went. There then began a very strange period of discovery. First he
went to the Labour Ministry and saw his old friend Reggie Burr.
Reggie looked most official in his room with his telephone and things.
Clive told him so. Reggie smiled, but said that he was pressed for time
and would Clive just mind telling him what it was he wanted. Clive
found it harder to tell him than he had expected. He was modest and
uneloquent about his time in France, and after that there really was
not very much to say. What had he done? What could he do?... Well, not
very much. He laughed. "I'm sure I'd fit into something," he said.
"I'll let you know if there is anything," said Reggie Burr.
And so it went on. It was _too_ strange how definite these men wanted
him to be! As the days passed Clive had the impression that the world
was getting larger and larger and emptier and emptier. It seemed as
though he could not touch boundaries nor horizons.... It was a new
world, and he had no place in it....
The dancing suddenly receded, or rather was pushed and huddled back, as
the nurse in old days took one's toys and crammed them into a corner.
Clive found it no longer amusing. He was puzzled, and dancing did not
help him to any discovery. He found that he had nothing to say to his
friends on these occasions. He was aware that they were saying behind
his back: "What's come to Clive Toby?... Dull as ditchwater."
He went about with a bemused, blinded expression. He was seeing himself
for the first time. Hortons and everything in it had quite a new life
for him: Mr. Nix, Fanny, Albert Edward--all these people were earning
their living and earning it much more efficiently than he seemed to
be able to do. All the time behind them seemed to stand that wistful
figure of his father. "I'd like to do something for the old man," he
thought.
Down in the City his experiences were very strange. The first three men
whom he saw were very polite and jolly, and said "they'd let him know
if anything turned up." They asked him what business experience he had
had, and then how much money he was prepared to put into a "concern";
and when he had answered them with a jolly laugh and said that he had
had no experience, but had no doubt that he "would shake down all
right," and that he had no money, but "really would take his coat off
and work," they smiled, and said that "things were bad in the City just
now, but they would let him know."
They all liked him, he felt, and he liked them, and that was as far as
it went. But his experience with his fourth friend was different. Sir
James Maradick, Bart., could scarcely be called a friend of his. He had
met him once at someone's house; Reggie Burr had given him a note to
him. He was a big broad man somewhere near sixty, and he was as nice to
Clive as possible, but he didn't mince matters.
He had been given his Baronetcy for some fine organising work that he
had done in the war. Clive, who did not think much about men as a rule,
liked him better than any man he'd ever met. "This fellow would do for
me," he thought.
The question, however, was whether Clive would do for Maradick.
"What have you done?" Maradick asked.
"H'm. Eton and Oxford.... And what kind of job are you looking for?"
Clive modestly explained--somewhere about six hundred a year. He wanted
to help the governor through a stiff time.
Maradick smiled. That was very nice. Would Clive mind Maradick speaking
quite plainly? Not at all. That was what Clive wanted.
Maradick then said that it was like a fairy-tale. He had had, during
the last fortnight, four fellows who wanted jobs at anything from five
hundred to a thousand a year. All of them very modest. Hadn't had any
experience, but thought they could drop into it. All of them done
well in the war. All of them wanted to keep their parents ... very
creditable.
But there was another side to the question. Did Clive know that there
were hundreds of men ready to come in at three hundred a year and less,
men who had been in the City since nine years old, men who had the
whole thing at their fingers' ends ... hundreds of them ...?
"The world was made for you boys before the war. You won't think me
rude, will you? You went to Eton and Oxford and learnt nothing at
all, and then waited for things to tumble into your hands. That's why
commercial Germany beat us all round the world. Well, it won't be so
any longer. The new world isn't made for you boys. You've got to win
your way into it."
"You're quite right," Clive blushed. "Thank you very much."
Maradick looked at him, and his heart warmed to him.
"Take my tip and do a working-man's job. What about house-painting,
for instance, or driving a taxi? They're getting big money. Just for a
bit--to try your hand."
"Not a bad idea," said Clive. They shook hands in a most friendly
fashion. Maradick spoke to his partner (at lunch) about him. "Nice
boy," he said. "We'll have him in here later."
