Conference at Cold Comfort Farm

by Stella Gibbons

  After luncheon the delegates began to assemble in the Greate Kitchene, and while Flora was wandering about, glancing at the furnishings and growing more certain with every hour that a new task lay before her at the farm, she heard a voice which seemed familiar shouting away at the far end of the room. She glanced across. Yes, it was Mrs Ernestine Thump (hat, as usual, by Manqué et Cie), talking to Mr Hubris. Flora crossed the room and approached her.

  ‘How do you do, Mrs Thump. Would you like to see your room?’

  ‘Yes, yes, here I am,’ shouted Mrs Thump; ‘but I can’t stay longer than Friday by an early train, and I’m only fitting this in between a sitting of the W.F.A.A. Committee and a Constituents’ Rally at Little Drinking! Well, you look fitter than when we last met,’ surveying Flora, ‘but of course the air’s getting better everywhere since We took over! We like to keep in touch with intellectual doings, you know, and this Bill of Human Rights is right in line with Our planned co-ordination of industrial and agricultural activities. Personally, I look forward to an epoch when there shall no longer exist one square inch of unplanned, un-coordinated soil on the Globe! Ha! they’re going to begin! Come On!’

  However, Flora permitted Mrs Ernestine Thump to bound away into a seat opposite Mr Claud Hubris, while she herself took one conveniently near the door. On one side she had no neighbour; on the other was Mr Jones, still bearing on his countenance traces of the start of horror he had given upon first catching sight of Mrs Ernestine Thump. He offered Flora a boiled sweet, which she declined.

  Mr Claud Hubris, the Managerial Expert to end Managerial Experts, now rose to address the delegates. He was surrounded by members of the Managerial Revolutionary Party; supervising technicians, operating executives, and technological unemployment statistical research workers, all of whom sat with their neat, spectacled faces turned idolatrously towards him. The rest of the delegates looked pretty glum, and Mdlle Avaler, Flora observed, looked disrespectful.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Mr Claud Hubris began in a quick, fruity voice, smilingly flashing his glasses over the assembly, ‘we are here this afternoon to draw up, by means of that system of democratic discussion for which this island is globally famous, a Bill of Human Rights. Whatever our political views may be’ (Mr Hubris himself had no political views; he did not need them; he had enough power without) ‘I am sure that we are all agreed upon one fact: Man’s potentialities are enormous and still largely untapped.’

  Here all the supervisory technicians, superintendents, and administrative engineers clapped like mad, and the two Professors of Genetics, Breed and Brood, stamped with their feet, but Mdlle Avaler whistled through her teeth, as a French audience does when it dislikes an actor.

  ‘Largely untapped,’ repeated Mr Hubris. ‘In physics’ (frenzied clapping and hysterical laughter from Professors Farine, O. E. Cumulus and W. W. R. Token), ‘in the science of improving livestock’ (more feet-stamping from Professors Breed and Brood) – ‘in every branch, in fact, of applied scientific research, Man is on the up and up. Nothing, ladies and gentlemen, can stop us. We are on the up and up, and up-up-up we shall go!’

  Flora thought this very likely.

  ‘To quote the words of the late script-writer Shape-of-Things-to-Come Wells,’ continued Mr Hubris, when the thunderous applause had died away, ‘Man is Master In His Own House.’

  ‘He has ve brokers in!’ cooed Mdlle Avaler, with a maddening toss of her head.

  Mr Hubris darted her an indulgent glance, and resumed:

  ‘Now as to the Rights of the Human Race (shall we call it The Consumer? for it is in this aspect of its functions that we are fundamentally concerned with it), they are three.’ Mr Hubris paused, and tried to make his huge face look humane while he ticked off the three on his huge white fingers. ‘Nutriment, Employment, Domicile. The ladies,’ and here the face suddenly slipped alarmingly into a kind of smile, ‘would no doubt say that The Consumers (as we have agreed to call The Human Race) have also a right to Love.’ (A faint wolf-howl from Mr Jones, of which no one took the slightest notice.) ‘We concede that, of course. But Love is not an Essential. The Consumers cannot continue to function without Nutriment, Employment and Domicile, but, they can continue to function without Love. The same is true of art and beauty and nature and religion (except of course as nature is useful to The Consumers) and all that sort of thing. Very nice, no doubt. Very pleasant, no doubt. Very useful, in some cases, no doubt; they can all be employed in advertising. But NOT, ladies and gentlemen, NOT ESSENTIAL.

