Sleep in Peace (66 page)

“Silly child,” said Grace firmly, alluding to the untimely player. “What's the joke?”

“It's not a joke,” said Laura, telling her.

Grace's fine keen eyes shone with pleasure. “But that's what we're trying to do here, you see, Laura,” she explained. “Truth, justice, candour, peace—an ordered transition to a better social system depends on these qualities, and my girls here are supposed to be imparting these qualities to the coming generation. This place, you may say, tackles the problem at the roots.” She poured out tea in a preoccupied style, then, putting on a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles, tore open her letters. “Ha!” she exclaimed, removing the spectacles to look at Laura: “What filthy minds some people have, to be sure!”

“What is it now?” asked Laura, amused.

Grace explained that she had arranged for the potential teachers in her charge to have a course on biology, with special reference to the instruction of girl pupils in the functions of their own bodies. “I've always remembered your horrible experience in that matter, Laura,” she said, “and I thought it right to guard against it for the coming generation.” Now a Town Councillor had written her an abusive letter of protest. “Pages and pages of it. Why are Town Councillors always so prurient, Laura?” said Grace, grinning cheerfully. “Is it a necessary qualification for municipal candidates?”

The telephone rang; Grace took the call, then summoned her secretary and dictated some letters; the maid came for the tea things; the Vice-Principal came, the Matron came, one of the Junior Staff came, finally there came a student.

“It's useless to attempt any private conversation at this hour,” said Grace, bespectacled, signing the letters: “To-night when everyone's in bed, we'll talk. Would you like to go up and rest for an hour, Laura? Dinner's at seven.”

Laura was amused to observe the behaviour of the staff at dinner. This meal was held in Grace's private dining-room, and six of the staff had been asked to meet her. They treated Laura with an admiring respect, and even some awe, as the artist friend of the great Miss Hinchliffe. Laura was careful to play up to this, and found herself positively enjoying the situation. At home everyone was so preoccupied with financial troubles that one forgot one was an artist, able with one's pencil to illuminate, to create. She began to talk freely and with authority, and was pleased to find Grace looking at her with approval.

After dinner they all strolled across a chilly courtyard to a large and chilly lecture hall. The two hundred students sitting there rose respectfully at their entrance. Laura felt abashed and uncomfortable; she was conscious of being unworthy of such a mark of respect, and disliked to exact it from her fellow-humans. Grace,
Laura, the Vice-Principal and the College art instructor arranged themselves on the platform, Laura wishing earnestly that her evening dress were more adequate to the occasion. Grace rose, looking extremely handsome in her fine black gown, and in her clear cool tones, speaking with that beautiful precision and that admirable fluency which Laura now perceived her to draw from her father, her mother, her mother's father, introduced Laura as one of the women who were now making their mark in the commercial world as illustrators. Laura felt extremely nervous, but the rows of young fresh faces before her moved her; she understood Grace's passionate desire to lead these girls into the right path, and longed to keep them from making the bitter mistakes into which she herself had fallen. In a simple, homely, but she hoped warm-hearted, fashion Laura began to talk to Grace's students about How To Look at a Picture. There was a long blackboard on the wall behind her; she picked up the chalk and drew diagrams boldly.

After the lecture came coffee and questions with selected students, then talk with the art mistress. At last Grace and Laura were alone. They drew up chairs close to the fire, turned back their skirts, smoked, and talked interminably—of their families, their responsibilities, their ideals, their past, present and future careers.

“Laura, your lecture was admirable,” pronounced Grace in her judicial tone. “You should do more of that work—you should pursue it strongly.”

She went on in this strain for several minutes, till Laura was saddened by her insistence. She knew that she had a certain skill in exposition, arising chiefly from a sympathy which her own experience had beaten into her, but that Grace should regard this as more important than her original work was depressing. At the same time, she found in her heart an intense envy for Grace—not a base jealous envy, but a cordial admiring emulation—for the splendid contribution she was making to her age.
From each according
to his ability
, remembered Laura; Grace has, in the high sense, paid her way. She said so. Grace, her fine eyes flashing, exclaimed:

“Oh, Laura! Thanks!”

What would be her own contribution, wondered Laura mournfully; if it were to be only her Carr Vale classes and half a dozen lectures, as Grace seemed to think, it was poor indeed. Was that all, perhaps, she had to contribute? Oh, surely, no, hoped Laura; no!

They went on talking, talking.

