It was a most awkward business. Ainley had a hemorrhage in the night,
and for a week or two it seemed more than likely that Jim’s blow had set
up the old mischief in his lungs.
The house divided itself equally for and against Jim. The quarrel had
been most carefully hushed up, but, of course, everybody knew all about
it.
Emily was certain that she was the direct cause. She had heard her name
mentioned in the laurel bushes, besides, she had reason to know that she
might be the cause of many quarrels.
The cook—all the servants were against Jim—thought it merely a
cold-blooded design to murder the entire household, and that her turn
would come next.
Nurse said it was all ‘them low papers of Mr. Bligh’s, enough to turn a
cat’s stomach, lying about in the hall, all against the aristocracy and
the clergy and what not.’
Pritchard refused to speak to Jim, even when directly addressed; he
walked about on tiptoe scowling, and expected, without quite wishing,
Ainley to die.
The rest of the household went out of its way to be nice to Jim. Ainley
sent a message by Wivvle to say that he would have done just the same in
Jim’s place, and that there was nothing for anybody to be in a wax
about.
It was a sporting message, but it did not make Jim feel any more
comfortable; even Wivvle’s, ‘My dear chap, _of course_ you had to fight
him,’ lacked the ring of finality.
Jim did not feel as if he had any such comfortable compulsion behind
him. There was no sense in half killing a man because he didn’t like
you; and that was after all what he had done. He had acted in a passion,
and the results of passion are irrelevant. They weighed on Jim’s mind
with the intolerable weight of outraged common sense. When Wivvle tried
to comfort him by saying that, of course, he had to defend his honour,
Jim said he didn’t know what his honour was, and Wivvle whistled and
walked out of the room.
Mr. Bligh was appalled; he felt like the possessor of a very nice plain
bottle out of which by accident he had evoked a destructive genie. His
sympathies would have been entirely with Jim if Ainley hadn’t been badly
hurt, and entirely with Ainley if Jim hadn’t been the one to hurt him.
Jim had not only struck a person, he had struck a theory; and it is a
very grave thing to knock down the favourite theory of any fanatic.
Mr. Bligh, in the mood of an unrelenting if benevolent judge, sent for
him to his study, but when he was confronted by Jim’s solid and silent
figure he felt like a small trapped animal, and moved uneasily about the
room fingering the corners of his book-shelves.
‘I don’t see how, it all came about,’ he murmured fretfully. ‘I must get
to the bottom of it, Barton; I really must. We are speaking man to man,
you know, and all that, but there are certain principles in a household
like this which mustn’t be set at defiance.
‘Violence, now! I don’t believe in violence. Don’t you remember my
mentioning that the first time I saw you? I’ve always said the French
Revolution went a little too far—poor Marie Antoinette, now. Carlyle
spoke very nicely of her—bluntly, of course, he didn’t like extravagant
women—but she was a woman, even if she was a queen.
‘I’m all against monarchy, especially in Europe, when it can’t keep in
its place. But the guillotine was too final; it was, really.
‘Now, tearing down the Hyde Park railing; it looks childish, but I see a
certain persuasiveness in it, and you can put up railings again. But a
man’s life, you know, Barton; that can’t be put together again! It’s
destructiveness without elements of reconstruction; and Ainley is a
delicate fellow, you know—he’s had lung trouble——’
‘I didn’t know it,’ said Jim sullenly. ‘They told me afterwards—they
might have told me before—but they never told me anything—not that
lot. They never spoke to me if they could help it. How was I to know
he’d been ill—he looks twice the man that Pritchard is?’
‘Dear me! Dear me!’ said Mr. Bligh, distractedly running his hand
through his red hair till it rose up like an inverted halo. ‘I never
dreamed of all this moral isolation—most unhealthy and subversive in my
own house, too—I thought we all seemed so happy and comfortable
together, quite a little family party; and we live quite simply, you
know—we’ve never had a man-servant, only the gardener, and he sleeps in
his own cottage in the village.
‘It should have been brought to my notice sooner, you know. I could have
stimulated companionship. Talked about mountain-climbing, for instance,
after dinner—a little friendly repartee, once started!
‘You see, everything going on at such a pace behind my back is so
bewildering, and this house has been noted for never having had an
acrimonious dispute—“soft words and hard arguments”—somebody or other
said that—Sydney Webb, perhaps—except that now, I come to think of it,
he is more weighty than epigrammatic—perhaps it was Rosetti—no, no,
his favourite phrase was “fundamental brainwork,”—remember that Jim. It
seems to have been lacking somewhere, doesn’t it? And then you know,
Barton, the essence of being a gentleman is consideration for others,
isn’t it?’
‘I shouldn’t have thought so from being here,’ said Jim grimly. ‘I
should have thought if it had an essence, it was making people different
from yourself feel as uncomfortable as possible.’
