Noble in Reason (27 page)

The play was a success and I took curtain calls, and the reception given to it by my family was no less warm and cordial than that of the audience.

“I never thought you'd write anything like this, Chris,” said John in a tone of the friendliest surprise and pleasure.

“It's quite funny,” proffered Robert.

The mixing of acquaintances belonging to separate compartments of one's life is always an ordeal, for one is a different person in each compartment and cannot easily reconcile all these different personalities in a single image—one feels like the mythical chameleon placed on a tartan, which burst in the vain attempt to become so many different colours at once. To see the Jarmaynes, the Merridews and my friends of the theatre together at the party after the play—all with their eyes on me, too—was decidedly trying. Helena, however, used her shrewdest tact to help me: she settled John with my agent, Mrs. Merridew with Edie; put Robert in a corner with a good deal of food, Hermia to talk careers with John's daughters; introduced Mr. M to a member of the cast interested in fine editions and Nicholas to the (very pretty) ingénue; then sat down herself beside my father into whose ear she poured the most carefully tuned praises of myself and my work. Very much relieved, I was able to tour round amongst the other guests without committing more than the normal amount of new author's first-night imbecilities, but my glance returned often to the group of Helena and my father, which I found in some way moving. He listened so earnestly, with head so attentively inclined towards her (very bare) shoulder, while she gestured so expertly with her fine ringed hands to convince him, that I felt ashamed to be the object of so much care and attention. Coming round to their corner after a little time, I paused before them, wanting to show myself grateful and affectionate but unable to find anything to say. Helena laid her hand on my cuff and said, laughing:

“Well, here he is, your clever Chris.”

My father looked up at me with his head on one side.

“You must stay in London, Chris; you're quite a different person here,” he said.

I entirely agreed with him, but felt a pang at the wistful note in his voice.

The Man in Green Baize
ran for several months and was presently filmed. Money poured in upon me. My little Merridew garret expanded into an odd but extremely agreeable and well appointed flat. I drove a car and its obedience to my foot and hand increased my assurance. I gave and attended parties. I did a good deal of writing of various short but lucrative pieces; no longer theme seemed yet to emerge which I wanted to handle. The affair between myself and Helena cooling by mutual consent into a quiet though real affection, I sought sexual satisfaction in other directions; it was easily found, promiscuity being at that time highly fashionable, even in the most surprising circles. I was pleased to find that I took my various
amours
lightly; I had learned, I thought, to control my childishly excessive emotions.

Presently the play came off and Helena left for Hollywood. I sent the usual flowers and telegrams in very good measure, and drove her down to Southampton to see her off. The great liner, the crowd, the white-coated stewards, the banked flowers, the famous passengers, the bustle of departure, enthralled me; I smiled around at them even when kissing Helena good-bye.

“Be careful, Chris dear,” said Helena, gently caressing my shoulder. “Now that I'm not here to look after you, be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

“One way to kill a cat is to choke it with cream,” said Helena.

The loud blast of the ship's siren fortunately excused me from reply.

I was reading the other day J. I. M. Stewart's entertaining literary puzzle novel,
Mark Lambert's Supper,
when I came across a remark very relevant to this
Green Baize
period of mine. On a hillside outside Siena, Mark Lambert passes an old Italian whose daily occupation is to beat out the seeds from a great pile of sunflowers; his greeting is notably cheerful as he continues his regular thwack, thwack, thwack. “Does his excellent nervous tone proceed from a lifetime of sadistic satisfaction?” wonders Lambert sardonically.

In other words, the whole, well-integrated, well-adjusted man is not necessarily a good man. An integrated personality, though more healthy and more comfortable to itself than when disintegrated, may be less comfortable to other people than in its half-powered state. A crocodile is a finer animal and better suited to its natural purposes when boisterously robust, but is probably a more feared member of the community than a crocodile with toothache in its jaws and a fibrositic tail. The intention of the healed animal towards its neighbours is my point. In human society, to cure oneself of physical disease or mental confusion is a duty, but one's duty does not end there. A personality well fitted to supply its own natural wants is not necessarily unselfish to the degree required by modern civilization. The remodelled mind must be well employed. It is not enough to illuminate the ground; the right route must then be chosen.

