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Book 3: The Heart of PoliticsSeeking Associates9
One countervailing influence to my drift to Toryism in those days was Margaret`s quite religious faith in the Liberals. I realised that slowly and with a mild astonishment. It set me, indeed, even then questioning my own change of opinion. We came at last incidentally, as our way was, to an exchange of views. It was as nearly a quarrel as we had before I came over to the Conservative side. It was at Champneys, and I think during the same visit that witnessed my exploration of Lady Forthundred. It arose indirectly, I think, out of some comments of mine upon our fellow-guests, but it is one of those memories of which the scene and quality remain more vivid than the things said, a memory without any very definite beginning or end. It was afternoon, in the pause between tea and the dressing bell, and we were in Margaret`s big silver-adorned, chintz-bright room, looking out on the trim Italian garden. . . . Yes, the beginning of it has escaped me altogether, but I remember it as an odd exceptional little wrangle.
At first we seem to have split upon the moral quality of the aristocracy, and I had an odd sense that in some way too feminine for me to understand our hostess had aggrieved her. She said, I know, that Champneys distressed her; made her "eager for work and reality again."
"But aren`t these people real?"
"They`re so superficial, so extravagant!"
I said I was not shocked by their unreality. They seemed the least affected people I had ever met. "And are they really so extravagant?" I asked, and put it to her that her dresses cost quite as much as any other woman`s in the house.
"It`s not only their dresses," Margaret parried. "It`s the scale and spirit of things."
I questioned that. "They`re cynical," said Margaret, staring before her out of the window.
I challenged her, and she quoted the Brabants, about whom there had been an ancient scandal. She`d heard of it from Altiora, and it was also Altiora who`d given her a horror of Lord Carnaby, who was also with us. "You know his reputation," said Margaret. "That Normandy girl. Every one knows about it. I shiver when I look at him. He seems--oh! like something not of OUR civilisation. He WILL come and say little things to me."
"Offensive things?"
"No, politenesses and things. Of course his manners are--quite right. That only makes it worse, I think. It shows he might have helped--all that happened. I do all I can to make him see I don`t like him. But none of the others make the slightest objection to him."
"Perhaps these people imagine something might be said for him."
"That`s just it," said Margaret.
"Charity," I suggested.
"I don`t like that sort of toleration."
I was oddly annoyed. "Like eating with publicans and sinners," I said. "No! . . ."
But scandals, and the contempt for rigid standards their condonation displayed, weren`t more than the sharp edge of the trouble. "It`s their whole position, their selfish predominance, their class conspiracy against the mass of people," said Margaret. "When I sit at dinner in that splendid room, with its glitter and white reflections and candlelight, and its flowers and its wonderful service and its candelabra of solid gold, I seem to feel the slums and the mines and the over-crowded cottages stuffed away under the table."
I reminded Margaret that she was not altogether innocent of unearned increment.
"But aren`t we doing our best to give it back?" she said.
I was moved to question her. "Do you really think," I asked, "that the Tories and peers and rich people are to blame for social injustice as we have it to-day? Do you really see politics as a struggle of light on the Liberal side against darkness on the Tory?"
"They MUST know," said Margaret.
I found myself questioning that. I see now that to Margaret it must have seemed the perversest carping against manifest things, but at the time I was concentrated simply upon the elucidation of her view and my own; I wanted to get at her conception in the sharpest, hardest lines that were possible. It was perfectly clear that she saw Toryism as the diabolical element in affairs. The thing showed in its hopeless untruth all the clearer for the fine, clean emotion with which she gave it out to me. My sleeping peer in the library at Stamford Court and Evesham talking luminously behind the Hartstein flowers embodied the devil, and my replete citizen sucking at his cigar in the National Liberal Club, Willie Crampton discussing the care and management of the stomach over a specially hygienic lemonade, and Dr. Tumpany in his aggressive frock-coat pegging out a sort of copyright in Socialism, were the centre and wings of the angelic side. It was nonsense. But how was I to put the truth to her?
"I don`t see things at all as you do," I said. "I don`t see things in the same way."
"Think of the poor," said Margaret, going off at a tangent.
"Think of every one," I said. "We Liberals have done more mischief through well-intentioned benevolence than all the selfishness in the world could have done. We built up the liquor interest."
"WE!" cried Margaret. "How can you say that? It`s against us."
"Naturally. But we made it a monopoly in our clumsy efforts to prevent people drinking what they liked, because it interfered with industrial regularity--"
"Oh!" cried Margaret, stung; and I could see she thought I was talking mere wickedness.
"That`s it," I said.
"But would you have people drink whatever they pleased?"
"Certainly. What right have I to dictate to other men and women?"
"But think of the children!"
"Ah! there you have the folly of modern Liberalism, its half- cunning, half-silly way of getting at everything in a roundabout fashion. If neglecting children is an offence, and it IS an offence, then deal with it as such, but don`t go badgering and restricting people who sell something that may possibly in some cases lead to a neglect of children. If drunkenness is an offence, punish it, but don`t punish a man for selling honest drink that perhaps after all won`t make any one drunk at all. Don`t intensify the viciousness of the public-house by assuming the place isn`t fit for women and children. That`s either spite or folly. Make the public-house FIT for women and children. Make it a real public- house. If we Liberals go on as we are going, we shall presently want to stop the sale of ink and paper because those things tempt men to forgery. We do already threaten the privacy of the post because of betting tout`s letters. The drift of all that kind of thing is narrow, unimaginative, mischievous, stupid. . . ."
I stopped short and walked to the window and surveyed a pretty fountain, facsimile of one in Verona, amidst trim-cut borderings of yew. Beyond, and seen between the stems of ilex trees, was a great blaze of yellow flowers. . . .
"But prevention," I heard Margaret behind me, "is the essence of our work."
I turned. "There`s no prevention but education. There`s no antiseptics in life but love and fine thinking. Make people fine, make fine people. Don`t be afraid. These Tory leaders are better people individually than the average; why cast them for the villains of the piece? The real villain in the piece--in the whole human drama--is the muddle-headedness, and it matters very little if it`s virtuous-minded or wicked. I want to get at muddle-headedness. If I could do that I could let all that you call wickedness in the world run about and do what it jolly well pleased. It would matter about as much as a slightly neglected dog--in an otherwise well- managed home."
My thoughts had run away with me.
"I can`t understand you," said Margaret, in the profoundest distress. "I can`t understand how it is you are coming to see things like this."
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