“The Armistice is going to be signed to-morrow,” said Marian one day, just as Julia was hanging up some models which a traveller had just brought in.
Julia stood, the frock in one hand and the hanger in the other, wondering whether she had heard aright.
“That’s what I was told,” answered Gipsy soberly. “Is it really true?”
“Oh yes. They’re expected to sign it some time to-morrow. It’ll be funny, won’t it, Gipsy?”
“Yes,” said Gipsy, after a moment’s pause. “It’ll be funny.”
Yes, thought Julia, fitting the frock to its hanger, and hooking the whole thing into place on the rod, it would be funny. What would it be like? She didn’t know, nobody knew. It would be wonderful, of course, people would leave off killing each other, the train-loads of wounded would cease, the terrible lists in the papers, the orders for mourning. Everything would be lovely, the war was won. Would it be lovely? Julia tried to remember what it had been like before the war. What she could remember didn’t help her. She had been too young and life had been too different. Why, there’d still be hansoms in London, although, of course, even then there had been far more taxis. Still, hansoms hadn’t been museum pieces as they were now. Frocks were ever so much shorter now, and everybody spent heaps of money, and people went everywhere by car, and nobody thought flying anything out of the ordinary. Little shops like l’Etrangère’s, instead of being rarities, were springing up all over the West End. Money, that was the thing that you always came back to. Everybody spent money in a way that only four and a half years ago would have seemed incredible.
Why, Herbert would come back. Julia’s heart seemed to miss a beat as she picked up the next frock. Herbert would come back and he wouldn’t any longer be an officer. He’d just be Herbert Starling, as she had known him originally, only older, balder, fatter, duller. The Herbert Starling she had married, in the polished field-boots, the Herbert Starling who tipped waiters so munificently, and took her everywhere in a taxi, would become again the Herbert Starling in plain dark clothes, who went to the City every day. He’d be a tradesman once more. And Herbert wasn’t a tradesman as she was a shop-girl. It didn’t matter in the least selling women’s clothes in a little shop such as l’Etrangère’s, you could be anybody’s friend, and still do that, but you couldn’t be a manager in a branch of gentlemen’s outfitter’s and be an officer and a gentleman.
Frantically, Julia tried to search in her memory for the Herbert Starling she had first known, and could only find him in glimpses that made him all the more terrifying. She had not thought him wonderful even then, though, of course, he had been streets ahead of Dad; but he hadn’t been the Herbert Starling she had married. He hadn’t belonged in the world as she knew it now, as she had known it ever since the war began, which, after all, was the only world she knew. What had all the years of her drifting childhood meant until that time? Nothing, except a confused movement from place to place, a confused sense of unreality and change, in matters of money, even, and food and clothing. Life had begun for Julia with the war. She knew nothing else, and its upheaval of values had been to her simply a normal progression.
She bought an evening paper on her way home, which told her nothing as definite as the few sentences she had heard interchanged between Marian and Gipsy.
That evening she went to bed early, with the idea persisting in the back of her mind that if she didn’t think about the news, perhaps there wouldn’t be so much truth in it, that if she slept through the hours, she was bound to awake to the world as she had known it.
She went to the shop as usual next morning. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the streets. People weren’t standing talking in groups, as they had done at the outbreak of war. If peace were going to be declared to-day, it was a secret that had been well kept from the common people.
The charwoman, who arrived a few minutes after Julia, snorted at the mere notion of peace and, plunging her rag into the bucket of water, slapped it down briskly on the linoleum of the passage.
“Ho,” she said, “I’ll believe it when I see it. Peace, indeed! They’ve kept on telling us about it, and when ’ave we ’ad it?” And she started to swirl her cleaning-rag round and round vigorously.
But at half-past nine Gipsy arrived, her face flushed, her eyes bright and, Julia thought, suspiciously moist, as though tears were very near.
“Julia, it’s true. It’s peace. Eleven o’clock this morning. It’s all arranged.”
