The Impregnable Women, page 12
Miss FitzAubrey sat down feeling very pleased at having so clearly stated her opinions. But immediately the stout and motherly Mrs Graham, whose husband was in the Royal Scots, got up and indignantly exclaimed, ‘Lady Lysistrata said we all had to be selfish. But there’s two kinds of selfishness, and one’s sensible and the other’s not. And what the last speaker said was just nonsense, and nasty nonsense at that.’
The meeting grew more animated. Little arguments shot up like the spurting of steam, and there was a general turning about, a scraping of chairs, and babble of conversation; during which a girl like a Botticelli painting, all white and gold –but now the white was stained with a spreading rose – got up and exclaimed in a sweet piping voice, ‘I don’t think we should be selfish at all, I think we all ought to be unselfish!’
Lady Oriole grunted and hoarsely inquired, ‘What does that mean? Is she for us, or against?’
Lysistrata shook her head. ‘I don’t know. For us, I think. You’d better speak now.’
In her own way Lady Oriole had a presence as commanding as Lysistrata’s. Her face was long and pale, her eyes and eyebrows pitch-black, her hair a bright badger-pattern of black and white. She carried a sheaf of papers that she rolled into a stick and smacked against her leg as though it was a hunting-crop.
In a loud husky voice she exclaimed, ‘There’ll be an opportunity for questions and discussion later on. But before the meeting’s thrown open, I’m going to give you my views. This is my house – anyway I’ve rented it – and I’m going to tell you my reasons for having this meeting here. Lady Lysistrata is an old friend of mine, and I’ve always had the greatest respect for her charm and ability, and wondered why she didn’t put ’em to more use. Well, now she is. She’s putting ’em to the noblest use of all. I’ve been against this war from the beginning – I’ll tell you why in a minute – and when she came and told me she was going to stop it, I said, “Lysistrata, you’re using your ten talents at last!” But when she told me how she was going to stop it – when she explained her plan for stopping it – I said, “Lysistrata, you’re a heaven-sent genius!” And so she is. Because her plan is sure, safe, and simple, and there isn’t a man in Great Britain, or the whole world for that matter, who can stand up against it.
‘Now about this war. As soon as it started I said to Tatters –that’s my husband, who’s in France, poor man, though he’s fifty-seven and old enough to know better – as soon as it began, I said to him, “Tatters, we’re making a big mistake. It’s suicidal to go to war with France. All my life I’ve bought my clothes in Paris” – and I dare say most of you have, too. Very pretty frocks you’re all wearing, so far as I can see from here – “and at my time of life,” I said, “I’m not willing to make a change.” Well, he didn’t see my point as clearly as you will. But think what’s going to happen if we and Germany go on till we win this wretched war. We’ll have to be loyal to our gallant ally! That’s what the politicians will tell us, and little enough will they care what it means. But we know! It means that we’ll have to buy our clothes in Berlin! Think of that! Models designed for hausfraus and javelin-throwers! The sort of frocks that Hitler likes! Well, I don’t like ’em, and you won’t either. So that’s the first thing I’ve got against the war, and because of that I played my part in arranging this meeting. I invited about thirty of you myself, choosing the prettiest I could find, as they’re the sort who are going to be most useful. And now, as soon as we’re all agreed that the war has got to be stopped, and that we’re going to stop it, Lady Lysistrata will tell you her plan, and explain how we’re to go about it.’
With a triumphant glance and a final smacking of her thigh, Lady Oriole sat down; but after a brief muttered conversation with Lysistrata, she hurriedly got up again and exclaimed, ‘I forgot the most important part of my speech! Tatters –my husband – always says I’ve got a brain like a sieve, but it’s better than his, and he knows it. He can’t get on for long without me, and I don’t want to try and do without him, though I’m forty-six, which is a lot older than most of you. If I was twenty-two again I’d feel that way about any good-looking young man without blemish and able to sit on a horse and dance without walking on my feet. And that’s how you ought to feel! A decently built young man, with a tongue in his head and a good leg, is something that every woman on earth ought to take care of. But instead of that you let ’em go out and get shot for no purpose at all except to make us buy our frocks in Berlin!
