“For that mercy,” said Gorman, “you may thank with brief thanksgiving
whatever gods there be.” We were discussing, for perhaps the twentieth
time, the case of poor Ascher. Gorman had reminded me, as he often
does, that I am incapable of understanding Ascher or entering into his
feelings, because I am a man of no country and therefore know nothing
of the emotion of patriotism. This seems a curious thing to say to a
man who has just had his leg mangled in a battle; but I think Gorman is
quite right about his fact I went out to the fight, when the fight came
on, but only because I could not avoid going. I never supposed that I
was fighting for my country. But Gorman is wrong in his inference. I
have no country, but I believe I can understand Ascher quite as well as
Gorman does. Nor am I sure that I ought to be thankful for my immunity
from the fever of patriotism. Ascher suffered severely because at a
critical moment in his life a feeling of loyalty to his native land
gripped him hard. I have also suffered, a rending of the body at
least comparable to Ascher’s rending of the soul. But I have not the
consolation of feeling that I am a hero.
I have often told Gorman that if he were as thorough-going as he
pretends to be he would call himself O’Gorabhain or at the very least,
O’Gorman. He is an Irishman by birth, sympathy and conviction. He is a
Member of Parliament, pledged to support the cause of Ireland, and this
in spite of the fact that he has brains. He might have been a brilliant,
perhaps even a successful and popular novelist. He wrote two
stories which critics acclaimed, which are still remembered and even
occasionally read. He might have risen to affluence as a dramatist. He
was the author of one single-act play which made the fortune of a very
charming actress ten years ago. He has made a name for himself as a
journalist, and his articles are the chief glory of a leading weekly
paper. But the business to which he has really devoted himself is that
of an Irish patriot. He says amazingly foolish things in public and,
in private, is always quite ready to laugh at his own speeches. He is
a genuine lover of Ireland, an inheritor of that curious tradition of
Irish patriotism which has survived centuries of disappointed hopes,
and, a much stranger thing, has never been quite asphyxiated by its own
gases.
I happen to belong to that unfortunate class of Irishmen whom neither
Gorman nor any one else will recognise as being Irish at all. I owned,
at one time, a small estate in Co. Cork. I sold it to my tenants
and became a man of moderate income, encumbered with a baronetcy
of respectable antiquity and occupied chiefly in finding profitable
investments for my capital. By way of recreation I interest myself in my
neighbours and acquaintances, in the actual men and women rather than
in their affairs. No definition of the Irish people has yet been
framed which would include me, though I am indubitably a person--I take
“person” to be the singular of people which is a noun of multitude--and
come of a family which held on to an Irish property for 300 years. My
religion consists chiefly of a dislike of the Roman Catholic Church and
an instinctive distrust of the priests of all churches. My father was
an active Unionist, and I have no political opinions of any sort. I am
therefore cut off, both by religion and politics, from any chance of
taking part in Irish affairs. On the other hand I cannot manage to
feel myself an Englishman. Even now, though I have fought in their army
without incurring the reproach of cowardice, I cannot get out of the
habit of looking at Englishmen from a distance. This convinces me that I
am not one of them.
I am thus--Gorman is quite right about this--a man of no country. But I
understand Ascher as well as Gorman does; though I take a different view
of Ascher’s ultimate decision.
I met Gorman first on board a Cunard steamer in the autumn of 1913.
I was on my way to Canada. My excuse, the reason I gave to myself for
the journey, was the necessity of looking into the affairs of certain
Canadian companies in which I had invested money. There were rumours
current in England at that time which led me to suspect that the boom in
Canadian securities had reached its height and was about to subside. I
did not really believe that I was likely to find out anything of
value by stopping in an hotel at Montreal or travelling in a train
to Vancouver. But I was tired of London and thought the trip might be
pleasant. I went to Canada by way of New York, partly because the big
Cunarders are comfortable steamers, partly because I find New York an
agreeable city. I have several friends there and I like the life of the
place--for a fortnight at a time. I do not know whether I should like it
for a longer time because I have never had money enough to live in New
York for more than a fortnight. As a regular place of residence it might
be too stimulating for me; but I shall probably never know how I should
feel about it at the end of six weeks.
