Years of Plenty

by Ivor John Carnegie Brown

VI

From a long vacation spent with the historians and philosophers and from the clash and challenge of autumnal moors Martin came back to rooms in Holywell and the school of Literæ Humaniores. From clean winds and open skies he came back to a gentle greyness or to smudgy days when the rain settled upon the river valley with cruel insistence and on parting left floods and vapours and steamy streets. From working at his ease he came back to work with distaste.

To begin with, he was afraid. The future was big with exams. In eight months his Oxford finals would be upon him, in ten months he would be attempting to satisfy the Civil Service Commissioners. The torture of it! It was all very well for Lawrence, whom a wealthy uncle would make into a chartered accountant, for Rendell, who was to be an amateur barrister and a professional Lib-Lab-Soc, for Chard, with his assured career and Front-bench-in-a-year-or-two prospects; well enough too for Davenant, who had money enough to maintain an adequate, even a graceful, existence while he wrote about the things of art. But for Martin there was only the midnight oil and the wondering about marks.

And he felt helpless. He didn't want to be a Civil Servant, even at home. And as for India or the Straits! He wanted to be in London with the rest of them, keeping up the old ideas and intimacies and enthusiasms. If he had only felt that such a life was absolutely impossible, he would have taken his fate more graciously. But it seemed that with an effort, with daring, he might get out of it all and find a job that would keep him in London without starvation: but he hadn't the pluck to look for the job, and he was content to drift on the wave of chance. Circumstance was moulding his life, whereas he ought to be moulding circumstance. Why couldn't he be strong and do things? He despised his puny helplessness and cowardly drifting: the more he gazed into himself the less did he see to admire. Naturally this did not improve his work.

He lived with Rendell and Lawrence and Chard in a good house in Holywell: Davenant had gone down. Chard shared a sitting-room with Rendell, and they both worked with vigour, being men of sense and ambition. Upstairs in a great low-raftered room Martin dwelled with Lawrence. He began by labouring with a fond frenzy, but he soon fell into his companion's easier ways and sat by the window watching the passers-by. Holywell is a sound and regular street. You either belong to it or you don't. And if you do belong to it everybody knows that you belong to it and has a notion of your habits and your time-table. Martin and Lawrence soon found out about everyone, and their chief topic of conversation was the late appearance of this man or the frequent journeys of another, the new hat of the girl opposite or the names and nature of the young women who came hustling out of St Cross Road. They despised Chard and Rendell for their ignorance and wilful neglect of the street and its population.

It was a soothing occupation to watch folk come and go. Soothing, too, was the soft glory of the street itself as it curved away to the Broad with its sombre harmony of pink and grey. Behind the sweeping splendour of the way itself might rise a sunset sky of winter, blue with the lustre of steel, a tower of strong darkness above the fading glow. And then lamps would twinkle and windows pour golden floods into the road and a man would think about having tea. All good men live in Holywell when they "go out."

But it was not always thus. Often everything was ugly, and Martin had indigestion after lunch and thought once more of May Williams. He hadn't seen her at all: perhaps she had escaped from Botley. Really he didn't care: astonishing how unattractive was the memory of that affair! No, May had not been good enough, but there was a girl who walked up and down the street: she too had roses in her hat, but the colour was not the same. And she was different, remote and inaccessible. Martin said nothing and did nothing, but he always looked out when she passed on her way to and from shops: it gave him more pain than pleasure to watch her pass by, and yet he kept on looking.

And then there was Mr Cuggy. Cuggy was Martin's tutor in philosophy and had the reputation of being the most muddled thinker in Oxford: his claims were based on a certain article in Mind which had broken all records (already high in English Philosophy) for the amazing technicalities of its jargon and the vile barbarity of its writing. But of course he was a dear old man. In his youth a torrent of Hegelianism had passed over him and he remained always a limp victim of the drenching he had then received. He clung, this mariner shipwrecked in German waters, to the rock of the Absolute and dared not relax his grip because he saw no other prominence amid the devouring waves. And everywhere, should he slip off, were the pragmatic sharks lurking for the prey. To this rock he dragged his pupils quite irrespective of their capacity to understand the process and to cling coherently: as a result they clung only in their essays and dropped off in private thinking. Time's ironies are pleasant and Mr Cuggy made many a "prag."

