A Ripple From the Storm Read Free

had spoken well and calmly, his pale, fattish, intellectual face making no concessions of appeal to them. Now they were feeling disquieted because of the excessive reaction of three officers.
    Boris rose to his feet again, not to put forward any new arguments, for he repeated in different words what he had said before, but in order to reimpress his calm and objective image on the audience. The three men on the platform remained seated, in postures of warning anger, while half a dozen people got up one after another around the hall, to say that to produce such a booklet would cost nothing, since the printing would be a gift; and the distribution would of course be done by members of the society. An ironical voice shouted that the articles would cost nothing either, since obviously there were plenty of people prepared to write them for nothing! But everyone in the ballroom laughed at this: it was the laugh that occurs at a public meeting when something has been said which might have been dangerous: a laugh a little too ready, a little too loud, and accompanied by dozens of pairs of eyes seeking each other for confirmation. It was noticeable that at the laugh the three figures on the platform assumed more easy postures: in short, they would accommodate themselves to the mood of the meeting. They had been too ready to see danger.
    Mr Perr stood up to say, in the easy amiable tone of his chairman’s address, that he would of course accept the majority opinion. Before he sat down, people were jumping up all over the hall to make suggestions about the practical side of the proposition: the thing had been accepted, in fact, without a vote.
    At this moment Martha saw Jasmine and Jackie enter a side door. Jackie’s jacket buttons were undone again and his dark and satirical face was already expressing every sort of contempt. The man’s capacity to impress himself was such that although he had made no sound coming in, all the people on his side of the hall had turned to watch him, and the men on the platform were exchanging warning glances.
    Jackie Bolton made his way to an empty chair, excusing himself smilingly, and every time he did so, he caught the eyes of the person he was disturbing and held them until he chose to nod and look into the next face. He seated himself in such a way that everyone expected him to rise to his feet for a speech.
    Meanwhile, jasmine had taken a chair beside Martha at the literature table. Her face expressed exactly what Jackie’s did: a conspiratorial contempt. It cut the current of sympathy between the two girls; and Martha whispered: ‘I hope he’s not going to speak. It’s not necessary now.’ Last night the group had decided that Comrade Jackie would get up to speak only as a last resort; and only to put forward facts, not to make revolutionary speeches! It was to be hoped that Jasmine had explained all this to Jackie while they were drinking in the other room?
    ‘Oh,’ said Jasmine composedly, rolling her eyes, ‘it won’t do them any harm to hear some home truths about themselves.’
    Jackie’s voice could already be heard. He was standing, or rather lounging, at the back of the hall, and he was making that speech they had all decided it would be disastrous for him to make. Jackie had two voices. One was the most correct and colourless version of upper-class speech that could be imagined. He could use it blandly: in order to neutralize himself and his over-colourful personality. And he could use it with undertones of satirical comment, as if to say: This is what you sound like. (He also used it, as Martha had noted with resentment, when he was alone with a woman.) His other voice was the cockney of the streets he had come from and when he chose it he was a different person. The exaggerated contempt he carried with him in his other role became a shoulder-shrugging barrow-boy’s good-natured anarchy; his whole being became alive with darting critical comment. He sometimes dropped into his