The Balliols

by Alec Waugh

  “As a matter of fact, I think she’s giving up her part.”

  “Why? I thought she was rather good.”

  “Apparently some of the people here objected to her.”

  “What people?”

  The curate’s embarrassment increased.

  “As a matter of fact your name was quoted.”

  “Was it? I’ll write to Mrs. Simonds.”

  The letter he wrote to Mrs. Simonds was a stern one. The next rehearsal saw Gertrude reinstated. But Mrs. Simonds was unabashed. “I was so glad to get your letter: to know that you feel as I do about these things. There are so many people who don’t. And I was afraid that you only spoke that way about Gertrude, so as to make things easier for me: that at heart you were worried. Of course, myself, I’d eat my dinner off the floor with anyone. But then I’ve been brought up with them, I know them. I know how to make allowances for girls like Gertrude. She’s such a radical, you know, Mr. Balliol, so independent. Do you know, I once wrote and asked her to come to a G.F.S. outing. She just sent a card saying ‘Sorry, other engagement. Can’t come.’ What can one do with a girl who behaves like that? Still, since you understand.…”

  Said Balliol that evening in Francis’s hearing, “When people tell you that class does not exist for them, you can be fairly certain that they are riddled with class-consciousness.”

  Easter drew near. Maundy Thursday arrived. The play suffered perhaps from the pomp that Lady Lovemay had showered on it. The contrast was too great between the uncertain acting, the uncertain lines, and the glitter of spears and armour and gilded banners. But the evening was admittedly a success. The hall was crowded, the friends and relatives of the actors were delighted at the spectacle of a familiar figure resplendent in unaccustomed plumes. And a telegram from the Bishop was read out in which he expressed his regret at not being able to be present, and wishing the company all success.

  As the cast was disrobing afterwards, the Vicar of St. Cuthbert’s, a neighbouring and smaller parish, asked if he might speak to Mr. Balliol.

  “I must congratulate you. A very reverent, a very beautiful piece of work. Now, I want to ask you a favour. Do you think you could persuade your cast to act it for us on Saturday? I will of course finance the moving. I should be proud if I could arrange for it to be acted in my parish.”

  “Naturally, as far as I’m concerned. But it’s a matter for Mrs. Simonds and Mr. Parkinson to decide upon.”

  The cast were enthusiastic over the prospect of a repeat performance. They had been touched by the glamour of the footlights. The curate was flattered at his play’s success. To everyone’s surprise, however, Mrs. Simonds refused to consider the idea.

  “I’m sorry. But I couldn’t think of allowing that. I know my husband will see eye to eye with me. Maundy Thursday is one thing, Easter Eve another. It’s too big a strain on you, Mr. Parkinson. The Easter-day services ahead. And besides, people shouldn’t be appearing at a place of public entertainment, even if it’s a religious entertainment, at an hour when Our Lord was in Hell. We should all be preparing ourselves for our Easter Communion. No, really, Mr. Parkinson, I’m afraid I can’t allow it.”

  The curate did not argue the issue.

  “Mrs. Simonds knows her mind,” he explained to Balliol.

  Remarked Balliol that evening: “My explanation of the matter is an extremely simple one. Mrs. Simonds had taken a great deal of trouble getting the patronage of Lady Lovemay. The production was a credit to her husband and to herself. The Bishop had taken notice of it. It was a step towards promotion. She had no intention of sharing any of the spoils with another parish.”

  Francis’s opinion was unvoiced. But he remembered the spirit in which Mrs. Simonds invited their co-operation. All that talk about “duty,” about “war-time,” about our debt to the soldiers at the front. It was very much the same here as it was at school. People were trying to force you to do things you didn’t want, things that were in their interest, but not in yours; and were making the war an excuse. Getting away with murder. At the back of it all nothing but self-interest and self-seeking. “When I’m in a position to make decisions for myself,” vowed Francis, “I will never let myself be influenced by abstract arguments. I shall look on everything as a bargain. There are no such things as disinterested impulses. I’ll say: ‘Good. You want me to do something for you. What are you going to do for me in return?’ I’ll show them, when I grow up.”

