There were several people from the neighbourhood to dinner, and Bertram
was amused to find himself next to Miss Heathcote, the Vicar’s daughter,
whom he had met in Izzard’s oddity shop. They talked a little about
that, and the girl seemed nervous of owning friendship at this table
with a man who kept a shop.
“Lady Ottery doesn’t approve of such new-fashioned ways,” she whispered,
glancing with amusement, and a little fear, at the handsome lady at the
head of the table.
Bertram was less amused to see General Bellasis sitting next to Lady
Ottery, and Kenneth Murless on the other side of Joyce. They had both
come down for Easter as old friends of the Bellairs family. The
conversation at their end of the table seemed to be about the Strike.
General Bellasis, handsome and florid as ever, was doing most of the
talking. Bertram heard only bits of sentences, disconnected threads of
his discourse.
“Serious challenge to Government authority. . . . War against Law and
Order. . . . We must knock the stuffing out of Labour! . . . Rank
Bolshevism!”
The Heathcote girl on his left was prattling about a play she had seen
in London—one of Galsworthy’s. Jolly good! Very daring, though. Her
father was shocked when she told him the plot. Parents were so easily
shocked these days. They didn’t realise the difference war had made to
the outlook of women. Everything was discussed. The realities of life
and death. Marriage.
Bertram endeavoured to play up to her remarks, but his glance kept
wandering back to Joyce.
She wore an evening frock of white silk, as simple as a child’s, with a
necklace of pearls, and in this old dining-room, with its panelled walls
and timbered roof and high-backed chairs, looked in her rightful place.
She belonged to the house. The house belonged to her, not in timber and
stone, but in spiritual heritage. She was Joyce Bellairs of Holme
Ottery. The son of an Irish lawyer had no right to her. She belonged to
a different stock. She’d been bred by centuries of “selection.” Bertram
was but a clodhopper to this child of Caste. So he thought, gloomily.
Kenneth Murless was more of her kind. He too belonged to a Family—the
Murlesses of Warwick, with a genealogical tree intertwined with branches
of the Bellairs, Charringtons, D’Abernons, Courthopes, Grevilles—all
the proud old stock. He kept Joyce amused at this dinner table, as he
always amused her, with absurd fantasies, word-play, anecdotes,
satirical verse, social caricatures, all charmingly told, lightly, with
ease, in a way unaffectedly, though he had conceit.
Bertram observed him closely. Never by a single word had Murless been
uncivil, in the slightest degree discourteous, in his relations with
Bertram, though he must have been aware of jealousy. Once or twice he
went out of his way at this dinner to smile at Bertram, though he was
too far down the long table to bring him into his conversation. Once he
raised his wine glass in friendly salute. Bertram answered it, with a
sudden sense of compunction for his habitual sulkiness with Kenneth
Murless. He was a gentleman, and more genial than Alban Bellairs.
Lady Ottery rose from her high-backed chair, with her usual dignity.
Dinner, even at home, was to her something of a ritual.
“Don’t talk too long, Ottery,” she said to her husband. “Some of us
would like a game of bridge.”
Lord Ottery hated to be hurried over dinner, and said so. Besides,
Bellasis was talking about his plans.
“I want to hear them,” said Joyce. “I’ll join you later, Mother.”
She lit a cigarette, and sat on the arm of one of the oak chairs, and
took a sip out of Kenneth’s wine glass.
General Bellasis shifted his chair round, so that he faced the little
group left at table—Lord Ottery, Alban, Kenneth, Bertram, and Joyce. He
had told them most of what the Government had in mind. There was no
doubt the Strike was a threat to the whole authority of Parliament, to
the social order of England. The men’s leaders were fairly sound, he
thought, moderate in their ideas, on the whole. But behind them was a
real revolutionary agitation. Underneath, undoubtedly, a lot of dirty
work was going on by paid agents with foreign gold. Bolshevists, pure
and simple.
“Say rather, impure and artful!” said Kenneth Murless.
General Bellasis laughed, and waved his cigar at the interruption.
His point was that the time had come when Labour had given them the
chance for a straight fight. They had challenged “Us.”
“Meaning the Government?” asked Alban.
“Meaning the Decent Crowd,” said the General. “Anybody with a stake in
the country, including the unfortunate Middle Classes. All of us. Well,
we accept the challenge. We’re ready to knock hell out of them.”
