XXXVII
A note came from Bernard Hall of The New World, asking Bertram to go and see him at his office. He greeted Bertram with that coldness which was but an outer crust concealing the flame in his heart, flame of passion against the injustice of life, its tyrannies and cruelties, its immense unconquerable stupidities.
“Take a seat, won’t you?”
Bertram took a seat in a room strewn with papers and books in careless disorder. A middle-aged woman with grey hair smoothed back in the Quaker style, came in and out with proofs, typewritten letters, cards from visitors, which the editor of The New World put down in the general litter on his desk.
“I shall be engaged for half an hour, Miss Doe. They can either wait, or call again.”
Bertram wondered if he were to have the privilege of that half hour, and what the reason might be.
Bernard Hall stared at his paper knife for a moment, and then looked at Bertram moodily.
“Janet Welford tells me you’re at a loose end, more or less.”
So it was Janet who had arranged this interview! Bertram felt embarrassed because of that and his face flushed a little.
“Considerably more than less,” he answered.
Bernard Hall smiled, icily, and then his face resumed its habitual mask of melancholy.
“Miss Welford and Christy have both spoken highly of that war book of yours. I’m not surprised you can’t get it published. People want to forget that time of madness. They’re getting a little ashamed of their own insanity. My job—and yours, I take it—is to force them to remember, so that it shan’t happen again very soon.”
“Quite so!” said Bertram.
Bertram Hall stared at his paper-knife again, as though its long blade symbolised some mystical thing.
“It’s going to happen again,” he said presently, “unless we can get some sense into the heads of the average man and woman. The politicians are just preparing the way for a new war, worse than the last—in twenty or thirty years from now. I’m inclined to think they’ll succeed. The only chance against it is the intensive education of peoples towards the international idea. We must try and link up with all active brains in Europe who are working for peace and commonsense. There are quite a number of them, but with scattered forces, powerless at the moment against the tremendous strength of reaction and militarism.”
Bertram wondered again what all this had to do with him. He was interested, but perplexed that Hall should spend half an hour on a busy afternoon to talk broodily about the state of Europe.
“The trouble is,” said Bernard Hall, “that what used to be called the fountain of Truth is walled round by the Enemy and kept under strict control. Its waters are carefully and systematically poisoned before they are allowed to flow into the open fields.”
“I don’t quite follow,” said Bertram.
“I mean the distribution of news in the European Press. There’s a conspiracy against Truth. It’s almost impossible for public opinion to form any kind of verdict based on actual facts. Newspapers nowadays use facts merely as the raw material of propaganda. They’re manufactured to suit the policy of the proprietors, or the purpose of Government. By suppression, or alteration, or over-emphasis, or the trick of false perspective, by scare head-lines and editorial comment, they’re made to convey exactly the particular idea which the newspapers desire to suggest to its readers. Who knows what is the actual state of things in Germany, whether she is on the brink of bankruptcy, or getting rich? What’s the mental state of the German people, after their tremendous defeat, their blood-bath, the downfall of their pride? Are they cherishing the hope of revenge, worshipping the old gods, or working out some way of salvation? France—what about France? Is Poincaré France? Or Paris? What are the people thinking? Do they really want to invade the Ruhr and force another war for unborn babes—as sure as Fate. . . . Do you know, Pollard?”
“No,” said Bertram.
“Well, why not find out?”
He had come to the point of the interview. He had an idea that Bertram might wander around a bit in Europe—the old battlefields, Paris—not Paris of the boulevards, but Paris in the back streets, the little shops, the student quarter, the intellectual clubs—then Germany, among its peasants, in the back blocks of Berlin, in middle-class households. Then Russia, if he liked. He could link up with Christy in Moscow, write different kind of stuff, not statistics or high politics, but the human side of things, how the people were living—and dying—what they ate, how they dressed, what was in their minds. He could pick up a bit of Russian, or find people who spoke something else. He might get a glimpse or two of the real truth.
It seemed that Bernard Hall had been impressed by Bertram’s article on “The Mind of the Men,” and one or two other things he had sent in. That was the kind of thing he wanted. No profound analysis of the European situation—it was in flux, changing from week to week—but intimate sketches of life; things seen; things heard; the common thought; wayside conversations; little flashes revealing the heart of folk.
“Does the idea appeal to you?” he asked.
