James Hilton: Collected Novels (2 page)

“Except you,” interjected Lord Winslow, who had been overhearing the conversation from the other side. George turned, a little startled at first, and then, seeing a smile on His Lordship’s face, smiled back and replied thoughtfully: “Aye, that’s so. I suppose I was always a bit of a one for noticing things.”

By then the band had finished playing and it was time for George to open the proceedings. He did so in a speech that lasted a few minutes only; one of his virtues, innocently acquired because he regarded it as a drawback, was that ceremonial oratory did not come easily to him. But he had a pleasant voice and a knack of using simple words as a first-class workman uses tools; his newspaper editorials were not so good, because he “polished” them too much. There was also a hint of the child in him that appeared now in his unconcealed and quite unconcealable pleasure; he could not help letting Browdley know how pleased he was, not only with the town for having elected him one of its councillors, but doubtless also with himself for having so well merited the honor. A certain inward modesty made tolerable, and even attractive, an outward quality that might have been termed conceit. And when, having briefly introduced Lord Winslow, he sat down amidst another gust of applause, the life of the gathering seemed to center on his still beaming countenance rather than on the tall, thin, pallid stranger who rose to pay him conventional compliments.

Winslow, of course, was a much better speaker by any erudite standards. To the acceptable accent of English aristocracy and officialdom he added an air of slightly bored accomplishment that often goes with it, and the chiefly working-class audience gave him respectful attention throughout an address that was considerably above their heads. Had he been of their own class they might have shouted a few ribald interruptions, but they would not do this to a stranger so clearly of rank; indeed their patient silence implied a half-affectionate tolerance for “one of the nobs” who eccentrically chose to interest himself in Browdley affairs instead of in the far more glamorous ones they imagined must be his own—the sort of tolerance that had evoked an audible exclamation of “Poor little bugger!” from some unknown citizen when, a few years back, a royal prince had passed through the town on an official tour. To Browdley folk, as they looked and listened now, it seemed that Lord Winslow was all the time thinking of something else (as indeed he was), but they did not blame him for it; on the contrary, the cheers when he finished were a friendly concession that he had doubtless done his best and that it was pretty decent of him to have bothered to do anything at all.

Then the Bishop prayed, the foundation stone was well and truly laid, sundry votes of thanks were passed, the band played “God Save the King,” and the ceremony petered out. But Councillor Boswell seemed loth to leave the scene of so much concentrated personal victory. He gripped Winslow’s arm with proprietary zeal, talking about his plans for further slum clearances while from time to time he introduced various local people who hung around; and finally, when most had disappeared to their homes and the Bishop had waved a benign good-bye, George escorted his principal guest to the car that was to take him back to Browdley station. It was not only that he knew Winslow was important and might at some future date do the town a service; nor merely that he already liked him, for he found it easy to like people; the fact was, Winslow was the type that stirred in George a note of genuine hero worship—and in spite, rather than because, of the title. After all, a man couldn’t help what he inherited, and if he were also a high government personage with a string of degrees and academic distinctions after his name, why hold mere blue blood against him? It was the truer aristocracy of intellect that George admired—hence the spell cast over him by Winslow’s scholarly speech, his domelike forehead, and the absent-minded professorial manner that George took to be preoccupation with some abstruse problem. He had already looked him up in
Who’s Who
, and during the drive in the car through Browdley streets humility transformed itself into naïve delight that an Oxford Doctor of Philosophy had actually accepted an invitation to have tea at his house.

George was also delighted at the success of his own ruse to sidetrack the Mayor and the other councillors and get Winslow on his own, and most delighted of all, as well as astonished, when Winslow said: “Good idea, Boswell—I had been on the point of suggesting such a thing myself. My train is not for an hour or so, I understand.”

“That’s right, no need to hurry,” George replied. “And there’s later trains for that matter.”

Winslow smiled. “Well, we have time for a cup of tea, anyhow.” And after a pause, as if the personality of George really interested him: “So you come of an old Browdley family?”

