Читать книгу Both Your Houses - Philip Gibbs - Страница 5

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Stephen Inchbold, M.P., was glad of the walk, however late, from Westminster to Battersea Park across the bridge to his flat in Overstrand Mansions—unless it was pouring with rain when he took a taxi and grudged the expense. It was refreshing after the fuggy air in the House of Commons, especially after a late debate. There had been a late debate—up to midnight—that day when he had been asked twice whether he had a relative on the Allied Control out in Germany. That coincidence came into his mind as he walked home, though he hadn’t thought about it since.

He hoped his boy hadn’t done anything scandalous. Why should Lord Bramley make such an enquiry, and young Christopher Harington, that red-headed squib on the Conservative back benches? He was always a bit anxious about Julian, and he had been troubled lately because of the boy’s repeated requests for cigarettes which undoubtedly he used for barter in Germany. In his last letter he wrote that he wanted a thousand sent out through the Army and Navy Stores. It didn’t seem right to his father. It was unfair on the civilians at home who were going short. It was some kind of a racket which might lead to trouble.

Steenie Inchbold gave a heavy sigh as he crossed the bridge to Battersea Park.

His boy Julian had never been quite straight. He jeered at his father’s moral principles and since he had become an officer, mixing with that class, he had been ashamed of his own family. On his last leave he had been home only once and then to ask for money. He had been staying with smart friends in their country houses. Never once had he brought any of them to see his parents—ashamed of their accent no doubt, ashamed of his mother who had been a factory girl—God bless her—and made no pretence about her hard-working life in Rugby before her man had become a Trade Union leader. Julian had announced himself as a Conservative and had been critical about the Labour Government and its political programme. It didn’t come well from the son of a Labour M.P. There was such a thing as family loyalty. There was also such a thing as gratitude for parental indulgence and generosity—too much of it and too often. They had been weak with the boy. They had spoilt him.

These thoughts nagged in Inchbold’s mind when he paced slowly up the stone stairs to his flat on the third floor.

Light footsteps, travelling faster, caught him up.

“Hullo, Dad! Just back from the House?”

It was his daughter Marjorie who grabbed his despatch case and carried it for him up the remaining stairs.

She was a student at the London School of Economics. He wished she wouldn’t smear her mouth with lipstick. She was getting alarmingly pretty. She was getting alarmingly out of hand.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “What have you been doing, you puss? Home at midnight? I don’t approve of that for girls of your age.”

“Oh, I’ve been having a great time, Dad. A crowd of us went to one of Mosley’s meetings and broke it up. Most exciting!”

“I don’t like it,” said Stephen Inchbold, gravely. “Girls of nineteen shouldn’t run wild in the streets at this time of night. It’s all wrong. It worries your mother, it worries me.”

“Oh, we can take care of ourselves, Dad! Don’t be so old-fashioned. And hurry up with that latchkey. I’m dying for a hot drink and something to fill up the hole in my tummy.”

“You’re out of hand,” said Inchbold. “You’re running wild.”

He opened the door of his flat and greeted his wife who came into the hall. She always waited up for him however late he was. She always had the kettle boiling to make him a cup of cocoa, as she had done all through their married life, mostly with uncertain hours due to night shifts and day shifts. She must have been pretty as a factory girl. She still had a beautiful colour. She had given her good looks to Julian and Marjorie.

“Sorry I’m so late, Mother. A long debate on Foreign Affairs.”

“I listened to a report of it on the wireless, dearie. Good gracious, there’s Marjorie at last. I’ve been worrying myself sick about the child.”

“How silly of you, Mum!” cried Marjorie. “I told you I’d be late.”

“Not as late as this. It’s disgraceful, it really is. My dad would have thrashed me with his belt if I had come back at midnight.”

“Oh, your dad was a devil, Mum,” answered Marjorie carelessly. “One of the old-fashioned tyrants. Gosh, I’m hungry. What about eats? I’ll raid the larder.”

She flitted away while Stephen Inchbold was helped out of his greatcoat by the little woman with the complexion of a rose whom he called ‘Mother’.

“You’re looking tired, dearie,” she told him. “You’ll have a break-down one day if you go on like this. It’s all those committee meetings and conferences.”

