PART IV_Told by an idiot

GEORGIAN

FIRST PERIOD: CIRCUS

THE HAPPY GEORGIANS

THE first Georgian years, the years between 1910 and 1914, are now

commonly thought of as gay, as very happy, hectic, whirling, butterfly

years, punctuated indeed by the too exciting doings of dock and

transport strikers, Ulstermen, suffragists, the _Titanic_, and Mr.

Lloyd George, but, all the same, gay years. Like other generalisations

about periods, this is a delusion. Those years only seem especially gay

to us because, since July, 1914, the years have not been gay at all.

Really they were quite ordinary years. In fact, it is folly to speak of

these insensate seasonal periods as happy or the reverse. It is only

animate creatures which can be that, and it is unlikely that all, or

the majority, of animate creatures should be visited by circumstances

making for pleasurable emotion or the reverse at the same time as one

another, except in the case of some great public event. Some early

Georgians were gay, some sad, some bored, some tepid and indifferent,

as at any other time.

Nevertheless, it so happened that the persons in this so-called

narrative were all quite sufficiently happy during this period. They

were all having, in their several ways, a fairly good time.

PAPA

Mr. Garden’s way was, it need scarcely be said, a spiritual way. He

was now over eighty, and his was the garnered fruit of a long life of

spiritual adventure. He had believed so much, he had believed so often,

he had fought with doubt so ardently and with such repeated success, he

had explored every avenue of faith with such adventurous zeal, that he

had at last reached a table-land from whence he could survey all creeds

with loving, impartial pleasure. Even Mr. Campbell’s New Theology had

not enmeshed him for long; he passed through it and out of it, and it

took its place among the ranks of Creeds I Have Believed.

And now, in some strange, transcendent manner, he believed them all.

Nothing is true but thinking makes it so; papa thought all these

faiths, and for him they were all true. What, after all, is truth?

An unanswerable riddle, to which papa replied, “The truth for each

soul is that faith by which it holds.” So truth, for papa, was

many-splendoured, many-faced. God must exist, he knew, or he could

not have believed in Him so often and so much. The sunset of life was

to papa very lovely, as he journeyed westward into it, murmuring, “I

believe.... I believe....” Catholicism (Roman and Anglo), Evangelicism,

Ethicism, Unitarianism, Latitudinarian Anglicism, Seventh-Day

Adventism, Christian Science, Irvingitism, even poor Flossie and her

chat, he did very happily and earnestly believe. He believed in a

mighty sacramental Church that was the voice of God and the store-house

of grace; he believed that he was saved through private intercourse

and contract with his Lord; he believed in the Church established in

this country, and that it should be infinitely adaptable to the new

knowledge and demands of men; he believed that the world was (very

likely) to be ended in a short time by the second coming of Christ; he

believed that God was love, and evil a monstrous illusion; he believed

that God permitted the veil between this world and the next to be rent

by the meanest and most trivial of His creatures, if they had the

knack. Indeed, papa might be said to have learnt the art of believing

anything.

Irving said it was pleasant to find that papa was once again an

Irvingite. Indeed, the creeds after which he had named his children now

all flourished in papa’s soul. No longer did he shake his head when

he remembered in what spiritual moods he had named Una, and Rome, or

sigh after that lost exultation of the soul commemorated in Vicky. Had

another child been given to him now he would have named it Verity, in

acknowledgment of the fact that nearly everything was true.

What wonder, then, that papa was a happy Georgian?

VICKY

Vicky, dashing full-sail through her fifties, was a happy Georgian

too. She was handsome in her maturity, and merry. People she loved,

and parties, and gossip, and bridge, and her husband and children, and

the infants of her daughter Phyllis, and food and drink and clothes,

and Ascot, and going abroad, and new novels from Mudie’s, and theatres

and concerts and meetings and causes, and talk, talk, talk. Life, she

held, is good as you get on in it; a broad, sunny, amusing stream,

having its tiresome worries, no doubt, but, in the main, certainly a

comedy. Vicky as an early Georgian was a generously fashioned matron,

broader and fuller than of old, with her fair skin little damaged by

time, and not much grey in her chestnut hair, which she wore piled in a

mass of waves and curls, in the manner of the early Georgian matrons. A

delightful woman, with an unfailing zest for life. You couldn’t exactly

discuss things with her, but she could and did discuss them with you.

She would tell you what she thought about the world and its ways in

a flow of racy comment, skimming from one topic to another with an

agile irrelevance that grew with the years. A merry, skimming matron;

certainly a happy Georgian.

MAURICE

Maurice had not, since he married Amy, been a happy Victorian or

Edwardian, and he did not become an exactly happy Georgian, but he

was happier than before. In his fifties he was no nearer accepting

the world as he found it than he had ever been. It still appeared to

him to be a hell of a place. He was, in his fifties, a lean, small,

bitter man, his light hair greying on the temples and receding from the

forehead, his sensitive mouth and long jaw sardonically, cynically set.

He was popular in London, for all his bitter tongue and pen; he and his

paper were by now an institution, known for their brilliance, clarity,

hard, unsentimental intolerance, and honesty. You might disagree with

Maurice Garden; you might even think that he had an evil temper and a

habit of mild intoxication; but you had to respect two things about

him, his intelligence and his sincerity. Tosh and slush he would not

stand, whether it might be about the Empire, about the poor suffragists

in prison who would not eat, about White Slaves (whom his paper

called, briefly and precisely, prostitutes, holding that the colour

of their skins was an irrelevant point to raise when considering the

amelioration of their lot), about the poor tax-robbed upper classes, or

the poor labour-ground lower. He would print no correspondence couched

in sentimental terms; if people desired to write about the sufferings,

say, of birds deprived of their feathers for hats, they had to put it

in a few concise words, and to say precisely what steps they wished to

see taken about it. No superfluous wailings or tears were permitted,

on any topic, to the writers in the _Gadfly_. The editor had

a good deal of trouble with the literary side of his paper, which

inclined, in his opinion, to roll logs, to be slavishly in the fashion

in the matter of admiring the right people, to accept weak articles

and rubbishy poems from people with budding or full-blown reputations,

and, generally, to be like most literary papers. His son Roger he did

not for long permit to adorn the literary staff; to do so would have

been, in view of the calibre of Roger’s intelligence, gross nepotism.

Roger had to get another literary job on a less fastidious paper;

meanwhile, to his father’s disgust, he continued to produce novels,

and even began on verse, so that he appeared in current anthologies of

contemporary poetry. Also, he got married. So did his sister Iris. That

settled, and his children well off his hands, Maurice felt that his

only and dubious link with family life was snapped, and that he was

free to go his own way. He left his wife, offering to provide her with

any material she preferred for a divorce, from a mistress to a black

eye. Amy accepted the offer, and these two victims of a singularly

unfortunate entanglement found rest from one another at last. It was,

Amy complained, too late for her to marry again; of course Maurice,

selfish pig, had waited till it was too late for her but not for him.

But Maurice had no inclination to remarry; he had had more than enough

of that business. The only woman he had ever seriously loved had

married ten years ago, ending deliberately an unhappy, passionate and

fruitless relationship. Maurice’s thoughts were not now woman-ward; he

lived for his job, and for interest in the bitter comedy of affairs

that the world played before him. His silly, common, nagging wife, his

silly, ordinary, disappointing children, no more oppressed him; they

could, for him, now go their own silly ways. He was free.

ROME

Rome was a happy Georgian. For her the comedy of the world was too

amusing to be bitter. She, in her splendid, idle fifties, was known

in London as a lady of wits, of charm, of humour; a gentlewoman of

parts, the worldly, idle, do-nothing, care-nothing sister of the busy

and useful Mrs. Croft, contributing nothing, to the world beyond an

attractive presence, good dinner-table talk, a graceful zest for

gambling, an intelligent, cynical running commentary on life, and a

tolerant, observing smile. Life was a good show to her; it arranged

itself well, and she was clever at picking out the best scenes. When,

for instance, she had an inclination to visit the House of Commons,

she would discover first on which afternoon the Labour members, or the

Irish, were going to have a good row, or Mr. Lloyd George was going

to talk like an excited street preacher, or Sir Edward Carson like an

Orangeman, or any other star performer do his special turn, and she

would select that afternoon and have her reward. Our legislators were

to her just that--circus turns, some good, some poor, but none of them

with any serious relation to life as lived (if, indeed, any relation

with that absurd business could be called serious, which was doubtful).

So the cheerful spectacle of a world of fools brightened Rome’s

afternoon years. Before long, the folly was to become too desperate,

too disastrous, too wrecking a business to be a comic show even to the

most amused eyes; the circus was, all too soon, to go smash, and the

folly of the clowns who had helped to smash it became a bitterness, and

the idiot’s tale held too much of sound and fury to be borne. But these

first Georgian years were, to Rome, twinkling with bland absurdity. She

cheered up Maurice in the matter of that prose and verse by means of

which his son made of himself a foolish show, reminding him that we all

make of ourselves foolish shows in one way or another, and the printed

word was one of the less harmful ways of doing this. It was no worse,

she maintained, to be a Georgian novelist and poet than any other kind

of Georgian fool, and one kind or another we all are. After all, he

might be instead a swindling company-promoter....