  Still he could not deny that he had enjoyed this particular manifestation of the spirit of good works. Time hung heavily on his hands afterwards. Holidays were dull in war-time. Everyone was busy. His father at the office all day, and on duty every other night as a Special Constable. His mother attending endless relief committees, addressing parcels to prisoners, lonely soldiers, refugees. Occasionally Hugh would take him to a matinée; but he could not be expected to bother often about a younger brother. Helen was a nuisance and a noise about the place. No one was giving parties. No one was arranging expeditions. What a different time Hugh had had. A whole month devoted to giving him as good a time as possible. And Hugh had had first Lucy, then Ruth, to go about with. He hadn’t a soul. He didn’t know one fellow of his own age who lived within six miles of him. At school it was cheek to know anybody in another house. In your own house you only knew your contemporaries. Five other new boys had arrived on the same day as himself. One of them lived in Ireland. Two were in the country somewhere. There was one at Richmond, a good hour off. And the fifth he didn’t like. No one for a fellow to go about with. And he didn’t see what chance he stood of finding anyone if nobody gave parties.

  There wasn’t anything to do except read and go for walks. Occasionally his father would ask him what he was going to do that morning.

  “Oh, mooch around,” he’d answer.

  “What did you do yesterday?”

  “Mooch around.”

  His father would then dive a hand into his pocket.

  “Here’s half a crown. Take yourself to the cinema with it.”

  A seat at the Theatre de Luxe at the foot of the hill cost him nine-pence. For a shilling with a twopenny bus fare there and back he could go to Cricklewood. His father’s tips usually left him with a comfortable supply of change. He had no reason to grumble over a lack of pocket money. He had more pocket money than Hugh had ever had. But less to spend it on. He found himself looking forward to his return to school.

  Balliol had small idea of the rebellious, exasperated state of mind into which his second son was drifting. His capacity for curiosity had never been fully exercised on Francis. He had begun by thinking him a nuisance. Later he had told himself that the child was Jane’s concern, since she made no attempt to conceal he was her favourite. And now, when Jane was too busy with canteen work to have thought or care for anybody, he had grown into a too confirmed habit of ignoring Francis to take a very real interest in his concerns. The boy seemed to be doing well enough. He had been promoted practically every term; usually with a testimonial to his industry in the shape of a printed and signed statement that his prize account had been credited with two-thirds of a war-saving certificate. The reports were non-committally satisfactory. There did not seem anything particular to worry about; and there was much else that demanded his immediate concern.

  Peel & Hardy was continuing to pay handsome dividends. The orders for champagne, port and whisky were unabated. No officer appeared to be equipped for service till he had a tobacco pouch and cigarette case in regimental colours and a pipe not markedly superior to any other pipe, but to be detected from another pipe by a small scarlet circle in the bowl for which insertion an additional charge of eleven shillings was exacted. There was also growing up among the younger members of the junior service the habit, highly profitable to a cigar merchant, of having specially blended tobacco, so that they could say in their mess, “Yes, this is my special mixture. It’s not made for anybody else. Peel & Hardy’s A317.” Each client had a different number and received such exclusiv
eness as could be obtained from the variously proportioned blendings of four standardized mixtures. The ordinary shareholders had received a dividend of twenty per cent on the last balance-sheet.

  The profits were considerable but so was the strain on the executive. Conscription had come, and with it the weeding out of every office staff throughout the country. There were not the men available to fill their places. Women were now so highly-priced by the munition factories that it was no longer possible to pick and choose; to insist, as Huntercombe had demanded, on plain and dowdy women. You had to take what you could find. And for that matter, the supply of plain and dowdy women seemed singularly short. A job, money and independence had given to even the most ordinary of women a briskness of manner, a brightness of smile, a happiness of look, a personal pride, that prevented you from thinking of them as plain and dowdy. They looked dashing and smart as they hurried to their offices with attaché cases, as they came clattering out of their factories in overalls; as they punched holes in bus tickets and collected their fares. They added a new sense of colour to the day’s events. The sight of a woman in uniform in the London streets was so unexceptional that at first Balliol did not recognize the tall, trim khaki-clad, short-skirted, slouch-hatted figure who came striding towards him down St. James’s through the soft, luminous sunshot glow of a late May evening.

