This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Nov. 18, 1939.
How real is the war to you? This was the innocent question that broke the stillness of a drowsy afternoon and produced a dramatic moment that I will not soon forget. The place was an observation car of a westbound continental train, the last word in comfort.
A snow storm was obscuring the desolate landscape, for we were travelling around the north shore of Lake Superior. In no place is the comfort of a train more sharply defined than it is in this region, with its barren rocks and stretches of water, and no living thing visible on this dull November day.
Four of us had the observation car all to ourselves. Across from me sat a well-dressed, handsome, ageless woman knitting. She was a picture of contentment and feminine charm. I could tell that she removed her makeup every night and patted her face with an upward motion. I knew that shining hair had received its 100 strokes of a brush nightly.
She knew all the tricks, and it certainly had been worth the trouble. Everything about her suggested peace and contentment. Even her knitting proceeded leisurely. I noticed that she was making some sort of a lacy garment, and I felt sure it was for herself.
No woman of her age, for she might have been 45, had any right to so much placidity and composure in this world of trouble, I said to myself. I know the type. Someone always bore her burdens for her. First her mother. Probably she was an only child. Mother put up her hair in curls every night. Embroidered her clothes. She was the little girl who had everything. When she grew up, her mother went on shielding her from the world.
Then, of course, she married well, and some good, house-broken man went on where her mother left off. If she has children they will carry on the tradition — mother must be sheltered. Mother must not know if anything goes wrong. I could see it all in her slightly petulant face — the wheedling kind, whose lovely eyes can brim with tears. She might even refer to herself as “Little Me” and get away with it.
When I got that far I was a bit ashamed of myself. Surely this could not be just a bit of jealousy. After all, I said to myself, a handsome, well-dressed woman, peacefully knitting on a stormy day, in a comfortable observation car is a beautiful picture to be enjoyed, not criticized.
So I put all evil thoughts away from me, and went back to reading The Nazarene, feeling the need of a good book to take the knots out of my thinking.
At Long Lac there came into the car a vital sort of person, who threw out a challenge as soon as she entered.
“I have worked for and among women all my life,” she said, “and it is my business to know how women’s minds are working. Here we are, the five of us on a stormy day, thrown together by accidents. Let us make the most of it. Each of you represent many others. Both men and women come in types. Now, would you mind telling me how real is this war to you?”
Naturally she looked at the lovely knitter. It was an easy thing to do.
“It is not real at all to me,” said the beautiful lady. Her voice was exactly right, except for a faint trace of resentment. “I cannot believe that there is a war. We are too civilized to fight. I haven’t read the front page of a newspaper since it started, for I see no reason for harrowing my soul with something I cannot help.
“Indeed, I was just thinking how lovely it is not to have to talk as I sat here, but I suppose I cannot always avoid it. Of course I will give money to the Red Cross, but I’m not going to blacken my own soul, or distress myself if I can help it. Let Europe clean up her own mess, I say. I take no responsibility for the mistakes of dictators or prime ministers.”
That was not a good beginning for the forum, but it brought a quick response from the dark woman, who was writing at the desk. She left her seat and sat down beside me, facing the tranquil one, who had resumed her knitting.
“The war is real to me,” she said simply. “I have already lost three brothers since it began. Three in the first month. They were members of the Royal Air Force. I still have one who is an officer on a mine sweeper. My home has been in London where I had a good job in an insurance office, but now I’m going out to Alberta to stay with my sister, who is in poor health. My brother-in-law will then be free to go. This will be my third war, and they have all been real.
“I was five when the South African war broke out, living in a little village in Surrey. There was a boy who sang in our choir called Rupert, whom I adored with all the love of a child’s heart. I waited for him every night, swinging on our gate, and Rupert always spoke to me.
“He came to say goodbye to me in his uniform, the day the regiment left, and every night I waited expecting him to come back, swinging on that gate. One day his grandmother passed, crying, and she told me not to wait any longer, because Rupert was not coming back, but I didn’t believe it, and still looked for him, up and down the little empty street.
“In the last war my father was killed. There were seven of us and I am the eldest. My other sister’s husband is with the army in France. My mother still lives in a little village in Surrey, and has three children in her house now, from London, but is thankful she has the room for them, and is well enough to do for them. I’m not complaining. There are hundreds and thousands like us, but I’m just saying it is real.”
Then she turned and faced the woman across the aisle, “I am glad you have been able to ignore it so far. War is a bad business.”
We sat in silence, listening to the pounding of the wheels on the rails, and the windy whistle of the train, muted by the snow. The war had suddenly entered the peaceful atmosphere.
I was wondering what the knitting lady would do. She would apologize I felt sure, and do it handsomely. She came over to the little English woman and put a soft hand on that little thin shoulder and said:
“I humbly apologize. I am a selfish woman, but I have the grace to feel ashamed in your presence. You have done more for me, to jar me out of my complacency than anything that has ever happened, and I hope you will forgive my foolish words.”
I moved away to the other end of the car to let them have their conversation to themselves.
The woman who asked the question and I breakfasted together the next morning, and we discussed the incident.
“We had there,” she said, “in those two women the exact opposite types. The pale little English woman is a natural lifter. The other woman is, by nature, a leaner, and will ever be so.
“It would be lovely to think that that fine, strong, beautiful woman will become helpful and generous, but she won’t. She will always find someone to carry her load and like it. The English woman will go on looking for people to help, and finding them. One gets; the other gives.”
