Highland Fling (12 page)

‘Quite right,’ said Lord Prague, who imagined from the few
words that had penetrated to his consciousness and from Albert’s impassioned manner that he was reviling all foreigners. ‘That is the proper spirit, Mr Gates. Down with the Huns! Down with the Frogs! Down with the Macaronis! Down with Uncle Sam! England for the English!’

Exhausted by the effort of this oration he lay back once more in his chair and closed his eyes.

Nobody paid any attention to him, and there was a long silence, accentuated by heavy breathing and the sound of the admiral gulping down his thirteenth glass of port.

At last it was broken by Mr Buggins.

‘Gates is, of course, entitled to his own opinions. I can see his point of view although, naturally, it differs from my own. Being very young and very enthusiastic, he expresses himself violently and rashly and probably says a great deal more than he means. None the less, there is something to be said for his argument.

‘All cultured persons are, to a certain extent, cosmopolitan. They feel at home among people of equal culture to whatever nationality they may happen to belong. I feel this very strongly myself. Italy is to me a second Fatherland; although I have no Italian blood I feel as much at home there as I do in England, having perhaps more congenial friends in Rome than I have anywhere else.

‘Gates, who is an artist – may I remind you? – of recognized ability, would feel naturally more at his ease among other artists, whatever their nationality, than he would, say, in the company of English foxhunting squires.

‘Artists, poets, musicians and writers are, of course, less affected by the governments under whose rule they may happen to find themselves than perhaps any other class. Therefore, it is hardly surprising if they do not greatly mind what form that government takes –’

‘Then are loyalty and patriotism to count for nothing?’ the general interrupted in a furious voice.

‘Nothing at all!’ said Lord Prague, who had opened his eyes again and appeared anxious to take part in the argument.

‘Patriotism,’ said Albert, ‘is a virtue which I have never understood. That it should exist in any but the most primitive minds has always mystified me. I regard it as one step higher than the Chinese family worship, but it seems to me that at our stage of civilization we should have got past all that sort of thing.

‘I am glad, certainly, to be English-speaking. That I regard as a very great advantage, both as a matter of convenience and also because there is no language so rich in literature. Otherwise, what is there to be proud of in this hideous island, where architecture generally vies with scenery to offend the eye and which has produced no truly great men, none to compare with, for instance, Napoleon?’

‘I should have thought, my dear Gates, if I may say so, that with your strongly pacifist views you would look upon Napoleon as the most despicable of men,’ said Mr Buggins.

‘No, indeed; Napoleon was the greatest of all pacifists. He fought only for peace, and would have achieved what I spoke of just now – the United States of Europe, except for the jealous and pettifogging policy of certain British statesmen.’

‘That, I should say, is a matter of opinion, and I doubt whether you are right,’ said Mr Buggins. ‘But at the same time, Gates, there is something I should like to say to you, which is, that I think you have no right to speak as you did of the men who fought in the War, sneering at them and hoping they enjoyed it, and so on. I know you did not really mean to say much, but remember that sort of thing does no good and only creates more bitterness between our two generations, as though enough did not exist already. I know that many of us seem to you narrow-minded, stupid and unproductive. But if you would look a little bit below the surface you might realize that there is a reason for this. Some of us spent four of what should have been our best years in the trenches.

‘At the risk of boring I will put my own case before you.

‘When the War broke out I was twenty-eight. I had adopted literature as my profession and was at that time art critic on several newspapers. I had also written and published two books involving a great deal of hard work and serious research – the first, a life of Don John of Austria, the second, an exhaustive treatise on the life and work of Cervantes. Both were well received and, encouraged by this, I was, in 1914, engaged upon an extensive history of Spain in the time of Philip II, dealing in some detail with, for instance, the art of Velasquez and El Greco, the events which led to the battle of Lepanto, the religious struggle in the Netherlands, and so on. I had been working hard at this for three years and had collected most of my material.

