The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

conversation sprang up. Lady Gifford whispered questions to which Mrs. Cove gave terse replies in a singularly disagreeable voice. It was cold and sharp and it had a subtly common overtone, not innate, but acquired in the course of many battles with the grasping mob. She said that she was taking this holiday because she had recently sold her ‘haouse’ in the south of London. A mere house, as Siddal said afterwards to his family, would not, probably, have fetched half so much as a ‘haouse’ could. Houses are sold through estate agents who take commission. ‘Haouses’ are disposed of by their owners, who always get the best of the bargain.
    This one, explained Mrs. Cove, had doubled in value since she bought it, for the flying bombs had created a scarcity in that district.
    ‘Oh terrible!’ agreed Lady Gifford. ‘So much worse than the Blitz! More of a nervous strain, weren’t they?’
    ‘Were you in London through the Blitz, Lady Gifford?’
    This was from Miss Ellis, chirping up from her sofa, reminding them that she not only had the right to sit but might talk if she liked.
    ‘No,’ breathed Lady Gifford. ‘No … actually I was there very little. But my husband was all through the worst of it. And naturally I was very anxious. For I felt I had to be with the children. Where,’ she asked Mrs. Cove, ‘did you send yours?’
    ‘Nowhere,’ snapped Mrs. Cove. ‘We stayed in London. We had an Anderson shelter. I wasn’t nervous.’
    ‘Weren’t they?’ asked Lady Gifford.
    ‘No.’
    Mrs. Cove pursed her lips as if to say that her children knew better than to be nervous.
    ‘How lucky. Mine would have been shattered. They’re all so highly strung. I’m thankful to say not one of them ever heard a bomb.’
    ‘In America weren’t you, Lady Gifford?’ suggested Miss Ellis.
    Lady Gifford ignored her and continued to address Mrs. Cove.
    ‘We had a kind invitation from a friend in Massachusetts. They had a wonderful time. But I didn’t, naturally, want them to become Americanized. So I felt I must go with them.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Mrs. Cove, looking up from her knitting. ‘Don’t you like Americans?’
    ‘Oh yes, I love them. So wonderfully kind and hospitable .’
    ‘Then why didn’t you want your children to be Americanized ? When you accepted all this hospitality?’
    ‘Oh well …’ Lady Gifford made a helpless little gesture. ‘One does want them to be British, doesn’t one?’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs. Cove. ‘Which is why I kept mine in Britain. I had invitations for my children. But I don’t like cadging.’
    Lady Gifford flushed slightly.
    ‘Naturally one disliked that part of it,’ she said. ‘I always thought it quite ridiculous that one wasn’t allowed to pay for them. But personally I think we owed it to our children to put them in safety, whatever the sacrifice. Don’t you?’
    She turned her haggard gaze upon the Paleys as if asking for their support. Mrs. Paley looked flustered and made no reply. Mr. Paley stared at his boots and said:
    ‘I agree with Mrs. Cove. If I had had children I should have kept them in England. I should not have allowed them to live on charity.’
    ‘Plenty of places in the British Isles were fairly safe,’ said Sir Henry, turning round. ‘Many people here never heard a bomb.’
    ‘Oh, but one couldn’t know that,’ said Lady Gifford. ‘And I don’t think innocent little children ought to suffer. I always say that. The innocent oughtn’t to suffer.’
    ‘They invariably do,’ said Mr. Siddal. ‘They always have.’
    ‘But why? Why?’
    Dick Siddal leant back upon his sofa and stared at three flies circling round the chandelier. He was getting bored with Lady Gifford.
    ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘the sufferings of the innocent are useful. That idea first occurred to me when one of my children said how unkind it was of Lot to leave Sodom, since, as long as he stayed there, the city was safe. The presence of one righteous man preserved