The Balliols (35 page)

“Will you please go straight through?”

Stella Balliol was one of those exceedingly busy people who give you the impression that they are not busy in the least. They welcome you as though you had come for a week-end. There is a pleasant atmosphere of leisure about their room. You never feel that anyone else is waiting to come in. There is no sense of hurry. At the same time, within three minutes you find yourself in the passage, having said all you went to say and settled the particular
matter that had brought you there. You have been given the impression that any time you care to drop in for a chat, you will be extremely welcome. “There ought to be more people like that,” you tell yourself. At the same time you feel that you wouldn't care to bother them, unless you had something that really mattered to discuss.

She had Ruth's business settled within two minutes.

“I'd suggest canteen work for you at the present. It needs someone who's tactful with men, who can be friendly with them without letting them get familiar. They need just the right handling. It's more out-of-doors work, too. I don't think you're an indoor person. Can you drive a car? No? Well, I should learn as soon as I could. There'll be a lot of work of that kind before very long. The most interesting work, too. I'll give you some addresses now.”

On the desk in front of her were a number of small piles of typewritten cards. She took up three of them. She wrote over the top “To introduce Ruth Balliol.” She signed them with her own name at the foot. “They'll be able to give you all the work you want; as much or as little. I hope it'll be as much.” She stretched out her hand. The formal businesslike tone was dropped, a look of leadership lit the cold, stern features. “I think it's fine of you to want to be with us,” she said.

Ruth left the room relieved that she was to be allowed to make her contribution to the hour's effort; confident that her wish to help would not be misused; that her talents and capacities would not be allowed to rust; that they would be watched and directed where they were most fitted. She could understand the influence Stella had had over the young women of the Movement.

In the street outside, newsboys were shouting the latest communiqués from the Russian front. Another battle; more prisoners captured; more guns. No news from Flanders. The streets were full of khaki. How drab it looked. War; nothing but war. All the colour and glitter of life gone. The sooner she was herself absorbed by it the better. Work, long hours till your body ached, till your eyelids pressed down upon your eyeballs; so that dark thoughts had no chance to trample across your mind; so that you could forget what in your personal life had gone awry. It might have been so lovely. It would have been so lovely. There might have been unhappiness afterwards: strain, friction, heart-burning. But, there would have been that to look back upon. It won't ever come again. Not in the same way. It's lost for ever. The war's taken it. The war's taken something from everybody. It's the common lot. I'm not
going to grumble. If only it had come a little later. Just a week later. If only I could have had that first!

The knowledge of her own loss brought her into touch with all those whom the war had robbed of happiness. As she walked away from the Strand, she passed coming from the other direction a group of recruits on their way to camp. They were a motley crowd. Only a few of them were in uniform. They were in variegated costumes: Norfolk jackets, grey flannel trousers, riding-breeches, blazers, bowler hats, cloth caps, boaters, Homburgs. They carried brand new kit-bags across their shoulders. They marched jauntily, more or less in step. They were singing
Tipperary
.

Ruth looked closely into their faces as they passed. They seemed gay enough: self-consciously jovial for the most part; conscious that they were being stared at. But there must be at least one there whose heart was aching, as hers was; who had been robbed of a happiness that life had not again for giving. We're all in the same boat. She felt less lonely as she hurried on to the Charing Cross Tube.

She returned to find Francis in a state of considerable excitement.

“You remember old Scottie? I told you about him: teaches maths. Well, he's joined the London Scottish. He's the one master who really made us work. I
am
looking forward to next term. We'll be able to rag like billy-oh!”

Ruth told her father what Stella had arranged.

“You'd better have a couple of latch-keys cut for me. Heaven knows what hours I'll be keeping.”

Through those last August days and through September the Press varied their slogan of “Business as Usual” with denunciations of shirkers, slackers and all such unmarried men of military age as were not in khaki. From every hoarding portraits of Kitchener with extended finger that pointed straight at you, from whatever angle you approached, announced that “Your King and Country need you.” Recruiting bands marched through the streets. Restaurants changed
Vienna patties
into
St. Petersburg steak
. Patriots with names like Kaisar became Kingsley by deed of poll. Old men in their club wished they were younger. There was talk of spies, of food hoarders; everyone knew someone who had seen ten thousand Russians hurrying across England to the eastern front. While for the Balliols as for every other English family, the business of living went on, not as though nothing, but as though not too much, had happened.

In the offices of Peel & Hardy, there was a certain amount of alarm lest the war should be made an excuse by the teetotallers to place a check on the sale of wines. The example of Russia was alarming. Prentice was of the opinion that the tobacco branch should be enlarged.

“It is taking up a great deal of our capital already,” Balliol said.

“It is showing a very handsome profit.”

“Is there any reason to believe it is capable of enlargement?”

“There is every reason. A great many men will have more money than they have ever had before. There will be fewer things to spend money on. Tobacco is one of the few luxuries they will be able to afford when they are on active service. The inaction of their lives will increase the smoking habit. There are a great many young men who are now non-smokers who will become smokers during the war. It'll be something for them to do. It'll soothe their nerves. I'd like to have young Smollett's opinion.”

Prentice's protégé entered the board-room in a spirit of mingled terror and aggression. He was frightened out of his life and was ashamed of being frightened. He told himself that he was as good as they were; that he was better than they were; that he had worked his way up; that they had just picked up what they had found;
that if they had been born where he had, they would be there still, if not a little lower. He was much better than they were, really; that's how he had argued as he stood outside the board-room waiting to tap upon the door. But when he came into the room, the arguments lost their potency. The three men seated round the table appeared to belong to a different and a more powerful order. He felt himself getting hot. He did not know what to do with his hands, wondered whether his tie was straight, wondered whether the stain on the right side of his coat was noticeable. If he had known he was going to be called up to the board-room, he would have put on his Sunday suit. The very graciousness with which Lord Hunter-coombe pointed him to a chair increased his nervousness. People like that were never uncomfortable. They never worried about how they looked. They knew that they looked all right. And they did, confound them!

