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Pendizack to-night we must go right on. We’ve no time to make a detour of fifty miles because she’s heard of a little inn where you get Cornish cream and lobsters. A divine little place. Divine my backside. They never are. She reads these ridiculous advertisements. That’s how we lost mileage yesterday. A policeman … I will not live in Guernsey. When we come to the turning I shall run straight past it. Very sorry, Eirene, but I’m afraid I must have missed it. Too late to turn back now. If wewant to get there to-night we must go right on. She’s rustling the map back in the car there. Determined we shan’t miss it. But she can’t read a map. Too stupid. Not stupid at getting what she wants. If she really wants to go to that inn she’ll be able to read the map. If she really wants anything … but not Guernsey. I won’t live in Guernsey. She will only understand what she wants to understand. If we want to get there we must lunch in Okehampton. Filthy lunch I daresay. Can’t help it. We must go right on. Must get there soon after the children do. Can’t have them arriving in a … they got off all right, anyway. A policeman … I rang up. Oh Mathers! Did the children get off all right at Paddington this morning? Oh yes, Sir Henry. And a policeman called to see Her Ladyship. No, he wouldn’t say. I told him she’d left for the country and he took the address. Darling … a policeman called to see you. A police man ? Why, how odd! No, darling. I haven’t the faintest idea. What does a policeman call about ? Wouldn’t she have looked frightened if it was … no! She’s never frightened . She promised never to be upset, and she never is. And besides, she doesn’t believe that anything disagreeable could possibly ever be allowed to happen to her. Perhaps it’s nothing…. Seventy-five pounds. Did she really stick to her allowance? But I’ve worked it all out a hundred times. If she was really staying with the Varens…. I can’t think why you should call them collaborationists, Harry! As Louise said: The brutes were there and one had to be civilized. But they don’t seem to have suffered any hardships. Sat pretty all through the war; sitting pretty now. Really the French … and what hardships did we suffer? Eirene and I? Didn’t she and the children sit pretty in Massachusetts? And now she wants to sit pretty in Guernsey and nothing to stop her except me. This war was fought by the poor and it’s being paid for now by the poor … but if she really stayed with the Varens and had no hotel expenses she could have done it on seventy-five pounds. Shepromised she would. I made her promise before she went. I explained the currency regulations. I told her that if she broke them and it was found out I’d have to resign. A judge can’t … surely even Eirene would understand that? But she only understands what she wants to understand.
    Oh Lord! Sheep! If I have to crawl along behind a flock of sheep for miles it’ll put us right back. It’ll give her time to … oh no! They’re going through the gate. That’s better. I can’t help it if she’s bought a house in Guernsey. Couldn’t stop it. She can do what she likes with her own money. But I won’t live there, and she can’t escape income tax unless I do. What about my work? But Harry, why should you work? If you lived in Guernsey and paid no income tax you would be a rich man. She doesn’t understand. She was in America. She wasn’t in the blitz. I was. All that suffering, all that sacrifice, all that heroism…. I saw it. I’m not going to Guernsey. If only she wasn’t so ill. I wish to God they could find out what’s the matter with her. One must make allowances for her, poor thing. I believe this is the turning. She’s very quiet back there. Asleep? She had a bad night. Now we’re past it. Yes, she had this neuralgia. I oughtn’t to get so impatient. She has a lot to contend with. But I must stick to my guns about Guernsey. And if we want to