Clive went back to Hortons and met there the temptation of his life in
the shape of his mother.
She was looking lovely in grey silk, Parma violets, and a little
black hat. She was in one of her most sentimental moods. She cried a
good deal and asked Clive what he intended to do. When she asked him
that, what she really wanted was that he should say that he loved her.
This he did in a hurried fashion, because he wanted to tell her about
Maradick. She had, however, her own things that she wanted to say, and
these were, in the main, that he was "her all," that it was too awful
about Dronda, that John (Lord Dronda) had simply been losing thousands
over his stupid old agriculture, and, finally, that she had money of
her own on which dear Clive should live to the end of his days. All
this nonsense about his working, as though he hadn't done enough
already with his poor arm and everything. They should go away together
and have a lovely time.
Clive was tempted. For ten minutes there raged a fierce battle. He
knew that what she said could be true enough. That they could go
away together and spend money together, and that she would give him
everything that she had, and only want him in return to say over and
over again that he loved her. They would wander about, and probably he
would find some rich girl who would marry him, and then he would live
on her....
While he thought this out, words poured from his mother's lips in
tattered confusion. No words used by his mother ever meant what she
intended them to mean. Nevertheless, the last question held the
substance of them all. "And you do really love me, Clive boy, don't
you?"
The "Clive boy" really settled it, although I hope and believe that it
would have been settled without that. But he could not wander about
Europe as "Clive boy." ...
So he said: "Thanks, mother. You're a brick, wantin' me to have
everything and all that. But I really won't. I'm going to settle down
and work."
"Whatever at, you poor foolish darling?" asked his mother.
"At anything I can get," he replied.
She left him at last, having cried just enough to show her real emotion
without damaging her unreal complexion. Her Parma violets were also
intact.
He was an unkind, ungrateful son, and her heart was broken, but at the
same time he was "her all," and would he lunch with her to-morrow at
Claridge's?
This he said that he would do. "My last good meal," he murmured to
himself rather histrionically.
His mother departed.
He had a bad quarter of an hour after she had gone. The sacred
precincts of Hortons contained at least one honest soul that afternoon.
He saw himself exactly as he was--spoilt, useless, idle, and conceited.
He swore to himself that he would find work of some kind before the day
was done.
He went out. It was a lovely afternoon early in May. Mr. Bottome, the
newsagent, had fine copies of _Colour_ showing in his window, the top
of Duke Street gazed straight into the huge naked-looking statue of a
horse in the courtyard of the Academy. Everything seemed to be having a
spring cleaning.
He turned back and down into Jermyn Street. Next to the Hamman Baths
they were painting a house light green. A nice young fellow in overalls
stepped off a ladder as Clive passed.
He smiled at Clive. Clive smiled back.
"Is that an easy job?" Clive asked him.
"Oh yes, sir," the young fellow answered.
"Could you manage it with one arm?" Clive asked.
"Why, yes," the man said.
"Could I pick it up quickly?"
"Lord, yes!"
"Will you teach me?"
* * * * *
A week later Mr. Nix, in a hurry as usual, was pattering up Duke
Street. Bottome's paper shop was having a new coat of paint. A young
workman in yellow overalls perched on a ladder managed his brush
adroitly with one arm.
"Poor fellow!" said Mr. Nix, a compassionate man always, but doubly so
now because he had lost his son in the war. "Left the other in France,
I suppose."
The workman looked down, and revealed to the astonished countenance of
Mr. Nix the laughing eyes of his late tenant, the Hon. Clive Torby.
IV
MISS MORGANHURST
It may be that in future years when critics and commentators look
back upon the European War, one of the aspects of it that will seem
to them strangest will be the attitude of complete indifference that
certain people assumed during the course of it. Indifference! That
is an inefficient word. It is not too strong to say that hundreds of
men and women in London during those horrible years were completely
unconscious, save on the rare occasions when rationing or air-raids
forced them to attend, that there was any war at all. There were men in
clubs, women in drawing-rooms ... old maids and old bachelors ... old
maids like Miss Morganhurst.