‘Well, I’m a sensible woman, whatever you may be. I know what I want, and I’m prepared to go to any length to get it. Lots of you think that love is something that only matters when you’re young. But that’s nonsense. It matters long after you don’t want to stay up all night jigging to a Dago band. It’s a thing that lasts all your life, in one way or another, but it’s a thing you ought to start before you get too long in the tooth. Men know that, even if you don’t, and that’s why we’ve been going round mustering young’ uns and lovelies for the last three weeks. And now we’re ready to start business... Will that do now? What? Of course, I’d forgotten again. Just a minute, ladies.
‘I dare say a lot of you are worried by the thought that you’ll be disloyal if you work against the Government to bring this nonsensical murdering to an end. Well, that’s just because you’ve been made to think that loyalty means doing what you’re told. But God knows that if women had believed everything, and done everything that men told ’em to do, we’d still be in the harem or at the back of a cave! I like ’em, and always have done, but as soon as they get high-falutin, I just stop listening. The truth is this: that what we’ve got to be loyal to, is ourselves. If women are starved and miserable, and haven’t got men to look after them – and another couple of hundred have been killed since we started talking – then the whole world goes off the handle. The world needs good, sensible, contented women, and plenty of them; and women, to be contented, need men – and plenty of them! There’s the situation in a nutshell. But this damned war, and every war, is killing off all the best of the men, so the only sensible thing to do is to stop it. Otherwise the world will go to pieces like a racehorse if you try to feed it on sawdust.’
Lady Oriole’s speech was a great success with the betitled young women. To begin with they had laughed – but in the friendliest way – and when she sat down they all most seriously and vigorously applauded. But the servant-girls and the cinema attendants were vaguely antagonized by her manner, and the loveliness of the middle classes was still a little constrained in its approval.
Lysistrata rose again. ‘I think we should spend the next ten minutes or quarter of an hour in informal discussion,’ she said. ‘Won’t you all consider that you know everybody here, and talk the matter over among yourselves? If our movement is to succeed you must get to know each other, because you are meant to be its leaders. You have all been carefully chosen, and if you have the will to lead, we feel sure that you have the necessary ability. You are the potential leaders of a great movement, the officers in a new army. Please remember that.’
These remarks were received with general approval. A gratified and multitudinous noise, like the honey-fed buzzing of a warm hive, rose almost visibly above the hundred lovely and excited heads, and though the audience was slow to break its ranks, it immediately began to exchange friendly smiles and amiable remarks.
Lady Oriole beckoned to eight or ten of the betitled beauties and said hoarsely, ‘Go and talk to those nice girls behind you. Work ’em up, and they’ll do anything we ask ’em to. They’re shy. Tell ’em not to be. Be nice to them, and the whole lot are with us. You believe what Lysistrata and I have been saying, don’t you? Of course you do. You know what we are – women, I mean – and so do I. It’s those nice girls who’ve been so damn well brought up that won’t listen. So go and talk to them and make ’em loosen up a bit.’
Lysistrata, meanwhile, was talking to Mrs Graham, who presently gathered the servant-girls and cinema-attendants, and in five minutes had made them all her sworn adherents. But Lysistrata had a more difficult task with Miss Ivy Fitz-Aubrey.
‘You see,’ she said in her most careful accent, ‘I felt it was only fair to myself, and to my gentleman-friend as well, to put my case before you. Because it’s rather exceptional, don’t you think? You see, he’s got a very important position. Well, you won’t let it go any further, of course, but actually he’s a Cabinet Minister, and it wouldn’t be fair to him to let him down about the war, because he’s got such a lot to do with it, of course. I mean, he feels responsible about it. And then there’s myself to think of. You see, I’m working at the Ministry of Munitions – I’m the receptionist there – and it was only yesterday that one of the secretaries – simply a dowdy old woman, the sort of person you’d never notice – was given the O.B.E. So I said to my gentleman-friend, “Well, why can’t I have one too?” But he said I’d have to wait for another three or four months, and then he’d see what could be done about it. So naturally I don’t want the war to stop before then, because it would be such a nice thing to have, wouldn’t it? I mean it would show what you’d done, and the ribbon looks ever so nice, though it’s a bit difficult to match, of course.’
‘The O.B.E.?’ said Lady Oriole, who had been waiting her chance to speak to Lysistrata. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll give you one tomorrow.’
‘Oh, really? How terribly sweet of you.’
‘You can have mine, it’s no good to me.’
‘But that wouldn’t be quite the same, would it? I mean...’