“One has to do one’s job,” he answered. “And it’s worth doing.” He gave a quiet laugh in which there was a note of pride.

“Will you be surprised, Mother, if you’re the wife of a Cabinet Minister one of these fine days?”

“Oh, dearie!” exclaimed Mrs. Inchbold, without any joy in her voice. “I couldn’t live up to it. I wish I was back in our little old house in Rugby when we were homely folk like our neighbours.”

Inchbold ignored this lament.

“The P.M. sent for me today,” he said. “He was very kind and generous, I must say. ‘Steenie,’ he said, ‘you’ve been doing fine work on the committees, especially with the Transport Bill. I’d like to find a place for you in the Government one day. As a back-bencher you’ve earned the respect of everybody—even the Opposition, and that broadcast you made the other night on Pride of Work was very moving. First class, Inchbold. The sort of stuff we want. Inspiring!’ ”

Inchbold quoted these words as though he had learnt them by heart. He had learnt them by heart. That half-promise of finding him a place in the Government had not been said idly. A Cabinet Minister? That would be the high reward for all his toil, his loyalty to Labour, his Trade Union leadership.

Mrs. Inchbold had something else on her mind. It seemed to her more important than her husband’s political career.

“Dad! There’s a letter from Julian. He’s going to get married.”

Inchbold raised his eyebrows, his spiky eyebrows, and laughed uneasily.

“That’s likely to cost me a bit of money. Who’s the girl? Some German wench?”

“No,” said his wife, with distress in her voice. “I’d rather it was. It would be more in our style. It quite takes my breath away. She’s the daughter of a lord.”

“What lord?” asked Inchbold, sharply. “You must have got it wrong, Mother. It’s absurd.”

“That’s what he writes, as plain as plain. Pamela Faraday, the daughter of Lord Bramley. Did you ever hear anything like it, dearie. It makes me go hot and cold.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Inchbold. “Bramley? That’s why he asked me that question today. The daughter of Lord Bramley and our Julian? No, it’s impossible! It’s incredible! It’s daft!”

“He wants me to send him some more cigarettes,” said Mrs. Inchbold. “He’s up to his usual tricks, I suppose. I just can’t believe it about the lord’s daughter. It’s silly. Dad, you mustn’t let him make a fool of us like that.”

Marjorie came back from the kitchen with a cry of woe.

“Not a darned thing in the larder!” she cried. “Nothing but a mouldy piece of cheese and some stale bread. Oh, my gizzard, oh, my guts! Pa, have you any pull with the Ministry of Food?”

She put a hand on her stomach and groaned horribly.

“I’ll open a tin of soup for you, dearie,” said Mrs. Inchbold. “I tried to get some cakes this morning but I was at the end of the queue and they were all gone when I reached the counter.”

“Poor old Ma!” exclaimed Marjorie sympathetically. “Why don’t you do a bit on the Black Market?”

Inchbold smiled at this outrageous daughter who had gone wild lately but still held a sure place in his heart.

“Marjorie,” he said, “your brother Julian is going to marry the daughter of a lord. How do you feel about it? Will it weaken your democratic convictions as taught by the London School of Economics, or will you join the snobs and the bloated aristocracy?”

“Gosh!” cried Marjorie. “The Inchbolds are going up in the world.”

Then she gave a hoot of laughter.

“Just like Julian! One of our social climbers. Ashamed of his own family. Snob of snobs. I’m sorry for the girl.”

“You’ve said it,” answered her father gravely.

Mrs. Inchbold put up a defence for Julian, her only son, whose neglect of her lately was a secret grief.

“You’re both very unkind to the poor boy. In spite of all his faults he has a heart of gold, as I’ve always told you.”

“Sorry, Mother!” said Inchbold, mildly. “I know Julian twists you round his little finger. What about that cup of cocoa?”

He winked at Marjorie when Mrs. Inchbold went into the little kitchen.

“Your mother dotes on that boy,” he said in a low voice.

“He’s a spiv,” said Marjorie.

“What exactly is a spiv?” asked her father. “They’ve been throwing that word about lately in the House.”

Marjorie’s definition was not favourable to that type of humanity.