ARRIVAL IN LONDON
Now that the last trunk was closed and had been dragged away by an impatient steward, the cabin seemed to have lost all its character. Surveying it by lamplight, for it was still long before dawn, Roberta felt that she had relinquished her ownership and was only there on sufferance. Odd scraps of paper lay about the floor; the wardrobe door stood open; across the dressing-table lay a trail of spilt powder. The unfamiliar black dress and overcoat in which she would go ashore hung on the peg inside the door and seemed to move stealthily, and of their own accord, from side to side. The ship still creaked with that pleasing air of absorption in its own progress. Outside in the dark the lonely sea still foamed past the porthole, and footsteps still thudded on the deck above Roberta’s head. But all these dear and familiar sounds only added to her feeling of desolation. The voyage was over. Already the ship was astir with agitated passengers. Slowly the blackness outside turned to grey. For the last time she watched the solemn procession of the horizon, and the dawn-light on cold ruffles of foam.
She put on the black dress and, for the hundredth time, wondered if it was the right sort of garment in which to land. It had a white collar and there was a white cockade in her hat so perhaps she would not look too obviously in mourning.
“I’ve come thirteen thousand miles,” thought Roberta. “Half-way round the world. Now I’m near the top of the world. These are northern seas and those fading stars are the stars of northern skies.”
She leant out of the porthole and the sound of the sea surged up into her ears. A cold dawn-wind blew her hair back. She looked forward and saw a string of pale lights strung like a necklace across a wan greyness. Her heart thumped violently, for this was her first sight of England. For a long time she leant out of the porthole. Gulls now swooped and mewed round the ship. Afar off she heard the hollow sound of a siren. Filled with the strange inertia that is sometimes born of excitement Roberta could not make up her mind to go up on deck. At last a bugle sounded for the preposterously early breakfast. Roberta opened her bulging handbag and with a good deal of difficulty extracted the two New Zealand pound notes she meant to give her stewardess. It seemed a large tip but it would represent only thirty English shillings. The stewardess was waiting in the corridor. The steward was there too and the bath steward. Roberta was obliged to return to her cabin and grope again in her bag.
Breakfast was a strange hurried affair with everybody wearing unfamiliar clothes and exchanging addresses. Roberta felt there was no sense of conviction in the plans the passengers made to sustain the friendships they had formed, but she too gave addresses to one or two people and wrote theirs on the back of a menu card. She then joined in the passport queue and in her excitement kept taking her landing papers out of her bag and putting them back again. Through the portholes she saw funnels, sides of tall ships, and finally buildings that seemed quite close to hand. She had her passport stamped and went up to B deck where the familiar notices looked blankly at her. Already the hatches were open and the winches uncovered. She stood apart from the other passengers and like them gazed forward. The shore was now quite close and there were many other ships near at hand. Stewards, pallid in their undervests, leant out of portholes to stare at the big liner. Roberta heard a passenger say, “Good old Thames.” She heard names that were strange yet familiar: Gravesend, Tilbury, Greenhithe.
“Nearly over, now, Miss Grey,” said a voice at her elbow. An elderly man with whom she had been vaguely friendly leant on the rail beside her.
“Yes,” said Roberta. “Almost over.”
“This is your first sight of London?”
“Yes.”
“That must be a strange sensation. I can’t imagine it. I’m a Cockney, you see.” He turned and looked down at her. Perhaps he thought she looked rather small and young for he said:
“Someone coming to meet you?”
“At the station, not at the boat. An aunt. I’ve never met her.”
“I hope she’s a nice aunt.”
“I do too. She’s my father’s sister.”
“You’ll be able to break the ice by telling her that you recognized her at once from her likeness to your father—” He broke off abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve said something that’s — I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” said Roberta, and because he looked so genuinely sorry she added: “I haven’t got quite used to talking ordinarily about them yet. My father and mother, I mean. I’ve got to get used to it, of course.”
“Both?” said her companion compassionately.
“Yes. In a motor accident. I’m going to live with this aunt.”
“Well,” he said, “I can only repeat that I do hope she’s a nice aunt.”
Roberta smiled at him and wished, though he was kind, that he would go away. A steward came along the deck carrying letters.
“Here’s the mail from the pilot boat,” said her companion.
Roberta didn’t know whether to expect a letter or not. The steward gave her two and a wireless message. She opened the wireless first and in another second her companion heard her give a little cry. He looked up from his own letter. Roberta’s dark eyes shone and her whole face seemed to have come brilliantly to life.
