Dolly's War by Dorothy Scannell Read Free Book Online Page A

not quite dead, cherished in an egg-cup. My mother loved flowers too, but to my father these were an unnecessary extravagance. If Mother was ever in funds and purchased some mimosa or daffodils, when the temptation to pass them by was too great, we would be very cross with my father for when he came in to meals and Mother was gazing fondly at the bright promise of spring on the table he would say, ‘What I want to see on the table is something with steam rising from it.’
    I think my own father looked down on Alfred, my father-in-law, not only because he stayed at home and helped his wife in the house, never going to a club with MEN as my father did, but also because of his restrained drinking habits. My father told Alfred that he had brewed some good strong beer himself once but that he discontinued its manufacture because the family didn’t appreciate his efforts at economy. When I told Chas’s father of the home-brewed affair he couldn’t stop laughing and said he was glad he was no drinker. He thought my father a wonderful man and said he was a real ‘character’.
    When I hear Kipling’s words ‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster’, I see my father again standing in that little East End kitchen rubbing the balding top of his head, like a small boy, bewildered, sad, puzzled and then amused at the result of the failure of another of his ‘do-it-yourself’ projects. The ‘law of averages’, an expression my father was very fond of quoting, never applied to my father’s experiments. They were all, without exception, disasters. To Mother’s great relief I think the home-brewed beer project was my father’s swan-song. At that time in my hectic pre-marital career I worked in an office in Moorgate. The staff were all middle-class (to me, blue-blooded), but in this office I was exceptionally popular. It was a charity which ran a boarding-school for the sons and daughters of impoverished clergy and the like.
    One of the typists whose father was in the stockbroking business invited me to her home in Hampstead for the week-end. I had tried to refuse gracefully but Mother persuaded me to go. It was Mother’s one aim in life that out of all her girls ‘Dolly’ should marry a tradesman. I never knew quite what she meant by a ‘tradesman’ and I don’t think she did either. However, a real leather attache case was borrowed from somewhere, I saved hard for silk underclothes, a nightdress and a ‘ball’ gown. It was the first time I had acquired silk underclothes and they were the most beautiful things I had ever possessed. The vest and cami-knickers were in eau-de-Nil crepe de Chine edged with coffee-coloured lace. I must have made an indelible impression in these luxurious garments for my younger sister Marjorie still quotes that the sight of me in these cami-knickers at the dress rehearsal was the most beautiful sight she has ever seen. The trouble was that despite that compliment I didn’t possess a face to match my figure and since I could not walk about in the City of London clad only in my cami-knickers I was still a ‘nice homely girl’ because I possessed such a matronly face.
    However, with great pride, Mother packed my week-end case and I can see, even now, her work-worn fingers gently stroking the elegant silk in its tissue-paper. Mother had to pack the case on Thursday evening because she was visiting the miniature village at Beaconsfield with the Mothers’ Union on Friday, and as I had to be up early on Saturday morning she was afraid ‘slap-dash Dolly’ would forget something as I had to bathe and shampoo my hair on Friday evening. My case was closed, but left unlocked on the kitchen dresser, awaiting my ascent into society.
    Friday was a Borough holiday, so my father, a plumber with the local council, had the day off. This perturbed no one at the time although, with hindsight, it should have