Some days later, Dennis and Antoinette, on their way to Miss Mowbray’s,
fetched Barnaby from his office.
“We’ve got a new acquisition at the tea-shop,” he said, “a man called
Rutherford. He’s an absolute firebrand.”
“Pacifist?” queried Dennis.
“Of course. The most passionate pacifist I’ve ever encountered. Your
most eloquent tirades, and mine, and even O’Farrell’s pale to
insignificance beside his. He’s a friend of O’Farrell’s—came down the
other day with him and the Taylor woman.”
Dennis laughed. “How is the O’Farrell _ménage_ progressing?”
“Don’t ask me,” returned Barnaby, “it’s Benny Joseph’s affair just now.
He’s been acting as go-between for the two parties. I believe the spirit
of melodrama which they exhale appeals to him as an actor.”
“I hope they’ll be there to-day,” said Antoinette. She was enjoying more
and more these afternoons at Miss Mowbray’s, and the haphazard meetings
with people different enough from her family’s set of acquaintances. “I
love melodrama.”
Barnaby smiled at her eagerness. “They can supply you with plenty of it.
She’s a mad Irishwoman, married to an intensely worthy British husband.
They live with his people in Chelsea, and they’ve let the studio that’s
attached to their house, to Conn O’Farrell, who is also Irish, also mad,
and a bit of a genius into the bargain.... Well, you can do the rest in
your head, can’t you?”
“Some of it, perhaps,” laughed Antoinette, “but not all.”
“No, you’re right, there is rather a lot. This Rutherford man has been
lecturing Conn on the folly of wasting his time with a woman, when he
ought to be devoting himself entirely to the Cause—and then the woman
goes and weeps on Benny Joseph’s shoulder, and says she’s going to
commit suicide because Conn doesn’t love her any more—and then Conn
comes and weeps on Benny’s other shoulder, and says he’s going to commit
suicide because _she_ doesn’t love him any more. And so on _ad
infinitum_. If Benny has succeeded in snatching them both back
simultaneously from the brink of suicide, I expect they’ll be there
to-day.”
They were. When Dennis, Barnaby and Antoinette descended into the
tea-shop they found Conn O’Farrell and Mrs. Taylor seated at a table
with Benny Joseph and Everard Walters, a very handsome, dark-eyed young
man who was acting at the theatre next door.
Dennis introduced Antoinette all round, adding: “You’d better sit down
and talk to Benny, child. He’s got a perfectly respectable family in
Hampstead, even if he _is_ on the stage.”
“I don’t see why a family in Hampstead should render me entirely
innocuous,” protested the young Jew.
“Oh, but it does, Benny. You know that your wild Bohemian ways are only
skin-deep, and that one day you’ll settle down with some nice little
girl of your own people, and forget that you ever knew the smell of
grease-paint.”
Benny looked hurt, and Antoinette said: “Never mind; I’ll talk to you,
even if you are respectable.”
“That’s nice of you!” Benny turned to Dennis: “Is the lady a
sympathiser?”
Dennis laughed. “She hasn’t got any convictions, or if she has, they’re
entirely plastic, aren’t they, Antoinette? But we’ll make a real convert
of her before we’ve done. Here’s the one before last!” He broke off to
greet the lank-haired undersized youth who had entered shortly after
them, “you’re a first-rate advertisement for the Cause, Oswald.”
Oswald Forsyth turned a pair of mournful grey eyes up to the ceiling,
and struck an attitude. “Plucked from the very doors of the
recruiting-office,” he declaimed, “and made to see the light of the true
faith by Barnaby’s persuasive eloquence. Now on the staff of ‘The Dove,’
and one of the most inspired pacifist poets of the age, eh, Barnaby?”
“Not so bad,” grunted Barnaby, and disposed his crutches under the
table, “not so bad, considering you’ve only just left your slate and
copy-books behind you. Have you had tea yet, O’Farrell, or shall I order
it?”
“You may order it,” laughed the Irishman, “but it’s divil a chance that
you’ll get it. I did order a pot of China tea and some cakes, but Miss
Mowbray has forgotten us the day, and Pegeen here starving for sight of
a penny bun. It’s Roy Radford and his performing Flappers that have
consumed all the food, and there’s himself in the midst of them,
devouring the last muffin in the establishment!”
