The Feast (30 page)

Sir Henry learnt all this with growing dismay. He had heard the children discussing the Feast at every meal but he had been so much preoccupied with his own troubles that he had not paid much attention, and had failed to realize that a personal appearance was expected of him. His contribution to the funds had been generous and he felt that no more should be required.

Many people at Pendizack thought this, and were now regretting their impetuous benevolence. When first told of it they had offered money or sweet points, supposing
that such a plan could only concern the children. Fred and Nancibel might be included, since the lower orders are believed to have a childish turn of mind, but no adult patron of the Feast intended to sit on damp grass, drinking lemonade, in the middle of the night.

Mrs. Paley had been the first convert. She had realized that she must go to the Feast—that patronage was not enough. She must participate as a guest. For the whole scheme was intended to give pleasure to the Coves, and they wanted guests rather than sweet points. To refuse their hospitality would be insensitive and ungracious. She said as much to Gerry and Angie, who had hoped to cry off. She said it to Duff, who was flatly refusing to dress up as a pobble. She convinced them all that they must turn up, just as the little Giffords were now
endeavouring
to convince Sir Henry.

‘But you must come,’ cried Hebe. ‘Everybody has
got
to come.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Caroline.

‘What don’t I understand?’

Caroline glanced across the room at the table where the Cove family was silently eating stewed plums. She leaned towards her father and said in a whisper:

‘It’s a forgiveness party. To show we haven’t
quarrelled
with the Coves, in spite of yesterday. Hebe is trying to make up for what she did.’

Sir Henry could not hear very well, and her whispering tickled his ear, but he got the gist of it and nodded.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I don’t promise to stay very long, but I’ll show up for a bit. Are these brooches you’re wearing anything to do with it?’

Every Gifford wore a brooch consisting of a safety-pin, a sprig of lavender and a round label with the letters C.C. And he remembered that Fred had worn the same mystic badge on the lapel of his white waiter’s coat.

There was a short silence and the twins giggled.

‘It’s a Society,’ said Michael.

‘Not another?’

The Spartans had been forcibly dissolved after the catastrophe at Dead Man’s Rock.

‘You can belong to it if you like,’ said Hebe. ‘Fred and Nancibel and Robin have been enrolled. The emblem is a sprig of lavender. And the object is something you would approve of. But we can’t tell you about that now.’

She rolled her eyes towards the Coves’ corner.

‘Anyone who is interested in the liberation of oppressed persons can join,’ she added.

Caroline whispered once more:

‘C.C. is
Cave
Cove.
’

‘Cav-ee,’ admonished Sir Henry. ‘Latin. Two syllables.’

‘But that would spoil it,’ objected Hebe. ‘Unless we give two syllables to both words.’

She muttered
cav
ee
covee
under her breath, disliked it, and said, with decision:

‘We shall say cave.’

He smiled at her dictatorial air, and then he frowned uneasily. Hebe’s character was coming to be a matter of serious concern to him. He thought that she might be going to give a lot of trouble, both to herself and to other people. She needed skilful management. And from whom was she to get it? From Eirene, to whom he should presumably abandon her if their home was really to be broken up?

Why should the children be obliged to live with Eirene when he could not? This question had nagged at him all day, when he was not fuming over the evaporation of the dollar loan, or reading a
verbatim
report of last night’s broadcast in four different newspapers. Neither
preoccupation
alleviated the other. No dollar resources could have solved his domestic problem. And after reading a fourth adjuration to be strong and very
courageous
he felt tempted to fly with Eirene to Guernsey.

He had had no chance to discuss the national news with anyone else, but when he went into the lounge after dinner he found that an animated conversation had
broken out, in which even Mr. Paley and Mrs. Cove were taking part. His wife, bored with her bed, had come down in a decorative house-coat to lament the fate of her country. Miss Ellis occupied her customary sofa. Mr. Siddal had shuffled in from his boot-hole. Only Mrs. Paley and Miss Wraxton were absent; they were busy in the kitchen.

An indignant lament was in progress. Everybody seemed to be very angry. They were saying many things which Sir Henry himself had thought during the course of the day, but with which he now began to disagree. For he was a Liberal—the kind of Liberal which turns pink in blue surroundings and lilac at any murmur from Moscow.

