Sleep in Peace (25 page)

She wept, and beat her hands against the brass knobs and twirls of her bedstead, in a passion of revolt. Oh, if she could only escape from Hudley altogether, go away somewhere alone, with Grace!

After a while the Christian teachings to which she so ardently subscribed, and her own natural impulses towards what was loving, reasserted their force. This was not the noble, generous, magnanimous behaviour, reflected Laura, appropriate to the kind of Laura which Laura wanted to be. Gwen could not help falling in love with Edward—anybody would, thought Laura honestly; I admire him a great deal myself. It was stupid of me not to have seen it before, reflected Laura, as a thousand small incidents, looks and tones and words, fell into place in the light of this revelation.

Presently there came a knock on the bedroom door, and Gwen's voice asked whether Laura had a headache, whether she would like her tea upstairs. Laura was touched by this kindness, but did not feel she could accept it; to give in like that would be altogether too weak, too feeble—besides, it would expose her feelings to the whole family; after all one had one's pride, one could not distress Ludo and Papa. She called out that she was all right, and would come down shortly. At this Gwen opened the door, and
holding out a small bottle enquired whether Laura would like some eau-de-cologne. Gwen's voice was subdued, her face was pale and she had plainly been crying, and Laura was suddenly smitten with pity for her sister. What, oh what, would be Gwen's life, married to Edward? Edward who was so satiric, so sardonic, so advanced, so clever, so severe on all hypocrisy, vulgarity, pretence? And if Gwen were already so sensitive in all that concerned him that she could not practise a song to please him, when her sister was there to hear! (For that, Laura saw, was the reason for the quite unnecessary message to Ludo.) Yes, Laura felt a deep pity for Gwen; she accepted the perfume, kissed her sister and went downstairs with her arm about her waist. At the dining-room door she remembered to be sorry for herself as well; there would be no fun in going to the Hinchliffes', any more. And then she heard Ludo's voice, and remembered Ludo. What would Ludo do with Edward for a brother-in-law? Oh, Ludo!

Next day, as Grace and Laura were walking home from school together, Laura said, looking away and speaking in a constrained tone:

“Grace, have you noticed about Gwen and Edward?”

“Yes,” said Grace.

“Grace,” said Laura, turning to her, her upper lip trembling, “isn't it really awful?”

“Yes, it's awful,” agreed Grace soberly.

Grace of course was splendid.

A period of incessant friction, it seemed to the exasperated Laura, now set in and could not be terminated; everyone seemed in a perpetual state of mutual disapproval.

To begin with—though how and when it began she was puzzled to remember—there was now a perpetual suggestion in the air of Blackshaw House that she, Laura, was untidy, rough, careless, hard and altogether unfeminine. Gwen was always scolding her about her hair. “What will Frederick think of you if your hair is so rough?” she said. “What
does
my hair matter to Frederick?” objected Laura crossly. “He never notices anybody's hair.” At this Gwen smiled, and threw out casually: “You're mistaken.” From defiance Laura kept her hair rougher than before, until at last even Ludo was moved to protest. “You used to be such a pretty little girl,” he said regretfully, “but now I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you.” At this Laura wept, and for a few days brushed her hair so excessively hard that Gwen began to fear she would remove its natural curl, and was obliged to urge moderation. The subject of hair thus moire or less disposed of— though it was apt to recur in moments of family tension—there arose the subject of manners. “Being at the High School has completely
ruined
Laura's manners,” complained Gwen at the dinner-table; “I shouldn't like my hen-party to see her manners, I shouldn't really.” One day at Church there came into the psalms for the morning Psalm Cxliv, which contained that unfortunate
verse about hoping that “our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple.” Laura felt Papa's eyes upon her as they sang that verse, and knew he meant to make an allusion to it later. Sure enough, as they walked home he called her attention to it; “the
polished
corners, Laura,” he said: “I want my daughters to be polished, you know.” At this Laura's face took on the dark sullen look which was growing habitual. For indeed something in her heart was sore nowadays, and she was at loggerheads with life; she did not love anyone in Blackshaw House, not Gwen, not Papa, not even Ludo. All she cared for was school; and it was true when Gwen told her she was so busy trying to be clever that she had no time to be nice. Examinations approached, homework abounded; the world seemed to consist of set books and test papers. Yes, it was true; she never had any nice feelings nowadays—except, oh yes! on drawing afternoons, when she painted flower pieces and drew classic casts. Something in the texture of the wild-rose petals, their sheen and curve, and how one could put that on to paper; something in the clear, bold lines, the deep shadows, which gave the white plaster character and life—as Laura bent over these, her cheeks flushed, she forgot her hair, she forgot Gwen, she forgot everything; she was happy, she felt good. But then she returned to Blackshaw House and was scolded for having paint on her blouse, and her heart grew sore again.

