Talking of books, I had a heartfelt outburst from the young woman at the Library, who said she really didn't know what to do with some of the subscribers. If there isn't a brand-new book published for them every day they go in, they grumble frightfully, and they won't condescend to take anything that's a couple of months old, even if they haven't read it, which seems quite demented. They seem to spend their time running to catch up with the day after tomorrow — is it the influence of Einstein? The girl asked when there was going to be a new Harriet Vane murder-story. I said you thought the dictators were doing quite enough in that way, but she said her readers wanted their minds taken off dictators, though why murders should do that I don't know — you'd think it would remind them. I suppose people like to persuade themselves that death is a thing that only happens in books, and if you come to think of it, it that's probably the way the feel about religion, too — hence the pretty-pretty Christmas cards. All the same, I'm sending a few assorted murders to the poor dear men who are being so bored on the Balloon Barrage and jobs like that. So dull for them, poor things, and nobody seems to take much interest in them. More romantic, of course, to send them to men over-seas, but it can't be solitary out there as sitting up all night with a Blimp in darkest England.
Talking of darkest England, what one wants on the shops at night is not just a sign saying "Open," but something to show what they've got inside. They're allowed a little light on the goods — but if one's driving along one can't possibly see whether a pile of vague little shapes is cigarettes or chocolates or bath buns or something to do with wireless sets — and it doesn't help much to see just "J. Blogg" or "Pumpkin and Co.," unless you know what Blogg or Pumpkin is supposed to be selling. And even so, the poor souls have to go through a terrible fuss to get their lighting authorised. The garage people told Roberts (he's driving me now, Pickett having been called up) how they got permission from the chief A.R.P. officer to have a red night sign inside the archway, and he came along and saw it and gave it his blessing. Well, the very first night they had it lit, along came the police and tackled the night attendant — rather ancient and deaf, but quite capable of seeing to the pumps — and told the old boy to put it out or he'd get summonsed. So he said it had been approved by the A.R.P. chief. So they said, never mind the A.R.P. chief, he must put it out instantly or be arrested! In the end the manager had to go and make a commotion, and in the end they got it back. Too many cooks, of course — but what I say is, Sir John Anderson ought to get somebody to design a set of standardised signs with standardised lighting — just a plain, well-drawn outline of what the shop contains, so that you could recognise it from a distance. You could have it set into the middle of a black blind — then all you've to do is draw down the blind, light the sign from the back, and there you are. Something very simple is all you want — such as a Teapot for a Café, Pipe for a Tobacconist, a Knife and Fork for a Restaurant, a Tankard for a Public House, and a Cow for a Milk-Bar — quite unmistakeable, and thoroughly mediaeval and charming, like the Goldbeater's Arm and the Chemist's Pestle and Mortar — you could keep those, of cours,e though I suppose you wouldn't often want to drop casually in on a Goldbeater after black-out time. It would be quite cheap, if standardised, and would save all the argument, and there couldn't be any favouritism or discrepancies — just apply to the local police for your authorised sign. But there, it's only an old woman's notion — much too simple to appeal to a Ministry!
My dear, this letter is full of shopping and nonsense — but I've made up my mind that we just mustn't worry about Peter, because he disappeared so many times in the last war and always turned up again more or less safe and sound. He's got quite a good instinct of self-preservation, really. And he's not stupid, which is a comofrt, whatever Kingsley has to say about being good and letting who will be clever — though I don't see how you can be clever just by willing. Peter always maintains that Kingsley said "can," not "will," and perhaps he did. I only hope he still has Bunter with him, though if he's gone into any queer place in disguise I can't think what he can have done with him, because if ever a man had "English gentleman's personal gentleman" written all over him, it's Bunter. I had a letter from him yesterday, so discreet it might have been written from Piccadilly, and conveying the compliments of the Season to all the Family, with a capital F.
We're looking forward to seeing you all for Christmas, germs permitting. I hope you won't mind our being over-run with evacuees and children's parties — Christmas Tree and Conjurer in the Ball-Room, with charades and games after supper — I'm afraid it will be rather noisy and rampageous and not very restful.
Always your affectionate
MOTHER
P.S. - I'm sorry my English is so confusing. It was Bunter, not Peter, who wrote the discreet letter, and Peter, not Kingsley, who has Bunter with him — at least, I hope so.
The Wimsey Papers, pt. II
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10 and 11. Miss Letitia Martin, Dean of Shrewsbury College, Oxford, to Lady Peter Wimsey at Talboys.
ACADEMIC WOMEN'S CLUB,
FITZROY SQUARE, W.1.
18.12.39.
My dear Harriet,
Thank you so much for that lovely book and the delightful photograph of the infants — a most gratifying addition to the portrait-gallery of Shrewsbury grandchildren! I hope my little offering to the nursery will arrive in time. I'm not sending much in the way of presents this year, because what with the income-tax, and cigarettes for soldiers, and scarves for mine-sweepers, and Funds for Distressed Victims (assorted), and subscriptions to entertainments, and Bonds, and Savings, and one thing and another, one's cheque-book just melts away, leaving one bankrupt of all but good wishes. If Sir John Simon would only explain how exactly one is to spend hard to win the Economic War, and at the same time save hard to win the Economic Peace, he would confer a benefit on mere narrow-minded logicians like me — but I suppose the answer is that in war-time one has to do the impossible, and will end by doing it. Anyway, my dear, all my best wishes to you all, and may your lord and master soon return home, with new detective exploits to his credit!
How tremendously the flight off Montevideo has taken hold of one's thoughts! Like the loss of the 'Rawalpindi', it has the unmistakable heroic quality that links it up with all our naval history back to the Armada — one feels that Nelson must have been aboard the 'Exeter,' and that Drake and Grenville helped to command the 'Ajax' and 'Achilles' when they ran in under the 'Graf Spee's' guns. It's good for us to have these reminders, especially just now. "This is a funny war," people say — and I know what they mean. When everything happens at sea, it's rather like two people playing chess. There's a deathly silence, and you don't know quite what they're up to; you only see one piece after another swept off the board and accounted for — a destroyter here, a merchantman there, a black knight exchanged for a white bishop — all queerly impersonal and worked out in terms of things — pieces — so many taken and so many left. And then, suddenly, the combination gets into action, and you see what it was all about, right away from the original gambit — a knight comes dancing across, two little pawns you'd scarcely notice trip forward hand in hand, the black queen is forced into a corner, the knight hops away and unmasks the waiting rook, and plonk! the black queen's gone and the king in check.
It's sobering to read of so many casualties — all one can say is that, if men have to be killed, it's a cause for pride and gratitude to know they the job they were doing is done,and done well. The most heartbreaking thing must be to feel that one's husband or son died for something that turned out badly, or ought never to have happened. And I am most dreadfully sorry for poor Langsdorf. He seemed to have had a very good chit from our people — "a very great gentleman," they said, and he must have simply hated having to scuttle his ship. Of course, it was a bit spiteful to do it right in the middle of the fairway, but no doubt Hitler told him to. I hope there's no truth in the extraordinary rumour that H. offered him a million marks to get the ship home. That would be the last insult. Not that I would put it past the little wretch — he never was out of the top drawer.