Poor Caroline Read online

  'The psalms for the 27th evening of the month,' announced the priest who was not Father Lasseter. 'The 126th psalm.'

  Caroline nudged Eleanor. Her eyes were shining.

  'I had forgotten it was to-night,' she whispered. 'Surely this is a sign. I always count so much on the psalms.'

  The choir sang,

  'When the Lord turned the captivity of Sion: then were we like unto them that dream.

  'Then was our mouth filled with laughter: and our tongue with joy.

  'Then said they among the heathen: The Lord hath done great things for them.

  'Yea, the Lord hath done great things for us already: whereof we rejoice.'

  The tears were rolling down Caroline's cheeks, but she held her head high, and joined in the singing with her husky, tremulous voice.

  'Turn our captivity O Lord: as the rivers in the south.

  'They that sow in tears: shall reap in joy.

  'He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed: shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him.'

  After that even the De Profundis seemed an anti-climax. Eleanor could feel Caroline beside her sailing through the service on the crest of a wave of excitement. Even she herself was moved, though she distrusted her emotion. It was nothing more than a coincidence that this was the 27th evening of January, and that the 126th psalm happened to fall upon that day. Almost any other psalm in the prayer book could have been as significant. This pretence of seeking signs in the accidental choice of a psalm savoured of necromancy. Caroline belonged to the foolish if not adulterous generation which sought after a sign. Eleanor could not forget that vision of her as a witch, bending over the kettle beside her sitting-room fire, the flames flickering upon her crimson velvet dress, and painting curious shadows on her face. Caroline was a witch. She believed in magic. She sought for signs in the psalms.

  Eleanor began to long for the society of plain practical people who earned a respectable living, and kept their feet on the firm ground of common sense, and talked about cattle diseases and the condition of the market.

  Yet her heart burned with pity for Caroline. Life was so short, the future so unstable. Some people walked so richly endowed with friends and wealth and fortune and success. Others had nothing. Caroline had nothing. The benevolence of fortune was too wholly dissociated from merit.

  If Caroline had forgotten her cry of protest against the cruelty of Eleanor's privileged youth, Eleanor had not. She thought that she would never again forget. The contrast between her own comparatively enviable future and Caroline's loneliness and poverty haunted her throughout the service. She watched" Caroline's head bent devoutly over her worn woollen gloves. She watched her raise it proudly as she stood up for the responses. She watched the grand-ladyish air with which she snapped her lorgnettes open to follow the lesson in her Bible.

  'If I were God,' thought Eleanor, 'I would make Caroline's miracle happen, just because it's time that something nice did happen to her. What's the use of being a snorting, magical, bull-roaring, miracle-working, storm-quelling, Jehovah-deity, if you can't have a little fun sometimes?'

  'He hath put down the mighty from their seat,' Caroline sang with robust conviction, 'and hath exalted the humble and meek.'

  That was a pious hope, thought Eleanor, not a statement of fact. The mighty generally remained firmly established in their seats, and if they fell, they crushed the meek and humble in their fall.

  By the time they reached the anthem, she was in a condition of prickly irritation, disliking God more than ever, for His failure to make good use of all His opportunities. But Caroline at her side seemed to be drawing spiritual sustenance from every sentence of the service, even from the prayer for the Royal family.

  The young priest who was not Father Lasseter climbed the pulpit steps.

  'A good-looking young man,' whispered Caroline with interest. 'I always say that looks are half the battle in the pulpit.'

  Eleanor acknowledged that he was good looking, though his inquiring nose was too long and his mouth too wide. Still, he was tall and straight and pleasing; his attractive brown hair swept in an unruly wave across his intelligent forehead; his hands that clutched the little desk as though their owner were none too happy in his elevated position were long and delicately shaped.

  A pleasing young man in many ways, Eleanor decided, but that made his ordination all the more regrettable.

  She could never look upon young and personable clergymen without distrustful interest, for she found it incredible that a man who was normally strong and intelligent should seek to shut himself off into that company of persons claiming to be able to instruct their neighbours in morality. It seemed as though, once a young man had put on the uniform of the church, he consecrated himself to unreality, and was no longer entitled to normal human consideration.

  This particular young man was neither pimpled, nor gauche, nor sickly, nor did he exhibit any other external disadvantage which Eleanor associated with Anglican curates. He bore himself with shy, abrupt dignity. He announced his text in a quiet, unclerical voice. 'Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor.' He did not speak very well. His manner was too stiff, his voice too diffident, his diction a little forced. But as he developed his theme, he twice forgot himself and his congregation, and became for the moment almost eloquent. To Eleanor's amusement, on both of these occasions, he dropped his deliberate simplicity and became the young college don lecturing on Ethics to a class of undergraduates. Then he pulled himself up abruptly, blushed a little, and with an effort resumed his shy colloquialisms.

