Читать книгу The Land of Afternoon: A Satire - Gilbert Knox - Страница 6

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The Dillings had come to Ottawa joyously, eager to accept its invitation and to become identified with its interests. They were less flattered by the call than elated by it. Neither of them expected merely to skim the pleasures offered by life in the Capital; they were acutely alive to their responsibilities, and were ready to assume them. They hoped to gain something from the great city, it is true, but equally did they long to give. Everyone who was privileged to live in Ottawa must, they imagined, have something of value to contribute to their country, and the Dillings welcomed the opportunity to serve rather than be served.

But when Marjorie thought of Pinto Plains, of its gay simplicity and warm friendliness, the three months that marked her absence from it, stretched themselves out like years. On the other hand, when she considered how little progress she had made in adapting herself to the formal ways of the Capital, they shrunk into so many days; hours, indeed. So far as happy transplanting was concerned, she might even now be stepping off the train, a stranger.

Raymond Dilling, a country schoolmaster still in his thirties, had strong predilections towards politics, and saw in this move a coveted opportunity for the furtherance of his ambitions. Yet the idealist who shared his mortal envelope believed with Spencer: “None can be happy until all are happy; none can be free until all are free,” and he fought sternly to crush a budding and dangerous individualism. With a little less ambition and response to the altruistic urge—public service—he would have remained a country schoolmaster to the end of his days. As it was, he heard the evocation of Destiny for higher things, read law as an avenue to what seemed to him the primrose path of politics, and grasped the hand of opportunity before it was definitely thrust towards him. He lived in the West during its most provocative period—provocative, that is, for a man of imagination—but he never caught the true spirit of the land, he never felt his soul respond to the lure of its fecundity, its spaciousness, its poignant beauty. The sun always set for him behind the grain elevators, and it never occurred to him to lift his eyes to the eternal hills ...

Dilling was scarcely conscious of his soul. Had he been, he would have set about supplying it with what he conceived to be its requirements. Of his mind, on the other hand, he was acutely aware, and he fed it freely on Shakespeare, Milton, and the King James’ Bible, copies of which were always to be found on the parlour table save between the hours of six and seven in the morning, when he held them in his abnormally long, thin hands. By following the example of those two great figures, Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate, Dilling hoped to acquire a similarly spacious vocabulary and oratorical persuasiveness.

He was a bit of a dreamer, too, believing in Party as the expression of the British theory of Government. He was simply dazed when he heard the ante-bellum ideas of group government, the talk of Economic Democracy and the Gospel of the I.W.W., which was merely Prudhon’s epigram—“La Propriété c’est vol,” writ large.

He had secured nomination for Parliament through the finesse of the Hon. Godfrey Gough, who recognised his dialectical supremacy over that of any other man in the West. Gough was the âme damnée of the vested interests, and so clever was his advocacy that it captivated Dilling into whole-hearted support of their political stratagems, and made it easy for him to bring them into alignment with his conscience. But he did so without hope of pecuniary reward. He was honest. During his entire career, he held temptation by the throat, as it were, determined that no selfish advantage or gain should deflect him from unremitting endeavour for the Nation’s good. No parliamentary success attained, nor honours received, should be less than a meed for a faithful adherence to high principles.

He had never talked much with politicians, but he had been talked to by them. On these occasions, it was not apparent to him that they were striving to maintain politics on its lowest plane, rather than to achieve the ideal commonwealth that is supposed to be the end and aim of their profession. He read into their speeches and conversations the doctrine with which he, himself, was impregnated, and the thought of working side by side with these men, aroused in him an emotion akin to consecration ...

For years Marjorie had pictured Ottawa much as she had pictured Bagdad—The City of Mystery and a Thousand Delights—a place of gracious boulevards and noble architecture, where highly intelligent people occupied themselves with the performance of inspired tasks. And she thought of it as the Heart of the Great Dominion, as necessary to the national body as the human heart is essential to the physical body, transmitting the tide of national life to the very finger-tips of civilisation.

