Black August (2 page)

‘Things are pretty bad, aren't they?'

‘Bad?' Ann's dark eyebrows lifted, wrinkling her broad forehead, ‘they couldn't be much worse!'

‘I don't know,' he said thoughtfully, ‘I'm afraid they
are
going to be before we're very much older. This American business …

‘Oh, I'm sick to death of America! The whole of my young life the papers have been crammed with what America is going to do—and what America hasn't done—and what the jolly old Empire is going to do if America doesn't!'

‘Yes, that's true. Still, this embargo is going to be the very devil; it looks like the last straw to me.'

‘I don't know; if we took a leaf out of their book and stopped lending money to bankrupt countries, things might improve a lot.'

‘Ah, that's just the trouble. England isn't self-supporting, and if we can't keep our trade with the outside world—we're done.'

‘I wonder? Germany is sticking to her moratorium, and so is Spain. People are dying by the thousand every day in Central Europe!—they can't buy bread, let alone the things
we
are making, and the Balkans are in such a mess that the papers say we have even refused to supply them with any more munitions to carry on their stupid war. So what
is
the good of all this commercial nonsense if there are no customers left who can pay for what they buy?'

‘There is still the Empire—the Argentine—Scandinavia—Belgium, Holland, Italy—lots of places.'

She frowned. They say the Italian state ration just isn't enough to live on.'

‘I know, but Mussolini laid the foundations of the new Italy so well that they will pull through somehow. He is one of the few who will survive when the history of this century comes to be written.'

‘
And
Lenin.'

He laughed. ‘Lenin, eh?—you know, you don't look like a Bolshevik.'

‘Don't I?' she smiled mischievously, ‘and what do Bolsheviks look like? Are you one of those people who imagine that they all have straggly hair and dirty finger nails?'

‘No—not exactly—' he wavered, ‘still …'

‘Well, as it happens I'm a Marxist, and I think Lenin was a greater man than Mussolini.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, really,' she mocked: the set of her square chin with its little pointed centre showed an unusual obstinacy in her otherwise essentially feminine face.

Kenyon Wensleadale smoothed back his auburn hair and made a wry grimace. ‘Anyhow, Lenin made a pretty hopeless mess,' he countered. ‘Things were bad enough in Russia when they were running their last Five Year Plan, but since that broke down it has been absolute chaos.'

Things would have been different if Lenin had lived.'

‘I doubt it—though they might have taken a turn for the better if the Counter-revolution had come off two years ago.'

‘Thanks.' Ann took a cigarette from the case he held out. ‘I wonder what's happening there now?'

‘When the Ogpu had butchered the remnant of the intelligentsia, they must have gone home to starve with the rest of the population, I imagine, and the whole country is gradually sinking back into a state of barbarism. The fact that their wireless stations have been silent for the last six months tells its own story.'

‘I think that the way the capitalist countries strangled young Russia at its birth is tragic, but perhaps it would be best now if the Japs did take over the wreck.'

He shook his head impatiently. ‘Japan's far too powerful already with the whole of the Pacific seaboard in her hands from Kamchatka to Malaya. The new Eastern Empire would be the biggest in the world if they were allowed to dominate Russia as well.'

Ann gave a sudden chuckle of laughter. ‘Ha! ha!—afraid of the old Yellow Peril bogey, eh?' With a little jerk she drew her feet up under her and leaned forward—a small, challenging figure, framed in the corner of the compartment.

‘Yes,' said Kenyon. But he was not thinking of the Yellow Peril—he was studying her face. The broad forehead, the small straight nose, the rather wide mouth, tilted at the corners as if its owner constantly enjoyed the joke of life—and her eyes, what colour were they—not green or brown, but something of both in their dark background, flecked over with a thousand tiny points of tawny light. They were very lovely eyes, and they were something more—they were merry, laughing eyes.

She looked down suddenly, and the curve of her long dark lashes hid them for a moment as she went on. ‘Well, who's going to stop the Japs?—we can't anyway.'

‘No, but it's pretty grim, isn't it?—the whole thing I mean. The world seems to have gone stark, staring crazy. Ever since the end of the 1920's we've had nothing but crashes, and revolutions and wars and dictatorships. God alone knows where it is all going to end.'

