If Winter Comes Part 6

"Well, all I can say is--"

Mr. Fortune raised a whale-like but elegantly white fin. "Enough, I have decided."

With the same clever motion of his feet he spun his chair and his whale-like front to the table. A worn patch on the carpet and an abraised patch on the side of the desk marked the frequent daily use of these thrusting points.

Sabre kicked out of the room, using a foot to open the door, which stood ajar, and hooking back a foot to shut it, because he knew that this slovenly method of dealing with a door much annoyed Mr. Fortune.

He was not in the least in awe of Mr. Fortune, though Mr. Fortune had power to sever him from the firm. Mr. Fortune was aware that he struck no awe into Sabre, and this caused him on the one hand to dislike Sabre, and on the other (subconsciously, for he would emphatically have denied it) to respect him.

Twyning, Sabre's fellow sub-princ.i.p.al, did stand in awe of Mr. Fortune and did not resent having his letters signed for him and his callers interviewed for him. Indeed he frequently took opportunity to thank Mr.

Fortune for alterations made in his letters and for dealings carried out with his clients, also for direct interference in his workshops. Mr.

Fortune liked Twyning, but he did not respect Twyning, consciously or subconsciously.

VI

Sabre greatly desired the promised admission to partners.h.i.+p. He desired it largely for what he knew he would make it bring in the form of greater freedom from Mr. Fortune's surveillance, but much more for the solid personal satisfaction its winning would give him. It would be a tribute to his work, of all the greater value because he knew it would be bestowed grudgingly and unwillingly, and he was keenly interested in and proud of his work. The publis.h.i.+ng of educational textbooks "for the use of schools" had been no part of the firm's business until he came into it. The idea had been his own, and Mr. Fortune, because the idea was not _his_ own, had very half-heartedly a.s.sented to it and very disencouragingly looked upon it in the fiddlingly small way in which he permitted it to be begun.

From the outset it had been a very considerable success. Sabre was interested in books and interested in education. He had many friends among the large staff of Tidborough School masters and had developed many acquaintances among the large body of members of the teaching profession with whom the firm was in touch. He was fond of discussing methods and difficulties of encouraging stubborn youth in the arid paths of a.s.similating knowledge, and he had a peculiarly fresh and sympathetic recollection of his own boyish flounderings in those paths. To these tastes and qualities, and perhaps because of them, he found he was able to bring what was incontestably a flair for discovering the sort of book that needed to be compiled and, what was equally important, the sort of man to compile it. Also, in his capacity of general editor of the volumes, to give much stimulating suggestion and advice to the authors.

He had never been so pleased as on the day when the _Spectator_, in an extended notice of four new textbooks, had written, "It is always a pleasure to open one of the school textbooks bearing the imprint of Fortune, East and Sabre and issued in the pleasing format which this firm have made their own. Their publications give the impression of a directing mind inspired with the happy thought of presenting textbooks, not for the master, but for the pupil, and of carrying out this design with singular freshness and originality."

On the day when that notice appeared, Mr. Fortune, who considered that his mind was--or would be supposed to be--the directing mind referred to, had repeated his promise of partners.h.i.+p, first made when the enterprise began to show unexpected signs of responding to Sabre's enthusiasm. "Very good, Sabre, very good indeed. I am bound to say capital. I may tell you, as your father probably told you, that it was always understood between him and me that you should be taken into partners.h.i.+p if you showed signs of promise. Unquestionably you do. When you have brought the publis.h.i.+ng into line with our established departments we will go into the matter and--" he made one of his nearest approaches to pleasantry--"take steps to restore the house of Sabre in some part to its ancient glories in the firm--in some part."

And when Sabre expressed his gratification, "Enough, I have decided."

In 1912 Sabre felt that he had now brought the publis.h.i.+ng into line with the established departments. He had emphasized the firm's reputation in this activity by the considerable success that attended two textbooks bearing (one in collaboration) his own name. "Sabre and Owen's Elementary Mathematics" had been notably taken up by the schools.

"Sabre's Modern History", shunned by the public schools in accordance with their principle of ignoring all history mellowed by fewer than three thousand years, had been received enthusiastically by the lesser schools wherein was then dawning the daring idea of presenting to the rising generation some glimmering conception of the const.i.tutional and sociological facts into which it was arising.

The tributes with which this slim primer of one hundred and fifty pages for eighteen pence had been greeted inspired Sabre towards a much bolder work, on which the early summer of 1912 saw him beginning and into which he found himself able to pour in surprising volume thoughts and feelings which he had scarcely known to be his until the pen and the paper began to attract them. The t.i.tle he had conceived alone stirred them in his mind and drew them from it as a magnet stirs and draws iron filings.

"England." Just "England." He could see it printed and published and renowned as "Sabre's England." Kings were to enter this history but incidentally, as kings have in fact ever been but incidental to England's history. It was to be just "England"; the England of the English people and how and why. And the first sentence said so.

