Sleep in Peace (19 page)

“He ought to be at the Technical College,” she confided to Laura. “He's supposed to be there, learning dyeing. I don't know what Father would say if he knew he was here—or rather, I know only too well.”

Families were really very difficult, corroborated Laura; Gwen for instance, objected to the Municipal Library books. She said
they were fusty, musty old things, torn and dirty and full of germs.

“We
've used them for years with no bad results,” said Grace with her usual calm good sense, lifting her head.

“Yes, I know. But I can hardly tell her
that,”
said Laura.

The girls giggled together, highly entertained by the mutual disdain of their respective relatives. Fortunately, explained Laura, Gwen and Ludo had recently joined a tennis club, and Gwen was so busy with her new acquaintances that Laura and her affairs were spared her usual close attention.

Alas! that very day as Grace and Laura were crossing Prince's Road together, Laura, chancing to look up, suddenly saw Gwen further up the street. She gasped. Could Gwen have seen them?

“What if she has?” said Grace, throwing back her head. “I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of.”

Laura, however, was not so sure.

And indeed Gwen tackled Mr. Armistead on the subject that very night.

“Papa,” she said, “I think Laura, is getting much too friendly with that tiresome Hinchliffe girl.”

Mr. Armistead frowned and rustled his newspaper irritably.

“It's such a pity Laura has to go to that school and mix with all those girls,” sighed Gwen. “Of course, I suppose Grace Hinchliffe is one of the best of them, really.”

“The Hinchliffes are very respectable people,” said Mr. Armistead uneasily. Conflicting notions shot through his mind—the infuriating behaviour of Henry Hinchliffe about the gas-engines—the punctuality of his rent—how handy it would be to send one's finishing next door—the irritating piety—the new brown horse.

“Should I say anything to Laura?” persisted Gwen.

Mr. Armistead sighed. The thought of having to decide whether or not to reject from his daughter's society some good decent little girl, the daughter of a fellow-townsman, once his
partner, a Town Councillor to boot, made him blench. Such a decision, so harsh, so definite, so final, was in fact quite beyond his easy nature.

“Laura seems very bright and happy,” he said in the same uneasy tone. “Better leave it alone.”

Gwen, however, felt that she would like to get to the bottom of the matter, and accordingly went upstairs to the old nursery, where Laura was busy with her home-lessons.

“Was that Grace Hinchliffe you were with this afternoon, Laura?” she demanded sharply.

“Yes,” said Laura.

The colour rushed to her cheeks, and she closed her lips in a firm line. Gwen, who had seen that mulish look on Ludo's face and knew its meaning, was taken aback. She hesitated; the words: “Papa wouldn't like you to go about with a Hinchliffe,” trembled on her lips, but she prudently withheld them. After all, as Papa said, the child looked bright and well. Instead, she said merely:

“Why had you that old blue hat on to your green coat? Really, Laura!”

Laura was silent and made no excuse. When Gwen had left her, she smiled, exulting in a new sense of power—she had defied, and succeeded in her defiance.

That evening Grace asked her mother if she could invite Laura to Cromwell Place. The encounter with Gwen had revealed to Grace her own concealment, which she had not altogether realised before; it was distasteful to her pride; she called on her courage to end the situation, and though her speech became slow and cold almost to the point of, extinction as she enunciated her request, it did not fail her.

“I'll tell you to-morrow morning, Grace,” said the startled Mrs. Hinchliffe.

In the privacy of their bedroom her husband listened gravely to her explanation. Pushing up his moustache, and repressing
rigorously the conflicting thoughts about Alfred Armistead which clamoured in his brain, he said at last: “I should greatly prefer Grace to have chosen another friend. But perhaps,” he added, “it is ordained that we have a duty to that motherless child.”

Next Saturday Laura went to Cromwell Place to tea.

It was an anxious occasion. Before leaving home Laura had a harrowing scene with Gwen, who desired her to wear her new spring Sunday outfit, a very smart affair consisting of a skirt of black and white check serge (of Blackshaw cloth, naturally) upheld by frilled braces of the same, and a white short-sleeved blouse threaded with red ribbon at elbow and throat. This had been copied by Gwen from a picture in a fashion paper, and Laura certainly thought she looked nice in it, but she was convinced that it was entirely the wrong thing to wear at the Hinchliffes' on Saturday afternoon.

