Death of a Hero (27 page)

And if the outsider is silly enough to bite, and to say timidly or bluntly, “Who's Johnny?” the answer comes swift and sweet:

“O-oh! Don't you know…!”

And then the dazzled outsider is condescendingly informed who “Johnny” is, and, especially if a mere American or Continental, is
crushed to learn that “Johnny” is Johnny Walker or some other enormously brilliant light in the firmament of British culture…

George got sick of hearing about “Bertie” without being told who the devil Bertie was, and began to talk about Ezra Pound, Jules Romains, and Modigliani. But he soon learned by sweet implication that such people might be all very well in their way, but after all, well, you know what I mean, Cambridge
is
Cambridge… So George shut up and said nothing. Then Reggie began to talk to Elizabeth about Alpine climbing, the sport of Dons – and a very appropriate one too, if you think about it. And Fanny talked to George.

Now Fanny was quite a subtil little beast of the field, and saw that George was a bit sulky, and guessed why. Vapourish airs were indifferent to her. She had been brought up among such people, and unconsciously adopted their tone when speaking to them. But when she was among other sorts of people she just as unconsciously dropped the vapourish airs and let her natural self respond to theirs. She had a foot, one might almost say a leg, in several social worlds; and got on perfectly well in any of them. There was a sort of physical indifference in Fanny which at first sight looked like mere hardness, and wasn't. In fact, she wasn't nearly as hard as Elizabeth, who could be quite Stonehengey at times. And then suddenly crumble. But Fanny's physical indifference carried her through a lot; one felt that her morning bath had something Lethean about it, and washed away the memory of last night's lover along with his touch.

So Fanny began to talk to George quite naturally and gaily. He was suspicious, and gave her three verbal bangs in quick succession. She took them with unflinching good-humour, and went on talking and trying to find out what he was interested in. George pretty soon melted to her gaiety – or perhaps it was the gem-like eyes. He looked at them, and wondered what it felt like to possess natural organs which were such superb
objets d'art.
They must, he reflected, cause her a good deal of annoyance. Every man who met her would feel called upon to inform her that she had wonderful eyes, as if he had made an astounding discovery, hitherto unrevealed by any one. George decided that it would be well
not
to comment upon Fanny's eyes at a first meeting.

Reggie had failed to interest Elizabeth in Alpine climbing, and switched off to
“amusing
anecdotes, which were more successful. Under the mild influence of a little wine and a sympathetic listener
Reggie shed some of his worst mannerisms and became almost human. He liked Elizabeth. She might not be wholly “amusing”, but she was “refreshing”. (She was a good listener.) And when the talk once again became general, George began to think that Reggie was not such a bad fellow after all; there was a sort of “niceness” about him, the genuine English pride and good-nature under a screen of affectation.

They sat over coffee and cigarettes until the fidgeting of the waiter and “Madame's” little games with the electric switches warned them that their money and absence would now be more welcome than their company. It was well after ten – too late for the cinema. They walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, George with Reggie, and Elizabeth with Fanny.

“I like your George,” said Fanny.

“Do you? I'm so glad.”

“He's a bit
farouche
, but I like the way he enthuses about what interests him. It's not put on.”

“I think Reggie's rather nice.

“Oh! Reggie…” and Fanny waved her hand with a little shrug.

“But he
is
nice, Fanny. You know you like him.”

“Yes, he's all right. I'm not wild about him. You can have him, if you want.”

“Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth laughed; “wait till I ask you!”

They separated at Piccadilly Circus. Fanny and Reggie went off somewhere in a taxi. Coming down Shaftesbury Avenue, George had noticed that it was a clear night with a full moon, and insisted on going to the Embankment to see the moonlight on the Thames. They turned into the Haymarket.

“What do you think of Fanny?” asked Elizabeth.

“I think she has most marvellous eyes.”

“Yes, that's what everyone says.”

“I was trying to be original! But she's a nice girl, too. At first, when she and Burnside began talking, I thought she was hopelessly infected by his sort of affectation.”

“Why! Don't you like him? I thought he was charming.”

