‘I wonder if he’s actually mad,’ said Rose.
‘Of course not,’ said Jenkin, ‘if we get obsessed with his
Schrecklichkeit
and simply call him crazy we won’t
think
about what he says –’
‘He’s on the side of the evil in the world,’ said Rose. ‘He’s a bully, and I hate bullies. He’s dangerous, he’ll kill someone.’
‘Rose, calm down. We were all Marxists once –’
‘So what, Gerard – and I wasn’t! He’s a conspirator. I don’t believe he’s a solitary thinker, or that he belongs to some dotty little group – I think he’s a dedicated underground communist.’
‘I’m not just blindly defending him,’ said Jenkin, ‘I don’t know exactly what he thinks, if I did I’d probably hate it, but we must find out. He’s gone on
thinking
about it all and we haven’t, we must give him that –’
‘That’s a damn silly argument –!’
‘Shut up, Gull, let me talk. Crimond has worked, he’s tried to put something together. He believes, or he believed, that he could make some sort of synthesis –’
‘The book that the age requires!’
‘And we didn’t just laugh at him in those days.’
‘There can be no such book,’ said Gulliver.
‘All right, if we think that now, we should ask ourselves why! We’ve lost a lot of confidence since then. Our heroes, dissidents who fight tyrannies and die in prisons, are enabled by history to be soldiers for truth. We are not – I mean quite apart from not being brave enough, we aren’t martyred for our opinions in this country. The least we can do is try to think about our society and what’s going to happen to it.’
Gerard murmured, ‘Yes, but –’
‘Crimond says it’s the end of our society,’ said Rose. ‘He said he wanted to destroy “that world”, meaning
our
world.’
‘I don’t see what stops us from being heroes too,’ said Gull, ‘except bloody cowardice of course.’
‘I think Crimond
is
a lone wolf,’ Jenkin went on, ‘I think he’s really a romantic, an idealist.’
‘Utopian Marxism leads straight to the most revolting kinds of repression!’ said Gull. ‘The most important fact of our age is the wickedness of Hitler and Stalin. We mustn’t tolerate any stuff which suggests that communism is really fine if only it can be done properly!’
‘Don’t be cross with me,’ said Jenkin. ‘I was going on to say
that at least Crimond’s sort of Marxism is utilitarian, he
cares
about suffering and poverty and injustice. It’s like the Catholic church in South America. Suddenly people begin to feel that nothing matters except human misery.’
‘He wants to destroy our democracy and have one-party government,’ said Rose, ‘that’s scarcely the way to fight injustice!’
‘Rose is right,’ said Gulliver. ‘Democracy means you accept disagreement and imperfection and bloody-minded individualism. Crimond hates the idea of the individual, he hates the idea of being incarnate, he’s a puritan, he’s not a bit romantic, he’s something new and awful. He praises horror films because they show that behind cosy bourgeois society there’s something violent and disgusting and terrible which is
more real
!’
‘I think it’s time to adjourn this meeting,’ said Gerard. ‘We’ve talked enough, everyone’s said what he thinks several times over –’ Jenkin was looking upset, Rose as if she might burst into tears.
‘We ought to have it out with him,’ said Gulliver, ‘at least someone should. Bags I not.’
‘And not me,’ said Jenkin.
‘Gerard must go, of course,’ said Rose.
‘All right, I’ll see him,’ said Gerard, ‘at least we’ve decided something.’
‘Who’ll have a glass of sherry?’ said Rose.
They all got up. Jenkin said he must go at once. He looked at Gerard and a telepathic message passed between them to the effect their neither was cross with the other. Gulliver, who was less telepathic and was feeling excited and pleased with himself, hung around and accepted a second glass of sherry.
‘Perhaps we could pay Crimond to go and live in Australia!’
‘Poor old Australians!’ said Rose.
‘I wish it was as easy as that,’ said Gerard.
‘By the way,’ said Gull, ‘Lily Boyne said she’d like to join our little
cosa nostra.
She’s not a fool, you know, and she has the right sort of views. I meant to say earlier but I forgot.’
‘I should have thought the right sort of views would make her keep away!’ said Rose.
‘Well, you know what I mean. Anyway, since she said it I pass it on.’
‘Hang it,’ said Gerard, ‘I forgot to mention about Pat and Gideon wanting to muck in.’
‘It’s not a moment for new recruits,’ said Rose, ‘not till we know where we are.’ She looked at her watch and Gulliver soon said he must go. ‘Gulliver, Gerard says you’ll be able to come to the Reading Party, I’m so glad, and I’ve asked Lily too. Let us know your train and we’ll pick you up at the station. Oh, and bring your skates.’
