Document B. 53. X. 15
I think I have made it clear that when I took over the Reconstruction
at Nordenholt’s request I did so in a disinterested spirit, by which
I mean that no personal aims of my own were concerned. I began the
work solely in the hope that my plans would ensure the welfare of some
millions of people, hardly any of whom I knew as individuals. It is
true that I put my whole heart into the task and that I strove with
all my might to bring its conclusion within the scope of possibility.
I could do no less, in view of the immense responsibility which I had
undertaken. Possibly my narrative has minimised the labour which the
effort involved; if so, I cannot help it.
Even my early stages of collaboration with Elsa Huntingtower failed to
alter this attitude of my mind. I still saw the problem as one in which
great masses of people were involved; and although I appreciated the
fact that these masses were composed of individuals each with his or
her separate destiny to work out for good or ill, yet it never occurred
to me to regard myself as one of them.
I think that the vision of Fata Morgana, growing ever clearer in my
mental vision, forced my thoughts into a fresh channel. In my mind’s
eye I saw that happy city, thronged with its joyous people; and
gradually I began to picture myself treading those lawns and wandering
amid its gardens. Alone? No, I wanted some kindred spirit, someone who
could share the victory with me; and Elsa Huntingtower was the only
one who had part and lot in it. She and I had built its dreaming spires
together by our common labour; and it was with her that I would stray
in fancy through its courts. Of all humanity, we two alone had rightful
seizin in its soil.
It was late before I recognised where all this was leading me; but when
at last I awakened, it drove me with ten-fold force. I wanted no dim
future through which I might rove as a shadow among shadows; they had
served their turn in the scheme of things and brought me face to face
with reality. If Paradise lay before me, Eve must be there, else it
would be a mockery: if I had to face failure, I needed a comforter. I
wanted Elsa.
I mistrust all novelists’ descriptions of the psychology of a man in
love. To me, that passion seems an integration of selfishness and
selflessness each developed to its highest pitch and so intimately
mingled that one cannot tell where the dividing line between them lies.
Luckily, analysis of this kind is beyond the scope of my narrative. The
affairs of Elsa Huntingtower and me, so far as they concerned ourselves
alone, have no place upon my canvas; but since in their reactions they
impinged upon a greater engine, I cannot pass them over in silence
without omitting a factor which must have had its influence upon events.
* * * * *
I suppose, from what I see around me, that the average man falls
in love by degrees. He seems to be subjected to two forces which
alternately act upon him in opposite directions, so that his advance
to his goal is intermittent and sometimes slow. In my case, there
was nothing of this wavering. Somehow, as soon as I realised what my
feelings were, I could not delay an hour longer than was necessary.
The real fact was, I suspect, that I did not suddenly fall in love,
though I seemed, even to myself, to have done so. In all probability I
had been falling in love for weeks without knowing it; and when the
illumination came, the long sub-conscious travail had prepared me for
instant action.
As it happened, it was one of the days on which we usually motored
into the country. At two o’clock I was in the Square with the car; and
almost at once the door opened and Elsa appeared. My dreams had far
outrun reality; and as the slim fur-clad figure came down the steps I
felt my pulse leap. It lasted only for a moment, but I think she read
my face like an open book. Behind her came Nordenholt, looking very
tired. I could not help seeing the change which the last months had
made in him. The deep lines on his face were deeper still; his eyes
seemed to be different in some way, though as piercing as ever; and his
step had lost the lightness it had when I saw him first in London. He
looked me over, as he usually did, but said nothing as he stepped into
the back of the car. Elsa took her customary place beside me; and it
gave me a novel thrill as I arranged the rug about her. It seemed as
though something had fallen from my eyes so that I saw her in a new and
wonderful aspect.
As we drove westward and over the Canal, I noticed that she seemed
disinclined to talk; and as I myself was busy with my dreams, I did not
try to force the conversation. We had passed Bearsden and were in the
open country before she had spoken three sentences; and even these were
wilfully commonplace. Reflecting on this, and being myself surcharged
with emotion, I was vain enough to guess that she was thinking of me
and of what I had to tell her; for I had a curious feeling that she
must know what was in my mind. So the milestones swept by, and still
the three of us remained silent.
It was a dreary landscape through which we drove; but all landscapes in
those days were bleak and sinister. In the little wood beyond Bearsden,
the trees were uprooted and slanting here and there, owing to the new
soil giving them no support. Some, which had threatened to fall across
the road, had been cut down. Further on, the Kilpatrick Hills loomed
over us, dark from the lack of vegetation; while across the Blane
valley, once so green, the smooth folds of the Campsies lay black under
the wintry sky. Only here and there, where snow covered the ground, did
things remind one of the old days.
