by Angus Wilson
‘Eric,’ said his mother, ‘take the roses, darling, and put them into water. It’s much too long since I saw Mr Sands and I’m going to make up for it now.’ She sat down in a cane rocking-chair, which formed part of the ‘Colonial’ furnishing of the large, french-windowed room. ‘The only way to enjoy life nowadays – and it seems to me England’s tragedy today that so many people refuse to enjoy it – is to be able to drop anything at any moment if something nicer comes along. When I hear all these poor dears around here complaining that they never have any fun, I’m afraid I feel very superior. I know it’s difficult, and it’s boring and we’d like to have the old days back; but with a little method and a pair of hands – and let me tell you, Mr Sands,’ she looked slightly arch, ‘a good deal stronger back than men care to think women have – the chores can be done and you can have a good deal of fun. The secret’s quite simple, fit the chores in when there’s nothing more interesting offering itself, and don’t pretend that things like arranging flowers aren’t chores when they are.’
It was on the tip of Bernard’s tongue to suggest that she should record this speech as a pep talk for ‘Woman’s Hour’, but he realized that she was shy of him and would be less loquacious and less affected as the afternoon passed. He was exceedingly anxious to break down the mistrust between them, but he despaired of being able to offer her that male admiration which alone would quiet her uneasiness.
‘What you do,’ he said with great difficulty, ‘seems to me so simply and yet so perfectly done.’ As with any speech that he made to please her, he felt that he should have added ‘dear lady’.
‘Thank you,’ she said with equal quiet dignity, ‘but quite enough of these boring household details, which we wretched women are always boasting of not mentioning and then gabbling about for hours!’ She bent forward her graceful neck, and, from the oval madonna face with its braided dark hair, the large brown eyes looked up at him. ‘Tell me about Vardon Hall. That has been noble work.’ Once again Bernard felt that something had been left out, she should have said, ‘my friend’.
While he told her the details of the scheme, she looked up at him with absorbed interest, occasionally marking points by smiling or nods of the head. She was extremely interested; as interested, Bernard reflected, as anyone he knew, and a good deal more capable of appreciating his aims than most. But it was impossible for her not to lend that interest an air of insincerity, to act the intelligent woman, enjoying the good talk she had too long been cut off from. She accompanied her interest with too much pantomime, putting her finger to her lips to silence Eric when he came into the room, and then holding his hand to form a group – mother and son in rapt attention. Her whole life seemed to have been constructed for play-acting. Her beauty had never stood alone – it was the medium for her various rôles; the young Virginian bride, the so-deeply-in-love wife of the young Army officer, the so-tragic-and-plucky young widow. A series of romantic parts that came from Victorian fiction. Yet, in justice, Bernard felt that her beauty went on too long demanding because it had been too suddenly deprived. So too with her intelligence; she tricked it out, flirted with it so much, because life had never given her any proper use for it. A swan out of water, were it not that her grace and poise showed to greater advantage exiled in Esher from her true element.
When he had finished his account of the Vardon Hall scheme, she looked up at Eric, ‘We shan’t forget that experience, shall we darling?’
It was Eric’s reaction to such questions that gave Bernard faith in him, despite all the iron clamps that tied him to his mother. ‘Bernie enjoyed telling every word of it,’ he said, ‘and in any case, you haven’t heard it all three times before like I have, Mimi.’
Mrs Craddock leant back her head and laughed. ‘Of course he enjoyed telling it, darling, we all love to talk about our successes.’ Then she smiled at Bernard, ‘I think youth should be oh-so-cynical and oh-so-romantic, don’t you?’
Bernard felt too disgusted to answer. He picked up a book froma small table at his side. ‘Folksviende,’ he said; ‘I didn’t know you read Norwegian, Mrs Craddock. The things your mother can do!’
‘Oh, I don’t really. That’s the trouble. I have a smattering of about six languages and don’t really know any. But I felt in my bones that Archer didn’t do him justice and I wanted to make sure.’
‘And?’
