Book: The Foolish Lovers

S >> St. John G. Ervine >> The Foolish Lovers




He loved discussions and arguments about Deep Things, and Mrs.
Haverstock had invented her series of At Homes in order that her
husband might get rid of some of his noble principles at them. She felt
that if he could dissipate part of them in argument with other very
high-minded men, life, between the At Homes, would be a little more
human and livable for her. She secured a regular supply of attendants
at these discussions by the simple method of supplying an excellent
supper to those who came to them.

"I first met Haverstock," Hinde said to John as they walked along the
Spaniards' Road, "during a strike at Canning Town. He was trying to
persuade the police to remember that the strikers were men and
brothers, and he was trying also to persuade the strikers that force
was no argument and that they ought to use constitutional means of
settling their disputes with their employers. And between the two, he
was in danger of getting his eye knocked out, until I hauled him out of
the crowd and shoved him into a cab and took him home. Mrs. Haverstock
was so grateful to me that she's invited me to her house ever since ...
but the people I meet there make me feel murderous. I like her, a
sensible, sonsy woman, and I like him too, although his solemn,
priggish airs make me tired, but I cannot bear the crowd they get round
them: all the cranks and oddities and smug, self-sufficient,
interfering people seem to get into their house, and they're all
reforming something or uplifting something else or generally bleating
against this country. Things done in England are always inferior to
things done elsewhere. English cooking is inferior to French cooking:
English organisation is inferior to German organisation. Whatever is
done in England is wrongly done. The English are hypocrites, the
English are sordid and materialistic, the English are everlastingly
compromising, the English are this, that and the other that is
unpleasant and objectionable!... I tell you, Mac, there's nobody makes
me feel so sick as the Englishman who belittles England!"

"Well, we make little of the English, don't we?" John protested.

"I know we do, and perhaps it is natural that we should, but it's a
poor, cheap thing at the best, and does very little credit to our
intelligence. The English ideal of life is as good an ideal as there is
in the world. I think it is far the finest ideal there is, chiefly
because it does not make impossible demands on human beings. When
everything that can be alleged against the English is alleged and
admitted, it remains true that they love freedom far more constantly
than other people, and that without them, freedom would have a very
thin time in the world. You ask any liberty-loving American which
country has more freedom, his country or this country, and he'll tell
you very quickly, England! Englishmen don't argue about freedom: they
just are free, and on the whole, they carry freedom with them. An
American will argue about liberty even while he is clapping you into
gaol for asserting your right to freedom!... Here's the house!"

They turned into the front garden of the Haverstocks' house as he
spoke.

"In a way," he said, as they walked along the gravel path leading to
the door, "the English Radical is the strongest testimony to the
English ideal of freedom that you could have. He is so jealous of his
country's good name that he is always ready to shout out if he is not
satisfied with her behaviour. That's a good sign, really! Only they're
so smug about it!..."

Most of the guests were already assembled when they entered the
drawing-room where Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock bade them welcome. Hinde
introduced John to them, mentioning that he had only lately arrived
from Ireland. Mrs. Haverstock smiled and hoped he would often come
to see them, and Mr. Haverstock looked pontifical and said, "Ah,
yes. Poor Ireland! _Poor_ Ireland! Tragic! Tragic!" He waved his
hand in a vague fashion, and then turned to greet the representative
of another distressed nation. John could hear him murmuring, "Ah,
yes. Poor Georgia! _Poor_ Georgia! Tragic! Tragic!" but was unable
to hear any more because Mrs. Haverstock led him up to a lean, staring
youth with goggle eyes who, she said, had promised to read several
of his poems to the guests and to open a discussion on Marriage. The
goggle-eyed poet informed John that Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton,
Shelley and Browning were comic old gentlemen who entirely misunderstood
the nature and function of poetry. He had founded a new school of poetry.
It appeared from his account of this school that the important thing
was not what was said in a poem, but what was left out of it. He
illustrated his meaning by allowing John to read the manuscript of one
of the poems he proposed to read that evening. It was entitled "Life,"
and it contained two lines!...

LIFE

Big, black crows on bare, black branches,
Cawing!...

"Where's the rest of it!" said John innocently.

The poet looted at him with such contempt that he felt certain he had
committed an indiscretion. "Is that the whole of it?" he hurriedly
asked.

"That fact that you ask such a question," said the poet, "shows that
you have no knowledge of the completeness of life!..."

"Well, I only came here about a fortnight ago," John humbly replied ...
but the poet had moved away and would not listen to him any longer. "I
seem to have put my foot in it," John murmured to himself.

