‘Yes,’ said Alice.
‘Well, Alice I do wish that you would help me to educate myself, I mean seriously, not just to read the Oxford Book of English Verse and make tea party conversation. And then in time I might be some use I should like to be some use. Is that sentimental?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Alice ‘I think you are quite right. But I wish you would let me talk to your father about it. I really think you would find him extremely understanding, and he will have to help if you’re to do things like going to lectures and so on next year when you are in London. Will you let me sound him out, very carefully, and see how it goes?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Kitty. ‘I suppose he would understand. He always does. It is irritating in a sort of way, don’t you find?’
‘No, I don’t think I do find it irritating.’
‘Perhaps it is just that it makes me feel guilty. Do you think he is any use?’
‘I most certainly do,’ said Alice.
‘But the Liberals,’ said Kitty. ‘I think when women get the vote they will all vote for the Labour Party.’
‘Good heavens, why?’
‘It has much the best intentions.’
‘Liberal intentions are rather good too.’
‘Things have changed. Granny, of course, is a Marxist.’
‘She would be awfully bad at sharing everything with everyone else.’
‘But she says there is no room for love in a capitalist society.’
‘In theory, perhaps. But in practice there seems to be room enough.’
‘Less and less, Granny says. I think she is really an anarchist, more or less. Or perhaps they are the same thing, I am not sure. Of course really she thinks things have gone to pieces terribly since the great days when Grandpapa was alive I suppose it’s in the family really. It’s no wonder I’ve got it too I think I’ll be the first woman Prime Minister in a Labour Government. You can be – well, what? – you’re so sensible – I think you’d better be Home Secretary. Shall we abolish hanging?’
On the way back to her own bedroom Kitty nearly ran into Beatrice, Cynthia’s maid. Beatrice was walking along the pass age, carrying a brass can of hot water, when Kitty came swirling round the corner in her dressing gown and all but bumped into her Beatrice drew back against the wall and gasped out ‘My God! Can’t you look where you’re going!’ before she could stop herself.
‘Beatrice!’ Kitty was amazed by her harsh tone. ‘I’m sorry. I’m awfully sorry, Beatrice.’
Beatrice made an effort. She was trembling so much that the lid of the can rattled ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Kitty. It was the shock. It gave me such a shock I spoke hastily.’
‘It’s all right. I am sorry. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m all right now I’m sorry, Miss Kitty.’
‘Good night, Beatrice.’
‘Good night, Miss Kitty.’
Beatrice walked on, still breathing heavily. Her face was white. She was in a bad state of nerves. She was consumed by love for Ralph Moberley and by jealousy of Ellen, whom she rightly suspected him of preferring she appeared to be literally being eaten up by these passions, as a candle is consumed by its flame. There is a theory that violent unhappiness or frustration can cause cancer whatever may be the truth of that, something was killing Beatrice.
Hugging her seeds of destruction to herself with her hot-water can, she walked irregularly on and into Cynthia’s bedroom, where she put down the can and covered it up.
Cynthia came in as she was leaving but was too preoccupied to do more than murmur a good night.
Cynthia and Aylmer very seldom quarrelled. When they did she did not know what to do about it usually she waited for him to come and apologize to her, and usually he did, and then she forgave him.
This time it was a little different because she knew that she had been unreasonable, so when he did not come to her, she went into his dressing room and said, ‘May I come in?’ rather hesitantly, standing in the doorway in her long silk dressing gown with her hair down.
He was already in bed, sitting up, reading. He looked at her across the top of his knees, against which his Herodotus was leaning.
‘Of course,’ he said.
He looked very neat in bed, his hair brushed and his striped silk pyjamas buttoned up to his neck. He was wearing glasses, which he had lately taken to using for reading.
She came in and sat down on the end of his bed.
‘I am afraid I was rather silly,’ she said. When you have had a quarrel with your husband, a quarrel known to both of you to have been caused by nothing more than tiredness – a mutual lapse – you try to make it up before you go to sleep that night. That is a rule. Of course. But if your husband looks at you from such a distance through his new reading glasses and smiles politely as to a stranger or perhaps a constituent – what do you do then?
You still try to make it up.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
And if the kindness with which he is just about to forgive you fills you with a resentment so intense that you frighten yourself?
She bowed her head, looked at her clasped hands ‘I know I was being tiresome – and when you had just come back.’
‘Please don’t think about it any more,’ he said from beyond his knees. ‘Let’s just forget it.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
His eyes had wandered back to his book.
She still sat there without moving, thinking, I will not show him that I know he is punishing me.
She put her hand on his knee.
‘It’s kind of you,’ she said.
He put his hand on top of hers.
‘You see,’ he said. ‘It’s so important to me, you and all that I find here, all that it means to me. Believe me, politics is a wearing business sometimes – sometimes I don’t know why one does it at all – and at the moment it’s hard and nasty, and I long to be free of it and be with you. If you could be patient with me just a little longer, perhaps in the summer recess we’ll go away together, just you and I by ourselves, before we go to Scotland. Violet will be married, Kitty will stay here with mother and Miss Benedict. We’ll go anywhere you like, Wales or Brighton or anywhere, or Pans if you’d rather, or Nice. You shall choose. Can you be patient with me until then?’
