What Not: A Prophetic Comedy Read online

  CHAPTER VIII

  ON FIXED HEARTS AND CHANGING SCENES

  1

  To Kitty it was manifest that the time had come for a change ofemployment. Such times came frequently in her life; often merely becauseshe got bored, yawned, wanted a change, heard life summoning her tofresh woods and pastures new, and obeyed the call. Many occupations shehad thus thrown up lightly; this is one reason why those who regard lifeas a variety entertainment do not really get on; they forget that lifeis real, life is earnest, and departing leave behind them no footprintson the sands of time. They do not make a career; they do not make good;they do not, in the long run, even make much money, though that rolls inby fits and starts, and at times plentifully. They do not so much hidetheir talents in napkins as play ball with them.

  This is as much as to say that it was not to Kitty Grammont the effortand the wrench that it would have been to many people to contemplate achange of avocation. And it certainly seemed desirable. Chester hadsaid, "We needn't meet"; but the fact remained that when two people wholove each other work in the same building, however remote their spheres,they disturb each other, are conscious of each other's nearness. AndChester's presence pervaded the whole Ministry; he had stamped himselfeverywhere; there was no getting away from him. His name was constantlyon the lips and on the pens of his subordinates, and clicked forth fromevery typewriter; you could not so much as write an official letterwithout beginning "I am directed by the Minister of Brains to state,"and signing it "for the Minister of Brains." Besides which, he was to beseen going out and coming in, to be met in passages and lifts, to beobserved taking his food in the canteen, and his Personal Assistantdemanded continual attention to him on the telephone. No, there was nogetting away from the Minister. And that meant no peace of mind, none ofthe old careless light-hearted living and working; nothing but acontinual, disturbing, restless, aching want. Kitty had no intention offacing this, so she told Vernon Prideaux that when she found another jobshe was going to leave. He looked at her in annoyance and dismay, andsaid, "Good lord, why?"

  Kitty said, "I'm bored. I want a change. I'm tired of working for thisautocratic government. I want something with more variety in it, andmore soul--a travelling circus, or a companionship to a rich Americanseeing the world; or any old thing, so long as it amuses me."

  "There's going to be quite enough amusement in _this_ circus," saidPrideaux, "before we're through with it, to satisfy anyone, I shouldsay.... Really, Kitty, I think you're foolish. You're throwing up yourchances; you're climbing up, and will climb higher if you stay. Even ifthe thing founders, as is quite likely, you'll climb out of it intoanother job, you're good enough. You ought to think of your career. Andbesides, you can't be spared. Who on earth do you think is going to doyour job? I think you ought to see this thing through."

  But Kitty did not think so. "It will go to its own place quite quicklyenough without my help. And as for my career--funny word--I'm not sureI've got one. If I have it's such a chequered one that a few more upsand downs won't make much difference to it. And as for being spared, ohanyone can be spared, out of any ministry; there are too many of us.Anyhow--well anyhow I must go."

  Prideaux thought this so frivolous, so foolish, so unworthy, sotiresome, and so like a woman, that he was exasperated. He rang for ashorthand typist, remarking, "If you must you must. Miss Egerton" (MissEgerton had succeeded Miss Pomfrey, and was better), "send to theEstablishment Branch for Miss Grammont's papers sometime," which closedthe subject for the present.

  Kitty went back to her table and wrote a letter to the A.S.E. about someunfortunate agreement which had been made with them concerning theexemption of some of their members from the Mind Training Course.Personally Kitty was of the opinion that it was a pity the agreement hadnot been made as extensive as the A.S.E. desired; she thought that thisUnion were already too clever by half. She almost went to the length ofthinking it was a pity the promises made to them had not been kept; arevolutionary opinion which in itself indicated that it was time sheleft. Having dealt with the A.S.E. she turned her attention to a filesent down from M.B. 1 and minuted "Passed to you to deal with this man'simaginary grievance." The imaginary grievance was that the wife of theman in question had been killed by a motor bus, and he wanted a week'spostponement of his Mind Training Course in order that he might arrangeabout the funeral. M.B. 1 were like that; they did not mean to beunkind, but were a little lacking in flexibility and imagination.

