What Not: A Prophetic Comedy Page 7

  CHAPTER VI

  THE SIMPLE HUMAN EMOTIONS

  1

  During the period which followed the Explanation Campaign, KittyGrammont was no longer bored by her work, no longer even merelyentertained. It had acquired a new flavour; the flavour of adventure andromance which comes from a fuller understanding and a more personalidentification; from, in fact, knowing more about it at first-hand.

  Also, she got to know the Minister better. At the end of August theyspent a week-end at the same country house. They were a party of four,besides their host's family; a number which makes for intimacy. Theirhostess was a Cambridge friend of Kitty's, their host a man high up inthe Foreign Office, his natural force of personality obscuredpathetically by that apprehensive, defiant, defensive manner habitualand certainly excusable in these days in the higher officials of thatdepartment and of some of the other old departments; a manner thatalways seemed to be saying, "All right, we know we've made the devil ofa mess for two centuries and more, and we know you all want to be rid ofus. But we'd jolly well like to know if you think you could have workedthings any better yourselves. Anyhow, we mean to stick here till we'rechucked out."

  How soon would it be, wondered Kitty, before the officials of theMinistry of Brains wore that same look? It must come to them; it mustcome to all who govern, excepting only the blind, the crass, theimpervious. It must have been worn by the members of the Witan duringthe Danish invasions; by Strafford before 1642; by Pharaoh's councillorswhen Moses was threatening plagues; by M. Milivkoff before March, 1917;by Mr. Lloyd George during much of the Great War.

  But it was not worn yet by Nicholas Chester.

  2

  He sat down by Kitty after dinner. They did not talk shop, but they werelinked by the strong bond of shop shared and untalked. There was betweenthem the relationship, unlike any other (for no relationship ever isparticularly like any other) of those who are doing, though on verydifferent planes, the same work, and both doing it well; therelationship, in fact, of a government official to his intelligentsubordinates. (There is also the relationship of a government officialto his unintelligent subordinates; this is a matter too painful to bedwelt on in these pages.)

  But this evening, as they talked, it became apparent to Kitty that,behind the screen of this relationship, so departmental, so friendly, soemptied of sex, a relationship quite other and more personal and human,which had come into embryo being some weeks ago, was developing withrapidity. They found pleasure in one another this evening as humanbeings in the world at large, the world outside ministry walls. That wasrather fun. And next morning Chester asked her to come a walk with him,and on the walk the new relationship burgeoned like flowers in spring.They did not avoid shop now that they were alone together; they talkedof the Department, of the new Act, of the efforts of other countries onthe same lines, of anything else they liked. They talked of Russianpolitics (a conversation I cannot record, the subject being toodifficult for any but those who have the latest developments under theireyes, and, indeed, not always quite easy even for them). They talked ofthe National Theatre, of animals they had kept and cabinet ministersthey had known; of poets, pictures, and potato puddings; of, in fact,the things one does talk about on walks. They told each other funnystories of prominent persons; she told him some of the funny storiesabout himself which circulated in the Ministry; he told her about hisexperiences when, in order to collect information as to the state of theintelligence of the country before the ministry was formed, he hadsojourned in a Devonshire fishing village disguised as a fisherman, andin Hackney Wick disguised as a Jew, and had in both places got thebetter of everyone round him excepting only the other Hackney Jews, whohad got the better of him. (It was in consequence of this thatJews--such Jews as had not yet been forcibly repatriated in the HolyCity--were exempted from the provisions of the Mental Progress Act andthe Mind Training Act. It would be a pity if Jews were to become anycleverer.)

  It will be seen, therefore, that their conversation was of an ordinarydescription, that might take place between any two people of moderateintelligence on any walk. The things chiefly to be observed about itwere that Chester, a silent person when he was not in the mood to talk,talked a good deal, as if he liked talking to-day, and that when Kittywas talking he watched her with a curious, interested, pleased look inhis deep little eyes.

  And that was all, before lunch; the makings, in fact, of a promisingfriendship.

