The Wimsey Papers (4 page)

I say, I would pull down everything. I am not being barbarian or perverse - I am being purely logical. Consider how in former days, when Reason was still acknowledged as a universal reality, the structure of buildings was adapted to the method of warfare in vogue. The mediaeval castle or town expected assault horizontally, from arrows or primitive artillery: it was therefore defended vertically with thick exterior walls and loophole windows. Today, attack may be looked for vertically from the air - would not the logical consequence be to remove the defences from wall to roof - from the vertical to the horizontal position? Yes, as the science of ballistics and acrobatics advances, we continue, in defiance of common sense to erect tall buildings with immense acres of glass and even with glass skylights! If we did not suffer from a dislocation of mind that prevents any rational synthesis of aim, we should model our domestic architecture upon the Maginot Line. We should build downwards and interpose at least thirty feet of good, smothering earth between ourselves and air-borne high explosive.
You will say: Do you wish to turn us into Troglodytes? Why not? "Troglodyte" is a descriptive epithet; it is not a term of abuse. When the development of civilisation makes it appropriate to dwell in caves, then to be a Troglodyte is highly civilised.
Consider the increased beauty and utility of the country-side when all the ugly evidences of man's habitation shall have been removed to a decent subterranean privacy! The whole face of England would be one uninterrupted countryside, embellished only by such elegant relics of overground civilisation as might be thought worthy of preservation, such as cathedrals, castles, colleges, family mansions, and so forth. These would be maintained as a national heritage, and could be made the objects of excursions and educational visits, by means of the surface-roads, which I would have reserved purely for pleasurable purposes. No longer would it be necessary to traverse many miles of hideous suburbs to gain the open country. Rural delights would be - not at your door, but on your roof; the nearest municipal lift would life you and your car, in a few minutes, into the enjoyment of the wide open spaces. No longer would rich arable land be rendered sterile by the operations of the speculative builder. On every foot of English soil, the corn would wave, trees flourish, and flocks and herds find pasture. At threat of aerial assault, the cattle could be swiftly removed to a safe harbour below ground where they and the civil population could remain at ease while the bombs exploded harmlessly over their heads.
Defence would be greatly simplified. Nothing would need to be guarded except the entrances and ventilating shafts; and indeed these, in time of emergency, could be closed in by strong trapdoors and covered with sandbags, while a central plant dispensed chemically produced artificial air to the protected city. Thus attention could be concentrated upon sea-routes and coastal defences, with great economy of man-power. The disposal of sewage presents itself to me as problem - but I have no doubt that engineering ingenuity could deal with it by pumps, septic tanks and so forth, transporting it to sewage farms placed on the surface at a sufficient distance from the pleasure-routes. (After all, the Maginot Line presumably enjoys sanitary advantages of this kind.)
As for transport and communications, these would be carried, as the Mersey traffic is at present, by great arterial tunnels for road and electric rail, which would also form conduits for water, electricity, telephones et hoc genus omne. Ventilation would be artificial, as proposed for the Channel Tunnel; and as the lighting would be equally good by night and by day no headlamps would be necessary. Only light vehicles would be permitted on the surface-ways; every species of monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, whether lorry, omnibus, army caterpillar or goods-train, would be confined below, to the great improvement of the landscape and the general amenities of travel.
To an underground population, the English climate would be robbed of more than half its terrors; and in addiotn, there would be a great saving in such items of domestic expenditure as rain-proofing, frost-proofing and heating. You cannot have failed to notice the equable temperature of such natural caves as Wookey Hole, for example, which are warmer in winter and cooler in summer than any spot on the surface. This economy would counterbalance the necessarily increased expenditure in lighting. No doubt there would be a great outcry from old-fashioned persons of the fresh-air brigade; but, as you know, I have no prejudices in favour of "le courant d'air" any more than any other healthy animal. My cat and my dog are not such unnatural fools as to sleep - or endeavour to sleep - exposed to the violent stimulants of strong air and light; they very sensibley choose the snuggest corner, and bury eyes and nose as deeply as possible in their fur. Thus they anaesthetise themselves to slumber, in the same manner as birds and other creatures that are not afraid to trust their God-given instincts. Animals prefer to be either definitely indoors or definitely out-of-doors. It is "man, proud man," who confounds all natural distinctions by setting the windows of his house ajar and taking his outdoor exercise enclosed in a box. Thus, either way, he relinquishes the healthy enjoyment of cosiness on the one hand and fresh air on the other, to indulge in a perverted passion for draughts. Not that I condemn his passion as such, for all man's passions are perverted; I object, logically, to his miscalling them virtues, and breaking all natural laws in the name of "Nature."
