diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198-8.txt | 6531 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 138411 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 316451 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198-h/35198-h.htm | 6734 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 174979 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198.txt | 6531 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35198.zip | bin | 0 -> 138366 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
10 files changed, 19812 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35198-8.txt b/35198-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d96565 --- /dev/null +++ b/35198-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6531 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What Not + A Prophetic Comedy + +Author: Rose Macaulay + +Release Date: February 7, 2011 [EBook #35198] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NOT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + WHAT NOT + + A PROPHETIC COMEDY + + BY ROSE MACAULAY + + AUTHOR OF "NON-COMBATANTS," "THE MAKING OF A BIGOT," ETC. + + + LONDON + CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD. + 1918 + + TO + CIVIL SERVANTS + I HAVE KNOWN + + * * * * * + + "Wisdom is very unpleasant to the unlearned: he that is without + understanding will not remain with her. She will lie upon him + as a mighty stone of trial; and he will cast her from him ere + it be long. For wisdom is according to her name, and she is not + manifest unto many.... + + "Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children...." + + Jesus, Son of Sirach, + _c._ B.C. 150. + + * * * * * + + "It's domestickness of spirit, selvishnesse, which is the great + let to Armies, Religions, and Kingdomes good." + + W. GREENHILL, 1643. + + * * * * * + + "It has come to a fine thing if people cannot live in their + homes without being interfered with by the police.... You are + upsetting the country altogether with your Food Orders and What + Not." + + DEFENDANT IN A FOOD-HOARDING CASE, + _January, 1918._ + + + + + +NOTE. + + +As this book was written during the war, and intended prophetically, its +delay until some months after the armistice calls for a word of +explanation. + +The book was ready for publication in November, 1918, when it was +discovered that a slight alteration in the text was essential, to +safeguard it against one of the laws of the realm. As the edition was +already bound, this alteration has naturally taken a considerable time. + +However, as the date of the happenings described in "What Not" is +unspecified, it may still be regarded as a prophecy, not yet disproved. + + R. M. + + _March, 1919_ + + + + +APOLOGY + + +One cannot write for evermore of life in war-time, even if, as at times +seems possible, the war outlasts the youngest of us. Nor can one easily +write of life as it was before this thing came upon us, for that is a +queer, half-remembered thing, to make one cry. This is a tale of life +after the war, in which alone there is hope. So it is, no doubt, +inaccurate, too sanguine in part, too pessimistic in part, too foolish +and too far removed from life as it will be lived even for a novel. It +is a shot in the dark, a bow drawn at a venture. But it is the best one +can do in the unfortunate circumstances, which make against all kinds of +truth, even that inferior kind which is called accuracy. Truth, indeed, +seems to be one of the things, along with lives, wealth, joy, leisure, +liberty, and forest trees, which has to be sacrificed on the altar of +this all-taking war, this bitter, unsparing god, which may perhaps +before the end strip us of everything we possess except the integrity of +our so fortunately situated island, our indomitable persistence in the +teeth of odds, and the unstemmed eloquence of our leaders, all of which +we shall surely retain. + +This book is, anyhow, so far as it is anything beyond an attempt to +amuse the writer, rather of the nature of suggestion than of prophecy, +and many will think it a poor suggestion at that. The suggestion is of a +possible remedy for what appears to have always been the chief human +ailment, and what will, probably, after these present troubles, be even +more pronounced than before. For wars do not conduce to intelligence. +They put a sudden end to many of the best intellects, the keenest, +finest minds, which would have built up the shattered ruins of the world +in due time. And many of the minds that are left are battered and +stupefied; the avenues of thought are closed, and people are too tired, +too old, or too dulled by violence, to build up anything at all. And +besides these dulled and damaged minds, there are the great mass of the +minds which neither catastrophe nor emotion nor violence nor age nor any +other creature can blunt, because they have never been acute, have never +had an edge, can cut no ice nor hew any new roads. + +So, unless something drastic is done about it, it seems like a poor +look-out. + +This book contains the suggestion of a means of cure for this world-old +ill, and is offered, free, to a probably inattentive and unresponsive +Government, a close and interested study of whom has led the writer to +believe that the erection of yet another Department might not be wholly +uncongenial. + +It will be observed that the general state of the world and of society +in this so near and yet so unknown future has been but lightly touched +upon. It is unexplored territory, too difficult for the present writer, +and must be left to the forecastings of the better informed. + +A word as to the title of this work, which may seem vague, or even +foolish. Its source I have given. Food Orders we all know; What Not was +not defined by the user of the phrase, except by the remark that it +upset the country. The businesses described in this tale fulfil that +definition; and, if they be not What Not, I do not know what is. + +_April, 1918._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE MINISTRY + +II. LITTLE CHANTREYS + +III. BRAINS SUNDAY + +IV. OUR WEEK + +V. THE EXPLANATION CAMPAIGN + +VI. THE SIMPLE HUMAN EMOTIONS + +VII. THE BREAKING POINT + +VIII. ON FIXED HEARTS AND CHANGING SCENES + +IX. _THE COMMON HERD_ + +X. A MINISTRY AT BAY + +XI. THE STORMING OF THE HOTEL + +XII. DEBRIS + + + + +WHAT NOT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE MINISTRY + + +1 + +After the Great War (but I do not say how long after), when the tumult +and the shouting had died, and those who were left of the captains and +the kings had gone either home or to those obscure abodes selected for +them by their more successful fellows (to allay anxiety, I hasten to +mention that three one-time Emperors were among those thus relegated to +distance and obscurity), and humanity, released from its long torment, +peered nervously into a future darkly divined (nervously, and yet +curiously, like a man long sick who has just begun to get about again +and cannot yet make anything coherent of the strange, disquieting, +terrifying, yet enchanting jumble which breaks upon his restored +consciousness)--while these things happened, the trains still ran +through the Bakerloo tube, carrying people to their day's work. + +Compartments in tube trains are full of variety and life--more so than +in trains above ground, being more congested, and having straps, also no +class snobbery. Swaying on adjacent straps were a fluffy typist, reading +"The Love He Could Not Buy," in the _Daily Mirror_, a spruce young civil +servant on his way to the Foreign Office, reading _The Times_, a +clergyman reading the _Challenge_, who looked as if he was interested in +the Life and Liberty movement, another clergyman reading the _Guardian_, +who looked as if he wasn't, an elderly gentleman reading the _Morning +Post_, who looked patriotic but soured, as if he had volunteered for +National Service during the Great War and had found it disappointing, a +young man reading the _Post-War_, the alert new daily, and a citizen +with a law-abiding face very properly perusing the _Hidden Hand_. The +_Hidden Hand_ was the Government daily paper. Such a paper had for long +been needed; it is difficult to understand why it was not started long +ago. All other papers are so unreliable, so tiresome; a government must +have one paper on which it can depend for unfailing support. So here was +the _Hidden Hand_, and its readers had no excuse for ignorance of what +the government desired them to think about its own actions. + +The carriage was full of men and women going to their places of +business. There were tired young men, lame young men, pale and scarred +young men, brown and fit young men, bored and _blasé_ young men, jolly +and amused young men, and nearly all, however brown or fit or pale or +languid or jolly or bored, bore a peculiar and unmistakable impress +stamped, faintly or deeply, on their faces, their eyes, their carriage, +the set of their shoulders. + +There were, among the business men and girls, women going shopping, +impassive, without newspapers, gazing at the clothes of others, taking +in their cost, their cut, their colour. This is an engrossing +occupation. Those who practise it sit quite still, without a stir, a +twinkle, a yawn, or a paper, and merely look, all over, up and down, +from shoes to hat.... They are a strange and wonderful race of beings, +these gazing women; one cannot see into their minds, or beyond their +roving eyes. They bear less than any other section of the community the +stamp of public events. The representatives of the type in the Bakerloo +this morning did not carry any apparent impress of the Great War. It +would take something more than a great war, something more even than a +food crisis, to leave its mark on these sphinx-like and immobile +countenances. Kingdoms may rise and fall, nations may reel in the +death-grapple, but they sit gazing still, and their minds, amid the +rocking chaos, may be imagined to be framing some such thoughts as +these: "Those are nice shoes. I wonder if they're the ones Swan and +Edgar have at 30s. She's trimmed her hat herself, and not well. That +skirt is last year's shape. That's a smart coat. Dear me, what +stockings; you'd think anyone would be ashamed." + +These women had not the air of reckless anticipation, of being alert for +any happening, however queer, that, in differing degrees, marked the +majority of people in these days. For that, in many, seemed the +prevailing note; a series of events so surprising as to kill surprise, +of disasters so appalling as to numb horror, had come and gone, leaving +behind them this reckless touch, and with it a kind of greed, a +determination to snatch whatever might be from life before it tumbled +again into chaos. They had not been devoid of lessons in what moralists +call Making the Best of It, those staggering years when everything had +fallen and fallen, successively and simultaneously, civilisation, and +governments, and hopes, and crowns, and nations, and soldiers, and rain, +and tears, and bombs, and buildings, only not prices, or newspapers. + +For, if everything had so fallen once, it might even now be riding for a +fall again (in spite of the League of Nations and other devices for +propping up the unsteady framework of a lasting peace). The thing was to +get what one could first. The thing, in the opinion of one traveller in +that train, was to wear cap and bells, to dance through life to a barrel +organ, to defeat a foolish universe with its own weapons. + +And always there was that sense in the background of a possible great +disaster, of dancing on the world's thin crust that had broken once and +let one through, and might break again. Its very thinness, its very +fragility added a desperate gaiety to the dance. + + +2 + +Ivy Delmer (who was not the traveller alluded to above, and did not +consciously think or feel any of these things) stood holding to a strap, +with the novel which she was going to change in the lunch hour in one +hand. Ivy Delmer, a shorthand typist at the Ministry of Brains, was +young, ingenuous, soft-faced, naïve, and the daughter of a +Buckinghamshire vicar. The two things she loved best in the world were +marzipan and the drama. Her wide grey eyes travelled, with innocent +interest, along the faces in the compartment; she was seeing if she +liked them or not. Immaturely and unconsciously sexual, she looked with +more hope of satisfaction at male faces than at female. Not but that she +was susceptible to strong admirations for her own sex; she had a "pash" +for Miss Doris Keane and Miss Teddie Gerrard, and, in private life, a +great esteem for Miss Grammont, at the Ministry, whose letters she +sometimes took down in shorthand. But everyone knows there is a greater +number of interesting faces in trains belonging to another sex than to +one's own, and it is no use pretending. + +Having subjected the faces within her range to her half-unconscious +judgment, and passed them with varying degrees of credit, Miss Delmer, +for lack of anything better to do, read the advertisements and +exhortations over the windows. With satisfaction she noted that she had +seen all the advertised plays. She absorbed such temporal maxims and +eternal truths as "Let Mr. Mustard mix your bath," "God is not mocked," +and the terrifying utterances of the Safety-if-Possible Council, "Is it +safe? That is the question. No. That is the answer." "If you hope to +achieve safety in a street aero (1) Do not alight before the aero does. +(2) Do not attempt to jump up into an aero in motion." Then a picture: +"A will be killed because he is standing immediately beneath a +descending aero bus. B will be killed because he and others like him +have shaken the nerve of the aviator." A series of warnings which left +one certain that, wherever one might achieve safety, it would not be in, +or anywhere at all near, a street aero. That, probably, is the object. +In the old days it was the motor bus that was thus made a thing of +terror by the princes of the nether world. Now, even as then, their +efforts met with success, and the tubes were filled with a +panic-stricken mob. + +Ivy Delmer, taking an empty seat, saw Miss Grammont at the other side of +the carriage. Miss Grammont had the _New Statesman_ and the _Tatler_ and +was reading one of them. She was partial to both, which was +characteristic of her attitude towards life. She was one of those who +see no reason why an intelligent interest in the affairs of the world +should be incompatible with a taste for Eve. She enjoyed both classical +concerts and new revues. She might be called a learned worldling. Ivy +Delmer was rather shy of her, because of her manner, which could be +supercilious, because of her reputed cleverness, and because of her +position at the Ministry, which was a long way above Ivy's. On the other +hand, her clothes made one feel at home; they showed skill and interest; +she had not that air of the dowd which some people who have been to +college have, and which is so estranging to normal people. + +Kitty Grammont, something of the elegant rake, something of the gamin, +something of the adventuress, something of the scholar, with innocent +amber-brown eyes gazing ingenuously from under long black lashes, a +slightly cynical mouth, a small, smooth, rounded, child's face, a +travelled manner, and an excellent brain, was adequately, as people go, +equipped for the business of living. She had seen some life, in a past +which, if chequered, had not lacked its gaiety, meant to see much more, +in a future which she did not foresee clearly but which she intended +should be worthy of her, and was seeing enough to go on with in a +present which, though at moments it blackly bored her (she was very +susceptible to boredom), was on the whole decidedly entertaining. + +Ivy Delmer, looking at her across the compartment, with some surprise +because she was so nearly punctual this morning, this not being one of +her habits, admired her greatly, thinking how clever she was, how +clearly, how unhesitatingly, how incisively her sentences came out when +she was dictating, cutting their way, in that cool, light, dragging +voice of hers, through her subject, however intricate, as a sharp blade +cuts ice; quite different from some people's dictation, which trails to +and fro, emending, cancelling, hesitating, indistinct, with no edge to +it, so that one's shorthand has constantly to be altered, making a mess +on the page, and bits of it read aloud to see how it goes now, which was +a nuisance, because one can't rely always on being able to read off even +one's own shorthand quite fluently straight away like that. Further--and +this was nearer Ivy's heart--Miss Grammont wore, as a rule, charming +shoes. She also smoked extraordinarily nice cigarettes, and often had +delicious chocolates, and was generous with both. + +All this made it a grief to Ivy Delmer that Miss Grammont's brother and +his family, who lived in her father's parish, and with whom Miss +Grammont often stayed, were not Approved Of. Into the reasons for this +it will be more appropriate to enter later in this narrative. + + +3 + +Oxford Circus. The hub of the world, where seething mobs fought on the +platform like wild beasts. Piccadilly Circus. Lucky people, thought Ivy +Delmer, who got out there, all among gaiety and theatres. Trafalgar +Square. There naval officers got out, to visit the Admiralty, or the +Nelson Column. Charing Cross. There people had got out during the Great +War, to go and help the War Office or the Ministry of Munitions to run +the business. So much help, so much energy, so many hotels.... And now +there were more than ever, because so much needed doing, and hotels are +the means heaven has given us to do it with. + +At Charing Cross Ivy Delmer and Kitty Grammont got out, for, without +specifying the hotel where the Ministry of Brains carried on its +labours, it may be mentioned without indiscretion that it was within a +walk of Charing Cross. + +Miss Grammont and Miss Delmer walked there, Miss Delmer well ahead and +hurrying, because to her it seemed late, Miss Grammont behind and +sauntering because to her it seemed superfluously early. The Ministry +daily day began at 9.30, and it was only 9.40 now. + +The summer morning was glittering on the river like laughter. A foolish +thing it seemed, to be going into an hotel on a summer morning, to be +sitting down at a government desk laden with government files, taking a +government pen (which was never a relief, only a not-exactly) and +writing pamphlets, or answers to letters which, if left long enough, +would surely answer themselves, as is the way of letters, and all to +improve the Brains of the Nation. Bother the Brains of the Nation, +thought Miss Grammont, only she used a stronger word, as was the custom +in what Mrs. Delmer called her unfortunate family. Black doubt sometimes +smote her as to not so much the efficacy of the work of her Department +as its desirability if ever it should be perfectly accomplished. Did +brains matter so greatly after all? Were the clever happier than the +fools? Miss Grammont, whose university career had been a brilliant +intellectual adventure, felt competent to speak for both these types of +humanity. She knew herself to be happier when playing the fool than when +exerting her highly efficient brain; the lunatic-asylum touch gave her +more joy than the studious, and she wore learning like a cap and bells. +But stupidity was, of course, a bore. It must, of course, be mitigated, +if possible. And anyhow the object of the Ministry of Brains was not to +make people happy (that could be left to the Directorate of +Entertainments), nor to make them good (that was up to the Church, now, +to the great benefit of both, divorced from the State), but to further +social progress and avert another Great War. + +Miss Grammont yawned, because the day was yet so young, and followed +Miss Delmer up the steps of the hotel. + + +4 + +The Ministry of Brains, a vast organisation, had many sections. There +was the Propaganda Section, which produced pamphlets and organised +lectures and cinema shows (Miss Grammont had been lent temporarily to +this section by her own branch); there was the Men's Education Section, +the Women's, and the Children's; the Section which dealt with +brain-tests, examinations, certificates, and tribunals, and the Section +which was concerned with the direction of the intellects of the Great +Unborn. Ivy Delmer was attached to this section, and Mr. Delmer, when he +heard about it, was not altogether sure it was quite nice for her. + +"She surely shouldn't know they have any," he had said to his wife, who +was weeding, and replied absently, "Any what, dear? Who?" + +"Intellects," the vicar said. "The Unborn. Besides, they haven't." He +was frowning, and jerking out dandelions from the lawn with a spud. + +"Oh, that's not it, dear," Mrs. Delmer reassured him vaguely. "Not the +_just_ unborn, you know. The--the ever so long unborn. All this +arrangement of who ought to marry who. Quite silly, of course, but no +harm for Ivy in that way. After all, there's no reason why she shouldn't +know that children often inherit their brains from their parents." + +The vicar admitted that, even for their precious and very young Ivy, +there was no great harm in this. + +The Section in question was, as Mrs. Delmer had stated, concerned with +the encouragement and discouragement of alliances in proportion as they +seemed favourable or otherwise to the propagation of intelligence in the +next generation. There were numerous and complicated regulations on the +subject, which could not, of course, be enforced; the Ministry's methods +were those of stimulation, reward and punishment, rather than of +coercion. There were bonuses on the births of the babies of parents +conforming to the regulations, and penal taxes on unregulated infants, +taxes increasing in proportion to the flagrancy of the parents' +disobedience, so that the offspring of parents of very low mental +calibre brought with them financial ruin. Everyone held a Ministry of +Brains form, showing his or her mental category, officially ascertained +and registered. If you were classified A, your brains were certified to +be of the highest order, and you were recommended to take a B2 or B3 +partner (these were the quite intelligent). To ally yourself with +another A or a B1 was regarded as wasteful, there not being nearly +enough of these to go round, and your babies would receive much smaller +bonuses. If you were classed C1, C2, or C3, your babies would receive no +encouragement, unless you had diluted their folly with an A partner; if +you chose to unite with another C they were heavily fined, and if you +were below C3 (i.e. uncertificated) they were fined still more heavily, +by whomsoever diluted, and for the third and subsequent infants born +under such conditions you would be imprisoned. (Only the Ministry had +not been working long enough for anyone to have yet met with this fate. +The children of unions perpetrated before the Mental Progress Act were +at present exempt.) Families among the lower grades and among the +uncertificated were thus drastically discouraged. You were +uncertificated for matrimonial purposes not only if you were very +stupid, but if, though yourself of brilliant mental powers, you had +actual deficiency in your near family. If you were in this case, your +form was marked "A (Deficiency)." + +And so on: the details of the regulations, their intricacies and tangled +knots, the endless and complicated special arrangements which were made +with various groups and classes of persons, may be easily imagined, or +(rather less easily, because the index is poor) found in the many +volumes of the Ministry of Brains Instructions. + +Anyhow, to room number 13, which was among the many rooms where this +vast and intricate subject was dealt with, Ivy Delmer was summoned this +Monday morning to take down a letter for Vernon Prideaux. + + +5 + +Vernon Prideaux was a fair, slim, neat, eye-glassed young man; his +appearance and manners were approved by Ivy Delmer's standards and his +capabilities by the heads of his department. His intellectual category +was A; he had an impatient temper, a ready tongue, considerable power +over papers (an important gift, not possessed by all civil servants), +resource in emergency, competence in handling situations and persons, +decided personal charm, was the son of one of our more notorious +politicians, and had spent most of the war in having malaria on the +Struma front, with one interesting break when he was recalled to England +by his former department to assist in the drawing up of a new Bill, +dealing with a topic on which he was an expert. He was, after all this, +only thirty now, so had every reason for believing, as he did, that he +would accomplish something in this world before he left it. He had been +sucked into the activities of the new Ministry like so many other able +young men and women, and was finding it both entertaining and not devoid +of scope for his talents. + +Ivy Delmer admired him a good deal. She sat at his side with her +notebook and pencil, her soft, wide mouth a little parted, waiting for +him to begin. He was turning over papers impatiently. He was in a rather +bad temper, because of his new secretary, of whom he only demanded a +little common sense and did not get it, and he would have to get rid of +her, always a tiresome process. He couldn't trust her with anything, +however simple; she always made a hash of it, and filled up the gaps, +which were profound, in her recollection of his instructions with her +own ideas, which were not. He had on Saturday given her some forms to +fill up, stock forms which were always sent in reply to a particular +kind of letter from the public. The form was supposed merely to say, "In +reply to your letter with reference to your position as regards the tax +[or bonus] on your prospective [or potential, or existing] infant, I am +to inform you that your case is one for the decision of the Local +Tribunals set up under the Mental Progress Act, to whom your application +should have been made." Miss Pomfrey, who was young and full of zeal for +the cause (she very reasonably wished that the Mental Progress Act had +been in existence before _her_ parents had married), had added on her +own account to one such letter, "It was the stupidity of people like you +who caused the Great War," and put it this morning with the other forms +on Prideaux's table for signing. Prideaux had enquired, fighting against +what he knew to be a disproportionate anger with her, didn't she really +know better by now than to think that letters like that would be sent? +Miss Pomfrey had sighed. She did not know better than that by now. She +knew hardly anything. She was not intelligent, even as B3's went. In +fact, her category was probably a mistake. Her babies, if ever she had +any, would be of a mental calibre that did not bear contemplation. They +would probably cause another Great War. + +So Prideaux, who had also other worries, was out of temper. + +"Sorry, Miss Delmer.... Ah, here we are." He fidgeted about with a file, +then began to dictate a letter, in his quick, light, staccato voice. +Ivy, clenching the tip of her pink tongue between her teeth, raced after +him. + + "Sir, + + "In reply to your letter of 26th May with reference to the + taxation on babies born to your employees and their consequent + demand for increased wages, I am instructed by the Minister of + Brains to inform you that this point is receiving his careful + attention, in connection with the general economic question + involved by the terms of Ministry of Brains Instruction 743, + paragraph 3...." + +Prideaux paused, and frowned nervously at his secretary, who was +conducting a fruitless conversation over his telephone, an occupation at +which she did not shine. + +"Hullo ... yes ... I can't quite hear ... who are you, please?... Oh ... +yes, he's here.... But rather busy, you know.... Dictating.... Yes, +_dictating_.... _Who_ did you say wanted him, please?... Oh, I see...." + +"What is it, Miss Pomfrey?" Prideaux broke in, making her start. + +"It's the Minister's secretary," she explained, without covering the +receiver. "He says will you go to the Minister. There's a deputation--of +bishops, I think he said. About the new Instruction about Clergymen's +Babies.... But I said you were busy dictating...." + +Prideaux had jumped to his feet, frowning, and was at the door. + +"You'd better make a note that I'm never busy dictating or doing +anything else when the Minister sends for me," he shot at her as he left +the room. + +"And now he's cross," Miss Pomfrey murmured sadly. + +"I daresay he's only angry at being interrupted," said Ivy Delmer, who +had been at the same secretarial college as Miss Pomfrey and thought +that her days in the Ministry of Brains were numbered. + +"I _do_ make him cross," Miss Pomfrey observed, accepting the fact with +resignation, as one of the sad, inevitable fatalities of life, and +returned to her indexing. She had been set to make an index of those +Ministry of Brains Instructions which had come out that month. She had +only got to the 11th of the month. The draught fluttered the pages +about. Ivy Delmer watched the Instructions waving to and fro in the +breeze--number 801, Agriculturists, 798, Conscientious Obstructionists, +897, Residents in Ireland, 674, Parents of more than three children.... +How many there were, thought Ivy, as she watched. How clever the people +who dealt with such things needed to be. She thought of her father's +village, and the people in it, the agriculturists, the parents of more +than three children, all the little human community of lives who were +intimately affected by one or other of these instructions, and the +fluttering pages emerged from the dry realm to which such as Ivy +relegate printed matter and ideas, and took vivid human life. It +mattered, all this complicated fabric of regulations and rules and +agreements and arrangements; it touched the living universe that she +knew--the courting boys and girls on stiles in Buckinghamshire lanes, +Emmeline, the Vicarage housemaid, who had married Sid Dean last month, +Mr. and Mrs. White at the farm, all the great stupid pathetic aggrieved +public, neatly filed letters from whom covered every table in the +Ministry, awaiting reply, their very hand-writing and spelling +calculated to touch any heart but a civil servant's.... + +Ivy found a moment in which to hope that everyone in the Ministry was +being very careful and painstaking about this business, before she +reverted to wondering whether or not she liked the colour which Miss +Pomfrey had dyed her jersey. + +Having decided that she didn't, and also that she had better go away and +wait for Mr. Prideaux to send for her again, she departed. + + +6 + +Vernon Prideaux, having given his assistance to the Minister in the +matter of the third clause of the new Clergymen's Babies Instruction, +left the Minister and the deputation together and returned to his room +via the Propaganda Branch, which he visited in order to ask Miss +Grammont to dine with him that evening. He and Kitty Grammont had known +one another for some years. They had begun at Cambridge, where Prideaux +had been two years the senior, and had kept up an intermittent +friendship ever since, which had, since their association in the +Ministry, grown into intimacy. + +Prideaux found Kitty writing a pamphlet. She was rather good at this +form of literature, having a concise and clear-cut style and an instinct +for stopping on the right word. Some pamphleteers have not this art: +they add a sentence or two more, and undo their effect. The pamphlet on +which Miss Grammont was at this moment engaged was intended for the +perusal of the working woman, and bore the conversational title, "The +Nation takes an interest in Your Affairs: will You not take an interest +in the Affairs of the Nation?" Which, as Miss Grammont observed, took +rather a long time to say, but may have been worth it. + +"Dine with you? I'll be charmed. Where and when?" + +"My rooms, eight o'clock. I've got my parents and the Minister coming." + +"Oh, the Minister." + +"Do you mind?" + +"No, I'm proud to meet him. I've never yet met him over food, so to +speak, only officially. I admire our Chester more every day he lives, +don't you? Nature made him and then broke the die." + +"Wonderful man," Prideaux agreed. "Extraordinary being.... A happy touch +with bishops, too. Picked that up in the home, no doubt; his father's +one. _Liking's_ another thing, of course.... By the way, do you know +what his category is? However, this is gossip. I must get back and +discover what's the latest perpetration of my new secretary. See you +to-night, then." + +He left the room. Kitty Grammont observed with satisfaction, for she was +critical of such things, how well his clothes fitted him, wondered what +he had nearly told her about the Minister's category, finished her +pamphlet, and sent it out for typing. She had an idea that this pamphlet +might not get passed by the censor, and wanted to find out. For the +censor was cautious about pamphlets, wisely opining that you cannot be +too careful. Pamphlets may, and usually do, deal with dangerous or +indecent topics, such as the Future. If sufficiently dangerous and +indecent, they become Leaflets, and are suppressed on sight. There were +dangerous and explosive words, like Peace, War, and Freedom which the +censor dealt with drastically. The danger of the word Peace dated, of +course, from the days when Peace had not yet arrived and discussion of +it was therefore improper, like the discussion of an unborn infant. By +the time it did arrive, its relegation to the region of Things we do not +Mention had become a habit, not lightly to be laid aside, so that a +Ministry of Brains pamphlet entitled "The Peace of Fools" had been +strangled before birth, the censor being very naturally unable to +believe that it did not refer in some mysterious way to the negotiations +which had ended hostilities, whereas as a matter of fact it was all +about the foolish content of stupid people who went on submitting to +diseases which a little intelligent thought would have prevented. There +had also perished, owing to the same caution on the censor's part, and, +it must be presumed, to the same guilty conscience on the part of the +Government, a booklet published by Messrs. Mowbray in a purple paper +cover with a gold cross on it, called "The Peace which passeth +understanding," not to mention a new edition of Burke's "Regicide +Peace," and one or two other works of which the censor, whose reading +was obliged to be mainly twentieth century, mistook the date. And, if +treatises concerning Peace were suspected from force of habit, works on +War were discouraged also, on the sound British principle that the +stress of a great Peace is not the time to talk of War; we must first +deal with Peace, and _then_ we may think about War; but One Thing At +Once, and do not let us cry War, War, when there is no war. But there +may be one day, argued the pamphleteers, and might it not be well to +prepare our minds for it? To which the answer very properly was, No; +Britons do not look ahead. They Come Through, instead. And anyhow it was +treachery to those who were spending their energies on this righteous +peace to discuss a premature war, which could neither be just nor +lasting. + +Another improper subject, naturally, was Liberty. That needs no +explanation; it has always been improper in well-regulated countries, +like Eugenics, or the Poor, and has received no encouragement from +authority. Notwithstanding this, so many improper works upon it, in +every conceivable form, have always been produced, that the censors had +to engage a special clerk, who had just obtained a first class in +English Literature at Oxford, and who therefore had books and pamphlets +of all dates fresh in her memory, to check their researches and inform +them when their energies were superfluous. Not that all the books of +former centuries on this topic were to be encouraged, for, after all, +one period is in some respects singularly like another, and the same +reflections strangely germane to both. Naturally, therefore, when the +literary clerk, seeing advertised a new and cheap edition of Robert +Hall's "Sentiments proper to the present crisis," and, remembering the +trend of this work, sent for it (having sold her own copy at Blackwell's +when she went down), and read such remarks as "Freedom, driven from +every spot on the continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she +always chose for her favourite abode, but she is pursued even here and +threatened with destruction.... It is for you to decide whether this +freedom shall yet survive, or be clothed with a funeral pall and be +wrapped in eternal gloom"--very properly she reported the matter to +headquarters, and the cheap edition was called in. + +Equally naturally there perished (without the help of the literary +clerk, who was not asked to judge of twentieth century literature) +various collections of Free Verse, for which the Poetry Bookshop was +successfully raided, a tract of the sort which is dropped about trains, +published by the Evangelical Tract Society and called "Throw off your +Chains!", "Citizens of a Free City," which was found at Mowbray's, and +bore on its title page the statement "Jerusalem ... is free" (a manifest +and seditious untruth, as we, of course, held Jerusalem, in trust for +the Jews), and many others of like tendency, such as works on Free Food, +Free Drink, Free Housing, Free Love, Free Thought, and Labour, in +Chains. Even fiction was suspect. A novel entitled _The Dangers of +Dora_, by the well-known author of _The Perils of Pauline_ and _The +Exploits of Elaine_, was suppressed, in spite of what should have been +the reassuring fact that Dora, like Pauline and Elaine before her, +triumphantly worsted all her foes in the end, and emerged smiling and +safe on the last page. Publishers were known to demand the alteration of +a title if the name Dora occurred in it, such wholesome respect did the +Censor's methods inspire. + +It will therefore be readily understood that even government departments +had to go warily in this matter. + +The Minister of Brains held pamphlet propaganda to be of the greatest +importance. A week ago the workers in the propaganda section had been +sent for and interviewed by the Minister in person. This personal +contact had, for the time being, oddly weighted Miss Grammont's too +irresponsible levity, kindled her rather cynical coolness, given her +something almost like zeal. That was one thing about the Minister--he +set other people on fire. Another was that his manners were bad but +unexpected, and a third that he looked like a cross between M. Kerensky, +a member of the Geddes family, and Mr. Nelson Keys. + +Thus Miss Grammont, thoughtfully smoking a Cyprus cigarette, summed up +the Minister of Brains. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LITTLE CHANTREYS + + +1 + +Ivy Delmer went home to Little Chantreys on the following Saturday +afternoon, after a matinée and tea in town, in the same train, though +not the same carriage as Kitty Grammont and Vernon Prideaux, who were +presumably spending the week-end at the End House. Ivy travelled home +every evening of the week. Miss Grammont had a flat in town, but spent +the week-ends when she was not otherwise engaged, with her brother in +Little Chantreys, which was embarrassing to Ivy. + +As Ivy got out of the train she saw Miss Grammont's brother and the lady +who could scarcely be called her sister-in-law, on the platform, +accompanied by a queer-looking man of about forty, with ears rather like +a faun's. Anyone, thought Ivy, could have guessed which house in Little +Chantreys he was staying at. The week-end people who came to the End +House differed widely one from another in body and soul; some looked +clever, or handsome, others did not, some were over-dressed, some under, +some, like Miss Grammont and her brothers, just right; there were +musical people, sporting people, literary or artistic people, stagy +people (these last were the friends of Miss Pansy Ponsonby, who was not +Miss Grammont's sister-in-law), uncommon people, and common people; but +they all, thought Ivy Delmer, had two looks in common--they looked as if +they wouldn't get on very well with her father and mother, and they +looked as if they didn't read the Bible. + +This second look was differentiated according to the wearer of it. Some +of them (like this man to-day) looked as if he didn't read it because it +had become so inextricably bound up with vulgar superstition and an +impossible religion that he despised it. Some, like Miss Grammont and +her brother Anthony, looked as if they didn't read it because they +already knew enough of it to be funny about it when they wanted to; +others, like Miss Pansy Ponsonby, looked as if she had really once given +it a try, but had found it dry and put off further perusal until such +time as she lay dying and might want to do something about her future +state. And Miss Grammont's brother Cyril looked as if it was a +Protestant book, and rather vulgar. Some, again, looked innocent, as if +they had never heard of it, others guilty, as if they never wanted to +again. + +Ivy Delmer walked home to the Vicarage, hoping rather that the End House +wouldn't come to church to-morrow. It was taken, from time to time, with +an unaccountable fit of doing this. It made Ivy uncomfortable. Whether +or not it came to pray, she could not help having an uneasy suspicion +that it stayed to mock. + + +2 + +"Hullo, old dear," said Miss Pansy Ponsonby, in her rich and resonant +drawl, as Kitty and her companion came out of the station. "Here we all +are again. _And_ the Cheeper. He's a growin' boy, our Cheeper: he puts +on weight. Takes after me: I put on weight when I forget my exercises +and don't keep an eye on myself. Don't I, Tony? Mr. Prideaux, isn't it? +How do, Mr. Prideaux? Vurry pleased you've come. You know Mr. Amherst, +don't you? You clever folks all know each other." Miss Ponsonby, who was +not an American, had once performed in the same company as Miss Lee +White, and had caught an inflexion or two. She looked with the +satisfaction of the hospitable hostess at the little group, and added, +"So here we all are. And vurry nice too." + +It was, indeed, not an unpleasing group. Dominating it was Miss Ponsonby +herself, very tall, very beautiful, very supple (only a year ago she had +been doing her celebrated eel-dance in "Hullo, Peace!"), with long and +lovely violet eyes and the best kind of Icilma skin, adorned tastefully +but quite unnecessarily with pink paint, white powder, scarlet lip +salve, and black lash-darkener. All this was from force of habit: Miss +Ponsonby was quite adequately pink, white, scarlet and black in her own +person. But, as Kitty observed, having been given by heaven such an +absurd thing as a human face, what could one do but make it yet more +absurd by these superimposed gaieties? You cannot take a face as a +serious thing; it is one of nature's jests, and it is most suitably +dealt with as the clown and the pierrot deal with theirs. This was +Kitty's point of view; Pansy had none, only habits. + +Pansy was guiding and controlling a motor-pram, in which lay the +Cheeper, aged four months (he had no Christian name, having so far +evaded both the registrar and the font, and presumably no surname, owing +to the peculiar circumstances of his parents). The Cheeper's father, +Anthony Grammont, was a fair, pale, good-looking, rather tired young man +of seven and twenty, with a slightly plaintive voice; he looked as if he +shared, only with more languor, Miss Ponsonby's placid and engaging +enjoyment of the world; he had been in one of the hottest corners of +France through the European War, and had emerged from it a bored and +unambitious colonel, deaf of one ear, adorned with a Military Cross, and +determined to repay himself for his expenditure of so much time, energy +and health by enjoying the fifty or sixty years which, he piously hoped, +remained to him, to the full. Which he was now doing. His professional +life was passed on the Stock Exchange. + +Mr. Leslie Amherst, the man like a faun, who was staying with him, was +an old friend of the Grammont family. He wrote, and was on the staff of +a weekly journal. He was engaged just now on a series of articles on the +Forces of Darkness in Darkest Europe. So far he had produced 1. The +Legislature, 2. Capitalism, 3. Industrialism, 4. Nationalism, 5. +Militarism, 6. The Press, and this week he was writing 7. Organised +Religion. (It will no doubt shock some readers to learn that these +forces had not all, in spite of the earnest hopes entertained for so +long for their overthrowal, yet been overthrown; but truth compels me to +state that they had not.) Though Amherst talked like a cynic, and had +his affectations, he was an earnest thinker, and sometimes tired his +host, who was not, and who had been left by his years of difficult +continental sojourn with a supreme distaste for any further probing into +the problems of Darkest Europe. Amherst had the advantage, in this +matter, of having been a Conscientious Objector to Military Service, so +the war had not tired him, and he retained for home use the freshness +and vigour of attack which had, in the case of many of his +fellow-countrymen, been all used up abroad. + +The End House party was completed by Kitty Grammont, with her round, +long-lashed eyes and her air of the ingenuous rake, and Vernon Prideaux, +brisk and neat and clever. So there they all were; and very nice, too. + +Kitty kissed her brother and Miss Ponsonby and dug the Cheeper in the +ribs in the manner he preferred. She was very fond of them all, and +found Miss Ponsonby immeasurably entertaining. Little had she thought, +when of old she used joyfully to watch Miss Pansy Ponsonby twist and +kick and curl herself about the stage and sing fascinating inanities in +her lazy contralto, that they would ever be linked by no common bond. Of +course she had known that her brother Anthony was showering flowers, +chocolates, suppers, week-ends and air-trips at Miss Ponsonby's nimble +feet (the toes of which could bend right back at the joints) but Anthony +had been known to shower these things at the feet of others. Certainly +Kitty had never expected that he would instal this delightful and +expensive being in a real house, have a real infant, and really settle +down, albeit socially ostracised in Buckinghamshire because imperfectly +married (that was the fault of Pansy's husband, Mr. Jimmie Jenks, who, +though he didn't want her himself, selfishly refused to sever the +connection irrevocably). + +"What's the afternoon news?" enquired Mr. Amherst, as they walked up to +the village. + +"Haven't seen a paper for half an hour," replied Prideaux, who kept his +finger on the pulse of the nation and liked his news up to date. "I've +got two five o'clock ones with me, though. The Leeds strike is rather +worse, the Sheffield one rather better. The aero bus men are coming out +on Monday. Dangerous unrest among Sussex shepherds and Cotswold cowmen." +(Agricultural labour was now controlled by the State.) "Lord Backwoods +has been speaking to his constituents against the Bill for +disfranchising Conscientious Obstructionists of the Mental Progress +Acts. A thoroughly seditious speech, of course. Poor old chap, his +eldest-son has just got engaged to be married, so there'll be another +family of Backwoods babies who ought never to exist. It will hit them +heavily financially.... And the International Police have found another +underground gun-factory near Munich, under a band-stand. And it's +confirmed that old Tommy Jackson is to be Drink Controller." + +"Another good butler spoilt," observed Anthony Grammont. "He _was_ a +jolly good butler once. And he'll be a jolly bad Drink Controller." + +"Dear old Tommy," murmured Miss Ponsonby absently, lifting the Cheeper +out of his motor-pram with one strong white hand and balancing him on +her ample shoulders. "He was vurry kind to me in the dear old days, when +I spent week-ends at Surrey Towers. He used to give me tips on Correct +Conduct. I didn't take them; Correct Conduct wasn't what the people +there asked me for; but I was grateful to Tommy." + +"If," said Anthony, "there is any member of a government department, +existing, fallen, or yet to come, who has _not_ in the dear old days +been vurry kind to you, my dear Pansy, I should be rather glad to know +his name." + +"Why, certainly," returned Pansy, with cheerful readiness. "Nicky +Chester, the Brains Minister who's making himself such an all-round +eternal nuisance, doesn't even realise I exist, and if he did he'd think +I oughtn't." + +"That's where you're wrong, Pansy," Kitty said. "He thinks everyone +ought to exist who does anything as well as you do your things. You're +Starred A, aren't you?" + +"I've gone and lost the silly old bus ticket," said Pansy indifferently, +"but that's what it said, I think." Starred A meant (in the words of the +official definition) first-class ability at a branch of work which would +not appear to be a valuable contribution to the general efficiency of +the State. The Cheeper, child of a starred A mother and a B3 father +(Anthony's brains had been reduced by trench-life; he had been quite +intelligent at Oxford), was subject neither to bonus nor tax. + +"Anyhow," went on Pansy, grinning her wide, sweet, leisurely grin, "I +think I see Nicky Chester sendin' me round flowers or goodies after a +show! He's seen me, you know: he was in a box the first night of 'Hullo, +Peace!' He laughed at the political hits, but my turns left him cold; I +guess they weren't brainy enough." She tossed the Cheeper in the air and +caught him, strongly and easily. "Make him supple young," she observed, +"an' by the time he's six he'll be a star Child Gamboller, fit for +revue. He takes after me. Already he can put both his big toes in his +little mouth at once." + +"Very unusual, surely," remarked Mr. Amherst, looking at the Cheeper +through his pince-nez as if he were an insect under a microscope. Mr. +Amherst was fellow of an Oxford college, and had the academic touch, and +was not yet entirely used to Pansy, a type outside his previous studies, +and at no time would he be really used to anyone under eighteen years of +age, let alone six months. Possibly this was what his reviewers meant +when they said that he lacked the touch of common humanity. + +His attention was diverted from the Cheeper by the parish church, which +he inspected with the same curiosity and distaste. + +"Organised Religion, I presume," he commented. "If you've no objection, +Anthony, I will attend morning service there to-morrow. It may provide +me with some valuable subject matter for my article." + +"We'll all go," said Kitty. "The End House shall set an example to the +village. We'll take Cyril, too. He can get a dispensation. It's Brains +Sunday, you know, and all patriotic clergymen will be preaching about +it. Vernon and I are officially bound to be there." + +"I don't suppose it will be amusing," said Anthony. "But we'll go if you +all want to." + +"Church," said Pansy, meditatively regarding the Early Perpendicular +tower. "_I_ went one Sunday morning." She paused reminiscently, and +added, without chagrin, "The vicar turned me down." + +"He could hardly," said Mr. Amherst civilly, "do otherwise. Your +position is not one which is at present recognised by Organised +Religion." + +"Oh, he recognised it all right," Pansy explained. "That was just the +trouble; he didn't like it.... He's not a bad old sort. He came to call +afterwards, and told me all about it. He was quite upset. So was I, +wasn't I, old thing?" + +"Not in the least," returned Anthony placidly. + +"I'd only wanted to do the proper thing," Pansy continued her +unperturbed narrative, in her singularly beautiful voice. "I was always +brought up to go to church now and then. I was confirmed all right. I +like to do the proper thing. It only seems fair to the Cheeper to bring +him up in the way he should go. I wouldn't care for him to grow up an +agnogger, like all you people. But Mr. Delmer said my way of life was +too ambiguous to square with comin' to church. Rather a sweet word, +don't you think? Because it _isn't_ ambiguous really, you know; not a +bit, I'm afraid.... So when the Cheeper turned up, it seemed to me _he_ +was a bit ambiguous, too, an' that's why I haven't had him made a little +Christian yet. The vicar says he can square that up all right--he called +on purpose to tell me--but somehow we've never had the time to fix it, +have we, darlin'? Tottie O'Clare promised me she'd be godmother if ever +I did have him done...." + +"Pansy," said Anthony, "you're boring Amherst and Prideaux. They're not +interested in babies, or baptisms, or Tottie O'Clare." + +Pansy smiled at them all out of her serene violet eyes. She looked like +some stately, supple Aphrodite; she might, but for the delicate soupçon +of powder and over-red lips, have sat for a madonna. + +"Pansy," said Kitty, "it's the Sistine Madonna you're like; I've got it +at last. You're the divine type. You might be from heaven. You're so +restful. We all spin and buzz about, trying to get things done, and to +be clever and fussy and efficient--and you just _are_. You happen, like +spring, or music. You're not a bit like Chester, but you're ever so much +more important. Isn't she, Vernon?" + +"They're both," said Prideaux tactfully, "of enormous importance. And +certainly, as you say, not in the least alike. Chester is neither like +spring nor music, and certainly one wouldn't call him restful. And I +should be a bit surprised to learn that heaven is where he either began +or will end his career.... But, I ask you, look at that." + +They were passing the little Town Hall, that stood in the village market +place. Its face was plastered with an immense poster, which Prideaux and +Kitty surveyed with proprietary pride, Amherst with cynical amusement, +Anthony with bored resignation, and Pansy and the Cheeper with placid +wonder at the world's folly. + +"Ours is a wonderful government," Kitty commented. "And we are a +wonderful ministry. Think of rural England all plastered with that.... I +don't believe Chester laughs when he sees it, Vernon. I'm sure he looks +at it proudly, like a solemn, earnest little boy." + +"And quite right too," said Prideaux, screwing his glass into his eye +the better to read. For this was a new Ministry of Brains poster; new +this week. It read, in large type, "Improve your Brains! Go in for the +Government Course of Mind Training! It will benefit you, it will benefit +your country, it will benefit posterity. Old Age must come. But it need +not be a Doddering Old Age. Lay up Good Mental Capacities to meet it, +and make it a Fruitful and Happy Time. See what the Mind Training Course +has done for others, and let it Do the Same for You." + +Then, in smaller type, "Here are a few reports from those who have +benefited by it. + +"_From a famous financier._ Since I began the Course I have doubled my +income and halved those of 750 others. I hope, by the time I have +completed the Course, to have ruined twice this number. + +"_From a Cabinet Minister._ Owing to the Mind Training Course I have now +remained in office for over six weeks. I hope to remain for at least +three more. + +"_From a newspaper proprietor._ I have started eight new journals since +I took the Course, over-turned three governments, directed four +international crises, and successfully represented Great Britain to the +natives of the Pacific Islands. + +"_From the editor of a notorious weekly paper._ I took the Course +because I seemed to be losing that unrivalled touch which has made my +paper what, I may say, it is. Since taking it, more than my old force +has returned, so that I have libelled nine prominent persons and +successfully defended six libel actions in the courts. The M.T. Course +teaches one to Live at one's Best. + +"_From a Civil Servant._ Every time a new government department is born +I enter it, rendered competent by the Mind Training Course to fill its +highest posts. When the Department falls I leave it, undamaged. + +"_From a Publisher._ My judgment has been so stimulated by the Course +that since taking it I have published five novels so unpleasant that +correspondence still rages about them in the columns of the Spectator, +and which have consequently achieved ten editions. The Course teaches +one why some succeed and others fail. + +"_From a Journalist._ I now only use the words decimated, literally, +annihilated, and proletariat, according to the meanings ascribed to them +in the dictionary, do not use pacifism more than three times a day, nor +'very essential' or 'rather unique' at all. + +"_From a famous Theologian._ Before I undertook the Course I was a +Bishop of a disestablished Church. Now my brain is clarified, my eyes +are opened, and I am a leader of the Coming Faith. The Course teaches +the Meaning of Life. + +"_From a former Secretary of State._ Since taking the Course I have +recognised the importance of keeping myself informed as to public +affairs, and now never refer in my public speeches to any speech by +another statesman without having previously read a summary of it. + +"_From a poet._ I can now find rhymes to nearly all my lines, and have +given up the old-fashioned habit of free rhythms to which I have been +addicted since 1912. I can even find rhymes to indemnity, also a rhyme +to War which is neither gore, claw, nor star. + +"_From an inveterate writer of letters to newspapers._ I no longer do +this. + +"_From a citizen._ I was engaged to be married. Now I am not." + +Then in large type again, + +"All this has happened to Others! Why should it not happen to You? Save +yourself, save your country, save the world! How shall wisdom be found, +and where is the place of understanding? So asked the Preacher of the +ancient world, and got no answer, because then there was none. But the +answer is now forthcoming. Wisdom is to be found in the Government Mind +Training Course--the M.T.C., as it is affectionately called by thousands +of men and women who are deriving benefits from it. Enter for it to-day. +For further information apply Mind Training Section, Ministry of Brains, +S.W. 1." + +Above the letterpress was a picture poster, representing two youths, and +called "Before and After." "Before" had the vacuity of the village +idiot, "After" the triumphant cunning of the maniac. The Mind Training +Course had obviously completely overset a brain formerly harmless, if +deficient. + +"How long," enquired Amherst, in his best Oxford manner, "do you give +yourselves? I address the enquiry, as a member of the public, to you, as +servants of a government which can resort to such methods as that." + +"We have now remained in office for over six months," said Kitty, "and +we hope to remain for at least three more.... But it's for us to ask +you, as a member of the public, how long you intend to give us? +Personally I'm astonished every day that our hotel, and all the other +hotels, aren't stormed and wrecked. I don't know why the Aero Bus +Company, while it's on strike, doesn't sail over us and drop bombs. It +shows we must be more popular than we deserve. It shows that people +really _like_ being coerced and improved. They know they need it. Look +at the people going about this village; look at their faces, I ask you. +They're like 'Before.' Look at the policeman at his door, half out of +his clothes. He's god-like to look at; he's got a figure like the +Discobolus, and the brain of a Dr. Watson. He could never track a thief. +He's looking at us; he thinks we're thieves, probably, just because +we're ambiguous. That's the sort of mind he has. Look at the doctor, in +his absurd little Ford. How much do you suppose he knows about curing +people, or about the science of bodies? He patches them up with pills +and drugs, and.... But he didn't cut us, Tony. Why not?" + +"He and the vicar don't," explained Anthony. "Professional attendance. +There's the vicar, outside that cottage. See him put his hand up as we +pass him." + +He returned the salute with some pride, and Pansy nodded agreeably. +Amherst examined the vicar, who was small and sturdy and had a nice kind +face. + +Amherst shook his head when they had left him behind. + +"Not nearly clever enough for the part," he pronounced. "To organise +religion a man should have the talents of the devil, or at least of the +intelligent civil servant. Prideaux would do it quite well; or Chester; +only Chester might be too erratic for the popular taste. No wonder +Christianity is the ineffective thing it is in this country, if it's +left in the hands of officials like that. That man couldn't organise +anything; I bet even his school treats go wrong--too few buns or +something. That's the hope for the world, that inefficiency of most +religious officials; that's why the public will succeed before long in +throwing off the whole business, even before they succeed in downing +Parliament and the British autocracy, who are a shade more acute. From +my point of view your vicar's stupidity is all to the good. If he +preaches to-morrow as the Brains Ministry want him to--and he looks +loyal and patriotic enough to try--he'll be preaching against his own +interests. But that's what all you Brains people are doing, of course. +You don't seem to see that if you ever were to succeed in making the +human race reasonably intelligent, your number would be up; you wouldn't +be stood for a moment longer. You're sitting on a branch and trying to +saw it off. Lucky for you your saws aren't sharper." + +"Chester would go on just the same if he did see," Kitty said. "He +probably does. He's an idealist, but his eye for facts is very +penetrating. And he'd think it worth while to perish in so good a +cause." + +"The fact is," added Prideaux, "that he never would perish, even if the +branch did fall; he'd climb on to another pretty quickly and rise as the +People's Saviour. Our Nicky won't go under." + + +3 + +They arrived at the End House, about which there is little to say except +that it lay just beyond the straggling village, was roomy, comfortable, +untidy, full of dogs all named after revue stars, and was an interesting +mixture of the Grammont taste in art and decoration, which was the taste +of clever people several of whom were artists, and of Pansy's taste, +which is most shortly indicated by mentioning that if you saw the house +before you saw Pansy you were surprised, and if you had seen Pansy first +you were not. The drawing-room floor was littered with large and +comfortable and brightly-hued cushions, obviously not mistakes but +seats. This always a little flurried the vicar and his wife when they +called; it was, as Mrs. Delmer observed, so very Eastern, and suggested +other habits belonging to the same dubious quarter of the globe, some of +which there was only too good reason to believe had been adopted. The +chimney-piece was worse, being adorned by photographs of Pansy's +friends--her loving Tottie, hers everlastingly, Guy, warmly Phyllis and +Harry, and so forth. (There was even hers Jimmie, which, if Mrs. Delmer +had known rather more of Pansy's domestic circumstances than she did, +would have struck her as being in very doubtful taste.) Some of these +ladies and gentlemen, fortunately, had elected to be taken head and +shoulders only (and quite enough too, thought Mrs. Delmer, wondering how +far below the bottom of the photograph the ladies' clothes began) and +some showed the whole figure. ("I should think they did!" said Mrs. +Delmer, on her first call, nervously retreating from the chimney-piece. +It may be mentioned that Mrs. Delmer was not in the habit of witnessing +revues, and was accustomed to an ampler mode of garment. These things +are so much a question of habit.) + +These photographs, and the excellent painting in the hall of Pansy +herself in her eel dance, were among the minor reasons why Ivy Delmer +was not allowed to enter the End House. There were three reasons why her +parents did so; they might be stupid, but they were of an extraordinary +goodness, and could not bear to leave sin alone, anyhow in their own +parish, where it set such an unfortunate example, when they might, by +sufficient battling, perhaps win it over to righteousness; also they had +kind and soft hearts, and did not like the idea of Pansy alone all day +with her infant son and the two most notoriously ill-behaved young +servants in the village; and finally they were Christians, and believed +that the teaching of their religion on the subject of sociability to +sinners was plain. So, swallowing their embarrassed distaste, they +visited the End House as one might visit a hospital, but kept their +children from it, because it was a hospital whose patients might be +infectious. + +Into this house, standing hospitably open-doored in the May evening, its +owner and his friends entered. It affected them in various ways. Anthony +Grammont was proud of his house and garden, his Pansy and his Cheeper. +He was young enough to be vain of being head of a household, even of an +ambiguous household, and of course anyone would be proud of the dazzling +and widely-known Pansy, whose name had always been one of the two in +large type in advertisements of the shows in which she figured (she was +as good as all that); and he was tired enough, mentally and physically, +by his life of the last few years, its discomforts, its homelessness, +its bondage, its painful unnaturalness, to sink with relief into Pansy's +exotic cushions and all they stood for. + +Kitty found the house and household inordinately cheering and +entertaining; the mere sight of Pansy's drawing-room could rouse her +from any depression. + +Vernon Prideaux shuddered a little at the row of photographs--he +detested photographs on chimney-pieces--and the Eve design on the chair +covers; he was not so good at the comic-opera touch as Kitty was, and +had a masculine sense of propriety and good taste, and had always +preferred revue stars on the stage to off it. He had also, however, a +wide tolerance for the tastes of others, and was glad that Tony Grammont +had found domestic happiness. + +Amherst's thoughts were brief and neat, and might be summed up thus: +"Forces of Darkness--number 8. The expensive, conscienceless, and +unthinking female." + +Pansy went upstairs to put the Cheeper to bed, and Kitty went with her +to see her nephew in his bath, putting both his big toes into his mouth +at once. + +The only other event of importance which happened before dinner was the +arrival of Cyril Grammont, a brother of Anthony's, a Cambridge friend of +Prideaux's, a Roman Catholic, a writer of epigrammatic essays and light +verse, and a budding publisher. He and Pansy usually quarrelled. He had +spent the war partly in Macedonia, as a member of the Salonika Force, +digging up fragments of sculpture from Amphipolis and the other ruined +cities of those regions, tracking what he then held to be the pernicious +influence of St. Paul with the help of a pocket atlas of his journeys +and the obviously evil habits and dispositions of the towns which had +received his attentions, and partly in Palestine, where he had taken an +extreme dislike to both Jews and Turks, had become convinced that they +must be so wrong about everything that mattered that Christians must be +right, and was forthwith converted from atheism to Christianity. He +considered that war-time is no time for Christians, they have to do so +much either explaining or protesting or both, so he had waited till the +war was over, and had then proceeded to investigate the various forms +into which Christianity had developed (they all seemed a little strange +to him at first), in order to make his choice. An impartial friend with +whom he discussed the subject told him that he would find Roman +Catholicism best suited to his precise, clear-cut, and Latin type of +mind, provided that he succeeded in avoiding all contact with the more +luscious forms of Roman devotions, which, he was warned, would disgust +him as much as patchouli, or Carlo Dolci. "And anyhow," added his +friend, probably erroneously, "it will outlast the other churches, for +all its obscurantism, so if you want a going concern, join it." + +So Cyril enquired into Roman Catholicism, found that, in its best +cathedral forms, it satisfied his artistic sense, and, in its +sharply-cut dogma, his feeling for precise form (his taste in art was +violently against the post-bellum school, which was a riot of lazy, +sloppy, and unintellectual formlessness), and so, accepting as no +stranger than most of the growths of a strangely sprouting world the +wonderful tree which had grown from a seed so remarkably dissimilar, he +took a firm seat upon its branches, heedless of the surprised +disapproval of most of his friends, who did not hold that any organised +religion could be called a going concern, except in the sense that it +was going to pot. + +So here was Cyril, at the End House for Sunday, neat, handsome, +incisive, supercilious, very sure of himself, and not in the least like +the End House, with its slatternly brilliance, its yapping dogs, its +absurdities, its sprawling incoherence, its cushions, and its ambiguity. + +In the evening Pansy danced her willow-tree dance for them. Her hair +tumbled down, and she ceased to look like the Sistine Madonna and became +more like a young Bacchanal. Some of her jokes were coarse (you have to +be coarse sometimes in revue, and cannot leave the habit entirely behind +you when you come off the boards) and Amherst, who was refined, was +jarred. Then she quarrelled with Cyril, because he remarked, with his +cheerful and businesslike air of finality, that of course if the Cheeper +were not baptised he would go to hell. Upon her violent remonstrance he +merely observed that he was sorry, but facts were facts, and he couldn't +get them altered to please her. He talked like this partly to annoy +Pansy, because it amused him to see her cross, and partly for the +pleasure of unobtrusively watching Amherst's expression when the word +hell was mentioned. + +So, to unite the party, Kitty proposed that they should play the new +card game, League of Nations, of which the point was to amass cards and +go out while presenting an appearance of doing nothing at all. + +Thus harmoniously and hilariously the night wore on, till at last the +End House, like the other Little Chantreys houses, only much later, went +to bed. + + +4 + +Little Chantreys slept under the May moon, round the market square with +the Ministry of Brains poster in the middle. + +The doctor slept with the sound sleep of those who do not know the width +of the gulf between what they are and what they should be. + +The sick, his patients, slept or woke, tossing uneasily, with windows +closed to the soft night air. Every now and then they would rouse and +take their medicine, with impatience, desperation, simple faith, or dull +obedience, and look in vain for a bettering of their state. Those who +considered themselves well, never having known what welfare really was, +slept too, in stuffy, air-tight rooms, disturbed by the wailing of +babies which they had not taught not to cry aloud, by the hopping of +fleas which they had failed to catch or to subdue, by the dancing of +mice which would never enter traps so obvious as those which they +scornfully perceived in their paths, by the crowding of children about +them, too close to be forgotten or ignored, by the dragging weight of +incompetent, unfinished yesterday and incompetent, unbegun to-morrow. + +The vicarage slept. The vicar in his sleep had a puzzled frown, as if +life was too much for him, as if he was struggling with forces above his +comprehension and beyond his grasp, forces that should have +revolutionised Little Chantreys, but, in his hands, wouldn't. The +vicar's wife slept fitfully, waking to worry about the new cook, whose +pastry was impossible. She wasn't clever enough to know that cooking +shouldn't be done in this inefficient, wasteful way in the home, but +co-operatively, in a village kitchen, and pastry should be turned out by +a pastry machine. Mrs. Delmer had heard of this idea, but didn't like +it, because it was new. She wasn't strong, and would die one day, worn +out with domestic worries which could have been so easily obviated.... + +The young Delmers slept. They always did. They mostly ought not to have +been born at all; they were, except Ivy, who was moderately intelligent, +below standard. They slept the sleep of the unthinking. + +The vicarage girl slept. She would sleep for some time, because her +alarum clock was smothered by a cushion; which would seem to indicate +more brains on her part than were to be found in the other inmates of +the vicarage. + +So Little Chantreys slept, and the world slept, governments and +governed, forces of darkness and forces of light, industry and idleness, +the sad and the gay; pathetic, untutored children of the moment looking +neither behind nor ahead. + +The morning light, opening dimly, like a faintly-tinted flower, +illumined the large red type of the poster in the Little Chantreys +market place. "IMPROVE YOUR BRAINS!" So Brains Sunday dawned upon a +world which did indeed seem to need it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BRAINS SUNDAY + + +1 + +Ivy Delmer had been right in her premonition. The End House was in +church, at matins (the form of Sunday midday worship still used in +Little Chantreys, which was old-fashioned). Ivy looked at them as they +sat in a row near the front. Mr. Anthony Grammont and Miss Ponsonby sat +next each other and conversed together in whispers. Miss Ponsonby was +attired in pink gingham, and not much of it (it was not the fashion to +have extensive clothes, or of rich materials, lest people should point +at you as a profiteer who had made money out of the war; even if you had +done this you hid it as far as was convenient, and what you did not hide +you said was interest on war loan). Miss Ponsonby, with her serene +smile, looked patient, resigned, and very sweet and good. Next her was +Miss Grammont, who looked demure in a dress of motley, and, beyond her +again, Mr. Prideaux, who looked restless and impatient, either as if he +were thinking out some departmental tangle, or as if he thought it had +been a silly idea to come to church, or both. At the end of the row were +Mr. Amherst, who was studying the church, the congregation and the +service through his glasses, collecting copy for his essay, and Mr. +Cyril Grammont, who looked like a Roman Catholic attending a Protestant +church by special dispensation. (This look cannot be defined, but is +known if seen.) + +Ivy looked from the End House to her father, surpliced at the lectern, +reading the Proper Lesson appointed for Brains Sunday, Proverbs 8 and 9. +"Shall not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her word? She +standeth in the top of high places, by the way, in the places of the +paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming +in at the doors.... O ye simple, understand wisdom, and, ye fools, be of +an understanding heart.... Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn +out her seven pillars" (that was the Ministry hotel, thought Ivy).... +"She hath sent forth her maidens, she crieth upon the highest place of +the city" (on the walls of the Little Chantreys town hall). "Whoso is +simple, let him turn in hither.... Forsake the foolish and live, and go +in the way of understanding.... Give instruction to a wise man and he +will get wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning.... +The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of +the holy is understanding...." Which set Ivy Delmer wondering a little, +for she believed her parents to be holy, or anyhow very, very good, and +yet.... But perhaps they had, after all, the beginning of wisdom, only +not its middle, nor its end, if wisdom has any end. She looked from her +father, carefully closing the big Bible and remarking that here ended +the first lesson, to her mother, carefully closing her little Bible (for +she was of those who follow lessons in books); her mother, who was so +wonderfully good and kind and selfless, and to whom old age must come, +and who ought to be preparing for it by going in for the Government Mind +Training Course, but who said she hadn't time, she was so busy in the +house and garden and parish. And half the things she did or supervised +in the house and garden ought, said the Ministry of Brains, to be done +by machinery, or co-operation, or something. They would have been done +better so, and would have left the Delmers and their parishioners more +time. More time for what, was the further question? "Save time now spent +on the mere business of living, and spend it on better things," said the +Ministry pamphlets. Reading, Ivy supposed; thinking, talking, getting +_au fait_ with the affairs of the world. And here was Mrs. Delmer +teaching each new girl to make pastry (no new girl at the vicarage ever +seemed to have acquired the pastry art to Mrs. Delmer's satisfaction in +her pre-vicarage career)--pastry, which should have been turned out by +the yard in a pastry machine; and spudding up weeds one by one, which +should have been electrocuted, like superfluous hairs, or flung up by +dynamite, like fish in a river.... But when Mrs. Delmer heard of such +new and intelligent labour-saving devices, she was as reluctant to adopt +them as any of the poor dear stupid women in the cottages. It was a +pity, because the Church should lead the way; and really now that it had +been set free of the State it quite often did. + +Ivy looked with puzzled, thoughtful eyes, which this morning, unusually, +were observing people rather than their clothes, at the rest of the +congregation, her own brothers and sisters first. The young Delmers were +several in number; there was Betty, who had just left school, and showed +no signs of "doing" anything, except her hair, the flowers, and +occasionally the lamps. For the rest, she played tennis for prizes and +hockey for Bucks, went out to tea, and when in doubt dyed her clothes or +washed the dogs. There was Charlie, at Cambridge. Charlie was of those +for whom the Great War had been allowed to take the place of the +Littlego, which was fortunate in his case, as he had managed to get +through the one but would probably in no circumstances have got through +the other. And there was Reggie, who had got through neither, but had +been killed at Cambrai in November, 1917. There were also some little +ones, Jane and John, aged twelve and eleven, who, though separated by +the length of a seat, still continued to hold communication by Morse, +and Jelly, who was named for a once famous admiral and whose age cannot +be specified. Jelly was small and stout, sat between his mother and Ivy +and stared at his father in the choir-stalls, and from time to time +lifted up his voice and laughed, as if he were at a Punch and Judy show. + +On the whole an agreeable family, and well-intentioned (though Ivy and +Betty quarrelled continuously and stole each other's things), but +certainly to be numbered among the simple, who were urged to get +understanding. Would they ever get it? That was the question, for them +and for the whole congregation here present, from the smallest, +grubbiest school-child furtively sucking bulls'-eyes and wiping its +sticky hands upon its teacher's skirt, to the vicar in the pulpit, +giving out his text. + +"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God"; that was the text. +Ivy saw a little smile cross the clever and conceited face of Mr. +Amherst as it was given out. He settled himself down to listen, +expectant of entertainment. He believed that he was in luck. For Mr. +Amherst, who did not say in his heart that there was no God, because +even in his heart he scorned the affirmation of the obvious, was of +those who are sure that all members of the Christian Church are fools +(unlike Mr. Arnold Bennett, who tries and fails, he did not even try to +think of them as intellectual equals), so he avoided, where he could, +the study of clever Christians, and welcomed the evidences of weakness +of intellect that crossed his path. He believed that this was going to +be a foolish sermon, which, besides amusing them all, would help him in +his article on Organised Religion. + +Ivy could not help watching the End House people. Somehow she knew how +the sermon was affecting them. She didn't think it funny, but she +suspected that they would. Her father wasn't as clever as they were; +that was why he failed to say anything that could impress them except as +either dull or comic. Brains again. How much they mattered. Clergymen +ought to have brains; it seemed very important. They ought to know how +to appeal to rich and poor, high and low, wise and simple. This +extraordinary thing called religion--(Ivy quite newly and unusually saw +it as extraordinary, seeing it for a moment with the eyes of the End +House, to all of whom, except Miss Ponsonby and, presumably, Cyril +Grammont, it was like fairy lore, like Greek mythology, mediæval archaic +nonsense)--this extraordinary lore and the more extraordinary force +behind it, was in the hands, mainly (like everything else), of +incompetents, clerical and lay, who did not understand it themselves and +could not help others to do so. They muddled about with it, as Miss +Pomfrey muddled about with office papers.... It would not be surprising +if the force suddenly demolished them all, like lightning.... + +But such speculations were foreign to Ivy, and she forgot them in +examining the hat of Mrs. Peterson, the grocer's wife, which was so +noticeable in its excessive simplicity--its decoration consisted wholly +of home-grown vegetables--as to convince beholders that Mr. Peterson had +_not_, as some falsely said, made a fortune during the war by cornering +margarine. + + +2 + +Mr. Delmer was talking about the worst form of unwisdom--Atheism; a +terrible subject to him, and one he approached with diffidence but +resolution, in the face of the unusual pew-full just below him. + +"It is an extraordinary thing," he was saying, "that there are those who +actually deny the existence of God. We have, surely, only to think of +the immeasurable spaces of the universe--the distance He has set between +one thing and another.... It is reported of the Emperor Napoleon that, +looking up at the stars one night, he remarked...." Ivy, who had heard +this remark of the Emperor Napoleon's before, let her attention wander +again to the hats of Mrs. Peterson and others. When she listened once +more, the vicar had left Napoleon, though he was still dealing with the +heavenly bodies. + +"If an express train, performing sixty miles an hour, were to start off +from this planet--were such a thing possible to imagine, which of course +it is not--towards the moon, and continue its journey without stops +until it arrived, it would reach its destination, according to the +calculations of scientists, in exactly 1 year, 8 months, 26 days." (Ivy, +who had left school lately enough to remember the distance set by the +creator between the earth and the moon, began to work this out in her +head; she did not think that her father had got it quite right.) "And, +in the face of this, there are those who say that God does not exist. A +further thought, yet more wonderful. If the same train, travelling at +the same rapid rate, were to leave this earth again, this time for the +sun, the time it would take over this journey would be--I ask you, if +you can, to imagine it, my friends--no less than 175 years, 1 week, and +6 days...." (Ivy gave it up; it was too difficult without pencil and +paper.) "Is it possible that, knowing this, there are still those who +doubt God? Yet once more. Imagine, if you can, this train again starting +forth, this time bound for the planet Jupiter. Scientists tell us, and +we must believe it" (All right, thought Ivy, with relief, if he'd got it +out of a book), "that such a journey would take, if performed when +Jupiter was at its furthest, 1097 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 10 +hours, and a fraction. Can it really be that, confronted with the dizzy +thought of these well-nigh incredibly lengthy journeys from one heavenly +body to another, there are yet men and women who attribute the universe +to the blind workings of what they are pleased to call the Forces of +Nature? I ask you to consider earnestly, could any force but God have +conceived and executed such great distances? And Jupiter, my friends, is +comparatively near at hand. Take instead one of those little (but only +apparently little) nameless stars twinkling in the firmament. Imagine +our train starting off into space once more...." + +Ivy failed to imagine this; her attention was occupied with the End +House seat. The train's last journey had been too much for the tottering +self-control of the Grammont family and Vernon Prideaux (nothing ever +broke down Mr. Amherst's self-control, and Pansy's thoughts were +elsewhere). Prideaux's head rested on his hand, as if he were lost in +thought; Kitty and Anthony were shaking, unobtrusively but unmistakably, +and Cyril's fine, supercilious chin, set firmly, was quivering. Cyril +had, from childhood, had more self-control than the other two, and he +was further sustained by his conviction that it would be unthinkably bad +form for a Catholic to attend a Protestant service and laugh at it in +public. + +They oughtn't, thought Ivy, rather indignantly, to laugh at her father's +sermon when he wasn't meaning to be funny. If he saw he would be hurt. +One shouldn't laugh in church, anyhow; even Jane and John knew that. +These people were no better than Jelly. + +"This Sunday," continued the Vicar, his last star journey safely +accomplished, "is the day that has been set aside by our country for +prayer and sermons with regard to the proposed increase in the national +brain-power. This is, indeed, a sore need: but let us start on the firm +foundation of religion. What is wisdom apart from that? Nothing but +vanity and emptiness. What is the clever godless man but a fool from the +point of view of eternity? What is the godly fool but a heavenly +success?" ("He's talking sedition," whispered Kitty to Prideaux. "He'd +better have stuck to the trains.") + +But, of course, the vicar continued, if one can combine virtue and +intelligence, so much the better. It has been done. There was, e.g. +Darwin. Also General Gordon, St. Paul, and Lord Roberts, who had said +with his last breath, in June, 1915, "We've got the men, we've got the +money, we've got the munitions; what we now want is a nation on its +knees." (Ivy saw Prideaux sit up very straight, as if he would have +liked to inform Mr. Delmer that this libel on a dying soldier had long +since been challenged and withdrawn.) One can, said the vicar, find many +more such examples of this happy combination of virtue and intelligence. +There was Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, and Lord Rhondda (who in +the dark days of famine had led the way in self-denial). Not, +unfortunately, the Emperor Napoleon, Friedrich Nietzsche, or the Kaiser +Wilhelm II. The good are not always the clever, nor the clever always +the good. Some are neither, like the late Crown Prince of Germany (who +was now sharing a small island in the Pacific with the Kaiser Wilhelm +and MM. Lenin and Trotzky, late of Petrograd, and neither stupid nor +exactly, let us hope, bad, but singularly unfortunate and misguided, +like so many Russians, whom it is not for us to judge). + +But we should try to be both intelligent and good. We should take every +step in our power to improve our minds. (Prideaux began to look more +satisfied; this was what sermons to-day ought to be about.) It is our +duty to our country to be intelligent citizens, if we can, said the +vicar. Reason is what God has differentiated us from the lower animals +by. They have instinct, we reason. Truly a noble heritage. We are rather +clever already; we have discovered fire, electricity, coal, and invented +printing, steam engines, and flying. No reason why we should not improve +our minds further still, and invent (under God) more things yet. Only +one thing we must affirm; the State should be very careful how it +interferes with the domestic lives of its citizens. The State was going +rather far in that direction; it savoured unpleasantly of Socialism, a +tyranny to which Englishmen did not take kindly. An Englishman's home +had always been his castle (even castles, thought some aggrieved members +of the congregation, were subject to unpleasant supervision by the +police during food scarcity). No race was before us in its respect for +law, but also no race was more determined that their personal and +domestic relations should not be tampered with. When the State +endeavoured to set up a Directorate of Matrimony, and penalised those +who did not conform to its regulations, the State was, said the vicar, +going too far, even for a State. The old school of _laissez-faire_, long +since discredited as an economic theory, survived as regards the private +lives of citizens. It is not the State which has ordained marriage, it +is God, and God did not say "Only marry the clever; have no children but +clever ones." He said, speaking through the inspired mouth of the writer +of the book of Genesis, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the +earth." ("And, through the inspired mouth of Solomon, 'Desire not a +multitude of unprofitable children,'" murmured Anthony Grammont, who +knew his Bible in patches, but was apt to get the authorship wrong.) + +The vicar said he was now going to say a bold thing; if it brought him +within reach of the law he could not help it. He considered that we +ought all, in this matter, to be what are called Conscientious +Obstructionists; we ought to protest against this interference, and +refuse to pay the taxes levied upon those less intelligent infants sent +to us by heaven. He did not say this without much thought and prayer, +and it was, of course, a matter for everyone's own conscience, but he +felt constrained to bear his witness on this question. + +This came to Ivy as a shock. She had not known that her father was going +to bear his witness this morning. She watched Prideaux's face with some +anxiety. She admired and feared Prideaux, and thought how angry he must +be. Not Miss Grammont; Miss Grammont didn't take these things quite +seriously enough to be angry. Ivy sometimes suspected that the whole +work of the Ministry of Brains, and, indeed, of every other Ministry, +was a joke to her. + +It was a relief to Ivy when her father finished his sermon on a more +loyal note, by an urgent exhortation to everyone to go in for the Mind +Training Course. We must not be backward, he said, in obeying our +country in this righteous cause. He, for his part, intended to go in for +it, with his household (Mrs. Delmer looked resigned but a little +worried, as if she was mentally fitting in the Mind Training Course with +all the other things she had to do, and finding it a close fit) and he +hoped everyone in the congregation would do the same. Ivy saw Prideaux's +profile become more approving. Perhaps her father had retrieved his +reputation for patriotism after all. Anyhow at this point the And Now +brought them all to their feet, they sang a hymn (the official hymn +composed and issued by the Brains Ministry), had a collection (for the +education of imbeciles), a prayer for the enlightenment of dark minds +(which perhaps meant the same), and trooped out of church. + + +3 + +"He ought, of course," said Prideaux at lunch, "to be reported and +prosecuted for propaganda contrary to the national interest. But we +won't report him; he redeemed himself by his patriotic finish." + +"He is redeemed for evermore by his express train," said Kitty. + +"A most instructive morning," said Amherst. + +"Protestants are wonderful people," said Cyril. + +"I always said that man was a regular pet lamb," said Pansy. "And hadn't +he pluck! Fancy givin' it us about that silly old baby tax with you two +representatives of the government sitting under him an' freezin' him. I +guess I'll have the Cheeper christened first opportunity, just to please +him, what, old dear?" + +Anthony, thus addressed, said, "As soon and as often as you like, +darling. Don't mind me. Only I suppose you realise that it will mean +thinking of a name for him--Sidney, or Bert, or Lloyd George or +something." + +"Montmorency," said Pansy promptly. "Monty for short, of course. That'll +sound awfully well in revue." + +It should be noted as one up for Mr. Delmer that his sermon, whether or +not it brought many of his parishioners to the Government Mind Training +Course, had anyhow (unless Pansy forgot again) brought one infant soul +into the Christian Church. + + +4 + +Mrs. Delmer said to Ivy, "I suppose we shall all have to go in for it, +dear, as father's told everyone we're going to. But I don't quite know +how I'm going to get the time, especially with this new boy so +untrustworthy about changing the hens' water when he feeds them and +crushing up the bones for them. Perhaps he'll be better when he's taken +the course himself. But I half suspect it's not so much stupidity as +naughtiness.... Well, well, if father wants us to we must." + +Jane said, kicking stones along the road as she walked, "Shall I be top +of my form when I've taken the Course, mother? Shall I, mother? Will +John? John was lower than me last week. _Shall_ we, mother?" + +Mrs. Delmer very sensibly observed that, if all the other children in +the parish took the course too, as they ought, their relative capacities +would remain unchanged. "But if both you and John took a little more +pains over your home-work, Jane," she took the opportunity to add, +whereupon Jane very naturally changed the subject. + +Betty's contribution was "_Brains!_ What a silly fuss about them. Who +wants brains?" + +Which was, indeed, a very pertinent question, and one which Nicholas +Chester sometimes sadly asked himself. + +Who, alas, did? + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +OUR WEEK + + +1 + +Brains Week ("Our Week," as it was called by the ladies who sold flags +for it) having opened thus auspiciously, flourished along its gallant +way like a travelling fair urging people to come and buy, like a tank +coaxing people to come in and purchase war bonds, like the War Office +before the Military Service Acts, like the Ministry of Food before +compulsory rationing. It was, in fact, the last great appeal for +voluntary recruits for the higher intelligence; if it failed then +compulsion would have to be resorted to. Many people thought that +compulsion should in any case be resorted to; what was the good of a +government if not to compel? If the Great War hadn't taught it that, it +hadn't taught it much. This was the view put forward in many prominent +journals; others, who would rather see England free than England clever, +advocated with urgency the voluntary scheme, hoping, if it might be, to +see England both. + +It was a week of strenuous and gallant effort on the part of the +Government and its assistants. Every Cinema showed dramas representing +the contrasted fates of the Intelligent and the Stupid. Kiosks of +Propaganda and Information were set up in every prominent shop. +Trafalgar Square was brilliant with posters, a very flower-garden. The +Ministry of Brains' artists had given of their best. Pictorial +propaganda bloomed on every city wall, "Before and After," "The Rich Man +and the Poor Man" (the Rich Man, in a faultless fur coat, observing to +the Poor Man in patched reach-me-downs, "Yes, I was always below you at +school, wasn't I? But since then I've taken the Mind Training Course, +and now money rolls in. Sorry you're down on your luck, old man, but why +don't you do as I've done?") and a special poster for underground +railways, portraying victims of the perils of the streets--"A will be +safe because he has taken the Mind Training Course and is consequently +facing the traffic. B will not, because he has refused to improve his +mind and has therefore alighted from a motor bus in the wrong direction +and with his back to oncoming traffic; he will also be crushed by a +street aero, having by his foolish behaviour excited the aviator. B will +therefore perish miserably, AND DESERVES TO." + +There were also pictures of human love, that most moving of subjects for +art. "Yes, dear, I love you. But we are both C2" (they looked it). "We +cannot marry; we must part for ever. You must marry Miss Bryte-Braynes, +who has too few teeth and squints, and I must accept Mr. Brilliantine, +who puts too much oil on his hair. For beauty is only skin-deep, but +wisdom endures for ever. We must THINK OF POSTERITY." + +Nor was Commerce backward in the cause. Every daily paper contained +advertisements from our more prominent emporiums, such as "Get tickets +for the M.T. Course at Selfswank's. Every taker of a ticket will receive +a coupon for our great £1000 lottery. The drawing will be performed in a +fortnight from to-day, by the late Prime Minister's wife." (To reassure +the anxious it should be said that the late Prime Minister was not +deceased but abolished; the country was governed by a United Council, +five minds with but a single thought--if that.) "By taking our tickets +you benefit yourself, benefit posterity, benefit your country, and stand +a good chance of winning A CASH PRIZE." + +And every patriotic advertiser of clothes, furs, jewellery, groceries, +or other commodities, tacked on to his advertisement, "Take a ticket +this week for the M.T. Course." And every patriotic letter-writer bought +a Brains Stamp, and stamped his envelopes with the legend "Improve your +Brains now." + +Railway bookstalls were spread with literature on the subject. The +_Queen_, the _Gentlewoman_, the _Sketch_, and other such periodicals +suited, one imagines, to the simpler type of female mind, had articles +on "Why does a woman look old sooner than a man?" (the answer to this +was that, though men are usually stupid, women are often stupider still, +and have taken even less pains to improve their minds), "Take care of +your mind and your complexion will take care of itself," "Raise yourself +to category A, and you enlarge your matrimonial field," "How to train +Baby's intellect," and so forth. Side by side with these journals was +the current number of the _Cambridge Magazine_, bearing on its cover the +legend "A Short Way with Fools; Pogrom of the Old Men. Everyone over +forty to be shot." "We have always said," the article under these +head-lines very truly began, "and we do not hesitate to say it again, +that the only way to secure an intelligent government or citizenship in +any nation is to dispose, firmly but not kindly, of the old and the +middle-aged, and to let the young have their day. There will then be no +more such hideous blunders as those with which the diplomacy of our +doddering elders has wrecked the world again and again during the past +centuries." + +The _Evening News_ had cartoons every day of the Combing Out of the +Stupid, whom it was pleased to call Algies and Dollies. The _New +Witness_, on the other hand, striking a different note, said that it was +the fine old Christian Gentile quality of stupidity which had made Old +England what it was; the natives of Merrie England had always resented +excessive acuteness, as exhibited in the Hebrew race at their expense. +The _Herald_, however, rejoiced in large type in the Open Door to +Labour; the _Church Times_ reported Brains Sunday sermons by many +divines (in most of them sounded the protest raised by the vicar of +Little Chantreys against interference with domestic rights, the Church +was obviously going to be troublesome in this matter) and the other +journals, from the _Hidden Hand_ down to _Home Chat_, supported the +cause in their varying degrees and characteristic voices. + +Among them lay the Ministry of Brains pamphlets, "Brains. How to get and +keep them," "The cultivation of the Mind," etc. In rows among the books +and papers hung the Great Thoughts from Great Minds series--portraits of +eminent persons with their most famous remarks on this subject inscribed +beneath them. "It is the duty of every man, woman, and child in this +country so to order their lives in this peace crisis as to make the +least possible demand upon the intelligence of others. It is necessary, +therefore, to have some of your own." (An eminent minister.) "I never +had any assistance beyond my wits. Through them I am what I am. What +that is, it is for others rather than for myself to judge." (A great +journalist.) "It was lack of brains (I will not say whose, but it +occurred before the first Coalition Government, mind you) which plunged +Europe into the Great War. Brains--again, mark you, I do not say +whose--must make and keep the Great Peace." (One of our former Prime +Ministers.) "I have always wished I had some." (A Royal Personage.) "I +must by all means have a Brains Ministry started in Liberia." (The +Liberian Ambassador.) Then, after remarks by Shakespeare, Emerson, +Carlyle, Mr. R. J. Campbell, Henry James, President Wilson, Marcus +Aurelius, Solomon, Ecclesiasticus ("What is heavier than lead, and what +is the name thereof but a fool?") and Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the +portrait gallery concluded with Mr. Nicholas Chester, the Minister of +Brains, looking like an embittered humorist, and remarking, "It's a +damned silly world." + + +2 + +"Amen to that," Miss Kitty Grammont remarked, stopping for a moment +after buying _Truth_ at the bookstall and gazing solemnly into the +Minister's disillusioned eyes. "And it would be a damned dull one if it +wasn't." She sauntered out of Charing Cross tube station and boarded an +Embankment tram. This was the Monday morning after Brains Week had run +its course. + +The fact had to be faced by the Ministry: Brains Week had proved +disappointing. The public were not playing up as they should. + +"We have said all along," said _The Times_ (anticipating the _Hidden +Hand_, which had not yet made up its mind), "that the Government should +take a strong line in this matter. They must not trust to voluntary +effort; we say, and we believe that, as always, we voice the soundest +opinion in the country, that it is up to the Government to take the +measures which it has decided, upon mature consideration, to be for the +country's good. Though we have given every possible support to the great +voluntary effort recently made, truth compels us to state that the +results are proving disappointing. Compulsion must follow, and the +sooner the Government make up their minds to accept this fact the better +advised it will be. Surely if there is one thing above all others which +the Great War (so prolific in lessons) has taught us, it is that +compulsion is not tyranny, nor law oppression. Let the Government, too +long vacillating, act, and act quickly, and they will find a responsive +and grateful nation ready to obey." + +Thus _The Times_, and thus, in a less dignified choice of language, many +lesser organs. To which the _Herald_ darkly rejoined, "If the Government +tries this on, let it look to itself." + +"It'll have to come," said Vernon Prideaux to Kitty Grammont at lunch. +They were lunching at one of those underground resorts about which, as +Kitty said, you never know, some being highly respectable, while others +are not. Kitty, with her long-lashed, mossy eyes and demure expression, +looked and felt at home among divans for two, screens, powdered +waitresses, and rose-shaded lights; she had taken Prideaux there for +fun, because among such environment he looked a stranger and pilgrim, +angular, fastidious, whose home was above. Kitty liked to study her +friends in different lights, even rose-shaded ones, and especially one +who, besides being a friend, was her departmental superior, and a +coming, even come, young man of exceptional brilliance, who might one +day be ruling the country. + +"If it does," said Kitty, "we shall have to go, that's all. No more +compulsion is going to be stood at present. Nothing short of another +war, with a military dictatorship and martial law, will save us." + +"We stood compulsory education when there was no war," Prideaux pointed +out. "We've stood vaccination, taxation, every conceivable form of +interference with what we are pleased to call our liberty. This is no +worse; it's the logical outcome of State government of the individual. +Little by little, precept upon precept, line upon line, these things +grow, till we're a serf state without realising it.... After all, why +not? What most people mean by freedom would be a loathsome condition; +freedom to behave like animals or lunatics, to annoy each other and +damage the State. What's the sense of it? Human beings aren't up to it, +that's the fact." + +"I quite agree with you," said Kitty. "Only the weak point is that +hardly any human beings are up to making good laws for the rest, either. +We shall slip up badly over this Mind Training Act, if we ever get it +through; it will be as full of snags as the Mental Progress Act. We +shall have to take on a whole extra Branch to deal with the exemptions +alone. Chester's clever, but he's not clever enough to make a good Act. +No one is.... By the way, Vernon, you nearly told me something the other +day about Chester's category. You might quite tell me now, as we're in +the Raid Shelter and not in the Office." + +"Did I? It was only that I heard he was uncertificated for marriage. +He's got a brother and a twin sister half-witted. I suppose he collared +all the brains that were going in his family." + +"He would, of course, if he could. He's selfish." + +"Selfish," Prideaux was doubtful. "If you can call such a visionary and +idealist selfish." + +"Visionaries and idealists are always selfish. Look at Napoleon, and +Wilhelm II, as Mr. Delmer would say. Visions and ideals are the most +selfish things there are. People go about wrapped in them, and keep +themselves so warm that they forget that other people need ordinary +clothes.... So the Minister is uncertificated.... Well, I'm going up to +Regent Street to buy a birthday present for Pansy and cigarettes for +myself." + +"I must get back," said Prideaux. "I've a Leeds Manufacturers' +deputation coming to see me at 2.30 about their men's wages. Leeds +workmen, apparently, don't let the Mental Progress Act weigh on them at +all; they go calmly ahead with their uncertificated marriages, and then +strike for higher wages in view of the taxable family they intend to +produce. These fellows coming to-day have got wind of the new agreement +with the cutlers and want one like it. I've got to keep them at arm's +length." + +He emerged above ground, breathed more freely, and walked briskly back +to the Ministry. Kitty went to Regent Street, and did not get back to +the office until 3.15. + + +3 + +Kitty had lately been returned from the Propaganda Branch to her own, +the Exemption Branch. Being late, she slipped into her place +unostentatiously. Her in-tray contained a mass of files, as yet undealt +with. She began to look through these, with a view to relegating the +less attractive to the bottom of the tray, where they could wait until +she had nothing better to do than to attend to them. To-day there were a +great many letters from the public beginning "Dear Sir, Mr. Wilkinson +said in parliament on Tuesday that families should not be reduced to +destitution through the baby-taxes...." That was so like Mr. Wilkinson +(parliamentary secretary to the Brains Ministry). Whenever he +thoughtlessly dropped these _obiter dicta_, so sweeping, so far removed +from truth, which was almost whenever he spoke, there was trouble. The +guileless public hung on his words, waiting to pick them up and send +them in letters to the Ministry. These letters went to the bottom of the +tray. They usually only needed a stock reply, telling the applicants to +attend their local tribunal. After several of these in succession, Kitty +opened a file which had been minuted down from another branch, M.B. 4. +Attached to it were two sheets of minutes which had passed between +various individuals regarding the case in question; the last minute was +addressed to M.B. 3, and said "Passed to you for information and +necessary action." It was a melancholy tale from an aggrieved citizen +concerning his infant, who was liable to a heavy tax, and who had been +drowned by his aunt while being washed, before he was two hours old, and +the authorities still demanded the payment of the tax. Kitty, who found +the helplessness of M.B. 4 annoying, wrote a curt minute, "Neither +information nor action seems to us necessary," then had to erase it +because it looked rude, and wrote instead, more mildly, "Seen, thank +you. This man appears to be covered by M.B.I. 187, in which case his +taxation is surely quite in order and no action is possible. We see no +reason why we should deal with the case rather than you." + +It is difficult always to be quite polite in minutes, cheap satire +costing so little and relieving the feelings, but it can and should be +done; nothing so shows true breeding in a Civil Servant. + +Kitty next replied to a letter from the Admiralty, about sailors' babies +(the family arrangements of sailors are, of course, complicated, owing +to their having a wife in every port). The Admiralty said that My Lords +Commissioners had read the Minister of Brains' (i.e. Kitty's) last +letter to them on this subject with much surprise. The Admiralty's +faculty of surprise was infinitely fresh; it seemed new, like mercy, +each returning day. The Minister of Brains evoked it almost every time +he, through the pens of his clerks, wrote to them. My Lords viewed with +grave apprehension the line taken by the Minister on this important +subject, and They trusted it would be reconsidered. (My Lords always +wrote of themselves with a capital They, as if they were deities.) Kitty +drafted a reply to this letter and put it aside to consult Prideaux +about. She carried on a chronic quarrel with My Lords, doubtless to the +satisfaction of both sides. + +Soothed and stimulated by this encounter, she was the better prepared in +temper when she opened a file in which voluminous correspondence +concerning two men named Stephen Williams had been jacketed together by +a guileless registry, to whom such details as that one Stephen Williams +appeared to be a dentist's assistant and the other a young man in the +diplomatic service were as contemptible obstacles, to be taken in an +easy stride. The correspondence in this file was sufficiently at cross +purposes to be more amusing than most correspondence. When she had +perused it, Kitty, sad that she must tear asunder this happily linked +pair, sent it down to the registry with a regretful note that "These two +cases, having no connection, should be registered separately," and fell +to speculating, as she often did, on the registry, which, amid the +trials that beset them and the sorrows they endured, and the manifold +confusions and temptations of their dim life, were so strangely often +right. They worked underground, the registry people, like gnomes in a +cave, opening letters and registering them and filing them and sending +them upstairs, astonishingly often in the file which belonged to them. +But, mainly, looking for papers and not finding them, and writing "No +trace," "Cannot be traced," on slips, as if the papers were wild animals +which had got loose and had to be hunted down. A queer life, questing, +burrowing, unsatisfied, underground.... No wonder they made some +mistakes. + +Kitty opened one now--a bitter complaint, which should have gone to M.B. +5, from one who considered himself placed in a wrong category. "When I +tell you, sir," it ran, "that at the Leamington High School I carried +off two prizes (geography and recitation) and was twice fourth in my +form, and after leaving have given great satisfaction (I am told) as a +solicitor's clerk, so that there has been some talk of raising my +salary, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that the Local +Intelligence Board placed me in class C1. I applied to the County Board, +and (owing, as I have reason to know, to local feeling and jealousy) I +was placed by them in C2. Sir, I ask you for a special examination by +the Central Intelligence Board. I should be well up in Class B. There +are some walking about in this town who are classed B1 and 2, who are +the occasion of much local feeling, as it surprises all who know them +that they should be classed so high. To my knowledge some of these +persons cannot do a sum right in their heads, and it is thought very +strange that they should have so imposed on the Intelligence Officers, +though the reasons for this are not really far to seek, and should be +enquired into...." + +A gay and engaging young man with a wooden leg (he had lost his own in +1914, and had during the rest of the war worked at the War Office, and +carried the happy Q.M.G. touch) wandered in from M.B. 5 while Kitty was +reading this, and she handed it over to him. He glanced at it. + +"We shall perhaps be surprised, shall we.... How likely.... The public +overestimate our faculty for surprise. They have yet to learn that the +only thing which would surprise the Ministry of Brains would be finding +someone correctly classified.... I shall tell him I'm A2 myself, though +I never got a prize in my life for geography or recitation, and I can't +do sums in my head for nuts. I ought to be somewhere about B3; I +surprise all who know me.... What I came in to say was, do any of you in +here want a sure tip for the Oaks? Because I've got one. Silly Blighter; +yes, you thought he was an absolute outsider, didn't you, so did +everyone else; but he's not. You take the tip, it's a straight one, +first hand. No, don't mention it, I always like to do M.B. 3 a good +turn, though I wouldn't do it for everyone.... Well, I'm off, I'm +beastly busy.... Heard the latest Chester, by the way? Someone tried the +Wheeldon stunt on him--sent him a poisoned thorn by special messenger in +a packet "To be opened by the Minister Himself." Jervis-Browne opened +it, of course, and nearly pricked him self. When he took it to Chester, +Chester did the Sherlock Holmes touch, and said he knew the thorn, it +came off a shrub in Central Africa or Kew Gardens or somewhere. I think +he knew the poison, too; he wanted Jervis-Browne to suck it, to make +sure, but J.-B. wasn't having any, and Chester didn't like to risk +himself, naturally. His little P.S. would have done it like a shot, but +they thought it would be hard luck on the poor child's people. And while +they were discussin' it, Chester ran the thing into his own finger by +mistake. While J.-B. was waitin' to see him swell up and turn black, and +feelin' bad lest he should be told to suck it (he knows Chester doesn't +really value him at his true worth, you see), Chester whipped out his +penknife and gouged a great slice out of his finger as you'd cut cheese, +all round the prick. He turned as white as chalk, J.-B. says, but never +screamed, except to let out one curse. And when he'd done it, and had +the shorthand typist in from J.-B.'s room to tie it up, he began to +giggle--you know that sad, cynical giggle of his that disconcerts solemn +people so much--and said he'd have the beastly weapon cleaned and take +it home and frame it in glass, with the other mementoes of a people's +hate.... I say, I do waste your time in here, don't I? And my own; +that's to say the government's. I'm off." + +"Gay child," Kitty murmured to her neighbour as he went. "He blooms in +an office like an orchid in a dust-bin. And very nice too. I remember +being nearly as bright at his age; though, for my sins, I was never in +Q.M.G. A wonderful Branch that is." + +Thereupon she threw away her cigarette, wrote five letters with +extraordinary despatch and undepartmental conciseness of style, and went +to have tea in the canteen. + + +4 + +The Minister was having tea too, looking even paler than usual, with his +left hand in a sling. Kitty put up her eye-glasses and looked at him +with increased interest. As ministers go, he was certainly of an +interesting appearance; she had always thought that. She rather liked +the paradoxical combination of shrewdness and idealism, sullenness and +humour, in his white, black-browed, clever face. He looked patient, but +patient perforce, as if he rode natural impatience on a curb. He looked +as if he might know a desperate earnestness, but preferred to keep it at +arm's length with a joke; his earnestness would be too grim and violent +to be an easy and natural companion to him. He looked as if he might get +very badly hurt, but would cut out the hurt and throw it away with the +cold promptness of the surgeon. He was not yet forty, but looked more, +perhaps because he enjoyed bad health. At this moment he was eating a +rock bun and talking to Vernon Prideaux. One difference between them was +that Prideaux looked an intelligent success, like a civil servant, or a +rising barrister or M.P., and Chester looked a brilliant failure, and +more like a Sinn Feiner or a Bolshevist. Only not really like either of +these, because he didn't look as if he would muff things. He might go +under, but his revolutions wouldn't. Kitty, who too greatly despised +people who muffed things, recognised the distinction. She had a friend +whose revolutions, which were many, always did go under.... + +There was a queer, violent strength about the Minister. + +But when he smiled it was as if someone had flashed a torch on lowering +cliffs, and lit them into extraordinary and elf-like beauty. Kitty knew +already that he could be witty; she suddenly perceived now that he could +be sweet--a bad word, but there seemed no other. + +He ate another rock bun, and another. But they were small. His eyes fell +on Kitty, eating a jam sandwich. But his thoughts were elsewhere. + +"Yes, it was me that had to tie it up for him," Ivy Delmer was saying to +another typist. "Luckily I've done First Aid. But I felt like +fainting.... The _blood_.... I don't _like_ him, you know; his manners +are so funny and his dictating is so difficult; but I must say I did +admire his pluck.... He never thanked me or anything--he wouldn't, of +course. Not that I minded a scrap about that...." + + +5 + +When Kitty got home to her flat that evening, she found the Boomerang on +the floor. (It was on the floor owing to the lack of a letter-box.) The +Boomerang was a letter from herself, addressed to Neil Desmond, Esq., +and she wrote it and despatched it every few months or so, whenever, in +fact, she had, at the moment, nothing better to do. On such days as Bank +Holidays, when she spent them at the office but official work did not +press, Kitty tidied the drawers of her table and wrote to break off her +engagement. The drawers got tidied all right, but it is doubtful whether +the engagement could ever be considered to have got broken off, owing to +the letter breaking it being a boomerang. It was a boomerang because +Neil Desmond, Esq. was a person of no fixed address. He wrote long and +thrilling letters to Kitty (which, if her correspondence had been raided +by the police, would probably have subjected her to arrest--he had +himself for long been liable to almost every species of arrest, so could +hardly be further incriminated), but when she wrote to the address he +gave he was no longer ever there, and so her letters returned to her +like homing pigeons. So the position was that Neil was engaged to Kitty, +and Kitty had so far failed to disengage herself from Neil. Neil was +that friend who has been already referred to as one whose revolutions +always went under. Kitty had met him first in Greece, in April, 1914. +She had since decided that he was probably at his best in Greece. In +July he had been arming to fight Carson's rebels when the outbreak of +the European War disappointed him. The parts played by him in the +European War were many and various, and, from the British point of view, +mostly regrettable. He followed Sir Roger Casement through many +adventures, and only just escaped sharing in the last of all. He partook +in the Sinn Fein rising of Easter, 1916 (muffed, as usual, Kitty had +commented), and had then disappeared, and had mysteriously emerged again +in Petrograd a year later, to help with the Russian revolution. +Wherever, in fact, a revolution was, Neil Desmond was sure to be. He had +had, as may be imagined, a busy and satisfactory summer and autumn +there, and had many interesting, if impermanent, friends, such as +Kerensky, Protopopoff (whom, however, he did not greatly care for), +Kaledin, Lenin, Trotzky, Mr. Arthur Ransome, and General Korniloff. (It +might be thought that the politics of this last-named would not have +been regarded by Neil with a favourable eye, but he was, anyhow, making +a revolution which did not come off.) In January, 1918, Neil had got +tired of Russia (this is liable to occur) and gone off to America, where +he had for some time been doing something or other, no doubt +discreditable, with an Irish-American league. Then a revolution which +seemed to require his assistance broke out in Equador, which kept him +occupied for some weeks. After that he had gone to Greece, where Kitty +vaguely believed him still to be (unless he was visiting, with seditious +intent, the island in the Pacific where the world's great Have-Beens +were harmoniously segregated). + +"The only thing for it," Kitty observed to the cousin with whom she +lived, a willowy and lovely young lily of the field, who had had a job +once but had lost it owing to peace, and was now having a long rest, +"The only thing for it is to put it in the agony column of the--no, not +_The Times_, of course he wouldn't read it, but the _Irish-American +Banner_ or something. 