Magnus Merriman (28 page)

On the day following his arrival in London Magnus had lunch with Nelly Bly at Simpson's in the Strand. He had called for her at the offices of the
Morning Call
, and in that huge building he had felt again the excitement he had first experienced in the
News-Sentinel
building in Philadelphia: there was a busy coming and going in the corridors, there were signs of great activity, typewriter noises, messengers hurrying, voices heard in quick discussion—all that, however, might be observed in offices of any kind if their dimensions were comparable with this one: but the air was charged with a special quality, there was a tension, there was, it seemed, an awareness of fleeting time that bore on its swift tide an argosy of news, and here were pirates to take its cargo of a murder in Tooting, a famine in China, war in Bolivia, crisis in Berlin, divorce in Mayfair, falling aeroplanes in America, and a bishop's view of immortality in Birmingham—no other walls contained an air so quick as a newspaper office, no other workers under the earth's sky so bore themselves with the brow-furrowed pride, as of doctors at the lying-in of a queen, that came from intimacy with the first hours of the world's greatest affairs and most poignant small affairs; and Magnus, who had breathed the air in America, though only as a Literary Editor, who has little
concern with news, snuffed it again like a semi-authentic war-horse, and felt that he had returned again to his own country.

He said something of this sort to Nelly Bly. She asked him what he had been doing since the election in Kinluce. He answered that he had written a poem.

‘Only one?' she asked.

‘It's a long one.'

‘Why did you write it? No one will read it.'

‘It's rather a good poem, in parts,' said Magnus.

‘I don't believe you. No one can write a good long poem nowadays, because nowadays no sensible person can believe in any one thing or set of things for long enough to compose more than twenty lines under his original inspiration. I never believe in anything—except Lady Mercy—for more than three days.'

‘Not even in your own ability?' said Magnus.

‘Yes, in a relative way. In the country of the blind the half-canned man is king. But it would take a full-time hundred per cent genius to write a poem under the single inspiration of his own ability, and nowadays a genius doesn't want to write poetry: he makes a multi-million fortune and suffers delusions of omnipotence.'

‘Like Lady Mercy?'

‘Lady Mercy's a great woman: make no mistake about that.'

‘But quite unscrupulous?'

‘My God,' said Nelly, ‘who was ever great without being unscrupulous? I seem to remember hearing you say, in Kinluce, that you believed in individualism: well, what's individualism but going your own way without scruples till somebody with fewer scruples and an axe gets up and stops you?'

Magnus finished his Niersteiner at a gulp. ‘I've just been delivered of a theory,' he said. ‘I grant all you suggest about greatness and unscrupulousness cohabiting with the regularity of those whom God hath joined. Now it's a demonstrable fact that the arts most conveniently flourish under a despotism—take medieval Italy or Elizabethan England, for example—but in such circumstances the mass of the people
have a pretty thin time. Therefore the arts are anti-social, or at least the symptom, when they flourish, of an anti-social policy. Now I'm anti-social, because I believe that society—and I don't mean
le beau monde
only—has become rotten. Therefore I can serve my principles by serving Lady Mercy, because she, being great and unscrupulous, is potentially a despot, and so anti-social, and so, to balance things, a nurse to the arts. But unfortunately you say the arts—or, at any rate, the art of poetry—is dead. So what is there left for her to nourish?'

‘Journalism,' said Nelly Bly.

‘My God,' said Magnus.

‘And talking of journalism,' said Nelly, ‘I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little while before starting your dramatic criticism. Solomon Tite, the furniture man who furnishes our free-gift houses for registered readers, and who's our heaviest advertiser, has a nephew just down from Oxford who's been looking for a job, so he's taking care of the national drama at present. But he'll get the sack before the new autumn shows come on, and you'll be appointed then. Barney Wardle, the editor, wants to see you and talk things over with you, so you'd better give me your telephone number. I'll have to be getting back to the office in a few minutes.'

Nelly Bly insisted on paying for their lunch. She would debit the cost of it to business expenses, she said; and this was only the first of a series of meals that Magnus ate at other people's expense, for in the course of the next week or two he twice had lunch with his publishers, twice with Mr Barney Wardle, with Nelly Bly again, and with Lady Mercy herself.