When Laura reached Blackshaw House next morning just on noon, and let herself in with her latchkey, Gwen was in the kitchen, preparing a meal. She did not come out to meet her sister, but merely called a greeting, which even for Gwen Laura thought a trifle odd. In a moment Gwen added:

“There's a telegram for you in the dining-room.”

Laura's heart sank. The Armisteads were so attuned to disaster that it was now their first expectation; and Laura saw that Gwen too had attributed bad news to the telegram, and had remained in the kitchen because she was simply unable to face receiving it. Nothing could reveal the attrition of their misfortunes more than that the courage of the indomitable Gwen should be so low. Laura, pressing her lips firmly together and exhorting herself in the words of the immortal Charlotte:
No whining
, tore open the orange envelope and read the wire.

It was an extremely complimentary message from her agent—
Industrial Landscape
had been accepted by a highly reputable publisher, as a whole book, for immediate publication on altogether desirable terms.

Laura sat down on the hearthrug and wept for joy.

Slowly, slowly the West Ridingg began to rise out of the depression. It was as if, thought Laura, a little breeze of trade blew, stirring her stagnant garments, her rusty wheels. The wheels began slowly and uncertainly to move; halted, hesitated, moved on again, and at length in feeble jerks completed a full revolution. Then in a sour, sickly, tenacious wobble they circled again. Presently they were turning at a quiet but even pace; other wheels were quickened by their power and communicated it in turn; impetus multiplied, the cheerful sound of industry revived; there rose a tiny, then a steady, then a strongly vibrating hum. The West Riding lifted her head, long bowed with sorrows into the dust; gathering her ragged garments about her she rose to her knees; the chains of debt clanked about her as she moved, and onlookers wondered whether she could ever stand erect so burdened. The wind blew, the wheels turned, her garments fluttered; she staggered to her feet, and stood there, swaying.

It was a strange world she looked upon. The old structures had decayed till they were mere desolate ruins, grass-grown humps; but in some places on the horizon strange new structures were in process of erection. While she had lain prostrate, on the point of death, preoccupied with the mere attempt to stay alive, others had quarried fresh stones, or brought them from the ruins of previous civilisations, older still, and were putting them together in strange shapes; so that her former open view of the horizon was impeded.

The Armisteads, gazing about them with the rest of the West Riding, rather dazed, with eyes myopic from a too protracted attention to their own financial troubles, observed that the oddest things had been happening to Europe. They had read of the events in their newspapers, of course, but their minds had been too preoccupied with their own worries to absorb them. In Italy, for instance, Benito Mussolini, whom they had seen, last time they looked at him, as one of those tiresome Socialist fellows, a hardly distinguishable but ordinary phenomenon in an unimportant Latin country, was now ruling Italy as an anti-democratic dictator, and being truculent about it, having dissolved the Italian Parliament, made himself chief of the army and navy, disposed of his opponents and changed his politics, all while, so to speak, they were not looking. In Germany, too, the Weimar Republic, which even Mr. Armistead had felt a sneaking sympathy for because it was down in the dust with France on top of it, had vanished, and this fellow Hitler, with his bombastic shoutings and childish parades and mediaeval behaviour to those harmless Jews, had taken its place. Not that Mr. Armistead cared much for the Jews—they were so exasperatingly successful; but killing them off like that was altogether beyond what was proper. Why on earth Hindenburg, who after all was a gentleman, put up with him, heaven knew!

“What do you expect from Germany?” growled Ludo.

“It would do England a lot of good to have Hitler here for a few days,” observed Geoffrey in his light smooth tones.

“If he could get you out of the bathroom in the morning he'd be useful, certainly,” said Ludo with sarcasm.

“Don't talk such nonsense, Geoffrey,” said Mr. Armistead uneasily. “What do you mean?”

“Only Fascism can regenerate England,” said Geoffrey.

“Such facile generalisations are quite meaningless,” began Laura distastefully.

“It was a quotation,” replied Geoffrey, unabashed.

“From whom?” said Laura.

“Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the Modern Movement, in an interview with Mussolini,” said Geoffrey.

“Sir Oswald Mosley!'” exclaimed Mr. Armistead in a puzzled tone. “I thought he belonged to the Labour Party.”

“Really, Grandfather,” Geoffrey reproved him impatiently. “Sir Oswald left that Old Gang long ago. He belongs neither to Left nor Right.”

“Surely he belongs to the extreme Right,” Laura corrected him.

Geoffrey scowled. “You're all so hopelessly behind the times, here,” he said irritably.

