Poor Caroline Page 13

  Indeed, thought Hugh, the young possibly find this world as strange as I do. He could understand the pursuit of wealth, or the pursuit of truth. He could accept, though he despised, the pursuit of pleasure. But Miss Denton-Smyth and her associates apparently cared for none of these things.

  They despised wealth. They spent laborious days and nights on work which was either unpaid or was rewarded by infinitesimal sums called 'nominal salaries.' Protesting against sweated labour, they permitted themselves to be exploited shamelessly. They travelled uncomfortably in trams and buses, they lunched off milk and baked-beans-on-toast, they darned their cotton gloves, and knotted their brows over budgets which rarely balanced in back bed-sitting rooms and basement flats.

  They despised pleasure. Their wildest dissipations rarely exceeded a Social Evening, enlivened by sandwiches and coffee in a bleak suite of cellars resembling a public lavatory, below a building owned by the Christian Mothers' Guild.

  They had little use for truth, even though they paid lip-service to it. Those facts which failed to support their own particular vision of the perfect world, they tacitly ignored. They spoke of scientific research, meaning the exploration of phenomena advantageous to their cause. They inquired if men or women were 'sound,' with the intention of discovering not their habitual rectitude or sanity, but the degree of their devotion to a particular point of view. They had no use for laboratory investigation, unless its results could be predetermined in their favour. They had no love for the world as it was, no mercy upon its contradictions, no appreciation of its variety. They sought to mould society according to some self-designed pattern of good, to impose their wills upon the shifting wills of men, their ideals upon the mobile framework of the universe. And they called upon Hugh to help them secure Anglo-American Alliances, a national home for Armenians, the suppression of information about birth control, the propagation of information about birth control, the abolition of African Native marriage customs as social atrocities, the preservation of African marriage customs as anthropological curiosities, the advancement of the British Navy, the abolition of all navies, the suppression of vivisection, the defence of medical research from anti-vivisectionists, the prohibition of alcoholic liquors, the defence of the human right to choose one's own liquors, and the complete and absolute emancipation of women.

  Hugh gazed in wonder on this vast machinery. He had hitherto believed that social phenomena developed spontaneously. He had imagined that economic, sexual and traditional motives pulled men and women hither and thither into the strange postures of society. He had not seen these arbiters of human destiny directing knowledge and desire, appetite and ambition, making articulate the needs of democracy, and effecting those other miracles which might have been so revolutionary had they not apparently cancelled out each other. What, thought Hugh, would happen if all the societies quietly disbanded? Would this not have the same effect as pairing in a parliamentary division? Why take all this trouble, why endure all this labour, in order to make people do things which they would probably do in any case?

  But he was too much interested in his own problems to trouble greatly about the vagaries of human nature. He had never thought much of his fellow creatures. The Christian Cinema Company did no more than confirm his dark suspicion. When Miss Denton-Smyth wrote imploring him to attend the At Home to be given by the company to clergy and social workers, his first instinct was to ignore the letter. Then he remembered that he had to see a man on business in Victoria that evening, concerning his new apparatus, and that the refreshments mentioned on the invitation would save his supper. He said that he would go. It was with the intention of finding a free meal that he strode down two flights of stone steps to an underground room sprinkled with wooden chairs. At one end a row of trestle tables formed a buffet, behind which hatless women stood pouring thin straw-coloured tea and pallid coffee from large metal urns, and handing plates of very small sandwiches and very large buns to the jostling company.

