by Hugh Walpole
And behind her again there were Millie and the Platts, and Peter and the three Graces, and the Romantic Novel and even Mr. King — and behind these again all London with its banging, clattering, booming excitement, the omnibuses running, the flags flying, the Bolshevists with their plots, and the shops with their jewels and flowers, the actors and actresses rehearsing in the theatres, the messenger boys running with messages, the policemen standing with hands outstretched, the newspapers announcing the births and the deaths and the marriages, D’Annunzio in Fiume, the Poles in Warsaw fighting for their lives, the Americans in New York drinking secretly in little back bedrooms and the sun rising and setting all over the place at an incredible speed.
It was of no use to say that Henry had nothing to do with any of these things. He might have something to do with any one of them at any moment. Stop for an instant to see whether the ground is going to open in Piccadilly Circus and you are lost! — or found! — at any rate, you are taken, neck and crop, and flung into life whether you wish it or no. And Henry did wish it! He loved this nearness and closeness, this sense of being both one of the audience and the actors at one and the same time! Meanwhile the letters, with their gentle slightly scornful evocation of another world, only a little behind this one, and in its own opinion at any rate, infinitely superior to it, were waiting for his concentration.
Then the Duncombe family itself was beginning to absorb him, with its own dramatic possibilities. At luncheon that day he was made forcibly aware of that drama.
Lady Bell-Hall had from the first stirred his eager sympathies. He was so very sorry for the poor little woman. He did so eagerly wish that he could persuade her to be a little less frightened at the changes that were going on around her. After all, if Duncombe Hall had to be sold and if she were forced to live in a little flat and have only one servant, did it matter so terribly? Even though Soviets were set up in London and strange men with red handkerchiefs and long black beards did sit at Westminster there would still be many delightful things left to enjoy! Her health was good, her appetite quite admirable and the Young Women’s Christian Association and Society for the Comfort of Domestic Servants and the League of Pity for Aged Widowers (some among many of Lady Bell-Hall’s interests) would in all probability survive many Revolutions or, at least, even though they changed their names, would turn into something equally useful and desirous of help. He longed to say some of these things to her.
His opportunity suddenly and rather uncomfortably arrived.
Lady Bell-Hall in appearance resembled a pretty little pig — that is, she had the features of a pig, a very young pig before time has enveloped it in fat. And so soft and pink were her cheeks, so round her little arms, of so delicate a white her little nose, so beseechingly grey her eyes that you realised very forcibly how charming and attractive sucklings might easily be. She sat at the end of the round mahogany table in the long dark dining-room, talked to her unresponsive brother and sometimes to Henry in a soft gentle voice with a little plaint in it, infinitely touching and pathetic, hoping against hope for the best.
To-day there came to the luncheon an old friend of the family, whose name Henry had once or twice heard, a Mr. Light-Johnson.
Mr. Light-Johnson was a long, thin, cadaverous-looking man with black sleek hair and a voice like a murmuring brook. He paid no attention to Henry and very little to Duncombe, but he sat next to Lady Bell-Hall and leaned towards her and stared into her face with large wondering eyes that seemed always to be brimming with unshed tears.
There are pessimists and pessimists, and it seems to be one of the assured rules of life that however the world may turn, whatever unexpected joys may flash upon the horizon, however many terrible disasters may be averted from mankind, pessimists will remain pessimists to the end. And such a pessimist as this Henry had never before seen.
He had an irritating, tantalizing habit of lifting a spoonful of soup to his lips and then putting it down again because of his interest in what he was saying.
“What I feared last Wednesday,” he said, “has already come true.”
“Oh dear!” said Lady Bell-Hall. “What is that?”
“The Red Flag is flying in East Croydon. The Workers’ Industrial Union have commandeered the Y.M.C.A reading-room and have issued a manifesto to the Croydon Parish Council.”
“Dear, dear! Dear, dear!” said Lady Bell-Hall.
“It is a melancholy satisfaction,” said Mr. Light-Johnson, “to think how right one was last Wednesday. I hardly expected that my words would be justified so quickly.”