  After tea there was more. They sat in a beech wood together, and toldeach other stories of their childhoods. He did not, Kitty observed,mention those of his family who were less intelligent than the rest; nodoubt, with his views on the importance of intellect, he found it toodepressing a subject. And after dinner, when they said good-night, heheld her hand but as long as all might or so very little longer, andasked if she would dine with him on Thursday. It was the look in hiseyes at that moment which sent Kitty up to bed with the staggeringperception of the dawning of a new and third relationship--not theofficial relationship, and not the friendship which had grown out of it,but something still more simple and human. He, probably, was unaware ofit; the simple human emotions were of no great interest to NicholasChester, whose thoughts ran on other and more complex businesses. Onemight surmise that he might fall very deeply in love before he knewanything much about it. Kitty, on the other hand, would always know,had, in fact, always known, everything she was doing in that way, as inmost others. She would track the submersion, step by step, amused,interested, concerned. This way is the best; not only do you get moreout of the affair so, but you need not allow yourself, or the otherparty concerned, to be involved more deeply than you think advisable.

  So, safe in her bedroom, standing, in fact, before the looking-glass,she faced the glimpse of a possibility that staggered her, bringingmirth to her eyes and a flutter to her throat.

  "Good God!" (Kitty had at times an eighteenth-century emphasis ofdiction, following in the steps of the heroines of Jane Austen and FannyBurney, who dropped oaths elegantly, like flowers.) "Good God! He beginsto think of me." Then, quickly, followed the thought, to tickle herfurther, "Is it right? Is it _convenable_? _Should_ ministers look likethat at their lady clerks? Or does he think that, as he's uncertificatedand no hopes of an outcome can be roused in me, he may look as helikes?"

  She unhooked her dress, gazing at her reflection with solemn eyes, whichforesaw the potentialities of a remarkable situation.

  But what was, in fact, quite obvious, was that no situation couldpossibly be allowed to arise.

  Only, if it did.... Well, it would have its humours. And, after all,should one turn one's back on life, in whatever curious guise it mightoffer itself? Kitty, at any rate, never yet had done this. She had onceaccepted the invitation of a Greek brigand at Thermopylae to show her,and her alone, his country home in the rocky fastnesses of Velukhi, atwo days' journey from civilisation; she had spent a week-end asguest-in-chief of a Dervish at Yuzgat; she had walked unattended throughthe Black Forest (with, for defence, a walking-stick and a hat-pin) andshe had become engaged to Neil Desmond. Perhaps it was because she wasresourceful and could trust her natural wits to extricate her, that shefaced with temerity the sometimes awkward predicaments in which shemight find herself involved through this habit of closing no door onlife. The only predicament from which she had not, so far, succeeded inemerging, was her engagement; here she had been baffled by the elusivequality which defeated her efforts not by resistance but by merelyslipping out of hearing.

  And if this was going to turn into another situation ... well, then, shewould have had one more in her life. But, after all, very likely itwasn't.

  "Ministers," Kitty soliloquised, glancing mentally at the queer, clever,humorous face which had looked at her so oddly, "ministers, surely, aremade of harder stuff than that. And prouder. Ministers, surely, even ifthey permit themselves to flirt a little with the clerks of theirdepartments, don't let it get serious. It isn't done. You flatteryourself, my poor child. Your head has been turned b
ecause he laughedwhen you tried to be funny, and because, for lack of better company orthinking your pink frock would go with his complexion, he walked outwith you twice, and because he held your hand and looked into your eyes.You are becoming one of those girls who think that whenever a man looksat them as if he liked the way they do their hair, he wants to kiss themat once and marry them at last...."

  3

  "What's amusing you, Kate?" her hostess enquired, coming in with herhair over her shoulders and her Cambridge accent.

  "Nothing, Anne," replied Kitty, after a meditative pause, "that I canpossibly ever tell you. Merely my own low thoughts. They always werelow, as you'll remember."

  "They certainly were," said Anne.

  4

  This chapter, as will by this time have been observed, deals with thesimple human emotions, their development and growth. But it will not benecessary to enter into tedious detail concerning them. They diddevelop; they did grow; and to indicate this it will only be necessaryto select a few outstanding scenes of different dates.

