At breakfast Rod was introduced to his son, Roderick Thorn Norquay,
who lacked a few weeks of being four years old. Born in London,
hurried home in 1917 when every unnecessary mouth England had to feed
brought her so much nearer want, Roderick junior had no memory of his
father. Rod marveled that two years could change a toddler into a
sturdy boy in knickers who could be tentatively intrigued by gold
braid, red tabs, and a shiny brown belt. They were both
self-conscious enough to afford Mary a smile at their guarded
approach to each other.
"It's funny to see you two," she said, when the youngster had marched
away in care of a nurse girl. "You're like boxers--sparring for an
opening."
"I suppose so," Rod returned. "I don't see the joke myself."
"Don't be so touchy, old dear," she wheedled. "You know what I mean."
"Not touchy." He smiled. "Just a bit off-color. We've missed such
a devil of a lot that we can't catch up with. Having to present
myself cautiously to my own kid reminds me of that. Four years
wasted--worse than wasted. And we're only two out of millions."
"Wasted?"
"Absolutely."
"Then you don't think it was worth the fight? Belgium, destroying an
arrogant militarism, saving the world for democracy, making further
wars impossible--all those high ideals?"
Rod looked at her. Her face was placid as a shaded pool,
expressionless. Her tone had been without accent--no key to her
faith in those matters.
"Just phrases. Useful phrases that served their turn. Who is so
naïve as to believe that now? Do you?" he asked without heat.
Mary smiled.
"No. But a great many people do. Or they say they do. They've gone
about mouthing those catch phrases so long they repeat them as a sort
of liturgic response whenever the war is mentioned. They respond to
all questioning, all criticism, with that formula."
"I daresay," Rod mused. "But nobody in the army has any such
illusions. I haven't had much chance to observe personally, but I
don't know any place where democracy is in good working order. We
certainly put a crimp in German militarism, but our own militarists
are in a very flourishing condition, especially in France. In fact,
a lot of men, from battalion commanders down to ranks, are beginning
to ask what we _did_ fight for. The few weeks I've been in civil
life haven't enlightened me. After passing through that long trance
of dirt, danger and drudgery, men do want to know. Some people,
quite a lot, regard it as some sort of spectacular game at which our
side won. They seem to be rather eager for the distribution of
prizes. And there aren't any prizes. I don't think there will be.
Nothing but bigger taxes, higher prices--a hell of a struggle to pay
the bill--labor demanding to know why, after having fought a war and
won it, they must come home and get to work and pay the bill. Oh, we
won the war right enough, but it's a Pyrrhic victory. The
significance of that long-drawn wrangle at Versailles doesn't seem
obvious to many people."
"People--people in the mass," Mary said scornfully, "are just sheep.
One big sheep says 'Baa!' and all the lesser sheep chorus 'Baa!'
defiantly or plaintively, as the case may be."
Rod laughed. He got up from his chair.
"Where's that club bag? Oh, I see it. That sheep thing reminds me.
I heard Andy Hall use that simile once, and I came across the same
observation in a book I bought on the train."
He came back to his wife with a volume in his hand.
"Have you seen this novel?" he asked. "If not you must read it.
Some one who knows this country and loves it and understands it has
been putting a lot of things very clearly and sympathetically in a
book. Some of it is real enough to have happened, and some of the
characters seem like people I know. There's truth and power in the
thing. There's a man or two in it who feels about the war and
political flapdoodle and tricky manipulation of affairs and a lot of
current skulduggery, very much as a good many able men I know feel
about it all. There is some corking good description, some fine
characterization, and some almost brilliant writing. Part of the
scene is laid on the B.C. coast. It's so vivid it made me homesick.
Have you seen it?"
He handed her the book. Mary opened it, let the leaves riffle
through her fingers, turned back to the title page.
"'The Swirl,'" she read. "A trifle reminiscent of Gissing's 'The
Whirlpool' but none the worse for that, I daresay. By Margaret
Pierce. Yes, I've read it," she said soberly, "read it over and over
till my eyes ached, and it seemed like words, words, words. You see
this happens to be my book, Rod."
"Eh?" he looked blankly at her.
"I wrote it," she explained. "Mary--diminutive of Margaret.
