Half a Crown Read Online Free PDF Page B

again. I could just see the torches coming into sight.
    “Oh look!” Betsy said, pressing forward.
    I could hardly hear the bands over the cheering. I’d somehow expected everyone to have a torch, but of course the bandsmen playing instruments didn’t. Torchbearers walked to both sides of the bands, making a stripe of light. Sir Alan was right that the best way to see the parade was from above, because that way you could make out the patterns, especially in the sections where people were dancing and making shapes of fire. A few celebrities rode on floats, all dressed up as famous scenes from history. There was Britannia with her shield done in flowers, Nelson with his telescope, one done up like a bowling alley, which I didn’t get at all until Betsy said something about Drake and then it was obvious. The Ironsides themselves came along between the bands and floats and shapes of flame, young men puffed up like pigeons and marching like soldiers. They carried decorated banners with the names of their local groups. The floats got the biggest cheers, especially when the people were well known. When Mollie Gaston, as Queen Victoria, threw toffees to the children in the crowd, you’d have thought she was the real queen, not just the grand old dame of British theater. Most popular of all though were the Jews, roped together in groups, who the crowd could pelt with wet sponges they’d bought for the purpose. When I was a child, people used to throw rotten vegetables and bad eggs, but that had been stopped because it made a mess of the streets. Sometimes people threw them anyway, of course. When the last of the bands passed us, playing “Knees Up, Mother Brown,” Sir Alan said it was time to go.
    I drained my glass, which was mostly ice-meltwater by now. It was strange turning from the parade back to the room. I’d been half leaning out of the window, entirely caught up in the jolly fun of it, mingled with childhood memories and general patriotic enthusiasm. Now the cynicism and sophistication of the party seemed stifling. I was glad we were leaving. These people didn’t seem moved by the rally at all, they didn’t really care. Like Mrs. Maynard, they thought it a good way of keeping people they despised occupied. I said good-bye to Sir Mortimer politely, and almost slipped in my haste to get down the steep stairs.
    The main streets were crowded as the spectators followed after the parade, but Sir Alan knew the backstreets and raced along them. “What did you think of it?” he asked.
    “I thought it was great fun,” I said, when Betsy hadn’t answered after a moment.
    “I didn’t like the Jews,” she said. “That family they had in the last group upset me. I could see the little girl bleeding.”
    “You have too tender a heart, Betsy,” Sir Alan said, condescendingly. “They’re only Jews. A little water doesn’t do them any harm, and nor do a few shouted names. Even if people throw the odd stone or rotten tomato, it’s much less than they deserve. Think how they sabotage the economy when they get the slightest chance, and what they’d do to us if they could!”
    There was a huge bonfire outside Marble Arch, and I could already hear the bands playing in the distance. “I hope you girls aren’t too tired,” Sir Alan said.
    “Will there be speeches?” Betsy asked cautiously.
    Sir Alan laughed. “Not very many, don’t worry.”
    He parked the car and we made our way through the cheerful crowds. There was a bonfire, there were torches, there was band music, I could smell candyfloss and wished we could have some, though I knew it would be impossibly lower-class of me to ask for it. I waslower-class, and I knew it. I felt a deep camaraderie for all these people, marchers and watchers, the barefoot children cheerfully begging. London had not changed much since Dickens’s day, I thought, giving one of them half a crown.
    And that’s how it was; we were walking through the crowds and the people all seemed