The Balliols (62 page)

Victor nodded his head approvingly. On such an evening even
that
sounded quite all right.

In the boudoir room which had been once their own and which now was temporarily Ruth's bedroom, the two sisters sat exchanging confidences. As they compared their experiences in childbirth, Ruth remembered their last talk here on the evening before Lucy had sailed; of how they had promised to tell each other exactly what marriage was. It was about
that
that they had been curious then. They were enlightened now. But they had so come to accept that side of life as a matter of course, that they felt no curiosity, no wish to exchange confidences of
that
kind with one another. Ruth wondered whether Lucy were remembering that last talk; wondered what Lucy would say, or rather think, if she were to tell her of that flat in Westminster, and a summer evening. It was only four years ago, yet it seemed so long ago that she could not think of herself as the girl who flung bonnets over windmills. She had thought of herself as Victor's wife now for so long. No other man had looked like coming into her life. She could not picture her world without Victor as her background. She was still in love with him; in the way that a woman four years married interprets that emotion. The Ruth who had worn a Chinese dressing-gown was as much a dead self as the Lucy who had flung herself before a circus. “Yet even so, I'm under thirty. It really does seem rather strange that at that age, when I and my sister are having an intimate talk about
those
things, we should be discussing labour pains and chloroform and dry confinements.”

On the Christmas Day there was a complete family reunion.
A long lunch table with the children at one end of it. A turkey punctured with holly, a plum pudding alight with brandy, crackers, balloons, paper caps, whistles and paper hoops that when lit in the right place sailed flaming towards the ceiling. Stella had been invited.

Lucy trembled when the parlourmaid announced the name. She had looked forward to this meeting for seven years, wondering how she would feel again when she met the woman who had once so influenced her. The force of that influence had weakened rapidly since her marriage. But something of it remained: the suspicion that something had gone from her that she could not recall; that since she had given something of herself, without Stella she could never be quite complete. Enough, anyhow, of that early influence remained to make her tremble when the maid announced “Miss Stella Balliol.”

Then from behind the door appeared a tall gaunt figure, a middle-aged woman with grey short-cut hair, lined features, close-drawn lips; in uniform, with a neat pinned collar. A close-fitting tunic, and Sam Browne belt toned with a masculine swinging stride. Across the room Stella's eyes looked for hers, met and held them. It was a long steady look. Lucy felt a burden slipping from her shoulders. The woman whom her memory had retained in terms of glamour was absorbed and superseded by this stranger. The old influence was dead. I'm free at last.

Lucy was at pains not to sit next her aunt at lunch. There would have been nothing for them to say to one another. But every now and then she would hear from the other end of the table the firm resonant voice that had gained pitch and strength since its experience of the parade grounds. There was talk of woman's part in the next election.

“They offered me a practically safe seat on the coalition ticket,” Stella said. “But I felt it was too soon. I'm going back into politics. But I've not yet decided on what side or on what terms.”

There was talk of the new title to be conferred on women: the dameship that was to be the equivalent of knighthood.

“You ought to have one of those, Aunt Stella,” Francis said.

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

At the end of the meal Balliol rose to his feet.

“I am not going to make a speech,” he said. “But I think this is an occasion on which we all might be permitted to rise and drink our own healths. I never expected that a day would come when we should all be seated together at this table. The war scattered us; the war has brought us back to one another. Only when I look
round and see these new faces at our table, I realize how much each of us has become enriched; how the whole family has become the richer.”

In most homes, in most families, there was some such occasion. Sons had returned to mothers, husbands to wives and children; sweethearts could plan their marriage. Peace had come, and victory. Bank balances were pleasantly inflated. No one was out of work. Gratuities were waiting to be spent. Freedom lay ahead. The golden road of opportunity stretched clear. There can have been few homes in England during that Christmas whose happiness was not mainly inspired by the thought “And now our innings is really going to begin.”

