The FitzOsbornes at War (5 page)

‘Oh. And it says to put cotton wool in their ears,’ Henry went on. ‘That’s a good idea, because Carlos hated that air raid siren, and I don’t think he’d like the sound of bombs. But it also says to put a muzzle on him, in case he gets . . . What’s this word, Sophie?’

‘Hysterical,’ I said.

‘Yet another reason you will be better off at boarding school, Henrietta,’ said Aunt Charlotte, seating herself at the head of the table. ‘So that you can learn to
read
.’

‘I can read
English
,’ retorted Henry. ‘Just not foreign words like that. I know what it means, though, obviously. It means
frantic and biting
. Well, Carlos never gets like that, and he’d hate wearing a muzzle. In fact, I think muzzles are cruel and wrong, just like boarding schools, which I would
not
be better off at. So that’s why I’m not going to one.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Aunt Charlotte, perusing yet another letter sent by a prospective headmistress.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Henry.

They have this exchange every couple of hours.

Meanwhile, I read Rupert’s letter. It was quite long, but I will copy out some of it now. He is staying at Julia’s house in London, because he had a job interview at Whitehall yesterday:

Except they told me the job was mine before I’d answered a single question – they already knew I’d been at the ‘right’ school and the ‘right’ college at Oxford, you see. They didn’t even bother to ask about my exam results. But the most important thing, in their opinion, was that I had a personal recommendation from the Colonel.

I think it’s hilarious that all the Stanley-Rosses call him that, even though he’s their uncle – apparently, he’s too important and mysterious to possess a first name.

Sorry to be so unforthcoming about what the job actually
is
,
Rupert went on
, but I’m supposed to keep it confidential. I expect you’ll figure out what I’m doing anyway, as it involves one of the few areas in which I have any expertise at all. I start tomorrow with some meetings in London, but will have to do a lot of travelling after that, so they have given me a car.

Rupert was reading English Literature at Oxford, but I can’t imagine
that
would be helpful to the War Office – unless he’s saving
books
from bombs? Perhaps he’s moving collections of rare books to the country?

It’s a relief to have something constructive to do, because I felt so guilty watching all the men marching along the streets in uniform. Do you think women will go about handing white feathers to ‘shirkers’, the way they did in the last war? It makes me want to wear a badge saying, ‘Heart Murmur – Failed the Medical’. But the thing is, I know I would be absolutely useless at killing people, whereas this job
could
end up helping us win battles.

So – probably
not
moving books to the country. Unless the books are military manuals.

I never thought I’d be grateful for having had rheumatic fever, but now I am – although I’m also ashamed about feeling so grateful. Sorry, this is probably making no sense whatsoever.

Did Toby tell you he telephoned here? It was good to speak with him, and he sounded cheerful enough. I hope it was not too awful seeing him off on Monday. I expect your aunt was upset . . .

Aunt Charlotte was absolutely
heartbroken
. Thank Heavens for Barnes.

. . . but he’ll only be in the Cotswolds and will get leave quite often, and he isn’t doing any actual fighting yet, thank God. Anthony is with an AAF squadron somewhere in Scotland. Julia gets all weepy whenever she catches sight of the framed photograph of him in uniform, and has already written him three letters.
Why,
when all she ever seemed to do when he was home was argue with him? I think she feels guilty about that, now he’s off defending the nation.

By the way, she says you and Veronica are very welcome to stay with her when you come up to London. There are lots of spare bedrooms and she would love the company, especially as I will not be here very often. I keep telling her she ought to adopt some needy animals, because there are
so many
of them out there, desperately wanting homes. A lot of people are leaving the city and can’t take their pets with them, and animals are not allowed in public air raid shelters. It is
so horrible
– a friend of mine who works at the RSPCA said that literally thousands of cats are being put down every single day. Killing animals to save them from bombs! We don’t do that to
people,
and I can think of some boys at my school who were far less intelligent, caring and interesting than the average cat.

One can see why Rupert and Henry get along so well. But he’s right, of course – it
is
terrible about the poor animals, and especially distressing for someone as compassionate as Rupert.

Hmm, I think his job must be something to do with animals . . . although how would that help us win the war?

However, I will have to ponder it at a later date. I need to get on with hemming five dozen blackout curtains right now.

15th September, 1939

W
RITTEN IN
L
ONDON, WHERE
A
UNT
C
HARLOTTE
, Barnes, Veronica, Henry and I are staying at Claridge’s. We don’t have enough servants any more to open up enormous old Montmaray House, so we couldn’t stay there. Besides, it doesn’t have any proper blackout curtains and the Air Raid Precautions people up here are ferocious. A few nights ago, Veronica and I were walking past a house that had a tiny window with the curtains not
entirely
meeting in the middle, showing the glow of a very, very dim bulb, and two wardens almost battered down the door, yelling, ‘Put that light out!’ It was the first time we’d been out after dark since the blackout started, and London seemed another place entirely. We were only walking back to the hotel from the American Embassy, a mere block away, but we got lost twice, and were almost run over when we tried to cross the road. No street lamps, all the illuminated shop signs switched off, car lights barely visible, and although we had a torch, it was masked by two layers of tissue paper and we weren’t allowed to point it anywhere except at the ground. We might as well have been blindfolded. The newspapers keep publishing hilariously useless hints for coping with the blackout – for example, ‘pin a luminous flower to your lapel’ and ‘carry a small white dog, such as a Pekinese’. Honestly! I think more people are going to get killed tumbling down stairs or being knocked over by unlit trams than by falling bombs, especially as there hasn’t been a single German aeroplane sighted so far.

