You felt – yes – that he cared. He cared about housing, about young couples who couldn’t set up housekeeping – he cared about soldiers who had been overseas for many years and were due home, he cared about building up industrial security – about staving off unemployment. He cared, desperately, about seeing his country prosperous, because that prosperity would mean the happiness and well-doing of every small component part of that country. Every now and then, quite suddenly, he let off a squib, a flash of cheap, easily understood humour. They were quite obvious jokes – jokes that had been made many times before. They came out comfortingly because they were so familiar. But it wasn’t the humour, it was his earnestness that really counted. When the war was finally over, when Japan was out of it, then would come the peace, and it would be vital then to get down to things. He, if they returned him, meant to get down to things …
That was all. It was, I realized, entirely a personal performance. I don’t mean that he ignored the party slogans, he didn’t. He said all the correct things, spoke of the leader with due admiration and enthusiasm, mentioned the Empire. He was entirely correct. But you were being asked to support, not so much the Conservative Party Candidate as Major John Gabriel who was going to get things done, and who cared, passionately, that they should get done.
The audience liked him. They had, of course, come prepared to like him. They were Tories to a man (or woman), but I got the impression that they liked him rather more than they had thought they would. They seemed, I thought, even to wake up a little. And I said to myself, rather pleased with my idea, ‘Of course, the man’s a dynamo!’
After the applause, which was really enthusiastic, the Speaker from Headquarters was introduced. He was excellent. He said all the right things, made all the right pauses, got all the right laughs in the right places. I will confess that my attention wandered.
The meeting ended with the usual formalities.
As everyone got up and started streaming out, Lady Tressilian came and stood by me. I had been right – she was being a guardian angel. She said in her breathless, rather asthmatic voice:
‘What do you think? Do tell me what you think?’
‘He’s good,’ I said. ‘Definitely he’s good.’
‘I’m so glad you think so.’ She sighed gustily.
I wondered why my opinion should matter to her. She partially enlightened me when she said:
‘I’m not as clever as Addie, you know, or Maud. I’ve never really studied politics – and I’m old-fashioned. I don’t like the idea of MPs being paid. I’ve never got used to it. It should be a matter of serving your country – not recompensed.’
‘You can’t always afford to serve your country, Lady Tressilian,’ I pointed out.
‘No, I know that. Not nowadays. But it seems to me a pity. Our legislators should be drawn from the class that doesn’t need to work for its living, the class that can really be indifferent to gain.’
I wondered whether to say, ‘My dear lady, you come out of the Ark!’
But it was interesting to find a pocket of England where the old ideas still survived. The ruling class. The governing class. The upper class. All such hateful phrases. And yet – be honest – something in them?
Lady Tressilian went on:
‘My father stood for Parliament, you know. He was MP for Garavissey for thirty years. He found it a great tax upon his time and very wearisome – but he thought it his duty.’
My eyes strayed to the platform. Major Gabriel was talking to Lady St Loo. His legs were definitely ill-at-ease. Did Major Gabriel think it his duty to stand for Parliament? I very much doubted it.
‘I thought,’ said Lady Tressilian, following the direction of my eyes, ‘that he seemed very sincere. Didn’t you?’
‘That was how it struck me.’
‘And he spoke so beautifully about dear Mr Churchill … I think there is no doubt at all that the country is solidly behind Mr Churchill. Don’t you agree?’
I did agree. Or rather, I thought that the Conservatives would certainly be returned to power with a small majority.
Teresa joined me and my boy scout appeared, prepared to push.
‘Enjoy yourself?’ I asked Teresa.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘What do you think of our candidate?’
She did not answer until we were outside the Hall. Then she said, ‘I don’t know.’
Chapter Five
I met the candidate a couple of days later when he came over to confer with Carslake. Carslake brought him in to us for a drink.
Some question arose about clerical work done by Teresa, and she went out of the room with Carslake to clear the matter up.
I apologized to Gabriel for not being able to get up, and directed him where the drinks were, and told him to get himself one. He poured himself a pretty stiff one, I noticed.
He brought me mine, saying as he did so:
‘War casualty?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘Harrow Road.’ It was, by now, my stock answer, and I had come to derive a certain amount of amusement from the various reactions to it. Gabriel was much amused.
‘Pity to say so,’ he remarked. ‘You’re passing up an asset there.’
‘Do you expect me to invent a heroic tale?’
He said there was no need to invent anything.
‘Just say, “I was in North Africa” – or in Burma – or wherever you actually were – you have been overseas?’
I nodded. ‘Alamein and on.’
‘There you are then. Mention Alamein. That’s enough – no one will ask details – they’ll think they know.’
‘Is it worth it?’
‘Well,’ he considered, ‘it’s worth it with women. They love a wounded hero.’
‘I know that,’ I said with some bitterness.
He nodded with immediate comprehension.
‘Yes. It must get you down sometimes. Lot of women round here. Motherly, some of them.’ He picked up his empty glass. ‘Do you mind if I have another?’
I urged him to do so.