Past the Half Way House, along Stockiemuir with its blasted heather
under its snow, up the hill at the foot of Finnick Glen the great car
ran; and yet none of us spoke a word. Once, after that, Nordenholt gave
me a direction; and we turned off toward Loch Lomond.
When we reached the lochside, beyond Balloch, he made me stop the car.
“I’m going to get out here and walk up towards Luss,” he said. “You
take the car on to the head of the loch and pick me up on the way back.
Don’t hurry. I want some exercise.”
The door slammed; and we moved off. I looked back and saw him standing
by the water-side; and it struck me that his attitude was that of an
old man. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his motor-coat; and
his position seemed to exaggerate the stoop of his shoulders. He looked
so very, very tired. I realised, all at once, that he was ageing long
before his time, worn out by his colossal task. An emotion which was as
much dismay as pity swept over me in an instant. Then, as I watched, he
pulled himself up and stood erect again, gazing over the water to the
desolate islets. The car swung round a corner; and when I looked back
once more, he was out of sight.
But that picture haunted me as I drove up the loch. I guessed at last
what this struggle was costing him. Somehow I had never realised it
before. I had come to regard Nordenholt as almost akin to the natural
forces, the embodiment of some great store of energy which worked
upon human destiny calmly and ever certainly. I had looked up to his
strength and leaned upon it unconsciously, knowing only that it was
there. And now, in that brief vision, I had seen that my support
was itself weakening, even though for an instant. There had been a
recovery, the old dominating attitude reappeared as he pulled himself
together again. But before this I had never seen effort in that
attitude; and I saw it now. Even in my exalted condition, the sight of
that weary figure struck down into my memory.
Elsa had not looked back. She sat beside me, her clean-cut profile
emerging from her dark furs, gazing straight before her at the road
ahead. We ran through Luss without a word to each other. My heart was
throbbing with excitement; and yet I hesitated to break the silence.
Some miles further up the road, before we reached Tarbet, she asked me
to stop the car and suggested that we should go down to the water’s
edge.
It was there that I at last found speech and, having found it, poured
out what I had to say in a torrent of words none of which I can
remember now. I had rehearsed that scene many a time in my mind, and
yet it all came unexpectedly. I had never anticipated this opportunity.
I had thought that some time, when we talked of the future we were
planning, I would tell her what I needed to make it complete. And I had
thought of how she would take my pleading: I had forecast how she would
look and what she would reply. But in none of my visions had I foreseen
the reality.
She listened to me coldly, almost as if her mind were occupied with
other things. I grew more passionate, I think, striving to make her
understand my emotion; and yet she seemed almost indifferent to what
I said. At last I stopped, chilled by this aloofness which I did not
understand. In my wildest imaginings I had never thought of this
_dénouement_ of the situation. I think I must have grown cold myself:
for though I can recall nothing of my previous words, the rest of the
scene is graven on my mind. For some moments after I had ceased, she
remained silent; then at length she spoke, with an accent in her voice
which I had never heard before. I remember that she had taken off one
glove and stood twisting it in her hands while she talked.
“I got you to stop the car here because I have something to ask you,
something of tremendous importance to me. Forgive me if I put it first
and don’t answer you immediately. I’m ... I’m very grateful for all you
have said. But this thing comes before everything; and you must let me
ask you about it before we come to ... to our own affairs.”
A pang of apprehension shot through me. What could she be driving at
which was of greater importance than our future?
“As I was going over my papers to-day,” she went on, “I came across one
which seemed to have been missorted. It didn’t belong to my section. I
glanced at it casually; and then I read it. Have you any idea what it
referred to?”
“No.”
“It said things I could hardly grasp. Even now I think it must be a
mistake. I can’t believe it was a real document. It must have been a
hoax or something like that. And yet, it had the usual serial numbers
on it: B. 53. X. 15.”
My throat was dry, but I managed to pull myself together and make a
sound like “Well?” She came close to me and looked me straight in the
eyes--so like Nordenholt’s gaze in some ways--and I tried to bring my
features into a mask.
“Is it true that everyone outside the Area has been left to die? Is it
true that there has been a deliberate plot to starve all the men, all
the women, even the little children in the country? Tell me that, and
tell me at once. Don’t wait to wrap it up in fine phrases. Tell me the
truth _now_.”
I stood before her, silent.
“So it _is_ true; and you knew it! You acquiesced in it. You even
helped in it; I can see it in your face. You cur!”
