The muttering rumble of the crowd came up at them, and a wave of song:
“Oh, what a beautiful morning!
Oh, what a beautiful day!”
The square was packed with faces, all staring hopefully up at the town hall where the count was going on. Every window was lighted and open. People leant down and called to friends below. The Swan was a furnace of noise, sucking people in continually and pouring them out. Singing burst out and died down. Sometimes two or three songs were going on at once.
The Institute party, arms linked, pushed their way into the throng. Voices all round told them that Millwood was going to get in, but only Rickie believed it, because Rickie would believe anything.
“As long as England means ter you
What England means ter me….”
“There’s Mr. Hayter. He always knows everything. Ask him! Hi! Mr. Hayter!”
“The people’s flag is coloured red,
It sheltered oft our martyred dead….”
“Who’s going to get in, Mr. Hayter?”
“Hallo, Haverstock! Hallo, Miss Carmichael! Why … your guess is as good as mine.”
“Oh, no. You know everything. What’s your guess?”
“I guess that Pugh will get in and the Tories will be very angry with you-all.”
“Us Liberals?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if you-all turn out to have done a very nice bit of work.”
Hayter sketched a mock salute and vanished into the crowd.
“He means,” deduced Bess, “that we’ve got more votes than anybody expected.”
“And the Tories will think they’d have got them if it hadn’t been for us,” said Lucy.
“Ianthe got them,” said Robin, close behind her. “Where is she? Lucy! Where’s Ianthe?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you two were inseparables.”
“No-no….”
“Look! There’s Mr. Finch waving a red flag.”
“I didn’t know he was a Communist.”
“He’s not really. He’s just silly.”
“Where’s the difference?”
“God who made thee mighty,
MAKE … THEE … MIGHTIER … YET….”
“… He said: ‘Think once before you vote Liberal, and twice before you vote Conservative, but don’t think at all before you vote Socialist.’”
“Who did?”
“Pugh did.”
“I heard that Bowden said it. ‘Think once before you vote Liberal, and twice before you vote Socialist, and don’t …’”
“And it’s there that Annie Laurie,
Gied me her promise true!”
A violent pushing and swaying nearly carried them off their feet. The crowd was trying to make room for a car which crawled towards the town hall.
“Take care! Take care! … What is it? … It’s a car…. Who is it? … Who … Lady Frances! Lady Frances! Millwood! Millwood! Boo! Boo! Hurrah! Yah! Hurrah! Millwood!”
The Liberals yelled themselves hoarse as Lady Frances stumped up the town hall steps. She was not an interfering old woman just then. She was a heroine — their candidate’s mother, a leading figure in the drama. They felt utterly loyal to her.
“How proud she must be!” cried Bess sentimentally.
“What of?” asked Lucy.
“Him!”
“We don’t know yet, do we?”
“How much longer will it be?”
“Hours and hours.”
“Oh, my pore feet!”
“Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant …”
“Oh, look at Mrs. Meeker! Look at her hat!”
“Where?”
“In that window ossipite.”
“Window what?”
“Opposite, Rickie. The girl is trying to be funny.”
Darling Bess, thought Lucy, darling Rickie! How fond I am of them and what fun this is! Oh, I haven’t had such fun for ages!
A rocket went up from Institute Hill and broke into a shower of stars. All faces turned up.
“Oooo!”
“The results!”
“It’s the results, see! They let it off so’s the new town can know!”
But what nonsense! thought Lucy, coming up to breathe for a moment from that ocean of imbecility in which she was contentedly drowning. Impossible! If they want to tell the new town anything, they’d telephone.
Everybody, however, told everybody else that the rocket was a message to the new town. “They” let it off, as soon as the results were known. The little boys on the hill, who had let it off, lit a Bengal flare, and the church steeple stood out against a ruby glow.
“Daisee! Daisee!
Give me your answer do!”
“Oh, Lucy! Don’t you wish Melissa was here?”
“No. Not particularly. Why?”
“She’d enjoy it so much.”
“Would she? She hates crowds.”
“Look, Lucy! There’s Ianthe, upstairs at the Swan. She’s waving to us.”
“Who’s she with? Who’s the man with her?”
“Mr. Angera.”
Lucy turned, and caught a glimpse of Ianthe and Emil leaning out of an upper window at the Swan. She was surprised at such a juxtaposition, and a swift alarm darted through her mind, as though she had seen a lighted cigarette smouldering on a petrol drum. I hope Emil has the sense to keep off slap and tickle, she thought. She remembered that they had both behaved very prettily when they met at her bedside on Christmas Day; but that, even at the time, she had felt to be a lucky accident. They had been in their best moods and she had been there to restrain Ianthe. For the first time since the breach at Slane St. Mary’s it struck her that, since nobody else in Ravonsbridge could force Ianthe to behave, there might be some obligation … but no! She was not Ianthe’s keeper.
“Oh, Lucy! Didn’t you say you’d had a letter from Melissa?”
“Yes. But all about Hump.”
“Who’s Hump?”
“Why, Rickie! Her brother!”
“I didn’t know she had a brother.”
“Rickie! How can you?”
“How can I what?”
