Then the Bishop prayed, the foundation stone was well and truly laid,
sundry votes of thanks were passed, the band played ‘God Save the King’, and
the ceremony petered out. But Councillor Boswell seemed loth to leave the
scene of so much concentrated personal victory. He gripped Winslow’s arm with
proprietary zeal, talking about his plans for further slum-clearances while
from time to time he introduced various local people who hung around; and
finally, when most had disappeared to their homes and the Bishop had waved a
benign goodbye, George escorted his principal guest to the car that was to
take him back to Browdley Station. It was not only that he knew Winslow was
important and might at some future date do the town a service; nor merely
that he already liked him, for he found it easy to like people; the fact was,
Winslow was the type that stirred in George a note of genuine hero-worship
—and in spite, rather than because, of the title. After all, a man
couldn’t help what he inherited, and if he were also a high Government
personage with a string of degrees and academic distinctions after his name,
why hold mere blue blood against him? It was the truer aristocracy of
intellect that George admired—hence the spell cast over him by
Winslow’s scholarly speech, his dome-like forehead, and the absent- minded
professorial manner that George took to be preoccupation with some abstruse
problem. He had already looked him up in Who’s Who, and during the drive in
the car through Browdley streets humility transformed itself into na ve
delight that an Oxford Doctor of Philosophy had actually accepted an
invitation to have tea at his house.
George was also delighted at the success of his own ruse to side- track
the Mayor and the other councillors and get Winslow on his own, and most
delighted of all, as well as astonished, when Winslow said: “Good idea,
Boswell—I had been on the point of suggesting such a thing myself. My
train is not for an hour or so, I understand.”
“That’s right, no need to hurry,” George replied. “And there’s later
trains for that matter.”
Winslow smiled. “Well, we have time for a cup of tea, anyhow.” And after a
pause, as if the personality of George really interested him: “So you come of
an old Browdley family?”
“As old as we have ‘em here, sir, but that’s not so old. My great-
great-grandfather was a farm labourer in Kent, and our branch of the family
moved north when the cotton-mills wanted cheap labour. I haven’t got any
famous ancestors, except one who’s supposed to have been transported to
Australia for poaching.” He added regretfully: “But I could never get any
proof of it.”
Winslow smiled. “At any rate, your father lived it down. He seems to have
been a much respected man in Browdley.”
George nodded, pleased by the tribute, but then went on, with that
disconcerting frankness that was (if he had only known it, but then of course
if he had known it, it wouldn’t have been) one of his principal charms: “Aye,
he was much respected, and for twenty years after he died I went about
thinking how much I’d respected him myself, but then one day when I was
afraid of something, it suddenly occurred to me it was the same feeling I’d
had for my father.”
“You mean you DIDN’T respect him?”
“Oh, I did that as well, but where there’s fear it doesn’t much matter
what goes with it. There was a lot of fear in our house—there always is
when folks are poor. Either they’re afraid of the landlord or the policeman
or employers or unemployment or having another mouth to feed or a son getting
wed and taking his wage with him—birth, marriage, and death—it’s
all summat to worry about. Even AFTER death, in my father’s case, because he
was what he called God-fearing.”
Winslow smiled again. “So you didn’t have a very happy childhood?”
“I suppose it wasn’t, though at the time I took it as natural. There was
nothing cruel, mind you—only hardships and stern faces.” George then
confessed that during the first six years of his life he was rarely if ever
told to do anything without being threatened with what would happen if he
didn’t or couldn’t; and the fact that these threats were mostly empty did not
prevent the main effect—which was to give him a first impression of the
world as a piece of adult property in which children were trespassers. “Only
they weren’t prosecuted,” he added, with a laugh. “They were mostly just
yelled at… D’you know, one of the biggest shocks of my life was after my
parents died and I was sent to live with an uncle I’d never met before
—to find out then that grown-ups could actually talk to me in a
cheerful, casual sort of way, even though I WAS only a boy!”
“Yes, there must have been a big difference.”
