by John Buchan
A nurse entered to give Scrope his medicine, and to warn Adam that the time permitted by the doctor was up. When she had gone, and Adam was on his feet to depart, the old man held his hand.
“This is good-bye. The troublesome accident we call death will come between us for a little. Presently I return to the anima mundi for a new birth. Let us put it in that way, for one metaphor is as good as another when we speak of mysteries. But I believe that I shall still be aware of this little world of time, and from somewhere in the stars I shall watch the antics of mankind. I think I shall see one thing. You will ride beside Raymond into Jerusalem . . . or if you cannot find your Raymond you will enter alone. . . .”
“I shall find my Raymond,” said Adam, “but I shall not ride beside him. . . .”
Scrope was not listening.
“Or,” he continued, his voice ebbing away into feebleness, “you will leave your body outside the gate.”
Falconet had been a regular if not very voluminous correspondent, but he had stuck to his own country. Early in the spring, however, he visited England and occupied his old flat in St James’s Street. He had changed little; he was still lean and dark and hawklike and impetuous, but his full lower lip projected more than ever as if he had encountered a good deal of opposition and had had some trouble with his temper.
“I’m mighty glad to see you,” he told Adam. “I’ve a whale of a lot to tell you and to hear from you. Which will begin? Me? Right. Well, I’ve got my lay-out pretty satisfactory and it’s starting to work. Dandiest bit of organisation you ever saw. Cross-bearings come in a flood whenever I press the button. Any fellow we fancy is passed on by those that don’t make mistakes. Result is, we’ve gotten some high-grade ore and pretty soon we shall have the precious metal.”
“Then you are satisfied?”
Falconet twisted his face.
“I’m satisfied that I’m going to add twenty per cent, or maybe twenty-five per cent, to the net competence of the American people. I’m on the way to grading up its quality. I’m saving for it a lot of fine stuff that would otherwise be stifled in its native mud. . . . That’s something, anyway.”
“But you don’t think it enough?”
Falconet laughed.
“Say, Adam, do you take me for a man that’s easy contented? I don’t think it enough — not by the length and breadth of hell. I’ve got some lads that will make good — one of them is going to be the biggest chemist on earth, they tell me — another will make big business sit up in a year or two. Fine work, you say. Yes, but it doesn’t come within a million miles of touching the spot. They’re going to make their names and their piles, but they’re not going to help America one little bit in the thing she needs. They’re not considering the real things, and if they were they wouldn’t be any manner of good. They’re not the type that can swing opinion.
“We’re in a mighty bad way,” he continued, getting to his feet and, after his fashion, picking up the sofa cushions, pummelling them, and flinging them down again. “Oh, I know we’re richer than Croesus — fat as Jeshurun, and consequently kicking. We have drawn in our skirts from poor old Europe in case we are defiled, and we are looking to go on prospering in God’s country and letting the world go hang. It won’t be God’s country long at that rate. Our pikers don’t see that in the end they can’t keep out of the world any more than they kept out of the war. We’re as smug as a mayor of a one-horse township that imagines his burg the centre of creation. How in hell can you get quality into a nation that don’t believe in quality — that just sits back and counts its dollars and thanks God that it isn’t as other men? What we need is a change of view — not heart, for our heart’s sound enough — the trouble is with our eyes. But as I say, there’s nobody that can swing opinion. I’ve done my best, and I’ve been giving a good deal of attention to my newspapers. You know I bought the Beacon. I’ve got a crackerjack of an editor, and day in and day out we keep on preaching common sense. But we’re only read by the converted, and don’t cut any ice with the masses. That’s the cursed thing about a democracy. In the old days, when you had converted the King and the Prime Minister you had done your job, but now you have got to convert about a hundred million folks that don’t know the first thing about the question. Cut out a strip of the East and we’re the most ignorant nation on earth about fundamentals. We have built up a wonderful, high-powered machine that don’t allow us to think.”
