CAPTAIN and Mrs. Rolfe of the Gunners were giving a dance in their hut.
Denise Rolfe and her dearest friend Betty Vermont of the Rutlands had
been more than busy the whole morning. Flustered and happy, they darted
about the hut, cutting sandwiches, scattering floor powder, pinning
draperies round the walls. They masked the electric lights with pink
crinkly paper to produce the desired enchantment. Every now and then,
one would collapse on to what remained of the furniture and, catching
the other’s eyes, burst into delighted laughter. It was all such a rag.
They smoked cigarettes and ground the ash into the floor to enrich the
polish; they tried the new records over again and again till Mrs. Rolfe
declared that the needles would give out and snapped down the lid of
the gramophone resolutely.
Mrs. Rolfe’s Colonel disapproved tacitly; Colonel Boatley did not think
the dance was a good idea either. Entertainments in barracks had been
given up long ago. But it was not easy to veto what ladies described
as “a little fun in the huts.” Married quarters in barracks were
limited; as the army of occupation was reinforced, lines of hutments
began to extend up the hill at the back of the Gunner barracks. There
was nothing to beat these hut dances; for one thing, the floors were
so springy. And the fewer the couples, the more intimate the occasion.
Denise and Betty both thought with contempt of the Rutlands’ official
dance in the barrack gymnasium, full of majors waltzing, where you were
nearly blown off the floor by the regimental bassoon.
“All the same,” said Betty, rubbing a board with her toe, a shade
despondent, “I wish this would polish _more_. You’re certain it won’t
be sticky?”
“Nothing could be stickier than the C.O.,” said Denise wittily. “If it
wasn’t for him, we should be keeping it up till breakfast.”
“It’s these wretched patrols and things,” said Mrs. Vermont.
“It seems odd being short of girls. I do feel I should be getting my
sister over.”
“There will be heaps for to-night,” said Mrs. Vermont, who thought
people’s young sisters rather a bother. The ladies of the neighbourhood
had praised Mrs. Rolfe’s kind intentions, but said that they feared
the roads were not fit for their girls these nights. But their girls,
meeting Mrs. Vermont at the tennis club, had told her they would be
certain to come. “In fact, if they all come,” said Mrs. Vermont,
apprehensive, “I may have to telephone down to the mess for some more
of our boys.”
Captain Rolfe came off duty at lunch-time, and during the afternoon
friends kept dropping in, by twos and singly, with offers to help.
“But don’t _look!_” shrieked Denise every time, flinging herself
against the wall to conceal the draperies. “It’s all a surprise for
to-night.” The subalterns, after a hasty look round, prepared to be
perfectly blind. They began to slide industriously, buffeted on the
head by the Chinese lanterns which Betty had hung too low. Tubby, Mr.
Simcox, sat down on a mat and was whisked round the room by his friends
to perform the functions of polisher.
“Really,” volunteered some one, “we ought to be rolling the floor with
champagne bottles....”
Girls who succeeded in coming over for the dance had arranged to be
“put up” in Clonmore, or in married quarters. The two Miss Raltes from
Castle Ralte in the Tipperary direction looked in about four o’clock,
pink from a twelve-mile drive and parental opposition. Father, in fact,
had been more than difficult. “He says,” said Moira Ralte, looking
beatifically round at the decorations, “that the whole proceeding is
not only criminal but lunatic. He says he can’t understand the C.O.
allowing it, with the country the way it is. We really did think, till
we got past the gates, he was going to stop us.”
“But we came,” said Cicely. Every one laughed. The Miss Raltes had
been cast as wild young Irish and rather liked themselves. But they
exchanged glances, uneasy. It had not been quite the thing, perhaps, to
have laughed at Father.
“It takes two to make a war,” said Mrs. Rolfe wisely. “_We_’re not
fighting.”
“More’s the pity,” said a Mr. Daventry of the Rutlands with violence.
“_God_, if they’d--” The Miss Raltes, unaccustomed to swearing,
looked down their noses. There was a moment of slight discomfort, of
national consciousness.
“Wouldn’t it be a rag,” said Moira, relieving the tension tactfully,
“if they tried to fire in at the windows while we were dancing?”
