Anthony Hope - Second String

They, the rest of the company, had begun on politics – imperial politics – and had discussed them not without some friction. No Radical was present — Procul, O procul este, profani! – but Wellgood had the perversities of his anti-sentimental attitude. A Tory at home, why was he to be a democrat – or a Socialist – at the Antipodes? Competition and self-interest were the golden rule in England; was there to be another between England and her colonies? The tie of blood – one flag, one crown, one destiny – Wellgood suspected his bugbear in every one of these cries. Nothing for nothing – and for sixpence no more than the coin was worth – with a preference for five penn'orth if you could get out of it at that! He stood steady on his firmly-rooted narrow foundation.

All of Harry was on fire against him. Was blood nothing – race, colour, memories, associations, the Flag, the Crown, and the Destiny? A destiny to rule, or at least to manage, the planet! Mother and Daughters – nothing in that?

Things were getting hot, and the ladies, who always like to look on at the men fighting, much interested. Mr. Belfield, himself no politician, rather a student of human nature and addicted to the Socratic attitude (so justly vexatious to practical men who have to do something, good, bad, or if not better, at least more plausible, than nothing) interposed a suggestion.

"Mother and daughters? Hasn't husband and wives become a more appropriate parallel?" He smiled across the table at his own wife. "No personal reference, my dear! But an attitude of independence, without any particular desire to pay the bills? Oh, I'm only asking questions!"

Andy was listening hard now. So was Vivien, for she saw Harry's eyes alight and his mouth eager to utter truths that should save the nation.

"If we could reach," said Harry, marvellously handsome, somewhat rhetorical for a small party, "if only we could once reach a true understanding between ourselves and the self-governing – "

"Oh, but that's going beyond my parallel, my dear boy," his father interrupted. "If marriage demanded mutual understanding, what man or woman could risk it with eyes open?"

"Doesn't it?" Isobel Vintry was the questioner.

"Heavens, no, my dear Miss Vintry! Something much less, something much less fundamentally impossible. A good temper and a bad memory, that's all!"

"Well done, pater!" cried Harry, readily switched off from his heated enthusiasm. "Which for the husband, which for the wife?"

"Both for both, Harry. Toleration to-day, and an unlimited power of oblivion to-morrow."

"What nonsense you're talking, dear," placidly smiled Mrs. Belfield.

"I'm exactly defining your own characteristics," he replied. "If you do that to a woman, she always says you're talking nonsense."

"An unlimited supply of the water of Lethe, pater? That does it?"

"That's about it, Harry. If you mix it with a little sound Scotch whisky before you go to bed – "

Andy burst into a good guffaw; the kindly mocking humour pleased him. Vivien was alert too; there was nothing to frighten, much to enjoy; the glow deepened on her cheeks.

But Wellgood was not content; he was baulked of his argument, of his fight.

"We've wandered from the point," he said dourly. ("As if wanderings were not the best things in the world!" thought more than one of the party, more or less explicitly.) "We give, they take." He was back to the United Kingdom and the Colonies.

"Could anything be more nicely exact to my parallel?" asked Belfield, socratically smiling. "Did you ever know a marriage where each partner didn't say, 'I give, you take'? Some add that they're content with the arrangement, others don't."

"Pater, you always mix up different things," Harry protested, laughing.

"I'm always trying to find out whether there are any different things, Harry." He smiled at his son. "Wives, that's what they are! And several of them! Harry, we're in for all the difficulties of polygamy! A preference to one – oh no, I'm not spelling it with a big P! But – well, the ladies ought to be able to help us here. Could you share a heart, Miss Vintry?"

Isobel's white was relieved with gold trimmings; she looked sumptuous. "I shouldn't like it," she answered.

"What has all this got to do with the practical problem?" Wellgood demanded. "Our trade with the Colonies is no more than thirty per cent – "

"I agree with you, Mr. Wellgood. The gentlemen had much better have kept to their politics," Mrs. Belfield interposed with suave placidity. "They understand them. When they begin to talk about women – "

"Need of Lethe – whisky and Lethe-water!" chuckled Harry. "In a large glass, eh, Andy?"

Wellgood turned suddenly on Andy. "You've lived in Canada. What do you say?"

Andy had been far too much occupied in listening. Besides, he was no politician. He thought deeply for a moment.

"A lot depends on whether you want to buy or to sell." He delivered himself of this truth quite solemnly.

"A very far-reaching observation," said Mr. Belfield. "Goes to the root of human traffic, and, quite possibly, to that of both the institutions which we have been discussing. I wonder whether either will be permanent!"

"Look here, pater, we're at dessert! Aren't you starting rather big subjects?"

"Your father likes to amuse himself with curious ideas," Mrs. Belfield remarked. "So did my father; he once asked me what I thought would happen if I didn't say my prayers. Men like to ask questions like that, but I never pay much attention to them. Shall we go into the drawing-room, Vivien? It may be warm enough for a turn in the garden, perhaps." She addressed the men. "Bring your cigars and try."

The men were left alone. "The garden would be jolly," said Harry.

Mr. Belfield coughed, and suddenly wheezed. "Intimations of mortality!" he said apologetically. "We've talked of a variety of subjects – to little purpose, I suppose. But it's entertaining to survey the field of humanity. Your views were briefly expressed, Hayes."

"Everybody else was talking such a lot, sir," said Andy.

Belfield's humorous laugh was entangled in a cough. "You'll never get that obstacle out of the way of your oratory," he managed to stutter out. "They always are! Talk rules the world – eh, Wellgood?" He was maliciously provocative.

"We wait till they've finished talking. Then we do what we want," said Wellgood. "Force rules in the end – the readiness to kill and be killed. That's the ultima ratio , the final argument."

"The women say that's out of date."

"The women!" exclaimed Wellgood contemptuously.

"They'll be in the garden," Harry opined. "Shall we move, pater?"

"We might as well," said Belfield. "Are you ready, Wellgood?"

Wellgood was ready – in spite of his contempt.

The garden at Halton was a pleasant place on a fine evening, with a moon waxing, yet not obtrusively full, with billowing shrubberies, clear-cut walks, lawns spreading in a gentle drabness that would be bright green in to-morrow's sun – a place pleasant in its calm, its spaciousness and isolation. They all sat together in a ring for a while; smoke curled up; a servant brought glasses that clinked as they were set down with a cheery, yet not urgent, suggestion.

"I suppose you're right to go in for it," said Wellgood to Harry. "It's your obvious line." (He was referring to a public career.) "But, after all, it's casting pearls before swine."

"Swine!" The note of exclamation was large. "Our masters, Mr. Wellgood!"

"A decent allowance of bran, and a ring through their noses – that's the thing for them!"

"Has anybody got a copy – well, another copy of 'Coriolanus'?" Harry inquired in an affectation of eagerness.