Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys

perfectly normal one for a young married woman,’ said Lady B, crisply, ‘and if we’ve got to tiptoe about the place and talk in whispers for the next two months just because she’s going to have a baby, I, personally, shall stay away.’
    Lady B says she has noticed a certain amount of War Weariness, anxiety neurosis and Slackening of the War Effort in this place lately, and she has adopted a bracing attitude to counteract it. But nobody is ever offended by what Lady B says to them, and she has certainly done the Conductor, who began the prospective father’s anxious pacing as soon as he knew he was going to be one, a power of good.
    â€˜Pick up your crochet and go on with it, dear. Darling Lady B is only jealous because she never had any sons herself,’ said Faith placidly, and the Conductor went back to his chair, picked up his crochet, turned in his toes and assumed the heavy frown engendered by this labour of love.

    This labour of love
    â€˜I suppose I asked for that,’ said Lady B, with the greatest good nature. ‘I bet Henrietta wants it to be a boy, anyway,’said Faith, who won’t allow us to talk about anything at the Baby Bee except the Bee Baby.
    â€˜I don’t mind which it is as long as I don’t have to push it about in its pram,’ I said.
    â€˜But Henrietta, I was relying upon you for at least one afternoon a week!’
    â€˜Then you’re going to be disappointed, Faith,’ I said. ‘Of all the back-breaking, inside-dropping, dreary occupations, pushing a sleeping baby about the streets in a perambulator heads the list.’
    â€˜What a wicked thing to say!’
    â€˜I love Bill and the Linnet, and I wouldn’t not have had them for anything, but I can honestly say that I have spent the dreariest hours of my life pushing them around in their prams, and I’m never going to do it again if I can help it.’
    â€˜But don’t you want to push the Linnet’s babies about?’
    â€˜No!’
    â€˜Not even Bill’s?’
    â€˜No!’
    â€˜There’s something very hard about Henrietta,’ said Faith to Lady B.
    â€˜It probably makes her back ache,’ said Lady B, who always thinks of something kind to say on my behalf.
    â€˜I’ve been making enquiries about motor-prams, so that darling Faith won’t get too tired,’ said the Conductor, ‘but you can’t get them now, because of the petrol. You know, I don’t think this crochet is going right. It seems to get smaller and smaller’ and he held it up.
    â€˜It’s a Victory Pram Rug,’ said Lady B. ‘You’ll have to embroider it down the front with three dots and a dash.’
    â€˜Three Dots and a Dash,’ said Faith dreamily. ‘It sounds like Quads.’
    The Conductor gave a strangled cry and Lady B patted him on the knee.
    â€˜Well,’ I said, ‘I wish my knitting looked as much like a baby’s bootee as the Conductor’s crochet looks like a pram rug.’
    Everybody looked at my knitting in silence. It was slightly grey from repeated unravellings, and not in the least like a baby’s bootee, or anything else.
    â€˜You must persevere,’ said Lady B. ‘The only thing with that sort of knitting on two needles is to follow the directions blindly. Sometimes it suddenly turns out all right.’
    We worked in silence for a little, and then the Conductor went to get Faith’s Ovaltine. Lady B and I watched wistfully while she drank it.
    â€˜Is it nice, Faith?’
    â€˜
Delicious
!’
    â€˜She gets extra meat, too,’ said the Conductor proudly.
    â€˜If anybody gets extra milk, it ought to be Henrietta - she’s so thin,’ said Lady B.
    â€˜Henrietta is one of the people who are not worth preserving in the world today,’ said Faith. ‘She isn’t going to have a Baby, and she isn’t doing War Work.’
    â€˜She looks after