“And do you think,” said Lady Bell-Hall, “that the movement — taking Y.M.C.A. reading-rooms I mean — will spread quickly over London?”
“Dear Lady,” said Mr. Light-Johnson, “I can’t disguise from you that I fear the worst. It would be foolish to do any other. I have a cousin, Major Merriward — you’ve heard me speak of him — whose wife is a niece of one of Winston Churchill’s secretaries. He told me last night at the Club that Churchill’s levity! — well, it’s scandalous — Nero fiddling while Rome burns isn’t in it at all! I must tell you frankly that I expect complete Bolshevist rule in London within the next three months.”
“Oh dear! oh dear!” said Lady Bell-Hall. “Do have a little of that turbot, Mr. Johnson. You’re eating nothing. I’m only too afraid you’re right. The banks will close and we shall all starve.”
“For the upper classes,” said Mr. Johnson, “the consequences will be truly terrible. In Petrograd to-day Dukes and Duchesses are acting as scavengers in the streets. What else can we expect? I heard from a man in the Club yesterday, whose son was in the Archangel forces that it is Lenin’s intention to move to London and to make it the centre of his world rule. I leave it to you to imagine, Lady Bell-Hall, how safe any of us will be when we are in the power of Chinese and Mongols.”
“Chinese!” cried Lady Bell-Hall. “Chinese!”
“Undoubtedly. They will police London or what is left of it, because there will of course be severe fighting first, and nowadays, with aerial warfare what it is, a few days’ conflict will reduce London to a heap of ruins.”
“And what about the country?” asked Lady Bell-Hall. “I’m sure the villagers at Duncombe are very friendly. And so they ought to be considering the way that Charles has always treated them.”
“It’s from the peasantry that I fear the worst,” said Mr. Light-Johnson. “After all it has always been so. Think of La Vendée, think of the Russian peasantry in this last Revolution. No, there is small comfort there, I’m afraid.”
Throughout this little conversation Duncombe had kept silent. Now he broke in with a little ironic chuckle; this was the first time that Henry had heard him laugh.
“Just think, Margaret,” he said, “of Spiders. Spiders is our gardener, Light-Johnson, a stout cheery fellow. He will probably be local executioner.”
Light-Johnson turned and looked at his host with reproachful eyes.
“Many a true word before now has been spoken in jest, Duncombe,” he said. “You will at any rate not deny that this coming winter is going to be an appalling one — what with strikes, unemployment and the price of food for ever going up — all this with the most incompetent Government that any country has ever had in the world’s history. I don’t think that even you, Duncombe, can call the outlook very cheerful.”
“Every Government is the worst that any country’s ever had,” said Duncombe. “However, I daresay you’re right, Light-Johnson. Perhaps this is the end of the world. Who knows? And what does it matter if it is?”
“Really, Charles!” Lady Bell-Hall was eating her cutlet with great rapidity, as though she expected a naked Chinaman to jump in through the window at any moment and snatch it from her. “But seriously, Mr. Light-Johnson, do you see no hope anywhere?”
“Frankly none at all. I don’t think any one could call me a pessimist. I simply look at things as they are — the true duty of every man.”
“And what do you think one ought to do?”<
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“For myself,” said Light-Johnson, helping himself to another cutlet, “I shall spend the coming winter on the Riviera — Mentone, I think. The Income Tax is so scandalous that I shall probably live in the south of France during the next year or two.”
“And so shoulder your responsibilities like a true British citizen,” said Duncombe. “I’m sure you’re right. You’re lucky to be able to get away so easily.”
Light-Johnson’s sallow cheeks flushed ever so slightly. “Of course, if I felt that I could do any good I would remain,” he said. “I’m not the sort of man to desert a sinking ship, I hope. Sinking it is, I fear. The great days of England are over. We must not be sentimentalists nor stick our heads, ostrich-wise, in the sand. We must face facts.”