It appealed to Bertram enormously. Here was his way of escape, from the depression of life without an object; from the immediate problem of earning a “living wage,” perhaps from other troubles which had borne down on him, like Joyce’s abandonment. It would give her more time to make up her mind about “one thing or the other.” It would give him more time to think things out, without desperate conclusions based on boredom, loneliness, futility, and introspective brooding. Here was objective work. He would be looking out upon the world, not inwards with nagging irritation. It would lift his mind, broaden it, re-vitalise it. It would help him to adopt Janet’s remedy for gloom and despair—interest in the other fellow’s welfare and sympathy beyond selfishness.
Bernard Hall spoke about “terms”—a share of expenses, articles paid for at a fair rate, no particular number laid down, but one a week if possible. It was good enough, enormously more, as a chance, than he could have hoped.
“When can you get off?” asked Hall.
“To-morrow morning.”
Bernard Hall smiled for the second time during the interview.
“Not such a hurry as all that.”
So it was fixed and Bertram shook hands on the understanding. As he was leaving, Nat Verney, the Miners’ leader in the House of Commons, came in and gave him a friendly nod.
“Good article of yours, Pollard, ‘The Mind of the Men,’ I agreed with every word of it.”
“How’s the Lock-out?” asked Bernard Hall, and Bertram noticed that he avoided the word ‘Strike.’
Nat Verney laughed.
“You read of my evidence before that private meeting in the House of Commons? Most of the members were bowled over by the facts I gave ’em, and admitted the strength of the men’s case, for at least a compromise. That’s how it’s going to end. A good old British compromise! The wicked thing is that it ought to have begun with that. But the owners didn’t give us a chance. Just flung an ultimatum at our heads with a ‘Take it or leave it!’ Well, we damn well left it!”
“What about the Triple Alliance?”
Verney shrugged his shoulders.
“They’ve ratted. Timid as rabbits. There won’t be any General Strike, or Social Revolution. The Government has won that trick. But they look pretty silly with their Army Reserve and Home Defence. Not a single case of violence, except among soldiers who looted a village through sheer boredom.”
A shadow seemed to pass from Bernard Hall’s face.
“I’m relieved to hear all that, Verney. I’m for evolution, not revolution. If you’d challenged the Government by ‘direct action,’ there would have been bloodshed and chaos, ending in the utter defeat of Labour.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Verney. “I’m not one of the Reds, anyhow. I’ve no patience with those who want to destroy at all costs, without a notion of how they’re going to build up out of ruin.”
Bertram left the two men talking. He had heard enough to know that the Strike, or Lock-out, or whatever one liked to call it, was going to end in compromise. After all, he’d been right in backing the men! None of those awful things had happened which had been prophesied on the one hand by the Duke of Bramshaw, Lady Ottery, and their set, on the other by the parlour Jacobins of the “Left Wing.” The miners had gone on whitewashing their cottages, sowing seeds in little front gardens. The Unemployed in London, growing in numbers, because of industry closing down, had not invaded Mayfair, except with collection boxes and banners.
The Government and the Mine-owners had admitted at least half the men’s case after an ultimatum far too brutal in its original terms. England was not going to break out in civil conflict just yet, or ever, if the men were given anything like a fair deal. English character remained the same as he had seen it in the trenches, solid, steady, without passion. It had always chosen the middle of the road.
Well, he would soon be out of England, wandering among other peoples, studying their problems and psychology. Perhaps he would get as far as Russia, and link up with Christy in Moscow! Extraordinary adventure! What was it old Christy had said, at the top of his stairs?
“If you’re not cut out for disloyalty—and it needs a special temperament—cut and run when loyalty’s over-strained. It’s the safest way . . . and Moscow’s an interesting place.”
Queer words! He hadn’t understood them at the time. Now he seemed to see a special meaning in them. They referred a little to Joyce, and a little to Janet. His loyalty to Janet was getting overstrained. He was being tempted to disloyalty, perhaps to Christy as well as to Joyce. Janet had put a spell on him. That night in her flat was not very safe for a lonely man, abandoned, temporarily or otherwise, by his wife. It was too cosy there, making cocoa over an electric fire for a girl whose laughter and wisdom and comradeship were given generously. The chance of other nights like that, and of comradeship closer and more enduring, might overstrain loyalty to breaking-point. He was human, and pretty weak at that. “Cut and run,” old Christy had said. For him there would be torture of conscience in disloyalty. “Sir Faithful,” Janet called him. At least he wasn’t cut out for the part of Lancelot.