  Hugh saw the Quaker, Guerdon, unhappy and alone as usual, balancing a large bun on a small saucer, and twitching his long helpless nose. He saw Miss Denton-Smyth trotting from chair to chair, scattering sandwiches, smiles and benedictions. Her appearance was as wonderful as ever. Her dress of vivid blue brocade was adorned with feather trimming. Her frizzled brown hair supported an erection of fancy combs and nodding tassels. Her beads, chains and lorgnettes tapped and swung and jingled, so that she walked to a musical accompaniment. Around her moved a sparse company of clergymen, secretaries of welfare and educational societies and dreary women. Here and there a younger girl, earnest and spectacled, shook her bobbed head above the queen cakes. Fragments of conversation drifted round him. 'So I said, Well, if she moves that amendment and carries it, I resign.' 'My dear, an absolutely atrocious thing to do. Absolutely atrocious. And at the deputation to the Home Secretary, she took ten minutes, not a second less, and we were only supposed to have four and a half. . .' 'brought her to the Home, four months gone, and won't be fifteen till next March - Her own uncle.' 'I'd give them the lash. That's the only thing that'll ever teach them.'

  'I can't stand this,' thought Hugh, gobbling ham sandwiches from a plate conveniently marooned on one of the chairs. 'I can't stand this.'

  Then he became conscious of Johnson's huge bulk careering towards him across a barrier of benches.

  'You here? Good man. Good God! Hold on. I'll come round.'

  Wading through seated ladies, Johnson reeled slowly round to Hugh, and stood against the wall with him, looking across the company.

  'Oh, Mr. Johnson, won't you have some tea?'

  'Tea? Never touch it. Never touch it.'

  The amateur waitress retired sadly. Mr. Johnson was a rather intriguing novelty to her. His height, his self-assurance, the rich male smell of tobacco and whisky round his clothes, and his Wild-Western air, were all refreshing. He watched her go, then turned to Hugh.

  'D'you know what they all need?'

  Hugh shook his head. 'Who?'

  'These women. 'Smy belief it would be the salvation of half of 'em to be raped by the butcher's boy.'

  Hugh was shocked.

  'My dear fellow,' muttered Johnson, squeezing his arm with the familiarity which Hugh detested. 'Don't you see what's wrong with 'em all? Sex-starved. Sex-starved. Must use their energy somehow. Good works. Purity and social welfare. Nosing round to find nice juicy stories about child assault an' prostitutes. Rescue work. Excuse for bishops to talk sanctimonious smut to a lot of sex-starved spinsters. Anti-Slavery. Feminism. Peace. Pshaw! Relax their complexes a bit. Get on a box an' spout at Marble Arch.

  Exhibitionism. "Oh, my friends, give ears unto my cry. Harken to the woes of my poor down-trodden sisters in Melanesia!" Purity? Fugh! "My Lord Bishop, do you know the terrible things that go on in Hyde Park? Terrible, terrible. Kissing? Far worse than kissing. I should never think of rolling about on the turf with a grocer's assistant." No grocer's assistant would think of asking you, Madam. Peace crusades? Women's Peace movement? Don't they enjoy them? Did you ever see women enjoy themselves as they do when raising Hell in Trafalgar Square over a peace crusade?'

  Hugh grunted. He thought it possible that Johnson was right. He was prepared to believe any evil or stupidity of women. But he wished that Johnson would stop talking.

  'Why do they come here?' Johnson continued. 'They might be eating to the sound of jazz in a Lyons' Pop; they might be hearing music; they might be tending to their own or someone else's children; they might be reading, roller-skating or going to the movies. They might ..." He suggested, with painful audibility, other occupations which they might pursue, but which are not commonly mentioned by name in public places. 'But they don't. They come here. Why? Do they care a tinker's cuss for the cinema? Not they. Do they care for more civilized education? Pshaw! What they care about is interference. They're doomed to die, poor things. They're ugly, poorish, unattractive, unsuccessful. The burden of their mortality is upon them. They gotta hitch their waggon to some
durable star. I tell you, there's a sorta spurious second-hand immortality in uplift. We die, but the Cause goes on. We are poor, ill, weak, despised, obscure. But the Cause is great. The Cause prospers. Here they are somebody. They feel they've got their ringers on the world's pulse. W7hy, look at old Miss Foxton there. Two hundred a year, invalid father to nurse, housekeeper who bullies her, can't raise an eyelid at home. Now she's on the committee of the End all Wars movement or something, and feels that the Chancellories of Europe stagger when she sneezes. I tell you - it's the game, this uplift . . .'

