Rachel Wynne and Mrs. Graham and Mary dined with them on the following evening, and it seemed to Henry when he saw Mary entering Ninian's sitting-room that she was a stranger to him. He had known her as a child and as a young, self-conscious girl, but this Mary was a woman. He felt shy in her presence, and when, for a few moments, he was left alone with her, he hardly knew what to say to her. They had been "Quinny" and "Mary" to each other before, but now they avoided names.... He spoke tritely about her journey to London, reminding her of the slowness of the train between Whitcombe and Salisbury, and wondered whether she liked London better than Boveyhayne. His old disability to say the things that were in his mind prevented him from re-establishing his intimacy with her. He tried to say, "Hilloa, Mary!" but could not do so, and his shyness affected her so that she stood before him, fingering her fan nervously, and answering "Yes" and "Oh, yes!" and "No" and "Oh, no!" to all that he said. He liked the sweep of her hair across her brow andthe soft flush in her cheeks and the slender lines of her neck and the gleam of a gold chain that held a pendant suspended about her throat. He thought, too, that her eyes shone like lustres in the light, and suddenly, as he thought this, he felt that he could speak to her with his old freedom. He moved towards her, shaping his lips to say, "Oh, Mary, I ..." but the door opened before he could speak, and Rachel Wynne entered the room with Roger and Mrs. Graham.
"Yes, Quinny?" Mary said, saying his name quite easily now.
He laughed nervously and looked at the others. "I've forgotten what I was going to say," he said, and went forward to greet Mrs. Graham.
"My cousin, Rachel Wynne," said Roger, introducing her to him.
Rachel Wynne was a tall, thin girl, with a curious tightened look, as if she were keeping a close hold on herself. When she held out her hand to him, he had a sensation of discomfort, not because her clasp was firm, but because she seemed to be looking, not through him, but into him. He was very sensitive to the opinion of people about him, feeling very quickly the dislike of any one who did not care for him, and in a moment he knew that Rachel Wynne was antipathetic to him. Henry was always rude to people whom he disliked ... he could not be civil to them, however hard he might try to be so, but his feeling in the presence of people who disliked him, was one of powerlessness: he was tongue-tied and nervous and very dull, and his faculties seemed to shrivel up. There was a look of cold efficiency about Rachel Wynne that frightened him. She seemed to be incapable of wasting time or of waywardness. Her career at Newnham, Roger had told him, had been one of steady brilliance. "There wasn't a flicker in it," he had said to Henry. "Rachel's always well-trimmed!"
There were no ragged edges about Rachel Wynne. Herfrock was neatly made, so neatly that he was unaware of it, and her hair was bound tightly to her head by a black velvet ribbon. She had a look of cold tidiness, as if she had been frozen into her shape and could not be thawed out of it; but she was not cold in spirit, as he discovered during dinner when the conversation shifted from generalities about themselves to the work she had lately been doing. They had been talking about Gilbert's play, and then Mrs. Graham had turned to Henry and told him how much she liked his novels. Her tastes were simple, and she preferred "Broken Spears" to "Drusilla." "Of course, 'Drusilla' is very clever!" she said a little deprecatingly, and then she turned to Rachel and asked her whether she had read Henry's novels.
"No," Rachel answered. "I very seldom read novels!..."
He felt contempt for her. Now he knew why he had been chilled by her presence. She belonged to that order of prigs which will not read novels, preferring instead to read "serious" books. Such a woman would treat "Tom Jones" as a frivolous book, less illuminating than some tedious biography or history book. She might even deny that it had any illumination at all.... He could not prevent a sneer from his retort to her statement that she seldom read novels.
"I suppose," he said, "you think that novels are not sufficiently serious?"
"Oh, no," she answered quickly. "I just haven't time for novel-reading!"
That seemed to him to be worse than if she had said that she preferred to read solid books. A novel, in her imagination, was a light diversion in which one only indulged in times of unusual slackness. No wonder, he thought to himself, all reformers and serious people make such a mess of the social system when they despise and ignore the principal means of knowing the human spirit.
"That's a pity," he said aloud. "I should have thoughtthat you'd find novels useful to you in your work. I mean, there's surely more chance of understanding the people of the eighteenth century if you read Fielding's 'Tom Jones' than there is if you read Lecky's 'England in the Eighteenth Century.'"
"Is there?" said Rachel.
"Of course, there is," Gilbert hurled at her from the other side of the table. "Fielding was an artist, inspired by God, but Lecky was simply a fact-pedlar, inspired by the Board of Education. Why even that dull ass, Richardson, makes you understand more about his period than Lecky does!"
"Perhaps," said Rachel, in a tone which indicated that there was no doubt in her mind about the relative values of Lecky and Fielding. She turned to Henry. "I wish you'd write a book about the factory system," she said. "That would be worth doing!"
He disliked the suggestion that "Broken Spears" and "Drusilla" had not been worth doing, and he let his resentment of her attitude towards his work affect the tone of his voice as he answered, "I don't know anything about factories!"
"You should learn about them," she retorted.
No, he did not like this woman, aggressive and assertive. He turned to speak to Mary ... but Rachel Wynne had not finished with him.
"I've spent six months in the north of England," she said, reaching for the salted almonds. "I've seen every kind of factory, model and otherwise!"
"Oh, yes," he answered, vaguely irritated by her. He wished that she would talk to her other neighbour and leave him in peace with Mary. As an Improved Tory, he knew that he ought to get all the information about factories out of her that he could, but as Henry Quinn, he had no other desire than to be quit of her as quickly as possible.
"And I think the model factories are no better than the rotten ones," she went on.
"What's that you say?" Roger called to her from the other side of the table.
She repeated her remark. "I went over a model factory last week ... a cocoa and chocolate works ... and I'd rather be a tramp than work in it," she went on.
"But isn't it rather wonderfully organised?" Roger asked.
"Oh, yes, it's marvellously arranged. There are baths and gymnasia and continuation classes and free medical inspection and model houses and savings banks and all the rest of it ... but I'd rather be a tramp, I tell you.... You see, even with the best of employers, genuinely philanthropic people eager to deal justly with the workers who make their fortunes for them, the factory system remains a rotten one. You can't make a decent, human thing out of it because it's fundamentally vile!..."