I was now a man of the world, no longer a naïve, ignorant, inhibited lad, hamstrung by complexes, enchained by fears. My powers were at their height and I knew how to use them. But would use of them make me a menace, a parasite or a useful contributor to the human course? That question remained to be answered, and the
Green Baize
period did not answer it in a very hopeful way.

In the September of 1931 I received a telegram from John to say that he was coming to London for the night; could I put him up? I replied in the affirmative and made suitable preparations. Indeed I determined to do him proud; partly from genuine family affection and partly from a desire to show him that his young brother was now a knowledgeable and sophisticated person, able to steer his way through the London deeps. I saw to the drinks, laid in some of the cigars which, following the line of Uncle Alfred, John sometimes smoked, booked a table at one of the small restaurants then fashionable (I forget its name) and secured a couple of stalls for a revue.

I met John at Kings Cross. He looked tired, I thought. I put on an act of gaiety and welcome, determined to make him think I was enjoying his company. He did not make any of those crushing comments which I was accustomed to receive from my family, indeed he did not say much of any kind, but looked around him silently with an air of interest in my flat and in the restaurant, where he drank a good deal but seemed apathetic about the excellent food. To my dutiful enquiries about the family he replied shortly: father was not too well, Edie was pretty fair, Muriel and Joyce were training as nurses and Anne was taking a course in secretarial work. Robert was still at the Hudley Grammar School.

“Isn't it getting time he went somewhere else?” said I.

“Oh, I don't know. He's not one of those clever boys,
you know,” said John. “He'll manage all right though, will Bob.”

He fell silent and played with the stem of his glass. A trifle vexed at his lack of response to the sociable efforts I was making, I sighed and called for the bill. We left the restaurant and went off by taxi.

“Well, I'm glad you're doing so well these days, Chris,” said John as we drove along. He spoke in an embarrassed tone and looked aside. “You were a bit of a slow starter, but you seem to be doing all right now. Aren't you? Eh?”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm doing all right now.”

The taxi reached the theatre and we went in.

One of the early turns in the revue was given by a tall handsome young negro in evening dress, who in a by no means new song exhorted us to keep on struggling and striving and wearing a smile, and then
you'll get there in the morning.
The young man had all the charm and élan of his race, and he danced with such vigour that his coat tails flew through the air with an agreeable effect of abandon, but his voice was inferior, indeed often out of tune, so that to me his turn appeared a decidedly minor one. John however applauded him with much emphasis and as often happens his enthusiasm kindled it in others so that the young negro was recalled twice —he looked surprised, I thought, as well as delighted, and I began to feel a little embarrassed by John's conspicuous clapping.

“I like this fellow,” said John.

Indeed nothing else amongst the lavish splendours, the bare flesh, the glittering sequins and the famous comedians, seemed to please him so much.

At last the interval came and we went out into the bar. I was determined to show a proper West Riding push and efficiency and left John at one side while I went forward to get our drinks. When I returned he was talking to a little grey
badger of a man, pale and thin, whose hot dry hand quivered anxiously as he put it out to me.

“It's Mr. Hodgson, Chris,” said John quickly.

I was astonished, for my memories of Mr. Hodgson were of a large, red-faced, prosperous, complacent person. I was also ashamed that I had not thought to send him tickets for
The Man in Green Baize,
the more so when he said triumphantly:

“I saw your play three times, Mr. Chris. Very good it was. I'm glad you used my name, Josiah.”

I hurried off to get a drink for him. When I returned, he and John wore the look of men who had been broken off a private talk by the advent of someone ignorant of its subject.

