Buried for Pleasure (23 page)

‘You mean, sir, the girl who had that accident, and whom someone tried to kill?'

‘Yes. I'll leave you to it, if I may, and stroll round the grounds.'

When he returned some twenty minutes later, Diana, reclothed, was sitting with Lord Sanford at the lake's edge, and both were thoughtful.

‘I've told my fiancée,' said Lord Sanford.

‘Quite so,' Fen murmured. ‘Very proper. Of course, you may rely on my discretion, and on the discretion of the police. Do you consider we did right in letting you know?'

‘Certainly you did right.' Lord Sanford spoke with that touching earnestness which belongs exclusively to the young. ‘My father . . . well, I knew he hadn't been faithful to my mother, but I never dreamed there was a child.' Fen noted with pleasure that his calmness was not the calmness of cynicism. ‘Diana and I want to do everything for Jane that we can. We hope she'll come and live with us.'

‘You'll have to be extremely tactful about it,' Fen warned him. ‘From what I've seen of her, she's an uncommonly sensitive girl. There must be no suspicion that you're offering charity.'

Lord Sanford nodded in sober agreement. And Diana said:

‘I knew all along that there was some mystery about her, and she's so like you, Robert, that I was passionately keen to find out what the mystery was. . . . I was going to mention the resemblance to Professor Fen at the time of her accident, but then I thought it might just be my imagination, so I didn't.'

‘And how is she?' Lord Sanford inquired of Fen.

‘Recovering fast, I understand.'

‘Well, I shall see to it, of course, that everything possible is done for her. Diana and I have agreed to go down to the hospital and see her, as soon as we possibly can. But this attempt on her life. . . .' Lord Sanford glanced at Fen in mute perplexity.

‘It's connected with the other deaths. She knows something about them – without, in all probability, knowing that she knows. As soon as they're cleared up, she'll be safe enough.'

‘And when are they expecting to be cleared up?'

‘Shortly, it may be. I have the ghost of a sensible idea about them, which is more than I've had so far.'

‘Tell us,' said Diana.

‘Not yet, if you don't mind.'

‘Champagne might melt him, Robert.'

‘Whether it does or not, we'll have some.'

Fen accompanied them back to the dower-house. They were an amiable couple, he thought; they would like Jane Persimmons and she would like them. In that direction all would probably be well. He dismissed the matter from his mind and fell to considering the circumstances of Bussy's death.

CHAPTER 19

B
Y
some chicanery into which Fen did not feel impelled to inquire Captain Watkyn had forestalled the Labour and Conservative Parties in procuring, for the final public meeting on the following night, the best hall which Sanford Morvel had to offer; and it was tolerably well filled. Enthroned at the centre of the platform, and pretending to listen while Mr Judd droned away about the evils of the Party political system, Fen contemplated with contentment the speech which he proposed to make. His decision had not been rashly taken; he was, on the whole, a kindly man, and he was well aware that his action would give pain to the small band of his loyal supporters. But this consideration was as a feather on a scale whose opposite pan was weighted by his determination not to be elected and by his anxiety to cleanse a mind which he felt irreparably fouled by the week's political activities. Mental antisepsis and political ruin should, he had determined, be accomplished by a single unprecedented act. And although most probably he would not be returned to Parliament in any case, any lingering risk of such an eventuality must be abolished once and for all; the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, he had discovered, was not to be had merely for the asking, and he was no longer prepared to chance being immured in the intellectual vacuum of Westminster for even so short a period as three years. He sat mobilizing his wits against this self-inflicted peril.

Thus it was that, when at last Mr Judd fell silent, Fen got to his feet and stood for a moment surveying the rows of politely expectant faces below him with a satisfaction such as he had not experienced in his whole lifetime. And the survey completed, the banquet of consternation savoured in anticipation, he removed the safety-pin from his grenade.

