Westwood Read Free

about her, but the colours were quickly fading now, and the greyness of evening was creeping over the fields.
    As she was leaving the Heath, between two wide lakes reflecting the last colours in the sky and the clumps of dark roseate osiers, she saw two tall men coming towards her through the mist. The elder wore a closely fitting dark coat and a black diplomatic hat, and carried a leather brief-case, and had eyes of so deep a blue that it was noticeable even in the gathering dusk. The younger wore looser clothes, and a black sweater with a turtle neck, and had no hat.
    ‘But Henry Moore isn’t –’ the younger was saying as the two passed her, and then he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and the rest of the sentence was lost. Both were walking fast, and in a few moments they had passed out of her hearing.
    But she turned once to look after them, attracted by their distinguished appearance and unusual height, and, as she did so, she noticed something lighter than the path lying a few yards away; a small, square, cream-coloured object. She approached it, and on stooping to pick it up saw that it was a ration book.
    ‘Oh dear,’ she said aloud, looking first at it and then after the two gentlemen, who were by now almost out of sight across the misty fields. Her voice was deep, with a decisive note.
    It was no use running after them, she thought; besides, she was late now. She looked down at the name on the book. It was such an odd one that for the moment she thought it was foreign:
     
Hebe Niland,
Lamb Cottage,
Romney Square,
Hampstead, N.W. 3.
    Oh well, I can drop it in the post to-morrow, she thought, and put the book in her pocket and hurried on.
    It was almost dark by the time she reached Highgate Village. A figure in a mackintosh and beret rushed out from the shade of a shop door, crying reproachfully:
    ‘Well, you’re a nice one! I’ve been here for ages! What on earth happened to you? I’m frozen and now we won’t be able to go; Mother doesn’t like me out in the blackout, you know that as well as I do. You are the limit!’
    ‘I’m awfully sorry, Hilda. I walked over the Heath and it was so gorgeous, I didn’t notice the time. But we must go; come on; if we hurry we’ll just be there before blackout,’ and she put her arm through Hilda’s, and strode away across the road towards Southwood Lane.
    ‘Oh well, p’raps we’ll just make it, and I don’t expect Mother’ll mind, as there’s two of us. Have you got the keys?’ said Hilda, pacified.
    The dark girl nodded and jingled them in her pocket.
    ‘What’ve you been doing all the afternoon?’ Hilda went on.
    ‘I went to the concert at the National Gallery, and then I walked about.’
    ‘Walked about? You are dopey. I say, Margaret, have you thought – there’ll be no blackout, so we shan’t be able to shine a torch.’
    ‘We shall be able to see all I want to see – if there’s a proper place for coals and all that sort of thing.’
    ‘Of course there’ll be a proper place for coals! Those houses have only been up about ten years. You’re very lucky to get the chance of one.’
    ‘I know we are, and I don’t think it’s right,’ said Margaret, grimly.
    ‘Why ever not?’
    ‘Millions of people all over the world have lost their homes. Why should we have a new house?’
    ‘I don’t see that! It wouldn’t make it any better for them if you didn’t have one.’
    ‘People in England haven’t suffered enough.’
    ‘If you’re going to start about Russia I’m going straight home!’ cried Hilda, standing still in the middle of the road.
    ‘I wasn’t going to say anything about Russia particularly .’
    ‘That’s a wonder. Here, is this it?’ and she darted forward and shone her torch on the gate of a house which was one of a row. ‘Yes, number seventeen. Well, it’s still got a gate. That’s something.’
    She pushed the gate open and walked up the narrow crazy-paving path. The dim light of the torch shone on the