In Pendizack lounge he inclined to pink.

He sat down beside Miss Ellis who was looking happier than usual as though she, alone, had found something to please her in the news. She said, with a sort of repressed glee:

‘They’ll have to go short now!’

‘Who will?’ he asked.

‘Everybody,’ said Miss Ellis.

‘Including you,’ snapped Mrs. Cove, who had
overheard
.

‘Oh, I’ve always had to go short,’ said Miss Ellis.

‘You’ll go shorter now,’ prophesied Mrs. Cove.

‘That bit,’ Mr. Siddal was saying, ‘about enjoying ourselves in the sunshine was particularly rich.’

‘Perhaps now … perhaps
now
…’ breathed Lady Gifford.

‘Not a hope of it,’ mourned Mr. Paley. ‘They’ve never lost a by-election.’

‘Why should they?’ asked Mrs. Cove. ‘Most of the voters belong to the so-called working class to whom they are handing out our money. They’ll stay in till it’s all been spent on nylons and perms and peaches and
pineapples
. And when it’s all gone it won’t matter what party gets in.’

‘This country will starve,’ boomed the Canon, ‘and serve it right.’

There was a sigh of assent from the entire room. Sir Henry felt himself slithering leftwards.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What has this country done that is so very reprehensible?’

For a few seconds they all gaped in surprise at the renegade.

‘This Government …’ began Eirene.

‘Oh I know. Most of us don’t like the Government. But why is
this
country
so very wicked? People who
deserve
to starve must surely be very wicked. Mrs. Lechene … I’ve heard you say you’re a socialist. Do you think this country deserves to starve?’

‘It’s not the Government,’ said Anna, a little
uncertainly
. ‘Any other Government would be just the same. It’s the class war. This whole country is being bitched by anger and spite and intolerance and
aggressiveness
… a new kind of Puritanism….’

‘Don’t you make a rather indiscriminate use of that word?’ broke in Mr. Siddal. ‘Surely we got rid of the Puritans in 1660?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean men in funny hats with names like I—am—but—a—potshard—Hawkins,’ said Anna, with increasing earnestness. ‘I mean Holy Bullies. I mean people who can’t live and let live, but have this lust to be pushing the rest of us around, and pretend it’s for our good. They think their Holy Cause gives them a heavenly warrant to jump on other people’s stomachs. And they seem to run the world now. All the politicians have taken to talking as if they were God’s Head Prefects. Look how they quote the Bible at us! Look how they insult anyone who disagrees with them! They might be parsons, insulting people from the pulpit, where nobody can answer back. These Holy Bullies don’t want people to agree and settle differences. They want to insult and enrage people and
force
them. Personally, I think it’s a great pity we ever left off being monkeys. They don’t
have these holy ideologies. They only fight over nuts or when they’re rutting.’

‘And do you really suggest, Madam, that you
have
left off being a monkey?’ thundered the Canon. ‘I take leave to doubt it.’

‘You ask what is wrong with this country?’ exclaimed Mr. Paley. ‘Let me tell you that this country, and not only this country but the entire civilized world, is being rotted and destroyed by the vicious cry for equality. Equality! There is no such thing. It’s simply an eruption of the hatred of the inferior for the superior….’

‘Monkeys don’t insist that their ideas are God’s ideas….’

‘God,’ proclaimed the Canon, ‘has only one idea.’

‘What is it?’ asked Mr. Siddal.

‘How limited of Him, when we have so many,’ cried Anna.

‘… we have cosseted and flattered and pampered the inferior masses,’ droned Mr. Paley, ‘until they really believe themselves equal with their betters. We have told them that they are born with equal rights …’

Miss Ellis, properly enraged, broke in:

‘What betters do you mean, Mr. Paley? Rich people? Why should they claim to be better than anyone else? What have they got to prove it? How are they different? Does a big car and a mink coat make a person better …?’

‘… if the people of this country ignore God’s purpose in creating mankind, then God will have no further use for them …’

‘… we have allowed every gutter brat to become infected by the idea that he has done something
meritorious
merely in getting himself born. No matter how incompetent, shiftless, lazy and thick-headed he may be, he thinks he’s entitled to an equal share in the country’s wealth, an equal claim to its respect, an equal voice in its destinies. Pernicious nonsense! In a just society he would be entitled to exactly as much as he deserves. No more.’