“There’s the same trouble everywhere,” said Adam. “We’re too clever to be wise.”
“And that’s God’s truth. I’m weary to death of clever men. That’s what’s muddying the waters. And I’ve gotten to be very weary of your man Creevey. At first I thought him the brightest thing I had ever struck. Well, he is too infernally bright. He has crossed to our side of the water pretty often — three months ago he was over about the French loan, and I can tell you that your Mr Creevey hasn’t been doing any good. He has a great reputation in Wall Street and our newspapers have fallen for him, for he takes some pains to cultivate them and knows just the sort of dope to hand out. He can make a thing more clear than the Almighty ever meant it to be, and the ordinary citizen, finding his prejudices made to look scientific, cheers loudly and thinks himself a finer guy than ever. He has been doing his best to confirm us in our self-sufficiency. If money was his object, I would say that he was a bear of American securities and was out to engineer a smash. That’s partly why I came over here — to get a close-up of the doings of Mr Warren Creevey.”
Adam asked about Falconet’s visit to the Continent.
“I had three weeks in Paris. There Creevey is their own white-haired boy. They told me there that he was the only Englishman with an international mind. . . . Then I went to Germany. That’s a difficult proposition, and I haven’t rightly got the hang of it. I’m going back next week. But I’ve got the hang of one German. A little dusty fellow. One of their leading politicians. Loeffler they call him. Heard of him?”
Adam nodded.
“Write his name down in your pocket book and remember my words. Loeffler is going to matter a lot. He hasn’t any cleverness, but he has a whole heap of horse sense and all the sand on earth. That little man goes in as much danger of his life as a Chicago gangster, and he don’t scare worth a damn. I’m going back to Loeffler. . . . And now let’s hear what you’ve been doing.”
When Adam had reported Falconet scratched his head.
“You’ve got to put me wise about this island,” he said. “It’s a big disappointment that old man Scrope has died on me. I was sort of counting on a talk with him. . . . Maybe you have been wiser than me. I’ve been looking too much for brains, and you’ve gone for magnetism. You must let me in on your game, for I’d like to see your notion of quality. . . . I’ve heard of your man Utlaw. Say, do you know Mrs Pomfrey?”
“A little. Have you been meeting her?”
“Yes. I got a note from her when I landed — with a line of introduction from Creevey, no less. I took luncheon with her yesterday. That’s a fine lady. I’d like to check up with you on what she told me about England — I reckon she’s likely to be right, though, for they tell me she’s close to your Government. She has never been in America, but she seemed to have a pretty cute notion of how things were with us. She didn’t mention you, but she had quite a lot to say about Mr Utlaw. Said that in a year or two he would be the only one of the Labour men that counted. Do you pass that? On our side they don’t signify — not yet. Our work-folk are too busy buying automobiles and radio sets to trouble about politics. Here I know it is different. But tell me, Adam. Is it healthy for a Labour man to be made a pet of by society dames?”
“I’m not afraid of Mrs Pomfrey for Utlaw,” said Adam. “I’m more afraid of Creevey.”
Falconet looked thoughtful.
“Yep. I can see Creevey making mischief there. . . . Well, it’s a darned interesting world, though mighty confusing. As my old father used to say when he was running a merger and had all the yellow dogs
howling at his heels, it’s a great game if you don’t weaken.”
CHAPTER III
I
In the late summer things began to go ill in Birkpool. The big works had few contracts, and the extension which the war had brought about, and which had rarely been accompanied by any serious reorganisation or replacement of antiquated machinery, was beginning to prove so much adipose tissue. Men were turned away daily, and the programme of forward orders was so lean that the city anticipated a grim winter. One or two small expert businesses were still flourishing, but Birkpool had its eggs in few baskets, and the weight of taxation and the competition of foreign countries were playing havoc with its heavy industries. The minds of those who live by the work of their hands are not elastic or easily adjusted to a new outlook. The ordinary wage-earner was puzzled, angry, apprehensive, and deeply suspicious.