The plump little theatrical producer, who had overheard this from his
table in the far corner, looked up and beamed; and the half dozen
long-haired, long-legged and very pretty flappers who were with him,
protested hotly against Conn’s accusation of greed.
“You story!” ... “When Flossie hasn’t even had her third cup of tea
yet!” ... “And I’ve only had four cakes—teeny ones.” ... “You’re a mean
cat, Mr. O’Farrell!”
Miss Mowbray bustled in with a heavily-laden tray. “Sorry to keep you
waiting, Mr. O’Farrell. Here’s your Welsh Rarebit.”
“That’s m-my Welsh Rarebit,” declared Crispin Burgess, sitting in lonely
grandeur at a table all by himself, “I ordered it y-yesterday.”
“I don’t care if you ordered it last year,” returned Conn, “I’ll keep it
in pawn till our tea and cakes appear.”
“It’ll be s-stone-cold by then.”
“It will not,” said Pegeen, “for I will eat it this very minute. I like
Welsh Rarebit. Mr. Burgess can have our cakes, if they come this side of
Christmas.”
Crispin spluttered: “I hate c-cakes,” and came over to dispute his claim
upon the Welsh Rarebit, which Pegeen was already in the act of
demolishing, the while she twinkled mischievously across at the six
flappers, who one and all smiled back at her. There was something about
her that irresistibly drew smiles, Antoinette thought; not beauty, for
there was little enough of that in the wide generous mouth, the tilted
nose, and the untidy tangle of black hair, but something more subtle
than beauty; fascination, perhaps.
“Dear me, have I made a muddle again?” enquired Miss Mowbray sunnily,
returning with relays of cake and jam for Roy Radford’s voracious
troupe, “doesn’t Mr. Burgess look cross? Was it baked beans and tomatoes
you ordered? I do hope not, because I gave them to Mr. Walters, and he’s
eaten them up long ago.”
“I took what the gods gave me—in lieu of the fruit-salad and wafers I
had ordered—and was content,” said the actor in his beautiful purring
voice.
“There now, isn’t that too tiresome of me? But I do wonder whom those
baked beans can have belonged to....” Miss Mowbray, balancing a trayful
of crockery, relapsed into a profound reverie, from which she presently
emerged to say: “There’s Vera Mansfield, I must go and talk to her. She
was married two days ago, just before Mr. Mansfield was arrested. Wasn’t
it splendid of her?”
Antoinette looked up with eager interest; caught an impression of a
plain little woman with earnest eyes; and she was thrilled and rather
awe-struck at the idea that this woman had “stood by” the conscientious
objector, up to the very gates of prison.
Evidently it appealed in just the same way to young Oswald.
“Splendid”—with shining eyes he echoed Miss Mowbray, “it’s great,
it’s—it’s almost unbelievable, people going through with it like that to
the last.”
Antoinette smiled. “Well, you’re going through with it too, aren’t you?”
“Me? Oh, rather! None of your half-and-half for this child....” He added
with a slightly wistful expression: “But it is splendid, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Mansfield spent a few minutes in conversation with Miss Mowbray,
and went out again; and as she did so, a short young man wearing a
yellow felt hat and a green muffler, pelted down the stairs, fell over
Barnaby’s crutches, and announced in a breathless, husky voice:
“_Everard_—_Benny_—I’ve got it, actually got it!”
“Got what?” Everard enquired languidly.
“My exemption, you ass, three months’ exemption.”
“And on whatever grounds did you appeal?” demanded Barnaby, “you haven’t
any convictions that I’m aware of.”
“Sole-support-of-widowed-mother,” said Harry Hope glibly, “but if
someone doesn’t give me a part in something soon, my widowed mother will
be the sole support of _me_!”
“A pity they’ve only allowed her three months of existence,” mused
Everard.
Harry looked perturbed. He was fond of his mother.
“I expect he can appeal again,” said Benny.
“I can—they said I could—but that won’t prolong the old lady’s life.”
“It is you who will have to seek to prolong it with every care and
attention in your power.”
Harry burst into peals of raucous laughter, and Everard winced. “For
heavens’ sake, curb that high-explosive laugh. It shatters the nerves,
Harry, it grates....”