He made his way to Hinde's side, resolved that he would not budge from
it for the rest of the evening. The people present frightened him,
particularly after his experience with the poet, and he determined that
he would keep himself as inconspicuous as possible. He felt that all
these people were terribly clever and that his ignorance would be
immediately apparent if he opened his mouth in their presence. He tried
hard to realise the magnitude of "Life," but he could not convince
himself that it was either an adequate description of existence or that
it was a description of anything; and, in his innocence, he believed
that he was mentally deficient. Hinde named some of the guests to him.
This one was a novelist and that one had written a play ... and in the
excitement of seeing and listening to men who had actually done things
that he wished to do, John forgot some of his humiliation.

"I saw you talking to Palfrey," Hinde said to him.

"The poet chap?" John replied.

Hinde nodded his head. "What did you think of him?" he continued.

"He showed me one of his poems. I couldn't understand it, and when I
said so, he walked away!"

Hinde laughed. "That's as good a description of him as you could
invent," he said. "He always walks away when you can't understand what
he's getting at. The reason why he does that is he's afraid someone'll
discover he isn't getting at anything. He's just an impertinent person.
He thinks he's being great when he's only being cheeky!"

John repeated the poem entitled "Life" to Hinde. "What do you think of
that?" he asked.

"I don't think anything of it," Hinde replied.

John felt reassured. "I asked him where the rest of it was, and he
nearly ate the face off me," he said. "I was afraid he'd think me a
terrible gumph!..."

"If you let a humbug like that impose upon you, Mac, I'll never own you
for my friend. Any intelligent office-boy could write poems like that
all day long!"

There was a movement in the room, and the guests began to settle in
their seats or on the floor, and after a short while, Mr. Haverstock,
who acted as chairman of the meeting, took his place in front of a
small table, and Mr. Palfrey sat down beside him. The poet, said the
chairman, would honour them by reading some new poems to them, after
which he would open a discussion on Marriage. They all knew that
Marriage was an important matter, affecting the lives of men and women
to a far greater extent, probably, than anything else in the world, and
it was desirable therefore that they should discuss it frankly and
frequently. Problems would remain insoluble so long as people remained
silent about them. He could not help expressing his regret to those
present at the extraordinary reluctance which the average person had to
revealing experiences of matrimony. He had initiated an important
enquiry into the question of marital relationships with a view to
discovering exactly what it was that caused so many marriages to fail,
and he had had to abandon the enquiry because very few people were
willing to tell anything about their marriages to him. There was a
great deal of foolish reticence in the world ... at this point Mr.
Palfrey emphatically said, "Hear! Hear!"... and he trusted that those
present that evening would cast away false modesty and would say quite
openly what their experiences had been. He would not detain them any
longer ... he was quite certain that they were all very anxious to hear
Mr. Palfrey ... and so without any more ado he would call upon him to
read his poems and then to discuss the great and important question of
Marriage.



VII

Mr. Palfrey read his poems in a curious sing-song fashion, beating time
with his right hand as he did so. He seemed to be performing physical
exercises rather than modulating his own accents, and on two occasions
his gesture was longer than his poem. He read "Life" very slowly and
very deliberately, saying the word "cawing" in a high-pitched tone, and
prolonging it until his breath was exhausted. He recited a dozen of
these poems, obtaining his greatest effect with, the last of them,
which was entitled, "The Sea":

Immense, incalculable waste,
The dribblings from a giant's beard....

"Isn't it wonderful?" said an ecstatic girl sitting next to John.

"No," he replied.

She looked at him interrogatively, and he added, very aggressively, "I
think it's twaddle!"

"Oh, _do_ you?" she exclaimed as if she could scarcely believe her
ears.

"I do," said John.

He would have said more, but that Mr. Haverstock was on his feet
proposing that they should now have supper and take the more important
business of the evening afterwards, namely, the discussion of this
great problem of Marriage. They had all been deeply moved by Mr.
Palfrey's beautiful verses and would no doubt like an opportunity of
discussing them in an informal manner....

Mrs. Haverstock led John to a girl who was sitting at the back of the
room, and introduced him to her. Miss Bushe was the daughter of the
editor of the _Daily Groan_, and Mrs. Haverstock desired that John
would take her into supper.

"Mr. MacDermott is Irish--he has only just arrived from Ireland," Mrs.
Haverstock said to Miss Bushe by way of explanation or possibly as a
means of providing them with conversation.

"I've always wanted to go to Ireland," said Miss Bushe, taking his arm
and allowing him to lead her to the dining-room.

"Well, why don't you go?" he asked.