“Good news?”
“ Oh yes! Yes. It’s from my greatest friends. I’m to stay with them first. They’re coming to the ship. My aunt’s ill or something and I’m to go to them.”
‘That’s good news?”
“It’s splendid news. I knew them in New Zealand, you see, but I haven’t seen them for years.”
Roberta no longer wished that he would go away. She was so excited that she felt she must speak of her good fortune.
“I wrote and told them I was coming but the letter went by air-mail on the day I sailed.” She looked at her letters. “This one’s from Charlot.”
She opened it with shaking fingers. Lady Charles’s writing was like herself, at once thin, elegant and generous.
“Darling Robin,” Roberta read, “we are all so excited. As soon as your letter came I rang up your Kentish aunt and asked if we might have you first. She says we may for one night only which is measly but you must come back soon. She sounds quite nice. Henry and Frid will meet you at the wharf. We are so glad, darling. There’s only a box for you to sleep in but you won’t mind that. Best love from us all. Charlot”
The wireless said: “AUNT ILL SO WE ARE ALLOWED TO KEEP YOU FOR A MONTH. HURRAH DARLING SO GLAD AUNT NOT SERIOUSLY ILL SO EVERYTHING SPLENDID LOVE CHARLOT.”
The second was from Roberta’s aunt.
My dearest Roberta [it said], I am so grieved and vexed that I am unable to welcome you to Dear Old England but alas, my dear, I am prostrated with such dreadful sciatica that my doctor insists on a visit to a very special nursing home!! So expensive and worrying for poor me and I would at whatever cost to myself have defied him if it had not been for your friend Lady Charles Lamprey, who rang me up from London which was quite an excitement in my humdrum life to ask when you arrived and on hearing of my dilemma very kindly offered to take you for a month or more . At first I suggested one night but I know your dear father and mother thought very highly of Lady Charles Lamprey and now I feel I may with a clear conscience accept her offer. This letter will, I am assured, reach you while you are still on your ship. I am so distressed that this happened but all’s well that ends well, and I’m afraid, you will find life in a Kentish village very quiet after the gaiety and grandeurs of your London friends!!! Well, my dear, Welcome to England and believe me I shall look forward to our meeting as soon as ever I return! With much love, Your affectionate AUNT HILDA P.S. I have written a little note to Lady Charles Lamprey. By the way I hope that is the correct way to address her! Should it perhaps be Lady Imogen Lamprey? I seem to remember she was The Hon., or was it Lady, Imogen Ringle. I do hope I have not committed a faux pas ! I think her husband is the Lord Charles Lamprey who was at Oxford with dear old Uncle George Alton who afterwards became rector of Lumpington-Parva but I don’t suppose he would remember. AUNT H. P.P.S. On second thoughts he would be much too young!! A. H.
Roberta grinned and then laughed outright. She looked up to find her fellow-passenger smiling at her. “Everything as it should be?” he asked. “Lovely,” said Roberta.
II
As the distance lessened between wharf and ship the communal life that had bound the passengers together for five weeks dwindled and fell away. Already they appeared to be strangers to each other and their last conversations grew more and more, desultory and unreal. To Roberta, the ship herself seemed to lose familiarity. Because she had so much enjoyed her first long voyage she was now aware of a brief melancholy. But only a ditch of dirty water remained and on the wharf a crowd waited behind a barrier. Isolated individuals had begun to flutter handkerchiefs. Roberta’s eyes searched diligently among the closely packed people and she had decided that neither Henry nor Frid was there when suddenly she saw them, standing apart from the others and waving with that vague sideways sweep of the Lampreys. Henry looked much as she remembered him but four years had made an enormous difference to Frid. Instead of a shapeless schoolgirl Roberta saw a post-debutante, a young woman of twenty who looked as if every inch of herself and her clothes had been subjected to a sort of intensive manicuring. How smart Frid was and how beautifully painted; and how different they both looked from anyone else on the wharf. Henry was bare-headed and Roberta, accustomed to the close-cropped New Zealand heads, thought his hair rather long. But he looked nice, smiling up at her. She could see that he and Frid were having a joke. Roberta looked away. Lines had been flung to men on the wharf. With an imperative rattle, gang-planks were thrown out and five men in bowler hats walked up the nearest one.
“We won’t be allowed ashore just yet,” said her friend. “There’s always a delay. Good Lord, what on earth are those two people doing down there? They must be demented! Look!”