‘… this country is heading for the scrap heap. Make no mistake about that! We are rapidly sinking to the monkey level …’

‘But does anyone want a just society?’ protested Mr. Siddal. ‘I’m sure nobody does. It would be ghastly. Just imagine having to admit that all the top dogs really deserved to be on top! What smugs they would be! And how shame making for the rest of us …’

‘… Mrs. Cove blames poor people for wanting nylons and pine-apples. If the rich didn’t have such luxuries they wouldn’t …’

‘… far too many people agree with you, I’m afraid, Mrs. Lechene. That is why this country will be scrapped.’

‘We’re all going to be scrapped anyway, Canon
Wraxton
. In a Holy War between Democracy and
Communism
.’

‘No, no, Paley! Let us at least be able to criticize our betters! I’ve only met one duke but I got considerable satisfaction out of finding him a very stupid fellow, and thinking what a much better duke I should have made myself …’

‘And what is wrong with nylons and pine-apples, Miss Ellis?’

‘If the rich didn’t have them, Lady Gifford, the poor wouldn’t want them. It’s the rich that set the
example
…’

‘… a just retribution on a Godless world.
Personally
I should treat people who admire monkeys as if they were monkeys.’

‘… no sop to poor human vanity. In a just society the under dog would be allowed no self-respect. He’d have to admit he was at the bottom because he was no good.’

‘He did admit it, Siddal, for hundreds of years. Before all this nonsense started….’

‘I shouldn’t mind, Canon Wraxton. We treat monkeys very nicely. We give them nuts and never preach at them. I wish we were half as kind to each other….’

‘We exterminate any animal that has become a pest.’

‘Exterminate! That’s a great word with the Holy Bullies. It wasn’t so bad when all that sort of thing was confined to you parsons. You’ve always had a lovely time burning each other at the stake. But the rest of us used to know that it’s uncivilized to lose our little tem-tems and start exterminating anyone who happens to
disagree
….’

‘The mills of God grind slowly….’

‘… thinks that nobody is to give him orders, or live better than he does, or understand anything that he does not understand, or work harder….’

‘… grind exceeding small! All standards are lowered. There is a universal moral degeneration.
Children
no longer obey their parents. The Sabbath is
profaned
. Chastity is ridiculed. The Churches stand empty….’

‘… till the country is pulled down to the level of the lowest. And no country can survive at that level.’

‘If the churches are empty, it’s because all the religious people have exterminated each other….’

The noise was terrific. It reminded Sir Henry of the London barrage. The Canon had the biggest artillery, but Anna Lechene’s boom was quite impressive, and the protests of Miss Ellis were let loose on a rising shriek, like a series of rockets. Mr. Paley’s relentless monologue continued, undeflected, droning in to the attack. Mr. Siddal barked intermittently. Lady Gifford’s voice was only heard in the occasional lulls, but she had been talking vehemently for some minutes and she now gained a hearing by getting up from her chair, which forced all the men to break off and get up too.

‘Money,’ she was saying, ‘is the root of all evil. Always. I’m afraid I must go to bed now. So tiresome. But I’m under rather strict orders about bed times. And really, you know, if everybody thought less about money it would be quite simple. They think they would be happier if they had more. But that’s not so. The happiest people
are often quite poor. Did you never hear that wise old story about the king who …’

‘Yes!’ cried everybody. ‘Yes!’

For there was a general panic lest they should be going to be obliged to hear again that hackneyed fable of the happy man who had no shirt.

‘You try being happy with no dinner!’ shrieked Miss Ellis.

Eirene raised her eyebrows and replied with quiet dignity:

‘Naturally nobody can be happy if they’re hungry. But in a happy country, quite poor people get enough to eat, while in a miserable country, like this one, even rich people can’t get enough. We only want money to buy
things.
We can’t eat money. Yet people think they want it and ask for more and more wages. And that makes everything so expensive they get fewer things
instead
of more. The
higher
the wages, the
less
everybody gets. It all comes from love of money. Good night! Harry dear … will you give me an arm upstairs?’