Sleep in Peace (65 page)

His family knew only too well what he was afraid of; he
feared he should now need to go beyond the agreed amount of overdraft to settle with his spinner on September 25th, which chanced to fall on the coming Friday.

“I'm sadly afraid,” repeated Mr. Armistead in a high, timid tone—now that the reality was so close upon him he could not bear to utter the words
calling creditors together
or
bankruptcy
.

There was a heavy pause.

“Well, never mind, Papa,” said Gwen at length. “I'm sure you've done your best.”

Laura's heart sank. It was true, then. If Gwen thus accepted the disaster without argument, hope was at an end. She kissed her father very tenderly before rushing off to work. As she stood in Prince's Road Terrace, waiting for the Carr Vale tram, her preoccupied and troubled gaze fell upon the newspaper placards at the stationer's across the street. Her heart seemed to leap up into her throat and then fall back with a sickening thump. The disaster hinted by the Sunday newspapers had come to pass, then! For the placards read:
England off Gold
and:
Gold Standard Suspended
. The tram came; the conductor's face was gloomy, and he made no joke; the passengers seated themselves as far apart as was possible, the men read newspapers, grave, absorbed, the women stared in front of them with a tragic, unseeing air. Surely, surely England was not about to go bankrupt, like the Armisteads! Laura's mind circled miserably from the private to the general disaster, and returned to Blackshaw Mills.

On Mondays it was Laura's habit to stay in Carr Vale until the evening. By midday her anxiety about what was happening at home was so acute that as soon as her morning class was over she ran out and telephoned to Blackshaw Mills. Ludo answered her in a voice sharp with anxiety and hope. He seemed disappointed to find that the call was Laura's.

“I haven't time to talk to you now, lovey,” he said.

“I only just wanted to know,” began Laura.

“We've worries enough without you worrying,” said Ludo heavily.

“But the bank, Ludo,” persisted Laura.

“Father and I are going down there together this afternoon,” said Ludo, and rang off.

Laura dreaded and yet longed for the moment of her return to Blackshaw House, and had to force herself to insert her latchkey and turn the door-handle. As soon as she entered, however, she felt that ruin was not imminent; the atmosphere of disaster which had brooded over the house that morning had slightly lifted. She heard Ludo quietly humming upstairs, and ran to him. He was shaving in the bathroom; Laura sat on the edge of the bath and burst out:

“Well? What has happened?”

“There's no need to get excited about it—getting excited won't help,” said Ludo, frowning.

“Have you been able to make any arrangement with the bank?” demanded Laura.

“Yes—that is, no; well, we shall have to call a meeting of shareholders, but they'll all agree, because it's our last chance,” said Ludo. Seeing that Laura continued to gaze at him with parted lips, and was not to be put off, Ludo went on reluctantly: “We shall give the bank a debenture on the business.”

“What does that mean?” asked Laura.

“Well—if we go bankrupt, the debt of the bank is completely cleared first, before other creditors get anything at all, you see,” said Ludo.

Laura sighed; she did not see. “And if we don't go bankrupt?” she said.

“Then we have to pay it off gradually, Of course, we pay interest all the time,” said Ludo.

“But what is the general effect? Do we get more overdraft?” persisted Laura.

“Oh, yes. We can carry on for quite a while now,” said Ludo.

“Though there may be difficulties even yet. We shall get some ready money, but it damages our credit with our other creditors, the spinner for instance.”

“But if it's so simple to get overdraft this way, why didn't you do it before?” asked the puzzled Laura.

“Well—you can't call a business your own when the bank has a debenture on it,” said Ludo soberly. “We shall be practically working for the bank now, you know, for years. They'll poke their nose into everything we do, and appoint an accountant, all that sort of thing. We shan't be able to call our souls our own for years, even if we do finally pull through.”

Laura considered. “Will Grace and Frederick be summoned to the shareholders' meeting?”

“Yes. And Gwen, and you, and me. And the bank, which holds Henry Hinchliffe's shares in trust, you know. But I don't suppose anyone will go except Father and me and the bank. We Armisteads can outvote the rest,” explained Ludo. “Gwen's five hundred shares, you know, turn the scale. Father arranged it so.”