The weather did not improve matters. August is the Birkpool holiday month, and all August a wet wind had blown from Wales. September was little better, and in October gales from the North Sea and the fenlands brought scurries of cold rain. Lowering skies and swimming streets added to the depression which was settling upon Birkpool as thick as its customary coronal of smoke.
On one such day Adam was passing down a side street, where dingy tram-cars screamed on the metals, and foul torrents roared in the gutters, and the lash of the rain washed the grease from the cobbles. There was a shabby post-office, for in that quarter of Birkpool even the banks and post-offices looked shabby, from the swing-doors of which men and women were emerging. They had been drawing their old-age pensions, the women were clutching their purses in their lean, blue-veined hands, and all had that look of desperate anxiety which the poor wear when they carry with them the money that alone stands between them and want. A miserable tramp on the kerb was singing “Annie Laurie” in a cracked voice, and from a neighbouring alley, which led to a factory, there poured a crowd of grimy workmen released at the dinner-hour, turning up the collars of their thin jackets against the sleet. The place smelt of straw, filth, stale food and damp — damp above everything.
Outside the post-office Adam found Frank Alban. He carried an umbrella which he had not opened, and the rain had soaked his ancient flannel suit. He was watching the old-age pensioners, some of whom recognised him; an old woman bobbed a curtsy, and a man or two touched his cap. But Frank did not return the greetings. He seemed wrapped up in some painful dream.
He gripped Adam’s arm fiercely.
“I wanted to see you,” he said. “Where are you going? I’ll walk with you. Never mind the rain — I like it — a wetting’s neither here nor there. I can’t talk holding up an umbrella.”
“I’m going to my rooms,” Adam said. “I can give you luncheon — bread and cheese and beer. And a dry coat. . . . You’re a fool to allow yourself to get wet,” he added, as Frank coughed.
“I’m a fool — yes. But a risk of pneumonia is not the worst kind of folly.”
He said nothing more, but held Adam’s arm in a vice till they reached Charity Row, and Adam had insisted on his changing his socks and had sent his coat to be dried in Mrs Gallop’s kitchen.
“Now, what’s your trouble?” Adam asked.
“The old one. I’m a misfit. A humbug. I have no business to be here. I’m not tough enough. You won’t understand me, Adam, for you’re tough in the right way. Most people are only tough because they are callous, but that’s not your case. You’re tough because there’s very few hells you haven’t been through yourself and come out on the other side. I’m not like that. I have to tell people to keep a high head and endure what I’ve never endured myself — what I couldn’t stick out for a week. That’s why I say that I’m a humbug.”
“What has happened? You have done a power of good here.”
“Have I?” Frank asked bitterly. “Well, I haven’t it in me to do any more. Man, don’t you see what is happening? The shadow of misery is closing down upon this place. It’s so thick that you can almost touch it. I see the eyes of men and women getting fear into them — fear like a captured bird’s. They see all the little comforts they have created beginning to slip away and themselves drifting back to the kennels. They are the finest stock on earth — there’s nothing soft or rotten in them, and that’s the tragedy. What in God’s name can I do for them?”
He checked Adam’s interruption with a lifted hand.
“Oh, I know what you are going to say. That my job is to give them a celestial hope to make up for their terrestrial beastliness. I believe in that hope — I believe in it as passionately as ever — but I can’t hand it on to them. Why? Because I’m not worthy. I feel the most abject inferiority in my bones. I blush and get cold shivers in my spine when I try it. I ought to be one of them, sharing in all their miseries. I ought to be doing a day’s work beside them in the shops, and then preaching to them as to brothers in misfortune. They would respect me then, and I should respect myself. . . . The day of the fatted parson is past. He should be a preaching friar as in the Middle Ages, or a fakir with nothing to him but a begging-bowl and the message of God.”
“You wouldn’t last long at that job,” said Adam.