It was Gorman who took the initiative on board the steamer. I do not
think that I should ever have made his acquaintance if he had not
forced himself on me. He accosted me, introduced himself, carried the
acquaintance through to an intimacy by sheer force of personality, and
ended by inducing me to like him. He began his attack on me during that
very uncomfortable time just before the ship actually starts. It is
never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea
until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the
passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. Mail bags, so
I understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks,
swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry,
with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other
at the windows of the purser’s office, under pretence of expecting
letters or despatching telegrams. Women passengers eye other women
passengers with suspicion and distrust. It is very interesting to notice
how people who scowl at each other on the first day of a voyage exchange
cards and promise to pay each other visits after six days as fellow
travellers. At the end of another six days--such is the usual
unfortunate experience--the cards are lost and the promises forgotten.
A poet and, following him, a novelist have compared human intercourse to
the “speaking” of ships that pass in the night. They would have found a
more forcible, though perhaps less poetic, illustration of their idea
in the friendships formed by passengers in the same steamer. They are
intimate, but they are as a rule utterly transitory. However I have no
right to complain. The friendship which Gorman forced on me has lasted
eighteen months and shows no sign yet of wearing thin.
He caught me in the smoking room. I had settled down quietly in a
comfortable chair, and was wondering, as I always do in that smoking
room, at the grain of the wood in the panel above the fireplace. There
was no one else in the room except a steward who hovered near the door
which leads to the bar. Experience has taught me that the smoking room,
the most populous part of the ship during the voyage, is generally empty
during the two hours before the start. I thought I should have the place
to myself. I was half way through my cigar and had failed to decide
whether the panel is a fake or a natural curiosity when Gorman entered.
He is a big man and fat. He is clean shaved and has bushy grey eyebrows.
Heavy rolls of skin hang down from his jaws. He wears an unusually large
gold signet ring. His appearance is not attractive. He sat down beside
me and addressed me at once.
“Sir James Digby?” he said.
That is my name. I admitted it by nodding.
“I was glancing over the passenger list,” he said, “and saw you were on
board. The purser told me you were up here somewhere. My name’s Gorman,
Michael Gorman.”
The name gave me no information beyond the fact that the speaker was an
Irishman. There must be several thousand Gormans in Ireland and I could
not remember that I was acquainted with any one of them. I nodded again.
“I don’t suppose you remember me,” said Gorman, “but you used to see me
pretty frequently once, about twenty-five years ago. My father kept the
only shop in Curraghbeg, and you used to come in and buy sweets, a penny
worth at a time. You were a small boy then. I was a bit older, fifteen
or sixteen perhaps.”
Curraghbeg is a miserable village standing in the middle of the tract
of land which used to be my property. It is close to Curraghbeg House,
where my father kept up such state as befitted an Irish gentleman of his
day. I believe I was born there. If I thought of any place in the world
as home I suppose it would be Curraghbeg; but I have no feeling for
the place except a mild dislike. The House is now a nunnery, in better
repair, but almost certainly more gauntly hideous than when I owned
it. The village, I expect, is still as sordid as when I saw it last. I
remembered Gorman’s shop, a dirty little public house, where sacks of
flour, tea and sugar candy were sold, as well as whisky and emigration
tickets. I also remembered my father’s opinion of Gorman, old Dan
Gorman, the father of the man beside me. He was “one of the worst
blackguards in the county, mixed up with every kind of League and
devilment.” Those were the days when the land agitation was at its
height and Irish gentlemen--they were fighting for their existence as a
class--felt rather strongly about the leaders of the people.
Of any younger Gorman I had no recollection whatever. Nor did I at that
moment, or for some time afterwards, connect the son of the ruffianly
old publican with the journalist and politician of whom I had heard a
good deal.
“Funny thing,” he said, “running into you like this. Let’s have a drink
of some sort.”