Still I could not find my voice. This was a different scene from
that I had thought of only ten short minutes before. It was not that
I felt anything myself, except a sort of dull comprehension that my
dreams were shattered; but the sight of the pain in her face moved me
more than I could express in words. I wanted to help her. I wanted
to justify the plan Nordenholt had made. And yet something kept me
tongue-tied. I could find no phrase to open my explanations. The
outpouring of speech which I had found so easy only a few seconds
earlier now seemed dried up. I merely watched her, saying nothing. For
a time she struggled with herself, trying to master her feelings. All
this time her face had been set; not a tear had come to her eyelashes.
“I have a right to know who planned this,” she continued, after a
pause. “Do you know what I thought at first? I suspected Uncle Stanley.
I even suspected _him_. But I don’t, now. I know him too well. I didn’t
even question him about it. I didn’t want to worry him until I had
found out whether it was true or not. But it _is_ true. Who planned it?
Answer me!”
There was no concealment possible. Once she had the clue, she would
discover everything almost immediately. Not even delay was to be gained
by a lie. And with her clear eyes upon me, I could not have lied even
had I wished to do so. She might never be mine; but I was hers to do as
she wished. For a moment I hesitated, turning over in my mind the idea
of referring her to Nordenholt himself; but I abandoned that almost
instantaneously. The shock would be greater if it came from him; better
let me bear the brunt.
“Your uncle planned it. I helped him.”
“Uncle Stanley! You don’t expect me to believe that? It shows how
little you know of us both if you think....”
Her voice became tinged with doubt, and tears, too, came into it.
The evidence was too clear. Only Nordenholt could have carried out
such a gigantic scheme. And possibly she read the truth in my face as
well. For a moment she seemed frozen, a rigid and silent statue. All
the flush had left her cheeks and above the softness of her furs her
features seemed as though carved in marble. When she spoke again, she
seemed to be trying to convince herself.
“Did Uncle Stanley suggest it? I can’t believe it. It’s impossible.
He couldn’t do a thing like that. You don’t know him. He couldn’t. He
couldn’t. I know he couldn’t.”
Even in that moment of tension, I could not help reflecting how little
a woman can know of a man’s mind. Half our mental processes are shut
off from them, as probably half of theirs are closed books to us.
The great barrier of sex divides us; and our outlook upon the world
can never be the same. This girl had been in close communion with
Nordenholt through most of her life; and yet she failed to recognise at
once as his handiwork the greatest achievement to which he had put his
powers.
She wavered on her feet. I stepped forward to catch her but she struck
aside my hand. Then she seated herself on a bank. I looked away; and
when I saw her again she was sitting, her face buried in her hands,
while her fragile figure shook with suppressed sobbing.
“Elsa,” I said, “you don’t understand. It’s come upon you suddenly; and
you’ve been swept off your feet by it. But it was all for the best. It
had to be done.”
She looked up. On her face, still wet with tears, I saw only contempt
and bitterness.
“It had to be done?” she echoed. “Do you mean that forty millions of
people _had_ to be robbed of their food and left to starve? Can’t you
see what it means, or are you made of stone? Think of men seeing their
mothers dying; think of lovers watching their sweethearts starve; and
the children in their mothers’ arms. And you, _you_ say calmly that ‘It
had to be done.’ You aren’t a machine. You had the right to choose. And
you chose _that_!”
“You don’t understand,” I repeated wearily. Somehow the strain of the
situation seemed to have robbed me of my forces.
“No, I don’t understand. How can I, when it means that the men I
thought most of in the world turn out to be nothing but murderers on
a gigantic scale? I can’t believe it, even yet. Is it ... is it all a
mistake? Oh! I want to wake up out of this nightmare; I want to wake
up. Tell me it’s a nightmare and not real.”
Her voice sounded almost like that of a terrified child in the dark.
“It’s no nightmare,” I said. “Try to see what it meant. There wasn’t
enough food for us all. Somebody had to die if the rest were to be
saved.”
“And so you elected to be one of the rest? I congratulate you. A most
laudable decision, I am sure,” she said contemptuously. “It would
indeed have been a pity if you had gone short of food in order to save
the lives of a mere score of children; tiny, helpless little things
that can’t do more than cry as they starve.”
“You don’t understand,” I repeated. “There was no chance of saving them
in any case. They were doomed from the start. All we did was to ensure
that _somebody_ would survive. If the food had been evenly distributed,
we should all have died; but your uncle laid his plans to save millions
of people. Surely you can see that?”
She thought for a moment; and then attacked in a fresh direction.
“Who gave you the right to choose among them? You seem to think you
are a demi-god with the power of life and death in your hands. How
could _you_ take the responsibility of the choice? And how could you
bear to save yourself when you knew other men, and perhaps better men,
had to die? I can’t understand you. You’re so different from what I
thought you were. Somehow all my ideals seem to be breaking. You and
Uncle Stanley were the two finest men I had met. I never dreamed for a
moment that you would turn out to have feet of clay. And now....”
