I
Towards the end of July there was some particularly splendid excitement
for the newspaper-reading public. Ireland provided it; and the
newspapers, as the events enlarged one upon the other, could scarcely
find type big enough to keep pace with them. On the twenty-first, the
King caused a conference of British and Irish leaders to assemble at
Buckingham Palace. On the twenty-fourth, the British and Irish leaders
departed from Buckingham Palace in patriotic halos of national champions
who had failed to agree "in principle or detail." Deadlock and Crisis
flew about the streets in stupendous type; and though they had been
doing so almost daily for the past eighteen months, everybody could see,
with the most delicious thrills, that these were more firmly locked
deadlocks and more critical crises than had ever before come whooping
out of the inexhaustible store where they were kept for the public
entertainment. Austria, and then Germany, made a not bad attempt on
public attention by raking up some forgotten sensation over a stale
excitement at a place called Sarajevo; but on the twenty-sixth, Ireland
magnificently filled the bill again by the far more serious affair of
Nationalist Volunteers landing three thousand rifles and marching with
them into Dublin. Troops fired on the mob, and the House of Commons gave
itself over to a most exciting debate on the business; the Irish Party
demanded a large number of brutal heads to be delivered on chargers; and
Unionist politicians, Press, and public declared that the heads were
not brutal heads but loyal and devoted heads and should not be
delivered; on the contrary they should be wreathed. It was delicious.
II
It was delicious and it was, moreover, reassuring. In these same days
between the summoning of the Buckingham Palace Conference and the
landing of the Nationalist guns, Continental events arising out of the
stale Sarajevo affair reared their heads and looked towards Great
Britain in a presumptuous and sinister way to which the British public
was not accustomed, and which it resented. The British public had never
taken any interest in international affairs and it did not wish to take
any interest in international affairs. It certainly did not wish to be
disturbed by them, and at this moment of the exciting Irish deadlock the
Wilhelmstrasse, the Ball Platz, the Quai d'Orsay and similar stupid,
meaningless and unpronounceable places intruded themselves disturbingly
in British homes, much as the writing on the wall vexatiously disturbed
Belshazzar's feast, and were similarly resented. Belshazzar probably
ordered in a fresh troupe of dancers to remove the chilly effect of the
stupid, meaningless and unpronounceable writing, and in the same way the
British public turned with relief and with thrills to the gun-running
and the shooting.
It was characteristically intriguing in the nature of its excitement. It
was characteristically intriguing because, like all the domestic
sensations to which the British Public had become accustomed, it in no
way interfered with the lives of those not directly implicated in it.
Like them all, it entertained without inconveniencing. They knew their
place, the deadlocks, the crises and the other sensations of those
glowing days. They caused no member of their audience to go without his
meals. They interfered neither with pleasure nor with business.
III
Sometimes this was a little surprising. Fresh from newspaper instruction
of the deadness of the deadlock, the poignancy of the crisis, or the
stupendity of the achievement, one rather expected one's own personal
world to stand still and watch it. But one's own personal world never
did stand still and watch it.
Sabre, coming into his office on the day reporting the affray in Dublin,
was made to experience this.
In the town, on his arrival, he purchased several of the London
newspapers to read other accounts and other views of the gun-running and
its sensational sequel. His intention was to read them the moment he got
to his room. He put them on a chair while he hung up his straw hat and
filled a pipe.
They remained there unopened till the charwoman removed them in the
evening. On his desk, as he glanced towards it, was a letter from Nona.
He turned it over in his hands--the small neat script. She never before
had written to him at the office. It bore the London postmark. She would
be writing from their town house. It would be to say she was coming
back.... But she never wrote on the occasions of her return; they just
met.... And she had never before written to the office.
Mr. Fortune appeared at the communicating door. Sabre put the letter
into his pocket and turned towards him.
Mr. Fortune came into the room. With him was a young man, a youth, whose
face was vaguely familiar to Sabre; Twyning behind.
