Sleep in Peace (50 page)

Laura gave a deep sigh; she realized that the antipathy revealed in those simple words was unconquerable.

“What shall I tell him, then?” she asked in a hopeless tone.

“Take him the children—he has a right to see his children,” murmured Gwen.

Laura pulled out Madeline from beneath the table, sorted her rumpled clothes and took her hand, then offered her other hand to Geoffrey, who stared at it but did not take it.

“Go with Auntie Laura, that's a good boy,” commanded Gwen, who was now weeping.

Geoffrey sighed, but complied obediently, and Laura shepherded the pair on to the landing. As they began to descend the stairs Frederick chanced to cough. An expression of distaste and alarm crossed Geoffrey's distinguished little face, and he hung back, dragging on Laura's arm.

“Come along, Geoffrey,” said Laura impatiently.

“No,” said Geoffrey.

“Yes, you must.”

“No!” said Geoffrey in a wailing tone, hooking his free arm round a banister.

“You must come and see your father,” said Laura, trembling with exasperation.

“I don't want to,” wailed Geoffrey, a complex expression of fear and hate distorting his childish face.

His anguish was so patent, and Laura so incapable of detaching him by force, that she was constrained to leave him, and descended to her brother-in-law with Madeline alone.

Frederick started up and turned to the door with an expression of joy which changed poignantly to a terrible disappointment.

“I'm sorry I'm not Gwen, Frederick,” began Laura. Her tone was harsh and uneven, partly out of deep sorrow for Frederick, partly because it was a real bitterness to her that any one should be disappointed that she was not Gwen. “I'm sorry to say she doesn't feel equal to seeing you. Here's Madeline.”

Frederick took up the soft warm little bundle which was Madeline into his arms, and walked about the room, pressing his face into her rosy cheek. To Laura's surprise, for everyone regarded Madeline as an almost exasperatingly placid and undemonstrative child, Madeline flung her arms round her father's neck and hugged him passionately. Laura turned away her eyes out of delicacy, and debated whether she ought not to make another attempt on Gwen.

The door swung open behind her; Laura and Frederick both turned in quick hope that Gwen had changed her mind. But it was Geoffrey who came in, his thin little face dark and lowering.

“Mummy sent me,” he said.

Frederick sat down, put Madeline on one of his knees and took Geoffrey on the other. An expression so fierce, so bitter, so contemptuous came over Geoffrey's face as his father's arm closed about him that Laura turned away, unable to bear the sight.

“He hates his father,” she thought, appalled. “How frightful!”

“It's no good, then, Laura,” began Frederick, his golden tones subdued to a rich murmur, “waiting for Gwen to see me?”

“I'm afraid it isn't,” muttered Laura.

“She doesn't mean to see me—ever?”

“Oh, Frederick,” cried Laura in deep distress. “I'll ask her again—wait a minute, or come upstairs and see her yourself.”

“Mummy isn't coming; down,” piped Geoffrey, whose eyes had been darting from one to the other during this conversation: “She told me to say so.”

Frederick stood up. “It's no use, Laura,” he said. “Gwen doesn't want to return to me, and it's no use bullying her into pretending she does. Our marriage is a failure. We must admit it: I shall come to see the children from time to time.”

He stumbled from the room and left the house.

Laura took Madeline's hand and led her upstairs; she felt she could not bear to touch Geoffrey. The boy followed, jumping disdainfully on to each stair as they left it. As the three reached the landing Gwen came out. Her face was flushed and tear-stained but not now unhappy.

“Has he gone?” she said.

“Yes, he's gone,” said Geoffrey. He went over to his mother, took her hand and lolled against her skirts, gazing sardonically at Laura.

As Laura surveyed the two faces before her, one fair, one dark, but both aquiline, both personable, both strongly Armistead, both expressing a perverse satisfaction, she could not avoid the suspicion that Gwen had planned the events of the morning in advance. Had Mr. Armistead been in the house, or Laura out of it, Gwen would surely have been obliged to see her husband. She had arranged the matter otherwise, and presumably to her liking.

Frederick caught the afternoon train to London.

