Читать книгу Sackcloth into Silk - Warwick Deeping - Страница 20

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The secret brotherhood to which Augustus belonged was attempting to approach soldiers who were on leave, and to preach pacifism to these poor sheep whom a financial clique were sending to the shambles. The weaker sort of man fresh from the horror of the Somme might be susceptible to these seductive and sympathetic voices, but not always so. Tell a man that his courage is just stupidity, and that he is being exploited in hell that the rich man may remain in heaven, and he may turn in exasperation and rend the ingenious friend. Augustus had had some success with the tired and the disillusioned, but happening one day upon two Australian soldiers sitting on a seat in the park, Augustus approached them. The colonials looked sour and bored. It was the day after a debauch, but Augustus believed that he saw upon those fierce brown faces disgust with this world of false heroism and of humbug.

The Australians listened, eyeing him like two fierce birds.

Said one, stretching his legs—“Are you being funny, you bit of chewed string?”

No; Augustus was not being funny. He was seriously assuring these two that the war was a monstrosity in the way of propertied humbug, and that the poor silly sheep——

“Hell!”

One of those lounging figures uncoiled itself like a spring. Its blue eyes blazed in a brown face.

“Stinking fish, you bit of chalk and cheese.—Say that interesting thing again, will you?”

Augustus said it—though he did not quite like the look of the weather. And then the man from Australia smote him.

“You foul, festering fœtus.”

Augustus rolled on the ground. He was kicked by angry feet, but the Australians let it go at that. They did not take defeatism by the collar and pass it on to the police. Augustus returned to his wife with a disfigured face and dirty clothes. He bore the stigmata of his martyrdom.

Emily was furious.

“Who did this to you?”

Augustus mentioned Australia.

“The savages,” said Emily—“that’s what they are, savages, raping and bullying all round the town, taking girls out in taxis and——”

Augustus was exploring a loose tooth with the tip of a finger.

“Don’t you worry, my dear. Our turn’s coming.”

Had Rebecca heard of this affair it might have caused her to feel both fear and a passing satisfaction. Karl’s mother, consumed by a secret suspense, was spending herself on business. She had both big hands deep in it, clutching it by the handful. The thing had become a kind of inspired mania with her. Clothes, clothes, new clothes for a changing community. She wanted to sweep Karl into the spate of her new enterprise, involve him in it,—submerge him in it. She wanted to assure Karl, herself, and the world that she could not carry on without the support of her beloved.

Rebecca had done business with a certain Mr. Isenstein, who, though Rebecca had married a Gentile, did not exclude her from the chosen community. Mr. Isenstein liked Rebecca, not only because she paid for what she purchased, but because she was one of the few women he had dealt with who did not attempt to elude their responsibilities by parading their widowhood or lifting a petticoat. Mr. Isenstein had been prospering. He had seen a sign in the heavens and rented a warehouse in Aldersgate Street.

“Fur, my dear. There is going to be money in fur.”

Rebecca had had her flair. Were not the young women suddenly in funds and freedom, and eager to express their zeit geist? Mr. Isenstein could supply her with the goods. She interviewed her bank manager, cleared one window of her shop and put up a notice—“Next Week Will Be Fur Week.”

Mr. Isenstein was scouring the country, for the humble coney had become more significant as a provider of fur than of food. There could not be too much coney. The dressers of fur were to work overtime. Rabbit pelts were to be transfigured and to assist in the new sex swagger. Lapin became lapin seal, lapin mink, lapin mole, lapin sable. The little brown beast with the white scut was to achieve social success.

A trade van from Mr. Isenstein’s warehouse had unloaded Rebecca’s wholesale stock. She had her tickets ready. She had agreed with Mr. Isenstein that the first prices should be tentative; she would begin with a few bargains, tempt the public, and then raise her prices should the first consignment sell well.

“I want you to help dress the window, Karl.”

“Charles, mother.”

The correction depressed her. He was insisting on the Charles, and Rebecca feared any omen.

“I can’t get on without you, my dear. The show opens to-morrow.”

The shop blinds were down and the gas lit, and mother and son became busy in the shop. The parlour was full of trade cases. They were piled along the passage, leaving Karl just room to squeeze through. The gangway was too narrow for his mother to negotiate it.

“I want that box, Karl. Two sables in it.”

Karl smiled at his mother, though he was not confronting life as a humorous affair. His youth was out in the wilderness in secret anguish. Would his mother ever think of him as Charles? He went out into the passage, extracted a box, and carried it into the shop.

“Unpack it,” said his mother.

He lifted out the fur coats, and as he did so he was conscious of his hands. Soft flesh and fur? They were clean hands, though there was an ink stain on one finger. Ink! The hands of a scribbler and a handler of furs, and the hands of the world were bloody. Hands were holding rifles, throwing bombs, slipping shells into guns. He would be eighteen in a month. And he was helping a woman to display fur coats to tempt other women and girls.

Karl’s face was overcast.

The window had been supplied with six wooden stands upon which six special coats were to be displayed. The staging was none too solid, not sufficiently solid to bear Rebecca’s bulk. It became Karl’s business to climb up there behind the drawn blinds and, with his head in a stuffy, gas-poisoned atmosphere, arrange those coats.

His mother handed them to him. She might be conscious of her beloved’s moody face, but she would not remark upon it. She was busy and cheerful.

“Put the sable in the middle, Charles.”

“Why not call it rabbit?”

His mother laughed.

“Don’t you look good business in the mouth, my dear. As if everybody didn’t know? Life’s just a game of bluff. Now, two seals, one in each corner.”

“Who is going to buy these things?”

She ignored the question.

“One can do one’s bit by keeping people cheerful. A little more that way, my dear.”

When the window was dressed to her satisfaction she told Karl to pull up the blind, and going out by way of the shop door, she stood on the pavement and appraised the show. It was half-past ten at night, and raining, and Rebecca was alone with her display. But the picture needed background, a coloured sheet to show off those six models.—But what was her beloved doing? He was fingering the sleeve of the lapin sable in the centre of the stage; she saw him drop the sleeve almost like someone saying good-bye and dropping a hand. His back was turned to her.

That little gesture seemed prophetic. Rebecca went back into the shop, like a woman concealing a secret fear.

“It looks splendid, my dear. But it wants a back-drop.”

“Yes, mother.”

She saw him smile at her stage fancy, but he did not look at her, and after that one glance she was afraid to look at him.