“No,” said Maurice. “He hasn’t the wits. And, you know, I don’t share

your philosophy. I still believe, in the teeth of enormous odds,

that it is possible to make something of this life--that one kind of

achievement is more admirable--or less idiotic, if you like--than

another. I still think bad, shallow, shoddy work like Roger’s damnable,

however unimportant it may be. It’s a mark on the wrong side, the side

of stupidity. You don’t believe in sides, but I do. And I’m glad I do,

so don’t try to infect me with your poisonous indifference. I am a man

of faith, I tell you; I have a soul. You are merely a cynic, the basest

of God’s creatures. You disbelieve in everything. I disbelieve in

nearly everything, but not quite. So I shall be saved and you will not.

Have a cocktail, Gallio.”

STANLEY

Stanley’s son was at Oxford, reading for a pass, for it was no manner

of use, they said, his reading for anything more. He was a nice boy,

but not yet clever. “Not yet,” Stanley had said of him all through

his schooldays, meaning that Billy was late in developing. “Not yet,”

she still said, meaning that he was so late that he would not have

developed properly until his last year at Oxford, or possibly after

that. Not that Billy was stupid; he was quite intelligent about a

number of things, but not, on the whole, about the things in books,

which made it awkward about examinations. Nor was he intelligent

about politics; in fact, politics bored him a good deal. However, he

was destined for a political career. Stanley’s cousin, Sir Giles

Humphries, a Liberal member of Parliament, had promised Stanley to take

Billy as a junior secretary when he left Oxford, if he should show any

capacity for learning the job. Billy’s Liberal political career would

thus be well begun. Meanwhile, Billy was an affectionate, companionable

boy, who hid his boredom and his ignorance from his mother as well

as might be, and very nicely refrained from making mock of militant

suffragists in her presence, for, though Stanley had ceased to be a

militant, many of her friends were, in these years, in and out of

prison.

Molly wouldn’t go to college. No one, indeed, but her mother suggested

that she should. She was obviously not suited, by either inclination or

capacities, for the extension of her education. Stanley would have been

glad to have Molly at home with her when she left school, for Molly

had the heartbreaking charm of her father, even down to his narrow,

laughing eyes and odd, short face. Stanley adored Molly. Molly was

tepid and casual about votes, and had no head for books, and not the

most rudimentary grasp on public affairs, and she was worse at meetings

and causes than any girl in the world. She didn’t even pretend, like

Billy. She would laugh in Stanley’s face, with her incomparable

impudence, when Stanley was talking, and say, “Mumsie darling, stop

committing. Oh, Mumsie, not before your chee-ild,” and flutter a

butterfly kiss on Stanley’s cheek to change the subject. And she wanted

to go on the stage. She wanted to go, and went, to a dramatic school,

to learn to act. Well, better that than nothing, Stanley sighed. If she

_does_ learn to act, it will be all right. If she doesn’t, she’s

learning something. If it doesn’t make her affected and stupid, like

actresses, I don’t mind. And surely nothing can make Molly less than

entrancing. But, whatever comes of it, Molly has a right to choose

her own life; it’s no business of mine what the children decide to

do. In her conscious reaction from the one-time parental tyranny over

daughters, Stanley forgot that there might also be tyranny over sons,

and that Billy too had a right to choose his own life. It is creditable

to Billy that she could forget it. Billy was the best of sons.

Meanwhile Stanley was fighting (constitutionally) for votes, women’s

trade unions, the welfare of factory girls, continuation schools,

penal reform, clean milk, and the decrease of prostitution. It may be

imagined that all these things together kept her pretty busy; unlike

Rome, she had no time to visit Parliament on its best days; she only

went there when one of the topics in which she was interested was going

to be raised. She got thus, Rome told her, all the dry bread and none

of the jam. However, Stanley preferred the dry bread days, though they

were invariably stupid and disappointing.

Though only a very little of all she had at heart got done, Stanley was

happy. She laboured under the delusion that the constitution and social

condition of her country were, on the whole, faintly on the upward

plane. That was because she was unfairly biassed towards the Liberal

party in the state, and too apt to approve of the measures they passed.

She approved of Old Age Pensions; she even approved, on the whole, of

Mr. Lloyd George’s Insurance Act; and she approved of the People’s

Budget very much.

IRVING

Irving was nearly always cheerful, except when he was cross. Irving was

like that. He had been a cheerful Victorian and a cheerful Edwardian,

and was now, in his late forties, a cheerful Georgian. He had a

beautiful and charming wife, creditable children, a house in Devonshire

and a house in London, and a great deal of money (though the super-tax

robbed him of much of it), two motor cars, good fishing, shooting and

stag-hunting, and an excellent digestion. He had his troubles. The

People’s Budget troubled him a good deal, and the Land Taxes, and all

the unfair socialist legislation to which he was subject. He sometimes

threatened to go and live abroad, to escape it. But he did not go and

live abroad. He was, for all his troubles, a happy Englishman.

UNA

Una, too, was cheerful. She was unaffected by reigns and periods. She

was a very unconscious Georgian. Not like Stanley, who said, “We are

now Georgians. Georgian England must be much better than any England

before it,” nor like Roger, who would murmur, “We Georgians face facts”

... nor like Vicky, who cried, “I will _not_ be called a Georgian;

not while that little Welsh horror rules over us.” Una hardly knew

she was a Georgian, and, indeed, she was not, in any but a strictly

technical sense. Her mind was unstirred by what used, long ago, to

be called the Zeitgeist. She was happy; she enjoyed good health; her

daughters were like polished corners and her sons like young plants;

her husband’s acres flourished and his corn and wine and oil increased

(as a matter of fact his wine, always a trifle too much, had of late

years decreased; Ted was a soberer man than of old); Katie, their

handsome eldest, had married well; and Una found in the countryside

the profound, unconscious content that animals find. Riding, walking,

gardening, driving about the level Essex lands, she, attuned to the

soil on which she lived, was happy and serene.

IMOGEN

The younger generation of Georgians were happy enough. They were

married, engaged, painting, writing, dancing, at the bar, at the

universities, at school. They were behaving in the several manners

suitable to their temperaments and years. Their lives were full of

interests, artistic, literary, athletic and social. Vicky’s Nancy

was learning to paint futuristically; she had now a little studio in

Chelsea, where she could be as Bohemian as she liked, and have her

friends all night without disturbing anyone. Night-clubs, too, had of

late come in, and were a great convenience. Phyllis was bringing up

her children. Hugh, eating dinners in the Temple, read of torts and

morts, but dreamed of machinery, and drew diagrams in court of pistons

and valves, and jotted down algebraic formulæ when he should have been

jotting down legal notes. Hugh was really a mechanician, and his heart

was not in law, though he liked it well enough. His brother Tony had

gone from Cambridge to the Foreign Office and, when not writing drafts,

was a merry youth about town.

Imogen was happy. She felt her life to be pleasure-soaked; a lovely,

an elegant orgy of joy. And pleasure, orgies of dissipation even, did

not absorb her, but were ministrants to the clear, springing life of

the imagination. Imagination brimmed the cup of her spirit like golden

wine. She felt happy and good, like a child in an orchard, ripe apples

and pears tumbling in soft grass about her, the silver boat of the

moon riding in a green sky. For her birds sang, sweet bells chimed

and clashed, the stars made a queer, thin, tinkling song on still

and moonless nights. The people hurrying about the city streets and

squares were kind and merry and good, like brownies; the city itself

was a great gay booth, decked and lit. Dawn came on a golden tide of

peace; noon drove a flaming chariot behind the horses of the sun;

evening spread soft wings, tender and blue and green; night was sweet

as a dream of apple-blossoms by running water. When she wrote, whether

by day or by night, her brain felt clear and lit, as by a still,

bright taper burning steadily. Her thoughts, her words, rose up in her

swiftly, like silver fishes in a springing rock pool; round and round

they swam, and she caught them and landed them before they got away.

While she wrote, nothing mattered but to seize and land what she saw

thus springing up, to reach down her net and catch it while she might.

Verse she wrote, and prose, with growing fastidiousness as to form and

words. When she had first begun publishing what she wrote, she had

been too young; she had fumbled after style like a blind puppy; she

had been, like nearly all very young writers, superfluous of phrase,

redundant. She read with fastidious disgust in her first book of

stories such meaningless phrases as, “He lifted the child bodily over

the rail and dropped it into the sea.” Bodily; as if the victim might,

on the other hand, have been only caught up in the spirit, like St.

Paul. What did I mean, she asked, across the years, of that bungling

child, knowing that she had indeed meant nothing. But now style, the

stark, bare structure of language, was to her a fetish. It was good to

be getting on in life--twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six--so that

one’s head was clearer, if not yet very clear. The very young, thought

Imogen, are muddled; they love cant and shun truth; they adopt and use

imitative phrases; they are sentimental and easy idealists behind their

masks of cheerful, slangy hardness. Undergraduates, male and female,

and their non-collegiate contemporaries, are the most obscurantist

of reactionaries; facts annoy them and they pretend they do not see

them, preferring to walk muffled through life, until life forcibly,

year by year, tears the bandages from their eyes. The later Georgian,

the post-war very young, were to be even more sentimental, muffled

and imitative than their predecessors, because of the demoralising

war, which was to give them false standards in the schoolroom. But the

pre-war adolescents were sentimental enough.