All evening people had been telling him that they had always wanted to
go to Ireland, but had somehow omitted to do so.

"Well, mother likes Bournemouth," Miss Bushe replied, "and so we always
go there. She says that she knows there'll be a bathroom at
Bournemouth, and plenty of hot water and she can't bear the thought of
going to some place where hot water isn't laid on. I suppose I shall go
to Ireland some day!"

"There's plenty of hot water in Ireland," said John.

Miss Bushe giggled. "You're so satirical," she said.

"Satirical?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. About the hot water in Ireland!"

He gazed blankly at her. "I don't understand you," he replied. "I meant
just what I said. You can get hot water in Ireland as easily as you can
in England. Some people have it laid on in pipes, and other people have
to boil it on the fire; but you can get it all right!"

There was a look of disappointment on Miss Bushe's face. "I thought you
were making a reference to politics," she said.

John stared at her. Then he turned away. "Will I get you something to
eat?" he murmured as he did so. He had observed the other men gallantly
waiting upon the ladies.

"Oh, thank you," she said. She glanced towards the table. "I wonder if
that trifle has got anything intoxicating in it?" she added.

"I daresay," he answered. "Trifles usually have drink of some sort in
them!"

"I couldn't take it if it has anything intoxicating in it," she
burbled.

"Why not?" John demanded. "It'll do you no harm!"

"Oh, I couldn't. I simply couldn't if it has anything intoxicating in
it. We're very strict about intoxicants. They do so much harm!"

John did not know what to do or say next. She still stared longingly at
the trifle, and it was clear that she would greatly like to eat some of
it.

"Well?" he said vaguely.

"I wonder," she replied, "whether you'd mind tasting it first, just to
see whether it has anything intoxicating in it?"

John thought that this was a strange sort of young woman to take into
supper, but he did as she bid him. He took a large portion of the
trifle on to a plate and tasted it. She gazed at him in a very anxious
manner.

"It has," he said, "and it's lovely!"

The light went out of her eyes. "Then I think I'll just have some
blanc-mange," she said.

"There's nothing intoxicating in that," he replied, going to get it for
her.

"Do you know," she murmured when he had returned and she was eating the
blanc-mange, "I almost wish you had said there was nothing intoxicating
in the trifle!..."

"That would have been a lie," John interrupted.

"Yes, but!... Oh, well, this blanc-mange is quite nice!"

John tempted, her. "Taste the trifle anyway," he said.

"Oh, no," she replied, shrinking back. "I couldn't. We're very
strict!..."



VIII

After supper, Mr. Palfrey opened the discussion on Marriage. He
declared that Marriage was the coward's refuge from Love. He said that
Marriage had been invented by lawyers and parsons for the purpose of
obtaining fees and authority. These unpleasant people, the lawyers and
the parsons, had contrived to make Love an impropriety and had reduced
Holy Passion to the status of a schedule to an act of parliament. Cupid
had been furnished with a truncheon and a helmet and had been robbed of
his wings in order that he might more suitably serve as a policeman. He
demanded Free Love, and pleaded for the chaste promiscuity of the
birds!... After he had said a great deal in the same strain, he sat
down amid applause, and Mr. Haverstock invited discussion. He would
like to say, however, that he strongly believed in regulation. In his
opinion there was something beautiful in the sight of a bride and a
bridegroom signing the parish register in the presence of their
friends. The young couple, he said, asked for the approval and sanction
of the community in their love-making. Love without Law was License,
and he trusted that Mr. Palfrey was not inviting them to approve of
Licentiousness....

Mr. Palfrey created an enormous sensation and some laughter by saying
that that was precisely what he did invite them to do. All law was
composed of hindrances and obstacles and forbiddings, and therefore he
was entirely opposed to Law. This statement so nonplussed Mr.
Haverstock that he abruptly sat down, and for a few moments the meeting
was in a state of chaotic silence. Then a large man rose from the floor
where he had been lying almost at full length and announced that in his
opinion the world would cease to have any love in it at all if the
present craze for vegetable diet increased to any great extent. How
could a bean-feaster, he demanded, feel passion in his blood? Meat, he
declared, excited the amorous instincts. All the great lovers of the
world were extravagantly carnivorous, and all poetry, in the last
resort, rested on a foundation of beef-steak puddings. What sort of
lover would Romeo have been had he lived on a diet of lentils? Would
Juliet have had the power to move the sympathies of generations of men
and women if she had nourished her love on haricot beans?...

