1
"Roger's getting all his facts in fine trim for the book on a National
Army," Gilbert said after lunch. "The thing's been much bigger than any
of us imagined, but Roger's a sticker, and he's got a lot done!"
"I'd nearly forgotten about that business," Henry replied.
"Roger hasn't forgotten. He's been spending a great deal of time in
Bermondsey lately, and I shouldn't be surprised if the local Tories
adopt him as their candidate at the next election. I don't suppose he'll
get in. It'll be a pity if he doesn't. Rachel's making it easier for
him. Roger says she's popular with the girls in the jam factories ...
and of course that's very useful. You see, Rachel tells the girls to
tell their mothers to tell their fathers to vote for Roger when the time
comes, and the fathers'll have to do it or they'll get a hell of a time
from their women. I can tell you, Quinny, Rachel knows what's what.
She's going to ask some of the jam-girls out to tea and show them the
baby!..."
"Good old British Slop, Gilbert! Do you remember how we swore that we
would never have anything to do with Slop?..."
"We've had a lot to do with it. Roger was right. The Slop is there and
you've got to make allowances for it, and after all, why shouldn't
Rachel show her baby to the girls? Damn it all, a baby is a remarkable
thing, when you come to think of it. All that wriggle and bubble and
squeak and kick ... and Lord only knows what'll come out of it! We
ought to get married, Quinny, and father a few brats. My own notion is
to get hold of a nice, large, healthy female of the working-class and
set her up in a very ugly house in a very ugly suburb, near a municipal
park, and give her three pounds a week for herself, and an allowance for
every child she produces. I could have all the pride and pleasure of
parenthood without the boredom and nuisance of being a husband, and the
youngsters would probably be young giants. The girl wouldn't mind how
many she had, and she'd feed 'em herself. There'd be no damned bottle
and no damned limitation. And I'd put all the boys in the Navy, and I'd
make cooks out of the girls ... _cooks_, Quinny, not food-murderers, and
I'd call the first boy Michael John, and the second boy Patrick James
and the third boy Peter William and the fourth boy Roger Henry Gilbert
Ninian...."
"And what would you call the girls?"
"Wait a minute! I haven't done with the boys yet. And I'd call the fifth
boy Matthew. I'd call the first girl Margaret, and the second girl
Bridget, and the third girl Rachel, and the fourth girl Mary, and I'm
damned if I know what I'd call the fifth girl, so I'd let her mother
choose her name. And they'd all know how to swim, and manage a boat, and
box, and whistle with two fingers in their mouths, and the girls' chief
ambition would be to get married and have babies. They'd have a
competition to see who could have the most. And their husbands would all
be big, hearty men. Margaret would marry a blacksmith, and Bridget 'ud
marry a fisherman, and Rachel 'ud marry a farmer, and Mary'd marry a
soldier and the other one would marry a sailor. Mary's man 'ud be a
sergeant-major, a fat sergeant-major, and the other one's 'ud be a
boatswain or a chief gunner. I'd have so many grandchildren that I'd
never be able to remember which were mine and which belonged to the man
next door!..."
"You'd want a great deal of money for that lot, Gilbert!"
"I suppose I would. But I think that men of quality ought to have
children by strong, healthy women of the working-class. I think there's
a lot to be said for the right of the lord, don't you? It was good for
the race ... kept up the quality of the breed! I shall have to think
seriously about this...."
"You'd better look out for a farmer's daughter while you're here," Henry
suggested.
"What! A Welshwoman! Good God, no!! My goodness, Quinny, you ought to
bring that fellow, John Marsh, to Wales for a few months. That 'ud cure
him of his Slop about nationality. I came to Wales, determined to like
the Welsh, and I've failed. That's all. I've failed hopelessly. I told
myself that it was absurd to believe that a whole nation could be as bad
as English people say the Welsh are ... but it isn't absurd ... of the
Welsh anyhow. They're all that everybody says they are, only about ten
times worse. I've been all over this country one time and another, and
they're simply ... mean. They're a dying race, thank heaven! They've
kept themselves to themselves so much that their blood is like water,
and so they're simply perishing. They wouldn't absorb or be absorbed ...
and so they're just dying out. Your lot were wiser than the Welsh,
Quinny!"
"The Irish?"
