White Feathers

by Susan Lanigan

‘Forty’s not too old to fight.’

  ‘Grace, please!’ But she was off. The gentleman was, Eva guessed, not particularly wealthy. His coat was too long for the heat, his briefcase a little battered. Perhaps a commercial traveller down on his luck. Or maybe even a teacher. But Grace didn’t care. She marched up to the man and declaimed in a clear, high-pitched voice, ‘I hereby bestow on you this white feather for your cowardice in refusing to fight in the war. God save the King!’

  The man looked at her as if she were speaking Portuguese. ‘What? … What?’ But Grace was so quick that by the time he was aware of what had happened, she had already pinned the white feather in his lapel. A few other women walking past noticed and began to titter.

  The man glanced around, a trapped look on his face. Now the women were chanting, ‘Fight, fight, fight …’ while Grace folded her arms with a smile, watching her new allies. On they went, inexorable, relentless.

  Something inside the man broke. He bent his head and shuffled away around the corner, his sunny demeanour of a few moments before quite gone. Catherine watched him go with satisfaction. ‘Ten to one he’ll enlist first thing tomorrow.’

  The Tube ride home was cheerless. Even with the windows open, the carriages stank of armpits and underclothes. Nearly every station had notices saying ‘Join the Army – You Will Like It – The Kaiser Won’t’. Eva felt soiled by what she had witnessed. She had let that poor man walk away, shamed. What would he do that evening? Would he go home to his wife and children and tell them he had no choice but to enlist, that some thoughtless bitch had taken it upon herself to present him with a white feather? The whole business felt deeply, dreadfully wrong. The only consolation was the certainty that she would never consider doing such a thing herself.

  They were running late: David Wentworth Hopkins would be waiting for her by now. She could picture him sitting, straight-backed, hands on his knees, young and severe. He would propose to her again, and this time she would accept. The thought no longer filled her with the same dismay it had done earlier that week. Marrying him would be an escape from all Catherine’s and Grace’s schemes. Maybe she could take Imelda away too. David had been impressed by her concern for her sister, and there was sure to be room in his house. Yes, a wife had some freedom to make these decisions. A spinster daughter? None at all.

  And all Eva would have to do in return was … well, that thing they wrote about in The Wife’s Handbook. ‘Too many wives do not realise the importance, the necessity to their happiness, of proper intercourse with their husbands,’ so it said. But of course that was written by an American. Eva had read the description of the act, and of the organs involved, and tried to relate it to herself and then to David, but it all seemed so strange. She could make hardly head nor tail of it, could not imagine how his young, pale body and hers would join together – and would not risk further mockery by asking. It couldn’t be that bad, surely, if people had been doing it since time began?

  Eva’s thoughts matched the pace of the racketing, swaying train. The wedding would be a swift one since David was soon to be deployed. Then she would live in a modest but pleasant house in Cirencester and have her own room and access to a library, where she could continue with Greek and sit her Responsions examination next year, if David relented … Before she could go on any further flights of fancy, the train stopped at their station, Aldgate, and ten minutes later they were home.

  As Catherine went to put the key in the lock, the door was opened from inside. Nelly rushed to meet them. ‘Oh, Miss Eva, in the parlour, there’s—’

  Eva nodded. ‘Yes, Nelly, I know.’ She walked in calmly, leaving the others to fuss with hats and coats. She closed the parlour door behind her and readied herself. ‘Hello, Da—’ she began, then stopped dead.

  Sprawled on an armchair, his collar loose, fingers tapping a slow ostinato on the cover fastenings, sat Christopher Shandlin. He raised the tapping hand in a gesture of ironic half-greeting.

  Eva’s heart kicked at her ribs like a horse about to bolt. ‘Where’s David?’ she blurted out, and immediately she wanted to kick herself. As if he would know who David was.

  ‘If you mean that etiolated shape of a boy who was squeaking some nonsense about marrying you,’ the familiar voice responded from the depths of the armchair, ‘I can enlighten you. I sent him away.’

  ‘You did what?’

