Magnus Merriman (29 page)

Magnus said yes. To an offer so alluring there was no other answer. Before Mr Wardle had finished speaking Magnus was busily composing satirical descriptions of McMaster and the Bankocrats and improvising happy invective for their policy. He was on fire to begin work, and now Barney Wardle was equally in a hurry. On the following day the
Morning Call
published a photograph of Magnus and announced that this brilliant young novelist had joined its staff; while Magnus sat in the Press Gallery of the House of Commons and listened with considerable interest to the debate on the second reading of the Great Economy Bill.

Mr Melvin McMaster was speaking. His manner was grave, his verbiage abundant, and his accent sufficiently Scotch to give the proceedings an air of piety: one thought of
The Cottar's Saturday Night
, the lugubriously metrical version of the Psalms, and the slow passage of the collection-plate. Mr McMaster said that as responsible and clear-thinking men they were prepared to face the facts. And what were the facts? They were overhung by the clouds of insolvency and confidence was oozing out in every direction. They must stem the tide by setting up machinery to investigate every problem. They were in danger of national
shipwreck and they must find a formula to avert it. They had already mobilized the goodwill of the nation, and now—it would be untrue to say that little remained to do, because a great deal remained to do—but goodwill was all-important, and if they could find a formula their task of rebuilding Britain on the solid foundations of prosperity would be made much easier. He wanted sympathy, not carping criticism, and he appealed for the co-operation of all parties. He then referred to the
canard
that some of their economy proposals had been forced upon them by the dictation of American bankers and the directors of the Bank of England. ‘That,' he said, ‘is a monstrous allegation. It is true that we consulted the banks before formulating our programme of economies, and it is true that the banks gave us their expert advice and indicated what economies were essential to our acquiring of a suitable loan. But to say that the banks dictated those economies is an insult to my Government and to our country.'

Here there was prolonged applause interrupted by prolonged vilification from the Opposition.

Mr McMaster said that the proposed reduction of Unemployment Benefit was just and desirable. ‘It would be grossly unfair to the unemployed,' he said, ‘if they were not given a chance to share in the common sacrifice of the nation in this time of common crisis. The vast majority of them are eager, nay, clamouring, to have the dole reduced and so to do their part in the great struggle that confronts us.'

At this point the warm commendation of the Conservative benches was obscured by cat-calls and other vulgar noises emanating from the Opposition.

Mr McMaster concluded by saying that it was the duty of himself and his colleagues to remain in office until the crisis was past and the Bank of England—that precious stone set in a silver sea—should be herself again, glorious and unafraid. ‘And in this respect,' he declared, ‘we are ready to do our duty though it should take us three years, five years, or even ten or twenty years.'

By this time both members of the Government and prominent members of the Opposition were anxious to reveal their share in dealing with the crisis, and the debate continued on
the orthodox lines of spacious generalization and intrusive personal details.

Magnus returned to the offices of the
Morning Call
and with great gusto composed a description of the proceedings. His article was so lively, so nearly libellous and yet not libellous, so bitingly accurate in certain details and of others so cleverly omissive, that Lady Mercy read it with large approval and for a sign of her favour invited Magnus to lunch with her in her house in Charles Street.

Magnus was familiar with many stories of Lady Mercy's eccentricities and kindness: of her charm of manner that made devoted friends of her most embittered enemies, and of her mordant censure that reduced all to silence: of her intense interest in everyone she met, and her conflicting and alternative interest in herself alone. He went to her luncheon-party feeling somewhat nervous but still keenly desirous of meeting this remarkable woman. To his great disappointment the party was a fiasco.

Lady Mercy was tall and dignified. She had a long, greyish, horsy-looking face, and her black hair was streaked with white. She had a very mobile mouth and she talked rapidly. Her guests included Lord Faloon; a Member of Parliament addicted to her service; a lady newly returned from exploring some remote part of Brazil; a lady who wrote detective stories; and Lady Martha Moran, whose ladyship depended on no extrinsic activities. While they drank their cocktails Lady Mercy expended her benigner gifts and made the occasion agreeable to all. But as time passed and the remaining member of the party did not arrive—who was Professor Bird whistle, the well-known Inflationist—she began to show signs of impatience, and a little acerbity invaded her conversation.

Presently one of her secretaries entered and spoke to her in a low tone of voice.

‘What?' she exclaimed indignantly.

‘This is the telegram,' said the secretary.

Lady Mercy snatched it from him and read aloud: ‘Regret my inability to be present. Am sailing for New York at noon
today.' ‘Sailing for New York!' she repeated. ‘But I asked him to come to lunch!'

Her secretary agreed.

‘And then he goes to New York. New York! What's New York compared with me? I wanted him to come to lunch. Couldn't the fool realize that I wouldn't have asked him if I hadn't wanted him? New York, indeed!'

Lady Mercy was now in a tremendous rage, and her guests drew back a little from the spectacle of her wrath. ‘You can't depend on anyone nowadays,' she said bitterly. ‘This man Birdwhistle's a currency expert, and I wanted him to come here and formulate my new policy of Currency Reform. It must be done today—it's got to appear in the morning paper—and now he's gone to New York!'

