Gossamer Part 20

I did not mean that. I am, indeed, pretty sure that if there were no Aschers, if Gorman succeeded in abolishing the cla.s.s, neither the city clerk, nor his pretty wife, nor any one else in England would eat hothouse peaches. There would not be any. I am inclined to think that if Ascher were done away with there would not even be any tinned peaches.

Tinned peaches come from California. Somebody grows them there. That man must be kept going, fed, clothed sufficiently, housed, while the peach trees grow. He must be financed. Somebody else collects the peaches, puts them into tins, solders air-tight lids on them, pastes labels round them. He works with borrowed money. Somebody packs the tins in huge cases, puts them in trains, piles them into ships, despatches them to London, getting his power to do these things in some mysterious way from Ascher.

"While she washes up the cups and saucers," said Gorman, "he brings round that motor cycle."

"Paid for," I said, "in monthly instalments."

"Probably," said Gorman, "with a deposit of 25 to start with."

"It's Ascher," I said, "who makes that possible."

"It's Ascher," said Gorman, "who makes that necessary. If it were not for Ascher's rake-off, the tax he levies on every industry, the machine could be bought right out for the original 25 and there would be no instalments to be paid."

Possibly. But the tires of the machine were made of rubber. I remembered my visit to Para, the broad, steaming Amazon, the great ships crawling slowly past walls of forest trees, the pallid white men, the melancholy Indians. It may be possible to devise some other means of getting the precious gum from the Brazilian forest; but at present the whole business is dependent on Ascher.

We left that motor cycle behind us at last and sped faster along a stretch of road where the traffic was less dense.

"You notice," said Gorman, "the way London is swallowing up the country.

That was once a rural inn."

I had observed what Gorman pointed out to me. Here and there along the road, a mile or so apart from each other, we came on old buildings, a group of cottages, a farm house, an inn. These were solidly built after the good old fashion. It had seemed wasteful to pull them down. The waves of the advancing tide of London reached them, pa.s.sed them, swept beyond them, left them standing.

"Quite a few years ago," said Gorman, "those houses stood in the middle of fields, and the people who lived in them ate the food that grew at their doors."

"No tinned peaches," I said, "no bicycles."

"And no Ascher," said Gorman.

"Well," I said, "we can't go back."

"In Ireland," he said, "we needn't go on. If we can only get clear of this cursed capitalistic civilisation of England--that's what I mean by being a Home Ruler."

"You think," I said, "that we should be too wise to accept the yoke of Ascher, to barter our freedom for tinned peaches."

"We'll get the tinned peaches, too."

"No, you won't. If you have civilisation--and that includes a lot of things besides tinned peaches, tobacco for instance, Gorman. If you want a cigar you'll have to put up with Ascher. But I daresay you'd be better without it. Only I don't think I'll live in your Ireland, Gorman."

We pa.s.sed away from London in the end, got out beyond the last tentative reachings of the speculative builder, into country lane-ways. There were hedges covered with hawthorn, and the scent of it reached us as we rushed past. Gorman threw away a half-smoked cigar. Perhaps he wanted to enjoy the country smells. Perhaps he was preparing himself for life in the new Ireland which he hoped to bring into being.

We reached the barn in which Tim Gorman lived, at about nine o'clock.

He was waiting for us, dressed in his best clothes. I knew they were his best clothes because they were creased all over in wrong places, showing that they had been packed away tightly in some receptacle too small to hold them. It is only holiday clothes which are treated in this way.

Besides putting on this suit, Tim had paid us the compliment of washing his face and hands for the first time, I imagine, for many days.

He shook hands with me shyly, and greeted his brother with obvious nervousness.

"I have everything ready," he said, "quite ready. But I can't promise---- You may be disappointed---- I've had endless difficulties---- If you will allow me to explain----"

"Not a bit of good explaining to us," said Gorman. "All we're capable of judging is the results."

Tim sighed and led us into the barn.

