‘And how’s Hilary getting on with the children?’ asked Bolivia.
‘She says she’s never been so happy in her life before.’
During the Vicar’s absence the younger Purefoy children had been living at Rumneys. Lady Caroline’s brother, the impoverished Duke of Starveling, had offered to entertain the two elder boys for a month, but he had confessed quite frankly that the cost of feeding six children was more than he could face. – As it was, both Denis and Rupert returned from Starveling Court looking noticeably thin after a prolonged diet of rabbit and stewed gooseberries. – Hilary, therefore, had volunteered to forgo her August holiday and find house-room at Rumneys for Cecily, Patrick, Rosemary, and Peter. The Vicar had thankfully accepted this offer, and Hilary, who was devoted to the children, had not only kept them happy, but thoroughly enjoyed herself into the bargain. Her other charities and benevolences had been sadly neglected, and her reputation for common sense impaired by her readiness to share their youthful amusements: on several occasions, for example, she had slept in a tent in the spinney, and she had acquired some knowledge of ratting. Her happiness would have been complete had it not been for an intermittent feeling that she had found consolation, too facile to be decent, for her grief at Caroline’s death.
Bolivia drove more slowly than was her custom. She was thinking. They passed Sir Gervase Flood’s agreeable residence. Bolivia said, ‘It would be rather fun to wipe Daisy’s eye.’
‘And Katherine’s,’ said Jane.
‘If I – if we – actually get the money,’ said Bolivia, ‘I’ll never forget what you’ve done. I’m taking a lot for granted, of course, but if – well, suppose everything happened as it might happen – I’d insist on Stephen sharing the money with you.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Jane. ‘I’m not a matrimonial agency.’
‘No, but you’re being extraordinarily generous, and it would only be fair….’
‘If you win the prize you can buy Lammiter Heath – it would be a damned good investment – and put me in as permanent secretary. That’s all I want.’
‘That’s a bargain,’ said Bolivia.
Wilfrid and Stephen had finished their day’s work and were sitting in the garden listening to a gramophone that played Constant Lambert’s Rio Grande. To the north, over Lammiter West and the Heath beyond, blue rainclouds still cast their shadow, but the garden was full of a golden light, and gold and tawny and crimson dahlias made a proper audience for the gallant music, and in the little orchard ripening fruit shone like rubies in a nest of leaves.
Wilfrid stopped the gramophone and ran to get more chairs. ‘Now before we begin to talk,’ he said, ‘let’s play Rio Grande just once more. It’s too marvellous in this light, and the dahlias make it perfect.’
Jane and Bolivia listened without any manifest enjoyment. ‘You like it, don’t you?’ asked Wilfrid.
‘I’m damned if I do,’ said Jane. ‘And what difference do the dahlias make, anyhow?’
Wilfrid looked hurt, and Stephen shrugged his shoulders.
‘I think it’s rather good,’ said Bolivia.
‘And you see what we mean about the dahlias?’ asked Wilfrid.
‘Yes, I think I do,’ said Bolivia, and avoided Jane’s eyes. Stephen looked at her approvingly.
Jane said, ‘Look here, Wilfrid, I want you to help me about clothes again. Winter’s coming on, and I suppose I’ll have to get one or two new things, but the only thing I can think of is a leather jacket. Have you any good ideas?’
Wilfrid turned to Stephen with a little smile of excitement. ‘Isn’t that funny?’ he asked. ‘Stephen and I were talking about clothes last night, and he had a perfectly magnificent scheme for making everybody look ten times nicer than they do now, and feeling ten times happier, because they would, wouldn’t they?’
‘It was a very reasonable suggestion, though I don’t suppose you’ll agree with me,’ said Stephen, a trifle coldly.
‘Do tell us about it: it sounds most exciting,’ said Bolivia. Jane looked at her with amazement that slowly changed to understanding.
