IV
Five days later my guests were scattered to the four winds. Bertrand stayed behind until it was time to move on to the Hunter-Oakleighs in Dublin, and O'Rane was waiting to accompany me to House of Steynes. A great quiet descended on Lake House, and I recalled Valentine Arden's maxim that the charm of a house party lies in the moment of its dispersal.
"You're not being quite so strenuous as usual, David," observed my uncle one morning after breakfast.
"I can't hurry the calendar, sir," Raney answered. "I must wait for November."
"All Souls?" I asked.
He nodded. "And then the Bar. And then the House."
The 1906 Parliament was distinguished by a little group of men who had cleared the board of honours at Oxford, blazed into fame at the Bar and entered the House as fashionable silks and rising politicians while still in the thirties. Their reputation preceded them from the time they were freshmen, and their career became the model for succeeding generations. I imagine that Simon, Hemmerde, and F. E. Smith were to the Oxford of their day what O'Rane was to the Oxford of mine—marked men with no conceivable limit to the heights they might attain.
"You think it's possible to reform the world from the House of Commons?" I asked.
O'Rane looked through the open window over the placid lake to the smoke-blue mountains beyond.
"You can only reform the world by reforming the men who compose it," he answered. "And you can't do that by Acts of Parliament. You've not found that out yet, George. I have."
"Then why are we to be honoured?" Bertrand inquired.
Raney turned round and faced into the room.
"There are some things the House alone can do, sir. Within the next ten years you're going to have labour troubles as near revolution as makes no odds. I've spied out the land, and there's an ugly temper abroad. And probably you'll have a European War. We're too rich, sir."
"There will be labour troubles every ten years," Bertrand answered with a yawn. "The young men who've never starved their way through a strike have to learn what their fathers learned."
"We're too rich internationally," O'Rane persisted. "We've got all the fair places of the earth, and the sansculottes of Europe will fight us for them, just as the sansculottes of England will fight for a bigger share of profits."
My uncle shook his head.
"The world's getting too democratic, David," he said. "Democracy doesn't fight democracy; no one has anything to gain. And we leave the fair places of the world open to the world. Anyone can come too."
He picked up his hat and walked through the window into the morning sunshine. O'Rane looked for a moment at the broad-shouldered back and massive head, then turned to me with a gesture of despair.
"When I get into the House, George," he said, "it'll be to fight your uncle. Years ago—the night after I left Melton—I told you in the garden at Crowley Court that we had given away our weakness before all Europe. There are not ten men in this country who understand Continental opinion. I called for ten years' reorganization of the Empire. Now it seems that every step we take to defend ourselves against attack makes Germany think we're preparing to attack her. Sooner or later there'll be a casus belli."
"Half a dozen years ago we were faced with an inevitable war with France," I reminded him. "Now we're the best of friends."
"There's been no Pan-French school since Sedan," he retorted. "I should be sorry to see England going down before the storm. With all its blemishes I think the civilization of this country is the finest in all the world." He stood opposite the window with the autumn sun shining on to his thin face, and as I looked there were tears in his great black eyes. "Any country," he went on tremulously, "that takes a steward from a Three-Funnel Liner and ... and ... and ..."
His voice died away. I knocked out my pipe and began filling it again.
"Come out into the garden, Raney," I said, taking his arm.
He laughed and obeyed.
"Burgess, too, used to say I wasn't accountable for my actions," he remarked.
"A little of your madness would make better men of a number of us," I said.
He stopped short to drink in all the misty damp beauty of the autumn morning, momentarily forgetful of me and of our conversation. Another moment and the mood was past.
"Oh! it's made, not born," he said. "If you'd seen Jews massacred before you were seven.... Poor dear Lady Dainton can't think what my father was about over my upbringing! She's quite right. I learned all the wrong things, met all the wrong people—and this is the result!"
At the end of the week we crossed to Scotland together, spent ten days with the Lorings and separated in Edinburgh. Towards the middle of October we met again in London, and, as I was now qualified to take my M.A., I seized the excuse for a visit to Oxford and motored O'Rane up in time for the first All Souls paper. There was an interval between the written work and the candidates' dinner, so we arranged to slip down for eight-and-forty hours to Crowley Court. "You will find some old friends here," Lady Dainton wrote. "Lord Loring, Mr. Arden and Lord Summertown are coming to-morrow, and Tony Crabtree is already with us...."
"I told you so," I remarked to O'Rane as we left Princes Gardens and climbed into the car.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if we had to dislodge the fellow," he answered, as a man might speak of installing a new drainage system.