And often, down in the secret places of her self, she had even a more solemn thought—that Ottawa was the Chalice of a Nation’s Hopes, and that merely to look upon it would produce an effect like that of entering some Holy Temple. Sin and sadness would disappear, and even the most degenerate must be led there to spiritual refreshment and transfiguration.

Nor did she stand alone; most of her friends were of the same opinion. They linked themselves to the Capital as closely as they were able, and informed themselves minutely concerning its activities, by careful study of the daily press. They read the Parliamentary news first—this was a sacred duty; they wrote papers on politicians and politics for their clubs, and spoke with a certain reverent intimacy of the People in the Public Eye. But most of all they enjoyed the social notes, the description of the gowns, and the tidbits of gossip that crept into the columns of their papers! Even the accidents, the obscure births and deaths that occurred in Ottawa, were invested with a stupendous importance in their eyes.

To them, it was The Land of Afternoon.

And now, as she sat in her tiny drawing-room, denuded of its handsome what-not, and waiting for possible callers, Marjorie tried to stifle a sense of depression, a conviction that all was not right with the world.

She reproached herself for this attitude of mind, trying to remove the trouble without searching for its origin or cause. The house was very still. The children were outside, playing. Her thoughts were filled with Pinto Plains and longing for her friends there.

She could almost guess what they were doing, especially Genevieve Woodside, whose turn it would be, to-day, to entertain the Ladies’ Missionary Circle. A mist filled her eyes, and before she could control herself, she was sobbing.

“I’ve just got to put an end to this nonsense,” she scolded herself. “They’d be ashamed of me, at home. I’m ashamed of myself, big baby! Whatever would Raymond say? I really am very happy. This is a nice little house, and the people are kind! A person couldn’t expect to feel perfectly at home, even in Pinto Plains, all at once. They simply couldn’t—and to think we are really living in Ottawa! Why, it’s too wonderful to be true!”

The door-bell rang.

With a nervous glance at the tea table, covered with the handsome white cloth embroidered in pink roses and edged with home-made lace that had been such a work of love for her trousseau, Marjorie went into the tiny hall and opened the door.

“Is Mrs. Dilling at home?” asked a frail, little person, in purple velvet and ermine.

“I’m Mrs. Dilling, and I’m ever so glad to see you. Won’t you come in, please?”

“Lady Denby,” murmured the other, stepping daintily past her.

Marjorie closed the door, feeling very small and very frightened. This was the wife of the great Sir Eric Denby, the most perdurable public figure of our time. The soundest of sound statesmen, he stood, to Raymond Dilling, just a shade lower than God, Himself.

And the Dillings were profoundly religious people.

“Won’t you take off your things?” she asked, timidly, and upon receiving a refusal, tinctured with a suggestion of reproach, excused herself and went into the kitchen to make tea.

When she returned, Lady Denby and Althea were staring unsympathetically at one another across the table.

“Why, darling,” Marjorie exclaimed, setting down the teapot, and forgetting her social obligations in the pride of motherhood, “I didn’t hear you come in. Dear, dear, what a very untidy little girl, with her tam all crooked and her ribbon untied! This is Althea, Lady Denby. You’ve no idea how helpful she can be—Go and shake hands, precious!”

Althea was obedient on this occasion. She marched round the table and offered a grimy, wet mitten—the left one—from which the visitor shrank with a movement of alarm.

“How do you do?” said Lady Denby, discovering, after an embarrassing search, a spot upon the shoulder, dry enough, and clean enough, to be touched by her white-gloved hand.

“Having a good time, darling?” asked Marjorie, glowing with joy in the child’s loveliness. “Not playing too rough a game?”

“Cream, but no sugar,” said Lady Denby, significantly.

For a few awkward moments, Marjorie gave herself up entirely to the duties of hostess, then turned again to her daughter.

“Where is Sylvester, and Baby? Are they all right, my pet?”

Althea nodded.

“Baby’s all covered with snow,” she explained. “Besser’s playing she’s a egg and he’s a hen, and he’s sitting on her!”

“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Marjorie. “What a naughty boy! Bring them both home at once, Althea—he’ll hurt Baby. Quick, now!”

