Читать книгу The Oaken Heart онлайн

54 страница из 73

Not long after this Olive, who had been going round on a bicycle visiting every bedridden or infirm person (there seemed to be a pretty large percentage of these), came back to suggest we went down to Old Lady Fell, who "couldn't make her gas-mask work." The name did not convey much to me, except that I knew by the local courtesy title that she must be over seventy.

Olive led me down her garden path and mentioned as we turned the corner to the back garden, "She's ninety-four, you know."

I had never seen a hale and vigorous person of ninety-four before, and Old Lady Fell impressed me enormously. She was so old that her skull had flattened and the cartilage of her nose had shrunk, but she had a bright colour and was doing a bit of wringing in the wash-house of the cottage where she lived alone. Also she was very tall.

She said, "Another war?"

It was the first and last time I ever experienced any feelings of war-guilt, and I said hastily it was only might-be. She said she hoped I was right and went on to give me her opinion of wars and warmongers from the Crimea onwards.