“Aye, and I’ll tell you what I’ve often thought the difference was,”
George went on, growing bolder and smiling his wide smile. “Just a matter of
a few quid a week. You see, my father never earned more than two-pound-ten at
the mill, but my uncle had a little business that brought in about twice
that. Not a fortune—but enough to keep away some of the fears.”
“There’s one fear, anyhow, that nobody had in those days,” Winslow
commented. “Wars before 1914 were so far off and so far removed from his
personal life that the average Englishman had only to read about them in the
papers and cheer for his side.”
“Not even that if he didn’t want to,” George replied. “Take my father and
the Boers, for instance. Thoroughly approved of them, he did, especially old
Kruger, whom he used to pray for as ‘that great President and the victor of
Majuba Hill, which, as Thou knowest, Lord, is situated near the border of
Natal and the Transvaal Republic…’ He always liked to make sure the Lord
had all the facts.”
Despite Winslow’s laugh, George checked his flow of reminiscence, for he
had begun to feel he had been led into talking too much about himself. Taking
advantage, therefore, of a curve in the street that afforded the view of a
large derelict weaving-shed, he launched into more appropriate chatter about
Browdley, its history, geography, trade conditions, and so on, and how, as
Councillor, he was seeking to alleviate local unemployment. Winslow began to
look preoccupied during all this, so George eventually stopped talking
altogether as he neared his house—smiling a little to himself, though.
He suspected that Winslow was already on guard against a possible
solicitation of favours. “Or else he thinks I’m running after him because
he’s a lord,” George thought, scornfully amused at such a plausible
error.
The factor George counted on to reveal the error was the room in which
they were both to have tea. It was not a very large room (in the small
mid-Victorian house adjoining the printing-office in Market Street), but its
four walls, even over the door and under the windows, were totally covered
with books. One of George’s numerous prides was in having the finest personal
library in Browdley, and probably he had; it was a genuine collection,
anyhow, not an accumulation of sets for the sake of their binding, such as
could be seen in the mansions of rich local manufacturers. Moreover, George
really READ his books—thoroughly and studiously, often with pencil in
hand for note-taking. Like many men who have suffered deficiencies in early
education, he had more than made up for them since—except that he had
failed to acquire the really unique thing a good early education can bequeath
—the ability to grow up and forget about it. George could never forget
—neither on nor off the Education Committee of which he made the best
and most energetic chairman Browdley had ever had.
What he chiefly hoped was that during the interval before Winslow must
catch his train back to London, they might have a serious intellectual talk
—or perhaps the latter would talk, Gamaliel-wise, while George sat
metaphorically at his feet.
Unfortunately the great man failed to pick up the desired cue from a first
sight of the books; indeed, he seemed hardly to notice them, even when George
with an expansive wave of the hand bade him make himself at home; though
there was consolation in reflecting that Winslow’s own library was probably
so huge that this one must appear commonplace.
“Make yourself thoroughly at home, sir,” George repeated, with extra
heartiness on account of his disappointment.
“Thank you,” answered the other, striding across the room. He stood for a
few seconds, staring through the back window, then murmured meditatively:
“H’m—very nice. Quite a show. Wonderful what one can do even in the
middle of a town.”
George then realized that Winslow must be referring to the small oblong
garden between the house and the wall of the neighbouring bus-garage. So he
replied quickly: “Aye, but it’s gone a bit to pieces lately. Not much in my
line, gardening.”
“Must compliment you on your roses, anyhow.”
“My wife, not me—she’s the one for all that if she was here.”
“She’s away?”
“Aye—on the Continent. Likes to travel too—all over the place.
But books are more in my line.”
“It’s certainly been a good season for them.”
George wasn’t sure what this referred to until Winslow added, still
staring out of the window: “My wife’s another enthusiast—she’s won
prizes at our local show.”