Althea rushed off, leaving the front door open. Marjorie excused herself to close it. She was surprised that Lady Denby exhibited neither amusement nor concern in the family affairs. Indeed, she wondered if deafness might not account for her curious austerity of manner. Old Mrs. Kettlewell, at home, was like that, but everybody knew it was because she couldn’t hear half of what was going on.

“Do let me give you some more tea,” she urged, her voice slightly raised. Anxiety distracted her. She scarcely knew what she was doing. Suppose the baby should be smothered in the snow? Suppose the children couldn’t dig her out? She felt that she should go to the door, at least, to make sure that Althea was successful in her mission. But something in Lady Denby’s manner prevented her. She couldn’t explain it, yet she simply couldn’t find an excuse to leave the room.

Her hands fluttered nervously over the table and her eyes haunted the door.

“Cream, and no sugar, I think you said, Mrs.—er—er—”

“Lady Denby,” corrected the other, with gentle reproof.

Apologies. Increased nervousness. Desperate effort at self-control. Where could they be, those children of hers? Sipping tea like this, when anything might be happening out there in the snow! It was cruel, cruel!

“How many children have you?” The calm voice trickled over her consciousness like a stream of ice-cold water.

“Three,” she answered, hurriedly. “Althea’s five, and Sylvester’s nearly four—Besser, we call him, you know—and Baby, her name is really Eulalie, is two and a half and simply huge for her age. Have you any children?”

“No,” said Lady Denby, implying by her tone that the propagation of the species was, in her opinion, a degraded and vulgar performance.

Marjorie tried other topics; church work, conundrums, Sir Eric’s health and gastronomic peculiarities. She offered her favourite recipes, and patterns for crocheted lace, interrupted, thank Heaven, by the entrance of the snow-covered children and the consequent confusion that they caused.

In her domestic activities she was perfectly at ease, hanging damp garments on radiators to dry, wiping tear stains from ruddy cheeks, and even arranging a juvenile tea-party in a corner of the room.

She chattered happily all the while, never for a moment realising that in the Upper Social Circles, the last task in the world a woman should undertake cheerfully is the care of her children; that even allowing them to stay in the same room and breathe the rarified air with which the exalted adults have finished, is a confession of eccentricity, if not bourgeoisisme. She had no ideas that there were mothers, outside of books—or possibly New York—who not only considered their children a nuisance, but were ashamed to be surprised in any act of maternal solicitude.

Had Ottawa been Pinto Plains, and Lady Denby one of her neighbours there, she would have been helping to change the children’s clothing, then she would have joined the juvenile tea-party, and later, would have heard Althea count up to twenty, prompted Baby to recite “Hickory, Dickory, Dock,” and would have played “Pease Porridge Hot,” with Sylvester until her palms smarted painfully.

As it was, Lady Denby did none of these things. She sipped tea and nibbled toast as though vast distances separated her from the rest of them, distances that she had no wish to bridge. Marjorie came to the conclusion that she was not only deaf, but suffering the frailties of extreme age, her contradictory appearance notwithstanding. In this kindly way did she account for her guest’s indifference. That her visitor was a great and powerful lady, Marjorie well knew, but she had no idea that it was necessary for the great and powerful to assume this manner, as a means whereby they might display their superiority. According to her simple philosophy, the more exalted the person, the readier the graciousness. For what was greatness but goodness, and what was goodness but love of humanity? Was not Queen Victoria sociability itself, when she visited the humbler subjects of her Kingdom?

Other callers came; Mrs. Gullep, whose mission it was to visit newcomers to the church; Mrs. Haynes, whose husband was also a Member from the West, and two or three of the neighbours, with whose children Marjorie’s children played. She had a somewhat confused recollection of the late afternoon, but certain features of Lady Denby’s conversation recurred with disturbing vividness.

She was amazed to learn that opening her own door was, in future, quite out of the question. If she could not, or would not, engage the permanent services of a domestic, she must, at least, have someone on Wednesday afternoons to admit her callers. Furthermore, she must be relieved—relieved was Lady Denby’s word—of all bother—(also Lady Denby’s) with the children.