‘Quite roughly,’ said Stephen, ‘the idea was to make fashion a yearly pageant of the seasons. You start in March with pale daffodil hues, and very tender greens, and slowly you make your palette richer till in summer everybody is dressed in a whole medley of colours, with either red or blue predominating. Then in September you look for autumnal shades, ripe yellows and orange and russet. And in winter …’
‘We go into mourning, I suppose?’ asked Jane.
‘On the contrary. In winter we choose scarlet and holly-green, crimson and white furs, gold buttons and gold braid, and everything that’s brightest. The present system of fashion would be discarded altogether, or revolutionized at least, and people would be encouraged to design their own clothes within these very wide limits of colour. The mass-production of modes is an abominable thing: it’s designed for a slave mentality and it breeds a slave mentality. Of course the really brilliant couturiére, the dress designer of genius, would survive, and be stimulated to even richer invention. But apart from the creations of genius, I’d like to see a state of anarchy in dress – significant anarchy if you like – governed only by a seasonal change of colour-scheme.’
‘Do you mean for men as well?’ said Jane.
‘Indeed I do. Don’t you agree that corn-coloured hose, a rich brown doublet, and an orange cloak would look better than this dull suit?’
‘They wouldn’t be much good for people who’ve got any work to do.’
‘You have the vulgar idea’, said Stephen, ‘that nobody in the history of the world ever did any work till the invention of dungarees and the office suit. That, let me tell you, is a fallacy.’
‘But anarchy and four fashions a year would be far too expensive for most people,’ said Bolivia.
‘Red cloth costs no more than grey,’ said Stephen, ‘and people who can only afford drugget would feel better, and look better, in brightly coloured drugget. I myself paid eleven guineas for this suit: one could buy a lot of yellow silk and brown velvet for that. And if we did spend more on our clothes we would revive moribund industries in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and by reducing unemployment we would increase the general prosperity of the country, and so be able to afford a more luxurious style of dressing.’
‘Well, you can start your revolution without me,’ said Jane. ‘All I want is a suit and a frock or two that will do for the autumn and carry me over the winter. What do you suggest, Wilfrid?’
‘There’s a lovely evening gown in lame and shot poult in Vogue this month,’ said Wilfrid. ‘I bought it just a day or two ago. It’s in the house. I’ll go in and look for it.’
‘I think there’s a lot in what you say, Stephen,’ said Bolivia thoughtfully.
‘Of course there is! But my God, how difficult it is to persuade people to think for themselves and see for themselves! Now take your own case, Bolivia: you’d benefit enormously if you could choose your clothes without regard for convention or the current fashion. You’ve got a magnificent figure, and you’re not allowed to make the most of it simply because fashion is dictated by dressmakers who deliberately cater for mediocrity. I should like to design clothes for you.’
‘I think I’ll go in and help Wilfrid to look for Vogue?’ said Jane, and left them together.
Bolivia took off her hat and patted her hair. ‘Tell me what you’d really like me to wear,’ she said.
‘Stand up,’ said Stephen.
Bolivia stood up. Stephen, reclining in a deck-chair, furrowed his brow and stared at her, with purely aesthetic appreciation. He did not observe the kindliness of her smile. ‘You could wear an Empire gown with classically simple lines,’ he said, ‘and you’d look remarkably well in Early Tudor costume with one of those tall conical head-dresses. And I think an Elizabeth collar of starched lace, very high at the back and cut low in front, would suit you. I must consider that. I’ll ask Wilfrid too; he’s very clever that way.’
> ‘No, don’t bother him. I’d much rather know what you think I’d look nice in.’
Her tone was a trifle too warm. Stephen’s gaze of pure aesthetic apperception was blurred by a slight embarrassment, as the image in a mirror may be blurred by the vapour of a bath. His pale face lightly flushed. ‘It wouldn’t do any good,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t wear my design.’
He stood up and folded the deck-chair. ‘You’ve been playing golf?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Don’t you ever go out nowadays? You used to.’
‘I haven’t played for years.’
‘It’s lovely on the Heath in the morning.’
‘I suppose it is, in this weather. I must get Wilfrid to come and have a round with me some day.’
With an effort Bolivia restrained her annoyance, and they went indoors.