  'If you think like this,' asked Hugh in his slow, Scotch, rasping voice, 'why do you come here? Why do you take such an interest in the Christian Cinema Company?"

  'Because you never know. Hell! Macafee. Why d'you want everything always so cut an' dried? 'Smy belief that most of life is punk, anyway, and this Uplift stunt is as much part of life as any other. Besides, we gotta do something. You care for this science. Can you get what you want without Caroline's uplift? No. Can I get my cinema without Caroline's committees? Who's going to finance it? Artists? How much capital d'you think art controls in England? A few Jews buy up Old Masters once they've been approved of for about five hundred years. Then they're safe. No risk of making a fool of yourself over a Rembrandt or Titian, by God. But the new ideas, vitality, art, new flexible media — before it's got set an' stereotyped by custom. Who cares? No one I tell you. 'Smy belief the British public's scared of Art. Scared stiff.' Look here, Macafee. The truth is we've gotta take the world as we find it, St. Denis is right. By God, St. Denis is right. It sometimes takes a blood 'un to be right. Not that he's got brains, mark you. Not brains particularly, nor guts. But he's gotta flair. He says Uplift Pays. And, by God, he's going to make it.'

  'Do you believe that the Christian Cinema Company is going to succeed?' Hugh was becoming more expert at keeping his feet on the solid ground of his own interests while Johnson's conversation rolled around him.

  'I do. I do. Mind you, last week I mighta told you differently. C'est le premier pas qui coute an' all that. If this de la Roux girl - by the way, have you met her?'

  'Who? The woman who put up the three thousand? Our principal share-holder? No -'

  'Woman? Why, she's a kid! A cute, dandy little kid. I went round to the office two nights ago and met her there helping Caroline write to the parsons. An orphan - and an heiress from South Africa; cousin of Caroline's or something. Hands out three thousand as if it were threepence in the plate on Sunday. Now, Macafee, there's your chance. She likes scientists. Told me so. Went to college in South Africa and read zoology or something. Not pretty, you know. One of those little quiet ones. A dark horse. She's coming to this bun fight. That's partly why I'm here. And to see Gloria. By the by, have you met the great Gloria?'

  'No. I don't know who you mean, but I have never met her.'

  'Gloria St. Denis. By Gosh, there's a woman. 'Smy belief between you an' me an' the gate-post, she's not his wife at all. Not the marrying kind - either of 'em, I should say. But a fine woman, not one of these female anchovies, all leg and lipstick. There'd be a bit of something to get hold of with Gloria. And there she is!'

  And there she was, straight from her establishment in Hanover Square, Gloria in her full loveliness, artistically subdued for the occasion. Her black gown was the one in which she entertained customers. Her pearls were admirable. Her soft turban hat, her fur coat drooping from one arm, her air of quiet dignified effrontery, were startling in that assembly. She walked like a goddess; vitality radiated from her; she was strong and splendid and serene, as alien in the hall as Johnson himself. She moved to a table and sat down.

  'Gotta to go and speak to her. Come an' be introduced?' said Johnson.

  'No thanks!' Hugh returned to his sandwiches and watched Johnson lumber between the chairs and hurrying waitresses until he greeted the lady with a laughing compliment.

  Hugh had eaten his sandwiches, and was about to set down his empty plate and flee, when Miss Denton-Smyth's voice at his elbow made him start and turn.

  'Mr. Macafee. I'm so glad to find you disengaged. I want to introduce you to Miss de la Roux, my cousin, whose name I think you know already. Now, Eleanor, see that Mr. Macafee gets some coffee, will you? I always think that men are so helpless at this sort of function, and I've just seen dear Father Mortimer with Father Lasseter, so very good of them to come when they are both such busy men, so I must fly!'

  Miss Denton-Smyth flew, trailing conversation like her scarves and beads and lorgnette cords behind her. Hugh was left facing the grave scrutiny of a very small brown-haired girl.

