Even the library, when he was shown in, did not stir in him more than a
glance of casual admiration, though this was the kind of room he had all his
life dreamed of—immense, monastic, and book- lined.
“Nice of you to drop in, Boswell,” began Lord Winslow, getting up from an
armchair.
The two men shook hands. The present Lord Winslow was a revised edition of
the former one, but with all qualities a shade nearer the ordinary—
thus a little plumper, rather less erudite, more of a dilettante, worldlier,
colder beneath the surface.
George declined a drink, but began to take in his surroundings—the
ornately carved mantelpiece, a smell of old leather bindings, the huge
mullioned window through which a view of rolling parkland was superb.
“First time you’ve been in this part of the country perhaps?” And Winslow
began to chatter about local beauty spots, while the butler brought sherry.
“Good of you to take such an interest in Charles. He sends me glowing
accounts of you.”
“It’s a pleasure to help the boy.”
“That’s how we all feel…” And then a rather awkward pause. “Cigar?”
“No, thanks—I don’t smoke.”
Lord Winslow got up and closed a door that had swung open after the butler
had not properly closed it. Coming back across the room he said: “So you’ve
seen Livia?”
“Aye, I’ve just come from seeing her.”
“She’s a little off her head, as I daresay you must have noticed.”
George, despite his own liking for downright statements, was somewhat
shocked by the coolness of the remark.
Winslow went on: “I suppose it’s what she went through in Hong Kong.”
“It might have been.”
“Though to tell you the truth, she was rather—er—
unpredictable, even before that… Of course it’s a problem to know quite
what to do. Especially in regard to Charles.”
“Aye, that’s what matters.”
“I’m glad you think so. She’s dead set on taking him to live with her in
Ireland, but in my opinion that would be a mistake, even if it were feasible,
which it probably isn’t. I doubt if the Government would issue permits.”
“Permits?”
“You see, it’s Southern Ireland. Neutral country. They wouldn’t be quite
sure what she was up to in a place like that… I heard this in confidence
from a chap in the Passport Office. They have everybody tabbed, you
know.”
“But I don’t see—”
“Oh, nothing significant—nothing at all, I’m quite certain. She
probably mixed with some of the wrong people somewhere—she’s really
rather eccentric in her choice of friends. Personally I don’t think it ever
meant a thing, though it certainly can’t have helped Jeff… any more than it
would help Charles.” Suddenly Winslow rang the bell, and when the butler
appeared, turned to George with the remark: “I hope you’ll stay to dinner.”
George was surprised by this on top of other surprises, and had hardly begun
to stammer his regrets when Winslow interpreted them to the butler as an
acceptance.
“It’s kind of you,” George said when the man had gone, “but I was thinking
of my train. It leaves at six-fifteen.”
“Oh, there’s another one after that.”
“Are you sure? Because I looked it up and—”
“Positive… I’m so glad you’ll stay. I’d like to talk things over with
you… I’m sure we both have the boy’s best interests at heart.”
So George found himself dining at Winslow Hall—just himself and Lord
Winslow in the enormous panelled room that could have seated fifty with ease.
The sunset slanted through the windows as they began the meal, but later,
when the butler approached to draw the black-out curtains, Winslow left his
seat and beckoned George to share with him a last look at the view. “You see
how it is,” he said quietly. “I have no children. All that— and
this—may belong to Charles eventually.” They went back to their places
at the table. Winslow went on: “Oh yes, I know what you’re going to
say—one can’t keep up these great estates any more—all this sort
of thing’s done for, outmoded, a feudal anachronism, and so on. That’s the
fashionable attitude, I’m aware. But fashionable things are usually wrong
—or half wrong. All kinds of Englishmen are busy nowadays explaining to
other countries how England has changed, is changing, and will change after
the war. No doubt it goes down very well—especially with Americans. But
between you and me England may not change as much as some people expect. And
the kind of people who talk most about change don’t seem to have changed much
themselves—at least not to my somewhat jaundiced scrutiny.”
“Aye,” answered George. “You might be right about that. And there’s
certainly one thing about England that won’t change—and hasn’t
changed.”
“What’s that?”
