP sand to canaries is a Fifth Columnist in a way.’
‘Marjorie!’ Miss Ranskill raised her voice determinedly, for she had not come to England to listen to chat about sparrows or references to the fifth of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, if they were what Marjorie was talking about. ‘Don’t you remember me?’
Marjorie furrowed her forehead and looked her old friend up and down.
‘Are you the new salvage person?’ she asked, and not without reason, so Miss Jebb’s tremulous smile informed the visitor.
‘I’m Nona Ranskill. St Catherine’s, you know. I rang up this morning and your husband –’
A crashing slap on the shoulder-blades jerked the sentence to an end.
‘Nona, old thing! Of course, I remember. Harry (just like him) said a Miss Ransome had rung up. Of course I thought it was Kathleen Ransome – that ghastly girl with a sniff. I say, though, you’re looking a bit under the weather or something. And what are you doing with all those tools?’
‘I –’
‘Miss Jebb, Miss Sprink, this is Miss Ranskill, a very old friend of mine. We used to have great times together. She never had a bungie (did you, Nona?), she always borrowed mine. She was a whale at borrowing bungies. I’ll bet you haven’t got one now, have you, Nona?’
‘I –’
‘Well, I’ll see you tonight, Miss Sprink, and you too, Miss Jebb. Don’t be late, will you. I do want our unit to set a good example to all the other fire-watchers.’
Miss Ranskill regarded her spirit-level. Whoever might have stolen the thunder had not left even a rumble for her.
She had travelled a very long way indeed to be introduced as a person who was famous for losing india-rubbers.
Miss Jebb and Miss Sprink made a clattering departure and Miss Jebb added sloppiness to hers because she had not emptied her bucket.
‘I say, don’t you go yet, Nona. I haven’t got long, but we can have a jaw while I’m changing. Come on, I’ll have to look slippy or I’ll be late for camouflage nets.’
Marjorie coiled the serpentine trail of the stirrup-pump round her left arm and led the way into the hall.
The slattern appeared in a doorway. Her trouble-making face had a triumphant expression as she declared there was not a bit of fish in the town and that every slab was as bare as her arm.
‘So I’ll have to open a tin for tonight,’ she concluded.
‘No, we must keep those in case of invasion. Aren’t there some sausages left?’
‘One or two, that’s all.’
‘Well, what about toad-in-the-hole, then? You could make the batter with the rest of that tin of Woolton eggs.’
‘There’s scarcely a drop of milk left.’
‘You can use some of the household milk then. Though we like batter mixed with water: it’s so much lighter.’
A sniff answered Marjorie and she charged upstairs followed by Miss Ranskill.
‘You haven’t asked after the children yet,’ she reproached as she opened a door on the upper landing.
‘I –’
The ringing of a telephone on a bedside table interrupted, and Miss Ranskill flopped down on to a chair as her friend picked up the receiver.
The bedroom, except that it was larger, looked very much like Marjorie’s cubicle at St Catherine’s. A row of books on a shelf by the window spoke volumes, almost literally.
Miss Ranskill recognised a toffee-stain on the back of a volume of The Road Mender, now wedged between St John Handbook and Hygiene in the Home. P C Wren and Ian Hay were well represented, so were Beatrix Potter and the Baroness Orczy. Puck of Pook’s Hill was there, and the selected poems of Rudyard Kipling stood cover to cover beside two books by Robert Service. A book on anti-gas protection, another on rationed meals, and a third entitled Communal Cookery were strangers to Miss Ranskill.
She turned to look at the walls which were ornamented with slogans. Jump to it startled from the head of the bed. The injunction CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES stood in a frame by the telephone. don’t give a light to hitler was pokerworked into a panel by the window. be a sport and spare the soap glaring in red paint on white oilcloth above the wash-basin was rather baffling, for Marjorie had been a particularly clean schoolgirl.
Other maxims were more familiar. Miss Ranskill knew all about deaf, blind and dumb monkeys, and about the expectations of lame dogs, though surely these would prefer to go under stiles and take their own time about it.
