Changing Winds Part 85

"You're going to join?... That's awf'lly decent of you, Quinny!"

"Decent! Why? It isn't any more decent than your joining is!"

"P'raps not, but I always think it's very decent of an Irishman to fight for England. If there doesn't seem any chance of my getting in to-day, I'll come back to tea. There's a fellow here says this is the second day he's been waiting!"

Henry went away. He walked along the Embankment towards Blackfriars, and when he had reached the Temple, he turned up one of the steep streets that link the Embankment to Fleet Street.

"I'll go and see Delap," he said to himself.

Delap was the editor of a weekly paper for which Henry had sometimes written articles. Delap, however, was not at the office, but Bundy, the manager of the paper, who was also the financier, was there.

"It's all up with us," said Bundy. "We're closing down next week!"

"Closing down!"

"Yes. We're bust. d.a.m.n it, we're getting on splendidly, too. Just turning the corner! We should have had a magnificent autumn if it hadn't been for this...."

He came away from Bundy, and walked aimlessly down Fleet Street. "Lots of other people would have had a fine autumn if it hadn't been for this," he thought to himself, and then he saw Leadenham and Crowborough, who worked on the _Cottenham Guardian_. They were very pale and tired-looking.

"Hilloa!" he said, slapping Leadenham on the back.

Leadenham jumped ... startled! "Oh, it's you," he said, smiling weakly.

"Yes. What's up? You look frightened!" He turned to greet Crowborough.

"Well, we're all rather jiggered by this," Leadenham replied. "We're going to get something to eat. Come with us?"

They went into a tea-shop and sat down. "Is the _Guardian_ all right?"

Henry asked.

"Oh, yes," said Leadenham wearily, "as right as anything is. n.o.body in Fleet Street knows how long his job'll last. Half the men on the _Daily Circle_ have had the sack. Some of our chaps have gone! Fleet Street's full of men looking for jobs. About fifty papers have smashed up since the thing began ... sporting papers mostly. It frightens you, this sort of thing!..."

He came away from Fleet Street as quickly as possible. The nervous, hectic state of the journalists made him feel nervous too.

"I'd better get among less jumpy people," he said to himself, and he hurried towards Charing Cross. And there he met Jimphy. He did not recognise him at first, for Jimphy was in khaki, and he would have pa.s.sed on without seeing him, had Jimphy not caught hold of his arm and stopped him.

"Cutting a chap, d.a.m.n you!" said Jimphy....

"Good Lord, I didn't know you!"

"Thought you didn't. Where you going?"

"Oh, nowhere. Just loafing about. Gilbert's down at Scotland Yard trying to enlist."

"Is he, begad? Everybody seems to be trying to enlist. He'd much better try to get a commission. I'm going home now. You come with me, Quinny.

Hi, hi!..." He hailed a taxi-cab, and, without waiting to hear what Henry had to say, bundled him into it.

"Lord," he exclaimed, as he leant back in the cab, "it's years an' years an' years since I saw you. Well, what do you think of this for a bally war, eh? Millions of 'em ... all smackin' each other. I'm going out soon!" He leant out of the window and shouted at the driver, "Hi, you chap, hurry up, will you!

"I don't seem able to get anywhere quick enough nowadays," he said as he sat back again in his seat. "You know," he went on, "we've never been to the Empire yet, you an' me. d.a.m.ned if we have! Never mind! We'll go when the War's over!"

7

There were half a dozen women in the drawing-room with Cecily when Henry and Jimphy entered it. In addition to the women, there were a photographer and Boltt. The photographer had finished his work and was preparing to depart, and Boltt was talking in his nice little clipped voice about the working-cla.s.s. It appeared that the working-cla.s.s had not realised the seriousness of the situation. The other cla.s.ses had been quick to understand and to offer themselves, but the working-cla.s.s.... No! Oo, noo! Boltt had written an article in the _Evening Gazette_ full of gentle reproach to the working-cla.s.s, but without effect. The working-cla.s.s had taken no notice. "Democracy, dear ladies," said Boltt, with a downward motion of his fingers. "Democracy!"

A newspaper, a Labour newspaper, had been rather rude to Boltt. It had put some intimate, he might say, impertinent, questions to Boltt, but Boltt had borne this impertinent inquisition with fort.i.tude. He had not made any answer to it....

"Hilloa, Paddy!" Lady Cecily called across the room to Henry. "Aren't you at the war?"

"Well, no, I only got to London...."

"Oh, but everybody's going. Jimphy and everybody! Except Mr. Boltt, of course. He's unfit or something. Aren't you, Mr. Boltt?"

"Ah, if I were only a young man again, Lady Cecily!..."

"But he's writing to the papers, and that's something, isn't it?" Cecily interrupted. "And I'm making mittens for the soldiers. We're all making mittens. Except Mr. Boltt, of course."

"Who was the johnny who's just gone out?" Jimphy demanded. "Was he the chap who sells the stuff you make the mittens out of?..."

"Oh, no, Jimphy, he was a photographer. We're all to have our photographs in the _Daily Reflexion_...."

"Except Mr. Boltt?" Henry asked maliciously.

"No, Mr. Boltt's to be in it too. Holding wool. I've been photographed in three different positions ... beginning to knit a mitten, half-way through a mitten, and finishing a mitten. I was rather anxious to be taken with a pile of socks, but I can't knit socks!..."

"You can't knit mittens either," said Jimphy.

It appeared that Lady Cecily's maid was allowed to undo her mistress's false st.i.tches and finish the mittens properly....

"Well, of course, I'm not really a knitter," Cecily admitted, "but I feel I must do something for the country. I've a good mind to take up nursing. I met Jenny Customs this morning, and she says it's quite easy, and the uniform is rather nice...."

"But don't you require to be trained?" Henry asked dubiously.

"Oh, yes, if you're a professional. But I'm not. I'm doing it for the country. Jenny Customs went to a First Aid Cla.s.s, and learnt quite a lot about bandaging. She can change sheets while the patient is in bed, and she says he can scarcely tell that she's doing it. I should love to be able to do that. She told me a lot of things, and I really know the first lesson already. I can shake a bottle of medicine the proper way!..."

"Can't we have tea or something?" said Jimphy. "Oh, by the way, Cecily, Quinn says that chap Gilbert Farlow's hanging about Scotland Yard...."

"Goodness me, what for?" Cecily demanded in a startled voice. "He hasn't done anything, has he?"

"No, of course he hasn't. He's trying to enlist!"

"Enlist!" she said.

"Yes. Silly a.s.s not to ask for a commission!" said Jimphy.

Boltt burbled about the priceless privilege of youth. If only he were a youngster once again!...

They drank their tea, while Jimphy discoursed on the war. Henry had entered Cecily's house with a feeling of alarm, wondering whether she would be friendly to him, wondering whether he would be able to look into her eyes and not care ... and now he knew that he did not care.

There was something incredibly unfeeling and trivial about Cecily, something ... vulgar. While the world was still reeling from the shock of the War, she was arranging to be photographed with mittens that she had not made and could not make. The portrait would be reproduced in the _Daily Reflexion_ under the t.i.tle of "Lady Cecily Jayne Does Her Bit."