  On September 2nd, which was the Thursday after the week-end abovedescribed, Kitty dined with Chester, and afterwards they went to apicture palace to see "The Secret of Success," one of their ownpropaganda dramas. It had been composed by the bright spirits in thePropaganda Department of the Ministry, and was filmed and produced atgovernment expense. The cinematograph, the stage, and the Press were nowused extensively as organs to express governmental points of view; afterall, if you have to have such things, why not make them useful? Chestersmiled sourly over it, but acquiesced. The chief of such organs were ofcourse the new State Theatre (anticipated with such hope by earnestdrama-lovers for so many years) and the various State cinemas, and the_Hidden Hand_, the government daily paper; but even over the unofficialstage and film the shadow of the State lay black.

  The Secret of Success depicted lurid episodes in the careers of twoyoung men; the contrast was not, as in other drama, between virtue andvice, but between Intelligence and the Reverse. Everywhere Intelligencetriumphed, and the Reverse was shamed and defeated. Intelligence foundthe hidden treasure, covered itself with glory, emerged triumphant fromyawning chasms, flaming buildings, and the most suspicious situations,rose from obscure beginnings to titles, honours and position, andfinally won the love of a pure and wealthy girl, who jilted thebrainless youth of her own social rank to whom she had previouslyengaged herself but who had, in every encounter of wits with hisintelligent rival, proved himself of no account, and who was finallyrevealed in a convict's cell, landed there by his conspicuous lack ofhis rival's skill in disengaging himself from compromising situations.Intelligence, with his bride on his arm, visited him in his cell, andgazed on him with a pitying shake of the head, observing, "But for theGovernment Mind Training Course, I might be in your shoes to-day."Finally, their two faces were thrown on the screen, immense andremarkable, the one wearing over his ethereal eyes the bar of MichaelAngelo, the other with a foolish, vacant eye and a rabbit mouth that wasever agape.

  This drama was sandwiched between The Habits of the Kola Bear, and Howhis Mother-in-law Came to Stay, and after it Chester and Kitty went outand walked along the Embankment.

  It was one of those brilliant, moonlit, raidless nights which stillseemed so strange, so almost flat, in their eventlessness. Instinctivelythey strained their ears for guns; but they heard nothing but therushing of traffic in earth and sky.

  5

  "The State," said Chester, "is a great debaucher. It debauchesliterature, art, the press, the stage, and the Church; but I don't thinkeven its worst enemies can say it has debauched the cinema stage....What a people we are; good Lord, what a people!"

  "As long as we leave Revue alone, I don't much mind what else we do,"Kitty said. "Revue is England's hope, I believe. Because it's the onlyart in which all the forms of expression come in--talking, music,singing, dancing, gesture--standing on your head if nothing else willexpress you at the moment.... I believe Revue is going to be tremendous.Look how its stupidities and vulgarities have been dropping away from itlately, this last year has made a new thing of it altogether; it'sbeginning to try to show the whole of life as lived.... Oh, we mustleave Revue alone.... I sometimes think it's so much the coming thingthat I can't be happy till I've chucked my job and gone into it, as oneof a chorus. I should feel I was truly serving my country then; it wouldbe a real thing, instead of this fantastic lunacy I'm involved innow...."

  At times Kitty forgot she was talking to the Minister who had createdthe fantastic lunacy.

  "You can't leave the Ministry," said the Minister curtly. "You can't bespared."

  Kitty was annoyed with him for suddenly being serious and literal andeven cross, and was just going to tell him she should jolly well leavethe Ministry whenever she liked, when some quality in his abrupt gravitycaught the words from her lips.

  "We haven't got industrial conscription to that extent yet," she merelysaid, weakly.

  It was all he didn't say to her in the moment's pause that followedwhich was revealing; all that seemed to be forced back behind hisguarded lips. What he did say, presently, was "No, more's the pity.It'll come, no doubt."

  And, talking of industrial conscription, they walked back.

  What stayed with Kitty was the odd, startled, doubtful look he had givenher in that moment's pause; almost as if he were afraid of something.

