The Freelands Part 9

"Because at heart he's just a supercilious ruffian, too cold-blooded to feel, he'll demonstrate that it's no use to feel--waste of valuable time--ha! valuable!--to act in any direction. And that's a man they believe things of. And poor Henry Wiltram, with his pathetic: 'Grow our own food--maximum use of the land as food-producer, and let the rest take care of itself!' As if we weren't all long past that feeble individualism; as if in these days of world markets the land didn't stand or fall in this country as a breeding-ground of health and stamina and nothing else. Well, well!"

"Aren't they really in earnest, then?" asked Nedda timidly.

"Miss Freeland, this land question is a perfect tragedy. Bar one or two, they all want to make the omelette without breaking eggs; well, by the time they begin to think of breaking them, mark me--there'll be no eggs to break. We shall be all park and suburb. The real men on the land, what few are left, are dumb and helpless; and these fellows here for one reason or another don't mean business--they'll talk and tinker and top-dress--that's all. Does your father take any interest in this? He could write something very nice."

"He takes interest in everything," said Nedda. "Please go on, Mr.--Mr.--" She was terribly afraid he would suddenly remember that she was too young and stop his nice, angry talk.

"Cuthcott. I'm an editor, but I was brought up on a farm, and know something about it. You see, we English are grumblers, sn.o.bs to the backbone, want to be something better than we are; and education nowadays is all in the direction of despising what is quiet and humdrum.

We never were a stay-at-home lot, like the French. That's at the back of this business--they may treat it as they like, Radicals or Tories, but if they can't get a fundamental change of opinion into the national mind as to what is a sane and profitable life; if they can't work a revolution in the spirit of our education, they'll do no good. There'll be lots of talk and tinkering, tariffs and tommy-rot, and, underneath, the land-bred men dying, dying all the time. No, madam, industrialism and vested interests have got us! Bar the most strenuous national heroism, there's nothing for it now but the garden city!"

"Then if we WERE all heroic, 'the Land' could still be saved?"

Mr. Cuthcott smiled.

"Of course we might have a European war or something that would shake everything up. But, short of that, when was a country ever consciously and h.o.m.ogeneously heroic--except China with its opium? When did it ever deliberately change the spirit of its education, the trend of its ideas; when did it ever, of its own free will, lay its vested interests on the altar; when did it ever say with a convinced and resolute heart: 'I will be healthy and simple before anything. I will not let the love of sanity and natural conditions die out of me!' When, Miss Freeland, when?"

And, looking so hard at Nedda that he almost winked, he added:

"You have the advantage of me by thirty years. You'll see what I shall not--the last of the English peasant. Did you ever read 'Erewhon,' where the people broke up their machines? It will take almost that sort of national heroism to save what's left of him, even."

For answer, Nedda wrinkled her brows horribly. Before her there had come a vision of the old, lame man, whose name she had found out was Gaunt, standing on the path under the apple-trees, looking at that little something he had taken from his pocket. Why she thought of him thus suddenly she had no idea, and she said quickly:

"It's awfully interesting. I do so want to hear about 'the Land.' I only know a little about sweated workers, because I see something of them."

"It's all of a piece," said Mr. Cuthcott; "not politics at all, but religion--touches the point of national self-knowledge and faith, the point of knowing what we want to become and of resolving to become it.

Your father will tell you that we have no more idea of that at present than a cat of its own chemical composition. As for these good people here to-night--I don't want to be disrespectful, but if they think they're within a hundred miles of the land question, I'm a--I'm a Jingo--more I can't say."

And, as if to cool his head, he leaned out of the window.

"Nothing is nicer than darkness, as I said just now, because you can only see the way you MUST go instead of a hundred and fifty ways you MIGHT. In darkness your soul is something like your own; in daylight, lamplight, moonlight, never."

Nedda's spirit gave a jump; he seemed almost at last to be going to talk about the things she wanted, above all, to find out. Her cheeks went hot, she clenched her hands and said resolutely:

"Mr. Cuthcott, do you believe in G.o.d?"

Mr. Cuthcott made a queer, deep little noise; it was not a laugh, however, and it seemed as if he knew she could not bear him to look at her just then.

"H'm!" he said. "Every one does that--according to their natures. Some call G.o.d IT, some HIM, some HER, nowadays--that's all. You might as well ask--do I believe that I'm alive?"

"Yes," said Nedda, "but which do YOU call G.o.d?"