'K. G. to N. D. All over. Regret.'" + +"You'll have to marry him, darling. God means you to," sang her cousin, +hooking herself into a flame-coloured and silver evening dress. + +"It certainly looks as if he did," Kitty admitted, and began to take her +own clothes off, for she was going to see Pansy in a new revue. (Anthony +would have been the last man to wish to tie Pansy down to home +avocations when duty called; he was much too proud of her special +talents to wish her to hide them in a napkin.) + +The revue was a good one, Pansy was her best self, lazy, sweet, +facetious, and extraordinarily supple, the other performers also +performed suitably, each in his manner, and Kitty afterwards had supper +with a party of them. These were the occasions when office work, seen +from this gayer corner of life, seemed incredibly dusty, tedious and +sad.... + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EXPLANATION CAMPAIGN + + +1 + +It will be generally admitted that Acts are not good at explaining +themselves, and call for words to explain them; many words, so many that +it is at times wondered whether the Acts are worth it. It occurred about +this time to the Ministry of Brains that more words were called for to +explain both the Mental Progress Act recently passed and the Mind +Training Act which was still a Bill. For neither of these Acts seemed to +have yet explained itself, or been explained, to the public, in such a +manner as to give general satisfaction. And yet explanations had to be +given with care. Acts, like lawyers' deeds, do not care to be understood +through and through. The kind of explaining they really need, as Kitty +Grammont observed, is the kind called explaining away. For this task she +considered herself peculiarly fitted by training, owing to having had in +her own private career several acts which had demanded it. It was +perhaps for this reason that she was among those chosen by the +authorities for the Explanation Campaign. The Explanation Campaign was +to be fought in the rural villages of England, by bands of speakers +chosen for their gift of the ready word, and it would be a tough fight. +The things to be explained were the two Acts above mentioned. + +"And none of mine," Kitty remarked to Prideaux, "ever needed so much +explanation as these will.... Let me see, no one ever even tried to +explain any of the Military Service Acts, did they? At least only in the +press. The perpetrators never dared to face the public man to man, on +village greens." + +"It ought to have been done more," Prideaux said. "The Review of +Exceptions, for instance. If questions and complaints could have been +got out of the public in the open, and answered on village greens, as +you say, instead of by official letters which only made things worse, a +lot of trouble might have been avoided. Chester is great on these +heart-to-heart talks.... By the way, he's going to interview all the +Explanation people individually before they start, to make sure they're +going about it in the right spirit." + +"That's so like Chester; he'll go to any trouble," Kitty said. "I'm +getting to think he's a really great man." + + +2 + +Chester really did interview them all. To Kitty, whom already he knew +personally, he talked freely. + +"You must let the people in," he said, walking about the room, his hands +in his pockets. "Don't keep them at official arm's length. Let them feel +_part_ of it all.... Make them catch fire with the idea of it.... It's +sheer stark truth--intelligence _is_ the thing that counts--if only +everyone would see it. Make them see stupidity for the limp, hopeless, +helpless, animal thing it is--an idiot drivelling on a green"--Kitty +could have fancied that he shuddered a little--"make them hate it--want +the other thing; want it so much that they'll even sacrifice a little of +their personal comfort and desires to get it for themselves and their +children. They must want it more than money, more than comfort, more +than love, more than freedom.... You'll have to get hold of different +people in different ways, of course; some have imaginations and some +haven't; those who haven't must be appealed to through their common +sense, if any, or, failing any, their feeling for their children, or, +even, at the lowest, their fear of consequences.... Tell some of them +there'll be another war if they're so stupid; tell others they'll never +get on in the world; anything you think will touch the spot. But first, +always, try to collar their imaginations.... You've done some public +speaking, haven't you?" + +Kitty owned it, and he nodded. + +"That's all right, then; you'll know how to keep your finger on the +audience's pulse.... You'll make them laugh, too...." + +Kitty was uncertain, as she left the presence, whether this last was an +instruction or a prophecy. + + +3 + +The other members of Kitty's party (the Campaign was to be conducted in +parties of two or three people each) did not belong to the Ministry; +they were hired for it for this purpose. They were a lady doctor, +prominent on public platforms and decorated for signal services to her +country during the Great War, and a free-lance clergyman known for his +pulpit eloquence and the caustic wit with which he lashed the social +system. He had resigned his incumbency long ago in order to devote +himself the more freely to propaganda work for the causes he had at +heart, wrote for a labour paper, and went round the country speaking. +The Minister of Brains (who had been at Cambridge with him, and read his +articles in the labour paper, in which he frequently stated that +muddle-headedness was the curse of the world) had, with his usual eye +for men, secured him to assist in setting forth the merits of the Brains +Acts. + +They began in Buckinghamshire, which was one of the counties assigned to +them. At Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield it was chilly, and they held +their meetings respectively in the National School and in the bright +green Parish Hall which is the one blot on a most picturesque city. But +at Little Chantreys it was fine, and they met at six o'clock in the +broad open space outside the church. They had a good audience. The +meeting had been well advertised, and it seemed that the village was as +anxious to hear the Brains Acts explained as the Ministry was to explain +them. Or possibly the village, for its own part, had something it wished +to explain. Anyhow they came, rich and poor, high and low, men, women, +children, and infants in arms (these had, for the most part, every +appearance of deserving heavy taxation; however, the physiognomy of +infants is sometimes misleading). Anthony Grammont and Pansy were there, +with the Cheeper, now proud in his baptismal name of Montmorency. The +vicar and his wife were there too, though Mr. Delmer did not approve +much of the Reverend Stephen Dixon, rightly thinking him a disturbing +priest. It was all very well to advocate Life and Liberty in moderation +(though Mr. Delmer did not himself belong to the society for promoting +these things in the Church), but the vicar did not believe that any +church could stand, without bursting, the amount of new wine which +Stephen Dixon wished to pour into it. "He is very much in earnest," was +all the approval that he could, in his charity, give to this priest. So +he waited a little uneasily for Dixon's remarks on the Brains Acts, +feeling that it might become his ungracious duty to take public +exception to some of them. + +The scene had its picturesqueness in the evening sunshine--the open +space in which the narrow village streets met, backed by the little grey +church, and with a patch of green where women and children sat; and in +front of these people standing, leisurely, placid, gossiping, the women +innocently curious to hear what the speakers from London had to say +about this foolish business there was such an upset about just now; some +of the men more aggressive, determined to stand no nonsense, with a +we'll-know-the-reason-why expression on their faces. This expression was +peculiarly marked on the countenance of the local squire, Captain +Ambrose. He did not like all this interfering, socialist what-not, which +was both upsetting the domestic arrangements of his tenants and trying +to put into their heads more learning than was suitable for them to +have. For his part he thought every man had a right to be a fool if he +chose, yes, and to marry another fool, and to bring up a family of fools +too. Damn it all, fools or not, hadn't they shed their blood for their +country, and where would the country have been without them, though now +the country talked so glibly of not allowing them to reproduce +themselves until they were more intelligent. Captain Ambrose, a +fragile-looking man, burnt by Syrian suns and crippled by British +machine-guns at instruction classes (a regrettable mistake which of +course would not have occurred had the operator been more intelligent), +stood in the forefront of the audience with intention to heckle. Near +him stood the Delmers and Miss Ponsonby and Anthony Grammont. Pansy was +talking, in her friendly, cheerful way, to Mrs. Delmer about the +Cheeper's food arrangements, which were unusual in one so young. + +In the middle of the square were Dr. Cross, graceful, capable-looking +and grey-haired; Stephen Dixon, lean and peculiar (so the village +thought); Kitty Grammont, pale after the day's heat, and playing with +her dangling pince-nez; a tub; and two perambulators, each containing an +infant; Mrs. Rose's and Mrs. Dean's, as the village knew. The lady +doctor had been round in the afternoon looking at all the babies and +asking questions, and had finally picked these two and asked if they +might be lent for the meeting. But what use was going to be made of the +poor mites, no one knew. + +Dr. Cross was on the tub. She was talking about the already existing +Act, the Mental Progress Act of last year. + +"Take some talking about, too, to make us swallow it whole," muttered +Captain Ambrose. + +Dr. Cross was a gracious and eloquent speaker; the village rather liked +her. She talked of babies, as one who knew; no doubt she did know, +having, as she mentioned, had two herself. She grew pathetic in pleading +for the rights of the children to their chance in life. Some of the +mothers wiped their eyes and hugged their infants closer to them; they +should have it, then, so they should. How, said the doctor, were +children to win any of life's prizes without brains? (Jane Delmer looked +self-conscious; she had won a prize for drawing this term; she wondered +if the speaker had heard this.) Even health--how could health be won and +kept without intelligent following of the laws nature has laid down for +us ("I never did none o' that, and look at me, seventy-five next month +and still fit and able," old William Weston was heard to remark), and +how was that to be done without intelligence? Several parents looked +dubious; they were not sure that they wanted any of that in their +households; it somehow had a vague sound of draughts.... After sketching +in outline the probable careers of the intelligent and the unintelligent +infant, between which so wide a gulf was fixed, the doctor discoursed on +heredity, that force so inadequately reckoned with, which moulds the +generations. Appealing to Biblical lore, she enquired if figs were +likely to produce thorns, or thistles grapes. This started William +Weston, who had been a gardener, on strange accidents he had met with in +the vegetable world; Dr. Cross, a gardener too, listened with interest, +but observed that these were freaks and must not, of course, be taken as +the normal; then, to close that subject, she stepped down from the tub, +took the infants Rose and Dean out of their perambulators, and held them +up, one on each arm, to the public gaze. Here, you have, she said, a +certificated child, whose parents received a bonus for it, and an +uncertificated child, whose parents were taxed. Observe the difference +in the two--look at the bright, noticing air of the infant Rose ("Of +course; she's a-jogglin' of it up and down on her arm," said a small +girl who knew the infant Rose). Observe its fine, intelligent little +head (Mrs. Rose preened, gratified). A child who is going to make a good +thing of its life. Now compare it with the lethargy of the other baby, +who lies sucking an india-rubber sucker (a foolish and unclean habit in +itself) and taking no notice of the world about it. + +"Why, the poor mite," this infant's parent exclaimed, pushing her way to +the front, "she's been ailing the last two days; it's her pore little +tummy, that's all. And, if you please, ma'am, I'll take her home now. +Holdin' her up to scorn before the village that way--an' you call +yourself a mother!" + +"Indeed, I meant nothing against the poor child," Dr. Cross explained, +realising that she had, indeed, been singularly tactless. "She is merely +a type, to illustrate my meaning.... And, of course, it's more than +possible that if you give her a thoroughly good mental training she may +become as intelligent as anyone, in spite of having been so heavily +handicapped by her parents' unregulated marriage. That's where the +Government Mind Training Course will come in. She'll be developed beyond +all belief...." + +"She won't," said the outraged parent, arranging her infant in her +perambulator, "be developed or anythin' else. She's comin' home to bed. +And I'd like to know what you mean, ma'am, by unregulated marriage. Our +marriage was all right; it was 'ighly approved, and we got money by this +baby. It's my opinion you've mixed the two children up, and are taking +mine for Mrs. Rose's there, that got taxed, pore mite, owing to Mr. and +Mrs. Rose both being in C class." + +"That's right," someone else cried. "It's the other one that was taxed +and ought to be stupid; you've got 'em mixed, ma'am. Better luck next +time." + +Dr. Cross collapsed in some confusion, amid good-humoured laughter, and +the infant Rose was also hastily restored to its flattered mother, who, +being only C3, did not quite grasp what had occurred except that her +baby had been held up for admiration and Mrs. Dean's for obloquy, which +was quite right and proper. + +"One of nature's accidents," apologised Dr. Cross. "They will happen +sometimes, of course. So will stupid mistakes.... Better luck next time, +as you say." She murmured to Stephen Dixon, "Change the subject at +once," so he got upon the tub and began to talk about Democracy, how it +should control the state, but couldn't, of course, until it was better +educated. + +"But all these marriage laws," said a painter who was walking out with +the vicarage housemaid and foresaw financial ruin if they got married, +"they won't help, as I can see, to give _us_ control of the state." + +Dixon told him he must look to the future, to his children, in fact. The +painter threw a forward glance at his children, not yet born; it left +him cold. Anyhow, if he married Nellie they'd probably die young, from +starvation. + +But, in the main, Dixon's discourse on democracy was popular. Dixon was +a popular speaker with working-men; he had the right touch. But squires +did not like him. Captain Ambrose disliked him very much. It was just +democracy, and all this socialism, that was spoiling the country. + +Mr. Delmer ventured to say that he thought the private and domestic +lives of the public ought not to be tampered with. + +"Why not?" enquired Stephen Dixon, and Mr. Delmer had not, at the +moment, an answer ready. "When everything else is being tampered with," +added Dixon. "And surely the more we tamper (if you put it like that) in +the interests of progress, the further removed we are from savages." + +Mr. Delmer looked puzzled for a moment, then committed himself, without +sufficient preliminary thought, to a doubtful statement, "Human love +ought to be free," which raised a cheer. + +"Free love," Dixon returned promptly, "has never, surely, been advocated +by the best thinkers of Church or State," and while Mr. Delmer blushed, +partly at his own carelessness, partly at the delicacy of the subject, +and partly because Pansy Ponsonby was standing at his elbow, Dixon +added, "Love, like anything else, wants regulating, organising, turning +to the best uses. Otherwise, we become, surely, no better than the other +animals...." + +"Isn't he just terribly fierce," observed Pansy in her smiling +contralto, to the world at large. + +Mr. Delmer said uncomfortably, "You mistake me, sir. I was not +advocating lawless love. I am merely maintaining that love--if we must +use the word--should not be shackled by laws relating to things which +are of less importance than itself, such as the cultivation of the +intelligence." + +"_Is_ it of less importance?" Dixon challenged him. + +"The greatest of these three," began the vicar, inaptly, because he was +flustered. + +"Quite so," said Dixon; "but St. Paul, I think, doesn't include +intelligence in his three. St. Paul, I believe, was able enough himself +to know how much ability matters in the progress of religion. And, if we +are to quote St. Paul, he, of course, was no advocate of matrimony, but +I think, when carried out at all, he would have approved of its being +carried out on the best possible principles, not from mere casual +impulse and desire.... Freedom," continued Dixon, with the dreamy and +kindled eye which always denoted with him that he was on a pet topic, +"what _is_ freedom? I beg--I do beg," he added hastily, "that no one +will tell me it is mastery of ourselves. I have heard that before. It is +no such thing. Mastery of ourselves is a fine thing; freedom is, or +would be if anyone ever had such a thing, an absurdity, a monstrosity. +It would mean that there would be nothing, either external or internal, +to prevent us doing precisely what we like. No laws of nature, of +morality, of the State, of the Church, of Society...." + +Dr. Cross caught Kitty's eye behind him. + +"He's off," she murmured. "We must stop him." + +Kitty coughed twice, with meaning. It was a signal agreed upon between +the three when the others thought that the speaker was on the wrong +tack. Dixon recalled himself from Freedom with a jerk, and began to talk +about the coming Mind Training Act. He discoursed upon its general +advantages to the citizen, and concluded by saying that Miss Grammont, a +member of the Ministry of Brains, would now explain to them the Act in +detail, and answer any questions they might wish to put. This Miss +Grammont proceeded to do. And this was the critical moment of the +meeting, for the audience, who desired no Act at all, had to be +persuaded that the Act would be a good Act. Kitty outlined it, thinking +how much weaker both Acts and words sound on village greens than in +offices, which is certainly a most noteworthy fact, and one to be +remembered by all politicians and makers of laws. Perhaps it is the +unappreciative and unstimulating atmosphere of stolid distaste which is +so often, unfortunately, to be met with in villages.... Villages are so +stupid; they will not take the larger view, nor see why things annoying +to them personally are necessary for the public welfare. Kitty wished +she were instead addressing a northern manufacturing town, which would +have been much fiercer but which would have understood more about it. + +She dealt with emphasis on the brighter sides of the Act, i.e. the +clauses dealing with the pecuniary compensation people would receive for +the loss of time and money which might be involved in undergoing the +Training Course, and those relating to exemptions. When she got to the +Tribunals, a murmur of disapproval sounded. + +"They tribunals--we're sick to death of them," someone said. "Look at +the people there are walking about the countryside exempted from the +Marriage Acts, when better men and women has to obey them. The tribunals +were bad enough during the war, everyone knows, but nothing to what they +are now. We don't want any more of those." + +This was an awkward subject, as Captain Ambrose was a reluctant chairman +of the Local Mental Progress Tribunal. He fidgeted and prodded the +ground with his stick, while Kitty said, "I quite agree with you. We +don't. But if there are to be exemptions from the Act, local tribunals +are necessary. You can't have individual cases decided by the central +authorities who know nothing of the circumstances. Tribunals must be +appointed who can be relied on to grant exemptions fairly, on the +grounds specified in the Act." + +She proceeded to enumerate these grounds. One of them was such poverty +of mental calibre that the possessor was judged quite incapable of +benefiting by the course. A look of hope dawned on several faces; this +might, it was felt, be a way out. The applicant, Kitty explained, would +be granted exemption if suffering from imbecility, extreme +feeble-mindedness, any form of genuine mania, acute, intermittent, +chronic, delusional, depressive, obsessional, lethargic.... + +Dixon coughed twice, thinking the subject depressing and too technical +for the audience, and Kitty proceeded to outline the various forms of +exemption which might be held, a more cheerful topic. She concluded, +remembering the Minister's instructions, by drawing an inspiring picture +of the changed aspect life would bear after the mind had been thus +improved; how it would become a series of open doors, of chances taken, +instead of a dull closed house. Everything would be so amusing, so +possible, such fun. And they would get on; they would grow rich; there +would be perpetual peace and progress instead of another great war, +which was, alas, all too possible if the world remained as stupid as it +had been up to the present.... + +Here Kitty's eye lighted unintentionally on her brother Anthony's face, +with the twist of a cynical grin on it, and she collapsed from the +heights of eloquence. It never did for the Grammonts to encounter each +other's eyes when they were being exalted; the memories and experiences +shared by brothers and sisters rose cynically, like rude gamins, to mock +and bring them down. + +Kitty said, "If anyone would like to ask any questions...." and got off +the tub. + +Someone enquired, after the moment of blankness which usually follows +this invitation, what they would be taught, exactly. + +Kitty said there would be many different courses, adapted to differing +requirements. But, in the main, everyone would be taught to use to the +best advantage such intelligence as they might have, in that state of +life to which it might please God to call them. + +"And how," pursued the enquirer, a solid young blacksmith, "will the +teachers know what that may be?" + +Kitty explained that they wouldn't, exactly, of course, but the minds +which took the course would be so sharpened and improved as to tackle +any work better than before. But there would also be forms to be filled +in, stating approximately what was each individual's line in life. + +After another pause a harassed-looking woman at the back said +plaintively, "I'm sure it's all very nice, miss, but it does seem as if +such things might be left to the men. They've more time, as it were. You +see, miss, when you've done out the house and got the children's meals +and put them to bed and cleaned up and all, not to mention washing-day, +and ironing--well, you've not much time left to improve the mind, have +you?" + +It was Dr. Cross who pointed out that, the mind once improved, these +household duties would take, at most, half the time they now did. "I +know that, ma'am," the tired lady returned. "I've known girls who set +out to improve their minds, readin' and that, and their house duties +didn't take them any time at all, and nice it was for their families. +What I say is, mind improvement should be left to the men, who've time +for such things; women are mostly too busy, and if they aren't they +should be." + +Several men said "Hear, hear" to this. Rural England, as Dr. Cross +sometimes remarked, was still regrettably eastern, or German, in its +feminist views, even now that, since the war, so many more thousands of +women were perforce independent wage-earners, and even now that they had +the same political rights as men. Stephen flung forth a few explosive +views on invidious sex distinctions, another pet topic of his, and +remarked that, in the Christian religion, at least, there was neither +male nor female. A shade of scepticism on the faces of several women +might be taken to hint at a doubt whether the Christian religion, in +this or in most other respects, was life as it was lived, and at a +certainty that it was time for them to go home and get the supper. They +began to drift away, with their children round them, gossiping to each +other of more interesting things than Mind Training. For, after all, if +it was to be it was, and where was the use of talking? + + +4 + +It was getting dusk. The male part of the audience also fell away, to +talk in the roads while supper was preparing. Only the vicar was left, +and Captain Ambrose, and Anthony Grammont, and Pansy, who came up to +talk to Kitty. + +"My dear," said Pansy, "I feel absolutely flattened out by your +preacher, with his talk of 'the other animals,' and organised love. Now +Mr. Delmer was sweet to me--he said it ought to be free, an' I know he +doesn't really think so, but only said it for my sake and Tony's. But +your man's terrifyin'. I'm almost frightened to have him sleep at the +End House to-night; I'm afraid he'll set fire to the sheets, he's so +hot. Won't you introduce me?" + +But Dixon was at this moment engaged in talking to the vicar, who, not +to be daunted and brow-beaten by the notorious Stephen Dixon, was +manfully expounding his position to him and Dr. Cross, while Captain +Ambrose backed him up. + +"They may be all night, I should judge from the look of them," said +Kitty, who by now knew her clergyman and her doctor well. "Let's leave +them at it and come home; Tony can bring them along when they're ready." + +The End House had offered its hospitality to all the three Explainers, +and they were spending the night there instead of, as usual, at the +village inn. Kitty and Pansy were overtaken before they reached it by +Anthony and Dr. Cross and Dixon. + +Pansy said, with her sweet, ingratiating smile, "I was sayin' to Kitty, +Mr. Dixon, that you made me feel quite bad with your talk about free +love." + +"I'm sorry," said Dixon, "but it was the vicar who talked of that, not +I. I talked of organised love. I never talk of free love: I don't like +it." + +"I noticed you didn't," said Pansy. "That's just what I felt so bad +about. Mind you, I think you're awfully right, only it takes so much +livin' up to, doesn't it? with things tangled up as they are.... Sure +you don't mind stayin' with us, I suppose?" She asked it innocently, +rolling at him a sidelong glance from her beautiful music-hall eyes. + +Dixon looked at sea. "Mind?..." + +"Well, you might, mightn't you, as ours is free." Then, at his puzzled +stare, "Why, Kitty, you surely told him!" + +"I'm afraid I never thought of it," Kitty faltered. "She means," she +explained, turning to the two guests, "that she and my brother aren't +exactly married, you know. They can't be, because Pansy has a husband +somewhere. They would if they could; they'd prefer it." + +"We'd prefer it," Pansy echoed, a note of wistfulness in her calm voice. +"Ever so much. It's _much_ nicer, isn't it?--as you were sayin'. We +think so too, don't we, old man?" She turned to Anthony but he had +stalked ahead, embarrassed by the turn the conversation was taking. He +was angry with Kitty for not having explained the situation beforehand, +angry with Pansy for explaining it now, and angry with Dixon for not +understanding without explanation. + +"But I do hope," Pansy added to both her guests, slipping on her +courteous and queenly manner, "that you will allow it to make no +difference." + +Dr. Cross said, "Of course not. What do you imagine?" She was a little +worried by the intrusion of these irrelevant domestic details into a +hitherto interesting evening. Pansy's morals were her own concern, but +it was a pity that her taste should allow her to make this awkward +scene. + +But Dixon stopped, and, looking his hostess squarely in the face--they +were exactly of a height--said, "I am sorry, but I am afraid it does +make a difference. I hate being rude, and I am most grateful to you for +your hospitable invitation; but I must go to the inn instead." + +Pansy stared back, and a slow and lovely rose colour overspread her +clear face. She was not used to being rebuffed by men. + +"I'm frightfully sorry," Stephen Dixon repeated, reddening too. "But, +you see, if I slept at your house it would be seeming to acquiesce in +something which I believe it to be tremendously important not to +acquiesce in.... Put it that I'm a prig ... anyhow, there it is.... Will +you apologise for me to your brother?" he added to Kitty, who was +looking on helplessly, conscious that the situation was beyond her. "And +please forgive me--I know it seems unpardonable rudeness." He held out +his hand to Pansy, tentatively. She took it, without malice. Pansy was +not a rancorous woman. + +"That's all right, Mr. Dixon. If you can't swallow our ways, you just +can't, and there's an end of it. Lots of people can't, you know. Good +night. I hope you'll be comfortable." + + +5 + +Kitty looked after him with a whistle. + +"I'm fearfully sorry, Pansy love. I never thought to expatiate +beforehand on Tony and you.... I introduced you as Miss Ponsonby--but I +suppose he never noticed, or thought you were the Cheeper's governess or +something. Who'd have thought he'd take on like that? But you never +know, with the clergy; they're so unaccountable." + +"I'm relieved, a bit," Pansy said. "I was frightened of him, that's a +fact." + +Dr. Cross said, "The queer thing about Stephen Dixon is that you never +know when he'll take a thing in this way and when he won't. I've known +him sit at tea in the houses of the lowest slum criminals--by the way, +that is surely the scriptural line--and I've known him cut in the street +people who were doing the same things in a different way--a sweating +shopowner, for instance. I sometimes think it depends with him on the +size and comfort of the house the criminal lives in, which is too +hopelessly illogical, you'd think, for an intelligent man like him. I +lose my patience with him sometimes, I confess. But anyhow he knows his +own mind." + +"He's gone," Pansy said to Anthony, who was waiting for them at the +gate. "He thinks it's important not to acquiesce in us. So he's gone to +the inn.... By the way, I nearly told him that the innkeeper is leading +a double life too--ever so much worse than ours--but I thought it would +be too unkind, he'd have had to sleep on the green." + +"Well," Anthony said crossly, "we can get on without him. But another +time, darling, I wish you'd remember that there's not the least need to +explain our domestic affairs in the lane to casual acquaintances, even +if they do happen to be spending the night. It's simply not done, you +know! It makes a most embarrassing situation all round. I know you're +not shy, but you might remember that I am." + +"Sorry, old dear," said Pansy. "There's been so much explainin' this +evenin' that I suppose I caught it.... You people," she added to Dr. +Cross and Kitty, "have got awkwarder things to explain than I have. I'd +a long sight rather have to explain free love than love by Act of +Parliament." + +"But on the whole," said the doctor, relieved to have got on to that +subject again after the rather embarrassing interlude of private +affairs, "I thought the meeting this evening not bad. What did you +think, Miss Grammont?" + +"I should certainly," said Kitty, "have expected it to have been worse. +If I had been one of the audience, it would have been." + + +6 + +Some of the subsequent meetings of that campaign, in fact, were. But not +all. On the whole, as Dr. Cross put it, they were not bad. + +"It's a toss-up," said Dixon at the end, "how the country is going to +take this business. There's a chance, a good fighting chance, that they +may rise to the idea and accept it, even if they can't like it. It +depends a lot on how it's going to be worked, and that depends on the +people at the top. And for the people at the top, all one can say is +that there's a glimmer of hope. Chester himself has got imagination; and +as long as a man's got that he may pull through, even if he's head of a +government department.... Of course one main thing is not to make +pledges; they can't be kept; everyone knows they can't be kept, as +situations change, and when they break there's a row.... Another +thing--the rich have got to set the example; they must drop this having +their fun and paying for it, which the poor can't afford. If that's +allowed there'll be revolution. Perhaps anyhow there'll be revolution. +And revolutions aren't always the useful things they ought to be; they +sometimes lead to reaction. Oh, you Brains people have got to be jolly +careful." + +A week later the Mind Training Bill became an Act. It did, in fact, seem +to be a toss-up how the public, that strange, patient, unaccountable +dark horse, were going to take it. That they took it at all, and that +they continued to take the Mental Progress Act, was ascribed by +observant people largely to the queer, growing, and quite peculiar +influence of Nicholas Chester. It was an odd influence for a minister of +the government to have in this country; one would have almost have +supposed him instead a power of the Press, the music-hall stage, or the +cinema world. It behoved him, as Dixon said to be jolly careful. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SIMPLE HUMAN EMOTIONS + + +1 + +During the period which followed the Explanation Campaign, Kitty +Grammont was no longer bored by her work, no longer even merely +entertained. It had acquired a new flavour; the flavour of adventure and +romance which comes from a fuller understanding and a more personal +identification; from, in fact, knowing more about it at first-hand. + +Also, she got to know the Minister better. At the end of August they +spent a week-end at the same country house. They were a party of four, +besides their host's family; a number which makes for intimacy. Their +hostess was a Cambridge friend of Kitty's, their host a man high up in +the Foreign Office, his natural force of personality obscured +pathetically by that apprehensive, defiant, defensive manner habitual +and certainly excusable in these days in the higher officials of that +department and of some of the other old departments; a manner that +always seemed to be saying, "All right, we know we've made the devil of +a mess for two centuries and more, and we know you all want to be rid of +us. But we'd jolly well like to know if you think you could have worked +things any better yourselves. Anyhow, we mean to stick here till we're +chucked out." + +How soon would it be, wondered Kitty, before the officials of the +Ministry of Brains wore that same look? It must come to them; it must +come to all who govern, excepting only the blind, the crass, the +impervious. It must have been worn by the members of the Witan during +the Danish invasions; by Strafford before 1642; by Pharaoh's councillors +when Moses was threatening plagues; by M. Milivkoff before March, 1917; +by Mr. Lloyd George during much of the Great War. + +But it was not worn yet by Nicholas Chester. + + +2 + +He sat down by Kitty after dinner. They did not talk shop, but they were +linked by the strong bond of shop shared and untalked. There was between +them the relationship, unlike any other (for no relationship ever is +particularly like any other) of those who are doing, though on very +different planes, the same work, and both doing it well; the +relationship, in fact, of a government official to his intelligent +subordinates. (There is also the relationship of a government official +to his unintelligent subordinates; this is a matter too painful to be +dwelt on in these pages.) + +But this evening, as they talked, it became apparent to Kitty that, +behind the screen of this relationship, so departmental, so friendly, so +emptied of sex, a relationship quite other and more personal and human, +which had come into embryo being some weeks ago, was developing with +rapidity. They found pleasure in one another this evening as human +beings in the world at large, the world outside ministry walls. That was +rather fun. And next morning Chester asked her to come a walk with him, +and on the walk the new relationship burgeoned like flowers in spring. +They did not avoid shop now that they were alone together; they talked +of the Department, of the new Act, of the efforts of other countries on +the same lines, of anything else they liked. They talked of Russian +politics (a conversation I cannot record, the subject being too +difficult for any but those who have the latest developments under their +eyes, and, indeed, not always quite easy even for them). They talked of +the National Theatre, of animals they had kept and cabinet ministers +they had known; of poets, pictures, and potato puddings; of, in fact, +the things one does talk about on walks. They told each other funny +stories of prominent persons; she told him some of the funny stories +about himself which circulated in the Ministry; he told her about his +experiences when, in order to collect information as to the state of the +intelligence of the country before the ministry was formed, he had +sojourned in a Devonshire fishing village disguised as a fisherman, and +in Hackney Wick disguised as a Jew, and had in both places got the +better of everyone round him excepting only the other Hackney Jews, who +had got the better of him. (It was in consequence of this that +Jews--such Jews as had not yet been forcibly repatriated in the Holy +City--were exempted from the provisions of the Mental Progress Act and +the Mind Training Act. It would be a pity if Jews were to become any +cleverer.) + +It will be seen, therefore, that their conversation was of an ordinary +description, that might take place between any two people of moderate +intelligence on any walk. The things chiefly to be observed about it +were that Chester, a silent person when he was not in the mood to talk, +talked a good deal, as if he liked talking to-day, and that when Kitty +was talking he watched her with a curious, interested, pleased look in +his deep little eyes. + +And that was all, before lunch; the makings, in fact, of a promising +friendship. + +After tea there was more. They sat in a beech wood together, and told +each other stories of their childhoods. He did not, Kitty observed, +mention those of his family who were less intelligent than the rest; no +doubt, with his views on the importance of intellect, he found it too +depressing a subject. And after dinner, when they said good-night, he +held her hand but as long as all might or so very little longer, and +asked if she would dine with him on Thursday. It was the look in his +eyes at that moment which sent Kitty up to bed with the staggering +perception of the dawning of a new and third relationship--not the +official relationship, and not the friendship which had grown out of it, +but something still more simple and human. He, probably, was unaware of +it; the simple human emotions were of no great interest to Nicholas +Chester, whose thoughts ran on other and more complex businesses. One +might surmise that he might fall very deeply in love before he knew +anything much about it. Kitty, on the other hand, would always know, +had, in fact, always known, everything she was doing in that way, as in +most others. She would track the submersion, step by step, amused, +interested, concerned. This way is the best; not only do you get more +out of the affair so, but you need not allow yourself, or the other +party concerned, to be involved more deeply than you think advisable. + +So, safe in her bedroom, standing, in fact, before the looking-glass, +she faced the glimpse of a possibility that staggered her, bringing +mirth to her eyes and a flutter to her throat. + +"Good God!" (Kitty had at times an eighteenth-century emphasis of +diction, following in the steps of the heroines of Jane Austen and Fanny +Burney, who dropped oaths elegantly, like flowers.) "Good God! He begins +to think of me." Then, quickly, followed the thought, to tickle her +further, "Is it right? Is it _convenable_? _Should_ ministers look like +that at their lady clerks? Or does he think that, as he's uncertificated +and no hopes of an outcome can be roused in me, he may look as he +likes?" + +She unhooked her dress, gazing at her reflection with solemn eyes, which +foresaw the potentialities of a remarkable situation. + +But what was, in fact, quite obvious, was that no situation could +possibly be allowed to arise. + +Only, if it did.... Well, it would have its humours. And, after all, +should one turn one's back on life, in whatever curious guise it might +offer itself? Kitty, at any rate, never yet had done this. She had once +accepted the invitation of a Greek brigand at Thermopylæ to show her, +and her alone, his country home in the rocky fastnesses of Velukhi, a +two days' journey from civilisation; she had spent a week-end as +guest-in-chief of a Dervish at Yuzgat; she had walked unattended through +the Black Forest (with, for defence, a walking-stick and a hat-pin) and +she had become engaged to Neil Desmond. Perhaps it was because she was +resourceful and could trust her natural wits to extricate her, that she +faced with temerity the sometimes awkward predicaments in which she +might find herself involved through this habit of closing no door on +life. The only predicament from which she had not, so far, succeeded in +emerging, was her engagement; here she had been baffled by the elusive +quality which defeated her efforts not by resistance but by merely +slipping out of hearing. + +And if this was going to turn into another situation ... well, then, she +would have had one more in her life. But, after all, very likely it +wasn't. + +"Ministers," Kitty soliloquised, glancing mentally at the queer, clever, +humorous face which had looked at her so oddly, "ministers, surely, are +made of harder stuff than that. And prouder. Ministers, surely, even if +they permit themselves to flirt a little with the clerks of their +departments, don't let it get serious. It isn't done. You flatter +yourself, my poor child. Your head has been turned because he laughed +when you tried to be funny, and because, for lack of better company or +thinking your pink frock would go with his complexion, he walked out +with you twice, and because he held your hand and looked into your eyes. +You are becoming one of those girls who think that whenever a man looks +at them as if he liked the way they do their hair, he wants to kiss them +at once and marry them at last...." + + +3 + +"What's amusing you, Kate?" her hostess enquired, coming in with her +hair over her shoulders and her Cambridge accent. + +"Nothing, Anne," replied Kitty, after a meditative pause, "that I can +possibly ever tell you. Merely my own low thoughts. They always were +low, as you'll remember." + +"They certainly were," said Anne. + + +4 + +This chapter, as will by this time have been observed, deals with the +simple human emotions, their development and growth. But it will not be +necessary to enter into tedious detail concerning them. They did +develop; they did grow; and to indicate this it will only be necessary +to select a few outstanding scenes of different dates. + +On September 2nd, which was the Thursday after the week-end above +described, Kitty dined with Chester, and afterwards they went to a +picture palace to see "The Secret of Success," one of their own +propaganda dramas. It had been composed by the bright spirits in the +Propaganda Department of the Ministry, and was filmed and produced at +government expense. The cinematograph, the stage, and the Press were now +used extensively as organs to express governmental points of view; after +all, if you have to have such things, why not make them useful? Chester +smiled sourly over it, but acquiesced. The chief of such organs were of +course the new State Theatre (anticipated with such hope by earnest +drama-lovers for so many years) and the various State cinemas, and the +_Hidden Hand_, the government daily paper; but even over the unofficial +stage and film the shadow of the State lay black. + +The Secret of Success depicted lurid episodes in the careers of two +young men; the contrast was not, as in other drama, between virtue and +vice, but between Intelligence and the Reverse. Everywhere Intelligence +triumphed, and the Reverse was shamed and defeated. Intelligence found +the hidden treasure, covered itself with glory, emerged triumphant from +yawning chasms, flaming buildings, and the most suspicious situations, +rose from obscure beginnings to titles, honours and position, and +finally won the love of a pure and wealthy girl, who jilted the +brainless youth of her own social rank to whom she had previously +engaged herself but who had, in every encounter of wits with his +intelligent rival, proved himself of no account, and who was finally +revealed in a convict's cell, landed there by his conspicuous lack of +his rival's skill in disengaging himself from compromising situations. +Intelligence, with his bride on his arm, visited him in his cell, and +gazed on him with a pitying shake of the head, observing, "But for the +Government Mind Training Course, I might be in your shoes to-day." +Finally, their two faces were thrown on the screen, immense and +remarkable, the one wearing over his ethereal eyes the bar of Michael +Angelo, the other with a foolish, vacant eye and a rabbit mouth that was +ever agape. + +This drama was sandwiched between The Habits of the Kola Bear, and How +his Mother-in-law Came to Stay, and after it Chester and Kitty went out +and walked along the Embankment. + +It was one of those brilliant, moonlit, raidless nights which still +seemed so strange, so almost flat, in their eventlessness. Instinctively +they strained their ears for guns; but they heard nothing but the +rushing of traffic in earth and sky. + + +5 + +"The State," said Chester, "is a great debaucher. It debauches +literature, art, the press, the stage, and the Church; but I don't think +even its worst enemies can say it has debauched the cinema stage.... +What a people we are; good Lord, what a people!" + +"As long as we leave Revue alone, I don't much mind what else we do," +Kitty said. "Revue is England's hope, I believe. Because it's the only +art in which all the forms of expression come in--talking, music, +singing, dancing, gesture--standing on your head if nothing else will +express you at the moment.... I believe Revue is going to be tremendous. +Look how its stupidities and vulgarities have been dropping away from it +lately, this last year has made a new thing of it altogether; it's +beginning to try to show the whole of life as lived.... Oh, we must +leave Revue alone.... I sometimes think it's so much the coming thing +that I can't be happy till I've chucked my job and gone into it, as one +of a chorus. I should feel I was truly serving my country then; it would +be a real thing, instead of this fantastic lunacy I'm involved in +now...." + +At times Kitty forgot she was talking to the Minister who had created +the fantastic lunacy. + +"You can't leave the Ministry," said the Minister curtly. "You can't be +spared." + +Kitty was annoyed with him for suddenly being serious and literal and +even cross, and was just going to tell him she should jolly well leave +the Ministry whenever she liked, when some quality in his abrupt gravity +caught the words from her lips. + +"We haven't got industrial conscription to that extent yet," she merely +said, weakly. + +It was all he didn't say to her in the moment's pause that followed +which was revealing; all that seemed to be forced back behind his +guarded lips. What he did say, presently, was "No, more's the pity. +It'll come, no doubt." + +And, talking of industrial conscription, they walked back. + +What stayed with Kitty was the odd, startled, doubtful look he had given +her in that moment's pause; almost as if he were afraid of something. + + +6 + +Kitty took at this time to sleeping badly; even worse, that is to say, +than usual. In common with many others, she always did so when she was +particularly interested in anyone. She read late, then lay and stared +into the dark, her thoughts turning and twisting in her brain, till, for +the sake of peace, she turned on the light again and read something; +something cold, soothing, remote from life as now lived, like +Aristophanes, Racine, or Bernard Shaw. Attaining by these means to a +more detached philosophy, she would drift at last from the lit stage +where life chattered and gesticulated, and creep behind the wings, and +so find sleep, so little before it was time to wake that she began the +day with a jaded feeling of having been up all night. + +On one such morning she came down to find a letter from Neil Desmond in +its thin foreign envelope addressed in his flat, delicate hand. He wrote +from a Pacific island where he was starting a newspaper for the benefit +of the political prisoners confined there; it was to be called "Freedom" +(in the British Isles no paper of this name would be allowed, but +perhaps the Pacific Island censorship was less strict) and he wanted +Kitty to come and be sub-editor.... + +Kitty, instead of lunching out that day, took sandwiches to the office +and spent the luncheon-hour breaking off her engagement again. The +reason why Neil never got these letters was the very reason which +impelled her to write them--the lack of force about him which made his +enterprises so ephemeral, and kept him ever moving round the spinning +world to try some new thing. + +Force. How important it was. First Brains, to perceive and know what +things we ought to do, then Power, faithfully to fulfil the same. In +another twenty or thirty years, perhaps the whole British nation would +be full of both these qualities, so full that the things in question +really would get done. And then what? Kitty's mind boggled at the answer +to this. It might be strangely upsetting.... + +She stamped her letter and lit a cigarette. The room, empty but for her, +had that curious, flat, dream-like look of arrested activity which +belongs to offices in the lunch hour. If you watch an office through +that empty hour of suspension you may decipher its silent, patient, +cynical comment (slowly growing into distinctness like invisible ink) on +the work of the morning which has been, and of the afternoon which is to +be. Kitty watched it, amused, then yawned and read _Stop It_, the newest +weekly paper. It was a clever paper, for it had succeeded so far (four +numbers) in not getting suppressed, and also in not committing itself +precisely to any direct statement as to what it wanted stopped. It was +produced by the Stop It Club, and the government lived in hopes of +discovering one day, by well-timed police raids on the Club premises, +sufficient lawless matter to justify it in suppressing both the Club and +the paper. For Dora had recently been trying to retrieve her character +in the eyes of those who blackened it, and was endeavouring to act in a +just and temperate manner, and only to suppress those whose guilt was +proven. Last Sunday, for instance, a Stop It procession had been allowed +to parade through the city with banners emblazoned with the ambiguous +words. There were, of course, so many things that, it was quite obvious, +should be stopped; the command might have been addressed to those of the +public who were grumbling, or to the government who were giving them +things to grumble at; to writers who were producing books, journalists +producing papers, parliaments producing laws, providence producing the +weather, or the agents of any other regrettable activity at the moment +in progress. Indeed, the answer to the enquiry "Stop what?" might so +very plausibly be "Stop it all," that it was a profitless question. + +It was just after two that the telephone on Prideaux's table rang. +(Kitty was working in Prideaux's room now.) "Hullo," said a voice in +answer to hers, "Mr. Prideaux there? Or anyone else in his room I can +speak to? The Minister speaking." + +Not his P.S. nor his P.A., but the Minister himself; an unusual, hardly +seemly occurrence, due, no doubt, to lunch-time. Kitty was reminded of a +story someone had told her of a pert little office flapper at one end of +a telephone, chirping, "Hullo, who is it?" and the answer, slow, +dignified, and crushing, from one of our greater peers--"Lord +Blankson ..." (pause) "HIMSELF." + +"Mr. Prideaux isn't in yet," said Kitty. "Can I give him a message?" + +There was a moment's pause before the Minister's voice, somehow grown +remote, said, "No, thanks, it's all right. I'll ring him up later." + +He rang off abruptly. (After all, how can one ring off in any other +way?) He had said, "Or anyone else in his room I can speak to," as if he +would have left a message with any chance clerk; but he had not, +apparently, wished to hold any parley with her, even over the telephone, +which though it has an intimacy of its own (marred a little by a +listening exchange) is surely a sufficiently remote form of intercourse. +But it seemed that he was avoiding her, keeping her at a distance, +ringing her off; his voice had sounded queer, abrupt, embarrassed, as if +he was shy of her. Perhaps he had thought things over and perceived that +he had been encouraging one of his clerks to step rather too far out of +her position; perhaps he was afraid her head might be a little turned, +that she might think he was seeking her out.... + +Kitty sat on the edge of Prideaux's table and swore softly. She'd jolly +well show him she thought no such thing. + +"These great men," she said, "are insufferable." + + +7 + +When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero was +full, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something went +wrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably on +the top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy moment +the Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don't +protrude the tongue," and then the crash came. + +They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid a +crowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one was +much hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, against +these catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her head +and to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when she +recovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her and +whispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh God." + +"Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lot +more than that." + +His strained face relaxed. "That's all right, then," he said. + +"I'm dining in Hampstead in about ten minutes," said Kitty. "I must get +the tube at Leicester Square." + +"A taxi," said the Minister, "would be better. Here is a taxi. I shall +come too, in case there is another mischance, which you will hardly be +fit for alone at present." He mopped his mouth. + +"You have bitten your tongue," said Kitty, "in spite of all you said +about not protruding it." + +"It was while I was saying it," said the Minister, "that the contact +occurred. Yes. It is painful." + +They got into the taxi. The Minister, with his scarlet-stained +handkerchief to his lips, mumbled, "That was a very disagreeable shock. +You were very pale. I feared the worst." + +"The worst," said Kitty, "always passes me by. It always has. I am like +that." + +"I am not," he said. "I am not. I have bitten my tongue and fallen in +love. Both bad things." + +He spoke so indistinctly that Kitty was not sure she heard him rightly. + +"And I," she said, "only feel a little sick.... No, don't be anxious; it +won't develop." + +The Minister looked at her as she powdered her face before the strip of +mirror. + +"I wouldn't put that on," he advised her. "You are looking too pale, +already." + +"Quite," said Kitty. "It's pink powder, you see. It will make me feel +more myself." + +"You need nothing," he told her gravely. "You are all right as you are. +It is fortunate that it is you and not I who are going out to dinner. I +couldn't talk. I can't talk now. I can't even tell you what I feel about +you." + +"Don't try," she counselled him, putting away her powder-puff and not +looking at him. + +He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at her with his +pained-humorist's face and watchful eyes. + +"I expect you know I've fallen in love with you?" he mumbled. "I didn't +mean to; in fact, I've tried not to, since I began to notice what was +occurring. It's excessively awkward. But ... I have not been able to +avoid it." + +Kitty said "Oh," and swallowed a laugh. One didn't laugh when one was +receiving an avowal of love, of course. She felt giddy, and seas seemed +to rush past her ears. + +"There are a good many things to talk about in connection with this," +said the Minister. "But it is no use talking about them unless I first +know what you feel about it--about me, that is. Will you tell me, if you +don't mind?" + +He asked it gently, considerately, almost humbly. Kitty, who did mind +rather, said "Oh," again, and lay back in her corner. She still felt a +little dizzy, and her head ached. It is not nice having to say what one +feels; one would rather the other person did it all. But this is not +fair or honourable. She remembered this and pulled herself together. + +"I expect," she said, swinging her glasses by their ribbon, cool and yet +nervous, "I expect I feel pretty much the same as you do about it." + +After a moment's pause he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much for +telling me. Then it is of use talking about it. Only not now, because +I'm afraid we're just getting there. And to-morrow I am going to a +conference at Leeds. I don't think I can wait till the day after. May I +call for you to-night and we'll drive back together?" + +"Yes," said Kitty, and got out of the taxi. + + +8 + +When they were in it again they comported themselves for a little while +in the manner customary on these occasions, deriving the usual amount of +pleasurable excitement therefrom. + +Then the Minister said, "Now we must talk. All is not easy about our +situation." + +"Nothing is easy about it," said Kitty. "In fact, we're in the demon of +a mess." + +He looked at her, biting his lips. + +"You know about me, then? That I'm uncertificated? But of course you do. +It is, I believe, generally known. And it makes the position exactly +what you say. It means ..." + +"It means," said Kitty, "that we must get over this unfortunate +passion." + +He shook his head, with a shrug. + +"One can, you know," said Kitty. "I've been in and out before--more than +once. Not so badly, perhaps, but quite badly enough. You too, probably?" + +"Yes. Oh, yes," he admitted gloomily. "But it wasn't like this. Neither +the circumstances, nor the--the emotion." + +Kitty said, "Probably not. Why should it be? Nothing ever is exactly +like anything else, luckily.... By the way, when did you begin to take +notice of me? Don't worry, if you can't remember." + +He thought for a minute, then shook his head. + +"I'm bad at these things. Didn't we meet at Prideaux's one night in the +spring? I observed you then; I remember you amused me. But I don't think +the impression went deep.... Then--oh, we met about a good deal one way +and another--and I suppose it grew without my noticing it. And then came +that week-end, and that did the trick as far as I was concerned. I knew +what I was doing after that, and I tried to stop it, but, as you see, I +have failed. This evening I told you, I suppose, under the influence of +shock.... I am not sorry. It is worth it, whatever comes of it." + +"Nothing can come of it," said Kitty. "Not the least thing at all. +Except being friends. And you probably won't want that. Men don't." + +"No," he said. "I don't want it at all. But I suppose I must put up with +it." He began to laugh, with his suppressed, sardonic laughter, and +Kitty laughed too. + +"We're fairly hoist with our own petard, aren't we?" he said. "Think of +the scandal we might make, if we did what we chose now.... I believe it +would be the _coup de grâce_ for the Brains Ministry." He stated a +simple fact, without conceit. + +"It's a rotten position," he continued moodily. "But there it is.... And +you're A, aren't you? You'll have to marry someone, eventually. If only +you were B2 or 3--only then you wouldn't be yourself. As it is, it would +be criminally immoral of me to stand in your way. The right thing, I +suppose, would be for us to clear out of each other's way and give each +other a chance to forget. _The right thing...._ Oh damn it all, I'm as +bad as the most muddle-headed fool in the country, who doesn't care +_that_ for the right thing if it fights against his individual impulses +and desires.... I suppose moralists would say here's my chance to bear +my witness, to stand by my own principles and show the world they're +real.... They _are_ real, too; that's the mischief of it. I still am +sure they matter more than anything else; but just now they bore me. I +suppose this is what a moral and law-abiding citizen feels when he falls +in love with someone else's wife.... What are you laughing at now?" + +"You," said Kitty. "This is the funniest conversation.... Of course it's +a funny position--it's straight out of a comic opera. What a pity +Gilbert and Sullivan didn't think of it; they'd have done it +beautifully.... By the way, I don't think I shall be marrying anyone +anyhow, so you needn't worry about that. I've broken off my last +engagement--at least I've done my best to; it became a bore. I don't +really like the idea of matrimony, you know; it would be too much of a +tie and a settling down. Yes, all right, I know my duty to my country, +but my duty to myself comes first.... So there's no harm, from my point +of view, in our going on seeing each other and taking each other out and +having as good a time as we can in the circumstances. Shall we try that +way, and see if it works?" + +"Oh, we'll try," he said, and took her again in his arms. "It's all we +can get, so we'll take it ... my dear." + +"I think it's a good deal," said Kitty. "It will be fun.... You know, +I'm frightfully conceited at your liking me--I can't get used to it yet; +you're so important and superior. It isn't every day that a Minister of +a Department falls in love with one of his clerks. It isn't really done, +you know, not by the best Ministers." + +"Nor by the best clerks," he returned. "We must face the fact that we +are not the best people." + +"And here's my flat. Will you come in and have something? There's only +my cousin here, and she's never surprised; her own life is too odd." + +"I think it would be inadvisable," said the Minister discreetly. "'We +don't want to coddle our reputations, but we may as well keep an eye on +them.'" + +On that note of compromise they parted. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BREAKING POINT + + +1 + +It was six months later: in fact, April. It was a Saturday afternoon, +and many people were going home from work, including Kitty Grammont and +Ivy Delmer, who were again in the Bakerloo tube, on their way to +Marylebone for Little Chantreys. + +The same types of people were in the train who had been in it on the +Monday morning in May which is described in the opening chapter of this +work. The same types of people always are in tube trains (except on the +air-raid nights of the Great War, when a new and less self-contained +type was introduced). But they were the same with a difference: it was +as if some tiny wind had stirred and ruffled the face of sleeping +waters. In some cases the only difference was a puzzled, half-awakened, +rather fretful look, where had been peace. This was to be observed in +the faces of the impassive shopping women. Still they sat and gazed, but +with a difference. Now and then a little shiver of something almost like +a thought would flicker over the calm, observing, roving eyes, which +would distend a little, and darken with a faint annoyance and fear. Then +it would pass, and leave the waters as still as death again; but it had +been there. And it was quite certain there were fewer of these +ruminating ladies. Some had perhaps died of the Mind Training Course, of +trying to use their brains. (They say that some poor unfortunates who +have never known the touch of soap and water on their bodies die of +their first bath on being brought into hospital: so these.) Some who had +been in the ruminating category six months ago were now reading papers. +Some others, who still gazed at their fellows, gazed in a different +manner; they would look intently at someone for half a minute, then look +away, and their lips would move, and it was apparent that they were, not +saying their prayers, but trying to repeat to themselves every detail of +what they had seen. For this was part of the Government Mind Training +Course (observation and accuracy). And one large and cow-like lady with +a shopping-bag containing circulating library books and other +commodities said to her companion, in Kitty Grammont's hearing, two +things that accorded strangely with her aspect. + +"I couldn't get anything worth reading out of the library to-day--they +hadn't got any of the ones I'd ordered. These look quite silly, I'm +sure. There aren't many good books written, do you think?" + +Doubtful she was, and questioning: but still, she had used the word +"good" and applied it to a book, as she might have to butter, or a +housemaid, or a hat, implying a possible, though still dimly discerned, +difference between one book and another. And presently she said a +stranger thing. + +"What," she enquired, "do you think about the state of things between +Bavaria and Prussia? Relations to-day seemed more strained than ever, I +thought." + +Her companion could not be said to rise to this; she replied merely +(possibly having a little missed the drift of the unusual question) that +in her view relations were very often a nuisance, and exhausting. So the +subject was a little diverted; it went off, in fact, on to +sisters-in-law; but still it had been raised. + +Beyond these ladies sat another who looked as if she had obtained +exemption from the Mind Training Course on the ground that her mind (if +any) was not susceptible of training; and beyond her sat a little typist +eating chocolates and reading the _Daily Mirror_. Last May she had been +reading "The love he could not buy"; this April she was reading "How to +make pastry out of nuts." Possibly by Christmas she might be reading +"Which way shall I Vote and Why?" + +Ivy Delmer, next her, was reading the notices along the walls. Between +"Ask Mr. Punch into your home" and "Flee from the wrath to come" there +was a gap, where a Safety if Possible notice had formerly offered the +counsel "Do not sit down in the street in the middle of the traffic or +you may get killed." A month ago this had been removed. It had, +apparently, been decided by the Safety if Possible Council that the +public had at last outgrown their cruder admonitions. The number of +street accidents was, in fact, noticeably on the decline. It seemed as +if people were learning, slowly and doubtfully, to connect cause and +effect. A was learning why he would be killed, B why he would not. Ivy +Delmer noticed the gap on the wall, and wondered what would take its +place. Perhaps it would be another text; but texts were diminishing in +frequency; one seldom saw one now. More likely it would be an +exhortation to Take a Holiday in the Clouds, or Get to Watford in five +minutes by Air (and damn the risk). + +Ivy, as she had a year ago, looked round at the faces of her +fellow-travellers--mostly men and girls going home from business. Quite +a lot of young men there were in these days; enough, you'd almost think, +for there to be one over for Ivy to marry some day.... Ivy sighed a +little. She hoped rather that this would indeed prove to be so, but +hoped without conviction. After all, few girls could expect to get +married in these days. She supposed that if she married at all, she +ought to take a cripple, or a blind one, and keep him. She knew that +would be the patriotic course; but how much nicer it would be to be +taken by a whole one and get kept! She looked at the pale, maimed young +men round her, and decided that they didn't, mostly, look like keeping +anyone at all, let alone her; they were too tired. The older men looked +more robust; but older men are married. Some of them looked quite +capable and pleased with themselves, as if they were saying, "What have +I got out of it, sir? Why, £100 more per annum, more self-confidence, +and a clearer head." + +There was also a brilliant-looking clergyman, engaged probably in +reforming the Church; but clergymen are different, one doesn't marry +them. Altogether, not a hopeful collection. + +The train got to Marylebone pretty quickly, because it had almost +abandoned its old habit of stopping half-way between every two stations. +No one had ever quite known why it had done this in the past, but, with +the improvement in the brains of the employees of the electric railways, +the custom had certainly gradually decreased. + +Marylebone too had undergone a change: there was rather less running +hither and thither, rather less noise, rather less smoke, and the clock +was more nearly right. Nothing that would strike the eye of anyone who +was not looking for signs, but little manifestations which made the +heart, for instance, of Nicholas Chester stir within him with +satisfaction when he came that way, or the way of any other station +(excepting only the stations of the South Eastern line, the directors +and employees of which had been exempted in large numbers from the Mind +Training Act by the Railway Executive Committee, as not being likely to +profit by the course). + +Certainly the train to Little Chantreys ran better than of old, and with +hardly any smoke. Someone had hit on a way of reducing the smoke +nuisance; probably of, eventually, ending it altogether. Kitty Grammont +and Ivy Delmer found themselves in the same compartment, and talked at +intervals on the journey. Ivy thought, as she had thought several times +during the last few months, that Kitty looked prettier than of old, and +somehow more radiant, more lit up. They talked of whether you ought to +wear breeches as near to town as West Ealing, and left it unsettled. +They talked of where you could get the best chocolates for the least +money, and of what was the best play on just now. They talked of the +excess of work in the office at the present moment, caused by the new +Instruction dealing with the exemption of journalists whose mental +category was above B2. (This was part of the price which had to be paid +by the Brains Ministry for the support of the press, which is so +important.) They began to talk, at least Ivy did, of whether you can +suitably go to church with a dog in your muff; and then they got to +Little Chantreys. + + +2 + +Ivy found her parents in the garden, weeding the paths. Jane and John +were playing football, and Jelly was trotting a lonely trail round the +domains in a character apparently satisfactory to himself but which +would have been uncertain to an audience. + +"Well, dear," said the vicar, looking up at Ivy from his knees. The +vicarage had not yet adopted the new plan of destroying weeds by +electricity; they had tried it once, but the electricity had somehow +gone astray and electrified Jelly instead of the weeds, so they had +given it up. The one-armed soldier whom they employed as gardener +occasionally pulled up a weed, but not often, and he was off this +afternoon anyhow, somewhat to the Delmers' relief. Of course one must +employ disabled soldiers, but the work gets on quicker without them. + +"Have you had a hard day, darling?" enquired Mrs. Delmer, busy +scrabbling with a fork between paving-stones. + +"Rather," said Ivy, and sat down on the wheel-barrow. "The Department's +frightfully rushed just now.... Mr. Prideaux says the public is in a +state of unrest. It certainly seems to be, from the number of grumbling +letters it writes us.... You're looking tired, Daddy." + +"A little, dear." The vicar got up to carry away his basket of weeds to +the bonfire. Mrs. Delmer said, "Daddy's had a worrying time in the +parish. Two more poor little abandoned babies." + +"Where were they left this time?" Ivy asked with interest. + +"One at the Police Station, with a note to say the government had driven +the parents to this; the other just outside our garden door, with no +note at all, but I suppose it's the same old story. We've no clue to +either yet; they're not from Little Chantreys, of course, but I suppose +we shall trace them in time. Daddy's been making enquiries among the +village people; none of them will say, if they know, but Daddy says +they're all in a sad state of anger and discontent about the Baby Laws; +he thinks they're working up worse every day. There's so much talk of +different laws for rich and poor. Of course when people say that, what +they always mean is that it's the same law for both, and ought to be +different. Even that isn't true, of course, in this case, as the taxes +are in proportion to the income; but it certainly does come very hard on +the poor. Daddy thinks it his duty to preach about it again to-morrow, +and that worries him, because he may get arrested and fined. But he +feels it's right. He thinks the country is in real danger of risings and +revolts if this goes on. He says the Stop It League is doing its best to +stir up rebellion, and that would be _such_ a calamity. And all these +poor little babies abandoned or disowned all over the country; it goes +to one's heart.... Don't talk about it, darling, it worries Daddy so.... +And poor Brown is _so_ little use with the vegetable garden. His Mind +Training Course seems really to have quite upset him; he talks and looks +so strangely now. And Daddy's worried about Mr. Hawtrey" (the curate), +"who's joined the Church Improvement Society and has become dreadfully +restless, and keeps saying Daddy ought to join it too." + +Mrs. Delmer sighed, and changed the subject, as the vicar came back, to +the amount of blossom there was on the white-heart cherry. + +Ivy went indoors. She went up to the room she shared with Betty. Betty +was there, staining a straw hat with Jackson's nut-brown hat-polish. + +Ivy said, "A nice mess you're making. I should think you might remember +it's my room as well as yours," and Betty said, "Socks." From which it +may be inferred that these sisters, good-humoured in the main to others, +were frequently short-tempered to one another. + +Ivy said next, opening a drawer, "I won't stand it. You've been pinching +my handkerchiefs." + +Betty replied absently, and as if from habit rather than from +reflection, "Haven't been near your old drawer." + +"Liar. There were twelve here this morning and now there are only ten. +I've told you before I won't stand having my things pinched. If you're +too slack to earn enough to keep yourself in handkerchiefs, you must do +without, that's all." + +"I suppose you'd rather I'd used my sleeve at the Whites' tennis this +morning, wouldn't you?" + +"_I_ shouldn't care if you had.... Tennis in the morning's a pretty +rotten idea anyhow, if you ask me. You're the biggest slacker I ever +came across. If I was Daddy I wouldn't keep you eating your head off, +even if you aren't clever. You're going on like a girl before the war. +Your Training Course doesn't seem to have done you the slightest good, +either. It's people like you who'll rot up the whole plan." + +"It's rot anyhow," Betty returned, without interest, turning her hat +about critically. "You should just hear the way they're all going on +about it in the village. Stuff and nonsense, I call it. And as long as +people like me and the village--normal, ordinary people--think it's +stuff and nonsense, ... well, it _will_ be stuff and nonsense, that's +all." + +"People like you," Ivy retorted witheringly, as she changed her skirt +for her country breeches. + +But, after all, that retort didn't dispose of Betty, or the people like +Betty ... or the whole vicarage family ... or most of Little +Chantreys.... Those people, after all, were going to take more disposing +of than that.... They were, quite possibly, going to take more disposing +of than anyone yet knew. + +"Silly ass," said Ivy, but with a touch of doubt. + +She thought her new green breeches were rather nice, anyhow, and that +seemed to matter more. + + +3 + +Kitty found her brother Cyril at the End House. Cyril was in a poor way. +His publishing business was on the edge of bankruptcy. + +"So much for your abominable Brains Ministry," he complained. "The mass +of safe, mediocre stuff on which publishers count for a living while +they adventure with the risks is being gradually withdrawn. It simply +doesn't come in. Its producers are becoming--many of them--just too +intelligent. I'm not imagining this; I know of several cases in which it +has happened; of people who have developed just enough distaste for +their own work to dry them up altogether. What's worse, there isn't the +same sale for such stuff as there was. When the process has gone much +further (if ever it does)--so far that a lot of really good stuff is +turned out, and read by large numbers of people, business will be all +right again. Till then, publishers are in a poor way.... Verse is +dropping off, too, like autumn leaves. That's all to the good.... I +daresay in another year or two (unless you're wrecked first, which seems +probable, by the way) there'll only be about a hundred people left in +the country writing anything at all.... Newspapers, of course, go on +much the same; that's because you're afraid of them and exempt their +staff. Insignificant verse and meaningless novels may die a natural +death (though I think it improbable), but _Myosotis_ and the _Patriot_ +and the _Daily Idiot_ will go on for ever. You're all such cowards at +Whitehall. You dare to ruin unoffending publishers, to browbeat the poor +and simple, and to extract gold from the innocent babe unborn, but you +daren't risk the favour of the press." + +"No," Kitty agreed. "We certainly daren't.... Not that we've got it, you +know, quite the contrary; but we strive for it. I was reading the +_Herald_ and _Stop It_ in the train, till I was cold with fear. _Stop +It_ veils its meaning delicately, as usual; but it means business.... +However, I thought we should have been downed six months ago, yet here +we are still. It's like skating on rotten ice so fast that it never +breaks. It's fun; it's exciting. And I believe if we go on skating fast, +it won't break at all. You see, the government are getting cleverer and +cleverer themselves, which will help them to do it skilfully. Chester +says his head really does feel clearer after taking the Course; he says +so in private life, I mean, not only when he's soft-soaping the public." + +"He'll need," said Anthony, "a jolly clear head before he's through with +this job. With every door-step in our towns and villages piled with +exposed babies ... it's worse than China. Much worse, because I believe +in China they don't get put on door-steps, but left harmlessly out of +the way in open fields and no one meddles with them. It's becoming a +public nuisance." + +"There is a new branch at the Ministry," said Kitty, "which is concerned +exclusively with Uncertificated Babies, how to deal with them." + +"An' how _do_ they deal with them, the poor little ducks?" enquired +Pansy, who had just come in from the garden looking more than usually +gay and lovely and fantastic in a pink sunbonnet and the kind of dress +affected by milkmaids in a chorus. + +Kitty looked at her thoughtfully. + +"I should hardly like to tell you. You mightn't like it. Besides, it's a +private department, like the secret room in jam factories where they +make the pips. No, Pansy love, I can't possibly tell you.... But they +_do_ deal with them, quite effectively." + +Pansy tossed her Cheeper up and down to a gentle music-hall ditty. + + "Who'll buy babies-- + Babies better dead? + Here's every mental category, + From C3 down to Z...." + +It was a taking song as she crooned it on the stage, nursing an infant +on each arm, and with a baby-chorus crying behind her. + + +4 + +After breakfast on Sunday morning Kitty remarked that she was going by +train to Beaconsfield, where she had arranged to meet Chester for a walk +through Burnham Beeches. She as a rule made no secret of her walks with +Chester, only occasionally, when self-consciousness took her. After all, +why should she? One went walks with all sorts of people, with any man or +woman who liked walking and talking and whom one liked as a companion; +it implied nothing. Kitty at times, with all it meant in this instance +burning and alive in her consciousness, had to pause to tell herself how +little it did imply to others, how she might mention it freely and +casually, without fear. Yet might she? The intimacy of the Minister of a +Department with one of his clerks _was_, no doubt, out of the ordinary, +not quite like other intimacies; perhaps it did seem odd, and imply +things. Perhaps Kitty might have thought so herself, in another case. + +She announced her plan this morning with an extra note of casualness in +her voice. + +Pansy said, "Oh, you two. You'll be goin' baby-huntin' in the ditches, I +should think, instead of pickin' primroses. I should say you jolly well +ought, and you'd better take the Cheeper's pram with you." + +Anthony said, "Exactly what I always try _not_ to do, going out on +Sundays with the people from my shop. It spoils the Sabbath rest, the +Pisgah's mountain touch. You'd much better come out with Cyril and Pansy +and me." + +"I," said Cyril, in his detached manner, "shall be going to Mass." + + +5 + +They walked up through the depraved mushroom growth round Beaconsfield +station to the old town that city set on a hill, lying wide and +spacious, with its four Ends stretched out like a cross. Old +Beaconsfield is an enchanted city; as it was in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, so it is to-day, an ancient country town, full of +brick walls and old houses, and courtyards and coaching inns, and +dignity and romance and great elms. But they left it behind them, and +took the lane that runs to Hedgerley, with the cold April wind in their +faces. + +They came, four miles on, to the forest of great beeches, where broad +glades and grassy rides run in and out through thickets of wild +undergrowth and bracken, and ancient twisted boles and slim smooth +grey-green stems are set close together under a rustling singing roof of +brilliant green, the young, new-born, radiant green of beeches in April. +In every hollow and dip of the forest's mossy floor, primroses glimmered +in pale pools. + +They sat down by one of these pools to have their lunch. + +After lunch they lay on there and smoked. Chester lay on his back, his +hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the green roof. Kitty, her +round chin cupped in her two hands, lay and watched his lean, sallow, +clever face, foreshortened, with the shadows of the leaves moving on it +and his eyes screwed against the sun. + +"Kitty," said Chester presently, "I want to talk to you." + +"M--m." Kitty, having finished her cigarette, was chewing grass. + +He sat up and looked at her, and as he looked his face grew more sallow +and his smile died. He stabbed into the soft, damp earth with his stick, +and frowned. + +"It's this, my dear. I can't go on any longer with this--this farce. We +must end it. I've been meaning to tell you so for some time, but I +thought I'd give it a fair trial, just to satisfy us both. Well, we've +given it a trial, and it won't work. It isn't good enough. We've got to +be more to each other--or less. This--this beastly half-way house was +all right for a bit; but we've got on too far now for it.... I should +like to know what _you_ think about it." + +Kitty pulled a primrose to pieces, petal by petal, before she answered. + +"One thing I think," she said slowly, "is that I'm different from you. +Or is it that women are different from men? Never mind; it doesn't +really matter which. But I fancy it's women and men. Anyhow there it is. +And the difference is that for me a half-way house would always be +better than nothing, while for you it would be worse. Men seem to value +being married so much more than women do--and friendship, going about +together, having each other to talk to and play with, and all that, +seems to matter to them so little. Love seems to take different forms +with men and women, and to want different ways of expression.... So it's +not much use trying to understand one another about it.... That's the +chief thing I think, Nicky." + +He moved impatiently. + +"In fact, you're contented with the present state of things." + +"Oh, no. Not a bit. I want much more. But--if it's all we can have...." + +"It isn't," he said. "We can get married." + +She shook her head, with decision. + +"No. No. No." + +"Quite quietly," he pleaded. "No one would know but ourselves and the +registrar and a witness whom we'd murder after the ceremony. Why +shouldn't we? What are the reasons why not? There are only two; you +ought to marry a certificated person and have an intelligent family; and +I oughtn't to have a family at all. Well, you say you don't mean to +marry anyone else; so you may as well marry me. So much for the first +reason. And of course we wouldn't have a family; so much for the second. +Well, then?" + +"There's a third," said Kitty. "And the only important one. There's the +look of the thing. I don't care how many people we murder, the secret +will leak out. Things always do leak out. Never, in the course of +twenty-nine years of endeavour, have I been able to keep anything shady +from coming to light sooner or later. It isn't done. You ought to know +that, as a government servant. Has any government ever succeeded in +keeping its own dark doings secret for long? No; they come out +like--like flowers pushing up towards daylight; and then there's the +devil to pay. All our shadiest departmental transactions emerge one by +one; nothing is hid that shall not be revealed. And our marriage would +be the same. Be sure our sin would find us out. And that would be the +end of your career, and probably of the Ministry as well; I believe the +Ministry will stand or fall with you; and it's already pretty +tottery.... It's a pity you can't get exemption; but of course your case +is one in which it's absolutely never given.... No, we can't do this +thing. You're the Minister of Brains first, and poor Nicky Chester, who +would like to marry his girl, a long, long way behind. And the poor girl +who would like to marry Nicky Chester--she's not got to count at all.... +I don't want to be high-falutin and to talk about principles, only to +have a little sense." + +He was watching her moodily from under bent brows, leaning back against +a beech-trunk and pulling up little handfuls of damp moss with his thin, +unusual fingers. + +"Sense," he repeated. "It is sense, to have what one wants, if it +doesn't harm anything or anyone. And I'll tell you another thing--not +having it is rotting me up altogether--me and my work. I didn't want to +fall in love again; I hoped I'd done with all that; I tried not to take +any notice of you. But it was no go, and I can't fall out again, and I'm +dead sick of going on like this. And my experience of life, both private +and public, has been longer than yours, and, as it happens, I've known +of several transactions which haven't come to light and never will; I've +perpetrated some myself in the Ministry, which even that clear light +which beats upon a hotel hasn't yet exposed, and, heaven helping us, +won't. You don't suppose all the dark secrets of the war ever came out? +Of course they didn't. There are some that will wait till ... well, till +the next war, let's say.... Kitty, let's try it. It's worth the risk, +surely. Let's be sporting. We're missing--we're missing the best thing +in the world, just out of funk. I thought you always did things, just +for the sake of doing them. I thought you never turned your back on +life. It isn't like you." + +"Oh," murmured Kitty. "Life.... There's so much of that. This is just +one thing out of it." + +"While you want it," he returned, indubitably correct as to this, "it +seems a long way the most important thing." + +"It does," she agreed. "There's no comparison at all.... It's queer, +isn't it, how strong it is, this odd, desperate wanting of one person +out of all the world. It's an extraordinary, enormously strong thing.... +But there _are_ other things. There are jokes, and shops, and music, and +plays, and pictures, and nice clothes, and Russian politics, and absurd +people, and Greek poetry, and the world's failures caged together on one +island, and things to eat and to drink, and our careers, and primroses +in woods, and the censor.... Good gracious, it's all like an idiotic, +glorified revue. We mustn't let the one thing, just because it matters +most, matter alone. It's so commonplace. Our hearts aren't broken, and +won't break. We're out to have a good time, and we'll let love and +marriage go to the--anywhere they like, if we can't have them.... By the +way, if it's any comfort to you (it is to me) I shouldn't make at all a +good wife; I'm much nicer as a friend. I want too much out of life. I'm +grasping and selfish. You'd find me tiring." + +"I do," he returned. "You're tiring me to death now. I've plenty of +friends already, thank you. And what does it matter to me what sort of a +wife you'd make? You talk as if you were refusing a secretarial +appointment. I want _you_, not a wife." + +"You've got me," said Kitty, "only not as a wife.... If that's no use to +you, we'll give it up. Nicky, I suppose we'd _better_ give it up. It +isn't working. I'll go right away. I'll get another job." + +"No," he said gloomily. "There's no need for that. Why should you mess +up your career? We needn't meet. We shouldn't naturally meet, unless we +made opportunities. I think you're right, that we'd better not meet. +What's the good of meeting, just to repeat this sort of scene again and +again, and hurt each other? We've reached the breaking point; I can't +bear any more.... I think we'd better leave it that you let me know when +you change your mind and will marry me. You will, won't you, when you +do?" + +"Yes," said Kitty, and could say no more than that because she was on +the edge of tears. + +For a moment they clung together, holding each other close. He said, "My +dearest dear, I love you. Can't you?... can't you?..." and she +whispered, very pale, "I love you. I think I worship you," and laid her +cheek on his hand, so that he felt her tears. + +They walked on together through the April afternoon, and it cried to +them like a child whom they were betraying and forsaking. There would +not be another day like this day, through all the lovely awakening +spring and summer. + + +6 + +Ivy and Betty Delmer, who had been spending the afternoon at +Beaconsfield, saw them at Beaconsfield station. + +Betty said, "Surely that's your Minister with Miss Grammont." + +Ivy looked at them, down the length of the platform. It seemed to her +that Miss Grammont's walk with the Minister hadn't been altogether a +success; they both looked so pale and tired, and Miss Grammont, surely, +had been crying. + +Something suddenly passed into Ivy's consciousness about these two +people whom she admired, and her soft mouth dropped open a little with +the amazement of her thoughts. The Minister--and Miss Grammont! It was +surely incredible. Ministers didn't; they were too high, too superior. +Besides, what had love to do with this Minister, who was uncertificated +for matrimony? Ivy told herself she was mistaken, she had misread the +look with which they had looked at each other as they parted. + +"Are they thick?" Betty was asking, with careless, inquisitive interest. +Betty wouldn't think it odd; Betty didn't know anything about ministers +in general or this minister in particular. + +"Oh, I think they know each other quite well," replied Ivy. "Miss +Grammont's jolly clever, you know. I shouldn't wonder if he talks about +quite important things to her." + +"How dull," returned Betty, swinging her primroses. "Don't let's get +into the same carriage as her. I never know if I know those End House +people or not; Daddy and mother think I don't, and it's awkward.... I'd +rather enjoy knowing Miss Ponsonby and that ducky baby, even if they +aren't respectable, she looks so sweet, and I'd like to hear all about +the stage. But I've no use for your Miss Grammont. Her clothes are all +right, but I'm sure she's stuck up.... Fancy going out for Sunday with +the Minister of a government department! Rather her than me." + +Ivy said, "Don't you worry, my child. No Minister'll ever trouble _you_ +to go out with him. As for Chester, I should think he'd have you +executed after one talk; he's great on ridding the world of the mentally +deficient." But what she was thinking was, "How fearfully interesting if +there is anything between them." She wondered what the other people at +the office thought about it, or if they had ever thought about it at +all. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ON FIXED HEARTS AND CHANGING SCENES + + +1 + +To Kitty it was manifest that the time had come for a change of +employment. Such times came frequently in her life; often merely because +she got bored, yawned, wanted a change, heard life summoning her to +fresh woods and pastures new, and obeyed the call. Many occupations she +had thus thrown up lightly; this is one reason why those who regard life +as a variety entertainment do not really get on; they forget that life +is real, life is earnest, and departing leave behind them no footprints +on the sands of time. They do not make a career; they do not make good; +they do not, in the long run, even make much money, though that rolls in +by fits and starts, and at times plentifully. They do not so much hide +their talents in napkins as play ball with them. + +This is as much as to say that it was not to Kitty Grammont the effort +and the wrench that it would have been to many people to contemplate a +change of avocation. And it certainly seemed desirable. Chester had +said, "We needn't meet"; but the fact remained that when two people who +love each other work in the same building, however remote their spheres, +they disturb each other, are conscious of each other's nearness. And +Chester's presence pervaded the whole Ministry; he had stamped himself +everywhere; there was no getting away from him. His name was constantly +on the lips and on the pens of his subordinates, and clicked forth from +every typewriter; you could not so much as write an official letter +without beginning "I am directed by the Minister of Brains to state," +and signing it "for the Minister of Brains." Besides which, he was to be +seen going out and coming in, to be met in passages and lifts, to be +observed taking his food in the canteen, and his Personal Assistant +demanded continual attention to him on the telephone. No, there was no +getting away from the Minister. And that meant no peace of mind, none of +the old careless light-hearted living and working; nothing but a +continual, disturbing, restless, aching want. Kitty had no intention of +facing this, so she told Vernon Prideaux that when she found another job +she was going to leave. He looked at her in annoyance and dismay, and +said, "Good lord, why?" + +Kitty said, "I'm bored. I want a change. I'm tired of working for this +autocratic government. I want something with more variety in it, and +more soul--a travelling circus, or a companionship to a rich American +seeing the world; or any old thing, so long as it amuses me." + +"There's going to be quite enough amusement in _this_ circus," said +Prideaux, "before we're through with it, to satisfy anyone, I should +say.... Really, Kitty, I think you're foolish. You're throwing up your +chances; you're climbing up, and will climb higher if you stay. Even if +the thing founders, as is quite likely, you'll climb out of it into +another job, you're good enough. You ought to think of your career. And +besides, you can't be spared. Who on earth do you think is going to do +your job? I think you ought to see this thing through." + +But Kitty did not think so. "It will go to its own place quite quickly +enough without my help. And as for my career--funny word--I'm not sure +I've got one. If I have it's such a chequered one that a few more ups +and downs won't make much difference to it. And as for being spared, oh +anyone can be spared, out of any ministry; there are too many of us. +Anyhow--well anyhow I must go." + +Prideaux thought this so frivolous, so foolish, so unworthy, so +tiresome, and so like a woman, that he was exasperated. He rang for a +shorthand typist, remarking, "If you must you must. Miss Egerton" (Miss +Egerton had succeeded Miss Pomfrey, and was better), "send to the +Establishment Branch for Miss Grammont's papers sometime," which closed +the subject for the present. + +Kitty went back to her table and wrote a letter to the A.S.E. about some +unfortunate agreement which had been made with them concerning the +exemption of some of their members from the Mind Training Course. +Personally Kitty was of the opinion that it was a pity the agreement had +not been made as extensive as the A.S.E. desired; she thought that this +Union were already too clever by half. She almost went to the length of +thinking it was a pity the promises made to them had not been kept; a +revolutionary opinion which in itself indicated that it was time she +left. Having dealt with the A.S.E. she turned her attention to a file +sent down from M.B. 1 and minuted "Passed to you to deal with this man's +imaginary grievance." The imaginary grievance was that the wife of the +man in question had been killed by a motor bus, and he wanted a week's +postponement of his Mind Training Course in order that he might arrange +about the funeral. M.B. 1 were like that; they did not mean to be +unkind, but were a little lacking in flexibility and imagination. + +Ivy Delmer, who had answered Prideaux's bell, sat with her pencil ready +and her round face bent over her notebook. She had heard Prideaux's +order to his secretary, and concluded, correctly, that Miss Grammont was +either going to have her pay raised or to leave, and from Prideaux's +manner and voice she thought it was the second. She wondered whether +this could have anything to do with the Minister, and what he had been +saying to Miss Grammont on Sunday. She was curious and interested, even +more so than she had been on Sunday, because the people to whom she had +mentioned the subject had all noticed the intimacy; everyone seemed to +have seen the Minister out with Miss Grammont at one time or another. No +one but Ivy thought it was anything more than friendship, but no one +else had seen them look at one another on Beaconsfield platform. Ivy +had, and said so.... + +Kitty was right; nothing remained hidden in government departments, or, +indeed, anywhere else. Healthily, persistently, inevitably, everything +pushed up towards the clear light of day; and quite right, too. + + +2 + +In the evenings Kitty, seeking jobs, studied the advertisement columns +of the daily papers. She had always read them; they, with Mr. Selfridge +and the Pelman system, form the lighter and more entertaining part of +any daily paper; but now she took to perusing them with care. The +personal column of the _Times_ she found peculiarly edifying. + +"Quiet, refined gentleman (served in war, musical) would like to get +into touch with bright and sympathetic lady." Kitty rejected that; she +was not sure that she was sympathetic, and the terms were too vague. +Better was "Lady, high standard of taste and culture and large means, +wants capable travelling companion. Knowledge of art essential, good +breeding preferred. Must talk continental languages fluently and +understand railway guides." Kitty, making a mental note of that (for, +with the possible exception of the breeding, she had all these +qualifications), ran her eyes down the column, past "Write to me, +darling, all is forgiven," "Will the lady in a fur toque riding in a +Hammersmith aero on Saturday last at 3.30 communicate with A.C.", "No +man hath seen God, at any time," until she came to "Young, accomplished, +well-educated War Widow would like position as secretary or confidential +clerk to nobleman, member of parliament, or gentleman." She rested her +finger on that. "I'll put one in like this," she remarked to her cousin. +"War Widow. That's what I've always wanted to be. It sounds so well. +Elspeth, I shall buy some weeds and commence widow. A war widow...." + +"If you want a new job, and a job with travel and life in it," said her +cousin, sounding her, "I don't know why you don't go out to the Pacific +Islands and join Neil. You may be sure that wherever Neil is there'll be +travel enough and life enough." She watched Kitty idly through a little +whirl of cigarette smoke. But Kitty looked no more than bored, bending +over the _Times_ and manicuring her nails. + +"Neil would tire me. I've grown too old for Neil. Besides, it wouldn't +be proper; I've broken off my engagement. I've not had the last letter +back yet, you know, so he may have got it. Besides..." Kitty paused only +for a moment, and added in the same casual tone, "besides, I'm too much +in love with Nicky Chester, though I can't have him, to have any use for +anyone else just now." + +Her cousin nodded. "I knew that, darling, of course. And so you've +renounced each other. How silly. But it won't last. It never does. Go +and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, then, to pass the time." + + +3 + +But there were hours of the night when it seemed to Kitty that she could +not go and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, that she could not be +companion, however capable, to any travelling lady of taste, culture and +means, or clerk, however confidential, to any peer, M.P., or even +gentleman; that none of these careers (were they careers? She still +sought to define that word) would pass the time at all; that nothing, in +fact, would pass it except working for Nicholas Chester, seeing him +sometimes, hearing his voice.... Always addicted to metaphysical +speculation in the night, even in nights of anguish, she would speculate +on this queer disease, so common to the race, which had overtaken (and +not, as they had both candidly remarked, for the first time, possibly +not even for the last) herself and Nicholas Chester. What was it, this +extraordinary driving pressure of emotion, this quite disproportionate +desire for companionship with, for contact with, one person out of all +the world of people and things, which made, while it lasted, all other +desires, all other emotions, pale and faint beside it? Which so +perverted and wrenched from its bearings the mind of a man like Nicholas +Chester that he was for throwing overboard the cherished principles +which were the cargo he had for long been so desperately bent on +carrying, through storm and stress, to the country of his dreams? Which +made him say, "No one will find out, and if they do, let them and be +damned to them"?... Desire for a person; it had, it had always had, an +extraordinarily dynamic effect on the lives of men and women. When it +came into play, principle, chivalry, common sense, intellect, humour, +culture, sweetness and light, all we call civilisation, might crumple up +like match-board so this one overwhelming desire, shared by all the +animal creation, might be satisfied. On this rock the world, the +pathetic, eager, clever, foolish, so heavily handicapped world, might be +wrecked. It was, perhaps, this one thing that would always prevent +humanity from being, in fact, a clever and successful race, would always +keep them down somewhere near the level of the other animals. + +Faces passed before Kitty's wakeful eyes; the fatuous, contented faces +of mothers bending over the rewards of love clinging to their breasts; +slow, placid, married faces everywhere.... This thing was irresistible, +and certainly inevitable; if it ceased, humanity itself would cease, +since it is the one motive which impels the continued population of the +already over-populated earth. There it was; one had to accept it; there +was, perhaps, no one who grew to years of maturity who escaped it, no +one whose life would not, at some period, be in some degree disorganised +by this strange force. It was blind instinct; its indulgence did not, in +the end, even make for good, so far as good meant adventure, romance, +and the gay chances of life, the freedom of the cities of the +world--anything beyond mere domesticity. For what, after all, was +marriage? A tying down, a shutting of gates, the end of youth, the +curbing of the spirit of adventure which seeks to claim all the four +corners of the world for its heritage. It meant a circumscribed and +sober life, in one place, in one house, with, perhaps, children to +support and to mind; it meant becoming respectable, insured, mature, +settled members of society, with a stake in the country. No longer may +life be greeted with a jest and death with a grin; both these (of course +important but not necessarily solemn) things have come to matter too +much to be played with. + +To this sedate end do the world's gay and careless free-lances come; +they shut the door upon the challenging spirit of life, and Settle Down. +It is to this end that instinct, not to be denied, summons men and +women, as the bit of cheese summons the mouse into the trap. + +Musing thus, Kitty turned her pillow over and over, seeking a softer +side. How she detested stupidity! How, even more, Nicholas Chester +loathed stupidity! To him it was anathema, the root of all evil, the +Goliath he was out to destroy, the blind beast squatting on men's bones, +the idiot drivelling on the village green. And here he was, caught in +the beast's destroying grip, just because he had, as they call it, +fallen in love.... What a work is man!... And here was Kitty herself, +all her gay love of living in danger, tottering unsteadily on its +foundations, undermined by this secret gnawing thing. + +At last, as a sop to the craving which would not be denied, she sat up, +with aching, fevered head, and turned the light on, and wrote on a piece +of paper, "Nicky, I'll marry you any time you like, if you want me to," +and folded it up and laid it on the table at her side, and then lay +quite quiet, the restless longing stilled in her, slow tears forcing +themselves from under her closed lashes, because she knew she would not +send it. She would not send it because Chester too, in his heart, knew +that they had better part; he too was fighting for the cause he believed +in; he wanted her, but wanted to succeed in doing without her. She must +give him his chance to stick by his principles, not drag him down below +them. + +There were moments when Kitty wished that she could believe in a God, +and could pray. It must, she thought, be a comfort. She even at times +wished she were a Christian, to find fulfilment in loss. That was, at +least, what she supposed Christians to do. + +But she could not be a Christian, and she could not pray; all she could +do was to nerve herself to meet life in the spirit of the gay pierrette, +with cap and bells on her aching head, and a little powder to hide the +tears, and to try not to snap at Elspeth or the people at the office. +This last endeavour usually failed. The little gaping messengers who +answered (when they thought they would) Miss Grammont's bell, told each +other Miss Grammont was cross. The typists grew tired of having letters +sent back to be retyped because of some trifling misapprehension of Miss +Grammont's caligraphy or some trifling misspelling on their own account. +Surely these things could be set right with a pen and a little skill. + +These moods of impatience, when frustration vented itself in anger, +alternated with the gaiety, the irreverent and often profane levity, +which was Kitty's habitual way of braving life in its more formidable +aspects. Some people have this instinct, to nail a flag of motley to the +mast of the foundering ship and keep it flying to the last. + + +4 + +While Kitty was debating as to her future, toying with the relative +advantages and entertainment to be derived from the careers of War +Widow, Confidential Clerk, Travelling Companion, archæological explorer +in Macedonia or Crete, beginner on the music-hall stage, under Pansy's +auspices, all of which seemed to have their bright sides, two +suggestions were made to her. One was from a cousin of hers who was +sub-editor of _Stop It_, and offered to get her a place on the staff. + +"Would it bind me to a point of view?" Kitty enquired. "I can't be bound +to a point of view." + +"Oh dear no," her cousin assured her. "Certainly not. Rather the +contrary," and Kitty said, "All right, I'll think it over." She was +rather attracted by the idea. + +You cannot, of course, exactly call it being bound to a point of view to +be required to hint every week that certain things want stopping, in a +world whose staunchest champions must admit that this is indeed so. + +_Stop It_ was certainly eclectic, in its picking out, from all the +recognised groups associated for thought and action, activities whose +cessation seemed good to it. The question that rather suggested itself +to its readers was, if _Stop It_ had its way, what, if anything, would +be left? + +"Very little," the editor would have answered. "A clean sheet. Then we +can begin again." + +_Stop It_ had dropped some of the caution with which it had begun: it +was now quite often possible to deduce from its still cryptic +phraseology what were some of the things it wanted stopped. Having for +some time successfully dodged Dora, it was now daring her. As in all +probability it would not have a long life, and appeared to be having a +merry one, Kitty thought she might as well join it while she could. + +To desert abruptly from the ranks of the bureaucracy to those of the +mutineers seemed natural to Kitty, who had always found herself at home +in a number of widely differing situations. Really this is perhaps the +only way to live, if all the various and so greatly different needs of +complicated human nature are to be satisfied. It is very certain that +they cannot be satisfied simultaneously; the best way seems, therefore, +to alternate. It is indeed strange that this is not more done, that +Radicals, Tories, and Labour members, for instance, do not more +frequently interchange, play general post, to satisfy on Tuesday that +side of their souls and intellects which has not been given free play on +Monday; that Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Lord Curzon do not, from time to +time, deliver each other's speeches, not from any freakish desire to +astonish, but from the sheer necessities of their natures; that Mr. +Massingham and Mr. Leo Maxse, or Mr. A. G. Gardiner and Mr. Gwynne, or +Mr. J. C. Squire and Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey, or Mr. Garvin and Mr. J. +A. Spender, do not from time to time arrange together to change offices +and run each other's papers; or that Mr. Arthur Ransome and Mr. Stephen +Graham do not, during their tours of Russia, sometimes change pens with +each other when they write home. There must be in many people some +undemocratic instinct of centralisation, of autocratic subversion of the +horde of their lesser opinions and impulses to the most dominant and +commanding one, a lack of the true democrat's desire to give a chance to +them all. They say with the Psalmist, "My heart is fixed," and "I have +chosen the way and I will run it to the end," and this is called, by +some, finding one's true self. Perhaps it may be so; it certainly +entails the loss of many other selves; and possibly the dropping of +these, or rather their continual denial and gradual atrophy, simplifies +life. + +But Kitty, whose heart was not fixed, entered upon all the changing +scenes of life with a readiness to embrace any point of view, though not +indeed to be bound to it, and an even greater willingness to tell +anything in earth or heaven that it ought to be stopped. + +She told Prideaux that she was considering this offer. Prideaux said, +"That thing! Its very name condemns it. It's on the wrong tack. You +shouldn't be out to stop things; they've got to go on.... If it's +journalism you want, why don't you apply for a job on _Intelligence_?" +_Intelligence_, or the Weekly Bulletin of the Brains Ministry (to give +it its sub-title, humorously chosen by one who visualised either the +public or the Ministry as a sick man) was a weekly journal issued by the +Ministry, and its aim was, besides reporting the Ministry's work, +decisions and pronouncements for each week, to correlate all its local +activities and keep them in touch with headquarters, and to collect +reports from over the country as to the state of the public mind. It was +for official circulation only. "Why not?" repeated Prideaux, struck by +this idea. "It would be quite enough of a change: you would probably be +one of the travelling reporters and send bright little anecdotes from +the countryside; I know they want some more reporters. Why don't you +apply? I'll speak to M.B.B. about you if you like." (M.B.B. was the +department which edited the Bulletin.) + +"Would it be interesting?" Kitty wondered. + +Prideaux thought it would. "Besides," he added, "you'd remain attached +to the Ministry that way, and could return to headquarters later on if +you wanted to.... And meanwhile you'd see all the fun.... We're in for a +fairly lively time, and it would be a pity to miss it. We're bound to +slip up over the A.S.E. before the month's over. And probably over the +exemption of Imbeciles and the Abandoned Babies, too. And the +journalists; that's going to be a bad snag. Oh, it'll be interesting all +right. If it wasn't for Chester's remarkable gift of getting on people's +right side, it would be a poor look-out. But Chester'd pull most things +through. If they'd put him at the head of the Recruiting job during the +war, I believe he'd have pulled even the Review of Exceptions through +without a row.... Well now, what about trying for this job?" + +"All right," Kitty agreed. "If you think there's any chance of my +getting it. I don't mind much what I do, so long as I have a change from +this hotel." + +On Prideaux's recommendation she did get the job, and was transferred +from her branch to M.B.B. as a travelling reporter for _Intelligence_. +She renounced _Stop It_ with some regret; there was a whimsical element +about _Stop It_ which appealed to her, and which must almost necessarily +be lacking in an official journal; but the career of travelling reporter +seemed to have possibilities. Besides the more weighty reports from the +countryside, a page of _Intelligence_ was devoted each week to anecdotes +related in the engagingly sudden and irrelevant manner of our cheaper +daily Press; as, "A woman appealed before the Cuckfield Tribunal for +exemption from the Mind Training Course on the grounds that she had made +an uncertificated marriage and had since had twins, and must, therefore, +be of a mental level which unfitted her to derive benefit from the +Course." "Three babies have been found abandoned in a ditch between +Amersham and Chesham Bois." "The Essex Farmers' Association have +produced a strain of hens which lay an egg each day all the year round. +The farmers ascribe this to the improvement in their methods caused by +the Mind Training Course." "In reply to a tinplate worker who applied +for Occupational Exemption from the Mental Progress Act, the Chairman of +the Margam Tribunal said ..." (one of the witty things which chairmen do +say, and which need not here be reported). It was, apparently, the +business of the reporters to collect (or invent) and communicate these +trivial anecdotes, as well as more momentous news, as of unrest at +Nottingham, the state of intelligence or otherwise among Suffolk +agriculturists, and so forth. + +Kitty rather hoped to be sent to Ireland, which was, as often, in an +interesting and dubious state. Ireland was excluded from the Brains +Acts, as from other Acts. But she was being carefully watched, with a +view to including her when it seemed that it might be safe to do so. +Meanwhile those of her population who were considered by the English +government to be in no need of it were profiting by the Mind Training +Course, while the mass of the peasantry were instructed by their priests +to shun such unholy heretic learning as they would the devil. But on the +whole it seemed possible that the strange paths pointed out by the +Brains Ministry might eventually lead to the solution of the Irish +Question. (What the Irish Question at that moment was, I will not here +attempt to explain: it must be sufficient to remark that there will +always be one.) + + +5 + +But Kitty was not sent to Ireland. She was sent about England; first to +Cambridge. Cambridge was not averse to having its mind improved; there +is a sweet reasonableness about Cambridge. It knows how important brains +are. Also it had an affection for Chester, who had been at Trinity. So +reports from Cambridge as regards the Brains Acts were on the whole +favourable, in spite of some unrest (for different reasons) at Kings, +Downing, and Trinity Hall, and slight ferment of revolt down at +Barnwell. There was, indeed, a flourishing branch of the S.I.L. (Stop It +League) in the University, but its attention was not directed at the +moment particularly to stopping the work of the Ministry of Brains. + +It was, of course, a queer and quite new Cambridge which Kitty +investigated. She had known the pre-war Cambridge; there had intervened +the war Cambridge, that desolated and desolating thing, and now there +had sprung up, on the other side of that dividing gulf, a Cambridge new +and without precedent; a Cambridge half full of young war veterans, with +the knowledge of red horizons, battle, murder, and sudden death, in +their careless, watchful, experienced eyes; when they lounged about the +streets or hurried to lectures, they dropped, against their will, into +step; they were brown, and hard, and tired, and found it hard to +concentrate on books; they had forgotten their school knowledge, and +could not get through Littlegoes, and preferred their beds to sleeping +in the open, that joy of pampered youth which has known neither +battle-fields or Embankment seats. + +The other half were the boys straight from school; and between these two +divisions rolled the Great European War, across which they could with +difficulty make themselves understood each by the other. + +It was a Cambridge which had broken with history, for neither of these +sections had any links with the past, any traditions to hand down. The +only people who had these were the dons and Fellows and the very few +undergraduates who, having broken off their University career to fight, +had, after long years, returned to it again. These moved like ghosts +among their old haunts; but their number was so inconsiderable as hardly +to count. It was, to all intents and purposes, a new Cambridge, a clean +sheet; and it was interesting to watch what was being inscribed upon it. + +But with such observations, apart from those of them which were +connected with the attitude of Cambridge towards the Brains Ministry, +neither Kitty nor this story are concerned. The story of the new +Cambridge will have to be written some day by a member of it, and should +be well worth reading. + +From Cambridge Kitty went to travel Cambridgeshire, which was in a state +of quiet, albeit grudging, East Anglian acceptance and slow +assimilation. + +Far different were the northern midlands, which were her next +destination. Here, indeed, was revolt in process of ferment; revolt +which had to be continually uncorked and aired that it might not ferment +too much. The uncorking and airing was done by means of conferences, at +which the tyrannised and the tyrants each said their say. These +heart-to-heart talks have a soothing effect (sometimes) on the +situation; at other times not. As conducted by the Minister of Brains, +they certainly had. Chester was something more than soothing; he was +inspiring. While he was addressing a meeting, he made it believe that +intelligence was the important thing; more important than liberty, more +important than the satisfaction of immediate desires. He made +intelligence a flaming idea, like patriotism, freedom, peace, democracy, +the eight-hour day, or God; and incidentally he pointed out that it +would lead to most of these things; and they believed him. When he +showed how, in the past, the lack of intelligence had led to national +ruin, economic bondage, war, autocracy, poverty, sweating, and vice, +they believed that too. When he said, "Look at the European War," they +looked. When he went on, "Without centuries of stupidity everywhere the +war would never have been; without stupidity the war, if it had been, +would have been very differently conducted; without stupidity we need +never have another war, but with stupidity we inevitably shall, League +of Nations or not," they all roared and cheered. + +So he went about saying these things, convincing and propitiating labour +everywhere; labour, that formidable monster dreaded and cajoled by all +good statesmen; labour, twice as formidable since in the Great War it +had learned the ways of battle and the possibility and the power of the +union of arms and the man. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE COMMON HERD + + +1 + +It was after such a meeting, at Chesterfield, at the end of July, that +Kitty and the Minister next met. Kitty was at that time writing up the +Derbyshire towns for the Bulletin. She attended the Chesterfield meeting +officially. It was a good one; Chester spoke well, and the audience +(mainly colliers) listened well. + +It was a very hot evening. The Town Hall was breathless, and full of +damp, coal-grimed, imperfectly-cleaned faces. Kitty too was damp, though +she was wearing even less than usual. Chester was damp and white, and +looked, for all his flame and ardour, which carried the meeting along +with him, fatigued and on edge. Kitty, herself fatigued and on edge, +watched him, seeing the way his hands moved nervously on the table as he +spoke. + +It was while he was talking about the demand for increased wages among +colliers to facilitate the payment of the taxes on uncertificated +babies, that he saw Kitty. His eyes stayed on hers for a moment, and he +paused in the middle of a sentence ... "defeat the whole purpose of the +Act," he finished it, and looked elsewhere. Kitty was startled by his +pause; it was not like him. Normally he, so used to public speaking, so +steeled against emergencies, so accustomed to strange irruptions into +the flow of his speech, would surely have carried on without a break or +a sign. That he had not done so showed him to be in a highly nervous +state, thought Kitty, something like her own in this hot weather, +through her continual travellings by train and staying in lodgings and +writing absurd reports. + +Across the length of the hall she saw nothing now but that thin, +slouching figure, the gestures of those nervous, flexible hands, that +white, damp face, with its crooked eyebrows and smile. + +It was so long since she had seen him and spoken to him; something in +her surged up at the sight of him and turned her giddy and faint. It was +perilously hot; the heat soaked all one's will away and left one +limp.... Did he too feel like that? + + +2 + +He looked at her once more, just before the end, and his eyes said, +"Wait for me." + +She waited, in the front of a little group by the door through which he +was to come out. He came out with his secretary, and the mayor, and +others; he was talking to them. When he saw her he stopped openly, and +said, so that all could hear, "How do you do, Miss Grammont. I haven't +seen you for some time. You're doing this reporting work for the +Bulletin now, aren't you? I want to talk to you about that. If you'll +give me the address I'll come round in about half an hour and see you +about it." + +She gave him the address of her rooms in Little Darkgate Street, and he +nodded and walked on. He had done it well; no one thought it strange, or +anything but all in the way of business. Ministers have to be good at +camouflage, at throwing veils over situations; it is part of their job. + +Kitty went back to her lodgings, and washed again, for the seventeenth +time that day, and tried if she would feel less hot and less pale and +more the captain of her soul in another and even filmier blouse. But she +grew hotter, and paler, and less the captain of anything at all. + +At 9.30 Chester came. He too was hot and pale and captain of nothing. He +had not even the comfort of a filmy blouse. + +He said, "My dear--my dear," and no more for a little time. Then he +said, "My dearest, this has got to stop. I can't stand it. We've got to +marry." + +Kitty said, "Oh well. I suppose we have." She was too hot, too limp, too +tired, to suppose anything else. + +"At once," said Chester. "I'll get a licence.... We must get it done at +some small place in the country where they don't know who we are. I must +take another name for it.... There's a place I sometimes stay at, in the +Chilterns. They are rather stupid there--even now," he added, with the +twist of a rueful smile. "I think it should be pretty safe. Anyhow I +don't think I much care; we're going to do it." + +They spoke low in the dim, breathless room, with its windows opened wide +on to the breathless street. + +"I have wanted you," said Chester. "I have wanted you extremely badly +these last three months. I have never wanted anything so much. It has +been a--a hideous time, taking it all round." + +"You certainly," said Kitty, "look as if it had. So do I--don't I? It's +partly heat and dirt, with both of us--the black of this town _soaks_ +in--and partly tiredness, and partly, for you, the strain of your +ministerial responsibilities, no doubt; but I think a little of it is +our broken hearts.... Nicky, I'm too limp to argue or fight. I know it's +all wrong, what we're going to do; but I'm like you--I don't think I +much care. We'll get married in your stupid village, under a false name. +That counts, does it? Oh, all right. I shouldn't particularly mind if it +didn't, you know. I'll do without the registry business altogether if +you think it's safer. After all, what's the odds? It comes to the same +thing in the end, only with less fuss. And it's no one's business but +ours." + +"No," Chester said. "I think that would be a mistake. Wrong. I don't +approve of this omitting of the legal bond; it argues a lack of the +sense of social ethics; it opens the door to a state of things which is +essentially uncivilised, lacking in self-control and intelligence. I +don't like it. It always strikes me as disagreeable and behind the +times; a step backwards. No, we won't do that. I'd rather take the +greater risk of publicity. I'm dropping one principle, but I don't want +to drop more than I need." + +Kitty laughed silently, and slipped her hand into his. "All right, you +shan't. We'll get tied up properly at your country registry, and keep +some of our principles and hang the risk.... I oughtn't to let you, you +know. If it comes out it will wreck your career and perhaps wreck the +Ministry and endanger the intellect of the country. We may be sowing the +seeds of another World War; but--oh, I'm bored with being +high-principled about it." + +"It's too late to be that," said Chester. "We've got to go ahead now." + +He consulted his pocket-book and said that he was free on August 10th, +and that they would then get married and go to Italy for a fortnight's +holiday together. They made the other arrangements that have to be made +in these peculiar circumstances, and then Chester went back to his +hotel. + +The awful, airless, panting night through which the Chesterfield +furnaces flamed, lay upon the queer, crooked black city like a menace. +Kitty, leaning out of her window and listening to Chester's retreating +steps echoing up the street, ran her fingers through her damp dark hair, +because her head ached, and murmured, "I don't care. I don't care. +What's the good of living if you can't have what you want?" + +Which expressed an instinct common to the race, and one which would in +the end bring to nothing the most strenuous efforts of social and +ethical reformers. + + +3 + +They got married. Chester took, for the occasion, the name of Gilbert +Lewis; it was surprising how easy this was. The witness looked +attentively at him, but probably always looked like that at the people +getting married. Neither he nor the registrar looked intelligent, or as +if they were connecting Chester's face with anything they had seen +before. + +After the performance they went to Italy for a fortnight. Italy in +August is fairly safe from English visitors. They stayed at Cogoleto, a +tiny fishing town fifteen miles up the coast from Genoa, shut in a +little bay between the olive hills and the sea. To this sheltered coast +through the summer months people come from the hot towns inland and fill +every lodging and inn and pitch tents on the shore, and pass serene, +lazy, amphibious days in and out of a sea which has the inestimable +advantage over English seas that it is always at hand. + +The Chesters too passed amphibious days. They would rise early, while +the sea lay cool and smooth and pale and pearly in the morning light, +and before the sand burnt their feet as they walked on it, and slip in +off the gently shelving shore, and swim and swim and swim. They were +both good swimmers. Chester was the stronger and faster, but Kitty could +do more tricks. She could turn somersaults like an eel, and sit at the +bottom of the sea playing with pebbles, with open eyes gazing up through +clear green depths. When they bathed from a boat, she turned head over +heels backwards from the bows, and shot under the boat and came up +neatly behind the stern. Chester too could perform fairly well; their +energy and skill excited the amazed admiration of the _bagnanti_, who +seldom did more than splash on the sea's edge or bob up and down with +swimming belts a few yards out. Chester and Kitty would swim out for a +mile, then lie on their backs and float, gazing up into the sea-blue +sky, before the sun had climbed high enough to burn and blind. Then they +would swim back and return to the inn and put on a very few clothes and +have their morning coffee, and then walk up the coast, taking lunch, to +some little lonely cove in the shadow of rocks, where they would spend +the heat of the day in and out of the sea. When they came out of the +water they lay on the burning sands and dried themselves, and talked or +read. When the heat of the day had passed a little, and the sea lay very +smooth and still in the late afternoon, with no waves at all, only a +gentle, whispering swaying to and fro, they would go further afield; +climbing up the steep stone-paved mule-tracks that wound up the hills +behind, passing between grey olive groves and lemon and orange gardens +and vineyards of ripening vines and little rough white farmhouses, till +they reached the barer, wilder hill slopes of pines and rocks, where the +hot sweetness of myrtle and juniper stirred with each tiny moving of sea +air. + +They would climb often to the top of one or other of this row of hills +that guarded the bay, and from its top, resting by some old pulley well +or little shrine, they would look down over hills and sea bathed in +evening light, and see to the east the white gleam of Genoa shimmering +like a pearl, like a ghost, between transparent sea and sky, to the west +the point of Savona jutting dark against a flood of fire. + +There was one hill they often climbed, a steep little pine-grown +mountain crested by a little old chapel, with a well by its side. The +chapel was dedicated to the Madonna della Mare, and was hung about +inside with votive offerings of little ships, presented to the Madonna +by grateful sailors whom she had delivered from the perils of the sea. +Outside the chapel a shrine stood, painted pink, and from it the mother +and child smiled kindly down on the withered flowers that nearly always +lay on the ledge before them. + +By the shrine and the well Chester and Kitty would sit, while the low +light died slowly from the hills, till its lower slopes lay in evening +shadow, and only they on the summit remained, as if en-chanted, in a +circle of fairy gold. + +One evening while they sat there a half-witted contadino slouched out of +the chapel and begged from them. Chester refused sharply, and turned his +face away. The imbecile hung about, mouthed a confused prayer, bowing +and crossing, before the shrine, got no help from that quarter either, +and at last shambled disconsolately down the hillside, crooning an +unintelligible song to himself. + +Kitty, looking at Chester, saw with surprise that his face was rigid +with disgust; he looked as if he were trying not to shudder. + +"How you hate them, Nicky," she said curiously. + +He said "I do," grimly, and spoke of something else. + +But a little later he said abruptly, "I've never told you much about my +people, Kitty, have I, or what are called my early years?" + +"You wouldn't, of course," she replied, "any more than I should. We're +neither of us much interested in the past; you live in the future, and I +live in the present moment.... But I should be interested to hear, all +the same." + +"That imbecile reminded me," Chester said grimly. "I had a twin sister +like that, and a brother not very far removed from it. You know that, of +course; but you'll never know, no one _can_ ever know who's not +experienced it, what it was like.... At first, when I began to do more +than just accept it as part of things as they were, it only made me +angry that such things should be possible, and frightfully sorry for +Joan and Gerald, who had to go about like that, so little use to +themselves or anyone else, and so tiresome to me and Maggie (she's my +eldest sister; I'd like you to meet her one day). I remember even +consulting Maggie as to whether it wouldn't be a good thing to take them +out into a wood and lose them, like the babes in the wood. I honestly +thought it would be for their own good; I knew I should have preferred +it if I had been them. But Maggie didn't agree; she took a more patient +line about it than I did; she always does. Then, as I grew older, I +became angry with my parents, who had no right, of course, to have had +any children at all; they were first cousins, and deficiency was in the +family.... It was that that first set me thinking about the whole +subject. I remember I asked my father once, when I was about seventeen, +how he had reconciled it with his conscience (he was a dean at that +time) to do such a thing. I must have been an irritating young prig, of +course; in fact, I remember that I was. He very properly indicated to me +that I was stepping out of my sphere in questioning him on such a point, +and also that whatever is must be sent by Providence, and therefore +right. I didn't drop it at once; I remember I argued that it hadn't +"been" and therefore had not necessarily been right, until he and my +mother made it so; but he closed the conversation; quite time too, I +suppose. It was difficult to argue with my father in those days; it's +easier now, though not really easy. I think the reduction of the worldly +condition of bishops has been good for him; it has put him in what I +suppose is called a state of grace. I don't believe he'd do it now, if +he lived his life again. However, he did do it, and the result was two +deficient children and one who grew up loathing stupidity in the way +some few people (conceivably) loathe vice, when they've been brought +into close contact with its effects. It became an obsession with me; I +seemed to see it everywhere, spoiling everything, blocking every path, +tying everyone's hands. The Boer war happened while I was at school.... +Good Lord.... Then I went to Cambridge, and it was there that I really +began to think the thing seriously out. What has always bothered me +about it is that human beings are so astoundingly _clever_; miraculously +clever, if you come to think of it, and compare us with the other +animals, so like us in lots of ways. The things we've done; the animal +state we've grown out of; the things we've discovered and created--it +makes one's head reel. And if we can be clever like that, why not be a +little cleverer still? Why be so abysmally stupid about many things? The +_waste_ of it.... The world might get anywhere if we really developed +our powers to their full extent. But we always slip up somewhere: +nothing quite comes off as it should. Think of all these thousands of +years of house-managing, and the really clever arrangements which have +been made in connection with it--and then visit a set of cottages and +see the mess; a woman trying to cook food and clean the house and look +after children and wash clothes, all by hand, and with the most +inadequate contrivances for any of it. Why haven't we thought of some +way out of that beastly, clumsy squalor and muddle yet? And why do +houses built and fitted like some of those still exist? If we're clever +enough to have invented and built houses at all, why not go one better +and do it properly? It's the same with everything. Medical science, for +instance. The advances it's made fill one with amaze and admiration; but +why is there still disease? And why isn't there a cure for every +disease? And why do doctors fail so hopelessly to diagnose anything a +little outside their ordinary beat? There it is; we've been clever about +it in a way, but nothing like clever enough, or as clever as we've got +to be before we've done. The same with statesmanship and government; +only there we've very seldom been clever at all; that's still to come. +And our educational system ... oh Lord.... The mischief is that people +in general don't _want_ other people to become too clever; it wouldn't +suit their turn. So the popular instinct for mucking along, for taking +things as you find them (and leaving them there), the popular taste for +superficial twaddle in literature and politics and science and art and +religion is pandered to on its own level.... + +"But I didn't mean to go off on to all this; I merely meant to tell you +what first started me thinking of these things." + +"Go on," said Kitty. "I like it. It makes me feel at home, as if I was +sitting under you at a meeting.... What I infer is that if your parents +_hadn't_ been first cousins and had deficiency in their family, there +would have been no Ministry of Brains. I expect your father was right, +and whatever is is best.... Of course the interesting question is, what +would happen if ever we _were_ much cleverer than we are now? What would +happen, that is, besides houses being better managed and disease better +treated and locomotion improved and books better written or not written +at all, and all that? What would happen to nations and societies and +governments, if people in general became much more intelligent? I can't +imagine. But I think there'd be a jolly old row.... Perhaps we shall +know before long." + +"No," said Chester. "We shan't know that. There may be a jolly old row; +I daresay there will; but it won't be because people have got too +clever; it will be because they haven't got clever enough. It'll be the +short-sighted stupidity of people revolting against their ultimate +good." + +"As it might be you and me." + +"Precisely. As it might be you and me.... What we're doing is horribly +typical, Kitty. Don't let's ever blind ourselves to its nature. We'll do +it, because we think it's worth it; but we'll do it with our eyes open. +Thank heaven we're both clear-headed and hard-headed enough to know what +we're doing and not to muddle ourselves with cant about it.... That's +one of the things that I suppose, I love you for, my dear--your +clear-headedness. You never muddle or cant or sentimentalise. You're +hard-headed and clear-eyed." + +"In fact, cynical," said Kitty. + +"Yes. Rather cynical. Unnecessarily cynical, I think. You could do with +some more faith." + +"Perhaps I shall catch some from you. You've got lots, haven't you? As +the husband is the wife is; I am mated to, etc.... And you're a lot +cleverer than I am, so you're most likely right.... We're awfully +different, Nicky, my love, aren't we?" + +"No doubt we are. Who isn't?" + +For a while they lay silent in the warm sweetness of the hill-top, while +the golden light slipped from them, leaving behind it the pure green +stillness of the evening; and they looked at one another and speculated +on the strange differences of human beings each from each, and the +mystery of personality, that tiny point on to which all the age-long +accumulated forces of heredity press, so that you would suppose that the +world itself could not contain them, and yet they are contained in one +small, ordinary soul, which does not break under the weight. + +So they looked at one another, speculating, until speculation faded into +seeing, and instead of personalities they became to one another persons, +and Chester saw Kitty red-lipped and golden-eyed and black-lashed and +tanned a smooth nut-brown by sun and sea, and Kitty saw Chester long and +lean and sallow, with black brows bent over deep, keen, dreaming eyes, +and lips carrying their queer suggestion of tragedy and comedy. + +"Isn't it fun," said Kitty, "that you are you and I am I? I think it +must be (don't you?) the greatest fun that ever was since the world +began. That's what I think ... and everywhere millions of people are +thinking exactly the same. We're part of the common herd, Nicky--the +very, very commonest herd of all herds. I think I like it rather--being +so common, I mean. It's amusing. Don't you?" + +"Yes," he said, and smiled at her. "I think I do." + +Still they lay there, side by side, in the extraordinary hushed +sweetness of the evening. Kitty's cheek was pressed against short warm +grass. Close to her ear a cicale chirped, monotonously bright; far off, +from every hill, the frogs began their evening singing. + +Kitty, as she sometimes did, seemed to slip suddenly outside the circle +of the present, of her own life and the life around her; far off she saw +it, a queer little excited corner of the universe, where people played +together and were happy, where the funny world spun round and round and +laughed and cried and ran and slept and loved and hated, and everything +mattered intensely, and yet, as seen from outside the circle, did not +matter at all.... She felt like a soul unborn, or a soul long dead, +watching the world's antics with a dispassionate, compassionate +interest.... + +The touch of Chester's hand on her cheek brought her back abruptly into +the circle again. + +"Belovedest," he said, "let's come down the hill. The light is going." + + +4 + +One day they had a shock; they met someone they knew. They met him in +the sea; at least he was in a boat and they were in the sea. They were +swimming a mile from shore, in a pearl-smooth, golden sea, in the eye of +the rising sun. Half a mile out from them a yacht lay, as idle as a +painted ship upon a painted ocean. From the yacht a boat shot out, rowed +by a man. It shot between the swimmers and the rising sun. Chester and +Kitty were lying on their backs, churning up the sun's path of gold with +their feet, and Kitty was singing a little song that Greek goat-herds +sing on the hills above Corinth in the mornings. + +Leaning over the side and resting on his oars, the man in the boat +shouted, "_Hullo_, Chester!" + +An electric shock stabbed Kitty through at the voice, which was Vernon +Prideaux's. Losing her nerve, her head, and her sense of the suitable, +she splashed round on to her chest, kicked herself forward, and dived +like a porpoise, travelling as swiftly as she could from Chester, +Prideaux, and the situation. When she came up it was with a splutter, +because she had laughed. Glancing backwards over her shoulder, she saw +Chester swimming towards the boat. What would he say? Would he speak of +her, or wrap her in discreet silence? And had Prideaux recognised her or +not? + +"Lunatic," said Kitty. "Of course he did. I have taken the worst way, in +my excitement." + +Promptly she retraced her path, this time on the water's surface, and +hailed Prideaux as she came. + +"Hullo, Vernon. The top of the morning to you. I thought I'd show you I +could dive.... What brings you here? Oh the yacht, of course...." She +paused, wondering what was to be their line, then struck one out on her +own account. "Isn't it odd; Mr. Chester and I are both staying near +here." + +Prideaux's keen, well-bred, perfectly courteous face looked for one +moment as if it certainly was a little odd; then he swallowed his +surprise. + +"Are you? It's a splendid coast, isn't it? Cogoleto in there, I suppose? +We're not stopping at all, unfortunately; we're going straight on to +Genoa.... I'm coming in." + +He dived neatly from the bows, with precision and power, as he wrote +minutes, managed deputations, ignored odd situations, and did everything +else. One was never afraid with Prideaux; one could rely on him not to +bungle. + +They bathed together and conversed, till Kitty said she must go in, and +swam shoreward in the detached manner of one whose people are expecting +her to breakfast. Soon afterwards she saw that Prideaux was pulling back +to the yacht, and Chester swimming westward, as if he were staying at +Varazze. + +"Tact," thought Kitty. "This, I suppose, is how people behave while +conducting a vulgar intrigue. Ours is a vulgar marriage; there doesn't +seem much difference.... I rather wish we could have told Vernon all +about it; he's safe enough, and I should like to have heard his comments +and seen his face. How awful he would think us.... I don't know anyone +who would disapprove more.... Well, I suppose it's more interesting than +a marriage which doesn't have to be kept dark, but it's much less +peaceful." + +They met at the inn, at breakfast. + +"Did you have to swim right across the bay, darling?" Kitty enquired. +"I'm so sorry. By the way, I noticed that Vernon never asked either of +us where we were staying, nor invited us to come and visit the yacht. Do +you suppose he believed a word we said?" + +Chester lifted his eyebrows. "His mental category is A, I believe," he +replied. + +"Well," said Kitty, "anyhow he can't know we're married, even if he does +think we've arranged to meet here. And Vernon's very discreet; he won't +babble." + +Chester ate a roll and a half in silence. Then he remarked, without +emotion, "Kitty, this thing is going to come out. We may as well make up +our minds to it. We shall go on meeting people, and they won't all be +discreet. It will come out, as certainly as flowers in spring, or the +Clyde engineers next week." + +They faced one another in silence for a moment across the coffee and +rolls. Then, because there seemed nothing else which could meet the +situation, they both began to laugh helplessly. + +Three days later they returned to England, by different routes. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A MINISTRY AT BAY + + +1 + +That autumn was a feverish period in the Ministry's career. Many persons +have been called upon, for one cause or another, to wait in nervous +anticipation hour by hour for the signal which shall herald their own +destruction. Thus our ancestors at the latter end of the tenth century +waited expectantly for the crack of doom; but the varying emotions with +which they awaited it can only be guessed at. More vivid to the mind and +memory are the expectant and waiting first days of August, 1914. On the +other hand, the emotions of cabinets foreseeing their own resignation, +of the House of Lords anticipating abolition, of criminals awaiting +sentence, of newspapers desperately staving off extinction, of the crews +of foundered ships struggling to keep afloat, of government departments +anticipating their own untimely end, are mysteries veiled from the +outside world, sacred ground which may not be trodden by the multitude. + +The Ministry of Brains that autumn was fighting hard and gallantly for +its life. It was an uphill struggle; Sisyphus pushing up the mountain +the stone of human perverseness, human stupidity, human self-will, which +threatened all the time to roll back and grind him to powder. +Concessions were made here, pledges given there (even, here or there, +occasionally fulfilled). New Instructions were issued daily, old ones +amended or withdrawn, far-reaching and complicated arrangements made +with various groups and classes of people, "little ministries" set up +all over the country to administrate the acts regionally, soothing +replies and promises dropped like leaves in autumn by the Parliamentary +Secretary, to be gathered up, hoarded, and brooded over in many a +humble, many a stately home. It is superfluous to recapitulate these +well-worn, oft-enacted, pathetic incidents of a tottering ministry. +Ministries, though each with a special stamp in hours of ease, are all +much alike when pain and anguish wring their brows. With arts very +similar each to other they woo a public uncertain, coy and hard to +please; a public too ready to believe the worst of them, too pitiless +and unimaginative towards their good intentions, too extreme to mark +what is done amiss, too loth to admit success, too ready to condemn +failure without measuring the strength of temptation. + +Ministries have a bitter time; their hand is against every man and every +man's hand against them. For their good men return them evil and for +their evil no good. And--let it not be forgotten--they are really, with +all their faults, more intelligent, and fuller of good intentions, than +the vast majority of their critics. The critics cry aloud "Get rid of +them," without always asking themselves who would do the job any better, +always providing it has to be done. In the case of the Ministry of +Brains, the majority of the public saw no reason why the job should be +done at all, which complicated matters. It was like the Directorate of +Recruiting during the war, or the Censor's office, or the Ministry of +Food; not merely its method but its function was unwelcome. As most men +did not want to be recruited by law, or to have their reading or their +diet regulated by law, so they did not want to be made intelligent by +law. All these things might be, and doubtless were, for the ultimate +good of the nation, but all were inconvenient at the moment, and when +ultimate good (especially not necessarily one's own good) and immediate +convenience come to blows, it is not usually ultimate good which wins. + +So the Ministry of Brains, even more than other ministries, was fighting +against odds. Feverish activity prevailed, in all departments. From +morning till night telephones telephoned, clerks wrote, typists typed +against time, deputations deputed, committees committeed, officials +conferred with each other, messengers ran to and fro with urgent minutes +and notes by hand. Instructions and circular letters poured forth, +telegrams were despatched in hot haste to the local Ministries and to +the Brains Representatives on the local tribunals, the staff arrived +early and stayed late, and often came on Sundays as well, and grew thin +and dyspeptic and nervy and irritable. + + +2 + +Even Ivy Delmer grew pale and depressed, not so much from official +strain as from private worries. These she confided one day to Kitty, who +had got transferred back to headquarters, through a little quiet +wire-pulling (it is no use being married to a Minister if little things +like that cannot easily be arranged), and was now working in her old +branch. They were travelling together one Monday morning up from Little +Chantreys. + +"Now I ask you, Miss Grammont, what would _you_ do? I'm B3 and he's C1 +(I'm certain they've classified him wrong, because he's not a bit stupid +really, not the way some men are, you know, he's jolly clever at some +things--ideas, and that), but of course it's against the regulations for +us to marry each other. And yet we care for each other, and we both of +us feel we always shall. And we neither of us want a bit to marry an A +person, besides, I don't suppose an A would ever think of us in _that_ +way, you know what I mean, Miss Grammont, don't laugh, and to give each +other up would mean spoiling both our lives.... Yet I suppose everyone +would think it awfully wrong if we got regularly engaged, and me working +at the Ministry too. I suppose I ought to leave it really, feeling the +way I do.... The fact is, I've come to feel very differently about the +Ministry, now I've thought it more over, and--you'll be horrified, I +know--but I'm not at all sure I approve of it." + +"Good gracious no," Kitty said. "I never approve of any Ministries. That +isn't what one feels for them. Sympathy; pity; some affection, even; but +approval--no." + +"Well, you see what I mean, it's all very well in theory, but I do +honestly know so many people whose lives have been upset and spoilt by +it--and it does seem hard. Heaps of people in Little Chantreys alone; of +course we come across them rather a lot, because they tell father and +mother about it.... And all the poor little deserted babies.... Oh I +suppose it's all right.... But I'm feeling a bit off it just now.... Now +I ask you, feeling as I do about it, and meaning to do what I'm going to +do (at least we hope we're going to do it sometime), ought I to go on at +the Ministry? Is it honest? Would _you_, Miss Grammont?" + +Kitty blushed faintly, to her own credit and a little to Ivy's surprise. +She did not associate blushing with Miss Grammont, and anyhow there +seemed no occasion for it just now. + +"Well, yes, I think I would. I don't see that you're called on to give +it up--unless, of course, you hate it, and want to.... After all, one +would very seldom stick to any work at all if one felt obliged to +approve entirely of it. No, I don't think there's much in that." + +"You truly don't? Well, I expect I'll carry on for a bit, then. I'd +rather, in one way, of course, especially as we shall need all the money +we can get if we ever do marry. Not that I'm saving; I spend every penny +I get, I'm afraid. But of course it takes me off father's hands.... +Don't _you_ feel, Miss Grammont, that all this interference with +people's private lives is a mistake? It's come home to me awfully +strongly lately. Only when I read the Minister's speeches I change my +mind again; he puts it so rippingly, and makes me feel perhaps I'm being +simply a selfish little beast. I don't care what anybody says about him, +I think he's wonderful." + +"I suppose he is," said Kitty. + +"My word, he jolly well _would_ despise me if he knew, wouldn't he?" + +"Well...." said Kitty. And perhaps it was well that at that moment they +reached Marylebone. + +That conversation was typical, even as Ivy Delmer's standpoint was +itself typical, of a large body of what, for lack of a better name, we +must call thought, all over the country. Laws were all very well in +theory, or when they only disarranged the lives of others, but when they +touched and disorganised one's own life--hands off. Was the only +difference between such as Ivy Delmer and such as Nicholas Chester that +Ivy deceived herself ("It's not that I care a bit for myself, but it's +the principle of the thing") and that Chester fell with open eyes? Which +was perhaps as much as to say that Ivy was classified B3 and Chester A. + +All over the country people were saying, according to their different +temperaments, one or another of these things. "Of course I don't care +for myself, but I think the system is wrong," or (the other way round) +"It may be all right in theory, but I'm jolly well not going to stand +being inconvenienced by it," or "I'm not going to stand it _and_ it's +all wrong." Of course there were also those more public-spirited persons +who said, "It's a splendid system and I'm going to fall in with it," or +"Though it's a rotten system I suppose we must put up with it." But +these were the minority. + + +3 + +Up till November the campaign against the Brains Ministry was quite +impersonal, merely resentment against a system. It was led, in the +Press, by the Labour papers, which objected to compulsion, by the +_Nation_, which objected to what it, rightly or wrongly, called by that +much-abused name, Prussianism, by the _New Witness_, which objected to +interference with the happy stupidity of merry Gentiles (making them +disagreeably clever like Jews), and by _Stop It_, which objected to +everything. It was supported by the more normal organs of opinion of the +kind which used before and during the war to be called conservative and +liberal. And, of course, through thick and thin, by the _Hidden Hand_. + +But in the course of November a new element came into the attack--the +personal element. Certain sections of the Press which supported the +Ministry began to show discontent with the Minister. The _Times_ began +to hint guardedly that new blood might perhaps be desirable in certain +quarters. The _Daily Mail_, in its rounder and directer manner, remarked +in large head-lines that "Nicky is played out." Ministers have to bear +these intimations about themselves as they walk about London; fleeing +from old gentlemen selling the _Daily Mail_ outside Cox's, Chester was +confronted in the Strand by the _Herald_ remarking very loudly "CHESTER +MUST GO." And then (but this was later) by the _Patriot_, which was +much, much worse. + +The _Patriot_ affair was different from the others. The _Patriot_ was, +in fact, a different paper. The _Patriot_ had the personal, homely +touch; it dealt faithfully not only with the public misdemeanours of +prominent persons, but with the scandals of their private lives. It +found things out. It abounded in implications and references, arch and +jocose in manner and not usually discreet in matter. The _Patriot_ had +been in the law courts many times, but as it remarked, "We are not +afraid of prosecution." It had each week a column of open letters +addressed to persons of varying degrees of prominence, in which it told +them what it thought of them. The weak point of these letters was that +the _Patriot_ was not a paper which was read by persons of prominence; +its readers were the obscure and simple, who no doubt extracted much +edification from them. Its editor was a Mr. Percy Jenkins, a gentleman +of considerable talents, and, it was said, sufficient personal charm to +be useful to him. What he lacked in æsthetic taste he made up in energy +and patriotism, and the People hailed him affectionately as the People's +friend. Throughout October Mr. Jenkins suffered apparently from a desire +to have a personal interview with the Minister of Brains. He addressed +private letters to him, intimating this desire, which were answered by +his secretary in a chilly negative strain. He telephoned, enquiring +when, if at all, he could have the pleasure of seeing the Minister, and +was informed that the Minister had, unfortunately, no time for pleasures +just now. He called at the Ministry and sent up his card, but was told +that, as he had no appointment it was regretted that he could not +penetrate further into the Ministry than the waiting-room. He called in +the evening at the Minister's private address, but found him engaged. + +After that, however, the Minister apparently relented, for Mr. Jenkins +received a letter from his secretary informing him that, if he wished to +see the Minister, he might call at his house at 9.30 p.m. on the +following Monday. Mr. Jenkins did so. He was shown into the Minister's +study. Chester was sitting by the fire, reading _Tales of my +Grandfather_. He was never found writing letters, as one might expect a +public man to be found; his secretary wrote all his official letters, +and his unofficial letters were not written at all, Chester being of the +opinion that if you leave the letters you receive long enough they +answer themselves. + +Mr. Jenkins, having been invited to sit down, did so, and said, "Very +kind of you to give me this interview, sir." + +Chester did not commit himself, however, to any further kindness, but +said stiffly, "I have very little time. I am, as you see, occupied"--he +indicated _Tales of my Grandfather_--"and I shall be glad if you will +state your business at once, sir, and as plainly as you can." + +Mr. Jenkins murmured pleasantly, "Well, we needn't be blunt, exactly.... +But you are quite right, sir; I _have_ business. As you are no doubt +aware, I edit a paper--the _Patriot_--it is possible that you are +acquainted with it." + +"On the contrary," said Chester, "such an acquaintance would be quite +impossible. But I have heard of it. I know to what paper you refer. +Please go on." + +"Everybody," retorted Mr. Jenkins, a little nettled, "does not find +close acquaintance with the _Patriot_ at all impossible. Its +circulation...." + +"We need not, I think, have that, Mr. Jenkins. Will you kindly go on +with your business?" + +Mr. Jenkins shrugged his shoulders. + +"Your time appears to be extremely limited, sir." + +"All time," returned the Minister, relapsing, as was often his habit, +into metaphysics, "is limited. Limits are, in fact, what constitute +time. What '_extremely_ limited' may mean, I cannot say. But if you mean +that I desire this interview to be short, you are correct." + +Mr. Jenkins hurried on. + +"The _Patriot_, as you may have heard, sir, deals with truth. Its aim is +to disseminate correct information with regard to all matters, public +and private. This, I may say, it is remarkably successful in doing. +Well, Mr. Chester, as of course you are aware, the public are very much +interested in yourself. There is no one at the present moment who is +more to the fore, or if I may say so, more discussed. Naturally, +therefore, I should be glad if I could provide some items of public +interest on this subject, and I should be very grateful for any +assistance you could give me.... Now, Mr. Chester, I have heard lately a +very interesting piece of news about you. People are saying that you are +being seen a great deal in the company of a certain lady." He paused. + +"Go on," said Chester. + +"It has even been said," continued Mr. Jenkins, "that you have been seen +staying in the country together ... alone together, that is ... for +week-ends...." + +"Go on," said Chester. + +Mr. Jenkins went on. "Other things are said; but I daresay they are mere +rumour. Queer things get said about public men. I met someone the other +day who lives in Buckinghamshire, somewhere in the Chilterns, and who +has a curious and no doubt entirely erroneous idea about you.... Well, +in the interests of the country, Mr. Chester (I have the welfare of the +Ministry of Brains very much at heart, I may say; I am entirely with you +in regarding intelligence as the Coming Force), I should like to be in a +position to discredit these rumours. If you won't mind my saying so, +they tell against you very seriously. You see, it is generally known +that you are uncertificated for matrimony and parentage, if I may +mention it. And once people get into their heads the idea that, while +forcing these laws on others, you are evading them yourself ... well, +you may imagine it might damage your work considerably. You and I, Mr. +Chester, know what the public are.... I should be glad to have your +authority to contradict these rumours, therefore." + +Chester said, "Certainly. You may contradict anything you please. I +shall raise no objection. Is that all?" + +Mr. Jenkins hesitated. "I cannot, of course, contradict the rumours +without some assurance that they are false...." + +They had an interesting conversation on this topic for ten minutes more, +which I do not intend to record in these pages. + +So many conversations are, for various reasons, not recorded. +Conversations, for instance, at Versailles, when the allied powers of +the world sit together there behind impenetrable curtains, through the +rifts of which only murmurs of the unbroken harmony which always +prevails between allies steal through to a waiting world. Conversations +between M. Trotzky and representatives of the German Government before +the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Conversations between the President of the +Board of Trade and the Railway Companies when the price of travel is +being increased; between governments and capitalists when elections are +to be fought or newspapers to be bought; between Jane Austen's heroes +and heroines in the hour when their passion is declared. + +For quite different reasons, all these conversations are left to the +imagination, and I propose to leave to the same department of the +reader's mind the interview between Mr. Percy Jenkins and the Minister +of Brains. I will merely mention that the talking was, for the most +part, done by Mr. Jenkins. The reasons for this were two. One was that +Mr. Jenkins was a fluent talker, and the Minister capable of a +taciturnity not invariably to be found in our statesmen. Both have their +uses in the vicissitudes of public life. Both can be, if used +effectively, singularly baffling to those who would probe the +statesman's mind and purposes. But fluency is, to most (it would seem) +the easier course. + + * * * * * + +Anyhow this was how the _Patriot_ campaign started. It began with an +Open Letter. + + "_To the Minister of Brains._ + + "Dear Mr. Nicholas Chester, + + "There is a saying 'Physician, heal thyself.' There is also, in + the same book (a book which, coming of clerical, even + episcopal, parentage, you should be acquainted with), 'Cast out + the beam which is in thine own eye, and then thou shalt see + more plainly to pull out the mote which is in thy brother's + eye.' We will on this occasion say no more than that we advise + you to take heed to these sayings before you issue many more + orders relating to matrimony and such domestic affairs. And yet + a third saying, 'Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not + both fall into the ditch?' you would do well to ponder in your + heart." + +That was all, that week. But it was enough to start speculation and talk +among the _Patriot's_ readers. Next week and other weeks there were +further innuendoes, and more talk. One week there was a picture of +Chester with several unmistakable, but also unmistakably deficient, +little Chesters clinging to his coat. This picture was called "Following +the dear old dad. What we may expect to see in the near future." + +Mr. Percy Jenkins knew his business. And, during his interview with the +Minister of Brains, he had conceived an extreme dislike towards him. + + +4 + +"He'll feel worse before I've done with him," Chester said to Kitty. +They were sitting together on Kitty's sofa, with a copy of the _Patriot_ +between them. Kitty was now alone in her flat, her cousin having +suddenly taken it into her head to get married. + +"I always said it would come out," was Kitty's reply. "And now you see." + +"Of course I knew it would come out," Chester said calmly. "It was bound +to. However, it hasn't yet. All this is mere talk. It's more offensive, +but not really so serious, as the Labour attacks on the Ministry, and +the _Stop It_ campaign, and the cry for a Business Government. Business +Government, indeed! The last word in inept futility...." + +"All the same," Kitty said, rather gravely, "you and I have got to be +rather more careful, Nicky. We've been careful, I think, but not enough, +it seems." + +"There's no such thing," said Chester, who was tired, "as being careful +enough, in this observant world, when one is doing wrong. You can be too +careful (don't let's, by the way) but you can't be careful enough." + + +5 + +But Chester did not really see Kitty very often in these days, because +he had to see and confer with so many others--the Employers' Federation, +and the Doctors, and the Timber Cutters, and the Worsted Industries, and +the Farmers, and the Cotton Spinners, and the Newspaper Staffs, and the +Church, and the Parents, and the Ministerial Council, and the Admiralty, +and the Board of Education, and the War Office, and the Ministry of +Reconstruction, and the Directorate of Propaganda. And the A.S.E. + +It is much to be hoped that conferences are useful; if they are not, it +cannot, surely, be from lack of practice. + +Prideaux also, and the other heads of sections, on their humbler scale +received deputations and conferred. Whether or not it was true to say of +the Ministry (and to do Ministries justice, these statements are usually +not true) that it did not try to enter sympathetically into the +difficulties and grievances of the public, it is anyhow certain that the +difficulties and grievances entered into the Ministry, from 9.30 a.m. +until 7 p.m. After 7 no more difficulties were permitted to enter, but +the higher staff remained often till late into the night to grapple with +those already there. + +Meanwhile the government laid pledges in as many of the hands held out +to them as they could. Pledges, in spite of a certain boomerang quality +possessed by them, are occasionally useful things. They have various +aspects; when you give them, they mean a little anger averted, a little +content generated, a little time gained. When you receive them, they +mean, normally, that others will (you hope) be compelled to do something +disagreeable before you are. When others receive them, they mean that +there is unfair favouritism. When (or if) you fulfil them, they mean +that you are badly hampered thereby in the competent handling of your +job. When you break them, they mean trouble. And when you merely hear +about them from the outside they mean a moral lesson--that promises +should be kept if made, but certainly never, never made. + +It is very certain, anyhow, that the Ministry of Brains made at this +time too many. No Ministry could have kept so many. There was, for +instance, the Pledge to the Married Women, that the unmarried women +should be called up for their Mind Training Course before they were. +There was the Pledge to the Mining Engineers, that unskilled labour +should take the Course before skilled. There was the Pledge to the +Parents of Five, that, however high the baby taxes were raised, the +parents of six would always have to pay more on each baby. There was the +Pledge to the Deficient, that they would not have to take the Mind +Training Course at all. This last pledge was responsible for much +agitation in Parliament. Distressing cases of imbeciles harried and +bullied by the local Brains Boards were produced and enquired into. +(Question, "Is it not the case that the Ministry of Brains has become +absolutely soulless in this matter of harrying the Imbecile?" Answer, "I +have received no information to that effect." Question, "Are enquiries +being made into the case of the deficient girl at Perivale Halt who was +rejected three times as unfit for the Course and finally examined again +and passed, and developed acute imbecility and mumps half-way through +the Course?" Answer, "Enquiries are being made." And so on, and so on, +and so on.) + +But, in the eyes of the general public, the chief testimony to the +soullessness of the Ministry was its crushing and ignoring of the claims +of the human heart. What could one say of a Ministry who deliberately +and coldly stood between lover and lover, and dug gulfs between parent +and unborn child, so that the child was either never born at all, or +abandoned, derelict, when born, to the tender mercies of the state, or +retained and paid for so heavily by fine or imprisonment that the +parents might well be tempted to wonder whether after all the +unfortunate infant was worth it? + +"Him to be taxed!" an indignant parent would sometimes exclaim, admiring +her year-old infant's obvious talents. "Why he's as bright as anything. +Just look at him.... And little Albert next door, what his parents got a +big bonus for, so as you could hear them for a week all down the street +drinking it away, he can't walk yet, nor hardly look up when spoke to. +Deficient, _I_ calls him. It isn't fair dealing, no matter what anyone +says." + +"All the same," said Nicholas Chester to his colleagues, "there appears +to me to be a considerably higher percentage of intelligent looking +infants of under three years of age than there were formerly. +Intelligent looking, that is to say, _for_ infants. Infants, of course, +are not intelligent creatures. Their mental level is low. But I observe +a distinct improvement." + +A distinct improvement was, in fact, discernible. + +But, among the Great Unimproved, and among those who did not want +improvement, discontent grew and spread; the slow, aggrieved discontent +of the stupid, to whom personal freedom is as the breath of life, to +whom the welfare of the race is as an idle, intangible dream, not worth +the consideration of practical men and women. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE STORMING OF THE HOTEL + + +1 + +In December Dora did a foolish thing. It is needless to say that she did +other foolish things in other months; it is to be feared that she had +been born before the Brains Acts; her mental category must be well below +C3. But this particular folly is selected for mention because it had a +disastrous effect on the already precarious destiny of the Ministry of +Brains. Putting out a firm and practised hand, she laid it heavily and +simultaneously upon four journals who were taking a rebellious attitude +towards the Brains Act--the _Nation_, _Stop It_, the _Herald_, and the +_Patriot_. Thus she angered at one blow considerable sections of the +Thoughtful, the Advanced, the Workers (commonly but erroneously known as +the proletariat) and the Vulgar. + +"Confound the fools," as Chester bitterly remarked; but the deed was +then done. + +"How long," Vernon Prideaux asked, "will it take governments to learn +that revolutionary propaganda disseminated all over the country don't do +as much harm as this sort of action?" + +Chester was of opinion that, give the Ministry of Brains its chance, let +it work for, say, fifty years, and even governments might at the end of +that time have become intelligent enough to acquire such elementary +pieces of knowledge. If only the Ministry _were_ given its chance, if it +could weather the present unrest, let the country get used to it.... +Custom: that was the great thing. People settled down under things at +last. All sorts of dreadful things. Education, vaccination, taxation, +sanitation, representation.... It was only a question of getting used to +them. + + +2 + +Though the authorities were prepared for trouble, they did not foresee +the events of Boxing-day, that strange day in the history of the +Ministry. + +The Ministry were so busy that many of the staff took no holiday beyond +Christmas Day itself. Bank Holidays are, as everyone who has tried +knows, an excellent time for working in one's office, because there are +no interruptions from the outside world, no telephoning, no visitors, no +registry continually sending up incoming correspondence. The clamorous, +persistent public fade away from sound and sight, and ministries are +left undistracted, to deal with them for their good in the academic +seclusion of the office. If there was in this world an eternal Bank +Holiday (some, but with how little reason, say that this awaits us in +heaven) ministries would thrive better; governing would then become like +pure mathematics, an abstract science unmarred by the continual fret and +jar of contact with human demands, which drag them so roughly, so +continually, down to earth. + +On Boxing Day the Minister himself worked all day, and about a quarter +of the higher staff were in their places. But by seven o'clock only the +Minister remained, talking to Prideaux in his room. + +The procession, at first in the form of four clouds each no bigger than +a man's hand, trailed from out the north, south, east and west, and +coalesced in Trafalgar Square. From there it marched down Whitehall to +Westminster, and along the Embankment. It seemed harmless enough; a +holiday crowd of men and women with banners, like the people who used to +want Votes, or Church Disestablishment, or Peace, or Cheap Food. The +chief difference to be observed between this and those old processions +was that a large number in this procession seemed to fall naturally and +easily into step, and marched in time, like soldiers. This was a +characteristic now of most processions; that soldier's trick, once +learnt, is not forgotten. It might have set an onlooker speculating on +the advantages and the dangers of a nation of soldiers, that necessary +sequence to an army of citizens. + +The procession drew up outside the Ministry of Brains, and resolved +itself into a meeting. It was addressed in a short and stirring speech +from the Ministry steps by the president of the Stop It League, a fiery +young man with a megaphone, who concluded his remarks with "Isn't it up +to all who love freedom, all who hate tyranny, to lose no time, but to +wreck the place where these things are done? That's what we're here to +do to-night--to smash up this hotel and show the government what the men +and women of England mean! Come on, boys!" + +Too late the watching policemen knew that this procession and this +meeting meant business, and should be broken up. + +The Minister and Prideaux listened, from an open window, to the speaking +outside. "Rendle," said Prideaux. "Scandalous mismanagement. What have +the police been about? It's too late now to do much.... Do they know we +are here, by the way? Probably not." + +"They shall," replied Chester, and stepped out on to the balcony. + +There was a hush, then a tremendous shout. + +"It's the Minister! By God, it's Nicky Chester, the man who's made all +the trouble!" + +A voice rose above the rest. + +"Quiet! Silence! Let him speak. Let's hear what he's got to say for +himself." + +Silence came, abruptly; the queer, awful, terrifying silence of a +waiting crowd. + +Into it Chester's voice cut, sharp and incisive. + +"You fools. Get out of this and go home. Don't you know that you're +heading for serious trouble--that you'll find yourselves in prison for +this? Get out before it's too late. That's all I have to say." + +"That's all he's got to say," the crowd took it up like a refrain. +"That's all he's got to say, after all the trouble he's made!" + +A suave, agreeable voice rose above the rest. + +"That is _not_ quite all he's got to say. There's something else. He's +got to answer two plain questions. Number one: _Are you certificated for +marriage, Mr. Chester, or have you got mental deficiency in your +family?_" + +There was an instant's pause. Then the Minister, looking down from the +balcony at the upturned faces, white in the cold moonlight, said, +clearly, "I am not certificated for marriage, owing to the cause you +mention." + +"Thank you," said the voice. "Have you all noted that, boys? The +Minister of Brains is not certificated for marriage. He has deficiency +in his family. Now, Mr. Chester, question number two, please. _Am I +correct in stating that you--got--married--last--August?_" + +"You are quite correct, Mr. Jenkins." + +Chester heard beside him Prideaux's mutter--"Good God!" and then, below +him, broke the roar of the crowd. + +"Come on, boys!" someone shouted. "Come on and wreck the blooming show, +and nab the blooming showman before he slips off!" + +Men flung themselves up the steps and through the big doors, and surged +up the stairs. + +"This," remarked Prideaux, "is going to be some mess. I'll go and get +Rendle to see sense, if I can. He's leading them up the stairs, +probably." + +"I fancy that won't be necessary," said Chester. "Rendle and his friends +are coming in here, apparently." + +The door was burst open, and men rushed in. Chester and Prideaux faced +them, standing before the door. + +"You fools," Chester said again. "What good do you think you're going to +do yourselves by this?" + +"Here he is, boys! Here's Nicky Chester, the married man!" + +Chester and Prideaux were surrounded and pinioned. + +"Don't hurt him," someone exhorted. "We'll hang him out over the balcony +and ask the boys down there what to do with him." + +They dragged him on to the balcony and swung him over the rail, dangling +him by a leg and an arm. One of them shouted, "Here's the Minister, +boys! Here's Nicky, the Minister of Brains!" + +The crowd looked up and saw him, swinging in mid air, and a great shout +went up. + +"Yes," went on the speaker from the balcony, "Here's Nicky Chester, the +man who dares to dictate to the people of Britain who they may marry and +what kids they may have, and then goes and gets married himself, +breaking his own laws, and hushes it up so that he thought it would +never come out." ("I always knew it would come out," the Minister +muttered, inarticulately protesting against this estimate of his +intelligence.) "But it _has_ come out," the speaker continued. "And now +what are we to do with him, with this man who won't submit to the laws +he forces on other people? This man who dares to tell other people to +bear what he won't bear himself? What shall we do with him? Drop him +down into the street?" + +For a moment it seemed that the Minister's fate, like himself, hung +suspended. + +They swung him gently to and fro, as if to get an impetus.... + +Then someone shouted, "We'll let him off this time, as he's just +married. Let him go home to his wife, and not meddle with government any +more!" + +The crowd rocked with laughter; and in that laughter, rough, +good-humoured, scornful, the Ministry of Brains seemed to dissolve. + +They drew Chester in through the window again. Someone said, "Now we'll +set the blooming hotel on fire. No time to waste, boys." + +Chester and Prideaux were dragged firmly but not unkindly down the +stairs and out through the door. Their appearance outside the building, +each pinioned by two stalwart ex-guardsmen, was hailed by a shout, +partly of anger, but three parts laughter. To Chester it was the +laughter, good-humoured, stupid, scornful, of the British public at +ideas, and particularly at ideas which had failed. But in it, sharp and +stinging, was another, more contemptuous laughter, levelled at a man who +had failed to live up to his own ridiculous ideas, the laughter of the +none too honest world, which yet respected honesty, at the hypocrisy and +double-dealing of others. + +"They're quite right to laugh," thought Chester. "It is funny: damned +funny." + +And at that, standing pinioned on the steps of his discredited Ministry, +looking down on the crowd of the injured, contemptuous British public, +who were out to wreck the things he cared for, he began to laugh +himself. + +His laughter was naturally unheard, but they saw his face, which should +have been downcast and ashamed, twist into his familiar, sad, cynical +smile, which all who had heard him on platforms knew. + +"Laughing, are you," someone shouted thickly. "Laughing at the people +you've tricked! You've ruined me and my missus--taken every penny we +had, just because we had twins--and you--you stand there and laugh! +You--you bloody married imbecile!" + +Lurching up the steps, he flung himself upon Chester and wrenched him +from the relaxed hold of his captors. Struggling together, the Minister +and his assailant stumbled down the steps, and then fell headlong among +the public. + + +3 + +When the mounted police finally succeeded in dispersing the crowd, the +Ministry of Brains was in flames, like Sodom and Gomorrah, those wicked +cities. Unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, the conflagration was at last +quenched by a fire engine. But far into the night the red wreckage +blazed, testimony to the wrath of a great people, to the failure of a +great idea, to the downfall of him who, whatever the weakness he shared +in common with the public who downed him, was yet a great man. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DEBRIS + + +1 + +Chester lay with a broken head and three smashed ribs in his flat in +Mount Street. He was nursed by his elder sister Maggie, a kind, silent, +plain person with her brother's queer smile and more than his cynical +patience. With her patience took the form of an infinite tolerance; the +tolerance of one who looks upon all human things and sees that they are +not much good, nor likely to be. (Chester had not his fair share of this +patience: hence his hopes and his faiths, and hence his downfall.) She +was kind to Kitty, whose acquaintance she now made. (The majority of the +Ministry of Brains staff were having a short holiday, during the +transference to other premises.) + +Maggie said to Kitty, "I'm not surprised. It was a lot to live up to. +And it's not in our family, living up to that. Perhaps not in any +family. I'm sorry for Nicky, because he'll mind." + +She did not reproach Kitty; she took her for granted. Such incidents as +Kitty were liable to happen, even in the best regulated lives. When +Kitty reproached herself, saying, "I've spoilt his life," she merely +replied tranquilly, "Nicky lets no one but himself spoil his life. When +he's determined to do a thing, he'll do it." Nor did she commit herself +to any indication as to whether she thought that what Nicky had gained +would be likely to compensate for what he had lost. + +For about what he had lost there seemed no doubt in anyone's mind. He +had lost his reputation, his office, and, for the time being, his public +life. The Ministry of Brains might continue, would in fact, weakly +continue, without power and without much hope, till it trailed into +ignominious death; even the wrecked Hotel would continue, when repaired; +but it was not possible that Chester should continue. + +The first thing he did, in fact, when he could do anything at all +intelligent, was to dictate a letter to the Ministerial Council +tendering his resignation from office. There are, of course, diverse +styles adopted by the writers of such letters. In the old days people +used to write (according to the peculiar circumstances of their case)-- + + "Dear Prime Minister, + + "Though you have long and often tried to dissuade me from this + course ... etc., etc.... I think you will hardly be surprised + ... deep regret in severing the always harmonious connection + between us ..." and so forth. + +Or else quite otherwise-- + + "Dear Prime Minister, + + "You will hardly be surprised, I imagine, after the strange + occurrence of yesterday, when I had the interest of reading in + a daily paper the first intimation that you desired a change at + the Ministry I have the honour to adorn...." + +Neither of these styles was used by Chester, who wrote briefly, without +committing himself to any opinion as to the probable surprise or +otherwise of the Ministerial Council-- + + "Dear Sirs, + + "I am resigning my office as Minister of Brains, owing to facts + of which you will have doubtless heard, and which make it + obviously undesirable for me to continue in the post." + +Having done this, he lay inert through quiet, snow-bound days and +nights, and no one knew whether or not he was going to recover. + + +2 + +After a time he asked after Prideaux, and they told him Prideaux had not +been hurt, only rumpled. + +"He calls to ask after you pretty often," said Kitty. "Would you like to +see him sometime? When the doctor says you can?" + +"I don't care," Chester said. "Yes, I may as well." + +So Prideaux came one afternoon (warned not to be political or exciting) +and it was a queer meeting between him and Chester. Chester remembered +the last shocked words he had had from Prideaux--"Good God!" and +wondered, without interest, what Prideaux felt about it all now. + +But it was not Prideaux's way to show much of what he felt. + +They talked mainly of that night's happenings. Chester had already had +full reports of these; of the fire, of the fight between the police and +the crowd, in which several lives had been lost, of the arrest of the +ringleaders and their trials. To Chester's own part in the proceedings +they did not refer, till, after a pause, Chester suddenly said, "I have +been wondering, but I can't make up my mind about it. How much +difference to the business did the discovery about me make? Would they +have gone to those lengths without it?" + +Prideaux was silent. He believed that Chester that night on the balcony, +had his hands been clean, could have held the mob. + +Chester interpreted the silence. + +"I suppose they wouldn't," he said impassively. "However, I fancy it +only precipitated the catastrophe. The Ministry was down and under, in +any case. People were determined not to stand laws that inconvenienced +them--as I was. I was merely an example, not a cause, of that +disease...." + +That was the nearest he ever got with Prideaux to discussion of his own +action. + +"Anyhow," said Prideaux sadly, "the Ministry is down and under now. +Imagine Frankie Lyle, poor little beggar, trying to carry on, after all +this!" (This gentleman had been nominated as Chester's successor.) + +Chester smiled faintly. "Poor little Frankie.... I hear Monk wouldn't +touch it, by the way. I don't blame him.... Lyle won't hold them for a +week; he'll back out on every point." + +There was regret in his tired, toneless voice, and bitterness, because +the points on which Lyle would back out were all points which he had +made. He could have held them for a week, and more; he might even--there +would have been a fighting chance of it--have pulled the Ministry +through altogether, had things been otherwise. But things were not +otherwise, and this was not his show any more. He looked at Prideaux +half resentfully as Prideaux rose to leave him. Prideaux had not wrecked +his own career.... + +To Kitty, the first time he had met her after the events of Boxing +Night, Prideaux had shown more of his mind. He had come to ask after +Chester, and had found Kitty there. He had looked at her sharply and +coolly, as if she had made a stupid mistake over her work in the office. + +"So you didn't guess, all this time," she had said to him, coolly too, +because she resented his look. + +"Not," he had returned, "that things had gone as far as this. I knew you +were intimate, of course. There was that time in Italy.... But--well, +honestly, I thought better of both your brains." + +She gave up her momentary resentment, and slipped again into remorse. + +"We thought better of them too--till we did it.... Have I spoilt his +life, Vernon? I suppose so." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "You've spoilt, and he's spoilt his own, +career as Minister of Brains. There are other things, of course. Chester +can't go under; he's too good a man to lose. They'll stick on to him +somehow.... But ... well, what in heaven or earth or the other place +possessed you both to do it, Kitty?" + +To which she had no answer but "We just thought we would," and he left +her in disgust. + +Even in her hour of mortification and remorse, Kitty could still enjoy +getting a rise out of Prideaux. + + +3 + +Pansy, who called often with showers of hot-house flowers, which Chester +detested, was much more sympathetic. She was frankly delighted. She +could not be allowed to see Chester; Kitty was afraid that her +exuberance might send his temperature up. + +"You won't mind my tellin' you now, darlin', but I've been thinkin' it +was free love all this time. I didn't mind, you know. But this is more +respectable. This family couldn't really properly afford another +scandal; it might lose its good name, then what would Cyril say? It +would come hard on the Cheeper, too. Now this is some marriage. So +_sensible_ of you both, to throw over those silly laws and do the jolly +thing and have a good time. As I said to Tony, what _is_ the good of +making laws if you can't break them yourself? Now that your Nicky's set +a good example, it really does seem as if all this foolishness was goin' +to dwine away and be forgotten.... I guess it's doin' what we like and +havin' a good time that matters, in the long run, isn't it. Not keepin' +laws or improvin' the silly old world." + +"Ask me another," said Kitty. "I haven't the slightest idea, Pansy, my +love. You're usually right, so I daresay you're right about this. But +you mustn't talk like that to Nicky, or he'll have a relapse." + +"And fancy," Pansy mused, "me havin' got the great Minister of Brains +for a brother-in-law! Or anyhow somethin' of the sort; as near as makes +no difference. I shall never hear the last of it from the girls and +boys.... Good-bye, old thing; I'm ever so pleased you're a happy wife +now as well as me." + + +4 + +Chester handed Kitty a letter from his mother, the wife of a struggling +bishop somewhere in the west country. It said, "Directly you are well +enough, dear, you must bring Kitty to stay with us; She won't, I am +sure, mind our simple ways.... My dear, we are so thankful you have +found happiness. We are distressed about your accident, and about your +loss of office, which I fear you will feel.... But, after all, love and +happiness are so much more important than office, are they not?..." + +"Important," Kitty repeated. "Queer word. Just what love and happiness +aren't, you'd think. Comfortable--jolly--but not important.... Never you +mind, Nicky, you'll be important always: Vernon is right about that. +They'll put you somewhere where 'domestick selvishenesse' doesn't +matter: perhaps they'll make you a peer...." + +Chester said he would not be at all surprised. + +Kitty said, "Shall we go and see your people?" and he replied gloomily, +"I suppose we must. It will be ... rather trying." + +"Will they condole with you?" she suggested, and he returned, "No. +They'll congratulate me." + +A fortnight later they went down to the west. Bishop Chester lived in a +little old house in a slum behind his cathedral. Bishops' palaces were +no longer bishops' homes; they had all been turned into community +houses, clergy houses, retreat houses, alms houses, and so forth. +Celibate bishops could live in them, together with other clergy of their +diocese, but bishops with families had to find quarters elsewhere. And, +married or unmarried, their incomes were not enough to allow of any +style of living but that apostolic simplicity which the Church, directly +it was freed from the State and could arrange its own affairs, had +decided was right and suitable. + +Not all bishops took kindly to the new régime; some resigned, and had to +be replaced by bishops of the new and sterner school. But, to give +bishops their due, which is too seldom done, they are for the most part +good Christian men, ready to do what they believe is for the good of the +Church. Many of their detractors were surprised at the amount of +good-will and self-sacrifice revealed in the episcopal ranks when they +were put to the test. If some failed under it--well, bishops, if no +worse than other men, are human. + +Bishop Chester had not failed. He had taken to plain living and plainer +thinking (how often, alas, these two are to be found linked together!) +with resignation, as a Christian duty. If it should bring any into the +Church who had been kept outside it by his purple and fine linen, he +would feel himself more than rewarded. If it should not, that was not +his look-out. Which is to say that Bishop Chester was a good man, if not +clever. + +He and his wife were very kind to Chester and Kitty. Chester said he +could not spare more than a day and night; he had to get back to town, +where he had much business on hand, including the instituting of an +action for malicious libel against Mr. Percy Jenkins and the publishers +and proprietors of the _Patriot_. Kitty was not surprised at the +shortness of the visit, for it was a humiliating visit. The bishop and +Mrs. Chester, as their son had known they would, approved of his +contravention of his own principles. They thought them, had always +thought them, monstrous and inhuman principles. + +The bishop said, "My dear boy, I can't tell you how thankful I am that +you have decided at last to let humanity have its way with you. +Humanity; the simple human things; love, birth, family life. They're the +simple things, but, after all, the deep and grand things. No laws will +ever supersede them." + +And Mrs. Chester looked at Kitty with the indescribable look of +mothers-in-law who hope that one day they may be grandmothers, and +whispered to her when she said good-night, "And some day, dear...." + +And they saw Chester's twin sister. She was harmless; she was even doing +crochet work; and her face was the face of Chester uninformed by +thought. Mrs. Chester said, "Nicky will have told you of our poor ailing +girl...." + + +5 + +They came away next morning. They faced each other in the train, but +they read the _Times_ (half each) and did not meet each other's eyes. +They could not. They felt as thieves who still have consciences must +feel when congratulated on their crimes by other thieves, who have not. +Between them stood and jeered a Being with a vacant face and a phrase +which it repeated with cynical reiteration. "You have let humanity have +its way with you. Humanity; the simple human things.... No laws will +ever supersede them...." And the Being's face was as the face of +Chester's twin sister, the poor ailing girl. + +To this they had come, then; to the first of the three simple human +things mentioned by the bishop. What now, since they had started down +the long slope of this green and easy hill, should arrest their +progress, until they arrived, brakeless and unheld, into the valley +where the other two waited, cynical, for all their simplicity, and grim? + +Kitty, staring helplessly into the problematical future, saw, as if +someone had turned a page and shown it to her, a domestic +picture--herself and Chester (a peer, perhaps, why not?) facing one +another not in a train but in a simple human home, surrounded by Family +Life; two feckless, fallen persons, who had made a holocaust of theories +and principles, who had reverted to the hand-to-mouth shiftlessness and +mental sloppiness of the primitive Briton. Kitty could hear Chester, in +that future, vaguer, family, peer's voice that might then be his, +saying, "We must just trust to luck and muddle through somehow." + +Even to that they might come.... + +In the next Great War--and who should stay its advent if such as these +failed?--their sons would fight, without talent, their daughters would +perhaps nurse, without skill. And so on, and so on, and so on.... + +So turned the world around. Individual desire given way to, as usual, +ruining principle and ideals by its soft pressure. What would ever get +done in such a world? Nothing, ever. + +Suddenly, as if both had seen the same picture, they met one another's +eyes across the carriage, and laughed ruefully. + +That, anyhow, they could always do, though sitting among the debris of +ruined careers, ruined principles, ruined Ministries, ruined ideals. It +was something; perhaps, in a sad and precarious world, it was much.... + + +THE END + + + + +NEW FICTION + + +OH, MONEY! MONEY! By ELEANOR H. PORTER, Author of "Just David," +"Pollyanna," etc. + +"This tale of an elderly millionaire who goes incognito among his poor +relations to discover to which of them he shall leave his fortune is +extraordinarily soothing in these harassed times. The relations are most +humorously studied."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + +THE ANCHOR. By M. T. H. SADLER. + +"All his people are interesting and all ring true." _Pall Mall Gazette._ + + +ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS. By L. M. MONTGOMERY, Author of "Anne of Green +Gables." + +"Miss Montgomery has a rare knack of making simple events and ordinary +people both charming and moving; she can make her readers both laugh and +weep."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + +IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE. By Mrs. GEORGE WEMYSS. + +"It is set in a captivating way among village folk drawn from life, +treated with humour and sympathy, and decorated profusely with the talk +and doings of real and interesting children." _Manchester Guardian._ + + +THE STARRY POOL and Other Tales. By STEPHEN G. TALLENTS. + +"It belongs to the class of literature which gives an intimate picture +of the writer himself, who, in this particular case, endears himself to +the reader by his humour, which is never cynical, and by his zest for +the simple, which is never forced."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + +THE WANDERERS. By MARY JOHNSTON. + +"A large theme of absorbing and growing interest is treated with great +imaginative and pictorial power; and the writer's faith and enthusiasm, +as well as her knowledge and her skilful handicraft, are +manifest."--_Scotsman._ + + +REMNANTS. By DESMOND MACCARTHY. + +"It has its own clear point of view. It reveals an engaging personality, +and its contents, though dealing with subjects as diverse as Samuel +Butler, Lord George Sanger, Meredith, Dan Leno, Voltaire and Bostock's +Menagerie, are all of a piece. That is, it is a real book of +essays."--_The Bookman._ + +BEYOND THE RHINE. Memories of Art and Life in Germany before the War. By +MARC HENRY. + +"M. Henry discourses most entertainingly on many subjects of German +social life, and his book may be cordially recommended to those +among us who seek for enlightenment on the mentality of our +enemies."--_Scotsman._ + + +TRIVIA. By LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH. + +"It is a piece of personal good luck to have read it. One goes in and +out of one's hall door with a delicious sense of possessing a secret. It +increases one's confidence in the world. If a book like this can be +written, there is, we feel, hope for the future."--_The Athenæum._ + + +THE LAST OF THE ROMANOFS. By CHARLES RIVET (Petrograd Correspondent of +the "Temps"). + +"'The Last of the Romanofs' can be recommended to one desirous of +understanding what has actually happened in Russia and what caused it to +happen."--_Globe._ + + +ON THE EDGE OF THE WAR ZONE. By MILDRED ALDRICH, Author of "A Hilltop on +the Marne." + +"They give a picture of peace in the midst of war that is both +fascinating and strange ... as an intimate sketch of one corner of the +world-war, viewed at close quarters over the garden-hedge, these little +books will have earned for themselves a place apart."--_Punch._ + + +THE POT BOILS. A Novel. By M. STORM JAMESON. + +In "The Pot Boils" the author has written a vivid and original study of +the careers and the love-story of a modern young man and woman whom we +first encounter as students at the same Northern University. Of life in +this Northern University the author gives a realistic account, and +equally realistic and entertaining is the description of the world of +social reformers, feminists, journalists, vers-libristes in London, to +which the scene is shifted later. It is a brilliant provocative book +which will appeal to all those who are interested in appraising the +worth and promise of modern movements and ideals. + + +THE SHIP OF DEATH. A Romance of the World-War. By EDWARD STILGEBAUER, +Author of "Love's Inferno." + +In "The Ship of Death," Dr. Stilgebauer has written a romance which +depicts in all its horror the havoc wrought by war upon human +relationships and values outside the actual sphere of the battle-field. +The instrument of disaster is Captain Stirn, the captain of the +submarine which torpedoes the 'Lusitania,' styled here the 'Gigantic.' +The first part of the book depicts the company on board, when the first +premonitions of catastrophe are beginning to fill the air. Then comes +the catastrophe itself; and the last section of this book presents +Captain Stirn in the agony and delirium which seizes him after his deed +of horror. The book is impressive and absorbing both by force and +vividness of the author's style and imagination and by the vigorous +sincerity and idealism which penetrate it throughout. + + +THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN. By W. L. GEORGE, New Edition with a New +Preface. + +_New Edition of a Famous Novel_ + +This book was first published in 1914, and the author has now written a +new preface, explaining how the War has modified his views, but saying +that whatever the Englishman may become, he would still be "The man of +my choice, with whom I wrangle because he is my brother, far from whom I +could not live, who quietly grins at my internationalism and makes +allowances for me because, Englishman though I be, I was not born in his +damned and dear little island." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NOT *** + +***** This file should be named 35198-8.txt or 35198-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/9/35198/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/35198-8.zip b/35198-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..469d4a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/35198-8.zip diff --git a/35198-h.zip b/35198-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1364e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/35198-h.zip diff --git a/35198-h/35198-h.htm b/35198-h/35198-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef91acd --- /dev/null +++ b/35198-h/35198-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6734 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What Not + A Prophetic Comedy + +Author: Rose Macaulay + +Release Date: February 7, 2011 [EBook #35198] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NOT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>WHAT NOT</h1> + +<h3>A PROPHETIC COMEDY</h3> + +<h2>BY ROSE MACAULAY</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "NON-COMBATANTS," "THE MAKING OF A BIGOT," ETC.</h3> + + +<h3>LONDON<br /> +CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD.<br /> +1918</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>TO<br /> +CIVIL SERVANTS<br /> +I HAVE KNOWN</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<blockquote><p>"Wisdom is very unpleasant to the unlearned: he that is without +understanding will not remain with her. She will lie upon him +as a mighty stone of trial; and he will cast her from him ere +it be long. For wisdom is according to her name, and she is not +manifest unto many....</p> + +<p>"Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children...."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Jesus, Son of Sirach,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c.</i> B.C. 150.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"It's domestickness of spirit, selvishnesse, which is the great +let to Armies, Religions, and Kingdomes good."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">W. Greenhill</span>, 1643.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"It has come to a fine thing if people cannot live in their +homes without being interfered with by the police.... You are +upsetting the country altogether with your Food Orders and What +Not."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Defendant in a Food-hoarding Case</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>January, 1918.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a>NOTE.</h2> + + +<p>As this book was written during the war, and intended prophetically, its +delay until some months after the armistice calls for a word of +explanation.</p> + +<p>The book was ready for publication in November, 1918, when it was +discovered that a slight alteration in the text was essential, to +safeguard it against one of the laws of the realm. As the edition was +already bound, this alteration has naturally taken a considerable time.</p> + +<p>However, as the date of the happenings described in "What Not" is +unspecified, it may still be regarded as a prophecy, not yet disproved.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">R. M.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>March, 1919</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="APOLOGY" id="APOLOGY"></a>APOLOGY</h2> + + +<p>One cannot write for evermore of life in war-time, even if, as at times +seems possible, the war outlasts the youngest of us. Nor can one easily +write of life as it was before this thing came upon us, for that is a +queer, half-remembered thing, to make one cry. This is a tale of life +after the war, in which alone there is hope. So it is, no doubt, +inaccurate, too sanguine in part, too pessimistic in part, too foolish +and too far removed from life as it will be lived even for a novel. It +is a shot in the dark, a bow drawn at a venture. But it is the best one +can do in the unfortunate circumstances, which make against all kinds of +truth, even that inferior kind which is called accuracy. Truth, indeed, +seems to be one of the things, along with lives, wealth, joy, leisure, +liberty, and forest trees, which has to be sacrificed on the altar of +this all-taking war, this bitter, unsparing god, which may perhaps +before the end strip us of everything we possess except the integrity of +our so fortunately situated island, our indomitable persistence in the +teeth of odds, and the unstemmed eloquence of our leaders, all of which +we shall surely retain.</p> + +<p>This book is, anyhow, so far as it is anything beyond an attempt to +amuse the writer, rather of the nature of suggestion than of prophecy, +and many will think it a poor suggestion at that. The suggestion is of a +possible remedy for what appears to have always been the chief human +ailment, and what will, probably, after these present troubles, be even +more pronounced than before. For wars do not conduce to intelligence. +They put a sudden end to many of the best intellects, the keenest, +finest minds, which would have built up the shattered ruins of the world +in due time. And many of the minds that are left are battered and +stupefied; the avenues of thought are closed, and people are too tired, +too old, or too dulled by violence, to build up anything at all. And +besides these dulled and damaged minds, there are the great mass of the +minds which neither catastrophe nor emotion nor violence nor age nor any +other creature can blunt, because they have never been acute, have never +had an edge, can cut no ice nor hew any new roads.</p> + +<p>So, unless something drastic is done about it, it seems like a poor +look-out.</p> + +<p>This book contains the suggestion of a means of cure for this world-old +ill, and is offered, free, to a probably inattentive and unresponsive +Government, a close and interested study of whom has led the writer to +believe that the erection of yet another Department might not be wholly +uncongenial.</p> + +<p>It will be observed that the general state of the world and of society +in this so near and yet so unknown future has been but lightly touched +upon. It is unexplored territory, too difficult for the present writer, +and must be left to the forecastings of the better informed.</p> + +<p>A word as to the title of this work, which may seem vague, or even +foolish. Its source I have given. Food Orders we all know; What Not was +not defined by the user of the phrase, except by the remark that it +upset the country. The businesses described in this tale fulfil that +definition; and, if they be not What Not, I do not know what is.</p> + +<p><i>April, 1918.</i></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#NOTE">NOTE.</a><br /> +<a href="#APOLOGY">APOLOGY</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Ministry</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Little Chantreys</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Brains Sunday</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Our Week</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">The Explanation Campaign</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">The Simple Human Emotions</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">The Breaking Point</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">On Fixed Hearts and Changing Scenes</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <i>The Common Herd</i></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">A Ministry at Bay</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">The Storming of the Hotel</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Debris</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#NEW_FICTION">NEW FICTION</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHAT NOT</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE MINISTRY</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>After the Great War (but I do not say how long after), when the tumult +and the shouting had died, and those who were left of the captains and +the kings had gone either home or to those obscure abodes selected for +them by their more successful fellows (to allay anxiety, I hasten to +mention that three one-time Emperors were among those thus relegated to +distance and obscurity), and humanity, released from its long torment, +peered nervously into a future darkly divined (nervously, and yet +curiously, like a man long sick who has just begun to get about again +and cannot yet make anything coherent of the strange, disquieting, +terrifying, yet enchanting jumble which breaks upon his restored +consciousness)—while these things happened, the trains still ran +through the Bakerloo tube, carrying people to their day's work.</p> + +<p>Compartments in tube trains are full of variety and life—more so than +in trains above ground, being more congested, and having straps, also no +class snobbery. Swaying on adjacent straps were a fluffy typist, reading +"The Love He Could Not Buy," in the <i>Daily Mirror</i>, a spruce young civil +servant on his way to the Foreign Office, reading <i>The Times</i>, a +clergyman reading the <i>Challenge</i>, who looked as if he was interested in +the Life and Liberty movement, another clergyman reading the <i>Guardian</i>, +who looked as if he wasn't, an elderly gentleman reading the <i>Morning +Post</i>, who looked patriotic but soured, as if he had volunteered for +National Service during the Great War and had found it disappointing, a +young man reading the <i>Post-War</i>, the alert new daily, and a citizen +with a law-abiding face very properly perusing the <i>Hidden Hand</i>. The +<i>Hidden Hand</i> was the Government daily paper. Such a paper had for long +been needed; it is difficult to understand why it was not started long +ago. All other papers are so unreliable, so tiresome; a government must +have one paper on which it can depend for unfailing support. So here was +the <i>Hidden Hand</i>, and its readers had no excuse for ignorance of what +the government desired them to think about its own actions.</p> + +<p>The carriage was full of men and women going to their places of +business. There were tired young men, lame young men, pale and scarred +young men, brown and fit young men, bored and <i>blasé</i> young men, jolly +and amused young men, and nearly all, however brown or fit or pale or +languid or jolly or bored, bore a peculiar and unmistakable impress +stamped, faintly or deeply, on their faces, their eyes, their carriage, +the set of their shoulders.</p> + +<p>There were, among the business men and girls, women going shopping, +impassive, without newspapers, gazing at the clothes of others, taking +in their cost, their cut, their colour. This is an engrossing +occupation. Those who practise it sit quite still, without a stir, a +twinkle, a yawn, or a paper, and merely look, all over, up and down, +from shoes to hat.... They are a strange and wonderful race of beings, +these gazing women; one cannot see into their minds, or beyond their +roving eyes. They bear less than any other section of the community the +stamp of public events. The representatives of the type in the Bakerloo +this morning did not carry any apparent impress of the Great War. It +would take something more than a great war, something more even than a +food crisis, to leave its mark on these sphinx-like and immobile +countenances. Kingdoms may rise and fall, nations may reel in the +death-grapple, but they sit gazing still, and their minds, amid the +rocking chaos, may be imagined to be framing some such thoughts as +these: "Those are nice shoes. I wonder if they're the ones Swan and +Edgar have at 30s. She's trimmed her hat herself, and not well. That +skirt is last year's shape. That's a smart coat. Dear me, what +stockings; you'd think anyone would be ashamed."</p> + +<p>These women had not the air of reckless anticipation, of being alert for +any happening, however queer, that, in differing degrees, marked the +majority of people in these days. For that, in many, seemed the +prevailing note; a series of events so surprising as to kill surprise, +of disasters so appalling as to numb horror, had come and gone, leaving +behind them this reckless touch, and with it a kind of greed, a +determination to snatch whatever might be from life before it tumbled +again into chaos. They had not been devoid of lessons in what moralists +call Making the Best of It, those staggering years when everything had +fallen and fallen, successively and simultaneously, civilisation, and +governments, and hopes, and crowns, and nations, and soldiers, and rain, +and tears, and bombs, and buildings, only not prices, or newspapers.</p> + +<p>For, if everything had so fallen once, it might even now be riding for a +fall again (in spite of the League of Nations and other devices for +propping up the unsteady framework of a lasting peace). The thing was to +get what one could first. The thing, in the opinion of one traveller in +that train, was to wear cap and bells, to dance through life to a barrel +organ, to defeat a foolish universe with its own weapons.</p> + +<p>And always there was that sense in the background of a possible great +disaster, of dancing on the world's thin crust that had broken once and +let one through, and might break again. Its very thinness, its very +fragility added a desperate gaiety to the dance.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>Ivy Delmer (who was not the traveller alluded to above, and did not +consciously think or feel any of these things) stood holding to a strap, +with the novel which she was going to change in the lunch hour in one +hand. Ivy Delmer, a shorthand typist at the Ministry of Brains, was +young, ingenuous, soft-faced, naïve, and the daughter of a +Buckinghamshire vicar. The two things she loved best in the world were +marzipan and the drama. Her wide grey eyes travelled, with innocent +interest, along the faces in the compartment; she was seeing if she +liked them or not. Immaturely and unconsciously sexual, she looked with +more hope of satisfaction at male faces than at female. Not but that she +was susceptible to strong admirations for her own sex; she had a "pash" +for Miss Doris Keane and Miss Teddie Gerrard, and, in private life, a +great esteem for Miss Grammont, at the Ministry, whose letters she +sometimes took down in shorthand. But everyone knows there is a greater +number of interesting faces in trains belonging to another sex than to +one's own, and it is no use pretending.</p> + +<p>Having subjected the faces within her range to her half-unconscious +judgment, and passed them with varying degrees of credit, Miss Delmer, +for lack of anything better to do, read the advertisements and +exhortations over the windows. With satisfaction she noted that she had +seen all the advertised plays. She absorbed such temporal maxims and +eternal truths as "Let Mr. Mustard mix your bath," "God is not mocked," +and the terrifying utterances of the Safety-if-Possible Council, "Is it +safe? That is the question. No. That is the answer." "If you hope to +achieve safety in a street aero (1) Do not alight before the aero does. +(2) Do not attempt to jump up into an aero in motion." Then a picture: +"A will be killed because he is standing immediately beneath a +descending aero bus. B will be killed because he and others like him +have shaken the nerve of the aviator." A series of warnings which left +one certain that, wherever one might achieve safety, it would not be in, +or anywhere at all near, a street aero. That, probably, is the object. +In the old days it was the motor bus that was thus made a thing of +terror by the princes of the nether world. Now, even as then, their +efforts met with success, and the tubes were filled with a +panic-stricken mob.</p> + +<p>Ivy Delmer, taking an empty seat, saw Miss Grammont at the other side of +the carriage. Miss Grammont had the <i>New Statesman</i> and the <i>Tatler</i> and +was reading one of them. She was partial to both, which was +characteristic of her attitude towards life. She was one of those who +see no reason why an intelligent interest in the affairs of the world +should be incompatible with a taste for Eve. She enjoyed both classical +concerts and new revues. She might be called a learned worldling. Ivy +Delmer was rather shy of her, because of her manner, which could be +supercilious, because of her reputed cleverness, and because of her +position at the Ministry, which was a long way above Ivy's. On the other +hand, her clothes made one feel at home; they showed skill and interest; +she had not that air of the dowd which some people who have been to +college have, and which is so estranging to normal people.</p> + +<p>Kitty Grammont, something of the elegant rake, something of the gamin, +something of the adventuress, something of the scholar, with innocent +amber-brown eyes gazing ingenuously from under long black lashes, a +slightly cynical mouth, a small, smooth, rounded, child's face, a +travelled manner, and an excellent brain, was adequately, as people go, +equipped for the business of living. She had seen some life, in a past +which, if chequered, had not lacked its gaiety, meant to see much more, +in a future which she did not foresee clearly but which she intended +should be worthy of her, and was seeing enough to go on with in a +present which, though at moments it blackly bored her (she was very +susceptible to boredom), was on the whole decidedly entertaining.</p> + +<p>Ivy Delmer, looking at her across the compartment, with some surprise +because she was so nearly punctual this morning, this not being one of +her habits, admired her greatly, thinking how clever she was, how +clearly, how unhesitatingly, how incisively her sentences came out when +she was dictating, cutting their way, in that cool, light, dragging +voice of hers, through her subject, however intricate, as a sharp blade +cuts ice; quite different from some people's dictation, which trails to +and fro, emending, cancelling, hesitating, indistinct, with no edge to +it, so that one's shorthand has constantly to be altered, making a mess +on the page, and bits of it read aloud to see how it goes now, which was +a nuisance, because one can't rely always on being able to read off even +one's own shorthand quite fluently straight away like that. Further—and +this was nearer Ivy's heart—Miss Grammont wore, as a rule, charming +shoes. She also smoked extraordinarily nice cigarettes, and often had +delicious chocolates, and was generous with both.</p> + +<p>All this made it a grief to Ivy Delmer that Miss Grammont's brother and +his family, who lived in her father's parish, and with whom Miss +Grammont often stayed, were not Approved Of. Into the reasons for this +it will be more appropriate to enter later in this narrative.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>Oxford Circus. The hub of the world, where seething mobs fought on the +platform like wild beasts. Piccadilly Circus. Lucky people, thought Ivy +Delmer, who got out there, all among gaiety and theatres. Trafalgar +Square. There naval officers got out, to visit the Admiralty, or the +Nelson Column. Charing Cross. There people had got out during the Great +War, to go and help the War Office or the Ministry of Munitions to run +the business. So much help, so much energy, so many hotels.... And now +there were more than ever, because so much needed doing, and hotels are +the means heaven has given us to do it with.</p> + +<p>At Charing Cross Ivy Delmer and Kitty Grammont got out, for, without +specifying the hotel where the Ministry of Brains carried on its +labours, it may be mentioned without indiscretion that it was within a +walk of Charing Cross.</p> + +<p>Miss Grammont and Miss Delmer walked there, Miss Delmer well ahead and +hurrying, because to her it seemed late, Miss Grammont behind and +sauntering because to her it seemed superfluously early. The Ministry +daily day began at 9.30, and it was only 9.40 now.</p> + +<p>The summer morning was glittering on the river like laughter. A foolish +thing it seemed, to be going into an hotel on a summer morning, to be +sitting down at a government desk laden with government files, taking a +government pen (which was never a relief, only a not-exactly) and +writing pamphlets, or answers to letters which, if left long enough, +would surely answer themselves, as is the way of letters, and all to +improve the Brains of the Nation. Bother the Brains of the Nation, +thought Miss Grammont, only she used a stronger word, as was the custom +in what Mrs. Delmer called her unfortunate family. Black doubt sometimes +smote her as to not so much the efficacy of the work of her Department +as its desirability if ever it should be perfectly accomplished. Did +brains matter so greatly after all? Were the clever happier than the +fools? Miss Grammont, whose university career had been a brilliant +intellectual adventure, felt competent to speak for both these types of +humanity. She knew herself to be happier when playing the fool than when +exerting her highly efficient brain; the lunatic-asylum touch gave her +more joy than the studious, and she wore learning like a cap and bells. +But stupidity was, of course, a bore. It must, of course, be mitigated, +if possible. And anyhow the object of the Ministry of Brains was not to +make people happy (that could be left to the Directorate of +Entertainments), nor to make them good (that was up to the Church, now, +to the great benefit of both, divorced from the State), but to further +social progress and avert another Great War.</p> + +<p>Miss Grammont yawned, because the day was yet so young, and followed +Miss Delmer up the steps of the hotel.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>The Ministry of Brains, a vast organisation, had many sections. There +was the Propaganda Section, which produced pamphlets and organised +lectures and cinema shows (Miss Grammont had been lent temporarily to +this section by her own branch); there was the Men's Education Section, +the Women's, and the Children's; the Section which dealt with +brain-tests, examinations, certificates, and tribunals, and the Section +which was concerned with the direction of the intellects of the Great +Unborn. Ivy Delmer was attached to this section, and Mr. Delmer, when he +heard about it, was not altogether sure it was quite nice for her.</p> + +<p>"She surely shouldn't know they have any," he had said to his wife, who +was weeding, and replied absently, "Any what, dear? Who?"</p> + +<p>"Intellects," the vicar said. "The Unborn. Besides, they haven't." He +was frowning, and jerking out dandelions from the lawn with a spud.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's not it, dear," Mrs. Delmer reassured him vaguely. "Not the +<i>just</i> unborn, you know. The—the ever so long unborn. All this +arrangement of who ought to marry who. Quite silly, of course, but no +harm for Ivy in that way. After all, there's no reason why she shouldn't +know that children often inherit their brains from their parents."</p> + +<p>The vicar admitted that, even for their precious and very young Ivy, +there was no great harm in this.</p> + +<p>The Section in question was, as Mrs. Delmer had stated, concerned with +the encouragement and discouragement of alliances in proportion as they +seemed favourable or otherwise to the propagation of intelligence in the +next generation. There were numerous and complicated regulations on the +subject, which could not, of course, be enforced; the Ministry's methods +were those of stimulation, reward and punishment, rather than of +coercion. There were bonuses on the births of the babies of parents +conforming to the regulations, and penal taxes on unregulated infants, +taxes increasing in proportion to the flagrancy of the parents' +disobedience, so that the offspring of parents of very low mental +calibre brought with them financial ruin. Everyone held a Ministry of +Brains form, showing his or her mental category, officially ascertained +and registered. If you were classified A, your brains were certified to +be of the highest order, and you were recommended to take a B2 or B3 +partner (these were the quite intelligent). To ally yourself with +another A or a B1 was regarded as wasteful, there not being nearly +enough of these to go round, and your babies would receive much smaller +bonuses. If you were classed C1, C2, or C3, your babies would receive no +encouragement, unless you had diluted their folly with an A partner; if +you chose to unite with another C they were heavily fined, and if you +were below C3 (i.e. uncertificated) they were fined still more heavily, +by whomsoever diluted, and for the third and subsequent infants born +under such conditions you would be imprisoned. (Only the Ministry had +not been working long enough for anyone to have yet met with this fate. +The children of unions perpetrated before the Mental Progress Act were +at present exempt.) Families among the lower grades and among the +uncertificated were thus drastically discouraged. You were +uncertificated for matrimonial purposes not only if you were very +stupid, but if, though yourself of brilliant mental powers, you had +actual deficiency in your near family. If you were in this case, your +form was marked "A (Deficiency)."</p> + +<p>And so on: the details of the regulations, their intricacies and tangled +knots, the endless and complicated special arrangements which were made +with various groups and classes of persons, may be easily imagined, or +(rather less easily, because the index is poor) found in the many +volumes of the Ministry of Brains Instructions.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, to room number 13, which was among the many rooms where this +vast and intricate subject was dealt with, Ivy Delmer was summoned this +Monday morning to take down a letter for Vernon Prideaux.</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>Vernon Prideaux was a fair, slim, neat, eye-glassed young man; his +appearance and manners were approved by Ivy Delmer's standards and his +capabilities by the heads of his department. His intellectual category +was A; he had an impatient temper, a ready tongue, considerable power +over papers (an important gift, not possessed by all civil servants), +resource in emergency, competence in handling situations and persons, +decided personal charm, was the son of one of our more notorious +politicians, and had spent most of the war in having malaria on the +Struma front, with one interesting break when he was recalled to England +by his former department to assist in the drawing up of a new Bill, +dealing with a topic on which he was an expert. He was, after all this, +only thirty now, so had every reason for believing, as he did, that he +would accomplish something in this world before he left it. He had been +sucked into the activities of the new Ministry like so many other able +young men and women, and was finding it both entertaining and not devoid +of scope for his talents.</p> + +<p>Ivy Delmer admired him a good deal. She sat at his side with her +notebook and pencil, her soft, wide mouth a little parted, waiting for +him to begin. He was turning over papers impatiently. He was in a rather +bad temper, because of his new secretary, of whom he only demanded a +little common sense and did not get it, and he would have to get rid of +her, always a tiresome process. He couldn't trust her with anything, +however simple; she always made a hash of it, and filled up the gaps, +which were profound, in her recollection of his instructions with her +own ideas, which were not. He had on Saturday given her some forms to +fill up, stock forms which were always sent in reply to a particular +kind of letter from the public. The form was supposed merely to say, "In +reply to your letter with reference to your position as regards the tax +[or bonus] on your prospective [or potential, or existing] infant, I am +to inform you that your case is one for the decision of the Local +Tribunals set up under the Mental Progress Act, to whom your application +should have been made." Miss Pomfrey, who was young and full of zeal for +the cause (she very reasonably wished that the Mental Progress Act had +been in existence before <i>her</i> parents had married), had added on her +own account to one such letter, "It was the stupidity of people like you +who caused the Great War," and put it this morning with the other forms +on Prideaux's table for signing. Prideaux had enquired, fighting against +what he knew to be a disproportionate anger with her, didn't she really +know better by now than to think that letters like that would be sent? +Miss Pomfrey had sighed. She did not know better than that by now. She +knew hardly anything. She was not intelligent, even as B3's went. In +fact, her category was probably a mistake. Her babies, if ever she had +any, would be of a mental calibre that did not bear contemplation. They +would probably cause another Great War.</p> + +<p>So Prideaux, who had also other worries, was out of temper.</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Miss Delmer.... Ah, here we are." He fidgeted about with a file, +then began to dictate a letter, in his quick, light, staccato voice. +Ivy, clenching the tip of her pink tongue between her teeth, raced after +him.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Sir,</p> + +<p>"In reply to your letter of 26th May with reference to the +taxation on babies born to your employees and their consequent +demand for increased wages, I am instructed by the Minister of +Brains to inform you that this point is receiving his careful +attention, in connection with the general economic question +involved by the terms of Ministry of Brains Instruction 743, +paragraph 3...."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Prideaux paused, and frowned nervously at his secretary, who was +conducting a fruitless conversation over his telephone, an occupation at +which she did not shine.</p> + +<p>"Hullo ... yes ... I can't quite hear ... who are you, please?... Oh ... +yes, he's here.... But rather busy, you know.... Dictating.... Yes, +<i>dictating</i>.... <i>Who</i> did you say wanted him, please?... Oh, I see...."</p> + +<p>"What is it, Miss Pomfrey?" Prideaux broke in, making her start.</p> + +<p>"It's the Minister's secretary," she explained, without covering the +receiver. "He says will you go to the Minister. There's a deputation—of +bishops, I think he said. About the new Instruction about Clergymen's +Babies.... But I said you were busy dictating...."</p> + +<p>Prideaux had jumped to his feet, frowning, and was at the door.</p> + +<p>"You'd better make a note that I'm never busy dictating or doing +anything else when the Minister sends for me," he shot at her as he left +the room.</p> + +<p>"And now he's cross," Miss Pomfrey murmured sadly.</p> + +<p>"I daresay he's only angry at being interrupted," said Ivy Delmer, who +had been at the same secretarial college as Miss Pomfrey and thought +that her days in the Ministry of Brains were numbered.</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> make him cross," Miss Pomfrey observed, accepting the fact with +resignation, as one of the sad, inevitable fatalities of life, and +returned to her indexing. She had been set to make an index of those +Ministry of Brains Instructions which had come out that month. She had +only got to the 11th of the month. The draught fluttered the pages +about. Ivy Delmer watched the Instructions waving to and fro in the +breeze—number 801, Agriculturists, 798, Conscientious Obstructionists, +897, Residents in Ireland, 674, Parents of more than three children.... +How many there were, thought Ivy, as she watched. How clever the people +who dealt with such things needed to be. She thought of her father's +village, and the people in it, the agriculturists, the parents of more +than three children, all the little human community of lives who were +intimately affected by one or other of these instructions, and the +fluttering pages emerged from the dry realm to which such as Ivy +relegate printed matter and ideas, and took vivid human life. It +mattered, all this complicated fabric of regulations and rules and +agreements and arrangements; it touched the living universe that she +knew—the courting boys and girls on stiles in Buckinghamshire lanes, +Emmeline, the Vicarage housemaid, who had married Sid Dean last month, +Mr. and Mrs. White at the farm, all the great stupid pathetic aggrieved +public, neatly filed letters from whom covered every table in the +Ministry, awaiting reply, their very hand-writing and spelling +calculated to touch any heart but a civil servant's....</p> + +<p>Ivy found a moment in which to hope that everyone in the Ministry was +being very careful and painstaking about this business, before she +reverted to wondering whether or not she liked the colour which Miss +Pomfrey had dyed her jersey.</p> + +<p>Having decided that she didn't, and also that she had better go away and +wait for Mr. Prideaux to send for her again, she departed.</p> + + +<h4>6</h4> + +<p>Vernon Prideaux, having given his assistance to the Minister in the +matter of the third clause of the new Clergymen's Babies Instruction, +left the Minister and the deputation together and returned to his room +via the Propaganda Branch, which he visited in order to ask Miss +Grammont to dine with him that evening. He and Kitty Grammont had known +one another for some years. They had begun at Cambridge, where Prideaux +had been two years the senior, and had kept up an intermittent +friendship ever since, which had, since their association in the +Ministry, grown into intimacy.</p> + +<p>Prideaux found Kitty writing a pamphlet. She was rather good at this +form of literature, having a concise and clear-cut style and an instinct +for stopping on the right word. Some pamphleteers have not this art: +they add a sentence or two more, and undo their effect. The pamphlet on +which Miss Grammont was at this moment engaged was intended for the +perusal of the working woman, and bore the conversational title, "The +Nation takes an interest in Your Affairs: will You not take an interest +in the Affairs of the Nation?" Which, as Miss Grammont observed, took +rather a long time to say, but may have been worth it.</p> + +<p>"Dine with you? I'll be charmed. Where and when?"</p> + +<p>"My rooms, eight o'clock. I've got my parents and the Minister coming."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the Minister."</p> + +<p>"Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm proud to meet him. I've never yet met him over food, so to +speak, only officially. I admire our Chester more every day he lives, +don't you? Nature made him and then broke the die."</p> + +<p>"Wonderful man," Prideaux agreed. "Extraordinary being.... A happy touch +with bishops, too. Picked that up in the home, no doubt; his father's +one. <i>Liking's</i> another thing, of course.... By the way, do you know +what his category is? However, this is gossip. I must get back and +discover what's the latest perpetration of my new secretary. See you +to-night, then."</p> + +<p>He left the room. Kitty Grammont observed with satisfaction, for she was +critical of such things, how well his clothes fitted him, wondered what +he had nearly told her about the Minister's category, finished her +pamphlet, and sent it out for typing. She had an idea that this pamphlet +might not get passed by the censor, and wanted to find out. For the +censor was cautious about pamphlets, wisely opining that you cannot be +too careful. Pamphlets may, and usually do, deal with dangerous or +indecent topics, such as the Future. If sufficiently dangerous and +indecent, they become Leaflets, and are suppressed on sight. There were +dangerous and explosive words, like Peace, War, and Freedom which the +censor dealt with drastically. The danger of the word Peace dated, of +course, from the days when Peace had not yet arrived and discussion of +it was therefore improper, like the discussion of an unborn infant. By +the time it did arrive, its relegation to the region of Things we do not +Mention had become a habit, not lightly to be laid aside, so that a +Ministry of Brains pamphlet entitled "The Peace of Fools" had been +strangled before birth, the censor being very naturally unable to +believe that it did not refer in some mysterious way to the negotiations +which had ended hostilities, whereas as a matter of fact it was all +about the foolish content of stupid people who went on submitting to +diseases which a little intelligent thought would have prevented. There +had also perished, owing to the same caution on the censor's part, and, +it must be presumed, to the same guilty conscience on the part of the +Government, a booklet published by Messrs. Mowbray in a purple paper +cover with a gold cross on it, called "The Peace which passeth +understanding," not to mention a new edition of Burke's "Regicide +Peace," and one or two other works of which the censor, whose reading +was obliged to be mainly twentieth century, mistook the date. And, if +treatises concerning Peace were suspected from force of habit, works on +War were discouraged also, on the sound British principle that the +stress of a great Peace is not the time to talk of War; we must first +deal with Peace, and <i>then</i> we may think about War; but One Thing At +Once, and do not let us cry War, War, when there is no war. But there +may be one day, argued the pamphleteers, and might it not be well to +prepare our minds for it? To which the answer very properly was, No; +Britons do not look ahead. They Come Through, instead. And anyhow it was +treachery to those who were spending their energies on this righteous +peace to discuss a premature war, which could neither be just nor +lasting.</p> + +<p>Another improper subject, naturally, was Liberty. That needs no +explanation; it has always been improper in well-regulated countries, +like Eugenics, or the Poor, and has received no encouragement from +authority. Notwithstanding this, so many improper works upon it, in +every conceivable form, have always been produced, that the censors had +to engage a special clerk, who had just obtained a first class in +English Literature at Oxford, and who therefore had books and pamphlets +of all dates fresh in her memory, to check their researches and inform +them when their energies were superfluous. Not that all the books of +former centuries on this topic were to be encouraged, for, after all, +one period is in some respects singularly like another, and the same +reflections strangely germane to both. Naturally, therefore, when the +literary clerk, seeing advertised a new and cheap edition of Robert +Hall's "Sentiments proper to the present crisis," and, remembering the +trend of this work, sent for it (having sold her own copy at Blackwell's +when she went down), and read such remarks as "Freedom, driven from +every spot on the continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she +always chose for her favourite abode, but she is pursued even here and +threatened with destruction.... It is for you to decide whether this +freedom shall yet survive, or be clothed with a funeral pall and be +wrapped in eternal gloom"—very properly she reported the matter to +headquarters, and the cheap edition was called in.</p> + +<p>Equally naturally there perished (without the help of the literary +clerk, who was not asked to judge of twentieth century literature) +various collections of Free Verse, for which the Poetry Bookshop was +successfully raided, a tract of the sort which is dropped about trains, +published by the Evangelical Tract Society and called "Throw off your +Chains!", "Citizens of a Free City," which was found at Mowbray's, and +bore on its title page the statement "Jerusalem ... is free" (a manifest +and seditious untruth, as we, of course, held Jerusalem, in trust for +the Jews), and many others of like tendency, such as works on Free Food, +Free Drink, Free Housing, Free Love, Free Thought, and Labour, in +Chains. Even fiction was suspect. A novel entitled <i>The Dangers of +Dora</i>, by the well-known author of <i>The Perils of Pauline</i> and <i>The +Exploits of Elaine</i>, was suppressed, in spite of what should have been +the reassuring fact that Dora, like Pauline and Elaine before her, +triumphantly worsted all her foes in the end, and emerged smiling and +safe on the last page. Publishers were known to demand the alteration of +a title if the name Dora occurred in it, such wholesome respect did the +Censor's methods inspire.</p> + +<p>It will therefore be readily understood that even government departments +had to go warily in this matter.</p> + +<p>The Minister of Brains held pamphlet propaganda to be of the greatest +importance. A week ago the workers in the propaganda section had been +sent for and interviewed by the Minister in person. This personal +contact had, for the time being, oddly weighted Miss Grammont's too +irresponsible levity, kindled her rather cynical coolness, given her +something almost like zeal. That was one thing about the Minister—he +set other people on fire. Another was that his manners were bad but +unexpected, and a third that he looked like a cross between M. Kerensky, +a member of the Geddes family, and Mr. Nelson Keys.</p> + +<p>Thus Miss Grammont, thoughtfully smoking a Cyprus cigarette, summed up +the Minister of Brains.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>LITTLE CHANTREYS</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>Ivy Delmer went home to Little Chantreys on the following Saturday +afternoon, after a matinée and tea in town, in the same train, though +not the same carriage as Kitty Grammont and Vernon Prideaux, who were +presumably spending the week-end at the End House. Ivy travelled home +every evening of the week. Miss Grammont had a flat in town, but spent +the week-ends when she was not otherwise engaged, with her brother in +Little Chantreys, which was embarrassing to Ivy.</p> + +<p>As Ivy got out of the train she saw Miss Grammont's brother and the lady +who could scarcely be called her sister-in-law, on the platform, +accompanied by a queer-looking man of about forty, with ears rather like +a faun's. Anyone, thought Ivy, could have guessed which house in Little +Chantreys he was staying at. The week-end people who came to the End +House differed widely one from another in body and soul; some looked +clever, or handsome, others did not, some were over-dressed, some under, +some, like Miss Grammont and her brothers, just right; there were +musical people, sporting people, literary or artistic people, stagy +people (these last were the friends of Miss Pansy Ponsonby, who was not +Miss Grammont's sister-in-law), uncommon people, and common people; but +they all, thought Ivy Delmer, had two looks in common—they looked as if +they wouldn't get on very well with her father and mother, and they +looked as if they didn't read the Bible.</p> + +<p>This second look was differentiated according to the wearer of it. Some +of them (like this man to-day) looked as if he didn't read it because it +had become so inextricably bound up with vulgar superstition and an +impossible religion that he despised it. Some, like Miss Grammont and +her brother Anthony, looked as if they didn't read it because they +already knew enough of it to be funny about it when they wanted to; +others, like Miss Pansy Ponsonby, looked as if she had really once given +it a try, but had found it dry and put off further perusal until such +time as she lay dying and might want to do something about her future +state. And Miss Grammont's brother Cyril looked as if it was a +Protestant book, and rather vulgar. Some, again, looked innocent, as if +they had never heard of it, others guilty, as if they never wanted to +again.</p> + +<p>Ivy Delmer walked home to the Vicarage, hoping rather that the End House +wouldn't come to church to-morrow. It was taken, from time to time, with +an unaccountable fit of doing this. It made Ivy uncomfortable. Whether +or not it came to pray, she could not help having an uneasy suspicion +that it stayed to mock.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>"Hullo, old dear," said Miss Pansy Ponsonby, in her rich and resonant +drawl, as Kitty and her companion came out of the station. "Here we all +are again. <i>And</i> the Cheeper. He's a growin' boy, our Cheeper: he puts +on weight. Takes after me: I put on weight when I forget my exercises +and don't keep an eye on myself. Don't I, Tony? Mr. Prideaux, isn't it? +How do, Mr. Prideaux? Vurry pleased you've come. You know Mr. Amherst, +don't you? You clever folks all know each other." Miss Ponsonby, who was +not an American, had once performed in the same company as Miss Lee +White, and had caught an inflexion or two. She looked with the +satisfaction of the hospitable hostess at the little group, and added, +"So here we all are. And vurry nice too."</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, not an unpleasing group. Dominating it was Miss Ponsonby +herself, very tall, very beautiful, very supple (only a year ago she had +been doing her celebrated eel-dance in "Hullo, Peace!"), with long and +lovely violet eyes and the best kind of Icilma skin, adorned tastefully +but quite unnecessarily with pink paint, white powder, scarlet lip +salve, and black lash-darkener. All this was from force of habit: Miss +Ponsonby was quite adequately pink, white, scarlet and black in her own +person. But, as Kitty observed, having been given by heaven such an +absurd thing as a human face, what could one do but make it yet more +absurd by these superimposed gaieties? You cannot take a face as a +serious thing; it is one of nature's jests, and it is most suitably +dealt with as the clown and the pierrot deal with theirs. This was +Kitty's point of view; Pansy had none, only habits.