LIFE AND LETTERS
983
too easily decided that war is inevitable, it's only by thinking so that
we make it, you know." "Of course," she had found herself answer–
ing mockingly "who can understand that better than
I?
You don't
remember the last war, but I do. Those hundreds of Belgians, each
without a right arm. Oh! it was terrible." The ridiculous little woman
had looked so puzzled that she had been unable to resist embroidering.
"Don't you know Belgium then?" she had said. "Not a man there
to-day with a right arm, and very few with right eyes. Those were all
gouged out with hot irons before the Kaiser himself. To make a
Roman holiday, of course." The woman had gone away offended.
Silly little creature, with all her petitions she had been most anxious
to prove her ardour in the war when it came, although of course like
everyone in Oxford she had been perfectly safe. How they had all
talked of the terrible raids, and how they had all kept out of them.
At least she had preserved her integrity. "Thousands killed brutally in
London last night" she had said to the Master "and everyone of us
preserved intact. What a glorious mercy!" They thought she was mad,
and so she was, of course, judged by their wretched middle-class norm.
"I hereby faithfully swear once more" she said aloud "that I will make
no compromise, and I utterly curse them from henceforth. May no
wife of any fellow in either of the major Universities be fecund,
nor may the illicit unions of research students be blessed," and she
added maliciously "May the stream of sherry so foolishly imported by
this present government be dried up, so that there may be no more
'little sherry parties'." It was monstrous when things of importance–
spirits for example- were in short demand-though what such jargon
really meant one was at a loss to understand-that such frivolities as
sherry parties should be indulged.
Suddenly she could hear that other voice inside her speaking slow–
ly and distinctly, counting in the old, familiar fashion-two bottles
of gin in the trunk in the attic, two in the garden shed, one in the
bureau, she had the key to that, and then one in the bottom of her
wardrobe with the shell mending box. The bureau one was a bit risky,
Henry occasionally used that, but with the key in her possession . ..
six bottles in all. I'll send Henry down with that girl to the pub for a
drink before lunch and they'll be out walking this afternoon, she
decided. It had seemed as though the girl's presence would make
things difficult, Henry had obviously hoped so when he had invited
