by John Masters
‘H’m,’ the man said, regarding her more carefully. ‘End the war immediate, eh? That’s a tall order, with the ’Uns bombarding Paris and knocking ’ell out of ’Aig.’
‘It can be done,’ Rachel said. ‘The Germans may be winning a battle now but they must realise that they cannot win the war. Nor can we. No one can win. If you elect Mr Bentley, we …’
‘Thought you said your name was Cohen,’ the man said, his brows lowering.
‘It is,’ she said. ‘Mr Bentley and I are married but we agreed it would be best if I kept my maiden name.’ ‘My real maiden name,’ she might have added; for until recently she had been using the anglicised form ‘Cowan’.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘one of these independent women, eh?’
‘I suppose so … Perhaps you have sons liable to be conscripted?’ Rachel said.
‘Yes,’ the man said, his face settling grimly. ‘Our Charlie’s just eighteen. They’ll be calling for him any moment. And after that, Billy … Yes, I’ll sign up. Me and my missus both.’
Rachel wrote rapidly in her big notebook and said, ‘Thank you, Mr Griffiths. You won’t regret it … and you’ll help save England as well as your sons.’
The man nodded and turned back inside, closing the door. The last of the day, Rachel thought with a sigh of relief. Home now, to find out how Wilfred had got on with his talk to the Women’s Guild … and another to the Mothers’ League … and one to the Methodist Church people … She tramped wearily south along High Street, turned off up the hill and entered the little semi-detached house Wilfred had bought a week before their marriage in January. If they had children, it would be too small … well, only if they had nannies and housemaids and all the other bourgeois trappings; but there was no time to think of children now. There was a war on, not over there in France, but here in England. She began humming Blake’s mighty lines –
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountain green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
She was still humming as she turned the handle of the front door and walked in. She stopped, calling, ‘Wilfred … are you home?’
The door of the room beside her opened and Wilfred came out. ‘Yes … I couldn’t answer if I wasn’t, could I?’ He stopped, laughing, to kiss her cheek – ‘Bert’s here.’
Rachel walked into the room. Bert, sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, did not stir, except to raise a hand. She had lived with him for two years before meeting and marrying Wilfred, but that period of intimacy seemed unreal, a time of the imagination, not of the memory. He was a labour organiser in the Union of Skilled Engineers – sour, capable, violent. They needed such as him in the Socialist movement; even if they didn’t, they were stuck with him, for there was no other place for him to go in England’s present political structure.
She sat back on the sofa, and turned to her husband – ‘How was the day?’
‘Hard work … uphill most of the way, but the events in France are making even the most diehard conservatives listen. And you?’
‘Got a hundred and forty more names …’
‘Money?’
‘Didn’t ask for any … we’ve got to show them what we’re doing for them, then we can ask for money … What brings you here, Bert?’ she said. ‘Want a beer?’
‘Just had one,’ Bert said. He sat up straighter – ‘I come to tell you we decided down at HE 16 to come out into the open. We’re going to tell Rowland we mean to organise the JMC and the HAC, and if he doesn’t like it … it’ll be too bad.’
‘I hear they’re getting more capital from America, and are going to put in a lot more machinery …’
‘Throwing men out of work,’ Bert said. ‘That’s why we’ve decided to come out of the bushes and take ’em on, bare knuckles. Are you going to help?’
Wilfred, standing across the fireplace from him, resting one long arm on the mantel, stroked his chin with the other hand and said slowly, ‘You are going to take dues from anyone who joins?’
Bert nodded, ‘Two per cent of his weekly wage.’
Wilfred said, ‘We want some of that … say, a quarter of what you take.’
Bert started up, ‘Hey, ’arf a mo’, wot in ’ell …?’
