by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XV
PROMINENT PEOPLE
The state apartments of the Wind Vane Keeper would have astonished Grahamhad he entered them fresh from his nineteenth century life, but alreadyhe was growing accustomed to the scale of the new time. He came outthrough one of the now familiar sliding panels upon a plateau of landingat the head of a flight of very broad and gentle steps, with men andwomen far more brilliantly dressed than any he had hitherto seen,ascending and descending. From this position he looked down a vista ofsubtle and varied ornament in lustreless white and mauve and purple,spanned by bridges that seemed wrought of porcelain and filigree, andterminating far off in a cloudy mystery of perforated screens.
Glancing upward, he saw tier above tier of ascending galleries with faceslooking down upon him. The air was full of the babble of innumerablevoices and of a music that descended from above, a gay and exhilaratingmusic whose source he did not discover.
The central aisle was thick with people, but by no means uncomfortablycrowded; altogether that assembly must have numbered many thousands. Theywere brilliantly, even fantastically dressed, the men as fancifully asthe women, for the sobering influence of the Puritan conception ofdignity upon masculine dress had long since passed away. The hair of themen, too, though it was rarely worn long, was commonly curled in amanner that suggested the barber, and baldness had vanished from theearth. Frizzy straight-cut masses that would have charmed Rossettiabounded, and one gentleman, who was pointed out to Graham under themysterious title of an "amorist," wore his hair in two becoming plaits _ala_ Marguerite. The pigtail was in evidence; it would seem that citizensof Chinese extraction were no longer ashamed of their race. There waslittle uniformity of fashion apparent in the forms of clothing worn. Themore shapely men displayed their symmetry in trunk hose, and here werepuffs and slashes, and there a cloak and there a robe. The fashions ofthe days of Leo the Tenth were perhaps the prevailing influence, but theaesthetic conceptions of the far east were also patent. Masculineembonpoint, which, in Victorian times, would have been subjected to thebuttoned perils, the ruthless exaggeration of tight-legged tight-armedevening dress, now formed but the basis of a wealth of dignity anddrooping folds. Graceful slenderness abounded also. To Graham, atypically stiff man from a typically stiff period, not only did these menseem altogether too graceful in person, but altogether too expressive intheir vividly expressive faces. They gesticulated, they expressedsurprise, interest, amusement, above all, they expressed the emotionsexcited in their minds by the ladies about them with astonishingfrankness. Even at the first glance it was evident that women were in agreat majority.
The ladies in the company of these gentlemen displayed in dress, bearingand manner alike, less emphasis and more intricacy. Some affected aclassical simplicity of robing and subtlety of fold, after the fashion ofthe First French Empire, and flashed conquering arms and shoulders asGraham passed. Others had closely-fitting dresses without seam or belt atthe waist, sometimes with long folds falling from the shoulders. Thedelightful confidences of evening dress had not been diminished by thepassage of two centuries.
Everyone's movements seemed graceful. Graham remarked to Lincoln that hesaw men as Raphael's cartoons walking, and Lincoln told him that theattainment of an appropriate set of gestures was part of every richperson's education. The Master's entry was greeted with a sort oftittering applause, but these people showed their distinguished mannersby not crowding upon him nor annoying him by any persistent scrutiny, ashe descended the steps towards the floor of the aisle.
He had already learnt from Lincoln that these were the leaders ofexisting London society; almost every person there that night was eithera powerful official or the immediate connexion of a powerful official.Many had returned from the European Pleasure Cities expressly to welcomehim. The aeronautic authorities, whose defection had played a part in theoverthrow of the Council only second to Graham's, were very prominent,and so, too, was the Wind Vane Control. Amongst others there were severalof the more prominent officers of the Food Department; the controller ofthe European Piggeries had a particularly melancholy and interestingcountenance and a daintily cynical manner. A bishop in full canonicalspassed athwart Graham's vision, conversing with a gentleman dressedexactly like the traditional Chaucer, including even the laurel wreath.
"Who is that?" he asked almost involuntarily.
"The Bishop of London," said Lincoln.
"No--the other, I mean."
"Poet Laureate."
"You still--?"
"He doesn't make poetry, of course. He's a cousin of Wotton--one of theCouncillors. But he's one of the Red Rose Royalists--a delightfulclub--and they keep up the tradition of these things."
"Asano told me there was a King."
"The King doesn't belong. They had to expel him. It's the Stuart blood, Isuppose; but really--"
"Too much?"
"Far too much."
