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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11163-0.txt b/11163-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de5ed36 --- /dev/null +++ b/11163-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7710 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11163 *** + + POTTERISM + + A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT + + BY ROSE MACAULAY + + Author of 'What Not,' etc. + + 1920 + + + + +TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED, +INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION + + +'They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly.'--J. CLARKE. + + +'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.... Don't _think_ foolishly.' +SAMUEL JOHNSON. + + +'On the whole we are +Not intelligent-- +No, no, no, not intelligent.'--W.S. GILBERT. + + +'Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by +day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or Carbuncle, that +sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth ever adde +Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's +mindes Vaine Opinions, Blattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations +as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of +Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition and +unpleasing to themselves?'--FRANCIS BACON. + + +'What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, convention, +self-interest.... We see the narrow world our windows show us not in +itself, but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences ... for +the universe of the natural man is strictly egocentric.... Unless we +happen to be artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing seen" +in its purity; never from birth to death, look at it with disinterested +eyes.... It is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of things +for their own sakes ... which is the condition of all real knowledge.... +When ... the verb "to have" is ejected from the centre of your +consciousness ... your attitude to life will cease to be commercial and +become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting +the incoming impressions, will no longer ask, "What use is this to +_me?_"... You see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not +for your own.'--EVELYN UNDERHILL. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I.--TOLD BY R.M. + + I. POTTERS + II. ANTI-POTTERS + III. OPPORTUNITY + IV. JANE AND CLARE + +PART II.--TOLD BY GIDEON + + I. SPINNING + II. DINING WITH THE HOBARTS + III. SEEING JANE + +PART III.--TOLD BY LELIA YORKE + + I. THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS + II. AN AWFUL SUSPICION + +PART IV.--TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK + +A BRANCH OF STUDY + +PART V.--TOLD BY JUKE + +GIVING ADVICE + +PART VI.--TOLD BY R.M. + + I. THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA + II. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED + III. THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD + IV. RUNNING AWAY + V. A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS + + + + +PART I: + +TOLD BY R.M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +POTTERS + + +1 + +Johnny and Jane Potter, being twins, went through Oxford together. Johnny +came up from Rugby and Jane from Roedean. Johnny was at Balliol and Jane +at Somerville. Both, having ambitions for literary careers, took the +Honours School of English Language and Literature. They were ordinary +enough young people; clever without being brilliant, nice-looking without +being handsome, active without being athletic, keen without being +earnest, popular without being leaders, open-handed without being +generous, as revolutionary, as selfish, and as intellectually snobbish as +was proper to their years, and inclined to be jealous one of the other, +but linked together by common tastes and by a deep and bitter distaste +for their father's newspapers, which were many, and for their mother's +novels, which were more. These were, indeed, not fit for perusal at +Somerville and Balliol. The danger had been that Somerville and Balliol, +till they knew you well, should not know you knew it. + +In their first year, the mother of Johnny and Jane ('Leila Yorke,' with +'Mrs. Potter' in brackets after it), had, after spending Eights Week at +Oxford, announced her intention of writing an Oxford novel. Oh God, Jane +had cried within herself, not that; anything but that; and firmly she +and Johnny had told her mother that already there were _Keddy_, and +_Sinister Street_, and _The Pearl_, and _The Girls of St. Ursula's_ (by +Annie S. Swan: 'After the races were over, the girls sculled their +college barge briskly down the river,'), and that, in short, the thing +had been done for good and all, and that was that. + +Mrs. Potter still thought she would like to write an Oxford novel. +Because, after all, though there might be many already, none of them were +quite like the one she would write. She had tea with Jane in the +Somerville garden on Sunday, and though Jane did not ask any of her +friends to meet her (for they might have got put in) she saw them all +about, and thought what a nice novel they would make. Jane knew she was +thinking this, and said, 'They're very commonplace people,' in a +discouraging tone. 'Some of them,' Jane added, deserting her own +snobbishness, which was intellectual, for her mother's, which was social, +'are also common.' + +'There must be very many,' said Mrs. Potter, looking through her +lorgnette at the garden of girls, 'who are neither.' + +'Fewer,' said Jane, stubbornly, 'than you would think. Most people are +one or the other, I find. Many are both.' + +'Try not to be cynical, my pet,' said Leila Yorke, who was never this. + + +2 + +That was in June, 1912. In June, 1914, Jane and Johnny went down. + +Their University careers had been creditable, if not particularly +conspicuous. Johnny had been a fluent speaker at the Union, Jane at the +women's intercollegiate Debating Society, and also in the Somerville +parliament, where she had been the leader of the Labour Party. Johnny had +for a time edited the _Isis_, Jane the _Fritillary_. Johnny had done +respectably in Schools, Jane rather better. For Jane had always been just +a shade the cleverer; not enough to spoil competition, but enough to give +Johnny rather harder work to achieve the same results. They had probably +both got firsts, but Jane's would be a safe thing, and Johnny would be +likely to have a longish _viva_. + +Anyhow, here they were, just returned to Potter's Bar, Herts (where Mr. +Percy Potter, liking the name of the village, had lately built a lordly +mansion). Excellent friends they were, but as jealous as two little dogs, +each for ever on the look-out to see that the other got no undue +advantage. Both saw every reason why they should make a success of life. +But Jane knew that, though she might be one up on Johnny as regards +Oxford, owing to slightly superior brain power, he was one up on her as +regards Life, owing to that awful business sex. Women were handicapped; +they had to fight much harder to achieve equal results. People didn't +give them jobs in the same way. Young men possessed the earth; young +women had to wrest what they wanted out of it piecemeal. Johnny might end +a cabinet minister, a notorious journalist, a Labour leader, anything.... +Women's jobs were, as a rule, so dowdy and unimportant. Jane was bored to +death with this sex business; it wasn't fair. But Jane was determined to +live it down. She wouldn't be put off with second-rate jobs; she wouldn't +be dowdy and unimportant, like her mother and the other fools; she would +have the best that was going. + + +3 + +The family dined. At one end of the table was Mr. Potter; a small, +bird-like person, of no presence; you had not thought he was so great +a man as Potter of the Potter Press. For it was a great press; though +not so great as the Northcliffe Press, for it did not produce anything +so good as the _Times_ or so bad as the _Weekly Dispatch_; it was more +of a piece. + +Both commonplace and common was Mr. Percy Potter (according to some +standards), but clever, with immense patience, a saving sense of humour, +and that imaginative vision without which no newspaper owner, financier, +general, politician, poet, or criminal can be great. He was, in fact, +greater than the twins would ever be, because he was not at odds with his +material: he found such stuff as his dreams were made of ready to his +hand, in the great heart of the public--the last place where the twins +would have thought of looking. + +So did his wife. She was pink-faced and not ill-looking, with the cold +blue eyes and rather set mouth possessed (inexplicably) by many writers +of fiction. If I have conveyed the impression that Leila Yorke was in +the lowest division of this class, I have done her less than justice; +quite a number of novelists were worse. This was not much satisfaction +to her children. Jane said, 'If you do that sort of thing at all, you +might as well make a job of it, and sell a million copies. I'd rather +be Mrs. Barclay or Ethel Dell or Charles Garvice or Gene Stratton +Porter or Ruby Ayres than mother. Mother's merely commonplace; she's +not even a by-word--quite. I admire dad more. Dad anyhow gets there. +His stuff sells.' + +Mrs. Potter's novels, as a matter of fact, sold quite creditably. They +were pleasant to many, readable by more, and quite unmarred by any +spark of cleverness, flash of wit, or morbid taint of philosophy. +Gently and unsurprisingly she wrote of life and love as she believed +these two things to be, and found a home in the hearts of many +fellow-believers. She bored no one who read her, because she could be +relied on to give them what they hoped to find--and of how few of us, +alas, can this be said! And--she used to say it was because she was a +mother--her books were safe for the youngest _jeune fille_, and in +these days (even in those days it was so) of loose morality and frank +realism, how important this is. + +'I hope I am as modern as any one,' Mrs. Potter would say, 'but I see no +call to be indecent.' + +So many writers do see, or rather hear, this call, and obey it +faithfully, that many a parent was grateful to Leila Yorke. (It is only +fair to record here that in the year 1918 she heard it herself, and +became a psychoanalyst. But the time for this was not yet.) + +On her right sat her eldest son, Frank, who was a curate in Pimlico. In +Frank's face, which was sharp and thin, like his father's, were the +marks of some conflict which his father's did not know. You somehow felt +that each of the other Potters had one aim, and that Frank had, or, +anyhow, felt that he ought to have, another besides, however feebly he +aimed at it. + +Next him sat his young wife, who had, again, only the one. She was pretty +and jolly and brunette, and twisted Frank round her fingers. + +Beyond her sat Clare, the eldest daughter, and the daughter at home. She +read her mother's novels, and her father's papers, and saw no harm in +either. She thought the twins perverse and conceited, which came from +being clever at school and college. Clare had never been clever at +anything but domestic jobs and needlework. She was a nice, pretty girl, +and expected to marry. She snubbed Jane, and Jane, in her irritating and +nonchalant way, was rude to her. + +On the other side of the table sat the twins, stocky and square-built, +and looking very young, with broad jaws and foreheads and wide-set gray +eyes. Jane was, to look at, something like an attractive little plump +white pig. It is not necessary, at the moment, to say more about her +appearance than this, except that, when the time came to bob the hair, +she bobbed it. + +Johnny was as sturdy but rather less chubby, and his chin stuck out +farther. They had the same kind of smile, and square white teeth, and +were greedy. When they had been little, they had watched each other's +plates with hostile eyes, to see that neither got too large a helping. + + +4 + +Those of us who are old enough will remember that in June and July 1914 +the conversation turned largely and tediously on militant suffragists, +Irish rebels, and strikers. It was the beginning of the age of violent +enforcements of decision by physical action which has lasted ever since +and shows as yet no signs of passing. The Potter press, like so many +other presses, snubbed the militant suffragists, smiled half approvingly +on Carson's rebels, and frowned wholly disapprovingly on the strikers. It +was a curious age, so near and yet so far, when the ordered frame of +things was still unbroken, and violence a child's dream, and poetry and +art were taken with immense seriousness. Those of us who can remember it +should do so, for it will not return. It has given place to the age of +melodrama, when nothing is too strange to happen, and no one is ever +surprised. That, too, may pass, but probably will not, for it is +primeval. The other was artificial, a mere product of civilisation, and +could not last. + +It was in the intervals of talking about the militants (a conversation +much like other conversations on the same topic, which were tedious even +at the time, and now will certainly not bear recording) that Mrs. Frank +said to the twins, 'What are you two going to play at now?' + +So extensive a question, opening such vistas. It would have taken, if not +less time, anyhow less trouble, to have told Mrs. Frank what they were +_not_ going to play at. + +The devil of mischief looked out of Johnny's gray eyes, as he nearly +said, 'We are going to fight Leila Yorke fiction and the Potter press.' + +Choking it back, he said, succinctly, 'Publishing, journalism, and +writing. At least, I am.' + +'He means,' Mr. Potter interpolated, in his small, nasal voice, 'that +he has obtained a small and subordinate job with a firm of publishers, +and hopes also to contribute to an obscure weekly paper run by a +friend of his.' + +'Oh,' said Mrs. Frank. 'Not one of _your_ papers, pater? Can't be, if +it's obscure, can it?' + +'No, not one of my papers. A periodical called, I believe, the _Weekly +Comment_, with which you may or may not be familiar.' + +'Never heard of it, I'm afraid,' Mrs. Frank confessed, truly. 'Why don't +you go on to one of the family concerns, Johnny? You'd get on much +quicker there, with pater to shove you.' + +'Probably,' Johnny agreed. + +'My papers,' said Mr. Potter dryly, 'are not quite up to Johnny's +intellectual level. Nor Jane's. Neither do they accord with their +political sympathies.' + +'Oh, I forgot you two were silly old Socialists. Never mind, that'll pass +when they grow up, won't it, Frank?' + +Secretly, Mrs. Frank thought that the twins had the disease because the +Potter family, however respectable now, wasn't really 'top-drawer.' + +Funny old pater had, every one knew, begun his career as a reporter on a +provincial paper. If funny old pater had been just a shade less clever or +enterprising, his family would have been educated at grammar schools and +gone into business in their teens. Of course, Mrs. Potter had pulled the +social level up a bit; but what, if you came to that, had Mrs. Potter +been? Only the daughter of a country doctor; only the underpaid secretary +of a lady novelist, for all she was so conceited now. + +So naturally Socialism, that disease of the underbred, had taken hold of +the less careful of the Potter young. + +'And are you going to write for this weekly what-d'you-call-it too, +Jane?' Mrs. Frank inquired. + +'No. I've not got a job yet. I'm going to look round a little first.' + +'Oh, that's sense. Have a good time at home for a bit. Well, it's time +you had a holiday, isn't it? I wish old Frank could. He's working like an +old horse. He may slave himself to death for those Pimlico pigs, for all +any of them care. It's never "thank you"; it's always "more, more, more," +with them. That's your Socialism, Johnny.' + +The twins got on very well with their sister-in-law, but thought her a +fool. When, as she was fond of doing, she mentioned Socialism, they, +rightly believing her grasp of that economic system to be even less +complete than that of most people, always changed the subject. + +But on this occasion they did not have time to change it before Clare +said, 'Mother's writing a novel about Socialism. She shows it up like +anything.' + +Mrs. Potter smiled. + +'I confess I am trying my hand at the burning subject. But as for +showing it up--well, I am being fair to both sides, I think. I don't +feel I can quite condemn it wholesale, as Peggy does. I find it very +difficult to treat anything like that--I can't help seeing all round a +thing. I'm told it's a weakness, and that I should get on better if I +saw everything in black and white, as so many people do, but it's no use +my trying to alter, at my time of life. One has to write in one's own +way or not at all.' + +'Anyhow,' said Clare, 'it's going to be a ripping book, _Socialist +Cecily_; quite one of your best, mother.' + +Clare had always been her mother's great stand-by in the matter of +literature. She was also useful as a touchstone, as what her mother did +not call a foolometer. If a book went with Clare, it went with Leila +Yorke's public beyond. Mr. Potter was a less satisfactory reader; he +regarded his wife's books as goods for sale, and his comments were, 'That +should go all right. That's done it,' which attitude, though commercially +helpful, was less really satisfying to the creator than Clare's +uncritical absorption in the characters and the story. Clare was, in +fact, the public, while Mr. Potter was more the salesman. + +And the twins were neither, but more like the less agreeable type of +reviewer, when they deigned to read or comment on their mother's books at +all, which was not always. Johnny's attitude towards his mother suggested +that he might say politely, if she mentioned her books, 'Oh, do you +write? Why?' Mrs. Potter was rather sadly aware that she made no appeal +to the twins. But then, as Clare reminded her, the twins, since they had +gone to Oxford, never admitted that they cared for any books that normal +people cared for. They were like that; conceited and contrary. + +To change the subject (so many subjects are the better for being changed, +as all those who know family life will agree) Jane said, 'Johnny and I +are going on a reading-party next month.' + +'A little late in the day, isn't it?' commented Frank, the only one who +knew Oxford habits. 'Unless it's to look up all the howlers you've made.' + +'Well,' Jane admitted, 'it won't be so much reading really as observing. +It's a party of investigation, as a matter of fact.' + +'What do you investigate? Beetles, or social conditions?' + +'People. Their tastes, habits, outlook, and mental diseases. What they +want, and why they want it, and what the cure is. We belong to a society +for inquiring into such things.' + +'You would,' said Clare, who always rose when the twins meant her to. + +'Aren't they cautions,' said Mrs. Frank, more good-humouredly. + +Mrs. Potter said, 'That's a very interesting idea. I think I must join +this society. It would help me in my work. What is it called, children?' + +'Oh,' said Jane, and had the grace to look ashamed, 'it really hardly +exists yet.' + +But as she said it she met the sharp and shrewd eyes of Mr. Potter, and +knew that he knew she was referring to the Anti-Potter League. + + +5 + +Mr. Potter would not, indeed, have been worthy of his reputation had he +not been aware, from its inception, of the existence of this League. +Journalists have to be aware of such things. He in no way resented the +League; he brushed it aside as of no account. And, indeed, it was not +aimed at him personally, nor at his wife personally, but at the great +mass of thought--or of incoherent, muddled emotion that passed for +thought--which the Anti-Potters had agreed, for brevity's sake, to call +'Potterism.' Potterism had very certainly not been created by the +Potters, and was indeed no better represented by the goods with which +they supplied the market than by those of many others; but it was a handy +name, and it had taken the public fancy that here you had two Potters +linked together, two souls nobly yoked, one supplying Potterism in +fictional, the other in newspaper, form. So the name caught, about the +year 1912. + +The twins both heard it used at Oxford, in their second year. They +recognised its meaning without being told. And both felt that it was up +to them to take the opportunity of testifying, of severing any connection +that might yet exist in any one's mind between them and the other +products of their parents. They did so, with the uncompromising decision +proper to their years, and with, perhaps, the touch of indecency, +regardlessness of the proprieties, which was characteristic of them. +Their friends soon discovered that they need not guard their tongues in +speaking of Potterism before the Potter twins. The way the twins put it +was, 'Our family is responsible for more than its share of the beastly +thing; the least we can do is to help to do it in,' which sounded +chivalrous. And another way they put it was, 'We're not going to have any +one connecting _us_ with it,' which sounded sensible. + +So they joined the Anti-Potter League, not blind to the piquant humour of +their being found therein. + + +6 + +Mr. Potter said to the twins, in his thin little voice, 'Don't mind +mother and me, children. Tell us all about the A.P.L. It may do us good.' + +But the twins knew it would not do their mother good. It would need too +much explanation; and then she would still not understand. She might even +be very angry, as she was (though she pretended she was only amused) with +some reviewers.... If your mother is Leila Yorke, and has hard blue eyes +and no sense of humour, but a most enormous sense of importance, you +cannot, or you had better not, even begin to explain to her things like +Potterism, or the Anti-Potter League, and still less how it is that you +belong to the latter. + +The twins, who had got firsts in Schools, knew this much. + +Johnny improvised hastily, with innocent gray eyes on his father's, 'It's +one of the rules that you mayn't talk about it outside. Anti-Propaganda +League, it is, you see ... for letting other people alone....' + +'Well,' said Mr. Potter, who was not spiteful to his children, and +preferred his wife unruffled, 'we'll let you off this time. But you can +take my word for it, it's a silly business. Mother and I will last a +great deal longer than it does. Because we take our stand on human +nature, and you won't destroy that with Leagues.' + +Sometimes the twins were really almost afraid they wouldn't. + +'You're all very cryptic to-night,' Frank said, and yawned. + +Then Mrs. Potter and the girls left the dining-room, and Frank and his +father discussed the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a measure +which Frank thought would be a pity, but which was advocated by the +Potter press. + +Johnny cracked nuts in silence. He thought the Church insincere, a put-up +job, but that dissenters were worse. They should all be abolished, with +other shams. For a short time at Oxford he had given the Church a trial, +even felt real admiration for it, under the influence of his friend Juke, +and after hearing sermons from Father Waggett, Dr. Dearmer, and Canon +Adderley. But he had soon given it up, seen it wouldn't do; the +above-mentioned priests were not representative; the Church as a whole +canted, was hypocritical and Potterish, and must go. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ANTI-POTTERS + + +1 + +The quest of Potterism, its causes and its cure, took the party of +investigation first to the Cornish coast. Partly because of bathing and +boating, and partly because Gideon, the organiser of the party, wanted to +find out if there was much Potterism in Cornwall, or if Celticism had +withstood it. For Potterism, they had decided, was mainly an Anglo-Saxon +disease. Worst of all in America, that great home of commerce, success, +and the booming of the second-rate. Less discernible in the Latin +countries, which they hoped later on to explore, and hardly existing in +the Slavs. In Russia, said Gideon, who loathed Russians, because he was +half a Jew, it practically did not exist. The Russians were without shame +and without cant, saw things as they were, and proceeded to make them a +good deal worse. That was barbarity, imbecility, and devilishness, but it +was not Potterism, said Gideon grimly. Gideon's grandparents had been +massacred in an Odessa pogrom; his father had been taken at the age of +five to England by an aunt, become naturalised, taken the name of Sidney, +married an Englishwoman, and achieved success and wealth as a banker. His +son Arthur was one of the most brilliant men of his year at Oxford, +regarded Russians, Jews, and British with cynical dislike, and had, on +turning twenty-one, reverted to his family name in its English form, +finding it a Potterish act on his father's part to have become Sidney. +Few of his friends remembered to call him by his new name, and his +parents ignored it, but to wear it gave him a grim satisfaction. + +Such was Arthur Gideon, a lean-faced, black-eyed man, biting his nails +like Fagin when he got excited. + +The other man, besides Johnny Potter, was the Honourable Laurence Juke, a +Radical of moderately aristocratic lineage, a clever writer and actor, +who had just taken deacon's orders. Juke had a look at once languid and +amused, a well-shaped, smooth brown head, blunt features, the +introspective, wide-set eyes of the mystic, and the sweet, flexible voice +of the actor (his mother had, in fact, been a well-known actress of the +eighties). + +The two women were Jane Potter and Katherine Varick. Katherine Varick had +frosty blue eyes, a pale, square-jawed, slightly cynical face, a first in +Natural Science, and a chemical research fellowship. + +In those happy days it was easy to stay in places, even by the sea, and +they stayed first at the fishing village of Mevagissey. Gideon was the +only one who never forgot that they were to make observations and write a +book. He came of a more hard-working race than the others did. Often the +others merely fished, boated, bathed, and walked, and forgot the object +of their tour. But Gideon, though he too did these things, did them, so +to speak, notebook in hand. He was out to find and analyse Potterism, so +much of it as lay hid in the rocky Cornish coves and the grave Cornish +people. Katherine Varick was the only member of the party who knew that +he was also seeking and finding it in the hidden souls of his +fellow-seekers. + + +2 + +They would meet in the evening with the various contributions to the +subject which they had gathered during the day. The Urban District +Council, said Johnny, wanted to pull down the village street and build an +esplanade to attract visitors; all the villagers seemed pleased. That was +Potterism, the welcoming of ugliness and prosperity; the antithesis of +the artist's spirit, which loved beauty for what it was, and did not want +to exploit it. + +Their landlady, said Juke, on Sunday, had looked coldly on him when he +went out with his fishing rod in the morning. This would not have been +Potterism, but merely a respectable bigotry, had the lady had genuine +conscientious scruples as to this use of Sunday morning by the clergy, +but Juke had ascertained tactfully that she had no conscientious +scruples about anything at all. So it was merely propriety and cant, in +brief, Potterism. Later, he had landed at a village down the coast and +been to church. + +'That church,' he said, 'is the most unpleasant piece of Potterism I have +seen for some time. Perpendicular, but restored fifty years ago, +according to the taste of the period. Vile windows; painted deal pews; +incredible braying of bad chants out of tune; a sermon from a pie-faced +fellow about going to church. Why should they go to church? He didn't +tell them; he just said if they didn't, some being he called God would be +angry with them. What did he mean by God? I'm hanged if he'd ever +thought it out. Some being, apparently, like a sublimated Potterite, who +rejoices in bad singing, bad art, bad praying, and bad preaching, and +sits aloft to deal out rewards to those who practise these and +punishments to those who don't. The Potter God will save you if you +please him; that means he'll save your body from danger and not let you +starve. Potterism has no notion of a God who doesn't care a twopenny damn +whether you starve or not, but does care whether you're following the +truth as you see it. In fact, Potterism has no room for Christianity; it +prefers the God of the Old Testament. Of course, with their abominable +cheek, the Potterites have taken Christianity and watered it down to suit +themselves, till they've produced a form of Potterism which they call by +its name; but they wouldn't know the real thing if they saw it.... The +Pharisees were Potterites....' + +The others listened to Juke on religious Potterism tolerantly. None of +them (with the doubtful exception of Johnny, who had not entirely made up +his mind) believed in religion; they were quite prepared to agree that +most of its current forms were soaked in Potterism, but they could not be +expected to care, as Juke did. + +Gideon said he had heard a dreadful band on the beach, and heard a +dreadful fellow proclaiming the Precious Blood. That was Potterism, +because it was an appeal to sentiment over the head, or under the head, +of reason. Neither the speaker nor any one else probably had the least +idea what he was talking about or what he meant. + +'He had the kind of face which is always turned away from facts,' Gideon +said. 'Facts are too difficult, too complicated for him. Hard, jolly +facts, with clear sharp edges that you can't slur and talk away. +Potterism has no use for them. It appeals over their heads to prejudice +and sentiment.... It's the very opposite to the scientific temper. No +good scientist could conceivably be a Potterite, because he's concerned +with truth, and the kind of truth, too, that it's difficult to arrive at. +Potterism is all for short and easy cuts and showy results. Science has +to work its way step by step, and then hasn't much to show for it. It +isn't greedy. Potterism plays a game of grab all the time--snatches at +success in a hurry.... It's greedy,' repeated Gideon, thinking it out, +watching Jane's firm little sun-browned hand with its short square +fingers rooting in the sand for shells. + +Jane had visited the stationer, who kept a circulating library, and seen +holiday visitors selecting books to read. They had nearly all chosen the +most Potterish they could see, and asked for some more Potterish still, +leaving Conrad and Hardy despised on the shelves. But these people were +not Cornish, but Saxon visitors. + +And Katherine had seen the local paper, but it had been much less +Potterish than most of the London papers, which confirmed them in their +theory about Celts. + +Thus they talked and discussed and played, and wrote their book in +patches, and travelled from place to place, and thought that they found +things out. And Gideon, because he was the cleverest, found out the most; +and Katherine, because she was the next cleverest, saw all that Gideon +found out; and Juke, because he was religious, was for ever getting on to +Potterism its cure, before they had analysed the disease; and the twins +enjoyed life in their usual serene way, and found it very entertaining to +be Potters inquiring into Potterism. The others were scrupulously fair +in not attributing to them, because they happened to be Potters by birth, +more Potterism than they actually possessed. A certain amount, said Juke, +is part of the make-up of very nearly every human being; it has to be +fought down, like the notorious ape and tiger. But he thought that Gideon +and Katherine Varick had less of it than any one else he knew; the +mediocre was repellent to them; cant and sentiment made them sick; they +made a fetish of hard truth, and so much despised most of their +neighbours that they would not experience the temptation to grab at +popularity. In fact, they would dislike it if it came. + + +3 + +_Socialist Cecily_ came out while they were at Lyme Regis. Mrs. Potter +sent the twins a copy. In their detached way, the twins read it, and gave +it to the others to look at. + +'Very typical stuff,' Gideon summed it up, after a glance. 'It will no +doubt have an excellent sale.... It must be interesting for you to watch +it being turned out. I wish you would ask me to stay with you some time. +Yours must be an even more instructive household than mine.' + +Gideon was a Russian Jew on his father's side, and a Harrovian. He had no +decency and no manners. He made Juke, who was an Englishman and an +Etonian, and had more of both, uncomfortable sometimes. For, after all, +the rudiments of family loyalty might as well be kept, among the general +destruction which he, more sanguinely than Gideon, hoped for. + +But the twins did not bother. Jane said, in her equable way, 'You'll be +bored to death; angry, too; but come if you like.... We've a sister, more +Potterish than the parents. She'll hate you.' + +Gideon said, 'I expect so,' and they left his prospective visit at that, +with Jane chuckling quietly at her private vision of Gideon and Clare in +juxtaposition. + + +4 + +But _Socialist Cecily_ did not have a good sale after all. It was +guillotined, with many of its betters, by the European war, which began +while the Anti-Potters were at Swanage, a place replete with Potterism. +Potterism, however, as a subject for investigation, had by this time +given place to international diplomacy, that still more intriguing study. +The Anti-Potters abused every government concerned, and Gideon said, on +August 1st, 'We shall be fools if we don't come in.' + +Juke was still dubious. He was a good Radical, and good Radicals were +dubious on this point until the invasion of Belgium. + +'To throw back the world a hundred years....' + +Gideon shrugged his shoulders. He belonged to no political party, and had +the shrewd, far-seeing eyes of his father's race. + +'It's going to be thrown back anyhow. Germany will see to that. And if we +keep out of it, Germany will grab Europe. We've got to come in, if we can +get a decent pretext.' + +The decent pretext came in due course, and Gideon said, 'So that's that.' + +He added to the Potters, 'For once I am in agreement with your father's +press. We should be lunatics to stand out of this damnable mess.' + +Juke also was now, painful to him though it was to be so, in agreement +with the Potter press. To him the war had become a crusade, a fight for +decency against savagery. + +'It's that,' said Gideon. 'But that's not all. This isn't a show any +country can afford to stand out of. It's Germany against Europe, and if +Europe doesn't look sharp, Germany's going to win. _Germany._ Nearly as +bad as Russia.... One would have to emigrate to another hemisphere.... +No, we've got to win this racket.... But, oh, Lord, what a mess!' He fell +to biting his nails, savage and silent. + +Jane thought all the time, beneath her other thoughts about it, 'To have +a war, just when life was beginning and going to be such fun.' + +Beneath her public thoughts about the situation, she felt this deep +private disgust gnawing always, as of one defrauded. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +OPPORTUNITY + + +1 + +They did not know then about people in general going to the war. They +thought it was just for the army and navy, not for ordinary people. That +idea came a little later, after the Anti-Potter party had broken up and +gone home. + +The young men began to enlist and get commissions. It was done; it was +the correct idea. Johnny Potter, who belonged to an O.T.C., got a +commission early. + +Jane said within herself, 'Johnny can go and I can't.' She knew she was +badly, incredibly left. Johnny was in the movement, doing the thing that +mattered. Further, Johnny might ultimately be killed in doing it; her +Johnny. Everything else shrank and was little. What were books? What was +anything? Jane wanted to fight in the war. The war was damnable, but it +was worse to be out of it. One was such an utter outsider. It wasn't +fair. She could fight as well as Johnny could. Jane went about white and +sullen, with her world tumbling into bits about her. + +Mr. Potter said in the press, and Mrs. Potter in the home, 'The people of +England have a great opportunity before them. We must all try to rise to +it'--as if the people of England were fishes and the opportunity a fly. + +Opportunity, thought Jane. Where is it? I see none. It was precisely +opportunity which the war had put an end to. + +'The women of England must now prove that they are worthy of their men,' +said the Potter press. + +'I dare say,' thought Jane. Knitting socks and packing stores and +learning first aid. Who wanted to do things like that, when their +brothers had a chance to go and fight in France? Men wouldn't stand it, +if it was the other way round. Why should women always get the dull jobs? +It was because they bore them cheerfully; because they didn't really, for +the most part, mind, Jane decided, watching the attitude of her mother +and Clare. The twins, profoundly selfish, but loving adventure and +placidly untroubled by nerves or the prospect of physical danger, saw no +hardship in active service. (This was before the first winter and the +development of trench warfare, and people pictured to themselves +skirmishes in the open, exposed to missiles, but at least keeping warm). + + +2 + +Every one one knew was going. Johnny said to Jane, 'War is beastly, but +one's got to be in it.' He took that line, as so many others did. 'Juke's +going,' he said. 'As a combatant, I mean, not a padre. He thinks the war +could have been prevented with a little intelligence; so it could, I dare +say; but as there wasn't a little intelligence and it wasn't prevented, +he's going in. He says it will be useful experience for him--help him in +his profession; he doesn't believe in parsons standing outside things and +only doing soft jobs. I agree with him. Every one ought to go.' + +'Every one can't,' said Jane morosely. + +But to Johnny every one meant all young men, and he took no heed. + +Gideon went. It might, he said to Juke, be a capitalists' war or any one +else's; the important thing was not whose war it was but who was going +to win it. + +He added, 'Great Britain is, on this occasion, on the right side. +There's no manner of doubt about it. But even if she wasn't, it's +important for all her inhabitants that she should be on the winning +side.... Oh, she will be, no doubt, we've the advantage in numbers and +wealth, if not in military organisation or talent.... If only the +Potterites wouldn't jabber so. It's a unique opportunity for them, and +they're taking it. What makes me angriest is the reasons they vamp up +why we're fighting. For the sake of democracy, they say. Democracy be +hanged. It's a rotten system, anyhow, and how this war is going to do +anything for it I don't know. If I thought it was, I wouldn't join. But +there's no fear. And other people say we're fighting "so that our +children won't have to." Rot again. Every war makes other wars more +likely. Why can't people say simply that the reason why we're fighting +is partly to uphold decent international principles, and mainly to win +the war--to be a conquering nation, not a conquered one, and to save +ourselves from having an ill-conditioned people like the Germans +strutting all over us. It's a very laudable object, and needs no +camouflage. Sheer Potterism, all this cant and posturing. I'd rather +say, like the _Daily Mail_, that we're fighting to capture the Hun's +trade; that's a lie, but at least it isn't cant.' + +'Let them talk,' said Juke lazily. 'Let them jabber and cant. What does +it matter? We're in this thing up to the neck, and every one's got to +relieve themselves in their own way. As long as we get the job done +somehow, a little nonsense-talk more or less won't make much difference +to this mighty Empire, which has always indulged in plenty. It's the rash +coming out; good for the system.' + +So, each individual in his own way, the nation entered into the worst +period of time of which Europe has so far had experience, and on which I +do not propose to dwell in these pages except in its aspect of a source +of profit to those who sought profit; its more cheerful aspect, in fact. + + +3 + +Mrs. Potter put away the writing of fiction, as unsuitable in these +dark days. (It may be remembered that there was a period at the +beginning of the war when it was erroneously supposed that fiction +would not sell until peace returned). Mrs. Potter, like many other +writers, took up Y.M.C.A. canteen work, and went for a time to France. +There she wrote _Out There_, an account of the work of herself and her +colleagues in Rouen, full of the inimitable wit and indomitable courage +of soldiers, the untiring activities of canteen workers, and the +affectionate good-fellowship which existed between these two classes. +The world was thus shown that Leila Yorke was no mere _flâneuse_ of +letters, but an Englishwoman who rose to her country's call and was +worthy of her men-folk. + +Clare became a V.A.D., and went up to town every day to work at an +officers' hospital. It was a hospital maintained partly by Mr. Potter, +and she got on very well there. She made many pleasant friends, and hoped +to get out to France later. + +Frank tried for a chaplaincy. + +'It isn't a bit that he wants excitement, or change of air, or a free +trip to France, or to feel grand, like some of them do,' explained Mrs. +Frank. 'Only, what's the good of keeping a man like him slaving away in a +rotten parish like ours, when they want good men out there? I tell Frank +all he's got to do to get round the C.G. is to grow a moustache and learn +up the correct answers to a few questions--like "What would you do if you +had to attend a dying soldier?" Answer--"Offer to write home for him." A +lot of parsons don't know that, and go telling the C.G. they'd give him +communion, or hear his confession or something, and that knocks them out +first round. Frank knows better. There are no flies on old Frank. All the +same, pater, you might do a little private wire-pulling for him, if it +comes in handy.' + +But, unfortunately, owing to a recent though quite temporary coldness +between the Chaplain-General and the Potter press, Mr. Potter's +wire-pulling was ineffectual. The Chaplain-General did not entertain +Frank's offer favourably, and regretted that his appointment as chaplain +to His Majesty's forces was at present impracticable. So Frank went on in +Pimlico, and was cynical and bitter about those clergymen who succeeded +in passing the C.G.'s tests. + +'Why don't you join up as a combatant?' Johnny asked him, seeing his +discontent. 'Some parsons do.' + +'The bishops have forbidden it,' said Frank. + +'Oh, well, I suppose so. Does it matter particularly?' + +'My dear Johnny, there is discipline in the Church as well as in the +army, you know. You might as well ask would it matter if you were to +disobey _your_ superior officers.' + +'Well, you see, I'd have something happen to me if I did. Parsons don't. +You'd only be reprimanded, I suppose, and get into a berth all right when +you came back--if you did come back.' + +'That's got nothing to do with it. The Church would never hold together +if her officers were to break the rules whenever they felt like it. That +friend of yours, Juke, hasn't a leg to stand on; he's merely in revolt.' + +'Oh, old Juke always is, of course. Against every kind of authority, but +particularly against bishops. He's always got his knife into them, and I +dare say he's glad of the chance of flouting them. High Church parsons +are, aren't they? I expect if you were a bit higher you'd flout them too. +And if you were a bit lower, the C.G.'d take you as a padre. You're just +the wrong height, old thing, that's what's the matter.' + +Thus Johnny, now a stocky lieutenant on leave from France, diagnosed +his brother's case. Wrongly, because High Church parsons weren't +actually enlisting any more than any other kind; they did not, mostly, +believe it to be their business; quite sincerely and honestly they +thought it would be wrong for them, though right for laymen, to +undertake combatant service. + +Anyhow, as to height, Frank knew himself to be of a height acceptable in +benefices, and that was something. Besides, it was his own height. + +'Sorry I can't change to oblige you, old man,' he said. 'Or desert my +post and pretend to be a layman. I am a man under authority, like you. I +wish the powers that be would send me out there, but it's for them to +judge, and if they think I should be of less use as a padre than all the +Toms, Dicks, and Harrys they are sending, it's not for me to protest. +They may be right. I may be absolutely useless as a chaplain. On the +other hand, I may not. They apparently don't intend to give themselves a +chance of finding out. Very well. It's nothing to me, either way.' + +'Oh, that's all right then,' Johnny said. + + +4 + +No one could say that the Potter press did not rise to the great +opportunity. The press seldom fails to do this. The Potter press +surpassed itself; it nearly surpassed its great rival presses. With +energy and whole-heartedness it cheered, comforted, and stimulated the +people. It never failed to say how well the Allies were getting on, how +much ammunition they had, how many men, what indomitable tenacity and +cheerful spirits enlivened the trenches. The correspondents it employed +wrote home rejoicing; its leading articles were noble hymns of praise. In +times of darkness and travail one cannot but be glad of such a press as +this. So glad were the Government of it that Mr. Potter became, at the +end of 1916, Lord Pinkerton, and his press the Pinkerton press. Of +course, that was not the only reward he obtained for his services; he +figured every new year in the honours' list, and collected in succession +most of the letters of the alphabet after his name. With it all, he +remained the same alert, bird-like, inconspicuous person, with the same +unswerving belief in his own methods and his own destinies, a belief +which never passed from self-confidence to self-importance. Unless you +were so determined a hater of Potterism as to be blindly prejudiced, you +could not help liking Lord Pinkerton. + + +5 + +Jane, sulking because she could not fight, thought for a short time that +she would nurse, and get abroad that way. Then it became obvious that too +many fools were scrambling to get sent abroad, and anyhow, that, if Clare +was nursing, it must be a mug's game, and that there must be a better +field for her own energies elsewhere. With so many men going, there would +be empty places to fill.... That thought came, perhaps, as soon to Jane +as to any one in the country. + +Her father's lady secretary went nursing, and Lord Pinkerton, well aware +of his younger daughter's clearheaded competence, offered Jane the job, +at a larger salary. + +'Your shorthand would soon come back if you took it up,' he told her. For +he had had all his children taught shorthand at a young age; in his view +it was one of the essentials of education; he had learned it himself at +the age of thirteen, and insulted his superior young gentlemen private +secretaries by asking them if they knew it. Jane and Johnny, who had been +in early youth very proficient at it, had, since they were old enough to +know it was a sort of low commercial cunning, the accomplishment of the +slave, hidden their knowledge away like a vice. When concealed from +observation and pressed for time, they had furtively taken down lecture +notes in it at Oxford, but always with a consciousness of guilt. + +Jane had declined the secretaryship. She did not mean to be that sort +of low secretary that takes down letters, she did not mean to work for +the Potter press, and she thought it would be needlessly dull to work +for her father. She said, 'No, thank you, dad. I'm thinking of the +Civil Service.' + +That was early in 1915, when women had only just begun to think of, or +be thought of, by the Civil Service. Jane did not think of it with +enthusiasm; she wanted to be a journalist and to write; but it would do +for the time, and would probably be amusing. So, owing to the helpful +influence of Mr. Potter, and a good degree, Jane obtained a quite good +post at the Admiralty, which she had to swear never to mention, and went +into rooms in a square off Fleet Street with Katherine Varick, who had a +research fellowship in chemistry and worked in a laboratory in +Farringdon Street. + +The Admiralty was all right. It was interesting as such jobs go, and +Jane, who was clear-headed, did it well. She got to know a few men and +women who, she considered, were worth knowing, though, in technical +departments such as the Admiralty, the men were apt to be superior to the +women; the women Jane met there were mostly non-University lower-grade +clerks, and so forth, nice, cheery young things, but rather stupid, who +thought it jolly for Jane to be connected with Leila Yorke and the Potter +press, and were scarcely worth undeceiving. And naval officers, though +charming, were apt to be a little elementary, Jane discovered, in their +general outlook. + +However, the job was all right; not a bad plum to have picked out of the +hash, on the whole. And the life was all right. The rooms were jolly +(only the new geyser exploded too often), and Katherine Varick, though +she made stinks in the evenings, not bad to live with, and money not too +scarce, as money goes, and theatres and dinners frequent. Doing one's +bit, putting one's shoulder to the wheel, proving the mettle of the women +of England, certainly had its agreeable side. + + +6 + +In intervals of office work and social life, Jane was writing odds and +ends, and planning the books she meant to write after the war. She +hadn't settled her line yet. Articles on social and industrial questions +for the papers, she hoped, for one thing; she had plenty to say on this +head. Short stories. Poems. Then, perhaps, a novel.... About the nature +of the novel Jane was undecided, except that it would be more unlike the +novels of Leila Yorke than any novels had ever been before. Perhaps a +sarcastic, rather cynical novel about human nature, of which Jane did +not think much. Perhaps a serious novel, dealing with social or +political conditions. Perhaps an impressionist novel, like Dorothy +Richardson's. Only they were getting common; they were too easy. One +could hardly help writing like that, unless one tried not to, if one had +lately read any of them. + +Most contemporary novels Jane found very bad, not worth writing. Those +solemn and childish novels about public schools, for instance, written by +young men. Jane wondered what a novel about Roedean or Wycombe Abbey +would be like. The queer thing was that some young woman didn't write +one; it need be no duller than the young men's. Rather duller, perhaps, +because schoolgirls were more childish than schoolboys, the problems of +their upbringing less portentous. But there were many of the same +ingredients--the exaltation of games, hero-worship, rows, the clever new +literary mistress who made all the stick-in-the-mud other mistresses +angry.... Only were the other mistresses at girls' schools +stick-in-the-mud? No, Jane thought not; quite a decent modern set, on the +whole, for people of their age. Better than schoolmasters, they must be. + +How dull it all was! Some woman ought to do it, but not Jane. + +Jane was inclined, in her present phase, to think the Russians and the +French the only novelists. They had manner and method. But they were both +too limited in their field, too much concerned with sexual relations, +that most tedious of topics (in literature, not life), the very thought +of which made one yawn. Queer thing, how novelists couldn't leave it +alone. It was, surely, like eating and drinking, a natural element in +life, which few avoid; but the most exciting, jolly, interesting, +entertaining things were apart from it. Not that Jane was not quite +willing to accept with approval, as part of the game of living, such +episodes in this field as came her way; but she could not regard them as +important. As to marriage, it was merely dowdy. Domesticity; babies; +servants; the companionship of one man. The sort of thing Clare would go +in for, no doubt. Not for Jane, before whom the world lay, an oyster +asking to be opened. + +She saw herself a journalist; a reporter, perhaps: (only the stories +women were sent out on were usually dull), a special correspondent, a +free-lance contributor, a leader writer, eventually an editor.... Then +she could initiate a policy, say what she thought, stand up against the +Potter press. + +Or one might be a public speaker, and get into Parliament later on, when +women were admitted. One despised Parliament, but it might be fun. + +Not a permanent Civil Servant; one could not work for this ludicrous +government more than temporarily, to tide over the Great Interruption. + + +7 + +So Jane looked with calm, weighing, critical eyes at life and its +chances, and saw that they were not bad, for such as her. Unless, of +course, the Allies were beaten.... This contingency seemed often +possible, even probable. Jane's faith in the ultimate winning power of +numbers and wealth was at times shaken, not by the blunders of +governments or the defection of valuable allies, but by the unwavering +optimism of her parent's press. + +'But,' said Katherine Varick, 'it's usually right, your papa's press. +That's the queer thing about it. It sounds always wildly wrong, like an +absurd fairy story, and all the sane, intelligent people laugh at it, and +then it turns out to have been right. Look at the way it used to say that +Germany was planning war; it was mostly the stupid people who believed +it, and the intelligent people who didn't; but all the time Germany was.' + +'Partly because people like daddy kept saying so, and planning to get +in first.' + +'Not much. Germany was really planning: we were only talking.... I +believe in the Pinkerton press, and the other absurd presses. They have +the unthinking rightness of the fool. Of course they have. Because the +happenings of the world are caused by people--the mass of people--and the +Pinkerton press knows them and represents them. Intellectual people are +always thinking above the heads of the people who make movements, so +they're nearly always out. The Pinkerton press _is_ the people, so it +gets there every time. Potterism will outlive all the reformers and +idealists. If Potterism says we're going to have a war, we have it; if it +says we're going to win a war, we shall win it. "If you see it in _John +Bull_, it _is_ so."' + +It was not often that Katherine spoke of Potterism, but when she did it +was with conviction. + + +8 + +Gideon was home, wounded. He had nearly died, but not quite. He had lost +his right foot, and would have another when the time was ripe. He was +discharged, and became, later on, assistant editor of a new weekly paper +that was started. + +He dined with Jane and Katherine at their flat, soon after he could get +about. He was leaner than ever, white and gaunt, and often ill-tempered +from pain. Johnny was there too, a major on leave, stuck over with +coloured ribbons. Jane called him a pot-hunter. + +They laughed and talked and joked and dined. When Gideon and Johnny had +gone, and Katherine and Jane were left smoking last cigarettes and +finishing the chocolates, Jane said, lazily, and without chagrin, 'How +Arthur does hate us all, in these days.' + +Katherine said, 'True. He finds us profiteers.' + +'So we are,' said Jane. 'Not you, but most of us. I am.... You're one of +the few people he respects. Some day, perhaps, you'll have to marry him, +and cure him of biting his nails when he's cross.... He thinks Johnny's a +profiteer, too, because of the ribbons and things. Johnny is. It's in the +blood. We're grabbers. Can't be helped.... Do you want the last walnut +chocolate, old thing? If so, you're too late.' + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JANE AND CLARE + + +1 + +In the autumn of 1918, Jane, when she went home for week-ends, frequently +found one Oliver Hobart there. Oliver Hobart was the new editor of Lord +Pinkerton's chief daily paper, and had been exempted from military +service as newspaper staff. He was a Canadian; he had been educated at +McGill University, admired Lord Pinkerton, his press, and the British +Empire, and despised (in this order) the Quebec French, the Roman +Catholic Church, newspapers which did not succeed, Little Englanders, and +Lord Lansdowne. + +'A really beautiful face,' said Lady Pinkerton, and so he had. Jane had +seen it, from time to time during the last year, when she had called to +see her father in the office of the _Daily Haste_. + +One hot Saturday afternoon in August, 1918, she found him having tea with +her family, in the shadow of the biggest elm. Jane looked at them in her +detached way; Lord Pinkerton, neat and little, his white-spatted feet +crossed, his head cocked to one side, like an intelligent sparrow's; Lady +Pinkerton, tall and fair and powdered, in a lilac silk dress, her large +white hands all over rings, amethysts swinging from her ears; Clare (who +had given up nursing owing to the strain, and was having a rest), slim +and rather graceful, a little flushed from the heat, lying in a deck +chair and swinging a buckled shoe, saying something ordinary and +Clare-ish; Hobart sitting by her, a pale, Gibson young man, with his +smooth fair hair brushed back, and lavender socks with purple clocks, and +a clear, firm jaw. He was listening to Clare with a smile. You could not +help liking him; his was the sort of beauty which, when found in either +man or woman, makes so strong an appeal to the senses of the sex other +than that of the possessor that reason is all but swamped. Besides, as +Lord Pinkerton said, Hobart was a dear, nice fellow. + +He was at Sherards for that week-end because Lord Pinkerton was just +making him editor of the _Daily Haste_. Before that, he had been on the +staff, a departmental editor, and a leader-writer. ('Mr. Hobart will go +far,' said Lady Pinkerton sometimes, when she read the leaders. 'I +hope, on the contrary,' said Lord Pinkerton, 'that he will stay where +he is. It is precisely the right spot. That was the trouble with +Carruthers; he went too far. So he had to go altogether.' He gave his +thin little snigger). + +Anyhow, here was Hobart, this Saturday afternoon, having tea in the +garden. Jane saw him through the mellow golden sweetness of shadow +and light. + +'Here is Jane,' said Lady Pinkerton. + +Jane's dark hair fell in damp waves over her hot, square, white forehead; +her blue cotton dress was crumpled and limp. How neat, how cool, was this +Hobart! Could a man have a Gibson face like that, like a young man on the +cover of an illustrated magazine, and not be a ninny? Did he take the +Pinkerton press seriously, or did he laugh? Both, probably, like most +journalists. He wouldn't laugh to Lord Pinkerton, or to Lady Pinkerton, +or to Clare. But he might laugh to Jane, when she showed him he might. +Jane, eating jam sandwiches, looking like a chubby school child, with her +round face and wide eyes and bobbed hair and cotton frock, watched the +beautiful young man with her solemn unwinking stare that disconcerted +self-conscious people, while Lady Pinkerton talked to him about some +recent fiction. + +On Sunday, people came over to lunch, and they played tennis. Clare and +Hobart played together. 'Oh, well up, partner,' Jane could hear him say, +all the time. Or else it was 'Well tried. Too bad.' Clare's happy eyes +shone, brown and clear in her flushed face, like agates. Rather a pretty +thing, Clare, if dull. + +The Franks were there, too. + +'Old Clare having a good time,' said Mrs. Frank to Jane, during a set +they weren't playing in. Her merry dark eyes snapped. Instinctively, she +usually said something to disparage the good time of other girls. This +time it was, 'That Hobart thinks he's doing himself a good turn with +pater, making up to Clare like that. Oh, he's a cunning fellow. Isn't he +handsome, Jane? I hate these handsome fellows, they always know it so +well. Nothing in his face really, if you come to look, is there? I'd +rather have old Frank's, even if he does look like a half-starved bird.' + + +2 + +Jane was calmly rude to Hobart, showing him she despised his paper, and +him for editing it. She let him see it all, and he was imperturbably, +courteously amused, and, in turn, showed that he despised her for +belonging to the 1917 Club. + +'_You_ don't,' he said, turning to Clare. + +'Gracious, no. I don't belong to a club at all. I go with mother to the +Writers' sometimes, though; that's not bad fun. Mother often speaks +there, you know, and I go and hear. Jolly good she is, too. She read a +ripping paper last week on the "Modern Heroine."' + +Jane's considering eyes weighed Hobart, whose courtesy was still +impregnable. How far was he the complete Potterite, identified with his +absurd press? Did he even appreciate Leila Yorke? She would have liked to +know. But, it seemed, she was not to know from him. + + +3 + +The Armistice came. + +Then the thing was to get to Paris somehow. Jane had, unusually, not +played her cards well. She had neglected the prospect of peace, which, +after all, must come. When she had, in May, at last taken thought for the +morrow, and applied at the Foreign Office for one of those secret jobs +which could not be mentioned because they prepared the doers to play +their parts after the great unmentionable event, she was too late. The +Foreign Office said they could not take over people from other government +departments. + +So, when the unmentionable took place, Jane was badly left. The Foreign +Office Library Department people, many of them Jane's contemporaries at +Oxford and Cambridge, were hurried across the Channel into Life, for +which they had been prepared by a course of lectures on the Dangers of +Paris. There also went the confidential secretaries, the clerks and +shorthand typists, in their hundreds; degreeless, brainless beings, but +wise in their generation. + +'I wish I was a shorthand typist,' Jane grumbled, brooding with Katherine +over their fire. + +'Paris,' Katherine turned over the delightful word consideringly, finding +it wanting. 'The last place in the world I should choose to be in just +now. Fuss and foolishness. Greed and grabbing. The centre of the lunacies +and crimes of the next six months. Politicians assembled together.... +It's infinitely common to go there. All the vulgarest people.... You'd be +more select at Southend or Blackpool.' + +'History is being made there,' said Jane, quoting from her +father's press. + +'Thank you; I'd rather go to Birmingham and make something clean and +useful, like glass.' + +But Jane wanted to make history in Paris. She felt out of it, left, as +she had felt when other people went to the war and she stayed at home. + +On a yellow, foggy day just before Christmas, Lord Pinkerton, with whom +Jane was lunching at his club (Lord Pinkerton was quite good to lunch +with; you got a splendid feed for nothing), said, 'I shall be going +over to Paris next month, Babs.' (That was what he called her). 'D'you +want to come?' + +'Well, I should say so. Don't rub it in, dad.' + +Lord Pinkerton looked at her, with his whimsical, affectionate paternity. + +'You can come if you like, Babs. I want another secretary. Must have one. +If you'll do some of the shorthand typing and filing, you can come +along. How about it?' + +Jane thought for exactly thirty seconds, weighing the shorthand typing +against Paris and the Majestic and Life. Life had it, as usual. + +'Right-o, daddy. I'll come along. When do we go over?' + +That afternoon Jane gave notice to her department, and in the middle of +January Lord Pinkerton and his bodyguard of secretaries and assistants +went to Paris. + + +4 + +That was Life. Trousseaux, concerts, jazzing, dinners, marble bathrooms, +notorious persons as thick as thieves in corridors and on the stairs, +dangers of Paris surging outside, disappointed journalists besieging +proud politicians in vain, the Council of Four sitting in perfect harmony +behind thick curtains, Signor Orlando refusing to play, but finding they +went on playing without him and coming back, Jugo-Slavs walking about +under the aegis of Mr. Wickham Steed, smiling sweetly and triumphantly at +the Italians, going to the theatre and coming out because the jokes +seemed to them dubious, Sir George Riddell and Mr. G.H. Mair desperately +controlling the press, Lord Pinkerton flying to and fro, across the +Channel and back again, while his bodyguard remained in Paris. There also +flew to and fro Oliver Hobart, the editor of the _Daily Haste_. He would +drop in on Jane, sitting in her father's outer office, card-indexing, +opening and entering letters, and what not. + +'Good-morning, Miss Potter. Lord Pinkerton in the office this morning?' + +'He's in the building somewhere. Talking to Sir George, I think.... Did +you fly this time?' + +Whether he had flown or whether he had come by train and boat, he always +looked the same, calm, unruffled, tidy, the exquisite nut. + +'Pretty busy?' he would say, with his half-indulgent smile at the +round-faced, lazy, drawling child who was so self-possessed, sometimes so +impudent, often so sarcastic, always so amusingly different from her +slim, pretty and girlish elder sister. + +'Pretty well,' Jane would reply. 'I don't overwork, though.' + +'I don't believe you do,' Hobart said, looking down at her amusedly. + +'Father does, though. That's why he's thin and I'm fat. What's the use? +It makes no difference.' + +'You're getting reconciled, then,' said Hobart, 'to working for the +Pinkerton press?' + +Jane secretly approved his discernment. But all she said was, with her +cool lack of stress, 'It's not so bad.' + +Usually when Hobart was in Paris he would dine with them. + + +5 + +Lady Pinkerton and Clare came over for a week. They stayed in rooms, in +the Avenue de l'Opera. They visited shops, theatres, and friends, and +Lady Pinkerton began a novel about Paris life. Clare had been run down +and low-spirited, and the doctor had suggested a change of scene. Hobart +was in Paris for the week-end; he dined with the Pinkertons and went to +the theatre with them. But on Monday he had to go back to London. + +On Monday morning Clare came to her father's office, and found Jane +taking down letters from Lord Pinkerton's private secretary, a young man +who had been exempted from military service through the war on the +grounds that he was Lord Pinkerton's right hand. + +Clare sat and waited, and looked round the room for violets, while this +young gentleman dictated. His letters were better worded than Lord +Pinkerton's, because he was better at the English language. Lord +Pinkerton would fall into commercialisms; he would say 're' and 'same' +and 'to hand,' and even sometimes 'your favour of the 16th.' His +secretary knew that that was not the way in which a great newspaper chief +should write. Himself he dictated quite a good letter, but annoyed Jane +by putting in the punctuation, as if she was an imbecile. Thus he was +saying now, pacing up and down the room, plunged in thought:-- + +'Lord Pinkerton is not comma however comma averse to' (Jane wrote 'from') +'entertaining your suggestions comma and will be glad if you can make it +convenient to call to-morrow bracket Tuesday close the bracket afternoon +comma between three and five stop.' + +He could not help it; one must make allowances for those who dictate. But +Clare saw Jane's teeth release her clenched tongue to permit it to form +silently the word 'Ninny.' + +The private secretary retired into his chief's inner sanctum. + +'Morning, old thing,' said Jane to Clare, uncovering her typewriter +without haste and yawning, because she had been up late last night. + +'Morning,' Clare yawned too. She was warm and pretty, in a spring +costume, with a big bunch of sweet violets at her waist. She +touched these. + +'Aren't they top-hole. Mr. Hobart left them this morning before he went. +Jolly decent of him to think of it, getting off in a hurry like he +was.... He's not a bad young thing, do you think.' + +'Not so bad.' Jane extracted carbons from a drawer and fitted them to her +paper. Then she stretched, like a cat. + +'Oh, I'm sleepy.... Don't feel like work to-day. For two pins I'd cut it +and go out with you and mother. The sun's shining, isn't it?' + +Clare stood by the window, and swung the blind-tassel. They had five days +of Paris before them, and Paris suddenly seemed empty.... + +'We're going to have a topping week,' she said. + +Then Lord Pinkerton came in. + +'Hobart gone?' he asked Jane. + +'Yes.' + +'Majendie in my room?' + +'Yes.' + +Lord Pinkerton patted Clare's shoulder as he passed her. + +'Send Miss Hope in to me when she comes, Babs,' he said, and disappeared +through the farther door. + +Jane began to type. It bored her, but she was fairly proficient at it. +Her childhood's training stood her in good stead. + +'Mr. Hobart must have run his train pretty fine, if he came in here on +the way,' said Clare, twirling the blind-tassel. + +'He wasn't going till twelve,' said Jane, typing. + +'Oh, I see. I thought it was ten.... I suppose he found he couldn't get +that one, and had to see dad first. What a bore for him.... Well, I'm off +to meet mother. See you this evening, I suppose.' + +Clare went out into Paris and the March sunshine, whistling softly. + +That night she lay awake in her big bed, as she had lain last night. +She lay tense and still, and stared at the great gas globe that looked +in through the open window from the street. Her brain formed phrases +and pictures. + +'That day on the river.... Those Sundays.... That lunch at the +Florence.... "What attractive shoes those are."... My gray suedes, I +had.... "I love these Sunday afternoons."... "You're one of the few +girls who are jolly to watch when they run."... "Just you and me; +wouldn't it be rather nice? I should like it, anyhow."... He kept +looking.... Whenever I looked up he was looking.... his eyes awfully +blue, with black edges to them.... Peggy said he blacked them.... Peggy +was jealous because he never looked at her.... I'm jealous now because +... No, I'm not, why should I be? He doesn't like fat girls, he said.... +He watches her.... He looks at her when there's a joke.... He bought me +violets, but he went to see her.... He keeps coming over to Paris.... I +never see him.... I don't get a chance.... He cared, he did care.... +He's forgetting because I don't get a chance.... She's stealing him.... +She was always a selfish little cad, grabbing, and not really caring. +She can't care as I do, she's not made that way.... She cares for +nothing but herself.... She gets everything, just by sitting still and +not bothering.... College makes girls awful.... Peggy says men don't +like them, but they do. They seem not to care about men, but they care +just the same. They don't bother, but they get what they want.... +Pig.... Oh, I can't bear it. Why should I?... I love him, I love him, I +love him.... Oh, I must go to sleep. I shall go mad if I have another +night like last night.' + +Clare got out of bed, stumbled to the washstand, splashed her burning +head and face with cold water, then lay shivering. + +It may or may not be true that the power to love is to be found in the +human being in inverse ratio to the power to think. Probably it is not; +these generalisations seldom are. Anyhow, Clare, like many others, could +not understand, but loved. + + +6 + +Lady Pinkerton said to her lord next day, 'How much longer will the peace +take being made, Percy?' + +'My dear, I can't tell you. Even I don't know everything. There are many +little difficulties, which have to be smoothed down. Allies stand in a +curious and not altogether easy relation to one another.' + +'Italy, of course....' + +'And not only Italy, dearest.' + +'Of course, China is being very tiresome.' + +'Ah, if it were only China!' + +Lady Pinkerton sighed. + +'Well, it is all very sad. I do hope, Percy, that after this war we +English will never again forget that we hate _all_ foreigners.' + +'I hope not, my dear. I am afraid before the war I was +largely responsible for encouraging these fraternisations and +discriminations. A mistake, no doubt. But one which did credit to our +hearts. One must always remember about a great people like ourselves +that the heart leads.' + +'Thank God for that,' said Leila Yorke, illogically. Then Lady Pinkerton +added, 'But this peace takes too long.... I suppose a lasting and +righteous peace must ... Shall you have to be running to and fro like +this till it's signed, dear?' + +'To and fro, yes. I must keep an office going here.' + +'Jane is enjoying it,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'She sees a lot of Oliver +Hobart, I suppose, doesn't she?' + +'He's in and out, of course. He and the child get on better than +they used to.' + +'There is no doubt about that,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'If you don't know +it, Percy, I had better tell you. Men never see these things. He is +falling in love with her.' + +Lord Pinkerton fidgeted about the room. + +'Rilly. Rilly. Very amusing. You used to think it was Clare, dearest.' + +He cocked his head at her accusingly, convicting her of being a woman +of fancies. + +'Oh, you dear novelists!' he said, and shook a finger at her. + +'Nonsense, Percy. It is perfectly obvious. He used to be attracted by +Clare, and now he is attracted by Jane. Very strange: such different +types. But life _is_ strange, and particularly love. Oh, I don't say it's +love yet, but it's a strong attraction, and may easily lead to it. The +question is, are we to let it go on, or shall we head him back to Clare, +who has begun to care, I am afraid, poor child?' + +'Certainly head him back if you like and can, darling. I don't suppose +Babs wants him, anyhow.' + +'That is just it. If Jane did, I shouldn't interfere. Her happiness is +as dear to me as Clare's, naturally. But Jane is not susceptible; she +has a colder temperament; and she is often quite rude to Oliver Hobart. +Look how different their views about everything are. He and Clare agree +much better.' + +'Very well, mother. You're the doctor. I'll do my best not to throw them +together when next Hobart comes over. But we must leave the children to +settle their affairs for themselves. If he really wants fat little Babs +we can't stop him trying for her.' + +'Life is difficult,' Lady Pinkerton sighed. 'My poor little Clare is +looking like a wilted flower.' + +'Poor little girl. M'm yes. Poor little girl. Well, well, we'll see what +can be done.... I'll see if I can take Janet home for a bit, perhaps--get +her out of the way. She's very useful to me here, though. There are no +flies on Jane. She's got the Potter wits all right.' + +But Lady Pinkerton loved better Clare, who was like a flower, Clare, whom +she had created, Clare, who might have come--if any girl could have +come--out of a Leila Yorke novel. + +'I shall say a word to Jane,' Lady Pinkerton decided. 'Just to +sound her.' + +But, after all, it was Jane who said the word. She said it that evening, +in her cool, leisurely way. + +'Oliver Hobart asked me to marry him yesterday morning. I wrote to-day to +tell him I would.' + + +7 + +I append now the personal records of various people concerned in this +story. It seems the best way. + + + + +PART II: + +TOLD BY GIDEON + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPINNING + + +1 + +Nothing that I or anybody else did in the spring and summer of 1919 was +of the slightest importance. It ought to have been a time for great +enterprises and beginnings; but it emphatically wasn't. It was a queer, +inconclusive, lazy, muddled, reckless, unsatisfactory, rather ludicrous +time. It seemed as if the world was suffering from vertigo. I have seen +men who have been badly hit spinning round and round madly, like dancing +dervishes. That was, I think, what we were all doing for some time after +the war--spinning round and round, silly and dazed, without purpose or +power. At least the only purpose in evidence was the fierce quest of +enjoyment, and the only power that of successfully shirking facts. We +were like bankrupts, who cannot summon energy to begin life and work +again in earnest. And we were represented by the most comic parliament +that ever sat in Westminster, upon which it would be too painful here to +expatiate. + +One didn't know what had happened, or what was happening, or what was +going to happen. We had won the war. But what was that going to mean? +What were we going to get out of it? What did we want the new world to +be? What did we want this country to be? Every one shouted a different +answer. The December elections seemed to give one answer. But I don't +think it was a true one. The public didn't really want the England of +_John Bull_ and Pemberton Billing; they showed that later. + +A good many people, of course, wanted and want revolution and the +International. I don't, and never did. I hate red-flaggery, and all other +flaggery. The sentimentalism of Bob Smillie is as bad as the +sentimentalism of the Pinkerton press; as untruthful, as greedy, as +muddle-headed. Smillie's lot are out to get, and the Potterites out to +keep. The under-dog is more excusable in its aims, but its methods aren't +any more attractive. Juke can swallow it all. But Jukie has let his +naturally clear head get muddled by a mediaeval form of religion. +Religion is like love; it plays the devil with clear thinking. Juke +pretended not to hate even Smillie's interview with the coal dukes. He +applauded when Smillie quoted texts at them. Though I know, of course, +that that sort of thing is mainly a pose on Juke's part, because it +amuses him. Besides, one of the dukes was a cousin of his, who bored him, +so of course he was pleased. + +But those texts damned Smillie for ever in my eyes. He had those poor +imbeciles at his mercy--and he gave his whole case away by quoting +irrelevant remarks from ancient Hebrew writers. I wish I had had his +chance for ten minutes; I would have taken it. But the Labour people are +always giving themselves away with both hands to the enemy. I suppose +facts have hit them too hard, and so they shrink away from them--pad them +with sentiment, like uneducated women in villas. They all need--so do the +women--a legal training, to make their minds hard and clear and sharp. +So do journalists. Nearly the whole press is the same, dealing in +emotions and stunts, unable to face facts squarely, in a calm spirit. + +It seemed to some of us that spring that there was a chance for +unsentimental journalism in a new paper, that should be unhampered by +tradition. That was why the _Weekly Fact_ (unofficially called the +Anti-Potterite) was started. All the other papers had traditions; their +past principles dictated their future policy. The _Fact_ (except that it +was up against Potterism) was untrammelled; it was to judge of each issue +as it turned up, on its own merits, in the light of fact. That, of +course, was in itself the very essence of anti-Potterism, which was +incapable of judging or considering anything whatever, and whose only +light was a feeble emotionalism The light of fact was to Potterites but a +worse darkness. + +The _Fact_ wasn't to be labelled Liberal or Labour or Tory or Democratic +or anti-Democratic or anything at all. All these things were to vary +with the immediate occasions. I know it sounds like Lloyd George, but +there were at least two very important differences between the _Fact_ +and the Prime Minister. One was that the _Fact_ employed experts who +always made a very thorough and scientific investigation of every +subject it dealt with before it took up a line; it cared for the truth +and nothing but the truth. The other was that the _Fact_ took in nearly +every case the less popular side, not, of course, because it was less +popular (for to do that would have been one of the general principles of +which we tried to steer clear), but it so happened that we came to the +conclusion nearly always that the majority were wrong. The fact is that +majorities nearly always are. The heart of the people may be usually in +the right place (though, personally, I doubt this, for the heart of man +is corrupt) but their head can, in most cases, be relied on to be in the +wrong one. This is an important thing for statesmen to remember; +forgetfulness of it has often led to disaster; ignorance of it has +created Potterism as an official faith. + +Anyhow, the _Fact_ (again unlike the Prime Minister) could afford to +ignore the charges of flightiness and irresponsibility which, of course, +were flung at it. It could afford to ignore them because of the good and +solid excellence of its contents, and the reputations of many of its +contributors. And that, of course, was due to the fact that it had plenty +of money behind it. A great many people know who backs the _Fact_, but, +all the same, I cannot, of course, give away this information to the +public. I will only say that it started with such a good financial +backing that it was able to afford the best work, able even to afford the +truth. Most of the good weeklies, certainly, speak the truth as they see +it; they are, in fact, a very creditable section of our press; but the +idea of the _Fact_ was to be absolutely unbiased on each issue that +turned up by anything it had ever thought before. Of course, you may say +that a man will be likely, when a case comes before his eyes, to come to +the same conclusion about it that he came to about a similar case not +long before. But, as a matter of fact, it is surprising how some slight +difference in the circumstances of a case may, if a man keeps an open +mind, alter his whole judgment of it. The _Fact_ was a scientific, not a +sentimental paper. If our investigations led us into autocracy, we were +to follow them there; if to a soviet state, still we were to follow +them. And we might support autocracy in one state and soviets in another, +if it seemed suitable. Again this sounds like some of our more notorious +politicians--Carson, for instance; but the likeness is superficial. + + +2 + +We began in March. Peacock and I were the editors. We didn't, and don't, +always agree. Peacock, for instance, believes in democracy. Peacock also +accepts poetry; poetry about the war, by people like Johnny Potter. Every +one knows that school of poetry by heart now; of course it was +particularly fashionable immediately after the war. Johnny Potter did it +much like other men. Any one can do it. One takes some dirty, horrible +incident or sight of the battle-front and describes it in loathsome +detail, and then, by way of contrast, describes some fat and incredibly +bloodthirsty woman or middle-aged clubman at home, gloating over the +glorious war. I always thought it a great bore, and sentimental at that. +But it was the thing for a time, and people seemed to be impressed by it, +and Peacock, who encouraged young men, often to their detriment, would +take it for the _Fact_, though that sort of cheap and popular appeal to +sentiment was the last thing the _Fact_ was out for. + +Johnny Potter, like other people, was merely exploiting his experiences. +Johnny would. He's a nice chap, and a cleverish chap, in the shrewd, +unimaginative Potter way--Jane's way, too--only she's a shade +cleverer--but chiefly he's determined to get there somehow. That's +Potter, again. And that's where Jane and Johnny amuse me. They're up +against what we agreed to call Potterism--the Potterism, that is, of +second-rate sentimentalism and cheap short-cuts and mediocrity; they +stand for brain and clear thinking against muddle and cant; but they're +fighting it with Potterite weapons--self-interest, following things for +what they bring them rather than for the things in themselves. John would +never write the particular kind of stuff he does for the love of writing +it; he'll only do it because it's the stunt of the moment. That's why +he'll never be more than cleverish and mediocre, never the real thing. In +his calm, unexcited way, he worships success, and he'll get it, like old +Pinkerton. Though of course he's met plenty of the bloodthirsty +non-combatants he writes about, he takes most of what he says about them +second-hand from other people. It's not first-hand observation. If it +was, he would have to include among his jingoes and Hun-haters some +fighting men too. I know it's entirely against popular convention to say +so, but some of the most bloodthirsty fire-eaters I met during the war +were among the fighting men. Of course there were plenty of them at home +too, and plenty of peaceable and civilised people at the front, but it's +the most absurd perversion of facts to make out that all our combatants +were full of sweet reasonableness (any one who knows anything about the +psychological effects of fighting will know that this is improbable), and +all our non-combatants bloody-minded savages. Though I don't say there's +nothing in the theory one heard that the natural war rage of +non-combatants, not having the physical outlet the fighters had for +theirs, became in some few of them a suppressed Freudian complex and +made them a little insane. I don't know. Anyhow to say this became the +stunt among a certain section, so it was probably as inaccurate as +popular sayings usually are; as inaccurate as the picture drawn by +another section--the Potter press section--of an army going rejoicing +into the fight for right. + +What one specially resented was the way the men who had been killed, poor +devils, were exploited by the makers of speeches and the writers of +articles. First, they'd perhaps be called 'the fallen,' instead of 'the +killed' (it's a queer thing how 'fallen,' in the masculine means killed +in the war, and the feminine given over to a particular kind of vice), +and then the audience, or the readers, would be told that they died for +democracy, or a cleaner world, when very likely many of them hated the +first and never gave an hour's thought to the second. I could imagine +their indignant presences in the Albert Hall at Gray's big League of +Nations meeting in May, listening to Clynes's reasons why they died. I +can hear dear old Peter Clancy on why he died. 'Democracy? A cleaner +world? No. Why? I suppose I died because I inadvertently got in the way +of some flying missile; I know no other reason. And I suppose I was there +to get in its way because it's part of belonging to a nation to fight its +battles when required--like paying its taxes or keeping its laws. Why go +groping for far-fetched reason? Who wants democracy, any old way? And the +world was good enough for me as it was, thank you. No, of course it isn't +clean, and never will be; but no war is going to make it cleaner. It's +not a way wars have. These talkers make me sick.' + +If Clancy--the thousands of Clancys--could have been there, I think that +is the sort of thing they would have been saying. Anyhow, personally, I +certainly didn't lose my foot for democracy or for a cleaner world. I +lost it in helping to win the war--a quite necessary thing in the +circumstances. + +But every one seemed, during and after the war, to want to prove that +the fighters thought in the particular way they thought themselves; +they seemed to think it immeasurably strengthened their case. Heaven +only knows why, when the fighting men were just the men who hadn't time +or leisure to think at all. They were, as the Potterites put it so +truly, doing the job. The thinking, such as it was, was done by the +people at home--the politicians, the clergy, the writers, the women, +the men with 'A' certificates in Government offices; and precious poor +thinking it was, too. + + +3 + +We all settled down to life and work again, as best we could. Johnny +Potter went into a publisher's office, and also got odd jobs of reviewing +and journalism, besides writing war verse and poetry of passion (of which +confusing if attractive subject, he really knew little). Juke was +demobilised early too, commenced clergyman again, got a job as curate in +a central London parish, and lived in rooms in a slummy street. He and I +saw a good deal of each other. + +One day in March, Juke and I were lunching together at the 1917 Club, +when Johnny came in and joined us. He looked rather queer, and amused +too. He didn't tell us anything till we were having coffee. Then Juke or +I said, 'How's Jane getting on in Paris? Not bored yet?' + +Johnny said, 'I should say not. She's been and gone and done it. She's +got engaged to Hobart. I heard from the mater this morning.' + +I don't think either of us spoke for a moment. Then Juke gave a long +whistle, and said, 'Good Lord!' + +'Exactly,' said Johnny, and grinned. + +'It's no laughing matter,' said Juke blandly. 'Jane is imperilling her +immortal soul. She is yoking together with an unbeliever; she is forming +an unholy alliance with mammon. We must stop it.' + +'Stop Jane,' said Johnny. 'You might as well try and stop a young tank.' + +He meditated for a moment. + +'The funny thing is,' he added, 'that we all thought it was Clare he +was after.' + +'Now that,' Juke said judicially, 'would have been all right. Your elder +sister could have had Hobart and the _Daily Haste_ without betraying her +principles. But _Jane_--Jane, the anti-Potterite ... I say, why is she +doing it?' + +Johnny drew a letter from his pocket and consulted it. + +'The mater doesn't say. ... I suppose the usual reasons. Why do people +do it? I don't; nor do you; nor does Gideon. So we can't explain. ... I +didn't think Jane would do it either; it always seemed more in Clare's +line, somehow. Jane and I always thought Clare would marry, she's the +sort. Feminine and all that, you know. Upon my word, I thought Jane was +too much of a sportsman to go tying herself up with husbands and babies +and servants and things. What the devil will happen to all she meant to +_do_--writing, public speaking, and all the rest of it? I suppose a +girl can carry on to a certain extent, though, even if she is married, +can't she?' + +'Jane will,' I said. 'Jane won't give up anything she wants to do for a +trifle like marriage.' I was sure of that. + +'I believe you're right,' Johnny agreed. 'But it will be jolly awkward +being married to Hobart and writing in the anti-Potter press.' + +'She'll write for the _Daily Haste_,' Juke said. 'She'll make Hobart give +her a job on it. Having begun to go down the steep descent, she won't +stop till she gets to the bottom. Jane's thorough.' + +But that was precisely what I didn't think Jane was. She is, on the +other hand, given to making something good out of as many worlds as she +can simultaneously. Martyrs and Irishmen, fanatics and Juke, are +thorough; not Jane. + +We couldn't stay gossiping over the engagement any longer, so we left it +at that. The man lunching at the next table might have concluded that +Johnny's sister had got engaged to a scoundrel, instead of to the +talented, promising, and highly virtuous young editor of a popular daily +paper. Being another member of the 1917, I dare say he understood. + +But no one had tried to answer Juke's question, 'Why is she doing it?' +Johnny had supposed 'for the usual reasons.' That opens a probably +unanswerable question. What the devil _are_ the usual reasons? + + +4 + +I met Lady Pinkerton and her elder daughter in the muzzle department of +the Army and Navy Stores the next week. That was one of the annoying +aspects of the muzzling order; one met in muzzle shops people with whom +neither temperament nor circumstances would otherwise have thrown one. + +I have a particular dislike for Lady Pinkerton, and she for me. I hate +those cold, shallow eyes, and clothes drenched in scent, and basilisk +pink faces whitened with powder which such women have or develop. When I +look at her I think of all her frightful books, and the frightful serial +she has even now running in the _Pink Pictorial_, and I shudder +(unobtrusively, I hope), and look, away. When she looks at me, she thinks +'dirty Jew,' and she shudders (unobtrusively, too), and looks over my +head. She did so now, no doubt, as she bowed. + +'Dreadfully tahsome, this muzzling order,' she said, originally. 'We have +two Pekingese, a King Charles, and a pug, and their poor little faces +don't fit any muzzle that's made.' + +I answered with some inanity about my mother's Poltalloch, and we talked +for a moment. She said she hoped I was quite all right again, and I +suppose I said I was, with my leg shooting like a gathered tooth (it was +pretty bad all that spring). + +Suddenly I felt her wanting badly to tell me the news about Jane. She +wanted to tell me because she thought she would be scoring off me, +knowing that what she would call my 'influence' over Jane had always been +used against all that Hobart stands for. I felt her longing to throw me +the triumphant morsel of news--'Jane has deserted you and all your +tiresome, conceited, disturbing clique, and is going to marry the +promising young editor of her father's chief paper.' But something +restrained her. I caught the advance and retreat of her intention, and +connected it with her daughter, who stood by her, silent, with an absurd +Pekingese in her arms. + +Anyhow, Lady Pinkerton held in her news, and I left them. I dislike +Lady Pinkerton, as I have said; but on this occasion I disliked her a +little less than usual, for that maternal instinct which had robbed her +of her triumph. + + +5 + +I went to see Katherine Varick that evening. I often do when I have been +meeting women like Lady Pinkerton, because there is a danger that that +kind of woman, so common and in a sense so typical, may get to bulk too +large in one's view of women, and lead one into the sin of +generalisation. So many women are such very dreadful fools--men too, for +that matter, but more women--that one needs to keep in pretty frequent +touch with those who aren't, with the women whose brains, by nature and +training, grip and hold. Of these, Katherine Varick has as fine and keen +a mind and as good a head as any I know. She isn't touched anywhere with +Potterism; she has the scientific temperament. Katherine and I are great +friends. From the first she did a good deal of work for the +_Fact_--reviews of scientific books, mostly. I went to see her, to get +the taste of Lady Pinkerton out of my mouth. + +I found her doing something with test-tubes and bottles--some experiment +with carbohydrates, I think it was. I watched her till she was through +with it, then we talked. That is the way one puts it, but as a matter of +fact Katherine seldom does much of the talking; one talks to her. She +listens, and puts in from time to time some critical comment that often +extraordinarily clears up any subject one is talking round. She +contributes as much as any one I know to the conversation, but in such +condensed tabloids that it doesn't take her long. Most things don't seem +to her to be worth saying. She'll let, for instance, a chatterbox like +Juke say a hundred words to her one, and still she'll get most said, +though Jukie's not a vapid talker either. + +'Jane,' she told me, 'is coming back next week. The marriage is to be at +the end of April.' + +'A rapidity worthy of the Hustling Press. Jukie will be sorry. He hopes +yet to wrest her as a brand from the burning.' + +Katherine smiled at Juke's characteristic sanguineness. + +'Jukie won't do that. If Jane means to do a thing she does it. Jane knows +what she wants.' + +'And she wants Hobart?' I pondered it, turning it over, still puzzled. + +'She wants Hobart,' Katherine agreed. 'And all that Hobart will let +her in to.' + +'The _Daily Haste_? The society of the Pinkerton journalists?' + +'And of a number of other people. Some of them fairly important people, +you know. The editor of the _Daily Haste_ has to transact business with a +good many notorious persons, no doubt. That would amuse Jane. She's all +for life. I dare say the wife of the editor of the _Haste_ has a pretty +good front window for the show. Jane likes playing about with people, as +you like playing with ideas, and I with chemicals.... Besides, beauty +counts with Jane. It does with every one. She's probably fallen in love.' + +That was all we said about it. We talked for the rest of the evening +about the _Fact_. + + +6 + +But when I went to Jane's wedding, I understood about the 'number of +other people' that Hobart let Jane in to. They had been married that +afternoon by the Registrar, Jane having withstood the pressure of her +parents, who preferred weddings to be in churches. Hobart didn't much +care; he was, he said, a Presbyterian by upbringing, but sat loosely to +it, and didn't care for fussy weddings. Jane frankly disbelieved in what +she called 'all that sort of thing.' So they went before the Registrar, +and gave a party in the evening at the Carlton. + +We all went, even Juke, who had failed to snatch Jane from the burning. I +don't know that it was a much queerer party than other wedding parties, +which are apt to be an ill-assorted mixture of the bridegroom's circle +and the bride's. And, except for Jane's own personal friends, these two +circles largely overlapped in this case. The room was full of +journalists, important and unimportant, business people, literary people, +and a few politicians of the same colour as the Pinkerton press. There +were a lot of dreadful women, who, I supposed, were Lady Pinkerton's +friends (probably literary women; one of them was introduced to Juke as +'the editress of _Forget-me-not_'), and a lot of vulgar men, many of whom +looked like profiteers. But, besides all these, there were undoubtedly +interesting people and people of importance. And I realised that the +editor of the _Haste_, like the other editors of important papers, must, +of necessity, as Katherine had said, have a lot to do with such people. + +And there, in the middle of a group of journalists, was Jane; Jane, in a +square-cut, high-waisted, dead white frock, with her firm, round, young +shoulders and arms, and her firm, round, young face, and her dark hair +cut across her broad white forehead, parted a little like a child's, at +one side, and falling thick and straight round her neck like a mediaeval +page's. She wore a long string of big amber beads--Hobart's present--and +a golden girdle round her high, sturdy waist. + +I saw Jane in a sense newly that evening, not having seen her for some +time. And I saw her again as I had often seen her in the past--a greedy, +lazy, spoilt child, determined to take and keep the best out of life, +and, if possible, pay nothing for it. A profiteer, as much as the fat +little match manufacturer, her uncle, who was talking to Hobart, and in +whom I saw a resemblance to the twins. And I saw too Jane's queer, lazy, +casual charm, that had caught and held Hobart and weaned him from the +feminine graces and obviousnesses of Clare. + +Hobart stood near Jane, quiet and agreeable and good-looking. A +second-rate chap, running a third-rate paper. Jane had married him, for +all her clear-headed intellectual scorn of the second-rate, because she +was second-rate herself, and didn't really care. + +And there was little Pinkerton chatting with Northcliffe, his rival and +friend, and Lady Pinkerton boring a high Foreign Office official very +nearly to yawns, and Clare Potter, flushed and gallantly gay, flitting +about from person to person (Clare was always restless; she had none of +Jane's phlegm and stolidity), and Johnny, putting in a fairly amusing +time with his own friends and acquaintances, and Frank Potter talking +to Juke about his new parish. Frank, discontented all the war because +he couldn't get out to France without paying the price that Juke had +paid, was satisfied with life for the moment, having just been given a +fashionable and rich London living, where many hundreds weekly sat +under him and heard him preach. Juke wasn't the member of that crowd I +should personally have selected to discuss fashionable and overpaid +livings with, had I just accepted one, but they were the only two +parsons in the room, so I suppose Potter thought it appropriate, I +overheard pleased fragments such as 'Twenty thousand communicants ... +only standing-room at Sunday evensong,' which indicated that the new +parish was a great success. + +'That poor chap,' Jukie said to me afterwards. 'He's in a wretched +position. He has to profess Christianity, and he doesn't want even to try +to live up to it. At least, whenever he has a flash of desire to, that +atheist wife of his puts it out. She's the worst sort of atheist--the +sort that says her prayers regularly. Why are parsons allowed to marry? +Or if they must, why can't their wives be chosen for them by a special +board? And what, in Heaven's name, came over a Potter that he should take +Orders? The fight between Potterism and Christianity--it's the funniest +spectacle--and the saddest....' + +But Juke on Christianity always leaves me cold. The nation to which I (on +one side) belong can't be expected to look at Christianity +impartially--we have suffered too much at the hands of Christians. Juke +and the other hopeful and ardent members of his Church may be able to +separate Christianity from Christians, and not judge the one by the +other; but I can't. The fact that Christendom is what it is has always +disposed of Christianity as a working force, to my mind. Judaism is +detestable, but efficient; Christianity is well-meaning but a failure. +As, of course, parsons like Juke would be and are the first to admit. +They say it aims so high that it's bound to fail, which is probably true. +But that makes it pretty useless as a working human religion. Anyhow, I +quite agree with Juke that it is comic to see poor little nonentities +like Frank Potter caught in it, tangled up in it, and trying to get free +and carry on as though it wasn't there. + +Of course, nearly all the rest of that crowd at Jane's wedding was +carrying on as if Christianity weren't there without the least trouble or +struggle. They were quite right; it wasn't there. Nothing was there, for +most of them, but self-interest and personal desire. We were, the lot of +us, out to make--to grab and keep and enjoy. Nothing else counted. What +could Christianity do, a frail, tilting, crusading St. George, up against +the monster dragon Grab, who held us all in his coils? It's no use, +Jukie; it never was and never will be any use. + +I suddenly grew very tired of that party. It seemed a monster meeting of +Potterites at play--mediocrity, second-rateness, humbug, muddle, cant, +cheap stunts--the room was full of it all. + +I went across to Jane to say good-bye. I had scarcely spoken to her yet. +I had never congratulated her on her engagement, but Jane wouldn't mind +about that or expect me to. + +All I could say now was, 'I'm afraid I've got to get back. I've some +work waiting.' + +She said, 'Is it any use my sending you anything for the _Fact_? + +'From the enemy's camp?' I smiled at her. She smiled too. + +'I've not ratted, you know. I'm still an A.P. I shall come on the next +tour of investigation, whenever that is.' + +'Shall you write for the _Haste_?' I asked her. + +'Sometimes, I expect. Oliver says he can get me some of the reviewing. +And occasional non-controversial articles. But I don't want to be tied up +with it; I want to write for other papers too.... You take Johnny's +poetry, I observe.' + +'Sometimes. That's Peacock's fault, not mine. ... Send along anything +you think may suit, by all means, and we'll consider it. You'll most +likely get it back--if you remember to enclose a stamped envelope. +... Good-night, and thank you for asking me to your party. +Good-night, Hobart.' + +I said good-bye to Lady Pinkerton, and went back to the _Fact_ office, +for it was press night. + +So Jane got married. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DINING WITH THE HOBARTS + + +1 + +That May was very hot. One sweltered in offices, streets, and underground +trains. You don't expect this kind of weather in early May, which is +usually a time of bitter frosts and biting winds, punctuated by +thunderstorms. It told on one's nerves. One got sick of work and people. +I quarrelled all round; with Peacock about the paper, with my typist +about her punctuation, with my family about my sister's engagement. +Rosalind (that was the good old English name they had given her) had been +brought up, like myself, in the odour of public school and Oxford +Anglicanism (she had been at Lady Margaret Hall). My father had grown up +from his early youth most resolutely English, and had married the +daughter of a rich Manchester cotton manufacturer. Their two children, +Sidneys from birth, were to ignore the unhappy Yiddish strain that was +branded like a deep disgrace into their father's earliest experience. It +was unlucky for my parents that both Rosalind and I reverted to type. +Rosalind was very lovely, very clever, and unmistakably a Jewess. At +Roedean she pretended she wasn't; who wouldn't? She was still there when +I came of age and became Gideon, so she didn't join me in that. But when +she left school and went up to Oxford, she began to develop and expand +mentally, and took her own line, and by the time she was twenty she was, +as I never was, a red-hot nationalist. We were neither of us ever +inclined to Judaism in religion; we shook off the misfit of Anglicanism +at an early age (we both refused at fifteen to be confirmed), but didn't +take to our national faith, which we both disliked extremely. Nor did we +like most of our fellow Jews; I think as a race we are narrow, cowardly, +avaricious, and mean-spirited, and Rosalind thinks we are oily. (She and +I aren't oily, by the way; we are both the lean kind, perhaps because, +after all, we are half English). I only reverted to our original name +because I was sickened of the Sidney humbug. But we learnt Yiddish, and +read Hebrew literature, and discussed repatriation, and maintained that +the Jews were the brains of the world. It was a cross to our parents. But +far more bitter to them than even my change of name was Rosalind's +engagement, this spring of 1919, to Boris Stefan. Boris had been living +and painting in London for some years; his home had been in Moscow; he +had barely escaped with his life from a pogrom in 1912, and had since +then lived in England. He had served in the war, belonged to several +secret societies of a harmless sort, painted pictures that had attracted +a good deal of critical notice, and professed Bolshevik sympathies, of a +purely academic nature (as so many of these sympathies are) on the +grounds that Bolshevism was a Jewish movement. He and I differed on the +subject of Bolshevism. I have never seen any signs either of constructive +ability or sound principles in any Bolshevik leader; nothing but +enterprise, driving-power, vindictiveness, Hebrew cunning, and a criminal +ruthlessness. They're not statesmen. And Bolshevism, as so far +manifested, isn't a statesmanlike system; it holds the reins too tight. I +don't condemn it for the cruelties committed in its name, because +whenever Russians get excited there'll be fiendish cruelties; Russians +are like that--the most cruel devils in earth or hell. Bolshevist +Russians are no worse in that way than Czarist Russians. Except when I am +listening to their music I loathe the whole race; great stupid, brutal, +immoral, sentimental savages.... When I think of them I feel a kind of +nausea, oddly touched with fear, that must be hereditary, I suppose. +After all, my father, as a child of five, saw his mother outraged and +murdered by Russian police. Anyhow, Bolshevism, in Russian hands, has +become a kind of stupid, crazy, devil's game, as everything always has. + +But I don't want to discuss Bolshevism here. Boris Stefan hadn't really +anything to do with it. He wasn't a politician. He was a dreamy, simple, +untidy, rather childlike person, with a wonderful gift for painting. +Rosalind and I had got to know him at the Club. They were both beautiful, +and it hadn't taken them long to fall in love. One Russian-Jewish exile +marrying another--that was the bitterness of it to our very Gentile +mother and our Sidneyfied father, who had spent fifty years living down +his origin. + +So I was called in to assist in averting the catastrophe. I wouldn't say +anything except that it seemed very suitable, and that annoyed my mother. +I remember that she and I and Rosalind argued round and round it for an +hour one hot evening in the drawing-room at Queen's Gate. Finally my +mother said, 'Oh, very well. If Rosalind wants a lot of fat Yid babies +with hooked noses and oily hair, all lending money on usury instead of +getting into debt like Christians, let her have them. I wash my hands of +the lot of you. I don't know what I've done to deserve two Sheenies for +children.' + +That made Rosalind giggle, and eased the acrimony of the discussion. My +mother was a little fair woman, sharp-tongued and quick-tempered, but +with a sense of fun. + +My father had no sense of fun. I think it had been crushed out of him in +his cradle. He was a silent man (though he could, like all Jews, be +eloquent), with a thin face and melancholy dark eyes. I am supposed to +look like him, I believe. He, too, spoke to me that evening about +Rosalind's engagement. I remember how he walked up and down the +dining-room, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, and his +quick, nervous, jerky movements. + +'I don't like it, Arthur. I feel as if we had all climbed up out of a +very horrible pit into a place of safety and prosperity and honour, and +as if the child was preparing to leap down into the pit again. She +doesn't know what it's like to be a Jew. I do, and I've saved you both +from it, and you both seem bent on returning to the pit whence you were +digged. We're an outcast people, my dear; an outcast people....' + +His black eyes were haunted by memories of old fears; the fears his +ancestors had had in them, listening behind frail locked doors for the +howl 'Down with the Jews!' The fears that had been branded by savages +into his own infant consciousness half a century ago; the fears seared +later into the soul of a boy by boyish savages at an English school; the +fears of the grown man, always hiding something, always pretending, +always afraid.... + +I discovered then--and this is why I am recording this family incident +here, why it connects with the rest of my life at this time--that +Potterism has, for one of its surest bases, fear. The other bases are +ignorance, vulgarity, mental laziness, sentimentality, and greed. The +ignorance which does not know facts; the vulgarity which cannot +appreciate values; the laziness which will not try to learn either of +these things; the sentimentality which, knowing neither, is stirred by +the valueless and the untrue; the greed which grabs and exploits. But +fear is worst; the fear of public opinion, the fear of scandal, the fear +of independent thought, of loss of position, of discomfort, of +consequences, of truth. + +My poor parents were afraid of social damage to their child; afraid lest +she should be mixed up with something low, outcast, suspected. Not all my +father's intellectual brilliance, nor all my mother's native wit, could +save them from this pathetic, vulgar, ignorant piece of snobbery. +Pathetic, vulgar, and ignorant, because, if they had only known it, +Rosalind stood to lose nothing she cared for by allying herself with a +Jewish painter of revolutionary theories. Not a single person whose +friendship she cared for but would be as much her friend as before. She +had nothing to do with the _bourgeoisie_, bristling with prejudices and +social snobberies, who made, for instance, my mother's world. And that is +what one generation should always try to understand about another--how +little (probably) each cares for the other's world. + +Of course, Rosalind married Boris Stefan. And, as I have said, the +whole incident is only mentioned to illustrate how Potterism lurks in +secret places, and flaunts in open places, pervading the whole fabric +of human society. + + +2 + +Peace with Germany was signed, as every one knows, on June 28th. Nearly +every one crabbed it, of course, the _Fact_ with the rest. I have no +doubt that it did, as Garvin put it, sow dragon's teeth over Europe. It +certainly seemed a poor, unconstructive, expensive, brittle thing enough. +But I am inclined to think that nearly all peace treaties are pretty bad. +You have to have them, however, and you may as well make the best of +them. Anyhow, bad peace as it looked, at least it _was_ peace, and that +was something new and unusual. And I confess frankly that it has, so far, +held together longer than I, for one, ever expected it would. (I am +writing this in January, 1920). + +The _Fact_ published a cheery series of articles, dealing with each +clause in turn, and explaining why it was bound to lead, immediately or +ultimately, to war with some one or other. I wrote some of them myself. +But I was out on some points, though most haven't had time yet to prove +themselves. + +'Now,' said Jane, the day after the signature, 'I suppose we can get on +with the things that matter.' + +She meant housing, demobilisation, proportional representation, health +questions, and all the good objects which the Society for Equal +Citizenship had at heart. She had been writing some articles in the +_Daily Haste_ on these. They were well-informed and intelligent, but not +expert enough for the _Fact_. And that, as I began to see, was partly +where Hobart came in. Jane wrote cleverly, clearly, and concisely--better +than Johnny did. But, in these days of overcrowded competent journalism +--well, it is not unwise to marry an editor of standing. It gives you a +better place in the queue. + +I dined at the Hobarts' on June 29th, for the first time since their +marriage. We were a party of six. Katherine Varick was there, and a +distinguished member of the American Legation and his wife. + +Jane handled her parties competently, as she did other things. A vivid, +jolly child she looked, in love with life and the fun and importance of +her new position. The bachelor girl or man just married is an amusing +study to me. Especially the girl, with her new responsibilities, her new +and more significant relation to life and society. Later she is sadly apt +to become dull, to have her individuality merged in the eternal type of +the matron and the mother; her intellect is apt to lose its edge, her +mind its grip. It is the sacrifice paid by the individual to the race. +But at first she is often a delightful combination of keen-witted, jolly +girl and responsible woman. + +We talked, I remember, partly about the Government, and how soon +Northcliffe would succeed in turning it out. The Pinkerton press was +giving its support to the Government. The _Weekly Fact_ was not. But we +didn't want them out at once; we wanted to keep them on until some one of +constructive ability, in any party, was ready to take the reins. The +trouble about the Labour people was that so far there was no one of +constructive ability; they were manifestly unready. They had no one good +enough. No party had. It was the old problem, never acuter, of 'Produce +the Man.' If Labour was to produce him, I suspected that it would take it +at least a generation of hard political training and education. If Labour +had got in then, it would have been a mob of uneducated and uninformed +sentimentalists, led and used by a few trained politicians who knew the +tricks of the trade. It would be far better for them to wait till the +present generation of honest mediocrities died out, and a new and +differently educated generation were ready to take hold. +University-trained Labour--that bugbear of Barnes'--if there is any hope +for the British Constitution, which probably there is not, I believe it +lies there. It is a very small one, at the best. Anyhow, it certainly did +not, at this period, lie in the parliamentary Labour Party, that body of +incompetents in an incompetent House. + +It was in discussing this that I discovered that Hobart couldn't discuss. +He could talk; he could assert, produce opinions and information, but he +couldn't meet or answer arguments. And he was cautious, afraid of +committing himself, afraid, I fancied, of exposing gulfs in his equipment +of information, for, like other journalists of his type, his habit was to +write about things of which he knew little. Old Pinkerton remarked once, +at a dinner to American newspaper men, that his own idea of a good +journalist was a man who could sit down at any moment and write a column +on any subject. The American newspaper men cheered this; it was their +idea of a good journalist too. It is an amusing game, and one encouraged +by the Anti-Potterite League, to waylay leader-writers and tackle them +about their leaders, turn them inside out and show how empty they are. +I've written that sort of leader myself, of course, but not for the +_Fact_; we don't allow it. There, the man who writes is the man who +knows, and till some one knows no one writes. That is why some people +call us dry, heavy, lacking in ideas, and say we are like a Blue Book, or +a paper read to the British Association. We are proud of that +reputation. The Pinkerton papers and the others can supply the ideas; we +are out for facts. + +Anyhow, Hobart I knew for an ignorant person. All he had was a _flair_ +for the popular point of view. That was why Pinkerton who knew men, got +hold of him. He was a true Potterite. Possibly I always saw him at his +least eloquent and his most cautious, because he didn't like me and knew +I didn't like him. Even then there had already been one or two rather +acrimonious disputes between my paper and his on points of fact. The +_Daily Haste_ hated being pinned down to and quarrelled with about facts; +facts didn't seem to the Pinkerton press things worth quarrelling over, +like policy, principles, or prejudices. The story goes that when any one +told old Pinkerton he was wrong about something, he would point to his +vast circulation, using it as an argument that he couldn't be mistaken. +If you still pressed and proved your point, he would again refer to his +circulation, but using it this time as an indication of how little it +mattered whether his facts were right or wrong. Some one once said to him +curiously, 'Don't you _care_ that you are misleading so many millions?' +To which he replied, in his dry little voice, 'I don't lead, or mislead, +the millions. They lead me.' Little Pinkerton sometimes saw a long way +farther into what he was doing than you'd guess from his shoddy press. He +had queer flashes of genius. + +But Hobart hadn't. Hobart didn't see anything, except what he was +officially paid to see. A shallow, solemn ass. + +I looked suddenly at Jane, and caught her watching her husband silently, +with her considering, dispassionate look. He was talking to the American +Legation about the traffic strike (we were a round table, and the talk +was general). + +Then I knew that, whether Jane had ever been in love with Hobart or not, +she was not so now. I knew further, or thought I knew, that she saw him +precisely as I did. + +Of course she didn't. His beauty came in--it always does, between men and +women, confusing the issues--and her special relation to him, and a +hundred other things. The relation between husband and wife is too close +and too complex for clear thinking. It seems always to lead either to too +much regard or to an excess of irritation, and often to both. + +Jane looked away from Hobart, and met my eyes watching her. Her +expression didn't alter, nor, probably, did mine. But something passed +between us; some unacknowledged mutual understanding held us together for +an instant. It was unconscious on Jane's part and involuntary on mine. +She hadn't meant to think over her husband with me; I hadn't meant to +push in. Jane wasn't loyal, and I wasn't well-bred, but we neither of us +meant that. + +I hardly talked to Jane that evening. She was talking after dinner to +Katherine and the American Legation. I had a three-cornered conversation +with Hobart and the Legation's wife, who was of an inquiring turn of +mind, like all of her race, and asked us exhausting questions. She got on +to the Jewish question, and asked us for our views on the reasons for +anti-Semitism in Europe. + +'I've been reading the _New Witness_,' she said. + +I told her she couldn't do better, if she was investigating +anti-Semitism. + +'But are they fair?' she asked ingenuously. + +I replied that there were moments in which I had a horrible suspicion +that they were. + +'Then the Jews are really a huge conspiracy plotting to get the finances +of Europe into their hands?' Her eyes, round and shocked, turned from me +to Hobart. + +He lightly waved her to me. + +'You must ask Mr. Gideon. The children of Israel are his speciality.' + +His dislike of me gleamed in his blue eyes and in his supercilious, cold +smile. The Legation's wife (no fool) must have seen it. + +I went on talking rubbish to her about the Jews and the finances of +Europe. I don't remember what particular rubbish it was, for I was hardly +aware of it at the time. What I was vividly and intensely and quite +suddenly aware of was that I was on fire with the same anger, dislike, +and contempt that burned in Hobart towards me. I knew that evening that I +hated him, even though I was sitting in his house and smoking his +cigarettes. I wanted to be savagely rude to him. I think that once or +twice I came very near to being so. + +Katherine and I went home by the same bus. I grumbled to her about +Hobart all the way. I couldn't help it; the fellow seemed suddenly to +have become a nervous disease to me; I was mentally wriggling and +quivering with him. + +Katherine laughed presently, in that queer, silent way of hers. + +'Why worry?' she said. '_You've_ not married him.' + +'Well, what's marriage?' I returned. 'He's a public danger--he and +his kind.' + +Katherine said truly, 'There are so many public dangers. There really +isn't time to get agitated about them all.' Her mind seemed still to be +running on marriage, for she added presently, 'I think he'll find that +he's bitten off rather more than he can chew, in Jane.' + +'Jane can go to the devil in her own way,' I said, for I was angry with +Jane too. 'She's married a second-rate fellow for what she thinks he'll +bring her. I dare say she has her reward.... Katherine, I believe that's +the very essence of Potterism--going for things for what they'll bring +you, what they lead to, instead of for the thing-in-itself. Artists care +for the thing-in-itself; Potterites regard things as railway trains, +always going somewhere, getting somewhere. Artists, students, and the +religious--they have the single eye. It's the opposite to the commercial +outlook. Artists will look at a little fishing town or country village, +and find it a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and leave it to +itself--unless they yield to the devil and paint it or write about it. +Potterites will exploit it, commercialise it, bring the railway to +it--and the thing is spoilt. Oh, the Potterites get there all right, +confound them. They're the progressives of the world. They--they have +their reward.' + +(It's a queer thing how Jews can't help quoting the New Testament--even +Jews without religion.) + +'We seem to have decided,' Katherine said, 'that Jane is a Potterite.' + +'Morally she is. Not intellectually. You can be a Potterite in many ways. +Jane accepts the second-rate, though she recognises it as such.... The +plain fact is,' I was in a fit of savage truth-speaking, 'that Jane is +second-rate.' + +'Well ...' + +The gesture of Katherine's square shoulders may have meant several +things--'Aren't we all?' or 'Surely that's very obvious,' or 'I can't be +bothered to consider Jane any more,' or merely 'After all, we've just +dined there.' + +Anyhow, Katherine got off the bus at this point. + +I was left repeating to myself, as if it had been a new discovery, which +it wasn't, 'Jane is second-rate....' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SEEING JANE + + +1 + +Jane was taking the chair at a meeting of a section of the Society for +Equal Citizenship. The speakers were all girls under thirty who wanted +votes. They spoke rather well. They weren't old enough to have become +sentimental, and they were mostly past the conventional cliches of the +earlier twenties. In extreme youth one has to be second-hand; one doesn't +know enough, one hasn't lived or learnt enough, to be first-hand; and one +lacks self-confidence. But by five or six-and-twenty one should have left +that behind. One should know what one thinks and what one means, and be +able to state it in clear terms. That is what these girls--mostly +University girls--did. + +Jane left the chair and spoke too. + +I hadn't known Jane spoke so well. She has a clever, coherent way of +making her points, and is concise in reply if questioned, quick at +repartee if heckled. + +Lady Pinkerton was sitting in the row in front of Juke and me. Mother and +daughter. It was very queer to me. That wordy, willowy fool, and the +sturdy, hard-headed girl in the chair, with her crisp, gripping mind. Yet +there was something.... They both loved success. Perhaps that was it. The +vulgarian touch. I felt it the more clearly in them because of Juke at +my side. And yet Jukie too ... Only he would always be awake to it--on +his guard, not capitulating. + + +2 + +Jane came round with me after the meeting to the _Fact_ office, to go +through some stuff she was writing for us about the meeting. She had to +come then, though it was late, because next day was press day. We hadn't +been there ten minutes when Hobart's name was sent in, with the message +that he was just going home, and was Mrs. Hobart ready to come? + +'Well, I'm not,' said Jane to me. 'I shall be quite ten minutes more. +I'll go and tell him.' + +She went outside and called down, 'Go on, Oliver. I shall be some +time yet.' + +'I'll wait,' he called up, and Jane came back into the room. + +We went on for quite ten minutes. + +When we went down, Hobart was standing by the front door, waiting. + +'How did you track me?' Jane asked. + +'Your mother told me where you'd gone. She called at the _Haste_ on her +way home. Good-night, Gideon.' + +They went out together, and I returned to the office, irritated a little +by being hurried. It was just like Lady Pinkerton, I thought, to have +gone round to Hobart inciting him to drag Jane from my office. There had +been coldness, if not annoyance, in Hobart's manner to me. + +Well, confound him, it wasn't to be expected that he should much care +for his wife to write for the _Fact_. But he might mind his own business +and leave Jane to mind hers, I thought. + +Peacock came in at this point, and we worked till midnight. + +Peacock opened a parcel of review books from Hubert Wilkins--all tripe, +of course. He turned them over, impatiently. + +'What fools the fellows are to go on sending us their rubbish. They +might have learnt by now that we never take any notice of them,' he +grumbled. He picked out one with a brilliant wrapper--'_A Cabinet +Minister's Wife_, by Leila Yorke.... That woman needs a lesson, +Gideon. She's a public nuisance. I've a good mind--a jolly good +mind--to review her, for once. What? Or do you think it would be +_infra dig_? Well, what about an article, then--we'd get Neilson to +do one--on the whole tribe of fiction-writing fools, taking Lady +Pinkerton for a peg to hang it on? ... After all, we _are_ the organ +of the Anti-Potter League. We ought to hammer at Potterite fiction as +well as at Potterite journalism and politics. For two pins I'd get +Johnny Potter to do it. He would, I believe.' + +'I'm sure he would. But it would be a little too indecent. Neilson shall +do it. Besides, he'd do it better. Or do it yourself.' + +'Will you?' + +'I will not. My acquaintance with the subject is inadequate, and I've no +intention of improving it.' + +In the end Peacock did it himself. It was pretty good, and pretty +murderous. It came out in next week's number. I met Clare Potter in the +street the day after it came out, and she cut me dead. I expect she +thought I had written it. I am sure she never read the _Fact_, but no +doubt the family 'attention had been drawn to' the article, as people +always express it when writing to a paper to remonstrate about something +in it they haven't liked. I suppose they think it would be a score for +the paper if they admitted that they had come across it in the natural +course of things--anyhow, they want to imply that it is, of course, a +paper decent people don't see--like _John Bull_, or the _People_. + +When I met Johnny Potter, he grinned, and said, 'Good for you, old bean. +Or was it Peacock? My mother's persuaded it was you, and she'll never +forgive you. Poor old mater, she thought her new book rather on the +intellectual side. Full of psycho-analysis, and all that.... I say, I +wish Peacock would send me Guthrie's new book to do.' + +That was Johnny all over. He was always asking for what he wanted, +instead of waiting for what we thought fit to send him. I was sure that +when he published a book, he'd write round to the editors telling them +who was to review it. + +I said, 'I think Neilson's going to do it,' and determined that it should +be so. Johnny's brand of grabbing bored me. Jane did the same. A greedy +pair, never seeing why they shouldn't have all they wanted. + + +3 + +It was at this time (July) that a long, drawn-out quarrel started between +the _Weekly Fact_ and the _Daily Haste_ about the miners' strike. The +Pinkerton press did its level best to muddle the issues of that strike, +by distorting some facts, passing over others, and inventing more. By the +time you'd read a leader in the _Haste_ on the subject, you'd have got +the impression that the strikers were Bolshevists helped by German money +and aiming at a social revolution, instead of discontented, needy and +greedy British workmen, grabbing at more money and less work, in the +normal, greedy, human way we all have. Bonar Law, departing for once +rather unhappily from his 'the Government have given me no information' +attitude, announced that the miners were striking against conscription +and the war with Russia. Some Labour papers said they were striking +against the Government's shifty methods and broken pledges. I am sure +both parties credited them with too much idealism and too little plain +horse-sense. They were striking to get the pay and hours they wanted out +of the Government, and, of course, for nationalisation. They were not +idealists, and not Bolshevists, but frank grabbers, like most of us. But, +as every one will remember, 'Bolshevist' had become at this period a +vague term of abuse, like 'Hun' during the war. People who didn't like +Carson called him a Bolshevist; people who didn't like manual labourers +called _them_ Bolshevists. What all these users of the mysterious and +elastic epithet lacked was a clear understanding and definition of +Bolshevism. + +The _Daily Haste_, of course (and, to do it justice, many other +papers), used the word freely as meaning the desire for better +conditions and belief in the strike as a legitimate means of obtaining +them. I suppose it took a shorter time to say or write than this does; +anyhow, it bore a large, vague, Potterish meaning that was irresistible +to people in general. + +The _Haste_ made such a fool of itself over the miners that we came to +blows with them, and quarrelled all through July and August, mostly over +trivial and petty points. I may add that the _Fact_ was not supporting +immediate nationalisation; we were against it, for reasons that it would +be too tedious to explain here. (As a matter of fact, I know that all I +record of this so recent history is too tedious; I do not seem to be +able to avoid most of it; but even I draw the line somewhere). The +controversy between the _Fact_ and the _Haste_ seemed after a time to +resolve itself largely into a personal quarrel between Hobart and +myself. He was annoyed that Jane occasionally wrote for us. I suppose it +was natural that he should be annoyed. And he didn't like her to +frequent the 1917 Club, to which a lot of us belonged. Jane often +lunched there, so did I. She said that you got a better lunch there than +at the Women's University Club. Not much better, but still, better. You +also met more people you wanted to meet, as well as more people you +didn't. We started a sort of informal lunch club, which met there and +lunched together on Thursdays. It consisted of Jane, Katherine Varick, +Juke, Peacock, Johnny Potter, and myself. Often other people joined us +by invitation; my sister Rosalind and her husband, any girl Johnny +Potter was for the moment in love with, and friends of Peacock's, +Juke's, or mine. Juke would sometimes bring a parson in; this was rather +widening for us, I think, and I dare say for the parson too. To Juke it +was part of the enterprise of un-Potterising the Church, which was on +his mind a good deal. He said it needed un-Potterising as much as the +State, or literature, or journalism, or even the drama, and that +Potterism in it was even more dangerous than in these. So, when he +could, he induced parsons to join the Anti-Potter League. + +We weren't all tied up, I may say, with the political party principles +very commonly held by members of the 1917 Club. I certainly wasn't a +Socialist, nor, wholly, I think, a Radical; neither at that time was +Peacock, though he became more so as time went on; nor, certainly, was +Katherine. Juke was, because he believed that in these principles was the +only hope for the world. And the twins were, because the same principles +were the only wear for the young intellectual, at that moment. Johnny, in +all things the glass of fashion and the mould of form, wore them as he +wore his monocle, quite unconscious of his own reasons for both. But it +was the idea of the Anti-Potter League to keep clear of parties and +labels. You _can_ belong to a recognised political party and be an +Anti-Potterite, for Potterism is a frame of mind, not a set of opinions +(Juke was, after Katherine, the best Anti-Potterite I have known, though +people did their best to spoil him), but it is easier, and more +compatible with your objects, to be free to think what you like about +everything. Once you are tied up with a party, you can only avoid +second-handedness, taking over views ready-made, if you are very +strong-minded indeed. + +Thursday was a fairly free afternoon for me, and Jane and I somehow +got into a habit of going off somewhere together after lunch, or +staying on at the club and talking. Jane seemed to me to be +increasingly interesting; she was acquiring new subtleties, +complexities, and comprehensions, and shedding crudities. She wrote +better, too. We took her stuff sometimes for the _Fact_. At the same +time, she seemed to me to be morally deteriorating, as people who +grab and take things they oughtn't to have always do deteriorate. And +she was trying all the time to square Hobart with the rest of her +life, fitting him in, as it were, and he didn't fit in. I was +interested to see what she was making of it all. + + +4 + +One Thursday in early September, when Juke and Jane and I had lunched +alone together at the club, and Jane and I had gone off to some meeting +afterwards, Juke dropped in on me in the evening after dinner. He sat +down and lit a pipe, then got up and walked about the room, and I knew he +had something on his mind, but wasn't going to help him out. I felt hard +and rather sore that evening. + +Soon he said, in his soft, indifferent voice, 'Of course you'll be angry +at what I'm going to say.' + +'I think it probable,' I replied, 'from the look of you. But go on.' + +'Well,' he said quietly, 'I don't think these Thursday lunches will do +any more.' + +'For you?' I asked. + +'For any of us. Not with Jane Hobart there.' He wouldn't look at me, but +stood by the window looking out at Gray's Inn Road. + +'And why not with Jane? Because she's married to the enemy?' + +'It makes it awkward,' he murmured. + +'Makes it awkward,' I repeated. 'How does it make it awkward? Whom does +it make awkward? It doesn't make Jane awkward. Nor me, nor any one else, +as far as I know. Does it make you awkward? I didn't know anything could +do that. But something obviously has, this evening. It's not Jane, +though; it's being afraid to say what you mean. You'd better spit it out, +Jukie. You're not enough of a Jesuit to handle these jobs competently, +you know. I know perfectly well what you've got on your mind. You think +Jane and I are getting too intimate with each other. You think we're +falling, or fallen, or about to fall, in love.' + +'Well,' he wheeled round on me, relieved that I had said it, 'I do. +And you can't deny it.... Any fool could see it by now. Why, the way +you mooned about, depressed and sulky, this last month, when she's +been out of town, and woke up the moment she came back, was enough to +tell any one.' + +'I dare say,' I said indifferently. 'People's minds are usually +offensively open to that particular information. If you'll define being +in love, I'll tell you whether I'm in love with Jane.... I'm interested +in Jane; I find her attractive, if you like, extraordinarily attractive, +though I don't admire her character, and she's not beautiful. I like to +be with her and to talk to her. On the other hand, I've not the least +intention of asking her to elope with me. Nor would she if I did. Well?' + +'You're in love,' Juke repeated. 'You mayn't know it, but you are. And +you'll get deeper in every day, if you don't pull up. And then before you +know where you are, there'll be the most ghastly mess.' + +'Don't trouble yourself, Jukie. There won't be a mess. Jane doesn't like +messes. And I'm not quite a fool. Don't imagine melodrama.... I claim the +right to be intimate with Jane--well, if you like, to be a little in love +with Jane--and yet to keep my head and not play the fool. Why should men +and women lose their attraction for each other just because they marry +and promise loyalty to some one person? They can keep that compact and +yet not shut themselves away from other men and other women. They must +have friends. Life can't be an eternal duet.... And here you come, using +that cant Potterish phrase, "in love," as if love was the sea, or +something definite that you must be in or out of and always know which.' + +'The sea--yes,' Juke took me up. 'It's like the sea; it advances and +advances, and you can't stand there and stop it, say "Thus far and no +farther" to it. All you can do is to turn your back upon it and walk +away in time.' + +'Well, I'm not going to walk away. There's nothing to walk away from. +I've no intention of behaving in a dishonourable way, and I claim the +right to be friends with Jane. So that's that.' + +I was angry with Juke. He was taking the prudish, conventional point of +view. I had never yet been the victim of passion; love between men and +women had always rather bored me; it is such a hot, stupid, muddling +thing, ail emotion and no thought. Dull, I had always thought it; one of +those impulses arranged by nature for her own purposes, but not in the +least interesting to the civilised thinking being. Juke had no right to +speak as if I were an amorous fool, liable to be bowled over against my +better judgment. + +'I've told you what I think,' said Juke bluntly. 'I can't do any more. +It's your own show.' He took out his watch. 