Gossamer Part 28

"And I told him to buy a new suit," said Gorman.

"That," I said, "is just the kind of man that Mrs. Ascher believes in.

She was saying to me a few minutes ago that there is nothing more sordid and detestable than the worship of efficiency in practical matters."

The mention of Mrs. Ascher's name recalled Gorman to a sense of his duties as a host. The two ladies were not getting on very well together.

I imagine that Mrs. Ascher was too much excited by her Irish news to care for talking about the Naval Review we were going to see, and that was a topic which would inevitably suggest itself to Miss Gibson. Miss Gibson, though anxious to be polite, was not likely to know or care anything about Ireland. Gorman left us and joined them.

"Well," I said to Ascher, "what do you think of this performance in Galway?"

"Have you read the newspapers?" he said.

"The headlines," I replied. "I couldn't very well help reading them."

Ascher stepped across the carriage and picked up one of the papers from the floor. It was the one which declared that civil war had broken out in Ireland.

"I wish," he said, "that I knew exactly the measure of my nephew's intelligence."

"Captain von Richter?" I said.

"Yes. He may--almost anything is possible with a man like him. He may believe that."

Ascher pointed to the words, "Civil War."

"I don't think you need worry about that," I said. "Whatever Malcolmson and his lot may do those fellows in Galway won't fight. Gorman and the priests will stop them. You can always count on the politicians and the priests. They'll prevent anything really serious. The Connaught Celt will never start a civil war; at least not unless he gives up his religion and takes to hanging Members of Parliament. He's a splendid fighting man--none better--but he won't run the risk of losing his soul for the sake of a battle. He must be told he ought to fight by some one whose authority he recognises. That's where we're safe. All the authorities are against violence."

"I have no doubt you are right," said Ascher. "No civil war will be started in the way these papers suggest. I am not anxious about that. It is impossible. But I am anxious lest it should be believed possible by men who do not understand. My nephew, for instance. He will not know what you know. He may believe--and those over him in Berlin--they will not understand. They may think that the men in Ireland who have got the guns will use them. They may even have had something to do with supplying the guns. That is where the danger lies. A miscalculation--not in Ireland--but elsewhere."

I did not like to ask whether Mrs. Ascher's enthusiasm for the cause of Ireland had led her to finance the Galway gun-running. Nor did I care to question Ascher about his suggestion that Von Richter had something to do with buying and shipping that cargo or the other which was landed at Larne. Ascher seemed disinclined to discuss the matter further. We joined Gorman and the two ladies at the far end of the carriage, picking up Tim on our way.

Gorman was sitting beside Miss Gibson. He was leaning forward, pointing with outstretched hand to the country through which the train was pa.s.sing.

"This is the playground of England," he said. "Here the rich and idle build themselves beautiful houses, plant delightful gardens, live surrounded by a parasitic cla.s.s, servants, ministers to luxury; try to shut out, succeed to a great extent in shutting out all sense and memory of real things, of that England where the world's work is done, the England which lies in the smoky hinterland." He waved his hand with a comprehensive gesture towards the north. "Far from all the prettinesses of glorified villadom."

"I do think," said Miss Gibson, "that Surrey and Hampshire are sweetly pretty."

Miss Gibson may be regarded, I suppose, as one of England's toys. It was only natural that she should appreciate the playground. It was, so she thought, a district very well suited to the enjoyment of life. She told us how she had driven, in the motor of a wealthy member of Parliament, through the New Forest. From time to time she had spent week-ends at various well-appointed villas in different parts of the South of England, and, as a nice-minded young woman should, had enjoyed these holidays of hers. She frankly preferred the playground to that other, more "real" England which Gorman contrasted with it, the England of the midlands, where the toilers dwelt, in an atmosphere thick with s.m.u.ts.

