“Didn’t stay long, did you? I could have told you who it was who come there if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to pass me by. He’s just going now.”
“Do you buy pig-meal sacks?”
“I pay eightpence a dozen.”
“They pay a shilling in Crabbe.”
“I have to take them in to town, see.”
“So do I.”
“How many bags have you got?”
“About a hundred.”
“I’ll take them off of you. Will you be going to Crabbe soon with your lorry?”
“Possibly.”
“I’ve got some old iron I want taking in. It’s up a shilling since last year. Half-a-crown now. They want it for armaments. The diddecais only pay me half a dollar, so if I can get it in to Crabbe, it will pay me, see?”
“What will it pay me?”
“You’ll have to go in anyway, you said.”
“Who’s going to unload your old iron?”
“I’ll ride in with you, and be company for you. We’re all neighbours, aren’t we? Here,” he lifted his nose, “Come in here.” He led the way into a tarred and decrepit wooden shed, wherein hung sacks and rabbit skins above a heap of broken implement parts and other rubbish.
“Is it true what they say, that you’ve sold the Old Manor?”
“Ah.”
A retired industrialist from the Midlands had sold his interest in his company, together with all his stocks and shares—to avoid all taxes—for he would have no income if he lived on his capital of £300,000—and bought the Old Manor, together with the four acres of the grounds and gardens in which the house was set. Phillip had got £600. This sum had cleared off the bank overdraft, guaranteed by a form he had filled in, and signed, relative to the live and dead stock (tractor, implements, etc.) he possessed on Deepwater Farm. So while Phillip owed nothing, except the mortgage interest to Lucy, he possessed little ready cash.
“What did you get for it. Next to nothin’, I reckon.”
“How do you know so much about everything, Horatio?”
“Ah, I have ways and means, you know. Here!” His nose jerked towards the darker end of his shed. “I can see you are scared of Lady Penelope’s old man,” he said. “You got reason to be, I reckon,” he added, winking at Phillip. “Nice bit of skirt Lady Penelope, eh?” His elbow dug into Phillip’s ribs. “You have a way with the ladies, I can see that, y’know. I admire you for it. That was a choice bit of stuff you had with you earlier this morning, and no mistake. But you’re so good looking, you can get away with it. I can’t,” he said, rather sadly.
“Still,” he added, drawing himself up, “I live on the interest of my money, I do.” He squared his shoulders, and hastened indoors to tell the latest news of the sale to an old mother and elderly sisters, who habitually wore black clothes of an age not yet bygone in that district of Old England.
Chapter 14
‘BIRKIN FOR BRITAIN’
Lady Breckland telephoned to say that a meeting of the Imperial Socialist Party was being held in the Corn Hall at Fenton on the following Sunday night.
“Do come if you can, and bring your wife to see us afterwards, won’t you? I do so hope that Sir Hereward Birkin’s words will be heeded. He has the only realistic policy for putting farming on its feet, and the whole country and Empire as well; while the alternative is an increasing depression. It is all so simple if only people would believe it——”
Phillip knew all that Lady Breckland was saying about Birkin; their minds ran in the same groove, literally upon the same grooves of Birkin’s idealistic words on the gramophone record, the deep almost mystic voice concluding with the words:
Together we have lit a flame which shall burn through the ages. Guard that sacred flame, my brothers, until it illuminates Britain, and lights again the pathway of mankind.
“I look forward to it, Lady Breckland. I’ll bring my wife, and fill the car with some of my men. Meanwhile may I have six tickets?”
“Wonderful news,” he told Lucy. “Birkin is coming on Sunday. We’ll ask Penelope, shall we?”
*
Phillip had already met Birkin Hereward at Lady Breckland’s house. He and Brother Laurence had been invited to dinner. Felicity had found Phillip’s dress clothes in a trunk, and hung them up to dry and uncrease in the kitchen of the Old Manor, where they were then squatting.
During the day both men had worked with the concrete mixer; at night, weary but hopeful, they had found their way across unfamiliar country, sometimes stopping by sign-posts, while Brother Laurence struck matches and Phillip examined his map in the glow of a side-light.
Birkin and his adjutant arrived during dinner. They had made a long motor journey from the North, where a meeting had been held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Birkin gave Phillip an immediate impression of great and controlled strength. He was tall and of powerful build, dressed in a grey suit, and looked tired. There was a ragged red scar nearly two inches long in his left temple, where he had been struck by a stone a few months before and knocked unconscious.
Phillip had read about that meeting; but the impression given by the newspapers was that Birkin’s thugs had been beating up working men, and in the mix-up Birkin had received a blow. In fact about three thousand roughs had gathered around the loudspeaker van, many with missiles, including safety-razor blades pushed into potatoes. Such missiles on striking were capable of making superficial cuts in face and hands. Another common weapon was an old chair-leg enwound with barbed wire. Knuckle-dusters also were used, visible when the Communist salute of a clenched fist was given.
The man who had flung the stone which knocked out Birkin on that occasion had been arrested by the police, together with some of Birkin’s bodyguard; but the assailant was let off at the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, there being no evidence given against him by Birkin, who had regarded him as a misguided Englishman, victim of semi-starvation and slum conditions.
