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

Molesworth? No. Wait a minute. Molesworth? Yes.

Where can he be found?

Second Opinion hasn't the least idea. He was up on the sixth floor, last week, but that's all been changed now. Miss Hogg may know.

Miss Hogg—evidently less elusive than some of her collaborators—is telephoned to. Reply, received after a long wait, is inaudible to me but Minor Official reports that I had better try the third floor; he can't say for certain, but Mr. M. was there at one time, and Miss Hogg hasn't heard of his having moved.

Start off hopefully for lift, am directed to go right across the hall and into quite another part of the building, and take the lift there. Final inspiration of Minor Official is to ask whether I know the number of Mr. M.'s Room—which of course I don't.

Walk along lengthy passages for what seems like some time, and meet with kindness, but no definite information, from several blonde young lovelies who mostly—rather mistakenly—favour scarlet jumpers.

Compare myself mentally with Saracen lady, said to have travelled to England in search of her lover with no vocabulary except two words, London and Gilbert. (London in those days probably much smaller than Ministry of Information in these.)

Astonishment temporarily surpasses relief when I am at last definitely instructed by young red-headed thing—fortunately not in scarlet—to Room 568. Safeguards herself by adding that Mr. M. was there an hour ago, but of course he may have been moved since then.

He hasn't.

His name is on a card over the door.

Shall be surprised if I do not hear myself calling him Gilbert.

Am horrified to find myself quarter of an hour after appointed time, and feel it is only what I deserve when Mr. M. keeps me waiting for twenty minutes.

Eventually meet him face to face across his own writing-table and he is kindness and civility personified, tells me that he hasn't seen Uncle A. since early childhood but still has silver mug bestowed at his christening, and has always heard that the old gentleman is wonderful.

Yes indeed. Wonderful.

Cannot avoid the conclusion that contemplating the wonderfulness of Uncle A. will get us no further in regard to winning the war, and suggest, I hope diffidently, that I should much like to do something in this direction.

Mr. M. tells me that this war is quite unlike that of 1914. (Not where Ministries are concerned it isn't—but do not tell him this.)

In 1914, he says instructively, a tremendous Machinery had to be set in motion, and this was done with the help of unlimited expenditure and numerous experiments. This time it is all different. The Machinery is expected to be, at the very beginning, all that it was at the very end last time. And expenditure is not unlimited at all. Far from it.

I say No, I suppose not—as though having given the question a good deal of thought.

Mr. M. then successively talks about the French, the Turks, the Russians, and recent reconnaissance flights over Germany.

I suggest that I mustn't take up any more of his time. I really only wanted to see if I could do some kind of work.

He appreciates my offer, replies Mr. M., and tells me about Hore-Belisha and the House of Commons.

I offer him in return my opinion of Winston Churchill—favourable—and of Sir Samuel Hoare—not so good.

We find ourselves—I cannot say how—talking of the self-government of India.

A man with a beard and an appearance of exhaustion comes in, apologises, is begged not to go away, and we are introduced—his name inaudible to me, as doubtless mine to him.

He tells me almost at once that this war is quite unlike that of 1914. Tremendous Machinery set in motion...expenditure...experiment... This time, Machinery expected to begin at stage previously reached in 1918...

Try to look as though I haven't heard all this before, express concern at state of affairs depicted, and explain that I am anxious to place my services—etc.

Ah, says the beard, it is being found very difficult—very, very difficult indeed—to make use of all those whom the Ministry would like to make use of. Later on, no doubt, the right field of activity will present itself—much, much later on.

Does he, then, think that the war is going to be a lengthy affair?

It would, says Mr. M. gravely, be merely wishful thinking to take too optimistic a view. The probabilities are that nothing much will happen for some months—perhaps even longer. But let us not look further ahead than the winter.

The long, cold, dark, dreary, interminable winter lies ahead of us—petrol will be less, travelling more restricted, the black-out more complete and the shortage of certain foodstuffs more noticeable. People will be tired of the war. Their morale will tend to sink lower and lower.

Quote to myself:

The North wind doth blow And we shall have snow, And what will Robin do then, poor thing?

but feel that it would be quite out of place to say this aloud.

I ask instead whether there is anything I can do, to alleviate the melancholy state of things that evidently lies ahead.

All of us can do something, replies Mr. M. There are, for instance, a number of quite false rumours going about. These can be tracked to their source—(how?)—discredited and contradicted.

The man with the beard breaks in, to tell me that in the last war there were innumerable alarms concerning spies in our midst.

(As it is quite evident, notwithstanding the beard, that he was still in his cradle at the time of the last war, whilst I had left mine some twenty years earlier, this information would really come better from me to him.)

The Government wishes to sift these rumours, one and all—(they will have their hands full if they undertake anything of the kind)—and it is possible to assist them in this respect. Could I, for instance, tell him what is being said in the extreme North of England where I live?

Actually, it is in the extreme West that I live.

Of course, of course. Mr. M. knew it perfectly well—nothing he knows better—extraordinary slip of the tongue only. What exactly, then, is being said in the extreme West?

Complete blank comes over me. Can remember nothing but that we have all told ourselves that even if butter is rationed we can get plenty of clotted cream, and that we really needn't bother to take our gas-masks wherever we go.

Can only summon to my help very feeble statement to the effect that our morale seems to be in very good repair and that our evacuees seem to be settling down—at which he looks disappointed, as well he may.

Can see that my chances of getting a job—never very good—are now practically moribund.

Raise the subject again, although not confidently, and Mr. M. tells me—evidently in order to get rid of me—that I had better see Captain Skein-Tring. He is—or was, two days ago—in Room 4978, on the fourth floor, in the other building. Do I think I can find my way there?

Know perfectly well that I can't, and say so frankly, and Mr. M. sighs but handsomely offers to escort me himself, and does so.

On the way, we talk about the Papal Encyclical, Uncle A. again, and the B.B.C. Mr. M. is pained about most of the programmes and thinks they are too bright and why so much cinema organ? I defend the B.B.C. and tell him I like most of the popular music, but not the talks to housewives.

Mr. M. sighs heavily and no point of agreement is found, until we find a joint admiration for L. A. G. Strong's short stories.

Just as this desirable stage is reached, we meet with a pallid young man carrying hundreds of files, to whom Mr. M. says compassionately, Hallo, Basil, moving again?