</p> + +<p>Pansy was guiding and controlling a motor-pram, in which lay the +Cheeper, aged four months (he had no Christian name, having so far +evaded both the registrar and the font, and presumably no surname, owing +to the peculiar circumstances of his parents). The Cheeper's father, +Anthony Grammont, was a fair, pale, good-looking, rather tired young man +of seven and twenty, with a slightly plaintive voice; he looked as if he +shared, only with more languor, Miss Ponsonby's placid and engaging +enjoyment of the world; he had been in one of the hottest corners of +France through the European War, and had emerged from it a bored and +unambitious colonel, deaf of one ear, adorned with a Military Cross, and +determined to repay himself for his expenditure of so much time, energy +and health by enjoying the fifty or sixty years which, he piously hoped, +remained to him, to the full. Which he was now doing. His professional +life was passed on the Stock Exchange.</p> + +<p>Mr. Leslie Amherst, the man like a faun, who was staying with him, was +an old friend of the Grammont family. He wrote, and was on the staff of +a weekly journal. He was engaged just now on a series of articles on the +Forces of Darkness in Darkest Europe. So far he had produced 1. The +Legislature, 2. Capitalism, 3. Industrialism, 4. Nationalism, 5. +Militarism, 6. The Press, and this week he was writing 7. Organised +Religion. (It will no doubt shock some readers to learn that these +forces had not all, in spite of the earnest hopes entertained for so +long for their overthrowal, yet been overthrown; but truth compels me to +state that they had not.) Though Amherst talked like a cynic, and had +his affectations, he was an earnest thinker, and sometimes tired his +host, who was not, and who had been left by his years of difficult +continental sojourn with a supreme distaste for any further probing into +the problems of Darkest Europe. Amherst had the advantage, in this +matter, of having been a Conscientious Objector to Military Service, so +the war had not tired him, and he retained for home use the freshness +and vigour of attack which had, in the case of many of his +fellow-countrymen, been all used up abroad.</p> + +<p>The End House party was completed by Kitty Grammont, with her round, +long-lashed eyes and her air of the ingenuous rake, and Vernon Prideaux, +brisk and neat and clever. So there they all were; and very nice, too.</p> + +<p>Kitty kissed her brother and Miss Ponsonby and dug the Cheeper in the +ribs in the manner he preferred. She was very fond of them all, and +found Miss Ponsonby immeasurably entertaining. Little had she thought, +when of old she used joyfully to watch Miss Pansy Ponsonby twist and +kick and curl herself about the stage and sing fascinating inanities in +her lazy contralto, that they would ever be linked by no common bond. Of +course she had known that her brother Anthony was showering flowers, +chocolates, suppers, week-ends and air-trips at Miss Ponsonby's nimble +feet (the toes of which could bend right back at the joints) but Anthony +had been known to shower these things at the feet of others. Certainly +Kitty had never expected that he would instal this delightful and +expensive being in a real house, have a real infant, and really settle +down, albeit socially ostracised in Buckinghamshire because imperfectly +married (that was the fault of Pansy's husband, Mr. Jimmie Jenks, who, +though he didn't want her himself, selfishly refused to sever the +connection irrevocably).</p> + +<p>"What's the afternoon news?" enquired Mr. Amherst, as they walked up to +the village.</p> + +<p>"Haven't seen a paper for half an hour," replied Prideaux, who kept his +finger on the pulse of the nation and liked his news up to date. "I've +got two five o'clock ones with me, though. The Leeds strike is rather +worse, the Sheffield one rather better. The aero bus men are coming out +on Monday. Dangerous unrest among Sussex shepherds and Cotswold cowmen." +(Agricultural labour was now controlled by the State.) "Lord Backwoods +has been speaking to his constituents against the Bill for +disfranchising Conscientious Obstructionists of the Mental Progress +Acts. A thoroughly seditious speech, of course. Poor old chap, his +eldest-son has just got engaged to be married, so there'll be another +family of Backwoods babies who ought never to exist. It will hit them +heavily financially.... And the International Police have found another +underground gun-factory near Munich, under a band-stand. And it's +confirmed that old Tommy Jackson is to be Drink Controller."</p> + +<p>"Another good butler spoilt," observed Anthony Grammont. "He <i>was</i> a +jolly good butler once. And he'll be a jolly bad Drink Controller."</p> + +<p>"Dear old Tommy," murmured Miss Ponsonby absently, lifting the Cheeper +out of his motor-pram with one strong white hand and balancing him on +her ample shoulders. "He was vurry kind to me in the dear old days, when +I spent week-ends at Surrey Towers. He used to give me tips on Correct +Conduct. I didn't take them; Correct Conduct wasn't what the people +there asked me for; but I was grateful to Tommy."</p> + +<p>"If," said Anthony, "there is any member of a government department, +existing, fallen, or yet to come, who has <i>not</i> in the dear old days +been vurry kind to you, my dear Pansy, I should be rather glad to know +his name."</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly," returned Pansy, with cheerful readiness. "Nicky +Chester, the Brains Minister who's making himself such an all-round +eternal nuisance, doesn't even realise I exist, and if he did he'd think +I oughtn't."</p> + +<p>"That's where you're wrong, Pansy," Kitty said. "He thinks everyone +ought to exist who does anything as well as you do your things. You're +Starred A, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"I've gone and lost the silly old bus ticket," said Pansy indifferently, +"but that's what it said, I think." Starred A meant (in the words of the +official definition) first-class ability at a branch of work which would +not appear to be a valuable contribution to the general efficiency of +the State. The Cheeper, child of a starred A mother and a B3 father +(Anthony's brains had been reduced by trench-life; he had been quite +intelligent at Oxford), was subject neither to bonus nor tax.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," went on Pansy, grinning her wide, sweet, leisurely grin, "I +think I see Nicky Chester sendin' me round flowers or goodies after a +show! He's seen me, you know: he was in a box the first night of 'Hullo, +Peace!' He laughed at the political hits, but my turns left him cold; I +guess they weren't brainy enough." She tossed the Cheeper in the air and +caught him, strongly and easily. "Make him supple young," she observed, +"an' by the time he's six he'll be a star Child Gamboller, fit for +revue. He takes after me. Already he can put both his big toes in his +little mouth at once."</p> + +<p>"Very unusual, surely," remarked Mr. Amherst, looking at the Cheeper +through his pince-nez as if he were an insect under a microscope. Mr. +Amherst was fellow of an Oxford college, and had the academic touch, and +was not yet entirely used to Pansy, a type outside his previous studies, +and at no time would he be really used to anyone under eighteen years of +age, let alone six months. Possibly this was what his reviewers meant +when they said that he lacked the touch of common humanity.</p> + +<p>His attention was diverted from the Cheeper by the parish church, which +he inspected with the same curiosity and distaste.</p> + +<p>"Organised Religion, I presume," he commented. "If you've no objection, +Anthony, I will attend morning service there to-morrow. It may provide +me with some valuable subject matter for my article."</p> + +<p>"We'll all go," said Kitty. "The End House shall set an example to the +village. We'll take Cyril, too. He can get a dispensation. It's Brains +Sunday, you know, and all patriotic clergymen will be preaching about +it. Vernon and I are officially bound to be there."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose it will be amusing," said Anthony. "But we'll go if you +all want to."</p> + +<p>"Church," said Pansy, meditatively regarding the Early Perpendicular +tower. "<i>I</i> went one Sunday morning." She paused reminiscently, and +added, without chagrin, "The vicar turned me down."</p> + +<p>"He could hardly," said Mr. Amherst civilly, "do otherwise. Your +position is not one which is at present recognised by Organised +Religion."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he recognised it all right," Pansy explained. "That was just the +trouble; he didn't like it.... He's not a bad old sort. He came to call +afterwards, and told me all about it. He was quite upset. So was I, +wasn't I, old thing?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least," returned Anthony placidly.</p> + +<p>"I'd only wanted to do the proper thing," Pansy continued her +unperturbed narrative, in her singularly beautiful voice. "I was always +brought up to go to church now and then. I was confirmed all right. I +like to do the proper thing. It only seems fair to the Cheeper to bring +him up in the way he should go. I wouldn't care for him to grow up an +agnogger, like all you people. But Mr. Delmer said my way of life was +too ambiguous to square with comin' to church. Rather a sweet word, +don't you think? Because it <i>isn't</i> ambiguous really, you know; not a +bit, I'm afraid.... So when the Cheeper turned up, it seemed to me <i>he</i> +was a bit ambiguous, too, an' that's why I haven't had him made a little +Christian yet. The vicar says he can square that up all right—he called +on purpose to tell me—but somehow we've never had the time to fix it, +have we, darlin'? Tottie O'Clare promised me she'd be godmother if ever +I did have him done...."</p> + +<p>"Pansy," said Anthony, "you're boring Amherst and Prideaux. They're not +interested in babies, or baptisms, or Tottie O'Clare."</p> + +<p>Pansy smiled at them all out of her serene violet eyes. She looked like +some stately, supple Aphrodite; she might, but for the delicate soupçon +of powder and over-red lips, have sat for a madonna.</p> + +<p>"Pansy," said Kitty, "it's the Sistine Madonna you're like; I've got it +at last. You're the divine type. You might be from heaven. You're so +restful. We all spin and buzz about, trying to get things done, and to +be clever and fussy and efficient—and you just <i>are</i>. You happen, like +spring, or music. You're not a bit like Chester, but you're ever so much +more important. Isn't she, Vernon?"</p> + +<p>"They're both," said Prideaux tactfully, "of enormous importance. And +certainly, as you say, not in the least alike. Chester is neither like +spring nor music, and certainly one wouldn't call him restful. And I +should be a bit surprised to learn that heaven is where he either began +or will end his career.... But, I ask you, look at that."</p> + +<p>They were passing the little Town Hall, that stood in the village market +place. Its face was plastered with an immense poster, which Prideaux and +Kitty surveyed with proprietary pride, Amherst with cynical amusement, +Anthony with bored resignation, and Pansy and the Cheeper with placid +wonder at the world's folly.</p> + +<p>"Ours is a wonderful government," Kitty commented. "And we are a +wonderful ministry. Think of rural England all plastered with that.... I +don't believe Chester laughs when he sees it, Vernon. I'm sure he looks +at it proudly, like a solemn, earnest little boy."</p> + +<p>"And quite right too," said Prideaux, screwing his glass into his eye +the better to read. For this was a new Ministry of Brains poster; new +this week. It read, in large type, "Improve your Brains! Go in for the +Government Course of Mind Training! It will benefit you, it will benefit +your country, it will benefit posterity. Old Age must come. But it need +not be a Doddering Old Age. Lay up Good Mental Capacities to meet it, +and make it a Fruitful and Happy Time. See what the Mind Training Course +has done for others, and let it Do the Same for You."</p> + +<p>Then, in smaller type, "Here are a few reports from those who have +benefited by it.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a famous financier.</i> Since I began the Course I have doubled my +income and halved those of 750 others. I hope, by the time I have +completed the Course, to have ruined twice this number.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a Cabinet Minister.</i> Owing to the Mind Training Course I have now +remained in office for over six weeks. I hope to remain for at least +three more.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a newspaper proprietor.</i> I have started eight new journals since +I took the Course, over-turned three governments, directed four +international crises, and successfully represented Great Britain to the +natives of the Pacific Islands.</p> + +<p>"<i>From the editor of a notorious weekly paper.</i> I took the Course +because I seemed to be losing that unrivalled touch which has made my +paper what, I may say, it is. Since taking it, more than my old force +has returned, so that I have libelled nine prominent persons and +successfully defended six libel actions in the courts. The M.T. Course +teaches one to Live at one's Best.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a Civil Servant.</i> Every time a new government department is born +I enter it, rendered competent by the Mind Training Course to fill its +highest posts. When the Department falls I leave it, undamaged.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a Publisher.</i> My judgment has been so stimulated by the Course +that since taking it I have published five novels so unpleasant that +correspondence still rages about them in the columns of the Spectator, +and which have consequently achieved ten editions. The Course teaches +one why some succeed and others fail.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a Journalist.</i> I now only use the words decimated, literally, +annihilated, and proletariat, according to the meanings ascribed to them +in the dictionary, do not use pacifism more than three times a day, nor +'very essential' or 'rather unique' at all.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a famous Theologian.</i> Before I undertook the Course I was a +Bishop of a disestablished Church. Now my brain is clarified, my eyes +are opened, and I am a leader of the Coming Faith. The Course teaches +the Meaning of Life.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a former Secretary of State.</i> Since taking the Course I have +recognised the importance of keeping myself informed as to public +affairs, and now never refer in my public speeches to any speech by +another statesman without having previously read a summary of it.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a poet.</i> I can now find rhymes to nearly all my lines, and have +given up the old-fashioned habit of free rhythms to which I have been +addicted since 1912. I can even find rhymes to indemnity, also a rhyme +to War which is neither gore, claw, nor star.</p> + +<p>"<i>From an inveterate writer of letters to newspapers.</i> I no longer do +this.</p> + +<p>"<i>From a citizen.</i> I was engaged to be married. Now I am not."</p> + +<p>Then in large type again,</p> + +<p>"All this has happened to Others! Why should it not happen to You? Save +yourself, save your country, save the world! How shall wisdom be found, +and where is the place of understanding? So asked the Preacher of the +ancient world, and got no answer, because then there was none. But the +answer is now forthcoming. Wisdom is to be found in the Government Mind +Training Course—the M.T.C., as it is affectionately called by thousands +of men and women who are deriving benefits from it. Enter for it to-day. +For further information apply Mind Training Section, Ministry of Brains, +S.W. 1."</p> + +<p>Above the letterpress was a picture poster, representing two youths, and +called "Before and After." "Before" had the vacuity of the village +idiot, "After" the triumphant cunning of the maniac. The Mind Training +Course had obviously completely overset a brain formerly harmless, if +deficient.</p> + +<p>"How long," enquired Amherst, in his best Oxford manner, "do you give +yourselves? I address the enquiry, as a member of the public, to you, as +servants of a government which can resort to such methods as that."</p> + +<p>"We have now remained in office for over six months," said Kitty, "and +we hope to remain for at least three more.... But it's for us to ask +you, as a member of the public, how long you intend to give us? +Personally I'm astonished every day that our hotel, and all the other +hotels, aren't stormed and wrecked. I don't know why the Aero Bus +Company, while it's on strike, doesn't sail over us and drop bombs. It +shows we must be more popular than we deserve. It shows that people +really <i>like</i> being coerced and improved. They know they need it. Look +at the people going about this village; look at their faces, I ask you. +They're like 'Before.' Look at the policeman at his door, half out of +his clothes. He's god-like to look at; he's got a figure like the +Discobolus, and the brain of a Dr. Watson. He could never track a thief. +He's looking at us; he thinks we're thieves, probably, just because +we're ambiguous. That's the sort of mind he has. Look at the doctor, in +his absurd little Ford. How much do you suppose he knows about curing +people, or about the science of bodies? He patches them up with pills +and drugs, and.... But he didn't cut us, Tony. Why not?"</p> + +<p>"He and the vicar don't," explained Anthony. "Professional attendance. +There's the vicar, outside that cottage. See him put his hand up as we +pass him."</p> + +<p>He returned the salute with some pride, and Pansy nodded agreeably. +Amherst examined the vicar, who was small and sturdy and had a nice kind +face.</p> + +<p>Amherst shook his head when they had left him behind.</p> + +<p>"Not nearly clever enough for the part," he pronounced. "To organise +religion a man should have the talents of the devil, or at least of the +intelligent civil servant. Prideaux would do it quite well; or Chester; +only Chester might be too erratic for the popular taste. No wonder +Christianity is the ineffective thing it is in this country, if it's +left in the hands of officials like that. That man couldn't organise +anything; I bet even his school treats go wrong—too few buns or +something. That's the hope for the world, that inefficiency of most +religious officials; that's why the public will succeed before long in +throwing off the whole business, even before they succeed in downing +Parliament and the British autocracy, who are a shade more acute. From +my point of view your vicar's stupidity is all to the good. If he +preaches to-morrow as the Brains Ministry want him to—and he looks +loyal and patriotic enough to try—he'll be preaching against his own +interests. But that's what all you Brains people are doing, of course. +You don't seem to see that if you ever were to succeed in making the +human race reasonably intelligent, your number would be up; you wouldn't +be stood for a moment longer. You're sitting on a branch and trying to +saw it off. Lucky for you your saws aren't sharper."</p> + +<p>"Chester would go on just the same if he did see," Kitty said. "He +probably does. He's an idealist, but his eye for facts is very +penetrating. And he'd think it worth while to perish in so good a +cause."</p> + +<p>"The fact is," added Prideaux, "that he never would perish, even if the +branch did fall; he'd climb on to another pretty quickly and rise as the +People's Saviour. Our Nicky won't go under."</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>They arrived at the End House, about which there is little to say except +that it lay just beyond the straggling village, was roomy, comfortable, +untidy, full of dogs all named after revue stars, and was an interesting +mixture of the Grammont taste in art and decoration, which was the taste +of clever people several of whom were artists, and of Pansy's taste, +which is most shortly indicated by mentioning that if you saw the house +before you saw Pansy you were surprised, and if you had seen Pansy first +you were not. The drawing-room floor was littered with large and +comfortable and brightly-hued cushions, obviously not mistakes but +seats. This always a little flurried the vicar and his wife when they +called; it was, as Mrs. Delmer observed, so very Eastern, and suggested +other habits belonging to the same dubious quarter of the globe, some of +which there was only too good reason to believe had been adopted. The +chimney-piece was worse, being adorned by photographs of Pansy's +friends—her loving Tottie, hers everlastingly, Guy, warmly Phyllis and +Harry, and so forth. (There was even hers Jimmie, which, if Mrs. Delmer +had known rather more of Pansy's domestic circumstances than she did, +would have struck her as being in very doubtful taste.) Some of these +ladies and gentlemen, fortunately, had elected to be taken head and +shoulders only (and quite enough too, thought Mrs. Delmer, wondering how +far below the bottom of the photograph the ladies' clothes began) and +some showed the whole figure. ("I should think they did!" said Mrs. +Delmer, on her first call, nervously retreating from the chimney-piece. +It may be mentioned that Mrs. Delmer was not in the habit of witnessing +revues, and was accustomed to an ampler mode of garment. These things +are so much a question of habit.)</p> + +<p>These photographs, and the excellent painting in the hall of Pansy +herself in her eel dance, were among the minor reasons why Ivy Delmer +was not allowed to enter the End House. There were three reasons why her +parents did so; they might be stupid, but they were of an extraordinary +goodness, and could not bear to leave sin alone, anyhow in their own +parish, where it set such an unfortunate example, when they might, by +sufficient battling, perhaps win it over to righteousness; also they had +kind and soft hearts, and did not like the idea of Pansy alone all day +with her infant son and the two most notoriously ill-behaved young +servants in the village; and finally they were Christians, and believed +that the teaching of their religion on the subject of sociability to +sinners was plain. So, swallowing their embarrassed distaste, they +visited the End House as one might visit a hospital, but kept their +children from it, because it was a hospital whose patients might be +infectious.</p> + +<p>Into this house, standing hospitably open-doored in the May evening, its +owner and his friends entered. It affected them in various ways. Anthony +Grammont was proud of his house and garden, his Pansy and his Cheeper. +He was young enough to be vain of being head of a household, even of an +ambiguous household, and of course anyone would be proud of the dazzling +and widely-known Pansy, whose name had always been one of the two in +large type in advertisements of the shows in which she figured (she was +as good as all that); and he was tired enough, mentally and physically, +by his life of the last few years, its discomforts, its homelessness, +its bondage, its painful unnaturalness, to sink with relief into Pansy's +exotic cushions and all they stood for.</p> + +<p>Kitty found the house and household inordinately cheering and +entertaining; the mere sight of Pansy's drawing-room could rouse her +from any depression.</p> + +<p>Vernon Prideaux shuddered a little at the row of photographs—he +detested photographs on chimney-pieces—and the Eve design on the chair +covers; he was not so good at the comic-opera touch as Kitty was, and +had a masculine sense of propriety and good taste, and had always +preferred revue stars on the stage to off it. He had also, however, a +wide tolerance for the tastes of others, and was glad that Tony Grammont +had found domestic happiness.</p> + +<p>Amherst's thoughts were brief and neat, and might be summed up thus: +"Forces of Darkness—number 8. The expensive, conscienceless, and +unthinking female."</p> + +<p>Pansy went upstairs to put the Cheeper to bed, and Kitty went with her +to see her nephew in his bath, putting both his big toes into his mouth +at once.</p> + +<p>The only other event of importance which happened before dinner was the +arrival of Cyril Grammont, a brother of Anthony's, a Cambridge friend of +Prideaux's, a Roman Catholic, a writer of epigrammatic essays and light +verse, and a budding publisher. He and Pansy usually quarrelled. He had +spent the war partly in Macedonia, as a member of the Salonika Force, +digging up fragments of sculpture from Amphipolis and the other ruined +cities of those regions, tracking what he then held to be the pernicious +influence of St. Paul with the help of a pocket atlas of his journeys +and the obviously evil habits and dispositions of the towns which had +received his attentions, and partly in Palestine, where he had taken an +extreme dislike to both Jews and Turks, had become convinced that they +must be so wrong about everything that mattered that Christians must be +right, and was forthwith converted from atheism to Christianity. He +considered that war-time is no time for Christians, they have to do so +much either explaining or protesting or both, so he had waited till the +war was over, and had then proceeded to investigate the various forms +into which Christianity had developed (they all seemed a little strange +to him at first), in order to make his choice. An impartial friend with +whom he discussed the subject told him that he would find Roman +Catholicism best suited to his precise, clear-cut, and Latin type of +mind, provided that he succeeded in avoiding all contact with the more +luscious forms of Roman devotions, which, he was warned, would disgust +him as much as patchouli, or Carlo Dolci. "And anyhow," added his +friend, probably erroneously, "it will outlast the other churches, for +all its obscurantism, so if you want a going concern, join it."</p> + +<p>So Cyril enquired into Roman Catholicism, found that, in its best +cathedral forms, it satisfied his artistic sense, and, in its +sharply-cut dogma, his feeling for precise form (his taste in art was +violently against the post-bellum school, which was a riot of lazy, +sloppy, and unintellectual formlessness), and so, accepting as no +stranger than most of the growths of a strangely sprouting world the +wonderful tree which had grown from a seed so remarkably dissimilar, he +took a firm seat upon its branches, heedless of the surprised +disapproval of most of his friends, who did not hold that any organised +religion could be called a going concern, except in the sense that it +was going to pot.</p> + +<p>So here was Cyril, at the End House for Sunday, neat, handsome, +incisive, supercilious, very sure of himself, and not in the least like +the End House, with its slatternly brilliance, its yapping dogs, its +absurdities, its sprawling incoherence, its cushions, and its ambiguity.</p> + +<p>In the evening Pansy danced her willow-tree dance for them. Her hair +tumbled down, and she ceased to look like the Sistine Madonna and became +more like a young Bacchanal. Some of her jokes were coarse (you have to +be coarse sometimes in revue, and cannot leave the habit entirely behind +you when you come off the boards) and Amherst, who was refined, was +jarred. Then she quarrelled with Cyril, because he remarked, with his +cheerful and businesslike air of finality, that of course if the Cheeper +were not baptised he would go to hell. Upon her violent remonstrance he +merely observed that he was sorry, but facts were facts, and he couldn't +get them altered to please her. He talked like this partly to annoy +Pansy, because it amused him to see her cross, and partly for the +pleasure of unobtrusively watching Amherst's expression when the word +hell was mentioned.</p> + +<p>So, to unite the party, Kitty proposed that they should play the new +card game, League of Nations, of which the point was to amass cards and +go out while presenting an appearance of doing nothing at all.</p> + +<p>Thus harmoniously and hilariously the night wore on, till at last the +End House, like the other Little Chantreys houses, only much later, went +to bed.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>Little Chantreys slept under the May moon, round the market square with +the Ministry of Brains poster in the middle.</p> + +<p>The doctor slept with the sound sleep of those who do not know the width +of the gulf between what they are and what they should be.</p> + +<p>The sick, his patients, slept or woke, tossing uneasily, with windows +closed to the soft night air. Every now and then they would rouse and +take their medicine, with impatience, desperation, simple faith, or dull +obedience, and look in vain for a bettering of their state. Those who +considered themselves well, never having known what welfare really was, +slept too, in stuffy, air-tight rooms, disturbed by the wailing of +babies which they had not taught not to cry aloud, by the hopping of +fleas which they had failed to catch or to subdue, by the dancing of +mice which would never enter traps so obvious as those which they +scornfully perceived in their paths, by the crowding of children about +them, too close to be forgotten or ignored, by the dragging weight of +incompetent, unfinished yesterday and incompetent, unbegun to-morrow.</p> + +<p>The vicarage slept. The vicar in his sleep had a puzzled frown, as if +life was too much for him, as if he was struggling with forces above his +comprehension and beyond his grasp, forces that should have +revolutionised Little Chantreys, but, in his hands, wouldn't. The +vicar's wife slept fitfully, waking to worry about the new cook, whose +pastry was impossible. She wasn't clever enough to know that cooking +shouldn't be done in this inefficient, wasteful way in the home, but +co-operatively, in a village kitchen, and pastry should be turned out by +a pastry machine. Mrs. Delmer had heard of this idea, but didn't like +it, because it was new. She wasn't strong, and would die one day, worn +out with domestic worries which could have been so easily obviated....</p> + +<p>The young Delmers slept. They always did. They mostly ought not to have +been born at all; they were, except Ivy, who was moderately intelligent, +below standard. They slept the sleep of the unthinking.</p> + +<p>The vicarage girl slept. She would sleep for some time, because her +alarum clock was smothered by a cushion; which would seem to indicate +more brains on her part than were to be found in the other inmates of +the vicarage.</p> + +<p>So Little Chantreys slept, and the world slept, governments and +governed, forces of darkness and forces of light, industry and idleness, +the sad and the gay; pathetic, untutored children of the moment looking +neither behind nor ahead.</p> + +<p>The morning light, opening dimly, like a faintly-tinted flower, +illumined the large red type of the poster in the Little Chantreys +market place. "IMPROVE YOUR BRAINS!" So Brains Sunday dawned upon a +world which did indeed seem to need it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>BRAINS SUNDAY</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>Ivy Delmer had been right in her premonition. The End House was in +church, at matins (the form of Sunday midday worship still used in +Little Chantreys, which was old-fashioned). Ivy looked at them as they +sat in a row near the front. Mr. Anthony Grammont and Miss Ponsonby sat +next each other and conversed together in whispers. Miss Ponsonby was +attired in pink gingham, and not much of it (it was not the fashion to +have extensive clothes, or of rich materials, lest people should point +at you as a profiteer who had made money out of the war; even if you had +done this you hid it as far as was convenient, and what you did not hide +you said was interest on war loan). Miss Ponsonby, with her serene +smile, looked patient, resigned, and very sweet and good. Next her was +Miss Grammont, who looked demure in a dress of motley, and, beyond her +again, Mr. Prideaux, who looked restless and impatient, either as if he +were thinking out some departmental tangle, or as if he thought it had +been a silly idea to come to church, or both. At the end of the row were +Mr. Amherst, who was studying the church, the congregation and the +service through his glasses, collecting copy for his essay, and Mr. +Cyril Grammont, who looked like a Roman Catholic attending a Protestant +church by special dispensation. (This look cannot be defined, but is +known if seen.)</p> + +<p>Ivy looked from the End House to her father, surpliced at the lectern, +reading the Proper Lesson appointed for Brains Sunday, Proverbs 8 and 9. +"Shall not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her word? She +standeth in the top of high places, by the way, in the places of the +paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming +in at the doors.... O ye simple, understand wisdom, and, ye fools, be of +an understanding heart.... Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn +out her seven pillars" (that was the Ministry hotel, thought Ivy).... +"She hath sent forth her maidens, she crieth upon the highest place of +the city" (on the walls of the Little Chantreys town hall). "Whoso is +simple, let him turn in hither.... Forsake the foolish and live, and go +in the way of understanding.... Give instruction to a wise man and he +will get wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning.... +The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of +the holy is understanding...." Which set Ivy Delmer wondering a little, +for she believed her parents to be holy, or anyhow very, very good, and +yet.... But perhaps they had, after all, the beginning of wisdom, only +not its middle, nor its end, if wisdom has any end. She looked from her +father, carefully closing the big Bible and remarking that here ended +the first lesson, to her mother, carefully closing her little Bible (for +she was of those who follow lessons in books); her mother, who was so +wonderfully good and kind and selfless, and to whom old age must come, +and who ought to be preparing for it by going in for the Government Mind +Training Course, but who said she hadn't time, she was so busy in the +house and garden and parish. And half the things she did or supervised +in the house and garden ought, said the Ministry of Brains, to be done +by machinery, or co-operation, or something. They would have been done +better so, and would have left the Delmers and their parishioners more +time. More time for what, was the further question? "Save time now spent +on the mere business of living, and spend it on better things," said the +Ministry pamphlets. Reading, Ivy supposed; thinking, talking, getting +<i>au fait</i> with the affairs of the world. And here was Mrs. Delmer +teaching each new girl to make pastry (no new girl at the vicarage ever +seemed to have acquired the pastry art to Mrs. Delmer's satisfaction in +her pre-vicarage career)—pastry, which should have been turned out by +the yard in a pastry machine; and spudding up weeds one by one, which +should have been electrocuted, like superfluous hairs, or flung up by +dynamite, like fish in a river.... But when Mrs. Delmer heard of such +new and intelligent labour-saving devices, she was as reluctant to adopt +them as any of the poor dear stupid women in the cottages. It was a +pity, because the Church should lead the way; and really now that it had +been set free of the State it quite often did.</p> + +<p>Ivy looked with puzzled, thoughtful eyes, which this morning, unusually, +were observing people rather than their clothes, at the rest of the +congregation, her own brothers and sisters first. The young Delmers were +several in number; there was Betty, who had just left school, and showed +no signs of "doing" anything, except her hair, the flowers, and +occasionally the lamps. For the rest, she played tennis for prizes and +hockey for Bucks, went out to tea, and when in doubt dyed her clothes or +washed the dogs. There was Charlie, at Cambridge. Charlie was of those +for whom the Great War had been allowed to take the place of the +Littlego, which was fortunate in his case, as he had managed to get +through the one but would probably in no circumstances have got through +the other. And there was Reggie, who had got through neither, but had +been killed at Cambrai in November, 1917. There were also some little +ones, Jane and John, aged twelve and eleven, who, though separated by +the length of a seat, still continued to hold communication by Morse, +and Jelly, who was named for a once famous admiral and whose age cannot +be specified. Jelly was small and stout, sat between his mother and Ivy +and stared at his father in the choir-stalls, and from time to time +lifted up his voice and laughed, as if he were at a Punch and Judy show.</p> + +<p>On the whole an agreeable family, and well-intentioned (though Ivy and +Betty quarrelled continuously and stole each other's things), but +certainly to be numbered among the simple, who were urged to get +understanding. Would they ever get it? That was the question, for them +and for the whole congregation here present, from the smallest, +grubbiest school-child furtively sucking bulls'-eyes and wiping its +sticky hands upon its teacher's skirt, to the vicar in the pulpit, +giving out his text.</p> + +<p>"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God"; that was the text. +Ivy saw a little smile cross the clever and conceited face of Mr. +Amherst as it was given out. He settled himself down to listen, +expectant of entertainment. He believed that he was in luck. For Mr. +Amherst, who did not say in his heart that there was no God, because +even in his heart he scorned the affirmation of the obvious, was of +those who are sure that all members of the Christian Church are fools +(unlike Mr. Arnold Bennett, who tries and fails, he did not even try to +think of them as intellectual equals), so he avoided, where he could, +the study of clever Christians, and welcomed the evidences of weakness +of intellect that crossed his path. He believed that this was going to +be a foolish sermon, which, besides amusing them all, would help him in +his article on Organised Religion.</p> + +<p>Ivy could not help watching the End House people. Somehow she knew how +the sermon was affecting them. She didn't think it funny, but she +suspected that they would. Her father wasn't as clever as they were; +that was why he failed to say anything that could impress them except as +either dull or comic. Brains again. How much they mattered. Clergymen +ought to have brains; it seemed very important. They ought to know how +to appeal to rich and poor, high and low, wise and simple. This +extraordinary thing called religion—(Ivy quite newly and unusually saw +it as extraordinary, seeing it for a moment with the eyes of the End +House, to all of whom, except Miss Ponsonby and, presumably, Cyril +Grammont, it was like fairy lore, like Greek mythology, mediæval archaic +nonsense)—this extraordinary lore and the more extraordinary force +behind it, was in the hands, mainly (like everything else), of +incompetents, clerical and lay, who did not understand it themselves and +could not help others to do so. They muddled about with it, as Miss +Pomfrey muddled about with office papers.... It would not be surprising +if the force suddenly demolished them all, like lightning....</p> + +<p>But such speculations were foreign to Ivy, and she forgot them in +examining the hat of Mrs. Peterson, the grocer's wife, which was so +noticeable in its excessive simplicity—its decoration consisted wholly +of home-grown vegetables—as to convince beholders that Mr. Peterson had +<i>not</i>, as some falsely said, made a fortune during the war by cornering +margarine.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>Mr. Delmer was talking about the worst form of unwisdom—Atheism; a +terrible subject to him, and one he approached with diffidence but +resolution, in the face of the unusual pew-full just below him.</p> + +<p>"It is an extraordinary thing," he was saying, "that there are those who +actually deny the existence of God. We have, surely, only to think of +the immeasurable spaces of the universe—the distance He has set between +one thing and another.... It is reported of the Emperor Napoleon that, +looking up at the stars one night, he remarked...." Ivy, who had heard +this remark of the Emperor Napoleon's before, let her attention wander +again to the hats of Mrs. Peterson and others. When she listened once +more, the vicar had left Napoleon, though he was still dealing with the +heavenly bodies.</p> + +<p>"If an express train, performing sixty miles an hour, were to start off +from this planet—were such a thing possible to imagine, which of course +it is not—towards the moon, and continue its journey without stops +until it arrived, it would reach its destination, according to the +calculations of scientists, in exactly 1 year, 8 months, 26 days." (Ivy, +who had left school lately enough to remember the distance set by the +creator between the earth and the moon, began to work this out in her +head; she did not think that her father had got it quite right.) "And, +in the face of this, there are those who say that God does not exist. A +further thought, yet more wonderful. If the same train, travelling at +the same rapid rate, were to leave this earth again, this time for the +sun, the time it would take over this journey would be—I ask you, if +you can, to imagine it, my friends—no less than 175 years, 1 week, and +6 days...." (Ivy gave it up; it was too difficult without pencil and +paper.) "Is it possible that, knowing this, there are still those who +doubt God? Yet once more. Imagine, if you can, this train again starting +forth, this time bound for the planet Jupiter. Scientists tell us, and +we must believe it" (All right, thought Ivy, with relief, if he'd got it +out of a book), "that such a journey would take, if performed when +Jupiter was at its furthest, 1097 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 10 +hours, and a fraction. Can it really be that, confronted with the dizzy +thought of these well-nigh incredibly lengthy journeys from one heavenly +body to another, there are yet men and women who attribute the universe +to the blind workings of what they are pleased to call the Forces of +Nature? I ask you to consider earnestly, could any force but God have +conceived and executed such great distances? And Jupiter, my friends, is +comparatively near at hand. Take instead one of those little (but only +apparently little) nameless stars twinkling in the firmament. Imagine +our train starting off into space once more...."</p> + +<p>Ivy failed to imagine this; her attention was occupied with the End +House seat. The train's last journey had been too much for the tottering +self-control of the Grammont family and Vernon Prideaux (nothing ever +broke down Mr. Amherst's self-control, and Pansy's thoughts were +elsewhere). Prideaux's head rested on his hand, as if he were lost in +thought; Kitty and Anthony were shaking, unobtrusively but unmistakably, +and Cyril's fine, supercilious chin, set firmly, was quivering. Cyril +had, from childhood, had more self-control than the other two, and he +was further sustained by his conviction that it would be unthinkably bad +form for a Catholic to attend a Protestant service and laugh at it in +public.</p> + +<p>They oughtn't, thought Ivy, rather indignantly, to laugh at her father's +sermon when he wasn't meaning to be funny. If he saw he would be hurt. +One shouldn't laugh in church, anyhow; even Jane and John knew that. +These people were no better than Jelly.</p> + +<p>"This Sunday," continued the Vicar, his last star journey safely +accomplished, "is the day that has been set aside by our country for +prayer and sermons with regard to the proposed increase in the national +brain-power. This is, indeed, a sore need: but let us start on the firm +foundation of religion. What is wisdom apart from that? Nothing but +vanity and emptiness. What is the clever godless man but a fool from the +point of view of eternity? What is the godly fool but a heavenly +success?" ("He's talking sedition," whispered Kitty to Prideaux. "He'd +better have stuck to the trains.")</p> + +<p>But, of course, the vicar continued, if one can combine virtue and +intelligence, so much the better. It has been done. There was, e.g. +Darwin. Also General Gordon, St. Paul, and Lord Roberts, who had said +with his last breath, in June, 1915, "We've got the men, we've got the +money, we've got the munitions; what we now want is a nation on its +knees." (Ivy saw Prideaux sit up very straight, as if he would have +liked to inform Mr. Delmer that this libel on a dying soldier had long +since been challenged and withdrawn.) One can, said the vicar, find many +more such examples of this happy combination of virtue and intelligence. +There was Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, and Lord Rhondda (who in +the dark days of famine had led the way in self-denial). Not, +unfortunately, the Emperor Napoleon, Friedrich Nietzsche, or the Kaiser +Wilhelm II. The good are not always the clever, nor the clever always +the good. Some are neither, like the late Crown Prince of Germany (who +was now sharing a small island in the Pacific with the Kaiser Wilhelm +and MM. Lenin and Trotzky, late of Petrograd, and neither stupid nor +exactly, let us hope, bad, but singularly unfortunate and misguided, +like so many Russians, whom it is not for us to judge).</p> + +<p>But we should try to be both intelligent and good. We should take every +step in our power to improve our minds. (Prideaux began to look more +satisfied; this was what sermons to-day ought to be about.) It is our +duty to our country to be intelligent citizens, if we can, said the +vicar. Reason is what God has differentiated us from the lower animals +by. They have instinct, we reason. Truly a noble heritage. We are rather +clever already; we have discovered fire, electricity, coal, and invented +printing, steam engines, and flying. No reason why we should not improve +our minds further still, and invent (under God) more things yet. Only +one thing we must affirm; the State should be very careful how it +interferes with the domestic lives of its citizens. The State was going +rather far in that direction; it savoured unpleasantly of Socialism, a +tyranny to which Englishmen did not take kindly. An Englishman's home +had always been his castle (even castles, thought some aggrieved members +of the congregation, were subject to unpleasant supervision by the +police during food scarcity). No race was before us in its respect for +law, but also no race was more determined that their personal and +domestic relations should not be tampered with. When the State +endeavoured to set up a Directorate of Matrimony, and penalised those +who did not conform to its regulations, the State was, said the vicar, +going too far, even for a State. The old school of <i>laissez-faire</i>, long +since discredited as an economic theory, survived as regards the private +lives of citizens. It is not the State which has ordained marriage, it +is God, and God did not say "Only marry the clever; have no children but +clever ones." He said, speaking through the inspired mouth of the writer +of the book of Genesis, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the +earth." ("And, through the inspired mouth of Solomon, 'Desire not a +multitude of unprofitable children,'" murmured Anthony Grammont, who +knew his Bible in patches, but was apt to get the authorship wrong.)</p> + +<p>The vicar said he was now going to say a bold thing; if it brought him +within reach of the law he could not help it. He considered that we +ought all, in this matter, to be what are called Conscientious +Obstructionists; we ought to protest against this interference, and +refuse to pay the taxes levied upon those less intelligent infants sent +to us by heaven. He did not say this without much thought and prayer, +and it was, of course, a matter for everyone's own conscience, but he +felt constrained to bear his witness on this question.</p> + +<p>This came to Ivy as a shock. She had not known that her father was going +to bear his witness this morning. She watched Prideaux's face with some +anxiety. She admired and feared Prideaux, and thought how angry he must +be. Not Miss Grammont; Miss Grammont didn't take these things quite +seriously enough to be angry. Ivy sometimes suspected that the whole +work of the Ministry of Brains, and, indeed, of every other Ministry, +was a joke to her.</p> + +<p>It was a relief to Ivy when her father finished his sermon on a more +loyal note, by an urgent exhortation to everyone to go in for the Mind +Training Course. We must not be backward, he said, in obeying our +country in this righteous cause. He, for his part, intended to go in for +it, with his household (Mrs. Delmer looked resigned but a little +worried, as if she was mentally fitting in the Mind Training Course with +all the other things she had to do, and finding it a close fit) and he +hoped everyone in the congregation would do the same. Ivy saw Prideaux's +profile become more approving. Perhaps her father had retrieved his +reputation for patriotism after all. Anyhow at this point the And Now +brought them all to their feet, they sang a hymn (the official hymn +composed and issued by the Brains Ministry), had a collection (for the +education of imbeciles), a prayer for the enlightenment of dark minds +(which perhaps meant the same), and trooped out of church.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>"He ought, of course," said Prideaux at lunch, "to be reported and +prosecuted for propaganda contrary to the national interest. But we +won't report him; he redeemed himself by his patriotic finish."</p> + +<p>"He is redeemed for evermore by his express train," said Kitty.</p> + +<p>"A most instructive morning," said Amherst.</p> + +<p>"Protestants are wonderful people," said Cyril.</p> + +<p>"I always said that man was a regular pet lamb," said Pansy. "And hadn't +he pluck! Fancy givin' it us about that silly old baby tax with you two +representatives of the government sitting under him an' freezin' him. I +guess I'll have the Cheeper christened first opportunity, just to please +him, what, old dear?"</p> + +<p>Anthony, thus addressed, said, "As soon and as often as you like, +darling. Don't mind me. Only I suppose you realise that it will mean +thinking of a name for him—Sidney, or Bert, or Lloyd George or +something."</p> + +<p>"Montmorency," said Pansy promptly. "Monty for short, of course. That'll +sound awfully well in revue."</p> + +<p>It should be noted as one up for Mr. Delmer that his sermon, whether or +not it brought many of his parishioners to the Government Mind Training +Course, had anyhow (unless Pansy forgot again) brought one infant soul +into the Christian Church.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>Mrs. Delmer said to Ivy, "I suppose we shall all have to go in for it, +dear, as father's told everyone we're going to. But I don't quite know +how I'm going to get the time, especially with this new boy so +untrustworthy about changing the hens' water when he feeds them and +crushing up the bones for them. Perhaps he'll be better when he's taken +the course himself. But I half suspect it's not so much stupidity as +naughtiness.... Well, well, if father wants us to we must."</p> + +<p>Jane said, kicking stones along the road as she walked, "Shall I be top +of my form when I've taken the Course, mother? Shall I, mother? Will +John? John was lower than me last week. <i>Shall</i> we, mother?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delmer very sensibly observed that, if all the other children in +the parish took the course too, as they ought, their relative capacities +would remain unchanged. "But if both you and John took a little more +pains over your home-work, Jane," she took the opportunity to add, +whereupon Jane very naturally changed the subject.</p> + +<p>Betty's contribution was "<i>Brains!</i> What a silly fuss about them. Who +wants brains?"</p> + +<p>Which was, indeed, a very pertinent question, and one which Nicholas +Chester sometimes sadly asked himself.</p> + +<p>Who, alas, did?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>OUR WEEK</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>Brains Week ("Our Week," as it was called by the ladies who sold flags +for it) having opened thus auspiciously, flourished along its gallant +way like a travelling fair urging people to come and buy, like a tank +coaxing people to come in and purchase war bonds, like the War Office +before the Military Service Acts, like the Ministry of Food before +compulsory rationing. It was, in fact, the last great appeal for +voluntary recruits for the higher intelligence; if it failed then +compulsion would have to be resorted to. Many people thought that +compulsion should in any case be resorted to; what was the good of a +government if not to compel? If the Great War hadn't taught it that, it +hadn't taught it much. This was the view put forward in many prominent +journals; others, who would rather see England free than England clever, +advocated with urgency the voluntary scheme, hoping, if it might be, to +see England both.</p> + +<p>It was a week of strenuous and gallant effort on the part of the +Government and its assistants. Every Cinema showed dramas representing +the contrasted fates of the Intelligent and the Stupid. Kiosks of +Propaganda and Information were set up in every prominent shop. +Trafalgar Square was brilliant with posters, a very flower-garden. The +Ministry of Brains' artists had given of their best. Pictorial +propaganda bloomed on every city wall, "Before and After," "The Rich Man +and the Poor Man" (the Rich Man, in a faultless fur coat, observing to +the Poor Man in patched reach-me-downs, "Yes, I was always below you at +school, wasn't I? But since then I've taken the Mind Training Course, +and now money rolls in. Sorry you're down on your luck, old man, but why +don't you do as I've done?") and a special poster for underground +railways, portraying victims of the perils of the streets—"A will be +safe because he has taken the Mind Training Course and is consequently +facing the traffic. B will not, because he has refused to improve his +mind and has therefore alighted from a motor bus in the wrong direction +and with his back to oncoming traffic; he will also be crushed by a +street aero, having by his foolish behaviour excited the aviator. B will +therefore perish miserably, AND DESERVES TO."</p> + +<p>There were also pictures of human love, that most moving of subjects for +art. "Yes, dear, I love you. But we are both C2" (they looked it). "We +cannot marry; we must part for ever. You must marry Miss Bryte-Braynes, +who has too few teeth and squints, and I must accept Mr. Brilliantine, +who puts too much oil on his hair. For beauty is only skin-deep, but +wisdom endures for ever. We must THINK OF POSTERITY."</p> + +<p>Nor was Commerce backward in the cause. Every daily paper contained +advertisements from our more prominent emporiums, such as "Get tickets +for the M.T. Course at Selfswank's. Every taker of a ticket will receive +a coupon for our great £1000 lottery. The drawing will be performed in a +fortnight from to-day, by the late Prime Minister's wife." (To reassure +the anxious it should be said that the late Prime Minister was not +deceased but abolished; the country was governed by a United Council, +five minds with but a single thought—if that.) "By taking our tickets +you benefit yourself, benefit posterity, benefit your country, and stand +a good chance of winning A CASH PRIZE."</p> + +<p>And every patriotic advertiser of clothes, furs, jewellery, groceries, +or other commodities, tacked on to his advertisement, "Take a ticket +this week for the M.T. Course." And every patriotic letter-writer bought +a Brains Stamp, and stamped his envelopes with the legend "Improve your +Brains now."</p> + +<p>Railway bookstalls were spread with literature on the subject. The +<i>Queen</i>, the <i>Gentlewoman</i>, the <i>Sketch</i>, and other such periodicals +suited, one imagines, to the simpler type of female mind, had articles +on "Why does a woman look old sooner than a man?" (the answer to this +was that, though men are usually stupid, women are often stupider still, +and have taken even less pains to improve their minds), "Take care of +your mind and your complexion will take care of itself," "Raise yourself +to category A, and you enlarge your matrimonial field," "How to train +Baby's intellect," and so forth. Side by side with these journals was +the current number of the <i>Cambridge Magazine</i>, bearing on its cover the +legend "A Short Way with Fools; Pogrom of the Old Men. Everyone over +forty to be shot." "We have always said," the article under these +head-lines very truly began, "and we do not hesitate to say it again, +that the only way to secure an intelligent government or citizenship in +any nation is to dispose, firmly but not kindly, of the old and the +middle-aged, and to let the young have their day. There will then be no +more such hideous blunders as those with which the diplomacy of our +doddering elders has wrecked the world again and again during the past +centuries."</p> + +<p>The <i>Evening News</i> had cartoons every day of the Combing Out of the +Stupid, whom it was pleased to call Algies and Dollies. The <i>New +Witness</i>, on the other hand, striking a different note, said that it was +the fine old Christian Gentile quality of stupidity which had made Old +England what it was; the natives of Merrie England had always resented +excessive acuteness, as exhibited in the Hebrew race at their expense. +The <i>Herald</i>, however, rejoiced in large type in the Open Door to +Labour; the <i>Church Times</i> reported Brains Sunday sermons by many +divines (in most of them sounded the protest raised by the vicar of +Little Chantreys against interference with domestic rights, the Church +was obviously going to be troublesome in this matter) and the other +journals, from the <i>Hidden Hand</i> down to <i>Home Chat</i>, supported the +cause in their varying degrees and characteristic voices.</p> + +<p>Among them lay the Ministry of Brains pamphlets, "Brains. How to get and +keep them," "The cultivation of the Mind," etc. In rows among the books +and papers hung the Great Thoughts from Great Minds series—portraits of +eminent persons with their most famous remarks on this subject inscribed +beneath them. "It is the duty of every man, woman, and child in this +country so to order their lives in this peace crisis as to make the +least possible demand upon the intelligence of others. It is necessary, +therefore, to have some of your own." (An eminent minister.) "I never +had any assistance beyond my wits. Through them I am what I am. What +that is, it is for others rather than for myself to judge." (A great +journalist.) "It was lack of brains (I will not say whose, but it +occurred before the first Coalition Government, mind you) which plunged +Europe into the Great War. Brains—again, mark you, I do not say +whose—must make and keep the Great Peace." (One of our former Prime +Ministers.) "I have always wished I had some." (A Royal Personage.) "I +must by all means have a Brains Ministry started in Liberia." (The +Liberian Ambassador.) Then, after remarks by Shakespeare, Emerson, +Carlyle, Mr. R. J. Campbell, Henry James, President Wilson, Marcus +Aurelius, Solomon, Ecclesiasticus ("What is heavier than lead, and what +is the name thereof but a fool?") and Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the +portrait gallery concluded with Mr. Nicholas Chester, the Minister of +Brains, looking like an embittered humorist, and remarking, "It's a +damned silly world."</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>"Amen to that," Miss Kitty Grammont remarked, stopping for a moment +after buying <i>Truth</i> at the bookstall and gazing solemnly into the +Minister's disillusioned eyes. "And it would be a damned dull one if it +wasn't." She sauntered out of Charing Cross tube station and boarded an +Embankment tram. This was the Monday morning after Brains Week had run +its course.</p> + +<p>The fact had to be faced by the Ministry: Brains Week had proved +disappointing. The public were not playing up as they should.</p> + +<p>"We have said all along," said <i>The Times</i> (anticipating the <i>Hidden +Hand</i>, which had not yet made up its mind), "that the Government should +take a strong line in this matter. They must not trust to voluntary +effort; we say, and we believe that, as always, we voice the soundest +opinion in the country, that it is up to the Government to take the +measures which it has decided, upon mature consideration, to be for the +country's good. Though we have given every possible support to the great +voluntary effort recently made, truth compels us to state that the +results are proving disappointing. Compulsion must follow, and the +sooner the Government make up their minds to accept this fact the better +advised it will be. Surely if there is one thing above all others which +the Great War (so prolific in lessons) has taught us, it is that +compulsion is not tyranny, nor law oppression. Let the Government, too +long vacillating, act, and act quickly, and they will find a responsive +and grateful nation ready to obey."</p> + +<p>Thus <i>The Times</i>, and thus, in a less dignified choice of language, many +lesser organs. To which the <i>Herald</i> darkly rejoined, "If the Government +tries this on, let it look to itself."</p> + +<p>"It'll have to come," said Vernon Prideaux to Kitty Grammont at lunch. +They were lunching at one of those underground resorts about which, as +Kitty said, you never know, some being highly respectable, while others +are not. Kitty, with her long-lashed, mossy eyes and demure expression, +looked and felt at home among divans for two, screens, powdered +waitresses, and rose-shaded lights; she had taken Prideaux there for +fun, because among such environment he looked a stranger and pilgrim, +angular, fastidious, whose home was above. Kitty liked to study her +friends in different lights, even rose-shaded ones, and especially one +who, besides being a friend, was her departmental superior, and a +coming, even come, young man of exceptional brilliance, who might one +day be ruling the country.</p> + +<p>"If it does," said Kitty, "we shall have to go, that's all. No more +compulsion is going to be stood at present. Nothing short of another +war, with a military dictatorship and martial law, will save us."</p> + +<p>"We stood compulsory education when there was no war," Prideaux pointed +out. "We've stood vaccination, taxation, every conceivable form of +interference with what we are pleased to call our liberty. This is no +worse; it's the logical outcome of State government of the individual. +Little by little, precept upon precept, line upon line, these things +grow, till we're a serf state without realising it.... After all, why +not? What most people mean by freedom would be a loathsome condition; +freedom to behave like animals or lunatics, to annoy each other and +damage the State. What's the sense of it? Human beings aren't up to it, +that's the fact."</p> + +<p>"I quite agree with you," said Kitty. "Only the weak point is that +hardly any human beings are up to making good laws for the rest, either. +We shall slip up badly over this Mind Training Act, if we ever get it +through; it will be as full of snags as the Mental Progress Act. We +shall have to take on a whole extra Branch to deal with the exemptions +alone. Chester's clever, but he's not clever enough to make a good Act. +No one is.... By the way, Vernon, you nearly told me something the other +day about Chester's category. You might quite tell me now, as we're in +the Raid Shelter and not in the Office."</p> + +<p>"Did I? It was only that I heard he was uncertificated for marriage. +He's got a brother and a twin sister half-witted. I suppose he collared +all the brains that were going in his family."</p> + +<p>"He would, of course, if he could. He's selfish."</p> + +<p>"Selfish," Prideaux was doubtful. "If you can call such a visionary and +idealist selfish."</p> + +<p>"Visionaries and idealists are always selfish. Look at Napoleon, and +Wilhelm II, as Mr. Delmer would say. Visions and ideals are the most +selfish things there are. People go about wrapped in them, and keep +themselves so warm that they forget that other people need ordinary +clothes.... So the Minister is uncertificated.... Well, I'm going up to +Regent Street to buy a birthday present for Pansy and cigarettes for +myself."</p> + +<p>"I must get back," said Prideaux. "I've a Leeds Manufacturers' +deputation coming to see me at 2.30 about their men's wages. Leeds +workmen, apparently, don't let the Mental Progress Act weigh on them at +all; they go calmly ahead with their uncertificated marriages, and then +strike for higher wages in view of the taxable family they intend to +produce. These fellows coming to-day have got wind of the new agreement +with the cutlers and want one like it. I've got to keep them at arm's +length."</p> + +<p>He emerged above ground, breathed more freely, and walked briskly back +to the Ministry. Kitty went to Regent Street, and did not get back to +the office until 3.15.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>Kitty had lately been returned from the Propaganda Branch to her own, +the Exemption Branch. Being late, she slipped into her place +unostentatiously. Her in-tray contained a mass of files, as yet undealt +with. She began to look through these, with a view to relegating the +less attractive to the bottom of the tray, where they could wait until +she had nothing better to do than to attend to them. To-day there were a +great many letters from the public beginning "Dear Sir, Mr. Wilkinson +said in parliament on Tuesday that families should not be reduced to +destitution through the baby-taxes...." That was so like Mr. Wilkinson +(parliamentary secretary to the Brains Ministry). Whenever he +thoughtlessly dropped these <i>obiter dicta</i>, so sweeping, so far removed +from truth, which was almost whenever he spoke, there was trouble. The +guileless public hung on his words, waiting to pick them up and send +them in letters to the Ministry. These letters went to the bottom of the +tray. They usually only needed a stock reply, telling the applicants to +attend their local tribunal. After several of these in succession, Kitty +opened a file which had been minuted down from another branch, M.B. 4. +Attached to it were two sheets of minutes which had passed between +various individuals regarding the case in question; the last minute was +addressed to M.B. 3, and said "Passed to you for information and +necessary action." It was a melancholy tale from an aggrieved citizen +concerning his infant, who was liable to a heavy tax, and who had been +drowned by his aunt while being washed, before he was two hours old, and +the authorities still demanded the payment of the tax. Kitty, who found +the helplessness of M.B. 4 annoying, wrote a curt minute, "Neither +information nor action seems to us necessary," then had to erase it +because it looked rude, and wrote instead, more mildly, "Seen, thank +you. This man appears to be covered by M.B.I. 187, in which case his +taxation is surely quite in order and no action is possible. We see no +reason why we should deal with the case rather than you."</p> + +<p>It is difficult always to be quite polite in minutes, cheap satire +costing so little and relieving the feelings, but it can and should be +done; nothing so shows true breeding in a Civil Servant.</p> + +<p>Kitty next replied to a letter from the Admiralty, about sailors' babies +(the family arrangements of sailors are, of course, complicated, owing +to their having a wife in every port). The Admiralty said that My Lords +Commissioners had read the Minister of Brains' (i.e. Kitty's) last +letter to them on this subject with much surprise. The Admiralty's +faculty of surprise was infinitely fresh; it seemed new, like mercy, +each returning day. The Minister of Brains evoked it almost every time +he, through the pens of his clerks, wrote to them. My Lords viewed with +grave apprehension the line taken by the Minister on this important +subject, and They trusted it would be reconsidered. (My Lords always +wrote of themselves with a capital They, as if they were deities.) Kitty +drafted a reply to this letter and put it aside to consult Prideaux +about. She carried on a chronic quarrel with My Lords, doubtless to the +satisfaction of both sides.</p> + +<p>Soothed and stimulated by this encounter, she was the better prepared in +temper when she opened a file in which voluminous correspondence +concerning two men named Stephen Williams had been jacketed together by +a guileless registry, to whom such details as that one Stephen Williams +appeared to be a dentist's assistant and the other a young man in the +diplomatic service were as contemptible obstacles, to be taken in an +easy stride. The correspondence in this file was sufficiently at cross +purposes to be more amusing than most correspondence. When she had +perused it, Kitty, sad that she must tear asunder this happily linked +pair, sent it down to the registry with a regretful note that "These two +cases, having no connection, should be registered separately," and fell +to speculating, as she often did, on the registry, which, amid the +trials that beset them and the sorrows they endured, and the manifold +confusions and temptations of their dim life, were so strangely often +right. They worked underground, the registry people, like gnomes in a +cave, opening letters and registering them and filing them and sending +them upstairs, astonishingly often in the file which belonged to them. +But, mainly, looking for papers and not finding them, and writing "No +trace," "Cannot be traced," on slips, as if the papers were wild animals +which had got loose and had to be hunted down. A queer life, questing, +burrowing, unsatisfied, underground.... No wonder they made some +mistakes.</p> + +<p>Kitty opened one now—a bitter complaint, which should have gone to M.B. +5, from one who considered himself placed in a wrong category. "When I +tell you, sir," it ran, "that at the Leamington High School I carried +off two prizes (geography and recitation) and was twice fourth in my +form, and after leaving have given great satisfaction (I am told) as a +solicitor's clerk, so that there has been some talk of raising my +salary, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that the Local +Intelligence Board placed me in class C1. I applied to the County Board, +and (owing, as I have reason to know, to local feeling and jealousy) I +was placed by them in C2. Sir, I ask you for a special examination by +the Central Intelligence Board. I should be well up in Class B. There +are some walking about in this town who are classed B1 and 2, who are +the occasion of much local feeling, as it surprises all who know them +that they should be classed so high. To my knowledge some of these +persons cannot do a sum right in their heads, and it is thought very +strange that they should have so imposed on the Intelligence Officers, +though the reasons for this are not really far to seek, and should be +enquired into...."</p> + +<p>A gay and engaging young man with a wooden leg (he had lost his own in +1914, and had during the rest of the war worked at the War Office, and +carried the happy Q.M.G. touch) wandered in from M.B. 5 while Kitty was +reading this, and she handed it over to him. He glanced at it.</p> + +<p>"We shall perhaps be surprised, shall we.... How likely.... The public +overestimate our faculty for surprise. They have yet to learn that the +only thing which would surprise the Ministry of Brains would be finding +someone correctly classified.... I shall tell him I'm A2 myself, though +I never got a prize in my life for geography or recitation, and I can't +do sums in my head for nuts. I ought to be somewhere about B3; I +surprise all who know me.... What I came in to say was, do any of you in +here want a sure tip for the Oaks? Because I've got one. Silly Blighter; +yes, you thought he was an absolute outsider, didn't you, so did +everyone else; but he's not. You take the tip, it's a straight one, +first hand. No, don't mention it, I always like to do M.B. 3 a good +turn, though I wouldn't do it for everyone.... Well, I'm off, I'm +beastly busy.... Heard the latest Chester, by the way? Someone tried the +Wheeldon stunt on him—sent him a poisoned thorn by special messenger in +a packet "To be opened by the Minister Himself." Jervis-Browne opened +it, of course, and nearly pricked him self. When he took it to Chester, +Chester did the Sherlock Holmes touch, and said he knew the thorn, it +came off a shrub in Central Africa or Kew Gardens or somewhere. I think +he knew the poison, too; he wanted Jervis-Browne to suck it, to make +sure, but J.-B. wasn't having any, and Chester didn't like to risk +himself, naturally. His little P.S. would have done it like a shot, but +they thought it would be hard luck on the poor child's people. And while +they were discussin' it, Chester ran the thing into his own finger by +mistake. While J.-B. was waitin' to see him swell up and turn black, and +feelin' bad lest he should be told to suck it (he knows Chester doesn't +really value him at his true worth, you see), Chester whipped out his +penknife and gouged a great slice out of his finger as you'd cut cheese, +all round the prick. He turned as white as chalk, J.-B. says, but never +screamed, except to let out one curse. And when he'd done it, and had +the shorthand typist in from J.-B.'s room to tie it up, he began to +giggle—you know that sad, cynical giggle of his that disconcerts solemn +people so much—and said he'd have the beastly weapon cleaned and take +it home and frame it in glass, with the other mementoes of a people's +hate.... I say, I do waste your time in here, don't I? And my own; +that's to say the government's. I'm off."</p> + +<p>"Gay child," Kitty murmured to her neighbour as he went. "He blooms in +an office like an orchid in a dust-bin. And very nice too. I remember +being nearly as bright at his age; though, for my sins, I was never in +Q.M.G. A wonderful Branch that is."</p> + +<p>Thereupon she threw away her cigarette, wrote five letters with +extraordinary despatch and undepartmental conciseness of style, and went +to have tea in the canteen.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>The Minister was having tea too, looking even paler than usual, with his +left hand in a sling. Kitty put up her eye-glasses and looked at him +with increased interest. As ministers go, he was certainly of an +interesting appearance; she had always thought that. She rather liked +the paradoxical combination of shrewdness and idealism, sullenness and +humour, in his white, black-browed, clever face. He looked patient, but +patient perforce, as if he rode natural impatience on a curb. He looked +as if he might know a desperate earnestness, but preferred to keep it at +arm's length with a joke; his earnestness would be too grim and violent +to be an easy and natural companion to him. He looked as if he might get +very badly hurt, but would cut out the hurt and throw it away with the +cold promptness of the surgeon. He was not yet forty, but looked more, +perhaps because he enjoyed bad health. At this moment he was eating a +rock bun and talking to Vernon Prideaux. One difference between them was +that Prideaux looked an intelligent success, like a civil servant, or a +rising barrister or M.P., and Chester looked a brilliant failure, and +more like a Sinn Feiner or a Bolshevist. Only not really like either of +these, because he didn't look as if he would muff things. He might go +under, but his revolutions wouldn't. Kitty, who too greatly despised +people who muffed things, recognised the distinction. She had a friend +whose revolutions, which were many, always did go under....</p> + +<p>There was a queer, violent strength about the Minister.</p> + +<p>But when he smiled it was as if someone had flashed a torch on lowering +cliffs, and lit them into extraordinary and elf-like beauty. Kitty knew +already that he could be witty; she suddenly perceived now that he could +be sweet—a bad word, but there seemed no other.</p> + +<p>He ate another rock bun, and another. But they were small. His eyes fell +on Kitty, eating a jam sandwich. But his thoughts were elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was me that had to tie it up for him," Ivy Delmer was saying to +another typist. "Luckily I've done First Aid. But I felt like +fainting.... The <i>blood</i>.... I don't <i>like</i> him, you know; his manners +are so funny and his dictating is so difficult; but I must say I did +admire his pluck.... He never thanked me or anything—he wouldn't, of +course. Not that I minded a scrap about that...."</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>When Kitty got home to her flat that evening, she found the Boomerang on +the floor. (It was on the floor owing to the lack of a letter-box.) The +Boomerang was a letter from herself, addressed to Neil Desmond, Esq., +and she wrote it and despatched it every few months or so, whenever, in +fact, she had, at the moment, nothing better to do. On such days as Bank +Holidays, when she spent them at the office but official work did not +press, Kitty tidied the drawers of her table and wrote to break off her +engagement. The drawers got tidied all right, but it is doubtful whether +the engagement could ever be considered to have got broken off, owing to +the letter breaking it being a boomerang. It was a boomerang because +Neil Desmond, Esq. was a person of no fixed address. He wrote long and +thrilling letters to Kitty (which, if her correspondence had been raided +by the police, would probably have subjected her to arrest—he had +himself for long been liable to almost every species of arrest, so could +hardly be further incriminated), but when she wrote to the address he +gave he was no longer ever there, and so her letters returned to her +like homing pigeons. So the position was that Neil was engaged to Kitty, +and Kitty had so far failed to disengage herself from Neil. Neil was +that friend who has been already referred to as one whose revolutions +always went under. Kitty had met him first in Greece, in April, 1914. +She had since decided that he was probably at his best in Greece. In +July he had been arming to fight Carson's rebels when the outbreak of +the European War disappointed him. The parts played by him in the +European War were many and various, and, from the British point of view, +mostly regrettable. He followed Sir Roger Casement through many +adventures, and only just escaped sharing in the last of all. He partook +in the Sinn Fein rising of Easter, 1916 (muffed, as usual, Kitty had +commented), and had then disappeared, and had mysteriously emerged again +in Petrograd a year later, to help with the Russian revolution. +Wherever, in fact, a revolution was, Neil Desmond was sure to be. He had +had, as may be imagined, a busy and satisfactory summer and autumn +there, and had many interesting, if impermanent, friends, such as +Kerensky, Protopopoff (whom, however, he did not greatly care for), +Kaledin, Lenin, Trotzky, Mr. Arthur Ransome, and General Korniloff. (It +might be thought that the politics of this last-named would not have +been regarded by Neil with a favourable eye, but he was, anyhow, making +a revolution which did not come off.) In January, 1918, Neil had got +tired of Russia (this is liable to occur) and gone off to America, where +he had for some time been doing something or other, no doubt +discreditable, with an Irish-American league. Then a revolution which +seemed to require his assistance broke out in Equador, which kept him +occupied for some weeks. After that he had gone to Greece, where Kitty +vaguely believed him still to be (unless he was visiting, with seditious +intent, the island in the Pacific where the world's great Have-Beens +were harmoniously segregated).</p> + +<p>"The only thing for it," Kitty observed to the cousin with whom she +lived, a willowy and lovely young lily of the field, who had had a job +once but had lost it owing to peace, and was now having a long rest, +"The only thing for it is to put it in the agony column of the—no, not +<i>The Times</i>, of course he wouldn't read it, but the <i>Irish-American +Banner</i> or something. 'K. G. to N. D. All over. Regret.'"</p> + +<p>"You'll have to marry him, darling. God means you to," sang her cousin, +hooking herself into a flame-coloured and silver evening dress.</p> + +<p>"It certainly looks as if he did," Kitty admitted, and began to take her +own clothes off, for she was going to see Pansy in a new revue. (Anthony +would have been the last man to wish to tie Pansy down to home +avocations when duty called; he was much too proud of her special +talents to wish her to hide them in a napkin.)</p> + +<p>The revue was a good one, Pansy was her best self, lazy, sweet, +facetious, and extraordinarily supple, the other performers also +performed suitably, each in his manner, and Kitty afterwards had supper +with a party of them. These were the occasions when office work, seen +from this gayer corner of life, seemed incredibly dusty, tedious and +sad....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE EXPLANATION CAMPAIGN</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>It will be generally admitted that Acts are not good at explaining +themselves, and call for words to explain them; many words, so many that +it is at times wondered whether the Acts are worth it. It occurred about +this time to the Ministry of Brains that more words were called for to +explain both the Mental Progress Act recently passed and the Mind +Training Act which was still a Bill. For neither of these Acts seemed to +have yet explained itself, or been explained, to the public, in such a +manner as to give general satisfaction. And yet explanations had to be +given with care. Acts, like lawyers' deeds, do not care to be understood +through and through. The kind of explaining they really need, as Kitty +Grammont observed, is the kind called explaining away. For this task she +considered herself peculiarly fitted by training, owing to having had in +her own private career several acts which had demanded it. It was +perhaps for this reason that she was among those chosen by the +authorities for the Explanation Campaign. The Explanation Campaign was +to be fought in the rural villages of England, by bands of speakers +chosen for their gift of the ready word, and it would be a tough fight. +The things to be explained were the two Acts above mentioned.</p> + +<p>"And none of mine," Kitty remarked to Prideaux, "ever needed so much +explanation as these will.... Let me see, no one ever even tried to +explain any of the Military Service Acts, did they? At least only in the +press. The perpetrators never dared to face the public man to man, on +village greens."</p> + +<p>"It ought to have been done more," Prideaux said. "The Review of +Exceptions, for instance. If questions and complaints could have been +got out of the public in the open, and answered on village greens, as +you say, instead of by official letters which only made things worse, a +lot of trouble might have been avoided. Chester is great on these +heart-to-heart talks.... By the way, he's going to interview all the +Explanation people individually before they start, to make sure they're +going about it in the right spirit."</p> + +<p>"That's so like Chester; he'll go to any trouble," Kitty said. "I'm +getting to think he's a really great man."</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>Chester really did interview them all. To Kitty, whom already he knew +personally, he talked freely.</p> + +<p>"You must let the people in," he said, walking about the room, his hands +in his pockets. "Don't keep them at official arm's length. Let them feel +<i>part</i> of it all.... Make them catch fire with the idea of it.... It's +sheer stark truth—intelligence <i>is</i> the thing that counts—if only +everyone would see it. Make them see stupidity for the limp, hopeless, +helpless, animal thing it is—an idiot drivelling on a green"—Kitty +could have fancied that he shuddered a little—"make them hate it—want +the other thing; want it so much that they'll even sacrifice a little of +their personal comfort and desires to get it for themselves and their +children. They must want it more than money, more than comfort, more +than love, more than freedom.... You'll have to get hold of different +people in different ways, of course; some have imaginations and some +haven't; those who haven't must be appealed to through their common +sense, if any, or, failing any, their feeling for their children, or, +even, at the lowest, their fear of consequences.... Tell some of them +there'll be another war if they're so stupid; tell others they'll never +get on in the world; anything you think will touch the spot. But first, +always, try to collar their imaginations.... You've done some public +speaking, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>Kitty owned it, and he nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, then; you'll know how to keep your finger on the +audience's pulse.... You'll make them laugh, too...."</p> + +<p>Kitty was uncertain, as she left the presence, whether this last was an +instruction or a prophecy.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>The other members of Kitty's party (the Campaign was to be conducted in +parties of two or three people each) did not belong to the Ministry; +they were hired for it for this purpose. They were a lady doctor, +prominent on public platforms and decorated for signal services to her +country during the Great War, and a free-lance clergyman known for his +pulpit eloquence and the caustic wit with which he lashed the social +system. He had resigned his incumbency long ago in order to devote +himself the more freely to propaganda work for the causes he had at +heart, wrote for a labour paper, and went round the country speaking. +The Minister of Brains (who had been at Cambridge with him, and read his +articles in the labour paper, in which he frequently stated that +muddle-headedness was the curse of the world) had, with his usual eye +for men, secured him to assist in setting forth the merits of the Brains +Acts.</p> + +<p>They began in Buckinghamshire, which was one of the counties assigned to +them. At Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield it was chilly, and they held +their meetings respectively in the National School and in the bright +green Parish Hall which is the one blot on a most picturesque city. But +at Little Chantreys it was fine, and they met at six o'clock in the +broad open space outside the church. They had a good audience. The +meeting had been well advertised, and it seemed that the village was as +anxious to hear the Brains Acts explained as the Ministry was to explain +them. Or possibly the village, for its own part, had something it wished +to explain. Anyhow they came, rich and poor, high and low, men, women, +children, and infants in arms (these had, for the most part, every +appearance of deserving heavy taxation; however, the physiognomy of +infants is sometimes misleading). Anthony Grammont and Pansy were there, +with the Cheeper, now proud in his baptismal name of Montmorency. The +vicar and his wife were there too, though Mr. Delmer did not approve +much of the Reverend Stephen Dixon, rightly thinking him a disturbing +priest. It was all very well to advocate Life and Liberty in moderation +(though Mr. Delmer did not himself belong to the society for promoting +these things in the Church), but the vicar did not believe that any +church could stand, without bursting, the amount of new wine which +Stephen Dixon wished to pour into it. "He is very much in earnest," was +all the approval that he could, in his charity, give to this priest. So +he waited a little uneasily for Dixon's remarks on the Brains Acts, +feeling that it might become his ungracious duty to take public +exception to some of them.</p> + +<p>The scene had its picturesqueness in the evening sunshine—the open +space in which the narrow village streets met, backed by the little grey +church, and with a patch of green where women and children sat; and in +front of these people standing, leisurely, placid, gossiping, the women +innocently curious to hear what the speakers from London had to say +about this foolish business there was such an upset about just now; some +of the men more aggressive, determined to stand no nonsense, with a +we'll-know-the-reason-why expression on their faces. This expression was +peculiarly marked on the countenance of the local squire, Captain +Ambrose. He did not like all this interfering, socialist what-not, which +was both upsetting the domestic arrangements of his tenants and trying +to put into their heads more learning than was suitable for them to +have. For his part he thought every man had a right to be a fool if he +chose, yes, and to marry another fool, and to bring up a family of fools +too. Damn it all, fools or not, hadn't they shed their blood for their +country, and where would the country have been without them, though now +the country talked so glibly of not allowing them to reproduce +themselves until they were more intelligent. Captain Ambrose, a +fragile-looking man, burnt by Syrian suns and crippled by British +machine-guns at instruction classes (a regrettable mistake which of +course would not have occurred had the operator been more intelligent), +stood in the forefront of the audience with intention to heckle. Near +him stood the Delmers and Miss Ponsonby and Anthony Grammont. Pansy was +talking, in her friendly, cheerful way, to Mrs. Delmer about the +Cheeper's food arrangements, which were unusual in one so young.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the square were Dr. Cross, graceful, capable-looking +and grey-haired; Stephen Dixon, lean and peculiar (so the village +thought); Kitty Grammont, pale after the day's heat, and playing with +her dangling pince-nez; a tub; and two perambulators, each containing an +infant; Mrs. Rose's and Mrs. Dean's, as the village knew. The lady +doctor had been round in the afternoon looking at all the babies and +asking questions, and had finally picked these two and asked if they +might be lent for the meeting. But what use was going to be made of the +poor mites, no one knew.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cross was on the tub. She was talking about the already existing +Act, the Mental Progress Act of last year.</p> + +<p>"Take some talking about, too, to make us swallow it whole," muttered +Captain Ambrose.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cross was a gracious and eloquent speaker; the village rather liked +her. She talked of babies, as one who knew; no doubt she did know, +having, as she mentioned, had two herself. She grew pathetic in pleading +for the rights of the children to their chance in life. Some of the +mothers wiped their eyes and hugged their infants closer to them; they +should have it, then, so they should. How, said the doctor, were +children to win any of life's prizes without brains? (Jane Delmer looked +self-conscious; she had won a prize for drawing this term; she wondered +if the speaker had heard this.) Even health—how could health be won and +kept without intelligent following of the laws nature has laid down for +us ("I never did none o' that, and look at me, seventy-five next month +and still fit and able," old William Weston was heard to remark), and +how was that to be done without intelligence? Several parents looked +dubious; they were not sure that they wanted any of that in their +households; it somehow had a vague sound of draughts.... After sketching +in outline the probable careers of the intelligent and the unintelligent +infant, between which so wide a gulf was fixed, the doctor discoursed on +heredity, that force so inadequately reckoned with, which moulds the +generations. Appealing to Biblical lore, she enquired if figs were +likely to produce thorns, or thistles grapes. This started William +Weston, who had been a gardener, on strange accidents he had met with in +the vegetable world; Dr. Cross, a gardener too, listened with interest, +but observed that these were freaks and must not, of course, be taken as +the normal; then, to close that subject, she stepped down from the tub, +took the infants Rose and Dean out of their perambulators, and held them +up, one on each arm, to the public gaze. Here, you have, she said, a +certificated child, whose parents received a bonus for it, and an +uncertificated child, whose parents were taxed. Observe the difference +in the two—look at the bright, noticing air of the infant Rose ("Of +course; she's a-jogglin' of it up and down on her arm," said a small +girl who knew the infant Rose). Observe its fine, intelligent little +head (Mrs. Rose preened, gratified). A child who is going to make a good +thing of its life. Now compare it with the lethargy of the other baby, +who lies sucking an india-rubber sucker (a foolish and unclean habit in +itself) and taking no notice of the world about it.</p> + +<p>"Why, the poor mite," this infant's parent exclaimed, pushing her way to +the front, "she's been ailing the last two days; it's her pore little +tummy, that's all. And, if you please, ma'am, I'll take her home now. +Holdin' her up to scorn before the village that way—an' you call +yourself a mother!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I meant nothing against the poor child," Dr. Cross explained, +realising that she had, indeed, been singularly tactless. "She is merely +a type, to illustrate my meaning.... And, of course, it's more than +possible that if you give her a thoroughly good mental training she may +become as intelligent as anyone, in spite of having been so heavily +handicapped by her parents' unregulated marriage. That's where the +Government Mind Training Course will come in. She'll be developed beyond +all belief...."</p> + +<p>"She won't," said the outraged parent, arranging her infant in her +perambulator, "be developed or anythin' else. She's comin' home to bed. +And I'd like to know what you mean, ma'am, by unregulated marriage. Our +marriage was all right; it was 'ighly approved, and we got money by this +baby. It's my opinion you've mixed the two children up, and are taking +mine for Mrs. Rose's there, that got taxed, pore mite, owing to Mr. and +Mrs. Rose both being in C class."</p> + +<p>"That's right," someone else cried. "It's the other one that was taxed +and ought to be stupid; you've got 'em mixed, ma'am. Better luck next +time."</p> + +<p>Dr. Cross collapsed in some confusion, amid good-humoured laughter, and +the infant Rose was also hastily restored to its flattered mother, who, +being only C3, did not quite grasp what had occurred except that her +baby had been held up for admiration and Mrs. Dean's for obloquy, which +was quite right and proper.</p> + +<p>"One of nature's accidents," apologised Dr. Cross. "They will happen +sometimes, of course. So will stupid mistakes.... Better luck next time, +as you say." She murmured to Stephen Dixon, "Change the subject at +once," so he got upon the tub and began to talk about Democracy, how it +should control the state, but couldn't, of course, until it was better +educated.</p> + +<p>"But all these marriage laws," said a painter who was walking out with +the vicarage housemaid and foresaw financial ruin if they got married, +"they won't help, as I can see, to give <i>us</i> control of the state."</p> + +<p>Dixon told him he must look to the future, to his children, in fact. The +painter threw a forward glance at his children, not yet born; it left +him cold. Anyhow, if he married Nellie they'd probably die young, from +starvation.</p> + +<p>But, in the main, Dixon's discourse on democracy was popular. Dixon was +a popular speaker with working-men; he had the right touch. But squires +did not like him. Captain Ambrose disliked him very much. It was just +democracy, and all this socialism, that was spoiling the country.</p> + +<p>Mr. Delmer ventured to say that he thought the private and domestic +lives of the public ought not to be tampered with.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" enquired Stephen Dixon, and Mr. Delmer had not, at the +moment, an answer ready. "When everything else is being tampered with," +added Dixon. "And surely the more we tamper (if you put it like that) in +the interests of progress, the further removed we are from savages."</p> + +<p>Mr. Delmer looked puzzled for a moment, then committed himself, without +sufficient preliminary thought, to a doubtful statement, "Human love +ought to be free," which raised a cheer.</p> + +<p>"Free love," Dixon returned promptly, "has never, surely, been advocated +by the best thinkers of Church or State," and while Mr. Delmer blushed, +partly at his own carelessness, partly at the delicacy of the subject, +and partly because Pansy Ponsonby was standing at his elbow, Dixon +added, "Love, like anything else, wants regulating, organising, turning +to the best uses. Otherwise, we become, surely, no better than the other +animals...."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he just terribly fierce," observed Pansy in her smiling +contralto, to the world at large.</p> + +<p>Mr. Delmer said uncomfortably, "You mistake me, sir. I was not +advocating lawless love. I am merely maintaining that love—if we must +use the word—should not be shackled by laws relating to things which +are of less importance than itself, such as the cultivation of the +intelligence."</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> it of less importance?" Dixon challenged him.</p> + +<p>"The greatest of these three," began the vicar, inaptly, because he was +flustered.</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said Dixon; "but St. Paul, I think, doesn't include +intelligence in his three. St. Paul, I believe, was able enough himself +to know how much ability matters in the progress of religion. And, if we +are to quote St. Paul, he, of course, was no advocate of matrimony, but +I think, when carried out at all, he would have approved of its being +carried out on the best possible principles, not from mere casual +impulse and desire.... Freedom," continued Dixon, with the dreamy and +kindled eye which always denoted with him that he was on a pet topic, +"what <i>is</i> freedom? I beg—I do beg," he added hastily, "that no one +will tell me it is mastery of ourselves. I have heard that before. It is +no such thing. Mastery of ourselves is a fine thing; freedom is, or +would be if anyone ever had such a thing, an absurdity, a monstrosity. +It would mean that there would be nothing, either external or internal, +to prevent us doing precisely what we like. No laws of nature, of +morality, of the State, of the Church, of Society...."</p> + +<p>Dr. Cross caught Kitty's eye behind him.</p> + +<p>"He's off," she murmured. "We must stop him."</p> + +<p>Kitty coughed twice, with meaning. It was a signal agreed upon between +the three when the others thought that the speaker was on the wrong +tack. Dixon recalled himself from Freedom with a jerk, and began to talk +about the coming Mind Training Act. He discoursed upon its general +advantages to the citizen, and concluded by saying that Miss Grammont, a +member of the Ministry of Brains, would now explain to them the Act in +detail, and answer any questions they might wish to put. This Miss +Grammont proceeded to do. And this was the critical moment of the +meeting, for the audience, who desired no Act at all, had to be +persuaded that the Act would be a good Act. Kitty outlined it, thinking +how much weaker both Acts and words sound on village greens than in +offices, which is certainly a most noteworthy fact, and one to be +remembered by all politicians and makers of laws. Perhaps it is the +unappreciative and unstimulating atmosphere of stolid distaste which is +so often, unfortunately, to be met with in villages.... Villages are so +stupid; they will not take the larger view, nor see why things annoying +to them personally are necessary for the public welfare. Kitty wished +she were instead addressing a northern manufacturing town, which would +have been much fiercer but which would have understood more about it.</p> + +<p>She dealt with emphasis on the brighter sides of the Act, i.e. the +clauses dealing with the pecuniary compensation people would receive for +the loss of time and money which might be involved in undergoing the +Training Course, and those relating to exemptions. When she got to the +Tribunals, a murmur of disapproval sounded.</p> + +<p>"They tribunals—we're sick to death of them," someone said. "Look at +the people there are walking about the countryside exempted from the +Marriage Acts, when better men and women has to obey them. The tribunals +were bad enough during the war, everyone knows, but nothing to what they +are now. We don't want any more of those."</p> + +<p>This was an awkward subject, as Captain Ambrose was a reluctant chairman +of the Local Mental Progress Tribunal. He fidgeted and prodded the +ground with his stick, while Kitty said, "I quite agree with you. We +don't. But if there are to be exemptions from the Act, local tribunals +are necessary. You can't have individual cases decided by the central +authorities who know nothing of the circumstances. Tribunals must be +appointed who can be relied on to grant exemptions fairly, on the +grounds specified in the Act."</p> + +<p>She proceeded to enumerate these grounds. One of them was such poverty +of mental calibre that the possessor was judged quite incapable of +benefiting by the course. A look of hope dawned on several faces; this +might, it was felt, be a way out. The applicant, Kitty explained, would +be granted exemption if suffering from imbecility, extreme +feeble-mindedness, any form of genuine mania, acute, intermittent, +chronic, delusional, depressive, obsessional, lethargic....</p> + +<p>Dixon coughed twice, thinking the subject depressing and too technical +for the audience, and Kitty proceeded to outline the various forms of +exemption which might be held, a more cheerful topic. She concluded, +remembering the Minister's instructions, by drawing an inspiring picture +of the changed aspect life would bear after the mind had been thus +improved; how it would become a series of open doors, of chances taken, +instead of a dull closed house. Everything would be so amusing, so +possible, such fun. And they would get on; they would grow rich; there +would be perpetual peace and progress instead of another great war, +which was, alas, all too possible if the world remained as stupid as it +had been up to the present....</p> + +<p>Here Kitty's eye lighted unintentionally on her brother Anthony's face, +with the twist of a cynical grin on it, and she collapsed from the +heights of eloquence. It never did for the Grammonts to encounter each +other's eyes when they were being exalted; the memories and experiences +shared by brothers and sisters rose cynically, like rude gamins, to mock +and bring them down.</p> + +<p>Kitty said, "If anyone would like to ask any questions...." and got off +the tub.</p> + +<p>Someone enquired, after the moment of blankness which usually follows +this invitation, what they would be taught, exactly.</p> + +<p>Kitty said there would be many different courses, adapted to differing +requirements. But, in the main, everyone would be taught to use to the +best advantage such intelligence as they might have, in that state of +life to which it might please God to call them.</p> + +<p>"And how," pursued the enquirer, a solid young blacksmith, "will the +teachers know what that may be?"</p> + +<p>Kitty explained that they wouldn't, exactly, of course, but the minds +which took the course would be so sharpened and improved as to tackle +any work better than before. But there would also be forms to be filled +in, stating approximately what was each individual's line in life.</p> + +<p>After another pause a harassed-looking woman at the back said +plaintively, "I'm sure it's all very nice, miss, but it does seem as if +such things might be left to the men. They've more time, as it were. You +see, miss, when you've done out the house and got the children's meals +and put them to bed and cleaned up and all, not to mention washing-day, +and ironing—well, you've not much time left to improve the mind, have +you?"</p> + +<p>It was Dr. Cross who pointed out that, the mind once improved, these +household duties would take, at most, half the time they now did. "I +know that, ma'am," the tired lady returned. "I've known girls who set +out to improve their minds, readin' and that, and their house duties +didn't take them any time at all, and nice it was for their families. +What I say is, mind improvement should be left to the men, who've time +for such things; women are mostly too busy, and if they aren't they +should be."</p> + +<p>Several men said "Hear, hear" to this. Rural England, as Dr. Cross +sometimes remarked, was still regrettably eastern, or German, in its +feminist views, even now that, since the war, so many more thousands of +women were perforce independent wage-earners, and even now that they had +the same political rights as men. Stephen flung forth a few explosive +views on invidious sex distinctions, another pet topic of his, and +remarked that, in the Christian religion, at least, there was neither +male nor female. A shade of scepticism on the faces of several women +might be taken to hint at a doubt whether the Christian religion, in +this or in most other respects, was life as it was lived, and at a +certainty that it was time for them to go home and get the supper. They +began to drift away, with their children round them, gossiping to each +other of more interesting things than Mind Training. For, after all, if +it was to be it was, and where was the use of talking?</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>It was getting dusk. The male part of the audience also fell away, to +talk in the roads while supper was preparing. Only the vicar was left, +and Captain Ambrose, and Anthony Grammont, and Pansy, who came up to +talk to Kitty.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Pansy, "I feel absolutely flattened out by your +preacher, with his talk of 'the other animals,' and organised love. Now +Mr. Delmer was sweet to me—he said it ought to be free, an' I know he +doesn't really think so, but only said it for my sake and Tony's. But +your man's terrifyin'. I'm almost frightened to have him sleep at the +End House to-night; I'm afraid he'll set fire to the sheets, he's so +hot. Won't you introduce me?"</p> + +<p>But Dixon was at this moment engaged in talking to the vicar, who, not +to be daunted and brow-beaten by the notorious Stephen Dixon, was +manfully expounding his position to him and Dr. Cross, while Captain +Ambrose backed him up.</p> + +<p>"They may be all night, I should judge from the look of them," said +Kitty, who by now knew her clergyman and her doctor well. "Let's leave +them at it and come home; Tony can bring them along when they're ready."</p> + +<p>The End House had offered its hospitality to all the three Explainers, +and they were spending the night there instead of, as usual, at the +village inn. Kitty and Pansy were overtaken before they reached it by +Anthony and Dr. Cross and Dixon.</p> + +<p>Pansy said, with her sweet, ingratiating smile, "I was sayin' to Kitty, +Mr. Dixon, that you made me feel quite bad with your talk about free +love."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Dixon, "but it was the vicar who talked of that, not +I. I talked of organised love. I never talk of free love: I don't like +it."</p> + +<p>"I noticed you didn't," said Pansy. "That's just what I felt so bad +about. Mind you, I think you're awfully right, only it takes so much +livin' up to, doesn't it? with things tangled up as they are.... Sure +you don't mind stayin' with us, I suppose?" She asked it innocently, +rolling at him a sidelong glance from her beautiful music-hall eyes.</p> + +<p>Dixon looked at sea. "Mind?..."</p> + +<p>"Well, you might, mightn't you, as ours is free." Then, at his puzzled +stare, "Why, Kitty, you surely told him!"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I never thought of it," Kitty faltered. "She means," she +explained, turning to the two guests, "that she and my brother aren't +exactly married, you know. They can't be, because Pansy has a husband +somewhere. They would if they could; they'd prefer it."</p> + +<p>"We'd prefer it," Pansy echoed, a note of wistfulness in her calm voice. +"Ever so much. It's <i>much</i> nicer, isn't it?—as you were sayin'. We +think so too, don't we, old man?" She turned to Anthony but he had +stalked ahead, embarrassed by the turn the conversation was taking. He +was angry with Kitty for not having explained the situation beforehand, +angry with Pansy for explaining it now, and angry with Dixon for not +understanding without explanation.</p> + +<p>"But I do hope," Pansy added to both her guests, slipping on her +courteous and queenly manner, "that you will allow it to make no +difference."</p> + +<p>Dr. Cross said, "Of course not. What do you imagine?" She was a little +worried by the intrusion of these irrelevant domestic details into a +hitherto interesting evening. Pansy's morals were her own concern, but +it was a pity that her taste should allow her to make this awkward +scene.</p> + +<p>But Dixon stopped, and, looking his hostess squarely in the face—they +were exactly of a height—said, "I am sorry, but I am afraid it does +make a difference. I hate being rude, and I am most grateful to you for +your hospitable invitation; but I must go to the inn instead."</p> + +<p>Pansy stared back, and a slow and lovely rose colour overspread her +clear face. She was not used to being rebuffed by men.</p> + +<p>"I'm frightfully sorry," Stephen Dixon repeated, reddening too. "But, +you see, if I slept at your house it would be seeming to acquiesce in +something which I believe it to be tremendously important not to +acquiesce in.... Put it that I'm a prig ... anyhow, there it is.... Will +you apologise for me to your brother?" he added to Kitty, who was +looking on helplessly, conscious that the situation was beyond her. "And +please forgive me—I know it seems unpardonable rudeness." He held out +his hand to Pansy, tentatively. She took it, without malice. Pansy was +not a rancorous woman.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Mr. Dixon. If you can't swallow our ways, you just +can't, and there's an end of it. Lots of people can't, you know. Good +night. I hope you'll be comfortable."</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>Kitty looked after him with a whistle.</p> + +<p>"I'm fearfully sorry, Pansy love. I never thought to expatiate +beforehand on Tony and you.... I introduced you as Miss Ponsonby—but I +suppose he never noticed, or thought you were the Cheeper's governess or +something. Who'd have thought he'd take on like that? But you never +know, with the clergy; they're so unaccountable."</p> + +<p>"I'm relieved, a bit," Pansy said. "I was frightened of him, that's a +fact."</p> + +<p>Dr. Cross said, "The queer thing about Stephen Dixon is that you never +know when he'll take a thing in this way and when he won't. I've known +him sit at tea in the houses of the lowest slum criminals—by the way, +that is surely the scriptural line—and I've known him cut in the street +people who were doing the same things in a different way—a sweating +shopowner, for instance. I sometimes think it depends with him on the +size and comfort of the house the criminal lives in, which is too +hopelessly illogical, you'd think, for an intelligent man like him. I +lose my patience with him sometimes, I confess. But anyhow he knows his +own mind."</p> + +<p>"He's gone," Pansy said to Anthony, who was waiting for them at the +gate. "He thinks it's important not to acquiesce in us. So he's gone to +the inn.... By the way, I nearly told him that the innkeeper is leading +a double life too—ever so much worse than ours—but I thought it would +be too unkind, he'd have had to sleep on the green."</p> + +<p>"Well," Anthony said crossly, "we can get on without him. But another +time, darling, I wish you'd remember that there's not the least need to +explain our domestic affairs in the lane to casual acquaintances, even +if they do happen to be spending the night. It's simply not done, you +know! It makes a most embarrassing situation all round. I know you're +not shy, but you might remember that I am."</p> + +<p>"Sorry, old dear," said Pansy. "There's been so much explainin' this +evenin' that I suppose I caught it.... You people," she added to Dr. +Cross and Kitty, "have got awkwarder things to explain than I have. I'd +a long sight rather have to explain free love than love by Act of +Parliament."</p> + +<p>"But on the whole," said the doctor, relieved to have got on to that +subject again after the rather embarrassing interlude of private +affairs, "I thought the meeting this evening not bad. What did you +think, Miss Grammont?"</p> + +<p>"I should certainly," said Kitty, "have expected it to have been worse. +If I had been one of the audience, it would have been."</p> + + +<h4>6</h4> + +<p>Some of the subsequent meetings of that campaign, in fact, were. But not +all. On the whole, as Dr. Cross put it, they were not bad.</p> + +<p>"It's a toss-up," said Dixon at the end, "how the country is going to +take this business. There's a chance, a good fighting chance, that they +may rise to the idea and accept it, even if they can't like it. It +depends a lot on how it's going to be worked, and that depends on the +people at the top. And for the people at the top, all one can say is +that there's a glimmer of hope. Chester himself has got imagination; and +as long as a man's got that he may pull through, even if he's head of a +government department.... Of course one main thing is not to make +pledges; they can't be kept; everyone knows they can't be kept, as +situations change, and when they break there's a row.... Another +thing—the rich have got to set the example; they must drop this having +their fun and paying for it, which the poor can't afford. If that's +allowed there'll be revolution. Perhaps anyhow there'll be revolution. +And revolutions aren't always the useful things they ought to be; they +sometimes lead to reaction. Oh, you Brains people have got to be jolly +careful."</p> + +<p>A week later the Mind Training Bill became an Act. It did, in fact, seem +to be a toss-up how the public, that strange, patient, unaccountable +dark horse, were going to take it. That they took it at all, and that +they continued to take the Mental Progress Act, was ascribed by +observant people largely to the queer, growing, and quite peculiar +influence of Nicholas Chester. It was an odd influence for a minister of +the government to have in this country; one would have almost have +supposed him instead a power of the Press, the music-hall stage, or the +cinema world. It behoved him, as Dixon said to be jolly careful.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE SIMPLE HUMAN EMOTIONS</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>During the period which followed the Explanation Campaign, Kitty +Grammont was no longer bored by her work, no longer even merely +entertained. It had acquired a new flavour; the flavour of adventure and +romance which comes from a fuller understanding and a more personal +identification; from, in fact, knowing more about it at first-hand.</p> + +<p>Also, she got to know the Minister better. At the end of August they +spent a week-end at the same country house. They were a party of four, +besides their host's family; a number which makes for intimacy. Their +hostess was a Cambridge friend of Kitty's, their host a man high up in +the Foreign Office, his natural force of personality obscured +pathetically by that apprehensive, defiant, defensive manner habitual +and certainly excusable in these days in the higher officials of that +department and of some of the other old departments; a manner that +always seemed to be saying, "All right, we know we've made the devil of +a mess for two centuries and more, and we know you all want to be rid of +us. But we'd jolly well like to know if you think you could have worked +things any better yourselves. Anyhow, we mean to stick here till we're +chucked out."</p> + +<p>How soon would it be, wondered Kitty, before the officials of the +Ministry of Brains wore that same look? It must come to them; it must +come to all who govern, excepting only the blind, the crass, the +impervious. It must have been worn by the members of the Witan during +the Danish invasions; by Strafford before 1642; by Pharaoh's councillors +when Moses was threatening plagues; by M. Milivkoff before March, 1917; +by Mr. Lloyd George during much of the Great War.</p> + +<p>But it was not worn yet by Nicholas Chester.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>He sat down by Kitty after dinner. They did not talk shop, but they were +linked by the strong bond of shop shared and untalked. There was between +them the relationship, unlike any other (for no relationship ever is +particularly like any other) of those who are doing, though on very +different planes, the same work, and both doing it well; the +relationship, in fact, of a government official to his intelligent +subordinates. (There is also the relationship of a government official +to his unintelligent subordinates; this is a matter too painful to be +dwelt on in these pages.)</p> + +<p>But this evening, as they talked, it became apparent to Kitty that, +behind the screen of this relationship, so departmental, so friendly, so +emptied of sex, a relationship quite other and more personal and human, +which had come into embryo being some weeks ago, was developing with +rapidity. They found pleasure in one another this evening as human +beings in the world at large, the world outside ministry walls. That was +rather fun. And next morning Chester asked her to come a walk with him, +and on the walk the new relationship burgeoned like flowers in spring. +They did not avoid shop now that they were alone together; they talked +of the Department, of the new Act, of the efforts of other countries on +the same lines, of anything else they liked. They talked of Russian +politics (a conversation I cannot record, the subject being too +difficult for any but those who have the latest developments under their +eyes, and, indeed, not always quite easy even for them). They talked of +the National Theatre, of animals they had kept and cabinet ministers +they had known; of poets, pictures, and potato puddings; of, in fact, +the things one does talk about on walks. They told each other funny +stories of prominent persons; she told him some of the funny stories +about himself which circulated in the Ministry; he told her about his +experiences when, in order to collect information as to the state of the +intelligence of the country before the ministry was formed, he had +sojourned in a Devonshire fishing village disguised as a fisherman, and +in Hackney Wick disguised as a Jew, and had in both places got the +better of everyone round him excepting only the other Hackney Jews, who +had got the better of him. (It was in consequence of this that +Jews—such Jews as had not yet been forcibly repatriated in the Holy +City—were exempted from the provisions of the Mental Progress Act and +the Mind Training Act. It would be a pity if Jews were to become any +cleverer.)</p> + +<p>It will be seen, therefore, that their conversation was of an ordinary +description, that might take place between any two people of moderate +intelligence on any walk. The things chiefly to be observed about it +were that Chester, a silent person when he was not in the mood to talk, +talked a good deal, as if he liked talking to-day, and that when Kitty +was talking he watched her with a curious, interested, pleased look in +his deep little eyes.</p> + +<p>And that was all, before lunch; the makings, in fact, of a promising +friendship.</p> + +<p>After tea there was more. They sat in a beech wood together, and told +each other stories of their childhoods. He did not, Kitty observed, +mention those of his family who were less intelligent than the rest; no +doubt, with his views on the importance of intellect, he found it too +depressing a subject. And after dinner, when they said good-night, he +held her hand but as long as all might or so very little longer, and +asked if she would dine with him on Thursday. It was the look in his +eyes at that moment which sent Kitty up to bed with the staggering +perception of the dawning of a new and third relationship—not the +official relationship, and not the friendship which had grown out of it, +but something still more simple and human. He, probably, was unaware of +it; the simple human emotions were of no great interest to Nicholas +Chester, whose thoughts ran on other and more complex businesses. One +might surmise that he might fall very deeply in love before he knew +anything much about it. Kitty, on the other hand, would always know, +had, in fact, always known, everything she was doing in that way, as in +most others. She would track the submersion, step by step, amused, +interested, concerned. This way is the best; not only do you get more +out of the affair so, but you need not allow yourself, or the other +party concerned, to be involved more deeply than you think advisable.</p> + +<p>So, safe in her bedroom, standing, in fact, before the looking-glass, +she faced the glimpse of a possibility that staggered her, bringing +mirth to her eyes and a flutter to her throat.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" (Kitty had at times an eighteenth-century emphasis of +diction, following in the steps of the heroines of Jane Austen and Fanny +Burney, who dropped oaths elegantly, like flowers.) "Good God! He begins +to think of me." Then, quickly, followed the thought, to tickle her +further, "Is it right? Is it <i>convenable</i>? <i>Should</i> ministers look like +that at their lady clerks? Or does he think that, as he's uncertificated +and no hopes of an outcome can be roused in me, he may look as he +likes?"</p> + +<p>She unhooked her dress, gazing at her reflection with solemn eyes, which +foresaw the potentialities of a remarkable situation.</p> + +<p>But what was, in fact, quite obvious, was that no situation could +possibly be allowed to arise.</p> + +<p>Only, if it did.... Well, it would have its humours. And, after all, +should one turn one's back on life, in whatever curious guise it might +offer itself? Kitty, at any rate, never yet had done this. She had once +accepted the invitation of a Greek brigand at Thermopylæ to show her, +and her alone, his country home in the rocky fastnesses of Velukhi, a +two days' journey from civilisation; she had spent a week-end as +guest-in-chief of a Dervish at Yuzgat; she had walked unattended through +the Black Forest (with, for defence, a walking-stick and a hat-pin) and +she had become engaged to Neil Desmond. Perhaps it was because she was +resourceful and could trust her natural wits to extricate her, that she +faced with temerity the sometimes awkward predicaments in which she +might find herself involved through this habit of closing no door on +life. The only predicament from which she had not, so far, succeeded in +emerging, was her engagement; here she had been baffled by the elusive +quality which defeated her efforts not by resistance but by merely +slipping out of hearing.</p> + +<p>And if this was going to turn into another situation ... well, then, she +would have had one more in her life. But, after all, very likely it +wasn't.</p> + +<p>"Ministers," Kitty soliloquised, glancing mentally at the queer, clever, +humorous face which had looked at her so oddly, "ministers, surely, are +made of harder stuff than that. And prouder. Ministers, surely, even if +they permit themselves to flirt a little with the clerks of their +departments, don't let it get serious. It isn't done. You flatter +yourself, my poor child. Your head has been turned because he laughed +when you tried to be funny, and because, for lack of better company or +thinking your pink frock would go with his complexion, he walked out +with you twice, and because he held your hand and looked into your eyes. +You are becoming one of those girls who think that whenever a man looks +at them as if he liked the way they do their hair, he wants to kiss them +at once and marry them at last...."