The flappers looked over at him and giggled, and wearily Everard
shrugged his shoulders. During his career on the stage, he had
specialised in playing the parts of cardinals; majestic cardinals; wily
cardinals; jovial cardinals; suave cardinals. And although at present,
work being scarce, he was playing a German spy in the farce next door,
and masking his beautiful diction with a guttural Teutonic accent, the
peculiar pussy-cat manner that had made him invaluable as the cardinal
in “Pippa Passes,” still clung to him in everyday life.
Pegeen, in the intervals of consuming Crispin’s Welsh Rarebit, was
taking Antoinette into her confidence. “Is it a friend of Dennis
Blackwood’s you are, my dear? Then you must come and see Conn and me in
the studio one day. We’ll have a party, we will that. I am so happy this
day, that I could kiss everybody. I could kiss Benny Joseph this very
minute, for glory be to God, we owe it all to him!”
“Oh, I don’t wish to compete with the deity, Mrs. Taylor,” murmured
Benny.
“‘Mrs. Taylor,’ indeed; My name’s Pegeen. I would just as soon you
called me ‘Margaret,’ as my parents-in-law do, and my husband, God rest
his soul——”
“D-didn’t know he was d-dead,” pronounced Crispin.
“He’s not, dearie, he’s not ... but he may be by to-night, for all we
know. ’Tis a dangerous job, it is, walking up and down the King’s Road,
Chelsea, and flashing a wee bull’s-eye lantern up at all the houses and
into all the gardens.”
“And not knowing that all the while we’re in the studio together, Pegeen
and I,” Conn put in, “talking of this and of that, and of the great day
that’s coming for Ireland; and I doing a bit of a drawing of her,
perhaps, and she getting a bit of supper for the two of us.”
The two “Irish lunatics,” as Barnaby called them, gazed at each other in
undisguised adoration; then Pegeen resumed: “He is a stick, is William,
my husband. A real English stick. I said to him one night when the moon
was full, ‘William,’ I said, ‘will we be taking a Thermos flask and a
packet of sandwiches up on to Hampstead Heath for a picnic?’ And he
looked at me, my dear ... he just looked, and said, ‘Margaret, are you
mad?’”
Antoinette, convulsed with laughter, could not resist the temptation to
ask: “Whatever made you marry him?”
“I thought I might be able to do him good,” Pegeen replied simply, “but
that man is past doing good to.”
“He is that ...” O’Farrell concurred.
“But now we know what true happiness is, thanks to that ungrateful
Jew-boy, who won’t even let me kiss him!”
Dennis and Antoinette exchanged a look of amusement and again, as
previously in the crowd, she felt conscious of a delicious feeling of
security. It was good to be with him, and to be enjoying these people
with him. Outside, the strange bodiless legs passed and passed; the
cries of the newspaper boys echoed down the stone passage; and inside,
the atmosphere became smokier and smokier, and bits of _risqué_ stories
became mingled with political arguments, theatrical jargon with the
orders for meals; and the mournful lilt of the Irish voices was a queer
contrast to the high-pitched shrieks and giggles of the flappers. And it
was all very delightful and unconventional and unlike Cadogan Gardens.
And Dennis was being nice to her. And she was very happy.
The door to the street banged, and quick footsteps came down the stairs.
A voice, youthful and eager, was heard asking: “Is Mr. Barnaby in
there?”
Dennis started. Was it hallucination again that made him believe it was
Alan’s voice, the same hallucination that only a few days ago had made
him believe that it was Alan’s figure he had seen in the crowd? He had
suffered from so much of this kind of hallucination at one time....
“Yes, we’re all here, Rutherford, come in,” cried Barnaby. Antoinette
glanced at Dennis’s face. And had no need to be told that already her
precarious hold on happiness was threatened.
“This is the man I was telling you about, Dennis, I wanted you to
meet——”
Alan cut him short. “We met ages ago. I’ve still got one of his
handkerchiefs in my possession. Do you remember tying up my gory wound
for me, Dennis?”
“I remember,” said Dennis, and Alan grinned at Conn and Pegeen, flung
off his hat, and seated himself between Everard and Barnaby.
“What about your tribunal?” asked the journalist.
