South Riding (19 page)

The hot air from the Floral Hall puffed out as the door opened and hit him like a blow. The powdered chalk from the dance-floor made him cough. But he handed his coat to a boy scout and went forward doggedly, when necessary he smiled at an acquaintance, shook hands with the Mayor, and permitted himself to be led up to a row of basket-work armchairs on the platform. There he sat, under palms and paper festoons, a silent, lean, lonely man, with a flushed pretty face, as incongruous as a mask. Before him whirled pierrots and Dutchmen, Quakers and Oriental Ladies. Beside him sat clergy and doctors and councillors. At his feet the Jazz Octette crooned soulfully.

Joe watched the Carnival and thought of death. “If you killed yourself at it, you might be satisfied,” Mrs. Corner had said. Perhaps she was right. For what tormented Joe was not his career cut short nor his threatened life, but that he was living while better men were dead. He thought of them—of O’Leary shot in a Dublin yard in ’21, of Mullard worn out in the strike of ’23, of Cook, Grimshaw, Vender, of his wife, Rebecca. These had been warriors. The movement could ill spare them. Yet they were gone and he remained, a semi-invalid, nursing himself, coddled and comforted, presenting prizes, if you please, instead of giving ’em hell at a street corner.

There had been a time when he had railed against his treacherous body. It had seemed then that his disease alone was enemy enough for him. He had sweated and agonised and panicked. He had woken at dawn to wonder if he would live to see the noon. He had feared to sleep, lest he should be awakened by a hemorrhage.

But now that was over. The disease was temporarily checked, and he had time to turn his attention to a battle in which he had allowed himself to be put upon permanent light duty. Surely other men had fought to the end and died in harness? What was he waiting for? In what future event would his existence be of such importance that he must treasure it now while his betters went into the fighting line and died?

“Glad to see you, Astell. Good of you to come.”

“I say,
ought
you to be here? On such a night? Why, that
is
good of you.”

They crowded round him. They were pleased to see him. Their friendliness embarrassed him, and made him cough; his coughing increased their sense of obligation. He was in a trap of humbug. He loathed his popularity. If he had done his duty, they would have hated him. Their cordiality was the measure of his defeat.

“Hope you’re keeping as well as possible,” said Mr. Peckover. “Don’t think I’ve seen you since you achieved your new honour. Allow me to congratulate you.”

“The first Socialist, surely, to be made an alderman in the South Riding? I don’t agree with your politics, you know, Astell; but we know we can trust you to keep them in the background, eh? No politics where the South Riding’s concerned, eh?”

Oh damn them, damn them! Every word insulted him. There was not a soul here, not a soul, who could understand what he felt about it all. Why had he come? Why had he thought it his duty?

Fool, fool, fool!

The waltz ceased. The Jazz Octette departed. The Ladies’ Committee ran out with little tables, and set on them plates of queen cakes and tarts and sandwiches—ham, salmon and potted beef—trifle and jellies. Four people, not in fancy dress, made for the table immediately below Astell’s seat—a big, fine one-armed man, a plump talkative middle-aged woman, a handsome, smiling, merry man with a smart moustache, and his faded pretty wife. Astell recognised the one-armed fellow as Heyer, the ex-service man from Cold Harbour Colony. He did not know the others, but he saw the care with which both men attended the fragile pretty woman, heard her called “Lily,” and also “Mrs. Sawdon,” and realised that these might be the new host and hostess of the Nag’s Head at Maythorpe. He liked the look of Sawdon, a pleasant fellow, and found himself listening to their conversation.

“Well, we had only the girls, but if I’d six sons,” Sawdon was saying, “I’d put ’em all into the Army or the Police Force. Army for choice. The King’s uniform—you can’t beat it. It’s a grand life if you know how to behave yourself.”

“That’s right,” Heyer handed the widow a cup of coffee with his one hand. “You do know where you are in the Army.”

“And look at trade now! Look at farming.”

“That’s right,” agreed the widow.

