The General Read online

  Then inside the house the atmosphere changed a little. Outside, it was like a country house with a military flavour. Inside it was like a court with a dash of monastery. There were the court functionaries moving about here and there, suave, calm and with an air of unfathomable discretion. There were the established favourites with a bit of swagger. There were anxious hangers-on, wondering what sort of reception would be accorded them to-day, and the rare visitors of Curzon’s type who were not in the court uniform – the red tabs – and who only knew by sight the great ones who went to and fro.

  The man who occupied the position corresponding to that of Grand Chamberlain came up to greet Curzon. Anyone better acquainted with courts would have been delighted with the cordiality of his reception, but to Curzon it only appeared as if he were receiving the politeness expected from a gentleman. It was good to drink whisky and soda again – only yesterday he had been drinking army rum out of an enamelled mug – and to exchange a few polite platitudes about the weather with no bearing on the military situation. The nightmare feeling of desperate novelty dropped away from Curzon as he stood and talked. This was life as it should be. His very weariness and the ache in his temples from lack of sleep was no more than he had often felt on his first return to the mess after a night in town. He was inexpressibly glad that he had recovered his kit at his billet and so had been able to change from his muddy tunic with the bullet holes in the skirt. A junior chamberlain came out of a blanket-hung door on the far side of the hall and came up to them with a significant glance at his senior. The time had come for Curzon’s admission to the presence.

  They went through the blanket-covered door into a long room, with windows extending along the whole of one side giving a fine view over a beautiful park. There were tables covered with papers; clerks at work with typewriters; maps on the wall; more green baize tables; half a dozen red-tabbed officers with telephones before them at work in a very pleasant smell of cigars; and a door at the far end which gave entrance to a smaller room with the same view, the same green baize tables, and a chair which was politely offered to Curzon.

  The actual interview was brief enough. Curzon had the impression that he was being sized up, but he felt no resentment at this – after all, less than four months ago he had been a mere major of cavalry, and his recent tenure of the command of a brigade began to assume an unsubstantial form in his mind in the presence of all this solid evidence of the existence of another world. He conducted himself with the modesty of his humble station. Nevertheless, he must have made a personal impression good enough to support that given by his record, for he came out of that room with a promise of his confirmation in a brigade command.

  Not of his present brigade – that would be too much to expect, of course. The command of a regular brigade of cavalry was not the sort of appointment likely to be given to a newly promoted brigadier – and the speaker hastened to point out the additional consolation that the brigade would hardly be fit for action again for months after its recent losses even though by the special dispensation of Providence it had lost very few horses. But in England there were new armies being raised. There seemed to be a growing conviction (and here the speaker was elaborately non-committal) that the war would last long enough for them to be used as new formations and not as drafts. A mere hint to the War Office would ensure Curzon’s appointment to a new army brigade. With his regiment out of action as it was at present Curzon might just as well take leave and go to London to see about it.

  Curzon hesitated. There was not much attraction for him in the command of four raw battalions of infantry. But he knew the Army well enough; a man who declined a proffered promotion was likely to be left on the shelf from that time onwards unless he had powerful friends; and moreover he was only a temporary lieutenant-colonel. For all he knew, he might at any moment have to revert to his substantive rank of major. Better an infantry brigade than that. If good fortune came his way he might have a chance of commanding the brigade in action during the closing campaign of the war next summer. He left off tugging at his moustache and accepted the offer.

  ‘Good!’ said his host. ‘And I think it’s time for dinner now.’

  Chapter Seven

  Outwardly the London to which Curzon returned was not very different from the London he had always known. The streets were darker and there were more uniforms to be seen, but that was all. After the first paralysing blow of the declaration of war the city had made haste to recover its balance to the cry of ‘Business as Usual.’ The theatres were as gay as ever – gayer, if anything; the restaurants more crowded. Most of the people in the streets were so convinced of England’s approaching victory in the war that now that the front was stabilized the war had ceased to be a matter of more interest to them than their own personal concerns.

  But here and there were cases of interest. The Club, for instance. When Curzon went in there he found the place crowded with men he did not recognize. In addition to many men in the khaki which had scarcely ever been seen in the Club in the old days, all the retired officers who hardly set foot in the Club from year’s end to year’s end had now crowded up to London to besiege the War Office for employment, and were spending their time of waiting listening all agog for rumours. Curzon had not realized the efficiency of the censorship until he found men crowding round him all intent on acquiring first-hand information. Birtles started it – Birtles had been a major in the regiment when Curzon was only a subaltern.

  ‘’Morning, Curzon,’ said Birtles when they encountered each other on the stairs, and would have passed him by if he had not suddenly remembered that Curzon must have come back from France on leave from the regiment; he halted abruptly. ‘On leave, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Curzon.

  ‘What – er,’ said Birtles, checking himself in the midst of a question as he suddenly had a spasm of doubt lest Curzon had been ‘sent home’. But he reassured himself quickly on that point, because no man who had been sent home would show his face in the Club – at least, not for years. So he was able to continue. ‘What’s the regiment doing?’

  Curzon said what he could about the regiment’s achievements.