  Eleanor, who had expected to be bored, found herself delightfully entertained, for it seemed to her that here was a clever young man of the donnish type, who had been commanded by his superiors to be simple. His inclination was to dispute with an All Souls Fellow, his duty to convert a tired charwoman. He had brought notes to the pulpit, but he screwed up his blue, short-sighted eyes at them as though he could not see, and ultimately abandoned them altogether.

  'Poor young man,' mocked Eleanor. 'He's not at all comfortable. Well, if he'd resisted this temptation to spiritual pride and remained quietly at a university, he'd probably have been a great success. He's got intelligence and personality, and he'll soon develop a pompous prig.'

  Her interest in the young man's dilemma made her give some attention to his words, and from criticizing the manner she passed to consider the matter of his discourse. And indeed, this seemed to her to be aptly chosen. For his theme arose quite naturally from his text. Following Lord Morley, with whose essay he was obviously acquainted, he spoke of Compromise, its leaden weight upon idealism, its fascination for the mediocre. His commendation of enthusiasm came quaintly from lips so plainly diffident; his indictment of the half-hearted, his praise of audacity, his conception of an aristocracy of gamblers, those who dare to risk all their fortune for an ideal, conveyed to Eleanor an impression of romanticism which discomfited her, at first because she disagreed with it, but later because she applied it to herself. For as he spoke, she found herself fitting the cap of those who play for safety on to the Smiths of Marshington, on to the respectable bourgeoisie, the protected, the sensible, the timid followers of convention. The true aristocrats, who sought perfection, were those who like St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Francis Xavier, and Joan of Arc-yes, and like Caroline, even poor Caroline — counted no cost, but made the splendid and reckless gesture of independence. And she herself?

  Suddenly Eleanor saw herself as one of the compromisers, who could make the Great Refusal, because of their possessions. Caroline had said that she could never strip herself as naked as the women of the older generation. That was true. She was protected for ever by her education, her freedom, and her father's sympathy for her ambitions. All that Caroline had cried out to her that night in the office became here part of the young clergyman's argument. It was she who compromised, she who was immune. She had chided God for H
is failure to perform a miracle. The miracle was within her power as well as God's. She had three thousand pounds. She could save the Christian Cinema Company if she would, and thus with one act teach God Himself a lesson and strip herself of part, at least, of her intolerable immunity.

  Directly the thought entered her mind, it seemed so patently clear that she wondered why she had not done it before. She had the money. She did not really need it. At the end of her six months' course she would be equipped to earn her living, and she had funds enough to last her, with economy, through her training. It was idle to deny that she was the best student in her class. She had had a good scientific education, and her Commercial Dutch was an additional asset. Even now she could, if she liked, accept a part-time job of translating Dutch correspondence for a firm of merchants. What need had she for three thousand pounds? She would use it for the salvation of the company.

  What a triumph for Caroline, what a snub for the indifferent Board, what a reproof for the Marshington Smiths, who always thought that Caroline would achieve nothing. Why had she never thought of that before? The nice young man! A Daniel come to judgment. Indeed, thought Eleanor, it is appropriate that my association with the Christian Cinema Company should be inspired by a sermon, sermons being so little my customary mental diet.

  Directly she had made her decision, the depression of the last few days vanished. She was happy, happier even than when she bought her car. She felt as though she had already effected something. She was about to take an action which would change the course of history, even though it was an obscure and local history.

  She did not hear the conclusion of the sermon. So far as she was concerned, its message had been delivered. She joined in the final hymn with gusto equal to Caroline's, though she had no voice and little ear for music. She followed Caroline from the church, her nerves tingling, her pulses dancing, her lips twitching into a triumphant little smile.

  She could hardly bear to wait until they had boarded the bus, before she observed casually, 'You know, I've been thinking, Cousin Caroline, what about that three thousand pounds that Father left me? I think that 5 per cent. War Loan is deadly dull, don't you? What do you really think about putting it into the Christian Cinema Company?'

  Afterwards she always told herself that whatever her rash impulse might have cost her, it was worth while, if only for the amusement of watching Caroline's face tremble into ecstatic eagerness. 'At least,' thought Eleanor, 'I've taught God his duty by answering one prayer prayed by a faithful Christian. Poor Caroline!'

  Chapter 4 : Hugh Angus Macafee

  §1

  hugh angus macafee, so far as he was made at all, was a self-made man. The great disadvantage of making oneself lies in the difficulty of getting both sides to match. Hugh's development was distressingly one-sided. At twenty-six he was a brilliant technician. He could calculate to a nicety the acoustical properties of any given buildings; he could compose accurate but unilluminating treatises on colour photography, electrical reproduction of sound, the uses of cellulose or the synchronization of light and music: he could write examination papers which would win him First Class Honours in Physics, Chemistry or Engineering in any European university; he could live on fifteen shillings a week without experiencing conscious hardship; and he had invented a film to synchronize with sound-production which was almost as effective as the Glasgow Galloway Patent then in use at Hollywood. But he could not order a dinner, interview a patron, market a patent, recognize a song-tune, make a woman fall in love with herself, or work for more than half an hour with any man without antagonizing him.

