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

Think this Episcopal pronouncement quite unsuitable, and have serious thoughts of saying so—but Mrs. W.-G. gives me no time.

She has heard, she says, that dear Blanche's eldest brother is here and wishes to meet him. Is that him over there, talking to Serena?

It is, and can plainly see that if I do not perform introduction instantly, Mrs. W.-G. will do it for herself.

Can only conform to her wishes, and she supplants Serena at Uncle A.'s side.

Serena makes long, hissing speech in an undertone of which I can only make out that she thinks the party is going well, and is her face purple, she feels as though it were, and whatever happens I'm not to go.

Had had no thought of going.

Everybody talks about the war, and general opinion is that it can't last long—Rose goes so far as to say Over by February, but J. L. tells her that the whole thing is going to be held up till the spring begins—at which I murmur to myself: Air-raid by air-raid the spring begins, and hopes that nobody hears me—and then, says J. L., although short, it will be appalling. Hitler is a desperate man, and will launch a fearful attack in every direction at once. His main objective will be London.

J. L. states this so authoritatively that general impression prevails that he has received his information direct from Berlin, and must know what he is talking about.

Mrs. Weatherby alone rallies very slightly and points out that an air-raid over London would be followed instantly by reprisals, and she doubts whether the morale of the German people would survive it. She believes them to be on the brink of revolution already, and the Czechs and the Austrians are actually over the brink.

She adds that she wouldn't break up the party for anything—none of us are to stir—but she must go.

She does go, and we all do stir, and party is broken up—but can quite feel that it has been a success.

Serena, the Refugees and I, see everybody off into depths of blackness unlit by single gleam of light anywhere at all, and Serena says they'll be lucky if they don't all end up with broken legs, and if they do, heaven knows where they'll go as no patients allowed in any of the Hospitals.

One of her Refugees informs her, surprisingly, that the blackout is nothing—nothing at all. Vienna has always been as dark as this, every night, for years—darker, if anything.

Serena and I and the Refugees finish such sandwiches as are left, she presses cigarettes on them and in return they carry away all the plates and glasses and insist that they will wash them and put them away—please—and Serena and I are not to do anything but rest ourselves—please, please.

Thank you, thank you.

Please.

November 21st. —Am startled as never before on receiving notification that my services as a writer are required, and may even take me abroad.

Am unable to judge whether activities will permit of my continuing a diary but prefer to suppose that they will be of too important a nature.

Ask myself whether war, as term has hitherto been understood, can be going to begin at last. Reply, of sorts, supplied by Sir Auckland Geddes over the wireless.

Sir A. G. finds himself obliged to condemn the now general practice of running out into the street in order to view aircraft activities when engaged with the enemy overhead.

Can only hope that Hitler may come to hear of this remarkable reaction to his efforts, on the part of the British.

THE END

Table of Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

Table of Contents

THE French window of the dining-room at Villetswood stood wide open, disclosing a glittering perspective of white cloth laden with silver and flowers and gilt candlesticks crowned by pink shades.

Gisèle de Kervoyou, aged seven, balanced herself on one foot upon the threshold of the window.

She was gazing eagerly at the beautiful, gleaming vista, repeated in the great mirror at the far end of the room. With a gesture that was essentially un-English, the child shrugged her shoulders together, stepped very daintily into the dining-room, and approached the table. Her dark grey eyes were narrowed together, her head thrown back as though to catch any possible sound, and she moved as gracefully and as soundlessly as a kitten.

With tiny dexterous fingers she abstracted some three or four chocolate bon-bons from as many little silver dessert-dishes, thrust one into her mouth, and the others into the diminutive pocket of her white frock. Then for the first time she looked guilty, flung a terrified glance round her, and fled noiselessly across the room and out into the garden again.

"Zella! aren't you coming ?"

"Yes, yes."

Zella ran across the terrace to the big oak-tree where her cousins, James and Muriel Lloyd-Evans, wore earnestly engaged in digging a passage through the earth to Australia

"Where have you been ?" Muriel inquired.

"On to the top terrace," said Zella glibly; "and I saw a big white horse, trampling on all the flowers."

"Where, where ?" shrieked Muriel, flinging down her spade. James, a quiet little boy who bore unmoved the reputation of being a prig, looked up inquiringly.

"It's gone now," said Zella. "Papa shot it."

"Shot it dead ?" said Muriel, awestruck.

"I don't believe it," remarked James, and resumed his digging.

Zella felt a wave of fury pass over her at this insult. It made her so angry to be disbelieved that she completely lost sight of the entire justification for James' attitude.

"It is true," she cried passionately; "I did see it!" And across her mental vision there passed a very distinct picture of a mammoth white horse destroying the geraniums with plunging hooves, and then suddenly stilled for ever by a gun-shot.

Muriel, who hated quarrels, said: "Don't be angry, Zella. Let's go on digging."

And the governess, who had followed the conversation with what attention she could spare from a novel, looked up and remarked, "James, you are not to tease your cousin," while inwardly thanking Providence that she was not responsible for the upbringing of that untruthful little half-foreign child, Zella de Kervoyou.

But Zella, who was hurt by a suspicion of her truthfulness as by nothing else, rushed away to sob and cry behind the laurel hedge, and wish that she was dead.

"Was it really an untruth?" Muriel asked with a horrified face as her cousin fled in tears.

"I am afraid so, dear," replied Miss Vincent with some asperity, thinking it worth while to improve the occasion. "Your little cousin is very young; when she grows older she will see how very naughty it is to tell stories."

"I don't believe Zella tells stories," muttered James, in a tone inaudible to the governess.

"But you said she did, just now."

"No, I didn't. I said I didn't believe about the horse, that's all."

Muriel looked bewildered.

"But, then, it was an untruth," she reiterated helplessly.

"It's an untruth when you or me say what isn't true, but not Zella," said James, with psychological insight far beyond his powers of grammatical expression.

"But why?"

"Because she's different, that's all. Let's go on digging."

Meanwhile Zella cried and sobbed, crouching on the ground behind the laurel hedge, convinced that nobody loved her, and with a terrible feeling that she was the naughtiest little girl in the whole world. This dreadful state of affairs had all been brought about by the theft of the chocolates, and now that she was confronted by some of the results of her crime Zella felt an unendurable remorse. At least she mistook it for remorse, though it was chiefly a passionate desire to regain her own self-esteem. She rose and went slowly towards the house, a pathetic tiny figure, in her crumpled white frock, with tear-stained face and quivering mouth.