Elyot Standish went upstairs. He was conscious of a difference in his name. He hadn’t thought about his name. It was as if he had received this from his grandfather on the doorstep, and there it sat for the first time. He hung about disconsolate in the drawing-room.

I wish my name was Goose, he said.

You mightn’t if it were, said Mother.

She still sounded angry, and a little sad, as she moved about tidying things in the room.

Why doesn’t Grandma Standish come?

Because I don’t care to have her, said Mother.

And that was that.

Time went slowly. He wished he could have had two birthdays a year. But soon he was six, and it wasn’t much different from being five, except that the presents were different, and he didn’t feel well after eating too much cake. Of the presents, he liked the books best, there was one about Indians, and one about the wild flowers of Great Britain, both of which he was learning to read with Mother, when she wasn’t busy. But Mother went to meetings, she said the Kaiser made her blood boil, and if it wasn’t for the Entente Cordiale. That was something to do with Mme Adorée. Once, coming in from a walk, he had stuck his head through the shop door and shouted: Mme Adorée is the Entente Cordiale. It gave her great pleasure. She screamed like a bird, and you knew that Mme Adorée was pleased. But often Mme Adorée said that her blood was boiling too. Before it was hot, before the children in the Park were leaving for the sea, and the water in the ponds had grown yellow, and you trailed over asphalt in a heavy shadow. Mother said she was too poor that summer. They could not afford to go away. And everything grew yellow, the faces of the houses, the grass in the parks, the sky very often was a yellow glare. Sometimes you could not sleep at night. You opened the window wide and listened to people sitting in their gardens.

It was about this time there began to be a numb feeling in the streets. Mother was pale and excited. Her face had drained away from the stuff she put on her cheeks. Julia said the boys would be going to the War. And soon there were bands and flags, and crying and laughing and kissing in the streets. Whole mornings people did not answer you, because they were talking about the War. It began to frighten, the half-knowing what it was about, all the half-knowing, whether at the War or in the next room, which nobody ever explained. Julia said: Say your prayers. But it didn’t help, after the saying, the rattle of words against the darkness, the darkness was not impressed by prayers. And you began to feel it was you that mattered, it was only you, not prayers or Julia, that paved the way to morning. Which made it more frightening than before. It was more than being alone in darkness.