Immediately he sat down, a lean and bearded youth sprang to his feet
and announced in vibrant tones that he had been a practising vegetarian
from birth and could affirm from personal experience that a vegetable
diet, so far from suppressing the passions, actually stimulated them;
and he offered to prove from statistics that vegetarians, in proportion
to their number, had been more frequently engaged in romantic
philandering than carnivorous persons had. Look at Shelley!... He
could assure those present that he was as amorous and passionate as any
meat-eater in the room....

The discussion went to pieces after that, and became a wrangle about
proteid and food values. There was an elderly lady who insisted on
telling John all about the gastric juices!... Hinde rescued him on the
plea that they had a long journey in front of them, and very gratefully
John accepted the suggestion that they should set off at once in order
to reach their lodgings at a reasonable hour. Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock
conducted them to the door ... a chilly and contemptuous nod had been
accorded to John by Mr. Palfrey ... and pressed them to come again
soon. "Every Wednesday evening," said Mr. Haverstock, "we're at home,
and we discuss ... everything!..."

They hurried along the Spaniards' Road towards the Tube Station, and as
they did so, John told Hinde of his encounter with Miss Bushe over the
trifle.

"That accounts for it," Hinde exclaimed aloud.

"Accounts for what?" John demanded.

"The _Daily Groan_. I've often wondered what was the matter with
that paper, and now I know. They're always wondering whether there's
anything intoxicating in the trifle!... I don't mind a boy talking in
that wild way. A clever, intelligent lad ought to talk revolutionary
stuff, but when a man reaches Palfrey's age and is still gabbling that
silly-cleverness, then the man's an ass. There's no depth in him!..."



IX

They sat in the sitting-room for a long while after they had returned
to Brixton, and Hinde related some of his reminiscences to John.

"I'm one of the world's failures," he said. "I came to London to try
and do great work, and I'm still a journalist. I can recognise a fine
book when I see it, but I can't create one. I'm just a journalist, and
a journalist isn't really a man. He has no life of his own ... he goes
home on sufferance, and may be called up by his editor at any minute to
go galloping off in search of a 'story.' We go everywhere and see
nothing. We meet everybody and know nobody. A journalist is a man
without beliefs and almost without hope. The damned go to Fleet Street
when they die. It's an exciting life ... oh, yes, quite exciting, but
it's horrible to see men merely as 'copy' and to think of the little
secret, intimate things of life only as materials for a good 'story.' I
wish I were a grocer!..."

"Why?" John demanded.

"Well, at least a grocer does not look upon human beings merely as
consumers of sugar!"

"I could have been a grocer if I'd wanted to," John continued. "My
mother wanted me to be a clergyman!"

"What put it into your head to turn scribbler?"

"I just wanted to write a book. I can't make you out, Hinde. One minute
you're advising me to go on a paper, and the next minute you're telling
me a journalist isn't a man!..."

"When you know more of us," Hinde interrupted, "you'll know that all
journalists belittle journalism. It's the one consolation that's left
to them. Unless you're prepared to associate only with journalists,
Mac, you'd much better keep out of Fleet Street. Newspaper men always
feel like fish out of water when they're in the company of other men.
They must be near the newspaper atmosphere ... they can't breathe
without the stink of ink in their nostrils!..."

"All the same I'll have a try at the life," said John.



X

But at the end of his first month in London, John had no more to his
account than this, that he had begun but had not completed a music-hall
sketch, that he had begun but had not made much progress with a
tragedy, that he had tried to obtain employment on the staff of the
_Daily Sensation_ and had failed to do so, and, worst of all, that
he had fallen in love with Eleanor Moore but could not find her
anywhere. His novel supplied the one element of hope that lightened his
thoughts on his month's work. He wished now that he had asked Hinde to
read it before it had been sent to the publisher. Perhaps it would
redeem the month from its dismal state.




THE FOURTH CHAPTER


I

It was Hinde who brought the good news to John. Mr. Clotworthy, the
editor of the _Daily Sensation_, had met Hinde in Tudor Street
that afternoon and when he had heard that John and Hinde were living
together, he said, "Tell him I'll take him on the staff if he'll
promise to keep the Truth well under control!" and had named the
following morning for an appointment.

"It's a queer thing," said Hinde as he related the news to John, "that
I'm advising you to take the job when I was telling you the other night
that journalism's no work for a man; but that only shows what a
journalist I am. No stability ... carried off my feet by any
excitement. And mebbe the life'll disgust you and you'll go home
again!..."

"With my tail between my legs?" John demanded. "No, I'll not do that.
I'd be ashamed to go home and admit I hadn't done what I set out to do.
What time does Mr. Clotworthy want me?"

Hinde told him.