  “Hullo, Edward.”

  It was a brisk, familiar voice that called his name: a voice that he had scarcely heard during the last four years.

  “Stella!”

  She had not altered. The same lean handsome figure, the firm stride, the firm manner. She looked well in uniform.

  “I hear Hugh’s out of hospital, and that Ruth’s going to have another baby. What news of Lucy? I suppose Francis is almost of military age; and that before we know where we are Helen’ll be coming to ask me for a job.”

  She rattled the questions off as though she were giving orders to a squad of recruits. Balliol laid his hand upon her elbow.

  “It’ll take me twenty minutes to answer all those questions. Haven’t you time to take a cup of tea with me?”

  Rumpelmeyer’s was within a minute’s stroll. It was very crowded: officers in khaki, their buttons shining: young women smiling at them beneath wide-brimmed hats: a band playing, “Let the great big world keep on turning:” three or four couples dancing. A typical war-time scene. They had some difficulty in finding a table.

  “Shall I go and get you an éclair?” Balliol asked.

  “I’ll choose for myself, thank you.”

  Cream cakes were difficult to get in war-time. Balliol noticed with amusement that Stella took considerable trouble over her selection, and left the counter with a high-piled plate. There was something feminine about her, anyhow.

  It was many months since brother and sister had seen each other. The chain of Stella’s obligations and responsibilities had grown heavier every month. They had a lot to tell each other. In particular Stella wanted news of Lucy.

  “It’s only six years since she went. But she’ll return a stranger.”

  Stella nodded. She looked away, a soft reminiscent light upon her face. She could think of Lucy without heartburn now.

  “Lucy was a type that will exist less and less in future,” she maintained. “She’s the hundred-per-cent. woman; she fulfils herself by surrender to some creative force; a person, or a cause. She’ll have given herself to marriage as she gave herself to our Cause, wholeheartedly, unquestioningly.” Stella paused. “To think that all that’s only three years away.”

  Only three years since a woman like Stella was the Aunt Sally of cheap gibes; had been described as woman’s own worst enemy; who had put back her Cause a hundred years by proving that women were irresponsible, uncivilized, incapable of measured judgment. She was a kind of heroine now; and it was because women such as she had given during the war such irrefutable proof of their capacity that public opinion towards the vote was changing so rapidly that no one really doubted that when the franchise was extended to include soldiers and sailors, women would also be admitted to it.

  “And everyone will say, of course, that we earned the vote by our war work,” Stella said. “But we didn’t. We’d never have got the vote even if we hadn’t forced ourselves on the public attention by breaking windows, if we hadn’t had our organizations ready when the war broke out to show what we could do, if we hadn’t been ready to insist, in a mood to insist, on our right to service. For we had opposition, you know. We had to fight, as we always have had to. The war gave us a chance of fighting in a different way, that’s all. It’s odd when you come to think of it that men only believe women are capable when they show that they can tackle a man’s job. Why a woman deserves a vote because she can be a tolerable substitute for a lift attendant, rather than by being a first-class milliner, I don’t know. But that’s the way things are. The great thing is that the vote’s become a practical certainty.”

  “Do you think you’d have got the vote if there hadn’t been a war?”

  “Yes; only not so quickly. The war’s telescoped events, but it hasn’t created them. It’s just made things happen in five years instead of in fifteen. It’s hastened things, it hasn’t changed things. Historians will probably forget or gloss over the militant side of the Suffrage Movement. They’ll talk about our splendid work for the country. They’ll forget all about the outcasts of 1913. But it’s to people like Lucy that the women of the 1920’s will owe their independence.”

  “When do you expect the vote?”

  “Before the next election.”

  “Then I suppose you’ll start agitating for a seat in parliament?”

  “You know the old cliché; the thin end of the wedge.”

  For a few minutes longer they sat talking, then Stella pushed back her chair.

  “I must be going. I can’t allow myself interludes like this. Give my love to Jane. How is she?”