"Ah, Sabre," said Mr. Fortune. "Good morning, Sabre. This is rather a
larger number of visitors than you would commonly expect, but we are a
larger staff this morning than we have heretofore been. I am bringing in
to you a new member of our staff." He indicated the young man beside
him. "A new member but bearing an old name. A chip of the old block--the
old Twyning block." He smiled, stroking his whale-like front rather as
though this pleasantry had proceeded from its depths and he was
congratulating it. The young man smiled. Twyning, edging forward from
the background, also smiled. All the smiles were rather nervous. This
was natural in the new member of the staff but in Twyning and Mr.
Fortune gave Sabre the feeling that for some reason they were not
entirely at ease. His immediate thought had been that it was an odd
thing to have taken on young Twyning without mentioning it even casually
to him. It was significant of his estrangement in the office; but their
self-conscious manner was even more significant: it suggested that he
had been kept out of the plan deliberately.
He gave the young man his hand. "Why, that's very nice," he said. "I
thought I knew your face. I think I've seen you with your father. You've
been in Blade and Parson's place, haven't you?"
Young Twyning replied that he had. He had his father's rather quick and
stiff manner of speaking. He was fair-haired and complexioned,
good-looking in a sharp-featured way, a juvenile edition of his father
in a different colouring.
Mr. Fortune, still stroking the whale-like front, produced further
pleasantry from it. "Yes, with Blade and Parson. Twyning here has
snatched him from the long arm of the law before he has had time to
develop the long jaw of the legal shark. In point of fact, Sabre"--Mr.
Fortune ceased to stroke the whale-like front. He moved a step or two
out of the line of Sabre's regard, and standing before the bookshelves,
addressed his remarks to them as though what else he had to say were not
of particular consequence--"In point of fact, Sabre, this very natural
and pleasing desire of Twyning to have his son in the office, a desire
which I am most gratified to support, is his first--what shall I
say?--feeling of his feet--establishing of his position--in his
new--er--in his new responsibility, duty--er--function. I like this
deeper tone in the 'Six Terms' binding, Sabre. I distinctly approve it.
Yes. What was I saying? Ah, yes, Twyning is now in partnership, Sabre.
Yes. Good."
He came abruptly away from the shelves and directed the whale-like front
towards his door in process of departure. "A little reorganisation.
Nothing more. Just a little reorganisation. I think you'll find we shall
all work very much the more comfortably for it." He paused before young
Twyning. "Well, young man, now you've made your bow before our literary
adviser. I think we decided to call him Harold, eh, Twyning? Avoid
confusion, don't you agree, Sabre?"
"If that's his name," Sabre said. He had remained standing looking
towards father and son precisely as he had stood and looked at the
party's entry.
Mr. Fortune glanced sharply at him and compressed his lips. "It is," he
said shortly. He left the room.
IV
Twyning spoke his first words since his entry. "Well, there we are, old
man." He smiled and breathed strongly through his nose, as if tensing
himself against some emergency that might arise.
Sabre said, "Yes, well done, Twyning. Of course he promised you this
long ago."
"Yes, didn't he? Glad you remember my telling you. Of course it won't
make the least difference to you, old man. What I mean is, if anything I
hope I shall be able to give you a leg up in all sorts of ways. I've
been telling Harold what a frightfully smart man you are, haven't I,
Harold?"
Harold smiled assent to this tribute, and Sabre said, "I suppose we
shall go on much as before?"
"Oh, rather, old man."
"Harold be working in your room, eh?"
"Yes, that's the idea, for a start, anyway. They're just shoving up a
desk for him. Come along in and see how we're fixing it, old man."
"I'll look in presently."
"Righto, old man. Come along, Harold." At the door he turned and said,
"Oh, by the way. I want you to show Harold through the work of this side
of the business a bit later on."
Sabre looked quickly at him. "You _want_ me to?"
Twyning flushed darkly. "Well, he may as well get the hang of the whole
business, mayn't he? That's what I mean."
"Oh, certainly he should. I quite agree. Send him along any time you
like."
"Thanks awfully, old man."
But outside the door Twyning added to himself: "You thought that was an
order, my lord; and you didn't like it. Pretty soon you won't think.
You'll know."
V
Sabre remained standing at his desk. He had a tiny ball of paper in his
hand and he rolled it round between his finger and thumb, round and
round and round and round.... In his mind was a recollection: "You have
struck your tents and are upon the march."
He thought, "This has been coming a long time.... It's my way of looking
at things has done this. I'm getting so I've got nowhere to turn. It's
no good pretending I don't feel this. I feel it most frightfully....