"I'll write to my mother at once," said John, "and tell her he's sent
for me. That'll impress her. Shell be greatly taken, with the notion
that he sent for me instead of me running after him!..."

"The great fault in an Ulsterman," said Hinde, "is his silly pride that
won't let him acknowledge his mistake when he's made one. You'll get
into a lot of bother, John MacDermott, if you go about the world
letting on you've done right when you've done wrong, and pretending a
mistake is not a mistake!"

"I'll run the risk of that," John replied.



II

Mr. Clotworthy spoke very sharply to him. "You understand," he said,
"that you're here to write what we want you to write, and not to write
what you think. If you start any of your capering about Truth and
Reforming the world, I'll fire you into the street the minute I catch
you at it. You're here to interest people. That's all. You're not here
to elevate their minds or teach them anything. You're here to keep up
our sales and increase them if you can. D'you understand me?"

"I do," said John.

"Well?"

"I'll try the job for a while and see how I like it!"

Mr. Clotworthy sat back in his chair and rubbed his glasses with his
handkerchief. "You've a great nerve," he said, smiling. "I don't know
whether you talk like that because you're sure of yourself or just
stupid!"

"I always knew my own mind," John replied.

Mr. Clotworthy turned him over to Mr. Tarleton, the news-editor, who
was instructed to give him hints on his work and introduce him to other
members of the staff.

For two days John did very little in the office, beyond finding his way
about, but on the third day of his employment, Tarleton suddenly called
him into his room and told him that the musical critic had telephoned
to say he was unwell and would not be able to attend a concert at the
Albert Hall that evening.

"You'll have to go instead," said Tarleton.

"But I don't know anything about music," John protested.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Well, I thought one was supposed to know something about music before
you wrote a criticism of it!"

"Look here, young fellow," said Tarleton. "Let me give you a piece of
advice. Never admit that there's anything in this world that you don't
know. A _Daily Sensation_ man knows everything! ..."

"But I have no ear for music. I hardly know a minim from a semi-quaver!..."

"Well, that doesn't matter. Get a programme. Mark on it the songs and
pieces that get the most applause. Those are the best things. See?
Anybody can criticise music when he knows a tip or two like that. If
the singer is a celebrated person, like Melba or Tetrazzini, you say
she was in her usual brilliant form. If the singer isn't celebrated,
just say that she shows promise of development!..."

"But supposing I don't like her?"

"Then say nothing about her. If we can't praise people on this paper,
we ignore them. Get your stuff in before eleven, will you? Here's the
ticket!"

Tarleton thrust the card into John's hand and, a little dazed and a
little excited, John went out of the room. This was his first important
job. Words that he had written would appear in print in the morning,
and hundreds of thousands of people would read them. The _Daily
Sensation_ had an enormous circulation ... a million people bought
it every morning, so Tarleton said, and that meant, he explained, that
about three or four million people read it. Each copy of a paper was
probably seen by several persons. The thought that some judgment of his
would be read by a million men and women in the morning caused John to
feel tremendously responsible. He must be careful to give his praise
judiciously. All of the persons present at the concert that night, but
more especially the singers and instrumentalists, would turn first of
all to his notice. There might be a great political crisis or a
sensational murder reported in the morning's news, but these people
would turn first to his notice to see what he had said about the music.
And it would not do to let them have a wrong impression about the
concert. Tarleton had told him not to dispraise anything ... "it'll be
cut out if you do" ... but at all events he would take care that his
praise was justly given. He would send copies of the papers, marked
with blue pencil, to his mother and Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff. He
could imagine the talk there would be in Ballyards about his criticism
of the concert. The minister and the schoolmaster would be greatly
impressed when they realised that the paper with the largest
circulation in the world had asked him to say what he thought of Madame
Tetrazzini. Mr. McCaughan had never heard anything greater than a
cantata sung by the church choir in the church room, and he had been
deeply impressed by the statements made about it by a reporter from the
_North Down Herald_ who declared that the rendering of the sacred
work reflected great credit on all concerned in it, but particularly on
the Reverend Mr. McCaughan to whose sterling instruction in the
principles of true religion, the young people engaged in singing the
cantata clearly owed the sincerity and fervour with which they sang
their parts. If he were so greatly impressed by a report in the
_North Down Herald_, would he not be overwhelmed by the fact that
one of his congregation had been chosen to pronounce judgment on the
greatest singer in the world in the greatest newspaper in the world ...
for John was now satisfied that the _Daily Sensation_ was
enormously more important than any other paper that was published. He
went to a tea-shop in Fleet Street where he knew he could hope to meet
Hinde, and found him sitting in a corner with a friend who, soon after
John's arrival, went away.

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