As she asked that, he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her: 'He must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and she added hastily:

"It isn't a fair question, is it? Only you talked about darkness, and the only way--so I thought--"

"Quite a fair question. My answer is, of course: 'All three'; but the point is rather: Does one wish to make even an attempt to define G.o.d to oneself? Frankly, I don't! I'm content to feel that there is in one some kind of instinct toward perfection that one will still feel, I hope, when the lights are going out; some kind of honour forbidding one to let go and give up. That's all I've got; I really don't know that I want more."

Nedda clasped her hands.

"I like that," she said; "only--what is perfection, Mr. Cuthcott?"

Again he emitted that deep little sound.

"Ah!" he repeated, "what is perfection? Awkward, that--isn't it?"

"Is it"--Nedda rushed the words out--"is it always to be sacrificing yourself, or is it--is it always to be--to be expressing yourself?"

"To some--one; to some--the other; to some--half one, half the other."

"But which is it to me?"

"Ah! that you've got to find out for yourself. There's a sort of metronome inside us--wonderful, sell-adjusting little machine; most delicate bit of mechanism in the world--people call it conscience--that records the proper beat of our tempos. I guess that's all we have to go by."

Nedda said breathlessly:

"Yes; and it's frightfully hard, isn't it?"

"Exactly," Mr. Cuthcott answered. "That's why people devised religions and other ways of having the thing done second-hand. We all object to trouble and responsibility if we can possibly avoid it. Where do you live?"

"In Hampstead."

"Your father must be a stand-by, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes; Dad's splendid; only, you see, I AM a good deal younger than he. There was just one thing I was going to ask you. Are these very Bigwigs?"

Mr. Cuthcott turned to the room and let his screwed-up glance wander. He looked just then particularly as if he were going to bite.

"If you take 'em at their own valuation: Yes. If at the country's: So-so. If at mine: Ha! I know what you'd like to ask: Should I be a Bigwig in THEIR estimation? Not I! As you knock about, Miss Freeland, you'll find out one thing--all bigwiggery is founded on: Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. Seriously, these are only tenpenny ones; but the mischief is, that in the matter of 'the Land,' the men who really are in earnest are precious scarce. Nothing short of a rising such as there was in 1832 would make the land question real, even for the moment. Not that I want to see one--G.o.d forbid! Those poor doomed devils were treated worse than dogs, and would be again."

Before Nedda could pour out questions about the rising in 1832, Stanley's voice said:

"Cuthcott, I want to introduce you!"

Her new friend screwed his eyes up tighter and, muttering something, put out his hand to her.

"Thank you for our talk. I hope we shall meet again. Any time you want to know anything--I'll be only too glad. Good night!"

She felt the squeeze of his hand, warm and dry, but rather soft, as of a man who uses a pen too much; saw him following her uncle across the room, with his shoulders a little hunched, as if preparing to inflict, and ward off, blows. And with the thought: 'He must be jolly when he gives them one!' she turned once more to the darkness, than which he had said there was nothing nicer. It smelled of new-mown gra.s.s, was full of little s.h.i.+verings of leaves, and all colored like the bloom of a black grape. And her heart felt soothed.

CHAPTER IX

"...When I first saw Derek I thought I should never feel anything but shy and hopeless. In four days, only in four days, the whole world is different.... And yet, if it hadn't been for that thunder-storm, I shouldn't have got over being shy in time. He has never loved anybody--nor have I. It can't often be like that--it makes it solemn.

There's a picture somewhere--not a good one, I know--of a young Highlander being taken away by soldiers from his sweetheart. Derek is fiery and wild and shy and proud and dark--like the man in that picture.

That last day along the hills--along and along--with the wind in our faces, I could have walked forever; and then Joyfields at the end! Their mother's wonderful; I'm afraid of her. But Uncle Tod is a perfect dear.

I never saw any one before who noticed so many things that I didn't, and nothing that I did. I am sure he has in him what Mr. Cuthcott said we were all losing--the love of simple, natural conditions. And then, THE moment, when I stood with Derek at the end of the orchard, to say good-by. The field below covered with those moony-white flowers, and the cows all dark and sleepy; the holy feeling down there was wonderful, and in the branches over our heads, too, and the velvety, starry sky, and the dewiness against one's face, and the great, broad silence--it was all wors.h.i.+pping something, and I was wors.h.i.+pping--wors.h.i.+pping happiness.

I WAS happy, and I think HE was. Perhaps I shall never be so happy again. When he kissed me I didn't think the whole world had so much happiness in it. I know now that I'm not cold a bit; I used to think I was. I believe I could go with him anywhere, and do anything he wanted.