Gipsy didn’t wait to see the result of her news. She threw off her hat and coat and went out to stand at the street door. The feeling of news was already in the air. At the shop-fronts the cleaners had stopped their work. The postman was standing at the street corner; loafers had sprung up as though from the ground. At the hat-shop at the corner all the girls were crowded together at the windows looking out. At a house a few doors down, which was let out in service flats, the housekeeper was at the door, her wispy grey hair untidily bundled up, her plump, inquisitive face moving quickly from side to side.
“It’s peace,” Gipsy called out to her. “It’s being signed this morning.”
“Oh,” said the housekeeper. She didn’t seem to think it very wonderful or interesting news, she seemed rather embarrassed by Gipsy’s enthusiasm. Gipsy turned and came back into the shop.
“I don’t suppose we’ll sell much to-day,” she said, “but you never know. Anything may happen.”
She and Julia busied themselves arranging the window and seeing to the stock generally. Marian didn’t turn up.
Suddenly there came a clashing sound, and the air became full of bells. Like birds, the beat of the bells flew about London. Man was giving tongue through his creations.
Gipsy turned, and going into the back of the shop, drew the curtains together with a rattle of rings along the pole. Julia didn’t look through. She knew that she would see Gipsy with her dark head upon her plump arms, sitting at the painted desk, as she had sat over four years ago. There were thousands of women like Gipsy in England and France, in Belgium and Italy, and America and Germany, in little European countries and great dominions overseas. Probably, thought Julia, even in Turkey and those funny places, if one only knew, all saying to themselves, Why couldn’t this happen earlier? Why did he have to go first? Gipsy wouldn’t grudge any other woman the salvation of her husband or son, but she would be unable to avoid the bitter reflection, and she would be unable to avoid, too, the thought that Marian must be wishing it had been Billy Embury who had died; whereas Billy was alive, and well, and coming home to go through the farce of a divorce, while John Danvers’s bones still lay on the bed of the Channel, his flesh eaten away long ago, his soul no one knew where. And Alfie? Julia hadn’t thought of him for ages now. Where were those scattered bones? One with the earth upon which the life had been stricken out of them; and his soul, if such things there were, where was it? Who could say? Alfie had had such very little soul, even in life. He had been so graceful, so woodland, so beautifully animal. And Herbert? He was sitting somewhere in his office, wondering how soon he would be free to get back to Saint Clement’s Square and his wife.
And the bells went on clanging and beating, and suddenly the telephone-bell went. Gipsy lifted her head from her arms, picked up the receiver and said “Hello” in a curiously dead, flat voice.
“Oh, all right,” Julia heard her say. “Yes, I think that’ll be best. Obviously there’s nothing doing. Right. Good-bye.” And the receiver was clicked back into place.
“That was Miss Lestrange,” Gipsy told Julia. “She says we’d better shut up the shop. There’ll be nothing doing to-day. Tell the girls, will you?”
Julia sped upstairs and told the rest of the staff, who were already wriggling into their hats and coats. When she came down again it was to find Ruby had flowed into the shop like a golden tide.
“Isn’t it wonderful,” she said, “isn’t it just too w
onderful? After all we’ve suffered all these years! I’ve got a table at the Carlton Grill. As a matter of fact, I was told about this yesterday, so I rang up Ventura and told him to engage me a table. Mrs. Danvers, you’ll come, won’t you?”
Gipsy, busy pulling her hat over her eyes, shook her head. “No, Miss Safford, though it’s very kind of you. They’ll be expecting me at home.”
“You’ll come, won’t you, Julia?” said Ruby, hardly noticing Gipsy’s refusal, which she had expected. “You must come. We can easily squeeze in one or two more. Jimmy’s coming to the party, you know—Lord James Heighton?”
Julia did, indeed, know … Jimmy had been in Ruby’s dressing-room every night for weeks.
“I’d love to come,” she said; “they won’t be expecting me at home. In fact, there isn’t anybody who could expect me, only Bobby, and he won’t know anything about peace having been signed.”