He snapped his fingers to attract the attention of the steward.
I am not, I fear, thoroughly modernised. Though I like American social
life I have never been able to accept the theory of the wickedness
of class distinctions. As a political system democracy seems to me
extraordinarily foolish, but I would not go out of my way to protest
against it. My servant is, so far as I am concerned, welcome to as many
votes as he can get. I would very gladly make mine over to him if I
could. I do not suppose that it matters much in reality whether laws
are made by dukes or cornerboys, but I like, as far as possible, to
associate with gentlemen in private life. I was not prepared to sit
drinking with the son of old Dan Gorman if I could help it.
I intended to say so, as politely as such a thing can be said. The man’s
face made me pause. He was looking at me with a curious smile, half
innocent, half whimsical. His eyes expressed friendliness of a perfectly
simple, unaffected kind. I realised that he was not a snob, that he was
not trying to push himself on me for the sake of my position and title,
the position of a disinherited Irish landlord and a title which, for all
any one could tell by hearing it, might be the reward of a successful
provincial doctor. I realised also, with an uncomfortable shiver, that
he understood my feeling and was slightly amused at it. It struck me
suddenly that I, and not Gorman, was the snob.
The steward stood at his elbow.
“Whisky and soda?” said Gorman. “We are still in English waters. Or
shall I say cocktails, as we’re on our way to America?”
I am a temperate man and have made it a rule not to drink before
luncheon. But I was so much ashamed of my first feeling about
Gorman that I thought it well to break my rule. I should, under the
circumstances, have considered myself justified in breaking a temperance
pledge, on the principle, once explained to me by an archdeacon, that
charity is above rubrics. I gave my vote for whisky and soda as the
more thorough-going drink of the two. A cocktail is seldom more than a
mouthful. Gorman gave the order.
“Don’t you think,” he said, “that it would be rather a good plan for us
to sit together at meals? I’ll make arrangements with the steward and
have a table reserved for us in the upper saloon. I can manage it all
right. I often cross on this boat and everybody knows me.”
Again he looked at me and again smiled in his fascinating childlike way.
“I’m A-1 at ordering meals,” he said, “and it really does make a
difference on these ships if you know how to get the best that’s going.”
That was the one attempt he made to justify himself in forcing his
company on me. But it was not the hope of better dinners, though I like
good dinners, which led me to agree to his proposal. I was captivated by
his smile. Besides, I had not, so far as I knew, a single acquaintance
among the passengers. I should be better off with Gorman as messmate
than set down beside some chance stranger who might smile in a
disagreeable way, or perhaps not smile at all.
“Very well,” I said. “You arrange it.”
“It would be pleasant,” he said, “if we could get hold of a couple of
other interesting people, and make four at our table.”
I do not deny that Gorman is an interesting person, but I did not see
what right he had to put me in that select class. I could only hope
that the other interesting people would regard me as he did. He pulled a
passenger list out of his pocket and turned over the pages.
“What about the Aschers?” he said.
He handed the list to me. There was a pencil mark opposite the name of
Mr. Carl Ascher. Immediately below it was “Mrs. Ascher and maid.”
“I don’t know him,” I said. “Who is he? Has he done anything
particular?”
“Heavens above!” said Gorman. “Who is Ascher! But perhaps you don’t
recognise him apart from the rest of the firm. Ever heard of Ascher,
Stutz & Co.?”
I recognised the name then. Ascher is a banker, one of those
international financiers who manage, chiefly from London offices, a
complicated kind of business which no ordinary man understands anything
about, a kind of foreign business which for some reason very few
Englishmen undertake.
“If the man’s a millionaire,” I said, “he won’t care to dine with
us--and he’s probably a Jew--not that I’ve any particular prejudice
against Jews.”
“He’s not a Jew,” said Gorman. “He’s an Englishman. At least he’s as
English as any man with a name like that can be. I expect he’ll jump at
the chance of feeding with us. We’re the only people on board the least
likely to interest him.”
