Eight

Two nights later Adam and Nina took Ginger to the party in the captive dirigible. It was not a really good evening. The long drive in Ginger’s car to the degraded suburb where the airship was moored chilled and depressed them, dissipating the gaiety which had flickered rather spasmodically over Ginger’s dinner.

The airship seemed to fill the whole field, tethered a few feet from the ground by innumerable cables over which they stumbled painfully on the way to the steps. These had been covered by a socially minded caterer with a strip of red carpet.

Inside, the saloons were narrow and hot, communicating to each other by spiral staircases and metal alleys. There were protrusions at every corner, and Miss Runcible had made herself a mass of bruises in the first half-hour. There was a band and a bar and all the same faces. It was the first time that a party was given in an airship.

Adam went aloft to a kind of terrace. Acres of inflated silk blotted out the sky, stirring just perceptibly in the breeze. The lights of other cars arriving lit up the uneven grass. A few louts had collected round the gates to jeer. There were two people making love to each other near him on the terrace, reclining on cushions. There was also a young woman he did not know, holding one of the stays and breathing heavily; evidently she felt unwell. One of the lovers lit a cigar and Adam observed that they were Mary Mouse and the Maharajah of Pukkapore.

Presently Nina joined him. “It seems such a waste,” she said, thinking of Mary and the Maharajah, “that two very rich people like that should fall in love with each other.”

“Nina,” said Adam, “let’s get married soon, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it’s a bore not being married.”

The young woman who felt ill passed by them, walking shakily, to try and find her coat and her young man to take her home.

“… I don’t know if it sounds absurd,” said Adam, “but I do feel that a marriage ought to go on—for quite a long time, I mean. D’you feel that too, at all?”

“Yes, it’s one of the things about a marriage!”

“I’m glad you feel that. I didn’t quite know if you did. Otherwise it’s all rather bogus, isn’t it?”

“I think you ought to go and see papa again,” said Nina. “It’s never any good writing. Go and tell him that you’ve got a job and are terribly rich and that we’re going to be married before Christmas!”

“All right. I’ll do that.”

“… D’you remember last month we arranged for you to go and see him the first time?… just like this… it was at Archie Schwert’s party…”

“Oh, Nina, what a lot of parties.”

(… Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St. John’s Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming-baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in Paris—all that succession and repetition of massed humanity… Those vile bodies…)

He leaned his forehead, to cool it, on Nina’s arm and kissed her in the hollow of her forearm.

“I know, darling,” she said, and put her hand on his hair.

Ginger came strutting jauntily by, his hands clasped under his coattails.

“Hullo, you two,” he said. “Pretty good show this, what.”

“Are you enjoying yourself, Ginger?”

“Rather. I say, I’ve met an awful good chap called Miles. Regular topper. You know, pally. That’s what I like about a really decent party—you meet such topping fellows. I mean some chaps it takes absolutely years to know but a chap like Miles I feel is a pal straight away.”

Presently cars began to drive away again. Miss Runcible said that she had heard of a divine night club near Leicester Square somewhere where you could get a drink at any hour of the night. It was called the St. Christopher’s Social Club.

So they all went there in Ginger’s car.

On the way Ginger said, “That cove Miles, you know, he’s awfully queer…”

St. Christopher’s Social Club took some time to find.

It was a little door at the side of a shop, and the man who opened it held his foot against it and peeped round.

They paid ten shillings each and signed false names in the visitors’ book. Then they went downstairs to a very hot room full of cigarette smoke; there were unsteady tables with bamboo legs round the walls and there were some people in shirt sleeves dancing on a shiny linoleum floor.

There was a woman in a yellow beaded frock playing a piano and another in red playing the fiddle.

They ordered some whiskey. The waiter said he was sorry, but he couldn’t oblige, not that night he couldn’t. The police had just rung up to say that they were going to make a raid any minute. If they liked they could have some nice kippers.

Miss Runcible said that kippers were not very drunk-making and that the whole club seemed bogus to her.

Ginger said well anyway they had better have some kippers now they were there. Then he asked Nina to dance and she said no. Then he asked Miss Runcible and she said no, too.

Then they ate kippers.

