Company Parade

by Storm Jameson

  ‘Good gracious no,’ Fanny said. She was so completely taken by surpise that her father could suppose she had an evening to spend with him that she told the simple truth. ‘I don’t like Jews, daddy, and you never have anyone else here.’

  ‘You are a Jew,’ her father said.

  ‘But I needn’t live with them any longer,’ Fanny said simply.

  Marcel Cohen looked at her with a reserved smile. He found it difficult actually to believe that his daughter was ashamed of him. His mind had formed the habit of avoiding this thought. So now all he said, and with a sigh, was: ‘Before you came, my darling, I was thinking of David.’

  Fanny heard and instinctively misunderstood him. Her social sense—she had had to defend herself during the first months of her marriage against the biting speeches of her mother-in-law—was so finely organised that she had been able to earn a reputation for ‘delicacy’ and ‘true kindness’ simply by detecting in advance and avoiding the occasions on which she would have to display these qualities. She saw that if she were forced to discuss her brother’s death now, it would be awkward to ask for money. It was almost without thinking that she said in a gay voice: ‘Why, David spoke of you this evening. I went in his room to say good night: he was in his cot, and he looked at me with his funny smile and said : “ Are you going to see my grandfather? Give him my love.” Don’t you think that was remarkable from a child of three?’ Her father smiled again. Laying her arm round his neck she said earnestly: ‘Daddy, I’m in such a hole. I can only stay two minutes, we’re going to Sarah’s and I ought not to be late.’ Her father stroked her arm and listened. He liked her to talk to him in this familiar way about people to whom she would never show either her father or mother, and now that she was kneeling beside his chair he felt that she loved him.

  ‘Tell me what you want, my darling,’ he said gently.

  3. Two comfort each other

  Philip called for Hervey at six o’clock and took her to dine at Gatti’s. The rooms were decorated but not indecently so. About eight o’clock they walked to Piccadilly Circus, where the crowd was thickest. Soldiers, women in short frocks, whistles, rattles, flags, men and women in each other’s arms, a girl with one breast bare, drunken soldiers and civilians dancing waving their arms, a frenzy of unreal excitement. There was no spontaneity in any of their antics. Feeling had gone cold since the Armistice, and the resurrection was attended with a great inconvenience of worms. Philip felt Hervey pulling his sleeve. He had to put his ear to her mouth to know what she was saying. ‘They’re not enjoying themselves,’ she cried : ‘it’s terrifying, it’s hideous, let’s go away, Philip.’

  ‘Very well,’ Philip said. They were several minutes struggling out of the crowd, Hervey was afraid of being knocked down and gripped his arm: at last they were able to walk with some ease.

  They took a cab to Renn’s street. The car looked sulky—perhaps vexed that it had not been shown the celebrations. With a great struggle they started, and then Hervey noticed that Philip had grown white. She touched his hand lightly and found it cold and damp. ‘You’re ill,’ she said. She spoke carelessly because he disliked fuss.

  ‘No,’ Philip said,‘it was the effort. If you leave me alone I shall be all right.’ His lips were colourless. But it was true—before long he had recovered, it seemed easily, and Hervey was very glad of it. Never ill herself, illness in another person bored her. Unless the other person were her son. Then she changed at once, her whole being drawn to a point, that point her son’s life. She still felt that the tide of his life depended on hers and that only she, if he were ill, could save him.

  They drove directly to the Dug-out. It was dark when they reached it and a little light came through the curtains. It made Hervey think of night at Danesacre, and of coming home. She said nothing, and followed Philip shyly into the room behind the counter. This room, which was very small, was the living-room of the family; Frank’s father-in-law slept in it, and Frank and his young wife slept in the other room, which was smaller still. Both rooms were stuffed with furniture, and clean, smelling of soap, grass, and of some kind of string with which the old man was making a hammock for a child. The child was not born yet, but he liked to think that everything he had to do was well forehand.