The sharp, clear and bitter truth--that was the thing to aim at,

thought Imogen, in her twenty-fifth year, knowing she was still far,

but not knowing how far, from that. That courageous realism which

should see things as they were, she desired, knowing herself to be

still a false seer, blinded and dazzled by her personal circumstances,

warped and circumscribed in her vision by the circle of her life.

Perhaps she was too comfortable, too happy.... Or perhaps, like most

people, too emotionally alive, strung too sharply to every vibration,

for the clear, detached intellectuality she craved.

I feel things too much, she thought, smiling, to be thinking what so

many people thought, what too many even said, of themselves.

I don’t feel things much. I am not easily moved by life.... Why did

people so seldom say that, and so much more seldom think it? No doubt

because everyone feels things terrifically, is quite horribly moved by

this most moving business, life. No one believes him or herself to be

insensitive, for no one is insensitive, life not being an affair it is

possible to be insensitive to.

In a deeper layer of consciousness, where herself watched herself,

Imogen thought that, though she might believe herself to be sensitive

to life, she at any rate knew why she believed it, knew why everyone

believed it of himself, and that redeemed her from the commonplace

boast, and gave her over the people who say, “I _feel_ too much,

that’s where it is,” the advantage that the conscious must always have

over the unconscious, the advantage, if it be one, that is perhaps the

main difference between sophisticated and primitive forms of life.

Meanwhile Imogen, like her cousin Roger, wrote and published verse

and prose. After all, it didn’t matter what one wrote. People wrote

and wrote, and nearly every kind of thing got written by someone or

other, well or ill, usually ill, and never so well as to touch more

than the very outside edge of the beauty and adventure which was life.

Written words opened the door, that was all. Beyond the door lay the

adventure, bright and still and eerily clear, like a dream. Strange

seas, purple with racing currents in the open, but under the eaves of

coral islands green and clear like jade; white beaches of those same

islands, hot in the sunshine under the spreading leaves of bread-fruit

trees; yams and cocoanuts and pineapples dropping with nutty noises

on to emerald-green grass; a little boat moored at the edge of the

lapping, creamy waves; witty monkeys and brilliant parrots chattering

in the jungle; a little fire at night outside the tent, and a gun ready

to one’s hand. Great fishes and small fishes swimming deeply in the

jade rock pools, sailing and sailing with unshut eye; the little boat

sailing too, pushing off into the wide seas dotted with islands, white

wings pricking sky-ward like fawns’ ears. Or deep orchards adrift with

blossom, rosy-white; jolly colts in paddocks, dragging with soft lips

and hard gums at their mothers’ milk; the winds of April hurtling the

cloud shadows across the grass. Long lanes running between deep hedges

in the evening, and the rustle of the sea not far, and the velvet dusk

waiting for the moonrise, and queer, startled noises in the hedges, and

quiet munching noises in the fields, and the cold mocking stars looking

down. And painted carts of gypsies, and roadside fires, and wood-smoke

and ripe apples. And hills silver and black with olives and cypresses,

and steep roads spiralling up them to little walled towns, and hoarse,

chanted songs lilting among vineyards, and the jingling of the bells

of oxen. And the streets and squares of rainbow-coloured towns, noisy

cafés and lemon trees in tubs, beautiful men noble with the feathers

of cocks, beautiful women in coloured head-kerchiefs, incense drifting

out of churches into piazzas, coffee roasting in deep streets. To swim,

to sail, to run naked on hot sands, to lie eating and eating in deep

scented woods, and then to sleep; to wake and slip into clear brown

pools in sunshine, to spin words as a spider his silvery web; to wear a

scarlet silk jacket like a monkey’s and little white trousers, and, for

best, a little scarlet crinoline over them, sticking out, very wide and

short and jaunty, and a scarlet sunshade lined with white, and on one’s

shoulder a tiny flame-red cockatoo, and at one’s heels two little black

slaves, shining and black as ebony, with ivory teeth a-glisten and

banjos tucked beneath their arms. To clap one’s hands, twice, thrice,

and presto! an elegant meal--mushrooms, cider and _pêche melba_,

and mangoes and pineapple to end it, and then, when it was ended, a

three-coloured ice. What joy! Dear God, what a world! What adventure,

what loveliness, what dreams! Beauty without end, amen.

Then why write of what should, instead, be lived? Wasn’t the marvellous

heritage, the brilliant joke, the ghostly dream, of life enough?

Nevertheless, one did write, and was, inexplicably, praised for it.

Black marks on paper, scribbled and niggled and scrawled--and here and

there the splendour and the joke and the dream broke through them, like

sunshine flashing through prison bars, like music breaking through the

written notes.

While she gave to the fashioning of the written word all the

fastidious, meticulous austerity of devotion that she knew, Imogen in

her personal life was not austere or fastidious or devoted at all.

She idled; she lounged about; she was slovenly; she bought and sucked

toffee; she read omnivorously, including much trash; she was a prey to

shoddy, facile emotions and moods, none of which had power to impel her

to any action, because a deep, innate scepticism underlay them all;

she was a sentimental cynic. She loved too lightly and too slightly;

she was idle, greedy, foolish, childish, impatient and vain, sliding

out of difficulties like a tramp who fears a job of work. She did not

care for great causes; public affairs were to her only an intriguing

and entertaining show. She was a selfish girl, a shallow girl, a shoddy

girl, enmeshed in egotism, happy in her own circus, caring little

whether or no others had bread. Happy in her circus, and yet often

wretched too, for life is like that--exquisite and agonising. She

wanted to go to the Pacific Islands and bathe from coral reefs; wanted

money and fame; wanted to be delivered for ever from meetings and

tea-parties, foolish talkers and bores; wanted to save a life, watched

by cheering crowds; wanted a motor bicycle; wanted to be a Christian;

wanted to be a young man. But not now a naval man; she had seen through

the monotony and routine of that life. She wanted in these days to

be a journalist, a newspaper correspondent, sent abroad on exciting

jobs, to report wars, and eruptions of Vesuvius, and earthquakes, and

Cretan excavations, and revolutions in South America, and international

conferences.

ON PUBLISHING BOOKS

From time to time Imogen, in common with many others, brought out

books, large and small. They would arrive in a parcel of six, and

lie on the breakfast table, looking silly, in clownish wrappers with

irrelevant pictures on them. Imogen would examine them with mild

distaste. How common they looked, to be sure, now that they were

bound! As common as most books, as the books by others. Dull, too.

What if all the reviews said so? One couldn’t help caring what reviews

said, however hard one tried not to. It was petty and trivial to be

cast up and cast down by the opinions of one’s fellows, no wiser than

oneself, expressed in print, but so it was. Why? Chiefly because they

_were_ expressed in print, to be read by all. One’s disgrace,

if it were a disgrace, was so public. People who didn’t know that

reviewers were just ordinary people, with no more authority or judgment

than they had themselves, believed them. If people read in a review,

“It cannot be said that Miss Carrington has been successful in her new

book of stories,” they thought that it really could not, not knowing

that almost anything can, as a matter of fact, be said, and often is.

And if a reviewer said (as was more usual, for reviewers are, taking

them all in all, a kindly race), “This is a good book,” people who

didn’t know any better really thought that it was so. Then the author

was pleased. Particularly as the book wasn’t really good in the least.

“I can’t say I am much concerned about my reviews, one way or another,”

Roger had once said to Imogen. But he _was_ concerned, all the

same. Did he, did all the people who said they didn’t mind things,

know that they really did? Or were they indeed deluded? People were

surely often deluded; they said such odd things. “It’s not that I mind

a bit for myself, it’s the principle of the thing,” they would say.

Or, “I don’t care a damn what anyone says of me,” or, “It isn’t that

_I’d_ mind taking the risk, but one has to think of other people.”

And the people who said, “I know you won’t mind my saying ...” when

they knew you would, or, “I don’t want to spread gossip, but ...” when

that was just what they did want, or, “You mustn’t think I’m vexed with

you, dear,” when they left you nothing else to think.

Did these lie? Or were they deceived? Imogen, pondering these

apparently so confused minds in her own, which was more approximately

accurate (for she would deceive others, but could not easily deceive

herself), could not decide.

ON SUNDAY WALKS

On Sundays the early Georgians used to go from London in trains,

getting out somewhere in Surrey, Sussex, Bucks or Herts, to walk in

muddy lanes or over blown downs, or through dim green-grey beechwoods

or fragrant forests of pine. It is pleasanter to walk alone, or with

one companion, or even two, but sometimes unfortunately one walks (and

so did the early Georgians) in large groups, or parties of pleasure.

Imogen found that she occasionally did this, for it was among the minor

bad habits of her set. It did not greatly matter, and these strange

processions could not really spoil the country, even though they did

very greatly talk. How they talked! Books, politics, personal gossip,

good jokes and bad, acrostics, stories, discussions--with these the

paths and fields they traversed echoed. But Imogen, like a lower

animal, felt stupid and happy and alone, and rooted about the ditches

for violets and the hedges for nests, and smelt at the moss in the

woods, and broke off branches to carry home. To herself she would hum a

little tune, some phrase of music over and over again, and sometimes

words would be born in her and sing together like stars of the morning.