"My dear Rachel!..." Roger began, but she would not listen to interruptions.
"They look just as pale and 'peeked' in model factories as they do in bad ones. They're cleaner, that's all. The firm sees that they wash, but it can't prevent them from becoming ill, and they're all ill. They don't look any better than the people in the bad factories. They look worse, because they're cleaner and you can see their illness more easily. But that isn't all. They have no hope of ever controlling the firm ... they'll never be allowed to own the factory ... that will always belong to the Family. The best that the clever ones can look forward to is a little managership. Most of them can't look forward to anything but being drilled and washed and medically inspected and modelly housed and morally controlled.... Oh, it isn't worth it, it isn't worth it. I'd rather be a dirty, insanitary tramp!"
A kind of moral fury possessed her, and they sat still, listening to her without interrupting her.
"I saw three girls at a machine," she went on, "and one of them did some little thing to a chocolate box and thenpassed it on to the second girl who did a further little thing to it and then passed it to the third girl who did another little thing to it, and then it was finished, and that was all. They do that every day, and the man who took me round told me that the firm had to catch 'em young, otherwise they can't acquire the knack of it. I saw girls putting pieces of chocolate into tinfoil so quickly that you could hardly see their movements; and they do that all day. And they have to be caught young ... before they've properly tasted life. They wouldn't do it otherwise, I suppose. That's your factory system for you! And think of the things they produce. Chocolate boxes full of sweets! There was one girl who spent the whole of her working days in pasting photographs of grinning chorus girls on to box-lids. I should go mad if I had to look at that soppy grin all day long...."
Mrs. Graham murmured gently, but her words were not audible. Rachel would not have heard them if they had been.
"Well," said Gilbert, "what do you want to do about it?"
"I'm a reactionary," Rachel answered. "I'm against all this ... this progress. We're simply eating up people's lives, and paying meanly for them. I'd destroy all these factories ... the whole lot. They aren't worth the price. And I'd go back to decent piggery. What is the good of a plate when it means that some girl has been poisoned so that it can be bought cheaply?"
"But we must have plates?" Henry said.
"Why?" she retorted.
"Well!" he rejoined, smiling at her as one smiles at a foolish child.
"Oh, I know," she went on, "you think I'm talking wildly. I've heard all about your Improved Toryism. Roger's told me about it. You all think that you are the anointed ones, and that the bulk of people are born to do what they're told. You won't have whips for your slaves... you'll have statutes. You won't sell them ... you'll socialise them. Cogs in wheels, you'll make them! Oh, it isn't worth while living like that. You don't even let a man do a whole job ... you only let him do a part of one, and you're trying to turn him into an automaton more and more every day. He's to press a button ... and that's all. Presently, he'llbea button!..."
"My dear Rachel," Roger said, "you don't imagine, do you, that the whole world's going to turn back to ... piggery as you call it? We've spent centuries in creating this civilisation...."
"Is it worth while?" she demanded.
"Yes...."
"Prove it," she insisted.
"Well, of course, that's a job, isn't it? I can't prove it in a few minutes...."
"You can't prove it, Roger," she interrupted. "If all this civilisation were worth while, you wouldn't need to prove it: it would be obvious. We'd only have to look out of the door to see the proof."
"I don't say that the factory system is satisfactory at present. It isn't; but it can be improved...."
"No, it can't, Roger. It's unimprovable. I dare you to go to any model factory in England and study it with an honest mind and then say that it is worth while. It makes the people ill ... they get no pleasure out of their work...."
"We could shorten the hours in factories," Henry suggested.
"If you do that, you admit that the thing is rotten, and can only be endured in short shifts!" she retorted. "And who wants his hours reduced? A healthy man wants to work as long as he can stand up. I don't want my hours reduced. I'll go on working until I drop ... but I wouldn't work for two seconds if I didn't like the job!" She turned again to Henry. "Why don't you write a book exposing the factory system. It would be much moreuseful than all this lovey-dovey stuff. I'd give the world for a book like that ... as good as Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' or 'Dickens's 'Oliver Twist'!..."
Mary had not spoken at all while Rachel harangued them on the question of the factory system, but that was not surprising, for Rachel had not given any of them a chance to say more than two or three words. In Ninian's sitting-room, when Gilbert turned to her and asked her what she thought of factories, she blushed a little, conscious that they had all turned to look at her, and answered that she had never seen a factory.
"Never seen a factory!" Rachel exclaimed, and was off again in denunciation.
Henry went and sat beside Mary while Rachel told tales of sweaters that caused Mrs. Graham to cry out with pain.
"Mary!" he said to her under his breath.
"Yes, Quinny," she answered, turning towards him and speaking as softly as he had spoken.
He fumbled for words. "It's ... it's awfully nice to see you again," he said.
"It's nice to see you all again," she replied.
"You're ... you're so different," he went on.
"Am I?" She paused a moment, and then, smiling at him, said, "So are you."
"Am I very different?" he asked.
"In some ways. You're quite famous now, aren't you?"
"Famous?" he said vaguely.
"Yes. Your novels...."
He laughed. "Oh, dear no, not anything like famous!"
"Well-known, then."
"Moderately well-known. That's all. But what's the point?"
"Well, that's the point," she replied. "You were only'Quinny' before, but now you're the moderately well-known novelist, and I'm afraid of you...."
"Don't be absurd, Mary!"
"But I am, Quinny. I read a review of one of your books in some paper, and it called you a very wise person, and said you knew a great deal about human nature or something of that sort. Well, one feels rather awful in the presence of a person like that. At least, I do!"
He felt that she was chaffing him, and he did not want to be chaffed by her. He liked the "Quinny" and "Mary" attitude, and he wished that she would forget that he had written "wise" books.
"You're making fun of me," he said.
"Oh, no, I'm not," she answered quickly. "I'm quite serious!"