And then.…

But quickly though the reaction came from the optimism of the immediately post-war period, its advance was imperceptible, so smooth was the descent, so many landmarks were passed upon the way. The journey that is long in distance seems long in time. An eventless year in retrospect appears to cover a shorter period of time than a crowded fortnight. And the early months of 1919 were packed with incident. Before the time came for Francis to return to Fernhurst, Ilex had returned to what had become its normal state.

Lucy had found the English climate too rigorous after the sultry heat of the tropics and had moved her family to San Raphael. Ruth had taken the seven years' lease of a house in Brompton Square, very similar to, though smaller than the house in Easton Square in which she had been born and had spent her childhood. In the middle of January Hugh was demobilized. His wound and war gratuity were credited to his account at Holt's. He took one look at his passbook; then walked straight into a house agent's office. “I want a two-roomed service flat within a shilling's taxi ride of Piccadilly Circus.”

When Carter Paterson's van called at Ilex for Francis' trunk and playbox in the last week of January, the house was as empty as it had been six months earlier.

In the same week Hugh attended his first board meeting as a director in Peel & Hardy's. As he came in through the trade entrance, he saw a familiar figure bending an auburn head over a packing case. He laid a hand upon its shoulder. “Now then,” an aggrieved voice answered; a head turned. At the sight of Hugh it immediately shot up, straightened itself, shoulders back, hands at the sides, thumbs down the seam of the trousers, a soldier on the parade ground.
“Sorry, sir. Didn't know it was you.” Then grinned, realized that those days were over; relaxed its tension.

It was the first time that Hugh had met Walker since with one Vickers gun they had assured a counter-attack's success. They had a good deal of gossip to exchange.

“You ought to have got a D.C.M. at least that day,” Hugh told him. “Why on earth didn't you give yourself a proper show?”

A sly look came into Walker's face. “Well, sir, it was like this. Things wasn't quite the way you thought they was. It was…” He paused, looking at Hugh suspiciously. “It is all right my telling you this now sir, isn't it? I mean we are out of khaki, and all that, aren't we?”

“We are free men now, Walker.”

“Well then, it was like this, sir. I've never ‘ad the wind up quite so much. There were the six of us, left together. And when Jerry came over, the corporal 'e began to get worried like; wanted to know what was ‘appening be'ind; thought as 'ow maybe we should fall back. Said 'e was going back to see; 'e went. Well, there we was, the five of us, feeling pretty glum. Bertie 'e says wot about a drop of that Dutch courage? We'd all got a bit extra for the doings, and you know 'ow it was just then. They was sending up a full section's rations and there wasn't more than half a section at the other end. Well, our gun team had been pretty clever. We'd kept most of the buckshee stuff to ourselves. We got a water bottle full of it between us. ‘Wot abaht it?' Bert says. We all agree. But just as he's reaching for the stopper, bang comes one of those there whizz-bangs, right among us. It didn't ‘it the rum bottle luckily, but that's abaht all it didn't 'it. That, and me. The trench was a rare mess; but you'll be remembering that yourself, sir. Well, there I was with the gun and me four chums gone west, so I thought, ‘I'd better have that drink.' I was feeling pretty lonely. So I took a good long swig. I felt better so I took another, and felt better still. I thought I'd best stick to the medicine that was helping me; there was the sun shining and I began to feel nice and warm, when suddenly what should I ‘ear but corporal's voice calling ‘No. 3 gun-team! Walker, No. 3 gun-team, where the 'ell 'ave you bastards got to? ' Then I did 'ave the wind up proper. God knew what 'e'd think if 'e found me there 'alf plastered, and no one to carry on the war. This is the firing squad for you, I think. So I lay low and doesn't dare to breathe. There the corporal was shoutin' for his gun-team. Sometimes 'e would seem quite close. Then 'e got far away. In the end I couldn't 'ear 'im. 'E'd either gone, I thought,
or stopped a whizz-bang, so I finished off the bottle. Then I suppose I must 'ave gone to sleep. I'd just begun to come round when you came tumbling down the trench. Gawd, but I felt ill. Gawd, 'ow I tossed the cookies. And Gawd, 'ow I'd got the wind up when the cap'n started asking me questions about what 'ad 'appened. I thought 'e was sending me up for a court-martial. I'd no idea it was going to mean a bit of ribbon.”