'I've got a Men's Social,' he +said, and went. That is so like parsons. Their conversations nearly +always have these sudden ends. But I suppose that is not their fault. + + +5 + +And, after all, Juke was right. Juke was right. It was love, and I was in +it, and so was Jane. Five minutes after Juke left me that night I knew +that. I had been in love with Jane for years; perhaps since before the +war, only I had never known it. On that Anti-Potter investigation tour I +had observed and analysed her, and smiled cynically to myself at the +commercial instinct of the Potter twins, the lack of the fineness that +distinguished Katherine and Juke. I remembered that; but I remembered, +too, how white and round Jane's chin had looked as it pressed against the +thymy turf of the cliff where we lay above the sea. All through the war I +had seen her at intervals, enjoying life, finding the war a sort of lark, +and I had hated her because she didn't care for the death and torture of +men, for the possible defeat of her country, or the already achieved +economic, moral, and intellectual degradation of the whole of Europe. She +had merely profiteered out of it all, and had a good time. I remembered +now my anger and my scorn; but I remembered too the squareness and the +whiteness of her forehead under her newly-cut hair, that leave when I had +first seen it bobbed. + +I had been moved by desire then without knowing it; I had let Hobart take +her, and still not known. The pang I had felt had been bitterness at +having lost Jane, not bitterness against Jane for having made a +second-rate marriage. + +But I knew now. Juke's words, in retrospect, were like fire to petrol; I +was suddenly all ablaze. + +In that case Juke was right, and we mustn't go on meeting alone. There +might be, as he said, the most ghastly mess. Because I knew now that Jane +was in love with me too--a little. + +We couldn't go on. It was too second-rate. It was anti-social, stupid, +uncivilised, all I most hated, to let emotion play the devil with one's +reasoned principles and theories. I wasn't going to. It would be +sentimental, sloppy--'the world well lost for love,' as in a schoolgirl's +favourite novel, a novel by Leila Yorke. + +Now there are some loves that the world, important though it is, may be +well lost for--the love of an idea, a principle, a cause, a discovery, a +piece of knowledge or of beauty, perhaps a country; but very certainly +the love of lovers is not among these; it is too common and personal a +thing. I hate the whole tribe of sentimental men and women who, impelled +by the unimaginative fool nature, exalt sexual love above its proper +place in the scheme of things. I wasn't going to do it, or to let the +thing upset my life or Jane's. + + +6 + +I kept away from Jane all that week. She rang me up at the office once; +it may have been my fancy that her voice sounded strange, somehow less +assured than usual. It set me wondering about that last lunch and +afternoon together which had roused Juke. Had it roused Jane, too? What +had happened, exactly? How had I spoken and looked? I couldn't remember; +only that I had been glad--very glad--to have Jane back in town again. + +I didn't go to the club next Thursday. As it happened, I was +lunching with some one else. So, by Thursday evening, I hadn't seen +Jane for a week. + +Wanting company, I went to Katherine's flat after dinner. Katherine had +just finished dinner, and with her was Jane. + +When I saw her, lying there smoking in the most comfortable arm-chair as +usual, serene and lazy and pale, Juke's words blazed up between us like a +fire, and I couldn't look at her. + +I don't know what we talked about; I expect I was odd and absent. I knew +Katherine was looking at me, with those frosty, piercing, light blue eyes +of hers that saw through, and through, and beyond.... + +All the time I was saying to myself, 'This won't do. I must chuck it. We +mustn't meet.' + +I think Jane talked about _Abraham Lincoln_, which she disliked, and Lady +Pinkerton's experiments in spiritualism, which were rather funny. But I +couldn't have been there for more than half an hour before Jane got up to +go. She had to get home, she said. + +I went with her. I didn't mean to, but I did. And here, if any one wants +to know why I regard 'being in love' as a disastrous kink in the mental +machinery, is the reason. It impels you to do things against all your +reasoned will and intentions. My madness drove me out with Jane, drove me +to see her home by the Hampstead tube, to walk across the Vale of Health +with her in the moonlight, to go in with her, and upstairs to the +drawing-room. + +All this time we had talked little, and of common, superficial things. +But now, as I stood in the long, dimly-lit room and watched Jane take off +her hat, drop it on a table, and stand for a moment with her back to me, +turning over the evening post, I knew that I must somehow have it out, +have things clear and straight between us. It seemed to me to be the only +way of striking any sort of a path through the intricate difficulties of +our future relations. + +'Jane,' I said, and she turned and looked at me with questioning +gray eyes. + +At that I had no words for explanation or anything else: I could only +repeat, 'Jane. Jane. Jane,' like a fool. + +She said, very low, 'Yes, Arthur,' as if she were assenting to some +statement I had made, as perhaps she was. + +I somehow found that I had caught her hands in mine, and so we stood +together, but still I said nothing but 'Jane,' because that was all that, +for the moment, I knew. + +Hobart stood in the open doorway, looking at us, white and quiet. + +'Good-evening,' he said. + +We fell apart, loosing each other's hands. + +'You're early back, Oliver,' said Jane, composedly. + +'Earlier, obviously,' he returned, 'than I was expected.' + +My anger, my hatred, my contempt for him and my own shame blazed in me +together. I faced him, black and bitter, and he was not only to me +Jane's husband, the suspicious, narrow-minded ass to whom she was tied, +but, much more, the Potterite, the user of cant phrases, the ignorant +player to the gallery of the Pinkerton press, the fool who had so +little sense of his folly that he disputed on facts with the experts +who wrote for the _Weekly Fact_. In him, at that moment, I saw all the +Potterism of this dreadful world embodied, and should have liked to +have struck it dead. + +'What exactly,' I asked him, 'do you mean by that?' + +He smiled. + +Jane yawned. 'I'm going to take my things off,' she said, and went out of +the room and up the next flight of stairs to her bedroom. It was her +contemptuous way of indicating that the situation was, in fact, no +situation at all, but merely a rather boring conversation. + +As, though I appreciated her attitude, I couldn't agree with her, I +repeated my question. + +Hobart added to his smile a shrug. + + + + +PART III: + +TOLD BY LEILA YORKE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS + + +1 + +Love and truth are the only things that count. I have often thought that +they are like two rafts on the stormy sea of life, which otherwise would +swamp and drown us struggling human beings. If we follow these two stars +patiently, they will guide us at last into port. Love--the love of our +kind--the undying love of a mother for her children--the love, so +gloriously exhibited lately, of a soldier for his country--the eternal +love between a man and a woman, which counts the world well lost--these +are the clues through the wilderness. And Truth, the Truth which cries +in the market-place with a loud voice and will not be hid, the Truth +which sacrifices comfort, joy, even life itself, for the sake of a clear +vision, the Truth which is far stranger than fiction--this is Love's +very twin. + +For Love's sake, then, and for Truth's, I am writing this account of a +very sad and very dreadful period in the lives of those close and dear to +me. I want to be very frank, and to hide nothing. I think, in my books, I +am almost too frank sometimes; I give offence, and hurt people's egotism +and vanity by speaking out; but it is the way I have to write; I cannot +soften down facts to please. Just as I cannot restrain my sense of the +ridiculous, even though it may offend those who take themselves +solemnly; I am afraid I am naughty about such people, and often give +offence; it is one of the penalties attached to the gift of humour. Percy +often tells me I should be more careful; but my dear Percy's wonderful +caution, that has helped to make him what he is, is a thing that no mere +reckless woman can hope to emulate. + + +2 + +I am diverging from the point. I must begin with that dreadful evening of +the 4th of September last. Clare was dining with a friend in town, and +stopping at Jane's house in Hampstead for the night. Percy and I were +spending a quiet evening at our house at Potter's Bar. We were both busy +after dinner; he was in his study, and I was in my den, as I call it, +writing another instalment of 'Rhoda's Gift' for the _Evening Hustle_, I +find I write my best after dinner; my brain gets almost feverishly +stimulated. My doctor tells me I ought not to work late, it is not fair +on my nerves, but I think every writer has to live more or less on his or +her nervous capital, it is the way of the reckless, squandering, +thriftless tribe we are. + +Laying down my pen at 10.45 after completing my chapter, the telephone +bell suddenly rang. The maids had gone up to bed, so I went into the hall +to take the call, or to put it through to Percy's study, for the late +calls are usually, of course, for him, from one of the offices. But it +was not for him. It was Jane's voice speaking. + +'Is that you, mother?' she said, quite quietly and steadily. 'There's +been an accident. Oliver fell downstairs. He fell backwards and broke his +neck. He died soon after the doctor came.' + +The self-control, the quiet pluck of these modern girls! Her voice hardly +shook as she uttered the terrible words. + +I sat down, trembling all over, and the tears rushed to my eyes. My +darling child, and her dear husband, cut off at the very outset of their +mutual happiness, and in this awful way! Those stairs--I always hated +them; they are so steep and narrow, and wind so sharply round a corner. + +'Oh, my darling,' I said. 'And the last train gone, so that I can't be +with you till the morning! Is Clare there?' + +'Yes,' said Jane. 'She's lying down.... She fainted.' + +My poor darling Clare! So highly-strung, so delicate-fibred, far more +like me than Jane is! And I always had a suspicion that her feeling for +dear Oliver went very deep--deeper, possibly, than any of us ever +guessed. For, there is no doubt about it, poor Oliver did woo Clare; if +he wasn't in love with her he was very near it, before he went off at a +tangent after Jane, who was something new, and therefore attractive to +him, besides being thrown so much together in Paris when Jane was working +for her father. The dear child has put up a brave fight ever since the +engagement, and her self-control has been wonderful, but she has not been +her old self. If it had not been for the unfortunate European conditions, +I should have sent her abroad for a thorough change. It was terrible for +her to be on the spot when this awful accident happened. + +'My dear, dear child,' I said, hardly able to speak, my voice shook so +with crying. 'I've no words.... Have you rung up Frank and Johnny? I +should like Frank to be with you to-night; I know he would wish it.' + +'No,' said Jane. 'It's no use bothering them till to-morrow. They can't +do anything. Is daddy at home?... You'll tell him, then.... Good-night.' + +'Oh, my darling, you mustn't ring off yet, indeed you mustn't. Hold on +while I tell daddy; he would hate not to speak to you at once about it.' + +'No, he won't need to speak to me. He'll have to get on to the _Haste_ at +once, and arrange a lot of things. I can keep till the morning. +Good-night, mother.' + +She rang off. There is something terrible to me about telephone +conversations, when they deal with intimate or tragic subjects; they are +so remote, cold, impersonal, like typed letters; is it because one can't +watch the soul in the eyes of the person one is talking to? + + +3 + +I went straight to Percy. He was sitting at his writing table going +through papers. At his side was the black coffee that he always sipped +through the evenings, simmering over a spirit lamp. Percy will never go +up to bed until the small hours; I suppose it is his newspaper training. +If he isn't working, he will sit and read, or sometimes play patience, +and always sip strong coffee, though his doctor has told him he should +give it up. But he is like me; he lives on his nervous energy, reckless +of consequences. He spends himself, and is spent, in the service of his +great press. It was fortunate for him, though I suppose I ought not to +say it, that he married a woman who is also the slave of literature, +though of a more imaginative branch of literature, and who can understand +him. But then that was inevitable; he could never have cared for a +materialistic woman, or a merely domestic woman. He demanded ideas in the +woman to whom he gave himself. + +I could hardly bear to tell him the dreadful news. I knew how overcome he +would be, because he was so fond of dear Oliver, who was one of his right +hands, as well as a dear son-in-law. And he had always loved Jane with a +peculiar pride and affection, devoted father as he was to all his +children, for he said she had the best brain of the lot. And Oliver had +been doing so well on the _Daily Haste_. Percy had often said he was an +editor after his own heart; he had so much flair. When Percy said some +one had flair, it was the highest praise he could give. He always told me +I had flair, and that was why he was so eager to put my stories in his +papers. I remember his remark when that dreadful man, Arthur Gideon, said +in some review or other (I dislike his reviews, they are so conceited and +cocksure, and show often such bad taste), 'Flair and genius are +incompatible.' Percy said simply, 'Flair _is_ genius.' I thought it +extraordinarily true. But whether I have flair or not, I don't know. I +don't think I ever bother about what the public want, or what will sell. +I just write what comes natural to me; if people like it, so much the +better; if they don't, they must bear it! But I will say that they +usually do! No, I don't think I have flair; I think I have, instead, a +message; or many messages. + +But I had to break it to Percy. I put my arms round him and told him, +quite simply. He was quite broken up by it. But, of course, the first +thing he had to do was to get on to the _Haste_ and let them know. He +told them he would be up in the morning to make arrangements. + +Then he sat and thought, and worked out plans in his head, in the +concentrated, abstracted way he has, telephoning sometimes, writing notes +sometimes, almost forgetting my presence. I love to be at the centre of +the brain of the Pinkerton press at the moments when it is working at top +speed like this. Cup after cup of strong black coffee he drank, hardly +noticing it, till I remonstrated, and then he said absently, 'Very well, +dear, very well,' and drank more. When I tried to persuade him to come up +to bed, he said, 'No, no; I have things to think out. I shall be late. +Leave me, my dear. Go to bed yourself, you need rest.' Then he turned +from the newspaper owner to the father, and sighed heavily, and said, +'Poor little Janie. Poor dear little Babs. Well, well, well.' + + +4 + +I left him and went upstairs, knowing I must get all the strength I could +before to-morrow. + +My poor little girl a widow! I could hardly realise it. And yet, alas, +how many young widows we have among us in these days! Only they are +widowed for a noble cause, not by a horrid accident on the stairs. Poor +Oliver, of course, had exemption from military service; he never even had +to go before the tribunal for it, but had it direct from the War Office, +like nearly all Percy's staff, who were recognised by the Government as +doing more important work at home than they could have done at the front. +I have a horror of the men who _evaded_ service during the war, but men +like Oliver Hobart, who would have preferred to be fighting but stayed to +do invaluable work for their country, one must respect. And it seemed +very bitter that Oliver, who hadn't fallen in the war, should have fallen +now down his own stairs. Poor, poor Oliver! As I lay in bed, unable to +sleep, I saw his beautiful face before me. He was quite the most +beautiful man I have ever known. I have given his personal appearance to +the hero of one of my novels, _Sidney, a Man_. It was terrible to me to +think of that beauty lost from the world. Whatever view one may take of +another world (and personally, far as I am from any orthodox view on the +subject, my spiritual investigations have convinced me that there is, +there must be, a life to come; I have had the most wonderful experiences, +that may not be denied) physical beauty, one must believe, is a +phenomenon of this physical universe, and must perish with the body. +Unless, as some thinkers have conceived, the immortal soul wraps itself +about in some aural vapour that takes the form it wore on earth. This is +a possibility, and I would gladly believe it. I must, I decided, try to +bring my poor Jane into touch with psychic interests; it would comfort +her to have the wonderful chance of getting into communication with +Oliver. At present she scouts the whole thing, like all other forms of +supernatural belief. Jane has always been a materialist. It is very +strange to me that my children have developed, intellectually and +spiritually, along such different lines from myself. I have never been +orthodox; I am not even now an orthodox theosophist; I am not of the +stuff which can fall into line and accept things from others; it seems as +if I must always think for myself, delve painfully, with blood and tears, +for Truth. But I have always been profoundly religious; the spiritual +side of life has always meant a very great deal to me; I think I feel +almost too intensely the vibration of Spirit in the world of things. I +probe, and wonder, and cannot let it alone, like most people, and be +content with surfaces. Of late years, and especially since I took up +theosophy, I have found great joy and comfort from my association with +the S.P.R. I am in touch with several very wonderful thought-readers, +crystal-gazers, mediums, and planchette writers, who have often strangely +illumined the dark places of life for me. To those who mock and doubt, I +merely say, '_try_.' Or else I cite, not '_Raymond_' nor Conan Doyle, but +that strange, interesting, scientific book by a Belfast professor, who +made experiments in weighing the tables before and after they levitated, +and weighing the mediums, and finding them all lighter. I think that was +it; anyhow it is all, to any open mind, entirely convincing that +_something_ had occurred out of the normal, which is what Percy and the +twins never will believe. When I say 'try' to Percy, he only answers, +'I should fail, my dear. I may, as I have been called, be a superman, +but I am not a superwoman, and cannot call up spirits.' And the +children are hopeless about it, too. Frank says we are not intended to +'lift the curtain' (that is what he calls it). He is such a thorough +clergyman, and never had my imagination; he calls my explorations +'dabbling in the occult.' His wife jeers, and asks me if I've been +talking to many spooks lately. But then her family are hard-headed +business people, quite different from me. Clare says the whole thing +frightens her to death. For her part she is content with what the +Church allows of spiritual exploration, which is not much. Clare, since +what I am afraid I must call her trouble, has been getting much Higher +Church; incense and ritual seem to comfort her. I know the phase; I +went through it twenty years ago, when my baby Michael died and the +world seemed at an end. But I came out the other side; it couldn't last +for me, I had to have much more. Clare may remain content with it; she +has not got my perhaps too intense instinct for groping always after +further light. And I am thankful that she should find comfort and help +anywhere. Only I rather hope she will never join the Roman Church; its +banks are too narrow to hold the brimming river of the human +spirit--even my Clare's, which does not, perhaps, brim very high, dear, +simple child that she is. + +As for the twins, they are merely cynical about all experiments with the +supernatural. I often feel that if my little Michael had lived.... But, +in a way, I am thankful to have him on the other side, reaching his baby +hands across to me in the way he so often does. + +That night I determined I would make a great effort to bring Jane into +the circle of light, as I love to call it. She would find such comfort +there, if only it could be. But I knew it would be difficult; Jane is so +hard-headed, and, for all her cleverness in writing, has so little +imagination really. She said that _Raymond_ made her sick. And she +wouldn't look at _Rupert Lives_! or _Across the Stream_, E.F. Benson's +latest novel about the other side. She quite frankly doesn't believe +there is another side. I remember her saying to me once, in her +school-girl slang, when she was seventeen or so, 'Well, I'd like to think +I went on, mother; I think it's simply rotten pipping out. I _like_ being +alive, and I'd like to have tons more of it--but there it is, I can't +believe anything so weird and it's no use trying. And if I don't pip out +after all, it'll be such a jolly old surprise and lark that I shall be +glad I couldn't believe in it here.' Johnny, I remember, said to her +(those two were always ragging each other), 'Ah, you may be wishing you +only _could_ pip out, then....' But I told him that I wished he wouldn't, +even in joke, allude to that bogey of the nurseries of my generation, a +place of punishment. That terrible old teaching! Thank God we are +outgrowing much of it. I must say that the descriptions They give, when +They give any, of Their place of being, do not sound very cheerful--but +it cannot at all resemble the old-fashioned place of torment, it sounds +so much less clear-cut and definite than that, more like London in a +yellow fog. + + +5 + +I do not think I slept that night. I am bad at sleeping when I have had a +shock. My idiotic nerves again. Crane, in his book, _Right and Wrong +Thinking_, says one should drop discordant thoughts out of one's mind as +one drops a pebble out of one's hand. But my interior calm is not yet +sufficient for this exercise, and I confess I am all too easily shaken to +pieces by trouble, especially the troubles of those I love. + +I felt a wreck when I met Percy at an early breakfast next morning. He, +too, looked jaded and strained, and ate hardly any breakfast, only a +little force and three cups of strong tea--an inadequate meal, as I told +him, upon which to face so trying a day. For we had to have strength not +only for ourselves but for our children. Giving out: it is so much harder +work than taking in, and it is the work for us older people always. + +Percy passed me the _Haste_, pointing to a column on the front page. That +had been part of his business last night, to see that the _Haste_ had a +good column about it. The news editor had turned out a column about a +Bolshevik advance on the Dvina to make room for it, and it was side by +side with the Rectory Oil Mystery, the German Invasion (dumped goods, of +course), the Glasgow Trades' Union Congress, the French Protest about +Syria, Woman's Mysterious Disappearance, and a Tarring and Feathering +Court Martial. The heading was 'Tragic Death of the Editor of the _Daily +Haste_,' and there followed not only a full report of the disaster, but +an account of Oliver's career, with one of those newspaper photographs +which do the original so little justice. + +'Binney's been pretty sharp about it,' said Percy approvingly. 'Of +course, he had all the biographical facts stored.' + + +6 + +We went up by the 9.24, and went straight to Hampstead. + +Quietly and sadly we entered that house of death. The maid, all +flustered and red-eyed with emotional unrest, told us that Jane was +upstairs, and Clare too. We went up the narrow stairs, now become so +tragic in their associations. On which step, I wondered, had he fallen, +and how far? + +Jane came out of the drawing-room to meet us. She was pale, and looked as +if she hadn't slept, but composed, as she always is. I took her in my +arms and gave her a long kiss. Then her father kissed her, and smoothed +her hair, and patted her head as he used to do when she was a child, and +said, 'There, there, there, my poor little Babs. There, there, there.' + +I led her into the drawing-room. I felt her calm was unnatural. 'Cry, my +darling,' I said. 'Have your cry out, and you will feel better.' + +'Shall I?' she said. 'I don't think so, mother. Crying doesn't make me +feel better, ever. It makes my head ache.' + +I thought of Tennyson's young war widow and the nurse of ninety years, +and only wished it could have been six months later, so that I could have +set Jane's child upon her knee. + +'When you feel you can, my darling,' I said, wiping my eyes, 'you must +tell me all about it. But not before you want to.' + +'There isn't much to tell,' she answered quietly, still without tears. +'He fell down the stairs backwards. That's all.' + +'Did you ... see him, darling?' + +She hesitated a moment, then said 'Yes. I saw him. I was in here. He'd +just come in from the office.... He lost his balance.' + +'Would you feel up, my dear,' said her father, 'to giving me an account +of it, that I could put in the papers?' + +'You can put that in the papers, daddy. That's all there is to say about +it, I'm afraid.... I've had seventeen reporters round this morning +already, and I told Emily to tell them that. That's probably another,' +she added, as the bell rang. + +But it was not. Emily came up a moment later and asked if Jane could see +Mr. Gideon. + +It showed the over-wrought state of Jane's nerves that she started a +little. She never starts or shows surprise. Besides, what could be more +natural than that Mr. Gideon, who, disagreeable man though he is, is a +close friend of hers (far too close, I always thought, considering that +Oliver was on almost openly bad terms with him) should call to inquire, +on seeing the dreadful news? It would, all the same, I thought, have been +better taste on his part to have contented himself with leaving kind +inquiries at the door. However, of course, one would never expect him to +do the right-minded or well-bred thing on any occasion. + +'I'll go down,' Jane said quietly. 'Will you wait there?' she added to +her father and me. 'You might,' she called from the stairs, 'go and see +Clare. She's in her room.' + +I crossed the passage to the spare bedroom, and as I did so I caught a +glimpse of that man's tall, rather stooping figure in the hall, and heard +Jane say, rather low, 'Arthur!' and add quickly, 'Mother and dad are +upstairs. Come in here.' + +Then they disappeared into the dining-room, which was on the ground +floor, and shut the door after them. + + +7 + +I went in to Clare. She was sitting in an armchair by the window. When +she turned her face to me, I recoiled in momentary shock. Her poor, +pretty little face was pinched and feverishly flushed; her brown eyes +stared at me as if she was seeing ghosts. Her hands were locked together +on her knees, and she was huddled and shivering, though it was a warm +morning. I had known she would feel the shock terribly, but I had hardly +been prepared for this. I was seriously afraid she was going to be ill. + +I knelt down beside her and drew her into my arms, where she lay passive, +seeming hardly to realise me. + +'My poor little girl,' I murmured. 'Cry, darling. Cry, and you will +feel better.' + +Clare was always more obedient than Jane. She did cry. She broke suddenly +into the most terrible passion of tears. I tried to hold her, but she +pulled away from me and laid her head upon her arms and sobbed. + +I stayed beside her and comforted her as best I could, and finally went +to Jane's medicine cupboard and mixed her a dose of sal volatile. + +When she was a little quieter, I said, 'Tell me nothing more than you +feel inclined to, darling. But if it would make you happier to talk to me +about it, do.' + +'I c-can't talk about it,' she sobbed. + +'My poor pet!... Did it happen after you got here, or before?' + +I felt her stiffen and grow tense, as at a dreadful memory. + +'After.... But I was in my room; I wasn't there.' + +'You heard the fall, I suppose....' + +She shuddered, and nodded. + +'And you came out....' I helped her gently, 'as Jane did, and +found him....' + +She burst out crying afresh. I almost wished I had not suggested this +outlet for her horror and grief. + +'Don't, mother,' she sobbed. 'I can't talk about it--I can't.' + +'My pet, of course you can't, and you shan't. It was thoughtless of me to +think that speech would be a relief. Lie down on your bed, dear, and have +a good rest, and you will feel better presently.' + +But she opposed that too. + +'I can't stay here. I want to go home _at once. At once_, mother.' + +'My dearest child, you must wait for me. I can't let you go alone in +this state, and I can't, of course, go myself until Jane is ready to +come with me.' + +'I'm going,' she repeated. 'I can go alone. I'm going now, at once.' + +And she began feverishly cramming her things into her suit-case. + +I was anxious about her, but I did not like to thwart her in her present +mood. Then I heard Frank's voice in the drawing-room, and I thought I +would get him to accompany her, at least to the station. Frank and Clare +have always been fond of one another, and she has a special reliance on +clergymen. + +I went into the drawing-room, and found Frank and Johnny both there, with +Jane and Percy. So that dreadful Jew must have gone. + +I told Frank that Clare was in a terrible state, and entrusted her +to his care. Frank is a good unselfish brother, and he went to look +after her. + +Johnny, silent and troubled, and looking as if death was out of his line, +though, Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it during the last five +years, was fidgeting awkwardly about the room. His awkwardness was, no +doubt, partly due to the fact that he had never much cared for Oliver. +This does make things awkward, in the presence of the Great Silencer. + +Percy had to leave us now, in order to go to the _Haste_ and see about +things there. He said he would be back in the afternoon. He would, of +course, take over the business of making the last sad arrangements, which +Jane called, rather crudely, 'seeing about the funeral'; the twins would +always call spades 'spades.' + +Presently I made the suggestion which I had for some time had in my mind. + +'May I, dear?' I asked very softly, half rising. + +Jane rose, too. + +'See Oliver, you mean? Oh, yes. He's in his room.' + +I motioned her back. 'Not you, darling. Johnny will take me.' + +Johnny didn't want to much, I think; it is the sort of strain on the +emotions that he dislikes, but he came with me. + + +8 + +What had been Oliver lay on the bed, stretched straight out, the +beautiful face as white and delicate as if modelled in wax. One saw no +marks of injury; except for that waxy pallor he might have been sleeping. + +In the presence of the Great White Silence I bowed my head and wept. He +was so beautiful, and had been so alive. I said so to Johnny. + +'He was so alive,' I said, 'so short a time ago.' + +'Yes,' Johnny muttered, staring down at the bed, his hands in his +pockets. 'Yesterday, of course. Rotten bad luck, poor old chap. Rotten +way to get pipped.' + +For a minute longer I kept my vigil beside that inanimate form. + +'Peace, peace, he is not dead,' I repeated to myself. 'He sleeps whom men +call dead.... The soul of Adonais, like a star, beckons from the abode +where the eternal are.' + +Death is wonderful to me; not a horrible thing, but holy and high. Here +was the lovely mortal shell, for which 'arrangements' had to be made; but +the spirit which had informed it was--where? In what place, under what +conditions, would Oliver Hobart now fulfil himself, now carry on the work +so faithfully begun on earth? What word would he be able to send us from +that Place of Being? Time would (I hoped) show. + +As we stood there in the shadow of the Great Mystery, I heard Frank +talking to Clare, whose room was next door. + +'It is wrong to give way.... One must not grieve for the dead as if one +would recall them. We know--you and I know, don't we, Clare--that they +are happier where they are. And we know too, that it is God's will, and +that He decides everything for the best. We must not rebel against +it.... If you really want to catch the 12.4 to Potter's Bar, we ought to +start now.' + +Conventional phraseology! It would never have been adequate for me; I am +afraid I have an incurable habit of rebelling against the orthodox dogma +beloved of clergymen, but Clare is more docile, less 'tameless and swift +and proud.' + +I touched Johnny's arm. 'Let us come away,' I murmured. + +Clare, her face beneath her veil swollen with crying, went off with +Frank, who was going to see her into the train. I, of course, was going +to stop with Jane until the funeral, as she called it; I would not leave +her alone in the house. So I asked Frank if Peggy would go down to +Potter's Bar and be with Clare, who was certainly not fit for solitude, +poor child, until my return. Peggy is a dear, cheerful girl, if limited, +and she and Clare have always been great friends. Frank said he was sure +Peggy would do this, and I went back to Jane, who was writing necessary +letters in the drawing-room. + +Johnny said to her, 'Well, if you're sure I can't be any use just now, +old thing, I suppose I ought to go to the office,' and Jane said, 'Yes, +don't stay. There's nothing,' and he went. + +I offered to help Jane with the letters, but she said she could easily +manage them, and I thought the occupation might be the best thing for +her, so I left her to it and went down to speak to Emily, Jane's nice +little maid. Emily is a good little thing, and she was obviously +terribly, though not altogether unpleasantly, shocked and stirred (maids +are) by the tragedy. + +She told me much more about the terrible evening than Jane or Clare had. +It was less effort, of course, for her to speak. Indeed, I think she +really enjoyed opening out to me. And I liked to hear. I always must get +a clear picture of events: I suppose it is the story-writer's instinct. + +'I went up to bed, my lady,' she said, 'feeling a bit lonely now cook's +on her holiday, soon after Miss Clare came in. And I was just off to +sleep when I heard Mrs. Hobart come in, with Mr. Gideon; they were +talking as they came up to the drawing-room, and that woke me up.' + +'Mr. Gideon!' I exclaimed in surprise. 'Was he there?' + +'Yes, my lady. He came in with Mrs. Hobart. I knew it was him, by his +voice. And soon after the master came in, and they was all talking +together. And then I heard the mistress come upstairs to her bedroom. And +then I dozed off, and I was woke by the fall.... Oh, dear, my lady, how I +did scream when I came down and saw.... There was the poor master laying +on the bottom stair, stunned-like, as I thought, I'm sure I never knew he +was gone, and the mistress and Miss Clare bending over him, and the +mistress calling to me to telephone for the doctor. The poor mistress, +she was so white, I thought she'd go off, but she kept up wonderful; and +Miss Clare, she was worse, all scared and white, as if she'd seen a +ghost. I rang for Dr. Armes, and he came round at once, and I got +hot-water bottles and put them in the bed, but the doctor wouldn't move +him for a bit, he examined him where he lay, and he found the back was +broke. He told the mistress straight out. "His back's broke," he said. +"There's no hope," he said. "It may be a few hours, or less," he said. +Then he sent for a mattress and we laid the master on it, down in the +hall, and put hot-water bottles to his feet, and then the mistress said +I'd better go back to bed; but, oh, dear, I couldn't do that, so I just +waited in the kitchen and got a kettle boiling in case the mistress and +Miss Clare would like a cup of tea, and I had a cup myself, my lady, for +I was all of a didder, and nothing pulls you round like a drop of hot +tea. Then I took two cups out into the hall for the mistress and Miss +Clare, and when I got there the doctor was saying, "It's all over," and, +dear me, so it was, so I took the tea back to keep it hot against they +were ready for it, for I couldn't speak to them of tea just at first, +could I, my lady? Then the doctor called me, and there was Miss Clare +laying in a fit, and he was bringing her round. He told me to help her to +her room, and so I did, and she seemed half stunned-like, and didn't say +a word, but dropped on her bed like a stone. Then I had to help the +doctor and the mistress carry the poor master on the mattress up to his +room, and lay him on his bed; and the doctor saw to Miss Clare a little, +then he went away and said he'd send round a woman for the laying out.... +Poor Miss Clare, I was sorry for her. Laid like a stone, she did, as +white as milk. She's such a one to feel, isn't she, my lady? And to hear +the fall and run out and find him like that! The poor master! Them +stairs, I always hated them. The back stairs are bad enough, when I have +to carry the hot water up and down, but they don't turn so sharp. The +poor master, he must have stumbled backwards, the light not being good, +and fallen clean over. And it isn't as if he was like some gentlemen, +that might have had a drop at dinner; no one ever saw the master the +worse, did they, my lady? I'm sure cook and me and every one always +thought him such a nice, good gentleman. I don't know what cook will say +when she hears, I'm sure I don't.' + +'It is indeed all very terrible and sad, Emily,' I said to her. I left +her then, and went up to the drawing-room. + +Jane was sitting at the writing table, her pen in one hand, her forehead +resting on the other. + +'My dear,' I said to her, 'Emily has been giving me some account of last +night. She tells me that Mr. Gideon was here.' + +'She's quite right,' said Jane listlessly. 'I met him at Katherine's, and +he saw me home and came in for a little.' + +I was silent for a moment. It seemed to me rather sad that Jane should +have this memory of her husband's last evening on this earth, for she +knew that Oliver had not liked her to see much of Mr. Gideon. I +understood why she had been loath to mention it to me. + +'And had he gone,' I asked her softly, 'when ... It ... happened?' + +Jane frowned, in the way the twins always frown when people put things +less bluntly and crudely than they think fit. For some reason they call +this, the regard for the ordinary niceties of life, by the foolish name +of 'Potterism.' + +'When Oliver fell?' she corrected me, still in that quiet, listless, +almost indifferent tone. 'Oh, yes. He wasn't here long.' + +'Well, well,' I said very gently, 'we must let bygones be bygones, and +not grieve over much. Grief,' I added, wanting so much that the child +should rise to the opportunity and take her trial in a large spirit, 'is +such a big, strong, beautiful thing. If we let it, it will take us by +the hands and lead us gently along by the waters of comfort. We mustn't +rebel or fight; we must look straight ahead with welcoming eyes. For +whatever life brings us we can _use_.' + +Jane still sat very still at the writing table, her head on her hand, her +fingers pushing back her hair from her forehead. I thought she sighed a +little, a long sigh of acquiescence which touched me. + +This seemed to me to be the moment to speak to her of what was in my +mind. + +'And, my dear,' I said, 'there is another thing. We mustn't think that +Oliver has gone down into silence. You must help him to speak to you, a +little later, when you are fit and when _he_ has found his way to the +Door. You mustn't shut him out, my child.' + +'Mother,' said Jane, 'you know I don't believe in any of that.' + +'I only ask you to try,' I said earnestly. 'Don't bolt and bar the +Door.... _I_ shall try, my dear, for you, if you will not, and he shall +communicate with you through me.' + +'I shan't believe it,' said Jane, stating not a resolve but a fact, 'if +he does. Of course, do what you like about all that, mother, I don't +care. But, if you don't mind, I'd rather not hear about it.' + +I decided to put off any further discussion of the question, particularly +as the child looked and must have been tired out. + +I went down to the kitchen to talk to Emily about Jane's lunch. I felt +that she ought to have a beaten egg, and perhaps a little fish. + +But I wished that she had told me frankly about that man Gideon's visit +last night. Jane was always so reserved. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN AWFUL SUSPICION + + +1 + +It was rather a strange, sad life into which we settled down after the +inquest and funeral. Jane remained in her little Hampstead house; she +said she preferred it, though, particularly in view of the dear little +new life due in January or so, I wanted her to be at Potter's Bar with +us. I went up to see her very often; I was not altogether satisfied about +her, though outwardly she went on much as of old, going to see her +friends, writing, and not even wearing black. But I am no stickler for +that heathen custom. + +It was, however, about Clare that I was chiefly troubled. The poor child +did not seem able to rally from her shock at all. She crept about looking +miserable and strained, and seemed to take an interest in nothing. I sent +her away to her aunt at Bournemouth for a change; Bournemouth has not +only sea air but ritualistic churches of the kind she likes; but I do not +think it did her much good. Her affection for poor Oliver had, indeed, +gone very deep, and she has a very faithful heart. + +Percy appointed the _Haste's_ assistant editor to the editorship; he had +not Oliver's flair, Percy said, but he did very well on the lines laid +out for him. There was a rumour in Fleet Street that the proprietors of +the _Weekly Fact_ meant to start a daily, under the editorship of that +man Gideon, and that it would have for its special object a campaign +against our press. But they would have to wait for some time, till the +paper situation was easier. The rumour gave Percy no alarm, for he did +not anticipate a long life for such a venture. A paper under such +management would certainly never, he said, achieve more than a small +circulation. + +Meanwhile, times were very troubled. The Labour people, led astray by +that bad man, Smillie, were becoming more and more extreme in their +demands. Ireland was, as always, very disturbed. The Coalition +Government--not a good government, but, after all, better than any which +would be likely to succeed it--was shaking from one bye-election blow +after another. The French were being disagreeable about Syria, the +Italians about Fiume, and every one about the Russian invasion, or +evacuation, or whatever it was, which even Percy's press joined in +condemning. And coal was exorbitant, and food prices going up, and the +reviews of _Audrey against the World_ most ignorant and unfair. I believe +that that spiteful article of Mr. Gideon's about me did a good deal of +harm among ignorant and careless reviewers, who took their opinions from +others, without troubling to read my books for themselves. So many +reviewers are like that--stupid and prejudiced people, who cannot think +for themselves, and often merely try to be funny about a book instead of +giving it fair criticism. Of course, that _Fact_ article was merely +comic; I confess I laughed at it, though I believe it was meant to be +taken very solemnly. But I was always like that. I know it is shocking of +me, but I have to laugh when people are pompous and absurd; my sense of +the ridiculous is too strong for me. + +After Oliver's death, I did not recognise Mr. Gideon when I met him, not +in the least on personal grounds, but because I definitely wished to +discourage his intimacy with my family. But we had one rather strange +interview. + + +2 + +I was going to see Jane one afternoon, soon after the tragedy, and as I +was emerging from the tube station I met Mr. Gideon. We were face to +face, so I had to bow, which I did very coldly, and I was surprised when +he stopped and said, in that morose way of his, 'You're going to see +Jane, aren't you, Lady Pinkerton?' + +I inclined my head once more. The man stood at my side, staring at the +ground and fidgeting, and biting his finger-nail in that disagreeable way +he has. Then he said, 'Lady Pinkerton, Jane's unhappy.' + +The impertinence of the man! Who was he to tell me that of my own +daughter, a widow of a few weeks? + +'Naturally,' I replied very coolly. 'It would be strange indeed if she +were not.' + +'Oh, well--' he made a queer, jerking movement. + +'You'll say it's not my business. But please don't ... er ... let +people worry her--get on her nerves. It does rather, you know. And--and +she's not fit.' + +'I'm afraid,' I said, putting up my lorgnette, 'I do not altogether +understand you, Mr. Gideon. I am naturally acquainted with my daughter's +state better than any one else can be.' + +'It gets on her nerves,' he muttered again. Then, after a moment of +silent hesitation, he half shrugged his shoulders, mumbled, 'Oh, well,' +and jerked away. + +A strange person! Amazingly rude and ill-bred. To take upon himself to +warn me to take care of my own child! And _what_ did he mean 'got on her +nerves?' I really began to think he must be a little mad. But one thing +was apparent; his feeling towards Jane was, as I had long suspected, much +warmer than was right in the circumstances. He had, I made no doubt, come +from her just now. + +I found Jane silent and unresponsive. She was not writing when I came in, +but sitting doing nothing. She said nothing to me about Mr. Gideon's +call, till I mentioned him myself. Then she seemed to stiffen a little; I +saw her hands clench over the arms of her chair. + +'His manner was very strange,' I said. 'I couldn't help wondering if he +had been having anything.' + +'If he was drunk, you mean,' said Jane. 'I dare say.' + +'Then he _does_!' I cried, a little surprised. + +Jane said not that she knew of. But every one did sometimes. Which was +just the disagreeable, cynical way of talking that I regret in her and +Johnny. As if she did not know numbers of straight, clean-living, decent +men and women who never had too much in their lives. But, anyhow, it +convinced me that Mr. Gideon _did_ drink too much, and that she knew it. + +'He had been here, I suppose,' I said gently, because I didn't want to +seem stern. + +'Yes,' said Jane, and that was all. + +'My dear,' I said, after a moment, laying my hand on hers, 'is this man +worrying you ... with attentions?' + +Jane laughed, an odd, hard laugh that I didn't like. + +'Oh, no,' she said. 'Oh, dear no, mother.' + +She got up and began to walk about the room. + +'Never mind Arthur,' she said. 'I wouldn't let him get on my mind if I +were you, mother.... Let's talk about something else--baby, if you like.' + +I perceived from this that Jane was really anxious to avoid discussion of +this man, for she did not as a rule encourage me to talk to her about the +little life which was coming, as we hoped, next spring. So I turned from +the subject of Arthur Gideon. But it remained on my mind. + + +3 + +You know how, sometimes, one wakes suddenly in the night with an +extraordinary access of clearness of vision, so that a dozen small things +which have occurred during the day and passed without making much +apparent impression on one's mind stand out sharp and defined in a row, +like a troop of soldiers with fixed bayonets all pointing in one +direction. You look where they are pointing--and behold, you see some new +fact which you never saw before, and you cannot imagine how you came to +have missed it. + +It was in this way that I woke in the middle of the night after I had met +Arthur Gideon in Hampstead. All in a row the facts stood, pointing. + +Mr. Gideon had been in the house only a few minutes before Oliver +was killed. + +He and Oliver hated each other privately, and had been openly +quarrelling in the press for some time. He had an intimacy with Jane +which Oliver disliked. + +Oliver must have been displeased at his coming home that evening +with Jane. + +Gideon drank. + +Gideon now had something on his mind which made him even more peculiar +than usual. + +Jane had been very strange and secretive about his visit there on the +fatal evening. + +He and Oliver had probably quarrelled. + +Only Jane had seen Oliver fall. + + * * * * * + +Had she? + + * * * * * + +HOW HAD THAT QUARREL ENDED? + +This awful question shot into my mind like an arrow, and I sat straight +up in bed with a start. + +How, indeed? + +I shuddered, but unflinchingly faced an awful possibility. + +If it were indeed so, it was my duty to leave no stone unturned to +discover and expose the awful truth. Painful as it would be, I must +not shrink. + +A second terrible question came to me. If my suspicion were correct, how +much did Jane know or guess? Jane had been most strange and reserved. I +remembered how she had run down to meet the wretched man that first +morning, when we were there; I remembered her voice, rather hurried, +saying, 'Arthur! Mother and dad are upstairs. Come in here,' and how +she took him into the dining-room alone. + +Did Jane know all? Or did she only suspect? I could scarcely believe that +she would wish to shield her husband's murderer, if he were that. Yet.... +why had she told me that she had seen the accident herself? If, indeed, +my terrible suspicion were justified, and if Jane was in the secret, it +seemed to point to a graver condition of things than I had supposed. No +girl would lie to shield her husband's murderer unless ... unless she was +much fonder of him than a married woman has any right to be. + +I resolved quickly, as I always do. First, I must save my child from this +awful man. + +Secondly, I must discover the truth as expeditiously as possible, +shrinking from no means. + +Thirdly, if I discovered the worst, and it had to be exposed, I must see +that Jane's name was kept entirely out of it. The journalistic squabbles +and mutual antipathy of the two men would be all that would be necessary +to account for their quarrel, together with Gideon's probably intoxicated +state that evening. + +I heard Percy moving downstairs still, and I nearly went down to him to +communicate my suspicions to him at once. But, on second thoughts, I +refrained. Percy was worried with a great many things just now. Besides, +he might only laugh at me. I would wait until I had thought it over and +had rather more to go on. Then I would tell him, and he should make what +use he liked of it in the papers. How interested he would be if the man +who was one of his bitterest journalistic foes, who fought so venomously +everything that he and his press stood for, and who was the +editor-designate of the possible new anti-Pinkerton daily, should be +proved to be the murderer of his son-in-law. What a _scoop_! The vulgar +journalese slang slid into my mind strangely, as light words will in +grave moments. + +But I pulled myself together. I was going too far ahead. After all, I +was still merely in the realms of fancy and suspicion. It is true that I +have queer, almost uncanny intuitive powers, which have seldom failed me. +But still, I had as yet little to go on. + +With an effort of will, I put the matter out of my mind and tried to +sleep. Counsel would, I felt sure, come in the morning. + + +4 + +It did. I woke with the words ringing in my head as if some one had +spoken them--'Why not consult Amy Ayres?' + +Of course! That was the very thing. I would go that afternoon. + +Amy Ayres had been a friend of mine from girlhood. We had always been in +the closest sympathy, although our paths had diverged greatly since we +were young. We had written our first stories together for _Forget-me-not_ +and _Hearth and Home_, and together enjoyed the first sweets of success. +But, while I had pursued the literary path, Amy had not. Her interests +had turned more and more to the occult. She had fallen in with and +greatly admired Mrs. Besant. When her husband (a Swedenborgian minister) +left her at the call of his conscience to convert the inhabitants of Peru +to Swedenborgianism, and finally lost his life, under peculiarly painful +circumstances, in the vain attempt, Amy turned for relief to +spiritualism, which was just then at its zenith of popularity. At first +she practised it privately and unofficially, with a few chosen friends, +for it was something very sacred to her. But gradually, as she came to +discover in herself wonderful powers of divination and spiritual +receptivity, and being very poor at the time, she took it up as a +calling. She is the most wonderful palm-reader and crystal-gazer I have +come across. I have brought people to her of whom she has known nothing +at all, and she has, after close study and brief, earnest prayer, read in +their hands their whole temperament, present circumstances, past history, +and future destiny. I have often tried to persuade Percy to go to her, +for I think it would convince him of that vast world of spiritual +experience which lies about him, and to which he is so blind. If I have +to pass on before Percy, he will be left bereaved indeed, unless I can +convince him of Truth first. + + +5 + +I went to see Amy in her little Maid of Honour house in Kensington that +very afternoon. + +I found her reading Madame Blavatski (that strange woman) in her little +drawing-room. + +Amy has not worn, perhaps, quite so well as I have. She has to make up a +little too thickly. I sometimes wish she would put less black round her +eyes; it gives her a stagey look, which I think in her particular +profession it is most important not to have, as people are in any case so +inclined to doubt the genuineness of those who deal in the occult. +Besides, what an odd practice that painting the face black in patches is! +As unlike real life as a clown's red nose, though I suppose less +unbecoming. I myself only use a little powder, which is so necessary in +hot, or, indeed, cold weather. + +However, this is a digression. I kissed Amy, and said, 'My dear, I am +here on business to-day. I am in great perplexity, and I want you to +discover something from the crystal. Are you in the mood this afternoon?' +For I have enough of the temperament myself to know that crystal-gazing, +even more than literary composition, must wait on mood. Fortunately, Amy +said she was in a most favourable condition for vision, and I told her as +briefly as possible that I wished to learn about the circumstances +attendant on the death of Oliver Hobart. I wished her to visualise Oliver +as he stood that evening at the top of those dreadful stairs, and to +watch the manner of his fall. I told her no more, for I wanted her to +approach the subject without prejudice. + +Without more ado, we went into the room which Amy called her Temple of +Vision, and Amy got to work. + + +6 + +I was travelling by the 6.28 back to Potter's Bar. I lay back in my +corner with closed eyes, recalling the events of that wonderful afternoon +in the darkened, scented room. It had been a strange, almost overwhelming +experience. I had been keyed up to a point of tension which was almost +unendurable, while my friend gazed and murmured into the glass ball. +These glimpses into the occult are really too much for my system; they +wring my nerves. I could have screamed when Amy said, 'Wait--wait--the +darkness stirs. I see--I see--a fair man, with the face of a Greek god.' + +'Is he alone?' I whispered. + +'He is not alone. He is talking to a tall dark man.' + +'Yes--yes?' I bent forward eagerly, as she paused and seemed to brood +over the clear depths where, as I knew, she saw shadows forming and +reforming. + +'They talk,' she murmured. 'They talk.' + +(Knowing that she could not, unfortunately, hear what they said, I +did not ask.) + +'They are excited.... They are quarrelling.... Oh, God!' She hid her eyes +for a moment, then looked again. + +'The dark man strikes the fair man.... He is taken by surprise; he steps +backward and falls ... falls backwards ... down ... out of my vision.... +The dark man is left standing alone.... He is fading ... he is gone.... I +can see him no more.... Leila, I have come to an end; I am overdone; I +must rest.' + +She had fallen back with closed eyes. + +A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had +put a few questions to her. She had told me little more than what she had +revealed as she gazed into the crystal. But it was enough. She knew the +fair man for Oliver, for she had seen him at the wedding. She had not +seen the dark man's face, nor had she ever met Arthur Gideon, but her +description of him was enough for me. + +I had left the house morally certain that Arthur Gideon had murdered (or +anyhow manslaughtered) Oliver Hobart. + + +7 + +I told Percy that evening, after Clare had gone to bed. I had confidence +in Percy: he would believe me. His journalistic instinct for the truth +could be counted on. He never waived things aside as improbable, for he +knew, as I knew, how much stranger truth may be than fiction. He heard +me out, nodding his head sharply from time to time to show that he +followed me. + +When I had done, he said, 'You were right to tell me. We must look into +it. It will, if proved true, make a most remarkable story. Most +sensational and remarkable.' He turned it over in that acute, quick +brain of his. + +'We must go carefully,' he said. 'Remember we haven't much to go on yet.' + +He didn't believe in the crystal-gazing, of course, so had less to go on +than I had. All he saw was the inherent possibility of the story +(knowing, as he did, the hatred that had existed between the two men) and +the damning fact of Gideon's presence at the house that evening. + +'We must be careful,' he repeated. 'Careful, for one thing, not to +start talk about the fellow's friendship with Jane. We must keep Jane +out of it all.' + +On that we were agreed. + +'I think we must ask Clare a few questions,' said Percy. + +He did so next day, without mentioning our suspicion. But Clare could +still scarcely bear to speak of that terrible evening, poor child, and +returned incoherent answers. She knew Mr. Gideon had been in the +house, but didn't know what time he had gone, nor the exact time of +the accident. + +I resolved to question Emily, Jane's little maid, more closely, and did +so when I went there that afternoon. She was certainly more +circumstantial than she had been when she had told me the story before, +in the first shock and confusion of the disaster. I gathered from her +that she had heard her master and Mr. Gideon talking immediately before +the fall; she had been surprised when her mistress had said that Mr. +Gideon had left the house before the fall. She thought, from the sounds, +that he must have left the house immediately afterwards. + +'It is possible,' I said, 'that Mrs. Hobart did not know precisely when +Mr. Gideon left the house. It was all very confusing.' + +'Oh, my lady, indeed it was,' Emily agreed. 'I'm sure I hope I shall +never have such a night again.' + +I said nothing to Jane of my suspicion. If I was right in thinking that +the poor misguided child was shielding her husband's murderer, from +whatever motives of pity or friendship, the less said to disturb her the +better, till we were sure of our ground. + +But I talked to a few other people about it, on whose discretion I could +rely. I tried to find out, and so did Percy, what was this man's record. +What transpired of it was not reassuring. His father was, as we knew +before, a naturalised Russian Jew, presumably of the lowest class in his +own land, though well educated from childhood in this country. He was, as +every one knew, a big banker, and mixed up, no doubt, with all sorts of +shady finance. Some people said he was probably helping to finance the +Bolsheviks. His daughter had married a Russian Jewish artist. Jane knew +this artist and his wife well, at that silly club of hers. Arthur Gideon, +on coming of age, had reverted to his patronymic name, enamoured, it +seemed, of his origin. He had, of course, to fight in the war, loath +though he no doubt was. But directly it was over, or rather directly he +was discharged wounded, he took to shady journalism. + +Hardly a reassuring record! Add to it the ill-starred influence he had +always attempted to exert over Johnny and Jane (he had, even in Oxford +days, brought out their worst side) his quarrels with Oliver in the +press, his unconcealed hatred of what he was pleased to call 'Potterism' +(he was president of the foolish so-called 'Anti-Potter League'), his +determined intimacy with Jane against her husband's wishes, and Jane's +own implication that he at times drank too much--and you had a picture of +a man unlikely to inspire confidence in any impartial mind. + +Anyhow, most of the people to whom I broached the unpleasant subject (and +I saw no reason why I should not speak freely of my suspicion) seemed to +think the man's guilt only too likely. + +Some of my friends said to me, 'Why not bring a charge against him and +have him arrested and the matter thoroughly investigated?' But Percy told +me we had not enough to go on for that yet. All he would do was to put +the investigation into the hands of a detective, and entrust him with the +business of collecting evidence. + +The only people we kept the matter from were our two daughters. Clare +would have been too dreadfully upset by this raking up of the tragedy, +and Jane could not, in her present state, be disturbed either. + + +8 + +About three weeks after my visit to Amy Ayres, I had rather a trying +meeting with that young clergyman, Mr. Juke, another of the children's +rather queer Oxford friends. He is the son of that bad old Lord +Aylesbury, who married some dreadful chorus girl a year or two ago, and +all his family are terribly fast. We met at a bazaar for starving clergy +at the dear Bishop of London's, to which I had gone with Frank. I think +the clergy very wrong about many things, but I quite agree that we cannot +let them starve. Besides, Peggy had a stall for home-made jam. + +I was buying some Armenian doily, with Clare at my side, when a voice +said, 'Can I speak to you for a moment, Lady Pinkerton?' and, turning +round, Mr. Juke stood close to us. + +I was surprised, for I knew him very little, but I said, 'How do you do, +Mr. Juke. By all means. We will go and sit over there, by the missionary +bookstall.' This was, as it sometimes is, the least frequented stall, so +it was suitable for quiet conversation. + +We left Clare, and went to the bookstall. When we were seated in two +chairs near it, Mr. Juke leant forward, his elbows on his knees, and said +in a low voice, 'I came here to-day hoping to meet you, Lady Pinkerton. I +wanted to speak to you. It's about my friend, Gideon....' + +'Yes,' I helped him out, my interest rising. Had he anything to +communicate to me on that subject? + +The young man went on, staring at the ground between his knees, and it +occurred to me that his profile was very like Granville Barker's. 'I am +told,' he said, in grave, quick, low tones, 'that you are saying things +about him rather indiscriminately. Bringing, in fact, charges against +him--suspicions, rather.... I hardly think you can be aware of the +seriousness of such irresponsible gossip, such--I can't call it anything +but slander--when it is widely circulated. How it grows--spreads from +person to person--the damage, the irreparable damage it may do....' + +He broke off incoherently, and was silent. I confess I was taken aback. +But I stood to my guns. + +'And,' I said, 'if the irresponsible gossip, as you call it, happens to +be true, Mr. Juke? What then?' + +'Then,' he said abruptly, and looked me in the face, '_then,_ Lady +Pinkerton, Gideon should be called on to answer to the charge in a court +of law, not libelled behind his back.' + +'That,' I said, 'will, I hope, Mr. Juke, happen at the proper time. +Meanwhile, I must ask to be allowed to follow my own methods of +investigation in my own way. Perhaps you forget that the matter concerns +the tragic death of my very dear son-in-law. I cannot be expected to let +things rest where they are.' + +'I suppose,' he said, rising as I rose, 'that you can't.' + +'And,' I added, as a parting shot, 'it is always open to Mr. Gideon to +bring a libel action against any one who falsely and publicly accuses +him--_if he likes_.' + +'Yes,' assented the young man. + +I left him standing there, and turned away to speak to Mrs. Creighton, +who was passing. + +I considered that Mr. Juke had been quite in his rights to speak to me as +he had done, and I was not offended. But I must say I think I had the +best of the interview. And it left me with the strong impression that he +knew as well as I did that 'his friend Gideon' would in no circumstances +venture to bring a libel action against any one in this matter. + +I believed that the young clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was +trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that his crime deserved. + +Clare said to me when I rejoined her. 'What did Mr. Juke want to speak to +you about, mother?' + +'Nothing of any importance, dear,' I told her. + +She looked at me in the rather strange, troubled, frowning way she has +now sometimes. + +'Oh, do let's go home, mother,' she said suddenly. 'I'm so tired. And I +don't believe they're really starving a bit, and I don't care if they +are. I do hate bazaars.' + +Clare used once to be quite fond of them. But she seemed to hate so many +things now, poor child. + +I took her home, and that evening I told Percy about my interview +with Mr. Juke. + +'A libel action,' said Percy, 'would be excellent. The very thing. But if +he's guilty, he won't bring one.' + +'Anyhow,' I said, 'I feel it is our duty not to let the affair drop. We +owe it to poor dear Oliver. Even now he may be looking down on us, unable +to rest in perfect peace till he is avenged.' + +'He may, he may, my dear,' said Percy, nodding his head. 'Never know, do +you. Never know anything at all.... On the other hand, he may have lost +his own balance, as they decided at the inquest, and tumbled downstairs +on to his head. Nasty stairs; very nasty stairs. Anyhow, if Gideon didn't +shove him, he's nothing to be afraid of in our talk, and if he did he'll +have to face the music. Troublesome fellow, anyhow. That paper of his +gets worse every week. It ought to be muzzled.' + +I couldn't help wondering how it would affect the _Weekly Fact_ if its +editor were to be arrested on a charge of wilful murder. + + + + +PART IV: + +TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK + + + + +A BRANCH OF STUDY + + +1 + +People are very odd, unreliable, and irregular in their actions and +reactions. You can't count on them as you can on chemicals. I suppose +that merely means that one doesn't know them so well. They are far harder +to know; there is a queer element of muddle about them that baffles one. +You never know when greediness--the main element in most of us--will stop +working, checked by something else, some finer, quite different motive +force. And them checking that again, comes strong emotion, such as love +or hate, overthrowing everything and making chaos. Of course, you may say +these interacting forces are all elements that should be known and +reckoned with beforehand, and it is quite true. That is just the trouble: +one doesn't know enough. + +Though I don't study human nature with the absorption of Laurence Juke +(after all, it's his trade), I find it interesting, like other curious +branches of study. And the more complex and unreliable it is, so much the +more interesting. I'm much more interested, for instance, in Arthur +Gideon, who is surprising and incalculable, than in Jane and Johnny +Potter, who are pushed along almost entirely by one motive--greed. I'm +even less interested in Jane and Johnny than in the rest of their family, +who are the usual British mixture of humbug, sentimentality, +commercialism, and genuine feeling. They represent Potterism, and +Potterism is a wonderful thing. The twins are far too clear-headed to be +Potterites in that sense. You really can, on almost any occasion, say how +they will act. So they are rather dull, as a study, though amusing enough +as companions. + +But Arthur Gideon is full of twists and turns and surprises. He is one of +those rare people who can really throw their whole selves into a +cause--lose themselves for it and not care. (Jukie says that's Christian: +I dare say it is: it is certainly seldom enough found in the world, and +that seems to be an essential quality of all the so-called Christian +virtues, as far as one can see.) + +Anyhow, Arthur's passion for truth, his passion for the first-rate, and +his distaste for untruth and for the second-rate, seemed to be the +supreme motive forces in him, all the years I have known him, until +just lately. + +And then something else came in, apparently stronger than these forces. + +Of course, I knew a long time ago--certainly since he left the army--that +he was in love with Jane. I knew it long before he did. It was a queer +feeling, for it went on, apparently, side by side with impatience and +scorn of her. And it grew and grew. Jane's marriage made it worse. She +worked for him, and they met constantly. And at last it got so that we +all saw it. + +And all the time he didn't like her, because she was second-rate and +commercial, and he was first-rate and an artist--an artist in the sense +that he loved things for what they were, not for what he could get out of +them. Jane was always thinking, 'How can I use this? What can I get out +of it?' She thought it about the war. So did Johnny. She has always +thought it, about everything. It isn't in her not to. And Arthur knew +it, but didn't care; anyhow he loved her all the same. It was as if his +reason and judgment were bowled over by her charm and couldn't help him. + + +2 + +The evening after Oliver Hobart's death, Arthur came in to see me, +about nine o'clock. He looked extraordinarily ill and strained, and was +even more restless and jerky than usual. He looked as if he hadn't +slept at all. + +I was testing some calculations, and he sat on the sofa and smoked. When +I had finished, he said, 'Katherine, what's your view of this business?' + +Of course, I knew he meant Oliver Hobart's death, and how it would affect +Jane. One says exactly what one thinks, to Arthur. So I said, 'It's a +good thing, ultimately, for Jane. They didn't suit. I'm clear it's a good +thing in the end. Aren't you?' + +He made a sharp movement, and pushed back his hair from his forehead. + +'I? I'm clear of nothing.' + +He added, after a moment, 'Is that the way _she_ looks at it, do +you suppose?' + +'I do,' I said. + +He half winced. + +'Then why--why the devil did she marry the poor chap?' + +There was an odd sort of appeal in his voice; appeal against the cruelty +of fate, perhaps, or the perverseness of Jane. + +I told him what I thought, as clearly as I could. + +'She got carried away by the excitement of her life in Paris, and he was +all mixed up with that. I think she felt she would, in a way, be carrying +on the excitement and the life if she married him. And she was knocked +over by his beauty. Then, when the haze and glamour had cleared away, and +she was left face to face with him as a life companion, she found she +couldn't do with him after all. He bored her and annoyed her more and +more. I don't know how long she could have gone on with it; she never +said anything, to me about it. But, now this has happened, what might +have become a great difficulty is solved.' + +'Solved,' he repeated, in a curious, dead voice, staring at the floor. 'I +suppose it is.' + +He was silent for quite five minutes, sitting quite still, with his black +eyes absent and vacant, as if he were very tired. I knew he was trying to +think out some problem, and I supposed I knew what it was. But I couldn't +account then for his extreme unhappiness. + +At last he said, 'Katherine. This is a mess. I can't tell you about it, +but it is a mess. Jane and I are in a mess.... Oh, you've guessed, +haven't you, about Jane and me? Juke guessed.' + +'Yes. I guessed that before Jukie did. Before you did, as a matter of +fact.' + +'You did?' But he wasn't much interested. 'Then you _see_ ...' + +'Not altogether, Arthur. I can't see it's a mess, exactly. A shock, of +course ...' + +He looked at me for a moment, as if he were adjusting his point of +view to mine. + +'Well, no. You wouldn't see it, of course. But there's more to this than +you know--much more. Anyhow, please take my word for it that it _is_ a +mess. A ghastly mess.' + +I took his word for it. As there didn't seem to be any comment to make, I +made none, but waited for him to go on. He went on. + +'And what I wanted to ask you, Katherine, was, can you look after Jane a +little? She'll need it; she needs it. She's got to get through it +somehow.... And that family of hers always buzzing round.... If we could +keep Lady Pinkerton off her ...' + +'You want me to mix a poison for Lady P?' I suggested. + +Arthur must have been very far through, for he actually started. + +'Oh, Heaven forbid.... One sudden death in the family is enough at a +time,' he added feebly, trying to smile. + +'Well,' I said, 'I'll do my best to see after Jane and to counteract the +family.... I've not gone there or written, or anything yet, because I +didn't want to butt in. But I will.' + +'I wish she'd come back here and live with you,' he said. + +To soothe him, I said I would ask her. + +For nearly an hour longer he stayed, not talking much, but smoking hard, +and from time to time jerking out a disconnected remark. I think he +hardly knew what he was saying or doing that evening; he seemed dazed, +and I noticed that his hands were shaking, as if he was feverish, or +drunk, or something. + +When at last he went, he held my hand and wrung it so that it hurt; +this was unusual, too, because we never do shake hands, we meet much +too often. + +I thought it over and couldn't quite understand it all. It even occurred +to me that it was a little Potterish of Arthur to make a conventional +tragic situation out of what he couldn't really mind very much, and to +make out that Jane was overwhelmed by what, I believed, didn't really +overwhelm her. But that didn't do. Arthur was never Potterish. There +must, therefore, be more to this than I understood. + +Unless, of course, it was merely that Arthur was afraid of the effects of +the shock and so on, on Jane's health, because she had a baby coming. But +somehow that didn't really meet the situation. I remembered Arthur's +voice when he said, 'There's more to it than you know.... It _is_ a mess. +A ghastly mess.' + +And another rather queer thing I remembered was that, all through the +evening, he hadn't once met my eyes. An odd thing in Arthur, for he has a +habit of looking at the people he is talking to very straight and hard, +as if to hold their minds to his by his eyes. + +Well, I supposed that in about a year those two would marry, anyhow. And +then they would talk, and talk, and talk.... And Arthur would look at +Jane not only because he was talking to her, but because he liked to look +at her.... They would be all right then, so why should I bother? + + +3 + +I went to see Jane, but found Lady Pinkerton in possession. I saw Jane +for five minutes alone. She was much as I had expected, calm and rather +silent. I asked her to come round to the flat any evening she could. She +came next week, and after that got into the way of dropping in pretty +often, both in the evenings, when I was at home, and during the day, when +I was at the laboratory. She said, 'You see, old thing, mother has got it +into her head that I need company. The only way I can get out of it is to +say I shall be here.... Mother's rather much just now. She's got the +Other Side on the brain, and is trying to put me in touch with it. She +reads me books called _Letters from the Other Side_, and _Hands Across +the Grave_, and so on. And she talks ...' + +Jane pushed back her hair from her forehead and leant her head on her +hand. + +'In what mother calls "my condition,"' she went on, 'I don't think I +ought to be worried, do you? I wish baby would come at once, so that I +shouldn't be in a condition any more.... I'm really awfully fond of baby, +but I shall get to hate it if I'm reminded of it much more.... What a +rotten system it is, K. Why haven't we evolved a better one, all these +centuries?' + +I couldn't imagine why, except for the general principle that as the +mental equipment of the human race improves, its physical qualities +apparently deteriorate. + +'And where will that land us in the end?' Jane speculated. 'Shall we be a +race of clever crocks, or shall we give up civilisation and education and +be robust imbeciles?' + +'Either,' I said, 'will be an improvement on the present régime, of +crocky imbeciles.' + +We would talk like that, of things in general, in the old way. Jane, +indeed, would have moods in which she would talk continuously, and I +would suddenly think, watching her, 'You're trying to hide from +something--to talk it down.' + + +4 + +And then one evening Arthur and she met at my flat. Jane had been having +supper with me, and Arthur dropped in. + +Jane said, 'Hallo, Arthur,' and Arthur said, 'Oh, hallo,' and I saw +plainly that the last person either had wanted to meet was the other. + +Arthur didn't stay at all. He said he had come to speak to me about a +review he wanted me to do. It wasn't necessary that he should speak to me +about it at all; he had already sent me the book, and I hadn't yet read +it, and it was on a subject he knew nothing at all about, and there was +nothing whatever to say. However, he succeeded in saying something, then +went away. + +Jane had hardly spoken to him or looked at him. She was reading an +evening paper. + +She put it down when he had gone. + +'Does Arthur come in often?' she asked me casually, lighting another +cigarette. + +'No. Sometimes.' + +After a minute or two, Jane said, 'Look here, K, I'll tell you something. +I'm not particularly keen on meeting Arthur for the present. Nor he me.' + +'That's not exactly news, my dear.' + +'No; it fairly stuck out just now, didn't it? Well, the fact is, we both +want a little time to collect ourselves, to settle how we stand.... +Sudden deaths are a bad jar, K. They break things up.... Arthur and I +were more friends than Oliver liked, you know. He didn't like Arthur, and +didn't like my going about with him.... Oh, well, you know all that as +well as I do, of course.... And now he's dead.... It seems to spoil +things a bit.... I hate meeting Arthur now.' + +And then an extraordinary thing happened. Jane, whom I had never seen +cry, broke down quite suddenly and cried. Of course it would have seemed +quite natural in most people, but tears are as surprising in Jane as they +would be in me. They aren't part of her equipment. However, she was out +of health just now, of course, and had had a bad shock, and was +emotionally overwrought; and, anyhow, she cried. + +I mixed her some sal volatile, which, I understand, is done in these +crises. She drank it, and stopped crying soon. + +'Sorry to be such an ass,' she said, more in her normal tone. 'It's this +beastly baby, I suppose.... Well, look here, K, you see what I mean. +Arthur and I don't want to meet just now. If he's likely to come in much, +I must give up coming, that's all.' + +'I'll tell him,' I said, 'that you're often here. If he doesn't want to +meet you either, that ought to settle it.' + +'Thanks, old thing, will you?' + +Jane was the perfect egotist. If it ever occurred to her that possibly +Arthur would like to see me sometimes, and I him, she would not think it +mattered. She wanted to come to my flat, and she didn't want to meet +Arthur; therefore Arthur mustn't come. Life's little difficulties are +very simply arranged by the Potter twins. + + +5 + +Then, for nine days, we none of us thought or talked much about anything +but the railway strike. The strike was rather like the war. The same old +cries began again--carrying on, doing one's bit, seeing it through, +fighting to a finish, enemy atrocities (only now they were called +sabotage), starving them out, gallant volunteers, the indomitable +Britisher, cheeriest always in disaster (what a hideous slander!), +innocent women and children. I never understood about these, at least +about the women. Why is it worse that women should suffer than men? As +to innocence, they have no more of that than men. I'm not innocent, +particularly, nor are the other women I know. But they are always +classed with children, as sort of helpless imbeciles who must be kept +from danger and discomfort. I got sick of it during the war. The people +who didn't like the blockade talked about starving women and children, +as if it was somehow worse that women should starve than men. Other +people (quite other) talked of our brave soldiers who were fighting to +defend the women and children of their country, or the dastardly air +raids that killed women and children. Why not have said +'non-combatants,' which makes sense? There were plenty of male +non-combatants, unfit or over age or indispensable, and it was quite as +bad that they should be killed--worse, I suppose, when they were +indispensable. Very few women or children are that. + +So now the appeal to strikers which was published in the advertisement +columns of the papers at the expense of 'a few patriotic citizens' +said, 'Don't bring further hardship and suffering upon the innocent +women and children.... Save the women and children from the terror of +the strike.' Fools. + +In another column was the N.U.R. advertisement, and that was worse. There +was a picture of a railwayman looking like a consumptive in the last +stages, and embracing one of his horrible children while his more +horrible wife and mother supported the feeble heads of others, and under +it was written, 'Is this man an anarchist? He wants a wage to keep his +family,' and it was awful to think that he and his family would perhaps +get the wage and be kept after all. The question about whether he was an +anarchist was obviously unanswerable without further data, as there was +nothing in the picture to show his political convictions; they might, +from anything that appeared, have been liberal, tory, labour, socialist, +anarchist, or coalition-unionist. And anyhow, supposing that he had been +an anarchist, he would still, presumably, have wanted a wage to keep his +family. Anarchists are people who disapprove of authority, not of wages. +The member of the N.U.R. who composed that picture must have had a +muddled mind. But so many people have, and so many people use words in an +odd sense, that you can't find in the dictionary. Bolshevist, for +instance. Lloyd George called the strikers Bolshevists, so did plenty of +other people. None of them seem to have any very clear conception of the +political convictions of the supporters of the Soviet government in +Russia. To have that you would need to think and read a little, whereas +to use the word as a vague term of abuse, you need only to feel, which +many people find much easier. Some people use the word capitalist in the +same way, as a term of abuse, meaning really only 'rich person.' If they +stopped to think of the meaning of the word, they would remember that it +means merely a person who uses what money he has productively, instead of +hoarding it in a stocking. + +But 'capitalist' and 'Bolshevist' were both flung about freely during the +strike, by the different sides. Emotional unrest, I suppose. People get +excited, and directly they get excited they get sentimental and confused. +The daily press did, on both sides. I don't know which was worse. The +Pinkerton press blossomed into silly chit-chat about noblemen working on +under ground trains. As a matter of fact, most of the volunteer workers +were clerks and tradesmen and working men, but these weren't so +interesting to talk about, I suppose. + +The _Fact_ became more than ever precise and pedantic and clear-headed, +and what people call dull. It didn't take sides: it simply gave, in more +detail than any other paper, the issues, and the account of the +negotiations, and had expert articles on the different currents of +influence on both sides. It didn't distort or conceal the truth in either +direction. + +I met Lady Pinkerton one evening at Jane's. She would, of course, come up +to town, though the amateur trains were too full without her. She said, +'Of course They hate us. They want a Class War.' + +Jane said, 'Who are They, and who are Us?' and she said 'The working +classes, of course. They've always hated us. They're Bolshevists at +heart. They won't be satisfied till they've robbed us of all we have. +They hate us. That is why they are striking. We must crush them this +time, or it will be the beginning of the end.' + +I said, 'Oh. I thought they were striking because they wanted the +principle of standardisation of rates of wages for men in the same grade +to be applied to other grades than drivers and firemen.' + +Lady Pinkerton was bored. I imagine she understands about hate and love +and envy and greed and determination, and other emotions, but not much +about rates of wages. So she likes to talk about one but not about the +other. All, for instance, that she knows about Bolshevism is its +sentimental side--how it is against the rich, and wants to nationalise +women and murder the upper classes. She doesn't know about any of the +aspects of the Bolshevist constitution beyond those which she can take in +through her emotions. She would find the others dull, as she finds +technical wage questions. That's partly why she hates the _Fact_. If she +happened to be on the other side, she would talk the same tosh, only use +'capitalist' for 'Bolshevist.' + +She said, 'Anyhow, whatever the issue, the blood of the country is up. We +must fight the thing through. It is splendid the way the upper classes +are stepping into the breach on the railways. I honour them. I only hope +they won't all be murdered by these despicable brutes.' + +That was the way she talked. Plenty of people did, on both sides. +Especially, I am afraid, innocent women. I suppose they were too innocent +to talk about facts. + +After all, the country didn't have to fight the thing through for very +long, and there were no murders, for the strike ended on October the 5th. + + +6 + +That same week, Jukie came in to see me. Jukie doesn't often come, +because his evenings are apt to be full. A parson's work seems to be like +a woman's, never done. From 8 to 11 p.m. seems to be one of the great +times for doing it. Probably Jukie had to cut some of it the evening he +came round to Gough Square. + +I always like to see Jukie. He's entertaining, and knows about such queer +things, that none of the rest of us know, and believes such incredible +things, that none of the rest of us believe. Besides, like Arthur, he's +all out on his job. He's still touchingly full of faith, even after all +that has and hasn't happened, in a new heaven and a new earth. He +believed at that time that the League of Nations was going to kill war, +that the Labour Party were going to kill industrial inequity, that the +country was going to kill the Coalition Government, that the Christian +Church was going to kill selfishness, that some one was going to kill +Horatio Bottomley, and that we were all going to kill Potterism. A +perfect orgy of murders, as Arthur said, and all of them so improbable. + +Jukie is curate in a slummy parish near Covent Garden. He succeeds, +apparently, in really being friends--equal and intimate friends--with a +lot of the men in his parish, which is queer for a person of his kind. I +suppose he learnt how while he was in the ranks. He deserved to; Arthur +told me that he had persistently refused promotion because he wanted to +go on living with the men; and that's not a soft job, from all accounts, +especially for a clean and over-fastidious person like Jukie. Of course +he's very popular, because he's very attractive. And, of course, it's +spoilt him a little. I never knew a very popular and attractive person +who wasn't a little spoilt by it; and in Jukie's case it's a pity, +because he's too good for that sort of thing, but it hasn't really +damaged him much. + +He came in that evening saying, 'Katherine, I want to speak to you,' and +sat down looking rather worried and solemn. He plunged into it at once, +as he always does. + +'Have you heard any talk lately about Gideon?' he asked me. + +'Nothing more interesting than usual,' I said. 'But I seldom hear talk. I +don't mix enough. We don't gossip much in the lab, you know. I look to +you and my Fleet Street friends for spicy personal items. What's the +latest about Arthur?' + +'Just this,' he said. 'People are going about saying that he pushed +Hobart downstairs.' + +I felt then as if I had known all along that of course people were +saying that. + +'Then why isn't he arrested?' I asked stupidly. + +'He probably will be, before long,' said Jukie. 'There's no evidence yet +to arrest him on. At present it's merely talk, started by that Pinkerton +woman, and sneaking about from person to person in the devilish way such +talk does.... I was with Gideon yesterday, and saw two people cut him +dead.... You see, it's all so horribly plausible; every one knows they +hated each other and had just quarrelled; and it seems he was there that +night, just before it happened. He went home with Jane.' + +I remembered that they had left my place together. But neither Arthur +nor Jane had told me that he had gone home with her. + +'The inquest said it was accidental,' I said, protesting against +something, I didn't quite know what. + +Jukie shrugged his shoulders. + +'That's not very likely to stop people talking.' + +He added after a moment, 'But it's got to be stopped somehow.... I went +to an awful bazaar this afternoon, on purpose to meet that woman. I met +her. I spoke to her. I told her to chuck it. She as good as told me she +wasn't going to. I mentioned the libel law--she practically dared Gideon +to use it against her. She means to go on. She's poisoning the air with +her horrible whispers and slanders. Why can't some one choke her? What +can we do about it, that's the question? Ought one of us to tell Gideon? +I'm inclined to think we ought.' + +'Are you sure he doesn't know it already?' + +'No, I'm not sure. Gideon knows most things. But the person concerned is +usually the last to hear such talk. And, in case he has no suspicion, I +think we should tell him.' + +'And get him to issue, through the _Fact_, a semi-official declaration +that "the whole story is a tissue of lies."' + +Then I wished I hadn't used that particular phrase. It was an unfortunate +one. It suggested a similarity between Lady Pinkerton's story and Mr. +Bullitt's, between Arthur Gideon's denial and Lloyd George's. + +Jukie's eyes met mine swiftly, not dreamy and introspective as usual, but +keen and thoughtful. + +'Katherine,' he said, 'we may as well have this out. It won't hurt Gideon +here. _Is_ it a lie? I believe so, but, frankly, I don't feel certain. I +don't know what to think. Do you?' + +I considered it, looking at it all ways. The recent past, Arthur's +attitude and Jane's, were all lit up by this horrible flare of light +which was turned upon them. + +'No,' I said at last. 'I don't know, either.... We can't assume for +certain that it is a lie.' + +Jukie let out a long breath, and leant forward in his chair, resting his +head on his hands. + +'Poor old Gideon,' he said. 'It might have happened, without any +intention on his part. If Hobart found him there with Jane ... and if +they quarrelled ... Gideon's got a quick temper, and Hobart always made +him see red.... He might have hit him--pushed him down, without meaning +to injure him--and then it would be done. And then--if he did it--he must +have left the house at once ... perhaps not knowing he'd killed him. +Perhaps he didn't know till afterwards. And then Jane might have asked +him not to say anything ... I don't know. I don't know. Perhaps it's +nonsense; perhaps it _is_ a tissue of lies. I hope to God it is.... I +only know one thing that makes me even suspect it may be true, and that +is that Gideon has been absolutely miserable, and gone about like a man +half stunned, ever since it happened. _Why_?' + +He shot the question at me, hoping I had some answer. But I had none. I +shook my head. + +'Well,' said Jukie sadly, 'it isn't, I suppose, our business whether he +did or didn't do it. That's between him and--himself. But it _is_ our +business, whether he's innocent or guilty, to put him on his guard +against this talk. It's for you or me to do that, Katherine. Will you?' + +'If you like.' + +'I'd rather you did it, if you will ... I think he's less likely to +think that you're trying to find things out.... You see, I warned him +once before, about another thing, and he might think I was linking it in +my mind with that.' + +'With Jane,' I said, and he nodded. + +'Yes. With Jane ... I spoke to him about Jane a few days before it +happened. I thought it might be some use. But I think it only made things +worse.... I'd rather leave this to you, unless you hate it too much.... +Oh, it's all pretty sickening, isn't it? Gideon--_Gideon_ in this sort of +mess. Gideon, the best of the lot of us.... You see, even if it's all +moonshine about Hobart, as I'm quite prepared to believe it probably is, +he's gone and given plausibility to the yarn by falling in love with +Hobart's wife. Nothing can get round that. Why couldn't he have chucked +it--gone away--anything--when he felt it coming on? A strong, fine, keen +person like that, to be bowled over by his sloppy emotions and dragged +through the mud, like any beastly sensualist, or like one of my own +cheery relations.... I'd rather he'd done Hobart in. There'd have been +some sense about that, if he had. After all, it would have been striking +a blow against Potterism. Only, if he did do it, it would be more like +him to face the music and own to it. What I can't fit into the picture is +Gideon sneaking away in the dark, afraid ... Oh well, it's not my +business ... Good-night, Katherine. You'll do it at once, won't you? Ring +him up to-morrow and get him to dine with you or something. If there's +any way of stopping that poisonous woman's tongue, we'll find it.... +Meanwhile, I shall tell our parish workers that Leila Yorke's works are +obscene, and that they're not to read them to mother's meetings as is +their habit.' + +I sat up till midnight, wondering how on earth I was going to put it +to Arthur. + + +7 + +I didn't dine with Arthur. I thought it would last too long, and that he +might want me to go, and that I should certainly want to go, after I had +said what I had to say. So I rang him up at the office and asked if he +could lunch. Not at the club; it's too full of people we know, who keep +interrupting, and who would be tremendously edified at catching murmurs +about libel and murder and Lady Pinkerton being poisoned. So I said the +Temple Bar restaurant in Fleet Street, a disagreeable place, but so noisy +and crowded that you can say what you like unheard--unheard very often by +the person you are addressing, and certainly by every one else. + +We sat downstairs, at a table at the back, and there I told him, in what +hardly needed to be an undertone, of the rumours that were being +circulated about him. I felt like a horrid woman in a village who repeats +spiteful gossip and says, 'I'm telling you because I think you ought to +know what's being said.' As a matter of fact, this was the one and only +case I have ever come across in which I have thought the person concerned +ought to know what was being said. As a rule, it seems the last thing +they ought to know. + +He listened, staring at the tablecloth and crumbling his bread. + +'Thank you,' he said, 'for telling me. As a matter of fact, I knew. +Or, anyhow, guessed.... But I'm not sure that anything can be done +to stop it.' + +'Unless,' I said, looking away from him, 'you could find grounds for a +libel action. You might ask a lawyer.' + +'No,' he returned quickly. 'That's quite impossible. Out of the +question.... There are no grounds. And I wouldn't if there were. I'm not +going to have the thing made a show of in the courts. It's exactly what +the Pinkertons would enjoy--a first-class Pinkerton scoop. No, I shall +let it alone.' + +'Is there no way of stopping it, then?' I asked. + +'Only one,' he murmured, absently, beneath his breath, then caught +himself up. 'I don't know. I think not.' + +I didn't make any further suggestions. What was the good of +advising him to remonstrate with the Pinkertons? If they were +lying, it was the obvious course. If they weren't, it was an +impossible one. I let it alone. + +Arthur was frowning as he ate cold beef. + +'There's one thing,' he said. 'Does Jane know what is being said? Do you +suppose her parents have talked about it to her?' + +I said I didn't know, and he went on frowning. Then he murdered a wasp +with his knife--a horrible habit at meals, but one practised by many +returned soldiers, who kill all too readily. I suppose after killing all +those Germans, and possibly Oliver Hobart, a wasp seems nothing. + +'Well,' he said absently, when he was through with the wasp, 'I don't +know. I don't know,' and he seemed, somehow, helpless and desperate, as +if he had come to the end of his tether. + +'I must think it over,' he said. And then he suddenly began to talk about +something else. + + +8 + +Arthur's manner, troubled rather than indignant, had been against him. He +had dismissed the idea of a libel action, and not proposed to confront +his libellers in a personal interview. Every circumstance seemed against +him. I knew that, as I walked back to the laboratory after lunch. + +And yet--and yet. + +Well, perhaps, as Jukie would say, it wasn't my business. My business at +the moment was to carry on investigations into the action of +carbohydrates. Arthur Gideon had nothing to do with this, nor I with his +private slayings, if any. + +I wrote to Jukie that evening and told him I had warned Arthur, who +apparently knew already what was being said, but didn't seem to be +contemplating taking any steps about it. + +So that was that. + +Or so I thought at the time. But it wasn't. Because, when I had posted my +letter to Jukie, and sat alone in my room, smoking and thinking, at last +with leisure to open my mind to all the impressions and implications of +the day (I haven't time for this in the laboratory), I began to fumble +for and find a new clue to Arthur's recent oddness. For twenty-four hours +I had believed that he had perhaps killed Oliver Hobart. Now, suddenly I +didn't. But I was clear that there was something about Oliver Hobart's +death which concerned him, touched him nearly, and after a moment it +occurred to me what it might be. + +'He suspects that Jane did it,' I said, slowly and aloud. 'He's trying to +shield her.' + +With that, everything that had seemed odd about the business became +suddenly clear--Arthur's troubled strangeness, Jane's dread of meeting +him, her determined avoidance of any reference to that night, her sudden +fit of crying, Arthur's shrinking from the idea of giving the talk +against him publicity by a libel action, his question, 'Does Jane know?' +his remark, to himself, that there was only one way of stopping it. That +one way, of course, would be to make Jane tell her parents the truth, so +that they would be silenced for ever. As it was, the talk might go on, +and at last official investigations might be started, which would lead +somehow to the exposure of the whole affair. The exposure would probably +take the form of a public admission by Jane; I didn't think she would +stand by and see Arthur accused without speaking out. + +So I formed my theory. It was the merest speculation, of course. But it +was obvious that there was something in the manner of Oliver Hobart's +death which badly troubled and disturbed both Arthur and Jane. That being +so, and taking into account their estrangement from one another, it was +difficult not to be forced to the conclusion that one of them knew, or +anyhow guessed, the other to have caused the accident. And, knowing them +both as I did, I believed that if Arthur had done it he would have owned +to it. Wouldn't one own to it, if one had knocked a man downstairs in a +quarrel and killed him? To keep it dark would seem somehow cheap and +timid, not in Arthur's line. + +Unless Jane had asked him to; unless it was for her sake. + +It occurred to me that the thing to do was to go straight to Jane and +tell her what was being said. If she didn't choose to do anything about +it, that was her business, but I was determined she should know. + + +9 + +An hour later I was in Jane's drawing-room. Jane was sitting at her +writing-table, and the room was dim except for the light from the +reading-lamp that made a soft bright circle round her head and shoulders. +She turned round when I came in and said, 'Hallo, K. What an unusual +hour. You must have something very important to say, old thing.' + +'I have rather,' I said, and sat down by her. 'It's this, Jane. Do you +know that people are saying--spreading it about--that Arthur killed +your husband?' + +It was very quiet in the room. For a moment I heard nothing but the +ticking of a small silver clock on the writing-table. Jane sat quite +still, and stared at me, not surprised, not angry, not shocked, but with +a queer, dazed, blind look that reminded me of Arthur's own. + +Then I started, because some one in the farther shadows of the room drew +a long, quivering breath and said 'Oh,' on a soft, long-drawn note. +Looking round, I saw Clare Potter. She had just got up from a chair, and +was standing clutching its back with one hand, looking pale and sick, as +if she was going to faint. + +I hadn't, of course, known Clare was there, or I wouldn't have said +anything. But I was rather irritated; after all, it wasn't her business, +and I thought it rather absurd the way she kept up her attitude of not +being able to bear to hear Oliver Hobart's death mentioned. + +I got up to go. After all, I had nothing more to say. I didn't want to +stop and pry, only to let Jane know. + +But as I turned to go, I remembered that I had one more thing to say. + +'It was Lady Pinkerton who started it and who is keeping it up,' I told +Jane. 'Can you--somehow--stop her?' + +Jane still stared at me, stupidly. After a moment she half whispered, +slowly, 'I--don't--know.' + +I stood looking at her for a second, then I went, without any more words. + +All the way home I saw those two white faces staring at me, and heard +Jane's whisper 'I--don't--know....' + +I didn't know, either. + +I only knew, that evening, one thing--that I hated Jane, who had got +Arthur into this mess, and 'didn't know' whether she could get him out of +it or not. + +And I may as well end what I have got to tell by saying something which +may or may not have been apparent to other people, but which, anyhow, it +would be Potterish humbug on my part to try to hide. For the last five +years I had cared for Arthur Gideon more than for any one else in the +world. I saw no reason why I shouldn't, if I liked. It has never damaged +any one but myself. It has damaged me in two ways--it has made it +sometimes difficult to give my mind to my work, and it has made me, +often, rather degradingly jealous of Jane. However, you would hardly (I +hope) notice it, and anyhow it can't be helped. + + + + +PART V: + +TOLD BY JUKE (IN HIS PRIVATE JOURNAL) + + + + +GIVING ADVICE + + +1 + +It is always rather amusing dining at Aylesbury House, with my +stimulating family. Especially since Chloe, my present stepmother, +entered it, three years ago. Chloe is great fun; much more entertaining +than most variety artists. I know plenty of these, because Wycombe, my +eldest brother, introduces them to me. As a class they seem pleasant and +good-humoured, but a little crude, and lacking in the subtler forms of +wit or understanding. After an hour or so of their company I want to +yawn. But Chloe keeps me going. She is vulgar, but racy. She is also very +kind to me, and insists on coming down to help with theatrical +entertainments in the parish. It is so decent of her that I can't say no, +though she doesn't really fit in awfully well with the O.U.D.S. people, +and the Marlowe Society people, and the others whom I get down for +theatricals. In fact, Elizabethan drama isn't really her touch. However, +the parish prefers Chloe, I need hardly say. + +I dined there on Chloe's birthday, October 15th, when we always have a +family gathering. Family and other. But the family is heterogeneous +enough to make quite a good party in itself. It was represented on that +particular evening by my father and Chloe, my young sister Diana, my +brothers Wycombe and Tony, Tony's wife, myself, my uncle Monsignor Juke, +my aunt the Marchesa Centurione and a daughter, and my Aunt Cynthia, who +had recently, on her own fiftieth birthday, come out of a convent in +which she had spent twenty-five years and was preparing to see Life. +Besides the family, there were two or three theatrical friends of +Chloe's, and two friends of my father's--a youngish literary man called +Bryan, and the cabinet minister to whom Tony was secretary, but whom I +will not name, because he might not care for it to be generally known +that he was an inmate of so fast a household. + +My Aunt Cynthia, having renounced her vows, and having only a +comparatively short time in which to enjoy the world, the flesh and the +devil, is making the most of it. She has only been out of her convent a +year, but is already a spring of invaluable personal information about +men and manners. She knows everything that is being said of everybody +else, and quite a lot that hasn't even got as far as that. Her Church +interests (undiminished in keenness) provide a store of tales +inaccessible to most of my family and their set (except my Uncle +Ferdinand, of course, and his are mostly Roman not Anglican). Aunt +Cynthia has a string of wonderful stories about Cowley Fathers biting +Nestorian Bishops, and Athelstan Riley pinching Hensley Henson, and so +forth. She is as good as Ronnie Knox at producing or inventing them. I'm +not bad myself, when I like, but Aunt Cynthia leaves me out of sight. + +This evening she was full of vim. She usually talks at the top of a very +high and strident voice (I don't know what they did with it at the +convent), and I suddenly heard her screaming to the cabinet minister, +'Haven't you heard _that_? Oh, everybody's quoting it in Fleet Street, +aren't they, Mr. Bryan? But I suppose you never go to Fleet Street, Mr. +Blank; it's so important, isn't it, for the government not to get mixed +up with the press. Well, I'll tell it you. + +'There was a young journalist Yid, +Of his foes of the press he got rid + In ways brief and bright, + For, at dead of the night, +He threw them downstairs, so he did. + +It's about the late editor of the _Daily Haste_ and Mr. Gideon of the +_Weekly Fact_. No, I don't know who's responsible for it, but I believe +it's perfectly true. They're saying so everywhere now. I believe that +awful Pinkerton woman is going about saying she has conclusive evidence; +it's been revealed from the Beyond, I believe; I expect by poor Mr. +Hobart himself. No, I'm sure she didn't make the limerick; she's not a +poet, only a novelist. Perhaps it came from the Beyond, through +planchette. Anyhow, they say Mr. Gideon will be arrested on a murder +charge very shortly, and that there's no doubt he's guilty.' + +I leant across the table. + +'_Who's_ saying so, Aunt Cynthia?' I asked her. + +Aunt Cynthia hates being asked that about her stories. Of course. Every +one does. I do myself. + +Aunt Cynthia looked at me with her childlike convent stare. + +'My dear Laurie, how can I remember who says anything, with every one +saying everything all the time? Who? Why, all sorts of people.... Aren't +they, Chloe?' + +Chloe, who was showing a spoon and glass trick to the Monsignor, said, +'Aren't who what?' + +'Isn't every one saying that Arthur Gideon threw Oliver Hobart downstairs +and killed him?' + +'I expect so, dear. Never heard of either of the gentlemen myself. +And did he?' + +'Of course he did. He's a Jew, and he hated Hobart and his paper like +poison. The _Fact's_ so different, you know. Every one's clear he did +it. Mind you, I don't blame him. The _Daily Haste_ is a vulgar +Protestant rag.' + +'The Jew's a dear friend of Laurie's,' put in Wycombe. 'You'd better be +careful, Aunt Cynthia.' + +'Oh, Laurie dear,' my aunt cried, 'how tactless of me. But, my dear boy, +are you really friends with a Jew, and you a Christian priest?' + +'I'm friends with Gideon. He's a Gentile by religion, by the way; an +ordinary agnostic. Aunt Cynthia, don't go on spreading that nonsense, if +you don't mind. You might contradict it if you hear it again.' + +'Very well, dear. I'll say you have good reason to know it isn't true. +I'll say you've been told who did kill Mr. Hobart, only it was under the +seal, so you can't say. Shall I?' + +'By all means, if you like.' + +Then Aunt Cynthia chased off after another exciting subject, and that was +all about Gideon. + + +2 + +I came away early (about eleven, that is, which is very early for one of +Chloe's evenings, which don't end till summer dawn) feeling more worried +than ever about Gideon. If the gossip about him had penetrated from Lady +Pinkerton's circle to my aunt's, it must be pretty widespread. I was +angry with Aunt Cynthia, and a little with every one I had met that +evening. They were so cheerful, so content with things as they were, +finding all the world such a screaming farce.... I sometimes get my +family on my nerves, when I go there straight from Covent Garden and its +slum babies, and see them spending and squandering and being +irresponsible and dissolute and not caring twopence for the way +two-thirds of the world live. There was Wycombe to-night, with a long +story to tell me about his debts and his amours (he's going to be +co-respondent in a divorce case directly), and Chloe, as hard as nails +beneath her pretty ways, and simply out for a good time, and Aunt +Cynthia, with half the gossip of London spouting out of her like a +geyser, and Diana, who might turn out fine beyond description or +degenerate into a mere selfish rake (it won't be my father's and Chloe's +fault if she doesn't do the latter), and my Uncle Ferdinand in purple and +fine linen, a prince of the Church, and Tony already booked for a +political career, with his chief's shady secrets in his keeping to show +him the way it's done. And they bandied about among them the name of a +man who was worth the lot of them together, and repeated silly rhymes +which might hang him.... It was a little more than I could stand. + +One is so queer about one's family. I'm inclined to think every one is. +Often I fit in with mine perfectly, and love to see them, and find them +immensely refreshing after Covent Garden and parish shop. And then +another time they'll be on my nerves and I feel glad I'm out of it all. +And another time again I'm jealous of them, and wish I had Wycombe's or +Tony's chances of doing something in the world other than what I am +doing. That, of course, is sheer vulgar covetousness and grab. It comes +on sometimes when I am tired, or bored, and the parish seems stale, and +the conferences and committees I attend unutterably profitless, and I +want more clever people to talk to, and bigger and more educated +audiences to preach to, and I want to have leisure to write more and to +make a name.... It is merely a vulgar disease--a form of Potterism. One +has to face it and fight it out. + +But to-night I wasn't feeling that. I wasn't feeling anything very much, +except that Gideon, and all that Gideon stood for, was worth immeasurably +more than anything the Aylesbury lot had ever stood for. + +And when I got back, I found a note from Katherine saying that she +had warned Gideon about the talk and that he wasn't proposing to take +any steps. + + +3 + +Next morning I had to go to Church House for a meeting. I got the _Daily +Haste_ (which I seldom see) to read in the underground. On the front +page, side by side with murders, suicides, divorces, allied notes, and +Sinn Fein outrages, was a paragraph headed 'The Hobart Mystery. Suspicion +of Foul Play.' It was about how Hobart's sudden death had never been +adequately investigated, and how curious and suspicious circumstances had +of late been discovered in connection with it, and inquiries were being +pursued, and the _Haste_, which was naturally specially interested, +hoped to give more news very soon. + +So old Pinkerton was making a journalistic scoop of it. Of course; one +might have known he would. + +At my meeting (Pulpit Exchange, it was about) I met Frank Potter. He is a +queer chap--commercial and grasping, like all his family, and dull too, +and used to talk one sick about how little scope he had in his parish, +and so on. Since he got to St. Agatha's he's cheered up a bit, and talks +to me now instead of his big congregations and their fat purses. He's a +dull-minded creature--rather stupid and entirely conventional. He's all +against pulpit exchange, of course; he thinks it would be out of order +and tradition. So it would. And he's a long way keener on order and +tradition than he is on spiritual progress. A born Pharisee, he is +really, and yet with Christianity struggling in him here and there; and +that's why he's rather interesting, in spite of his dullness. + +After the meeting I went up to him and showed him the _Haste_. + +'Can't this be stopped?' I asked him. + +He blinked at it. + +'That's what Johnny is up in arms against too,' he said. 'He swears by +this chap who is suspected, and won't hear a word against him.' + +'Well,' I said, 'the question is, can Johnny or any one else do anything +to stop it?... I've tried. I spoke to Lady Pinkerton the other day. It +was no use. Can _you_ do anything?' + +'I'm afraid not,' he said, rather apathetically. 'You see, my people +believe Gideon killed Hobart, and are determined to press the matter. One +can't blame them, you know, if they really think that. My mother feels +perfectly sure of it, from various bits of evidence she's got hold of, +and won't be happy till the thing is thoroughly sifted. Of course, if +Gideon's innocent, it's best for him, too, to have the thing out, now +it's got so far. Don't you agree?' + +'I don't. Why should a man have to waste his time appearing in a criminal +court to answer to a charge of manslaughter or murder which he never +committed? Gideon happens to have other things to do than to make a nine +days' wonder for the press and public.' + +I suppose that annoyed Potter rather. He said sharply, 'It's up to the +chap to prove his innocence. Till he does, a great many people will +believe him guilty, I'm afraid.' + +'Including yourself, obviously.' + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +'I've no prejudices either way,' he returned, his emphasis on the +personal pronoun indicating that I, in his opinion, had. + +But there he was wrong. I hadn't. I was quite prepared to believe that +Gideon had knocked Hobart downstairs, or that he hadn't. You can't be a +parson, or, indeed, anything else, for long, without learning that decent +men and women will do, at times, quite indecent things, and that the +devil is quite strong enough to make a mess of any human being's life. +You hear of a man that he was in love with another man's wife and hated +her husband and at last killed him in a quarrel--and you think 'A bad +lot.' But he may not be a bad lot at all; he may be a decent chap, full +of ideals and generosity and fine thinking. Sometimes I'm inclined to +agree with the author of that gushing and hysterical book _In Darkest +Christendom and a Way Out_, that the only unforgiveable sin is +exploitation. Exploitation of human needs and human weaknesses and human +tragedies, for one's own profit.... And, as we very nearly all do it, in +one way or another, let us hope that even that isn't quite unforgiveable. +Yes, we nearly all do it. The press exploits for its benefit human +silliness and ignorance and vulgarity and sensationalism, and, in +exploiting it, feeds it. The war profiteers exploited the war.... We all +exploit other people--use their affection, their dependence on us, their +needs and their sins, for our own ends. + +And that is deliberate. To knock a fellow human being downstairs in a +quarrel, so that he dies--that may be impulse and accident, and is not so +vile. Even to say nothing afterwards--even that is not so vile. + +Still, I would rather, much rather, think that Gideon hadn't done it. + +It was odd that, as I was thinking these things, walking up Surrey Street +from the Temple Embankment, I overtook Gideon, who was slouching along in +his usual abstracted way. + +I touched his arm and spoke to him. He gave me his queer, +half-ironical smile. + +'Hallo, Jukie.... Where are you bound?... By the way, did you by chance +see the _Haste_ this morning?' + +'Not by chance. That doesn't happen with me and the _Haste_. But I saw +it.' + +'They obviously mean business, don't they. The sleuth-hound touch. I +expect to be asked for my photograph soon, for the _Pink Pictorial_ and +the _Sunday Rag_. I must get a nice one taken.' + +I suppose I looked as I felt, for he said in a different tone, 'Don't +worry, old man. There's nothing to be done. We must just let this thing +take its course.' + +I couldn't say anything, because there was nothing to say that wouldn't +seem like asking him questions, or trying to make him admit or deny the +thing to me. I wanted to ask him if he couldn't produce an alibi and blow +the ridiculous story to the four winds. But--suppose he couldn't...? + +So I said nothing but, 'Well, let me know if ever I can be any use,' and +we parted at the top of Surrey Street. + + +4 + +We have evensong at five at St. Christopher's. No one conies much. The +people in the parish aren't the weekday church sort. Those among them who +come to church at all mostly confine their energies to evening service on +Sundays, though a few of them consent to turn up at choral mass at +eleven. And, by means of guilds and persuasion, we've induced a good many +of the lads and girls to come to early mass sometimes. The vicar gets +discouraged at times, but not so much as most vicars would, because he +more or less agrees with me in not thinking church-going a test of +Christianity. The vicar is one of the cleverest and most original parsons +in the Church, in my opinion. He has a keen, shrewd, practical insight +into the distinction between essentials and non-essentials. He is popular +in the parish, but I don't think the people understand, as a rule, what +he is getting at. + +Anyhow, the only people who usually came to our week-day services were a +few church workers and an elderly lady or two who happened to be passing +and dropped in. The elderly ladies who lived in the parish were much too +busy for any such foolishness. + +But this evening--the evening of the day I had met Gideon--there was a +girl in church. She was rather at the back, and I didn't see who it was +till I was going out. Then she stopped me at the door, and I saw that it +was Clare Potter. I knew Clare Potter very slightly, and had never found +her interesting. I had always believed her to be conventional and +commonplace, without the brains of the twins or even the mild +spirituality of Frank. + +But I was startled by her face now; it was white and strained, and +emotion wavered pitifully over it. + +'Please,' she said, 'will you hear my confession?' + +'I'm very sorry,' I told her, 'but I can't. I'm still in deacon's +orders.' + +She seemed disappointed. + +'Oh! Oh dear! I didn't know....' + +I was puzzled. Why had she pitched on me? Hadn't she, I wondered, a +regular director, or was it her first confession she wanted to make? I +began something about the vicar being always glad ... But she stopped me. + +'No, please. It must be you. There's a reason.... Well, if you can't hear +my confession, may I tell you something in private, and get your advice?' + +'Of course,' I said. + +'Now, at once, if you've time.... It's very urgent.' + +I had time, and we went into the vestry. + +She sat down, and I waited for her to speak. She wasn't nervous, or +embarrassed, as most people are in these interviews. Two things occurred +to me about her; one was that she was, in a way, too far through, too +mentally agitated, to be embarrassed; the other was that she was, quite +unconsciously, posing a little, behaving as the heroine of one of her +mother's novels might have behaved. One knows the situation in +fiction--the desperate girl appealing out of her misery to the Christian +priest for help. So many women have this touch of melodrama, this sense +of a situation.... I believed that she was, as she sat there, in these +two conditions simultaneously, exactly as I was simultaneously analysing +her and wanting to be of what service I could. + +She leant forward across the vestry table, locking and unlocking +her hands. + +'This is quite private, isn't it,' she said. 'As private as if...?' + +'Quite,' I told her. + +She drew a long, shivering breath, and leant her forehead on her +clasped hands. + +'You know,' she said, so low that I had to bend forward to catch it, +'what people are saying--what my people suspect about--about Oliver +Hobart's death.' + +'Yes, I know.' + +'Well--it wasn't Mr. Gideon.' + +'You know that?' I said quickly. And a great relief flooded me. I hadn't +known, until that moment, because I had driven it under, how large a part +of my brain believed that Gideon had perhaps done this thing. + +'Yes,' she whispered. 'I know it ... Because I know--I know--who did it.' + +In that moment I felt that I knew too, and that Gideon knew, and that I +ought to have guessed all along. + +I said nothing, but waited for the girl's next word, if she had a next +word to say. It wasn't for me to question her. + +And then, quite suddenly, she gave a little moan of misery and broke into +passionate tears. + +I waited for a moment, then I got up and poured her out a glass of water. +It must have been pretty bad for her. It must have been pretty bad all +this time, I thought, knowing this thing about her sister. + +She drank the water, and became quieter. + +'Do you want to tell me any more?' I asked her, presently. + +'Oh, I do, I do. But it's so difficult ... I don't know how to tell +you.... Oh, God ... It was _I_ that killed him!' + +'Yes?' I said, after a moment, gently, and without apparent surprise. One +learns in parish work not to start, however much one may be startled. I +merely added a legitimate inquiry. 'Why was that?' + +She gulped. 'I want to tell you everything. I _want_ to.' + +I was sure she did. She had reached the familiar pouring-out stage. It +was obviously going to be a relief to her to spread herself on the +subject. I am pretty well used to being told everything, and at times a +good deal more, and have learnt to discount much of it. I looked away +from her and prepared to listen, and to give my mind to sifting, if I +could, the fact from the fancy in her story. This is a special art, and +one which all parsons do well to learn. I have heard my vicar on the +subject of women's confessions. + +'Women--women. Some of them will invent any crime--give themselves away +with both hands--merely to make themselves interesting. Poor things, they +don't realise how tedious sin is. One has to be on one's guard the whole +time, with that kind.' + +I deduced that Clare Potter might possibly be that kind. So I listened +carefully, at first neither believing nor disbelieving. + +'It's difficult to tell you,' she began, in a pathetic, unsteady voice. +'It hurts, rather ...' + +'No, I think not,' I corrected her. 'It's a relief, isn't it?' + +She stared at me for a moment, then went on, 'Yes, I _want_ to tell. But +it hurts, all the same.' + +I let her have it her own way; I couldn't press the point. She really +thought it did hurt. I perceived that she had, like so many people, a +confused mind. + +'Go on,' I said. + +'I must begin a long way back.... You see, before Oliver fell in love +with Jane, he ... he cared a little for me. He really did, Mr. Juke. And +he made me care for him.' Her voice dropped to a whisper. + +This was truth. I felt no doubt as to that. + +'Then ... then Jane came, and took him away from me. He fell in love with +her ... I thought my heart would break.' + +I didn't protest against the phrase, or ask her to explain it, because +she was unhappy. But I wish people wouldn't use it, because I don't know, +and they don't know, what they mean by it. 'I thought I should be very +unhappy,' is that the meaning? No, because they are already that. 'I +thought my heart--the physical organ--would be injuriously affected to +the point of rupture.' No; I do not believe that is what they mean. +Frankly, I do not know. There should be a dictionary of the phrases in +common use. + +However, it would have been pedantic and unkind to ask Miss Potter, who +could probably explain no phrases, to explain this. + +She went on, crying a little again. + +'I couldn't stop caring for him all at once. How could I? I suppose +you'll despise me, Mr. Juke, but I just couldn't help going on loving +him. It's once and for ever with me. Oh, I expect you think it was +shameful of me!' + +'Shameful? To love? No, why? It's human nature. You had bad luck, +that's all.' + +'Oh, I did.... Well, there it was, you see. He was married to Jane, and I +cared for him so much that I could hardly bear to go to the house and see +them together.... Oh, it wasn't my fault; he _made_ me care, indeed he +did. I'd never have begun for myself, I'm not that sort of girl, I never +was, I know some girls do it, but I never could have. I suppose I'm too +proud or something.' + +She paused, but I made no comment. I never comment on the pride of which +I am so often informed by those who possess it. + +She resumed, 'Well, it went on and on, and I didn't seem to get to +feel any better about it. And I hated Jane. Oh, I know that was +wicked, of course.' + +As she knew it, I again made no comment. + +'And sometimes I think I hated _him_, when he thought of nothing but her +and never at all of me.... Well, sometimes there was trouble between +them, because Jane would do things and go about with people he didn't +like. And especially Mr. Gideon. We none of us like Mr. Gideon at home, +you know; we think he's awful. He's so rude, and has such silly +opinions, and is so conceited and unkind. He's been awfully rude to +father's papers always. And that horrid article he had in his silly +paper about what he called 'Potterite Fiction,' mostly about mother's +books--did you read it?' + +'Yes. But Gideon didn't write it, you know. It was some one else.' + +'Oh, well, it was in his paper, anyhow. And he _thought_ it.... And, +anyhow, what are books, to hurt people's feelings about?' + +(A laudable sentiment, and one which should be illuminated as a text on +the writing table of every reviewer.) + +'Oh, of course I know he's a friend of yours,' she added. 'That's really +why I came to you.... But we none of us like him at home. And Oliver +couldn't stick him. And he begged Jane not to have anything more to do +with him, but she would. She wrote in his paper, and she was always +seeing him. And Oliver got more and more disgusted about it, and I +couldn't bear to see him unhappy.' + +'No?' I questioned. + +She paused, checked by the interruption. Then, after a moment, she +said, 'I suppose you mean I was glad really, because it came between +them.... Well, I don't know.... Perhaps I was, then.... Well, wouldn't +any one be?' + +'Most people,' I agreed. 'Yes?' + +She went on a little less fluently, of which I was glad. Fluency and +accuracy are a bad pair. I would rather people stumbled and stammered out +their stories than poured them. + +'And I think he thought--Oliver thought--he began to suspect--that Mr. +Gideon was--you know--_in love_ with Jane. And I thought so too. And +he thought Jane was careless about not discouraging him, and seeing so +much of him and all. But _I_ thought she was worse than that, and +encouraged him, and didn't care.... Jane was always dreadfully selfish, +you know....' + +'And ... that evening?' I prompted her, as she paused. + +'Well, that evening,' she shuddered a little, and went on quickly. 'I'd +been dining with a friend, and I was to sleep at Jane's. I got there soon +after ten, and no one was in, so I went to my room to take my things off. +Then I heard Jane come in, with Mr. Gideon. They went upstairs to the +drawing-room, and I heard them talking there. My door was a little open, +and I heard what they said. And he said ...' + +'Perhaps,' I suggested, 'you'd better not tell me what they said, since +they thought they were alone. What do you think?' + +'Oh, very well. There's no harm. I thought I'd better tell you +everything. But as you like.' She was a little disappointed, but picked +herself up and continued. + +'Well, then I heard Oliver coming upstairs, and he stopped at the +drawing-room door for a moment before they saw him, I think, because he +didn't speak quite at once. Then he said, "Good evening," and they said, +"Hallo," and they all began to be nasty--in their voices, you know. He +said he'd obviously come home before he was expected, and then Jane went +upstairs, pretending nothing was the matter--Jane never bothers about +anything--and I heard Mr. Gideon come up to Oliver and ask him what he +meant by that. And they talked just outside my door, and they were very +disagreeable, but I suppose you don't want me to tell you what they +said, so I won't. Anyhow it wasn't much, only Oliver gave Mr. Gideon to +understand he wasn't to come there any more, and Mr. Gideon said he +certainly had no intention of doing so. Oh, yes, and he said, "Damn you" +rather loud. And then he went downstairs and left the house. I heard the +door shut after him, then I came out of my room, and there was Oliver +standing at the top of the stairs, looking as if he didn't see anything. +He didn't seem to see me, even. I couldn't bear it, he was so white and +angry and thinking of nothing but Jane, who wasn't worth thinking about, +because she didn't care.... And then ... I lost my head. I think I was +mad ... I'd felt awfully queer for a long time.... I couldn't bear it any +more, his being unhappy about Jane and not even seeing me. I went up to +him and said, "Oliver, I'm glad you've got rid of that horrid man." + +'He stared at me and still didn't seem to see me. That somehow made me +furious. I said, "Jane's much too fond of him.... She's always with him +now.... They spent this evening together, you know, and came home +together." + +'Then he seemed to wake up, and he looked at me with a look I hadn't ever +seen before, and it was as if the world was at an end, because I saw he +hated me for saying that. And he said, "Kindly let my affairs and Jane's +alone," in a horrible, sharp, cold voice. I couldn't bear it. It seemed +to kill something in me; my love for him, perhaps. I went first cold then +hot, and I was crazy with anger; I pushed him back out of the way to let +me pass--I pushed him suddenly, and so hard that he lost his balance.... +Oh, you know the rest.... He was standing at the top of those awful +stairs--why are people _allowed_ to make stairs like that?--and he reeled +and fell backwards.... Oh, dear, oh, dear, and you know the rest....' + +She was sobbing bitterly now. + +'Yes, yes,' I said, 'I know the rest,' and I said no more for a time. + +I was puzzled. That she had truly repeated what had passed between her +and Hobart I believed. But whether she had pushed him, or whether he had +lost his own balance, seemed to me still an open question. I had to +consider two things--how best to help this girl, and how to get Gideon +out of the mess as quickly and as quietly as possible. For both these +things I had to get at the truth--if I could. + +'Now, look here,' I said presently, 'is this story you've told me wholly +true? Did it actually happen precisely like that? Please think for a +moment and then tell me.' + +But she didn't think, not even for a moment. + +'Oh,' she sobbed, 'true! Why should I _say_ it if it wasn't?' + +Why indeed? I began to enumerate some possible reasons--an inaccurate +habit of mind, a sensational imagination (both these misfortunes being +hereditary), an egotistic craving for attention, even unfavourable +attention--it might be any of these things, or all. But I hadn't got far +before she broke in, 'Oh, God. I've not had a moment's peace since ... I +loved him, and I killed him.... I let them think it was an accident.... +It was as if I was gagged, I _couldn't_ speak. And after a bit, when it +had all settled down, there didn't seem to be any reason why I should say +anything.... I never thought, truly I never thought, that they'd ever +suspect some one else.... And then, a little while ago, I heard mother +saying something, to some one about Mr. Gideon, and last night Katherine +Varick came and told Jane people were saying it everywhere. And this +morning there was that piece in the _Haste_. ... Oh! what shall I _do?_' + +'You don't really,' I said, 'feel any doubt about that. Do you?' + +She lifted her wet, puckered face and stared at me, and I saw that, for +the moment at least, she was not thinking of herself at all, but only of +her tragedy and her problem. + +'You mean,' she whispered, 'that I must tell ...' + +'It's rather obvious, isn't it,' I said gently, because I was horribly +sorry for her. 'You must tell the truth, whatever it is.' + +'And be tried for murder--or manslaughter? Appear in the docks?' she +quavered, her frightened brown eyes large and round. + +'I don't think it would come to that. All you have to do is to tell your +parents. Your father is responsible for the stuff in the papers, and your +mother, I gather, for the spreading of the story personally. Your +confession to them would stop that. They would withdraw, retract what +they have said, and say publicly that they were mistaken, that the +evidence they thought they had, had been proved false. Then it would be +generally assumed again that the thing was an accident, and the talk +would die down. No one need ever know but your parents and myself. I am +bound, and they would choose, not to repeat it to any one.' + +'Not to Jane?' she questioned. + +'Well, what does Jane think at present? Does she suspect?' + +She shook her head. 'I don't know. Jane's been rather queer all day.... +I've sometimes thought she suspected something. Only if she did, I +believe she'd have told me. Jane doesn't consider people's feelings, you +know; she'd say anything, however awful.... Only she's deep, too. Not +like me. I must have things out; she'll keep them dark, sometimes.... No, +I don't know what Jane thinks, really I don't.' + +I didn't know either. Another thing I didn't know was what Gideon +thought. They might both suspect Clare, and this might have tied Gideon's +hands; he might have shrunk from defending himself at the expense of a +frightened, unhappy girl and Jane's sister. + +But this wasn't my business. + +'Well,' I said, 'you may find you have to tell Jane. Perhaps, in a way, +you owe it to Jane to tell her. But the essential thing is that you +should tell your parents. That's quite necessary, of course. And you +should do it at once--this evening, directly you get home. Every minute +lost makes the thing worse. I think you should catch the next train back +to Potter's Bar. You see, what you say may affect what is in to-morrow +morning's papers. This thing has to be stopped at once, before further +damage is done.' + +She looked at me palely, her hands twisting convulsively in and out of +each other. I saw her, for all her seven or eight-and-twenty years, as a +weak, frightened child, ignorant, like a child, of the mischief she was +doing to others, concerned, like a child, with her own troubles and fears +and the burden on her own conscience. I was inclined now to believe in +that push. + +'Oh,' she whimpered, 'I _daren't_.... All this time I've said +nothing.... How can I, now? It's too awful ... too difficult ...' + +I looked at her in silence. + +'What's your proposal, then?' I asked her. I may have sounded hard and +unkind, but I didn't feel so; I was immensely sorry for her. Only, I +believe a certain amount of hard practicality is the only wholesome +treatment to apply to emotional and wordy people. One has to make them +face facts, put everything in terms of action. If she had come to me for +advice, she should have it. If she had come to me merely to get relief by +unburdening her tortured conscience, she should find the burden doubled +unless she took the only possible way out. + +She looked this way and that, with scared, hunted eyes. + +'I thought perhaps ... they might be made to think it was an +accident ...' + +'How?' + +'Well, you see, I could tell them that he'd left the house--Mr. Gideon, I +mean--before Oliver ... fell. That would be true. I could say I heard Mr. +Gideon go, and heard Oliver fall afterwards. That's what I thought I'd +say. Then he'd be cleared, wouldn't he?' + +'Why haven't you,' I asked, 'said this already, directly you knew that +Gideon was suspected?' + +'I--I didn't like,' she faltered. 'I wanted to ask some one's advice. I +wanted to know what you thought.' + +'I've told you,' I answered her, 'what I think. It's more than thinking. +I know. You've got to tell them the exact truth whatever it is. There's +really no question about it. You couldn't go to them with a half true +story ... could you?' + +'I don't know,' she sighed, pinching her fingers together nervously. + +'You do know. It would be impossible. You couldn't lie about a thing like +that. You've got to tell the truth.... Not all you've told me, if you +don't want to--but simply that you pushed him, in impatience, not meaning +to hurt him, and that he fell. It's quite simple really, if you do it at +once. It won't be if you leave it until the thing has gone further and +Gideon is perhaps arrested. You'd have to tell the public the story then. +Now it's easy.... No, I beg your pardon, it's not easy; I know that. It's +very hard. But there it is: it's got to be done, and done at once.' + +She listened in silence, drooping and huddled together. I was reminded +pitifully of some soft little animal, caught in a trap and paralysed +with fear. + +'Oh,' she gasped, 'I must, I must, I know I must. But it's +_difficult_ ...' + +I'm not going to repeat the things I said. They were the usual truisms, +and one has to say them. I had accepted her story now: it seemed simpler. +The complex part of the business was that at one moment I was simply +persuading a frightened and reluctant girl to do the straight and decent +and difficult thing, and at the next I was wasting words on an egotist +(we're all that, after all) who was subconsciously enjoying the situation +and wanting to prolong it. One feels the difference always, and it is +that duplicity of aim in seekers after advice that occasionally makes one +cruel and hard, because it seems the only profitable method. + +It must have been ten minutes before I wrung out of her a faltering but +definite, 'I'll do it.' + +Then I stood up. There was no more time to be wasted. + +'What train can you get?' I asked her. + +'I don't know.... The 7.30, perhaps.' She rose, too, her little wet +crumpled handkerchief still in her hand. I saw she had something +else to say. + +'I've been so miserable ...' + +'Well, of course.' + +'It's been on my _mind_ so ...' + +What things people of this type give themselves the trouble of saying! + +'Well, it will be off your mind now,' I suggested. + +'Will it? But it will still be there--the awful thing I did. I ought to +confess it, oughtn't I, and get absolution? I do make my confession, you +know, but I've never told this, not properly. I know I ought to have +done, but I couldn't get it out ever--I put it so that the priest +couldn't understand. I suppose it was awfully mean and cowardly of me, +and I ought to confess it properly.' + +But I couldn't go into that question, not being entirely sure even now +_what_ she ought to confess. I merely said, 'Well, why make confessions +at all if you don't make them properly?' + +She only gave her little soft quivering sigh. It was too difficult a +question for her to answer. And, after all, a foolish one to ask. Why do +we do all the hundreds of things that we don't do properly? Reasons are +many and motives mixed. + +I walked with her to the King's Cross bus and saw her into it. We shook +hands as we parted, and hers was hot and clinging. I saw that she was all +tense and strung up. + +'Good-bye,' she whispered. 'And thank you ever so much for being so good +to me. I'll do what you told me to-night. If it kills me, I will.' + +'That's good,' I returned. 