‘
Skates
?’
‘Yes, with luck the water meadow will be frozen.’
After Gulliver had gone they sat down on either side of the electric fire which occupied the fireplace.
‘How odd about Lily wanting to join,’ said Gerard.
‘She wants to be part of the family,’ said Rose.
‘Are we a family? Well, we must look after her too.’
‘Gull got quite excited. He’s a nice boy.’
‘Yes, and good-looking.’
‘Gerard. When you see Crimond. Be careful.’
‘Of course I will. However cool I am, I bet he’ll be cooler! Why, Rose, you’re crying!’
Gerard got up, drew his chair near to hers, and put an arm round her shoulder. Her face was flushed and her wet cheek when he touched it was hot. As he drew her head down to this shoulder and felt her cool hair against his chin he remembered the grey parrot which would now be asleep in its cage.
‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, did you?’
‘Yes, very well.’
Duncan said, ‘Why do people always ask other people whether they slept well, meaning simply did they sleep? One may sleep continuously and have a terrible night. There is good and bad sleep.’
‘You mean dreams?’ said Rose, who was standing at the door.
‘I mean sleep.’
No one felt inclined to pursue the matter or to enquire which kind Duncan had had.
The first two speakers were Gull and Lily, and the time was breakfast time on Saturday, the guests’ first breakfast at the Boyars Reading Party, and for Lily and Gull, who were new to the house, their first Boyars breakfast ever, and their first real view of the scene, inside and out, since, like the others, they had arrived for dinner, in the dark, on the previous evening.
Rose had of course arrived earlier in the day, not really to supervise anything, since her elderly servant Annushka, the ‘young girl’ in the photograph which Duncan had showed to Tamar, had made all the usual immaculate preparations. This servant, the daughter of a gardener, originally ‘Annie’, had been given the affectionate diminutive by Sinclair when, as a child, he had emulated his great-great-grandfather by going through a Russian phase. It was this same ancestor who had invented the name ‘Boyars’, for no very clear reason. Why not ‘Czars’, Sinclair had complained. Rose thought the name derived from Tolstoy via
ù sont les Boyars?
. Rose came early just to breathe the air, to look about, to put on her Boyars persona, and to wonder, as she always did, why she did not come here oftener.
Gull and Lily had arrived together by train, Tamar by another train, all met at the station by Rose. Duncan had
arrived by himself by car, Gerard had driven Jenkin down as usual. Patricia and Gideon who seemed to think they had an open invitation had, to general relief, announced that it was their time for being in Venice. In fact for reasons nobody bothered to penetrate they hardly ever visited Rose’s house.
Gulliver had come down first to breakfast and had eaten a boiled egg. Duncan had eaten fried eggs and bacon collecting them from the hot-plate on the sideboard. Gulliver now blamed himself for having bothered Annushka to get him a boiled egg. He would have liked eggs and bacon better, he now decided. However he was wearing his dark-blue double-breasted Finnish yachting jacket and felt good. Gerard had eaten a piece of bacon with fried bread. Jenkin was at the sideboard helping himself to eggs, bacon, sausage, fried bread and grilled tomatoes. In the old days there had used to be kidneys too, and kedgeree. Lily had eaten some toast with homemade gooseberry jam. Tamar had toyed with a piece of toast and rapidly vanished. Everyone had had coffee except for Lily who asked for tea. Rose, who got up very early and never ate breakfast, had had her early tea with Annushka, and, flitting about, had not sat down with her guests. She had explained to the newcomers the layout of the house and the various ‘walks’ that were available. There were plenty of places to sit and (since this was the title of the gathering) read. There was the drawing room, and the dining room which had a pleasant window seat, the billiard room (sorry no billiards, the moths had got at the cloth), where you could play records, the library of course (do take out any book) and the study (Rose would not be occupying it). As for walks, it was best to keep to roads and paths, there was a framed map in the study. There was the walk to the river, the walk to the church, the walk to the wood, though the way through it was rather overgrown, the walk to the Roman Road and along it, and of course the walk to the village which was called Foxpath. Yes, there was, Gull had asked the question, a village pub, it was called the Pike. The name referred to the fish of course, not the weapon; an eccentric publican who put up a sign to celebrate the Peasants’ Revolt was soon disciplined by public opinion.