I've let down the books. They'll take a back place in the business now.
Twyning's always been jealous of them. Fortune's never really liked my
success with them. They'll begin interfering with the books now.... My
books.... It was rottenly done. Behind my back. Plotted against me, or
they wouldn't have sprung it on me like that. That shows what it's going
to be like.... It's all through my way of looking at things.... I've no
one here I can take things to. This frightful feeling of being alone in
the place. And it's going to be worse. And nowhere to get out of it.
More empty at home.... And now there's this. And I've got to go back to
that.... 'You have struck your tents and are upon the march' ... Yes.
Yes...."
He suddenly recollected Nona's letter. He took it from his pocket and
opened it; and the second event was discharged upon him.
She wrote from their town house:
"_Marko, take me away--Nona._"
His emotions leapt to her with most terrible violence. He felt his heart
leap against his breast as though, engine of his tumult, it would burst
its bonds and to her. He struck his hand upon the desk. He said aloud,
"Yes! Yes!" He remembered his words, "If ever you feel you can't bear
it, tell me.--Tell me."
VI
He began to write plans to her. He would come to London to-morrow....
She should come to the station if she could; if not, he would be at the
Great Western Hotel. She would telephone to him there and they could
arrange to meet and discuss what they should do.... He would like to go
away with her directly they met, but there were certain things to see
to. He wrote, "But I can only take you--"
His pen stopped. Familiar words! He repeated them to himself, and their
conclusion and their circumstance appeared and stood, as with a sword,
across the passage of his thoughts. "But I can only lead you downwards.
I cannot lead you upwards ..."
As with a sword--
He sat back in his chair and gazed upon this armed intruder to give it
battle.
VII
The morning passed and the afternoon while still he sat, no more moving
than to sink lower in his seat as the battle joined and as he most
dreadfully suffered in its most dreadful onsets. Towards five o'clock he
put out his hand without moving his position and drew towards him the
letter he had begun. The action was as that of one utterly undone. He
very slowly tore it across, and then across again, and so into tiniest
fragments till his fingers could no more fasten upon them. He dropped
his arm away and opened his hand, and the white pieces fluttered in a
little cloud to the floor.
Presently he drew himself up to the table and began to write, writing
very slowly because his hand trembled so. In half an hour he blotted the
few lines on the last sheet:
"...So, simply what I want to do is to let our step--if we take it--be
mine, not yours. We shall forget absolutely that you ever wrote. It's as
though it had never been written. On Tuesday I will write and ask you,
'Shall I come up to you?' So if you say 'Yes' the action will have been
entirely mine. It will start from there. This hasn't happened. And
during these days in between, just think like anything over what I've
said. Honour can't have any degree, Nona, any more than truth can have
any degree: whatever else the world can quibble to bits it can't
partition those: truth is just truth and honour is just honour. And a
marriage vow is a pledge of honour like any other pledge of honour, and
if one breaks it one breaks one's honour, never mind what the excuse is.
There's no conceivable way of arguing out of that. That's what I shall
ask you to do on Tuesday and I'm just warning you so you shall have time
to think beforehand."
He took his pen, and steadied his hand, and wrote:
"And your reply, when I ask you, whichever it is, shall bring me light
into darkness, unutterable darkness.--M."
He could hear the homeward movements about the office. It was time to
go. He wheeled his bicycle to the letter box at the corner of The
Precincts. As he dropped in his letter, the evening edition of Pike's
paper came bawling around the corner.
AUSTRIA
DECLARES WAR
ON SERVIA
He shook his head at the paper the boy held out to him and rode away.
What had that kind of thing to do with him?
VIII
Unutterable darkness! He lived within it during the days that followed
while he awaited the day appointed to write to Nona again. He had put
away that for which, with a longing that was almost physical in its
pain, his spirit craved; and craved the more terribly for his denial of
it. Whatever she said when he asked, whichever way she answered him, he
would be brought relief from his intolerable stress. If she maintained
honour above love, his weakness, he knew, would be welded into strength,
as the presence of another brings enormous support to timidity; if she
declared for love,--his mind surged within him at the imagination of
bursting away once and for ever the squeamish principles which for
years, hedging about his conduct on this side and on that, had profited
nothing those on whose behalf they had been erected and his own life had
desolated into barrenness.