Marjorie was talking into the telephone. Her gold-rimmed glasses added seriousness to her face. Her mouth was still a little rabbity, though in quite an attractive way, and her chin was still obstinate.
‘Well, this time I’m going to report it. I’ve warned them three times now. They’ll jolly well have to get new curtains. I’m not going to have the whole country endangered every time Miss Jackson has a bath. If you ask me, she has far too many baths: it’s not playing the game. I’ve a jolly good mind to report her to the fuel people too. There’s no need for all these baths in the summer. I only have three inches of water once a week.’
Miss Ranskill glanced again at the slogan above the washstand, and felt more shocked than puzzled.
‘Goodbye.’ Marjorie plumped the receiver into its cradle.
‘Now then, Nona, tell me all about yourself. Goodness! you are Spartan not to wear shoes even. I never wear stockings till November except when in uniform, of course, but I do wear shoes. Crumbs! I forgot to ring the butcher. Half a sec, Nona.’
She picked up the receiver again and dialled.
‘That you, Mr White? This is Mrs Mallison speaking… . Yes, from Hillrise. I say, have you got any offal to spare because I’ll be having a visitor, and I simply must keep the joint for the end of the week. Absolutely anything would do – faggots or a bullock’s heart, or – Right, I’ll hang on –’
Relief that she was expected to stay was slightly marred for Miss Ranskill by the assumption that anything ‘would do’. It wasn’t as though Marjorie’s bedroom looked poor, even though the old familiar things were cherished.
‘Yes, sausage meat would do splendidly, thanks most awfully… . What? … Well, I’ll try to dig out a few newspapers for you, but you know we are trying to hit the target with our salvage drive… . Why don’t you try to make all your customers use old sponge-bags or beach bags like I do? … Yes, I know they are. Well, I wish you were allowed to sell horse-flesh. It’s quite time we did eat it… . Yes, but I expect it’s jolly good. After all, they’re nice clean feeders. Goodbye, Mr White.’
Down went the receiver again, and Marjorie began to pull off a tunic that had the letters C D embroidered on it in yellow.
‘I know it’s rotten to grumble and one ought to be jolly thankful to have anything to eat, but I do hate all the waste of time. Don’t you find housekeeping jolly difficult?’
‘Well –’
Marjorie tugged off her trousers. She was wearing navy blue knickers underneath. Of course she was, she had always worn navy blue knickers at school.
‘If only one could get more fish.’
‘I’ve had enough fish to last me all my life.’
‘Lucky thing!’
Marjorie began to trace the smooth outline of her head with a whalebone brush. There was no grey in the short golden-streaked crop. Standing there, in knickers and white cotton vest, she looked scarcely older than the sixth form prefect.
‘Well now, tell me all about yourself, old thing. Where are you staying?’
‘Here,’ replied Miss Ranskill’s mind. ‘Here, surely, or why did you order offal for a vis
itor?’
There was no need of actual answer for Marjorie ran on:
‘What job are you in? Gosh, if I weren’t married I’d have faked my age and been in one of the Forces ages ago. Still, I do what I can, and I’ve given a son and daughter to the country –’
The last remark was made as casually as though she had said, ‘I’m not sending many cards this Christmas, but I’ve given the twins to Aunt Hilda.’
‘Harry is worked to death, poor darling: he has the hospital now as well as his ordinary practice, and that’s nearly doubled. Well, tell me all about yourself. You look as though you were in a pretty strenuous job. How long have you been here and why didn’t you look us up before, you silly old chump?’
‘Because I only arrived today. I came in the convoy that reached here this morning.’
Nona Ranskill had hoped the statement would make some impression, but she hardly expected it to be quite so effective.
Marjorie stopped scratching her scalp with whalebone.
‘I say, old thing, that’s most frightfully dangerous, even to me.’
‘Not so very – we weren’t torpedoed or anything – it wasn’t nearly so dangerous as all the time before.’