Martin learned all the proper words and delighted his tutor with some cant about the higher synthesis and the disappearance of all antinomies in the absolute. In private discussion he differed. "I say. What shall we do about this philosophy?" he asked Rendell.

Even Rendell had been sickened by Cuggy. "Of course it's all drivel," he admitted. "Just systematised drivel."

"My dear ass," put in Lawrence, "has that only just struck you? I remember being rebuked for my early scoffing. The main object of these blighters is just to wrap up in a perfectly unintelligible and ungrammatical jargon what everybody else can see without bothering about it. They've got to do something to justify their screw and their measly existence, so, like the politicians, they keep up a nice series of sham fights which never end."

"The main point for us," said Martin, "or at any rate for unhappy me, is to find out how to score marks at the game. I can stand fair nonsense, but old man Hegel is a bit thick. On the other hand, pragmatism is just as silly and, what's worse, hated by the gods that be. No marks in that, I'm afraid. We've got to find a middle path."

"There's the Cambridge stuff. Russell and Moore, Business-like and quite unattractive."

"Oh, we can't be Tabs," said Lawrence.

"Well what can we be?"

"Why not bag a bit of James Ward, a bit of Bergson, a bit of Croce, and be Pampsychistic Pluralistic Realistic Modern Young Men?"

"It'll take some doing," said Martin dubiously. "It's no good being sloppy. The youths who think they'll get firsts because they know all about Beauty never get very far. What we need is Philosophy on a Business Basis. Six questions in three hours. Answers to all the problems of the universe guaranteed all correct in thirty minutes."

"Let's draw up a scheme," said Lawrence, "and diddle this damned philosophy."

So they settled down and arranged a system: they made out a plan of what they were going to think about all the possible questions. That is the best of philosophy: examiners may weave words but they have only about a dozen real questions from which to choose.

By the end of the term they had settled the business of wisdom. The schedule was complete and they had a short way of dealing with every problem from the Universality of Nature to the value of the negative and hypothetical judgment. Of course to achieve a "position" they had to sacrifice their consciences at times. It was all quite shameless and quite successful.

"After this," suggested Chard, "you might get made Railway Managers."

"Unless," said Rendell, "we get on to the staff of a certain penny weekly."

In December Martin went down once more to Devonshire. To his surprise he found Freda there. Almost two years had elapsed since he had seen her and he had almost forgotten her existence. But now he remembered vividly and was glad.

She had not altered and he rediscovered her perfect insignificance. How ridiculous it seemed that, while Margaret Berrisford with her health and strength need only work when she chose and as she chose, this wisp of a woman should have been caught up in the machinery of industry: ridiculous that one so fragile should be self-maintenant. He had little chance to talk to her that evening, but on the following afternoon he went with her to the village and along the Tavistock Road. He asked her about herself.

"They soon got rid of me," she answered. "The Trades Union people, I mean. They were naturally sick of my coming late and getting ill and being a general nuisance. Then I got in with some Suffrage Women and they gave me work. One of the new peace-and-goodwill societies. They want to link up the movement and then agitate according to Lor-an-order. They're so peaceful and orderly that, not being engaged in fighting other people like tigers, they just quarrel among themselves like cats. Oh, I do get sick of it."

"What do you do for them? Speak?"

"Oh no. Just the office work. They worked me quite hard and paid me very little, and, when I murmured, they hinted that if I was only loyal to my sex I'd do the whole show for nothing. Never work for lovers of humanity: their love has a background of dividends and West End drawing-rooms. It's none the worse for that, but they expect your love to take the form of more work for less pay. It's not good enough. I'd rather be a genuine wage-slave, thanks very much."

"City office, regular hours, and no nonsense?"

"That's it."

"Have you been ill this winter?"

"Yes. I was rotten for a bit; Margaret has been awfully good to me. When she heard of it she fished me out of my lodgings and made me come here. I was in bed a fortnight and must have been a beastly nuisance. They are splendid, all of them."

Martin agreed.

"And what about you?" she asked.

He explained his hopes and fears.

"You've no business to mope," she told him. "Don't you understand that you're an extremely lucky person? I wish I had your chances."

"I suppose I'm lucky," he said without conviction, trying to feel ashamed of his despair.