He was little disposed, in these dismays and in this darkness, to divert
attention to the international disturbances which now were rumbling
across the newspapers in portentous and enormous headlines. Ireland was
pressed away. It was all Europe now--thrones, chancelleries, councils,
armies. He tried to say, "What of it?" Many in Great Britain tried to
say, "What of it?" Crises and deadlocks again! Meaningless and empty
words, for months and years past worked to death and rendered hollow as
empty vessels. Some one would climb down. Some one always climbed down.
Nobody climbed down.
The cauldron whose seething and bubbling had entertained some, fidgeted
some, some nothing at all concerned, suddenly boiled over, and poured in
boiling fat upon the flames, and poured in flames upon the hearth of
every man's concerns.
On Friday the Stock Exchange closed. On Saturday Germany declared war on
Russia. In Sunday's papers Sabre read of the panic run on the banks,
people fighting to convert their notes into gold. One London bank had
suspended payment. Many had shut out failure only by minutes when midday
permitted them to close their doors. People were besieging the provision
shops to lay in stores of food.
And poured in flames upon the hearth of every man's concerns....
All his concerns, the crisis with Nona, with his honour and his love,
that awaited determination, were disputed their place in his mind by the
incredible and enormous events that each new hour discharged upon the
world. He watched them as one might be watching a burning building and
feeling at every moment that the roof will crash in, yet somehow feeling
that it cannot and will not fall in. The thing was gone beyond
possibility of recovery, there terribly arose now the urgency for Great
Britain to declare for honour, yet somehow he felt that it could not and
would not fail to be averted. It could not happen.
It did happen. On Tuesday the mounting amazements burst amain. On
Tuesday the roof that could not fall in fell in. On Tuesday, the day
appointed for his letter to Nona, he uttered in realisation that which,
uttered in speculation, had been meaningless as an unknown word spoken
in a foreign tongue: "War!"
IX
The news of Tuesday morning caused him at six o'clock in the evening to
have been standing two hours in the great throng that filled Market
Square gazing towards the offices of the _County Times_. Our
mobilisation, our resolve to stand by France if the German Fleet came
into the Channel, lastly, most awfully pregnant of all, our obligations
to Belgium,--that had been the morning's news, conveyed in the report of
Sir Edward Grey's statement in the House of Commons. That afternoon the
Prime Minister was to make a statement.
A great murmur swelled up from the waiting crowd, a great movement
pressed it forward towards the _County Times_ offices. On the
first-floor balcony men appeared dragging a great board faced with
paper, on the paper enormous lettering. The board was pulled out
endways. The man last through the window took a step forward and swung
the letters into view.
PREMIER'S STATEMENT
-------
ULTIMATUM TO GERMANY
EXPIRES MIDNIGHT
Sabre said aloud, "My God! War!"
As a retreating wave harshly withdrawing upon the reluctant pebbles,
there sounded from the crowd an enormous intaking of the breath. An
instant's stupendous silence, the wave poised for return. Down! A
shattering roar, tremendous, wordless. The figure of Pike appeared upon
the balcony, in his shirt sleeves, his long hair wild about his face, in
his hands that which caught the roar as it were by the throat, stopped
it and broke it out anew on a burst of exultant clamour. A Union Jack.
He shook it madly with both hands above his head. The roar broke into a
tremendous chant. "God Save the King!"
Sabre pressed his way out of the Square. He kept saying to himself,
"War.... War...." He found himself running to the office; no one was in
the office; then getting out his bicycle with frantic haste, then
riding home,--hard.
And he kept saying, "War!"
He thought, "Otway!" and before his eyes appeared a vision of Otway with
those little beads of perspiration on his nose.
War--he couldn't get any further than that. Like the systole and
diastole of a slowly beating pulse, the word kept on forming in his mind
and welling away in a tide of confused and amorphous scenes; and forming
again; and again oozing in presentments of speculations, scenes,
surmises, and in profound disturbances of strange emotions. War.... And
there kept appearing the face of Otway with the little points of
perspiration about his nose. Otway had predicted this months ago.--And
he was right. It had come.
War....