Magnus Merriman (23 page)

Mr Boden knocked at Captain Smellie's door. His landlady came and said that he was out.

‘When did he go?' said Magnus.

‘I couldna rightly say,' she answered, ‘for I was late in getting up this morning, and he was away before I came down. So I thought maybe he'd gone to the Committee Rooms, and I put his breakfast on the table to be ready for him when he came back. But there's been no sign of him, and I doubt his porridge'll be cold by now.'

‘Go along to the Committee Rooms and see if he's there,' said Magnus. ‘I'll wait here. And hurry.'

Mr Boden, travelling so fast that his waistcoat leapt up and down, ran along the street. Magnus went into Captain Smellie's sitting-room and looked about him. In a pigeonhole in a desk he found the bundle of nomination-papers. A thought struck him, and he called to the landlady.

‘I suppose Captain Smellie slept here last night?' he said.

‘And why shouldn't he?' said the landlady.

‘You heard him come in?'

‘Well,' said the landlady, ‘I was that tired last night that I went to my bed at the back of nine, and I couldna just say that I heard anyone come in later than that, or go out either for that matter.'

‘Where's his bedroom?' asked Magnus.

The bed-clothes were thrown back in disorder, the pillows were crumpled.

‘Apparently he slept here,' said Magnus.

‘Like enough,' said the landlady. ‘Though now that I think of it his bed wasna made yesterday. I was that tired all day.'

Mr Boden returned with the news that Captain Smellie had not been seen at the Committee Rooms. ‘Perhaps he's gone to Kingshouse,' he said. ‘He's daft enough to forget whether he promised to meet you there or at your hotel.'

‘Perhaps,' said Magnus doubtfully.

They hurried back to the hotel. A car was waiting for them, and they drove to Kingshouse. A small crowd of reporters and press-photographers waited outside the Townhouse. Magnus did his best to look cheerful. He went in and inquired if his agent had arrived. But Captain Smellie had not been seen. A reporter overheard his question and said light-heartedly, ‘Hullo! has Smellie skipped with the deposit?' ‘No,' said Magnus, ‘the deposit's all right.' He asked for an interview with the Sheriff, and told him what had happened. The Sheriff said, ‘It's a quarter to twelve. You still have time to send your other man back to Kinlawton to make further inquiries. But he'll have to hurry.'

Mr Boden returned to Kinlawton in the motor car, and Magnus defended himself against the reporters, who were now pressing him to admit that Captain Smellie was a welsher and had said good-bye to politics with a hundred and fifty pounds in his pocket. Half an hour later Mr Boden telephoned to say that he had examined Smellie's bedroom and found none of his possessions except a suit of pyjamas and a tooth-brush. There was no suit-case there. He had evidently packed and gone. He was a welsher: there was no other explanation.

Magnus returned to the Sheriff, who listened sympathetically. Magnus said, ‘Here are the nomination-forms. Will you take a cheque for the deposit?'

‘I can't do that,' said the Sheriff. ‘The deposit must be paid in currency.'

‘Then give me time to go to the bank, and I'll cash a cheque there.'

‘That will make three hundred pounds altogether,' said the Sheriff. ‘I have no desire to influence you in your decision, but are you sure that you are acting wisely in continuing the contest after this set-back?'

‘I'm winning all along the line,' said Magnus, ‘and I'm damned if a welsher's going to stop me now.'

The Sheriff played with his finger-tips a little tune on the table. ‘Perhaps my watch is fast,' he said. ‘At any rate, I shall give you the benefit of the doubt.'

Magnus hurried to the bank and the reporters followed him. The bank-agent telephoned to Edinburgh. The Edinburgh bank replied that Magnus's credit balance was twenty-three pounds and some shillings. Magnus spoke urgently and assured his Edinburgh bankers that his publishers owned him a vast sum of money that was due to be paid on June 1st, and that meanwhile he could obtain advances up to five hundred pounds without difficulty. Somewhat reluctantly the bank authorized its Kingshouse branch to cash his cheque, and Magnus returned to the Sheriff, ten minutes late, with a hundred and fifty pounds in notes of various denominations. Then he informed the police of Captain Smellie's disappearance.