  ‘Now let us take Nutriment first,’ went on Mr Hubris, smiling round on the assembly like a jaguar. ‘I speak with authority here in my capacity as Acting Technical Adviser for Nutritional Necessities Inc., which has branches all over the Globe. My Corporation supplies substances containing sufficient calorific content to sustain life on a reasonable basis, and when I say that The Consumers have a right to such substances, I must of course qualify that statement by emphasizing that only those members among The Consumers who can pay for nutritional substances have a right to them. In other words, Nutritional Necessities Inc. will always sell to a buyer.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ cried Mrs Ernestine Thump, and Manqué et Cie’s hat fell over one glistening little eye.

  ‘For other Corporations, of course, I cannot speak. Indeed,’ and once more Mr Hubris’s teeth became visible to his fascinated audience, ‘now I come to think of it, I doubt if there are any other corporations. Nutritional Necessities Inc. has seen to that, vertically and horizontally. Nut: Nes: Inc: has ricefields in Dakota and soya-fields in Indo-China, acres of orchards in Italy, and drained fjords full of edible lichen in Norway. Wherever the digestive process is at work, there Nut: Nes: Inc: has been at work. That is our boast. We are also in close touch with the Ministry. They buy from us. That is why you, ladies and gentlemen, are regularly supplied with sufficient calories to sustain life on a reasonable basis.’

  There was another prolonged burst of applause, through which Mr Jones was heard to mutter: Suppose you want it on an unreasonable basis?

  ‘And believe me, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mr Claud Hubris, suddenly going grave, while a chilly cloud seemed to pass over the surface of his glasses, ‘it is a good thing. It is a much better thing. Waste, planlessness, all the uneconomic muddle of Nature – drought, flood, glut and scarcity – are all going to be done away with by Nut: Nes: Inc:. In the words of our Motto, God Knows How But We Know Better.’

  The applause that followed this was tremendous, and O. E. Cumulus fell under his chair, and had to be hauled up by Professor Farine. When it had ceased, Mr Hubris resumed, with what was intended for a sunny, reassuring smile:

  ‘So have no fear, ladies and gentlemen. The Race has a Right to Nutriment. Good! Nutritional Necessities Inc. will see to it that the Race never quite starves. Now as to Domicile. Domicile is generally admitted –’

  Here, as a wasp had flown in through an open window and was harrying the delegates in Flora’s vicinity, and as she had been aware for some time of slight sounds proceeding from the supposedly unoccupied Lytel Scullerie next door, she made off in pursuit of the wasp and escaped from the room.

  Having inhaled some fresh air, she looked round the Lytel Scullerie. The cool, whitewashed walls and stone floor, the enormous stone copper and equally enormous plate-rack of smooth, sodden wood, presented a peaceful appearance. All was now silent and as usual; except that tethered to the peckle-post in the miniature garden outside (formerly a cow-yard) was an exceedingly fat cow with only three legs, whose large eyes were almost closed as she munched her way through a clump of choice delphiniums.

  Flora looked at the copper. No one could get behind that. Then she looked into the dim corner by the plate-rack. Something appeared to be grubbing about there in the shadows, and, even as she saw it, a piping voice began:

  ‘Ay, ’tes lost and gone for ever, my treasure, my mippet. Curses on th’ black-hearted jealousboots as stole it from me all they years ago! Their fault will
come whoam to ’em – ay, it has come whoam, for they be all scattered abroad in foreign partses, leavin’ their maidies desolate, and th’ farm be all dolled up like an ailin’ cow’s dinner. Ay, the beastses, they knows! Nary a pig in sight, nor yet a cockerel nor sheepses. ’Tes enough to break a man’s heart, if he had not laid up a two-room cottage wi’ three acres o’ ground for himsel’, wi’ our Mistrust an’ our Mislay an’ our Mishap an’ our Misdemeanour all up at Howchiker Hall (blessin’s on ’er stately gowden head, my Lady Elfine!). Nay, ’tes not here, my lost treasure, and I mun away home again to Howchiker.’

  And out of the shadow came a little, very old man dressed in a white smock, and a cowherd’s hat largely composed of shreds of material held together by thorns. He wore laced boots and leggings and leant on a crooked stick.