No, my dear child: if we truly desire to see "England's green and pleasant land," let us refrain from building a shoddy brick Jerusalem all over it. Let us quietly dig ourselves in - and this not merely "dig for victory," as the new-fangled slogan runs, but "dig for peace" by removing the temptation to aerial attack which a great, sprawling, vulnerable network of open town must of necessity present to the ill-disposed. No doubt the period of transition would be costly, but less so than a war, and in time we should so adapt our lives and resources that to dig would be as cheap as the buildings of sky-scrapers. Further, agricultural and industrial pursuits could be carried on without mutual interference: towns would no longer devastate agrarian sites, nor would the free pursuit of rural occupations obstruct the proper development of urban districts. All would be orderly; all would be safe; all would be beautiful.
I have, of course, no hope that my reasonable counsel will prevail in the face of rooted prejudice, vested interests and the steady refusal of mankind to contemplate radical changes in their mode of living. I have just read that, last week, three barrage balloons broke loose, fouled the overhead power cables and plunged half a county into darkness. Need I point out that, in the Utopia I contemplate, there would have been no necessity for the balloons and no overhead cables for them to foul? Would any body of people except English business men ever put high-tension cables in the air, to be a menace to birds, cattle, aeroplanes and human beings and perpetually vulnerable to atmospherical conditions and trifling accidents? The excuse given is that it will prove still more costly to bury a defunct civilisation, and that a live rabbit is better than a dead donkey.
I send you my little idea; you might make a novel out of it. It is proof, at any rather, that a rationally-minded person is never too old to contemplate revolution.
Meilleures amitiés. Embrasse les enfants de ma part.
Bien à toi -
PAUL AUSTIN DELAGARDIE
9. Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver, to Lady Peter Wimsey (Harriet Vane) at Talboys.
THE DOWER HOUSE,
BREDON HALL,
DUKE'S DENVER, NORFOLK.
December 15th, 1939.
Dearest Harriet,
How tiresome for you that Polly should have caught this horrid 'flu germ! I can't think why the Almight should have wanted to make such a lot of the nasty little creatures - misplaced ingenuity I should call it in anybody else. Though I read in a book the other day that germs were probably quite well-behaved, originally, but had taken to bad habits and living on other people, like mistletoe. Interesting, if true, and all Adam and Eve's fault, no doubt. Anyway, I saw Mary in Town and told her not to worry and she sent love and said how sweet of you to stay at home and look after her erring offspring.
I hope you have received all the parcels. I couldn't get a gas-mask case to match the dress-pattern exactly, but the one I sent tones in pretty well, I think. The shoes have had to be specially dyed, I'm afraid - it seems to be rather a difficult colour. I hope the Christmas cards will do. I had a terrible time with the sacred ones - there seems to be nothing this year between quaint missals and modern ones with the Virgin and angels either very thin and willowy and ten feet tall, or else very chubby and smirking, such an unrobust idea of the whole affair, don't you think? The attendant in the last shop - I tried five - was deeply apologetic. She said it wasn't their fault - the public insisted on sentiment, and the clergy were much the worst - personal taste, I wonder, or pandering to what they think their flocks prefer? Such as mistake, too, to imagine that children approve of Baby Cherubs and little darling boys and girls swarming over everything. At least, I know my children always wanted stories and pictures about proper-sized people, whether it was knights or cavaliers or pirates or St. Michael all in scarlet with a big sword, and just the same with their dolls and things - I suppose it gave them a grown-up feeling and counteracted their inferiority complexes and things.