Gwen remained in Blackshaw House, supported by her father. There could, of course, be no question of divorce, since the lives of both Gwen and Frederick were of utter moral purity; and neither seemed at present to desire a legal separation.

It was part of Grace's duty to teach her class Citizenship, and under that heading came instruction in the duties of Town Councillors and how to elect them. Grace enjoyed this part of the course; it was fun, and at the same time sound pedagogy, to erect a model polling booth in the class-room, appoint one of the boys to preside there, and allow the children to record their vote on model ballot papers, which they then dropped into a model ballot box. To lend the lesson realism, to bring the schoolroom into that strong and vibrant communication with contemporary life which Grace so ardently desired for it, she had the names of the actual candidates for the town ward in which the Errington Street School was situated, written on the ballot papers. The election was in progress at the moment; there were three candidates, as usual: Conservative, Liberal, Labour. The boys approached the polling booth one by one, had their ward numbers verified on a model electoral roll by the presiding officer, received a ballot paper, made their cross opposite their chosen candidate, folded the paper and dropped it through the slit into the box. (Some of the lads had taken the trouble to bring their father's real ward number, which pleased Grace greatly.) The ballot box was then solemnly sealed and carried round the room to indicate removal to the Town Hall; then Grace opened it, and the votes were counted in the presence of scrutineers. The results were interesting; the Labour candidate had won by a considerable majority over Conservative and Liberal combined, and there were two spoiled ballot papers. Grace explained once again how to vote, but respected the secrecy of the ballot by not enquiring whose were the spoiled papers, explaining at the same time why she thus refrained. Altogether, the lesson went well, and Grace was pleased.

A few days later, she was summoned to the presence of her head teacher, and found him looking very peevish. She was well used to that, however; for he had once or twice visited her class and
told her crossly—in front of the boys, which Grace resented—that she was not keeping to the scheme. “We have to keep to the scheme here,” he was fond of saying, “whatever you may have done in Secondary Schools, Miss Hinchliffe.” On this occasion Grace therefore tried to look as meek as she could, while she wondered what he had now found to complain about.

To her amazement, it proved to be her instruction in the art of voting. One of her boys, the son of a municipal candidate, had told his father of the result of the election. The father had spread the story, and a Town Councillor who belonged to one of the parties defeated in the classroom ballot, had complained to the town's education committee that a teacher in Errington Street Elementary was giving Socialist instruction to her class.

“But I assure you,” gasped the astonished Grace, “that I did nothing of the kind. I taught the boys how to record their vote, and they voted; that was all.”

The head teacher muttered that it was all very unfortunate. The rumour had spread all over the town that Errington Street School was a hotbed of Socalism, and the complaining Councillor had actually made a speech in which he said:
We must watch our teachers
. This was deeply resented by all the teachers in the town.

“I should think so,” agreed Grace indignantly.

The head teacher gave her a sour look. “It was indiscreet of you to allow it to happen, Miss Hinchliffe,” he said.

“But how could I have helped it?” enquired the puzzled Grace. “I was instructing future Englishmen in their electoral system— you could hardly expect me to practise political discrimination!”

“It's not what
I
expect, Miss Hinchliffe,” said the head teacher sourly: “It's what the Education Committee expect. I ought to warn you that there's some talk of suspension.”

“Suspension?” said Grace, perplexed.

“Yes: there's some talk of reporting you to the Board, and getting you suspended from teaching for a time for being socialistically inclined. It's happened,” said the head teacher deprecatingly,
“in one or two other places. I should be failing in my duty if I didn't warn you.”

The bright colour rushed to Grace's cheeks. She raised her head. “I hope they do suspend me,” she said, pronouncing every phrase distinctly in a slow, icy tone: “I shall fight it every step of the way. I shall enjoy it. I shall do my best to see that the education authorities of this town do not enjoy it.”

“That's all very well, Miss Hinchliffe,” said the head teacher, alarmed. “But you must see that it isn't pleasant for Errington Street to be pilloried in the Press. If you'd keep to the scheme—”

“I
was
keeping to the scheme,” said Grace.

“You could have used imaginary names for the candidates, Miss Hinchliffe,” said the head teacher reproachfully.