He did not answer for a few moments. He could hear Rachel's passionate voice saying, "They get seven shillings a week ... in theory. There are fines ..." and he wondered why it was that she repelled him. Her sincerity was palpable ... it was clear that she was hurt by the miseries of factory girls ... but in spite of her sincerity, he felt that he could not bear to be near her. "If she'd only talk of something else," he thought ... and then returned to Mary.
"Do you remember that time at Boveyhayne?" he said.
"Which time?" she asked.
"The first time."
"Yes."
He swallowed and then went on. "Do you remember what I said to you ... on the platform at Whitcombe?"
She spoke more quickly and loudly as she answered him. "Oh, yes," she said, "we got engaged, didn't we? Wewerekids!..."
Mrs. Graham caught the word "engaged."
"Who's engaged?" she asked.
"No one, mother," Mary answered. "Quinny and I were talking about the time when we were engaged!..."
He felt a frightful fool. What on earth had possessed her that she should treat the matter in this fashion?
"Were you engaged, dear?" Mrs. Graham said.
"Oh, yes, mother. Don't you remember? Of course, we were kids then!..."
Why did she insist on the fact that they were "kids" then?
"I remember it," Ninian interjected. "Old Quinny was frightfully sloppy over it. Oh, I say, I met Tom Arthurs to-day. He's going to Southampton to-morrow. TheGigantic'sstarting on her maiden trip, and he's going over with her. I wish to goodness I could go too!"
"Why don't you?" Mrs. Graham said. It seemed to her too that if Ninian wished to do anything that was sufficient reason why he should be allowed to do it.
"I can't get away," he answered. "We're busier than we've ever been. But I'm going to Southampton to see theGiganticstart. The biggest boat in the world! My goodness! Tom's awfully excited about it. You'd think theGiganticwas his son!..."
Henry thanked heaven that at last the conversation had veered from factories and his engagement to Mary. He tried to fasten it to theGigantic.
"What are you so busy about that you can't go with Tom?" he asked.
"Oh, heaps of things! Old Hare's keen on building a Channel Tunnel, and he's spent a good deal of time working the thing out!"
Mrs. Graham had always imagined that the proposal to build a Tunnel between France and England was a joke, and she said so.
"Good heavens, mother!" Ninian exclaimed. "Old Hare isn't a joke. The thing's as practicable as the Tuppenny Tube. People have been experimenting for half-a-century with it. Joke, indeed! They've made seven thousand soundings in forty years!..."
"Really!" said Mrs. Graham.
"And borings, too ... lots of them ... in the bed of the Channel. They've started a Tunnel, two thousand yards of it from Dover, under the sea, and there isn't a flaw in it. Hardly any water comes through, although there isn't a lining to the walls ... just the bare, grey chalk. I was awfully sick when I was told I couldn't go to Harland and Wolff's, but I don't mind now. Building a Channel Tunnel is as big a job as building theGiganticany day, and Hare is as brainy as Tom Arthurs!"
He became oratorical about the Channel Tunnel, and he told them stories of remarkable borings on both sides of the sea.
"There's a big thick bed of grey chalk all the way from England to France," he said, "and the water simply can't get through it. They've made experimental tubes from our side and from the French side, and they let people into them, and it was all right. No mud, no water, no foul air ... perfectly sound!"
He quoted Sartiaux, the French engineer, and Sir Francis Fox, the English engineer. "They don't fool about with wildcat schemes, I can tell you. Why, Fox built the Mersey Tunnel and the Simplon Tunnel ... and the Channel Tunnel is as easy as that!"
There were to be two tubes, each capable of carrying the ordinary British railway, bored through a bed of cenomian chalk, two hundred feet thick on an average.
"We could have an extra tunnel for motor-cars, if necessary!" said Ninian. "Just think of the difference there'd be if we had the Tunnel. You could buzz from London to Paris in five or six hours without changing, and you'd never get seasick!..."
"That would be nice," said Mrs. Graham.
"And you'd be safer in the Tunnel than you'd be on the Channel. There'd be a hundred and fifty feet of watertight chalk between you and the sea!"
They argued about the Tunnel. How long would it take to construct? "Oh, six or seven years!" Ninian answered airily. "What about War? Supposing England and France went to War with each other?"
"We could flood a long section of the Tunnel from our side, and they couldn't pump the water out from theirs," he answered. "Of course, I don't know much about it, but when you get chaps like Hare and Sartiaux and Fox talking seriously about it, you listen seriously to them. Anyhow, I do. Old Hare told me yesterday I was getting on nicely!..."
Mrs. Graham was delighted. "Did he, dear?" she burbled at Ninian.
"Yes," Ninian answered, "he said I wasn't such an ass as he'd thought I was. Oh, I'm getting on all right!"
Henry sat back in his chair while they talked, and let his mind fill with thoughts of Mary. She was listening to Ninian, not as if she understood all that he was saying, but as if she were proud of him, and while he watched her, he felt his old affection for her surging up in his heart. He had described a young, fresh girl in "Drusilla," and he had fallen in love with his description. Now, looking at Mary, he realised that unconsciously he had drawn her portrait. "I must have been in love with her all the time," he thought, "even when I was running after Sheila Morgan!"
He looked at her so steadily that she felt his gaze, and she turned to look at him. She smiled at him as she did so, and he smiled back at her.
"Isn't it interesting to hear about the Tunnel?" she said.
"Eh?... Oh, yes! Yes. Awfully interesting...."
"You know," said Roger when Mrs. Graham and Mary and Rachel had gone, "we really haven't talked enough about this factory system. Rachel's wild about it, of course ... she's a girl ... but she's got more sense on her side than we have on ours. It really isn't any good ignoring it. It's too big to be overlooked. I think we ought to have a course of talks about the whole thing. We could get people to come and tell us all they know. Rachel's got a lot of information. We could pick it out of her. And then there's that woman ... what's her name ... Mc something ... who knows all about factories ... Mc Mc Mc ..."
"Mary McArthur," said Gilbert.
"Yes. That's her name. I wonder if she'd come and dine with us. You know, we haven't had any women. That's an oversight, isn't it?" He walked towards the door as he spoke. "I'm going to bed now," he said. "I've got a county court case in the morning at Croydon, and I shall have to get up early. Good-night!"