‘On the 5th August, 1914, whether rightly or wrongly, but true to the tradition in which I had been brought up, I enlisted in the army. Later in that year I received a commission. I will not enlarge upon the ensuing years, but I can’t say that I found them very enjoyable.

‘When, in 1919, I was demobilized, I found that, as far as my work was concerned, my life was over – at the age of thirty-three. I was well off financially. I had leisure at my disposal. I had my copious notes. Perhaps – no doubt, in fact – it was a question of nerves. Whatever the reason, I can assure you that I was truly incapable of such concentrated hard work as that book would have required. I had lost interest in my subject and faith in myself. The result is that I am now an oldish man, of certain culture, I hope, but unproductive, an amateur and a dilettante. I know it. I despise myself for it, but I cannot help it.

‘And that, I am convinced, is more or less the story of hundreds of my contemporaries.

‘Everybody knows – you are at no pains to conceal it – that the young people of today despise and dislike the men and women of my age. I suppose that never since the world began
have two generations been so much at variance. You think us superficial, narrow-minded, tasteless and sterile, and you are right. But who knows what we might have become if things had been different?

‘That is why I do earnestly beg of you not to speak sarcastically, as you did just now, of the men who fought in the War. Leave us, at any rate, the illusion that we were right to do so.’

‘Oh, dear!’ said Albert. ‘How you do misunderstand me! I suppose I must express myself very badly. Of course I feel the greatest respect and admiration for the men who fought. I am only criticizing those unprincipled members of the governing classes (of all nationalities) who made it necessary for them to do so – men to whose interest it is that there should be wars. Professional soldiers, for instance, must naturally wish for war or all their work and training of years would be for nothing. Many politicians find in it a wonderful opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Certain businessmen make vast fortunes out of it. These are the people who are responsible. They educate the young to believe that war is right so that when they have manufactured it they are supported by all classes.

‘But they ought to be regarded with the deepest distrust by their fellow citizens, instead of which they are set up as national heroes. I would have their statues removed from all public places and put where they belong – in the Chamber of Horrors – thus serving the cause both of Art and of Morals.’

He glared at the general, who returned his black looks with interest, but could not trust himself to speak.

‘General Murgatroyd,’ continued Albert, ‘provoked this discussion by actually boasting (though I don’t know how he can dare even to admit such a thing) that he is doing his best in every way to make another war. Not content with rising in his bloody profession over the dead bodies of hundreds of innocent men, he evidently continues to be a propagandist of
the most insidious and dangerous type. Happily, however, mankind is beginning to realize that war is of all crimes the most degraded; and when, which will soon happen, the great majority holds that view, peace will be permanent and universal. Generals, on that rapidly approaching day, will become as extinct as the dodo, relegated to the farcical side of drama and the films.’

‘Come!’ exclaimed Mr Buggins, feeling that enough had now been said, ‘come, Mowbray, and have a game of billiards.’

But the general, deeply incensed, retired to the study, where he listened to
Iolanthe
on the wireless and read his favourite book,
Tegetmeer on Pheasants
.

Admiral Wenceslaus, having finished the port, tottered off to bed, eye in hand, singing, ‘The more we are together’.

After this rather acrimonious dinner, Albert, noticing that there was a very lovely full moon and that the air outside was warm and mellow, suggested to Jane that they should go out for a little walk. She thought that it would be a good idea. The evenings at Dalloch were apt to be rather boring. Lady Prague had introduced a particularly odious form of paper game, called briefly and appropriately ‘Lists,’ which consisted in seeing who could make the longest list of boys’ names, fishes, kinds of material, diseases and such things beginning with a certain letter. As Lady Prague herself always chose both the subject and the letter, and as she invariably won, it was felt, no doubt unjustly, that she sat up for hours every night with a dictionary preparing herself for the next game. The only time they had played anything else it had been at Albert’s suggestion – Consequences, but this was not an unqualified success.