‘And I was right. There’s something so direct, something so concrete about this Ibsen,’ she waved the volume, ‘that isn’t there in the self-conscious stuff we’re given on the stage.’
Bernard felt suddenly that it was somehow discreditable in him to be taking Eric and not Mrs Craddock to Ghosts that night. But he immediately reflected on the absurdity of the thought—however much she had missed the boat, he didn’t want Mrs Craddock’s company and he did want Eric’s. As though to back up such a hedonistic reflection, he remembered that it was after all because of Mrs Craddock’s desire to have only a smattering of six tongues with a background of gracious living that Eric’s education had been suspended before he acquired one.
‘There’s something you can tell me,’ said Mrs Craddock. ‘I’ve been re-reading the Elizabethans after many years – how good it all is! – but am I right in thinking that Webster is really rather overrated?’
‘I don’t quite know what rating you have in mind,’ said Bernard, his hostile thoughts making him pedantic.
Mrs Craddock was disappointed. She had wanted direct confirmation of the individual candour of her judgement. She was desperate to win some admiration from Bernard, however, so ‘One of my usual silly generalities. How good he is for me,’ she said, looking up at Eric. ‘Now let’s see if I can succeed for once in putting my thoughts into words. Yes, I think what I mean is that….’
It was only when Alan’s voice was heard in the hall half an hour later that both Bernard and Celia Craddock realized that they had had an absorbing conversation, yet, so deep was their mistrust in one another, that they were pleased at the interruption.
Quietly and efficiently, but for all that with an exit, Celia Craddock went out of the room to get the tea, leaving Eric to introduce his brother to Bernard.
‘Bernie’s done the penance of coming all the way down to Esher to meet you,’ said Eric.
Alan’s rather stern, handsome features clouded, his mouth set firmly. ‘Don’t be a snob, Eric,’ he said.
Bernard smiled, ‘I had forgotten that you were the valuable influence that kept Eric from confusing art with snobbery.’
Alan’s smile, when it came, made him seem far younger than twenty-eight, but, if it was charming, it was also superior. ‘I’ve welcomed you as a distant ally for a long time. Though I confess I was pleasantly surprised when Eric began to show a little good sense at last. I had got the impression that simple Labour politics were very much out of fashion in the literary world.’
‘I hope,’ said Bernard, ‘that my books don’t reek as heavily as all that of the literary world.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never read them,’ replied Alan with a simplicity that he clearly saw no need to render disarming. ‘I only just have time to keep up with current affairs. Education is a full-time business today. I suppose that’s why we haven’t time to care whether our politics are dowdy so long as they’re efficient.’
‘It’s refreshing to hear someone speak of the Government’s efficiency,’ said Bernard.
‘Most people don’t care for efficiency,’ replied Alan grimly. ‘The modified Socialism that’s being carried out today is the only possible course, if we’re not to founder.’ The note of the successful A.B.C.A. lecturer, the rising Inspector of Education, sounded louder in his voice. ‘As a matter of fact, I doubt if a Tory government could act any differently as things stand, whatever they might wish.’
‘Then why does it matter which you vote for?’ asked Eric.
‘The government commands organized labour,’ said Alan sternly, ‘and any policy that is to succeed must carry organized labour w
ith it.’
‘Don’t you feel,’ asked Bernard, who was getting somewhat distressed, ‘that it would be healthier for organized labour if it were to be more associated in its own government?’
Alan raised his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps I do feel it, but it’s not a feeling I can afford to indulge in a critical stage of social reorganization like our own.’
Bernard considered the snub. If he could really have believed that Alan was withstanding a deeply felt belief in workers’ control out of motives of political necessity, he might have felt ashamed of his own frivolous idealism. But he felt justifiably sceptical. He must plead Eric’s cause as soon as possible, he decided, if this opportune alliance was not to break from internal stresses.
Mrs Craddock’s return with the tea trolley was a happy chance. There was no doubt that what she had done quietly she had also done well – Gentleman’s Relish sandwiches, Fuller’s walnut cake, a good Dundee, and Ridgeway’s best Orange Pekoe. Bernard, who loved his food, felt quite warm towards her as she sat so gracefully dispensing hospitality.