“The local tribunal has already passed me for Combatant Service,”
replied Alan, “but I’m appealing again at the House of Commons next
week. And then—good-bye to freedom for me, I suppose! But I’ll tell ’em
a few home-truths before I’m locked up. Beefy, sanctimonious old men,
sitting there to tell me it’s my duty to go out and take my share in
murdering peasant-boys and students and labourers.... And the same sort
of old men on their side, egging _them_ on to fight us, with just the
same platitudes about duty and honour and self-defence, saying that we
declared war first, just as we say they sprung the war on us! And the
capitalists of all countries coining money out of bloodshed.... Do they
want the war to stop, those government contractors, making their
millions by supplying munitions or boots or food for the armies?”
Dennis watched him through narrowed eyes. He had not altered much. He
was eighteen months older, that was all. But there was the same quick
impatience in phrase and gesture, the same vivid look.
He went on: “The only way to stop the war—not only this war, but all
future wars, is by opposing conscription. You’re all for the good cause
here, I suppose?”
Barnaby answered for the company in general: “Yes, they’re all appealing
on different grounds. Everard, I forget what yours are?”
“I’ve not had the honour of being called up yet,” the actor replied
evasively.
“And yours, Crispin?”
By a series of grunts, Crispin made it known that he did not intend to
fight against the nation that had produced Beethoven and Bach.
“I’d like to appeal on every ground there is!” Oswald cried excitably,
“one can’t do enough to keep the horror from going on.”
“I’m appealing on racial and personal grounds,” declared Benny, “I won’t
be made to fight the Jews of other countries, even to avenge Brave
Little Belgium, or prove myself a true patriot!”
Oswald began:
“‘Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said——’”
“I’ve said ‘This is my own, my native land’ at least half a dozen times
in half a dozen different lands,” Benny interrupted, “I have relatives
scattered about in allied, enemy and neutral countries alike. And how
can a man fight for any particular country, when he’s got an aunt in
every port?”
“And England talks of defending the honour of small nations,” murmured
Conn, “has she forgotten Ireland at her very door, Ireland that she’s
oppressed and ground under her heel these many years? Let her recognise
Ireland as an equal and raise her up from the thraldom of a vassal
before she takes Belgium’s name in vain to hide her desire for gain.”
“Well, at least you’re free from the necessity of appealing,” said
Barnaby, “they’ll never dare introduce conscription into Ireland. It’ll
mean revolution if they do.”
“And may I be the first to fly the _Sinn Féin_ flag in the streets of
Dublin that day!”
“What about you, Dennis?” said Alan.
“Humanitarian grounds.”
“Good!” For a second their eyes met, and then parted again. There was
chaos in Dennis’s mind. Alan’s personality had lost none of its potent
spell ... and there was Antoinette beside him ... and he longing and
longing to have the boy all to himself.... And he knew that all his
energies must go to the concealment of that desire. He leant back in his
chair and listened to Alan’s voice—and was aware that Antoinette’s gaze
rested always on himself.
“Conscription has got to be fought,” Alan repeated, “without
conscription, Germany could never have gone to war. And the people have
got to be made to see reason, those who say that we must go on with the
war ‘for the sake of the men who have fallen.’ What sense is there in
that? Because we have wasted a million good lives already, why should we
throw another million on to the same refuse-heap? ‘To make their
sacrifice worth while!’ As if anything could make their sacrifice in
such an iniquitous cause worth while! ‘They died gladly for their
country’—it’s all cant, cruel sickening cant to make the people at home
see the war through rose-coloured spectacles. If they saw it without the
spectacles, they wouldn’t be so willing to go on paying for the
continuation of it. ‘We must fight until the whole of Germany is
crushed’—is the whole of Germany to blame for this war, any more than
the whole of England? Blame it on the German High Command, if you like,
and on the Prussian Junkers and their kind, but not on the people—people
as straight and decent as ours, only maddened by this artificially
worked-up hatred, this dizzy vision of world-power and world-empire. But
in Germany, just as in every other country, there are people who don’t
let themselves be dazzled by that vision, and who are ready to work for
the overthrow of governments that can organise wholesale butchery as a
means by which to extend dominion.”
“The pity of it is, that we’re so few,” said Benny, “such a small and
unpopular minority.”
Alan returned impatiently: “We’re not out for laurels.”
“No, it’s more likely to be the broad arrow,” said Oswald.