It was here that Henry made his great interruption, an interruption that was, had he only known it, to change the whole of his future career. He had realized thoroughly at first that it was his place to be seen and not heard. Young secretaries were not expected to talk unless they were definitely needed to make a party “go.” But as Light-Johnson had continued his own indignation had grown. His eyes, again and again, in spite of himself, sought Lady Bell-Hall’s face. He simply could not bear to see the little lady tortured — for tortured she evidently was. Her little features were all puckered with distress. Her eyes had the wide staring expression of a child seeing a witch for the first time. Every word that Light-Johnson uttered seemed to stab her like a knife. To Henry this was awful.
“They are not facts. They are not facts!” he cried. “After every war there are years when people are confused. Of course there are. It can’t be otherwise. We shall never have Bolshevism here. Russian conditions are different from everywhere else. They are all ignorant in Russia. Millions of ignorant peasants. While prices are high of course people are discontented and say they’re going to do dreadful things. When everybody’s working again prices will go down and then you see how much any one thinks about Russia! England isn’t going to the dogs, and it never will!”
The effect of this outburst was astonishing. Light-Johnson turned round and stared at Henry as though he were a small Pom that had hitherto reposed peacefully under the table but had suddenly woken up and bitten his leg. He smiled, his first smile of the day.
“Quite so,” he said indulgently. “Of course. One can’t expect every one to have the same views on these matters.”
But Lady Bell-Hall was astonishing. To Henry’s amazement she was angry, indignant. She stared at him as though he had offered a deadly insult. Why, she wanted to be made miserable! She liked Mr. Johnson’s pessimism! She wished to be tortured! She preferred it! She hugged her wound and begged for another turn on the wheel!
“Really, Mr. Trenchard,” she said, “I don’t think you can know very much about it. As Mr. Light-Johnson says, we should face facts.” She ended her sentence with a hint of indulgence as though she would say: “He’s very, very young. We must excuse him on the score of his youth.”
The rest of the meal was most uncomfortable. Light-Johnson would speak no more. Henry was miserable and indignant. He had made a fool of himself, but he was glad that he had spoken! Lady Bell-Hall would hate him always now and would prejudice her brother against him — but he was glad that he had spoken! Nevertheless his cheese choked him, and in embarrassed despair he took a pear that he did not want, and because no one else had fruit ate it in an overwhelming silence.
Then in the library he had his reward. Light-Johnson had departed.
“I shan’t want you this afternoon, Trenchard,” Duncombe said. Then he added: “You spoke up well. That man’s an ass.”
“I shouldn’t,” he stammered, “have said anything. I don’t know enough. I only — —”
“Nonsense. You know more than Light-Johnson. Speak up whenever you have a mind to. It does my sister good.”
And this was the beginning of an alliance between the two.
CHAPTER II
MILLIE AND PETER
And here are some extracts from a diary that Millicent kept at this time.
April 14. — Just a week since I started with the Platts and I feel as though I’d been there all my life. And yet I haven’t got the thing going at all. I’m in nearly the same mess as I was the first morning. I’m not proud of myself, but at the same time it isn’t my fault. Look at the Interruptions alone! (I’ve put a capital because really they are at the heart of all my trouble.) Victoria herself doesn’t begin to know what letting any one alone is. I seem at present to have an irresistible fascination for her. She sits and stares at me until I feel as though I were some strange animal expected to change into something stranger.
And she doesn’t know what silence means. She says: “I mustn’t interrupt your work, my Millie” (I do wish she wouldn’t call me “my Millie”), and then begins at once to chatter. All the same one can’t help being fond of her — at least at present. I expect I shall get very impatient soon and then I’ll be rude and then there’ll be a scene and then I shall leave. But she really is so helpless and so full of alarms and terrors. Never again will I envy any one with money! I expect before the War she was quite a happy woman with a small allowance from her father, living in Streatham and giving little tea-parties. Now what with Income Tax, servants, motor-cars, begging friends, begging enemies, New Art and her sisters she doesn’t know where to turn. Of course Clarice and Ellen are her principal worries. I’ve really no patience with Clarice. I hate her silly fat face, pink blanc-mange with its silly fluffy yellow hair. I hate the way she dresses, always too young for her years and always with bits stuck on to her clothes as though she picked pieces of velvet and lace up from the floor and pinned them on just anywhere.