“The times change too fast for me,” said Mr. Armistead, shaking his head. “All this Left and Right business—I don't know what it means. In my young days we had Liberals and Conservatives, and knew where we were. It's the Labour Party coming in that's upset everything.”

Geoffrey had been fidgeting during this speech, and the moment it was over he sprang up.

“Well, if you'll excuse; me, Mother, if you'll excuse me, sir,” he said, looking politely from one to the other end of the table and then at his wrist-watch, “I must be off. I have to change.”

“Another dance?” said Mr. Armistead testily. “Where is it this time?”

“Harrogate,” said Geoffrey.

“Well, take care, take care driving home,” Mr. Armistead cautioned him. “I don't like you driving about at night all over Yorkshire; I know how you young men drive—headlong, and then put your brakes on hard at the corners. Are you taking Madeline?”

“No, Grandfather,” said Madeline firmly.

“Are you taking the car?” asked Ludo.

“Yes, if you don't want it.' called Geoffrey, already halfway up the stairs.

For odd things had been happening, it seemed, in England, too. The next generation had grown up—Madeline was now eighteen,
Geoffrey twenty—and once again a wave of dancing spread all over the land. As was to be expected, however, though the craze was fundamentally the same, the external arrangements of the modern dances differed in detail from those of old. Balloons were thought bad form; the band was everything. Geoffrey, who was a graceful and nimble dancer, consumed not only an inordinate number of white ties every month but an inordinate quantity of petrol; for parties of young people, of equal numbers as regards sex and quite without any chaperonage even of a brotherly variety, dashed hither and thither “all over Yorkshire”, as Mr. Armistead said, to dance, usually in large hotels during or after a somewhat expensive meal. Geoffrey had now left the Technical College and begun to work at Blackshaw Mills, and so drew a small salary from his grandfather, but how he found the money for all his pleasures Laura often wondered. A pitched battle of a friendly kind was always in progress between Geoffrey and his mother on the subject of his pyjamas, body-linen and other such articles of equipment, thought by Gwen essential, but, since they were invisible, totally neglected by Geoffrey. Geoffrey would much rather shiver at night than miss a dance or appear there in a shabby dress suit; besides, he knew well that if his underwear became impossibly ragged, Gwen, or somebody, would supply his needs. By “somebody” he meant not only his mother, but his aunt or his uncle; for Ludo, Laura and Gwen, quite apart from any questions of personal affection, all felt impelled to do all they could for Madeline and Geoffrey. This next generation should not suffer as they had suffered, they all decided. Our youth was gloomy, restrained, overshadowed; theirs shall be bright, uninhibited, happy, decided Ludo and Laura; they shan't marry the first person they meet just because they haven't met anybody else suitable, decided Gwen. Accordingly, though they did not at heart approve of Geoffrey's wild itineraries, or Madeline's uncommunicated doings in Leeds, they could not bring themselves to put a stop to them; they gave the children money whenever they could, altered meal-hours
to suit their convenience, did not urge them to read serious books or to go to Church, and conspired to conceal the most “modern” vagaries of his grandchildren from Mr. Armistead. Moreover, their own habits were insensibly affected by those of the “bright young things” they lived with; all the girls of Geoffrey's acquaintance had now begun to use lipstick and have their hair “set” in waves once a fortnight by the hairdresser; Gwen adopted the waves though she still shrank from cosmetics, Laura found her appearance much brightened by lipstick though she preferred her own unruly curls to “permed” waves. When Mr. Armistead, who began sentences increasingly with “in my young days”, grumbled about the lack of concentration and lack of ambition in modern youth, and their inability to remain quiet for more than five minutes at a time, Madeline merely smiled and was silent, while Geoffrey said disdainfully: “I'm glad I didn't live then!” But Laura felt that these youngsters could hardly be blamed. If at any point in his youth anybody had asked Mr. Armistead where he hoped he would be in ten years' time, he could have given a perfectly clear answer, naming such or such a point in the stable social system; but if anybody asked Geoffrey this question, he was wont to reply flippantly: “Bankrupt or dead”—and really Laura thought them highly probable alternatives. Mr. Armistead's generation had been able to cherish an ambition, and to succeed in it after twenty or fifty years of work; Edward's generation had cherished ambitions and had them blown to bits; Geoffrey's generation expected to be ruined or blown to bits, and so could not cherish an ambition at all. But at least they should face life happy and uninhibited, they should taste joy, resolved Laura, as she bought three new evening shirts for Geoffrey and renewed Madeline's season ticket.