“This clearing in the wood is the same,” John said. “That is why I like it, and my old home looks just the same—from here.”
There was a moment’s silence while Jack lit his pipe.
John suddenly said, “I put in the electric light. My father never would hear of it, but I did it.”
He thought it was just as well that his magnificent grandson should know that he had done something when he held the reins.
“That is one of the many things I have been wishing to discuss with you, grandfather. You installed electric light in the house and stables and garage, but there was power enough to light a town. While you were doing it, why didn’t you light the church and the village as well?”
“I never thought of it.”
“But it must have made you very uncomfortable to feel you had not shared the benefit of it with the community. The village lies at your very gates. You must have hated the feeling that you had lit yourself up, and left them in the dark. It was essential, absolutely essential for your workers’ well-being that they should have light. Even in your day the more intelligent among the agricultural labourers were beginning to migrate to the towns. We only got them back by better conditions in lighting and housing, and facilities for movement and amusement.”
“Electric light in cottages was unheard of in my time,” said John. “It never entered my head.”
“Just so,” said Jack. “That seems so odd, so incomprehensible to us unless we can seize the feudal point of view. You confirm the classics on the subject. I have questioned numbers of very old men who were in their prime before the war like you, grandfather, but I have not found their opinions as definite as yours, because they have insensibly got all their edges worn off so to speak by lifelong contact with the two younger generations. Your unique experience is most interesting. Never entered your head. There you have the feudal system in a nutshell. No sense of communal life at all. I’ll make a note of it—I’m compiling a treatise on the subject. You were against female suffrage, too, I remember. I’ve been reading up your record. You voted several times against it.”
“I did. I consider woman’s sphere is in the home.”