‘Even to me!’ repeated Marjorie, making her friend wonder what worse adventures than a four-years’ marooning, a death, burial, and a voyage in a home-built boat could have left that forehead so unlined and those cheeks so smooth and pink. Was Marjorie also in the habit of finding the severed heads of acquaintances lying about in gutters?
‘I expect,’ she remarked flatly, ‘I expect you’ve done much worse things than that.’
‘Never! Never when men’s lives depend on it. I’m an absolute oyster. You ought to know that, Nona. I never blabbed at school, did I?’
‘But I only said –’
‘Shut up! I’m sorry, old thing, but really you must know that we never mention convoys.’ The last word came almost as a whisper. ‘Of course, this time it doesn’t matter.’ (But it will be an order mark next time!) ‘And nothing you say to me will go any further.’ (You can imitate Miss Baynes or the Head to me, but not before the kids: that’s awfully bad form, Nona.) ‘Gosh, if I passed on everything I know, I don’t know where we’d be. The way people talk. Personally, I just won’t listen to it.’
‘No you won’t!’ whispered a little demon in Miss Ranskill’s brain.
‘As a matter of fact I did happen to know about this morning’s convoy.’
‘I simply don’t know what you’re talking about,’ interrupted Miss Ranskill despairingly. ‘I’m sorry, but –’
‘Just like you to shut the stable door after the cat’s out of the bag. Don’t you remember at school – Gosh! I mustn’t stand here gossiping or they’ll all be screaming for me downstairs.’
Marjorie went to a wardrobe, snatched a grey skirt from its hanger, pulled open a drawer and dragged at a white sweater.
‘I’m sorry to be snappy, my dear, but I’ve got into the habit now of squashing careless talk. It makes people so jittery. I do think the main danger’s over, but if we should have any little bother in the way of an invasion scare, it will be my job to stop panic.’
Marjorie waved the sweater as though it symbolised the Union Jack. ‘How I’m going to do it and fire-watch and run the paper salvage, I just don’t know.’
Her head disappeared for a moment or two, and then reappeared through the neck of her jumper.
‘Honestly, Nona, you mustn’t think another thing about it. It absolutely was my fault for asking, because obviously if you go out in convoys you must be doing some terribly hush-hush job, and I oughtn’t to have asked. I don’t generally ask asinine questions. You do believe that, don’t you, Nona?’
Miss Ranskill opened her mouth to answer, but she might just as well have saved her facial muscles.
‘I say, it must be frightfully exciting for you going out in convoys, absolutely thrilling. No, I’m not asking questions. Don’t tell me a word. Shut me up at once if I seem to be inquisitive. I suppose that accounts for the queer sort of rig you’re wearing. I do think it’s bad luck that so many people who’re doing really vital jobs aren’t allowed uniforms, don’t you?’
‘Well, really I don’t know.’ By this time Miss Ranskill felt that she knew nothing about anything – not even the job of a sexton.
‘I say, you will stay to tea, won’t you?’ Marjorie patted her skirt. ‘Or have you got to go back on duty?’
‘No, I could stay. As a matter of fact, I –’
‘That’s splendid. I’ve got to fly now and get them started on the nets. We have tea at five. Tell you what, if you want to wash or anything, don’t bother to come down till then. We only have a bun and a cup of tea. After they’ve gone I ought to have half an hour to spare. We’ll have a good old talk then.’
‘I’d been wondering –’
‘My dear, I must fly. Make yourself at home. There’s an old school mag on the table by my bed. You’ll find lots of news in that. Good old June Mathers has got the GM and Buntie’s on radio-location. I must go.’
‘Could I,’ for an idea was slowly rising in Miss Ranskill’s brain above all the clutter thrown there by Marjorie, ‘could I use the telephone?’
‘Use the kitchen stove if you like.’
The voice came from outside the door and then a series of clumps remarked on Marjorie’s descent downstairs.