Wilfred said, ‘Bert, you are the industrial arm of the Socialist movement, working for justice, a decent living, and good, safe working conditions for the working man. We are the political arm of the same people, working towards the same ends. Some of what we both want can be achieved by strikes, negotiations, and other industrial action … but other objects can only be attained by new laws and regulations … laws that will change the whole way this country is structured, as Lloyd George’s finance bills of 1910/11 are already doing. You need our help, we need yours. Cough up!’ He smiled down at Bert. Ah, good, Rachel thought, he’s losing his upper-class aloofness. He can get down in the pit and fight with such as Bert. Then Wilfred coughed, and coughed again, and took out his handkerchief and held it to his lips. It was the gas he’d breathed before Ypres, in March 1916 – two years ago in this bloody war.
‘All right,’ Bert said.
Probyn and his Woman walked through the open gate of Walstone Manor and round the short drive, the old building on their left, smoke curling from the chimneys at the kitchen end, for it was half-past eleven o’clock in the morning and Mrs Abell was beginning to prepare the midday meal. From somewhere inside they heard a violin, playing sad music.
‘Haven’t been up here for ten years,’ the Woman said. ‘Lawn’s not so well cut … rough edges there … needs more gravel here … windows aren’t as clean as they should be.’
‘What can squire do?’ Probyn said defensively. ‘With all the men off to the war and only women left to do the work? And them running off to factories as soon as they can. And the taxes eating him out of house and home?’
Then they were at the front door and Probyn raised his hand to knock. Normally he would have gone round to the kitchen door, but today he was paying an official call, with his Lady; and he would enter by the front door.
He knocked; they waited; the door opened and Garrod the old maid stood there. ‘Good morning, Mr Gorse,’ she said formally. ‘Good morning, madam. Please come in. Did you wish to see Mr Cate?’
‘Aye,’ Probyn said, ‘and Miss Stella too. We’ve come to tell her welcome back to Walstone. And to ask after Mr Laurence.’
Garrod closed the door behind them, saying, ‘Why, Miss Stella’s been home more than a month now.’
‘That’s the truth,’ Probyn said, ‘but she hasn’t been to my cottage … or any other house in the village.’
Garrod said, ‘Just wait here, please. I’ll tell Mr Cate you’re here.’ A minute later she returned – ‘He’s in the library. Come along.’
They followed the maid along the passage and into the long room with french windows, which was Cate’s library and music room. He was standing by the windows in front of a music stand, a violin held loosely in his left hand, the bow in his right.
He said, ‘Ah, Probyn … madam … I’ve been practising.’
‘We heard,’ Probyn said. ‘We come to ask after Mr Laurence. There’s rumours in the village.’
Cate put down the violin and the bow and fumbled for the handkerchief in his sleeve. He dabbed his eyes, and said, ‘He is to be court-martialled for desertion. I should have told you.’
Probyn nodded and said, ‘Aye. That boy’s been like another grandson to me.’
‘I’m sure it was shell shock,’ Cate said. ‘I cannot believe …’
Probyn interrupted, ‘He should never have gone to the war, squire, and that’s a fact. Well, we’ll just hope some of them officers out there understand.’
‘I didn’t,’ Cate said miserably.
‘Fathers and mothers never do,’ Probyn said. ‘No use blaming yourself, though. It’s nature … We come to welcome Miss Stella home to Walstone, too. She hasn
’t been down to the village.’
‘You’re very kind. She’s had a hard time, but she’s getting better now, much better. I hope she’ll be well enough to call on her friends, soon … We keep seeing Florinda’s name and picture in the papers. She’s looking more beautiful than ever, if that’s possible. You must be very proud of your granddaughter, Probyn.’
‘Don’t read them papers,’ Probyn said, ‘all full of lies, they are.’
Cate said, ‘The last pictures of her were with Billy Bidford, the Zeebrugge VC. I kept them … here.’ He held out a page of a glossy magazine. It was a photograph, full page, of Florinda and a young man in naval uniform standing beside a low, long, shiny racing car, two-seater, with strapped-down bonnet, hand brake outside, and flimsy bicycle-type mudguards over the high, narrow wheels. Squire’s right, Probyn thought, she is more beautiful than ever; and squire still hasn’t forgotten the nights she spent with him in this house, in the worst days of his loneliness. But squire was also changing the subject, which was Miss Stella.