"Good-night, Roger!" they murmured sleepily.
"Oh, by the way," he added, "Rachel and I are engaged. I thought I'd tell you!"
He shut the door behind him.
They sat up, gaping at the closed door.
"What'd he say?" said Ninian.
"He says he's engaged to that blooming orator!" Gilbert answered.
"But, damn it, why?" said Ninian.
"And we've got the lease of this house for another two years!" Henry exclaimed. "I suppose he'll want to get married and ... all that!"
They were silent for a while, contemplating this strange disruption of their affairs.
"Of course, people do get engaged!" said Ninian, and then he relapsed into silence.
"I've been in love myself," Gilbert said, "but ... this is excessive. We ought to do something. Can't we get up a memorial or something?..."
Ninian sat upright, pointing a finger at them. "You know, chaps," he exclaimed, "Roger's ashamed of himself. He didn't tell us 'til he'd got to the door, and then he damn well hooked it!"
"He's been trapped," Gilbert said. "Females are always trapping chaps!..."
"We ought to save him from himself!" Ninian stood up as he spoke.
"But supposing he doesn't want to be saved?" Henry asked.
"We'll save him all the same," Ninian answered.
"Let's go on a deputation to him," Gilbert suggested. "We will put it reasonably to him. Well tell him that he mustn't do this thing.... Oh, Lord, coves, it's no good. This house is doomed. A female has done it!"
"If it had been you, Gilbert, or Quinny," said Ninian, "I'd have thought it was natural. You're that sort! But old Roger ... well, there's no doubt about it, God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. Let's go to bed. I'm fed-up with everything!"
Henry switched off the light and got into bed. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come to him. He lay blinking at the ceiling for a while, and then he got up and went into his sitting-room and got out his manuscript and began to write. He wrote steadily for half-an-hour, and then he put down his pen and read over what he had written.
"No," he said, crumpling the paper and throwing it into the wastepaper basket, "that won't do!"
He walked about the room for a few minutes, and then he went back to bed, and lay there with his hands clasped about his head.
"I don't see why I shouldn't get married myself," he said, and then he went to sleep.
In the morning, Ninian and Roger rose early, for Ninian was going to Southampton to see theGiganticstart on her maiden voyage to America, and Roger had a case at a county court outside London. In a vague way, Ninian had intended to talk to Roger about his engagement, to reason with him, as he put it. Gilbert had pointed out that the chief employment of women is to disrupt the friendships of men. "Men," he had said to Ninian and Henry after Roger had gone to bed, "take years to make up a friendship, and then a female comes along and busts it up in a couple of weeks!" Ninian did not intend to let Miss Rachel Wynne break uptheirfriendship, and he planned a long, comprehensive and settling conversation with Roger on the subject of females generally and of Rachel Wynne particularly. In bed, he had invented an extraordinarily convincing argument, before which Roger must collapse, but by the time he had finished shaving, the argument had vanished from his mind, and his convincing speech shrivelled into a halting, "I say, Roger, old chap, it's a bit thick, you know!" and even that ceased to exist when he saw Roger, with theTimespropped against the sugar bowl, eating bacon and eggs as easily as if he had never betrothed himself to any woman.
"Hilloa, Roger!" said Ninian, sitting down at the table, and reaching for the toast.
"Hilloa, Ninian!" Roger murmured, without looking up.
Magnolia entered with Ninian's breakfast and placed it before him.
"Anything in theTimes?" Ninian said, pouring out coffee.
"Usual stuff. The bacon's salt!..."
The time, Ninian thought, was hardly suitable for a few home-thrusting words on the subject of marriage, so he reminded Roger that he was going to Southampton.
"Tom Arthurs has promised to show me over as much of theGiganticas we can manage in a couple of hours. That won't be as much as I'd like to see, but I'll try and go over her when she comes back from New York. Any mustard about?"
"You'll be back again to-night, I suppose?"
"Probably. You're right ... this bacon is salt, damn it!"
Roger rose from the table and moved to the window where he stood for a while looking out on the garden. It seemed to Ninian that in a moment or two he would speak of his engagement, and so he sat still, waiting for him to begin.
"Well," said Roger, turning away from the window and feeling for his watch, "I must be off. So long, Ninian!"
He went out of the room quickly and in a little while, Ninian heard the street door banging behind him.
"Damn," he said to himself, "I've just remembered what I was going to say to him!"
He had finished his breakfast and left the house before Gilbert and Henry came down from their rooms. Henry was too tired to talk much, and Gilbert, finding him uncommunicative, made no effort to make conversation. He picked up theTimesand contented himself with the morning's news, while Henry read a letter from John Marsh which had come by the first post.
