Poor Caroline (27 page)

In the Earl's Court Road is a small foreign restaurant,
open till midnight. There Roger took Eleanor, and they sat
together at a table beside the window, lit by a pink-shaded
lamp. He ordered coffee and sandwiches, and while they waited for their order to be carried out, Eleanor smoked.

'I want to know something,' Roger said at last. 'You
needn't tell me unless you like, but my curiosity is piqued.'

'What is it?'

'Why did you say, when I first met you, that you could
not forget me, and you might not forgive?'

She smiled at him quizzically over her cigarette. 'You
remember that? Oh-Well.' Then to his surprise a sudden
rosy blush poured over her cheeks and neck, and she pressed
out the stump of her cigarette with firm brown fingers.
'Well -' she began again.

'Don't tell me if it's only absurd - or embarrassing. I
assure you that it's the idlest curiosity tempting me to ask.
Also I should hate to feel unforgiven by you, if it were
possible to rectify the evil.'

'Well, the position's this,' she said at length. 'You've cost
me three thousand pounds.'

'I've what? I beg your pardon -'

'Well - it was like this. Caroline took me to church. I
don't often go. I'm really a member of the Dutch Reformed
Church, and anyway, I'm an agnostic.' She looked up with
a sort of challenge, but he only nodded gravely.

'Yes?'

'Well. I'd been rather unhappy and very dissatisfied with
a good many things, myself most of all. But you preached
about the dishonesty of compromise, and the young man
who went away sorrowful because he had great possessions.
It wasn't - excuse my saying so - an awfully good sermon.
But I'm a Socialist. And I was tired of doing things by halves. So I took your advice.'

'I - see.'

He did not pour out the coffee, but sat looking at her.

'And now that I've done it, it all seems rather stupid,
because I've got to work much harder than I used to do,
simply
to get my own living, whereas, when I was a capi
talist, I could do quite a lot for other people. I believe I was
more useful before.'

'Do you mean to say that you gave away
all
your money?'

'Not quite all. I reserved enough to finish my training and keep me till I could keep myself. I shall have to sell the car,
though.'

'You gave it all to the Christian Cinema Company?'

'Caroline calls it an investment. But I don't suppose I
shall ever see any of it again. What do you think?'

'I don't know. I really don't know much about the com
pany. But -'

'But?'

'Aren't you interested in the company?'

'No. I think it's rather a frost really, don't you?'

'Then why on earth -?'

'Oh, I don't know. It's difficult to explain. I suppose
that I wanted to play providence a little. That's what most
charity is - a way of making oneself an amateur God. I
don't think it's the right way, though. It's too easy. And it
doesn't bring any real satisfaction. You'd better register that for future sermons. One can't buy peace of mind like
a block of shares in governme
nt securities. It doesn't work.'

'Will you sell your shares then?'

'Would you?'

'That's hardly to the point. I seem to have done enough damage without inflicting any more of my opinions upon you.'

'Damage?'

'Well -'

'How typical of the Church! You preach the most uncompromising doctrine that was ever invented and as soon
as anyone takes you literally, you're shocked beyond ex
pression. I suppose you're not accustomed to
converts. Am I your first?'

'If you were a convert, I suppose you would be. But I'm
not going to put you down to my credit yet.'

'Yet?'

'Well - Hope as well as Faith and Charity were com
mended to us.'

She sighed, as though she we
re tired, and dropped her
chin on to her hands.

'You don't seem very jubilant about it. I don't know that
I expected anyone would be, except Caroline. And of
course, you're right. If all the members of your Church
obeyed its precepts literally there'd be the most frightful
economic revolution to-morrow. We'd all be taking off our
coats and giving them away with our cloak also. Every
working man paid to walk one mile would walk two, and so
upset the foreign markets by undercutting all our com
mercial rivals. The banks would crash, because everyone would be selling all their securities and giving to the poor, and the only hope left to us would be an immediate Second
Coming to get us all out of the mess we'd fallen into.'

'Ah, but that is where the Catholic Church has learned
wisdom. She safeguards us so cautiously from the conse
quences of our impetuosity.'

'Humph. You think then that my running amok and
flinging away my capital is the result of being an unbalanced
agnostic individualist, and that if I'd belonged to your Holy
Mother the Church I should have known that you didn't
really mean what you said about refusing to compromise,
because every saying has its symbol, and only the bar
barians have not learned how to avoid their literal interpre
tation. Is that it?'