I admire Gorman’s splendid self-confidence, but I do not share it. I
shrank from seeking the friendship of a millionaire.
“He has his wife with him,” I said. “Perhaps she----”
I meant to suggest that Mrs. Ascher might not care to be thrown with
a couple of stray men of whom she knew nothing. Gorman thought I meant
something quite different.
“She’s an American,” he said, “or was before she married Ascher. I hear
she goes in for music and pictures and literature and all that sort of
thing, which may be boring. But I daresay we shan’t see very much of
her. She’ll probably be seasick the whole time.”
I have often wondered where Gorman gets all his astonishingly accurate
information about people whom he does not know. He was very nearly right
about Mrs. Ascher. She was seasick for four out of the six days of our
voyage.
“Anyhow,” he went on, “we must put up with her if we want to get hold
of the husband. And I should like to do that. I’ve never had a chance
before of being intimate with one of the big bugs of finance. I want to
know what it is that those fellows really do.”
When Gorman put it to me that way I withdrew all my objections to his
plan. I very much want to know “what those fellows really do.” I am
filled with curiosity and I want to know what every kind of fellow
really does. I want to have a long talk with a Parisian dressmaker,
one of the men who settles what shape women are to be for the next six
months. I want to get at the mind of a railway manager. I want to know
how a detective goes about the job of catching criminals. Of course I
want to understand international banking.
“Besides,” said Gorman, “a millionaire is a very useful kind of man to
know.”
Millionaires are useful acquaintances because there is always a chance
of getting money from them.
“Don’t count on me as a bridge player,” I said. “I’m no good at the game
and never play for high points. You wouldn’t win anything worth while
with me as one of the party.”
“I wasn’t thinking of bridge,” said Gorman.
He was not. He was thinking, I fancy, of his brother. But we did not get
to Gorman’s brother for more than a week.
Having got my consent, Gorman went off to “set” Ascher. I use the word
“set” deliberately, for Gorman, when bent on getting anything done,
reminds me of a well-trained sporting dog. He ranges, quarters the
ground in front of him and finally--well, he set me as if I had been a
grouse. He set Ascher, I have no doubt, in the same way.
I did not think it likely that he would secure the Aschers. Millionaires
are usually shy birds, well accustomed to being pursued by all sorts
of ordinary men. They develop, I suppose, a special cunning in avoiding
capture, a cunning which the rest of us never achieve. However Ascher’s
cunning was no use to him in this case. Gorman is an exceedingly clever
dog.
The trumpet, bugle, cornet, or whatever the instrument is which
announces meals at sea, was blaring out its luncheon tune when Gorman
returned to me. He was in high triumph. He had captured the Aschers,
reserved the nicest table in the upper saloon and secured the
exclusive service of the best table steward in the ship. I think he had
interviewed the head cook. I began to appreciate Gorman’s qualities as a
travelling companion. His handling of the servants of the Cunard Company
during the voyage was masterly. I never was so well looked after before,
though I always make it a practice to tip generously.
Gorman proposed that we should have another whisky and soda before going
down to luncheon. He is a genial soul. No churl would want to drink two
glasses of whisky in the early part of one day. When I refused he looked
disappointed.
On the way down to luncheon he asked the lift boy how his mother had got
over her operation. It would never have occurred to me that the lift
boy had a mother. If I had thought the matter out carefully I might have
reached the conclusion that there must be or at one time have been a
mother for every lift boy in the world. But Gorman did not reason. He
simply knew, and knew too that this particular lift boy’s mother had
been in a Liverpool hospital, a fact which no method of reasoning known
to me would have enabled him to arrive.
The lift boy loved Gorman. His grins of delight showed that. Our table
steward, a very competent young man, adored him. The head cook--I
judged by the meals we had sent up to us--had a very strong personal
affection for Gorman. I do not wonder. I am myself fond of Gorman now.
So is Ascher. Mrs. Ascher goes further still. She respects and admires
Gorman. But Mrs. Ascher is a peculiar woman. She respects people whom
the rest of us only like.