But for the most part she only rooted about like a cheerful puppy,

alive with sensuous joy. Her companions she loved and admired, but

could not emulate, for they were wise about things she knew not of.

Even about the fauna and flora of the countryside they really knew more

than she, who could only take in them an ignorant and animal pleasure.

She had long since guessed herself to be an imbecile, and, with the

imbecile’s cunning, tried to hide it from others. What if suddenly

everyone were to find out, discover that she was an imbecile, with a

quite vacant, unhinged mind? If these informed, educated, sophisticated

people should discover that, they would dismiss her from their ken;

she would no more be their friend. She would be cast out, left to root

about alone in the ditches, like a shameless, naked, heathen savage.

As she thought about this, someone would come and walk by her side and

talk, and she would pull herself together and pretend to be passably

intelligent, albeit she was really drunk with the soft spring wind and

the earthy smell of the wood.

ON MARRIAGE

Imogen loved lightly and slightly, her heart not being much in

that business. Life was full of stimulating contacts. She admired

readily, and liked, was interested, charmed and entertained. Men and

women passed to and fro on her stage, delightful, witty, graceful,

brilliant, even good, and found favour in her eyes. Poets, politicians

and priests, journalists and jesters, artists and writers, scholars

and social reformers, lovely matrons, witty maids, and cheerful

military men, toilers, spinners, and lilies of the field--a pleasant,

various crowd, they walked and worked and talked. So many people were

alluring, so many tedious, so many tiresome. One could, unless one was

careless, evade the tedious and the tiresome. But supposing that one

had been very careless, and had married one of them? What a shocking

entanglement life might then become! How monstrously jarring and

fatiguing would be the home!

“Whether one marries or remains celibate,” Imogen reflected, in her

pedantic, deliberating way, “that is immaterial. Both have advantages.

But to marry one of the right people, if at all, is of the greatest

consequence for a happy life. People do not always think intelligently

enough on this important subject. Too often, they appear to act on

impulse, or from some inadequate motive. And the results are as we

see.” For she was seeing at the moment several ill-mated couples of her

acquaintance, some of whom made the best of it, others the worst. Many

sought and found affinities elsewhere, for affinities they must (or so

they believed) have. Others, renouncing affinity as a baseless dream,

wisely accepted less of life than that, and lived in disillusioned

amenity with their spouses.

An amazing number of marriages came, on the other hand, off, and

these were a pleasant sight to see. To come home every evening to the

companion you preferred and who preferred you--that would be all right.

(Only there might be babies, and that would be all wrong, because they

would want bathing or something just when you were busy with something

else.) Or to come home to no one; or (better still) not to come home at

all. So many habits of life were enjoyable, but not that of perpetual

unsuitable companionship.

Thus Imogen reflected and philosophised on this great topic of marriage

and of love, which did not, however, really interest her so much as

most other topics, for she regarded it as a little primitive, a little

elementary, lacking in the more entertaining complexities of thought.

Metaphysics, poetry, psychology and geography made to her a stronger

intellectual appeal; the non-emotional functionings of the dwellers on

this planet she found more amusing, and the face of the planet itself

more beautiful.

Nevertheless, to be a little in love is fun, and makes enchantment

of the days. A little in love, a little taste of that hot, blinding

cup--but only enough to stimulate, not to blind. One is so often a

little in love....

BILLY

Billy left Oxford with his pass. His Liberal cousin accepted him,

having it on the authority of Stanley, whom he greatly regarded, that

Billy had the makings of a good secretary. Billy denied this, and

said he would prefer to be a veterinary surgeon, or else to farm in

a colony. But his mother had decided that he was to be political.

Political. He thought he saw himself.... And anyhow, where was the

sense of politics? A jolly old mess the politicians made of things, and

always had.... Somehow politics didn’t seem a real thing, like vetting

or farming. There was so much poppycock mixed up with it....

But there it was. His mother must have her way. He supposed it would

be a shame to disappoint her. Molly wouldn’t look at politics, and one

of them must. So in October he was to begin looking at them. One thing

was, Giles Humphries wouldn’t keep him long; he’d soon see through

him....

“Doesn’t make much odds, anyhow,” he reflected gloomily. “One damn

silly job or another. Mother’ll never let me do what I want. ’Tisn’t

good enough for her. I wish people wouldn’t _want_ things for one;

wish they’d let one alone. Being let alone ... that’s the thing.”

Rome said to Stanley, “You’ll never make a politician of that boy. Why

try?”

“He’s too young to say that about yet, Rome. I _should_ like to

see him doing some work for his country....”

“They don’t do that, my dear. You’ve been misinformed. I thought you

went to the House sometimes.... Really, Stan, I can’t imagine why

you should try and turn Billy, who’d be some use in the world as an

animals’ doctor, or a tiller of the soil, or, I daresay, as a number of

other things, into anything so futile and so useless and so singularly

unsuited both to his talents and to his honest nature as a politician.

I suppose you’ll make him stand for Parliament eventually. Well, he’ll

quite likely get in. People will elect anyone. But he’d only be bored

and stupid and wretched there. He’s got no gift of the gab, for one

thing. You let the child do what he wants.”

“I’m not forcing him. He knows he is free.”

“He knows nothing of the sort. He knows you’ve set your heart on this,

and he doesn’t want to vex you. Really, you mothers ...”

So Billy, in the autumn of 1913, became the inefficient secretary

of his kind, inefficient Liberal cousin, who was, however, no more

inefficient than his fellow members of Parliament.

EXIT PAPA

Those were inefficient years; silly years, full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing. They were not much sillier than usual, but there

was rather more sound and fury than had been customary of late. It was

made by militant suffragists, who smashed public property and burned

private houses with an ever more ardent abandon; by Welsh churchmen who

marched through London declaring that on no account would they have

their church either disestablished or disendowed; by dock and transport

strikers, who had a great outbreak of indomitability and determination

in 1911, and another in 1912; by Mr. Lloyd George’s Insurance Act,

which caused much gnashing of teeth, foaming of mouths and flashing of

eyes; by Liberals and Conservatives, who, for some reason, suddenly

for a time abandoned that sporting good humour which has always made

English political life what it is, a thing some like and others scorn,

and took on to dislike each other, even leaving dinner parties to which

members of the opposition party had been carelessly invited; and by the

men of Ulster, who, being convinced in their consciences that Home Rule

would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster, covenanted

to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament

in Ireland, and, to this end, got a quite good conspiracy going

themselves. There was also, it need hardly be said, plenty of sound and

fury on the continent, particularly in the Balkans.

They make, these years, a noisy, silly, rowdy, but on the whole cheery

chapter of the idiot’s tale. Howbeit, they were less noisy and less

silly, and far more cheery, than the chapter which was to follow.

Just before this chapter began, papa died. Afterwards they said, it

is a mercy papa is dead; that he died before the smash that would so

have shattered him. Papa, gentle and sensitive and eighty-four, could

scarcely have endured the great war. Down what fresh avenues of faith

it would have sent his still adventurous soul exploring, seeking

strength and refuge from the nightmare, would never be known. He died

in May, 1914. He died as he had lived, a great and wide believer,

still murmuring, “I believe ... I believe ... I believe ...”--a

credulous, faithful, comprehensive, happy Georgian. He had moments when

agnosticism or scepticism was the dominant creed in his soul, but they

were only moments; soon the tide of his many faiths would surge over

him again, and in all these he died.

“Dear papa,” said Vicky, weeping. “To think that he is with mamma at

last! And to think that now he _knows_ what is true.... Oh, dear,

how will he ever get on without all those speculations and new beliefs?

One knows, of course, that he is happy, darling papa ... but will he

find it at all the _same_?”

Rome said, “Why? Taking your hypothesis, that there is another life,

why should it be supposed to be a revelation of the truth about the

universe, or about God? Why should not papa go on speculating and

guessing at truth, trying new faiths? You people who believe in what

you call heaven seem to have no justification for making it out such an

informed place.”

“Oh, my dear; aren’t we told that all shadows shall flee away, and that

we shall _know_? I’m sure we are, somewhere, only you won’t read

the Bible ever.”

“On the contrary, I read the Bible a good deal. I find it enormously

interesting. But the one thing we can be quite sure about all those

who wrote it is that they had no information at all as to what would

occur to them after their deaths. That is among the very large quantity

of information that no one alive has ever yet had. So, if you think

of papa in heaven, why not think of him in the state in which he

would certainly be happiest and most himself--still exploring for

truth? Why should death bring a sudden knowledge of all the secrets

of the universe? You believers make so many and such large and such

unwarrantable assumptions.”

“My dear, we must make assumptions, or how get through life at all?”

“Very true. How indeed? One must make a million unwarrantable

assumptions, such as that the sun will rise to-morrow, and that the

attraction of the earth for our feet will for a time persist, and that

if we do certain things to our bodies they will cease to function,

and that if we get into a train it will probably carry us along, and

so forth. One must assume these things just enough to take action on

them, or, as you say, we couldn’t get through life at all. But those

are hypothetical, pragmatical assumptions, for the purposes of action;

there is no call actually to believe them, intellectually. And still

less call to increase their number, and carry assumptions into spheres

where it doesn’t help us to action at all. For my part, I assume

practically a great deal, intellectually nothing.”