"Yes. They absorbed all the new blood they could get into their veins,
and so, whoever else may perish, the Irish won't. This nationality
business is all my eye, Quinny. You don't want one strain in a country.
You want hundreds of strains. You want to mingle the bloods. ... I don't
believe there's a pure-blooded Irishman in Ireland or out of it.... Oh,
the Welsh! Oh, the awful Welsh! Inbreeding in a nation is the very devil
... and it makes 'em so damned uncivil. Oh, a shifty, whining race, the
Welsh!..."
2
There are many bays on that coast, and in one of these, where they could
easily get to deep water, they bathed every morning, drying themselves
in the sun when they were tired of swimming. They would haul themselves
out of the sea by clutching at the long tassels of sea-weed, and then
lie down on the bare, warm rocks while the sun dried the salt into their
skins. Once, while they were lying in this fashion, Gilbert turned to
Henry and said, "Have you been to Boveyhayne at all since Ninian went
away?"
"No," Henry answered. "I was to have gone with you that Christmas, but
my father's illness prevented me, and I haven't been since."
"Why don't you go? They'd be glad to see you, and Ninian'd like it."
"I must go one of these days. How is Mrs. Graham? I suppose you've seen
her lately?"
"She was all right when I saw her. Mary's rather nice!"
Henry did not say anything, and Gilbert, having waited for a while, went
on.
"I always thought you and Mary...."
He broke off suddenly and sat up. "It's getting a bit chilly," he said.
"I think I'll dress!"
"There's no hurry, Gilbert," Henry answered. "You didn't finish what you
were saying."
"It's none of my business. I've no right to...."
"Oh, yes, you have, Gilbert," Henry interrupted, sitting up too. "Go
on!"
"Well, I always thought that you and Mary were ... well, liked each
other. That was why I was so puzzled when you got fond of Cecily. I felt
certain that you'd marry Mary. Why don't you, Quinny? She's an awfully
nice girl, and you and she are rather good pals, aren't you?"
"I don't know, Gilbert. I think I love Mary better than any one I've
ever met, and yet I seem to lose touch with her very easily!"
"Oh, I shouldn't count Cecily. Cecily is anybody's sweetheart!..."
"But it wasn't only Cecily. There was a girl ... a farm-girl in Antrim.
I never told you about her. Her name was Sheila Morgan ... she's married
now ... and I went straight from Mary to her. Of course, I was a kid
then, but still I'd told Mary I was fond of her, and we'd arranged to
get married when we grew up ... and then I went home and made love to
Sheila Morgan!"
"None of these women held you, Quinny!" said Gilbert.
"No, that's true, and Mary has, although I seldom see her. I thought
that I could never love anybody as I loved Sheila Morgan ... until I met
Cecily ... and then I thought I should never love any one as I loved her
... but somehow Cecily doesn't hold me now, and Mary does. I can't tell
you when I ceased to love Cecily ... I don't really know that I have
ceased to love her ... it just weakened, so gradually that I did not
notice it weakening. All the same, if I were to see Cecily now, I should
probably want her as badly as ever."
"You might, Quinny, but you wouldn't go on wanting her. You see, she
wouldn't want you for very long, and my general opinion is that you
can't keep on giving if you get nothing in return ... unless, of course,
you're a one-eyed ass. A healthy, intelligent man, if he loves a woman
who doesn't love him ... well he goes off and loves some one else ...
and quite right, too. These devoted fellows who cherish their blighted
affections forever ... damn it, they deserve it. They've got no
imagination! I don't think Cecily'd hold you now, Quinny, not for very
long anyhow. I wish you'd marry Mary. You quite obviously love her, and
she quite obviously loves you.... Oh, Lordy God, I wish I could love
somebody. I wish I were a young man in a novelette, with a nice,
clear-cut face and crisp, curly hair and frightfully gentlemanly ways
and no brains so that I could get into the most idiotic messes.... Why
aren't there any aphrodisiacs for men who cannot love any one in
particular, Quinny! If you'd had the sense to have a sister, I should
probably have married her. Roger's family runs to nothing but males, and
Rachel can't honestly recommend any of her female relatives to me. If I
thought Mary'd have me, I'd marry her, but I know she wouldn't. I used
to think it was awful to want to believe in God and not be able to
believe in Him, but it's a lot worse to want to love and not be able to
love. I shall have to marry an actress. That's all!"