‘International Socialism,' said Ann firmly, ‘that's the only hope, but ever since I've been old enough to have any fun some sort
of gloom has been hanging over the country. Half the people I know are living on somebody else because their firm has gone broke or their investments don't pay. I'm sick of the whole thing—so for goodness' sake let's talk of something else.'

‘Sorry,' he smiled, ‘one gets so into the habit of speculating as to what sort of trouble is coming to us next! Do you live in Suffolk?'

‘No, London—got to because of my job.'

‘Whereabouts?'

‘Gloucester Road.'

‘That's South Kensington, isn't it?'

‘Yes, it's very handy for the tubes and buses.'

‘Have you got a flat there?'

‘A flat!' Ann's mouth twitched with amusement. ‘Gracious, no! I couldn't afford it. Just a room, that's all.'

‘In a hotel?'

‘No, I loathe those beastly boarding-houses. This is over a shop. There are five of us; a married couple, a journalist, another girl and myself. It is run by an ex-service man whose wife left him the house. We all share a sitting-room, and there's a communal kitchen on the top floor. It is a funny spot, but it is cheap and there are no restrictions, so it suits me. Where do you live?'

‘With my father, in the West End.'

‘And what do you do?'

‘Well, I'm a Government servant of sorts, at least I hope to be in a few weeks' time—if I get the job I'm after.'

‘I wonder how you'll like being cooped up in an office all day? You don't look that sort of man.'

‘Fortunately I shan't have to be—a good part of my work will be in Suffolk. Do you come down to Orford often?'

She shook her dark curly head. ‘No, only for holidays. You see, I like to dress as nicely as I can, and even that's not easy on my screw—so it's Orford with Uncle Timothy or nothing!'

Kenyon smiled. He liked the candid way in which she told him about herself. ‘What is Uncle Timothy like?' he inquired.

‘A parson—and pompous!' the golden eyes twinkled. ‘He's not a bad old thing, really, but terribly wrapped up in the local gentry.'

‘Do you see a lot of them?'

‘No, and I don't want to!'

‘Why the hate—they're probably quite a nice crowd.'

‘Oh, I've nothing against them, but I find my own friends more intelligent and more amusing—besides the women try to patronise me, which I loathe.'

He laughed suddenly. ‘The truth is you're an inverted snob!'

‘Perhaps,' she agreed, with a quick lowering of her eyelids, the thick dark lashes spreading like fans on her cheeks; ‘but they seem such a stupid, vapid lot—yet because of their position they still run everything; so as I'm inclined to be intolerant, it is wisest that I should keep away from their jamborees.'

Kenyon nodded. ‘If you really are such a firebrand you're probably right, but you mustn't blame poor old Uncle Timothy if he fusses over them a bit. After all, the landowners have meant bread-and-butter to the local parson in England for generations, so it is only part of his job.'

‘Church and State hang together, eh?'

‘Now that's quite enough of that,' he said promptly, ‘or we'll be getting on to religion, and that's a thousand times worse than politics.'

‘Are you—er—religious?' she asked with sudden seriousness.

‘No, not noticeably so—but I respect other people who are—whatever their creed.'

‘So do I,' her big eyes shone with merriment, ‘if they leave me alone. As I earn my own living I consider that I'm entitled to my Sunday mornings in bed!'

‘How does that go in Gloucester Road?'

‘Perfectly—as we all have to make our own beds!—that, to my mind, is one of the beauties of the place.'

‘What—making your own bed?'

‘Idiot!—of course not, but being able to stop in it without any fuss and nonsense.'

‘Yes,' he said thoughtfully, ‘you're right there—rich people miss a lot of fun, they have to get up because of the servants!'

The train rumbled to a halt in the little wayside station of Elmswell. The carriage door was flung open, and an unusual figure stumbled in. Kenyon drew up his long legs with a barely concealed frown, but he caught the suggestion of a wink from Ann and looked again at the new-comer.