'But it won't kill you, you know.' + +I smiled at her as she got on to the bus, and she smiled pitifully back. + + +5 + +I walked back to my rooms. I felt rather tired, and had a queer feeling +of having hammered away on something soft and yielding and yet +unbreakable, like putty. I felt sick at having been so hard, and sick too +that she was so soft. Sick of words, and phrases, and facile emotions, +and situations, and insincerities, and Potterisms--and yet with an odd +tide of hope surging through the sickness, because of human nature, which +is so mixed that natural cowards will sometimes take a steep and hard way +where they might take an easy one, and because we all, in the middle of +our egotism and vanity and self-seeking, are often sorry for what we have +done. Really sorry, beneath all the cheap penitence which leads nowhere. +So sorry that we sometimes cannot bear it any more, and will break up our +own lives to make amends.... + +And if, at the same time, we watch our sorrow and our amends, and see it +as drama and as interesting--well, after all, it is drama and it is +interesting, so why not? We can't all be clear and steely +unsentimentalists like Katherine Varick. + +One has to learn to bear sentimentalism. In parishes (which are the +world) one has to endure it, accept it. It is part of the general +muddle and mess. + + +6 + +I got a _Daily Haste_ next morning early, together with the _Pink +Pictorial_, the illustrated Pinkerton daily. I looked through them +quickly. There was no reference to the Hobart Mystery. I was relieved. +Clare Potter had kept her word, then--or anyhow had said enough to clear +Gideon (I wasn't going further than that about her; I had done my utmost +to make her do the straight thing in the straight way, and must leave the +rest to her), and the Pinkertons were withdrawing. They would have, +later, to withdraw more definitely than by mere abstaining from further +accusation (I intended to see to that, if no one else did), but this was +a beginning. It was, no doubt, all that Pinkerton had been able to +arrange last night over the telephone. + +It would have interested me to have been present at that interview +between Clare and her parents. I should like to have seen Pinkerton +provided by his innocent little daughter with the sensation of his life, +and Leila Yorke, the author of _Falsely Accused_ forced to realise her +own abominable mischief-making; forced also to realise that her messages +from the other side had been as lacking in accuracy as, unfortunately, +messages from this side, too, so often are. I hoped the affair Hobart +would be a lesson to both Pinkertons. But, like most of the lessons set +before us in this life, I feared it would be a lesson unlearnt. + +Anyhow, Pinkerton was prompt and business like in his methods. His +evening paper contained a paragraph to this effect:-- + +'DEATH OF MR HOBART + +'NOW CONSIDERED ACCIDENTAL + +'FOUL PLAY NOT SUSPECTED + +'The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of +Mr. Oliver Hobart, the late editor of the _Daily Haste_, have resulted in +conclusive evidence that the tragedy was due to Mr. Hobart's accidental +stumbling and falling. His fall, which was audible to the other inmates +of the house, took place after the departure of Mr. Arthur Gideon, with +whom he had been talking. A statement to this effect has been made by +Miss Clare Potter, who was staying in the house at the time, and who was +at the time of the inquest too much prostrated by the shock to give +evidence.' + +It was a retraction all right, and all that could be expected of the +Pinkerton Press. In its decision and emphasis I read scare. + +I didn't give much more thought just then to the business. I was +pretty busy with meetings and committees, and with rehearsals of _A +New Way to pay Old Debts,_ which we were playing to the parish in a +week. I had stage-managed it at Oxford once, and had got some of the +same people together, and it was going pretty well but needed a good +deal of attention. I had, too, to go away from town for a day or two, +on some business connected with the Church Congress. Church Congresses +keep an incredible number of people busy about them beforehand; +besides all the management of committees and programmes and +side-shows, there is the management of all the people of divergent +views who won't meet each other, such as Mr. George Lansbury and Mr. +Athelstan Riley. (Not that this delicate task fell to me; I was only +concerned with Life and Liberty.) + +On the day after I came back I met Jane at the club, after lunch. She +came over and sat down by me. + +'Hallo,' she said. 'Have you been seeing the _Haste_?' + +'I have. It's been more interesting lately than my own paper.' + +'Yes.... So Arthur's acquitted without a stain on his character. Poor +mother's rather sick about it. She thought she'd had a Message, you know. +That frightful Ayres woman had a vision in a glass ball of Arthur +knocking Oliver downstairs. I expect you heard. Every one did.... Mother +went round to see her about it the other day, but she still sticks to it. +Poor mother doesn't know what to make of it. Either the ball lied, or the +Ayres woman lied, or Clare is lying. She's forced to the conclusion that +it was the Ayres. So they've had words. I expect they'll make it up +before long. But at present there's rather a slump in Other Side +business.... And she wrote a letter of apology to Arthur. Father made +her, he was so afraid Arthur would bring a libel action.' + +'Why didn't he?' I asked, wondering, first, how much of the truth +either Arthur or Jane had suspected all this time, and, secondly, how +much they now knew. + +Jane looked at me with her guarded, considering glance. + +'Well,' she said, 'I don't mind your knowing. You'd better not let on to +him that I told you, though; he mightn't like it. The fact is, Arthur +thought I'd done it. He thought it was because my manner was so queer, as +if I was trying to hush it up. I was. You see, I thought Arthur had done +it. It seemed so awfully likely. Because, I left them quarrelling. And +Arthur's got an awfully bad temper. And _his_ manner was so queer. We +never talked it out, till two days ago; we avoided talking to each other +at all, almost, after the first. But on that first morning, when he came +round to see me, we somehow succeeded in diddling one another, because we +were each so anxious to shield the other and hush it all up.... Clare +might have saved us both quite a lot of worrying if she'd spoken out at +once and said it was ... an accident.' + +Jane's voice was so unemotional, her face and manner so calm, that she +is a very dark horse sometimes. I couldn't tell for certain whether she +had nearly instead of 'an accident' said 'her,' or whether she had +spoken in good faith. I couldn't tell how much she knew, or had been +told, or guessed. + +I said, 'I suppose she didn't realise till lately that any one was likely +to be suspected,' and Jane acquiesced. + +'Clare's funny,' she said, after a moment. + +'People are,' I generalised. + +'She has a muddled mind,' said Jane. + +'People often have.' + +'You never know,' said Jane thoughtfully, 'how much to believe of what +she says.' + +'No? I dare say she doesn't quite know herself.' + +'She does not,' said Jane. 'Poor old Clare.' + +We necessarily left it at that, since Jane didn't, of course, mean to +tell me what story Clare had told of that evening's happenings, and I +couldn't tell Jane the one Clare had told me. I didn't imagine I should +ever be wiser than I was now on the subject, and it certainly wasn't my +business any more. + +When I met Clare Potter by chance, a week or two later, on the steps of +the National Gallery with another girl, she flushed, bowed, and passed me +quickly. That was natural enough, after our last interview. + +Queer, that those two girls should be sisters. They were an interesting +study to me. Clare, shallow, credulous, weak in the intelligence, +conventional, emotional, sensitive, of the eternal type of orthodox and +timid woman, with profound powers of passion, and that touch of +melodrama, that sense of a situation, which might lead her along strange +paths.... And Jane, level-headed, clear-brained, hard, calm, +straight-thinking, cynical, an egotist to her finger-tips, knowing what +she wanted and going for it, tough in the conscience, and ignorant of +love except in its crudest form of desire for the people and things which +ministered to her personal happiness.... + +It struck me that the two represented two sides of Potterism--the +intellectual and moral. Clare, the ignorant, muddle-headed +sentimentalist; Jane, reacting against this, but on her part grabbing and +exploiting. Their attitude towards truth (that bugbear of Potterism) was +typical; Clare couldn't see it; Jane saw it perfectly clearly, and would +reject it without hesitation if it suited her book. Clare was like her +mother, only with better, simpler stuff in her; Jane was rather like her +father in her shrewd native wit, only, while he was vulgar in his mind, +she was only vulgar in her soul. + +Of one thing I was sure: they would both be, on the whole, satisfied with +life, Jane because she would get what she wanted, Clare because she would +be content with little. Clare would inevitably marry; as inevitably, she +would love her husband and her children, and come to regard her passion +for Oliver Hobart and its tragic sequel as a romantic episode of +girlhood, a sort of sowing of wild oats before the real business of life +began. And Jane would, I presumed, ultimately marry Gideon, who was too +good for her, altogether too fine and too good. For Gideon was direct and +keen and passionate, and loved and hated cleanly, and thought finely and +acutely. Gideon wasn't greedy; he took life and its pleasures and +triumphs and amusements in his stride, as part of the day's work; he +didn't seek them out for their own sakes. Gideon lived for causes and +beliefs and ideals. He was temperamentally Christian, though he didn't +happen to believe Christian dogma. He had his alloy, like other people, +of ambition and selfishness, but so much less than, for instance, I have, +that it is absurd that he should be the agnostic and I the professing +Christian. + + +7 + +The Christian Church. Sometimes one feels that it is a fantasy, the +flaming ideal one has for it. One thinks of it as a fire, a sword, an +army with banners marching against dragons; one doesn't see how such +power can be withstood, be the dragons never so strong. And then one +looks round and sees it instead as a frail organisation of the lame, the +halt, and the blind, a tepid organisation of the satisfied, the +bourgeois, the conventionally genteel, a helpless organisation of the +ignorant, the half-witted, the stupid; an organisation full to the brim +of cant, humbug, timid orthodoxy, unreality, self-content, and all kinds +of Potterism--and one doesn't see how it can overcome anything whatever. + +What is the truth? Where, between these two poles, does the actual +church stand? Or does it, like most of us its members, swing to and from +between them, touching now one, now the other? A Potterite church--yes; +because we are most of us Potterites. An anti-Potterite church--yes, +again; because at its heart is something sharp and clean and fine and +direct, like a sword, which will not let us be contented Potterites, but +which is for ever goading us out of ourselves, pricking us out of our +trivial satisfactions and our egotistic discontents. + +I suppose the fact is that the Church can only work on the material it +finds, and do a little here and a little there. It would be a sword in +the hands of such men as Gideon; on the other hand, it can't do much +with the Clare Potters. The real thing frightens them if ever they see +it; the sham thing they mould to their own liking, till it is no more +than a comfortable shelter from the storms of life. It is the world's +Potters who have taken the Church and spoilt it, degraded it to the +poor dull thing it is. It is the Potterism in all of us which at every +turn checks and drags it down. Personally, I can forgive Potterism +everything but that. + +What is one to do about it? + + + + +PART VI: + +TOLD BY R.M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA + + +1 + +While Clare talked to Juke in the vestry, Jane talked to her parents at +Potter's Bar. She was trying to make them drop their campaign against +Gideon. But she had no success. Lady Pinkerton said, 'The claims of Truth +are inexorable. Truth is a hard god to follow, and often demands the +sacrifice of one's personal feelings.' Lord Pinkerton said, 'I think, now +the thing has gone so far, it had better be thoroughly sifted. If Gideon +is innocent, it is only due to him. If he is guilty, it is due to the +public. You must remember that he edits a paper which has a certain +circulation; small, no doubt, but still, a circulation. He is not +altogether like a private and irresponsible person.' + +Lady Pinkerton remarked that we are none of us that, we all owe a duty to +society, and so forth. + +Then Clare came in, just as they had finished dinner. She would not have +any. Her face was red and swollen with crying. She said she had something +to tell them at once, that would not keep a moment. Mr. Gideon mustn't be +suspected any more of having killed Oliver, for she had done it herself, +after Mr. Gideon had left the house. + +They did not believe her at first. She was hysterical, and they all knew +Clare. But she grew more circumstantial about it, till they began to +believe it. After all, they reasoned, it explained her having been so +completely knocked over by the catastrophe. + +Jane asked her why she had done it. She said she had only meant to push +him away from her, and he had fallen. + +Lady Pinkerton said, 'Push him away, my dear! Then was he ...' + +Was he too close, she meant. Clare cried and did not answer. Lady +Pinkerton concluded that Oliver had been trying to kiss Clare, and that +Clare had repulsed him. Jane knew that Lady Pinkerton thought this, and +so did Clare. Jane thought 'Clare means us to think that. That doesn't +mean it's true. Clare hasn't got what Arthur calls a grip on facts.' + +Lord Pinkerton said, 'This is very painful, my dears; very painful +indeed. Jane, my dear ...' + +He meant that Jane was to go away, because it was even more painful for +her than for the others. But Jane didn't go. It wasn't painful for Jane +really. She felt hard and cold, and as if nothing mattered. She was angry +with Clare for crying instead of explaining what had happened. + +Lady Pinkerton said, passing her hand over her forehead in the tired way +she had and shutting her eyes, 'My dear, you are over-wrought. You don't +know what you are saying. You will be able to tell us more clearly in +the morning.' + +But Clare said they must believe her now, and Lord Pinkerton must +telephone up to the _Haste_ and have the stuff about the Hobart +Mystery stopped. + +'My poor child,' said Lady Pinkerton, 'what has made you suddenly, so +long after, tell us this terrible story?' + +Clare sobbed that she hadn't been able to bear it on her mind any more, +and also that she hadn't known till lately that Gideon was suspected. + +Lord and Lady Pinkerton looked at each other, wondering what to believe, +then at Jane, wishing she was gone, so that they could ask Clare more +about it. Jane said, 'Don't mind me. I don't mind hearing about it.' Jane +meant to stay. She thought that if she was gone they would persuade Clare +she had dreamed it all and that it had been really Gideon after all. + +Jane asked Clare why she had pushed Oliver, thinking that she ought to +explain, and not cry. But still Clare only cried, and at last said she +couldn't ever tell any one. Lady Pinkerton turned pink, and Lord +Pinkerton walked up and down and said, 'Tut tut,' and it was more obvious +than ever what Clare meant. + +She added, 'But I never meant, indeed I never meant, to hurt him. He just +fell back, and ...' + +'Was killed,' Jane finished for her. Jane thought Clare was like their +mother in trying to avoid plain words for disagreeable things. + +Clare cried and cried. 'Oh,' she said, 'I've not had a happy moment +since,' which was as nearly true as these excessive statements ever are. + +Lady Pinkerton tried to calm her, and said, 'My poor, dear child, you +don't know what you are saying. You must go to bed now, and tell us in +the morning, when you are more yourself.' + +Clare didn't go to bed until Lord Pinkerton had promised to ring up the +_Haste_. Then she went, with Lady Pinkerton, who was crying too now, +because she was beginning to believe the story. + + +2 + +Jane didn't know what she believed. She didn't believe what Clare had +implied--that Oliver had tried to kiss her. Because Oliver hadn't been +like that; it wasn't the sort of thing he did. Jane thought it caddish of +Clare to have tried to make them think that of him. But she might, Jane +thought, have been angry with him about something else; she might have +pushed him.... Or she might not; she might be imagining or inventing the +whole thing. You never knew, with Clare. + +If it was true, Jane thought, she had been a fool about Arthur. But, if +he hadn't done it, why had he been so queer? Why had he avoided her, and +been so odd and ashamed from the first morning on? + +Perhaps, thought Jane, he had suspected Clare. + +She would see him to-morrow morning, and ask him. + + +3 + +Jane saw Gideon next day. She rang him up, and he came over to Hampstead +after tea. + +It was the first time Jane had seen him alone for more than a month. He +looked thin and ill. + +Jane loved him. She had loved him through everything. He might have +killed Oliver; it made no difference to her caring for him. + +But she hoped he hadn't. + +He came into the drawing-room. Jane remembered that other night, when +Oliver--poor Oliver--had been vexed to find him there. Poor Oliver. Poor +Oliver. But Jane couldn't really care. Not really, only gently, and in a +way that didn't hurt. Not as if Gideon were dead and shut away from +everything. Not as if she herself were. + +Jane didn't pretend. As Lady Pinkerton would say, the claims of Truth +were inexorable. + +Gideon came in quickly, looking grave and worried, as if he had something +on his mind. + +Jane said, 'Arthur, please tell me. _Did_ you knock Oliver down +that night?' + +He stood and stared at her, looking astonished and startled. + +Then he said, slowly, 'Oh, I see. You mean, am I going to admit that I +did, when I am accused.... If there's no other way out, I am.... It will +be all right, Jane,' he said very gently. 'You needn't be afraid.' + +Jane didn't understand him. + +'Then you did it,' she said, and sat down. She felt sick, and her +head swam. + +Gideon stood over her, tall and stooping, biting the nail of his +middle finger. + +'You see,' Jane said, 'I'd begun to hope last night that you hadn't done +it after all.' + +'What are you talking about?' he asked. + +Jane said, 'Clare told us that it happened--that he fell--after you had +left the house. So I hoped she might be speaking the truth, and that +you hadn't done it after all. But if you did, we must go on thinking of +ways out.' + +'If--I--did,' Gideon said after her slowly. 'You know I didn't, Jane. +Why are you talking like this? What's the use, when I know, and you know, +and you know that I know, the truth about it? It can do no good.' + +He was, for the first time, stern and angry with her. + +'The truth?' Jane said. 'I wish you'd tell it me, Arthur.' + +The truth. If Gideon told her anything, it would be the truth, she knew. +He wasn't like Clare, who couldn't. + +But he only looked at her oddly, and didn't speak. Jane looked back into +his eyes, trying to read his mind, and so for a moment he stared down at +her and she stared up at him. + +Jane perceived that he had not done it. Had he, then, guessed all this +time that Clare had, and been trying to shield her? + +Then, slowly, his face, which had been frowning and tense, changed +and broke up. + +'Good God!' he said. 'Tell me the truth, Jane. It _was_ you, wasn't it?' + +Then Jane understood. + +She said, 'You thought it was _me_.... And I thought it was you! Is it me +you've been so ashamed of all this time then, not yourself?' + +'Yes,' he said, still staring at her. 'Of course.... It _wasn't_ you, +then.... And you thought it was me?... But how could you think that, +Jane? I'd have told; I wouldn't have been such a silly fool as to sneak +away and say nothing. You might have known that. You must have had a +pretty poor opinion of me, to think I'd do that.... Good lord, how you +must have loathed me all this time!' + +'No, I haven't. Have you loathed me, then?' + +He said quickly, 'That's different,' but he didn't explain why. + +After a moment he said, 'It was just an accident then, after all.' + +'Yes ... Clare was talking to him when he fell.... She's only just told +about it, because you were being suspected. But I never know whether to +believe Clare; she's such a gumph. I had to ask you.... What made you +suspect _me_, by the way?' + +'Your manner, that first morning. You dragged me into the dining-room, do +you remember, and talked about how they all thought it was an accident, +and no one would guess if we were careful, and I wasn't to say anything. +What else was I to think? It was really your own fault.' + +Jane said, 'Well, anyhow, we're quits. We've both spent six weeks +thinking each other murderers. Now we'll stop.... I don't wonder you +fought shy of me, Arthur.' + +He looked at her curiously. + +'Didn't you fight shy of me, then? You can hardly have wanted to see much +of me in the circumstances.' + +'I didn't, of course. It was awful. Besides, you were so queer and +disagreeable. I thought it was a guilty conscience, but really I suppose +it was disgust.' + +'Not disgust. No. Not that.' He seemed to be balancing the word 'disgust' +in his mind, considering it, then rejecting it. 'But,' he said, 'it would +have been difficult to pretend nothing had happened, wouldn't it.... I +didn't blame you, you know, for the thing itself. I knew it must have +been an accident--that you never meant ... what happened.... Well, +anyhow, that's all over. It's been pretty ghastly. Let's forget it.... +What Potterish minds you and I must have, Jane, to have built up such a +sensational melodrama out of an ordinary accident. I think Lord Pinkerton +would find me useful on one of his papers; I'm wasted on the _Fact_. You +and I; the two least likely people in the world for such fancies, you'd +think--except Katherine. By the way, Katherine half thought I'd done it, +you know. So did Jukie.' + +'I'm inclined now to think that K thought I had, that evening she came to +see me. She was rather sick with me for letting you be accused.' + +'A regular Potter melodrama,' said Gideon. 'It might be in one of your +mother's novels or your father's papers. That just shows, Jane, how +infectious a thing Potterism is. It invades the least likely homes, and +upsets the least likely lives. Horrible, catching disease.' + +Gideon was walking up and down the room in his restless way, playing with +the things on the tables. He stopped suddenly, and looked at Jane. + +'Jane,' he said, 'we won't, you and I, have any more secrets and +concealments between us. They're rotten things. Next time it occurs to +you that I've committed a crime, ask me if it is so. And I'll do the same +to you, at whatever risk of being offensive. We'll begin now by telling +each other what we feel.... You know I love you, my dear.' + +Oh, yes, Jane knew that. She said, 'I suppose I do, Arthur.' + +He said, 'Then what about it? Do you ...' and she said, 'Rather, of +course I do.' + +Then they kissed each other, and settled to get married next May or June. +The baby was coming in January. + +'You'll have to put up with baby, you know, Arthur,' Jane said. + +'Of course, poor little kid. I rather like them. It's rough luck on it +not having a father of its own. I'll try to be decent to it.' + +That would be queer, thought Jane, Arthur being decent to Oliver's kid; a +boy, perhaps, with Oliver's face and Oliver's mind. Poor little kid: but +Jane would love it, and Arthur would be decent to it, and its +grandparents would spoil it; it would be their favourite, if any more +came. They wouldn't like the others, because they would be Gideon's. They +might look like little Yids. Perhaps there wouldn't be any others. Jane +wasn't keen. They were all right when they were there--jolly little +comics, all slippy in their baths, like eels--but they were an +unspeakable nuisance while on the way. A rotten system. + + +4 + +All next day Jane felt like stopping people in the streets and shouting +at them, 'Arthur didn't do it. Nor did I. It was only that silly ass, +Clare, or else it was an accident.' For even now Jane wasn't sure which +she thought. + +But the only person to whom she really said it was Katherine. One told +Katherine things, because she was as deep and as quiet as the grave. +Also, if Jane hadn't told her what Clare had said, she would have gone on +thinking it was Jane, and Jane didn't like that. Jane did not care to +give Katherine more reasons for making her feel cheap than necessary. She +would always think Jane cheap, anyhow, because Jane only cared about +having a good time, and Katherine thought one should care chiefly about +one's job. Jane supposed she was cheap, but didn't much care. She felt +she would rather be herself. She had a better time, and would have a +better time still before she had done; better than Johnny, with the +rubbishy books he was writing and making his firm bring out for him and +feeling so pleased with. Jane knew she could write better stuff than +Johnny could, any day. And her books would be in addition to Gideon, and +babies, and other amusing things. + +Jane told Katherine Clare's story. Katherine said, 'H'm. Perhaps. I +wonder. It's as likely as not all bumkum that she pushed him. She was +probably talking to him when he fell, and got worked up about it later. +The Potter press and Leila Yorke touch. However, you never know. Quite a +light push might do it. Those stairs of yours are awful. I really advise +you to be careful, Jane.' + +'You thought I'd done it, didn't you, old thing?' + +'For a bit, I did. For a bit I thought it was Arthur. So did Jukie. You +never know. Any one might push any one else. Even Clare may have.' + +'You must have thought I was a pretty mean little beast, to let Arthur be +suspected without owning up.' + +'I did,' Katherine admitted. 'Selfish ...' + +She was looking at Jane in her considering way. Her bright blue eyes +seemed always to go straight through what she was looking at, like +X-rays. When she looked at Jane now, she seemed somehow to be seeing in +her not only the present but the past. It was as if she remembered, and +was making Jane remember, all kinds of old things Jane had done. Things +she had done at Oxford; things she had done since; things Katherine +neither blamed nor condemned, but just took into consideration when +thinking what sort of a person Jane was. You had the same feeling with +Katherine that you had sometimes with Juke, of being analysed and +understood all through. You couldn't diddle either of them into thinking +you any nicer than you were. Jane didn't want to. It was more restful +just to be taken for what one was. Oliver had been always idealising her. +Gideon didn't do that; he knew her too well. Only he didn't bother much +about what she was, not being either a priest or a scientific chemist, +but a man in love. + +'By the way,' said Katherine, 'are you and Arthur going to get married?' + +Jane told her in May or June. + +Katherine, who was lighting a cigarette, looked at Jane without smiling. +The flame of the match shone into her face, and it was white and cold +and quiet. + +'She doesn't think I'm good enough for Arthur,' Jane thought. And anyhow, +K didn't, Jane knew, think much of marriage at all. Most women, if you +said you were going to get married, assumed it was a good thing. They +caught hold of you and kissed you. If you were a man, other men slapped +you on the back, or shook hands or something. They all thought, or +pretended to think, it was a fine thing you were doing. They didn't +really think so always. Behind their eyes you could often see them +thinking other things about it--wondering if you would like it, or why +you chose that one, and if it was because you preferred him or her to any +one else or because you couldn't get any one else. Or they would be +pitying you for stopping being a bachelor or spinster and having to grow +up and settle down and support a wife or manage servants and babies. But +all that was behind; they didn't show it; they would say, 'Good for you, +old thing,' and kiss you or shake your hand. + +Katherine did neither to Jane. She hadn't when it was Oliver Hobart, +because she hadn't thought it a suitable marriage. She didn't, now it was +Arthur Gideon, perhaps for the same reason. She didn't talk about it. She +talked about something else. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED + + +1 + +The fine weather ended. Early October had been warm, full of golden +light, with clear, still evenings. Later the wind blustered, and it was +cold. Sometimes Jane felt sick; that was the baby. But not often. She +went about all right, and she was writing--journalism and a novel. She +thought she would perhaps send it in for a prize novel competition in the +spring, only she felt no certainty of pleasing the three judges, all so +very dissimilar. Jane's work was a novel about a girl at school and +college and thereafter. Perhaps it would be the first of a trilogy; +perhaps it would not. The important thing was that it should be well +reviewed. How did one work that? You could never tell. Some things were +well reviewed, others weren't. Partly luck it was, thought Jane. Novels +were better treated usually than they deserved. Verse about as well as it +deserved, which, however, wasn't, as a rule, saying very much. Some kinds +of book were unkindly used--anthologies of contemporary verse, for +instance. Someone would unselfishly go to the trouble of collecting some +of the recent poetical output which he or she personally preferred and +binding it up in a pleasant portable volume, and you would think all that +readers had to do was to read what they liked in it, if anything, and +leave out the rest and be grateful. Instead, it would be slated by +reviewers, and compared to the Royal Academy, and to a literary signpost +pointing the wrong way, and other opprobrious things; as if an anthology +could point to anything but the taste of the compiler, which of course +could not be expected to agree with any one else's; tastes never do. The +thing was, thought Jane, to hit the public taste with the right thing at +the right moment. Another thing was to do better than Johnny. That should +be possible, because Jane _was_ better than Johnny; had always been. Only +there was this baby, which made her feel ill before it came, and would +need care and attention afterwards. It wasn't fair. If Johnny married and +had a baby it wouldn't get in his way, only in its mamma's. It was a +handicap, like your frock (however short it was) when you were climbing. +You had got round that by taking it off and climbing in knickerbockers, +but you couldn't get round a baby. And Jane wanted the baby too. + +'I suppose I want everything,' said Jane. + +Johnny wanted everything too. He got a lot. He got love. He was +polygamous by nature, and usually had more than one girl on hand. That +autumn he had two. One was Nancy Sharpe, the violinist. They were always +about together. People who didn't know either of them well, thought they +would get engaged. But neither of them wanted that. The other girl was a +different kind: the lovely, painted, music-hall kind you don't meet. No +one thought Johnny would marry her, of course. They merely passed the +time for one another. + +Jane wondered if the equivalent man would pass the time for her. She +didn't think so. She thought she would get bored with never talking about +anything interesting. And it must, she thought, be pretty beastly having +to kiss people who used cheap scent and painted their lips. One would be +afraid the red stuff would come off. In fact, it surely would. Didn't men +mind--clean men, like Johnny? Men are so different, thought Jane. Johnny +was the same at Oxford. He would flirt with girls in tea-shops. Jane had +never wanted to flirt with the waiters in restaurants. Men were perhaps +less critical; or perhaps they wanted different qualities in those with +whom they flirted; or perhaps it was that their amatory instinct, when +pronounced at all, was much stronger than women's, and flowed out on to +any object at hand when they were in the mood. Also, they certainly grew +up earlier. At Oxford and Cambridge girls weren't, for the most part, +grown-up enough to be thinking about that kind of thing at all. It came +on later, with most of them. But men of that age were, quite a lot of +them, mature enough to flirt with the girls in Buol's. + +Jane discussed it with Gideon one evening. Gideon said, 'Men usually +have, as a rule, more sex feeling than women, that's all. Naturally. They +need more, to carry them through all the business of making marriage +proposals and keeping up homes, and so on. Women often have very little. +That's why they're often better at friendship than men are. A woman can +be a man's friend all their lives, but a man, in nine cases out of ten, +will either get tired of it or want more. Women have a tremendous gift +for friendship. Their friendships with other women are usually much more +devoted and more faithful than a man's with other men. Most men, though +of course not all, want sex in their lives at some time or other. +Hundreds of women are quite happy without it. They're quite often nearly +sexless. Very few men are that.' + +Jane said, 'There are plenty of women like Clare, whom one can't think of +apart from sex. No friendship would ever satisfy her. If she isn't a wife +and mother she'll be starved. She'll marry, of course.' + +'Yes,' Gideon agreed. 'There are plenty of women like that. And when a +woman is like that, she's much more dependent on love and marriage than +any man is, because she usually has fewer other things in her life. But +there are women also like Katherine.' + +'Oh, Katherine. K isn't even dependent on friendship. She only wants her +work. K isn't typical.' + +'No; she isn't typical. She isn't a channel for the life force, like most +of us. She's too independent; she won't let herself be used in that way.' + +'Am I a channel for the life force?' thought Jane. 'I suppose so. Hence +Oliver and baby. Is Arthur? I suppose so. Hence his wanting to marry me.' + + +2 + +Jane told her family that she was going to marry Gideon. Lady Pinkerton +said, 'It's extraordinary to me that you can think of it, Jane, after all +that has happened. Surely, my child, the fact that it was the last thing +Oliver would wish should have some weight with you. Whatever plane he may +be on now, he must be disturbed by such news as this. Besides, dear +child, it is far too soon. You should wait at least a year before taking +such a step. And Arthur Gideon! Not only a Jew, Jane, and not only a man +of such very unfortunate political principles, but one who has never +attempted to conceal his spiteful hostility both to father's papers and +my books. But perhaps, as I believe you agree with him in despising both +of these, that may be an extra bond between you. Only you must _see_ that +it will make family life extremely awkward.' + +Of course it would. But family lives nearly always are awkward, Jane +thought; it is one of the things about them. + +Lady Pinkerton added, having suddenly remembered it, 'Besides, my dear, +he _drinks_; you told me so yourself.' + +Jane said, if she had, she had lied, doubtless for some good reason now +forgotten by her. He didn't drink, not in the excessive sense of that +word obviously intended by Lady Pinkerton. Lady Pinkerton was +unconvinced; she still was sure he drank in that sense. + +She resumed, 'And Jewish babies! I wonder you can think of it, Jane. They +may be a throw-back to a most degraded Russian-Jewish type. What brothers +and sisters for the dear mite who is coming first! My dear, I do beg you +to think this over long and seriously before committing yourself. You may +live to repent it bitterly.' + +Clare said, '_Jane_! How _can_ you--after ...' + +After Oliver, she meant. She would never say his name; perhaps one +doesn't like to when one has killed a man. + +Jane thought, 'Why didn't I leave Oliver to Clare? She'd have suited him +much better. I was stupid; I thought I wanted him. I did want him. But +not in the way I want Arthur now. One wants so many things.' + +Lord Pinkerton said, 'You're making a big mistake, Babs. That fellow +won't last. He's building on sand, as the Bible puts it--building on +sand. I hear on good authority that the _Fact_ can't go on many months +longer, unless it changes its tone and methods considerably; it's got no +chance of fighting its way as it is now. People don't want that kind of +thing. They don't want anything the Gideon lot will give them. Gideon and +his sort haven't got the goods. They're building on the sand of their own +fancy, not on the rock of general human demand. I hear that that daily +they talked of starting can't come off yet, either.... The chap's a bad +investment, Babs.... And he despises me and my goods, you know. That'll +be awkward.' + +'Not you, daddy. The papers, he does. He rather likes you, though he +doesn't approve of you.... He doesn't like mother, and she doesn't like +him. But people often don't get on with their mothers-in-law.' + +'It's an awkward alliance, my dear, a very awkward alliance. What will +people say? Besides, he's a Jew.' + +Jewish babies; he was thinking of them too. + +Jane thought, bother the babies. Perhaps there wouldn't be any, and if +there were, they'd only be a quarter Jew. Anyhow, it wasn't them she +wanted; it was Arthur. + +Arthur opened doors and windows. You got to the edge of your own thought, +and then stepped out beyond into his thought. And his thought drove sharp +and hard into space. + +But more than this, Jane loved the way his hair grew, and the black line +his eyebrows made across his forehead, and the way he stood, tall and +lean and slouching, and his keen thin face and his long thin hands, and +the way his mouth twisted up when he smiled, and his voice, and the whole +of him. She wondered if he loved her like that--if he turned hot and cold +when he saw her in the distance. She believed that he did love her like +that. He had loved her, as she had loved him, all that time he had +thought she was lying to every one about Oliver's death. + +'It isn't what people do,' said Jane, 'that makes one love them or stop +loving them.' + +'Is this,' she thought, 'what Clare felt for Oliver? I didn't know it was +like this, or I wouldn't have taken him from her. Poor old Clare.' Could +one love Oliver like that? Any one, Jane supposed, could be loved like +that, by the right person. And people like Clare loved more intensely +than people like her; they felt more, and had fewer other occupations. + +Jane hadn't known that she could feel so much about anything as she was +feeling now about Gideon. It was interesting. She wondered how long it +would last, at this pitch. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD + + +1 + +Jane's baby was born in January. As far as babies can be like grown human +beings, it was like its grandfather--a little Potter. + +Lord Pinkerton was pleased. + +'He shall carry on the papers,' he said, dandling it on his arm. +'Tootooloo, grandson!' He dug it softly in the ribs. He understood this +baby. However many little Yids Jane might achieve in the future, there +would be this little Potter to carry on his own dreams. + +Clare came to see it. She was glad it wasn't like Oliver; Jane saw her +being glad of that. She was beginning to fall in love with a young +naval officer, but still she couldn't have seen Oliver in Jane's child +without wincing. + +Gideon came to see it. He laughed. + +'Potter for ever,' he said. + +He added. 'It's symbolic. Potters will be for ever, you know. They're so +strong....' + +The light from the foggy winter afternoon fell on his face as he sat by +the window. He looked tired and perplexed. Strength, perpetuity, seemed +things remote from him, belonging only to Potters. Anti-Potterism and the +_Weekly Fact_ were frail things of a day, rooted in a dream. So Gideon +felt, on these days when the fog closed about him.... + +Jane looked at her son, the strange little animal, and thought not +'Potter for ever,' but 'me for ever,' as was natural, and as parents will +think of their young, who will carry them down the ages in an ever more +distant but never lost immortality, an atom of dust borne on the hurrying +stream. Jane, who believed in no other personal immortality, found it in +this little Potter in her arms. Holding him close, she loved him, in a +curious, new, physical way. So this was motherhood, this queer, sensuous, +cherishing love. It would have been a pity not to have known it; it was, +after all, an emotion, more profound than most. + + +2 + +When Jane was well enough, she gave a party for Charles, as if he had +been a new picture she had painted and wanted to show off. Her friends +came and looked at him, and thought how clever of her to have had him, +all complete and alive and jolly like that, a real baby. He was better +than the books and things they wrote, because he was more alive, and +would also last longer, with luck. Their books wouldn't have a run of +four score years and ten or whatever it was; they'd be lucky if any one +thought of them again in five years. + +But partly Jane gave the party to show people that Charles didn't +monopolise her, that she was well and active again, and ready for work +and life. If she wasn't careful, she might come to be regarded as the +mere mother, and dropped out. + +Johnny said, grinning amiably at her and Charles, 'Ah, you're +thinking that your masterpiece quite puts mine in the shade, aren't +you, old thing.' + +He had a novel just out. It was as good as most young men's first novels. + +'I'm not sure,' said Jane, 'that Charles is my masterpiece. Wait till the +other works appear, and I'll tell you.' + +Johnny grinned more, supposing that she meant the little Yids. + +'My books, I mean,' Jane added quickly. + +'Oh, your books.' + +'They're going to be better than yours, my dear,' said Jane. 'Wait and +see.... But I dare say they won't be as good as this.' She appraised +Charles with her eyes. + +'But, oh, so much less trouble,' she added, swinging him up and down. + +'I could have one as good as that,' said Johnny thoughtfully, 'with no +trouble at all.' + +'You'd have to work for it and keep it. And its mother. You wouldn't like +that, you know.... Of course you ought to. It's your duty. Every young +man who survives.... Daddy says so. You'd better do it, John. You're +getting on, you know.' + +Young men hate getting on. They hate it, really, more than young women +do. Youth is of such immense value, in almost any career, but +particularly to the young writer. + +But Johnny only said, with apparent nonchalance, 'Twenty-seven is not +very old.' He added, however, 'Anyhow, you're five minutes older, and +I've published a book, if you have produced that thing.' + +Johnny was frankly greedy about his book. He hung on reviews; he asked +for it in bookshops, and expressed astonishment and contempt when they +had not got it. And it was, after all, nothing to make a song about, Jane +thought. It wasn't positively discreditable to its writer, like most +novels, but it was a very normal book, by a very normal cleverish young +man. Johnny wasn't sure that his publishers advertised it as much as was +desirable. + +Gideon came up to Jane and Charles. He had just arrived. He had three +evening papers in his hand. His fellow passengers had left them in the +train, and he had collected them. Jews often get their news that way. + +Johnny saw his friend Miss Nancy Sharpe disengaged and looking lovely, +and went to speak to her. He was really in love with her a little, though +he didn't go as far as wanting to work for her and keep her. He was quite +right; that is to go too far, when so much happiness is attainable short +of it. Johnny wisely shunned desperate measures. So, to do her justice, +did Miss Sharpe. + +'Johnny's very elated,' said Jane to Gideon, looking after him. 'What do +_you_ think of his book, Arthur?' + +Gideon said, 'I don't think of it. I've had no reason to, particularly. +I've not had to review it.... I'm afraid I'm hopeless about novels just +now, that's the fact. I'm sick of the form--slices of life served up cold +in three hundred pages. Oh, it's very nice; it makes nice reading for +people. But what's the use? Except, of course, to kill time for those who +prefer it dead. But as things in themselves, as art, they've been ruined +by excess. My critical sense is blunted just now. I can hardly feel the +difference, though I see it, between a good novel and a bad one. I +couldn't write one, good or bad, to save my life, I know that. And I've +got to the stage when I wish other people wouldn't. I wish every one +would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think--like in the +Armistice Day pause, when all the noise stopped.' + +Jane shook her head. + +'You may be sure we shan't do that. Not likely. We all want to hear +ourselves talk. And quite right too. We've got things to say.' + +'Nothing of importance. Few things that wouldn't be better unsaid. Life +isn't talking.' + +'A journalist's is,' Jane pointed out, and he nodded. + +'Quite true. Horribly true. It's chiefly myself I'm hitting at. But at +least we journalists don't take ourselves solemnly; we know our stuff is +babble to fill a moment. Novelists and poets don't always know that; +they're apt to think it matters. And, of course, so far as any of them +can make and hold beauty, even a fragment of it here and there, it does +matter. The trouble is that they mostly can't do anything of the sort. +They don't mostly even know how to try. All but a few verse-makers are +shallow, muddled, or sentimental, and most novelists are commercial as +well. They haven't the means; they aren't adequately equipped; they've +nothing in them worth the saying. Why say it, then? A little cleverness +isn't worth while.' + +'You're morbid, Arthur.' + +'Morbid? Diseased? I dare say. We most of us are. What's health, after +all? No one knows.' + +'I've done eighty thousand words of my novel, anyhow.' + +'I'm sorry. Nearly all novels are too long. All you've got to say would +go into forty thousand.' + +'I don't write because I've got things to say. I haven't a message, like +mother. I write because it amuses me. And because I like to be a +novelist. It's done. And I like to be well spoken of--reasonably well, +that is. It's all fun. Why not?' + +'Oh, don't ask _me_ why not. I can't preach sermons all the evening.' + +He smiled down on her out of his long sad black eyes, glad of her because +she saw straight and never canted, impatient of her because her ideals +were commercial, loving her because she was gray-eyed and white-skinned +and desirable, seeing her much as Nancy Sharpe, who lived for music, saw +Johnny Potter, only with ardour instead of nonchalance; such ardour, +indeed, that his thoughts of her only intermittently achieved exactitude. + +Two girls came up to admire Charles. Jane said it was time she took him +to bed, and they went up with her. + +Gideon turned away. He hated parties, and seldom went even to Jane's. He +stood drinking coffee and watching people. You met most of them at the +club and elsewhere continually; why meet them all again in a +drawing-room? There was his sister Rosalind and her husband Boris Stefan +with their handsome faces and masses of black hair. Rosalind had a baby +too (at home); a delicate, pretty, fair-haired thing, like Rosalind's +Manchester mother. And Charles was like Jane's Birmingham father. It was +Manchester and Birmingham that persisted, not Palestine or Russia. + +And there was Juke, with his white, amused face and heavy-lidded eyes +that seemed always to see a long way, and Katherine Varick talking to a +naval officer about periscopes (Jane kept in with some of the Admiralty), +and Peacock, with whom Gideon had quarrelled two hours ago at the _Fact_ +office, and who was now in the middle of a group of writing young men, as +usual. Gideon looked at him cynically. Peacock was letting himself be got +at by a clique. Gideon would rather have seen him talking to the +practical looking sailor about periscopes. Peacock would have to be +watched. He had shown signs lately of colouring the _Fact_ with +prejudices. He was getting in with a push; he was dangerously in the +movement. He was also leaning romancewards, and departing from the realm +of pure truth. He had given credence to some strange travellers' tales of +Foreign Office iniquities. As if that unfortunate and misguided body had +not enough sins to its account without having melodramatic and +uncharacteristic kidnappings and deeds of violence attributed to it. But +Peacock had got in with those unhappy journalists and others who had been +viewing Russia, and, barely escaping with their lives, had come back with +nothing else, and least of all with that accurate habit of mind which +would have qualified them as contributors to the _Weekly Fact_. It was +not their fault (except for going to Russia), but Peacock should have had +nothing to do with them. + +Katherine Varick crossed the room to Gideon, with a faint smile. + +'Hallo. Enjoying life?' + +'Precisely that.' + +'I say, what are you doing with the _Fact_?' + +Gideon looked at her sourly. + +'Oh, you've noticed it too. It's becoming quite pretty reading, isn't it. +Less like a Blue Book.' + +'Much less. I should say it was beginning to appeal to a wider circle. +Is that the idea?' + +'Don't ask me. Ask Peacock. Whatever the idea is, it's his, not mine.... +But it's not a considered idea at all. It's merely a yielding to the +(apparently) irresistible pressure of atmosphere.' + +'I see. A truce with the Potter armies.' + +'No. There's no such thing as a truce with them. It's the first steps of +a retreat.' + +He said it sharply and suddenly, in the way of a man who is, at the +moment, making a discovery. He turned and looked across the room at +Peacock, who was talking and talking, in his clever, keen, pleasant way, +not in the least like a Blue Book. + +'We're _not_ like Blue Books,' Gideon muttered sadly. 'Hardly any one is. +Unfortunate. Very unfortunate. What's one to do about it?' + +'Lord Pinkerton would say, learn human nature as it is and build on it. +Exploit its weaknesses, instead of tilting against them. Accept +sentimentality and prejudice, and use them.' + +'I am aware that he would.... What do _you_ say, Katherine?' + +'Nothing. What's the use? I'm one of the Blue Books--not a fair judge, +therefore.' + +'No. You'd make no terms, ever.' + +'I've never been tempted. One may have to make terms, sometimes.' + +'I think not,' said Gideon. 'I think one never is obliged to make terms.' + +'If the enemy is too strong?' + +'Then one goes under. Gets out of it. That's not making terms.... +Good-night; I'm going home. I hate parties, you know. So do you. Why do +either of us go to them?' + +'They take one's thoughts off,' said Katherine in her own mind. Her blue +eyes contracted as she looked after him. + +'He's failing; he's being hurt. He'll go under. He should have been a +scientist or a scholar or a chemist, like me; something in which +knowledge matters and people don't. People will break his heart.' + + +3 + +Gideon walked all the way back from Hampstead to his own rooms. It was a +soft, damp night, full of little winds that blew into the city from +February fields and muddy roads far off. There would be lambs in the +fields.... Gideon suddenly wanted to get out of the town into that damp, +dark country that circled it. There would be fewer people there; fewer +minds crowded together, making a dense atmosphere that was impervious to +the piercing, however sharp, of truth. All this dense mass of stupid, +muddled, huddled minds.... What was to be done with it? Greedy minds, +ignorant minds, sentimental, truthless minds.... + +He saw, as he passed a newspaper stand, placards in big black +letters--'Bride's Suicide.' 'Divorce of Baronet.' Then, small and +inconspicuous, hardly hoping for attention, 'Italy and the Adriatic.' For +one person who would care about Italy and the Adriatic, there would, +presumably, be a hundred who would care about the bride and the baronet. +Presumably; else why the placards? Gideon honestly tried to bend his +impersonal and political mind to understand it. He knew no such people, +yet one had to believe they existed; people who really cared that a bride +with whom they had no acquaintance (why a bride? Did that make her more +interesting?) had taken her life; and that a baronet (also a perfect +stranger) had had his marriage dissolved in a court of law. What quality +did it indicate, this curious and inexplicable interest in these topics +so tedious to himself and to most of his personal acquaintances? Was it a +love of romance? But what romance was to be found in suicide or divorce? +Romance Gideon knew; knew how it girdled the world, heard the beat of its +steps in far forests, the whisper of its wings on dark seas.... It is +there, not in divorces and suicides. Were people perhaps moved by desire +to hear about the misfortunes of others? No, because they also welcomed +with eagerness the more cheerful domestic episodes reported. Was it, +then, some fundamental, elemental interest in fundamental things, such as +love, hate, birth, death? That was possibly it. The relation of states +one with another are the product of civilisation, and need an at least +rudimentarily political brain to grasp them. The relations of human +beings are natural, and only need the human heart for their +understanding. That part of man's mind which has been, for some obscure +reason, inaccurately called the heart, was enormously and +disproportionately stronger than the rest of the mind, the thinking part. + +'Light Caught Bending,' another placard remarked. That was more cheerful, +though it was an idiotic way of putting a theory as to the curvature of +space, but it was refreshing that, apparently, people were expected to be +excited by that too. And, Gideon knew it, they were. Einstein's theory +as to space and light would be discussed, with varying degrees of +intelligence, most of them low, in many a cottage, many a club, many a +train. There would be columns about it in the Sunday papers, with little +Sunday remarks to the effect that the finiteness of space did not limit +the infinity of God. Scientists have naïf minds where God is concerned; +they see him, if at all, in terms of space. + +Anyhow, there it was. People were interested not only in divorce, +suicide, and murder, but in light and space, undulations and gravitation. +That was rather jolly, for that was true romance. It gave one more hope. +Even though people might like their science in cheap and absurd tabloid +form, they did like it. The Potter press exulted in scientific +discoveries made easy, but it was better than not exulting in them at +all. For these were things as they were, and therefore the things that +mattered. This was the satisfying world of hard, difficult facts, without +slush and without sentiment. This was the world where truth was sought +for its own sake. + +'When I see truth, do I seek truth +Only that I may things denote, +And, rich by striving, deck my youth +As with a vain, unusual coat?' + +Nearly every one in the ordinary world did that, if indeed they ever +concerned themselves with truth at all. And some scientists too, perhaps, +but not most. Scientists and scholars and explorers--they were the +people. They were the world's students, the learners, the discoverers. +They didn't talk till they knew.... + +Rain had begun to drizzle. At the corner of Marylebone Road and Baker +Street there was a lit coffee-stall. A group clustered about it; a +policeman drinking oxo, his waterproof cape shining with wet; two +taxi-cab drivers having coffee and buns; a girl in an evening cloak, with +a despatch case, eating biscuits. + +Gideon passed by without stopping. A hand touched him on the arm, and a +painted face looked up into his, murmuring something. Gideon, who had a +particular dislike for paint on the human face, and, in general, for +persons who looked and behaved like this person, looked away from her +and scowled. + +'I only wanted,' she explained, 'a cup of coffee ...' and he gave her +sixpence, though he didn't believe her. + +Horrible, these women were; ugly; dirty; loathsome; so that one wondered +why on earth any one liked them (some people obviously did like them, or +they wouldn't be there), and yet, detestable as they were, they were the +outcome of facts. Possibly in them, and in the world's other ugly facts, +Potterism and all truth-shirking found whatever justification it had. +Sentimentalism spread a rosy veil over the ugliness, draping it decently. +Making it, thought Gideon, how much worse; but making it such as +Potterites could face unwincing. + +The rain beat down. At its soft, chill touch Gideon's brain cooled and +cooled, till he seemed to see everything in a cold, hard, crystal +clarity. Life and death--how little they mattered. Life was paltry, and +death its end. Yet when the world, the Potterish world, dealt with death +it became something other than a mere end; it became a sensation, a +problem, an episode in a melodrama. The question, when a man died, was +always how and why. So, when Hobart had died, they were all dragged into +a net of suspicion and melodrama--they all became for a time absurd +actors in an absurd serial in the Potter press. You could not escape from +sensationalism in a sensational world. There was no room for the pedant, +with his greed for unadorned and unemotional precision. + +Gideon sighed sharply as he turned into Oxford Street, Oxford Street was +and is horrible. Everything a street should not be, even when it was +down, and now it was up, which was far worse. If Gideon had not been +unnerved by the painted person at the corner of Baker Street he would +never have gone home this way, he would have gone along Marylebone and +Euston Road. As it was, he got into a bus and rode unhappily to Gray's +Inn Road, where he lived. + +He sat up till three in the morning working out statistics for an +article. Statistics, figures, were delightful. They were a rest. +They mattered. + + +4 + +Two days later, at the _Fact_ office, Peacock, turning over galley slips, +said, 'This thing of yours on Esthonian food conditions looks like a +government schedule. Couldn't you make it more attractive?' + +'To whom?' asked Gideon. + +'Well--the ordinary reader.' + +'Oh, the ordinary reader. I meant it to be attractive to people who want +information.' + +'Well, but a little jam with the powder.... For instance, you draw no +inference from your facts. It's dull. Why not round the thing off into a +good article?' + +'I can't round things. I don't like them round, either. I've given the +facts, unearthed with considerable trouble and pains. No one else has. +Isn't it enough?' + +'Oh, it'll do.' Peacock's eyes glanced over the other proofs on his desk. +'We've got some good stuff this number.' + +'Nice round articles--yes.' Gideon turned the slips over with his lean +brown fingers carelessly. He picked one up. + +'Hallo. I didn't know that chap was reviewing _Coal and Wages_.' + +'Yes. He asked if he could.' + +'Do you think he knows enough?' + +'It's quite a good review. Read it.' + +Gideon read it carefully, then laid it down and said, 'I don't agree with +you that it's a good review. He's made at least two mistakes. And the +whole thing's biased by his personal political theories.' + +'Only enough to give it colour.' + +'You don't want colour in a review of a book of that sort. You only want +intelligence and exact knowledge.' + +'Oh, Clitherton's all right. His head's screwed on the right way. He +knows his subject.' + +'Not well enough. He's a political theorist, not a good economist. That's +hopeless. Why didn't you get Hinkson to do it?' + +'Hinkson can't write for nuts.' + +'Doesn't matter. Hinkson wouldn't have slipped up over his figures +or dates.' + +'My dear old chap, writing does matter. You're going crazy on that +subject. Of course it matters that a thing should be decently put +together.' + +'It matters much more that it should be well informed. It is, of course, +quite possible to be both.' + +'Oh, quite. That's the idea of the _Fact_, after all.' + +'Peacock, I hate all these slipshod fellows you get now. I wish you'd +chuck the lot. They're well enough for most journalism, but they don't +know enough for us.' + +Peacock said, 'Oh, we'll thrash it out another time, if you don't mind. +I've got to get through some letters now,' and rang for his secretary. + +Gideon went to his own room and searched old files for the verification +and correction of Clitherton's mistakes. He found them, and made a note +of them. Unfortunately they weakened Clitherton's argument a little. +Clitherton would have to modify it. Clitherton, a sweeping and wholesale +person, would not like that. + +Gideon was feeling annoyed with Clitherton, and annoyed with several +others among that week's contributors, and especially annoyed with +Peacock, who permitted and encouraged them. If they went on like this, +the _Fact_ would soon be popular; it would find its way into the great +soft silly heart of the public and there be damned. + +He was a pathetic figure, Arthur Gideon, the intolerant precisian, +fighting savagely against the tide of loose thinking that he saw surging +in upon him, swamping the world and drowning facts. He did not see +himself as a pathetic figure, or as anything else. He did not see himself +at all, but worked away at his desk in the foggy room, checking the +unconsidered or inaccurate or oversimplified statements of others, +writing his own section of the Notes of the Week, with his careful, +patient, fined brilliance, stopping to gnaw his pen or his thumb-nail or +to draw diagrams, triangle within triangle, or circle intersecting +circle, on his blotting paper. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +RUNNING AWAY + + +1 + +A week later Gideon resigned his assistant editorship of the _Fact_. +Peacock was, on the whole, relieved. Gideon had been getting too +difficult of late. After some casting about among eager, outwardly +indifferent possible successors, Peacock offered the job to Johnny +Potter, who was swimming on the tide of his first novel, which had been +what is called 'well spoken of' by the press, but who, at the same time, +had the popular touch, was quite a competent journalist, was looking out +for a job, and was young enough to do what he was told; that is to say, +he was four or five years younger than Peacock. He had also a fervent +enthusiasm for democratic principles and for Peacock's prose style +(Gideon had been temperate in his admiration of both), and Peacock +thought they would get on very well. + +Jane was sulky, jealous, and contemptuous. + +'Johnny. Why Johnny? He's not so good as lots of other people who would +have liked the job. He's swanking so already that it makes me tired to be +in the room with him, and now he'll be worse than ever. Oh, Arthur, it is +rot, your chucking it. I've a jolly good mind not to marry you. I thought +I was marrying the assistant editor of an important paper, not just a +lazy old Jew without a job.' + +She ruffled up his black, untidy hair with her hand as she sat on the +arm of his chair; but she was really annoyed with him, as she had +explained a week ago when he had told her. + + +2 + +He had walked in one evening and found her in Charles's bedroom, bathing +him. Clare was there too, helping. + +'Why do girls like washing babies?' Gideon speculated aloud. 'They nearly +all do, don't they?' + +'Well, I should just _hope_ so,' Clare said. She was kneeling by the tin +bath with her sleeves rolled up, holding a warmed towel. Her face was +flushed from the fire, and her hair was loosened where Charles had caught +his toe in it. She looked pretty and maternal, and looked up at Gideon +with the kind of conventional, good-humoured scorn that girls and women +put on when men talk of babies. They do it (one believes) partly because +they feel it is a subject they know about, and partly to pander to men's +desire that they should do it. It is part of the pretty play between the +sexes. Jane never did it; she wasn't feminine enough. And Gideon did not +want her to do it; he thought it silly. + +'Why do you hope so?' asked Gideon. 'And why do girls like it?' + +The first question was to Clare, the second to Jane, because he knew that +Clare would not be able to answer it. + +'The mites!' said Clare. 'Who _wouldn't_ like it?' + +Gideon sighed a little, Clare tried him. She had an amorphous mind. But +Jane threw up at him, as she enveloped Charles in the towel, 'I'll try +and think it out some time, Arthur. I haven't time now.... There's a +reason all right.... The powder, Clare.' + +Gideon watched the absurd drying and powdering process with gravity and +interest, as if trying to discover its charm. + +'Even Katherine enjoys it,' he said, still pondering. It was true. +Katherine, who liked experimenting with chemicals, liked also washing +babies. Possibly Katherine knew why, in both cases. + +After Charles was in bed, his mother, his aunt, and his prospective +stepfather had dinner. Clare, who was uncomfortable with Gideon, not +liking him as a brother-in-law or indeed as anything else (besides not +being sure how much Jane had told him about 'that awful night'), +chattered to Jane about things of which she thought Gideon knew +nothing--dances, plays, friends, family and Potters Bar gossip. Gideon +became very silent. He and Clare touched nowhere. Clare flaunted the +family papers in his face and Jane's. Lord Pinkerton was starting a new +one, a weekly, and it promised to sell better than any other weekly on +the market, but far better. + +'Dad says the orders have been simply stunning. It's going to be a big +thing. Simple, you know, and yet clever--like all dad's papers. David +says' (David was the naval officer to whom Clare was now betrothed) +'there's _no one_ with such a sense of what people want as dad has. Far +more of it than Northcliffe, David says he has. Because, you know, +Northcliffe sometimes annoys people--look at the line he took about us +helping the Russians to fight each other. And making out in leaders, +David says, that the Government is always wrong just because he doesn't +like it. And drawing attention to the mistakes it makes, which no one +would notice if they weren't rubbed in. David gets quite sick with him +sometimes. He says the Pinkerton press never does that sort of thing, +it's got too much tact, and lets well alone.' + +'I'll, you mean, don't you, darling?' Jane interpolated. + +Clare, who did, but did not know it, only said, 'David's got a tremendous +admiration for it. He says it will _last_.' + +'Oh, bother the paternal press,' Jane said. 'Give it a rest, old thing. +It may be new to David, but it's stale to us. It's Arthur's turn to talk +about his father's bank or something.' + +But Arthur didn't talk. He only made bread pills, and the girls got on to +the newest dance. + + +3 + +Clare went away after dinner. She never stayed long when Gideon was +there. David didn't like Gideon, rightly thinking him a Sheeney. + +'Sheeneys are at the bottom of Bolshevism, you know,' he told Clare. 'At +the top too, for that matter. Dreadful fellows; quite dreadful. Why the +dickens do you let Jane marry him?' + +Clare shrugged her shoulders. + +'Jane does what she likes. Dad and mother have begged and prayed her not +to.... Besides, of course, even if he was all right, it's too _soon_....' + +'Too soon? Ah, yes, of course. Poor Hobart, you mean. Quite. Much too +soon.... A dreadful business, that. I don't blame her for trying to put +it behind her, out of sight. But with a _Sheeney_. Well, _chacun a son +goût.'_ For David was tolerant, a live and let live man. + +When Clare was gone, Jane said, 'Wake up, old man. You can talk now.... +You and Clare are stupid about each other, by the way. You'll have to get +over it some time. You're ill-mannered and she's a silly fool; but +ill-mannered people and silly fools can rub along together, all right, if +they try.' + +'I don't mind Clare,' said Gideon, rousing himself. 'I wasn't thinking +about her, to say the truth. I was thinking about something else.... I'm +chucking the _Fact_, Jane.' + +'How d'you mean, chucking the _Fact_' Jane lit a cigarette. + +'What I say. I've resigned my job on it. I'm sick of it.' + +'Oh, sick.... Every one's sick of work, naturally. It's what work is +for.... Well, what are you doing next? Have you been offered a +better job?' + +'I've not been offered a job of any sort. And I shouldn't take it if I +were--not at present. I'm sick of journalism.' + +Jane took it calmly, lying back among the sofa cushions and smoking. + +'I was afraid you were working up to this.... Of course, if you chuck the +_Fact_ you take away its last chance. It'll do a nose-dive now.' + +'It's doing it anyhow. I can't stop it. But I'm jolly well not going to +nose-dive with it. I'm clearing out.' + +'You're giving up the fight, then. Caving in. Putting your hands up to +Potterism.' + +She was taunting him, in her cool, unmoved, leisurely tones. + +'I'm clearing out,' he repeated, emphasising the phrase, and his black +eyes seemed to look into distances. 'Running away, if you like. This +thing's too strong for me to fight. I can't do it. Clare's quite right. +It's tremendous. It will last. And the Pinkerton press only represents +one tiny part of it. If the Pinkerton press were all, it would be +fightable. But look at the _Fact_--a sworn enemy of everything the +Pinkerton press stands for, politically, but fighting it with its own +weapons--muddled thinking, sentimentality, prejudice, loose cant phrases. +I tell you there'll hardly be a halfpenny to choose between the Pinkerton +press and the _Fact_, by the time Peacock's done with it.... It's not +Peacock's fault--except that he's weak. It's not the Syndicate's +fault--except that they don't want to go on losing money for ever. It's +the pressure of public demand and atmosphere. Atmosphere even more than +demand. Human minds are delicate machines. How can they go on working +truly and precisely and scientifically, with all this poisonous gas +floating round them? Oh, well, I suppose there are a few minds still +which do; even some journalists and politicians keep their heads; but +what's the use against the pressure? To go in for journalism or for +public life is to put oneself deliberately into the thick of the mess +without being able to clean it up.' + +'After all,' said Jane, more moderately, 'it's all a joke. Everything is. +The world is.' + +'A rotten bad joke.' + +'You think things matter. You take anti-Potterism seriously, as some +people take Potterism.' + +'Things are serious. Things do matter,' said the Russian Jew. + +Jane looked at him kindly. She was a year younger than he was, but felt +five years older to-night. + +'Well, what's the remedy then?' + +He said, wearily, 'Oh, education, I suppose. Education. There's nothing +else. _Learning_.' He said the word with affection, lingering on it, +striking his hand on the sofa-back to emphasise it. + +'Learning, learning, learning. There's nothing else.... We should drop +all this talking and writing. All this confused, uneducated mass of +self-expression. Self-expression, with no self worth expressing. That's +just what we shouldn't do with our selves--express them. We should train +them, educate them, teach them to think, see that they _know_ +something--know it exactly, with no blurred edges, no fogs. Be sure of +our facts, and keep theories out of the system like poison. And when we +say anything we should say it concisely and baldly, without eloquence and +frills. Lord, how I loathe eloquence!' + +'But you can't get away from it, darling. All right, don't mind me, I +like it.... Well now, what are you going to _do_ about it? Teach in a +continuation school?' + +'No,' he said, seriously. 'No. Though one might do worse. But I've got to +get right away for a time--right out of it all. I've got to find things +out before I do anything else.' + +'Well, there are plenty of, things to find out here. No need to go away +for that.' + +He shook his head. + +'Western Europe's so hopeless just now. So given over to muddle and lies. +Besides, I can't trust myself, I shall talk if I stay. I'm not a strong +silent man. I should find myself writing articles, or standing for +Parliament, or something.' + +'And very nice too. I've always said you ought to stand for Labour.' + +'And I've sometimes agreed with you. But now I know I oughtn't. That's +not the way. I'm not going to join in that mess. I'm not good enough to +make it worth while. I should either get swamped by it, or I should get +so angry that I should murder some one. No, I'm going right out of it all +for a bit. I want to find out a little, if I can, about how things are in +other countries. Central Europe. Russia. I shall go to Russia.' + +'Russia! You'll come back and write about it. People do.' + +'I shall not. No, I think I can avoid that--it's too obvious a temptation +to tumble into with one's eyes shut.' + +'"He travelled in Russia and never wrote of it." It would be a good +epitaph.... But Arthur darling, is it wise, is it necessary, is it safe? +Won't the Reds get you, or the Whites? Which would be worse, I wonder?' + +'What should they want with me?' + +'They'll think you're going to write about them, of course. That's why +the Reds kidnapped Keeling, and the Whites W.T. Goode. They were quite +right, too--except that they didn't go far enough and make a job of them. +Suppose they've learnt wisdom by now, and make a job of you?' + +'Well then, I shall be made a job of. Also a placard for our sensational +press, which would be worse. One must take a few risks.... It will be +interesting, you know, to be there. I shall visit my father's old home +near Odessa. Possibly some of his people may be left round there. I shall +find things out--what the conditions are, why things are happening as +they are, how the people live. I think I shall be better able after that +to find out what the state of things is here. One's too provincial, too +much taken up with one's own corner. Political science is too universal a +thing to learn in that way.' + +'And when you've found out? What next?' + +'There's no next. It will take me all my life even to begin to find out. +I don't know where I shall be--in London, no doubt, mostly.' + +'Do you mean, Arthur, that you're going to chuck work for good? Writing, +I mean, or public work?' + +'I hope so. I mean to. Oh, if ever, later on, I feel I have anything I +want to say, I'll say it. But that won't be for years. First I'm going to +learn.... You see, Jane, we can live all right. Thank goodness, I don't +depend on what I earn.... You and I together--we'll learn a lot.' + +'Oh, I'm going in for confused self-expression. I'm not taking any vows +of silence. I'm going to write.' + +'As you like. Every one's got to decide for themselves. It amuses you, +I suppose.' + +'Of course, it does. Why not? I love it. Not only writing, but being in +the swim, making a kind of a name, doing what other people do. I'm not +mother, who does but write because she must, and pipes but as the +linnets do.' + +'No, thank goodness. You're as intellectually honest as any one I know, +and as greedy for the wrong things.' + +'I want a good time. Why not?' + +'Why not? Only that, as long as we're all out for a good time, those of +us who can afford to will get it, and nothing more, and those of us who +can't will get nothing at all. You see, I think it's taking hold of +things by the wrong end. As long as we go on not thinking, not finding +out, but greedily wanting good things--well, we shall be as we are, +that's all--Potterish.' + +'You mean I'm Potterish,' observed Jane, without rancour. + +'Oh Lord, we all are,' said Gideon in disgust. 'Every profiteer, every +sentimentalist, ever muddler. Every artist directly he thinks of his art +as something marketable, something to bring him fame; every scientist or +scholar (if there are any) who fakes a fact in the interest of his +theory; every fool who talks through his hat without knowing; every +sentimentalist who plays up to the sentimentalism in himself and other +people; every second-hand ignoramus who takes over a view or a prejudice +wholesale, without investigating the facts it's based on for himself. You +find it everywhere, the taint; you can't get away from it. Except by +keeping quiet and learning, and wanting truth more than anything else.' + +'It sounds a dull life, Arthur. Rather like K's, in her old laboratory.' + +'Yes, rather like K's. Not dull; no. Finding things out can't be dull.' + +'Well, old thing, go and find things out. But come back in time for the +wedding, and then we'll see what next.' + +Jane was not seriously alarmed. She believed that this of Arthur's, was a +short attack; when they were married she would see that he got cured of +it. She wasn't going to let him drop out of things and disappear, her +brilliant Arthur, who had his world in his hand to play with. Journalism, +politics, public life of some sort--it was these that he was so eminently +fitted for and must go in for. + +'You mustn't waste yourself, Arthur,' she said. 'It's all right to lie +low for a bit, but when you come back you must do something worth +while.... I'm sorry about the _Fact_; I think you might have stayed on +and saved it. But it's your show. Go and explore Central Europe, then, +and learn all about it. Then come back and write a book on political +science which will be repulsive to all but learned minds. But remember +we're getting married in June; don't be late, will you. And write to me +from Russia. Letters that will do for me to send to the newspapers, +telling me not to spend my money on hats and theatres but on +distributing anti-Bolshevist and anti-Czarist tracts. I'll have the +letters published in leaflets at threepence a hundred, and drop them +about in public places.' + +'I'll write to you, no fear,' said Gideon. 'And I'll be in time for the +wedding.... Jane, we'll have a great time, you and I, learning things +together. We'll have adventures. We'll go exploring, shall we?' + +'Rather. We'll lend Charles to mother and dad often, and go off.... I'd +come with you now for two pins. Only I can't.' + +'No. Charles needs you at present.' 'There's my book, too. And all sorts +of things.' 'Oh, your book--that's nothing. Books aren't worth losing +anything for. Don't you ever get tied up with books and work, Jane. It's +not worth it. One's got to sit loose. Only one can't, to kids; they're +too important. We'll have our good times before we get our kids--and +after they've grown old enough to be left to themselves a bit.' + +Jane smiled enigmatically, only obscurely realising that she meant, 'Our +ideas of a good time aren't the same, and never will be.' + +Gideon too only obscurely knew it. Anyhow, for both, the contemplation of +that difference could be deferred. Each could hope to break the other in +when the time came. Gideon, as befitted his sex, realised the eternity of +the difference less sharply than Jane did. It was just, he thought, a +question of showing Jane, making her understand.... Jane did not think +that it was just a question of making Gideon understand. But he loved +her, and she was persuaded that he would yield to her in the end, and not +spoil her jolly, delightful life, which was to advance, hand in hand with +his, to notoriety or glory or both. + +For a moment both heard, remotely, the faint clash of swords. Then they +shut a door upon the sound, and the man, shaken with sudden passion, drew +the woman into his arms. + +'I've been talking, talking all the evening,' said Gideon presently. 'I +can't get away from it, can I. Preaching, theorising, holding forth. It's +more than time I went away somewhere where no one will listen to me.' + +'There's plenty of talking in Russia. You'll come back worse than ever, +my dear.... I don't care. As long as you do come back. You must come back +to me, Arthur.' + +She clung to him, in one of her rare moments of demonstrated passion. She +was usually cool, and left demonstration to him. + +'I shall come back all right,' he told her. 'No fear. I want to get +married, you see. I want it, really, much more than I want to get +information or anything else. Wanting a person--that's what we all want +most, when we want it at all. Queer, isn't it? And hopelessly personal +and selfish. But there it is. Ideals simply don't count in comparison. +They'd go under every time, if there was a choice.' + +Jane, with his arms round her and his face bent down to hers, knew it. +She was not afraid, either for his career or her own. They would have +their good time all right. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS + + +1 + +March wore through, and April came, and warm winds healed winter's scars, +and the 1920 budget shocked every one, and the industrial revolution +predicted as usual didn't come off, and Mr. Wells's _History of the +World_ completed its tenth part, and blossom by blossom the spring began. + +It was the second Easter after the war, and people were getting more used +to peace. They murdered one another rather less frequently, were rather +less emotional and divorced, and understood with more precision which +profiteers it was worth while to prosecute and which not, and why the +second class was so much larger than the first; and, in general, had +learnt to manage rather better this unmanageable peace. + +The outlook, domestic and international, was still what those who think +in terms of colour call black. The Irish question, the Russian question, +the Italian-Adriatic question, and all the Asiatic questions, remained +what those who think in terms of angles call acute. Economic ruin, +political bankruptcy, European chaos, international hostilities had +become accepted as the normal state of being by the inhabitants of this +restless and unfortunate planet. + + +2 + +Such was the state of things in the world at large. In literary London, +publishers produced their spring lists. They contained the usual hardy +annuals and bi-annuals among novelists, several new ventures, including +John Potter's _Giles in Bloomsbury_ (second impression); Jane Hobart's +_Children of Peace_ (A Satire by a New Writer); and Leila Yorke's _The +Price of Honour_. ('In her new novel, Leila Yorke reveals to the full the +Glittering psychology combined with profound depths which have made this +well-known writer famous. The tale will be read, from first page to +last, with breathless interest. The end is unexpected and out of the +common, and leaves one wondering.' So said the publisher; the reviewers, +more briefly, 'Another Leila Yorke.') + +There were also many memoirs of great persons by themselves, many +histories of the recent war, several thousand books of verse, a monograph +by K.D. Varick on Catalysers and Catalysis and the Generation of +Hydrogen, and _New Wine_ by the Reverend Laurence Juke. + +The journalistic world also flourished. The _Weekly Fact_ had become, as +people said, quite an interesting and readable paper, brighter than the +_Nation_, more emotional than the _New Statesman_, gentler than the _New +Witness_, spicier than the _Spectator_, more chatty than the _Athenaeum_, +so that one bought it on bookstalls and read it in trains. + +There was also the new Pinkerton fourpenny, the _Wednesday Chat_, +brighter, more emotional, gentler, spicier, and chattier than them +all, and vulgar as well, nearly as vulgar as _John Bull_, and quite +as sentimental, but less vicious, so that it sold in its millions +from the outset, and soon had a poem up on the walls of the tube +stations, saying-- + +'No other weeklies sell +Anything like so well.' + +which was as near the truth as these statements usually are. Lord +Pinkerton had, in fact, with his usual acumen, sensed the existence of a +great Fourpenny Weekly Public, and given it, as was his wont, more than +it desired or deserved. The sixpenny weekly public already had its needs +met; so had the penny, the twopenny, the threepenny, and the shilling +public. Now the fourpenny public, a shy and modest section of the +community, largely clerical (in the lay sense of the word) looked up and +was fed. Those brains which could only with effort rise to the solid +political and economic information and cultured literary judgments meted +out by the sixpennies, but which yet shrank from the crudities of our +cheapest journals, here found something they could read, mark, learn, and +inwardly digest. + +The Potterite press (not only Lord Pinkerton's) advanced, like an army +terrible with banners, on all sections of the line. + + +3 + +Juke's book on modern thought in the Church was a success. It was +brilliantly written, and reviewed in lay as well as in church papers. +Juke, to his own detriment, became popular. Canon Streeter and others +asked him to collaborate in joint books on the Church. Modernist +liberal-catholic vicars asked him to preach. When he preached, people +came in hundreds to hear him, because he was an attractive, stimulating, +and entertaining preacher. (I have never had this experience, but I +assume that it is morally unwholesome.) He had to take missions, and +retreats, and quiet days, and give lectures on the Church to cultivated +audiences. Then he was offered the living of St. Anne's, Piccadilly, +which is one of those incumbencies with what is known as scope, which +meant that there were no poor in the parish, and the incumbent's gifts as +preacher, lecturer, writer, and social success could be used to the best +advantage. He was given three weeks to decide. + + +4 + +Gideon wrote long letters to Jane from the Russian towns and villages in +which he sojourned. But none of them were suitable for propaganda +purposes; they were critical but dispassionate. He had found some cousins +of his father's, fur merchants living in a small town on the edge of a +forest. 'Clever, cringing, nerve-ridden people,' he said. The older +generation remembered his grandparents, and his father as a bright-eyed +infant. They remembered that pogrom fifty years ago, and described it. +'They'll describe anything,' wrote Gideon. 'The more horrible it is, the +more they'll talk. That's Russian, not Jewish specially. Or is it just +human?'... Gideon didn't repeat to Jane the details he heard of his +grandparents' murder by Russian police--details which his father, in +whose memory they burned like a disease, had never told him. + +'Things as bad as that massacre are happening all the time in this +pleasant country,' he wrote. 'It doesn't matter what the political +convictions, if any, of a Russian are--he's a barbarian whether he's on +a soviet or in the anti-Bolshevik armies. Not always, of course; there +are a few who have escaped the prevalent lust of cruelty--but only a +few. Love of pain (as experienced by others) for its own sake--as one +loves good food, or beautiful women--it's a queer disease. It goes +along, often, with other strong sensual desires. The Russians, for +instance, are the worst gluttons and profligates of Europe. With it +all, they have, often, an extraordinary generous good-heartedness; with +one hand they will give away what they can't spare to some one in need, +while with the other they torture an animal or a human being to death. +The women seldomer do either; like women everywhere, they are less +given both to sensual desire and to generous open-handedness.... That's +a curious thing, how seldom you find physical cruelty in a woman of any +nationality. Even the most spiteful and morally unkindest little girl +will shudder away while her brother tears the wings off a fly or the +legs off a frog, or impales a worm on a hook. Weak nerves, partly, and +partly the sort of high-strung fastidiousness women have. When you come +across cruelty in a woman--physical cruelty, of course--you think of +her as a monster; just as when you come on a stingy man, you think of +him (but probably inaccurately) as a Jew. Russians are very male, +except in their inchoate, confused thinking. Their special brand of +humour and of sentimentality are male; their exuberant strength and +aliveness, their sensuality, and their savage cruelty.... If ever women +come to count in Russia as a force, not merely as mates for the men, +queer things will happen.... Here in this town things are, for the +moment, tidy and ordered, as if seven Germans with seven mops had swept +it for half a year. The local soviet is a gang of ruffians, but they do +keep things more or less ship-shape. And they make people work. And +they torture dogs....' + +Later he wrote, 'You were right as to one thing; every one I meet, +including my relations, is persuaded that I am either a newspaper +correspondent or writing a book, or, more probably, both. These taints +cling so. I feel like a reformed drunkard, who has taken the pledge but +still carries about with him a red nose and shaky hands, so that he gets +no credit for his new sobriety. What's the good of my telling people here +that I don't write, when I suppose I've the mark of the beast stamped all +over me? And they play up; they talk for me to record it.... + +'I find all kinds of odd things here. Among others, an English doctor, in +the local lunatic asylum. Mad as a hatter, poor devil--now--whatever he +was when they shut him up. I dare say he'd been through enough even then +to turn his brain. I can't find out who his friends in England are....' + + +5 + +Gideon stopped writing, and took Jane's last letter out of his pocket. It +occurred to him that he was in no sense answering it. Not that Jane +would mind; that wasn't the sort of thing she did mind. But it struck him +suddenly how difficult it had grown to him to answer Jane's letters--or, +indeed, any one else's. He could not flatter himself that he was already +contracting the inarticulate habit, because he could pour forth fluently +enough about his own experiences; but to Jane's news of London he had +nothing to say. A new paper had been started; another paper had died; +some one they knew had deserted from one literary côterie to another; +some one else had turned from a dowdy into a nut; Jane had been seeing a +lot of bad plays; her novel--'my confused mass of self-expression,' she +called it to him--was coming out next week. All the familiar personal, +literary, political, and social gossip, which he too had dealt in once; +Jane was in the thick of it still, and he was turning stupid, like a man +living in the country; he could not answer her. Or, perhaps, would not; +because the thing that absorbed him at present was how people lived and +thought, and what could be made of them--not the conscious, intellectual, +writing, discussing, semi-civilised people (semi-civilised--what an +absurd word! What is complete civilisation, that we should bisect it and +say we have half, or any other exact fraction? Partly civilised, Gideon +amended it to), but the great unconscious masses, hardly civilised at +all, who shape things, for good or evil, in the long run. + +Gideon folded up Jane's letter and put it away, and to his own added +nothing but his love. + + +6 + +Jane got that letter in Easter week. It was a fine warm day, and she, +walking across Green Park, met Juke, who had been lunching with a bishop +to meet an elderly princess who had read his book. + +'She said, "I'm afraid you're sadly satirical, Mr. Juke,'" he told Jane. +'She did really. And I'm to preach at Sandringham one Sunday. Yes, to the +Family. Tell Gideon that, will you. He'll be so disgusted. But what a +chance! Life at St. Anne's is going to be full of chances of slanging the +rich, that's one thing about it.' + +'Oh, you're going to take it, then?' + +'Probably. I've not written to accept yet, so don't pass it on.' + +'I'm glad. It's much more amusing to accept things, even livings. It'll +be lovely: you'll be all among the clubs and theatres and the idle rich; +much gayer than Covent Garden.' + +'Oh, gayer,' said Juke. + +They came out into Birdcage Walk, and there was a man selling the +_Evening Hustle_, Lord Pinkerton's evening paper. + +'Bloody massacres,' he was observing with a kind of absent-minded +happiness. 'Bloody massacres in Russia, Ireland, Armenia, and the +Punjab.... British journalist assassinated near Odessa.' + +And there it was, too, in big black letters on the _Evening Hustle_ +placard:-- + +'DIVORCE OF A PEERESS. + +'MURDER OF BRITISH JOURNALIST IN RUSSIA-LATE WIRE FROM GATWICK.' + +They bought the paper, to see who the British journalist was. His murder +was in a little paragraph on the front page. + +'Mr. Arthur Gideon, a well-known British journalist' ... first beaten +nearly to death by White soldiery, because he was, entirely in vain, +defending some poor Jewish family from their wrath ... then found by +Bolshevists and disposed of ... somehow ... because he was an +Englishman.... + + +7 + +A placard for the press. A placard for the Potter press. Had he thought +of that at the last, and died in the bitterness of that paradox? Murdered +by both sides, being of neither, but merely a seeker after fact. Killed +in the quest for truth and the war against verbiage and cant, and, in the +end, a placard for the press which hated the one and lived by the other. +_Had_ he thought of that as he broke under the last strain of pain? Or, +merely, 'These damned brutes. White or Red, there's nothing to choose ... +nothing to choose ...' + +Anyhow, it was over, that quest of his, and nothing remained but the +placard which coupled his defeat with the peeress's divorce. + +Arthur Gideon had gone under, but the Potter press, the flaunting banner +of the great sentimental public, remained. It would always remain, so +long as the great sentimental public were what they were. + + +8 + +Little remains to add. Little of Gideon, for they never learnt much more +of his death than was telegraphed in that first message. His father, +going out to the scene of his death, may have heard more; if he did, he +never revealed it to any one. Not only Arthur had perished, but the +Jewish family he was trying to defend; he had failed as well as died. +Failed utterly, every way; gone under and finished, he and his pedantry +and his exactitude, his preaching, his hard clarity, and his bewildered +bitterness against a world vulgar and soft-headed beyond his +understanding. + +Juke refused St. Anne's, with its chances, its congregations, and its +scope. Neither did he preach at Sandringham. Gideon's fate pilloried +on that placard had stabbed through him and cut him, sick and angry, +from his moorings. He spoke no more and wrote no more to admiring +audiences who hung on his words and took his quick points as he made +them. To be one with other men, he learnt a manual trade, and made +shoes in Bermondsey, and preached in the streets to men who did not, +as a rule, listen. + +Jane would, no doubt, fulfil herself in the course of time, make an +adequate figure in the world she loved, and suck therefrom no small +advantage. She had loved Arthur Gideon; but what Lady Pinkerton and +Clare would call her 'heart' was not of the kind which would, as these +two would doubtless put it in their strange phraseology, 'break.' +Somehow, after all, Jane would have her good time; if not in one way, +then in another. + +Lord and Lady Pinkerton flourish exceedingly, and will be long in the +land. Leila Yorke sells better than ever. Of the Pinkerton press I need +not speak, since it is so well qualified to speak for itself. Enough to +say that no fears are at present entertained for its demise. And little +Charles Hobart grows in stature, under his grandfather's watching and +approving eye. When the time comes, he will carry on worthily. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Potterism, by Rose Macaulay + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11163 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a129ec8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11163 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11163) diff --git a/old/11163-8.txt b/old/11163-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e801583 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11163-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8133 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Potterism, by Rose Macaulay + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Potterism + A Tragi-Farcical Tract + +Author: Rose Macaulay + +Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11163] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTTERISM *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + POTTERISM + + A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT + + BY ROSE MACAULAY + + Author of 'What Not,' etc. + + 1920 + + + + +TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED, +INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION + + +'They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly.'--J. CLARKE. + + +'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.... Don't _think_ foolishly.' +SAMUEL JOHNSON. + + +'On the whole we are +Not intelligent-- +No, no, no, not intelligent.'--W.S. GILBERT. + + +'Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by +day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or Carbuncle, that +sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth ever adde +Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's +mindes Vaine Opinions, Blattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations +as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of +Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition and +unpleasing to themselves?'--FRANCIS BACON. + + +'What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, convention, +self-interest.... We see the narrow world our windows show us not in +itself, but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences ... for +the universe of the natural man is strictly egocentric.... Unless we +happen to be artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing seen" +in its purity; never from birth to death, look at it with disinterested +eyes.... It is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of things +for their own sakes ... which is the condition of all real knowledge.... +When ... the verb "to have" is ejected from the centre of your +consciousness ... your attitude to life will cease to be commercial and +become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting +the incoming impressions, will no longer ask, "What use is this to +_me?_"... You see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not +for your own.'--EVELYN UNDERHILL. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I.--TOLD BY R.M. + + I. POTTERS + II. ANTI-POTTERS + III. OPPORTUNITY + IV. JANE AND CLARE + +PART II.--TOLD BY GIDEON + + I. SPINNING + II. DINING WITH THE HOBARTS + III. SEEING JANE + +PART III.--TOLD BY LELIA YORKE + + I. THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS + II. AN AWFUL SUSPICION + +PART IV.--TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK + +A BRANCH OF STUDY + +PART V.--TOLD BY JUKE + +GIVING ADVICE + +PART VI.--TOLD BY R.M. + + I. THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA + II. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED + III. THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD + IV. RUNNING AWAY + V. A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS + + + + +PART I: + +TOLD BY R.M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +POTTERS + + +1 + +Johnny and Jane Potter, being twins, went through Oxford together. Johnny +came up from Rugby and Jane from Roedean. Johnny was at Balliol and Jane +at Somerville. Both, having ambitions for literary careers, took the +Honours School of English Language and Literature. They were ordinary +enough young people; clever without being brilliant, nice-looking without +being handsome, active without being athletic, keen without being +earnest, popular without being leaders, open-handed without being +generous, as revolutionary, as selfish, and as intellectually snobbish as +was proper to their years, and inclined to be jealous one of the other, +but linked together by common tastes and by a deep and bitter distaste +for their father's newspapers, which were many, and for their mother's +novels, which were more. These were, indeed, not fit for perusal at +Somerville and Balliol. The danger had been that Somerville and Balliol, +till they knew you well, should not know you knew it. + +In their first year, the mother of Johnny and Jane ('Leila Yorke,' with +'Mrs. Potter' in brackets after it), had, after spending Eights Week at +Oxford, announced her intention of writing an Oxford novel. Oh God, Jane +had cried within herself, not that; anything but that; and firmly she +and Johnny had told her mother that already there were _Keddy_, and +_Sinister Street_, and _The Pearl_, and _The Girls of St. Ursula's_ (by +Annie S. Swan: 'After the races were over, the girls sculled their +college barge briskly down the river,'), and that, in short, the thing +had been done for good and all, and that was that. + +Mrs. Potter still thought she would like to write an Oxford novel. +Because, after all, though there might be many already, none of them were +quite like the one she would write. She had tea with Jane in the +Somerville garden on Sunday, and though Jane did not ask any of her +friends to meet her (for they might have got put in) she saw them all +about, and thought what a nice novel they would make. Jane knew she was +thinking this, and said, 'They're very commonplace people,' in a +discouraging tone. 'Some of them,' Jane added, deserting her own +snobbishness, which was intellectual, for her mother's, which was social, +'are also common.' + +'There must be very many,' said Mrs. Potter, looking through her +lorgnette at the garden of girls, 'who are neither.' + +'Fewer,' said Jane, stubbornly, 'than you would think. Most people are +one or the other, I find. Many are both.' + +'Try not to be cynical, my pet,' said Leila Yorke, who was never this. + + +2 + +That was in June, 1912. In June, 1914, Jane and Johnny went down. + +Their University careers had been creditable, if not particularly +conspicuous. Johnny had been a fluent speaker at the Union, Jane at the +women's intercollegiate Debating Society, and also in the Somerville +parliament, where she had been the leader of the Labour Party. Johnny had +for a time edited the _Isis_, Jane the _Fritillary_. Johnny had done +respectably in Schools, Jane rather better. For Jane had always been just +a shade the cleverer; not enough to spoil competition, but enough to give +Johnny rather harder work to achieve the same results. They had probably +both got firsts, but Jane's would be a safe thing, and Johnny would be +likely to have a longish _viva_. + +Anyhow, here they were, just returned to Potter's Bar, Herts (where Mr. +Percy Potter, liking the name of the village, had lately built a lordly +mansion). Excellent friends they were, but as jealous as two little dogs, +each for ever on the look-out to see that the other got no undue +advantage. Both saw every reason why they should make a success of life. +But Jane knew that, though she might be one up on Johnny as regards +Oxford, owing to slightly superior brain power, he was one up on her as +regards Life, owing to that awful business sex. Women were handicapped; +they had to fight much harder to achieve equal results. People didn't +give them jobs in the same way. Young men possessed the earth; young +women had to wrest what they wanted out of it piecemeal. Johnny might end +a cabinet minister, a notorious journalist, a Labour leader, anything.... +Women's jobs were, as a rule, so dowdy and unimportant. Jane was bored to +death with this sex business; it wasn't fair. But Jane was determined to +live it down. She wouldn't be put off with second-rate jobs; she wouldn't +be dowdy and unimportant, like her mother and the other fools; she would +have the best that was going. + + +3 + +The family dined. At one end of the table was Mr. Potter; a small, +bird-like person, of no presence; you had not thought he was so great +a man as Potter of the Potter Press. For it was a great press; though +not so great as the Northcliffe Press, for it did not produce anything +so good as the _Times_ or so bad as the _Weekly Dispatch_; it was more +of a piece. + +Both commonplace and common was Mr. Percy Potter (according to some +standards), but clever, with immense patience, a saving sense of humour, +and that imaginative vision without which no newspaper owner, financier, +general, politician, poet, or criminal can be great. He was, in fact, +greater than the twins would ever be, because he was not at odds with his +material: he found such stuff as his dreams were made of ready to his +hand, in the great heart of the public--the last place where the twins +would have thought of looking. + +So did his wife. She was pink-faced and not ill-looking, with the cold +blue eyes and rather set mouth possessed (inexplicably) by many writers +of fiction. If I have conveyed the impression that Leila Yorke was in +the lowest division of this class, I have done her less than justice; +quite a number of novelists were worse. This was not much satisfaction +to her children. Jane said, 'If you do that sort of thing at all, you +might as well make a job of it, and sell a million copies. I'd rather +be Mrs. Barclay or Ethel Dell or Charles Garvice or Gene Stratton +Porter or Ruby Ayres than mother. Mother's merely commonplace; she's +not even a by-word--quite. I admire dad more. Dad anyhow gets there. +His stuff sells.' + +Mrs. Potter's novels, as a matter of fact, sold quite creditably. They +were pleasant to many, readable by more, and quite unmarred by any +spark of cleverness, flash of wit, or morbid taint of philosophy. +Gently and unsurprisingly she wrote of life and love as she believed +these two things to be, and found a home in the hearts of many +fellow-believers. She bored no one who read her, because she could be +relied on to give them what they hoped to find--and of how few of us, +alas, can this be said! And--she used to say it was because she was a +mother--her books were safe for the youngest _jeune fille_, and in +these days (even in those days it was so) of loose morality and frank +realism, how important this is. + +'I hope I am as modern as any one,' Mrs. Potter would say, 'but I see no +call to be indecent.' + +So many writers do see, or rather hear, this call, and obey it +faithfully, that many a parent was grateful to Leila Yorke. (It is only +fair to record here that in the year 1918 she heard it herself, and +became a psychoanalyst. But the time for this was not yet.) + +On her right sat her eldest son, Frank, who was a curate in Pimlico. In +Frank's face, which was sharp and thin, like his father's, were the +marks of some conflict which his father's did not know. You somehow felt +that each of the other Potters had one aim, and that Frank had, or, +anyhow, felt that he ought to have, another besides, however feebly he +aimed at it. + +Next him sat his young wife, who had, again, only the one. She was pretty +and jolly and brunette, and twisted Frank round her fingers. + +Beyond her sat Clare, the eldest daughter, and the daughter at home. She +read her mother's novels, and her father's papers, and saw no harm in +either. She thought the twins perverse and conceited, which came from +being clever at school and college. Clare had never been clever at +anything but domestic jobs and needlework. She was a nice, pretty girl, +and expected to marry. She snubbed Jane, and Jane, in her irritating and +nonchalant way, was rude to her. + +On the other side of the table sat the twins, stocky and square-built, +and looking very young, with broad jaws and foreheads and wide-set gray +eyes. Jane was, to look at, something like an attractive little plump +white pig. It is not necessary, at the moment, to say more about her +appearance than this, except that, when the time came to bob the hair, +she bobbed it. + +Johnny was as sturdy but rather less chubby, and his chin stuck out +farther. They had the same kind of smile, and square white teeth, and +were greedy. When they had been little, they had watched each other's +plates with hostile eyes, to see that neither got too large a helping. + + +4 + +Those of us who are old enough will remember that in June and July 1914 +the conversation turned largely and tediously on militant suffragists, +Irish rebels, and strikers. It was the beginning of the age of violent +enforcements of decision by physical action which has lasted ever since +and shows as yet no signs of passing. The Potter press, like so many +other presses, snubbed the militant suffragists, smiled half approvingly +on Carson's rebels, and frowned wholly disapprovingly on the strikers. It +was a curious age, so near and yet so far, when the ordered frame of +things was still unbroken, and violence a child's dream, and poetry and +art were taken with immense seriousness. Those of us who can remember it +should do so, for it will not return. It has given place to the age of +melodrama, when nothing is too strange to happen, and no one is ever +surprised. That, too, may pass, but probably will not, for it is +primeval. The other was artificial, a mere product of civilisation, and +could not last. + +It was in the intervals of talking about the militants (a conversation +much like other conversations on the same topic, which were tedious even +at the time, and now will certainly not bear recording) that Mrs. Frank +said to the twins, 'What are you two going to play at now?' + +So extensive a question, opening such vistas. It would have taken, if not +less time, anyhow less trouble, to have told Mrs. Frank what they were +_not_ going to play at. + +The devil of mischief looked out of Johnny's gray eyes, as he nearly +said, 'We are going to fight Leila Yorke fiction and the Potter press.' + +Choking it back, he said, succinctly, 'Publishing, journalism, and +writing. At least, I am.' + +'He means,' Mr. Potter interpolated, in his small, nasal voice, 'that +he has obtained a small and subordinate job with a firm of publishers, +and hopes also to contribute to an obscure weekly paper run by a +friend of his.' + +'Oh,' said Mrs. Frank. 'Not one of _your_ papers, pater? Can't be, if +it's obscure, can it?' + +'No, not one of my papers. A periodical called, I believe, the _Weekly +Comment_, with which you may or may not be familiar.' + +'Never heard of it, I'm afraid,' Mrs. Frank confessed, truly. 'Why don't +you go on to one of the family concerns, Johnny? You'd get on much +quicker there, with pater to shove you.' + +'Probably,' Johnny agreed. + +'My papers,' said Mr. Potter dryly, 'are not quite up to Johnny's +intellectual level. Nor Jane's. Neither do they accord with their +political sympathies.' + +'Oh, I forgot you two were silly old Socialists. Never mind, that'll pass +when they grow up, won't it, Frank?' + +Secretly, Mrs. Frank thought that the twins had the disease because the +Potter family, however respectable now, wasn't really 'top-drawer.' + +Funny old pater had, every one knew, begun his career as a reporter on a +provincial paper. If funny old pater had been just a shade less clever or +enterprising, his family would have been educated at grammar schools and +gone into business in their teens. Of course, Mrs. Potter had pulled the +social level up a bit; but what, if you came to that, had Mrs. Potter +been? Only the daughter of a country doctor; only the underpaid secretary +of a lady novelist, for all she was so conceited now. + +So naturally Socialism, that disease of the underbred, had taken hold of +the less careful of the Potter young. + +'And are you going to write for this weekly what-d'you-call-it too, +Jane?' Mrs. Frank inquired. + +'No. I've not got a job yet. I'm going to look round a little first.' + +'Oh, that's sense. Have a good time at home for a bit. Well, it's time +you had a holiday, isn't it? I wish old Frank could. He's working like an +old horse. He may slave himself to death for those Pimlico pigs, for all +any of them care. It's never "thank you"; it's always "more, more, more," +with them. That's your Socialism, Johnny.' + +The twins got on very well with their sister-in-law, but thought her a +fool. When, as she was fond of doing, she mentioned Socialism, they, +rightly believing her grasp of that economic system to be even less +complete than that of most people, always changed the subject. + +But on this occasion they did not have time to change it before Clare +said, 'Mother's writing a novel about Socialism. She shows it up like +anything.' + +Mrs. Potter smiled. + +'I confess I am trying my hand at the burning subject. But as for +showing it up--well, I am being fair to both sides, I think. I don't +feel I can quite condemn it wholesale, as Peggy does. I find it very +difficult to treat anything like that--I can't help seeing all round a +thing. I'm told it's a weakness, and that I should get on better if I +saw everything in black and white, as so many people do, but it's no use +my trying to alter, at my time of life. One has to write in one's own +way or not at all.' + +'Anyhow,' said Clare, 'it's going to be a ripping book, _Socialist +Cecily_; quite one of your best, mother.' + +Clare had always been her mother's great stand-by in the matter of +literature. She was also useful as a touchstone, as what her mother did +not call a foolometer. If a book went with Clare, it went with Leila +Yorke's public beyond. Mr. Potter was a less satisfactory reader; he +regarded his wife's books as goods for sale, and his comments were, 'That +should go all right. That's done it,' which attitude, though commercially +helpful, was less really satisfying to the creator than Clare's +uncritical absorption in the characters and the story. Clare was, in +fact, the public, while Mr. Potter was more the salesman. + +And the twins were neither, but more like the less agreeable type of +reviewer, when they deigned to read or comment on their mother's books at +all, which was not always. Johnny's attitude towards his mother suggested +that he might say politely, if she mentioned her books, 'Oh, do you +write? Why?' Mrs. Potter was rather sadly aware that she made no appeal +to the twins. But then, as Clare reminded her, the twins, since they had +gone to Oxford, never admitted that they cared for any books that normal +people cared for. They were like that; conceited and contrary. + +To change the subject (so many subjects are the better for being changed, +as all those who know family life will agree) Jane said, 'Johnny and I +are going on a reading-party next month.' + +'A little late in the day, isn't it?' commented Frank, the only one who +knew Oxford habits. 'Unless it's to look up all the howlers you've made.' + +'Well,' Jane admitted, 'it won't be so much reading really as observing. +It's a party of investigation, as a matter of fact.' + +'What do you investigate? Beetles, or social conditions?' + +'People. Their tastes, habits, outlook, and mental diseases. What they +want, and why they want it, and what the cure is. We belong to a society +for inquiring into such things.' + +'You would,' said Clare, who always rose when the twins meant her to. + +'Aren't they cautions,' said Mrs. Frank, more good-humouredly. + +Mrs. Potter said, 'That's a very interesting idea. I think I must join +this society. It would help me in my work. What is it called, children?' + +'Oh,' said Jane, and had the grace to look ashamed, 'it really hardly +exists yet.' + +But as she said it she met the sharp and shrewd eyes of Mr. Potter, and +knew that he knew she was referring to the Anti-Potter League. + + +5 + +Mr. Potter would not, indeed, have been worthy of his reputation had he +not been aware, from its inception, of the existence of this League. +Journalists have to be aware of such things. He in no way resented the +League; he brushed it aside as of no account. And, indeed, it was not +aimed at him personally, nor at his wife personally, but at the great +mass of thought--or of incoherent, muddled emotion that passed for +thought--which the Anti-Potters had agreed, for brevity's sake, to call +'Potterism.' Potterism had very certainly not been created by the +Potters, and was indeed no better represented by the goods with which +they supplied the market than by those of many others; but it was a handy +name, and it had taken the public fancy that here you had two Potters +linked together, two souls nobly yoked, one supplying Potterism in +fictional, the other in newspaper, form. So the name caught, about the +year 1912. + +The twins both heard it used at Oxford, in their second year. They +recognised its meaning without being told. And both felt that it was up +to them to take the opportunity of testifying, of severing any connection +that might yet exist in any one's mind between them and the other +products of their parents. They did so, with the uncompromising decision +proper to their years, and with, perhaps, the touch of indecency, +regardlessness of the proprieties, which was characteristic of them. +Their friends soon discovered that they need not guard their tongues in +speaking of Potterism before the Potter twins. The way the twins put it +was, 'Our family is responsible for more than its share of the beastly +thing; the least we can do is to help to do it in,' which sounded +chivalrous. And another way they put it was, 'We're not going to have any +one connecting _us_ with it,' which sounded sensible. + +So they joined the Anti-Potter League, not blind to the piquant humour of +their being found therein. + + +6 + +Mr. Potter said to the twins, in his thin little voice, 'Don't mind +mother and me, children. Tell us all about the A.P.L. It may do us good.' + +But the twins knew it would not do their mother good. It would need too +much explanation; and then she would still not understand. She might even +be very angry, as she was (though she pretended she was only amused) with +some reviewers.... If your mother is Leila Yorke, and has hard blue eyes +and no sense of humour, but a most enormous sense of importance, you +cannot, or you had better not, even begin to explain to her things like +Potterism, or the Anti-Potter League, and still less how it is that you +belong to the latter. + +The twins, who had got firsts in Schools, knew this much. + +Johnny improvised hastily, with innocent gray eyes on his father's, 'It's +one of the rules that you mayn't talk about it outside. Anti-Propaganda +League, it is, you see ... for letting other people alone....' + +'Well,' said Mr. Potter, who was not spiteful to his children, and +preferred his wife unruffled, 'we'll let you off this time. But you can +take my word for it, it's a silly business. Mother and I will last a +great deal longer than it does. Because we take our stand on human +nature, and you won't destroy that with Leagues.' + +Sometimes the twins were really almost afraid they wouldn't. + +'You're all very cryptic to-night,' Frank said, and yawned. + +Then Mrs. Potter and the girls left the dining-room, and Frank and his +father discussed the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a measure +which Frank thought would be a pity, but which was advocated by the +Potter press. + +Johnny cracked nuts in silence. He thought the Church insincere, a put-up +job, but that dissenters were worse. They should all be abolished, with +other shams. For a short time at Oxford he had given the Church a trial, +even felt real admiration for it, under the influence of his friend Juke, +and after hearing sermons from Father Waggett, Dr. Dearmer, and Canon +Adderley. But he had soon given it up, seen it wouldn't do; the +above-mentioned priests were not representative; the Church as a whole +canted, was hypocritical and Potterish, and must go. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ANTI-POTTERS + + +1 + +The quest of Potterism, its causes and its cure, took the party of +investigation first to the Cornish coast. Partly because of bathing and +boating, and partly because Gideon, the organiser of the party, wanted to +find out if there was much Potterism in Cornwall, or if Celticism had +withstood it. For Potterism, they had decided, was mainly an Anglo-Saxon +disease. Worst of all in America, that great home of commerce, success, +and the booming of the second-rate. Less discernible in the Latin +countries, which they hoped later on to explore, and hardly existing in +the Slavs. In Russia, said Gideon, who loathed Russians, because he was +half a Jew, it practically did not exist. The Russians were without shame +and without cant, saw things as they were, and proceeded to make them a +good deal worse. That was barbarity, imbecility, and devilishness, but it +was not Potterism, said Gideon grimly. Gideon's grandparents had been +massacred in an Odessa pogrom; his father had been taken at the age of +five to England by an aunt, become naturalised, taken the name of Sidney, +married an Englishwoman, and achieved success and wealth as a banker. His +son Arthur was one of the most brilliant men of his year at Oxford, +regarded Russians, Jews, and British with cynical dislike, and had, on +turning twenty-one, reverted to his family name in its English form, +finding it a Potterish act on his father's part to have become Sidney. +Few of his friends remembered to call him by his new name, and his +parents ignored it, but to wear it gave him a grim satisfaction. + +Such was Arthur Gideon, a lean-faced, black-eyed man, biting his nails +like Fagin when he got excited. + +The other man, besides Johnny Potter, was the Honourable Laurence Juke, a +Radical of moderately aristocratic lineage, a clever writer and actor, +who had just taken deacon's orders. Juke had a look at once languid and +amused, a well-shaped, smooth brown head, blunt features, the +introspective, wide-set eyes of the mystic, and the sweet, flexible voice +of the actor (his mother had, in fact, been a well-known actress of the +eighties). + +The two women were Jane Potter and Katherine Varick. Katherine Varick had +frosty blue eyes, a pale, square-jawed, slightly cynical face, a first in +Natural Science, and a chemical research fellowship. + +In those happy days it was easy to stay in places, even by the sea, and +they stayed first at the fishing village of Mevagissey. Gideon was the +only one who never forgot that they were to make observations and write a +book. He came of a more hard-working race than the others did. Often the +others merely fished, boated, bathed, and walked, and forgot the object +of their tour. But Gideon, though he too did these things, did them, so +to speak, notebook in hand. He was out to find and analyse Potterism, so +much of it as lay hid in the rocky Cornish coves and the grave Cornish +people. Katherine Varick was the only member of the party who knew that +he was also seeking and finding it in the hidden souls of his +fellow-seekers. + + +2 + +They would meet in the evening with the various contributions to the +subject which they had gathered during the day. The Urban District +Council, said Johnny, wanted to pull down the village street and build an +esplanade to attract visitors; all the villagers seemed pleased. That was +Potterism, the welcoming of ugliness and prosperity; the antithesis of +the artist's spirit, which loved beauty for what it was, and did not want +to exploit it. + +Their landlady, said Juke, on Sunday, had looked coldly on him when he +went out with his fishing rod in the morning. This would not have been +Potterism, but merely a respectable bigotry, had the lady had genuine +conscientious scruples as to this use of Sunday morning by the clergy, +but Juke had ascertained tactfully that she had no conscientious +scruples about anything at all. So it was merely propriety and cant, in +brief, Potterism. Later, he had landed at a village down the coast and +been to church. + +'That church,' he said, 'is the most unpleasant piece of Potterism I have +seen for some time. Perpendicular, but restored fifty years ago, +according to the taste of the period. Vile windows; painted deal pews; +incredible braying of bad chants out of tune; a sermon from a pie-faced +fellow about going to church. Why should they go to church? He didn't +tell them; he just said if they didn't, some being he called God would be +angry with them. What did he mean by God? I'm hanged if he'd ever +thought it out. Some being, apparently, like a sublimated Potterite, who +rejoices in bad singing, bad art, bad praying, and bad preaching, and +sits aloft to deal out rewards to those who practise these and +punishments to those who don't. The Potter God will save you if you +please him; that means he'll save your body from danger and not let you +starve. Potterism has no notion of a God who doesn't care a twopenny damn +whether you starve or not, but does care whether you're following the +truth as you see it. In fact, Potterism has no room for Christianity; it +prefers the God of the Old Testament. Of course, with their abominable +cheek, the Potterites have taken Christianity and watered it down to suit +themselves, till they've produced a form of Potterism which they call by +its name; but they wouldn't know the real thing if they saw it.... The +Pharisees were Potterites....' + +The others listened to Juke on religious Potterism tolerantly. None of +them (with the doubtful exception of Johnny, who had not entirely made up +his mind) believed in religion; they were quite prepared to agree that +most of its current forms were soaked in Potterism, but they could not be +expected to care, as Juke did. + +Gideon said he had heard a dreadful band on the beach, and heard a +dreadful fellow proclaiming the Precious Blood. That was Potterism, +because it was an appeal to sentiment over the head, or under the head, +of reason. Neither the speaker nor any one else probably had the least +idea what he was talking about or what he meant. + +'He had the kind of face which is always turned away from facts,' Gideon +said. 'Facts are too difficult, too complicated for him. Hard, jolly +facts, with clear sharp edges that you can't slur and talk away. +Potterism has no use for them. It appeals over their heads to prejudice +and sentiment.... It's the very opposite to the scientific temper. No +good scientist could conceivably be a Potterite, because he's concerned +with truth, and the kind of truth, too, that it's difficult to arrive at. +Potterism is all for short and easy cuts and showy results. Science has +to work its way step by step, and then hasn't much to show for it. It +isn't greedy. Potterism plays a game of grab all the time--snatches at +success in a hurry.... It's greedy,' repeated Gideon, thinking it out, +watching Jane's firm little sun-browned hand with its short square +fingers rooting in the sand for shells. + +Jane had visited the stationer, who kept a circulating library, and seen +holiday visitors selecting books to read. They had nearly all chosen the +most Potterish they could see, and asked for some more Potterish still, +leaving Conrad and Hardy despised on the shelves. But these people were +not Cornish, but Saxon visitors. + +And Katherine had seen the local paper, but it had been much less +Potterish than most of the London papers, which confirmed them in their +theory about Celts. + +Thus they talked and discussed and played, and wrote their book in +patches, and travelled from place to place, and thought that they found +things out. And Gideon, because he was the cleverest, found out the most; +and Katherine, because she was the next cleverest, saw all that Gideon +found out; and Juke, because he was religious, was for ever getting on to +Potterism its cure, before they had analysed the disease; and the twins +enjoyed life in their usual serene way, and found it very entertaining to +be Potters inquiring into Potterism. The others were scrupulously fair +in not attributing to them, because they happened to be Potters by birth, +more Potterism than they actually possessed. A certain amount, said Juke, +is part of the make-up of very nearly every human being; it has to be +fought down, like the notorious ape and tiger. But he thought that Gideon +and Katherine Varick had less of it than any one else he knew; the +mediocre was repellent to them; cant and sentiment made them sick; they +made a fetish of hard truth, and so much despised most of their +neighbours that they would not experience the temptation to grab at +popularity. In fact, they would dislike it if it came. + + +3 + +_Socialist Cecily_ came out while they were at Lyme Regis. Mrs. Potter +sent the twins a copy. In their detached way, the twins read it, and gave +it to the others to look at. + +'Very typical stuff,' Gideon summed it up, after a glance. 'It will no +doubt have an excellent sale.... It must be interesting for you to watch +it being turned out. I wish you would ask me to stay with you some time. +Yours must be an even more instructive household than mine.' + +Gideon was a Russian Jew on his father's side, and a Harrovian. He had no +decency and no manners. He made Juke, who was an Englishman and an +Etonian, and had more of both, uncomfortable sometimes. For, after all, +the rudiments of family loyalty might as well be kept, among the general +destruction which he, more sanguinely than Gideon, hoped for. + +But the twins did not bother. Jane said, in her equable way, 'You'll be +bored to death; angry, too; but come if you like.... We've a sister, more +Potterish than the parents. She'll hate you.' + +Gideon said, 'I expect so,' and they left his prospective visit at that, +with Jane chuckling quietly at her private vision of Gideon and Clare in +juxtaposition. + + +4 + +But _Socialist Cecily_ did not have a good sale after all. It was +guillotined, with many of its betters, by the European war, which began +while the Anti-Potters were at Swanage, a place replete with Potterism. +Potterism, however, as a subject for investigation, had by this time +given place to international diplomacy, that still more intriguing study. +The Anti-Potters abused every government concerned, and Gideon said, on +August 1st, 'We shall be fools if we don't come in.' + +Juke was still dubious. He was a good Radical, and good Radicals were +dubious on this point until the invasion of Belgium. + +'To throw back the world a hundred years....' + +Gideon shrugged his shoulders. He belonged to no political party, and had +the shrewd, far-seeing eyes of his father's race. + +'It's going to be thrown back anyhow. Germany will see to that. And if we +keep out of it, Germany will grab Europe. We've got to come in, if we can +get a decent pretext.' + +The decent pretext came in due course, and Gideon said, 'So that's that.' + +He added to the Potters, 'For once I am in agreement with your father's +press. We should be lunatics to stand out of this damnable mess.' + +Juke also was now, painful to him though it was to be so, in agreement +with the Potter press. To him the war had become a crusade, a fight for +decency against savagery. + +'It's that,' said Gideon. 'But that's not all. This isn't a show any +country can afford to stand out of. It's Germany against Europe, and if +Europe doesn't look sharp, Germany's going to win. _Germany._ Nearly as +bad as Russia.... One would have to emigrate to another hemisphere.... +No, we've got to win this racket.... But, oh, Lord, what a mess!' He fell +to biting his nails, savage and silent. + +Jane thought all the time, beneath her other thoughts about it, 'To have +a war, just when life was beginning and going to be such fun.' + +Beneath her public thoughts about the situation, she felt this deep +private disgust gnawing always, as of one defrauded. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +OPPORTUNITY + + +1 + +They did not know then about people in general going to the war. They +thought it was just for the army and navy, not for ordinary people. That +idea came a little later, after the Anti-Potter party had broken up and +gone home. + +The young men began to enlist and get commissions. It was done; it was +the correct idea. Johnny Potter, who belonged to an O.T.C., got a +commission early. + +Jane said within herself, 'Johnny can go and I can't.' She knew she was +badly, incredibly left. Johnny was in the movement, doing the thing that +mattered. Further, Johnny might ultimately be killed in doing it; her +Johnny. Everything else shrank and was little. What were books? What was +anything? Jane wanted to fight in the war. The war was damnable, but it +was worse to be out of it. One was such an utter outsider. It wasn't +fair. She could fight as well as Johnny could. Jane went about white and +sullen, with her world tumbling into bits about her. + +Mr. Potter said in the press, and Mrs. Potter in the home, 'The people of +England have a great opportunity before them. We must all try to rise to +it'--as if the people of England were fishes and the opportunity a fly. + +Opportunity, thought Jane. Where is it? I see none. It was precisely +opportunity which the war had put an end to. + +'The women of England must now prove that they are worthy of their men,' +said the Potter press. + +'I dare say,' thought Jane. Knitting socks and packing stores and +learning first aid. Who wanted to do things like that, when their +brothers had a chance to go and fight in France? Men wouldn't stand it, +if it was the other way round. Why should women always get the dull jobs? +It was because they bore them cheerfully; because they didn't really, for +the most part, mind, Jane decided, watching the attitude of her mother +and Clare. The twins, profoundly selfish, but loving adventure and +placidly untroubled by nerves or the prospect of physical danger, saw no +hardship in active service. (This was before the first winter and the +development of trench warfare, and people pictured to themselves +skirmishes in the open, exposed to missiles, but at least keeping warm). + + +2 + +Every one one knew was going. Johnny said to Jane, 'War is beastly, but +one's got to be in it.' He took that line, as so many others did. 'Juke's +going,' he said. 'As a combatant, I mean, not a padre. He thinks the war +could have been prevented with a little intelligence; so it could, I dare +say; but as there wasn't a little intelligence and it wasn't prevented, +he's going in. He says it will be useful experience for him--help him in +his profession; he doesn't believe in parsons standing outside things and +only doing soft jobs. I agree with him. Every one ought to go.' + +'Every one can't,' said Jane morosely. + +But to Johnny every one meant all young men, and he took no heed. + +Gideon went. It might, he said to Juke, be a capitalists' war or any one +else's; the important thing was not whose war it was but who was going +to win it. + +He added, 'Great Britain is, on this occasion, on the right side. +There's no manner of doubt about it. But even if she wasn't, it's +important for all her inhabitants that she should be on the winning +side.... Oh, she will be, no doubt, we've the advantage in numbers and +wealth, if not in military organisation or talent.... If only the +Potterites wouldn't jabber so. It's a unique opportunity for them, and +they're taking it. What makes me angriest is the reasons they vamp up +why we're fighting. For the sake of democracy, they say. Democracy be +hanged. It's a rotten system, anyhow, and how this war is going to do +anything for it I don't know. If I thought it was, I wouldn't join. But +there's no fear. And other people say we're fighting "so that our +children won't have to." Rot again. Every war makes other wars more +likely. Why can't people say simply that the reason why we're fighting +is partly to uphold decent international principles, and mainly to win +the war--to be a conquering nation, not a conquered one, and to save +ourselves from having an ill-conditioned people like the Germans +strutting all over us. It's a very laudable object, and needs no +camouflage. Sheer Potterism, all this cant and posturing. I'd rather +say, like the _Daily Mail_, that we're fighting to capture the Hun's +trade; that's a lie, but at least it isn't cant.' + +'Let them talk,' said Juke lazily. 'Let them jabber and cant. What does +it matter? We're in this thing up to the neck, and every one's got to +relieve themselves in their own way. As long as we get the job done +somehow, a little nonsense-talk more or less won't make much difference +to this mighty Empire, which has always indulged in plenty. It's the rash +coming out; good for the system.' + +So, each individual in his own way, the nation entered into the worst +period of time of which Europe has so far had experience, and on which I +do not propose to dwell in these pages except in its aspect of a source +of profit to those who sought profit; its more cheerful aspect, in fact. + + +3 + +Mrs. Potter put away the writing of fiction, as unsuitable in these +dark days. (It may be remembered that there was a period at the +beginning of the war when it was erroneously supposed that fiction +would not sell until peace returned). Mrs. Potter, like many other +writers, took up Y.M.C.A. canteen work, and went for a time to France. +There she wrote _Out There_, an account of the work of herself and her +colleagues in Rouen, full of the inimitable wit and indomitable courage +of soldiers, the untiring activities of canteen workers, and the +affectionate good-fellowship which existed between these two classes. +The world was thus shown that Leila Yorke was no mere _flâneuse_ of +letters, but an Englishwoman who rose to her country's call and was +worthy of her men-folk. + +Clare became a V.A.D., and went up to town every day to work at an +officers' hospital. It was a hospital maintained partly by Mr. Potter, +and she got on very well there. She made many pleasant friends, and hoped +to get out to France later. + +Frank tried for a chaplaincy. + +'It isn't a bit that he wants excitement, or change of air, or a free +trip to France, or to feel grand, like some of them do,' explained Mrs. +Frank. 'Only, what's the good of keeping a man like him slaving away in a +rotten parish like ours, when they want good men out there? I tell Frank +all he's got to do to get round the C.G. is to grow a moustache and learn +up the correct answers to a few questions--like "What would you do if you +had to attend a dying soldier?" Answer--"Offer to write home for him." A +lot of parsons don't know that, and go telling the C.G. they'd give him +communion, or hear his confession or something, and that knocks them out +first round. Frank knows better. There are no flies on old Frank. All the +same, pater, you might do a little private wire-pulling for him, if it +comes in handy.' + +But, unfortunately, owing to a recent though quite temporary coldness +between the Chaplain-General and the Potter press, Mr. Potter's +wire-pulling was ineffectual. The Chaplain-General did not entertain +Frank's offer favourably, and regretted that his appointment as chaplain +to His Majesty's forces was at present impracticable. So Frank went on in +Pimlico, and was cynical and bitter about those clergymen who succeeded +in passing the C.G.'s tests. + +'Why don't you join up as a combatant?' Johnny asked him, seeing his +discontent. 'Some parsons do.' + +'The bishops have forbidden it,' said Frank. + +'Oh, well, I suppose so. Does it matter particularly?' + +'My dear Johnny, there is discipline in the Church as well as in the +army, you know. You might as well ask would it matter if you were to +disobey _your_ superior officers.' + +'Well, you see, I'd have something happen to me if I did. Parsons don't. +You'd only be reprimanded, I suppose, and get into a berth all right when +you came back--if you did come back.' + +'That's got nothing to do with it. The Church would never hold together +if her officers were to break the rules whenever they felt like it. That +friend of yours, Juke, hasn't a leg to stand on; he's merely in revolt.' + +'Oh, old Juke always is, of course. Against every kind of authority, but +particularly against bishops. He's always got his knife into them, and I +dare say he's glad of the chance of flouting them. High Church parsons +are, aren't they? I expect if you were a bit higher you'd flout them too. +And if you were a bit lower, the C.G.'d take you as a padre. You're just +the wrong height, old thing, that's what's the matter.' + +Thus Johnny, now a stocky lieutenant on leave from France, diagnosed +his brother's case. Wrongly, because High Church parsons weren't +actually enlisting any more than any other kind; they did not, mostly, +believe it to be their business; quite sincerely and honestly they +thought it would be wrong for them, though right for laymen, to +undertake combatant service. + +Anyhow, as to height, Frank knew himself to be of a height acceptable in +benefices, and that was something. Besides, it was his own height. + +'Sorry I can't change to oblige you, old man,' he said. 