Graham did not quite follow all this, but it seemed part of the generalinversion of the new age. He bowed condescendingly to his firstintroduction. It was evident that subtle distinctions of class prevailedeven in this assembly, that only to a small proportion of the guests, toan inner group, did Lincoln consider it appropriate to introduce him.This first introduction was the Master Aeronaut, a man whose sun-tannedface contrasted oddly with the delicate complexions about him. Just atpresent his critical defection from the Council made him a very importantperson indeed.
His manner contrasted very favourably, according to Graham's ideas, withthe general bearing. He offered a few commonplace remarks, assurances ofloyalty and frank inquiries about the Master's health. His manner wasbreezy, his accent lacked the easy staccato of latter-day English. Hemade it admirably clear to Graham that he was a bluff "aerial dog"--heused that phrase--that there was no nonsense about him, that he was athoroughly manly fellow and old-fashioned at that, that he didn't professto know much, and that what he did not know was not worth knowing. Hemade a curt bow, ostentatiously free from obsequiousness, and passed.
"I am glad to see that type endures," said Graham.
"Phonographs and kinematographs," said Lincoln, a little spitefully. "Hehas studied from the life." Graham glanced at the burly form again. Itwas oddly reminiscent.
"As a matter of fact we bought him," said Lincoln. "Partly. And partly hewas afraid of Ostrog. Everything rested with him."
He turned sharply to introduce the Surveyor-General of the PublicSchools. This person was a willowy figure in a blue-grey academic gown,he beamed down upon Graham through _pince-nez_ of a Victorian pattern,and illustrated his remarks by gestures of a beautifully manicured hand.Graham was immediately interested in this gentleman's functions, andasked him a number of singularly direct questions. The Surveyor-Generalseemed quietly amused at the Master's fundamental bluntness. He was alittle vague as to the monopoly of education his Company possessed; itwas done by contract with the syndicate that ran the numerous LondonMunicipalities, but he waxed enthusiastic over educational progresssince the Victorian times. "We have conquered Cram," he said,"completely conquered Cram--there is not an examination left in theworld. Aren't you glad?"
"How do you get the work done?" asked Graham.
"We make it attractive--as attractive as possible. And if it does notattract then--we let it go. We cover an immense field."
He proceeded to details, and they had a lengthy conversation. Grahamlearnt that University Extension still existed in a modified form. "Thereis a certain type of girl, for example," said the Surveyor-General,dilating with a sense of his usefulness, "with a perfect passion forsevere studies--when they are not too difficult you know. We cater forthem by the thousand. At this moment," he said with a Napoleonic touch,"nearly five hundred phonographs are lecturing in different parts ofLondon on the influence exercised by Plato and Swift on the love affairsof Shelley, Hazlitt, and Burns. And afterwards they write essays on thelectures, and the names in order of merit are put in conspicuous places.You see how your little germ has grown? The illiter
ate middle-class ofyour days has quite passed away."
"About the public elementary schools," said Graham. "Do youcontrol them?"
The Surveyor-General did, "entirely." Now, Graham, in his laterdemocratic days, had taken a keen interest in these and his questioningquickened. Certain casual phrases that had fallen from the old man withwhom he had talked in the darkness recurred to him. The Surveyor-General,in effect, endorsed the old man's words. "We try and make the elementaryschools very pleasant for the little children. They will have to work sosoon. Just a few simple principles--obedience--industry."
"You teach them very little?"
"Why should we? It only leads to trouble and discontent. We amuse them.Even as it is--there are troubles--agitations. Where the labourers getthe ideas, one cannot tell. They tell one another. There are socialisticdreams--anarchy even! Agitators _will_ get to work among them. I takeit--I have always taken it--that my foremost duty is to fight againstpopular discontent. Why should people be made unhappy?"
"I wonder," said Graham thoughtfully. "But there are a great many thingsI want to know."
Lincoln, who had stood watching Graham's face throughout theconversation, intervened. "There are others," he said in an undertone.
The Surveyor-General of schools gesticulated himself away. "Perhaps,"said Lincoln, intercepting a casual glance, "you would like to know someof these ladies?"
The daughter of the Manager of the Piggeries was a particularly charminglittle person with red hair and animated blue eyes. Lincoln left himawhile to converse with her, and she displayed herself as quite anenthusiast for the "dear old days," as she called them, that had seen thebeginning of his trance. As she talked she smiled, and her eyes smiled ina manner that demanded reciprocity.
"I have tried," she said, "countless times--to imagine those old romanticdays. And to you--they are memories. How strange and crowded the worldmust seem to you! I have seen photographs and pictures of the past, thelittle isolated houses built of bricks made out of burnt mud and allblack with soot from your fires, the railway bridges, the simpleadvertisements, the solemn savage Puritanical men in strange black coatsand those tall hats of theirs, iron railway trains on iron bridgesoverhead, horses and cattle, and even dogs running half wild about thestreets. And suddenly, you have come into this!"
