“Unless at Whitehall, and censorship is on even there. I must talk fast, let me see—there was a violent thunderstorm tonight while the House was still sitting, and everybody thought it was the first air raid. You’re supposed to laugh at that.”
“Ha-ha,” Virginia obliged mirthlessly. “Go on—quick.”
“Churchill was in the House tonight, and Lloyd-George—like 1914 over again. All the barrage balloons are up over London and everybody is standing to. Mona is with her ambulance, helping to empty the hospitals of movable patients to make room for an estimated fifty thousand casualties a week—that figure is based on what happened at Barcelona and Warsaw. Yes, I know, our defences are better! Sandbags everywhere now, and plate glass windows all taped in pretty patterns. Theatres closing, people out of work. We can’t go on like this, it will come tomorrow morning. There go the time-pips, I’ll have to stop—”
The connection ended.
As Virginia hung up, the door of the small parlour opened across the hall and the Bank girls came out, having listened to the News on their radio there.
“What does it mean?” asked Anne from the foot of the stairs. “Are we going to back down?”
“That was my sister-in-law calling from London,” said Virginia. “They don’t seem to know any more than we do.”
“It would be ten times worse than Munich,” said Anne. “We can’t hold up our heads if we don’t do something now.”
“Tomorrow, I think,” said Virginia. “About noon.”
She watched them trailing up the stairs. The one who was taking it badly mopped at her eyes, and Anne laid a consoling arm round her waist.
Then it was Sunday morning, September third—bright warm sunshine—a blaze of autumn colour in the gardens and the parks—green, tidy England—ten o’clock, and keep your radio turned on for an announcement at eleven—as though anyone’s radio was ever turned off, any more—eleven o’clock, here it comes—Bow bells, the BBC signal that a special bulletin was due—bells, like a wedding….
Virginia gathered the Bank girls in the big drawing room with the family. “We’ll swallow it together,” she said. They found places on the edges of the chairs and sofas, only Anne seeming at ease as a guest. Claudia Merton sniffed audibly and blew into her handkerchief while they waited. Basil was there, restless and oppressed, with his sensible nurse. Mab was there, silent and withdrawn in her young dignity. Miss Sim the governess, returned only yesterday from Scotland, sat upright in a corner with her knitting. Virginia lighted a cigarette….
At eleven-fifteen the familiar schoolmasterish voice of the Prime Minister emerged at last from the radio: “
I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of Number
10
Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I now have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received….
”
“Well,” said Virginia quietly when it was over, “now we can hold up our heads, Miss Phillips. Now we are at war. Don’t anyone go away, I’ll only be a minute—”
When she had left the room they sat almost motionless and silent, obediently waiting for her to return. She was followed by Melchett wheeling a trolley on which were frail-stemmed glasses and a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket.
“Dutch courage,” said Virginia, watching while Melchett popped the cork and began to fill the glasses, and the girls, wide-eyed and speechless, were almost as stunned by the elegance of champagne at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning as by the declaration of war.
So they drank to victory, while the BBC read out again the air raid instructions and precautions they already knew by heart.
And Virginia thought of Jeff’s mother Phoebe, who
“Ha-ha,” Virginia obliged mirthlessly. “Go on—quick.”
“Churchill was in the House tonight, and Lloyd-George—like 1914 over again. All the barrage balloons are up over London and everybody is standing to. Mona is with her ambulance, helping to empty the hospitals of movable patients to make room for an estimated fifty thousand casualties a week—that figure is based on what happened at Barcelona and Warsaw. Yes, I know, our defences are better! Sandbags everywhere now, and plate glass windows all taped in pretty patterns. Theatres closing, people out of work. We can’t go on like this, it will come tomorrow morning. There go the time-pips, I’ll have to stop—”
The connection ended.
As Virginia hung up, the door of the small parlour opened across the hall and the Bank girls came out, having listened to the News on their radio there.
“What does it mean?” asked Anne from the foot of the stairs. “Are we going to back down?”
“That was my sister-in-law calling from London,” said Virginia. “They don’t seem to know any more than we do.”
“It would be ten times worse than Munich,” said Anne. “We can’t hold up our heads if we don’t do something now.”
“Tomorrow, I think,” said Virginia. “About noon.”
She watched them trailing up the stairs. The one who was taking it badly mopped at her eyes, and Anne laid a consoling arm round her waist.
Then it was Sunday morning, September third—bright warm sunshine—a blaze of autumn colour in the gardens and the parks—green, tidy England—ten o’clock, and keep your radio turned on for an announcement at eleven—as though anyone’s radio was ever turned off, any more—eleven o’clock, here it comes—Bow bells, the BBC signal that a special bulletin was due—bells, like a wedding….
Virginia gathered the Bank girls in the big drawing room with the family. “We’ll swallow it together,” she said. They found places on the edges of the chairs and sofas, only Anne seeming at ease as a guest. Claudia Merton sniffed audibly and blew into her handkerchief while they waited. Basil was there, restless and oppressed, with his sensible nurse. Mab was there, silent and withdrawn in her young dignity. Miss Sim the governess, returned only yesterday from Scotland, sat upright in a corner with her knitting. Virginia lighted a cigarette….
At eleven-fifteen the familiar schoolmasterish voice of the Prime Minister emerged at last from the radio: “
I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of Number
10
Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I now have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received….
”
“Well,” said Virginia quietly when it was over, “now we can hold up our heads, Miss Phillips. Now we are at war. Don’t anyone go away, I’ll only be a minute—”
When she had left the room they sat almost motionless and silent, obediently waiting for her to return. She was followed by Melchett wheeling a trolley on which were frail-stemmed glasses and a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket.
“Dutch courage,” said Virginia, watching while Melchett popped the cork and began to fill the glasses, and the girls, wide-eyed and speechless, were almost as stunned by the elegance of champagne at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning as by the declaration of war.
So they drank to victory, while the BBC read out again the air raid instructions and precautions they already knew by heart.
And Virginia thought of Jeff’s mother Phoebe, who
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