“Charming? I shouldn't say that. I think he's not a bad sort of fellow really, but you know how exasperating I find the Cambridge bleat. Ah'd much raver lis'n to a fuckin' Cawkn'y, swop me bob, I would.”

“But you know he's a very important young scientist, and supposed to be doing marvellous research work.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No. Fanny couldn't tell me. She said you had to be a specialist yourself to understand what he's doing.”

“Well, I must say I'm a bit suspicious of these mysterious ‘specialists', who can't even tell you plainly what they're doing. I think Boileau's right – what's accurately conceived can be clearly expressed. When Science begins to talk the language of mystic Theology and superstition, I begin to suspect it vehemently. Besides, only the feeble sections of any aristocracy take on vapourish airs and affected ways of talk. Well-bred people haven't any affectations. And men with really fine minds haven't any intellectual vanity.”

“Oh, but Reggie isn't vain. He didn't even mention his work to me. And he told such amusing stories.”

“That's just another form of insolence – they assume you're too ignorant and stupid to understand their great and important labours, so they never condescend even to mention them, but tell ‘amusing stories', as I see you've already learned to call Common-Room gossip.”

Elizabeth was silent, ominously silent. She was more used to the Cambridge manner than George was, and thought he fussed too much about it. Besides, she had been really attracted by Reggie. She thought George was making a jealous scene. There she did him a wrong; it never occurred to George that Elizabeth might fall in love with Reggie. (Oddly enough, it never
does
occur to a husband or a lover
in esse
to suspect his probable coadjutor – until it is too late. He suspects plenty of wrong people, but rarely the right one. The Cyprian undoubtedly has artful ways.) As a matter of fact, George had not the slightest feeling of jealousy. He was merely saying what he felt, as he would have done about any other chance acquaintance. He respected Elizabeth's silence. It was one of their numerous pacts – to respect each other's silence. So they walked mutely down Whitehall, while George thought vaguely about Fanny and his next day's work, and cocked his head up to try to see the moon, and watched the occasional buses bounding along like rapid barges in the empty light-filled river of Belgian blocks; and Elizabeth brooded over the supposed revelation of a hitherto unsuspected tendency to silly jealousy in George. But just as they approached the Abbey, George slipped his arm through hers so naturally,
affectionately, and unsuspiciously that Elizabeth's ill-humour vanished, and in two minutes they were chattering as volubly as ever.

They walked along the Embankment from Westminster Bridge towards the City. A serene sky hung over London, transposed to an astonishing blue by the complementary yellow of the brilliant street lights. A few trains and taxis were still moving on the Embankment, but after the ceaseless roar of day traffic the air seemed almost silent. At times they could hear the lap and gurgle of the swift river water, as the strong flood tide ran inland, bearing a faint flavour of salt. The river was beautifully silver in the soft, steady moonlight which wavered into multitudes of ripples as soon as it touched the broken surface of the Thames. Blocks of moored barges stood black and immovable in the silver flood. The Southern bank was dark, low, and motionless, except for the luminous announcements of the blessings of Lipton's Tea and the
Daily Mail.
The Scotchman in coloured moving lights pledged the bonny Highlands in countless sparkling glasses of electric whisky. Hungerford Railway bridge seemed filled with the red eyes of immense dragons, whose vast bulk lay coiled somewhere invisibly on either bank. Occasionally a red eye would wink green, a brightly-lit train would crawl cautiously and heavily over the vibrating bridge. The lighted windows of the Cecil and the Savoy aroused no envy in them. Nor did they pine to inspect the records of a great people lying behind the darkened and silent façade of Somerset House.

Opposite the quiet Temple Garden they paused by the parapet and looked up and down that magnificent sweep of river, with its amazing mixture of dignified beauty and almost incredible sordidness. They stood for some time, talking in quiet tones, comparing the Thames with the Seine, and wondering what dreamlike city would have arisen by those noble curves if London had been inhabited by a race of artists. Elizabeth wanted to set Florence or Oxford on either side of the Thames between Westminster and St. Paul's. George agreed that that would be lovely, but thought the buildings would be dwarfed by the width of the river, the long bridges, and the length of facade. And they finally agreed that with all its sordidness and hugger-mugger and strange contrast of palaces abutting on slums, the Embankment had a beauty of its own which they would not exchange even for the dream-city of a race of artists.