'Something like that, perhaps. But I really didn't want to
score points at the moment. I'm wondering what can be
done. I feel a certain responsibility about your investments.
Of course, if the Christian Cinema Company were to turn
out a financial success you'd be all right.'

'And God's mysterious ways would be justified, I suppose?
Well, Caroline of course says I'm going to make my fortune.
I doubt it, and still I think that Macafee is a clever fellow and there really may be something in his inventions. What
do you think?'

Roger did not want to talk about Macafee. He wanted to
discuss Eleanor and her predicament. He was distressed a
nd
at the same time excited to discover that he should have
exerted, however unconsciously, a decisive influence upon
her actions. He was perturbed about her possible difficulties.

He
pressed her for further information about herself, about
her home in South Africa, and her brother in the States.

'But of course, he's practically a stranger to me now,' she
said. 'And I never had much in common with him. What
a farce it is, all this talk about family feeling and blood being
thicker than water. I am quite prepared to accept the physiological fact that blood is thicker than water. But
what does that prove? That I can make my brother understand how I feel about things? Nonsense!'

The sleepy waiter was hovering by their table. It was
long after eleven, but Eleanor made no move to go, and
Roger was well content that he should sit and watch the
pink light from the lamp flushing her grave and rather stub
born face. He thought her casual, grave, reckless, and a
little scornful. Her contempt for the Church, her indiffer
ence to her own interests, and her half-mocking admiration
for her cousin Caroline attracted him. When at last she
rose, pulling on her big gauntlets, and yawning, he was
conscious of acute regret.
'Must we go?' he said.

'It's nearly midnight, and I've got to garage my car - and
work to-morrow.'

'So have I - to work to-morrow, I mean. Can't I garage
your car for you?' 'Can you drive?'

'My people had an Austin - and I had a tumbledown
Singer for some years.'

'I forgot that clergymen did those sort of ordinary things
that real men do.'
'And I am not a real man?'

'Well, clergymen somehow aren't quite proper men, are
they?'

'Aren't they? The devil they aren't,' he laughed, but he
was stung. He could have borne deliberate insult, but this
indifferent assumption infuriated him. Not quite a proper
man? He'd like to show her.

Inwardly raging, outwardly polite, he walked back with her to the car, escorted her from the garage to the club and said good night. Then he set off to walk home through the
empty lamplit and moonlit streets.

Somehow or other, he told himself, he was responsible for
Eleanor de la Roux's rash investment. It was therefore his
duty to inquire into the prospects of the Christian Cinema Company and make quite sure what damage he had done.
Eleanor must not be allowed to lose all her money. It was absurd - a girl like her, throwing away her capital like that.
He became quite excited about it, and determined to
call upon Mis
s Denton-Smyth as soon as possible, extract
the whole truth from her and prevent her robbery of
orphans.

Then he called himself a fool, for the girl was perfectly capable of looking after her own interests. She was hard and
keen and efficient. She
did not want interference in her
affairs, especially by someone
who was not quite
a proper
man. The comic curate, he said to himself. That is how she
sees me - the comic curate, living on milk and buns.

He strode home to bed, his long legs devouring the dis
tance between Eleanor's club and his Clergy House. He
went to his bleak, cell-like room and spent a very long time
in rather violent prayer. When he fell asleep he dreamed
that he attended again the Women's Social Evening of an
East End Club in
which he once had worked.

In the gaunt whitewashed hall a band played jazz music. On the floor three couples of young girls were dancing to
gether, their charming faces intent, their young slim bodies
moving with grave precision. Their hair was waved, their
lips scarlet, their dresses
of cheap satin or mercerized cotton
symbolized their youth, their pride, their vitality and se
lf-
respect. They danced with sensuous yet sober pleasure,
proud, sweet, slim, lovely, unbroken things. Against the
wall sat a row of older women. Their wedding rings had
sunk into the flesh of their crippled fingers. Their grey sag
ging faces drooped into slackened necks which slid into huge,
shapeless bosoms and distended stomachs. Their swollen
legs bulged out of broken shoes. Life, work, child-bearing
and poverty had torn their bodies, making hideous what had
b
een lovely, draining their vitality and robbing them of self-
respect. They laughed with toothless pleasure ov
er bawdy jokes; they tapped th
eir feet in response to the music; they
clapped their gnarled, grime-stained han
ds. They watched
the young girls dancing, making from time to time unseemly
jests in husky undertones.