  Ivy Delmer, who had answered Prideaux's bell, sat with her pencil readyand her round face bent over her notebook. She had heard Prideaux'sorder to his secretary, and concluded, correctly, that Miss Grammont waseither going to have her pay raised or to leave, and from Prideaux'smanner and voice she thought it was the second. She wondered whetherthis could have anything to do with the Minister, and what he had beensaying to Miss Grammont on Sunday. She was curious and interested, evenmore so than she had been on Sunday, because the people to whom she hadmentioned the subject had all noticed the intimacy; everyone seemed tohave seen the Minister out with Miss Grammont at one time or another. Noone but Ivy thought it was anything more than friendship, but no oneelse had seen them look at one another on Beaconsfield platform. Ivyhad, and said so....

  Kitty was right; nothing remained hidden in government departments, or,indeed, anywhere else. Healthily, persistently, inevitably, everythingpushed up towards the clear light of day; and quite right, too.

  2

  In the evenings Kitty, seeking jobs, studied the advertisement columnsof the daily papers. She had always read them; they, with Mr. Selfridgeand the Pelman system, form the lighter and more entertaining part ofany daily paper; but now she took to perusing them with care. Thepersonal column of the _Times_ she found peculiarly edifying.

  "Quiet, refined gentleman (served in war, musical) would like to getinto touch with bright and sympathetic lady." Kitty rejected that; shewas not sure that she was sympathetic, and the terms were too vague.Better was "Lady, high standard of taste and culture and large means,wants capable travelling companion. Knowledge of art essential, goodbreeding preferred. Must talk continental languages fluently andunderstand railway guides." Kitty, making a mental note of that (for,with the possible exception of the breeding, she had all thesequalifications), ran her eyes down the column, past "Write to me,darling, all is forgiven," "Will the lady in a fur toque riding in aHammersmith aero on Saturday last at 3.30 communicate with A.C.", "Noman hath seen God, at any time," until she came to "Young, accomplished,well-educated War Widow would like position as secretary or confidentialclerk to nobleman, member of parliament, or gentleman." She rested herfinger on that. "I'll put one in like this," she remarked to her cousin."War Widow. That's what I've always wanted to be. It sounds so well.Elspeth, I shall buy some weeds and commence widow. A war widow...."

  "If you want a new job, and a job with travel and life in it," said hercousin, sounding her, "I don't know why you don't go out to the PacificIslands and join Neil. You may be sure that wherever Neil is there'll betravel enough and life enough." She watched Kitty idly through a littlewhirl of cigarette smoke. But Kitty looked no more than bored, bendingover the _Times_ and manicuring her nails.

  "Neil would tire me. I've grown too old for Neil. Besides, it wouldn'tbe proper; I've broken off my engagement. I've not had the last letterback yet, you know, so he may have got it. Besides..." Kitty paused onlyfor a moment, and added in the same casual tone, "besides, I'm too muchin love with Nicky Chester, though I can't have him, to have any use foranyone else just now."

  Her cousin nodded. "I knew that, darling, of course. And so you'verenounced each other. How silly. But it won't last. It never does. Goand be a Young Accomplished War Widow, then, to pass the time."