"Into this," said Graham.
"Out of your life--out of all that was familiar."
"The old life was not a happy one," said Graham. "I do not regret that."
She looked at him quickly. There was a brief pause. She sighedencouragingly. "No?"
"No," said Graham. "It was a little life--and unmeaning. But this--Wethought the world complex and crowded and civilised enough. Yet Isee--although in this world I am barely four days old--looking back on myown time, that it was a queer, barbaric time--the mere beginning of thisnew order. The mere beginning of this new order. You will find it hard tounderstand how little I know."
"You may ask me what you like," she said, smiling at him.
"Then tell me who these people are. I'm still very much in the dark aboutthem. It's puzzling. Are there any Generals?"
"Men in hats and feathers?"
"Of course not. No. I suppose they are the men who control the greatpublic businesses. Who is that distinguished looking man?"
"That? He's a most important officer. That is Morden. He is managingdirector of the Antibilious Pill Department. I have heard that hisworkers sometimes turn out a myriad myriad pills a day in the twenty-fourhours. Fancy a myriad myriad!"
"A myriad myriad. No wonder he looks proud," said Graham. "Pills! What awonderful time it is! That man in purple?"
"He is not quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. Heis really clever and very amusing. He is one of the heads of the MedicalFaculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, wear thatpurple. But, of course, people who are paid by fees for _doing_something--" She smiled away the social pretensions of all such people.
"Are any of your great artists or authors here?"
"No authors. They are mostly such queer people--and so preoccupied aboutthemselves. And they quarrel so dreadfully! They will fight, some ofthem, for precedence on staircases! Dreadful, isn't it? But I thinkWraysbury, the fashionable capillotomist, is here. From Capri."
"Capillotomist," said Graham. "Ah! I remember. An artist! Why not?"
"We have to cultivate him," she said apologetically. "Our heads are inhis hands." She smiled.
Graham hesitated at the invited compliment, but his glance wasexpressive. "Have the arts grown with the rest of civilised things?" hesaid. "Who are your great painters?"
She looked at him doubtfully. Then laughed. "For a moment," she said, "Ithought you meant--" She laughed again. "You mean, of course, those goodmen you used to think so much of because they could cover great spaces ofcanvas with oil-colours? Great oblongs. And people used to put the thingsin gilt frames and hang them up in rows in their square rooms. We haven'tany. People grew tired of that sort of thing."
"But what did you think I meant?"
She put a finger significantly on a cheek whose glow was above suspicion,and smiled and looked very arch and pretty and inviting. "And here," andshe indicated her eyelid.
Graham had an adventurous moment. Then a grotesque memory of a picture hehad somewhere seen of Uncle Toby and the widow flashed across his mind.An archaic shame came upon him. He became acutely aware that he wasvisible to a great number of interested people. "I see," he remarkedinadequately. He turned awkwardly away from her fascinating facility. Helooked about him to meet a number of eyes that immediately occupiedthemselves with other things. Possibly he coloured a little. "Who is thattalking with the lady in saffron?" he asked, avoiding her eyes.
The person in question he learnt was one of the great organisers of theAmerican theatres just fresh from a gigantic production at Mexico. Hisface reminded Graham of a bust of Caligula. Another striking looking manwas the Black Labour Master. The phrase at the time made no deepimpression, but afterwards it recurred;--the Black Labour Master? Thelittle lady in no degree embarrassed, pointed out to him a charminglittle woman as one of the subsidiary wives of the Anglican Bishop ofLondon. She added encomiums on the episcopal courage--hitherto there hadbeen a rule of clerical monogamy--"neither a natural nor an expedientcondition of things. Why should the natural development of the affectionsbe dwarfed and restricted because a man is a priest?"
"And, bye the bye," she added, "are you an Anglican?" Graham was on theverge of hesitating inquiries about the status of a "subsidiary wife,"apparently an euphemistic phrase, when Lincoln's return broke off thisvery suggestive and interesting conversation. They crossed the aisle towhere a tall man in crimson, and two charming persons in Burmese costume(as it seemed to him) awaited him diffidently. From their civilities hepassed to other presentations.