“As old as we have ’em here, sir, but that’s not so old. My great-great-grandfather was a farm laborer in Kent, and our branch of the family moved north when the cotton mills wanted cheap labor. I haven’t got any famous ancestors, except one who’s supposed to have been transported to Australia for poaching.” He added regretfully: “But I could never get any proof of it.”

Winslow smiled. “At any rate, your father lived it down. He seems to have been a much respected man in Browdley.”

George nodded, pleased by the tribute, but then went on, with that disconcerting frankness that was (if he had only known it, but then of course if he had known it, it wouldn’t have been) one of his principal charms: “Aye, he was much respected, and for twenty years after he died I went about thinking how much I’d respected him myself, but then one day when I was afraid of something, it suddenly occurred to me it was the same feeling I’d had for my father.”

“You mean you
didn’t
respect him?”

“Oh, I did that as well, but where there’s fear it doesn’t much matter what goes with it. There was a lot of fear in our house—there always is when folks are poor. Either they’re afraid of the landlord or the policeman or employers or unemployment or having another mouth to feed or a son getting wed and taking his wage with him—birth, marriage, and death—it’s all summat to worry about. Even
after
death, in my father’s case, because he was what he called God-fearing.”

Winslow smiled again. “So you didn’t have a very happy childhood?”

“I suppose it wasn’t, though at the time I took it as natural. There was nothing cruel, mind you—only hardships and stern faces.” George then confessed that during the first six years of his life he was rarely if ever told to do anything without being threatened with what would happen if he didn’t or couldn’t; and the fact that these threats were mostly empty did not prevent the main effect—which was to give him a first impression of the world as a piece of adult property in which children were trespassers. “Only they weren’t prosecuted,” he added, with a laugh. “They were mostly just yelled at…D’you know, one of the biggest shocks of my life was after my parents died and I was sent to live with an uncle I’d never met before—to find out then that grownups could actually talk to me in a cheerful, casual sort of way, even though I
was
only a boy!”

“Yes, there must have been a big difference.”

“Aye, and I’ll tell you what I’ve often thought the difference was,” George went on, growing bolder and smiling his wide smile. “Just a matter of a few quid a week. You see, my father never earned more than two pound ten at the mill, but my uncle had a little business that brought in about twice that. Not a fortune—but enough to keep away some of the fears.”

“There’s one fear, anyhow, that nobody had in those days,” Winslow commented. “Wars before 1914 were so far off and so far removed from his personal life that the average Englishman had only to read about them in the papers and cheer for his side.”

“Not even that if he didn’t want to,” George replied. “Take my father and the Boers, for instance. Thoroughly approved of them, he did, especially old Kruger, whom he used to pray for as ‘that great President and the victor of Majuba Hill, which, as Thou knowest, Lord, is situated near the border of Natal and the Transvaal

Republic.…’ He always liked to make sure the Lord had all the facts.”

Despite Winslow’s laugh, George checked his flow of reminiscence, for he had begun to feel he had been led into talking too much about himself. Taking advantage, therefore, of a curve in the street that afforded the view of a large derelict weaving shed, he launched into more appropriate chatter about Browdley, its history, geography, trade conditions, and so on, and how, as Councillor, he was seeking to alleviate local unemployment. Winslow began to look preoccupied during all this, so George eventually stopped talking altogether as he neared his house—smiling a little to himself, though. He suspected that Winslow was already on guard against a possible solicitation of favors. “Or else he thinks I’m running after him because he’s a lord,” George thought, scornfully amused at such a plausible error.

The factor George counted on to reveal the error was the room in which they were both to have tea. It was not a very large room (in the small mid-Victorian house adjoining the printing office in Market Street), but its four walls, even over the door and under the windows, were totally covered with books. One of George’s numerous prides was in having the finest personal library in Browdley, and probably he had; it was a genuine collection, anyhow, not an accumulation of sets for the sake of their binding, as could be seen in the mansions of rich local manufacturers. Moreover, George really
read
his books—thoroughly and studiously, often with pencil in hand for note-taking. Like many men who have suffered deficiencies in early education, he had more than made up for them since; except that he had failed to acquire the really unique thing a good early education can bequeath—the ability to grow up and forget about it. George could never forget—neither on nor off the Education Committee of which he made the best and most energetic chairman Browdley had ever had. What he chiefly hoped was that during the interval before Winslow must catch his train back to London, they might have a serious intellectual talk—or perhaps the latter would talk, Gamaliel-wise, while George sat metaphorically at his feet.

Unfortunately the great man failed to pick up the desired cue from a first sight of the books; indeed, he seemed hardly to notice them, even when George with an expansive wave of the hand bade him make himself at home; though there was consolation in reflecting that Winslow’s own library was probably so huge that this one must appear commonplace.

“Make yourself thoroughly at home, sir,” George repeated, with extra heartiness on account of his disappointment.

“Thank you,” answered the other, striding across the room. He stood for a few seconds, staring through the back window, then murmured meditatively: “H’m—very nice. Quite a show. Wonderful what one can do even in the middle of a town.”

George then realized that Winslow must be referring to the small oblong garden between the house and the wall of the neighboring bus garage. So he replied quickly: “Aye, but it’s gone a bit to pieces lately. Not much in my line, gardening.”

“Must compliment you on your roses, anyhow.”

“My wife, not me—she’s the one for all that if she was here.”

“She’s away?”

“Aye—on the Continent. Likes to travel too—all over the place. But books are more in my line.”

“It’s certainly been a good season for them.”

George wasn’t sure what this referred to until Winslow added, still staring out of the window: “My wife’s another enthusiast—she’s won prizes at our local show.”

George still did not think this a promising beginning to an intellectual conversation, but as Annie was just then bringing in the tea he said no more about books. Winslow, however, could not tear himself away from the spectacle of the roses—which were, indeed, especially beautiful that year. “Too bad,” he murmured, “for anyone who loves a garden to miss England just now…So you’re not keen on foreign holidays, is that it, Boswell?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say no if I had the chance, but I don’t suppose I’d ever be as keen as Livia is. Anyhow, I’ve got too much to do in Browdley to leave the place for months on end.”

“
Months
? Quite a holiday.”

“Aye, but it’s not all holiday for her. She has a job with one of those travel tours—‘Ten Days in Lovely Lucerne’—that kind of thing. Pays her expenses and a bit over.”

“Convenient.”

“For anyone who likes seeing the same sights with different folks over and over again. I wouldn’t.”

“Sort of guide, is she?”

“I reckon so. She runs the show for ’em, I’ll bet. She’s got a real knack for managing folks when she feels like it.”

“I wouldn’t say you were entirely without it yourself.”

“Ah, but with her it’s an art.” George was too genuinely modest to realize that his own sterling naïveté was just as good a knack, art, or whatever else it was. “Maybe you won’t believe me, but when I was a young fellow I was so scared of meeting folks I could hardly get a word out. And even now I’m not as happy on a platform as I am sitting alone in this room with a good book.” He jerked his head towards the surrounding shelves in another attempt to steer the conversation, and when Winslow did not immediately reply, he added more pointedly: “I expect you’re a great reader yourself?”

“Oh fairly—when I can find the time.”

“Aye, that’s the worst of being in public life.” At least they had
that
bond in common. “You know, sir, there’s only one reason I’d ever wish to be young again—
really
young, I mean,” he added, as he saw Winslow smile—“and that’s to have sum-mat I missed years ago—a right-down good education….I’ll never forget when I visited Oxford and saw all those lucky lads in the colleges…” A sincere emotion entered his voice. “And the professors in their libraries—I tell you frankly, I…” He saw that Winslow was still smiling. “Well, I’ll put it this way—there’s only one thing I’d rather be than in politics, and that’s one of those university dons, as they call themselves.”

“Yet I doubt if many of them are doing any better work than you are here—judging by what I’ve seen today.”