“And do you think you will pull through, Ludo?” asked Laura.

“That depends on what happens at the election,” replied Ludo soberly.

The shareholders' meeting was held, Mr. Armistead, Gwen and Ludo alone being present; the debenture scheme was approved and carried through, and the exhausted Armisteads again enjoyed a short period of comparative peace and security.

Ludo employed his released energies in canvassing for the forthcoming General Election, and Geoffrey also found time to take up this work. Laura viewed the approach of Election Day with great perplexity. It was the first time she had had the opportunity of exercising her vote, for since she had been enfranchised Hudley had twice returned unopposed a famous Liberal who had represented the town since the beginning of the century. Now he had retired, and there were two candidates in the field, one Labour, one a National Conservative. Laura had looked forward for
years to voting Labour, but now that the opportunity was here, the circumstances made her doubtful of her duty. That all her family, and all her Hudleian acquaintances, were sinking their traditional political differences and voting National did not disturb her; but she was not at all sure that she could honestly support the return to power at this juncture of a Labour Government. The previous Government seemed to her, as far as she could perceive the facts implicit in its fall, to have behaved with a singular irresponsibility, and she disliked, quite as much as those high Tories, Geoffrey and Ludo, the thought of the T.U.C. dictating to an English Cabinet. On the other hand Grace, who had spent her summer holidays in London with Frederick, seemed to state in her letters that the banks had behaved to the Labour Government precisely as they had behaved to Mr. Armistead, forcing the Government into political, as they had nearly forced Mr. Armistead into financial, bankruptcy, quite unnecessarily, quite deliberately, and quite without regard to the real good of the nation. Laura, who now hated the banks with all her heart, tried this suggestion of Grace's on her father, who was wont to speak of his banker's office as a torture chamber. A curious expression appeared on Mr. Armistead's face, as of two hates in conflict; then he remarked in a tone of disgust:

“I can't think where Grace gets hold of all this socialistic nonsense.”

“You don't believe it, then, Father?” said Laura.

“Of course not,” said Mr. Armistead, rustling his papers angrily. “Business will look up as soon as the National Government really gets into power.”

Laura thought this would probably prove true, but it might be because of the motives attributed to the banks by Grace rather than for those attributed by her father. But her perplexity was not resolved. She felt she would betray her cause, the cause of humanity, if she voted against Labour, but on the ether hand, if a Labour Government went into power, England would be bankrupt,
whether for Grace's reasons or Mr. Armistead's, within a month. England insolvent, England bankrupt! Laura, having lived near the anguish of insolvency for the past few years, did not care for the proposed spectacle of England insolvent.

Election Day came; reluctantly, sullenly, uncertainly, Laura, in common with the overwhelming majority of her fellow-countrymen, voted for the National candidate.

“But how could you, Laura!” said Grace reproachfully. “Where is your faith in the future, my dear?”

Laura sighed. It was easier to keep one's faith in the future un-battered when you held a safe job with a fixed income in an area which was not depressed, she reflected, than in her own circumstances; but difficulties did not excuse one for losing that faith.

“I daresay you were right to vote against the National Government, Grace,” she said, “and my vote was wrong; but to me the time seemed too dangerous to attempt an immediate social reconstruction. It would be like shifting the ballast of a ship in a blizzard.”

“The time is never convenient for any great reform,” replied Grace sternly. “If we wait for a convenient time, nothing will ever be done. Metaphors are always misleading.”

“That's profoundly true,” said Laura eagerly. “I try to say that, you know, Grace, in my art.”

“The great work's finished, I take it? Since your coming here was conditional on its conclusion? Or have you decided to take a week-end off before the final effort?” said Grace. The taxi swerved round a corner and righted itself in the main street of a little country town. “This is the shopping centre of Tapworth. The College is about ten minutes' walk from here,” she explained.

“Imagine you the head of a training college, Grace!” said Laura, smiling.

“Yes, isn't it a joke?” said Grace with a familiar gurgle. “But you didn't answer my question: Is
Industrial Landscape
finished?”

“It went off on Monday,” said Laura with a sigh. “I'm trying to place it first as a whole book, with publishers, you know. If that fails, I shall try the drawings separately.”

