E. Delafield - The Collected Works of E. M. Delafield (Illustrated Edition)

Take Aunt Blanche to the North Room, on entering which she again cries a good deal but says it is only because I am so kind and I mustn't think her in any way unnerved because that's the last thing she ever is—and get to bed at 3.15.

Hot-water bottle cold as a stone and cannot imagine why I didn't refill it, but not worth going down again. Later on decide that it is worth going down again, but don't do so. Remainder of the night passed in similar vacillations.

September 12th. —Aunt Blanche settling down, and national calamity evidently bringing out best in many of us, Cook included, but exception must be made in regard to Lady Boxe, who keeps large ambulance permanently stationed in drive and says that house is to be a Hospital (Officers only) and is therefore not available for evacuees. No officers materialise, but Lady B. reported to have been seen in full Red Cross uniform with snow-white veil floating in the breeze behind her. (Undoubtedly very trying colour next to any but a youthful face; but am not proud of this reflection and keep it to myself.)

Everybody else in neighbourhood has received evacuees, most of whom arrive without a word of warning and prove to be of age and sex diametrically opposite to those expected.

Rectory turns its dining-room into a dormitory and Our Vicar's Wife struggles gallantly with two mothers and three children under five, one of whom is thought to be suffering from fits. Both her maids have declared that they must find war work and immediately departed in search of it. I send Vicky up to see what she can do, and she is proved to be helpful, practical, and able to keep a firm hand over the under-fives.

Am full of admiration for Our Vicar's Wife and very sorry for her, but feel she is at least better off than Lady Frobisher, who rings up to ask me if I know how one gets rid of lice? Refer her to the chemist, who tells me later that if he has been asked that question once in the last week, he's been asked it twenty times.

Elderly neighbours, Major and Mrs. Bergery, recent arrivals at small house in the village, are given two evacuated teachers and appear in consequence to be deeply depressed. The teachers sit about and drink cups of tea and assert that the organisation at the London end was wonderful, but at this end there isn't any organisation at all. Moreover, they are here to teach—which they do for about four hours in the day—but not for anything else. Mrs. Bergery suggests that they should collect all the evacuated children in the village and play with them, but this not well received.

Our Vicar, appealed to by the Major, calls on the teachers and effects a slight improvement. They offer, although without much enthusiasm, to organise an hour of Recreative Education five days a week. He supposes, says Our Vicar, that this means play, and closes with the suggestion at once.

Light relief is afforded by Miss Pankerton, who is, we all agree, having the time of her life. Miss P.—who has, for no known reason, sprung into long blue trousers and leather jerkin—strides about the village marshalling six pallid and wizened little boys from Bethnal Green in front of her. Extraordinary legend is current that she has taught them to sing "Under a spreading chestnut-tree, the village smithy stands", and that they roar it in chorus with great docility in her presence, but have a version of their own which she has accidentally overheard from the bathroom and that this runs:

Under a spreading chestnut-tree Stands the bloody A.R.P. So says the —ing B.B.C.

Aunt Blanche, in telling me this, adds that: "It's really wonderful, considering the eldest is only seven years old." Surely a comment of rather singular leniency?

Our own evacuees make extraordinarily brief appearance, coming—as usual—on day and at hour when least expected, and consisting of menacing-looking woman with twins of three and baby said to be eighteen months old but looking more like ten weeks. Mother comes into the open from the very beginning, saying that she doesn't fancy the country, and it will upset the children, and none of it is what she's accustomed to. Do my best for them with cups of tea, cakes, toys for the children and flowers in bedroom. Only the cups of tea afford even moderate satisfaction, and mother leaves the house at dawn next day to find Humphrey Holloway and inform him that he is to telegraph to Dad to come and fetch them away immediately—which he does twenty-four hours later. Feel much cast-down, and apologise to H. H., who informs me in reply that evacuees from all parts of the country are hastening back to danger zone as rapidly as possible, as being infinitely preferable to rural hospitality. Where this isn't happening, adds Humphrey in tones of deepest gloom, it is the country hostesses who are proving inadequate and clamouring for the removal of their guests.

Cannot believe this to be an accurate summary of the situation, and feel that Humphrey is unduly pessimistic owing to overwork as Billeting Officer. He admits this may be so, and further says that, now he comes to think of it, some of the families in village are quite pleased with the London children. Adds—as usual—that the real difficulty is the mothers.

Are we, I ask, to have other evacuees in place of departed failures? Try to sound as though I hope we are—but am only too well aware that effort is poor and could convince nobody. H. H. says that he will see what he can do, which I think equal,

as a reply, to anything ever perpetrated by Roman oracle.

September 13th. —Question of evacuees solved by Aunt Blanche, who proposes that we should receive two children of Coventry clergyman and his wife, personally known to her, and their nurse. Children are charming, says Aunt Blanche—girls aged six and four—and nurse young Irishwoman about whom she knows nothing but that she is not a Romanist and is called Doreen Fitzgerald. Send cordial invitation to all three.

September 17th. —Installation of Doreen Fitzgerald, Marigold and Margery. Children pretty and apparently good. D. Fitzgerald has bright red hair but plain face and to all suggestions simply replies: Certainly I shall.

House and bedrooms once more reorganised, schoolroom temporarily reverts to being a nursery again—am inwardly delighted by this but refrain from saying so—and D. Fitzgerald, asked if she will look after rooms herself, again repeats: Certainly I shall. Effect of this is one of slight patronage, combined with willing spirit.

Weather continues lovely, garden all Michaelmas daisies, dahlias and nasturtiums—autumn roses a failure, but cannot expect everything—and Aunt Blanche and I walk about under the apple-trees and round the tennis-court and ask one another who could ever believe that England is at war? Answer is, alas, only too evident—but neither of us makes it aloud.

Petrol rationing, which was to have started yesterday, postponed for a week. (Query: Is this an ingenious device for giving the whole country agreeable surprise, thereby improving public morale?) Robin and Vicky immediately point out that it is Vicky's last day at home, and ask if they couldn't go to a film and have tea at the café? Agree to this at once and am much moved by their delighted expressions of gratitude.

Long talk with Aunt Blanche occupies most of the afternoon. She has much to say about Pussy—old Mrs. Winter-Gammon. Pussy, declares Aunt Blanche, has behaved neither wisely, considerately nor even with common decency. She may look many years younger than her age, but sixty-six is sixty-six and is not the proper time of life for driving a heavy ambulance. Pussy might easily be a grandmother. She isn't a grandmother, as it happens, because Providence has—wisely, thinks Aunt Blanche—withheld from her the blessing of children, but so far as age goes, she could very well be a grandmother ten times over.