“_I_ shall draw the curtains!” cried Mrs. Vermont.
Cicely glanced at the gramophone, hummed a fox-trot and tapped her heel
on the floor, looking most unconscious. But the subalterns continued
to slide violently, rebounding against each other, and dancing was not
begun till the D.I.’s niece came in. The D.I.’s niece came in with
a flourish and was greeted with uproar. She was priceless. She had
light-red hair fluffed over her forehead, a wide smile punctuated by
gaps in her teeth and tireless repartee in a Cork accent. Denise and
Betty adored her. She was a Catholic, it seemed so queer to think that
she worshipped the Pope. The Miss Raltes hardly knew her. As she came
in, Daventry opened his arms, she ran into them with a gurgle and they
began to dance. The gramophone spurted hoarse music; other couples
followed the gramophone.
Mr. Daventry, the senior subaltern, elegant, tall and a shade satanic,
was “taken,” obviously, with the queer little person. She could talk
and dance at once with an equal skimmingness and she did. Daventry
shook her, murmuring: “Do shut up!” He whispered into her hair that she
danced like thistledown and that he hated to have it spoilt.
“Like how much?” shrieked the D.I.’s niece above the music, bobbing her
face up at him.
Mrs. Rolfe, as distracted hostess, allowed herself to drift into the
arms of the adjutant, who had looked in for a moment or two. He spoke
of himself as a busy man, but she knew this to be a pose. She danced
remotely and kept repeating: “Glasses for claret cup ... Glasses for
cider cup ... Cigarettes ... Cover the washstand ...”
“Washstand?” said the adjutant, solicitous.
“They will have to sit out in Percy’s and my bedroom. Do you think it
will matter?”
The adjutant took a firmer grip of Mrs. Rolfe, an ethereal girl with a
habit of drifting just out of one’s reach like a kite. He gulped, and
said rather too genially: “It will be no end of a rag to-night. We--we
must make the most of it; it may be the last for a bit. As it is, we’re
doubling the guards. The C.O.--”
“Pig!” said Denise, looking deep into the adjutant’s eyes.
“Mum,” said the adjutant, blinking. “And another thing: I’m afraid you
won’t have Dobson of the Rutlands, I’ve just met him--he’s to be out on
patrol.”
“Oh, but he _said_ he’d get out of that! Oh, but he promised me--”
“He’d no business to; he’s been due for patrol for ages. Their C.O.--”
“He spoils everything. Captain Dobson is one of my best dancers.” She
stopped short and turned off the gramophone. “Listen, Percy! They’re
sending Captain Dobson out on patrol at a moment’s notice. _Now_ I’d
like to know what I’m supposed to do? I’d calculated the numbers
exactly.”
“But, Dens,” said her husband, conscientiously. “We had four men
spare. And you’re certain of Lesworth and Armstrong.”
“_He_ won’t count!” They all laughed: Betty had told a few friends in
confidence ...
“And for a matter of that,” Denise still clouded, complained to the
adjutant, “Mr. Lesworth won’t count much either. He’s awfully keen on
the Farquar girl.”
The adjutant thought: “These attachments!” His C.O. did not like these
attachments, either. The gramophone in a perceptibly minor key began
again, they went on dancing.
“Suppose,” said the D.I.’s niece, during an interval, “all we girls are
left sitting to-night and nobody comes to dance with us?”
“Dance with each other,” said Cicely Ralte firmly.
“But I wouldn’t care to dance without men,” said the D.I.’s niece,
frankly languishing. She had hoisted herself on to the cabinet that
held the records and sat swinging her legs in their shiny stockings and
pulling her dazzlingly checked skirt over her knees. Her green eyes
roamed round, returning attention confidently.
Daventry, a hand on the edge of the cabinet, stood leaning with his
back to the wall’s art-muslin draperies. He kept shutting his eyes;
whenever he stopped dancing he noticed that he had a headache. He had
been out in the mountains all night and most of the morning, searching
some houses for guns that were known to be there. He had received
special orders to ransack the beds, and to search with particular
strictness the houses where men were absent and women wept loudest and
prayed. Nearly all beds had contained very old women or women with
very new babies, but the N.C.O., who was used to the work, insisted
that they must go through with it. Daventry still felt sickish, still
stifled with thick air and womanhood, dazed from the din. Daventry had
been shell-shocked, he was now beginning to hate Ireland, lyrically,
explicitly; down to the very feel of the air and smell of the water.