“Now, what we want to ask your opinion on is this,” said Huntercoombe. “It concerns the possible enlargement of the tobacco department. It would be better, perhaps, for Mr. Prentice to explain.”

The Chairman sat back brooding, his eyes half-closed, his elbows rested on the arms of his chair, the points of his fingers tapping. It was annoying, the way that electric light plant kept going wrong. It was a pity they had ever put it in. Such a mistake: trying to be modern. His man kept talking about carbonization. That meant nothing to him. All he knew was that Roger spent his whole time feeding the damned thing with oil instead of clipping the box hedge of the archery, and that with young Graham called up as a reservist, and no chance of getting a decent under-gardener at such a time.…

As Prentice began to explain, Smollett lost his nervousness. He stopped worrying about what he looked like, and what other people were thinking of him. He was realizing that the war was going to give him the opportunity he had waited for, but had not expected, had not known how to ask for. His eyes brightened as he listened.

But when Prentice had finished, when Balliol turned to ask him his opinion, his former nervousness returned. His anxiety to conceal his nervousness made his voice rough and insolent.

“I should prefer not to give my answer now. I should prefer to think the matter over. I should prefer to set some figures before the board at their next meeting.”

“Very good.”

As he walked towards the door he was unhappily conscious of six eyes following him, picking him to pieces, noticing the cut of his
clothes, his worn shoes, the way his hair was cut. He wanted to run, so as to be in the passage quickly.

As the door closed behind him, Huntercoombe turned to his colleagues.

“I have no doubt that that young person is extremely efficient at his job. But I don't like him. Frankly, I do not like him.”

At the next board-meeting Smollett's report was read. It was concise and clear. There seemed reason to believe that the firm might profitably invest a portion of its capital in the enlargement of its tobacco side. Not that there seemed any likelihood of the main wine side being obscured. The teetotallers were silent. Though Kitchener had warned the troops against the dangers that they would encounter through wine and women, an encouraging spate of orders for port and spirits came from the army messes.

At Ilex life went on, not so very differently. When Hugh left for camp it was very like his going back to Oxford, his week-end leaves were very like those sudden incursions from Oxford when Balliol had returned to find the hall stacked with bags, greatcoats, tennis-racquets; when there had been a great deal of door slamming, of shouting over bannisters, of the splash of bath water, of notices pinned on doors: “On no account call me till I wake.” Very like that.

Ruth's movements were as varied and rapid as they had been always. They were more irregular. That was the only difference. As Francis and he walked up the North End Road together after breakfast, now as then, it was a recital of school rags that Francis poured into his inattentive ear. The headlines of the daily papers, the topics one discussed at dinner tables and at one's clubs, those certainly were different. But apart from that Balliol was unconscious of any basic change.

One morning half-way through September Ruth received a letter with a Nottingham postmark and a gunner badge. The handwriting seemed familiar. But she could not remember when. She tore it open. It was a pencilled note, scrawled on a half-sheet of paper. “Coming up to London on Friday for my first leave. Can you possibly meet the 12.50 Euston?” A signature sent the colour flooding through her cheeks. “Victor.” And on his first leave; that he should have thought first of her!

A barrier was drawn across the end of the platform. By the time Ruth arrived twenty to thirty people were gathered round it. They were women for the most part; some middle-aged, some quite old, others as young as she was. Were they waiting for lovers too, she wondered. Their faces seemed eager, alive, expectant; as though happiness were on its way to meet them. Was her face bright like theirs? What was it that Helen had said about her eyes that morning? Did a woman in love always betray herself?

Standing on tiptoe she edged her way towards the barrier. There was only one woman now in front of her. She was little and bent and old. She would be able to see over her. She looked up at the clock. 12.49. But the train was certain to be late. Trains always were; except when you were catching them. How late was it likely to be? Ten minutes? It couldn't be much less than that. Quarter of an hour, say. If it had been more than that they'd have put a notice up. Quarter of an hour, then. That's as far away from now if you think forwards, as that moment when I was coming up in the lift is, if you think backwards. That doesn't seem long ago. It won't be long to wait. It.…

But the train was punctual. With a slow, steady grind it ran up to the buffers. There was a flinging wide of doors; from every carriage khaki-clad men were leaping to the platform. They were carrying kit-bags, packs, suit-cases. In spite of their burdens, they were running towards the barrier; towards happiness; towards freedom. Standing on tiptoe she peered eagerly above the little bent old
woman. Suppose he wasn't here. Suppose something had happened. Suppose he'd sent a wire that had arrived after she left home. But nothing had happened. He
was
there. Taller than the rest; so strong, so straight. He had seen her. There was that gay look in his face. He was waving at her. He was hurrying with the long swinging stride. He was through the barrier. She had pushed backwards through the crowd. A strong arm had been passed through hers. She was being hustled towards a taxi. Taxis were hard to find, but he had found one. The door was open. A strong hand beneath her elbow lifted her. “The Ritz, driver.” The door had slammed. There was the sound of gears; the taxi began to move.

“Well, kitten?”

But she could not trust herself to speak. Her eyes ran him up and down, to make certain he was there; to make certain he was real. It was strange seeing him in uniform. Yet he looked so right in it. The close-fitting tunic that was not too tight, the shining well-worn Sam Browne, the riding-breeches that were not glaring yet somehow caught one's eye. The riding-boots that had stood stout service. So many officers looked as though a tailor had hung garments on them. You did not feel that they could do anything in their uniforms. Victor looked a soldier. How his buttons shone, and his spurs!