How old Miss Morganhurst really was, for how long she had been raising
her lorgnette to gaze scornfully at Society, for how many years now she
had been sitting down to bridge on fine sunny afternoons with women
like Anne Carteledge and Mrs. Mellish and Mrs. Porter, for how many
more years she had lived in No. 30 flat at Hortons, she alone had the
secret--even Agatha, her sour and confidential maid, could not tell.
No one knew whence she came; years ago some young wag had christened
her the "Morgue," led to that diminutive by the strange pallor of her
cheeks, the queer bone-cracking little body she had and her fashion
of dressing herself up in jewellery and bright colours that gave her
a certain sort of ghastliness. She had been for years an intimate of
all sorts of sets in London: no one could call her a snob--she went
just everywhere, and knew just everyone; she was after two things
in life--scandal and bridge--and whether it were the old Duchess of
Wrexe's drawing-room (without the Duchess of course) or the cheapest
sort of provincial tea-party, she was equally at home and satisfied.
She was like a ferret with her beady eyes--a dressed-up ferret. Yes,
and like the "Morgue" too, a sniff of corruption about her somewhere.
People had said for many years that she was the best bridge-player in
London, and that she lived by her winnings. That was, I daresay, true
enough. Her pale face looked as though it fed on artificial light, and
her over-decorated back was always bent a little, as though she were
for ever stooping over a table.
I've seen her play bridge, and it's not a sight one's likely to
forget--bent almost double, her hooky fingers of a dull yellow loaded
with rings pointing towards some card and her eyes literally flashing
fire. Lord! how these women played! Life and death to them truly ...
no gentle card-game for _them_. She was a woman who hated sentiment;
her voice was hard and dry, with a rasp in it like the movement of an
ill-fitting gate. She boasted that she cared for no human being alive,
she did not believe in human affection. Her maid, Agatha, she said,
would cut her throat for twopence; but, expecting to be left something
in the will, stayed on savagely hoping.
It is hard, however, for even the dryest of human souls to be attached
to nothing. Miss Morganhurst had her attachment--to a canine, fragment
of skin and bone known as Tiny-Tee. Tiny-Tee was so small that it could
not have been said to exist had not its perpetual misery given it a
kind of spasmodic loveliness. It is the nature of these dogs to shiver
and shake and tremble, but nothing ever lived up to its nature more
thoroughly than Tiny-Tee. Miss Morganhurst (in her own fierce rasping
way) adored this creature. It never left her, and sat on her lap during
bridge shuddering and shivering amongst a multitude of little gold
chains and keys and purses that jangled and rattled with every shiver.
Then came the war, and it shook the world to pieces. It did not shake
Miss Morganhurst.
For one bad moment she fancied that bridge would be difficult and that
it might not be easy to provide Tiny-Tee with her proper biscuits. She
consulted with Mrs. Mellish and Mrs. Porter, and after looking at the
thing from every side they were of opinion that it would be possible
still to find a "four." She further summoned up Mr. Nix from the "vasty
deeps" of the chambers and endeavoured to probe his mind. This she did
easily, and Mr. Nix became quite confidential. He thoroughly approved
of Miss Morganhurst, partly because she knew such very grand people,
which was good for his chambers, and partly because Miss Morganhurst
had no kind of morals and you could say anything you liked. Mr. Nix was
a kindly little man and a diplomatic, and he suited himself to his
company; but he did like sometimes to be quite unbuttoned and not to
have "to think of every word."
With Miss Morganhurst you needn't think of anything. She found his love
of gossip very agreeable indeed; she approved, too, of his honourable
code. You were safe with him. Not a thing would he ever give away about
any other inhabitant of Hortons. She asked him about the food for
Tiny-Tee, and he assured her that he would do his best. And the little
dinners for four?... She need not be anxious.
After which she dismissed the war altogether from her mind. It would,
of course, emphasise its more unagreeable features in the paper. That
was unfortunate. But very soon the press cleverly discovered a kind
of camouflage of phrase which covered up reality completely. "The
honourable gentleman, speaking at Newcastle last night, said that we
would not sheathe the sword until----" "Over the top! those are the
words for which our brave lads are waiting----" "Our offensive in these
areas inflicted very heavy losses on the Germans and resulted in the
capture of important positions by the Allied troops."