"I'm interested in your Improved Tories," he wrote, "I think the scheme is excellent. You sharpen your wits on other people's, and you keep in touch with all kinds of opinions. That's excellent! Your father, and you, too, used to say we were rather one-eyed in Dublin, and I thinkthere's a good deal of truth in that, so I'm trying to get a group of people in Dublin to form a society somewhat similar to your Improved Tories. Did you ever meet a man called Arthur Griffiths when you were here? He is a very able, but not very sociable, man, and so people do not know him as well as they ought to ... and his tongue is like a flail ... so that most of the people who do know him, don't like him. The Nationalist M. P.'s detest him. Well, several years ago he founded a society which he called the Sinn Fein Movement, and the principle of the thing is excellent up to a point. Do you remember any of your Gaelic? Sinn Fein means 'we ourselves,' and that is the principle of the society. The object is to induce Irishmen to do for themselves, things that are done for them by Englishmen. It ought to appeal to your father. Griffiths got the idea, I think, from Hungary. We're to withdraw our representatives from the English parliament and start an Irish Government on the basis of a Grand Council of the County Councils. We're to have our own consular service, our own National Bank and Stock Exchange and Civil Service, and a mercantile marine so that we can trade direct with other countries. And we're to nationalise the railways and canals and bogs (which are to be reclaimed) and take over insurance and education and so forth. All this is to be done by the General Council of the County Councils in opposition to anything of the sort that is done by the English Government in preparation for the day when there is an Irish Government when, of course, the General Council will be merged in the Government. Oh, and we're to have Protection, too! It seems rather a lot, doesn't it? but the idea is excellent and, if modified considerably, fairly practical. Griffiths has antiquated notions of economics, however, and some of the things he says prevent me from joining him. His great idea is to attract capital to Ireland by telling capitalists how cheap Irish labour is. That seems to me to be an abominable proposal, likely to lead to something worse than Wigan and all thosemiserable English towns your father dislikes so heartily. And probably, of all his proposals, it is the most likely to succeed. That's why I'm opposed to him at present. I cannot bear the thought of seeing England duplicated in Ireland. But the scheme has merit, and Galway and I are plotting to capture the movement from Griffiths. We think that if we could graft the Sinn Fein on to the Gaelic League, we'd be on the way to establishing Irish independence. Our people are becoming very materialistic, and we must quicken their spirits again somehow. Douglas Hyde is the trouble, of course. He wants to keep the Gaelic League clear of politics. As if you can possibly keep politics out of anything in Ireland! We want to make every Gaelic Leaguer a conscious rebel against English beliefs and English habits. I wish you'd come over and join us. It'll be very hard, but exhilarating, work. You've no notion of how sordid and money-grubbing and English the mass of our people are becoming. It's a man's job to destroy that spirit and revive the old, careless, generous, God-loving Irish one...."
"Still harping on that old nationality," Henry thought to himself, when he had finished reading the letter.
He was in no mood for thoughts on Ireland. His mind was still full of the idea that had come into his head the previous night.Why should he not get married?The idea attracted and repelled him. It would, he thought, be very pleasant to live with ... with Mary, say ... to love her and be loved by her ... very pleasant ... but one would have to accept responsibilities, and there would probably be children. He would dislike having to leave Ninian and Roger and Gilbert, particularly Gilbert, and his share in the meetings of the Improved Tories would begin to dwindle. On the other hand, there would be Mary ... If he were to lose his friends and the careless, cultured life they led in the Bloomsbury house, he would gain Mary, and perhaps she would more than compensate for them....
Gilbert interrupted his thoughts.
"Rum go, this about Roger, isn't it?" he said.
Henry nodded his head. "I hadn't any idea of it," he replied. "I'd never even heard of her until he said she was coming to dinner!"
"I had," Gilbert said, "but I didn't think he was going to let the life force catch hold of him. Close chap, Roger! He never gives himself away ... and that's the sort that's most romantic. You and I are obviously sloppy, Quinny, but somehow we miss all the messes that reticent, close chaps like Roger fall into. You don't much like her, do you?"
"Well, I'm not what you might call smitten by her, but that's because she seems to think I'm wasting time in writing novels. She's too strenuous for me. I like women who relax sometimes. She'll orate to him every night, just as she orated to us, about people's wrongs...."
"Mind, she's clever!" said Gilbert.
"Oh, I don't deny that. That's part of my case against her. Really and truly, Gilbert, do you like clever women?"
"Really and truly, Quinny, I don't. Perhaps that's not the way to put it. I like talking to clever women, but I shouldn't like to marry one of them. I'm clever myself, and perhaps that's why. There isn't room for more than one clever person in a family, and I think a clever man should marry an intelligently stupid woman, and vice versa. You can argue with clever women, but you can't kiss them or flirt with them. All the clever ones I've ever known have had something hard in them ... like a lump of steel. Men aren't like that! They can be hard, of course, but they aren't always exhibiting their hardness. Clever women are."
Henry tossed Marsh's letter across the table to Gilbert.
"Read that," he said, "while I look through theTimes!"
They both rose from the table, and sat for a while in the armchairs on either side of the fireplace.
"You know, Quinny," said Gilbert, as he took Marsh's letter out of its envelope, "I often think we're awfully young, all of us!"
"Young?"
"Yes. Immature ... and all that. We're frightfully clever, of course, but really we don't know much, and yet you're writing books and I'm writing plays and Ninian's building Tunnels and Roger's playing ducks and drakes with the law ... and not one of us is thirty yet. Lord, I wish Roger hadn't got engaged. That sort of thing makes a man think!"
He read Marsh's letter and then passed it back to Henry.
"Seems all right," he said. "It's a pity those Irish fellows haven't got a wider outlook. Sitting there fussing over their mouldy island when there's the whole world to fuss over! I must be off soon. There's a rehearsal of my play this morning...."
"I say, Gilbert," Henry interrupted, "do you think I ought to go and join this Irish Renascence business?"
"How can I tell? It probably won't amount to much. I should take an intelligent interest in it, if I were you. Perhaps you can induce Marsh to come over and talk to the Improved Tories about it. What are you doing this morning?"
"Oh, working!"
"Well, so long!"
"So long, Gilbert. You'll be back to lunch, I suppose?"
"I don't think so. The rehearsals are very long now. You see, the play's to be done on Wednesday...."
When Gilbert had gone, Henry, having glanced through theTimes, went up to his room and began to write, but he did not continue at his manuscript for very long. The words would not roll lightly off his pen: they fell off and lay inertly about the paper. He was accustomed now toperiods during which his mind seemed to have lost its power to operate, and he was not alarmed by them. He knew that it was useless to attempt to do any work that morning, so he left his room and, telling Mrs. Clutters that he would not return to lunch, went out of the house and wandered about the streets for a while without any purpose. It was not until he saw the sign on a passing motor-'bus that he decided on what he should do. "Hyde Park Corner" was on the sign, and he called to the conductor and presently mounted to the roof of the 'bus and was driven towards the Park.
"I wonder," he thought to himself, "whether I shall see Lady Cecily to-day!"
Lady Cecily had curiously disappeared from their lives. Gilbert, absorbed in the production of his play, had not spoken of her again, nor had he made any mention of his proposal to leave London and go to Anglesey. He had resigned from the staff of theDaily Echo, and, since he no longer attended first-nights at the theatre, he had not seen Lady Cecily since the night on which "The Ideal Husband" was revived. Henry had said to himself on several occasions that he would go and see Lady Cecily, but he had not done so. He did not care to go alone, and he cared less to ask Gilbert to go with him ... but to-day, as suddenly as she had quitted his thoughts, Lady Cecily came into them again, and, as he sat on top of the omnibus, he hoped that he would see her in the Park. "If not," he said to himself, "I'll call on her this afternoon!"
