The Morning Gift

As for the ladies of the Willow Tea Rooms, they responded to the worsening of the situation in Europe with a gesture of great daring. They decided to stay open in the evening – to the almost sinfully late hour of nine o’clock. This, however, meant engaging a new waitress – and here they were extremely fortunate.

Ruth’s first concern when she arrived had been to hide her marriage certificate and all other evidence of her involvement with Professor Somerville whom she could now only serve by never going near him or mentioning his name.

This was not as easy as it sounded. Number 27 Belsize Close was not a place where privacy was high on the list of priorities, nor had Ruth ever had to have secrets from her parents. Fortunately she had read many English adventure stories in which intrepid boys and girls buried treasure beneath the loose floor-boards of whatever house they lived in. Accustomed to the solid parquet floors of her native city, she had been puzzled by this, but now she understood how it could be done. The floor of the Bergers’ sitting room, hideously furnished with a sagging moquette sofa, a fumed oak table and brown chenille curtains, was covered in linoleum, and her parents’ bedroom next to it was obviously unsuitable. But in the room at the back, with its two narrow beds, which Ruth shared with her Aunt Hilda, the floor was covered only by a soiled rag rug. Dragging aside the wash-stand, she managed to prise open one of the splintered boards and make a space into which she lowered a biscuit tin decorated with a picture of the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose patting a corgi dog, and containing her documents and the wedding ring which she meant to sell, but not just yet.

Next she went to the post office and secured a box number to which all mail could be sent, and wrote to Mr Proudfoot to tell him what she had done. After which she settled down to look for work. It was nearly two months before the beginning of the autumn term at University College and though she had heeded Quin’s admonitions and was looking forward very much to being a student once again, she intended to spend every available second till then helping her family.

Jobs as mother’s helps were easy to come by. Within a week, Ruth found herself trailing across Hampstead Heath in charge of the three progressively educated children of a lady weaver. Untroubled by theories on infant care, she felt sorry for the pale, confused, abominably behaved little creatures in their soiled linen smocks, desperately searching for something they were not allowed to do. When the middle one, a six-year-old boy, ran across a busy road, she smacked him hard on the leg which caused instant uproar among his siblings.

‘We want it done to us too. Properly,’ said the oldest. ‘So that you can see the mark, like with Peter.’

Ruth obliged and soon the walks became extremely enjoyable, but, of course, the money was not very good and it was Ruth’s announcement that she intended to spend her evenings as a waitress in the Willow Tea Rooms which brought Leonie’s period of saintly virtue to a sudden end.

For several days after Ruth was restored to her, Leonie had kept to her vow never again to argue with Ruth or speak a cross word to her. Just to be able to touch Ruth’s hand across the table, just to hear her humming in the bath, had been a joy so deep that it had precluded ever crossing Ruth’s will again. This, however, was too much.

‘You will do nothing of the sort!’ she yelled. ‘No daughter of mine is going to have her behind pinched by old gentlemen and take tips!’

But Ruth was adamant. ‘If Paul Ziller can play gypsy music in a cummerbund, I can be a waitress. And anyway, what about you doing the ironing for that awful old woman across the road?’

Leonie said it was different and canvassed the inmates of the Willow Tea Rooms for support which did not come.

‘Of course, when she begins university it will be another matter, but now she will want to help,’ said Ziller, meaning – as did Dr Levy, and von Hofmann from the Burg Theatre and the banker from Hamburg – that the sight of this bright-haired girl bearing down on them with a tray of an evening was a pleasure they did not think it necessary to forego.

So Ruth became a waitress at the Willow and was undoubtedly good for trade. For the weary, disillusioned exiles, Ruth was a sign that there was still hope in the world. She had been rescued mysteriously by an Englishman and that in itself was a thought that warmed the heart. And not only was Ruth young and sweet and funny, but she was in love!

‘I have had a letter!’ Ruth would say, and soon everyone in the Willow Tea Rooms and the square knew about Heini, everyone asked about him. The news that Heini’s visa was almost through made them as happy as if the good fortune was their own – and they all understood that it was essential that when Heini arrived, he had his piano.