  Mr Shandlin rose from the chair in a belated gesture of courtesy to Eva, uncoiling himself in one long and slightly creaky movement. His eyes were restless and gleaming, his fingers still moving over thin air until he finally clasped the mantelpiece, which he seemed to need to support himself. ‘I told him to be a nice boy and clear off. Did I do wrong, Eva? Would you like me to summon him back?’

  ‘No,’ Eva said, with such feeling and incivility that he grinned broadly and his shoulders relaxed.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ he said, ‘I was a little nervous.’

  She sat down, a safe distance away on the other side of the fireplace, and bade him do the same. She could hardly believe he was there, yet when she dared look across at him, he had not vanished but was still sitting forward, chin on hand, watching her quizzically. He was really there. She thought she would burst with joy – and yet, why was he there? Why now, after all this time? ‘How did you find me?’ she asked him.

  ‘How did I find you? That is a very good question indeed, given as you never answered any of my letters and there was no exchange listed for you—’

  ‘What do you mean, I never answered your letters?’ Eva responded hotly. ‘I never got any, that’s why!’

  ‘Now, Eva, that is merely a Counter-cheque Quarrelsome on your part, because you know I sent them. There was the first letter, delayed as long as possible after your departure as I could manage without sitting on my hands, in other words about one day. That was a nice long one, rather rambly perhaps, but pleasant, whimsical and sentimental without being cloying. No reply. Then the second one, a little sharper, I dare say, enquiring after your welfare and hoping all was well. Nothing. Not a word. Then, the third,’ and here he winced, ‘a rather angry, self-pitying screed which I put in the post box before I could change my mind. Then the fourth, sent immediately after that, which was an urgent request begging you to tear up the third without reading it. After your continued silence, I thought I had best give up writing letters altogether, since all I was doing was making a fool of myself.’

  ‘I’ll see you my Counter-cheque Quarrelsome,’ Eva said, ‘and raise you your own Lie Direct. Since I most certainly did write to you, a perfectly polite note, requesting help with compiling a booklist for that Somerville scholarship. And when I got no reply at all from you, I—’

  ‘What? Eva, what?’

  ‘I was upset. To hear nothing from you.’ There, it was out.

  ‘I’ll bet you were,’ Mr Shandlin said softly, ‘as was I, not to hear from you. And I’ll bet too that someone was intervening with our correspondence, and I think I know who.’

  Eva wanted to say something but could barely speak. He had been upset not to hear from her. He had not forgotten her. He had written her four letters. That was enough. She did not care what complicated, manipulative mechanism her family, or Miss Hedges, or anyone else had dreamed up to keep them apart.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I thank them with all my heart, since some of those letters didn’t show me at my best. Odd, though, for I definitely posted one or two of them myself: I remember putting them in the village post box.’

  Suddenly Eva remembered Catherine rushing for the post, pushing past the servants with some impatience, then shortly afterwards tearing some of the letters up. Eva had thought little enough about it at the time, but now it made sense. She had been watching for Mr Shandlin’s letters to Eva and destroying them as they arrived.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘more than one person intervened.’

  ‘Why on earth do people have to interfere all the time? Nosy parkers, all of them.’ He sighed. ‘But I
haven’t answered your question. Hunter wanted to go off on one of his trips into the New Forest and nagged me into going with him. It all ended in tears, of course. He has people falling in love with him left, right and centre but loves the only lady of the party who is engaged to someone else. And he writes sonnets about it. Lots of sonnets. I had the misfortune of hearing most of them, rendered to me alcoholically in the middle of the night. Ten per cent were rather good. The rest—’ He made a gesture.

  ‘I thought you said Mr Hunter was a gifted poet.’

  ‘He is,’ Mr Shandlin said, ‘but not when it comes to prolific love sonnets. Nobody is a gifted poet in that regard. No, not even Shakespeare. His sonnets were mostly about posterity.’

  ‘David writes a lot of sonnets,’ Eva said, with a smile.

  ‘David being that boy, yes?’

  ‘Yes indeed. He showed me several samples.’

  ‘Oh? Written for you?’

  Eva blushed. ‘Some of them, yes. Believe me,’ she added, seeing Mr Shandlin make a face, ‘I was not clamouring to hear them. His style is somewhat … wooden.’