‘I hear you’re not happy about Eric’s room in London,’ he said.
‘Not happy?’ Mrs Craddock sounded incredulous. ‘But no I I think it’s a wonderful idea. It’s high time he had somewhere on his own. It will give him a chance to expand and, what’s really rather more important, it’ll give me one too.’ She put her hand on Eric’s knee. ‘I don’t really think it’s more important, darling,’ she said, and then smiling a little to herself she added, ‘or, perhaps, I do. Did you really misunderstand me so much, Eric darling, as to suppose I didn’t think it was a wonderful idea? But of course! If it can be arranged.’
‘But you said last week that the whole thing was settled, Mimi,’ cried Eric.
‘And what one says is immutable, I suppose, darling.’ She turned to Bernard. ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! When is the child going to grow up?’ she asked, all mock wonderment.
‘I must say I don’t see why it shouldn’t be managed,’ said Bernard.
‘Well, quite frankly,’ Alan answered for authority, ‘the expense. I don’t know whether you know what Eric’s getting. But I very much doubt whether he can pay for a respectable room in London out of it, let alone continue to contribute the small sum towards Mother’s expenses, which, as a matter of principle, I think he should.’
Bernard would have liked to say much about this matter of principle, but he was saved from so doing by Mrs Craddock.
‘Alan, darling, don’t sound pursed up just because money’s being discussed.’ Such false gentility appalled her. ‘There’s no need to pretend that we don’t know that Mr Sands has offered to pay for Eric’s room.’
‘It’s very generous of you, Mr Sands,’ said Alan, ‘but I must say that I should be sorry if Eric accepted. It’s entirely up to him, of course, but he ought to realize that if he doesn’t stand on his own feet at his age, he’ll lose his self-respect.’
‘What a funny idea!’ said Eric. ‘I’m much too conceited for that. If Bernie likes to give me the money, I shall be glad to have it. But I certainly shan’t feel under any obligation. If I felt like it, I should spend it all on those woolly koala bears for the mantelpiece that Bernie hates so much.’
Mrs Craddock clapped her hands with delight. ‘Bravo! Eric, bravo!’ she cried. ‘You want to have your cake and eat it. No, you mustn’t be angry with him, Alan, it’s exactly what I should say in his position. And really, you know, if it’s going to make life fuller for him, I can’t see why he shouldn’t accept.’
‘Good,’ said Bernard; ‘I’m sure you’ll all be glad. It’ll make all the difference to his continued education.’ He looked at Alan for approval.
Alan was pensive. After the way his mother had urged him to dissuade Eric, he had looked to her for more support. ‘I appreciate that point,’ he said, ‘but unfortunately there is something more important than the night classes. I’m very much concerned about Mother’s being left alone here.’
‘Oh! Alan, really!’ cried Mrs Craddock. Alan looked bewildered at her change of front, but she was conducting her own campaign now. ‘I shall be glad to be on my own. Look at all the reading I shall be able to do. Of course, there are hundreds of little reasons for which I shall miss Eric.’
Yes, thought Bernard, hundreds of little errands and interruptions to his work.
‘The coal’s going to be rather a strain,’ she made a little grimace. ‘Oh dear! that awful boiler! and I don’t know that I can face the hens, despite all those wonderful eggs. But otherwise I can manage beautifully, and you’ll be with me at weekends, darling. We’ll just have to have a slightly different timetable, that’s all. Anyway, I shall be able to think of you meeting people, going to concerts and opera. No, dear, if only for that, we must try it out and see.’
Bernard realized now that it was not jealousy for Eric but jealousy of him, of his opportunities, that moved her. It was just like the visit to Ghosts. Well, I’m not going to pay for a room for her, he thought. Nevertheless, he felt sorry for her. If she wasn’t stuck down in this place she could be a live, interesting woman instead of an ageing Sleeping Beauty. But then, if she sold the house now, she could take a small flat in London easily, and, if she’d done it some years ago, Eric could have been properly educated. But of course, he reflected savagely, she would have had to take her place with her equals or superiors, and that would have been far less ‘interesting’.