  ‘Adam Lambsbreath!’ exclaimed Flora, pleased to see him, though he and she had never been favourites of one another’s. ‘Why, I thought you were –’

  She checked herself, but it was too late.

  ‘Ay, Robert Poste’s child,’ nodded Adam, scowling and resting his hands on his stick. ‘Ye thought I were dead. But I bean’t. See ee?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry I bean’t dead? Out on ee for a shameless heart o’ flint! Sich words in a man’s face!’ and he shook his stick at her.

  ‘No, no, of course I didn’t mean that. I am pleased to see you again, Adam.’ (She just prevented herself from saying something about old faces, and hurried on): ‘Er – it’s a long time since we met, isn’t it? I suppose you are still up at Haute-Couture Hall with Lady Hawk-Monitor?’

  ‘Ay, an’ like to be, Robert Poste’s child.’

  ‘Has she returned yet? I understand that the family was expected home from America this week.’

  ‘Ay, Robert Poste’s child. They’m all whoam: they come o’ Sattidy. But my Lady Elfine she’s still wild as a marsh-tigget. ’Tes not seemly for th’ mother o’ three gurt lads and four sonsy lasses to ride creerin’ round th’ landscapes on a horse.’

  ‘What were you looking for just now?’ Flora went on, and she leant comfortably back against the copper, at the same time giving a gentle push to the Lytel Scullerie door. It swung slowly to, and the sound of Mr Hubris’s voice grating on about Domiciles was reduced to a distant ululation suggesting a flying bomb that never came any nearer.

  ‘Me liddle mop,’ Adam answered. ‘Her as I did hev many a long year, hangin’ above t’ gurt old greasy washin’-up bowl.’

  ‘I remember.’ Flora decided not to remind him that it was she who had given him the little mop, a fact which he had apparently forgotten. ‘How did you come to lose it? Surely you took it when you and the cows went to live at Haute-Couture Hall?’

  ‘So I did. So I did, Robert Poste’s child. But there was them still livin’ at Cold Comfort as bore me malice in their black heartses, and ’twas them as did steal un from me.’

  ‘I say, what a shame! What did they do with it?’

  ‘Nay, how should I know, Robert Poste’s child? One says a-one thing, one du say a-nother, to be-dottle me, like. Some says as Mus’ Ezra, afore he went off to South Afriky, did fling un down th’ well up in Ticklepenny’s.’

  ‘Too bad. The well is still working, then?’ asked Flora, pleased to hear of something remaining as it used to be.

  ‘Nay. ’Tes all filled up.’

  ‘What on earth for, Adam?’

  ‘Nay, how should I know? Foolishness, belike.’

  Flora, too, thought that this was probably the explanation.

  A pause now ensued. Adam poked with his stick in the copper, and Flora gazed dreamily through the further door at the cow, who had begun upon a bed of choice carnations. The door of the Lytel Scullerie slowly blew open again in the breeze, and Flora heard

  ‘– governed by his rating as a socially productive unit, which indicates his integration within the social –’

  before she pushed it to again.

  It suddenly occurred to her that the cow’s face was familiar.

  ‘That cow is very like Feckless, Adam. Is she a relation?’ she said, wondering if it would be any use asking him to call her Mrs Fairford.

  ‘Ay,’ muttered Adam, still poking about in the copper with his back to her. ‘But our Feckless, she’m lyin’ in th’ churchyard mould, Robert Poste’s child, wi’ th’ liddle Live-and-Let-Live blossoms grow’n over un’s grave. Ay, near broke my heart, it did, when our Feckless were took.’

  ‘I am sorry. I hope she was not ill for long?’

  ‘A matter o’ six weeks. Not that it were an illness. ’Twere more a shock to her sperrits.’

  ‘She always was sensitive,’ said Flora, wishing to soothe him. ‘I remember her well.’

  ‘Ay. An’ Big Business, he were a – a close friend o’ our Feckless’s, if ee do remember that tu?’

  Flora nodded.

  ‘Big Business an’ Feckless an’ our Graceless an’ our Pointless an’ our Aimless, they was all close friends. Fair managed un all, Big Business did, an’ they looked up to he. Yon,’ and he nodded towards the cow, ‘yon’s our Feckless’s great-granddaughter.’

  ‘Really? How very interesting! But she’s not so pretty as Feckless was.’

