Growing Up

CHAPTER I-3

When the war fell on England the Warings were at their wits’ end and saw themselves reduced to living in the staff quarters and letting the rest of the house decay, so they were on the whole grateful when, as we have heard, the army convalescent home that was to have been in Woolstaplers’ Hall was transferred to the Priory. The owners found themselves indeed living in the servants’ quarters, but though a more lavish age had thought them poky, they were far more comfortable than the great cold suites of rooms in the house, and the War Office, while putting in central heating and several dozen fixed basins, saw no objection to running the heating across to the servants’ wing and installing five surplus basins, two baths and an up-to-date gas cooker. An elderly kitchen-maid and an elderly housemaid were saved from the wreckage of the staff. Lady Waring’s ex-nannie who had been retired on a pension (there would never be any grandchildren for her to spoil since George Waring was killed just before the Armistice) ordered her widowed daughter to leave London and those nasty raids and come to her ladyship as useful maid. Selina Crockett came on approval. A pretty, plump creature, nearer fifty than forty, with uncontrollable tendrils of dark hair streaked with silver, and liquid eyes which filled with tears on the slightest provocation, she was as mild as her notable old mother was fierce and snappish, and being immediately approved, slipped into the life of the Priory as if she had always been in service.

Lady Waring sometimes wondered whether she ought to be so comfortable, but as Sir Harry worked in town four days a week on matters connected with regimental charities, spent two days’ hard work on county jobs and was rarely free on Sundays, besides doing a good deal of the gardening, she hoped her comfort would be forgiven, wherever these things are judged, because it made a restful home for her husband. Sir Harry in much the same way felt that his lines had fallen in far too pleasant places for an old soldier, but was thankful that his wife, who between Red Cross, Girl Guides, Working Parties, Women’s Voluntary Service and a dozen other activities was as busy as he, besides less often having her evenings free, had a safe refuge for her brief leisure and Selina to look after her.

Lady Waring drove the little car straight into the garage. Her husband locked it and they walked over to their own quarters. It was a cold raw evening and as Sir Harry opened the front door the blast of superheating which the War Office bestowed on them was extremely welcome. Selina Crockett came hurrying into the sitting-room to take her mistress’s coat and parcels.

“What’s the matter, Selina? You’ve been crying,” said Lady Waring.

“Oh no, my lady,” said Selina, crystal drops welling in her large eyes, “it’s only I was upset about Matron.”

“What has Matron been up to?” asked Sir Harry, amused. “By Jove, it’s nice to see a fire. I get sick of all these offices with nothing but central heating. Been pinching the nurses’ rations?”

“Oh no, sir,” said Selina wiping her eyes. “It’s her cat she was so fond of. It’s dead. She is so upset, my lady.”

“Dear, dear,” said Lady Waring, not much interested in a cat with whom she was not personally acquainted.

“It was dreadful, my lady,” Selina continued, again shedding a few lustrous tears. “Private Jenks borrowed a gun from Mr. Margett after tea to shoot a rabbit and he saw p***y climbing a tree and thought she was a squirrel, so he shot her, and it was the first time he’d got a squirrel and he was so pleased, and then he went to pick it up and it was Matron’s cat. He knew p***y at once because she was quite a favourite and only the day before some of the boys put her in a gas-mask and took a snap of her with her little face peeping out. Private Jenks was so upset, my lady. He wrapped her up in his handkerchief and brought her to Matron and said, ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve got here, miss,’ and Sister said Matron was so upset. And she’s coming in after dinner, please, Sir Harry.”

“Who? Sister?” asked Sir Harry.

“Oh no, Sir Harry. Matron,” said Selina. “She wants you to speak to Mr. Margett about letting the boys have guns. She says they’ll be shooting each other next, though that’s not so bad, she said, as a poor innocent little cat. Poor p***y looked so lovely when she was dead, Sir Harry. I know I oughtn’t to cry about a cat, my lady, but I am so upset.”

She wiped her eyes apologetically, picked up coats and parcels and left the room.

“Wonderful the way that woman can cry without sniffing,” said Sir Harry.

“Dear Sophy!” said his wife.

Sir Harry looked up from his evening paper.

“Only literature, Harry,” said Lady Waring.

“That’s all right, my dear,” said Sir Harry admiringly, and Lady Waring felt for the many thousandth time since her marriage what a prig she was and how little was the value of all the books she had been brought up on and lived by, whose people and phrases coloured her daily thoughts and modes of speech, compared with the honesty and common sense of her husband and his unfailing sense of duty. She wished, as so often before, that she could put this into words for her husband, to express her almost humble admiration of his goodness and kindness; but, as usual, too many tools to her hand, she hesitated among the exquisite choice of words that the English language offers, was helplessly dumb, and found no better solution than to kiss the thinning hair on the top of Sir Harry’s head.