  Hervey smiled, shyly and warmly, at the young woman, and wished to be gone. Her mother’s anger when a stranger was brought into her house had persuaded her that no one ever welcomed chance-brought company. She was sure that she was unwanted. But Frank’s wife was pleased to show off her rooms to another young woman. ‘We came here because of Frank’s chest,’ she said, with a smile, touching her own. ‘He was gassed, and doctor said towns were bad for’en. I reckon we’re well off here.’

  ‘This is a nice room,’ Hervey said.

  Since this only confirmed the general belief no one answered her, and in a few moments she and Philip were walking across the field to his caravan with bread and a jug of strong dark coffee. The night sky was immensely blown out and thin, like a bubble at bursting-point, and except for the sound they made themselves, whipping the long grass, there was nothing.

  Philip left the door open and lit his candles ; the flames lay over on a current flowing from the darkness into the tiny cell of light. At first nothing was said and he watched the line of Hervey’s cheek resting on her hand. He felt happy and curiously at peace, as if he had done a great deal of work that day. It was a comfort to be with Hervey and without other people. He began to talk about his paper to her. She listened and nodded her head. She was thinking how well she got on with him and how if he were only not in love with her they could set up house together and be unusually happy. The absurdity of this thought made her smile.

  Philip stopped talking. ‘Please go on,’ she said anxiously.

  ‘No. I’ve talked about myself too long,’ Philip said. ‘Come and sit outside on the step and wait for the bump. It’s a minute to one o’clock and at one exactly the earth goes over the top.’

  Sitting with the door of the caravan at their backs they talked and were silent and talked, each speaking into the darkness and receiving an answer from it. A deep happiness possessed Hervey, sprung from the likeness of this long night of talking to others just before the War, when with Philip and T.S. she had often stayed awake all night to talk and discuss life and their future—about which, as it turned out, they were much at fault.

  Suddenly Philip said: ‘What do you want most in the whole world, Hervey love?’

  Shall I tell the truth? Hervey thought quickly. It was not easy for her to give herself away, but for this once she would. ‘To be famous and Richard to have a fortunate life,’ she said. She looked at him to see whether he were going to laugh at her.

  ‘Is that all you want? I should like to be the conscience of unthinking people.’ He reflected that Hervey’s ambitions were more human than his. But there must be no more poor, he said to himself.

  ‘You can be that in your paper,’ Hervey exclaimed. She did not believe that he would achieve anything with it, but she wanted to help him. She looked at his wrists, lying crossed on one knee, and was struck by their thinness—it gave all his plans an air of uncertainty in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t you want to be in love? ‘Philip said.

  ‘Indeed yes,’ Hervey said—she paused—‘but then it’s so much trouble,’ she went on, saying what was in her mind. Speaking the truth, once you have started it, is too exhilarating to draw back.

  ‘Do you really mean that, Hervey? There must be a difference between men and women in these things, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about women—I know more about myself,’ Hervey said. ‘I know what I should like —to share a violent passion with some man. But it must be a physical passion, I don’t want to feel sorry for him or to have to change myself to please him. I want to be able to say what I choose. And I want it to burn up and be over. I don’t want to have to live with him afterwards and order his breakfasts an
d try to remember what he likes. I don’t want to know what he likes. Respect—companionship—all that—that’s nothing. I can respect many things, and be my own companion—I shouldn’t want them to come into my love affair. You have to make allowances for a person you respect, modify your thoughts, be tolerant. That isn’t anything to do with love. But it’s what all the men I have known—except one—think of as love, and that’s what I say is too much trouble.’

  She is talking about her American, he said to himself. A feeling of bitterness crossed his mind. ‘Then you don’t want a husband?’ he said, trying to smile.

  ‘I have one,’ Hervey said calmly. ‘And perhaps I shouldn’t like to live alone. No doubt that’s why marriage goes on. But why confuse it with passion? Or think that you are having both when you marry.’

  She spoke sleepily. Her mind was full of unsorted speculations—she had not spoken a tenth of them. It was no use. What I think and feel has scarcely any relation with what I do, she thought—if I lived as I feel, I should be a monster.