Mrs. Ascher, of course, took quite a different view. It filled her with sadness to think that a small number of people should play amid beautiful surroundings while a great number--she dwelt particularly on the case of women who made chains--should live hard lives in hideous places. Mrs. Ascher is more emotional than intellectual. The necessity for consistency in a philosophy of life troubles her very little. As a devout worshipper of art she ought to have realised that her G.o.ddess can only be fitly honoured by people wealthy enough to buy leisure, that the toiling millions want bread much more than they want beauty. I have no quarrel with the description of the life of Birmingham as more "real"--both Gorman and Mrs. Ascher kept using the word--than the life of the Isle of Wight. Nor should I want to argue with any one who said that beauty and art are the only true realities, and that the struggle of the manufacturing cla.s.ses for wealth is a striving after wind. But I felt slightly irritated with Mrs. Ascher for not seeing that she cannot have it both ways.

Gorman, of course, was simply trying to be agreeable. I pointed out--when I succeeded in seizing a place in the conversation--that if Gorman's theory were applied to Ireland Belfast would come out as a reality while Cork, Limerick, and other places like them would be as despicable as Dorsetshire.

"Wicklow," I said, "is the playground of Ireland, and it returns nothing but Nationalist members to Parliament. You ought not to go back on your own side, Gorman."

Mrs. Ascher shuddered at the mention of Belfast and would not admit that it could be as "real" as Manchester or Leeds.

Miss Gibson broke in with a reminiscence of her own. She told us that she had been in Belfast once with a touring company, and thought it was duller on Sunday than any other city in the British Isles.

Gorman, after winking at me, appealed to Ascher on the subject of Belfast's prosperity. In his opinion the apparent wealth of that city is built up on an insecure foundation of credit. There is no solidity about it The farmers of the south and west of Ireland, on the other hand, have real wealth, actual savings, stored up in the Post Office Banks, or placed on deposit, in other banks, or h.o.a.rded in stockings.

Ascher was most unwilling to join in the discussion. He noticed, as I did, that Miss Gibson's attention was wandering. In the end, goaded by Gorman, he said that some one ought to teach the Irish farmers to invest their savings in high cla.s.s international stocks and bonds. He added that 1 notes kept in drawers and desks are not wealth but merely frozen potentialities of credit.

After that, conversation, as might be expected, became impossible for some time, although Ascher apologised humbly.

Gorman restored us to cheerfulness by opening a parcel and handing round two enormous boxes of chocolates. One box was settled on the seat between Miss Gibson and Tim. They ate with healthy appet.i.tes and obvious delight. When we reached Southampton that box was nearly empty and neither of them seemed any the worse. The other box lay on Mrs. Ascher's knee. She and I and Gorman did our best, but we did not get through the top layer. Ascher only took one small chocolate and, when he thought no one was looking, dropped it out of the window.

The motor yacht which Gorman had hired for us turned out to be a swift and well-found ship with a small cabin and possibilities of comfort in a large c.o.c.kpit aft. We sped down Southampton Water, one of a whole fleet of pleasure vessels large and small. A racing cutter stooped under the pressure of a fresh westerly breeze, to leeward of us. We slipped close past a little brown sailed yawl, steered by a man in white flannels.

Two laughing girls in bright red caps sat on the coachroof cabin top.

An arrogant white steam yacht, flying the ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron, sliced her silent way through the water behind us. Shabby boats with stained, discoloured sails and chipped paint bore large parties seaward. The stiff front of Netley Hospital shone white in the sun. The conical buoy at the entrance of Hamley river bent its head sh.o.r.ewards as the strong tide swept past it. From the low point beneath Calshott Castle a flying machine rose suddenly, circled round in a wide sweep and then sped swiftly eastwards towards Spit-head. In the roads off Cowes we could discern many yachts at anchor. One of the Hamburg-American lines crept cautiously up the Solent. A belated cruiser, four-funneled, black and grim, on her way to join the Fleet, followed the huge German steamer. The waters of the Solent tumbled in irregular white-topped waves, tide and wind opposed to each other, struggling for mastery.

Gorman hauled luncheon baskets from the cabin. He set Tim and me to open them. The look of a ham which Tim thoughtlessly asked her to hold while he unpacked the dish belonging to it, finished Mrs. Ascher. Our boat was rolling quite appreciably. She retired to the cabin. Even the gla.s.s of champagne with which Gorman hurriedly provided her failed to enable her to eat. Miss Gibson fortunately was unaffected. She ate everything that was offered to her and in the course of the afternoon finished Mrs.

