“You’ll find it terribly hard work, you know.”
“Oh, it’s not the work, madam. It’s the Birmingham women. The way they leave their rooms.”
“It’s all very strange for them at first. We must do all we can to help. As soon as they settle down and get used to our ways…” But she saw it was hopeless while she spoke.
“They say they want girls at Brakemore’s,” said the maids.
In the kitchen Mrs. Elphinstone was loyal. “But I can’t answer for the girls,” she said. “They seem to think war is an excuse for a lark.”
It was the kitchen-maids, anyway, and not Mrs. Elphinstone, thought Barbara, who had to cope with the extra meals…
Benson was sound. The Birmingham women caused him no trouble. But James would be leaving for the Army within a few weeks. It’s going to be a difficult winter, thought Barbara.
These women, huddled on the green, were not Barbara’s guests, but she saw on their faces the same look of frustration and defiance. Dutifully, rather than prudently, she approached the group and asked if they were comfortable. She spoke to them in general and each felt shy of answering; they looked away from her sullenly towards a locked inn. Oh dear, thought Barbara, I suppose they wonder what business it is of mine.
“I live up there,” she said, indicating the gates. “I’ve been arranging your billets.”
“Oh have you?” said one of the mothers. “Then perhaps you can tell us how long we’ve got to stop.”
“That’s right,” said another.
“D’you know,” said Barbara, “I don’t believe anyone has troubled to think about that. They’ve all been too busy getting you away.”
“They got no right to do it,” said the first mother. “You can’t keep us here compulsory.”
“But surely you don’t want to have your children bombed, do you?”
“We won’t stay where we’re not wanted.”
“That’s right,” said the yes-woman.
“But of course you’re wanted.”
“Yes, like the stomach-ache.”
“That’s right.”
For some minutes Barbara reasoned with the fugitives until she felt that her only achievement had been to transfer to herself all the odium which more properly belonged to Hitler. Then she went on her way to the scoutmaster’s, where, before she could retrieve the binoculars, she had to listen to the story of the Birmingham schoolmistress, billeted on him, who refused to help wash up.
As she crossed the green on her homeward journey, the mothers looked away from her.
“I hope the children are enjoying themselves a little,” she said, determined not to be cut in her own village.
“They’re down at the school. Teacher’s making them play games.”
“The park’s always open you know, if any of you care to go inside.”
“We had a park where we came from. With a band Sundays.”
“Well I’m afraid I can’t offer a band. But it’s thought rather pretty, particularly down by the lake. Do take the children in if you feel like it.”
When she had left the chief mother said: “What’s she? Some kind of inspector, I suppose, with her airs and graces. The idea of inviting us into the park. You’d think the place belonged to her the way she goes on.”
Presently the two inns opened their doors and the scandalized village watched a procession of mothers assemble from cottage, farm and mansion and make for the bar parlours.
Luncheon decided him; Freddy went upstairs immediately he left the dining-room and changed into civilian clothes. “Think I’ll get my maid to put me into something loose,” he had said in the voice he used for making jokes. It was this kind of joke Barbara had learned to recognize during her happy eight years in his company.
Freddy was large, masculine, prematurely bald and superficially cheerful; at heart he was misanthropic and gifted with that sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich; his indolence was qualified with enough basic bad temper to ensure the respect of those about him. He took in most people, but not his wife or his wife’s family.
Not only did he have a special expression of face for making jokes; he had one for use when discussing his brother-in-law Basil. It should have conveyed lofty disapproval tempered by respect for Barbara’s loyalty; in fact it suggested sulkiness and guilt.
The Seal children, for no reason that was apparent to the rest of the world, had always held the rest of the world in scorn. Freddy did not like Tony; he found him supercilious and effeminate, but he was prepared to concede to him certain superiorities; no one doubted that there was a brilliant career ahead of him in diplomacy. The time would come when they would all be very proud of Tony. But Basil from his earliest days had been a source of embarrassment and reproach. On his own terms Freddy might have been willing to welcome a black sheep in the Seal family, someone who was “never mentioned,” to whom he might, every now and then, magnanimously unknown to anyone except Barbara, extend a helping hand; someone, even, in whom he might profess to see more good than the rest of the world. Such a kinsman might very considerably have redressed the balance of Freddy’s self-esteem. But, as Freddy found as soon as he came to know the Seals intimately, Basil, so far from being never mentioned, formed the subject of nearly half their conversation. At that time they were ever ready to discuss with relish his latest outrage, ever hopeful of some splendid success for him in the immediate future, ever contemptuous of the disapproval of the rest of the world. And Basil himself regarded Freddy pitilessly, with eyes which, during his courtship and the first years of marriage, he had recognized in Barbara herself.
For there was a disconcerting resemblance between Basil and Barbara; she, too, was farouche in a softer and deadlier manner, and the charm which held him breathless flashed in gross and acquisitive shape in Basil. Maternity