  6

  Kitty took at this time to sleeping badly; even worse, that is to say,than usual. In common with many others, she always did so when she wasparticularly interested in anyone. She read late, then lay and staredinto the dark, her thoughts turning and twisting in her brain, till, forthe sake of peace, she turned on the light again and read something;something cold, soothing, remote from life as now lived, likeAristophanes, Racine, or Bernard Shaw. Attaining by these means to amore detached philosophy, she would drift at last from the lit stagewhere life chattered and gesticulated, and creep behind the wings, andso find sleep, so little before it was time to wake that she began theday with a jaded feeling of having been up all night.

  On one such morning she came down to find a letter from Neil Desmond inits thin foreign envelope addressed in his flat, delicate hand. He wrotefrom a Pacific island where he was starting a newspaper for the benefitof the political prisoners confined there; it was to be called "Freedom"(in the British Isles no paper of this name would be allowed, butperhaps the Pacific Island censorship was less strict) and he wantedKitty to come and be sub-editor....

  Kitty, instead of lunching out that day, took sandwiches to the officeand spent the luncheon-hour breaking off her engagement again. Thereason why Neil never got these letters was the very reason whichimpelled her to write them--the lack of force about him which made hisenterprises so ephemeral, and kept him ever moving round the spinningworld to try some new thing.

  Force. How important it was. First Brains, to perceive and know whatthings we ought to do, then Power, faithfully to fulfil the same. Inanother twenty or thirty years, perhaps the whole British nation wouldbe full of both these qualities, so full that the things in questionreally would get done. And then what? Kitty's mind boggled at the answerto this. It might be strangely upsetting....

  She stamped her letter and lit a cigarette. The room, empty but for her,had that curious, flat, dream-like look of arrested activity whichbelongs to offices in the lunch hour. If you watch an office throughthat empty hour of suspension you may decipher its silent, patient,cynical comment (slowly growing into distinctness like invisible ink) onthe work of the morning which has been, and of the afternoon which is tobe. Kitty watched it, amused, then yawned and read _Stop It_, the newestweekly paper. It was a clever paper, for it had succeeded so far (fournumbers) in not getting suppressed, and also in not committing itselfprecisely to any direct statement as to what it wanted stopped. It wasproduced by the Stop It Club, and the government lived in hopes ofdiscovering one day, by well-timed police raids on the Club premises,sufficient lawless matter to justify it in suppressing bo
th the Club andthe paper. For Dora had recently been trying to retrieve her characterin the eyes of those who blackened it, and was endeavouring to act in ajust and temperate manner, and only to suppress those whose guilt wasproven. Last Sunday, for instance, a Stop It procession had been allowedto parade through the city with banners emblazoned with the ambiguouswords. There were, of course, so many things that, it was quite obvious,should be stopped; the command might have been addressed to those of thepublic who were grumbling, or to the government who were giving themthings to grumble at; to writers who were producing books, journalistsproducing papers, parliaments producing laws, providence producing theweather, or the agents of any other regrettable activity at the momentin progress. Indeed, the answer to the enquiry "Stop what?" might sovery plausibly be "Stop it all," that it was a profitless question.

  It was just after two that the telephone on Prideaux's table rang.(Kitty was working in Prideaux's room now.) "Hullo," said a voice inanswer to hers, "Mr. Prideaux there? Or anyone else in his room I canspeak to? The Minister speaking."

  Not his P.S. nor his P.A., but the Minister himself; an unusual, hardlyseemly occurrence, due, no doubt, to lunch-time. Kitty was reminded of astory someone had told her of a pert little office flapper at one end ofa telephone, chirping, "Hullo, who is it?" and the answer, slow,dignified, and crushing, from one of our greater peers--"LordBlankson ..." (pause) "HIMSELF."

  "Mr. Prideaux isn't in yet," said Kitty. "Can I give him a message?"

  There was a moment's pause before the Minister's voice, somehow grownremote, said, "No, thanks, it's all right. I'll ring him up later."