"Of course you are. Anyhow it's silly to get despondent. Besides, you're bound to do well."

"Am I? Why?"

"Because I tell you to. Do get firsts and things."

It pleased him to be ordered. He stopped in the muddy lane between two stark hedges that stood naked against the grey December sky.

"Do you care?" he asked.

"Of course I care."

"Why? I mean——" he paused awkwardly.

"Don't ask silly questions," she answered. "It's too cold to stand about."

They walked on.

"It must be pretty sickening for you," he said, "having to go on with this drudgery."

"It is rather rotten. But it can't be helped."

"Can't you get some intelligent kind of work, writing or something?"

"I'm not good enough. Don't make foolish interruptions. It's quite true. And remember I chucked up a teaching post."

"But routine must be worse for a person like you."

"It isn't nice. Really I think the most miserable people of all are those who are just too good for dull work and not good enough for real, original, creative work."

"That's painfully true," he answered. And there, gloomily, they left it.

That night Martin reflected on the events of the day. What surprised him most was the depth and intensity of his feelings about Freda. It wasn't love, it wasn't mere sympathy: was it just sentimentality? It is a habit of the younger generation in these days to turn their sexual emotions into channels of political reasoning: the result is called feminism. Instead of defending hapless women with strong right arm they are eager to defend underpaid women by strike or Act of Parliament. There is little difference, for the reason that Nature cannot be cheated. The pitchfork of modernity will not keep it out, and chivalry, loathed in name, comes bravely back in disguise. In matters of personal relation feminism is dangerous just because it is insidious. Martin had already formed his picture of Freda, overworked and underpaid, homeless and driven from pillar to post. The image was painful, but it pleased him so to suffer.

On Saturday there was to be shooting, the last of the season. People were coming down for the week-end and, doubtless, neighbours would be there. In the home coverts cock pheasants still trumpeted in peace, but their time had come.

Martin had no gun of his own, but sometimes he used a spare weapon of his uncle's. If he had been more efficient he would have liked the actual shooting: he could see the point of it and appreciate the thrill of waiting and achieving. But he had neither the long experience nor the swift eye and he was glad when the gun was needed by someone else. Freda would not see his lack of skill, for Robert had brought a friend from town for whom the gun would be required.

Neither Margaret nor Freda went out in the morning, and Martin also stayed in to work. The guns came back to lunch at half-past twelve, as they had begun to shoot early, for that made a better division of the short daylight. When they went out again Margaret accompanied Robert's friend and Martin took Freda to watch the first drive. The air was soft: otherwise Freda, being still convalescent, would not have been allowed to stand about. But it was considered warm enough for her if she wore a thick motoring coat of Margaret's. Here and there films of mist hung thinly over fields, but in the woods it was clear: the wind spoke gently in the trees or passed in silence down the rides and open glades. Underfoot rustled the drifting, many-tinted leaves and the flight of a startled song-bird made the still air reverberate. The fragrance of distant pines was mingled with the scent of the leaf-mould and sometimes the glint of the birch's silver broke the splendid monotony of giant trunks.

The mystery of Ham and Eggs flashed across Martin's mind. The cult must not exclude woods.

"Aren't these trees wonderful," he said simply.

"I think they're awful, in the proper sense of the word. They make me excited and terrified and happy."

"Awful is the right word. Why did men spoil it?"

"We've managed to spoil most things."

"Will they begin shooting soon?" asked Freda after a pause.

"The beaters will be coming up soon."

"Why do people do it? It seems so unnecessary, so savage, somehow."

"So it is savage. That's just the point. It answers a need, I suppose. You wait till you hear an old cock pheasant come crashing down. There's something very satisfactory about the noise he makes."

"It's too horrible."

"Wait and perhaps you'll find that you have a few primitive instincts left in you. You may be free of them; some people are. It isn't only the passion to kill, though. It's the passion to get over obstacles and do something immensely difficult. That's why walking-up birds is better than driving. When I've got a gun I want to hit an object which is incidentally a bird. It isn't the killing that matters."

"But why don't you shoot at targets or clay pigeons?"

"There you have me. I suppose at that point the savagery comes in. It isn't the same to shoot at disappearing targets, and that's all one can say. Hullo, they're starting, we'd better stop talking."