He pointed at Henry and Frid who thrust out their tongues, rolled their eyes, beat the air with their hands and stamped rhythmically.
“Extraordinary!” he ejaculated. “Who can they be?”
“They are my friends,” said Roberta. “They’re doing a haka.”
“A what?”
“A Maori war-dance. It’s to welcome me. They’re completely mad.”
“Oh,” said her friend, “yes. Very funny.”
Roberta got behind him and did a few haka movements. A lot of the passengers were watching Henry and Frid and most of the people on the wharf. When they had finished their haka they turned their backs to the ship and bent their heads.
“What are they doing now?” Roberta’s friend asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered nervously.
The barrier was lifted and the crowd on the wharf moved towards the gangways. For a moment or two Roberta lost sight of the Lampreys. The people round her began laughing and pointing, and presently she saw her friends coming on board. They now wore papier-mache noses and false beards and they gesticulated excitedly.
“They must be characters,” said her acquaintance doubtfully.
The passengers all hurried towards the head of the gangplank and Roberta was submerged among people much taller than herself. Her heart thumped; she saw nothing but the backs of overcoats and heard only confused cries of greeting. Suddenly she found herself in somebody’s arms. False beards and nose were pressed against her cheeks; she smelt Frid’s scent and the stuff Henry put on his hair.
“Hullo, darling,” cried the Lampreys.
“Did you like our haka?” asked Frid. “I wanted us to wear Maori mats and be painted brown but Henry wanted to be bearded so we compromised. It’s such fun you’ve come.”
“Tell me,” said Henry solemnly, “What do you think of dear old England?”
“Did you have a nice voyage?” asked Frid anxiously.
“Were you sick?”
“Shall we go now?”
“Or do you want to kiss the Captain?”
“Come on,” said Frid. “Let’s go. Henry says we’ve got to bribe the customs so that they’ll take you first.”
“Do be quiet, Frid,” said Henry, “it’s all a secret and you don’t call it a bribe. Have you got any money, Robin? I’m afraid we haven’t.”
“Yes, of course,” said Roberta. “How much?”
“Ten bob. I’ll do it. It doesn’t matter so much if I’m arrested.”
“You’d better take off your beard,” said Frid.
The rest of the morning was a dream. There was a long wait in the customs shed where Roberta kept remeeting all the passengers to whom she had said good-bye. There was a trundling of luggage to a large car where a chauffeur waited. Roberta instantly felt apologetic about the size of her cabin trunk. She found it quite impossible to readjust herself to these rapidly changing events. She was only vaguely aware of a broad and slovenly street, of buildings that seemed incredibly drab, of ever-increasing traffic. When Henry and Frid told her that this was the East End and murmured about Limehouse and Poplar, Roberta was only vaguely disappointed that the places were so much less romantic than their associations, that the squalor held no suggestion of illicit glamour, that the Road — looked so precisely like its name. When they came into the City and Henry and Frid pointed uncertainly to the Mansion House or suggested she should look at the dome of St. Paul’s, Roberta obediently stared out of the windows but nothing that she saw seemed real. It was as if she lay on an unfamiliar beach and breaker after breaker rolled over her head. The noise of London bemused her more than the noise of the sea. Her mind was limp; she heard herself talking and wondered at the coherence of the sentence.
“Here’s Fleet Street,” said Henry. “Do you remember ‘Up the Hill of Ludgate, down the Hill of Fleet’?”
“Yes,” murmured Roberta, “yes. Fleet Street.”
“We’ve miles to go still,” said Frid. “Robin, did you know I am going to be an actress?”
“She might have guessed,” said Henry, “by the way you walk. Did you notice her walk, Robin? She sort of paws the ground. When she comes into the room she shuts the door behind her and leans against it.”
Frid grinned. “I do it beautifully,” she said. “It’s second nature to me.”
“She goes to a frightful place inhabited by young men in mufflers who run their hands through their hair and tell Frid she’s marvellous.”
“It’s a dramatic school,” Frid explained. “The young men are very intelligent. All of them say I’m going to be a good actress.”
“We’ll be passing the law courts in a minute,” said Henry.
Scarlet omnibuses sailed past like ships. Inside them were pale people who looked at once alert, tired and preoccupied. In a traffic jam a dark blue car came so close alongside that the men in the back seat were only a few inches away from Roberta and the Lampreys.
