At the word “food” of course everyone was all attention, and we made ourselves into a Privy Council, and they appointed me Food Controller, because it would give them the right to do all the grumbling. But the matter was not quite as much of a joke as they thought. For so long they had been accustomed to a pantry stocked with bottles and tins and stores of all descriptions (and Virginia once remarked that to read the labels alone—if you had lost the tin-opener—was quite as good as a seven-course meal at a fashionable restaurant), that they forgot things were not like that now! In the dairy, too (which we use as a larder), it was the usual pre-war thing to see large open jam tarts in deep dishes, with a fancy trellis work over the top of the jam, and large pies with lovely water-lilies, made from the scraps of paste, on top, and spicy brown cakes, with a delicious odour, standing on the stone slabs—Abigail being a capital hand at pastry and cakes. The dairy is built on the north side, close under the hill, and the great stone wall that keeps the hill from tumbling down on top of the dairy is packed with hart’s-tongue and the British maiden-hair fern, and rosettes of the pretty little scaly spleenwort, and lacy tufts of wall rue, and practically every other kind of fern that loves damp shade and the English climate. And ivy runs over the lot right up to the top, where wild roses and honeysuckle and blackberry ramp about in the sunshine, and often peep down to see how it fares with their comrades in the cool ravine below. The long fronds of the fern wave in at the dairy window, and the ivy sends out little fingers, catching hold wherever it can, and creeping in, very much at home, through the wire-netting that does duty for a window. My guests always like to go into the dairy to see the wonderful array of ferns; but I sometimes suspect it is also to gaze on the appetizing-looking things that appeal irresistibly to all who have spent an hour or two in our hungry air!
But war had made a considerable difference alike to pantry and store-cupboard and larder, and we had to trust to the promise of Miss Jarvis, the lady at the village shop—and one of the most valuable members of the community—that we should not actually starve! As the stocks had been used, they had not been replenished. Cinnamon buns, lemon-curd cheese cakes, fruit cakes with a nice crack in the top, were no longer piled up in the larder. No home-cured ham, sewn up in white muslin, hung from the big hook in the kitchen ceiling. No large, dried, golden-coloured vegetable marrows hung up beside it for winter use.
We had plenty of potatoes, fortunately (and never had we valued potatoes as we did this year!), and we had the usual “remains” that are in the larder, when the butcher has not called for a few days and a family lives from hand to mouth, as one has had to do recently, lest one should be suspected of hoarding!
There was a tin of lunch biscuits, some cheese, and cereals; but the rest of the store cupboard seemed exasperatingly useless when it came to sustaining life in a snow-bound household. What good was a tin of linseed, for instance, or a bottle of cayenne, or a bottle of evaporated horse-radish (with the sirloin presumably still gambolling about somewhere in the valley)? Why had I ever laid in a bottle of tarragon vinegar, a bottle of salad dressing, a box of rennet tablets, a tin of curry powder, desiccated cocoanut, a bottle of chutney? Even the tin of baking powder and the nutmegs and capers seemed extravagant and superfluous. Oh, for a simple glass of tongue—but we had opened our only one the day we arrived!
One thing was certain: while the snow remained at its present depth, to say nothing of an increase, no provisions could be got up from the village. The steep roads were like glass the last time we were out; now they would be impassable for horses or vehicles, even though a man might manage to get over them somehow. Milk we could obtain from a neighbouring farm, perhaps a few eggs, possibly a fowl as a very special favour, now that our path was cleared; but that was the utmost we could hope to raise locally. The point to be considered was: How long could we hold out?
“Well, there is only one other thing I can think of,” said Virginia; “you must fly signals of distress, and hoist a flag up at the top of the chimney—they always do in books. . . . How are you to get the flag up the chimney? I’m sure I don’t know if you don’t! What’s the good of being an editor if you don’t know a simple little thing like that?”
But the problem was solved for me by a tap at the door, and then one realised the superiority of the servants of the Crown over all ordinary individuals. It was the postman. He said “Good morning” with the modest air of one who knows he has accomplished a great deed, but leaves it for others to extol.
“I’ve brought up the letters,” he said; “but I couldn’t get up the parcels to-day. There are a good many.” I knew what that meant. My post is necessarily a very heavy one, more especially when I am away from town, and great packages of things are sent down daily. “Is there anything I can take back with me?” he inquired.
I hastily scribbled some telegrams on urgent matters, glad of this chance to get them sent off; and I knew the Head of Affairs would be glad to hear we were all well. As I handed them to the man, he rather hesitatingly produced a bulky newspaper parcel that had been hidden under his big mackintosh cape, with an apologetic look, as it were, to the Crown, that the garment should have been put to so unofficial an use. Then in an undertone, lest the Postmaster-General in London might overhear, he said—
“Miss Jarvis was afraid you might be running short of things.” The thoughtful Lady of the Village Shop had sent up a loaf, a piece of bacon and a pound of sugar. How I blessed her!