His publishers' entertainment was more modest than that paid for by the
Morning Call
. Newspaper profits, it appeared, enabled a man to use the Savoy Hotel as his chop-house, but the publishers of more permanent literature had to be content with Soho. Mr Cassock, the publisher of Magnus's works, was not moved to enthusiasm by the information that the author of
The Great Beasts Walk
Alone
had written a poem in succession to that very popular novel. He told Magnus that poetry was unprofitable stuff,
and that although publishers with literary as well as commercial ambitions—such as Cassock and Abel—occasionally accepted a volume of verse, verse was accounted merely as an ornament to their catalogues, like holly in the shops at Christmas. Magnus, he said, must on no account write any more poetry for a long, long time, or he would assuredly lose the public whose precarious favour had been gained by his novel. Mr Cassock's tone was so grave that Magnus had no heart to defend his poem, and ate his spaghetti and drank his chianti in a shameful silence, and felt as though he had been detected in some abominable misdemeanour.

Two days later he lunched with Mr Abel, Mr Cassock's junior partner. Mr Abel adopted a more sprightly manner and behaved as a broad-minded man who does not summon the police when he finds a burglar in his dining-room, but gave the fellow a cigarette and lets him go. ‘So you've been writing poetry, have you?' he asked. ‘Well, well. Hardly a wise thing to do, you know, but I suppose you wanted to. Eh? It won't sell, of course. Not a penny in poetry nowadays. We've lost heavily on every book of verse we've ever published. Still, I like to see a little variation in our winter list especially, and when a man's done fairly well for us with one book, I believe in letting him have his fling with the next—within reason, of course, within reason. So I've persuaded Cassock to publish your poem, though, in confidence, he wasn't very keen about it. We've decided to take it, however. But this is my advice, Merriman: stick to novels after this. Modern novels, of course: historical ones are almost as bad as poetry. And now, what are your plans? Are you going to settle down in London?'

Then Magnus had lunch with Mr Barney Wardle at the Savoy Hotel. The task of editing the
Morning Call
had given him a far more prosperous appearance and commanding manner than the publishing of novels—and a little poetry—had bestowed on Mr Cassock and Mr Abel. He was large in size and pink in colour, and he was dressed in excellent taste with here and there a touch of sartorial exuberance that gave him the air of perpetually enjoying a holiday. In his company Magnus entirely regained the cheerful confidence with which he had come to London, but which had been
somewhat obscured by his conversations with Mr Cassock and Mr Abel.

In the Grill Room of the Savoy Hotel Mr Barney Wardle was so much at home that he resembled a professional guest at a house-party. He knew everyone there and told Magnus their names, peculiarities, sources of income, and extramarital attachments. The meal was frequently interrupted by people who came to engage Mr Wardle in conversation, and Magnus was introduced to a well-known actress, a well-known novelist, a well-known motorist, and a financier not then so well-known as he became when he was arrested. Ostensibly Magnus had been invited to lunch in order that he and Mr Barney Wardle might discuss the various aspects of his appointment as dramatic critic to the
Morning Call
; but there were so many other things to talk about that they did not arrive at this topic until the time came for Mr Wardle to return to his office, and then, in a great hurry, he said: ‘Well, you're going to cover the theatres for us this winter, aren't you, Merriman? But I don't want you to start yet. There's nothing very interesting being produced just now, and as a matter of fact we're in a little difficulty about this nephew of Solomon Tite's: his uncle's our largest advertiser, and we feel it would be advisable to keep him on for another two or three weeks before giving him the sack. But you'll take over from him as soon as he goes, and meanwhile you can amuse yourself well enough, I suppose? There's always plenty to do in London.'

And Mr Barney Wardle said good-bye very warmly and expressed the hope that they would meet again quite soon.

Magnus accepted this postponement of his dramatic duties with equanimity. In reaction against his rural enthusiasm of the summer he now discovered London to be the source of true delight. At first he pretended, as he had promised himself, to regard his surroundings with cynical eyes, but he forsook the affectation when he found that he could enjoy the metropolitan scene without it. London, indeed, in September sunlight, wore a mellow look that suited most admirably its careless dignities and gave its large untidiness a benign autumnal ease. Slowly the comfortable flood of the river ran seaward, and the hospitable red buses navigated
the crowded streets with a cheerful mien. The country was in the throes of a political crisis, but the good easy people pursued their way without apparent fear or manifest concern: Melvin McMaster had told them that if they trusted him they would weather the storm, and George Pippin, the Conservative leader, had broadcast a message to the effect that Englishmen were at their best in a crisis: the honest Londoners cheerfully acquiesced, and took the morning's news of impending calamity—but for the efforts of Melvin McMaster—as a titbit for their breakfast plates. Their visible sense of security, that would have been insolent had it not been so comfortable, gave Magnus such pleasure that he almost forgot his Scottish Nationalism and declared himself a Cockney.