“That’s one of the new police cars, Frid,” said Henry.
“How do you know?”
“Well, I know it is. I expect those enormous men are Big Fours.”
“I wish they’d move on,” said Frid. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we fell into their hands one of these days.”
“Why?” asked Roberta.
“Well, the twins were saying at breakfast yesterday that they thought the only thing to be done was for them to turn crooks and be another lot of Mayfair boys.”
“It was rather a good idea, really,” said Henry. “You see Colin said he’d steal incredibly rich dowager’s jewels and Stephen would establish his alibi at the Ritz or somewhere. Nobody can tell them apart, you know.”
“And then, you know,” added Frid, “if one of them was arrested they’d each say it was the other and as one of them must be innocent they’d have to let both of them go.”
“From which,” said Henry, “you will have gathered we are in the midst of a financial crisis.”
Roberta started at the sound of that familiar phrase.
“Oh, no!” she said.
“Oh, yes,” said Henry, “and what’s more it’s a snorter. Everybody seems to be furious with us.”
“Mummy’s going to pop the pearls this afternoon,” added Frid, “on her way to the manicurist.”
“She’s never done that before,” said Henry. “This is the Strand, Robin. That church is either St. Clement Dane or St. Mary-le-Strand and the next one is whatever that one isn’t. We’d better explain about the crisis, I suppose.”
“I wish you would,” said Roberta. In her bemused condition the Lampreys’ affairs struck a friendly and recognizable note. She could think sharply about their debts but she could scarcely so much as gape at the London she had greatly longed to see. It was as if her powers of receptivity were half-anesthetized and would respond only to familiar impressions. She listened attentively to a long recital of how Lord Charles had invested a great deal of the money he still mysteriously possessed in something called San Domingoes and how it had almost immediately disappeared. She heard of a strange venture in which Lord Charles had planned to open a jewellery business in the City, run on some sort of commission basis, with Henry and the twins as salesmen. “And at least,” said Frid, “there would have been Mummy’s things that she got out of pawn when Cousin Ruth died. It would have been better to sell than to pop them, don’t you think?” This project, it appeared, had depended on somebody called Sir David Stein who had recently committed suicide, leaving Lord Charles with an empty office and a ten years’ lease on his hands.
“And so now,” said Henry, “we appear to be sunk. That’s Charing Cross Station. We thought we would take you to a play to-night, Robin.”
“And we can dance afterwards,” said Frid. “Colin’s in love with a girl in the play so I expect he’ll want her to come whizzing on with us which is rather a bore. Have you asked Mary to come, Henry?”
“No,” said Henry. “We’ve only got five seats and the twins both want to come and anyway I want to dance with Robin, and Colin’s actress isn’t coming.”
“Well, Stephen could take Mary off your hands.”
“He doesn’t like her.”
“Mary is Henry’s girl,” explained Frid. “Only vaguely, though.”
“Well, she’s quite nice really,” said Henry.
“Charming, darling,” said Frid handsomely.
Roberta suddenly felt rather desolate. She stared out of the window and only half-listened to Henry who seemed to think he ought to point out places of interest.
‘This is Trafalgar Square,“ said Henry. ”Isn’t that thing in the middle too monstrous? Lions, you see, at each corner, but of course you’ve met them in photographs.”
“That building over there is the Tate Gallery,” said Frid.
“She means the National Gallery, Robin. I suppose you will want to see one or two sights, won’t you?”
“Well, I suppose I ought to.”
“Patch and Mike are at home for the holidays,” said Frid. “It will be good for them to take Robin to some sights.”
“Perhaps I could look some out for myself,” Roberta suggested with diffidence.
“You’ll find it difficult to begin,” Henry told her. “There’s something so cold-blooded about girding up your loins and going out to find a sight. I’ll come to one occasionally if you like. It may not be so bad once the plunge is taken. We are getting a very public-spirited family, Robin. The twins and I are territorials. I can’t tell you how much we dislike it but we stiffened our upper lips and bit on the bullets and when the war comes we know what we have to do. In the meantime, of course, I’ve got to get a job, now we’re sunk.”
“We’re not definitely sunk until Uncle G. has spoken,” Frid pointed out.
“Uncle G.!” Robin exclaimed. “I’d almost forgotten about him. He’s always sounded like a myth.”
“It’s to be hoped he doesn’t behave like one,” said Henry. ”He’s coming to see us to-morrow. Daddy has sent him an SOS. I can’t tell you how awful he is.”