‘I’m going to dinner at the Castle,’ he explained. ‘That old bitch fairly puts the wind up me!’
We might have been Lady St Loo’s dearest friends, but I suppose he knew quite well that we weren’t. John Gabriel seldom made mistakes.
‘Lady St Loo?’ I asked. ‘Or all of them?’
‘I don’t mind the fat one. She’s the kind you can soon get where you want them, and Mrs Bigham Charteris is practically a horse. You’ve only got to neigh at her. But that St Loo woman is the kind that can see through you and out the other side. You can’t put on any fancy frills with her!
‘Not that I’d try,’ he added.
‘You know,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘when you come up against a real aristocrat you’re licked – there isn’t anything you can do about it.’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘that I understand you.’
He smiled.
‘Well, in a way, you see, I’m in the wrong camp.’
‘You mean that you’re not really a Tory in politics?’
‘No, no. I mean I’m not their kind. They like, they can’t help liking, the old school tie. Of course, they can’t be too choosy nowadays, they’ve got to have blokes like me.’ He added meditatively, ‘My old man was a plumber – not a very good plumber either.’
He looked at me and twinkled. I grinned back at him. In that moment I fell under his charm.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Labour’s really my ticket.’
‘But you don’t believe in their programme?’ I suggested.
He said easily, ‘Oh, I’ve no beliefs. With me it’s purely a matter of expediency. I’ve got to have a job. The war’s as good as over, and the plums will soon be snapped up. I’ve always thought I could make a name for myself in politics. You see if I don’t.’
‘So that’s why you’re a Tory? You prefer to be in the party that will be in power?’
‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘You don’t thi
nk the Tories are going to get in, do you?’
I said I certainly did think so. With a reduced majority.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Labour’s going to sweep the country. Their majority’s going to be terrific.’
‘But then – if you think so –’
I stopped.
‘Why don’t I want to be on the winning side?’ He grinned. ‘My dear chap. That’s why I’m not Labour. I don’t want to be swamped in a crowd. The Opposition’s the place for me. What is the Tory Party anyway? Taken by and large it’s the most muddle-headed crowd of gentlemanly inefficients combined with unbusinesslike business men. They’re hopeless. They haven’t got a policy, and they’re all at sixes and sevens. Anyone with any ability at all will stick out a mile. You watch. I shall shoot up like a rocket!’
‘If you get in,’ I said.
‘Oh, I shall get in all right.’
I looked at him curiously.
‘You really think so?’
He grinned again.
‘If I don’t make a fool of myself. I’ve got my weak spots.’ He tossed off the remainder of his drink. ‘Mainly women. I must keep off women. Won’t be difficult down here. Although there’s a nice little number at the St Loo Arms. Have you come across her? No,’ his eyes fell on my immobile state. ‘Sorry, of course you haven’t.’ He was moved to add, with what seemed genuine feeling, ‘Hard lines.’
It was the first bit of sympathy that I had not resented. It came out so naturally.
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘do you talk to Carslake like this?’
‘That ass? Good Lord, no.’
I have since wondered why Gabriel chose to be so frank with me that first evening. The conclusion that I have come to is that he was lonely. He was putting up a very good performance, but there was not much chance of relaxing between the acts. He knew, too, he must have known, that a crippled and immobile man always falls in the end into the role of the listener. I wanted entertainment. John Gabriel was quite willing to provide entertainment by taking me behind the scenes of his life. Besides, he was by nature a frank man.
I asked, with some curiosity, how Lady St Loo behaved to him.
‘Beautifully,’ he said. ‘Quite beautifully – damn her eyes! That’s one of the ways she gets under my skin. There’s nothing you can take hold of anywhere – there wouldn’t be – she knows her stuff. These old hags – if they want to be rude they’re so rude it takes your breath away – and if they don’t want to be rude you can’t make ’em.’
I wondered a little at his vehemence. I didn’t see that it could really matter to him whether an old lady like Lady St Loo was rude to him or not. She surely didn’t matter in the least. She belonged to a past era.
I said as much and he shot me a queer sideways glance.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said.
‘No, I don’t think I do.’
He said very quietly, ‘She thinks I’m dirt.’
‘My dear fellow!’
‘They look at you – that kind. Look through you. You don’t count. You’re not there. You don’t exist for them. You’re just the boy with the papers, or the boy who brings the fish.’
I knew then that it was Gabriel’s past that was active. Some slight, some casual rudeness long ago to the plumber’s son.
He took the words out of my mouth.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it. I’m class-conscious. I hate these arrogant upper-class women. They make me feel that nothing I do will ever get me there – that to them I’ll always be dirt. They know all right, you see, what I really am.’
I was startled. That glimpse of depths of resentment was so unexpected. There was hate there – real implacable hate. I wondered exactly what incident in the past still fermented and rankled in John Gabriel’s subconscious mind.