“It's too dressed-up, Gwen,” she argued.

“Of course it is,” agreed Gwen impatiently. “But
they
won't know.”

This might be true, reflected Laura, but all the same she revolted from the notion of offering Grace anything but the highest and best conceptions of which she was capable; it would be treason to their friendship, she felt, to wear the smart little dress on a wrong day, merely for the sake of producing an effect.

“You take things so seriously, Laura,” exclaimed Gwen, vexed by the cloud on her sister's face. “I never saw such a serious little thing as you are, never!”

She yielded the point, however, and Laura approached the door of Number Eleven in her usual coat and skirt of indigo serge, with a very clean blouse and a new blue tie which Gwen had knitted for Ludo. Laura pulled out the old-fashioned bell, which clanged alarmingly, and stood waiting in trepidation.

Grace and Mrs. Hinchliffe were sitting in the dining-room. As soon as the bell sounded Grace sprang to her feet and made for the door.

“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Hinchliffe in a low but urgent tone. Grace turned and looked interrogative. “Wait here—let the maid open the door properly,” said Mrs. Hinchliffe.

Grace's fine eyes narrowed in scorn. She gave her mother, however, an exact and literal obedience, waiting beside the closed door while Annie's footsteps tripped along the hall and a murmur of voices told that Laura had gained admission, then springing from the room. Her fair hair bounced with her eagerness; the two friends clutched each other, beaming.

“Mother, this is Laura,” said Grace.

Mrs. Hinchliffe was less unfavourably impressed with Laura than she had expected; the child looked quiet and serious, not frivolous and la-di-da like Mr. Armistead.

“How is your father, Laura?” she asked primly.

Grace winced at Laura's reply that Papa was very well; to hear a girl of fourteen call her father “Papa” seemed to her so childishly silly as to be positively disgusting, and she knew her mother would think the same. But it was not Laura's fault, she reflected, as usual intent on doing everyone every possible justice; she had been brought up that way and could not help it.

“We won't wait for the boys,” said Mrs. Hinchliffe. “Grace, tell Annie to bring tea.”

The table was set for six, and Laura viewed the vacant places with alarm. Mr. Hinchliffe, it appeared, to her great relief, was out at a Sunday School Teachers' Conference, and his return was uncertain; the whereabouts of the boys was not indicated, but they were expected to tea. Sure enough a slight commotion presently arose in the hall as though someone were falling over something, and Frederick, looking hot and hurried, his cheeks very pink and his fair hair falling in an untidy lock over his damp forehead, bounced into the room.

“You're late, Frederick,” said Mrs. Hinchliffe severely. “You see we have a visitor.”

She was about to utter Laura's name when Frederick, that simple soul incapable of deceit, cried: “Hullo, Laura!” with a friendly grin, and wrung her hand. His previous acquaintance with Laura was thus betrayed; Grace and Laura blushed and Mrs. Hinchliffe looked at them all suspiciously. Fortunately just at that moment Edward strolled in coolly; closed the door carefully behind him, and fixed on his sister's guest a penetrating stare from his blue eyes.

“This is Laura Armistead, Edward,” said Grace in her clear high tone.

Edward took Laura's warm little paw in his cold bony hand, without speaking.

“I've been here before, but you won't remember me,” said Laura hastily, confused by his stare, which she mistook for disapproval.

“On the contrary,” said Edward, suddenly smiling in a most friendly fashion, “I remember you very well. You were the innocent cause of my first religious doubts, Laura.”

“I don't like to hear you jest on sacred subjects, Edward,” said Mrs. Hinchliffe in a tone of fond reproof.

“Sorry, Mother,” said Edward, seating himself.

“Religious doubts are no jest,” announced Frederick sententiously.

“Now, Frederick!” Mrs. Hinchliffe warned him.

“Shut up, Frederick,” said Edward.

“Oh, shut up yourself,” replied Frederick wearily.

Grace grinned, and Laura gazed wide-eyed.