And if she chanced to escape disapproval herself, there was always the disapproval of Papa for Ludo. Papa seemed very cross and snappy nowadays—Laura could not see why, for business was fairly good, Ludo told her, but there it was—and poor Ludo could do nothing right. Vexation was chiefly vented on him in connection with Gwen's hen-parties. A “hen-party” was a group of some half-dozen unmarried young women in their twenties, who met in turn at each other's houses for one evening's entertainment a week. Not to belong to a hen-party was not to exist socially in Hudley at that time, and one's social standing was determined by the group one was asked to join. The members of
Gwen's hen-party seemed to Laura to do nothing but sew, talk about each other and get engaged. They did this last very busily; Gwen was always coming home with a tale of yet another engagement, which she related in detail to her father. “She's doing pretty well for herself, then?” Mr. Armistead would enquire, nodding to show his interest. There were only two answers to this question, Laura found; Gwen either said scornfully: “He won't be in a position to marry for years!” or, if she admitted that the young man in question had a sufficient income, she went on to say that he was a poor fool, that she wished the girl joy of him, and that it was clear what had effected the betrothal. “If he weren't the son of his father,” Gwen explained emphatically (the father referred to being some wealthy manufacturer), “she wouldn't look at him!” Laura thought a hen-party constituted of such members must be both dull and vulgar, but she saw that, on the contrary, Gwen's hen-party was highly satisfactory to her sister's social pride. Gwen's only uneasiness was her safe return at night, for Blackshaw House, standing in a yet undeveloped part of Hudley, was at some distance from the homes of her friends, and Blackshaw Lane was lonely and dark. The duty of fetching her from her weekly gathering fell sometimes on Papa but usually on Ludo, and to Laura's amazement Ludo proved unreliable in this task. He was always, according to Gwen, too late or too early, and sometimes did not even turn up at all. Sometimes this did not seem to matter, for Gwen secured another escort, but sometimes it did; it was all very confusing, and Papa was always scolding about it. One night this trouble reached a climax.

Ludo had just come in from a music-hall, and the three Armisteads were sitting peacefully round the fire eating Gwen's excellent currant supper-loaf, Ludo and Laura holding glasses of milk, Mr. Armistead a modest tumbler of whisky and soda, when there came a violent and prolonged peal on the front-door bell. Alarmed, they all rushed to open it; Gwen burst into the hall, flushed, weeping, spattered with drops from a shower of rain
which had just begun to fall. In a storm of rage she rated them all; nobody had fetched her, she had been obliged to come home alone, all the other girls had escorts, what would they think of her, it was raining, she lacked an umbrella, her new coat would be ruined, they all knew she was wearing it, any person in their senses would have brought her a cloak and umbrella, it was no use expecting sense from anyone in Blackshaw House, she had never been so humiliated in her life, never! She burst into fresh tears and rushed into the kitchen. Papa then turned on the unfortunate Ludo, and in a voice which shook with anger demanded to know whether Ludo cared nothing for his sister's comfort and reputation. His conduct was senseless, stupid, abominable, disgraceful! The bald spot on Papa's head flushed crimson, he paced up and down, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back in a frenzy; the hall was filled with the noise of his shouting. Beneath this tirade Ludo stood motionless and silent, with downcast eyes, as usual. Catching sight of Laura's distressed face, Papa moderated his tone but ordered her peremptorily off to bed.

