said.
The little curate looked at it for a moment. "Precisely," he said
explosively, and turned stirring and with his head a little on one
side, to hear what Margaret was saying.
Margaret was saying, with a swift blush and an effect of daring,
that she had no doubt she was a socialist.
"And wearing a gold chain!" said Gertrude, "And drinking out of
eggshell! I like that!"
I came to Margaret's rescue. "It doesn't follow that because one's
a socialist one ought to dress in sackcloth and ashes."
The initial coloured deeply, and having secured my attention by
prodding me slightly with the wrist of the hand that held his
teacup, cleared his throat and suggested that "one ought to be
consistent."
I perceived we were embarked upon a discussion of the elements. We
began an interesting little wrangle one of those crude discussions
of general ideas that are dear to the heart of youth. I and
Margaret supported one another as socialists, Gertrude and Sybil and
the initial maintained an anti-socialist position, the curate
attempted a cross-bench position with an air of intending to come
down upon us presently with a casting vote. He reminded us of a
number of useful principles too often overlooked in argument, that
in a big question like this there was much to be said on both sides,
that if every one did his or her duty to every one about them there
would be no difficulty with social problems at all, that over and
above all enactments we needed moral changes in people themselves.
My cousin Gertrude was a difficult controversialist to manage, being
unconscious of inconsistency in statement and absolutely impervious
to reply. Her standpoint was essentially materialistic; she didn't
see why she shouldn't have a good time because other people didn't;
they would have a good time, she was sure, if she didn't. She said
that if we did give up everything we had to other people, they
wouldn't very likely know what to do with it. She asked if we were
so fond of work-people, why we didn't go and live among them, and
expressed the inflexible persuasion that if we HAD socialism,
everything would be just the same again in ten years' time. She
also threw upon us the imputation of ingratitude for a beautiful
world by saying that so far as she was concerned she didn't want to
upset everything. She was contented with things as they were, thank
you.
The discussion led in some way that I don't in the least recall now,
and possibly by abrupt transitions, to a croquet foursome in which
Margaret involved the curate without involving herself, and then
stood beside me on the edge of the lawn while the others played. We
watched silently for a moment.
"I HATE that sort of view," she said suddenly in a confidential
undertone, with her delicate pink flush returning.
"It's want of imagination," I said.
"To think we are just to enjoyourselves," she went on; "just to go
on dressing and playing and having meals and spending money!" She
seemed to be referring not simply to my cousins, but to the whole
world of industry and property about us. "But what is one to do?"
she asked. "I do wish I had not had to come down. It's all so
pointless here. There seems to be nothing going forward, no ideas,
no dreams. No one here seems to feel quite what I feel, the sort of
need there is for MEANING in things. I hate things without
meaning."
"Don't you do-local work?"
"I suppose I shall. I suppose I must find something. Do you think-
if one were to attempt some sort of propaganda?"
"Could you-?" I began a little doubtfully.
"I suppose I couldn't," she answered, after a thoughtful moment. "I
suppose it would come to nothing. And yet I feel there is so much
to be done for the world, so much one ought to be doing… I
want to do something for the world."
I can see her now as she stood there with her brows nearly frowning,
her blue eyes looking before her, her mouth almost petulant. "One
feels that there are so many things going on-out of one's reach,"
she said.
I went back in the motor-car with my mind full of her, the quality
of delicate discontent, the suggestion of exile. Even a kind of
weakness in her was sympathetic. She told tremendously against her
background. She was, I say, like a protesting blue flower upon a
cinder heap. It is curious, too, how she connects and mingles with
the furious quarrel I had with my uncle that very evening. That
came absurdly. Indirectly Margaret was responsible. My mind was
running on ideas she had revived and questions she had set
clamouring, and quite inadvertently in my attempt to find solutions
I talked so as to outrage his profoundest feelings…
7
What a preposterous shindy that was!
I sat with him in the smoking-room, propounding what I considered to
be the most indisputable and non-contentious propositions
conceivable-until, to my infinite amazement, he exploded and called
me a "damned young puppy."
It was seismic.
"Tremendously interesting time," I said, "just in the beginning of
making a civilisation."
"Ah!" he said, with an averted face, and nodded, leaning forward
over his cigar.
I had not the remotest thought of annoying him.
"Monstrous muddle of things we have got," I said, "jumbled streets,
ugly population, ugly factories-"
"You'd do a sight better if you had to do with it," said my uncle,
regarding me askance.
"Not me. But a world that had a collective plan and knew where it
meant to be going would do a sight better, anyhow. We're all
swimming in a flood of ill-calculated chances-"
"You'll be making out I organised that business down there-by
chance-next," said my uncle, his voice thick with challenge.
I went on as though I was back in Trinity.
"There's a lot of chance in the making of all great businesses," I
said.
My uncle remarked that that showed how much I knew about businesses.
If chance made businesses, why was it that he always succeeded and
grew while those fools Ackroyd and Sons always took second place?
He showed a disposition to tell the glorious history of how once
Ackroyd's overshadowed him, and how now he could buy up Ackroyd's
three times over. But I wanted to get out what was in my mind.