  ‘Dismounted action, eh?’ said Birtles. ‘That’s bad. Very bad. And what about you? Short leave, or something?’

  Curzon was in civilian clothes, so that Birtles had nothing to go on. Yet he was obviously painfully anxious to ask questions. His old eyes were watering with anxiety. Curzon said he was home to take up a fresh command.

  ‘Yeomanry or something?’

  ‘No, an infantry brigade,’ said Curzon.

  ‘A brigade? A brigade!’ gasped Birtles, who, naturally, having once known Curzon as a subaltern, could not think of him as anything else. ‘Here, come and have a drink. I mean – have you time for a drink?’

  Curzon was in need of a drink after his busy morning. He had called at the War Office and had had a very satisfactory interview, because a note about him from G.H.Q. in France had already arrived; and he had been told that his promotion to the temporary rank of brigadier-general would appear in the next Gazette. Not merely that, either. There would undoubtedly be a brigade for him at the end of his fortnight’s leave. More still; besides his inevitable mention in dispatches there would be a decoration for him – most likely a commandership of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Three eminent soldiers had cross-examined him in turn about the state of affairs in Flanders – there was a general anxiety to try and supplement the information doled out by telegram from G.H.Q. – and he had answered questions as well as he knew how.

  And from the War Office he had gone to his military tailor’s. They did not seem to remember him at first, which had annoyed him, and they had expressed doubt about their ability in face of a torrent of orders, to supply his demands in the next week. Their attitude had changed a little when he told them who he was, and still more when he gave his order for a general’s uniform with the red tabs and crossed sword and baton of his rank. There had been more excitemen
t than he had expected in giving that order – Curzon was still conscious of a little thrill when he remembered it, and he really badly needed his drink.

  Yet by the time the drink had come to him he had precious little opportunity of drinking it, because Birtles hastened to spread the news that he was entertaining a brigadier-general home from the Front, and from every corner of the Club men came crowding to hear his news and to ask him questions, or merely to look at the man newly returned from a European war. They were grey-headed old men, most of them, and they eyed him with envy. With anxiety, too; they had been gathering their information from the all-too-meagre communiqués and from the all-too-extensive casualty lists. They feared to know the worst at the same time as they asked, and they raised their voices in quavering questions about this unit and that, and to every question Curzon could only give a painful answer. There was not a unit in the Expeditionary Force which had not poured out its best blood at Mons or at Le Cateau or at Ypres.

  For a long time Curzon dealt out death and despair among those old men; it was fortunate that he did not feel the awkwardness which a more sensitive man might have felt. After all, casualties were a perfectly natural subject for a military man to discuss. It was need for his lunch which caused him in the end to break off the conversation, and even at lunch he was not free from interruption. Someone came up and spoke to him as he began on his soup – a tall, heavily-built bald old man in the uniform of a captain of a very notable regiment of infantry. He displayed all the embarrassment of an English gentleman addressing a stranger with an unconventional request.

  ‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you,’ he began. Curzon tried to be polite, although it was a strain when he had hardly begun his lunch.

  ‘The fact is’ – went on the captain – ‘of course, I must apologize for being unconventional – I was wondering if you had made any arrangements for dinner to-night?’

  Curzon stared at him. But his arrangements were of the vague sort an officer home on leave without a relation in the world might be expected to have.

  ‘Well –’ began Curzon. It was the fact that this stranger belonged to that very crack regiment which caused him to temporize.

  ‘You see,’ went on the captain hastily. ‘I was hoping – I know all this sounds most impertinent – I was hoping that I could induce you to dine at my brother’s to-night.’

  He had fumbled out his card case by now, and proffered a card with embarrassed fingers. Curzon read upon it the simple words: ‘Lord George Winter-Willoughby’. He only half heard what Lord George, voluble at last, went on to say, while he co-ordinated in his mind what the name meant to him. The Winter-Willoughbys were the Bude family, whose head was the Duke of Bude with a score of other titles, who had held office in the last Conservative Government. The courtesy title of Lord implied that the present speaker was a son of a duke – more, it meant that he was brother of the present Duke – in fact, it meant that the invitation now being given was to dine with the Duke of Bude. Confirmation trickled through into Curzon’s consciousness from the bits of Lord George’s speech which Curzon heard – ‘Bude House’ – ‘Eight o’clock’ – ‘Quite informal – war-time, you know’ – ‘Telephone’ – ‘The Duke and Duchess will be delighted if you can come.’

  The self-control which had enabled Curzon for fifteen years to conceal the part which chance had played in the battle of Volkslaagte made it possible for him to accept an invitation to dine at one of the greatest London houses as though he were thoroughly accustomed to such invitations and Lord George displayed immense relief at not being snubbed, apologized once more for the informality of his behaviour, pleaded the present national crisis as his excuse, and withdrew gracefully.

  It was fortunate that Curzon was not a man given to analysis of sociological conditions; if he had been he would certainly have wasted the rest of that day in thinking about how extensive must be the present upheaval if it resulted in hasty invitations to Bude House addressed to men of no family at all – he was fully aware that six months ago there would have been no perceptible difference between such an invitation and a Royal Command. As it was, he merely savoured pleasantly of his success and went out and bought a new set of buttons for his white waistcoat.