There was a curious similarity of purpose in our descent on Oxford. Each had a rather wearisome formality to go through, and the result in either case was equally certain. Candidates for the degree of M.A. paid fees to their college and the university chest, caught a hurried Latin formula, changed their gowns, tipped their scouts, bowed to the Vice-Chancellor and got rid of a red and black silk hood at the earliest possible opportunity. Candidates for All Souls Fellowships presented their credentials to the Warden, disposed of a stated number of papers in the Hall and paraded their table manners at dinner and in Common Room the following Sunday. The formality ended with an announcement in "The Times," and anyone who had not sufficiently cleared his friends' houses of undesirable guests was now at liberty to return and complete the eviction.
I took my M.A. as other and better men have taken it before and since.
Also like other men before and since, O'Rane was—not elected. It was the first time I had known him fail to carry out an undertaking he had set himself, and my faith in him would have received a shock unless I had heard the full story. All he said as we got into the car at the "Randolph" was:
"I probably shan't go through with this show."
"Why the devil not?" I demanded.
At first he made no answer, but, as we slid away from the lights of Oxford and headed through Abingdon and the wet white mist of a November afternoon southward to the Berkshire Downs, he offered fragments of explanation. There were two fellowships and sixteen candidates, of whom three stood head and shoulders above their rivals: O'Rane with first in Mods. and Greats, the Ireland and Gaisford prizes and a Chancellor's medal; Oldham of Balliol with a second in Mods., a first in Greats and a first in Law; and Brent of the House who had taken Pass Mods., a first in History and the Stanhope Essay prize. There was prima facie a lion with no martyr.
"I walked down the High with old Brent," O'Rane told me. "He was rather down on his luck—man who's lived on scholarships since he could walk, not a bob in the world, and no guts to make a career for himself. With a fellowship he can go to the Bar; otherwise he'll moulder in the Civil Service."
"But, my dear Raney," I exclaimed, "the decision doesn't rest with you."
"No, but—I can do something for him," he said with a smile. "You know my philosophy."
"Yes, but what about yourself?" I asked.
"In the words of Burgess, 'The Lord will provide.' I've made twenty-three pounds in ten days as a waiter in this country; in a Long Island Delicatessen store——"
"Are you going back there?"
"If need be. I've settled nothing—not even about this fellowship. I'm waiting for an omen, George. A lot depends on the next few hours; I must think things out. What are you pulling up for?"
"My near-side head light's gone out," I answered, as I scrambled past him into the road.
On my return O'Rane was standing with one foot braced against the steering-wheel and the other planted on the back of the driving-seat; he was gazing intently down the road we had just traversed. There was nothing coming up behind; he stood for a moment more in silence and then slipped back into his seat.
"It's too misty," he said, with the suggestion of a sigh in his voice.
"What were you looking at?" I asked.
"I was trying to see Oxford. The lights of Oxford. D'you remember 'Jude the Obscure'? It was here—any height round here—that he stood gazing at Oxford and wondering if he'd ever get there. God! Don't I know that man's heart! Ever since I was a tiny child.... And I remember my father, just when he was dying,—it was almost the last word on his lips—telling me where to go and what I was to do...."
He paused abruptly and turned over old thoughts.
"Go on, Raney," I said.
"Hallo! Were you listening? I was only rambling."
"Go on rambling then—about your father."
He turned up the collar of his coat and sank lower into his seat.
"It was just the end; they carried him up from the Peiræus, and he rallied for one last flicker. 'I'm going now, Boy,' he whispered—smiling, though two-thirds of him were shot away. 'I've not made much of a thing of life; see if you can do better. We've not a bad record as a family. Go back to England—Oxford.' He started coughing, and when it was over I thought he was dead. Suddenly he sat up and spoke very quickly. 'I'm really going now, Davie. Good-bye, Boy. Try to forgive me!'" Raney's voice had grown very husky. "Forgive him! The man was a god! Besides, I didn't understand till people started calling me Lord O'Rane, and then I went to a priest to find out. It was like rubbing in father's death.... And the priest explained—a bit, and said I should understand when I was older. And that was all—all I care to tell you, anyway, old man. I didn't enjoy my first trip round the world. Perhaps if Summertown's invitation still holds good...."
He broke off and began to whistle reflectively between his teeth.
"What are you going to do, Raney?"
"Why bother? I've got five years to turn round in before Sonia's ready for me——"
"When you do marry her, I shall give you a very handsome present—I don't like betting on these things."
"I shall marry her, George," he answered, with assurance. "I've got five years to make money in—here or abroad—a thousand a year——"
"In five years?"
"Less. Three. Two. If I don't make it in two, working twelve hours a day, I'll make it in three, working eighteen."
"I rather doubt——"
It was the one word that lashed him like a whip. His hand descended on my driving arm and gripped it till the car rocked from side to side.
"If—I—ever—doubted—anything——!" he whispered.
"Let go my arm!" I cried.
"Sorry!" He laughed and went back to his normal tone. "Dear old George! If I'd ever doubted, d'you think I could have stood going round with a guitar in Chinatown—handing basins on a liner.... Doubt!"
An hour later we turned in through the drive gates of Crowley Court.