Presently one of the men in shirt sleeves (who had clearly had a lot to drink before the St. Christopher Social Club knew about the police) came up to their table and said to Adam:

“You don’t know me. I’m Gilmour. I don’t want to start a row in front of ladies, but when I see a howling cad I like to tell him so.”

Adam said, “Why do you spit when you talk?”

Gilmour said, “That is a very unfortunate physical disability, and it shows what a howling cad you are that you mention it.”

Then Ginger said, “Same to you, old boy, with knobs on.”

Then Gilmour said, “Hullo, Ginger, old scout.”

And Ginger said, “Why, it’s Bill. You mustn’t mind Bill. Awfully stout chap. Met him on the boat.”

Gilmour said, “Any pal of Ginger’s is a pal of mine.”

So Adam and Gilmour shook hands.

Gilmour said, “This is a pretty low joint, anyhow. You chaps come round to my place and have a drink.”

So they went to Gilmour’s place.

Gilmour’s place was a bed-sitting-room in Ryder Street.

So they sat on the bed in Gilmour’s place and drank whiskey while Gilmour was sick next door.

And Ginger said, “There’s nowhere like London really you know.”

That same evening while Adam and Nina sat on the deck of the dirigible a party of quite a different sort was being given at Anchorage House. This last survivor of the noble town houses of London was, in its time, of dominating and august dimensions, and even now, when it had become a mere “picturesque bit” lurking in a ravine between concrete skyscrapers, its pillared facade, standing back from the street and obscured by railings and some wisps of foliage, had grace and dignity and otherworldliness enough to cause a flutter or two in Mrs. Hoop’s heart as she drove into the forecourt.

“Can’t you just see the ghosts?” she said to Lady Circumference on the stairs. “Pitt and Fox and Burke and Lady Hamilton and Beau Brummel and Dr. Johnson” (a concurrence of celebrities, it may be remarked, at which something memorable might surely have occurred). “Can’t you just see them—in their buckled shoes?”

Lady Circumference raised her lorgnette and surveyed the stream of guests debouching from the cloakrooms like City workers from the Underground. She saw Mr. Outrage and Lord Metroland in consultation about the Censorship Bill (a statesmanlike and much-needed measure which empowered a committee of five atheists to destroy all books, pictures and films they considered undesirable, without any nonsense about defense or appeal). She saw both Archbishops, the Duke and Duchess of Stayle, Lord Vanburgh and Lady Metroland, Lady Throbbing and Edward Throbbing and Mrs. Blackwater, Mrs. Mouse and Lord Monomark and a superb Levantine, and behind and about them a great concourse of pious and honorable people (many of whom made the Anchorage House reception the one outing of the year), their womenfolk well gowned in rich and durable stuffs, their menfolk ablaze with orders; people who had represented their country in foreign places and sent their sons to die for her in battle, people of decent and temperate life, uncultured, unaffected, unembarrassed, unassuming, unambitious people, of independent judgment and marked eccentricities, kind people who cared for animals and the deserving poor, brave and rather unreasonable people, that fine phalanx of the passing order, approaching, as one day at the Last Trump they hoped to meet their Maker, with decorous and frank cordiality to shake Lady Anchorage by the hand at the top of her staircase. Lady Circumference saw all this and sniffed the exhalation of her own herd. But she saw no ghosts.

“That’s all my eye,” she said.

But Mrs. Hoop ascended step by step in a confused but very glorious dream of eighteenth-century elegance.

The Presence of Royalty was heavy as thunder in the drawing room.

The Baroness Yoshiwara and the Prime Minister met once more.

“I tried to see you twice this week,” she said, “but always you were busy. We are leaving London. Perhaps you heard? My husband has been moved to Washington. It was his wish to go…”

“No. I say, Baroness… I had no idea. That’s very bad news. We shall all miss you terribly.”

“I thought perhaps I would come to make my adieux. One day next week.”

“Why, yes, of course, that would be delightful. You must both come to dine. I’ll get my secretary to fix something up tomorrow.”

“It has been nice being in London… you were kind.”

“Not a bit. I don’t know what London would be without our guests from abroad.”

“Oh, twenty damns to your great pig face,” said the Baroness suddenly and turned away.