If it were not for dancing a good deal, whisky, bridge, ragging about
in the huts, whisky again, he did not know what would become of him,
he would go over the edge, quite mad, he supposed. He opened his
eyes: afternoon light lay in bars on the smoky air. The flash of his
partner’s legs in their glassy stockings exasperated him, he gripped
one of her ankles--harshly, as though it had been a man’s. She kicked,
and a high-heeled slipper went rocketing through the air. A forest of
hands went up. The D.I.’s niece looked down complacently on the compact
and plaited backs of the subalterns. The other girls tittered and hung
on the outskirts.
“Oh, take care,” wailed Denise, “mind my draperies!” She freed an end
of the muslin and, as no one listened, began with angry laughter to
pepper them all with floor-powder. The D.I.’s niece looked at Daventry
queerly and suddenly: their eyes were now on a level. His eyes, dark
with fatigue and nervousness, were set in too close together, like a
good-looking shark’s.
Cicely Ralte yawned slightly; the struggle did not abate. “We shall all
be tired when it comes to to-night,” she said to the adjutant.
But he said: “Here comes Miss Farquar, looking as fresh as paint.”
Lois came to the door with David Armstrong. Livvy would not come up
to the hut till this evening, she would be confused, she feared; she
didn’t know how much they knew. She was down in Clonmore now, buying
sophisticated-looking black pansies to wear in her dress. She and Lois
were spending the night in Clonmore, with the Fogartys. Lois was dazed
still from her long drive under the strained white sunless sky. Sir
Richard and Lady Naylor had viewed her departure with the gloomiest
apprehensions, but Francie had insisted she would enjoy herself. It
must be flat for her these few days, Francie said, after Marda had
gone. And she had slipped a sachet of Californian Poppy into the top of
the suitcase, with Lois’s green tulle dress.
Lois and David looked through the door at the young men all in a tangle
with a sensation of helplessness, as though it devolved on themselves
to unwind them. Then they stepped in and shook hands with Mrs. Rolfe
and her girl friends. Lois, pleasing the adjutant by her freshness,
wore a light-blue felt hat and a blue cardigan. She suspected she
should not be walking about the camp without a chaperon, but could not
see how to avoid this: she had come up here to look for Mrs. Vermont.
She went pink from the heat of the room and felt Mr. Daventry look
at her--then shut his eyes again. There was a desperation about Mr.
Daventry she could have loved. But he apparently craved relaxation: she
had found out she did not relax Mr. Daventry.
Gerald was not here--she guessed from the eyes of commiseration. He was
a serious dancer and did not care to tire himself by sliding. Possibly
he was on duty, possibly would be waiting at Mr. Fogarty’s. Now, she
could remember nothing of him but the leg he had drawn so tenderly into
the armoured car. She had heard nothing of him from that moment; he
might have been sealed up permanently in tin, like a lobster. Did he
regret the kiss?--he had not added a word to it.
Mr. Simcox, the fattest and sweetest of all the Gunners, started
the gramophone with an eye on herself and came to ask for a dance.
He looked so hot, she said she would rather wait till the evening.
“Remember,” said Mr. Simcox, spreading a hand on his heart. And by
some mysterious evocation, the hut, lit up, vibrated; the air was warm
like smoke on her cool arm, and she went throbbing along with Gerald,
feeling his hand on her back through her thin dress--too near to see
each other--his lashes reverent by her hair. She thought she need not
worry about her youth; it wasted itself spontaneously, like sunshine
elsewhere or firelight in an empty room.
She thanked Mr. Simcox and said she would keep number six and would
not lose count. Mrs. Vermont, looking peevish suddenly, said it was
tea-time now and shooed the young men out of the hut like chickens.
They dispersed through the mud in the tired, wise light of the
afternoon.
