CXLVII
Roy Barrance to his sister Hazel
Darling Old Thing,—It is no good. I am down and out. The whole thing has been a failure. To begin with, I had a hell of a journey, full of hopes and fears alternately. In the taxi at Paddington I felt full of buck and then while waiting for the train to start I knew I was a goner. At Reading I began to have hopes again and at Swindon I wasn’t worth two-pence-halfpenny. At Newport I nearly got out and came back and at Hereford I had a big whisky and soda and was confident once more. But all the way from the station to the house I just sweated.
The very first thing I saw as I came up the drive was Clemency playing tennis with the new Doctor, and my heart sank like a U boat into my socks. I knew in my bones that everything was up; and I was right. Whether or not Clemency is booked, I don’t know, but she won’t have me. She was as nice as she could be, and her voice drove me frantic every time she spoke, but she held out no hope. I expect the sawbones will get her, he’s the kind of quiet, assured, efficient card that a flighty blighter like me would never have a chance against. And he’s nobbled the whole place. Aunt Verena thinks he’s It.
I stuck it for two days and then I made an excuse and came away. And now, what do you think I’m doing? I’m a railway porter. I carry people’s luggage at Paddington and tell them when the train starts for Thingumbob—if ever it does—and what time the train comes in from Stick-in-the-mud. I was going to Ireland to fish and try to forget—Clemency told me of a place called Curragh Lake—but the strike came and put the lid on that for the moment. The joke is that the old ladies all want to know what lord I am—as the papers have given them the idea that at Paddington there are only noblemen helping.—Your broken-hearted
Roy
CXLVIII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena, I think that we may all feel happier than we were doing. Even if Old England stands not quite where she did, the bulldog breed is not extinct. The way in which the nation has taken the railway trouble, and the lightning efficiency of the food distributing arrangements, should put dismay into enemy hearts—and under the word enemy I include Allies and rivals—and renew our own individual and corporate ambition and national spirit. In that way the Strike may be said to have been a blessing in disguise, although industrially it has been a calamity. It may also make people look a little more narrowly at their pence, which is what we shall all have to do before long.