Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to
lead its life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming
gracefully on the grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept
past them, money had been spent and renewed, reputations won and
lost, and the city herself, emblematic of their lives, rose and
fell in a continual flux, while her shallows washed more widely
against the hills of Surrey and over the fields of Hertfordshire.
This famous building had arisen, that was doomed. To-day
Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn of Regent
Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more
strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human
beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed
less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the
leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with
an admired obscurity.
To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an
artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near
future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from
the town. One can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the
elemental forces, the public has heard a 'little too much--they
seem Victorian, while London is Georgian--and those who care for
the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings
back to her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualises it
as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without purpose, and
excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before it
can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no
pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything; Nature, with
all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men.
A friend explains himself; the earth is explicable--from her we
came, and we must return to her. But who can explain Westminster
Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning--the city
inhaling--or the same thoroughfares in the evening--the city
exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the
fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are
ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face.
London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of
theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow
would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not any one pompous
or tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.
The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him,
too, away from his moorings, and Margaret's eyes were not opened
until the lease of Wickham Place expired. She had always known
that it must expire, but the knowledge only became vivid about
nine months before the event. Then the house was suddenly ringed
with pathos. It had seen so much happiness. Why had it to be
swept away? In the streets of the city she noted for the first
time the architecture of hurry and heard the language of hurry on
the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words, formless sentences,
potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by month things
were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population still
rose, but what was the quality of the men born? The particular
millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place, and desired
to erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he to stir so
large a portion of the quivering jelly? He was not a fool--she
had heard him expose Socialism--but true insight began just where
his intelligence ended, and one gathered that this was the case
with most millionaires. What right had such men-- But Margaret
checked herself. That way lies madness. Thank goodness, she, too,
had some money, and could purchase a new home.
Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter
vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious
talk with him. Did he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby
didn't know that he did know. Did he at all know what he wanted
to do? He was equally uncertain, but when pressed remarked that
he should prefer to be quite free of any profession. Margaret was
not shocked, but went on sewing for a few minutes before she
replied:
"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly
happy.
"Ye--es." said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious
quiver, as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round,
through, over, and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped
him, and finally dismissed him as having no possible bearing on
the Subject under discussion. That bleat of Tibby's infuriated
Helen. But Helen was now down in the dining room preparing a
speech about political economy. At times her voice could be heard
declaiming through the floor.
"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don't you think?
Then there's Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides"--shifting
to the general--"every one is the better for some regular work."
Groans.
"I shall stick to it," she continued, smiling. "I am not saying
it to educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in
the last century men have developed the desire for work, and they
must not starve it. It's a new desire. It goes with a great deal
that's bad, but in itself it's good, and I hope that for women,
too, 'not to work' will soon become as shocking as 'not to be
married' was a hundred years ago."
"I have no experience of this profound desire to which you
allude," enunciated Tibby.
"Then we'll leave the subject till you do. I'm not going to
rattle you round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of
the men you like most, and see how they've arranged them."
"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and leant so
far back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from
knees to throat.
"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the
traditional arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and
so on--all of which are, for various reasons, cant." She sewed
on. "I'm only your sister. I haven't any authority over you, and
I don't want to have any. Just to put before you what I think the
Truth. You see"--she shook off the pince-nez to which she had
recently taken--" in a few years we shall be the same age
practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men are so much
nicer than women."
"Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"
"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."
"Has nobody arst you?"
"Only ninnies."
"Do people ask Helen?"
"Plentifully."
"Tell me about them."
"No."
"Tell me about your ninnies, then."
"They were men who had nothing better to do," said his sister,
feeling that she was entitled to score this point. "So take
warning; you must work, or else you must pretend to work, which
is what I do. Work, work, work if you'd save your soul and your
body. It is honestly a necessity, dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes,
look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their defects of temper and
understanding, such men give me more pleasure than many who are
better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
regularly and honestly."
"Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.
"I shall not. They are the right sort."
"Oh, goodness me, Meg--!" he protested, suddenly sitting up,
alert and angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine
personality.
"Well, they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."
"No, no--oh, no!"
"I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a
ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out
there again, Evie Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."
"Duty" always elicited a groan.
"He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though it is
beastly work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget
over fresh water and food... A nation that can produce men of
that sort may well be proud. No wonder England has become an
Empire.
"EMPIRE!"
"I can't bother over results," said Margaret, a little sadly.
"They are too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An
Empire bores me, so far, but I can appreciate the heroism that
builds it up. London bores me, but what thousands of splendid
people are labouring to make London--"
"What it is," he sneered.
"What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation.
How paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in
heaven."
"And I" said Tibby, "want civilisation without activity, which, I
expect, is what we shall find in the other place."
"You needn't go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you
want that. You can find it at Oxford."
"Stupid--"
"If I'm stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I'll even
live in Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I'll live anywhere
except Bournemouth, Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or
Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge Wells and Surbiton and
Bedford. There on no account."
"London, then."
"I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London.
However, there's no reason we shouldn't have a house in the
country and also a flat in town, provided we all stick together
and contribute. Though of course-- Oh, how one does maunder on
and tothink, to think of the people who are really poor. How do
they live? Not to move about the world would kill me."
As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a
state of extreme excitement.
"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess. A woman's
been here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?" (Helen was fond
of supplying her own surprise.) "Yes, for her husband, and it
really is so."
"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who had
lately taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives
and boots.
"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer
up, Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good woman;
have a good look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the
chimney, shake out the antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh, and
she so magnificently dressed and tinkling like a chandelier."
"Now, Helen, what did really happen?"
"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens
the door like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with
my mouth open. Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my husband,
what I have reason to believe is here.' No--how unjust one is.
She said 'whom,' not 'what.' She got it perfectly. So I said,
'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan, Miss,' and there we were.
"Lan?"
"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline. "
"But what an extraordinary--"
"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave
misunderstanding here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more
remarkable than my beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline
rested his eyes on mine.'"
"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.
"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful experience.
Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a husband as if he were
an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and for a long
time suffered no inconvenience. But all night, and all this
morning her apprehensions grew. Breakfast didn't seem the
same--no, no more did lunch, and so she strolled up to 2 Wickham
Place as being the most likely place for the missing article."
"But how on earth--"
"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she kept
repeating, not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked
her what she did know. Some knew what others knew, and others
didn't, and then others again had better be careful. Oh dear, she
was incompetent! She had a face like a silkworm, and the
dining-room reeks of orris-root. We chatted pleasantly a little
about husbands, and I wondered where hers was too, and advised
her to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed that Mr.
Lanoline's a notty, notty man, and hasn't no business
to go on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the
last. Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg,
remember--bags I."
"Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down her work.
I'm not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible
volcano smoking somewhere, doesn't it?"
"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind. The admirable
creature isn't capable of tragedy."
"Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to the
window.
"Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married
Mrs. Lanoline."
"Was she pretty?"
"Her figure may have been good once."
The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain
between Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned
sadly to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She
feared, fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving
into turmoil and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes
as these.
"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live next
September," she said at last.
"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do," retorted Helen;
and that topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and
after tea Helen went on preparing her speech, and Margaret
prepared one, too, for they were going out to a discussion
society on the morrow. But her thoughts were poisoned. Mrs.
Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint smell, a
goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had both
decayed.
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