He descended from the 'bus at Hyde Park Corner and hastily entered the Park. He crossed to the Achilles monument and debated with himself as to whether he should sit down or walk about, and decided to sit down. If Lady Cecily were in the Park, he told himself, she would pass his chair some time during the morning. He chose a seat near the railings and sat down and waited. There was a continual flow of carriages and cars, but none of them contained Lady Cecily, and when he had been sitting for almost an hour, he told himself that he was not likely to see her that morning. He rose, as he said this to himself, and turned to walk across the grass towards Rotten Bow, and as he turned, he saw Jimphy. He was not anxious to meet Jimphy again, and he pretended not to see him, but Jimphy came up to him, smiling affably, and said "Hilloa, Quinn, old chap!" so he had to be as amiable as he could in response to the greeting.
Jimphy wanted to know why it was that he and Henry had not met again since the night that "Cecily let a chap in for a damn play," and reminded him of their engagement to visit the Empire together. "Anyhow," he said, "you can come and lunch with us. Cecily'll be glad to see you. I said I'd come home to lunch if I could find some one worth bringing with me, so that's all right!"
"How is Lady Cecily?" Henry asked, as he and Jimphy left the Park together.
"Oh, I expect she's all right," Jimphy answered. "I forgot to ask this morning, but if she'd been seedy or anything she'd have told me about it, so I suppose she's all right!"
"When's this play of Farlow's coming on?" Jimphy asked on the doorstep of his house.
"Wednesday," Henry answered.
"Cecily's made me promise to go and see it with her. What sort of a piece is it?"
They entered the house as he spoke.
"It's excellent...."
"Is it comic?"
"Well, I suppose it is. He calls it a comedy," Henry said.
"So long as there's a laugh in it, I don't mind going to see it. I can't stand these weepy bits. 'Hamlet' and that sort of stuff. Enough to give a chap the pip! Oh, here's Cecily!"
Henry turned to look up the stairs down which Lady Cecily was coming, and then he went forward to greet her.
"How nice of you," she said. "Has Gilbert come, too?"
"No," he answered, chilled by her question. "He has a rehearsal this morning!"
"Oh, yes, of course," she said. "His play! I forgot. We're going to see it on Wednesday. I hope it's good!"
"It's very good," Henry replied.
Jimphy left them after lunch. He was awfully sorry, old chap, to have to tear himself away and all that, but the fact was he had an appointment ... an important appointment ... and of course a chap had to keep an important appointment....
"We'll forgive you, Jimphy!" Lady Cecily said, and then he went away, begging Henry to remember that they must go to the Empire together one night.
"Well?" said Lady Cecily when her husband had gone, "how are you all getting on?"
She was reclining on a couch, with her feet resting on a cushion, and as she asked her question she pointed to another cushion lying on a chair. He fetched it and put it behind her back.
"Splendidly," he answered. "Is that right?"
She settled herself more comfortably. "Yes, thanks," she said. "I read your novel," she went on.
"Did you like it?"
"Oh, yes. Of course, I liked it. I suppose you're writing another book now!" He nodded his head, and she went on. "I wish I could write books, but of course I can't. Mr. Lensley says I live books. Isn't that nice of him? Do you put real people in your books, or do you make them all up? Do you know, I think I'll have another cigarette!"
He passed the box of cigarettes to her and held it while she made up her mind whether she would smoke an Egyptian or a Turkish. Her delicate fingers moved indecisively from the one brand to the other. "You like Turkish, don't you?" he said, wishing that he could take her slender hand in his and hold it forever.
"Choose one for me," she said, capriciously, lying back and clasping her hands about her head.
He took a cigarette from the box and offered it to her, but she did not hold out her hand to take it, and he understood that he was to place it between her lips. His fingers trembled as he did so, and he turned hurriedly to find the matches.
"Behind you," she said, and he turned and picked them up.
He lit a match and held it to her cigarette, and while he held it, her fingers touched his. She had taken hold of the cigarette to remove it from her lips.... He blew out the light and threw the match into the ash-tray, and then went and sat down in the deep chair in which he had been sitting when she asked him to get the cushion for her.
"Why didn't you call before?" she said, lazily blowing the smoke up into the air.
It was difficult to say why he had not called before, so he answered vaguely. There had been so much to do of late....
"And Gilbert? He doesn't rehearse all day long, does he?"
"No, not all day, but he's pretty tired by the time he gets home."
"Why didn't he come to the Savoy that night?" she asked.
He wished she would not talk about Gilbert. He could not tell her the real reason why Gilbert had not kept his promise to join the supper-party and he was a poor hand at inventing convincing lies.
"There was some trouble at his office, I think," he said, "and he couldn't get away until too late!..."
"He didn't write or come to see me!" she protested.
It was probable that Gilbert forgot his duty in the excitement of hearing that his play was to be produced....
"I suppose so," she said.
She talked to him about his books and about Ireland. She had been to Dublin once and had gone to the Viceregal Lodge ... Lady Dundrum had taken her to some function there ... and she was eager for the tittle-tattle of the Court. Was it true that Lord Kelpie was indifferent to his lady?... Henry knew very little of the Dublin gossip. "I haven't been there since I left Trinity," he said, in explanation, "and the only people who write to me don't take any interest in Court functions!"
He rose to go, but she asked him to stay to tea with her, and so he remained.
"I don't suppose any one will call," she said, "but in case ..."
She told a servant that she was "not at home" to any one, and Henry, wondering why she had done so, felt vaguely flattered and as vaguely nervous. Her beauty filled him with desire and apprehension and left him half eager, half afraid to be alone with her. He understood Gilbert's fear that if he yielded to Cecily, she would destroy him. There was something in this woman that overpowered the senses, that made a man as will-less as a log, and left him in the end, spent, exhausted, incapable. He saw the danger that had frightened Gilbert, but he could not make up his mind to run away from it. There was something so exquisitely sensual in her look as she lay on the couch, looking at him and chattering in the Lensley style, that he felt inclined to yield himself to her, even if in yielding he should lose everything.