Before evening the news had spread throughout the constituency that the Nationalist Party's agent had absconded with his candidate's deposit, and the sound of laughter dominated every other noise of the election. Magnus and his assistant speakers were all asked, at question-time, ‘Can the speaker tell me where Captain Smellie is?' Not an audience in the country would take them seriously, and to mention national finance was fatal, for immediately someone would inquire, ‘If you can't look after a hundred and fifty pounds, how can you look after the National Debt?'

It was useless to answer, as Magnus did, ‘It would be a very good thing to lose that too,' for the joke was against him and the Kinlucians would not let him side-step or forget it. The
Morning Call
and the other newspapers reported the mishap with gravity or hilarity according to their temper, and though the Edinburgh
Evening Star
—of which Meiklejohn was Editor—eulogized Magnus for his heroic payment of a second hundred and fifty pounds, that aspect
of the case proved less attractive than its comic side, and it became evident that the Nationalist cause was lost.

Magnus himself threw away his last hope a day or two later. In the moment of stress he had been able to make a magnificent gesture, and he had paid his second deposit without a qualm. But in a little while he began to think more soberly about his three hundred pounds, half of which he had already lost, and of which the second half now seemed in considerable danger. For electors who laughed at a candidate would certainly not vote for him. Three hundred pounds represented the sale of several thousand copies of
The Great
Beasts Walk Alone
. It was more than he had made by all his other books. It was a large sum of money, and the prospect of losing it made him both angry and sorrowful. Nor, when he thought of the electors of Kinluce, whose stupidity in not voting for him would be the cause of his impoverishment, could he think of them so amiably as he had done.

He spoke in Kinlawton about the general advantages of small nationalism, and foolishly said that it would encourage individualism. ‘That,' he said, ‘should prove a welcome state of affairs in Scotland, where every man is at heart an individualist. It is the individual, not the mass of the people, who is responsible for progress, for beneficent invention, and for the production of works of art. It is the duty of a nation to encourage the gifted individual, but in the vast political systems of today the claims of the individual are forgotten in a machine-like conception of the whole. The majority of people are incapable of contributing to the good of humanity, and so it is manifestly absurd to increase the mass and legislate for its benefit: but that is the democratic tendency of the modern world.'

A score of hecklers rose, noisy and indignant. ‘Does the candidate believe in democratic government?' cried one of them.

‘Less and less,' said Magnus.

‘Then what are you doing here?' bellowed half a dozen irate but logical electors.

‘Wasting my time,' said Magnus.

‘And your money!' shouted a fellow at the back of the hall.

The audience, its anger diverted, roared with laughter, and Magnus, who had plumed himself on the urbane percipience of his reply, was disconcerted by this crude reminder of a distasteful fact. But he made an effort to appear good-humoured, and said, ‘After all, it's my own money…'

‘It was. It's Smellie's now,' shouted the jester at the back, and the audience laughed again.

It was impossible to control them, and the few remaining meetings that Magnus addressed were similarly unresponsive to anything but unintended occasions for laughter. Magnus made heroic efforts to save the Nationalist bacon at the last moment, but his nerves were so frayed that he again forgot, on more than one occasion, the democratic rules under which he was fighting, and propounded unwelcome theories of privilege and individualism. His followers were openly disheartened, and went glumly about their work without hope of winning another vote. The other parties finished the campaign with a series of demonstrations so spectacular that all four candidates appeared to be victors, but the Nationalists concluded with two or three subdued little meetings that had the air of relatives gathered together to say good-bye to an only son who was departing to some distant fever-stricken shore.

On Polling Day Magnus attended the final ceremony, and watched the unhappy process of counting votes all cast for his opponents. He derived some amusement from the pallor and nervous sweating of Mr Buchanan, Mr Emerson, Mr Hammer son, and Mr Nimmo, and their determined efforts to appear bluff, genial, and careless of the result; but that was poor compensation for his own defeat. It soon became evident that Mr Buchanan was the winner by a very large majority—in their perplexity the electors had clung to Conservatism like limpets to a stucco Rock of Ages—and that Mr Nimmo was the runner-up with about nine thousand votes. Mr Hammerson and Mr Emerson had a couple of thousand votes apiece, and Magnus had six hundred and eight.

Two days later there was an unpleasant scene in his flat in Queen Street. Frieda, who had a key of her own, arrived with a bleak expression and the barely concealed intention of creating a row. She found Magnus still in a dressing-gown, though it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He had neither shaved nor washed. He had abandoned his recently-acquired habit of snuff-taking—its virtues now seemed illusory, it appeared to be unlucky, and in his disgust with the world he despised it as an affectation—and he had returned to the pernicious practice of smoking: as if by some grey fungus his dressing-gown was discoloured with tobacco-ash, and the charred ends of many cigarettes lay in the fireplace. A suit-case, half-unpacked, filled the sofa. A large tumbler of whisky and soda stood on the floor by his side, and he was reading an American detective-novel.

Frieda stood and looked at him. ‘Well,' she said, ‘you're a fine politician, aren't you?'

‘Sit down and have a drink,' said Magnus.

She pushed the suit-case off the sofa. Falling, it emptied its remaining contents on the floor.

‘Be careful,' said Magnus. ‘There's a flask in there, and a couple of rather valuable books.'

‘So you're in a bad temper, are you? Well, I don't wonder, after the exhibition you've made of yourself.'

‘I'm not in a bad temper,' said Magnus. ‘I merely asked you to avoid, if possible, breaking my flask and so spoiling my books.'

‘Well, you ought to have unpacked your suit-case and put your things away. My God, you look like a hobo, sitting there!'

‘If you came only with the idea of making yourself unpleasant …'

‘Oh, that's your line, is it? And I thought you said you weren't in a bad temper! There doesn't just seem to be honey dripping off your tongue now, does there? But I suppose you want to work off your spite on me: I'm to suffer because Kinluce wouldn't vote for you. Is that the idea?'

‘What do you want me to say?' asked Magnus wearily.

‘What do I want you to say?' Frieda repeated. ‘I want
you to say what you're going to do to get me out of the mess I'm in. I can't go on living in Rothesay Crescent. I told them I was engaged to you, and they raised hell. Hell's been simmering ever since, and now it's burst again. Aunt Elizabeth says you're a gaol-bird, and Uncle Henry says you're an unsuccessful mountebank.'

‘I don't give a damn what your Uncle Henry says,' said Magnus indignantly.

‘No? But it's true! You just made a fool of yourself in Kinluce. You let that guy Smellie levant with your hundred and fifty pounds, you make everybody laugh at you, and then you lose your second deposit. Didn't I tell you from the beginning there was nothing to this damned Nationalism of yours? How d'you expect people to vote for a crazy notion like that? Uncle Henry says…'

‘I've no desire whatever to listen to your Uncle Henry's opinions.'

‘Well, I've got to listen to them, so I don't see why you shouldn't. I got to listen to them till I'm sick to death of them, even though I know that half of them are true. And I've got to stay in his God-damned house because there's nowhere else for me to go, unless I go on the streets—even then I couldn't keep myself in coffee and decent stockings in this darned tight-wad country of yours.'

Magnus said, ‘I suppose you want me, first of all, to take the blame for seducing you. Then …'

‘Go on!' Frieda interrupted. ‘Now say that I seduced you!'

‘I wasn't going to say …'

‘Well, I did! And you fell mighty easy and you fell mighty hard. But that's all right. Then I fell in love with you, and that wasn't all right. Oh, God, I wouldn't mind what Uncle Henry says if only you hadn't made such a God-awful fool of yourself! He could have told me to break off my engagement and I'd have told him to go chase himself round the block. But how can I say that now? Don't you see what you've done? I can't even trust you myself now. You made such a mess of things in this darned election that you may go on and make a mess of everything you ever do all through your life.'

‘Yes,' said Magnus, getting up and facing her in a towering rage. ‘That's probably the case. I'll make a mess of things, but a handsome mess and a lively mess. I'm going to be a grandiose, multiple, and consistent failure. And I don't care! I don't want to be successful and damned for success by smugness, impercipience, spiritual arthritis, and jaded appetite. You'd like me to put on success as though it were a coffin, and write
Respectable
over my life for an epitaph to show I'm done with life. Well, I'm not going to! I'd rather have my ambitions ripped up every year, as if by a plough, and then they'll sprout again, and grow again, and be green through time. I'm going to be a failure, am I? But I'll be alive, really alive, able to make a fool of myself and get drunk as I please, when your successful men are limping around three-parts dead under the weight of their success. A failure, by God! Failure can't kill me: simply what I am will keep me alive.'