But now she responded without an effort, ashamed ‘Of course! I know what it is for you, I know it, don’t think I don’t. We’ll have a real rest together, it will be lovely.’ She rested her chin on his knees, beside her own hand. ‘I shall think about it. Don’t worry about me.’
He stroked her cheek with his finger. ‘Good night, my dear.’
‘You want to read before you sleep. I’ll go,’ she said, staying.
‘Yes. A page or two of my good old friend. There’s nothing like it.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Good night, my dear.’
‘Good night.’
She glided away, turned at the door, but he was already reading. She watched him a moment, the thought in her mind being, We shall soon be dead, then she went back to her own room. He did not look up. When she had gone he closed his book, turned out his light, and lay down.
13
‘I am not used to telephoning people at their offices.’
‘You are not used to telephoning people.’
‘No but – you are busy, I suppose? Working, calculating things? Juggling with huge sums of money?’
‘I can spare a moment I have a certain way of adjusting the telephone which leaves my hands free for juggling.’
‘I see. You haven’t been to see me, to see us I suppose you have been too busy?’
‘Do you want me to come and see you?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you telephoned me to say this?’
‘Why do you sound so surprised? I am.’
‘My mother after all. Quite.’
‘I didn’t telephone you only to ask you to come and see me, and if you are still in a tiresome mood. I d
on’t want you to come and see me I want you to buy me some shares.’
‘You? Gambling on the Stock Exchange?’
‘You are buying some for Aylmer. I should like some too. I want to make a speculation, it would amuse me I don’t know anything about the Stock Exchange. Why can’t I come and see it?’
‘You wouldn’t be allowed in. Besides, it’s very dull.’
‘Oh. Well, then, I see you don’t want to share the experience of your new occupation with me so I will leave you to your juggling. You are at least coming to the wedding?’
‘Of course. But it is not for some time.’
‘Only two weeks.’
‘I will come and take you for a walk in the park at half past five.’
‘What an extraordinary time for a walk in the park.’
‘Would you rather I took you to a the dansant at Claridge’s?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then I’ll see you at 5.30.’
‘But I have to. Oh, very well. But you will buy me some shares?’
‘How many?’
‘How much do they cost?’
‘If you mean the ones I told Aylmer about, they are going up. They’re now standing at 19s 3d – they’ve gone up 3s since last week – but they’re still a good buy according to Horgan.’
‘I don’t know in what units one buys shares. I mean, ones or hundreds?’
‘I would say hundreds.’
‘What about 500 then? Would that be the sort of thing, do you think?’
‘Anything you like. Make it less if you don’t want to risk so much I’ll get you 100 if you like.’
‘But Aylmer has bought thousands, hasn’t he? And Edmund too I hear I think one does it on a bigger scale than just 100. Make it 500. I think that would be suitable.’
‘All right. I’ll get you 500.’
‘Thank you, Philip. Goodbye.’
‘I’ll see you at 5.30. In your hat.’
Philip, descending, a young apprentice in an old profession, one of a crowd of respectable young men wearing the blue buttons that proclaimed them beginners, felt himself a merchant going down into the market to negotiate, bargain, exercise the subtleties of the eternal merchant mind, and the gentlemen in top hats he saw as ancient traders, the jobbers lolling round their pillars the money changers in the temple. And I belong here he thought. In this den of thieves.
It had not in the least the appearance of a den of thieves more perhaps that of a place in which a respectable old profession was practised, a profession sufficiently old and sufficiently respectable to have dispensed with outward shows, for in spite of the neatness of dress (most of the members of the Stock Exchange at that time still wore top hats), the surroundings were shabby, the floor dusty and covered with little fallen pieces of paper, the whole having the look rather of a crowded railway station, with untidy notices pinned up here and there giving the times of the trains. There were even one or two portly officials wearing a uniform not unlike that of a guard on a train – they were known as waiters, and Philip had yet to discover what, if anything, was their function. He meant to ask Smith some time.
Smith was Horgan, Miller’s senior authorized clerk, the man who actually executed most of the firm’s dealings Philip was not yet authorized to deal, being a ‘Blue Button’, all he could really do was to take messages to and from the office and the market, and observe. He had Horgan’s assurance that as soon as his period of training was over he, Horgan, would see that he became a full member of the Stock Exchange with as little delay as might be. In the meantime he asked Smith as many questions as their mutual antipathy would allow.
Smith was both embittered and insecure. Philip seemed to confirm his worst suspicions about everything. Smith had good judgment he had always had it and it had led to his downfall. He had worked for one of the best firms on the Stock Exchange, a firm which had done brilliantly both for itself and for its clients. Smith had shared in its success, had basked in the favour of his employers and of many of their clients, who had had a way of praising him, of saying, ‘Ah, but we know we owe it all to Smith – he’s better than any of you – he’s unerring – he can nose out a good thing anywhere – never lets us make fools of ourselves when we think we’ve got a tip’ and all the rest of it. With the result that poor Smith became over confident, and began to make little sorties on his own account, and got himself seriously into debt. He was rescued by his employers but he had to leave them. Now he worked for what he knew to be an inferior firm, and, worse than that, they paid no attention to his advice, and, worst of all, everybody in the market knew of his history, or at least he thought they did, which was as bad.