Midnight boomed with majestic, policeman-like slowness from Big Ben; and as the last deep vibrations faded from the air, the great
city seemed to be gliding into sleep and silence. They lingered a little longer, and then turned to go.

Then, for the first time they noticed what they knew would be there but had forgotten in their absorbed delight in the silvery water and moon-washed outlines of the city – that on every bench sat crouched or huddled one or more miserable, ragged human beings. In front of them ran the mystically lovely river; behind them the dark masses of the Temple rose solidly and sternly defensive of Law and Order behind the spear-front of its tall sharp-pointed iron fence. And there they crouched and huddled in rags and hunger and misery, free-born members of the greatest Empire the earth has yet seen, citizens of Her who so proudly claimed to be the wealthiest of cities, the exchange and mart of the whole world.

George gave what change he had in his pockets to a noseless syphilitic hag, and Elizabeth emptied her purse into the hand of a shivering child which had to be awakened to receive the gift, and cowered as if it thought it was going to be struck.

Ignoring the hag's hoarse “Thank yer kindly, Sir, Gord bless yer, Lidy,” they fled clutching each other's hands. They did not speak until they said good-night outside Elizabeth's door.

6

D
URING 1913 life ran on very pleasantly and happily for George and Elizabeth. As in the cases of the fortunate nations without a history, there appears to be very little to record about this year. I make no doubt that it was the happiest in George's life. He was, as they say, “getting on”, and had less need to worry about money. In the spring they went to Dorsetshire and stayed at an inn. Elizabeth did a certain amount of painting, but apart from a few sketches George did not attempt landscape, especially the picturesque landscape – he wanted his painting to be urban, contemporary, and hard. They walked a good deal over Worbarrow Down and the rather desolate heath-land round about. On more than one occasion they traversed the very same piece of land
where George was afterwards in camp with me, a coincidence which seemed to make a great impression upon him. Certain aspects of a familiar landscape always call up the same train of thought; and as people are never weary of telling us what particularly strikes them, so George rarely failed to convey this piece of stale news to me as we walked out of camp by what had once been the rough cart-track he and Elizabeth had followed in less desolate days. He seemed to think it remarkable that he should be so miserable in exactly the same place where he had once been so happy. As I pointed out, that showed great ignorance of the ironic temper of the gods, who are very fond of such genial contrasts. They delight to lay a corpse in a marriage bed, and to strike down a great nation in the fullest flush of its pride and power. One might think that happiness was “hubris”, the excess which calls down the vengeance of Fate.

They returned to London for a few weeks, and then went to Paris. Elizabeth adored Paris, and wanted to live there permanently; but George was against it. He had got some bug about the best art being “autochthonous”, and declared that an artist ought to live in his own country. But the real reason was that Parisian life seemed so pleasant and the town so full of artists more gifted and more advanced than himself, that he found it almost impossible to work there. It was easier to feel important in the comparative desert of London. So they returned to London; and in the autumn George had his first “show”, which was not altogether such a failure as he had expected.

When autumn turned to winter, and the yellow leaves of the plane-trees drifted down into heaps in the London squares, lying miserably sodden under the rain, the everlasting London drizzle, Elizabeth got very restless. She wanted to get away, anywhere under blue skies and sun. Her throat and lungs were rather sensitive, and when the weather turned foggy she nearly choked in the heavy, soot-laden, stifling air. They talked about going to Italy or Spain, but George knew only too well that he could not afford it. He might indeed get assurances from various impresarios he frequented that “work could go on as usual”, but he knew only too well that a month's absence would mean a decline and that after three months he would be practically forgotten and dropped. It's a dangerous thing to have a national reputation for honesty – people get to trading upon it and seem to think it absolves them from individual obligations. So George, after forming various vague plans for a delightful winter in Sicily or the island of Majorca,
had to admit to Elizabeth that he simply dared not go. He begged her to go alone, or to find some friend to go with her. But Elizabeth flatly refused to go without him. So they stayed in London, and worked and coughed together. Perhaps it might have been better to take the risk, for as things turned out George never saw either Spain or Italy, which he had wanted so much to see.