Читать книгу To-morrow and To-morrow - Stephen McKenna - Страница 7

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No one wanted to speak first. No one wanted to move. No one cared to look any one else in the eyes. Lady Crawleigh, I think, was the first to recover; and she was slipping out of the room, with a twisted smile, when Raymond put his back to the door and took the position in hand with a general invitation to lunch with him at the Carlton.

“No speeches or ‘celebrations’,” he promised. “If you’ll fight your way there as best you can, I’ll telephone for a table.”

With the exception of Violet, we were glad to have our minds made up for us. Bertrand was right: we none of us knew what to do next. The movements of the crowd had become rhythmical by the time that we set out. Every cab and bus was loaded with excited clusters of men and women who seemed ready to do anything but remain still. Boys with paper caps and empty tins marched aimlessly at the head of irregular battalions; overwrought girls and grave grey-beards tramped with arms linked, sublimely unselfconscious. The streets were carpeted with torn paper. An indistinguishable hum of voices floated over and about us, still seeming—as before—to come from our next neighbour but one; and on every face was written vague relief, vague good-will, dawning disappointment and vast perplexity.

“ ‘They order this matter, I said, better in France’,” quoted Raymond, as we drifted slowly through the crowd to kill time before luncheon. “The English don’t know how to express their emotions.”

“They haven’t had much time yet to think what their emotions are,” I reminded him. “What’s the next stage? Babs and I are going off to the Riviera as soon as we can. But after that?”

“My work will go on,” Raymond murmured with a rueful glance down Pall Mall. We were within sight of the unwieldy mansion from whose roof young Deryk Lancing fell or flung himself on the eve of the war. The estate, I believe, was valued at about twenty-five million pounds sterling; and a freakish will had laid upon Raymond’s shoulders the task of distributing a fortune which Deryk himself could not control nor keep from increasing. “You can come and help me, if you like, George.”

“Thanks, I’ve done the last day’s work of my life,” I answered; “but I’ve lived so long at other people’s orders that I’ve forgotten how to take a holiday.”

The rest of our party was awaiting us by the door of the restaurant; and throughout the meal we talked, for talking’s sake, of the fourteen points and the probable terms of peace. Though we had all accepted Raymond’s invitation with relief, we were more sincerely relieved when luncheon came to an end. We wanted to think; and, when I had written a formal request for immediate demobilization, I took Barbara home. The streets were emptying as the silent crowds began to feel that they could not for ever tramp to and fro or steal aimless rides. Hunger was driving them in search of food; and the sunless November afternoon, already touched with frost, was mottling their white faces and chapped hands.

“I feel ... dazed,” Barbara signed, as we got into a taxi with her parents.

“We all do,” answered Lady Crawleigh.

As we drove away, I watched our party scattering. From their silence I judged the Crawleighs were trying to realize that their two elder boys were safe at last; the Daintons, walking close together with bent heads, were no doubt thinking of the son who would not return. As my uncle’s big, lonely figure disappeared from sight, I fancied that he might indeed be feeling he had lived too long. William the Fourth had completed half his reign when Bertrand was born: a man who had survived the nineteenth century, the Victorian era and the greatest war in history might well shrink aghast from the unknown future.