"This England" (it said) "is _yours_. It belongs to _you_. Many enemies have desired to take it because it is the most glorious and splendid country in the world. But they have never taken it, because it is _yours_ and has been kept for you. This book is to tell you how it has come to be yours and how it has been kept for you,--not by kings or by statesmen, or by great men alone, but by the English people. Down the long years they have handed it on to you, as a torch is sent from hand to hand, and you in your turn will hand it on down the long years before you. They made the flame of England bright and ever brighter for you; and you, stepping into all that they have made for you, will make it bright and brighter yet. They pa.s.sed and are gone; and you will pa.s.s and go. But England will continue. Your England. _Yours._"

CHAPTER VII

I

Mabel called Sabre's school textbooks "those lesson books." After she had thus referred to them two or three times he gave up trying to interest her in them. The expression hurt him, but when he thought upon it he reasoned with himself that he had no cause to be hurt. He thought, "Dash it, that's what they are, lesson books. What on earth have I got to grouse about?" But they meant to him a good deal more than what was implied in the tone and the expression "those lesson books."

However, "England" was going to be something very different. No one would call "England" a lesson book. Even Mabel would see that; and in his enthusiasm he spoke of it to her a good deal, until the day when it came up--of all unlikely connections in the world--in a discussion with her on the National Insurance Act, then first outraging the country.

One day when English society was first shaken to its depths by the disgusting indignity of what Mabel, in common with all nice people, called "licking stamps for that Lloyd George", she mentioned to Sabre that, "Well, thank goodness some of us know better than to steal the money out of the poor creatures' wages."

She knew that this would please her husband because he was always doing what she called "sticking up for the servants and all that cla.s.s."

That it did not please him was precisely an example of his "absolutely un-understandable" ways of looking at things that so desperately annoyed her.

Sabre asked, "How do you mean--knowing better than to steal the money out of their wages?"

"Why, making them pay their thruppence for those wretched stamps. I believe Mrs. Castor does. How she's got the face to I can't imagine."

"Why, aren't you going to make them pay, Mabel?"

Mabel was quite indignant. "Is it likely? I should hope not!"

"Really? Haven't you been making High and Low pay their share of the stamps all this time?"

"Of course I've not."

"You've been paying their contribution?"

"Of course I have."

"Well, but Mabel, that's wrong, awfully wrong."

She simply stared at him. "You really are beyond me, Mark. What do you mean 'wrong'?"

"Well, it's not fair--not fair on the girls--"

"Not fair to pay them more than their wages!"

"No, of course it's not. Don't you see half the idea of the Act is to help these people to learn thrift and forethought--to learn the wisdom of putting by for a rainy day. And to encourage their independence. When you go and pay what they ought to pay, you're simply taking away their independence."

She gave her sudden burst of laughter. "You're the first person I've ever heard say that the lower cla.s.ses want their independence encouraged. It's just what's wrong with them--independence."

He began to talk with animation. This was one of the things that much interested him. He seemed to have quite forgotten the origin of the conversation. "No, it isn't, Mabel--it isn't. That's jolly interesting, that point. It's their _dependence_ that's wrong with them. They're nearly all of them absolutely dependent on an employer, and that's bad, fatal, for anybody. It's the root of the whole trouble with the less-educated cla.s.ses, if people would only see it. What they want is pride in themselves. They just slop along taking what they can get, and getting so much for nothing--votes and free this, that and the other--that they don't value it in the least. They're dependent all the time. What you want to help them to is independence, pride in themselves and confidence in themselves--that sort of independence. You know, all this talk that they put up, or that's put up for them, about their right to this and their right to that--of course you can't have a right to anything without earning it. That's what they want to be shown, see? And that's what they want to be given--the chance to earn the right to things, see? Well, this Insurance Act business--"

She laughed again. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back to that."

He noticed nothing deprecatory in her remark. "Yes, rather. Well, this Insurance Act business--that's really a jolly good example of the way to do things. You see, it's not giving them the right to free treatment when they're ill; it's giving them the chance to earn the right. That's what you want to explain to High and Low. See--you want to say to them, 'This is your show. Your very own. Fine. You're building this up, I'm helping. You're helping all sorts of poor devils and you're helping yourself at the same time. You're stacking up a great chunk of the State and it belongs to you. England's yours and you want to pile it up all you know'--"

He was quite flushed.

"That's the sort of thing I'm putting into that book of mine. 'England's yours', you know. Precious beyond price; and therefore grand to be making more precious and more your own. I wish you'd like to see how the book's getting on; would you?"

"What book?"

"Why 'England.' I told you, you know. That history."

"Oh, that lesson book! I wish you'd write a novel."

He looked at her. "Oh, well!" he said.