Henrietta Sees It Through Read Online Free

I’m reduced to wearing the uniform I had in the last war.’
    â€˜Three pink gins, please,’ said the Admiral to the barman, in a low voice.
    â€˜You look very nice in it, Major,’ said the Lady Visitor, who appeared to be one of those women who believe in making themselves pleasant at all costs.
    â€˜Funny place this,’ said the spy. Then he leaned forward in a confidential manner and said: ‘Believe me or believe me not, I was chased - yes, positively chased - by two females on the cliff path this morning.’
    â€˜I can’t believe it!’ said the Lady Visitor.
    â€˜Fact, I assure you,’ said the Major, twirling his moustache.
    â€˜Were they attractive?’ said the Lady Visitor.
    â€˜Not a bit,’ said the Major. ‘And, what’s more, they were old enough to know better.’

    â€˜I was chased by two females on the cliff path this morning’
    We swallowed our pink gins and crept out as silently as we had come in. As we got to the door we heard the Lady Visitor say: ‘It must have been your uniform that attracted them, poor things.’
    Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,
    H ENRIETTA

 
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    May 6, 1942
    M Y D EAR R OBERT
    Spring is here, and I have started what Charles calls my rearguard action with the weeds. Daffodils are dancing and fluttering in a not inconsiderable, and definitely cold, breeze, and wood anemones rear their delicate heads, as people who write about the spring are so fond of saying.
    Yet, in spite of the burgeoning and budding, life in your old home town is not as uneventful these days as I could wish it to be. A few days ago, in the middle of lunch, and without the slightest warning, things suddenly began to be very unpleasant indeed. After two tremendous Bangs and the rattle of machine-gun bullets, I slid gracefully under the dining-room table and cowered there until the enemy plane, after a few more Bangs, had roared over our chimney-pots and out to sea again.

    I slid gracefully under the table
    When I emerged, Charles was still eating his lunch. ‘That gave you a turn,’ he said with a grin.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Dirty swine,’ said Charles, cutting himself another slice of bread.
    â€˜Yes.’ I looked with distaste at the lunch I had been enjoying a few moments before.
    â€˜Eat up your food, Woman, eat up your food,’ said Charles irritably.
    â€˜I don’t really feel hungry now.’
    â€˜Can’t work on an empty stomach,’ said Charles. Then the telephone rang, and he said ‘Ah,’ and left the room, and a few minutes later I heard him drive away in his car.
    If it was Hitler’s idea to strike terror into the hearts of sleepy West Country folk, then the whole thing was a failure, because it has simply made everybody very angry indeed. Lady B came round that evening, quite pink with annoyance. ‘I’m in such a temper,’ she said.
    Charles said he wished he could give her a little something, but there wasn’t a drop in the cupboard.
    When we asked Lady B if she had been upset by the Incidents, she said no, she had got under the piano and taken some of Fay’s Dog Bromide mixture, which had worked wonders. Lady B said Fay had been quite unmoved by each shattering explosion, and had remained in her basket with a bored expression on her face.
    â€˜The people whose windows have been blown in are very scornful of the ones whose windows have not been blown in,’ said Lady B. ‘And the people whose doors and windows have been blown in are scornful of the people whose windows only have been blown in, and the people whose houses have been knocked down are scornful of everybody.’
    â€˜Snom bobbery is rife,’ I said.
    â€˜What, dear?’ said Lady B, peering at me anxiously.
    â€˜Snom bobbery.’
    â€˜She’s probably suffering from shock,’ said Charles to Lady B in a low tone.
    We are all very proud