Private Enterprise

CHAPTER 2-2

Francis had returned with renewed vigour to the mixing and shaking of such drinks as his mother had been able to hoard or to acquire by unblushing and open bribery. As he surveyed the company he felt it was very nice to see them again but he somehow didn’t much mind if he did or not. He was glad to be out of the army, for though he had much enjoyed the fighting, he had found the post-war interlude of peace-time soldiering quite intolerable. But though he was truly pleased to see his mother and his home again, though he looked forward very much to seeing his sister Delia Grant and her husband and children, though it was very pleasant to meet old friends and revisit familiar places, the fact remained that it was all a little dingy; more than a little depressing. That no one would wish to hear about his soldiering experiences in the Near and Middle East he quite realized and had taken considerable pains not to mention them. That his mother’s friends and indeed most of his own would prefer to tell him about the bomb that fell six miles away, and the night they weren’t in London when Aunt Edith’s house was totally destroyed only luckily she wasn’t there; for all this he had allowed and took it very well. But what he did resent was the ceaseless preoccupation with food. Everyone, so far as he could judge, had enough to eat, but they could not stop talking about it. The rations, the meat, the fish, the milk and eggs, the awfully dull recipes that people would give each other at meal-times, the even duller though more pretentious recipes that people cut out of newspapers and waved at each other; all these in his own simple words got him down. Had he stopped to think, he might have reflected that with a mother who still had a cook, with vegetables and eggs on the premises and a friendly farmer who despised the milk regulations as far as he dared and always saw to it that Stories didn’t go short, he had not any real grounds for complaint. But he saw his mother, of whom he was really very fond and proud, looking worn and being very ready to go to bed soon after their evening meal, which one could hardly call dinner, though Mrs. Brandon usually had a very sketchy lunch so that Francis should have two large helpings at night; he found that many of the neighbours were too tired or too busy to go out much; drink went by luck or outright bribery; furniture, walls, cushions, curtains looked worn and exhausted. It was not amusing for a hero returned from the nastiest war yet known, and Francis, for all his natural good-temper, was sometimes more depressed than he would have wished to admit. So he mixed and shook harder than ever and poured rather weak cocktails with a very good appearance of cheerfulness.

“My dear boy,” said a voice at his elbow. “My dear boy. Indeed, indeed this is a pleasure. Welcome, welcome.”

Francis turned and shook hands warmly with Mr. Miller, the Vicar of Pomfret Madrigal.

“I did see you in church yesterday,” said Francis, “but I didn’t like—I mean it didn’t seem quite the moment——”

He paused, slightly embarrassed, a feeling to which he was as a rule a stranger. Dash it all, why couldn’t one explain that though one was awfully pleased to see Mr. Miller again one couldn’t exactly get up in one’s seat and wave, and if one’s mother had hurried off after the service to get on the roof and see what it was that had blocked the pipe that carried the rain water off the leads to the water-butt, one could not say how do you do to the Vicar.

“I know, I know, my dear boy,” said Mr. Miller. “I too saw you and I rejoiced, for I felt your return was in a way an answer to my earnest prayers—you don’t mind I hope,” he added, fearing an excess of zeal.

“Rather not, padre. It was jolly decent of you,” said Francis, “and it was awfully nice to see everyone in church and the organ still with that note missing. I say, hope you didn’t mind my calling you padre, Mr. Miller. One just got into the habit in the army.”

Mr. Miller, who had been called padre during the whole of the 1914-18 war (or First World War, or First War for Universal Freedom, or War to End War), said he liked it very much and it made him feel quite young again.

“Have a drink, Mr. Miller,” said Francis. “I’ve made this one a bit stiffer for you. It’s a bit of a blow to come back and find one can’t offer people proper drinks. How is Mrs. Miller?”

The Vicar, much gratified, said that his dear wife was very well and would be coming to the party a little later. She had, he said, been a tower of strength to the whole village during the war. He then enumerated some of the many war jobs that Mrs. Miller had done with her usual quiet efficiency.

“But this small beer will not interest you,” said Mr. Miller, “I am most anxious to hear about your war experiences. You were in the Holy Land, so your mother told me. What a privilege. And what impression did you receive from it, my dear boy?”

Francis said he didn’t exactly know. Quite often, he said, he didn’t really know where he was and all the natives seemed much alike. He remembered Jerusalem because of the hotel there.

“Jerusalem,” said Mr. Miller. “And what was it like?”

“Pretty mouldy, sir,” said Francis. “And the hotel where they billeted us was quite ghastly. The Barsetshires got so fed up that they nearly wrecked the dining-room.”

The Vicar looked dashed. Francis’s heart smote him for his tactless remarks and he cast about for something to say that would cheer Mr. Miller up.

“Of course we saw all the sights, sir,” he said, “only it was a bit difficult to know what was what with a lot of guides all gabbling, and we had a pretty awful padre. Gosh, he was awful. Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, but I forgot you were a padre. I mean he was quite different. He would be human all the time, at least I don’t exactly mean that—but you understand, sir.”

Never had anyone appealed to Mr. Miller in vain. He partially understood his young friend’s difficulty and embarrassment, and in any case did not suspect any intent to be discourteous.

“I quite understand, my dear boy,” he said. “Have you a little more of that delightful mixture? Thank you, thank you. It is but rarely that I see the wine when it is red now,” said Mr. Miller, eyeing the pale watery fluid which had to take the place of a proper cocktail. “Was he the religious kind or the cheerful kind?”

“Both, sir,” said Francis. “That was the awful part. And we all wondered where he had been brought up, because he knew absolutely nothing. He said one day in mess, sir, that he was all against foul-mouthedness, but when the men used meaningless oaths was less offensive. He said he could not but shudder when he heard a man say ‘Cripes’—he really did say that, sir—but he didn’t mind a bit if they said a word that meant nothing, like——”

Here Francis paused, horror-struck to find just in time that a word was bursting out of his mouth which would certainly shock his mother’s guests, though most of them were pretty tolerant and many of them, under the stress of war and peace, had become foul-mouthed in a way quite unsuitable to their years and s*x.

Mr. Miller not only smiled, but laughed.

“It is curious,” he said, “how that very unpleasant nation’s name has become a synonym in more than one language for vice. It is, of course, largely a matter of religion.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” said Francis, much relieved that the Vicar had not excommunicated him.

“They, in common with other Eastern European nations if one can call them European, belonged, in so far as they could be said to have any religion,” said Mr. Miller, “to the Orthodox Church. The Church of Rome therefore very naturally attributed to them every vice they could think of and so the name stuck. And, as you say, Francis, it is deplorable that such uneducated men should be sent to minister to our fighting forces. They should all spend at least six months in a place where the inhabitants are habitually profane. I had the great good fortune as a very young man to live in the slums of a large seaport for a year, which taught me a great deal. In fact, during the last war—I am not boring you?—I was able if necessary to swear longer and more foully than anyone in the regiment. It took the heart out of the most profane when the padre beat them at the job,” said Mr. Miller with justifiable pride.

“Thanks awfully sir,” said Francis, feeling quite forgiven. “I didn’t mean to be rude about Jerusalem, but it was really pretty grim. And I brought a lot of picture postcards for you, sir, if you’d care to have them.”

Mr. Miller said he was deeply touched by the kind thought and would find them most useful for his confirmation classes which, he was glad to say, were the largest this year he had yet had, and so passed on to talk to other friends, while Francis attended to old Lady Norton who had to be asked and modelled her dress, hair and hats upon the Queen Mother with overpowering effect.

“How is everything going, darling?” Said Mrs. Brandon, finding herself by the sway and movement of the party, now one huge indistinguishable hubbub, suddenly brought face to face with her son.

“Splendidly,” said Francis. “The drink in particular is going like anything. In fact if it weren’t for the way your tall hero son is watering it down, it wouldn’t be here at all by now. Hullo, Lydia.”

“It’s Francis!” Lydia exclaimed, grasping his hand with her old vigour. “I haven’t seen you since the Pomfret Madrigal Flower Show. Do you remember the roundabout?”

“Lord! yes,” said Francis. “You rode on the c**k and Delia had the ostrich, and I was helping Mrs. Miller in the refreshment tent, only she was Miss Morris then. What a long time ago.”

“Eight years,” said Lydia.

“It all shows there is something in relativity,” said Francis. “At least I don’t know if that’s what I mean, but I mean the same amount of time can be longer or shorter. I say, how is your husband? My dear mamma used to flirt with him quite shockingly. It impressed me, because I looked upon him as a man of the world. I daresay he wasn’t much older than I am.”

Lydia said Noel was very well and very hard worked and was somewhere about in the room and Francis must meet him again and then a great wave of Birketts and Carters from Southbridge School descended upon the drinks and Francis returned to his duties. As most of the guests had to cook their own dinner or be home early in case the person who was cooking it for them took offence, the party did not linger as parties had lingered before the war. With a great final roar most of them went away. The Mertons were among the last to go, for Lydia had not forgotten about the house for Colin’s friend.