“Not know she has a brother. She’s always talking about him.”
“Not to me. What are you laughing at, you girls?”
“Oh, Rickie!” giggled Bess. “You are priceless!”
“He’s a vet in Africa, Hump is.”
“So what?”
“So he’s looking for a fly!”
“Just one fly? Just one little fly in the whole of Africa?”
Lucy’s answer was drowned in a roar, for the Returning Officer had appeared on the balcony to announce the results.
Pugh was in by a greatly reduced majority, and Charles had handsomely saved his deposit. The Conservatives were disappointed, and the Socialists not nearly so triumphant as they said they were. Both were furious with the Liberals, who went to bed that night with feelings of unmixed satisfaction, for they had never expected to get their man in.
The Institute party went back to Rickie’s rooms, where they drank beer, sang silly songs, and acted charades until two o’clock. Lucy’s vivacity surprised them all, and Robin asked Bess what could have happened to her.
“She’s just the same as usual,” said Bess in surprise.
“No, she’s not. We always thought she was one of the quiet ones.”
“Oh, rot! She’s always ragging.”
“We’ve never seen her ragging before.”
“Oh, well, I suppose the election bucked her up.”
“Let’s hope it lasts,” said Robin, half determined to date Lucy sometime.
But next morning she had regained her customary pale composure and rated him so sharply for cutting a class that he changed his mind.
6
IF only he had his father’s voice, thought Mr. Meeker sadly.
He had already listened to Charles on the platform, for, though he
had voted Socialist, he had gone to the Liberal meetings in order to hear his old friend’s son speak. And he had been disappointed. The young man spoke well enough; he made good points and he made them with clarity and common sense. But his voice conveyed no warmth, no friendliness. It was, so Mr. Meeker was obliged to decide, a conceited voice — the tone of a man who is anxious to make himself understood by his inferiors. Many times, in the course of his life, had Mr. Meeker heard a good cause ruined by that sort of voice.
If Matt Millwood had addressed his fellow men in such accents he would probably have sold kettles in Market Square all his life, until put out of business by a competitor who could sell a kettle more genially. Marsden, with his little factory, would never have taken a chance on a young fellow whose every word suggested patronage. Matt’s voice had not been very loud, yet it had always secured attention. His Severnshire accent, which he never lost, had been an advantage. Midland business men, investing capital in the first M.M. company, felt him to be one of themselves, not a stuck-up chap from Eton.
But platform speaking, Mr. Meeker remembered, is not quite a fair test. Matt himself was not at his best when addressing an audience; he was too deliberate and slow. Shyness can sometimes sound like conceit. A friendly chat might reveal quite other qualities in Matt’s son. For this call was, surely, proof that young Charles had a good heart, and the letter, in which he had asked if he might come, was a model of civility. Grace might sniff and point out that it had taken him three years to find out that his father’s old friend had returned to Ravonsbridge. The fact remained that the boy came as soon as he did find out.
Lucy had described him, after her tea-party at Cyre Abbey. Matt Millwood had been fair, short and thick-set, but his son would seem to take after the Ravonscleres — tall, dark and slender; Lucy had declared that he would be very good-looking if he could get rid of his scowl. But she had never seen him without it, during the whole election campaign. Had a chip on his shoulder? suggested Mr. Meeker. A chip! Lucy had cried. Say rather a plank. A whole timber-yard.
Listening to that voice, Mr. Meeker could believe it. The visit languished, and the pleasure of getting that nice letter was probably going to be the best part of it. They had nothing very much to say to one another until Charles remembered a question he had meant to ask. He knew that his father and Harry Meeker had been weekly boarders at Severnton Grammar School, but that they had come home for week-ends. He wanted to know how, in those days before bus transport, they had travelled the twelve miles across Slane forest.
“We walked,” said Mr. Meeker. “We came home on Saturday afternoon, and went back on Monday morning. We had to be in school by nine. I was a slow walker, so I started at five. Matt, he was a quick walker, never started before six. He generally caught me up at the top of Severnton Hill.”
“Nowadays,” said Charles, “you’d have been driven in a motor coach, at taxpayers’ expense. I don’t know what modern schoolboys would say at having to walk twelve miles before breakfast.”
This annoyed Mr. Meeker. He thought it smacked of an attitude of mind which he privately termed the Boot-strap Boloney. He had observed that many people in easy circumstances have a sentimental enthusiasm for those who pull themselves up by their own boot-straps, and extract from this the precept that hardship is good for the character. He particularly objected to the boot-strap legend in connection with Matt Millwood, because it was grossly inaccurate. Matt had not raised himself from the gutter. The hardware shop had been a prosperous little business, and the Millwoods respected citizens of the lower middle class. There had been plenty of enterprise and romance in Matt’s life without any nonsense about boot-straps.
“We walked,” he said testily, “because we liked it. We didn’t have to. We could have spent our week-ends at school. But we liked to go home and get a taste of our mothers’ cooking. And as for the young people nowadays, I believe they walk a great deal. They go out in herds on Sundays, all over the forest and the Welsh hills. Only they call it hiking.”
“You had breakfast before you started?” asked Charles.
