Give Us This Day

by R. F Delderfield

  He saw Hetty stir and stretch and crossed over to her side of the bed, the ring concealed in his palm.

  "I've got to make an early start," he told her, by way of a preamble. When she asked where he was going he said, casually, "Over to Holloway. To meet the girls. I promised Giles and Milton I'd deputise for 'em as a welcome committee, and I daresay you think I'm a damned old fool to involve myself, but better me than them. Matter of fact I told 'em so when they were here earlier in the week."

  She did not protest, as he had expected, but she looked very troubled. "Isn't it their responsibility rather than yours?"

  "Yes, I suppose it is. But it won't do Giles any good with his party to have his name linked with Romayne. She went in under her maiden name, but the press would start digging if he was seen greeting her outside the gaol. There's bound to be a bit of a stir when they emerge. Wouldn't surprise me if they didn't have a band."

  "I'm sure it's quite the silliest thing I've ever heard of," she said, "and I told Deborah so the last time I saw her. All this fuss over a vote! She's a married woman with a ten-year-old child, and it's high time she knew better!"

  He was tempted to remind her of the quarrels they had had over Debbie in the past, notably when the girl was caught up in that Pall Mall Gazette scandal about child prostitutes; but, he decided, instead, on a flank attack. He opened his hand, displaying the ring resting in the palm, and at once her eyes widened.

  "What are you doing with my dress ring?"

  "Remembering," he said.

  "Remembering what?"

  "How I came by it. Fifty years ago."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "It just crossed my mind that I could have served time in prison for taking it, along with those other stones. That or been cashiered at the very least, for I robbed the John Company of around thirteen thousand pounds. We started the business on the proceeds, in case you've forgotten. It makes what the girls did small beer, wouldn't you say?"

  She took the ring from him and sat up, contemplating it.

  "You told me you found it on a battlefield. That isn't stealing, is it?"

  "It would have been considered so if I had been caught with it."

  "But you fought for it, Adam."

  "The girls fought for that month they got. The difference is they believed in what they were fighting for and I never did."

  "But you've said over and over again they won't get anywhere with all this uproar."

  "That isn't the point, Hetty. It's the fight that's important, and the convictions behind it. That's important all right. It was important to people like Gatesby, our Polygon manager, who went to gaol for his share in the industrial riots back in the 'fifties. And to those farm labourers down in Dorset, who were transported for trying to form an agricultural trades union. Everything has to be fought for by somebody. When there's no one around to fight that's the time to watch out, for the men on top will do what they damned well like with all of us. I happen to think Mrs. Pankhurst and her troops are on a wrong tack, strategically that is. There's nothing wrong with what they have in mind and they'll achieve it. In your lifetime, probably." He braced himself. "Listen here, Hetty, will you do something today? To please me rather than them. Will you come up to town with me and be there when I meet them? It would mean a lot to them, but even more to me."

  "Why, Adam?"

  "For a variety of reasons, but one will do. I'd like your company."

  Her expression softened and he knew there was nothing wrong with his strategy. "Very well, since you wish it. How long have I got to get ready?"

  "I want to be there at noon sharp," he said, "so we'll have to hustle."

  * * *

  He had promised her a stir, and possibly a band, but she had never expected anything on this scale. It was like mingling with a crowd awaiting the passage of a royal procession or a Lord Mayor's Show, and it was difficult not to be infected by the air of expectancy and excitement among the crowd. She looked about her with lively interest, leaning out of the cab window when he pointed out Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence, whom she instantly recognised from pictures in the newspapers. They did not look like women whose business was public uproar, who encouraged others to smash windows and commit physical assault on members of the Cabinet; they looked more like the women who attended her croquet parties at Tryst. They were neatly dressed in white and each wore a ribbon across the breast, printed with the slogan "Votes for Women." They looked pleased with themselves, too, she thought, watching them move among the crowd smiling and shaking hands. When she mentioned this to Adam, he said, "They are pleased. So would I be if the Government gave me a thousand pounds' worth of free publicity."

  Then another woman emerged from the ranks of supporters, all of whom were dressed entirely in white as though, for pity's sake, they were on their way to a wedding. The newcomer, young and pretty, wore a kind of apron that draped her from neck to hemline, but it wasn't really an apron. It was a placard, advertising a march and mass meeting, with the information, "The greatest number of free tickets ever issued for a public meeting—You march from Victoria Embankment. Assemble 12.30." And above, in heavier type, the obligatory slogan, "Votes For Women."

  She had no idea until now that so many people were caught up in the business, having thought of it as the preoccupation of a few intellectuals—women like Debbie, and eccentrics like Romayne—yet it was obvious the movement embraced all classes and all ages. Four girls carrying a large welcome banner were obviously shop girls or housemaids, and Henrietta, judging this by the quality of their clothes, wondered how they had found the opportunity to slip away from their work, and what penalties their truancy might involve. Policemen were everywhere, and strangely tolerant, she thought, contenting themselves with keeping the main thoroughfare open.

