But fair-haired and quite simply and yet graciously and fancifully
dressed, talking of art and beautiful things and a beautiful land, and
with so much manifest regret for learning denied, she seemed a
different kind of being altogether from my smart, hard, high-coloured,
black-haired and resolutely hatted cousin; she seemed translucent beside
Gertrude. Even the little twist and droop of her slender body was a
grace to me.
I liked her from the moment I saw her, and set myself to interest and
please her as well as I knew how.
We recalled a case of ragging that had rustled the shrubs of Newnham,
and then Chris Robinson's visit--he had given a talk to Bennett Hall
also--and our impression of him.
“He disappointed me, too,” said Margaret.
I was moved to tell Margaret something of my own views in the matter of
social progress, and she listened--oh! with a kind of urged attention,
and her brow a little more knitted, very earnestly. The little curate
desisted from the appendices and refuse heaps and general debris of his
story, and made himself look very alert and intelligent.
“We did a lot of that when I was up in the eighties,” he said. “I'm glad
Imperialism hasn't swamped you fellows altogether.”
Gertrude, looking bright and confident, came to join our talk from the
shrubbery; the initial, a little flushed and evidently in a state of
refreshed relationship, came with her, and a cheerful lady in pink
and more particularly distinguished by a pink bonnet joined our little
group. Gertrude had been sipping admiration and was not disposed to play
a passive part in the talk.
“Socialism!” she cried, catching the word. “It's well Pa isn't here. He
has Fits when people talk of socialism. Fits!”
The initial laughed in a general kind of way.
The curate said there was socialism AND socialism, and looked at
Margaret to gauge whether he had been too bold in this utterance. But
she was all, he perceived, for broad-mindness, and he stirred himself
(and incidentally his tea) to still more liberality of expression. He
said the state of the poor was appalling, simply appalling; that there
were times when he wanted to shatter the whole system, “only,” he said,
turning to me appealingly, “What have we got to put in its place?”
“The thing that exists is always the more evident alternative,” I said.
The little curate looked at it for a moment. “Precisely,” he said
explosively, and turned stirring and with his head a little on one side,
to hear what Margaret was saying.
Margaret was saying, with a swift blush and an effect of daring, that
she had no doubt she was a socialist.
“And wearing a gold chain!” said Gertrude, “And drinking out of
eggshell! I like that!”
I came to Margaret's rescue. “It doesn't follow that because one's a
socialist one ought to dress in sackcloth and ashes.”
The initial coloured deeply, and having secured my attention by prodding
me slightly with the wrist of the hand that held his teacup, cleared his
throat and suggested that “one ought to be consistent.”
I perceived we were embarked upon a discussion of the elements. We began
an interesting little wrangle one of those crude discussions of general
ideas that are dear to the heart of youth. I and Margaret supported one
another as socialists, Gertrude and Sybil and the initial maintained
an anti-socialist position, the curate attempted a cross-bench position
with an air of intending to come down upon us presently with a casting
vote. He reminded us of a number of useful principles too often
overlooked in argument, that in a big question like this there was much
to be said on both sides, that if every one did his or her duty to every
one about them there would be no difficulty with social problems at all,
that over and above all enactments we needed moral changes in people
themselves. My cousin Gertrude was a difficult controversialist to
manage, being unconscious of inconsistency in statement and absolutely
impervious to reply. Her standpoint was essentially materialistic;
she didn't see why she shouldn't have a good time because other people
didn't; they would have a good time, she was sure, if she didn't. She
said that if we did give up everything we had to other people, they
wouldn't very likely know what to do with it. She asked if we were so
fond of work-people, why we didn't go and live among them, and expressed
the inflexible persuasion that if we HAD socialism, everything would
be just the same again in ten years' time. She also threw upon us the
imputation of ingratitude for a beautiful world by saying that so far as
she was concerned she didn't want to upset everything. She was contented
with things as they were, thank you.
The discussion led in some way that I don't in the least recall now, and
possibly by abrupt transitions, to a croquet foursome in which Margaret
involved the curate without involving herself, and then stood beside me
on the edge of the lawn while the others played. We watched silently for
a moment.
“I HATE that sort of view,” she said suddenly in a confidential
undertone, with her delicate pink flush returning.
“It's want of imagination,” I said.
“To think we are just to enjoy ourselves,” she went on; “just to go on
dressing and playing and having meals and spending money!” She seemed
to be referring not simply to my cousins, but to the whole world of
industry and property about us. “But what is one to do?” she asked. “I
do wish I had not had to come down. It's all so pointless here. There
seems to be nothing going forward, no ideas, no dreams. No one here
seems to feel quite what I feel, the sort of need there is for MEANING
in things. I hate things without meaning.”
“Don't you do--local work?”
“I suppose I shall. I suppose I must find something. Do you think--if
one were to attempt some sort of propaganda?”
“Could you--?” I began a little doubtfully.
“I suppose I couldn't,” she answered, after a thoughtful moment. “I
suppose it would come to nothing. And yet I feel there is so much to
be done for the world, so much one ought to be doing.... I want to do
something for the world.”
I can see her now as she stood there with her brows nearly frowning, her
blue eyes looking before her, her mouth almost petulant. “One feels that
there are so many things going on--out of one's reach,” she said.
I went back in the motor-car with my mind full of her, the quality of
delicate discontent, the suggestion of exile. Even a kind of weakness in
her was sympathetic. She told tremendously against her background. She
was, I say, like a protesting blue flower upon a cinder heap. It is
curious, too, how she connects and mingles with the furious quarrel
I had with my uncle that very evening. That came absurdly. Indirectly
Margaret was responsible. My mind was running on ideas she had revived
and questions she had set clamouring, and quite inadvertently in my
attempt to find solutions I talked so as to outrage his profoundest
feelings....
7
What a preposterous shindy that was!
I sat with him in the smoking-room, propounding what I considered to
be the most indisputable and non-contentious propositions
conceivable--until, to my infinite amazement, he exploded and called me
a “damned young puppy.”
It was seismic.
“Tremendously interesting time,” I said, “just in the beginning of
making a civilisation.”
“Ah!” he said, with an averted face, and nodded, leaning forward over
his cigar.