Читать книгу The Middle of the Road - Philip Gibbs - Страница 11

Table of Contents

It had been a regret to Bertram—almost a distress—that Luke Christy had not been in London lately, and he was glad to see his signature under some article in “The New World,” showing that he was back again.

There was something in Christy’s exalted pessimism, in his bitter and almost savage irony, in a queer humour darkly shaded by a sense of tragedy, which acted in an inexplicable way in Bertram as both an irritant and an opiate.

His own moodiness, his private doubts and difficulties, even his bigger apprehensions of political troubles at home and abroad, were made trivial by the intense world-ranging analysis of social disease threatening civilisation which Christy brought back from his journeys abroad.

He was seldom in London, and after a few days, or at most, a few weeks, in his rooms overlooking the river from Adelphi Terrace, would set out again for Paris, or Berlin, or Vienna, or Rome, with an insatiable desire to “see how things were getting on” in the spirit of peoples and in their social conditions. The results of his inquiries could be read in Radical weeklies under the heading of “Our Special Correspondent,” in articles written with a cold scientific touch, over-crammed with facts and statistics, and unemotional. They revealed nothing of the flame at the heart of this man, none of his whimsicality of expression in private conversation, not a gleam of his philosophy, but Bertram believed that they were valued as important contributions to knowledge by international groups of men and women outside his own set, and unknown to him except by references in newspapers and in satirical comment by men like Kenneth Murless.

Kenneth called them “long-haired idealists,” “Crawling Pacifists,” and “home-bred Bolshevists.” He had even referred to Christy once or twice by name, and had denounced an article of his as “a challenge to all established authority. The fellow ought to be shot.”

“He’s a friend of mine,” said Bertram.

Kenneth Murless raised his eyebrows in languid surprise.

“That so? Then you’re entertaining an enemy unawares. A viper in your bosom, old man. Christy and his crowd have declared war against our set and our ideals.”

“What ideals?” asked Bertram.

“Preserving the good old order of things,” said Kenneth. “The Stately Homes of England, our Prerogatives, our Very Pleasant Way of Life, which is already seriously threatened by tax-collectors and the greedy clamour of an insensate mob.”

Bertram objected violently.

“The mob did most of the dying in the Great War, and now ask for a decent living wage!”

“For high wages and no work!” answered Kenneth in his best unimpassioned, smiling, and supercilious manner, which had made him successful as President of the Union, during his third year at Oxford.

He begged Bertram not to be led astray by the snobbish witticisms of his friends in a pampered democracy, not to be spellbound by their facile and foolish catchwords. He disliked the suggestion that the mob did most of the dying in the great war. The gently of England, the old aristocracy, poured out their blood like water in a prodigal way at the outset as at the end, while crowds of lazy young hooligans had to be coaxed and bribed to do their duty, and then conscripted.

Even then they took refuge behind “special trades,” “essential occupations.” There were no essential occupations as an excuse for staying at home by boys from public schools and universities and county families. They just went out and died, if need be, without a whine.

“That’s true,” said Bertram; “they played up all right. None better.”

“I’m glad you admit that, Bertram!” said Joyce in her satirical voice, which Bertram knew was a challenge.

She was in the drawing-room of their house in Holland Street, lying back on the sofa among a heap of flaming cushions, with her legs tucked up, revealing her long silk stockings. A charming, slim, golden-crowned figure in a close-fitting jumper, so young and fresh that it was difficult even for Bertram to believe that she had been the mother of a child. How beautiful she was! How good to see her well again!

“Why shouldn’t I admit it? Why should I even ‘admit’ it? It’s an historical fact!”

“You’re always taking sides with the common people. Backing up Labour with a big L. It’s disloyalty to Us.”

Bertram shifted moodily in his seat—a low window seat looking out to the street where a Punch and Judy show was being performed to a small crowd of children and nursemaids.

“For God’s sake don’t talk about the common people as though they were dirt, Joyce! They saved England. England owes them something. Those fellows in my company—”

Joyce flicked some cigarette ash into the fireplace and put her hands round her knees.

“Those fellows in your company! I can’t think how you kept your authority, hob-nobbing with them so much!”

Bertram said in a low voice that they had saved his life more than once.

“That’s ancient history,” said Joyce. “You’re always harking back to the old war! Let’s forget it. We’re talking about the present situation. The working people are thoroughly lazy, utterly demoralised, and infected with Bolshevism. They ought to be kept in their places with a strong hand.”

“I agree!” said Kenneth Murless. “They’ve become tyrannical and snobbish.”

“Snobbish!” said Bertram, laughing, and making an effort to keep the temper that was rising in him.

“Yes,” said Kenneth, observing a paradoxical argument from afar; “the snobbishness of the working classes is disgusting. Because they don’t wear collars and ties, they won’t associate with men who are afflicted with stiff linen round their necks. Because they’re illiterate, they make a caste of illiteracy and condemn the Intellectual as a parasite and a pariah. Their Trade Unions are more exclusive than West-end clubs, more intolerant than mediæval Star Chambers. Their Labour leaders are enemies of the liberty so hardly won for England by English gentry—freedom of speech, equality before the law, justice for rich and poor alike, religious toleration, taxation according to wealth. Why these fellows are all for the suppression of liberty. Anybody who ventures to disagree with them is called a damned reactionary. If they had their way, as in Russia, they would prevent the free exercise of religion, and stifle all intellectual opposition with the hangman’s rope. Even now in England the working class is the only one exempt from taxation, getting their education for nothing, and blackmailing those who have accumulated a little money by hard toil.”

“Like you,” said Bertram.

“Like me,” answered Kenneth, calmly. “I confess my little job at the F.O. is not exacting, but don’t I toil over my sonnets—on official stationery—? Don’t I agonise in labour to produce a gem of thought for ‘The London Mercury’?”

“You ought to go into the House, Kenneth!” said Joyce. “Your eloquence would overwhelm Lloyd George himself. And I will say there’s a lot of sense in your head, in spite of your devastating beauty, and supercilious conceit.”

She spoke in the usual vein of irony with which she set her wit against Kenneth’s, yet with an underlying admiration which he perceived and liked.

His face crimsoned a little, and he laughed affectedly.

“For that tribute, dear lady, my heart’s thanks! But don’t tempt me to sully my bright soul with the dirt of politics. Diplomacy, yes, the higher Machiavellism, but, please, not politics! It’s impossible to keep clean within the precincts of Westminster.”

Two of Joyce’s girl friends called, followed by the Reverend Peter Fynde and an Italian countess who spoke detestable English and made enormous eyes to Kenneth Murless—enormous black eyes in a dead white face. Bertram noticed that her hands were dirty, though they glistened with wonderful rings. She called Joyce “Carissima.”—It was an opportunity for him to slip away and see old Christy again.