"Of course," he said to himself, "this is all imagination. She doesn't want me at all ... she wants Gilbert!"
She asked for another cigarette, and he took one and placed it in her lips and lit it for her, and again his fingers touched hers, and again he trembled with unaccountable emotion. As he bent over her, holding the match to the cigarette, he felt the blood rushing to his head and for amoment or two his eyes were blurred and he could not see clearly. Then his eyes cleared and he saw that she was looking steadily at him, and he knew that she understood what was passing in his mind. He dropped the match on to the ash-tray and bent a little nearer to her. He would take her in his arms, he said to himself, and hold her tightly to him....
"Won't you sit down," she said, pointing to his chair.
He straightened himself, but did not move away. His eyes were still intent on hers, as if he could not avoid her gaze, and for a while neither of them spoke or moved. Then she smiled at him.
"You're a funny boy," she said. "Won't you sit down!" and again she pointed to the chair.
His answer was so low that he could hardly hear himself speak, and at first he thought she had not heard him. "I'd better go," he said.
"Not yet," she answered. "You needn't go yet!"
"I'd better...."
She put out her hand and made him sit down.
"There's no hurry," she said.
He leant back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arms of it and folding his fingers under his chin.
"You look frightened," she said.
"I am," he answered.
"Of me?" He nodded his head, and she laughed. "How absurd!" she said. "I'm not a bit terrifying...."
He was not trembling now. He felt quite calm, as if he had resigned himself to what must be.
"No, I ... I know you're not," he said, "only ..."
"Only what?"
"I don't know!"
She put her cigarette down and turned slightly towards him.
"Funny boy!" she said. "Funny Irish boy!"
He smiled foolishly at her, but did not answer. He knewthat if he spoke at all, he would say wild things that could not be withdrawn or explained away.
"Funny scared Irish boy!" she said, and he could see the mockery in her eyes. "Such a frightened Irish boy!..."
He could hold out no longer. She had put her hand out towards him ... why he could not tell ... and impulsively he seized it and clasped it tightly in his. His grasp must have hurt her, for she cried a little and tried to withdraw her hand, but he would not let go his hold of it until, kneeling beside her, he had put his arms about her and kissed her.
"I love you," he said. "You know I love you...."
"Don't!"
"I loved you the minute I set eyes on you, and I wanted to meet you again ... and then I was jealous of Gilbert because you took so much notice of him and so little of me, and ... I love you, I love you!"
She thrust him from her. "You're hurting me," she said, and she panted as she spoke.
"I want to hurt you," he answered.
"But you mustn't...."
He did not let her finish her sentence. He pressed his lips hard on hers until his strength seemed to pass away from him. He felt in some strange way that her eyes were closed and that she was moaning....
He put his arms about her again, and drew her head gently on to his breast. "My dear," he said softly, bending over her and kissing her hair.
She lay very still in his arms, so still that he thought she had fallen asleep. Her long lashes trembled a little, and then she opened her eyes, sighing contentedly as she did so. He smiled down at her, and she smiled in response. Then she put her hand up and stroked his cheek and ruffled his hair.
"Funny Irish boy!" she said again.
He climbed on to a 'bus which bore him eastwards. It was impossible, in his state of exaltation, to go home and eat in the company of the others. Ninian would probably be back from Southampton, unbalanced with admiration for Tom Arthurs and theGigantic, and then Gilbert would tell him how Sir Geoffrey Mundane had behaved during the rehearsal and how exasperating Mrs. Michael Gordon, the leading lady, had been. "She's brilliant, of course," he had said about her once, "but if I were her husband I'd beat her!" He could not endure the thought of spending the evening in the customary company of his friends. They would want to talk, they would draw him into the conversation, and he neither wished to talk nor to listen. His desire was only to remember, to go over again in his mind that long, passionate afternoon with Cecily.... So he had telephoned to Mrs. Clutters telling her that he would not be in to dinner, and then, climbing on to a 'bus, had allowed himself to be carried eastwards, not knowing or caring whither he was being carried.
He paid no heed to the other passengers on the 'bus, nor did he interest himself in the traffic of the streets. When the conductor came, demanding fares, he asked for a ticket to the terminus, but did not bother to ask where the terminus was. His mind was full of golden hair and warm, moist lips and soft, disturbing perfume and the touch of a shapely hand. Cecily had insisted on calling him "Paddy" because he was Irish and because so many Englishmen are called "Henry," and when he had left her, she had offered her lips to him and, when he had kissed her, had told him she would see him again soon. "When Gilbert's play is done," she said, and added, "Tell Gilbert I shall expect him to come and talk to me after the first act!"
He had been jealous when she said that. "You don'treally care for me," he had said. "You really love Gilbert!"
"Of course I love Gilbert," she had answered, laughing at him and patting his cheek, "but I love you, too. I love lots of people! ..."
Then, ashamed of himself, he had left her. It was caddish of him to speak of Gilbert to her, for Gilbert was his friend and her lover. If one were to try and take a friend's mistress from him, one should at least be silent about it. But how could he help these outbursts of jealousy! He cared for Gilbert far more than he cared for any man ... but he could not prevent himself from raging at the thought that Gilbert had but to hold out his arms and Cecily would run to be clasped in them. "I'm a makeshift," he said to himself. "That's all!"