After tea Mrs. Hinchliffe left the room, and on Edward's suggestion the four young people drew out a small table and began to play cards. Laura was amazed to find cards permitted in the Hinchliffes' household, and Grace, perceiving her amazement, reflected on the matter, rather surprised herself. When had they
begun to play cards, she wondered? She found that ever since that row on Edward's twenty-first birthday, discipline had slowly relaxed. They now played cards—in the home, though not outside it; family prayers were held on Sunday evenings only; Edward actually smoked, and Frederick was to be allowed to do so when he was twenty-one. Grace resolved to tell Laura about Edward's tearing of his Pledge. But would Laura know what a Pledge was? Grace doubted it.

They played
Slippery Ann, Card Dominoes
, and
Hasty Patience
. In all these games Edward came out top and Frederick bottom, while Grace and Laura revolved between. When these were over it seemed the best of the Hinchliffe repertoire was exhausted; several new games were proposed but rejected with contumely.

“Ludo—my brother—has invented a game,” said Laura. “He made it himself.”

“Really?” exclaimed Edward with interest.

“Tell us, Laura,” urged Grace.

Laura proudly described Ludo's Tariff game. A hush fell upon the Hinchliffes as they listened, and Laura's cheeks began to burn. “Of course it's politics, but it's an interesting game to play,” she said, defiance in her tone, for she was defending Ludo.

“It's well thought out,” pronounced Edward. “But if you win in that game, you starve.”

Laura did not understand this cryptic remark, so made no attempt to counter it; she resented it, however, on Ludo's behalf, and a certain constraint descended on the four. Luckily at this moment Mrs. Hinchliffe came in.

“There's a nice fire in the drawing-room, children,” she said brightly.

“We're very comfortable here, thank you, Mother,” replied Edward.

“You could have the room quite to yourselves,” pursued Mrs. Hinchliffe, taking out her work-basket.

“Oh, we don't mind sitting with you,” joked Edward.

“There's the piano in the other room,” said Mrs. Hinchliffe.

“Why, is Laura yearning to burst into song?” said Edward.

“No, no!” hastily disclaimed Laura, shrinking.

They all laughed, and Edward began to urge his mother to play cards with them.

“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Hinchliffe, laying her hand on the back of his chair, “I should like you to go into the drawing-room, because your father has just sent in word that he's bringing one of the superintendents home with him to discuss a new organisation scheme, and of course they'll want the big table for their papers.”

Without a word the four gathered up cards and table and withdrew. From sheer sympathy Laura avoided the Hinchliffes' eyes; she understood well the humiliation they were experiencing, and would not for the world have added to it by word or glance.

They arranged the table by the newly-lit fire, and Frederick began to deal out the cards in a jerky, vehement manner.

“What are we playing?” enquired Grace, but nobody answered her.

“The trouble with the previous generation,” burst out Edward suddenly, “is that they are incapable of candour.” He was very pale; Laura, throwing! him a swift glance, judged that he was very fond of his mother and therefore so much the more ashamed of her behaviour.

“Why do they insult us with these childish pretences?” cried Frederick in a passion.

“Yes, why couldn't she have said at once, simply, that Charles needed the room?” demanded Grace.

“Well, we mustn't wash our household linen in front of Laura,” concluded Edward, with a wry smile.

“Oh, mine's just the same!” cried Laura. “Just, I assure you!”

She spoke with such intense conviction that Edward and Frederick looked at her with interest and Grace felt proud of her. In spite of all Laura's obvious disadvantages of birth and upbringing,
thought all three Hinchliffes, it was clear that she was a free spirit, worthy of association with themselves; as such they accepted her permanently.

And Laura felt that she was indeed a free spirit, soaring aloft in a brave new world—a world where it was
admitted openly
that persons in authority, such as parents and elder sisters, were often horribly hypocritical, that hypocrisy was vulgar, that all that sort of thing would be changed when they themselves grew up and had the upper hand. It was also a world, thought Laura with glee, where people called their father Charles.

“Let's sing,” suggested Frederick. “I want something to take the taste of that out of my mouth.”

“We can't sing if Father has a superintendent talking business,” objected Edward irritably.