‘Quite the contrary! Quite the contrary!’ said Mr. Bligh, coming up
short against a medical dictionary which he had got out of the shelf
with some difficulty and found even harder to replace. ‘And yet, of
course, in a sense I see what you mean. We must allow for youth, you
know, Barton—the arrogance of youth—mustn’t we?
‘I daresay Ainley and Pritchard hadn’t quite got to the root of the
matter. Wivvle, now, Wivvle appreciated the position perfectly—but the
other two are more naturally reactionary. They would have come round in
time, though, I think, by a process of reasoning.
‘But violence, you see, Barton, doesn’t conciliate—it doesn’t really.
Take the militant suffragettes, burning down golf-clubs; it can’t
advance their cause, you know. I’m all for votes for women, of course,
all labour men are; I see the childishness and selfishness of the
arguments against them; but golf-clubs, you know, all the sacred feeling
there is about a golf-club—well—it’s embittering—I play golf myself,
but they don’t discriminate.
‘I daresay Pritchard feels a little embittered with you, and it’s that
which gives him such a gloomy expression; or else he eats too much meat.
I’ve put vegetarianism before him several times, but he doesn’t seem to
take to it. But Ainley now; I understand he’s behaved splendidly about
it all, poor chap—doesn’t blame you in any way.’
‘I don’t care whether he does or not,’ said Jim harshly. ‘It isn’t what
anybody thinks that I care about. It wasn’t sense what I did, and I’ve
laid him out for nothing. It’s that that goes against the grain with
me.’
‘Ah! You’ve grasped that point,’ Mr. Bligh exclaimed with relief. ‘I
thought I could persuade you to it. Force, now, it reacts on itself. In
the end force destroys force. It may destroy a person capable of reason,
but it can’t destroy reason, and it shouldn’t be used as any kind of
substitute for the intellect; it shouldn’t, indeed.
‘Do I take it I can tell Ainley you apologise? Of course, it’s only a
matter of form, but I understand you sent no answer to his message.’
‘What answer was I to send?’ asked Jim doubtfully. ‘No! I can’t say I do
apologise. I’m sorry—you can tell him that if you like—that I’ve hurt
him more than if he was the same as us, but he deserved to be hit all
right. It isn’t him I’m sorry for, about that, it’s myself. I ought to
have had more sense.’
‘Of course I’m glad I’ve convinced you of that,’ Mr. Bligh hastened to
assure Jim, who had reached his own conclusion quite without any such
assistance. ‘But there mustn’t be any grudges in the house. My wife is
very anxious there shouldn’t be any grudges.
‘She tells me something about your wishing to be confirmed, too. Doesn’t
that strike you as rather reactionary and extreme? Of course I quite
understand you feel remorse. Your mind misgives you and looks about for
a prop. All religions are a system of props. But remorse shouldn’t go
too far. Better look the other way and start afresh.’
‘It’s not remorse I’m after,’ Jim explained with unrelenting firmness,
‘nor yet looking the other way; but if I can’t get on without religion I
suppose I’ve got to have it, and I may as well try the church kind as
any other.’
‘There’s something in what you say, of course,’ said Mr. Bligh, edging
rapidly toward the door. Religion is a universal instinct; I’ve never
denied that; it’s what’s kept the church going so long, you
know—utilised by an opportunist priesthood, but it hasn’t moved, you
know, not moved to speak of since the middle ages. Still, perhaps it may
help you. After all, individuals evolve as slowly as nations, and this
outbreak of yours, you know, now I come to think of it, though quite
opposed to the feudal spirit, may have something late renaissance about
it—mayn’t it?
‘At any rate, my dear boy, if you feel you need the church, take it. I
shan’t interfere with your opinions; but take it gently—don’t let it
carry you too far. I’ll tell Ainley you’re sorry. No! No! You needn’t
explain again—I understand perfectly what you feel—and there’s Huxley
now! On the shelf to the right, I think—or is it Robert Owen, or Karl
Marx! No! Huxley—I should strongly recommend you to dip into Huxley;
there’s something so bracing and antimedieval about him.
‘We’ve got to the bottom of it all now, haven’t we—and no grudges? I
think I’ll just go and speak to Pritchard a moment about his gloom—it
may have been those three sausages he ate for breakfast, followed up by
ham. But, on the other hand, perhaps it’s something I ought to probe. Of
course I’m very much against anything at all like the inquisition, you
know—but the policy of “_laissez faire_”—I mustn’t drop too far into
that, must I?’
Mr. Bligh left Jim with unmistakable relief. Jim never seemed to swallow
what was being said to him easily, and his answers were often
unexpected; but Pritchard was never unexpected; his answers were made in
words of one syllable, and everything you said slipped off him like
water off a duck’s back.