And so he resented Philip. And Philip resented him, for his unwillingness to part with information, his obvious reluctance to accept without verification any messages from Horgan which came through Philip, and his general air of a bad old butler who knew more than he should and was only waiting for the right opportunity to use his knowledge.
Already Philip, who had powers of quick assimilation, felt sufficiently confident to tease Smith, to shock him by flouting a few of the many tiny rules and conventions which to Smith were inviolable. Throwing paper darts, as well as other forms of manly ragging, was in order, according to Smith, because it was traditional, but talking in too loud a voice about one’s dealings, saying aloud things which should only be written down, failing to respect the older members – these were bad. Only that morning Philip had with pointless elaboration insisted on showing the way out to a fat old gentleman who had obviously been coming and going in the Stock Exchange for years, this had outraged Smith, though the fat old gentleman himself had taken it with apparent calm.
So that it amused Philip to go up to Smith, as he did now, and say quite loudly, handing him a piece of paper. ‘The Cabinet wives seem to be after Cape Enterprises too now, as well as the entire Cabinet itself. And there’s another big order from Godfrey Isaacs.’
Smith went perfectly white in the face and hissed like a snake through his teeth. Several faces turned and stared at Philip in blank amazement. Since the market was, as always, crowded, a great number of people had heard him. He turned and walked away unconcernedly, noticing as he went that there was a larger crowd than usual round the pillar where the jobbers who dealt with mines sat Cape Enterprises was already moving quite rapidly, there were several figures in red after its name on the list above the jobbers’ heads indicating rises in price since the start of that day’s business.
Horgan sent for him and told him that he had been overdoing it, that Smith was threatening to resign, and that he had better keep quiet for a bit. ‘Besides, we’ve got quite enough interest in the thing now. We don’t want it all to go up in smoke.’
‘Why do we want interest in it?’ asked Philip.
‘I’ll tell you about it later on, don’t worry,’ said Horgan, exuding his usual air of confidence. ‘Anyway we don’t mind if the shares go up now, because we’ve got what we want for ourselves But we’ll play it quietly for a bit, shall we?’
‘All right,’ said Philip. ‘When do you expect the news to break – about the gold, I mean?’
‘Couple of weeks I should think,’ said Horgan. ‘Look here, do you want to know about this little company I’ve got here? I was just looking at all the papers when you came in. This is my own affair, nothing to do with Horgan, Miller Property. Want to have a look? You can help me quite a bit with it if you want to. And look here, I shouldn’t advise any more buying of Cape Enterprises at the moment, for yourself, or family or friends – don’t want the thing to get out of control, do we? Now about this property deal.’
‘I think I ought to go and apologize to Smith first, oughtn’t I?’
‘Yes. Do that. And then come back.’
Cynthia was putting on her hat. What a hat. Hats were like that that year, an exuberance of osprey feathers, tulle and all the rest of it, but this one was on such a scale as to make its frivolity rather grand.
And she
herself? She gazed into the mirror, placing a hatpin. A woman of forty, or, rather, forty two. Leaning closer, she saw wrinkles round her eyes, a few on her forehead. But she could have been years younger. I have had so few troubles, she thought.
A happy upbringing, life in the country, friends, a triumphant season, an early marriage to one of the most handsome and best thought of young men of her generation (they had been very young but had overruled their parents by their single minded devotion, their confidence, even, in a way, their beauty). A son, at nineteen, two pretty little girls thereafter, a life at the centre of the life of her country, of her time, admiration, interest, stimulation, a sense of purpose (she believed in Aylmer’s work, and in a lesser way in the usefulness of her own contribution, she believed, not without humility, that she was part of an enlightened élite bringing peaceful reforms to the most civilized country in the world) – well, then, what more could she want? There had been a few bad moments of course, half forgotten frights of childhood, small betrayals of the schoolroom, much felt at the time, and after marriage the usual adjustments to be made, his way or her way, his friends or her friends, how to deal with him when he was cross, or tired, or ill, but all this so cushioned round with comforts and consolations of all kinds as to be as painless as possible. There was the problem of Aylmer’s mother, who interfered and had an unusual amount of intellectual arrogance, but then old Mrs Weston was not altogether without tact, and Cynthia had grown fond of her and to appreciate her astringence. Then there was the time after Kitty was born when she had been ill. That was the worst time. After that she had felt she had in some way or other lost her innocence, because she had known too much about pain and, worse, despair, because everything on which she had been used to rely had seemed to fall away from her and she had felt hopelessly alone and the days had dragged bitterly and she had shouted at her nurse, and had wished to die. It had left her with a feeling of guilt, because she felt that it had been a test and that she had failed it, it had also left her with a faint unarticulated doubt at the back of her mind, a feeling she had never had before, so faint as to be hardly there, but a feeling that if that was what it was all to come to, if that was how it was to end, then the present moment must be made to release every thing it had, to make it worth it. In other words, after her illness she was more selfish than she had been before it.
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