  He rang off abruptly. (After all, how can one ring off in any otherway?) He had said, "Or anyone else in his room I can speak to," as if hewould have left a message with any chance clerk; but he had not,apparently, wished to hold any parley with her, even over the telephone,which though it has an intimacy of its own (marred a little by alistening exchange) is surely a sufficiently remote form of intercourse.But it seemed that he was avoiding her, keeping her at a distance,ringing her off; his voice had sounded queer, abrupt, embarrassed, as ifhe was shy of her. Perhaps he had thought things over and perceived thathe had been encouraging one of his clerks to step rather too far out ofher position; perhaps he was afraid her head might be a little turned,that she might think he was seeking her out....

  Kitty sat on the edge of Prideaux's table and swore softly. She'd jollywell show him she thought no such thing.

  "These great men," she said, "are insufferable."

  7

  When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero wasfull, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something wentwrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably onthe top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy momentthe Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don'tprotrude the tongue," and then the crash came.

  They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid acrowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one wasmuch hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, againstthese catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her headand to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when sherecovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her andwhispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh God."

  "Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lotmore than that."

  His strained face relaxed. "That's all right, then," he said.

  "I'm dining in Hampstead in about ten minutes," said Kitty. "I must getthe tube at Leicester Square."

  "A taxi," said the Minister, "would be better. Here is a taxi. I shallcome too, in case there is another mischance, which you will hardly befit for alone at present." He mopped his mouth.

  "You have bitten your tongue," said Kitty, "in spite of all you saidabout not protruding it."

  "It was while I was saying it," said the Minister, "that the contactoccurred. Yes. It is painful."

  They got into the taxi. The Minister, with his scarlet-stainedhandkerchief to his lips, mumbled, "That was a very disagreeable shock.You were very pale. I feared the worst."

  "The worst," said Kitty, "always passes me by. It always has. I am likethat."

  "I am not," he said. "I am not. I have bitten my tongue and fallen inlove. Both bad things."

  He spoke so indistinctly that Kitty was not sure she heard him rightly.

  "And I," she said, "only feel a little sick.... No, don't be anxious; itwon't develop."

  The Minister looked at her as she powdered her face before the strip ofmirror.

  "I wouldn't put that on," he advised her. "You are looking too pale,already."

  "Quite," said Kitty. "It's pink powder, you see. It will make me feelmore myself."

  "You need nothing," he told her gravely. "You are all right as you are.It is fortunate that it is you and not I who are going out to dinner. Icouldn't talk. I can't talk now. I can't even tell you what I feel aboutyou."

  "Don't try," she counselled him, putting away her powder-puff and notlooking at him.

  He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at her with hispained-humorist's face and watchful eyes.

  "I expect you know I've fallen in love with you?" he mumbled. "I didn'tmean to; in fact, I've tried not to, since I began to notice what wasoccurring. It's excessively awkward. But ... I have not been able toavoid it."

  Kitty said "Oh," and swallowed a laugh. One didn't laugh when one wasreceiving an avowal of love, of course. She felt giddy, and seas seemedto rush past her ears.

  "There are a good many things to talk about in connection with this,"said the Minister. "But it is no use talking about them unless I firstknow what you feel about it--about me, that is. Will you tell me, if youdon't mind?"

  He asked it gently, considerately, almost humbly. Kitty, who did mindrather, said "Oh," again, and lay back in her corner. She still felt alittle dizzy, and her head ached. It is not nice having to say what onefeels; one would rather the other person did it all. But this is notfair or honourable. She remembered this and pulled herself together.

  "I expect," she said, swinging her glasses by their ribbon, cool and yetnervous, "I expect I feel pretty much the same as you do about it."

  After a moment's pause he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much fortelling me. Then it is of use talking about it. Only not now, becauseI'm afraid we're just getting there. And to-morrow I am going to aconference at Leeds. I don't think I can wait till the day after. May Icall for you to-night and we'll drive back together?"

  "Yes," said Kitty, and got out of the taxi.

  8

  When they were in it again they comported themselves for a little whilein the manner customary on these occasions, deriving the usual amount ofpleasurable excitement therefrom.

  Then the Minister said, "Now we must talk. All is not easy about oursituation."

  "Nothing is easy about it," said Kitty. "In fact, we're in the demon ofa mess."