Vicky was going through her engagement book, seeing what she would have

to cancel because of papa’s death, and all she answered was, absently,

“Dear papa!”

SECOND PERIOD: SMASH

SOUND AND FURY

THE so bitter, so recent, so familiar, so agonising tale of the four

years and a quarter between August, 1914, and November, 1918, has been

told and re-told too often, and will not be told in detail here. It is

enough, if not too much, to say that there was a great and dreadful

war in Europe, and that nightmare and chaos and the abomination

of desolation held sway for four horrid years. All there was of

civilisation--whatever we mean by that unsatisfactory, undefined,

relative word--suffered irretrievable damage. All there was of greed,

of cruelty, of barbarism, of folly, incompetence, meanness, valour,

heroism, selfishness, littleness, self-sacrifice and hate, rose to

the call in each belligerent country and showed itself for what it

was. Men and women acted blindly, according to their kind; they used

the torments of others as stepping stones to prosperity or fame; they

endured torments themselves, with complaining, with courage, or with

both; they did work they held to be useful, and got out of it what

credit and profit they could; or work they knew was folly, and still

got out of it what they could. They went to the war, they stayed at

home, they scrambled for jobs among the chaos, they got rich, they got

poor, they died, were maimed, medalled, frostbitten, tortured, bored,

imprisoned, embittered, enthusiastic, cheerful, hopeless, patient,

or matter-of-fact, according to circumstances and temperament. Many

people said a great deal, others very little. Some parents boasted, “I

have given my all,” others said, “Well, I suppose they’ve got to go

into the damned thing,” some men said, “I must go into it; it’s right,”

some, “I shall go into it: it’s an adventure,” some “I must go into it

like other people, though it’s all wrong,” some, “It may be all right

for others, but I shan’t go into it,” some, “I shan’t go until I’m

forced,” some, “I shan’t go even then.” There were, in fact, all manner

of different attitudes and ways of procedure with regard to the war.

To some it was a necessary or unnecessary hell, to some a painful and

tedious affair enough, but with interests and alleviations and a good

goal in sight; to some an adventure; to some (at home) a satisfactory

sphere for work they enjoyed, to some a holy war, to others a devil’s

dance in which they would take no part, or which they wearily did what

they could to alleviate, or in which they joined with cynical and

conscious resolve not to be left out of whatever profits might accrue.

But to the majority in each country it was merely a catastrophe, like

an earthquake, to be gone through blindly, until better might be.

THE FAMILY AT WAR

Of the Garden family, Vicky was horrified but enthusiastically

pro-war. Her two sons got commissions early, and she helped the war

by organising bazaars and by doing whatever it was that one did (in

the early stages, for in the later more of violence had to be done) to

Belgian refugees. Maurice and his paper were violently pacificist, and

became a by-word. Rome saw the war and what had led up to it as the

very crown and sum of human folly, and helped, very capably and neatly,

to pack up and send off food and clothes to British prisoners. Stanley

was caught in the tide of war fervour. She worked in a canteen, and

served on committees for all kinds of good objects, and behaved with

great competence and energy, her heart wrung day and night with fear

for Billy. In 1917 she caught peace fever, joined the peace party and

the Women’s International League, signed petitions and manifestos in

support of Lord Lansdowne, and spoke on platforms about it, which Billy

thought tiresome of her.

Irving lent a car to an ambulance, and his services to the Ministry of

Munitions, and became a special constable. Una sent cakes to her sons

and farm-hands at the front, and employed landgirls on the farm. She

took the war as all in the day’s work; there had been wars before in

history, and there would be wars again. It was awfully sad, all the

poor boys being taken like that; but it sent up the price of corn and

milk, and that pleased Ted, for all his anxiety for his sons.

The younger generation acted and reacted much as might be expected

of them. Vicky’s Hugh, who joined the gunners, was interested in the

business and came tolerably well through it, only sustaining a lame

leg. Tony, the younger, was killed in 1916. Maurice’s Roger, whose

class was B2, served in France for a year, and wrote a good deal of

trench poetry. He was then invalided out, and entered the Ministry

of Information, where he continued, in the intervals of compiling

propaganda intended to interest the natives of Iceland in the cause of

the Allies, to publish trench poetry, full of smells, shells, corpses,

mud and blood.

“I simply can’t read the poetry you write in these days, Roger,” his

mother, Amy, complained. “It’s become too terribly beastly and nasty

and corpsey. I can’t think what you want to write it for, I’m sure.”

“Unfortunately, mother,” Roger explained, kindly, “war _is_ rather

beastly and nasty, you know. And a bit corpsey, too.”

“My dear boy, I know that; I’m not an idiot. Don’t, for goodness’ sake,

talk to me in that superior way, it reminds me of your father. All I

say is, why _write_ about the corpses? There’ve always been plenty

of them, people who’ve died in their beds of diseases. You never used

to write about _them_.”

“I suppose one’s object is to destroy the false glamour of war. There’s

no glamour about disease.”

“Glamour, indeed! There you go again with that terrible nonsense.

I don’t meet any of these people you talk about who think there’s

glamour in war. I’m sure _I_ never saw any glamour in it, with all

you boys in the trenches and all of us at home slaving ourselves to

death and starving on a slice of bread and margarine a day. Glamour,

indeed! I’ll tell you what it is, a set of you young men have invented

that glamour theory, just so as to have an excuse for what you call

destroying it, with your nasty talk. Like you’ve invented those awful

Old Men you go on about, who like the war. I’m sick of your Old Men and

your corpses.”

“I’m sick of them myself,” said Roger, gloomily, and changed the

subject, for you could not argue with Amy. But he went on writing war

poetry, and gained a good deal of reputation as one of our soldier

poets. On the whole he was more successful as a poet than as a

propagandist to Iceland, which cool island remained a little detached

about the war.

Stanley’s Billy hailed the outbreak of hostilities with some pleasure,

and was among the first civilians to enlist. Here, he felt, was a job

more in his line than being secretary to his Liberal cousin, which he

had found more and more tedious as time passed. He fought in France, in

Flanders, in Gallipoli, and in Mesopotamia, was wounded three times,

and recovered each time to fight again. He was a cheerful, ordinary,

unemotional young soldier, a good deal bored, after a bit, with the

war. On one of his leaves, in 1916, he married a young lady from the

Vaudeville Theatre, whom Stanley could not care about.

“I know mother wanted me to marry a highbrow girl,” he confided to

Molly. “Some girl who’s been to college or something. But I haven’t

much to say to that sort ever, nor they to me. Now Dot....”

But even Molly had her misgivings about Dot. She was not sure that Dot

would prove quite monogamous enough. And, as it turned out, Dot did not

prove monogamous at all, but rather the contrary.

Molly herself had become an ambulance driver in France. She frankly

enjoyed the war. She became engaged to officers, successively and

simultaneously. She acted at canteen entertainments and gained a

charming reputation as a comedienne. At the end of the war she received

the O. B. E. for her distinguished services.

Her mother knew about some of the engagements, and thought them too

many, but did not know that Molly had for a time been more than

engaged. She never would know that, for Molly kept her own counsel.

Molly knew that to Stanley, with her idealistic view of life and her

profound belief in the enduring seriousness of personal relations, it

would have seemed incredibly trivial, light and loose to be a lover and

pass on, to commit oneself so deeply and yet not count it deep at all,

but emerge free and untrammelled for the next adventure. It had seemed

incredible to Stanley in her husband; it would seem more incredible in

her daughter.

“Mother’s so different,” thought Molly. “She’d never understand....

Aunt Rome’s different too, but she’d understand about me; she always

understands things, even if she despises them. She _would_ despise

this, but she wouldn’t be surprised.... Mother would be hurt to death.

She must never, never guess.”

As to Vicky’s daughters, Phyllis was useful in some competent,

part-time, married way that may be imagined. Nancy turned violently

anti-war and became engaged to a Hungarian artist, who was subsequently

removed from his studio in Chelsea and interned. Imogen was everything

by turns and nothing long. The war very greatly discomposed her. It

seemed to her a very shocking outrage both that there should be a

war, and that, since there was a war, she should be found, owing to a

mere fluke of sex, among the non-combatants. The affair was a horrid

nightmare, which she had to stand and watch. People of her age simply

_weren’t_ non-combatants; that was how she felt about it. Strong,

active people in the twenties; it seemed a disgrace to her, who had

never before so completely realised that she was not, in point of

fact, a young man. War was ghastly and beastly; but if it was there,

people like her ought to be in it. However, since this was obviously

impossible, she sulkily and simultaneously joined a pacifist league

and became a V. A. D., in the hope of getting sent out to France. She

was an infinitely incapable V. A. D., did everything with remarkable

incompetence, and fainted or was sick when her senses and nerves were

more displeased than usual by what they encountered, which was often.