“Splendid! You must be glad it's done,” said Grace.

“Glad and sorry. I feel like a squeezed orange,” said Laura. “And God knows whether the drawings are any good.”

“Those I saw were decidedly good,” said Grace judicially. “Much the best things you've done. Here we are. This is my College.”

The taxi negotiated a neat brick lodge and archway, and emerged into an agreeable gravel sweep. Through the November mist, across a wide expanse of green, loomed large brick buildings—a well-shaped main erection, flanked by two long wings.

“But, Grace, it's huge!” said Laura, awestruck.

“We have two hundred students, you know,” said Grace.

She dismounted, and gathering her handsome fur cape about her, spoke to the driver about calling for Laura early next morning. The man said, “Yes, Miss Hinchliffe—No, Miss Hinchliffe,” in a deferential manner, and smiled a respectfully adoring smile. Decidedly Grace is a big shot in Tapworth, thought Laura, borrowing amusedly from Geoffrey's vocabulary. Grace led the way into a fine large entrance hall of brick and polished wood; maids appeared and removed Laura's shabby suitcase and shabbier coat with silent efficiency. Grace said: “Tea at once, Violet,” and Violet replied: “Yes, Miss Hinchliffe,” as if she delighted to serve so great a personage.

“This is my room,” said Grace.

The room was completely charming. Long low windows, giving on a view of elms and a grassy slope; a bright wood fire on a brick hearth; pale walls, blue easy chairs, blue curtains; a drawing by Laura of the Ellistone and a reproduction of Monet's
Jetée du Havre;
white bookcases overflowing with modern books;
handsome silver and delicate china on an oak table by a huge settee; an immense desk, laden with writing apparatus and papers neatly stacked; a smaller desk bearing a typewriter and a telephone. On the corner of Grace's desk lay a telegram, five letters and two telephone messages.

“Good,” said Grace, reading the telegram: “Norman Angell can come next March.”

“Grace, while I think of it,” said Laura: “Before we begin to talk and forget—really I'd rather not have a taxi to-morrow morning.”

Grace stared. “But why not?” she said, perplexed. “It's a long way,” she began.

“I don't want to spend the three bob,” said Laura candidly. “In Hudley we're hard up, you know.”

“Well, that
has
brought it home to me!” exclaimed Grace, plumping down on the settee with the letters in her lap. “An Armistead declining to take a taxi! Why, I remember the days when we had a family joke about the Armistead fondness for cabs.”

“One of time's revenges,” said Laura lightly. “Will you telephone about the taxi?”

“No—it's more or less a College car, reserved for me because I don't want to drive one of my own,” explained Grace. “Your conveyance to the station won't cost you anything, or the College either. In any case we always transport our lecturers free of charge.”

“I don't just see myself lecturing to two hundred potential teachers,” said Laura dubiously.

“Pooh!” said Grace.

“Pooh to you,” said Laura, taking a cigarette. “That is, if I dare say anything so disrespectful as pooh to the great Miss Hinchliffe.”

But Grace was not listening; or rather, she was listening to something else.

“Now who,” she said; “is playing the piano on this corridor at this hour?” She rose. “I must investigate!” she cried, and whisked out of the room.

Laura too rose, and began to prowl about; giving a closer inspection to this habitation of Grace's. What she had imagined to be a large calendar standing on Grace's desk proved now to be a photograph. It was a young man's portrait. “Edward!” thought Laura, starting forwards But no; this was a smoother, sweeter face; it was a face she had known long ago in photographs, though never in the flesh; indeed she had seen this very photograph hanging up in a room, not Grace's, in her London college. It was, of course, remembered Laura, Bernard Duchay.

“What a handsome lad!” thought Laura, pityingly. And added: “But how young!”

The maid came in with tea; Laura, sighing a little, resumed her seat by the fire. Grace was still absent, though Laura could hear her voice near at hand; it occurred to Laura how times had changed, when a headmistress could to-day carry openly on her desk the photograph of a man to whom she had not even been “engaged”, far less married. The thought gave her pleasure; and she was smiling when Grace re-entered the room.