Here, thought Joe Astell, is the raw material of canon fodder in capitalist quarrels. You know where you are in the Army—do you? He looked at Heyer’s mutilated body; he thought of the millions dead in the Great War. He tried to confirm his certainty of conviction. His apt mind responded with a score of arguments. Not for a moment did he retract the opinions which had earned him imprisonment and contempt.

But the easy comradeship of these men wounded him. He liked them. They were comely and courageous, honest and gay and decent. In a big town he too would have had comrades. But here in Kiplington he was isolated. Here he lacked men of his own kidney, and these Colonists were his political opponents. He had fought against their interests on the council. He thought them over-favoured, the spoiled children of an outrageously unbusiness-like and sentimental administration. Their ideas were pernicious, their memories alien. Yet seated there between Mr. Peckover and a potted palm, his bowels yearned towards them.

He had become a Socialist through love of his fellow men, not through dislike of them, and now he felt an emotional barrier between himself and his neighbours which no logic could remove. He saw himself, an awkward priggish man, with a harsh voice and tactless manner, tolerated simply because illness had reduced his fighting powers, weakened his quality.

It was all wrong.

“I don’t know if you’ve met our socialist alderman— Alderman Astell, Miss Burton, our new head mistress at the High School.” Mr. Peckover beamed appropriately. Joe Astell found himself shaking hands with a small red-headed woman who reminded him so much of somebody that he stood staring at her.

Miss Burton smiled.

“He says ‘Socialist Alderman’ rather as if it were Prize Freak,” she said unexpectedly. “Are socialists such rare birds here? Aldermen seem to be three a penny. May I sit down here?”

“Excuse me,” said Joe in the solemn rasping voice which so much offended him. “Are you any relation to Miss Ellen Wilkinson?”

“Oh, the hair? No, I’m not. I wish I were. I think she’s a grand girl. But hers is soft and beautiful with a natural wave. Mine’s a vulgar frizz. It’s very sad for me. Do you know her?”

“I’ve met her. There’s some think she takes too much upon herself. But I liked her. I think she’s got guts.”

Guts.

He thought of the ex-service man and public house keeper below him. They had guts, but the wrong ideas. He had the right ideas but—would a man with guts have given way so easily? Would a chap like Heyer be sitting on that platform because he had only half a lung? Wouldn’t he rather be carrying on somewhere, somehow?

The red-haired school mistress was talking. Her voice was attractive, deep, clear and amused. Joe thought of his own harsh solemn tones and hated them.

“I once took some of my girls to hear her speak in London. I thought it would do them good.”

“Did it?”

“We-ell. I’m not sure. They liked her hair and her green frock, and her way of speaking. But I’m not sure how many took in any of her ideas.”

“Did you want them to do that?”

“Well, I think any ideas are better than none for sixth form girls. They’ve got to go through their political adolescence, and I’d rather they fell for Ellen Wilkinson than—say— Oswald Mosley.”

“You’re a socialist then?”

“I’m a school-marm. I take no part in politics.”

“That’s evasion. You’re either a socialist or not. There’s no half-way house.”

“Isn’t there? I should have thought there were a dozen. If you mean—do I vote Labour? Yes, I do. I’m a blacksmith’s daughter, you know. I come from the working-class and I feel with it. There are certain things I hate—muddle, poverty, war and so on—the things most intelligent people hate nowadays, whatever their party. And I hate indifferentism, and lethargy, and the sort of selfishness that shuts itself up into its own shell of personal preoccupations.”

“That’s all right as an emotional background, but emotion isn’t enough.”

“I know that. But it’s the beginning. It prompts our first subconscious recoil from or attraction to new ideas. The emotions bred by our circumstances and nature decide where we shall get off, as they say. Or whether we get off at all. I’m a teacher and it’s my job to watch young things. Some girls only react spontaneously to one group of ideas—say ‘husband,’ ‘love,’ ‘babies,’ and off they go quite clear of their direction— moved by a Life Force or instinct or whatever you choose to call it. Others, while they are still at school, are simply immature play-boys—mention games, colours, matches, sport, prizes and they’re wide awake. With others the words exploitation, injustice, slavery, and so on start the wheels going round.”