She was soon told that she had no gifts for nursing and had better

stick to cleaning the wards. This she did, with relief, for some time,

until her friends said, why not get a job in a government office, which

was much more lucrative and amusing. Sick of hospitals, she did so. She

was under no delusions as to the usefulness of any work she was likely

to do in an office; but still, one had to do something. She could not

write; her jarred, unhappy nerves sought and found a certain degree of

oblivion in the routine, the camaraderie, the demoralising absurdity,

of office work, which was like being at school again. Also, it was

paid, and, as she could not write, she must earn money somehow.

So, indolent, greedy, unbalanced, trivial and demoralised, Imogen,

like many others, drifted through the great war. Two deaths occurred

to her--the death of her brother and companion Tony, which blackened

life and made the war seem to her more than ever a hell of futile

devilry; and the death of Neville, a young naval officer, to whom she

had become engaged in 1915, and who was killed in 1916. It was a queer

affair, born of the emotionalism and sensation-seeking that beset many

people at that time. She had not known him long; she did not know him

well. She was aware that it was ignominious of her to encourage him,

merely on the general love she bore to the navy, a little flattered

excitement, and a desire, new-born, to experience the sensation of

engagement. They had few thoughts in common, but they could joke

together, and talk of ships, and of how they loved one another, and

about him was the glamour of the navy, and she felt, when he kissed

her, that stimulation of the emotions and senses that passes for love.

When they talked about things in general, and not about their love,

she heard within her that cold voice that never lied, saying, “You

cannot live with this nice young naval man. You will tire each other.”

Worse, they sometimes shocked one another. Could it be--disastrous

thought--that she had outgrown the navy?

“You’re a rum kid, darling,” he said to her. “You and I disagree about

nearly everything, it seems to me. We shall have a lively married

life.... But I don’t care....”

But he did care a little, all the same. Imogen sometimes suspected

that, like herself, he had begun to think they had made a mistake. But

then he would take her in his arms, and when they embraced neither of

them felt that they had made a mistake.

However, one is not embracing all the time, and Imogen slowly came

to the point, between one leave and another, of deciding to end the

affair. The navy and she had grown away from each other; there was no

doubt about that.

But before they could discuss this point, Neville was killed at Jutland.

Imogen wept for him, and believed for a time that she loved him

profoundly and missed him horribly. But the small cold voice within her

that never lied whispered, “You are only sorry that he is dead for his

sake, because he loved being alive and ought to be alive. You sometimes

miss his kisses and his love, but you are glad that you are free.”

She spent an unhappy week-end with his parents in the country. They

did not very greatly care for her--cared only for Neville’s sake.

Neville’s father was a rector, very simple and village, his mother a

rector’s wife, very parochial and busy. With them Imogen felt leggy and

abrupt, and the wrong kind of a girl. She couldn’t be articulate with

them, or show them how bitterly she felt Neville’s death before he had

properly lived. They were unhappy but not bitter; they said, “It was

God’s will,” and she could not tell them that, in her view, they spoke

inaccurately and blasphemed. Yet their hearts were (to use the foolish

phrase) broken, and hers by no means. She caught Neville’s mother

looking at her speculatively from behind her glasses, and wondered if

she were wondering how much this gauche young woman had loved her boy.

She wanted to beg her pardon and dash for the next train. They could

not want her with them; to have her was a duty they thought they owed

to Neville. “I’ve no right here,” she cried to herself. “They loved

him. I was only in love with his love for me. Their lives are spoilt,

mine isn’t.”

She did not visit them again. That was over. Neville took his place in

her memory not as a personal loss but as a gay, heartbreaking figure, a

tragic symbol of murdered, outraged youth.

But when Tony was killed, the world’s foundations shook. He was her

darling brother, her beloved companion in adventure, scrapes and

enterprises from their childhood up. She could by no means recover from

the cruel death of Tony, which shattered the life of his home.

But daily work in an office, so cheerful, so fruitless, so absurd, was

an anodyne. Offices were full of people who did not mind the war, who,

some of them, rather enjoyed the war. There are no places more cynical

than the offices of governments. Not parliaments in session, not

statesmen in council, not cardinals in conclave, not even journalists

emitting their folly in the dead of the night. Encased in an armour of

this easy cynicism against the savage darts of the most horrid war,

Imogen and many others drifted through its last years to the war’s

cynical culmination, the horrid but welcome peace.

THIRD PERIOD: DÉBRIS

PEACE

A HORRID peace it was and is. It is the fashion to say so, and, unlike

most fashionable sayings, it is true. But at first the fact that it

_was_ peace, that people were not killing each other (in such

large numbers and for such small reasons) any more, was enough and made

everyone happy. A poor peace enough; but the fact remains that the

worst peace is heaven compared with the best war. It was like the first

return of chocolate éclairs. “They’re rather funny ones,” people said,

“not quite like the old kind; but still, they _are_ éclairs.”

So peace. It was indeed a rather funny one, not quite like the old

kind; but still, it was peace. And what, if you come to that, was the

old kind, that any other should be compared unfavourably with it? The

trouble is, perhaps, rather that this new variety _is_ like it.

The Peace Treaty has been called all kinds of names--patchwork,

violent, militarist, manufactured, makeshift, frail, silly, uneconomic,

unstatesmanlike; and all the names except the last may be true.

(Unstatesmanlike the treaty was certainly not; very few treaties drawn

up by statesmen unfortunately are that; and, in passing, this word

unstatesmanlike seems often to be curiously and thoughtlessly used, in

a sense directly contrary to that which it should bear.) Well, even

if nearly all these opprobrious names were true, it seems a pity to

be always discontented. Wiser were those who encouraged the infant,

patted it on the back, and greeted the unseen with a cheer. Like beer,

like shoeleather, it seemed costly and poor. But who are we, that we

can afford to be particular? We should make the best of whatever peace

is given us, even if it is not the brand we should have preferred.

“We’ve got,” said the resigned citizen, “to put up with these poor,

nasty-looking things, that last no time at all. Beer it’s not, and

shoeleather it’s not, and peace it won’t be, properly speaking. A kind

of substitute they all are, like margarine. But what I say is, we’re

lucky to get them.” So we were.

Idealists, such as Stanley Croft, though they did not admire the Treaty

of Versailles, saw it as the material out of which the living temple

of peace might yet be built, on that great cornerstone, the League of

Nations. The League of Nations was to the peace-wishers as his creed is

to the Christian; it bound them to believe in a number of difficult,

happy, unlikely and highly incompatible things, such as lasting peace,

the freedom of small nations, arbitration between large ones, and so

forth. They joined the League of Nations Union, full of hope and faith.

Stanley did so, at its inception, and became, in fact, a speaker on

platforms in the cause.

THE LAST HOPE

Stanley, in her late fifties, looked and spoke well on platforms; she

looked both nice and important. Her blue eyes, under their thick, level

brows, were as starry as ever, her voice as deep and full and good,

her mind young and alert. A clever, high-minded, balanced, vigorous,

educated matron of close on sixty; that was what Stanley was. She was

the kind of matron to whom younger women gave their confidence. Her son

and daughter did not give her their whole confidence, but that was not

her fault.

Billy was demobilised. A seamed scar cut across his cheek, and his eyes

were queer and sulky and brooding. He disliked by now his wife, Dot.

She reciprocated the feeling, and very soon left him for another, so

he divorced her. Stanley could not help being glad, Dot had been such

a mistake. She was not the kind of wife to help her husband in his

parliamentary career. She was the more the kind who succeeds him in it,

but even that Stanley could not know in 1919, and she regarded Dot as,

from every point of view, a wash-out.

“Look here, mother,” Billy said to her, with nervous, sulky decision.

“I can’t go back to that secretary job. Nor any other job of that

kind. Sitting jobs and writing jobs bore me stiff. I’ve done too much

sitting, in those beastly trenches. And politics anyhow seem to me

plain rot. I want to train for a vet. I’m awfully sorry if you’re

sick about it, but there it is. Why don’t you make Molly take on a

secretary-to-a-Liberal job? She couldn’t be worse than I was, anyhow.”

“A vet, Billy! Darling boy, why a vet? Why not a human doctor, if you

must be something of that sort?”

“Want to be a vet,” said Billy, and was.

As to Molly, she became secretary to no Liberal, for she married,

in 1919, a flight commander, and his politics, if any, were

Coalition-Unionist.

So much for Stanley’s hopes for political careers for her children. She

sighed, and accepted the inevitable, and put her hope more than ever

in the League of Nations. If that could not save the world, nothing

could....

Certainly nothing could, said Rome. Nothing ever had yet. At least,

what did people mean, precisely, by save? Words, words, words. They

signified, as commonly and lightly used, so very little.

THE CHARABANC

The post-war period swung and jolted along, like a crazy, broken-down

charabanc full of persons of varying degrees of mental weakness, all

out on an asylum treat. Every now and then the charabanc stopped

for a picnic, or conference, at some nice continental or English

watering-place, and these were very cosy, chatty, happy, expensive

little times, enjoyed by all, and really not doing very much more

harm to Europe than any other form of treat would have done, since

they had, as a rule (the amusing reconstruction of the map of Europe

once effected), practically no effects of any kind, beyond, of

course, strengthening the already perfect harmony prevalent among the

victorious allied nations.

Reparations was the great topic at these chats; but it was and is such

a very difficult topic that no one there (no one there being very

clever), made much of it, and it has not really been decided about even

now.

