So it began in an uprush of idealism and ignorance. We did not hate the Germans; and when we heard that they were singing a ‘Hymn of Hate’, directed specially against the English people, we only laughed and said that like other foreigners they had no sense of humour. Like Mrs. Partington with her broom, we faced the World War with cups of tea and a sense of humour. These had hitherto settled most of the emergencies of our generation.
Thus unprepared, undisciplined, and ingenuous, with what patience and endurance did the youth of that day face the miseries of those eternal four years. They were braver than soldiers had ever before been asked to be; for they fought with unseen enemies who showered disease from the sky; they lived for months like moles and rats in dug-outs underground; they died slowly on barbed-wire entanglements amid seas of mud.
In the Close we were very far from these war horrors, yet the war invisibly regulated all our lives. Outwardly, no place changed less. It remained as quiet as before, though the Salisbury streets roared with lorries carrying war material, and were crowded with soldiers from every part of the British Empire. Yet within the Close walls, we still heard only the clock which chimed the hours, various bells tolling as usual for the services, and the floods of music which twice a day gushed out through the open windows of the cathedral. This unaltered peace was the chief gift which Salisbury had to give to the soldiers who passed through the city on their way to and from the Front. All through the war they continued to come through the Close gates to drink in this miracle of celestial quietude. Dean Page Roberts had always considered hospitality to be the first virtue of a Dean, and now he welcomed to the Deanery, the Close and the Cathedral, any who cared to come from among the many thousands of lonely strangers who in those years found themselves stranded in Salisbury.
On Sundays, the cathedral was crowded from the choir to the west doors with soldiers in uniform. At the far end, they could hardly hear one word of the service, for some of the canons had very old and cracked voices, and then the men pulled newspapers from their pockets and read them. But there always came a moment when every one of these was folded up and put away. This was when the Dean began to read the Lesson. He had a magnificent voice and a great sense of rhythm; and all through those years he insisted that no one but he should read these grand passages from the Old Testament. He always used the Authorized Version although there was a copy of the Revised Version provided on the lectern; and every man in the farthest corner of the cathedral seemed to listen spellbound while that fine voice rolled forth the glorious poetry which the Dean loved so much himself.
On Sunday evenings, he instituted a ‘Popular Service’ in the cathedral for the benefit of this huge passing population. He did not wish to call upon the cathedral choir for this extra service, so he asked me to collect an amateur choir to lead the singing. We only had to sing a very few notes before the whole congregation took up the tune and carried it along at its own pace. Our little choir was placed on two rows of chairs facing north and south at the top of the nave. On the first Sunday, when the service was over, the Dean stopped when he reached our seats on his way to the vestry, and he very ceremoniously bowed to me. For a moment I did not know how to take this; but then I dropped a low curtsey, and the other women bobbed too, while the men solemnly bowed from the waist. After this, we went through this little ceremony every Sunday night, and the Colonials believed it was a quaint old Salisbury custom.
All the big Wiltshire houses—Wilton, Longford, Longleat—were soon turned into hospitals and nearly all the girls became V.A.D.s. Lady Bath told me a very strange story about the Longleat hospital. She had been an invalid for years, and had to be nearly always on her back; but she generally got off her sofa and joined the family when they were about half-way through dinner, making her way alone through the house and leaning on her two sticks. One evening, a year or two before the war, she came out of her sitting-room alone and was about to pass through the hall, where the great staircase was very dimly lit, for there was then no electric light at Longleat. As she approached she saw to her horror that the staircase seemed to be enveloped in smoke and that many people were escaping obviously from a fire. Men were stumbling down the stairs, wearing a light blue uniform which was quite unknown to her. Stretcher bearers seemed to be carrying out dead bodies. Vivid as this scene was, Lady Bath also realized at once that it was unreal and she stepped back and watched it till it faded out. That night she told her daughter what she had seen, and three years later the dreamlike episode actually took place exactly as she had seen it. Longleat was by then