Hugh's astonishment had grown with every clause of the recital. He laid his hand upon Walker's shoulder.

“You're a great fellow, Walker. If there hadn't been men like you out there, we'd never have won the war.”

In the board-room he put forward Walker's claims to be put in charge of the packing department with such personal conviction that his colleagues' qualms were overcome.

“He's the kind of fellow for whom nothing ever goes wrong. He does the right thing even if he goes the wrong way about it. If anything went wrong with Walker, I should lose faith in heaven.”

The spirit in which Walker was promoted to departmental management was the spirit in which most of the plans for the firm's immediate future were laid at that first meeting. Everyone was confident and happy; ready to make things as easy as they could for one another; feeling that each was entitled by the firm's position and the moment's mood to sit lightly in the saddle; resolved to get the most they could out of life; anxious to see how far the firm could help them to that goal.

“In fact,” Balliol remarked, “it would seem to be our object to do as little work and get as amply remunerated as possible.”

He himself had decided to be a supervisor rather than an administrator. He would arrive at about eleven; he would leave shortly after four. He would dictate a few letters, interview departmental heads; see that the machine was moving smoothly; would conduct over the lunch-table such negotiations as were specifically important. Young Prentice as a lecturer on economics at London University, would have little time to do much more than attend board meetings. His advice, it was argued, would be of immense help to his colleagues. He was a thin, cadaverous, spectacled young man, with a serious, unsmiling countenance. Hugh could not imagine what kind of a figure he must have cut in uniform. Hugh, for his part, was still resolved to remain a free lance, drawing director's fees and a commission on the orders that his friends brought.

“I think I'd better have a room of my own inside the office though I don't suppose I'd use it much. But there might be an occasional interview when I'd be more effective with the background of my own room and my name painted on the door.”

It was agreed that a room should be given him.

In view of this re-allotment of the office work it was clear that the old system by which two directors, working inside the office and responsible to a chairman, were direct controllers, organizers and administrators, would have to be discontinued. It was also clear that the work which had before been divided between Balliol and Prentice would now have to be delegated. There were only two possible applicants. Smollett and his protegé, Jenks.

“But do you think they'll be able to manage it?” young Prentice asked. “The work that you and my father undertook must be of a very responsible nature.”

Balliol smiled.

“Smollett's responsible enough. And Jenks will be, with Smollett's eye on him.”

That evening Balliol conveyed to Smollett the board's decisions.

Smollett had returned from the war a lieutenant, with two blue chevrons on his arm, a short clipped moustache and what Hugh described as an ante-room manner. He would say “That suits me,” pronouncing “me” as though it were the French accusative of
je
. He had a very military way of tapping his cigarette against his cigarette case. He crossed his legs as though his heels were spurred. He was wearing a modishly cut suit, and a pearl pin held his tie in place. He was clearly resolved to maintain his officer-class status.

He listened to Balliol's explanations of the proposed change in his routine, rather as an adjutant would listen to his colonel's outline of a move. He was receiving orders yet at the same time he was allowed to make suggestions.

“Then your son will take no actual part in the administration of the firm?”

Balliol shook his head. Smollett would have called him “Mr. Hugh” before the war.

“And young Mr. Prentice. He will be working outside the office too?”

Balliol nodded.

“Apart from the fact that he's his father's son, has he any particular interest in the business?”

“He is a lecturer on economics at London University. As an
expert on such matters his advice will be of great value to the board, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Smollett echoed.

The echo struck a note that made Balliol look up quickly. It had, or he fancied that it had, an ironical inflection. But Smollett's face bore its habitual unsmiling look. Balliol changed the subject.