*
Half tree-trunk, as long as a man but thicker, burned on the hearth of the dining room of the Hall. Phillip’s waistcoat was tight; two years since he had worn it. Digging flints and making roads had increased his chest expansion. He sipped champagne and ate roast duck and felt he was enjoying himself after the dullness of workshop nights, making up accounts, writing articles, and trying not to feel that the undertaking was too much for him.
Lady Breckland was saying, “I asked the King why de Laszlo, who had painted more royal portraits than any other living artist, had not painted him. ‘The fellow’s a cad’, replied the King. ‘A cad, sir?’ ‘Yes, he’s a cad, and I won’t be painted by him.’ ‘He’s supposed to be a very good painter, sir.’ ‘Possibly, but when an escaped German prisoner went to him in the war, the fellow gave him money.’ ‘Wouldn’t you give an escaped prisoner money, if he appealed to you, sir?’ ‘Of course I would,’ said the King gruffly, then he added, ‘That fellow gave him money—then he rang up the police and told them. He’s a cad, and won’t paint my portrait’.”
Phillip saw Birkin’s face brighten at this story, while he thought that the painter, being a naturalised Austrian, would have been in two minds about his duty, first to the escaped prisoner, then to his adopted country. Also he would have suffered fears for his family in those days when feeling ran so high. Looking across to Birkin, he saw that he was reserved within himself once more. Had he seen two sides of the story, as well?
The talk at the table changed to racehorses, then to farming. At once Birkin showed interest. Lady Breckland began to declaim against the general apathy, so many on the dole, the land losing heart everywhere, a few old tenant farmers carrying on and doing things properly to keep the soil in good heart, and coming to ruin thereby.
“It’s all so tragic. They won’t help themselves, and turn away when I tell them the only way. They believe everything they read in their wretched newspapers, although they say in the next breath, ‘Of course, ’tis all lies’. What can you do with such people?”
There was silence. Phillip felt that the other guests were wondering how the conversation could be maintained with a light touch, for he suspected that Birkin’s ideas were not accepted by them.
“What do you think, Sir Hereward?”
Birkin said evenly, quietly, “They will know the truth soon, Lady Breckland.”
“How soon?” asked an Irishman, who had been talking about Arab horses.
Birkin seemed to take a deep breath, before moving his head forward and saying, very quietly, with his eyes fixed in the centre of the table, “Within two years, at the outside. The system must crash within that time—or save itself by war.”
*
On that occasion during the first few months on the land, Brother Laurence had come with Phillip because he was anxious on Phillip’s behalf. He had heard so many contradictory things about Birkin. He found Birkin withdrawn; but then he was tired after the long journey from the north in a small car. He thought that Birkin had certain powers in him, and no-one could deny his courage; but was it only the spirit of English bone, stubborn and indomitable in war? How sensitive was he behind his reserve? Was there an awareness of the still small voice within? Certainly, by all accounts, Birkin had a voice, which was used loudly and powerfully. At times he worked himself up into a frenzy, like Hitler; was this in imitation, or due to an interior frustration from his early years? There had been trouble with his father.
“Phillip, do you remember telling me about your old Colonel, and how he dealt with the little mutinies, in many camps of soldiers returned from the front, owing to the delay in demobilisation? You accompanied him on his tour, you said. And how Lord Satchville’s fame was so great that men of units who had never seen him listened to him when they had boo’d the Generals of Eastern Command?”
Phillip had told Brother Laurence how Lord Satchville, the great bearded blue-eyed Viking, never raised his voice in speaking to any of the thousands of officers and men of the Gaultshire Regiment: he was invariably equable and courteous.
“But the conditions weren’t the same, mon père. Birkin has to shout at his open-air meetings to be heard above the din of Communists trying to wreck those meetings. Also, isn’t the use of loud-speakers forbidden by law?”
“Only in certain parts of London, such as parks and places of recreation, Phillip: otherwise it would be Babel.”
“I know what you mean about shouting. I shout. And I know in my case that it’s due to weakness.”
*
After dinner the two friends were standing talking quietly, apart from the others, in the drawing-room, when Lady Breckland led up Birkin. He listened attentively while Phillip spoke of the formation of a farming community.
Birkin said that it might well be a beginning of a renaissance, a return to the old values of true service to the land. “Such values are our greatest need today. The soil is the base of all life and culture. It is something the towns must be brought to realise. I have read your articles, Maddison, you are doing splendid work.”
Birkin went on to say that men of action who were also poets and artists had always in history been an inspiration to men of good will, who put service to others before themselves.
“We in our party believe in a classless state. Wherever talent be found, whether in cottage or castle, it must be used in the interest of the community.”
“Would an artist in such a state be free to express himself, Sir Hereward?” asked Brother Laurence.
“How else could he express himself truly, except in freedom? We believe that great reward should come to great talent. This does not mean money only, in the sense of the values of the old parties. The state will provide opportunity, as in the age of the Medicis. Our aim is nothing less than a great efflorescence of Western civilisation, based on true values of the human spirit. We go with Nature, but we aid her. We believe in the fostering hand of the Creator, above all.”