Ruby had a taxi waiting for her. Already the streets were crowded with frantic, singing, shouting throngs. Ruby said: “The Carlton Grill,” and they started off. They soon got caught in a block. Two young men leaped up on the step of their taxi and started blowing horns and waving their hats. A middle-aged woman, looking very frightened, was borne up to the taxi by a sudden surge of the crowd. Julia opened the door and called out: “Which way are you going? Can we take you anywhere?”
“Charing Cross,” said the woman.
“Well, we’re going to the Carlton Grill. We can take you quite near. Jump in.”
The woman got in thankfully, and sat down on one of the little seats. She was a quiet, reserved person, dressed in very good taste, though rather shabbily. Ruby turned a glowing face towards her. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said. “Listen, it’s all London speaking. It’s London’s heart beating. It’s the Empire’s heart beating. Did you ever hear anything so marvellous?”
The lady gave her a little, pale smile. “Yes,” she said, “it’s marvellous. I’m very thankful it’s happened. I wish it could have happened before.”
“Oh, so do I,” said Ruby, with sincere enthusiasm, and with a note in her voice which implied that she had lost everyone near and dear to her. “What we’ve all had to go through. Have you anyone out there?”
“My husband was killed at Gallipoli,” said the lady quietly.
Ruby said nothing, but Julia said: “My husband’s in France,” and almost believed for a moment that Herbert was in danger at his rail-head.
The taxi moved on, and they all three sat enclosed in the little artificial intimacy that it made, Julia wondering about the stranger, and aware, without consciously thinking of it, how warm-hearted and unconventional she had been in opening the door to an unknown woman; and Ruby thinking of the forthcoming meeting with Jimmy, and how wonderful it was to be alive in such a wonderful world and to be Ruby Safford. The strange lady was thinking of Gallipoli, and hoped that nothing had happened to Julia’s husband in the last few hours of the war, when it seemed so wicked and ironical for anything to happen to anyone.
The taxi drew up at the Carlton Grill. Ruby paid the fare, and pressed an extra ten shillings upon the driver, who said: “God bless you, lidy, I’ll drink death and damnation to the Kaiser with this,” and Ruby waved her hand to him and laughed, and started to go down the stairs to the Grill Room.
Julia turned to say good-bye to the strange lady, but she had already gone. Julia could see her neat, self-contained back, and her high-held head, disappearing down the Haymarket.
That was a marvellous lunch. The Carlton Grill was crowded to overflowing, total strangers called out to each other from table to table. Ruby was asked by Ventura to make a speech. She stood up, and lifting her champagne glass, cried: “Here’s to us. Who’s like us? Damned few!” and everyone drank the toast with roars of applause.
The rest of the day was like a kaleidoscope that Julia had had in her childhood, masses of sparkling, bright, moving colours, that changed and shifted and fell into different positions. As the hours went by it became impossible to move about London. She and Ruby and Jimmy, and another young man called Tommy, who apparently was a friend of Jimmy’s, whom they ran into in the course of the afternoon, managed to get something to eat at a restaurant in Baker Street, where they had finally stuck in their attempt to get back to Ruby’s flat.
Julia enjoyed that dinner. The confusion was indescribable. Signor Canuto was rushing hither and thither, and had far more clients than could be waited on, and Julia sprang up, and herself found the table where the dishes were deposited, and Jimmy and Tommy, obeying her orders, managed to collect their whole dinner while it was still hot and excellent. That was fun; Julia liked arranging things, and being a success, and the two young men enjoyed doing what she told them. Ruby seemed quite to sink into the background.
Then Jimmy (or Tommy) succeeded in getting a taxi and guarded it, while Ruby and Julia were hustled in, and they all went round to the theatre. Every seat was, sold out, and Julia sat on the stairs of the dress circle and watched the play, in which Ruby was playing lead—a successful little comedy of war manners.
Afterwards Julia went round behind, and they all drank champagne in Ruby’s dressing-room, she still dressed as a land-girl and with the make-up on her face.