She turned to her secretary. ‘Get Wardle,' she commanded. ‘Get everyone you can. Get Cole, Stamp, Withers, Douglas, anyone you like. We must have that new policy for tomorrow whatever it is. And I must go and think what else is to be done.'

Without apology she marched from the room, and her guests were left in silent embarrassment till Lord Faloon said cheerfully, ‘Well, we'd better have another cocktail. A little water layeth a great wind, and gin's more effective still.'

It was Lord Faloon who insisted they should have lunch despite the absence of their hostess, and it was Lord Faloon who made the only respectable attempt to maintain cheerful conversation. The others were still overawed by the thunder and lightning of Lady Mercy's wrath, and more than a little nervous lest it should again descend on them. They took an early opportunity to leave, and hardly felt safe till the breadth of Berkeley Square was between them and her ladyship's house.

One of the results of the publicity thrust upon Magnus by his new employment was a visit from Margaret Innes. It would be an overstatement to say that he had made up his mind not to see her, but he had refrained from communicating with her and sedulously resisted the temptation to consider the consequences of their meeting. When Margaret, however, saw in the
Morning Call
that he had returned to London, and inferred from the prominence
given to his articles that he was occupying a position of importance, she wrote to him a pleasant letter that made no reference to their previous disagreement but merely asked, as one old friend to another, when he was coming to see her.

Magnus replied that he was still living in Tavistock Square, and invited her to tea. She arrived quite punctually, and he found that she had wholly lost her power to excite him. She fell between two stools: she was older than Rose and duller than Nelly Bly. Even with the most skilfully applied cosmetics her complexion could not compete with Rose's, and her costume, admirably tailored though it was, lacked the dashing air of Nelly Bly's clothes, while her conversation was painfully without interest in comparison with Nelly's. She put on her brightest manner, and Magnus felt sorry for her—because he had ceased to love her he naturally thought she was in need of pity—and behaved very pleasantly. He would have been kinder still had not their past love stood like a ghost between them.

They talked of various matters, and even discussed the political situation: for both desired to avoid the embarrassment of silence.

Margaret said, ‘I suppose you know everything that's going on? You must have lots of news that we ordinary people never learn.'

‘I've heard a good deal of gossip, of course,' said Magnus, ‘but nothing you could honestly call news. I believe that everybody from the Prime Minister downwards is completely mystified as to what's going to happen, and while some say we've turned the corner, others say we haven't yet come in sight of the corner.'

‘I see what you mean,' said Margaret very seriously.

The crisis, in truth, appeared to be extending into a series of crises. In spite of Mr McMaster's efforts on behalf of the Bank of England the gold standard had been suspended and the pound sterling had depreciated abroad by one-fifth. But although this was one of the several calamities about which Mr McMaster had spoken so gravely, and to fight against which the country had mobilized its sentiment and its Old Age Pensions, no one seemed any the worse now that it had
happened. There were indeed many people who hailed the suspension of the gold standard as a great triumph, and foretold new health for the pound sterling since it had been lopped of four redundant shillings. It was all very puzzling, and whether the financial experts had been mistaken—in which case they were no experts—or Britain had risen from bankruptcy, as from the azure waves, by Heaven's command, was very hard to determine.

Magnus related some Fleet Street rumours to which Margaret listened attentively, and then, with sudden compunction for not having remembered before, he asked how the children were getting on.

Both Nigel and Rosemary, it appeared, were progressing favourably in physical growth and mental development. Rosemary's morbid preoccupation with religion had given way to enthusiasm for dancing, which she was beginning to learn, so that worry had disappeared, said Margaret. But Nigel's interest in the day's news was keener than ever. He read both morning and evening papers now, and asked more difficult questions than ever.

‘He came to me yesterday,' said Margaret, ‘and said “Mummy, how is it you can still get two hundred and forty pennies for a pound when a pound's only worth sixteen shillings?”'

‘Did you tell him?' asked Magnus.

‘Well, I explained that other countries had different kinds of money, and that a pound was really only a pound so long as everybody agreed that it was one. And this morning he broke open his money-box and spent all his pennies, and when I asked him why he had done that he said, “Well, people think they're pennies now, so I thought I'd better use them while they still seem good.”'

Margaret continued to talk about the children and thoroughly enjoyed herself. But when on the point of going she hesitated a little, and said tentatively, ‘I've missed you a lot this summer, Magnus.' Magnus answered lightly, ‘That's flattery, Meg. Well, I suppose we'll see each other again before long.' And after she had gone he thought: I should have asked her to dine with me, or to come to a theatre. I behaved meanly to her. Oh, hell, hell, hell! But I don't
want to make love to her again, and after a good dinner I might, and then the same old trouble would start again. Poor Meg. But she's making a good living, and she's got Nigel and Rosemary to think about. She's all right. But I should have asked her to dinner …

For two or three weeks Magnus continued his work for the
Morning Call
, and wrote with great exuberance about a variety of subjects. In his poem,
The Returning Sun
, he had discovered how much easier it is to invent destructive criticism than to elaborate constructive plans, and now, to his satisfaction, he found that the former rather than the latter was what both Lady Mercy and Barney Wardle required of him. According to his instructions he visited football matches and the places where greyhounds raced; he went to fashionable night-clubs and to the House of Commons; and everywhere he learnt what Lady Mercy and Barney Wardle wanted him to learn: that the heart of the people was sound, but the leaders of the people were twisted and rotten.