Chapter 7
By the exercise of much patience and more tact than one would have been inclined to credit her with, Bolivia succeeded in taking Stephen out to play golf before the weather became cold enough to give him yet another excuse for postponing the occasion. Having once enticed him on to the links, her task became easier, for like many other people he succumbed to the strange fascination of the game, and at the end of their first round it was he who proposed another on the next day but one.
He played better than Bolivia had expected. There was no length in his drive, and he showed a fastidious distaste for the rough compulsion of a niblick; but as he very seldom went off the fairway he had no great need for a niblick. He played pretty little shots straight down the middle, addressing his ball with a certain fussiness, and walking after it in a prim self-satisfied way. His principal fault was talking too much. As soon as he had recovered from the nervousness he felt at being alone with a woman, he displayed such inordinate loquacity as put the greatest strain upon Bolivia’s self-control. He discussed everything from the advantage of striking the ball on a flat arc to the suitability of Persian floral designs for crewel-work. He had an annoying habit of holding up the game while he developed some phase of his argument, and when interrupted by a querulous cry of Fore!’ he would calmly beckon the approaching foursome to come through, and leading Bolivia aside he would continue his dissertation at leisure. Bolivia, who had hitherto taken her golf at a great pace, found it difficult to subdue her inclination to bustle on, but she hid her discomfort with remarkable success.
Her prudent toleration of his talkativeness turned, however, almost to admiration after she had heard him put down her father in argument. It was not without misgiving that she asked Stephen to dine, for General Ramboise, though by no means an ill-tempered man, was inclined to be dogmatic on certain subjects, and sensitive people had been known to resent his forceful enunciation of what were – as he was the first to admit – merely his personal opinions: ‘But opinions,’ he would add, his long jaw snapping, ‘opinions I have formed after a lifetime of practical experience of the problems presented: and I say, sir, that opinions formed in such a way are not lightly to be disregarded !’ Stephen, however, introducing a view of his own, succeeded in winning the General’s highest commendation.
The dinner was small and informal. Mrs Ramboise, who preferred to live abroad, was in St Jean de Luz, and Richard, the General’s only son, was in a gunboat on the Yang-tse-kiang: Stephen sat lonely at the long side of the table, with the General at one end and Bolivia at the other. The meal was rather highly seasoned, and the concluding savoury was largely compounded of chillies and mustard sauce. Stephen, bravely endeavouring to cover the embarrassment of weeping and sweating simultaneously, said breathlessly, ‘I used to think, General, that fire-eater was only a metaphorical description of you.’
The General chuckled and scattered red pepper over his plate.
‘He’s behaved very well so far,’ said Bolivia. ‘He hasn’t contradicted either of us yet.’
‘I never do contradict people unless they start talking damned nonsense,’ said the General. ‘There’s a lot of people in the world today who think that everything they don’t like, from cavalry to the Ten Commandments, is out of date and dead and done for. Well, they’re fools and I tell ’em so. And people who believe in Communism, and vegetarianism, and teetotalism, and pacifism: they’re fools too. I like decency and I hate fads, and when I meet a faddist or a cad I tell him the truth about himself. But apart from that I’m the mildest man in Brackenshire.’
‘I’m a pacifist myself,’ said Stephen.
‘Then you’re a fool,’ said the General.
‘I’m very far from being a fool,’ said Stephen.
The General’s eyes were light blue as to the iris, and a mottled yellow as to the cornea, which in time of anger received also a suffusion of blood. They now darkened appreciably, but his voice, though louder than is usual for a dining-room, was, by host’s politeness, muted several tones below the ringing quality of the parade-ground when he answered: ‘Pacifists, so far as I understand ’em, believe that war is neither necessary nor desirable. But in six thousand years of the world’s history there’s been a major war in every decade, if not oftener. Why? Because war is necessary, and very often it’s desirable! And war isn’t going to come to an end now simply because a lot of chicken-livered decadents choose to tell the world they’re gun-shy!’