For the erotic Lady Prague to meet the sobered-up Admiral Wenceslaus in a bedroom, undressing; for her to say to him, ‘What about it?’; for him to say to her, ‘My eye!’; for the consequence to be that they had nine children in three lots of triplets; and for the world to say, ‘The only compensation for regurgitation is re-assimilation,’ had been considered too embarrassing to risk repetition. (Albert, accused afterwards of cheating, had hotly denied the charge.)

‘I couldn’t have faced “Lists” again,’ said Jane as they walked away from the castle. ‘Somehow, I seem to get worse and worse at it. Last night, for instance, I couldn’t even think of one vegetable beginning with “c”, of course –
cabbage
. It was too
idiotic; all I could think of was brussels sprouts and broccoli; and I knew they were wrong.’

‘Yes; indeed; it is ghastly. The diseases are the most embarrassing, though.’

‘And the vices. I think it’s a horrid game.’

Albert told her of the conversation that had just taken place in the dining-room and asked what her feelings were on the subject.

‘Oh! the same as yours! All young people must surely agree about that except, I suppose, young soldiers, but I don’t count them anyway.’

Jane had once been in love for a short time with an officer in the Guards and had looked upon the army with a jaundiced eye ever since. (She had treated him abominably.)

‘Mr Buggins agrees with us, too. Of course, he had to qualify his approval with the general listening like that, but I could see exactly what he really meant. I think him so charming; at first he seemed a little tiresome with all his culture and folklore and good taste, but now I’m becoming very fond of him. He told us a lot about himself after dinner, but never mentioned anything about his wife. I wonder when all that happened?’

‘Poor man! He looks dreadfully sad, I always think. He’s the only nice one among the grown-ups here, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, indeed he is. I don’t know what would have happened this evening if he hadn’t been there. I should probably have insulted General Murgatroyd even more than I did, and then have been obliged to leave the house, the very last thing I wish to do at the moment.’

Jane suddenly began to feel embarrassed. It had come upon her lately with the certainty born of experience that Albert was falling in love with her, and now she began to think from the absent-minded way in which he spoke and his general manner that he was about to make some sort of declaration. This was the very last thing Jane wanted to happen.

She had been considering the situation and had decided that although she liked Albert more than anybody she had ever met, and although she would probably marry him in the end, she was not at present in love with him. On the other hand she did not at all want to lose him entirely, which might happen if he proposed and was refused. She was anxious for things to go on as they were at present. So she kept up a sort of barrage of rather foolish, nervous chatter.

‘Do you know,’ said Albert interrupting her in the middle of a sentence, and standing still, ‘that I’m in love with you, Jane?’

Her heart sank.

‘Are you, Albert?’ she said faintly, wondering what the next move would be.

There was a silence. Albert, taking her hand, kissed her fingers one by one.

‘Well?’

Jane said nothing. He took her in his arms and began kissing her face.

‘Do you love me, darling?’

Jane felt frightened suddenly of committing herself to anything and said in an unnatural way:

‘Albert, I don’t know – I’m not sure.’

He let go of her at once, saying rather coldly: ‘No, I see. Well, if you change your mind you’d better tell me, will you? Let’s go on walking, it’s such a lovely night.’

She thought this would be almost too embarrassing, but soon felt curiously at her ease, as though nothing had happened at all. They were in a wood of little fir trees which reminded her of a German fairy story she had been fond of as a child. She told it to Albert as they walked along. Presently they came out of the wood on to the open moor. The moon, which was enormous, shone in a perfectly empty sky; the moor looked like the sea. There was a very complete silence.

As they stood there for a moment before turning back, Jane
suddenly realized with a wave of feeling how much she loved Albert. She passionately hoped now that he would take her in his arms and kiss her, but he did not do so and a strange feeling of shyness prevented her from making an opening for him.

After standing there for some time in silence they returned to the castle, talking quite naturally about everyday things. They found that all the others had gone to bed, and crept up the back stairs in complete darkness, saying good night affectionately when they reached their bedrooms.