Brother Laurence asked, “Would you say that the great travellers and colonisers of the Renaissance were able to do what they did because they were alienated from themselves?”
“You mean that they were driven in protest against the material values of the age, before the birth of the new idea of leadership by the Florentine princes?”
“Not altogether, Sir Hereward. Did not the men of the Renaissance subjugate primitive worlds by the force of cannons? And, in so doing, added to their own confusion and alienation from the true light of the spirit?”
“I mentioned the Medicis in reference to the need for a new flowering of the spirit in this country, Brother Laurence. We British do not need to expand our territories. We do not require to find living room for our people, by the aid of force. We have in our Empire a great estate comprising one-fifth of the world, and, as we see it, it is our duty, and our privilege, to serve our fellow men, of many creeds and colours, in that Empire. There we have resources which are unlimited. These resources will enable us to withdraw from the cut-price of world trade, in order to build the greatest civilisation the world has ever known—not by alienation, but by service. Our party works for the transcendence of the little ego which cowers within all of us at times, a feeble spirit blown hither and thither by every gust of transient political manoeuvring. Men so alienated are rendered nervously anxious by every little upset in the jockeying for office and self-advancement. But when we of the Imperial Socialist Party come to power, the first thing we shall do is to forbid the export of British capital abroad. Then we shall command the means, which is the finance, to develop our great inheritance. Our opponents who control the Money Power know this, and employ every device to discredit us as a party of thugs and crooks.”
“You would nationalise the Bank of England?”
“This is the next step after we come to office. Then we shall impose a gradual ban on the export of British capital, except within the Empire.”
“Then it is material advance that you would put first, Sir Hereward?”
“Certainly, Brother Laurence. Man does not live by bread alone: but starving millions first must have bread. Until the body is looked after, spiritual progress to an ultimate social harmony is not possible.”
“I have recently been reading about the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, Sir Hereward. As you know, they lived in the deserts of Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, and were perhaps the first Christian eremites totally to forsake the values of the marketplace. They had the example of their Master before them. Jesus retired to the desert to find purification from direct action against the money-changers—the first and last political action He took, as far as records reveal.”
“I wonder—and I say this with the greatest respect—if the world is not too far gone to be saved only by the gestures in retirement, of a relatively few great and noble souls, Brother Laurence? What do you think, Maddison? I have read your novel, The Phoenix, and found much in it which has helped me to clarify some of my thoughts.”
“I think that in avoiding further direct action against the usurers in the temple, Jesus of Nazareth—for a while anyway—saved Israel. Many of His followers expected direct action at the Passover. And in remaining silent before Pilate, Jesus did not really ‘pull his punch’, but took the longer view, of going down into history as a living force in men’s minds. That at least is terrestrial immortality.’’
“Bernard Shaw says much the same thing in one of his plays, if you remember,” replied Birkin. “‘Had Jesus of Nazareth taken to the sword, he would have gone down to history, with Mahomet, as a bloody-minded tyrant.’”
“Perhaps only the greatest leaders can be detached from the market place,” said Brother Laurence. “One such must also be detached from himself to a degree that is beset with terrors, not least among them that of loneliness. I do not mean aloneness. There is a distinction. Such a one cannot risk attachment to his own ego, or the destructive ecstasy of self-will. He must shed all identification with his superficial, transient, and self-built self. For the true self is not self-built, or self-willed. The
true self is transcendent, mysterious, the source of all strength, all harmony, eirene, the soul of the ancient Greeks.”
With eyes downcast, and voice nearly inaudible, Birkin said,
“Our aim is nothing less than the spiritual revolution of our people. We do not go against the Church, we aid the Church. We believe that all will be achieved by the ultimate triumph of the European soul, based on two millennia of the light of Hellas, reinforced by the Christian ideal of service.”
“The means provide great difficulties, and terrors, Sir Hereward.”
“The means are at hand, Brother Laurence. Our Empire awaits its efflorescence. Yes, there will be great difficulties,” he said. “We do not ask those to join with us who have obligations to family, or who may suffer loss by working with us. Indeed, we can promise only the hardship of the narrow way. Many of us learned what true comradeship was on the battlefields of our youth. I believe that you served, Brother Laurence.”
“Yes, Sir Hereward. I served on the Western Front, then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and was shot down in Palestine by the Turks, and taken prisoner.”
“Then you will know what hardship brings out in a man, so often the best. Thus we survivors of the war generation count it a privilege to live in an age when England demands that great things shall be done—a privilege to be of the generation which learns to say, What can we give, instead of, What can we take. For thus our generation learns there are greater things than slothful ease—greater things than safety—more terrible things than death.”
*
That was in the past winter. Since then Birkin had made no real progress, Phillip thought as he lay awake in the caravan, seeing the stars above the dark pines. Which was the true way? Action, and the market place: or inaction in retreat? The farm as it had been—a nature reserve reverting to wildness, a wilderness so beloved by Penelope?—or the farm civilised: brought back to culture, its wild flowers to be seen as weeds to be destroyed: the snipe bogs to become meadows for milk: the reeds pulled from the grupps, and the reed-warbler homeless?
The Phoenix Generation Page 37