Never shall I forget the contempt of my nursery for a most well-meaning present from my sister Georgiana, now dead, poor dear, of a Maude Goodman. (That was the present, I mean, now what she died of. They were thought very sweet in the 'nineties, little girls dressed like Kate Greenaway, with their hair done up on the top, dancing to elegant ladies and gentlemen playing the harpsichord.) I'm sorry to say that the boys took it out of the frame and used it as a target for pea-shooting, poor Georgiana, her feelings were dreadfully hurt when she discovered it calling unexpectedly one day when I was out and invading the nursery, always such a rash thing to do. It's only grown-ups who want children to be children; children themselves always want to be real people - do remember that dear, won't you? But I'm sure you will, because you're always most tactful with them, even with your own Bredon - more like a friend than a parent, so to speak. All this cult of keeping young as long as possible is a lot of unnatural nonsense, no wonder the world seems to get sillier and sillier. Dear me! when I think of some of the Elizabeth Wimseys - the third Lord Christian, for instance, who could write four languages at eleven, left Oxford at fifteen, married at sixteen and had two wives and twelve children by the time he was thirty (two lots of twins, certainly, but it's all experience) besides producing a book of elegies and a learned exhibition [Qy. disquisition? D.L.S.] on Leviathans, and he would have done a great deal more, I dare say, if he hadn't unfortunately been killed by savages on Drake's first voyage to the Indies - I sometimes feel that our young people don't get enough out of life these days. Howeve, I hear Gherkins shot down a German bomber last week, and that's something, though I don't think he's likely to do very much with the languages or the Leviathans.
Talking of books, I had a heartfelt outburst from the young woman at the Library, who said she really didn't know what to do with some of the subscribers. If there isn't a brand-new book published for them every day they go in, they grumble frightfully, and they won't condescend to take anything that's a couple of months old, even if they haven't read it, which seems quite demented. They seem to spend their time running to catch up with the day after tomorrow - is it the influence of Einstein? The girl asked when there was going to be a new Harriet Vane murder-story. I said you thought the dictators were doing quite enough in that way, but she said her readers wanted their minds taken off dictators, though why murders should do that I don't know - you'd think it would remind them. I suppose people like to persuade themselves that death is a thing that only happens in books, and if you come to think of it, it that's probably the way the feel about religion, too -hence the pretty-pretty Christmas cards. All the same, I'm sending a few assorted murders to the poor dear men who are being so bored on the Balloon Barrage and jobs like that. So dull for them, poor things, and nobody seems to take much interest in them. More romantic, of course, to send them to men over-seas, but it can't be solitary out there as sitting up all night with a Blimp in darkest England.
Talking of darkest England, what one wants on the shops at night is not just a sign saying "Open," but something to show what they've got inside. They're allowed a little light on the goods - but if one's driving along one can't possibly see whether a pile of vague little shapes is cigarettes or chocolates or bath buns or something to do with wireless sets - and it doesn't help much to see just "J. Blogg" or "Pumpkin and Co.," unless you know what Blogg or Pumpkin is supposed to be selling. And even so, the poor souls have to go through a terrible fuss to get their lighting authorised. The garage people told Roberts (he's driving me now, Pickett having been called up) how they got permission from the chief A.R.P. officer to have a red night sign inside the archway, and he came along and saw it and gave it his blessing. Well, the very first night they had it lit, along came the police and tackled the night attendant - rather ancient and deaf, but quite capable of seeing to the pumps - and told the old boy to put it out or he'd get summonsed. So he said it had been approved by the A.R.P. chief. So they said, never mind the A.R.P. chief, he must put it out instantly or be arrested! In the end the manager had to go and make a commotion, and in the end they got it back. Too many cooks, of course - but what I say is, Sir John Anderson ought to get somebody to design a set of standardised signs with standardised lighting - just a plain, well-drawn outline of what the shop contains, so that you could recognise it from a distance. You could have it set into the middle of a black blind - then all you've to do is draw down the blind, light the sign from the back, and there you are. Something very simple is all you want - such as a Teapot for a Café, Pipe for a Tobacconist, a Knife and Fork for a Restaurant, a Tankard for a Public House, and a Cow for a Milk-Bar - quite unmistakeable, and thoroughly mediaeval and charming, like the Goldbeater's Arm and the Chemist's Pestle and Mortar - you could keep those, of cours,e though I suppose you wouldn't often want to drop casually in on a Goldbeater after black-out time. It would be quite cheap, if standardised, and would save all the argument, and there couldn't be any favouritism or discrepancies - just apply to the local police for your authorised sign. But there, it's only an old woman's notion - much too simple to appeal to a Ministry!