International politics were, in fact, in the years following the

great war, even more greatly confused than is usual. Only one great

international principle remained, as ever, admirably lucid--that

principle so simply explained by M. Anatole France’s Penguin peasant

to the Porpoise philosopher.

“Vous n’aimez pas les Marsouins?”

“Nous les haïssons.”

“Pour quelle raison les haïssez-vous?”

“Vous le demandez? Les Marsouins ne sont-ils pas les voisins des

Pingouins?”

“Sans doute.”

“Eh bien, c’est pour cela que les Pingouins haïssent les Marsouins.”

“Est-ce une raison?”

“Certainement. Qui dit voisins dit ennemis.... Vous ne savez donc pas

ce que c’est que le patriotisme?”

There was no confusion here.

Home politics, in each country, seemed to lack even this dominant

_motif_, and confusion reigned unrelieved. In Great Britain a

Coalition government was in power. The usual view about this government

is that it was worse and more incompetent than other governments; but

it seems bold to go as far as this. “The nation wants a return to a

frank party government,” non-coalition Liberals and Conservatives began

saying, and said without intermission until they got it, in 1922. They

sometimes explained why they preferred a frank party government, but

none of their reasons seemed very good reasons; the real reason was

that they, very properly and naturally, wished their own party to be in

power. The Die-Hards and the Wee Frees came to be regarded as valiant,

incorruptible little bands, daring to stand alone; Co-Liberals and

Co-Unionists were understood, somehow, to have compromised with Satan

for reward. There is a good deal of unkindness in political life.

SETTLING DOWN

Meanwhile, the people settled down, were demobilised from the army,

and from the various valuable services which they had been rendering

to their country, and began to fall back into the old grooves, began

to recover, at least partially, from the war. But the war had left its

heritage of poverty, of wealth, of disease, of misery, of discontent,

of feverish unrest.

“Now to write again,” said Imogen, and did so, but found it difficult,

for the nervous strain of the years past, and the silliness of the

avocations she had pursued through them, had paralysed initiative, and

given her, in common with many others, an inclination to sally forth

after breakfast and catch a train or a bus, seeking such employment as

might be created for her, instead of creating her own. The helpless

industry of the slave had become hers, and to regain that of the

independent and self-propelled worker was a slow business.

Further, she was absorbed, shaken and disturbed by a confusing and

mystifying love into which she had fallen, blind and unaware, even

before peace had descended. She very greatly loved someone whom she

could not, what with one thing, what with another, hope to marry. All

values were to her subverted; she fumbled blindly at a world grown

strange, a world as to whose meaning and whose laws she groped in the

dark, and emotion drowned her like a flood.

There revived in force about this time the curious old legend about the

young. The post-war young, they were now called, and once more people

began to believe and to say that one young person closely resembles

other young persons, and many more things about them.

“The war,” they said, “has caused a hiatus, and thought has broken with

tradition. Thus youth is no longer willing to accept forms and formulæ

only on account of their age. It has set out on a voyage of enquiry,

and, finding some things which are doubtful and others which are

insufficient, is searching for forms of expression more in harmony with

the realities of life and knowledge.”

Many novels were written about the New Young, half in reprobation,

half in applause; famous literary men praised them in speeches; they

were much spoken of in newspapers. All the things were said of them

that have been said of the young at all times, only now their newness,

their special quality, was attributed to the European war, in which

they were too young to have actively participated, but which had,

it was believed, exercised upon them some mystic and transmuting

influence. Once more the legend flourished that the number of years

lived constitutes some kind of temperamental bond, so that people of

the same age are many minds with but a single thought, bearing one

to another a close resemblance. The young were commented on as if

they were some new and just discovered species of animal life, with

special qualities and habits which repaid investigation. “Will these

qualities wear off?” precise-minded and puzzled enquirers asked. “When

the present young are thirty and middle-aged, will they still possess

them? Do the qualities depend upon their age, or upon the period of the

world’s history in which they happen to be that age?” But no precise

or satisfactory reply was ever given. It never is. Enquirers into the

exact meaning of popular theories and phrases are of all persons

the least and the worst answered. You may, for instance, enquire of

a popular preacher, or anyone else, who denounces his countrymen as

“pagan” (as speakers, and even Bishops, at religious gatherings have

been known to do), what exactly he means by this word, and you will

find that he means irreligious, and is apparently oblivious of the

fact that pagans were and are, in their village simplicity, the most

religious persons who have ever flourished, having more gods to the

square mile than the Christian or any other Church has ever possessed

or desired, and paying these gods more devout and more earnest devotion

than you will meet even among Anglo-Catholics in congress. To be pagan

may not be very intelligent; it is rustic and superstitious, but it is

at least religious. Yet you will hear the word “pagan” flung loosely

about for “irreligious,” or sometimes as meaning joyous, material and

comfort-loving, whereas the simple pagans walked the earth full of

what is called holy awe and that mystic faith in unseen powers which

is the antithesis of materialism, and gloomy with apprehension of the

visitations of their horrid and vindictive gods; and, though no doubt,

like all men, they loved comfort, they only obtained, just as we do, as

much of that as they could afford. And, whatever Bishops mean by pagan,

as applied to modern Englishmen, it is almost certain that they do not

mean all this.

Never, perhaps, was thinking, writing and talking looser, vaguer and

more sentimental than in the years following the European war. It was

as if that disaster had torn great holes in the human intelligence,

which it could ill afford. There was much writing both of verse and of

prose, much public and private speaking much looking for employment

and not finding it, much chat about the building of new houses, much

foolish legislation, much murder and suicide, much amazement on the

part of the press. Newspapers are always easily amazed, but since

the war weakened even their intelligence there could not be so much

as a little extra departure from railway stations on a Bank Holiday

(surely most natural, if one thinks it out) without the ingenuous press

placarding London with “Amazing scenes.” The press was even amazed if a

married couple sought divorce, or if it thundered, or was at all warm.

“Scenes” they would say, “Scenes”; and the eager reader, searching

their columns for these, could find none worthy of the name. One

pictures newspaper reporters going about, struck dumb with amazement at

every smallest incident in this amazing life we lead, hurrying back to

their offices and communicating their emotion to editors, news editors

and leader writers, so that the whole staff gapes, round-eyed, at the

astonishing world on which they have to comment. An ingenuous race; but

they make the mistake of forgetting that many of their readers are so

very experienced that they are seldom surprised at anything.

During these years, the sex disability as regards the suffrage being

now removed, women stood freely for Parliament, but the electorate,

being mostly of the male sex, showed that the only women they desired

to have in Parliament were the wives of former members who had ceased

to function as such, through death, peerage, or personal habits. Many

women, including Stanley Croft, who of course stood herself, found this

very disheartening. It seemed that the only chance for a woman who

desired a political career was to marry a member and then put him out

of action. Such women as were political in their own persons, who were

educated and informed on one or more public topics, had small chance.

“We don’t want to be ruled by the ladies,” the electorate firmly

maintained. “It’s not their job. Their place is ...” etc.

The world had not changed much since the reign of Queen Victoria.

And so, with the French firmly and happily settled in the Ruhr, their

hearts full of furious fancies, declaring that it would not be French

to stamp on a beaten foe, but that their just debts they would have,

with Germany rapidly breaking to pieces, drifting towards the rocks

of anarchy or monarchy, and working day and night at the industry of

printing million-mark notes, with Russia damned, as usual, beyond any

conceivable recovery, with Italy suffering from a violent attack of

Fascismo, with Austria counted quite out, with a set of horrid, noisy

and self-conscious little war-born states in the heart of Europe, all

neighbours and all feeling and acting as such, with Turkey making of

herself as much of an all-round nuisance as usual, with Great Britain

anxiously, perspiringly endeavouring both to arrest the progressive

wreckage of Europe and to keep on terms with her late allies, and with

Ireland enjoying at last the peace and blessings of Home Rule, Europe

entered on her fifth year since the armistice.

A NOTE ON MAURICE

In this year Maurice’s paper perished, having long ceased to pay its

way, and, in fact, like so many papers, suffering loss on each copy

that was bought. This is as natural a state of affairs for papers

as living on over-drafts is for private persons, but neither state,

unfortunately, can last for ever. The money behind the _Gadfly_

at last gave out, and the _Gadfly_ ceased to be. Maurice, at the

age of sixty-five, was deprived of his job and his salary, and became

a free-lance, but no less fiery and stubborn, journalist. There were

more things to oppose, in his view, than ever before, and he opposed

them at large, in the hospitable pages of many a friendly periodical.

His opposition had no effect on the affairs of the world, but, in

combination with an adequate supply of alcoholic nourishment and

his blessed emancipation from married life, it caused him to remain

self-respecting and fit, kept senility at bay, and assisted him to bear

up against the repeated shocks of Roger’s published works.

A NOTE ON IMOGEN

The P. & O. liner hooted its way down Southampton Water. The land, the

Solent, the open sea, were veiled in February mist. Imogen, leaning on

the rail and straining her eyes shore-ward, could only see it dimly,

darkly, looming like a ghost through fog. That was England, and life in

England; a mist-bound world wherein one blindly groped. A mist-bound

and yet radiant world, holding all one valued, all that gave life

meaning, all that one was leaving behind.