'Or desert my +post and pretend to be a layman. I am a man under authority, like you. I +wish the powers that be would send me out there, but it's for them to +judge, and if they think I should be of less use as a padre than all the +Toms, Dicks, and Harrys they are sending, it's not for me to protest. +They may be right. I may be absolutely useless as a chaplain. On the +other hand, I may not. They apparently don't intend to give themselves a +chance of finding out. Very well. It's nothing to me, either way.' + +'Oh, that's all right then,' Johnny said. + + +4 + +No one could say that the Potter press did not rise to the great +opportunity. The press seldom fails to do this. The Potter press +surpassed itself; it nearly surpassed its great rival presses. With +energy and whole-heartedness it cheered, comforted, and stimulated the +people. It never failed to say how well the Allies were getting on, how +much ammunition they had, how many men, what indomitable tenacity and +cheerful spirits enlivened the trenches. The correspondents it employed +wrote home rejoicing; its leading articles were noble hymns of praise. In +times of darkness and travail one cannot but be glad of such a press as +this. So glad were the Government of it that Mr. Potter became, at the +end of 1916, Lord Pinkerton, and his press the Pinkerton press. Of +course, that was not the only reward he obtained for his services; he +figured every new year in the honours' list, and collected in succession +most of the letters of the alphabet after his name. With it all, he +remained the same alert, bird-like, inconspicuous person, with the same +unswerving belief in his own methods and his own destinies, a belief +which never passed from self-confidence to self-importance. Unless you +were so determined a hater of Potterism as to be blindly prejudiced, you +could not help liking Lord Pinkerton. + + +5 + +Jane, sulking because she could not fight, thought for a short time that +she would nurse, and get abroad that way. Then it became obvious that too +many fools were scrambling to get sent abroad, and anyhow, that, if Clare +was nursing, it must be a mug's game, and that there must be a better +field for her own energies elsewhere. With so many men going, there would +be empty places to fill.... That thought came, perhaps, as soon to Jane +as to any one in the country. + +Her father's lady secretary went nursing, and Lord Pinkerton, well aware +of his younger daughter's clearheaded competence, offered Jane the job, +at a larger salary. + +'Your shorthand would soon come back if you took it up,' he told her. For +he had had all his children taught shorthand at a young age; in his view +it was one of the essentials of education; he had learned it himself at +the age of thirteen, and insulted his superior young gentlemen private +secretaries by asking them if they knew it. Jane and Johnny, who had been +in early youth very proficient at it, had, since they were old enough to +know it was a sort of low commercial cunning, the accomplishment of the +slave, hidden their knowledge away like a vice. When concealed from +observation and pressed for time, they had furtively taken down lecture +notes in it at Oxford, but always with a consciousness of guilt. + +Jane had declined the secretaryship. She did not mean to be that sort +of low secretary that takes down letters, she did not mean to work for +the Potter press, and she thought it would be needlessly dull to work +for her father. She said, 'No, thank you, dad. I'm thinking of the +Civil Service.' + +That was early in 1915, when women had only just begun to think of, or +be thought of, by the Civil Service. Jane did not think of it with +enthusiasm; she wanted to be a journalist and to write; but it would do +for the time, and would probably be amusing. So, owing to the helpful +influence of Mr. Potter, and a good degree, Jane obtained a quite good +post at the Admiralty, which she had to swear never to mention, and went +into rooms in a square off Fleet Street with Katherine Varick, who had a +research fellowship in chemistry and worked in a laboratory in +Farringdon Street. + +The Admiralty was all right. It was interesting as such jobs go, and +Jane, who was clear-headed, did it well. She got to know a few men and +women who, she considered, were worth knowing, though, in technical +departments such as the Admiralty, the men were apt to be superior to the +women; the women Jane met there were mostly non-University lower-grade +clerks, and so forth, nice, cheery young things, but rather stupid, who +thought it jolly for Jane to be connected with Leila Yorke and the Potter +press, and were scarcely worth undeceiving. And naval officers, though +charming, were apt to be a little elementary, Jane discovered, in their +general outlook. + +However, the job was all right; not a bad plum to have picked out of the +hash, on the whole. And the life was all right. The rooms were jolly +(only the new geyser exploded too often), and Katherine Varick, though +she made stinks in the evenings, not bad to live with, and money not too +scarce, as money goes, and theatres and dinners frequent. Doing one's +bit, putting one's shoulder to the wheel, proving the mettle of the women +of England, certainly had its agreeable side. + + +6 + +In intervals of office work and social life, Jane was writing odds and +ends, and planning the books she meant to write after the war. She +hadn't settled her line yet. Articles on social and industrial questions +for the papers, she hoped, for one thing; she had plenty to say on this +head. Short stories. Poems. Then, perhaps, a novel.... About the nature +of the novel Jane was undecided, except that it would be more unlike the +novels of Leila Yorke than any novels had ever been before. Perhaps a +sarcastic, rather cynical novel about human nature, of which Jane did +not think much. Perhaps a serious novel, dealing with social or +political conditions. Perhaps an impressionist novel, like Dorothy +Richardson's. Only they were getting common; they were too easy. One +could hardly help writing like that, unless one tried not to, if one had +lately read any of them. + +Most contemporary novels Jane found very bad, not worth writing. Those +solemn and childish novels about public schools, for instance, written by +young men. Jane wondered what a novel about Roedean or Wycombe Abbey +would be like. The queer thing was that some young woman didn't write +one; it need be no duller than the young men's. Rather duller, perhaps, +because schoolgirls were more childish than schoolboys, the problems of +their upbringing less portentous. But there were many of the same +ingredients--the exaltation of games, hero-worship, rows, the clever new +literary mistress who made all the stick-in-the-mud other mistresses +angry.... Only were the other mistresses at girls' schools +stick-in-the-mud? No, Jane thought not; quite a decent modern set, on the +whole, for people of their age. Better than schoolmasters, they must be. + +How dull it all was! Some woman ought to do it, but not Jane. + +Jane was inclined, in her present phase, to think the Russians and the +French the only novelists. They had manner and method. But they were both +too limited in their field, too much concerned with sexual relations, +that most tedious of topics (in literature, not life), the very thought +of which made one yawn. Queer thing, how novelists couldn't leave it +alone. It was, surely, like eating and drinking, a natural element in +life, which few avoid; but the most exciting, jolly, interesting, +entertaining things were apart from it. Not that Jane was not quite +willing to accept with approval, as part of the game of living, such +episodes in this field as came her way; but she could not regard them as +important. As to marriage, it was merely dowdy. Domesticity; babies; +servants; the companionship of one man. The sort of thing Clare would go +in for, no doubt. Not for Jane, before whom the world lay, an oyster +asking to be opened. + +She saw herself a journalist; a reporter, perhaps: (only the stories +women were sent out on were usually dull), a special correspondent, a +free-lance contributor, a leader writer, eventually an editor.... Then +she could initiate a policy, say what she thought, stand up against the +Potter press. + +Or one might be a public speaker, and get into Parliament later on, when +women were admitted. One despised Parliament, but it might be fun. + +Not a permanent Civil Servant; one could not work for this ludicrous +government more than temporarily, to tide over the Great Interruption. + + +7 + +So Jane looked with calm, weighing, critical eyes at life and its +chances, and saw that they were not bad, for such as her. Unless, of +course, the Allies were beaten.... This contingency seemed often +possible, even probable. Jane's faith in the ultimate winning power of +numbers and wealth was at times shaken, not by the blunders of +governments or the defection of valuable allies, but by the unwavering +optimism of her parent's press. + +'But,' said Katherine Varick, 'it's usually right, your papa's press. +That's the queer thing about it. It sounds always wildly wrong, like an +absurd fairy story, and all the sane, intelligent people laugh at it, and +then it turns out to have been right. Look at the way it used to say that +Germany was planning war; it was mostly the stupid people who believed +it, and the intelligent people who didn't; but all the time Germany was.' + +'Partly because people like daddy kept saying so, and planning to get +in first.' + +'Not much. Germany was really planning: we were only talking.... I +believe in the Pinkerton press, and the other absurd presses. They have +the unthinking rightness of the fool. Of course they have. Because the +happenings of the world are caused by people--the mass of people--and the +Pinkerton press knows them and represents them. Intellectual people are +always thinking above the heads of the people who make movements, so +they're nearly always out. The Pinkerton press _is_ the people, so it +gets there every time. Potterism will outlive all the reformers and +idealists. If Potterism says we're going to have a war, we have it; if it +says we're going to win a war, we shall win it. "If you see it in _John +Bull_, it _is_ so."' + +It was not often that Katherine spoke of Potterism, but when she did it +was with conviction. + + +8 + +Gideon was home, wounded. He had nearly died, but not quite. He had lost +his right foot, and would have another when the time was ripe. He was +discharged, and became, later on, assistant editor of a new weekly paper +that was started. + +He dined with Jane and Katherine at their flat, soon after he could get +about. He was leaner than ever, white and gaunt, and often ill-tempered +from pain. Johnny was there too, a major on leave, stuck over with +coloured ribbons. Jane called him a pot-hunter. + +They laughed and talked and joked and dined. When Gideon and Johnny had +gone, and Katherine and Jane were left smoking last cigarettes and +finishing the chocolates, Jane said, lazily, and without chagrin, 'How +Arthur does hate us all, in these days.' + +Katherine said, 'True. He finds us profiteers.' + +'So we are,' said Jane. 'Not you, but most of us. I am.... You're one of +the few people he respects. Some day, perhaps, you'll have to marry him, +and cure him of biting his nails when he's cross.... He thinks Johnny's a +profiteer, too, because of the ribbons and things. Johnny is. It's in the +blood. We're grabbers. Can't be helped.... Do you want the last walnut +chocolate, old thing? If so, you're too late.' + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JANE AND CLARE + + +1 + +In the autumn of 1918, Jane, when she went home for week-ends, frequently +found one Oliver Hobart there. Oliver Hobart was the new editor of Lord +Pinkerton's chief daily paper, and had been exempted from military +service as newspaper staff. He was a Canadian; he had been educated at +McGill University, admired Lord Pinkerton, his press, and the British +Empire, and despised (in this order) the Quebec French, the Roman +Catholic Church, newspapers which did not succeed, Little Englanders, and +Lord Lansdowne. + +'A really beautiful face,' said Lady Pinkerton, and so he had. Jane had +seen it, from time to time during the last year, when she had called to +see her father in the office of the _Daily Haste_. + +One hot Saturday afternoon in August, 1918, she found him having tea with +her family, in the shadow of the biggest elm. Jane looked at them in her +detached way; Lord Pinkerton, neat and little, his white-spatted feet +crossed, his head cocked to one side, like an intelligent sparrow's; Lady +Pinkerton, tall and fair and powdered, in a lilac silk dress, her large +white hands all over rings, amethysts swinging from her ears; Clare (who +had given up nursing owing to the strain, and was having a rest), slim +and rather graceful, a little flushed from the heat, lying in a deck +chair and swinging a buckled shoe, saying something ordinary and +Clare-ish; Hobart sitting by her, a pale, Gibson young man, with his +smooth fair hair brushed back, and lavender socks with purple clocks, and +a clear, firm jaw. He was listening to Clare with a smile. You could not +help liking him; his was the sort of beauty which, when found in either +man or woman, makes so strong an appeal to the senses of the sex other +than that of the possessor that reason is all but swamped. Besides, as +Lord Pinkerton said, Hobart was a dear, nice fellow. + +He was at Sherards for that week-end because Lord Pinkerton was just +making him editor of the _Daily Haste_. Before that, he had been on the +staff, a departmental editor, and a leader-writer. ('Mr. Hobart will go +far,' said Lady Pinkerton sometimes, when she read the leaders. 'I +hope, on the contrary,' said Lord Pinkerton, 'that he will stay where +he is. It is precisely the right spot. That was the trouble with +Carruthers; he went too far. So he had to go altogether.' He gave his +thin little snigger). + +Anyhow, here was Hobart, this Saturday afternoon, having tea in the +garden. Jane saw him through the mellow golden sweetness of shadow +and light. + +'Here is Jane,' said Lady Pinkerton. + +Jane's dark hair fell in damp waves over her hot, square, white forehead; +her blue cotton dress was crumpled and limp. How neat, how cool, was this +Hobart! Could a man have a Gibson face like that, like a young man on the +cover of an illustrated magazine, and not be a ninny? Did he take the +Pinkerton press seriously, or did he laugh? Both, probably, like most +journalists. He wouldn't laugh to Lord Pinkerton, or to Lady Pinkerton, +or to Clare. But he might laugh to Jane, when she showed him he might. +Jane, eating jam sandwiches, looking like a chubby school child, with her +round face and wide eyes and bobbed hair and cotton frock, watched the +beautiful young man with her solemn unwinking stare that disconcerted +self-conscious people, while Lady Pinkerton talked to him about some +recent fiction. + +On Sunday, people came over to lunch, and they played tennis. Clare and +Hobart played together. 'Oh, well up, partner,' Jane could hear him say, +all the time. Or else it was 'Well tried. Too bad.' Clare's happy eyes +shone, brown and clear in her flushed face, like agates. Rather a pretty +thing, Clare, if dull. + +The Franks were there, too. + +'Old Clare having a good time,' said Mrs. Frank to Jane, during a set +they weren't playing in. Her merry dark eyes snapped. Instinctively, she +usually said something to disparage the good time of other girls. This +time it was, 'That Hobart thinks he's doing himself a good turn with +pater, making up to Clare like that. Oh, he's a cunning fellow. Isn't he +handsome, Jane? I hate these handsome fellows, they always know it so +well. Nothing in his face really, if you come to look, is there? I'd +rather have old Frank's, even if he does look like a half-starved bird.' + + +2 + +Jane was calmly rude to Hobart, showing him she despised his paper, and +him for editing it. She let him see it all, and he was imperturbably, +courteously amused, and, in turn, showed that he despised her for +belonging to the 1917 Club. + +'_You_ don't,' he said, turning to Clare. + +'Gracious, no. I don't belong to a club at all. I go with mother to the +Writers' sometimes, though; that's not bad fun. Mother often speaks +there, you know, and I go and hear. Jolly good she is, too. She read a +ripping paper last week on the "Modern Heroine."' + +Jane's considering eyes weighed Hobart, whose courtesy was still +impregnable. How far was he the complete Potterite, identified with his +absurd press? Did he even appreciate Leila Yorke? She would have liked to +know. But, it seemed, she was not to know from him. + + +3 + +The Armistice came. + +Then the thing was to get to Paris somehow. Jane had, unusually, not +played her cards well. She had neglected the prospect of peace, which, +after all, must come. When she had, in May, at last taken thought for the +morrow, and applied at the Foreign Office for one of those secret jobs +which could not be mentioned because they prepared the doers to play +their parts after the great unmentionable event, she was too late. The +Foreign Office said they could not take over people from other government +departments. + +So, when the unmentionable took place, Jane was badly left. The Foreign +Office Library Department people, many of them Jane's contemporaries at +Oxford and Cambridge, were hurried across the Channel into Life, for +which they had been prepared by a course of lectures on the Dangers of +Paris. There also went the confidential secretaries, the clerks and +shorthand typists, in their hundreds; degreeless, brainless beings, but +wise in their generation. + +'I wish I was a shorthand typist,' Jane grumbled, brooding with Katherine +over their fire. + +'Paris,' Katherine turned over the delightful word consideringly, finding +it wanting. 'The last place in the world I should choose to be in just +now. Fuss and foolishness. Greed and grabbing. The centre of the lunacies +and crimes of the next six months. Politicians assembled together.... +It's infinitely common to go there. All the vulgarest people.... You'd be +more select at Southend or Blackpool.' + +'History is being made there,' said Jane, quoting from her +father's press. + +'Thank you; I'd rather go to Birmingham and make something clean and +useful, like glass.' + +But Jane wanted to make history in Paris. She felt out of it, left, as +she had felt when other people went to the war and she stayed at home. + +On a yellow, foggy day just before Christmas, Lord Pinkerton, with whom +Jane was lunching at his club (Lord Pinkerton was quite good to lunch +with; you got a splendid feed for nothing), said, 'I shall be going +over to Paris next month, Babs.' (That was what he called her). 'D'you +want to come?' + +'Well, I should say so. Don't rub it in, dad.' + +Lord Pinkerton looked at her, with his whimsical, affectionate paternity. + +'You can come if you like, Babs. I want another secretary. Must have one. +If you'll do some of the shorthand typing and filing, you can come +along. How about it?' + +Jane thought for exactly thirty seconds, weighing the shorthand typing +against Paris and the Majestic and Life. Life had it, as usual. + +'Right-o, daddy. I'll come along. When do we go over?' + +That afternoon Jane gave notice to her department, and in the middle of +January Lord Pinkerton and his bodyguard of secretaries and assistants +went to Paris. + + +4 + +That was Life. Trousseaux, concerts, jazzing, dinners, marble bathrooms, +notorious persons as thick as thieves in corridors and on the stairs, +dangers of Paris surging outside, disappointed journalists besieging +proud politicians in vain, the Council of Four sitting in perfect harmony +behind thick curtains, Signor Orlando refusing to play, but finding they +went on playing without him and coming back, Jugo-Slavs walking about +under the aegis of Mr. Wickham Steed, smiling sweetly and triumphantly at +the Italians, going to the theatre and coming out because the jokes +seemed to them dubious, Sir George Riddell and Mr. G.H. Mair desperately +controlling the press, Lord Pinkerton flying to and fro, across the +Channel and back again, while his bodyguard remained in Paris. There also +flew to and fro Oliver Hobart, the editor of the _Daily Haste_. He would +drop in on Jane, sitting in her father's outer office, card-indexing, +opening and entering letters, and what not. + +'Good-morning, Miss Potter. Lord Pinkerton in the office this morning?' + +'He's in the building somewhere. Talking to Sir George, I think.... Did +you fly this time?' + +Whether he had flown or whether he had come by train and boat, he always +looked the same, calm, unruffled, tidy, the exquisite nut. + +'Pretty busy?' he would say, with his half-indulgent smile at the +round-faced, lazy, drawling child who was so self-possessed, sometimes so +impudent, often so sarcastic, always so amusingly different from her +slim, pretty and girlish elder sister. + +'Pretty well,' Jane would reply. 'I don't overwork, though.' + +'I don't believe you do,' Hobart said, looking down at her amusedly. + +'Father does, though. That's why he's thin and I'm fat. What's the use? +It makes no difference.' + +'You're getting reconciled, then,' said Hobart, 'to working for the +Pinkerton press?' + +Jane secretly approved his discernment. But all she said was, with her +cool lack of stress, 'It's not so bad.' + +Usually when Hobart was in Paris he would dine with them. + + +5 + +Lady Pinkerton and Clare came over for a week. They stayed in rooms, in +the Avenue de l'Opera. They visited shops, theatres, and friends, and +Lady Pinkerton began a novel about Paris life. Clare had been run down +and low-spirited, and the doctor had suggested a change of scene. Hobart +was in Paris for the week-end; he dined with the Pinkertons and went to +the theatre with them. But on Monday he had to go back to London. + +On Monday morning Clare came to her father's office, and found Jane +taking down letters from Lord Pinkerton's private secretary, a young man +who had been exempted from military service through the war on the +grounds that he was Lord Pinkerton's right hand. + +Clare sat and waited, and looked round the room for violets, while this +young gentleman dictated. His letters were better worded than Lord +Pinkerton's, because he was better at the English language. Lord +Pinkerton would fall into commercialisms; he would say 're' and 'same' +and 'to hand,' and even sometimes 'your favour of the 16th.' His +secretary knew that that was not the way in which a great newspaper chief +should write. Himself he dictated quite a good letter, but annoyed Jane +by putting in the punctuation, as if she was an imbecile. Thus he was +saying now, pacing up and down the room, plunged in thought:-- + +'Lord Pinkerton is not comma however comma averse to' (Jane wrote 'from') +'entertaining your suggestions comma and will be glad if you can make it +convenient to call to-morrow bracket Tuesday close the bracket afternoon +comma between three and five stop.' + +He could not help it; one must make allowances for those who dictate. But +Clare saw Jane's teeth release her clenched tongue to permit it to form +silently the word 'Ninny.' + +The private secretary retired into his chief's inner sanctum. + +'Morning, old thing,' said Jane to Clare, uncovering her typewriter +without haste and yawning, because she had been up late last night. + +'Morning,' Clare yawned too. She was warm and pretty, in a spring +costume, with a big bunch of sweet violets at her waist. She +touched these. + +'Aren't they top-hole. Mr. Hobart left them this morning before he went. +Jolly decent of him to think of it, getting off in a hurry like he +was.... He's not a bad young thing, do you think.' + +'Not so bad.' Jane extracted carbons from a drawer and fitted them to her +paper. Then she stretched, like a cat. + +'Oh, I'm sleepy.... Don't feel like work to-day. For two pins I'd cut it +and go out with you and mother. The sun's shining, isn't it?' + +Clare stood by the window, and swung the blind-tassel. They had five days +of Paris before them, and Paris suddenly seemed empty.... + +'We're going to have a topping week,' she said. + +Then Lord Pinkerton came in. + +'Hobart gone?' he asked Jane. + +'Yes.' + +'Majendie in my room?' + +'Yes.' + +Lord Pinkerton patted Clare's shoulder as he passed her. + +'Send Miss Hope in to me when she comes, Babs,' he said, and disappeared +through the farther door. + +Jane began to type. It bored her, but she was fairly proficient at it. +Her childhood's training stood her in good stead. + +'Mr. Hobart must have run his train pretty fine, if he came in here on +the way,' said Clare, twirling the blind-tassel. + +'He wasn't going till twelve,' said Jane, typing. + +'Oh, I see. I thought it was ten.... I suppose he found he couldn't get +that one, and had to see dad first. What a bore for him.... Well, I'm off +to meet mother. See you this evening, I suppose.' + +Clare went out into Paris and the March sunshine, whistling softly. + +That night she lay awake in her big bed, as she had lain last night. +She lay tense and still, and stared at the great gas globe that looked +in through the open window from the street. Her brain formed phrases +and pictures. + +'That day on the river.... Those Sundays.... That lunch at the +Florence.... "What attractive shoes those are."... My gray suedes, I +had.... "I love these Sunday afternoons."... "You're one of the few +girls who are jolly to watch when they run."... "Just you and me; +wouldn't it be rather nice? I should like it, anyhow."... He kept +looking.... Whenever I looked up he was looking.... his eyes awfully +blue, with black edges to them.... Peggy said he blacked them.... Peggy +was jealous because he never looked at her.... I'm jealous now because +... No, I'm not, why should I be? He doesn't like fat girls, he said.... +He watches her.... He looks at her when there's a joke.... He bought me +violets, but he went to see her.... He keeps coming over to Paris.... I +never see him.... I don't get a chance.... He cared, he did care.... +He's forgetting because I don't get a chance.... She's stealing him.... +She was always a selfish little cad, grabbing, and not really caring. +She can't care as I do, she's not made that way.... She cares for +nothing but herself.... She gets everything, just by sitting still and +not bothering.... College makes girls awful.... Peggy says men don't +like them, but they do. They seem not to care about men, but they care +just the same. They don't bother, but they get what they want.... +Pig.... Oh, I can't bear it. Why should I?... I love him, I love him, I +love him.... Oh, I must go to sleep. I shall go mad if I have another +night like last night.' + +Clare got out of bed, stumbled to the washstand, splashed her burning +head and face with cold water, then lay shivering. + +It may or may not be true that the power to love is to be found in the +human being in inverse ratio to the power to think. Probably it is not; +these generalisations seldom are. Anyhow, Clare, like many others, could +not understand, but loved. + + +6 + +Lady Pinkerton said to her lord next day, 'How much longer will the peace +take being made, Percy?' + +'My dear, I can't tell you. Even I don't know everything. There are many +little difficulties, which have to be smoothed down. Allies stand in a +curious and not altogether easy relation to one another.' + +'Italy, of course....' + +'And not only Italy, dearest.' + +'Of course, China is being very tiresome.' + +'Ah, if it were only China!' + +Lady Pinkerton sighed. + +'Well, it is all very sad. I do hope, Percy, that after this war we +English will never again forget that we hate _all_ foreigners.' + +'I hope not, my dear. I am afraid before the war I was +largely responsible for encouraging these fraternisations and +discriminations. A mistake, no doubt. But one which did credit to our +hearts. One must always remember about a great people like ourselves +that the heart leads.' + +'Thank God for that,' said Leila Yorke, illogically. Then Lady Pinkerton +added, 'But this peace takes too long.... I suppose a lasting and +righteous peace must ... Shall you have to be running to and fro like +this till it's signed, dear?' + +'To and fro, yes. I must keep an office going here.' + +'Jane is enjoying it,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'She sees a lot of Oliver +Hobart, I suppose, doesn't she?' + +'He's in and out, of course. He and the child get on better than +they used to.' + +'There is no doubt about that,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'If you don't know +it, Percy, I had better tell you. Men never see these things. He is +falling in love with her.' + +Lord Pinkerton fidgeted about the room. + +'Rilly. Rilly. Very amusing. You used to think it was Clare, dearest.' + +He cocked his head at her accusingly, convicting her of being a woman +of fancies. + +'Oh, you dear novelists!' he said, and shook a finger at her. + +'Nonsense, Percy. It is perfectly obvious. He used to be attracted by +Clare, and now he is attracted by Jane. Very strange: such different +types. But life _is_ strange, and particularly love. Oh, I don't say it's +love yet, but it's a strong attraction, and may easily lead to it. The +question is, are we to let it go on, or shall we head him back to Clare, +who has begun to care, I am afraid, poor child?' + +'Certainly head him back if you like and can, darling. I don't suppose +Babs wants him, anyhow.' + +'That is just it. If Jane did, I shouldn't interfere. Her happiness is +as dear to me as Clare's, naturally. But Jane is not susceptible; she +has a colder temperament; and she is often quite rude to Oliver Hobart. +Look how different their views about everything are. He and Clare agree +much better.' + +'Very well, mother. You're the doctor. I'll do my best not to throw them +together when next Hobart comes over. But we must leave the children to +settle their affairs for themselves. If he really wants fat little Babs +we can't stop him trying for her.' + +'Life is difficult,' Lady Pinkerton sighed. 'My poor little Clare is +looking like a wilted flower.' + +'Poor little girl. M'm yes. Poor little girl. Well, well, we'll see what +can be done.... I'll see if I can take Janet home for a bit, perhaps--get +her out of the way. She's very useful to me here, though. There are no +flies on Jane. She's got the Potter wits all right.' + +But Lady Pinkerton loved better Clare, who was like a flower, Clare, whom +she had created, Clare, who might have come--if any girl could have +come--out of a Leila Yorke novel. + +'I shall say a word to Jane,' Lady Pinkerton decided. 'Just to +sound her.' + +But, after all, it was Jane who said the word. She said it that evening, +in her cool, leisurely way. + +'Oliver Hobart asked me to marry him yesterday morning. I wrote to-day to +tell him I would.' + + +7 + +I append now the personal records of various people concerned in this +story. It seems the best way. + + + + +PART II: + +TOLD BY GIDEON + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPINNING + + +1 + +Nothing that I or anybody else did in the spring and summer of 1919 was +of the slightest importance. It ought to have been a time for great +enterprises and beginnings; but it emphatically wasn't. It was a queer, +inconclusive, lazy, muddled, reckless, unsatisfactory, rather ludicrous +time. It seemed as if the world was suffering from vertigo. I have seen +men who have been badly hit spinning round and round madly, like dancing +dervishes. That was, I think, what we were all doing for some time after +the war--spinning round and round, silly and dazed, without purpose or +power. At least the only purpose in evidence was the fierce quest of +enjoyment, and the only power that of successfully shirking facts. We +were like bankrupts, who cannot summon energy to begin life and work +again in earnest. And we were represented by the most comic parliament +that ever sat in Westminster, upon which it would be too painful here to +expatiate. + +One didn't know what had happened, or what was happening, or what was +going to happen. We had won the war. But what was that going to mean? +What were we going to get out of it? What did we want the new world to +be? What did we want this country to be? Every one shouted a different +answer. The December elections seemed to give one answer. But I don't +think it was a true one. The public didn't really want the England of +_John Bull_ and Pemberton Billing; they showed that later. + +A good many people, of course, wanted and want revolution and the +International. I don't, and never did. I hate red-flaggery, and all other +flaggery. The sentimentalism of Bob Smillie is as bad as the +sentimentalism of the Pinkerton press; as untruthful, as greedy, as +muddle-headed. Smillie's lot are out to get, and the Potterites out to +keep. The under-dog is more excusable in its aims, but its methods aren't +any more attractive. Juke can swallow it all. But Jukie has let his +naturally clear head get muddled by a mediaeval form of religion. +Religion is like love; it plays the devil with clear thinking. Juke +pretended not to hate even Smillie's interview with the coal dukes. He +applauded when Smillie quoted texts at them. Though I know, of course, +that that sort of thing is mainly a pose on Juke's part, because it +amuses him. Besides, one of the dukes was a cousin of his, who bored him, +so of course he was pleased. + +But those texts damned Smillie for ever in my eyes. He had those poor +imbeciles at his mercy--and he gave his whole case away by quoting +irrelevant remarks from ancient Hebrew writers. I wish I had had his +chance for ten minutes; I would have taken it. But the Labour people are +always giving themselves away with both hands to the enemy. I suppose +facts have hit them too hard, and so they shrink away from them--pad them +with sentiment, like uneducated women in villas. They all need--so do the +women--a legal training, to make their minds hard and clear and sharp. +So do journalists. Nearly the whole press is the same, dealing in +emotions and stunts, unable to face facts squarely, in a calm spirit. + +It seemed to some of us that spring that there was a chance for +unsentimental journalism in a new paper, that should be unhampered by +tradition. That was why the _Weekly Fact_ (unofficially called the +Anti-Potterite) was started. All the other papers had traditions; their +past principles dictated their future policy. The _Fact_ (except that it +was up against Potterism) was untrammelled; it was to judge of each issue +as it turned up, on its own merits, in the light of fact. That, of +course, was in itself the very essence of anti-Potterism, which was +incapable of judging or considering anything whatever, and whose only +light was a feeble emotionalism The light of fact was to Potterites but a +worse darkness. + +The _Fact_ wasn't to be labelled Liberal or Labour or Tory or Democratic +or anti-Democratic or anything at all. All these things were to vary +with the immediate occasions. I know it sounds like Lloyd George, but +there were at least two very important differences between the _Fact_ +and the Prime Minister. One was that the _Fact_ employed experts who +always made a very thorough and scientific investigation of every +subject it dealt with before it took up a line; it cared for the truth +and nothing but the truth. The other was that the _Fact_ took in nearly +every case the less popular side, not, of course, because it was less +popular (for to do that would have been one of the general principles of +which we tried to steer clear), but it so happened that we came to the +conclusion nearly always that the majority were wrong. The fact is that +majorities nearly always are. The heart of the people may be usually in +the right place (though, personally, I doubt this, for the heart of man +is corrupt) but their head can, in most cases, be relied on to be in the +wrong one. This is an important thing for statesmen to remember; +forgetfulness of it has often led to disaster; ignorance of it has +created Potterism as an official faith. + +Anyhow, the _Fact_ (again unlike the Prime Minister) could afford to +ignore the charges of flightiness and irresponsibility which, of course, +were flung at it. It could afford to ignore them because of the good and +solid excellence of its contents, and the reputations of many of its +contributors. And that, of course, was due to the fact that it had plenty +of money behind it. A great many people know who backs the _Fact_, but, +all the same, I cannot, of course, give away this information to the +public. I will only say that it started with such a good financial +backing that it was able to afford the best work, able even to afford the +truth. Most of the good weeklies, certainly, speak the truth as they see +it; they are, in fact, a very creditable section of our press; but the +idea of the _Fact_ was to be absolutely unbiased on each issue that +turned up by anything it had ever thought before. Of course, you may say +that a man will be likely, when a case comes before his eyes, to come to +the same conclusion about it that he came to about a similar case not +long before. But, as a matter of fact, it is surprising how some slight +difference in the circumstances of a case may, if a man keeps an open +mind, alter his whole judgment of it. The _Fact_ was a scientific, not a +sentimental paper. If our investigations led us into autocracy, we were +to follow them there; if to a soviet state, still we were to follow +them. And we might support autocracy in one state and soviets in another, +if it seemed suitable. Again this sounds like some of our more notorious +politicians--Carson, for instance; but the likeness is superficial. + + +2 + +We began in March. Peacock and I were the editors. We didn't, and don't, +always agree. Peacock, for instance, believes in democracy. Peacock also +accepts poetry; poetry about the war, by people like Johnny Potter. Every +one knows that school of poetry by heart now; of course it was +particularly fashionable immediately after the war. Johnny Potter did it +much like other men. Any one can do it. One takes some dirty, horrible +incident or sight of the battle-front and describes it in loathsome +detail, and then, by way of contrast, describes some fat and incredibly +bloodthirsty woman or middle-aged clubman at home, gloating over the +glorious war. I always thought it a great bore, and sentimental at that. +But it was the thing for a time, and people seemed to be impressed by it, +and Peacock, who encouraged young men, often to their detriment, would +take it for the _Fact_, though that sort of cheap and popular appeal to +sentiment was the last thing the _Fact_ was out for. + +Johnny Potter, like other people, was merely exploiting his experiences. +Johnny would. He's a nice chap, and a cleverish chap, in the shrewd, +unimaginative Potter way--Jane's way, too--only she's a shade +cleverer--but chiefly he's determined to get there somehow. That's +Potter, again. And that's where Jane and Johnny amuse me. They're up +against what we agreed to call Potterism--the Potterism, that is, of +second-rate sentimentalism and cheap short-cuts and mediocrity; they +stand for brain and clear thinking against muddle and cant; but they're +fighting it with Potterite weapons--self-interest, following things for +what they bring them rather than for the things in themselves. John would +never write the particular kind of stuff he does for the love of writing +it; he'll only do it because it's the stunt of the moment. That's why +he'll never be more than cleverish and mediocre, never the real thing. In +his calm, unexcited way, he worships success, and he'll get it, like old +Pinkerton. Though of course he's met plenty of the bloodthirsty +non-combatants he writes about, he takes most of what he says about them +second-hand from other people. It's not first-hand observation. If it +was, he would have to include among his jingoes and Hun-haters some +fighting men too. I know it's entirely against popular convention to say +so, but some of the most bloodthirsty fire-eaters I met during the war +were among the fighting men. Of course there were plenty of them at home +too, and plenty of peaceable and civilised people at the front, but it's +the most absurd perversion of facts to make out that all our combatants +were full of sweet reasonableness (any one who knows anything about the +psychological effects of fighting will know that this is improbable), and +all our non-combatants bloody-minded savages. Though I don't say there's +nothing in the theory one heard that the natural war rage of +non-combatants, not having the physical outlet the fighters had for +theirs, became in some few of them a suppressed Freudian complex and +made them a little insane. I don't know. Anyhow to say this became the +stunt among a certain section, so it was probably as inaccurate as +popular sayings usually are; as inaccurate as the picture drawn by +another section--the Potter press section--of an army going rejoicing +into the fight for right. + +What one specially resented was the way the men who had been killed, poor +devils, were exploited by the makers of speeches and the writers of +articles. First, they'd perhaps be called 'the fallen,' instead of 'the +killed' (it's a queer thing how 'fallen,' in the masculine means killed +in the war, and the feminine given over to a particular kind of vice), +and then the audience, or the readers, would be told that they died for +democracy, or a cleaner world, when very likely many of them hated the +first and never gave an hour's thought to the second. I could imagine +their indignant presences in the Albert Hall at Gray's big League of +Nations meeting in May, listening to Clynes's reasons why they died. I +can hear dear old Peter Clancy on why he died. 'Democracy? A cleaner +world? No. Why? I suppose I died because I inadvertently got in the way +of some flying missile; I know no other reason. And I suppose I was there +to get in its way because it's part of belonging to a nation to fight its +battles when required--like paying its taxes or keeping its laws. Why go +groping for far-fetched reason? Who wants democracy, any old way? And the +world was good enough for me as it was, thank you. No, of course it isn't +clean, and never will be; but no war is going to make it cleaner. It's +not a way wars have. These talkers make me sick.' + +If Clancy--the thousands of Clancys--could have been there, I think that +is the sort of thing they would have been saying. Anyhow, personally, I +certainly didn't lose my foot for democracy or for a cleaner world. I +lost it in helping to win the war--a quite necessary thing in the +circumstances. + +But every one seemed, during and after the war, to want to prove that +the fighters thought in the particular way they thought themselves; +they seemed to think it immeasurably strengthened their case. Heaven +only knows why, when the fighting men were just the men who hadn't time +or leisure to think at all. They were, as the Potterites put it so +truly, doing the job. The thinking, such as it was, was done by the +people at home--the politicians, the clergy, the writers, the women, +the men with 'A' certificates in Government offices; and precious poor +thinking it was, too. + + +3 + +We all settled down to life and work again, as best we could. Johnny +Potter went into a publisher's office, and also got odd jobs of reviewing +and journalism, besides writing war verse and poetry of passion (of which +confusing if attractive subject, he really knew little). Juke was +demobilised early too, commenced clergyman again, got a job as curate in +a central London parish, and lived in rooms in a slummy street. He and I +saw a good deal of each other. + +One day in March, Juke and I were lunching together at the 1917 Club, +when Johnny came in and joined us. He looked rather queer, and amused +too. He didn't tell us anything till we were having coffee. Then Juke or +I said, 'How's Jane getting on in Paris? Not bored yet?' + +Johnny said, 'I should say not. She's been and gone and done it. She's +got engaged to Hobart. I heard from the mater this morning.' + +I don't think either of us spoke for a moment. Then Juke gave a long +whistle, and said, 'Good Lord!' + +'Exactly,' said Johnny, and grinned. + +'It's no laughing matter,' said Juke blandly. 'Jane is imperilling her +immortal soul. She is yoking together with an unbeliever; she is forming +an unholy alliance with mammon. We must stop it.' + +'Stop Jane,' said Johnny. 'You might as well try and stop a young tank.' + +He meditated for a moment. + +'The funny thing is,' he added, 'that we all thought it was Clare he +was after.' + +'Now that,' Juke said judicially, 'would have been all right. Your elder +sister could have had Hobart and the _Daily Haste_ without betraying her +principles. But _Jane_--Jane, the anti-Potterite ... I say, why is she +doing it?' + +Johnny drew a letter from his pocket and consulted it. + +'The mater doesn't say. ... I suppose the usual reasons. Why do people +do it? I don't; nor do you; nor does Gideon. So we can't explain. ... I +didn't think Jane would do it either; it always seemed more in Clare's +line, somehow. Jane and I always thought Clare would marry, she's the +sort. Feminine and all that, you know. Upon my word, I thought Jane was +too much of a sportsman to go tying herself up with husbands and babies +and servants and things. What the devil will happen to all she meant to +_do_--writing, public speaking, and all the rest of it? I suppose a +girl can carry on to a certain extent, though, even if she is married, +can't she?' + +'Jane will,' I said. 'Jane won't give up anything she wants to do for a +trifle like marriage.' I was sure of that. + +'I believe you're right,' Johnny agreed. 'But it will be jolly awkward +being married to Hobart and writing in the anti-Potter press.' + +'She'll write for the _Daily Haste_,' Juke said. 'She'll make Hobart give +her a job on it. Having begun to go down the steep descent, she won't +stop till she gets to the bottom. Jane's thorough.' + +But that was precisely what I didn't think Jane was. She is, on the +other hand, given to making something good out of as many worlds as she +can simultaneously. Martyrs and Irishmen, fanatics and Juke, are +thorough; not Jane. + +We couldn't stay gossiping over the engagement any longer, so we left it +at that. The man lunching at the next table might have concluded that +Johnny's sister had got engaged to a scoundrel, instead of to the +talented, promising, and highly virtuous young editor of a popular daily +paper. Being another member of the 1917, I dare say he understood. + +But no one had tried to answer Juke's question, 'Why is she doing it?' +Johnny had supposed 'for the usual reasons.' That opens a probably +unanswerable question. What the devil _are_ the usual reasons? + + +4 + +I met Lady Pinkerton and her elder daughter in the muzzle department of +the Army and Navy Stores the next week. That was one of the annoying +aspects of the muzzling order; one met in muzzle shops people with whom +neither temperament nor circumstances would otherwise have thrown one. + +I have a particular dislike for Lady Pinkerton, and she for me. I hate +those cold, shallow eyes, and clothes drenched in scent, and basilisk +pink faces whitened with powder which such women have or develop. When I +look at her I think of all her frightful books, and the frightful serial +she has even now running in the _Pink Pictorial_, and I shudder +(unobtrusively, I hope), and look, away. When she looks at me, she thinks +'dirty Jew,' and she shudders (unobtrusively, too), and looks over my +head. She did so now, no doubt, as she bowed. + +'Dreadfully tahsome, this muzzling order,' she said, originally. 'We have +two Pekingese, a King Charles, and a pug, and their poor little faces +don't fit any muzzle that's made.' + +I answered with some inanity about my mother's Poltalloch, and we talked +for a moment. She said she hoped I was quite all right again, and I +suppose I said I was, with my leg shooting like a gathered tooth (it was +pretty bad all that spring). + +Suddenly I felt her wanting badly to tell me the news about Jane. She +wanted to tell me because she thought she would be scoring off me, +knowing that what she would call my 'influence' over Jane had always been +used against all that Hobart stands for. I felt her longing to throw me +the triumphant morsel of news--'Jane has deserted you and all your +tiresome, conceited, disturbing clique, and is going to marry the +promising young editor of her father's chief paper.' But something +restrained her. I caught the advance and retreat of her intention, and +connected it with her daughter, who stood by her, silent, with an absurd +Pekingese in her arms. + +Anyhow, Lady Pinkerton held in her news, and I left them. I dislike +Lady Pinkerton, as I have said; but on this occasion I disliked her a +little less than usual, for that maternal instinct which had robbed her +of her triumph. + + +5 + +I went to see Katherine Varick that evening. I often do when I have been +meeting women like Lady Pinkerton, because there is a danger that that +kind of woman, so common and in a sense so typical, may get to bulk too +large in one's view of women, and lead one into the sin of +generalisation. So many women are such very dreadful fools--men too, for +that matter, but more women--that one needs to keep in pretty frequent +touch with those who aren't, with the women whose brains, by nature and +training, grip and hold. Of these, Katherine Varick has as fine and keen +a mind and as good a head as any I know. She isn't touched anywhere with +Potterism; she has the scientific temperament. Katherine and I are great +friends. From the first she did a good deal of work for the +_Fact_--reviews of scientific books, mostly. I went to see her, to get +the taste of Lady Pinkerton out of my mouth. + +I found her doing something with test-tubes and bottles--some experiment +with carbohydrates, I think it was. I watched her till she was through +with it, then we talked. That is the way one puts it, but as a matter of +fact Katherine seldom does much of the talking; one talks to her. She +listens, and puts in from time to time some critical comment that often +extraordinarily clears up any subject one is talking round. She +contributes as much as any one I know to the conversation, but in such +condensed tabloids that it doesn't take her long. Most things don't seem +to her to be worth saying. She'll let, for instance, a chatterbox like +Juke say a hundred words to her one, and still she'll get most said, +though Jukie's not a vapid talker either. + +'Jane,' she told me, 'is coming back next week. The marriage is to be at +the end of April.' + +'A rapidity worthy of the Hustling Press. Jukie will be sorry. He hopes +yet to wrest her as a brand from the burning.' + +Katherine smiled at Juke's characteristic sanguineness. + +'Jukie won't do that. If Jane means to do a thing she does it. Jane knows +what she wants.' + +'And she wants Hobart?' I pondered it, turning it over, still puzzled. + +'She wants Hobart,' Katherine agreed. 'And all that Hobart will let +her in to.' + +'The _Daily Haste_? The society of the Pinkerton journalists?' + +'And of a number of other people. Some of them fairly important people, +you know. The editor of the _Daily Haste_ has to transact business with a +good many notorious persons, no doubt. That would amuse Jane. She's all +for life. I dare say the wife of the editor of the _Haste_ has a pretty +good front window for the show. Jane likes playing about with people, as +you like playing with ideas, and I with chemicals.... Besides, beauty +counts with Jane. It does with every one. She's probably fallen in love.' + +That was all we said about it. We talked for the rest of the evening +about the _Fact_. + + +6 + +But when I went to Jane's wedding, I understood about the 'number of +other people' that Hobart let Jane in to. They had been married that +afternoon by the Registrar, Jane having withstood the pressure of her +parents, who preferred weddings to be in churches. Hobart didn't much +care; he was, he said, a Presbyterian by upbringing, but sat loosely to +it, and didn't care for fussy weddings. Jane frankly disbelieved in what +she called 'all that sort of thing.' So they went before the Registrar, +and gave a party in the evening at the Carlton. + +We all went, even Juke, who had failed to snatch Jane from the burning. I +don't know that it was a much queerer party than other wedding parties, +which are apt to be an ill-assorted mixture of the bridegroom's circle +and the bride's. And, except for Jane's own personal friends, these two +circles largely overlapped in this case. The room was full of +journalists, important and unimportant, business people, literary people, +and a few politicians of the same colour as the Pinkerton press. There +were a lot of dreadful women, who, I supposed, were Lady Pinkerton's +friends (probably literary women; one of them was introduced to Juke as +'the editress of _Forget-me-not_'), and a lot of vulgar men, many of whom +looked like profiteers. But, besides all these, there were undoubtedly +interesting people and people of importance. And I realised that the +editor of the _Haste_, like the other editors of important papers, must, +of necessity, as Katherine had said, have a lot to do with such people. + +And there, in the middle of a group of journalists, was Jane; Jane, in a +square-cut, high-waisted, dead white frock, with her firm, round, young +shoulders and arms, and her firm, round, young face, and her dark hair +cut across her broad white forehead, parted a little like a child's, at +one side, and falling thick and straight round her neck like a mediaeval +page's. She wore a long string of big amber beads--Hobart's present--and +a golden girdle round her high, sturdy waist. + +I saw Jane in a sense newly that evening, not having seen her for some +time. And I saw her again as I had often seen her in the past--a greedy, +lazy, spoilt child, determined to take and keep the best out of life, +and, if possible, pay nothing for it. A profiteer, as much as the fat +little match manufacturer, her uncle, who was talking to Hobart, and in +whom I saw a resemblance to the twins. And I saw too Jane's queer, lazy, +casual charm, that had caught and held Hobart and weaned him from the +feminine graces and obviousnesses of Clare. + +Hobart stood near Jane, quiet and agreeable and good-looking. A +second-rate chap, running a third-rate paper. Jane had married him, for +all her clear-headed intellectual scorn of the second-rate, because she +was second-rate herself, and didn't really care. + +And there was little Pinkerton chatting with Northcliffe, his rival and +friend, and Lady Pinkerton boring a high Foreign Office official very +nearly to yawns, and Clare Potter, flushed and gallantly gay, flitting +about from person to person (Clare was always restless; she had none of +Jane's phlegm and stolidity), and Johnny, putting in a fairly amusing +time with his own friends and acquaintances, and Frank Potter talking +to Juke about his new parish. Frank, discontented all the war because +he couldn't get out to France without paying the price that Juke had +paid, was satisfied with life for the moment, having just been given a +fashionable and rich London living, where many hundreds weekly sat +under him and heard him preach. Juke wasn't the member of that crowd I +should personally have selected to discuss fashionable and overpaid +livings with, had I just accepted one, but they were the only two +parsons in the room, so I suppose Potter thought it appropriate, I +overheard pleased fragments such as 'Twenty thousand communicants ... +only standing-room at Sunday evensong,' which indicated that the new +parish was a great success. + +'That poor chap,' Jukie said to me afterwards. 'He's in a wretched +position. He has to profess Christianity, and he doesn't want even to try +to live up to it. At least, whenever he has a flash of desire to, that +atheist wife of his puts it out. She's the worst sort of atheist--the +sort that says her prayers regularly. Why are parsons allowed to marry? +Or if they must, why can't their wives be chosen for them by a special +board? And what, in Heaven's name, came over a Potter that he should take +Orders? The fight between Potterism and Christianity--it's the funniest +spectacle--and the saddest....' + +But Juke on Christianity always leaves me cold. The nation to which I (on +one side) belong can't be expected to look at Christianity +impartially--we have suffered too much at the hands of Christians. Juke +and the other hopeful and ardent members of his Church may be able to +separate Christianity from Christians, and not judge the one by the +other; but I can't. The fact that Christendom is what it is has always +disposed of Christianity as a working force, to my mind. Judaism is +detestable, but efficient; Christianity is well-meaning but a failure. +As, of course, parsons like Juke would be and are the first to admit. +They say it aims so high that it's bound to fail, which is probably true. +But that makes it pretty useless as a working human religion. Anyhow, I +quite agree with Juke that it is comic to see poor little nonentities +like Frank Potter caught in it, tangled up in it, and trying to get free +and carry on as though it wasn't there. + +Of course, nearly all the rest of that crowd at Jane's wedding was +carrying on as if Christianity weren't there without the least trouble or +struggle. They were quite right; it wasn't there. Nothing was there, for +most of them, but self-interest and personal desire. We were, the lot of +us, out to make--to grab and keep and enjoy. Nothing else counted. What +could Christianity do, a frail, tilting, crusading St. George, up against +the monster dragon Grab, who held us all in his coils? It's no use, +Jukie; it never was and never will be any use. + +I suddenly grew very tired of that party. It seemed a monster meeting of +Potterites at play--mediocrity, second-rateness, humbug, muddle, cant, +cheap stunts--the room was full of it all. + +I went across to Jane to say good-bye. I had scarcely spoken to her yet. +I had never congratulated her on her engagement, but Jane wouldn't mind +about that or expect me to. + +All I could say now was, 'I'm afraid I've got to get back. I've some +work waiting.' + +She said, 'Is it any use my sending you anything for the _Fact_? + +'From the enemy's camp?' I smiled at her. She smiled too. + +'I've not ratted, you know. I'm still an A.P. I shall come on the next +tour of investigation, whenever that is.' + +'Shall you write for the _Haste_?' I asked her. + +'Sometimes, I expect. Oliver says he can get me some of the reviewing. +And occasional non-controversial articles. But I don't want to be tied up +with it; I want to write for other papers too.... You take Johnny's +poetry, I observe.' + +'Sometimes. That's Peacock's fault, not mine. ... Send along anything +you think may suit, by all means, and we'll consider it. You'll most +likely get it back--if you remember to enclose a stamped envelope. +... Good-night, and thank you for asking me to your party. +Good-night, Hobart.' + +I said good-bye to Lady Pinkerton, and went back to the _Fact_ office, +for it was press night. + +So Jane got married. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DINING WITH THE HOBARTS + + +1 + +That May was very hot. One sweltered in offices, streets, and underground +trains. You don't expect this kind of weather in early May, which is +usually a time of bitter frosts and biting winds, punctuated by +thunderstorms. It told on one's nerves. One got sick of work and people. +I quarrelled all round; with Peacock about the paper, with my typist +about her punctuation, with my family about my sister's engagement. +Rosalind (that was the good old English name they had given her) had been +brought up, like myself, in the odour of public school and Oxford +Anglicanism (she had been at Lady Margaret Hall). My father had grown up +from his early youth most resolutely English, and had married the +daughter of a rich Manchester cotton manufacturer. Their two children, +Sidneys from birth, were to ignore the unhappy Yiddish strain that was +branded like a deep disgrace into their father's earliest experience. It +was unlucky for my parents that both Rosalind and I reverted to type. +Rosalind was very lovely, very clever, and unmistakably a Jewess. At +Roedean she pretended she wasn't; who wouldn't? She was still there when +I came of age and became Gideon, so she didn't join me in that. But when +she left school and went up to Oxford, she began to develop and expand +mentally, and took her own line, and by the time she was twenty she was, +as I never was, a red-hot nationalist. We were neither of us ever +inclined to Judaism in religion; we shook off the misfit of Anglicanism +at an early age (we both refused at fifteen to be confirmed), but didn't +take to our national faith, which we both disliked extremely. Nor did we +like most of our fellow Jews; I think as a race we are narrow, cowardly, +avaricious, and mean-spirited, and Rosalind thinks we are oily. (She and +I aren't oily, by the way; we are both the lean kind, perhaps because, +after all, we are half English). I only reverted to our original name +because I was sickened of the Sidney humbug. But we learnt Yiddish, and +read Hebrew literature, and discussed repatriation, and maintained that +the Jews were the brains of the world. It was a cross to our parents. But +far more bitter to them than even my change of name was Rosalind's +engagement, this spring of 1919, to Boris Stefan. Boris had been living +and painting in London for some years; his home had been in Moscow; he +had barely escaped with his life from a pogrom in 1912, and had since +then lived in England. He had served in the war, belonged to several +secret societies of a harmless sort, painted pictures that had attracted +a good deal of critical notice, and professed Bolshevik sympathies, of a +purely academic nature (as so many of these sympathies are) on the +grounds that Bolshevism was a Jewish movement. He and I differed on the +subject of Bolshevism. I have never seen any signs either of constructive +ability or sound principles in any Bolshevik leader; nothing but +enterprise, driving-power, vindictiveness, Hebrew cunning, and a criminal +ruthlessness. They're not statesmen. And Bolshevism, as so far +manifested, isn't a statesmanlike system; it holds the reins too tight. I +don't condemn it for the cruelties committed in its name, because +whenever Russians get excited there'll be fiendish cruelties; Russians +are like that--the most cruel devils in earth or hell. Bolshevist +Russians are no worse in that way than Czarist Russians. Except when I am +listening to their music I loathe the whole race; great stupid, brutal, +immoral, sentimental savages.... When I think of them I feel a kind of +nausea, oddly touched with fear, that must be hereditary, I suppose. +After all, my father, as a child of five, saw his mother outraged and +murdered by Russian police. Anyhow, Bolshevism, in Russian hands, has +become a kind of stupid, crazy, devil's game, as everything always has. + +But I don't want to discuss Bolshevism here. Boris Stefan hadn't really +anything to do with it. He wasn't a politician. He was a dreamy, simple, +untidy, rather childlike person, with a wonderful gift for painting. +Rosalind and I had got to know him at the Club. They were both beautiful, +and it hadn't taken them long to fall in love. One Russian-Jewish exile +marrying another--that was the bitterness of it to our very Gentile +mother and our Sidneyfied father, who had spent fifty years living down +his origin. + +So I was called in to assist in averting the catastrophe. I wouldn't say +anything except that it seemed very suitable, and that annoyed my mother. +I remember that she and I and Rosalind argued round and round it for an +hour one hot evening in the drawing-room at Queen's Gate. Finally my +mother said, 'Oh, very well. If Rosalind wants a lot of fat Yid babies +with hooked noses and oily hair, all lending money on usury instead of +getting into debt like Christians, let her have them. I wash my hands of +the lot of you. I don't know what I've done to deserve two Sheenies for +children.' + +That made Rosalind giggle, and eased the acrimony of the discussion. My +mother was a little fair woman, sharp-tongued and quick-tempered, but +with a sense of fun. + +My father had no sense of fun. I think it had been crushed out of him in +his cradle. He was a silent man (though he could, like all Jews, be +eloquent), with a thin face and melancholy dark eyes. I am supposed to +look like him, I believe. He, too, spoke to me that evening about +Rosalind's engagement. I remember how he walked up and down the +dining-room, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, and his +quick, nervous, jerky movements. + +'I don't like it, Arthur. I feel as if we had all climbed up out of a +very horrible pit into a place of safety and prosperity and honour, and +as if the child was preparing to leap down into the pit again. She +doesn't know what it's like to be a Jew. I do, and I've saved you both +from it, and you both seem bent on returning to the pit whence you were +digged. We're an outcast people, my dear; an outcast people....' + +His black eyes were haunted by memories of old fears; the fears his +ancestors had had in them, listening behind frail locked doors for the +howl 'Down with the Jews!' The fears that had been branded by savages +into his own infant consciousness half a century ago; the fears seared +later into the soul of a boy by boyish savages at an English school; the +fears of the grown man, always hiding something, always pretending, +always afraid.... + +I discovered then--and this is why I am recording this family incident +here, why it connects with the rest of my life at this time--that +Potterism has, for one of its surest bases, fear. The other bases are +ignorance, vulgarity, mental laziness, sentimentality, and greed. The +ignorance which does not know facts; the vulgarity which cannot +appreciate values; the laziness which will not try to learn either of +these things; the sentimentality which, knowing neither, is stirred by +the valueless and the untrue; the greed which grabs and exploits. But +fear is worst; the fear of public opinion, the fear of scandal, the fear +of independent thought, of loss of position, of discomfort, of +consequences, of truth. + +My poor parents were afraid of social damage to their child; afraid lest +she should be mixed up with something low, outcast, suspected. Not all my +father's intellectual brilliance, nor all my mother's native wit, could +save them from this pathetic, vulgar, ignorant piece of snobbery. +Pathetic, vulgar, and ignorant, because, if they had only known it, +Rosalind stood to lose nothing she cared for by allying herself with a +Jewish painter of revolutionary theories. Not a single person whose +friendship she cared for but would be as much her friend as before. She +had nothing to do with the _bourgeoisie_, bristling with prejudices and +social snobberies, who made, for instance, my mother's world. And that is +what one generation should always try to understand about another--how +little (probably) each cares for the other's world. + +Of course, Rosalind married Boris Stefan. And, as I have said, the +whole incident is only mentioned to illustrate how Potterism lurks in +secret places, and flaunts in open places, pervading the whole fabric +of human society. + + +2 + +Peace with Germany was signed, as every one knows, on June 28th. Nearly +every one crabbed it, of course, the _Fact_ with the rest. I have no +doubt that it did, as Garvin put it, sow dragon's teeth over Europe. It +certainly seemed a poor, unconstructive, expensive, brittle thing enough. +But I am inclined to think that nearly all peace treaties are pretty bad. +You have to have them, however, and you may as well make the best of +them. Anyhow, bad peace as it looked, at least it _was_ peace, and that +was something new and unusual. And I confess frankly that it has, so far, +held together longer than I, for one, ever expected it would. (I am +writing this in January, 1920). + +The _Fact_ published a cheery series of articles, dealing with each +clause in turn, and explaining why it was bound to lead, immediately or +ultimately, to war with some one or other. I wrote some of them myself. +But I was out on some points, though most haven't had time yet to prove +themselves. + +'Now,' said Jane, the day after the signature, 'I suppose we can get on +with the things that matter.' + +She meant housing, demobilisation, proportional representation, health +questions, and all the good objects which the Society for Equal +Citizenship had at heart. She had been writing some articles in the +_Daily Haste_ on these. They were well-informed and intelligent, but not +expert enough for the _Fact_. And that, as I began to see, was partly +where Hobart came in. Jane wrote cleverly, clearly, and concisely--better +than Johnny did. But, in these days of overcrowded competent journalism +--well, it is not unwise to marry an editor of standing. It gives you a +better place in the queue. + +I dined at the Hobarts' on June 29th, for the first time since their +marriage. We were a party of six. Katherine Varick was there, and a +distinguished member of the American Legation and his wife. + +Jane handled her parties competently, as she did other things. A vivid, +jolly child she looked, in love with life and the fun and importance of +her new position. The bachelor girl or man just married is an amusing +study to me. Especially the girl, with her new responsibilities, her new +and more significant relation to life and society. Later she is sadly apt +to become dull, to have her individuality merged in the eternal type of +the matron and the mother; her intellect is apt to lose its edge, her +mind its grip. It is the sacrifice paid by the individual to the race. +But at first she is often a delightful combination of keen-witted, jolly +girl and responsible woman. + +We talked, I remember, partly about the Government, and how soon +Northcliffe would succeed in turning it out. The Pinkerton press was +giving its support to the Government. The _Weekly Fact_ was not. But we +didn't want them out at once; we wanted to keep them on until some one of +constructive ability, in any party, was ready to take the reins. The +trouble about the Labour people was that so far there was no one of +constructive ability; they were manifestly unready. They had no one good +enough. No party had. It was the old problem, never acuter, of 'Produce +the Man.' If Labour was to produce him, I suspected that it would take it +at least a generation of hard political training and education. If Labour +had got in then, it would have been a mob of uneducated and uninformed +sentimentalists, led and used by a few trained politicians who knew the +tricks of the trade. It would be far better for them to wait till the +present generation of honest mediocrities died out, and a new and +differently educated generation were ready to take hold. +University-trained Labour--that bugbear of Barnes'--if there is any hope +for the British Constitution, which probably there is not, I believe it +lies there. It is a very small one, at the best. Anyhow, it certainly did +not, at this period, lie in the parliamentary Labour Party, that body of +incompetents in an incompetent House. + +It was in discussing this that I discovered that Hobart couldn't discuss. +He could talk; he could assert, produce opinions and information, but he +couldn't meet or answer arguments. And he was cautious, afraid of +committing himself, afraid, I fancied, of exposing gulfs in his equipment +of information, for, like other journalists of his type, his habit was to +write about things of which he knew little. Old Pinkerton remarked once, +at a dinner to American newspaper men, that his own idea of a good +journalist was a man who could sit down at any moment and write a column +on any subject. The American newspaper men cheered this; it was their +idea of a good journalist too. It is an amusing game, and one encouraged +by the Anti-Potterite League, to waylay leader-writers and tackle them +about their leaders, turn them inside out and show how empty they are. +I've written that sort of leader myself, of course, but not for the +_Fact_; we don't allow it. There, the man who writes is the man who +knows, and till some one knows no one writes. That is why some people +call us dry, heavy, lacking in ideas, and say we are like a Blue Book, or +a paper read to the British Association. We are proud of that +reputation. The Pinkerton papers and the others can supply the ideas; we +are out for facts. + +Anyhow, Hobart I knew for an ignorant person. All he had was a _flair_ +for the popular point of view. That was why Pinkerton who knew men, got +hold of him. He was a true Potterite. Possibly I always saw him at his +least eloquent and his most cautious, because he didn't like me and knew +I didn't like him. Even then there had already been one or two rather +acrimonious disputes between my paper and his on points of fact. The +_Daily Haste_ hated being pinned down to and quarrelled with about facts; +facts didn't seem to the Pinkerton press things worth quarrelling over, +like policy, principles, or prejudices. The story goes that when any one +told old Pinkerton he was wrong about something, he would point to his +vast circulation, using it as an argument that he couldn't be mistaken. +If you still pressed and proved your point, he would again refer to his +circulation, but using it this time as an indication of how little it +mattered whether his facts were right or wrong. Some one once said to him +curiously, 'Don't you _care_ that you are misleading so many millions?' +To which he replied, in his dry little voice, 'I don't lead, or mislead, +the millions. They lead me.' Little Pinkerton sometimes saw a long way +farther into what he was doing than you'd guess from his shoddy press. He +had queer flashes of genius. + +But Hobart hadn't. Hobart didn't see anything, except what he was +officially paid to see. A shallow, solemn ass. + +I looked suddenly at Jane, and caught her watching her husband silently, +with her considering, dispassionate look. He was talking to the American +Legation about the traffic strike (we were a round table, and the talk +was general). + +Then I knew that, whether Jane had ever been in love with Hobart or not, +she was not so now. I knew further, or thought I knew, that she saw him +precisely as I did. + +Of course she didn't. His beauty came in--it always does, between men and +women, confusing the issues--and her special relation to him, and a +hundred other things. The relation between husband and wife is too close +and too complex for clear thinking. It seems always to lead either to too +much regard or to an excess of irritation, and often to both. + +Jane looked away from Hobart, and met my eyes watching her. Her +expression didn't alter, nor, probably, did mine. But something passed +between us; some unacknowledged mutual understanding held us together for +an instant. It was unconscious on Jane's part and involuntary on mine. +She hadn't meant to think over her husband with me; I hadn't meant to +push in. Jane wasn't loyal, and I wasn't well-bred, but we neither of us +meant that. + +I hardly talked to Jane that evening. She was talking after dinner to +Katherine and the American Legation. I had a three-cornered conversation +with Hobart and the Legation's wife, who was of an inquiring turn of +mind, like all of her race, and asked us exhausting questions. She got on +to the Jewish question, and asked us for our views on the reasons for +anti-Semitism in Europe. + +'I've been reading the _New Witness_,' she said. + +I told her she couldn't do better, if she was investigating +anti-Semitism. + +'But are they fair?' she asked ingenuously. + +I replied that there were moments in which I had a horrible suspicion +that they were. + +'Then the Jews are really a huge conspiracy plotting to get the finances +of Europe into their hands?' Her eyes, round and shocked, turned from me +to Hobart. + +He lightly waved her to me. + +'You must ask Mr. Gideon. The children of Israel are his speciality.' + +His dislike of me gleamed in his blue eyes and in his supercilious, cold +smile. The Legation's wife (no fool) must have seen it. + +I went on talking rubbish to her about the Jews and the finances of +Europe. I don't remember what particular rubbish it was, for I was hardly +aware of it at the time. What I was vividly and intensely and quite +suddenly aware of was that I was on fire with the same anger, dislike, +and contempt that burned in Hobart towards me. I knew that evening that I +hated him, even though I was sitting in his house and smoking his +cigarettes. I wanted to be savagely rude to him. I think that once or +twice I came very near to being so. + +Katherine and I went home by the same bus. I grumbled to her about +Hobart all the way. I couldn't help it; the fellow seemed suddenly to +have become a nervous disease to me; I was mentally wriggling and +quivering with him. + +Katherine laughed presently, in that queer, silent way of hers. + +'Why worry?' she said. '_You've_ not married him.' + +'Well, what's marriage?' I returned. 'He's a public danger--he and +his kind.' + +Katherine said truly, 'There are so many public dangers. There really +isn't time to get agitated about them all.' Her mind seemed still to be +running on marriage, for she added presently, 'I think he'll find that +he's bitten off rather more than he can chew, in Jane.' + +'Jane can go to the devil in her own way,' I said, for I was angry with +Jane too. 'She's married a second-rate fellow for what she thinks he'll +bring her. I dare say she has her reward.... Katherine, I believe that's +the very essence of Potterism--going for things for what they'll bring +you, what they lead to, instead of for the thing-in-itself. Artists care +for the thing-in-itself; Potterites regard things as railway trains, +always going somewhere, getting somewhere. Artists, students, and the +religious--they have the single eye. It's the opposite to the commercial +outlook. Artists will look at a little fishing town or country village, +and find it a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and leave it to +itself--unless they yield to the devil and paint it or write about it. +Potterites will exploit it, commercialise it, bring the railway to +it--and the thing is spoilt. Oh, the Potterites get there all right, +confound them. They're the progressives of the world. They--they have +their reward.' + +(It's a queer thing how Jews can't help quoting the New Testament--even +Jews without religion.) + +'We seem to have decided,' Katherine said, 'that Jane is a Potterite.' + +'Morally she is. Not intellectually. You can be a Potterite in many ways. +Jane accepts the second-rate, though she recognises it as such.... The +plain fact is,' I was in a fit of savage truth-speaking, 'that Jane is +second-rate.' + +'Well ...' + +The gesture of Katherine's square shoulders may have meant several +things--'Aren't we all?' or 'Surely that's very obvious,' or 'I can't be +bothered to consider Jane any more,' or merely 'After all, we've just +dined there.' + +Anyhow, Katherine got off the bus at this point. + +I was left repeating to myself, as if it had been a new discovery, which +it wasn't, 'Jane is second-rate....' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SEEING JANE + + +1 + +Jane was taking the chair at a meeting of a section of the Society for +Equal Citizenship. The speakers were all girls under thirty who wanted +votes. They spoke rather well. They weren't old enough to have become +sentimental, and they were mostly past the conventional cliches of the +earlier twenties. In extreme youth one has to be second-hand; one doesn't +know enough, one hasn't lived or learnt enough, to be first-hand; and one +lacks self-confidence. But by five or six-and-twenty one should have left +that behind. One should know what one thinks and what one means, and be +able to state it in clear terms. That is what these girls--mostly +University girls--did. + +Jane left the chair and spoke too. + +I hadn't known Jane spoke so well. She has a clever, coherent way of +making her points, and is concise in reply if questioned, quick at +repartee if heckled. + +Lady Pinkerton was sitting in the row in front of Juke and me. Mother and +daughter. It was very queer to me. That wordy, willowy fool, and the +sturdy, hard-headed girl in the chair, with her crisp, gripping mind. Yet +there was something.... They both loved success. Perhaps that was it. The +vulgarian touch. I felt it the more clearly in them because of Juke at +my side. And yet Jukie too ... Only he would always be awake to it--on +his guard, not capitulating. + + +2 + +Jane came round with me after the meeting to the _Fact_ office, to go +through some stuff she was writing for us about the meeting. She had to +come then, though it was late, because next day was press day. We hadn't +been there ten minutes when Hobart's name was sent in, with the message +that he was just going home, and was Mrs. Hobart ready to come? + +'Well, I'm not,' said Jane to me. 'I shall be quite ten minutes more. +I'll go and tell him.' + +She went outside and called down, 'Go on, Oliver. I shall be some +time yet.' + +'I'll wait,' he called up, and Jane came back into the room. + +We went on for quite ten minutes. + +When we went down, Hobart was standing by the front door, waiting. + +'How did you track me?' Jane asked. + +'Your mother told me where you'd gone. She called at the _Haste_ on her +way home. Good-night, Gideon.' + +They went out together, and I returned to the office, irritated a little +by being hurried. It was just like Lady Pinkerton, I thought, to have +gone round to Hobart inciting him to drag Jane from my office. There had +been coldness, if not annoyance, in Hobart's manner to me. + +Well, confound him, it wasn't to be expected that he should much care +for his wife to write for the _Fact_. But he might mind his own business +and leave Jane to mind hers, I thought. + +Peacock came in at this point, and we worked till midnight. + +Peacock opened a parcel of review books from Hubert Wilkins--all tripe, +of course. He turned them over, impatiently. + +'What fools the fellows are to go on sending us their rubbish. They +might have learnt by now that we never take any notice of them,' he +grumbled. He picked out one with a brilliant wrapper--'_A Cabinet +Minister's Wife_, by Leila Yorke.... That woman needs a lesson, +Gideon. She's a public nuisance. I've a good mind--a jolly good +mind--to review her, for once. What? Or do you think it would be +_infra dig_? Well, what about an article, then--we'd get Neilson to +do one--on the whole tribe of fiction-writing fools, taking Lady +Pinkerton for a peg to hang it on? ... After all, we _are_ the organ +of the Anti-Potter League. We ought to hammer at Potterite fiction as +well as at Potterite journalism and politics. For two pins I'd get +Johnny Potter to do it. He would, I believe.' + +'I'm sure he would. But it would be a little too indecent. Neilson shall +do it. Besides, he'd do it better. Or do it yourself.' + +'Will you?' + +'I will not. My acquaintance with the subject is inadequate, and I've no +intention of improving it.' + +In the end Peacock did it himself. It was pretty good, and pretty +murderous. It came out in next week's number. I met Clare Potter in the +street the day after it came out, and she cut me dead. I expect she +thought I had written it. I am sure she never read the _Fact_, but no +doubt the family 'attention had been drawn to' the article, as people +always express it when writing to a paper to remonstrate about something +in it they haven't liked. I suppose they think it would be a score for +the paper if they admitted that they had come across it in the natural +course of things--anyhow, they want to imply that it is, of course, a +paper decent people don't see--like _John Bull_, or the _People_. + +When I met Johnny Potter, he grinned, and said, 'Good for you, old bean. +Or was it Peacock? My mother's persuaded it was you, and she'll never +forgive you. Poor old mater, she thought her new book rather on the +intellectual side. Full of psycho-analysis, and all that.... I say, I +wish Peacock would send me Guthrie's new book to do.' + +That was Johnny all over. He was always asking for what he wanted, +instead of waiting for what we thought fit to send him. I was sure that +when he published a book, he'd write round to the editors telling them +who was to review it. + +I said, 'I think Neilson's going to do it,' and determined that it should +be so. Johnny's brand of grabbing bored me. Jane did the same. A greedy +pair, never seeing why they shouldn't have all they wanted. + + +3 + +It was at this time (July) that a long, drawn-out quarrel started between +the _Weekly Fact_ and the _Daily Haste_ about the miners' strike. The +Pinkerton press did its level best to muddle the issues of that strike, +by distorting some facts, passing over others, and inventing more. By the +time you'd read a leader in the _Haste_ on the subject, you'd have got +the impression that the strikers were Bolshevists helped by German money +and aiming at a social revolution, instead of discontented, needy and +greedy British workmen, grabbing at more money and less work, in the +normal, greedy, human way we all have. Bonar Law, departing for once +rather unhappily from his 'the Government have given me no information' +attitude, announced that the miners were striking against conscription +and the war with Russia. Some Labour papers said they were striking +against the Government's shifty methods and broken pledges. I am sure +both parties credited them with too much idealism and too little plain +horse-sense. They were striking to get the pay and hours they wanted out +of the Government, and, of course, for nationalisation. They were not +idealists, and not Bolshevists, but frank grabbers, like most of us. But, +as every one will remember, 'Bolshevist' had become at this period a +vague term of abuse, like 'Hun' during the war. People who didn't like +Carson called him a Bolshevist; people who didn't like manual labourers +called _them_ Bolshevists. What all these users of the mysterious and +elastic epithet lacked was a clear understanding and definition of +Bolshevism. + +The _Daily Haste_, of course (and, to do it justice, many other +papers), used the word freely as meaning the desire for better +conditions and belief in the strike as a legitimate means of obtaining +them. I suppose it took a shorter time to say or write than this does; +anyhow, it bore a large, vague, Potterish meaning that was irresistible +to people in general. + +The _Haste_ made such a fool of itself over the miners that we came to +blows with them, and quarrelled all through July and August, mostly over +trivial and petty points. I may add that the _Fact_ was not supporting +immediate nationalisation; we were against it, for reasons that it would +be too tedious to explain here. (As a matter of fact, I know that all I +record of this so recent history is too tedious; I do not seem to be +able to avoid most of it; but even I draw the line somewhere). The +controversy between the _Fact_ and the _Haste_ seemed after a time to +resolve itself largely into a personal quarrel between Hobart and +myself. He was annoyed that Jane occasionally wrote for us. I suppose it +was natural that he should be annoyed. And he didn't like her to +frequent the 1917 Club, to which a lot of us belonged. Jane often +lunched there, so did I. She said that you got a better lunch there than +at the Women's University Club. Not much better, but still, better. You +also met more people you wanted to meet, as well as more people you +didn't. We started a sort of informal lunch club, which met there and +lunched together on Thursdays. It consisted of Jane, Katherine Varick, +Juke, Peacock, Johnny Potter, and myself. Often other people joined us +by invitation; my sister Rosalind and her husband, any girl Johnny +Potter was for the moment in love with, and friends of Peacock's, +Juke's, or mine. Juke would sometimes bring a parson in; this was rather +widening for us, I think, and I dare say for the parson too. To Juke it +was part of the enterprise of un-Potterising the Church, which was on +his mind a good deal. He said it needed un-Potterising as much as the +State, or literature, or journalism, or even the drama, and that +Potterism in it was even more dangerous than in these. So, when he +could, he induced parsons to join the Anti-Potter League. + +We weren't all tied up, I may say, with the political party principles +very commonly held by members of the 1917 Club. I certainly wasn't a +Socialist, nor, wholly, I think, a Radical; neither at that time was +Peacock, though he became more so as time went on; nor, certainly, was +Katherine. Juke was, because he believed that in these principles was the +only hope for the world. And the twins were, because the same principles +were the only wear for the young intellectual, at that moment. Johnny, in +all things the glass of fashion and the mould of form, wore them as he +wore his monocle, quite unconscious of his own reasons for both. But it +was the idea of the Anti-Potter League to keep clear of parties and +labels. You _can_ belong to a recognised political party and be an +Anti-Potterite, for Potterism is a frame of mind, not a set of opinions +(Juke was, after Katherine, the best Anti-Potterite I have known, though +people did their best to spoil him), but it is easier, and more +compatible with your objects, to be free to think what you like about +everything. Once you are tied up with a party, you can only avoid +second-handedness, taking over views ready-made, if you are very +strong-minded indeed. + +Thursday was a fairly free afternoon for me, and Jane and I somehow +got into a habit of going off somewhere together after lunch, or +staying on at the club and talking. Jane seemed to me to be +increasingly interesting; she was acquiring new subtleties, +complexities, and comprehensions, and shedding crudities. She wrote +better, too. We took her stuff sometimes for the _Fact_. At the same +time, she seemed to me to be morally deteriorating, as people who +grab and take things they oughtn't to have always do deteriorate. And +she was trying all the time to square Hobart with the rest of her +life, fitting him in, as it were, and he didn't fit in. I was +interested to see what she was making of it all. + + +4 + +One Thursday in early September, when Juke and Jane and I had lunched +alone together at the club, and Jane and I had gone off to some meeting +afterwards, Juke dropped in on me in the evening after dinner. He sat +down and lit a pipe, then got up and walked about the room, and I knew he +had something on his mind, but wasn't going to help him out. I felt hard +and rather sore that evening. + +Soon he said, in his soft, indifferent voice, 'Of course you'll be angry +at what I'm going to say.' + +'I think it probable,' I replied, 'from the look of you. But go on.' + +'Well,' he said quietly, 'I don't think these Thursday lunches will do +any more.' + +'For you?' I asked. + +'For any of us. Not with Jane Hobart there.' He wouldn't look at me, but +stood by the window looking out at Gray's Inn Road. + +'And why not with Jane? Because she's married to the enemy?' + +'It makes it awkward,' he murmured. + +'Makes it awkward,' I repeated. 'How does it make it awkward? Whom does +it make awkward? It doesn't make Jane awkward. Nor me, nor any one else, +as far as I know. Does it make you awkward? I didn't know anything could +do that. But something obviously has, this evening. It's not Jane, +though; it's being afraid to say what you mean. You'd better spit it out, +Jukie. You're not enough of a Jesuit to handle these jobs competently, +you know. I know perfectly well what you've got on your mind. You think +Jane and I are getting too intimate with each other. You think we're +falling, or fallen, or about to fall, in love.' + +'Well,' he wheeled round on me, relieved that I had said it, 'I do. +And you can't deny it.... Any fool could see it by now. Why, the way +you mooned about, depressed and sulky, this last month, when she's +been out of town, and woke up the moment she came back, was enough to +tell any one.' + +'I dare say,' I said indifferently. 'People's minds are usually +offensively open to that particular information. If you'll define being +in love, I'll tell you whether I'm in love with Jane.... I'm interested +in Jane; I find her attractive, if you like, extraordinarily attractive, +though I don't admire her character, and she's not beautiful. I like to +be with her and to talk to her. On the other hand, I've not the least +intention of asking her to elope with me. Nor would she if I did. Well?' + +'You're in love,' Juke repeated. 'You mayn't know it, but you are. And +you'll get deeper in every day, if you don't pull up. And then before you +know where you are, there'll be the most ghastly mess.' + +'Don't trouble yourself, Jukie. There won't be a mess. Jane doesn't like +messes. And I'm not quite a fool. Don't imagine melodrama.... I claim the +right to be intimate with Jane--well, if you like, to be a little in love +with Jane--and yet to keep my head and not play the fool. Why should men +and women lose their attraction for each other just because they marry +and promise loyalty to some one person? They can keep that compact and +yet not shut themselves away from other men and other women. They must +have friends. Life can't be an eternal duet.... And here you come, using +that cant Potterish phrase, "in love," as if love was the sea, or +something definite that you must be in or out of and always know which.' + +'The sea--yes,' Juke took me up. 'It's like the sea; it advances and +advances, and you can't stand there and stop it, say "Thus far and no +farther" to it. All you can do is to turn your back upon it and walk +away in time.' + +'Well, I'm not going to walk away. There's nothing to walk away from. +I've no intention of behaving in a dishonourable way, and I claim the +right to be friends with Jane. So that's that.' + +I was angry with Juke. He was taking the prudish, conventional point of +view. I had never yet been the victim of passion; love between men and +women had always rather bored me; it is such a hot, stupid, muddling +thing, ail emotion and no thought. Dull, I had always thought it; one of +those impulses arranged by nature for her own purposes, but not in the +least interesting to the civilised thinking being. Juke had no right to +speak as if I were an amorous fool, liable to be bowled over against my +better judgment. + +'I've told you what I think,' said Juke bluntly. 'I can't do any more. +It's your own show.' He took out his watch. 'I've got a Men's Social,' he +said, and went. That is so like parsons. Their conversations nearly +always have these sudden ends. But I suppose that is not their fault. + + +5 + +And, after all, Juke was right. Juke was right. It was love, and I was in +it, and so was Jane. Five minutes after Juke left me that night I knew +that. I had been in love with Jane for years; perhaps since before the +war, only I had never known it. On that Anti-Potter investigation tour I +had observed and analysed her, and smiled cynically to myself at the +commercial instinct of the Potter twins, the lack of the fineness that +distinguished Katherine and Juke. I remembered that; but I remembered, +too, how white and round Jane's chin had looked as it pressed against the +thymy turf of the cliff where we lay above the sea. All through the war I +had seen her at intervals, enjoying life, finding the war a sort of lark, +and I had hated her because she didn't care for the death and torture of +men, for the possible defeat of her country, or the already achieved +economic, moral, and intellectual degradation of the whole of Europe. She +had merely profiteered out of it all, and had a good time. I remembered +now my anger and my scorn; but I remembered too the squareness and the +whiteness of her forehead under her newly-cut hair, that leave when I had +first seen it bobbed. + +I had been moved by desire then without knowing it; I had let Hobart take +her, and still not known. The pang I had felt had been bitterness at +having lost Jane, not bitterness against Jane for having made a +second-rate marriage. + +But I knew now. Juke's words, in retrospect, were like fire to petrol; I +was suddenly all ablaze. + +In that case Juke was right, and we mustn't go on meeting alone. There +might be, as he said, the most ghastly mess. Because I knew now that Jane +was in love with me too--a little. + +We couldn't go on. It was too second-rate. It was anti-social, stupid, +uncivilised, all I most hated, to let emotion play the devil with one's +reasoned principles and theories. I wasn't going to. It would be +sentimental, sloppy--'the world well lost for love,' as in a schoolgirl's +favourite novel, a novel by Leila Yorke. + +Now there are some loves that the world, important though it is, may be +well lost for--the love of an idea, a principle, a cause, a discovery, a +piece of knowledge or of beauty, perhaps a country; but very certainly +the love of lovers is not among these; it is too common and personal a +thing. I hate the whole tribe of sentimental men and women who, impelled +by the unimaginative fool nature, exalt sexual love above its proper +place in the scheme of things. I wasn't going to do it, or to let the +thing upset my life or Jane's. + + +6 + +I kept away from Jane all that week. She rang me up at the office once; +it may have been my fancy that her voice sounded strange, somehow less +assured than usual. It set me wondering about that last lunch and +afternoon together which had roused Juke. Had it roused Jane, too? What +had happened, exactly? How had I spoken and looked? I couldn't remember; +only that I had been glad--very glad--to have Jane back in town again. + +I didn't go to the club next Thursday. As it happened, I was +lunching with some one else. So, by Thursday evening, I hadn't seen +Jane for a week. + +Wanting company, I went to Katherine's flat after dinner. Katherine had +just finished dinner, and with her was Jane. + +When I saw her, lying there smoking in the most comfortable arm-chair as +usual, serene and lazy and pale, Juke's words blazed up between us like a +fire, and I couldn't look at her. + +I don't know what we talked about; I expect I was odd and absent. I knew +Katherine was looking at me, with those frosty, piercing, light blue eyes +of hers that saw through, and through, and beyond.... + +All the time I was saying to myself, 'This won't do. I must chuck it. We +mustn't meet.' + +I think Jane talked about _Abraham Lincoln_, which she disliked, and Lady +Pinkerton's experiments in spiritualism, which were rather funny. But I +couldn't have been there for more than half an hour before Jane got up to +go. She had to get home, she said. + +I went with her. I didn't mean to, but I did. And here, if any one wants +to know why I regard 'being in love' as a disastrous kink in the mental +machinery, is the reason. It impels you to do things against all your +reasoned will and intentions. My madness drove me out with Jane, drove me +to see her home by the Hampstead tube, to walk across the Vale of Health +with her in the moonlight, to go in with her, and upstairs to the +drawing-room. + +All this time we had talked little, and of common, superficial things. +But now, as I stood in the long, dimly-lit room and watched Jane take off +her hat, drop it on a table, and stand for a moment with her back to me, +turning over the evening post, I knew that I must somehow have it out, +have things clear and straight between us. It seemed to me to be the only +way of striking any sort of a path through the intricate difficulties of +our future relations. + +'Jane,' I said, and she turned and looked at me with questioning +gray eyes. + +At that I had no words for explanation or anything else: I could only +repeat, 'Jane. Jane. Jane,' like a fool. + +She said, very low, 'Yes, Arthur,' as if she were assenting to some +statement I had made, as perhaps she was. + +I somehow found that I had caught her hands in mine, and so we stood +together, but still I said nothing but 'Jane,' because that was all that, +for the moment, I knew. + +Hobart stood in the open doorway, looking at us, white and quiet. + +'Good-evening,' he said. + +We fell apart, loosing each other's hands. + +'You're early back, Oliver,' said Jane, composedly. + +'Earlier, obviously,' he returned, 'than I was expected.' + +My anger, my hatred, my contempt for him and my own shame blazed in me +together. I faced him, black and bitter, and he was not only to me +Jane's husband, the suspicious, narrow-minded ass to whom she was tied, +but, much more, the Potterite, the user of cant phrases, the ignorant +player to the gallery of the Pinkerton press, the fool who had so +little sense of his folly that he disputed on facts with the experts +who wrote for the _Weekly Fact_. In him, at that moment, I saw all the +Potterism of this dreadful world embodied, and should have liked to +have struck it dead. + +'What exactly,' I asked him, 'do you mean by that?' + +He smiled. + +Jane yawned. 'I'm going to take my things off,' she said, and went out of +the room and up the next flight of stairs to her bedroom. It was her +contemptuous way of indicating that the situation was, in fact, no +situation at all, but merely a rather boring conversation. + +As, though I appreciated her attitude, I couldn't agree with her, I +repeated my question. + +Hobart added to his smile a shrug. + + + + +PART III: + +TOLD BY LEILA YORKE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS + + +1 + +Love and truth are the only things that count. I have often thought that +they are like two rafts on the stormy sea of life, which otherwise would +swamp and drown us struggling human beings. If we follow these two stars +patiently, they will guide us at last into port. Love--the love of our +kind--the undying love of a mother for her children--the love, so +gloriously exhibited lately, of a soldier for his country--the eternal +love between a man and a woman, which counts the world well lost--these +are the clues through the wilderness. And Truth, the Truth which cries +in the market-place with a loud voice and will not be hid, the Truth +which sacrifices comfort, joy, even life itself, for the sake of a clear +vision, the Truth which is far stranger than fiction--this is Love's +very twin. + +For Love's sake, then, and for Truth's, I am writing this account of a +very sad and very dreadful period in the lives of those close and dear to +me. I want to be very frank, and to hide nothing. I think, in my books, I +am almost too frank sometimes; I give offence, and hurt people's egotism +and vanity by speaking out; but it is the way I have to write; I cannot +soften down facts to please. Just as I cannot restrain my sense of the +ridiculous, even though it may offend those who take themselves +solemnly; I am afraid I am naughty about such people, and often give +offence; it is one of the penalties attached to the gift of humour. Percy +often tells me I should be more careful; but my dear Percy's wonderful +caution, that has helped to make him what he is, is a thing that no mere +reckless woman can hope to emulate. + + +2 + +I am diverging from the point. I must begin with that dreadful evening of +the 4th of September last. Clare was dining with a friend in town, and +stopping at Jane's house in Hampstead for the night. Percy and I were +spending a quiet evening at our house at Potter's Bar. We were both busy +after dinner; he was in his study, and I was in my den, as I call it, +writing another instalment of 'Rhoda's Gift' for the _Evening Hustle_, I +find I write my best after dinner; my brain gets almost feverishly +stimulated. My doctor tells me I ought not to work late, it is not fair +on my nerves, but I think every writer has to live more or less on his or +her nervous capital, it is the way of the reckless, squandering, +thriftless tribe we are. + +Laying down my pen at 10.45 after completing my chapter, the telephone +bell suddenly rang. The maids had gone up to bed, so I went into the hall +to take the call, or to put it through to Percy's study, for the late +calls are usually, of course, for him, from one of the offices. But it +was not for him. It was Jane's voice speaking. + +'Is that you, mother?' she said, quite quietly and steadily. 'There's +been an accident. Oliver fell downstairs. He fell backwards and broke his +neck. He died soon after the doctor came.' + +The self-control, the quiet pluck of these modern girls! Her voice hardly +shook as she uttered the terrible words. + +I sat down, trembling all over, and the tears rushed to my eyes. My +darling child, and her dear husband, cut off at the very outset of their +mutual happiness, and in this awful way! Those stairs--I always hated +them; they are so steep and narrow, and wind so sharply round a corner. + +'Oh, my darling,' I said. 'And the last train gone, so that I can't be +with you till the morning! Is Clare there?' + +'Yes,' said Jane. 'She's lying down.... She fainted.' + +My poor darling Clare! So highly-strung, so delicate-fibred, far more +like me than Jane is! And I always had a suspicion that her feeling for +dear Oliver went very deep--deeper, possibly, than any of us ever +guessed. For, there is no doubt about it, poor Oliver did woo Clare; if +he wasn't in love with her he was very near it, before he went off at a +tangent after Jane, who was something new, and therefore attractive to +him, besides being thrown so much together in Paris when Jane was working +for her father. The dear child has put up a brave fight ever since the +engagement, and her self-control has been wonderful, but she has not been +her old self. If it had not been for the unfortunate European conditions, +I should have sent her abroad for a thorough change. It was terrible for +her to be on the spot when this awful accident happened. + +'My dear, dear child,' I said, hardly able to speak, my voice shook so +with crying. 'I've no words.... Have you rung up Frank and Johnny? I +should like Frank to be with you to-night; I know he would wish it.' + +'No,' said Jane. 'It's no use bothering them till to-morrow. They can't +do anything. Is daddy at home?... You'll tell him, then.... Good-night.' + +'Oh, my darling, you mustn't ring off yet, indeed you mustn't. Hold on +while I tell daddy; he would hate not to speak to you at once about it.' + +'No, he won't need to speak to me. He'll have to get on to the _Haste_ at +once, and arrange a lot of things. I can keep till the morning. +Good-night, mother.' + +She rang off. There is something terrible to me about telephone +conversations, when they deal with intimate or tragic subjects; they are +so remote, cold, impersonal, like typed letters; is it because one can't +watch the soul in the eyes of the person one is talking to? + + +3 + +I went straight to Percy. He was sitting at his writing table going +through papers. At his side was the black coffee that he always sipped +through the evenings, simmering over a spirit lamp. Percy will never go +up to bed until the small hours; I suppose it is his newspaper training. +If he isn't working, he will sit and read, or sometimes play patience, +and always sip strong coffee, though his doctor has told him he should +give it up. But he is like me; he lives on his nervous energy, reckless +of consequences. He spends himself, and is spent, in the service of his +great press. It was fortunate for him, though I suppose I ought not to +say it, that he married a woman who is also the slave of literature, +though of a more imaginative branch of literature, and who can understand +him. But then that was inevitable; he could never have cared for a +materialistic woman, or a merely domestic woman. He demanded ideas in the +woman to whom he gave himself. + +I could hardly bear to tell him the dreadful news. I knew how overcome he +would be, because he was so fond of dear Oliver, who was one of his right +hands, as well as a dear son-in-law. And he had always loved Jane with a +peculiar pride and affection, devoted father as he was to all his +children, for he said she had the best brain of the lot. And Oliver had +been doing so well on the _Daily Haste_. Percy had often said he was an +editor after his own heart; he had so much flair. When Percy said some +one had flair, it was the highest praise he could give. He always told me +I had flair, and that was why he was so eager to put my stories in his +papers. I remember his remark when that dreadful man, Arthur Gideon, said +in some review or other (I dislike his reviews, they are so conceited and +cocksure, and show often such bad taste), 'Flair and genius are +incompatible.' Percy said simply, 'Flair _is_ genius.' I thought it +extraordinarily true. But whether I have flair or not, I don't know. I +don't think I ever bother about what the public want, or what will sell. +I just write what comes natural to me; if people like it, so much the +better; if they don't, they must bear it! But I will say that they +usually do! No, I don't think I have flair; I think I have, instead, a +message; or many messages. + +But I had to break it to Percy. I put my arms round him and told him, +quite simply. He was quite broken up by it. But, of course, the first +thing he had to do was to get on to the _Haste_ and let them know. He +told them he would be up in the morning to make arrangements. + +Then he sat and thought, and worked out plans in his head, in the +concentrated, abstracted way he has, telephoning sometimes, writing notes +sometimes, almost forgetting my presence. I love to be at the centre of +the brain of the Pinkerton press at the moments when it is working at top +speed like this. Cup after cup of strong black coffee he drank, hardly +noticing it, till I remonstrated, and then he said absently, 'Very well, +dear, very well,' and drank more. When I tried to persuade him to come up +to bed, he said, 'No, no; I have things to think out. I shall be late. +Leave me, my dear. Go to bed yourself, you need rest.' Then he turned +from the newspaper owner to the father, and sighed heavily, and said, +'Poor little Janie. Poor dear little Babs. Well, well, well.' + + +4 + +I left him and went upstairs, knowing I must get all the strength I could +before to-morrow. + +My poor little girl a widow! I could hardly realise it. And yet, alas, +how many young widows we have among us in these days! Only they are +widowed for a noble cause, not by a horrid accident on the stairs. Poor +Oliver, of course, had exemption from military service; he never even had +to go before the tribunal for it, but had it direct from the War Office, +like nearly all Percy's staff, who were recognised by the Government as +doing more important work at home than they could have done at the front. +I have a horror of the men who _evaded_ service during the war, but men +like Oliver Hobart, who would have preferred to be fighting but stayed to +do invaluable work for their country, one must respect. And it seemed +very bitter that Oliver, who hadn't fallen in the war, should have fallen +now down his own stairs. Poor, poor Oliver! As I lay in bed, unable to +sleep, I saw his beautiful face before me. He was quite the most +beautiful man I have ever known. I have given his personal appearance to +the hero of one of my novels, _Sidney, a Man_. It was terrible to me to +think of that beauty lost from the world. Whatever view one may take of +another world (and personally, far as I am from any orthodox view on the +subject, my spiritual investigations have convinced me that there is, +there must be, a life to come; I have had the most wonderful experiences, +that may not be denied) physical beauty, one must believe, is a +phenomenon of this physical universe, and must perish with the body. +Unless, as some thinkers have conceived, the immortal soul wraps itself +about in some aural vapour that takes the form it wore on earth. This is +a possibility, and I would gladly believe it. I must, I decided, try to +bring my poor Jane into touch with psychic interests; it would comfort +her to have the wonderful chance of getting into communication with +Oliver. At present she scouts the whole thing, like all other forms of +supernatural belief. Jane has always been a materialist. It is very +strange to me that my children have developed, intellectually and +spiritually, along such different lines from myself. I have never been +orthodox; I am not even now an orthodox theosophist; I am not of the +stuff which can fall into line and accept things from others; it seems as +if I must always think for myself, delve painfully, with blood and tears, +for Truth. But I have always been profoundly religious; the spiritual +side of life has always meant a very great deal to me; I think I feel +almost too intensely the vibration of Spirit in the world of things. I +probe, and wonder, and cannot let it alone, like most people, and be +content with surfaces. Of late years, and especially since I took up +theosophy, I have found great joy and comfort from my association with +the S.P.R. I am in touch with several very wonderful thought-readers, +crystal-gazers, mediums, and planchette writers, who have often strangely +illumined the dark places of life for me. To those who mock and doubt, I +merely say, '_try_.' Or else I cite, not '_Raymond_' nor Conan Doyle, but +that strange, interesting, scientific book by a Belfast professor, who +made experiments in weighing the tables before and after they levitated, +and weighing the mediums, and finding them all lighter. I think that was +it; anyhow it is all, to any open mind, entirely convincing that +_something_ had occurred out of the normal, which is what Percy and the +twins never will believe. When I say 'try' to Percy, he only answers, +'I should fail, my dear. I may, as I have been called, be a superman, +but I am not a superwoman, and cannot call up spirits.' And the +children are hopeless about it, too. Frank says we are not intended to +'lift the curtain' (that is what he calls it). He is such a thorough +clergyman, and never had my imagination; he calls my explorations +'dabbling in the occult.' His wife jeers, and asks me if I've been +talking to many spooks lately. But then her family are hard-headed +business people, quite different from me. Clare says the whole thing +frightens her to death. For her part she is content with what the +Church allows of spiritual exploration, which is not much. Clare, since +what I am afraid I must call her trouble, has been getting much Higher +Church; incense and ritual seem to comfort her. I know the phase; I +went through it twenty years ago, when my baby Michael died and the +world seemed at an end. But I came out the other side; it couldn't last +for me, I had to have much more. Clare may remain content with it; she +has not got my perhaps too intense instinct for groping always after +further light. And I am thankful that she should find comfort and help +anywhere. Only I rather hope she will never join the Roman Church; its +banks are too narrow to hold the brimming river of the human +spirit--even my Clare's, which does not, perhaps, brim very high, dear, +simple child that she is. + +As for the twins, they are merely cynical about all experiments with the +supernatural. I often feel that if my little Michael had lived.... But, +in a way, I am thankful to have him on the other side, reaching his baby +hands across to me in the way he so often does. + +That night I determined I would make a great effort to bring Jane into +the circle of light, as I love to call it. She would find such comfort +there, if only it could be. But I knew it would be difficult; Jane is so +hard-headed, and, for all her cleverness in writing, has so little +imagination really. She said that _Raymond_ made her sick. And she +wouldn't look at _Rupert Lives_! or _Across the Stream_, E.F. Benson's +latest novel about the other side. She quite frankly doesn't believe +there is another side. I remember her saying to me once, in her +school-girl slang, when she was seventeen or so, 'Well, I'd like to think +I went on, mother; I think it's simply rotten pipping out. I _like_ being +alive, and I'd like to have tons more of it--but there it is, I can't +believe anything so weird and it's no use trying. And if I don't pip out +after all, it'll be such a jolly old surprise and lark that I shall be +glad I couldn't believe in it here.' Johnny, I remember, said to her +(those two were always ragging each other), 'Ah, you may be wishing you +only _could_ pip out, then....' But I told him that I wished he wouldn't, +even in joke, allude to that bogey of the nurseries of my generation, a +place of punishment. That terrible old teaching! Thank God we are +outgrowing much of it. I must say that the descriptions They give, when +They give any, of Their place of being, do not sound very cheerful--but +it cannot at all resemble the old-fashioned place of torment, it sounds +so much less clear-cut and definite than that, more like London in a +yellow fog. + + +5 + +I do not think I slept that night. I am bad at sleeping when I have had a +shock. My idiotic nerves again. Crane, in his book, _Right and Wrong +Thinking_, says one should drop discordant thoughts out of one's mind as +one drops a pebble out of one's hand. But my interior calm is not yet +sufficient for this exercise, and I confess I am all too easily shaken to +pieces by trouble, especially the troubles of those I love. + +I felt a wreck when I met Percy at an early breakfast next morning. He, +too, looked jaded and strained, and ate hardly any breakfast, only a +little force and three cups of strong tea--an inadequate meal, as I told +him, upon which to face so trying a day. For we had to have strength not +only for ourselves but for our children. Giving out: it is so much harder +work than taking in, and it is the work for us older people always. + +Percy passed me the _Haste_, pointing to a column on the front page. That +had been part of his business last night, to see that the _Haste_ had a +good column about it. The news editor had turned out a column about a +Bolshevik advance on the Dvina to make room for it, and it was side by +side with the Rectory Oil Mystery, the German Invasion (dumped goods, of +course), the Glasgow Trades' Union Congress, the French Protest about +Syria, Woman's Mysterious Disappearance, and a Tarring and Feathering +Court Martial. The heading was 'Tragic Death of the Editor of the _Daily +Haste_,' and there followed not only a full report of the disaster, but +an account of Oliver's career, with one of those newspaper photographs +which do the original so little justice. + +'Binney's been pretty sharp about it,' said Percy approvingly. 'Of +course, he had all the biographical facts stored.' + + +6 + +We went up by the 9.24, and went straight to Hampstead. + +Quietly and sadly we entered that house of death. The maid, all +flustered and red-eyed with emotional unrest, told us that Jane was +upstairs, and Clare too. We went up the narrow stairs, now become so +tragic in their associations. On which step, I wondered, had he fallen, +and how far? + +Jane came out of the drawing-room to meet us. She was pale, and looked as +if she hadn't slept, but composed, as she always is. I took her in my +arms and gave her a long kiss. Then her father kissed her, and smoothed +her hair, and patted her head as he used to do when she was a child, and +said, 'There, there, there, my poor little Babs. There, there, there.' + +I led her into the drawing-room. I felt her calm was unnatural. 'Cry, my +darling,' I said. 'Have your cry out, and you will feel better.' + +'Shall I?' she said. 'I don't think so, mother. Crying doesn't make me +feel better, ever. It makes my head ache.' + +I thought of Tennyson's young war widow and the nurse of ninety years, +and only wished it could have been six months later, so that I could have +set Jane's child upon her knee. + +'When you feel you can, my darling,' I said, wiping my eyes, 'you must +tell me all about it. But not before you want to.' + +'There isn't much to tell,' she answered quietly, still without tears. +'He fell down the stairs backwards. That's all.' + +'Did you ... see him, darling?' + +She hesitated a moment, then said 'Yes. I saw him. I was in here. He'd +just come in from the office.... He lost his balance.' + +'Would you feel up, my dear,' said her father, 'to giving me an account +of it, that I could put in the papers?' + +'You can put that in the papers, daddy. That's all there is to say about +it, I'm afraid.... I've had seventeen reporters round this morning +already, and I told Emily to tell them that. That's probably another,' +she added, as the bell rang. + +But it was not. Emily came up a moment later and asked if Jane could see +Mr. Gideon. + +It showed the over-wrought state of Jane's nerves that she started a +little. She never starts or shows surprise. Besides, what could be more +natural than that Mr. Gideon, who, disagreeable man though he is, is a +close friend of hers (far too close, I always thought, considering that +Oliver was on almost openly bad terms with him) should call to inquire, +on seeing the dreadful news? It would, all the same, I thought, have been +better taste on his part to have contented himself with leaving kind +inquiries at the door. However, of course, one would never expect him to +do the right-minded or well-bred thing on any occasion. + +'I'll go down,' Jane said quietly. 'Will you wait there?' she added to +her father and me. 'You might,' she called from the stairs, 'go and see +Clare. She's in her room.' + +I crossed the passage to the spare bedroom, and as I did so I caught a +glimpse of that man's tall, rather stooping figure in the hall, and heard +Jane say, rather low, 'Arthur!' and add quickly, 'Mother and dad are +upstairs. Come in here.' + +Then they disappeared into the dining-room, which was on the ground +floor, and shut the door after them. + + +7 + +I went in to Clare. She was sitting in an armchair by the window. When +she turned her face to me, I recoiled in momentary shock. Her poor, +pretty little face was pinched and feverishly flushed; her brown eyes +stared at me as if she was seeing ghosts. Her hands were locked together +on her knees, and she was huddled and shivering, though it was a warm +morning. I had known she would feel the shock terribly, but I had hardly +been prepared for this. I was seriously afraid she was going to be ill. + +I knelt down beside her and drew her into my arms, where she lay passive, +seeming hardly to realise me. + +'My poor little girl,' I murmured. 'Cry, darling. Cry, and you will +feel better.' + +Clare was always more obedient than Jane. She did cry. She broke suddenly +into the most terrible passion of tears. I tried to hold her, but she +pulled away from me and laid her head upon her arms and sobbed. + +I stayed beside her and comforted her as best I could, and finally went +to Jane's medicine cupboard and mixed her a dose of sal volatile. + +When she was a little quieter, I said, 'Tell me nothing more than you +feel inclined to, darling. But if it would make you happier to talk to me +about it, do.' + +'I c-can't talk about it,' she sobbed. + +'My poor pet!... Did it happen after you got here, or before?' + +I felt her stiffen and grow tense, as at a dreadful memory. + +'After.... But I was in my room; I wasn't there.' + +'You heard the fall, I suppose....' + +She shuddered, and nodded. + +'And you came out....' I helped her gently, 'as Jane did, and +found him....' + +She burst out crying afresh. I almost wished I had not suggested this +outlet for her horror and grief. + +'Don't, mother,' she sobbed. 'I can't talk about it--I can't.' + +'My pet, of course you can't, and you shan't. It was thoughtless of me to +think that speech would be a relief. Lie down on your bed, dear, and have +a good rest, and you will feel better presently.' + +But she opposed that too. + +'I can't stay here. I want to go home _at once. At once_, mother.' + +'My dearest child, you must wait for me. I can't let you go alone in +this state, and I can't, of course, go myself until Jane is ready to +come with me.' + +'I'm going,' she repeated. 'I can go alone. I'm going now, at once.' + +And she began feverishly cramming her things into her suit-case. + +I was anxious about her, but I did not like to thwart her in her present +mood. Then I heard Frank's voice in the drawing-room, and I thought I +would get him to accompany her, at least to the station. Frank and Clare +have always been fond of one another, and she has a special reliance on +clergymen. + +I went into the drawing-room, and found Frank and Johnny both there, with +Jane and Percy. So that dreadful Jew must have gone. + +I told Frank that Clare was in a terrible state, and entrusted her +to his care. Frank is a good unselfish brother, and he went to look +after her. + +Johnny, silent and troubled, and looking as if death was out of his line, +though, Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it during the last five +years, was fidgeting awkwardly about the room. His awkwardness was, no +doubt, partly due to the fact that he had never much cared for Oliver. +This does make things awkward, in the presence of the Great Silencer. + +Percy had to leave us now, in order to go to the _Haste_ and see about +things there. He said he would be back in the afternoon. He would, of +course, take over the business of making the last sad arrangements, which +Jane called, rather crudely, 'seeing about the funeral'; the twins would +always call spades 'spades.' + +Presently I made the suggestion which I had for some time had in my mind. + +'May I, dear?' I asked very softly, half rising. + +Jane rose, too. + +'See Oliver, you mean? Oh, yes. He's in his room.' + +I motioned her back. 'Not you, darling. Johnny will take me.' + +Johnny didn't want to much, I think; it is the sort of strain on the +emotions that he dislikes, but he came with me. + + +8 + +What had been Oliver lay on the bed, stretched straight out, the +beautiful face as white and delicate as if modelled in wax. One saw no +marks of injury; except for that waxy pallor he might have been sleeping. + +In the presence of the Great White Silence I bowed my head and wept. He +was so beautiful, and had been so alive. I said so to Johnny. + +'He was so alive,' I said, 'so short a time ago.' + +'Yes,' Johnny muttered, staring down at the bed, his hands in his +pockets. 'Yesterday, of course. Rotten bad luck, poor old chap. Rotten +way to get pipped.' + +For a minute longer I kept my vigil beside that inanimate form. + +'Peace, peace, he is not dead,' I repeated to myself. 'He sleeps whom men +call dead.... The soul of Adonais, like a star, beckons from the abode +where the eternal are.' + +Death is wonderful to me; not a horrible thing, but holy and high. Here +was the lovely mortal shell, for which 'arrangements' had to be made; but +the spirit which had informed it was--where? In what place, under what +conditions, would Oliver Hobart now fulfil himself, now carry on the work +so faithfully begun on earth? What word would he be able to send us from +that Place of Being? Time would (I hoped) show. + +As we stood there in the shadow of the Great Mystery, I heard Frank +talking to Clare, whose room was next door. + +'It is wrong to give way.... One must not grieve for the dead as if one +would recall them. We know--you and I know, don't we, Clare--that they +are happier where they are. And we know too, that it is God's will, and +that He decides everything for the best. We must not rebel against +it.... If you really want to catch the 12.4 to Potter's Bar, we ought to +start now.' + +Conventional phraseology! It would never have been adequate for me; I am +afraid I have an incurable habit of rebelling against the orthodox dogma +beloved of clergymen, but Clare is more docile, less 'tameless and swift +and proud.' + +I touched Johnny's arm. 'Let us come away,' I murmured. + +Clare, her face beneath her veil swollen with crying, went off with +Frank, who was going to see her into the train. I, of course, was going +to stop with Jane until the funeral, as she called it; I would not leave +her alone in the house. So I asked Frank if Peggy would go down to +Potter's Bar and be with Clare, who was certainly not fit for solitude, +poor child, until my return. Peggy is a dear, cheerful girl, if limited, +and she and Clare have always been great friends. Frank said he was sure +Peggy would do this, and I went back to Jane, who was writing necessary +letters in the drawing-room. + +Johnny said to her, 'Well, if you're sure I can't be any use just now, +old thing, I suppose I ought to go to the office,' and Jane said, 'Yes, +don't stay. There's nothing,' and he went. + +I offered to help Jane with the letters, but she said she could easily +manage them, and I thought the occupation might be the best thing for +her, so I left her to it and went down to speak to Emily, Jane's nice +little maid. Emily is a good little thing, and she was obviously +terribly, though not altogether unpleasantly, shocked and stirred (maids +are) by the tragedy. + +She told me much more about the terrible evening than Jane or Clare had. +It was less effort, of course, for her to speak. Indeed, I think she +really enjoyed opening out to me. And I liked to hear. I always must get +a clear picture of events: I suppose it is the story-writer's instinct. + +'I went up to bed, my lady,' she said, 'feeling a bit lonely now cook's +on her holiday, soon after Miss Clare came in. And I was just off to +sleep when I heard Mrs. Hobart come in, with Mr. Gideon; they were +talking as they came up to the drawing-room, and that woke me up.' + +'Mr. Gideon!' I exclaimed in surprise. 'Was he there?' + +'Yes, my lady. He came in with Mrs. Hobart. I knew it was him, by his +voice. And soon after the master came in, and they was all talking +together. And then I heard the mistress come upstairs to her bedroom. And +then I dozed off, and I was woke by the fall.... Oh, dear, my lady, how I +did scream when I came down and saw.... There was the poor master laying +on the bottom stair, stunned-like, as I thought, I'm sure I never knew he +was gone, and the mistress and Miss Clare bending over him, and the +mistress calling to me to telephone for the doctor. The poor mistress, +she was so white, I thought she'd go off, but she kept up wonderful; and +Miss Clare, she was worse, all scared and white, as if she'd seen a +ghost. I rang for Dr. Armes, and he came round at once, and I got +hot-water bottles and put them in the bed, but the doctor wouldn't move +him for a bit, he examined him where he lay, and he found the back was +broke. He told the mistress straight out. "His back's broke," he said. +"There's no hope," he said. "It may be a few hours, or less," he said. +Then he sent for a mattress and we laid the master on it, down in the +hall, and put hot-water bottles to his feet, and then the mistress said +I'd better go back to bed; but, oh, dear, I couldn't do that, so I just +waited in the kitchen and got a kettle boiling in case the mistress and +Miss Clare would like a cup of tea, and I had a cup myself, my lady, for +I was all of a didder, and nothing pulls you round like a drop of hot +tea. Then I took two cups out into the hall for the mistress and Miss +Clare, and when I got there the doctor was saying, "It's all over," and, +dear me, so it was, so I took the tea back to keep it hot against they +were ready for it, for I couldn't speak to them of tea just at first, +could I, my lady? Then the doctor called me, and there was Miss Clare +laying in a fit, and he was bringing her round. He told me to help her to +her room, and so I did, and she seemed half stunned-like, and didn't say +a word, but dropped on her bed like a stone. Then I had to help the +doctor and the mistress carry the poor master on the mattress up to his +room, and lay him on his bed; and the doctor saw to Miss Clare a little, +then he went away and said he'd send round a woman for the laying out.... +Poor Miss Clare, I was sorry for her. Laid like a stone, she did, as +white as milk. She's such a one to feel, isn't she, my lady? And to hear +the fall and run out and find him like that! The poor master! Them +stairs, I always hated them. The back stairs are bad enough, when I have +to carry the hot water up and down, but they don't turn so sharp. The +poor master, he must have stumbled backwards, the light not being good, +and fallen clean over. And it isn't as if he was like some gentlemen, +that might have had a drop at dinner; no one ever saw the master the +worse, did they, my lady? I'm sure cook and me and every one always +thought him such a nice, good gentleman. I don't know what cook will say +when she hears, I'm sure I don't.' + +'It is indeed all very terrible and sad, Emily,' I said to her. I left +her then, and went up to the drawing-room. + +Jane was sitting at the writing table, her pen in one hand, her forehead +resting on the other. + +'My dear,' I said to her, 'Emily has been giving me some account of last +night. She tells me that Mr. Gideon was here.' + +'She's quite right,' said Jane listlessly. 'I met him at Katherine's, and +he saw me home and came in for a little.' + +I was silent for a moment. It seemed to me rather sad that Jane should +have this memory of her husband's last evening on this earth, for she +knew that Oliver had not liked her to see much of Mr. Gideon. I +understood why she had been loath to mention it to me. + +'And had he gone,' I asked her softly, 'when ... It ... happened?' + +Jane frowned, in the way the twins always frown when people put things +less bluntly and crudely than they think fit. For some reason they call +this, the regard for the ordinary niceties of life, by the foolish name +of 'Potterism.' + +'When Oliver fell?' she corrected me, still in that quiet, listless, +almost indifferent tone. 'Oh, yes. He wasn't here long.' + +'Well, well,' I said very gently, 'we must let bygones be bygones, and +not grieve over much. Grief,' I added, wanting so much that the child +should rise to the opportunity and take her trial in a large spirit, 'is +such a big, strong, beautiful thing. If we let it, it will take us by +the hands and lead us gently along by the waters of comfort. We mustn't +rebel or fight; we must look straight ahead with welcoming eyes. For +whatever life brings us we can _use_.' + +Jane still sat very still at the writing table, her head on her hand, her +fingers pushing back her hair from her forehead. I thought she sighed a +little, a long sigh of acquiescence which touched me. + +This seemed to me to be the moment to speak to her of what was in my +mind. + +'And, my dear,' I said, 'there is another thing. We mustn't think that +Oliver has gone down into silence. You must help him to speak to you, a +little later, when you are fit and when _he_ has found his way to the +Door. You mustn't shut him out, my child.' + +'Mother,' said Jane, 'you know I don't believe in any of that.' + +'I only ask you to try,' I said earnestly. 'Don't bolt and bar the +Door.... _I_ shall try, my dear, for you, if you will not, and he shall +communicate with you through me.' + +'I shan't believe it,' said Jane, stating not a resolve but a fact, 'if +he does. Of course, do what you like about all that, mother, I don't +care. But, if you don't mind, I'd rather not hear about it.' + +I decided to put off any further discussion of the question, particularly +as the child looked and must have been tired out. + +I went down to the kitchen to talk to Emily about Jane's lunch. I felt +that she ought to have a beaten egg, and perhaps a little fish. + +But I wished that she had told me frankly about that man Gideon's visit +last night. Jane was always so reserved. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN AWFUL SUSPICION + + +1 + +It was rather a strange, sad life into which we settled down after the +inquest and funeral. Jane remained in her little Hampstead house; she +said she preferred it, though, particularly in view of the dear little +new life due in January or so, I wanted her to be at Potter's Bar with +us. I went up to see her very often; I was not altogether satisfied about +her, though outwardly she went on much as of old, going to see her +friends, writing, and not even wearing black. But I am no stickler for +that heathen custom. + +It was, however, about Clare that I was chiefly troubled. The poor child +did not seem able to rally from her shock at all. She crept about looking +miserable and strained, and seemed to take an interest in nothing. I sent +her away to her aunt at Bournemouth for a change; Bournemouth has not +only sea air but ritualistic churches of the kind she likes; but I do not +think it did her much good. Her affection for poor Oliver had, indeed, +gone very deep, and she has a very faithful heart. + +Percy appointed the _Haste's_ assistant editor to the editorship; he had +not Oliver's flair, Percy said, but he did very well on the lines laid +out for him. There was a rumour in Fleet Street that the proprietors of +the _Weekly Fact_ meant to start a daily, under the editorship of that +man Gideon, and that it would have for its special object a campaign +against our press. But they would have to wait for some time, till the +paper situation was easier. The rumour gave Percy no alarm, for he did +not anticipate a long life for such a venture. A paper under such +management would certainly never, he said, achieve more than a small +circulation. + +Meanwhile, times were very troubled. The Labour people, led astray by +that bad man, Smillie, were becoming more and more extreme in their +demands. Ireland was, as always, very disturbed. The Coalition +Government--not a good government, but, after all, better than any which +would be likely to succeed it--was shaking from one bye-election blow +after another. The French were being disagreeable about Syria, the +Italians about Fiume, and every one about the Russian invasion, or +evacuation, or whatever it was, which even Percy's press joined in +condemning. And coal was exorbitant, and food prices going up, and the +reviews of _Audrey against the World_ most ignorant and unfair. I believe +that that spiteful article of Mr. Gideon's about me did a good deal of +harm among ignorant and careless reviewers, who took their opinions from +others, without troubling to read my books for themselves. So many +reviewers are like that--stupid and prejudiced people, who cannot think +for themselves, and often merely try to be funny about a book instead of +giving it fair criticism. Of course, that _Fact_ article was merely +comic; I confess I laughed at it, though I believe it was meant to be +taken very solemnly. But I was always like that. I know it is shocking of +me, but I have to laugh when people are pompous and absurd; my sense of +the ridiculous is too strong for me. + +After Oliver's death, I did not recognise Mr. Gideon when I met him, not +in the least on personal grounds, but because I definitely wished to +discourage his intimacy with my family. But we had one rather strange +interview. + + +2 + +I was going to see Jane one afternoon, soon after the tragedy, and as I +was emerging from the tube station I met Mr. Gideon. We were face to +face, so I had to bow, which I did very coldly, and I was surprised when +he stopped and said, in that morose way of his, 'You're going to see +Jane, aren't you, Lady Pinkerton?' + +I inclined my head once more. The man stood at my side, staring at the +ground and fidgeting, and biting his finger-nail in that disagreeable way +he has. Then he said, 'Lady Pinkerton, Jane's unhappy.' + +The impertinence of the man! Who was he to tell me that of my own +daughter, a widow of a few weeks? + +'Naturally,' I replied very coolly. 'It would be strange indeed if she +were not.' + +'Oh, well--' he made a queer, jerking movement. + +'You'll say it's not my business. But please don't ... er ... let +people worry her--get on her nerves. It does rather, you know. And--and +she's not fit.' + +'I'm afraid,' I said, putting up my lorgnette, 'I do not altogether +understand you, Mr. Gideon. I am naturally acquainted with my daughter's +state better than any one else can be.' + +'It gets on her nerves,' he muttered again. Then, after a moment of +silent hesitation, he half shrugged his shoulders, mumbled, 'Oh, well,' +and jerked away. + +A strange person! Amazingly rude and ill-bred. To take upon himself to +warn me to take care of my own child! And _what_ did he mean 'got on her +nerves?' I really began to think he must be a little mad. But one thing +was apparent; his feeling towards Jane was, as I had long suspected, much +warmer than was right in the circumstances. He had, I made no doubt, come +from her just now. + +I found Jane silent and unresponsive. She was not writing when I came in, +but sitting doing nothing. She said nothing to me about Mr. Gideon's +call, till I mentioned him myself. Then she seemed to stiffen a little; I +saw her hands clench over the arms of her chair. + +'His manner was very strange,' I said. 'I couldn't help wondering if he +had been having anything.' + +'If he was drunk, you mean,' said Jane. 'I dare say.' + +'Then he _does_!' I cried, a little surprised. + +Jane said not that she knew of. But every one did sometimes. Which was +just the disagreeable, cynical way of talking that I regret in her and +Johnny. As if she did not know numbers of straight, clean-living, decent +men and women who never had too much in their lives. But, anyhow, it +convinced me that Mr. Gideon _did_ drink too much, and that she knew it. + +'He had been here, I suppose,' I said gently, because I didn't want to +seem stern. + +'Yes,' said Jane, and that was all. + +'My dear,' I said, after a moment, laying my hand on hers, 'is this man +worrying you ... with attentions?' + +Jane laughed, an odd, hard laugh that I didn't like. + +'Oh, no,' she said. 'Oh, dear no, mother.' + +She got up and began to walk about the room. + +'Never mind Arthur,' she said. 