Table Two by Marjorie Wilenski

Title: Table Two
Author: Marjorie Wilenski
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, 2019 (originally published in 1942)
Genre: Fiction
Setting: WWII London

This month, Liz of Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home has been hosting Dean Street December. Wilenski is yet another author I would never have heard of but for Scott at Furrowed Middlebrow, and this book is about one of my favorite topics, women on the homefront during World War II (some will also remember the television show, Homefront, set in 1945-era River Run, Ohio, about soldiers returning home and the adjustment required for them and their families – it was a great show and can be seen on Peacock TV or BritBox).

Description: It is 1940 and the Ministry of Foreign Information has been created to translate foreign documents and letters, and is staffed by women who have strong language skills. Anne Shepley-Rice is the newest member of the Translation Department’s Table Two section. She has had a privileged upbringing in Somerset but is now orphaned and eager to do her bit, using Portuguese she learned visiting an aunt. Anne is befriended by Elsie Pearne, a woman in her 40s whose skills are obscured by her difficult nature. She was smart enough to go to university but had to leave school when her father died and get a job. She studied French and German herself and secured positions abroad; now those language skills are being used to advance the war effort but at a lower salary than when she worked in the travel industry. 

Pleased to have a young, attractive office friend in Anne, Elsie becomes possessive and annoying. Anne detaches herself as she reconnects with a childhood friend Sebastian, a dashing RAF officer. Wondering how serious Sebastian is about her now that she has to earn her own living is a needed distraction for Anne from the angry reactions of her colleagues to the appointment of a Deputy Language Supervisor from their ranks and from the devastation of the Blitz which begins in September, not to mention her translation work, which is much more difficult than she expected.

My Impression: I enjoyed this book and recommend it, although felt tremendous sympathy for Elsie Pearne, a hard worker whose life is very empty and depressing, resulting in impatience and spite which makes those around her dislike her, adding to her misery. She is a more interesting character than Anne, who gets her HEA without too much angst (it helps that she has enough spunk to keep Sebastian interested, so he is not tempted by the smug heiress who bought Anne’s childhood home). The translators include women who have always earned their livings in offices and others from upper-middle or upper-class backgrounds who are working to support the war effort, and the two groups do not always get along. The Hon. Cecilia Dunkerley, for example, is the daughter of a Foreign Service official who learned a Balkan language; she has little in common with her colleagues and is courteous but stays aloof from their pettiness. Anne belongs to the more privileged group by birth but her inexperience with office politics results in a sort of friendship with Elsie, who is intrigued by her.

One of my favorite parts describes the rivalries between the two Tables of translators:

When she reached her desk she sat down and opened it and turned to Elsie Pearne. “How time does fly!” she said loudly. “Here we are nearly at the end of the summer though really with all the –“ She stopped short and put her hand over her mouth as a loud “Hush!” came from the left-hand side of the room. This side belonged to Table One. For some reason which everyone had forgotten, there was a permanent feud between Table One and Table Two and nobody at one table ever spoke to anyone at the other table, unless she could think of something disagreeable to say.

With her hand still over her mouth, Mrs. Jolly turned around and stared angrily at Table One where all the translators were pretending to be already hard at work in order to set an example to Table Two. Then she flounced back into her seat.

The sniping among the women in this group of the department is universal and reminded me of my own grumpy co-workers. The complaints and alliances ebb and flow; no one ever seems happy for long and, as my HR director said to me last week in amazement, the things people feel justified in complaining about have changed a lot in recent years, and it cannot only be due to the pandemic. However, in my organization, as in the world Marjorie Wilenski describes, there are all sorts of hierarchies:

During a raid the wardens were the most important people in the building no matter what rank they held in the Ministry. Quite junior people were able to tell quite important people what they were or were not to do and the important people obeyed them in much the same spirit as the lord of the manor submits to the jurisdiction of the village blacksmith who is captain of the cricket team. The wardens enjoyed these moments very much and the others endured them with good temper as one of the necessary evils of war.

The photo below shows St Bride's Church on Fleet Street, London, and its surroundings damaged in the Blitz.  Elsie takes Anne to a small teashop near Fleet Street on her first day.   I visited St. Bride's in June!

Photo credit: Mirorpix

In 1907, Marjorie and her family were living in Dorset Square, Marylebone, just a few blocks from the University of Westminster Residence Hall I lived in last June. It is always more fun when one can visualize a neighborhood, although it had obviously changed in the intervening century!

Source: Library/Hoopla