Pierce--what is the purpose of a thorn? Hence Mary Thorn--Margaret
Pierce. I didn't particularly like to camouflage my identity. But I
wanted to say a lot of things which coming from Margaret Pierce would
be considered on their merits, and which coming from Mrs. Roderick
Sylvester Norquay might arouse local misconceptions. I wanted to be
unhampered by family considerations. I wanted to express my inner
convictions about various aspects of life as it has been unfolding to
me for a long time. So I hoisted a _nom de plume_. It would be
strange if you didn't find a resemblance to persons and things and
people you know. Yet there isn't a photograph there--just traits and
habits of thought, inhibitions and passions that are common to
humanity in general. I'm not a propagandist. I don't know that this
book, or any other books I may write, has a message, unless it is the
oblique inference that stupidity and ignorance and intolerance are
more fatal than guns. I'm not so much concerned with isms as I am
with--well, with what Joseph Conrad meant when he wrote: 'Fashions in
monsters do change; but the truth of humanity goes on forever,
unchangeable and inexhaustible in the variety of its disclosures.'
You really think," she ended a bit hurriedly, "it's good?"
"Good?" Rod echoed. He sat down on the arm of her chair. "Of course
it's good. Didn't I come lugging it home as a find?"
He looked down at the imprint.
"New York, eh? Did you have any trouble placing it?"
"Well, yes--and no," she said. "One publisher wrote me saying that
it was work of a high order but he felt sure the time was scarcely
opportune for its publication--unless I cared to modify certain
passages which seemed to cast a doubt on the great moral forces
underlying the war. That's almost verbatim. Another said that he
personally enjoyed reading it very much, but was sure it would fail
to get a hearing in view of the present demand for tales completely
devoid of war atmosphere.
"It is amusing sometimes to try and trace motive and action," Mary
smiled. "A publisher wants to publish books that will sell. Nearly
every one is affected directly and indirectly by the war. Therefore
the publisher concludes people want to ignore the war, or that they
will uniformly recoil from a given aspect of the war, even if it is
an individual attempt to interpret some obscure phase. War isn't the
theme of this book. It's incidental, just as the war is
incidental,--one of humanity's growing pains. Anyway, I found a
publisher. And it's getting a hearing, he tells me. People _are_
reading it."
"You've found yourself," Rod said a little wistfully. "You've got
the vision, and the power to embody your vision so that it stands out
clear. I couldn't get it. I tried; I wanted to capture the
spaciousness, the drama, the unquenchable spirit of the pioneers.
And I couldn't. What I wanted to do seems mere inconsequential
romancing beside the vivid reality you've achieved. How did you do
it, wonder-woman? How do you know with such certainty what men think
and feel, and how they can be beasts and heroes, groping blindly
toward certain ends? Where did you get the astonishing grasp of
those obscure motives which so often actuate people? You ought to
write the history of the Norquay family, Mary. There's a theme for a
novel. First the pioneer adventurer, courageous, determined,
resourceful, infinitely patient about his foundation laying, seeing
clearly what he was about. Then his son following in his father's
footsteps. The grandson expanding upon the solidly laid groundwork,
elaborating the original plan, acquiring land and timber, increasing
the tradition of permanence. Then a generation that stands pat on
its hereditary past, accepting wealth and culture as a birthright,
things irrevocably bestowed upon a superior class, as a condition
fixed and final for all time. Last of all a generation where the
eldest son and heir is only a passionate, superficially glossed
animal, who expends his fierce energy on women and financial
undertakings, proving eminently successful with both. The second
son, the well-balanced, sound-minded one, killed in the war. The
youngest, a dreamy, sensitive youth, coming back from the war with a
cracked heart and most of his romantic illusions about great men,
great nations, and great idealistic undertakings knocked into a
cocked hat--with no task ahead of him worth an effort, with his
keenest consciousness that of a world where all stability has gone by
the board; a tired, disillusioned man who wants only to sit and
think, and to be grateful that if everything else seems pinchbeck
there's still a woman who is eighteen-carat gold to him. I don't
quite see how you would make a pattern out of such a snarl--but--"
He didn't finish the sentence. Mary's arms drew him down to her with
a fierce, protecting pressure. She held him, whispering tensely:
"What have they done to you? I can't bear to hear you talk like
that. It isn't true. Life hasn't gone sour. We mustn't let it. We
can make it good--we must. One daren't falter. One must not brood.
We're over the top of a long hill that has tried us both. Well,
then--'Courage, the devil is dead!' Eh, Roderick Dhu? Love's
_something_ to hold fast by, isn't it?"