“Ninety-five per cent of us are working folks and have been for a thousand
years.”
A slight flush came into Winslow’s face. He poured himself an extra
brandy. “True, of course—as well as a useful demagogic statistic… It
only remains now for you to assure me that it’s the rich what gets the
pleasure, it’s the poor what gets the—.”
“Nay, I don’t say that. There hasn’t been much pleasure for your brother
or your nephew these past few years—rich or not. And there isn’t going
to be much for them—or for any of us, maybe—in the years ahead…
That’s why I’d like you to think twice about what you want Charles to do when
he grows up.” And George, now in a proper stride, became talkative for the
first time since his arrival. “I’m very fond of the boy. He’s taught me a bit
since I knew him and maybe I’ve taught him a bit too. Don’t saddle him with
all this stuff. When I was a lad the rich had all of what were called
advantages, but there’s been a difference lately. It isn’t that there’s going
to be a bloody revolution to take all this away, but are these things going
to go on being such advantages? That’s what folks are beginning to wonder,
and once they start wondering, the bottom’s out of the market. Take the Right
School and the Right Accent, for instance. You’ve got the right ones, I’ve
got the wrong ones, but suppose some day we all wake up and find the whole
thing doesn’t matter?”
“Of course. I’d be all for it. But what if some of your extremist fellows
merely reverse the positions and call your accent right and mine wrong
—what then?”
George gave a faint grin. “Aye, that would be a pity. But I daresay some
of the chaps on your side are pretty good mimics. Our side always produced a
few.”
Winslow’s flush deepened. “Maybe it will come to that. Lip- service to
Demos could hardly be more literal.”
George had to think that one out. Then he answered: “I don’t know what you
mean by Demos. I don’t care for words like that. I don’t like to hear people
called ‘the masses’ or ‘the proletariat’ or even ‘the average man’. Take my
own town of Browdley. There’s not an average man in the place—they’re
all individuals—different, separate, with their own personal problems
same as we all have. And we don’t know any Demos either. We’ve never seen the
animal.”
Winslow smiled coolly. “I think we’re straying rather far from the point
—if there ever was a point… You obviously think there’s no future in
inheriting a title, a place like this, a seat in the House of Lords—
and all the responsibilities as well as privileges it entails?”
George answered: “I never like to say what there’s a future in. Sounds too
much like a tip on the stock market… It’s WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE that matters
more. I can’t forecast that, nor can anybody. But I’ve often thought it’s as
if we’re all in a train going somewhere. Some people don’t like travelling,
and just grumble about having to. And others think that trains go backwards
or that you can push a train by leaning on a door-handle. And quite a lot of
folks seem to think that miracles can happen to a train. But it really
doesn’t matter what you think unless it’s based on what you can see out of
the window. The train’s going to get you somewhere, wherever that is—
and the one place it certainly won’t be is the place you started from.”
“Sounds very wise, Boswell. But whenever I hear a man enunciating a
philosophy, I always ask him how has he handled his own life by its aid? Has
he been a success or a failure? Has he been right when other men have been
wrong? Has he made many mistakes?… Or is all that too personal?”
“Aye, it’s personal, but I don’t mind answering it. I’ve made plenty of
mistakes, and I’ve often been wrong. And I’ve been a failure if you measure
by what I once had ambitions about.”
Winslow helped himself to more brandy. “Very honest of you to admit it…
and if I might be personal again and suggest a reason—not perhaps the
ONLY reason, but A reason… might it not be the same one as in the case of
my unfortunate brother?”
George was silent and Winslow went on, after waiting for some answer: “To
put it bluntly… LIVIA.”
George pushed his chair back from the table. “I think we’ve discussed her
enough,” he said gruffly. “Perhaps I ought to be thinking of my train.”
“Yes, of course.” Winslow rang the bell again and told the butler: “Mr
Boswell will be catching the nine-forty. Will you telephone the
stationmaster?”
“Very good, your lordship.”
“Why do you have to worry the stationmaster about me?” George asked. “I
can find a seat, or if I can’t, it doesn’t matter.”
