Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued
to lead its life of cultured but not ignoble ease, still
swimming gracefully on the grey tides of London. Concerts
and plays swept past them, money had been spent and renewed,
reputations won and lost, and the city herself, emblematic
of their lives, rose and fell in a continual flux, while her
shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and
over the fields of Hertfordshire. This famous building had
arisen, that was doomed. Today Whitehall had been
transformed: it would be the turn of Regent Street
tomorrow. And month by month the roads smelt more strongly
of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human
beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty,
breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature
withdrew: the leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun
shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.
To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The
Earth as an artistic cult has had its day, and the
literature of the near future will probably ignore the
country and seek inspiration from the town. One can
understand the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces,
the public has heard a little too much--they seem Victorian,
while London is Georgian--and those who care for the earth
with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings back to
her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualizes it
as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without purpose,
and excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered
before it can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly
beats, but with no pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond
everything: Nature, with all her cruelty, comes nearer to us
than do these crowds of men. A friend explains himself: the
earth is explicable--from her we came, and we must return to
her. But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or
Liverpool Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the
same thoroughfares in the evening--the city exhaling her
exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the fog,
beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are
ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human
face. London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous
religion of theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes,
the continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own
sort--not anyone pompous or tearful--were caring for us up
in the sky.
The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps
him, too, away from his moorings, and Margaret's eyes were
not opened until the lease of Wickham Place expired. She
had always known that it must expire, but the knowledge only
became vivid about nine months before the event. Then the
house was suddenly ringed with pathos. It had seen so much
happiness. Why had it to be swept away? In the streets of
the city she noted for the first time the architecture of
hurry, and heard the language of hurry on the mouths of its
inhabitants--clipped words, formless sentences, potted
expressions of approval or disgust. Month by month things
were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population
still rose, but what was the quality of the men born? The
particular millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham
Place, and desired to erect Babylonian flats upon it--what
right had he to stir so large a portion of the quivering
jelly? He was not a fool--she had heard him expose
Socialism--but true insight began just where his
intelligence ended, and one gathered that this was the case
with most millionaires. What right had such men--But
Margaret checked herself. That way lies madness. Thank
goodness she, too, had some money, and could purchase a new home.
Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for
the Easter vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of
having a serious talk with him. Did he at all know where he
wanted to live? Tibby didn't know that he did know. Did he
at all know what he wanted to do? He was equally uncertain,
but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to be quite
free of any profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went
on sewing for a few minutes before she replied:
"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as
particularly happy."
"Ye-es," said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a
curious quiver, as if he, too, had thoughts of Mr. Vyse, had
seen round, through, over, and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed
Mr. Vyse, grouped him, and finally dismissed him as having
no possible bearing on the subject under discussion. That
bleat of Tibby's infuriated Helen. But Helen was now down
in the dining-room preparing a speech about political
economy. At times her voice could be heard declaiming
through the floor.
"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don't you
think? Then there's Guy. That was a pitiful business.
Besides"--shifting to the general--" every one is the better
for some regular work."
Groans.
"I shall stick to it," she continued, smiling. "I am
not saying it to educate you; it is what I really think. I
believe that in the last century men have developed the
desire for work, and they must not starve it. It's a new
desire. It goes with a great deal that's bad, but in itself
it's good, and I hope that for women, too, 'not to work'
will soon become as shocking as 'not to be married' was a
hundred years ago."
"I have no experience of this profound desire to which
you allude," enunciated Tibby.
"Then we'll leave the subject till you do. I'm not
going to rattle you round. Take your time. Only do think
over the lives of the men you like most, and see how they've
arranged them."
"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and
leant so far back in his chair that he extended in a
horizontal line from knees to throat.
"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the
traditional arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you,
and so on--all of which are, for various reasons, cant." She
sewed on. "I'm only your sister. I haven't any authority
over you, and I don't want to have any. Just to put before
you what I think the truth. You see"--she shook off the
pince-nez to which she had recently taken--"in a few years
we shall be the same age practically, and I shall want you
to help me. Men are so much nicer than women."
"Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"
"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."
"Has nobody arst you?"
"Only ninnies."
"Do people ask Helen?"
"Plentifully."
"Tell me about them."
"No."
"Tell me about your ninnies, then."
"They were men who had nothing better to do," said his
sister, feeling that she was entitled to score this point.
