Aye, and more! For the England in Mile End knew that whatever she felt could have no effect on policy. Mile on mile, without an end, the low grey streets stretched towards the ultimate deserted grass. Michael did not follow them, but coming to a Cinema, turned in.
The show was far advanced. Bound and seated in front of the bad cowboy on a bronco, the heroine was crossing what Michael shrewdly suspected to be the film company’s pet paddock. Every ten seconds she gave way to John T. Bronson, Manager of the Tucsonville Copper Mine, devouring the road in his 60 h. p. Packard, to cut her off before she reached the Pima river. Michael contemplated his fellow gazers. Lapping it up! Strong stable government–not much! This was their anodyne and they could not have enough of it. He saw the bronco fall, dropped by a shot from John T. Bronson, and the screen disclose the words: “Hairy Pete grows desperate… ‘You shall not have her, Bronson.’” Quite! He was throwing her into the river instead, to the words: “John T. Bronson dives.” There he goes! He has her by her flowing hair! But Hairy Pete is kneeling on the bank. The bullets chip the water. Through the heroine’s fair perforated shoulder the landscape is almost visible. What is that sound? Yes! John T. Bronson is setting his teeth! He lands, he drags her out. From his cap he takes his automatic. Still dry–thank God!
“Look to yourself, Hairy Pete!” A puff of smoke. Pete squirms and bites the sand–he seems almost to absorb the desert. “Hairy Pete gets it for keeps!” Slow music, slower! John T. Bronson raises the reviving form. Upon the bank of the Pima river they stand embraced, and the sun sets. “At last, my dinky love!”
‘Pom, pom! that’s the stuff!’ thought Michael, returning to the light of night: ‘Back to the Land! “Plough the fields and scatter”–when they can get this? Not much!’ And he turned West again, taking a seat on the top of a ‘bus beside a man with grease-stains on his clothes. They travelled in silence till Michael said:
“What do you make of the political situation, sir?”
The possible plumber replied, without turning his head:
“I should say they’ve overreached theirselves.”
“Ought to have fought on Russia–oughtn’t they?”
“Russia–that cock won’t fight either. Nao–ought to ‘ave ‘eld on to the Spring, an’ fought on a good stiff Budget.”
“Real class issue?”
“Yus!”
“But do you think class politics can wipe out unemployment?”
The man’s mouth moved under his moustache as if mumbling a new idea.
“Ah! I’m fed up with politics; in work today and out tomorrow–what’s the good of politics that can’t give you a permanent job?”
“That’s it.”
“Reparations,” said his neighbour; “WE’RE not goin’ to benefit by reparations. The workin’ classes ought to stand together in every country.” And he looked at Michael to see how he liked THAT.
“A good many people thought so before the war; and see what happened.”
“Ah!” said the man, “and what good’s it done us?”
“Have you thought of emigrating to the Dominions?”
The man shook his head.
“Don’t like what I see of the Austrylians and Canydians.”
“Confirmed Englishman–like myself.”
“That’s right,” said the man. “So long, Mister,” and he got off.
Michael travelled till the ‘bus put him down under Big Ben, and it was nearly twelve. Another election! Could he stand a second time without showing his true colours? Not the faintest hope of making Foggartism clear to a rural constituency in three weeks! If he spoke from now till the day of the election, they would merely think he held rather extreme views on Imperial Preference, which, by the way, he did. He could never tell the electorate that he thought England was on the wrong tack–one might just as well not stand. He could never buttonhole the ordinary voter, and say to him: “Look here, you know, there’s no earthly hope of any real improvement for another ten years; in the meantime we must face the music, and pay more for everything, so that twenty years hence we may be safe from possible starvation, and self-supporting within the Empire.” It wasn’t done. Nor could he say to his Committee: “My friends, I represent a policy that no one else does, so far.”
No! If he meant to stand again, he must just get the old wheezes off his chest. But did he mean to stand again? Few people had less conceit than Michael–he knew himself for a lightweight. But he had got this bee into his bonnet; the longer he lived the more it buzzed, the more its buzz seemed the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and that wilderness his country. To stop up that buzzing in his ears; to turn his back on old Blythe; to stifle his convictions, and yet remain in Parliament–he could not! It was like the war over again. Once in, you couldn’t get out. And he was ‘in’–committed to something deeper far than the top dressings of Party politics. Foggartism had a definite solution of England’s troubles to work towards–an independent, balanced Empire; an England safe in the air, and free from unemployment–with Town and Country once more in some sort of due proportion! Was it such a hopeless dream? Apparently!