  Although he was still sitting forward, he seemed to relax somewhat at that. ‘To continue. I wanted to look you up, but then all this happened—’ He waved his hand, and Eva nodded. There was no need for him to explain what ‘this’ was. ‘My mother was anxious, so I went to stay with her for a while.’

  ‘Of course she would be concerned about you going to war,’ Eva said, ‘because of what happened to your brother.’

  ‘She is very worried about me, but she needn’t be,’ Mr Shandlin said harshly, ‘because I will have nothing to do with it.’

  For a moment they were both silent. The sun was shining into the room, making the long unfastened curtains look shabby and discoloured and every surface dusty. Eva could hear whispering somewhere in the corridor. Grace and Catherine would find some way of showing how unhappy they were with this slightly shabbily dressed stranger turning up out of nowhere to call on her. If that’s what he was doing? Was he calling on her or ‘calling’ on her? Had she misinterpreted his visit? Now, looking at the ground, he appeared to want to be elsewhere.

  Eva wanted to tell Mr Shandlin about the meeting she had just attended, how the women had roared as if all sense had left them. How Grace and Catherine had preyed on that ordinary man on his luncheon break from his ordinary day’s work. How Mr Shandlin himself would most certainly be watched and judged for not signing up.

  At that exact moment, Grace walked into the parlour, stopped short and stared. ‘Who’re you?’ she demanded. Mr Shandlin gave her his name, with icy politeness. In response, Grace wrinkled her nose, darted a look at Eva and walked out. Her departing voice wafted back into the room like cold air. ‘Mama, there’s a man come in to see Eva. It’s not Mr Hopkins. I don’t know who he is, but he’s not in uniform.’

  ‘Mr Shandlin, I apologise for my stepsister’s rudeness.’

  He picked up his coat, which he had left on the seat opposite. ‘Never mind. I seem to have that effect on women, particularly the pretty ones. Anyway, it was nice to see you again, Eva.’

  With the realisation that he was leaving came a rising panic in Eva’s throat that she might not see him again. She needed to invent some reason – anything would do – her booklist! But then, at the door, he turned around. ‘I’m sorry to rush; I have a class later this afternoon and some marking to do tomorrow. Are you free on Sunday? Two o’clock? I’ll take the train up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eva smiled with relief, ‘yes, I’m free.’

  ‘Good. See you on Sunday, then.’

  The front door slammed behind him, shaking the whole house. Eva ran to the window. She saw his familiar, crow-like figure striding down the road, head jutted forward. He did not look back.

  11 September 1914

  Darling Eva,

  I am so sorry I haven’t replied until now. I received your letter about David, and I have to admit I was unsure whether congratulations were appropriate, and then … All right. I have a confession to make. I might have bumped into Mr Shandlin at a tearoom this morning when I went to Tunbridge Wells to do a bit of shopping, and I might have mentioned your impending engagement that afternoon. He demanded to know where you lived, and, Evie, perhaps I told him. Anyway, whatever I did or didn’t tell him, I didn’t see him for dust until he rushed back to collect his hat and dashed off again.

  Oh, I do hope I haven’t messed things up for you, dear Eva. I’m awake now, terrified I’ve turned your family against you. I won’t get this blasted thing posted out till tomorrow, but please write back by first return and let me know all is well.

  Your friend

  Sybil

  P.S. I might also have goaded him a little by asking him if he were a man or a mouse.

  15

  When Mr Shandlin rang the doorbell of No. 35 Wellclose Square at five minutes past two on Sunday afternoon, and stood there in a hat and long coat, looking diffident and wondering, he was greeted not by Eva alone, but by three women: Eva, Catherine and Agatha, Catherine’s maid. Mr Shandlin gave Eva a questioning look, but it was Catherine who stepped forward, snarling in his face without a word of greeting. ‘Did you imagine that you could just waltz in and take a girl out without a proper chaperone?’

  Mr Shandlin ignored her and spoke directly to Eva. ‘Does your family think I am a brigand? You did tell them who I was, didn’t you?’