George still did not think this a promising beginning to an intellectual
conversation, but as Annie was just then bringing in the tea he said no more
about books. Winslow, however, could not tear himself away from the spectacle
of the roses—which were, indeed, especially beautiful that year. “Too
bad,” he murmured, “for anyone who loves a garden to miss England just now…
So you’re not keen on foreign holidays, is that it, Boswell?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say no if I had the chance, but I don’t suppose I’d ever
be as keen as Livia is. Anyhow, I’ve got too much to do in Browdley to leave
the place for months on end.”
“MONTHS? Quite a holiday.”
“Aye, but it’s not all holiday for her. She has a job with one of those
travel tours—‘Ten Days in Lovely Lucerne’—that kind of thing.
Pays her expenses and a bit over.”
“Convenient.”
“For anyone who likes seeing the same sights with different folks over and
over again. I wouldn’t.”
“Sort of guide, is she?”
“I reckon so. She runs the show for ‘em, I’ll bet. She’s got a real knack
for managing folks when she feels like it.”
“I wouldn’t say you were entirely without it yourself.”
“Ah, but with her it’s an art.” George was too genuinely modest to realize
that his own sterling na veté was just as good a knack, art, or whatever else
it was. “Maybe you won’t believe me, but when I was a young fellow I was so
scared of meeting folks I could hardly get a word out. And even now I’m not
as happy on a platform as I am sitting alone in this room with a good book.”
He jerked his head towards the surrounding shelves in another attempt to
steer the conversation, and when Winslow did not immediately reply, he added
more pointedly: “I expect you’re a great reader yourself?”
“Oh, fairly—when I can find the time.”
“Aye, that’s the worst of being in public life.” At least they had THAT
bond in common. “You know, sir, there’s only one reason I’d ever wish to be
young again—REALLY young, I mean,” he added, as he saw Winslow smile,
—“and that’s to have summat I missed years ago—a right-down good
education… I’ll never forget when I visited Oxford and saw all those lucky
lads in the colleges…” A sincere emotion entered his voice. “And the
professors in their libraries—I tell you frankly, I…” He saw that
Winslow was still smiling. “Well, I’ll put it this way—there’s only one
thing I’d rather be than in politics, and that’s one of those university
dons, as they call ‘em.”
“Yet I doubt if many of them are doing any better work than you are here
—judging by what I’ve seen today.”
George was pleased again, but also slightly shocked by the comparison; he
could not believe that Winslow really meant it, and he was surprised that
such a distinguished man should stoop to mere flattery. “Oh, come now, sir,
I’ll never swallow that. After all, think of the books they write— I’ve
got shelves of ‘em here—heavy stuff, I admit, but grand training for
the mind.”
“Yes, books are all right.” Winslow gave a little sigh. “Though it’s
remarkable how little help they offer in some of the more curious problems of
life.” George was thinking this a rather strange remark when an even stranger
one followed it. “Look here, Boswell, I’m going to do something I wasn’t sure
about before I met you—partly because I wasn’t sure you were the right
man, and partly because even if you were, I couldn’t be positive how you’d
take it.”
George looked up with a puzzled expression. There flashed through his mind
the intoxicating possibility that Winslow might be going to ask his advice
about some matter of departmental policy—low- rent housing, say, or an
extension of the school leaving age.
But Winslow continued: “Quite a coincidence meeting you like this. Several
months ago when I promised to speak at your ceremony today I hadn’t even
heard of you—but when quite recently I did, I decided it might be a
good chance to—to approach you—if—if you seemed the sort of
man who might be approachable. You see, it’s a somewhat unusual and delicate
matter, and there aren’t any rules of etiquette to proceed by.”
And then there flashed through George’s already puzzled mind another
though less welcome possibility—that Winslow was an emissary of the
Government deputed to find out in advance whether George would accept a title
in recognition of his ‘public services’ to the town of Browdley. It was
highly unlikely, of course, since he was a mere town councillor and did not
belong to the Government party, but still, anything could happen when parties
and politics were fluid and Lloyd George was reputed to cast a discerning eye
upon foes as well as friends. Anyhow, George’s reply would be a straight
‘no’, because he very simply though a trifle truculently did not believe in
titles.