</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>"What's amusing you, Kate?" her hostess enquired, coming in with her +hair over her shoulders and her Cambridge accent.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Anne," replied Kitty, after a meditative pause, "that I can +possibly ever tell you. Merely my own low thoughts. They always were +low, as you'll remember."</p> + +<p>"They certainly were," said Anne.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>This chapter, as will by this time have been observed, deals with the +simple human emotions, their development and growth. But it will not be +necessary to enter into tedious detail concerning them. They did +develop; they did grow; and to indicate this it will only be necessary +to select a few outstanding scenes of different dates.</p> + +<p>On September 2nd, which was the Thursday after the week-end above +described, Kitty dined with Chester, and afterwards they went to a +picture palace to see "The Secret of Success," one of their own +propaganda dramas. It had been composed by the bright spirits in the +Propaganda Department of the Ministry, and was filmed and produced at +government expense. The cinematograph, the stage, and the Press were now +used extensively as organs to express governmental points of view; after +all, if you have to have such things, why not make them useful? Chester +smiled sourly over it, but acquiesced. The chief of such organs were of +course the new State Theatre (anticipated with such hope by earnest +drama-lovers for so many years) and the various State cinemas, and the +<i>Hidden Hand</i>, the government daily paper; but even over the unofficial +stage and film the shadow of the State lay black.</p> + +<p>The Secret of Success depicted lurid episodes in the careers of two +young men; the contrast was not, as in other drama, between virtue and +vice, but between Intelligence and the Reverse. Everywhere Intelligence +triumphed, and the Reverse was shamed and defeated. Intelligence found +the hidden treasure, covered itself with glory, emerged triumphant from +yawning chasms, flaming buildings, and the most suspicious situations, +rose from obscure beginnings to titles, honours and position, and +finally won the love of a pure and wealthy girl, who jilted the +brainless youth of her own social rank to whom she had previously +engaged herself but who had, in every encounter of wits with his +intelligent rival, proved himself of no account, and who was finally +revealed in a convict's cell, landed there by his conspicuous lack of +his rival's skill in disengaging himself from compromising situations. +Intelligence, with his bride on his arm, visited him in his cell, and +gazed on him with a pitying shake of the head, observing, "But for the +Government Mind Training Course, I might be in your shoes to-day." +Finally, their two faces were thrown on the screen, immense and +remarkable, the one wearing over his ethereal eyes the bar of Michael +Angelo, the other with a foolish, vacant eye and a rabbit mouth that was +ever agape.</p> + +<p>This drama was sandwiched between The Habits of the Kola Bear, and How +his Mother-in-law Came to Stay, and after it Chester and Kitty went out +and walked along the Embankment.</p> + +<p>It was one of those brilliant, moonlit, raidless nights which still +seemed so strange, so almost flat, in their eventlessness. Instinctively +they strained their ears for guns; but they heard nothing but the +rushing of traffic in earth and sky.</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>"The State," said Chester, "is a great debaucher. It debauches +literature, art, the press, the stage, and the Church; but I don't think +even its worst enemies can say it has debauched the cinema stage.... +What a people we are; good Lord, what a people!"</p> + +<p>"As long as we leave Revue alone, I don't much mind what else we do," +Kitty said. "Revue is England's hope, I believe. Because it's the only +art in which all the forms of expression come in—talking, music, +singing, dancing, gesture—standing on your head if nothing else will +express you at the moment.... I believe Revue is going to be tremendous. +Look how its stupidities and vulgarities have been dropping away from it +lately, this last year has made a new thing of it altogether; it's +beginning to try to show the whole of life as lived.... Oh, we must +leave Revue alone.... I sometimes think it's so much the coming thing +that I can't be happy till I've chucked my job and gone into it, as one +of a chorus. I should feel I was truly serving my country then; it would +be a real thing, instead of this fantastic lunacy I'm involved in +now...."</p> + +<p>At times Kitty forgot she was talking to the Minister who had created +the fantastic lunacy.</p> + +<p>"You can't leave the Ministry," said the Minister curtly. "You can't be +spared."</p> + +<p>Kitty was annoyed with him for suddenly being serious and literal and +even cross, and was just going to tell him she should jolly well leave +the Ministry whenever she liked, when some quality in his abrupt gravity +caught the words from her lips.</p> + +<p>"We haven't got industrial conscription to that extent yet," she merely +said, weakly.</p> + +<p>It was all he didn't say to her in the moment's pause that followed +which was revealing; all that seemed to be forced back behind his +guarded lips. What he did say, presently, was "No, more's the pity. +It'll come, no doubt."</p> + +<p>And, talking of industrial conscription, they walked back.</p> + +<p>What stayed with Kitty was the odd, startled, doubtful look he had given +her in that moment's pause; almost as if he were afraid of something.</p> + + +<h4>6</h4> + +<p>Kitty took at this time to sleeping badly; even worse, that is to say, +than usual. In common with many others, she always did so when she was +particularly interested in anyone. She read late, then lay and stared +into the dark, her thoughts turning and twisting in her brain, till, for +the sake of peace, she turned on the light again and read something; +something cold, soothing, remote from life as now lived, like +Aristophanes, Racine, or Bernard Shaw. Attaining by these means to a +more detached philosophy, she would drift at last from the lit stage +where life chattered and gesticulated, and creep behind the wings, and +so find sleep, so little before it was time to wake that she began the +day with a jaded feeling of having been up all night.</p> + +<p>On one such morning she came down to find a letter from Neil Desmond in +its thin foreign envelope addressed in his flat, delicate hand. He wrote +from a Pacific island where he was starting a newspaper for the benefit +of the political prisoners confined there; it was to be called "Freedom" +(in the British Isles no paper of this name would be allowed, but +perhaps the Pacific Island censorship was less strict) and he wanted +Kitty to come and be sub-editor....</p> + +<p>Kitty, instead of lunching out that day, took sandwiches to the office +and spent the luncheon-hour breaking off her engagement again. The +reason why Neil never got these letters was the very reason which +impelled her to write them—the lack of force about him which made his +enterprises so ephemeral, and kept him ever moving round the spinning +world to try some new thing.</p> + +<p>Force. How important it was. First Brains, to perceive and know what +things we ought to do, then Power, faithfully to fulfil the same. In +another twenty or thirty years, perhaps the whole British nation would +be full of both these qualities, so full that the things in question +really would get done. And then what? Kitty's mind boggled at the answer +to this. It might be strangely upsetting....</p> + +<p>She stamped her letter and lit a cigarette. The room, empty but for her, +had that curious, flat, dream-like look of arrested activity which +belongs to offices in the lunch hour. If you watch an office through +that empty hour of suspension you may decipher its silent, patient, +cynical comment (slowly growing into distinctness like invisible ink) on +the work of the morning which has been, and of the afternoon which is to +be. Kitty watched it, amused, then yawned and read <i>Stop It</i>, the newest +weekly paper. It was a clever paper, for it had succeeded so far (four +numbers) in not getting suppressed, and also in not committing itself +precisely to any direct statement as to what it wanted stopped. It was +produced by the Stop It Club, and the government lived in hopes of +discovering one day, by well-timed police raids on the Club premises, +sufficient lawless matter to justify it in suppressing both the Club and +the paper. For Dora had recently been trying to retrieve her character +in the eyes of those who blackened it, and was endeavouring to act in a +just and temperate manner, and only to suppress those whose guilt was +proven. Last Sunday, for instance, a Stop It procession had been allowed +to parade through the city with banners emblazoned with the ambiguous +words. There were, of course, so many things that, it was quite obvious, +should be stopped; the command might have been addressed to those of the +public who were grumbling, or to the government who were giving them +things to grumble at; to writers who were producing books, journalists +producing papers, parliaments producing laws, providence producing the +weather, or the agents of any other regrettable activity at the moment +in progress. Indeed, the answer to the enquiry "Stop what?" might so +very plausibly be "Stop it all," that it was a profitless question.</p> + +<p>It was just after two that the telephone on Prideaux's table rang. +(Kitty was working in Prideaux's room now.) "Hullo," said a voice in +answer to hers, "Mr. Prideaux there? Or anyone else in his room I can +speak to? The Minister speaking."</p> + +<p>Not his P.S. nor his P.A., but the Minister himself; an unusual, hardly +seemly occurrence, due, no doubt, to lunch-time. Kitty was reminded of a +story someone had told her of a pert little office flapper at one end of +a telephone, chirping, "Hullo, who is it?" and the answer, slow, +dignified, and crushing, from one of our greater peers—"Lord +Blankson ..." (pause) "HIMSELF."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Prideaux isn't in yet," said Kitty. "Can I give him a message?"</p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause before the Minister's voice, somehow grown +remote, said, "No, thanks, it's all right. I'll ring him up later."</p> + +<p>He rang off abruptly. (After all, how can one ring off in any other +way?) He had said, "Or anyone else in his room I can speak to," as if he +would have left a message with any chance clerk; but he had not, +apparently, wished to hold any parley with her, even over the telephone, +which though it has an intimacy of its own (marred a little by a +listening exchange) is surely a sufficiently remote form of intercourse. +But it seemed that he was avoiding her, keeping her at a distance, +ringing her off; his voice had sounded queer, abrupt, embarrassed, as if +he was shy of her. Perhaps he had thought things over and perceived that +he had been encouraging one of his clerks to step rather too far out of +her position; perhaps he was afraid her head might be a little turned, +that she might think he was seeking her out....</p> + +<p>Kitty sat on the edge of Prideaux's table and swore softly. She'd jolly +well show him she thought no such thing.</p> + +<p>"These great men," she said, "are insufferable."</p> + + +<h4>7</h4> + +<p>When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero was +full, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something went +wrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably on +the top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy moment +the Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don't +protrude the tongue," and then the crash came.</p> + +<p>They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid a +crowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one was +much hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, against +these catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her head +and to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when she +recovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her and +whispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh God."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lot +more than that."</p> + +<p>His strained face relaxed. "That's all right, then," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm dining in Hampstead in about ten minutes," said Kitty. "I must get +the tube at Leicester Square."</p> + +<p>"A taxi," said the Minister, "would be better. Here is a taxi. I shall +come too, in case there is another mischance, which you will hardly be +fit for alone at present." He mopped his mouth.</p> + +<p>"You have bitten your tongue," said Kitty, "in spite of all you said +about not protruding it."</p> + +<p>"It was while I was saying it," said the Minister, "that the contact +occurred. Yes. It is painful."</p> + +<p>They got into the taxi. The Minister, with his scarlet-stained +handkerchief to his lips, mumbled, "That was a very disagreeable shock. +You were very pale. I feared the worst."</p> + +<p>"The worst," said Kitty, "always passes me by. It always has. I am like +that."</p> + +<p>"I am not," he said. "I am not. I have bitten my tongue and fallen in +love. Both bad things."</p> + +<p>He spoke so indistinctly that Kitty was not sure she heard him rightly.</p> + +<p>"And I," she said, "only feel a little sick.... No, don't be anxious; it +won't develop."</p> + +<p>The Minister looked at her as she powdered her face before the strip of +mirror.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't put that on," he advised her. "You are looking too pale, +already."</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Kitty. "It's pink powder, you see. It will make me feel +more myself."</p> + +<p>"You need nothing," he told her gravely. "You are all right as you are. +It is fortunate that it is you and not I who are going out to dinner. I +couldn't talk. I can't talk now. I can't even tell you what I feel about +you."</p> + +<p>"Don't try," she counselled him, putting away her powder-puff and not +looking at him.</p> + +<p>He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at her with his +pained-humorist's face and watchful eyes.</p> + +<p>"I expect you know I've fallen in love with you?" he mumbled. "I didn't +mean to; in fact, I've tried not to, since I began to notice what was +occurring. It's excessively awkward. But ... I have not been able to +avoid it."</p> + +<p>Kitty said "Oh," and swallowed a laugh. One didn't laugh when one was +receiving an avowal of love, of course. She felt giddy, and seas seemed +to rush past her ears.</p> + +<p>"There are a good many things to talk about in connection with this," +said the Minister. "But it is no use talking about them unless I first +know what you feel about it—about me, that is. Will you tell me, if you +don't mind?"</p> + +<p>He asked it gently, considerately, almost humbly. Kitty, who did mind +rather, said "Oh," again, and lay back in her corner. She still felt a +little dizzy, and her head ached. It is not nice having to say what one +feels; one would rather the other person did it all. But this is not +fair or honourable. She remembered this and pulled herself together.</p> + +<p>"I expect," she said, swinging her glasses by their ribbon, cool and yet +nervous, "I expect I feel pretty much the same as you do about it."</p> + +<p>After a moment's pause he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much for +telling me. Then it is of use talking about it. Only not now, because +I'm afraid we're just getting there. And to-morrow I am going to a +conference at Leeds. I don't think I can wait till the day after. May I +call for you to-night and we'll drive back together?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Kitty, and got out of the taxi.</p> + + +<h4>8</h4> + +<p>When they were in it again they comported themselves for a little while +in the manner customary on these occasions, deriving the usual amount of +pleasurable excitement therefrom.</p> + +<p>Then the Minister said, "Now we must talk. All is not easy about our +situation."</p> + +<p>"Nothing is easy about it," said Kitty. "In fact, we're in the demon of +a mess."</p> + +<p>He looked at her, biting his lips.</p> + +<p>"You know about me, then? That I'm uncertificated? But of course you do. +It is, I believe, generally known. And it makes the position exactly +what you say. It means ..."</p> + +<p>"It means," said Kitty, "that we must get over this unfortunate +passion."</p> + +<p>He shook his head, with a shrug.</p> + +<p>"One can, you know," said Kitty. "I've been in and out before—more than +once. Not so badly, perhaps, but quite badly enough. You too, probably?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Oh, yes," he admitted gloomily. "But it wasn't like this. Neither +the circumstances, nor the—the emotion."</p> + +<p>Kitty said, "Probably not. Why should it be? Nothing ever is exactly +like anything else, luckily.... By the way, when did you begin to take +notice of me? Don't worry, if you can't remember."</p> + +<p>He thought for a minute, then shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I'm bad at these things. Didn't we meet at Prideaux's one night in the +spring? I observed you then; I remember you amused me. But I don't think +the impression went deep.... Then—oh, we met about a good deal one way +and another—and I suppose it grew without my noticing it. And then came +that week-end, and that did the trick as far as I was concerned. I knew +what I was doing after that, and I tried to stop it, but, as you see, I +have failed. This evening I told you, I suppose, under the influence of +shock.... I am not sorry. It is worth it, whatever comes of it."</p> + +<p>"Nothing can come of it," said Kitty. "Not the least thing at all. +Except being friends. And you probably won't want that. Men don't."</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I don't want it at all. But I suppose I must put up with +it." He began to laugh, with his suppressed, sardonic laughter, and +Kitty laughed too.</p> + +<p>"We're fairly hoist with our own petard, aren't we?" he said. "Think of +the scandal we might make, if we did what we chose now.... I believe it +would be the <i>coup de grâce</i> for the Brains Ministry." He stated a +simple fact, without conceit.</p> + +<p>"It's a rotten position," he continued moodily. "But there it is.... And +you're A, aren't you? You'll have to marry someone, eventually. If only +you were B2 or 3—only then you wouldn't be yourself. As it is, it would +be criminally immoral of me to stand in your way. The right thing, I +suppose, would be for us to clear out of each other's way and give each +other a chance to forget. <i>The right thing....</i> Oh damn it all, I'm as +bad as the most muddle-headed fool in the country, who doesn't care +<i>that</i> for the right thing if it fights against his individual impulses +and desires.... I suppose moralists would say here's my chance to bear +my witness, to stand by my own principles and show the world they're +real.... They <i>are</i> real, too; that's the mischief of it. I still am +sure they matter more than anything else; but just now they bore me. I +suppose this is what a moral and law-abiding citizen feels when he falls +in love with someone else's wife.... What are you laughing at now?"</p> + +<p>"You," said Kitty. "This is the funniest conversation.... Of course it's +a funny position—it's straight out of a comic opera. What a pity +Gilbert and Sullivan didn't think of it; they'd have done it +beautifully.... By the way, I don't think I shall be marrying anyone +anyhow, so you needn't worry about that. I've broken off my last +engagement—at least I've done my best to; it became a bore. I don't +really like the idea of matrimony, you know; it would be too much of a +tie and a settling down. Yes, all right, I know my duty to my country, +but my duty to myself comes first.... So there's no harm, from my point +of view, in our going on seeing each other and taking each other out and +having as good a time as we can in the circumstances. Shall we try that +way, and see if it works?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll try," he said, and took her again in his arms. "It's all we +can get, so we'll take it ... my dear."</p> + +<p>"I think it's a good deal," said Kitty. "It will be fun.... You know, +I'm frightfully conceited at your liking me—I can't get used to it yet; +you're so important and superior. It isn't every day that a Minister of +a Department falls in love with one of his clerks. It isn't really done, +you know, not by the best Ministers."</p> + +<p>"Nor by the best clerks," he returned. "We must face the fact that we +are not the best people."</p> + +<p>"And here's my flat. Will you come in and have something? There's only +my cousin here, and she's never surprised; her own life is too odd."</p> + +<p>"I think it would be inadvisable," said the Minister discreetly. "'We +don't want to coddle our reputations, but we may as well keep an eye on +them.'"</p> + +<p>On that note of compromise they parted.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE BREAKING POINT</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>It was six months later: in fact, April. It was a Saturday afternoon, +and many people were going home from work, including Kitty Grammont and +Ivy Delmer, who were again in the Bakerloo tube, on their way to +Marylebone for Little Chantreys.</p> + +<p>The same types of people were in the train who had been in it on the +Monday morning in May which is described in the opening chapter of this +work. The same types of people always are in tube trains (except on the +air-raid nights of the Great War, when a new and less self-contained +type was introduced). But they were the same with a difference: it was +as if some tiny wind had stirred and ruffled the face of sleeping +waters. In some cases the only difference was a puzzled, half-awakened, +rather fretful look, where had been peace. This was to be observed in +the faces of the impassive shopping women. Still they sat and gazed, but +with a difference. Now and then a little shiver of something almost like +a thought would flicker over the calm, observing, roving eyes, which +would distend a little, and darken with a faint annoyance and fear. Then +it would pass, and leave the waters as still as death again; but it had +been there. And it was quite certain there were fewer of these +ruminating ladies. Some had perhaps died of the Mind Training Course, of +trying to use their brains. (They say that some poor unfortunates who +have never known the touch of soap and water on their bodies die of +their first bath on being brought into hospital: so these.) Some who had +been in the ruminating category six months ago were now reading papers. +Some others, who still gazed at their fellows, gazed in a different +manner; they would look intently at someone for half a minute, then look +away, and their lips would move, and it was apparent that they were, not +saying their prayers, but trying to repeat to themselves every detail of +what they had seen. For this was part of the Government Mind Training +Course (observation and accuracy). And one large and cow-like lady with +a shopping-bag containing circulating library books and other +commodities said to her companion, in Kitty Grammont's hearing, two +things that accorded strangely with her aspect.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't get anything worth reading out of the library to-day—they +hadn't got any of the ones I'd ordered. These look quite silly, I'm +sure. There aren't many good books written, do you think?"</p> + +<p>Doubtful she was, and questioning: but still, she had used the word +"good" and applied it to a book, as she might have to butter, or a +housemaid, or a hat, implying a possible, though still dimly discerned, +difference between one book and another. And presently she said a +stranger thing.</p> + +<p>"What," she enquired, "do you think about the state of things between +Bavaria and Prussia? Relations to-day seemed more strained than ever, I +thought."</p> + +<p>Her companion could not be said to rise to this; she replied merely +(possibly having a little missed the drift of the unusual question) that +in her view relations were very often a nuisance, and exhausting. So the +subject was a little diverted; it went off, in fact, on to +sisters-in-law; but still it had been raised.</p> + +<p>Beyond these ladies sat another who looked as if she had obtained +exemption from the Mind Training Course on the ground that her mind (if +any) was not susceptible of training; and beyond her sat a little typist +eating chocolates and reading the <i>Daily Mirror</i>. Last May she had been +reading "The love he could not buy"; this April she was reading "How to +make pastry out of nuts." Possibly by Christmas she might be reading +"Which way shall I Vote and Why?"</p> + +<p>Ivy Delmer, next her, was reading the notices along the walls. Between +"Ask Mr. Punch into your home" and "Flee from the wrath to come" there +was a gap, where a Safety if Possible notice had formerly offered the +counsel "Do not sit down in the street in the middle of the traffic or +you may get killed." A month ago this had been removed. It had, +apparently, been decided by the Safety if Possible Council that the +public had at last outgrown their cruder admonitions. The number of +street accidents was, in fact, noticeably on the decline. It seemed as +if people were learning, slowly and doubtfully, to connect cause and +effect. A was learning why he would be killed, B why he would not. Ivy +Delmer noticed the gap on the wall, and wondered what would take its +place. Perhaps it would be another text; but texts were diminishing in +frequency; one seldom saw one now. More likely it would be an +exhortation to Take a Holiday in the Clouds, or Get to Watford in five +minutes by Air (and damn the risk).</p> + +<p>Ivy, as she had a year ago, looked round at the faces of her +fellow-travellers—mostly men and girls going home from business. Quite +a lot of young men there were in these days; enough, you'd almost think, +for there to be one over for Ivy to marry some day.... Ivy sighed a +little. She hoped rather that this would indeed prove to be so, but +hoped without conviction. After all, few girls could expect to get +married in these days. She supposed that if she married at all, she +ought to take a cripple, or a blind one, and keep him. She knew that +would be the patriotic course; but how much nicer it would be to be +taken by a whole one and get kept! She looked at the pale, maimed young +men round her, and decided that they didn't, mostly, look like keeping +anyone at all, let alone her; they were too tired. The older men looked +more robust; but older men are married. Some of them looked quite +capable and pleased with themselves, as if they were saying, "What have +I got out of it, sir? Why, £100 more per annum, more self-confidence, +and a clearer head."</p> + +<p>There was also a brilliant-looking clergyman, engaged probably in +reforming the Church; but clergymen are different, one doesn't marry +them. Altogether, not a hopeful collection.</p> + +<p>The train got to Marylebone pretty quickly, because it had almost +abandoned its old habit of stopping half-way between every two stations. +No one had ever quite known why it had done this in the past, but, with +the improvement in the brains of the employees of the electric railways, +the custom had certainly gradually decreased.</p> + +<p>Marylebone too had undergone a change: there was rather less running +hither and thither, rather less noise, rather less smoke, and the clock +was more nearly right. Nothing that would strike the eye of anyone who +was not looking for signs, but little manifestations which made the +heart, for instance, of Nicholas Chester stir within him with +satisfaction when he came that way, or the way of any other station +(excepting only the stations of the South Eastern line, the directors +and employees of which had been exempted in large numbers from the Mind +Training Act by the Railway Executive Committee, as not being likely to +profit by the course).</p> + +<p>Certainly the train to Little Chantreys ran better than of old, and with +hardly any smoke. Someone had hit on a way of reducing the smoke +nuisance; probably of, eventually, ending it altogether. Kitty Grammont +and Ivy Delmer found themselves in the same compartment, and talked at +intervals on the journey. Ivy thought, as she had thought several times +during the last few months, that Kitty looked prettier than of old, and +somehow more radiant, more lit up. They talked of whether you ought to +wear breeches as near to town as West Ealing, and left it unsettled. +They talked of where you could get the best chocolates for the least +money, and of what was the best play on just now. They talked of the +excess of work in the office at the present moment, caused by the new +Instruction dealing with the exemption of journalists whose mental +category was above B2. (This was part of the price which had to be paid +by the Brains Ministry for the support of the press, which is so +important.) They began to talk, at least Ivy did, of whether you can +suitably go to church with a dog in your muff; and then they got to +Little Chantreys.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>Ivy found her parents in the garden, weeding the paths. Jane and John +were playing football, and Jelly was trotting a lonely trail round the +domains in a character apparently satisfactory to himself but which +would have been uncertain to an audience.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear," said the vicar, looking up at Ivy from his knees. The +vicarage had not yet adopted the new plan of destroying weeds by +electricity; they had tried it once, but the electricity had somehow +gone astray and electrified Jelly instead of the weeds, so they had +given it up. The one-armed soldier whom they employed as gardener +occasionally pulled up a weed, but not often, and he was off this +afternoon anyhow, somewhat to the Delmers' relief. Of course one must +employ disabled soldiers, but the work gets on quicker without them.</p> + +<p>"Have you had a hard day, darling?" enquired Mrs. Delmer, busy +scrabbling with a fork between paving-stones.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Ivy, and sat down on the wheel-barrow. "The Department's +frightfully rushed just now.... Mr. Prideaux says the public is in a +state of unrest. It certainly seems to be, from the number of grumbling +letters it writes us.... You're looking tired, Daddy."</p> + +<p>"A little, dear." The vicar got up to carry away his basket of weeds to +the bonfire. Mrs. Delmer said, "Daddy's had a worrying time in the +parish. Two more poor little abandoned babies."</p> + +<p>"Where were they left this time?" Ivy asked with interest.</p> + +<p>"One at the Police Station, with a note to say the government had driven +the parents to this; the other just outside our garden door, with no +note at all, but I suppose it's the same old story. We've no clue to +either yet; they're not from Little Chantreys, of course, but I suppose +we shall trace them in time. Daddy's been making enquiries among the +village people; none of them will say, if they know, but Daddy says +they're all in a sad state of anger and discontent about the Baby Laws; +he thinks they're working up worse every day. There's so much talk of +different laws for rich and poor. Of course when people say that, what +they always mean is that it's the same law for both, and ought to be +different. Even that isn't true, of course, in this case, as the taxes +are in proportion to the income; but it certainly does come very hard on +the poor. Daddy thinks it his duty to preach about it again to-morrow, +and that worries him, because he may get arrested and fined. But he +feels it's right. He thinks the country is in real danger of risings and +revolts if this goes on. He says the Stop It League is doing its best to +stir up rebellion, and that would be <i>such</i> a calamity. And all these +poor little babies abandoned or disowned all over the country; it goes +to one's heart.... Don't talk about it, darling, it worries Daddy so.... +And poor Brown is <i>so</i> little use with the vegetable garden. His Mind +Training Course seems really to have quite upset him; he talks and looks +so strangely now. And Daddy's worried about Mr. Hawtrey" (the curate), +"who's joined the Church Improvement Society and has become dreadfully +restless, and keeps saying Daddy ought to join it too."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Delmer sighed, and changed the subject, as the vicar came back, to +the amount of blossom there was on the white-heart cherry.</p> + +<p>Ivy went indoors. She went up to the room she shared with Betty. Betty +was there, staining a straw hat with Jackson's nut-brown hat-polish.</p> + +<p>Ivy said, "A nice mess you're making. I should think you might remember +it's my room as well as yours," and Betty said, "Socks." From which it +may be inferred that these sisters, good-humoured in the main to others, +were frequently short-tempered to one another.</p> + +<p>Ivy said next, opening a drawer, "I won't stand it. You've been pinching +my handkerchiefs."</p> + +<p>Betty replied absently, and as if from habit rather than from +reflection, "Haven't been near your old drawer."</p> + +<p>"Liar. There were twelve here this morning and now there are only ten. +I've told you before I won't stand having my things pinched. If you're +too slack to earn enough to keep yourself in handkerchiefs, you must do +without, that's all."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you'd rather I'd used my sleeve at the Whites' tennis this +morning, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> shouldn't care if you had.... Tennis in the morning's a pretty +rotten idea anyhow, if you ask me. You're the biggest slacker I ever +came across. If I was Daddy I wouldn't keep you eating your head off, +even if you aren't clever. You're going on like a girl before the war. +Your Training Course doesn't seem to have done you the slightest good, +either. It's people like you who'll rot up the whole plan."</p> + +<p>"It's rot anyhow," Betty returned, without interest, turning her hat +about critically. "You should just hear the way they're all going on +about it in the village. Stuff and nonsense, I call it. And as long as +people like me and the village—normal, ordinary people—think it's +stuff and nonsense, ... well, it <i>will</i> be stuff and nonsense, that's +all."</p> + +<p>"People like you," Ivy retorted witheringly, as she changed her skirt +for her country breeches.</p> + +<p>But, after all, that retort didn't dispose of Betty, or the people like +Betty ... or the whole vicarage family ... or most of Little +Chantreys.... Those people, after all, were going to take more disposing +of than that.... They were, quite possibly, going to take more disposing +of than anyone yet knew.</p> + +<p>"Silly ass," said Ivy, but with a touch of doubt.</p> + +<p>She thought her new green breeches were rather nice, anyhow, and that +seemed to matter more.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>Kitty found her brother Cyril at the End House. Cyril was in a poor way. +His publishing business was on the edge of bankruptcy.</p> + +<p>"So much for your abominable Brains Ministry," he complained. "The mass +of safe, mediocre stuff on which publishers count for a living while +they adventure with the risks is being gradually withdrawn. It simply +doesn't come in. Its producers are becoming—many of them—just too +intelligent. I'm not imagining this; I know of several cases in which it +has happened; of people who have developed just enough distaste for +their own work to dry them up altogether. What's worse, there isn't the +same sale for such stuff as there was. When the process has gone much +further (if ever it does)—so far that a lot of really good stuff is +turned out, and read by large numbers of people, business will be all +right again. Till then, publishers are in a poor way.... Verse is +dropping off, too, like autumn leaves. That's all to the good.... I +daresay in another year or two (unless you're wrecked first, which seems +probable, by the way) there'll only be about a hundred people left in +the country writing anything at all.... Newspapers, of course, go on +much the same; that's because you're afraid of them and exempt their +staff. Insignificant verse and meaningless novels may die a natural +death (though I think it improbable), but <i>Myosotis</i> and the <i>Patriot</i> +and the <i>Daily Idiot</i> will go on for ever. You're all such cowards at +Whitehall. You dare to ruin unoffending publishers, to browbeat the poor +and simple, and to extract gold from the innocent babe unborn, but you +daren't risk the favour of the press."</p> + +<p>"No," Kitty agreed. "We certainly daren't.... Not that we've got it, you +know, quite the contrary; but we strive for it. I was reading the +<i>Herald</i> and <i>Stop It</i> in the train, till I was cold with fear. <i>Stop +It</i> veils its meaning delicately, as usual; but it means business.... +However, I thought we should have been downed six months ago, yet here +we are still. It's like skating on rotten ice so fast that it never +breaks. It's fun; it's exciting. And I believe if we go on skating fast, +it won't break at all. You see, the government are getting cleverer and +cleverer themselves, which will help them to do it skilfully. Chester +says his head really does feel clearer after taking the Course; he says +so in private life, I mean, not only when he's soft-soaping the public."</p> + +<p>"He'll need," said Anthony, "a jolly clear head before he's through with +this job. With every door-step in our towns and villages piled with +exposed babies ... it's worse than China. Much worse, because I believe +in China they don't get put on door-steps, but left harmlessly out of +the way in open fields and no one meddles with them. It's becoming a +public nuisance."</p> + +<p>"There is a new branch at the Ministry," said Kitty, "which is concerned +exclusively with Uncertificated Babies, how to deal with them."</p> + +<p>"An' how <i>do</i> they deal with them, the poor little ducks?" enquired +Pansy, who had just come in from the garden looking more than usually +gay and lovely and fantastic in a pink sunbonnet and the kind of dress +affected by milkmaids in a chorus.</p> + +<p>Kitty looked at her thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"I should hardly like to tell you. You mightn't like it. Besides, it's a +private department, like the secret room in jam factories where they +make the pips. No, Pansy love, I can't possibly tell you.... But they +<i>do</i> deal with them, quite effectively."</p> + +<p>Pansy tossed her Cheeper up and down to a gentle music-hall ditty.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Who'll buy babies—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Babies better dead?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here's every mental category,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From C3 down to Z...."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was a taking song as she crooned it on the stage, nursing an infant +on each arm, and with a baby-chorus crying behind her.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>After breakfast on Sunday morning Kitty remarked that she was going by +train to Beaconsfield, where she had arranged to meet Chester for a walk +through Burnham Beeches. She as a rule made no secret of her walks with +Chester, only occasionally, when self-consciousness took her. After all, +why should she? One went walks with all sorts of people, with any man or +woman who liked walking and talking and whom one liked as a companion; +it implied nothing. Kitty at times, with all it meant in this instance +burning and alive in her consciousness, had to pause to tell herself how +little it did imply to others, how she might mention it freely and +casually, without fear. Yet might she? The intimacy of the Minister of a +Department with one of his clerks <i>was</i>, no doubt, out of the ordinary, +not quite like other intimacies; perhaps it did seem odd, and imply +things. Perhaps Kitty might have thought so herself, in another case.</p> + +<p>She announced her plan this morning with an extra note of casualness in +her voice.</p> + +<p>Pansy said, "Oh, you two. You'll be goin' baby-huntin' in the ditches, I +should think, instead of pickin' primroses. I should say you jolly well +ought, and you'd better take the Cheeper's pram with you."</p> + +<p>Anthony said, "Exactly what I always try <i>not</i> to do, going out on +Sundays with the people from my shop. It spoils the Sabbath rest, the +Pisgah's mountain touch. You'd much better come out with Cyril and Pansy +and me."</p> + +<p>"I," said Cyril, in his detached manner, "shall be going to Mass."</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>They walked up through the depraved mushroom growth round Beaconsfield +station to the old town that city set on a hill, lying wide and +spacious, with its four Ends stretched out like a cross. Old +Beaconsfield is an enchanted city; as it was in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, so it is to-day, an ancient country town, full of +brick walls and old houses, and courtyards and coaching inns, and +dignity and romance and great elms. But they left it behind them, and +took the lane that runs to Hedgerley, with the cold April wind in their +faces.</p> + +<p>They came, four miles on, to the forest of great beeches, where broad +glades and grassy rides run in and out through thickets of wild +undergrowth and bracken, and ancient twisted boles and slim smooth +grey-green stems are set close together under a rustling singing roof of +brilliant green, the young, new-born, radiant green of beeches in April. +In every hollow and dip of the forest's mossy floor, primroses glimmered +in pale pools.</p> + +<p>They sat down by one of these pools to have their lunch.</p> + +<p>After lunch they lay on there and smoked. Chester lay on his back, his +hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the green roof. Kitty, her +round chin cupped in her two hands, lay and watched his lean, sallow, +clever face, foreshortened, with the shadows of the leaves moving on it +and his eyes screwed against the sun.</p> + +<p>"Kitty," said Chester presently, "I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>"M—m." Kitty, having finished her cigarette, was chewing grass.</p> + +<p>He sat up and looked at her, and as he looked his face grew more sallow +and his smile died. He stabbed into the soft, damp earth with his stick, +and frowned.</p> + +<p>"It's this, my dear. I can't go on any longer with this—this farce. We +must end it. I've been meaning to tell you so for some time, but I +thought I'd give it a fair trial, just to satisfy us both. Well, we've +given it a trial, and it won't work. It isn't good enough. We've got to +be more to each other—or less. This—this beastly half-way house was +all right for a bit; but we've got on too far now for it.... I should +like to know what <i>you</i> think about it."</p> + +<p>Kitty pulled a primrose to pieces, petal by petal, before she answered.</p> + +<p>"One thing I think," she said slowly, "is that I'm different from you. +Or is it that women are different from men? Never mind; it doesn't +really matter which. But I fancy it's women and men. Anyhow there it is. +And the difference is that for me a half-way house would always be +better than nothing, while for you it would be worse. Men seem to value +being married so much more than women do—and friendship, going about +together, having each other to talk to and play with, and all that, +seems to matter to them so little. Love seems to take different forms +with men and women, and to want different ways of expression.... So it's +not much use trying to understand one another about it.... That's the +chief thing I think, Nicky."</p> + +<p>He moved impatiently.</p> + +<p>"In fact, you're contented with the present state of things."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Not a bit. I want much more. But—if it's all we can have...."</p> + +<p>"It isn't," he said. "We can get married."</p> + +<p>She shook her head, with decision.</p> + +<p>"No. No. No."</p> + +<p>"Quite quietly," he pleaded. "No one would know but ourselves and the +registrar and a witness whom we'd murder after the ceremony. Why +shouldn't we? What are the reasons why not? There are only two; you +ought to marry a certificated person and have an intelligent family; and +I oughtn't to have a family at all. Well, you say you don't mean to +marry anyone else; so you may as well marry me. So much for the first +reason. And of course we wouldn't have a family; so much for the second. +Well, then?"</p> + +<p>"There's a third," said Kitty. "And the only important one. There's the +look of the thing. I don't care how many people we murder, the secret +will leak out. Things always do leak out. Never, in the course of +twenty-nine years of endeavour, have I been able to keep anything shady +from coming to light sooner or later. It isn't done. You ought to know +that, as a government servant. Has any government ever succeeded in +keeping its own dark doings secret for long? No; they come out +like—like flowers pushing up towards daylight; and then there's the +devil to pay. All our shadiest departmental transactions emerge one by +one; nothing is hid that shall not be revealed. And our marriage would +be the same. Be sure our sin would find us out. And that would be the +end of your career, and probably of the Ministry as well; I believe the +Ministry will stand or fall with you; and it's already pretty +tottery.... It's a pity you can't get exemption; but of course your case +is one in which it's absolutely never given.... No, we can't do this +thing. You're the Minister of Brains first, and poor Nicky Chester, who +would like to marry his girl, a long, long way behind. And the poor girl +who would like to marry Nicky Chester—she's not got to count at all.... +I don't want to be high-falutin and to talk about principles, only to +have a little sense."</p> + +<p>He was watching her moodily from under bent brows, leaning back against +a beech-trunk and pulling up little handfuls of damp moss with his thin, +unusual fingers.</p> + +<p>"Sense," he repeated. "It is sense, to have what one wants, if it +doesn't harm anything or anyone. And I'll tell you another thing—not +having it is rotting me up altogether—me and my work. I didn't want to +fall in love again; I hoped I'd done with all that; I tried not to take +any notice of you. But it was no go, and I can't fall out again, and I'm +dead sick of going on like this. And my experience of life, both private +and public, has been longer than yours, and, as it happens, I've known +of several transactions which haven't come to light and never will; I've +perpetrated some myself in the Ministry, which even that clear light +which beats upon a hotel hasn't yet exposed, and, heaven helping us, +won't. You don't suppose all the dark secrets of the war ever came out? +Of course they didn't. There are some that will wait till ... well, till +the next war, let's say.... Kitty, let's try it. It's worth the risk, +surely. Let's be sporting. We're missing—we're missing the best thing +in the world, just out of funk. I thought you always did things, just +for the sake of doing them. I thought you never turned your back on +life. It isn't like you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," murmured Kitty. "Life.... There's so much of that. This is just +one thing out of it."</p> + +<p>"While you want it," he returned, indubitably correct as to this, "it +seems a long way the most important thing."</p> + +<p>"It does," she agreed. "There's no comparison at all.... It's queer, +isn't it, how strong it is, this odd, desperate wanting of one person +out of all the world. It's an extraordinary, enormously strong thing.... +But there <i>are</i> other things. There are jokes, and shops, and music, and +plays, and pictures, and nice clothes, and Russian politics, and absurd +people, and Greek poetry, and the world's failures caged together on one +island, and things to eat and to drink, and our careers, and primroses +in woods, and the censor.... Good gracious, it's all like an idiotic, +glorified revue. We mustn't let the one thing, just because it matters +most, matter alone. It's so commonplace. Our hearts aren't broken, and +won't break. We're out to have a good time, and we'll let love and +marriage go to the—anywhere they like, if we can't have them.... By the +way, if it's any comfort to you (it is to me) I shouldn't make at all a +good wife; I'm much nicer as a friend. I want too much out of life. I'm +grasping and selfish. You'd find me tiring."</p> + +<p>"I do," he returned. "You're tiring me to death now. I've plenty of +friends already, thank you. And what does it matter to me what sort of a +wife you'd make? You talk as if you were refusing a secretarial +appointment. I want <i>you</i>, not a wife."</p> + +<p>"You've got me," said Kitty, "only not as a wife.... If that's no use to +you, we'll give it up. Nicky, I suppose we'd <i>better</i> give it up. It +isn't working. I'll go right away. I'll get another job."</p> + +<p>"No," he said gloomily. "There's no need for that. Why should you mess +up your career? We needn't meet. We shouldn't naturally meet, unless we +made opportunities. I think you're right, that we'd better not meet. +What's the good of meeting, just to repeat this sort of scene again and +again, and hurt each other? We've reached the breaking point; I can't +bear any more.... I think we'd better leave it that you let me know when +you change your mind and will marry me. You will, won't you, when you +do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Kitty, and could say no more than that because she was on +the edge of tears.</p> + +<p>For a moment they clung together, holding each other close. He said, "My +dearest dear, I love you. Can't you?... can't you?..." and she +whispered, very pale, "I love you. I think I worship you," and laid her +cheek on his hand, so that he felt her tears.</p> + +<p>They walked on together through the April afternoon, and it cried to +them like a child whom they were betraying and forsaking. There would +not be another day like this day, through all the lovely awakening +spring and summer.</p> + + +<h4>6</h4> + +<p>Ivy and Betty Delmer, who had been spending the afternoon at +Beaconsfield, saw them at Beaconsfield station.</p> + +<p>Betty said, "Surely that's your Minister with Miss Grammont."</p> + +<p>Ivy looked at them, down the length of the platform. It seemed to her +that Miss Grammont's walk with the Minister hadn't been altogether a +success; they both looked so pale and tired, and Miss Grammont, surely, +had been crying.</p> + +<p>Something suddenly passed into Ivy's consciousness about these two +people whom she admired, and her soft mouth dropped open a little with +the amazement of her thoughts. The Minister—and Miss Grammont! It was +surely incredible. Ministers didn't; they were too high, too superior. +Besides, what had love to do with this Minister, who was uncertificated +for matrimony? Ivy told herself she was mistaken, she had misread the +look with which they had looked at each other as they parted.</p> + +<p>"Are they thick?" Betty was asking, with careless, inquisitive interest. +Betty wouldn't think it odd; Betty didn't know anything about ministers +in general or this minister in particular.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think they know each other quite well," replied Ivy. "Miss +Grammont's jolly clever, you know. I shouldn't wonder if he talks about +quite important things to her."</p> + +<p>"How dull," returned Betty, swinging her primroses. "Don't let's get +into the same carriage as her. I never know if I know those End House +people or not; Daddy and mother think I don't, and it's awkward.... I'd +rather enjoy knowing Miss Ponsonby and that ducky baby, even if they +aren't respectable, she looks so sweet, and I'd like to hear all about +the stage. But I've no use for your Miss Grammont. Her clothes are all +right, but I'm sure she's stuck up.... Fancy going out for Sunday with +the Minister of a government department! Rather her than me."</p> + +<p>Ivy said, "Don't you worry, my child. No Minister'll ever trouble <i>you</i> +to go out with him. As for Chester, I should think he'd have you +executed after one talk; he's great on ridding the world of the mentally +deficient." But what she was thinking was, "How fearfully interesting if +there is anything between them." She wondered what the other people at +the office thought about it, or if they had ever thought about it at +all.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>ON FIXED HEARTS AND CHANGING SCENES</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>To Kitty it was manifest that the time had come for a change of +employment. Such times came frequently in her life; often merely because +she got bored, yawned, wanted a change, heard life summoning her to +fresh woods and pastures new, and obeyed the call. Many occupations she +had thus thrown up lightly; this is one reason why those who regard life +as a variety entertainment do not really get on; they forget that life +is real, life is earnest, and departing leave behind them no footprints +on the sands of time. They do not make a career; they do not make good; +they do not, in the long run, even make much money, though that rolls in +by fits and starts, and at times plentifully. They do not so much hide +their talents in napkins as play ball with them.</p> + +<p>This is as much as to say that it was not to Kitty Grammont the effort +and the wrench that it would have been to many people to contemplate a +change of avocation. And it certainly seemed desirable. Chester had +said, "We needn't meet"; but the fact remained that when two people who +love each other work in the same building, however remote their spheres, +they disturb each other, are conscious of each other's nearness. And +Chester's presence pervaded the whole Ministry; he had stamped himself +everywhere; there was no getting away from him. His name was constantly +on the lips and on the pens of his subordinates, and clicked forth from +every typewriter; you could not so much as write an official letter +without beginning "I am directed by the Minister of Brains to state," +and signing it "for the Minister of Brains." Besides which, he was to be +seen going out and coming in, to be met in passages and lifts, to be +observed taking his food in the canteen, and his Personal Assistant +demanded continual attention to him on the telephone. No, there was no +getting away from the Minister. And that meant no peace of mind, none of +the old careless light-hearted living and working; nothing but a +continual, disturbing, restless, aching want. Kitty had no intention of +facing this, so she told Vernon Prideaux that when she found another job +she was going to leave. He looked at her in annoyance and dismay, and +said, "Good lord, why?"</p> + +<p>Kitty said, "I'm bored. I want a change. I'm tired of working for this +autocratic government. I want something with more variety in it, and +more soul—a travelling circus, or a companionship to a rich American +seeing the world; or any old thing, so long as it amuses me."</p> + +<p>"There's going to be quite enough amusement in <i>this</i> circus," said +Prideaux, "before we're through with it, to satisfy anyone, I should +say.... Really, Kitty, I think you're foolish. You're throwing up your +chances; you're climbing up, and will climb higher if you stay. Even if +the thing founders, as is quite likely, you'll climb out of it into +another job, you're good enough. You ought to think of your career. And +besides, you can't be spared. Who on earth do you think is going to do +your job? I think you ought to see this thing through."</p> + +<p>But Kitty did not think so. "It will go to its own place quite quickly +enough without my help. And as for my career—funny word—I'm not sure +I've got one. If I have it's such a chequered one that a few more ups +and downs won't make much difference to it. And as for being spared, oh +anyone can be spared, out of any ministry; there are too many of us. +Anyhow—well anyhow I must go."</p> + +<p>Prideaux thought this so frivolous, so foolish, so unworthy, so +tiresome, and so like a woman, that he was exasperated. He rang for a +shorthand typist, remarking, "If you must you must. Miss Egerton" (Miss +Egerton had succeeded Miss Pomfrey, and was better), "send to the +Establishment Branch for Miss Grammont's papers sometime," which closed +the subject for the present.</p> + +<p>Kitty went back to her table and wrote a letter to the A.S.E. about some +unfortunate agreement which had been made with them concerning the +exemption of some of their members from the Mind Training Course. +Personally Kitty was of the opinion that it was a pity the agreement had +not been made as extensive as the A.S.E. desired; she thought that this +Union were already too clever by half. She almost went to the length of +thinking it was a pity the promises made to them had not been kept; a +revolutionary opinion which in itself indicated that it was time she +left. Having dealt with the A.S.E. she turned her attention to a file +sent down from M.B. 1 and minuted "Passed to you to deal with this man's +imaginary grievance." The imaginary grievance was that the wife of the +man in question had been killed by a motor bus, and he wanted a week's +postponement of his Mind Training Course in order that he might arrange +about the funeral. M.B. 1 were like that; they did not mean to be +unkind, but were a little lacking in flexibility and imagination.</p> + +<p>Ivy Delmer, who had answered Prideaux's bell, sat with her pencil ready +and her round face bent over her notebook. She had heard Prideaux's +order to his secretary, and concluded, correctly, that Miss Grammont was +either going to have her pay raised or to leave, and from Prideaux's +manner and voice she thought it was the second. She wondered whether +this could have anything to do with the Minister, and what he had been +saying to Miss Grammont on Sunday. She was curious and interested, even +more so than she had been on Sunday, because the people to whom she had +mentioned the subject had all noticed the intimacy; everyone seemed to +have seen the Minister out with Miss Grammont at one time or another. No +one but Ivy thought it was anything more than friendship, but no one +else had seen them look at one another on Beaconsfield platform. Ivy +had, and said so....</p> + +<p>Kitty was right; nothing remained hidden in government departments, or, +indeed, anywhere else. Healthily, persistently, inevitably, everything +pushed up towards the clear light of day; and quite right, too.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>In the evenings Kitty, seeking jobs, studied the advertisement columns +of the daily papers. She had always read them; they, with Mr. Selfridge +and the Pelman system, form the lighter and more entertaining part of +any daily paper; but now she took to perusing them with care. The +personal column of the <i>Times</i> she found peculiarly edifying.</p> + +<p>"Quiet, refined gentleman (served in war, musical) would like to get +into touch with bright and sympathetic lady." Kitty rejected that; she +was not sure that she was sympathetic, and the terms were too vague. +Better was "Lady, high standard of taste and culture and large means, +wants capable travelling companion. Knowledge of art essential, good +breeding preferred. Must talk continental languages fluently and +understand railway guides." Kitty, making a mental note of that (for, +with the possible exception of the breeding, she had all these +qualifications), ran her eyes down the column, past "Write to me, +darling, all is forgiven," "Will the lady in a fur toque riding in a +Hammersmith aero on Saturday last at 3.30 communicate with A.C.", "No +man hath seen God, at any time," until she came to "Young, accomplished, +well-educated War Widow would like position as secretary or confidential +clerk to nobleman, member of parliament, or gentleman." She rested her +finger on that. "I'll put one in like this," she remarked to her cousin. +"War Widow. That's what I've always wanted to be. It sounds so well. +Elspeth, I shall buy some weeds and commence widow. A war widow...."</p> + +<p>"If you want a new job, and a job with travel and life in it," said her +cousin, sounding her, "I don't know why you don't go out to the Pacific +Islands and join Neil. You may be sure that wherever Neil is there'll be +travel enough and life enough." She watched Kitty idly through a little +whirl of cigarette smoke. But Kitty looked no more than bored, bending +over the <i>Times</i> and manicuring her nails.</p> + +<p>"Neil would tire me. I've grown too old for Neil. Besides, it wouldn't +be proper; I've broken off my engagement. I've not had the last letter +back yet, you know, so he may have got it. Besides..." Kitty paused only +for a moment, and added in the same casual tone, "besides, I'm too much +in love with Nicky Chester, though I can't have him, to have any use for +anyone else just now."</p> + +<p>Her cousin nodded. "I knew that, darling, of course. And so you've +renounced each other. How silly. But it won't last. It never does. Go +and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, then, to pass the time."</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>But there were hours of the night when it seemed to Kitty that she could +not go and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, that she could not be +companion, however capable, to any travelling lady of taste, culture and +means, or clerk, however confidential, to any peer, M.P., or even +gentleman; that none of these careers (were they careers? She still +sought to define that word) would pass the time at all; that nothing, in +fact, would pass it except working for Nicholas Chester, seeing him +sometimes, hearing his voice.... Always addicted to metaphysical +speculation in the night, even in nights of anguish, she would speculate +on this queer disease, so common to the race, which had overtaken (and +not, as they had both candidly remarked, for the first time, possibly +not even for the last) herself and Nicholas Chester. What was it, this +extraordinary driving pressure of emotion, this quite disproportionate +desire for companionship with, for contact with, one person out of all +the world of people and things, which made, while it lasted, all other +desires, all other emotions, pale and faint beside it? Which so +perverted and wrenched from its bearings the mind of a man like Nicholas +Chester that he was for throwing overboard the cherished principles +which were the cargo he had for long been so desperately bent on +carrying, through storm and stress, to the country of his dreams? Which +made him say, "No one will find out, and if they do, let them and be +damned to them"?... Desire for a person; it had, it had always had, an +extraordinarily dynamic effect on the lives of men and women. When it +came into play, principle, chivalry, common sense, intellect, humour, +culture, sweetness and light, all we call civilisation, might crumple up +like match-board so this one overwhelming desire, shared by all the +animal creation, might be satisfied. On this rock the world, the +pathetic, eager, clever, foolish, so heavily handicapped world, might be +wrecked. It was, perhaps, this one thing that would always prevent +humanity from being, in fact, a clever and successful race, would always +keep them down somewhere near the level of the other animals.</p> + +<p>Faces passed before Kitty's wakeful eyes; the fatuous, contented faces +of mothers bending over the rewards of love clinging to their breasts; +slow, placid, married faces everywhere.... This thing was irresistible, +and certainly inevitable; if it ceased, humanity itself would cease, +since it is the one motive which impels the continued population of the +already over-populated earth. There it was; one had to accept it; there +was, perhaps, no one who grew to years of maturity who escaped it, no +one whose life would not, at some period, be in some degree disorganised +by this strange force. It was blind instinct; its indulgence did not, in +the end, even make for good, so far as good meant adventure, romance, +and the gay chances of life, the freedom of the cities of the +world—anything beyond mere domesticity. For what, after all, was +marriage? A tying down, a shutting of gates, the end of youth, the +curbing of the spirit of adventure which seeks to claim all the four +corners of the world for its heritage. It meant a circumscribed and +sober life, in one place, in one house, with, perhaps, children to +support and to mind; it meant becoming respectable, insured, mature, +settled members of society, with a stake in the country. No longer may +life be greeted with a jest and death with a grin; both these (of course +important but not necessarily solemn) things have come to matter too +much to be played with.</p> + +<p>To this sedate end do the world's gay and careless free-lances come; +they shut the door upon the challenging spirit of life, and Settle Down. +It is to this end that instinct, not to be denied, summons men and +women, as the bit of cheese summons the mouse into the trap.</p> + +<p>Musing thus, Kitty turned her pillow over and over, seeking a softer +side. How she detested stupidity! How, even more, Nicholas Chester +loathed stupidity! To him it was anathema, the root of all evil, the +Goliath he was out to destroy, the blind beast squatting on men's bones, +the idiot drivelling on the village green. And here he was, caught in +the beast's destroying grip, just because he had, as they call it, +fallen in love.... What a work is man!... And here was Kitty herself, +all her gay love of living in danger, tottering unsteadily on its +foundations, undermined by this secret gnawing thing.</p> + +<p>At last, as a sop to the craving which would not be denied, she sat up, +with aching, fevered head, and turned the light on, and wrote on a piece +of paper, "Nicky, I'll marry you any time you like, if you want me to," +and folded it up and laid it on the table at her side, and then lay +quite quiet, the restless longing stilled in her, slow tears forcing +themselves from under her closed lashes, because she knew she would not +send it. She would not send it because Chester too, in his heart, knew +that they had better part; he too was fighting for the cause he believed +in; he wanted her, but wanted to succeed in doing without her. She must +give him his chance to stick by his principles, not drag him down below +them.</p> + +<p>There were moments when Kitty wished that she could believe in a God, +and could pray. It must, she thought, be a comfort. She even at times +wished she were a Christian, to find fulfilment in loss. That was, at +least, what she supposed Christians to do.</p> + +<p>But she could not be a Christian, and she could not pray; all she could +do was to nerve herself to meet life in the spirit of the gay pierrette, +with cap and bells on her aching head, and a little powder to hide the +tears, and to try not to snap at Elspeth or the people at the office. +This last endeavour usually failed. The little gaping messengers who +answered (when they thought they would) Miss Grammont's bell, told each +other Miss Grammont was cross. The typists grew tired of having letters +sent back to be retyped because of some trifling misapprehension of Miss +Grammont's caligraphy or some trifling misspelling on their own account. +Surely these things could be set right with a pen and a little skill.</p> + +<p>These moods of impatience, when frustration vented itself in anger, +alternated with the gaiety, the irreverent and often profane levity, +which was Kitty's habitual way of braving life in its more formidable +aspects. Some people have this instinct, to nail a flag of motley to the +mast of the foundering ship and keep it flying to the last.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>While Kitty was debating as to her future, toying with the relative +advantages and entertainment to be derived from the careers of War +Widow, Confidential Clerk, Travelling Companion, archæological explorer +in Macedonia or Crete, beginner on the music-hall stage, under Pansy's +auspices, all of which seemed to have their bright sides, two +suggestions were made to her. One was from a cousin of hers who was +sub-editor of <i>Stop It</i>, and offered to get her a place on the staff.</p> + +<p>"Would it bind me to a point of view?" Kitty enquired. "I can't be bound +to a point of view."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no," her cousin assured her. "Certainly not. Rather the +contrary," and Kitty said, "All right, I'll think it over." She was +rather attracted by the idea.</p> + +<p>You cannot, of course, exactly call it being bound to a point of view to +be required to hint every week that certain things want stopping, in a +world whose staunchest champions must admit that this is indeed so.</p> + +<p><i>Stop It</i> was certainly eclectic, in its picking out, from all the +recognised groups associated for thought and action, activities whose +cessation seemed good to it. The question that rather suggested itself +to its readers was, if <i>Stop It</i> had its way, what, if anything, would +be left?</p> + +<p>"Very little," the editor would have answered. "A clean sheet. Then we +can begin again."</p> + +<p><i>Stop It</i> had dropped some of the caution with which it had begun: it +was now quite often possible to deduce from its still cryptic +phraseology what were some of the things it wanted stopped. Having for +some time successfully dodged Dora, it was now daring her. As in all +probability it would not have a long life, and appeared to be having a +merry one, Kitty thought she might as well join it while she could.</p> + +<p>To desert abruptly from the ranks of the bureaucracy to those of the +mutineers seemed natural to Kitty, who had always found herself at home +in a number of widely differing situations. Really this is perhaps the +only way to live, if all the various and so greatly different needs of +complicated human nature are to be satisfied. It is very certain that +they cannot be satisfied simultaneously; the best way seems, therefore, +to alternate. It is indeed strange that this is not more done, that +Radicals, Tories, and Labour members, for instance, do not more +frequently interchange, play general post, to satisfy on Tuesday that +side of their souls and intellects which has not been given free play on +Monday; that Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Lord Curzon do not, from time to +time, deliver each other's speeches, not from any freakish desire to +astonish, but from the sheer necessities of their natures; that Mr. +Massingham and Mr. Leo Maxse, or Mr. A. G. Gardiner and Mr. Gwynne, or +Mr. J. C. Squire and Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey, or Mr. Garvin and Mr. J. +A. Spender, do not from time to time arrange together to change offices +and run each other's papers; or that Mr. Arthur Ransome and Mr. Stephen +Graham do not, during their tours of Russia, sometimes change pens with +each other when they write home. There must be in many people some +undemocratic instinct of centralisation, of autocratic subversion of the +horde of their lesser opinions and impulses to the most dominant and +commanding one, a lack of the true democrat's desire to give a chance to +them all. They say with the Psalmist, "My heart is fixed," and "I have +chosen the way and I will run it to the end," and this is called, by +some, finding one's true self. Perhaps it may be so; it certainly +entails the loss of many other selves; and possibly the dropping of +these, or rather their continual denial and gradual atrophy, simplifies +life.</p> + +<p>But Kitty, whose heart was not fixed, entered upon all the changing +scenes of life with a readiness to embrace any point of view, though not +indeed to be bound to it, and an even greater willingness to tell +anything in earth or heaven that it ought to be stopped.</p> + +<p>She told Prideaux that she was considering this offer. Prideaux said, +"That thing! Its very name condemns it. It's on the wrong tack. You +shouldn't be out to stop things; they've got to go on.... If it's +journalism you want, why don't you apply for a job on <i>Intelligence</i>?" +<i>Intelligence</i>, or the Weekly Bulletin of the Brains Ministry (to give +it its sub-title, humorously chosen by one who visualised either the +public or the Ministry as a sick man) was a weekly journal issued by the +Ministry, and its aim was, besides reporting the Ministry's work, +decisions and pronouncements for each week, to correlate all its local +activities and keep them in touch with headquarters, and to collect +reports from over the country as to the state of the public mind. It was +for official circulation only. "Why not?" repeated Prideaux, struck by +this idea. "It would be quite enough of a change: you would probably be +one of the travelling reporters and send bright little anecdotes from +the countryside; I know they want some more reporters. Why don't you +apply? I'll speak to M.B.B. about you if you like." (M.B.B. was the +department which edited the Bulletin.)</p> + +<p>"Would it be interesting?" Kitty wondered.</p> + +<p>Prideaux thought it would. "Besides," he added, "you'd remain attached +to the Ministry that way, and could return to headquarters later on if +you wanted to.... And meanwhile you'd see all the fun.... We're in for a +fairly lively time, and it would be a pity to miss it. We're bound to +slip up over the A.S.E. before the month's over. And probably over the +exemption of Imbeciles and the Abandoned Babies, too. And the +journalists; that's going to be a bad snag. Oh, it'll be interesting all +right. If it wasn't for Chester's remarkable gift of getting on people's +right side, it would be a poor look-out. But Chester'd pull most things +through. If they'd put him at the head of the Recruiting job during the +war, I believe he'd have pulled even the Review of Exceptions through +without a row.... Well now, what about trying for this job?"</p> + +<p>"All right," Kitty agreed. "If you think there's any chance of my +getting it. I don't mind much what I do, so long as I have a change from +this hotel."</p> + +<p>On Prideaux's recommendation she did get the job, and was transferred +from her branch to M.B.B. as a travelling reporter for <i>Intelligence</i>. +She renounced <i>Stop It</i> with some regret; there was a whimsical element +about <i>Stop It</i> which appealed to her, and which must almost necessarily +be lacking in an official journal; but the career of travelling reporter +seemed to have possibilities. Besides the more weighty reports from the +countryside, a page of <i>Intelligence</i> was devoted each week to anecdotes +related in the engagingly sudden and irrelevant manner of our cheaper +daily Press; as, "A woman appealed before the Cuckfield Tribunal for +exemption from the Mind Training Course on the grounds that she had made +an uncertificated marriage and had since had twins, and must, therefore, +be of a mental level which unfitted her to derive benefit from the +Course." "Three babies have been found abandoned in a ditch between +Amersham and Chesham Bois." "The Essex Farmers' Association have +produced a strain of hens which lay an egg each day all the year round. +The farmers ascribe this to the improvement in their methods caused by +the Mind Training Course." "In reply to a tinplate worker who applied +for Occupational Exemption from the Mental Progress Act, the Chairman of +the Margam Tribunal said ..." (one of the witty things which chairmen do +say, and which need not here be reported). It was, apparently, the +business of the reporters to collect (or invent) and communicate these +trivial anecdotes, as well as more momentous news, as of unrest at +Nottingham, the state of intelligence or otherwise among Suffolk +agriculturists, and so forth.</p> + +<p>Kitty rather hoped to be sent to Ireland, which was, as often, in an +interesting and dubious state. Ireland was excluded from the Brains +Acts, as from other Acts. But she was being carefully watched, with a +view to including her when it seemed that it might be safe to do so. +Meanwhile those of her population who were considered by the English +government to be in no need of it were profiting by the Mind Training +Course, while the mass of the peasantry were instructed by their priests +to shun such unholy heretic learning as they would the devil. But on the +whole it seemed possible that the strange paths pointed out by the +Brains Ministry might eventually lead to the solution of the Irish +Question. (What the Irish Question at that moment was, I will not here +attempt to explain: it must be sufficient to remark that there will +always be one.)</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>But Kitty was not sent to Ireland. She was sent about England; first to +Cambridge. Cambridge was not averse to having its mind improved; there +is a sweet reasonableness about Cambridge. It knows how important brains +are. Also it had an affection for Chester, who had been at Trinity. So +reports from Cambridge as regards the Brains Acts were on the whole +favourable, in spite of some unrest (for different reasons) at Kings, +Downing, and Trinity Hall, and slight ferment of revolt down at +Barnwell. There was, indeed, a flourishing branch of the S.I.L. (Stop It +League) in the University, but its attention was not directed at the +moment particularly to stopping the work of the Ministry of Brains.</p> + +<p>It was, of course, a queer and quite new Cambridge which Kitty +investigated. She had known the pre-war Cambridge; there had intervened +the war Cambridge, that desolated and desolating thing, and now there +had sprung up, on the other side of that dividing gulf, a Cambridge new +and without precedent; a Cambridge half full of young war veterans, with +the knowledge of red horizons, battle, murder, and sudden death, in +their careless, watchful, experienced eyes; when they lounged about the +streets or hurried to lectures, they dropped, against their will, into +step; they were brown, and hard, and tired, and found it hard to +concentrate on books; they had forgotten their school knowledge, and +could not get through Littlegoes, and preferred their beds to sleeping +in the open, that joy of pampered youth which has known neither +battle-fields or Embankment seats.</p> + +<p>The other half were the boys straight from school; and between these two +divisions rolled the Great European War, across which they could with +difficulty make themselves understood each by the other.</p> + +<p>It was a Cambridge which had broken with history, for neither of these +sections had any links with the past, any traditions to hand down. The +only people who had these were the dons and Fellows and the very few +undergraduates who, having broken off their University career to fight, +had, after long years, returned to it again. These moved like ghosts +among their old haunts; but their number was so inconsiderable as hardly +to count. It was, to all intents and purposes, a new Cambridge, a clean +sheet; and it was interesting to watch what was being inscribed upon it.</p> + +<p>But with such observations, apart from those of them which were +connected with the attitude of Cambridge towards the Brains Ministry, +neither Kitty nor this story are concerned. The story of the new +Cambridge will have to be written some day by a member of it, and should +be well worth reading.</p> + +<p>From Cambridge Kitty went to travel Cambridgeshire, which was in a state +of quiet, albeit grudging, East Anglian acceptance and slow +assimilation.</p> + +<p>Far different were the northern midlands, which were her next +destination. Here, indeed, was revolt in process of ferment; revolt +which had to be continually uncorked and aired that it might not ferment +too much. The uncorking and airing was done by means of conferences, at +which the tyrannised and the tyrants each said their say. These +heart-to-heart talks have a soothing effect (sometimes) on the +situation; at other times not. As conducted by the Minister of Brains, +they certainly had. Chester was something more than soothing; he was +inspiring. While he was addressing a meeting, he made it believe that +intelligence was the important thing; more important than liberty, more +important than the satisfaction of immediate desires. He made +intelligence a flaming idea, like patriotism, freedom, peace, democracy, +the eight-hour day, or God; and incidentally he pointed out that it +would lead to most of these things; and they believed him. When he +showed how, in the past, the lack of intelligence had led to national +ruin, economic bondage, war, autocracy, poverty, sweating, and vice, +they believed that too. When he said, "Look at the European War," they +looked. When he went on, "Without centuries of stupidity everywhere the +war would never have been; without stupidity the war, if it had been, +would have been very differently conducted; without stupidity we need +never have another war, but with stupidity we inevitably shall, League +of Nations or not," they all roared and cheered.</p> + +<p>So he went about saying these things, convincing and propitiating labour +everywhere; labour, that formidable monster dreaded and cajoled by all +good statesmen; labour, twice as formidable since in the Great War it +had learned the ways of battle and the possibility and the power of the +union of arms and the man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE COMMON HERD</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>It was after such a meeting, at Chesterfield, at the end of July, that +Kitty and the Minister next met. Kitty was at that time writing up the +Derbyshire towns for the Bulletin. She attended the Chesterfield meeting +officially. It was a good one; Chester spoke well, and the audience +(mainly colliers) listened well.</p> + +<p>It was a very hot evening. The Town Hall was breathless, and full of +damp, coal-grimed, imperfectly-cleaned faces. Kitty too was damp, though +she was wearing even less than usual. Chester was damp and white, and +looked, for all his flame and ardour, which carried the meeting along +with him, fatigued and on edge. Kitty, herself fatigued and on edge, +watched him, seeing the way his hands moved nervously on the table as he +spoke.</p> + +<p>It was while he was talking about the demand for increased wages among +colliers to facilitate the payment of the taxes on uncertificated +babies, that he saw Kitty. His eyes stayed on hers for a moment, and he +paused in the middle of a sentence ... "defeat the whole purpose of the +Act," he finished it, and looked elsewhere. Kitty was startled by his +pause; it was not like him. Normally he, so used to public speaking, so +steeled against emergencies, so accustomed to strange irruptions into +the flow of his speech, would surely have carried on without a break or +a sign. That he had not done so showed him to be in a highly nervous +state, thought Kitty, something like her own in this hot weather, +through her continual travellings by train and staying in lodgings and +writing absurd reports.</p> + +<p>Across the length of the hall she saw nothing now but that thin, +slouching figure, the gestures of those nervous, flexible hands, that +white, damp face, with its crooked eyebrows and smile.</p> + +<p>It was so long since she had seen him and spoken to him; something in +her surged up at the sight of him and turned her giddy and faint. It was +perilously hot; the heat soaked all one's will away and left one +limp.... Did he too feel like that?</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>He looked at her once more, just before the end, and his eyes said, +"Wait for me."</p> + +<p>She waited, in the front of a little group by the door through which he +was to come out. He came out with his secretary, and the mayor, and +others; he was talking to them. When he saw her he stopped openly, and +said, so that all could hear, "How do you do, Miss Grammont. I haven't +seen you for some time. You're doing this reporting work for the +Bulletin now, aren't you? I want to talk to you about that. If you'll +give me the address I'll come round in about half an hour and see you +about it."</p> + +<p>She gave him the address of her rooms in Little Darkgate Street, and he +nodded and walked on. He had done it well; no one thought it strange, or +anything but all in the way of business. Ministers have to be good at +camouflage, at throwing veils over situations; it is part of their job.</p> + +<p>Kitty went back to her lodgings, and washed again, for the seventeenth +time that day, and tried if she would feel less hot and less pale and +more the captain of her soul in another and even filmier blouse. But she +grew hotter, and paler, and less the captain of anything at all.</p> + +<p>At 9.30 Chester came. He too was hot and pale and captain of nothing. He +had not even the comfort of a filmy blouse.</p> + +<p>He said, "My dear—my dear," and no more for a little time. Then he +said, "My dearest, this has got to stop. I can't stand it. We've got to +marry."</p> + +<p>Kitty said, "Oh well. I suppose we have." She was too hot, too limp, too +tired, to suppose anything else.</p> + +<p>"At once," said Chester. "I'll get a licence.... We must get it done at +some small place in the country where they don't know who we are. I must +take another name for it.... There's a place I sometimes stay at, in the +Chilterns. They are rather stupid there—even now," he added, with the +twist of a rueful smile. "I think it should be pretty safe. Anyhow I +don't think I much care; we're going to do it."</p> + +<p>They spoke low in the dim, breathless room, with its windows opened wide +on to the breathless street.</p> + +<p>"I have wanted you," said Chester. "I have wanted you extremely badly +these last three months. I have never wanted anything so much. It has +been a—a hideous time, taking it all round."</p> + +<p>"You certainly," said Kitty, "look as if it had. So do I—don't I? It's +partly heat and dirt, with both of us—the black of this town <i>soaks</i> +in—and partly tiredness, and partly, for you, the strain of your +ministerial responsibilities, no doubt; but I think a little of it is +our broken hearts.... Nicky, I'm too limp to argue or fight. I know it's +all wrong, what we're going to do; but I'm like you—I don't think I +much care. We'll get married in your stupid village, under a false name. +That counts, does it? Oh, all right. I shouldn't particularly mind if it +didn't, you know. I'll do without the registry business altogether if +you think it's safer. After all, what's the odds? It comes to the same +thing in the end, only with less fuss. And it's no one's business but +ours."</p> + +<p>"No," Chester said. "I think that would be a mistake. Wrong. I don't +approve of this omitting of the legal bond; it argues a lack of the +sense of social ethics; it opens the door to a state of things which is +essentially uncivilised, lacking in self-control and intelligence. I +don't like it. It always strikes me as disagreeable and behind the +times; a step backwards. No, we won't do that. I'd rather take the +greater risk of publicity. I'm dropping one principle, but I don't want +to drop more than I need."</p> + +<p>Kitty laughed silently, and slipped her hand into his. "All right, you +shan't. We'll get tied up properly at your country registry, and keep +some of our principles and hang the risk.... I oughtn't to let you, you +know. If it comes out it will wreck your career and perhaps wreck the +Ministry and endanger the intellect of the country. We may be sowing the +seeds of another World War; but—oh, I'm bored with being +high-principled about it."</p> + +<p>"It's too late to be that," said Chester. "We've got to go ahead now."</p> + +<p>He consulted his pocket-book and said that he was free on August 10th, +and that they would then get married and go to Italy for a fortnight's +holiday together. They made the other arrangements that have to be made +in these peculiar circumstances, and then Chester went back to his +hotel.</p> + +<p>The awful, airless, panting night through which the Chesterfield +furnaces flamed, lay upon the queer, crooked black city like a menace. +Kitty, leaning out of her window and listening to Chester's retreating +steps echoing up the street, ran her fingers through her damp dark hair, +because her head ached, and murmured, "I don't care. I don't care. +What's the good of living if you can't have what you want?"</p> + +<p>Which expressed an instinct common to the race, and one which would in +the end bring to nothing the most strenuous efforts of social and +ethical reformers.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>They got married. Chester took, for the occasion, the name of Gilbert +Lewis; it was surprising how easy this was. The witness looked +attentively at him, but probably always looked like that at the people +getting married. Neither he nor the registrar looked intelligent, or as +if they were connecting Chester's face with anything they had seen +before.</p> + +<p>After the performance they went to Italy for a fortnight. Italy in +August is fairly safe from English visitors. They stayed at Cogoleto, a +tiny fishing town fifteen miles up the coast from Genoa, shut in a +little bay between the olive hills and the sea. To this sheltered coast +through the summer months people come from the hot towns inland and fill +every lodging and inn and pitch tents on the shore, and pass serene, +lazy, amphibious days in and out of a sea which has the inestimable +advantage over English seas that it is always at hand.</p> + +<p>The Chesters too passed amphibious days. They would rise early, while +the sea lay cool and smooth and pale and pearly in the morning light, +and before the sand burnt their feet as they walked on it, and slip in +off the gently shelving shore, and swim and swim and swim. They were +both good swimmers. Chester was the stronger and faster, but Kitty could +do more tricks. She could turn somersaults like an eel, and sit at the +bottom of the sea playing with pebbles, with open eyes gazing up through +clear green depths. When they bathed from a boat, she turned head over +heels backwards from the bows, and shot under the boat and came up +neatly behind the stern. Chester too could perform fairly well; their +energy and skill excited the amazed admiration of the <i>bagnanti</i>, who +seldom did more than splash on the sea's edge or bob up and down with +swimming belts a few yards out. Chester and Kitty would swim out for a +mile, then lie on their backs and float, gazing up into the sea-blue +sky, before the sun had climbed high enough to burn and blind. Then they +would swim back and return to the inn and put on a very few clothes and +have their morning coffee, and then walk up the coast, taking lunch, to +some little lonely cove in the shadow of rocks, where they would spend +the heat of the day in and out of the sea. When they came out of the +water they lay on the burning sands and dried themselves, and talked or +read. When the heat of the day had passed a little, and the sea lay very +smooth and still in the late afternoon, with no waves at all, only a +gentle, whispering swaying to and fro, they would go further afield; +climbing up the steep stone-paved mule-tracks that wound up the hills +behind, passing between grey olive groves and lemon and orange gardens +and vineyards of ripening vines and little rough white farmhouses, till +they reached the barer, wilder hill slopes of pines and rocks, where the +hot sweetness of myrtle and juniper stirred with each tiny moving of sea +air.</p> + +<p>They would climb often to the top of one or other of this row of hills +that guarded the bay, and from its top, resting by some old pulley well +or little shrine, they would look down over hills and sea bathed in +evening light, and see to the east the white gleam of Genoa shimmering +like a pearl, like a ghost, between transparent sea and sky, to the west +the point of Savona jutting dark against a flood of fire.</p> + +<p>There was one hill they often climbed, a steep little pine-grown +mountain crested by a little old chapel, with a well by its side. The +chapel was dedicated to the Madonna della Mare, and was hung about +inside with votive offerings of little ships, presented to the Madonna +by grateful sailors whom she had delivered from the perils of the sea. +Outside the chapel a shrine stood, painted pink, and from it the mother +and child smiled kindly down on the withered flowers that nearly always +lay on the ledge before them.</p> + +<p>By the shrine and the well Chester and Kitty would sit, while the low +light died slowly from the hills, till its lower slopes lay in evening +shadow, and only they on the summit remained, as if en-chanted, in a +circle of fairy gold.</p> + +<p>One evening while they sat there a half-witted contadino slouched out of +the chapel and begged from them. Chester refused sharply, and turned his +face away. The imbecile hung about, mouthed a confused prayer, bowing +and crossing, before the shrine, got no help from that quarter either, +and at last shambled disconsolately down the hillside, crooning an +unintelligible song to himself.</p> + +<p>Kitty, looking at Chester, saw with surprise that his face was rigid +with disgust; he looked as if he were trying not to shudder.</p> + +<p>"How you hate them, Nicky," she said curiously.</p> + +<p>He said "I do," grimly, and spoke of something else.</p> + +<p>But a little later he said abruptly, "I've never told you much about my +people, Kitty, have I, or what are called my early years?"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't, of course," she replied, "any more than I should. We're +neither of us much interested in the past; you live in the future, and I +live in the present moment.... But I should be interested to hear, all +the same."</p> + +<p>"That imbecile reminded me," Chester said grimly. "I had a twin sister +like that, and a brother not very far removed from it. You know that, of +course; but you'll never know, no one <i>can</i> ever know who's not +experienced it, what it was like.... At first, when I began to do more +than just accept it as part of things as they were, it only made me +angry that such things should be possible, and frightfully sorry for +Joan and Gerald, who had to go about like that, so little use to +themselves or anyone else, and so tiresome to me and Maggie (she's my +eldest sister; I'd like you to meet her one day). I remember even +consulting Maggie as to whether it wouldn't be a good thing to take them +out into a wood and lose them, like the babes in the wood. I honestly +thought it would be for their own good; I knew I should have preferred +it if I had been them. But Maggie didn't agree; she took a more patient +line about it than I did; she always does. Then, as I grew older, I +became angry with my parents, who had no right, of course, to have had +any children at all; they were first cousins, and deficiency was in the +family.... It was that that first set me thinking about the whole +subject. I remember I asked my father once, when I was about seventeen, +how he had reconciled it with his conscience (he was a dean at that +time) to do such a thing. I must have been an irritating young prig, of +course; in fact, I remember that I was. He very properly indicated to me +that I was stepping out of my sphere in questioning him on such a point, +and also that whatever is must be sent by Providence, and therefore +right. I didn't drop it at once; I remember I argued that it hadn't +"been" and therefore had not necessarily been right, until he and my +mother made it so; but he closed the conversation; quite time too, I +suppose. It was difficult to argue with my father in those days; it's +easier now, though not really easy. I think the reduction of the worldly +condition of bishops has been good for him; it has put him in what I +suppose is called a state of grace. I don't believe he'd do it now, if +he lived his life again. However, he did do it, and the result was two +deficient children and one who grew up loathing stupidity in the way +some few people (conceivably) loathe vice, when they've been brought +into close contact with its effects. It became an obsession with me; I +seemed to see it everywhere, spoiling everything, blocking every path, +tying everyone's hands. The Boer war happened while I was at school.... +Good Lord.... Then I went to Cambridge, and it was there that I really +began to think the thing seriously out. What has always bothered me +about it is that human beings are so astoundingly <i>clever</i>; miraculously +clever, if you come to think of it, and compare us with the other +animals, so like us in lots of ways. The things we've done; the animal +state we've grown out of; the things we've discovered and created—it +makes one's head reel. And if we can be clever like that, why not be a +little cleverer still? Why be so abysmally stupid about many things? The +<i>waste</i> of it.... The world might get anywhere if we really developed +our powers to their full extent. But we always slip up somewhere: +nothing quite comes off as it should. Think of all these thousands of +years of house-managing, and the really clever arrangements which have +been made in connection with it—and then visit a set of cottages and +see the mess; a woman trying to cook food and clean the house and look +after children and wash clothes, all by hand, and with the most +inadequate contrivances for any of it. Why haven't we thought of some +way out of that beastly, clumsy squalor and muddle yet? And why do +houses built and fitted like some of those still exist? If we're clever +enough to have invented and built houses at all, why not go one better +and do it properly? It's the same with everything. Medical science, for +instance. The advances it's made fill one with amaze and admiration; but +why is there still disease? And why isn't there a cure for every +disease? And why do doctors fail so hopelessly to diagnose anything a +little outside their ordinary beat? There it is; we've been clever about +it in a way, but nothing like clever enough, or as clever as we've got +to be before we've done. The same with statesmanship and government; +only there we've very seldom been clever at all; that's still to come. +And our educational system ... oh Lord.... The mischief is that people +in general don't <i>want</i> other people to become too clever; it wouldn't +suit their turn. So the popular instinct for mucking along, for taking +things as you find them (and leaving them there), the popular taste for +superficial twaddle in literature and politics and science and art and +religion is pandered to on its own level....</p> + +<p>"But I didn't mean to go off on to all this; I merely meant to tell you +what first started me thinking of these things."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Kitty. "I like it. It makes me feel at home, as if I was +sitting under you at a meeting.... What I infer is that if your parents +<i>hadn't</i> been first cousins and had deficiency in their family, there +would have been no Ministry of Brains. I expect your father was right, +and whatever is is best.... Of course the interesting question is, what +would happen if ever we <i>were</i> much cleverer than we are now? What would +happen, that is, besides houses being better managed and disease better +treated and locomotion improved and books better written or not written +at all, and all that? What would happen to nations and societies and +governments, if people in general became much more intelligent? I can't +imagine. But I think there'd be a jolly old row.... Perhaps we shall +know before long."</p> + +<p>"No," said Chester. "We shan't know that. There may be a jolly old row; +I daresay there will; but it won't be because people have got too +clever; it will be because they haven't got clever enough. It'll be the +short-sighted stupidity of people revolting against their ultimate +good."</p> + +<p>"As it might be you and me."</p> + +<p>"Precisely. As it might be you and me.... What we're doing is horribly +typical, Kitty. Don't let's ever blind ourselves to its nature. We'll do +it, because we think it's worth it; but we'll do it with our eyes open. +Thank heaven we're both clear-headed and hard-headed enough to know what +we're doing and not to muddle ourselves with cant about it.... That's +one of the things that I suppose, I love you for, my dear—your +clear-headedness. You never muddle or cant or sentimentalise. You're +hard-headed and clear-eyed."</p> + +<p>"In fact, cynical," said Kitty.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Rather cynical. Unnecessarily cynical, I think. You could do with +some more faith."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I shall catch some from you. You've got lots, haven't you? As +the husband is the wife is; I am mated to, etc.... And you're a lot +cleverer than I am, so you're most likely right.... We're awfully +different, Nicky, my love, aren't we?"</p> + +<p>"No doubt we are. Who isn't?"</p> + +<p>For a while they lay silent in the warm sweetness of the hill-top, while +the golden light slipped from them, leaving behind it the pure green +stillness of the evening; and they looked at one another and speculated +on the strange differences of human beings each from each, and the +mystery of personality, that tiny point on to which all the age-long +accumulated forces of heredity press, so that you would suppose that the +world itself could not contain them, and yet they are contained in one +small, ordinary soul, which does not break under the weight.</p> + +<p>So they looked at one another, speculating, until speculation faded into +seeing, and instead of personalities they became to one another persons, +and Chester saw Kitty red-lipped and golden-eyed and black-lashed and +tanned a smooth nut-brown by sun and sea, and Kitty saw Chester long and +lean and sallow, with black brows bent over deep, keen, dreaming eyes, +and lips carrying their queer suggestion of tragedy and comedy.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it fun," said Kitty, "that you are you and I am I? I think it +must be (don't you?) the greatest fun that ever was since the world +began. That's what I think ... and everywhere millions of people are +thinking exactly the same. We're part of the common herd, Nicky—the +very, very commonest herd of all herds. I think I like it rather—being +so common, I mean. It's amusing. Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, and smiled at her. "I think I do."</p> + +<p>Still they lay there, side by side, in the extraordinary hushed +sweetness of the evening. Kitty's cheek was pressed against short warm +grass. Close to her ear a cicale chirped, monotonously bright; far off, +from every hill, the frogs began their evening singing.</p> + +<p>Kitty, as she sometimes did, seemed to slip suddenly outside the circle +of the present, of her own life and the life around her; far off she saw +it, a queer little excited corner of the universe, where people played +together and were happy, where the funny world spun round and round and +laughed and cried and ran and slept and loved and hated, and everything +mattered intensely, and yet, as seen from outside the circle, did not +matter at all.... She felt like a soul unborn, or a soul long dead, +watching the world's antics with a dispassionate, compassionate +interest....</p> + +<p>The touch of Chester's hand on her cheek brought her back abruptly into +the circle again.</p> + +<p>"Belovedest," he said, "let's come down the hill. The light is going."</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>One day they had a shock; they met someone they knew. They met him in +the sea; at least he was in a boat and they were in the sea. They were +swimming a mile from shore, in a pearl-smooth, golden sea, in the eye of +the rising sun. Half a mile out from them a yacht lay, as idle as a +painted ship upon a painted ocean. From the yacht a boat shot out, rowed +by a man. It shot between the swimmers and the rising sun. Chester and +Kitty were lying on their backs, churning up the sun's path of gold with +their feet, and Kitty was singing a little song that Greek goat-herds +sing on the hills above Corinth in the mornings.</p> + +<p>Leaning over the side and resting on his oars, the man in the boat +shouted, "<i>Hullo</i>, Chester!"</p> + +<p>An electric shock stabbed Kitty through at the voice, which was Vernon +Prideaux's. Losing her nerve, her head, and her sense of the suitable, +she splashed round on to her chest, kicked herself forward, and dived +like a porpoise, travelling as swiftly as she could from Chester, +Prideaux, and the situation. When she came up it was with a splutter, +because she had laughed. Glancing backwards over her shoulder, she saw +Chester swimming towards the boat. What would he say? Would he speak of +her, or wrap her in discreet silence? And had Prideaux recognised her or +not?</p> + +<p>"Lunatic," said Kitty. "Of course he did. I have taken the worst way, in +my excitement."</p> + +<p>Promptly she retraced her path, this time on the water's surface, and +hailed Prideaux as she came.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Vernon. The top of the morning to you. I thought I'd show you I +could dive.... What brings you here? Oh the yacht, of course...." She +paused, wondering what was to be their line, then struck one out on her +own account. "Isn't it odd; Mr. Chester and I are both staying near +here."</p> + +<p>Prideaux's keen, well-bred, perfectly courteous face looked for one +moment as if it certainly was a little odd; then he swallowed his +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Are you? It's a splendid coast, isn't it? Cogoleto in there, I suppose? +We're not stopping at all, unfortunately; we're going straight on to +Genoa.... I'm coming in."</p> + +<p>He dived neatly from the bows, with precision and power, as he wrote +minutes, managed deputations, ignored odd situations, and did everything +else. One was never afraid with Prideaux; one could rely on him not to +bungle.</p> + +<p>They bathed together and conversed, till Kitty said she must go in, and +swam shoreward in the detached manner of one whose people are expecting +her to breakfast. Soon afterwards she saw that Prideaux was pulling back +to the yacht, and Chester swimming westward, as if he were staying at +Varazze.</p> + +<p>"Tact," thought Kitty. "This, I suppose, is how people behave while +conducting a vulgar intrigue. Ours is a vulgar marriage; there doesn't +seem much difference.... I rather wish we could have told Vernon all +about it; he's safe enough, and I should like to have heard his comments +and seen his face. How awful he would think us.... I don't know anyone +who would disapprove more.... Well, I suppose it's more interesting than +a marriage which doesn't have to be kept dark, but it's much less +peaceful."</p> + +<p>They met at the inn, at breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Did you have to swim right across the bay, darling?" Kitty enquired. +"I'm so sorry. By the way, I noticed that Vernon never asked either of +us where we were staying, nor invited us to come and visit the yacht. Do +you suppose he believed a word we said?"</p> + +<p>Chester lifted his eyebrows. "His mental category is A, I believe," he +replied.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Kitty, "anyhow he can't know we're married, even if he does +think we've arranged to meet here. And Vernon's very discreet; he won't +babble."</p> + +<p>Chester ate a roll and a half in silence. Then he remarked, without +emotion, "Kitty, this thing is going to come out. We may as well make up +our minds to it. We shall go on meeting people, and they won't all be +discreet. It will come out, as certainly as flowers in spring, or the +Clyde engineers next week."</p> + +<p>They faced one another in silence for a moment across the coffee and +rolls. Then, because there seemed nothing else which could meet the +situation, they both began to laugh helplessly.</p> + +<p>Three days later they returned to England, by different routes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>A MINISTRY AT BAY</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>That autumn was a feverish period in the Ministry's career. Many persons +have been called upon, for one cause or another, to wait in nervous +anticipation hour by hour for the signal which shall herald their own +destruction. Thus our ancestors at the latter end of the tenth century +waited expectantly for the crack of doom; but the varying emotions with +which they awaited it can only be guessed at. More vivid to the mind and +memory are the expectant and waiting first days of August, 1914. On the +other hand, the emotions of cabinets foreseeing their own resignation, +of the House of Lords anticipating abolition, of criminals awaiting +sentence, of newspapers desperately staving off extinction, of the crews +of foundered ships struggling to keep afloat, of government departments +anticipating their own untimely end, are mysteries veiled from the +outside world, sacred ground which may not be trodden by the multitude.</p> + +<p>The Ministry of Brains that autumn was fighting hard and gallantly for +its life. It was an uphill struggle; Sisyphus pushing up the mountain +the stone of human perverseness, human stupidity, human self-will, which +threatened all the time to roll back and grind him to powder. +Concessions were made here, pledges given there (even, here or there, +occasionally fulfilled). New Instructions were issued daily, old ones +amended or withdrawn, far-reaching and complicated arrangements made +with various groups and classes of people, "little ministries" set up +all over the country to administrate the acts regionally, soothing +replies and promises dropped like leaves in autumn by the Parliamentary +Secretary, to be gathered up, hoarded, and brooded over in many a +humble, many a stately home. It is superfluous to recapitulate these +well-worn, oft-enacted, pathetic incidents of a tottering ministry. +Ministries, though each with a special stamp in hours of ease, are all +much alike when pain and anguish wring their brows. With arts very +similar each to other they woo a public uncertain, coy and hard to +please; a public too ready to believe the worst of them, too pitiless +and unimaginative towards their good intentions, too extreme to mark +what is done amiss, too loth to admit success, too ready to condemn +failure without measuring the strength of temptation.</p> + +<p>Ministries have a bitter time; their hand is against every man and every +man's hand against them. For their good men return them evil and for +their evil no good. And—let it not be forgotten—they are really, with +all their faults, more intelligent, and fuller of good intentions, than +the vast majority of their critics. The critics cry aloud "Get rid of +them," without always asking themselves who would do the job any better, +always providing it has to be done. In the case of the Ministry of +Brains, the majority of the public saw no reason why the job should be +done at all, which complicated matters. It was like the Directorate of +Recruiting during the war, or the Censor's office, or the Ministry of +Food; not merely its method but its function was unwelcome. As most men +did not want to be recruited by law, or to have their reading or their +diet regulated by law, so they did not want to be made intelligent by +law. All these things might be, and doubtless were, for the ultimate +good of the nation, but all were inconvenient at the moment, and when +ultimate good (especially not necessarily one's own good) and immediate +convenience come to blows, it is not usually ultimate good which wins.</p> + +<p>So the Ministry of Brains, even more than other ministries, was fighting +against odds. Feverish activity prevailed, in all departments. From +morning till night telephones telephoned, clerks wrote, typists typed +against time, deputations deputed, committees committeed, officials +conferred with each other, messengers ran to and fro with urgent minutes +and notes by hand. Instructions and circular letters poured forth, +telegrams were despatched in hot haste to the local Ministries and to +the Brains Representatives on the local tribunals, the staff arrived +early and stayed late, and often came on Sundays as well, and grew thin +and dyspeptic and nervy and irritable.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>Even Ivy Delmer grew pale and depressed, not so much from official +strain as from private worries. These she confided one day to Kitty, who +had got transferred back to headquarters, through a little quiet +wire-pulling (it is no use being married to a Minister if little things +like that cannot easily be arranged), and was now working in her old +branch. They were travelling together one Monday morning up from Little +Chantreys.</p> + +<p>"Now I ask you, Miss Grammont, what would <i>you</i> do? I'm B3 and he's C1 +(I'm certain they've classified him wrong, because he's not a bit stupid +really, not the way some men are, you know, he's jolly clever at some +things—ideas, and that), but of course it's against the regulations for +us to marry each other. And yet we care for each other, and we both of +us feel we always shall. And we neither of us want a bit to marry an A +person, besides, I don't suppose an A would ever think of us in <i>that</i> +way, you know what I mean, Miss Grammont, don't laugh, and to give each +other up would mean spoiling both our lives.... Yet I suppose everyone +would think it awfully wrong if we got regularly engaged, and me working +at the Ministry too. I suppose I ought to leave it really, feeling the +way I do.... The fact is, I've come to feel very differently about the +Ministry, now I've thought it more over, and—you'll be horrified, I +know—but I'm not at all sure I approve of it."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious no," Kitty said. "I never approve of any Ministries. That +isn't what one feels for them. Sympathy; pity; some affection, even; but +approval—no."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see what I mean, it's all very well in theory, but I do +honestly know so many people whose lives have been upset and spoilt by +it—and it does seem hard. Heaps of people in Little Chantreys alone; of +course we come across them rather a lot, because they tell father and +mother about it.... And all the poor little deserted babies.... Oh I +suppose it's all right.... But I'm feeling a bit off it just now.... Now +I ask you, feeling as I do about it, and meaning to do what I'm going to +do (at least we hope we're going to do it sometime), ought I to go on at +the Ministry? Is it honest? Would <i>you</i>, Miss Grammont?"</p> + +<p>Kitty blushed faintly, to her own credit and a little to Ivy's surprise. +She did not associate blushing with Miss Grammont, and anyhow there +seemed no occasion for it just now.</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, I think I would. I don't see that you're called on to give +it up—unless, of course, you hate it, and want to.... After all, one +would very seldom stick to any work at all if one felt obliged to +approve entirely of it. No, I don't think there's much in that."</p> + +<p>"You truly don't? Well, I expect I'll carry on for a bit, then. I'd +rather, in one way, of course, especially as we shall need all the money +we can get if we ever do marry. Not that I'm saving; I spend every penny +I get, I'm afraid. But of course it takes me off father's hands.... +Don't <i>you</i> feel, Miss Grammont, that all this interference with +people's private lives is a mistake? It's come home to me awfully +strongly lately. Only when I read the Minister's speeches I change my +mind again; he puts it so rippingly, and makes me feel perhaps I'm being +simply a selfish little beast. I don't care what anybody says about him, +I think he's wonderful."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he is," said Kitty.</p> + +<p>"My word, he jolly well <i>would</i> despise me if he knew, wouldn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Well...." said Kitty. And perhaps it was well that at that moment they +reached Marylebone.</p> + +<p>That conversation was typical, even as Ivy Delmer's standpoint was +itself typical, of a large body of what, for lack of a better name, we +must call thought, all over the country. Laws were all very well in +theory, or when they only disarranged the lives of others, but when they +touched and disorganised one's own life—hands off. Was the only +difference between such as Ivy Delmer and such as Nicholas Chester that +Ivy deceived herself ("It's not that I care a bit for myself, but it's +the principle of the thing") and that Chester fell with open eyes? Which +was perhaps as much as to say that Ivy was classified B3 and Chester A.</p> + +<p>All over the country people were saying, according to their different +temperaments, one or another of these things. "Of course I don't care +for myself, but I think the system is wrong," or (the other way round) +"It may be all right in theory, but I'm jolly well not going to stand +being inconvenienced by it," or "I'm not going to stand it <i>and</i> it's +all wrong." Of course there were also those more public-spirited persons +who said, "It's a splendid system and I'm going to fall in with it," or +"Though it's a rotten system I suppose we must put up with it." But +these were the minority.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>Up till November the campaign against the Brains Ministry was quite +impersonal, merely resentment against a system. It was led, in the +Press, by the Labour papers, which objected to compulsion, by the +<i>Nation</i>, which objected to what it, rightly or wrongly, called by that +much-abused name, Prussianism, by the <i>New Witness</i>, which objected to +interference with the happy stupidity of merry Gentiles (making them +disagreeably clever like Jews), and by <i>Stop It</i>, which objected to +everything. It was supported by the more normal organs of opinion of the +kind which used before and during the war to be called conservative and +liberal. And, of course, through thick and thin, by the <i>Hidden Hand</i>.</p> + +<p>But in the course of November a new element came into the attack—the +personal element. Certain sections of the Press which supported the +Ministry began to show discontent with the Minister. The <i>Times</i> began +to hint guardedly that new blood might perhaps be desirable in certain +quarters. The <i>Daily Mail</i>, in its rounder and directer manner, remarked +in large head-lines that "Nicky is played out." Ministers have to bear +these intimations about themselves as they walk about London; fleeing +from old gentlemen selling the <i>Daily Mail</i> outside Cox's, Chester was +confronted in the Strand by the <i>Herald</i> remarking very loudly "CHESTER +MUST GO." And then (but this was later) by the <i>Patriot</i>, which was +much, much worse.</p> + +<p>The <i>Patriot</i> affair was different from the others. The <i>Patriot</i> was, +in fact, a different paper. The <i>Patriot</i> had the personal, homely +touch; it dealt faithfully not only with the public misdemeanours of +prominent persons, but with the scandals of their private lives. It +found things out. It abounded in implications and references, arch and +jocose in manner and not usually discreet in matter. The <i>Patriot</i> had +been in the law courts many times, but as it remarked, "We are not +afraid of prosecution." It had each week a column of open letters +addressed to persons of varying degrees of prominence, in which it told +them what it thought of them. The weak point of these letters was that +the <i>Patriot</i> was not a paper which was read by persons of prominence; +its readers were the obscure and simple, who no doubt extracted much +edification from them. Its editor was a Mr. Percy Jenkins, a gentleman +of considerable talents, and, it was said, sufficient personal charm to +be useful to him. What he lacked in æsthetic taste he made up in energy +and patriotism, and the People hailed him affectionately as the People's +friend. Throughout October Mr. Jenkins suffered apparently from a desire +to have a personal interview with the Minister of Brains. He addressed +private letters to him, intimating this desire, which were answered by +his secretary in a chilly negative strain. He telephoned, enquiring +when, if at all, he could have the pleasure of seeing the Minister, and +was informed that the Minister had, unfortunately, no time for pleasures +just now. He called at the Ministry and sent up his card, but was told +that, as he had no appointment it was regretted that he could not +penetrate further into the Ministry than the waiting-room. He called in +the evening at the Minister's private address, but found him engaged.</p> + +<p>After that, however, the Minister apparently relented, for Mr. Jenkins +received a letter from his secretary informing him that, if he wished to +see the Minister, he might call at his house at 9.30 p.m. on the +following Monday. Mr. Jenkins did so. He was shown into the Minister's +study. Chester was sitting by the fire, reading <i>Tales of my +Grandfather</i>. He was never found writing letters, as one might expect a +public man to be found; his secretary wrote all his official letters, +and his unofficial letters were not written at all, Chester being of the +opinion that if you leave the letters you receive long enough they +answer themselves.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenkins, having been invited to sit down, did so, and said, "Very +kind of you to give me this interview, sir."</p> + +<p>Chester did not commit himself, however, to any further kindness, but +said stiffly, "I have very little time. I am, as you see, occupied"—he +indicated <i>Tales of my Grandfather</i>—"and I shall be glad if you will +state your business at once, sir, and as plainly as you can."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenkins murmured pleasantly, "Well, we needn't be blunt, exactly.... +But you are quite right, sir; I <i>have</i> business. As you are no doubt +aware, I edit a paper—the <i>Patriot</i>—it is possible that you are +acquainted with it."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said Chester, "such an acquaintance would be quite +impossible. But I have heard of it. I know to what paper you refer. +Please go on."</p> + +<p>"Everybody," retorted Mr. Jenkins, a little nettled, "does not find +close acquaintance with the <i>Patriot</i> at all impossible. Its +circulation...."</p> + +<p>"We need not, I think, have that, Mr. Jenkins. Will you kindly go on +with your business?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenkins shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Your time appears to be extremely limited, sir."</p> + +<p>"All time," returned the Minister, relapsing, as was often his habit, +into metaphysics, "is limited. Limits are, in fact, what constitute +time. What '<i>extremely</i> limited' may mean, I cannot say. But if you mean +that I desire this interview to be short, you are correct."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenkins hurried on.