  ‘Her family are right here on this doorstep,’ Catherine snapped, ‘and you will pardon us if we’re a bit surprised that it’s one Johnny-come-lately on Friday and a different one today. ’Tis – it’s – a poor start, that’s all I’ll say.’ She folded her arms and stood there, blocking the doorway. Eva did not know what to do, so she merely smiled hopefully at him. But he was not mollified. ‘So, are we going somewhere or aren’t we?’ He put inordinate emphasis on the ‘we’.

  ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere with a man unless he had some manners,’ Catherine said acidly, ‘and wore the King’s uniform.’

  Eva longed to step up and defend him, but something in her froze. Catherine was too dangerous to be crossed.

  But Mr Shandlin was not similarly handicapped by restraint. ‘In the unlikely event of a man in uniform ever making the request, madam, your concerns are duly noted.’

  ‘Upon my word, sir, you are extremely rude,’ Catherine said.

  ‘Please,’ Eva found her voice at last, ‘can we just go? I don’t care where.’

  Catherine slammed the door in disgust, and Eva and Mr Shandlin made their way down the steps, Agatha walking close behind.

  ‘Well,’ he said, after a judicious interval, ‘that was rather a bad start.’

  Eva said nothing. She had had little sleep the night before. She and her parents had argued and argued about Christopher Shandlin; at one point, Roy had been so angry he had swept all the files off his desk. Grace had been the one to tidy them up, since he wouldn’t trust anyone else near them. Eva did not want to talk about it, though, not now.

  ‘So where do you want to go, then?’ Mr Shandlin had his hands in his pockets and was walking with a slouching gait, not looking at Eva.

  ‘Richmond Park is nice.’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘That’s miles away.’

  ‘I can’t think of anywhere else right now,’ Eva said, agitated. Instead of seeking to calm her, he argued some more about her choice of destination until they reached no agreement at all but wandered on desultorily until they reached the river at Tower Bridge, where a little breeze got up. Tugboats once used for pleasure now ferried coal and goods up and down the river for the war effort, while across the river at Butler’s Wharf, a few boats still unloaded tea. Further on, at Bermondsey, the jam and biscuit factories poured out rusks with patriotic slogans on them. In 1911, the women workers had rebelled and poured out into the streets, clad in their furs even in the blazing sun. Eva wondered if those same workers now pinned white feathers on men, the way Mrs Pankhurst had done at the Opera House.

&
nbsp; Mr Shandlin mounted the stairs up to the road bridge so rapidly that Eva and Agatha struggled to keep up with him. The ill-assorted trio then made their way across Tower Bridge, he striding while the girls scuttled, and eventually ended up in Southwark Park, the sight of a tea rooms considerably cheering up Agatha, if nobody else. Eva sneaked a quick look at Mr Shandlin, but he appeared to be as disappointed with Southwark Park as with her original suggestion, and she began to wonder, her heart dropping to her stomach like a dumbwaiter creaking down to the kitchen, if he were disappointed in her too.

  They walked across the green, passing the bandstand with its narrow black pillars and baskets of pink asters and gerbera daisies hanging from their capitals, children playing on the grass while their nannies sat on the benches, umbrellas ready for the rain that had been threatening all day. Eva wanted to initiate a conversation but didn’t dare for fear of getting shot down. It was obvious he was in a filthy mood. Agatha’s head bent forward as she walked along beside them. She, too, had run out of polite observations.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ Eva said, pointing to the tea rooms.

  Mr Shandlin shrugged. ‘If you like.’

  The three of them went inside and sat down at a table. A group of men in khaki sat at the next table; Shandlin gave them the quickest of glances. If he was uncomfortable to be seen in ordinary clothes near them, he did not show it. A waitress brought them menus, but he did not pay much attention to his. He was doing that tapping thing on the oilcloth-covered table. Eva badly wanted to imprison his fingers in hers – and not with amorous intent.

  The list of cakes looked unappealing to Eva, though Agatha seemed happy enough. ‘Sussex plum heavies!’ she cried out. ‘They’re my favourite.’ She clasped her hand to her mouth as if she had uttered a curse word.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Eva said, ‘I’ll get us two. Put your purse away.’ She felt a little guilty about resenting Agatha’s presence – embarrassed, too, that Agatha should have witnessed that nasty little scene on the doorstep. Let her have some biscuits. At least somebody would enjoy themself this afternoon.