‘It is often asserted,' he said, ‘that the English are unique among the nations for their good sense in political matters. In actual fact, however, the English have no more political good sense than so many polar bears. This I have proved in my own person. For some days past I have been regaling this electorate with projects and ideas so incomparably idiotic as to be, I flatter myself, something of a
tour de force
. Into what I have said no gleam of reason has been allowed to intrude; and I can think of scarcely a single error, however ancient and obscure, which I have failed to propagate. Some, it is true, have cavilled at my twaddle; but their objection has been to its superficies, and not to its inane basic principles, which have included, among other laughable notions, the idea that humanity progresses, and that fatuous corruption of the Christian ethic which asserts that everyone is responsible for the well-being of everyone else. Such dreary fallacies as these, expounded by myself, have been swallowed hook, line, and sinker. And I am bound to conclude that this proven obtuseness is not unrepresentative of the British people as a whole, since their predilection for putting brainless megalomaniacs into positions of power stems, in the last analysis, from an identical vacuity of the intellect.'

He paused, regarding his audience benignly. A dreadful hush had fallen, but as yet they seemed too stupefied with surprise to make audible protest.

‘What is referred to as the political good sense of the British,' Fen continued, ‘resolves itself upon investigation into the simple fact that until quite recently the British have been politically apathetic, paying as little attention to the bizarre junketings of their elected legislators as they decently could. It is this which accounts for the smoothness of our nation's development in comparison with the other countries of Europe; and our fabled spirit of compromise – now virtually extinct – has derived from nothing more obscure or complicated than a general indifference as to the. issue of whatever controversy may have been in hand; though we, of course, have in our vanity ascribed it to tolerance. Propaganda, however, has altered all that, and politics nowadays engender heat, dismay, fury, and a variety of other discreditable emotions in every section of the populace. We are forever at each other's throats; the safety-valve of our apathy is twisted and broken beyond repair. Only here and there does it survive, and I am happy to note that this constituency is one of its last strongholds. I congratulate this constituency on the fact. And I strongly advise this constituency, when confronted with reformers-by-compulsion who assert that it is everyman's duty to take an interest in politics, to kick those gentry downstairs. For such an asseveration there is no single justification to be found, whether in morality, metaphysics, expediency, or sense. Do not allow yourselves to be cajoled into supposing that political apathy is dangerous. Dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin are raised to power, not by apathy, but by mass fanaticism. That, darlings, is the danger, but you are so busy gaping up at me and wondering if I have gone out of my mind that I could talk for a week without convincing you of it. I do not intend to talk for a week. English political fanaticism is fast growing to a spate, and nothing that I or anyone else can do or say will check it now.

‘I shall now tell you the reason why fanaticism of this sort is so attractive to humankind. A contemporary French writer – whose name I shall not mention, since you are probably too stupid either to recognize it or to remember it – has pointed out with unanswerable logic that men adopt ideas, not because it seems to them that those ideas are true, or because it seems to them that those ideas are expedient, but because those ideas satisfy a basic emotional need of their nature. Now what emotion – I ask you – provides the chief motive power of the politically obsessed? You do not answer, because you have never given the matter a moment's thought. But were you to do so, even you might dimly perceive that the reply to my question is in the monosyllable
hate
. Never forget that political zealots are people who are over-indulging their emotional need of hatred. They have, of course, their “constructive” programmes, but it is not these which supply the fuel for their squalid engines; it is the concomitant
attacks
, upon a class, a system, a personality; it is the lust to defame and destroy. Let no such men be trusted. That they have landed themselves, here and hereafter, in the most arid of all the hells is a circumstance which I must confess does not greatly distress me, and with that spiritual aspect of the matter I do not propose to deal. However, certain important practical consequences emerge, and I shall illustrate one of them by means of a fable which I have cleverly invented for the purpose.