It seemed that Miss Morganhurst read these phrases for a week or two,
and easily persuaded herself that the war was non-existent. She was
happy that it was so. It appears incredible that anyone could have
dismissed the war so easily, but then Miss Morganhurst was surely
impenetrable.
I have heard different explanations given by people, who knew her
well, of Miss Morganhurst's impenetrability. Some said that it was
a mask, assumed to cover and defeat feelings that were dangerous to
liberate; others, that she was so selfish and egoistic that she really
did not care about anybody. This is the interesting point about Miss
Morganhurst. Did she banish the war entirely from her consciousness and
give it no further consideration, or was she, in truth, desperately and
with ever-increasing terror aware of it and unable to resist it?
She gave no sign until the very end; but the nature of that end leads
me to believe that the first of the two theories is the correct one.
People who knew her have said that her devotion to that wretched
little canine remnant proves that she had no heart, but only a fluent
sentimentality. I believe it to have proved exactly the opposite.
I believe her to have been the cynic she was because she had, at
some time or other, been deeply disappointed. She had, I imagine, no
illusions about herself, and saw that the only thing to be, if she were
to fight at all, was ruthless, harsh, money-grubbing, and, above all,
to bury herself in other people's scandal. She was, I rather fancy,
one of those women for whom life would have been completely changed,
had she been given beauty or even moderate good looks. As life had not
given her that, she would pay it back. And after all, life was stronger
than she knew....
She did not refuse to discuss the war, but she spoke of it as of
something remotely distant, playing itself out in the sands of the
Sahara, for instance. Nothing stirred her cynical humour more deeply
than the heroics on both sides. When politicians or kings or generals
got up and said before all the world how just their cause was and
how keen they were about honour and truth and self-sacrifice, and
how certain they were, after all, to win, Miss Morganhurst gave her
sinister villainous chuckle.
She became something of a power during the bad years, when the
air-raids came and the casualties mounted higher and higher, and
Roumania came in only to break, and the Russian revolution led to the
sinister ghoulishness of Brest-Litovsk. People sought her company.
"We'll go and see the 'Morgue,'" they said; "she never mentions the
war." She never did; she refused absolutely to consider it. She would
not even discuss prices and raids and ration-books. Private history
was what she cared for, and that generally on the scabious side, if
possible. What she liked to know was who was sick of her, why so-and-so
had left such-and-such a place, whether X---- was really drinking,
and why Z---- had taken to cocaine. Her bridge got better and better,
and it used to be a real trial of strength to go and play with her in
the untidy, over-full, over-garish little flat. The arrival of the
Armistice was, I believe now, her first dangerous moment. She was
suddenly forced to pause and consider; it was not so easy to shut her
eyes and ears as it had been, and the things that she had, against
her will, seen and heard were now, in the new silence, insistent.
She suddenly, as I remember noticing about this time, got to look
incredibly old.
Her nose seemed longer, her chin hookier, her hands bonier, and little
brown spots like sickly freckles appeared on her forehead.
Her dress got brighter and brighter. She especially affected a kind of
purple silk, I remember.
The Armistice seemed to disappoint her. It would have done us people
a lot of good to get a thorough trouncing, I remember her saying.
What would have happened to herself, and her bridge, had we had that
trouncing I don't think she reflected. So far as one could see, she
regarded herself as an inevitable permanency. I wonder whether she
really did. She developed, too, just about this time, an increased
passion for her wretched little dog. It was as though, now that the war
was really nearing its close, she was twice as frightened about that
animal's safety as she had been before. Of what was she afraid? Was
it some ghostly warning? Was it some sense that she had that fate was
surely going to get her somewhere, and that now that it had missed her
through air-raids it must try other means? Or was it simply that she
had more time now to spend over the animal's wants and desires? In any
case she would not let the dog out of her sight unless on some most
imperative occasion. She trusted Agatha, but no one would take so much
care as one would oneself. The dog itself seemed now to be restless and
alarmed as though it smelt already its approaching doom. It got, so
far as one could see, no pleasure from anything. There were no signs
that it loved its mistress, only it did perhaps have a sense that she
could protect it from outside disaster. Every step, every word, every
breath of wind seemed to drive its little soul to the very edge of
extinction--then, with shudderings and shiverings and tremblings, back
it came again. They were a grim pair, those two.