Winslow smiled. “My dear chap, if I didn’t telephone, you wouldn’t even
find a train. The nine-forty’s fast from Bristol to London unless I have it
stopped for you.”
“You mean you can stop an express at that little local station just to
pick up one passenger? And in war-time?”
“Certainly—but it isn’t done by favour. It’s a legal right, dating
back to the time the railway was built a hundred years ago. My
great-grandfather wouldn’t sell land to the company except on that condition
—in perpetuity. Damned thoughtful of him, I must say.”
Soon afterwards Lord Winslow shook hands most cordially with George, and
the latter was driven to Castle Winslow station in the Rolls-Royce. The
station was normally closed at that time of night, but the stationmaster had
opened it for the occasion and personally escorted him along the deserted
platform.
“First-class, sir?”
“No, third,” George answered grimly.
After that they conversed till the train came in. The stationmaster agreed
that England was changing, but he also thought he never remembered farmers so
prosperous or farmland selling at so high a price.
“How about taxes?” George asked. “I suppose the big estates are pretty
hard hit?”
“Oh, they’re all right if they did what Lord Winslow did. He made himself
into a company years ago. He’s a smart chap.”
“Aye… Knows how to keep up with the old and play around with the new, is
that it?”
But the stationmaster was cautious. “He’s smart,” he repeated. “Travels
third like yourself, as often as not… Because the firsts are just as
crowded and he don’t see why he should pay extra for nothing. You can’t blame
him, can you?”
George agreed that you could not.
But on the way to London the stopping of the express became a symbol
—and a very handy one—of the kind of thing he found himself
rather passionately against. And it was equally handy as a symbol of the kind
of thing he felt Charles would be unlucky to inherit.
The University term was nearly over, and soon Charles would
have to decide
where to go for the vacation. His mother, he told George, wanted him to spend
it with her in Ireland (she had been pulling wires, as only she knew how, to
get the necessary permits); but Uncle Howard had asked him to Winslow Hall;
and Julie, of course, though she would never suggest it, naturally hoped he
would stay in Cambridge, like many other undergraduates in war-time. As for
Charles himself, he didn’t exactly know what he wanted to do. He was so
damned sorry for his mother and anxious to give her a good time—
especially after the nice letter she had written him about George’s visit. So
had Uncle Howard. In fact Charles showed George the two letters, and George,
reading between the lines, deduced in both writers a desire to enlist him as
an ally against the other. He did not, however, worry the boy with this
interpretation, but kept it filed, as it were, in that department of his mind
where the shrewder things took place.
Of course what Charles would really like best, he admitted, was to stay
where he could see Julie, at least for part of the vacation. The only
objection was that this, he felt sure, would either bring his mother to
Cambridge forthwith (in which case he couldn’t see Julie at all), or else she
would guess there was some girl in the case, and make a scene about it.
“What makes you think she’d do that?” George asked.
“Oh, just a few odd hints in letters and so on. And once in an air- raid
shelter just after she landed. Some girl was a bit scared, and as I was too,
we talked together till the raid was over. Mother of course couldn’t
understand it.”
“That you talked—or that you were scared?”
“Both… Anyhow, I can’t stand scenes, and I know if she were to learn
about Julie she’d make another one.”
“But you can’t keep it a secret indefinitely.”
“I’ll let her know, when
I
know for certain I’m going to get all
right. Because, as I told you, I wouldn’t marry at all otherwise.”
“You’ll get all right.”
“That’s what everybody says, but of course saying so is part of the
treatment. You can’t really believe them—least of all doctors— in
a matter like that.”
“Well, what do YOU think? Don’t YOU believe you’re going to get all
right?”
“Sometimes I do, sometimes not. So many things change my mind about it.
Trivial—ridiculous things… Sometimes I stop in front of a lamp-post
as if the future of the world depended on which side I walk round. Of course
you may say it DOES depend on that. I mean, if you believe in predestination,
every little thing must be charted out in advance, so that if it were
possible for even a caterpillar to walk just once on the wrong side of a
lamppost, then the whole cosmic blueprint goes to pot. On the other hand, you
can say that my hesitation in front of the lamp- post was itself predestined,
so that—”