'I wouldn't let him get on my mind if I +were you, mother.... Let's talk about something else--baby, if you like.' + +I perceived from this that Jane was really anxious to avoid discussion of +this man, for she did not as a rule encourage me to talk to her about the +little life which was coming, as we hoped, next spring. So I turned from +the subject of Arthur Gideon. But it remained on my mind. + + +3 + +You know how, sometimes, one wakes suddenly in the night with an +extraordinary access of clearness of vision, so that a dozen small things +which have occurred during the day and passed without making much +apparent impression on one's mind stand out sharp and defined in a row, +like a troop of soldiers with fixed bayonets all pointing in one +direction. You look where they are pointing--and behold, you see some new +fact which you never saw before, and you cannot imagine how you came to +have missed it. + +It was in this way that I woke in the middle of the night after I had met +Arthur Gideon in Hampstead. All in a row the facts stood, pointing. + +Mr. Gideon had been in the house only a few minutes before Oliver +was killed. + +He and Oliver hated each other privately, and had been openly +quarrelling in the press for some time. He had an intimacy with Jane +which Oliver disliked. + +Oliver must have been displeased at his coming home that evening +with Jane. + +Gideon drank. + +Gideon now had something on his mind which made him even more peculiar +than usual. + +Jane had been very strange and secretive about his visit there on the +fatal evening. + +He and Oliver had probably quarrelled. + +Only Jane had seen Oliver fall. + + * * * * * + +Had she? + + * * * * * + +HOW HAD THAT QUARREL ENDED? + +This awful question shot into my mind like an arrow, and I sat straight +up in bed with a start. + +How, indeed? + +I shuddered, but unflinchingly faced an awful possibility. + +If it were indeed so, it was my duty to leave no stone unturned to +discover and expose the awful truth. Painful as it would be, I must +not shrink. + +A second terrible question came to me. If my suspicion were correct, how +much did Jane know or guess? Jane had been most strange and reserved. I +remembered how she had run down to meet the wretched man that first +morning, when we were there; I remembered her voice, rather hurried, +saying, 'Arthur! Mother and dad are upstairs. Come in here,' and how +she took him into the dining-room alone. + +Did Jane know all? Or did she only suspect? I could scarcely believe that +she would wish to shield her husband's murderer, if he were that. Yet.... +why had she told me that she had seen the accident herself? If, indeed, +my terrible suspicion were justified, and if Jane was in the secret, it +seemed to point to a graver condition of things than I had supposed. No +girl would lie to shield her husband's murderer unless ... unless she was +much fonder of him than a married woman has any right to be. + +I resolved quickly, as I always do. First, I must save my child from this +awful man. + +Secondly, I must discover the truth as expeditiously as possible, +shrinking from no means. + +Thirdly, if I discovered the worst, and it had to be exposed, I must see +that Jane's name was kept entirely out of it. The journalistic squabbles +and mutual antipathy of the two men would be all that would be necessary +to account for their quarrel, together with Gideon's probably intoxicated +state that evening. + +I heard Percy moving downstairs still, and I nearly went down to him to +communicate my suspicions to him at once. But, on second thoughts, I +refrained. Percy was worried with a great many things just now. Besides, +he might only laugh at me. I would wait until I had thought it over and +had rather more to go on. Then I would tell him, and he should make what +use he liked of it in the papers. How interested he would be if the man +who was one of his bitterest journalistic foes, who fought so venomously +everything that he and his press stood for, and who was the +editor-designate of the possible new anti-Pinkerton daily, should be +proved to be the murderer of his son-in-law. What a _scoop_! The vulgar +journalese slang slid into my mind strangely, as light words will in +grave moments. + +But I pulled myself together. I was going too far ahead. After all, I +was still merely in the realms of fancy and suspicion. It is true that I +have queer, almost uncanny intuitive powers, which have seldom failed me. +But still, I had as yet little to go on. + +With an effort of will, I put the matter out of my mind and tried to +sleep. Counsel would, I felt sure, come in the morning. + + +4 + +It did. I woke with the words ringing in my head as if some one had +spoken them--'Why not consult Amy Ayres?' + +Of course! That was the very thing. I would go that afternoon. + +Amy Ayres had been a friend of mine from girlhood. We had always been in +the closest sympathy, although our paths had diverged greatly since we +were young. We had written our first stories together for _Forget-me-not_ +and _Hearth and Home_, and together enjoyed the first sweets of success. +But, while I had pursued the literary path, Amy had not. Her interests +had turned more and more to the occult. She had fallen in with and +greatly admired Mrs. Besant. When her husband (a Swedenborgian minister) +left her at the call of his conscience to convert the inhabitants of Peru +to Swedenborgianism, and finally lost his life, under peculiarly painful +circumstances, in the vain attempt, Amy turned for relief to +spiritualism, which was just then at its zenith of popularity. At first +she practised it privately and unofficially, with a few chosen friends, +for it was something very sacred to her. But gradually, as she came to +discover in herself wonderful powers of divination and spiritual +receptivity, and being very poor at the time, she took it up as a +calling. She is the most wonderful palm-reader and crystal-gazer I have +come across. I have brought people to her of whom she has known nothing +at all, and she has, after close study and brief, earnest prayer, read in +their hands their whole temperament, present circumstances, past history, +and future destiny. I have often tried to persuade Percy to go to her, +for I think it would convince him of that vast world of spiritual +experience which lies about him, and to which he is so blind. If I have +to pass on before Percy, he will be left bereaved indeed, unless I can +convince him of Truth first. + + +5 + +I went to see Amy in her little Maid of Honour house in Kensington that +very afternoon. + +I found her reading Madame Blavatski (that strange woman) in her little +drawing-room. + +Amy has not worn, perhaps, quite so well as I have. She has to make up a +little too thickly. I sometimes wish she would put less black round her +eyes; it gives her a stagey look, which I think in her particular +profession it is most important not to have, as people are in any case so +inclined to doubt the genuineness of those who deal in the occult. +Besides, what an odd practice that painting the face black in patches is! +As unlike real life as a clown's red nose, though I suppose less +unbecoming. I myself only use a little powder, which is so necessary in +hot, or, indeed, cold weather. + +However, this is a digression. I kissed Amy, and said, 'My dear, I am +here on business to-day. I am in great perplexity, and I want you to +discover something from the crystal. Are you in the mood this afternoon?' +For I have enough of the temperament myself to know that crystal-gazing, +even more than literary composition, must wait on mood. Fortunately, Amy +said she was in a most favourable condition for vision, and I told her as +briefly as possible that I wished to learn about the circumstances +attendant on the death of Oliver Hobart. I wished her to visualise Oliver +as he stood that evening at the top of those dreadful stairs, and to +watch the manner of his fall. I told her no more, for I wanted her to +approach the subject without prejudice. + +Without more ado, we went into the room which Amy called her Temple of +Vision, and Amy got to work. + + +6 + +I was travelling by the 6.28 back to Potter's Bar. I lay back in my +corner with closed eyes, recalling the events of that wonderful afternoon +in the darkened, scented room. It had been a strange, almost overwhelming +experience. I had been keyed up to a point of tension which was almost +unendurable, while my friend gazed and murmured into the glass ball. +These glimpses into the occult are really too much for my system; they +wring my nerves. I could have screamed when Amy said, 'Wait--wait--the +darkness stirs. I see--I see--a fair man, with the face of a Greek god.' + +'Is he alone?' I whispered. + +'He is not alone. He is talking to a tall dark man.' + +'Yes--yes?' I bent forward eagerly, as she paused and seemed to brood +over the clear depths where, as I knew, she saw shadows forming and +reforming. + +'They talk,' she murmured. 'They talk.' + +(Knowing that she could not, unfortunately, hear what they said, I +did not ask.) + +'They are excited.... They are quarrelling.... Oh, God!' She hid her eyes +for a moment, then looked again. + +'The dark man strikes the fair man.... He is taken by surprise; he steps +backward and falls ... falls backwards ... down ... out of my vision.... +The dark man is left standing alone.... He is fading ... he is gone.... I +can see him no more.... Leila, I have come to an end; I am overdone; I +must rest.' + +She had fallen back with closed eyes. + +A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had +put a few questions to her. She had told me little more than what she had +revealed as she gazed into the crystal. But it was enough. She knew the +fair man for Oliver, for she had seen him at the wedding. She had not +seen the dark man's face, nor had she ever met Arthur Gideon, but her +description of him was enough for me. + +I had left the house morally certain that Arthur Gideon had murdered (or +anyhow manslaughtered) Oliver Hobart. + + +7 + +I told Percy that evening, after Clare had gone to bed. I had confidence +in Percy: he would believe me. His journalistic instinct for the truth +could be counted on. He never waived things aside as improbable, for he +knew, as I knew, how much stranger truth may be than fiction. He heard +me out, nodding his head sharply from time to time to show that he +followed me. + +When I had done, he said, 'You were right to tell me. We must look into +it. It will, if proved true, make a most remarkable story. Most +sensational and remarkable.' He turned it over in that acute, quick +brain of his. + +'We must go carefully,' he said. 'Remember we haven't much to go on yet.' + +He didn't believe in the crystal-gazing, of course, so had less to go on +than I had. All he saw was the inherent possibility of the story +(knowing, as he did, the hatred that had existed between the two men) and +the damning fact of Gideon's presence at the house that evening. + +'We must be careful,' he repeated. 'Careful, for one thing, not to +start talk about the fellow's friendship with Jane. We must keep Jane +out of it all.' + +On that we were agreed. + +'I think we must ask Clare a few questions,' said Percy. + +He did so next day, without mentioning our suspicion. But Clare could +still scarcely bear to speak of that terrible evening, poor child, and +returned incoherent answers. She knew Mr. Gideon had been in the +house, but didn't know what time he had gone, nor the exact time of +the accident. + +I resolved to question Emily, Jane's little maid, more closely, and did +so when I went there that afternoon. She was certainly more +circumstantial than she had been when she had told me the story before, +in the first shock and confusion of the disaster. I gathered from her +that she had heard her master and Mr. Gideon talking immediately before +the fall; she had been surprised when her mistress had said that Mr. +Gideon had left the house before the fall. She thought, from the sounds, +that he must have left the house immediately afterwards. + +'It is possible,' I said, 'that Mrs. Hobart did not know precisely when +Mr. Gideon left the house. It was all very confusing.' + +'Oh, my lady, indeed it was,' Emily agreed. 'I'm sure I hope I shall +never have such a night again.' + +I said nothing to Jane of my suspicion. If I was right in thinking that +the poor misguided child was shielding her husband's murderer, from +whatever motives of pity or friendship, the less said to disturb her the +better, till we were sure of our ground. + +But I talked to a few other people about it, on whose discretion I could +rely. I tried to find out, and so did Percy, what was this man's record. +What transpired of it was not reassuring. His father was, as we knew +before, a naturalised Russian Jew, presumably of the lowest class in his +own land, though well educated from childhood in this country. He was, as +every one knew, a big banker, and mixed up, no doubt, with all sorts of +shady finance. Some people said he was probably helping to finance the +Bolsheviks. His daughter had married a Russian Jewish artist. Jane knew +this artist and his wife well, at that silly club of hers. Arthur Gideon, +on coming of age, had reverted to his patronymic name, enamoured, it +seemed, of his origin. He had, of course, to fight in the war, loath +though he no doubt was. But directly it was over, or rather directly he +was discharged wounded, he took to shady journalism. + +Hardly a reassuring record! Add to it the ill-starred influence he had +always attempted to exert over Johnny and Jane (he had, even in Oxford +days, brought out their worst side) his quarrels with Oliver in the +press, his unconcealed hatred of what he was pleased to call 'Potterism' +(he was president of the foolish so-called 'Anti-Potter League'), his +determined intimacy with Jane against her husband's wishes, and Jane's +own implication that he at times drank too much--and you had a picture of +a man unlikely to inspire confidence in any impartial mind. + +Anyhow, most of the people to whom I broached the unpleasant subject (and +I saw no reason why I should not speak freely of my suspicion) seemed to +think the man's guilt only too likely. + +Some of my friends said to me, 'Why not bring a charge against him and +have him arrested and the matter thoroughly investigated?' But Percy told +me we had not enough to go on for that yet. All he would do was to put +the investigation into the hands of a detective, and entrust him with the +business of collecting evidence. + +The only people we kept the matter from were our two daughters. Clare +would have been too dreadfully upset by this raking up of the tragedy, +and Jane could not, in her present state, be disturbed either. + + +8 + +About three weeks after my visit to Amy Ayres, I had rather a trying +meeting with that young clergyman, Mr. Juke, another of the children's +rather queer Oxford friends. He is the son of that bad old Lord +Aylesbury, who married some dreadful chorus girl a year or two ago, and +all his family are terribly fast. We met at a bazaar for starving clergy +at the dear Bishop of London's, to which I had gone with Frank. I think +the clergy very wrong about many things, but I quite agree that we cannot +let them starve. Besides, Peggy had a stall for home-made jam. + +I was buying some Armenian doily, with Clare at my side, when a voice +said, 'Can I speak to you for a moment, Lady Pinkerton?' and, turning +round, Mr. Juke stood close to us. + +I was surprised, for I knew him very little, but I said, 'How do you do, +Mr. Juke. By all means. We will go and sit over there, by the missionary +bookstall.' This was, as it sometimes is, the least frequented stall, so +it was suitable for quiet conversation. + +We left Clare, and went to the bookstall. When we were seated in two +chairs near it, Mr. Juke leant forward, his elbows on his knees, and said +in a low voice, 'I came here to-day hoping to meet you, Lady Pinkerton. I +wanted to speak to you. It's about my friend, Gideon....' + +'Yes,' I helped him out, my interest rising. Had he anything to +communicate to me on that subject? + +The young man went on, staring at the ground between his knees, and it +occurred to me that his profile was very like Granville Barker's. 'I am +told,' he said, in grave, quick, low tones, 'that you are saying things +about him rather indiscriminately. Bringing, in fact, charges against +him--suspicions, rather.... I hardly think you can be aware of the +seriousness of such irresponsible gossip, such--I can't call it anything +but slander--when it is widely circulated. How it grows--spreads from +person to person--the damage, the irreparable damage it may do....' + +He broke off incoherently, and was silent. I confess I was taken aback. +But I stood to my guns. + +'And,' I said, 'if the irresponsible gossip, as you call it, happens to +be true, Mr. Juke? What then?' + +'Then,' he said abruptly, and looked me in the face, '_then,_ Lady +Pinkerton, Gideon should be called on to answer to the charge in a court +of law, not libelled behind his back.' + +'That,' I said, 'will, I hope, Mr. Juke, happen at the proper time. +Meanwhile, I must ask to be allowed to follow my own methods of +investigation in my own way. Perhaps you forget that the matter concerns +the tragic death of my very dear son-in-law. I cannot be expected to let +things rest where they are.' + +'I suppose,' he said, rising as I rose, 'that you can't.' + +'And,' I added, as a parting shot, 'it is always open to Mr. Gideon to +bring a libel action against any one who falsely and publicly accuses +him--_if he likes_.' + +'Yes,' assented the young man. + +I left him standing there, and turned away to speak to Mrs. Creighton, +who was passing. + +I considered that Mr. Juke had been quite in his rights to speak to me as +he had done, and I was not offended. But I must say I think I had the +best of the interview. And it left me with the strong impression that he +knew as well as I did that 'his friend Gideon' would in no circumstances +venture to bring a libel action against any one in this matter. + +I believed that the young clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was +trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that his crime deserved. + +Clare said to me when I rejoined her. 'What did Mr. Juke want to speak to +you about, mother?' + +'Nothing of any importance, dear,' I told her. + +She looked at me in the rather strange, troubled, frowning way she has +now sometimes. + +'Oh, do let's go home, mother,' she said suddenly. 'I'm so tired. And I +don't believe they're really starving a bit, and I don't care if they +are. I do hate bazaars.' + +Clare used once to be quite fond of them. But she seemed to hate so many +things now, poor child. + +I took her home, and that evening I told Percy about my interview +with Mr. Juke. + +'A libel action,' said Percy, 'would be excellent. The very thing. But if +he's guilty, he won't bring one.' + +'Anyhow,' I said, 'I feel it is our duty not to let the affair drop. We +owe it to poor dear Oliver. Even now he may be looking down on us, unable +to rest in perfect peace till he is avenged.' + +'He may, he may, my dear,' said Percy, nodding his head. 'Never know, do +you. Never know anything at all.... On the other hand, he may have lost +his own balance, as they decided at the inquest, and tumbled downstairs +on to his head. Nasty stairs; very nasty stairs. Anyhow, if Gideon didn't +shove him, he's nothing to be afraid of in our talk, and if he did he'll +have to face the music. Troublesome fellow, anyhow. That paper of his +gets worse every week. It ought to be muzzled.' + +I couldn't help wondering how it would affect the _Weekly Fact_ if its +editor were to be arrested on a charge of wilful murder. + + + + +PART IV: + +TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK + + + + +A BRANCH OF STUDY + + +1 + +People are very odd, unreliable, and irregular in their actions and +reactions. You can't count on them as you can on chemicals. I suppose +that merely means that one doesn't know them so well. They are far harder +to know; there is a queer element of muddle about them that baffles one. +You never know when greediness--the main element in most of us--will stop +working, checked by something else, some finer, quite different motive +force. And them checking that again, comes strong emotion, such as love +or hate, overthrowing everything and making chaos. Of course, you may say +these interacting forces are all elements that should be known and +reckoned with beforehand, and it is quite true. That is just the trouble: +one doesn't know enough. + +Though I don't study human nature with the absorption of Laurence Juke +(after all, it's his trade), I find it interesting, like other curious +branches of study. And the more complex and unreliable it is, so much the +more interesting. I'm much more interested, for instance, in Arthur +Gideon, who is surprising and incalculable, than in Jane and Johnny +Potter, who are pushed along almost entirely by one motive--greed. I'm +even less interested in Jane and Johnny than in the rest of their family, +who are the usual British mixture of humbug, sentimentality, +commercialism, and genuine feeling. They represent Potterism, and +Potterism is a wonderful thing. The twins are far too clear-headed to be +Potterites in that sense. You really can, on almost any occasion, say how +they will act. So they are rather dull, as a study, though amusing enough +as companions. + +But Arthur Gideon is full of twists and turns and surprises. He is one of +those rare people who can really throw their whole selves into a +cause--lose themselves for it and not care. (Jukie says that's Christian: +I dare say it is: it is certainly seldom enough found in the world, and +that seems to be an essential quality of all the so-called Christian +virtues, as far as one can see.) + +Anyhow, Arthur's passion for truth, his passion for the first-rate, and +his distaste for untruth and for the second-rate, seemed to be the +supreme motive forces in him, all the years I have known him, until +just lately. + +And then something else came in, apparently stronger than these forces. + +Of course, I knew a long time ago--certainly since he left the army--that +he was in love with Jane. I knew it long before he did. It was a queer +feeling, for it went on, apparently, side by side with impatience and +scorn of her. And it grew and grew. Jane's marriage made it worse. She +worked for him, and they met constantly. And at last it got so that we +all saw it. + +And all the time he didn't like her, because she was second-rate and +commercial, and he was first-rate and an artist--an artist in the sense +that he loved things for what they were, not for what he could get out of +them. Jane was always thinking, 'How can I use this? What can I get out +of it?' She thought it about the war. So did Johnny. She has always +thought it, about everything. It isn't in her not to. And Arthur knew +it, but didn't care; anyhow he loved her all the same. It was as if his +reason and judgment were bowled over by her charm and couldn't help him. + + +2 + +The evening after Oliver Hobart's death, Arthur came in to see me, +about nine o'clock. He looked extraordinarily ill and strained, and was +even more restless and jerky than usual. He looked as if he hadn't +slept at all. + +I was testing some calculations, and he sat on the sofa and smoked. When +I had finished, he said, 'Katherine, what's your view of this business?' + +Of course, I knew he meant Oliver Hobart's death, and how it would affect +Jane. One says exactly what one thinks, to Arthur. So I said, 'It's a +good thing, ultimately, for Jane. They didn't suit. I'm clear it's a good +thing in the end. Aren't you?' + +He made a sharp movement, and pushed back his hair from his forehead. + +'I? I'm clear of nothing.' + +He added, after a moment, 'Is that the way _she_ looks at it, do +you suppose?' + +'I do,' I said. + +He half winced. + +'Then why--why the devil did she marry the poor chap?' + +There was an odd sort of appeal in his voice; appeal against the cruelty +of fate, perhaps, or the perverseness of Jane. + +I told him what I thought, as clearly as I could. + +'She got carried away by the excitement of her life in Paris, and he was +all mixed up with that. I think she felt she would, in a way, be carrying +on the excitement and the life if she married him. And she was knocked +over by his beauty. Then, when the haze and glamour had cleared away, and +she was left face to face with him as a life companion, she found she +couldn't do with him after all. He bored her and annoyed her more and +more. I don't know how long she could have gone on with it; she never +said anything, to me about it. But, now this has happened, what might +have become a great difficulty is solved.' + +'Solved,' he repeated, in a curious, dead voice, staring at the floor. 'I +suppose it is.' + +He was silent for quite five minutes, sitting quite still, with his black +eyes absent and vacant, as if he were very tired. I knew he was trying to +think out some problem, and I supposed I knew what it was. But I couldn't +account then for his extreme unhappiness. + +At last he said, 'Katherine. This is a mess. I can't tell you about it, +but it is a mess. Jane and I are in a mess.... Oh, you've guessed, +haven't you, about Jane and me? Juke guessed.' + +'Yes. I guessed that before Jukie did. Before you did, as a matter of +fact.' + +'You did?' But he wasn't much interested. 'Then you _see_ ...' + +'Not altogether, Arthur. I can't see it's a mess, exactly. A shock, of +course ...' + +He looked at me for a moment, as if he were adjusting his point of +view to mine. + +'Well, no. You wouldn't see it, of course. But there's more to this than +you know--much more. Anyhow, please take my word for it that it _is_ a +mess. A ghastly mess.' + +I took his word for it. As there didn't seem to be any comment to make, I +made none, but waited for him to go on. He went on. + +'And what I wanted to ask you, Katherine, was, can you look after Jane a +little? She'll need it; she needs it. She's got to get through it +somehow.... And that family of hers always buzzing round.... If we could +keep Lady Pinkerton off her ...' + +'You want me to mix a poison for Lady P?' I suggested. + +Arthur must have been very far through, for he actually started. + +'Oh, Heaven forbid.... One sudden death in the family is enough at a +time,' he added feebly, trying to smile. + +'Well,' I said, 'I'll do my best to see after Jane and to counteract the +family.... I've not gone there or written, or anything yet, because I +didn't want to butt in. But I will.' + +'I wish she'd come back here and live with you,' he said. + +To soothe him, I said I would ask her. + +For nearly an hour longer he stayed, not talking much, but smoking hard, +and from time to time jerking out a disconnected remark. I think he +hardly knew what he was saying or doing that evening; he seemed dazed, +and I noticed that his hands were shaking, as if he was feverish, or +drunk, or something. + +When at last he went, he held my hand and wrung it so that it hurt; +this was unusual, too, because we never do shake hands, we meet much +too often. + +I thought it over and couldn't quite understand it all. It even occurred +to me that it was a little Potterish of Arthur to make a conventional +tragic situation out of what he couldn't really mind very much, and to +make out that Jane was overwhelmed by what, I believed, didn't really +overwhelm her. But that didn't do. Arthur was never Potterish. There +must, therefore, be more to this than I understood. + +Unless, of course, it was merely that Arthur was afraid of the effects of +the shock and so on, on Jane's health, because she had a baby coming. But +somehow that didn't really meet the situation. I remembered Arthur's +voice when he said, 'There's more to it than you know.... It _is_ a mess. +A ghastly mess.' + +And another rather queer thing I remembered was that, all through the +evening, he hadn't once met my eyes. An odd thing in Arthur, for he has a +habit of looking at the people he is talking to very straight and hard, +as if to hold their minds to his by his eyes. + +Well, I supposed that in about a year those two would marry, anyhow. And +then they would talk, and talk, and talk.... And Arthur would look at +Jane not only because he was talking to her, but because he liked to look +at her.... They would be all right then, so why should I bother? + + +3 + +I went to see Jane, but found Lady Pinkerton in possession. I saw Jane +for five minutes alone. She was much as I had expected, calm and rather +silent. I asked her to come round to the flat any evening she could. She +came next week, and after that got into the way of dropping in pretty +often, both in the evenings, when I was at home, and during the day, when +I was at the laboratory. She said, 'You see, old thing, mother has got it +into her head that I need company. The only way I can get out of it is to +say I shall be here.... Mother's rather much just now. She's got the +Other Side on the brain, and is trying to put me in touch with it. She +reads me books called _Letters from the Other Side_, and _Hands Across +the Grave_, and so on. And she talks ...' + +Jane pushed back her hair from her forehead and leant her head on her +hand. + +'In what mother calls "my condition,"' she went on, 'I don't think I +ought to be worried, do you? I wish baby would come at once, so that I +shouldn't be in a condition any more.... I'm really awfully fond of baby, +but I shall get to hate it if I'm reminded of it much more.... What a +rotten system it is, K. Why haven't we evolved a better one, all these +centuries?' + +I couldn't imagine why, except for the general principle that as the +mental equipment of the human race improves, its physical qualities +apparently deteriorate. + +'And where will that land us in the end?' Jane speculated. 'Shall we be a +race of clever crocks, or shall we give up civilisation and education and +be robust imbeciles?' + +'Either,' I said, 'will be an improvement on the present régime, of +crocky imbeciles.' + +We would talk like that, of things in general, in the old way. Jane, +indeed, would have moods in which she would talk continuously, and I +would suddenly think, watching her, 'You're trying to hide from +something--to talk it down.' + + +4 + +And then one evening Arthur and she met at my flat. Jane had been having +supper with me, and Arthur dropped in. + +Jane said, 'Hallo, Arthur,' and Arthur said, 'Oh, hallo,' and I saw +plainly that the last person either had wanted to meet was the other. + +Arthur didn't stay at all. He said he had come to speak to me about a +review he wanted me to do. It wasn't necessary that he should speak to me +about it at all; he had already sent me the book, and I hadn't yet read +it, and it was on a subject he knew nothing at all about, and there was +nothing whatever to say. However, he succeeded in saying something, then +went away. + +Jane had hardly spoken to him or looked at him. She was reading an +evening paper. + +She put it down when he had gone. + +'Does Arthur come in often?' she asked me casually, lighting another +cigarette. + +'No. Sometimes.' + +After a minute or two, Jane said, 'Look here, K, I'll tell you something. +I'm not particularly keen on meeting Arthur for the present. Nor he me.' + +'That's not exactly news, my dear.' + +'No; it fairly stuck out just now, didn't it? Well, the fact is, we both +want a little time to collect ourselves, to settle how we stand.... +Sudden deaths are a bad jar, K. They break things up.... Arthur and I +were more friends than Oliver liked, you know. He didn't like Arthur, and +didn't like my going about with him.... Oh, well, you know all that as +well as I do, of course.... And now he's dead.... It seems to spoil +things a bit.... I hate meeting Arthur now.' + +And then an extraordinary thing happened. Jane, whom I had never seen +cry, broke down quite suddenly and cried. Of course it would have seemed +quite natural in most people, but tears are as surprising in Jane as they +would be in me. They aren't part of her equipment. However, she was out +of health just now, of course, and had had a bad shock, and was +emotionally overwrought; and, anyhow, she cried. + +I mixed her some sal volatile, which, I understand, is done in these +crises. She drank it, and stopped crying soon. + +'Sorry to be such an ass,' she said, more in her normal tone. 'It's this +beastly baby, I suppose.... Well, look here, K, you see what I mean. +Arthur and I don't want to meet just now. If he's likely to come in much, +I must give up coming, that's all.' + +'I'll tell him,' I said, 'that you're often here. If he doesn't want to +meet you either, that ought to settle it.' + +'Thanks, old thing, will you?' + +Jane was the perfect egotist. If it ever occurred to her that possibly +Arthur would like to see me sometimes, and I him, she would not think it +mattered. She wanted to come to my flat, and she didn't want to meet +Arthur; therefore Arthur mustn't come. Life's little difficulties are +very simply arranged by the Potter twins. + + +5 + +Then, for nine days, we none of us thought or talked much about anything +but the railway strike. The strike was rather like the war. The same old +cries began again--carrying on, doing one's bit, seeing it through, +fighting to a finish, enemy atrocities (only now they were called +sabotage), starving them out, gallant volunteers, the indomitable +Britisher, cheeriest always in disaster (what a hideous slander!), +innocent women and children. I never understood about these, at least +about the women. Why is it worse that women should suffer than men? As +to innocence, they have no more of that than men. I'm not innocent, +particularly, nor are the other women I know. But they are always +classed with children, as sort of helpless imbeciles who must be kept +from danger and discomfort. I got sick of it during the war. The people +who didn't like the blockade talked about starving women and children, +as if it was somehow worse that women should starve than men. Other +people (quite other) talked of our brave soldiers who were fighting to +defend the women and children of their country, or the dastardly air +raids that killed women and children. Why not have said +'non-combatants,' which makes sense? There were plenty of male +non-combatants, unfit or over age or indispensable, and it was quite as +bad that they should be killed--worse, I suppose, when they were +indispensable. Very few women or children are that. + +So now the appeal to strikers which was published in the advertisement +columns of the papers at the expense of 'a few patriotic citizens' +said, 'Don't bring further hardship and suffering upon the innocent +women and children.... Save the women and children from the terror of +the strike.' Fools. + +In another column was the N.U.R. advertisement, and that was worse. There +was a picture of a railwayman looking like a consumptive in the last +stages, and embracing one of his horrible children while his more +horrible wife and mother supported the feeble heads of others, and under +it was written, 'Is this man an anarchist? He wants a wage to keep his +family,' and it was awful to think that he and his family would perhaps +get the wage and be kept after all. The question about whether he was an +anarchist was obviously unanswerable without further data, as there was +nothing in the picture to show his political convictions; they might, +from anything that appeared, have been liberal, tory, labour, socialist, +anarchist, or coalition-unionist. And anyhow, supposing that he had been +an anarchist, he would still, presumably, have wanted a wage to keep his +family. Anarchists are people who disapprove of authority, not of wages. +The member of the N.U.R. who composed that picture must have had a +muddled mind. But so many people have, and so many people use words in an +odd sense, that you can't find in the dictionary. Bolshevist, for +instance. Lloyd George called the strikers Bolshevists, so did plenty of +other people. None of them seem to have any very clear conception of the +political convictions of the supporters of the Soviet government in +Russia. To have that you would need to think and read a little, whereas +to use the word as a vague term of abuse, you need only to feel, which +many people find much easier. Some people use the word capitalist in the +same way, as a term of abuse, meaning really only 'rich person.' If they +stopped to think of the meaning of the word, they would remember that it +means merely a person who uses what money he has productively, instead of +hoarding it in a stocking. + +But 'capitalist' and 'Bolshevist' were both flung about freely during the +strike, by the different sides. Emotional unrest, I suppose. People get +excited, and directly they get excited they get sentimental and confused. +The daily press did, on both sides. I don't know which was worse. The +Pinkerton press blossomed into silly chit-chat about noblemen working on +under ground trains. As a matter of fact, most of the volunteer workers +were clerks and tradesmen and working men, but these weren't so +interesting to talk about, I suppose. + +The _Fact_ became more than ever precise and pedantic and clear-headed, +and what people call dull. It didn't take sides: it simply gave, in more +detail than any other paper, the issues, and the account of the +negotiations, and had expert articles on the different currents of +influence on both sides. It didn't distort or conceal the truth in either +direction. + +I met Lady Pinkerton one evening at Jane's. She would, of course, come up +to town, though the amateur trains were too full without her. She said, +'Of course They hate us. They want a Class War.' + +Jane said, 'Who are They, and who are Us?' and she said 'The working +classes, of course. They've always hated us. They're Bolshevists at +heart. They won't be satisfied till they've robbed us of all we have. +They hate us. That is why they are striking. We must crush them this +time, or it will be the beginning of the end.' + +I said, 'Oh. I thought they were striking because they wanted the +principle of standardisation of rates of wages for men in the same grade +to be applied to other grades than drivers and firemen.' + +Lady Pinkerton was bored. I imagine she understands about hate and love +and envy and greed and determination, and other emotions, but not much +about rates of wages. So she likes to talk about one but not about the +other. All, for instance, that she knows about Bolshevism is its +sentimental side--how it is against the rich, and wants to nationalise +women and murder the upper classes. She doesn't know about any of the +aspects of the Bolshevist constitution beyond those which she can take in +through her emotions. She would find the others dull, as she finds +technical wage questions. That's partly why she hates the _Fact_. If she +happened to be on the other side, she would talk the same tosh, only use +'capitalist' for 'Bolshevist.' + +She said, 'Anyhow, whatever the issue, the blood of the country is up. We +must fight the thing through. It is splendid the way the upper classes +are stepping into the breach on the railways. I honour them. I only hope +they won't all be murdered by these despicable brutes.' + +That was the way she talked. Plenty of people did, on both sides. +Especially, I am afraid, innocent women. I suppose they were too innocent +to talk about facts. + +After all, the country didn't have to fight the thing through for very +long, and there were no murders, for the strike ended on October the 5th. + + +6 + +That same week, Jukie came in to see me. Jukie doesn't often come, +because his evenings are apt to be full. A parson's work seems to be like +a woman's, never done. From 8 to 11 p.m. seems to be one of the great +times for doing it. Probably Jukie had to cut some of it the evening he +came round to Gough Square. + +I always like to see Jukie. He's entertaining, and knows about such queer +things, that none of the rest of us know, and believes such incredible +things, that none of the rest of us believe. Besides, like Arthur, he's +all out on his job. He's still touchingly full of faith, even after all +that has and hasn't happened, in a new heaven and a new earth. He +believed at that time that the League of Nations was going to kill war, +that the Labour Party were going to kill industrial inequity, that the +country was going to kill the Coalition Government, that the Christian +Church was going to kill selfishness, that some one was going to kill +Horatio Bottomley, and that we were all going to kill Potterism. A +perfect orgy of murders, as Arthur said, and all of them so improbable. + +Jukie is curate in a slummy parish near Covent Garden. He succeeds, +apparently, in really being friends--equal and intimate friends--with a +lot of the men in his parish, which is queer for a person of his kind. I +suppose he learnt how while he was in the ranks. He deserved to; Arthur +told me that he had persistently refused promotion because he wanted to +go on living with the men; and that's not a soft job, from all accounts, +especially for a clean and over-fastidious person like Jukie. Of course +he's very popular, because he's very attractive. And, of course, it's +spoilt him a little. I never knew a very popular and attractive person +who wasn't a little spoilt by it; and in Jukie's case it's a pity, +because he's too good for that sort of thing, but it hasn't really +damaged him much. + +He came in that evening saying, 'Katherine, I want to speak to you,' and +sat down looking rather worried and solemn. He plunged into it at once, +as he always does. + +'Have you heard any talk lately about Gideon?' he asked me. + +'Nothing more interesting than usual,' I said. 'But I seldom hear talk. I +don't mix enough. We don't gossip much in the lab, you know. I look to +you and my Fleet Street friends for spicy personal items. What's the +latest about Arthur?' + +'Just this,' he said. 'People are going about saying that he pushed +Hobart downstairs.' + +I felt then as if I had known all along that of course people were +saying that. + +'Then why isn't he arrested?' I asked stupidly. + +'He probably will be, before long,' said Jukie. 'There's no evidence yet +to arrest him on. At present it's merely talk, started by that Pinkerton +woman, and sneaking about from person to person in the devilish way such +talk does.... I was with Gideon yesterday, and saw two people cut him +dead.... You see, it's all so horribly plausible; every one knows they +hated each other and had just quarrelled; and it seems he was there that +night, just before it happened. He went home with Jane.' + +I remembered that they had left my place together. But neither Arthur +nor Jane had told me that he had gone home with her. + +'The inquest said it was accidental,' I said, protesting against +something, I didn't quite know what. + +Jukie shrugged his shoulders. + +'That's not very likely to stop people talking.' + +He added after a moment, 'But it's got to be stopped somehow.... I went +to an awful bazaar this afternoon, on purpose to meet that woman. I met +her. I spoke to her. I told her to chuck it. She as good as told me she +wasn't going to. I mentioned the libel law--she practically dared Gideon +to use it against her. She means to go on. She's poisoning the air with +her horrible whispers and slanders. Why can't some one choke her? What +can we do about it, that's the question? Ought one of us to tell Gideon? +I'm inclined to think we ought.' + +'Are you sure he doesn't know it already?' + +'No, I'm not sure. Gideon knows most things. But the person concerned is +usually the last to hear such talk. And, in case he has no suspicion, I +think we should tell him.' + +'And get him to issue, through the _Fact_, a semi-official declaration +that "the whole story is a tissue of lies."' + +Then I wished I hadn't used that particular phrase. It was an unfortunate +one. It suggested a similarity between Lady Pinkerton's story and Mr. +Bullitt's, between Arthur Gideon's denial and Lloyd George's. + +Jukie's eyes met mine swiftly, not dreamy and introspective as usual, but +keen and thoughtful. + +'Katherine,' he said, 'we may as well have this out. It won't hurt Gideon +here. _Is_ it a lie? I believe so, but, frankly, I don't feel certain. I +don't know what to think. Do you?' + +I considered it, looking at it all ways. The recent past, Arthur's +attitude and Jane's, were all lit up by this horrible flare of light +which was turned upon them. + +'No,' I said at last. 'I don't know, either.... We can't assume for +certain that it is a lie.' + +Jukie let out a long breath, and leant forward in his chair, resting his +head on his hands. + +'Poor old Gideon,' he said. 'It might have happened, without any +intention on his part. If Hobart found him there with Jane ... and if +they quarrelled ... Gideon's got a quick temper, and Hobart always made +him see red.... He might have hit him--pushed him down, without meaning +to injure him--and then it would be done. And then--if he did it--he must +have left the house at once ... perhaps not knowing he'd killed him. +Perhaps he didn't know till afterwards. And then Jane might have asked +him not to say anything ... I don't know. I don't know. Perhaps it's +nonsense; perhaps it _is_ a tissue of lies. I hope to God it is.... I +only know one thing that makes me even suspect it may be true, and that +is that Gideon has been absolutely miserable, and gone about like a man +half stunned, ever since it happened. _Why_?' + +He shot the question at me, hoping I had some answer. But I had none. I +shook my head. + +'Well,' said Jukie sadly, 'it isn't, I suppose, our business whether he +did or didn't do it. That's between him and--himself. But it _is_ our +business, whether he's innocent or guilty, to put him on his guard +against this talk. It's for you or me to do that, Katherine. Will you?' + +'If you like.' + +'I'd rather you did it, if you will ... I think he's less likely to +think that you're trying to find things out.... You see, I warned him +once before, about another thing, and he might think I was linking it in +my mind with that.' + +'With Jane,' I said, and he nodded. + +'Yes. With Jane ... I spoke to him about Jane a few days before it +happened. I thought it might be some use. But I think it only made things +worse.... I'd rather leave this to you, unless you hate it too much.... +Oh, it's all pretty sickening, isn't it? Gideon--_Gideon_ in this sort of +mess. Gideon, the best of the lot of us.... You see, even if it's all +moonshine about Hobart, as I'm quite prepared to believe it probably is, +he's gone and given plausibility to the yarn by falling in love with +Hobart's wife. Nothing can get round that. Why couldn't he have chucked +it--gone away--anything--when he felt it coming on? A strong, fine, keen +person like that, to be bowled over by his sloppy emotions and dragged +through the mud, like any beastly sensualist, or like one of my own +cheery relations.... I'd rather he'd done Hobart in. There'd have been +some sense about that, if he had. After all, it would have been striking +a blow against Potterism. Only, if he did do it, it would be more like +him to face the music and own to it. What I can't fit into the picture is +Gideon sneaking away in the dark, afraid ... Oh well, it's not my +business ... Good-night, Katherine. You'll do it at once, won't you? Ring +him up to-morrow and get him to dine with you or something. If there's +any way of stopping that poisonous woman's tongue, we'll find it.... +Meanwhile, I shall tell our parish workers that Leila Yorke's works are +obscene, and that they're not to read them to mother's meetings as is +their habit.' + +I sat up till midnight, wondering how on earth I was going to put it +to Arthur. + + +7 + +I didn't dine with Arthur. I thought it would last too long, and that he +might want me to go, and that I should certainly want to go, after I had +said what I had to say. So I rang him up at the office and asked if he +could lunch. Not at the club; it's too full of people we know, who keep +interrupting, and who would be tremendously edified at catching murmurs +about libel and murder and Lady Pinkerton being poisoned. So I said the +Temple Bar restaurant in Fleet Street, a disagreeable place, but so noisy +and crowded that you can say what you like unheard--unheard very often by +the person you are addressing, and certainly by every one else. + +We sat downstairs, at a table at the back, and there I told him, in what +hardly needed to be an undertone, of the rumours that were being +circulated about him. I felt like a horrid woman in a village who repeats +spiteful gossip and says, 'I'm telling you because I think you ought to +know what's being said.' As a matter of fact, this was the one and only +case I have ever come across in which I have thought the person concerned +ought to know what was being said. As a rule, it seems the last thing +they ought to know. + +He listened, staring at the tablecloth and crumbling his bread. + +'Thank you,' he said, 'for telling me. As a matter of fact, I knew. +Or, anyhow, guessed.... But I'm not sure that anything can be done +to stop it.' + +'Unless,' I said, looking away from him, 'you could find grounds for a +libel action. You might ask a lawyer.' + +'No,' he returned quickly. 'That's quite impossible. Out of the +question.... There are no grounds. And I wouldn't if there were. I'm not +going to have the thing made a show of in the courts. It's exactly what +the Pinkertons would enjoy--a first-class Pinkerton scoop. No, I shall +let it alone.' + +'Is there no way of stopping it, then?' I asked. + +'Only one,' he murmured, absently, beneath his breath, then caught +himself up. 'I don't know. I think not.' + +I didn't make any further suggestions. What was the good of +advising him to remonstrate with the Pinkertons? If they were +lying, it was the obvious course. If they weren't, it was an +impossible one. I let it alone. + +Arthur was frowning as he ate cold beef. + +'There's one thing,' he said. 'Does Jane know what is being said? Do you +suppose her parents have talked about it to her?' + +I said I didn't know, and he went on frowning. Then he murdered a wasp +with his knife--a horrible habit at meals, but one practised by many +returned soldiers, who kill all too readily. I suppose after killing all +those Germans, and possibly Oliver Hobart, a wasp seems nothing. + +'Well,' he said absently, when he was through with the wasp, 'I don't +know. I don't know,' and he seemed, somehow, helpless and desperate, as +if he had come to the end of his tether. + +'I must think it over,' he said. And then he suddenly began to talk about +something else. + + +8 + +Arthur's manner, troubled rather than indignant, had been against him. He +had dismissed the idea of a libel action, and not proposed to confront +his libellers in a personal interview. Every circumstance seemed against +him. I knew that, as I walked back to the laboratory after lunch. + +And yet--and yet. + +Well, perhaps, as Jukie would say, it wasn't my business. My business at +the moment was to carry on investigations into the action of +carbohydrates. Arthur Gideon had nothing to do with this, nor I with his +private slayings, if any. + +I wrote to Jukie that evening and told him I had warned Arthur, who +apparently knew already what was being said, but didn't seem to be +contemplating taking any steps about it. + +So that was that. + +Or so I thought at the time. But it wasn't. Because, when I had posted my +letter to Jukie, and sat alone in my room, smoking and thinking, at last +with leisure to open my mind to all the impressions and implications of +the day (I haven't time for this in the laboratory), I began to fumble +for and find a new clue to Arthur's recent oddness. For twenty-four hours +I had believed that he had perhaps killed Oliver Hobart. Now, suddenly I +didn't. But I was clear that there was something about Oliver Hobart's +death which concerned him, touched him nearly, and after a moment it +occurred to me what it might be. + +'He suspects that Jane did it,' I said, slowly and aloud. 'He's trying to +shield her.' + +With that, everything that had seemed odd about the business became +suddenly clear--Arthur's troubled strangeness, Jane's dread of meeting +him, her determined avoidance of any reference to that night, her sudden +fit of crying, Arthur's shrinking from the idea of giving the talk +against him publicity by a libel action, his question, 'Does Jane know?' +his remark, to himself, that there was only one way of stopping it. That +one way, of course, would be to make Jane tell her parents the truth, so +that they would be silenced for ever. As it was, the talk might go on, +and at last official investigations might be started, which would lead +somehow to the exposure of the whole affair. The exposure would probably +take the form of a public admission by Jane; I didn't think she would +stand by and see Arthur accused without speaking out. + +So I formed my theory. It was the merest speculation, of course. But it +was obvious that there was something in the manner of Oliver Hobart's +death which badly troubled and disturbed both Arthur and Jane. That being +so, and taking into account their estrangement from one another, it was +difficult not to be forced to the conclusion that one of them knew, or +anyhow guessed, the other to have caused the accident. And, knowing them +both as I did, I believed that if Arthur had done it he would have owned +to it. Wouldn't one own to it, if one had knocked a man downstairs in a +quarrel and killed him? To keep it dark would seem somehow cheap and +timid, not in Arthur's line. + +Unless Jane had asked him to; unless it was for her sake. + +It occurred to me that the thing to do was to go straight to Jane and +tell her what was being said. If she didn't choose to do anything about +it, that was her business, but I was determined she should know. + + +9 + +An hour later I was in Jane's drawing-room. Jane was sitting at her +writing-table, and the room was dim except for the light from the +reading-lamp that made a soft bright circle round her head and shoulders. +She turned round when I came in and said, 'Hallo, K. What an unusual +hour. You must have something very important to say, old thing.' + +'I have rather,' I said, and sat down by her. 'It's this, Jane. Do you +know that people are saying--spreading it about--that Arthur killed +your husband?' + +It was very quiet in the room. For a moment I heard nothing but the +ticking of a small silver clock on the writing-table. Jane sat quite +still, and stared at me, not surprised, not angry, not shocked, but with +a queer, dazed, blind look that reminded me of Arthur's own. + +Then I started, because some one in the farther shadows of the room drew +a long, quivering breath and said 'Oh,' on a soft, long-drawn note. +Looking round, I saw Clare Potter. She had just got up from a chair, and +was standing clutching its back with one hand, looking pale and sick, as +if she was going to faint. + +I hadn't, of course, known Clare was there, or I wouldn't have said +anything. But I was rather irritated; after all, it wasn't her business, +and I thought it rather absurd the way she kept up her attitude of not +being able to bear to hear Oliver Hobart's death mentioned. + +I got up to go. After all, I had nothing more to say. I didn't want to +stop and pry, only to let Jane know. + +But as I turned to go, I remembered that I had one more thing to say. + +'It was Lady Pinkerton who started it and who is keeping it up,' I told +Jane. 'Can you--somehow--stop her?' + +Jane still stared at me, stupidly. After a moment she half whispered, +slowly, 'I--don't--know.' + +I stood looking at her for a second, then I went, without any more words. + +All the way home I saw those two white faces staring at me, and heard +Jane's whisper 'I--don't--know....' + +I didn't know, either. + +I only knew, that evening, one thing--that I hated Jane, who had got +Arthur into this mess, and 'didn't know' whether she could get him out of +it or not. + +And I may as well end what I have got to tell by saying something which +may or may not have been apparent to other people, but which, anyhow, it +would be Potterish humbug on my part to try to hide. For the last five +years I had cared for Arthur Gideon more than for any one else in the +world. I saw no reason why I shouldn't, if I liked. It has never damaged +any one but myself. It has damaged me in two ways--it has made it +sometimes difficult to give my mind to my work, and it has made me, +often, rather degradingly jealous of Jane. However, you would hardly (I +hope) notice it, and anyhow it can't be helped. + + + + +PART V: + +TOLD BY JUKE (IN HIS PRIVATE JOURNAL) + + + + +GIVING ADVICE + + +1 + +It is always rather amusing dining at Aylesbury House, with my +stimulating family. Especially since Chloe, my present stepmother, +entered it, three years ago. Chloe is great fun; much more entertaining +than most variety artists. I know plenty of these, because Wycombe, my +eldest brother, introduces them to me. As a class they seem pleasant and +good-humoured, but a little crude, and lacking in the subtler forms of +wit or understanding. After an hour or so of their company I want to +yawn. But Chloe keeps me going. She is vulgar, but racy. She is also very +kind to me, and insists on coming down to help with theatrical +entertainments in the parish. It is so decent of her that I can't say no, +though she doesn't really fit in awfully well with the O.U.D.S. people, +and the Marlowe Society people, and the others whom I get down for +theatricals. In fact, Elizabethan drama isn't really her touch. However, +the parish prefers Chloe, I need hardly say. + +I dined there on Chloe's birthday, October 15th, when we always have a +family gathering. Family and other. But the family is heterogeneous +enough to make quite a good party in itself. It was represented on that +particular evening by my father and Chloe, my young sister Diana, my +brothers Wycombe and Tony, Tony's wife, myself, my uncle Monsignor Juke, +my aunt the Marchesa Centurione and a daughter, and my Aunt Cynthia, who +had recently, on her own fiftieth birthday, come out of a convent in +which she had spent twenty-five years and was preparing to see Life. +Besides the family, there were two or three theatrical friends of +Chloe's, and two friends of my father's--a youngish literary man called +Bryan, and the cabinet minister to whom Tony was secretary, but whom I +will not name, because he might not care for it to be generally known +that he was an inmate of so fast a household. + +My Aunt Cynthia, having renounced her vows, and having only a +comparatively short time in which to enjoy the world, the flesh and the +devil, is making the most of it. She has only been out of her convent a +year, but is already a spring of invaluable personal information about +men and manners. She knows everything that is being said of everybody +else, and quite a lot that hasn't even got as far as that. Her Church +interests (undiminished in keenness) provide a store of tales +inaccessible to most of my family and their set (except my Uncle +Ferdinand, of course, and his are mostly Roman not Anglican). Aunt +Cynthia has a string of wonderful stories about Cowley Fathers biting +Nestorian Bishops, and Athelstan Riley pinching Hensley Henson, and so +forth. She is as good as Ronnie Knox at producing or inventing them. I'm +not bad myself, when I like, but Aunt Cynthia leaves me out of sight. + +This evening she was full of vim. She usually talks at the top of a very +high and strident voice (I don't know what they did with it at the +convent), and I suddenly heard her screaming to the cabinet minister, +'Haven't you heard _that_? Oh, everybody's quoting it in Fleet Street, +aren't they, Mr. Bryan? But I suppose you never go to Fleet Street, Mr. +Blank; it's so important, isn't it, for the government not to get mixed +up with the press. Well, I'll tell it you. + +'There was a young journalist Yid, +Of his foes of the press he got rid + In ways brief and bright, + For, at dead of the night, +He threw them downstairs, so he did. + +It's about the late editor of the _Daily Haste_ and Mr. Gideon of the +_Weekly Fact_. No, I don't know who's responsible for it, but I believe +it's perfectly true. They're saying so everywhere now. I believe that +awful Pinkerton woman is going about saying she has conclusive evidence; +it's been revealed from the Beyond, I believe; I expect by poor Mr. +Hobart himself. No, I'm sure she didn't make the limerick; she's not a +poet, only a novelist. Perhaps it came from the Beyond, through +planchette. Anyhow, they say Mr. Gideon will be arrested on a murder +charge very shortly, and that there's no doubt he's guilty.' + +I leant across the table. + +'_Who's_ saying so, Aunt Cynthia?' I asked her. + +Aunt Cynthia hates being asked that about her stories. Of course. Every +one does. I do myself. + +Aunt Cynthia looked at me with her childlike convent stare. + +'My dear Laurie, how can I remember who says anything, with every one +saying everything all the time? Who? Why, all sorts of people.... Aren't +they, Chloe?' + +Chloe, who was showing a spoon and glass trick to the Monsignor, said, +'Aren't who what?' + +'Isn't every one saying that Arthur Gideon threw Oliver Hobart downstairs +and killed him?' + +'I expect so, dear. Never heard of either of the gentlemen myself. +And did he?' + +'Of course he did. He's a Jew, and he hated Hobart and his paper like +poison. The _Fact's_ so different, you know. Every one's clear he did +it. Mind you, I don't blame him. The _Daily Haste_ is a vulgar +Protestant rag.' + +'The Jew's a dear friend of Laurie's,' put in Wycombe. 'You'd better be +careful, Aunt Cynthia.' + +'Oh, Laurie dear,' my aunt cried, 'how tactless of me. But, my dear boy, +are you really friends with a Jew, and you a Christian priest?' + +'I'm friends with Gideon. He's a Gentile by religion, by the way; an +ordinary agnostic. Aunt Cynthia, don't go on spreading that nonsense, if +you don't mind. You might contradict it if you hear it again.' + +'Very well, dear. I'll say you have good reason to know it isn't true. +I'll say you've been told who did kill Mr. Hobart, only it was under the +seal, so you can't say. Shall I?' + +'By all means, if you like.' + +Then Aunt Cynthia chased off after another exciting subject, and that was +all about Gideon. + + +2 + +I came away early (about eleven, that is, which is very early for one of +Chloe's evenings, which don't end till summer dawn) feeling more worried +than ever about Gideon. If the gossip about him had penetrated from Lady +Pinkerton's circle to my aunt's, it must be pretty widespread. I was +angry with Aunt Cynthia, and a little with every one I had met that +evening. They were so cheerful, so content with things as they were, +finding all the world such a screaming farce.... I sometimes get my +family on my nerves, when I go there straight from Covent Garden and its +slum babies, and see them spending and squandering and being +irresponsible and dissolute and not caring twopence for the way +two-thirds of the world live. There was Wycombe to-night, with a long +story to tell me about his debts and his amours (he's going to be +co-respondent in a divorce case directly), and Chloe, as hard as nails +beneath her pretty ways, and simply out for a good time, and Aunt +Cynthia, with half the gossip of London spouting out of her like a +geyser, and Diana, who might turn out fine beyond description or +degenerate into a mere selfish rake (it won't be my father's and Chloe's +fault if she doesn't do the latter), and my Uncle Ferdinand in purple and +fine linen, a prince of the Church, and Tony already booked for a +political career, with his chief's shady secrets in his keeping to show +him the way it's done. And they bandied about among them the name of a +man who was worth the lot of them together, and repeated silly rhymes +which might hang him.... It was a little more than I could stand. + +One is so queer about one's family. I'm inclined to think every one is. +Often I fit in with mine perfectly, and love to see them, and find them +immensely refreshing after Covent Garden and parish shop. And then +another time they'll be on my nerves and I feel glad I'm out of it all. +And another time again I'm jealous of them, and wish I had Wycombe's or +Tony's chances of doing something in the world other than what I am +doing. That, of course, is sheer vulgar covetousness and grab. It comes +on sometimes when I am tired, or bored, and the parish seems stale, and +the conferences and committees I attend unutterably profitless, and I +want more clever people to talk to, and bigger and more educated +audiences to preach to, and I want to have leisure to write more and to +make a name.... It is merely a vulgar disease--a form of Potterism. One +has to face it and fight it out. + +But to-night I wasn't feeling that. I wasn't feeling anything very much, +except that Gideon, and all that Gideon stood for, was worth immeasurably +more than anything the Aylesbury lot had ever stood for. + +And when I got back, I found a note from Katherine saying that she +had warned Gideon about the talk and that he wasn't proposing to take +any steps. + + +3 + +Next morning I had to go to Church House for a meeting. I got the _Daily +Haste_ (which I seldom see) to read in the underground. On the front +page, side by side with murders, suicides, divorces, allied notes, and +Sinn Fein outrages, was a paragraph headed 'The Hobart Mystery. Suspicion +of Foul Play.' It was about how Hobart's sudden death had never been +adequately investigated, and how curious and suspicious circumstances had +of late been discovered in connection with it, and inquiries were being +pursued, and the _Haste_, which was naturally specially interested, +hoped to give more news very soon. + +So old Pinkerton was making a journalistic scoop of it. Of course; one +might have known he would. + +At my meeting (Pulpit Exchange, it was about) I met Frank Potter. He is a +queer chap--commercial and grasping, like all his family, and dull too, +and used to talk one sick about how little scope he had in his parish, +and so on. Since he got to St. Agatha's he's cheered up a bit, and talks +to me now instead of his big congregations and their fat purses. He's a +dull-minded creature--rather stupid and entirely conventional. He's all +against pulpit exchange, of course; he thinks it would be out of order +and tradition. So it would. And he's a long way keener on order and +tradition than he is on spiritual progress. A born Pharisee, he is +really, and yet with Christianity struggling in him here and there; and +that's why he's rather interesting, in spite of his dullness. + +After the meeting I went up to him and showed him the _Haste_. + +'Can't this be stopped?' I asked him. + +He blinked at it. + +'That's what Johnny is up in arms against too,' he said. 'He swears by +this chap who is suspected, and won't hear a word against him.' + +'Well,' I said, 'the question is, can Johnny or any one else do anything +to stop it?... I've tried. I spoke to Lady Pinkerton the other day. It +was no use. Can _you_ do anything?' + +'I'm afraid not,' he said, rather apathetically. 'You see, my people +believe Gideon killed Hobart, and are determined to press the matter. One +can't blame them, you know, if they really think that. My mother feels +perfectly sure of it, from various bits of evidence she's got hold of, +and won't be happy till the thing is thoroughly sifted. Of course, if +Gideon's innocent, it's best for him, too, to have the thing out, now +it's got so far. Don't you agree?' + +'I don't. Why should a man have to waste his time appearing in a criminal +court to answer to a charge of manslaughter or murder which he never +committed? Gideon happens to have other things to do than to make a nine +days' wonder for the press and public.' + +I suppose that annoyed Potter rather. He said sharply, 'It's up to the +chap to prove his innocence. Till he does, a great many people will +believe him guilty, I'm afraid.' + +'Including yourself, obviously.' + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +'I've no prejudices either way,' he returned, his emphasis on the +personal pronoun indicating that I, in his opinion, had. + +But there he was wrong. I hadn't. I was quite prepared to believe that +Gideon had knocked Hobart downstairs, or that he hadn't. You can't be a +parson, or, indeed, anything else, for long, without learning that decent +men and women will do, at times, quite indecent things, and that the +devil is quite strong enough to make a mess of any human being's life. +You hear of a man that he was in love with another man's wife and hated +her husband and at last killed him in a quarrel--and you think 'A bad +lot.' But he may not be a bad lot at all; he may be a decent chap, full +of ideals and generosity and fine thinking. Sometimes I'm inclined to +agree with the author of that gushing and hysterical book _In Darkest +Christendom and a Way Out_, that the only unforgiveable sin is +exploitation. Exploitation of human needs and human weaknesses and human +tragedies, for one's own profit.... And, as we very nearly all do it, in +one way or another, let us hope that even that isn't quite unforgiveable. +Yes, we nearly all do it. The press exploits for its benefit human +silliness and ignorance and vulgarity and sensationalism, and, in +exploiting it, feeds it. The war profiteers exploited the war.... We all +exploit other people--use their affection, their dependence on us, their +needs and their sins, for our own ends. + +And that is deliberate. To knock a fellow human being downstairs in a +quarrel, so that he dies--that may be impulse and accident, and is not so +vile. Even to say nothing afterwards--even that is not so vile. + +Still, I would rather, much rather, think that Gideon hadn't done it. + +It was odd that, as I was thinking these things, walking up Surrey Street +from the Temple Embankment, I overtook Gideon, who was slouching along in +his usual abstracted way. + +I touched his arm and spoke to him. He gave me his queer, +half-ironical smile. + +'Hallo, Jukie.... Where are you bound?... By the way, did you by chance +see the _Haste_ this morning?' + +'Not by chance. That doesn't happen with me and the _Haste_. But I saw +it.' + +'They obviously mean business, don't they. The sleuth-hound touch. I +expect to be asked for my photograph soon, for the _Pink Pictorial_ and +the _Sunday Rag_. I must get a nice one taken.' + +I suppose I looked as I felt, for he said in a different tone, 'Don't +worry, old man. There's nothing to be done. We must just let this thing +take its course.' + +I couldn't say anything, because there was nothing to say that wouldn't +seem like asking him questions, or trying to make him admit or deny the +thing to me. I wanted to ask him if he couldn't produce an alibi and blow +the ridiculous story to the four winds. But--suppose he couldn't...? + +So I said nothing but, 'Well, let me know if ever I can be any use,' and +we parted at the top of Surrey Street. + + +4 + +We have evensong at five at St. Christopher's. No one conies much. The +people in the parish aren't the weekday church sort. Those among them who +come to church at all mostly confine their energies to evening service on +Sundays, though a few of them consent to turn up at choral mass at +eleven. And, by means of guilds and persuasion, we've induced a good many +of the lads and girls to come to early mass sometimes. The vicar gets +discouraged at times, but not so much as most vicars would, because he +more or less agrees with me in not thinking church-going a test of +Christianity. The vicar is one of the cleverest and most original parsons +in the Church, in my opinion. He has a keen, shrewd, practical insight +into the distinction between essentials and non-essentials. He is popular +in the parish, but I don't think the people understand, as a rule, what +he is getting at. + +Anyhow, the only people who usually came to our week-day services were a +few church workers and an elderly lady or two who happened to be passing +and dropped in. The elderly ladies who lived in the parish were much too +busy for any such foolishness. + +But this evening--the evening of the day I had met Gideon--there was a +girl in church. She was rather at the back, and I didn't see who it was +till I was going out. Then she stopped me at the door, and I saw that it +was Clare Potter. I knew Clare Potter very slightly, and had never found +her interesting. I had always believed her to be conventional and +commonplace, without the brains of the twins or even the mild +spirituality of Frank. + +But I was startled by her face now; it was white and strained, and +emotion wavered pitifully over it. + +'Please,' she said, 'will you hear my confession?' + +'I'm very sorry,' I told her, 'but I can't. I'm still in deacon's +orders.' + +She seemed disappointed. + +'Oh! Oh dear! I didn't know....' + +I was puzzled. Why had she pitched on me? Hadn't she, I wondered, a +regular director, or was it her first confession she wanted to make? I +began something about the vicar being always glad ... But she stopped me. + +'No, please. It must be you. There's a reason.... Well, if you can't hear +my confession, may I tell you something in private, and get your advice?' + +'Of course,' I said. + +'Now, at once, if you've time.... It's very urgent.' + +I had time, and we went into the vestry. + +She sat down, and I waited for her to speak. She wasn't nervous, or +embarrassed, as most people are in these interviews. Two things occurred +to me about her; one was that she was, in a way, too far through, too +mentally agitated, to be embarrassed; the other was that she was, quite +unconsciously, posing a little, behaving as the heroine of one of her +mother's novels might have behaved. One knows the situation in +fiction--the desperate girl appealing out of her misery to the Christian +priest for help. So many women have this touch of melodrama, this sense +of a situation.... I believed that she was, as she sat there, in these +two conditions simultaneously, exactly as I was simultaneously analysing +her and wanting to be of what service I could. + +She leant forward across the vestry table, locking and unlocking +her hands. + +'This is quite private, isn't it,' she said. 'As private as if...?' + +'Quite,' I told her. + +She drew a long, shivering breath, and leant her forehead on her +clasped hands. + +'You know,' she said, so low that I had to bend forward to catch it, +'what people are saying--what my people suspect about--about Oliver +Hobart's death.' + +'Yes, I know.' + +'Well--it wasn't Mr. Gideon.' + +'You know that?' I said quickly. And a great relief flooded me. I hadn't +known, until that moment, because I had driven it under, how large a part +of my brain believed that Gideon had perhaps done this thing. + +'Yes,' she whispered. 'I know it ... Because I know--I know--who did it.' + +In that moment I felt that I knew too, and that Gideon knew, and that I +ought to have guessed all along. + +I said nothing, but waited for the girl's next word, if she had a next +word to say. It wasn't for me to question her. + +And then, quite suddenly, she gave a little moan of misery and broke into +passionate tears. + +I waited for a moment, then I got up and poured her out a glass of water. +It must have been pretty bad for her. It must have been pretty bad all +this time, I thought, knowing this thing about her sister. + +She drank the water, and became quieter. + +'Do you want to tell me any more?' I asked her, presently. + +'Oh, I do, I do. But it's so difficult ... I don't know how to tell +you.... Oh, God ... It was _I_ that killed him!' + +'Yes?' I said, after a moment, gently, and without apparent surprise. One +learns in parish work not to start, however much one may be startled. I +merely added a legitimate inquiry. 'Why was that?' + +She gulped. 'I want to tell you everything. I _want_ to.' + +I was sure she did. She had reached the familiar pouring-out stage. It +was obviously going to be a relief to her to spread herself on the +subject. I am pretty well used to being told everything, and at times a +good deal more, and have learnt to discount much of it. I looked away +from her and prepared to listen, and to give my mind to sifting, if I +could, the fact from the fancy in her story. This is a special art, and +one which all parsons do well to learn. I have heard my vicar on the +subject of women's confessions. + +'Women--women. Some of them will invent any crime--give themselves away +with both hands--merely to make themselves interesting. Poor things, they +don't realise how tedious sin is. One has to be on one's guard the whole +time, with that kind.' + +I deduced that Clare Potter might possibly be that kind. So I listened +carefully, at first neither believing nor disbelieving. + +'It's difficult to tell you,' she began, in a pathetic, unsteady voice. +'It hurts, rather ...' + +'No, I think not,' I corrected her. 'It's a relief, isn't it?' + +She stared at me for a moment, then went on, 'Yes, I _want_ to tell. But +it hurts, all the same.' + +I let her have it her own way; I couldn't press the point. She really +thought it did hurt. I perceived that she had, like so many people, a +confused mind. + +'Go on,' I said. + +'I must begin a long way back.... You see, before Oliver fell in love +with Jane, he ... he cared a little for me. He really did, Mr. Juke. And +he made me care for him.' Her voice dropped to a whisper. + +This was truth. I felt no doubt as to that. + +'Then ... then Jane came, and took him away from me. He fell in love with +her ... I thought my heart would break.' + +I didn't protest against the phrase, or ask her to explain it, because +she was unhappy. But I wish people wouldn't use it, because I don't know, +and they don't know, what they mean by it. 'I thought I should be very +unhappy,' is that the meaning? No, because they are already that. 'I +thought my heart--the physical organ--would be injuriously affected to +the point of rupture.' No; I do not believe that is what they mean. +Frankly, I do not know. There should be a dictionary of the phrases in +common use. + +However, it would have been pedantic and unkind to ask Miss Potter, who +could probably explain no phrases, to explain this. + +She went on, crying a little again. + +'I couldn't stop caring for him all at once. How could I? I suppose +you'll despise me, Mr. Juke, but I just couldn't help going on loving +him. It's once and for ever with me. Oh, I expect you think it was +shameful of me!' + +'Shameful? To love? No, why? It's human nature. You had bad luck, +that's all.' + +'Oh, I did.... Well, there it was, you see. He was married to Jane, and I +cared for him so much that I could hardly bear to go to the house and see +them together.... Oh, it wasn't my fault; he _made_ me care, indeed he +did. I'd never have begun for myself, I'm not that sort of girl, I never +was, I know some girls do it, but I never could have. I suppose I'm too +proud or something.' + +She paused, but I made no comment. I never comment on the pride of which +I am so often informed by those who possess it. + +She resumed, 'Well, it went on and on, and I didn't seem to get to +feel any better about it. And I hated Jane. Oh, I know that was +wicked, of course.' + +As she knew it, I again made no comment. + +'And sometimes I think I hated _him_, when he thought of nothing but her +and never at all of me.... Well, sometimes there was trouble between +them, because Jane would do things and go about with people he didn't +like. And especially Mr. Gideon. We none of us like Mr. Gideon at home, +you know; we think he's awful. He's so rude, and has such silly +opinions, and is so conceited and unkind. He's been awfully rude to +father's papers always. And that horrid article he had in his silly +paper about what he called 'Potterite Fiction,' mostly about mother's +books--did you read it?' + +'Yes. But Gideon didn't write it, you know. It was some one else.' + +'Oh, well, it was in his paper, anyhow. And he _thought_ it.... And, +anyhow, what are books, to hurt people's feelings about?' + +(A laudable sentiment, and one which should be illuminated as a text on +the writing table of every reviewer.) + +'Oh, of course I know he's a friend of yours,' she added. 'That's really +why I came to you.... But we none of us like him at home. And Oliver +couldn't stick him. And he begged Jane not to have anything more to do +with him, but she would. She wrote in his paper, and she was always +seeing him. And Oliver got more and more disgusted about it, and I +couldn't bear to see him unhappy.' + +'No?' I questioned. + +She paused, checked by the interruption. Then, after a moment, she +said, 'I suppose you mean I was glad really, because it came between +them.... Well, I don't know.... Perhaps I was, then.... Well, wouldn't +any one be?' + +'Most people,' I agreed. 'Yes?' + +She went on a little less fluently, of which I was glad. Fluency and +accuracy are a bad pair. I would rather people stumbled and stammered out +their stories than poured them. + +'And I think he thought--Oliver thought--he began to suspect--that Mr. +Gideon was--you know--_in love_ with Jane. And I thought so too. And +he thought Jane was careless about not discouraging him, and seeing so +much of him and all. But _I_ thought she was worse than that, and +encouraged him, and didn't care.... Jane was always dreadfully selfish, +you know....' + +'And ... that evening?' I prompted her, as she paused. + +'Well, that evening,' she shuddered a little, and went on quickly. 'I'd +been dining with a friend, and I was to sleep at Jane's. I got there soon +after ten, and no one was in, so I went to my room to take my things off. +Then I heard Jane come in, with Mr. Gideon. They went upstairs to the +drawing-room, and I heard them talking there. My door was a little open, +and I heard what they said. And he said ...' + +'Perhaps,' I suggested, 'you'd better not tell me what they said, since +they thought they were alone. What do you think?' + +'Oh, very well. There's no harm. I thought I'd better tell you +everything. But as you like.' She was a little disappointed, but picked +herself up and continued. + +'Well, then I heard Oliver coming upstairs, and he stopped at the +drawing-room door for a moment before they saw him, I think, because he +didn't speak quite at once. Then he said, "Good evening," and they said, +"Hallo," and they all began to be nasty--in their voices, you know. He +said he'd obviously come home before he was expected, and then Jane went +upstairs, pretending nothing was the matter--Jane never bothers about +anything--and I heard Mr. Gideon come up to Oliver and ask him what he +meant by that. And they talked just outside my door, and they were very +disagreeable, but I suppose you don't want me to tell you what they +said, so I won't. Anyhow it wasn't much, only Oliver gave Mr. Gideon to +understand he wasn't to come there any more, and Mr. Gideon said he +certainly had no intention of doing so. Oh, yes, and he said, "Damn you" +rather loud. And then he went downstairs and left the house. I heard the +door shut after him, then I came out of my room, and there was Oliver +standing at the top of the stairs, looking as if he didn't see anything. +He didn't seem to see me, even. I couldn't bear it, he was so white and +angry and thinking of nothing but Jane, who wasn't worth thinking about, +because she didn't care.... And then ... I lost my head. I think I was +mad ... I'd felt awfully queer for a long time.... I couldn't bear it any +more, his being unhappy about Jane and not even seeing me. I went up to +him and said, "Oliver, I'm glad you've got rid of that horrid man." + +'He stared at me and still didn't seem to see me. That somehow made me +furious. I said, "Jane's much too fond of him.... She's always with him +now.... They spent this evening together, you know, and came home +together." + +'Then he seemed to wake up, and he looked at me with a look I hadn't ever +seen before, and it was as if the world was at an end, because I saw he +hated me for saying that. And he said, "Kindly let my affairs and Jane's +alone," in a horrible, sharp, cold voice. I couldn't bear it. It seemed +to kill something in me; my love for him, perhaps. I went first cold then +hot, and I was crazy with anger; I pushed him back out of the way to let +me pass--I pushed him suddenly, and so hard that he lost his balance.... +Oh, you know the rest.... He was standing at the top of those awful +stairs--why are people _allowed_ to make stairs like that?--and he reeled +and fell backwards.... Oh, dear, oh, dear, and you know the rest....' + +She was sobbing bitterly now. + +'Yes, yes,' I said, 'I know the rest,' and I said no more for a time. + +I was puzzled. That she had truly repeated what had passed between her +and Hobart I believed. But whether she had pushed him, or whether he had +lost his own balance, seemed to me still an open question. I had to +consider two things--how best to help this girl, and how to get Gideon +out of the mess as quickly and as quietly as possible. For both these +things I had to get at the truth--if I could. + +'Now, look here,' I said presently, 'is this story you've told me wholly +true? Did it actually happen precisely like that? Please think for a +moment and then tell me.' + +But she didn't think, not even for a moment. + +'Oh,' she sobbed, 'true! Why should I _say_ it if it wasn't?' + +Why indeed? I began to enumerate some possible reasons--an inaccurate +habit of mind, a sensational imagination (both these misfortunes being +hereditary), an egotistic craving for attention, even unfavourable +attention--it might be any of these things, or all. But I hadn't got far +before she broke in, 'Oh, God. I've not had a moment's peace since ... I +loved him, and I killed him.... I let them think it was an accident.... +It was as if I was gagged, I _couldn't_ speak. And after a bit, when it +had all settled down, there didn't seem to be any reason why I should say +anything.... I never thought, truly I never thought, that they'd ever +suspect some one else.... And then, a little while ago, I heard mother +saying something, to some one about Mr. Gideon, and last night Katherine +Varick came and told Jane people were saying it everywhere. And this +morning there was that piece in the _Haste_. ... Oh! what shall I _do?_' + +'You don't really,' I said, 'feel any doubt about that. Do you?' + +She lifted her wet, puckered face and stared at me, and I saw that, for +the moment at least, she was not thinking of herself at all, but only of +her tragedy and her problem. + +'You mean,' she whispered, 'that I must tell ...' + +'It's rather obvious, isn't it,' I said gently, because I was horribly +sorry for her. 'You must tell the truth, whatever it is.' + +'And be tried for murder--or manslaughter? Appear in the docks?' she +quavered, her frightened brown eyes large and round. + +'I don't think it would come to that. All you have to do is to tell your +parents. Your father is responsible for the stuff in the papers, and your +mother, I gather, for the spreading of the story personally. Your +confession to them would stop that. They would withdraw, retract what +they have said, and say publicly that they were mistaken, that the +evidence they thought they had, had been proved false. Then it would be +generally assumed again that the thing was an accident, and the talk +would die down. No one need ever know but your parents and myself. I am +bound, and they would choose, not to repeat it to any one.' + +'Not to Jane?' she questioned. + +'Well, what does Jane think at present? Does she suspect?' + +She shook her head. 'I don't know. Jane's been rather queer all day.... +I've sometimes thought she suspected something. Only if she did, I +believe she'd have told me. Jane doesn't consider people's feelings, you +know; she'd say anything, however awful.... Only she's deep, too. Not +like me. I must have things out; she'll keep them dark, sometimes.... No, +I don't know what Jane thinks, really I don't.' + +I didn't know either. Another thing I didn't know was what Gideon +thought. They might both suspect Clare, and this might have tied Gideon's +hands; he might have shrunk from defending himself at the expense of a +frightened, unhappy girl and Jane's sister. + +But this wasn't my business. + +'Well,' I said, 'you may find you have to tell Jane. Perhaps, in a way, +you owe it to Jane to tell her. But the essential thing is that you +should tell your parents. That's quite necessary, of course. And you +should do it at once--this evening, directly you get home. Every minute +lost makes the thing worse. I think you should catch the next train back +to Potter's Bar. You see, what you say may affect what is in to-morrow +morning's papers. This thing has to be stopped at once, before further +damage is done.' + +She looked at me palely, her hands twisting convulsively in and out of +each other. I saw her, for all her seven or eight-and-twenty years, as a +weak, frightened child, ignorant, like a child, of the mischief she was +doing to others, concerned, like a child, with her own troubles and fears +and the burden on her own conscience. I was inclined now to believe in +that push. + +'Oh,' she whimpered, 'I _daren't_.... All this time I've said +nothing.... How can I, now? It's too awful ... too difficult ...' + +I looked at her in silence. + +'What's your proposal, then?' I asked her. I may have sounded hard and +unkind, but I didn't feel so; I was immensely sorry for her. Only, I +believe a certain amount of hard practicality is the only wholesome +treatment to apply to emotional and wordy people. One has to make them +face facts, put everything in terms of action. If she had come to me for +advice, she should have it. If she had come to me merely to get relief by +unburdening her tortured conscience, she should find the burden doubled +unless she took the only possible way out. + +She looked this way and that, with scared, hunted eyes. + +'I thought perhaps ... they might be made to think it was an +accident ...' + +'How?' + +'Well, you see, I could tell them that he'd left the house--Mr. Gideon, I +mean--before Oliver ... fell. That would be true. I could say I heard Mr. +Gideon go, and heard Oliver fall afterwards. That's what I thought I'd +say. Then he'd be cleared, wouldn't he?' + +'Why haven't you,' I asked, 'said this already, directly you knew that +Gideon was suspected?' + +'I--I didn't like,' she faltered. 'I wanted to ask some one's advice. I +wanted to know what you thought.' + +'I've told you,' I answered her, 'what I think. It's more than thinking. +I know. You've got to tell them the exact truth whatever it is. There's +really no question about it. You couldn't go to them with a half true +story ... could you?' + +'I don't know,' she sighed, pinching her fingers together nervously. + +'You do know. It would be impossible. You couldn't lie about a thing like +that. You've got to tell the truth.... Not all you've told me, if you +don't want to--but simply that you pushed him, in impatience, not meaning +to hurt him, and that he fell. It's quite simple really, if you do it at +once. It won't be if you leave it until the thing has gone further and +Gideon is perhaps arrested. You'd have to tell the public the story then. +Now it's easy.... No, I beg your pardon, it's not easy; I know that. It's +very hard. But there it is: it's got to be done, and done at once.' + +She listened in silence, drooping and huddled together. I was reminded +pitifully of some soft little animal, caught in a trap and paralysed +with fear. + +'Oh,' she gasped, 'I must, I must, I know I must. But it's +_difficult_ ...' + +I'm not going to repeat the things I said. They were the usual truisms, +and one has to say them. I had accepted her story now: it seemed simpler. +The complex part of the business was that at one moment I was simply +persuading a frightened and reluctant girl to do the straight and decent +and difficult thing, and at the next I was wasting words on an egotist +(we're all that, after all) who was subconsciously enjoying the situation +and wanting to prolong it. One feels the difference always, and it is +that duplicity of aim in seekers after advice that occasionally makes one +cruel and hard, because it seems the only profitable method. + +It must have been ten minutes before I wrung out of her a faltering but +definite, 'I'll do it.' + +Then I stood up. There was no more time to be wasted. + +'What train can you get?' I asked her. + +'I don't know.... The 7.30, perhaps.' She rose, too, her little wet +crumpled handkerchief still in her hand. I saw she had something +else to say. + +'I've been so miserable ...' + +'Well, of course.' + +'It's been on my _mind_ so ...' + +What things people of this type give themselves the trouble of saying! + +'Well, it will be off your mind now,' I suggested. + +'Will it? But it will still be there--the awful thing I did. I ought to +confess it, oughtn't I, and get absolution? I do make my confession, you +know, but I've never told this, not properly. I know I ought to have +done, but I couldn't get it out ever--I put it so that the priest +couldn't understand. I suppose it was awfully mean and cowardly of me, +and I ought to confess it properly.' + +But I couldn't go into that question, not being entirely sure even now +_what_ she ought to confess. I merely said, 'Well, why make confessions +at all if you don't make them properly?' + +She only gave her little soft quivering sigh. It was too difficult a +question for her to answer. And, after all, a foolish one to ask. Why do +we do all the hundreds of things that we don't do properly? Reasons are +many and motives mixed. + +I walked with her to the King's Cross bus and saw her into it. We shook +hands as we parted, and hers was hot and clinging. I saw that she was all +tense and strung up. + +'Good-bye,' she whispered. 'And thank you ever so much for being so good +to me. I'll do what you told me to-night. If it kills me, I will.' + +'That's good,' I returned. 'But it won't kill you, you know.' + +I smiled at her as she got on to the bus, and she smiled pitifully back. + + +5 + +I walked back to my rooms. I felt rather tired, and had a queer feeling +of having hammered away on something soft and yielding and yet +unbreakable, like putty. I felt sick at having been so hard, and sick too +that she was so soft. Sick of words, and phrases, and facile emotions, +and situations, and insincerities, and Potterisms--and yet with an odd +tide of hope surging through the sickness, because of human nature, which +is so mixed that natural cowards will sometimes take a steep and hard way +where they might take an easy one, and because we all, in the middle of +our egotism and vanity and self-seeking, are often sorry for what we have +done. Really sorry, beneath all the cheap penitence which leads nowhere. +So sorry that we sometimes cannot bear it any more, and will break up our +own lives to make amends.... + +And if, at the same time, we watch our sorrow and our amends, and see it +as drama and as interesting--well, after all, it is drama and it is +interesting, so why not? We can't all be clear and steely +unsentimentalists like Katherine Varick. + +One has to learn to bear sentimentalism. In parishes (which are the +world) one has to endure it, accept it. It is part of the general +muddle and mess. + + +6 + +I got a _Daily Haste_ next morning early, together with the _Pink +Pictorial_, the illustrated Pinkerton daily. I looked through them +quickly. There was no reference to the Hobart Mystery. I was relieved. +Clare Potter had kept her word, then--or anyhow had said enough to clear +Gideon (I wasn't going further than that about her; I had done my utmost +to make her do the straight thing in the straight way, and must leave the +rest to her), and the Pinkertons were withdrawing. They would have, +later, to withdraw more definitely than by mere abstaining from further +accusation (I intended to see to that, if no one else did), but this was +a beginning. It was, no doubt, all that Pinkerton had been able to +arrange last night over the telephone. + +It would have interested me to have been present at that interview +between Clare and her parents. I should like to have seen Pinkerton +provided by his innocent little daughter with the sensation of his life, +and Leila Yorke, the author of _Falsely Accused_ forced to realise her +own abominable mischief-making; forced also to realise that her messages +from the other side had been as lacking in accuracy as, unfortunately, +messages from this side, too, so often are. I hoped the affair Hobart +would be a lesson to both Pinkertons. But, like most of the lessons set +before us in this life, I feared it would be a lesson unlearnt. + +Anyhow, Pinkerton was prompt and business like in his methods. His +evening paper contained a paragraph to this effect:-- + +'DEATH OF MR HOBART + +'NOW CONSIDERED ACCIDENTAL + +'FOUL PLAY NOT SUSPECTED + +'The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of +Mr. Oliver Hobart, the late editor of the _Daily Haste_, have resulted in +conclusive evidence that the tragedy was due to Mr. Hobart's accidental +stumbling and falling. His fall, which was audible to the other inmates +of the house, took place after the departure of Mr. Arthur Gideon, with +whom he had been talking. A statement to this effect has been made by +Miss Clare Potter, who was staying in the house at the time, and who was +at the time of the inquest too much prostrated by the shock to give +evidence.' + +It was a retraction all right, and all that could be expected of the +Pinkerton Press. In its decision and emphasis I read scare. + +I didn't give much more thought just then to the business. I was +pretty busy with meetings and committees, and with rehearsals of _A +New Way to pay Old Debts,_ which we were playing to the parish in a +week. I had stage-managed it at Oxford once, and had got some of the +same people together, and it was going pretty well but needed a good +deal of attention. I had, too, to go away from town for a day or two, +on some business connected with the Church Congress. Church Congresses +keep an incredible number of people busy about them beforehand; +besides all the management of committees and programmes and +side-shows, there is the management of all the people of divergent +views who won't meet each other, such as Mr. George Lansbury and Mr. +Athelstan Riley. (Not that this delicate task fell to me; I was only +concerned with Life and Liberty.) + +On the day after I came back I met Jane at the club, after lunch. She +came over and sat down by me. + +'Hallo,' she said. 'Have you been seeing the _Haste_?' + +'I have. It's been more interesting lately than my own paper.' + +'Yes.... So Arthur's acquitted without a stain on his character. Poor +mother's rather sick about it. She thought she'd had a Message, you know. +That frightful Ayres woman had a vision in a glass ball of Arthur +knocking Oliver downstairs. I expect you heard. Every one did.... Mother +went round to see her about it the other day, but she still sticks to it. +Poor mother doesn't know what to make of it. Either the ball lied, or the +Ayres woman lied, or Clare is lying. She's forced to the conclusion that +it was the Ayres. So they've had words. I expect they'll make it up +before long. But at present there's rather a slump in Other Side +business.... And she wrote a letter of apology to Arthur. Father made +her, he was so afraid Arthur would bring a libel action.' + +'Why didn't he?' I asked, wondering, first, how much of the truth +either Arthur or Jane had suspected all this time, and, secondly, how +much they now knew. + +Jane looked at me with her guarded, considering glance. + +'Well,' she said, 'I don't mind your knowing. You'd better not let on to +him that I told you, though; he mightn't like it. The fact is, Arthur +thought I'd done it. He thought it was because my manner was so queer, as +if I was trying to hush it up. I was. You see, I thought Arthur had done +it. It seemed so awfully likely. Because, I left them quarrelling. And +Arthur's got an awfully bad temper. And _his_ manner was so queer. We +never talked it out, till two days ago; we avoided talking to each other +at all, almost, after the first. But on that first morning, when he came +round to see me, we somehow succeeded in diddling one another, because we +were each so anxious to shield the other and hush it all up.... Clare +might have saved us both quite a lot of worrying if she'd spoken out at +once and said it was ... an accident.' + +Jane's voice was so unemotional, her face and manner so calm, that she +is a very dark horse sometimes. I couldn't tell for certain whether she +had nearly instead of 'an accident' said 'her,' or whether she had +spoken in good faith. I couldn't tell how much she knew, or had been +told, or guessed. + +I said, 'I suppose she didn't realise till lately that any one was likely +to be suspected,' and Jane acquiesced. + +'Clare's funny,' she said, after a moment. + +'People are,' I generalised. + +'She has a muddled mind,' said Jane. + +'People often have.' + +'You never know,' said Jane thoughtfully, 'how much to believe of what +she says.' + +'No? I dare say she doesn't quite know herself.' + +'She does not,' said Jane. 'Poor old Clare.' + +We necessarily left it at that, since Jane didn't, of course, mean to +tell me what story Clare had told of that evening's happenings, and I +couldn't tell Jane the one Clare had told me. I didn't imagine I should +ever be wiser than I was now on the subject, and it certainly wasn't my +business any more. + +When I met Clare Potter by chance, a week or two later, on the steps of +the National Gallery with another girl, she flushed, bowed, and passed me +quickly. That was natural enough, after our last interview. + +Queer, that those two girls should be sisters. They were an interesting +study to me. Clare, shallow, credulous, weak in the intelligence, +conventional, emotional, sensitive, of the eternal type of orthodox and +timid woman, with profound powers of passion, and that touch of +melodrama, that sense of a situation, which might lead her along strange +paths.... And Jane, level-headed, clear-brained, hard, calm, +straight-thinking, cynical, an egotist to her finger-tips, knowing what +she wanted and going for it, tough in the conscience, and ignorant of +love except in its crudest form of desire for the people and things which +ministered to her personal happiness.... + +It struck me that the two represented two sides of Potterism--the +intellectual and moral. Clare, the ignorant, muddle-headed +sentimentalist; Jane, reacting against this, but on her part grabbing and +exploiting. Their attitude towards truth (that bugbear of Potterism) was +typical; Clare couldn't see it; Jane saw it perfectly clearly, and would +reject it without hesitation if it suited her book. Clare was like her +mother, only with better, simpler stuff in her; Jane was rather like her +father in her shrewd native wit, only, while he was vulgar in his mind, +she was only vulgar in her soul. + +Of one thing I was sure: they would both be, on the whole, satisfied with +life, Jane because she would get what she wanted, Clare because she would +be content with little. Clare would inevitably marry; as inevitably, she +would love her husband and her children, and come to regard her passion +for Oliver Hobart and its tragic sequel as a romantic episode of +girlhood, a sort of sowing of wild oats before the real business of life +began. And Jane would, I presumed, ultimately marry Gideon, who was too +good for her, altogether too fine and too good. For Gideon was direct and +keen and passionate, and loved and hated cleanly, and thought finely and +acutely. Gideon wasn't greedy; he took life and its pleasures and +triumphs and amusements in his stride, as part of the day's work; he +didn't seek them out for their own sakes. Gideon lived for causes and +beliefs and ideals. He was temperamentally Christian, though he didn't +happen to believe Christian dogma. He had his alloy, like other people, +of ambition and selfishness, but so much less than, for instance, I have, +that it is absurd that he should be the agnostic and I the professing +Christian. + + +7 + +The Christian Church. Sometimes one feels that it is a fantasy, the +flaming ideal one has for it. One thinks of it as a fire, a sword, an +army with banners marching against dragons; one doesn't see how such +power can be withstood, be the dragons never so strong. And then one +looks round and sees it instead as a frail organisation of the lame, the +halt, and the blind, a tepid organisation of the satisfied, the +bourgeois, the conventionally genteel, a helpless organisation of the +ignorant, the half-witted, the stupid; an organisation full to the brim +of cant, humbug, timid orthodoxy, unreality, self-content, and all kinds +of Potterism--and one doesn't see how it can overcome anything whatever. + +What is the truth? Where, between these two poles, does the actual +church stand? Or does it, like most of us its members, swing to and from +between them, touching now one, now the other? A Potterite church--yes; +because we are most of us Potterites. An anti-Potterite church--yes, +again; because at its heart is something sharp and clean and fine and +direct, like a sword, which will not let us be contented Potterites, but +which is for ever goading us out of ourselves, pricking us out of our +trivial satisfactions and our egotistic discontents. + +I suppose the fact is that the Church can only work on the material it +finds, and do a little here and a little there. It would be a sword in +the hands of such men as Gideon; on the other hand, it can't do much +with the Clare Potters. The real thing frightens them if ever they see +it; the sham thing they mould to their own liking, till it is no more +than a comfortable shelter from the storms of life. It is the world's +Potters who have taken the Church and spoilt it, degraded it to the +poor dull thing it is. It is the Potterism in all of us which at every +turn checks and drags it down. Personally, I can forgive Potterism +everything but that. + +What is one to do about it? + + + + +PART VI: + +TOLD BY R.M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA + + +1 + +While Clare talked to Juke in the vestry, Jane talked to her parents at +Potter's Bar. She was trying to make them drop their campaign against +Gideon. But she had no success. Lady Pinkerton said, 'The claims of Truth +are inexorable. Truth is a hard god to follow, and often demands the +sacrifice of one's personal feelings.' Lord Pinkerton said, 'I think, now +the thing has gone so far, it had better be thoroughly sifted. If Gideon +is innocent, it is only due to him. If he is guilty, it is due to the +public. You must remember that he edits a paper which has a certain +circulation; small, no doubt, but still, a circulation. He is not +altogether like a private and irresponsible person.' + +Lady Pinkerton remarked that we are none of us that, we all owe a duty to +society, and so forth. + +Then Clare came in, just as they had finished dinner. She would not have +any. Her face was red and swollen with crying. She said she had something +to tell them at once, that would not keep a moment. Mr. Gideon mustn't be +suspected any more of having killed Oliver, for she had done it herself, +after Mr. Gideon had left the house. + +They did not believe her at first. She was hysterical, and they all knew +Clare. But she grew more circumstantial about it, till they began to +believe it. After all, they reasoned, it explained her having been so +completely knocked over by the catastrophe. + +Jane asked her why she had done it. She said she had only meant to push +him away from her, and he had fallen. + +Lady Pinkerton said, 'Push him away, my dear! Then was he ...' + +Was he too close, she meant. Clare cried and did not answer. Lady +Pinkerton concluded that Oliver had been trying to kiss Clare, and that +Clare had repulsed him. Jane knew that Lady Pinkerton thought this, and +so did Clare. Jane thought 'Clare means us to think that. That doesn't +mean it's true. Clare hasn't got what Arthur calls a grip on facts.' + +Lord Pinkerton said, 'This is very painful, my dears; very painful +indeed. Jane, my dear ...' + +He meant that Jane was to go away, because it was even more painful for +her than for the others. But Jane didn't go. It wasn't painful for Jane +really. She felt hard and cold, and as if nothing mattered. She was angry +with Clare for crying instead of explaining what had happened. + +Lady Pinkerton said, passing her hand over her forehead in the tired way +she had and shutting her eyes, 'My dear, you are over-wrought. You don't +know what you are saying. You will be able to tell us more clearly in +the morning.' + +But Clare said they must believe her now, and Lord Pinkerton must +telephone up to the _Haste_ and have the stuff about the Hobart +Mystery stopped. + +'My poor child,' said Lady Pinkerton, 'what has made you suddenly, so +long after, tell us this terrible story?' + +Clare sobbed that she hadn't been able to bear it on her mind any more, +and also that she hadn't known till lately that Gideon was suspected. + +Lord and Lady Pinkerton looked at each other, wondering what to believe, +then at Jane, wishing she was gone, so that they could ask Clare more +about it. Jane said, 'Don't mind me. I don't mind hearing about it.' Jane +meant to stay. She thought that if she was gone they would persuade Clare +she had dreamed it all and that it had been really Gideon after all. + +Jane asked Clare why she had pushed Oliver, thinking that she ought to +explain, and not cry. But still Clare only cried, and at last said she +couldn't ever tell any one. Lady Pinkerton turned pink, and Lord +Pinkerton walked up and down and said, 'Tut tut,' and it was more obvious +than ever what Clare meant. + +She added, 'But I never meant, indeed I never meant, to hurt him. He just +fell back, and ...' + +'Was killed,' Jane finished for her. Jane thought Clare was like their +mother in trying to avoid plain words for disagreeable things. + +Clare cried and cried. 'Oh,' she said, 'I've not had a happy moment +since,' which was as nearly true as these excessive statements ever are. + +Lady Pinkerton tried to calm her, and said, 'My poor, dear child, you +don't know what you are saying. You must go to bed now, and tell us in +the morning, when you are more yourself.' + +Clare didn't go to bed until Lord Pinkerton had promised to ring up the +_Haste_. Then she went, with Lady Pinkerton, who was crying too now, +because she was beginning to believe the story. + + +2 + +Jane didn't know what she believed. She didn't believe what Clare had +implied--that Oliver had tried to kiss her. Because Oliver hadn't been +like that; it wasn't the sort of thing he did. Jane thought it caddish of +Clare to have tried to make them think that of him. But she might, Jane +thought, have been angry with him about something else; she might have +pushed him.... Or she might not; she might be imagining or inventing the +whole thing. You never knew, with Clare. + +If it was true, Jane thought, she had been a fool about Arthur. But, if +he hadn't done it, why had he been so queer? Why had he avoided her, and +been so odd and ashamed from the first morning on? + +Perhaps, thought Jane, he had suspected Clare. + +She would see him to-morrow morning, and ask him. + + +3 + +Jane saw Gideon next day. She rang him up, and he came over to Hampstead +after tea. + +It was the first time Jane had seen him alone for more than a month. He +looked thin and ill. + +Jane loved him. She had loved him through everything. He might have +killed Oliver; it made no difference to her caring for him. + +But she hoped he hadn't. + +He came into the drawing-room. Jane remembered that other night, when +Oliver--poor Oliver--had been vexed to find him there. Poor Oliver. Poor +Oliver. But Jane couldn't really care. Not really, only gently, and in a +way that didn't hurt. Not as if Gideon were dead and shut away from +everything. Not as if she herself were. + +Jane didn't pretend. As Lady Pinkerton would say, the claims of Truth +were inexorable. + +Gideon came in quickly, looking grave and worried, as if he had something +on his mind. + +Jane said, 'Arthur, please tell me. _Did_ you knock Oliver down +that night?' + +He stood and stared at her, looking astonished and startled. + +Then he said, slowly, 'Oh, I see. You mean, am I going to admit that I +did, when I am accused.... If there's no other way out, I am.... It will +be all right, Jane,' he said very gently. 'You needn't be afraid.' + +Jane didn't understand him. + +'Then you did it,' she said, and sat down. She felt sick, and her +head swam. + +Gideon stood over her, tall and stooping, biting the nail of his +middle finger. + +'You see,' Jane said, 'I'd begun to hope last night that you hadn't done +it after all.' + +'What are you talking about?' he asked. + +Jane said, 'Clare told us that it happened--that he fell--after you had +left the house. So I hoped she might be speaking the truth, and that +you hadn't done it after all. But if you did, we must go on thinking of +ways out.' + +'If--I--did,' Gideon said after her slowly. 'You know I didn't, Jane. +Why are you talking like this? What's the use, when I know, and you know, +and you know that I know, the truth about it? It can do no good.' + +He was, for the first time, stern and angry with her. + +'The truth?' Jane said. 'I wish you'd tell it me, Arthur.' + +The truth. If Gideon told her anything, it would be the truth, she knew. +He wasn't like Clare, who couldn't. + +But he only looked at her oddly, and didn't speak. Jane looked back into +his eyes, trying to read his mind, and so for a moment he stared down at +her and she stared up at him. + +Jane perceived that he had not done it. Had he, then, guessed all this +time that Clare had, and been trying to shield her? + +Then, slowly, his face, which had been frowning and tense, changed +and broke up. + +'Good God!' he said. 'Tell me the truth, Jane. It _was_ you, wasn't it?' + +Then Jane understood. + +She said, 'You thought it was _me_.... And I thought it was you! Is it me +you've been so ashamed of all this time then, not yourself?' + +'Yes,' he said, still staring at her. 'Of course.... It _wasn't_ you, +then.... And you thought it was me?... But how could you think that, +Jane? I'd have told; I wouldn't have been such a silly fool as to sneak +away and say nothing. You might have known that. You must have had a +pretty poor opinion of me, to think I'd do that.... Good lord, how you +must have loathed me all this time!' + +'No, I haven't. Have you loathed me, then?' + +He said quickly, 'That's different,' but he didn't explain why. + +After a moment he said, 'It was just an accident then, after all.' + +'Yes ... Clare was talking to him when he fell.... She's only just told +about it, because you were being suspected. But I never know whether to +believe Clare; she's such a gumph. I had to ask you.... What made you +suspect _me_, by the way?' + +'Your manner, that first morning. You dragged me into the dining-room, do +you remember, and talked about how they all thought it was an accident, +and no one would guess if we were careful, and I wasn't to say anything. +What else was I to think? It was really your own fault.' + +Jane said, 'Well, anyhow, we're quits. We've both spent six weeks +thinking each other murderers. Now we'll stop.... I don't wonder you +fought shy of me, Arthur.' + +He looked at her curiously. + +'Didn't you fight shy of me, then? You can hardly have wanted to see much +of me in the circumstances.' + +'I didn't, of course. It was awful. Besides, you were so queer and +disagreeable. I thought it was a guilty conscience, but really I suppose +it was disgust.' + +'Not disgust. No. Not that.' He seemed to be balancing the word 'disgust' +in his mind, considering it, then rejecting it. 'But,' he said, 'it would +have been difficult to pretend nothing had happened, wouldn't it.... I +didn't blame you, you know, for the thing itself. I knew it must have +been an accident--that you never meant ... what happened.... Well, +anyhow, that's all over. It's been pretty ghastly. Let's forget it.... +What Potterish minds you and I must have, Jane, to have built up such a +sensational melodrama out of an ordinary accident. I think Lord Pinkerton +would find me useful on one of his papers; I'm wasted on the _Fact_. You +and I; the two least likely people in the world for such fancies, you'd +think--except Katherine. By the way, Katherine half thought I'd done it, +you know. So did Jukie.' + +'I'm inclined now to think that K thought I had, that evening she came to +see me. She was rather sick with me for letting you be accused.' + +'A regular Potter melodrama,' said Gideon. 'It might be in one of your +mother's novels or your father's papers. That just shows, Jane, how +infectious a thing Potterism is. It invades the least likely homes, and +upsets the least likely lives. Horrible, catching disease.' + +Gideon was walking up and down the room in his restless way, playing with +the things on the tables. He stopped suddenly, and looked at Jane. + +'Jane,' he said, 'we won't, you and I, have any more secrets and +concealments between us. They're rotten things. Next time it occurs to +you that I've committed a crime, ask me if it is so. And I'll do the same +to you, at whatever risk of being offensive. We'll begin now by telling +each other what we feel.... You know I love you, my dear.' + +Oh, yes, Jane knew that. She said, 'I suppose I do, Arthur.' + +He said, 'Then what about it? Do you ...' and she said, 'Rather, of +course I do.' + +Then they kissed each other, and settled to get married next May or June. +The baby was coming in January. + +'You'll have to put up with baby, you know, Arthur,' Jane said. + +'Of course, poor little kid. I rather like them. It's rough luck on it +not having a father of its own. I'll try to be decent to it.' + +That would be queer, thought Jane, Arthur being decent to Oliver's kid; a +boy, perhaps, with Oliver's face and Oliver's mind. Poor little kid: but +Jane would love it, and Arthur would be decent to it, and its +grandparents would spoil it; it would be their favourite, if any more +came. They wouldn't like the others, because they would be Gideon's. They +might look like little Yids. Perhaps there wouldn't be any others. Jane +wasn't keen. They were all right when they were there--jolly little +comics, all slippy in their baths, like eels--but they were an +unspeakable nuisance while on the way. A rotten system. + + +4 + +All next day Jane felt like stopping people in the streets and shouting +at them, 'Arthur didn't do it. Nor did I. It was only that silly ass, +Clare, or else it was an accident.' For even now Jane wasn't sure which +she thought. + +But the only person to whom she really said it was Katherine. One told +Katherine things, because she was as deep and as quiet as the grave. +Also, if Jane hadn't told her what Clare had said, she would have gone on +thinking it was Jane, and Jane didn't like that. Jane did not care to +give Katherine more reasons for making her feel cheap than necessary. She +would always think Jane cheap, anyhow, because Jane only cared about +having a good time, and Katherine thought one should care chiefly about +one's job. Jane supposed she was cheap, but didn't much care. She felt +she would rather be herself. She had a better time, and would have a +better time still before she had done; better than Johnny, with the +rubbishy books he was writing and making his firm bring out for him and +feeling so pleased with. Jane knew she could write better stuff than +Johnny could, any day. And her books would be in addition to Gideon, and +babies, and other amusing things. + +Jane told Katherine Clare's story. Katherine said, 'H'm. Perhaps. I +wonder. It's as likely as not all bumkum that she pushed him. She was +probably talking to him when he fell, and got worked up about it later. +The Potter press and Leila Yorke touch. However, you never know. Quite a +light push might do it. Those stairs of yours are awful. I really advise +you to be careful, Jane.' + +'You thought I'd done it, didn't you, old thing?' + +'For a bit, I did. For a bit I thought it was Arthur. So did Jukie. You +never know. Any one might push any one else. Even Clare may have.' + +'You must have thought I was a pretty mean little beast, to let Arthur be +suspected without owning up.' + +'I did,' Katherine admitted. 'Selfish ...' + +She was looking at Jane in her considering way. Her bright blue eyes +seemed always to go straight through what she was looking at, like +X-rays. When she looked at Jane now, she seemed somehow to be seeing in +her not only the present but the past. It was as if she remembered, and +was making Jane remember, all kinds of old things Jane had done. Things +she had done at Oxford; things she had done since; things Katherine +neither blamed nor condemned, but just took into consideration when +thinking what sort of a person Jane was. You had the same feeling with +Katherine that you had sometimes with Juke, of being analysed and +understood all through. You couldn't diddle either of them into thinking +you any nicer than you were. Jane didn't want to. It was more restful +just to be taken for what one was. Oliver had been always idealising her. +Gideon didn't do that; he knew her too well. Only he didn't bother much +about what she was, not being either a priest or a scientific chemist, +but a man in love. + +'By the way,' said Katherine, 'are you and Arthur going to get married?' + +Jane told her in May or June. + +Katherine, who was lighting a cigarette, looked at Jane without smiling. +The flame of the match shone into her face, and it was white and cold +and quiet. + +'She doesn't think I'm good enough for Arthur,' Jane thought. And anyhow, +K didn't, Jane knew, think much of marriage at all. Most women, if you +said you were going to get married, assumed it was a good thing. They +caught hold of you and kissed you. If you were a man, other men slapped +you on the back, or shook hands or something. They all thought, or +pretended to think, it was a fine thing you were doing. They didn't +really think so always. Behind their eyes you could often see them +thinking other things about it--wondering if you would like it, or why +you chose that one, and if it was because you preferred him or her to any +one else or because you couldn't get any one else. Or they would be +pitying you for stopping being a bachelor or spinster and having to grow +up and settle down and support a wife or manage servants and babies. But +all that was behind; they didn't show it; they would say, 'Good for you, +old thing,' and kiss you or shake your hand. + +Katherine did neither to Jane. She hadn't when it was Oliver Hobart, +because she hadn't thought it a suitable marriage. She didn't, now it was +Arthur Gideon, perhaps for the same reason. She didn't talk about it. She +talked about something else. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED + + +1 + +The fine weather ended. Early October had been warm, full of golden +light, with clear, still evenings. Later the wind blustered, and it was +cold. Sometimes Jane felt sick; that was the baby. But not often. She +went about all right, and she was writing--journalism and a novel. She +thought she would perhaps send it in for a prize novel competition in the +spring, only she felt no certainty of pleasing the three judges, all so +very dissimilar. Jane's work was a novel about a girl at school and +college and thereafter. Perhaps it would be the first of a trilogy; +perhaps it would not. The important thing was that it should be well +reviewed. How did one work that? You could never tell. Some things were +well reviewed, others weren't. Partly luck it was, thought Jane. Novels +were better treated usually than they deserved. Verse about as well as it +deserved, which, however, wasn't, as a rule, saying very much. Some kinds +of book were unkindly used--anthologies of contemporary verse, for +instance. Someone would unselfishly go to the trouble of collecting some +of the recent poetical output which he or she personally preferred and +binding it up in a pleasant portable volume, and you would think all that +readers had to do was to read what they liked in it, if anything, and +leave out the rest and be grateful. Instead, it would be slated by +reviewers, and compared to the Royal Academy, and to a literary signpost +pointing the wrong way, and other opprobrious things; as if an anthology +could point to anything but the taste of the compiler, which of course +could not be expected to agree with any one else's; tastes never do. The +thing was, thought Jane, to hit the public taste with the right thing at +the right moment. Another thing was to do better than Johnny. That should +be possible, because Jane _was_ better than Johnny; had always been. Only +there was this baby, which made her feel ill before it came, and would +need care and attention afterwards. It wasn't fair. If Johnny married and +had a baby it wouldn't get in his way, only in its mamma's. It was a +handicap, like your frock (however short it was) when you were climbing. +You had got round that by taking it off and climbing in knickerbockers, +but you couldn't get round a baby. And Jane wanted the baby too. + +'I suppose I want everything,' said Jane. + +Johnny wanted everything too. He got a lot. He got love. He was +polygamous by nature, and usually had more than one girl on hand. That +autumn he had two. One was Nancy Sharpe, the violinist. They were always +about together. People who didn't know either of them well, thought they +would get engaged. But neither of them wanted that. The other girl was a +different kind: the lovely, painted, music-hall kind you don't meet. No +one thought Johnny would marry her, of course. They merely passed the +time for one another. + +Jane wondered if the equivalent man would pass the time for her. She +didn't think so. She thought she would get bored with never talking about +anything interesting. And it must, she thought, be pretty beastly having +to kiss people who used cheap scent and painted their lips. One would be +afraid the red stuff would come off. In fact, it surely would. Didn't men +mind--clean men, like Johnny? Men are so different, thought Jane. Johnny +was the same at Oxford. He would flirt with girls in tea-shops. Jane had +never wanted to flirt with the waiters in restaurants. Men were perhaps +less critical; or perhaps they wanted different qualities in those with +whom they flirted; or perhaps it was that their amatory instinct, when +pronounced at all, was much stronger than women's, and flowed out on to +any object at hand when they were in the mood. Also, they certainly grew +up earlier. At Oxford and Cambridge girls weren't, for the most part, +grown-up enough to be thinking about that kind of thing at all. It came +on later, with most of them. But men of that age were, quite a lot of +them, mature enough to flirt with the girls in Buol's. + +Jane discussed it with Gideon one evening. Gideon said, 'Men usually +have, as a rule, more sex feeling than women, that's all. Naturally. They +need more, to carry them through all the business of making marriage +proposals and keeping up homes, and so on. Women often have very little. +That's why they're often better at friendship than men are. A woman can +be a man's friend all their lives, but a man, in nine cases out of ten, +will either get tired of it or want more. Women have a tremendous gift +for friendship. Their friendships with other women are usually much more +devoted and more faithful than a man's with other men. Most men, though +of course not all, want sex in their lives at some time or other. +Hundreds of women are quite happy without it. They're quite often nearly +sexless. Very few men are that.' + +Jane said, 'There are plenty of women like Clare, whom one can't think of +apart from sex. No friendship would ever satisfy her. If she isn't a wife +and mother she'll be starved. She'll marry, of course.' + +'Yes,' Gideon agreed. 'There are plenty of women like that. And when a +woman is like that, she's much more dependent on love and marriage than +any man is, because she usually has fewer other things in her life. But +there are women also like Katherine.' + +'Oh, Katherine. K isn't even dependent on friendship. She only wants her +work. K isn't typical.' + +'No; she isn't typical. She isn't a channel for the life force, like most +of us. She's too independent; she won't let herself be used in that way.' + +'Am I a channel for the life force?' thought Jane. 'I suppose so. Hence +Oliver and baby. Is Arthur? I suppose so. Hence his wanting to marry me.' + + +2 + +Jane told her family that she was going to marry Gideon. Lady Pinkerton +said, 'It's extraordinary to me that you can think of it, Jane, after all +that has happened. Surely, my child, the fact that it was the last thing +Oliver would wish should have some weight with you. Whatever plane he may +be on now, he must be disturbed by such news as this. Besides, dear +child, it is far too soon. You should wait at least a year before taking +such a step. And Arthur Gideon! Not only a Jew, Jane, and not only a man +of such very unfortunate political principles, but one who has never +attempted to conceal his spiteful hostility both to father's papers and +my books. But perhaps, as I believe you agree with him in despising both +of these, that may be an extra bond between you. Only you must _see_ that +it will make family life extremely awkward.' + +Of course it would. But family lives nearly always are awkward, Jane +thought; it is one of the things about them. + +Lady Pinkerton added, having suddenly remembered it, 'Besides, my dear, +he _drinks_; you told me so yourself.' + +Jane said, if she had, she had lied, doubtless for some good reason now +forgotten by her. He didn't drink, not in the excessive sense of that +word obviously intended by Lady Pinkerton. Lady Pinkerton was +unconvinced; she still was sure he drank in that sense. + +She resumed, 'And Jewish babies! I wonder you can think of it, Jane. They +may be a throw-back to a most degraded Russian-Jewish type. What brothers +and sisters for the dear mite who is coming first! My dear, I do beg you +to think this over long and seriously before committing yourself. You may +live to repent it bitterly.' + +Clare said, '_Jane_! How _can_ you--after ...' + +After Oliver, she meant. She would never say his name; perhaps one +doesn't like to when one has killed a man. + +Jane thought, 'Why didn't I leave Oliver to Clare? She'd have suited him +much better. I was stupid; I thought I wanted him. I did want him. But +not in the way I want Arthur now. One wants so many things.' + +Lord Pinkerton said, 'You're making a big mistake, Babs. That fellow +won't last. He's building on sand, as the Bible puts it--building on +sand. I hear on good authority that the _Fact_ can't go on many months +longer, unless it changes its tone and methods considerably; it's got no +chance of fighting its way as it is now. People don't want that kind of +thing. They don't want anything the Gideon lot will give them. Gideon and +his sort haven't got the goods. They're building on the sand of their own +fancy, not on the rock of general human demand. I hear that that daily +they talked of starting can't come off yet, either.... The chap's a bad +investment, Babs.... And he despises me and my goods, you know. That'll +be awkward.' + +'Not you, daddy. The papers, he does. He rather likes you, though he +doesn't approve of you.... He doesn't like mother, and she doesn't like +him. But people often don't get on with their mothers-in-law.' + +'It's an awkward alliance, my dear, a very awkward alliance. What will +people say? Besides, he's a Jew.' + +Jewish babies; he was thinking of them too. + +Jane thought, bother the babies. Perhaps there wouldn't be any, and if +there were, they'd only be a quarter Jew. Anyhow, it wasn't them she +wanted; it was Arthur. + +Arthur opened doors and windows. You got to the edge of your own thought, +and then stepped out beyond into his thought. And his thought drove sharp +and hard into space. + +But more than this, Jane loved the way his hair grew, and the black line +his eyebrows made across his forehead, and the way he stood, tall and +lean and slouching, and his keen thin face and his long thin hands, and +the way his mouth twisted up when he smiled, and his voice, and the whole +of him. She wondered if he loved her like that--if he turned hot and cold +when he saw her in the distance. She believed that he did love her like +that. He had loved her, as she had loved him, all that time he had +thought she was lying to every one about Oliver's death. + +'It isn't what people do,' said Jane, 'that makes one love them or stop +loving them.' + +'Is this,' she thought, 'what Clare felt for Oliver? I didn't know it was +like this, or I wouldn't have taken him from her. Poor old Clare.' Could +one love Oliver like that? Any one, Jane supposed, could be loved like +that, by the right person. And people like Clare loved more intensely +than people like her; they felt more, and had fewer other occupations. + +Jane hadn't known that she could feel so much about anything as she was +feeling now about Gideon. It was interesting. She wondered how long it +would last, at this pitch. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD + + +1 + +Jane's baby was born in January. As far as babies can be like grown human +beings, it was like its grandfather--a little Potter. + +Lord Pinkerton was pleased. + +'He shall carry on the papers,' he said, dandling it on his arm. +'Tootooloo, grandson!' He dug it softly in the ribs. He understood this +baby. However many little Yids Jane might achieve in the future, there +would be this little Potter to carry on his own dreams. + +Clare came to see it. She was glad it wasn't like Oliver; Jane saw her +being glad of that. She was beginning to fall in love with a young +naval officer, but still she couldn't have seen Oliver in Jane's child +without wincing. + +Gideon came to see it. He laughed. + +'Potter for ever,' he said. + +He added. 'It's symbolic. Potters will be for ever, you know. They're so +strong....' + +The light from the foggy winter afternoon fell on his face as he sat by +the window. He looked tired and perplexed. Strength, perpetuity, seemed +things remote from him, belonging only to Potters. Anti-Potterism and the +_Weekly Fact_ were frail things of a day, rooted in a dream. So Gideon +felt, on these days when the fog closed about him.... + +Jane looked at her son, the strange little animal, and thought not +'Potter for ever,' but 'me for ever,' as was natural, and as parents will +think of their young, who will carry them down the ages in an ever more +distant but never lost immortality, an atom of dust borne on the hurrying +stream. Jane, who believed in no other personal immortality, found it in +this little Potter in her arms. Holding him close, she loved him, in a +curious, new, physical way. So this was motherhood, this queer, sensuous, +cherishing love. It would have been a pity not to have known it; it was, +after all, an emotion, more profound than most. + + +2 + +When Jane was well enough, she gave a party for Charles, as if he had +been a new picture she had painted and wanted to show off. Her friends +came and looked at him, and thought how clever of her to have had him, +all complete and alive and jolly like that, a real baby. He was better +than the books and things they wrote, because he was more alive, and +would also last longer, with luck. Their books wouldn't have a run of +four score years and ten or whatever it was; they'd be lucky if any one +thought of them again in five years. + +But partly Jane gave the party to show people that Charles didn't +monopolise her, that she was well and active again, and ready for work +and life. If she wasn't careful, she might come to be regarded as the +mere mother, and dropped out. + +Johnny said, grinning amiably at her and Charles, 'Ah, you're +thinking that your masterpiece quite puts mine in the shade, aren't +you, old thing.' + +He had a novel just out. It was as good as most young men's first novels. + +'I'm not sure,' said Jane, 'that Charles is my masterpiece. Wait till the +other works appear, and I'll tell you.' + +Johnny grinned more, supposing that she meant the little Yids. + +'My books, I mean,' Jane added quickly. + +'Oh, your books.' + +'They're going to be better than yours, my dear,' said Jane. 'Wait and +see.... But I dare say they won't be as good as this.' She appraised +Charles with her eyes. + +'But, oh, so much less trouble,' she added, swinging him up and down. + +'I could have one as good as that,' said Johnny thoughtfully, 'with no +trouble at all.' + +'You'd have to work for it and keep it. And its mother. You wouldn't like +that, you know.... Of course you ought to. It's your duty. Every young +man who survives.... Daddy says so. You'd better do it, John. You're +getting on, you know.' + +Young men hate getting on. They hate it, really, more than young women +do. Youth is of such immense value, in almost any career, but +particularly to the young writer. + +But Johnny only said, with apparent nonchalance, 'Twenty-seven is not +very old.' He added, however, 'Anyhow, you're five minutes older, and +I've published a book, if you have produced that thing.' + +Johnny was frankly greedy about his book. He hung on reviews; he asked +for it in bookshops, and expressed astonishment and contempt when they +had not got it. And it was, after all, nothing to make a song about, Jane +thought. It wasn't positively discreditable to its writer, like most +novels, but it was a very normal book, by a very normal cleverish young +man. Johnny wasn't sure that his publishers advertised it as much as was +desirable. + +Gideon came up to Jane and Charles. He had just arrived. He had three +evening papers in his hand. His fellow passengers had left them in the +train, and he had collected them. Jews often get their news that way. + +Johnny saw his friend Miss Nancy Sharpe disengaged and looking lovely, +and went to speak to her. He was really in love with her a little, though +he didn't go as far as wanting to work for her and keep her. He was quite +right; that is to go too far, when so much happiness is attainable short +of it. Johnny wisely shunned desperate measures. So, to do her justice, +did Miss Sharpe. + +'Johnny's very elated,' said Jane to Gideon, looking after him. 'What do +_you_ think of his book, Arthur?' + +Gideon said, 'I don't think of it. I've had no reason to, particularly. +I've not had to review it.... I'm afraid I'm hopeless about novels just +now, that's the fact. I'm sick of the form--slices of life served up cold +in three hundred pages. Oh, it's very nice; it makes nice reading for +people. But what's the use? Except, of course, to kill time for those who +prefer it dead. But as things in themselves, as art, they've been ruined +by excess. My critical sense is blunted just now. I can hardly feel the +difference, though I see it, between a good novel and a bad one. I +couldn't write one, good or bad, to save my life, I know that. And I've +got to the stage when I wish other people wouldn't. I wish every one +would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think--like in the +Armistice Day pause, when all the noise stopped.' + +Jane shook her head. + +'You may be sure we shan't do that. Not likely. We all want to hear +ourselves talk. And quite right too. We've got things to say.' + +'Nothing of importance. Few things that wouldn't be better unsaid. Life +isn't talking.' + +'A journalist's is,' Jane pointed out, and he nodded. + +'Quite true. Horribly true. It's chiefly myself I'm hitting at. But at +least we journalists don't take ourselves solemnly; we know our stuff is +babble to fill a moment. Novelists and poets don't always know that; +they're apt to think it matters. And, of course, so far as any of them +can make and hold beauty, even a fragment of it here and there, it does +matter. The trouble is that they mostly can't do anything of the sort. +They don't mostly even know how to try. All but a few verse-makers are +shallow, muddled, or sentimental, and most novelists are commercial as +well. They haven't the means; they aren't adequately equipped; they've +nothing in them worth the saying. Why say it, then? A little cleverness +isn't worth while.' + +'You're morbid, Arthur.' + +'Morbid? Diseased? I dare say. We most of us are. What's health, after +all? No one knows.' + +'I've done eighty thousand words of my novel, anyhow.' + +'I'm sorry. Nearly all novels are too long. All you've got to say would +go into forty thousand.' + +'I don't write because I've got things to say. I haven't a message, like +mother. I write because it amuses me. And because I like to be a +novelist. It's done. And I like to be well spoken of--reasonably well, +that is. It's all fun. Why not?' + +'Oh, don't ask _me_ why not. I can't preach sermons all the evening.' + +He smiled down on her out of his long sad black eyes, glad of her because +she saw straight and never canted, impatient of her because her ideals +were commercial, loving her because she was gray-eyed and white-skinned +and desirable, seeing her much as Nancy Sharpe, who lived for music, saw +Johnny Potter, only with ardour instead of nonchalance; such ardour, +indeed, that his thoughts of her only intermittently achieved exactitude. + +Two girls came up to admire Charles. Jane said it was time she took him +to bed, and they went up with her. + +Gideon turned away. He hated parties, and seldom went even to Jane's. He +stood drinking coffee and watching people. You met most of them at the +club and elsewhere continually; why meet them all again in a +drawing-room? There was his sister Rosalind and her husband Boris Stefan +with their handsome faces and masses of black hair. Rosalind had a baby +too (at home); a delicate, pretty, fair-haired thing, like Rosalind's +Manchester mother. And Charles was like Jane's Birmingham father. It was +Manchester and Birmingham that persisted, not Palestine or Russia. + +And there was Juke, with his white, amused face and heavy-lidded eyes +that seemed always to see a long way, and Katherine Varick talking to a +naval officer about periscopes (Jane kept in with some of the Admiralty), +and Peacock, with whom Gideon had quarrelled two hours ago at the _Fact_ +office, and who was now in the middle of a group of writing young men, as +usual. Gideon looked at him cynically. Peacock was letting himself be got +at by a clique. Gideon would rather have seen him talking to the +practical looking sailor about periscopes. Peacock would have to be +watched. He had shown signs lately of colouring the _Fact_ with +prejudices. He was getting in with a push; he was dangerously in the +movement. He was also leaning romancewards, and departing from the realm +of pure truth. He had given credence to some strange travellers' tales of +Foreign Office iniquities. As if that unfortunate and misguided body had +not enough sins to its account without having melodramatic and +uncharacteristic kidnappings and deeds of violence attributed to it. But +Peacock had got in with those unhappy journalists and others who had been +viewing Russia, and, barely escaping with their lives, had come back with +nothing else, and least of all with that accurate habit of mind which +would have qualified them as contributors to the _Weekly Fact_. It was +not their fault (except for going to Russia), but Peacock should have had +nothing to do with them. + +Katherine Varick crossed the room to Gideon, with a faint smile. + +'Hallo. Enjoying life?' + +'Precisely that.' + +'I say, what are you doing with the _Fact_?' + +Gideon looked at her sourly. + +'Oh, you've noticed it too. It's becoming quite pretty reading, isn't it. +Less like a Blue Book.' + +'Much less. I should say it was beginning to appeal to a wider circle. +Is that the idea?' + +'Don't ask me. Ask Peacock. Whatever the idea is, it's his, not mine.... +But it's not a considered idea at all. It's merely a yielding to the +(apparently) irresistible pressure of atmosphere.' + +'I see. A truce with the Potter armies.' + +'No. There's no such thing as a truce with them. It's the first steps of +a retreat.' + +He said it sharply and suddenly, in the way of a man who is, at the +moment, making a discovery. He turned and looked across the room at +Peacock, who was talking and talking, in his clever, keen, pleasant way, +not in the least like a Blue Book. + +'We're _not_ like Blue Books,' Gideon muttered sadly. 