Henrietta's War (16 page)

Yesterday I met Mrs Savernack on the cliff path with her Spaniel, her Dachshund, her Cairn, and her Dalmatian. Mrs Savernack herself was not looking well. She gave up her meat ration to the dogs months ago, and just lately has been giving them her butter and margarine as well. Mr Savernack says he and the servants have to keep their rations under lock and key. The dogs, I thought, were looking pretty fit.

‘How are you managing about Perry's food?' she said.

‘Oh, we just order a dead horse for him every week,' I said brightly.

‘I'm glad you can joke about it, Henrietta,' she said, looking at me with cold dislike.

‘Come home and have some tea,' I said, for I felt sorry for her. ‘We've still got a little butter.'

Mrs Savernack brightened visibly.
‘Have
you?' she said. ‘Justinian would love a little butter.'

‘I'm not offering butter to your Dalmatian,' I said, ‘or to any of your dogs. In fact, I think we'll park them at your house on the way home.'

Mrs Savernack sighed, but showed no fight. It was sad to see her so unlike herself.

A little farther on we found some scribbling in chalk on the asphalt path, and paused to look at it, – a nice robust Union Jack with ‘hooray for good old England!!!' in chunky letters underneath.

That set us both up, and we had quite a jolly tea, but I had to stop Mrs Savernack smuggling a small piece of cherry cake home for Muriel, the Dachshund.

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

February 12, 1941

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
We are going to keep five hens. This news will surprise you a good deal, knowing as you do Charles's peculiar phobia about touching birds of any kind, and my deep affection for ducks.

The desperate venture has been forced upon us by our newly acquired lodger, who used to be a fellow art-student of mine somewhere about the Regency period, and has come to live in our attics.

She used to live in Birmingham, and when she wrote to say that she found the air-raid shelter lonely now her husband had joined the R.A.F., and shopping was difficult as there always seemed to be a time-bomb outside the grocer's, Charles and I looked at each other and said, ‘The attics.'

You see, we have felt for some time that we ought to offer our attics to the Bombed, but she is practically the only person we know who is small enough to stand upright in them without bumping the head. We wrote a tentative invitation, received an ecstatic telegram in reply, and shortly afterwards the lodger arrived with a vanful of furniture.

And there she is, living a secret, mouse-like life, cooking on an electric griller, and creeping down between Matins's exit and Evensong's entrance to wash a few tiny dishes in our sink. She has the same passion for privacy as I have, and we bow gravely to each other when we meet on the stairs, and only visit each other after receiving written invitations.

I must say I enjoy visiting the lodger. There is something very piquant about sitting comfortably and romantically in what used to be your box-room. The electric radiator (installed by lodger) gives out a fierce heat very much to my liking, and we talk of the old days when we used to go about dirty and untidy because we felt that otherwise we would never make our mark in the world of Art.

The only flaw in this admirable arrangement is that the woman insists upon being grateful. Why? She has made our attics look lovely, and is prepared to cope with incendiary bombs, so surely it is we who should be grateful to her.

Staggering down the garden path

And that brings me to the hens, for it is the lodger who is going to keep them. She seemed to want to do something to help us and impede Hitler, so we gave her the Bad Bit at the bottom of the garden. The gardener was annoyed, of course, as gardeners always are, and said he was about to dig it up for potatoes, but as he has been saying that for years, we didn't take any notice, and any morning now the lodger can be seen staggering down the garden path with a hoe several sizes too large for her, and a few days ago she came to us with a light in her eye and said, ‘Hens.'

‘I hate hens,' said Charles hysterically. ‘I can't bear touching them!'

‘You won't have to touch them,' said the lodger, with a steely look; ‘and you know you like an egg for your breakfast.'

‘Who's going to shut them up at night?' said Charles.

‘We'll take it in turns,' I said, being definitely in the hen camp and burning to give them our scraps.

‘And supposing you have one of your coughs?' said Charles fretfully.