But even if he were only a makeshift, that was better than being shut away from her love altogether. "I daresay," he thought, "she's as fond of me as she is of any one!" and he wondered whether she really loved Gilbert. It was difficult for him to believe that she could yield so easily to him and love Gilbert deeply, and he soothed his conscience by telling himself that Cecily was one of those women who are in love with love, ready to accept kisses from any ardent youth who offers them to her. He remembered his contribution to the discussion on women and the way in which he had insisted on infinite variety of experiences. Cecily was, as a woman, what he had wished to be as a man. We had to recognise the differences of nature, he had said, but somehow he did not greatly care to see his principle put into practice by Cecily. There was something very fine and dashing and Byronic and adventurous in a man with a spacious spirit, but after all, women were women, and one did not like to think of adventuring women. He wanted to have Cecily to himself ... he did not wish to share her with Gilbert or with Jimphy or with any one, and it hardly seemed decent that Cecily shouldwish to spread her affections over three men. "And there may be others, too!" All this talk about sex-equality had an equitable sound ... his intellect agreed that if men were to have amorous adventures, then women should have them too; if men were to be unfaithful without reproach, then women should be equally without reproach in their infidelity ... but his instinct cried out against it. He wanted his woman to himself even though he might not keep himself for her alone.
"And that's the beginning and the end of the sex-question," he said. "We simply aren't willing to let women live on our level. In theory, the man who goes to a prostitute is as bad as she is, but in practice, we don't believe it, and women don't believe it either, and nothing will ever make us believe it. And it's the same with lovers and mistresses. It simply doesn't seem decent to a man who keeps a mistress that his wife should have a lover. You can't help having instincts!..."
The 'bus drove over London Bridge and presently he found himself in the railway station. It was too early yet to eat, and he made up his mind to go for a walk through Southwark. None of them had ever been in the slums. They had set their minds against suggestions that they should live in Walworth or Whitechapel or Bethnal Green in order that they might get to know something of the lives of the very poor. "That's simply slush," Gilbert had said. "We shouldn't live like them. We'd have four good meals every day and baths every morning, and we'd only feel virtuous and 'smarmy' and do-good-to-the-poor-y. My object is to get rid of slums, not to go and live in the damn things and encourage slum-owners by paying rent regularly. All those Settlement people ... really, they're doing the heroic stunt for their own ends. They'll go into parliament and say they have intimate knowledge of theway in which the poor live because they've lived with them ... and it's all my eye, that stuff!"
The notion had made a faint appeal to Henry, but he had not responded to it because of the way in which the others had sneered at it and because he liked pleasant surroundings. Once, in Dublin, he had wandered out of St. Stephens's Green and found himself in the Combe, and the sights he had witnessed there had sickened him so that he had hurried away, and always thereafter had been careful not to enter side streets with which he was not familiar. Now, he felt that he ought to see a London slum. One had to have a point of view about poor people, and it was difficult to have a point of view about people of whom one was almost totally ignorant.
He walked slowly up the Borough High Street, uncertain of himself and of the district. He would want something to eat presently, and if he were to venture too far into the slums that lay hidden behind St. George's Church and the Elephant, he might have difficulty in finding a place where he could take a meal in comfort. He stood for a few moments outside the window of a shop in which sausages and steaks and onions were being fried. There was a thick, hot, steamy odour coming from the door that filled him with nausea, and he turned to move away, but as he did so, he saw two sickly boys, half naked, standing against the window with their mouths pressed close to the glass. They were eyeing the cooking food so hungrily that he felt pity for them, and he touched one of them on the shoulder and asked him if he would like something to eat. The boy looked at him, but did not answer, and his companion came shuffling to his side and eyed him too.
"Wouldn't you like some of that ... that stuff!" Henry said, pointing to a great slab of thick pudding, padded with currants.
One of the boys nodded his head, and Henry moved towards the door of the shop, bidding them both to follow him.
"Give these youngsters some of that pudding!" he said to the man behind the counter: a fat, flaccid man with a wet, steamy brow which he periodically wiped with a grimy towel.
"'Ere!" said the man, cutting off large pieces of the pudding and passing it across the counter to the boys who took it, without speaking, and began to gnaw at it immediately.
"Wod you say for it, eih?" the man demanded.
They mumbled unintelligibly, their mouths choked with the food.
"Pore little kids, they don't know no better! Nah, then, 'op it, you two! That'll be fourpence, sir!"
Henry paid for the pudding and left the malodorous shop. The children were standing in the shadow outside, one of them eating wolfishly, while the other held the pudding in front of him, gaping at it....
"Don't you like it?" Henry said, bending down to him.
"'E can't eat it, guv'nor!" the other boy said.
"Can't eat it?"
"No, guv'nor, 'e can't. I'll 'ave to eat it for 'im...."
"But why can't you eat?" Henry asked, turning to the boy who still gaped helplessly at the pudding.
The child did not answer. He stared at the pudding, and then he stared at Henry, and as he did so, the pudding fell from his hands, and he became sick....
"'Ere, wod you chuckin' it awy for?" the other boy said, dropping quickly to the ground and picking up the pudding.
"He's ill," Henry said helplessly.
"'E's always ill," the boy answered, stuffing pieces of the recovered pudding into his mouth.
A policeman was standing at the corner, and Henry went to him and told him of the child's plight.
"Sick is 'e?" the constable exclaimed.
"Yes," Henry answered. "He looked hungry, poor little chap, and so I bought him some of the pudding they sell in that shop!"
The policeman looked at him for a few moments. "Well, of course, you meant it kindly, sir!" he said, "but if I was you I wouldn't do that again. If you'll excuse me sayin' it, sir, it was a damn silly thing to do!"
"Why?"
"Why! 'Alf the kids about 'ere is too 'ungry to eat. That kid ought to be in the 'ospital by rights. Don't never give 'em no puddin' or stuff like that, sir. Their stomachs can't stand it. Nah, then," he said to the sick child, "you 'op 'ome, young 'un. You didn't ought to be 'angin' about 'ere, you know, upsettin' the traffic an' mykin' a mess on the pyvement. Gow on! Git aht of it!"
The boys ran off, leaving Henry staring blankly after them. "'E'll be all right, sir!" said the policeman. "It's no good tryin' to do nothink for 'em. They're down, guv'nor, an' that's all about it. I seen a lot of yooman nature down about 'ere, an' you can tyke it from me, them kids is down an' they'll stay down, an' that's all you can say about it. Good-night, sir!"
"Good-night!" said Henry.
He moved away, feeling sick and miserable and angry.
"It's beastly," he said to himself. "That's what it is. Beastly!"