  3

  But there were hours of the night when it seemed to Kitty that she couldnot go and be a Young Accomplished War Widow, that she could not becompanion, however capable, to any travelling lady of taste, culture andmeans, or clerk, however confidential, to any peer, M.P., o
r evengentleman; that none of these careers (were they careers? She stillsought to define that word) would pass the time at all; that nothing, infact, would pass it except working for Nicholas Chester, seeing himsometimes, hearing his voice.... Always addicted to metaphysicalspeculation in the night, even in nights of anguish, she would speculateon this queer disease, so common to the race, which had overtaken (andnot, as they had both candidly remarked, for the first time, possiblynot even for the last) herself and Nicholas Chester. What was it, thisextraordinary driving pressure of emotion, this quite disproportionatedesire for companionship with, for contact with, one person out of allthe world of people and things, which made, while it lasted, all otherdesires, all other emotions, pale and faint beside it? Which soperverted and wrenched from its bearings the mind of a man like NicholasChester that he was for throwing overboard the cherished principleswhich were the cargo he had for long been so desperately bent oncarrying, through storm and stress, to the country of his dreams? Whichmade him say, "No one will find out, and if they do, let them and bedamned to them"?... Desire for a person; it had, it had always had, anextraordinarily dynamic effect on the lives of men and women. When itcame into play, principle, chivalry, common sense, intellect, humour,culture, sweetness and light, all we call civilisation, might crumple uplike match-board so this one overwhelming desire, shared by all theanimal creation, might be satisfied. On this rock the world, thepathetic, eager, clever, foolish, so heavily handicapped world, might bewrecked. It was, perhaps, this one thing that would always preventhumanity from being, in fact, a clever and successful race, would alwayskeep them down somewhere near the level of the other animals.

  Faces passed before Kitty's wakeful eyes; the fatuous, contented facesof mothers bending over the rewards of love clinging to their breasts;slow, placid, married faces everywhere.... This thing was irresistible,and certainly inevitable; if it ceased, humanity itself would cease,since it is the one motive which impels the continued population of thealready over-populated earth. There it was; one had to accept it; therewas, perhaps, no one who grew to years of maturity who escaped it, noone whose life would not, at some period, be in some degree disorganisedby this strange force. It was blind instinct; its indulgence did not, inthe end, even make for good, so far as good meant adventure, romance,and the gay chances of life, the freedom of the cities of theworld--anything beyond mere domesticity. For what, after all, wasmarriage? A tying down, a shutting of gates, the end of youth, thecurbing of the spirit of adventure which seeks to claim all the fourcorners of the world for its heritage. It meant a circumscribed andsober life, in one place, in one house, with, perhaps, children tosupport and to mind; it meant becoming respectable, insured, mature,settled members of society, with a stake in the country. No longer maylife be greeted with a jest and death with a grin; both these (of courseimportant but not necessarily solemn) things have come to matter toomuch to be played with.

  To this sedate end do the world's gay and careless free-lances come;they shut the door upon the challenging spirit of life, and Settle Down.It is to this end that instinct, not to be denied, summons men andwomen, as the bit of cheese summons the mouse into the trap.

  Musing thus, Kitty turned her pillow over and over, seeking a softerside. How she detested stupidity! How, even more, Nicholas Chesterloathed stupidity! To him it was anathema, the root of all evil, theGoliath he was out to destroy, the blind beast squatting on men's bones,the idiot drivelling on the village green. And here he was, caught inthe beast's destroying grip, just because he had, as they call it,fallen in love.... What a work is man!... And here was Kitty herself,all her gay love of living in danger, tottering unsteadily on itsfoundations, undermined by this secret gnawing thing.

  At last, as a sop to the craving which would not be denied, she sat up,with aching, fevered head, and turned the light on, and wrote on a pieceof paper, "Nicky, I'll marry you any time you like, if you want me to,"and folded it up and laid it on the table at her side, and then layquite quiet, the restless longing stilled in her, slow tears forcingthemselves from under her closed lashes, because she knew she would notsend it. She would not send it because Chester too, in his heart, knewthat they had better part; he too was fighting for the cause he believedin; he wanted her, but wanted to succeed in doing without her. She mustgive him his chance to stick by his principles, not drag him down belowthem.

  There were moments when Kitty wished that she could believe in a God,and could pray. It must, she thought, be a comfort. She even at timeswished she were a Christian, to find fulfilment in loss. That was, atleast, what she supposed Christians to do.