In a little while his multitudinous impressions began to organisethemselves into a general effect. At first the glitter of the gatheringhad raised all the democrat in Graham; he had felt hostile and satirical.But it is not in human nature to resist an atmosphere of courteousregard. Soon the music, the light, the play of colours, the shining armsand shoulders about him, the touch of hands, the transient interest ofsmiling faces, the frothing sound of skilfully modulated voices, theatmosphere of compliment, interest and respect, had woven together into afabric of indisputable pleasure. Graham for a time forgot his spaciousresolutions. He gave way insensibly to the intoxication of the positionthat was conceded him, his manner became more convincingly regal, hisfeet walked assuredly, the black robe fell with a bolder fold and prideennobled his voice. After all, this was a brilliant interesting world.
He looked up and saw passing across a bridge of porcelain and lookingdown upon him, a face that was almost immediately hidden, the face of thegirl he had seen overnight in the little room beyond the theatre afterhis escape from the Council. And she was watching him.
For the moment he did not remember when he had seen her, and then ca
me avague memory of the stirring emotions of their first encounter. But thedancing web of melody about him kept the air of that great marching songfrom his memory.
The lady to whom he talked repeated her remark, and Graham recalledhimself to the quasi-regal flirtation upon which he was engaged.
Yet, unaccountably, a vague restlessness, a feeling that grew todissatisfaction, came into his mind. He was troubled as if by some halfforgotten duty, by the sense of things important slipping from him amidstthis light and brilliance. The attraction that these ladies who crowdedabout him were beginning to exercise ceased. He no longer gave vague andclumsy responses to the subtly amorous advances that he was now assuredwere being made to him, and his eyes wandered for another sight of thegirl of the first revolt.
Where, precisely, had he seen her?...
Graham was in one of the upper galleries in conversation with abright-eyed lady on the subject of Eadhamite--the subject was his choiceand not hers. He had interrupted her warm assurances of personal devotionwith a matter-of-fact inquiry. He found her, as he had already foundseveral other latter-day women that night, less well informed thancharming. Suddenly, struggling against the eddying drift of nearermelody, the song of the Revolt, the great song he had heard in the Hall,hoarse and massive, came beating down to him.
Ah! Now he remembered!
He glanced up startled, and perceived above him an _oeil de boeuf_through which this song had come, and beyond, the upper courses of cable,the blue haze, and the pendant fabric of the lights of the public ways.He heard the song break into a tumult of voices and cease. He perceivedquite clearly the drone and tumult of the moving platforms and a murmurof many people. He had a vague persuasion that he could not account for,a sort of instinctive feeling that outside in the ways a huge crowd mustbe watching this place in which their Master amused himself.
Though the song had stopped so abruptly, though the special music ofthis gathering reasserted itself, the _motif_ of the marching song, onceit had begun, lingered in his mind.
The bright-eyed lady was still struggling with the mysteries of Eadhamitewhen he perceived the girl he had seen in the theatre again. She wascoming now along the gallery towards him; he saw her first before she sawhim. She was dressed in a faintly luminous grey, her dark hair about herbrows was like a cloud, and as he saw her the cold light from thecircular opening into the ways fell upon her downcast face.
The lady in trouble about the Eadhamite saw the change in his expression,and grasped her opportunity to escape. "Would you care to know that girl,Sire?" she asked boldly. "She is Helen Wotton--a niece of Ostrog's. Sheknows a great many serious things. She is one of the most serious personsalive. I am sure you will like her."
In another moment Graham was talking to the girl, and the bright-eyedlady had fluttered away.
"I remember you quite well," said Graham. "You were in that little room.When all the people were singing and beating time with their feet. BeforeI walked across the Hall."
Her momentary embarrassment passed. She looked up at him, and her facewas steady. "It was wonderful," she said, hesitated, and spoke with asudden effort. "All those people would have died for you, Sire. Countlesspeople did die for you that night."
Her face glowed. She glanced swiftly aside to see that no other heardher words.
Lincoln appeared some way off along the gallery, making his way throughthe press towards them. She saw him and turned to Graham strangelyeager, with a swift change to confidence and intimacy. "Sire," she saidquickly, "I cannot tell you now and here. But the common people are veryunhappy; they are oppressed--they are misgoverned. Do not forget thepeople, who faced death--death that you might live."
"I know nothing--" began Graham.
"I cannot tell you now."
Lincoln's face appeared close to them. He bowed an apology to the girl.
"You find the new world amusing, Sire?" asked Lincoln, with smilingdeference, and indicating the space and splendour of the gathering by onecomprehensive gesture. "At any rate, you find it changed."
"Yes," said Graham, "changed. And yet, after all, not so greatlychanged."
"Wait till you are in the air," said Lincoln. "The wind has fallen; evennow an aeroplane awaits you."
The girl's attitude awaited dismissal.
Graham glanced at her face, was on the verge of a question, found awarning in her expression, bowed to her and turned to accompany Lincoln.