II
A great wish to see her sister at once had suddenly possessed Nona Ranskill. She must see someone recognisable, someone through whose eyes she could learn to observe this new world, someone who could explain without being shocked by ignorance. Edith was tiresome and quite as conventional as Marjorie, but, at least, she had never suffered by her development being arrested midway through the last term in the sixth form. Miss Ranskill herself must begin at the beginning again and learn slowly. It was rather odd that she, who had always had an enquiring mind, should have waited until she was nearly forty-four to be sorry for the Sleeping Beauty. The kiss must have been a startler to even the most complacent of princesses.
‘Sleeping Beauty!’ thought Miss Ranskill grimly as she passed the mirror on her way to the telephone.
She asked for the old number in the Hampshire village. It was queer to hear it spoken again, and odd she should remember it so clearly.
How surprised Edith would be! Would she be pleased? What had Swinburne said, something about thanking ‘whatever gods there be, that no man lives forever, that dead men rise up never, that –’
‘There is up to half an hour’s delay to Lynchurch. You will be r-rung later.’
And then would there be another delay? Would Edith be out exercising Whuppet, the spaniel? Memory of those flying ears and fluffily-fringed paws roused a surge of home-sickness. Miss Ranskill was still holding the receiver, and she put it down grudgingly; for its length seemed just a dog’s lead distance to the village so far along the coast.
But even here, she looked affectionately round Marjorie’s bedroom, there was a linking homeliness.
There was the school badge with its legend Honour before Honours black against the buff of a paper magazine.
She began to turn over the pages. It was all much as it had always been. There were accounts of house-matches and exam-honours. There was an anæmic smug little poem written by ‘Joan Burgess. Upper IVb.’ This was a small world she knew, a plain stodgy safe world full of ink and blotting-paper, thick bread and butter, and stout shoes; interrupted by only an occasional stir of the heart as when a peacock butterfly brought its quivering beauty to interrupt a maths lesson, a rainbow arched over the playing-field, or a lecturer brought the tang of wine-dark seas and a riot of lovely names into the hall.
No, it was not quite the same as it had been. A few bleak little notices were sandwiched between items of school news.
owing to the petrol shortage there were no outside matches last term.
miss cummins has gone to work in a munitions factory. her place next term
will be taken by miss bray.
Then, from the report by the head mistress:
Owing to our amalgamation with St Cyprian’s School when it was evacuated from the East Coast, the sixth form sitting-room had to be given up last term, and the small recreation room was turned into a dormitory… . Girls of both schools are pulling together fairly well, but there is still need for greater co-operation in the lower forms… . Less fuel was used during the term, but there is still need for great care. It has been decided that on really cold days, there shall be two ten-minute breaks during the mornings for physical drill or skipping exercises… . The Black-out Monitors are to be congratulated on their vigilance… . The Salvage Monitors are reminded to keep a keener eye on all waste next term… . All girls whose birthdays fall on or after June 10th will register during the holidays… . Parents are reminded that the Bursar still has a certain number of second-hand tunics and shirts in her store: these may be purchased coupon-free… . There was a gas-mask parade and inspection at mid-term: some of the Juniors’ masks showed signs of rough handling… . Ration books must be handed in with the health certificates on the first day of term, and every girl must surrender her Personal Points book at the same time… . ARP practices are to be more frequent in future… . Some of the older girls are learning to cut Braille. Soon they hope to send some booklets to one of the Children’s Homes for the Civilian Blind… .
No, certainly, it was not the same. Miss Ranskill remembered her terms at school during the last war, and the excitement of that day in the summer holidays when war was declared and was no longer a thing to be read of in history books but a glory to be lived through – a thin red line rioting across Belgium. A dullness had followed: there had been knitting parties but the balaclavas and scarves had been more fun to make than flannel petticoats. The brothers of two or three girls had been killed and their names emblazoned on a Roll of Honour in the school chapel.
She remembered Marjorie’s comment:
‘It’s lucky we’ll have left before they can make new history books. Gosh! fancy having to swot up all the dates of this war as well. I’m going to write and beg Mummy to let me give up German. I’m going to say I think it’s absolutely disloyal to learn a word of it. We’ll never speak it after this. Why, there won’t be any Germans left.’
Miss Ranskill Comes Home Page 9