‘What sort of a prize?’ said Robert, with an expression of frowning business-like presidential importance. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Oswald was getting a little too important.
‘A sort of medal or a badge,’ said Oswald, ‘which we wear the week our poem’s the best and the next week hand on to whoever’s is the best that week, or if ours is the best again, keep. Do you see what I mean?’ he added. ‘I’m the Treasurer, so if you’ll all hand over a small sum – say a shilling – to me, I’ll see about getting the badge. Do you all agree to that?’
‘Is everyone unanimous?’ said Robert in his most Presidential manner.
‘I think,’ objected George slowly, ‘that a shilling each is rather a lot. I think that we could get a sort of badge for less than five shillings.’
Oswald Franks flicked a speck of dust off his trousers with a contemptuous gesture (borrowed from a famous actor whom he had seen at a matinée the week before) and smiled.
‘We surely don’t want to cheapen the affair, do we?’
They hastily agreed that they didn’t want to cheapen the affair. Robert, feeling that some remark was due from him at this point, said:
‘Is everyone unanimous that we don’t want to cheapen the affair?’
There was a subdued murmur of acquiescence. George was temporarily discredited by trying to cheapen the affair, but he was unashamed. ‘Well, five shillings,’ he murmured doggedly, ‘just for a badge. I bet you could get one for sixpence.’
‘Would you like me to resign my position in your favour?’ said Oswald with a sarcastic smile.
‘Yes,’ said George simply.
This answer was unexpected and Oswald looked slightly taken aback.
But he quickly recovered.
‘Does the meeting wish to pass a vote of lack of confidence in me?’ he said, regaining his debonair and slightly scornful smile.
The meeting murmured that it didn’t, and glared at George.
‘Is everyone quite unanimous on the point?’ said Robert, trying to win back a little of the limelight from the all-conquering Oswald.
‘The next thing is,’ said Robert, with a flash of inspiration, ‘to decide where we can meet.’
‘We must find some place,’ said Oswald, ‘where those little wretches aren’t likely to find us out.’
By ‘those little wretches,’ as his audience both seen and unseen knew well, he meant those younger brothers and friends of the younger brothers who were, unknown to the Poets, watching through the window. The Poets groaned at the allusion.
‘Little beasts!’ said Hector passionately. ‘I know he’s ruined my bicycle, though he swears he never touched it. He’s had it out and had a fall on it. I know. The pedals are all jammed and I can’t ride it at all. I’d like to wring the little beast’s neck!’
‘They’re all the same,’ said Robert gloomily. ‘Apple pie beds and cheeking you and taking your things – all over the place.’
The unseen watchers grinned.
‘Well, we’ve not fixed up where we’ll meet,’ said Hector mildly, ‘’cept that it must be where those little beasts can’t find us. We jolly well don’t want them to suspect anything. You know what they are.’
The Poets sighed. They knew indeed what they were.
‘My carpentering shed’s nice and big,’ said George, ‘we could easily meet there. And no one would disturb us.’
‘All right,’ said Oswald, ‘that’s settled, then.’
Robert was beginning to resent bitterly Oswald’s invasion of the presidential province.
‘That’s settled, then,’ he said in a tone of aggressive authority; ‘is everyone unanimous?’
Apparently everyone was.
‘Well, there isn’t anything else to decide, is there?’ added Robert.
‘We haven’t fixed on a name yet,’ said Oswald with his slightly superior drawl.
Robert felt annoyed with himself for not thinking of that. To make up for this he suggested: ‘What about Society of Poets?’
‘Too ordinary,’ said Oswald, repeating the gesture of flicking dust from his trousers.
Robert ground his teeth.
‘What about the Society for the Propagation of Poetry?’ said Hector.
‘In foreign parts,’ murmured George absently.
‘I propose,’ said Oswald, ‘the Society of Twentieth Century Poets. Has anyone any objection?’
No one had. Everyone, Robert hastened to ascertain, was unanimous.