Mr. Outrage watched her bewildered. Finally he said, “For East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet” (which was a poor conclusion for a former Foreign Secretary).

Edward Throbbing stood talking to the eldest daughter of the Duchess of Stayle. She was some inches taller than he and inclined slightly so that, in the general murmur of conversation, she should not miss any of his colonial experiences. She wore a frock such as only duchesses can obtain for their elder daughters, a garment curiously puckered and puffed up and enriched with old lace at improbable places, from which her pale beauty emerged as though from a clumsily tied parcel. Neither powder, rouge nor lipstick had played any part in her toilet and her colorless hair was worn long and bound across her forehead in a broad fillet. Long pearl drops hung from her ears and she wore a tight little collar of pearls round her throat. It was generally understood that now Edward Throbbing was back these two would become engaged to be married.

Lady Ursula was acquiescent if unenthusiastic. When she thought about marriage at all, which was rarely (for her chief interests were a girls’ club in Canning Town and a younger brother at school), she thought what a pity it was that one had to be so ill to have children. Her married friends spoke of this almost with relish and her mother with awe.

An innate dilatoriness of character rather than any doubt of the ultimate issue kept Edward from verbal proposal. He had decided to arrange everything before Christmas and that was enough. He had no doubt that a suitable occasion would soon be devised for him. It was clearly suitable that he should marry before he was thirty. Now and then when he was with Ursula he felt a slight quickening of possessive impulse towards her fragility and distance; occasionally when he read some rather lubricious novel or saw much lovemaking on the stage he would translate the characters in his mind and put Lady Ursula, often incongruously, in the place of the heroine. He had no doubt that he was in love. Perhaps he would propose this very evening and get it over. It was up to Lady Ursula to engineer an occasion. Meanwhile he kept the conversation on to the subject of labor problems in Montreal, about which his information was extensive and accurate.

“He’s a nice, steady boy,” said the Duchess, “and it’s a comfort, nowadays, to see two young people so genuinely fond of each other. Of course, nothing is actually arranged yet, but I was talking to Fanny Throbbing yesterday, and apparently Edward has already spoken to her on the subject. I think that everything will be settled before Christmas. Of course, there’s not a great deal of money, but one’s learned not to expect that nowadays, and Mr. Outrage speaks very highly of his ability. Quite one of the coming men in the party.”

“Well,” said Lady Circumference, “you know your own business, but if you ask me I shouldn’t care to see a daughter of mine marry into that family. Bad hats every one of them. Look at the father and the sister, and from all I hear the brother is rotten all through.”

“I don’t say it’s a match I should have chosen myself. There’s certainly a bad strain in the Malpractices… but you know how headstrong children are nowadays, and they seem so fond of each other… and there seem so few young men about. At least I never seem to see any.”

“Young toads, the whole lot of them,” said Lady Circumference.

“And these terrible parties which I’m told they give. I don’t know what I should have done if Ursula had ever wanted to go to them… the poor Chasms…”

“If I were Viola Chasm I’d give that girl a thunderin’ good hidin’.”

The topic of the Younger Generation spread through the company like a yawn. Royalty remarked on their absence and those happy mothers who had even one docile daughter in tow swelled with pride and commiseration.

“I’m told that they’re having another of their parties,” said Mrs. Mouse, “in an aeroplane this time.”

“In an aeroplane? How very extraordinary.”

“Of course, I never hear a word from Mary, but her maid told my maid…”

“What I always wonder, Kitty dear, is what they actually do at these parties of theirs. I mean, do they…?”

“My dear, from all I hear, I think they do.”

“Oh, to be young again, Kitty. When I think, my dear, of all the trouble and exertion which we had to go through to be even moderately bad… those passages in the early morning, and mama sleeping next door.”

“And yet, my dear, I doubt very much whether they really appreciate it all as much as we should… young people take things so much for granted. Si la jeunesse savait.”

“Si la vieillesse pouvait, Kitty.”