‘Just the same. They’re all made in the one factory.’
‘But...’
‘It would be a greater honour,’ said Lady Lysistrata, ‘to get a medal from Lady Oriole than from the Government. Lady Oriole is a far better judge of merit than a lot of civil servants and politicians.’
‘Well, of course, I hadn’t looked at it in that way before.’
‘So you’ll join us if you get an O.B.E.?’
‘Well, I think I owe it to myself, don’t you, to get some sort of recognition before the war’s over?’
‘That’s another,’ said Lady Oriole triumphantly, and waving her sheaf of papers nearly struck someone in the face. ‘Sorry!’ she exclaimed, ‘Miss Armour, isn’t it? My husband would give anything to be here. He dotes on you, my dear, and so do I. You’re with us, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, of course I am,’ said Rose earnestly. ‘That’s what I came to tell you – you and Lady Lysistrata. I think the war’s a dreadful thing, though of course I’ve been singing all the time and pretending to be happy about it. But the theatre does a lot of good, don’t you think, because it takes people’s minds away from it – except when we try to cheer them up and make them think we’re going to win. But I’d much rather help to stop it.’
‘That’s splendid,’ said Lysistrata. ‘I was hoping for your support more than anyone else’s.’
‘She’ll propose a vote of confidence,’ said Lady Oriole, ‘Won’t you, my dear? I think it’s time for one now. Always cheers things up a bit, a vote of confidence.’
It was no easy matter to get the audience back to its seats, for the informal discussion, broken into twenty parts, had become twenty warm and absorbing conversations. The audience had been mixed like the ingredients of a plum-pudding, and though when they sat down again they resumed something of their previous individualism, they gave the impression of being not averse to benevolent coalescence. ‘We’ve got ’em,’ muttered Lady Oriole.
Rose Armour got up to propose the vote of confidence. ‘I don’t want to make a long speech,’ she said, ‘because I’m not very good at making speeches, and I don’t think it’s necessary anyway. All I want to say is that if Lady Lysistrata knows of a way to stop this dreadful war, then I’m with her, through and through, and I hope all of you are too. I’ve got a sweetheart who’s in the trenches now, and if he was killed, I think I’d die. And I don’t want to die. I want to live, and get married, and be happy. Well, that’s a very small and selfish view to take of things, but nearly every woman has the same view about somebody, and if we all get together and say honestly what we think and hope, then our view is going to be the biggest in the world. And the most sensible, as well. So I ask you all to express your confidence in Lady Lysistrata, and say that you’ll help her to stop this horrid war before it’s too late.’
This artless avowal was more potent than either Lysistrata’s eloquence or Lady Oriole’s compulsive heartiness. The whole audience clapped and applauded, warmly and without reserve, and Lysistrata rose to face, as it seemed, the already converted.
‘The only way,’ she said, ‘in which we can be sure of stopping the war, is this...’
III
Graham woke, sweating slightly, from a brief afternoon sleep. It was a Sunday. His battalion had just come out of the line, and both officers and men were in a bad humour. They had been compelled to march three miles that morning to attend an open-air church service, at which a lugubrious and untidily-uniformed minister, in a series of melancholy prayers and a long Presbyterian sermon, had told them they had naught to fear – since God had in his keeping all who were fighting his battles – save the uncleanness of their own hearts and the carnal temptations of the foreign land in which they were living. They were, as it happened, billeted in a warstricken village where there was neither an estaminet nor a living woman under forty; and the sermon was regarded as a piece of heartless mockery, for during twenty-eight days in the trenches every man in the battalion had been most earnestly looking forward to temptation, and the opportunity of yielding to it.
The service over, they had marched back behind the scornful music of the pipers to their barren village, where the Colonel had ordered a kit inspection. After a month in the line there was a great shortage of forks and knives, of button-sticks and tooth-brushes; and a total absence of spare socks. The Colonel lost his temper, and showed it; the men lost theirs, and had to conceal it. The battalion ate its Sunday dinner – a thin bully-beef stew and a watery mess of rice and raisins – in a bitter temper and with many a mutinous comment.