I tried hard to put our case before her. I explained the state of
things at the outbreak of the Famine. I gave her figures to prove that
Nordenholt had only worked to save what he could from the disaster. It
was all of no avail. I think that the picture of the starving children
filled her mind to the exclusion of almost everything else; and that
she hardly listened to what I said. Once she whispered to herself,
“Poor little mites,” just when I thought I had caught her attention at
last. I gave it up in the end. She looked away across the loch, where
the first stars were lighting up behind the hills; and we stood in
silence, so close in space, so remote from each other in our thoughts.
At last she spoke again.
“Still I don’t understand it all. I see your view; but I can’t share
it. It seems so cold-blooded, so horrible. But I can’t understand you,
just when I thought I knew you through and through. Tell me, how could
you talk of Fata Morgana and all our dreams when you _knew_ that this
terrible thing was happening? That’s what I don’t grasp.”
“I can’t explain it to you. Probably I keep my mind in compartments.
But never mind about me, Elsa; I’m done for now. I don’t matter.
But you mustn’t condemn your uncle along with me. He never led you
on to dream dreams, so you haven’t that against him. I want you to
believe me that he has been a saviour and not a destroyer, as you seem
to think. Don’t lose your faith in him until you understand. Don’t
prejudge things till you know everything. Speak to him yourself before
you come to a conclusion. He depends on you, more than you think,
perhaps. And he’s worked himself to the bone to save those few millions
that are left to us. Don’t judge him till you know everything.”
She looked at me more kindly than she had done since the beginning.
“That’s just what I should have expected from what I knew of you,
Mr. Flint. You think of him first and don’t bother about yourself.
You aren’t selfish. I can’t understand you, somehow. You seem such a
mixture; and until to-day I had no idea you were a mixture at all. It’s
all so difficult.”
She ended with a choke in her voice and turned towards the car. I
followed her and switched on the head-lights, ready to start. She
climbed into her seat; and I put the rug around her knees. Just as I
was on the point of starting, she spoke again.
“You’ve told me all I need to know; but I must hear it from Uncle
Stanley himself. I’ll go on being his secretary. I’ll do all I can to
help. But I hate you both. Yes, if this is true, I hate him too. What
else do you expect? You look on yourselves as saviours, it seems. You
may be that, but you certainly are murderers. You can’t even see why I
abhor you both. That shows you the gulf between us. Oh, I hate you, I
hate you, with this cold calculation of yours: so much food, so many
lives. Is that the way to handle human destinies? Drive on.”
A little further down the road, she spoke again in a quivering voice
which she strove to keep level and cold:
“This ends any work together. I couldn’t bear it in your case. With
Uncle Stanley it’s different. I will go back to my old place with him.
But I never want to see _you_ again, Mr. Flint. I’ve lost two illusions
to-day; and I don’t wish to be reminded of them more than I need be.
I promised him that I would always help him; and I’m going to keep my
promise, cost what it may. But I never promised _you_ anything.”
For a few minutes I drove on in silence. The whole world seemed to have
fallen around me. All that I had longed for, all my future, seemed to
have collapsed in that short afternoon. I was not angry; I don’t think
I was even completely conscious of what it all meant. I felt stunned by
an unexpected blow. At last I roused myself.
“Elsa,” I said, “do you remember the first evening we met?”
She never moved.
“You sang that dirge from Cymbeline, you remember? When you’re calmer,
I want you to think over it. I don’t want you to have any regrets. Mr.
Nordenholt can’t last for ever under this strain. Think carefully.”
She made no sign that she had heard me speak. The car whirred through
the dusk, while we sat silent and aloof from each other. It was a
return very different from that which I had hoped for when I set
out. I was almost glad when, further down the loch, the beams of the
head-lights showed us the figure of Nordenholt in the road. I pulled up
the car beside him; and Elsa leaned forward in her seat.
“Uncle Stanley, Mr. Flint has told me everything. I saw a document this
morning, B. 53. X. 15; and I forced Mr. Flint to explain what it meant.
Did you really plan this awful thing?”
I could not see Nordenholt’s face in the shadow; but his voice was as
steady as ever in his reply. Afterwards I realised that he must have
foreseen such a situation as this long before.
“It is perfectly true, Elsa. Anything that Mr. Flint has told you is
probably correct, though his connection with the matter is very slight.”