Naturally the guests had brought books though not everyone was ready to declare or discuss his choice. Duncan had brought two fat Government publications, Gulliver had brought the poems of Lowell and Berry man and had vowed to write some poetry during his stay, Lily had brought a travel book on Thailand, Gerard had brought Horace’s
Odes
and a volume of Plotinus in the Loeb edition, Rose had brought
Daniel Deronda
, Jenkin had brought the
Oxford Book of Spanish Verse
, a Portuguese grammar, and a book by a Jesuit called
Socialism and the New Theology.
(He kept these latter works well out of Gerard’s sight.) Tamar had apparently brought no book but had retired to the library to find one. The ‘regulars’ felt but did not mention the absence of Jean whose comical taunts and restless badinage had always stirred up what might otherwise have proved
too
quiet a scene. Rose anticipated that Gull and Lily would be bored.
Since they had got up it had begun to snow, at first with tiny indecisive flakes, now with larger ones. The countryside, already streaked by a previous fall, was now entirely white. Rose had warned the newcomers to bring boots and also warm jerseys to wear if necessary inside the house as well as outside. There
was
central heating, and wood fires all day in the ‘public rooms’ and at evening in the bedrooms, but Boyars was (as Rose complacently said) not a warm house.
‘Is the water meadow frozen?’ asked Gerard.
‘I think so,’ said Rose, ‘it must be. I’ll go over and look this morning.’
Gerard and Rose, who could skate well, kept their skates at Boyars. They disliked the weird and garish atmosphere of indoor skating rinks. Jenkin could not skate but liked watching the others. Duncan could not skate and did not like watching the others who were always, he claimed, and that included Jean who was a good skater, showing off. Tamar could skate but had forgotten to bring her skates. Rose thought an old pair of Annushka’s might fit her. (Annushka, a beautiful skater, had given up.) Lily said she had skated a bit once and was game to try. Gulliver admitted to being able to skate. He did not however reveal, even to Lily, that he had
just, for the occasion, bought a pair of skates, the first he had ever possessed. He had spent some time the previous morning rubbing mud over the shining boots to dim their newness. It had been a foolish and expensive purchase. He had still not managed to find a job.
‘I say, Rose,’ said Jenkin, ‘there’s a ladybird walking on the sideboard. What shall we do, put her on those plants? Shall I catch her?’
‘I will,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll put her in the stables. They creep into crannies in the wood, then they fly out in the spring. It’s amazing how sturdy insects are.’
‘They’ll survive the Bomb,’ said Jenkin, ‘I suppose there’s some comfort in that.’
Rose took a wineglass from the cupboard, captured the ladybird and took charge of it.
A white cat with greyish tabby blotches entered with tail erect and was captured by Lily. ‘Rose, what’s the name of your pussycat?’
‘Mousebrook,’ said Rose. In fact the cat’s full name was Mousebrook the Mauve Cat, but Rose did not feel matey enough with Lily yet to tell her that.
‘What a funny name!’
‘Skating this afternoon, don’t you think?’ said Gerard.
‘Yes,’ said Rose. ‘This morning you boys must work. Look at that snow! It’s real brass monkey weather.’
What on earth does that mean, Lily wondered, as she struggled with recalcitrant Mousebrook.
After breakfast, while the others were still arguing about their ‘day’, Duncan hurried upstairs to his bedroom. He had already made his bed. Annushka did not make beds, as Rose always reminded them. The room had seemed cosy last night in the firelight. Now the fire was out and the room was cold and filled with a relentless greyness by the moving curtain of snow. Duncan was not in the room which he had always occupied with Jean. Rose had moved him, with tactful intent, to a smaller room at the back of the house where, as she said,
the view was better. The view was at least different, but Duncan was cross at being given a small room with no contiguous bathroom. He gazed out at the view through the irritating little diamond-shaped lattice panes of the pointed Strawberry Hill Gothic window characteristic of this part of the house. He sympathised with Rose’s great-grandfather who had altered (or ‘vandalised’) the front of the house by altering the pseudo-Gothic to sturdy Edwardian and adding a graceless but useful extension. He opened the window so as to see better, then closed it abruptly against a massive entry of bitterly cold air and a snowflake or two. His room looked out over the back lawn and garden, the conifers and extensive shrubbery, the rosy walls of the vegetable garden, a segment of woodland, the gentle mild hills of the English countryside, a distant farm, and the Roman Road, a dead straight miles-long section of a famous Roman highway which here ribboned over the hills and dales, constituting a sort of landmark. The Roman Road was not now a main road. The main road, not a motorway but a substantial artery, lay a considerable distance off in front of the house on the other side of the river.