'Hardly any one is. +Unfortunate. Very unfortunate. What's one to do about it?' + +'Lord Pinkerton would say, learn human nature as it is and build on it. +Exploit its weaknesses, instead of tilting against them. Accept +sentimentality and prejudice, and use them.' + +'I am aware that he would.... What do _you_ say, Katherine?' + +'Nothing. What's the use? I'm one of the Blue Books--not a fair judge, +therefore.' + +'No. You'd make no terms, ever.' + +'I've never been tempted. One may have to make terms, sometimes.' + +'I think not,' said Gideon. 'I think one never is obliged to make terms.' + +'If the enemy is too strong?' + +'Then one goes under. Gets out of it. That's not making terms.... +Good-night; I'm going home. I hate parties, you know. So do you. Why do +either of us go to them?' + +'They take one's thoughts off,' said Katherine in her own mind. Her blue +eyes contracted as she looked after him. + +'He's failing; he's being hurt. He'll go under. He should have been a +scientist or a scholar or a chemist, like me; something in which +knowledge matters and people don't. People will break his heart.' + + +3 + +Gideon walked all the way back from Hampstead to his own rooms. It was a +soft, damp night, full of little winds that blew into the city from +February fields and muddy roads far off. There would be lambs in the +fields.... Gideon suddenly wanted to get out of the town into that damp, +dark country that circled it. There would be fewer people there; fewer +minds crowded together, making a dense atmosphere that was impervious to +the piercing, however sharp, of truth. All this dense mass of stupid, +muddled, huddled minds.... What was to be done with it? Greedy minds, +ignorant minds, sentimental, truthless minds.... + +He saw, as he passed a newspaper stand, placards in big black +letters--'Bride's Suicide.' 'Divorce of Baronet.' Then, small and +inconspicuous, hardly hoping for attention, 'Italy and the Adriatic.' For +one person who would care about Italy and the Adriatic, there would, +presumably, be a hundred who would care about the bride and the baronet. +Presumably; else why the placards? Gideon honestly tried to bend his +impersonal and political mind to understand it. He knew no such people, +yet one had to believe they existed; people who really cared that a bride +with whom they had no acquaintance (why a bride? Did that make her more +interesting?) had taken her life; and that a baronet (also a perfect +stranger) had had his marriage dissolved in a court of law. What quality +did it indicate, this curious and inexplicable interest in these topics +so tedious to himself and to most of his personal acquaintances? Was it a +love of romance? But what romance was to be found in suicide or divorce? +Romance Gideon knew; knew how it girdled the world, heard the beat of its +steps in far forests, the whisper of its wings on dark seas.... It is +there, not in divorces and suicides. Were people perhaps moved by desire +to hear about the misfortunes of others? No, because they also welcomed +with eagerness the more cheerful domestic episodes reported. Was it, +then, some fundamental, elemental interest in fundamental things, such as +love, hate, birth, death? That was possibly it. The relation of states +one with another are the product of civilisation, and need an at least +rudimentarily political brain to grasp them. The relations of human +beings are natural, and only need the human heart for their +understanding. That part of man's mind which has been, for some obscure +reason, inaccurately called the heart, was enormously and +disproportionately stronger than the rest of the mind, the thinking part. + +'Light Caught Bending,' another placard remarked. That was more cheerful, +though it was an idiotic way of putting a theory as to the curvature of +space, but it was refreshing that, apparently, people were expected to be +excited by that too. And, Gideon knew it, they were. Einstein's theory +as to space and light would be discussed, with varying degrees of +intelligence, most of them low, in many a cottage, many a club, many a +train. There would be columns about it in the Sunday papers, with little +Sunday remarks to the effect that the finiteness of space did not limit +the infinity of God. Scientists have naïf minds where God is concerned; +they see him, if at all, in terms of space. + +Anyhow, there it was. People were interested not only in divorce, +suicide, and murder, but in light and space, undulations and gravitation. +That was rather jolly, for that was true romance. It gave one more hope. +Even though people might like their science in cheap and absurd tabloid +form, they did like it. The Potter press exulted in scientific +discoveries made easy, but it was better than not exulting in them at +all. For these were things as they were, and therefore the things that +mattered. This was the satisfying world of hard, difficult facts, without +slush and without sentiment. This was the world where truth was sought +for its own sake. + +'When I see truth, do I seek truth +Only that I may things denote, +And, rich by striving, deck my youth +As with a vain, unusual coat?' + +Nearly every one in the ordinary world did that, if indeed they ever +concerned themselves with truth at all. And some scientists too, perhaps, +but not most. Scientists and scholars and explorers--they were the +people. They were the world's students, the learners, the discoverers. +They didn't talk till they knew.... + +Rain had begun to drizzle. At the corner of Marylebone Road and Baker +Street there was a lit coffee-stall. A group clustered about it; a +policeman drinking oxo, his waterproof cape shining with wet; two +taxi-cab drivers having coffee and buns; a girl in an evening cloak, with +a despatch case, eating biscuits. + +Gideon passed by without stopping. A hand touched him on the arm, and a +painted face looked up into his, murmuring something. Gideon, who had a +particular dislike for paint on the human face, and, in general, for +persons who looked and behaved like this person, looked away from her +and scowled. + +'I only wanted,' she explained, 'a cup of coffee ...' and he gave her +sixpence, though he didn't believe her. + +Horrible, these women were; ugly; dirty; loathsome; so that one wondered +why on earth any one liked them (some people obviously did like them, or +they wouldn't be there), and yet, detestable as they were, they were the +outcome of facts. Possibly in them, and in the world's other ugly facts, +Potterism and all truth-shirking found whatever justification it had. +Sentimentalism spread a rosy veil over the ugliness, draping it decently. +Making it, thought Gideon, how much worse; but making it such as +Potterites could face unwincing. + +The rain beat down. At its soft, chill touch Gideon's brain cooled and +cooled, till he seemed to see everything in a cold, hard, crystal +clarity. Life and death--how little they mattered. Life was paltry, and +death its end. Yet when the world, the Potterish world, dealt with death +it became something other than a mere end; it became a sensation, a +problem, an episode in a melodrama. The question, when a man died, was +always how and why. So, when Hobart had died, they were all dragged into +a net of suspicion and melodrama--they all became for a time absurd +actors in an absurd serial in the Potter press. You could not escape from +sensationalism in a sensational world. There was no room for the pedant, +with his greed for unadorned and unemotional precision. + +Gideon sighed sharply as he turned into Oxford Street, Oxford Street was +and is horrible. Everything a street should not be, even when it was +down, and now it was up, which was far worse. If Gideon had not been +unnerved by the painted person at the corner of Baker Street he would +never have gone home this way, he would have gone along Marylebone and +Euston Road. As it was, he got into a bus and rode unhappily to Gray's +Inn Road, where he lived. + +He sat up till three in the morning working out statistics for an +article. Statistics, figures, were delightful. They were a rest. +They mattered. + + +4 + +Two days later, at the _Fact_ office, Peacock, turning over galley slips, +said, 'This thing of yours on Esthonian food conditions looks like a +government schedule. Couldn't you make it more attractive?' + +'To whom?' asked Gideon. + +'Well--the ordinary reader.' + +'Oh, the ordinary reader. I meant it to be attractive to people who want +information.' + +'Well, but a little jam with the powder.... For instance, you draw no +inference from your facts. It's dull. Why not round the thing off into a +good article?' + +'I can't round things. I don't like them round, either. I've given the +facts, unearthed with considerable trouble and pains. No one else has. +Isn't it enough?' + +'Oh, it'll do.' Peacock's eyes glanced over the other proofs on his desk. +'We've got some good stuff this number.' + +'Nice round articles--yes.' Gideon turned the slips over with his lean +brown fingers carelessly. He picked one up. + +'Hallo. I didn't know that chap was reviewing _Coal and Wages_.' + +'Yes. He asked if he could.' + +'Do you think he knows enough?' + +'It's quite a good review. Read it.' + +Gideon read it carefully, then laid it down and said, 'I don't agree with +you that it's a good review. He's made at least two mistakes. And the +whole thing's biased by his personal political theories.' + +'Only enough to give it colour.' + +'You don't want colour in a review of a book of that sort. You only want +intelligence and exact knowledge.' + +'Oh, Clitherton's all right. His head's screwed on the right way. He +knows his subject.' + +'Not well enough. He's a political theorist, not a good economist. That's +hopeless. Why didn't you get Hinkson to do it?' + +'Hinkson can't write for nuts.' + +'Doesn't matter. Hinkson wouldn't have slipped up over his figures +or dates.' + +'My dear old chap, writing does matter. You're going crazy on that +subject. Of course it matters that a thing should be decently put +together.' + +'It matters much more that it should be well informed. It is, of course, +quite possible to be both.' + +'Oh, quite. That's the idea of the _Fact_, after all.' + +'Peacock, I hate all these slipshod fellows you get now. I wish you'd +chuck the lot. They're well enough for most journalism, but they don't +know enough for us.' + +Peacock said, 'Oh, we'll thrash it out another time, if you don't mind. +I've got to get through some letters now,' and rang for his secretary. + +Gideon went to his own room and searched old files for the verification +and correction of Clitherton's mistakes. He found them, and made a note +of them. Unfortunately they weakened Clitherton's argument a little. +Clitherton would have to modify it. Clitherton, a sweeping and wholesale +person, would not like that. + +Gideon was feeling annoyed with Clitherton, and annoyed with several +others among that week's contributors, and especially annoyed with +Peacock, who permitted and encouraged them. If they went on like this, +the _Fact_ would soon be popular; it would find its way into the great +soft silly heart of the public and there be damned. + +He was a pathetic figure, Arthur Gideon, the intolerant precisian, +fighting savagely against the tide of loose thinking that he saw surging +in upon him, swamping the world and drowning facts. He did not see +himself as a pathetic figure, or as anything else. He did not see himself +at all, but worked away at his desk in the foggy room, checking the +unconsidered or inaccurate or oversimplified statements of others, +writing his own section of the Notes of the Week, with his careful, +patient, fined brilliance, stopping to gnaw his pen or his thumb-nail or +to draw diagrams, triangle within triangle, or circle intersecting +circle, on his blotting paper. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +RUNNING AWAY + + +1 + +A week later Gideon resigned his assistant editorship of the _Fact_. +Peacock was, on the whole, relieved. Gideon had been getting too +difficult of late. After some casting about among eager, outwardly +indifferent possible successors, Peacock offered the job to Johnny +Potter, who was swimming on the tide of his first novel, which had been +what is called 'well spoken of' by the press, but who, at the same time, +had the popular touch, was quite a competent journalist, was looking out +for a job, and was young enough to do what he was told; that is to say, +he was four or five years younger than Peacock. He had also a fervent +enthusiasm for democratic principles and for Peacock's prose style +(Gideon had been temperate in his admiration of both), and Peacock +thought they would get on very well. + +Jane was sulky, jealous, and contemptuous. + +'Johnny. Why Johnny? He's not so good as lots of other people who would +have liked the job. He's swanking so already that it makes me tired to be +in the room with him, and now he'll be worse than ever. Oh, Arthur, it is +rot, your chucking it. I've a jolly good mind not to marry you. I thought +I was marrying the assistant editor of an important paper, not just a +lazy old Jew without a job.' + +She ruffled up his black, untidy hair with her hand as she sat on the +arm of his chair; but she was really annoyed with him, as she had +explained a week ago when he had told her. + + +2 + +He had walked in one evening and found her in Charles's bedroom, bathing +him. Clare was there too, helping. + +'Why do girls like washing babies?' Gideon speculated aloud. 'They nearly +all do, don't they?' + +'Well, I should just _hope_ so,' Clare said. She was kneeling by the tin +bath with her sleeves rolled up, holding a warmed towel. Her face was +flushed from the fire, and her hair was loosened where Charles had caught +his toe in it. She looked pretty and maternal, and looked up at Gideon +with the kind of conventional, good-humoured scorn that girls and women +put on when men talk of babies. They do it (one believes) partly because +they feel it is a subject they know about, and partly to pander to men's +desire that they should do it. It is part of the pretty play between the +sexes. Jane never did it; she wasn't feminine enough. And Gideon did not +want her to do it; he thought it silly. + +'Why do you hope so?' asked Gideon. 'And why do girls like it?' + +The first question was to Clare, the second to Jane, because he knew that +Clare would not be able to answer it. + +'The mites!' said Clare. 'Who _wouldn't_ like it?' + +Gideon sighed a little, Clare tried him. She had an amorphous mind. But +Jane threw up at him, as she enveloped Charles in the towel, 'I'll try +and think it out some time, Arthur. I haven't time now.... There's a +reason all right.... The powder, Clare.' + +Gideon watched the absurd drying and powdering process with gravity and +interest, as if trying to discover its charm. + +'Even Katherine enjoys it,' he said, still pondering. It was true. +Katherine, who liked experimenting with chemicals, liked also washing +babies. Possibly Katherine knew why, in both cases. + +After Charles was in bed, his mother, his aunt, and his prospective +stepfather had dinner. Clare, who was uncomfortable with Gideon, not +liking him as a brother-in-law or indeed as anything else (besides not +being sure how much Jane had told him about 'that awful night'), +chattered to Jane about things of which she thought Gideon knew +nothing--dances, plays, friends, family and Potters Bar gossip. Gideon +became very silent. He and Clare touched nowhere. Clare flaunted the +family papers in his face and Jane's. Lord Pinkerton was starting a new +one, a weekly, and it promised to sell better than any other weekly on +the market, but far better. + +'Dad says the orders have been simply stunning. It's going to be a big +thing. Simple, you know, and yet clever--like all dad's papers. David +says' (David was the naval officer to whom Clare was now betrothed) +'there's _no one_ with such a sense of what people want as dad has. Far +more of it than Northcliffe, David says he has. Because, you know, +Northcliffe sometimes annoys people--look at the line he took about us +helping the Russians to fight each other. And making out in leaders, +David says, that the Government is always wrong just because he doesn't +like it. And drawing attention to the mistakes it makes, which no one +would notice if they weren't rubbed in. David gets quite sick with him +sometimes. He says the Pinkerton press never does that sort of thing, +it's got too much tact, and lets well alone.' + +'I'll, you mean, don't you, darling?' Jane interpolated. + +Clare, who did, but did not know it, only said, 'David's got a tremendous +admiration for it. He says it will _last_.' + +'Oh, bother the paternal press,' Jane said. 'Give it a rest, old thing. +It may be new to David, but it's stale to us. It's Arthur's turn to talk +about his father's bank or something.' + +But Arthur didn't talk. He only made bread pills, and the girls got on to +the newest dance. + + +3 + +Clare went away after dinner. She never stayed long when Gideon was +there. David didn't like Gideon, rightly thinking him a Sheeney. + +'Sheeneys are at the bottom of Bolshevism, you know,' he told Clare. 'At +the top too, for that matter. Dreadful fellows; quite dreadful. Why the +dickens do you let Jane marry him?' + +Clare shrugged her shoulders. + +'Jane does what she likes. Dad and mother have begged and prayed her not +to.... Besides, of course, even if he was all right, it's too _soon_....' + +'Too soon? Ah, yes, of course. Poor Hobart, you mean. Quite. Much too +soon.... A dreadful business, that. I don't blame her for trying to put +it behind her, out of sight. But with a _Sheeney_. Well, _chacun a son +goût.'_ For David was tolerant, a live and let live man. + +When Clare was gone, Jane said, 'Wake up, old man. You can talk now.... +You and Clare are stupid about each other, by the way. You'll have to get +over it some time. You're ill-mannered and she's a silly fool; but +ill-mannered people and silly fools can rub along together, all right, if +they try.' + +'I don't mind Clare,' said Gideon, rousing himself. 'I wasn't thinking +about her, to say the truth. I was thinking about something else.... I'm +chucking the _Fact_, Jane.' + +'How d'you mean, chucking the _Fact_' Jane lit a cigarette. + +'What I say. I've resigned my job on it. I'm sick of it.' + +'Oh, sick.... Every one's sick of work, naturally. It's what work is +for.... Well, what are you doing next? Have you been offered a +better job?' + +'I've not been offered a job of any sort. And I shouldn't take it if I +were--not at present. I'm sick of journalism.' + +Jane took it calmly, lying back among the sofa cushions and smoking. + +'I was afraid you were working up to this.... Of course, if you chuck the +_Fact_ you take away its last chance. It'll do a nose-dive now.' + +'It's doing it anyhow. I can't stop it. But I'm jolly well not going to +nose-dive with it. I'm clearing out.' + +'You're giving up the fight, then. Caving in. Putting your hands up to +Potterism.' + +She was taunting him, in her cool, unmoved, leisurely tones. + +'I'm clearing out,' he repeated, emphasising the phrase, and his black +eyes seemed to look into distances. 'Running away, if you like. This +thing's too strong for me to fight. I can't do it. Clare's quite right. +It's tremendous. It will last. And the Pinkerton press only represents +one tiny part of it. If the Pinkerton press were all, it would be +fightable. But look at the _Fact_--a sworn enemy of everything the +Pinkerton press stands for, politically, but fighting it with its own +weapons--muddled thinking, sentimentality, prejudice, loose cant phrases. +I tell you there'll hardly be a halfpenny to choose between the Pinkerton +press and the _Fact_, by the time Peacock's done with it.... It's not +Peacock's fault--except that he's weak. It's not the Syndicate's +fault--except that they don't want to go on losing money for ever. It's +the pressure of public demand and atmosphere. Atmosphere even more than +demand. Human minds are delicate machines. How can they go on working +truly and precisely and scientifically, with all this poisonous gas +floating round them? Oh, well, I suppose there are a few minds still +which do; even some journalists and politicians keep their heads; but +what's the use against the pressure? To go in for journalism or for +public life is to put oneself deliberately into the thick of the mess +without being able to clean it up.' + +'After all,' said Jane, more moderately, 'it's all a joke. Everything is. +The world is.' + +'A rotten bad joke.' + +'You think things matter. You take anti-Potterism seriously, as some +people take Potterism.' + +'Things are serious. Things do matter,' said the Russian Jew. + +Jane looked at him kindly. She was a year younger than he was, but felt +five years older to-night. + +'Well, what's the remedy then?' + +He said, wearily, 'Oh, education, I suppose. Education. There's nothing +else. _Learning_.' He said the word with affection, lingering on it, +striking his hand on the sofa-back to emphasise it. + +'Learning, learning, learning. There's nothing else.... We should drop +all this talking and writing. All this confused, uneducated mass of +self-expression. Self-expression, with no self worth expressing. That's +just what we shouldn't do with our selves--express them. We should train +them, educate them, teach them to think, see that they _know_ +something--know it exactly, with no blurred edges, no fogs. Be sure of +our facts, and keep theories out of the system like poison. And when we +say anything we should say it concisely and baldly, without eloquence and +frills. Lord, how I loathe eloquence!' + +'But you can't get away from it, darling. All right, don't mind me, I +like it.... Well now, what are you going to _do_ about it? Teach in a +continuation school?' + +'No,' he said, seriously. 'No. Though one might do worse. But I've got to +get right away for a time--right out of it all. I've got to find things +out before I do anything else.' + +'Well, there are plenty of, things to find out here. No need to go away +for that.' + +He shook his head. + +'Western Europe's so hopeless just now. So given over to muddle and lies. +Besides, I can't trust myself, I shall talk if I stay. I'm not a strong +silent man. I should find myself writing articles, or standing for +Parliament, or something.' + +'And very nice too. I've always said you ought to stand for Labour.' + +'And I've sometimes agreed with you. But now I know I oughtn't. That's +not the way. I'm not going to join in that mess. I'm not good enough to +make it worth while. I should either get swamped by it, or I should get +so angry that I should murder some one. No, I'm going right out of it all +for a bit. I want to find out a little, if I can, about how things are in +other countries. Central Europe. Russia. I shall go to Russia.' + +'Russia! You'll come back and write about it. People do.' + +'I shall not. No, I think I can avoid that--it's too obvious a temptation +to tumble into with one's eyes shut.' + +'"He travelled in Russia and never wrote of it." It would be a good +epitaph.... But Arthur darling, is it wise, is it necessary, is it safe? +Won't the Reds get you, or the Whites? Which would be worse, I wonder?' + +'What should they want with me?' + +'They'll think you're going to write about them, of course. That's why +the Reds kidnapped Keeling, and the Whites W.T. Goode. They were quite +right, too--except that they didn't go far enough and make a job of them. +Suppose they've learnt wisdom by now, and make a job of you?' + +'Well then, I shall be made a job of. Also a placard for our sensational +press, which would be worse. One must take a few risks.... It will be +interesting, you know, to be there. I shall visit my father's old home +near Odessa. Possibly some of his people may be left round there. I shall +find things out--what the conditions are, why things are happening as +they are, how the people live. I think I shall be better able after that +to find out what the state of things is here. One's too provincial, too +much taken up with one's own corner. Political science is too universal a +thing to learn in that way.' + +'And when you've found out? What next?' + +'There's no next. It will take me all my life even to begin to find out. +I don't know where I shall be--in London, no doubt, mostly.' + +'Do you mean, Arthur, that you're going to chuck work for good? Writing, +I mean, or public work?' + +'I hope so. I mean to. Oh, if ever, later on, I feel I have anything I +want to say, I'll say it. But that won't be for years. First I'm going to +learn.... You see, Jane, we can live all right. Thank goodness, I don't +depend on what I earn.... You and I together--we'll learn a lot.' + +'Oh, I'm going in for confused self-expression. I'm not taking any vows +of silence. I'm going to write.' + +'As you like. Every one's got to decide for themselves. It amuses you, +I suppose.' + +'Of course, it does. Why not? I love it. Not only writing, but being in +the swim, making a kind of a name, doing what other people do. I'm not +mother, who does but write because she must, and pipes but as the +linnets do.' + +'No, thank goodness. You're as intellectually honest as any one I know, +and as greedy for the wrong things.' + +'I want a good time. Why not?' + +'Why not? Only that, as long as we're all out for a good time, those of +us who can afford to will get it, and nothing more, and those of us who +can't will get nothing at all. You see, I think it's taking hold of +things by the wrong end. As long as we go on not thinking, not finding +out, but greedily wanting good things--well, we shall be as we are, +that's all--Potterish.' + +'You mean I'm Potterish,' observed Jane, without rancour. + +'Oh Lord, we all are,' said Gideon in disgust. 'Every profiteer, every +sentimentalist, ever muddler. Every artist directly he thinks of his art +as something marketable, something to bring him fame; every scientist or +scholar (if there are any) who fakes a fact in the interest of his +theory; every fool who talks through his hat without knowing; every +sentimentalist who plays up to the sentimentalism in himself and other +people; every second-hand ignoramus who takes over a view or a prejudice +wholesale, without investigating the facts it's based on for himself. You +find it everywhere, the taint; you can't get away from it. Except by +keeping quiet and learning, and wanting truth more than anything else.' + +'It sounds a dull life, Arthur. Rather like K's, in her old laboratory.' + +'Yes, rather like K's. Not dull; no. Finding things out can't be dull.' + +'Well, old thing, go and find things out. But come back in time for the +wedding, and then we'll see what next.' + +Jane was not seriously alarmed. She believed that this of Arthur's, was a +short attack; when they were married she would see that he got cured of +it. She wasn't going to let him drop out of things and disappear, her +brilliant Arthur, who had his world in his hand to play with. Journalism, +politics, public life of some sort--it was these that he was so eminently +fitted for and must go in for. + +'You mustn't waste yourself, Arthur,' she said. 'It's all right to lie +low for a bit, but when you come back you must do something worth +while.... I'm sorry about the _Fact_; I think you might have stayed on +and saved it. But it's your show. Go and explore Central Europe, then, +and learn all about it. Then come back and write a book on political +science which will be repulsive to all but learned minds. But remember +we're getting married in June; don't be late, will you. And write to me +from Russia. Letters that will do for me to send to the newspapers, +telling me not to spend my money on hats and theatres but on +distributing anti-Bolshevist and anti-Czarist tracts. I'll have the +letters published in leaflets at threepence a hundred, and drop them +about in public places.' + +'I'll write to you, no fear,' said Gideon. 'And I'll be in time for the +wedding.... Jane, we'll have a great time, you and I, learning things +together. We'll have adventures. We'll go exploring, shall we?' + +'Rather. We'll lend Charles to mother and dad often, and go off.... I'd +come with you now for two pins. Only I can't.' + +'No. Charles needs you at present.' 'There's my book, too. And all sorts +of things.' 'Oh, your book--that's nothing. Books aren't worth losing +anything for. Don't you ever get tied up with books and work, Jane. It's +not worth it. One's got to sit loose. Only one can't, to kids; they're +too important. We'll have our good times before we get our kids--and +after they've grown old enough to be left to themselves a bit.' + +Jane smiled enigmatically, only obscurely realising that she meant, 'Our +ideas of a good time aren't the same, and never will be.' + +Gideon too only obscurely knew it. Anyhow, for both, the contemplation of +that difference could be deferred. Each could hope to break the other in +when the time came. Gideon, as befitted his sex, realised the eternity of +the difference less sharply than Jane did. It was just, he thought, a +question of showing Jane, making her understand.... Jane did not think +that it was just a question of making Gideon understand. But he loved +her, and she was persuaded that he would yield to her in the end, and not +spoil her jolly, delightful life, which was to advance, hand in hand with +his, to notoriety or glory or both. + +For a moment both heard, remotely, the faint clash of swords. Then they +shut a door upon the sound, and the man, shaken with sudden passion, drew +the woman into his arms. + +'I've been talking, talking all the evening,' said Gideon presently. 'I +can't get away from it, can I. Preaching, theorising, holding forth. It's +more than time I went away somewhere where no one will listen to me.' + +'There's plenty of talking in Russia. You'll come back worse than ever, +my dear.... I don't care. As long as you do come back. You must come back +to me, Arthur.' + +She clung to him, in one of her rare moments of demonstrated passion. She +was usually cool, and left demonstration to him. + +'I shall come back all right,' he told her. 'No fear. I want to get +married, you see. I want it, really, much more than I want to get +information or anything else. Wanting a person--that's what we all want +most, when we want it at all. Queer, isn't it? And hopelessly personal +and selfish. But there it is. Ideals simply don't count in comparison. +They'd go under every time, if there was a choice.' + +Jane, with his arms round her and his face bent down to hers, knew it. +She was not afraid, either for his career or her own. They would have +their good time all right. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS + + +1 + +March wore through, and April came, and warm winds healed winter's scars, +and the 1920 budget shocked every one, and the industrial revolution +predicted as usual didn't come off, and Mr. Wells's _History of the +World_ completed its tenth part, and blossom by blossom the spring began. + +It was the second Easter after the war, and people were getting more used +to peace. They murdered one another rather less frequently, were rather +less emotional and divorced, and understood with more precision which +profiteers it was worth while to prosecute and which not, and why the +second class was so much larger than the first; and, in general, had +learnt to manage rather better this unmanageable peace. + +The outlook, domestic and international, was still what those who think +in terms of colour call black. The Irish question, the Russian question, +the Italian-Adriatic question, and all the Asiatic questions, remained +what those who think in terms of angles call acute. Economic ruin, +political bankruptcy, European chaos, international hostilities had +become accepted as the normal state of being by the inhabitants of this +restless and unfortunate planet. + + +2 + +Such was the state of things in the world at large. In literary London, +publishers produced their spring lists. They contained the usual hardy +annuals and bi-annuals among novelists, several new ventures, including +John Potter's _Giles in Bloomsbury_ (second impression); Jane Hobart's +_Children of Peace_ (A Satire by a New Writer); and Leila Yorke's _The +Price of Honour_. ('In her new novel, Leila Yorke reveals to the full the +Glittering psychology combined with profound depths which have made this +well-known writer famous. The tale will be read, from first page to +last, with breathless interest. The end is unexpected and out of the +common, and leaves one wondering.' So said the publisher; the reviewers, +more briefly, 'Another Leila Yorke.') + +There were also many memoirs of great persons by themselves, many +histories of the recent war, several thousand books of verse, a monograph +by K.D. Varick on Catalysers and Catalysis and the Generation of +Hydrogen, and _New Wine_ by the Reverend Laurence Juke. + +The journalistic world also flourished. The _Weekly Fact_ had become, as +people said, quite an interesting and readable paper, brighter than the +_Nation_, more emotional than the _New Statesman_, gentler than the _New +Witness_, spicier than the _Spectator_, more chatty than the _Athenaeum_, +so that one bought it on bookstalls and read it in trains. + +There was also the new Pinkerton fourpenny, the _Wednesday Chat_, +brighter, more emotional, gentler, spicier, and chattier than them +all, and vulgar as well, nearly as vulgar as _John Bull_, and quite +as sentimental, but less vicious, so that it sold in its millions +from the outset, and soon had a poem up on the walls of the tube +stations, saying-- + +'No other weeklies sell +Anything like so well.' + +which was as near the truth as these statements usually are. Lord +Pinkerton had, in fact, with his usual acumen, sensed the existence of a +great Fourpenny Weekly Public, and given it, as was his wont, more than +it desired or deserved. The sixpenny weekly public already had its needs +met; so had the penny, the twopenny, the threepenny, and the shilling +public. Now the fourpenny public, a shy and modest section of the +community, largely clerical (in the lay sense of the word) looked up and +was fed. Those brains which could only with effort rise to the solid +political and economic information and cultured literary judgments meted +out by the sixpennies, but which yet shrank from the crudities of our +cheapest journals, here found something they could read, mark, learn, and +inwardly digest. + +The Potterite press (not only Lord Pinkerton's) advanced, like an army +terrible with banners, on all sections of the line. + + +3 + +Juke's book on modern thought in the Church was a success. It was +brilliantly written, and reviewed in lay as well as in church papers. +Juke, to his own detriment, became popular. Canon Streeter and others +asked him to collaborate in joint books on the Church. Modernist +liberal-catholic vicars asked him to preach. When he preached, people +came in hundreds to hear him, because he was an attractive, stimulating, +and entertaining preacher. (I have never had this experience, but I +assume that it is morally unwholesome.) He had to take missions, and +retreats, and quiet days, and give lectures on the Church to cultivated +audiences. Then he was offered the living of St. Anne's, Piccadilly, +which is one of those incumbencies with what is known as scope, which +meant that there were no poor in the parish, and the incumbent's gifts as +preacher, lecturer, writer, and social success could be used to the best +advantage. He was given three weeks to decide. + + +4 + +Gideon wrote long letters to Jane from the Russian towns and villages in +which he sojourned. But none of them were suitable for propaganda +purposes; they were critical but dispassionate. He had found some cousins +of his father's, fur merchants living in a small town on the edge of a +forest. 'Clever, cringing, nerve-ridden people,' he said. The older +generation remembered his grandparents, and his father as a bright-eyed +infant. They remembered that pogrom fifty years ago, and described it. +'They'll describe anything,' wrote Gideon. 'The more horrible it is, the +more they'll talk. That's Russian, not Jewish specially. Or is it just +human?'... Gideon didn't repeat to Jane the details he heard of his +grandparents' murder by Russian police--details which his father, in +whose memory they burned like a disease, had never told him. + +'Things as bad as that massacre are happening all the time in this +pleasant country,' he wrote. 'It doesn't matter what the political +convictions, if any, of a Russian are--he's a barbarian whether he's on +a soviet or in the anti-Bolshevik armies. Not always, of course; there +are a few who have escaped the prevalent lust of cruelty--but only a +few. Love of pain (as experienced by others) for its own sake--as one +loves good food, or beautiful women--it's a queer disease. It goes +along, often, with other strong sensual desires. The Russians, for +instance, are the worst gluttons and profligates of Europe. With it +all, they have, often, an extraordinary generous good-heartedness; with +one hand they will give away what they can't spare to some one in need, +while with the other they torture an animal or a human being to death. +The women seldomer do either; like women everywhere, they are less +given both to sensual desire and to generous open-handedness.... That's +a curious thing, how seldom you find physical cruelty in a woman of any +nationality. Even the most spiteful and morally unkindest little girl +will shudder away while her brother tears the wings off a fly or the +legs off a frog, or impales a worm on a hook. Weak nerves, partly, and +partly the sort of high-strung fastidiousness women have. When you come +across cruelty in a woman--physical cruelty, of course--you think of +her as a monster; just as when you come on a stingy man, you think of +him (but probably inaccurately) as a Jew. Russians are very male, +except in their inchoate, confused thinking. Their special brand of +humour and of sentimentality are male; their exuberant strength and +aliveness, their sensuality, and their savage cruelty.... If ever women +come to count in Russia as a force, not merely as mates for the men, +queer things will happen.... Here in this town things are, for the +moment, tidy and ordered, as if seven Germans with seven mops had swept +it for half a year. The local soviet is a gang of ruffians, but they do +keep things more or less ship-shape. And they make people work. And +they torture dogs....' + +Later he wrote, 'You were right as to one thing; every one I meet, +including my relations, is persuaded that I am either a newspaper +correspondent or writing a book, or, more probably, both. These taints +cling so. I feel like a reformed drunkard, who has taken the pledge but +still carries about with him a red nose and shaky hands, so that he gets +no credit for his new sobriety. What's the good of my telling people here +that I don't write, when I suppose I've the mark of the beast stamped all +over me? And they play up; they talk for me to record it.... + +'I find all kinds of odd things here. Among others, an English doctor, in +the local lunatic asylum. Mad as a hatter, poor devil--now--whatever he +was when they shut him up. I dare say he'd been through enough even then +to turn his brain. I can't find out who his friends in England are....' + + +5 + +Gideon stopped writing, and took Jane's last letter out of his pocket. It +occurred to him that he was in no sense answering it. Not that Jane +would mind; that wasn't the sort of thing she did mind. But it struck him +suddenly how difficult it had grown to him to answer Jane's letters--or, +indeed, any one else's. He could not flatter himself that he was already +contracting the inarticulate habit, because he could pour forth fluently +enough about his own experiences; but to Jane's news of London he had +nothing to say. A new paper had been started; another paper had died; +some one they knew had deserted from one literary côterie to another; +some one else had turned from a dowdy into a nut; Jane had been seeing a +lot of bad plays; her novel--'my confused mass of self-expression,' she +called it to him--was coming out next week. All the familiar personal, +literary, political, and social gossip, which he too had dealt in once; +Jane was in the thick of it still, and he was turning stupid, like a man +living in the country; he could not answer her. Or, perhaps, would not; +because the thing that absorbed him at present was how people lived and +thought, and what could be made of them--not the conscious, intellectual, +writing, discussing, semi-civilised people (semi-civilised--what an +absurd word! What is complete civilisation, that we should bisect it and +say we have half, or any other exact fraction? Partly civilised, Gideon +amended it to), but the great unconscious masses, hardly civilised at +all, who shape things, for good or evil, in the long run. + +Gideon folded up Jane's letter and put it away, and to his own added +nothing but his love. + + +6 + +Jane got that letter in Easter week. It was a fine warm day, and she, +walking across Green Park, met Juke, who had been lunching with a bishop +to meet an elderly princess who had read his book. + +'She said, "I'm afraid you're sadly satirical, Mr. Juke,'" he told Jane. +'She did really. And I'm to preach at Sandringham one Sunday. Yes, to the +Family. Tell Gideon that, will you. He'll be so disgusted. But what a +chance! Life at St. Anne's is going to be full of chances of slanging the +rich, that's one thing about it.' + +'Oh, you're going to take it, then?' + +'Probably. I've not written to accept yet, so don't pass it on.' + +'I'm glad. It's much more amusing to accept things, even livings. It'll +be lovely: you'll be all among the clubs and theatres and the idle rich; +much gayer than Covent Garden.' + +'Oh, gayer,' said Juke. + +They came out into Birdcage Walk, and there was a man selling the +_Evening Hustle_, Lord Pinkerton's evening paper. + +'Bloody massacres,' he was observing with a kind of absent-minded +happiness. 'Bloody massacres in Russia, Ireland, Armenia, and the +Punjab.... British journalist assassinated near Odessa.' + +And there it was, too, in big black letters on the _Evening Hustle_ +placard:-- + +'DIVORCE OF A PEERESS. + +'MURDER OF BRITISH JOURNALIST IN RUSSIA-LATE WIRE FROM GATWICK.' + +They bought the paper, to see who the British journalist was. His murder +was in a little paragraph on the front page. + +'Mr. Arthur Gideon, a well-known British journalist' ... first beaten +nearly to death by White soldiery, because he was, entirely in vain, +defending some poor Jewish family from their wrath ... then found by +Bolshevists and disposed of ... somehow ... because he was an +Englishman.... + + +7 + +A placard for the press. A placard for the Potter press. Had he thought +of that at the last, and died in the bitterness of that paradox? Murdered +by both sides, being of neither, but merely a seeker after fact. Killed +in the quest for truth and the war against verbiage and cant, and, in the +end, a placard for the press which hated the one and lived by the other. +_Had_ he thought of that as he broke under the last strain of pain? Or, +merely, 'These damned brutes. White or Red, there's nothing to choose ... +nothing to choose ...' + +Anyhow, it was over, that quest of his, and nothing remained but the +placard which coupled his defeat with the peeress's divorce. + +Arthur Gideon had gone under, but the Potter press, the flaunting banner +of the great sentimental public, remained. It would always remain, so +long as the great sentimental public were what they were. + + +8 + +Little remains to add. Little of Gideon, for they never learnt much more +of his death than was telegraphed in that first message. His father, +going out to the scene of his death, may have heard more; if he did, he +never revealed it to any one. Not only Arthur had perished, but the +Jewish family he was trying to defend; he had failed as well as died. +Failed utterly, every way; gone under and finished, he and his pedantry +and his exactitude, his preaching, his hard clarity, and his bewildered +bitterness against a world vulgar and soft-headed beyond his +understanding. + +Juke refused St. Anne's, with its chances, its congregations, and its +scope. Neither did he preach at Sandringham. Gideon's fate pilloried +on that placard had stabbed through him and cut him, sick and angry, +from his moorings. He spoke no more and wrote no more to admiring +audiences who hung on his words and took his quick points as he made +them. To be one with other men, he learnt a manual trade, and made +shoes in Bermondsey, and preached in the streets to men who did not, +as a rule, listen. + +Jane would, no doubt, fulfil herself in the course of time, make an +adequate figure in the world she loved, and suck therefrom no small +advantage. She had loved Arthur Gideon; but what Lady Pinkerton and +Clare would call her 'heart' was not of the kind which would, as these +two would doubtless put it in their strange phraseology, 'break.' +Somehow, after all, Jane would have her good time; if not in one way, +then in another. + +Lord and Lady Pinkerton flourish exceedingly, and will be long in the +land. Leila Yorke sells better than ever. Of the Pinkerton press I need +not speak, since it is so well qualified to speak for itself. Enough to +say that no fears are at present entertained for its demise. And little +Charles Hobart grows in stature, under his grandfather's watching and +approving eye. When the time comes, he will carry on worthily. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Potterism, by Rose Macaulay + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTTERISM *** + +***** This file should be named 11163-8.txt or 11163-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/6/11163/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11163-8.zip b/old/11163-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab36538 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11163-8.zip diff --git a/old/11163.txt b/old/11163.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ad82be --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11163.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8133 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Potterism, by Rose Macaulay + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Potterism + A Tragi-Farcical Tract + +Author: Rose Macaulay + +Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11163] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTTERISM *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + POTTERISM + + A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT + + BY ROSE MACAULAY + + Author of 'What Not,' etc. + + 1920 + + + + +TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED, +INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION + + +'They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly.'--J. CLARKE. + + +'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.... Don't _think_ foolishly.' +SAMUEL JOHNSON. + + +'On the whole we are +Not intelligent-- +No, no, no, not intelligent.'--W.S. GILBERT. + + +'Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by +day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or Carbuncle, that +sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth ever adde +Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's +mindes Vaine Opinions, Blattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations +as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of +Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition and +unpleasing to themselves?'--FRANCIS BACON. + + +'What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, convention, +self-interest.... We see the narrow world our windows show us not in +itself, but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences ... for +the universe of the natural man is strictly egocentric.... Unless we +happen to be artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing seen" +in its purity; never from birth to death, look at it with disinterested +eyes.... It is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of things +for their own sakes ... which is the condition of all real knowledge.... +When ... the verb "to have" is ejected from the centre of your +consciousness ... your attitude to life will cease to be commercial and +become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting +the incoming impressions, will no longer ask, "What use is this to +_me?_"... You see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not +for your own.'--EVELYN UNDERHILL. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I.--TOLD BY R.M. + + I. POTTERS + II. ANTI-POTTERS + III. OPPORTUNITY + IV. JANE AND CLARE + +PART II.--TOLD BY GIDEON + + I. SPINNING + II. DINING WITH THE HOBARTS + III. SEEING JANE + +PART III.--TOLD BY LELIA YORKE + + I. THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS + II. AN AWFUL SUSPICION + +PART IV.--TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK + +A BRANCH OF STUDY + +PART V.--TOLD BY JUKE + +GIVING ADVICE + +PART VI.--TOLD BY R.M. + + I. THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA + II. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED + III. THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD + IV. RUNNING AWAY + V. A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS + + + + +PART I: + +TOLD BY R.M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +POTTERS + + +1 + +Johnny and Jane Potter, being twins, went through Oxford together. Johnny +came up from Rugby and Jane from Roedean. Johnny was at Balliol and Jane +at Somerville. Both, having ambitions for literary careers, took the +Honours School of English Language and Literature. They were ordinary +enough young people; clever without being brilliant, nice-looking without +being handsome, active without being athletic, keen without being +earnest, popular without being leaders, open-handed without being +generous, as revolutionary, as selfish, and as intellectually snobbish as +was proper to their years, and inclined to be jealous one of the other, +but linked together by common tastes and by a deep and bitter distaste +for their father's newspapers, which were many, and for their mother's +novels, which were more. These were, indeed, not fit for perusal at +Somerville and Balliol. The danger had been that Somerville and Balliol, +till they knew you well, should not know you knew it. + +In their first year, the mother of Johnny and Jane ('Leila Yorke,' with +'Mrs. Potter' in brackets after it), had, after spending Eights Week at +Oxford, announced her intention of writing an Oxford novel. Oh God, Jane +had cried within herself, not that; anything but that; and firmly she +and Johnny had told her mother that already there were _Keddy_, and +_Sinister Street_, and _The Pearl_, and _The Girls of St. Ursula's_ (by +Annie S. Swan: 'After the races were over, the girls sculled their +college barge briskly down the river,'), and that, in short, the thing +had been done for good and all, and that was that. + +Mrs. Potter still thought she would like to write an Oxford novel. +Because, after all, though there might be many already, none of them were +quite like the one she would write. She had tea with Jane in the +Somerville garden on Sunday, and though Jane did not ask any of her +friends to meet her (for they might have got put in) she saw them all +about, and thought what a nice novel they would make. Jane knew she was +thinking this, and said, 'They're very commonplace people,' in a +discouraging tone. 'Some of them,' Jane added, deserting her own +snobbishness, which was intellectual, for her mother's, which was social, +'are also common.' + +'There must be very many,' said Mrs. Potter, looking through her +lorgnette at the garden of girls, 'who are neither.' + +'Fewer,' said Jane, stubbornly, 'than you would think. Most people are +one or the other, I find. Many are both.' + +'Try not to be cynical, my pet,' said Leila Yorke, who was never this. + + +2 + +That was in June, 1912. In June, 1914, Jane and Johnny went down. + +Their University careers had been creditable, if not particularly +conspicuous. Johnny had been a fluent speaker at the Union, Jane at the +women's intercollegiate Debating Society, and also in the Somerville +parliament, where she had been the leader of the Labour Party. Johnny had +for a time edited the _Isis_, Jane the _Fritillary_. Johnny had done +respectably in Schools, Jane rather better. For Jane had always been just +a shade the cleverer; not enough to spoil competition, but enough to give +Johnny rather harder work to achieve the same results. They had probably +both got firsts, but Jane's would be a safe thing, and Johnny would be +likely to have a longish _viva_. + +Anyhow, here they were, just returned to Potter's Bar, Herts (where Mr. +Percy Potter, liking the name of the village, had lately built a lordly +mansion). Excellent friends they were, but as jealous as two little dogs, +each for ever on the look-out to see that the other got no undue +advantage. Both saw every reason why they should make a success of life. +But Jane knew that, though she might be one up on Johnny as regards +Oxford, owing to slightly superior brain power, he was one up on her as +regards Life, owing to that awful business sex. Women were handicapped; +they had to fight much harder to achieve equal results. People didn't +give them jobs in the same way. Young men possessed the earth; young +women had to wrest what they wanted out of it piecemeal. Johnny might end +a cabinet minister, a notorious journalist, a Labour leader, anything.... +Women's jobs were, as a rule, so dowdy and unimportant. Jane was bored to +death with this sex business; it wasn't fair. But Jane was determined to +live it down. She wouldn't be put off with second-rate jobs; she wouldn't +be dowdy and unimportant, like her mother and the other fools; she would +have the best that was going. + + +3 + +The family dined. At one end of the table was Mr. Potter; a small, +bird-like person, of no presence; you had not thought he was so great +a man as Potter of the Potter Press. For it was a great press; though +not so great as the Northcliffe Press, for it did not produce anything +so good as the _Times_ or so bad as the _Weekly Dispatch_; it was more +of a piece. + +Both commonplace and common was Mr. Percy Potter (according to some +standards), but clever, with immense patience, a saving sense of humour, +and that imaginative vision without which no newspaper owner, financier, +general, politician, poet, or criminal can be great. He was, in fact, +greater than the twins would ever be, because he was not at odds with his +material: he found such stuff as his dreams were made of ready to his +hand, in the great heart of the public--the last place where the twins +would have thought of looking. + +So did his wife. She was pink-faced and not ill-looking, with the cold +blue eyes and rather set mouth possessed (inexplicably) by many writers +of fiction. If I have conveyed the impression that Leila Yorke was in +the lowest division of this class, I have done her less than justice; +quite a number of novelists were worse. This was not much satisfaction +to her children. Jane said, 'If you do that sort of thing at all, you +might as well make a job of it, and sell a million copies. I'd rather +be Mrs. Barclay or Ethel Dell or Charles Garvice or Gene Stratton +Porter or Ruby Ayres than mother. Mother's merely commonplace; she's +not even a by-word--quite. I admire dad more. Dad anyhow gets there. +His stuff sells.' + +Mrs. Potter's novels, as a matter of fact, sold quite creditably. They +were pleasant to many, readable by more, and quite unmarred by any +spark of cleverness, flash of wit, or morbid taint of philosophy. +Gently and unsurprisingly she wrote of life and love as she believed +these two things to be, and found a home in the hearts of many +fellow-believers. She bored no one who read her, because she could be +relied on to give them what they hoped to find--and of how few of us, +alas, can this be said! And--she used to say it was because she was a +mother--her books were safe for the youngest _jeune fille_, and in +these days (even in those days it was so) of loose morality and frank +realism, how important this is. + +'I hope I am as modern as any one,' Mrs. Potter would say, 'but I see no +call to be indecent.' + +So many writers do see, or rather hear, this call, and obey it +faithfully, that many a parent was grateful to Leila Yorke. (It is only +fair to record here that in the year 1918 she heard it herself, and +became a psychoanalyst. But the time for this was not yet.) + +On her right sat her eldest son, Frank, who was a curate in Pimlico. In +Frank's face, which was sharp and thin, like his father's, were the +marks of some conflict which his father's did not know. You somehow felt +that each of the other Potters had one aim, and that Frank had, or, +anyhow, felt that he ought to have, another besides, however feebly he +aimed at it. + +Next him sat his young wife, who had, again, only the one. She was pretty +and jolly and brunette, and twisted Frank round her fingers. + +Beyond her sat Clare, the eldest daughter, and the daughter at home. She +read her mother's novels, and her father's papers, and saw no harm in +either. She thought the twins perverse and conceited, which came from +being clever at school and college. Clare had never been clever at +anything but domestic jobs and needlework. She was a nice, pretty girl, +and expected to marry. She snubbed Jane, and Jane, in her irritating and +nonchalant way, was rude to her. + +On the other side of the table sat the twins, stocky and square-built, +and looking very young, with broad jaws and foreheads and wide-set gray +eyes. Jane was, to look at, something like an attractive little plump +white pig. It is not necessary, at the moment, to say more about her +appearance than this, except that, when the time came to bob the hair, +she bobbed it. + +Johnny was as sturdy but rather less chubby, and his chin stuck out +farther. They had the same kind of smile, and square white teeth, and +were greedy. When they had been little, they had watched each other's +plates with hostile eyes, to see that neither got too large a helping. + + +4 + +Those of us who are old enough will remember that in June and July 1914 +the conversation turned largely and tediously on militant suffragists, +Irish rebels, and strikers. It was the beginning of the age of violent +enforcements of decision by physical action which has lasted ever since +and shows as yet no signs of passing. The Potter press, like so many +other presses, snubbed the militant suffragists, smiled half approvingly +on Carson's rebels, and frowned wholly disapprovingly on the strikers. It +was a curious age, so near and yet so far, when the ordered frame of +things was still unbroken, and violence a child's dream, and poetry and +art were taken with immense seriousness. Those of us who can remember it +should do so, for it will not return. It has given place to the age of +melodrama, when nothing is too strange to happen, and no one is ever +surprised. That, too, may pass, but probably will not, for it is +primeval. The other was artificial, a mere product of civilisation, and +could not last. + +It was in the intervals of talking about the militants (a conversation +much like other conversations on the same topic, which were tedious even +at the time, and now will certainly not bear recording) that Mrs. Frank +said to the twins, 'What are you two going to play at now?' + +So extensive a question, opening such vistas. It would have taken, if not +less time, anyhow less trouble, to have told Mrs. Frank what they were +_not_ going to play at. + +The devil of mischief looked out of Johnny's gray eyes, as he nearly +said, 'We are going to fight Leila Yorke fiction and the Potter press.' + +Choking it back, he said, succinctly, 'Publishing, journalism, and +writing. At least, I am.' + +'He means,' Mr. Potter interpolated, in his small, nasal voice, 'that +he has obtained a small and subordinate job with a firm of publishers, +and hopes also to contribute to an obscure weekly paper run by a +friend of his.' + +'Oh,' said Mrs. Frank. 'Not one of _your_ papers, pater? Can't be, if +it's obscure, can it?' + +'No, not one of my papers. A periodical called, I believe, the _Weekly +Comment_, with which you may or may not be familiar.' + +'Never heard of it, I'm afraid,' Mrs. Frank confessed, truly. 'Why don't +you go on to one of the family concerns, Johnny? You'd get on much +quicker there, with pater to shove you.' + +'Probably,' Johnny agreed. + +'My papers,' said Mr. Potter dryly, 'are not quite up to Johnny's +intellectual level. Nor Jane's. Neither do they accord with their +political sympathies.' + +'Oh, I forgot you two were silly old Socialists. Never mind, that'll pass +when they grow up, won't it, Frank?' + +Secretly, Mrs. Frank thought that the twins had the disease because the +Potter family, however respectable now, wasn't really 'top-drawer.' + +Funny old pater had, every one knew, begun his career as a reporter on a +provincial paper. If funny old pater had been just a shade less clever or +enterprising, his family would have been educated at grammar schools and +gone into business in their teens. Of course, Mrs. Potter had pulled the +social level up a bit; but what, if you came to that, had Mrs. Potter +been? Only the daughter of a country doctor; only the underpaid secretary +of a lady novelist, for all she was so conceited now. + +So naturally Socialism, that disease of the underbred, had taken hold of +the less careful of the Potter young. + +'And are you going to write for this weekly what-d'you-call-it too, +Jane?' Mrs. Frank inquired. + +'No. I've not got a job yet. I'm going to look round a little first.' + +'Oh, that's sense. Have a good time at home for a bit. Well, it's time +you had a holiday, isn't it? I wish old Frank could. He's working like an +old horse. He may slave himself to death for those Pimlico pigs, for all +any of them care. It's never "thank you"; it's always "more, more, more," +with them. That's your Socialism, Johnny.' + +The twins got on very well with their sister-in-law, but thought her a +fool. When, as she was fond of doing, she mentioned Socialism, they, +rightly believing her grasp of that economic system to be even less +complete than that of most people, always changed the subject. + +But on this occasion they did not have time to change it before Clare +said, 'Mother's writing a novel about Socialism. She shows it up like +anything.' + +Mrs. Potter smiled. + +'I confess I am trying my hand at the burning subject. But as for +showing it up--well, I am being fair to both sides, I think. I don't +feel I can quite condemn it wholesale, as Peggy does. I find it very +difficult to treat anything like that--I can't help seeing all round a +thing. I'm told it's a weakness, and that I should get on better if I +saw everything in black and white, as so many people do, but it's no use +my trying to alter, at my time of life. One has to write in one's own +way or not at all.' + +'Anyhow,' said Clare, 'it's going to be a ripping book, _Socialist +Cecily_; quite one of your best, mother.' + +Clare had always been her mother's great stand-by in the matter of +literature. She was also useful as a touchstone, as what her mother did +not call a foolometer. If a book went with Clare, it went with Leila +Yorke's public beyond. Mr. Potter was a less satisfactory reader; he +regarded his wife's books as goods for sale, and his comments were, 'That +should go all right. That's done it,' which attitude, though commercially +helpful, was less really satisfying to the creator than Clare's +uncritical absorption in the characters and the story. Clare was, in +fact, the public, while Mr. Potter was more the salesman. + +And the twins were neither, but more like the less agreeable type of +reviewer, when they deigned to read or comment on their mother's books at +all, which was not always. Johnny's attitude towards his mother suggested +that he might say politely, if she mentioned her books, 'Oh, do you +write? Why?' Mrs. Potter was rather sadly aware that she made no appeal +to the twins. But then, as Clare reminded her, the twins, since they had +gone to Oxford, never admitted that they cared for any books that normal +people cared for. They were like that; conceited and contrary. + +To change the subject (so many subjects are the better for being changed, +as all those who know family life will agree) Jane said, 'Johnny and I +are going on a reading-party next month.' + +'A little late in the day, isn't it?' commented Frank, the only one who +knew Oxford habits. 'Unless it's to look up all the howlers you've made.' + +'Well,' Jane admitted, 'it won't be so much reading really as observing. +It's a party of investigation, as a matter of fact.' + +'What do you investigate? Beetles, or social conditions?' + +'People. Their tastes, habits, outlook, and mental diseases. What they +want, and why they want it, and what the cure is. We belong to a society +for inquiring into such things.' + +'You would,' said Clare, who always rose when the twins meant her to. + +'Aren't they cautions,' said Mrs. Frank, more good-humouredly. + +Mrs. Potter said, 'That's a very interesting idea. I think I must join +this society. It would help me in my work. What is it called, children?' + +'Oh,' said Jane, and had the grace to look ashamed, 'it really hardly +exists yet.' + +But as she said it she met the sharp and shrewd eyes of Mr. Potter, and +knew that he knew she was referring to the Anti-Potter League. + + +5 + +Mr. Potter would not, indeed, have been worthy of his reputation had he +not been aware, from its inception, of the existence of this League. +Journalists have to be aware of such things. He in no way resented the +League; he brushed it aside as of no account. And, indeed, it was not +aimed at him personally, nor at his wife personally, but at the great +mass of thought--or of incoherent, muddled emotion that passed for +thought--which the Anti-Potters had agreed, for brevity's sake, to call +'Potterism.' Potterism had very certainly not been created by the +Potters, and was indeed no better represented by the goods with which +they supplied the market than by those of many others; but it was a handy +name, and it had taken the public fancy that here you had two Potters +linked together, two souls nobly yoked, one supplying Potterism in +fictional, the other in newspaper, form. So the name caught, about the +year 1912. + +The twins both heard it used at Oxford, in their second year. They +recognised its meaning without being told. And both felt that it was up +to them to take the opportunity of testifying, of severing any connection +that might yet exist in any one's mind between them and the other +products of their parents. They did so, with the uncompromising decision +proper to their years, and with, perhaps, the touch of indecency, +regardlessness of the proprieties, which was characteristic of them. +Their friends soon discovered that they need not guard their tongues in +speaking of Potterism before the Potter twins. The way the twins put it +was, 'Our family is responsible for more than its share of the beastly +thing; the least we can do is to help to do it in,' which sounded +chivalrous. And another way they put it was, 'We're not going to have any +one connecting _us_ with it,' which sounded sensible. + +So they joined the Anti-Potter League, not blind to the piquant humour of +their being found therein. + + +6 + +Mr. Potter said to the twins, in his thin little voice, 'Don't mind +mother and me, children. Tell us all about the A.P.L. It may do us good.' + +But the twins knew it would not do their mother good. It would need too +much explanation; and then she would still not understand. She might even +be very angry, as she was (though she pretended she was only amused) with +some reviewers.... If your mother is Leila Yorke, and has hard blue eyes +and no sense of humour, but a most enormous sense of importance, you +cannot, or you had better not, even begin to explain to her things like +Potterism, or the Anti-Potter League, and still less how it is that you +belong to the latter. + +The twins, who had got firsts in Schools, knew this much. + +Johnny improvised hastily, with innocent gray eyes on his father's, 'It's +one of the rules that you mayn't talk about it outside. Anti-Propaganda +League, it is, you see ... for letting other people alone....' + +'Well,' said Mr. Potter, who was not spiteful to his children, and +preferred his wife unruffled, 'we'll let you off this time. But you can +take my word for it, it's a silly business. Mother and I will last a +great deal longer than it does. Because we take our stand on human +nature, and you won't destroy that with Leagues.' + +Sometimes the twins were really almost afraid they wouldn't. + +'You're all very cryptic to-night,' Frank said, and yawned. + +Then Mrs. Potter and the girls left the dining-room, and Frank and his +father discussed the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a measure +which Frank thought would be a pity, but which was advocated by the +Potter press. + +Johnny cracked nuts in silence. He thought the Church insincere, a put-up +job, but that dissenters were worse. They should all be abolished, with +other shams. For a short time at Oxford he had given the Church a trial, +even felt real admiration for it, under the influence of his friend Juke, +and after hearing sermons from Father Waggett, Dr. Dearmer, and Canon +Adderley. But he had soon given it up, seen it wouldn't do; the +above-mentioned priests were not representative; the Church as a whole +canted, was hypocritical and Potterish, and must go. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ANTI-POTTERS + + +1 + +The quest of Potterism, its causes and its cure, took the party of +investigation first to the Cornish coast. Partly because of bathing and +boating, and partly because Gideon, the organiser of the party, wanted to +find out if there was much Potterism in Cornwall, or if Celticism had +withstood it. For Potterism, they had decided, was mainly an Anglo-Saxon +disease. Worst of all in America, that great home of commerce, success, +and the booming of the second-rate. Less discernible in the Latin +countries, which they hoped later on to explore, and hardly existing in +the Slavs. In Russia, said Gideon, who loathed Russians, because he was +half a Jew, it practically did not exist. The Russians were without shame +and without cant, saw things as they were, and proceeded to make them a +good deal worse. That was barbarity, imbecility, and devilishness, but it +was not Potterism, said Gideon grimly. Gideon's grandparents had been +massacred in an Odessa pogrom; his father had been taken at the age of +five to England by an aunt, become naturalised, taken the name of Sidney, +married an Englishwoman, and achieved success and wealth as a banker. His +son Arthur was one of the most brilliant men of his year at Oxford, +regarded Russians, Jews, and British with cynical dislike, and had, on +turning twenty-one, reverted to his family name in its English form, +finding it a Potterish act on his father's part to have become Sidney. +Few of his friends remembered to call him by his new name, and his +parents ignored it, but to wear it gave him a grim satisfaction. + +Such was Arthur Gideon, a lean-faced, black-eyed man, biting his nails +like Fagin when he got excited. + +The other man, besides Johnny Potter, was the Honourable Laurence Juke, a +Radical of moderately aristocratic lineage, a clever writer and actor, +who had just taken deacon's orders. Juke had a look at once languid and +amused, a well-shaped, smooth brown head, blunt features, the +introspective, wide-set eyes of the mystic, and the sweet, flexible voice +of the actor (his mother had, in fact, been a well-known actress of the +eighties). + +The two women were Jane Potter and Katherine Varick. Katherine Varick had +frosty blue eyes, a pale, square-jawed, slightly cynical face, a first in +Natural Science, and a chemical research fellowship. + +In those happy days it was easy to stay in places, even by the sea, and +they stayed first at the fishing village of Mevagissey. Gideon was the +only one who never forgot that they were to make observations and write a +book. He came of a more hard-working race than the others did. Often the +others merely fished, boated, bathed, and walked, and forgot the object +of their tour. But Gideon, though he too did these things, did them, so +to speak, notebook in hand. He was out to find and analyse Potterism, so +much of it as lay hid in the rocky Cornish coves and the grave Cornish +people. Katherine Varick was the only member of the party who knew that +he was also seeking and finding it in the hidden souls of his +fellow-seekers. + + +2 + +They would meet in the evening with the various contributions to the +subject which they had gathered during the day. The Urban District +Council, said Johnny, wanted to pull down the village street and build an +esplanade to attract visitors; all the villagers seemed pleased. That was +Potterism, the welcoming of ugliness and prosperity; the antithesis of +the artist's spirit, which loved beauty for what it was, and did not want +to exploit it. + +Their landlady, said Juke, on Sunday, had looked coldly on him when he +went out with his fishing rod in the morning. This would not have been +Potterism, but merely a respectable bigotry, had the lady had genuine +conscientious scruples as to this use of Sunday morning by the clergy, +but Juke had ascertained tactfully that she had no conscientious +scruples about anything at all. So it was merely propriety and cant, in +brief, Potterism. Later, he had landed at a village down the coast and +been to church. + +'That church,' he said, 'is the most unpleasant piece of Potterism I have +seen for some time. Perpendicular, but restored fifty years ago, +according to the taste of the period. Vile windows; painted deal pews; +incredible braying of bad chants out of tune; a sermon from a pie-faced +fellow about going to church. Why should they go to church? He didn't +tell them; he just said if they didn't, some being he called God would be +angry with them. What did he mean by God? I'm hanged if he'd ever +thought it out. Some being, apparently, like a sublimated Potterite, who +rejoices in bad singing, bad art, bad praying, and bad preaching, and +sits aloft to deal out rewards to those who practise these and +punishments to those who don't. The Potter God will save you if you +please him; that means he'll save your body from danger and not let you +starve. Potterism has no notion of a God who doesn't care a twopenny damn +whether you starve or not, but does care whether you're following the +truth as you see it. In fact, Potterism has no room for Christianity; it +prefers the God of the Old Testament. Of course, with their abominable +cheek, the Potterites have taken Christianity and watered it down to suit +themselves, till they've produced a form of Potterism which they call by +its name; but they wouldn't know the real thing if they saw it.... The +Pharisees were Potterites....' + +The others listened to Juke on religious Potterism tolerantly. None of +them (with the doubtful exception of Johnny, who had not entirely made up +his mind) believed in religion; they were quite prepared to agree that +most of its current forms were soaked in Potterism, but they could not be +expected to care, as Juke did. + +Gideon said he had heard a dreadful band on the beach, and heard a +dreadful fellow proclaiming the Precious Blood. That was Potterism, +because it was an appeal to sentiment over the head, or under the head, +of reason. Neither the speaker nor any one else probably had the least +idea what he was talking about or what he meant. + +'He had the kind of face which is always turned away from facts,' Gideon +said. 'Facts are too difficult, too complicated for him. Hard, jolly +facts, with clear sharp edges that you can't slur and talk away. +Potterism has no use for them. It appeals over their heads to prejudice +and sentiment.... It's the very opposite to the scientific temper. No +good scientist could conceivably be a Potterite, because he's concerned +with truth, and the kind of truth, too, that it's difficult to arrive at. +Potterism is all for short and easy cuts and showy results. Science has +to work its way step by step, and then hasn't much to show for it. It +isn't greedy. Potterism plays a game of grab all the time--snatches at +success in a hurry.... It's greedy,' repeated Gideon, thinking it out, +watching Jane's firm little sun-browned hand with its short square +fingers rooting in the sand for shells. + +Jane had visited the stationer, who kept a circulating library, and seen +holiday visitors selecting books to read. They had nearly all chosen the +most Potterish they could see, and asked for some more Potterish still, +leaving Conrad and Hardy despised on the shelves. But these people were +not Cornish, but Saxon visitors. + +And Katherine had seen the local paper, but it had been much less +Potterish than most of the London papers, which confirmed them in their +theory about Celts. + +Thus they talked and discussed and played, and wrote their book in +patches, and travelled from place to place, and thought that they found +things out. And Gideon, because he was the cleverest, found out the most; +and Katherine, because she was the next cleverest, saw all that Gideon +found out; and Juke, because he was religious, was for ever getting on to +Potterism its cure, before they had analysed the disease; and the twins +enjoyed life in their usual serene way, and found it very entertaining to +be Potters inquiring into Potterism. The others were scrupulously fair +in not attributing to them, because they happened to be Potters by birth, +more Potterism than they actually possessed. A certain amount, said Juke, +is part of the make-up of very nearly every human being; it has to be +fought down, like the notorious ape and tiger. But he thought that Gideon +and Katherine Varick had less of it than any one else he knew; the +mediocre was repellent to them; cant and sentiment made them sick; they +made a fetish of hard truth, and so much despised most of their +neighbours that they would not experience the temptation to grab at +popularity. In fact, they would dislike it if it came. + + +3 + +_Socialist Cecily_ came out while they were at Lyme Regis. Mrs. Potter +sent the twins a copy. In their detached way, the twins read it, and gave +it to the others to look at. + +'Very typical stuff,' Gideon summed it up, after a glance. 'It will no +doubt have an excellent sale.... It must be interesting for you to watch +it being turned out. I wish you would ask me to stay with you some time. +Yours must be an even more instructive household than mine.' + +Gideon was a Russian Jew on his father's side, and a Harrovian. He had no +decency and no manners. He made Juke, who was an Englishman and an +Etonian, and had more of both, uncomfortable sometimes. For, after all, +the rudiments of family loyalty might as well be kept, among the general +destruction which he, more sanguinely than Gideon, hoped for. + +But the twins did not bother. Jane said, in her equable way, 'You'll be +bored to death; angry, too; but come if you like.... We've a sister, more +Potterish than the parents. She'll hate you.' + +Gideon said, 'I expect so,' and they left his prospective visit at that, +with Jane chuckling quietly at her private vision of Gideon and Clare in +juxtaposition. + + +4 + +But _Socialist Cecily_ did not have a good sale after all. It was +guillotined, with many of its betters, by the European war, which began +while the Anti-Potters were at Swanage, a place replete with Potterism. +Potterism, however, as a subject for investigation, had by this time +given place to international diplomacy, that still more intriguing study. +The Anti-Potters abused every government concerned, and Gideon said, on +August 1st, 'We shall be fools if we don't come in.' + +Juke was still dubious. He was a good Radical, and good Radicals were +dubious on this point until the invasion of Belgium. + +'To throw back the world a hundred years....' + +Gideon shrugged his shoulders. He belonged to no political party, and had +the shrewd, far-seeing eyes of his father's race. + +'It's going to be thrown back anyhow. Germany will see to that. And if we +keep out of it, Germany will grab Europe. We've got to come in, if we can +get a decent pretext.' + +The decent pretext came in due course, and Gideon said, 'So that's that.' + +He added to the Potters, 'For once I am in agreement with your father's +press. We should be lunatics to stand out of this damnable mess.' + +Juke also was now, painful to him though it was to be so, in agreement +with the Potter press. To him the war had become a crusade, a fight for +decency against savagery. + +'It's that,' said Gideon. 'But that's not all. This isn't a show any +country can afford to stand out of. It's Germany against Europe, and if +Europe doesn't look sharp, Germany's going to win. _Germany._ Nearly as +bad as Russia.... One would have to emigrate to another hemisphere.... +No, we've got to win this racket.... But, oh, Lord, what a mess!' He fell +to biting his nails, savage and silent. + +Jane thought all the time, beneath her other thoughts about it, 'To have +a war, just when life was beginning and going to be such fun.' + +Beneath her public thoughts about the situation, she felt this deep +private disgust gnawing always, as of one defrauded. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +OPPORTUNITY + + +1 + +They did not know then about people in general going to the war. They +thought it was just for the army and navy, not for ordinary people. That +idea came a little later, after the Anti-Potter party had broken up and +gone home. + +The young men began to enlist and get commissions. It was done; it was +the correct idea. Johnny Potter, who belonged to an O.T.C., got a +commission early. + +Jane said within herself, 'Johnny can go and I can't.' She knew she was +badly, incredibly left. Johnny was in the movement, doing the thing that +mattered. Further, Johnny might ultimately be killed in doing it; her +Johnny. Everything else shrank and was little. What were books? What was +anything? Jane wanted to fight in the war. The war was damnable, but it +was worse to be out of it. One was such an utter outsider. It wasn't +fair. She could fight as well as Johnny could. Jane went about white and +sullen, with her world tumbling into bits about her. + +Mr. Potter said in the press, and Mrs. Potter in the home, 'The people of +England have a great opportunity before them. We must all try to rise to +it'--as if the people of England were fishes and the opportunity a fly. + +Opportunity, thought Jane. Where is it? I see none. It was precisely +opportunity which the war had put an end to. + +'The women of England must now prove that they are worthy of their men,' +said the Potter press. + +'I dare say,' thought Jane. Knitting socks and packing stores and +learning first aid. Who wanted to do things like that, when their +brothers had a chance to go and fight in France? Men wouldn't stand it, +if it was the other way round. Why should women always get the dull jobs? +It was because they bore them cheerfully; because they didn't really, for +the most part, mind, Jane decided, watching the attitude of her mother +and Clare. The twins, profoundly selfish, but loving adventure and +placidly untroubled by nerves or the prospect of physical danger, saw no +hardship in active service. (This was before the first winter and the +development of trench warfare, and people pictured to themselves +skirmishes in the open, exposed to missiles, but at least keeping warm). + + +2 + +Every one one knew was going. Johnny said to Jane, 'War is beastly, but +one's got to be in it.' He took that line, as so many others did. 'Juke's +going,' he said. 'As a combatant, I mean, not a padre. He thinks the war +could have been prevented with a little intelligence; so it could, I dare +say; but as there wasn't a little intelligence and it wasn't prevented, +he's going in. He says it will be useful experience for him--help him in +his profession; he doesn't believe in parsons standing outside things and +only doing soft jobs. I agree with him. Every one ought to go.' + +'Every one can't,' said Jane morosely. + +But to Johnny every one meant all young men, and he took no heed. + +Gideon went. It might, he said to Juke, be a capitalists' war or any one +else's; the important thing was not whose war it was but who was going +to win it. + +He added, 'Great Britain is, on this occasion, on the right side. +There's no manner of doubt about it. But even if she wasn't, it's +important for all her inhabitants that she should be on the winning +side.... Oh, she will be, no doubt, we've the advantage in numbers and +wealth, if not in military organisation or talent.... If only the +Potterites wouldn't jabber so. It's a unique opportunity for them, and +they're taking it. What makes me angriest is the reasons they vamp up +why we're fighting. For the sake of democracy, they say. Democracy be +hanged. It's a rotten system, anyhow, and how this war is going to do +anything for it I don't know. If I thought it was, I wouldn't join. But +there's no fear. And other people say we're fighting "so that our +children won't have to." Rot again. Every war makes other wars more +likely. Why can't people say simply that the reason why we're fighting +is partly to uphold decent international principles, and mainly to win +the war--to be a conquering nation, not a conquered one, and to save +ourselves from having an ill-conditioned people like the Germans +strutting all over us. It's a very laudable object, and needs no +camouflage. Sheer Potterism, all this cant and posturing. I'd rather +say, like the _Daily Mail_, that we're fighting to capture the Hun's +trade; that's a lie, but at least it isn't cant.' + +'Let them talk,' said Juke lazily. 'Let them jabber and cant. What does +it matter? We're in this thing up to the neck, and every one's got to +relieve themselves in their own way. As long as we get the job done +somehow, a little nonsense-talk more or less won't make much difference +to this mighty Empire, which has always indulged in plenty. It's the rash +coming out; good for the system.' + +So, each individual in his own way, the nation entered into the worst +period of time of which Europe has so far had experience, and on which I +do not propose to dwell in these pages except in its aspect of a source +of profit to those who sought profit; its more cheerful aspect, in fact. + + +3 + +Mrs. Potter put away the writing of fiction, as unsuitable in these +dark days. (It may be remembered that there was a period at the +beginning of the war when it was erroneously supposed that fiction +would not sell until peace returned). Mrs. Potter, like many other +writers, took up Y.M.C.A. canteen work, and went for a time to France. +There she wrote _Out There_, an account of the work of herself and her +colleagues in Rouen, full of the inimitable wit and indomitable courage +of soldiers, the untiring activities of canteen workers, and the +affectionate good-fellowship which existed between these two classes. +The world was thus shown that Leila Yorke was no mere _flaneuse_ of +letters, but an Englishwoman who rose to her country's call and was +worthy of her men-folk. + +Clare became a V.A.D., and went up to town every day to work at an +officers' hospital. It was a hospital maintained partly by Mr. Potter, +and she got on very well there. She made many pleasant friends, and hoped +to get out to France later. + +Frank tried for a chaplaincy. + +'It isn't a bit that he wants excitement, or change of air, or a free +trip to France, or to feel grand, like some of them do,' explained Mrs. +Frank. 'Only, what's the good of keeping a man like him slaving away in a +rotten parish like ours, when they want good men out there? I tell Frank +all he's got to do to get round the C.G. is to grow a moustache and learn +up the correct answers to a few questions--like "What would you do if you +had to attend a dying soldier?" Answer--"Offer to write home for him." A +lot of parsons don't know that, and go telling the C.G. they'd give him +communion, or hear his confession or something, and that knocks them out +first round. Frank knows better. There are no flies on old Frank. All the +same, pater, you might do a little private wire-pulling for him, if it +comes in handy.' + +But, unfortunately, owing to a recent though quite temporary coldness +between the Chaplain-General and the Potter press, Mr. Potter's +wire-pulling was ineffectual. The Chaplain-General did not entertain +Frank's offer favourably, and regretted that his appointment as chaplain +to His Majesty's forces was at present impracticable. So Frank went on in +Pimlico, and was cynical and bitter about those clergymen who succeeded +in passing the C.G.'s tests. + +'Why don't you join up as a combatant?' Johnny asked him, seeing his +discontent. 'Some parsons do.' + +'The bishops have forbidden it,' said Frank. + +'Oh, well, I suppose so. Does it matter particularly?' + +'My dear Johnny, there is discipline in the Church as well as in the +army, you know. You might as well ask would it matter if you were to +disobey _your_ superior officers.' + +'Well, you see, I'd have something happen to me if I did. Parsons don't. +You'd only be reprimanded, I suppose, and get into a berth all right when +you came back--if you did come back.' + +'That's got nothing to do with it. The Church would never hold together +if her officers were to break the rules whenever they felt like it. That +friend of yours, Juke, hasn't a leg to stand on; he's merely in revolt.' + +'Oh, old Juke always is, of course. Against every kind of authority, but +particularly against bishops. He's always got his knife into them, and I +dare say he's glad of the chance of flouting them. High Church parsons +are, aren't they? I expect if you were a bit higher you'd flout them too. +And if you were a bit lower, the C.G.'d take you as a padre. You're just +the wrong height, old thing, that's what's the matter.' + +Thus Johnny, now a stocky lieutenant on leave from France, diagnosed +his brother's case. Wrongly, because High Church parsons weren't +actually enlisting any more than any other kind; they did not, mostly, +believe it to be their business; quite sincerely and honestly they +thought it would be wrong for them, though right for laymen, to +undertake combatant service. + +Anyhow, as to height, Frank knew himself to be of a height acceptable in +benefices, and that was something. Besides, it was his own height. + +'Sorry I can't change to oblige you, old man,' he said. 'Or desert my +post and pretend to be a layman. I am a man under authority, like you. I +wish the powers that be would send me out there, but it's for them to +judge, and if they think I should be of less use as a padre than all the +Toms, Dicks, and Harrys they are sending, it's not for me to protest. +They may be right. I may be absolutely useless as a chaplain. On the +other hand, I may not. They apparently don't intend to give themselves a +chance of finding out. Very well. It's nothing to me, either way.' + +'Oh, that's all right then,' Johnny said. + + +4 + +No one could say that the Potter press did not rise to the great +opportunity. The press seldom fails to do this. The Potter press +surpassed itself; it nearly surpassed its great rival presses. With +energy and whole-heartedness it cheered, comforted, and stimulated the +people. It never failed to say how well the Allies were getting on, how +much ammunition they had, how many men, what indomitable tenacity and +cheerful spirits enlivened the trenches. The correspondents it employed +wrote home rejoicing; its leading articles were noble hymns of praise. In +times of darkness and travail one cannot but be glad of such a press as +this. So glad were the Government of it that Mr. Potter became, at the +end of 1916, Lord Pinkerton, and his press the Pinkerton press. Of +course, that was not the only reward he obtained for his services; he +figured every new year in the honours' list, and collected in succession +most of the letters of the alphabet after his name. With it all, he +remained the same alert, bird-like, inconspicuous person, with the same +unswerving belief in his own methods and his own destinies, a belief +which never passed from self-confidence to self-importance. Unless you +were so determined a hater of Potterism as to be blindly prejudiced, you +could not help liking Lord Pinkerton. + + +5 + +Jane, sulking because she could not fight, thought for a short time that +she would nurse, and get abroad that way. Then it became obvious that too +many fools were scrambling to get sent abroad, and anyhow, that, if Clare +was nursing, it must be a mug's game, and that there must be a better +field for her own energies elsewhere. With so many men going, there would +be empty places to fill.... That thought came, perhaps, as soon to Jane +as to any one in the country. + +Her father's lady secretary went nursing, and Lord Pinkerton, well aware +of his younger daughter's clearheaded competence, offered Jane the job, +at a larger salary. + +'Your shorthand would soon come back if you took it up,' he told her. For +he had had all his children taught shorthand at a young age; in his view +it was one of the essentials of education; he had learned it himself at +the age of thirteen, and insulted his superior young gentlemen private +secretaries by asking them if they knew it. Jane and Johnny, who had been +in early youth very proficient at it, had, since they were old enough to +know it was a sort of low commercial cunning, the accomplishment of the +slave, hidden their knowledge away like a vice. When concealed from +observation and pressed for time, they had furtively taken down lecture +notes in it at Oxford, but always with a consciousness of guilt. + +Jane had declined the secretaryship. She did not mean to be that sort +of low secretary that takes down letters, she did not mean to work for +the Potter press, and she thought it would be needlessly dull to work +for her father. She said, 'No, thank you, dad. I'm thinking of the +Civil Service.' + +That was early in 1915, when women had only just begun to think of, or +be thought of, by the Civil Service. Jane did not think of it with +enthusiasm; she wanted to be a journalist and to write; but it would do +for the time, and would probably be amusing. So, owing to the helpful +influence of Mr. Potter, and a good degree, Jane obtained a quite good +post at the Admiralty, which she had to swear never to mention, and went +into rooms in a square off Fleet Street with Katherine Varick, who had a +research fellowship in chemistry and worked in a laboratory in +Farringdon Street. + +The Admiralty was all right. It was interesting as such jobs go, and +Jane, who was clear-headed, did it well. She got to know a few men and +women who, she considered, were worth knowing, though, in technical +departments such as the Admiralty, the men were apt to be superior to the +women; the women Jane met there were mostly non-University lower-grade +clerks, and so forth, nice, cheery young things, but rather stupid, who +thought it jolly for Jane to be connected with Leila Yorke and the Potter +press, and were scarcely worth undeceiving. And naval officers, though +charming, were apt to be a little elementary, Jane discovered, in their +general outlook. + +However, the job was all right; not a bad plum to have picked out of the +hash, on the whole. And the life was all right. The rooms were jolly +(only the new geyser exploded too often), and Katherine Varick, though +she made stinks in the evenings, not bad to live with, and money not too +scarce, as money goes, and theatres and dinners frequent. Doing one's +bit, putting one's shoulder to the wheel, proving the mettle of the women +of England, certainly had its agreeable side. + + +6 + +In intervals of office work and social life, Jane was writing odds and +ends, and planning the books she meant to write after the war. She +hadn't settled her line yet. Articles on social and industrial questions +for the papers, she hoped, for one thing; she had plenty to say on this +head. Short stories. Poems. Then, perhaps, a novel.... About the nature +of the novel Jane was undecided, except that it would be more unlike the +novels of Leila Yorke than any novels had ever been before. Perhaps a +sarcastic, rather cynical novel about human nature, of which Jane did +not think much. Perhaps a serious novel, dealing with social or +political conditions. Perhaps an impressionist novel, like Dorothy +Richardson's. Only they were getting common; they were too easy. One +could hardly help writing like that, unless one tried not to, if one had +lately read any of them. + +Most contemporary novels Jane found very bad, not worth writing. Those +solemn and childish novels about public schools, for instance, written by +young men. Jane wondered what a novel about Roedean or Wycombe Abbey +would be like. The queer thing was that some young woman didn't write +one; it need be no duller than the young men's. Rather duller, perhaps, +because schoolgirls were more childish than schoolboys, the problems of +their upbringing less portentous. But there were many of the same +ingredients--the exaltation of games, hero-worship, rows, the clever new +literary mistress who made all the stick-in-the-mud other mistresses +angry.... Only were the other mistresses at girls' schools +stick-in-the-mud? No, Jane thought not; quite a decent modern set, on the +whole, for people of their age. Better than schoolmasters, they must be. + +How dull it all was! Some woman ought to do it, but not Jane. + +Jane was inclined, in her present phase, to think the Russians and the +French the only novelists. They had manner and method. But they were both +too limited in their field, too much concerned with sexual relations, +that most tedious of topics (in literature, not life), the very thought +of which made one yawn. Queer thing, how novelists couldn't leave it +alone. It was, surely, like eating and drinking, a natural element in +life, which few avoid; but the most exciting, jolly, interesting, +entertaining things were apart from it. Not that Jane was not quite +willing to accept with approval, as part of the game of living, such +episodes in this field as came her way; but she could not regard them as +important. As to marriage, it was merely dowdy. Domesticity; babies; +servants; the companionship of one man. The sort of thing Clare would go +in for, no doubt. Not for Jane, before whom the world lay, an oyster +asking to be opened. + +She saw herself a journalist; a reporter, perhaps: (only the stories +women were sent out on were usually dull), a special correspondent, a +free-lance contributor, a leader writer, eventually an editor.... Then +she could initiate a policy, say what she thought, stand up against the +Potter press. + +Or one might be a public speaker, and get into Parliament later on, when +women were admitted. One despised Parliament, but it might be fun. + +Not a permanent Civil Servant; one could not work for this ludicrous +government more than temporarily, to tide over the Great Interruption. + + +7 + +So Jane looked with calm, weighing, critical eyes at life and its +chances, and saw that they were not bad, for such as her. Unless, of +course, the Allies were beaten.... This contingency seemed often +possible, even probable. Jane's faith in the ultimate winning power of +numbers and wealth was at times shaken, not by the blunders of +governments or the defection of valuable allies, but by the unwavering +optimism of her parent's press. + +'But,' said Katherine Varick, 'it's usually right, your papa's press. +That's the queer thing about it. It sounds always wildly wrong, like an +absurd fairy story, and all the sane, intelligent people laugh at it, and +then it turns out to have been right. Look at the way it used to say that +Germany was planning war; it was mostly the stupid people who believed +it, and the intelligent people who didn't; but all the time Germany was.' + +'Partly because people like daddy kept saying so, and planning to get +in first.' + +'Not much. Germany was really planning: we were only talking.... I +believe in the Pinkerton press, and the other absurd presses. They have +the unthinking rightness of the fool. Of course they have. Because the +happenings of the world are caused by people--the mass of people--and the +Pinkerton press knows them and represents them. Intellectual people are +always thinking above the heads of the people who make movements, so +they're nearly always out. The Pinkerton press _is_ the people, so it +gets there every time. Potterism will outlive all the reformers and +idealists. If Potterism says we're going to have a war, we have it; if it +says we're going to win a war, we shall win it. "If you see it in _John +Bull_, it _is_ so."' + +It was not often that Katherine spoke of Potterism, but when she did it +was with conviction. + + +8 + +Gideon was home, wounded. He had nearly died, but not quite. He had lost +his right foot, and would have another when the time was ripe. He was +discharged, and became, later on, assistant editor of a new weekly paper +that was started. + +He dined with Jane and Katherine at their flat, soon after he could get +about. He was leaner than ever, white and gaunt, and often ill-tempered +from pain. Johnny was there too, a major on leave, stuck over with +coloured ribbons. Jane called him a pot-hunter. + +They laughed and talked and joked and dined. When Gideon and Johnny had +gone, and Katherine and Jane were left smoking last cigarettes and +finishing the chocolates, Jane said, lazily, and without chagrin, 'How +Arthur does hate us all, in these days.' + +Katherine said, 'True. He finds us profiteers.' + +'So we are,' said Jane. 'Not you, but most of us. I am.... You're one of +the few people he respects. Some day, perhaps, you'll have to marry him, +and cure him of biting his nails when he's cross.... He thinks Johnny's a +profiteer, too, because of the ribbons and things. Johnny is. It's in the +blood. We're grabbers. Can't be helped.... Do you want the last walnut +chocolate, old thing? If so, you're too late.' + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JANE AND CLARE + + +1 + +In the autumn of 1918, Jane, when she went home for week-ends, frequently +found one Oliver Hobart there. Oliver Hobart was the new editor of Lord +Pinkerton's chief daily paper, and had been exempted from military +service as newspaper staff. He was a Canadian; he had been educated at +McGill University, admired Lord Pinkerton, his press, and the British +Empire, and despised (in this order) the Quebec French, the Roman +Catholic Church, newspapers which did not succeed, Little Englanders, and +Lord Lansdowne. + +'A really beautiful face,' said Lady Pinkerton, and so he had. Jane had +seen it, from time to time during the last year, when she had called to +see her father in the office of the _Daily Haste_. + +One hot Saturday afternoon in August, 1918, she found him having tea with +her family, in the shadow of the biggest elm. Jane looked at them in her +detached way; Lord Pinkerton, neat and little, his white-spatted feet +crossed, his head cocked to one side, like an intelligent sparrow's; Lady +Pinkerton, tall and fair and powdered, in a lilac silk dress, her large +white hands all over rings, amethysts swinging from her ears; Clare (who +had given up nursing owing to the strain, and was having a rest), slim +and rather graceful, a little flushed from the heat, lying in a deck +chair and swinging a buckled shoe, saying something ordinary and +Clare-ish; Hobart sitting by her, a pale, Gibson young man, with his +smooth fair hair brushed back, and lavender socks with purple clocks, and +a clear, firm jaw. He was listening to Clare with a smile. You could not +help liking him; his was the sort of beauty which, when found in either +man or woman, makes so strong an appeal to the senses of the sex other +than that of the possessor that reason is all but swamped. Besides, as +Lord Pinkerton said, Hobart was a dear, nice fellow. + +He was at Sherards for that week-end because Lord Pinkerton was just +making him editor of the _Daily Haste_. Before that, he had been on the +staff, a departmental editor, and a leader-writer. ('Mr. Hobart will go +far,' said Lady Pinkerton sometimes, when she read the leaders. 'I +hope, on the contrary,' said Lord Pinkerton, 'that he will stay where +he is. It is precisely the right spot. That was the trouble with +Carruthers; he went too far. So he had to go altogether.' He gave his +thin little snigger). + +Anyhow, here was Hobart, this Saturday afternoon, having tea in the +garden. Jane saw him through the mellow golden sweetness of shadow +and light. + +'Here is Jane,' said Lady Pinkerton. + +Jane's dark hair fell in damp waves over her hot, square, white forehead; +her blue cotton dress was crumpled and limp. How neat, how cool, was this +Hobart! Could a man have a Gibson face like that, like a young man on the +cover of an illustrated magazine, and not be a ninny? Did he take the +Pinkerton press seriously, or did he laugh? Both, probably, like most +journalists. He wouldn't laugh to Lord Pinkerton, or to Lady Pinkerton, +or to Clare. But he might laugh to Jane, when she showed him he might. +Jane, eating jam sandwiches, looking like a chubby school child, with her +round face and wide eyes and bobbed hair and cotton frock, watched the +beautiful young man with her solemn unwinking stare that disconcerted +self-conscious people, while Lady Pinkerton talked to him about some +recent fiction. + +On Sunday, people came over to lunch, and they played tennis. Clare and +Hobart played together. 'Oh, well up, partner,' Jane could hear him say, +all the time. Or else it was 'Well tried. Too bad.' Clare's happy eyes +shone, brown and clear in her flushed face, like agates. Rather a pretty +thing, Clare, if dull. + +The Franks were there, too. + +'Old Clare having a good time,' said Mrs. Frank to Jane, during a set +they weren't playing in. Her merry dark eyes snapped. Instinctively, she +usually said something to disparage the good time of other girls. This +time it was, 'That Hobart thinks he's doing himself a good turn with +pater, making up to Clare like that. Oh, he's a cunning fellow. Isn't he +handsome, Jane? I hate these handsome fellows, they always know it so +well. Nothing in his face really, if you come to look, is there? I'd +rather have old Frank's, even if he does look like a half-starved bird.' + + +2 + +Jane was calmly rude to Hobart, showing him she despised his paper, and +him for editing it. She let him see it all, and he was imperturbably, +courteously amused, and, in turn, showed that he despised her for +belonging to the 1917 Club. + +'_You_ don't,' he said, turning to Clare. + +'Gracious, no. I don't belong to a club at all. I go with mother to the +Writers' sometimes, though; that's not bad fun. Mother often speaks +there, you know, and I go and hear. Jolly good she is, too. She read a +ripping paper last week on the "Modern Heroine."' + +Jane's considering eyes weighed Hobart, whose courtesy was still +impregnable. How far was he the complete Potterite, identified with his +absurd press? Did he even appreciate Leila Yorke? She would have liked to +know. But, it seemed, she was not to know from him. + + +3 + +The Armistice came. + +Then the thing was to get to Paris somehow. Jane had, unusually, not +played her cards well. She had neglected the prospect of peace, which, +after all, must come. When she had, in May, at last taken thought for the +morrow, and applied at the Foreign Office for one of those secret jobs +which could not be mentioned because they prepared the doers to play +their parts after the great unmentionable event, she was too late. The +Foreign Office said they could not take over people from other government +departments. + +So, when the unmentionable took place, Jane was badly left. The Foreign +Office Library Department people, many of them Jane's contemporaries at +Oxford and Cambridge, were hurried across the Channel into Life, for +which they had been prepared by a course of lectures on the Dangers of +Paris. There also went the confidential secretaries, the clerks and +shorthand typists, in their hundreds; degreeless, brainless beings, but +wise in their generation. + +'I wish I was a shorthand typist,' Jane grumbled, brooding with Katherine +over their fire. + +'Paris,' Katherine turned over the delightful word consideringly, finding +it wanting. 'The last place in the world I should choose to be in just +now. Fuss and foolishness. Greed and grabbing. The centre of the lunacies +and crimes of the next six months. Politicians assembled together.... +It's infinitely common to go there. All the vulgarest people.... You'd be +more select at Southend or Blackpool.' + +'History is being made there,' said Jane, quoting from her +father's press. + +'Thank you; I'd rather go to Birmingham and make something clean and +useful, like glass.' + +But Jane wanted to make history in Paris. She felt out of it, left, as +she had felt when other people went to the war and she stayed at home. + +On a yellow, foggy day just before Christmas, Lord Pinkerton, with whom +Jane was lunching at his club (Lord Pinkerton was quite good to lunch +with; you got a splendid feed for nothing), said, 'I shall be going +over to Paris next month, Babs.' (That was what he called her). 'D'you +want to come?' + +'Well, I should say so. Don't rub it in, dad.' + +Lord Pinkerton looked at her, with his whimsical, affectionate paternity. + +'You can come if you like, Babs. I want another secretary. Must have one. +If you'll do some of the shorthand typing and filing, you can come +along. How about it?' + +Jane thought for exactly thirty seconds, weighing the shorthand typing +against Paris and the Majestic and Life. Life had it, as usual. + +'Right-o, daddy. I'll come along. When do we go over?' + +That afternoon Jane gave notice to her department, and in the middle of +January Lord Pinkerton and his bodyguard of secretaries and assistants +went to Paris. + + +4 + +That was Life. Trousseaux, concerts, jazzing, dinners, marble bathrooms, +notorious persons as thick as thieves in corridors and on the stairs, +dangers of Paris surging outside, disappointed journalists besieging +proud politicians in vain, the Council of Four sitting in perfect harmony +behind thick curtains, Signor Orlando refusing to play, but finding they +went on playing without him and coming back, Jugo-Slavs walking about +under the aegis of Mr. Wickham Steed, smiling sweetly and triumphantly at +the Italians, going to the theatre and coming out because the jokes +seemed to them dubious, Sir George Riddell and Mr. G.H. Mair desperately +controlling the press, Lord Pinkerton flying to and fro, across the +Channel and back again, while his bodyguard remained in Paris. There also +flew to and fro Oliver Hobart, the editor of the _Daily Haste_. He would +drop in on Jane, sitting in her father's outer office, card-indexing, +opening and entering letters, and what not. + +'Good-morning, Miss Potter. Lord Pinkerton in the office this morning?' + +'He's in the building somewhere. Talking to Sir George, I think.... Did +you fly this time?' + +Whether he had flown or whether he had come by train and boat, he always +looked the same, calm, unruffled, tidy, the exquisite nut. + +'Pretty busy?' he would say, with his half-indulgent smile at the +round-faced, lazy, drawling child who was so self-possessed, sometimes so +impudent, often so sarcastic, always so amusingly different from her +slim, pretty and girlish elder sister. + +'Pretty well,' Jane would reply. 'I don't overwork, though.' + +'I don't believe you do,' Hobart said, looking down at her amusedly. + +'Father does, though. That's why he's thin and I'm fat. What's the use? +It makes no difference.' + +'You're getting reconciled, then,' said Hobart, 'to working for the +Pinkerton press?' + +Jane secretly approved his discernment. But all she said was, with her +cool lack of stress, 'It's not so bad.' + +Usually when Hobart was in Paris he would dine with them. + + +5 + +Lady Pinkerton and Clare came over for a week. They stayed in rooms, in +the Avenue de l'Opera. They visited shops, theatres, and friends, and +Lady Pinkerton began a novel about Paris life. Clare had been run down +and low-spirited, and the doctor had suggested a change of scene. Hobart +was in Paris for the week-end; he dined with the Pinkertons and went to +the theatre with them. But on Monday he had to go back to London. + +On Monday morning Clare came to her father's office, and found Jane +taking down letters from Lord Pinkerton's private secretary, a young man +who had been exempted from military service through the war on the +grounds that he was Lord Pinkerton's right hand. + +Clare sat and waited, and looked round the room for violets, while this +young gentleman dictated. His letters were better worded than Lord +Pinkerton's, because he was better at the English language. Lord +Pinkerton would fall into commercialisms; he would say 're' and 'same' +and 'to hand,' and even sometimes 'your favour of the 16th.' His +secretary knew that that was not the way in which a great newspaper chief +should write. Himself he dictated quite a good letter, but annoyed Jane +by putting in the punctuation, as if she was an imbecile. Thus he was +saying now, pacing up and down the room, plunged in thought:-- + +'Lord Pinkerton is not comma however comma averse to' (Jane wrote 'from') +'entertaining your suggestions comma and will be glad if you can make it +convenient to call to-morrow bracket Tuesday close the bracket afternoon +comma between three and five stop.' + +He could not help it; one must make allowances for those who dictate. But +Clare saw Jane's teeth release her clenched tongue to permit it to form +silently the word 'Ninny.' + +The private secretary retired into his chief's inner sanctum. + +'Morning, old thing,' said Jane to Clare, uncovering her typewriter +without haste and yawning, because she had been up late last night. + +'Morning,' Clare yawned too. She was warm and pretty, in a spring +costume, with a big bunch of sweet violets at her waist. She +touched these. + +'Aren't they top-hole. Mr. Hobart left them this morning before he went. +Jolly decent of him to think of it, getting off in a hurry like he +was.... He's not a bad young thing, do you think.' + +'Not so bad.' Jane extracted carbons from a drawer and fitted them to her +paper. Then she stretched, like a cat. + +'Oh, I'm sleepy.... Don't feel like work to-day. For two pins I'd cut it +and go out with you and mother. The sun's shining, isn't it?' + +Clare stood by the window, and swung the blind-tassel. They had five days +of Paris before them, and Paris suddenly seemed empty.... + +'We're going to have a topping week,' she said. + +Then Lord Pinkerton came in. + +'Hobart gone?' he asked Jane. + +'Yes.' + +'Majendie in my room?' + +'Yes.' + +Lord Pinkerton patted Clare's shoulder as he passed her. + +'Send Miss Hope in to me when she comes, Babs,' he said, and disappeared +through the farther door. + +Jane began to type. It bored her, but she was fairly proficient at it. +Her childhood's training stood her in good stead. + +'Mr. Hobart must have run his train pretty fine, if he came in here on +the way,' said Clare, twirling the blind-tassel. + +'He wasn't going till twelve,' said Jane, typing. + +'Oh, I see. I thought it was ten.... I suppose he found he couldn't get +that one, and had to see dad first. What a bore for him.... Well, I'm off +to meet mother. See you this evening, I suppose.' + +Clare went out into Paris and the March sunshine, whistling softly. + +That night she lay awake in her big bed, as she had lain last night. +She lay tense and still, and stared at the great gas globe that looked +in through the open window from the street. Her brain formed phrases +and pictures. + +'That day on the river.... Those Sundays.... That lunch at the +Florence.... "What attractive shoes those are."... My gray suedes, I +had.... "I love these Sunday afternoons."... "You're one of the few +girls who are jolly to watch when they run."... "Just you and me; +wouldn't it be rather nice? I should like it, anyhow."... He kept +looking.... Whenever I looked up he was looking.... his eyes awfully +blue, with black edges to them.... Peggy said he blacked them.... Peggy +was jealous because he never looked at her.... I'm jealous now because +... No, I'm not, why should I be? He doesn't like fat girls, he said.... +He watches her.... He looks at her when there's a joke.... He bought me +violets, but he went to see her.... He keeps coming over to Paris.... I +never see him.... I don't get a chance.... He cared, he did care.... +He's forgetting because I don't get a chance.... She's stealing him.... +She was always a selfish little cad, grabbing, and not really caring. +She can't care as I do, she's not made that way.... She cares for +nothing but herself.... She gets everything, just by sitting still and +not bothering.... College makes girls awful.... Peggy says men don't +like them, but they do. They seem not to care about men, but they care +just the same. They don't bother, but they get what they want.... +Pig.... Oh, I can't bear it. Why should I?... I love him, I love him, I +love him.... Oh, I must go to sleep. I shall go mad if I have another +night like last night.' + +Clare got out of bed, stumbled to the washstand, splashed her burning +head and face with cold water, then lay shivering. + +It may or may not be true that the power to love is to be found in the +human being in inverse ratio to the power to think. Probably it is not; +these generalisations seldom are. Anyhow, Clare, like many others, could +not understand, but loved. + + +6 + +Lady Pinkerton said to her lord next day, 'How much longer will the peace +take being made, Percy?' + +'My dear, I can't tell you. Even I don't know everything. There are many +little difficulties, which have to be smoothed down. Allies stand in a +curious and not altogether easy relation to one another.' + +'Italy, of course....' + +'And not only Italy, dearest.' + +'Of course, China is being very tiresome.' + +'Ah, if it were only China!' + +Lady Pinkerton sighed. + +'Well, it is all very sad. I do hope, Percy, that after this war we +English will never again forget that we hate _all_ foreigners.' + +'I hope not, my dear. I am afraid before the war I was +largely responsible for encouraging these fraternisations and +discriminations. A mistake, no doubt. But one which did credit to our +hearts. One must always remember about a great people like ourselves +that the heart leads.' + +'Thank God for that,' said Leila Yorke, illogically. Then Lady Pinkerton +added, 'But this peace takes too long.... I suppose a lasting and +righteous peace must ... Shall you have to be running to and fro like +this till it's signed, dear?' + +'To and fro, yes. I must keep an office going here.' + +'Jane is enjoying it,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'She sees a lot of Oliver +Hobart, I suppose, doesn't she?' + +'He's in and out, of course. He and the child get on better than +they used to.' + +'There is no doubt about that,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'If you don't know +it, Percy, I had better tell you. Men never see these things. He is +falling in love with her.' + +Lord Pinkerton fidgeted about the room. + +'Rilly. Rilly. Very amusing. You used to think it was Clare, dearest.' + +He cocked his head at her accusingly, convicting her of being a woman +of fancies. + +'Oh, you dear novelists!' he said, and shook a finger at her. + +'Nonsense, Percy. It is perfectly obvious. He used to be attracted by +Clare, and now he is attracted by Jane. Very strange: such different +types. But life _is_ strange, and particularly love. Oh, I don't say it's +love yet, but it's a strong attraction, and may easily lead to it. The +question is, are we to let it go on, or shall we head him back to Clare, +who has begun to care, I am afraid, poor child?' + +'Certainly head him back if you like and can, darling. I don't suppose +Babs wants him, anyhow.' + +'That is just it. If Jane did, I shouldn't interfere. Her happiness is +as dear to me as Clare's, naturally. But Jane is not susceptible; she +has a colder temperament; and she is often quite rude to Oliver Hobart. +Look how different their views about everything are. He and Clare agree +much better.' + +'Very well, mother. You're the doctor. I'll do my best not to throw them +together when next Hobart comes over. But we must leave the children to +settle their affairs for themselves. If he really wants fat little Babs +we can't stop him trying for her.' + +'Life is difficult,' Lady Pinkerton sighed. 'My poor little Clare is +looking like a wilted flower.' + +'Poor little girl. M'm yes. Poor little girl. Well, well, we'll see what +can be done.... I'll see if I can take Janet home for a bit, perhaps--get +her out of the way. She's very useful to me here, though. There are no +flies on Jane. She's got the Potter wits all right.' + +But Lady Pinkerton loved better Clare, who was like a flower, Clare, whom +she had created, Clare, who might have come--if any girl could have +come--out of a Leila Yorke novel. + +'I shall say a word to Jane,' Lady Pinkerton decided. 'Just to +sound her.' + +But, after all, it was Jane who said the word. She said it that evening, +in her cool, leisurely way. + +'Oliver Hobart asked me to marry him yesterday morning. I wrote to-day to +tell him I would.' + + +7 + +I append now the personal records of various people concerned in this +story. It seems the best way. + + + + +PART II: + +TOLD BY GIDEON + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPINNING + + +1 + +Nothing that I or anybody else did in the spring and summer of 1919 was +of the slightest importance. It ought to have been a time for great +enterprises and beginnings; but it emphatically wasn't. It was a queer, +inconclusive, lazy, muddled, reckless, unsatisfactory, rather ludicrous +time. It seemed as if the world was suffering from vertigo. I have seen +men who have been badly hit spinning round and round madly, like dancing +dervishes. That was, I think, what we were all doing for some time after +the war--spinning round and round, silly and dazed, without purpose or +power. At least the only purpose in evidence was the fierce quest of +enjoyment, and the only power that of successfully shirking facts. We +were like bankrupts, who cannot summon energy to begin life and work +again in earnest. And we were represented by the most comic parliament +that ever sat in Westminster, upon which it would be too painful here to +expatiate. + +One didn't know what had happened, or what was happening, or what was +going to happen. We had won the war. But what was that going to mean? +What were we going to get out of it? What did we want the new world to +be? What did we want this country to be? Every one shouted a different +answer. The December elections seemed to give one answer. But I don't +think it was a true one. The public didn't really want the England of +_John Bull_ and Pemberton Billing; they showed that later. + +A good many people, of course, wanted and want revolution and the +International. I don't, and never did. I hate red-flaggery, and all other +flaggery. The sentimentalism of Bob Smillie is as bad as the +sentimentalism of the Pinkerton press; as untruthful, as greedy, as +muddle-headed. Smillie's lot are out to get, and the Potterites out to +keep. The under-dog is more excusable in its aims, but its methods aren't +any more attractive. Juke can swallow it all. But Jukie has let his +naturally clear head get muddled by a mediaeval form of religion. +Religion is like love; it plays the devil with clear thinking. Juke +pretended not to hate even Smillie's interview with the coal dukes. He +applauded when Smillie quoted texts at them. Though I know, of course, +that that sort of thing is mainly a pose on Juke's part, because it +amuses him. Besides, one of the dukes was a cousin of his, who bored him, +so of course he was pleased. + +But those texts damned Smillie for ever in my eyes. He had those poor +imbeciles at his mercy--and he gave his whole case away by quoting +irrelevant remarks from ancient Hebrew writers. I wish I had had his +chance for ten minutes; I would have taken it. But the Labour people are +always giving themselves away with both hands to the enemy. I suppose +facts have hit them too hard, and so they shrink away from them--pad them +with sentiment, like uneducated women in villas. They all need--so do the +women--a legal training, to make their minds hard and clear and sharp. +So do journalists. Nearly the whole press is the same, dealing in +emotions and stunts, unable to face facts squarely, in a calm spirit. + +It seemed to some of us that spring that there was a chance for +unsentimental journalism in a new paper, that should be unhampered by +tradition. That was why the _Weekly Fact_ (unofficially called the +Anti-Potterite) was started. All the other papers had traditions; their +past principles dictated their future policy. The _Fact_ (except that it +was up against Potterism) was untrammelled; it was to judge of each issue +as it turned up, on its own merits, in the light of fact. That, of +course, was in itself the very essence of anti-Potterism, which was +incapable of judging or considering anything whatever, and whose only +light was a feeble emotionalism The light of fact was to Potterites but a +worse darkness. + +The _Fact_ wasn't to be labelled Liberal or Labour or Tory or Democratic +or anti-Democratic or anything at all. All these things were to vary +with the immediate occasions. I know it sounds like Lloyd George, but +there were at least two very important differences between the _Fact_ +and the Prime Minister. One was that the _Fact_ employed experts who +always made a very thorough and scientific investigation of every +subject it dealt with before it took up a line; it cared for the truth +and nothing but the truth. The other was that the _Fact_ took in nearly +every case the less popular side, not, of course, because it was less +popular (for to do that would have been one of the general principles of +which we tried to steer clear), but it so happened that we came to the +conclusion nearly always that the majority were wrong. The fact is that +majorities nearly always are. The heart of the people may be usually in +the right place (though, personally, I doubt this, for the heart of man +is corrupt) but their head can, in most cases, be relied on to be in the +wrong one. This is an important thing for statesmen to remember; +forgetfulness of it has often led to disaster; ignorance of it has +created Potterism as an official faith. + +Anyhow, the _Fact_ (again unlike the Prime Minister) could afford to +ignore the charges of flightiness and irresponsibility which, of course, +were flung at it. It could afford to ignore them because of the good and +solid excellence of its contents, and the reputations of many of its +contributors. And that, of course, was due to the fact that it had plenty +of money behind it. A great many people know who backs the _Fact_, but, +all the same, I cannot, of course, give away this information to the +public. I will only say that it started with such a good financial +backing that it was able to afford the best work, able even to afford the +truth. Most of the good weeklies, certainly, speak the truth as they see +it; they are, in fact, a very creditable section of our press; but the +idea of the _Fact_ was to be absolutely unbiased on each issue that +turned up by anything it had ever thought before. Of course, you may say +that a man will be likely, when a case comes before his eyes, to come to +the same conclusion about it that he came to about a similar case not +long before. But, as a matter of fact, it is surprising how some slight +difference in the circumstances of a case may, if a man keeps an open +mind, alter his whole judgment of it. The _Fact_ was a scientific, not a +sentimental paper. If our investigations led us into autocracy, we were +to follow them there; if to a soviet state, still we were to follow +them. And we might support autocracy in one state and soviets in another, +if it seemed suitable. Again this sounds like some of our more notorious +politicians--Carson, for instance; but the likeness is superficial. + + +2 + +We began in March. Peacock and I were the editors. We didn't, and don't, +always agree. Peacock, for instance, believes in democracy. Peacock also +accepts poetry; poetry about the war, by people like Johnny Potter. Every +one knows that school of poetry by heart now; of course it was +particularly fashionable immediately after the war. Johnny Potter did it +much like other men. Any one can do it. One takes some dirty, horrible +incident or sight of the battle-front and describes it in loathsome +detail, and then, by way of contrast, describes some fat and incredibly +bloodthirsty woman or middle-aged clubman at home, gloating over the +glorious war. I always thought it a great bore, and sentimental at that. +But it was the thing for a time, and people seemed to be impressed by it, +and Peacock, who encouraged young men, often to their detriment, would +take it for the _Fact_, though that sort of cheap and popular appeal to +sentiment was the last thing the _Fact_ was out for. + +Johnny Potter, like other people, was merely exploiting his experiences. +Johnny would. He's a nice chap, and a cleverish chap, in the shrewd, +unimaginative Potter way--Jane's way, too--only she's a shade +cleverer--but chiefly he's determined to get there somehow. That's +Potter, again. And that's where Jane and Johnny amuse me. They're up +against what we agreed to call Potterism--the Potterism, that is, of +second-rate sentimentalism and cheap short-cuts and mediocrity; they +stand for brain and clear thinking against muddle and cant; but they're +fighting it with Potterite weapons--self-interest, following things for +what they bring them rather than for the things in themselves. John would +never write the particular kind of stuff he does for the love of writing +it; he'll only do it because it's the stunt of the moment. That's why +he'll never be more than cleverish and mediocre, never the real thing. In +his calm, unexcited way, he worships success, and he'll get it, like old +Pinkerton. Though of course he's met plenty of the bloodthirsty +non-combatants he writes about, he takes most of what he says about them +second-hand from other people. It's not first-hand observation. If it +was, he would have to include among his jingoes and Hun-haters some +fighting men too. I know it's entirely against popular convention to say +so, but some of the most bloodthirsty fire-eaters I met during the war +were among the fighting men. Of course there were plenty of them at home +too, and plenty of peaceable and civilised people at the front, but it's +the most absurd perversion of facts to make out that all our combatants +were full of sweet reasonableness (any one who knows anything about the +psychological effects of fighting will know that this is improbable), and +all our non-combatants bloody-minded savages. Though I don't say there's +nothing in the theory one heard that the natural war rage of +non-combatants, not having the physical outlet the fighters had for +theirs, became in some few of them a suppressed Freudian complex and +made them a little insane. I don't know. Anyhow to say this became the +stunt among a certain section, so it was probably as inaccurate as +popular sayings usually are; as inaccurate as the picture drawn by +another section--the Potter press section--of an army going rejoicing +into the fight for right. + +What one specially resented was the way the men who had been killed, poor +devils, were exploited by the makers of speeches and the writers of +articles. First, they'd perhaps be called 'the fallen,' instead of 'the +killed' (it's a queer thing how 'fallen,' in the masculine means killed +in the war, and the feminine given over to a particular kind of vice), +and then the audience, or the readers, would be told that they died for +democracy, or a cleaner world, when very likely many of them hated the +first and never gave an hour's thought to the second. I could imagine +their indignant presences in the Albert Hall at Gray's big League of +Nations meeting in May, listening to Clynes's reasons why they died. I +can hear dear old Peter Clancy on why he died. 'Democracy? A cleaner +world? No. Why? I suppose I died because I inadvertently got in the way +of some flying missile; I know no other reason. And I suppose I was there +to get in its way because it's part of belonging to a nation to fight its +battles when required--like paying its taxes or keeping its laws. Why go +groping for far-fetched reason? Who wants democracy, any old way? And the +world was good enough for me as it was, thank you. No, of course it isn't +clean, and never will be; but no war is going to make it cleaner. It's +not a way wars have. These talkers make me sick.' + +If Clancy--the thousands of Clancys--could have been there, I think that +is the sort of thing they would have been saying. Anyhow, personally, I +certainly didn't lose my foot for democracy or for a cleaner world. I +lost it in helping to win the war--a quite necessary thing in the +circumstances. + +But every one seemed, during and after the war, to want to prove that +the fighters thought in the particular way they thought themselves; +they seemed to think it immeasurably strengthened their case. Heaven +only knows why, when the fighting men were just the men who hadn't time +or leisure to think at all. They were, as the Potterites put it so +truly, doing the job. The thinking, such as it was, was done by the +people at home--the politicians, the clergy, the writers, the women, +the men with 'A' certificates in Government offices; and precious poor +thinking it was, too. + + +3 + +We all settled down to life and work again, as best we could. Johnny +Potter went into a publisher's office, and also got odd jobs of reviewing +and journalism, besides writing war verse and poetry of passion (of which +confusing if attractive subject, he really knew little). Juke was +demobilised early too, commenced clergyman again, got a job as curate in +a central London parish, and lived in rooms in a slummy street. He and I +saw a good deal of each other. + +One day in March, Juke and I were lunching together at the 1917 Club, +when Johnny came in and joined us. He looked rather queer, and amused +too. He didn't tell us anything till we were having coffee. Then Juke or +I said, 'How's Jane getting on in Paris? Not bored yet?' + +Johnny said, 'I should say not. She's been and gone and done it. She's +got engaged to Hobart. I heard from the mater this morning.' + +I don't think either of us spoke for a moment. Then Juke gave a long +whistle, and said, 'Good Lord!' + +'Exactly,' said Johnny, and grinned. + +'It's no laughing matter,' said Juke blandly. 'Jane is imperilling her +immortal soul. She is yoking together with an unbeliever; she is forming +an unholy alliance with mammon. We must stop it.' + +'Stop Jane,' said Johnny. 'You might as well try and stop a young tank.' + +He meditated for a moment. + +'The funny thing is,' he added, 'that we all thought it was Clare he +was after.' + +'Now that,' Juke said judicially, 'would have been all right. Your elder +sister could have had Hobart and the _Daily Haste_ without betraying her +principles. But _Jane_--Jane, the anti-Potterite ... I say, why is she +doing it?' + +Johnny drew a letter from his pocket and consulted it. + +'The mater doesn't say. ... I suppose the usual reasons. Why do people +do it? I don't; nor do you; nor does Gideon. So we can't explain. ... I +didn't think Jane would do it either; it always seemed more in Clare's +line, somehow. Jane and I always thought Clare would marry, she's the +sort. Feminine and all that, you know. Upon my word, I thought Jane was +too much of a sportsman to go tying herself up with husbands and babies +and servants and things. What the devil will happen to all she meant to +_do_--writing, public speaking, and all the rest of it? I suppose a +girl can carry on to a certain extent, though, even if she is married, +can't she?' + +'Jane will,' I said. 'Jane won't give up anything she wants to do for a +trifle like marriage.' I was sure of that. + +'I believe you're right,' Johnny agreed. 'But it will be jolly awkward +being married to Hobart and writing in the anti-Potter press.' + +'She'll write for the _Daily Haste_,' Juke said. 'She'll make Hobart give +her a job on it. Having begun to go down the steep descent, she won't +stop till she gets to the bottom. Jane's thorough.' + +But that was precisely what I didn't think Jane was. She is, on the +other hand, given to making something good out of as many worlds as she +can simultaneously. Martyrs and Irishmen, fanatics and Juke, are +thorough; not Jane. + +We couldn't stay gossiping over the engagement any longer, so we left it +at that. The man lunching at the next table might have concluded that +Johnny's sister had got engaged to a scoundrel, instead of to the +talented, promising, and highly virtuous young editor of a popular daily +paper. Being another member of the 1917, I dare say he understood. + +But no one had tried to answer Juke's question, 'Why is she doing it?' +Johnny had supposed 'for the usual reasons.' That opens a probably +unanswerable question. What the devil _are_ the usual reasons? + + +4 + +I met Lady Pinkerton and her elder daughter in the muzzle department of +the Army and Navy Stores the next week. That was one of the annoying +aspects of the muzzling order; one met in muzzle shops people with whom +neither temperament nor circumstances would otherwise have thrown one. + +I have a particular dislike for Lady Pinkerton, and she for me. I hate +those cold, shallow eyes, and clothes drenched in scent, and basilisk +pink faces whitened with powder which such women have or develop. When I +look at her I think of all her frightful books, and the frightful serial +she has even now running in the _Pink Pictorial_, and I shudder +(unobtrusively, I hope), and look, away. When she looks at me, she thinks +'dirty Jew,' and she shudders (unobtrusively, too), and looks over my +head. She did so now, no doubt, as she bowed. + +'Dreadfully tahsome, this muzzling order,' she said, originally. 'We have +two Pekingese, a King Charles, and a pug, and their poor little faces +don't fit any muzzle that's made.' + +I answered with some inanity about my mother's Poltalloch, and we talked +for a moment. She said she hoped I was quite all right again, and I +suppose I said I was, with my leg shooting like a gathered tooth (it was +pretty bad all that spring). + +Suddenly I felt her wanting badly to tell me the news about Jane. She +wanted to tell me because she thought she would be scoring off me, +knowing that what she would call my 'influence' over Jane had always been +used against all that Hobart stands for. I felt her longing to throw me +the triumphant morsel of news--'Jane has deserted you and all your +tiresome, conceited, disturbing clique, and is going to marry the +promising young editor of her father's chief paper.' But something +restrained her. I caught the advance and retreat of her intention, and +connected it with her daughter, who stood by her, silent, with an absurd +Pekingese in her arms. + +Anyhow, Lady Pinkerton held in her news, and I left them. I dislike +Lady Pinkerton, as I have said; but on this occasion I disliked her a +little less than usual, for that maternal instinct which had robbed her +of her triumph. + + +5 + +I went to see Katherine Varick that evening. I often do when I have been +meeting women like Lady Pinkerton, because there is a danger that that +kind of woman, so common and in a sense so typical, may get to bulk too +large in one's view of women, and lead one into the sin of +generalisation. So many women are such very dreadful fools--men too, for +that matter, but more women--that one needs to keep in pretty frequent +touch with those who aren't, with the women whose brains, by nature and +training, grip and hold. Of these, Katherine Varick has as fine and keen +a mind and as good a head as any I know. She isn't touched anywhere with +Potterism; she has the scientific temperament. Katherine and I are great +friends. From the first she did a good deal of work for the +_Fact_--reviews of scientific books, mostly. I went to see her, to get +the taste of Lady Pinkerton out of my mouth. + +I found her doing something with test-tubes and bottles--some experiment +with carbohydrates, I think it was. I watched her till she was through +with it, then we talked. That is the way one puts it, but as a matter of +fact Katherine seldom does much of the talking; one talks to her. She +listens, and puts in from time to time some critical comment that often +extraordinarily clears up any subject one is talking round. She +contributes as much as any one I know to the conversation, but in such +condensed tabloids that it doesn't take her long. Most things don't seem +to her to be worth saying. She'll let, for instance, a chatterbox like +Juke say a hundred words to her one, and still she'll get most said, +though Jukie's not a vapid talker either. + +'Jane,' she told me, 'is coming back next week. The marriage is to be at +the end of April.' + +'A rapidity worthy of the Hustling Press. Jukie will be sorry. He hopes +yet to wrest her as a brand from the burning.' + +Katherine smiled at Juke's characteristic sanguineness. + +'Jukie won't do that. If Jane means to do a thing she does it. Jane knows +what she wants.' + +'And she wants Hobart?' I pondered it, turning it over, still puzzled. + +'She wants Hobart,' Katherine agreed. 