“But he says that you planned it all and that he helped you. I can’t
... I can’t quite understand it all. It’s a mistake, isn’t it? It’s not
your real plan, surely. You’re going to save all these people in the
South, aren’t you?”
“Every soul that can be saved by me will be saved, Elsa. You can count
on that.”
“But you will give them all a chance of life, won’t you? You won’t take
away all the food from them?”
“There’s no food to spare.”
For a few moments there was silence. Elsa made a sudden movement, and
I guessed that she had recoiled from Nordenholt’s touch. At last she
spoke again, in a way I had not anticipated.
“Do you remember my three wishes, Uncle Stanley? You gave me two of
them and now I want the third. You promised me the whole three; and
you never broke your word yet. I want you to save these people in the
South. That’s my third wish.”
I think it was that which made me realise the gulf that yawned between
us, more than anything that had gone before. How could she imagine
that Nordenholt’s vast machine could be deflected on account of
some childish promise? And yet her voice had taken on a new tone of
confidence; everything, she thought, was going to be set right. It
seems she must have believed, even then, that the treatment of the
South was only one of a number of alternative schemes; and that she
could force the adoption of some other, not so good, perhaps, but still
possible, as a solution. Her very belief in Nordenholt’s powers led her
to assume that he must have several plans ready pigeon-holed, and that
the rejection of one merely entailed the substitution of some other
which was already cut and dried.
“When that promise was made, Elsa, there was one condition: your wish
was not to be an impossible one. This _is_ impossible.”
“Oh!” There was such an agony in her voice that I felt it rasp my
already over-tried nerves.
“That is final, Elsa. There is nothing more to be said.”
For almost a minute she made no reply. In the silence I could feel her
struggling for control of her voice. When at last she spoke, she seemed
to have fought down her emotion, for her tone was almost indifferent:
“Very well, Uncle Stanley. You refuse to help these people; but I am
not so easy in my mind. I will go into the South myself and do my best
to help them; and if I cannot help, I can at least take the same risks
as they do. _I_ can’t stay here, well fed and well cared for when they
are suffering.”
“You will not do that, Elsa. No, I don’t mean to prevent you going if
you wish, though you have no idea what you would be going to. But I
haven’t brought you up to be a shirker; and you’re needed here. You
have the whole of your work at your finger-ends and if you go it will
dislocate that department temporarily; and we can’t afford to have even
a temporary upset at this stage. You promised you would stay, no matter
what happened; and I ask you to keep your promise now. I also tell you
that I need you, and your work here is helping to save lives in the
Area, more lives than you could ever save outside. Now do you wish to
go?”
She thought for a time, evidently weighing one thing and another. While
she was still silent, I broke in, wisely or unwisely I did not know.
“If Elsa goes into the South, Nordenholt, I go with her to look after
her. You must find someone else to take my place. I can’t let her go
alone.”
Nordenholt’s voice was as calm as ever.
“You understand, Elsa? If you go, you take away Mr. Flint; and although
I can replace you in your department, I doubt if I can get anyone
as good as he is in his line. Go South and you cripple one of the
essential parts of the Area. Stay here, and you help us all towards
safety--and we are not near the safety-line yet. Which is it to be? I
put no pressure on you. I only point out what I think is your duty.”
I had expected some angry reply, some hurried decision which might
bring disaster in its train; but luckily things took a different turn.
I believe that the strain had been too great for her. Now came the
collapse; and before I knew what had happened, she had broken into
tears. Nordenholt leaned over her, trying to comfort her; but it was
useless; and he let her work out her fit of emotion to the end. At last
she pulled herself together.
“If you are sure you need me, I will stay. But I hate you both. I hate
the work. I hate the Area and everything in it. I’ll keep my promise to
you; but things will never be the same again.... And, oh, this morning
I was so happy.”
Nordenholt climbed aboard the car without another word, and I drove on
into the dark. Now and again I heard a half-suppressed sob from the
girl at my side; but that was all. At the door of Nordenholt’s house I
stopped. Elsa left me without uttering even “Good-night.” I watched her
tall, slim figure go up the steps and disappear; and something blinded
me. I found Nordenholt standing at the side of the car.
“Poor chap,” he said, with an immense pity in his voice. “So you’re
involved too? I wish it had been otherwise. Well, well; I couldn’t hope
to keep it from her much longer at the best. But I’m very, very sorry.
She’ll take it so hard. Her type never looks at these things the way we
do.”
He paused and looked at me keenly in the light of the terrace lamps.
When he spoke once more, his voice sounded very weary.
“Stand by me, Jack. Get your part ready in time. Don’t flinch because
of this. I’m nearly at the end of my tether.”
I could not trust myself to speak. We shook hands in silence, and he
went up the steps into the house.