“I’m going to have my bath now,” she said, in a voice meant to explain to any unseen power that was hovering about how very unsentimental she really was. “I always feel so dirty after a day in Winter Overcotes. And Lucasta Bond was more trying than usual.”

Sir Harry made an affectionate, absent-minded and approving noise.

“Please, my lady,” said Selina, appearing at the door, “it’s Mr. Hamp. He says he is sorry but he couldn’t get here sooner and could you see him now.”

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Waring. “I suppose so, Selina. Harry, do you mind?”

“Mind what, dear?” said Sir Harry, looking up over the newspaper.

“Mr. Hamp,” said his wife. “He has had my black skirt for four months and if I don’t let him try it on now I’ll probably not get it for another four months. I would take him into my bedroom but Selina stupidly turned the heating off when she was cleaning it and has only just turned it on, and he feels the cold in his head ever since nineteen-fifteen. We won’t disturb you.”

“Carry on,” said Sir Harry.

Selina opened the door again and let in Mr. Hamp, carrying over his arm the black skirt, swathed in a kind of cerecloth of shiny holland. Reft from the bespoke tailoring business at Worsted during the last war he had been sent to India where he got sunstroke and was kicked on the head by a mule. The result of these combined operations had been the loss of most of his hair, which had never grown again, and on the top of his head a peculiar bump or shelf which had a morbid attraction for his customers. By a providential arrangement he was a better hand with skirts than with coats, so while he circled about his ladies on his knees, his mouth full of pins, or measuring stick in hand, they were able to have a good look at the bump or shelf and wonder where on earth he kept his brains. Ever since his double accident he had been morbidly sensitive to cold, and his head was apt to assume a violet hue very terrifying to those who were not used to it. Though really a man’s tailor, he was willing to do his best for the local ladies and was not a bad hand at alterations.

Lady Waring greeted him and said she would slip the skirt on in her room and come back. Accompanied by Selina, she disappeared.

“Evening,” said Sir Harry. “Sit down.”

Mr. Hamp, who had risen to the rank of corporal on the very day the mule kicked him, knew better than to sit down in the presence of a general and stiffened.

“Things going all right?” said Sir Harry, who had already forgotten exactly who Mr. Hamp was and why he was in the room, but wanted to show good feeling.

“Well, sir, if you like to call them all right I suppose they are all right in a manner of speaking,” said Mr. Hamp cautiously, “but not what you’d really call all right.”

“Bad show, eh?” said Sir Harry, still feeling his way.

“Well, I don’t know about that, sir,” said Mr. Hamp broad-mindedly, “but what I say is, only a man as has cut trousers knows what trousers is.”

“Rather,” said Sir Harry.

“You see, sir,” said Mr. Hamp, encouraged by Sir Harry’s interest, “take a nice pair of gent’s trousers, say in a light summer suiting. If you leave a cuff, or turn-up as you may say, you make your turn-up and there it is.”

He paused to let this sink in.

“Eh?” said Sir Harry. “Oh, yes, there it is.”

“Well, sir,” continued Mr. Hamp, “here comes the Government and says the cuff, or turn-up if I make myself clear, uses too much stuff, so it says, No more cuffs. Well, sir, a gentleman like you can easy see the mistake there.”

“To tell you the truth, I can’t,” said Sir Harry. “It seems to me that a trouser with a cuff must use more stuff than a trouser without a cuff.”

“Ah! that’s what they say,” said Mr. Hamp. “But if you’ll permit me to demonstrate, sir, I’ll prove to you the exact contrary. Now, look at your cuff, sir, a nice well-tailored cuff. To make that cuff, sir, you cut the leg so many inches longer than you need it, you turn it up so, stitch it so, and there you are.”

As he spoke he kneeled in his enthusiasm and gave a practical demonstration by seizing the cuff of Sir Harry’s right trouser leg in his practised hands and turning it down. A halfpenny rolled out.

“Good God! there’s the halfpenny I couldn’t find last night,” said Sir Harry, who always balanced his petty cash before he went to bed. “And what a filthy lot of fluff.”

“You’ll always find that, sir,” said Mr. Hamp, still on his knees. “In the days when gentlemen had gentlemen to look after their clothes proper, sir, you wouldn’t find that. Everything’s altered now.”

“That’s a nasty bump,” said Sir Harry, who had been staring at the top of Mr. Hamp’s head. “Fall, eh?”

“No, sir,” said Mr. Hamp. “Mountain battery mule’s off hind-leg, sir.”

“Lord! I didn’t know we had any of them about here,” said Sir Harry.