“Let it be the broad arrow, then! It’ll be the badge of freedom of the
future, badge of honour for those who have struggled against the tide of
public opinion. The militarists’ hatred of us is much more bloodthirsty
than their hatred of the Germans; we are the cowards and the traitors
who are deliberately delaying victory. ‘If we don’t give Germany a
knock-out blow now, the war will start all over again for the next
generation’—you hear the ignorant and the thoughtless reiterating that
catch-phrase like a lot of parrots. The war all over again—that’s
exactly what they will have if they do win their complete military
victory. When the ‘knock-out blow’ has been dealt, they’ll have to go on
keeping big armies and building big ships, to consolidate their position
as top-dog. And as long as we have big armies and navies, we shall
always have wars. The pretty toys have to be used—they can’t be kept for
show.... People call us ‘Pro-Germans’—it’s laughable. If I’d been in
Germany or anywhere else, I’d have fought just as hard against being
turned into a cog in the infernal machinery of war. It’s the whole
system of militarism I’m up against, not the individual wrongs of one
country or another. No civilised industrial population of any country
wants war. Miners in Cornwall and Lancashire or Galicia and Siberia;
poor devils sweating in our factories and in _their_ factories;
railwaymen, schoolmasters, farmers—what do they want with war? Nothing
... until the idea is drilled into them by those in power. The people
who want war and believe that war is good, should be allowed to make a
private picnic of it. The government officials and cabinet ministers and
war profiteers on both sides; the people who say they’d rather lose all
their sons, than that they shouldn’t go out and fight——”
“The khaki-clad females who say they wish they were men, so that they
could kill a few Huns themselves,” Dennis put in.
“Yes, if only that small handful who started the war, and are continuing
it, could finish it up amongst themselves, without implicating the
masses!”
“Without the masses, there would be no war,” said Barnaby.
“Exactly!” cried Alan, “without the masses, there _could_ be no war, and
that is the solution of it all, and the end and the aim of socialism—to
free the masses from the tyranny of governments that can drive them like
cattle to be slaughtered in this crazy campaign of greed and hatred.
Look at the wonderfully organised man-power of all the nations, with all
the woman-power behind it; look at the scientific miracles and the
ceaseless labour and energy that go to the production of big guns,
submarines, aeroplanes, poison-gas; think of all this employed in the
cause of destruction.... And think of the heroism and self-sacrifice of
those who really ‘die gladly’ for a mistaken ideal; and the tremendous
flame of patriotism that’s burning in the hearts of all the peoples
alike: if all these tangible and intangible splendours could have been
used in the furtherance, instead of in the destruction of civilisation!
“And you’re expected to take your share in the destruction, without
asking if it’s right or wrong. All honour to the men who, when war broke
out, almost as a matter of course left their homes and their loves and
their careers, because they thought it was the only decent thing to
do.... And all blame to the old men at home, and to the narrow-minded
women and unimaginative girls who made it appear the only decent thing!
We’re convinced that it isn’t, and _we must stand firm_, cost what it
may! We’re few: that doesn’t matter. We shall be pilloried: that doesn’t
matter. All that matters is that we shall have striven against what our
brains and our hearts recognised as evil—Oh, not only evil, but stupid
and petty and beastly—and that we shall have done our bit towards
bringing nearer the day when militarism will be supplanted by industry,
and we may hope to have an international system of legislation that’ll
knock out the possibility of disputes having to be settled by the
barbarous and unintelligent means of bloodshed.”
“Unintelligent, good Lord, yes!” cried Barnaby, “the whole thing is
unintelligent, even from the militarist point of view. There are
thousands of men being forced to fight, who are physically and mentally
unfit to be of the least use in battle, but whose brains might have
given us scientific inventions that would have benefited humanity, works
of art, books, music.... No, they won’t let them stop at home and do
what they _can_ do, but must send them out to do incompetently things
against which their whole nature rises in revolt. From the general
utility standpoint: in which capacity is the artist of more value to the
nation? As a creator of a work that may live, or as a mass of shattered
nerves, totally incapable either of fulfilling the requirements of the
army or of carrying out his own ideas?”
“Oh, how much does the general public care about art or the artist these
days?” exclaimed Dennis.
“They may not care now,” rejoined Barnaby, “but it’s the sacred duty of
everyone who’s got the gift of creation to try and keep it intact. When
the war is over we shall be grateful to those who through the long night
of destruction have kept alight the torch of art and intellect. That’s
rendering a greater service to mankind than putting your life at the
disposal of the war-machine.”
