2
It was my first visit to the offices of the Lancing Trust; and I retain the memory of a vast, wind-swept barn on the edge of Hampstead Heath, with an old red-brick cottage and pent-houses of tarred wood attached. There were a great many box-files, a gigantic set of loose-leaf ledgers, a fair-sized reference library and a large number of typewriters. On one wall I recognized the map which Aylmer Lancing used to keep in his study to remind him of the stages by which his grip had spread over the earth’s surface. In all other respects, the building might have belonged to a poor-law relieving-officer; and Sonia, who obviously expected to find a double row of bankers smoking long cigars at a gleaming mahogany table, was no less obviously disappointed.
“I came to see if I could help you in any way,” I told O’Rane, who had rather frightened me the night before by his air of physical exhaustion.
We found him now with one of his secretaries in Raymond Stornaway’s private office, fidgeting with the will. I learned that the money was to be spent “for the good of humanity”; and in the construction of that clause he had already received so much contradictory advice that he had closed his office to chance callers.
“I didn’t expect Stornaway to die so soon,” was all he would say when I asked him his plans.
“I doubt if time will make your problem any easier,” I answered, as I joined Sonia in front of the tattered wall-map.
There, from the centre of what Lancing had bought as a burnt-out town-site, the Lancing influence spread in extending circles. A name and date in faded ink marked the advance of his railroads, the acquisition of his forests and mines, the linking of lake to ocean for the transportation of his grain. Dotted lines, leading to vague infinity, shewed where Lancing had splashed out of the union into the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.
“You must move to a decent office,” Sonia put in. “And we can’t go on at The Sanctuary if you want to entertain properly. People will expect us to live up to our position, you know.”
O’Rane smiled grimly as he ushered us compellingly to the door.
“Whether that’s for the good of humanity . . .,” he murmured.
After this single meeting I resolved not to break in on his contemplation until I was invited. Very soon my attention was to be claimed by troubles of my own, for I was not satisfied with the state of Barbara’s mind or body; I, too, wanted to think; and, though I treated O’Rane to an unsolicited misgiving whenever I remembered his new estate, I will not pretend that I thought of him much after the feverish seven days in which every one I met said: “You’ve heard about it, of course? That’s the sort of thing that would happen to Sonia. What d’you suppose they’ll do with it?” . . .
It was in these days that the last touches were being given to the great peace-treaty which was to make an end of war; and, but for that, I should have handed Bertrand my resignation and taken Barbara abroad. Until we saw the terms, however, we could not tell how far his gloomy predictions at Cannes would be fulfilled nor how far any one could undo the mischief that was reported from Paris. If we could believe a quarter of all we heard, the butchery for which Sanguszko and Boscarelli clamoured in Lucien’s verandah-parliament was taking place in one country after another; as I warned Saltash, three discontented Alsace-Lorraines were being created for one that was pacified; and the mood of the December election seemed to return as the public realized the helplessness of the defeated enemy. Outside the now notorious “Oakleigh gang” I found few to admit that any country but Germany had been responsible for the war; and on that foundation each man erected his own standard of retribution. My father-in-law went the length of collecting a party at the Eclectic Club to reason with me and to check the wrong-headed doctrines that poured forth, week after week, from Fetter Lane.
“You really seem to live in a world of your own,” he explained wearily. “I don’t hope to convince you; but, if you take a poll of your friends, on a question like indemnities . . .”
Before he had time to finish or I to answer, John Carstairs put his own case with alluring brevity:
“The Boche made the war. The Boche must pay for it.”
“What would have happened to our colonies if we’d lost?,” pursued Crawleigh, who seemed to regard the empire as a dumping-ground for the viceregally-inclined members of his family. German West Africa was below his dignity, but he had three sons. “These people mustn’t complain if they’re served in the same way.”
I recalled and quoted Bertrand’s dictum that no lasting peace could be established on a sense of grievance.
“I feel no tenderness towards Germany,” I said, “but aren’t we making another war inevitable?”