Christmas came and passed, and the world began to shake itself together
again. That same shaking was a difficult business, attended with
strikes and revolutions and murder and despair; but out of the chaos
prophets might discern a form slowly rising, a shape that would stand
for a new world, for a better world, a kindlier, a cleaner, honester....
But Miss Morganhurst was no prophet. Her sallow eyes were intent on her
bridge-cards--so, at least, they appeared to be.
After the catastrophe, I talked with only one person who seemed to have
expected what actually occurred. This was a funny old thing called Miss
Williams, one of Miss Morganhurst's more shabby friends--a gossip and a
sentimentalist--the last person in the world, as I would have supposed,
to see anything interesting.
However, this old lady insisted that she had perceived, during this
period, that Miss Morganhurst was "keeping something back."
"Keeping what back?" I asked. "A guilty secret?"
"Oh, not at all," said Miss Williams. "Dear me, no. Dahlia wouldn't
have minded anything of that kind. No, it's my belief she was affected
by the war long before any of us supposed it, and that she wouldn't
think of it or look at it because she knew what would happen if she
did. She knew, too, that she was being haunted by it all the time, and
that it was all piling up, ready, waiting for the moment.... I do hope
you don't think me fantastical----"
I didn't think her "fantastical" at all, but I must confess that when I
look back I can see in the Miss Morganhurst of these months nothing but
a colossal egotism and greed.
However, I must not be cruel. It was towards the end of April that
fate, suddenly tired of waiting, took her in hand, and finished her off.
One afternoon when, arrayed in a bright pink tea-gown, she was lying
on her sofa, taking some rest before dressing for dinner, Agatha came
in and said that her brother was there and would like to see her. Now
Miss Morganhurst had a very surprising brother--surprising, that is,
for her. He was a clergyman who had been for very many years the rector
of a little parish in Wiltshire. So little a parish was it that it
gave him little work and less pay, with the result that he was, at his
advanced age, shabby and moth-eaten and dim, like a poor old bird shut
up for many months in a blinded cage and let suddenly into the light. I
don't know what Miss Morganhurst's dealings with her brother had been,
whether she had been kind to him or unkind, selfish or unselfish; but
I suspect that she had not seen very much of him. Their ways had been
too different, their ambitions too separate. The old man had had one
passion in his life, his son, and the boy had died in a German prison
in the summer of 1918. He had been, it was gathered, in one of the more
unpleasant German prisons. Mr. Morganhurst was a widower, and this blow
had simply finished him--the thread that connected him with coherent
life snapped, and he lived in a world of dim visions and incoherent
dreams.
He was not, in fact, quite right in his head.
Agatha must have thought the couple a strange and depressing pair as
they stood together in that becoloured and becrowded room, if, that is
to say, she ever thought of anything but herself. Poor old Morganhurst
was wearing an overcoat really green with age, and his squashy black
hat was dusty and unbrushed.
He wore large spectacles, and his chin was of the kind that seems
always to have two days' growth upon it. The bottoms of his trousers
were muddy, although it was a dry day. He stood there uneasily twisting
his hat round and round in his fingers and blinking at his sister.
"Sit down, Frederick," said his sister. "What can I do for you?"
It seemed that he had come simply to talk to her. He was going down to
Little Roseberry that evening, but he had an hour to spare. The fact
was that he was besieged, invaded, devastated by horrors of which he
could not rid himself.
If he gave them to someone else might they not leave him? At any rate
he would share them--he would share them with his sister. It appeared
that an officer, liberated from Germany after the Armistice, had sought
him out and given him some last details about his son's death.
These "details" were not nice. There are, as we all know, German
prisons and German prisons. Young Morganhurst seemed to have been
sent to one of the poorer sort. He had been rebellious and had been
punished; he had been starved, shut up for days in solitary darkness
... at the end he had found a knife somewhere and had killed himself.