  They were both silent—a little depressed, as the young are when they are forced to realise how little of themselves is of use to life, but comforted by each other’s nearness. Philip could see the tuft of soft hair on Hervey’s nape. He felt a desire to touch it but refrained. Instead he thought over what she had been saying—she had described a kind of love as narrow and brutal as a knife, yet she had been speaking her thoughts. All at once he saw that her thoughts did not determine her life. Her mind, a strong clumsy instrument, was blunted and turned aside by her profound carelessness of herself: it dictated only the least significant of her actions, a resentful prisoner shut in the same cell with her sense of humour—which was that of a savage. For a moment he was as sorry for Hervey as if he had known that she was going to be defeated.

  The sky, as they talked and waited, was turning from night to day. The earth still slept, but it was visible in a strange light of no colour. To the east the grey husk of sky split apart and showed a naked whiteness. Seen in that way, the whiteness was startling. It was as if they had watched a new continent break from the sea.

  Philip looked at his watch—half-past four. Hervey was leaning a little against him and he thought she had fallen asleep. He watched for another half hour, during which short time the edges of the new continent caught fire, and delicate tongues of flame ran here and there across the vast spaces; the waters dividing them became a clear green, with overhead a sky, new, smooth, and flawless. A busy chattering began in the trees behind the caravan.

  Hervey was not asleep, she stretched herself, smiled, and said: ‘If it was my country we should hear a peewit cry.’ She stood up. ‘Now if you drive me home I can get into the house before it’s too late.’

  Philip was seized with anguish. He put his arms round her, looking closely in her face. ‘Oh Hervey, stay, stay,’ he repeated.

  Hervey stood perfectly still. ‘Must I? ‘she said, after a moment. ‘You know I don’t want it.’ Her liking for him made her speak carefully, not to hurt him, but he felt the ease and finality with which she was leaving him. And he felt not as though she were going but he dying. He released her. His arms strained back to feel the wood of the caravan.

  ‘Yes, yes, stay with me. I only want not to be alone yet.’

  ‘Why, Philip,’ Hervey said, troubled and ashamed.

  She sat down again on the step of the caravan. ‘I can stay,’ she said. He saw that she was reluctant and had no warmth for him, and it was no use keeping her.

  4. The celebrations end

  Evelyn pressed her hand down on her eyelids. The nerves behind her eyes throbbed and sent flashes of crimson across the darkened lids. To look is better, she thought, and opening her eyes gazed round Mrs Harben’s music room. The concert was long finished. They were dancing in the next room, and couples passed and repassed the doorway. Many of them were middleaged or elderly. She saw one motion issuing from all their bodies like a snake unfolding and folding itself along the wall. Some of the revellers were drunk, and since the floor was crowded these kept bearing off into side rooms; one fat elderly woman had let down the shoulder straps of her dress, to the satisfaction of her partner. Why do I stay? Evelyn thought: why go? why did I come? She turned her head and saw William Ridley coming towards her, walking carefully on the waxed boards. Here he comes with his boasting face, she said. His face was one large smile.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ he asked, as if he had brought her: ‘I’m having a grand time. I’ve made an impression, too. It’s a good thing you asked me to come with you, I’ve met some good chaps.’ He sat down close to her. ‘You look as if you weren’t enjoying yourself. You should let yourself go, eat something, get among people, drink—there’s plenty ‘—he tapped her knee—‘I don’t like to see you looking glum. I don’t like anyone to be glum when they could be happy.’

  Evelyn looked at him. He was above himself with happiness at being here. That’s almost pathetic, she thought. Nothing else in him could rouse a feeling of pity, unless it were the cheapness of his clothes, which squeezed his ungainly body here and hung on it there. But if he had ever known they were wretched, he had forgotten it in his satisfaction at having made his impression. But on whom?

  ‘What time is it? I shall go home. Can I take you anywhere in the car?’

  Ridley hesitated, weighing in his mind her importance against the richness of a whole new world—which he could use. She was wrong if she thought this house, these people, impressed him. ‘You drop me off at your house,’ he answered. ‘I’ll walk on after that. These people here aren’t important—I want to see what th’others, the tarts, the shop girls, young clerks, policemen, old wives, are doing to celebrate.’