  But she could not be a Christian, and she could not pray; all she coulddo was to nerve herself to meet life in the spirit of the gay pierrette,with cap and bells on her aching head, and a little powder to hide thetears, and to try not to snap at Elspeth or the people at the office.This last endeavour usually failed. The little gaping messengers whoanswered (when they thought they would) Miss Grammont's bell, told eachother Miss Grammont was cross. The typists grew tired of having letterssent back to be retyped because of some trifling misapprehension of MissGrammont's caligraphy or some trifling misspelling on their own account.Surely these things could be set right with a pen and a little skill.

  These moods of impatience, when frustration vented itself in anger,alternated with the gaiety, the irreverent and often profane levity,which was Kitty's habitual way of braving life in its more formidableaspects. Some people have this instinct, to nail a flag of motley to themast of the foundering ship and keep it flying to the last.

  4

  While Kitty was debating as to her future, toying with the relativeadvantages and entertainment to be derived from the careers of WarWidow, Confidential Clerk, Travelling Companion, archaeological explorerin Macedonia or Crete, beginner on the music-hall stage, under Pansy'sauspices, all of which seemed to have their bright sides, twosuggestions were made to her. One was from a cousin of hers who wassub-editor of _Stop It_, and offered to get her a place on the staff.

  "Would it bind me to a point of view?" Kitty enquired. "I can't be boundto a point of view."

  "Oh dear no," her cousin assured her. "Certainly not. Rather thecontrary," and Kitty said, "All right, I'll think it over." She wasrather attracted by the idea.

  You cannot, of course, exactly call it being bound to a point of view tobe required to hint every week that certain things want stopping, in aworld whose staunchest champions must admit that this is indeed so.

  _Stop It_ was certainly eclectic, in its picking out, from all therecognised groups associated for thought and action, activities whosecessation seemed good to it. The question that rather suggested itselfto its readers was, if _Stop It_ had its way, what, if anything, wouldbe left?

  "Very little," the editor would have answered. "A clean sheet. Then wecan begin again."

  _Stop It_ had dropped some of the caution with which it had begun: itwas now quite often possible to deduce from its still crypticphraseology what were some of the things it wanted stopped. Having forsome time successfully dodged Dora, it was now daring her. As in allprobability it would not have a long life, and appeared to be having amerry one, Kitty thought she might as well join it while she could.

  To desert abruptly from the ranks of the bureaucracy to those of themutineers seemed natural to Kitty, who had always found herself at homein a number of widely differing situations. Really this is perhaps theonly way to live, if all the various and so greatly different needs ofcomplicated human nature are to be satisfied. It is very certain thatthey cannot be satisfied simultaneously; the best way seems, therefore,to alternate. It is indeed strange that this is not more done, thatRadicals, Tories, and Labour members, for instance, do not morefrequently interchange, play general post, to satisfy on Tuesday thatside of their souls and intellects which has not been given free play onMonday; that Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Lord Curzon do not, from time totime, deliver each other's speeches, not from any freakish desire toastonish, but from the sheer nec
essities of their natures; that Mr.Massingham and Mr. Leo Maxse, or Mr. A. G. Gardiner and Mr. Gwynne, orMr. J. C. Squire and Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey, or Mr. Garvin and Mr. J.A. Spender, do not from time to time arrange together to change officesand run each other's papers; or that Mr. Arthur Ransome and Mr. StephenGraham do not, during their tours of Russia, sometimes change pens witheach other when they write home. There must be in many people someundemocratic instinct of centralisation, of autocratic subversion of thehorde of their lesser opinions and impulses to the most dominant andcommanding one, a lack of the true democrat's desire to give a chance tothem all. They say with the Psalmist, "My heart is fixed," and "I havechosen the way and I will run it to the end," and this is called, bysome, finding one's true self. Perhaps it may be so; it certainlyentails the loss of many other selves; and possibly the dropping ofthese, or rather their continual denial and gradual atrophy, simplifieslife.

  But Kitty, whose heart was not fixed, entered upon all the changingscenes of life with a readiness to embrace any point of view, though notindeed to be bound to it, and an even greater willingness to tellanything in earth or heaven that it ought to be stopped.