For Imogen was going, for a year, to the Pacific Islands. Hugh too was

going there, to make maps and plans for the government. Imogen was

going with him, exploring, wandering about at leisure from island

to island. The perfect life, she had once believed this to be. And

still the thought of coral islands, of palm and yam and bread-fruit

trees, with the fruits thereof dropping ripely on emerald grass, with

monkeys and gay parakeets screaming in the branches, and great turtles

flopping in blue seas, with beachcombers drinking palm-toddy on white

beaches, the crystal-clear lagoon in which to swim, and, beyond, the

blue island-dotted open sea--even now these things tugged at Imogen’s

heart-strings and made her feel again at moments the adventurous little

girl she had once been, dreaming vagabond dreams.

But more often this bright, still world beyond the mists seemed like

the paradise of a hymn, a far, unnatural, brilliant, alien place, which

would make one sick for home.

Yet she had chosen to go, and no remonstrances, repentances and

waverings had quite undone that choice. In that far, bright, clear,

alien place, beyond the drifting mists, perhaps thought too was lucid

and unconfused, not the desperate, mist-bound, storm-driven, helpless

business it was in London. In London all values and all meanings

were fluid, were as windy clouds, drifting and dissolving into

strange shapes. Life bore too intense, too passionate an emotional

significance; personal relationships were too tangled; clear thought

was drowned in desire. One could not see life whole, only a flame, a

burning star, at its heart.

Through years and years this could not go on; the entanglement of

circumstance, the enmeshing of soul and will, was too close for any

unravelling; it could only be cut. Under the knife that cut it--and yet

was it cut at all, or only hacked all in vain?--Imogen’s soul seemed

to bleed to death, to bleed and swoon quite away.

What had she done, and why? All reasons seemed to reel from sight as

they churned for open sea between those mist-blind shores. Parakeets?

Bread-fruit? Lagoons and coral reefs? O God, she cared for none of

them. She had been mad, mad, mad.

“_To leave me for so long ... you can’t mean to do it._...”

Above the turning, churning screws the hurt voice spoke, how truly, and

stabbed her through once more. Can’t mean to do it ... can’t do it ...

can’t.... Oh, how very true indeed. And yet she must do it and would.

It was no use; it would solve nothing, settle nothing; merely for a

year she would be sick for home among the alien yams.

But, at the thought of the yams, and the bread-fruit, and the grass and

parakeets more green than any imagining, and of the very blue lagoons,

a little comfort stole into her heavy heart. A merry beachcomber on

a white beach--that was the thing to be, even if nothing could be a

really happy arrangement but to be two merry beachcombers together. At

the thought of the two merry beachcombers who might have been so very

happy, the tears brimmed and blinded Imogen’s eyes.

What a mess, what a mess, what a bitter, bemusing muddle, life was! One

renounced its best gifts, those things in it which seemed finest, most

ennobling, most enriching, holding most of beauty and of good; these

things one renounced, and filled the dreadful gap with turtles, with a

little palm-toddy, with a few foolish parakeets.

What an irony!

Through the blinding mist, above the rushing sound of foaming waters,

the voice cried to her ... _Imogen, Imogen ... come back_.

Imogen wept.

Alas for the happy vagabond, fallen into such sad state.

FINAL

Rome saw Stanley off to Geneva. Stanley had obtained employment in the

Labour department of the League of Nations. She was pleased, and keen,

and full of hope. The League would save the world yet....

“It’s going to be the most interesting work of my life, so far,”

said Stanley, leaning out of the train. “To find one’s best job at

sixty-two--that’s rather nice, I think. Life’s so full of _hope_,

Rome. Oh, I do feel happy about it.”

“Good,” said Rome, and, “Good-bye, my dear,” for the train began to

move.

“Good-bye, Romie.... Take care of yourself; you’re looking tired

lately.”

“I’m very old, you see,” Rome said, after the retreating train, and a

passer-by, turning to glance at the slight, erect, grey-haired lady,

thought that she did not look very old at all.

But she was very old, for she would soon be sixty-four, and, further,

she was very tired, for she had cancer coming on, inherited from mamma.

She had not mentioned it to anyone yet, beyond the doctor, who had told

her that, unless she had operations, she would die within a year.

Operations nothing, Rome had said; such a bore, and only to prolong

the agony; if she had to die, she would die as quickly as might be.

She further decided that, before the pain should become acute or the

illness overwhelming, she would save trouble to herself and others by

an apparently careless overdose of veronal. Meanwhile, she had a few

months to live.

The thought that it would only, probably, be a few months, set her

considering, as she drove herself home in her car, her practised hands

steady on the wheel, life, its scope, its meaning, and its end. Life

was well enough, she thought; well enough, and a gay enough business

for those who had the means to make it so and the temperament to find

it so. Life was no great matter, nor, certainly, was death; but it was

well enough. We come and we go; we are born, we live, and we die; this

poor ball, thought Rome, serves us for all that; and, on the whole,

we make too much complaint of it, expect, one way and another, too

much of it. It is, after all, but a turning ball, which has burst, for

some reason unknown to science, into a curious, interesting and rather

unwholesome form of animal and vegetable life. Indeed, thought Rome, I

think it is a rather remarkable ball. But of course it can be but of

the slightest importance, from the point of view of the philosopher

who considers the very great extent and variety of the universe and

the extremely long stretching of the ages. Its inhabitants tend to

over-rate its importance in the scheme of things. Human beings surely

tend to over-rate their own importance. Funny, hustling, strutting,

vain, eager little creatures that we are, so clever and so excited

about the business of living, so absorbed and intent about it all, so

proud of our achievements, so tragically deploring our disasters,

so prone to talk about the wreckage of civilisations, as if it

mattered much, as if civilisations had not been wrecked and wrecked

all down human history, and it all came to the same thing in the end.

Nevertheless, thought Rome, we are really rather wonderful little

spurts of life. The brief pageant, the tiny, squalid story of human

life upon this earth, has been lit, among the squalour and the greed,

by amazing flashes of intelligence, of valour, of beauty, of sacrifice,

of love. A silly story if you will, but a somewhat remarkable one.

Told by an idiot, and not a very nice idiot at that, but an idiot

with gleams of genius and of fineness. The valiant dust that builds

on dust--how valiant, after all, it is. No achievement can matter,

and all things done are vanity, and the fight for success and the

world’s applause is contemptible and absurd, like a game children play,

building their sand castles which shall so soon one and all collapse;

but the queer, enduring spirit of enterprise which animates the dust we

are is not contemptible nor absurd.

Rome mused, running leisurely across Hyde Park, of herself, her

parents, and her sisters and brothers, of how variously they had all

taken life. Her papa had made of it a great spiritual adventure. Her

mamma--what had mamma made of life? She had, anyhow, accepted papa

and his spiritual adventure, and accepted all her children and their

lives. And yet, always and always, mamma had remained delicately apart,

detached, too gentle to be called cynical, too practical to be called

a philosopher, too shrewd to be deceived by life. Dear mamma. Rome

very often missed her still. As to Vicky, she had skimmed gracefully

over life’s surface like a swallow, dipping her pretty wings in the

shallows and splashing them about, or like a bee, sipping and tasting

each flower. She had plunged frequently, ardently and yet lightly into

life. Maurice had not plunged into life; he had fought it, opposed

it, treated it as an enemy in a battle; he had made no terms with it.

Stanley had, on the other hand, embraced it like a lover, or like a

succession of lovers, to each of which she gave the best of her heart

and soul and mind before she passed on to the next. Stanley believed in

life, that it was or could be splendid and divine. Irving and Una both

accepted it calmly, cheerfully, without speculation, as a good enough

thing, Irving with more of enterprise and more of progressive desire,

Una placidly, statically, eating the meal set before her and wishing

nothing more, nothing less. Both these accepted.

And Rome herself had rejected. Without opposition and without heat, she

had refused to be made an active participant in the business, but had

watched it from her seat in the stalls as a curious and entertaining

show. That was, and must always, in any circumstances, have been her

way. Had she married, or had she gone away, long ago, with Mr. Jayne,

would she then have been forced into some closer, some more intimate

spiritual relationship with the show? Possibly. Or possibly not. Life

is infinitely compelling, but the spirit remains infinitely itself.

Anyhow, it mattered not at all. Life, whatever it had, whatever it

might have meant to her, was in its last brief lap.

“_And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death._...”

Her little drift of dust was so soon to return and subside whence it

came, dust to dust.

She thought that she would miss the queer, absurd show, which would

go on with its antics without her, down who knew what æons? Perhaps

not very many after all; perhaps all life was before long dustily to

subside, leaving the ball, like a great revolving tomb, to spin its way

through space. Or perhaps the ball itself would dash suddenly from its

routine spinning, would fly, would rush like a moth for a lamp, to some

great bright sun and there burst into flame, till its last drift of

ashes should be consumed and no more seen.

A drift of dust, a drift of storming dust. It settles, and the little

stir it has made is over and forgotten. The winds will storm on among

the bright and barren stars.

Rome smiled, as she neatly swung out at the Grosvenor Gate.

THE END

=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=

Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced

quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and

otherwise left unbalanced.

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a

predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they

were not changed.