He had returned to his flat in Tavistock Square. He had failed to sub-let it. It was ready for him—somewhat dirtier than it had been—and paid for till the end of the year. He felt much more at home than he had while Margaret Innes was visiting him there. He called on several friends and acquaintances, and discovered that Nelly Bly was an admirable companion for the theatre or the supper-table. He was perfectly idle and well contented.

Then one day he received a telephone message from the
Morning Call
and was informed that Mr Barney Wardle desired Mr Merriman to lunch with him at the Savoy Hotel. Magnus obediently accepted the invitation and found Mr Wardle sprucely attired as ever but more serious of demeanour. This time their lunch was less interrupted, for Mr Wardle, having a great deal to say, selected a comparatively obscure table and refrained from waving his hand to all his friends.

He began by saying, ‘I suppose you realize, Merriman, that we are in the midst of the most momentous crisis we have been called upon to face since the conclusion of the War? And in our opinion McMaster is the wrong man to be in command at this juncture. We don't trust him and we don't think very highly of his ability. Lady Mercy doesn't trust him, and a woman's intuition is sometimes more valuable than a man's most careful reasoning. We rely a great deal on Lady Mercy's intuition, and she never lets us down.'

Mr Wardle hurriedly selected a few dishes from the menu, and returned to his political topic.

A crisis of considerable magnitude had indeed occurred. It was primarily financial in its nature, and very few people understood it. But the Bank of England was said to be in danger, and Mr McMaster had declared that the Bank expected every man to do his duty. Mr McMaster had already done his by sacrificing his Socialist principles and forming a National Cartel consisting mainly of himself and the Conservative Party. Because the bankers had insisted on speed he had dispensed with the formality of a General Election: the House had simply played General Post, the Socialists had gone into Opposition, and the Conservatives occupied the government benches. And Mr McMaster was prepared to outline an economic policy that would safeguard the Bank from whatever danger might be threatening it.

Lady Mercy, however, was unconvinced by Mr McMaster's pleading. With one of those rapid changes of front for which she was famous, and for which her intuition was doubtless responsible, she had ranged herself with the Socialists and by her command the
Morning Call
, showing great hostility towards McMaster and the Bankocrats, was hotly denouncing their proposed policy of increased taxation and reduction of expenditure in the social services. Lady Mercy declared that these economies were the condition imposed by the American bankers to whom the British Government had applied for a loan of £40,000,000, or £100,000,000, or some such amount. ‘And who are the Americans,' she rhetorically demanded, ‘that they should dictate our policy? And what is the Bank of England, that it should negotiate on our behalf? The Bank may rule its ledgers, but Britannia rules the waves!'

‘To put it briefly,' said Mr Wardle, ‘Lady Mercy is convinced that McMaster's so-called National Cartel is not serving the interests of the country, and she is accordingly resolved to destroy it. Now this is where you come in: we invited you here to be our dramatic critic, but all the world's a stage, and at present the most enthralling dramas are being played outside the theatres. Therefore I suggest that instead of interpreting “dramatic critic” in its
narrowest sense we should consider its broader implications, and we are prepared to commission you to do a series of articles on various aspects of the present political crisis. You go to Parliament, for example, and give your impressions of a debate: you attend a football-match, a night club, a fashionable church, a workmen's club, and describe the manner in which people of all kinds are facing up to the crisis. A roving commission, in fact. Lady Mercy had read that novel of yours and she was very favourably impressed—as I was myself—by your faculty of satirical description and forceful invective. We believe you would be the ideal man for the job: you're interested in politics and you won't be afraid to say what you think—or what we think—of McMaster and his new colleagues. And, of course, as a featured writer for the
Morning Call
you would instantly become famous. Your name would be a household word throughout the country: our average net sale for August was 2,163,000 copies. Now, Merriman, what do you say?'