“His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”
He remembered words he’d spoken once to Christy. “I believe in loyalty.” He had said them sincerely then, before temptation had come, testing him under heavy strain. But there was something in him still which forbade, under pain of self-torture, easy ways of escape which many men chose in such a case as his—new love for old, a kind mistress for an unkind wife, excuse for divorce, the usual routine.
What forbade him? What did he mean by conscience? Not religious scruples, for he had no certain faith. Not rigid principles of high morality, for he was tolerant of other men’s personal arrangements in this affair of sex. But by heredity, environment, upbringing, his mind was hedged round with restraints and secret laws. If he broke them, he would break himself. He could only be disloyal to such laws within himself by being an outlaw to his own code. Joyce had gone away from him, but he must be faithful in body and soul to his pledge of loyalty to her, or suffer hideously in self-esteem.
Perhaps that was egotism again, the need of self-pride, the prick of self-conceit and not of conscience. All very difficult! Who could get down to the hidden springs, even in his own soul? One could only know the effect of their working, by experience of mental states resulting from thwarted instincts or acts opposed to instincts. One could balance the profit and loss of obedience to the inner law and disobedience. Obedience was generally more profitable, however difficult to resist the lure of disobedience. When the lure was too strong in its spell, Christy’s advice was “Cut and run!” Not heroic, but safer. . . .
When he told Janet that he owed her the best chance of his life, his voice broke a little.
“When are you starting?” she asked, and when he told her that he was crossing to France the very next day, she exclaimed, like Bernard Hall, that there was no such burning hurry. But he told her he was in a hurry to “make good,” as the Americans say, and that if he stayed a few more days in town he might have to seek escape from loneliness again in her little sanctuary, which would strain her patience, and his virtue.
That seemed to amuse her mightily, and she mocked him as a modern St. Anthony, and liked his flattery (she said) of her poor beauty.
She sent her love to Christy, if Bertram had the chance of meeting him in Moscow.
“If I don’t hear from you at least once a month,” she told him, “I’ll abandon my blinded men to rescue you from Bolshevists!”
“Then I’ll never write till you come!” he said.
They talked, mostly nonsense, until he rose to say good-bye.
“There’s a chance,” said Bertram, “that I mayn’t see you again.”
“Good Lord!” she cried, in sham alarm. “Are you going to make another war?”
“No, but there’s the usual risk from one street to another. A falling chimney-pot, a typhus bug, or some other way of accident. Anyhow, I want to tell you now that I’m eternally grateful for all you’ve done for me, in lovingkindness. Wherever I am in the world, or beyond it, I’ll never forget my dear comrade.”
She let him take her hands and put them to his lips, when she answered him.
“Sir Faithful, I’m not good at serious speech, and don’t much believe in it, except at odd times, as a concession to human weakness. But I’ve liked your company, sir, and I’m sorry we can’t be closer partners—because of fate and other things.”
“Perhaps one day—” he said, and didn’t end his sentence.
She shook her head, as though understanding his unfinished words.
“You’ll go back to Joyce. That’s best for you. She’s the Beatrice of your Divina Commedia.”
He didn’t dispute that. It was the truth, as far as he knew it in his own heart.
“At least our friendship is eternal,” he said in a low voice.
“Absence is the ditch of forgetfulness,” she said lightly, and then quoted a French verse he had heard before, in war-time, when a French girl had sung it in an old inn at Cassel, on the way to Ypres.
“Partir, c’est mourir un peu,
C’est mourir à ce qu’on aime.”
Before he went away, he asked her a question in which she understood a subtle meaning.
“About Christy, what shall I say to him?”
Janet laughed, with a touch of extra colour in her cheeks.
“Tell him he needn’t have gone as far as Moscow. The Superfluous Woman is a stay-at-home, and very happy with her blind boys.”
She came out onto the stone landing with him, outside her flat.
“It’s not midnight yet,” he said. “Will you risk it?”
“Without a qualm of conscience,” she answered, and gave him her lips to kiss.
“Good luck, mon ami!” So she called into the well of the great staircase, as he stumbled down.
“My heart’s thanks!” he answered back from a lower flight.
“ ‘Partir, c’est mourir un peu!’ ” she said in a laughing way, yet a little sad too, he thought.
He spoke the second line:
“ ‘C’est mourir à ce qu’on aime!’ ”
Some people came out of the flat on the second floor and tramped down the stone stairs noisily, and he had no more chance of farewell with Janet Welford.
“Cut and run,” old Christy had said. Well, he was doing so. As Joyce said, “It must be one thing or the other.”
Next morning he crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne.