A Fish Dinner in Memison - Zimiamvian Trilogy 02

by E R Eddison

  Eric's laugh came short, sharp, and harsh, like an eagle's bark. "The only true word Plato ever said,' said he, the brass tenor of his voice contrasting with his brother's basso profondo, 'was that the world will never go right till philosophers are kings.'

  'He said one or two true things besides that,' said Lessingham.

  'What? O yes, I can think of one: about the highhearted man.’

  "That such kind of men have wrought the greatest evils both upon cities and upon private persons, and also the greatest benefits, according to their bent of mind? Yes, and then he says a weak nature can be cause of no great thing, neither of a good thing nor of an evil. Well, that's not true. Many weak natures together can be cause of the greatest evils: most of all if they are used by a scoundrel of genius as his instruments. And that is the rock on which all revolutions run to wreck.'

  Charles said, 'Why not a man of genius to use them for good ends?'

  'Because smallness of spirit,' answered Lessingham, 'is an apt instrument for evil: an unhandy one for good. And yet all the chat to-day is, that democratic institutions are somehow going to be the salvation of the civilized world.'

  ‘Well,' said Charles, 'what's your alternative?'

  ‘I see none, on the grand scale. The folly lies not in supporting democracy as a pis aller, but in singing hymns to it, treating it as something fundamentally good. No hard thinking, no resolute policy, even when our foot is on their neck: instead, a reiteration (like a bunch of superannuated school-ma'ams) of comfortable platitudes, with our eyes on the ballot-box. We have defeated "Prussianism". Have we so? I thought the object in war was to defeat your enemy, not defeat some absurd abstraction. We gave him an armistice when, at the last gasp, he asked for it. Now we're going to dictate terms of peace, in Paris apparently. I'd rather have carried the war to destruction clean through Germany, defeated him bloodily beyond cavil or equivocation, let him taste it at his own fire side, and dictated peace in Berlin. If we'd lost a hundred thousand lives by doing it (and we shouldn't have: nothing like it), it would have been worth the price.'

  'And you one of them, perhaps?' said Charles.

  'Certainly: gladly: and I one of them. For if we'd done it we could now be generous without risk of misunderstanding. As it is, I fancy we're going to be rather less than generous. And a load of mischief to come of it Even if it doesn't cost us all the fruits of these past four years, and leave us the job to do all over again.'

  Eric said, 'I dislike talking to you, Edward, on world politics. You depress me.'

  'You shouldn't be so easily depressed.'

  ‘I always remember what you said before the war, about modern war between Great Powers in Europe: what it would mean. Do you remember? Knock two chestnuts together on strings (game of conquerors): no harm done. But try that game with two expensive gold watches, and see what happens.'

  The event hasn't proved that the analogy works, though,' said Charles.

  'Hasn't yet,'' said Eric. 'But don't you go imagining we're out of the wood yet, my boy. Not by the hell of a long way. Edward's a cynical dog, damn him. But he talks sense.'

  ‘Edward's not a cynic,' said Charles. 'He's a philosopher. And a poet.'

  'And a painter. And a man of affairs. And a cantankerous devil. And, (to give him his due), a damn good solider,' said Eric.

  Lessingham laughed. 'If I'm a philosopher, I love England, and you, brother, as my real Englishman. But this is the time for looking at ourselves in foreign looking-glasses. Scaliger said, four centuries ago, "The English are proud, savage, insolent, untruthful, lazy, inhospitable, ungainly, stupid, and perfidious".'

  'Good God,' said Eric. 'And there's a Japanese proverb: "When a fool spits at Heaven, the spittle falls back in his own face".'

  'Well?' said Lessingham. ‘Do you want to have a look at the new mistals we're building at the farm?'

  As they came up upon the terrace Mary met them, with Anne Bremmerdale. She said, 'Have you seen Mr. Milcrest?'

  'No,' said Lessingham. 'And I don't desperately want to.'

  'He's hunting for you with some things from the post office.'

  'Confound them.' 'Here he comes.'

  'What's the use of you as a secretary?' said Lessingham, as Milcrest, heated with the chase, handed him two terracotta envelopes. 'Couldn't you burn the beastly things, or drown them, or lose them till to-morrow?'

  'If you'll give me an indemnity in advance, sir.'