I hate her silly laugh and her vanity and the way that she will recite a poem about a horse (I think it is called something like “Lascar”) on the smallest opportunity. I suppose I can’t bear seeing any one make a fool of herself or himself and all the people who come to the Platts’ house laugh at her. All the same, she’s the happiest of the three women; that’s because she’s more truly conceited than the others. It’s funny to see how she prides herself on having learned how to manage Victoria. She’s especially sweet to her when she wants anything and you can see it coming on hours beforehand. Victoria is a fool in many things but she isn’t such a fool as all that. I call Clarice the Ostrich.
Ellen is quite another matter. By far the most interesting of them. I think she would do something remarkable if she’d only break away from the family and get outside it. Part of her unhappiness comes, I’m sure, from her not being able to make up her mind to do this. She despises herself. And she despises everybody else too. Men especially, she detests men, although she dresses rather like them. Victoria and Clarice are both afraid of her because of the bitter things she says. She glares at the people who come to lunch and tea as though she would like to call fire down and burn them all. It’s amusing to see one of the new artists (I beg their pardon — New Artists) trying to approach her, attempting flattery and then falling back aware that he has made one enemy in the house at any rate. The funny thing is that she rather likes me, and that is all the stranger because I understand from Brooker, the little doctor, that she always disliked the secretaries. And I haven’t been especially sweet to her. Just my ordinary which Mary says is less than civility. . . .
April 16. — Ephraim Block and his friend Adam P. Quinzey (that isn’t his real name but it’s something like that) to luncheon. I couldn’t help asking him whether he didn’t think the “Eve” rather too large. And didn’t he despise me for asking! He told me that when he gets a commission for sculpting in an open space, the tree that goes with the “Eve” will be large enough to shelter all the school children of Europe.
Although he’s absurd I can’t help being sorry for him. He is so terribly hungry and eats Victoria’s food as though he were never going to see another meal again. Ellen tells me that he’s got a woman who lives with him by whom he’s had about eight children. Po
or little things! And I think Victoria’s beginning to get tired of him. She’s irritated because he wants her to pay for the tree and the serpent as well as Eve herself. He says it isn’t his fault that Victoria’s house isn’t large enough and she says that he hasn’t even begun the Tree yet and when he’s finished it it will be time enough to talk. Then there are the Balaclavas (the nearest I can get to their names). She’s a Russian dancer, very thin and tall and covered with chains and beads, and he’s very fat with a dead white face and long black hair. They talk the strangest broken English and are very depressed about life in general — as well they may be, poor things. He thinks Pavlowa and Karsavina simply aren’t in it with her as artists and I daresay they’re not, but one never has a chance of judging because she never gets an engagement anywhere. So meanwhile they eat Victoria’s food and try to borrow money off any one in the house who happens to be handy. You can’t help liking them, they’re so helpless. Of course I know that Block and the Balaclavas and Clarice’s friends are all tenth-rate as artists. I’ve seen enough of Henry’s world to see that. They are simply plundering Victoria as Brooker says, but I’m rather glad all the same that for a time at any rate they’ve found a place with food in it.
I shan’t be glad soon. I’m beginning to realize in myself a growing quite insane desire to get this house straight — insane because I don’t even see how to begin. And Victoria’s very difficult! She loves Power and if you suggest anything and she thinks you’re getting too authoritative she at once vetoes it whatever it may be. On the other hand she’s truly warm-hearted and kind. If I can keep my temper and stay on perhaps I shall manage it. . . .
April 17. — I’ve had thorough “glooms” to-day. I’m writing this in bed whither I went as early as nine o’clock, Mary being out at a party and the sitting-room looking grizzly. I feel better already. But a visit to mother always sends me into the depths. It is terrible to me to see her lying there like a dead woman, staring in front of her, unable to speak, unable to move. Extraordinary woman that she is! Even now she won’t see Katherine although Katherine tries again and again.