“And the sight of all those war-shrines makes me sick!” cried Alan.
“‘_Greater love hath no man_——’ How dare they profane the words? It’s
not that a man is merely ‘laying down his life for his friends,’ but
trying to do some other man in at the same time. How does that fit in
with ‘_Thou shalt not kill_?’”
An unobtrusive-looking spectacled man, who all this while had sat silent
at the corner table which Crispin had vacated, looked over at the group.
“It does not fit in, and it never will, but the Church has become untrue
to herself, as those who serve her have become untrue, perverting her
words until they seem to serve the ends of the State.”
Alan asked eagerly: “Are you appealing on religious grounds, then?”
The man replied, “Yes. And I daresay I’ll get partial exemption.
Non-Combatant Service. The despicable compromise that some men can make
with their conscience. ‘_Thou shalt not kill_’—they think they’re
obeying the letter of the law if they don’t bear arms and go to the
fighting-line; but they’re scarcely obeying the spirit when they accept
work in munition-factories, or otherwise help to release men to be
killed in their place.”
“Yes, I’m up against people of that sort, as much as I’m up against
rabid militarists,” said Alan; “they are the cowards and shirkers who
deserve all the onus heaped upon the community of pacifists and
socialists as a whole. Men whose conscience won’t let them kill, but who
haven’t the courage to back their opinions—I’ve no use for them. Passive
pacifism won’t do any good. What we want is active pacifism, fearless
and unashamed, ready to join hands with the workers of all other
countries; to stand firm against their immoral, gain-seeking
governments; and ready to suffer the utmost penalty of their idiotic and
benighted law.”
Crispin rose from his chair. “You b-bloody pacifists make as much noise
as b-bloody militarists. One c-can’t hearoneselfthink....” And on this
cryptic utterance he made his exit.
The cloud of smoke became denser and more dense. Roy Radford and the
flappers had long since departed, and the remaining company, having
abandoned their separate tables, formed one collective straggling group.
Through the smoke, Antoinette watched them; O’Farrell’s fine sensitive
features and visionary eyes shadowed by a thatch of wild auburn hair;
Barnaby’s rough-hewn head and hunched shoulders; Everard’s sleek good
looks; Harry Hope’s chubbiness; Benny Joseph’s dark eyes and Semitic
profile; the nondescript appearance of the religious “objector” who had
joined in the conversation; Oswald’s thin pale face and jerkiness of
movement; Pegeen’s tilted nose, and the cigarette stuck impertinently in
one corner of her mouth.... Picturesque enough, the whole group, only
now Antoinette dared not glance at that slim boy with his dark flaming
eyes, nor at Dennis ... not since she had seen that look on his face
when Alan had entered.
Barnaby was saying: “From every possible point of view, whether from
religion, art, socialism or humanity, war is a disgrace to any civilised
nation. Personally, I’m out of the running, altogether, but I envy you
fit men for having the chance to do your bit in the cause of peace.”
Antoinette got up to go, wondering if Dennis would accompany her as
usual. He followed her up the stairs, but it was evidently his intention
to return to the others when he had said good-bye to her.
At the top of the stairs she faced him.
“Is that—is that the boy we saw the other night?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the one you told me about?”
“Yes....”
“You’re still in love with him...?”
And again: “Yes....”
With one hand she was clutching the wooden balustrade. He saw her
knuckles whiten under the strain, as she said in a dead, unemotional
voice: “D-do you want me to back out altogether?”
“My dear, it’s for you to say.”
He could not bring himself to make a quick, clean end to the situation
then and there. He was too dazed and bewildered to think. He only knew
that he could not speak the word that would hurt her so much, not now,
although her head was defiantly raised, her eyes downcast, as if she
were determined that nothing should be visible to him of the pain he
might choose to inflict.
“It’s for you to say.”
She relaxed the tenseness of her attitude, and seemed suddenly to go
limp. “Oh, I don’t know what to say....” The situation had come upon
them both as a shock. Neither of them felt capable of coping with it at
the moment, and in the doorway....
“Meet me down here one day, and we’ll talk it all out,” he whispered
hurriedly.
She nodded and turned away.