Finally Tommy announced that he must see Julia home. It wasn’t safe for a girl to go through such crowds alone, and see her home he did. They fought their way somehow through the yelling, dancing crowds to Charing Cross Station, where Julia would have been swept right down the stairs had it not been for Tommy’s arm round her. Out at Hammersmith the world was still boiling and seething like a stew in a pot, but it was comparatively quiet once Stamford Brook Station was reached. But even in the sacred garden of Saint Clement’s Square a bonfire had been lit. It was blazing all about the Apollo; he drooped, cynical and unmoved, amidst the leaping flames, an ancient unknown god martyred by exultant Christians. Against the firelight the children of the neighbourhood looked like little black imps. The world had gone mad to celebrate the fact that the world had ceased to be mad.
“Won’t you come up and have a drink?” asked Julia, as she fitted her key into the lock.
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Tommy. “All that champagne makes a fellow beastly dry. It’s a horrible drink. I can’t think why women like it. Have you got any beer?”
“Plenty,” said Julia gaily.
She opened the door of the dining-room, where Bobby always awaited her arrival, and was met by the usual chestnut-and-white whirlwind. Tommy approved highly of Bobby, and said he was a splendid fellow, what? and he had had a dog just like him, picked up in the trenches, but a beastly shell got him.
Tommy was not a very intelligent young man, but he was a very pleasant one, and he was a gentleman. He shook Julia’s hand cordially when he said good-bye, and went whistling down the stairs. Julia felt a little disappointed. Why couldn’t it have been a marvellous romantic young man who had seen her home on the night of all nights, not just a pleasant young creature who, but for the war, might still have been a public schoolboy? Could it be that she wasn’t attractive any longer? She studied herself in the glass. No, she didn’t have to worry about that, and, after all, nobody is attractive to everybody. Tommy had just been one of those few men who said nothing to Julia, and to whom she said nothing. But she was very tired. Too tired to think about the world, or Herbert, or herself, or the shop.
She felt dirty after so much contact with sweaty bodies pressing her all around, and so, exhausted as she was, she lit the geyser and ran a hot bath. She emptied half a bottle of bath-salts into it, and lay back cosily in the warm water. Vaguely there came to her the sounds of shouting and cheering. She lay thinking about nothing, neither happy nor unhappy, merely utterly relaxed.
Book Two
They order, said I, this matter better in France—
A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
Beginning of
an Era
The ragged ends of the war took a long time to tidy up, and at first nothing seemed to be very much changed, except that people were happier. Trade continued to increase and people danced more than ever. Even the soldiers didn’t all come pouring back home as Julia had expected, and it was Christmas before Herbert arrived back at Saint Clement’s Square.
His job had been kept open for him, and he went back with great relief to being manager of the Strand branch of Dick Dash’s. He had enjoyed swanking round London in his field-boots and breeches all right, but it had been an interruption to serious business, and the rest of his life stretched pleasantly before him—a rise in salary soon at Dick Dash’s, for, with the expenses of living going up like this, he’d no longer be comfortably off on five hundred a year. Of course, Julia was earning, but he wanted Julia to give up the shop. He wasn’t, he told himself, the sort of man whose wife had to work.
The very day he came back, Julia wasn’t there to receive him. She had been kept at the shop, and Herbert sat at a substantial tea with a sense of injury. Still, she’d made the flat look very nice. There were big clusters of chrysanthemums in the sitting-room—a pretty penny they must have cost, he thought—and Emily, the maid, and Bobby, both seemed pleased to see him. Emily had always liked him. She was the old-fashioned sort who preferred to wait on a man than on a woman, and he had been rather nervous lest Julia shouldn’t hit it off with her, but everything seemed to be all right. Julia was a clever kid, you had to give her that. Just at the moment, until he could see how things were going to shape in the business world, it might be as well to let her have her head and go on playing at being a shopkeeper. After all, it meant that she was really no expense to him at all. She dressed herself, got her clothes much more cheaply through the shop than she could have done otherwise, paid for her own midday meal and her tea, and could do her share towards paying for amusements. All that was worth considering. Still, it would have been nice to have seen her glowing face and have been able to put his arms round her and give her a good kiss.
A Pin to See the Peepshow Page 19