It was a large, bare room, ventilated--no one could say it was lit--by three or four unglazed openings in the wall. These Tim blocked with hay so as to exclude the lingering twilight of the summer evening.

At one end of the building was a stage, built, I thought, of fragments of packing cases. It was very hard to be sure about anything, for we had nothing except the light of two candles to see by, but the stage looked exceedingly frail. I should not have cared to walk across it. However, as it turned out, that did not matter. The stage was used only by ghosts, the phantoms which Tim created, and they weighed nothing. Tim himself, when it became necessary for him to adjust some part of his apparatus, crept about underneath the stage.

At the other end of the barn was an optical lantern, fitted with the usual mechanism for the exhibition of films. Half way down the room was a camp bedstead, covered with one brown blanket. Tim invited us to sit on it.

"It doesn't often break down," he said.

"If it breaks down at all," said Gorman, "I'll not risk it. I'd rather sit on the floor."

Gorman is a heavy man. I think he was right to avoid the bed. I sat down cautiously on one end of it. The middle part looked more comfortable, but I felt more secure with the legs immediately underneath me.

"It's all right," said Tim, "quite all right. I fixed it just before you came in."

That bed, a tin basin and two very dirty towels were the only articles of household furniture in the place. I suppose Tim had his meals with the farmer who owned the barn. No inspired artist, toiling frenziedly with a masterpiece in a garret, ever lived a more Spartan life than Tim Gorman did in that barn. Whatever money he had was certainly not spent on his personal comfort. On the other hand, a good deal of money had been spent on tools and material of various kinds. Packing cases stood piled together against the walls. The straw in which their contents had been wrapped littered the floor. I discerned, as my eyes got used to the gloom, a quant.i.ty of carpenters' tools near the stage, and, beside them, a confused heap of the mysterious implements of the plumber's trade.

While I was looking round me and the elder Gorman was wriggling about on the floor, Tim worked the lantern behind our backs. The thing, or some part of it, hissed in an alarming way. Then it made a whirring noise and a bright beam of light shot across the room. A very curious thing happened to that light. Instead of splashing against the far wall of the barn, exhibiting the cracks and ridges of the masonry, it stopped at the stage and spread itself in a kind of irregular globe. We sat in the dark. Across the room stretched the shaft of intense light, making the dust particles visible. Then, just as when a child blows soap bubbles through a tube, the light became globular.

"Put out the candles," said Tim.

They stood, flaming feebly, on the floor between Gorman and me. I extinguished them. Tim's machine gave a sharp click. Figures appeared suddenly in the middle of the globe of light. A man, then two women, then a dog. I do not know, and at the time I did not care in the least, what the figures were supposed to be saying or doing. It was sufficient for me that they were there. I saw them, not as flat, sharply outlined silhouettes, but as if they had been solid bodies. I saw them with softened outlines, through two eyes instead of a monocle. I saw them surrounded by an atmosphere.

"Pretty good, isn't it?" said Gorman. "Tim, turn on that running girl.

I want Sir James to see how you get the effect of her going further and further away."

The running girl was the best thing accomplished by the old cinematograph. I never witness her race without a certain feeling of breathlessness. But Tim's girl ran far better. She was amazingly real.

When she had finished her course, Gorman struck a match and lit the candles again.

"That'll do, Tim," he said. "We've seen enough."

"I'd like to show you the horses," said Tim. "I think the horses galloping are the best thing I've got."

"We'll take your word for the horses," said Gorman. "Shut off that light of yours and stop the whizzing noise. I want to talk." He turned to me.

"Well?"

"It's marvellous," I said.

"There's money in it," said Gorman. "Piles and piles of money. The only question is, Who's to get it?"

"Tim," I said, "is the one who deserves it."

"Tim will get his share whatever happens. The real question is, How are we to prevent Ascher grabbing all the rest?"

Tim had finished quieting his machine and came over to us.

"Michael," he said, "I want 100."

"What for?"