"So take warning: you must work, or else you must pretend to
work, which is what I do. Work, work, work if you'd save
your soul and your body. It is honestly a necessity, dear
boy. Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all
their defects of temper and understanding, such men give me
more pleasure than many who are better equipped and I think
it is because they have worked regularly and honestly.
"Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.
"I shall not. They are the right sort."
"Oh, goodness me, Meg!" he protested, suddenly sitting
up, alert and angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a
genuine personality.
"Well, they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."
"No, no--oh, no!"
"I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed
as a ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's
gone out there again, Evie Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."
"Duty" always elicited a groan.
"He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though
it is beastly work--dull country, dishonest natives, an
eternal fidget over fresh water and food. A nation who can
produce men of that sort may well be proud. No wonder
England has become an Empire."
"EMPIRE!"
"I can't bother over results," said Margaret, a little
sadly. "They are too difficult for me. I can only look at
the men. An Empire bores me, so far, but I can appreciate
the heroism that builds it up. London bores me, but what
thousands of splendid people are labouring to make London--"
"What it is," he sneered.
"What it is, worse luck. I want activity without
civilization. How paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what
we shall find in heaven."
"And I," said Tibby, "want civilization without
activity, which, I expect, is what we shall find in the
other place."
"You needn't go as far as the other place, Tibbi-kins,
if you want that. You can find it at Oxford."
"Stupid--"
"If I'm stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I'll
even live in Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I'll live
anywhere except Bournemouth, Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh
yes, or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge Wells and
Surbiton and Bedford. There on no account."
"London, then."
"I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from
London. However, there's no reason we shouldn't have a
house in the country and also a flat in town, provided we
all stick together and contribute. Though of course--Oh,
how one does maunder on, and to think, to think of the
people who are really poor. How do they live? Not to move
about the world would kill me."
As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst
in in a state of extreme excitement.
"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess.
A woman's been here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?"
(Helen was fond of supplying her own surprise.) "Yes, for
her husband, and it really is so."
"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who
had lately taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the
knives and boots.
"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was
Tibby. (Cheer up, Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said,
'Hunt, my good woman; have a good look round, hunt under the
tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the antimacassars.
Husband? husband?' Oh, and she so magnificently dressed and
tinkling like a chandelier."
"Now, Helen, what did happen really?"
"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech.
Annie opens the door like a fool, and shows a female
straight in on me, with my mouth open. Then we began--very
civilly. 'I want my husband, what I have reason to believe
is here.' No--how unjust one is. She said 'whom,' not
'what.' She got it perfectly. So I said, 'Name, please?'
and she said, 'Lan, Miss,' and there we were.
"Lan?"
"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline."
"But what an extraordinary--"
"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave
misunderstanding here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is
even more remarkable than my beauty, and never, never has
Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.'"
"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.
"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful
experience. Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a
husband as if he was an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday
afternoon--and for a long time suffered no inconvenience.
But all night, and all this morning her apprehensions grew.
Breakfast didn't seem the same--no, no more did lunch, and
so she strolled up to 2, Wickham Place as being the most
likely place for the missing article."
"But how on earth--"
"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she
kept repeating, not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In
vain I asked her what she did know. Some knew what others
knew, and others didn't, and if they didn't, then others
again had better be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent!
She had a face like a silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of
orris-root. We chatted pleasantly a little about husbands,
and I wondered where hers was too, and advised her to go to
the police. She thanked me. We agreed that Mr. Lanoline's
a notty, notty man, and hasn't no business to go on the
lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the last.
Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg,
remember--bags I."
"Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down
her work. "I'm not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It
means some horrible volcano smoking somewhere, doesn't it?"
"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind. The
admirable creature isn't capable of tragedy."
"Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to
the window.
"Oh, no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could
have married Mrs. Lanoline."
"Was she pretty?"
"Her figure may have been good once."
The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate
curtain between Margaret and the welter of London. Her
thoughts turned sadly to house-hunting. Wickham Place had
been so safe. She feared, fantastically, that her own
little flock might be moving into turmoil and squalor, into
nearer contact with such episodes as these.
"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live
next September," she said at last.
"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do," retorted
Helen; and that topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then
tea came, and after tea Helen went on preparing her speech,
and Margaret prepared one, too, for they were going out to a
discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts were
poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a
faint smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love
and hatred had both decayed.