Laura crept away. She felt very miserable, because it seemed clear that Ludo was to blame, and since she regarded herself as the interpreter between Ludo and the world, she ought to speak to him, urge upon him a more considerate regularity. She experienced two days' anguish, before she gathered her forces sufficiently to implement this decision. At last she managed to blurt out to her brother in a moment when they met on the landing, alone:

“Why don't you always fetch Gwen home properly, Ludo?”

Ludo hesitated. “She doesn't really like me to,” he muttered.

“But why?” exclaimed the puzzled Laura.

Ludo hesitated again. He held his head down and looked away. “Most of them have their young men to take them home,” he said.

Laura blushed. Edward! She tried to imagine Edward meekly calling at the houses of Gwen's friends to fetch her home. It was
impossible. She sighed. The situation was suddenly poignantly clear to her: Gwen's hopes for marriage, her humiliation when so many others less socially desirable than herself were preferred, Papa's resentment on behalf of his daughter, his anger transferred to Ludo. Oh, it was horrible!

It was especially horrible because the atmosphere of bickering discomfort which lay over Blackshaw House just now seemed to have infected the intercourse of the Hinchliffes and the Armisteads—or perhaps it was the other way about, reflected Laura; it was impossible to tell. Whether it was due to the increasing intimacy between the two families, or whether to the increasing pressure of such problems in public life, where strikes abounded, Laura did not, again, know, but questions of politics—which had hitherto been courteously shunned, each side bowing the head and respecting the other's political convictions as they did their religions—were now violently and continuously canvassed. The Armisteads were not by nature good debaters; they believed things by feeling and not by argument, and so they were quite helpless to explain their convictions, and soon grew hot and cross. In any case, Laura never read the newspapers, and so could not counter the endless detail poured out by the Hinchliffes, who were born debaters—they could argue the hind leg off a donkey, as Ludo disgustedly said. The Hinchliffes enjoyed arguing, often argued amongst themselves for the mere pleasure of the exercise, and could not understand why the Armisteads' passions rose. The Armisteads were also at a disadvantage because Mr. Asquith was a Yorkshireman. It was part of the Armisteads' profoundest conviction to feel that while any Englishman was better than any foreigner, any Yorkshireman was also better than a man from another part of England; and though they detested every detail of Mr. Asquith's policy as Liberal Prime Minister, they could not help feeling a sneaking pride in him because he was a West Riding man, a native of a neighbouring town, a man with no nonsense about him, not like those silly southerners.

“I daresay a great many Yorkshire people vote for him on that account,” said Gwen as the families sat at cards in Cromwell Place on Frederick's birthday.

“In certain circumstances I should vote for him myself,” said Ludo.

Laura felt this to be very magnanimous of Ludo. Grace, however, thought it wrong, and said so.

“Votes should be given to causes, not persons,” said Grace.

“Well, you haven't a vote, Grace, so you needn't worry,” said Ludo kindly.

Grace lifted her chin, and her eyes grew cold. “I shall have a vote one day,” she remarked in the faint, cool tone of precision which told that she was angry.

“Grace is a suffragette,” teased Ludo.

“Why shouldn't she have a vote? She has as much intelligence as you, Ludovic,” said Edward drily.

“Yes—this is hardly the place to take up an obscurantist view on woman suffrage, Spencer,” orated Frederick, “with three such admirable female intelligences present.”

Grace and Laura exchanged glances; the thought of Gwen's intelligence being placed on a level with their own was profoundly disgusting to them.

“But you aren't really a suffragette, Grace?” pleaded Laura. (To Laura, votes for women meant votes for people like Gwen.) “You wouldn't put acid in letter-boxes, and so on?”

“If people won't take notice otherwise,” began Grace.

“What do you think of women's suffrage, Gwen?” demanded Edward.

It was one of Edward's occupations nowadays, reflected Laura irritably, to try to elicit Gwen's opinion on every subject; but he very rarely succeeded, for Gwen, who was a master of the art of dissimulation, always seemed to prefer to conceal her views in the Hinchliffes' society.

“If the Germans invade us, we shan't have much time for
votes,” she said now—with characteristic skill turning aside the question by introducing another more controversial.