  When they were at her house she asked him to come in and talk to her. ‘My nerves are bad,’ she explained. ‘I shan’t sleep yet. If we talk for a time that will make the hours less until daylight.’

  In her room, Ridley seated himself with his legs widely apart. He was very warm and excited. Her restlessness had infected him and he felt a desire to walk about the room, fingering things, to assert his position here. ‘You should be like me,’ he said. ‘I get moods—when that happens I don’t sit brooding, I go out, have a drink, talk to people.’

  ‘What are you writing?’ Evelyn asked. She kept her eyes on his face, waiting for him to begin talking. Her Spanish shawl, blue and crimson, had fallen from her over the day-bed. Talk, talk to me, her mind repeated. She leaned forward, twisting a corner of the shawl between her fingers.

  He was ready enough. As he talked his inner excitement swelled, but he was determined not to show it. He felt that things were turning out well for him. The mirror between the widows reflected his face and well-filled shirt front, enough and no more. ‘I am probably the most important writer you know,’ he exclaimed: ‘that’s because I’m not ashamed to write as I feel. Like the rest of your sex you suffer from too much cleverness.’ Here she roused herself to protest, and he said seriously : ‘Well—I’m not making conversation, I’m telling you something of importance about writing.’

  ‘One day you will know a little better how to write,’ Evelyn answered, in a dry voice. But she felt that already he knew as much as he needed. Nothing she knew was of use to him, though she had more sensibility in her finger than was in his whole hulking body.

  ‘Then we won’t talk about it,’ Ridley said, with good humour. He rose and came towards her clumsily, his arms knocking against the objects in his path. For the first time she became aware of his excitement. He stood looking down at her, his body leaned forward, arms hanging. His lower lip was thrust out with a drop of moisture on it. He stooped, and fell forward with her across the couch.

  For a moment she struggled weakly with him. She yielded longing trying to feel to feel to lose oneself ecstasy to feel everything yes to feel. But there was nothing, only discomfort and the disorder of her mind. When he rose, she averted her face from him. She wished to regain a semblance of dignity. She lay silent.
When he spoke to her, a little blustering, she answered only by a mortified smile. She was conscious of nothing but the effort of waiting for him to go.

  As the door closed she felt the room settle into silence. A burden passed from her mind. Think, I lay still—it was thus and thus—I said nothing. People walking outside in the road disturbed her, she listened to their footsteps passing and then to a burst of laughter that began abruptly and went on, it sounded like an old man, weak and malicious. Now think. But trivial things distracted her and she could fix her mind only on a scratch on the table and the swinging blind cord.

  Chapter IX

  Hervey Begins to Mend

  War ennobles few it does not kill. It happened to a great many non-combatants in the last war to suffer a loss less palpable than the loss of a son, a husband, a lover. They lost heart or decency, or only their heads. There is some natural law in this. If some quarter of a modern town or city were set apart for the legalised slaughter of human beings there would spread from it a strange infection through the rest. The very streets, and the children playing in them, would wear an air of listening : what in one quarter ran off in blood would excite in degree the senses of all knowing of it. Now, not a city only but whole nations are involved in modern war, and the law becomes general. This impalpable excitement is the reason why delicate women, who could not bear to see a dog run over, can read without turning a hair: ‘Our losses were less than three hundred officers and fifteen hundred other ranks.’ And why others give away white feathers. Or take to drink or a lover.

  The event is natural, one of the by-products of a prolonged war which, since it is not convertible into five per cent bonds, has escaped the notice of experts. A pity.

  Hervey Russell had taken the infection without knowing it.

  She was hard at work one Friday in August, and alone in the room, when the telephone rang. It was on Renn’s desk. She went over to it, spoke, and heard the American’s voice. Her strength left her. Her heart beat in her head, her hands, and in the void between her ribs. She leaned on the desk. ‘Dinner? Yes, certainly. Yes, I should like it if you came for me.’