That evening a wind came up. Lois and Livvy dressed in Mrs. Fogarty’s
spare room, stumbling round the edge of the large bed. They took turns
at the looking-glass; in the intervals of their toilet they ran to
the window to look out. It was strange and pleasant to Lois to be in
a town again. The square, where some crisp leaves whirled autumnly,
was pervaded by an excitement. Though only twelve couples had been
invited to Mrs. Rolfe’s dance, all Clonmore seemed to know of it.
People kept coming out quickly through the swing doors of the Imperial.
Some one played half a waltz and broke off, discouraged; two commercial
travellers clapped one another on the shoulder. Livvy pinned the
black pansies under her bosom and turned to invite admiration. Lois
thought the pansies looked common, but, knowing they must have cost
four-and-six, said they were most original. Lois’s green tulle dress
slipped over her head like a cataract. She shone, coming out through
the top of it. If only Marda could see her ... It was half-past six:
she had promised herself to think of Marda.
They were dressing early, they were to dine with a Mrs. Perkins up
in the huts. Mrs. Perkins could not promise there would be much for
dinner, but after all this was Ireland and it would be rather jolly.
Captain Vermont was to call for them: they buttoned their over-coats
over their ball-dresses. Mrs. Fogarty kissed them half-way downstairs,
and warned them not to break hearts. She would see them later, she was
coming to watch the dance.
Since the acquisition of Betty, Captain Vermont’s stock of conversation
to pretty young things had given out naturally; biologically the time
was past for it. They walked rather silently up past the barracks and
picked their way over the mud between the huts. A chill of darkness was
coming down on the air. The wind came, knife-like, down through the
lines of huts from the mountain, over a gulf of land where the farms
were dark--apprehensive, the young girls patted the whorls of their
hair. The Perkins’ hut exposed a flank to the wind; it was chilly, one
slipped one’s bare arms out of one’s coat reluctantly, going to table.
The dinner was not so jolly as Lois had feared. Mrs. Perkins looked
distraite and had a whispered argument with her husband about a
tin-opener. Mrs. Vermont could talk of nothing but poor Denise (“As
though,” said Livvy, “she were having at least a baby instead of only
a dance”). Captain Perkins and Captain Vermont apologized repeatedly
to the girls for being old and married; their wives told them not to
be so silly. Their wives said the girls could perfectly well see there
was no room for young men here; already their six chairs grated against
the match-boarding. The girls would have young men in the course of
the evening. Lois agreed politely, but Livvy wished they had stayed
to dinner down in Clonmore where one could have at least watched Mr.
Fogarty drink. She sat squinting, watching the wasted powder flake off
her nose.
A bottle of white wine was divided among the ladies with depressing
impartiality; the men drank whisky. Mrs. Perkins’ pince-nez glittered
with more animation. But the wind like a lunatic fidgeted with the hut,
frames creaked, doors rattled, a shudder went down the walls; a gust
through a crack set the lights dementedly swinging. During a strained
little silence, between two gusts of the wind, Mrs. Vermont observed
that an angel must be passing over the house; she wanted them to listen
for its wings. They listened; they thought of empty country blotted
out by the darkness. “Quiet here, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Perkins.
“Better not circulate too far between the dances,” said Captain
Perkins, “and don’t go down to the wires. It’s dark, for one thing; we
don’t want any of these girls lost.”
“Grandpa!” said Mrs. Vermont. Livvy noted, there seemed some communal
feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone
else’s husband. “I don’t go for walks between dances,” said Livvy,
bridling.
“You don’t know what you’ll do _now!_” said Mrs. Vermont, and they all
laughed.
Lois was anxious, there was a tight little ball in her throat; she
could hardly swallow. She was always “strung-up” before a dance. But
to-night it was worse; she had not the expectation of being claimed:
she was really doubtful. She had not had a word from Gerald; he
hadn’t been round to the Fogartys’. Was she not nice to kiss; was he
disappointed? Her green frock glinted under the light; she kept looking
down at her breast, and into her lap, where the folds ran off in shadow
under the table. If he were not there when she came, if she did not see
him before he saw her (as she came uphill in the dark) standing full in
pink light by the door, staring eagerly on to the slab of darkness that
was to give her up--she should die, she thought. For this morning she
had written to Viola that she intended to marry Gerald.