They dressed in the shelter of the rocks, and then went back to the
hotel to lunch.
"I'd like to marry Mary!..." Henry began.
"Why don't you, then?" Gilbert interrupted.
"Because I feel that I must go to her absolutely undivided, Gilbert. Do
you know what I mean? I want to be able to go to her, knowing that no
other woman can sway me from her for a second. It would be horrible to
be married to her and feel something lurking inside me, just waiting for
a chance to spring out and ... and make love to some one else!"
"You've changed a lot, Quinny, since the days when you pleaded for
infinite variety. You wanted a wife for every mood!..."
Henry laughed. "We did talk a lot of rot when we first went to London,"
he said, putting his arm in Gilbert's.
"It wasn't all rot. My contributions to the discussion were very
sensible. I wonder what's the excitement up there! The papers are
in!..."
There was a group of visitors sitting on the seats in front of the hotel
and they were reading the newspapers which had just been sent out from
Holyhead.
"Let's go and ask," Henry exclaimed, and they both went on more
quickly.
"Any news?" Gilbert shouted as they mounted the steps leading from the
carriage-way to the terrace.
"Yes. Bad news from Ireland," a visitor answered.
"From Ireland!" Henry said.
"Yes. The Nationalists landed some guns at Howth!..."
"Yes, yes!" Henry said excitedly.
"And there was a scrap between the people and soldiers!..."
"The soldiers!"
The visitor nodded his head. "Some damned ass," he said, "had ordered
the soldiers out, and ... well, there was a row. The crowd stoned the
soldiers ... and soldiers are human like anybody else ... they fired on
the crowd!..."
"Fired on them!"
"Yes. Several people were killed. It's a bad business, a damned bad
business!..."
3
There was an unreasonable fury in Henry's heart. "It's a clever joke
when the Ulster people do it," he said, raging at Gilbert. "And
everybody agrees to look the other way, but it's a crime when the
Nationalists do it, and it can only be punished by ... by shooting. I
suppose it's absolutely impossible for the English to get any
understanding into their thick heads!..."
"Don't be an old ass, Henry. You're not going to improve a rotten bad
business by hitting about indiscriminately. I daresay the people who
were responsible for the thing were Irishmen. I've always noticed that
when anything really dirty is done in Ireland, it's an Irishman who does
it...."
"A rotten Unionist!..."
"Irish, all the same! The only thing that you Irish are united about is
your habit of blaming the English for your own faults and misbehaviour.
If I had the fellow who was responsible for this business I'd shoot him
out of hand. I wouldn't think twice about it. If a man is such an ass as
all that, he ought to be put out of the world quick. But then I'm
English. The Irish'll make a case out of him. They'll orate over him,
and they'll get frightfully cross for a fortnight, and then they'll do
nothing. You know as well as I do, Quinny, that the English aren't
unfriendly to the Irish, that they really are anxious to do the decent
thing by Ireland. It isn't us: it's you. We're not against you ...
you're against yourselves. There are about seventy-five different
parties in Ireland, aren't there, and they all hate each other like
poison?"
"I wonder if John Marsh was hurt!..."
"I don't suppose so. There'd have been some reference to him in the
paper if he'd been hurt."
"This was what he was hinting at when I saw him in Dublin," Henry went
on. "He talked about 'doubling it' and said that two could play at that
game!"
He was calmer now, and able to talk about the Dublin shooting with some
discrimination.
"I don't know why they want to 'run' guns at all," he said. "The
tit-for-tat style of politics seems a fairly foolish one.... I think I
shall go back to Ireland to-morrow, Gilbert. I feel as if I ought to be
there. This business won't end where it is now. I know what John Marsh
and Galway and Mineely are like. Whatever bitterness was in them before
will be increased enormously by this. Mineely's an Ulsterman, and he'll
make somebody pay for this. He doesn't say much ... he's like Connolly
... Connolly's the brains behind Larkin ... but he keeps things inside
him, deep down, but safe, so that he can always get at them when he
wants them!"
"What sort of man is he, Quinny?" Gilbert asked. "I didn't see him when
we were in Dublin."
"He looks like a comfortable tradesman, and he's a kindly sort of chap.