‘Well, as there’s nothing more to decide,’ said Robert, ‘I propose that I – you read a little poetry now for a few minutes.’ He said this with triumph. He felt that by this he was consolidating his position as President. He’d got in the suggestion before Oswald had had time to think of it, anyway.
He took a book from his pocket, coughed deprecatingly, struck an attitude and began:
‘It shall not me dismay
That I’ve grown old and grey,
Nor tell-tale glass I chide
That will not wrinkles hide.’
He felt rather nervous – far more nervous than when he recited to nature alone (and, all unconsciously, to the Outlaws concealed in nature). He stopped, gave another deprecating cough and was just about to continue when Oswald stretched out his hand for the book.
‘Your throat seems rather bad, Robert,’ he said sympathetically. ‘I’ll go on, shall I?’
He took the book and at once began to read in a low dramatic voice. Robert blinked. The Outlaws crept away.
For the next few days the Outlaws curtailed all their usual pursuits in order to keep the Twentieth Century Poets under observation. Certainly the Twentieth Century Poets repaid the trouble.
They adopted the conventional poetic appearance and behaviour. Led by Oswald they gradually exchanged the necktie for the neck bow. By some mysterious means known only to themselves, they managed to make their collars look much lower than they really were. They refrained from having their hair cut.
Ethel, Robert’s sister, possessed a black velvet jacket, and this Robert used to take and wear furtively when he was sure that she was out and not likely to return. When wearing it he felt so entirely and satisfactorily the President of the Society of the Twentieth Century Poets. He felt Byronesque. He even affected a slight limp.
He posed in front of his looking-glass. He stripped his room of all but bare necessities in order to make it look more garret-like. He strode up and down reading poetry. He sat with a damp towel round his lengthening hair, thinking out themes for poems. He walked in the woods and communed with nature. He bought a rhyming dictionary.
William all this time seemed to the outward eye to be immersed as usual in his own affairs. Robert would have been amazed and aghast to learn that there was not a single movement of his which William did not watch.
William’s unblinking eye was glued to the keyhole while Robert donned his damp towel and paced or postured in Ethel’s velvet coat. William followed him out into the woods on his communing expeditions with nature. William, when Robert was safely out of the way, went into his bedroom and read his poetry with a critical frown upon his freckled face.
It was with very great difficulty that the Outlaws obtained (unofficial) access to the next meeting of the Twentieth Century Poets. Fortunately, George’s carpentering shed was rather an elaborate affair (George himself was passionately proud of it), and it possessed a loft. It was about as small as a loft can well be, and the Outlaws were such a tight fit for it that they were stiff all the next day, and Ginger complained that he could taste William’s hair for a week.
WILLIAM’S UNBLINKING EYE WAS GLUED TO THE KEYHOLE WHILE ROBERT DONNED HIS DAMP TOWEL AND POSTURED IN ETHEL’S VELVET COAT.
Accessible by means of a precarious ladder, it possessed a crack in its floor through which the Outlaws – wedged into a solid mass – could catch a fleeting glimpse of proceedings below by the simple expedient of pushing each other’s heads out of the way. They had to get into position a go
od half-hour before proceedings began.
The Twentieth Century Poets arrived very promptly. Robert, as President, was given the carpenter’s bench for his seat. Hector sat on a bracket that George had spent the entire morning over, and broke it. George, on the whole, bore it very well. Jameson sat on the floor and Oswald took the stool. He took it with an air that somehow made the stool a far more important seat than the carpenter’s bench where Robert sat.
THE LOFT HAD A CRACK IN ITS FLOOR THROUGH WHICH THE OUTLAWS COULD CATCH A FLEETING GLIMPSE OF THE PROCEEDINGS BELOW.
Robert had very much wanted to come in the velvet jacket, but Ethel happened to be at home that afternoon so he couldn’t. He wore, however, an enormous black bow (Oswald’s was orange, and, Robert considered, rather loud) and had brushed his hair straight down over his forehead to make it look as long as possible.
The President opened proceedings by saying: ‘Well, we’re all here, so let’s start off, shall we?’