  He looked at her, biting his lips.

  "You know about me, then? That I'm uncertificated? But of course you do.It is, I believe, generally known. And it makes the position exactlywhat you say. It means ..."

  "It means," said Kitty, "that we must get over this unfortunatepassion."

  He shook his head, with a shrug.

  "One can, you know," said Kitty. "I've been in and out before--more thanonce. Not so badly, perhaps, but quite badly enough. You too, probably?"

  "Yes. Oh, yes," he admitted gloomily. "But it wasn't like this. Neitherthe circumstances, nor the--the emotion."

  Kitty said, "Probably not. Why should it be? Nothing ever is exactlylike anything else, luckily.... By the way, when did you begin to takenotice of me? Don't worry, if you can't remember."

  He thought for a minute, then shook his head.

  "I'm bad at these things. Didn't we meet at Prideaux's one night in thespring? I observed you then; I remember you amused me. But I don't
thinkthe impression went deep.... Then--oh, we met about a good deal one wayand another--and I suppose it grew without my noticing it. And then camethat week-end, and that did the trick as far as I was concerned. I knewwhat I was doing after that, and I tried to stop it, but, as you see, Ihave failed. This evening I told you, I suppose, under the influence ofshock.... I am not sorry. It is worth it, whatever comes of it."

  "Nothing can come of it," said Kitty. "Not the least thing at all.Except being friends. And you probably won't want that. Men don't."

  "No," he said. "I don't want it at all. But I suppose I must put up withit." He began to laugh, with his suppressed, sardonic laughter, andKitty laughed too.

  "We're fairly hoist with our own petard, aren't we?" he said. "Think ofthe scandal we might make, if we did what we chose now.... I believe itwould be the _coup de grace_ for the Brains Ministry." He stated asimple fact, without conceit.

  "It's a rotten position," he continued moodily. "But there it is.... Andyou're A, aren't you? You'll have to marry someone, eventually. If onlyyou were B2 or 3--only then you wouldn't be yourself. As it is, it wouldbe criminally immoral of me to stand in your way. The right thing, Isuppose, would be for us to clear out of each other's way and give eachother a chance to forget. _The right thing...._ Oh damn it all, I'm asbad as the most muddle-headed fool in the country, who doesn't care_that_ for the right thing if it fights against his individual impulsesand desires.... I suppose moralists would say here's my chance to bearmy witness, to stand by my own principles and show the world they'rereal.... They _are_ real, too; that's the mischief of it. I still amsure they matter more than anything else; but just now they bore me. Isuppose this is what a moral and law-abiding citizen feels when he fallsin love with someone else's wife.... What are you laughing at now?"

  "You," said Kitty. "This is the funniest conversation.... Of course it'sa funny position--it's straight out of a comic opera. What a pityGilbert and Sullivan didn't think of it; they'd have done itbeautifully.... By the way, I don't think I shall be marrying anyoneanyhow, so you needn't worry about that. I've broken off my lastengagement--at least I've done my best to; it became a bore. I don'treally like the idea of matrimony, you know; it would be too much of atie and a settling down. Yes, all right, I know my duty to my country,but my duty to myself comes first.... So there's no harm, from my pointof view, in our going on seeing each other and taking each other out andhaving as good a time as we can in the circumstances. Shall we try thatway, and see if it works?"

  "Oh, we'll try," he said, and took her again in his arms. "It's all wecan get, so we'll take it ... my dear."

  "I think it's a good deal," said Kitty. "It will be fun.... You know,I'm frightfully conceited at your liking me--I can't get used to it yet;you're so important and superior. It isn't every day that a Minister ofa Department falls in love with one of his clerks. It isn't really done,you know, not by the best Ministers."

  "Nor by the best clerks," he returned. "We must face the fact that weare not the best people."

  "And here's my flat. Will you come in and have something? There's onlymy cousin here, and she's never surprised; her own life is too odd."

  "I think it would be inadvisable," said the Minister discreetly. "'Wedon't want to coddle our reputations, but we may as well keep an eye onthem.'"

  On that note of compromise they parted.