‘I don’t care if war goes on for ever,’ said Stephen. ‘All I mean, when I say I’m a pacifist, is that I neither desire nor intend to go to war myself.’
‘But if Britain declares war, you’ll have to. In a time of crisis the individual will is subjugated to the national will….’
‘Just a minute, General. I’ve heard you say that the last war was, to put it mildly, clumsily handled, and, from the soldiers’ point of view, unsatisfactory in many ways. Why?’
‘Because of the damned civilians who tried to tell us what to do!’ roared the General. ‘Because a parcel of half-baked time-serving politicians thought they could run it better than we could! Because a horde of amateurs with no traditions came and tried to teach us our jobs! That’s why the War was a damned poor war, and gave soldiering a bad name.’
‘Quite so,’ said Stephen. ‘I agree with you entirely. And because I’m a civilian and not a soldier I intend to have nothing to do with the next war in case I impede the conduct of it. I believe, as you do, that war is a science and that only highly trained scientists can carry it on. The gravest mistake in all military history was the decision, in 1914, to put responsibility for the War in the hands of the people as a whole. War should be waged by the Army, because the Army knows how to do it, and civilians should keep out of it, because they don’t.’
‘I must think that over,’ said the General.
‘If you read St Paul you’ll find that he agrees with me. St Paul says: “We will not boast of things without our measure,” and warns us quite clearly elsewhere to mind our own business. Now I realize that war is no business of mine. And you must realize this: that if war is to retain its good name it will have to be conducted in a proper way. You simply can’t afford to let civilians come in and make a mess of it, because if they do they’ll give people a totally false impression of war, as they did between 1914 and 1918, and the world will get so sick of it that, sooner or later, the world will prohibit it, and then the science and the art of war will disappear from the face of the earth as the art of hunting mastodons has disappeared. And then, of course, you’ll lose your job. No, no, General, for your own sake I insist on leaving the conduct and execution of the next war entirely to the soldiers.’
‘I’ve got to consider this very carefully,’ said the General. ‘Have a cheroot, my boy.’
He passed a box of black Trichinopolis to Stephen, who dubiously selected one. Bolivia made a move to go. She was filled with admiration for Stephen. She had always been accustomed to see her father win his arguments by a knockout blow in the first round, and here was Stephen leading on points, confident, fresh, unmarked, while her father, clearly staggered by his attack, was playing for time! Bolivia re
verenced her father. Till now she had had no reverence for Stephen, though, in a fashion hard to describe, she had been increasingly aware of a mild affection for him: an affection independent of the fortune that might be its harvest: for she was truly a nice girl, and when a nice girl sets out to marry a man she is always apt to become fond of him, whatever may have been the initial reason for her pursuit. But she now felt such a surge of mingled feelings, all warm with excitement, that something was born, so closely compact of reverence, enthusiasm, surprise, and relief, as to be indistinguishable, in her present state of mind, from love itself; and she looked at Stephen with kindly eyes and resolved beyond a quaver of doubt to hold him captive in her arms before another month was out.
‘Now just repeat that last part of your argument,’ said the General. ‘I want to get it quite clear in my mind.’
Stephen, who preferred talking to any other of life’s activities, reopened his case with a cogent allusion to Hannibal. Hannibal, he said, crossed the Alps and waged war in Italy with reasonable success – considering the odds and difficulties against him – for three years: could he have done that if Carthage had been linked by telephone to him, and his strategy had been at the mercy of political intrigue and the necessity of reporting monthly victories in the Carthaginian newspapers? Of course he couldn’t. The civilian populace, with all its silly theories and foolish expectations, was merely a nuisance in time of war, and the Army should ignore it. Would Parliament, in time of peace, welcome the intervention of the Army in a General Election? Indeed it wouldn’t. Why then should the Army suffer the intervention of Parliament in time of war? ‘War’, said Stephen, ‘is a specialist’s job. I’m no specialist, in that sense, and so I propose to leave it alone. It’s a pity for your sake, General, as well as for ours, that all the other civilians in Europe aren’t as modest and sensible as I am.’
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