Graham, both tired and depressed, had sought comfort in sleep, and even there found disappointment. He had dreamt that he was in a trench, waiting for the signal to attack. The men about him were strangers, but he had seen them all clearly, as if under bright lights. He had seen their faces and their hands, the shape and posture of their bodies. They had been such an odd mixture as any company would show: here a loose lip, heavy eyebrows, and a sallow skin, there a bullet-headed little man with thickened cheekbones and tiny eyes, a sparring-partner to some second-rate boxer perhaps; now a solemn fellow, older than the rest, worried because he could get no oil for his rifle, but accepting without much concern the whole circumstance of war; a schoolboy, open-mouthed and eager, reckless and miserable by fits and turns; a sergeant, a big loosely-built freckled man with a mothering nature and careful heart; a corporal who was a bit of a blackguard, brave enough but something of a drunkard, something of a bully, yet a soldier born; a dumb youth with white eyebrows and a manner of perpetual bewilderment; an old bricklayer cross-grained, who had fought in the last war, and was fighting in this for no reason save that he could not stay out of it...
Graham had seen them all, the texture of their skin, the mud and dirty buttons on their tunics, the rough hands holding their rifles. They were strangers to him in everything except their familiar humanity. But the feeling grew in him, during those last seconds of excitement before the whistle blew, that these men were his blood and flesh of his flesh, and he could not lead them into death. His visionary mind, that saw so clearly their unknown and common faces, shrank horribly from the thought of the changing of those rough features to agony and cold clay. He could not do it. Rebellion stiffened in him. He fought against sleep and shouted through the blanket of his dream, ‘Stay where you are! You must not die! You shall not, shall not die!’
He woke, his head damp with sweat, and saw through dusky glass the buttercup light of early evening. He heard beneath the window a murmuring antiphony of soldiers’ voices and the sound of metal-shod boots crossing a cobbled yard. He saw his belt and map-case slung on a chair, his helmet and gas-mask on the table. A far voice, its hoarseness fading in the distance, bawled with a gentle suddenness, ‘Guard! Turn out!’ – The guard-house was too far away for him to hear the answering clatter of hurrying feet and briskly handled rifles, but his accustomed ear tricked him into thinking it was audible; and thankfully he realized that for a little while he and his men were out of danger. For guard-mounting was a harmless occupation. It was only when they were truly in safety that soldiers could afford to make a ceremony of security....
Over all Europe the sun and the warm winds of early summer had dried the interminable trenches, and filled the polyglot countless soldiers with impossible sweet thoughts and a hopeless longing. The fields were green again. Woods shattered and laid waste by shell-fire had put on new leaves, and birds in the midst of war had sung their song and mated in the torn branches. The rusty wire that marked the edge of No Man’s Land, and the dead who had died in places too dangerous for burial, were overgrown with grass and flowers and yellow weeds. Everywhere, as though to conceal the horror made by men, the earth had put on bright-waving garments.
Among the soldiers there was no longer any hatred for their enemies. In civilian society, it is true, the politicians, the newspapers, the relentless embusqués, and women starved of love fomented where they could a wild factitious rage; but the brave and honest men in the trenches had no such feeling, nor was there any chance of its developing unless it were directed against their far-off leaders and those who told them it was their duty to put rancour in their killing. The soldiers in the trenches obeyed their regimental officers and used their rifles or their bayonets, sternly and conclusively, as they were told; but save in the heat of close conflict they had long discarded the idea that the poor devils in the opposite trench were their personal and deliberate enemies. England and Germany were at war with France and Russia; Italy – having at the last moment changed her front as she had in the old war – was fighting Germany and Yugoslavia; Turkey was at war, and Poland and Rumania and all the rest of them. But the common soldiers of the warring nations had only one enemy, common to them all; and that was the war itself. They continued to fight each other because they were simple men, trained to obedience; because discipline compelled them, and they had not the wit to escape it, nor even to question its purpose or necessity. They did not fight for pride of their own country or hatred of another, whose conscript forces, like themselves, did only what they were told, and grinned happily when as prisoners they were given cigarettes. Had their officers left them, on every front the soldiers in opposing trenches would have gathered peacefully together, swapping their wine, tobacco, pidgin phrases, and spare shirts, and tearing down the barbed wire to fraternize and learn each other’s songs. But their officers were bound by discipline more straitly than the privates. They had been taught to believe that discipline in itself was a virtue. And behind the regimental officers were the Generals with their gold and scarlet tabs, and behind the Generals were Governments implacable, resolute, and pitiless; being blind and without understanding.