“An excellent suggestion,” said Grace in a tone of biting irony. “Keep reality out of the school-room and the world is safe.”

The unfortunate head teacher sighed. He disliked having a woman to teach his elder boys, he disliked having a teacher on his staff who called herself a history specialist and was always urging the preposterous notion that specialists should be employed in Elementary Schools; he disliked Grace's manners, her accent and her Secondary School experience; he disliked Grace. “You'd be much happier in a Secondary School, Miss Hinchliffe,” he suggested.

Grace gave him a steady look.

“If you mean to suggest that I should resign, I regret that I am unable to accept your suggestion,” she said.

The head teacher sighed again.

“I shall do the best I can for you, of course,” he said. “If the matter should blow over, I'm sure I can count on your discretion in the future, Miss Hinchliffe.”

“I shall act according to my conscience, within the limits of the prescribed curriculum,” said Grace in her coldest tone.

“That's not the kind of answer I should recommend you to give
to the Education Officer, Miss Hinchliffe,” said the head teacher drily.

After weeks of distressing uncertainty and suspense broken by disagreeable interviews, Grace was summoned to the Board of Education offices in the Embankment. She escaped, however, with a reprimand.

Meanwhile the wheels of industry, for so long attuned to war-time production, slowed, stopped and began to revolve in the reverse direction. Mr. Armistead and Mr. Hinchliffe were jubilant; all the markets, national and overseas, which had been starved of their cloth for four years, awaited them, and every soldier who was now doffing uniform would require a civilian suit.

These circumstances were, as Mr. Hinchliffe pointed out, immensely favourable for the scheme which he now brought forward, for co-partnership and profit-sharing. It would be a tragedy, said Mr. Hinchliffe, if all the blood, all the suffering, of the past four years should be wasted; surely out of this community of suffering there should be born a community of joy; the world had been made safe for democracy, and the truly democratic spirit should now inform all the relations of mankind. Mr. Armistead, pacing the office a little restively under these abstractions, enquired how they applied to Blackshaw Mills. Mr. Hinchliffe in reply produced some papers in Edward's handwriting which he had recently (since the death of his wife) discovered; they set out, he said, very clearly and concisely, a scheme for admitting Labour and Capital to the enjoyment of profit on equal terms, in a word a Co-Partnership Trust. Mr. Armistead's eyes almost started out of his head at this pronouncement; he paused in his walk and gazed at his fellow director wide-eyed. Edward had gone into the matter very thoroughly, continued Mr. Hinchliffe; he was one of
the first to originate such a scheme, for the papers were dated 1911; nowadays, however, they were springing up all over the place—he instanced two he knew of in the West Riding. The firms mentioned were so reputable, wealthy and long-standing that Mr. Armistead's expression of alarm somewhat faded, and he bent over Edward's figures with a kindly, though still dubious, air.

The principle of the scheme was that Capital and Labour were indispensable to each other, and that both were entitled to remuneration at the market rate before any profit was distributed. Thus the men at Blackshaw Mills were to receive their Trade Union rate of pay, and the capital in the Mills the current rate of interest; any surplus of profit was then to form a common dividend, paid to the employees proportionately on their wages and to the capital-owners proportionately on their capital. Provision was made for the reinvestment of the men's dividends as shares in the Trust, if they so desired. It seemed, then, rapidly calculated Mr. Armistead, that he would receive his director's salary as before; but that instead of the shareholders, namely the Armistead and Hinchliffe families, receiving all the profit as dividends on their capital, they would receive, first the current rate of interest payable on industrial investments (at the moment about 6 per cent.); and then out of the surplus such a percentage as could be paid on the combined capital and wages bill, of which latter his own director's salary would form part. The scheme was not, then, as alarming as he had thought it, for a reasonable rate of interest on his capital was secured; still, the monetary sacrifice was considerable, and the sacrifice of authority considerable too. For of course, since the men shared in the profit or lack of it, they would be shareholders, entitled to a share in the management of the business—an interference which Mr. Armistead thought it impossible to stomach, even if it made for better work among the men. He voiced his views.