“Yes. But we got hungry enough before dinner-time. So your father — you know how he was always inventing contrivances — he made a sort of thermos, before such things were ever heard of. He got a big tin and lined it with several thicknesses of felt, and it had a metal flask of coffee inside and a couple of eggs boiled hard. They stayed hot for several hours. We used to have a snack on the hill before we went down to school.”
Mr. Meeker stroked the cat on his lap and saw, with that inward eye still left to him, the bank where they used to eat, and Severnton below in the morning mist — the red roofs, the smoking chimneys, and the great bulk of the Cathedral crouching like some huge animal in the midst of the town. He added:
“Your father was very fond of singing. He knew hundreds of songs. When he overtook me on the road he always struck up to let me know he was coming; generally some song about eating or drinking. Little Brown Jug or The Silver Tassie or When We are Married we’ll have Sausages for Tea! I’d hear him and think: Hurray! Grub!”
Mr. Meeker broke off for a moment, thinking how green the grass had been, how fresh the sunlight, how young the heart, when Matt came singing along the road, singing like a lark in the glory of the morning.
“Once,” he said, “a carriage and pair went past me in the forest. Lord Ravonsclere’s — I could see by the arms on the panels. Out early, I thought. When I got to our corner I looked back for Matt. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. I waited. He didn’t come. I couldn’t think what had kept him. He’d never been so late. And just when I’d given him up, I heard his voice come singing up the hill from Severnton, the one way I hadn’t been looking. He’d been in that carriage. It was old Lady Ravonsclere, your grandmother, only she wasn’t old then, going to catch an early train. She saw this young lad on the road with his satchel, and stopped and offered him a lift into Severnton. That was her way. Matt, he’d have liked to go on the box with the coachman, but she took him inside with her to ask him about his soul. That was her way, too. They had the Holy Catechism all the way to Severnton. She put him down at the bridge, but he wasn’t going to leave his mate with no grub. So, as soon as she drove off, he started back up the hill to meet me. She little knew she’d been driving her future son-in-law.”
There was a long pause. Charles had hardly listened. He was remembering something which had happened a very long time ago, when he was a little boy. The words ‘The Silver Tassie’ had brought it back to him. His father had come home one cold night in tearing spirits, full of triumph over some achievement, and his mother had brought in a little silver cup of mulled wine, urging Matt in her grave, earnest voice to drink it lest he should have got a chill. She must have been very beautiful in those days, thought Charles, with a faint surprise. And his father, laughing, protesting, had taken the cup, raised it and bowed to her, and hummed something about a silver tassie and a bonny lassie. Whereat his mother’s severity had melted into a momentary smile of delight and rapture; she had blushed and besought him not to be so silly, with a glance at little Charles among his bricks on the floor. “Silly?” cried Matt, “not a bit. I’m not silly, am I, Charley my boy?” Charles had said no, and asked who the bonny lassie was. “Who d’ya think?” Charles suggested Ida, an apple-cheeked nursery-maid, which made them both laugh. It had all slipped from his mind, years ago, and only now, when he recalled it, did he identify the bonny lassie.
It struck him that his father had had everything life can offer to a man. He had not only married Lord Ravonsclere’s daughter, but he had captured her heart and had been completely happy with her.
Mr. Meeker, afraid that his reminiscences had bored his guest, changed the subject and asked questions about Charles’ war experiences in North Africa. The visit seemed to be flickering out when Charles exclaimed, with more energy than had appeared in his voice before:
“I wonder very much what my father would have done if he’d been in my shoes!”
/> So, thought Mr. Meeker, now we’re getting to the timber-yard.
There was plenty of it. Charles considered that there was no future at all, in England, for a young man in his shoes. Brains, wealth and family were no longer of any importance. His Liberalism forbade much hope of a political career. His position as a Director in the M.M. was a sinecure, since all that he might do was to turn out cars for export. The whole plant was concentrated upon the production of certain models for which there was a lively overseas demand. Matthew Millwood had never been content unless he was trying to do something new; he would have suffocated had he been obliged to do the same thing over and over again.
Matthew Millwood had invested his money out of the country; he had dammed rivers and built railways in regions which needed capital. Charles might not do this. He might not even take more than five pounds with him on a visit to New York, unless some jack-in-office thought his journey necessary. In practice he could, of course, go where he liked, but in theory he must ask leave before earning dollars.
Matthew Millwood had endowed and governed hospitals. These were now all taken over by the State. He had built a town for his workers. Charles might not build a house, although New Ravonsbridge was seriously overcrowded.
“I can’t,” said Charles, “think of a single thing my father did that he would have been allowed to do if he’d been alive today. Enterprise was the breath of life to him. I don’t think he cared much for money, as money, do you?”
“No,” agreed Mr. Meeker. “I don’t. He liked starting things. He liked finding the answer to difficulties.”
“That home-made thermos you spoke of,” said Charles, “that was typical. I can imagine him ruminating over a way to keep coffee hot: ‘Let’s see … a liddle flasssk … and a liddle bit of … felt’, till he’d worked it out. But this country has no use for a man like that nowadays. I ask you, who knew him so well, what would he have done in my shoes?”
Lucy Carmichael Page 14