  ‘Nay, nor niver could be, Robert Poste’s child. Do ee mind how our Feckless did perk up when Mus’ Reuben did become measter o’ th’ farm an’ did gie un a plenty to eat?’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ replied Flora. She remembered nothing of the sort, but it had suddenly occurred to her that Adam might know the secret of the shame that Big Business had brought upon the Starkadders and the farm, which Reuben had mentioned.

  ‘What did upset Feckless, after you had all gone to live at Haute-Couture Hall?’ she went on. ‘Was it something to do with Big Business?’

  Adam had now almost disappeared inside the copper, where he was still busily raking with his stick, but she could see the back of his neck, and it was almost as red as his spotted kerchief.

  ‘Nay, Robert Poste’s child. Ay; ay, ’twere. But it were somethin’ as be most unbefittin’ to mention to a maidy.’

  ‘But I bean’t – I mean, I’m not a maidy any more. I am Mrs Charles Fairford, and I have five children.’

  ‘Why couldn’t ee say so befirst?’ snapped Adam, coming hastily out of the copper. ‘Our Feckless did pine away for shame ’cause our Big Business did – did lend hisself out to th’ scientific gents.’

  ‘?’

  ‘Ay. Fur increasin’ th’ goodness o’ th’ livestock i’ these parts – ay, an’ in South Afriky, too, I hears.’

  ‘I understand,’ replied Flora, with reserve.

  ‘Ay. Th’ scientific gents did come round a-speerin’ an’ a-pleadin’, an’ Mus’ Micah an’ Mus’ Reuben (I were here at th’ time, a-seekin’ fur me lost treasure, an’ I hears what they says wi’ th’ tears nigh runnin’ down their false, black-hearted faces). Solemn-like they speaks, as if they were i’ church though they be only standin’ an’ jawin’ by th’ old duck-pond, an’ Mus’ Micah an’ Mus’ Reuben all be-swole i’ th’ face wi’ rage, but sayin’ niver a word.’

  ‘If they disapproved so strongly, why did they ever let Big Business go?’

  ‘’Twas th’ black-hearted Ministry as did send th’ scientific gents to Cold Comfort; an’ who dare say th’ Ministry nay? Ay, an’ th’ gents did be-dottle Mus’ Micah an’ Mus’ Reuben wi flatterin’. They says they has a Awful Responsibility. (I hears ’em.) Reely superior beastses (they says, argyfyin’-like) should spread their influence. An’ what wi’ th’ Ministry an’ what wi’ bein’ puffed up wi’ vanity, Mus’ Reuben an’ Mus’ Micah they lets our Big Business go. An’ ’twere the shame o’ it (him havin’ kept his affairs private up till then) as did break our Feckless’s lovin’ heart.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘In South Afriky, so I hears. Whin he did come whoam here after his journeyin’s, Mus’ Micah an’ th’ rest did take him off to that theer Grootebeeste, th’
Lord preserve him.’

  ‘Perhaps it was as well. I don’t quite know what a bull would do with himself at Cold Comfort nowadays.’

  ‘Them’s true wordses, Robert Poste’s child. ’Tes more like th’ Vicarage on Garden Party day, bean’t it? ’Tes flyin’ in th’ face o’ Natur’, I says.’

  ‘My own view exactly.’

  ‘Ay, an’ takin’ off our Big Business on yon scientific work were flyin’ in th’ face o’ Natur’, too. Very worst flyin’ in th’ face o’ Natur’ as iver I heerd on, that were. Why, Robert Poste’s child –’

  ‘Yes, but never mind that now. Shall we walk up to Ticklepenny’s Corner? We might look into the well, to see if your little mop is down there?’ For Flora judged from the enthusiasm of the latest burst of applause that the promulgation of the Bill of Human Rights was almost over, and she wished to avoid delegates hurrying out in search of admiration and tea.

  But Adam hesitated. Doubt and suspicion chased one another across the morbific crevasses of his facial terrain.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Flora enquired patiently.

  ‘Belike ee harbours some fearsome plot agin me an’ mine?’

  ‘I assure you I don’t. I’m far too busy.’

  ‘There be allus time an’ to spare for wickudness.’

  ‘Have it your own way, but I do think you might take a sporting chance on it.’

  ‘I’ll walk wi’ ee if so be as ee goes a-front o’ me an’ our Mishap,’ said Adam at last, untethering the cow (who was just finishing some selected alpines) and motioning Flora on with his stick.