“The poor old man! The doctor told me he feared there wasn’t much hope. He asked me, in fact, if I had the address of any relative. He wasn’t much hurt, you know, it was merely a scratch, but his mind had gone. He kept rambling on about Indians and being scalped. Shock, I suppose.”
“Yes, he was talking like that to me only … this evening.” It seemed further away, Selina thought, than her days with Miss Humphries. “Of course, I’m not superstitious, but do you know, I had the oddest feelings getting him downstairs. The whole place smelled of death.”
“Well, we hadn’t been at Dobbie’s ten minutes before the stuff came down. It’s an exciting world.” If people had listened to his warnings, Ferguson thought, none of it need have happened. “Have you anyone who will take you in tomorrow morning?”
“Yes. Mrs. Spenser will help us, I expect. My partner has been longing to take a more active part in the war than catering for ages. I am sure she will be all right. I’m not worried either about Ruby or Mary or Cook. They will soon find jobs. It’s just Timothy … and myself,” Selina said, smiling. “We’re rather too old, for war.”
“I know,” Ferguson said, “and yet we have been part of the world. What I am trying to say is, each generation belongs in evolution; without us, there would have been something missing.” Selina looked so puzzled that he hastened to add: “What people have done should be remembered as well as what they do.”
“Oh, I haven’t done much, I suppose; I never had the chances some of these young things get.” Selina glanced at Eve, who was standing near the doorway. “But one thing I will say, I have always been willing. Oh, dear, I’ll find work I know, but I shall miss my little shop. I tried to make it a home from home and to give people value for their money.”
“You did, Miss Tippett, you did. You will get compensation, you know, when the war is over.”
“I shall be too old then to make a fresh start.”
Each looked down, away from each other, at the worn linoleum. It was true, they were not wanted. This is what came of appeasement, Ferguson thought; it was not a question of peace or war, but of good and evil. In a positive world, initiative and character counted; there was a place for everyone, but the routine that people now worshipped was a sticky trap, almost as bad as bombs. “I really believe,” he said, after a long pause, “we would die rather than think.”
“It was hard to realize that the Germans would be so wicked.”
“People are evil, Miss Tippett, as well as unbelievably good.” Had it been any other moment he would have asked her if she had ever read about the concentration camps, but tonight it would be unfair, and fortunately Dobbie came in at that moment, trying to walk quietly in his heavy rubber boots, for most of the lights had been turned out and people looked asleep, at least, under their blankets. “I wonder if you could tell me Mr. Rashleigh’s next of kin? They have phoned from the hospital to say that the poor fellow died on the trip, and they want particulars.”
It was inevitable, Selina supposed, but it sounded as if he were a parcel. “He had a cousin in Richmond; he made me write down the address once, in case anything happened. Would you like me to notify her?”
“It would be kind, madam, if you would drop her a note, you being the last person, as you might say, to speak with the gentleman. But I’ll have to give the hospital the address, too; they need it for the records.”
“A lively night, Dobbie,” Ferguson said, offering him a cigarette.
“Yes, incidents as thick as currants in a plum duff. Still, we might have had it worse here, only three fires and all under control.”
“Oh, it’s burnt!” Selina gave a little embarrassed giggle.
“What’s burnt?”
“My address book. I remember the woman’s name was Agatha, but that is not much help.”
“I expect the police will trace her.”
“She can’t have cared much, she never came to see him.”
“Well, you never know.” Dobbie tried to wipe his face with an oily rag that had once been a handkerchief. “She might have felt he would be a burden, he was such a chatterer.”
“I’m glad Rashleigh didn’t have to suffer.” It was a pity that they could not all claim a quiet, painless death when the world got tired of them. He would go on existing, Ferguson supposed; the body was tough, and would put up a doomed but desperate resistance, though the spirit was dead. He leaned forward to pick up the blanket that had slid from his knees.
“Cup of tea, sir?” One of the Rest Centre helpers came round with a tray full of mugs. It was a shock for these old men, she thought, popping an extra bit of sugar into the Colonel’s tea; they ought to be in their beds, not buffeted about like this. She liked it, naturally, the easy atmosphere and the sense that every night was a picnic, but the old clung so to their possessions. “I should lie down then if I were you; everything will seem so different in the morning.”
The door clattered open again and several voices said “Hush” as Angelina stumbled in, half carrying Beowulf and half bumping him on the stairs.
“Oh, dear, whatever are you doing with that plaster dog?”
“We are all made of plaster,” Angelina said reprovingly.
“I’m sure I’m not!” Selina felt a good old-fashioned ague at work in her joints. “Couldn’t you have left it on the pavement?”
“An idiot of a warden said somebody