Later that evening Mr. Outrage stood almost alone in the supper room drinking a glass of champagne. Another episode in his life was closed, another of those tantalizing glimpses of felicity capriciously withdrawn. Poor Mr. Outrage, thought Mr. Outrage; poor, poor old Outrage, always just on the verge of revelation, of some sublime and transfiguring experience; always frustrated… Just Prime Minister, nothing more, bullied by his colleagues, a source of income to low caricaturists. Was Mr. Outrage an immortal soul, thought Mr. Outrage; had he wings, was he free and unconfined, was he born for eternity? He sipped his champagne, fingered his ribbon of the Order of Merit, and resigned himself to the dust.

Presently he was joined by Lord Metroland and Father Rothschild.

“Margot’s left—gone on to some party in an airship. I’ve been talking to Lady Anchorage for nearly an hour about the younger generation.”

“Everyone seems to have been talking about the younger generation tonight. The most boring subject I know.”

“Well, after all, what does all this stand for if there’s going to be no one to carry it on?”

“All what?” Mr. Outrage looked round the supper room, deserted save for two footmen who leaned against the walls looking as waxen as the clumps of flowers sent up that morning from hothouses in the country. “What does all what stand for?”

“All this business of government.”

“As far as I’m concerned it stands for a damned lot of hard work and precious little in return. If those young people can find a way to get on without it, good luck to them.”

“I see what Metroland means,” said Father Rothschild.

“Blessed if I do. Anyway I’ve got no children myself, and I’m thankful for it. I don’t understand them, and I don’t want to. They had a chance after the war that no generation has ever had. There was a whole civilization to be saved and remade—and all they seem to do is to play the fool. Mind you, I’m all in favor of them having a fling. I dare say that Victorian ideas were a bit straitlaced. Saving your cloth, Rothschild, it’s only human nature to run a bit loose when one’s young. But there’s something wanton about these young people today. That stepson of yours, Metroland, and that girl of poor old Chasm’s and young Throbbing’s brother.”

“Don’t you think,” said Father Rothschild gently, “that perhaps it is all in some way historical? I don’t think people ever want to lose their faith either in religion or anything else. I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence. I think all these divorces show that. People aren’t content just to muddle along nowadays… And this word ‘bogus’ they all use… They won’t make the best of a bad job nowadays. My private schoolmaster used to say, ‘If a thing’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well.’ My Church has taught that in different words for several centuries. But these young people have got hold of another end of the stick, and for all we know it may be the right one. They say, ‘If a thing’s not worth doing well, it’s not worth doing at all.’ It makes everything very difficult for them.”

“Good heavens, I should think it did. What a darned silly principle. I mean to say, if one didn’t do anything that wasn’t worth doing well—why, what would one do? I’ve always maintained that success in this world depends on knowing exactly how little effort each job is worth… distribution of energy… And, I suppose, most people would admit that I was a pretty successful man.”

“Yes, I suppose they would, Outrage,” said Father Rothschild, looking at him rather quizzically.

But that self-accusing voice in the Prime Minister’s heart was silent. There was nothing like a little argument for settling the mind. Everything became so simple as soon as it was put into words.

“And anyway, what do you mean by ‘historical’?”

“Well, it’s like this war that’s coming…”

“What war?” said the Prime Minister sharply. “No one has said anything to me about a war. I really think I should have been told. I’ll be damned,” he said defiantly, “if they shall have a war without consulting me. What’s a Cabinet for if there’s not more mutual confidence than that? What do they want a war for, anyway?”

“That’s the whole point. No one talks about it, and no one wants it. No one talks about it because no one wants it. They’re all afraid to breathe a word about it.”

“Well, hang it all, if no one wants it, who’s going to make them have it?”

“Wars don’t start nowadays because people want them. We long for peace, and fill our newspapers with conferences about disarmament and arbitration, but there is a radical instability in our whole world order, and soon we shall all be walking into the jaws of destruction again, protesting our pacific intentions.”

“Well, you seem to know all about it,” said Mr. Outrage, “and I think I should have been told sooner. This will have to mean a coalition with that old windbag Brown, I suppose.”

“Anyhow,” said Lord Metroland, “I don’t see how all that explains why my stepson should drink like a fish and go about everywhere with a negress.”

“I think they’re connected, you know,” said Father Rothschild. “But it’s all very difficult.”

Then they separated.