‘Then
I
shall shut them up
every
night,' said the lodger.

‘Well, if you must, you must,' said Charles, ‘but I intend to offer nothing but destructive criticism.'

This is as far as we have got up till now:

One roll of wire-netting,

obtained with incredible difficulty.

One old hen-house,

obtained with less difficulty from Faith's loft.

Destructive criticism from Charles.

Still more destructive criticism from the gardener,

who is incensed because the lodger has succeeded in clearing quite a large patch of bindweed from the bottom of the garden.

Advice from Matins,

who says hens like their scraps hot.

Advice from Evensong,

who says they like them cold.

One old-hen house

Advice from Colonel Simpkins,

who says we must get a government grant for their food, but fails to specify how.

Advice from Lady B.

‘My dear,
don't
. They darken your whole life.'

Advice from Mrs Savernack.

‘Five? Good heavens! I keep fifty!' (But she doesn't look after them herself.)

I keep on being sorry for the Evacuated Mothers all this winter with no excitement. More and more of them keep on arriving, and you hear nothing but cockney in the street nowadays.

When Charles came in last night, hung his hat up in the hall, and said, ‘How be yu, my dear? Pretty peart, seemingly?' it was like music in my ears.

‘Charles,' I said, ‘what has happened to the Devonians?'

‘Cowering in their homes, probably,' said Charles.

‘Nonsense,' I said. ‘It takes more than a few hundred Londoners to make Devonians cower.'

‘Assimilated, perhaps,' said Charles.

‘Speaking as one Devonian to another, now
is
that likely?'

Charles thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps they persuade the evacuees to go out and do their shopping for them,' he said.

‘Ah,' I said. ‘Now you're talking.'

Always your affectionate Childhood's Friend,

HENRIETTA

February 19, 1941

M
Y DEAR ROBERT
Lady B was perfectly right when she said that hens darken your whole life. They began darkening ours before they even arrived, and the first shadow which fell across our path was a nasty little buff Form. Now, there is something about a Form, no matter what colour, which renders me
incapable of answering the simplest questions.

‘Charles,' I said brightly at breakfast, ‘here's a little Form to fill in about the hens.'

‘Those beastly hens!' said Charles bitterly.

‘It's quite a small Form, Charles.'

‘I'm a very busy man!' said Charles, and cramming his hat on to his head he rushed from the house.

I mounted the stairs to the attics and knocked politely on the lodger's door.

‘They've sent a Form to fill in about food for
Les Girls
,' I said.

The lodger turned pale. ‘Oh, Henrietta!' she said, ‘I can't fill in Forms.'

‘Nor can I,' I said sadly. ‘You know, there are times when I feel that our Art School training didn't fit us for the Battle of Life.'

In the end I took it to Mrs Savernack, who is always pleased by the exhibition of inefficiency in others, and therefore willing to help. ‘Good heavens, Henrietta!' she said. ‘What a fuss you are making about your five miserable hens! It's perfectly simple. Now . . . How many hens did you keep last year?'

‘None,' I said, and Mrs Savernack gave me a Look and wrote down five.

‘Now, let me see,' went on Mrs Savernack rapidly. ‘Four ounces per bird per day, that's twenty ounces a day. Multiply by thirty for the month. Twenty times thirty?'

‘Er – ' I said.

‘Six hundred,' said Mrs Savernack. ‘Divide by sixteen to make it into pounds. Quick, Henrietta!'

‘Have you got a pencil?' I said wildly.

‘Thirty-seven and eight over,' said Mrs Savernack, writing it down. ‘Now you sign your name here. I suppose you can sign your name? That's right. Now, all you've got to do is to post it.'

‘I'll just run home and get a stamp and an envelope,' I said, in what I hoped was a bustling and efficient manner.

‘Divide by sixteen—quick, Henrietta!'

‘You don't need a stamp or an envelope,' said Mrs Savernack patiently. ‘You just fold it up and put it in the letter-box.'