“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t last a month — I’m not man enough. But it’s the honest way. Only I can’t do it, I’ve come out of the wrong kind of stable. That’s why I say I’m a wretched misfit. It’s killing me. That wouldn’t matter if I were to go down in a good cause, but as it is I should only be perishing for my folly. I can’t think with my head now — only with my heart.”
“Or your nerves,” said Adam.
“Call it anything you like. I’m beneath my job instead of being above it. I’ve been trying to puzzle the thing out, and unless I’m going to crash I must get back to thinking with my mind.”
“We have often had this out before, haven’t we?”
“Yes, and you’ve always cheered me up. A stalwart fellow like you heartens a waif like me. But not for ever. Things have come to a pass when even you can do nothing for me. I’m in the wrong crowd and must get out of it!”
“What do you propose?”
Frank lifted a miserable face.
“I must get back to my cell — to some kind of cell. I must get my balance again. Perhaps there is still work for me to do. . . . Someone said that the great battles of the world were all won first in the mind.”
“Who said that?” Adam asked sharply.
“I’m not sure. I think it was that man Creevey. You met him at Lady Flambard’s, you remember.”
“You’ve been meeting him?”
“Yes. He’s a friend of Mrs Pomfrey’s. . . .”
There was a knock at the door, and Mrs Gallop appeared, a breathless and flushed Mrs Gallop. She saw Frank, recognised him, for she was a great churchgoer, and bobbed a curtsy, a reminiscence of her village school-days.
“Beg pardon, sir, but her ladyship is ‘ere. The Marchioness—”
She ushered in Jacqueline, a picturesque figure in a white hunting waterproof, the collar of which framed a face all aglow with the sting of the rain.
“Hurrah, Adam!” she cried, “what fun to find you at home! This is the first time I’ve raided your lair. . . . And brother Frank no less! You oughtn’t to be out in this weather, you know. I’m glad to see that Adam’s looking after you. And food! May I have some luncheon, please? I love bread and cheese above all things — and beer — have you any more beer? I’m in Birkpool on my usual errand — the vet. Gabriel, my Irish setter, has got what looks like canker in the ear. I’ve just deposited him with Branker, and I thought I’d look you up. My car will be round in half an hour. I’m at the Court, a grass widow. Ken is off on one of his provincial ramps.”
Frank looked at his watch, got up, and announced that he must keep an appointment. He nodded to his sister, who had flung off her waterproof and laid a small dripping green hat on the fender.
“You’re an unfeeling brute, Frank,” she said. “You never ask after my health, though you see I’m as lame a
s a duck. Cubbing the day before yesterday. I’m going to ride straddle, and have no more to do with those infernal side-saddles. They’re all right when you fall clear in a big toss, but in a little one they hurt you horribly. No bones broken, thank you — only a strained muscle. Good-bye, Frank dear. Go and buy yourself a mackintosh. An umbrella in Birkpool is no more use than a sick headache.”
When he had gone Jacqueline looked quizzically at Adam.
“Frank is a little shy with me at present,” she said. “He knows I don’t approve of the company he keeps.”
As she munched her bread and cheese, her small delicate face took on a sudden shrewdness. The airy Artemis became for a moment the reflecting Athene.
“This is telling tales out of school, but he sees too much of Lilah Pomfrey. I don’t mean that there’s any philandering, and I’ve nothing against Lilah, but she’s not the best company for Frank in his present frame of mind. She rather worships him and that brings out his weak points. He takes after my mother’s side of the house — Highland sensitiveness and self-consciousness — and instead of laughing at his moods she encourages them. She is making a sentimentalist out of an idealist. And the next step, you know, is a cynic.”
Jacqueline poured herself out a glass of beer with a most professional head on it.
“Didn’t somebody say that the world was divided into the hard-hearted kind and the soft-hearted cruel? Ken is always quoting that. . . . More by token I want to talk to you about Ken. I can’t stay now, but some day soon we must have it out. You’ve made him a perfectly impossible husband, Adam dear.”