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Patriot</i>, as you may have heard, sir, deals with truth. Its aim is +to disseminate correct information with regard to all matters, public +and private. This, I may say, it is remarkably successful in doing. +Well, Mr. Chester, as of course you are aware, the public are very much +interested in yourself. There is no one at the present moment who is +more to the fore, or if I may say so, more discussed. Naturally, +therefore, I should be glad if I could provide some items of public +interest on this subject, and I should be very grateful for any +assistance you could give me.... Now, Mr. Chester, I have heard lately a +very interesting piece of news about you. People are saying that you are +being seen a great deal in the company of a certain lady." He paused.</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Chester.</p> + +<p>"It has even been said," continued Mr. Jenkins, "that you have been seen +staying in the country together ... alone together, that is ... for +week-ends...."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Chester.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenkins went on. "Other things are said; but I daresay they are mere +rumour. Queer things get said about public men. I met someone the other +day who lives in Buckinghamshire, somewhere in the Chilterns, and who +has a curious and no doubt entirely erroneous idea about you.... Well, +in the interests of the country, Mr. Chester (I have the welfare of the +Ministry of Brains very much at heart, I may say; I am entirely with you +in regarding intelligence as the Coming Force), I should like to be in a +position to discredit these rumours. If you won't mind my saying so, +they tell against you very seriously. You see, it is generally known +that you are uncertificated for matrimony and parentage, if I may +mention it. And once people get into their heads the idea that, while +forcing these laws on others, you are evading them yourself ... well, +you may imagine it might damage your work considerably. You and I, Mr. +Chester, know what the public are.... I should be glad to have your +authority to contradict these rumours, therefore."</p> + +<p>Chester said, "Certainly. You may contradict anything you please. I +shall raise no objection. Is that all?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenkins hesitated. "I cannot, of course, contradict the rumours +without some assurance that they are false...."</p> + +<p>They had an interesting conversation on this topic for ten minutes more, +which I do not intend to record in these pages.</p> + +<p>So many conversations are, for various reasons, not recorded. +Conversations, for instance, at Versailles, when the allied powers of +the world sit together there behind impenetrable curtains, through the +rifts of which only murmurs of the unbroken harmony which always +prevails between allies steal through to a waiting world. Conversations +between M. Trotzky and representatives of the German Government before +the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Conversations between the President of the +Board of Trade and the Railway Companies when the price of travel is +being increased; between governments and capitalists when elections are +to be fought or newspapers to be bought; between Jane Austen's heroes +and heroines in the hour when their passion is declared.</p> + +<p>For quite different reasons, all these conversations are left to the +imagination, and I propose to leave to the same department of the +reader's mind the interview between Mr. Percy Jenkins and the Minister +of Brains. I will merely mention that the talking was, for the most +part, done by Mr. Jenkins. The reasons for this were two. One was that +Mr. Jenkins was a fluent talker, and the Minister capable of a +taciturnity not invariably to be found in our statesmen. Both have their +uses in the vicissitudes of public life. Both can be, if used +effectively, singularly baffling to those who would probe the +statesman's mind and purposes. But fluency is, to most (it would seem) +the easier course.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Anyhow this was how the <i>Patriot</i> campaign started. It began with an +Open Letter.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<i>To the Minister of Brains.</i></p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Nicholas Chester,</p> + +<p>"There is a saying 'Physician, heal thyself.' There is also, in +the same book (a book which, coming of clerical, even +episcopal, parentage, you should be acquainted with), 'Cast out +the beam which is in thine own eye, and then thou shalt see +more plainly to pull out the mote which is in thy brother's +eye.' We will on this occasion say no more than that we advise +you to take heed to these sayings before you issue many more +orders relating to matrimony and such domestic affairs. And yet +a third saying, 'Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not +both fall into the ditch?' you would do well to ponder in your +heart."</p></blockquote> + +<p>That was all, that week. But it was enough to start speculation and talk +among the <i>Patriot's</i> readers. Next week and other weeks there were +further innuendoes, and more talk. One week there was a picture of +Chester with several unmistakable, but also unmistakably deficient, +little Chesters clinging to his coat. This picture was called "Following +the dear old dad. What we may expect to see in the near future."</p> + +<p>Mr. Percy Jenkins knew his business. And, during his interview with the +Minister of Brains, he had conceived an extreme dislike towards him.</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>"He'll feel worse before I've done with him," Chester said to Kitty. +They were sitting together on Kitty's sofa, with a copy of the <i>Patriot</i> +between them. Kitty was now alone in her flat, her cousin having +suddenly taken it into her head to get married.</p> + +<p>"I always said it would come out," was Kitty's reply. "And now you see."</p> + +<p>"Of course I knew it would come out," Chester said calmly. "It was bound +to. However, it hasn't yet. All this is mere talk. It's more offensive, +but not really so serious, as the Labour attacks on the Ministry, and +the <i>Stop It</i> campaign, and the cry for a Business Government. Business +Government, indeed! The last word in inept futility...."</p> + +<p>"All the same," Kitty said, rather gravely, "you and I have got to be +rather more careful, Nicky. We've been careful, I think, but not enough, +it seems."</p> + +<p>"There's no such thing," said Chester, who was tired, "as being careful +enough, in this observant world, when one is doing wrong. You can be too +careful (don't let's, by the way) but you can't be careful enough."</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>But Chester did not really see Kitty very often in these days, because +he had to see and confer with so many others—the Employers' Federation, +and the Doctors, and the Timber Cutters, and the Worsted Industries, and +the Farmers, and the Cotton Spinners, and the Newspaper Staffs, and the +Church, and the Parents, and the Ministerial Council, and the Admiralty, +and the Board of Education, and the War Office, and the Ministry of +Reconstruction, and the Directorate of Propaganda. And the A.S.E.</p> + +<p>It is much to be hoped that conferences are useful; if they are not, it +cannot, surely, be from lack of practice.</p> + +<p>Prideaux also, and the other heads of sections, on their humbler scale +received deputations and conferred. Whether or not it was true to say of +the Ministry (and to do Ministries justice, these statements are usually +not true) that it did not try to enter sympathetically into the +difficulties and grievances of the public, it is anyhow certain that the +difficulties and grievances entered into the Ministry, from 9.30 a.m. +until 7 p.m. After 7 no more difficulties were permitted to enter, but +the higher staff remained often till late into the night to grapple with +those already there.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the government laid pledges in as many of the hands held out +to them as they could. Pledges, in spite of a certain boomerang quality +possessed by them, are occasionally useful things. They have various +aspects; when you give them, they mean a little anger averted, a little +content generated, a little time gained. When you receive them, they +mean, normally, that others will (you hope) be compelled to do something +disagreeable before you are. When others receive them, they mean that +there is unfair favouritism. When (or if) you fulfil them, they mean +that you are badly hampered thereby in the competent handling of your +job. When you break them, they mean trouble. And when you merely hear +about them from the outside they mean a moral lesson—that promises +should be kept if made, but certainly never, never made.</p> + +<p>It is very certain, anyhow, that the Ministry of Brains made at this +time too many. No Ministry could have kept so many. There was, for +instance, the Pledge to the Married Women, that the unmarried women +should be called up for their Mind Training Course before they were. +There was the Pledge to the Mining Engineers, that unskilled labour +should take the Course before skilled. There was the Pledge to the +Parents of Five, that, however high the baby taxes were raised, the +parents of six would always have to pay more on each baby. There was the +Pledge to the Deficient, that they would not have to take the Mind +Training Course at all. This last pledge was responsible for much +agitation in Parliament. Distressing cases of imbeciles harried and +bullied by the local Brains Boards were produced and enquired into. +(Question, "Is it not the case that the Ministry of Brains has become +absolutely soulless in this matter of harrying the Imbecile?" Answer, "I +have received no information to that effect." Question, "Are enquiries +being made into the case of the deficient girl at Perivale Halt who was +rejected three times as unfit for the Course and finally examined again +and passed, and developed acute imbecility and mumps half-way through +the Course?" Answer, "Enquiries are being made." And so on, and so on, +and so on.)</p> + +<p>But, in the eyes of the general public, the chief testimony to the +soullessness of the Ministry was its crushing and ignoring of the claims +of the human heart. What could one say of a Ministry who deliberately +and coldly stood between lover and lover, and dug gulfs between parent +and unborn child, so that the child was either never born at all, or +abandoned, derelict, when born, to the tender mercies of the state, or +retained and paid for so heavily by fine or imprisonment that the +parents might well be tempted to wonder whether after all the +unfortunate infant was worth it?</p> + +<p>"Him to be taxed!" an indignant parent would sometimes exclaim, admiring +her year-old infant's obvious talents. "Why he's as bright as anything. +Just look at him.... And little Albert next door, what his parents got a +big bonus for, so as you could hear them for a week all down the street +drinking it away, he can't walk yet, nor hardly look up when spoke to. +Deficient, <i>I</i> calls him. It isn't fair dealing, no matter what anyone +says."</p> + +<p>"All the same," said Nicholas Chester to his colleagues, "there appears +to me to be a considerably higher percentage of intelligent looking +infants of under three years of age than there were formerly. +Intelligent looking, that is to say, <i>for</i> infants. Infants, of course, +are not intelligent creatures. Their mental level is low. But I observe +a distinct improvement."</p> + +<p>A distinct improvement was, in fact, discernible.</p> + +<p>But, among the Great Unimproved, and among those who did not want +improvement, discontent grew and spread; the slow, aggrieved discontent +of the stupid, to whom personal freedom is as the breath of life, to +whom the welfare of the race is as an idle, intangible dream, not worth +the consideration of practical men and women.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE STORMING OF THE HOTEL</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>In December Dora did a foolish thing. It is needless to say that she did +other foolish things in other months; it is to be feared that she had +been born before the Brains Acts; her mental category must be well below +C3. But this particular folly is selected for mention because it had a +disastrous effect on the already precarious destiny of the Ministry of +Brains. Putting out a firm and practised hand, she laid it heavily and +simultaneously upon four journals who were taking a rebellious attitude +towards the Brains Act—the <i>Nation</i>, <i>Stop It</i>, the <i>Herald</i>, and the +<i>Patriot</i>. Thus she angered at one blow considerable sections of the +Thoughtful, the Advanced, the Workers (commonly but erroneously known as +the proletariat) and the Vulgar.</p> + +<p>"Confound the fools," as Chester bitterly remarked; but the deed was +then done.</p> + +<p>"How long," Vernon Prideaux asked, "will it take governments to learn +that revolutionary propaganda disseminated all over the country don't do +as much harm as this sort of action?"</p> + +<p>Chester was of opinion that, give the Ministry of Brains its chance, let +it work for, say, fifty years, and even governments might at the end of +that time have become intelligent enough to acquire such elementary +pieces of knowledge. If only the Ministry <i>were</i> given its chance, if it +could weather the present unrest, let the country get used to it.... +Custom: that was the great thing. People settled down under things at +last. All sorts of dreadful things. Education, vaccination, taxation, +sanitation, representation.... It was only a question of getting used to +them.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>Though the authorities were prepared for trouble, they did not foresee +the events of Boxing-day, that strange day in the history of the +Ministry.</p> + +<p>The Ministry were so busy that many of the staff took no holiday beyond +Christmas Day itself. Bank Holidays are, as everyone who has tried +knows, an excellent time for working in one's office, because there are +no interruptions from the outside world, no telephoning, no visitors, no +registry continually sending up incoming correspondence. The clamorous, +persistent public fade away from sound and sight, and ministries are +left undistracted, to deal with them for their good in the academic +seclusion of the office. If there was in this world an eternal Bank +Holiday (some, but with how little reason, say that this awaits us in +heaven) ministries would thrive better; governing would then become like +pure mathematics, an abstract science unmarred by the continual fret and +jar of contact with human demands, which drag them so roughly, so +continually, down to earth.</p> + +<p>On Boxing Day the Minister himself worked all day, and about a quarter +of the higher staff were in their places. But by seven o'clock only the +Minister remained, talking to Prideaux in his room.</p> + +<p>The procession, at first in the form of four clouds each no bigger than +a man's hand, trailed from out the north, south, east and west, and +coalesced in Trafalgar Square. From there it marched down Whitehall to +Westminster, and along the Embankment. It seemed harmless enough; a +holiday crowd of men and women with banners, like the people who used to +want Votes, or Church Disestablishment, or Peace, or Cheap Food. The +chief difference to be observed between this and those old processions +was that a large number in this procession seemed to fall naturally and +easily into step, and marched in time, like soldiers. This was a +characteristic now of most processions; that soldier's trick, once +learnt, is not forgotten. It might have set an onlooker speculating on +the advantages and the dangers of a nation of soldiers, that necessary +sequence to an army of citizens.</p> + +<p>The procession drew up outside the Ministry of Brains, and resolved +itself into a meeting. It was addressed in a short and stirring speech +from the Ministry steps by the president of the Stop It League, a fiery +young man with a megaphone, who concluded his remarks with "Isn't it up +to all who love freedom, all who hate tyranny, to lose no time, but to +wreck the place where these things are done? That's what we're here to +do to-night—to smash up this hotel and show the government what the men +and women of England mean! Come on, boys!"</p> + +<p>Too late the watching policemen knew that this procession and this +meeting meant business, and should be broken up.</p> + +<p>The Minister and Prideaux listened, from an open window, to the speaking +outside. "Rendle," said Prideaux. "Scandalous mismanagement. What have +the police been about? It's too late now to do much.... Do they know we +are here, by the way? Probably not."</p> + +<p>"They shall," replied Chester, and stepped out on to the balcony.</p> + +<p>There was a hush, then a tremendous shout.</p> + +<p>"It's the Minister! By God, it's Nicky Chester, the man who's made all +the trouble!"</p> + +<p>A voice rose above the rest.</p> + +<p>"Quiet! Silence! Let him speak. Let's hear what he's got to say for +himself."</p> + +<p>Silence came, abruptly; the queer, awful, terrifying silence of a +waiting crowd.</p> + +<p>Into it Chester's voice cut, sharp and incisive.</p> + +<p>"You fools. Get out of this and go home. Don't you know that you're +heading for serious trouble—that you'll find yourselves in prison for +this? Get out before it's too late. That's all I have to say."</p> + +<p>"That's all he's got to say," the crowd took it up like a refrain. +"That's all he's got to say, after all the trouble he's made!"</p> + +<p>A suave, agreeable voice rose above the rest.</p> + +<p>"That is <i>not</i> quite all he's got to say. There's something else. He's +got to answer two plain questions. Number one: <i>Are you certificated for +marriage, Mr. Chester, or have you got mental deficiency in your +family?</i>"</p> + +<p>There was an instant's pause. Then the Minister, looking down from the +balcony at the upturned faces, white in the cold moonlight, said, +clearly, "I am not certificated for marriage, owing to the cause you +mention."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said the voice. "Have you all noted that, boys? The +Minister of Brains is not certificated for marriage. He has deficiency +in his family. Now, Mr. Chester, question number two, please. <i>Am I +correct in stating that you—got—married—last—August?</i>"</p> + +<p>"You are quite correct, Mr. Jenkins."</p> + +<p>Chester heard beside him Prideaux's mutter—"Good God!" and then, below +him, broke the roar of the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Come on, boys!" someone shouted. "Come on and wreck the blooming show, +and nab the blooming showman before he slips off!"</p> + +<p>Men flung themselves up the steps and through the big doors, and surged +up the stairs.</p> + +<p>"This," remarked Prideaux, "is going to be some mess. I'll go and get +Rendle to see sense, if I can. He's leading them up the stairs, +probably."</p> + +<p>"I fancy that won't be necessary," said Chester. "Rendle and his friends +are coming in here, apparently."</p> + +<p>The door was burst open, and men rushed in. Chester and Prideaux faced +them, standing before the door.</p> + +<p>"You fools," Chester said again. "What good do you think you're going to +do yourselves by this?"</p> + +<p>"Here he is, boys! Here's Nicky Chester, the married man!"</p> + +<p>Chester and Prideaux were surrounded and pinioned.</p> + +<p>"Don't hurt him," someone exhorted. "We'll hang him out over the balcony +and ask the boys down there what to do with him."</p> + +<p>They dragged him on to the balcony and swung him over the rail, dangling +him by a leg and an arm. One of them shouted, "Here's the Minister, +boys! Here's Nicky, the Minister of Brains!"</p> + +<p>The crowd looked up and saw him, swinging in mid air, and a great shout +went up.</p> + +<p>"Yes," went on the speaker from the balcony, "Here's Nicky Chester, the +man who dares to dictate to the people of Britain who they may marry and +what kids they may have, and then goes and gets married himself, +breaking his own laws, and hushes it up so that he thought it would +never come out." ("I always knew it would come out," the Minister +muttered, inarticulately protesting against this estimate of his +intelligence.) "But it <i>has</i> come out," the speaker continued. "And now +what are we to do with him, with this man who won't submit to the laws +he forces on other people? This man who dares to tell other people to +bear what he won't bear himself? What shall we do with him? Drop him +down into the street?"</p> + +<p>For a moment it seemed that the Minister's fate, like himself, hung +suspended.</p> + +<p>They swung him gently to and fro, as if to get an impetus....</p> + +<p>Then someone shouted, "We'll let him off this time, as he's just +married. Let him go home to his wife, and not meddle with government any +more!"</p> + +<p>The crowd rocked with laughter; and in that laughter, rough, +good-humoured, scornful, the Ministry of Brains seemed to dissolve.</p> + +<p>They drew Chester in through the window again. Someone said, "Now we'll +set the blooming hotel on fire. No time to waste, boys."</p> + +<p>Chester and Prideaux were dragged firmly but not unkindly down the +stairs and out through the door. Their appearance outside the building, +each pinioned by two stalwart ex-guardsmen, was hailed by a shout, +partly of anger, but three parts laughter. To Chester it was the +laughter, good-humoured, stupid, scornful, of the British public at +ideas, and particularly at ideas which had failed. But in it, sharp and +stinging, was another, more contemptuous laughter, levelled at a man who +had failed to live up to his own ridiculous ideas, the laughter of the +none too honest world, which yet respected honesty, at the hypocrisy and +double-dealing of others.</p> + +<p>"They're quite right to laugh," thought Chester. "It is funny: damned +funny."</p> + +<p>And at that, standing pinioned on the steps of his discredited Ministry, +looking down on the crowd of the injured, contemptuous British public, +who were out to wreck the things he cared for, he began to laugh +himself.</p> + +<p>His laughter was naturally unheard, but they saw his face, which should +have been downcast and ashamed, twist into his familiar, sad, cynical +smile, which all who had heard him on platforms knew.</p> + +<p>"Laughing, are you," someone shouted thickly. "Laughing at the people +you've tricked! You've ruined me and my missus—taken every penny we +had, just because we had twins—and you—you stand there and laugh! +You—you bloody married imbecile!"</p> + +<p>Lurching up the steps, he flung himself upon Chester and wrenched him +from the relaxed hold of his captors. Struggling together, the Minister +and his assailant stumbled down the steps, and then fell headlong among +the public.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>When the mounted police finally succeeded in dispersing the crowd, the +Ministry of Brains was in flames, like Sodom and Gomorrah, those wicked +cities. Unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, the conflagration was at last +quenched by a fire engine. But far into the night the red wreckage +blazed, testimony to the wrath of a great people, to the failure of a +great idea, to the downfall of him who, whatever the weakness he shared +in common with the public who downed him, was yet a great man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>DEBRIS</h3> + + +<h4>1</h4> + +<p>Chester lay with a broken head and three smashed ribs in his flat in +Mount Street. He was nursed by his elder sister Maggie, a kind, silent, +plain person with her brother's queer smile and more than his cynical +patience. With her patience took the form of an infinite tolerance; the +tolerance of one who looks upon all human things and sees that they are +not much good, nor likely to be. (Chester had not his fair share of this +patience: hence his hopes and his faiths, and hence his downfall.) She +was kind to Kitty, whose acquaintance she now made. (The majority of the +Ministry of Brains staff were having a short holiday, during the +transference to other premises.)</p> + +<p>Maggie said to Kitty, "I'm not surprised. It was a lot to live up to. +And it's not in our family, living up to that. Perhaps not in any +family. I'm sorry for Nicky, because he'll mind."</p> + +<p>She did not reproach Kitty; she took her for granted. Such incidents as +Kitty were liable to happen, even in the best regulated lives. When +Kitty reproached herself, saying, "I've spoilt his life," she merely +replied tranquilly, "Nicky lets no one but himself spoil his life. When +he's determined to do a thing, he'll do it." Nor did she commit herself +to any indication as to whether she thought that what Nicky had gained +would be likely to compensate for what he had lost.</p> + +<p>For about what he had lost there seemed no doubt in anyone's mind. He +had lost his reputation, his office, and, for the time being, his public +life. The Ministry of Brains might continue, would in fact, weakly +continue, without power and without much hope, till it trailed into +ignominious death; even the wrecked Hotel would continue, when repaired; +but it was not possible that Chester should continue.</p> + +<p>The first thing he did, in fact, when he could do anything at all +intelligent, was to dictate a letter to the Ministerial Council +tendering his resignation from office. There are, of course, diverse +styles adopted by the writers of such letters. In the old days people +used to write (according to the peculiar circumstances of their case)—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Dear Prime Minister,</p> + +<p>"Though you have long and often tried to dissuade me from this +course ... etc., etc.... I think you will hardly be surprised +... deep regret in severing the always harmonious connection +between us ..." and so forth.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or else quite otherwise—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Dear Prime Minister,</p> + +<p>"You will hardly be surprised, I imagine, after the strange +occurrence of yesterday, when I had the interest of reading in +a daily paper the first intimation that you desired a change at +the Ministry I have the honour to adorn...."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Neither of these styles was used by Chester, who wrote briefly, without +committing himself to any opinion as to the probable surprise or +otherwise of the Ministerial Council—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Dear Sirs,</p> + +<p>"I am resigning my office as Minister of Brains, owing to facts +of which you will have doubtless heard, and which make it +obviously undesirable for me to continue in the post."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Having done this, he lay inert through quiet, snow-bound days and +nights, and no one knew whether or not he was going to recover.</p> + + +<h4>2</h4> + +<p>After a time he asked after Prideaux, and they told him Prideaux had not +been hurt, only rumpled.</p> + +<p>"He calls to ask after you pretty often," said Kitty. "Would you like to +see him sometime? When the doctor says you can?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care," Chester said. "Yes, I may as well."</p> + +<p>So Prideaux came one afternoon (warned not to be political or exciting) +and it was a queer meeting between him and Chester. Chester remembered +the last shocked words he had had from Prideaux—"Good God!" and +wondered, without interest, what Prideaux felt about it all now.</p> + +<p>But it was not Prideaux's way to show much of what he felt.</p> + +<p>They talked mainly of that night's happenings. Chester had already had +full reports of these; of the fire, of the fight between the police and +the crowd, in which several lives had been lost, of the arrest of the +ringleaders and their trials. To Chester's own part in the proceedings +they did not refer, till, after a pause, Chester suddenly said, "I have +been wondering, but I can't make up my mind about it. How much +difference to the business did the discovery about me make? Would they +have gone to those lengths without it?"</p> + +<p>Prideaux was silent. He believed that Chester that night on the balcony, +had his hands been clean, could have held the mob.</p> + +<p>Chester interpreted the silence.</p> + +<p>"I suppose they wouldn't," he said impassively. "However, I fancy it +only precipitated the catastrophe. The Ministry was down and under, in +any case. People were determined not to stand laws that inconvenienced +them—as I was. I was merely an example, not a cause, of that +disease...."</p> + +<p>That was the nearest he ever got with Prideaux to discussion of his own +action.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," said Prideaux sadly, "the Ministry is down and under now. +Imagine Frankie Lyle, poor little beggar, trying to carry on, after all +this!" (This gentleman had been nominated as Chester's successor.)</p> + +<p>Chester smiled faintly. "Poor little Frankie.... I hear Monk wouldn't +touch it, by the way. I don't blame him.... Lyle won't hold them for a +week; he'll back out on every point."</p> + +<p>There was regret in his tired, toneless voice, and bitterness, because +the points on which Lyle would back out were all points which he had +made. He could have held them for a week, and more; he might even—there +would have been a fighting chance of it—have pulled the Ministry +through altogether, had things been otherwise. But things were not +otherwise, and this was not his show any more. He looked at Prideaux +half resentfully as Prideaux rose to leave him. Prideaux had not wrecked +his own career....</p> + +<p>To Kitty, the first time he had met her after the events of Boxing +Night, Prideaux had shown more of his mind. He had come to ask after +Chester, and had found Kitty there. He had looked at her sharply and +coolly, as if she had made a stupid mistake over her work in the office.</p> + +<p>"So you didn't guess, all this time," she had said to him, coolly too, +because she resented his look.</p> + +<p>"Not," he had returned, "that things had gone as far as this. I knew you +were intimate, of course. There was that time in Italy.... But—well, +honestly, I thought better of both your brains."</p> + +<p>She gave up her momentary resentment, and slipped again into remorse.</p> + +<p>"We thought better of them too—till we did it.... Have I spoilt his +life, Vernon? I suppose so."</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "You've spoilt, and he's spoilt his own, +career as Minister of Brains. There are other things, of course. Chester +can't go under; he's too good a man to lose. They'll stick on to him +somehow.... But ... well, what in heaven or earth or the other place +possessed you both to do it, Kitty?"</p> + +<p>To which she had no answer but "We just thought we would," and he left +her in disgust.</p> + +<p>Even in her hour of mortification and remorse, Kitty could still enjoy +getting a rise out of Prideaux.</p> + + +<h4>3</h4> + +<p>Pansy, who called often with showers of hot-house flowers, which Chester +detested, was much more sympathetic. She was frankly delighted. She +could not be allowed to see Chester; Kitty was afraid that her +exuberance might send his temperature up.</p> + +<p>"You won't mind my tellin' you now, darlin', but I've been thinkin' it +was free love all this time. I didn't mind, you know. But this is more +respectable. This family couldn't really properly afford another +scandal; it might lose its good name, then what would Cyril say? It +would come hard on the Cheeper, too. Now this is some marriage. So +<i>sensible</i> of you both, to throw over those silly laws and do the jolly +thing and have a good time. As I said to Tony, what <i>is</i> the good of +making laws if you can't break them yourself? Now that your Nicky's set +a good example, it really does seem as if all this foolishness was goin' +to dwine away and be forgotten.... I guess it's doin' what we like and +havin' a good time that matters, in the long run, isn't it. Not keepin' +laws or improvin' the silly old world."</p> + +<p>"Ask me another," said Kitty. "I haven't the slightest idea, Pansy, my +love. You're usually right, so I daresay you're right about this. But +you mustn't talk like that to Nicky, or he'll have a relapse."</p> + +<p>"And fancy," Pansy mused, "me havin' got the great Minister of Brains +for a brother-in-law! Or anyhow somethin' of the sort; as near as makes +no difference. I shall never hear the last of it from the girls and +boys.... Good-bye, old thing; I'm ever so pleased you're a happy wife +now as well as me."</p> + + +<h4>4</h4> + +<p>Chester handed Kitty a letter from his mother, the wife of a struggling +bishop somewhere in the west country. It said, "Directly you are well +enough, dear, you must bring Kitty to stay with us; She won't, I am +sure, mind our simple ways.... My dear, we are so thankful you have +found happiness. We are distressed about your accident, and about your +loss of office, which I fear you will feel.... But, after all, love and +happiness are so much more important than office, are they not?..."</p> + +<p>"Important," Kitty repeated. "Queer word. Just what love and happiness +aren't, you'd think. Comfortable—jolly—but not important.... Never you +mind, Nicky, you'll be important always: Vernon is right about that. +They'll put you somewhere where 'domestick selvishenesse' doesn't +matter: perhaps they'll make you a peer...."</p> + +<p>Chester said he would not be at all surprised.</p> + +<p>Kitty said, "Shall we go and see your people?" and he replied gloomily, +"I suppose we must. It will be ... rather trying."</p> + +<p>"Will they condole with you?" she suggested, and he returned, "No. +They'll congratulate me."</p> + +<p>A fortnight later they went down to the west. Bishop Chester lived in a +little old house in a slum behind his cathedral. Bishops' palaces were +no longer bishops' homes; they had all been turned into community +houses, clergy houses, retreat houses, alms houses, and so forth. +Celibate bishops could live in them, together with other clergy of their +diocese, but bishops with families had to find quarters elsewhere. And, +married or unmarried, their incomes were not enough to allow of any +style of living but that apostolic simplicity which the Church, directly +it was freed from the State and could arrange its own affairs, had +decided was right and suitable.</p> + +<p>Not all bishops took kindly to the new régime; some resigned, and had to +be replaced by bishops of the new and sterner school. But, to give +bishops their due, which is too seldom done, they are for the most part +good Christian men, ready to do what they believe is for the good of the +Church. Many of their detractors were surprised at the amount of +good-will and self-sacrifice revealed in the episcopal ranks when they +were put to the test. If some failed under it—well, bishops, if no +worse than other men, are human.</p> + +<p>Bishop Chester had not failed. He had taken to plain living and plainer +thinking (how often, alas, these two are to be found linked together!) +with resignation, as a Christian duty. If it should bring any into the +Church who had been kept outside it by his purple and fine linen, he +would feel himself more than rewarded. If it should not, that was not +his look-out. Which is to say that Bishop Chester was a good man, if not +clever.</p> + +<p>He and his wife were very kind to Chester and Kitty. Chester said he +could not spare more than a day and night; he had to get back to town, +where he had much business on hand, including the instituting of an +action for malicious libel against Mr. Percy Jenkins and the publishers +and proprietors of the <i>Patriot</i>. Kitty was not surprised at the +shortness of the visit, for it was a humiliating visit. The bishop and +Mrs. Chester, as their son had known they would, approved of his +contravention of his own principles. They thought them, had always +thought them, monstrous and inhuman principles.</p> + +<p>The bishop said, "My dear boy, I can't tell you how thankful I am that +you have decided at last to let humanity have its way with you. +Humanity; the simple human things; love, birth, family life. They're the +simple things, but, after all, the deep and grand things. No laws will +ever supersede them."</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Chester looked at Kitty with the indescribable look of +mothers-in-law who hope that one day they may be grandmothers, and +whispered to her when she said good-night, "And some day, dear...."</p> + +<p>And they saw Chester's twin sister. She was harmless; she was even doing +crochet work; and her face was the face of Chester uninformed by +thought. Mrs. Chester said, "Nicky will have told you of our poor ailing +girl...."</p> + + +<h4>5</h4> + +<p>They came away next morning. They faced each other in the train, but +they read the <i>Times</i> (half each) and did not meet each other's eyes. +They could not. They felt as thieves who still have consciences must +feel when congratulated on their crimes by other thieves, who have not. +Between them stood and jeered a Being with a vacant face and a phrase +which it repeated with cynical reiteration. "You have let humanity have +its way with you. Humanity; the simple human things.... No laws will +ever supersede them...." And the Being's face was as the face of +Chester's twin sister, the poor ailing girl.</p> + +<p>To this they had come, then; to the first of the three simple human +things mentioned by the bishop. What now, since they had started down +the long slope of this green and easy hill, should arrest their +progress, until they arrived, brakeless and unheld, into the valley +where the other two waited, cynical, for all their simplicity, and grim?</p> + +<p>Kitty, staring helplessly into the problematical future, saw, as if +someone had turned a page and shown it to her, a domestic +picture—herself and Chester (a peer, perhaps, why not?) facing one +another not in a train but in a simple human home, surrounded by Family +Life; two feckless, fallen persons, who had made a holocaust of theories +and principles, who had reverted to the hand-to-mouth shiftlessness and +mental sloppiness of the primitive Briton. Kitty could hear Chester, in +that future, vaguer, family, peer's voice that might then be his, +saying, "We must just trust to luck and muddle through somehow."</p> + +<p>Even to that they might come....</p> + +<p>In the next Great War—and who should stay its advent if such as these +failed?—their sons would fight, without talent, their daughters would +perhaps nurse, without skill. And so on, and so on, and so on....</p> + +<p>So turned the world around. Individual desire given way to, as usual, +ruining principle and ideals by its soft pressure. What would ever get +done in such a world? Nothing, ever.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as if both had seen the same picture, they met one another's +eyes across the carriage, and laughed ruefully.</p> + +<p>That, anyhow, they could always do, though sitting among the debris of +ruined careers, ruined principles, ruined Ministries, ruined ideals. It +was something; perhaps, in a sad and precarious world, it was much....</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NEW_FICTION" id="NEW_FICTION"></a>NEW FICTION</h2> + + +<h3>OH, MONEY! MONEY!<br /> By <span class="smcap">Eleanor H. Porter</span>, Author of "Just David," +"Pollyanna," etc.</h3> + +<p>"This tale of an elderly millionaire who goes incognito among his poor +relations to discover to which of them he shall leave his fortune is +extraordinarily soothing in these harassed times. The relations are most +humorously studied."—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE ANCHOR.<br /> By <span class="smcap">M. T. H. Sadler</span>.</h3> + +<p>"All his people are interesting and all ring true." <i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p> + + +<h3>ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS.<br /> By <span class="smcap">L. M. Montgomery</span>, Author of "Anne of Green +Gables."</h3> + +<p>"Miss Montgomery has a rare knack of making simple events and ordinary +people both charming and moving; she can make her readers both laugh and +weep."—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + + +<h3>IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE.<br /> By Mrs. <span class="smcap">George Wemyss</span>.</h3> + +<p>"It is set in a captivating way among village folk drawn from life, +treated with humour and sympathy, and decorated profusely with the talk +and doings of real and interesting children." <i>Manchester Guardian.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE STARRY POOL and Other Tales.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Stephen G. Tallents</span>.</h3> + +<p>"It belongs to the class of literature which gives an intimate picture +of the writer himself, who, in this particular case, endears himself to +the reader by his humour, which is never cynical, and by his zest for +the simple, which is never forced."—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE WANDERERS.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Mary Johnston</span>.</h3> + +<p>"A large theme of absorbing and growing interest is treated with great +imaginative and pictorial power; and the writer's faith and enthusiasm, +as well as her knowledge and her skilful handicraft, are +manifest."—<i>Scotsman.</i></p> + + +<h3>REMNANTS.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Desmond MacCarthy</span>.</h3> + +<p>"It has its own clear point of view. It reveals an engaging personality, +and its contents, though dealing with subjects as diverse as Samuel +Butler, Lord George Sanger, Meredith, Dan Leno, Voltaire and Bostock's +Menagerie, are all of a piece. That is, it is a real book of +essays."—<i>The Bookman.</i></p> + +<h3>BEYOND THE RHINE.<br /> Memories of Art and Life in Germany before the War.<br /> By +<span class="smcap">Marc Henry.</span></h3> + +<p>"M. Henry discourses most entertainingly on many subjects of German +social life, and his book may be cordially recommended to those +among us who seek for enlightenment on the mentality of our +enemies."—<i>Scotsman.</i></p> + + +<h3>TRIVIA.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Logan Pearsall Smith</span>.</h3> + +<p>"It is a piece of personal good luck to have read it. One goes in and +out of one's hall door with a delicious sense of possessing a secret. It +increases one's confidence in the world. If a book like this can be +written, there is, we feel, hope for the future."—<i>The Athenæum.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE LAST OF THE ROMANOFS.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Charles Rivet</span> (Petrograd Correspondent of +the "Temps").</h3> + +<p>"'The Last of the Romanofs' can be recommended to one desirous of +understanding what has actually happened in Russia and what caused it to +happen."—<i>Globe.</i></p> + + +<h3>ON THE EDGE OF THE WAR ZONE.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Mildred Aldrich</span>, Author of "A Hilltop on +the Marne."</h3> + +<p>"They give a picture of peace in the midst of war that is both +fascinating and strange ... as an intimate sketch of one corner of the +world-war, viewed at close quarters over the garden-hedge, these little +books will have earned for themselves a place apart."—<i>Punch.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE POT BOILS.<br /> A Novel.<br /> By <span class="smcap">M. Storm Jameson</span>.</h3> + +<p>In "The Pot Boils" the author has written a vivid and original study of +the careers and the love-story of a modern young man and woman whom we +first encounter as students at the same Northern University. Of life in +this Northern University the author gives a realistic account, and +equally realistic and entertaining is the description of the world of +social reformers, feminists, journalists, vers-libristes in London, to +which the scene is shifted later. It is a brilliant provocative book +which will appeal to all those who are interested in appraising the +worth and promise of modern movements and ideals.</p> + + +<h3>THE SHIP OF DEATH.<br /> A Romance of the World-War.<br /> By <span class="smcap">Edward Stilgebauer</span>, +Author of "Love's Inferno."</h3> + +<p>In "The Ship of Death," Dr. Stilgebauer has written a romance which +depicts in all its horror the havoc wrought by war upon human +relationships and values outside the actual sphere of the battle-field. +The instrument of disaster is Captain Stirn, the captain of the +submarine which torpedoes the 'Lusitania,' styled here the 'Gigantic.' +The first part of the book depicts the company on board, when the first +premonitions of catastrophe are beginning to fill the air. Then comes +the catastrophe itself; and the last section of this book presents +Captain Stirn in the agony and delirium which seizes him after his deed +of horror. The book is impressive and absorbing both by force and +vividness of the author's style and imagination and by the vigorous +sincerity and idealism which penetrate it throughout.</p> + + +<h3>THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN.<br /> By <span class="smcap">W. L. George,</span><br />New Edition with a New +Preface.</h3> + +<p>This book was first published in 1914, and the author has now written a +new preface, explaining how the War has modified his views, but saying +that whatever the Englishman may become, he would still be "The man of +my choice, with whom I wrangle because he is my brother, far from whom I +could not live, who quietly grins at my internationalism and makes +allowances for me because, Englishman though I be, I was not born in his +damned and dear little island."</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NOT *** + +***** This file should be named 35198-h.htm or 35198-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/9/35198/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/35198-h/images/cover.jpg b/35198-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a0e6c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/35198-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/35198.txt b/35198.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a606401 --- /dev/null +++ b/35198.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6531 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What Not + A Prophetic Comedy + +Author: Rose Macaulay + +Release Date: February 7, 2011 [EBook #35198] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NOT *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + WHAT NOT + + A PROPHETIC COMEDY + + BY ROSE MACAULAY + + AUTHOR OF "NON-COMBATANTS," "THE MAKING OF A BIGOT," ETC. + + + LONDON + CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD. + 1918 + + TO + CIVIL SERVANTS + I HAVE KNOWN + + * * * * * + + "Wisdom is very unpleasant to the unlearned: he that is without + understanding will not remain with her. She will lie upon him + as a mighty stone of trial; and he will cast her from him ere + it be long. For wisdom is according to her name, and she is not + manifest unto many.... + + "Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children...." + + Jesus, Son of Sirach, + _c._ B.C. 150. + + * * * * * + + "It's domestickness of spirit, selvishnesse, which is the great + let to Armies, Religions, and Kingdomes good." + + W. GREENHILL, 1643. + + * * * * * + + "It has come to a fine thing if people cannot live in their + homes without being interfered with by the police.... You are + upsetting the country altogether with your Food Orders and What + Not." + + DEFENDANT IN A FOOD-HOARDING CASE, + _January, 1918._ + + + + + +NOTE. + + +As this book was written during the war, and intended prophetically, its +delay until some months after the armistice calls for a word of +explanation. + +The book was ready for publication in November, 1918, when it was +discovered that a slight alteration in the text was essential, to +safeguard it against one of the laws of the realm. As the edition was +already bound, this alteration has naturally taken a considerable time. + +However, as the date of the happenings described in "What Not" is +unspecified, it may still be regarded as a prophecy, not yet disproved. + + R. M. + + _March, 1919_ + + + + +APOLOGY + + +One cannot write for evermore of life in war-time, even if, as at times +seems possible, the war outlasts the youngest of us. Nor can one easily +write of life as it was before this thing came upon us, for that is a +queer, half-remembered thing, to make one cry. This is a tale of life +after the war, in which alone there is hope. So it is, no doubt, +inaccurate, too sanguine in part, too pessimistic in part, too foolish +and too far removed from life as it will be lived even for a novel. It +is a shot in the dark, a bow drawn at a venture. But it is the best one +can do in the unfortunate circumstances, which make against all kinds of +truth, even that inferior kind which is called accuracy. Truth, indeed, +seems to be one of the things, along with lives, wealth, joy, leisure, +liberty, and forest trees, which has to be sacrificed on the altar of +this all-taking war, this bitter, unsparing god, which may perhaps +before the end strip us of everything we possess except the integrity of +our so fortunately situated island, our indomitable persistence in the +teeth of odds, and the unstemmed eloquence of our leaders, all of which +we shall surely retain. + +This book is, anyhow, so far as it is anything beyond an attempt to +amuse the writer, rather of the nature of suggestion than of prophecy, +and many will think it a poor suggestion at that. The suggestion is of a +possible remedy for what appears to have always been the chief human +ailment, and what will, probably, after these present troubles, be even +more pronounced than before. For wars do not conduce to intelligence. +They put a sudden end to many of the best intellects, the keenest, +finest minds, which would have built up the shattered ruins of the world +in due time. And many of the minds that are left are battered and +stupefied; the avenues of thought are closed, and people are too tired, +too old, or too dulled by violence, to build up anything at all. And +besides these dulled and damaged minds, there are the great mass of the +minds which neither catastrophe nor emotion nor violence nor age nor any +other creature can blunt, because they have never been acute, have never +had an edge, can cut no ice nor hew any new roads. + +So, unless something drastic is done about it, it seems like a poor +look-out. + +This book contains the suggestion of a means of cure for this world-old +ill, and is offered, free, to a probably inattentive and unresponsive +Government, a close and interested study of whom has led the writer to +believe that the erection of yet another Department might not be wholly +uncongenial. + +It will be observed that the general state of the world and of society +in this so near and yet so unknown future has been but lightly touched +upon. It is unexplored territory, too difficult for the present writer, +and must be left to the forecastings of the better informed. + +A word as to the title of this work, which may seem vague, or even +foolish. Its source I have given. Food Orders we all know; What Not was +not defined by the user of the phrase, except by the remark that it +upset the country. The businesses described in this tale fulfil that +definition; and, if they be not What Not, I do not know what is. + +_April, 1918._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE MINISTRY + +II. LITTLE CHANTREYS + +III. BRAINS SUNDAY + +IV. OUR WEEK + +V. THE EXPLANATION CAMPAIGN + +VI. THE SIMPLE HUMAN EMOTIONS + +VII. THE BREAKING POINT + +VIII. ON FIXED HEARTS AND CHANGING SCENES + +IX. _THE COMMON HERD_ + +X. A MINISTRY AT BAY + +XI. THE STORMING OF THE HOTEL + +XII. DEBRIS + + + + +WHAT NOT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE MINISTRY + + +1 + +After the Great War (but I do not say how long after), when the tumult +and the shouting had died, and those who were left of the captains and +the kings had gone either home or to those obscure abodes selected for +them by their more successful fellows (to allay anxiety, I hasten to +mention that three one-time Emperors were among those thus relegated to +distance and obscurity), and humanity, released from its long torment, +peered nervously into a future darkly divined (nervously, and yet +curiously, like a man long sick who has just begun to get about again +and cannot yet make anything coherent of the strange, disquieting, +terrifying, yet enchanting jumble which breaks upon his restored +consciousness)--while these things happened, the trains still ran +through the Bakerloo tube, carrying people to their day's work. + +Compartments in tube trains are full of variety and life--more so than +in trains above ground, being more congested, and having straps, also no +class snobbery. Swaying on adjacent straps were a fluffy typist, reading +"The Love He Could Not Buy," in the _Daily Mirror_, a spruce young civil +servant on his way to the Foreign Office, reading _The Times_, a +clergyman reading the _Challenge_, who looked as if he was interested in +the Life and Liberty movement, another clergyman reading the _Guardian_, +who looked as if he wasn't, an elderly gentleman reading the _Morning +Post_, who looked patriotic but soured, as if he had volunteered for +National Service during the Great War and had found it disappointing, a +young man reading the _Post-War_, the alert new daily, and a citizen +with a law-abiding face very properly perusing the _Hidden Hand_. The +_Hidden Hand_ was the Government daily paper. Such a paper had for long +been needed; it is difficult to understand why it was not started long +ago. All other papers are so unreliable, so tiresome; a government must +have one paper on which it can depend for unfailing support. So here was +the _Hidden Hand_, and its readers had no excuse for ignorance of what +the government desired them to think about its own actions. + +The carriage was full of men and women going to their places of +business. There were tired young men, lame young men, pale and scarred +young men, brown and fit young men, bored and _blase_ young men, jolly +and amused young men, and nearly all, however brown or fit or pale or +languid or jolly or bored, bore a peculiar and unmistakable impress +stamped, faintly or deeply, on their faces, their eyes, their carriage, +the set of their shoulders. + +There were, among the business men and girls, women going shopping, +impassive, without newspapers, gazing at the clothes of others, taking +in their cost, their cut, their colour. This is an engrossing +occupation. Those who practise it sit quite still, without a stir, a +twinkle, a yawn, or a paper, and merely look, all over, up and down, +from shoes to hat.... They are a strange and wonderful race of beings, +these gazing women; one cannot see into their minds, or beyond their +roving eyes. They bear less than any other section of the community the +stamp of public events. The representatives of the type in the Bakerloo +this morning did not carry any apparent impress of the Great War. It +would take something more than a great war, something more even than a +food crisis, to leave its mark on these sphinx-like and immobile +countenances. Kingdoms may rise and fall, nations may reel in the +death-grapple, but they sit gazing still, and their minds, amid the +rocking chaos, may be imagined to be framing some such thoughts as +these: "Those are nice shoes. I wonder if they're the ones Swan and +Edgar have at 30s. She's trimmed her hat herself, and not well. That +skirt is last year's shape. That's a smart coat. Dear me, what +stockings; you'd think anyone would be ashamed." + +These women had not the air of reckless anticipation, of being alert for +any happening, however queer, that, in differing degrees, marked the +majority of people in these days. For that, in many, seemed the +prevailing note; a series of events so surprising as to kill surprise, +of disasters so appalling as to numb horror, had come and gone, leaving +behind them this reckless touch, and with it a kind of greed, a +determination to snatch whatever might be from life before it tumbled +again into chaos. They had not been devoid of lessons in what moralists +call Making the Best of It, those staggering years when everything had +fallen and fallen, successively and simultaneously, civilisation, and +governments, and hopes, and crowns, and nations, and soldiers, and rain, +and tears, and bombs, and buildings, only not prices, or newspapers. + +For, if everything had so fallen once, it might even now be riding for a +fall again (in spite of the League of Nations and other devices for +propping up the unsteady framework of a lasting peace). The thing was to +get what one could first. The thing, in the opinion of one traveller in +that train, was to wear cap and bells, to dance through life to a barrel +organ, to defeat a foolish universe with its own weapons. + +And always there was that sense in the background of a possible great +disaster, of dancing on the world's thin crust that had broken once and +let one through, and might break again. Its very thinness, its very +fragility added a desperate gaiety to the dance. + + +2 + +Ivy Delmer (who was not the traveller alluded to above, and did not +consciously think or feel any of these things) stood holding to a strap, +with the novel which she was going to change in the lunch hour in one +hand. Ivy Delmer, a shorthand typist at the Ministry of Brains, was +young, ingenuous, soft-faced, naive, and the daughter of a +Buckinghamshire vicar. The two things she loved best in the world were +marzipan and the drama. Her wide grey eyes travelled, with innocent +interest, along the faces in the compartment; she was seeing if she +liked them or not. Immaturely and unconsciously sexual, she looked with +more hope of satisfaction at male faces than at female. Not but that she +was susceptible to strong admirations for her own sex; she had a "pash" +for Miss Doris Keane and Miss Teddie Gerrard, and, in private life, a +great esteem for Miss Grammont, at the Ministry, whose letters she +sometimes took down in shorthand. But everyone knows there is a greater +number of interesting faces in trains belonging to another sex than to +one's own, and it is no use pretending. + +Having subjected the faces within her range to her half-unconscious +judgment, and passed them with varying degrees of credit, Miss Delmer, +for lack of anything better to do, read the advertisements and +exhortations over the windows. With satisfaction she noted that she had +seen all the advertised plays. She absorbed such temporal maxims and +eternal truths as "Let Mr. Mustard mix your bath," "God is not mocked," +and the terrifying utterances of the Safety-if-Possible Council, "Is it +safe? That is the question. No. That is the answer." "If you hope to +achieve safety in a street aero (1) Do not alight before the aero does. +(2) Do not attempt to jump up into an aero in motion." Then a picture: +"A will be killed because he is standing immediately beneath a +descending aero bus. B will be killed because he and others like him +have shaken the nerve of the aviator." A series of warnings which left +one certain that, wherever one might achieve safety, it would not be in, +or anywhere at all near, a street aero. That, probably, is the object. +In the old days it was the motor bus that was thus made a thing of +terror by the princes of the nether world. Now, even as then, their +efforts met with success, and the tubes were filled with a +panic-stricken mob. + +Ivy Delmer, taking an empty seat, saw Miss Grammont at the other side of +the carriage. Miss Grammont had the _New Statesman_ and the _Tatler_ and +was reading one of them. She was partial to both, which was +characteristic of her attitude towards life. She was one of those who +see no reason why an intelligent interest in the affairs of the world +should be incompatible with a taste for Eve. She enjoyed both classical +concerts and new revues. She might be called a learned worldling. Ivy +Delmer was rather shy of her, because of her manner, which could be +supercilious, because of her reputed cleverness, and because of her +position at the Ministry, which was a long way above Ivy's. On the other +hand, her clothes made one feel at home; they showed skill and interest; +she had not that air of the dowd which some people who have been to +college have, and which is so estranging to normal people. + +Kitty Grammont, something of the elegant rake, something of the gamin, +something of the adventuress, something of the scholar, with innocent +amber-brown eyes gazing ingenuously from under long black lashes, a +slightly cynical mouth, a small, smooth, rounded, child's face, a +travelled manner, and an excellent brain, was adequately, as people go, +equipped for the business of living. She had seen some life, in a past +which, if chequered, had not lacked its gaiety, meant to see much more, +in a future which she did not foresee clearly but which she intended +should be worthy of her, and was seeing enough to go on with in a +present which, though at moments it blackly bored her (she was very +susceptible to boredom), was on the whole decidedly entertaining. + +Ivy Delmer, looking at her across the compartment, with some surprise +because she was so nearly punctual this morning, this not being one of +her habits, admired her greatly, thinking how clever she was, how +clearly, how unhesitatingly, how incisively her sentences came out when +she was dictating, cutting their way, in that cool, light, dragging +voice of hers, through her subject, however intricate, as a sharp blade +cuts ice; quite different from some people's dictation, which trails to +and fro, emending, cancelling, hesitating, indistinct, with no edge to +it, so that one's shorthand has constantly to be altered, making a mess +on the page, and bits of it read aloud to see how it goes now, which was +a nuisance, because one can't rely always on being able to read off even +one's own shorthand quite fluently straight away like that. Further--and +this was nearer Ivy's heart--Miss Grammont wore, as a rule, charming +shoes. She also smoked extraordinarily nice cigarettes, and often had +delicious chocolates, and was generous with both. + +All this made it a grief to Ivy Delmer that Miss Grammont's brother and +his family, who lived in her father's parish, and with whom Miss +Grammont often stayed, were not Approved Of. Into the reasons for this +it will be more appropriate to enter later in this narrative. + + +3 + +Oxford Circus. The hub of the world, where seething mobs fought on the +platform like wild beasts. Piccadilly Circus. Lucky people, thought Ivy +Delmer, who got out there, all among gaiety and theatres. Trafalgar +Square. There naval officers got out, to visit the Admiralty, or the +Nelson Column. Charing Cross. There people had got out during the Great +War, to go and help the War Office or the Ministry of Munitions to run +the business. So much help, so much energy, so many hotels.... And now +there were more than ever, because so much needed doing, and hotels are +the means heaven has given us to do it with. + +At Charing Cross Ivy Delmer and Kitty Grammont got out, for, without +specifying the hotel where the Ministry of Brains carried on its +labours, it may be mentioned without indiscretion that it was within a +walk of Charing Cross. + +Miss Grammont and Miss Delmer walked there, Miss Delmer well ahead and +hurrying, because to her it seemed late, Miss Grammont behind and +sauntering because to her it seemed superfluously early. The Ministry +daily day began at 9.30, and it was only 9.40 now. + +The summer morning was glittering on the river like laughter. A foolish +thing it seemed, to be going into an hotel on a summer morning, to be +sitting down at a government desk laden with government files, taking a +government pen (which was never a relief, only a not-exactly) and +writing pamphlets, or answers to letters which, if left long enough, +would surely answer themselves, as is the way of letters, and all to +improve the Brains of the Nation. Bother the Brains of the Nation, +thought Miss Grammont, only she used a stronger word, as was the custom +in what Mrs. Delmer called her unfortunate family. Black doubt sometimes +smote her as to not so much the efficacy of the work of her Department +as its desirability if ever it should be perfectly accomplished. Did +brains matter so greatly after all? Were the clever happier than the +fools? Miss Grammont, whose university career had been a brilliant +intellectual adventure, felt competent to speak for both these types of +humanity. She knew herself to be happier when playing the fool than when +exerting her highly efficient brain; the lunatic-asylum touch gave her +more joy than the studious, and she wore learning like a cap and bells. +But stupidity was, of course, a bore. It must, of course, be mitigated, +if possible. And anyhow the object of the Ministry of Brains was not to +make people happy (that could be left to the Directorate of +Entertainments), nor to make them good (that was up to the Church, now, +to the great benefit of both, divorced from the State), but to further +social progress and avert another Great War. + +Miss Grammont yawned, because the day was yet so young, and followed +Miss Delmer up the steps of the hotel. + + +4 + +The Ministry of Brains, a vast organisation, had many sections. There +was the Propaganda Section, which produced pamphlets and organised +lectures and cinema shows (Miss Grammont had been lent temporarily to +this section by her own branch); there was the Men's Education Section, +the Women's, and the Children's; the Section which dealt with +brain-tests, examinations, certificates, and tribunals, and the Section +which was concerned with the direction of the intellects of the Great +Unborn. Ivy Delmer was attached to this section, and Mr. Delmer, when he +heard about it, was not altogether sure it was quite nice for her. + +"She surely shouldn't know they have any," he had said to his wife, who +was weeding, and replied absently, "Any what, dear? Who?" + +"Intellects," the vicar said. "The Unborn. Besides, they haven't." He +was frowning, and jerking out dandelions from the lawn with a spud. + +"Oh, that's not it, dear," Mrs. Delmer reassured him vaguely. "Not the +_just_ unborn, you know. The--the ever so long unborn. All this +arrangement of who ought to marry who. Quite silly, of course, but no +harm for Ivy in that way. After all, there's no reason why she shouldn't +know that children often inherit their brains from their parents." + +The vicar admitted that, even for their precious and very young Ivy, +there was no great harm in this. + +The Section in question was, as Mrs. Delmer had stated, concerned with +the encouragement and discouragement of alliances in proportion as they +seemed favourable or otherwise to the propagation of intelligence in the +next generation. There were numerous and complicated regulations on the +subject, which could not, of course, be enforced; the Ministry's methods +were those of stimulation, reward and punishment, rather than of +coercion. There were bonuses on the births of the babies of parents +conforming to the regulations, and penal taxes on unregulated infants, +taxes increasing in proportion to the flagrancy of the parents' +disobedience, so that the offspring of parents of very low mental +calibre brought with them financial ruin. Everyone held a Ministry of +Brains form, showing his or her mental category, officially ascertained +and registered. If you were classified A, your brains were certified to +be of the highest order, and you were recommended to take a B2 or B3 +partner (these were the quite intelligent). To ally yourself with +another A or a B1 was regarded as wasteful, there not being nearly +enough of these to go round, and your babies would receive much smaller +bonuses. If you were classed C1, C2, or C3, your babies would receive no +encouragement, unless you had diluted their folly with an A partner; if +you chose to unite with another C they were heavily fined, and if you +were below C3 (i.e. uncertificated) they were fined still more heavily, +by whomsoever diluted, and for the third and subsequent infants born +under such conditions you would be imprisoned. (Only the Ministry had +not been working long enough for anyone to have yet met with this fate. +The children of unions perpetrated before the Mental Progress Act were +at present exempt.) Families among the lower grades and among the +uncertificated were thus drastically discouraged. You were +uncertificated for matrimonial purposes not only if you were very +stupid, but if, though yourself of brilliant mental powers, you had +actual deficiency in your near family. If you were in this case, your +form was marked "A (Deficiency)." + +And so on: the details of the regulations, their intricacies and tangled +knots, the endless and complicated special arrangements which were made +with various groups and classes of persons, may be easily imagined, or +(rather less easily, because the index is poor) found in the many +volumes of the Ministry of Brains Instructions. + +Anyhow, to room number 13, which was among the many rooms where this +vast and intricate subject was dealt with, Ivy Delmer was summoned this +Monday morning to take down a letter for Vernon Prideaux. + + +5 + +Vernon Prideaux was a fair, slim, neat, eye-glassed young man; his +appearance and manners were approved by Ivy Delmer's standards and his +capabilities by the heads of his department. His intellectual category +was A; he had an impatient temper, a ready tongue, considerable power +over papers (an important gift, not possessed by all civil servants), +resource in emergency, competence in handling situations and persons, +decided personal charm, was the son of one of our more notorious +politicians, and had spent most of the war in having malaria on the +Struma front, with one interesting break when he was recalled to England +by his former department to assist in the drawing up of a new Bill, +dealing with a topic on which he was an expert. He was, after all this, +only thirty now, so had every reason for believing, as he did, that he +would accomplish something in this world before he left it. He had been +sucked into the activities of the new Ministry like so many other able +young men and women, and was finding it both entertaining and not devoid +of scope for his talents. + +Ivy Delmer admired him a good deal. She sat at his side with her +notebook and pencil, her soft, wide mouth a little parted, waiting for +him to begin. He was turning over papers impatiently. He was in a rather +bad temper, because of his new secretary, of whom he only demanded a +little common sense and did not get it, and he would have to get rid of +her, always a tiresome process. He couldn't trust her with anything, +however simple; she always made a hash of it, and filled up the gaps, +which were profound, in her recollection of his instructions with her +own ideas, which were not. He had on Saturday given her some forms to +fill up, stock forms which were always sent in reply to a particular +kind of letter from the public. The form was supposed merely to say, "In +reply to your letter with reference to your position as regards the tax +[or bonus] on your prospective [or potential, or existing] infant, I am +to inform you that your case is one for the decision of the Local +Tribunals set up under the Mental Progress Act, to whom your application +should have been made." Miss Pomfrey, who was young and full of zeal for +the cause (she very reasonably wished that the Mental Progress Act had +been in existence before _her_ parents had married), had added on her +own account to one such letter, "It was the stupidity of people like you +who caused the Great War," and put it this morning with the other forms +on Prideaux's table for signing. Prideaux had enquired, fighting against +what he knew to be a disproportionate anger with her, didn't she really +know better by now than to think that letters like that would be sent? +Miss Pomfrey had sighed. She did not know better than that by now. She +knew hardly anything. She was not intelligent, even as B3's went. In +fact, her category was probably a mistake. Her babies, if ever she had +any, would be of a mental calibre that did not bear contemplation. They +would probably cause another Great War. + +So Prideaux, who had also other worries, was out of temper. + +"Sorry, Miss Delmer.... Ah, here we are." He fidgeted about with a file, +then began to dictate a letter, in his quick, light, staccato voice. +Ivy, clenching the tip of her pink tongue between her teeth, raced after +him. + + "Sir, + + "In reply to your letter of 26th May with reference to the + taxation on babies born to your employees and their consequent + demand for increased wages, I am instructed by the Minister of + Brains to inform you that this point is receiving his careful + attention, in connection with the general economic question + involved by the terms of Ministry of Brains Instruction 743, + paragraph 3...." + +Prideaux paused, and frowned nervously at his secretary, who was +conducting a fruitless conversation over his telephone, an occupation at +which she did not shine. + +"Hullo ... yes ... I can't quite hear ... who are you, please?... Oh ... +yes, he's here.... But rather busy, you know.... Dictating.... Yes, +_dictating_.... _Who_ did you say wanted him, please?... Oh, I see...." + +"What is it, Miss Pomfrey?" Prideaux broke in, making her start. + +"It's the Minister's secretary," she explained, without covering the +receiver. "He says will you go to the Minister. There's a deputation--of +bishops, I think he said. About the new Instruction about Clergymen's +Babies.... But I said you were busy dictating...." + +Prideaux had jumped to his feet, frowning, and was at the door. + +"You'd better make a note that I'm never busy dictating or doing +anything else when the Minister sends for me," he shot at her as he left +the room. + +"And now he's cross," Miss Pomfrey murmured sadly. + +"I daresay he's only angry at being interrupted," said Ivy Delmer, who +had been at the same secretarial college as Miss Pomfrey and thought +that her days in the Ministry of Brains were numbered. + +"I _do_ make him cross," Miss Pomfrey observed, accepting the fact with +resignation, as one of the sad, inevitable fatalities of life, and +returned to her indexing. She had been set to make an index of those +Ministry of Brains Instructions which had come out that month. She had +only got to the 11th of the month. The draught fluttered the pages +about. Ivy Delmer watched the Instructions waving to and fro in the +breeze--number 801, Agriculturists, 798, Conscientious Obstructionists, +897, Residents in Ireland, 674, Parents of more than three children.... +How many there were, thought Ivy, as she watched. How clever the people +who dealt with such things needed to be. She thought of her father's +village, and the people in it, the agriculturists, the parents of more +than three children, all the little human community of lives who were +intimately affected by one or other of these instructions, and the +fluttering pages emerged from the dry realm to which such as Ivy +relegate printed matter and ideas, and took vivid human life. It +mattered, all this complicated fabric of regulations and rules and +agreements and arrangements; it touched the living universe that she +knew--the courting boys and girls on stiles in Buckinghamshire lanes, +Emmeline, the Vicarage housemaid, who had married Sid Dean last month, +Mr. and Mrs. White at the farm, all the great stupid pathetic aggrieved +public, neatly filed letters from whom covered every table in the +Ministry, awaiting reply, their very hand-writing and spelling +calculated to touch any heart but a civil servant's.... + +Ivy found a moment in which to hope that everyone in the Ministry was +being very careful and painstaking about this business, before she +reverted to wondering whether or not she liked the colour which Miss +Pomfrey had dyed her jersey. + +Having decided that she didn't, and also that she had better go away and +wait for Mr. Prideaux to send for her again, she departed. + + +6 + +Vernon Prideaux, having given his assistance to the Minister in the +matter of the third clause of the new Clergymen's Babies Instruction, +left the Minister and the deputation together and returned to his room +via the Propaganda Branch, which he visited in order to ask Miss +Grammont to dine with him that evening. He and Kitty Grammont had known +one another for some years. They had begun at Cambridge, where Prideaux +had been two years the senior, and had kept up an intermittent +friendship ever since, which had, since their association in the +Ministry, grown into intimacy. + +Prideaux found Kitty writing a pamphlet. She was rather good at this +form of literature, having a concise and clear-cut style and an instinct +for stopping on the right word. Some pamphleteers have not this art: +they add a sentence or two more, and undo their effect. The pamphlet on +which Miss Grammont was at this moment engaged was intended for the +perusal of the working woman, and bore the conversational title, "The +Nation takes an interest in Your Affairs: will You not take an interest +in the Affairs of the Nation?" Which, as Miss Grammont observed, took +rather a long time to say, but may have been worth it. + +"Dine with you? I'll be charmed. Where and when?" + +"My rooms, eight o'clock. I've got my parents and the Minister coming." + +"Oh, the Minister." + +"Do you mind?" + +"No, I'm proud to meet him. I've never yet met him over food, so to +speak, only officially. I admire our Chester more every day he lives, +don't you? Nature made him and then broke the die." + +"Wonderful man," Prideaux agreed. "Extraordinary being.... A happy touch +with bishops, too. Picked that up in the home, no doubt; his father's +one. _Liking's_ another thing, of course.... By the way, do you know +what his category is? However, this is gossip. I must get back and +discover what's the latest perpetration of my new secretary. See you +to-night, then." + +He left the room. Kitty Grammont observed with satisfaction, for she was +critical of such things, how well his clothes fitted him, wondered what +he had nearly told her about the Minister's category, finished her +pamphlet, and sent it out for typing. She had an idea that this pamphlet +might not get passed by the censor, and wanted to find out. For the +censor was cautious about pamphlets, wisely opining that you cannot be +too careful. Pamphlets may, and usually do, deal with dangerous or +indecent topics, such as the Future. If sufficiently dangerous and +indecent, they become Leaflets, and are suppressed on sight. There were +dangerous and explosive words, like Peace, War, and Freedom which the +censor dealt with drastically. The danger of the word Peace dated, of +course, from the days when Peace had not yet arrived and discussion of +it was therefore improper, like the discussion of an unborn infant. By +the time it did arrive, its relegation to the region of Things we do not +Mention had become a habit, not lightly to be laid aside, so that a +Ministry of Brains pamphlet entitled "The Peace of Fools" had been +strangled before birth, the censor being very naturally unable to +believe that it did not refer in some mysterious way to the negotiations +which had ended hostilities, whereas as a matter of fact it was all +about the foolish content of stupid people who went on submitting to +diseases which a little intelligent thought would have prevented. There +had also perished, owing to the same caution on the censor's part, and, +it must be presumed, to the same guilty conscience on the part of the +Government, a booklet published by Messrs. Mowbray in a purple paper +cover with a gold cross on it, called "The Peace which passeth +understanding," not to mention a new edition of Burke's "Regicide +Peace," and one or two other works of which the censor, whose reading +was obliged to be mainly twentieth century, mistook the date. And, if +treatises concerning Peace were suspected from force of habit, works on +War were discouraged also, on the sound British principle that the +stress of a great Peace is not the time to talk of War; we must first +deal with Peace, and _then_ we may think about War; but One Thing At +Once, and do not let us cry War, War, when there is no war. But there +may be one day, argued the pamphleteers, and might it not be well to +prepare our minds for it? To which the answer very properly was, No; +Britons do not look ahead. They Come Through, instead. And anyhow it was +treachery to those who were spending their energies on this righteous +peace to discuss a premature war, which could neither be just nor +lasting. + +Another improper subject, naturally, was Liberty. That needs no +explanation; it has always been improper in well-regulated countries, +like Eugenics, or the Poor, and has received no encouragement from +authority. Notwithstanding this, so many improper works upon it, in +every conceivable form, have always been produced, that the censors had +to engage a special clerk, who had just obtained a first class in +English Literature at Oxford, and who therefore had books and pamphlets +of all dates fresh in her memory, to check their researches and inform +them when their energies were superfluous. Not that all the books of +former centuries on this topic were to be encouraged, for, after all, +one period is in some respects singularly like another, and the same +reflections strangely germane to both. Naturally, therefore, when the +literary clerk, seeing advertised a new and cheap edition of Robert +Hall's "Sentiments proper to the present crisis," and, remembering the +trend of this work, sent for it (having sold her own copy at Blackwell's +when she went down), and read such remarks as "Freedom, driven from +every spot on the continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she +always chose for her favourite abode, but she is pursued even here and +threatened with destruction.... It is for you to decide whether this +freedom shall yet survive, or be clothed with a funeral pall and be +wrapped in eternal gloom"--very properly she reported the matter to +headquarters, and the cheap edition was called in. + +Equally naturally there perished (without the help of the literary +clerk, who was not asked to judge of twentieth century literature) +various collections of Free Verse, for which the Poetry Bookshop was +successfully raided, a tract of the sort which is dropped about trains, +published by the Evangelical Tract Society and called "Throw off your +Chains!", "Citizens of a Free City," which was found at Mowbray's, and +bore on its title page the statement "Jerusalem ... is free" (a manifest +and seditious untruth, as we, of course, held Jerusalem, in trust for +the Jews), and many others of like tendency, such as works on Free Food, +Free Drink, Free Housing, Free Love, Free Thought, and Labour, in +Chains. Even fiction was suspect. A novel entitled _The Dangers of +Dora_, by the well-known author of _The Perils of Pauline_ and _The +Exploits of Elaine_, was suppressed, in spite of what should have been +the reassuring fact that Dora, like Pauline and Elaine before her, +triumphantly worsted all her foes in the end, and emerged smiling and +safe on the last page. Publishers were known to demand the alteration of +a title if the name Dora occurred in it, such wholesome respect did the +Censor's methods inspire. + +It will therefore be readily understood that even government departments +had to go warily in this matter. + +The Minister of Brains held pamphlet propaganda to be of the greatest +importance. A week ago the workers in the propaganda section had been +sent for and interviewed by the Minister in person. This personal +contact had, for the time being, oddly weighted Miss Grammont's too +irresponsible levity, kindled her rather cynical coolness, given her +something almost like zeal. That was one thing about the Minister--he +set other people on fire. Another was that his manners were bad but +unexpected, and a third that he looked like a cross between M. Kerensky, +a member of the Geddes family, and Mr. Nelson Keys. + +Thus Miss Grammont, thoughtfully smoking a Cyprus cigarette, summed up +the Minister of Brains. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LITTLE CHANTREYS + + +1 + +Ivy Delmer went home to Little Chantreys on the following Saturday +afternoon, after a matinee and tea in town, in the same train, though +not the same carriage as Kitty Grammont and Vernon Prideaux, who were +presumably spending the week-end at the End House. Ivy travelled home +every evening of the week. Miss Grammont had a flat in town, but spent +the week-ends when she was not otherwise engaged, with her brother in +Little Chantreys, which was embarrassing to Ivy. + +As Ivy got out of the train she saw Miss Grammont's brother and the lady +who could scarcely be called her sister-in-law, on the platform, +accompanied by a queer-looking man of about forty, with ears rather like +a faun's. Anyone, thought Ivy, could have guessed which house in Little +Chantreys he was staying at. The week-end people who came to the End +House differed widely one from another in body and soul; some looked +clever, or handsome, others did not, some were over-dressed, some under, +some, like Miss Grammont and her brothers, just right; there were +musical people, sporting people, literary or artistic people, stagy +people (these last were the friends of Miss Pansy Ponsonby, who was not +Miss Grammont's sister-in-law), uncommon people, and common people; but +they all, thought Ivy Delmer, had two looks in common--they looked as if +they wouldn't get on very well with her father and mother, and they +looked as if they didn't read the Bible. + +This second look was differentiated according to the wearer of it. Some +of them (like this man to-day) looked as if he didn't read it because it +had become so inextricably bound up with vulgar superstition and an +impossible religion that he despised it. Some, like Miss Grammont and +her brother Anthony, looked as if they didn't read it because they +already knew enough of it to be funny about it when they wanted to; +others, like Miss Pansy Ponsonby, looked as if she had really once given +it a try, but had found it dry and put off further perusal until such +time as she lay dying and might want to do something about her future +state. And Miss Grammont's brother Cyril looked as if it was a +Protestant book, and rather vulgar. Some, again, looked innocent, as if +they had never heard of it, others guilty, as if they never wanted to +again. + +Ivy Delmer walked home to the Vicarage, hoping rather that the End House +wouldn't come to church to-morrow. It was taken, from time to time, with +an unaccountable fit of doing this. It made Ivy uncomfortable. Whether +or not it came to pray, she could not help having an uneasy suspicion +that it stayed to mock. + + +2 + +"Hullo, old dear," said Miss Pansy Ponsonby, in her rich and resonant +drawl, as Kitty and her companion came out of the station. "Here we all +are again. _And_ the Cheeper. He's a growin' boy, our Cheeper: he puts +on weight. Takes after me: I put on weight when I forget my exercises +and don't keep an eye on myself. Don't I, Tony? Mr. Prideaux, isn't it? +How do, Mr. Prideaux? Vurry pleased you've come. You know Mr. Amherst, +don't you? You clever folks all know each other." Miss Ponsonby, who was +not an American, had once performed in the same company as Miss Lee +White, and had caught an inflexion or two. She looked with the +satisfaction of the hospitable hostess at the little group, and added, +"So here we all are. And vurry nice too." + +It was, indeed, not an unpleasing group. Dominating it was Miss Ponsonby +herself, very tall, very beautiful, very supple (only a year ago she had +been doing her celebrated eel-dance in "Hullo, Peace!"), with long and +lovely violet eyes and the best kind of Icilma skin, adorned tastefully +but quite unnecessarily with pink paint, white powder, scarlet lip +salve, and black lash-darkener. All this was from force of habit: Miss +Ponsonby was quite adequately pink, white, scarlet and black in her own +person. But, as Kitty observed, having been given by heaven such an +absurd thing as a human face, what could one do but make it yet more +absurd by these superimposed gaieties? You cannot take a face as a +serious thing; it is one of nature's jests, and it is most suitably +dealt with as the clown and the pierrot deal with theirs. This was +Kitty's point of view; Pansy had none, only habits. + +Pansy was guiding and controlling a motor-pram, in which lay the +Cheeper, aged four months (he had no Christian name, having so far +evaded both the registrar and the font, and presumably no surname, owing +to the peculiar circumstances of his parents). The Cheeper's father, +Anthony Grammont, was a fair, pale, good-looking, rather tired young man +of seven and twenty, with a slightly plaintive voice; he looked as if he +shared, only with more languor, Miss Ponsonby's placid and engaging +enjoyment of the world; he had been in one of the hottest corners of +France through the European War, and had emerged from it a bored and +unambitious colonel, deaf of one ear, adorned with a Military Cross, and +determined to repay himself for his expenditure of so much time, energy +and health by enjoying the fifty or sixty years which, he piously hoped, +remained to him, to the full. Which he was now doing. His professional +life was passed on the Stock Exchange. + +Mr. Leslie Amherst, the man like a faun, who was staying with him, was +an old friend of the Grammont family. He wrote, and was on the staff of +a weekly journal. He was engaged just now on a series of articles on the +Forces of Darkness in Darkest Europe. So far he had produced 1. The +Legislature, 2. Capitalism, 3. Industrialism, 4. Nationalism, 5. +Militarism, 6. The Press, and this week he was writing 7. Organised +Religion. (It will no doubt shock some readers to learn that these +forces had not all, in spite of the earnest hopes entertained for so +long for their overthrowal, yet been overthrown; but truth compels me to +state that they had not.) Though Amherst talked like a cynic, and had +his affectations, he was an earnest thinker, and sometimes tired his +host, who was not, and who had been left by his years of difficult +continental sojourn with a supreme distaste for any further probing into +the problems of Darkest Europe. Amherst had the advantage, in this +matter, of having been a Conscientious Objector to Military Service, so +the war had not tired him, and he retained for home use the freshness +and vigour of attack which had, in the case of many of his +fellow-countrymen, been all used up abroad. + +The End House party was completed by Kitty Grammont, with her round, +long-lashed eyes and her air of the ingenuous rake, and Vernon Prideaux, +brisk and neat and clever. So there they all were; and very nice, too. + +Kitty kissed her brother and Miss Ponsonby and dug the Cheeper in the +ribs in the manner he preferred. She was very fond of them all, and +found Miss Ponsonby immeasurably entertaining. Little had she thought, +when of old she used joyfully to watch Miss Pansy Ponsonby twist and +kick and curl herself about the stage and sing fascinating inanities in +her lazy contralto, that they would ever be linked by no common bond. Of +course she had known that her brother Anthony was showering flowers, +chocolates, suppers, week-ends and air-trips at Miss Ponsonby's nimble +feet (the toes of which could bend right back at the joints) but Anthony +had been known to shower these things at the feet of others. Certainly +Kitty had never expected that he would instal this delightful and +expensive being in a real house, have a real infant, and really settle +down, albeit socially ostracised in Buckinghamshire because imperfectly +married (that was the fault of Pansy's husband, Mr. Jimmie Jenks, who, +though he didn't want her himself, selfishly refused to sever the +connection irrevocably). + +"What's the afternoon news?" enquired Mr. Amherst, as they walked up to +the village. + +"Haven't seen a paper for half an hour," replied Prideaux, who kept his +finger on the pulse of the nation and liked his news up to date. "I've +got two five o'clock ones with me, though. The Leeds strike is rather +worse, the Sheffield one rather better. The aero bus men are coming out +on Monday. Dangerous unrest among Sussex shepherds and Cotswold cowmen." +(Agricultural labour was now controlled by the State.) "Lord Backwoods +has been speaking to his constituents against the Bill for +disfranchising Conscientious Obstructionists of the Mental Progress +Acts. A thoroughly seditious speech, of course. Poor old chap, his +eldest-son has just got engaged to be married, so there'll be another +family of Backwoods babies who ought never to exist. It will hit them +heavily financially.... And the International Police have found another +underground gun-factory near Munich, under a band-stand. And it's +confirmed that old Tommy Jackson is to be Drink Controller." + +"Another good butler spoilt," observed Anthony Grammont. "He _was_ a +jolly good butler once. And he'll be a jolly bad Drink Controller." + +"Dear old Tommy," murmured Miss Ponsonby absently, lifting the Cheeper +out of his motor-pram with one strong white hand and balancing him on +her ample shoulders. "He was vurry kind to me in the dear old days, when +I spent week-ends at Surrey Towers. He used to give me tips on Correct +Conduct. I didn't take them; Correct Conduct wasn't what the people +there asked me for; but I was grateful to Tommy." + +"If," said Anthony, "there is any member of a government department, +existing, fallen, or yet to come, who has _not_ in the dear old days +been vurry kind to you, my dear Pansy, I should be rather glad to know +his name." + +"Why, certainly," returned Pansy, with cheerful readiness. "Nicky +Chester, the Brains Minister who's making himself such an all-round +eternal nuisance, doesn't even realise I exist, and if he did he'd think +I oughtn't." + +"That's where you're wrong, Pansy," Kitty said. "He thinks everyone +ought to exist who does anything as well as you do your things. You're +Starred A, aren't you?" + +"I've gone and lost the silly old bus ticket," said Pansy indifferently, +"but that's what it said, I think." Starred A meant (in the words of the +official definition) first-class ability at a branch of work which would +not appear to be a valuable contribution to the general efficiency of +the State. The Cheeper, child of a starred A mother and a B3 father +(Anthony's brains had been reduced by trench-life; he had been quite +intelligent at Oxford), was subject neither to bonus nor tax. + +"Anyhow," went on Pansy, grinning her wide, sweet, leisurely grin, "I +think I see Nicky Chester sendin' me round flowers or goodies after a +show! He's seen me, you know: he was in a box the first night of 'Hullo, +Peace!' He laughed at the political hits, but my turns left him cold; I +guess they weren't brainy enough." She tossed the Cheeper in the air and +caught him, strongly and easily. "Make him supple young," she observed, +"an' by the time he's six he'll be a star Child Gamboller, fit for +revue. He takes after me. Already he can put both his big toes in his +little mouth at once." + +"Very unusual, surely," remarked Mr. Amherst, looking at the Cheeper +through his pince-nez as if he were an insect under a microscope. Mr. +Amherst was fellow of an Oxford college, and had the academic touch, and +was not yet entirely used to Pansy, a type outside his previous studies, +and at no time would he be really used to anyone under eighteen years of +age, let alone six months. Possibly this was what his reviewers meant +when they said that he lacked the touch of common humanity. + +His attention was diverted from the Cheeper by the parish church, which +he inspected with the same curiosity and distaste. + +"Organised Religion, I presume," he commented. "If you've no objection, +Anthony, I will attend morning service there to-morrow. It may provide +me with some valuable subject matter for my article." + +"We'll all go," said Kitty. "The End House shall set an example to the +village. We'll take Cyril, too. He can get a dispensation. It's Brains +Sunday, you know, and all patriotic clergymen will be preaching about +it. Vernon and I are officially bound to be there." + +"I don't suppose it will be amusing," said Anthony. "But we'll go if you +all want to." + +"Church," said Pansy, meditatively regarding the Early Perpendicular +tower. "_I_ went one Sunday morning." She paused reminiscently, and +added, without chagrin, "The vicar turned me down." + +"He could hardly," said Mr. Amherst civilly, "do otherwise. Your +position is not one which is at present recognised by Organised +Religion." + +"Oh, he recognised it all right," Pansy explained. "That was just the +trouble; he didn't like it.... He's not a bad old sort. He came to call +afterwards, and told me all about it. He was quite upset. So was I, +wasn't I, old thing?" + +"Not in the least," returned Anthony placidly. + +"I'd only wanted to do the proper thing," Pansy continued her +unperturbed narrative, in her singularly beautiful voice. "I was always +brought up to go to church now and then. I was confirmed all right. I +like to do the proper thing. It only seems fair to the Cheeper to bring +him up in the way he should go. I wouldn't care for him to grow up an +agnogger, like all you people. But Mr. Delmer said my way of life was +too ambiguous to square with comin' to church. Rather a sweet word, +don't you think? Because it _isn't_ ambiguous really, you know; not a +bit, I'm afraid.... So when the Cheeper turned up, it seemed to me _he_ +was a bit ambiguous, too, an' that's why I haven't had him made a little +Christian yet. The vicar says he can square that up all right--he called +on purpose to tell me--but somehow we've never had the time to fix it, +have we, darlin'? Tottie O'Clare promised me she'd be godmother if ever +I did have him done...." + +"Pansy," said Anthony, "you're boring Amherst and Prideaux. They're not +interested in babies, or baptisms, or Tottie O'Clare." + +Pansy smiled at them all out of her serene violet eyes. She looked like +some stately, supple Aphrodite; she might, but for the delicate soupcon +of powder and over-red lips, have sat for a madonna. + +"Pansy," said Kitty, "it's the Sistine Madonna you're like; I've got it +at last. You're the divine type. You might be from heaven. You're so +restful. We all spin and buzz about, trying to get things done, and to +be clever and fussy and efficient--and you just _are_. You happen, like +spring, or music. You're not a bit like Chester, but you're ever so much +more important. Isn't she, Vernon?" + +"They're both," said Prideaux tactfully, "of enormous importance. And +certainly, as you say, not in the least alike. Chester is neither like +spring nor music, and certainly one wouldn't call him restful. And I +should be a bit surprised to learn that heaven is where he either began +or will end his career.... But, I ask you, look at that." + +They were passing the little Town Hall, that stood in the village market +place. Its face was plastered with an immense poster, which Prideaux and +Kitty surveyed with proprietary pride, Amherst with cynical amusement, +Anthony with bored resignation, and Pansy and the Cheeper with placid +wonder at the world's folly. + +"Ours is a wonderful government," Kitty commented. "And we are a +wonderful ministry. Think of rural England all plastered with that.... I +don't believe Chester laughs when he sees it, Vernon. I'm sure he looks +at it proudly, like a solemn, earnest little boy." + +"And quite right too," said Prideaux, screwing his glass into his eye +the better to read. For this was a new Ministry of Brains poster; new +this week. It read, in large type, "Improve your Brains! Go in for the +Government Course of Mind Training! It will benefit you, it will benefit +your country, it will benefit posterity. Old Age must come. But it need +not be a Doddering Old Age. Lay up Good Mental Capacities to meet it, +and make it a Fruitful and Happy Time. See what the Mind Training Course +has done for others, and let it Do the Same for You." + +Then, in smaller type, "Here are a few reports from those who have +benefited by it. + +"_From a famous financier._ Since I began the Course I have doubled my +income and halved those of 750 others. I hope, by the time I have +completed the Course, to have ruined twice this number. + +"_From a Cabinet Minister._ Owing to the Mind Training Course I have now +remained in office for over six weeks. I hope to remain for at least +three more. + +"_From a newspaper proprietor._ I have started eight new journals since +I took the Course, over-turned three governments, directed four +international crises, and successfully represented Great Britain to the +natives of the Pacific Islands. + +"_From the editor of a notorious weekly paper._ I took the Course +because I seemed to be losing that unrivalled touch which has made my +paper what, I may say, it is. Since taking it, more than my old force +has returned, so that I have libelled nine prominent persons and +successfully defended six libel actions in the courts. The M.T. Course +teaches one to Live at one's Best. + +"_From a Civil Servant._ Every time a new government department is born +I enter it, rendered competent by the Mind Training Course to fill its +highest posts. When the Department falls I leave it, undamaged. + +"_From a Publisher._ My judgment has been so stimulated by the Course +that since taking it I have published five novels so unpleasant that +correspondence still rages about them in the columns of the Spectator, +and which have consequently achieved ten editions. The Course teaches +one why some succeed and others fail. + +"_From a Journalist._ I now only use the words decimated, literally, +annihilated, and proletariat, according to the meanings ascribed to them +in the dictionary, do not use pacifism more than three times a day, nor +'very essential' or 'rather unique' at all. + +"_From a famous Theologian._ Before I undertook the Course I was a +Bishop of a disestablished Church. Now my brain is clarified, my eyes +are opened, and I am a leader of the Coming Faith. The Course teaches +the Meaning of Life. + +"_From a former Secretary of State._ Since taking the Course I have +recognised the importance of keeping myself informed as to public +affairs, and now never refer in my public speeches to any speech by +another statesman without having previously read a summary of it. + +"_From a poet._ I can now find rhymes to nearly all my lines, and have +given up the old-fashioned habit of free rhythms to which I have been +addicted since 1912. I can even find rhymes to indemnity, also a rhyme +to War which is neither gore, claw, nor star. + +"_From an inveterate writer of letters to newspapers._ I no longer do +this. + +"_From a citizen._ I was engaged to be married. Now I am not." + +Then in large type again, + +"All this has happened to Others! Why should it not happen to You? Save +yourself, save your country, save the world! How shall wisdom be found, +and where is the place of understanding? So asked the Preacher of the +ancient world, and got no answer, because then there was none. But the +answer is now forthcoming. Wisdom is to be found in the Government Mind +Training Course--the M.T.C., as it is affectionately called by thousands +of men and women who are deriving benefits from it. Enter for it to-day. +For further information apply Mind Training Section, Ministry of Brains, +S.W. 1." + +Above the letterpress was a picture poster, representing two youths, and +called "Before and After." "Before" had the vacuity of the village +idiot, "After" the triumphant cunning of the maniac. The Mind Training +Course had obviously completely overset a brain formerly harmless, if +deficient. + +"How long," enquired Amherst, in his best Oxford manner, "do you give +yourselves? I address the enquiry, as a member of the public, to you, as +servants of a government which can resort to such methods as that." + +"We have now remained in office for over six months," said Kitty, "and +we hope to remain for at least three more.... But it's for us to ask +you, as a member of the public, how long you intend to give us? +Personally I'm astonished every day that our hotel, and all the other +hotels, aren't stormed and wrecked. I don't know why the Aero Bus +Company, while it's on strike, doesn't sail over us and drop bombs. It +shows we must be more popular than we deserve. It shows that people +really _like_ being coerced and improved. They know they need it. Look +at the people going about this village; look at their faces, I ask you. +They're like 'Before.' Look at the policeman at his door, half out of +his clothes. He's god-like to look at; he's got a figure like the +Discobolus, and the brain of a Dr. Watson. He could never track a thief. +He's looking at us; he thinks we're thieves, probably, just because +we're ambiguous. That's the sort of mind he has. Look at the doctor, in +his absurd little Ford. How much do you suppose he knows about curing +people, or about the science of bodies? He patches them up with pills +and drugs, and.... But he didn't cut us, Tony. Why not?" + +"He and the vicar don't," explained Anthony. "Professional attendance. +There's the vicar, outside that cottage. See him put his hand up as we +pass him." + +He returned the salute with some pride, and Pansy nodded agreeably. +Amherst examined the vicar, who was small and sturdy and had a nice kind +face. + +Amherst shook his head when they had left him behind. + +"Not nearly clever enough for the part," he pronounced. "To organise +religion a man should have the talents of the devil, or at least of the +intelligent civil servant. Prideaux would do it quite well; or Chester; +only Chester might be too erratic for the popular taste. No wonder +Christianity is the ineffective thing it is in this country, if it's +left in the hands of officials like that. That man couldn't organise +anything; I bet even his school treats go wrong--too few buns or +something. That's the hope for the world, that inefficiency of most +religious officials; that's why the public will succeed before long in +throwing off the whole business, even before they succeed in downing +Parliament and the British autocracy, who are a shade more acute. From +my point of view your vicar's stupidity is all to the good. If he +preaches to-morrow as the Brains Ministry want him to--and he looks +loyal and patriotic enough to try--he'll be preaching against his own +interests. But that's what all you Brains people are doing, of course. +You don't seem to see that if you ever were to succeed in making the +human race reasonably intelligent, your number would be up; you wouldn't +be stood for a moment longer. You're sitting on a branch and trying to +saw it off. Lucky for you your saws aren't sharper." + +"Chester would go on just the same if he did see," Kitty said. "He +probably does. He's an idealist, but his eye for facts is very +penetrating. And he'd think it worth while to perish in so good a +cause." + +"The fact is," added Prideaux, "that he never would perish, even if the +branch did fall; he'd climb on to another pretty quickly and rise as the +People's Saviour. Our Nicky won't go under." + + +3 + +They arrived at the End House, about which there is little to say except +that it lay just beyond the straggling village, was roomy, comfortable, +untidy, full of dogs all named after revue stars, and was an interesting +mixture of the Grammont taste in art and decoration, which was the taste +of clever people several of whom were artists, and of Pansy's taste, +which is most shortly indicated by mentioning that if you saw the house +before you saw Pansy you were surprised, and if you had seen Pansy first +you were not. The drawing-room floor was littered with large and +comfortable and brightly-hued cushions, obviously not mistakes but +seats. This always a little flurried the vicar and his wife when they +called; it was, as Mrs. Delmer observed, so very Eastern, and suggested +other habits belonging to the same dubious quarter of the globe, some of +which there was only too good reason to believe had been adopted. The +chimney-piece was worse, being adorned by photographs of Pansy's +friends--her loving Tottie, hers everlastingly, Guy, warmly Phyllis and +Harry, and so forth. (There was even hers Jimmie, which, if Mrs. Delmer +had known rather more of Pansy's domestic circumstances than she did, +would have struck her as being in very doubtful taste.) Some of these +ladies and gentlemen, fortunately, had elected to be taken head and +shoulders only (and quite enough too, thought Mrs. Delmer, wondering how +far below the bottom of the photograph the ladies' clothes began) and +some showed the whole figure. ("I should think they did!" said Mrs. +Delmer, on her first call, nervously retreating from the chimney-piece. +It may be mentioned that Mrs. Delmer was not in the habit of witnessing +revues, and was accustomed to an ampler mode of garment. These things +are so much a question of habit.) + +These photographs, and the excellent painting in the hall of Pansy +herself in her eel dance, were among the minor reasons why Ivy Delmer +was not allowed to enter the End House. There were three reasons why her +parents did so; they might be stupid, but they were of an extraordinary +goodness, and could not bear to leave sin alone, anyhow in their own +parish, where it set such an unfortunate example, when they might, by +sufficient battling, perhaps win it over to righteousness; also they had +kind and soft hearts, and did not like the idea of Pansy alone all day +with her infant son and the two most notoriously ill-behaved young +servants in the village; and finally they were Christians, and believed +that the teaching of their religion on the subject of sociability to +sinners was plain. So, swallowing their embarrassed distaste, they +visited the End House as one might visit a hospital, but kept their +children from it, because it was a hospital whose patients might be +infectious. + +Into this house, standing hospitably open-doored in the May evening, its +owner and his friends entered. It affected them in various ways. Anthony +Grammont was proud of his house and garden, his Pansy and his Cheeper. +He was young enough to be vain of being head of a household, even of an +ambiguous household, and of course anyone would be proud of the dazzling +and widely-known Pansy, whose name had always been one of the two in +large type in advertisements of the shows in which she figured (she was +as good as all that); and he was tired enough, mentally and physically, +by his life of the last few years, its discomforts, its homelessness, +its bondage, its painful unnaturalness, to sink with relief into Pansy's +exotic cushions and all they stood for. + +Kitty found the house and household inordinately cheering and +entertaining; the mere sight of Pansy's drawing-room could rouse her +from any depression. + +Vernon Prideaux shuddered a little at the row of photographs--he +detested photographs on chimney-pieces--and the Eve design on the chair +covers; he was not so good at the comic-opera touch as Kitty was, and +had a masculine sense of propriety and good taste, and had always +preferred revue stars on the stage to off it. He had also, however, a +wide tolerance for the tastes of others, and was glad that Tony Grammont +had found domestic happiness. + +Amherst's thoughts were brief and neat, and might be summed up thus: +"Forces of Darkness--number 8. The expensive, conscienceless, and +unthinking female." + +Pansy went upstairs to put the Cheeper to bed, and Kitty went with her +to see her nephew in his bath, putting both his big toes into his mouth +at once. + +The only other event of importance which happened before dinner was the +arrival of Cyril Grammont, a brother of Anthony's, a Cambridge friend of +Prideaux's, a Roman Catholic, a writer of epigrammatic essays and light +verse, and a budding publisher. He and Pansy usually quarrelled. He had +spent the war partly in Macedonia, as a member of the Salonika Force, +digging up fragments of sculpture from Amphipolis and the other ruined +cities of those regions, tracking what he then held to be the pernicious +influence of St. Paul with the help of a pocket atlas of his journeys +and the obviously evil habits and dispositions of the towns which had +received his attentions, and partly in Palestine, where he had taken an +extreme dislike to both Jews and Turks, had become convinced that they +must be so wrong about everything that mattered that Christians must be +right, and was forthwith converted from atheism to Christianity. He +considered that war-time is no time for Christians, they have to do so +much either explaining or protesting or both, so he had waited till the +war was over, and had then proceeded to investigate the various forms +into which Christianity had developed (they all seemed a little strange +to him at first), in order to make his choice. An impartial friend with +whom he discussed the subject told him that he would find Roman +Catholicism best suited to his precise, clear-cut, and Latin type of +mind, provided that he succeeded in avoiding all contact with the more +luscious forms of Roman devotions, which, he was warned, would disgust +him as much as patchouli, or Carlo Dolci. "And anyhow," added his +friend, probably erroneously, "it will outlast the other churches, for +all its obscurantism, so if you want a going concern, join it." + +So Cyril enquired into Roman Catholicism, found that, in its best +cathedral forms, it satisfied his artistic sense, and, in its +sharply-cut dogma, his feeling for precise form (his taste in art was +violently against the post-bellum school, which was a riot of lazy, +sloppy, and unintellectual formlessness), and so, accepting as no +stranger than most of the growths of a strangely sprouting world the +wonderful tree which had grown from a seed so remarkably dissimilar, he +took a firm seat upon its branches, heedless of the surprised +disapproval of most of his friends, who did not hold that any organised +religion could be called a going concern, except in the sense that it +was going to pot. + +So here was Cyril, at the End House for Sunday, neat, handsome, +incisive, supercilious, very sure of himself, and not in the least like +the End House, with its slatternly brilliance, its yapping dogs, its +absurdities, its sprawling incoherence, its cushions, and its ambiguity. + +In the evening Pansy danced her willow-tree dance for them. Her hair +tumbled down, and she ceased to look like the Sistine Madonna and became +more like a young Bacchanal. Some of her jokes were coarse (you have to +be coarse sometimes in revue, and cannot leave the habit entirely behind +you when you come off the boards) and Amherst, who was refined, was +jarred. Then she quarrelled with Cyril, because he remarked, with his +cheerful and businesslike air of finality, that of course if the Cheeper +were not baptised he would go to hell. Upon her violent remonstrance he +merely observed that he was sorry, but facts were facts, and he couldn't +get them altered to please her. He talked like this partly to annoy +Pansy, because it amused him to see her cross, and partly for the +pleasure of unobtrusively watching Amherst's expression when the word +hell was mentioned. + +So, to unite the party, Kitty proposed that they should play the new +card game, League of Nations, of which the point was to amass cards and +go out while presenting an appearance of doing nothing at all. + +Thus harmoniously and hilariously the night wore on, till at last the +End House, like the other Little Chantreys houses, only much later, went +to bed. + + +4 + +Little Chantreys slept under the May moon, round the market square with +the Ministry of Brains poster in the middle. + +The doctor slept with the sound sleep of those who do not know the width +of the gulf between what they are and what they should be. + +The sick, his patients, slept or woke, tossing uneasily, with windows +closed to the soft night air. Every now and then they would rouse and +take their medicine, with impatience, desperation, simple faith, or dull +obedience, and look in vain for a bettering of their state. Those who +considered themselves well, never having known what welfare really was, +slept too, in stuffy, air-tight rooms, disturbed by the wailing of +babies which they had not taught not to cry aloud, by the hopping of +fleas which they had failed to catch or to subdue, by the dancing of +mice which would never enter traps so obvious as those which they +scornfully perceived in their paths, by the crowding of children about +them, too close to be forgotten or ignored, by the dragging weight of +incompetent, unfinished yesterday and incompetent, unbegun to-morrow. + +The vicarage slept. The vicar in his sleep had a puzzled frown, as if +life was too much for him, as if he was struggling with forces above his +comprehension and beyond his grasp, forces that should have +revolutionised Little Chantreys, but, in his hands, wouldn't. The +vicar's wife slept fitfully, waking to worry about the new cook, whose +pastry was impossible. She wasn't clever enough to know that cooking +shouldn't be done in this inefficient, wasteful way in the home, but +co-operatively, in a village kitchen, and pastry should be turned out by +a pastry machine. Mrs. Delmer had heard of this idea, but didn't like +it, because it was new. She wasn't strong, and would die one day, worn +out with domestic worries which could have been so easily obviated.... + +The young Delmers slept. They always did. They mostly ought not to have +been born at all; they were, except Ivy, who was moderately intelligent, +below standard. They slept the sleep of the unthinking. + +The vicarage girl slept. She would sleep for some time, because her +alarum clock was smothered by a cushion; which would seem to indicate +more brains on her part than were to be found in the other inmates of +the vicarage. + +So Little Chantreys slept, and the world slept, governments and +governed, forces of darkness and forces of light, industry and idleness, +the sad and the gay; pathetic, untutored children of the moment looking +neither behind nor ahead. + +The morning light, opening dimly, like a faintly-tinted flower, +illumined the large red type of the poster in the Little Chantreys +market place. "IMPROVE YOUR BRAINS!" So Brains Sunday dawned upon a +world which did indeed seem to need it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BRAINS SUNDAY + + +1 + +Ivy Delmer had been right in her premonition. The End House was in +church, at matins (the form of Sunday midday worship still used in +Little Chantreys, which was old-fashioned). Ivy looked at them as they +sat in a row near the front. Mr. Anthony Grammont and Miss Ponsonby sat +next each other and conversed together in whispers. Miss Ponsonby was +attired in pink gingham, and not much of it (it was not the fashion to +have extensive clothes, or of rich materials, lest people should point +at you as a profiteer who had made money out of the war; even if you had +done this you hid it as far as was convenient, and what you did not hide +you said was interest on war loan). Miss Ponsonby, with her serene +smile, looked patient, resigned, and very sweet and good. Next her was +Miss Grammont, who looked demure in a dress of motley, and, beyond her +again, Mr. Prideaux, who looked restless and impatient, either as if he +were thinking out some departmental tangle, or as if he thought it had +been a silly idea to come to church, or both. At the end of the row were +Mr. Amherst, who was studying the church, the congregation and the +service through his glasses, collecting copy for his essay, and Mr. +Cyril Grammont, who looked like a Roman Catholic attending a Protestant +church by special dispensation. (This look cannot be defined, but is +known if seen.) + +Ivy looked from the End House to her father, surpliced at the lectern, +reading the Proper Lesson appointed for Brains Sunday, Proverbs 8 and 9. +"Shall not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her word? She +standeth in the top of high places, by the way, in the places of the +paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming +in at the doors.... O ye simple, understand wisdom, and, ye fools, be of +an understanding heart.... Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn +out her seven pillars" (that was the Ministry hotel, thought Ivy).... +"She hath sent forth her maidens, she crieth upon the highest place of +the city" (on the walls of the Little Chantreys town hall). "Whoso is +simple, let him turn in hither.... Forsake the foolish and live, and go +in the way of understanding.... Give instruction to a wise man and he +will get wiser; teach a just man and he will increase in learning.... +The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of +the holy is understanding...." Which set Ivy Delmer wondering a little, +for she believed her parents to be holy, or anyhow very, very good, and +yet.... But perhaps they had, after all, the beginning of wisdom, only +not its middle, nor its end, if wisdom has any end. She looked from her +father, carefully closing the big Bible and remarking that here ended +the first lesson, to her mother, carefully closing her little Bible (for +she was of those who follow lessons in books); her mother, who was so +wonderfully good and kind and selfless, and to whom old age must come, +and who ought to be preparing for it by going in for the Government Mind +Training Course, but who said she hadn't time, she was so busy in the +house and garden and parish. And half the things she did or supervised +in the house and garden ought, said the Ministry of Brains, to be done +by machinery, or co-operation, or something. They would have been done +better so, and would have left the Delmers and their parishioners more +time. More time for what, was the further question? "Save time now spent +on the mere business of living, and spend it on better things," said the +Ministry pamphlets. Reading, Ivy supposed; thinking, talking, getting +_au fait_ with the affairs of the world. And here was Mrs. Delmer +teaching each new girl to make pastry (no new girl at the vicarage ever +seemed to have acquired the pastry art to Mrs. Delmer's satisfaction in +her pre-vicarage career)--pastry, which should have been turned out by +the yard in a pastry machine; and spudding up weeds one by one, which +should have been electrocuted, like superfluous hairs, or flung up by +dynamite, like fish in a river.... But when Mrs. Delmer heard of such +new and intelligent labour-saving devices, she was as reluctant to adopt +them as any of the poor dear stupid women in the cottages. It was a +pity, because the Church should lead the way; and really now that it had +been set free of the State it quite often did. + +Ivy looked with puzzled, thoughtful eyes, which this morning, unusually, +were observing people rather than their clothes, at the rest of the +congregation, her own brothers and sisters first. The young Delmers were +several in number; there was Betty, who had just left school, and showed +no signs of "doing" anything, except her hair, the flowers, and +occasionally the lamps. For the rest, she played tennis for prizes and +hockey for Bucks, went out to tea, and when in doubt dyed her clothes or +washed the dogs. There was Charlie, at Cambridge. Charlie was of those +for whom the Great War had been allowed to take the place of the +Littlego, which was fortunate in his case, as he had managed to get +through the one but would probably in no circumstances have got through +the other. And there was Reggie, who had got through neither, but had +been killed at Cambrai in November, 1917. There were also some little +ones, Jane and John, aged twelve and eleven, who, though separated by +the length of a seat, still continued to hold communication by Morse, +and Jelly, who was named for a once famous admiral and whose age cannot +be specified. Jelly was small and stout, sat between his mother and Ivy +and stared at his father in the choir-stalls, and from time to time +lifted up his voice and laughed, as if he were at a Punch and Judy show. + +On the whole an agreeable family, and well-intentioned (though Ivy and +Betty quarrelled continuously and stole each other's things), but +certainly to be numbered among the simple, who were urged to get +understanding. Would they ever get it? That was the question, for them +and for the whole congregation here present, from the smallest, +grubbiest school-child furtively sucking bulls'-eyes and wiping its +sticky hands upon its teacher's skirt, to the vicar in the pulpit, +giving out his text. + +"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God"; that was the text. +Ivy saw a little smile cross the clever and conceited face of Mr. +Amherst as it was given out. He settled himself down to listen, +expectant of entertainment. He believed that he was in luck. For Mr. +Amherst, who did not say in his heart that there was no God, because +even in his heart he scorned the affirmation of the obvious, was of +those who are sure that all members of the Christian Church are fools +(unlike Mr. Arnold Bennett, who tries and fails, he did not even try to +think of them as intellectual equals), so he avoided, where he could, +the study of clever Christians, and welcomed the evidences of weakness +of intellect that crossed his path. He believed that this was going to +be a foolish sermon, which, besides amusing them all, would help him in +his article on Organised Religion. + +Ivy could not help watching the End House people. Somehow she knew how +the sermon was affecting them. She didn't think it funny, but she +suspected that they would. Her father wasn't as clever as they were; +that was why he failed to say anything that could impress them except as +either dull or comic. Brains again. How much they mattered. Clergymen +ought to have brains; it seemed very important. They ought to know how +to appeal to rich and poor, high and low, wise and simple. This +extraordinary thing called religion--(Ivy quite newly and unusually saw +it as extraordinary, seeing it for a moment with the eyes of the End +House, to all of whom, except Miss Ponsonby and, presumably, Cyril +Grammont, it was like fairy lore, like Greek mythology, mediaeval archaic +nonsense)--this extraordinary lore and the more extraordinary force +behind it, was in the hands, mainly (like everything else), of +incompetents, clerical and lay, who did not understand it themselves and +could not help others to do so. They muddled about with it, as Miss +Pomfrey muddled about with office papers.... It would not be surprising +if the force suddenly demolished them all, like lightning.... + +But such speculations were foreign to Ivy, and she forgot them in +examining the hat of Mrs. Peterson, the grocer's wife, which was so +noticeable in its excessive simplicity--its decoration consisted wholly +of home-grown vegetables--as to convince beholders that Mr. Peterson had +_not_, as some falsely said, made a fortune during the war by cornering +margarine. + + +2 + +Mr. Delmer was talking about the worst form of unwisdom--Atheism; a +terrible subject to him, and one he approached with diffidence but +resolution, in the face of the unusual pew-full just below him. + +"It is an extraordinary thing," he was saying, "that there are those who +actually deny the existence of God. We have, surely, only to think of +the immeasurable spaces of the universe--the distance He has set between +one thing and another.... It is reported of the Emperor Napoleon that, +looking up at the stars one night, he remarked...." Ivy, who had heard +this remark of the Emperor Napoleon's before, let her attention wander +again to the hats of Mrs. Peterson and others. When she listened once +more, the vicar had left Napoleon, though he was still dealing with the +heavenly bodies. + +"If an express train, performing sixty miles an hour, were to start off +from this planet--were such a thing possible to imagine, which of course +it is not--towards the moon, and continue its journey without stops +until it arrived, it would reach its destination, according to the +calculations of scientists, in exactly 1 year, 8 months, 26 days." (Ivy, +who had left school lately enough to remember the distance set by the +creator between the earth and the moon, began to work this out in her +head; she did not think that her father had got it quite right.) "And, +in the face of this, there are those who say that God does not exist. A +further thought, yet more wonderful. If the same train, travelling at +the same rapid rate, were to leave this earth again, this time for the +sun, the time it would take over this journey would be--I ask you, if +you can, to imagine it, my friends--no less than 175 years, 1 week, and +6 days...." (Ivy gave it up; it was too difficult without pencil and +paper.) "Is it possible that, knowing this, there are still those who +doubt God? Yet once more. Imagine, if you can, this train again starting +forth, this time bound for the planet Jupiter. Scientists tell us, and +we must believe it" (All right, thought Ivy, with relief, if he'd got it +out of a book), "that such a journey would take, if performed when +Jupiter was at its furthest, 1097 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 10 +hours, and a fraction. Can it really be that, confronted with the dizzy +thought of these well-nigh incredibly lengthy journeys from one heavenly +body to another, there are yet men and women who attribute the universe +to the blind workings of what they are pleased to call the Forces of +Nature? I ask you to consider earnestly, could any force but God have +conceived and executed such great distances? And Jupiter, my friends, is +comparatively near at hand. Take instead one of those little (but only +apparently little) nameless stars twinkling in the firmament. Imagine +our train starting off into space once more...." + +Ivy failed to imagine this; her attention was occupied with the End +House seat. The train's last journey had been too much for the tottering +self-control of the Grammont family and Vernon Prideaux (nothing ever +broke down Mr. Amherst's self-control, and Pansy's thoughts were +elsewhere). Prideaux's head rested on his hand, as if he were lost in +thought; Kitty and Anthony were shaking, unobtrusively but unmistakably, +and Cyril's fine, supercilious chin, set firmly, was quivering. Cyril +had, from childhood, had more self-control than the other two, and he +was further sustained by his conviction that it would be unthinkably bad +form for a Catholic to attend a Protestant service and laugh at it in +public. + +They oughtn't, thought Ivy, rather indignantly, to laugh at her father's +sermon when he wasn't meaning to be funny. If he saw he would be hurt. +One shouldn't laugh in church, anyhow; even Jane and John knew that. +These people were no better than Jelly. + +"This Sunday," continued the Vicar, his last star journey safely +accomplished, "is the day that has been set aside by our country for +prayer and sermons with regard to the proposed increase in the national +brain-power. This is, indeed, a sore need: but let us start on the firm +foundation of religion. What is wisdom apart from that? Nothing but +vanity and emptiness. What is the clever godless man but a fool from the +point of view of eternity? What is the godly fool but a heavenly +success?" ("He's talking sedition," whispered Kitty to Prideaux. "He'd +better have stuck to the trains.") + +But, of course, the vicar continued, if one can combine virtue and +intelligence, so much the better. It has been done. There was, e.g. +Darwin. Also General Gordon, St. Paul, and Lord Roberts, who had said +with his last breath, in June, 1915, "We've got the men, we've got the +money, we've got the munitions; what we now want is a nation on its +knees." (Ivy saw Prideaux sit up very straight, as if he would have +liked to inform Mr. Delmer that this libel on a dying soldier had long +since been challenged and withdrawn.) One can, said the vicar, find many +more such examples of this happy combination of virtue and intelligence. +There was Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, and Lord Rhondda (who in +the dark days of famine had led the way in self-denial). Not, +unfortunately, the Emperor Napoleon, Friedrich Nietzsche, or the Kaiser +Wilhelm II. The good are not always the clever, nor the clever always +the good. Some are neither, like the late Crown Prince of Germany (who +was now sharing a small island in the Pacific with the Kaiser Wilhelm +and MM. Lenin and Trotzky, late of Petrograd, and neither stupid nor +exactly, let us hope, bad, but singularly unfortunate and misguided, +like so many Russians, whom it is not for us to judge). + +But we should try to be both intelligent and good. We should take every +step in our power to improve our minds. (Prideaux began to look more +satisfied; this was what sermons to-day ought to be about.) It is our +duty to our country to be intelligent citizens, if we can, said the +vicar. Reason is what God has differentiated us from the lower animals +by. They have instinct, we reason. Truly a noble heritage. We are rather +clever already; we have discovered fire, electricity, coal, and invented +printing, steam engines, and flying. No reason why we should not improve +our minds further still, and invent (under God) more things yet. Only +one thing we must affirm; the State should be very careful how it +interferes with the domestic lives of its citizens. The State was going +rather far in that direction; it savoured unpleasantly of Socialism, a +tyranny to which Englishmen did not take kindly. An Englishman's home +had always been his castle (even castles, thought some aggrieved members +of the congregation, were subject to unpleasant supervision by the +police during food scarcity). No race was before us in its respect for +law, but also no race was more determined that their personal and +domestic relations should not be tampered with. When the State +endeavoured to set up a Directorate of Matrimony, and penalised those +who did not conform to its regulations, the State was, said the vicar, +going too far, even for a State. The old school of _laissez-faire_, long +since discredited as an economic theory, survived as regards the private +lives of citizens. It is not the State which has ordained marriage, it +is God, and God did not say "Only marry the clever; have no children but +clever ones." He said, speaking through the inspired mouth of the writer +of the book of Genesis, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the +earth." ("And, through the inspired mouth of Solomon, 'Desire not a +multitude of unprofitable children,'" murmured Anthony Grammont, who +knew his Bible in patches, but was apt to get the authorship wrong.) + +The vicar said he was now going to say a bold thing; if it brought him +within reach of the law he could not help it. He considered that we +ought all, in this matter, to be what are called Conscientious +Obstructionists; we ought to protest against this interference, and +refuse to pay the taxes levied upon those less intelligent infants sent +to us by heaven. He did not say this without much thought and prayer, +and it was, of course, a matter for everyone's own conscience, but he +felt constrained to bear his witness on this question. + +This came to Ivy as a shock. She had not known that her father was going +to bear his witness this morning. She watched Prideaux's face with some +anxiety. She admired and feared Prideaux, and thought how angry he must +be. Not Miss Grammont; Miss Grammont didn't take these things quite +seriously enough to be angry. Ivy sometimes suspected that the whole +work of the Ministry of Brains, and, indeed, of every other Ministry, +was a joke to her. + +It was a relief to Ivy when her father finished his sermon on a more +loyal note, by an urgent exhortation to everyone to go in for the Mind +Training Course. We must not be backward, he said, in obeying our +country in this righteous cause. He, for his part, intended to go in for +it, with his household (Mrs. Delmer looked resigned but a little +worried, as if she was mentally fitting in the Mind Training Course with +all the other things she had to do, and finding it a close fit) and he +hoped everyone in the congregation would do the same. Ivy saw Prideaux's +profile become more approving. Perhaps her father had retrieved his +reputation for patriotism after all. Anyhow at this point the And Now +brought them all to their feet, they sang a hymn (the official hymn +composed and issued by the Brains Ministry), had a collection (for the +education of imbeciles), a prayer for the enlightenment of dark minds +(which perhaps meant the same), and trooped out of church. + + +3 + +"He ought, of course," said Prideaux at lunch, "to be reported and +prosecuted for propaganda contrary to the national interest. But we +won't report him; he redeemed himself by his patriotic finish." + +"He is redeemed for evermore by his express train," said Kitty. + +"A most instructive morning," said Amherst. + +"Protestants are wonderful people," said Cyril. + +"I always said that man was a regular pet lamb," said Pansy. "And hadn't +he pluck! Fancy givin' it us about that silly old baby tax with you two +representatives of the government sitting under him an' freezin' him. I +guess I'll have the Cheeper christened first opportunity, just to please +him, what, old dear?" + +Anthony, thus addressed, said, "As soon and as often as you like, +darling. Don't mind me. Only I suppose you realise that it will mean +thinking of a name for him--Sidney, or Bert, or Lloyd George or +something." + +"Montmorency," said Pansy promptly. "Monty for short, of course. That'll +sound awfully well in revue." + +It should be noted as one up for Mr. Delmer that his sermon, whether or +not it brought many of his parishioners to the Government Mind Training +Course, had anyhow (unless Pansy forgot again) brought one infant soul +into the Christian Church. + + +4 + +Mrs. Delmer said to Ivy, "I suppose we shall all have to go in for it, +dear, as father's told everyone we're going to. But I don't quite know +how I'm going to get the time, especially with this new boy so +untrustworthy about changing the hens' water when he feeds them and +crushing up the bones for them. Perhaps he'll be better when he's taken +the course himself. But I half suspect it's not so much stupidity as +naughtiness.... Well, well, if father wants us to we must." + +Jane said, kicking stones along the road as she walked, "Shall I be top +of my form when I've taken the Course, mother? Shall I, mother? Will +John? John was lower than me last week. _Shall_ we, mother?" + +Mrs. Delmer very sensibly observed that, if all the other children in +the parish took the course too, as they ought, their relative capacities +would remain unchanged. "But if both you and John took a little more +pains over your home-work, Jane," she took the opportunity to add, +whereupon Jane very naturally changed the subject. + +Betty's contribution was "_Brains!_ What a silly fuss about them. Who +wants brains?" + +Which was, indeed, a very pertinent question, and one which Nicholas +Chester sometimes sadly asked himself. + +Who, alas, did? + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +OUR WEEK + + +1 + +Brains Week ("Our Week," as it was called by the ladies who sold flags +for it) having opened thus auspiciously, flourished along its gallant +way like a travelling fair urging people to come and buy, like a tank +coaxing people to come in and purchase war bonds, like the War Office +before the Military Service Acts, like the Ministry of Food before +compulsory rationing. It was, in fact, the last great appeal for +voluntary recruits for the higher intelligence; if it failed then +compulsion would have to be resorted to. Many people thought that +compulsion should in any case be resorted to; what was the good of a +government if not to compel? If the Great War hadn't taught it that, it +hadn't taught it much. This was the view put forward in many prominent +journals; others, who would rather see England free than England clever, +advocated with urgency the voluntary scheme, hoping, if it might be, to +see England both. + +It was a week of strenuous and gallant effort on the part of the +Government and its assistants. Every Cinema showed dramas representing +the contrasted fates of the Intelligent and the Stupid. Kiosks of +Propaganda and Information were set up in every prominent shop. +Trafalgar Square was brilliant with posters, a very flower-garden. The +Ministry of Brains' artists had given of their best. Pictorial +propaganda bloomed on every city wall, "Before and After," "The Rich Man +and the Poor Man" (the Rich Man, in a faultless fur coat, observing to +the Poor Man in patched reach-me-downs, "Yes, I was always below you at +school, wasn't I? But since then I've taken the Mind Training Course, +and now money rolls in. Sorry you're down on your luck, old man, but why +don't you do as I've done?") and a special poster for underground +railways, portraying victims of the perils of the streets--"A will be +safe because he has taken the Mind Training Course and is consequently +facing the traffic. B will not, because he has refused to improve his +mind and has therefore alighted from a motor bus in the wrong direction +and with his back to oncoming traffic; he will also be crushed by a +street aero, having by his foolish behaviour excited the aviator. B will +therefore perish miserably, AND DESERVES TO." + +There were also pictures of human love, that most moving of subjects for +art. "Yes, dear, I love you. But we are both C2" (they looked it). "We +cannot marry; we must part for ever. You must marry Miss Bryte-Braynes, +who has too few teeth and squints, and I must accept Mr. Brilliantine, +who puts too much oil on his hair. For beauty is only skin-deep, but +wisdom endures for ever. We must THINK OF POSTERITY." + +Nor was Commerce backward in the cause. Every daily paper contained +advertisements from our more prominent emporiums, such as "Get tickets +for the M.T. Course at Selfswank's. Every taker of a ticket will receive +a coupon for our great L1000 lottery. The drawing will be performed in a +fortnight from to-day, by the late Prime Minister's wife." (To reassure +the anxious it should be said that the late Prime Minister was not +deceased but abolished; the country was governed by a United Council, +five minds with but a single thought--if that.) "By taking our tickets +you benefit yourself, benefit posterity, benefit your country, and stand +a good chance of winning A CASH PRIZE." + +And every patriotic advertiser of clothes, furs, jewellery, groceries, +or other commodities, tacked on to his advertisement, "Take a ticket +this week for the M.T. Course." And every patriotic letter-writer bought +a Brains Stamp, and stamped his envelopes with the legend "Improve your +Brains now." + +Railway bookstalls were spread with literature on the subject. The +_Queen_, the _Gentlewoman_, the _Sketch_, and other such periodicals +suited, one imagines, to the simpler type of female mind, had articles +on "Why does a woman look old sooner than a man?" (the answer to this +was that, though men are usually stupid, women are often stupider still, +and have taken even less pains to improve their minds), "Take care of +your mind and your complexion will take care of itself," "Raise yourself +to category A, and you enlarge your matrimonial field," "How to train +Baby's intellect," and so forth. Side by side with these journals was +the current number of the _Cambridge Magazine_, bearing on its cover the +legend "A Short Way with Fools; Pogrom of the Old Men. Everyone over +forty to be shot." "We have always said," the article under these +head-lines very truly began, "and we do not hesitate to say it again, +that the only way to secure an intelligent government or citizenship in +any nation is to dispose, firmly but not kindly, of the old and the +middle-aged, and to let the young have their day. There will then be no +more such hideous blunders as those with which the diplomacy of our +doddering elders has wrecked the world again and again during the past +centuries." + +The _Evening News_ had cartoons every day of the Combing Out of the +Stupid, whom it was pleased to call Algies and Dollies. The _New +Witness_, on the other hand, striking a different note, said that it was +the fine old Christian Gentile quality of stupidity which had made Old +England what it was; the natives of Merrie England had always resented +excessive acuteness, as exhibited in the Hebrew race at their expense. +The _Herald_, however, rejoiced in large type in the Open Door to +Labour; the _Church Times_ reported Brains Sunday sermons by many +divines (in most of them sounded the protest raised by the vicar of +Little Chantreys against interference with domestic rights, the Church +was obviously going to be troublesome in this matter) and the other +journals, from the _Hidden Hand_ down to _Home Chat_, supported the +cause in their varying degrees and characteristic voices. + +Among them lay the Ministry of Brains pamphlets, "Brains. How to get and +keep them," "The cultivation of the Mind," etc. In rows among the books +and papers hung the Great Thoughts from Great Minds series--portraits of +eminent persons with their most famous remarks on this subject inscribed +beneath them. "It is the duty of every man, woman, and child in this +country so to order their lives in this peace crisis as to make the +least possible demand upon the intelligence of others. It is necessary, +therefore, to have some of your own." (An eminent minister.) "I never +had any assistance beyond my wits. Through them I am what I am. What +that is, it is for others rather than for myself to judge." (A great +journalist.) "It was lack of brains (I will not say whose, but it +occurred before the first Coalition Government, mind you) which plunged +Europe into the Great War. Brains--again, mark you, I do not say +whose--must make and keep the Great Peace." (One of our former Prime +Ministers.) "I have always wished I had some." (A Royal Personage.) "I +must by all means have a Brains Ministry started in Liberia." (The +Liberian Ambassador.) Then, after remarks by Shakespeare, Emerson, +Carlyle, Mr. R. J. Campbell, Henry James, President Wilson, Marcus +Aurelius, Solomon, Ecclesiasticus ("What is heavier than lead, and what +is the name thereof but a fool?") and Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the +portrait gallery concluded with Mr. Nicholas Chester, the Minister of +Brains, looking like an embittered humorist, and remarking, "It's a +damned silly world." + + +2 + +"Amen to that," Miss Kitty Grammont remarked, stopping for a moment +after buying _Truth_ at the bookstall and gazing solemnly into the +Minister's disillusioned eyes. "And it would be a damned dull one if it +wasn't." She sauntered out of Charing Cross tube station and boarded an +Embankment tram. This was the Monday morning after Brains Week had run +its course. + +The fact had to be faced by the Ministry: Brains Week had proved +disappointing. The public were not playing up as they should. + +"We have said all along," said _The Times_ (anticipating the _Hidden +Hand_, which had not yet made up its mind), "that the Government should +take a strong line in this matter. They must not trust to voluntary +effort; we say, and we believe that, as always, we voice the soundest +opinion in the country, that it is up to the Government to take the +measures which it has decided, upon mature consideration, to be for the +country's good. Though we have given every possible support to the great +voluntary effort recently made, truth compels us to state that the +results are proving disappointing. Compulsion must follow, and the +sooner the Government make up their minds to accept this fact the better +advised it will be. Surely if there is one thing above all others which +the Great War (so prolific in lessons) has taught us, it is that +compulsion is not tyranny, nor law oppression. Let the Government, too +long vacillating, act, and act quickly, and they will find a responsive +and grateful nation ready to obey." + +Thus _The Times_, and thus, in a less dignified choice of language, many +lesser organs. To which the _Herald_ darkly rejoined, "If the Government +tries this on, let it look to itself." + +"It'll have to come," said Vernon Prideaux to Kitty Grammont at lunch. +They were lunching at one of those underground resorts about which, as +Kitty said, you never know, some being highly respectable, while others +are not. Kitty, with her long-lashed, mossy eyes and demure expression, +looked and felt at home among divans for two, screens, powdered +waitresses, and rose-shaded lights; she had taken Prideaux there for +fun, because among such environment he looked a stranger and pilgrim, +angular, fastidious, whose home was above. Kitty liked to study her +friends in different lights, even rose-shaded ones, and especially one +who, besides being a friend, was her departmental superior, and a +coming, even come, young man of exceptional brilliance, who might one +day be ruling the country. + +"If it does," said Kitty, "we shall have to go, that's all. No more +compulsion is going to be stood at present. Nothing short of another +war, with a military dictatorship and martial law, will save us." + +"We stood compulsory education when there was no war," Prideaux pointed +out. "We've stood vaccination, taxation, every conceivable form of +interference with what we are pleased to call our liberty. This is no +worse; it's the logical outcome of State government of the individual. +Little by little, precept upon precept, line upon line, these things +grow, till we're a serf state without realising it.... After all, why +not? What most people mean by freedom would be a loathsome condition; +freedom to behave like animals or lunatics, to annoy each other and +damage the State. What's the sense of it? Human beings aren't up to it, +that's the fact." + +"I quite agree with you," said Kitty. "Only the weak point is that +hardly any human beings are up to making good laws for the rest, either. +We shall slip up badly over this Mind Training Act, if we ever get it +through; it will be as full of snags as the Mental Progress Act. We +shall have to take on a whole extra Branch to deal with the exemptions +alone. Chester's clever, but he's not clever enough to make a good Act. +No one is.... By the way, Vernon, you nearly told me something the other +day about Chester's category. You might quite tell me now, as we're in +the Raid Shelter and not in the Office." + +"Did I? It was only that I heard he was uncertificated for marriage. +He's got a brother and a twin sister half-witted. I suppose he collared +all the brains that were going in his family." + +"He would, of course, if he could. He's selfish." + +"Selfish," Prideaux was doubtful. "If you can call such a visionary and +idealist selfish." + +"Visionaries and idealists are always selfish. Look at Napoleon, and +Wilhelm II, as Mr. Delmer would say. Visions and ideals are the most +selfish things there are. People go about wrapped in them, and keep +themselves so warm that they forget that other people need ordinary +clothes.... So the Minister is uncertificated.... Well, I'm going up to +Regent Street to buy a birthday present for Pansy and cigarettes for +myself." + +"I must get back," said Prideaux. "I've a Leeds Manufacturers' +deputation coming to see me at 2.30 about their men's wages. Leeds +workmen, apparently, don't let the Mental Progress Act weigh on them at +all; they go calmly ahead with their uncertificated marriages, and then +strike for higher wages in view of the taxable family they intend to +produce. These fellows coming to-day have got wind of the new agreement +with the cutlers and want one like it. I've got to keep them at arm's +length." + +He emerged above ground, breathed more freely, and walked briskly back +to the Ministry. Kitty went to Regent Street, and did not get back to +the office until 3.15. + + +3 + +Kitty had lately been returned from the Propaganda Branch to her own, +the Exemption Branch. Being late, she slipped into her place +unostentatiously. Her in-tray contained a mass of files, as yet undealt +with. She began to look through these, with a view to relegating the +less attractive to the bottom of the tray, where they could wait until +she had nothing better to do than to attend to them. To-day there were a +great many letters from the public beginning "Dear Sir, Mr. Wilkinson +said in parliament on Tuesday that families should not be reduced to +destitution through the baby-taxes...." That was so like Mr. Wilkinson +(parliamentary secretary to the Brains Ministry). Whenever he +thoughtlessly dropped these _obiter dicta_, so sweeping, so far removed +from truth, which was almost whenever he spoke, there was trouble. The +guileless public hung on his words, waiting to pick them up and send +them in letters to the Ministry. These letters went to the bottom of the +tray. They usually only needed a stock reply, telling the applicants to +attend their local tribunal. After several of these in succession, Kitty +opened a file which had been minuted down from another branch, M.B. 4. +Attached to it were two sheets of minutes which had passed between +various individuals regarding the case in question; the last minute was +addressed to M.B. 3, and said "Passed to you for information and +necessary action." It was a melancholy tale from an aggrieved citizen +concerning his infant, who was liable to a heavy tax, and who had been +drowned by his aunt while being washed, before he was two hours old, and +the authorities still demanded the payment of the tax. Kitty, who found +the helplessness of M.B. 4 annoying, wrote a curt minute, "Neither +information nor action seems to us necessary," then had to erase it +because it looked rude, and wrote instead, more mildly, "Seen, thank +you. This man appears to be covered by M.B.I. 187, in which case his +taxation is surely quite in order and no action is possible. We see no +reason why we should deal with the case rather than you." + +It is difficult always to be quite polite in minutes, cheap satire +costing so little and relieving the feelings, but it can and should be +done; nothing so shows true breeding in a Civil Servant. + +Kitty next replied to a letter from the Admiralty, about sailors' babies +(the family arrangements of sailors are, of course, complicated, owing +to their having a wife in every port). The Admiralty said that My Lords +Commissioners had read the Minister of Brains' (i.e. Kitty's) last +letter to them on this subject with much surprise. The Admiralty's +faculty of surprise was infinitely fresh; it seemed new, like mercy, +each returning day. The Minister of Brains evoked it almost every time +he, through the pens of his clerks, wrote to them. My Lords viewed with +grave apprehension the line taken by the Minister on this important +subject, and They trusted it would be reconsidered. (My Lords always +wrote of themselves with a capital They, as if they were deities.) Kitty +drafted a reply to this letter and put it aside to consult Prideaux +about. She carried on a chronic quarrel with My Lords, doubtless to the +satisfaction of both sides. + +Soothed and stimulated by this encounter, she was the better prepared in +temper when she opened a file in which voluminous correspondence +concerning two men named Stephen Williams had been jacketed together by +a guileless registry, to whom such details as that one Stephen Williams +appeared to be a dentist's assistant and the other a young man in the +diplomatic service were as contemptible obstacles, to be taken in an +easy stride. The correspondence in this file was sufficiently at cross +purposes to be more amusing than most correspondence. When she had +perused it, Kitty, sad that she must tear asunder this happily linked +pair, sent it down to the registry with a regretful note that "These two +cases, having no connection, should be registered separately," and fell +to speculating, as she often did, on the registry, which, amid the +trials that beset them and the sorrows they endured, and the manifold +confusions and temptations of their dim life, were so strangely often +right. They worked underground, the registry people, like gnomes in a +cave, opening letters and registering them and filing them and sending +them upstairs, astonishingly often in the file which belonged to them. +But, mainly, looking for papers and not finding them, and writing "No +trace," "Cannot be traced," on slips, as if the papers were wild animals +which had got loose and had to be hunted down. A queer life, questing, +burrowing, unsatisfied, underground.... No wonder they made some +mistakes. + +Kitty opened one now--a bitter complaint, which should have gone to M.B. +5, from one who considered himself placed in a wrong category. "When I +tell you, sir," it ran, "that at the Leamington High School I carried +off two prizes (geography and recitation) and was twice fourth in my +form, and after leaving have given great satisfaction (I am told) as a +solicitor's clerk, so that there has been some talk of raising my +salary, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that the Local +Intelligence Board placed me in class C1. I applied to the County Board, +and (owing, as I have reason to know, to local feeling and jealousy) I +was placed by them in C2. Sir, I ask you for a special examination by +the Central Intelligence Board. I should be well up in Class B. There +are some walking about in this town who are classed B1 and 2, who are +the occasion of much local feeling, as it surprises all who know them +that they should be classed so high. To my knowledge some of these +persons cannot do a sum right in their heads, and it is thought very +strange that they should have so imposed on the Intelligence Officers, +though the reasons for this are not really far to seek, and should be +enquired into...." + +A gay and engaging young man with a wooden leg (he had lost his own in +1914, and had during the rest of the war worked at the War Office, and +carried the happy Q.M.G. touch) wandered in from M.B. 5 while Kitty was +reading this, and she handed it over to him. He glanced at it. + +"We shall perhaps be surprised, shall we.... How likely.... The public +overestimate our faculty for surprise. They have yet to learn that the +only thing which would surprise the Ministry of Brains would be finding +someone correctly classified.... I shall tell him I'm A2 myself, though +I never got a prize in my life for geography or recitation, and I can't +do sums in my head for nuts. I ought to be somewhere about B3; I +surprise all who know me.... What I came in to say was, do any of you in +here want a sure tip for the Oaks? Because I've got one. Silly Blighter; +yes, you thought he was an absolute outsider, didn't you, so did +everyone else; but he's not. You take the tip, it's a straight one, +first hand. No, don't mention it, I always like to do M.B. 3 a good +turn, though I wouldn't do it for everyone.... Well, I'm off, I'm +beastly busy.... Heard the latest Chester, by the way? Someone tried the +Wheeldon stunt on him--sent him a poisoned thorn by special messenger in +a packet "To be opened by the Minister Himself." Jervis-Browne opened +it, of course, and nearly pricked him self. When he took it to Chester, +Chester did the Sherlock Holmes touch, and said he knew the thorn, it +came off a shrub in Central Africa or Kew Gardens or somewhere. I think +he knew the poison, too; he wanted Jervis-Browne to suck it, to make +sure, but J.-B. wasn't having any, and Chester didn't like to risk +himself, naturally. His little P.S. would have done it like a shot, but +they thought it would be hard luck on the poor child's people. And while +they were discussin' it, Chester ran the thing into his own finger by +mistake. While J.-B. was waitin' to see him swell up and turn black, and +feelin' bad lest he should be told to suck it (he knows Chester doesn't +really value him at his true worth, you see), Chester whipped out his +penknife and gouged a great slice out of his finger as you'd cut cheese, +all round the prick. He turned as white as chalk, J.-B. says, but never +screamed, except to let out one curse. And when he'd done it, and had +the shorthand typist in from J.-B.'s room to tie it up, he began to +giggle--you know that sad, cynical giggle of his that disconcerts solemn +people so much--and said he'd have the beastly weapon cleaned and take +it home and frame it in glass, with the other mementoes of a people's +hate.... I say, I do waste your time in here, don't I? And my own; +that's to say the government's. I'm off." + +"Gay child," Kitty murmured to her neighbour as he went. "He blooms in +an office like an orchid in a dust-bin. And very nice too. I remember +being nearly as bright at his age; though, for my sins, I was never in +Q.M.G. A wonderful Branch that is." + +Thereupon she threw away her cigarette, wrote five letters with +extraordinary despatch and undepartmental conciseness of style, and went +to have tea in the canteen. + + +4 + +The Minister was having tea too, looking even paler than usual, with his +left hand in a sling. Kitty put up her eye-glasses and looked at him +with increased interest. As ministers go, he was certainly of an +interesting appearance; she had always thought that. She rather liked +the paradoxical combination of shrewdness and idealism, sullenness and +humour, in his white, black-browed, clever face. He looked patient, but +patient perforce, as if he rode natural impatience on a curb. He looked +as if he might know a desperate earnestness, but preferred to keep it at +arm's length with a joke; his earnestness would be too grim and violent +to be an easy and natural companion to him. He looked as if he might get +very badly hurt, but would cut out the hurt and throw it away with the +cold promptness of the surgeon. He was not yet forty, but looked more, +perhaps because he enjoyed bad health. At this moment he was eating a +rock bun and talking to Vernon Prideaux. One difference between them was +that Prideaux looked an intelligent success, like a civil servant, or a +rising barrister or M.P., and Chester looked a brilliant failure, and +more like a Sinn Feiner or a Bolshevist. Only not really like either of +these, because he didn't look as if he would muff things. He might go +under, but his revolutions wouldn't. Kitty, who too greatly despised +people who muffed things, recognised the distinction. She had a friend +whose revolutions, which were many, always did go under.... + +There was a queer, violent strength about the Minister. + +But when he smiled it was as if someone had flashed a torch on lowering +cliffs, and lit them into extraordinary and elf-like beauty. Kitty knew +already that he could be witty; she suddenly perceived now that he could +be sweet--a bad word, but there seemed no other. + +He ate another rock bun, and another. But they were small. His eyes fell +on Kitty, eating a jam sandwich. But his thoughts were elsewhere. + +"Yes, it was me that had to tie it up for him," Ivy Delmer was saying to +another typist. "Luckily I've done First Aid. But I felt like +fainting.... The _blood_.... I don't _like_ him, you know; his manners +are so funny and his dictating is so difficult; but I must say I did +admire his pluck.... He never thanked me or anything--he wouldn't, of +course. Not that I minded a scrap about that...." + + +5 + +When Kitty got home to her flat that evening, she found the Boomerang on +the floor. (It was on the floor owing to the lack of a letter-box.) The +Boomerang was a letter from herself, addressed to Neil Desmond, Esq., +and she wrote it and despatched it every few months or so, whenever, in +fact, she had, at the moment, nothing better to do. On such days as Bank +Holidays, when she spent them at the office but official work did not +press, Kitty tidied the drawers of her table and wrote to break off her +engagement. The drawers got tidied all right, but it is doubtful whether +the engagement could ever be considered to have got broken off, owing to +the letter breaking it being a boomerang. It was a boomerang because +Neil Desmond, Esq. was a person of no fixed address. He wrote long and +thrilling letters to Kitty (which, if her correspondence had been raided +by the police, would probably have subjected her to arrest--he had +himself for long been liable to almost every species of arrest, so could +hardly be further incriminated), but when she wrote to the address he +gave he was no longer ever there, and so her letters returned to her +like homing pigeons. So the position was that Neil was engaged to Kitty, +and Kitty had so far failed to disengage herself from Neil. Neil was +that friend who has been already referred to as one whose revolutions +always went under. Kitty had met him first in Greece, in April, 1914. +She had since decided that he was probably at his best in Greece. In +July he had been arming to fight Carson's rebels when the outbreak of +the European War disappointed him. The parts played by him in the +European War were many and various, and, from the British point of view, +mostly regrettable. He followed Sir Roger Casement through many +adventures, and only just escaped sharing in the last of all. He partook +in the Sinn Fein rising of Easter, 1916 (muffed, as usual, Kitty had +commented), and had then disappeared, and had mysteriously emerged again +in Petrograd a year later, to help with the Russian revolution. +Wherever, in fact, a revolution was, Neil Desmond was sure to be. He had +had, as may be imagined, a busy and satisfactory summer and autumn +there, and had many interesting, if impermanent, friends, such as +Kerensky, Protopopoff (whom, however, he did not greatly care for), +Kaledin, Lenin, Trotzky, Mr. Arthur Ransome, and General Korniloff. (It +might be thought that the politics of this last-named would not have +been regarded by Neil with a favourable eye, but he was, anyhow, making +a revolution which did not come off.) In January, 1918, Neil had got +tired of Russia (this is liable to occur) and gone off to America, where +he had for some time been doing something or other, no doubt +discreditable, with an Irish-American league. Then a revolution which +seemed to require his assistance broke out in Equador, which kept him +occupied for some weeks. After that he had gone to Greece, where Kitty +vaguely believed him still to be (unless he was visiting, with seditious +intent, the island in the Pacific where the world's great Have-Beens +were harmoniously segregated). + +"The only thing for it," Kitty observed to the cousin with whom she +lived, a willowy and lovely young lily of the field, who had had a job +once but had lost it owing to peace, and was now having a long rest, +"The only thing for it is to put it in the agony column of the--no, not +_The Times_, of course he wouldn't read it, but the _Irish-American +Banner_ or something. 'K. G. to N. D. All over. Regret.'" + +"You'll have to marry him, darling. God means you to," sang her cousin, +hooking herself into a flame-coloured and silver evening dress. + +"It certainly looks as if he did," Kitty admitted, and began to take her +own clothes off, for she was going to see Pansy in a new revue. (Anthony +would have been the last man to wish to tie Pansy down to home +avocations when duty called; he was much too proud of her special +talents to wish her to hide them in a napkin.) + +The revue was a good one, Pansy was her best self, lazy, sweet, +facetious, and extraordinarily supple, the other performers also +performed suitably, each in his manner, and Kitty afterwards had supper +with a party of them. These were the occasions when office work, seen +from this gayer corner of life, seemed incredibly dusty, tedious and +sad.... + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EXPLANATION CAMPAIGN + + +1 + +It will be generally admitted that Acts are not good at explaining +themselves, and call for words to explain them; many words, so many that +it is at times wondered whether the Acts are worth it. It occurred about +this time to the Ministry of Brains that more words were called for to +explain both the Mental Progress Act recently passed and the Mind +Training Act which was still a Bill. For neither of these Acts seemed to +have yet explained itself, or been explained, to the public, in such a +manner as to give general satisfaction. And yet explanations had to be +given with care. Acts, like lawyers' deeds, do not care to be understood +through and through. The kind of explaining they really need, as Kitty +Grammont observed, is the kind called explaining away. For this task she +considered herself peculiarly fitted by training, owing to having had in +her own private career several acts which had demanded it. It was +perhaps for this reason that she was among those chosen by the +authorities for the Explanation Campaign. The Explanation Campaign was +to be fought in the rural villages of England, by bands of speakers +chosen for their gift of the ready word, and it would be a tough fight. +The things to be explained were the two Acts above mentioned. + +"And none of mine," Kitty remarked to Prideaux, "ever needed so much +explanation as these will.... Let me see, no one ever even tried to +explain any of the Military Service Acts, did they? At least only in the +press. The perpetrators never dared to face the public man to man, on +village greens." + +"It ought to have been done more," Prideaux said. "The Review of +Exceptions, for instance. If questions and complaints could have been +got out of the public in the open, and answered on village greens, as +you say, instead of by official letters which only made things worse, a +lot of trouble might have been avoided. Chester is great on these +heart-to-heart talks.... By the way, he's going to interview all the +Explanation people individually before they start, to make sure they're +going about it in the right spirit." + +"That's so like Chester; he'll go to any trouble," Kitty said. "I'm +getting to think he's a really great man." + + +2 + +Chester really did interview them all. To Kitty, whom already he knew +personally, he talked freely. + +"You must let the people in," he said, walking about the room, his hands +in his pockets. "Don't keep them at official arm's length. Let them feel +_part_ of it all.... Make them catch fire with the idea of it.... It's +sheer stark truth--intelligence _is_ the thing that counts--if only +everyone would see it. Make them see stupidity for the limp, hopeless, +helpless, animal thing it is--an idiot drivelling on a green"--Kitty +could have fancied that he shuddered a little--"make them hate it--want +the other thing; want it so much that they'll even sacrifice a little of +their personal comfort and desires to get it for themselves and their +children. They must want it more than money, more than comfort, more +than love, more than freedom.... You'll have to get hold of different +people in different ways, of course; some have imaginations and some +haven't; those who haven't must be appealed to through their common +sense, if any, or, failing any, their feeling for their children, or, +even, at the lowest, their fear of consequences.... Tell some of them +there'll be another war if they're so stupid; tell others they'll never +get on in the world; anything you think will touch the spot. But first, +always, try to collar their imaginations.... You've done some public +speaking, haven't you?" + +Kitty owned it, and he nodded. + +"That's all right, then; you'll know how to keep your finger on the +audience's pulse.... You'll make them laugh, too...." + +Kitty was uncertain, as she left the presence, whether this last was an +instruction or a prophecy. + + +3 + +The other members of Kitty's party (the Campaign was to be conducted in +parties of two or three people each) did not belong to the Ministry; +they were hired for it for this purpose. They were a lady doctor, +prominent on public platforms and decorated for signal services to her +country during the Great War, and a free-lance clergyman known for his +pulpit eloquence and the caustic wit with which he lashed the social +system. He had resigned his incumbency long ago in order to devote +himself the more freely to propaganda work for the causes he had at +heart, wrote for a labour paper, and went round the country speaking. +The Minister of Brains (who had been at Cambridge with him, and read his +articles in the labour paper, in which he frequently stated that +muddle-headedness was the curse of the world) had, with his usual eye +for men, secured him to assist in setting forth the merits of the Brains +Acts. + +They began in Buckinghamshire, which was one of the counties assigned to +them. At Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield it was chilly, and they held +their meetings respectively in the National School and in the bright +green Parish Hall which is the one blot on a most picturesque city. But +at Little Chantreys it was fine, and they met at six o'clock in the +broad open space outside the church. They had a good audience. The +meeting had been well advertised, and it seemed that the village was as +anxious to hear the Brains Acts explained as the Ministry was to explain +them. Or possibly the village, for its own part, had something it wished +to explain. Anyhow they came, rich and poor, high and low, men, women, +children, and infants in arms (these had, for the most part, every +appearance of deserving heavy taxation; however, the physiognomy of +infants is sometimes misleading). Anthony Grammont and Pansy were there, +with the Cheeper, now proud in his baptismal name of Montmorency. The +vicar and his wife were there too, though Mr. Delmer did not approve +much of the Reverend Stephen Dixon, rightly thinking him a disturbing +priest. It was all very well to advocate Life and Liberty in moderation +(though Mr. Delmer did not himself belong to the society for promoting +these things in the Church), but the vicar did not believe that any +church could stand, without bursting, the amount of new wine which +Stephen Dixon wished to pour into it. "He is very much in earnest," was +all the approval that he could, in his charity, give to this priest. So +he waited a little uneasily for Dixon's remarks on the Brains Acts, +feeling that it might become his ungracious duty to take public +exception to some of them. + +The scene had its picturesqueness in the evening sunshine--the open +space in which the narrow village streets met, backed by the little grey +church, and with a patch of green where women and children sat; and in +front of these people standing, leisurely, placid, gossiping, the women +innocently curious to hear what the speakers from London had to say +about this foolish business there was such an upset about just now; some +of the men more aggressive, determined to stand no nonsense, with a +we'll-know-the-reason-why expression on their faces. This expression was +peculiarly marked on the countenance of the local squire, Captain +Ambrose. He did not like all this interfering, socialist what-not, which +was both upsetting the domestic arrangements of his tenants and trying +to put into their heads more learning than was suitable for them to +have. For his part he thought every man had a right to be a fool if he +chose, yes, and to marry another fool, and to bring up a family of fools +too. Damn it all, fools or not, hadn't they shed their blood for their +country, and where would the country have been without them, though now +the country talked so glibly of not allowing them to reproduce +themselves until they were more intelligent. Captain Ambrose, a +fragile-looking man, burnt by Syrian suns and crippled by British +machine-guns at instruction classes (a regrettable mistake which of +course would not have occurred had the operator been more intelligent), +stood in the forefront of the audience with intention to heckle. Near +him stood the Delmers and Miss Ponsonby and Anthony Grammont. Pansy was +talking, in her friendly, cheerful way, to Mrs. Delmer about the +Cheeper's food arrangements, which were unusual in one so young. + +In the middle of the square were Dr. Cross, graceful, capable-looking +and grey-haired; Stephen Dixon, lean and peculiar (so the village +thought); Kitty Grammont, pale after the day's heat, and playing with +her dangling pince-nez; a tub; and two perambulators, each containing an +infant; Mrs. Rose's and Mrs. Dean's, as the village knew. The lady +doctor had been round in the afternoon looking at all the babies and +asking questions, and had finally picked these two and asked if they +might be lent for the meeting. But what use was going to be made of the +poor mites, no one knew. + +Dr. Cross was on the tub. She was talking about the already existing +Act, the Mental Progress Act of last year. + +"Take some talking about, too, to make us swallow it whole," muttered +Captain Ambrose. + +Dr. Cross was a gracious and eloquent speaker; the village rather liked +her. She talked of babies, as one who knew; no doubt she did know, +having, as she mentioned, had two herself. She grew pathetic in pleading +for the rights of the children to their chance in life. Some of the +mothers wiped their eyes and hugged their infants closer to them; they +should have it, then, so they should. How, said the doctor, were +children to win any of life's prizes without brains? (Jane Delmer looked +self-conscious; she had won a prize for drawing this term; she wondered +if the speaker had heard this.) Even health--how could health be won and +kept without intelligent following of the laws nature has laid down for +us ("I never did none o' that, and look at me, seventy-five next month +and still fit and able," old William Weston was heard to remark), and +how was that to be done without intelligence? Several parents looked +dubious; they were not sure that they wanted any of that in their +households; it somehow had a vague sound of draughts.... After sketching +in outline the probable careers of the intelligent and the unintelligent +infant, between which so wide a gulf was fixed, the doctor discoursed on +heredity, that force so inadequately reckoned with, which moulds the +generations. Appealing to Biblical lore, she enquired if figs were +likely to produce thorns, or thistles grapes. This started William +Weston, who had been a gardener, on strange accidents he had met with in +the vegetable world; Dr. Cross, a gardener too, listened with interest, +but observed that these were freaks and must not, of course, be taken as +the normal; then, to close that subject, she stepped down from the tub, +took the infants Rose and Dean out of their perambulators, and held them +up, one on each arm, to the public gaze. Here, you have, she said, a +certificated child, whose parents received a bonus for it, and an +uncertificated child, whose parents were taxed. Observe the difference +in the two--look at the bright, noticing air of the infant Rose ("Of +course; she's a-jogglin' of it up and down on her arm," said a small +girl who knew the infant Rose). Observe its fine, intelligent little +head (Mrs. Rose preened, gratified). A child who is going to make a good +thing of its life. Now compare it with the lethargy of the other baby, +who lies sucking an india-rubber sucker (a foolish and unclean habit in +itself) and taking no notice of the world about it. + +"Why, the poor mite," this infant's parent exclaimed, pushing her way to +the front, "she's been ailing the last two days; it's her pore little +tummy, that's all. And, if you please, ma'am, I'll take her home now. +Holdin' her up to scorn before the village that way--an' you call +yourself a mother!" + +"Indeed, I meant nothing against the poor child," Dr. Cross explained, +realising that she had, indeed, been singularly tactless. "She is merely +a type, to illustrate my meaning.... And, of course, it's more than +possible that if you give her a thoroughly good mental training she may +become as intelligent as anyone, in spite of having been so heavily +handicapped by her parents' unregulated marriage. That's where the +Government Mind Training Course will come in. She'll be developed beyond +all belief...." + +"She won't," said the outraged parent, arranging her infant in her +perambulator, "be developed or anythin' else. She's comin' home to bed. +And I'd like to know what you mean, ma'am, by unregulated marriage. Our +marriage was all right; it was 'ighly approved, and we got money by this +baby. It's my opinion you've mixed the two children up, and are taking +mine for Mrs. Rose's there, that got taxed, pore mite, owing to Mr. and +Mrs. Rose both being in C class." + +"That's right," someone else cried. "It's the other one that was taxed +and ought to be stupid; you've got 'em mixed, ma'am. Better luck next +time." + +Dr. Cross collapsed in some confusion, amid good-humoured laughter, and +the infant Rose was also hastily restored to its flattered mother, who, +being only C3, did not quite grasp what had occurred except that her +baby had been held up for admiration and Mrs. Dean's for obloquy, which +was quite right and proper. + +"One of nature's accidents," apologised Dr. Cross. "They will happen +sometimes, of course. So will stupid mistakes.... Better luck next time, +as you say." She murmured to Stephen Dixon, "Change the subject at +once," so he got upon the tub and began to talk about Democracy, how it +should control the state, but couldn't, of course, until it was better +educated. + +"But all these marriage laws," said a painter who was walking out with +the vicarage housemaid and foresaw financial ruin if they got married, +"they won't help, as I can see, to give _us_ control of the state." + +Dixon told him he must look to the future, to his children, in fact. The +painter threw a forward glance at his children, not yet born; it left +him cold. Anyhow, if he married Nellie they'd probably die young, from +starvation. + +But, in the main, Dixon's discourse on democracy was popular. Dixon was +a popular speaker with working-men; he had the right touch. But squires +did not like him. Captain Ambrose disliked him very much. It was just +democracy, and all this socialism, that was spoiling the country. + +Mr. Delmer ventured to say that he thought the private and domestic +lives of the public ought not to be tampered with. + +"Why not?" enquired Stephen Dixon, and Mr. Delmer had not, at the +moment, an answer ready. "When everything else is being tampered with," +added Dixon. "And surely the more we tamper (if you put it like that) in +the interests of progress, the further removed we are from savages." + +Mr. Delmer looked puzzled for a moment, then committed himself, without +sufficient preliminary thought, to a doubtful statement, "Human love +ought to be free," which raised a cheer. + +"Free love," Dixon returned promptly, "has never, surely, been advocated +by the best thinkers of Church or State," and while Mr. Delmer blushed, +partly at his own carelessness, partly at the delicacy of the subject, +and partly because Pansy Ponsonby was standing at his elbow, Dixon +added, "Love, like anything else, wants regulating, organising, turning +to the best uses. Otherwise, we become, surely, no better than the other +animals...." + +"Isn't he just terribly fierce," observed Pansy in her smiling +contralto, to the world at large. + +Mr. Delmer said uncomfortably, "You mistake me, sir. I was not +advocating lawless love. I am merely maintaining that love--if we must +use the word--should not be shackled by laws relating to things which +are of less importance than itself, such as the cultivation of the +intelligence." + +"_Is_ it of less importance?" Dixon challenged him. + +"The greatest of these three," began the vicar, inaptly, because he was +flustered. + +"Quite so," said Dixon; "but St. Paul, I think, doesn't include +intelligence in his three. St. Paul, I believe, was able enough himself +to know how much ability matters in the progress of religion. And, if we +are to quote St. Paul, he, of course, was no advocate of matrimony, but +I think, when carried out at all, he would have approved of its being +carried out on the best possible principles, not from mere casual +impulse and desire.... Freedom," continued Dixon, with the dreamy and +kindled eye which always denoted with him that he was on a pet topic, +"what _is_ freedom? I beg--I do beg," he added hastily, "that no one +will tell me it is mastery of ourselves. I have heard that before. It is +no such thing. Mastery of ourselves is a fine thing; freedom is, or +would be if anyone ever had such a thing, an absurdity, a monstrosity. +It would mean that there would be nothing, either external or internal, +to prevent us doing precisely what we like. No laws of nature, of +morality, of the State, of the Church, of Society...." + +Dr. Cross caught Kitty's eye behind him. + +"He's off," she murmured. "We must stop him." + +Kitty coughed twice, with meaning. It was a signal agreed upon between +the three when the others thought that the speaker was on the wrong +tack. Dixon recalled himself from Freedom with a jerk, and began to talk +about the coming Mind Training Act. He discoursed upon its general +advantages to the citizen, and concluded by saying that Miss Grammont, a +member of the Ministry of Brains, would now explain to them the Act in +detail, and answer any questions they might wish to put. This Miss +Grammont proceeded to do. And this was the critical moment of the +meeting, for the audience, who desired no Act at all, had to be +persuaded that the Act would be a good Act. Kitty outlined it, thinking +how much weaker both Acts and words sound on village greens than in +offices, which is certainly a most noteworthy fact, and one to be +remembered by all politicians and makers of laws. Perhaps it is the +unappreciative and unstimulating atmosphere of stolid distaste which is +so often, unfortunately, to be met with in villages.... Villages are so +stupid; they will not take the larger view, nor see why things annoying +to them personally are necessary for the public welfare. Kitty wished +she were instead addressing a northern manufacturing town, which would +have been much fiercer but which would have understood more about it. + +She dealt with emphasis on the brighter sides of the Act, i.e. the +clauses dealing with the pecuniary compensation people would receive for +the loss of time and money which might be involved in undergoing the +Training Course, and those relating to exemptions. When she got to the +Tribunals, a murmur of disapproval sounded. + +"They tribunals--we're sick to death of them," someone said. "Look at +the people there are walking about the countryside exempted from the +Marriage Acts, when better men and women has to obey them. The tribunals +were bad enough during the war, everyone knows, but nothing to what they +are now. We don't want any more of those." + +This was an awkward subject, as Captain Ambrose was a reluctant chairman +of the Local Mental Progress Tribunal. He fidgeted and prodded the +ground with his stick, while Kitty said, "I quite agree with you. We +don't. But if there are to be exemptions from the Act, local tribunals +are necessary. You can't have individual cases decided by the central +authorities who know nothing of the circumstances. Tribunals must be +appointed who can be relied on to grant exemptions fairly, on the +grounds specified in the Act." + +She proceeded to enumerate these grounds. One of them was such poverty +of mental calibre that the possessor was judged quite incapable of +benefiting by the course. A look of hope dawned on several faces; this +might, it was felt, be a way out. The applicant, Kitty explained, would +be granted exemption if suffering from imbecility, extreme +feeble-mindedness, any form of genuine mania, acute, intermittent, +chronic, delusional, depressive, obsessional, lethargic.... + +Dixon coughed twice, thinking the subject depressing and too technical +for the audience, and Kitty proceeded to outline the various forms of +exemption which might be held, a more cheerful topic. She concluded, +remembering the Minister's instructions, by drawing an inspiring picture +of the changed aspect life would bear after the mind had been thus +improved; how it would become a series of open doors, of chances taken, +instead of a dull closed house. Everything would be so amusing, so +possible, such fun. And they would get on; they would grow rich; there +would be perpetual peace and progress instead of another great war, +which was, alas, all too possible if the world remained as stupid as it +had been up to the present.... + +Here Kitty's eye lighted unintentionally on her brother Anthony's face, +with the twist of a cynical grin on it, and she collapsed from the +heights of eloquence. It never did for the Grammonts to encounter each +other's eyes when they were being exalted; the memories and experiences +shared by brothers and sisters rose cynically, like rude gamins, to mock +and bring them down. + +Kitty said, "If anyone would like to ask any questions...." and got off +the tub. + +Someone enquired, after the moment of blankness which usually follows +this invitation, what they would be taught, exactly. + +Kitty said there would be many different courses, adapted to differing +requirements. But, in the main, everyone would be taught to use to the +best advantage such intelligence as they might have, in that state of +life to which it might please God to call them. + +"And how," pursued the enquirer, a solid young blacksmith, "will the +teachers know what that may be?" + +Kitty explained that they wouldn't, exactly, of course, but the minds +which took the course would be so sharpened and improved as to tackle +any work better than before. But there would also be forms to be filled +in, stating approximately what was each individual's line in life. + +After another pause a harassed-looking woman at the back said +plaintively, "I'm sure it's all very nice, miss, but it does seem as if +such things might be left to the men. They've more time, as it were. You +see, miss, when you've done out the house and got the children's meals +and put them to bed and cleaned up and all, not to mention washing-day, +and ironing--well, you've not much time left to improve the mind, have +you?" + +It was Dr. Cross who pointed out that, the mind once improved, these +household duties would take, at most, half the time they now did. "I +know that, ma'am," the tired lady returned. "I've known girls who set +out to improve their minds, readin' and that, and their house duties +didn't take them any time at all, and nice it was for their families. +What I say is, mind improvement should be left to the men, who've time +for such things; women are mostly too busy, and if they aren't they +should be." + +Several men said "Hear, hear" to this. Rural England, as Dr. Cross +sometimes remarked, was still regrettably eastern, or German, in its +feminist views, even now that, since the war, so many more thousands of +women were perforce independent wage-earners, and even now that they had +the same political rights as men. Stephen flung forth a few explosive +views on invidious sex distinctions, another pet topic of his, and +remarked that, in the Christian religion, at least, there was neither +male nor female. A shade of scepticism on the faces of several women +might be taken to hint at a doubt whether the Christian religion, in +this or in most other respects, was life as it was lived, and at a +certainty that it was time for them to go home and get the supper. They +began to drift away, with their children round them, gossiping to each +other of more interesting things than Mind Training. For, after all, if +it was to be it was, and where was the use of talking? + + +4 + +It was getting dusk. The male part of the audience also fell away, to +talk in the roads while supper was preparing. Only the vicar was left, +and Captain Ambrose, and Anthony Grammont, and Pansy, who came up to +talk to Kitty. + +"My dear," said Pansy, "I feel absolutely flattened out by your +preacher, with his talk of 'the other animals,' and organised love. Now +Mr. Delmer was sweet to me--he said it ought to be free, an' I know he +doesn't really think so, but only said it for my sake and Tony's. But +your man's terrifyin'. I'm almost frightened to have him sleep at the +End House to-night; I'm afraid he'll set fire to the sheets, he's so +hot. Won't you introduce me?" + +But Dixon was at this moment engaged in talking to the vicar, who, not +to be daunted and brow-beaten by the notorious Stephen Dixon, was +manfully expounding his position to him and Dr. Cross, while Captain +Ambrose backed him up. + +"They may be all night, I should judge from the look of them," said +Kitty, who by now knew her clergyman and her doctor well. "Let's leave +them at it and come home; Tony can bring them along when they're ready." + +The End House had offered its hospitality to all the three Explainers, +and they were spending the night there instead of, as usual, at the +village inn. Kitty and Pansy were overtaken before they reached it by +Anthony and Dr. Cross and Dixon. + +Pansy said, with her sweet, ingratiating smile, "I was sayin' to Kitty, +Mr. Dixon, that you made me feel quite bad with your talk about free +love." + +"I'm sorry," said Dixon, "but it was the vicar who talked of that, not +I. I talked of organised love. I never talk of free love: I don't like +it." + +"I noticed you didn't," said Pansy. "That's just what I felt so bad +about. Mind you, I think you're awfully right, only it takes so much +livin' up to, doesn't it? with things tangled up as they are.... Sure +you don't mind stayin' with us, I suppose?" She asked it innocently, +rolling at him a sidelong glance from her beautiful music-hall eyes. + +Dixon looked at sea. "Mind?..." + +"Well, you might, mightn't you, as ours is free." Then, at his puzzled +stare, "Why, Kitty, you surely told him!" + +"I'm afraid I never thought of it," Kitty faltered. "She means," she +explained, turning to the two guests, "that she and my brother aren't +exactly married, you know. They can't be, because Pansy has a husband +somewhere. They would if they could; they'd prefer it." + +"We'd prefer it," Pansy echoed, a note of wistfulness in her calm voice. +"Ever so much. It's _much_ nicer, isn't it?--as you were sayin'. We +think so too, don't we, old man?" She turned to Anthony but he had +stalked ahead, embarrassed by the turn the conversation was taking. He +was angry with Kitty for not having explained the situation beforehand, +angry with Pansy for explaining it now, and angry with Dixon for not +understanding without explanation. + +"But I do hope," Pansy added to both her guests, slipping on her +courteous and queenly manner, "that you will allow it to make no +difference." + +Dr. Cross said, "Of course not. What do you imagine?" She was a little +worried by the intrusion of these irrelevant domestic details into a +hitherto interesting evening. Pansy's morals were her own concern, but +it was a pity that her taste should allow her to make this awkward +scene. + +But Dixon stopped, and, looking his hostess squarely in the face--they +were exactly of a height--said, "I am sorry, but I am afraid it does +make a difference. I hate being rude, and I am most grateful to you for +your hospitable invitation; but I must go to the inn instead." + +Pansy stared back, and a slow and lovely rose colour overspread her +clear face. She was not used to being rebuffed by men. + +"I'm frightfully sorry," Stephen Dixon repeated, reddening too. "But, +you see, if I slept at your house it would be seeming to acquiesce in +something which I believe it to be tremendously important not to +acquiesce in.... Put it that I'm a prig ... anyhow, there it is.... Will +you apologise for me to your brother?" he added to Kitty, who was +looking on helplessly, conscious that the situation was beyond her. "And +please forgive me--I know it seems unpardonable rudeness." He held out +his hand to Pansy, tentatively. She took it, without malice. Pansy was +not a rancorous woman. + +"That's all right, Mr. Dixon. If you can't swallow our ways, you just +can't, and there's an end of it. Lots of people can't, you know. Good +night. I hope you'll be comfortable." + + +5 + +Kitty looked after him with a whistle. + +"I'm fearfully sorry, Pansy love. I never thought to expatiate +beforehand on Tony and you.... I introduced you as Miss Ponsonby--but I +suppose he never noticed, or thought you were the Cheeper's governess or +something. Who'd have thought he'd take on like that? But you never +know, with the clergy; they're so unaccountable." + +"I'm relieved, a bit," Pansy said. "I was frightened of him, that's a +fact." + +Dr. Cross said, "The queer thing about Stephen Dixon is that you never +know when he'll take a thing in this way and when he won't. I've known +him sit at tea in the houses of the lowest slum criminals--by the way, +that is surely the scriptural line--and I've known him cut in the street +people who were doing the same things in a different way--a sweating +shopowner, for instance. I sometimes think it depends with him on the +size and comfort of the house the criminal lives in, which is too +hopelessly illogical, you'd think, for an intelligent man like him. I +lose my patience with him sometimes, I confess. But anyhow he knows his +own mind." + +"He's gone," Pansy said to Anthony, who was waiting for them at the +gate. "He thinks it's important not to acquiesce in us. So he's gone to +the inn.... By the way, I nearly told him that the innkeeper is leading +a double life too--ever so much worse than ours--but I thought it would +be too unkind, he'd have had to sleep on the green." + +"Well," Anthony said crossly, "we can get on without him. But another +time, darling, I wish you'd remember that there's not the least need to +explain our domestic affairs in the lane to casual acquaintances, even +if they do happen to be spending the night. It's simply not done, you +know! It makes a most embarrassing situation all round. I know you're +not shy, but you might remember that I am." + +"Sorry, old dear," said Pansy. "There's been so much explainin' this +evenin' that I suppose I caught it.... You people," she added to Dr. +Cross and Kitty, "have got awkwarder things to explain than I have. I'd +a long sight rather have to explain free love than love by Act of +Parliament." + +"But on the whole," said the doctor, relieved to have got on to that +subject again after the rather embarrassing interlude of private +affairs, "I thought the meeting this evening not bad. What did you +think, Miss Grammont?" + +"I should certainly," said Kitty, "have expected it to have been worse. +If I had been one of the audience, it would have been." + + +6 + +Some of the subsequent meetings of that campaign, in fact, were. But not +all. On the whole, as Dr. Cross put it, they were not bad. + +"It's a toss-up," said Dixon at the end, "how the country is going to +take this business. There's a chance, a good fighting chance, that they +may rise to the idea and accept it, even if they can't like it. It +depends a lot on how it's going to be worked, and that depends on the +people at the top. And for the people at the top, all one can say is +that there's a glimmer of hope. Chester himself has got imagination; and +as long as a man's got that he may pull through, even if he's head of a +government department.... Of course one main thing is not to make +pledges; they can't be kept; everyone knows they can't be kept, as +situations change, and when they break there's a row.... Another +thing--the rich have got to set the example; they must drop this having +their fun and paying for it, which the poor can't afford. If that's +allowed there'll be revolution. Perhaps anyhow there'll be revolution. +And revolutions aren't always the useful things they ought to be; they +sometimes lead to reaction. Oh, you Brains people have got to be jolly +careful." + +A week later the Mind Training Bill became an Act. It did, in fact, seem +to be a toss-up how the public, that strange, patient, unaccountable +dark horse, were going to take it. That they took it at all, and that +they continued to take the Mental Progress Act, was ascribed by +observant people largely to the queer, growing, and quite peculiar +influence of Nicholas Chester. It was an odd influence for a minister of +the government to have in this country; one would have almost have +supposed him instead a power of the Press, the music-hall stage, or the +cinema world. It behoved him, as Dixon said to be jolly careful. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SIMPLE HUMAN EMOTIONS + + +1 + +During the period which followed the Explanation Campaign, Kitty +Grammont was no longer bored by her work, no longer even merely +entertained. It had acquired a new flavour; the flavour of adventure and +romance which comes from a fuller understanding and a more personal +identification; from, in fact, knowing more about it at first-hand. + +Also, she got to know the Minister better. At the end of August they +spent a week-end at the same country house. They were a party of four, +besides their host's family; a number which makes for intimacy. Their +hostess was a Cambridge friend of Kitty's, their host a man high up in +the Foreign Office, his natural force of personality obscured +pathetically by that apprehensive, defiant, defensive manner habitual +and certainly excusable in these days in the higher officials of that +department and of some of the other old departments; a manner that +always seemed to be saying, "All right, we know we've made the devil of +a mess for two centuries and more, and we know you all want to be rid of +us. But we'd jolly well like to know if you think you could have worked +things any better yourselves. Anyhow, we mean to stick here till we're +chucked out." + +How soon would it be, wondered Kitty, before the officials of the +Ministry of Brains wore that same look? It must come to them; it must +come to all who govern, excepting only the blind, the crass, the +impervious. It must have been worn by the members of the Witan during +the Danish invasions; by Strafford before 1642; by Pharaoh's councillors +when Moses was threatening plagues; by M. Milivkoff before March, 1917; +by Mr. Lloyd George during much of the Great War. + +But it was not worn yet by Nicholas Chester. + + +2 + +He sat down by Kitty after dinner. They did not talk shop, but they were +linked by the strong bond of shop shared and untalked. There was between +them the relationship, unlike any other (for no relationship ever is +particularly like any other) of those who are doing, though on very +different planes, the same work, and both doing it well; the +relationship, in fact, of a government official to his intelligent +subordinates. (There is also the relationship of a government official +to his unintelligent subordinates; this is a matter too painful to be +dwelt on in these pages.) + +But this evening, as they talked, it became apparent to Kitty that, +behind the screen of this relationship, so departmental, so friendly, so +emptied of sex, a relationship quite other and more personal and human, +which had come into embryo being some weeks ago, was developing with +rapidity. They found pleasure in one another this evening as human +beings in the world at large, the world outside ministry walls. That was +rather fun. And next morning Chester asked her to come a walk with him, +and on the walk the new relationship burgeoned like flowers in spring. +They did not avoid shop now that they were alone together; they talked +of the Department, of the new Act, of the efforts of other countries on +the same lines, of anything else they liked. They talked of Russian +politics (a conversation I cannot record, the subject being too +difficult for any but those who have the latest developments under their +eyes, and, indeed, not always quite easy even for them). They talked of +the National Theatre, of animals they had kept and cabinet ministers +they had known; of poets, pictures, and potato puddings; of, in fact, +the things one does talk about on walks. They told each other funny +stories of prominent persons; she told him some of the funny stories +about himself which circulated in the Ministry; he told her about his +experiences when, in order to collect information as to the state of the +intelligence of the country before the ministry was formed, he had +sojourned in a Devonshire fishing village disguised as a fisherman, and +in Hackney Wick disguised as a Jew, and had in both places got the +better of everyone round him excepting only the other Hackney Jews, who +had got the better of him. (It was in consequence of this that +Jews--such Jews as had not yet been forcibly repatriated in the Holy +City--were exempted from the provisions of the Mental Progress Act and +the Mind Training Act. It would be a pity if Jews were to become any +cleverer.) + +It will be seen, therefore, that their conversation was of an ordinary +description, that might take place between any two people of moderate +intelligence on any walk. The things chiefly to be observed about it +were that Chester, a silent person when he was not in the mood to talk, +talked a good deal, as if he liked talking to-day, and that when Kitty +was talking he watched her with a curious, interested, pleased look in +his deep little eyes. + +And that was all, before lunch; the makings, in fact, of a promising +friendship. + +After tea there was more. They sat in a beech wood together, and told +each other stories of their childhoods. He did not, Kitty observed, +mention those of his family who were less intelligent than the rest; no +doubt, with his views on the importance of intellect, he found it too +depressing a subject. And after dinner, when they said good-night, he +held her hand but as long as all might or so very little longer, and +asked if she would dine with him on Thursday. It was the look in his +eyes at that moment which sent Kitty up to bed with the staggering +perception of the dawning of a new and third relationship--not the +official relationship, and not the friendship which had grown out of it, +but something still more simple and human. He, probably, was unaware of +it; the simple human emotions were of no great interest to Nicholas +Chester, whose thoughts ran on other and more complex businesses. One +might surmise that he might fall very deeply in love before he knew +anything much about it. Kitty, on the other hand, would always know, +had, in fact, always known, everything she was doing in that way, as in +most others. She would track the submersion, step by step, amused, +interested, concerned. This way is the best; not only do you get more +out of the affair so, but you need not allow yourself, or the other +party concerned, to be involved more deeply than you think advisable. + +So, safe in her bedroom, standing, in fact, before the looking-glass, +she faced the glimpse of a possibility that staggered her, bringing +mirth to her eyes and a flutter to her throat. + +"Good God!" (Kitty had at times an eighteenth-century emphasis of +diction, following in the steps of the heroines of Jane Austen and Fanny +Burney, who dropped oaths elegantly, like flowers.) "Good God! He begins +to think of me." Then, quickly, followed the thought, to tickle her +further, "Is it right? Is it _convenable_? _Should_ ministers look like +that at their lady clerks? Or does he think that, as he's uncertificated +and no hopes of an outcome can be roused in me, he may look as he +likes?" + +She unhooked her dress, gazing at her reflection with solemn eyes, which +foresaw the potentialities of a remarkable situation. + +But what was, in fact, quite obvious, was that no situation could +possibly be allowed to arise. + +Only, if it did.... Well, it would have its humours. And, after all, +should one turn one's back on life, in whatever curious guise it might +offer itself? Kitty, at any rate, never yet had done this. She had once +accepted the invitation of a Greek brigand at Thermopylae to show her, +and her alone, his country home in the rocky fastnesses of Velukhi, a +two days' journey from civilisation; she had spent a week-end as +guest-in-chief of a Dervish at Yuzgat; she had walked unattended through +the Black Forest (with, for defence, a walking-stick and a hat-pin) and +she had become engaged to Neil Desmond. Perhaps it was because she was +resourceful and could trust her natural wits to extricate her, that she +faced with temerity the sometimes awkward predicaments in which she +might find herself involved through this habit of closing no door on +life. The only predicament from which she had not, so far, succeeded in +emerging, was her engagement; here she had been baffled by the elusive +quality which defeated her efforts not by resistance but by merely +slipping out of hearing. + +And if this was going to turn into another situation ... well, then, she +would have had one more in her life. But, after all, very likely it +wasn't. + +"Ministers," Kitty soliloquised, glancing mentally at the queer, clever, +humorous face which had looked at her so oddly, "ministers, surely, are +made of harder stuff than that. And prouder. Ministers, surely, even if +they permit themselves to flirt a little with the clerks of their +departments, don't let it get serious. It isn't done. You flatter +yourself, my poor child. Your head has been turned because he laughed +when you tried to be funny, and because, for lack of better company or +thinking your pink frock would go with his complexion, he walked out +with you twice, and because he held your hand and looked into your eyes. +You are becoming one of those girls who think that whenever a man looks +at them as if he liked the way they do their hair, he wants to kiss them +at once and marry them at last...." + + +3 + +"What's amusing you, Kate?" her hostess enquired, coming in with her +hair over her shoulders and her Cambridge accent. + +"Nothing, Anne," replied Kitty, after a meditative pause, "that I can +possibly ever tell you. Merely my own low thoughts. They always were +low, as you'll remember." + +"They certainly were," said Anne. + + +4 + +This chapter, as will by this time have been observed, deals with the +simple human emotions, their development and growth. But it will not be +necessary to enter into tedious detail concerning them. They did +develop; they did grow; and to indicate this it will only be necessary +to select a few outstanding scenes of different dates. + +On September 2nd, which was the Thursday after the week-end above +described, Kitty dined with Chester, and afterwards they went to a +picture palace to see "The Secret of Success," one of their own +propaganda dramas. It had been composed by the bright spirits in the +Propaganda Department of the Ministry, and was filmed and produced at +government expense. The cinematograph, the stage, and the Press were now +used extensively as organs to express governmental points of view; after +all, if you have to have such things, why not make them useful? Chester +smiled sourly over it, but acquiesced. The chief of such organs were of +course the new State Theatre (anticipated with such hope by earnest +drama-lovers for so many years) and the various State cinemas, and the +_Hidden Hand_, the government daily paper; but even over the unofficial +stage and film the shadow of the State lay black. + +The Secret of Success depicted lurid episodes in the careers of two +young men; the contrast was not, as in other drama, between virtue and +vice, but between Intelligence and the Reverse. Everywhere Intelligence +triumphed, and the Reverse was shamed and defeated. Intelligence found +the hidden treasure, covered itself with glory, emerged triumphant from +yawning chasms, flaming buildings, and the most suspicious situations, +rose from obscure beginnings to titles, honours and position, and +finally won the love of a pure and wealthy girl, who jilted the +brainless youth of her own social rank to whom she had previously +engaged herself but who had, in every encounter of wits with his +intelligent rival, proved himself of no account, and who was finally +revealed in a convict's cell, landed there by his conspicuous lack of +his rival's skill in disengaging himself from compromising situations. +Intelligence, with his bride on his arm, visited him in his cell, and +gazed on him with a pitying shake of the head, observing, "But for the +Government Mind Training Course, I might be in your shoes to-day." +Finally, their two faces were thrown on the screen, immense and +remarkable, the one wearing over his ethereal eyes the bar of Michael +Angelo, the other with a foolish, vacant eye and a rabbit mouth that was +ever agape. + +This drama was sandwiched between The Habits of the Kola Bear, and How +his Mother-in-law Came to Stay, and after it Chester and Kitty went out +and walked along the Embankment. + +It was one of those brilliant, moonlit, raidless nights which still +seemed so strange, so almost flat, in their eventlessness. Instinctively +they strained their ears for guns; but they heard nothing but the +rushing of traffic in earth and sky. + + +5 + +"The State," said Chester, "is a great debaucher. It debauches +literature, art, the press, the stage, and the Church; but I don't think +even its worst enemies can say it has debauched the cinema stage.... +What a people we are; good Lord, what a people!" + +"As long as we leave Revue alone, I don't much mind what else we do," +Kitty said. "Revue is England's hope, I believe. Because it's the only +art in which all the forms of expression come in--talking, music, +singing, dancing, gesture--standing on your head if nothing else will +express you at the moment.... I believe Revue is going to be tremendous. +Look how its stupidities and vulgarities have been dropping away from it +lately, this last year has made a new thing of it altogether; it's +beginning to try to show the whole of life as lived.... Oh, we must +leave Revue alone.... I sometimes think it's so much the coming thing +that I can't be happy till I've chucked my job and gone into it, as one +of a chorus. I should feel I was truly serving my country then; it would +be a real thing, instead of this fantastic lunacy I'm involved in +now...." + +At times Kitty forgot she was talking to the Minister who had created +the fantastic lunacy. + +"You can't leave the Ministry," said the Minister curtly. "You can't be +spared." + +Kitty was annoyed with him for suddenly being serious and literal and +even cross, and was just going to tell him she should jolly well leave +the Ministry whenever she liked, when some quality in his abrupt gravity +caught the words from her lips. + +"We haven't got industrial conscription to that extent yet," she merely +said, weakly. + +It was all he didn't say to her in the moment's pause that followed +which was revealing; all that seemed to be forced back behind his +guarded lips. What he did say, presently, was "No, more's the pity. +It'll come, no doubt." + +And, talking of industrial conscription, they walked back. + +What stayed with Kitty was the odd, startled, doubtful look he had given +her in that moment's pause; almost as if he were afraid of something. + + +6 + +Kitty took at this time to sleeping badly; even worse, that is to say, +than usual. In common with many others, she always did so when she was +particularly interested in anyone. She read late, then lay and stared +into the dark, her thoughts turning and twisting in her brain, till, for +the sake of peace, she turned on the light again and read something; +something cold, soothing, remote from life as now lived, like +Aristophanes, Racine, or Bernard Shaw. Attaining by these means to a +more detached philosophy, she would drift at last from the lit stage +where life chattered and gesticulated, and creep behind the wings, and +so find sleep, so little before it was time to wake that she began the +day with a jaded feeling of having been up all night. + +On one such morning she came down to find a letter from Neil Desmond in +its thin foreign envelope addressed in his flat, delicate hand. He wrote +from a Pacific island where he was starting a newspaper for the benefit +of the political prisoners confined there; it was to be called "Freedom" +(in the British Isles no paper of this name would be allowed, but +perhaps the Pacific Island censorship was less strict) and he wanted +Kitty to come and be sub-editor.... + +Kitty, instead of lunching out that day, took sandwiches to the office +and spent the luncheon-hour breaking off her engagement again. The +reason why Neil never got these letters was the very reason which +impelled her to write them--the lack of force about him which made his +enterprises so ephemeral, and kept him ever moving round the spinning +world to try some new thing. + +Force. How important it was. First Brains, to perceive and know what +things we ought to do, then Power, faithfully to fulfil the same. In +another twenty or thirty years, perhaps the whole British nation would +be full of both these qualities, so full that the things in question +really would get done. And then what? Kitty's mind boggled at the answer +to this. It might be strangely upsetting.... + +She stamped her letter and lit a cigarette. The room, empty but for her, +had that curious, flat, dream-like look of arrested activity which +belongs to offices in the lunch hour. If you watch an office through +that empty hour of suspension you may decipher its silent, patient, +cynical comment (slowly growing into distinctness like invisible ink) on +the work of the morning which has been, and of the afternoon which is to +be. Kitty watched it, amused, then yawned and read _Stop It_, the newest +weekly paper. It was a clever paper, for it had succeeded so far (four +numbers) in not getting suppressed, and also in not committing itself +precisely to any direct statement as to what it wanted stopped. It was +produced by the Stop It Club, and the government lived in hopes of +discovering one day, by well-timed police raids on the Club premises, +sufficient lawless matter to justify it in suppressing both the Club and +the paper. For Dora had recently been trying to retrieve her character +in the eyes of those who blackened it, and was endeavouring to act in a +just and temperate manner, and only to suppress those whose guilt was +proven. Last Sunday, for instance, a Stop It procession had been allowed +to parade through the city with banners emblazoned with the ambiguous +words. There were, of course, so many things that, it was quite obvious, +should be stopped; the command might have been addressed to those of the +public who were grumbling, or to the government who were giving them +things to grumble at; to writers who were producing books, journalists +producing papers, parliaments producing laws, providence producing the +weather, or the agents of any other regrettable activity at the moment +in progress. Indeed, the answer to the enquiry "Stop what?" might so +very plausibly be "Stop it all," that it was a profitless question. + +It was just after two that the telephone on Prideaux's table rang. +(Kitty was working in Prideaux's room now.) "Hullo," said a voice in +answer to hers, "Mr. Prideaux there? Or anyone else in his room I can +speak to? The Minister speaking." + +Not his P.S. nor his P.A., but the Minister himself; an unusual, hardly +seemly occurrence, due, no doubt, to lunch-time. Kitty was reminded of a +story someone had told her of a pert little office flapper at one end of +a telephone, chirping, "Hullo, who is it?" and the answer, slow, +dignified, and crushing, from one of our greater peers--"Lord +Blankson ..." (pause) "HIMSELF." + +"Mr. Prideaux isn't in yet," said Kitty. "Can I give him a message?" + +There was a moment's pause before the Minister's voice, somehow grown +remote, said, "No, thanks, it's all right. I'll ring him up later." + +He rang off abruptly. (After all, how can one ring off in any other +way?) He had said, "Or anyone else in his room I can speak to," as if he +would have left a message with any chance clerk; but he had not, +apparently, wished to hold any parley with her, even over the telephone, +which though it has an intimacy of its own (marred a little by a +listening exchange) is surely a sufficiently remote form of intercourse. +But it seemed that he was avoiding her, keeping her at a distance, +ringing her off; his voice had sounded queer, abrupt, embarrassed, as if +he was shy of her. Perhaps he had thought things over and perceived that +he had been encouraging one of his clerks to step rather too far out of +her position; perhaps he was afraid her head might be a little turned, +that she might think he was seeking her out.... + +Kitty sat on the edge of Prideaux's table and swore softly. She'd jolly +well show him she thought no such thing. + +"These great men," she said, "are insufferable." + + +7 + +When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero was +full, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something went +wrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably on +the top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy moment +the Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don't +protrude the tongue," and then the crash came. + +They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid a +crowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one was +much hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, against +these catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her head +and to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when she +recovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her and +whispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh God." + +"Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lot +more than that." + +His strained face relaxed. "That's all right, then," he said. + +"I'm dining in Hampstead in about ten minutes," said Kitty. "I must get +the tube at Leicester Square." + +"A taxi," said the Minister, "would be better. Here is a taxi. I shall +come too, in case there is another mischance, which you will hardly be +fit for alone at present." He mopped his mouth. + +"You have bitten your tongue," said Kitty, "in spite of all you said +about not protruding it." + +"It was while I was saying it," said the Minister, "that the contact +occurred. Yes. It is painful." + +They got into the taxi. The Minister, with his scarlet-stained +handkerchief to his lips, mumbled, "That was a very disagreeable shock. +You were very pale. I feared the worst." + +"The worst," said Kitty, "always passes me by. It always has. I am like +that." + +"I am not," he said. "I am not. I have bitten my tongue and fallen in +love. Both bad things." + +He spoke so indistinctly that Kitty was not sure she heard him rightly. + +"And I," she said, "only feel a little sick.... No, don't be anxious; it +won't develop." + +The Minister looked at her as she powdered her face before the strip of +mirror. + +"I wouldn't put that on," he advised her. "You are looking too pale, +already." + +"Quite," said Kitty. "It's pink powder, you see. It will make me feel +more myself." + +"You need nothing," he told her gravely. "You are all right as you are. +It is fortunate that it is you and not I who are going out to dinner. I +couldn't talk. I can't talk now. I can't even tell you what I feel about +you." + +"Don't try," she counselled him, putting away her powder-puff and not +looking at him. + +He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at her with his +pained-humorist's face and watchful eyes. + +"I expect you know I've fallen in love with you?" he mumbled. "I didn't +mean to; in fact, I've tried not to, since I began to notice what was +occurring. It's excessively awkward. But ... I have not been able to +avoid it." + +Kitty said "Oh," and swallowed a laugh. One didn't laugh when one was +receiving an avowal of love, of course. She felt giddy, and seas seemed +to rush past her ears. + +"There are a good many things to talk about in connection with this," +said the Minister. "But it is no use talking about them unless I first +know what you feel about it--about me, that is. Will you tell me, if you +don't mind?" + +He asked it gently, considerately, almost humbly. Kitty, who did mind +rather, said "Oh," again, and lay back in her corner. She still felt a +little dizzy, and her head ached. It is not nice having to say what one +feels; one would rather the other person did it all. But this is not +fair or honourable. She remembered this and pulled herself together. + +"I expect," she said, swinging her glasses by their ribbon, cool and yet +nervous, "I expect I feel pretty much the same as you do about it." + +After a moment's pause he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much for +telling me. Then it is of use talking about it. Only not now, because +I'm afraid we're just getting there. And to-morrow I am going to a +conference at Leeds. I don't think I can wait till the day after. May I +call for you to-night and we'll drive back together?" + +"Yes," said Kitty, and got out of the taxi. + + +8 + +When they were in it again they comported themselves for a little while +in the manner customary on these occasions, deriving the usual amount of +pleasurable excitement therefrom. + +Then the Minister said, "Now we must talk. All is not easy about our +situation." + +"Nothing is easy about it," said Kitty. "In fact, we're in the demon of +a mess." + +He looked at her, biting his lips. + +"You know about me, then? That I'm uncertificated? But of course you do. +It is, I believe, generally known. And it makes the position exactly +what you say. It means ..." + +"It means," said Kitty, "that we must get over this unfortunate +passion." + +He shook his head, with a shrug. + +"One can, you know," said Kitty. "I've been in and out before--more than +once. Not so badly, perhaps, but quite badly enough. You too, probably?" + +"Yes. Oh, yes," he admitted gloomily. "But it wasn't like this. Neither +the circumstances, nor the--the emotion." + +Kitty said, "Probably not. Why should it be? Nothing ever is exactly +like anything else, luckily.... By the way, when did you begin to take +notice of me? Don't worry, if you can't remember." + +He thought for a minute, then shook his head. + +"I'm bad at these things. Didn't we meet at Prideaux's one night in the +spring? I observed you then; I remember you amused me. But I don't think +the impression went deep.... Then--oh, we met about a good deal one way +and another--and I suppose it grew without my noticing it. And then came +that week-end, and that did the trick as far as I was concerned. I knew +what I was doing after that, and I tried to stop it, but, as you see, I +have failed. This evening I told you, I suppose, under the influence of +shock.... I am not sorry. It is worth it, whatever comes of it." + +"Nothing can come of it," said Kitty. "Not the least thing at all. +Except being friends. And you probably won't want that. Men don't." + +"No," he said. "I don't want it at all. But I suppose I must put up with +it." He began to laugh, with his suppressed, sardonic laughter, and +Kitty laughed too. + +"We're fairly hoist with our own petard, aren't we?" he said. "Think of +the scandal we might make, if we did what we chose now.... I believe it +would be the _coup de grace_ for the Brains Ministry." He stated a +simple fact, without conceit. + +"It's a rotten position," he continued moodily. "But there it is.... And +you're A, aren't you? You'll have to marry someone, eventually. If only +you were B2 or 3--only then you wouldn't be yourself. As it is, it would +be criminally immoral of me to stand in your way. The right thing, I +suppose, would be for us to clear out of each other's way and give each +other a chance to forget. _The right thing...._ Oh damn it all, I'm as +bad as the most muddle-headed fool in the country, who doesn't care +_that_ for the right thing if it fights against his individual impulses +and desires.... I suppose moralists would say here's my chance to bear +my witness, to stand by my own principles and show the world they're +real.... They _are_ real, too; that's the mischief of it. I still am +sure they matter more than anything else; but just now they bore me. I +suppose this is what a moral and law-abiding citizen feels when he falls +in love with someone else's wife.... What are you laughing at now?" + +"You," said Kitty. "This is the funniest conversation.... Of course it's +a funny position--it's straight out of a comic opera. What a pity +Gilbert and Sullivan didn't think of it; they'd have done it +beautifully.... By the way, I don't think I shall be marrying anyone +anyhow, so you needn't worry about that. I've broken off my last +engagement--at least I've done my best to; it became a bore. I don't +really like the idea of matrimony, you know; it would be too much of a +tie and a settling down. Yes, all right, I know my duty to my country, +but my duty to myself comes first.... So there's no harm, from my point +of view, in our going on seeing each other and taking each other out and +having as good a time as we can in the circumstances. Shall we try that +way, and see if it works?" + +"Oh, we'll try," he said, and took her again in his arms. "It's all we +can get, so we'll take it ... my dear." + +"I think it's a good deal," said Kitty. "It will be fun.... You know, +I'm frightfully conceited at your liking me--I can't get used to it yet; +you're so important and superior. It isn't every day that a Minister of +a Department falls in love with one of his clerks. It isn't really done, +you know, not by the best Ministers." + +"Nor by the best clerks," he returned. "We must face the fact that we +are not the best people." + +"And here's my flat. Will you come in and have something? There's only +my cousin here, and she's never surprised; her own life is too odd." + +"I think it would be inadvisable," said the Minister discreetly. "'We +don't want to coddle our reputations, but we may as well keep an eye on +them.'" + +On that note of compromise they parted. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BREAKING POINT + + +1 + +It was six months later: in fact, April. It was a Saturday afternoon, +and many people were going home from work, including Kitty Grammont and +Ivy Delmer, who were again in the Bakerloo tube, on their way to +Marylebone for Little Chantreys. + +The same types of people were in the train who had been in it on the +Monday morning in May which is described in the opening chapter of this +work. The same types of people always are in tube trains (except on the +air-raid nights of the Great War, when a new and less self-contained +type was introduced). But they were the same with a difference: it was +as if some tiny wind had stirred and ruffled the face of sleeping +waters. In some cases the only difference was a puzzled, half-awakened, +rather fretful look, where had been peace. This was to be observed in +the faces of the impassive shopping women. Still they sat and gazed, but +with a difference. Now and then a little shiver of something almost like +a thought would flicker over the calm, observing, roving eyes, which +would distend a little, and darken with a faint annoyance and fear. Then +it would pass, and leave the waters as still as death again; but it had +been there. And it was quite certain there were fewer of these +ruminating ladies. Some had perhaps died of the Mind Training Course, of +trying to use their brains. (They say that some poor unfortunates who +have never known the touch of soap and water on their bodies die of +their first bath on being brought into hospital: so these.) Some who had +been in the ruminating category six months ago were now reading papers. +Some others, who still gazed at their fellows, gazed in a different +manner; they would look intently at someone for half a minute, then look +away, and their lips would move, and it was apparent that they were, not +saying their prayers, but trying to repeat to themselves every detail of +what they had seen. For this was part of the Government Mind Training +Course (observation and accuracy). And one large and cow-like lady with +a shopping-bag containing circulating library books and other +commodities said to her companion, in Kitty Grammont's hearing, two +things that accorded strangely with her aspect. + +"I couldn't get anything worth reading out of the library to-day--they +hadn't got any of the ones I'd ordered. These look quite silly, I'm +sure. There aren't many good books written, do you think?" + +Doubtful she was, and questioning: but still, she had used the word +"good" and applied it to a book, as she might have to butter, or a +housemaid, or a hat, implying a possible, though still dimly discerned, +difference between one book and another. And presently she said a +stranger thing. + +"What," she enquired, "do you think about the state of things between +Bavaria and Prussia? Relations to-day seemed more strained than ever, I +thought." + +Her companion could not be said to rise to this; she replied merely +(possibly having a little missed the drift of the unusual question) that +in her view relations were very often a nuisance, and exhausting. So the +subject was a little diverted; it went off, in fact, on to +sisters-in-law; but still it had been raised. + +Beyond these ladies sat another who looked as if she had obtained +exemption from the Mind Training Course on the ground that her mind (if +any) was not susceptible of training; and beyond her sat a little typist +eating chocolates and reading the _Daily Mirror_. Last May she had been +reading "The love he could not buy"; this April she was reading "How to +make pastry out of nuts." Possibly by Christmas she might be reading +"Which way shall I Vote and Why?" + +Ivy Delmer, next her, was reading the notices along the walls. Between +"Ask Mr. Punch into your home" and "Flee from the wrath to come" there +was a gap, where a Safety if Possible notice had formerly offered the +counsel "Do not sit down in the street in the middle of the traffic or +you may get killed." A month ago this had been removed. It had, +apparently, been decided by the Safety if Possible Council that the +public had at last outgrown their cruder admonitions. The number of +street accidents was, in fact, noticeably on the decline. It seemed as +if people were learning, slowly and doubtfully, to connect cause and +effect. A was learning why he would be killed, B why he would not. Ivy +Delmer noticed the gap on the wall, and wondered what would take its +place. Perhaps it would be another text; but texts were diminishing in +frequency; one seldom saw one now. More likely it would be an +exhortation to Take a Holiday in the Clouds, or Get to Watford in five +minutes by Air (and damn the risk). + +Ivy, as she had a year ago, looked round at the faces of her +fellow-travellers--mostly men and girls going home from business. Quite +a lot of young men there were in these days; enough, you'd almost think, +for there to be one over for Ivy to marry some day.... Ivy sighed a +little. She hoped rather that this would indeed prove to be so, but +hoped without conviction. After all, few girls could expect to get +married in these days. She supposed that if she married at all, she +ought to take a cripple, or a blind one, and keep him. She knew that +would be the patriotic course; but how much nicer it would be to be +taken by a whole one and get kept! She looked at the pale, maimed young +men round her, and decided that they didn't, mostly, look like keeping +anyone at all, let alone her; they were too tired. The older men looked +more robust; but older men are married. Some of them looked quite +capable and pleased with themselves, as if they were saying, "What have +I got out of it, sir? Why, L100 more per annum, more self-confidence, +and a clearer head." + +There was also a brilliant-looking clergyman, engaged probably in +reforming the Church; but clergymen are different, one doesn't marry +them. Altogether, not a hopeful collection. + +The train got to Marylebone pretty quickly, because it had almost +abandoned its old habit of stopping half-way between every two stations. +No one had ever quite known why it had done this in the past, but, with +the improvement in the brains of the employees of the electric railways, +the custom had certainly gradually decreased. + +Marylebone too had undergone a change: there was rather less running +hither and thither, rather less noise, rather less smoke, and the clock +was more nearly right. Nothing that would strike the eye of anyone who +was not looking for signs, but little manifestations which made the +heart, for instance, of Nicholas Chester stir within him with +satisfaction when he came that way, or the way of any other station +(excepting only the stations of the South Eastern line, the directors +and employees of which had been exempted in large numbers from the Mind +Training Act by the Railway Executive Committee, as not being likely to +profit by the course). + +Certainly the train to Little Chantreys ran better than of old, and with +hardly any smoke. Someone had hit on a way of reducing the smoke +nuisance; probably of, eventually, ending it altogether. Kitty Grammont +and Ivy Delmer found themselves in the same compartment, and talked at +intervals on the journey. Ivy thought, as she had thought several times +during the last few months, that Kitty looked prettier than of old, and +somehow more radiant, more lit up. They talked of whether you ought to +wear breeches as near to town as West Ealing, and left it unsettled. +They talked of where you could get the best chocolates for the least +money, and of what was the best play on just now. They talked of the +excess of work in the office at the present moment, caused by the new +Instruction dealing with the exemption of journalists whose mental +category was above B2. (This was part of the price which had to be paid +by the Brains Ministry for the support of the press, which is so +important.) They began to talk, at least Ivy did, of whether you can +suitably go to church with a dog in your muff; and then they got to +Little Chantreys. + + +2 + +Ivy found her parents in the garden, weeding the paths. Jane and John +were playing football, and Jelly was trotting a lonely trail round the +domains in a character apparently satisfactory to himself but which +would have been uncertain to an audience. + +"Well, dear," said the vicar, looking up at Ivy from his knees. The +vicarage had not yet adopted the new plan of destroying weeds by +electricity; they had tried it once, but the electricity had somehow +gone astray and electrified Jelly instead of the weeds, so they had +given it up. The one-armed soldier whom they employed as gardener +occasionally pulled up a weed, but not often, and he was off this +afternoon anyhow, somewhat to the Delmers' relief. Of course one must +employ disabled soldiers, but the work gets on quicker without them. + +"Have you had a hard day, darling?" enquired Mrs. Delmer, busy +scrabbling with a fork between paving-stones. + +"Rather," said Ivy, and sat down on the wheel-barrow. "The Department's +frightfully rushed just now.... Mr. Prideaux says the public is in a +state of unrest. It certainly seems to be, from the number of grumbling +letters it writes us.... You're looking tired, Daddy." + +"A little, dear." The vicar got up to carry away his basket of weeds to +the bonfire. Mrs. Delmer said, "Daddy's had a worrying time in the +parish. Two more poor little abandoned babies." + +"Where were they left this time?" Ivy asked with interest. + +"One at the Police Station, with a note to say the government had driven +the parents to this; the other just outside our garden door, with no +note at all, but I suppose it's the same old story. We've no clue to +either yet; they're not from Little Chantreys, of course, but I suppose +we shall trace them in time. Daddy's been making enquiries among the +village people; none of them will say, if they know, but Daddy says +they're all in a sad state of anger and discontent about the Baby Laws; +he thinks they're working up worse every day. There's so much talk of +different laws for rich and poor. Of course when people say that, what +they always mean is that it's the same law for both, and ought to be +different. Even that isn't true, of course, in this case, as the taxes +are in proportion to the income; but it certainly does come very hard on +the poor. Daddy thinks it his duty to preach about it again to-morrow, +and that worries him, because he may get arrested and fined. But he +feels it's right. He thinks the country is in real danger of risings and +revolts if this goes on. He says the Stop It League is doing its best to +stir up rebellion, and that would be _such_ a calamity. And all these +poor little babies abandoned or disowned all over the country; it goes +to one's heart.... Don't talk about it, darling, it worries Daddy so.... +And poor Brown is _so_ little use with the vegetable garden. His Mind +Training Course seems really to have quite upset him; he talks and looks +so strangely now. And Daddy's worried about Mr. Hawtrey" (the curate), +"who's joined the Church Improvement Society and has become dreadfully +restless, and keeps saying Daddy ought to join it too." + +Mrs. Delmer sighed, and changed the subject, as the vicar came back, to +the amount of blossom there was on the white-heart cherry. + +Ivy went indoors. She went up to the room she shared with Betty. Betty +was there, staining a straw hat with Jackson's nut-brown hat-polish. + +Ivy said, "A nice mess you're making. I should think you might remember +it's my room as well as yours," and Betty said, "Socks." From which it +may be inferred that these sisters, good-humoured in the main to others, +were frequently short-tempered to one another. + +Ivy said next, opening a drawer, "I won't stand it. You've been pinching +my handkerchiefs." + +Betty replied absently, and as if from habit rather than from +reflection, "Haven't been near your old drawer." + +"Liar. There were twelve here this morning and now there are only ten. +I've told you before I won't stand having my things pinched. If you're +too slack to earn enough to keep yourself in handkerchiefs, you must do +without, that's all." + +"I suppose you'd rather I'd used my sleeve at the Whites' tennis this +morning, wouldn't you?" + +"_I_ shouldn't care if you had.... Tennis in the morning's a pretty +rotten idea anyhow, if you ask me. You're the biggest slacker I ever +came across. If I was Daddy I wouldn't keep you eating your head off, +even if you aren't clever. You're going on like a girl before the war. +Your Training Course doesn't seem to have done you the slightest good, +either. It's people like you who'll rot up the whole plan." + +"It's rot anyhow," Betty returned, without interest, turning her hat +about critically. "You should just hear the way they're all going on +about it in the village. Stuff and nonsense, I call it. And as long as +people like me and the village--normal, ordinary people--think it's +stuff and nonsense, ... well, it _will_ be stuff and nonsense, that's +all." + +"People like you," Ivy retorted witheringly, as she changed her skirt +for her country breeches. + +But, after all, that retort didn't dispose of Betty, or the people like +Betty ... or the whole vicarage family ... or most of Little +Chantreys.... Those people, after all, were going to take more disposing +of than that.... They were, quite possibly, going to take more disposing +of than anyone yet knew. + +"Silly ass," said Ivy, but with a touch of doubt. + +She thought her new green breeches were rather nice, anyhow, and that +seemed to matter more. + + +3 + +Kitty found her brother Cyril at the End House. Cyril was in a poor way. +His publishing business was on the edge of bankruptcy. + +"So much for your abominable Brains Ministry," he complained. "The mass +of safe, mediocre stuff on which publishers count for a living while +they adventure with the risks is being gradually withdrawn. It simply +doesn't come in. Its producers are becoming--many of them--just too +intelligent. I'm not imagining this; I know of several cases in which it +has happened; of people who have developed just enough distaste for +their own work to dry them up altogether. What's worse, there isn't the +same sale for such stuff as there was. When the process has gone much +further (if ever it does)--so far that a lot of really good stuff is +turned out, and read by large numbers of people, business will be all +right again. Till then, publishers are in a poor way.... Verse is +dropping off, too, like autumn leaves. That's all to the good.... I +daresay in another year or two (unless you're wrecked first, which seems +probable, by the way) there'll only be about a hundred people left in +the country writing anything at all.... Newspapers, of course, go on +much the same; that's because you're afraid of them and exempt their +staff. Insignificant verse and meaningless novels may die a natural +death (though I think it improbable), but _Myosotis_ and the _Patriot_ +and the _Daily Idiot_ will go on for ever. You're all such cowards at +Whitehall. You dare to ruin unoffending publishers, to browbeat the poor +and simple, and to extract gold from the innocent babe unborn, but you +daren't risk the favour of the press." + +"No," Kitty agreed. "We certainly daren't.... Not that we've got it, you +know, quite the contrary; but we strive for it. I was reading the +_Herald_ and _Stop It_ in the train, till I was cold with fear. _Stop +It_ veils its meaning delicately, as usual; but it means business.... +However, I thought we should have been downed six months ago, yet here +we are still. It's like skating on rotten ice so fast that it never +breaks. It's fun; it's exciting. And I believe if we go on skating fast, +it won't break at all. You see, the government are getting cleverer and +cleverer themselves, which will help them to do it skilfully. Chester +says his head really does feel clearer after taking the Course; he says +so in private life, I mean, not only when he's soft-soaping the public." + +"He'll need," said Anthony, "a jolly clear head before he's through with +this job. With every door-step in our towns and villages piled with +exposed babies ... it's worse than China. Much worse, because I believe +in China they don't get put on door-steps, but left harmlessly out of +the way in open fields and no one meddles with them. It's becoming a +public nuisance." + +"There is a new branch at the Ministry," said Kitty, "which is concerned +exclusively with Uncertificated Babies, how to deal with them." + +"An' how _do_ they deal with them, the poor little ducks?" enquired +Pansy, who had just come in from the garden looking more than usually +gay and lovely and fantastic in a pink sunbonnet and the kind of dress +affected by milkmaids in a chorus. + +Kitty looked at her thoughtfully. + +"I should hardly like to tell you. You mightn't like it. Besides, it's a +private department, like the secret room in jam factories where they +make the pips. No, Pansy love, I can't possibly tell you.... But they +_do_ deal with them, quite effectively." + +Pansy tossed her Cheeper up and down to a gentle music-hall ditty. + + "Who'll buy babies-- + Babies better dead? + Here's every mental category, + From C3 down to Z...." + +It was a taking song as she crooned it on the stage, nursing an infant +on each arm, and with a baby-chorus crying behind her. + + +4 + +After breakfast on Sunday morning Kitty remarked that she was going by +train to Beaconsfield, where she had arranged to meet Chester for a walk +through Burnham Beeches. She as a rule made no secret of her walks with +Chester, only occasionally, when self-consciousness took her. After all, +why should she? One went walks with all sorts of people, with any man or +woman who liked walking and talking and whom one liked as a companion; +it implied nothing. Kitty at times, with all it meant in this instance +burning and alive in her consciousness, had to pause to tell herself how +little it did imply to others, how she might mention it freely and +casually, without fear. Yet might she? The intimacy of the Minister of a +Department with one of his clerks _was_, no doubt, out of the ordinary, +not quite like other intimacies; perhaps it did seem odd, and imply +things. Perhaps Kitty might have thought so herself, in another case. + +She announced her plan this morning with an extra note of casualness in +her voice. + +Pansy said, "Oh, you two. You'll be goin' baby-huntin' in the ditches, I +should think, instead of pickin' primroses. I should say you jolly well +ought, and you'd better take the Cheeper's pram with you." + +Anthony said, "Exactly what I always try _not_ to do, going out on +Sundays with the people from my shop. It spoils the Sabbath rest, the +Pisgah's mountain touch. You'd much better come out with Cyril and Pansy +and me." + +"I," said Cyril, in his detached manner, "shall be going to Mass." + + +5 + +They walked up through the depraved mushroom growth round Beaconsfield +station to the old town that city set on a hill, lying wide and +spacious, with its four Ends stretched out like a cross. Old +Beaconsfield is an enchanted city; as it was in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, so it is to-day, an ancient country town, full of +brick walls and old houses, and courtyards and coaching inns, and +dignity and romance and great elms. But they left it behind them, and +took the lane that runs to Hedgerley, with the cold April wind in their +faces. + +They came, four miles on, to the forest of great beeches, where broad +glades and grassy rides run in and out through thickets of wild +undergrowth and bracken, and ancient twisted boles and slim smooth +grey-green stems are set close together under a rustling singing roof of +brilliant green, the young, new-born, radiant green of beeches in April. +In every hollow and dip of the forest's mossy floor, primroses glimmered +in pale pools. + +They sat down by one of these pools to have their lunch. + +After lunch they lay on there and smoked. Chester lay on his back, his +hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the green roof. Kitty, her +round chin cupped in her two hands, lay and watched his lean, sallow, +clever face, foreshortened, with the shadows of the leaves moving on it +and his eyes screwed against the sun. + +"Kitty," said Chester presently, "I want to talk to you." + +"M--m." Kitty, having finished her cigarette, was chewing grass. + +He sat up and looked at her, and as he looked his face grew more sallow +and his smile died. He stabbed into the soft, damp earth with his stick, +and frowned. + +"It's this, my dear. I can't go on any longer with this--this farce. We +must end it. I've been meaning to tell you so for some time, but I +thought I'd give it a fair trial, just to satisfy us both. Well, we've +given it a trial, and it won't work. It isn't good enough. We've got to +be more to each other--or less. This--this beastly half-way house was +all right for a bit; but we've got on too far now for it.... I should +like to know what _you_ think about it." + +Kitty pulled a primrose to pieces, petal by petal, before she answered. + +"One thing I think," she said slowly, "is that I'm different from you. +Or is it that women are different from men? Never mind; it doesn't +really matter which. But I fancy it's women and men. Anyhow there it is. +And the difference is that for me a half-way house would always be +better than nothing, while for you it would be worse. Men seem to value +being married so much more than women do--and friendship, going about +together, having each other to talk to and play with, and all that, +seems to matter to them so little. Love seems to take different forms +with men and women, and to want different ways of expression.... So it's +not much use trying to understand one another about it.... That's the +chief thing I think, Nicky." + +He moved impatiently. + +"In fact, you're contented with the present state of things." + +"Oh, no. Not a bit. I want much more. But--if it's all we can have...." + +"It isn't," he said. "We can get married." + +She shook her head, with decision. + +"No. No. No." + +"Quite quietly," he pleaded. "No one would know but ourselves and the +registrar and a witness whom we'd murder after the ceremony. Why +shouldn't we? What are the reasons why not? There are only two; you +ought to marry a certificated person and have an intelligent family; and +I oughtn't to have a family at all. Well, you say you don't mean to +marry anyone else; so you may as well marry me. So much for the first +reason. And of course we wouldn't have a family; so much for the second. +Well, then?" + +"There's a third," said Kitty. "And the only important one. There's the +look of the thing. I don't care how many people we murder, the secret +will leak out. Things always do leak out. Never, in the course of +twenty-nine years of endeavour, have I been able to keep anything shady +from coming to light sooner or later. It isn't done. You ought to know +that, as a government servant. Has any government ever succeeded in +keeping its own dark doings secret for long? No; they come out +like--like flowers pushing up towards daylight; and then there's the +devil to pay. All our shadiest departmental transactions emerge one by +one; nothing is hid that shall not be revealed. And our marriage would +be the same. Be sure our sin would find us out. And that would be the +end of your career, and probably of the Ministry as well; I believe the +Ministry will stand or fall with you; and it's already pretty +tottery.... It's a pity you can't get exemption; but of course your case +is one in which it's absolutely never given.... No, we can't do this +thing. You're the Minister of Brains first, and poor Nicky Chester, who +would like to marry his girl, a long, long way behind. And the poor girl +who would like to marry Nicky Chester--she's not got to count at all.... +I don't want to be high-falutin and to talk about principles, only to +have a little sense." + +He was watching her moodily from under bent brows, leaning back against +a beech-trunk and pulling up little handfuls of damp moss with his thin, +unusual fingers. + +"Sense," he repeated. "It is sense, to have what one wants, if it +doesn't harm anything or anyone. And I'll tell you another thing--not +having it is rotting me up altogether--me and my work. I didn't want to +fall in love again; I hoped I'd done with all that; I tried not to take +any notice of you. But it was no go, and I can't fall out again, and I'm +dead sick of going on like this. And my experience of life, both private +and public, has been longer than yours, and, as it happens, I've known +of several transactions which haven't come to light and never will; I've +perpetrated some myself in the Ministry, which even that clear light +which beats upon a hotel hasn't yet exposed, and, heaven helping us, +won't. You don't suppose all the dark secrets of the war ever came out? +Of course they didn't. There are some that will wait till ... well, till +the next war, let's say.... Kitty, let's try it. It's worth the risk, +surely. Let's be sporting. We're missing--we're missing the best thing +in the world, just out of funk. I thought you always did things, just +for the sake of doing them. I thought you never turned your back on +life. It isn't like you." + +"Oh," murmured Kitty. "Life.... There's so much of that. This is just +one thing out of it." + +"While you want it," he returned, indubitably correct as to this, "it +seems a long way the most important thing." + +"It does," she agreed. "There's no comparison at all.... It's queer, +isn't it, how strong it is, this odd, desperate wanting of one person +out of all the world. It's an extraordinary, enormously strong thing.... +But there _are_ other things. There are jokes, and shops, and music, and +plays, and pictures, and nice clothes, and Russian politics, and absurd +people, and Greek poetry, and the world's failures caged together on one +island, and things to eat and to drink, and our careers, and primroses +in woods, and the censor.... Good gracious, it's all like an idiotic, +glorified revue. We mustn't let the one thing, just because it matters +most, matter alone. It's so commonplace. Our hearts aren't broken, and +won't break. We're out to have a good time, and we'll let love and +marriage go to the--anywhere they like, if we can't have them.... By the +way, if it's any comfort to you (it is to me) I shouldn't make at all a +good wife; I'm much nicer as a friend. I want too much out of life. I'm +grasping and selfish. You'd find me tiring." + +"I do," he returned. "You're tiring me to death now. I've plenty of +friends already, thank you. And what does it matter to me what sort of a +wife you'd make? You talk as if you were refusing a secretarial +appointment. I want _you_, not a wife." + +"You've got me," said Kitty, "only not as a wife.... If that's no use to +you, we'll give it up. Nicky, I suppose we'd _better_ give it up. It +isn't working. I'll go right away. I'll get another job." + +"No," he said gloomily. "There's no need for that. Why should you mess +up your career? We needn't meet. We shouldn't naturally meet, unless we +made opportunities. I think you're right, that we'd better not meet. +What's the good of meeting, just to repeat this sort of scene again and +again, and hurt each other? We've reached the breaking point; I can't +bear any more.... I think we'd better leave it that you let me know when +you change your mind and will marry me. You will, won't you, when you +do?" + +"Yes," said Kitty, and could say no more than that because she was on +the edge of tears. + +For a moment they clung together, holding each other close. He said, "My +dearest dear, I love you. Can't you?... can't you?..." and she +whispered, very pale, "I love you. I think I worship you," and laid her +cheek on his hand, so that he felt her tears. + +They walked on together through the April afternoon, and it cried to +them like a child whom they were betraying and forsaking. There would +not be another day like this day, through all the lovely awakening +spring and summer. + + +6 + +Ivy and Betty Delmer, who had been spending the afternoon at +Beaconsfield, saw them at Beaconsfield station. + +Betty said, "Surely that's your Minister with Miss Grammont." + +Ivy looked at them, down the length of the platform. It seemed to her +that Miss Grammont's walk with the Minister hadn't been altogether a +success; they both looked so pale and tired, and Miss Grammont, surely, +had been crying. + +Something suddenly passed into Ivy's consciousness about these two +people whom she admired, and her soft mouth dropped open a little with +the amazement of her thoughts. The Minister--and Miss Grammont! It was +surely incredible. Ministers didn't; they were too high, too superior. +Besides, what had love to do with this Minister, who was uncertificated +for matrimony? Ivy told herself she was mistaken, she had misread the +look with which they had looked at each other as they parted. + +"Are they thick?" Betty was asking, with careless, inquisitive interest. +Betty wouldn't think it odd; Betty didn't know anything about ministers +in general or this minister in particular. + +"Oh, I think they know each other quite well," replied Ivy. "Miss +Grammont's jolly clever, you know. I shouldn't wonder if he talks about +quite important things to her." + +"How dull," returned Betty, swinging her primroses. "Don't let's get +into the same carriage as her. I never know if I know those End House +people or not; Daddy and mother think I don't, and it's awkward.... I'd +rather enjoy knowing Miss Ponsonby and that ducky baby, even if they +aren't respectable, she looks so sweet, and I'd like to hear all about +the stage. But I've no use for your Miss Grammont. Her clothes are all +right, but I'm sure she's stuck up.... Fancy going out for Sunday with +the Minister of a government department! Rather her than me." + +Ivy said, "Don't you worry, my child. No Minister'll ever trouble _you_ +to go out with him. As for Chester, I should think he'd have you +executed after one talk; he's great on ridding the world of the mentally +deficient." But what she was thinking was, "How fearfully interesting if +there is anything between them." She wondered what the other people at +the office thought about it, or if they had ever thought about it at +all. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ON FIXED HEARTS AND CHANGING SCENES + + +1 + +To Kitty it was manifest that the time had come for a change of +employment. Such times came frequently in her life; often merely because +she got bored, yawned, wanted a change, heard life summoning her to +fresh woods and pastures new, and obeyed the call. Many occupations she +had thus thrown up lightly; this is one reason why those who regard life +as a variety entertainment do not really get on; they forget that life +is real, life is earnest, and departing leave behind them no footprints +on the sands of time. They do not make a career; they do not make good; +they do not, in the long run, even make much money, though that rolls in +by fits and starts, and at times plentifully. They do not so much hide +their talents in napkins as play ball with them. + +This is as much as to say that it was not to Kitty Grammont the effort +and the wrench that it would have been to many people to contemplate a +change of avocation. And it certainly seemed desirable. Chester had +said, "We needn't meet"; but the fact remained that when two people who +love each other work in the same building, however remote their spheres, +they disturb each other, are conscious of each other's nearness. And +Chester's presence pervaded the whole Ministry; he had stamped himself +everywhere; there was no getting away from him. His name was constantly +on the lips and on the pens of his subordinates, and clicked forth from +every typewriter; you could not so much as write an official letter +without beginning "I am directed by the Minister of Brains to state," +and signing it "for the Minister of Brains." Besides which, he was to be +seen going out and coming in, to be met in passages and lifts, to be +observed taking his food in the canteen, and his Personal Assistant +demanded continual attention to him on the telephone. No, there was no +getting away from the Minister. And that meant no peace of mind, none of +the old careless light-hearted living and working; nothing but a +continual, disturbing, restless, aching want. Kitty had no intention of +facing this, so she told Vernon Prideaux that when she found another job +she was going to leave. He looked at her in annoyance and dismay, and +said, "Good lord, why?" + +Kitty said, "I'm bored. I want a change. I'm tired of working for this +autocratic government. I want something with more variety in it, and +more soul--a travelling circus, or a companionship to a rich American +seeing the world; or any old thing, so long as it amuses me." + +"There's going to be quite enough amusement in _this_ circus," said +Prideaux, "before we're through with it, to satisfy anyone, I should +say.... Really, Kitty, I think you're foolish. You're throwing up your +chances; you're climbing up, and will climb higher if you stay. Even if +the thing founders, as is quite likely, you'll climb out of it into +another job, you're good enough. You ought to think of your career. And +besides, you can't be spared. Who on earth do you think is going to do +your job? I think you ought to see this thing through." + +But Kitty did not think so. "It will go to its own place quite quickly +enough without my help. And as for my career--funny word--I'm not sure +I've got one. If I have it's such a chequered one that a few more ups +and downs won't make much difference to it. And as for being spared, oh +anyone can be spared, out of any ministry; there are too many of us. +Anyhow--well anyhow I must go." + +Prideaux thought this so frivolous, so foolish, so unworthy, so +tiresome, and so like a woman, that he was exasperated. He rang for a +shorthand typist, remarking, "If you must you must. Miss Egerton" (Miss +Egerton had succeeded Miss Pomfrey, and was better), "send to the +Establishment Branch for Miss Grammont's papers sometime," which closed +the subject for the present. + +Kitty went back to her table and wrote a letter to the A.S.E. about some +unfortunate agreement which had been made with them concerning the +exemption of some of their members from the Mind Training Course. +Personally Kitty was of the opinion that it was a pity the agreement had +not been made as extensive as the A.S.E. desired; she thought that this +Union were already too clever by half. She almost went to the length of +thinking it was a pity the promises made to them had not been kept; a +revolutionary opinion which in itself indicated that it was time she +left. Having dealt with the A.S.E. she turned her attention to a file +sent down from M.B. 1 and minuted "Passed to you to deal with this man's +imaginary grievance." The imaginary grievance was that the wife of the +man in question had been killed by a motor bus, and he wanted a week's +postponement of his Mind Training Course in order that he might arrange +about the funeral. M.B. 1 were like that; they did not mean to be +unkind, but were a little lacking in flexibility and imagination. + +Ivy Delmer, who had answered Prideaux's bell, sat with her pencil ready +and her round face bent over her notebook. She had heard Prideaux's +order to his secretary, and concluded, correctly, that Miss Grammont was +either going to have her pay raised or to leave, and from Prideaux's +manner and voice she thought it was the second. She wondered whether +this could have anything to do with the Minister, and what he had been +saying to Miss Grammont on Sunday. She was curious and interested, even +more so than she had been on Sunday, because the people to whom she had +mentioned the subject had all noticed the intimacy; everyone seemed to +have seen the Minister out with Miss Grammont at one time or another. No +one but Ivy thought it was anything more than friendship, but no one +else had seen them look at one another on Beaconsfield platform. Ivy +had, and said so.... + +Kitty was right; nothing remained hidden in government departments, or, +indeed, anywhere else. Healthily, persistently, inevitably, everything +pushed up towards the clear light of day; and quite right, too. + + +2 + +In the evenings Kitty, seeking jobs, studied the advertisement columns +of the daily papers. She had always read them; they, with Mr. Selfridge +and the Pelman system, form the lighter and more entertaining part of +any daily paper; but now she took to perusing them with care. The +personal column of the _Times_ she found peculiarly edifying. + +"Quiet, refined gentleman (served in war, musical) would like to get +into touch with bright and sympathetic lady." Kitty rejected that; she +was not sure that she was sympathetic, and the terms were too vague. +Better was "Lady, high standard of taste and culture and large means, +wants capable travelling companion. Knowledge of art essential, good +breeding preferred. Must talk continental languages fluently and +understand railway guides." Kitty, making a mental note of that (for, +with the possible exception of the breeding, she had all these +qualifications), ran her eyes down the column, past "Write to me, +darling, all is forgiven," "Will the lady in a fur toque riding in a +Hammersmith aero on Saturday last at 3.30 communicate with A.C.", "No +man hath seen God, at any time," until she came to "Young, accomplished, +well-educated War Widow would like position as secretary or confidential +clerk to nobleman, member of parliament, or gentleman." She rested her +finger on that. "I'll put one in like this," she remarked to her cousin. +"War Widow. That's what I've always wanted to be. It sounds so well. +Elspeth, I shall buy some weeds and commence widow. A war widow...." + +"If you want a new job, and a job with travel and life in it," said her +cousin, sounding her, "I don't know why you don't go out to the Pacific +Islands and join Neil. You may be sure that wherever Neil is there'll be +travel enough and life enough." She watched Kitty idly through a little +whirl of cigarette smoke. But Kitty looked no more than bored, bending +over the _Times_ and manicuring her nails. + +"Neil would tire me. I've grown too old for Neil. Besides, it wouldn't +be proper; I've broken off my engagement. I've not had the last letter +back yet, you know, so he may have got it. Besides..." Kitty paused only +for a moment, and added in the same casual tone, "besides, I'm too much +in love with Nicky Chester, though I can't have him, to have any use for +anyone else just now." + +Her cousin nodded. "I knew that, darling, of course. And so you've +renounced each other. How silly. But it won't last. It never does. Go +and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, then, to pass the time." + + +3 + +But there were hours of the night when it seemed to Kitty that she could +not go and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, that she could not be +companion, however capable, to any travelling lady of taste, culture and +means, or clerk, however confidential, to any peer, M.P., or even +gentleman; that none of these careers (were they careers? She still +sought to define that word) would pass the time at all; that nothing, in +fact, would pass it except working for Nicholas Chester, seeing him +sometimes, hearing his voice.... Always addicted to metaphysical +speculation in the night, even in nights of anguish, she would speculate +on this queer disease, so common to the race, which had overtaken (and +not, as they had both candidly remarked, for the first time, possibly +not even for the last) herself and Nicholas Chester. What was it, this +extraordinary driving pressure of emotion, this quite disproportionate +desire for companionship with, for contact with, one person out of all +the world of people and things, which made, while it lasted, all other +desires, all other emotions, pale and faint beside it? Which so +perverted and wrenched from its bearings the mind of a man like Nicholas +Chester that he was for throwing overboard the cherished principles +which were the cargo he had for long been so desperately bent on +carrying, through storm and stress, to the country of his dreams? Which +made him say, "No one will find out, and if they do, let them and be +damned to them"?... Desire for a person; it had, it had always had, an +extraordinarily dynamic effect on the lives of men and women. When it +came into play, principle, chivalry, common sense, intellect, humour, +culture, sweetness and light, all we call civilisation, might crumple up +like match-board so this one overwhelming desire, shared by all the +animal creation, might be satisfied. On this rock the world, the +pathetic, eager, clever, foolish, so heavily handicapped world, might be +wrecked. It was, perhaps, this one thing that would always prevent +humanity from being, in fact, a clever and successful race, would always +keep them down somewhere near the level of the other animals. + +Faces passed before Kitty's wakeful eyes; the fatuous, contented faces +of mothers bending over the rewards of love clinging to their breasts; +slow, placid, married faces everywhere.... This thing was irresistible, +and certainly inevitable; if it ceased, humanity itself would cease, +since it is the one motive which impels the continued population of the +already over-populated earth. There it was; one had to accept it; there +was, perhaps, no one who grew to years of maturity who escaped it, no +one whose life would not, at some period, be in some degree disorganised +by this strange force. It was blind instinct; its indulgence did not, in +the end, even make for good, so far as good meant adventure, romance, +and the gay chances of life, the freedom of the cities of the +world--anything beyond mere domesticity. For what, after all, was +marriage? A tying down, a shutting of gates, the end of youth, the +curbing of the spirit of adventure which seeks to claim all the four +corners of the world for its heritage. It meant a circumscribed and +sober life, in one place, in one house, with, perhaps, children to +support and to mind; it meant becoming respectable, insured, mature, +settled members of society, with a stake in the country. No longer may +life be greeted with a jest and death with a grin; both these (of course +important but not necessarily solemn) things have come to matter too +much to be played with. + +To this sedate end do the world's gay and careless free-lances come; +they shut the door upon the challenging spirit of life, and Settle Down. +It is to this end that instinct, not to be denied, summons men and +women, as the bit of cheese summons the mouse into the trap. + +Musing thus, Kitty turned her pillow over and over, seeking a softer +side. How she detested stupidity! How, even more, Nicholas Chester +loathed stupidity! To him it was anathema, the root of all evil, the +Goliath he was out to destroy, the blind beast squatting on men's bones, +the idiot drivelling on the village green. And here he was, caught in +the beast's destroying grip, just because he had, as they call it, +fallen in love.... What a work is man!... And here was Kitty herself, +all her gay love of living in danger, tottering unsteadily on its +foundations, undermined by this secret gnawing thing. + +At last, as a sop to the craving which would not be denied, she sat up, +with aching, fevered head, and turned the light on, and wrote on a piece +of paper, "Nicky, I'll marry you any time you like, if you want me to," +and folded it up and laid it on the table at her side, and then lay +quite quiet, the restless longing stilled in her, slow tears forcing +themselves from under her closed lashes, because she knew she would not +send it. She would not send it because Chester too, in his heart, knew +that they had better part; he too was fighting for the cause he believed +in; he wanted her, but wanted to succeed in doing without her. She must +give him his chance to stick by his principles, not drag him down below +them. + +There were moments when Kitty wished that she could believe in a God, +and could pray. It must, she thought, be a comfort. She even at times +wished she were a Christian, to find fulfilment in loss. That was, at +least, what she supposed Christians to do. + +But she could not be a Christian, and she could not pray; all she could +do was to nerve herself to meet life in the spirit of the gay pierrette, +with cap and bells on her aching head, and a little powder to hide the +tears, and to try not to snap at Elspeth or the people at the office. +This last endeavour usually failed. The little gaping messengers who +answered (when they thought they would) Miss Grammont's bell, told each +other Miss Grammont was cross. The typists grew tired of having letters +sent back to be retyped because of some trifling misapprehension of Miss +Grammont's caligraphy or some trifling misspelling on their own account. +Surely these things could be set right with a pen and a little skill. + +These moods of impatience, when frustration vented itself in anger, +alternated with the gaiety, the irreverent and often profane levity, +which was Kitty's habitual way of braving life in its more formidable +aspects. Some people have this instinct, to nail a flag of motley to the +mast of the foundering ship and keep it flying to the last. + + +4 + +While Kitty was debating as to her future, toying with the relative +advantages and entertainment to be derived from the careers of War +Widow, Confidential Clerk, Travelling Companion, archaeological explorer +in Macedonia or Crete, beginner on the music-hall stage, under Pansy's +auspices, all of which seemed to have their bright sides, two +suggestions were made to her. One was from a cousin of hers who was +sub-editor of _Stop It_, and offered to get her a place on the staff. + +"Would it bind me to a point of view?" Kitty enquired. "I can't be bound +to a point of view." + +"Oh dear no," her cousin assured her. "Certainly not. Rather the +contrary," and Kitty said, "All right, I'll think it over." She was +rather attracted by the idea. + +You cannot, of course, exactly call it being bound to a point of view to +be required to hint every week that certain things want stopping, in a +world whose staunchest champions must admit that this is indeed so. + +_Stop It_ was certainly eclectic, in its picking out, from all the +recognised groups associated for thought and action, activities whose +cessation seemed good to it. The question that rather suggested itself +to its readers was, if _Stop It_ had its way, what, if anything, would +be left? + +"Very little," the editor would have answered. "A clean sheet. Then we +can begin again." + +_Stop It_ had dropped some of the caution with which it had begun: it +was now quite often possible to deduce from its still cryptic +phraseology what were some of the things it wanted stopped. Having for +some time successfully dodged Dora, it was now daring her. As in all +probability it would not have a long life, and appeared to be having a +merry one, Kitty thought she might as well join it while she could. + +To desert abruptly from the ranks of the bureaucracy to those of the +mutineers seemed natural to Kitty, who had always found herself at home +in a number of widely differing situations. Really this is perhaps the +only way to live, if all the various and so greatly different needs of +complicated human nature are to be satisfied. It is very certain that +they cannot be satisfied simultaneously; the best way seems, therefore, +to alternate. It is indeed strange that this is not more done, that +Radicals, Tories, and Labour members, for instance, do not more +frequently interchange, play general post, to satisfy on Tuesday that +side of their souls and intellects which has not been given free play on +Monday; that Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Lord Curzon do not, from time to +time, deliver each other's speeches, not from any freakish desire to +astonish, but from the sheer necessities of their natures; that Mr. +Massingham and Mr. Leo Maxse, or Mr. A. G. Gardiner and Mr. Gwynne, or +Mr. J. C. Squire and Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey, or Mr. Garvin and Mr. J. +A. Spender, do not from time to time arrange together to change offices +and run each other's papers; or that Mr. Arthur Ransome and Mr. Stephen +Graham do not, during their tours of Russia, sometimes change pens with +each other when they write home. There must be in many people some +undemocratic instinct of centralisation, of autocratic subversion of the +horde of their lesser opinions and impulses to the most dominant and +commanding one, a lack of the true democrat's desire to give a chance to +them all. They say with the Psalmist, "My heart is fixed," and "I have +chosen the way and I will run it to the end," and this is called, by +some, finding one's true self. Perhaps it may be so; it certainly +entails the loss of many other selves; and possibly the dropping of +these, or rather their continual denial and gradual atrophy, simplifies +life. + +But Kitty, whose heart was not fixed, entered upon all the changing +scenes of life with a readiness to embrace any point of view, though not +indeed to be bound to it, and an even greater willingness to tell +anything in earth or heaven that it ought to be stopped. + +She told Prideaux that she was considering this offer. Prideaux said, +"That thing! Its very name condemns it. It's on the wrong tack. You +shouldn't be out to stop things; they've got to go on.... If it's +journalism you want, why don't you apply for a job on _Intelligence_?" +_Intelligence_, or the Weekly Bulletin of the Brains Ministry (to give +it its sub-title, humorously chosen by one who visualised either the +public or the Ministry as a sick man) was a weekly journal issued by the +Ministry, and its aim was, besides reporting the Ministry's work, +decisions and pronouncements for each week, to correlate all its local +activities and keep them in touch with headquarters, and to collect +reports from over the country as to the state of the public mind. It was +for official circulation only. "Why not?" repeated Prideaux, struck by +this idea. "It would be quite enough of a change: you would probably be +one of the travelling reporters and send bright little anecdotes from +the countryside; I know they want some more reporters. Why don't you +apply? I'll speak to M.B.B. about you if you like." (M.B.B. was the +department which edited the Bulletin.) + +"Would it be interesting?" Kitty wondered. + +Prideaux thought it would. "Besides," he added, "you'd remain attached +to the Ministry that way, and could return to headquarters later on if +you wanted to.... And meanwhile you'd see all the fun.... We're in for a +fairly lively time, and it would be a pity to miss it. We're bound to +slip up over the A.S.E. before the month's over. And probably over the +exemption of Imbeciles and the Abandoned Babies, too. And the +journalists; that's going to be a bad snag. Oh, it'll be interesting all +right. If it wasn't for Chester's remarkable gift of getting on people's +right side, it would be a poor look-out. But Chester'd pull most things +through. If they'd put him at the head of the Recruiting job during the +war, I believe he'd have pulled even the Review of Exceptions through +without a row.... Well now, what about trying for this job?" + +"All right," Kitty agreed. "If you think there's any chance of my +getting it. I don't mind much what I do, so long as I have a change from +this hotel." + +On Prideaux's recommendation she did get the job, and was transferred +from her branch to M.B.B. as a travelling reporter for _Intelligence_. +She renounced _Stop It_ with some regret; there was a whimsical element +about _Stop It_ which appealed to her, and which must almost necessarily +be lacking in an official journal; but the career of travelling reporter +seemed to have possibilities. Besides the more weighty reports from the +countryside, a page of _Intelligence_ was devoted each week to anecdotes +related in the engagingly sudden and irrelevant manner of our cheaper +daily Press; as, "A woman appealed before the Cuckfield Tribunal for +exemption from the Mind Training Course on the grounds that she had made +an uncertificated marriage and had since had twins, and must, therefore, +be of a mental level which unfitted her to derive benefit from the +Course." "Three babies have been found abandoned in a ditch between +Amersham and Chesham Bois." "The Essex Farmers' Association have +produced a strain of hens which lay an egg each day all the year round. +The farmers ascribe this to the improvement in their methods caused by +the Mind Training Course." "In reply to a tinplate worker who applied +for Occupational Exemption from the Mental Progress Act, the Chairman of +the Margam Tribunal said ..." (one of the witty things which chairmen do +say, and which need not here be reported). It was, apparently, the +business of the reporters to collect (or invent) and communicate these +trivial anecdotes, as well as more momentous news, as of unrest at +Nottingham, the state of intelligence or otherwise among Suffolk +agriculturists, and so forth. + +Kitty rather hoped to be sent to Ireland, which was, as often, in an +interesting and dubious state. Ireland was excluded from the Brains +Acts, as from other Acts. But she was being carefully watched, with a +view to including her when it seemed that it might be safe to do so. +Meanwhile those of her population who were considered by the English +government to be in no need of it were profiting by the Mind Training +Course, while the mass of the peasantry were instructed by their priests +to shun such unholy heretic learning as they would the devil. But on the +whole it seemed possible that the strange paths pointed out by the +Brains Ministry might eventually lead to the solution of the Irish +Question. (What the Irish Question at that moment was, I will not here +attempt to explain: it must be sufficient to remark that there will +always be one.) + + +5 + +But Kitty was not sent to Ireland. She was sent about England; first to +Cambridge. Cambridge was not averse to having its mind improved; there +is a sweet reasonableness about Cambridge. It knows how important brains +are. Also it had an affection for Chester, who had been at Trinity. So +reports from Cambridge as regards the Brains Acts were on the whole +favourable, in spite of some unrest (for different reasons) at Kings, +Downing, and Trinity Hall, and slight ferment of revolt down at +Barnwell. There was, indeed, a flourishing branch of the S.I.L. (Stop It +League) in the University, but its attention was not directed at the +moment particularly to stopping the work of the Ministry of Brains. + +It was, of course, a queer and quite new Cambridge which Kitty +investigated. She had known the pre-war Cambridge; there had intervened +the war Cambridge, that desolated and desolating thing, and now there +had sprung up, on the other side of that dividing gulf, a Cambridge new +and without precedent; a Cambridge half full of young war veterans, with +the knowledge of red horizons, battle, murder, and sudden death, in +their careless, watchful, experienced eyes; when they lounged about the +streets or hurried to lectures, they dropped, against their will, into +step; they were brown, and hard, and tired, and found it hard to +concentrate on books; they had forgotten their school knowledge, and +could not get through Littlegoes, and preferred their beds to sleeping +in the open, that joy of pampered youth which has known neither +battle-fields or Embankment seats. + +The other half were the boys straight from school; and between these two +divisions rolled the Great European War, across which they could with +difficulty make themselves understood each by the other. + +It was a Cambridge which had broken with history, for neither of these +sections had any links with the past, any traditions to hand down. The +only people who had these were the dons and Fellows and the very few +undergraduates who, having broken off their University career to fight, +had, after long years, returned to it again. These moved like ghosts +among their old haunts; but their number was so inconsiderable as hardly +to count. It was, to all intents and purposes, a new Cambridge, a clean +sheet; and it was interesting to watch what was being inscribed upon it. + +But with such observations, apart from those of them which were +connected with the attitude of Cambridge towards the Brains Ministry, +neither Kitty nor this story are concerned. The story of the new +Cambridge will have to be written some day by a member of it, and should +be well worth reading. + +From Cambridge Kitty went to travel Cambridgeshire, which was in a state +of quiet, albeit grudging, East Anglian acceptance and slow +assimilation. + +Far different were the northern midlands, which were her next +destination. Here, indeed, was revolt in process of ferment; revolt +which had to be continually uncorked and aired that it might not ferment +too much. The uncorking and airing was done by means of conferences, at +which the tyrannised and the tyrants each said their say. These +heart-to-heart talks have a soothing effect (sometimes) on the +situation; at other times not. As conducted by the Minister of Brains, +they certainly had. Chester was something more than soothing; he was +inspiring. While he was addressing a meeting, he made it believe that +intelligence was the important thing; more important than liberty, more +important than the satisfaction of immediate desires. He made +intelligence a flaming idea, like patriotism, freedom, peace, democracy, +the eight-hour day, or God; and incidentally he pointed out that it +would lead to most of these things; and they believed him. When he +showed how, in the past, the lack of intelligence had led to national +ruin, economic bondage, war, autocracy, poverty, sweating, and vice, +they believed that too. When he said, "Look at the European War," they +looked. When he went on, "Without centuries of stupidity everywhere the +war would never have been; without stupidity the war, if it had been, +would have been very differently conducted; without stupidity we need +never have another war, but with stupidity we inevitably shall, League +of Nations or not," they all roared and cheered. + +So he went about saying these things, convincing and propitiating labour +everywhere; labour, that formidable monster dreaded and cajoled by all +good statesmen; labour, twice as formidable since in the Great War it +had learned the ways of battle and the possibility and the power of the +union of arms and the man. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE COMMON HERD + + +1 + +It was after such a meeting, at Chesterfield, at the end of July, that +Kitty and the Minister next met. Kitty was at that time writing up the +Derbyshire towns for the Bulletin. She attended the Chesterfield meeting +officially. It was a good one; Chester spoke well, and the audience +(mainly colliers) listened well. + +It was a very hot evening. The Town Hall was breathless, and full of +damp, coal-grimed, imperfectly-cleaned faces. Kitty too was damp, though +she was wearing even less than usual. Chester was damp and white, and +looked, for all his flame and ardour, which carried the meeting along +with him, fatigued and on edge. Kitty, herself fatigued and on edge, +watched him, seeing the way his hands moved nervously on the table as he +spoke. + +It was while he was talking about the demand for increased wages among +colliers to facilitate the payment of the taxes on uncertificated +babies, that he saw Kitty. His eyes stayed on hers for a moment, and he +paused in the middle of a sentence ... "defeat the whole purpose of the +Act," he finished it, and looked elsewhere. Kitty was startled by his +pause; it was not like him. Normally he, so used to public speaking, so +steeled against emergencies, so accustomed to strange irruptions into +the flow of his speech, would surely have carried on without a break or +a sign. That he had not done so showed him to be in a highly nervous +state, thought Kitty, something like her own in this hot weather, +through her continual travellings by train and staying in lodgings and +writing absurd reports. + +Across the length of the hall she saw nothing now but that thin, +slouching figure, the gestures of those nervous, flexible hands, that +white, damp face, with its crooked eyebrows and smile. + +It was so long since she had seen him and spoken to him; something in +her surged up at the sight of him and turned her giddy and faint. It was +perilously hot; the heat soaked all one's will away and left one +limp.... Did he too feel like that? + + +2 + +He looked at her once more, just before the end, and his eyes said, +"Wait for me." + +She waited, in the front of a little group by the door through which he +was to come out. He came out with his secretary, and the mayor, and +others; he was talking to them. When he saw her he stopped openly, and +said, so that all could hear, "How do you do, Miss Grammont. I haven't +seen you for some time. You're doing this reporting work for the +Bulletin now, aren't you? I want to talk to you about that. If you'll +give me the address I'll come round in about half an hour and see you +about it." + +She gave him the address of her rooms in Little Darkgate Street, and he +nodded and walked on. He had done it well; no one thought it strange, or +anything but all in the way of business. Ministers have to be good at +camouflage, at throwing veils over situations; it is part of their job. + +Kitty went back to her lodgings, and washed again, for the seventeenth +time that day, and tried if she would feel less hot and less pale and +more the captain of her soul in another and even filmier blouse. But she +grew hotter, and paler, and less the captain of anything at all. + +At 9.30 Chester came. He too was hot and pale and captain of nothing. He +had not even the comfort of a filmy blouse. + +He said, "My dear--my dear," and no more for a little time. Then he +said, "My dearest, this has got to stop. I can't stand it. We've got to +marry." + +Kitty said, "Oh well. I suppose we have." She was too hot, too limp, too +tired, to suppose anything else. + +"At once," said Chester. "I'll get a licence.... We must get it done at +some small place in the country where they don't know who we are. I must +take another name for it.... There's a place I sometimes stay at, in the +Chilterns. They are rather stupid there--even now," he added, with the +twist of a rueful smile. "I think it should be pretty safe. Anyhow I +don't think I much care; we're going to do it." + +They spoke low in the dim, breathless room, with its windows opened wide +on to the breathless street. + +"I have wanted you," said Chester. "I have wanted you extremely badly +these last three months. I have never wanted anything so much. It has +been a--a hideous time, taking it all round." + +"You certainly," said Kitty, "look as if it had. So do I--don't I? It's +partly heat and dirt, with both of us--the black of this town _soaks_ +in--and partly tiredness, and partly, for you, the strain of your +ministerial responsibilities, no doubt; but I think a little of it is +our broken hearts.... Nicky, I'm too limp to argue or fight. I know it's +all wrong, what we're going to do; but I'm like you--I don't think I +much care. We'll get married in your stupid village, under a false name. +That counts, does it? Oh, all right. I shouldn't particularly mind if it +didn't, you know. I'll do without the registry business altogether if +you think it's safer. After all, what's the odds? It comes to the same +thing in the end, only with less fuss. And it's no one's business but +ours." + +"No," Chester said. "I think that would be a mistake. Wrong. I don't +approve of this omitting of the legal bond; it argues a lack of the +sense of social ethics; it opens the door to a state of things which is +essentially uncivilised, lacking in self-control and intelligence. I +don't like it. It always strikes me as disagreeable and behind the +times; a step backwards. No, we won't do that. I'd rather take the +greater risk of publicity. I'm dropping one principle, but I don't want +to drop more than I need." + +Kitty laughed silently, and slipped her hand into his. "All right, you +shan't. We'll get tied up properly at your country registry, and keep +some of our principles and hang the risk.... I oughtn't to let you, you +know. If it comes out it will wreck your career and perhaps wreck the +Ministry and endanger the intellect of the country. We may be sowing the +seeds of another World War; but--oh, I'm bored with being +high-principled about it." + +"It's too late to be that," said Chester. "We've got to go ahead now." + +He consulted his pocket-book and said that he was free on August 10th, +and that they would then get married and go to Italy for a fortnight's +holiday together. They made the other arrangements that have to be made +in these peculiar circumstances, and then Chester went back to his +hotel. + +The awful, airless, panting night through which the Chesterfield +furnaces flamed, lay upon the queer, crooked black city like a menace. +Kitty, leaning out of her window and listening to Chester's retreating +steps echoing up the street, ran her fingers through her damp dark hair, +because her head ached, and murmured, "I don't care. I don't care. +What's the good of living if you can't have what you want?" + +Which expressed an instinct common to the race, and one which would in +the end bring to nothing the most strenuous efforts of social and +ethical reformers. + + +3 + +They got married. Chester took, for the occasion, the name of Gilbert +Lewis; it was surprising how easy this was. The witness looked +attentively at him, but probably always looked like that at the people +getting married. Neither he nor the registrar looked intelligent, or as +if they were connecting Chester's face with anything they had seen +before. + +After the performance they went to Italy for a fortnight. Italy in +August is fairly safe from English visitors. They stayed at Cogoleto, a +tiny fishing town fifteen miles up the coast from Genoa, shut in a +little bay between the olive hills and the sea. To this sheltered coast +through the summer months people come from the hot towns inland and fill +every lodging and inn and pitch tents on the shore, and pass serene, +lazy, amphibious days in and out of a sea which has the inestimable +advantage over English seas that it is always at hand. + +The Chesters too passed amphibious days. They would rise early, while +the sea lay cool and smooth and pale and pearly in the morning light, +and before the sand burnt their feet as they walked on it, and slip in +off the gently shelving shore, and swim and swim and swim. They were +both good swimmers. Chester was the stronger and faster, but Kitty could +do more tricks. She could turn somersaults like an eel, and sit at the +bottom of the sea playing with pebbles, with open eyes gazing up through +clear green depths. When they bathed from a boat, she turned head over +heels backwards from the bows, and shot under the boat and came up +neatly behind the stern. Chester too could perform fairly well; their +energy and skill excited the amazed admiration of the _bagnanti_, who +seldom did more than splash on the sea's edge or bob up and down with +swimming belts a few yards out. Chester and Kitty would swim out for a +mile, then lie on their backs and float, gazing up into the sea-blue +sky, before the sun had climbed high enough to burn and blind. Then they +would swim back and return to the inn and put on a very few clothes and +have their morning coffee, and then walk up the coast, taking lunch, to +some little lonely cove in the shadow of rocks, where they would spend +the heat of the day in and out of the sea. When they came out of the +water they lay on the burning sands and dried themselves, and talked or +read. When the heat of the day had passed a little, and the sea lay very +smooth and still in the late afternoon, with no waves at all, only a +gentle, whispering swaying to and fro, they would go further afield; +climbing up the steep stone-paved mule-tracks that wound up the hills +behind, passing between grey olive groves and lemon and orange gardens +and vineyards of ripening vines and little rough white farmhouses, till +they reached the barer, wilder hill slopes of pines and rocks, where the +hot sweetness of myrtle and juniper stirred with each tiny moving of sea +air. + +They would climb often to the top of one or other of this row of hills +that guarded the bay, and from its top, resting by some old pulley well +or little shrine, they would look down over hills and sea bathed in +evening light, and see to the east the white gleam of Genoa shimmering +like a pearl, like a ghost, between transparent sea and sky, to the west +the point of Savona jutting dark against a flood of fire. + +There was one hill they often climbed, a steep little pine-grown +mountain crested by a little old chapel, with a well by its side. The +chapel was dedicated to the Madonna della Mare, and was hung about +inside with votive offerings of little ships, presented to the Madonna +by grateful sailors whom she had delivered from the perils of the sea. +Outside the chapel a shrine stood, painted pink, and from it the mother +and child smiled kindly down on the withered flowers that nearly always +lay on the ledge before them. + +By the shrine and the well Chester and Kitty would sit, while the low +light died slowly from the hills, till its lower slopes lay in evening +shadow, and only they on the summit remained, as if en-chanted, in a +circle of fairy gold. + +One evening while they sat there a half-witted contadino slouched out of +the chapel and begged from them. Chester refused sharply, and turned his +face away. The imbecile hung about, mouthed a confused prayer, bowing +and crossing, before the shrine, got no help from that quarter either, +and at last shambled disconsolately down the hillside, crooning an +unintelligible song to himself. + +Kitty, looking at Chester, saw with surprise that his face was rigid +with disgust; he looked as if he were trying not to shudder. + +"How you hate them, Nicky," she said curiously. + +He said "I do," grimly, and spoke of something else. + +But a little later he said abruptly, "I've never told you much about my +people, Kitty, have I, or what are called my early years?" + +"You wouldn't, of course," she replied, "any more than I should. We're +neither of us much interested in the past; you live in the future, and I +live in the present moment.... But I should be interested to hear, all +the same." + +"That imbecile reminded me," Chester said grimly. "I had a twin sister +like that, and a brother not very far removed from it. You know that, of +course; but you'll never know, no one _can_ ever know who's not +experienced it, what it was like.... At first, when I began to do more +than just accept it as part of things as they were, it only made me +angry that such things should be possible, and frightfully sorry for +Joan and Gerald, who had to go about like that, so little use to +themselves or anyone else, and so tiresome to me and Maggie (she's my +eldest sister; I'd like you to meet her one day). I remember even +consulting Maggie as to whether it wouldn't be a good thing to take them +out into a wood and lose them, like the babes in the wood. I honestly +thought it would be for their own good; I knew I should have preferred +it if I had been them. But Maggie didn't agree; she took a more patient +line about it than I did; she always does. Then, as I grew older, I +became angry with my parents, who had no right, of course, to have had +any children at all; they were first cousins, and deficiency was in the +family.... It was that that first set me thinking about the whole +subject. I remember I asked my father once, when I was about seventeen, +how he had reconciled it with his conscience (he was a dean at that +time) to do such a thing. I must have been an irritating young prig, of +course; in fact, I remember that I was. He very properly indicated to me +that I was stepping out of my sphere in questioning him on such a point, +and also that whatever is must be sent by Providence, and therefore +right. I didn't drop it at once; I remember I argued that it hadn't +"been" and therefore had not necessarily been right, until he and my +mother made it so; but he closed the conversation; quite time too, I +suppose. It was difficult to argue with my father in those days; it's +easier now, though not really easy. I think the reduction of the worldly +condition of bishops has been good for him; it has put him in what I +suppose is called a state of grace. I don't believe he'd do it now, if +he lived his life again. However, he did do it, and the result was two +deficient children and one who grew up loathing stupidity in the way +some few people (conceivably) loathe vice, when they've been brought +into close contact with its effects. It became an obsession with me; I +seemed to see it everywhere, spoiling everything, blocking every path, +tying everyone's hands. The Boer war happened while I was at school.... +Good Lord.... Then I went to Cambridge, and it was there that I really +began to think the thing seriously out. What has always bothered me +about it is that human beings are so astoundingly _clever_; miraculously +clever, if you come to think of it, and compare us with the other +animals, so like us in lots of ways. The things we've done; the animal +state we've grown out of; the things we've discovered and created--it +makes one's head reel. And if we can be clever like that, why not be a +little cleverer still? Why be so abysmally stupid about many things? The +_waste_ of it.... The world might get anywhere if we really developed +our powers to their full extent. But we always slip up somewhere: +nothing quite comes off as it should. Think of all these thousands of +years of house-managing, and the really clever arrangements which have +been made in connection with it--and then visit a set of cottages and +see the mess; a woman trying to cook food and clean the house and look +after children and wash clothes, all by hand, and with the most +inadequate contrivances for any of it. Why haven't we thought of some +way out of that beastly, clumsy squalor and muddle yet? And why do +houses built and fitted like some of those still exist? If we're clever +enough to have invented and built houses at all, why not go one better +and do it properly? It's the same with everything. Medical science, for +instance. The advances it's made fill one with amaze and admiration; but +why is there still disease? And why isn't there a cure for every +disease? And why do doctors fail so hopelessly to diagnose anything a +little outside their ordinary beat? There it is; we've been clever about +it in a way, but nothing like clever enough, or as clever as we've got +to be before we've done. The same with statesmanship and government; +only there we've very seldom been clever at all; that's still to come. +And our educational system ... oh Lord.... The mischief is that people +in general don't _want_ other people to become too clever; it wouldn't +suit their turn. So the popular instinct for mucking along, for taking +things as you find them (and leaving them there), the popular taste for +superficial twaddle in literature and politics and science and art and +religion is pandered to on its own level.... + +"But I didn't mean to go off on to all this; I merely meant to tell you +what first started me thinking of these things." + +"Go on," said Kitty. "I like it. It makes me feel at home, as if I was +sitting under you at a meeting.... What I infer is that if your parents +_hadn't_ been first cousins and had deficiency in their family, there +would have been no Ministry of Brains. I expect your father was right, +and whatever is is best.... Of course the interesting question is, what +would happen if ever we _were_ much cleverer than we are now? What would +happen, that is, besides houses being better managed and disease better +treated and locomotion improved and books better written or not written +at all, and all that? What would happen to nations and societies and +governments, if people in general became much more intelligent? I can't +imagine. But I think there'd be a jolly old row.... Perhaps we shall +know before long." + +"No," said Chester. "We shan't know that. There may be a jolly old row; +I daresay there will; but it won't be because people have got too +clever; it will be because they haven't got clever enough. It'll be the +short-sighted stupidity of people revolting against their ultimate +good." + +"As it might be you and me." + +"Precisely. As it might be you and me.... What we're doing is horribly +typical, Kitty. Don't let's ever blind ourselves to its nature. We'll do +it, because we think it's worth it; but we'll do it with our eyes open. +Thank heaven we're both clear-headed and hard-headed enough to know what +we're doing and not to muddle ourselves with cant about it.... That's +one of the things that I suppose, I love you for, my dear--your +clear-headedness. You never muddle or cant or sentimentalise. You're +hard-headed and clear-eyed." + +"In fact, cynical," said Kitty. + +"Yes. Rather cynical. Unnecessarily cynical, I think. You could do with +some more faith." + +"Perhaps I shall catch some from you. You've got lots, haven't you? As +the husband is the wife is; I am mated to, etc.... And you're a lot +cleverer than I am, so you're most likely right.... We're awfully +different, Nicky, my love, aren't we?" + +"No doubt we are. Who isn't?" + +For a while they lay silent in the warm sweetness of the hill-top, while +the golden light slipped from them, leaving behind it the pure green +stillness of the evening; and they looked at one another and speculated +on the strange differences of human beings each from each, and the +mystery of personality, that tiny point on to which all the age-long +accumulated forces of heredity press, so that you would suppose that the +world itself could not contain them, and yet they are contained in one +small, ordinary soul, which does not break under the weight. + +So they looked at one another, speculating, until speculation faded into +seeing, and instead of personalities they became to one another persons, +and Chester saw Kitty red-lipped and golden-eyed and black-lashed and +tanned a smooth nut-brown by sun and sea, and Kitty saw Chester long and +lean and sallow, with black brows bent over deep, keen, dreaming eyes, +and lips carrying their queer suggestion of tragedy and comedy. + +"Isn't it fun," said Kitty, "that you are you and I am I? I think it +must be (don't you?) the greatest fun that ever was since the world +began. That's what I think ... and everywhere millions of people are +thinking exactly the same. We're part of the common herd, Nicky--the +very, very commonest herd of all herds. I think I like it rather--being +so common, I mean. It's amusing. Don't you?" + +"Yes," he said, and smiled at her. "I think I do." + +Still they lay there, side by side, in the extraordinary hushed +sweetness of the evening. Kitty's cheek was pressed against short warm +grass. Close to her ear a cicale chirped, monotonously bright; far off, +from every hill, the frogs began their evening singing. + +Kitty, as she sometimes did, seemed to slip suddenly outside the circle +of the present, of her own life and the life around her; far off she saw +it, a queer little excited corner of the universe, where people played +together and were happy, where the funny world spun round and round and +laughed and cried and ran and slept and loved and hated, and everything +mattered intensely, and yet, as seen from outside the circle, did not +matter at all.... She felt like a soul unborn, or a soul long dead, +watching the world's antics with a dispassionate, compassionate +interest.... + +The touch of Chester's hand on her cheek brought her back abruptly into +the circle again. + +"Belovedest," he said, "let's come down the hill. The light is going." + + +4 + +One day they had a shock; they met someone they knew. They met him in +the sea; at least he was in a boat and they were in the sea. They were +swimming a mile from shore, in a pearl-smooth, golden sea, in the eye of +the rising sun. Half a mile out from them a yacht lay, as idle as a +painted ship upon a painted ocean. From the yacht a boat shot out, rowed +by a man. It shot between the swimmers and the rising sun. Chester and +Kitty were lying on their backs, churning up the sun's path of gold with +their feet, and Kitty was singing a little song that Greek goat-herds +sing on the hills above Corinth in the mornings. + +Leaning over the side and resting on his oars, the man in the boat +shouted, "_Hullo_, Chester!" + +An electric shock stabbed Kitty through at the voice, which was Vernon +Prideaux's. Losing her nerve, her head, and her sense of the suitable, +she splashed round on to her chest, kicked herself forward, and dived +like a porpoise, travelling as swiftly as she could from Chester, +Prideaux, and the situation. When she came up it was with a splutter, +because she had laughed. Glancing backwards over her shoulder, she saw +Chester swimming towards the boat. What would he say? Would he speak of +her, or wrap her in discreet silence? And had Prideaux recognised her or +not? + +"Lunatic," said Kitty. "Of course he did. I have taken the worst way, in +my excitement." + +Promptly she retraced her path, this time on the water's surface, and +hailed Prideaux as she came. + +"Hullo, Vernon. The top of the morning to you. I thought I'd show you I +could dive.... What brings you here? Oh the yacht, of course...." She +paused, wondering what was to be their line, then struck one out on her +own account. "Isn't it odd; Mr. Chester and I are both staying near +here." + +Prideaux's keen, well-bred, perfectly courteous face looked for one +moment as if it certainly was a little odd; then he swallowed his +surprise. + +"Are you? It's a splendid coast, isn't it? Cogoleto in there, I suppose? +We're not stopping at all, unfortunately; we're going straight on to +Genoa.... I'm coming in." + +He dived neatly from the bows, with precision and power, as he wrote +minutes, managed deputations, ignored odd situations, and did everything +else. One was never afraid with Prideaux; one could rely on him not to +bungle. + +They bathed together and conversed, till Kitty said she must go in, and +swam shoreward in the detached manner of one whose people are expecting +her to breakfast. Soon afterwards she saw that Prideaux was pulling back +to the yacht, and Chester swimming westward, as if he were staying at +Varazze. + +"Tact," thought Kitty. "This, I suppose, is how people behave while +conducting a vulgar intrigue. Ours is a vulgar marriage; there doesn't +seem much difference.... I rather wish we could have told Vernon all +about it; he's safe enough, and I should like to have heard his comments +and seen his face. How awful he would think us.... I don't know anyone +who would disapprove more.... Well, I suppose it's more interesting than +a marriage which doesn't have to be kept dark, but it's much less +peaceful." + +They met at the inn, at breakfast. + +"Did you have to swim right across the bay, darling?" Kitty enquired. +"I'm so sorry. By the way, I noticed that Vernon never asked either of +us where we were staying, nor invited us to come and visit the yacht. Do +you suppose he believed a word we said?" + +Chester lifted his eyebrows. "His mental category is A, I believe," he +replied. + +"Well," said Kitty, "anyhow he can't know we're married, even if he does +think we've arranged to meet here. And Vernon's very discreet; he won't +babble." + +Chester ate a roll and a half in silence. Then he remarked, without +emotion, "Kitty, this thing is going to come out. We may as well make up +our minds to it. We shall go on meeting people, and they won't all be +discreet. It will come out, as certainly as flowers in spring, or the +Clyde engineers next week." + +They faced one another in silence for a moment across the coffee and +rolls. Then, because there seemed nothing else which could meet the +situation, they both began to laugh helplessly. + +Three days later they returned to England, by different routes. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A MINISTRY AT BAY + + +1 + +That autumn was a feverish period in the Ministry's career. Many persons +have been called upon, for one cause or another, to wait in nervous +anticipation hour by hour for the signal which shall herald their own +destruction. Thus our ancestors at the latter end of the tenth century +waited expectantly for the crack of doom; but the varying emotions with +which they awaited it can only be guessed at. More vivid to the mind and +memory are the expectant and waiting first days of August, 1914. On the +other hand, the emotions of cabinets foreseeing their own resignation, +of the House of Lords anticipating abolition, of criminals awaiting +sentence, of newspapers desperately staving off extinction, of the crews +of foundered ships struggling to keep afloat, of government departments +anticipating their own untimely end, are mysteries veiled from the +outside world, sacred ground which may not be trodden by the multitude. + +The Ministry of Brains that autumn was fighting hard and gallantly for +its life. It was an uphill struggle; Sisyphus pushing up the mountain +the stone of human perverseness, human stupidity, human self-will, which +threatened all the time to roll back and grind him to powder. +Concessions were made here, pledges given there (even, here or there, +occasionally fulfilled). New Instructions were issued daily, old ones +amended or withdrawn, far-reaching and complicated arrangements made +with various groups and classes of people, "little ministries" set up +all over the country to administrate the acts regionally, soothing +replies and promises dropped like leaves in autumn by the Parliamentary +Secretary, to be gathered up, hoarded, and brooded over in many a +humble, many a stately home. It is superfluous to recapitulate these +well-worn, oft-enacted, pathetic incidents of a tottering ministry. +Ministries, though each with a special stamp in hours of ease, are all +much alike when pain and anguish wring their brows. With arts very +similar each to other they woo a public uncertain, coy and hard to +please; a public too ready to believe the worst of them, too pitiless +and unimaginative towards their good intentions, too extreme to mark +what is done amiss, too loth to admit success, too ready to condemn +failure without measuring the strength of temptation. + +Ministries have a bitter time; their hand is against every man and every +man's hand against them. For their good men return them evil and for +their evil no good. And--let it not be forgotten--they are really, with +all their faults, more intelligent, and fuller of good intentions, than +the vast majority of their critics. The critics cry aloud "Get rid of +them," without always asking themselves who would do the job any better, +always providing it has to be done. In the case of the Ministry of +Brains, the majority of the public saw no reason why the job should be +done at all, which complicated matters. It was like the Directorate of +Recruiting during the war, or the Censor's office, or the Ministry of +Food; not merely its method but its function was unwelcome. As most men +did not want to be recruited by law, or to have their reading or their +diet regulated by law, so they did not want to be made intelligent by +law. All these things might be, and doubtless were, for the ultimate +good of the nation, but all were inconvenient at the moment, and when +ultimate good (especially not necessarily one's own good) and immediate +convenience come to blows, it is not usually ultimate good which wins. + +So the Ministry of Brains, even more than other ministries, was fighting +against odds. Feverish activity prevailed, in all departments. From +morning till night telephones telephoned, clerks wrote, typists typed +against time, deputations deputed, committees committeed, officials +conferred with each other, messengers ran to and fro with urgent minutes +and notes by hand. Instructions and circular letters poured forth, +telegrams were despatched in hot haste to the local Ministries and to +the Brains Representatives on the local tribunals, the staff arrived +early and stayed late, and often came on Sundays as well, and grew thin +and dyspeptic and nervy and irritable. + + +2 + +Even Ivy Delmer grew pale and depressed, not so much from official +strain as from private worries. These she confided one day to Kitty, who +had got transferred back to headquarters, through a little quiet +wire-pulling (it is no use being married to a Minister if little things +like that cannot easily be arranged), and was now working in her old +branch. They were travelling together one Monday morning up from Little +Chantreys. + +"Now I ask you, Miss Grammont, what would _you_ do? I'm B3 and he's C1 +(I'm certain they've classified him wrong, because he's not a bit stupid +really, not the way some men are, you know, he's jolly clever at some +things--ideas, and that), but of course it's against the regulations for +us to marry each other. And yet we care for each other, and we both of +us feel we always shall. And we neither of us want a bit to marry an A +person, besides, I don't suppose an A would ever think of us in _that_ +way, you know what I mean, Miss Grammont, don't laugh, and to give each +other up would mean spoiling both our lives.... Yet I suppose everyone +would think it awfully wrong if we got regularly engaged, and me working +at the Ministry too. I suppose I ought to leave it really, feeling the +way I do.... The fact is, I've come to feel very differently about the +Ministry, now I've thought it more over, and--you'll be horrified, I +know--but I'm not at all sure I approve of it." + +"Good gracious no," Kitty said. "I never approve of any Ministries. That +isn't what one feels for them. Sympathy; pity; some affection, even; but +approval--no." + +"Well, you see what I mean, it's all very well in theory, but I do +honestly know so many people whose lives have been upset and spoilt by +it--and it does seem hard. Heaps of people in Little Chantreys alone; of +course we come across them rather a lot, because they tell father and +mother about it.... And all the poor little deserted babies.... Oh I +suppose it's all right.... But I'm feeling a bit off it just now.... Now +I ask you, feeling as I do about it, and meaning to do what I'm going to +do (at least we hope we're going to do it sometime), ought I to go on at +the Ministry? Is it honest? Would _you_, Miss Grammont?" + +Kitty blushed faintly, to her own credit and a little to Ivy's surprise. +She did not associate blushing with Miss Grammont, and anyhow there +seemed no occasion for it just now. + +"Well, yes, I think I would. I don't see that you're called on to give +it up--unless, of course, you hate it, and want to.... After all, one +would very seldom stick to any work at all if one felt obliged to +approve entirely of it. No, I don't think there's much in that." + +"You truly don't? Well, I expect I'll carry on for a bit, then. I'd +rather, in one way, of course, especially as we shall need all the money +we can get if we ever do marry. Not that I'm saving; I spend every penny +I get, I'm afraid. But of course it takes me off father's hands.... +Don't _you_ feel, Miss Grammont, that all this interference with +people's private lives is a mistake? It's come home to me awfully +strongly lately. Only when I read the Minister's speeches I change my +mind again; he puts it so rippingly, and makes me feel perhaps I'm being +simply a selfish little beast. I don't care what anybody says about him, +I think he's wonderful." + +"I suppose he is," said Kitty. + +"My word, he jolly well _would_ despise me if he knew, wouldn't he?" + +"Well...." said Kitty. And perhaps it was well that at that moment they +reached Marylebone. + +That conversation was typical, even as Ivy Delmer's standpoint was +itself typical, of a large body of what, for lack of a better name, we +must call thought, all over the country. Laws were all very well in +theory, or when they only disarranged the lives of others, but when they +touched and disorganised one's own life--hands off. Was the only +difference between such as Ivy Delmer and such as Nicholas Chester that +Ivy deceived herself ("It's not that I care a bit for myself, but it's +the principle of the thing") and that Chester fell with open eyes? Which +was perhaps as much as to say that Ivy was classified B3 and Chester A. + +All over the country people were saying, according to their different +temperaments, one or another of these things. "Of course I don't care +for myself, but I think the system is wrong," or (the other way round) +"It may be all right in theory, but I'm jolly well not going to stand +being inconvenienced by it," or "I'm not going to stand it _and_ it's +all wrong." Of course there were also those more public-spirited persons +who said, "It's a splendid system and I'm going to fall in with it," or +"Though it's a rotten system I suppose we must put up with it." But +these were the minority. + + +3 + +Up till November the campaign against the Brains Ministry was quite +impersonal, merely resentment against a system. It was led, in the +Press, by the Labour papers, which objected to compulsion, by the +_Nation_, which objected to what it, rightly or wrongly, called by that +much-abused name, Prussianism, by the _New Witness_, which objected to +interference with the happy stupidity of merry Gentiles (making them +disagreeably clever like Jews), and by _Stop It_, which objected to +everything. It was supported by the more normal organs of opinion of the +kind which used before and during the war to be called conservative and +liberal. And, of course, through thick and thin, by the _Hidden Hand_. + +But in the course of November a new element came into the attack--the +personal element. Certain sections of the Press which supported the +Ministry began to show discontent with the Minister. The _Times_ began +to hint guardedly that new blood might perhaps be desirable in certain +quarters. The _Daily Mail_, in its rounder and directer manner, remarked +in large head-lines that "Nicky is played out." Ministers have to bear +these intimations about themselves as they walk about London; fleeing +from old gentlemen selling the _Daily Mail_ outside Cox's, Chester was +confronted in the Strand by the _Herald_ remarking very loudly "CHESTER +MUST GO." And then (but this was later) by the _Patriot_, which was +much, much worse. + +The _Patriot_ affair was different from the others. The _Patriot_ was, +in fact, a different paper. The _Patriot_ had the personal, homely +touch; it dealt faithfully not only with the public misdemeanours of +prominent persons, but with the scandals of their private lives. It +found things out. It abounded in implications and references, arch and +jocose in manner and not usually discreet in matter. The _Patriot_ had +been in the law courts many times, but as it remarked, "We are not +afraid of prosecution." It had each week a column of open letters +addressed to persons of varying degrees of prominence, in which it told +them what it thought of them. The weak point of these letters was that +the _Patriot_ was not a paper which was read by persons of prominence; +its readers were the obscure and simple, who no doubt extracted much +edification from them. Its editor was a Mr. Percy Jenkins, a gentleman +of considerable talents, and, it was said, sufficient personal charm to +be useful to him. What he lacked in aesthetic taste he made up in energy +and patriotism, and the People hailed him affectionately as the People's +friend. Throughout October Mr. Jenkins suffered apparently from a desire +to have a personal interview with the Minister of Brains. He addressed +private letters to him, intimating this desire, which were answered by +his secretary in a chilly negative strain. He telephoned, enquiring +when, if at all, he could have the pleasure of seeing the Minister, and +was informed that the Minister had, unfortunately, no time for pleasures +just now. He called at the Ministry and sent up his card, but was told +that, as he had no appointment it was regretted that he could not +penetrate further into the Ministry than the waiting-room. He called in +the evening at the Minister's private address, but found him engaged. + +After that, however, the Minister apparently relented, for Mr. Jenkins +received a letter from his secretary informing him that, if he wished to +see the Minister, he might call at his house at 9.30 p.m. on the +following Monday. Mr. Jenkins did so. He was shown into the Minister's +study. Chester was sitting by the fire, reading _Tales of my +Grandfather_. He was never found writing letters, as one might expect a +public man to be found; his secretary wrote all his official letters, +and his unofficial letters were not written at all, Chester being of the +opinion that if you leave the letters you receive long enough they +answer themselves. + +Mr. Jenkins, having been invited to sit down, did so, and said, "Very +kind of you to give me this interview, sir." + +Chester did not commit himself, however, to any further kindness, but +said stiffly, "I have very little time. I am, as you see, occupied"--he +indicated _Tales of my Grandfather_--"and I shall be glad if you will +state your business at once, sir, and as plainly as you can." + +Mr. Jenkins murmured pleasantly, "Well, we needn't be blunt, exactly.... +But you are quite right, sir; I _have_ business. As you are no doubt +aware, I edit a paper--the _Patriot_--it is possible that you are +acquainted with it." + +"On the contrary," said Chester, "such an acquaintance would be quite +impossible. But I have heard of it. I know to what paper you refer. +Please go on." + +"Everybody," retorted Mr. Jenkins, a little nettled, "does not find +close acquaintance with the _Patriot_ at all impossible. Its +circulation...." + +"We need not, I think, have that, Mr. Jenkins. Will you kindly go on +with your business?" + +Mr. Jenkins shrugged his shoulders. + +"Your time appears to be extremely limited, sir." + +"All time," returned the Minister, relapsing, as was often his habit, +into metaphysics, "is limited. Limits are, in fact, what constitute +time. What '_extremely_ limited' may mean, I cannot say. But if you mean +that I desire this interview to be short, you are correct." + +Mr. Jenkins hurried on. + +"The _Patriot_, as you may have heard, sir, deals with truth. Its aim is +to disseminate correct information with regard to all matters, public +and private. This, I may say, it is remarkably successful in doing. +Well, Mr. Chester, as of course you are aware, the public are very much +interested in yourself. There is no one at the present moment who is +more to the fore, or if I may say so, more discussed. Naturally, +therefore, I should be glad if I could provide some items of public +interest on this subject, and I should be very grateful for any +assistance you could give me.... Now, Mr. Chester, I have heard lately a +very interesting piece of news about you. People are saying that you are +being seen a great deal in the company of a certain lady." He paused. + +"Go on," said Chester. + +"It has even been said," continued Mr. Jenkins, "that you have been seen +staying in the country together ... alone together, that is ... for +week-ends...." + +"Go on," said Chester. + +Mr. Jenkins went on. "Other things are said; but I daresay they are mere +rumour. Queer things get said about public men. I met someone the other +day who lives in Buckinghamshire, somewhere in the Chilterns, and who +has a curious and no doubt entirely erroneous idea about you.... Well, +in the interests of the country, Mr. Chester (I have the welfare of the +Ministry of Brains very much at heart, I may say; I am entirely with you +in regarding intelligence as the Coming Force), I should like to be in a +position to discredit these rumours. If you won't mind my saying so, +they tell against you very seriously. You see, it is generally known +that you are uncertificated for matrimony and parentage, if I may +mention it. And once people get into their heads the idea that, while +forcing these laws on others, you are evading them yourself ... well, +you may imagine it might damage your work considerably. You and I, Mr. +Chester, know what the public are.... I should be glad to have your +authority to contradict these rumours, therefore." + +Chester said, "Certainly. You may contradict anything you please. I +shall raise no objection. Is that all?" + +Mr. Jenkins hesitated. "I cannot, of course, contradict the rumours +without some assurance that they are false...." + +They had an interesting conversation on this topic for ten minutes more, +which I do not intend to record in these pages. + +So many conversations are, for various reasons, not recorded. +Conversations, for instance, at Versailles, when the allied powers of +the world sit together there behind impenetrable curtains, through the +rifts of which only murmurs of the unbroken harmony which always +prevails between allies steal through to a waiting world. Conversations +between M. Trotzky and representatives of the German Government before +the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Conversations between the President of the +Board of Trade and the Railway Companies when the price of travel is +being increased; between governments and capitalists when elections are +to be fought or newspapers to be bought; between Jane Austen's heroes +and heroines in the hour when their passion is declared. + +For quite different reasons, all these conversations are left to the +imagination, and I propose to leave to the same department of the +reader's mind the interview between Mr. Percy Jenkins and the Minister +of Brains. I will merely mention that the talking was, for the most +part, done by Mr. Jenkins. The reasons for this were two. One was that +Mr. Jenkins was a fluent talker, and the Minister capable of a +taciturnity not invariably to be found in our statesmen. Both have their +uses in the vicissitudes of public life. Both can be, if used +effectively, singularly baffling to those who would probe the +statesman's mind and purposes. But fluency is, to most (it would seem) +the easier course. + + * * * * * + +Anyhow this was how the _Patriot_ campaign started. It began with an +Open Letter. + + "_To the Minister of Brains._ + + "Dear Mr. Nicholas Chester, + + "There is a saying 'Physician, heal thyself.' There is also, in + the same book (a book which, coming of clerical, even + episcopal, parentage, you should be acquainted with), 'Cast out + the beam which is in thine own eye, and then thou shalt see + more plainly to pull out the mote which is in thy brother's + eye.' We will on this occasion say no more than that we advise + you to take heed to these sayings before you issue many more + orders relating to matrimony and such domestic affairs. And yet + a third saying, 'Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not + both fall into the ditch?' you would do well to ponder in your + heart." + +That was all, that week. But it was enough to start speculation and talk +among the _Patriot's_ readers. Next week and other weeks there were +further innuendoes, and more talk. One week there was a picture of +Chester with several unmistakable, but also unmistakably deficient, +little Chesters clinging to his coat. This picture was called "Following +the dear old dad. What we may expect to see in the near future." + +Mr. Percy Jenkins knew his business. And, during his interview with the +Minister of Brains, he had conceived an extreme dislike towards him. + + +4 + +"He'll feel worse before I've done with him," Chester said to Kitty. +They were sitting together on Kitty's sofa, with a copy of the _Patriot_ +between them. Kitty was now alone in her flat, her cousin having +suddenly taken it into her head to get married. + +"I always said it would come out," was Kitty's reply. "And now you see." + +"Of course I knew it would come out," Chester said calmly. "It was bound +to. However, it hasn't yet. All this is mere talk. It's more offensive, +but not really so serious, as the Labour attacks on the Ministry, and +the _Stop It_ campaign, and the cry for a Business Government. Business +Government, indeed! The last word in inept futility...." + +"All the same," Kitty said, rather gravely, "you and I have got to be +rather more careful, Nicky. We've been careful, I think, but not enough, +it seems." + +"There's no such thing," said Chester, who was tired, "as being careful +enough, in this observant world, when one is doing wrong. You can be too +careful (don't let's, by the way) but you can't be careful enough." + + +5 + +But Chester did not really see Kitty very often in these days, because +he had to see and confer with so many others--the Employers' Federation, +and the Doctors, and the Timber Cutters, and the Worsted Industries, and +the Farmers, and the Cotton Spinners, and the Newspaper Staffs, and the +Church, and the Parents, and the Ministerial Council, and the Admiralty, +and the Board of Education, and the War Office, and the Ministry of +Reconstruction, and the Directorate of Propaganda. And the A.S.E. + +It is much to be hoped that conferences are useful; if they are not, it +cannot, surely, be from lack of practice. + +Prideaux also, and the other heads of sections, on their humbler scale +received deputations and conferred. Whether or not it was true to say of +the Ministry (and to do Ministries justice, these statements are usually +not true) that it did not try to enter sympathetically into the +difficulties and grievances of the public, it is anyhow certain that the +difficulties and grievances entered into the Ministry, from 9.30 a.m. +until 7 p.m. After 7 no more difficulties were permitted to enter, but +the higher staff remained often till late into the night to grapple with +those already there. + +Meanwhile the government laid pledges in as many of the hands held out +to them as they could. Pledges, in spite of a certain boomerang quality +possessed by them, are occasionally useful things. They have various +aspects; when you give them, they mean a little anger averted, a little +content generated, a little time gained. When you receive them, they +mean, normally, that others will (you hope) be compelled to do something +disagreeable before you are. When others receive them, they mean that +there is unfair favouritism. When (or if) you fulfil them, they mean +that you are badly hampered thereby in the competent handling of your +job. When you break them, they mean trouble. And when you merely hear +about them from the outside they mean a moral lesson--that promises +should be kept if made, but certainly never, never made. + +It is very certain, anyhow, that the Ministry of Brains made at this +time too many. No Ministry could have kept so many. There was, for +instance, the Pledge to the Married Women, that the unmarried women +should be called up for their Mind Training Course before they were. +There was the Pledge to the Mining Engineers, that unskilled labour +should take the Course before skilled. There was the Pledge to the +Parents of Five, that, however high the baby taxes were raised, the +parents of six would always have to pay more on each baby. There was the +Pledge to the Deficient, that they would not have to take the Mind +Training Course at all. This last pledge was responsible for much +agitation in Parliament. Distressing cases of imbeciles harried and +bullied by the local Brains Boards were produced and enquired into. +(Question, "Is it not the case that the Ministry of Brains has become +absolutely soulless in this matter of harrying the Imbecile?" Answer, "I +have received no information to that effect." Question, "Are enquiries +being made into the case of the deficient girl at Perivale Halt who was +rejected three times as unfit for the Course and finally examined again +and passed, and developed acute imbecility and mumps half-way through +the Course?" Answer, "Enquiries are being made." And so on, and so on, +and so on.) + +But, in the eyes of the general public, the chief testimony to the +soullessness of the Ministry was its crushing and ignoring of the claims +of the human heart. What could one say of a Ministry who deliberately +and coldly stood between lover and lover, and dug gulfs between parent +and unborn child, so that the child was either never born at all, or +abandoned, derelict, when born, to the tender mercies of the state, or +retained and paid for so heavily by fine or imprisonment that the +parents might well be tempted to wonder whether after all the +unfortunate infant was worth it? + +"Him to be taxed!" an indignant parent would sometimes exclaim, admiring +her year-old infant's obvious talents. "Why he's as bright as anything. +Just look at him.... And little Albert next door, what his parents got a +big bonus for, so as you could hear them for a week all down the street +drinking it away, he can't walk yet, nor hardly look up when spoke to. +Deficient, _I_ calls him. It isn't fair dealing, no matter what anyone +says." + +"All the same," said Nicholas Chester to his colleagues, "there appears +to me to be a considerably higher percentage of intelligent looking +infants of under three years of age than there were formerly. +Intelligent looking, that is to say, _for_ infants. Infants, of course, +are not intelligent creatures. Their mental level is low. But I observe +a distinct improvement." + +A distinct improvement was, in fact, discernible. + +But, among the Great Unimproved, and among those who did not want +improvement, discontent grew and spread; the slow, aggrieved discontent +of the stupid, to whom personal freedom is as the breath of life, to +whom the welfare of the race is as an idle, intangible dream, not worth +the consideration of practical men and women. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE STORMING OF THE HOTEL + + +1 + +In December Dora did a foolish thing. It is needless to say that she did +other foolish things in other months; it is to be feared that she had +been born before the Brains Acts; her mental category must be well below +C3. But this particular folly is selected for mention because it had a +disastrous effect on the already precarious destiny of the Ministry of +Brains. Putting out a firm and practised hand, she laid it heavily and +simultaneously upon four journals who were taking a rebellious attitude +towards the Brains Act--the _Nation_, _Stop It_, the _Herald_, and the +_Patriot_. Thus she angered at one blow considerable sections of the +Thoughtful, the Advanced, the Workers (commonly but erroneously known as +the proletariat) and the Vulgar. + +"Confound the fools," as Chester bitterly remarked; but the deed was +then done. + +"How long," Vernon Prideaux asked, "will it take governments to learn +that revolutionary propaganda disseminated all over the country don't do +as much harm as this sort of action?" + +Chester was of opinion that, give the Ministry of Brains its chance, let +it work for, say, fifty years, and even governments might at the end of +that time have become intelligent enough to acquire such elementary +pieces of knowledge. If only the Ministry _were_ given its chance, if it +could weather the present unrest, let the country get used to it.... +Custom: that was the great thing. People settled down under things at +last. All sorts of dreadful things. Education, vaccination, taxation, +sanitation, representation.... It was only a question of getting used to +them. + + +2 + +Though the authorities were prepared for trouble, they did not foresee +the events of Boxing-day, that strange day in the history of the +Ministry. + +The Ministry were so busy that many of the staff took no holiday beyond +Christmas Day itself. Bank Holidays are, as everyone who has tried +knows, an excellent time for working in one's office, because there are +no interruptions from the outside world, no telephoning, no visitors, no +registry continually sending up incoming correspondence. The clamorous, +persistent public fade away from sound and sight, and ministries are +left undistracted, to deal with them for their good in the academic +seclusion of the office. If there was in this world an eternal Bank +Holiday (some, but with how little reason, say that this awaits us in +heaven) ministries would thrive better; governing would then become like +pure mathematics, an abstract science unmarred by the continual fret and +jar of contact with human demands, which drag them so roughly, so +continually, down to earth. + +On Boxing Day the Minister himself worked all day, and about a quarter +of the higher staff were in their places. But by seven o'clock only the +Minister remained, talking to Prideaux in his room. + +The procession, at first in the form of four clouds each no bigger than +a man's hand, trailed from out the north, south, east and west, and +coalesced in Trafalgar Square. From there it marched down Whitehall to +Westminster, and along the Embankment. It seemed harmless enough; a +holiday crowd of men and women with banners, like the people who used to +want Votes, or Church Disestablishment, or Peace, or Cheap Food. The +chief difference to be observed between this and those old processions +was that a large number in this procession seemed to fall naturally and +easily into step, and marched in time, like soldiers. This was a +characteristic now of most processions; that soldier's trick, once +learnt, is not forgotten. It might have set an onlooker speculating on +the advantages and the dangers of a nation of soldiers, that necessary +sequence to an army of citizens. + +The procession drew up outside the Ministry of Brains, and resolved +itself into a meeting. It was addressed in a short and stirring speech +from the Ministry steps by the president of the Stop It League, a fiery +young man with a megaphone, who concluded his remarks with "Isn't it up +to all who love freedom, all who hate tyranny, to lose no time, but to +wreck the place where these things are done? That's what we're here to +do to-night--to smash up this hotel and show the government what the men +and women of England mean! Come on, boys!" + +Too late the watching policemen knew that this procession and this +meeting meant business, and should be broken up. + +The Minister and Prideaux listened, from an open window, to the speaking +outside. "Rendle," said Prideaux. "Scandalous mismanagement. What have +the police been about? It's too late now to do much.... Do they know we +are here, by the way? Probably not." + +"They shall," replied Chester, and stepped out on to the balcony. + +There was a hush, then a tremendous shout. + +"It's the Minister! By God, it's Nicky Chester, the man who's made all +the trouble!" + +A voice rose above the rest. + +"Quiet! Silence! Let him speak. Let's hear what he's got to say for +himself." + +Silence came, abruptly; the queer, awful, terrifying silence of a +waiting crowd. + +Into it Chester's voice cut, sharp and incisive. + +"You fools. Get out of this and go home. Don't you know that you're +heading for serious trouble--that you'll find yourselves in prison for +this? Get out before it's too late. That's all I have to say." + +"That's all he's got to say," the crowd took it up like a refrain. +"That's all he's got to say, after all the trouble he's made!" + +A suave, agreeable voice rose above the rest. + +"That is _not_ quite all he's got to say. There's something else. He's +got to answer two plain questions. Number one: _Are you certificated for +marriage, Mr. Chester, or have you got mental deficiency in your +family?_" + +There was an instant's pause. Then the Minister, looking down from the +balcony at the upturned faces, white in the cold moonlight, said, +clearly, "I am not certificated for marriage, owing to the cause you +mention." + +"Thank you," said the voice. "Have you all noted that, boys? The +Minister of Brains is not certificated for marriage. He has deficiency +in his family. Now, Mr. Chester, question number two, please. _Am I +correct in stating that you--got--married--last--August?_" + +"You are quite correct, Mr. Jenkins." + +Chester heard beside him Prideaux's mutter--"Good God!" and then, below +him, broke the roar of the crowd. + +"Come on, boys!" someone shouted. "Come on and wreck the blooming show, +and nab the blooming showman before he slips off!" + +Men flung themselves up the steps and through the big doors, and surged +up the stairs. + +"This," remarked Prideaux, "is going to be some mess. I'll go and get +Rendle to see sense, if I can. He's leading them up the stairs, +probably." + +"I fancy that won't be necessary," said Chester. "Rendle and his friends +are coming in here, apparently." + +The door was burst open, and men rushed in. Chester and Prideaux faced +them, standing before the door. + +"You fools," Chester said again. "What good do you think you're going to +do yourselves by this?" + +"Here he is, boys! Here's Nicky Chester, the married man!" + +Chester and Prideaux were surrounded and pinioned. + +"Don't hurt him," someone exhorted. "We'll hang him out over the balcony +and ask the boys down there what to do with him." + +They dragged him on to the balcony and swung him over the rail, dangling +him by a leg and an arm. One of them shouted, "Here's the Minister, +boys! Here's Nicky, the Minister of Brains!" + +The crowd looked up and saw him, swinging in mid air, and a great shout +went up. + +"Yes," went on the speaker from the balcony, "Here's Nicky Chester, the +man who dares to dictate to the people of Britain who they may marry and +what kids they may have, and then goes and gets married himself, +breaking his own laws, and hushes it up so that he thought it would +never come out." ("I always knew it would come out," the Minister +muttered, inarticulately protesting against this estimate of his +intelligence.) "But it _has_ come out," the speaker continued. "And now +what are we to do with him, with this man who won't submit to the laws +he forces on other people? This man who dares to tell other people to +bear what he won't bear himself? What shall we do with him? Drop him +down into the street?" + +For a moment it seemed that the Minister's fate, like himself, hung +suspended. + +They swung him gently to and fro, as if to get an impetus.... + +Then someone shouted, "We'll let him off this time, as he's just +married. Let him go home to his wife, and not meddle with government any +more!" + +The crowd rocked with laughter; and in that laughter, rough, +good-humoured, scornful, the Ministry of Brains seemed to dissolve. + +They drew Chester in through the window again. Someone said, "Now we'll +set the blooming hotel on fire. No time to waste, boys." + +Chester and Prideaux were dragged firmly but not unkindly down the +stairs and out through the door. Their appearance outside the building, +each pinioned by two stalwart ex-guardsmen, was hailed by a shout, +partly of anger, but three parts laughter. To Chester it was the +laughter, good-humoured, stupid, scornful, of the British public at +ideas, and particularly at ideas which had failed. But in it, sharp and +stinging, was another, more contemptuous laughter, levelled at a man who +had failed to live up to his own ridiculous ideas, the laughter of the +none too honest world, which yet respected honesty, at the hypocrisy and +double-dealing of others. + +"They're quite right to laugh," thought Chester. "It is funny: damned +funny." + +And at that, standing pinioned on the steps of his discredited Ministry, +looking down on the crowd of the injured, contemptuous British public, +who were out to wreck the things he cared for, he began to laugh +himself. + +His laughter was naturally unheard, but they saw his face, which should +have been downcast and ashamed, twist into his familiar, sad, cynical +smile, which all who had heard him on platforms knew. + +"Laughing, are you," someone shouted thickly. "Laughing at the people +you've tricked! You've ruined me and my missus--taken every penny we +had, just because we had twins--and you--you stand there and laugh! +You--you bloody married imbecile!" + +Lurching up the steps, he flung himself upon Chester and wrenched him +from the relaxed hold of his captors. Struggling together, the Minister +and his assailant stumbled down the steps, and then fell headlong among +the public. + + +3 + +When the mounted police finally succeeded in dispersing the crowd, the +Ministry of Brains was in flames, like Sodom and Gomorrah, those wicked +cities. Unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, the conflagration was at last +quenched by a fire engine. But far into the night the red wreckage +blazed, testimony to the wrath of a great people, to the failure of a +great idea, to the downfall of him who, whatever the weakness he shared +in common with the public who downed him, was yet a great man. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DEBRIS + + +1 + +Chester lay with a broken head and three smashed ribs in his flat in +Mount Street. He was nursed by his elder sister Maggie, a kind, silent, +plain person with her brother's queer smile and more than his cynical +patience. With her patience took the form of an infinite tolerance; the +tolerance of one who looks upon all human things and sees that they are +not much good, nor likely to be. (Chester had not his fair share of this +patience: hence his hopes and his faiths, and hence his downfall.) She +was kind to Kitty, whose acquaintance she now made. (The majority of the +Ministry of Brains staff were having a short holiday, during the +transference to other premises.) + +Maggie said to Kitty, "I'm not surprised. It was a lot to live up to. +And it's not in our family, living up to that. Perhaps not in any +family. I'm sorry for Nicky, because he'll mind." + +She did not reproach Kitty; she took her for granted. Such incidents as +Kitty were liable to happen, even in the best regulated lives. When +Kitty reproached herself, saying, "I've spoilt his life," she merely +replied tranquilly, "Nicky lets no one but himself spoil his life. When +he's determined to do a thing, he'll do it." Nor did she commit herself +to any indication as to whether she thought that what Nicky had gained +would be likely to compensate for what he had lost. + +For about what he had lost there seemed no doubt in anyone's mind. He +had lost his reputation, his office, and, for the time being, his public +life. The Ministry of Brains might continue, would in fact, weakly +continue, without power and without much hope, till it trailed into +ignominious death; even the wrecked Hotel would continue, when repaired; +but it was not possible that Chester should continue. + +The first thing he did, in fact, when he could do anything at all +intelligent, was to dictate a letter to the Ministerial Council +tendering his resignation from office. There are, of course, diverse +styles adopted by the writers of such letters. In the old days people +used to write (according to the peculiar circumstances of their case)-- + + "Dear Prime Minister, + + "Though you have long and often tried to dissuade me from this + course ... etc., etc.... I think you will hardly be surprised + ... deep regret in severing the always harmonious connection + between us ..." and so forth. + +Or else quite otherwise-- + + "Dear Prime Minister, + + "You will hardly be surprised, I imagine, after the strange + occurrence of yesterday, when I had the interest of reading in + a daily paper the first intimation that you desired a change at + the Ministry I have the honour to adorn...." + +Neither of these styles was used by Chester, who wrote briefly, without +committing himself to any opinion as to the probable surprise or +otherwise of the Ministerial Council-- + + "Dear Sirs, + + "I am resigning my office as Minister of Brains, owing to facts + of which you will have doubtless heard, and which make it + obviously undesirable for me to continue in the post." + +Having done this, he lay inert through quiet, snow-bound days and +nights, and no one knew whether or not he was going to recover. + + +2 + +After a time he asked after Prideaux, and they told him Prideaux had not +been hurt, only rumpled. + +"He calls to ask after you pretty often," said Kitty. "Would you like to +see him sometime? When the doctor says you can?" + +"I don't care," Chester said. "Yes, I may as well." + +So Prideaux came one afternoon (warned not to be political or exciting) +and it was a queer meeting between him and Chester. Chester remembered +the last shocked words he had had from Prideaux--"Good God!" and +wondered, without interest, what Prideaux felt about it all now. + +But it was not Prideaux's way to show much of what he felt. + +They talked mainly of that night's happenings. Chester had already had +full reports of these; of the fire, of the fight between the police and +the crowd, in which several lives had been lost, of the arrest of the +ringleaders and their trials. To Chester's own part in the proceedings +they did not refer, till, after a pause, Chester suddenly said, "I have +been wondering, but I can't make up my mind about it. How much +difference to the business did the discovery about me make? Would they +have gone to those lengths without it?" + +Prideaux was silent. He believed that Chester that night on the balcony, +had his hands been clean, could have held the mob. + +Chester interpreted the silence. + +"I suppose they wouldn't," he said impassively. "However, I fancy it +only precipitated the catastrophe. The Ministry was down and under, in +any case. People were determined not to stand laws that inconvenienced +them--as I was. I was merely an example, not a cause, of that +disease...." + +That was the nearest he ever got with Prideaux to discussion of his own +action. + +"Anyhow," said Prideaux sadly, "the Ministry is down and under now. +Imagine Frankie Lyle, poor little beggar, trying to carry on, after all +this!" (This gentleman had been nominated as Chester's successor.) + +Chester smiled faintly. "Poor little Frankie.... I hear Monk wouldn't +touch it, by the way. I don't blame him.... Lyle won't hold them for a +week; he'll back out on every point." + +There was regret in his tired, toneless voice, and bitterness, because +the points on which Lyle would back out were all points which he had +made. He could have held them for a week, and more; he might even--there +would have been a fighting chance of it--have pulled the Ministry +through altogether, had things been otherwise. But things were not +otherwise, and this was not his show any more. He looked at Prideaux +half resentfully as Prideaux rose to leave him. Prideaux had not wrecked +his own career.... + +To Kitty, the first time he had met her after the events of Boxing +Night, Prideaux had shown more of his mind. He had come to ask after +Chester, and had found Kitty there. He had looked at her sharply and +coolly, as if she had made a stupid mistake over her work in the office. + +"So you didn't guess, all this time," she had said to him, coolly too, +because she resented his look. + +"Not," he had returned, "that things had gone as far as this. I knew you +were intimate, of course. There was that time in Italy.... But--well, +honestly, I thought better of both your brains." + +She gave up her momentary resentment, and slipped again into remorse. + +"We thought better of them too--till we did it.... Have I spoilt his +life, Vernon? I suppose so." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "You've spoilt, and he's spoilt his own, +career as Minister of Brains. There are other things, of course. Chester +can't go under; he's too good a man to lose. They'll stick on to him +somehow.... But ... well, what in heaven or earth or the other place +possessed you both to do it, Kitty?" + +To which she had no answer but "We just thought we would," and he left +her in disgust. + +Even in her hour of mortification and remorse, Kitty could still enjoy +getting a rise out of Prideaux. + + +3 + +Pansy, who called often with showers of hot-house flowers, which Chester +detested, was much more sympathetic. She was frankly delighted. She +could not be allowed to see Chester; Kitty was afraid that her +exuberance might send his temperature up. + +"You won't mind my tellin' you now, darlin', but I've been thinkin' it +was free love all this time. I didn't mind, you know. But this is more +respectable. This family couldn't really properly afford another +scandal; it might lose its good name, then what would Cyril say? It +would come hard on the Cheeper, too. Now this is some marriage. So +_sensible_ of you both, to throw over those silly laws and do the jolly +thing and have a good time. As I said to Tony, what _is_ the good of +making laws if you can't break them yourself? Now that your Nicky's set +a good example, it really does seem as if all this foolishness was goin' +to dwine away and be forgotten.... I guess it's doin' what we like and +havin' a good time that matters, in the long run, isn't it. Not keepin' +laws or improvin' the silly old world." + +"Ask me another," said Kitty. "I haven't the slightest idea, Pansy, my +love. You're usually right, so I daresay you're right about this. But +you mustn't talk like that to Nicky, or he'll have a relapse." + +"And fancy," Pansy mused, "me havin' got the great Minister of Brains +for a brother-in-law! Or anyhow somethin' of the sort; as near as makes +no difference. I shall never hear the last of it from the girls and +boys.... Good-bye, old thing; I'm ever so pleased you're a happy wife +now as well as me." + + +4 + +Chester handed Kitty a letter from his mother, the wife of a struggling +bishop somewhere in the west country. It said, "Directly you are well +enough, dear, you must bring Kitty to stay with us; She won't, I am +sure, mind our simple ways.... My dear, we are so thankful you have +found happiness. We are distressed about your accident, and about your +loss of office, which I fear you will feel.... But, after all, love and +happiness are so much more important than office, are they not?..." + +"Important," Kitty repeated. "Queer word. Just what love and happiness +aren't, you'd think. Comfortable--jolly--but not important.... Never you +mind, Nicky, you'll be important always: Vernon is right about that. +They'll put you somewhere where 'domestick selvishenesse' doesn't +matter: perhaps they'll make you a peer...." + +Chester said he would not be at all surprised. + +Kitty said, "Shall we go and see your people?" and he replied gloomily, +"I suppose we must. It will be ... rather trying." + +"Will they condole with you?" she suggested, and he returned, "No. +They'll congratulate me." + +A fortnight later they went down to the west. Bishop Chester lived in a +little old house in a slum behind his cathedral. Bishops' palaces were +no longer bishops' homes; they had all been turned into community +houses, clergy houses, retreat houses, alms houses, and so forth. +Celibate bishops could live in them, together with other clergy of their +diocese, but bishops with families had to find quarters elsewhere. And, +married or unmarried, their incomes were not enough to allow of any +style of living but that apostolic simplicity which the Church, directly +it was freed from the State and could arrange its own affairs, had +decided was right and suitable. + +Not all bishops took kindly to the new regime; some resigned, and had to +be replaced by bishops of the new and sterner school. But, to give +bishops their due, which is too seldom done, they are for the most part +good Christian men, ready to do what they believe is for the good of the +Church. Many of their detractors were surprised at the amount of +good-will and self-sacrifice revealed in the episcopal ranks when they +were put to the test. If some failed under it--well, bishops, if no +worse than other men, are human. + +Bishop Chester had not failed. He had taken to plain living and plainer +thinking (how often, alas, these two are to be found linked together!) +with resignation, as a Christian duty. If it should bring any into the +Church who had been kept outside it by his purple and fine linen, he +would feel himself more than rewarded. If it should not, that was not +his look-out. Which is to say that Bishop Chester was a good man, if not +clever. + +He and his wife were very kind to Chester and Kitty. Chester said he +could not spare more than a day and night; he had to get back to town, +where he had much business on hand, including the instituting of an +action for malicious libel against Mr. Percy Jenkins and the publishers +and proprietors of the _Patriot_. Kitty was not surprised at the +shortness of the visit, for it was a humiliating visit. The bishop and +Mrs. Chester, as their son had known they would, approved of his +contravention of his own principles. They thought them, had always +thought them, monstrous and inhuman principles. + +The bishop said, "My dear boy, I can't tell you how thankful I am that +you have decided at last to let humanity have its way with you. +Humanity; the simple human things; love, birth, family life. They're the +simple things, but, after all, the deep and grand things. No laws will +ever supersede them." + +And Mrs. Chester looked at Kitty with the indescribable look of +mothers-in-law who hope that one day they may be grandmothers, and +whispered to her when she said good-night, "And some day, dear...." + +And they saw Chester's twin sister. She was harmless; she was even doing +crochet work; and her face was the face of Chester uninformed by +thought. Mrs. Chester said, "Nicky will have told you of our poor ailing +girl...." + + +5 + +They came away next morning. They faced each other in the train, but +they read the _Times_ (half each) and did not meet each other's eyes. +They could not. They felt as thieves who still have consciences must +feel when congratulated on their crimes by other thieves, who have not. +Between them stood and jeered a Being with a vacant face and a phrase +which it repeated with cynical reiteration. "You have let humanity have +its way with you. Humanity; the simple human things.... No laws will +ever supersede them...." And the Being's face was as the face of +Chester's twin sister, the poor ailing girl. + +To this they had come, then; to the first of the three simple human +things mentioned by the bishop. What now, since they had started down +the long slope of this green and easy hill, should arrest their +progress, until they arrived, brakeless and unheld, into the valley +where the other two waited, cynical, for all their simplicity, and grim? + +Kitty, staring helplessly into the problematical future, saw, as if +someone had turned a page and shown it to her, a domestic +picture--herself and Chester (a peer, perhaps, why not?) facing one +another not in a train but in a simple human home, surrounded by Family +Life; two feckless, fallen persons, who had made a holocaust of theories +and principles, who had reverted to the hand-to-mouth shiftlessness and +mental sloppiness of the primitive Briton. Kitty could hear Chester, in +that future, vaguer, family, peer's voice that might then be his, +saying, "We must just trust to luck and muddle through somehow." + +Even to that they might come.... + +In the next Great War--and who should stay its advent if such as these +failed?--their sons would fight, without talent, their daughters would +perhaps nurse, without skill. And so on, and so on, and so on.... + +So turned the world around. Individual desire given way to, as usual, +ruining principle and ideals by its soft pressure. What would ever get +done in such a world? Nothing, ever. + +Suddenly, as if both had seen the same picture, they met one another's +eyes across the carriage, and laughed ruefully. + +That, anyhow, they could always do, though sitting among the debris of +ruined careers, ruined principles, ruined Ministries, ruined ideals. It +was something; perhaps, in a sad and precarious world, it was much.... + + +THE END + + + + +NEW FICTION + + +OH, MONEY! MONEY! By ELEANOR H. PORTER, Author of "Just David," +"Pollyanna," etc. + +"This tale of an elderly millionaire who goes incognito among his poor +relations to discover to which of them he shall leave his fortune is +extraordinarily soothing in these harassed times. The relations are most +humorously studied."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + +THE ANCHOR. By M. T. H. SADLER. + +"All his people are interesting and all ring true." _Pall Mall Gazette._ + + +ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS. By L. M. MONTGOMERY, Author of "Anne of Green +Gables." + +"Miss Montgomery has a rare knack of making simple events and ordinary +people both charming and moving; she can make her readers both laugh and +weep."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + +IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE. By Mrs. GEORGE WEMYSS. + +"It is set in a captivating way among village folk drawn from life, +treated with humour and sympathy, and decorated profusely with the talk +and doings of real and interesting children." _Manchester Guardian._ + + +THE STARRY POOL and Other Tales. By STEPHEN G. TALLENTS. + +"It belongs to the class of literature which gives an intimate picture +of the writer himself, who, in this particular case, endears himself to +the reader by his humour, which is never cynical, and by his zest for +the simple, which is never forced."--_Westminster Gazette._ + + +THE WANDERERS. By MARY JOHNSTON. + +"A large theme of absorbing and growing interest is treated with great +imaginative and pictorial power; and the writer's faith and enthusiasm, +as well as her knowledge and her skilful handicraft, are +manifest."--_Scotsman._ + + +REMNANTS. By DESMOND MACCARTHY. + +"It has its own clear point of view. It reveals an engaging personality, +and its contents, though dealing with subjects as diverse as Samuel +Butler, Lord George Sanger, Meredith, Dan Leno, Voltaire and Bostock's +Menagerie, are all of a piece. That is, it is a real book of +essays."--_The Bookman._ + +BEYOND THE RHINE. Memories of Art and Life in Germany before the War. By +MARC HENRY. + +"M. Henry discourses most entertainingly on many subjects of German +social life, and his book may be cordially recommended to those +among us who seek for enlightenment on the mentality of our +enemies."--_Scotsman._ + + +TRIVIA. By LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH. + +"It is a piece of personal good luck to have read it. One goes in and +out of one's hall door with a delicious sense of possessing a secret. It +increases one's confidence in the world. If a book like this can be +written, there is, we feel, hope for the future."--_The Athenaeum._ + + +THE LAST OF THE ROMANOFS. By CHARLES RIVET (Petrograd Correspondent of +the "Temps"). + +"'The Last of the Romanofs' can be recommended to one desirous of +understanding what has actually happened in Russia and what caused it to +happen."--_Globe._ + + +ON THE EDGE OF THE WAR ZONE. By MILDRED ALDRICH, Author of "A Hilltop on +the Marne." + +"They give a picture of peace in the midst of war that is both +fascinating and strange ... as an intimate sketch of one corner of the +world-war, viewed at close quarters over the garden-hedge, these little +books will have earned for themselves a place apart."--_Punch._ + + +THE POT BOILS. A Novel. By M. STORM JAMESON. + +In "The Pot Boils" the author has written a vivid and original study of +the careers and the love-story of a modern young man and woman whom we +first encounter as students at the same Northern University. Of life in +this Northern University the author gives a realistic account, and +equally realistic and entertaining is the description of the world of +social reformers, feminists, journalists, vers-libristes in London, to +which the scene is shifted later. It is a brilliant provocative book +which will appeal to all those who are interested in appraising the +worth and promise of modern movements and ideals. + + +THE SHIP OF DEATH. A Romance of the World-War. By EDWARD STILGEBAUER, +Author of "Love's Inferno." + +In "The Ship of Death," Dr. Stilgebauer has written a romance which +depicts in all its horror the havoc wrought by war upon human +relationships and values outside the actual sphere of the battle-field. +The instrument of disaster is Captain Stirn, the captain of the +submarine which torpedoes the 'Lusitania,' styled here the 'Gigantic.' +The first part of the book depicts the company on board, when the first +premonitions of catastrophe are beginning to fill the air. Then comes +the catastrophe itself; and the last section of this book presents +Captain Stirn in the agony and delirium which seizes him after his deed +of horror. The book is impressive and absorbing both by force and +vividness of the author's style and imagination and by the vigorous +sincerity and idealism which penetrate it throughout. + + +THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN. By W. L. GEORGE, New Edition with a New +Preface. + +_New Edition of a Famous Novel_ + +This book was first published in 1914, and the author has now written a +new preface, explaining how the War has modified his views, but saying +that whatever the Englishman may become, he would still be "The man of +my choice, with whom I wrangle because he is my brother, far from whom I +could not live, who quietly grins at my internationalism and makes +allowances for me because, Englishman though I be, I was not born in his +damned and dear little island." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Not, by Rose Macaulay + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NOT *** + +***** This file should be named 35198.txt or 35198.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/9/35198/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/35198.zip b/35198.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbc3b82 --- /dev/null +++ b/35198.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90a8c49 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #35198 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35198) |