‘We’d better read the minutes of the last meeting,’ drawled Oswald.
This rather startled Robert. Robert was not familiar with the procedure of a public meeting.
‘Uh?’ he said uncertainly. Oswald smiled.
‘Shall we take them as read, then?’ he said kindly.
‘Oh – er – yes. Yes, of course,’ said Robert, looking very nervous and very fierce.
‘Let’s read our poems next, then, and then vote on whose is the best. Suppose George begins.’
George, it appeared, though with the best intentions in the world, had not been able to write a poem that week. His fountain pen had run out and he’d lost the bottle of fountain pen ink and he didn’t want to spoil his pen by filling it with any old ink, and he thought that writing in pencil was, perhaps, against the rules.
Robert looked rather stern at this.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but that wouldn’t have stopped you from making one up, would it? Why didn’t you make one up, then you could have recited it?’
‘I did,’ said George, unblushingly, ‘at least I think I did. I know I meant to. But with not having my pen filled and not being able to write it down, I forgot it.’
Robert passed on to Jameson Jameson. Jameson Jameson rose with alacrity to read his poem. It was very long and very morbid. It dealt with a crossing sweeper who died of starvation. It was written in the convention of the old-fashioned school but taking great liberties with metre and rhyme. It seemed, to the listeners, never-ending.
The Twentieth Century Poets gazed morosely in front of them while the crossing sweeper’s inmost feelings when in the act of dying of starvation were portrayed in verse after verse. Jameson Jameson himself was obviously deeply moved by it. There was one terrible moment when they thought that he was going to begin on the funeral but it passed.
Jameson Jameson sat down full of mingled pride in his performance, and emotion at the fate of the crossing sweeper. There was a long silence.
Robert coughed, and made a mental note that some rule must be made dealing with the length of the poems in future.
George went on furtively planing a piece of wood. George was deeply devoted to his hobby of carpentering and did not want to waste time. He was making a very ornamental rabbit hutch for an attractive female cousin whom he admired.
Fortunately, Jameson Jameson took the silence with which his poem was received as a tribute to its eloquence. He imagined his silent audience as deeply moved as he was.
It was Hector’s turn next. Hector had written a poem. He assured them almost passionately that he had written a poem but he had lost it. He thought that someone must have thrown it away thinking it was rubbish. No, he couldn’t recite it. He remembered that it was something about an iceberg, but that was all. He remembered that because he’d had such an awful time trying to find something to rhyme with iceberg. He hadn’t found anything in the end. He’d had to leave a blank.
Robert rather sternly proposed a fine of sixpence for anyone who should fail to produce a poem. All notified their assent except George, who was not listening. George was beginning to have horrible misgivings about his rabbit hutch. After all he’d never seen a hutch quite so freely ornamented with fretwork. Handsome it might be, but was it practicable? Would the rabbits like it? Would the cousin like it? Though it would be nice and cool in the summer, it would certainly be draughty in the winter.
‘Do you agree, George?’ said Robert, sternly.
George tore his thoughts from his rabbit hutch problem.
‘Oh – er – yes,’ he said, hastily. He might, of course, make a felt covering for the winter.
It was Robert’s turn now. Robert took a paper from his pocket and arose. He looked very earnest and very much embarrassed.
‘Good old Robert!’ whispered William, from above.
‘Mine’s – er – very short,’ said Robert. ‘It’s – er – an Ode to a Snowdrop. The first verse is in vers libre. Vers libre,’ he explained kindly, ‘is the French for “without any rhymes”.’ Then he began to read:
‘A snowdrop,
The first sign of Spring
Called snowdrop because it’s like a drop of snow.
A snowdrop,
Emblem of purity
And high endeavour.’
Robert stopped, blushing furiously. ‘Of course,’ he said modestly, ‘that sort of poetry’s quite easy to write because there aren’t any rules. It’s looked upon as quite good poetry nowadays, though. Walt Whitman wrote it and a lot of the best poets write that sort of poetry just because it’s so easy to write and there aren’t any rules. But I’ve written the other verse in the other way, I mean with rules and rhymes and that sort of thing. This is the second verse.