  And then, just as he had warned, a uniformed band arrived to take its position at the head of a procession that was forming, a dozen or more men with trombones and bassoons, and a police sergeant positioned himself in front, as though he was band-master.

  Then, across the width of the roadway, there was a stir, rippling outwards like a wave, so that it gusted stragglers back to the kerb. Adam said, briefly, "They're out! But I don't know how we're expected to contact them in this jamboree. Giles and Milton might as well have come after all, for they couldn't be identified in a crowd of this size." He struggled out of the cab, then turned to hand her out, saying to the cabbie, "I'll be going on to the Norfolk Hotel as soon as I pick up my passengers. Can you wait round that corner? I'll make it worth your while."

  "I'll do me best, Gov'nor," the man said, and began to edge his way along the road away from the gaol gates. And then the band struck up and the procession began to move, Cockney urchins prancing alongside the ranks and indifferent policemen flanking the column of whiteclad women. She said, as they scanned the moving ranks, "It's more like a celebration. Can you spot either of them?"

  "No," he said, "and it begins to look as if we've travelled up for nothing." But then, wearing darker clothes that singled them out, the dozen or so martyrs began to pass, and she saw both Debbie and Romayne marching in step some fifty yards behind the band.

  They looked wan and tired, and their presence there, jostled in a street procession instead of comfortably settled in a cab, irritated her, so that she left Adam for a moment, struggling ahead of him and catching Deborah's sleeve and shouting above the blare of brass, "Your father has a cab! We're taking you to the Norfolk for luncheon."

  Debbie turned, looking very surprised, but then smiled as she shouted back, "We can't fall out, Auntie! Tell him we'll catch a cab at Headquarters and meet you there. In half-an-hour or so."

  "But how are you, for heaven's sake?"

  "We're fine. But very hungry!" and Romayne, on the far flank, raised her hand in greeting.

  Adam caught her up, very much out of breath.

  "Did you get a word with them?'

  "They're coming over to the Norfolk in about half-an-ho
ur. Is that leg bothering you?"

  "Like the very devil."

  "You're too old for this nonsense and I shall tell them so!" and she piloted him back to the cab, helping him to hoist himself inside and giving the driver instructions to make his way to the Norfolk.

  He was badly winded and done up, she noticed, but he managed to grin, saying, "You know, I believe you're enjoying this, Hetty!"

  "Oh, no I'm not," she snapped, "but it's lucky you insisted I came along. I really don't know what things are coming to… all these people here to meet a batch of women just let out of prison. I do wish I could begin to understand."

  "Ask Debbie," he said, "she'll enlighten you, no doubt." He settled back to regain his breath, and she saw his left hand at work massaging the flesh where the straps chafed his leg.

  Suddenly, and for no reason that she could think of, she wanted to laugh. It really is too absurd, she thought, for he's turned eighty and I'm sixty-eight and here we are driving away from Holloway prison to meet a pair of hot-heads who refuse to grow up. They were far less trouble when they were children, for then either Phoebe or myself were on hand to tell them to mind their manners, and smack their bottoms when they got too tiresome! And really he's no better, but there's more excuse for him, for men never grow up and no woman with her wits about her ever expects them to!

  But she told herself, none the less, that he was right about her enjoying herself, in an odd sort of way, and she had seen Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence in the flesh. That would be something to talk about at her next soiree or garden fete. And it was thinking this that enabled her, in some respects, to come to terms with what she had thought of, until then, as a family scandal. Whatever was going on in the world, you could always be sure that somewhere, in some capacity, a Swann or two would be involved in it, and there was comfort, she supposed, to be derived from that. Most women her age had settled for the lace cap and serenity, but with a family like hers you could put those things right out of mind. She was feeling almost gay when the cab dropped them at the Norfolk and they went in to freshen up and study the menu against the arrival of the gaolbirds.

  It was much later, after the girls (as she still thought of them) had been fed, reclaimed, and taken away by their husbands, when they were preparing for bed that looked very inviting when the lamp was lit and the fire made up, that she said, "That ruby necklace you talked about—it isn't the same really, Adam!"

  "Tell me the difference?"

  "The difference is," she said, "you made sure you weren't caught!" That made him laugh, as she knew it would, and he went on chuckling after the lamp was out and they were abed, watching the shadow play of the flames on the ceiling. It pleased her to score over him in that way once in a while. It proved she wasn't as rooted in the past as it sometimes pleased him to think.

  2

  She had another opportunity to recant when the spring came round, and she was faced with the prospect of marrying the last of her daughters to a man she had not even met until Giles produced him like a rabbit from a conjuror's hat on a sunny morning in early April.

  Giles was now accepted as the family ambassador, an amiable broker for all kinds of delicate missions involving the in-laws and the grandchildren. Everybody took his goodwill and tact for granted, and even the Boer War breach between him and Alex seemed to be healing as evidenced by the fact that both Alex and his wife Lydia were careful not to refer to the embroilment of Debbie and Romayne in that fracas on the doorstep of No. 10 Downing Street.