He smiled at her with almost open malice as he said, ‘I hope you aren’t jealous of my fondness for Eric.’
Mrs Craddock smiled back. ‘Oh no! Of course not, my dear friend.’ She had used the words at last, he noted. ‘You see, I think we’re rather alike. In our different ways, we’re both in love with youth.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Camp Fire Cameos
IF it had not been such an intolerably hot evening, Bernard would have suggested remaining in their seats in the interval. He could see no point in a meeting between Eric and Terence though he had never hidden his relationships from either of them. They would, he felt sure, dislike one another, and he dreaded a little his own acquiescence in their criticisms. They would both be so perfectly right, and they would both so perfectly miss the point.
‘It means a traipse upstairs to the members’ bar,’ he said, ‘if we want anything stronger than fruit juice.’
‘But I don’t,’ said Eric; ‘I’m just thirsty, that’s all.’
‘You go then and I’ll wait here.’
All Eric’s feminine vanity was affronted. ‘I don’t think that’s very polite,’ he said. Terence would be quick to note that toss of the golden curls! thought Bernard, but he was easily mollified when Eric added, ‘Besides, Bernie, what’s the good of coming here, if I can’t be seen with you. We might just as well not have come on the first night. Distinguished Mr Sands and a handsome young friend. Mr Sands’ young friend, interviewed in his dainty little room surrounded by his teddy bears (how you’ll hate that bit, Bernie), said, “I’m quite a child reely. I shot him because’e done what ’e oughtn’t”.’ Nothing in his relationship with Eric give Bernard more pleasure than his easy inclusion as an older man in such nonsense conversations. He could imagine Terence’s criticism. ‘Of course you like it, dear, it’s just the sort of warm whimsy that you probably used in your own little North Oxford nursery.’ But what clinched Bernard’s affection for Eric was his manner of switching from the ‘nonsense’ to youthful seriousness. ‘Bernie, am I wrong or is the Mrs Alving too concerned to suggest that she’s a bit of a bitch. It’s easy enough for us to think that, but I shouldn’t have thought Ibsen meant it, quite a lot of other things, perhaps, but not a bitch.’
‘No, you’re quite right,’ said Bernard. ‘It’s an infuriatingly self-conscious, clever performance.’ And he took Eric’s elbow with extra pleasure to guide him through the crowded refreshment room. But it also occurred to him that Celia Craddock might well have asked ‘Am I wrong?’ and been, in fact, equally right. Her elbow, of course, woul
d have been less interesting to him.
Before Bernard met the full force of a meeting with Terence, he sustained the lighter blow of a chance encounter with Hubert Rose.
‘I definitely think not Ibsen again, don’t you?’ said Hubert. ‘If the mummers are going to amuse us, let them do it with a certain richness, a certain vulgarity, don’t y’know? But all this sort of Rationalist press Sunday-school stuff, all right for callow youth and so on.’
‘Mr Rose, Mr Craddock,’ Bernard said.
‘How d’y’do,’ said Hubert, and turned his back on Eric. ‘By the way, Bernard, another little victory for you. All the dear locals at your feet. I was at a little gathering last night and it was “Sands’ wonderful scheme this” and “The Vardon Hall Scheme, my dear, that”. The Times, y’know, and T. S. Eliot, it’s all too much for them. Can’t you see it all on the dear old 8.15 and down at the “Ginger Cat” over the scones. I did my best to say you were the biggest Bolshie since Aneurin Bevan, but I hadn’t an earthly. They’ll all be out in force in next week’s bun fight,’ Hubert flicked some ash from his dress waistcoat – he dressed very strictly as a protest against all this dreary slackness, don’t y’know. ‘And so shall I,’ he added. Even when smiling with charming self-mockery, his red face looked patronizing. ‘Till then,’ he said. As he left, he turned and shook Eric’s hand rather slowly. ‘Delighted to have met you, Mr Craddock,’ he said; ‘do hope we shall meet again.’