  To do him justice, he was not dissatisfied with his own production. Disapproval was his favourite hobby, but he rarely applied it to himself. He disapproved of the Oxford accent, of modern novels, of Bittniger's electrical process, of classical education, of a supernatural deity, of all women -except mothers — of Anglo-Catholicism, central heating, hors d'ouvres, studied courtesy, Gomschalk's atomic theory, and the English nation. He approved of Robert Burns, Highland scenery, honest poverty, oatmeal porridge, scientific education, and himself.

  He was a peasant's son from Perthshire, who when fifteen years old had looked around upon his home and prospects and found them not at all what he desired. He was an imperious lad, and he found his father enslaved to winds and seasons. He was impatient, and he saw his mother bound to the slow wasteful routine of natural reproduction, having reared five children and buried seven. He was intelligent, controversial, alert and curious, and he found himself doomed to agricultural passivity.

  His teacher commended his aptitude for mathematics, and thrashed him for obstinacy and insubordination. Hugh asked his father's leave to try for a bursary to continue his education, and met with curt refusal. But his mother understood something of the boy's ambition. When Hugh ran away to become odd-lad to a third-rate photographer in Perth, he told her of his destination. She sent him surreptitiously little parcels of soda scones and oatcake throughout the lean, long years of his apprenticeship.

  Photography fascinated him. At nights he read in the public library, attended evening classes and looked into a new enchanting world of order. He read chemistry and physics and works on technical photographic processes. Beyond the casual chaotic appearance of things lay perfect symmetry. Too small for the clumsy eye of man to see, moved systems exquisitely attuned to clear precision. The coarse deal chair in his lodgings became a thing of wonder. The law which bound to an appearance of solidity its spinning electrons, the law which changed the texture of its wood, the law which governed the expansion or contraction of its measurement, became to Hugh an absorbing interest. The joy which some men find in music, others in form, and others in contemplating the spiritual majesty of God, Hugh found in natural science. Chemistry and physics introduced him to an ecstasy of wonder that changed his whole relation to the universe.

  This was his inner life. His outer life was passed in making himself indispensable to his firm, living upon an incredibly small income, saving with heroic concentration the tips and windfalls which came his way, and informing everybody who had patience to listen to him that he would one day go to college. And to college he went. When he was nineteen he borrowed two hundred pounds from his richest relative, a pig-dealer in Dundee, and took himself to Edinburgh University. In Edinburgh he worked all day and half the night. He denied himself friendships, recreations, luxuries and hobbies, and lived in an isolated world where matter became transparent, where it seemed to him that with his naked eyes he could watch the solid world dissolving into the rushing activity of unsubstantial protons. But he took his engineering and his chemistry examinations and fulfilled his promise to succeed in both. At the end of his course he had won a unique reputation for dogged ability, resourcefulness, and the power to make himself objectionable. His professors were prepared to recommend him for academic posts in any university but Edinburgh. The further he removed himself, the better pleased they would be. When he won a travelling fellowship and went to Germany to study colour reproduction, they congratulated themselves with warm sincerity.

  Hugh went to Germany. He remained there for two years, doing admirable work, strengthening his disapproval of the English, and acquiring a rough mastery of the German language and scientific methods. He returned to join National Cinema Products Limited as experimental chemist at a salary rising from £600 a year. He endured the really liberal conditions of commercial employment for just eighteen months, during which time he treated the company's laboratory as though it were his private experimental department, quarrelled with all his colleagues and insulted the managing director. But the few ideas which he presented to the company were so valuable that it treated him as a chartered libertine, until he declared his intention of working only three days a week at the firm's own business and devoting the rest of his time to the Tona Perfecta Synchronizing Sound Film. Then that laden camel, the managing director, faltered. He threatened to resign if he had to soothe any more tempers ruffled by the eccentricities
of Macafee. He had nothing to say against the Scotsman's efficiency, which was brilliant, nor against his honesty which was clear to the point of insult. But he could not work with him. He could not induce other members of the staff to work with him. Less originality and more co-operation might bring greater profit to the firm.

  The Board sent for Macafee. The directors approached him as friends and brethren. They suggested tact to him; they counselled co-operation; they urged meekness and moderation. Hugh heard them out for twenty minutes, and then he turned and rent them. He told them his true opinion of business methods, advertising ethics, publicity, compromise, and the English character, and he said that if they came grovelling to him on their hands and knees, beseeching him to work for them, if they offered him £10,000 a year and a free run of their laboratories, he would not cross the road to enter their buildings.

  Then he put on his battered Homburg hat, and marched incontinently from the room.