“Thanks. Well, here's how,” said Mr. Hodgson, raising his glass to his lips with a good deal of gusto. “I saw you from above, you know. Yes, I picked you out. Those are Edward's lads, I thought. And then I fell to thinking of your brother, you know. That poor lad Henry. What a shame it was about him! He was a fine young fellow. I suppose it was a woman really, wasn't it now? Eh, Mr. Chris? Wasn't it?”

“Yes. One false step disgusted him too much with himself,” said I, seeing that Mr. Hodgson meant to insist on an answer.

“Aye, I thought as much,” said Mr. Hodgson, nodding. “But it was best not to tell your father. Yes, you did right not to tell your father. He always took things hard, did Edward. And how is he now, eh?”

“Just at the moment he's not too clever,” replied John.

This West Riding expression received full understanding from Mr. Hodgson. “Isn't he now? No, I daresay he's not,” he said sympathetically, nodding again. “No, I daresay not. Not too clever.”

The bell rang, and with a brief farewell John moved off promptly towards our stalls.

“Poor Hodgson's getting old, I suppose—he looks only
half the man I remember him,” I said as we walked down the aisle.

“He's lost his job,” said John grimly. “He was in Oldroyds' London office, you remember.”

“They've pensioned him off?”

For the first time that evening John looked at me directly.

“No. Don't you read any West Riding news in London, Chris?” he said. “Oldroyds are down—they've gone into voluntary liquidation.”

“What!” I exclaimed. The news was incredible, shocking, for the Oldroyds were princes of the textile trade; their firm was more than a hundred years old; they were part of West Riding history.

“Armitages of Iredale are down too,” said John. “There's a slump on, you may have noticed.”

“And how are Jarmaynes doing?” said I hotly.

“How do you think?” said John.

“You've come to talk to me about it. Let's cut this and go back to my flat.”

“Nay!” said John sardonically. “You've paid for this show so we may as well enjoy it.”

Enjoyment was hardly the word for my reactions. I was intensely anxious, and I was furious at my own ineptitude in offering John an elaborate evening's entertainment when what he needed was brotherly affection and assistance. As I looked at him now in the half-light I saw that his face was lined and haggard, with dark pouches beneath the eyes, the face of a man who was losing in a desperate struggle—I well understood now the appeal he found in the young negro's exhortations. The moment the show was over I pushed out of the theatre rapidly, but as luck would have it—and I felt this was symptomatic of my changed luck, my loss of assurance—I could not get hold of a taxi, and we had to walk, continually jostled apart by the homeward-going crowds. However, the distance was not
great; soon—and now that the moment was here I felt it to have come all too soon—we were alone together in my flat.

“Tell me about Hilbert, then,” said I.

“Well,” began John with maddening deliberation—I had to remind myself that he was no doubt as nervous as I: “To begin at the beginning, Uncle Alfred's down.”

“Good heavens.”

“We tried to help him but it was useless.”

“Poor Edie.”

“She takes it very well. When it's all over we shall probably have the old man to live with us.”

“Part him from his cactus? But what about Hilbert?” I exclaimed, suddenly seeing the significance of all this. “If you've been helping Uncle Alfred-”

“Well, the truth is,” said John, “that we can't meet our spinner's account next Friday.”

“Friday?”

“The twenty-fifth,” said John impatiently. “Surely you remember that spinners' accounts for yarn always have to be paid on the twenty-fifth of the month? Or have you thrown everything about the West Riding behind you now you're so prosperous? We can't pay—I've tried everything but I can't make up the sum. That is, I've tried everything but one, and that's Bob's money.”

“Bob hasn't any money.”

“Yes, he has. I've never spent any of what you've paid for his keep. I've brought him up as if he were mine,” said John harshly, avoiding my eyes. “I thought it would be a good start for him to have a capital sum when he's twenty-one. We've had him thirteen years and there's nigh on two thousand pounds laid aside for him. Of course it's your money really, Chris. That's what I've come for, to say: Do you agree that I shall use it?”