  She told Prideaux that she was considering this offer. Prideaux said,"That thing! Its very name condemns it. It's on the wrong tack. Youshouldn't be out to stop things; they've got to go on.... If it'sjournalism you want, why don't you apply for a job on _Intelligence_?"_Intelligence_, or the Weekly Bulletin of the Brains Ministry (to giveit its sub-title, humorously chosen by one who visualised either thepublic or the Ministry as a sick man) was a weekly journal issued by theMinistry, and its aim was, besides reporting the Ministry's work,decisions and pronouncements for each week, to correlate all its localactivities and keep them in touch with headquarters, and to collectreports from over the country as to the state of the public mind. It wasfor official circulation only. "Why not?" repeated Prideaux, struck bythis idea. "It would be quite enough of a change: you would probably beone of the travelling reporters and send bright little anecdotes fromthe countryside; I know they want some more reporters. Why don't youapply? I'll speak to M.B.B. about you if you like." (M.B.B. was thedepartment which edited the Bulletin.)

  "Would it be interesting?" Kitty wondered.

  Prideaux thought it would. "Besides," he added, "you'd remain attachedto the Ministry that way, and could return to headquarters later on ifyou wanted to.... And meanwhile you'd see all the fun.... We're in for afairly lively time, and it would be a pity to miss it. We're bound toslip up over the A.S.E. before the month's over. And probably over theexemption of Imbeciles and the Abandoned Babies, too. And thejournalists; that's going to be a bad snag. Oh, it'll be interesting allright. If it wasn't for Chester's remarkable gift of getting on people'sright side, it would be a poor look-out. But Chester'd pull most thingsthrough. If they'd put him at the head of the Recruiting job during thewar, I believe he'd have pulled even the Review of Exceptions throughwithout a row.... Well now, what about trying for this job?"

  "All right," Kitty agreed. "If you think there's any chance of mygetting it. I don't mind much what I do, so long as I have a change fromthis hotel."

  On Prideaux's recommendation she did get the job, and was transferredfrom her branch to M.B.B. as a travelling reporter for _Intelligence_.She renounced _Stop It_ with some regret; there was a whimsical elementabout _Stop It_ which appealed to her, and which must almost necessarilybe lacking in an official journal; but the career of travelling reporterseemed to have possibilities. Besides the more weighty reports from thecountryside, a page of _Intelligence_ was devoted each week to anecdotesrelated in the engagingly sudden and irrelevant manner of our cheaperdaily Press; as, "A woman appealed before the Cuckfield Tribunal forexemption from the Mind Training Course on the grounds that she had madean uncertificated marriage and had since had twins, and must, therefore,be of a mental level which unfitted her to derive benefit from theCourse." "Three babies have been found abandoned in a ditch betweenAmersham and Chesham Bois." "The Essex Farmers' Association haveproduced a strain of hens which lay an egg each day all the year round.The farmers ascribe this to the improvement in their methods caused bythe Mind Training Course." "In reply to a tinplate worker who appliedfor Occupational Exemption from the Mental Progress Act, the Chairman ofthe Margam Tribunal said ..." (one of the witty things which chairmen dosay, and which need not here be reported). It was, apparently, thebusiness of the reporters to collect (or invent) and communicate thesetrivial anecdotes, as well as more momentous news, as of unrest atNottingham, the state of intelligence or otherwise among Suffolkagriculturists, and so forth.

  Kitty rather hoped to be sent to Ireland, which was, as often, in aninteresting and dubious state. Ireland was excluded from the BrainsActs, as from other Acts. But she was being carefully watched, with aview to including her when it seemed that it might be safe to do so.Meanwhile those of her population who were considered by the Englishgovernment to be in no need of it were profiting by the Mind TrainingCourse, while the mass of the peasantry were instructed by their prieststo shun such unholy heretic learning as they would the devil. But on thewhole it seemed possible that the strange paths pointed out by theBrains Ministry might eventually lead to the solution of the IrishQuestion. (What the Irish Question at that moment was, I will not hereattempt to explain: it must be sufficient to remark that there willalways be one.)