  'What's that you say?' Lessingham was undoing the envelope marked Priority: he read it through swiftly, then again slowly, then, upon a salvo of damns, began striding up and down oblivious of his company, hands in his pockets, brow black as thunder. After two or three turns, so, he opened the second telegram and, having read it, stood for perhaps twenty seconds as if withdrawn into himself. 'Bad news for you, old man,' he said, turning to his brother. 'And for me, and the dear girl': he looked at Anne, whose grey eyes, very like his own, waited on his words. He handed Eric the telegram. "There'll be one for you, no doubt, at Snittlegarth.' Anne came and read it over Eric's shoulder: with difficulty, for his big hand shook and made the words run together. 'Didn't live long to enjoy his K.C.B.,' he said gruffly, almost brutally; but Mary thought she saw in the hard blue eyes of him, as he turned away, something incongruously like a tear.

  Fanny Chedisford was writing letters in the drawing-room. Mary came and said to her, 'You and I will have to keep each other company to-morrow.' Fanny looked up brightly, but her expression changed. 'We've just heard,' Mary said: 'my youngest brother-in-law, Will Lessingham, died suddenly in London last night Rather a favourite.'

  'O Mary, I am so terribly sorry.'

  'Edward has to go up by the night train to-morrow in any case: some important conference suddenly called at the Foreign Office. Anne and Charles are off at once, after lunch, by car. He was, a bachelor, as you know, and Anne always rather the one in the family for him. We've no details: only that he collapsed in his consulting-room in Harley Street.'

  'You're not going yourself?'

  'No. Couldn't do anything. I don't like funerals, and Edward doesn't like them for me. I don't like them for him either. However.'

  Fanny was prodding at the blotting-paper with her pen. 'A terrible loss to his profession. I remember him so well in the old days: always coming to stay with Anne. How old was he?'

  'Eric, Frederick, Antony and Margaret, William, Anne —he came between the twins and Anne: forty-one this year, I think.'

  ‘Young.'

  'One used not to think forty young. Too young, certainly.'

  'I can't get hold of Edward,' said Eric, coming in from the hall. 'Seems to have locked himself into the library, and told the servants he's not to be disturbed.'

  'You know each other, don't you?' said Mary. 'My brother-in-law,—'

  'Mrs. Chedisford? I should think we do!' They shook hands. Fanny looked uncomfortable.

  'Edward has shut himself up to work,' Mary said. 'Got to get something ready for one of his hush-hush meetings on Tuesday.'

  'O. Well, I'll catch him at lunch. Several things I want to suck his brains about.'

  'I doubt whether you'll get him at lunch. Possibly not at dinner even. You'd much better stay the night: we can fit you out. Lovely silk pyjamas. Brand new toothbrush. Everything you want. Do. To please me.'

  'Most awfully nice of you, Mary. Upon my word, I think I will.'

  'O good. We'll telephone to Jacqueline, so that she needn't be anxious about you.'

  ‘Not she. She's too well trained after fourteen years of me, to worry about where I have got to. Tell me, do you think Edward's got one of his berserk rages on him?'

  ‘I shouldn't be surprised, from the way he got down to this job, whatever it is, in the library.'

  'Rolling his eyes, biting on the rim of his shield, bellowing like a bull?'

  'Figuratively, yes.'

  'Gad. I'd have liked to have seen it. Does it often happen now-a-days?'

  'Well, we haven't seen such a grea
t deal of each other during these nightmare years. No oftener, so far as I know, than it used to do. It's a family trait, isn't it? Fve always understood you had those times of, shall we say, violent inspiration followed by flop like a wrung-out dishcloth, yourself?'

  'Who told you that, my dear Mary? Jacqueline?" 'Perhaps.'

  'Secrets of the nuptial chamber: by Jove, it's monstrous. Well, I can promise you my goes are as Mother Siegel's soothing syrup compared with Edward's. Do you remember that famous occasion at Avignon, summer before the war?'

  ‘Do I not!'

  'Yes, but you only saw the working-up. I had a ring seat for the grand main act.' 'What was all this?' said Fanny. 'O, that's a great story.' Tell Miss Chedisford.'