Lord Ottery expressed his view. He did not believe in arranging a clash.
He always avoided clashes, if possible. The history of England, he
thought, was in the main the successful avoidance of the real issues.
That was our genius.
“I agree,” said Bellasis, in a tone which showed clearly his
disagreement. “But this clash has got to come. It’s inevitable. We must
get the working classes back to their kennels. Back to cheap labour.
Back to discipline. Otherwise we’re done.”
“What’s your plan?” asked Alban.
“Yes, that’s the point,” said Ottery. “Has the Government thought out a
plan? I doubt it. They never think out any plan.”
“This is all taped out,” said General Bellasis. “The War Office has been
working it out.”
Lord Ottery mumbled something to the effect that this didn’t inspire him
with confidence.
General Bellasis laughed again, rather irritably.
“Oh, of course the War Office gets a lot of kicks. But some of us aren’t
such fools as we look.”
“Nobody would accuse you of _looking_ a fool, Bellasis,” remarked Ottery
in a kindly way, and he stared vaguely at Kenneth Murless because that
young man laughed loudly at the remark, and even Joyce gave a little
squeal of protest.
It seemed, after other conversational interruptions, that the War Office
plan, in the event of a General Strike was to recruit a Defence Corps,
divided into various districts of England. Ex-officers and men would be
invited to join for a three months’ service. They would take over the
transport system, work the railways, organise lorry columns, ensure the
vital supplies of material life, meat, milk, bread, and so on, and
defeat the purpose of the strikers, which was to strangle national
industry and activity. If there were any attempts at violence,
intimidation, picketing, the Defence Corps would be ordered to do their
duty, relentlessly.
“Fire on the mob?” asked Lord Ottery.
“Fire on any ruffian, or body of ruffians, endeavouring to hold up
national life.”
“Naturally,” said Alban.
“I hope there’ll be a lot of shooting,” said Joyce, heatedly. “A good
opportunity to get rid of our Bolshevists.”
Bertram stiffened uneasily in his chair, and thought of making a
protest, but decided to keep his thoughts to himself. He hated Joyce to
speak like that. He was thinking of Huggett, and his “Comrades of the
Great War” in the slums of London and other great cities, so many of
them out-of-work, despairing, rather bitter, but not Bolshevists. This
new Defence Corps might not be quick at distinguishing between honest
men and ruffians. Some chance shot, any hooligan fool, might lead to
bloodshed of a terrible kind. This plan was to divide the nation into
two classes. It might come perilously near to civil war. He agreed with
old Ottery. Better avoid the clash. Better not to ask for it. He wished
Joyce had not spoken those words.
General Bellasis had swung further round in his chair, and now faced
Bertram with a friendly smile.
“Joyce tells me you want a job, Pollard? If that’s so, I can put
something in your way. How would it suit you to help me run this show,
as Deputy Director for the South Coast?”
Bertram felt a sudden chill down his spine. He was conscious that all
eyes were turned upon him, Joyce’s, Alban’s, Kenneth’s, Lord Ottery’s.
He was aware that they expected him to look “pleased,” eager to accept
this offer.
“Bertram—how splendid!” said Joyce. “A chance at last!”
“What exactly does the ‘show’ mean?” asked Bertram.
He endeavoured to show polite interest, but his voice was hostile, in
spite of his effort.
General Bellasis explained that it would mean a recruiting campaign,
then a certain amount of drill, to “lick the men into shape”—and then
the business of defensive patrols.
“Military police work?”
General Bellasis said “Exactly!” and added his opinion that it was a
splendid opportunity for Bertram. It would bring him under the eye of
the Government—very useful—make him a public character of some
importance, and lead undoubtedly to a good place later on in some
Government department. As Director of Home Defence, he could appoint any
man he liked for the post, and he had the greatest pleasure in offering
it to Bertram.
The offer was handsomely made, in the General’s best style of good
fellow and gallant soldier. It was received with a chorus of
congratulations from Joyce, Alban, and Kenneth, with an expression of
approval from Lord Ottery.
“It’ll suit Bertram down to the ground,” said Joyce. “He knows how to
handle men, I will say that for him!”
She was a little excited, and slipped off the arm of her oak chair,
standing with her hands clasping its high back, and looking at Bertram.