‘I know they don’t count,’ he said. ‘I know their day is over. They’re living, all over the country, in houses that are tumbling down, on incomes that have shrunk to practically nothing. Lots of ’em don’t get enough to eat. They live off vegetables from the garden. They do their own housework as often as not. But they’ve got something that I can’t get hold of – and never shall get hold of – some damned feeling of superiority. I’m as good as they are – in many ways I’m better, but when I’m with them I don’t feel it.’
Then he broke off with a sudden laugh.
‘Don’t mind me. I’m just blowing off steam.’ He looked out of the window. ‘A sham gingerbread castle – three old croaking ravens – and a girl like a stick, so stuck up she can’t find a word to say to you. That’s the kind of girl who felt a pea through all the mattresses, I expect.’
I smiled.
‘I always have thought,’ I said, ‘that the Princess and the Pea was a rather far-fetched fairy tale.’
He fastened on one word.
‘Princess! That’s how she behaves – that’s how they treat her. Like something royal out of a story book. She’s not a Princess, she’s an ordinary flesh-and-blood girl – she ought to be, anyway, with that mouth.’
Teresa and Carslake came back at that moment. Presently Carslake and Gabriel departed.
‘I wish he hadn’t had to go,’ said Teresa. ‘I’d like to have talked to him.’
‘I expect,’ I said, ‘we shall see him fairly often.’
She looked at me.
‘You’re interested,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you?’
I considered.
‘It’s the first time,’ said Teresa, ‘the very first time that I’ve seen you interested in anything since we came here.’
‘I must be more politically-minded than I thought.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it isn’t politics. It’s that man.’
‘He’s certainly a dynamic personality,’ I admitted. ‘It’s a pity he’s so ugly.’
‘I suppose he is ugly.’ She added thoughtfully, ‘He’s very attractive, though.’
I was quite astonished.
Teresa said: ‘Don’t look at me like that. He is attractive. Any woman would tell you so.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you surprise me. I shouldn’t have thought he was at all the sort of man women would have found attractive.’
‘You thought wrong,’ said Teresa.
Chapter Six
On the following day, Isabella Charteris came over with a note from Lady St Loo to Captain Carslake. I was out on the terrace in the sun. When she had delivered the note she came back along the terrace and presently sat down near me on a carved stone seat.
If she had been Lady Tressilian I should have suspected kindness to the lame dog, but Isabella was quite clearly not concerned with me at all. I have never seen anyone less so. She sat for some time quite silently. Then she said that she liked the sun.
‘So do I,’ I said. ‘You’re not very brown, though.’
‘I don’t go brown.’
Her skin was lovely in the clear light – it had a kind of magnolia whiteness. I noticed how proudly her head was set on her shoulders. I could see why Gabriel had called her a princess.
Thinking of him made me say, ‘Major Gabriel dined with you last night, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you go to his meeting at the Drill Hall?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘I was sitting in the second row.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
She considered a moment before replying.
‘No.’
‘Why did you go then?’ I asked.
Again she thought a moment before saying, ‘It’s one of the things we do.’
I was curious.
‘Do you like living down here? Are you happy?’
‘Yes.’
It struck me suddenly how rare it was to receive monosyllabic replies. Most people elaborate. The normal reply would be, ‘I love being by the sea’ or ‘It’s my home’ … ‘I like the country’ … ‘I love it down here.’ This girl contented herself with sa
ying ‘Yes.’ But that ‘Yes’ was curiously forceful. It really meant yes. It was a firm and definite assent. Her eyes had gone towards the castle, and a very faint smile showed on her lips.
I knew then what she reminded me of. She was like those Acropolis Maidens of the fifth century BC. She had that same inhuman exquisite smile …
So Isabella Charteris was happy living at St Loo Castle with three old women. Sitting here now in the sun, looking towards the castle, she was happy. I could almost feel the quiet confident happiness that possessed her. And suddenly I was afraid – afraid for her.
I said, ‘Have you always been happy, Isabella?’
But I knew the answer before it came, although she considered a little before she said, ‘Yes.’
‘At school?’
‘Yes.’
I could not, somehow, imagine Isabella at school. She was totally unlike the ordinary product of an English boarding school. Still, presumably it takes all sorts to make a school.
Across the terrace came running a brown squirrel. It sat up, looking at us. It chattered a while, then darted off to run up a tree.
I felt suddenly as though a kaleidoscopic universe had shifted, settling into a different pattern. What I saw now was the pattern of a sentient world where existence was everything, thought and speculation nothing. Here were morning and evening, day and night, food and drink, cold and heat – here movement, purpose, consciousness that did not yet know it was consciousness. This was the squirrel’s world, the world of green grass pushing steadily upwards, of trees, living and breathing. Here in this world, Isabella had her place. And strangely enough I, the broken wreck of a man, could find my place also …
For the first time since my accident I ceased to rebel … the bitterness, the frustration, the morbid self-consciousness left me. I was no longer Hugh Norreys, twisted away from his path of active and purposeful manhood. I was Hugh Norreys, the cripple, conscious of sunshine, of a stirring breathing world, of my own rhythmic breathing, of the fact that this was a day in eternity going on its way towards sleep …
The Rose and the Yew Tree Page 5