  'A great story. I and my wife, Edward and Mary, all sitting enjoying ourselves in one of those open-air cafe’ places: warm summer night, lovely moon and all that, lots of chairs and tables, folks gossiping away, band playing. Table near us, pretty girl—French—and her young man: nice quiet inoffensive-looking people. Presently, hulking great rascal, sort of half-nigger, looking like one of those Yankee prize-ring johnnies, lounges up, takes a good look at the young lady, then planks himself down at their table. Well, they don't seem to value him: move away. Chap follows them: sized 'em up, apparently: got a bit of liquor on board: anyway, roots himself down on a chair and starts making up to the girl. Young man a bit rabbitish by the look of him: doesn't seem to know quite what to do. Well, Edward watches this for a minute, and his heckles begin to rise. Damn it all, he says, ‘I’m going to put a stop to this. I tried to stop him: none of our business: don't want a scene. Not a bit of it. Up he gets, strolls over in that quiet devil-may-care way of his, stands over this tough and, I suppose, tells him to behave himself. Too far off for us to hear what they said, but evidently some back-chat. At last, man ups with his arm, glass in hand, as if he meant to shy it in Edward's face: however, seems to think better of it.—You remember, Mary?'

  'O dear, O dear! go on. It all comes back to me so perfectly.'

  "This is fun,' said Fanny. 'I like this.'

  'Next thing, both standing up; then walk away together, the fellow damned angry, blustering away, but as if under marching orders, in front, scowling and snapping over his shoulder: Edward as if treading on his heels to make him go a bit faster. By God, I said, I'm going to see this through. Left the women, and tooled along behind, keeping out of sight not to annoy Edward; but just in case. They went straight through a kind of passage there is, direction of the Palace of the Popes, till they land up at that hotel—what was it? Silver Eagle or something— and a porter in uniform standing at the door: quiet street, no one about. Poor old bruiser chap hurrying along as if he didn't know why, and didn't quite like it, but just had to: marched off like a pickpocket. The Edward says to the porter, "You know me?" "Oui, monsieur." "Do you see this man?" he says. "Oui, monsieur." "Very well. You're a witness." And he says to the chappie, "You insulted a lady in my presence," he says, "and you insulted me. And when I told you to apologize, you insulted me again. Is that true?" That gets the fellow's rag out proper: wakes him out of his trance. "Yes it is," he says, making a face at him like a hydrophobia pig, "yes it is, you blanky blanking blanker, and I'll blanky well blank you up the blanking blank blank": rush at him, try to kick him, the way those blackguards do; but before you could say knife, Edward grabs him somehow —too quick to see; too dark—but in about one second he has him off his feet, throws him bodily against the wall—plonk! And there he dropped.'

  'Threw him? do you mean threw him through the air?' said Fanny incredulously.

  'Yes, like a cat. Chap weighed twelve stone if he weighed an ounce. For a minute I thought he was dead: looked damned like it. Nasty mess—'

  'O thank you,' Mary said, ‘we can leave out the decorations.'

  Five minutes later, showing Eric his room, she said, 'I ought to have told you about Fanny. She's dropped the Mrs.’

  'What do you say? Dropped? O Lord, I made a gaff, did I? Can't be helped. What happened?'

  'A great many things that had better not'

  ‘Fellow turn out bad hat?'

  'About as bad as they make them.'

  'Marriage of first cousins, wasn't it? and parents disapproved. Quite right too. Divorce, or what?'

  'Yes.'

  'Quite in the fashion. Damned fool. She's a fine woman. Most people are damned fools, one way or another. I wonder what's become of that nice brother of hers, Tom Chedisford?'

  Mary was silent.

  'Look here, my dear Mary,' he said suddenly: ‘you see a lot more of Anne these days than I do. Is everything going as it should there? You know what I mean.'

  'Absolutely, I should have said. Why?'

  That fellow Charles. Does he treat her properly?'

  ‘Dotes on her. Always has.'

  'He's a dull dog. You think they're happy together?'

  Mary laughed. 'Good heavens, I don't know why you ask me these things. Of course they are.'

  'A bit hum-drum.'

  'Most of us get a bit hum-drum as the years go by.'

  'Most of us may, but some of us don't.'

  'Perhaps some people get on better that way. One can't lay down a Code Napoleon for happy marriages.'

  ‘You think she's got what she wants?'