‘Oh snowdrop, who above the snow
Dost raise thy beauteous head.
Thou tellest us with thy silent voice
That the grim winter is dead.’
‘To make it scan,’ explained Robert, still blushing, you have to put the emphasis on the last syllable of winter. But you can. It’s all right. You can do anything like that. It’s called poetic licence—’
The others were obviously impressed by this.
‘Good old Robert!’ again whispered William encouragingly from his lofty eyrie.
‘Sh!’ said the other Outlaws.
Then Oswald arose. Oswald’s face had worn a smile of mingled amusement and contempt as Robert read his poem. He now took a piece of paper out of his pocket. Oswald’s mother’s poetical library contained a copy of Mrs Browning’s poems and Oswald had ascertained that Robert’s poetical library (which he rightly took to represent the whole of Robert’s poetical knowledge) did not.
‘A Poet,’ he announced as his title, and then began to read.
‘Ha, a poet! know him by
The ecstasy – dilated eye,
Not uncharged with tears that ran
Upward from his heart of man;
By the cheek from hour to hour
Kindled bright or sunken wan
With a sense of lonely power,
By the brow, uplifted higher
Than others, for more low declining;
By the lip which words of fire
Overboiling have burned white,
While they gave the nations light!
Ay, in every time and place
Ye may know the poet’s face
By the shade, or shining.’
Oswald stopped. There was a gasp of amazed surprise. Even George’s mind was drawn from its gloomy mental contemplation of the drawbacks of a fretworked rabbit hutch. There was a dead silence. The Twentieth Century Poets sat and gazed at Oswald in stunned reverence. Like the Queen of Sheba there was no more spirit in them. Oswald smiled his superior smile at them.
Of course the voting was a mere farce. Everyone, as Robert, gathering together his stupefied faculties with an effort ascertained, was absolutely unanimous. There was no doubt at all that Oswald was a great poet. Oswald produced an ornate badge and handed it to Robert, who then solemnly
presented it to Oswald.
And that was the end of the first meeting of the Twentieth Century Poets.
The next day Bertie Franks, fat and pale and unpleasant-looking as ever, met the Outlaws with a whoop of exultant scorn.
‘Yah! My brother c’ write better po’try than yours. Yah! My brother got the badge ’n yours didn’t. Yah!’
He did not stay to receive their onslaught. He sped as fast as his fat legs would carry him to the refuge of his front gate. Then, leaning over it, he continued his pæon of triumph.
‘Yah. Your brothers think they c’ write po’try, an’ they can’t. Who won the badge? Yah! To a Snowdrop! Yah! Yes, an’ your ole brother,’ to William, ‘thinks he’s President, don’t he? Yes, a fine President, in’t he? Can’t write po’try for nuts, can’t—’
Disdaining the rights of public property, the Outlaws charged in at the gate, but already Bertie’s fat, short figure was entering the refuge of his front door. They retired in baffled fury, pretending not to see Bertie’s pale face grimacing at them derisively from the drawing-room window.
This incident depressed the Outlaws. The Twentieth Century Poets had, they felt, considerably lowered their prestige.
And Bertie revelled in it. He swaggered, he swanked, he preened himself, he plumed himself, he put on side, he jeered, he taunted them, he collected his friends around him (Hubert Lane and other kindred spirits) and they all exulted over the Outlaws. ‘Yah! Whose brothers think they c’n write po’try? Yah!’
The Outlaws’ pride suffered indescribably during all this. The Outlaws were used to triumphing over their enemies. They were not used to being triumphed over. They felt aggrievedly that Robert and the others might have made a better show. And Oswald swanked about wearing his badge and his superior smile.
But the spirits of the Outlaws rose as the day of the next meeting of the Twentieth Century Poets approached, Surely, they thought, Oswald’s poem would not be the best again. Surely the others would have made a special effort. Surely they would not be exposed again to the laughter of their enemies—
William in Trouble Page 14