done. Besides, Daphne showed no signs of an intention to make any such sacrifice. She had her friends, and did not lose them because her mother was dead. Into a general programme of cleaning house, washing, shopping and getting meals for two, one can fit a dance at the Town Hall or an evening at the cinema easily enough, and Daphne did so. Edward was not helpless. Though Daphne took her mother’s place in charge of domestic matters, Edward was ready enough to help, and did. She finished school, and went on to a teachers’ training college, continuing to live at home, and look after her father. When the war came, she did not, it is true, join any of the Women’s Auxiliary Services, for there was no point in making her father homeless for
that
, but she took up the job she had been trained for, and became a certificated teacher at the local Elementary School. She had been friendly for some time with a young man named Alan, who was in her year at Coll. Friendly?—well, she had let him go farther than anyone else had ever gone, though not, of course, as far as he had wanted to go. When he was called up, they became engaged to be married. Alan, and their engagement, survived Dunkirk. Then it had seemed likely that he would be posted to the Middle East, so they were wed. Six months later, Alan was killed in the desert. A little over three months later still, Daphne took time off from work to bear twins. It was providential that her father was still at home to help her care for them.
But London early in 1942 was no place for new-born children. As soon as they could, they had moved to Edward’s married sister, whose husband had a small farm on moorland just outside Chesterfield. Two more children were no great matter to her. She had borne and reared seven, and had the habit of it. Daphne found a teaching post again easily enough. Edward went to work in a factory.
That sounds a simple decision. It had not been simple—or, if easy to make, not easy to execute. At the Ministry, they had said he was mad. They had been worried about him, really worried, even with so much else to worry them; they had been worried at the Ministry. An Executive Officer of fifty-six, with so little time before he was due a pension, to renounce it, and go off to the provinces, to do God knows what! Let Laverick take time to think about it; let him take a week off if necessary; let him have a little talk with his doctor. But Edward did not think he was mad. He was getting his own back, he thought. Long ago the Civil Service had trapped him, or at least it had allowed him to trap himself. His need, his parents’ strong wish, that he should better himself; it might sound snobbish and small, but it had led to an education, scraped on their part and slaved on his; it had led to evening classes at the Poly in York Place, to a growth of the mind, a joyous certainty that all the time he was pushing farther and farther back the blinkers that class and poverty had fastened on him. It had led (perhaps because his own imagination was too small) to the sort of job that had seemed made for him, the sort of job in which, by hard work and the passing of periodical examinations, one was bound to move, could not help but move, steadily up the ladder of promotion. So he had become a clerical officer in the Civil Service. Oh, he’d had security later on in the difficult days of the early nineteen-thirties, and he’d moved up that ladder. Therewas no cheat there. Time and the passing of the requisite examinations guaranteed promotion to Edward Laverick. He had moved from the Clerical Grade into the Executive Grade, and at the end he would have his pension. What he would never have was any real responsibility, since that, in the Civil Service, is only given to the Administrative Officers, who are most often recruited in a different way. It has to be so. Responsibility and judgment go together. There had been no opportunity in the Clerical and Executive Grades for Edward
that
, but she took up the job she had been trained for, and became a certificated teacher at the local Elementary School. She had been friendly for some time with a young man named Alan, who was in her year at Coll. Friendly?—well, she had let him go farther than anyone else had ever gone, though not, of course, as far as he had wanted to go. When he was called up, they became engaged to be married. Alan, and their engagement, survived Dunkirk. Then it had seemed likely that he would be posted to the Middle East, so they were wed. Six months later, Alan was killed in the desert. A little over three months later still, Daphne took time off from work to bear twins. It was providential that her father was still at home to help her care for them.
But London early in 1942 was no place for new-born children. As soon as they could, they had moved to Edward’s married sister, whose husband had a small farm on moorland just outside Chesterfield. Two more children were no great matter to her. She had borne and reared seven, and had the habit of it. Daphne found a teaching post again easily enough. Edward went to work in a factory.
That sounds a simple decision. It had not been simple—or, if easy to make, not easy to execute. At the Ministry, they had said he was mad. They had been worried about him, really worried, even with so much else to worry them; they had been worried at the Ministry. An Executive Officer of fifty-six, with so little time before he was due a pension, to renounce it, and go off to the provinces, to do God knows what! Let Laverick take time to think about it; let him take a week off if necessary; let him have a little talk with his doctor. But Edward did not think he was mad. He was getting his own back, he thought. Long ago the Civil Service had trapped him, or at least it had allowed him to trap himself. His need, his parents’ strong wish, that he should better himself; it might sound snobbish and small, but it had led to an education, scraped on their part and slaved on his; it had led to evening classes at the Poly in York Place, to a growth of the mind, a joyous certainty that all the time he was pushing farther and farther back the blinkers that class and poverty had fastened on him. It had led (perhaps because his own imagination was too small) to the sort of job that had seemed made for him, the sort of job in which, by hard work and the passing of periodical examinations, one was bound to move, could not help but move, steadily up the ladder of promotion. So he had become a clerical officer in the Civil Service. Oh, he’d had security later on in the difficult days of the early nineteen-thirties, and he’d moved up that ladder. Therewas no cheat there. Time and the passing of the requisite examinations guaranteed promotion to Edward Laverick. He had moved from the Clerical Grade into the Executive Grade, and at the end he would have his pension. What he would never have was any real responsibility, since that, in the Civil Service, is only given to the Administrative Officers, who are most often recruited in a different way. It has to be so. Responsibility and judgment go together. There had been no opportunity in the Clerical and Executive Grades for Edward
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