It would be unfair to Magnus to suppose that he discovered these facts merely in obedience to his employers. One of his several weaknesses was a quality of shifting enthusiasm, and it often happened that sympathy for his immediate environment blinded him to all its faults and aggravated the frailties of everything external to it. If he stood in the cheapest enclosure at a football-match, surrounded by out-of-work engineers and veteran dole-men, and was momentarily captivated by their enthusiasm for the game they were watching, then all his sympathy would overflow upon the unemployed and let loose his most rancorous scorn against the Government that proposed to cut a slice of their weekly charity. And, for the present, Lady Mercy and Barney Wardle were well pleased that he should indulge this temper. But if he had dined with Melvin McMaster and George Pippin and the Bankocrats he might have discovered an equal sympathy for them, and turned his invective upon their enemies. Fortunately for the
Morning Call
, however, no chance of hob-nobbing with these personages came his way.

In late October he found that his more exuberant animadversions on Government policy were being watered
down or even deleted from his printed articles. Then he was instructed to write on less controversial topics, and somewhat unwillingly he composed an appreciation of Mr Edison, the American inventor, who had just died; a disquisition suggested by a record-making flight from England to South Africa; and a review of a popular author's latest work on astronomy. But he took little pleasure in work of this kind, and he was worried to find that his political essays were no longer to the liking of Lady Mercy and Barney Wardle. It occurred to him that Nelly Bly might be more in Lady Mercy's confidence than he was, and he decided to ask her opinion of his position on the
Morning Call
and, if possible, to discover from her the inner facts of the whole situation.

He telephoned to her and asked her to dine with him that evening. But Nelly answered she would be working till nearly ten o'clock: if, however, he cared to call for her then she would be delighted to eat a sandwich and drink some beer with him at the Café Royal. Magnus readily agreed to do this, and wasted most of the day speculating on the result of his inquiry.

A little before nine he was surprised by the arrival of Margaret Innes. He concealed his lack of pleasure behind a mask of cordiality, and for some time she conducted herself as though this unheralded visit were nothing that called for special comment or explanation. She told him that she had been very busy, and when she talked of professional matters she spoke in a cold common-sensical voice. A glimpse of her surgery manner appeared. But when she reverted to personal affairs she seemed less sure of herself.

After a short silence, during which Magnus looked at the clock and wondered when he should tell her that he was pledged to go elsewhere that evening, Margaret said, ‘Perhaps I shouldn't have come so unexpectedly, but I was feeling terribly lonely tonight. The children were in bed, and I'd nothing to do. I've been hoping all the time that you would ring me up, but I suppose you're terribly busy nowadays.'

‘Yes, I've been busy,' said Magnus.

‘I began to think about you and to remember some of the
things you told me about India and New York and all sorts of places. They were terribly amusing. I've never met any one who could talk so well as you—you know such a lot of interesting things—and the more I thought about you the more I wanted to see you. So I just came.'

Margaret smiled appealingly, and Magnus, despite his perception that the situation was going to be embarrassing, could not help feeling pleased by her flattery. To show that it was not unjustified he began to speak about nothing in particular, advanced by easy stages to a discussion of human nature, and after ten minutes' traffic in mixed ideas concluded his monologue with a pleasant little paradox that he had used already in his review of the popular astronomer's latest work.

‘Isn't it charming,' he said, ‘that in this age of astronomical knowledge, this age that's aware of man's littleness and eccentricity in the universe, people should still say, quite happily, “The sun is trying to break through the clouds”?'

‘Yes,' said Margaret with a start, ‘it is, isn't it?'

Magnus looked at her suspiciously. ‘Were you listening?' he asked.

‘Of course I was! It was terribly interesting.'

Magnus controlled his temper with difficulty. He was very angry that his paradox should have crashed itself to death against the blank wall of her inattention.

‘Are you cross with me?' she asked.

‘No,' said Magnus, ‘but I've just remembered I must go out tonight. I've an appointment at ten o'clock.'

Margaret looked troubled. She leaned over and put her hand on his knee. ‘Have I made you angry? I was listening, really I was, but then I began to think of something else and I didn't quite hear what you said. I've had such a tiring day, and though I try to forget all about patients and things when I go out, it's not easy, and I keep remembering them. But I'm sorry if I've offended you.'

‘I'm not offended,' said Magnus, ‘and I'm not angry. But I have to go out; I'm meeting someone at ten o'clock.'