  In December 1914 ‘war-time informality’ at Bude House implied something quite different from what those words meant in, say, Bloomsbury in 1918. There was a footman as well as a butler to open the door to Curzon, but they were both over military age and the footman’s livery was inconspicuous. For the first time in his life Curzon described himself as ‘General Curzon’ for the butler to announce him.

  ‘It’s very good of you to come, General,’ said a tall woman with dyed hair, offering her hand as he approached her across the deep carpet of the not-too-large drawing-room.

  ‘It’s very good of you to ask me,’ Curzon managed to say. The bulky figure of Lord George showed itself at the Duchess’s side, and beside it a bulkier counterpart of itself, as if the law of primogeniture ensured that the holder of the title should be a size larger than the young son. There were introductions effected. The Duke was as bald as his brother – only a wisp of grey hair remaining round his ears. Lady Constance Winter-Willoughby was apparently Lord George’s wife, and was as lovely and as dignified as was to be expected of a daughter of an earldom six generations older than the Dukedom of Bude.

  Lady Emily Winter-Willoughby was the Duke’s daughter; she was nearly as tall as her father, but she was not conspicuous for beauty of feature or of dress. For a fleeting moment Curzon, as his eyes wandered over her face, was conscious of a likeness between her features and those of Bingo, the best polo pony he ever had, but the thought vanished as quickly as it came when he met her kindly grey eyes. Lady Emily, especially now that she had left thirty behind, had always been a woman who preferred the country to London, and felt more at home with horses and dogs and flowers than with the politicians whom she was likely to encounter at Bude House. A few more years might see her an embittered spinster; but at the moment she only felt slightly the tediousness of this life – just enough to sense the slight awkwardness Curzon was careful not to display. When their eyes met they were both suddenly conscious of a fellow feeling, and they smiled at each other almost as if they were members of some secret society.

  It was with an odd reluctance that Curzon left the warm glow of Lady Emily’s proximity to meet the other two guests, a Sir Henry Somebody (Curzon did not catch the name) and his wife. They were a sharp-featured pair, both of them. Curzon formed the impression that Sir Henry must be some sort of lawyer, and that his wife had wits just as keen. There was a depressing moment of impersonal conversation with them before dinner was announced.

  The advent of the war had accelerated the already noticeable decline from the great days of the Edwardians; dinners were very different now from the huge meals and elaborate service of ten years before; twelve courses had diminished to six; there was some attempt to please by simplicity instead of to impress by elaboration. The dining-room was lit by candles so that it was hard to see the painted arched ceiling; there was not a great deal of silver displayed upon the circular table. But the food was perfection, and the wine marvellous – Bude House had not seen fit to follow the example of Buckingham Palace and eschew all alcoholic liquor for the duration of the war.

  As the Vouvray was being served Lady Constance on Curzon’s right recounted how, a short time before, at another dinner-party, where the hostess had tried to do like Queen Mary and confine her guests to lemonade and barley water, the guests had one and all produced pocket flasks to make up for the absence of liquor. With eight people at a circular table general conversation was easy, and the Duchess on Curzon’s left announced incisively that if she had been the hostess in question she would never receive one of those guests again, but she went on to agree only the dear Queen could expect people to dine without drinking.

  ‘It’s bad enough having to do without German wines,’ she said. ‘We had some Hock that the Du
ke was very proud of, but of course we can’t drink it now, can we?’

  Curzon agreed with her, and not out of deference, either. He was quite as convinced as she was that there was no virtue left in Hock or in Wagner or in Goethe or in Dürer. From the innate badness of German art to the recent deeds of the German Government was but a step in the conversation – a step easily taken as at least seven of the eight people present were anxious to take it. Before very long Curzon found himself talking about his recent experiences, and he was listened to with rapt attention. It was generally a question either from Sir Henry (on the other side of the Duchess) or from Sir Henry’s wife (on the other side of the Duke) which moved him steadily on from one point to the next – at one moment Curzon noted to himself that Sir Henry simply must be a lawyer of some sort, as he had already surmised, because the tone of his questions had a ring of the law courts about it.

  The conversation had a different trend from that at the Club in the morning. There was not so much anxiety displayed as to the fates of regiments and battalions. The party seemed to be far more interested in the general conduct of the war – Sir Henry, in particular, seemed to know a good deal more already about Mons and Le Cateau than Curzon did. Curzon almost began to form the idea that they would have relished criticism of the Higher Command, but he put the notion away before it crystallized. That was inconceivable; moreover, there was no chance of his disparaging his superiors to anyone – to say nothing of the fact that he had only the haziest ideas about the conduct of a great deal of the war. The British Army had been pitted against superior numbers over and over again, and had emerged each time from the ordeal with honour. Of crisis at headquarters he knew no more than any subaltern, and he denied their existence with all his soldier’s pride. Besides, no soldier who had served under Kitchener could lightly give away anything approaching a military secret.