“Good for you, Bertram!” said Kenneth Murless. “I’m glad for Joyce’s
sake as well as yours. I can think of no better stepping stone to a sure
place.”
Alban concurred.
“An admirable post. Service to the country. Good pay, not bad fun.”
Lord Ottery agreed. He thought it “Very handsome of the General.”
Joyce was watching her husband. She could read his face better than the
others. She saw how first he flushed and then paled a little, while a
tuck gathered his forehead into a frown. He was thinking hard, and not
certain of his answer.
“Exceedingly kind of you, General,” he said, slowly. “Many thanks. But
somehow, I don’t like the job.”
There was silence for a moment or two in the big dining room where many
generations of Bellairs had sat at table, discussing events of history,
more unfortunate than this, quarrelling, laughing, feasting, drinking.
“You don’t like the job?”
General Bellasis smiled, not good-humouredly.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Alban, icily.
“Tell us!” said Kenneth Murless, raising his eyebrows in a quizzical
way.
Joyce spoke more emotionally.
“Bertram! Pull yourself together. If you don’t accept this—”
The last words seemed to hold a threat.
Bertram thrust his hands into the pockets of his dinner jacket, and
leaned forward in his chair, staring at the carpet.
“It’s like this—” he said, groping for the right words; “I don’t like
to see people of our class—your class, if you like!—organising their
forces to beat down poor devils who want to keep up a decent standard of
life, after a war they helped to win. I’ve looked into the question of
this Strike. It’s really a Lock-out by the masters—but, anyhow, the men
are being offered wages which aren’t quite good enough, they think. Not
a fair deal for men who helped to save England. They may be wrong, of
course, but that’s how it seems to them. This Defence Force—it sounds
all right. I’m ready to serve on the side of law and order. But it looks
like a Snob Force for giving Hell to working-men who want a living wage.
Aristocracy versus Democracy. Middle Classes against the Mob. Yes! If
necessary, I quite agree. But I fought _with_ the Mob. I saw it going
over the top on mornings of battle. I walked through its dead bodies
afterwards. I learnt to know its spirit, and liked it, on the whole. I’d
hate to shoot down fellows who used to salute me in the trenches, and
whom I saluted as the salt of England. Of course order must be kept. I
understand that. No body of men must be allowed to blackmail a nation,
and there may be a bit of that in the minds of the Labour leaders. But
there seems to be an idea—General Bellasis hinted at something of the
sort—that a little blood-letting wouldn’t be a bad thing. Some idea of
forcing the clash, so as to teach Labour a lesson, with machine-guns,
and so on. I know something about machine-guns. I served ’em in the
Great War. I’m not inclined to turn them against my own men—unless Hell
breaks loose. . . . And I don’t think Hell is going to happen. It’s a
newspaper scare, and nothing else. It’s not going to happen, unless it’s
made to happen. I’ll see myself damned before I help to make it. . . .
Do you see my point, General?”
They had let him speak out, without a single interruption, in dead
silence. He had been aware of their faces about him. Joyce had become
quite white. She was still standing with her hands on the back of the
tall chair, and her eyes were fixed on Bertram with a look of amazement,
at first, and then anger. Once or twice she smiled, in a queer way, as
though some of his words seemed to her too ridiculous. Alban sat with
his head bent, glowering. Kenneth Murless was watching him, with a look
of extreme interest, as though at some new phenomenon of human nature.
Lord Ottery sat back in his chair with closed eyes, fingering his red
beard. The General had become restless, crossed and recrossed his legs,
shifted a wine glass, flushed angrily, and then met Bertram’s eyes with
a hard, hostile look.
“I regret my offer has been refused with such a distasteful—I may say,
disgraceful—expression of opinion, sir.”
That was his answer to Bertram’s argument, and he spoke it harshly, in a
court-martial manner.
Joyce moved away from her chair, and stood by the great fireplace.
Bertram knew by a glint in her eyes that she was deeply emotional at
that moment, but she spoke to the General quietly, with a smile.
“It’s not refused. Bertram permits himself a certain amount of hot air.
Why not? But he accepts.”
“Is that so?” asked the General, looking first at Joyce and then at
Bertram, with perplexity.
“That’s so, isn’t it, Bertram?”
Bertram’s eyes met Joyce’s. He saw in them a kind of entreaty, and
behind that a kind of command.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I hate the idea of it.”