He was about to open his mouth when his Woman spoke – ‘I want to tell Miss Stella so to her face, that we’re glad she’s back.’
Cate’s face fell and the lines of anxiety in it deepened. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I don’t know …’ Then he made up his mind; and said, ‘Of course. Wait here, please.’
He left the room. They waited, looking out of the window. Lamblike clouds glided across a high, pale blue sky. The song of birds was loud and the scent of honeysuckle heavy from the far hedge. They waited, not moving. They were both accustomed to waiting.
The door reopened and Cate came in leading his daughter by the hand – ‘Stella … you remember Probyn Gorse and his lady?’
Stella had her head down. Now she raised it slowly. Her eyes met Probyn’s for a moment, then the Woman’s, then wandered away. ‘Of course,’ she said, her voice low and small. She was pale and thin, her left arm was bent above the elbow, her hands trembled, but most of all she seemed to have lost all realisation of her own beauty, of her position in life, of the secure love of her father and husband, of these people of her father’s village.
Probyn said, ‘We was hoping you’d come to the cottage, but … we come here.’
‘Thank you,’ Stella said, the voice small and distant.
The Woman turned to Cate, ‘Bring her down, sir. Any time. She can help me cook a stew for Probyn … clean the stove … Or go out with Probyn. It’ll do her good.’
Cate said, ‘As soon as she’s feeling a little stronger …’
‘She has to come out,’ the Woman said. ‘We can all help her.’
Again Cate said, ‘As soon as she’s feeling stronger.’
Stella turned and walked out of the room. Cate hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Don’t worry,’ the Woman said, ‘we’ll let ourselves out.’ They followed Cate out of the room, but then he hurried upstairs after the slowly climbing figure of his daughter, while Probyn and his Woman turned the other way and out of the front door.
As soon as they were ten yards down the drive, the Woman said, ‘She’s pregnant. Near four months.’
‘How do you know?’ Probyn said grumpily. ‘You didn’t put your hand on her belly.’
‘I know,’ the Woman said briefly. ‘A woman’s face changes, her eyes, her skin …’
After a while Probyn said, ‘Can’t be her husband. He’s been away since April last year, ’cept when he was here a few days in January.’
‘But she wasn’t – then. She’s been taking drugs, and they’ve got her off them, but she’s not recovered. That’s what’s the matter with her – still wants them … needs them, maybe.’
‘Who is the baby’s father then?’
The Woman said, ‘A man, of course. She was prossing before they found her. Must have been, to get money for the drugs.’
‘Then why didn’t they get rid of it? Any doctor would do it.’
The Woman said, ‘The husband must want her to have it, because it’s her baby and he loves her … She’s a lucky woman.’ Then they were out in the lane, and after a while the Woman said, ‘We need some meat.’
‘I’m not going out,’ Probyn said. ‘Too hot.’
‘Last night you said ’twas too cold, and since then it’s got colder.’
‘Shut your mouth, Woman, or I’ll shut it for you.’ Probyn waved his gnarled and bony fist under her nose. The Woman sniffed and was silent. Probyn had something on his mind. You could feel, as surely as when a woman had conceived. He didn’t want to talk about it, not even to her; but she’d find out, soon.
It was dinner time at High Staining. The master, John Rowland, sat at one end of the big table, his wife Louise at the other. Down each side sat the farm girls who had taken the place of the male farm labourers – Carol Adams, little Frances Enright, Joan Pitman, and the new girl, Addie Fallon, obtained early in February to replace Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu. They all sat silent, oppressed by the aura of misery emanating from the head of the table. Boy was dead, and so was his father, in all respects but that he breathed, his heart beat, and his digestion functioned. During March and April all meals had been torture, for then the window glass had shivered steadily, shaken by the guns in France 140 miles away; and everyone except John had wanted to talk, all the time, to shut out that inaudible thunder and the creaking of the glass; but they had not been able to; and when someone did force out a banal phrase, the ensuing shudder and tinkle were all the more insistent.