You'd never dream that he was an agitator or that he'd want to lead a
rebellion. I don't believe he likes that work, either. I think that
inside him his chief desire is for a decent house with a garden, where
he can grow sweet peas and cabbages and sit in the evening with his wife
and children. He has more balanced knowledge than most of the people he
works with. Marsh and Galway have had a better education than Mineely,
but they haven't had his experience or his knowledge of men, and so they
can't check their enthusiasm. He was in America for a long while, and
he's lived in England, too. He wrote a quite good book on the Irish
Labour Movement that would have been better if he'd made more allowance
for the nature of the times. If the employers hadn't behaved so brutally
over the strike, Mineely might have become the solvent of a lot of
ill-will in Ireland; but they made a bitter man out of him then, and I
suppose it's too late now. He'll go on, getting more and more bitter
until.... Do you remember that story by H. G. Wells, Gilbert, called 'In
the Days of the Comet'?"
"Is that the green vapour story?"
"Yes. Well, we want a green vapour very badly in Ireland, something to
obliterate every memory and leave us all with fresh minds!"
"Miracle-mongering won't lead you very far, Quinny. It's no good howling
for a vapour to heal you. You've just got to take your blooming memories
and cure 'em yourselves, by the sweat of your brows! And, look here,
Quinny, there doesn't seem any good reason why you should dash back to
Ireland because of this business. I always think that the worst row in
the world would never have come to anything if people hadn't done what
you propose to do, rushed into it just because they thought they ought
to be there. They congest things ... they use up the air and make the
place feel stuffy ... and then they get cross, and somebody shoves
somebody else, and before they know where they are, they're splitting
each other's skulls. If they'd only remained dispersed...."
"But I'd like to be there!..."
"I know you would. We'd all like to be there, so's we could say
afterwards we'd seen the whole thing from beginning to end. That's just
why we shouldn't be there. It isn't the principals in the row that make
all the trouble, Quinny ... it's the blooming spectators!..."
4
He let himself be persuaded by Gilbert to stay in Wales, and they spent
the next two or three days in tramping about the island of Anglesey. The
days were bright and sunny, and the rich sparkle of the sea tempted them
frequently to the water. There were many visitors at the hotel, some of
whom were Irish people from Dublin, but mostly they came from Liverpool
and Manchester; and with several of them, Gilbert and Henry became
friendly. There was a schoolmaster who made a profession of
mountain-climbing and a hobby of religion; and a doctor who told comic
stories and talked with good temper about Home Rule, to which he was
opposed; and a splendid old man, with his wife, who was interested in
co-operation and was eager to limit armaments; and a wine merchant from
Liverpool who had come to the conclusion that the world, on the whole,
was quite a decent place to live in; and a dreadful little stockbroker
who belonged to the Bloody school of politicians and talked about the
Empire as if it were a music-hall; and an agent of some sort from
Manchester who had reached that stage of prosperity at which he was
beginning to wonder whether, after all, Nonconformity was not a grievous
heresy and the Church of England a sure means of salvation. And there
were others, vague people of the middle class, kindly and comfortable
and inarticulate, with no particular opinions on anything except the
desirability of four good meals every day and a month's holiday in the
summer. There were daughters, too ... all sorts and conditions of
daughters! Some that were hearty and athletic, living either in the sea
or on the golf-links; and others that were full of their sex, unable to
forget that men are men and women are women, and never the two shall
come together but there shall be wooing and marrying.... There were a
few who were eager to use their minds ... and they quoted their parents
and the morning papers to Gilbert and Henry....
Surprisingly, their feeling about the Howth gun-raid became cool. In
that exquisite sunlight, beneath the wide reach of blue sky, it was
impossible to experience rancour or maintain anger. They swam and basked
and swam again, and let their eyes look gladly on young shapely girls,
running across the grassy tops of the piled rocks, and were sure that
there could be nothing on earth more beautiful than the spectacle of
pink arms gleaming through white muslin, unless it might be the full
brown ears of wheat now bending in the ripening rays of sunshine.... And
again, after dinner, they would sit in a high, grassy corner of the bay,
listening to the lap of the sea beneath them, while the stars threw
their faint reflections on the returning tide....
Exquisite peace and quiet, long days of rich pleasure and sweet nights
of rest, kindliness and laughter and the friendly word of casual
acquaintances ... and over all, the enduring beauty of this world.