He was very short, very bony, his skinny legs protruded comically from a pair of khaki shorts and ended in a pair of enormous, untanned leather boots. He carried the usual hiker's pack and
staff, and a small, well-thumbed book which he proceeded at once to read. The close print and limp black leather binding of the book suggested some religious manual. Its owner was of uncertain age, his face pink and hairless, his head completely bald except for a short fringe of ginger curls above his ears.

As the train moved on again Kenyon turned back to Ann. ‘What were we talking about?—getting up in the morning, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, and how rottenly the world is organised!'

‘I know, it's absurd to think that half the nicest people in it have to slave away at some beastly job for the best years of their lives when they might be enjoying themselves in so many lovely places.'

‘Would you do that if you had lots of money?'

‘I might….'

‘Then I think you would be wrong.' The tawny eyes were very earnest. ‘I'd love it for a holiday, but everybody ought to work at some job or other, and if the rich people spent less of their time lazing about and gave more thought to the welfare of their countries the world might not be in such a ghastly state.'

‘Lots of them do work,' he protested, ‘what about the fellows who go into the Diplomatic—sit on Commissions—enter Parliament, and all that sort of thing?'

‘Parliament!' Ann gurgled with laughter. ‘You don't seriously believe in that antiquated collection of fools and opportunists, do you?'

‘Well, as a matter of fact I do. A few wrong 'uns may get in here and there, but it is only the United British Party which is holding the country together. If it hadn't been for them we should have gone under in the last crisis.'

‘United British Claptrap!' she retorted hotly, ‘the same old gang under a new name—that's all.'

‘Well, you've got to have leaders of experience, and there are plenty of young men in the party.'

‘Yes, but the wrong kind of young man. Look at this Marquis of Fane who's standing in the by-election for mid-Suffolk.'

‘Lord Fane?—yes, well, what about him?'

‘Well, what can a Duke's son know about imports and taxation? Huntin' and shootin' and
gels
with an “e” and
gof
without an “I” are about the extent of his experience I should think.
It is criminal that he should be allowed to stand; Suffolk is so hide-bound that he'll probably get in and keep out a better man.'

Kenyon grinned at the flushed face on the opposite side of the carriage, and noted consciously how a tiny mole on her left cheek acted as a natural beauty spot. It was amusing to hear this pocket Venus getting worked up about anything so dull as politics. She had imbibed it at Girton, he supposed. ‘You think this Red chap, Smithers, is a better man than Fane then?' he asked.

‘Probably—at least he is in earnest and has the good of the country at heart.'

‘I doubt it. Much more likely he is out for £400 a year as an M.P. It's quite a decent income for a chap like that, you know.'

‘Nonsense—that's just a little childish mud-slinging, and you know it. Anyhow, things will never get any better as long as these hoary old conference-mongers cling to office.'

‘Yes, I agree with you there, and that's probably what Fane and all the younger men think too—but nobody can just
become
a Cabinet Minister—they've got to get elected and work their way up.'

‘Oh, that sort of pampered imbecile will arrive all right,' she prophesied grimly. ‘He'll get an under-secretaryship by the time he's bald and there he'll stick.'

For a second he felt inclined to laugh at her bitter antagonism to the existing order, but it was growing upon him every moment what an unusual little person she was. Not merely pretty as he had thought at first—although her eyes would have made any man look at her a second time; but with her dark curling hair, clear healthy complexion and firm little chin, she was virtually a beauty. Not striking perhaps, because she was so short, but her figure was perfectly proportioned and her ankles were a joy—yet above all it was her quick vitality, the bubbling mirth which gave place so quickly to sober earnestness, that intrigued him so much.

‘Well, you may be right about Fane,' he said after a moment, ‘but the United British Party is the one hope we have of staving off Revolution. It stands for everybody who has a stake—either by inheritance or personal gain—in this England our ancestors have made for us; and that applies to the tobacconist with the
little shop, or the girl who has fifty quid in the bank, every bit as much as these titled people you seem to think so effete. The Party is fighting for the continuance of law and order here at home while the world is cracking up all around, and that is why I think a girl like yourself should put aside your theories for the moment and use any influence you've got at Orford to help Fane win this election.'