‘There lived in a forest three foxes, named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Shadrach had a fine suit of clothes and was immensely proud of it. Meshach had a portable gramophone and some records of dance music, to which he was greatly addicted. Abednego had a hogshead of ale, replenished monthly, with which he fortified himself against the manifold horrors of existence. In this fashion they co-existed for a long period, troubling little about each other. But there came a day when Meshach, communing with his soul in the forest to the accompaniment of a tango, discovered for the first time the obscene pleasures of righteous indignation. And having discovered them, he went to Abednego and communicated them to him, saying: “Shadrach has a fine suit of clothes, and we have not. It is not just or equitable that Shadrach should be thus privileged.” So they went together to Shadrach, overpowered him, and took his fine suit of clothes away from him. But as there was only one fine suit of clothes and they could not agree which of them was to wear it, they burned it. So then nobody had a fine suit of clothes.

‘And a year or so passed, and Abednego, whose indignation was more righteous than ever, went to Shadrach and said: “Meshach has a portable gramophone and a number of records of dance music, and we have not. It is not just or equitable that Meshach should be thus privileged.” So they went together to Meshach, overpowered him, and took his portable gramophone and his records of dance music away from him. But as there was only one portable gramophone and they could not agree which of them was to use it, they threw it into a pond. So then nobody had a portable gramophone.

‘And a year or so passed, and Meshach went to Shadrach and said: “Abednego has a hogshead of ale and we have not. It is not just or equitable that Abednego should be thus privileged.” So they went together to Abednego, overpowered him, and took his hogshead of ale away from him. But as there was not enough to be shared between them, they poured it all into a river. So then nobody had anything, and they were all so angry with one another that they quarrelled, came to blows, and thus fell an easy prey to a number of cannibal foxes which descended on them from the East and tore them limb from limb.

‘This admirable tale is of course only a simplified version of what is at present going on in this country, but it mirrors the essential facts. My foxes desired that in the upshot there should be enough gramophones and ale and clothes for all of them. But they hated one another so much that the scheme was impossible to put into effect, and it is my salutary view that they deserved all they got.

‘I intended to talk for a long time about the effects which endemic envy and hatred, masquerading as a public-spirited interest in politics, are producing in this country; but I now find that I am tired of looking at your rather plain faces, so I shall not do so. In conclusion, I may as well add, however, that if you take my advice you will not go to the polls at all tomorrow. The politicians will not like this, because your indifference will be an affront to their sordid trade; but you must not let that worry you.

‘That is all I have to say.

‘Now go home and think about it.'

And with a paralysed silence for valediction. Fen strode off the platform.

An hour later, Captain Watkyn, almost in tears, found him drinking beer and talking cricket on the lawn of ‘The Fish Inn'. A decorative sunset overarched the scene.

‘What got into you?' wailed Captain Watkyn. ‘For God's sake, what got into you?'

‘I was easing my soul,' said Fen placidly.

‘But look here, old boy, you can't have
meant
all that.'

‘Some of it I meant. Of course, the British people are not a quarter as stupid as I made out; the delights of invective rather ran away with me there. What's the reaction?'

‘I'm surprised you weren't lynched,' said Captain Watkyn. ‘I'm surprised they didn't throw things,' he added as a rather less impressive alternative. ‘Well, they just shuffled out, muttering among themselves, that's all that happened. But you can take it from me, old boy, you've queered your pitch properly.'

‘Do you really think so?'

‘You'll be lucky now,' said Captain Watkyn with emphasis, ‘if you get a single vote.'

And Fen smiled.

CHAPTER 20

T
HAT
Fen's speech should have fallen victim to a newspaper conspiracy of silence is not really surprising. Sub-editors stared incredulously at it and inquired of aggrieved reporters whether they were drunk or just plain demented. Managing editors communicated hurriedly with the proprietors of their sheets, and were instructed not to mention the affair. There was no political capital to be made out of it from any angle, and although some account of it might have been published had Fen been certifiably insane, this tempting possibility was unanimously rejected by those who were on the spot. The device of total oblivion was all that remained.