Far away at the back of the covert arose the noise of cracking twigs and trampled leaves: closer and closer it came until the sounds were distinguishable, now the tapping of a stick on a tree, the beating of a bush, the long-drawn cries of "Mark" and "Forward," the swift whir of wings, and at last the sharp crack of guns. The woods, once awful with still silence, were all sound and movement. The gun, behind whom Martin and Freda were standing, had only one chance and took it—a beautiful right and left. The second bird fell close to them, crashing through branches to a soft bed of leaves. Freda gasped and jumped forward. The drive was over.

"You wanted it to fall?" said Martin, taking up the warm, motionless body.

"I think I did," she confessed. "But only for a moment."

"It seemed right, didn't it?"

"I suppose so. But I couldn't touch it." She paused. "Yes, I was glad when he hit them both," she added. "The strain of waiting and looking and listening seemed to make it all different. And he was so quick. I can't think how he could have got round to the second. It was all wonderful in a horrible, alluring kind of way."

"I was right," said Martin. "There is something in it, you see."

He was glad that she understood: it gave them another point in common. The next beat would take them some way from home, out to the bleaker side of the woods. Martin proposed that they should wait until the guns returned and Freda was willing. They went to the pines where the ground was clean and firm and there on a bank they waited.

And there too Martin became more than ever aware of Freda. She was digging her toes in the soil and at the same time leaning strongly back upon the dry bank. Thus her body was strung and braced tightly so that she seemed to him to be one strong curve against the ground. And yet she was not strained uneasily and her limbs were all fine sweep and rhythm. He drank in the exquisite grace of her fragility. Everything about her was brown, her hair, her eyes, her borrowed coat, her long boots vanishing beneath brown tweed, even the feather in her adorable hat. Against the brown couch of the bank the various tints joined in a sombre harmony.

"You mustn't stare," she said suddenly. "It's rude."

"How can I help it?" he answered.

"Easily. I'm not a country girl and I'm not at all attractive in this get-up. I hate it. Great, clumsy boots!"

"You mustn't say that. You're just perfect like this. It seems so rotten that you should be dragged away from it all and made to do the world's drudgery and not see these places. You do fit into them, whatever you may say."

She turned and looked right into his eyes. "Dear boy," she said, "you mustn't take me too seriously. I'm quite happy. You mustn't worry about me."

"I can't help it," he broke out. "It's in me to feel for you, to hate the waste of you, to want you happier and stronger and getting more out of things and more out of the things you do get." He told her of his hopes and fears and how she had affected them and drawn him out of them. She had taught him not to grumble about an excellent fortune. And he began to tell her of her own perfection, but she stopped him.

"It's very, very nice of you to care about what becomes of me," she said. "I think you exaggerate my wasted capacities: in fact I know you do. But whether or not you're right about me, I know I'm right about you."

"And what about me?"

"That you aren't in love with me at all. You're rather lonely and afraid of the future and perhaps, well, sentimental. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It shows that you're generous, because you're trying to get rid of your own despair by trying to share mine, which doesn't exist as a matter of fact. You're a little in love with love and very young and very nice. And now I'm getting cold so please take me home and be quite honest with yourself."

As he walked back with her he said very little. Against his conscience he was angry, angry at what he knew was his own humiliation. She had been so damnably maternal and—worse still—so damnably right.

On Monday she went back to town; she had forbidden him to renew the subject and they had talked as they originally talked, with argument, like undergraduates. But for Martin such conversation had lost its charm and he knew such relations could not last. Still he wanted her to be a martyr dragged to the altar of commercialism and she had refused to think of martyrdom. Her happiness galled him, as he confessed to himself with shame. Yet less than ever was he able to forget her.

So Freda went. And Martin remained to work feebly and to write long letters and to sit fidgeting until the second post had come in and he knew that to-day at any rate she hadn't answered.

But sometimes she did answer, shortly indeed but kindly; and he was happy then.

In January he went back to Oxford and the further settling of philosophy on a business basis. Amid all the energies and diversions of terms the memory of Freda did not vanish nor even fade. Hitherto the postman had been neglected in Martin's survey of the passers-by, but now he was more important than any one even of the other sex. Martin had never before noticed how many posts there were in a day, but now he knew all about it.