'And all that Hobart will let +her in to.' + +'The _Daily Haste_? The society of the Pinkerton journalists?' + +'And of a number of other people. Some of them fairly important people, +you know. The editor of the _Daily Haste_ has to transact business with a +good many notorious persons, no doubt. That would amuse Jane. She's all +for life. I dare say the wife of the editor of the _Haste_ has a pretty +good front window for the show. Jane likes playing about with people, as +you like playing with ideas, and I with chemicals.... Besides, beauty +counts with Jane. It does with every one. She's probably fallen in love.' + +That was all we said about it. We talked for the rest of the evening +about the _Fact_. + + +6 + +But when I went to Jane's wedding, I understood about the 'number of +other people' that Hobart let Jane in to. They had been married that +afternoon by the Registrar, Jane having withstood the pressure of her +parents, who preferred weddings to be in churches. Hobart didn't much +care; he was, he said, a Presbyterian by upbringing, but sat loosely to +it, and didn't care for fussy weddings. Jane frankly disbelieved in what +she called 'all that sort of thing.' So they went before the Registrar, +and gave a party in the evening at the Carlton. + +We all went, even Juke, who had failed to snatch Jane from the burning. I +don't know that it was a much queerer party than other wedding parties, +which are apt to be an ill-assorted mixture of the bridegroom's circle +and the bride's. And, except for Jane's own personal friends, these two +circles largely overlapped in this case. The room was full of +journalists, important and unimportant, business people, literary people, +and a few politicians of the same colour as the Pinkerton press. There +were a lot of dreadful women, who, I supposed, were Lady Pinkerton's +friends (probably literary women; one of them was introduced to Juke as +'the editress of _Forget-me-not_'), and a lot of vulgar men, many of whom +looked like profiteers. But, besides all these, there were undoubtedly +interesting people and people of importance. And I realised that the +editor of the _Haste_, like the other editors of important papers, must, +of necessity, as Katherine had said, have a lot to do with such people. + +And there, in the middle of a group of journalists, was Jane; Jane, in a +square-cut, high-waisted, dead white frock, with her firm, round, young +shoulders and arms, and her firm, round, young face, and her dark hair +cut across her broad white forehead, parted a little like a child's, at +one side, and falling thick and straight round her neck like a mediaeval +page's. She wore a long string of big amber beads--Hobart's present--and +a golden girdle round her high, sturdy waist. + +I saw Jane in a sense newly that evening, not having seen her for some +time. And I saw her again as I had often seen her in the past--a greedy, +lazy, spoilt child, determined to take and keep the best out of life, +and, if possible, pay nothing for it. A profiteer, as much as the fat +little match manufacturer, her uncle, who was talking to Hobart, and in +whom I saw a resemblance to the twins. And I saw too Jane's queer, lazy, +casual charm, that had caught and held Hobart and weaned him from the +feminine graces and obviousnesses of Clare. + +Hobart stood near Jane, quiet and agreeable and good-looking. A +second-rate chap, running a third-rate paper. Jane had married him, for +all her clear-headed intellectual scorn of the second-rate, because she +was second-rate herself, and didn't really care. + +And there was little Pinkerton chatting with Northcliffe, his rival and +friend, and Lady Pinkerton boring a high Foreign Office official very +nearly to yawns, and Clare Potter, flushed and gallantly gay, flitting +about from person to person (Clare was always restless; she had none of +Jane's phlegm and stolidity), and Johnny, putting in a fairly amusing +time with his own friends and acquaintances, and Frank Potter talking +to Juke about his new parish. Frank, discontented all the war because +he couldn't get out to France without paying the price that Juke had +paid, was satisfied with life for the moment, having just been given a +fashionable and rich London living, where many hundreds weekly sat +under him and heard him preach. Juke wasn't the member of that crowd I +should personally have selected to discuss fashionable and overpaid +livings with, had I just accepted one, but they were the only two +parsons in the room, so I suppose Potter thought it appropriate, I +overheard pleased fragments such as 'Twenty thousand communicants ... +only standing-room at Sunday evensong,' which indicated that the new +parish was a great success. + +'That poor chap,' Jukie said to me afterwards. 'He's in a wretched +position. He has to profess Christianity, and he doesn't want even to try +to live up to it. At least, whenever he has a flash of desire to, that +atheist wife of his puts it out. She's the worst sort of atheist--the +sort that says her prayers regularly. Why are parsons allowed to marry? +Or if they must, why can't their wives be chosen for them by a special +board? And what, in Heaven's name, came over a Potter that he should take +Orders? The fight between Potterism and Christianity--it's the funniest +spectacle--and the saddest....' + +But Juke on Christianity always leaves me cold. The nation to which I (on +one side) belong can't be expected to look at Christianity +impartially--we have suffered too much at the hands of Christians. Juke +and the other hopeful and ardent members of his Church may be able to +separate Christianity from Christians, and not judge the one by the +other; but I can't. The fact that Christendom is what it is has always +disposed of Christianity as a working force, to my mind. Judaism is +detestable, but efficient; Christianity is well-meaning but a failure. +As, of course, parsons like Juke would be and are the first to admit. +They say it aims so high that it's bound to fail, which is probably true. +But that makes it pretty useless as a working human religion. Anyhow, I +quite agree with Juke that it is comic to see poor little nonentities +like Frank Potter caught in it, tangled up in it, and trying to get free +and carry on as though it wasn't there. + +Of course, nearly all the rest of that crowd at Jane's wedding was +carrying on as if Christianity weren't there without the least trouble or +struggle. They were quite right; it wasn't there. Nothing was there, for +most of them, but self-interest and personal desire. We were, the lot of +us, out to make--to grab and keep and enjoy. Nothing else counted. What +could Christianity do, a frail, tilting, crusading St. George, up against +the monster dragon Grab, who held us all in his coils? It's no use, +Jukie; it never was and never will be any use. + +I suddenly grew very tired of that party. It seemed a monster meeting of +Potterites at play--mediocrity, second-rateness, humbug, muddle, cant, +cheap stunts--the room was full of it all. + +I went across to Jane to say good-bye. I had scarcely spoken to her yet. +I had never congratulated her on her engagement, but Jane wouldn't mind +about that or expect me to. + +All I could say now was, 'I'm afraid I've got to get back. I've some +work waiting.' + +She said, 'Is it any use my sending you anything for the _Fact_? + +'From the enemy's camp?' I smiled at her. She smiled too. + +'I've not ratted, you know. I'm still an A.P. I shall come on the next +tour of investigation, whenever that is.' + +'Shall you write for the _Haste_?' I asked her. + +'Sometimes, I expect. Oliver says he can get me some of the reviewing. +And occasional non-controversial articles. But I don't want to be tied up +with it; I want to write for other papers too.... You take Johnny's +poetry, I observe.' + +'Sometimes. That's Peacock's fault, not mine. ... Send along anything +you think may suit, by all means, and we'll consider it. You'll most +likely get it back--if you remember to enclose a stamped envelope. +... Good-night, and thank you for asking me to your party. +Good-night, Hobart.' + +I said good-bye to Lady Pinkerton, and went back to the _Fact_ office, +for it was press night. + +So Jane got married. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DINING WITH THE HOBARTS + + +1 + +That May was very hot. One sweltered in offices, streets, and underground +trains. You don't expect this kind of weather in early May, which is +usually a time of bitter frosts and biting winds, punctuated by +thunderstorms. It told on one's nerves. One got sick of work and people. +I quarrelled all round; with Peacock about the paper, with my typist +about her punctuation, with my family about my sister's engagement. +Rosalind (that was the good old English name they had given her) had been +brought up, like myself, in the odour of public school and Oxford +Anglicanism (she had been at Lady Margaret Hall). My father had grown up +from his early youth most resolutely English, and had married the +daughter of a rich Manchester cotton manufacturer. Their two children, +Sidneys from birth, were to ignore the unhappy Yiddish strain that was +branded like a deep disgrace into their father's earliest experience. It +was unlucky for my parents that both Rosalind and I reverted to type. +Rosalind was very lovely, very clever, and unmistakably a Jewess. At +Roedean she pretended she wasn't; who wouldn't? She was still there when +I came of age and became Gideon, so she didn't join me in that. But when +she left school and went up to Oxford, she began to develop and expand +mentally, and took her own line, and by the time she was twenty she was, +as I never was, a red-hot nationalist. We were neither of us ever +inclined to Judaism in religion; we shook off the misfit of Anglicanism +at an early age (we both refused at fifteen to be confirmed), but didn't +take to our national faith, which we both disliked extremely. Nor did we +like most of our fellow Jews; I think as a race we are narrow, cowardly, +avaricious, and mean-spirited, and Rosalind thinks we are oily. (She and +I aren't oily, by the way; we are both the lean kind, perhaps because, +after all, we are half English). I only reverted to our original name +because I was sickened of the Sidney humbug. But we learnt Yiddish, and +read Hebrew literature, and discussed repatriation, and maintained that +the Jews were the brains of the world. It was a cross to our parents. But +far more bitter to them than even my change of name was Rosalind's +engagement, this spring of 1919, to Boris Stefan. Boris had been living +and painting in London for some years; his home had been in Moscow; he +had barely escaped with his life from a pogrom in 1912, and had since +then lived in England. He had served in the war, belonged to several +secret societies of a harmless sort, painted pictures that had attracted +a good deal of critical notice, and professed Bolshevik sympathies, of a +purely academic nature (as so many of these sympathies are) on the +grounds that Bolshevism was a Jewish movement. He and I differed on the +subject of Bolshevism. I have never seen any signs either of constructive +ability or sound principles in any Bolshevik leader; nothing but +enterprise, driving-power, vindictiveness, Hebrew cunning, and a criminal +ruthlessness. They're not statesmen. And Bolshevism, as so far +manifested, isn't a statesmanlike system; it holds the reins too tight. I +don't condemn it for the cruelties committed in its name, because +whenever Russians get excited there'll be fiendish cruelties; Russians +are like that--the most cruel devils in earth or hell. Bolshevist +Russians are no worse in that way than Czarist Russians. Except when I am +listening to their music I loathe the whole race; great stupid, brutal, +immoral, sentimental savages.... When I think of them I feel a kind of +nausea, oddly touched with fear, that must be hereditary, I suppose. +After all, my father, as a child of five, saw his mother outraged and +murdered by Russian police. Anyhow, Bolshevism, in Russian hands, has +become a kind of stupid, crazy, devil's game, as everything always has. + +But I don't want to discuss Bolshevism here. Boris Stefan hadn't really +anything to do with it. He wasn't a politician. He was a dreamy, simple, +untidy, rather childlike person, with a wonderful gift for painting. +Rosalind and I had got to know him at the Club. They were both beautiful, +and it hadn't taken them long to fall in love. One Russian-Jewish exile +marrying another--that was the bitterness of it to our very Gentile +mother and our Sidneyfied father, who had spent fifty years living down +his origin. + +So I was called in to assist in averting the catastrophe. I wouldn't say +anything except that it seemed very suitable, and that annoyed my mother. +I remember that she and I and Rosalind argued round and round it for an +hour one hot evening in the drawing-room at Queen's Gate. Finally my +mother said, 'Oh, very well. If Rosalind wants a lot of fat Yid babies +with hooked noses and oily hair, all lending money on usury instead of +getting into debt like Christians, let her have them. I wash my hands of +the lot of you. I don't know what I've done to deserve two Sheenies for +children.' + +That made Rosalind giggle, and eased the acrimony of the discussion. My +mother was a little fair woman, sharp-tongued and quick-tempered, but +with a sense of fun. + +My father had no sense of fun. I think it had been crushed out of him in +his cradle. He was a silent man (though he could, like all Jews, be +eloquent), with a thin face and melancholy dark eyes. I am supposed to +look like him, I believe. He, too, spoke to me that evening about +Rosalind's engagement. I remember how he walked up and down the +dining-room, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, and his +quick, nervous, jerky movements. + +'I don't like it, Arthur. I feel as if we had all climbed up out of a +very horrible pit into a place of safety and prosperity and honour, and +as if the child was preparing to leap down into the pit again. She +doesn't know what it's like to be a Jew. I do, and I've saved you both +from it, and you both seem bent on returning to the pit whence you were +digged. We're an outcast people, my dear; an outcast people....' + +His black eyes were haunted by memories of old fears; the fears his +ancestors had had in them, listening behind frail locked doors for the +howl 'Down with the Jews!' The fears that had been branded by savages +into his own infant consciousness half a century ago; the fears seared +later into the soul of a boy by boyish savages at an English school; the +fears of the grown man, always hiding something, always pretending, +always afraid.... + +I discovered then--and this is why I am recording this family incident +here, why it connects with the rest of my life at this time--that +Potterism has, for one of its surest bases, fear. The other bases are +ignorance, vulgarity, mental laziness, sentimentality, and greed. The +ignorance which does not know facts; the vulgarity which cannot +appreciate values; the laziness which will not try to learn either of +these things; the sentimentality which, knowing neither, is stirred by +the valueless and the untrue; the greed which grabs and exploits. But +fear is worst; the fear of public opinion, the fear of scandal, the fear +of independent thought, of loss of position, of discomfort, of +consequences, of truth. + +My poor parents were afraid of social damage to their child; afraid lest +she should be mixed up with something low, outcast, suspected. Not all my +father's intellectual brilliance, nor all my mother's native wit, could +save them from this pathetic, vulgar, ignorant piece of snobbery. +Pathetic, vulgar, and ignorant, because, if they had only known it, +Rosalind stood to lose nothing she cared for by allying herself with a +Jewish painter of revolutionary theories. Not a single person whose +friendship she cared for but would be as much her friend as before. She +had nothing to do with the _bourgeoisie_, bristling with prejudices and +social snobberies, who made, for instance, my mother's world. And that is +what one generation should always try to understand about another--how +little (probably) each cares for the other's world. + +Of course, Rosalind married Boris Stefan. And, as I have said, the +whole incident is only mentioned to illustrate how Potterism lurks in +secret places, and flaunts in open places, pervading the whole fabric +of human society. + + +2 + +Peace with Germany was signed, as every one knows, on June 28th. Nearly +every one crabbed it, of course, the _Fact_ with the rest. I have no +doubt that it did, as Garvin put it, sow dragon's teeth over Europe. It +certainly seemed a poor, unconstructive, expensive, brittle thing enough. +But I am inclined to think that nearly all peace treaties are pretty bad. +You have to have them, however, and you may as well make the best of +them. Anyhow, bad peace as it looked, at least it _was_ peace, and that +was something new and unusual. And I confess frankly that it has, so far, +held together longer than I, for one, ever expected it would. (I am +writing this in January, 1920). + +The _Fact_ published a cheery series of articles, dealing with each +clause in turn, and explaining why it was bound to lead, immediately or +ultimately, to war with some one or other. I wrote some of them myself. +But I was out on some points, though most haven't had time yet to prove +themselves. + +'Now,' said Jane, the day after the signature, 'I suppose we can get on +with the things that matter.' + +She meant housing, demobilisation, proportional representation, health +questions, and all the good objects which the Society for Equal +Citizenship had at heart. She had been writing some articles in the +_Daily Haste_ on these. They were well-informed and intelligent, but not +expert enough for the _Fact_. And that, as I began to see, was partly +where Hobart came in. Jane wrote cleverly, clearly, and concisely--better +than Johnny did. But, in these days of overcrowded competent journalism +--well, it is not unwise to marry an editor of standing. It gives you a +better place in the queue. + +I dined at the Hobarts' on June 29th, for the first time since their +marriage. We were a party of six. Katherine Varick was there, and a +distinguished member of the American Legation and his wife. + +Jane handled her parties competently, as she did other things. A vivid, +jolly child she looked, in love with life and the fun and importance of +her new position. The bachelor girl or man just married is an amusing +study to me. Especially the girl, with her new responsibilities, her new +and more significant relation to life and society. Later she is sadly apt +to become dull, to have her individuality merged in the eternal type of +the matron and the mother; her intellect is apt to lose its edge, her +mind its grip. It is the sacrifice paid by the individual to the race. +But at first she is often a delightful combination of keen-witted, jolly +girl and responsible woman. + +We talked, I remember, partly about the Government, and how soon +Northcliffe would succeed in turning it out. The Pinkerton press was +giving its support to the Government. The _Weekly Fact_ was not. But we +didn't want them out at once; we wanted to keep them on until some one of +constructive ability, in any party, was ready to take the reins. The +trouble about the Labour people was that so far there was no one of +constructive ability; they were manifestly unready. They had no one good +enough. No party had. It was the old problem, never acuter, of 'Produce +the Man.' If Labour was to produce him, I suspected that it would take it +at least a generation of hard political training and education. If Labour +had got in then, it would have been a mob of uneducated and uninformed +sentimentalists, led and used by a few trained politicians who knew the +tricks of the trade. It would be far better for them to wait till the +present generation of honest mediocrities died out, and a new and +differently educated generation were ready to take hold. +University-trained Labour--that bugbear of Barnes'--if there is any hope +for the British Constitution, which probably there is not, I believe it +lies there. It is a very small one, at the best. Anyhow, it certainly did +not, at this period, lie in the parliamentary Labour Party, that body of +incompetents in an incompetent House. + +It was in discussing this that I discovered that Hobart couldn't discuss. +He could talk; he could assert, produce opinions and information, but he +couldn't meet or answer arguments. And he was cautious, afraid of +committing himself, afraid, I fancied, of exposing gulfs in his equipment +of information, for, like other journalists of his type, his habit was to +write about things of which he knew little. Old Pinkerton remarked once, +at a dinner to American newspaper men, that his own idea of a good +journalist was a man who could sit down at any moment and write a column +on any subject. The American newspaper men cheered this; it was their +idea of a good journalist too. It is an amusing game, and one encouraged +by the Anti-Potterite League, to waylay leader-writers and tackle them +about their leaders, turn them inside out and show how empty they are. +I've written that sort of leader myself, of course, but not for the +_Fact_; we don't allow it. There, the man who writes is the man who +knows, and till some one knows no one writes. That is why some people +call us dry, heavy, lacking in ideas, and say we are like a Blue Book, or +a paper read to the British Association. We are proud of that +reputation. The Pinkerton papers and the others can supply the ideas; we +are out for facts. + +Anyhow, Hobart I knew for an ignorant person. All he had was a _flair_ +for the popular point of view. That was why Pinkerton who knew men, got +hold of him. He was a true Potterite. Possibly I always saw him at his +least eloquent and his most cautious, because he didn't like me and knew +I didn't like him. Even then there had already been one or two rather +acrimonious disputes between my paper and his on points of fact. The +_Daily Haste_ hated being pinned down to and quarrelled with about facts; +facts didn't seem to the Pinkerton press things worth quarrelling over, +like policy, principles, or prejudices. The story goes that when any one +told old Pinkerton he was wrong about something, he would point to his +vast circulation, using it as an argument that he couldn't be mistaken. +If you still pressed and proved your point, he would again refer to his +circulation, but using it this time as an indication of how little it +mattered whether his facts were right or wrong. Some one once said to him +curiously, 'Don't you _care_ that you are misleading so many millions?' +To which he replied, in his dry little voice, 'I don't lead, or mislead, +the millions. They lead me.' Little Pinkerton sometimes saw a long way +farther into what he was doing than you'd guess from his shoddy press. He +had queer flashes of genius. + +But Hobart hadn't. Hobart didn't see anything, except what he was +officially paid to see. A shallow, solemn ass. + +I looked suddenly at Jane, and caught her watching her husband silently, +with her considering, dispassionate look. He was talking to the American +Legation about the traffic strike (we were a round table, and the talk +was general). + +Then I knew that, whether Jane had ever been in love with Hobart or not, +she was not so now. I knew further, or thought I knew, that she saw him +precisely as I did. + +Of course she didn't. His beauty came in--it always does, between men and +women, confusing the issues--and her special relation to him, and a +hundred other things. The relation between husband and wife is too close +and too complex for clear thinking. It seems always to lead either to too +much regard or to an excess of irritation, and often to both. + +Jane looked away from Hobart, and met my eyes watching her. Her +expression didn't alter, nor, probably, did mine. But something passed +between us; some unacknowledged mutual understanding held us together for +an instant. It was unconscious on Jane's part and involuntary on mine. +She hadn't meant to think over her husband with me; I hadn't meant to +push in. Jane wasn't loyal, and I wasn't well-bred, but we neither of us +meant that. + +I hardly talked to Jane that evening. She was talking after dinner to +Katherine and the American Legation. I had a three-cornered conversation +with Hobart and the Legation's wife, who was of an inquiring turn of +mind, like all of her race, and asked us exhausting questions. She got on +to the Jewish question, and asked us for our views on the reasons for +anti-Semitism in Europe. + +'I've been reading the _New Witness_,' she said. + +I told her she couldn't do better, if she was investigating +anti-Semitism. + +'But are they fair?' she asked ingenuously. + +I replied that there were moments in which I had a horrible suspicion +that they were. + +'Then the Jews are really a huge conspiracy plotting to get the finances +of Europe into their hands?' Her eyes, round and shocked, turned from me +to Hobart. + +He lightly waved her to me. + +'You must ask Mr. Gideon. The children of Israel are his speciality.' + +His dislike of me gleamed in his blue eyes and in his supercilious, cold +smile. The Legation's wife (no fool) must have seen it. + +I went on talking rubbish to her about the Jews and the finances of +Europe. I don't remember what particular rubbish it was, for I was hardly +aware of it at the time. What I was vividly and intensely and quite +suddenly aware of was that I was on fire with the same anger, dislike, +and contempt that burned in Hobart towards me. I knew that evening that I +hated him, even though I was sitting in his house and smoking his +cigarettes. I wanted to be savagely rude to him. I think that once or +twice I came very near to being so. + +Katherine and I went home by the same bus. I grumbled to her about +Hobart all the way. I couldn't help it; the fellow seemed suddenly to +have become a nervous disease to me; I was mentally wriggling and +quivering with him. + +Katherine laughed presently, in that queer, silent way of hers. + +'Why worry?' she said. '_You've_ not married him.' + +'Well, what's marriage?' I returned. 'He's a public danger--he and +his kind.' + +Katherine said truly, 'There are so many public dangers. There really +isn't time to get agitated about them all.' Her mind seemed still to be +running on marriage, for she added presently, 'I think he'll find that +he's bitten off rather more than he can chew, in Jane.' + +'Jane can go to the devil in her own way,' I said, for I was angry with +Jane too. 'She's married a second-rate fellow for what she thinks he'll +bring her. I dare say she has her reward.... Katherine, I believe that's +the very essence of Potterism--going for things for what they'll bring +you, what they lead to, instead of for the thing-in-itself. Artists care +for the thing-in-itself; Potterites regard things as railway trains, +always going somewhere, getting somewhere. Artists, students, and the +religious--they have the single eye. It's the opposite to the commercial +outlook. Artists will look at a little fishing town or country village, +and find it a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and leave it to +itself--unless they yield to the devil and paint it or write about it. +Potterites will exploit it, commercialise it, bring the railway to +it--and the thing is spoilt. Oh, the Potterites get there all right, +confound them. They're the progressives of the world. They--they have +their reward.' + +(It's a queer thing how Jews can't help quoting the New Testament--even +Jews without religion.) + +'We seem to have decided,' Katherine said, 'that Jane is a Potterite.' + +'Morally she is. Not intellectually. You can be a Potterite in many ways. +Jane accepts the second-rate, though she recognises it as such.... The +plain fact is,' I was in a fit of savage truth-speaking, 'that Jane is +second-rate.' + +'Well ...' + +The gesture of Katherine's square shoulders may have meant several +things--'Aren't we all?' or 'Surely that's very obvious,' or 'I can't be +bothered to consider Jane any more,' or merely 'After all, we've just +dined there.' + +Anyhow, Katherine got off the bus at this point. + +I was left repeating to myself, as if it had been a new discovery, which +it wasn't, 'Jane is second-rate....' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SEEING JANE + + +1 + +Jane was taking the chair at a meeting of a section of the Society for +Equal Citizenship. The speakers were all girls under thirty who wanted +votes. They spoke rather well. They weren't old enough to have become +sentimental, and they were mostly past the conventional cliches of the +earlier twenties. In extreme youth one has to be second-hand; one doesn't +know enough, one hasn't lived or learnt enough, to be first-hand; and one +lacks self-confidence. But by five or six-and-twenty one should have left +that behind. One should know what one thinks and what one means, and be +able to state it in clear terms. That is what these girls--mostly +University girls--did. + +Jane left the chair and spoke too. + +I hadn't known Jane spoke so well. She has a clever, coherent way of +making her points, and is concise in reply if questioned, quick at +repartee if heckled. + +Lady Pinkerton was sitting in the row in front of Juke and me. Mother and +daughter. It was very queer to me. That wordy, willowy fool, and the +sturdy, hard-headed girl in the chair, with her crisp, gripping mind. Yet +there was something.... They both loved success. Perhaps that was it. The +vulgarian touch. I felt it the more clearly in them because of Juke at +my side. And yet Jukie too ... Only he would always be awake to it--on +his guard, not capitulating. + + +2 + +Jane came round with me after the meeting to the _Fact_ office, to go +through some stuff she was writing for us about the meeting. She had to +come then, though it was late, because next day was press day. We hadn't +been there ten minutes when Hobart's name was sent in, with the message +that he was just going home, and was Mrs. Hobart ready to come? + +'Well, I'm not,' said Jane to me. 'I shall be quite ten minutes more. +I'll go and tell him.' + +She went outside and called down, 'Go on, Oliver. I shall be some +time yet.' + +'I'll wait,' he called up, and Jane came back into the room. + +We went on for quite ten minutes. + +When we went down, Hobart was standing by the front door, waiting. + +'How did you track me?' Jane asked. + +'Your mother told me where you'd gone. She called at the _Haste_ on her +way home. Good-night, Gideon.' + +They went out together, and I returned to the office, irritated a little +by being hurried. It was just like Lady Pinkerton, I thought, to have +gone round to Hobart inciting him to drag Jane from my office. There had +been coldness, if not annoyance, in Hobart's manner to me. + +Well, confound him, it wasn't to be expected that he should much care +for his wife to write for the _Fact_. But he might mind his own business +and leave Jane to mind hers, I thought. + +Peacock came in at this point, and we worked till midnight. + +Peacock opened a parcel of review books from Hubert Wilkins--all tripe, +of course. He turned them over, impatiently. + +'What fools the fellows are to go on sending us their rubbish. They +might have learnt by now that we never take any notice of them,' he +grumbled. He picked out one with a brilliant wrapper--'_A Cabinet +Minister's Wife_, by Leila Yorke.... That woman needs a lesson, +Gideon. She's a public nuisance. I've a good mind--a jolly good +mind--to review her, for once. What? Or do you think it would be +_infra dig_? Well, what about an article, then--we'd get Neilson to +do one--on the whole tribe of fiction-writing fools, taking Lady +Pinkerton for a peg to hang it on? ... After all, we _are_ the organ +of the Anti-Potter League. We ought to hammer at Potterite fiction as +well as at Potterite journalism and politics. For two pins I'd get +Johnny Potter to do it. He would, I believe.' + +'I'm sure he would. But it would be a little too indecent. Neilson shall +do it. Besides, he'd do it better. Or do it yourself.' + +'Will you?' + +'I will not. My acquaintance with the subject is inadequate, and I've no +intention of improving it.' + +In the end Peacock did it himself. It was pretty good, and pretty +murderous. It came out in next week's number. I met Clare Potter in the +street the day after it came out, and she cut me dead. I expect she +thought I had written it. I am sure she never read the _Fact_, but no +doubt the family 'attention had been drawn to' the article, as people +always express it when writing to a paper to remonstrate about something +in it they haven't liked. I suppose they think it would be a score for +the paper if they admitted that they had come across it in the natural +course of things--anyhow, they want to imply that it is, of course, a +paper decent people don't see--like _John Bull_, or the _People_. + +When I met Johnny Potter, he grinned, and said, 'Good for you, old bean. +Or was it Peacock? My mother's persuaded it was you, and she'll never +forgive you. Poor old mater, she thought her new book rather on the +intellectual side. Full of psycho-analysis, and all that.... I say, I +wish Peacock would send me Guthrie's new book to do.' + +That was Johnny all over. He was always asking for what he wanted, +instead of waiting for what we thought fit to send him. I was sure that +when he published a book, he'd write round to the editors telling them +who was to review it. + +I said, 'I think Neilson's going to do it,' and determined that it should +be so. Johnny's brand of grabbing bored me. Jane did the same. A greedy +pair, never seeing why they shouldn't have all they wanted. + + +3 + +It was at this time (July) that a long, drawn-out quarrel started between +the _Weekly Fact_ and the _Daily Haste_ about the miners' strike. The +Pinkerton press did its level best to muddle the issues of that strike, +by distorting some facts, passing over others, and inventing more. By the +time you'd read a leader in the _Haste_ on the subject, you'd have got +the impression that the strikers were Bolshevists helped by German money +and aiming at a social revolution, instead of discontented, needy and +greedy British workmen, grabbing at more money and less work, in the +normal, greedy, human way we all have. Bonar Law, departing for once +rather unhappily from his 'the Government have given me no information' +attitude, announced that the miners were striking against conscription +and the war with Russia. Some Labour papers said they were striking +against the Government's shifty methods and broken pledges. I am sure +both parties credited them with too much idealism and too little plain +horse-sense. They were striking to get the pay and hours they wanted out +of the Government, and, of course, for nationalisation. They were not +idealists, and not Bolshevists, but frank grabbers, like most of us. But, +as every one will remember, 'Bolshevist' had become at this period a +vague term of abuse, like 'Hun' during the war. People who didn't like +Carson called him a Bolshevist; people who didn't like manual labourers +called _them_ Bolshevists. What all these users of the mysterious and +elastic epithet lacked was a clear understanding and definition of +Bolshevism. + +The _Daily Haste_, of course (and, to do it justice, many other +papers), used the word freely as meaning the desire for better +conditions and belief in the strike as a legitimate means of obtaining +them. I suppose it took a shorter time to say or write than this does; +anyhow, it bore a large, vague, Potterish meaning that was irresistible +to people in general. + +The _Haste_ made such a fool of itself over the miners that we came to +blows with them, and quarrelled all through July and August, mostly over +trivial and petty points. I may add that the _Fact_ was not supporting +immediate nationalisation; we were against it, for reasons that it would +be too tedious to explain here. (As a matter of fact, I know that all I +record of this so recent history is too tedious; I do not seem to be +able to avoid most of it; but even I draw the line somewhere). The +controversy between the _Fact_ and the _Haste_ seemed after a time to +resolve itself largely into a personal quarrel between Hobart and +myself. He was annoyed that Jane occasionally wrote for us. I suppose it +was natural that he should be annoyed. And he didn't like her to +frequent the 1917 Club, to which a lot of us belonged. Jane often +lunched there, so did I. She said that you got a better lunch there than +at the Women's University Club. Not much better, but still, better. You +also met more people you wanted to meet, as well as more people you +didn't. We started a sort of informal lunch club, which met there and +lunched together on Thursdays. It consisted of Jane, Katherine Varick, +Juke, Peacock, Johnny Potter, and myself. Often other people joined us +by invitation; my sister Rosalind and her husband, any girl Johnny +Potter was for the moment in love with, and friends of Peacock's, +Juke's, or mine. Juke would sometimes bring a parson in; this was rather +widening for us, I think, and I dare say for the parson too. To Juke it +was part of the enterprise of un-Potterising the Church, which was on +his mind a good deal. He said it needed un-Potterising as much as the +State, or literature, or journalism, or even the drama, and that +Potterism in it was even more dangerous than in these. So, when he +could, he induced parsons to join the Anti-Potter League. + +We weren't all tied up, I may say, with the political party principles +very commonly held by members of the 1917 Club. I certainly wasn't a +Socialist, nor, wholly, I think, a Radical; neither at that time was +Peacock, though he became more so as time went on; nor, certainly, was +Katherine. Juke was, because he believed that in these principles was the +only hope for the world. And the twins were, because the same principles +were the only wear for the young intellectual, at that moment. Johnny, in +all things the glass of fashion and the mould of form, wore them as he +wore his monocle, quite unconscious of his own reasons for both. But it +was the idea of the Anti-Potter League to keep clear of parties and +labels. You _can_ belong to a recognised political party and be an +Anti-Potterite, for Potterism is a frame of mind, not a set of opinions +(Juke was, after Katherine, the best Anti-Potterite I have known, though +people did their best to spoil him), but it is easier, and more +compatible with your objects, to be free to think what you like about +everything. Once you are tied up with a party, you can only avoid +second-handedness, taking over views ready-made, if you are very +strong-minded indeed. + +Thursday was a fairly free afternoon for me, and Jane and I somehow +got into a habit of going off somewhere together after lunch, or +staying on at the club and talking. Jane seemed to me to be +increasingly interesting; she was acquiring new subtleties, +complexities, and comprehensions, and shedding crudities. She wrote +better, too. We took her stuff sometimes for the _Fact_. At the same +time, she seemed to me to be morally deteriorating, as people who +grab and take things they oughtn't to have always do deteriorate. And +she was trying all the time to square Hobart with the rest of her +life, fitting him in, as it were, and he didn't fit in. I was +interested to see what she was making of it all. + + +4 + +One Thursday in early September, when Juke and Jane and I had lunched +alone together at the club, and Jane and I had gone off to some meeting +afterwards, Juke dropped in on me in the evening after dinner. He sat +down and lit a pipe, then got up and walked about the room, and I knew he +had something on his mind, but wasn't going to help him out. I felt hard +and rather sore that evening. + +Soon he said, in his soft, indifferent voice, 'Of course you'll be angry +at what I'm going to say.' + +'I think it probable,' I replied, 'from the look of you. But go on.' + +'Well,' he said quietly, 'I don't think these Thursday lunches will do +any more.' + +'For you?' I asked. + +'For any of us. Not with Jane Hobart there.' He wouldn't look at me, but +stood by the window looking out at Gray's Inn Road. + +'And why not with Jane? Because she's married to the enemy?' + +'It makes it awkward,' he murmured. + +'Makes it awkward,' I repeated. 'How does it make it awkward? Whom does +it make awkward? It doesn't make Jane awkward. Nor me, nor any one else, +as far as I know. Does it make you awkward? I didn't know anything could +do that. But something obviously has, this evening. It's not Jane, +though; it's being afraid to say what you mean. You'd better spit it out, +Jukie. You're not enough of a Jesuit to handle these jobs competently, +you know. I know perfectly well what you've got on your mind. You think +Jane and I are getting too intimate with each other. You think we're +falling, or fallen, or about to fall, in love.' + +'Well,' he wheeled round on me, relieved that I had said it, 'I do. +And you can't deny it.... Any fool could see it by now. Why, the way +you mooned about, depressed and sulky, this last month, when she's +been out of town, and woke up the moment she came back, was enough to +tell any one.' + +'I dare say,' I said indifferently. 'People's minds are usually +offensively open to that particular information. If you'll define being +in love, I'll tell you whether I'm in love with Jane.... I'm interested +in Jane; I find her attractive, if you like, extraordinarily attractive, +though I don't admire her character, and she's not beautiful. I like to +be with her and to talk to her. On the other hand, I've not the least +intention of asking her to elope with me. Nor would she if I did. Well?' + +'You're in love,' Juke repeated. 'You mayn't know it, but you are. And +you'll get deeper in every day, if you don't pull up. And then before you +know where you are, there'll be the most ghastly mess.' + +'Don't trouble yourself, Jukie. There won't be a mess. Jane doesn't like +messes. And I'm not quite a fool. Don't imagine melodrama.... I claim the +right to be intimate with Jane--well, if you like, to be a little in love +with Jane--and yet to keep my head and not play the fool. Why should men +and women lose their attraction for each other just because they marry +and promise loyalty to some one person? They can keep that compact and +yet not shut themselves away from other men and other women. They must +have friends. Life can't be an eternal duet.... And here you come, using +that cant Potterish phrase, "in love," as if love was the sea, or +something definite that you must be in or out of and always know which.' + +'The sea--yes,' Juke took me up. 'It's like the sea; it advances and +advances, and you can't stand there and stop it, say "Thus far and no +farther" to it. All you can do is to turn your back upon it and walk +away in time.' + +'Well, I'm not going to walk away. There's nothing to walk away from. +I've no intention of behaving in a dishonourable way, and I claim the +right to be friends with Jane. So that's that.' + +I was angry with Juke. He was taking the prudish, conventional point of +view. I had never yet been the victim of passion; love between men and +women had always rather bored me; it is such a hot, stupid, muddling +thing, ail emotion and no thought. Dull, I had always thought it; one of +those impulses arranged by nature for her own purposes, but not in the +least interesting to the civilised thinking being. Juke had no right to +speak as if I were an amorous fool, liable to be bowled over against my +better judgment. + +'I've told you what I think,' said Juke bluntly. 'I can't do any more. +It's your own show.' He took out his watch. 'I've got a Men's Social,' he +said, and went. That is so like parsons. Their conversations nearly +always have these sudden ends. But I suppose that is not their fault. + + +5 + +And, after all, Juke was right. Juke was right. It was love, and I was in +it, and so was Jane. Five minutes after Juke left me that night I knew +that. I had been in love with Jane for years; perhaps since before the +war, only I had never known it. On that Anti-Potter investigation tour I +had observed and analysed her, and smiled cynically to myself at the +commercial instinct of the Potter twins, the lack of the fineness that +distinguished Katherine and Juke. I remembered that; but I remembered, +too, how white and round Jane's chin had looked as it pressed against the +thymy turf of the cliff where we lay above the sea. All through the war I +had seen her at intervals, enjoying life, finding the war a sort of lark, +and I had hated her because she didn't care for the death and torture of +men, for the possible defeat of her country, or the already achieved +economic, moral, and intellectual degradation of the whole of Europe. She +had merely profiteered out of it all, and had a good time. I remembered +now my anger and my scorn; but I remembered too the squareness and the +whiteness of her forehead under her newly-cut hair, that leave when I had +first seen it bobbed. + +I had been moved by desire then without knowing it; I had let Hobart take +her, and still not known. The pang I had felt had been bitterness at +having lost Jane, not bitterness against Jane for having made a +second-rate marriage. + +But I knew now. Juke's words, in retrospect, were like fire to petrol; I +was suddenly all ablaze. + +In that case Juke was right, and we mustn't go on meeting alone. There +might be, as he said, the most ghastly mess. Because I knew now that Jane +was in love with me too--a little. + +We couldn't go on. It was too second-rate. It was anti-social, stupid, +uncivilised, all I most hated, to let emotion play the devil with one's +reasoned principles and theories. I wasn't going to. It would be +sentimental, sloppy--'the world well lost for love,' as in a schoolgirl's +favourite novel, a novel by Leila Yorke. + +Now there are some loves that the world, important though it is, may be +well lost for--the love of an idea, a principle, a cause, a discovery, a +piece of knowledge or of beauty, perhaps a country; but very certainly +the love of lovers is not among these; it is too common and personal a +thing. I hate the whole tribe of sentimental men and women who, impelled +by the unimaginative fool nature, exalt sexual love above its proper +place in the scheme of things. I wasn't going to do it, or to let the +thing upset my life or Jane's. + + +6 + +I kept away from Jane all that week. She rang me up at the office once; +it may have been my fancy that her voice sounded strange, somehow less +assured than usual. It set me wondering about that last lunch and +afternoon together which had roused Juke. Had it roused Jane, too? What +had happened, exactly? How had I spoken and looked? I couldn't remember; +only that I had been glad--very glad--to have Jane back in town again. + +I didn't go to the club next Thursday. As it happened, I was +lunching with some one else. So, by Thursday evening, I hadn't seen +Jane for a week. + +Wanting company, I went to Katherine's flat after dinner. Katherine had +just finished dinner, and with her was Jane. + +When I saw her, lying there smoking in the most comfortable arm-chair as +usual, serene and lazy and pale, Juke's words blazed up between us like a +fire, and I couldn't look at her. + +I don't know what we talked about; I expect I was odd and absent. I knew +Katherine was looking at me, with those frosty, piercing, light blue eyes +of hers that saw through, and through, and beyond.... + +All the time I was saying to myself, 'This won't do. I must chuck it. We +mustn't meet.' + +I think Jane talked about _Abraham Lincoln_, which she disliked, and Lady +Pinkerton's experiments in spiritualism, which were rather funny. But I +couldn't have been there for more than half an hour before Jane got up to +go. She had to get home, she said. + +I went with her. I didn't mean to, but I did. And here, if any one wants +to know why I regard 'being in love' as a disastrous kink in the mental +machinery, is the reason. It impels you to do things against all your +reasoned will and intentions. My madness drove me out with Jane, drove me +to see her home by the Hampstead tube, to walk across the Vale of Health +with her in the moonlight, to go in with her, and upstairs to the +drawing-room. + +All this time we had talked little, and of common, superficial things. +But now, as I stood in the long, dimly-lit room and watched Jane take off +her hat, drop it on a table, and stand for a moment with her back to me, +turning over the evening post, I knew that I must somehow have it out, +have things clear and straight between us. It seemed to me to be the only +way of striking any sort of a path through the intricate difficulties of +our future relations. + +'Jane,' I said, and she turned and looked at me with questioning +gray eyes. + +At that I had no words for explanation or anything else: I could only +repeat, 'Jane. Jane. Jane,' like a fool. + +She said, very low, 'Yes, Arthur,' as if she were assenting to some +statement I had made, as perhaps she was. + +I somehow found that I had caught her hands in mine, and so we stood +together, but still I said nothing but 'Jane,' because that was all that, +for the moment, I knew. + +Hobart stood in the open doorway, looking at us, white and quiet. + +'Good-evening,' he said. + +We fell apart, loosing each other's hands. + +'You're early back, Oliver,' said Jane, composedly. + +'Earlier, obviously,' he returned, 'than I was expected.' + +My anger, my hatred, my contempt for him and my own shame blazed in me +together. I faced him, black and bitter, and he was not only to me +Jane's husband, the suspicious, narrow-minded ass to whom she was tied, +but, much more, the Potterite, the user of cant phrases, the ignorant +player to the gallery of the Pinkerton press, the fool who had so +little sense of his folly that he disputed on facts with the experts +who wrote for the _Weekly Fact_. In him, at that moment, I saw all the +Potterism of this dreadful world embodied, and should have liked to +have struck it dead. + +'What exactly,' I asked him, 'do you mean by that?' + +He smiled. + +Jane yawned. 'I'm going to take my things off,' she said, and went out of +the room and up the next flight of stairs to her bedroom. It was her +contemptuous way of indicating that the situation was, in fact, no +situation at all, but merely a rather boring conversation. + +As, though I appreciated her attitude, I couldn't agree with her, I +repeated my question. + +Hobart added to his smile a shrug. + + + + +PART III: + +TOLD BY LEILA YORKE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS + + +1 + +Love and truth are the only things that count. I have often thought that +they are like two rafts on the stormy sea of life, which otherwise would +swamp and drown us struggling human beings. If we follow these two stars +patiently, they will guide us at last into port. Love--the love of our +kind--the undying love of a mother for her children--the love, so +gloriously exhibited lately, of a soldier for his country--the eternal +love between a man and a woman, which counts the world well lost--these +are the clues through the wilderness. And Truth, the Truth which cries +in the market-place with a loud voice and will not be hid, the Truth +which sacrifices comfort, joy, even life itself, for the sake of a clear +vision, the Truth which is far stranger than fiction--this is Love's +very twin. + +For Love's sake, then, and for Truth's, I am writing this account of a +very sad and very dreadful period in the lives of those close and dear to +me. I want to be very frank, and to hide nothing. I think, in my books, I +am almost too frank sometimes; I give offence, and hurt people's egotism +and vanity by speaking out; but it is the way I have to write; I cannot +soften down facts to please. Just as I cannot restrain my sense of the +ridiculous, even though it may offend those who take themselves +solemnly; I am afraid I am naughty about such people, and often give +offence; it is one of the penalties attached to the gift of humour. Percy +often tells me I should be more careful; but my dear Percy's wonderful +caution, that has helped to make him what he is, is a thing that no mere +reckless woman can hope to emulate. + + +2 + +I am diverging from the point. I must begin with that dreadful evening of +the 4th of September last. Clare was dining with a friend in town, and +stopping at Jane's house in Hampstead for the night. Percy and I were +spending a quiet evening at our house at Potter's Bar. We were both busy +after dinner; he was in his study, and I was in my den, as I call it, +writing another instalment of 'Rhoda's Gift' for the _Evening Hustle_, I +find I write my best after dinner; my brain gets almost feverishly +stimulated. My doctor tells me I ought not to work late, it is not fair +on my nerves, but I think every writer has to live more or less on his or +her nervous capital, it is the way of the reckless, squandering, +thriftless tribe we are. + +Laying down my pen at 10.45 after completing my chapter, the telephone +bell suddenly rang. The maids had gone up to bed, so I went into the hall +to take the call, or to put it through to Percy's study, for the late +calls are usually, of course, for him, from one of the offices. But it +was not for him. It was Jane's voice speaking. + +'Is that you, mother?' she said, quite quietly and steadily. 'There's +been an accident. Oliver fell downstairs. He fell backwards and broke his +neck. He died soon after the doctor came.' + +The self-control, the quiet pluck of these modern girls! Her voice hardly +shook as she uttered the terrible words. + +I sat down, trembling all over, and the tears rushed to my eyes. My +darling child, and her dear husband, cut off at the very outset of their +mutual happiness, and in this awful way! Those stairs--I always hated +them; they are so steep and narrow, and wind so sharply round a corner. + +'Oh, my darling,' I said. 'And the last train gone, so that I can't be +with you till the morning! Is Clare there?' + +'Yes,' said Jane. 'She's lying down.... She fainted.' + +My poor darling Clare! So highly-strung, so delicate-fibred, far more +like me than Jane is! And I always had a suspicion that her feeling for +dear Oliver went very deep--deeper, possibly, than any of us ever +guessed. For, there is no doubt about it, poor Oliver did woo Clare; if +he wasn't in love with her he was very near it, before he went off at a +tangent after Jane, who was something new, and therefore attractive to +him, besides being thrown so much together in Paris when Jane was working +for her father. The dear child has put up a brave fight ever since the +engagement, and her self-control has been wonderful, but she has not been +her old self. If it had not been for the unfortunate European conditions, +I should have sent her abroad for a thorough change. It was terrible for +her to be on the spot when this awful accident happened. + +'My dear, dear child,' I said, hardly able to speak, my voice shook so +with crying. 'I've no words.... Have you rung up Frank and Johnny? I +should like Frank to be with you to-night; I know he would wish it.' + +'No,' said Jane. 'It's no use bothering them till to-morrow. They can't +do anything. Is daddy at home?... You'll tell him, then.... Good-night.' + +'Oh, my darling, you mustn't ring off yet, indeed you mustn't. Hold on +while I tell daddy; he would hate not to speak to you at once about it.' + +'No, he won't need to speak to me. He'll have to get on to the _Haste_ at +once, and arrange a lot of things. I can keep till the morning. +Good-night, mother.' + +She rang off. There is something terrible to me about telephone +conversations, when they deal with intimate or tragic subjects; they are +so remote, cold, impersonal, like typed letters; is it because one can't +watch the soul in the eyes of the person one is talking to? + + +3 + +I went straight to Percy. He was sitting at his writing table going +through papers. At his side was the black coffee that he always sipped +through the evenings, simmering over a spirit lamp. Percy will never go +up to bed until the small hours; I suppose it is his newspaper training. +If he isn't working, he will sit and read, or sometimes play patience, +and always sip strong coffee, though his doctor has told him he should +give it up. But he is like me; he lives on his nervous energy, reckless +of consequences. He spends himself, and is spent, in the service of his +great press. It was fortunate for him, though I suppose I ought not to +say it, that he married a woman who is also the slave of literature, +though of a more imaginative branch of literature, and who can understand +him. But then that was inevitable; he could never have cared for a +materialistic woman, or a merely domestic woman. He demanded ideas in the +woman to whom he gave himself. + +I could hardly bear to tell him the dreadful news. I knew how overcome he +would be, because he was so fond of dear Oliver, who was one of his right +hands, as well as a dear son-in-law. And he had always loved Jane with a +peculiar pride and affection, devoted father as he was to all his +children, for he said she had the best brain of the lot. And Oliver had +been doing so well on the _Daily Haste_. Percy had often said he was an +editor after his own heart; he had so much flair. When Percy said some +one had flair, it was the highest praise he could give. He always told me +I had flair, and that was why he was so eager to put my stories in his +papers. I remember his remark when that dreadful man, Arthur Gideon, said +in some review or other (I dislike his reviews, they are so conceited and +cocksure, and show often such bad taste), 'Flair and genius are +incompatible.' Percy said simply, 'Flair _is_ genius.' I thought it +extraordinarily true. But whether I have flair or not, I don't know. I +don't think I ever bother about what the public want, or what will sell. +I just write what comes natural to me; if people like it, so much the +better; if they don't, they must bear it! But I will say that they +usually do! No, I don't think I have flair; I think I have, instead, a +message; or many messages. + +But I had to break it to Percy. I put my arms round him and told him, +quite simply. He was quite broken up by it. But, of course, the first +thing he had to do was to get on to the _Haste_ and let them know. He +told them he would be up in the morning to make arrangements. + +Then he sat and thought, and worked out plans in his head, in the +concentrated, abstracted way he has, telephoning sometimes, writing notes +sometimes, almost forgetting my presence. I love to be at the centre of +the brain of the Pinkerton press at the moments when it is working at top +speed like this. Cup after cup of strong black coffee he drank, hardly +noticing it, till I remonstrated, and then he said absently, 'Very well, +dear, very well,' and drank more. When I tried to persuade him to come up +to bed, he said, 'No, no; I have things to think out. I shall be late. +Leave me, my dear. Go to bed yourself, you need rest.' Then he turned +from the newspaper owner to the father, and sighed heavily, and said, +'Poor little Janie. Poor dear little Babs. Well, well, well.' + + +4 + +I left him and went upstairs, knowing I must get all the strength I could +before to-morrow. + +My poor little girl a widow! I could hardly realise it. And yet, alas, +how many young widows we have among us in these days! Only they are +widowed for a noble cause, not by a horrid accident on the stairs. Poor +Oliver, of course, had exemption from military service; he never even had +to go before the tribunal for it, but had it direct from the War Office, +like nearly all Percy's staff, who were recognised by the Government as +doing more important work at home than they could have done at the front. +I have a horror of the men who _evaded_ service during the war, but men +like Oliver Hobart, who would have preferred to be fighting but stayed to +do invaluable work for their country, one must respect. And it seemed +very bitter that Oliver, who hadn't fallen in the war, should have fallen +now down his own stairs. Poor, poor Oliver! As I lay in bed, unable to +sleep, I saw his beautiful face before me. He was quite the most +beautiful man I have ever known. I have given his personal appearance to +the hero of one of my novels, _Sidney, a Man_. It was terrible to me to +think of that beauty lost from the world. Whatever view one may take of +another world (and personally, far as I am from any orthodox view on the +subject, my spiritual investigations have convinced me that there is, +there must be, a life to come; I have had the most wonderful experiences, +that may not be denied) physical beauty, one must believe, is a +phenomenon of this physical universe, and must perish with the body. +Unless, as some thinkers have conceived, the immortal soul wraps itself +about in some aural vapour that takes the form it wore on earth. This is +a possibility, and I would gladly believe it. I must, I decided, try to +bring my poor Jane into touch with psychic interests; it would comfort +her to have the wonderful chance of getting into communication with +Oliver. At present she scouts the whole thing, like all other forms of +supernatural belief. Jane has always been a materialist. It is very +strange to me that my children have developed, intellectually and +spiritually, along such different lines from myself. I have never been +orthodox; I am not even now an orthodox theosophist; I am not of the +stuff which can fall into line and accept things from others; it seems as +if I must always think for myself, delve painfully, with blood and tears, +for Truth. But I have always been profoundly religious; the spiritual +side of life has always meant a very great deal to me; I think I feel +almost too intensely the vibration of Spirit in the world of things. I +probe, and wonder, and cannot let it alone, like most people, and be +content with surfaces. Of late years, and especially since I took up +theosophy, I have found great joy and comfort from my association with +the S.P.R. I am in touch with several very wonderful thought-readers, +crystal-gazers, mediums, and planchette writers, who have often strangely +illumined the dark places of life for me. To those who mock and doubt, I +merely say, '_try_.' Or else I cite, not '_Raymond_' nor Conan Doyle, but +that strange, interesting, scientific book by a Belfast professor, who +made experiments in weighing the tables before and after they levitated, +and weighing the mediums, and finding them all lighter. I think that was +it; anyhow it is all, to any open mind, entirely convincing that +_something_ had occurred out of the normal, which is what Percy and the +twins never will believe. When I say 'try' to Percy, he only answers, +'I should fail, my dear. I may, as I have been called, be a superman, +but I am not a superwoman, and cannot call up spirits.' And the +children are hopeless about it, too. Frank says we are not intended to +'lift the curtain' (that is what he calls it). He is such a thorough +clergyman, and never had my imagination; he calls my explorations +'dabbling in the occult.' His wife jeers, and asks me if I've been +talking to many spooks lately. But then her family are hard-headed +business people, quite different from me. Clare says the whole thing +frightens her to death. For her part she is content with what the +Church allows of spiritual exploration, which is not much. Clare, since +what I am afraid I must call her trouble, has been getting much Higher +Church; incense and ritual seem to comfort her. I know the phase; I +went through it twenty years ago, when my baby Michael died and the +world seemed at an end. But I came out the other side; it couldn't last +for me, I had to have much more. Clare may remain content with it; she +has not got my perhaps too intense instinct for groping always after +further light. And I am thankful that she should find comfort and help +anywhere. Only I rather hope she will never join the Roman Church; its +banks are too narrow to hold the brimming river of the human +spirit--even my Clare's, which does not, perhaps, brim very high, dear, +simple child that she is. + +As for the twins, they are merely cynical about all experiments with the +supernatural. I often feel that if my little Michael had lived.... But, +in a way, I am thankful to have him on the other side, reaching his baby +hands across to me in the way he so often does. + +That night I determined I would make a great effort to bring Jane into +the circle of light, as I love to call it. She would find such comfort +there, if only it could be. But I knew it would be difficult; Jane is so +hard-headed, and, for all her cleverness in writing, has so little +imagination really. She said that _Raymond_ made her sick. And she +wouldn't look at _Rupert Lives_! or _Across the Stream_, E.F. Benson's +latest novel about the other side. She quite frankly doesn't believe +there is another side. I remember her saying to me once, in her +school-girl slang, when she was seventeen or so, 'Well, I'd like to think +I went on, mother; I think it's simply rotten pipping out. I _like_ being +alive, and I'd like to have tons more of it--but there it is, I can't +believe anything so weird and it's no use trying. And if I don't pip out +after all, it'll be such a jolly old surprise and lark that I shall be +glad I couldn't believe in it here.' Johnny, I remember, said to her +(those two were always ragging each other), 'Ah, you may be wishing you +only _could_ pip out, then....' But I told him that I wished he wouldn't, +even in joke, allude to that bogey of the nurseries of my generation, a +place of punishment. That terrible old teaching! Thank God we are +outgrowing much of it. I must say that the descriptions They give, when +They give any, of Their place of being, do not sound very cheerful--but +it cannot at all resemble the old-fashioned place of torment, it sounds +so much less clear-cut and definite than that, more like London in a +yellow fog. + + +5 + +I do not think I slept that night. I am bad at sleeping when I have had a +shock. My idiotic nerves again. Crane, in his book, _Right and Wrong +Thinking_, says one should drop discordant thoughts out of one's mind as +one drops a pebble out of one's hand. But my interior calm is not yet +sufficient for this exercise, and I confess I am all too easily shaken to +pieces by trouble, especially the troubles of those I love. + +I felt a wreck when I met Percy at an early breakfast next morning. He, +too, looked jaded and strained, and ate hardly any breakfast, only a +little force and three cups of strong tea--an inadequate meal, as I told +him, upon which to face so trying a day. For we had to have strength not +only for ourselves but for our children. Giving out: it is so much harder +work than taking in, and it is the work for us older people always. + +Percy passed me the _Haste_, pointing to a column on the front page. That +had been part of his business last night, to see that the _Haste_ had a +good column about it. The news editor had turned out a column about a +Bolshevik advance on the Dvina to make room for it, and it was side by +side with the Rectory Oil Mystery, the German Invasion (dumped goods, of +course), the Glasgow Trades' Union Congress, the French Protest about +Syria, Woman's Mysterious Disappearance, and a Tarring and Feathering +Court Martial. The heading was 'Tragic Death of the Editor of the _Daily +Haste_,' and there followed not only a full report of the disaster, but +an account of Oliver's career, with one of those newspaper photographs +which do the original so little justice. + +'Binney's been pretty sharp about it,' said Percy approvingly. 'Of +course, he had all the biographical facts stored.' + + +6 + +We went up by the 9.24, and went straight to Hampstead. + +Quietly and sadly we entered that house of death. The maid, all +flustered and red-eyed with emotional unrest, told us that Jane was +upstairs, and Clare too. We went up the narrow stairs, now become so +tragic in their associations. On which step, I wondered, had he fallen, +and how far? + +Jane came out of the drawing-room to meet us. She was pale, and looked as +if she hadn't slept, but composed, as she always is. I took her in my +arms and gave her a long kiss. Then her father kissed her, and smoothed +her hair, and patted her head as he used to do when she was a child, and +said, 'There, there, there, my poor little Babs. There, there, there.' + +I led her into the drawing-room. I felt her calm was unnatural. 'Cry, my +darling,' I said. 'Have your cry out, and you will feel better.' + +'Shall I?' she said. 'I don't think so, mother. Crying doesn't make me +feel better, ever. It makes my head ache.' + +I thought of Tennyson's young war widow and the nurse of ninety years, +and only wished it could have been six months later, so that I could have +set Jane's child upon her knee. + +'When you feel you can, my darling,' I said, wiping my eyes, 'you must +tell me all about it. But not before you want to.' + +'There isn't much to tell,' she answered quietly, still without tears. +'He fell down the stairs backwards. That's all.' + +'Did you ... see him, darling?' + +She hesitated a moment, then said 'Yes. I saw him. I was in here. He'd +just come in from the office.... He lost his balance.' + +'Would you feel up, my dear,' said her father, 'to giving me an account +of it, that I could put in the papers?' + +'You can put that in the papers, daddy. That's all there is to say about +it, I'm afraid.... I've had seventeen reporters round this morning +already, and I told Emily to tell them that. That's probably another,' +she added, as the bell rang. + +But it was not. Emily came up a moment later and asked if Jane could see +Mr. Gideon. + +It showed the over-wrought state of Jane's nerves that she started a +little. She never starts or shows surprise. Besides, what could be more +natural than that Mr. Gideon, who, disagreeable man though he is, is a +close friend of hers (far too close, I always thought, considering that +Oliver was on almost openly bad terms with him) should call to inquire, +on seeing the dreadful news? It would, all the same, I thought, have been +better taste on his part to have contented himself with leaving kind +inquiries at the door. However, of course, one would never expect him to +do the right-minded or well-bred thing on any occasion. + +'I'll go down,' Jane said quietly. 'Will you wait there?' she added to +her father and me. 'You might,' she called from the stairs, 'go and see +Clare. She's in her room.' + +I crossed the passage to the spare bedroom, and as I did so I caught a +glimpse of that man's tall, rather stooping figure in the hall, and heard +Jane say, rather low, 'Arthur!' and add quickly, 'Mother and dad are +upstairs. Come in here.' + +Then they disappeared into the dining-room, which was on the ground +floor, and shut the door after them. + + +7 + +I went in to Clare. She was sitting in an armchair by the window. When +she turned her face to me, I recoiled in momentary shock. Her poor, +pretty little face was pinched and feverishly flushed; her brown eyes +stared at me as if she was seeing ghosts. Her hands were locked together +on her knees, and she was huddled and shivering, though it was a warm +morning. I had known she would feel the shock terribly, but I had hardly +been prepared for this. I was seriously afraid she was going to be ill. + +I knelt down beside her and drew her into my arms, where she lay passive, +seeming hardly to realise me. + +'My poor little girl,' I murmured. 'Cry, darling. Cry, and you will +feel better.' + +Clare was always more obedient than Jane. She did cry. She broke suddenly +into the most terrible passion of tears. I tried to hold her, but she +pulled away from me and laid her head upon her arms and sobbed. + +I stayed beside her and comforted her as best I could, and finally went +to Jane's medicine cupboard and mixed her a dose of sal volatile. + +When she was a little quieter, I said, 'Tell me nothing more than you +feel inclined to, darling. But if it would make you happier to talk to me +about it, do.' + +'I c-can't talk about it,' she sobbed. + +'My poor pet!... Did it happen after you got here, or before?' + +I felt her stiffen and grow tense, as at a dreadful memory. + +'After.... But I was in my room; I wasn't there.' + +'You heard the fall, I suppose....' + +She shuddered, and nodded. + +'And you came out....' I helped her gently, 'as Jane did, and +found him....' + +She burst out crying afresh. I almost wished I had not suggested this +outlet for her horror and grief. + +'Don't, mother,' she sobbed. 'I can't talk about it--I can't.' + +'My pet, of course you can't, and you shan't. It was thoughtless of me to +think that speech would be a relief. Lie down on your bed, dear, and have +a good rest, and you will feel better presently.' + +But she opposed that too. + +'I can't stay here. I want to go home _at once. At once_, mother.' + +'My dearest child, you must wait for me. I can't let you go alone in +this state, and I can't, of course, go myself until Jane is ready to +come with me.' + +'I'm going,' she repeated. 'I can go alone. I'm going now, at once.' + +And she began feverishly cramming her things into her suit-case. + +I was anxious about her, but I did not like to thwart her in her present +mood. Then I heard Frank's voice in the drawing-room, and I thought I +would get him to accompany her, at least to the station. Frank and Clare +have always been fond of one another, and she has a special reliance on +clergymen. + +I went into the drawing-room, and found Frank and Johnny both there, with +Jane and Percy. So that dreadful Jew must have gone. + +I told Frank that Clare was in a terrible state, and entrusted her +to his care. Frank is a good unselfish brother, and he went to look +after her. + +Johnny, silent and troubled, and looking as if death was out of his line, +though, Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it during the last five +years, was fidgeting awkwardly about the room. His awkwardness was, no +doubt, partly due to the fact that he had never much cared for Oliver. +This does make things awkward, in the presence of the Great Silencer. + +Percy had to leave us now, in order to go to the _Haste_ and see about +things there. He said he would be back in the afternoon. He would, of +course, take over the business of making the last sad arrangements, which +Jane called, rather crudely, 'seeing about the funeral'; the twins would +always call spades 'spades.' + +Presently I made the suggestion which I had for some time had in my mind. + +'May I, dear?' I asked very softly, half rising. + +Jane rose, too. + +'See Oliver, you mean? Oh, yes. He's in his room.' + +I motioned her back. 'Not you, darling. Johnny will take me.' + +Johnny didn't want to much, I think; it is the sort of strain on the +emotions that he dislikes, but he came with me. + + +8 + +What had been Oliver lay on the bed, stretched straight out, the +beautiful face as white and delicate as if modelled in wax. One saw no +marks of injury; except for that waxy pallor he might have been sleeping. + +In the presence of the Great White Silence I bowed my head and wept. He +was so beautiful, and had been so alive. I said so to Johnny. + +'He was so alive,' I said, 'so short a time ago.' + +'Yes,' Johnny muttered, staring down at the bed, his hands in his +pockets. 'Yesterday, of course. Rotten bad luck, poor old chap. Rotten +way to get pipped.' + +For a minute longer I kept my vigil beside that inanimate form. + +'Peace, peace, he is not dead,' I repeated to myself. 'He sleeps whom men +call dead.... The soul of Adonais, like a star, beckons from the abode +where the eternal are.' + +Death is wonderful to me; not a horrible thing, but holy and high. Here +was the lovely mortal shell, for which 'arrangements' had to be made; but +the spirit which had informed it was--where? In what place, under what +conditions, would Oliver Hobart now fulfil himself, now carry on the work +so faithfully begun on earth? What word would he be able to send us from +that Place of Being? Time would (I hoped) show. + +As we stood there in the shadow of the Great Mystery, I heard Frank +talking to Clare, whose room was next door. + +'It is wrong to give way.... One must not grieve for the dead as if one +would recall them. We know--you and I know, don't we, Clare--that they +are happier where they are. And we know too, that it is God's will, and +that He decides everything for the best. We must not rebel against +it.... If you really want to catch the 12.4 to Potter's Bar, we ought to +start now.' + +Conventional phraseology! It would never have been adequate for me; I am +afraid I have an incurable habit of rebelling against the orthodox dogma +beloved of clergymen, but Clare is more docile, less 'tameless and swift +and proud.' + +I touched Johnny's arm. 'Let us come away,' I murmured. + +Clare, her face beneath her veil swollen with crying, went off with +Frank, who was going to see her into the train. I, of course, was going +to stop with Jane until the funeral, as she called it; I would not leave +her alone in the house. So I asked Frank if Peggy would go down to +Potter's Bar and be with Clare, who was certainly not fit for solitude, +poor child, until my return. Peggy is a dear, cheerful girl, if limited, +and she and Clare have always been great friends. Frank said he was sure +Peggy would do this, and I went back to Jane, who was writing necessary +letters in the drawing-room. + +Johnny said to her, 'Well, if you're sure I can't be any use just now, +old thing, I suppose I ought to go to the office,' and Jane said, 'Yes, +don't stay. There's nothing,' and he went. + +I offered to help Jane with the letters, but she said she could easily +manage them, and I thought the occupation might be the best thing for +her, so I left her to it and went down to speak to Emily, Jane's nice +little maid. Emily is a good little thing, and she was obviously +terribly, though not altogether unpleasantly, shocked and stirred (maids +are) by the tragedy. + +She told me much more about the terrible evening than Jane or Clare had. +It was less effort, of course, for her to speak. Indeed, I think she +really enjoyed opening out to me. And I liked to hear. I always must get +a clear picture of events: I suppose it is the story-writer's instinct. + +'I went up to bed, my lady,' she said, 'feeling a bit lonely now cook's +on her holiday, soon after Miss Clare came in. And I was just off to +sleep when I heard Mrs. Hobart come in, with Mr. Gideon; they were +talking as they came up to the drawing-room, and that woke me up.' + +'Mr. Gideon!' I exclaimed in surprise. 'Was he there?' + +'Yes, my lady. He came in with Mrs. Hobart. I knew it was him, by his +voice. And soon after the master came in, and they was all talking +together. And then I heard the mistress come upstairs to her bedroom. And +then I dozed off, and I was woke by the fall.... Oh, dear, my lady, how I +did scream when I came down and saw.... There was the poor master laying +on the bottom stair, stunned-like, as I thought, I'm sure I never knew he +was gone, and the mistress and Miss Clare bending over him, and the +mistress calling to me to telephone for the doctor. The poor mistress, +she was so white, I thought she'd go off, but she kept up wonderful; and +Miss Clare, she was worse, all scared and white, as if she'd seen a +ghost. I rang for Dr. Armes, and he came round at once, and I got +hot-water bottles and put them in the bed, but the doctor wouldn't move +him for a bit, he examined him where he lay, and he found the back was +broke. He told the mistress straight out. "His back's broke," he said. +"There's no hope," he said. "It may be a few hours, or less," he said. +Then he sent for a mattress and we laid the master on it, down in the +hall, and put hot-water bottles to his feet, and then the mistress said +I'd better go back to bed; but, oh, dear, I couldn't do that, so I just +waited in the kitchen and got a kettle boiling in case the mistress and +Miss Clare would like a cup of tea, and I had a cup myself, my lady, for +I was all of a didder, and nothing pulls you round like a drop of hot +tea. Then I took two cups out into the hall for the mistress and Miss +Clare, and when I got there the doctor was saying, "It's all over," and, +dear me, so it was, so I took the tea back to keep it hot against they +were ready for it, for I couldn't speak to them of tea just at first, +could I, my lady? Then the doctor called me, and there was Miss Clare +laying in a fit, and he was bringing her round. He told me to help her to +her room, and so I did, and she seemed half stunned-like, and didn't say +a word, but dropped on her bed like a stone. Then I had to help the +doctor and the mistress carry the poor master on the mattress up to his +room, and lay him on his bed; and the doctor saw to Miss Clare a little, +then he went away and said he'd send round a woman for the laying out.... +Poor Miss Clare, I was sorry for her. Laid like a stone, she did, as +white as milk. She's such a one to feel, isn't she, my lady? And to hear +the fall and run out and find him like that! The poor master! Them +stairs, I always hated them. The back stairs are bad enough, when I have +to carry the hot water up and down, but they don't turn so sharp. The +poor master, he must have stumbled backwards, the light not being good, +and fallen clean over. And it isn't as if he was like some gentlemen, +that might have had a drop at dinner; no one ever saw the master the +worse, did they, my lady? I'm sure cook and me and every one always +thought him such a nice, good gentleman. I don't know what cook will say +when she hears, I'm sure I don't.' + +'It is indeed all very terrible and sad, Emily,' I said to her. I left +her then, and went up to the drawing-room. + +Jane was sitting at the writing table, her pen in one hand, her forehead +resting on the other. + +'My dear,' I said to her, 'Emily has been giving me some account of last +night. She tells me that Mr. Gideon was here.' + +'She's quite right,' said Jane listlessly. 'I met him at Katherine's, and +he saw me home and came in for a little.' + +I was silent for a moment. It seemed to me rather sad that Jane should +have this memory of her husband's last evening on this earth, for she +knew that Oliver had not liked her to see much of Mr. Gideon. I +understood why she had been loath to mention it to me. + +'And had he gone,' I asked her softly, 'when ... It ... happened?' + +Jane frowned, in the way the twins always frown when people put things +less bluntly and crudely than they think fit. For some reason they call +this, the regard for the ordinary niceties of life, by the foolish name +of 'Potterism.' + +'When Oliver fell?' she corrected me, still in that quiet, listless, +almost indifferent tone. 'Oh, yes. He wasn't here long.' + +'Well, well,' I said very gently, 'we must let bygones be bygones, and +not grieve over much. Grief,' I added, wanting so much that the child +should rise to the opportunity and take her trial in a large spirit, 'is +such a big, strong, beautiful thing. If we let it, it will take us by +the hands and lead us gently along by the waters of comfort. We mustn't +rebel or fight; we must look straight ahead with welcoming eyes. For +whatever life brings us we can _use_.' + +Jane still sat very still at the writing table, her head on her hand, her +fingers pushing back her hair from her forehead. I thought she sighed a +little, a long sigh of acquiescence which touched me. + +This seemed to me to be the moment to speak to her of what was in my +mind. + +'And, my dear,' I said, 'there is another thing. We mustn't think that +Oliver has gone down into silence. You must help him to speak to you, a +little later, when you are fit and when _he_ has found his way to the +Door. You mustn't shut him out, my child.' + +'Mother,' said Jane, 'you know I don't believe in any of that.' + +'I only ask you to try,' I said earnestly. 'Don't bolt and bar the +Door.... _I_ shall try, my dear, for you, if you will not, and he shall +communicate with you through me.' + +'I shan't believe it,' said Jane, stating not a resolve but a fact, 'if +he does. Of course, do what you like about all that, mother, I don't +care. But, if you don't mind, I'd rather not hear about it.' + +I decided to put off any further discussion of the question, particularly +as the child looked and must have been tired out. + +I went down to the kitchen to talk to Emily about Jane's lunch. I felt +that she ought to have a beaten egg, and perhaps a little fish. + +But I wished that she had told me frankly about that man Gideon's visit +last night. Jane was always so reserved. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN AWFUL SUSPICION + + +1 + +It was rather a strange, sad life into which we settled down after the +inquest and funeral. Jane remained in her little Hampstead house; she +said she preferred it, though, particularly in view of the dear little +new life due in January or so, I wanted her to be at Potter's Bar with +us. I went up to see her very often; I was not altogether satisfied about +her, though outwardly she went on much as of old, going to see her +friends, writing, and not even wearing black. But I am no stickler for +that heathen custom. + +It was, however, about Clare that I was chiefly troubled. The poor child +did not seem able to rally from her shock at all. She crept about looking +miserable and strained, and seemed to take an interest in nothing. I sent +her away to her aunt at Bournemouth for a change; Bournemouth has not +only sea air but ritualistic churches of the kind she likes; but I do not +think it did her much good. Her affection for poor Oliver had, indeed, +gone very deep, and she has a very faithful heart. + +Percy appointed the _Haste's_ assistant editor to the editorship; he had +not Oliver's flair, Percy said, but he did very well on the lines laid +out for him. There was a rumour in Fleet Street that the proprietors of +the _Weekly Fact_ meant to start a daily, under the editorship of that +man Gideon, and that it would have for its special object a campaign +against our press. But they would have to wait for some time, till the +paper situation was easier. The rumour gave Percy no alarm, for he did +not anticipate a long life for such a venture. A paper under such +management would certainly never, he said, achieve more than a small +circulation. + +Meanwhile, times were very troubled. The Labour people, led astray by +that bad man, Smillie, were becoming more and more extreme in their +demands. Ireland was, as always, very disturbed. The Coalition +Government--not a good government, but, after all, better than any which +would be likely to succeed it--was shaking from one bye-election blow +after another. The French were being disagreeable about Syria, the +Italians about Fiume, and every one about the Russian invasion, or +evacuation, or whatever it was, which even Percy's press joined in +condemning. And coal was exorbitant, and food prices going up, and the +reviews of _Audrey against the World_ most ignorant and unfair. I believe +that that spiteful article of Mr. Gideon's about me did a good deal of +harm among ignorant and careless reviewers, who took their opinions from +others, without troubling to read my books for themselves. So many +reviewers are like that--stupid and prejudiced people, who cannot think +for themselves, and often merely try to be funny about a book instead of +giving it fair criticism. Of course, that _Fact_ article was merely +comic; I confess I laughed at it, though I believe it was meant to be +taken very solemnly. But I was always like that. I know it is shocking of +me, but I have to laugh when people are pompous and absurd; my sense of +the ridiculous is too strong for me. + +After Oliver's death, I did not recognise Mr. Gideon when I met him, not +in the least on personal grounds, but because I definitely wished to +discourage his intimacy with my family. But we had one rather strange +interview. + + +2 + +I was going to see Jane one afternoon, soon after the tragedy, and as I +was emerging from the tube station I met Mr. Gideon. We were face to +face, so I had to bow, which I did very coldly, and I was surprised when +he stopped and said, in that morose way of his, 'You're going to see +Jane, aren't you, Lady Pinkerton?' + +I inclined my head once more. The man stood at my side, staring at the +ground and fidgeting, and biting his finger-nail in that disagreeable way +he has. Then he said, 'Lady Pinkerton, Jane's unhappy.' + +The impertinence of the man! Who was he to tell me that of my own +daughter, a widow of a few weeks? + +'Naturally,' I replied very coolly. 'It would be strange indeed if she +were not.' + +'Oh, well--' he made a queer, jerking movement. + +'You'll say it's not my business. But please don't ... er ... let +people worry her--get on her nerves. It does rather, you know. And--and +she's not fit.' + +'I'm afraid,' I said, putting up my lorgnette, 'I do not altogether +understand you, Mr. Gideon. I am naturally acquainted with my daughter's +state better than any one else can be.' + +'It gets on her nerves,' he muttered again. Then, after a moment of +silent hesitation, he half shrugged his shoulders, mumbled, 'Oh, well,' +and jerked away. + +A strange person! Amazingly rude and ill-bred. To take upon himself to +warn me to take care of my own child! And _what_ did he mean 'got on her +nerves?' I really began to think he must be a little mad. But one thing +was apparent; his feeling towards Jane was, as I had long suspected, much +warmer than was right in the circumstances. He had, I made no doubt, come +from her just now. + +I found Jane silent and unresponsive. She was not writing when I came in, +but sitting doing nothing. She said nothing to me about Mr. Gideon's +call, till I mentioned him myself. Then she seemed to stiffen a little; I +saw her hands clench over the arms of her chair. + +'His manner was very strange,' I said. 'I couldn't help wondering if he +had been having anything.' + +'If he was drunk, you mean,' said Jane. 'I dare say.' + +'Then he _does_!' I cried, a little surprised. + +Jane said not that she knew of. But every one did sometimes. Which was +just the disagreeable, cynical way of talking that I regret in her and +Johnny. As if she did not know numbers of straight, clean-living, decent +men and women who never had too much in their lives. But, anyhow, it +convinced me that Mr. Gideon _did_ drink too much, and that she knew it. + +'He had been here, I suppose,' I said gently, because I didn't want to +seem stern. + +'Yes,' said Jane, and that was all. + +'My dear,' I said, after a moment, laying my hand on hers, 'is this man +worrying you ... with attentions?' + +Jane laughed, an odd, hard laugh that I didn't like. + +'Oh, no,' she said. 'Oh, dear no, mother.' + +She got up and began to walk about the room. + +'Never mind Arthur,' she said. 'I wouldn't let him get on my mind if I +were you, mother.... Let's talk about something else--baby, if you like.' + +I perceived from this that Jane was really anxious to avoid discussion of +this man, for she did not as a rule encourage me to talk to her about the +little life which was coming, as we hoped, next spring. So I turned from +the subject of Arthur Gideon. But it remained on my mind. + + +3 + +You know how, sometimes, one wakes suddenly in the night with an +extraordinary access of clearness of vision, so that a dozen small things +which have occurred during the day and passed without making much +apparent impression on one's mind stand out sharp and defined in a row, +like a troop of soldiers with fixed bayonets all pointing in one +direction. You look where they are pointing--and behold, you see some new +fact which you never saw before, and you cannot imagine how you came to +have missed it. + +It was in this way that I woke in the middle of the night after I had met +Arthur Gideon in Hampstead. All in a row the facts stood, pointing. + +Mr. Gideon had been in the house only a few minutes before Oliver +was killed. + +He and Oliver hated each other privately, and had been openly +quarrelling in the press for some time. He had an intimacy with Jane +which Oliver disliked. + +Oliver must have been displeased at his coming home that evening +with Jane. + +Gideon drank. + +Gideon now had something on his mind which made him even more peculiar +than usual. + +Jane had been very strange and secretive about his visit there on the +fatal evening. + +He and Oliver had probably quarrelled. + +Only Jane had seen Oliver fall. + + * * * * * + +Had she? + + * * * * * + +HOW HAD THAT QUARREL ENDED? + +This awful question shot into my mind like an arrow, and I sat straight +up in bed with a start. + +How, indeed? + +I shuddered, but unflinchingly faced an awful possibility. + +If it were indeed so, it was my duty to leave no stone unturned to +discover and expose the awful truth. Painful as it would be, I must +not shrink. + +A second terrible question came to me. If my suspicion were correct, how +much did Jane know or guess? Jane had been most strange and reserved. I +remembered how she had run down to meet the wretched man that first +morning, when we were there; I remembered her voice, rather hurried, +saying, 'Arthur! Mother and dad are upstairs. Come in here,' and how +she took him into the dining-room alone. + +Did Jane know all? Or did she only suspect? I could scarcely believe that +she would wish to shield her husband's murderer, if he were that. Yet.... +why had she told me that she had seen the accident herself? If, indeed, +my terrible suspicion were justified, and if Jane was in the secret, it +seemed to point to a graver condition of things than I had supposed. No +girl would lie to shield her husband's murderer unless ... unless she was +much fonder of him than a married woman has any right to be. + +I resolved quickly, as I always do. First, I must save my child from this +awful man. + +Secondly, I must discover the truth as expeditiously as possible, +shrinking from no means. + +Thirdly, if I discovered the worst, and it had to be exposed, I must see +that Jane's name was kept entirely out of it. The journalistic squabbles +and mutual antipathy of the two men would be all that would be necessary +to account for their quarrel, together with Gideon's probably intoxicated +state that evening. + +I heard Percy moving downstairs still, and I nearly went down to him to +communicate my suspicions to him at once. But, on second thoughts, I +refrained. Percy was worried with a great many things just now. Besides, +he might only laugh at me. I would wait until I had thought it over and +had rather more to go on. Then I would tell him, and he should make what +use he liked of it in the papers. How interested he would be if the man +who was one of his bitterest journalistic foes, who fought so venomously +everything that he and his press stood for, and who was the +editor-designate of the possible new anti-Pinkerton daily, should be +proved to be the murderer of his son-in-law. What a _scoop_! The vulgar +journalese slang slid into my mind strangely, as light words will in +grave moments. + +But I pulled myself together. I was going too far ahead. After all, I +was still merely in the realms of fancy and suspicion. It is true that I +have queer, almost uncanny intuitive powers, which have seldom failed me. +But still, I had as yet little to go on. + +With an effort of will, I put the matter out of my mind and tried to +sleep. Counsel would, I felt sure, come in the morning. + + +4 + +It did. I woke with the words ringing in my head as if some one had +spoken them--'Why not consult Amy Ayres?' + +Of course! That was the very thing. I would go that afternoon. + +Amy Ayres had been a friend of mine from girlhood. We had always been in +the closest sympathy, although our paths had diverged greatly since we +were young. We had written our first stories together for _Forget-me-not_ +and _Hearth and Home_, and together enjoyed the first sweets of success. +But, while I had pursued the literary path, Amy had not. Her interests +had turned more and more to the occult. She had fallen in with and +greatly admired Mrs. Besant. When her husband (a Swedenborgian minister) +left her at the call of his conscience to convert the inhabitants of Peru +to Swedenborgianism, and finally lost his life, under peculiarly painful +circumstances, in the vain attempt, Amy turned for relief to +spiritualism, which was just then at its zenith of popularity. At first +she practised it privately and unofficially, with a few chosen friends, +for it was something very sacred to her. But gradually, as she came to +discover in herself wonderful powers of divination and spiritual +receptivity, and being very poor at the time, she took it up as a +calling. She is the most wonderful palm-reader and crystal-gazer I have +come across. I have brought people to her of whom she has known nothing +at all, and she has, after close study and brief, earnest prayer, read in +their hands their whole temperament, present circumstances, past history, +and future destiny. I have often tried to persuade Percy to go to her, +for I think it would convince him of that vast world of spiritual +experience which lies about him, and to which he is so blind. If I have +to pass on before Percy, he will be left bereaved indeed, unless I can +convince him of Truth first. + + +5 + +I went to see Amy in her little Maid of Honour house in Kensington that +very afternoon. + +I found her reading Madame Blavatski (that strange woman) in her little +drawing-room. + +Amy has not worn, perhaps, quite so well as I have. She has to make up a +little too thickly. I sometimes wish she would put less black round her +eyes; it gives her a stagey look, which I think in her particular +profession it is most important not to have, as people are in any case so +inclined to doubt the genuineness of those who deal in the occult. +Besides, what an odd practice that painting the face black in patches is! +As unlike real life as a clown's red nose, though I suppose less +unbecoming. I myself only use a little powder, which is so necessary in +hot, or, indeed, cold weather. + +However, this is a digression. I kissed Amy, and said, 'My dear, I am +here on business to-day. I am in great perplexity, and I want you to +discover something from the crystal. Are you in the mood this afternoon?' +For I have enough of the temperament myself to know that crystal-gazing, +even more than literary composition, must wait on mood. Fortunately, Amy +said she was in a most favourable condition for vision, and I told her as +briefly as possible that I wished to learn about the circumstances +attendant on the death of Oliver Hobart. I wished her to visualise Oliver +as he stood that evening at the top of those dreadful stairs, and to +watch the manner of his fall. I told her no more, for I wanted her to +approach the subject without prejudice. + +Without more ado, we went into the room which Amy called her Temple of +Vision, and Amy got to work. + + +6 + +I was travelling by the 6.28 back to Potter's Bar. I lay back in my +corner with closed eyes, recalling the events of that wonderful afternoon +in the darkened, scented room. It had been a strange, almost overwhelming +experience. I had been keyed up to a point of tension which was almost +unendurable, while my friend gazed and murmured into the glass ball. +These glimpses into the occult are really too much for my system; they +wring my nerves. I could have screamed when Amy said, 'Wait--wait--the +darkness stirs. I see--I see--a fair man, with the face of a Greek god.' + +'Is he alone?' I whispered. + +'He is not alone. He is talking to a tall dark man.' + +'Yes--yes?' I bent forward eagerly, as she paused and seemed to brood +over the clear depths where, as I knew, she saw shadows forming and +reforming. + +'They talk,' she murmured. 'They talk.' + +(Knowing that she could not, unfortunately, hear what they said, I +did not ask.) + +'They are excited.... They are quarrelling.... Oh, God!' She hid her eyes +for a moment, then looked again. + +'The dark man strikes the fair man.... He is taken by surprise; he steps +backward and falls ... falls backwards ... down ... out of my vision.... +The dark man is left standing alone.... He is fading ... he is gone.... I +can see him no more.... Leila, I have come to an end; I am overdone; I +must rest.' + +She had fallen back with closed eyes. + +A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had +put a few questions to her. She had told me little more than what she had +revealed as she gazed into the crystal. But it was enough. She knew the +fair man for Oliver, for she had seen him at the wedding. She had not +seen the dark man's face, nor had she ever met Arthur Gideon, but her +description of him was enough for me. + +I had left the house morally certain that Arthur Gideon had murdered (or +anyhow manslaughtered) Oliver Hobart. + + +7 + +I told Percy that evening, after Clare had gone to bed. I had confidence +in Percy: he would believe me. His journalistic instinct for the truth +could be counted on. He never waived things aside as improbable, for he +knew, as I knew, how much stranger truth may be than fiction. He heard +me out, nodding his head sharply from time to time to show that he +followed me. + +When I had done, he said, 'You were right to tell me. We must look into +it. It will, if proved true, make a most remarkable story. Most +sensational and remarkable.' He turned it over in that acute, quick +brain of his. + +'We must go carefully,' he said. 'Remember we haven't much to go on yet.' + +He didn't believe in the crystal-gazing, of course, so had less to go on +than I had. All he saw was the inherent possibility of the story +(knowing, as he did, the hatred that had existed between the two men) and +the damning fact of Gideon's presence at the house that evening. + +'We must be careful,' he repeated. 'Careful, for one thing, not to +start talk about the fellow's friendship with Jane. We must keep Jane +out of it all.' + +On that we were agreed. + +'I think we must ask Clare a few questions,' said Percy. + +He did so next day, without mentioning our suspicion. But Clare could +still scarcely bear to speak of that terrible evening, poor child, and +returned incoherent answers. She knew Mr. Gideon had been in the +house, but didn't know what time he had gone, nor the exact time of +the accident. + +I resolved to question Emily, Jane's little maid, more closely, and did +so when I went there that afternoon. She was certainly more +circumstantial than she had been when she had told me the story before, +in the first shock and confusion of the disaster. I gathered from her +that she had heard her master and Mr. Gideon talking immediately before +the fall; she had been surprised when her mistress had said that Mr. +Gideon had left the house before the fall. She thought, from the sounds, +that he must have left the house immediately afterwards. + +'It is possible,' I said, 'that Mrs. Hobart did not know precisely when +Mr. Gideon left the house. It was all very confusing.' + +'Oh, my lady, indeed it was,' Emily agreed. 'I'm sure I hope I shall +never have such a night again.' + +I said nothing to Jane of my suspicion. If I was right in thinking that +the poor misguided child was shielding her husband's murderer, from +whatever motives of pity or friendship, the less said to disturb her the +better, till we were sure of our ground. + +But I talked to a few other people about it, on whose discretion I could +rely. I tried to find out, and so did Percy, what was this man's record. +What transpired of it was not reassuring. His father was, as we knew +before, a naturalised Russian Jew, presumably of the lowest class in his +own land, though well educated from childhood in this country. He was, as +every one knew, a big banker, and mixed up, no doubt, with all sorts of +shady finance. Some people said he was probably helping to finance the +Bolsheviks. His daughter had married a Russian Jewish artist. Jane knew +this artist and his wife well, at that silly club of hers. Arthur Gideon, +on coming of age, had reverted to his patronymic name, enamoured, it +seemed, of his origin. He had, of course, to fight in the war, loath +though he no doubt was. But directly it was over, or rather directly he +was discharged wounded, he took to shady journalism. + +Hardly a reassuring record! Add to it the ill-starred influence he had +always attempted to exert over Johnny and Jane (he had, even in Oxford +days, brought out their worst side) his quarrels with Oliver in the +press, his unconcealed hatred of what he was pleased to call 'Potterism' +(he was president of the foolish so-called 'Anti-Potter League'), his +determined intimacy with Jane against her husband's wishes, and Jane's +own implication that he at times drank too much--and you had a picture of +a man unlikely to inspire confidence in any impartial mind. + +Anyhow, most of the people to whom I broached the unpleasant subject (and +I saw no reason why I should not speak freely of my suspicion) seemed to +think the man's guilt only too likely. + +Some of my friends said to me, 'Why not bring a charge against him and +have him arrested and the matter thoroughly investigated?' But Percy told +me we had not enough to go on for that yet. All he would do was to put +the investigation into the hands of a detective, and entrust him with the +business of collecting evidence. + +The only people we kept the matter from were our two daughters. Clare +would have been too dreadfully upset by this raking up of the tragedy, +and Jane could not, in her present state, be disturbed either. + + +8 + +About three weeks after my visit to Amy Ayres, I had rather a trying +meeting with that young clergyman, Mr. Juke, another of the children's +rather queer Oxford friends. He is the son of that bad old Lord +Aylesbury, who married some dreadful chorus girl a year or two ago, and +all his family are terribly fast. We met at a bazaar for starving clergy +at the dear Bishop of London's, to which I had gone with Frank. I think +the clergy very wrong about many things, but I quite agree that we cannot +let them starve. Besides, Peggy had a stall for home-made jam. + +I was buying some Armenian doily, with Clare at my side, when a voice +said, 'Can I speak to you for a moment, Lady Pinkerton?' and, turning +round, Mr. Juke stood close to us. + +I was surprised, for I knew him very little, but I said, 'How do you do, +Mr. Juke. By all means. We will go and sit over there, by the missionary +bookstall.' This was, as it sometimes is, the least frequented stall, so +it was suitable for quiet conversation. + +We left Clare, and went to the bookstall. When we were seated in two +chairs near it, Mr. Juke leant forward, his elbows on his knees, and said +in a low voice, 'I came here to-day hoping to meet you, Lady Pinkerton. I +wanted to speak to you. It's about my friend, Gideon....' + +'Yes,' I helped him out, my interest rising. Had he anything to +communicate to me on that subject? + +The young man went on, staring at the ground between his knees, and it +occurred to me that his profile was very like Granville Barker's. 'I am +told,' he said, in grave, quick, low tones, 'that you are saying things +about him rather indiscriminately. Bringing, in fact, charges against +him--suspicions, rather.... I hardly think you can be aware of the +seriousness of such irresponsible gossip, such--I can't call it anything +but slander--when it is widely circulated. How it grows--spreads from +person to person--the damage, the irreparable damage it may do....' + +He broke off incoherently, and was silent. I confess I was taken aback. +But I stood to my guns. + +'And,' I said, 'if the irresponsible gossip, as you call it, happens to +be true, Mr. Juke? What then?' + +'Then,' he said abruptly, and looked me in the face, '_then,_ Lady +Pinkerton, Gideon should be called on to answer to the charge in a court +of law, not libelled behind his back.' + +'That,' I said, 'will, I hope, Mr. Juke, happen at the proper time. +Meanwhile, I must ask to be allowed to follow my own methods of +investigation in my own way. Perhaps you forget that the matter concerns +the tragic death of my very dear son-in-law. I cannot be expected to let +things rest where they are.' + +'I suppose,' he said, rising as I rose, 'that you can't.' + +'And,' I added, as a parting shot, 'it is always open to Mr. Gideon to +bring a libel action against any one who falsely and publicly accuses +him--_if he likes_.' + +'Yes,' assented the young man. + +I left him standing there, and turned away to speak to Mrs. Creighton, +who was passing. + +I considered that Mr. Juke had been quite in his rights to speak to me as +he had done, and I was not offended. But I must say I think I had the +best of the interview. And it left me with the strong impression that he +knew as well as I did that 'his friend Gideon' would in no circumstances +venture to bring a libel action against any one in this matter. + +I believed that the young clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was +trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that his crime deserved. + +Clare said to me when I rejoined her. 'What did Mr. Juke want to speak to +you about, mother?' + +'Nothing of any importance, dear,' I told her. + +She looked at me in the rather strange, troubled, frowning way she has +now sometimes. + +'Oh, do let's go home, mother,' she said suddenly. 'I'm so tired. And I +don't believe they're really starving a bit, and I don't care if they +are. I do hate bazaars.' + +Clare used once to be quite fond of them. But she seemed to hate so many +things now, poor child. + +I took her home, and that evening I told Percy about my interview +with Mr. Juke. + +'A libel action,' said Percy, 'would be excellent. The very thing. But if +he's guilty, he won't bring one.' + +'Anyhow,' I said, 'I feel it is our duty not to let the affair drop. We +owe it to poor dear Oliver. Even now he may be looking down on us, unable +to rest in perfect peace till he is avenged.' + +'He may, he may, my dear,' said Percy, nodding his head. 'Never know, do +you. Never know anything at all.... On the other hand, he may have lost +his own balance, as they decided at the inquest, and tumbled downstairs +on to his head. Nasty stairs; very nasty stairs. Anyhow, if Gideon didn't +shove him, he's nothing to be afraid of in our talk, and if he did he'll +have to face the music. Troublesome fellow, anyhow. That paper of his +gets worse every week. It ought to be muzzled.' + +I couldn't help wondering how it would affect the _Weekly Fact_ if its +editor were to be arrested on a charge of wilful murder. + + + + +PART IV: + +TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK + + + + +A BRANCH OF STUDY + + +1 + +People are very odd, unreliable, and irregular in their actions and +reactions. You can't count on them as you can on chemicals. I suppose +that merely means that one doesn't know them so well. They are far harder +to know; there is a queer element of muddle about them that baffles one. +You never know when greediness--the main element in most of us--will stop +working, checked by something else, some finer, quite different motive +force. And them checking that again, comes strong emotion, such as love +or hate, overthrowing everything and making chaos. Of course, you may say +these interacting forces are all elements that should be known and +reckoned with beforehand, and it is quite true. That is just the trouble: +one doesn't know enough. + +Though I don't study human nature with the absorption of Laurence Juke +(after all, it's his trade), I find it interesting, like other curious +branches of study. And the more complex and unreliable it is, so much the +more interesting. I'm much more interested, for instance, in Arthur +Gideon, who is surprising and incalculable, than in Jane and Johnny +Potter, who are pushed along almost entirely by one motive--greed. I'm +even less interested in Jane and Johnny than in the rest of their family, +who are the usual British mixture of humbug, sentimentality, +commercialism, and genuine feeling. They represent Potterism, and +Potterism is a wonderful thing. The twins are far too clear-headed to be +Potterites in that sense. You really can, on almost any occasion, say how +they will act. So they are rather dull, as a study, though amusing enough +as companions. + +But Arthur Gideon is full of twists and turns and surprises. He is one of +those rare people who can really throw their whole selves into a +cause--lose themselves for it and not care. (Jukie says that's Christian: +I dare say it is: it is certainly seldom enough found in the world, and +that seems to be an essential quality of all the so-called Christian +virtues, as far as one can see.) + +Anyhow, Arthur's passion for truth, his passion for the first-rate, and +his distaste for untruth and for the second-rate, seemed to be the +supreme motive forces in him, all the years I have known him, until +just lately. + +And then something else came in, apparently stronger than these forces. + +Of course, I knew a long time ago--certainly since he left the army--that +he was in love with Jane. I knew it long before he did. It was a queer +feeling, for it went on, apparently, side by side with impatience and +scorn of her. And it grew and grew. Jane's marriage made it worse. She +worked for him, and they met constantly. And at last it got so that we +all saw it. + +And all the time he didn't like her, because she was second-rate and +commercial, and he was first-rate and an artist--an artist in the sense +that he loved things for what they were, not for what he could get out of +them. Jane was always thinking, 'How can I use this? What can I get out +of it?' She thought it about the war. So did Johnny. She has always +thought it, about everything. It isn't in her not to. And Arthur knew +it, but didn't care; anyhow he loved her all the same. It was as if his +reason and judgment were bowled over by her charm and couldn't help him. + + +2 + +The evening after Oliver Hobart's death, Arthur came in to see me, +about nine o'clock. He looked extraordinarily ill and strained, and was +even more restless and jerky than usual. He looked as if he hadn't +slept at all. + +I was testing some calculations, and he sat on the sofa and smoked. When +I had finished, he said, 'Katherine, what's your view of this business?' + +Of course, I knew he meant Oliver Hobart's death, and how it would affect +Jane. One says exactly what one thinks, to Arthur. So I said, 'It's a +good thing, ultimately, for Jane. They didn't suit. I'm clear it's a good +thing in the end. Aren't you?' + +He made a sharp movement, and pushed back his hair from his forehead. + +'I? I'm clear of nothing.' + +He added, after a moment, 'Is that the way _she_ looks at it, do +you suppose?' + +'I do,' I said. + +He half winced. + +'Then why--why the devil did she marry the poor chap?' + +There was an odd sort of appeal in his voice; appeal against the cruelty +of fate, perhaps, or the perverseness of Jane. + +I told him what I thought, as clearly as I could. + +'She got carried away by the excitement of her life in Paris, and he was +all mixed up with that. I think she felt she would, in a way, be carrying +on the excitement and the life if she married him. And she was knocked +over by his beauty. Then, when the haze and glamour had cleared away, and +she was left face to face with him as a life companion, she found she +couldn't do with him after all. He bored her and annoyed her more and +more. I don't know how long she could have gone on with it; she never +said anything, to me about it. But, now this has happened, what might +have become a great difficulty is solved.' + +'Solved,' he repeated, in a curious, dead voice, staring at the floor. 'I +suppose it is.' + +He was silent for quite five minutes, sitting quite still, with his black +eyes absent and vacant, as if he were very tired. I knew he was trying to +think out some problem, and I supposed I knew what it was. But I couldn't +account then for his extreme unhappiness. + +At last he said, 'Katherine. This is a mess. I can't tell you about it, +but it is a mess. Jane and I are in a mess.... Oh, you've guessed, +haven't you, about Jane and me? Juke guessed.' + +'Yes. I guessed that before Jukie did. Before you did, as a matter of +fact.' + +'You did?' But he wasn't much interested. 'Then you _see_ ...' + +'Not altogether, Arthur. I can't see it's a mess, exactly. A shock, of +course ...' + +He looked at me for a moment, as if he were adjusting his point of +view to mine. + +'Well, no. You wouldn't see it, of course. But there's more to this than +you know--much more. Anyhow, please take my word for it that it _is_ a +mess. A ghastly mess.' + +I took his word for it. As there didn't seem to be any comment to make, I +made none, but waited for him to go on. He went on. + +'And what I wanted to ask you, Katherine, was, can you look after Jane a +little? She'll need it; she needs it. She's got to get through it +somehow.... And that family of hers always buzzing round.... If we could +keep Lady Pinkerton off her ...' + +'You want me to mix a poison for Lady P?' I suggested. + +Arthur must have been very far through, for he actually started. + +'Oh, Heaven forbid.... One sudden death in the family is enough at a +time,' he added feebly, trying to smile. + +'Well,' I said, 'I'll do my best to see after Jane and to counteract the +family.... I've not gone there or written, or anything yet, because I +didn't want to butt in. But I will.' + +'I wish she'd come back here and live with you,' he said. + +To soothe him, I said I would ask her. + +For nearly an hour longer he stayed, not talking much, but smoking hard, +and from time to time jerking out a disconnected remark. I think he +hardly knew what he was saying or doing that evening; he seemed dazed, +and I noticed that his hands were shaking, as if he was feverish, or +drunk, or something. + +When at last he went, he held my hand and wrung it so that it hurt; +this was unusual, too, because we never do shake hands, we meet much +too often. + +I thought it over and couldn't quite understand it all. It even occurred +to me that it was a little Potterish of Arthur to make a conventional +tragic situation out of what he couldn't really mind very much, and to +make out that Jane was overwhelmed by what, I believed, didn't really +overwhelm her. But that didn't do. Arthur was never Potterish. There +must, therefore, be more to this than I understood. + +Unless, of course, it was merely that Arthur was afraid of the effects of +the shock and so on, on Jane's health, because she had a baby coming. But +somehow that didn't really meet the situation. I remembered Arthur's +voice when he said, 'There's more to it than you know.... It _is_ a mess. +A ghastly mess.' + +And another rather queer thing I remembered was that, all through the +evening, he hadn't once met my eyes. An odd thing in Arthur, for he has a +habit of looking at the people he is talking to very straight and hard, +as if to hold their minds to his by his eyes. + +Well, I supposed that in about a year those two would marry, anyhow. And +then they would talk, and talk, and talk.... And Arthur would look at +Jane not only because he was talking to her, but because he liked to look +at her.... They would be all right then, so why should I bother? + + +3 + +I went to see Jane, but found Lady Pinkerton in possession. I saw Jane +for five minutes alone. She was much as I had expected, calm and rather +silent. I asked her to come round to the flat any evening she could. She +came next week, and after that got into the way of dropping in pretty +often, both in the evenings, when I was at home, and during the day, when +I was at the laboratory. She said, 'You see, old thing, mother has got it +into her head that I need company. The only way I can get out of it is to +say I shall be here.... Mother's rather much just now. She's got the +Other Side on the brain, and is trying to put me in touch with it. She +reads me books called _Letters from the Other Side_, and _Hands Across +the Grave_, and so on. And she talks ...' + +Jane pushed back her hair from her forehead and leant her head on her +hand. + +'In what mother calls "my condition,"' she went on, 'I don't think I +ought to be worried, do you? I wish baby would come at once, so that I +shouldn't be in a condition any more.... I'm really awfully fond of baby, +but I shall get to hate it if I'm reminded of it much more.... What a +rotten system it is, K. Why haven't we evolved a better one, all these +centuries?' + +I couldn't imagine why, except for the general principle that as the +mental equipment of the human race improves, its physical qualities +apparently deteriorate. + +'And where will that land us in the end?' Jane speculated. 'Shall we be a +race of clever crocks, or shall we give up civilisation and education and +be robust imbeciles?' + +'Either,' I said, 'will be an improvement on the present regime, of +crocky imbeciles.' + +We would talk like that, of things in general, in the old way. Jane, +indeed, would have moods in which she would talk continuously, and I +would suddenly think, watching her, 'You're trying to hide from +something--to talk it down.' + + +4 + +And then one evening Arthur and she met at my flat. Jane had been having +supper with me, and Arthur dropped in. + +Jane said, 'Hallo, Arthur,' and Arthur said, 'Oh, hallo,' and I saw +plainly that the last person either had wanted to meet was the other. + +Arthur didn't stay at all. He said he had come to speak to me about a +review he wanted me to do. It wasn't necessary that he should speak to me +about it at all; he had already sent me the book, and I hadn't yet read +it, and it was on a subject he knew nothing at all about, and there was +nothing whatever to say. However, he succeeded in saying something, then +went away. + +Jane had hardly spoken to him or looked at him. She was reading an +evening paper. + +She put it down when he had gone. + +'Does Arthur come in often?' she asked me casually, lighting another +cigarette. + +'No. Sometimes.' + +After a minute or two, Jane said, 'Look here, K, I'll tell you something. +I'm not particularly keen on meeting Arthur for the present. Nor he me.' + +'That's not exactly news, my dear.' + +'No; it fairly stuck out just now, didn't it? Well, the fact is, we both +want a little time to collect ourselves, to settle how we stand.... +Sudden deaths are a bad jar, K. They break things up.... Arthur and I +were more friends than Oliver liked, you know. He didn't like Arthur, and +didn't like my going about with him.... Oh, well, you know all that as +well as I do, of course.... And now he's dead.... It seems to spoil +things a bit.... I hate meeting Arthur now.' + +And then an extraordinary thing happened. Jane, whom I had never seen +cry, broke down quite suddenly and cried. Of course it would have seemed +quite natural in most people, but tears are as surprising in Jane as they +would be in me. They aren't part of her equipment. However, she was out +of health just now, of course, and had had a bad shock, and was +emotionally overwrought; and, anyhow, she cried. + +I mixed her some sal volatile, which, I understand, is done in these +crises. She drank it, and stopped crying soon. + +'Sorry to be such an ass,' she said, more in her normal tone. 'It's this +beastly baby, I suppose.... Well, look here, K, you see what I mean. +Arthur and I don't want to meet just now. If he's likely to come in much, +I must give up coming, that's all.' + +'I'll tell him,' I said, 'that you're often here. If he doesn't want to +meet you either, that ought to settle it.' + +'Thanks, old thing, will you?' + +Jane was the perfect egotist. If it ever occurred to her that possibly +Arthur would like to see me sometimes, and I him, she would not think it +mattered. She wanted to come to my flat, and she didn't want to meet +Arthur; therefore Arthur mustn't come. Life's little difficulties are +very simply arranged by the Potter twins. + + +5 + +Then, for nine days, we none of us thought or talked much about anything +but the railway strike. The strike was rather like the war. The same old +cries began again--carrying on, doing one's bit, seeing it through, +fighting to a finish, enemy atrocities (only now they were called +sabotage), starving them out, gallant volunteers, the indomitable +Britisher, cheeriest always in disaster (what a hideous slander!), +innocent women and children. I never understood about these, at least +about the women. Why is it worse that women should suffer than men? As +to innocence, they have no more of that than men. I'm not innocent, +particularly, nor are the other women I know. But they are always +classed with children, as sort of helpless imbeciles who must be kept +from danger and discomfort. I got sick of it during the war. The people +who didn't like the blockade talked about starving women and children, +as if it was somehow worse that women should starve than men. Other +people (quite other) talked of our brave soldiers who were fighting to +defend the women and children of their country, or the dastardly air +raids that killed women and children. Why not have said +'non-combatants,' which makes sense? There were plenty of male +non-combatants, unfit or over age or indispensable, and it was quite as +bad that they should be killed--worse, I suppose, when they were +indispensable. Very few women or children are that. + +So now the appeal to strikers which was published in the advertisement +columns of the papers at the expense of 'a few patriotic citizens' +said, 'Don't bring further hardship and suffering upon the innocent +women and children.... Save the women and children from the terror of +the strike.' Fools. + +In another column was the N.U.R. advertisement, and that was worse. There +was a picture of a railwayman looking like a consumptive in the last +stages, and embracing one of his horrible children while his more +horrible wife and mother supported the feeble heads of others, and under +it was written, 'Is this man an anarchist? He wants a wage to keep his +family,' and it was awful to think that he and his family would perhaps +get the wage and be kept after all. The question about whether he was an +anarchist was obviously unanswerable without further data, as there was +nothing in the picture to show his political convictions; they might, +from anything that appeared, have been liberal, tory, labour, socialist, +anarchist, or coalition-unionist. And anyhow, supposing that he had been +an anarchist, he would still, presumably, have wanted a wage to keep his +family. Anarchists are people who disapprove of authority, not of wages. +The member of the N.U.R. who composed that picture must have had a +muddled mind. But so many people have, and so many people use words in an +odd sense, that you can't find in the dictionary. Bolshevist, for +instance. Lloyd George called the strikers Bolshevists, so did plenty of +other people. None of them seem to have any very clear conception of the +political convictions of the supporters of the Soviet government in +Russia. To have that you would need to think and read a little, whereas +to use the word as a vague term of abuse, you need only to feel, which +many people find much easier. Some people use the word capitalist in the +same way, as a term of abuse, meaning really only 'rich person.' If they +stopped to think of the meaning of the word, they would remember that it +means merely a person who uses what money he has productively, instead of +hoarding it in a stocking. + +But 'capitalist' and 'Bolshevist' were both flung about freely during the +strike, by the different sides. Emotional unrest, I suppose. People get +excited, and directly they get excited they get sentimental and confused. +The daily press did, on both sides. I don't know which was worse. The +Pinkerton press blossomed into silly chit-chat about noblemen working on +under ground trains. As a matter of fact, most of the volunteer workers +were clerks and tradesmen and working men, but these weren't so +interesting to talk about, I suppose. + +The _Fact_ became more than ever precise and pedantic and clear-headed, +and what people call dull. It didn't take sides: it simply gave, in more +detail than any other paper, the issues, and the account of the +negotiations, and had expert articles on the different currents of +influence on both sides. It didn't distort or conceal the truth in either +direction. + +I met Lady Pinkerton one evening at Jane's. She would, of course, come up +to town, though the amateur trains were too full without her. She said, +'Of course They hate us. They want a Class War.' + +Jane said, 'Who are They, and who are Us?' and she said 'The working +classes, of course. They've always hated us. They're Bolshevists at +heart. They won't be satisfied till they've robbed us of all we have. +They hate us. That is why they are striking. We must crush them this +time, or it will be the beginning of the end.' + +I said, 'Oh. I thought they were striking because they wanted the +principle of standardisation of rates of wages for men in the same grade +to be applied to other grades than drivers and firemen.' + +Lady Pinkerton was bored. I imagine she understands about hate and love +and envy and greed and determination, and other emotions, but not much +about rates of wages. So she likes to talk about one but not about the +other. All, for instance, that she knows about Bolshevism is its +sentimental side--how it is against the rich, and wants to nationalise +women and murder the upper classes. She doesn't know about any of the +aspects of the Bolshevist constitution beyond those which she can take in +through her emotions. She would find the others dull, as she finds +technical wage questions. That's partly why she hates the _Fact_. If she +happened to be on the other side, she would talk the same tosh, only use +'capitalist' for 'Bolshevist.' + +She said, 'Anyhow, whatever the issue, the blood of the country is up. We +must fight the thing through. It is splendid the way the upper classes +are stepping into the breach on the railways. I honour them. I only hope +they won't all be murdered by these despicable brutes.' + +That was the way she talked. Plenty of people did, on both sides. +Especially, I am afraid, innocent women. I suppose they were too innocent +to talk about facts. + +After all, the country didn't have to fight the thing through for very +long, and there were no murders, for the strike ended on October the 5th. + + +6 + +That same week, Jukie came in to see me. Jukie doesn't often come, +because his evenings are apt to be full. A parson's work seems to be like +a woman's, never done. From 8 to 11 p.m. seems to be one of the great +times for doing it. Probably Jukie had to cut some of it the evening he +came round to Gough Square. + +I always like to see Jukie. He's entertaining, and knows about such queer +things, that none of the rest of us know, and believes such incredible +things, that none of the rest of us believe. Besides, like Arthur, he's +all out on his job. He's still touchingly full of faith, even after all +that has and hasn't happened, in a new heaven and a new earth. He +believed at that time that the League of Nations was going to kill war, +that the Labour Party were going to kill industrial inequity, that the +country was going to kill the Coalition Government, that the Christian +Church was going to kill selfishness, that some one was going to kill +Horatio Bottomley, and that we were all going to kill Potterism. A +perfect orgy of murders, as Arthur said, and all of them so improbable. + +Jukie is curate in a slummy parish near Covent Garden. He succeeds, +apparently, in really being friends--equal and intimate friends--with a +lot of the men in his parish, which is queer for a person of his kind. I +suppose he learnt how while he was in the ranks. He deserved to; Arthur +told me that he had persistently refused promotion because he wanted to +go on living with the men; and that's not a soft job, from all accounts, +especially for a clean and over-fastidious person like Jukie. Of course +he's very popular, because he's very attractive. And, of course, it's +spoilt him a little. I never knew a very popular and attractive person +who wasn't a little spoilt by it; and in Jukie's case it's a pity, +because he's too good for that sort of thing, but it hasn't really +damaged him much. + +He came in that evening saying, 'Katherine, I want to speak to you,' and +sat down looking rather worried and solemn. He plunged into it at once, +as he always does. + +'Have you heard any talk lately about Gideon?' he asked me. + +'Nothing more interesting than usual,' I said. 'But I seldom hear talk. I +don't mix enough. We don't gossip much in the lab, you know. I look to +you and my Fleet Street friends for spicy personal items. What's the +latest about Arthur?' + +'Just this,' he said. 'People are going about saying that he pushed +Hobart downstairs.' + +I felt then as if I had known all along that of course people were +saying that. + +'Then why isn't he arrested?' I asked stupidly. + +'He probably will be, before long,' said Jukie. 'There's no evidence yet +to arrest him on. At present it's merely talk, started by that Pinkerton +woman, and sneaking about from person to person in the devilish way such +talk does.... I was with Gideon yesterday, and saw two people cut him +dead.... You see, it's all so horribly plausible; every one knows they +hated each other and had just quarrelled; and it seems he was there that +night, just before it happened. He went home with Jane.' + +I remembered that they had left my place together. But neither Arthur +nor Jane had told me that he had gone home with her. + +'The inquest said it was accidental,' I said, protesting against +something, I didn't quite know what. + +Jukie shrugged his shoulders. + +'That's not very likely to stop people talking.' + +He added after a moment, 'But it's got to be stopped somehow.... I went +to an awful bazaar this afternoon, on purpose to meet that woman. I met +her. I spoke to her. I told her to chuck it. She as good as told me she +wasn't going to. I mentioned the libel law--she practically dared Gideon +to use it against her. She means to go on. She's poisoning the air with +her horrible whispers and slanders. Why can't some one choke her? What +can we do about it, that's the question? Ought one of us to tell Gideon? +I'm inclined to think we ought.' + +'Are you sure he doesn't know it already?' + +'No, I'm not sure. Gideon knows most things. But the person concerned is +usually the last to hear such talk. And, in case he has no suspicion, I +think we should tell him.' + +'And get him to issue, through the _Fact_, a semi-official declaration +that "the whole story is a tissue of lies."' + +Then I wished I hadn't used that particular phrase. It was an unfortunate +one. It suggested a similarity between Lady Pinkerton's story and Mr. +Bullitt's, between Arthur Gideon's denial and Lloyd George's. + +Jukie's eyes met mine swiftly, not dreamy and introspective as usual, but +keen and thoughtful. + +'Katherine,' he said, 'we may as well have this out. It won't hurt Gideon +here. _Is_ it a lie? I believe so, but, frankly, I don't feel certain. I +don't know what to think. Do you?' + +I considered it, looking at it all ways. The recent past, Arthur's +attitude and Jane's, were all lit up by this horrible flare of light +which was turned upon them. + +'No,' I said at last. 'I don't know, either.... We can't assume for +certain that it is a lie.' + +Jukie let out a long breath, and leant forward in his chair, resting his +head on his hands. + +'Poor old Gideon,' he said. 'It might have happened, without any +intention on his part. If Hobart found him there with Jane ... and if +they quarrelled ... Gideon's got a quick temper, and Hobart always made +him see red.... He might have hit him--pushed him down, without meaning +to injure him--and then it would be done. And then--if he did it--he must +have left the house at once ... perhaps not knowing he'd killed him. +Perhaps he didn't know till afterwards. And then Jane might have asked +him not to say anything ... I don't know. I don't know. Perhaps it's +nonsense; perhaps it _is_ a tissue of lies. I hope to God it is.... I +only know one thing that makes me even suspect it may be true, and that +is that Gideon has been absolutely miserable, and gone about like a man +half stunned, ever since it happened. _Why_?' + +He shot the question at me, hoping I had some answer. But I had none. I +shook my head. + +'Well,' said Jukie sadly, 'it isn't, I suppose, our business whether he +did or didn't do it. That's between him and--himself. But it _is_ our +business, whether he's innocent or guilty, to put him on his guard +against this talk. It's for you or me to do that, Katherine. Will you?' + +'If you like.' + +'I'd rather you did it, if you will ... I think he's less likely to +think that you're trying to find things out.... You see, I warned him +once before, about another thing, and he might think I was linking it in +my mind with that.' + +'With Jane,' I said, and he nodded. + +'Yes. With Jane ... I spoke to him about Jane a few days before it +happened. I thought it might be some use. But I think it only made things +worse.... I'd rather leave this to you, unless you hate it too much.... +Oh, it's all pretty sickening, isn't it? Gideon--_Gideon_ in this sort of +mess. Gideon, the best of the lot of us.... You see, even if it's all +moonshine about Hobart, as I'm quite prepared to believe it probably is, +he's gone and given plausibility to the yarn by falling in love with +Hobart's wife. Nothing can get round that. Why couldn't he have chucked +it--gone away--anything--when he felt it coming on? A strong, fine, keen +person like that, to be bowled over by his sloppy emotions and dragged +through the mud, like any beastly sensualist, or like one of my own +cheery relations.... I'd rather he'd done Hobart in. There'd have been +some sense about that, if he had. After all, it would have been striking +a blow against Potterism. Only, if he did do it, it would be more like +him to face the music and own to it. What I can't fit into the picture is +Gideon sneaking away in the dark, afraid ... Oh well, it's not my +business ... Good-night, Katherine. You'll do it at once, won't you? Ring +him up to-morrow and get him to dine with you or something. If there's +any way of stopping that poisonous woman's tongue, we'll find it.... +Meanwhile, I shall tell our parish workers that Leila Yorke's works are +obscene, and that they're not to read them to mother's meetings as is +their habit.' + +I sat up till midnight, wondering how on earth I was going to put it +to Arthur. + + +7 + +I didn't dine with Arthur. I thought it would last too long, and that he +might want me to go, and that I should certainly want to go, after I had +said what I had to say. So I rang him up at the office and asked if he +could lunch. Not at the club; it's too full of people we know, who keep +interrupting, and who would be tremendously edified at catching murmurs +about libel and murder and Lady Pinkerton being poisoned. So I said the +Temple Bar restaurant in Fleet Street, a disagreeable place, but so noisy +and crowded that you can say what you like unheard--unheard very often by +the person you are addressing, and certainly by every one else. + +We sat downstairs, at a table at the back, and there I told him, in what +hardly needed to be an undertone, of the rumours that were being +circulated about him. I felt like a horrid woman in a village who repeats +spiteful gossip and says, 'I'm telling you because I think you ought to +know what's being said.' As a matter of fact, this was the one and only +case I have ever come across in which I have thought the person concerned +ought to know what was being said. As a rule, it seems the last thing +they ought to know. + +He listened, staring at the tablecloth and crumbling his bread. + +'Thank you,' he said, 'for telling me. As a matter of fact, I knew. +Or, anyhow, guessed.... But I'm not sure that anything can be done +to stop it.' + +'Unless,' I said, looking away from him, 'you could find grounds for a +libel action. You might ask a lawyer.' + +'No,' he returned quickly. 