One by one the girls finished their puddings, muttered their excuses and left the table. John and Louise were alone again. Louise gathered herself – ‘John, this won’t do. You sit there like a corpse at every meal.’
‘I can’t help it,’ John said, his voice flat.
‘Boy’s gone,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you rejoin the No Conscription Fellowship and save other fathers’ sons from following him?’
He shook his head wordlessly. She said, ‘And there’s Naomi. She’s doing very well, her commanding officer says. She will need a father whom she can talk to when she comes home, not a … an embalmed mummy!’ Her husband again shook his head without speaking. She continued, ‘Then if you don’t care about the peace movement or your daughter, do you care about High Staining?’
John showed a faint sign of animation – ‘That’s all I have to live for,’ he muttered.
‘Well, you’re going to lose it if you don’t buck up, because you’re going to lose all the girls. They are getting more and more depressed. I found Joan crying in her room yesterday, and she’s such a sensible little thing. She wouldn’t say what it was, but I know. It’s this house … the aura of misery and death. It’s you!’
After a while he said, ‘I’ll try, Louise.’
‘Think of them as your daughters,’ she said. ‘Think of Boy’s son, our grandson.’
‘If only Helen would bring him down, and come back to live here,’ John said. ‘I could teach him to be a farmer.’
‘He’s her son as well as Boy’s,’ Louise said more gently. ‘She has her own life to live … but we are the child’s grandparents, and Helen will certainly let us see little Charles, and come down to visit occasionally.’
‘Boy!’ John exclaimed. ‘Call him Boy, then he’ll be Boy, over again.’
Louise said slowly, ‘For us, he could be, eventually. But not for Helen. For her there’s only one Boy … I’m going up to London tomorrow, John. You don’t need me for anything?’
He shook his head. She said with some exasperation, ‘You don’t even care what I’m going to London for?’
He said, then – ‘What for?’
‘I’m going to see Miss Marshall at the Fellowship, and ask her what they’re doing about strengthening the movement in the provinces. It seems to me that since Bertrand Russell left, things have slowed down a great deal. I never did like him – even though I’ve come to agree with him about the war – and now he’s fluttered off to some other pacifist group … D
o cheer up, John. Remember Boy, the new little one.’
‘Boy,’ John repeated, his voice tender, ‘I’ll try. I really will.’
Tim and Sally, the Richard Rowlands’ adopted children, were playing cowboys and Indians along the hedge that bordered the lane. Watching them through the drawing-room window Susan Rowland thought, Sally’s eleven and advanced for her age. She had had her first period two months ago and breasts were budding under the coarse woollen jersey. But Sally did not want to leave childhood and become a woman; she hardly ever played with dolls and then apparently only to please Susan; she was a tomboy, and liked to rough-and-tumble with Tim, and go birds’ nesting with him and other village boys from Beighton and Walstone. That would have to be stopped soon. Not that Sally couldn’t look after herself, if she wanted to. She knew the facts of life in intimate detail, having many times seen her natural mother in the sexual act with the men she brought home in her trade as a prostitute before a German bomb killed her and left the two children motherless as well as, what they had always been, fatherless.
At one time Susan had hoped to get an American governess for Sally, and Richard had said scornfully that there was no such thing … unfortunately, in this time of war, he had turned out to be right, and she had decided she must bring the girl up herself, until she went to boarding school … if she did. Richard kept saying she must; Susan wasn’t so sure.
She was going to lose Tim to prep school this fall. He would be ten – quite old, according to Richard’s and the other Rowlands’ ideas … but too young to leave home, according to her own American ideas.
Her husband Richard interrupted her train of thought – ‘Tomorrow we present the new work programmes to the men at both factories.’
‘They’re quite, well, hard, aren’t they?’
‘They’re not hard,’ Richard said patiently. ‘They’re efficient. If they are observed – and they will be, we’ll see to that – efficiency will increase 72 per cent in the next six months. Our output of bombers and trucks will triple, and …’