“You will make it inevitable,” said Mr. Justice Maitland, “if you let the last war go unpunished. No one will deny that the Germans broke a treaty, that they robbed, tortured, violated and murdered, not in the heat of fighting but as part of a terrorizing campaign ordered from headquarters. If acts like these go unpunished, every nation will know that it can take ‘frightfulness’ as its starting-point. Rape and mutilation will become sanctified usages of war. There will be a precedent.”
“That’s unanswerable,” I told the judge. “But, if this war proves anything, it proves that war doesn’t pay. I want to make that the great contribution of this war to history. If we impose a peace so unendurable that even war is no worse . . .”
Maitland interrupted me with a smiling head-shake:
“I have to try murderers in the course of my duties. Their state would be no better than that of their victims, if vendettas were permitted. You might say truly enough that murder doesn’t pay. I should be sorry to see the death-penalty abolished on that reasoning.”
“If you could hang every German,” I said, as I left to dress for the opera, “I might accept your argument. As it is, a punitive peace will set them thinking of revenge; and, the moment they’re strong enough, they’ll take it.”
“A good reason for keeping them weak,” said Carstairs, “which—quite rightly—is all Clemenceau cares about.”
I might have multiplied, almost to infinity, the number of similar opinions, held by the most dissimilar people. I heard them at the club, I was inundated by them at my office and I wrestled with them at Barbara’s parties.
“I wonder whether Bertrand thinks we’re making any headway?,” I asked that night at dinner, after venting my despondency on my wife.
I am not sure whether she heard me; her only answer was to look at her watch and to ask which opera was being played.
“Louise?” she repeated. “Then we can miss the first two acts. I suppose you wouldn’t care to go alone?”
“Aren’t you feeling up to it?,” I asked.
Barbara turned her back on me and busied herself with the wad of her cigarette-holder:
“Oh, I don’t know! Yes, I’m all right! And, anyway, I shan’t do any good . . . I don’t know what I’m talking about!,” she cried with sudden loss of control. “I’m going to lie down till we start.”
“I’ll take you up,” I said.
“No!,” she answered, with what I can only call a suppressed scream.
Her look and tone took me aback as though she had struck me in the face. For some weeks I had fancied that her nerves were disordered; but, as I finished my cigar in solitude, I felt that this night marked a subtle change in my relations with her. To this day I cannot tell when it began. We had been married little more than a year; before that, for ten years, we had been excellent friends. At first I believe she told me every thought in her heart; and there were times when I wished for both our sakes that she would think less and say less about what could not be mended. As though I had put my wish into words, her manner changed at the armistice: we were to make a new start, she was to forget her love for Eric Lane; and, after that, an onlooker would have said that she belonged to me, soul and body. She and I alone knew that, in some way, we were becoming strangers. Though she was bored with Cannes after the first week, she never told me; she might be bored with the life of a political hostess, but loyalty or lack of confidence kept her silent. She would not admit that she was ill or unhappy; but something now tortured her beyond bearing.
And I was afraid to ask her. In all that touched her soul, I was a stranger, an amateur and a bungler. Something of this must have revealed itself in my expression, for on her return to the dining-room she put her arms round my neck and told me not to look so worried.
“I’m worried about you,” I said.
“But I swear to you I’ve never felt better in my life! Come on; or we shall miss the only act worth hearing!”
I followed her, more worried than ever. If I said nothing, I should seem callous; if I said anything, I might inflame her misery. I knew her too little for any idea what she wanted of me; and she trusted me too little to help by a hint. At this rate, she would become every day more uncommunicative; and each unanswered appeal for understanding would separate her farther from me.
“If ever there’s anything the matter,” I said, as we got into the car, “I hope you’ll tell me, Babs.”
“Everything’s perfect,” she answered. “A darling house, a darling husband.” . . . Her voice suddenly lost its false ring of assurance. “No, the fault’s in me somewhere. There’s something missing. Don’t let’s talk about it.”
At the unexpected quaver, I caught her fingers in mine; and she brushed away a tear with the back of my hand. Though no more was said, I felt that something more ought to have been said and that I was a moral coward for not saying it. In the silence and darkness of the car, I wondered whether Barbara was unhappy because she had been given no sign that she was to bear children. For all I knew, she did not want them or was afraid; for all I knew, she wanted them and could not bear them and was afraid to tell me. And we were both afraid to confess our fear.