Ascher's box of chocolates.

Before we stopped eating we caught our first sight of the Fleet. The ships lay in three long, straight lines off Spithead; battleships, cruisers, lean destroyers, submarines. A hydroplane raced past us, flinging showers of spray and foam high on each side of her. Two naval aeroplanes, their canoe-shaped floats plainly visible, hovered and circled overhead. Pleasure boats were everywhere, moving in and out among the motionless ironclads. A handsome barque-rigged yacht, some very rich man's summer home, came slowly towards us, her sails furled, using auxiliary steam power.

We swiftly approached the Fleet Already the vast bulk of the battleships oppressed our spirits. We looked up from the c.o.c.kpit of our dancing pleasure boat and saw the huge misshapen iron monsters towering over us, minatory, terrible. We swept in and out, across the sharp bows, under the gloomy sterns of the ships of the first line. Ascher gazed at them.

His eyes were full of sorrow, sorrow and a patient resignation.

"Your protection," I said. "Because those ships are there, because they are black and strong, stronger than any other ships, because men everywhere are afraid of them, because this navy of England's is great, your net of commerce and credit can trawl across the world and gather wealth."

"Protection," said Ascher. "Protection and menace. This Navy is only one of the world's guarantees of peace, of peace guaranteed by fear. It is there as you say, and the German Army is there; that men may fear them and peace be thus made sure. But can peace be secured through fear? Will not these navies and armies some day fulfil the end of their being, rend all our nets as they rush across the seas and desolate the lands? They are more menace than protection."

Gorman was standing with his back to us. His elbows were resting on the slide of the roof above the steps which led to the cabin. His chin was on his hands and he was staring at the ships. Suddenly he turned.

"The world's great delusion," he said. "Hypnotised by the governing cla.s.ses the workers are everywhere bearing intolerable burdens in order to provide statesmen and kings with these dangerous toys. Men toil, and the fruits of their toil are taken from them to be squandered on vast engines whose sole use is to destroy utterly in one awful moment what we have spent the painful effort of ages in building up."

He swept his hand out towards the great ship under whose shadow we were pa.s.sing.

"Was there ever plainer proof," he said, "that men are mad?"

Miss Gibson sat beside me. While Ascher spoke and while Gorman spoke, she held my gla.s.ses in her hand and watched the ships through them.

She neither heard nor heeded the things they said. At last she laid the gla.s.ses on my knee and began to recite Kipling's "Recessional." She spoke low at first. Gradually her voice grew stronger, and a note of pa.s.sion, tense and restrained, came into it. She is more than a charming woman. She has a great actress' capacity for emotion.

We moved through waters consecrate, and she expressed for us the spirit which hovered over them. Here English guns raked the ships of Spain.

Here, staggering homewards, shot-riddled, came the frigates and privateers of later centuries, their shattered prizes under their lee.

Through these waters men have sailed away to fight and conquer and rule in India and in many distant lands. Back through these waters, some of them have come again, generation after generation of them, their duty done, their adventuring over, asking no more than to lay their bones at last in quiet churchyards, under the shadow of the cross, near the grey walls of some English church.

Miss Gibson's voice, resonant, pa.s.sionate, devout, lingered on the last syllables of the poem.

"The imperial idea," I said, "after all, Gorman, it has its greatness."

Then Tim spoke, shyly, eagerly.

"I wonder," he said, "if they would let us go on board one of the submarines. I should like to see---- Oh, there are a lot of things I should like to see in any of those ships. They must be nearly perfect, I mean mechanically. The steering gear, for instance----"

His voice trailed off into silence.

"What a pity," said Miss Gibson, "that the King can't be here. I suppose now there'll, be no royal salutes fired and we shan't see his yacht."

"All Mr. Gorman's fault," I said. "If he had not nagged on in the way he has about Home Rule, the King would be here with the rest of us. As it is he has to stay in London while politicians abuse each other in Buckingham Palace."