  He excelled himself on this occasion, appearing in the sewing-room during the Easter recess and saying, mysteriously, "I've got someone I'd very much like you to meet, Mamma. It took a lot of persuasion on my part to get him here, poor chap, but he's here now, out there talking to Father. We ran across Father down by the knoll."

  She was not immediately aware that he was referring to his prospective brotherin-law, Huw Griffiths, but then his sly smile gave her the hint and she said excitedly, "That miner? Are they both here? Is Margaret with you?"

  "No," he said, "I thought it might be easier on both of you if you give him a chance to speak for himself. So did Father. I warned him I was bringing Huw a week ago, but don't scold him. I made him promise he wouldn't say a word to you."

  "It's… it's quite certain, then? The girl has really made up her mind?"

  "They want to be married very soon. As soon as can be arranged." Then, "She was worried about your reactions, especially after that 'think again' letter you wrote her. But at least she didn't get married in Wales, and present you with a fait accompli. They've been engaged for over a year now, ever since he came out of the pits."

  "You're saying he isn't a miner any longer?"

  "Look, Mamma, there's nothing degrading about being a miner, but it so happens Huw isn't. He's my agent, and we pay him five pounds a week and that's riches in the valley."

  "It can't be riches to Margaret. Doesn't she know she's entitled to a share of her grandfather's money?"

  "She knows, but she doesn't want a penny of it. Not now and not ever. She says it would destroy Huw's confidence in himself as a provider."

  "That's a very silly point of view, isn't it?"

  "Not to her. Not to Huw either. They've got a little house near ours at Pontnewydd, and they're perfectly content to leave things as they are. It's their decision."

  It surprised her a little to find Huw Griffiths's determination to take this line. Indeed, it elevated him a little in her estimation, for at least it proved the man was not the fortune-hunter she had assumed him to be. She said, briefly, "Show him in, Giles. We can't keep him on the doorstep."

  "No. Wait a minute, Mamma," he said. "I've got something I'd like to show you first," and he unbuckled the strap of a briefcase he had thrown on the sewing-table, extracting what she recognised as one of Margaret's sketchbooks. "Have a look at these. Particularly the one of Huw Griffiths. He's changed now but I want you to see both versions."

  He opened the sketchbook and thumbed through a number of drawings, mining village scenes apparently, for the pen, brush, and crayons (Margaret had used all three) portrayed serried rows of narrow little dwellings, looming machinery, dark landscapes studded with debris of one kind or another, and here and there the face of a child that reminded her of Spanish children in a picture by a painter called Murillo that Adam regarded as one of the best in his collection.

  "She paints this kind of thing down there?"

  "All the time. She says it's more exciting than painting woods, fields, and flowers, subjects that occupied her before she came to the valley. This is Huw, about the time they first met."

  She studied the picture carefully. It showed her a powerfully-built young man sitting on an upturned wash tub in an unkempt garden, and although she knew herself to be no judge at all of paintings or drawings, she was not proof against the impact this one made upon her. It was one of humour, frankness, and powerful masculinity, all caught, magically to her way of thinking, in the subject's expression, and the set of his shoulders as he turned towards the artist, as though she had called, "This way, Huw! No, not at me, over my shoulder! I'm here but you're only half-aware of it and are looking at something to my right."

  "This is him? This is Huw?" When Giles nodded she said, "Why, it's… it's quite splendid! I mean, I always liked her drawings, even when she was a little thing, but this… why, it might have been done by a real painter!" And at that he laughed and closed the book, returning it to his briefcase.

  "I'm glad you think so, for we all do. And now I'll get in the original, but treat him gently. He's very shy with the ladies."

  And I don't believe that for a moment, she thought as Giles went out, closing the door, and her fingers itched to get at the sketchbook again and take another look. She did not, however, remembering her dignity and the solemnity of the moment, and when Giles returned with the prospective son-in-law in tow she realised that he was shy, despite those merry black eyes and wide smile, one of the widest and wa
rmest, she thought, she had ever seen on a man, especially a man as big and impressive as Huw Griffiths.

  It was his size rather than his shyness that impinged on her, however, for she had always thought of Adam as an exceptionally well-made man, and here was someone who could top him by an inch or more and with shoulders a yard wide. Giles said, acting the impresario with just the right amount of light relief, "Well, here he is, Mamma. Your latest son-in-law, and a wild Welshman down to his bootstraps. Don't let her scare you, Huw, boy. She never did me, for you can talk her round in no time if you set about it the right way!"

  Henrietta said, blushing, "Hush, Giles, for heaven's sake! You'll have Mr. Griffiths thinking me a perfect dragon! Please sit, Mr. Griffiths, and get the sherry from the cupboard, Giles…"

  But Adam, it seemed, had anticipated her and came over with decanter and glasses, saying, with a wink in Giles's direction, "I'm sure Huw could do with a drink today, even if everybody in his part of the world pretends to be a teetotaller."