  “So busy that I hardly ever see her.”

  “Busy? What about?”

  “You should know that better than I do.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s you who are keeping her busy.”

  An extremely puzzled look came into Stella’s face.

  “I really don’t understand you.”

  “Her war work. You’re responsible for that.”

  Stella laughed.

  “Are you going to hold me responsible for every woman who sees herself in khaki?”

  “For those, anyhow, who come to you direct.”

  “Jane never came to me.”

  “What!”

  Again Stella laughed. “I’m afraid you exaggerate my importance. I’m only one out of a great many women who sit as chairmen of committees. You mustn’t imagine that because Jane said ‘I’m going to do war-work’ she came to me about it.”

  Balliol laughed too, at that.

  “It was a very natural mistake,” he said.

  But he was fairly confident that he was not mistaken.

  On his return home he found a pencilled message beside the telephone. Mrs. Balliol would not be back for dinner. She would be kept late at the canteen. That was the second time this week. There was a letter with a Fernhurst post-mark. It was addressed with such care that Balliol for a moment did not recognize the handwriting as his second son’s. It was a long letter. There were no blots in it. It gave every sign of the most careful composition.

  A request for money, Balliol thought.

  His surmise was right. The letter started with a detailed account of the new term’s opening: the probable composition of the eleven, his own chance of getting in the Colts, his new form master. There was a reference to Hugh’s appointment. “Hugh seems to be all right,” it said. There was a description of various war-time economies. The eleven were not allowed to wear gold-embroidered badges upon their pockets. In his opinion this was very foolish. There were other economies. Twice a week they had meatless dinners: fish was the usual substitute; occasionally there were eggs
or macaroni. It really was not sufficient. One would be terribly hungry if it were not for the tuck shop. And at the tuck shop the price of everything was going up. A sausage on toast that used to cost sixpence now cost eightpence. And on meatless dinner days one sausage was not enough; one needed two. In fact, Francis concluded, he really did not see how he was going to manage on the fifteen shillings with which his father had instructed him to balance his budget until half-term.

  The argument had been led with considerable adroitness to the final climax. Balliol smiled. A letter as well-phrased was certainly worth ten shillings.

  It was close on ten when Jane returned. Her face wore the tranquil, abstracted expression that during the last months had grown habitual with her. Her voice had taken on a slower cadence, in tune with her changed expression.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back. Was the dinner all right? It’s difficult to arrange amusing meals. One has to keep delicacies till one entertains. Oh, but I feel tired.”

  She stretched her arms slowly behind her head, her eyes closed, her lips parted, her head leant back. It was a weary gesture, but the weariness that inspired it was a happy one: “a glad fatigue.” Balliol looked at her closely.

  “I suppose it’s pretty hard work there, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I don’t imagine that you see Stella very often?”

  “Only now and again.”

  “People go to her in the first place. She finds the right job for them. And then it ends?”

  “More or less.”

  “That’s what happened in your case, for instance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who would have thought five years ago that we should be seeing Stella in a position of this kind.”

  But it was not of his sister’s changed position that he was thinking. Jane’s lied to me, he thought. She never went to Stella. She wanted for some reason or another to have control of her spare time, to have a ready and unanswerable excuse for missed meals, irregular hours, an unregulated life. He looked closely at her. That tranquil and abstract expression; that happy languor. He had attributed them to the content that followed upon work completed. Most women were discontented because they hadn’t enough to do. That had been Jane’s trouble. Too much time for brooding. No wonder she seemed different now that her days were filled. That was what he had thought. But now, in the light of this new knowledge, he was less certain. He looked closely at her. How old was she? Forty-six? Forty-seven? Forty-eight? She was a grandmother, her hair was grey. But her figure had never lost its suppleness, or rather had exchanged the turbulent elasticity of youth for a slow and rhythmed ease. Spring had changed to autumn. But the grey hair did not belie the youthfulness of the grey-brown eyes. There was the same expression of puzzled candour that had made people exclaim of her in the early years of their marriage, “I can’t believe that you’ve got two children. You look a bride!“ Because he was old himself, he thought of her as old. But a young man.…