‘That's a lot of hooey,' said Frieda.

‘It's the soundest sense you ever listened to,' said Magnus.

‘Anyway, it doesn't help me.'

‘It wasn't meant to. I don't see what you have to grumble at. Apparently you want comfort, security, and a settled home. Well, you've got them so long as you stay with your uncle. What else are you looking for?'

‘I want you too! Didn't I tell you I was in love with you? Do you want me to go on saying it again and again?' Frieda's voice was shrill. Her loveliness was stormy: the clouds threatened rain: and Magnus grew acutely uncomfortable to think there might soon be tears. He answered her in a mild and pleasant tone.

‘As a politician I'm obviously a failure,' he said. ‘As a poet I shall probably be a failure too, because for the life of me I can't remember how I was going to handle
The Returning
Sun
, and for weeks I haven't felt a single metrical impulse in me. But I don't feel disheartened. I feel curiously confident, partly, perhaps, because cigarettes are much more satisfying than snuff, but also because I've got rid of some more serious affectations. Now if you care to link your life with mine on an unofficial and possibly immoral basis—in a word, to be my mistress—I shall be delighted indeed, so long as you
behave in a reasonable manner and try to keep your temper. We shall see the cabbage-stumps and the ash-bins and the broken bottles of failure gilded by the self-same glorious sun that gilds…'

‘Oh, can that,' said Frieda viciously.

‘I take it, then, that you have fallen out of love with me?'

‘I don't want to marry a guy that's going to make a mess of his whole life and mine too.'

‘I wasn't talking about marriage,' said Magnus. ‘However, have it your own way.'

There was silence for a minute or two, and they heard a newsboy calling loudly in the street below. Magnus leaned out of the window and shouted to him.

‘I'm going down to get a paper,' he said, and left her. He returned with a copy of the
Evening Sun
and looked carefully through it.

‘They haven't caught Smellie yet,' he said.

‘I guess he was the only guy in your whole darned Party who'd grey matter between his ears. He got something out of the election.'

‘He won't get very fat on a hundred and fifty pounds,' said Magnus.

‘Neither will you on your cock-eyed philosophy of failure.' Frieda rose abruptly. ‘Well, I'm going,' she said. ‘I guess I'll be back some time or other, though God knows what's the use of coming.'

A great weariness descended on Magnus when she had gone, for the election had exhausted his strength and he felt his nerves like worn fiddle-strings. Such large pity for himself afflicted him that it overspread its original object and included Frieda too. For all his brave contempt of success he could not yet, except in the heat of excitement, contemplate his political failure without unhappiness, and the loss of his three hundred pounds was the heaviest grief of all. But seeing himself as Fortune's waif, he saw Frieda as another. He forgave her rudeness and her violence, beholding, in the tearful mirror of his mind, the bitter disappointment which had inspired them. He drank some more whisky, and was moved by such sympathy for her, such a vivid picture of
her beauty, that his thoughts considered and his eyes dwelt upon the telephone. Then he heard footsteps on the stairs outside. Someone was coming to the flat, and in half-panic he wondered if Frieda had returned. He waited in miserable anticipation.

The bell rang, and he heard something fall into the letterbox. The footsteps retreated. It was only the postman who had called.

Then he realized how strongly disinclined he was from seeing Frieda again. Another quarrel was more than he cared to endure, and a sly infant fear assailed him that, should Frieda grow reconciled to his capacity for failure and again want to marry him, he might even submit to being married rather than face more brawling and its aftermath of pity and remorse. At that he fell into a half-panic, and finished his whisky at a gulp.

Then a blissful thought occurred to him. He picked up the evening paper he had bought, and turning to the shipping advertisements discovered that the steamer
St Giles
would sail from Leith, at eleven o'clock that night, for Kirkwall in the Orkneys. He immediately decided to follow Captain Smellie's example and levant.

He was aboard with all his belongings by half past ten, and as the
St Giles
faced the strong easterly wind that blew up the Forth he found an exhilarating illusion of escape, and strode about the dark and lonely deck with such contentment that he began to sing the metrical version of the Twenty-third Psalm in its ranting tune of
Covenanters
.

But presently the sea turned rough, and for most of the voyage he lay in his bunk and was either actively or passively sick.