Father Rothschild pulled on a pair of overall trousers in the forecourt and, mounting his motor cycle, disappeared into the night, for he had many people to see and much business to transact before he went to bed.

Lord Metroland left the house in some depression. Margot had taken the car, but it was scarcely five minutes’ walk to Hill Street. He took a vast cigar from his case, lit it and sank his chin in the astrakhan collar of his coat, conforming almost exactly to the popular conception of a highly enviable man. But his heart was heavy. What a lot of nonsense Rothschild had talked. At least he hoped it was nonsense.

By ill fortune he arrived on the doorstep to find Peter Pastmaster fumbling with the lock, and they entered together. Lord Metroland noticed a tall hat on the table by the door. “Young Trumpington’s, I suppose,” he thought. His stepson did not once look at him, but made straight for the stairs, walking unsteadily, his hat on the back of his head, his umbrella still in his hand.

“Good night, Peter,” said Lord Metroland.

“Oh, go to hell,” said his stepson thickly, then, turning on the stairs, he added, “I’m going abroad tomorrow for a few weeks. Will you tell my mother?”

“Have a good time,” said Lord Metroland. “You’ll find it just as cold everywhere, I’m afraid. Would you care to take the yacht? No one’s using it.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

Lord Metroland went into the study to finish his cigar. It would be awkward if he met young Trumpington on the stairs. He sat down in a very comfortable chair… A radical instability Rothschild had said, radical instability… He looked round his study and saw shelves of books—the Dictionary of National Biography, the Encyclopaedia Britannica in an early and very bulky edition, Who’s Who, Debrett, Burke, Whitaker, several volumes of Hansard, some Blue Books and Atlases—a safe in the corner painted green with a brass handle, his writing table, his secretary’s table, some very comfortable chairs and some very businesslike chairs, a tray with decanters and a plate of sandwiches, his evening mail laid out on the table… radical instability, indeed. How like poor old Outrage to let himself get taken in by that charlatan of a Jesuit.

He heard the front door open and shut behind Alastair Trumpington.

Then he rose and went quietly upstairs, leaving his cigar smoldering in the ashtray, filling the study with fragrant smoke.

Quarter of a mile away the Duchess of Stayle went, as she always did, to say good night to her eldest daughter. She crossed the room and drew up the window a few inches, for it was a cold and raw night. Then she went over to the bed and smoothed the pillow.

“Good night, dear child,” she said. “I thought you looked sweet tonight.”

Lady Ursula wore a white cambric nightgown with a little yoke collar and long sleeves. Her hair hung in two plaits.

“Mama,” she said. “Edward proposed to me tonight.”

“Darling. What a funny girl you are. Why didn’t you tell me before? You weren’t frightened, were you? You know that your father and I are delighted at anything that makes our little girl happy.”

“Well, I said I wouldn’t marry him… I’m sorry.”

“But, my dear, it’s nothing to be sorry about. Leave it to your old mother. I’ll put it all right for you in the morning.”

“But, Mama, I don’t want to marry him. I didn’t know until it actually came to the point. I’d always meant to marry him, as you know. But somehow, when he actually asked me… I just couldn’t.”

“There, dear child, you mustn’t worry any more. You know perfectly well, don’t you, that your father and I would not let you do anything you didn’t want. It’s a matter that only you can decide. After all, it’s your life and your happiness at stake, not ours, isn’t it, Ursula?… but I think you’d better marry Edward.”

“But, Mama, I don’t want to… I couldn’t… it would kill me!”

“Now, now, my pet mustn’t worry her head about it anymore. You know your father and I only want your happiness, dear one. No one is going to make my darling girl do anything she doesn’t want to… Papa shall see Edward in the morning and make everything all right… dear Lady Anchorage was only saying tonight what a lovely bride you will make.”

“But, Mama…”

“Not another word, dear child. It’s very late and you’ve got to look your best for Edward tomorrow, haven’t you, love?”

The Duchess closed the door softly and went to her own room. Her husband was in his dressing room.

“Andrew.”

“What is it, dear? I’m saying my prayers.”

“Edward proposed to Ursula tonight.”

“Ah!”

“Aren’t you glad?”

“I told you, dear, I’m trying to say my prayers.”

“It’s a real joy to see the dear children so happy.”