  'Good evening, Mr. Macafee!' she said. 'I think it was you who invented the Tona Perfecta Film, wasn't it?'

  'I did,' he replied, still looking for a resting-place for his empty plate.

  'Give me that. Thanks! Do you want any coffee?'

  Hugh did want coffee, and said so.

  Til get you some. Will you wait there? Bag those two seats. I'll get a tray. If you come too, we'll lose the seats.'

  She was gone, picking her way neatly between the shifting throng, and returning almost immediately with a tray, which she placed on the radiator.

  'Now we can eat in peace,' she said. 'Thanks for keeping the chairs. I wanted to feed, because I shan't have any supper to-night. I'm driving a speaker out to Goswell Garden City, and they never give refreshments there.'

  'I'm missing supper too,' said Hugh.

  'Good! Then we can both feed properly. Do you like ham sandwiches? I loathe them. I've learned they're the staple food of propagandists.'

  'Are you a propagandist?'

  She lifted her serious face to his and considered for a moment. Then her eyes twinkled. 'Well, I don't know. I work for the I.L.P. It's all very interesting. But I think sometimes that I should have stuck to science. You know where you are in a laboratory.'

  'Science?'

  'I was reading for my B.Sc. in South Africa. You did chemistry, I suppose.'

  'And engineering.'

  'Edinburgh?'

  'And then Germany.'

  She nodded. 'I want to go to Germany. There seems so much to learn.'

  'It's a country where they take serious things seriously,' said Hugh.

  She twinkled again. 'What are serious things?' Then, seeing his frown because he hated rhetorical questions and irony and all conversational evasions, she added gravely: 'But I think I know what you mean. Try one of these buns. They're not bad really, and they fill up the corners. Of course, you really know everything there is to be known about films, don't you?'

  'Most things that are known at present,' he said calmly, meaning what he said. He was inclined to like this girl who reminded him in many ways of the only other young woman he had really respected, a student of chemistry in Berlin, with whom he could talk for a whole afternoon without being made aware that she was not a man. This Miss de la Roux, with her short boyish hair, and her boyish tweed coat, and her queer husky voice with the South African accent, might have been a small dandified young man.

  'I wish you'd tell me about the Tona Perfecta. Why is it different from other films? How do you secure perfect synchronization? Isn't that partly a matter for the producers? Caroline has tried to tell me, but she doesn't make technical subjects awfully clear, you know.'

  Hugh was happy. He turned his back upon the disturbing hall, consumed large currant buns and two plates full of sandwiches, and gave this restful, intelligent listener a full account of the innovations distinguishing the Tona Perfecta.

  'Do you know,' she said at last. 'This makes me feel quite differently about the company? I wanted to do something about it before because of Caroline, but now I think I really want it to succeed for its own sake.'

  He was pleased. He, who had scorned all pleasure but that which comes from work well done, felt a warm glow of satisfaction. He remembered that this little creature was an heiress. She could put down three thousand pounds as easy as three pence, Johnson said. And she was keen abou
t the Tona Perfecta. She might be interested in his new and yet unrevealed invention. She might put down more thousands.

  He blushed. He actually blushed.

  'Well, then,' he said, and was about to invite her to come and see it for herself in his laboratory at Annerley, when Miss Denton-Smyth was again upon them.

  'Oh, Mr. Macafee, I want you to meet Father Mortimer. Father Mortimer is, I hope, going to be of the very greatest help to us. He is using his influence with the Bishop of Kensington-Gore. This is the man who made our wonderful Tona Perfecta, Father. One of the cleverest inventors now living, I believe. And this is my young cousin from South Africa, Eleanor de la Roux.'

  Hugh looked with disgust at the interrupter of his conversation. He saw that Miss Denton-Smyth thus addressed as 'Father' a man young enough to be her son, if not her grandson, a tall, slim, debonair young man, whose black clerical cassock accentuated his height, his slenderness, and his youth, a handsome enough young fellow, damn him. Hugh hated all parsons categorically, and parsons who interrupted him particularly.