'That's quite impossible. Out of the +question.... There are no grounds. And I wouldn't if there were. I'm not +going to have the thing made a show of in the courts. It's exactly what +the Pinkertons would enjoy--a first-class Pinkerton scoop. No, I shall +let it alone.' + +'Is there no way of stopping it, then?' I asked. + +'Only one,' he murmured, absently, beneath his breath, then caught +himself up. 'I don't know. I think not.' + +I didn't make any further suggestions. What was the good of +advising him to remonstrate with the Pinkertons? If they were +lying, it was the obvious course. If they weren't, it was an +impossible one. I let it alone. + +Arthur was frowning as he ate cold beef. + +'There's one thing,' he said. 'Does Jane know what is being said? Do you +suppose her parents have talked about it to her?' + +I said I didn't know, and he went on frowning. Then he murdered a wasp +with his knife--a horrible habit at meals, but one practised by many +returned soldiers, who kill all too readily. I suppose after killing all +those Germans, and possibly Oliver Hobart, a wasp seems nothing. + +'Well,' he said absently, when he was through with the wasp, 'I don't +know. I don't know,' and he seemed, somehow, helpless and desperate, as +if he had come to the end of his tether. + +'I must think it over,' he said. And then he suddenly began to talk about +something else. + + +8 + +Arthur's manner, troubled rather than indignant, had been against him. He +had dismissed the idea of a libel action, and not proposed to confront +his libellers in a personal interview. Every circumstance seemed against +him. I knew that, as I walked back to the laboratory after lunch. + +And yet--and yet. + +Well, perhaps, as Jukie would say, it wasn't my business. My business at +the moment was to carry on investigations into the action of +carbohydrates. Arthur Gideon had nothing to do with this, nor I with his +private slayings, if any. + +I wrote to Jukie that evening and told him I had warned Arthur, who +apparently knew already what was being said, but didn't seem to be +contemplating taking any steps about it. + +So that was that. + +Or so I thought at the time. But it wasn't. Because, when I had posted my +letter to Jukie, and sat alone in my room, smoking and thinking, at last +with leisure to open my mind to all the impressions and implications of +the day (I haven't time for this in the laboratory), I began to fumble +for and find a new clue to Arthur's recent oddness. For twenty-four hours +I had believed that he had perhaps killed Oliver Hobart. Now, suddenly I +didn't. But I was clear that there was something about Oliver Hobart's +death which concerned him, touched him nearly, and after a moment it +occurred to me what it might be. + +'He suspects that Jane did it,' I said, slowly and aloud. 'He's trying to +shield her.' + +With that, everything that had seemed odd about the business became +suddenly clear--Arthur's troubled strangeness, Jane's dread of meeting +him, her determined avoidance of any reference to that night, her sudden +fit of crying, Arthur's shrinking from the idea of giving the talk +against him publicity by a libel action, his question, 'Does Jane know?' +his remark, to himself, that there was only one way of stopping it. That +one way, of course, would be to make Jane tell her parents the truth, so +that they would be silenced for ever. As it was, the talk might go on, +and at last official investigations might be started, which would lead +somehow to the exposure of the whole affair. The exposure would probably +take the form of a public admission by Jane; I didn't think she would +stand by and see Arthur accused without speaking out. + +So I formed my theory. It was the merest speculation, of course. But it +was obvious that there was something in the manner of Oliver Hobart's +death which badly troubled and disturbed both Arthur and Jane. That being +so, and taking into account their estrangement from one another, it was +difficult not to be forced to the conclusion that one of them knew, or +anyhow guessed, the other to have caused the accident. And, knowing them +both as I did, I believed that if Arthur had done it he would have owned +to it. Wouldn't one own to it, if one had knocked a man downstairs in a +quarrel and killed him? To keep it dark would seem somehow cheap and +timid, not in Arthur's line. + +Unless Jane had asked him to; unless it was for her sake. + +It occurred to me that the thing to do was to go straight to Jane and +tell her what was being said. If she didn't choose to do anything about +it, that was her business, but I was determined she should know. + + +9 + +An hour later I was in Jane's drawing-room. Jane was sitting at her +writing-table, and the room was dim except for the light from the +reading-lamp that made a soft bright circle round her head and shoulders. +She turned round when I came in and said, 'Hallo, K. What an unusual +hour. You must have something very important to say, old thing.' + +'I have rather,' I said, and sat down by her. 'It's this, Jane. Do you +know that people are saying--spreading it about--that Arthur killed +your husband?' + +It was very quiet in the room. For a moment I heard nothing but the +ticking of a small silver clock on the writing-table. Jane sat quite +still, and stared at me, not surprised, not angry, not shocked, but with +a queer, dazed, blind look that reminded me of Arthur's own. + +Then I started, because some one in the farther shadows of the room drew +a long, quivering breath and said 'Oh,' on a soft, long-drawn note. +Looking round, I saw Clare Potter. She had just got up from a chair, and +was standing clutching its back with one hand, looking pale and sick, as +if she was going to faint. + +I hadn't, of course, known Clare was there, or I wouldn't have said +anything. But I was rather irritated; after all, it wasn't her business, +and I thought it rather absurd the way she kept up her attitude of not +being able to bear to hear Oliver Hobart's death mentioned. + +I got up to go. After all, I had nothing more to say. I didn't want to +stop and pry, only to let Jane know. + +But as I turned to go, I remembered that I had one more thing to say. + +'It was Lady Pinkerton who started it and who is keeping it up,' I told +Jane. 'Can you--somehow--stop her?' + +Jane still stared at me, stupidly. After a moment she half whispered, +slowly, 'I--don't--know.' + +I stood looking at her for a second, then I went, without any more words. + +All the way home I saw those two white faces staring at me, and heard +Jane's whisper 'I--don't--know....' + +I didn't know, either. + +I only knew, that evening, one thing--that I hated Jane, who had got +Arthur into this mess, and 'didn't know' whether she could get him out of +it or not. + +And I may as well end what I have got to tell by saying something which +may or may not have been apparent to other people, but which, anyhow, it +would be Potterish humbug on my part to try to hide. For the last five +years I had cared for Arthur Gideon more than for any one else in the +world. I saw no reason why I shouldn't, if I liked. It has never damaged +any one but myself. It has damaged me in two ways--it has made it +sometimes difficult to give my mind to my work, and it has made me, +often, rather degradingly jealous of Jane. However, you would hardly (I +hope) notice it, and anyhow it can't be helped. + + + + +PART V: + +TOLD BY JUKE (IN HIS PRIVATE JOURNAL) + + + + +GIVING ADVICE + + +1 + +It is always rather amusing dining at Aylesbury House, with my +stimulating family. Especially since Chloe, my present stepmother, +entered it, three years ago. Chloe is great fun; much more entertaining +than most variety artists. I know plenty of these, because Wycombe, my +eldest brother, introduces them to me. As a class they seem pleasant and +good-humoured, but a little crude, and lacking in the subtler forms of +wit or understanding. After an hour or so of their company I want to +yawn. But Chloe keeps me going. She is vulgar, but racy. She is also very +kind to me, and insists on coming down to help with theatrical +entertainments in the parish. It is so decent of her that I can't say no, +though she doesn't really fit in awfully well with the O.U.D.S. people, +and the Marlowe Society people, and the others whom I get down for +theatricals. In fact, Elizabethan drama isn't really her touch. However, +the parish prefers Chloe, I need hardly say. + +I dined there on Chloe's birthday, October 15th, when we always have a +family gathering. Family and other. But the family is heterogeneous +enough to make quite a good party in itself. It was represented on that +particular evening by my father and Chloe, my young sister Diana, my +brothers Wycombe and Tony, Tony's wife, myself, my uncle Monsignor Juke, +my aunt the Marchesa Centurione and a daughter, and my Aunt Cynthia, who +had recently, on her own fiftieth birthday, come out of a convent in +which she had spent twenty-five years and was preparing to see Life. +Besides the family, there were two or three theatrical friends of +Chloe's, and two friends of my father's--a youngish literary man called +Bryan, and the cabinet minister to whom Tony was secretary, but whom I +will not name, because he might not care for it to be generally known +that he was an inmate of so fast a household. + +My Aunt Cynthia, having renounced her vows, and having only a +comparatively short time in which to enjoy the world, the flesh and the +devil, is making the most of it. She has only been out of her convent a +year, but is already a spring of invaluable personal information about +men and manners. She knows everything that is being said of everybody +else, and quite a lot that hasn't even got as far as that. Her Church +interests (undiminished in keenness) provide a store of tales +inaccessible to most of my family and their set (except my Uncle +Ferdinand, of course, and his are mostly Roman not Anglican). Aunt +Cynthia has a string of wonderful stories about Cowley Fathers biting +Nestorian Bishops, and Athelstan Riley pinching Hensley Henson, and so +forth. She is as good as Ronnie Knox at producing or inventing them. I'm +not bad myself, when I like, but Aunt Cynthia leaves me out of sight. + +This evening she was full of vim. She usually talks at the top of a very +high and strident voice (I don't know what they did with it at the +convent), and I suddenly heard her screaming to the cabinet minister, +'Haven't you heard _that_? Oh, everybody's quoting it in Fleet Street, +aren't they, Mr. Bryan? But I suppose you never go to Fleet Street, Mr. +Blank; it's so important, isn't it, for the government not to get mixed +up with the press. Well, I'll tell it you. + +'There was a young journalist Yid, +Of his foes of the press he got rid + In ways brief and bright, + For, at dead of the night, +He threw them downstairs, so he did. + +It's about the late editor of the _Daily Haste_ and Mr. Gideon of the +_Weekly Fact_. No, I don't know who's responsible for it, but I believe +it's perfectly true. They're saying so everywhere now. I believe that +awful Pinkerton woman is going about saying she has conclusive evidence; +it's been revealed from the Beyond, I believe; I expect by poor Mr. +Hobart himself. No, I'm sure she didn't make the limerick; she's not a +poet, only a novelist. Perhaps it came from the Beyond, through +planchette. Anyhow, they say Mr. Gideon will be arrested on a murder +charge very shortly, and that there's no doubt he's guilty.' + +I leant across the table. + +'_Who's_ saying so, Aunt Cynthia?' I asked her. + +Aunt Cynthia hates being asked that about her stories. Of course. Every +one does. I do myself. + +Aunt Cynthia looked at me with her childlike convent stare. + +'My dear Laurie, how can I remember who says anything, with every one +saying everything all the time? Who? Why, all sorts of people.... Aren't +they, Chloe?' + +Chloe, who was showing a spoon and glass trick to the Monsignor, said, +'Aren't who what?' + +'Isn't every one saying that Arthur Gideon threw Oliver Hobart downstairs +and killed him?' + +'I expect so, dear. Never heard of either of the gentlemen myself. +And did he?' + +'Of course he did. He's a Jew, and he hated Hobart and his paper like +poison. The _Fact's_ so different, you know. Every one's clear he did +it. Mind you, I don't blame him. The _Daily Haste_ is a vulgar +Protestant rag.' + +'The Jew's a dear friend of Laurie's,' put in Wycombe. 'You'd better be +careful, Aunt Cynthia.' + +'Oh, Laurie dear,' my aunt cried, 'how tactless of me. But, my dear boy, +are you really friends with a Jew, and you a Christian priest?' + +'I'm friends with Gideon. He's a Gentile by religion, by the way; an +ordinary agnostic. Aunt Cynthia, don't go on spreading that nonsense, if +you don't mind. You might contradict it if you hear it again.' + +'Very well, dear. I'll say you have good reason to know it isn't true. +I'll say you've been told who did kill Mr. Hobart, only it was under the +seal, so you can't say. Shall I?' + +'By all means, if you like.' + +Then Aunt Cynthia chased off after another exciting subject, and that was +all about Gideon. + + +2 + +I came away early (about eleven, that is, which is very early for one of +Chloe's evenings, which don't end till summer dawn) feeling more worried +than ever about Gideon. If the gossip about him had penetrated from Lady +Pinkerton's circle to my aunt's, it must be pretty widespread. I was +angry with Aunt Cynthia, and a little with every one I had met that +evening. They were so cheerful, so content with things as they were, +finding all the world such a screaming farce.... I sometimes get my +family on my nerves, when I go there straight from Covent Garden and its +slum babies, and see them spending and squandering and being +irresponsible and dissolute and not caring twopence for the way +two-thirds of the world live. There was Wycombe to-night, with a long +story to tell me about his debts and his amours (he's going to be +co-respondent in a divorce case directly), and Chloe, as hard as nails +beneath her pretty ways, and simply out for a good time, and Aunt +Cynthia, with half the gossip of London spouting out of her like a +geyser, and Diana, who might turn out fine beyond description or +degenerate into a mere selfish rake (it won't be my father's and Chloe's +fault if she doesn't do the latter), and my Uncle Ferdinand in purple and +fine linen, a prince of the Church, and Tony already booked for a +political career, with his chief's shady secrets in his keeping to show +him the way it's done. And they bandied about among them the name of a +man who was worth the lot of them together, and repeated silly rhymes +which might hang him.... It was a little more than I could stand. + +One is so queer about one's family. I'm inclined to think every one is. +Often I fit in with mine perfectly, and love to see them, and find them +immensely refreshing after Covent Garden and parish shop. And then +another time they'll be on my nerves and I feel glad I'm out of it all. +And another time again I'm jealous of them, and wish I had Wycombe's or +Tony's chances of doing something in the world other than what I am +doing. That, of course, is sheer vulgar covetousness and grab. It comes +on sometimes when I am tired, or bored, and the parish seems stale, and +the conferences and committees I attend unutterably profitless, and I +want more clever people to talk to, and bigger and more educated +audiences to preach to, and I want to have leisure to write more and to +make a name.... It is merely a vulgar disease--a form of Potterism. One +has to face it and fight it out. + +But to-night I wasn't feeling that. I wasn't feeling anything very much, +except that Gideon, and all that Gideon stood for, was worth immeasurably +more than anything the Aylesbury lot had ever stood for. + +And when I got back, I found a note from Katherine saying that she +had warned Gideon about the talk and that he wasn't proposing to take +any steps. + + +3 + +Next morning I had to go to Church House for a meeting. I got the _Daily +Haste_ (which I seldom see) to read in the underground. On the front +page, side by side with murders, suicides, divorces, allied notes, and +Sinn Fein outrages, was a paragraph headed 'The Hobart Mystery. Suspicion +of Foul Play.' It was about how Hobart's sudden death had never been +adequately investigated, and how curious and suspicious circumstances had +of late been discovered in connection with it, and inquiries were being +pursued, and the _Haste_, which was naturally specially interested, +hoped to give more news very soon. + +So old Pinkerton was making a journalistic scoop of it. Of course; one +might have known he would. + +At my meeting (Pulpit Exchange, it was about) I met Frank Potter. He is a +queer chap--commercial and grasping, like all his family, and dull too, +and used to talk one sick about how little scope he had in his parish, +and so on. Since he got to St. Agatha's he's cheered up a bit, and talks +to me now instead of his big congregations and their fat purses. He's a +dull-minded creature--rather stupid and entirely conventional. He's all +against pulpit exchange, of course; he thinks it would be out of order +and tradition. So it would. And he's a long way keener on order and +tradition than he is on spiritual progress. A born Pharisee, he is +really, and yet with Christianity struggling in him here and there; and +that's why he's rather interesting, in spite of his dullness. + +After the meeting I went up to him and showed him the _Haste_. + +'Can't this be stopped?' I asked him. + +He blinked at it. + +'That's what Johnny is up in arms against too,' he said. 'He swears by +this chap who is suspected, and won't hear a word against him.' + +'Well,' I said, 'the question is, can Johnny or any one else do anything +to stop it?... I've tried. I spoke to Lady Pinkerton the other day. It +was no use. Can _you_ do anything?' + +'I'm afraid not,' he said, rather apathetically. 'You see, my people +believe Gideon killed Hobart, and are determined to press the matter. One +can't blame them, you know, if they really think that. My mother feels +perfectly sure of it, from various bits of evidence she's got hold of, +and won't be happy till the thing is thoroughly sifted. Of course, if +Gideon's innocent, it's best for him, too, to have the thing out, now +it's got so far. Don't you agree?' + +'I don't. Why should a man have to waste his time appearing in a criminal +court to answer to a charge of manslaughter or murder which he never +committed? Gideon happens to have other things to do than to make a nine +days' wonder for the press and public.' + +I suppose that annoyed Potter rather. He said sharply, 'It's up to the +chap to prove his innocence. Till he does, a great many people will +believe him guilty, I'm afraid.' + +'Including yourself, obviously.' + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +'I've no prejudices either way,' he returned, his emphasis on the +personal pronoun indicating that I, in his opinion, had. + +But there he was wrong. I hadn't. I was quite prepared to believe that +Gideon had knocked Hobart downstairs, or that he hadn't. You can't be a +parson, or, indeed, anything else, for long, without learning that decent +men and women will do, at times, quite indecent things, and that the +devil is quite strong enough to make a mess of any human being's life. +You hear of a man that he was in love with another man's wife and hated +her husband and at last killed him in a quarrel--and you think 'A bad +lot.' But he may not be a bad lot at all; he may be a decent chap, full +of ideals and generosity and fine thinking. Sometimes I'm inclined to +agree with the author of that gushing and hysterical book _In Darkest +Christendom and a Way Out_, that the only unforgiveable sin is +exploitation. Exploitation of human needs and human weaknesses and human +tragedies, for one's own profit.... And, as we very nearly all do it, in +one way or another, let us hope that even that isn't quite unforgiveable. +Yes, we nearly all do it. The press exploits for its benefit human +silliness and ignorance and vulgarity and sensationalism, and, in +exploiting it, feeds it. The war profiteers exploited the war.... We all +exploit other people--use their affection, their dependence on us, their +needs and their sins, for our own ends. + +And that is deliberate. To knock a fellow human being downstairs in a +quarrel, so that he dies--that may be impulse and accident, and is not so +vile. Even to say nothing afterwards--even that is not so vile. + +Still, I would rather, much rather, think that Gideon hadn't done it. + +It was odd that, as I was thinking these things, walking up Surrey Street +from the Temple Embankment, I overtook Gideon, who was slouching along in +his usual abstracted way. + +I touched his arm and spoke to him. He gave me his queer, +half-ironical smile. + +'Hallo, Jukie.... Where are you bound?... By the way, did you by chance +see the _Haste_ this morning?' + +'Not by chance. That doesn't happen with me and the _Haste_. But I saw +it.' + +'They obviously mean business, don't they. The sleuth-hound touch. I +expect to be asked for my photograph soon, for the _Pink Pictorial_ and +the _Sunday Rag_. I must get a nice one taken.' + +I suppose I looked as I felt, for he said in a different tone, 'Don't +worry, old man. There's nothing to be done. We must just let this thing +take its course.' + +I couldn't say anything, because there was nothing to say that wouldn't +seem like asking him questions, or trying to make him admit or deny the +thing to me. I wanted to ask him if he couldn't produce an alibi and blow +the ridiculous story to the four winds. But--suppose he couldn't...? + +So I said nothing but, 'Well, let me know if ever I can be any use,' and +we parted at the top of Surrey Street. + + +4 + +We have evensong at five at St. Christopher's. No one conies much. The +people in the parish aren't the weekday church sort. Those among them who +come to church at all mostly confine their energies to evening service on +Sundays, though a few of them consent to turn up at choral mass at +eleven. And, by means of guilds and persuasion, we've induced a good many +of the lads and girls to come to early mass sometimes. The vicar gets +discouraged at times, but not so much as most vicars would, because he +more or less agrees with me in not thinking church-going a test of +Christianity. The vicar is one of the cleverest and most original parsons +in the Church, in my opinion. He has a keen, shrewd, practical insight +into the distinction between essentials and non-essentials. He is popular +in the parish, but I don't think the people understand, as a rule, what +he is getting at. + +Anyhow, the only people who usually came to our week-day services were a +few church workers and an elderly lady or two who happened to be passing +and dropped in. The elderly ladies who lived in the parish were much too +busy for any such foolishness. + +But this evening--the evening of the day I had met Gideon--there was a +girl in church. She was rather at the back, and I didn't see who it was +till I was going out. Then she stopped me at the door, and I saw that it +was Clare Potter. I knew Clare Potter very slightly, and had never found +her interesting. I had always believed her to be conventional and +commonplace, without the brains of the twins or even the mild +spirituality of Frank. + +But I was startled by her face now; it was white and strained, and +emotion wavered pitifully over it. + +'Please,' she said, 'will you hear my confession?' + +'I'm very sorry,' I told her, 'but I can't. I'm still in deacon's +orders.' + +She seemed disappointed. + +'Oh! Oh dear! I didn't know....' + +I was puzzled. Why had she pitched on me? Hadn't she, I wondered, a +regular director, or was it her first confession she wanted to make? I +began something about the vicar being always glad ... But she stopped me. + +'No, please. It must be you. There's a reason.... Well, if you can't hear +my confession, may I tell you something in private, and get your advice?' + +'Of course,' I said. + +'Now, at once, if you've time.... It's very urgent.' + +I had time, and we went into the vestry. + +She sat down, and I waited for her to speak. She wasn't nervous, or +embarrassed, as most people are in these interviews. Two things occurred +to me about her; one was that she was, in a way, too far through, too +mentally agitated, to be embarrassed; the other was that she was, quite +unconsciously, posing a little, behaving as the heroine of one of her +mother's novels might have behaved. One knows the situation in +fiction--the desperate girl appealing out of her misery to the Christian +priest for help. So many women have this touch of melodrama, this sense +of a situation.... I believed that she was, as she sat there, in these +two conditions simultaneously, exactly as I was simultaneously analysing +her and wanting to be of what service I could. + +She leant forward across the vestry table, locking and unlocking +her hands. + +'This is quite private, isn't it,' she said. 'As private as if...?' + +'Quite,' I told her. + +She drew a long, shivering breath, and leant her forehead on her +clasped hands. + +'You know,' she said, so low that I had to bend forward to catch it, +'what people are saying--what my people suspect about--about Oliver +Hobart's death.' + +'Yes, I know.' + +'Well--it wasn't Mr. Gideon.' + +'You know that?' I said quickly. And a great relief flooded me. I hadn't +known, until that moment, because I had driven it under, how large a part +of my brain believed that Gideon had perhaps done this thing. + +'Yes,' she whispered. 'I know it ... Because I know--I know--who did it.' + +In that moment I felt that I knew too, and that Gideon knew, and that I +ought to have guessed all along. + +I said nothing, but waited for the girl's next word, if she had a next +word to say. It wasn't for me to question her. + +And then, quite suddenly, she gave a little moan of misery and broke into +passionate tears. + +I waited for a moment, then I got up and poured her out a glass of water. +It must have been pretty bad for her. It must have been pretty bad all +this time, I thought, knowing this thing about her sister. + +She drank the water, and became quieter. + +'Do you want to tell me any more?' I asked her, presently. + +'Oh, I do, I do. But it's so difficult ... I don't know how to tell +you.... Oh, God ... It was _I_ that killed him!' + +'Yes?' I said, after a moment, gently, and without apparent surprise. One +learns in parish work not to start, however much one may be startled. I +merely added a legitimate inquiry. 'Why was that?' + +She gulped. 'I want to tell you everything. I _want_ to.' + +I was sure she did. She had reached the familiar pouring-out stage. It +was obviously going to be a relief to her to spread herself on the +subject. I am pretty well used to being told everything, and at times a +good deal more, and have learnt to discount much of it. I looked away +from her and prepared to listen, and to give my mind to sifting, if I +could, the fact from the fancy in her story. This is a special art, and +one which all parsons do well to learn. I have heard my vicar on the +subject of women's confessions. + +'Women--women. Some of them will invent any crime--give themselves away +with both hands--merely to make themselves interesting. Poor things, they +don't realise how tedious sin is. One has to be on one's guard the whole +time, with that kind.' + +I deduced that Clare Potter might possibly be that kind. So I listened +carefully, at first neither believing nor disbelieving. + +'It's difficult to tell you,' she began, in a pathetic, unsteady voice. +'It hurts, rather ...' + +'No, I think not,' I corrected her. 'It's a relief, isn't it?' + +She stared at me for a moment, then went on, 'Yes, I _want_ to tell. But +it hurts, all the same.' + +I let her have it her own way; I couldn't press the point. She really +thought it did hurt. I perceived that she had, like so many people, a +confused mind. + +'Go on,' I said. + +'I must begin a long way back.... You see, before Oliver fell in love +with Jane, he ... he cared a little for me. He really did, Mr. Juke. And +he made me care for him.' Her voice dropped to a whisper. + +This was truth. I felt no doubt as to that. + +'Then ... then Jane came, and took him away from me. He fell in love with +her ... I thought my heart would break.' + +I didn't protest against the phrase, or ask her to explain it, because +she was unhappy. But I wish people wouldn't use it, because I don't know, +and they don't know, what they mean by it. 'I thought I should be very +unhappy,' is that the meaning? No, because they are already that. 'I +thought my heart--the physical organ--would be injuriously affected to +the point of rupture.' No; I do not believe that is what they mean. +Frankly, I do not know. There should be a dictionary of the phrases in +common use. + +However, it would have been pedantic and unkind to ask Miss Potter, who +could probably explain no phrases, to explain this. + +She went on, crying a little again. + +'I couldn't stop caring for him all at once. How could I? I suppose +you'll despise me, Mr. Juke, but I just couldn't help going on loving +him. It's once and for ever with me. Oh, I expect you think it was +shameful of me!' + +'Shameful? To love? No, why? It's human nature. You had bad luck, +that's all.' + +'Oh, I did.... Well, there it was, you see. He was married to Jane, and I +cared for him so much that I could hardly bear to go to the house and see +them together.... Oh, it wasn't my fault; he _made_ me care, indeed he +did. I'd never have begun for myself, I'm not that sort of girl, I never +was, I know some girls do it, but I never could have. I suppose I'm too +proud or something.' + +She paused, but I made no comment. I never comment on the pride of which +I am so often informed by those who possess it. + +She resumed, 'Well, it went on and on, and I didn't seem to get to +feel any better about it. And I hated Jane. Oh, I know that was +wicked, of course.' + +As she knew it, I again made no comment. + +'And sometimes I think I hated _him_, when he thought of nothing but her +and never at all of me.... Well, sometimes there was trouble between +them, because Jane would do things and go about with people he didn't +like. And especially Mr. Gideon. We none of us like Mr. Gideon at home, +you know; we think he's awful. He's so rude, and has such silly +opinions, and is so conceited and unkind. He's been awfully rude to +father's papers always. And that horrid article he had in his silly +paper about what he called 'Potterite Fiction,' mostly about mother's +books--did you read it?' + +'Yes. But Gideon didn't write it, you know. It was some one else.' + +'Oh, well, it was in his paper, anyhow. And he _thought_ it.... And, +anyhow, what are books, to hurt people's feelings about?' + +(A laudable sentiment, and one which should be illuminated as a text on +the writing table of every reviewer.) + +'Oh, of course I know he's a friend of yours,' she added. 'That's really +why I came to you.... But we none of us like him at home. And Oliver +couldn't stick him. And he begged Jane not to have anything more to do +with him, but she would. She wrote in his paper, and she was always +seeing him. And Oliver got more and more disgusted about it, and I +couldn't bear to see him unhappy.' + +'No?' I questioned. + +She paused, checked by the interruption. Then, after a moment, she +said, 'I suppose you mean I was glad really, because it came between +them.... Well, I don't know.... Perhaps I was, then.... Well, wouldn't +any one be?' + +'Most people,' I agreed. 'Yes?' + +She went on a little less fluently, of which I was glad. Fluency and +accuracy are a bad pair. I would rather people stumbled and stammered out +their stories than poured them. + +'And I think he thought--Oliver thought--he began to suspect--that Mr. +Gideon was--you know--_in love_ with Jane. And I thought so too. And +he thought Jane was careless about not discouraging him, and seeing so +much of him and all. But _I_ thought she was worse than that, and +encouraged him, and didn't care.... Jane was always dreadfully selfish, +you know....' + +'And ... that evening?' I prompted her, as she paused. + +'Well, that evening,' she shuddered a little, and went on quickly. 'I'd +been dining with a friend, and I was to sleep at Jane's. I got there soon +after ten, and no one was in, so I went to my room to take my things off. +Then I heard Jane come in, with Mr. Gideon. They went upstairs to the +drawing-room, and I heard them talking there. My door was a little open, +and I heard what they said. And he said ...' + +'Perhaps,' I suggested, 'you'd better not tell me what they said, since +they thought they were alone. What do you think?' + +'Oh, very well. There's no harm. I thought I'd better tell you +everything. But as you like.' She was a little disappointed, but picked +herself up and continued. + +'Well, then I heard Oliver coming upstairs, and he stopped at the +drawing-room door for a moment before they saw him, I think, because he +didn't speak quite at once. Then he said, "Good evening," and they said, +"Hallo," and they all began to be nasty--in their voices, you know. He +said he'd obviously come home before he was expected, and then Jane went +upstairs, pretending nothing was the matter--Jane never bothers about +anything--and I heard Mr. Gideon come up to Oliver and ask him what he +meant by that. And they talked just outside my door, and they were very +disagreeable, but I suppose you don't want me to tell you what they +said, so I won't. Anyhow it wasn't much, only Oliver gave Mr. Gideon to +understand he wasn't to come there any more, and Mr. Gideon said he +certainly had no intention of doing so. Oh, yes, and he said, "Damn you" +rather loud. And then he went downstairs and left the house. I heard the +door shut after him, then I came out of my room, and there was Oliver +standing at the top of the stairs, looking as if he didn't see anything. +He didn't seem to see me, even. I couldn't bear it, he was so white and +angry and thinking of nothing but Jane, who wasn't worth thinking about, +because she didn't care.... And then ... I lost my head. I think I was +mad ... I'd felt awfully queer for a long time.... I couldn't bear it any +more, his being unhappy about Jane and not even seeing me. I went up to +him and said, "Oliver, I'm glad you've got rid of that horrid man." + +'He stared at me and still didn't seem to see me. That somehow made me +furious. I said, "Jane's much too fond of him.... She's always with him +now.... They spent this evening together, you know, and came home +together." + +'Then he seemed to wake up, and he looked at me with a look I hadn't ever +seen before, and it was as if the world was at an end, because I saw he +hated me for saying that. And he said, "Kindly let my affairs and Jane's +alone," in a horrible, sharp, cold voice. I couldn't bear it. It seemed +to kill something in me; my love for him, perhaps. I went first cold then +hot, and I was crazy with anger; I pushed him back out of the way to let +me pass--I pushed him suddenly, and so hard that he lost his balance.... +Oh, you know the rest.... He was standing at the top of those awful +stairs--why are people _allowed_ to make stairs like that?--and he reeled +and fell backwards.... Oh, dear, oh, dear, and you know the rest....' + +She was sobbing bitterly now. + +'Yes, yes,' I said, 'I know the rest,' and I said no more for a time. + +I was puzzled. That she had truly repeated what had passed between her +and Hobart I believed. But whether she had pushed him, or whether he had +lost his own balance, seemed to me still an open question. I had to +consider two things--how best to help this girl, and how to get Gideon +out of the mess as quickly and as quietly as possible. For both these +things I had to get at the truth--if I could. + +'Now, look here,' I said presently, 'is this story you've told me wholly +true? Did it actually happen precisely like that? Please think for a +moment and then tell me.' + +But she didn't think, not even for a moment. + +'Oh,' she sobbed, 'true! Why should I _say_ it if it wasn't?' + +Why indeed? I began to enumerate some possible reasons--an inaccurate +habit of mind, a sensational imagination (both these misfortunes being +hereditary), an egotistic craving for attention, even unfavourable +attention--it might be any of these things, or all. But I hadn't got far +before she broke in, 'Oh, God. I've not had a moment's peace since ... I +loved him, and I killed him.... I let them think it was an accident.... +It was as if I was gagged, I _couldn't_ speak. And after a bit, when it +had all settled down, there didn't seem to be any reason why I should say +anything.... I never thought, truly I never thought, that they'd ever +suspect some one else.... And then, a little while ago, I heard mother +saying something, to some one about Mr. Gideon, and last night Katherine +Varick came and told Jane people were saying it everywhere. And this +morning there was that piece in the _Haste_. ... Oh! what shall I _do?_' + +'You don't really,' I said, 'feel any doubt about that. Do you?' + +She lifted her wet, puckered face and stared at me, and I saw that, for +the moment at least, she was not thinking of herself at all, but only of +her tragedy and her problem. + +'You mean,' she whispered, 'that I must tell ...' + +'It's rather obvious, isn't it,' I said gently, because I was horribly +sorry for her. 'You must tell the truth, whatever it is.' + +'And be tried for murder--or manslaughter? Appear in the docks?' she +quavered, her frightened brown eyes large and round. + +'I don't think it would come to that. All you have to do is to tell your +parents. Your father is responsible for the stuff in the papers, and your +mother, I gather, for the spreading of the story personally. Your +confession to them would stop that. They would withdraw, retract what +they have said, and say publicly that they were mistaken, that the +evidence they thought they had, had been proved false. Then it would be +generally assumed again that the thing was an accident, and the talk +would die down. No one need ever know but your parents and myself. I am +bound, and they would choose, not to repeat it to any one.' + +'Not to Jane?' she questioned. + +'Well, what does Jane think at present? Does she suspect?' + +She shook her head. 'I don't know. Jane's been rather queer all day.... +I've sometimes thought she suspected something. Only if she did, I +believe she'd have told me. Jane doesn't consider people's feelings, you +know; she'd say anything, however awful.... Only she's deep, too. Not +like me. I must have things out; she'll keep them dark, sometimes.... No, +I don't know what Jane thinks, really I don't.' + +I didn't know either. Another thing I didn't know was what Gideon +thought. They might both suspect Clare, and this might have tied Gideon's +hands; he might have shrunk from defending himself at the expense of a +frightened, unhappy girl and Jane's sister. + +But this wasn't my business. + +'Well,' I said, 'you may find you have to tell Jane. Perhaps, in a way, +you owe it to Jane to tell her. But the essential thing is that you +should tell your parents. That's quite necessary, of course. And you +should do it at once--this evening, directly you get home. Every minute +lost makes the thing worse. I think you should catch the next train back +to Potter's Bar. You see, what you say may affect what is in to-morrow +morning's papers. This thing has to be stopped at once, before further +damage is done.' + +She looked at me palely, her hands twisting convulsively in and out of +each other. I saw her, for all her seven or eight-and-twenty years, as a +weak, frightened child, ignorant, like a child, of the mischief she was +doing to others, concerned, like a child, with her own troubles and fears +and the burden on her own conscience. I was inclined now to believe in +that push. + +'Oh,' she whimpered, 'I _daren't_.... All this time I've said +nothing.... How can I, now? It's too awful ... too difficult ...' + +I looked at her in silence. + +'What's your proposal, then?' I asked her. I may have sounded hard and +unkind, but I didn't feel so; I was immensely sorry for her. Only, I +believe a certain amount of hard practicality is the only wholesome +treatment to apply to emotional and wordy people. One has to make them +face facts, put everything in terms of action. If she had come to me for +advice, she should have it. If she had come to me merely to get relief by +unburdening her tortured conscience, she should find the burden doubled +unless she took the only possible way out. + +She looked this way and that, with scared, hunted eyes. + +'I thought perhaps ... they might be made to think it was an +accident ...' + +'How?' + +'Well, you see, I could tell them that he'd left the house--Mr. Gideon, I +mean--before Oliver ... fell. That would be true. I could say I heard Mr. +Gideon go, and heard Oliver fall afterwards. That's what I thought I'd +say. Then he'd be cleared, wouldn't he?' + +'Why haven't you,' I asked, 'said this already, directly you knew that +Gideon was suspected?' + +'I--I didn't like,' she faltered. 'I wanted to ask some one's advice. I +wanted to know what you thought.' + +'I've told you,' I answered her, 'what I think. It's more than thinking. +I know. You've got to tell them the exact truth whatever it is. There's +really no question about it. You couldn't go to them with a half true +story ... could you?' + +'I don't know,' she sighed, pinching her fingers together nervously. + +'You do know. It would be impossible. You couldn't lie about a thing like +that. You've got to tell the truth.... Not all you've told me, if you +don't want to--but simply that you pushed him, in impatience, not meaning +to hurt him, and that he fell. It's quite simple really, if you do it at +once. It won't be if you leave it until the thing has gone further and +Gideon is perhaps arrested. You'd have to tell the public the story then. +Now it's easy.... No, I beg your pardon, it's not easy; I know that. It's +very hard. But there it is: it's got to be done, and done at once.' + +She listened in silence, drooping and huddled together. I was reminded +pitifully of some soft little animal, caught in a trap and paralysed +with fear. + +'Oh,' she gasped, 'I must, I must, I know I must. But it's +_difficult_ ...' + +I'm not going to repeat the things I said. They were the usual truisms, +and one has to say them. I had accepted her story now: it seemed simpler. +The complex part of the business was that at one moment I was simply +persuading a frightened and reluctant girl to do the straight and decent +and difficult thing, and at the next I was wasting words on an egotist +(we're all that, after all) who was subconsciously enjoying the situation +and wanting to prolong it. One feels the difference always, and it is +that duplicity of aim in seekers after advice that occasionally makes one +cruel and hard, because it seems the only profitable method. + +It must have been ten minutes before I wrung out of her a faltering but +definite, 'I'll do it.' + +Then I stood up. There was no more time to be wasted. + +'What train can you get?' I asked her. + +'I don't know.... The 7.30, perhaps.' She rose, too, her little wet +crumpled handkerchief still in her hand. I saw she had something +else to say. + +'I've been so miserable ...' + +'Well, of course.' + +'It's been on my _mind_ so ...' + +What things people of this type give themselves the trouble of saying! + +'Well, it will be off your mind now,' I suggested. + +'Will it? But it will still be there--the awful thing I did. I ought to +confess it, oughtn't I, and get absolution? I do make my confession, you +know, but I've never told this, not properly. I know I ought to have +done, but I couldn't get it out ever--I put it so that the priest +couldn't understand. I suppose it was awfully mean and cowardly of me, +and I ought to confess it properly.' + +But I couldn't go into that question, not being entirely sure even now +_what_ she ought to confess. I merely said, 'Well, why make confessions +at all if you don't make them properly?' + +She only gave her little soft quivering sigh. It was too difficult a +question for her to answer. And, after all, a foolish one to ask. Why do +we do all the hundreds of things that we don't do properly? Reasons are +many and motives mixed. + +I walked with her to the King's Cross bus and saw her into it. We shook +hands as we parted, and hers was hot and clinging. I saw that she was all +tense and strung up. + +'Good-bye,' she whispered. 'And thank you ever so much for being so good +to me. I'll do what you told me to-night. If it kills me, I will.' + +'That's good,' I returned. 'But it won't kill you, you know.' + +I smiled at her as she got on to the bus, and she smiled pitifully back. + + +5 + +I walked back to my rooms. I felt rather tired, and had a queer feeling +of having hammered away on something soft and yielding and yet +unbreakable, like putty. I felt sick at having been so hard, and sick too +that she was so soft. Sick of words, and phrases, and facile emotions, +and situations, and insincerities, and Potterisms--and yet with an odd +tide of hope surging through the sickness, because of human nature, which +is so mixed that natural cowards will sometimes take a steep and hard way +where they might take an easy one, and because we all, in the middle of +our egotism and vanity and self-seeking, are often sorry for what we have +done. Really sorry, beneath all the cheap penitence which leads nowhere. +So sorry that we sometimes cannot bear it any more, and will break up our +own lives to make amends.... + +And if, at the same time, we watch our sorrow and our amends, and see it +as drama and as interesting--well, after all, it is drama and it is +interesting, so why not? We can't all be clear and steely +unsentimentalists like Katherine Varick. + +One has to learn to bear sentimentalism. In parishes (which are the +world) one has to endure it, accept it. It is part of the general +muddle and mess. + + +6 + +I got a _Daily Haste_ next morning early, together with the _Pink +Pictorial_, the illustrated Pinkerton daily. I looked through them +quickly. There was no reference to the Hobart Mystery. I was relieved. +Clare Potter had kept her word, then--or anyhow had said enough to clear +Gideon (I wasn't going further than that about her; I had done my utmost +to make her do the straight thing in the straight way, and must leave the +rest to her), and the Pinkertons were withdrawing. They would have, +later, to withdraw more definitely than by mere abstaining from further +accusation (I intended to see to that, if no one else did), but this was +a beginning. It was, no doubt, all that Pinkerton had been able to +arrange last night over the telephone. + +It would have interested me to have been present at that interview +between Clare and her parents. I should like to have seen Pinkerton +provided by his innocent little daughter with the sensation of his life, +and Leila Yorke, the author of _Falsely Accused_ forced to realise her +own abominable mischief-making; forced also to realise that her messages +from the other side had been as lacking in accuracy as, unfortunately, +messages from this side, too, so often are. I hoped the affair Hobart +would be a lesson to both Pinkertons. But, like most of the lessons set +before us in this life, I feared it would be a lesson unlearnt. + +Anyhow, Pinkerton was prompt and business like in his methods. His +evening paper contained a paragraph to this effect:-- + +'DEATH OF MR HOBART + +'NOW CONSIDERED ACCIDENTAL + +'FOUL PLAY NOT SUSPECTED + +'The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of +Mr. Oliver Hobart, the late editor of the _Daily Haste_, have resulted in +conclusive evidence that the tragedy was due to Mr. Hobart's accidental +stumbling and falling. His fall, which was audible to the other inmates +of the house, took place after the departure of Mr. Arthur Gideon, with +whom he had been talking. A statement to this effect has been made by +Miss Clare Potter, who was staying in the house at the time, and who was +at the time of the inquest too much prostrated by the shock to give +evidence.' + +It was a retraction all right, and all that could be expected of the +Pinkerton Press. In its decision and emphasis I read scare. + +I didn't give much more thought just then to the business. I was +pretty busy with meetings and committees, and with rehearsals of _A +New Way to pay Old Debts,_ which we were playing to the parish in a +week. I had stage-managed it at Oxford once, and had got some of the +same people together, and it was going pretty well but needed a good +deal of attention. I had, too, to go away from town for a day or two, +on some business connected with the Church Congress. Church Congresses +keep an incredible number of people busy about them beforehand; +besides all the management of committees and programmes and +side-shows, there is the management of all the people of divergent +views who won't meet each other, such as Mr. George Lansbury and Mr. +Athelstan Riley. (Not that this delicate task fell to me; I was only +concerned with Life and Liberty.) + +On the day after I came back I met Jane at the club, after lunch. She +came over and sat down by me. + +'Hallo,' she said. 'Have you been seeing the _Haste_?' + +'I have. It's been more interesting lately than my own paper.' + +'Yes.... So Arthur's acquitted without a stain on his character. Poor +mother's rather sick about it. She thought she'd had a Message, you know. +That frightful Ayres woman had a vision in a glass ball of Arthur +knocking Oliver downstairs. I expect you heard. Every one did.... Mother +went round to see her about it the other day, but she still sticks to it. +Poor mother doesn't know what to make of it. Either the ball lied, or the +Ayres woman lied, or Clare is lying. She's forced to the conclusion that +it was the Ayres. So they've had words. I expect they'll make it up +before long. But at present there's rather a slump in Other Side +business.... And she wrote a letter of apology to Arthur. Father made +her, he was so afraid Arthur would bring a libel action.' + +'Why didn't he?' I asked, wondering, first, how much of the truth +either Arthur or Jane had suspected all this time, and, secondly, how +much they now knew. + +Jane looked at me with her guarded, considering glance. + +'Well,' she said, 'I don't mind your knowing. You'd better not let on to +him that I told you, though; he mightn't like it. The fact is, Arthur +thought I'd done it. He thought it was because my manner was so queer, as +if I was trying to hush it up. I was. You see, I thought Arthur had done +it. It seemed so awfully likely. Because, I left them quarrelling. And +Arthur's got an awfully bad temper. And _his_ manner was so queer. We +never talked it out, till two days ago; we avoided talking to each other +at all, almost, after the first. But on that first morning, when he came +round to see me, we somehow succeeded in diddling one another, because we +were each so anxious to shield the other and hush it all up.... Clare +might have saved us both quite a lot of worrying if she'd spoken out at +once and said it was ... an accident.' + +Jane's voice was so unemotional, her face and manner so calm, that she +is a very dark horse sometimes. I couldn't tell for certain whether she +had nearly instead of 'an accident' said 'her,' or whether she had +spoken in good faith. I couldn't tell how much she knew, or had been +told, or guessed. + +I said, 'I suppose she didn't realise till lately that any one was likely +to be suspected,' and Jane acquiesced. + +'Clare's funny,' she said, after a moment. + +'People are,' I generalised. + +'She has a muddled mind,' said Jane. + +'People often have.' + +'You never know,' said Jane thoughtfully, 'how much to believe of what +she says.' + +'No? I dare say she doesn't quite know herself.' + +'She does not,' said Jane. 'Poor old Clare.' + +We necessarily left it at that, since Jane didn't, of course, mean to +tell me what story Clare had told of that evening's happenings, and I +couldn't tell Jane the one Clare had told me. I didn't imagine I should +ever be wiser than I was now on the subject, and it certainly wasn't my +business any more. + +When I met Clare Potter by chance, a week or two later, on the steps of +the National Gallery with another girl, she flushed, bowed, and passed me +quickly. That was natural enough, after our last interview. + +Queer, that those two girls should be sisters. They were an interesting +study to me. Clare, shallow, credulous, weak in the intelligence, +conventional, emotional, sensitive, of the eternal type of orthodox and +timid woman, with profound powers of passion, and that touch of +melodrama, that sense of a situation, which might lead her along strange +paths.... And Jane, level-headed, clear-brained, hard, calm, +straight-thinking, cynical, an egotist to her finger-tips, knowing what +she wanted and going for it, tough in the conscience, and ignorant of +love except in its crudest form of desire for the people and things which +ministered to her personal happiness.... + +It struck me that the two represented two sides of Potterism--the +intellectual and moral. Clare, the ignorant, muddle-headed +sentimentalist; Jane, reacting against this, but on her part grabbing and +exploiting. Their attitude towards truth (that bugbear of Potterism) was +typical; Clare couldn't see it; Jane saw it perfectly clearly, and would +reject it without hesitation if it suited her book. Clare was like her +mother, only with better, simpler stuff in her; Jane was rather like her +father in her shrewd native wit, only, while he was vulgar in his mind, +she was only vulgar in her soul. + +Of one thing I was sure: they would both be, on the whole, satisfied with +life, Jane because she would get what she wanted, Clare because she would +be content with little. Clare would inevitably marry; as inevitably, she +would love her husband and her children, and come to regard her passion +for Oliver Hobart and its tragic sequel as a romantic episode of +girlhood, a sort of sowing of wild oats before the real business of life +began. And Jane would, I presumed, ultimately marry Gideon, who was too +good for her, altogether too fine and too good. For Gideon was direct and +keen and passionate, and loved and hated cleanly, and thought finely and +acutely. Gideon wasn't greedy; he took life and its pleasures and +triumphs and amusements in his stride, as part of the day's work; he +didn't seek them out for their own sakes. Gideon lived for causes and +beliefs and ideals. He was temperamentally Christian, though he didn't +happen to believe Christian dogma. He had his alloy, like other people, +of ambition and selfishness, but so much less than, for instance, I have, +that it is absurd that he should be the agnostic and I the professing +Christian. + + +7 + +The Christian Church. Sometimes one feels that it is a fantasy, the +flaming ideal one has for it. One thinks of it as a fire, a sword, an +army with banners marching against dragons; one doesn't see how such +power can be withstood, be the dragons never so strong. And then one +looks round and sees it instead as a frail organisation of the lame, the +halt, and the blind, a tepid organisation of the satisfied, the +bourgeois, the conventionally genteel, a helpless organisation of the +ignorant, the half-witted, the stupid; an organisation full to the brim +of cant, humbug, timid orthodoxy, unreality, self-content, and all kinds +of Potterism--and one doesn't see how it can overcome anything whatever. + +What is the truth? Where, between these two poles, does the actual +church stand? Or does it, like most of us its members, swing to and from +between them, touching now one, now the other? A Potterite church--yes; +because we are most of us Potterites. An anti-Potterite church--yes, +again; because at its heart is something sharp and clean and fine and +direct, like a sword, which will not let us be contented Potterites, but +which is for ever goading us out of ourselves, pricking us out of our +trivial satisfactions and our egotistic discontents. + +I suppose the fact is that the Church can only work on the material it +finds, and do a little here and a little there. It would be a sword in +the hands of such men as Gideon; on the other hand, it can't do much +with the Clare Potters. The real thing frightens them if ever they see +it; the sham thing they mould to their own liking, till it is no more +than a comfortable shelter from the storms of life. It is the world's +Potters who have taken the Church and spoilt it, degraded it to the +poor dull thing it is. It is the Potterism in all of us which at every +turn checks and drags it down. Personally, I can forgive Potterism +everything but that. + +What is one to do about it? + + + + +PART VI: + +TOLD BY R.M. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA + + +1 + +While Clare talked to Juke in the vestry, Jane talked to her parents at +Potter's Bar. She was trying to make them drop their campaign against +Gideon. But she had no success. Lady Pinkerton said, 'The claims of Truth +are inexorable. Truth is a hard god to follow, and often demands the +sacrifice of one's personal feelings.' Lord Pinkerton said, 'I think, now +the thing has gone so far, it had better be thoroughly sifted. If Gideon +is innocent, it is only due to him. If he is guilty, it is due to the +public. You must remember that he edits a paper which has a certain +circulation; small, no doubt, but still, a circulation. He is not +altogether like a private and irresponsible person.' + +Lady Pinkerton remarked that we are none of us that, we all owe a duty to +society, and so forth. + +Then Clare came in, just as they had finished dinner. She would not have +any. Her face was red and swollen with crying. She said she had something +to tell them at once, that would not keep a moment. Mr. Gideon mustn't be +suspected any more of having killed Oliver, for she had done it herself, +after Mr. Gideon had left the house. + +They did not believe her at first. She was hysterical, and they all knew +Clare. But she grew more circumstantial about it, till they began to +believe it. After all, they reasoned, it explained her having been so +completely knocked over by the catastrophe. + +Jane asked her why she had done it. She said she had only meant to push +him away from her, and he had fallen. + +Lady Pinkerton said, 'Push him away, my dear! Then was he ...' + +Was he too close, she meant. Clare cried and did not answer. Lady +Pinkerton concluded that Oliver had been trying to kiss Clare, and that +Clare had repulsed him. Jane knew that Lady Pinkerton thought this, and +so did Clare. Jane thought 'Clare means us to think that. That doesn't +mean it's true. Clare hasn't got what Arthur calls a grip on facts.' + +Lord Pinkerton said, 'This is very painful, my dears; very painful +indeed. Jane, my dear ...' + +He meant that Jane was to go away, because it was even more painful for +her than for the others. But Jane didn't go. It wasn't painful for Jane +really. She felt hard and cold, and as if nothing mattered. She was angry +with Clare for crying instead of explaining what had happened. + +Lady Pinkerton said, passing her hand over her forehead in the tired way +she had and shutting her eyes, 'My dear, you are over-wrought. You don't +know what you are saying. You will be able to tell us more clearly in +the morning.' + +But Clare said they must believe her now, and Lord Pinkerton must +telephone up to the _Haste_ and have the stuff about the Hobart +Mystery stopped. + +'My poor child,' said Lady Pinkerton, 'what has made you suddenly, so +long after, tell us this terrible story?' + +Clare sobbed that she hadn't been able to bear it on her mind any more, +and also that she hadn't known till lately that Gideon was suspected. + +Lord and Lady Pinkerton looked at each other, wondering what to believe, +then at Jane, wishing she was gone, so that they could ask Clare more +about it. Jane said, 'Don't mind me. I don't mind hearing about it.' Jane +meant to stay. She thought that if she was gone they would persuade Clare +she had dreamed it all and that it had been really Gideon after all. + +Jane asked Clare why she had pushed Oliver, thinking that she ought to +explain, and not cry. But still Clare only cried, and at last said she +couldn't ever tell any one. Lady Pinkerton turned pink, and Lord +Pinkerton walked up and down and said, 'Tut tut,' and it was more obvious +than ever what Clare meant. + +She added, 'But I never meant, indeed I never meant, to hurt him. He just +fell back, and ...' + +'Was killed,' Jane finished for her. Jane thought Clare was like their +mother in trying to avoid plain words for disagreeable things. + +Clare cried and cried. 'Oh,' she said, 'I've not had a happy moment +since,' which was as nearly true as these excessive statements ever are. + +Lady Pinkerton tried to calm her, and said, 'My poor, dear child, you +don't know what you are saying. You must go to bed now, and tell us in +the morning, when you are more yourself.' + +Clare didn't go to bed until Lord Pinkerton had promised to ring up the +_Haste_. Then she went, with Lady Pinkerton, who was crying too now, +because she was beginning to believe the story. + + +2 + +Jane didn't know what she believed. She didn't believe what Clare had +implied--that Oliver had tried to kiss her. Because Oliver hadn't been +like that; it wasn't the sort of thing he did. Jane thought it caddish of +Clare to have tried to make them think that of him. But she might, Jane +thought, have been angry with him about something else; she might have +pushed him.... Or she might not; she might be imagining or inventing the +whole thing. You never knew, with Clare. + +If it was true, Jane thought, she had been a fool about Arthur. But, if +he hadn't done it, why had he been so queer? Why had he avoided her, and +been so odd and ashamed from the first morning on? + +Perhaps, thought Jane, he had suspected Clare. + +She would see him to-morrow morning, and ask him. + + +3 + +Jane saw Gideon next day. She rang him up, and he came over to Hampstead +after tea. + +It was the first time Jane had seen him alone for more than a month. He +looked thin and ill. + +Jane loved him. She had loved him through everything. He might have +killed Oliver; it made no difference to her caring for him. + +But she hoped he hadn't. + +He came into the drawing-room. Jane remembered that other night, when +Oliver--poor Oliver--had been vexed to find him there. Poor Oliver. Poor +Oliver. But Jane couldn't really care. Not really, only gently, and in a +way that didn't hurt. Not as if Gideon were dead and shut away from +everything. Not as if she herself were. + +Jane didn't pretend. As Lady Pinkerton would say, the claims of Truth +were inexorable. + +Gideon came in quickly, looking grave and worried, as if he had something +on his mind. + +Jane said, 'Arthur, please tell me. _Did_ you knock Oliver down +that night?' + +He stood and stared at her, looking astonished and startled. + +Then he said, slowly, 'Oh, I see. You mean, am I going to admit that I +did, when I am accused.... If there's no other way out, I am.... It will +be all right, Jane,' he said very gently. 'You needn't be afraid.' + +Jane didn't understand him. + +'Then you did it,' she said, and sat down. She felt sick, and her +head swam. + +Gideon stood over her, tall and stooping, biting the nail of his +middle finger. + +'You see,' Jane said, 'I'd begun to hope last night that you hadn't done +it after all.' + +'What are you talking about?' he asked. + +Jane said, 'Clare told us that it happened--that he fell--after you had +left the house. So I hoped she might be speaking the truth, and that +you hadn't done it after all. But if you did, we must go on thinking of +ways out.' + +'If--I--did,' Gideon said after her slowly. 'You know I didn't, Jane. +Why are you talking like this? What's the use, when I know, and you know, +and you know that I know, the truth about it? It can do no good.' + +He was, for the first time, stern and angry with her. + +'The truth?' Jane said. 'I wish you'd tell it me, Arthur.' + +The truth. If Gideon told her anything, it would be the truth, she knew. +He wasn't like Clare, who couldn't. + +But he only looked at her oddly, and didn't speak. Jane looked back into +his eyes, trying to read his mind, and so for a moment he stared down at +her and she stared up at him. + +Jane perceived that he had not done it. Had he, then, guessed all this +time that Clare had, and been trying to shield her? + +Then, slowly, his face, which had been frowning and tense, changed +and broke up. + +'Good God!' he said. 'Tell me the truth, Jane. It _was_ you, wasn't it?' + +Then Jane understood. + +She said, 'You thought it was _me_.... And I thought it was you! Is it me +you've been so ashamed of all this time then, not yourself?' + +'Yes,' he said, still staring at her. 'Of course.... It _wasn't_ you, +then.... And you thought it was me?... But how could you think that, +Jane? I'd have told; I wouldn't have been such a silly fool as to sneak +away and say nothing. You might have known that. You must have had a +pretty poor opinion of me, to think I'd do that.... Good lord, how you +must have loathed me all this time!' + +'No, I haven't. Have you loathed me, then?' + +He said quickly, 'That's different,' but he didn't explain why. + +After a moment he said, 'It was just an accident then, after all.' + +'Yes ... Clare was talking to him when he fell.... She's only just told +about it, because you were being suspected. But I never know whether to +believe Clare; she's such a gumph. I had to ask you.... What made you +suspect _me_, by the way?' + +'Your manner, that first morning. You dragged me into the dining-room, do +you remember, and talked about how they all thought it was an accident, +and no one would guess if we were careful, and I wasn't to say anything. +What else was I to think? It was really your own fault.' + +Jane said, 'Well, anyhow, we're quits. We've both spent six weeks +thinking each other murderers. Now we'll stop.... I don't wonder you +fought shy of me, Arthur.' + +He looked at her curiously. + +'Didn't you fight shy of me, then? You can hardly have wanted to see much +of me in the circumstances.' + +'I didn't, of course. It was awful. Besides, you were so queer and +disagreeable. I thought it was a guilty conscience, but really I suppose +it was disgust.' + +'Not disgust. No. Not that.' He seemed to be balancing the word 'disgust' +in his mind, considering it, then rejecting it. 'But,' he said, 'it would +have been difficult to pretend nothing had happened, wouldn't it.... I +didn't blame you, you know, for the thing itself. I knew it must have +been an accident--that you never meant ... what happened.... Well, +anyhow, that's all over. It's been pretty ghastly. Let's forget it.... +What Potterish minds you and I must have, Jane, to have built up such a +sensational melodrama out of an ordinary accident. I think Lord Pinkerton +would find me useful on one of his papers; I'm wasted on the _Fact_. You +and I; the two least likely people in the world for such fancies, you'd +think--except Katherine. By the way, Katherine half thought I'd done it, +you know. So did Jukie.' + +'I'm inclined now to think that K thought I had, that evening she came to +see me. She was rather sick with me for letting you be accused.' + +'A regular Potter melodrama,' said Gideon. 'It might be in one of your +mother's novels or your father's papers. That just shows, Jane, how +infectious a thing Potterism is. It invades the least likely homes, and +upsets the least likely lives. Horrible, catching disease.' + +Gideon was walking up and down the room in his restless way, playing with +the things on the tables. He stopped suddenly, and looked at Jane. + +'Jane,' he said, 'we won't, you and I, have any more secrets and +concealments between us. They're rotten things. Next time it occurs to +you that I've committed a crime, ask me if it is so. And I'll do the same +to you, at whatever risk of being offensive. We'll begin now by telling +each other what we feel.... You know I love you, my dear.' + +Oh, yes, Jane knew that. She said, 'I suppose I do, Arthur.' + +He said, 'Then what about it? Do you ...' and she said, 'Rather, of +course I do.' + +Then they kissed each other, and settled to get married next May or June. +The baby was coming in January. + +'You'll have to put up with baby, you know, Arthur,' Jane said. + +'Of course, poor little kid. I rather like them. It's rough luck on it +not having a father of its own. I'll try to be decent to it.' + +That would be queer, thought Jane, Arthur being decent to Oliver's kid; a +boy, perhaps, with Oliver's face and Oliver's mind. Poor little kid: but +Jane would love it, and Arthur would be decent to it, and its +grandparents would spoil it; it would be their favourite, if any more +came. They wouldn't like the others, because they would be Gideon's. They +might look like little Yids. Perhaps there wouldn't be any others. Jane +wasn't keen. They were all right when they were there--jolly little +comics, all slippy in their baths, like eels--but they were an +unspeakable nuisance while on the way. A rotten system. + + +4 + +All next day Jane felt like stopping people in the streets and shouting +at them, 'Arthur didn't do it. Nor did I. It was only that silly ass, +Clare, or else it was an accident.' For even now Jane wasn't sure which +she thought. + +But the only person to whom she really said it was Katherine. One told +Katherine things, because she was as deep and as quiet as the grave. +Also, if Jane hadn't told her what Clare had said, she would have gone on +thinking it was Jane, and Jane didn't like that. Jane did not care to +give Katherine more reasons for making her feel cheap than necessary. She +would always think Jane cheap, anyhow, because Jane only cared about +having a good time, and Katherine thought one should care chiefly about +one's job. Jane supposed she was cheap, but didn't much care. She felt +she would rather be herself. She had a better time, and would have a +better time still before she had done; better than Johnny, with the +rubbishy books he was writing and making his firm bring out for him and +feeling so pleased with. Jane knew she could write better stuff than +Johnny could, any day. And her books would be in addition to Gideon, and +babies, and other amusing things. + +Jane told Katherine Clare's story. Katherine said, 'H'm. Perhaps. I +wonder. It's as likely as not all bumkum that she pushed him. She was +probably talking to him when he fell, and got worked up about it later. +The Potter press and Leila Yorke touch. However, you never know. Quite a +light push might do it. Those stairs of yours are awful. I really advise +you to be careful, Jane.' + +'You thought I'd done it, didn't you, old thing?' + +'For a bit, I did. For a bit I thought it was Arthur. So did Jukie. You +never know. Any one might push any one else. Even Clare may have.' + +'You must have thought I was a pretty mean little beast, to let Arthur be +suspected without owning up.' + +'I did,' Katherine admitted. 'Selfish ...' + +She was looking at Jane in her considering way. Her bright blue eyes +seemed always to go straight through what she was looking at, like +X-rays. When she looked at Jane now, she seemed somehow to be seeing in +her not only the present but the past. It was as if she remembered, and +was making Jane remember, all kinds of old things Jane had done. Things +she had done at Oxford; things she had done since; things Katherine +neither blamed nor condemned, but just took into consideration when +thinking what sort of a person Jane was. You had the same feeling with +Katherine that you had sometimes with Juke, of being analysed and +understood all through. You couldn't diddle either of them into thinking +you any nicer than you were. Jane didn't want to. It was more restful +just to be taken for what one was. Oliver had been always idealising her. +Gideon didn't do that; he knew her too well. Only he didn't bother much +about what she was, not being either a priest or a scientific chemist, +but a man in love. + +'By the way,' said Katherine, 'are you and Arthur going to get married?' + +Jane told her in May or June. + +Katherine, who was lighting a cigarette, looked at Jane without smiling. +The flame of the match shone into her face, and it was white and cold +and quiet. + +'She doesn't think I'm good enough for Arthur,' Jane thought. And anyhow, +K didn't, Jane knew, think much of marriage at all. Most women, if you +said you were going to get married, assumed it was a good thing. They +caught hold of you and kissed you. If you were a man, other men slapped +you on the back, or shook hands or something. They all thought, or +pretended to think, it was a fine thing you were doing. They didn't +really think so always. Behind their eyes you could often see them +thinking other things about it--wondering if you would like it, or why +you chose that one, and if it was because you preferred him or her to any +one else or because you couldn't get any one else. Or they would be +pitying you for stopping being a bachelor or spinster and having to grow +up and settle down and support a wife or manage servants and babies. But +all that was behind; they didn't show it; they would say, 'Good for you, +old thing,' and kiss you or shake your hand. + +Katherine did neither to Jane. She hadn't when it was Oliver Hobart, +because she hadn't thought it a suitable marriage. She didn't, now it was +Arthur Gideon, perhaps for the same reason. She didn't talk about it. She +talked about something else. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED + + +1 + +The fine weather ended. Early October had been warm, full of golden +light, with clear, still evenings. Later the wind blustered, and it was +cold. Sometimes Jane felt sick; that was the baby. But not often. She +went about all right, and she was writing--journalism and a novel. She +thought she would perhaps send it in for a prize novel competition in the +spring, only she felt no certainty of pleasing the three judges, all so +very dissimilar. Jane's work was a novel about a girl at school and +college and thereafter. Perhaps it would be the first of a trilogy; +perhaps it would not. The important thing was that it should be well +reviewed. How did one work that? You could never tell. Some things were +well reviewed, others weren't. Partly luck it was, thought Jane. Novels +were better treated usually than they deserved. Verse about as well as it +deserved, which, however, wasn't, as a rule, saying very much. Some kinds +of book were unkindly used--anthologies of contemporary verse, for +instance. Someone would unselfishly go to the trouble of collecting some +of the recent poetical output which he or she personally preferred and +binding it up in a pleasant portable volume, and you would think all that +readers had to do was to read what they liked in it, if anything, and +leave out the rest and be grateful. Instead, it would be slated by +reviewers, and compared to the Royal Academy, and to a literary signpost +pointing the wrong way, and other opprobrious things; as if an anthology +could point to anything but the taste of the compiler, which of course +could not be expected to agree with any one else's; tastes never do. The +thing was, thought Jane, to hit the public taste with the right thing at +the right moment. Another thing was to do better than Johnny. That should +be possible, because Jane _was_ better than Johnny; had always been. Only +there was this baby, which made her feel ill before it came, and would +need care and attention afterwards. It wasn't fair. If Johnny married and +had a baby it wouldn't get in his way, only in its mamma's. It was a +handicap, like your frock (however short it was) when you were climbing. +You had got round that by taking it off and climbing in knickerbockers, +but you couldn't get round a baby. And Jane wanted the baby too. + +'I suppose I want everything,' said Jane. + +Johnny wanted everything too. He got a lot. He got love. He was +polygamous by nature, and usually had more than one girl on hand. That +autumn he had two. One was Nancy Sharpe, the violinist. They were always +about together. People who didn't know either of them well, thought they +would get engaged. But neither of them wanted that. The other girl was a +different kind: the lovely, painted, music-hall kind you don't meet. No +one thought Johnny would marry her, of course. They merely passed the +time for one another. + +Jane wondered if the equivalent man would pass the time for her. She +didn't think so. She thought she would get bored with never talking about +anything interesting. And it must, she thought, be pretty beastly having +to kiss people who used cheap scent and painted their lips. One would be +afraid the red stuff would come off. In fact, it surely would. Didn't men +mind--clean men, like Johnny? Men are so different, thought Jane. Johnny +was the same at Oxford. He would flirt with girls in tea-shops. Jane had +never wanted to flirt with the waiters in restaurants. Men were perhaps +less critical; or perhaps they wanted different qualities in those with +whom they flirted; or perhaps it was that their amatory instinct, when +pronounced at all, was much stronger than women's, and flowed out on to +any object at hand when they were in the mood. Also, they certainly grew +up earlier. At Oxford and Cambridge girls weren't, for the most part, +grown-up enough to be thinking about that kind of thing at all. It came +on later, with most of them. But men of that age were, quite a lot of +them, mature enough to flirt with the girls in Buol's. + +Jane discussed it with Gideon one evening. Gideon said, 'Men usually +have, as a rule, more sex feeling than women, that's all. Naturally. They +need more, to carry them through all the business of making marriage +proposals and keeping up homes, and so on. Women often have very little. +That's why they're often better at friendship than men are. A woman can +be a man's friend all their lives, but a man, in nine cases out of ten, +will either get tired of it or want more. Women have a tremendous gift +for friendship. Their friendships with other women are usually much more +devoted and more faithful than a man's with other men. Most men, though +of course not all, want sex in their lives at some time or other. +Hundreds of women are quite happy without it. They're quite often nearly +sexless. Very few men are that.' + +Jane said, 'There are plenty of women like Clare, whom one can't think of +apart from sex. No friendship would ever satisfy her. If she isn't a wife +and mother she'll be starved. She'll marry, of course.' + +'Yes,' Gideon agreed. 'There are plenty of women like that. And when a +woman is like that, she's much more dependent on love and marriage than +any man is, because she usually has fewer other things in her life. But +there are women also like Katherine.' + +'Oh, Katherine. K isn't even dependent on friendship. She only wants her +work. K isn't typical.' + +'No; she isn't typical. She isn't a channel for the life force, like most +of us. She's too independent; she won't let herself be used in that way.' + +'Am I a channel for the life force?' thought Jane. 'I suppose so. Hence +Oliver and baby. Is Arthur? I suppose so. Hence his wanting to marry me.' + + +2 + +Jane told her family that she was going to marry Gideon. Lady Pinkerton +said, 'It's extraordinary to me that you can think of it, Jane, after all +that has happened. Surely, my child, the fact that it was the last thing +Oliver would wish should have some weight with you. Whatever plane he may +be on now, he must be disturbed by such news as this. Besides, dear +child, it is far too soon. You should wait at least a year before taking +such a step. And Arthur Gideon! Not only a Jew, Jane, and not only a man +of such very unfortunate political principles, but one who has never +attempted to conceal his spiteful hostility both to father's papers and +my books. But perhaps, as I believe you agree with him in despising both +of these, that may be an extra bond between you. Only you must _see_ that +it will make family life extremely awkward.' + +Of course it would. But family lives nearly always are awkward, Jane +thought; it is one of the things about them. + +Lady Pinkerton added, having suddenly remembered it, 'Besides, my dear, +he _drinks_; you told me so yourself.' + +Jane said, if she had, she had lied, doubtless for some good reason now +forgotten by her. He didn't drink, not in the excessive sense of that +word obviously intended by Lady Pinkerton. Lady Pinkerton was +unconvinced; she still was sure he drank in that sense. + +She resumed, 'And Jewish babies! I wonder you can think of it, Jane. They +may be a throw-back to a most degraded Russian-Jewish type. What brothers +and sisters for the dear mite who is coming first! My dear, I do beg you +to think this over long and seriously before committing yourself. You may +live to repent it bitterly.' + +Clare said, '_Jane_! How _can_ you--after ...' + +After Oliver, she meant. She would never say his name; perhaps one +doesn't like to when one has killed a man. + +Jane thought, 'Why didn't I leave Oliver to Clare? She'd have suited him +much better. I was stupid; I thought I wanted him. I did want him. But +not in the way I want Arthur now. One wants so many things.' + +Lord Pinkerton said, 'You're making a big mistake, Babs. That fellow +won't last. He's building on sand, as the Bible puts it--building on +sand. I hear on good authority that the _Fact_ can't go on many months +longer, unless it changes its tone and methods considerably; it's got no +chance of fighting its way as it is now. People don't want that kind of +thing. They don't want anything the Gideon lot will give them. Gideon and +his sort haven't got the goods. They're building on the sand of their own +fancy, not on the rock of general human demand. I hear that that daily +they talked of starting can't come off yet, either.... The chap's a bad +investment, Babs.... And he despises me and my goods, you know. That'll +be awkward.' + +'Not you, daddy. The papers, he does. He rather likes you, though he +doesn't approve of you.... He doesn't like mother, and she doesn't like +him. But people often don't get on with their mothers-in-law.' + +'It's an awkward alliance, my dear, a very awkward alliance. What will +people say? Besides, he's a Jew.' + +Jewish babies; he was thinking of them too. + +Jane thought, bother the babies. Perhaps there wouldn't be any, and if +there were, they'd only be a quarter Jew. Anyhow, it wasn't them she +wanted; it was Arthur. + +Arthur opened doors and windows. You got to the edge of your own thought, +and then stepped out beyond into his thought. And his thought drove sharp +and hard into space. + +But more than this, Jane loved the way his hair grew, and the black line +his eyebrows made across his forehead, and the way he stood, tall and +lean and slouching, and his keen thin face and his long thin hands, and +the way his mouth twisted up when he smiled, and his voice, and the whole +of him. She wondered if he loved her like that--if he turned hot and cold +when he saw her in the distance. She believed that he did love her like +that. He had loved her, as she had loved him, all that time he had +thought she was lying to every one about Oliver's death. + +'It isn't what people do,' said Jane, 'that makes one love them or stop +loving them.' + +'Is this,' she thought, 'what Clare felt for Oliver? I didn't know it was +like this, or I wouldn't have taken him from her. Poor old Clare.' Could +one love Oliver like that? Any one, Jane supposed, could be loved like +that, by the right person. And people like Clare loved more intensely +than people like her; they felt more, and had fewer other occupations. + +Jane hadn't known that she could feel so much about anything as she was +feeling now about Gideon. It was interesting. She wondered how long it +would last, at this pitch. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD + + +1 + +Jane's baby was born in January. As far as babies can be like grown human +beings, it was like its grandfather--a little Potter. + +Lord Pinkerton was pleased. + +'He shall carry on the papers,' he said, dandling it on his arm. +'Tootooloo, grandson!' He dug it softly in the ribs. He understood this +baby. However many little Yids Jane might achieve in the future, there +would be this little Potter to carry on his own dreams. + +Clare came to see it. She was glad it wasn't like Oliver; Jane saw her +being glad of that. She was beginning to fall in love with a young +naval officer, but still she couldn't have seen Oliver in Jane's child +without wincing. + +Gideon came to see it. He laughed. + +'Potter for ever,' he said. + +He added. 'It's symbolic. Potters will be for ever, you know. They're so +strong....' + +The light from the foggy winter afternoon fell on his face as he sat by +the window. He looked tired and perplexed. Strength, perpetuity, seemed +things remote from him, belonging only to Potters. Anti-Potterism and the +_Weekly Fact_ were frail things of a day, rooted in a dream. So Gideon +felt, on these days when the fog closed about him.... + +Jane looked at her son, the strange little animal, and thought not +'Potter for ever,' but 'me for ever,' as was natural, and as parents will +think of their young, who will carry them down the ages in an ever more +distant but never lost immortality, an atom of dust borne on the hurrying +stream. Jane, who believed in no other personal immortality, found it in +this little Potter in her arms. Holding him close, she loved him, in a +curious, new, physical way. So this was motherhood, this queer, sensuous, +cherishing love. It would have been a pity not to have known it; it was, +after all, an emotion, more profound than most. + + +2 + +When Jane was well enough, she gave a party for Charles, as if he had +been a new picture she had painted and wanted to show off. Her friends +came and looked at him, and thought how clever of her to have had him, +all complete and alive and jolly like that, a real baby. He was better +than the books and things they wrote, because he was more alive, and +would also last longer, with luck. Their books wouldn't have a run of +four score years and ten or whatever it was; they'd be lucky if any one +thought of them again in five years. + +But partly Jane gave the party to show people that Charles didn't +monopolise her, that she was well and active again, and ready for work +and life. If she wasn't careful, she might come to be regarded as the +mere mother, and dropped out. + +Johnny said, grinning amiably at her and Charles, 'Ah, you're +thinking that your masterpiece quite puts mine in the shade, aren't +you, old thing.' + +He had a novel just out. It was as good as most young men's first novels. + +'I'm not sure,' said Jane, 'that Charles is my masterpiece. Wait till the +other works appear, and I'll tell you.' + +Johnny grinned more, supposing that she meant the little Yids. + +'My books, I mean,' Jane added quickly. + +'Oh, your books.' + +'They're going to be better than yours, my dear,' said Jane. 'Wait and +see.... But I dare say they won't be as good as this.' She appraised +Charles with her eyes. + +'But, oh, so much less trouble,' she added, swinging him up and down. + +'I could have one as good as that,' said Johnny thoughtfully, 'with no +trouble at all.' + +'You'd have to work for it and keep it. And its mother. You wouldn't like +that, you know.... Of course you ought to. It's your duty. Every young +man who survives.... Daddy says so. You'd better do it, John. You're +getting on, you know.' + +Young men hate getting on. They hate it, really, more than young women +do. Youth is of such immense value, in almost any career, but +particularly to the young writer. + +But Johnny only said, with apparent nonchalance, 'Twenty-seven is not +very old.' He added, however, 'Anyhow, you're five minutes older, and +I've published a book, if you have produced that thing.' + +Johnny was frankly greedy about his book. He hung on reviews; he asked +for it in bookshops, and expressed astonishment and contempt when they +had not got it. And it was, after all, nothing to make a song about, Jane +thought. It wasn't positively discreditable to its writer, like most +novels, but it was a very normal book, by a very normal cleverish young +man. Johnny wasn't sure that his publishers advertised it as much as was +desirable. + +Gideon came up to Jane and Charles. He had just arrived. He had three +evening papers in his hand. His fellow passengers had left them in the +train, and he had collected them. Jews often get their news that way. + +Johnny saw his friend Miss Nancy Sharpe disengaged and looking lovely, +and went to speak to her. He was really in love with her a little, though +he didn't go as far as wanting to work for her and keep her. He was quite +right; that is to go too far, when so much happiness is attainable short +of it. Johnny wisely shunned desperate measures. So, to do her justice, +did Miss Sharpe. + +'Johnny's very elated,' said Jane to Gideon, looking after him. 'What do +_you_ think of his book, Arthur?' + +Gideon said, 'I don't think of it. I've had no reason to, particularly. +I've not had to review it.... I'm afraid I'm hopeless about novels just +now, that's the fact. I'm sick of the form--slices of life served up cold +in three hundred pages. Oh, it's very nice; it makes nice reading for +people. But what's the use? Except, of course, to kill time for those who +prefer it dead. But as things in themselves, as art, they've been ruined +by excess. My critical sense is blunted just now. I can hardly feel the +difference, though I see it, between a good novel and a bad one. I +couldn't write one, good or bad, to save my life, I know that. And I've +got to the stage when I wish other people wouldn't. I wish every one +would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think--like in the +Armistice Day pause, when all the noise stopped.' + +Jane shook her head. + +'You may be sure we shan't do that. Not likely. We all want to hear +ourselves talk. And quite right too. We've got things to say.' + +'Nothing of importance. Few things that wouldn't be better unsaid. Life +isn't talking.' + +'A journalist's is,' Jane pointed out, and he nodded. + +'Quite true. Horribly true. It's chiefly myself I'm hitting at. But at +least we journalists don't take ourselves solemnly; we know our stuff is +babble to fill a moment. Novelists and poets don't always know that; +they're apt to think it matters. And, of course, so far as any of them +can make and hold beauty, even a fragment of it here and there, it does +matter. The trouble is that they mostly can't do anything of the sort. +They don't mostly even know how to try. All but a few verse-makers are +shallow, muddled, or sentimental, and most novelists are commercial as +well. They haven't the means; they aren't adequately equipped; they've +nothing in them worth the saying. Why say it, then? A little cleverness +isn't worth while.' + +'You're morbid, Arthur.' + +'Morbid? Diseased? I dare say. We most of us are. What's health, after +all? No one knows.' + +'I've done eighty thousand words of my novel, anyhow.' + +'I'm sorry. Nearly all novels are too long. All you've got to say would +go into forty thousand.' + +'I don't write because I've got things to say. I haven't a message, like +mother. I write because it amuses me. And because I like to be a +novelist. It's done. And I like to be well spoken of--reasonably well, +that is. It's all fun. Why not?' + +'Oh, don't ask _me_ why not. I can't preach sermons all the evening.' + +He smiled down on her out of his long sad black eyes, glad of her because +she saw straight and never canted, impatient of her because her ideals +were commercial, loving her because she was gray-eyed and white-skinned +and desirable, seeing her much as Nancy Sharpe, who lived for music, saw +Johnny Potter, only with ardour instead of nonchalance; such ardour, +indeed, that his thoughts of her only intermittently achieved exactitude. + +Two girls came up to admire Charles. Jane said it was time she took him +to bed, and they went up with her. + +Gideon turned away. He hated parties, and seldom went even to Jane's. He +stood drinking coffee and watching people. You met most of them at the +club and elsewhere continually; why meet them all again in a +drawing-room? There was his sister Rosalind and her husband Boris Stefan +with their handsome faces and masses of black hair. Rosalind had a baby +too (at home); a delicate, pretty, fair-haired thing, like Rosalind's +Manchester mother. And Charles was like Jane's Birmingham father. It was +Manchester and Birmingham that persisted, not Palestine or Russia. + +And there was Juke, with his white, amused face and heavy-lidded eyes +that seemed always to see a long way, and Katherine Varick talking to a +naval officer about periscopes (Jane kept in with some of the Admiralty), +and Peacock, with whom Gideon had quarrelled two hours ago at the _Fact_ +office, and who was now in the middle of a group of writing young men, as +usual. Gideon looked at him cynically. Peacock was letting himself be got +at by a clique. Gideon would rather have seen him talking to the +practical looking sailor about periscopes. Peacock would have to be +watched. He had shown signs lately of colouring the _Fact_ with +prejudices. He was getting in with a push; he was dangerously in the +movement. He was also leaning romancewards, and departing from the realm +of pure truth. He had given credence to some strange travellers' tales of +Foreign Office iniquities. As if that unfortunate and misguided body had +not enough sins to its account without having melodramatic and +uncharacteristic kidnappings and deeds of violence attributed to it. But +Peacock had got in with those unhappy journalists and others who had been +viewing Russia, and, barely escaping with their lives, had come back with +nothing else, and least of all with that accurate habit of mind which +would have qualified them as contributors to the _Weekly Fact_. It was +not their fault (except for going to Russia), but Peacock should have had +nothing to do with them. + +Katherine Varick crossed the room to Gideon, with a faint smile. + +'Hallo. Enjoying life?' + +'Precisely that.' + +'I say, what are you doing with the _Fact_?' + +Gideon looked at her sourly. + +'Oh, you've noticed it too. It's becoming quite pretty reading, isn't it. +Less like a Blue Book.' + +'Much less. I should say it was beginning to appeal to a wider circle. +Is that the idea?' + +'Don't ask me. Ask Peacock. Whatever the idea is, it's his, not mine.... +But it's not a considered idea at all. It's merely a yielding to the +(apparently) irresistible pressure of atmosphere.' + +'I see. A truce with the Potter armies.' + +'No. There's no such thing as a truce with them. It's the first steps of +a retreat.' + +He said it sharply and suddenly, in the way of a man who is, at the +moment, making a discovery. He turned and looked across the room at +Peacock, who was talking and talking, in his clever, keen, pleasant way, +not in the least like a Blue Book. + +'We're _not_ like Blue Books,' Gideon muttered sadly. 'Hardly any one is. +Unfortunate. Very unfortunate. What's one to do about it?' + +'Lord Pinkerton would say, learn human nature as it is and build on it. +Exploit its weaknesses, instead of tilting against them. Accept +sentimentality and prejudice, and use them.' + +'I am aware that he would.... What do _you_ say, Katherine?' + +'Nothing. What's the use? I'm one of the Blue Books--not a fair judge, +therefore.' + +'No. You'd make no terms, ever.' + +'I've never been tempted. One may have to make terms, sometimes.' + +'I think not,' said Gideon. 'I think one never is obliged to make terms.' + +'If the enemy is too strong?' + +'Then one goes under. Gets out of it. That's not making terms.... +Good-night; I'm going home. I hate parties, you know. So do you. Why do +either of us go to them?' + +'They take one's thoughts off,' said Katherine in her own mind. Her blue +eyes contracted as she looked after him. + +'He's failing; he's being hurt. He'll go under. He should have been a +scientist or a scholar or a chemist, like me; something in which +knowledge matters and people don't. People will break his heart.' + + +3 + +Gideon walked all the way back from Hampstead to his own rooms. It was a +soft, damp night, full of little winds that blew into the city from +February fields and muddy roads far off. There would be lambs in the +fields.... Gideon suddenly wanted to get out of the town into that damp, +dark country that circled it. There would be fewer people there; fewer +minds crowded together, making a dense atmosphere that was impervious to +the piercing, however sharp, of truth. All this dense mass of stupid, +muddled, huddled minds.... What was to be done with it? Greedy minds, +ignorant minds, sentimental, truthless minds.... + +He saw, as he passed a newspaper stand, placards in big black +letters--'Bride's Suicide.' 'Divorce of Baronet.' Then, small and +inconspicuous, hardly hoping for attention, 'Italy and the Adriatic.' For +one person who would care about Italy and the Adriatic, there would, +presumably, be a hundred who would care about the bride and the baronet. +Presumably; else why the placards? Gideon honestly tried to bend his +impersonal and political mind to understand it. He knew no such people, +yet one had to believe they existed; people who really cared that a bride +with whom they had no acquaintance (why a bride? Did that make her more +interesting?) had taken her life; and that a baronet (also a perfect +stranger) had had his marriage dissolved in a court of law. What quality +did it indicate, this curious and inexplicable interest in these topics +so tedious to himself and to most of his personal acquaintances? Was it a +love of romance? But what romance was to be found in suicide or divorce? +Romance Gideon knew; knew how it girdled the world, heard the beat of its +steps in far forests, the whisper of its wings on dark seas.... It is +there, not in divorces and suicides. Were people perhaps moved by desire +to hear about the misfortunes of others? No, because they also welcomed +with eagerness the more cheerful domestic episodes reported. Was it, +then, some fundamental, elemental interest in fundamental things, such as +love, hate, birth, death? That was possibly it. The relation of states +one with another are the product of civilisation, and need an at least +rudimentarily political brain to grasp them. The relations of human +beings are natural, and only need the human heart for their +understanding. That part of man's mind which has been, for some obscure +reason, inaccurately called the heart, was enormously and +disproportionately stronger than the rest of the mind, the thinking part. + +'Light Caught Bending,' another placard remarked. That was more cheerful, +though it was an idiotic way of putting a theory as to the curvature of +space, but it was refreshing that, apparently, people were expected to be +excited by that too. And, Gideon knew it, they were. Einstein's theory +as to space and light would be discussed, with varying degrees of +intelligence, most of them low, in many a cottage, many a club, many a +train. There would be columns about it in the Sunday papers, with little +Sunday remarks to the effect that the finiteness of space did not limit +the infinity of God. Scientists have naif minds where God is concerned; +they see him, if at all, in terms of space. + +Anyhow, there it was. People were interested not only in divorce, +suicide, and murder, but in light and space, undulations and gravitation. +That was rather jolly, for that was true romance. It gave one more hope. +Even though people might like their science in cheap and absurd tabloid +form, they did like it. The Potter press exulted in scientific +discoveries made easy, but it was better than not exulting in them at +all. For these were things as they were, and therefore the things that +mattered. This was the satisfying world of hard, difficult facts, without +slush and without sentiment. This was the world where truth was sought +for its own sake. + +'When I see truth, do I seek truth +Only that I may things denote, +And, rich by striving, deck my youth +As with a vain, unusual coat?' + +Nearly every one in the ordinary world did that, if indeed they ever +concerned themselves with truth at all. And some scientists too, perhaps, +but not most. Scientists and scholars and explorers--they were the +people. They were the world's students, the learners, the discoverers. +They didn't talk till they knew.... + +Rain had begun to drizzle. At the corner of Marylebone Road and Baker +Street there was a lit coffee-stall. A group clustered about it; a +policeman drinking oxo, his waterproof cape shining with wet; two +taxi-cab drivers having coffee and buns; a girl in an evening cloak, with +a despatch case, eating biscuits. + +Gideon passed by without stopping. A hand touched him on the arm, and a +painted face looked up into his, murmuring something. Gideon, who had a +particular dislike for paint on the human face, and, in general, for +persons who looked and behaved like this person, looked away from her +and scowled. + +'I only wanted,' she explained, 'a cup of coffee ...' and he gave her +sixpence, though he didn't believe her. + +Horrible, these women were; ugly; dirty; loathsome; so that one wondered +why on earth any one liked them (some people obviously did like them, or +they wouldn't be there), and yet, detestable as they were, they were the +outcome of facts. Possibly in them, and in the world's other ugly facts, +Potterism and all truth-shirking found whatever justification it had. +Sentimentalism spread a rosy veil over the ugliness, draping it decently. +Making it, thought Gideon, how much worse; but making it such as +Potterites could face unwincing. + +The rain beat down. At its soft, chill touch Gideon's brain cooled and +cooled, till he seemed to see everything in a cold, hard, crystal +clarity. Life and death--how little they mattered. Life was paltry, and +death its end. Yet when the world, the Potterish world, dealt with death +it became something other than a mere end; it became a sensation, a +problem, an episode in a melodrama. The question, when a man died, was +always how and why. So, when Hobart had died, they were all dragged into +a net of suspicion and melodrama--they all became for a time absurd +actors in an absurd serial in the Potter press. You could not escape from +sensationalism in a sensational world. There was no room for the pedant, +with his greed for unadorned and unemotional precision. + +Gideon sighed sharply as he turned into Oxford Street, Oxford Street was +and is horrible. Everything a street should not be, even when it was +down, and now it was up, which was far worse. If Gideon had not been +unnerved by the painted person at the corner of Baker Street he would +never have gone home this way, he would have gone along Marylebone and +Euston Road. As it was, he got into a bus and rode unhappily to Gray's +Inn Road, where he lived. + +He sat up till three in the morning working out statistics for an +article. Statistics, figures, were delightful. They were a rest. +They mattered. + + +4 + +Two days later, at the _Fact_ office, Peacock, turning over galley slips, +said, 'This thing of yours on Esthonian food conditions looks like a +government schedule. Couldn't you make it more attractive?' + +'To whom?' asked Gideon. + +'Well--the ordinary reader.' + +'Oh, the ordinary reader. I meant it to be attractive to people who want +information.' + +'Well, but a little jam with the powder.... For instance, you draw no +inference from your facts. It's dull. Why not round the thing off into a +good article?' + +'I can't round things. I don't like them round, either. I've given the +facts, unearthed with considerable trouble and pains. No one else has. +Isn't it enough?' + +'Oh, it'll do.' Peacock's eyes glanced over the other proofs on his desk. +'We've got some good stuff this number.' + +'Nice round articles--yes.' Gideon turned the slips over with his lean +brown fingers carelessly. He picked one up. + +'Hallo. I didn't know that chap was reviewing _Coal and Wages_.' + +'Yes. He asked if he could.' + +'Do you think he knows enough?' + +'It's quite a good review. Read it.' + +Gideon read it carefully, then laid it down and said, 'I don't agree with +you that it's a good review. He's made at least two mistakes. And the +whole thing's biased by his personal political theories.' + +'Only enough to give it colour.' + +'You don't want colour in a review of a book of that sort. You only want +intelligence and exact knowledge.' + +'Oh, Clitherton's all right. His head's screwed on the right way. He +knows his subject.' + +'Not well enough. He's a political theorist, not a good economist. That's +hopeless. Why didn't you get Hinkson to do it?' + +'Hinkson can't write for nuts.' + +'Doesn't matter. Hinkson wouldn't have slipped up over his figures +or dates.' + +'My dear old chap, writing does matter. You're going crazy on that +subject. Of course it matters that a thing should be decently put +together.' + +'It matters much more that it should be well informed. It is, of course, +quite possible to be both.' + +'Oh, quite. That's the idea of the _Fact_, after all.' + +'Peacock, I hate all these slipshod fellows you get now. I wish you'd +chuck the lot. They're well enough for most journalism, but they don't +know enough for us.' + +Peacock said, 'Oh, we'll thrash it out another time, if you don't mind. +I've got to get through some letters now,' and rang for his secretary. + +Gideon went to his own room and searched old files for the verification +and correction of Clitherton's mistakes. He found them, and made a note +of them. Unfortunately they weakened Clitherton's argument a little. +Clitherton would have to modify it. Clitherton, a sweeping and wholesale +person, would not like that. + +Gideon was feeling annoyed with Clitherton, and annoyed with several +others among that week's contributors, and especially annoyed with +Peacock, who permitted and encouraged them. If they went on like this, +the _Fact_ would soon be popular; it would find its way into the great +soft silly heart of the public and there be damned. + +He was a pathetic figure, Arthur Gideon, the intolerant precisian, +fighting savagely against the tide of loose thinking that he saw surging +in upon him, swamping the world and drowning facts. He did not see +himself as a pathetic figure, or as anything else. He did not see himself +at all, but worked away at his desk in the foggy room, checking the +unconsidered or inaccurate or oversimplified statements of others, +writing his own section of the Notes of the Week, with his careful, +patient, fined brilliance, stopping to gnaw his pen or his thumb-nail or +to draw diagrams, triangle within triangle, or circle intersecting +circle, on his blotting paper. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +RUNNING AWAY + + +1 + +A week later Gideon resigned his assistant editorship of the _Fact_. +Peacock was, on the whole, relieved. Gideon had been getting too +difficult of late. After some casting about among eager, outwardly +indifferent possible successors, Peacock offered the job to Johnny +Potter, who was swimming on the tide of his first novel, which had been +what is called 'well spoken of' by the press, but who, at the same time, +had the popular touch, was quite a competent journalist, was looking out +for a job, and was young enough to do what he was told; that is to say, +he was four or five years younger than Peacock. He had also a fervent +enthusiasm for democratic principles and for Peacock's prose style +(Gideon had been temperate in his admiration of both), and Peacock +thought they would get on very well. + +Jane was sulky, jealous, and contemptuous. + +'Johnny. Why Johnny? He's not so good as lots of other people who would +have liked the job. He's swanking so already that it makes me tired to be +in the room with him, and now he'll be worse than ever. Oh, Arthur, it is +rot, your chucking it. I've a jolly good mind not to marry you. I thought +I was marrying the assistant editor of an important paper, not just a +lazy old Jew without a job.' + +She ruffled up his black, untidy hair with her hand as she sat on the +arm of his chair; but she was really annoyed with him, as she had +explained a week ago when he had told her. + + +2 + +He had walked in one evening and found her in Charles's bedroom, bathing +him. Clare was there too, helping. + +'Why do girls like washing babies?' Gideon speculated aloud. 'They nearly +all do, don't they?' + +'Well, I should just _hope_ so,' Clare said. She was kneeling by the tin +bath with her sleeves rolled up, holding a warmed towel. Her face was +flushed from the fire, and her hair was loosened where Charles had caught +his toe in it. She looked pretty and maternal, and looked up at Gideon +with the kind of conventional, good-humoured scorn that girls and women +put on when men talk of babies. They do it (one believes) partly because +they feel it is a subject they know about, and partly to pander to men's +desire that they should do it. It is part of the pretty play between the +sexes. Jane never did it; she wasn't feminine enough. And Gideon did not +want her to do it; he thought it silly. + +'Why do you hope so?' asked Gideon. 'And why do girls like it?' + +The first question was to Clare, the second to Jane, because he knew that +Clare would not be able to answer it. + +'The mites!' said Clare. 'Who _wouldn't_ like it?' + +Gideon sighed a little, Clare tried him. She had an amorphous mind. But +Jane threw up at him, as she enveloped Charles in the towel, 'I'll try +and think it out some time, Arthur. I haven't time now.... There's a +reason all right.... The powder, Clare.' + +Gideon watched the absurd drying and powdering process with gravity and +interest, as if trying to discover its charm. + +'Even Katherine enjoys it,' he said, still pondering. It was true. +Katherine, who liked experimenting with chemicals, liked also washing +babies. Possibly Katherine knew why, in both cases. + +After Charles was in bed, his mother, his aunt, and his prospective +stepfather had dinner. Clare, who was uncomfortable with Gideon, not +liking him as a brother-in-law or indeed as anything else (besides not +being sure how much Jane had told him about 'that awful night'), +chattered to Jane about things of which she thought Gideon knew +nothing--dances, plays, friends, family and Potters Bar gossip. Gideon +became very silent. He and Clare touched nowhere. Clare flaunted the +family papers in his face and Jane's. Lord Pinkerton was starting a new +one, a weekly, and it promised to sell better than any other weekly on +the market, but far better. + +'Dad says the orders have been simply stunning. It's going to be a big +thing. Simple, you know, and yet clever--like all dad's papers. David +says' (David was the naval officer to whom Clare was now betrothed) +'there's _no one_ with such a sense of what people want as dad has. Far +more of it than Northcliffe, David says he has. Because, you know, +Northcliffe sometimes annoys people--look at the line he took about us +helping the Russians to fight each other. And making out in leaders, +David says, that the Government is always wrong just because he doesn't +like it. And drawing attention to the mistakes it makes, which no one +would notice if they weren't rubbed in. David gets quite sick with him +sometimes. He says the Pinkerton press never does that sort of thing, +it's got too much tact, and lets well alone.' + +'I'll, you mean, don't you, darling?' Jane interpolated. + +Clare, who did, but did not know it, only said, 'David's got a tremendous +admiration for it. He says it will _last_.' + +'Oh, bother the paternal press,' Jane said. 'Give it a rest, old thing. +It may be new to David, but it's stale to us. It's Arthur's turn to talk +about his father's bank or something.' + +But Arthur didn't talk. He only made bread pills, and the girls got on to +the newest dance. + + +3 + +Clare went away after dinner. She never stayed long when Gideon was +there. David didn't like Gideon, rightly thinking him a Sheeney. + +'Sheeneys are at the bottom of Bolshevism, you know,' he told Clare. 'At +the top too, for that matter. Dreadful fellows; quite dreadful. Why the +dickens do you let Jane marry him?' + +Clare shrugged her shoulders. + +'Jane does what she likes. Dad and mother have begged and prayed her not +to.... Besides, of course, even if he was all right, it's too _soon_....' + +'Too soon? Ah, yes, of course. Poor Hobart, you mean. Quite. Much too +soon.... A dreadful business, that. I don't blame her for trying to put +it behind her, out of sight. But with a _Sheeney_. Well, _chacun a son +gout.'_ For David was tolerant, a live and let live man. + +When Clare was gone, Jane said, 'Wake up, old man. You can talk now.... +You and Clare are stupid about each other, by the way. You'll have to get +over it some time. You're ill-mannered and she's a silly fool; but +ill-mannered people and silly fools can rub along together, all right, if +they try.' + +'I don't mind Clare,' said Gideon, rousing himself. 'I wasn't thinking +about her, to say the truth. I was thinking about something else.... I'm +chucking the _Fact_, Jane.' + +'How d'you mean, chucking the _Fact_' Jane lit a cigarette. + +'What I say. I've resigned my job on it. I'm sick of it.' + +'Oh, sick.... Every one's sick of work, naturally. It's what work is +for.... Well, what are you doing next? Have you been offered a +better job?' + +'I've not been offered a job of any sort. And I shouldn't take it if I +were--not at present. I'm sick of journalism.' + +Jane took it calmly, lying back among the sofa cushions and smoking. + +'I was afraid you were working up to this.... Of course, if you chuck the +_Fact_ you take away its last chance. It'll do a nose-dive now.' + +'It's doing it anyhow. I can't stop it. But I'm jolly well not going to +nose-dive with it. I'm clearing out.' + +'You're giving up the fight, then. Caving in. Putting your hands up to +Potterism.' + +She was taunting him, in her cool, unmoved, leisurely tones. + +'I'm clearing out,' he repeated, emphasising the phrase, and his black +eyes seemed to look into distances. 'Running away, if you like. This +thing's too strong for me to fight. I can't do it. Clare's quite right. +It's tremendous. It will last. And the Pinkerton press only represents +one tiny part of it. If the Pinkerton press were all, it would be +fightable. But look at the _Fact_--a sworn enemy of everything the +Pinkerton press stands for, politically, but fighting it with its own +weapons--muddled thinking, sentimentality, prejudice, loose cant phrases. +I tell you there'll hardly be a halfpenny to choose between the Pinkerton +press and the _Fact_, by the time Peacock's done with it.... It's not +Peacock's fault--except that he's weak. It's not the Syndicate's +fault--except that they don't want to go on losing money for ever. It's +the pressure of public demand and atmosphere. Atmosphere even more than +demand. Human minds are delicate machines. How can they go on working +truly and precisely and scientifically, with all this poisonous gas +floating round them? Oh, well, I suppose there are a few minds still +which do; even some journalists and politicians keep their heads; but +what's the use against the pressure? To go in for journalism or for +public life is to put oneself deliberately into the thick of the mess +without being able to clean it up.' + +'After all,' said Jane, more moderately, 'it's all a joke. Everything is. +The world is.' + +'A rotten bad joke.' + +'You think things matter. You take anti-Potterism seriously, as some +people take Potterism.' + +'Things are serious. Things do matter,' said the Russian Jew. + +Jane looked at him kindly. She was a year younger than he was, but felt +five years older to-night. + +'Well, what's the remedy then?' + +He said, wearily, 'Oh, education, I suppose. Education. There's nothing +else. _Learning_.' He said the word with affection, lingering on it, +striking his hand on the sofa-back to emphasise it. + +'Learning, learning, learning. There's nothing else.... We should drop +all this talking and writing. All this confused, uneducated mass of +self-expression. Self-expression, with no self worth expressing. That's +just what we shouldn't do with our selves--express them. We should train +them, educate them, teach them to think, see that they _know_ +something--know it exactly, with no blurred edges, no fogs. Be sure of +our facts, and keep theories out of the system like poison. And when we +say anything we should say it concisely and baldly, without eloquence and +frills. Lord, how I loathe eloquence!' + +'But you can't get away from it, darling. All right, don't mind me, I +like it.... Well now, what are you going to _do_ about it? Teach in a +continuation school?' + +'No,' he said, seriously. 'No. Though one might do worse. But I've got to +get right away for a time--right out of it all. I've got to find things +out before I do anything else.' + +'Well, there are plenty of, things to find out here. No need to go away +for that.' + +He shook his head. + +'Western Europe's so hopeless just now. So given over to muddle and lies. +Besides, I can't trust myself, I shall talk if I stay. I'm not a strong +silent man. I should find myself writing articles, or standing for +Parliament, or something.' + +'And very nice too. I've always said you ought to stand for Labour.' + +'And I've sometimes agreed with you. But now I know I oughtn't. That's +not the way. I'm not going to join in that mess. I'm not good enough to +make it worth while. I should either get swamped by it, or I should get +so angry that I should murder some one. No, I'm going right out of it all +for a bit. I want to find out a little, if I can, about how things are in +other countries. Central Europe. Russia. I shall go to Russia.' + +'Russia! You'll come back and write about it. People do.' + +'I shall not. No, I think I can avoid that--it's too obvious a temptation +to tumble into with one's eyes shut.' + +'"He travelled in Russia and never wrote of it." It would be a good +epitaph.... But Arthur darling, is it wise, is it necessary, is it safe? +Won't the Reds get you, or the Whites? Which would be worse, I wonder?' + +'What should they want with me?' + +'They'll think you're going to write about them, of course. That's why +the Reds kidnapped Keeling, and the Whites W.T. Goode. They were quite +right, too--except that they didn't go far enough and make a job of them. +Suppose they've learnt wisdom by now, and make a job of you?' + +'Well then, I shall be made a job of. Also a placard for our sensational +press, which would be worse. One must take a few risks.... It will be +interesting, you know, to be there. I shall visit my father's old home +near Odessa. Possibly some of his people may be left round there. I shall +find things out--what the conditions are, why things are happening as +they are, how the people live. I think I shall be better able after that +to find out what the state of things is here. One's too provincial, too +much taken up with one's own corner. Political science is too universal a +thing to learn in that way.' + +'And when you've found out? What next?' + +'There's no next. It will take me all my life even to begin to find out. +I don't know where I shall be--in London, no doubt, mostly.' + +'Do you mean, Arthur, that you're going to chuck work for good? Writing, +I mean, or public work?' + +'I hope so. I mean to. Oh, if ever, later on, I feel I have anything I +want to say, I'll say it. But that won't be for years. First I'm going to +learn.... You see, Jane, we can live all right. Thank goodness, I don't +depend on what I earn.... You and I together--we'll learn a lot.' + +'Oh, I'm going in for confused self-expression. I'm not taking any vows +of silence. I'm going to write.' + +'As you like. Every one's got to decide for themselves. It amuses you, +I suppose.' + +'Of course, it does. Why not? I love it. Not only writing, but being in +the swim, making a kind of a name, doing what other people do. I'm not +mother, who does but write because she must, and pipes but as the +linnets do.' + +'No, thank goodness. You're as intellectually honest as any one I know, +and as greedy for the wrong things.' + +'I want a good time. Why not?' + +'Why not? Only that, as long as we're all out for a good time, those of +us who can afford to will get it, and nothing more, and those of us who +can't will get nothing at all. You see, I think it's taking hold of +things by the wrong end. As long as we go on not thinking, not finding +out, but greedily wanting good things--well, we shall be as we are, +that's all--Potterish.' + +'You mean I'm Potterish,' observed Jane, without rancour. + +'Oh Lord, we all are,' said Gideon in disgust. 'Every profiteer, every +sentimentalist, ever muddler. Every artist directly he thinks of his art +as something marketable, something to bring him fame; every scientist or +scholar (if there are any) who fakes a fact in the interest of his +theory; every fool who talks through his hat without knowing; every +sentimentalist who plays up to the sentimentalism in himself and other +people; every second-hand ignoramus who takes over a view or a prejudice +wholesale, without investigating the facts it's based on for himself. You +find it everywhere, the taint; you can't get away from it. Except by +keeping quiet and learning, and wanting truth more than anything else.' + +'It sounds a dull life, Arthur. Rather like K's, in her old laboratory.' + +'Yes, rather like K's. Not dull; no. Finding things out can't be dull.' + +'Well, old thing, go and find things out. But come back in time for the +wedding, and then we'll see what next.' + +Jane was not seriously alarmed. She believed that this of Arthur's, was a +short attack; when they were married she would see that he got cured of +it. She wasn't going to let him drop out of things and disappear, her +brilliant Arthur, who had his world in his hand to play with. Journalism, +politics, public life of some sort--it was these that he was so eminently +fitted for and must go in for. + +'You mustn't waste yourself, Arthur,' she said. 'It's all right to lie +low for a bit, but when you come back you must do something worth +while.... I'm sorry about the _Fact_; I think you might have stayed on +and saved it. But it's your show. Go and explore Central Europe, then, +and learn all about it. Then come back and write a book on political +science which will be repulsive to all but learned minds. But remember +we're getting married in June; don't be late, will you. And write to me +from Russia. Letters that will do for me to send to the newspapers, +telling me not to spend my money on hats and theatres but on +distributing anti-Bolshevist and anti-Czarist tracts. I'll have the +letters published in leaflets at threepence a hundred, and drop them +about in public places.' + +'I'll write to you, no fear,' said Gideon. 'And I'll be in time for the +wedding.... Jane, we'll have a great time, you and I, learning things +together. We'll have adventures. We'll go exploring, shall we?' + +'Rather. We'll lend Charles to mother and dad often, and go off.... I'd +come with you now for two pins. Only I can't.' + +'No. Charles needs you at present.' 'There's my book, too. And all sorts +of things.' 'Oh, your book--that's nothing. Books aren't worth losing +anything for. Don't you ever get tied up with books and work, Jane. It's +not worth it. One's got to sit loose. Only one can't, to kids; they're +too important. We'll have our good times before we get our kids--and +after they've grown old enough to be left to themselves a bit.' + +Jane smiled enigmatically, only obscurely realising that she meant, 'Our +ideas of a good time aren't the same, and never will be.' + +Gideon too only obscurely knew it. Anyhow, for both, the contemplation of +that difference could be deferred. Each could hope to break the other in +when the time came. Gideon, as befitted his sex, realised the eternity of +the difference less sharply than Jane did. It was just, he thought, a +question of showing Jane, making her understand.... Jane did not think +that it was just a question of making Gideon understand. But he loved +her, and she was persuaded that he would yield to her in the end, and not +spoil her jolly, delightful life, which was to advance, hand in hand with +his, to notoriety or glory or both. + +For a moment both heard, remotely, the faint clash of swords. Then they +shut a door upon the sound, and the man, shaken with sudden passion, drew +the woman into his arms. + +'I've been talking, talking all the evening,' said Gideon presently. 'I +can't get away from it, can I. Preaching, theorising, holding forth. It's +more than time I went away somewhere where no one will listen to me.' + +'There's plenty of talking in Russia. You'll come back worse than ever, +my dear.... I don't care. As long as you do come back. You must come back +to me, Arthur.' + +She clung to him, in one of her rare moments of demonstrated passion. She +was usually cool, and left demonstration to him. + +'I shall come back all right,' he told her. 'No fear. I want to get +married, you see. I want it, really, much more than I want to get +information or anything else. Wanting a person--that's what we all want +most, when we want it at all. Queer, isn't it? And hopelessly personal +and selfish. But there it is. Ideals simply don't count in comparison. +They'd go under every time, if there was a choice.' + +Jane, with his arms round her and his face bent down to hers, knew it. +She was not afraid, either for his career or her own. They would have +their good time all right. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS + + +1 + +March wore through, and April came, and warm winds healed winter's scars, +and the 1920 budget shocked every one, and the industrial revolution +predicted as usual didn't come off, and Mr. Wells's _History of the +World_ completed its tenth part, and blossom by blossom the spring began. + +It was the second Easter after the war, and people were getting more used +to peace. They murdered one another rather less frequently, were rather +less emotional and divorced, and understood with more precision which +profiteers it was worth while to prosecute and which not, and why the +second class was so much larger than the first; and, in general, had +learnt to manage rather better this unmanageable peace. + +The outlook, domestic and international, was still what those who think +in terms of colour call black. The Irish question, the Russian question, +the Italian-Adriatic question, and all the Asiatic questions, remained +what those who think in terms of angles call acute. Economic ruin, +political bankruptcy, European chaos, international hostilities had +become accepted as the normal state of being by the inhabitants of this +restless and unfortunate planet. + + +2 + +Such was the state of things in the world at large. In literary London, +publishers produced their spring lists. They contained the usual hardy +annuals and bi-annuals among novelists, several new ventures, including +John Potter's _Giles in Bloomsbury_ (second impression); Jane Hobart's +_Children of Peace_ (A Satire by a New Writer); and Leila Yorke's _The +Price of Honour_. ('In her new novel, Leila Yorke reveals to the full the +Glittering psychology combined with profound depths which have made this +well-known writer famous. The tale will be read, from first page to +last, with breathless interest. The end is unexpected and out of the +common, and leaves one wondering.' So said the publisher; the reviewers, +more briefly, 'Another Leila Yorke.') + +There were also many memoirs of great persons by themselves, many +histories of the recent war, several thousand books of verse, a monograph +by K.D. Varick on Catalysers and Catalysis and the Generation of +Hydrogen, and _New Wine_ by the Reverend Laurence Juke. + +The journalistic world also flourished. The _Weekly Fact_ had become, as +people said, quite an interesting and readable paper, brighter than the +_Nation_, more emotional than the _New Statesman_, gentler than the _New +Witness_, spicier than the _Spectator_, more chatty than the _Athenaeum_, +so that one bought it on bookstalls and read it in trains. + +There was also the new Pinkerton fourpenny, the _Wednesday Chat_, +brighter, more emotional, gentler, spicier, and chattier than them +all, and vulgar as well, nearly as vulgar as _John Bull_, and quite +as sentimental, but less vicious, so that it sold in its millions +from the outset, and soon had a poem up on the walls of the tube +stations, saying-- + +'No other weeklies sell +Anything like so well.' + +which was as near the truth as these statements usually are. Lord +Pinkerton had, in fact, with his usual acumen, sensed the existence of a +great Fourpenny Weekly Public, and given it, as was his wont, more than +it desired or deserved. The sixpenny weekly public already had its needs +met; so had the penny, the twopenny, the threepenny, and the shilling +public. Now the fourpenny public, a shy and modest section of the +community, largely clerical (in the lay sense of the word) looked up and +was fed. Those brains which could only with effort rise to the solid +political and economic information and cultured literary judgments meted +out by the sixpennies, but which yet shrank from the crudities of our +cheapest journals, here found something they could read, mark, learn, and +inwardly digest. + +The Potterite press (not only Lord Pinkerton's) advanced, like an army +terrible with banners, on all sections of the line. + + +3 + +Juke's book on modern thought in the Church was a success. It was +brilliantly written, and reviewed in lay as well as in church papers. +Juke, to his own detriment, became popular. Canon Streeter and others +asked him to collaborate in joint books on the Church. Modernist +liberal-catholic vicars asked him to preach. When he preached, people +came in hundreds to hear him, because he was an attractive, stimulating, +and entertaining preacher. (I have never had this experience, but I +assume that it is morally unwholesome.) He had to take missions, and +retreats, and quiet days, and give lectures on the Church to cultivated +audiences. Then he was offered the living of St. Anne's, Piccadilly, +which is one of those incumbencies with what is known as scope, which +meant that there were no poor in the parish, and the incumbent's gifts as +preacher, lecturer, writer, and social success could be used to the best +advantage. He was given three weeks to decide. + + +4 + +Gideon wrote long letters to Jane from the Russian towns and villages in +which he sojourned. But none of them were suitable for propaganda +purposes; they were critical but dispassionate. He had found some cousins +of his father's, fur merchants living in a small town on the edge of a +forest. 'Clever, cringing, nerve-ridden people,' he said. The older +generation remembered his grandparents, and his father as a bright-eyed +infant. They remembered that pogrom fifty years ago, and described it. +'They'll describe anything,' wrote Gideon. 'The more horrible it is, the +more they'll talk. That's Russian, not Jewish specially. Or is it just +human?'... Gideon didn't repeat to Jane the details he heard of his +grandparents' murder by Russian police--details which his father, in +whose memory they burned like a disease, had never told him. + +'Things as bad as that massacre are happening all the time in this +pleasant country,' he wrote. 'It doesn't matter what the political +convictions, if any, of a Russian are--he's a barbarian whether he's on +a soviet or in the anti-Bolshevik armies. Not always, of course; there +are a few who have escaped the prevalent lust of cruelty--but only a +few. Love of pain (as experienced by others) for its own sake--as one +loves good food, or beautiful women--it's a queer disease. It goes +along, often, with other strong sensual desires. The Russians, for +instance, are the worst gluttons and profligates of Europe. With it +all, they have, often, an extraordinary generous good-heartedness; with +one hand they will give away what they can't spare to some one in need, +while with the other they torture an animal or a human being to death. +The women seldomer do either; like women everywhere, they are less +given both to sensual desire and to generous open-handedness.... That's +a curious thing, how seldom you find physical cruelty in a woman of any +nationality. Even the most spiteful and morally unkindest little girl +will shudder away while her brother tears the wings off a fly or the +legs off a frog, or impales a worm on a hook. Weak nerves, partly, and +partly the sort of high-strung fastidiousness women have. When you come +across cruelty in a woman--physical cruelty, of course--you think of +her as a monster; just as when you come on a stingy man, you think of +him (but probably inaccurately) as a Jew. Russians are very male, +except in their inchoate, confused thinking. Their special brand of +humour and of sentimentality are male; their exuberant strength and +aliveness, their sensuality, and their savage cruelty.... If ever women +come to count in Russia as a force, not merely as mates for the men, +queer things will happen.... Here in this town things are, for the +moment, tidy and ordered, as if seven Germans with seven mops had swept +it for half a year. The local soviet is a gang of ruffians, but they do +keep things more or less ship-shape. And they make people work. And +they torture dogs....' + +Later he wrote, 'You were right as to one thing; every one I meet, +including my relations, is persuaded that I am either a newspaper +correspondent or writing a book, or, more probably, both. These taints +cling so. I feel like a reformed drunkard, who has taken the pledge but +still carries about with him a red nose and shaky hands, so that he gets +no credit for his new sobriety. What's the good of my telling people here +that I don't write, when I suppose I've the mark of the beast stamped all +over me? And they play up; they talk for me to record it.... + +'I find all kinds of odd things here. Among others, an English doctor, in +the local lunatic asylum. Mad as a hatter, poor devil--now--whatever he +was when they shut him up. I dare say he'd been through enough even then +to turn his brain. I can't find out who his friends in England are....' + + +5 + +Gideon stopped writing, and took Jane's last letter out of his pocket. It +occurred to him that he was in no sense answering it. Not that Jane +would mind; that wasn't the sort of thing she did mind. But it struck him +suddenly how difficult it had grown to him to answer Jane's letters--or, +indeed, any one else's. He could not flatter himself that he was already +contracting the inarticulate habit, because he could pour forth fluently +enough about his own experiences; but to Jane's news of London he had +nothing to say. A new paper had been started; another paper had died; +some one they knew had deserted from one literary coterie to another; +some one else had turned from a dowdy into a nut; Jane had been seeing a +lot of bad plays; her novel--'my confused mass of self-expression,' she +called it to him--was coming out next week. All the familiar personal, +literary, political, and social gossip, which he too had dealt in once; +Jane was in the thick of it still, and he was turning stupid, like a man +living in the country; he could not answer her. Or, perhaps, would not; +because the thing that absorbed him at present was how people lived and +thought, and what could be made of them--not the conscious, intellectual, +writing, discussing, semi-civilised people (semi-civilised--what an +absurd word! What is complete civilisation, that we should bisect it and +say we have half, or any other exact fraction? Partly civilised, Gideon +amended it to), but the great unconscious masses, hardly civilised at +all, who shape things, for good or evil, in the long run. + +Gideon folded up Jane's letter and put it away, and to his own added +nothing but his love. + + +6 + +Jane got that letter in Easter week. It was a fine warm day, and she, +walking across Green Park, met Juke, who had been lunching with a bishop +to meet an elderly princess who had read his book. + +'She said, "I'm afraid you're sadly satirical, Mr. Juke,'" he told Jane. +'She did really. And I'm to preach at Sandringham one Sunday. Yes, to the +Family. Tell Gideon that, will you. He'll be so disgusted. But what a +chance! Life at St. Anne's is going to be full of chances of slanging the +rich, that's one thing about it.' + +'Oh, you're going to take it, then?' + +'Probably. I've not written to accept yet, so don't pass it on.' + +'I'm glad. It's much more amusing to accept things, even livings. It'll +be lovely: you'll be all among the clubs and theatres and the idle rich; +much gayer than Covent Garden.' + +'Oh, gayer,' said Juke. + +They came out into Birdcage Walk, and there was a man selling the +_Evening Hustle_, Lord Pinkerton's evening paper. + +'Bloody massacres,' he was observing with a kind of absent-minded +happiness. 'Bloody massacres in Russia, Ireland, Armenia, and the +Punjab.... British journalist assassinated near Odessa.' + +And there it was, too, in big black letters on the _Evening Hustle_ +placard:-- + +'DIVORCE OF A PEERESS. + +'MURDER OF BRITISH JOURNALIST IN RUSSIA-LATE WIRE FROM GATWICK.' + +They bought the paper, to see who the British journalist was. His murder +was in a little paragraph on the front page. + +'Mr. Arthur Gideon, a well-known British journalist' ... first beaten +nearly to death by White soldiery, because he was, entirely in vain, +defending some poor Jewish family from their wrath ... then found by +Bolshevists and disposed of ... somehow ... because he was an +Englishman.... + + +7 + +A placard for the press. A placard for the Potter press. Had he thought +of that at the last, and died in the bitterness of that paradox? Murdered +by both sides, being of neither, but merely a seeker after fact. Killed +in the quest for truth and the war against verbiage and cant, and, in the +end, a placard for the press which hated the one and lived by the other. +_Had_ he thought of that as he broke under the last strain of pain? Or, +merely, 'These damned brutes. White or Red, there's nothing to choose ... +nothing to choose ...' + +Anyhow, it was over, that quest of his, and nothing remained but the +placard which coupled his defeat with the peeress's divorce. + +Arthur Gideon had gone under, but the Potter press, the flaunting banner +of the great sentimental public, remained. It would always remain, so +long as the great sentimental public were what they were. + + +8 + +Little remains to add. Little of Gideon, for they never learnt much more +of his death than was telegraphed in that first message. His father, +going out to the scene of his death, may have heard more; if he did, he +never revealed it to any one. Not only Arthur had perished, but the +Jewish family he was trying to defend; he had failed as well as died. +Failed utterly, every way; gone under and finished, he and his pedantry +and his exactitude, his preaching, his hard clarity, and his bewildered +bitterness against a world vulgar and soft-headed beyond his +understanding. + +Juke refused St. Anne's, with its chances, its congregations, and its +scope. Neither did he preach at Sandringham. Gideon's fate pilloried +on that placard had stabbed through him and cut him, sick and angry, +from his moorings. He spoke no more and wrote no more to admiring +audiences who hung on his words and took his quick points as he made +them. To be one with other men, he learnt a manual trade, and made +shoes in Bermondsey, and preached in the streets to men who did not, +as a rule, listen. + +Jane would, no doubt, fulfil herself in the course of time, make an +adequate figure in the world she loved, and suck therefrom no small +advantage. She had loved Arthur Gideon; but what Lady Pinkerton and +Clare would call her 'heart' was not of the kind which would, as these +two would doubtless put it in their strange phraseology, 'break.' +Somehow, after all, Jane would have her good time; if not in one way, +then in another. + +Lord and Lady Pinkerton flourish exceedingly, and will be long in the +land. Leila Yorke sells better than ever. Of the Pinkerton press I need +not speak, since it is so well qualified to speak for itself. Enough to +say that no fears are at present entertained for its demise. And little +Charles Hobart grows in stature, under his grandfather's watching and +approving eye. When the time comes, he will carry on worthily. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Potterism, by Rose Macaulay + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POTTERISM *** + +***** This file should be named 11163.txt or 11163.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/6/11163/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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