“Aunt V. is worse,” said Frid gloomily. “Let’s face it, Aunt V. is worse. And they’re both coming in order to go into a huddle with Daddy and Mummy about finance. We hope to sting Uncle G. for two thousand.”
“It’ll all come to Daddy when they’re dead, you see, Robin. They’ve no young of their own.”
“I thought,” said Roberta, “that they were separated.”
“Oh, they’re always flying apart and coming together again,” said Frid. “They’re together at the moment. Aunt V. has taken up witchcraft.”
“What!”
“Witchcraft,” said Henry. “It’s quite true. She’s a witch. She belongs to a little black-magic club somewhere.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“You may as well, because it’s true. She started by taking up with a clergyman in Devon who has discovered an evil place on Dartmoor. It seems that he told Aunt V. that he thought he might as well sprinkle some holy water on this evil place but when he went there the holy water was dashed out of his hands by an unseen power. He lent Aunt V. some books about black magic and instead of being horrified she took the wrong turning and thought it sounded fun. I understand she goes to the black mass and everything.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“Her maid, Miss Tinkerton, told Nanny. Tinkerton says Aunt V. is far gone in black magic. They have meetings at Deepacres. The real Deepacres, you know, in Kent. Aunt V. is always buying books about witchcraft and she’s got a lot of very queer friends. They’ve all got names like Olga and Sonia and Boris. Aunt V. is half-Roumanian, you know,” said Frid.
“Half-Hungarian, you mean,” corrected Henry.
“Well, all Central European anyway. Her name isn’t Violet at all.”
“What is it?” asked Roberta.
“Something Uncle G. could neither spell nor pronounce so he called her Violet. A thousand years ago he picked her up in Budapest at an embassy. She’s a very sinister sort of woman and quite insane. Probably the witchcraft is a throwback to a gypsy ancestress of sorts. Of course Uncle G.‘s simply furious about it, not being a warlock.”
“Naturally,” said Frid. “I suppose he’s afraid she might put a spell on him.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Henry. “She’s a really evil old thing. She gives me absolute horrors. She’s like a white toad. I’ll bet you anything you like that under her clothes she’s all cold and damp.”
“Shut up,” said Frid. “All the same I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. Henry, do let’s stop somewhere and have breakfast. I’m ravenous and I’m sure Robin must be.”
“It’ll have to be Angelo’s,” said Henry. “He’ll let us chalk it up.”
“I’ve got some money,” said Roberta rather shyly.
“No, no!” cried Frid. “Angelo’s much too dear to pay cash. We’ll put it down to Henry’s account and I’ve got enough for a tip, I think.”
“It may not be open,” said Henry. “What’s the time? The day seems all peculiar with this early start. Look, Robin, we’re coming into Piccadilly Circus.”
Roberta stared past the chauffeur and, through the windscreen of the car, she had her first sight of Eros.
In the thoughts of those who have never visited them all great cities are represented by symbols: New York by a skyline, Paris by a river and an arch, Vienna by a river and a song, Berlin by a single street. But to British colonials the symbol of London is more homely than any of these. It is a small figure perched slantways above a roundabout, an elegant, Victorian god with a Grecian name — Eros of Piccadilly Circus. When they come to London, colonials orientate themselves by Piccadilly Circus. All their adventures start from there. It is under the bow of Eros that to many a colonial has come that first warmth of realization that says to him: “This is London.” It is here at the place which he learns, with a rare touch of insolence, to call the hub of the universe that the colonial wakes from the trance of arrival finds his feet on London paving stones, and is suddenly happy.
So it was for Roberta. From the Lampreys’ car she saw the roundabout of Piccadilly, the great sailing buses, the sea of faces, the traffic of the Circus, and she felt a kind of realization stir in her heart.
“It’s not so very big,” said Roberta.
“Quite small, really,” said Henry.
“I don’t mean it’s not thrilling,” said Roberta. “It is. I–I feel as if I’d like to be — sort of inside it.”
“I know,” agreed Henry. “Let’s nip out, Frid, and walk round the corner to Angelo’s.”
He said to the chauffeur: “Pick us up in twenty minutes, will you, Mayling?”
“Here’s a jam,” said Frid. “Now’s our chance. Come on.”
Henry opened the door and took Roberta’s hand. She scrambled out. The voyage, the ship, and the sea all slid away into remoteness. A new experience took Roberta and the sounds that are London engulfed her.