  5

  But Kitty was not sent to Ireland. She was sent about England; first toCambridge. Cambridge was not averse to having its mind improved; thereis a sweet reasonableness about Cambridge. It knows how important brainsare. Also it had an affection for Chester, who had been at Trinity. Soreports from Cambridge as regards the Brains Acts were on the wholefavourable, in spite of some unrest (for different reasons) at Kings,Downing, and Trinity Hall, and slight ferment of revolt down atBarnwell. There was, indeed, a flourishing branch of the S.I.L. (Stop ItLeague) in the University, but its attention was not directed at themoment particularly to stopping the work of the Ministry of Brains.

  It was, of course, a queer and quite new Cambridge which Kittyinvestigated. She had known the pre-war Cambridge; there had intervenedthe war Cambridge, that desolated and desolating thing, and now therehad sprung up, on the other side of that dividing gulf, a Cambridge newand without precedent; a Cambridge half full of young war veterans, withthe knowledge of red horizons, battle, murder, and sudden death, intheir careless, watchful, experienced eyes; when they lounged about thestreets or hurried to lectures, they dropped, against their will, intostep; they were brown, and hard, and tired, and found it hard toconcentrate on books; they had forgotten their school knowledge, andcould not get through Littlegoes, and preferred their beds to sleepingin the open, that joy of pampered youth which has known neitherbattle-fields or Embankment seats.

  The other half were the boys straight from school; and between these twodivisions rolled the Great European War, across which they could withdifficulty make themselves understood each by the other.

  It was a Cambridge which had broken with history, for neither of thesesections had any links with the past, any traditions to hand down. Theonly people who had these were the dons and Fellows and the very fewundergraduates who, having broken off their University career to fight,had, after long years, returned to it again. These moved like ghostsamong their old haunts; but their number was so inconsiderable as hardlyto count. It was, to all intents and purposes, a new Cambridge, a cleansheet; and it was interesting to watch what was being inscribed upon it.

  But with such observations, apart from those of them which wereconnected with the attitude of Cambridge towards the Brains Ministry,neither Kitty nor this story are concerned. The story of the newCambridge will have to be written some day by a member of it, and shouldbe well worth reading.

  From Cambridge Kitty went to travel Cambridgeshire, which was in a stateof quiet, albeit grudging, East Anglian acceptance and slowassimilation.

  Far different were the northern midlands, which were her nextdestination. He
re, indeed, was revolt in process of ferment; revoltwhich had to be continually uncorked and aired that it might not fermenttoo much. The uncorking and airing was done by means of conferences, atwhich the tyrannised and the tyrants each said their say. Theseheart-to-heart talks have a soothing effect (sometimes) on thesituation; at other times not. As conducted by the Minister of Brains,they certainly had. Chester was something more than soothing; he wasinspiring. While he was addressing a meeting, he made it believe thatintelligence was the important thing; more important than liberty, moreimportant than the satisfaction of immediate desires. He madeintelligence a flaming idea, like patriotism, freedom, peace, democracy,the eight-hour day, or God; and incidentally he pointed out that itwould lead to most of these things; and they believed him. When heshowed how, in the past, the lack of intelligence had led to nationalruin, economic bondage, war, autocracy, poverty, sweating, and vice,they believed that too. When he said, "Look at the European War," theylooked. When he went on, "Without centuries of stupidity everywhere thewar would never have been; without stupidity the war, if it had been,would have been very differently conducted; without stupidity we neednever have another war, but with stupidity we inevitably shall, Leagueof Nations or not," they all roared and cheered.

  So he went about saying these things, convincing and propitiating laboureverywhere; labour, that formidable monster dreaded and cajoled by allgood statesmen; labour, twice as formidable since in the Great War ithad learned the ways of battle and the possibility and the power of theunion of arms and the man.