“They will stand between you and the possibility of making friends of the right sort,” she warned, a viewpoint which was in direct opposition to the theory Marjorie had always held. “At least once a week, social duties demand your undivided attention.”

Again, without in the least having said so, Lady Denby managed to convey the fact that she considered Marjorie a very pretty woman, and that it would be wise, in view of her husband’s position, to make the most of her good looks. In the Capital, she observed, much weight attached to one’s appearance, and Marjorie would find herself repaid for dressing a little more—another interesting word of Lady Denby’s—“definitely”. The word was puzzling. Marjorie made all her own and the children’s clothes, her husband’s shirts, his pyjamas and summer underwear, and she was humbly proud of her accomplishment. She had no doubt as to her ability to make more “definite” clothes, could she but understand exactly what Lady Denby meant. There wasn’t anything very striking in a purple velvet suit, even though it had a collar and cuffs of ermine. Besides, Marjorie couldn’t wear purple velvet, it was too elderly.

Her own crepe-de-chine blouse was a definite pink. There could be no possibility of mistaking it for green or blue. She had embroidered it profusely in a black poppy design (copied from a pattern in the needlework section of a fashion magazine) to harmonise with her black velveteen skirt, the flaps of which were faced with pink crepe-de-chine to harmonise with the blouse. Feminine Pinto Plains, calling singly and in groups to inspect her “trousseau,” agreed that it was more than a costume—it was a creation—and they prophesied that it would dazzle Ottawa.

“So rich looking,” they said, “with all that hand-work!” Pinto Plains set a great deal of store by hand-work. “With your lovely colour, Marjorie, in that bright pink you’ll be charming!” And yet Lady Denby thought that she should have more definite clothes!

Then there was another thing—and on this point Lady Denby spoke with greater lucidity.

“I am sure you will find it convenient, my dear,” she had said, in a whispered colloquy that took place in the hall, “to know some young girl who would be flattered by your patronage, and gratified to be of service to you. There are so many things the right sort of person could do—pour tea, and have a general eye to the arrangements when you receive; give you valuable hints as to the connections you should, or should not, form; advise you as to tradesmen, and a dozen other minor matters that must, for a stranger, be exceedingly confusing. It is quite the thing to encourage such an association in the Capital, and I might add that it lends an air of empressement to Members of the Party. One must always consider the Party, my dear.”

Lady Denby saw no difficulty in the fact that Marjorie knew of no such person. “Leave it to me,” she said, with an air of brilliant finality, “I have just such a girl in mind. Not pretty enough to be attractive, and too clever to be popular; so her time is pretty much her own. She would welcome the opportunity, I know, of shining in your reflected glory. I’ll send her to you. Her name is Azalea Deane. And remember always, in your associations, to maintain the dignity that is due to your husband’s position. I would almost go so far as to say that indiscriminate intimacies should be discouraged; they are so apt to be embarrassing—in politics, you know ...” Without exactly forming the words, her lips seemed to pronounce Mrs. Gullep’s name. “Very estimable people, I am sure, the very vertebræ of Church Societies, but in a small ménage like this, my dear, you must not waste your chairs!”

Marjorie lay awake that night reviewing the events of the day. Some cog in the well-ordered machinery of her existence had slipped out of place, and was causing unaccustomed friction. She didn’t know what was the matter. Neither analytical nor introspective, she never got down to fundamentals, and the results that showed on the surface were apt to bewilder her. Consequently, she refused to admit disappointment with her surroundings, and did not even remotely suspect that she was experiencing the first, faint stirrings of disillusionment. She was a little depressed, that she admitted, but the fault was hers; of that she was thoroughly convinced, not only at the moment but throughout the months and years that stretched ahead. Always she blamed herself for failing to attain the state of mental and spiritual growth that would enable her to fit comfortably into her environment.

Of course, she couldn’t put all this into words. She never could make her feelings clear to other people—not even to Raymond. So, when, somewhat impatient at her restlessness, he asked what was the matter, she answered, with a little sigh.

“Oh, nothing, dearie ... nothing that’s awfully important, I ought to say. Only—only—I sometimes wonder ... do you ever feel that Ottawa’s a difficult place to get acquainted?”