  'I certainly think so. If she hadn't we certainly couldn't give it her.'

  Eric wrinkled up his nose and shot out his lips. 'What I don't like to see is the dear girl getting to look more and more like a spinster: kind of unattached look. Better never have married the fellow if the effect of him is to turn her into a maiden aunt Edward hasn't done that to you. Nor I to Jacqueline.'

  'O dear, we're getting painfully personal. Hadn't we better stop?'

  'Just as you like, my dear. But before we leave the subject I may as well tell you that you and Edward are the only married people I've ever known who always seem as if you weren't married at all, but were carrying on some clandestine affair that nobody was supposed to have wind of but yourselves. And you keep young and full of beans on it, as if you would always go on growing up, but never grow old. Arid if you ask me which of you deserves the honours for that, I'm inclined to think it's honours easy: between the two of you. And you can tell him from me, if you like, that that's my opinion.'

  It was past eleven o'clock, the same night. Lessingham was in the library among a mass of papers, books, maps, statistics, and cigar-smoke. 'You'd better turn in now, Jack: be fresh for the morning. We've got most of the stuff taped and sorted now. I'll go on for a bit: get my covering memorandum into shape: that's the ticklish part of it, what the whole thing stands or falls by, and I can do it best by myself. You've got the annexes all off the roneo now, have you?'

  'All but Annex V,' said Milcrest.

  'You'll have lots of time to finish up before lunch. You're certain they're not going to let us down about that aeroplane?'

  'Certain, sir. I got the general's promise from his own mouth. Confirmation in writing too: he rummaged among the papers on the table and produced it.

  'Capital. David will run you over to the aerodrome. He'll have to be back in good time to go with me to Carlisle: I start at seven o'clock sharp. All right about my sleeper?'

  'Yes.'

  'And they know at Carlton House Terrace to expect me for bath and breakfast on Tuesday morning, and that you sleep there Monday night?'

  'Yes.'

  'I may have to go straight on to Paris: can't tell till after Tuesday's meeting. If so, I'll want you with me. Make all arrangements on that assumption.'

  'Right, sir.'

  'Off you go to bed, then. We've done a rattling good day's work. Good night.'

  Lessingham, left to himself, lighted a cigar, threw up his legs on the sofa, and for a quarter of an hour sat thinking. Then he sprang up, went to the writing-table, and set to work. Two o'clock struck, and still he wrote, tossing each sheet as it was finished onto the floor beside him. At three he put down his pen, stretched his arms, we
nt over to the side-table where, under white napkins, cold supper was appetizingly set out: chicken in aspic, green salad with radishes, and things ready for making coffee. By twenty past he was back again at work. Day began to filter through the curtains. It struck five. He drew the curtains: ate a sandwich: opened a bottle of Clicquot: collected the sheets off the floor, and sat down to go through them: checking, condensing, a rider here, a rider there, here three pages reduced to one, there an annex brought up into the body of the memorandum, or a section of the memorandum itself turned into an annex, this transposed, that deleted, the whole by pruning and compression brought down from about seven thousand words to three. Eight or nine pages, perhaps, of open-spaced typing: three foolscap pages, three and a half at most, the Foreign Office printer would make of it; apart from the annexes, which contained the real meat, the factual and logical foundation upon which the whole proposal rested. But which nobody would read, he said in himself as he snapped to the self-locking lid of the dispatch-box over the completed whole. What are the facts and what is logic? Things to play with: make a demonstration: dress your shop window with. Facts and logic can make a case for what you please. The vast majority of civilized mankind are, politically, a mongrel breed of sheep and monkey: the timidity, the herded idiocy, of the sheep: the cunning, the dissimulation, the ferocity, of the great ape. These facts are omitted in the annexes, but they are the governing facts; and policy will still be based upon them, and justified before the world as embodying the benevolent aspirations of the woolly flock together with the cleverness of the bandarlog. And the offspring of such a policy will be such as such a world deserves, that was mid-wife to it: a kind of bastard Egyptian beast-god incarnate, all ewe-lamb in the hinder parts with a gorilla's head and the sphinx's claws of brass; likely to pass away in an ungainly and displeasing hara-kiri: head and claws making a bloody havoc of their own backside and puddings, and themselves by natural consequence perishing for lack of essential organs thus unintelligently disposed of.