If we’d realised how impossible it was to walk anywhere in the blackout, we might have accepted that offer of a lift back to our hotel from the party – except it was Joe Kennedy Junior who’d offered, and Julia had warned about him being Not Safe in Taxis (or in motor cars, presumably). Not that we really needed any warning, because he’d spent most of the evening trying to look down the top of Veronica’s dress. He also kept barging into our conversations to boast about his experiences during the siege of Madrid. He’d only been an observer for the American Embassy – it wasn’t as though he’d spent the entire Spanish Civil War single-handedly fighting off Fascists. Although he probably would have been fighting
for
the Fascists, because he always does whatever his father says. I am getting quite fed up with the Ambassador’s pronouncements. During the toasts, Mr Kennedy said that England was going to get ‘badly thrashed’ in this war. Even if this were true – which I don’t for a moment believe – it isn’t a very diplomatic thing to say, especially at a party. The party, I should have explained, was being held to farewell Mrs Kennedy and the children, who are all sailing back to New York (except for Rosemary, whom they don’t want to move from her special school in the country as she is making such good progress there).

Kick begged and begged her father to let her remain here, but Mr Kennedy thinks it will be too dangerous (when England gets invaded, vanquished, demolished and so forth). However, I would think that simply sailing back across the Atlantic would be perilous, and Mr Kennedy ought to know all about that. He was the one who sent Jack up to Scotland to help the American survivors of the SS
Athenia
, which was sunk by a German torpedo on the very first day of the war. Jack told us about it – it sounded so dreadful. The SS
Athenia
was an unarmed passenger ship, crowded with civilians trying to get home to Canada, and more than a hundred people drowned. The Germans didn’t even give the captain of the ship any warning – not that
that
surprises me one little bit.

Kick made me promise to write to her, and says she will miss all her English friends terribly much, but I suspect the one she will miss the most is Billy Hartington. I think that if Kick could ever get around her parents’ violent objections to Protestants, he would be the one, out of her enormous crowd of admirers, whom she’d like to marry. He
is
a very sweet boy – I find it difficult to picture him as an officer in the army, but that’s what he is now. I suppose it’s no more bizarre than Toby becoming an officer in the air force (which I haven’t
quite
taken in yet – perhaps it will seem more real once I’ve seen him in uniform).

The reason we have come up to London is
not
that Aunt Charlotte is allowing us to go to secretarial school (I still haven’t found the right moment to ask permission), but to buy Henry’s school things. Aunt Charlotte has finally located a suitably ladylike and rural establishment that is prepared to accept a new pupil halfway through first term – provided, of course, that said pupil arrives with the correct quantity of socks, vests, bloomers, tunics, blouses, plimsolls and pyjamas, as well as a lacrosse stick, a tennis racquet and dozens of other items. Not surprisingly, Henry is being less than cooperative about the whole thing. Aunt Charlotte rapidly lost patience with her, so Veronica and I have taken over the task of shepherding Henry around London’s shops.

I can’t say this has been an unalloyed pleasure, but it did have the benefit yesterday of allowing us to have luncheon with Daniel. Veronica thought she’d dash off to have a quick cup of tea with him while I took Henry to get fitted for her school blazer, but Henry overheard and said she hadn’t seen him in
years
, not since she was a
child
, and wouldn’t it be better if we all sat down and had a proper meal, because she was absolutely starving? And of
course
she wouldn’t mention it to Aunt Charlotte, did we think she was a complete
idiot
? Veronica extracted a promise from Henry not to utter the word ‘boyfriend’ in his presence, and we all ended up at Lyons Corner House. Daniel, wisely, treated Henry with the sort of solemn respect that she hardly ever gets from grown-ups, so she quickly decided she was On His Side.

‘You should come and visit us at Milford,’ she said, over her second helping of trifle. ‘Carlos will be glad to see you again. Do you remember him?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Daniel. ‘He ate my hat.’

‘Oh, I remember that,’ said Veronica. ‘You’d just arrived at Montmaray and put it down on top of your suitcase, and he took off with it.’

‘Was it made of fish?’ asked Henry.

I stared at her. I honestly don’t understand how her brain works, most of the time.

‘What?’ she said to me. ‘It could have been made of sharkskin or something. Carlos loves fish.’

‘It was just ordinary grey felt, as far as I can recall,’ said Daniel. ‘I think he was upset that no one was paying attention to him. But when I went out into the courtyard to ask if he’d give it back, I got attacked by that giant rooster of yours. And then Rebecca appeared out of nowhere and started screaming at me for making too much noise and disturbing His Majesty’s afternoon rest.’