“You don’t think it matters?”

“I don’t think you can change the first and third groups much. You can educate their minds—give them a certain amount of knowledge to direct their energies. The middle group you might alter a bit—but many women, like many men, never grow up. They prefer games all their life. They like to attach their instincts for competition, achievement and the rest of it to something immediate, concrete and artificial— golf, bridge—even money making.”

Joe watched her. He liked her eager ugly face, her quick confident speech. She was a woman of his own kind. He could imagine quarrelling with her to be great fun. His spirits rose. The sense of isolation sloughed from him.

“You’re not really such a philosopher, I bet,” he smiled at her. “I don’t believe you naturally let ill alone.”

“Good Lord, no. But after you’ve been teaching for nearly twenty years, you learn to accept some of nature’s limitations.”

The party at the lower table was enjoying itself. Mrs. Brimsley, the widow, had not had an evening in Kiplington for years. They were teasing her now about Bill Heyer. Joe saw Miss Burton listening with interest, her red head cocked, her face quizzical. She observed his attention.

“Who are they?”

He told her.

“I’ve driven round the colony. Three or four of our girls come from there. A grim place.”

“Yes—a socialist experiment carried out by people who don’t believe in socialism.”

“Poor devils. Look here—are you on the Higher Education Committee?”

Joe shook his head.

“A pity. I’d like to do a bit of lobbying. Have you seen my buildings? How would you like to run a school with a basement full of black beetles?”

He laughed.

“It’s all very well to laugh; but they get into our shoes. I have to pretend I don’t mind and that the girls are idiots to be scared, but I’m simply terrified. I dream of them at nights. Can’t you do anything? You’re an alderman.”

“Have you seen our council?”

“It seems to me that you hardly need to see it. Tell me—is there really any hope from any of them? They can’t all be as reactionary as they seem.”

“They’re not. We have a few fellows with imagination.”

He was thinking of Snaith and the clever work he had done with the new motor road to Kiplington. Get that through, and the Waste Housing Scheme was as good as adopted.

He began to explain to Miss Burton just why it was so important.

“It should affect you and your school too. At present this place is a dead end—the waste-paper basket of the South Riding, people have called it. They come here after they’ve failed in Kingsport or Hardascliffe because the rates are low and the air’s good and nobody keeps up an appearance. But—you wait . . . I’m not really an enthusiast about local government, but you do at least get solid concrete results— swimming baths, sewage farms.” He smiled bitterly. “You begin by thinking in terms of world-revolution and end by learning to be pleased with a sewage farm.”

The voices from the table below rose clearly.

“We’ll get Carne down to the Club. We’ll ask him for a lead. If Snaith thinks he can twist the Council round his finger, we’ll teach him there’s some one still works for our interests.”

“It’ll have to be after Christmas then,” said Mrs. Brimsley. “There’s the Children’s Concert, and then the W.I. play, and then the Christmas parties.”

“Will that be time enough? We don’t want to wake up one morning and find the road laid and the Wastes drained and all our traffic lost, while we dance round Christmas trees.”

“Nay—they won’t start work till after Christmas. Scheme’s got to be approved by Ministry of Transport,” said the more easy-going Heyer.

The interval was over. The tables were being swept away again, the Jazz Octette returned. The four colonists moved their chairs against the wall. They were not dancers.

“What has Carne to do with this?” asked Sarah Burton.

“Oh, he’ll fight the new road, I expect.”

“Why should he?”

“Because he’s a gentleman farmer—survival of the feudal system. Because he hates Snaith and does everything he can to block his programmes. Because whenever we propose anything for Kiplington and Kingsport, he drags up his fifty or so colonists. They’re all ex-service men. Old Comrades of the Great War.”