Joyce moved away from the fireplace. She still spoke quietly, but there
was a new thrill in her voice.
“I apologise for my husband, General! But if Bertram doesn’t accept, I
shan’t think much of his loyalty to me—or to England. Meanwhile, I’d
better join Mother, who’s probably fuming at my absence.”
She left the room with her head held high, and a little smile about her
lips, but Bertram, who knew the play of light and shadow in her face,
saw that she was passionately distressed with him.
There was silence for a moment after her going, until it was broken by
Alban Bellairs.
“I think you’re a damned fool, Bertram. Have you gone Bolshie or
something?”
“I’ve explained my views,” said Bertram, coldly; “I don’t expect you to
understand them.”
Kenneth Murless thought a little tact might help, and spoke in his
agreeable voice.
“I see his point of view. It’s extremely interesting as a study in
sentiment. I don’t agree, of course, being a hopeless Reactionary, thank
goodness, undisturbed by any liberal or revolutionary thought.”
Lord Ottery was about to utter a judicial opinion, but decided that it
was hardly worth while after dinner,—and dozed a little with his red
beard on his shirt front.
General Bellasis cut short all further discussion, in his hard,
matter-of-fact way when dealing with men. He had another manner in the
presence of women he liked.
“For your wife’s sake, Pollard, I make the offer again, for ‘yes,’ or
‘no,’ without argument. Which is it?”
Bertram did not answer for a second or so, but in that time he reviewed
his life with Joyce, and saw with tragic certainty that this was the
crisis. Acceptance meant surrender of his ideals, such as they were, and
definite allegiance to opinions and acts which would put him for ever on
the side opposed to liberal thought.
He was to decide between Joyce’s “crowd” and the labouring classes of
England, or at least between the philosophy of men like Bellasis, summed
up in the phrase, “Give ’em Hell!” and that of Christy who believed in
human brotherhood. This job, offered by Bellasis, would kill the
friendship of men like Christy, Lawless, Bernard Hall. They would put
him with the Junker class, and turn their backs on him.
Not that that would matter, if he did the right thing. But this was the
wrong thing. It would be a surrender to stupidity. It would be the sale
of his intelligence for the sake of position, and peace with Joyce—a
sin against the Light. Peace with Joyce? Joyce’s love and favour? It
would be worth while to surrender a good deal for that—everything in
the world, but a man’s honour to himself.
These people, Bellasis, and Alban, and Kenneth Murless, and all their
kind, extremists in reaction, were asking him to betray his sympathy
with the men who had been his comrades in the lousy trenches. To go
right over to the Bellasis side—one day to give an order to shoot,
perhaps—would be to break faith with Bill Huggett and all poor devils
like him.
He saw Huggett now as a Type, the Cockney soldier back to civil life,
back to his slums, trying to keep his “kids,” uncertain of work from one
week to another, begging “bobs” from passers-by when there was no work.
It was to bring such men to heel that the Bellasis band were organising
their forces, recruiting University boys, and unemployed officers—the
way to conflict! What had old Christy said? “Loyalty to lies is
disloyalty to truth.”
So in that second or two, these thoughts rushed into Bertram’s head, and
he made his decision.
“No, General. Thanks very much.”
General Bellasis rose from his chair, and flung the end of his cigar
into the fire.
“Let’s join the ladies,” he said sternly, as though dismissing a
battalion on parade.
Lord Ottery awakened from his dose.
“Yes, a game of bridge, eh?”
Kenneth Murless opened the door, and waited until the General and Ottery
had left the room, and then Alban looking black-tempered. For a moment
Kenneth lingered, glancing at Bertram, who was standing by the
chimney-piece, staring into the redness of the log-fire.
“Speaking as an Egoist,” he remarked in a genial way, “I’m distressed by
your violation of self-interest, Bertram, but uplifted by your
idealistic faith.”
“Much obliged for your favourable opinion!” said Bertram, kicking a
burning log.
Murless smiled, and followed the others to the drawing-room.
Alone in the great dining-room of Holme Ottery—up for sale—Bertram
used his old catch-word.
“It’s all very difficult!”
His face was lit by the warm glow of the fire as he stirred the embers
with his boot, and there was a look of pain in his eyes when he raised
his head and glanced at the portrait of Joyce Bellairs whom Steele had
loved. He spoke her name, but it was of his wife he was thinking.
“My poor Joyce!” he said.