‘Well,’ thought Michael, putting his latchkey in his door, ‘they may call me what kind of a bee fool they like–I shan’t budge.’ He went up to his dressing-room and, opening the window, leaned out.
The rumourous town still hummed; the sky was faintly coloured by reflection from its million lights. A spire was visible, some stars; the tree foliage in the Square hung flat, unstirred by wind. Peaceful and almost warm–the night. Michael remembered a certain evening–the last London air raid of the war. From his convalescent hospital he had watched it for three hours.
‘What fools we all are not to drop fighting in the air,’ he thought: ‘Well, if we don’t, I shall go all out for a great air force–all hangs, for us, on safety from air attack. Even the wise can understand that.’
Two men had stopped beneath his window, talking. One was his next-door neighbour.
“Mark my words,” said his neighbour, “the election’ll see a big turnover.”
“Yes; and what are you going to do with it?” said the other.
“Let things alone; they’ll right themselves. I’m sick of all this depressing twaddle. A shilling off the Income Tax, and you’ll see.”
“How are you going to deal with the Land?”
“Oh! damn the Land! Leave it to itself, that’s all the farmers really want. The more you touch it, the worse it gets.”
“Let the grass grow under your feet?”
The neighbour laughed. “That’s about it. Well, what else CAN you do–the Country won’t have it. Good night!”
Sounds of a door, of footsteps. A car drove by; a moth flew in Michael’s face. “The Country won’t have it!” Policies! What but mental yawns, long shrugs of the shoulders, trustings to Luck! What else could they be? THE COUNTRY WOULDN’T HAVE IT! And Big Ben struck twelve.
Chapter XIII.
INCEPTION OF THE CASE
There are people in every human hive born to focus talk; perhaps their magnetism draws the human tongue, or their lives are lived at an acute angle. Of such was Marjorie Ferrar–one of the most talked-of young women in London. Whatever happened to her was rumoured at once in that collection of the busy and the idle called Society. That she had been ejected from a drawing-room was swiftly known. Fleur’s letters about her became current gossip. The reasons for ejectment varied from truth to a legend that she had lifted Michael from the arms of his wife.
The origins of lawsuits are seldom simple. And when Soames called it all ‘a storm in a teacup,’ he might have been right if Lord Charles Ferrar had not been so heavily in debt that he had withdrawn his daughter’s allowance; if, too, a Member for a Scottish borough, Sir Alexander MacGown, had not for some time past been pursuing her with the idea of marriage. Wealth made out of jute, a rising Parliamentary repute, powerful physique, and a determined character, had not advanced Sir Alexander’s claims in twelve months so much as the withdrawal of her allowance advanced them in a single night. Marjorie Ferrar was, indeed, of those who can always get money at a pinch, but even to such come moments when they have seriously to consider what kind of pinch. In proportion to her age and sex, she was ‘dipped’ as badly as her father, and the withdrawal of her allowance was in the nature of a last straw. In a moment of discouragement she consented to an engagement, not yet to be made public. When the incident at Fleur’s came to Sir Alexander’s ears, he went to his bethrothed flaming. What could he do?
“Nothing, of course; don’t be silly, Alec! Who cares?”
“The thing’s monstrous. Let me go and exact an apology from this old blackguard.”
“Father’s been, and he wouldn’t give it. He’s got a chin you could hang a kettle on.”
“Now, look here, Marjorie, you’ve got to make our engagement public, and let me get to work on him. I won’t have this story going about.”
Marjorie Ferrar shook her head.
“Oh! no, my dear. You’re still on probation. I don’t care a tuppenny ice about the story.”
“Well, I do, and I’m going to that fellow tomorrow.”
Marjorie Ferrar studied his face–its brown, burning eyes, its black, stiff hair, its jaw–shivered slightly, and had a brain-wave.
“You will do nothing of the kind, Alec, or you’ll spill your ink. My father wants me to bring an action. He says I shall get swinging damages.”
The Scotsman in MacGown applauded, the lover quailed.
“That may be very unpleasant for you,” he muttered, “unless the brute settles out of Court.”
“Of course he’ll settle.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51