The Balliols (29 page)

Yes, that was how it was; that was how it had been. You were curious about that club: what were its secrets: its privileges: its rules of membership. But no one would ever tell you. You had to be elected as a member first. That knowledge woke the spirit of devilry in Ruth. It would be fun to play the spy; to find out for oneself; to fool them all.

If I ever get the chance, she thought.…

It was in 1912 that Lucy was married. It was in the spring of 1914 that her first child, a girl, was born. In retrospect those months have acquired a significance that at the time they did not have. Europe was living under conditions that will never return. Russia was an empire, Austria and Germany were empires. In England the colonial formula included the dominions. There were such things as “gilt-edged securities” and trustee stocks. Money had a real value; the pursuit of wealth was a tangible ambition. The interests of the land controlled the cities. That world has passed. And because it passed suddenly, in an afternoon, historians of that period tend to idealize it, as a period of ease and plenty.

For certain people, for certain classes it may have been. But for the vast majority life was not in its essentials so very different from what it is to-day. As a schoolboy I have only second-hand evidence to go upon; but the conversation of schoolmasters and the guests at my father's table followed much the same course that it does now. Then, as now, the country was going to the dogs. Only then it was the Radicals, not the Socialists, who were driving it to the kennels. The land, property, invested wealth, were being plundered by a spendthrift government. Only then capital was being taxed out of the country, not out of existence. There was talk of the weak hand in India. We should have soon lost our empire; have sunk to the level of a third-rate power. Germany was building ships, the Liberal government was cutting down the army, National bankruptcy was imminent. That was how general problems were discussed.

Private problems were discussed on a similar note of gloom. Never, I heard, had the book trade been so bad. Books were luxuries. The public would pay ten shillings for a stall but struck at four and six for a novel. Yet then, as now, a great many publishers and quite a few writers were drawing comfortable sustenance from that bankrupt enterprise. People were worried then about much the same things that they are to-day; only in a different way. Those who describe the pre-war years as a period of peace, prosperity and
plenty, are in the main idealizing their youth, manhood or maturity; the time when they had the faith, strength, confidence to take difficulties in their stride.

In a similar way historians of that period try to detect signs of an approaching climax in those last months, as though Europe recognized that it was living through an epoch's close; was saying to itself, “This is too good to last. Let us make the most of the moment before it flies.” I do not believe there was such a feeling. Looking back now to the parties, moods, meetings of that last summer, recognizing now from the distance of knowledge, their “last moment” quality, we fancy that we lived and enjoyed in a “last moment” spirit. But there was no indication that we should never see again that group of persons gathered together beneath that roof. One happy hour followed upon another in an orderly succession of such hours. They had no particularly dramatic quality.

At the same time those months in retrospect have an appeal to the imagination that no other months can have. It is like looking at snapshots of ourselves in an old album. “Were we really like that?“ we think. For though the world may be very much the same now in its essentials as it was then, we ourselves are different. In the summer of 1914 we were dreaming dreams that we were never to dream again.

Myself, I was just sixteen. The horizon was widening every hour. At school I was half-way up the sixth, I had just earned a place in the eleven. Through my father I was exploring every holiday fresh fields of literature. Life was full, with every prospect of it growing fuller. My ambitions of the kind that are associated with that age were violently contradictory. On the one hand I wanted to be a poet, of the Dowson school, living in a garret, the prey of disastrous but intense romance, of subtle and sad experiences out of which would flower a sheaf of sonnets—that on the one hand. On the other there was the Balzacian desire to cut a dash, to wear smart clothes, to present myself at stage doors with bouquets. Ascot, Ranelagh, Cowes, were the passwords to a world that was waiting to receive me. I looked at a wardrobe stocked with velvet jackets, loose ties, tam o'shanter caps, and at another with silk hats, opera cloaks, patent-leather shoes, gold-mounted canes and could not decide which to patronize.

It was inevitable that in this mood of indecision I should see focused in the personality of Hugh Balliol the sum of my Balzacian aspirations. Three years of Oxford and a year of London had made
him the complete man about town. He was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted; with the kind of figure that tailors thank heaven for. Every time I saw him he seemed to be wearing a new suit. His ties, socks, and the crêpe handkerchief at his breast pocket were symphonies in green, brown, orange, purple. He walked with a swift stride as though he were on his way to something extremely important, the happy, carefree expression on his face suggested that that something was extremely pleasant. “It would be lovely,” I thought, “to live a life like that.”

In the case of the majority of one's friends one likes to isolate one particular moment, one fortunate combination of time and place, to say of it: “That's how I'd like to remember him. He was at his best then.” When I think of Hugh Balliol, I like to remember a July day when he came down for the M.C.C. to play against the school. It was not that he enjoyed any spectacular success. As far as I can remember he did not reach double figures and his bowling was ineffective. But he was easily the most distinctive person on the field. His trousers looked as though they had just been taken from the press; a silk shirt fluttered back against his skin, showing the muscles on his chest. He moved with an easy grace between the wickets. The very indifference with which he accepted his lack of success proved how much success came his way. Where he had failed to-day, he had succeeded yesterday and would succeed tomorrow. I pictured his thoughts already centring upon the London to which he would return that night. Probably he had arranged some party or other. While for me the cloistered day was at its close, he would be walking down the steps of a restaurant, a head waiter would be bowing him to a table, a girl would be at his side. The drama of the day would have only just begun.

“I don't suppose he's got a trouble in the world,” I thought.

Which is the way in which a great many very young people feel about their seniors, but in point of fact Hugh Balliol had at that time remarkably few troubles. His main trouble was one that I should never have suspected. And was provided by his inability to impress with a sense of his own importance the heir of his father's chairman, the Honourable Victor Tavenham. It was not a question of jealousy, it was not a question of rivalry, it was not so much that Victor Tavenham did the same things as Hugh rather better than Hugh did them, but that he did not recognize that Hugh was in any kind of competition with him.

Victor Tavenham was on the brink of thirty. He was a bachelor on whom a great many designing mothers had their eye. He was
tall, elegant, slim, with a long nose, pale blue eyes, a high forehead, and a look of that which cannot be otherwise described than by the French word “race.” There was an air of carelessness about his elegance, as though he had dressed hurriedly. Something was always slightly out of place; yet nothing in his manner suggested that the fact of having to hurry had flurried him in any way. He was a polo player, rated at four goals. He had a handicap of five at Prince's. His name had been linked two seasons back with an exceedingly prominent actress. It was understood he was not interested in marriage. Everything that Hugh did, he did better. Finally, not only had he a considerably larger income, but he did not have to earn it.

Had he been told that he was a source of irritation to Hugh, he would have been astonished and indignant. “But I like the man,” he would have explained. “A very decent fellow. He belongs to my club. We play cards sometimes; if one plays cards with a fellow, after all, I mean.…”

Hugh would have found it hard to say where exactly the irritation lay. It wasn't that he didn't like Tavenham. He did. But whenever he saw Tavenham, he felt less satisfied about himself. His clothes did not seem so good; his manner so easy. He never felt at his ease with Tavenham. The consciousness of Tavenham's superiority made him want to assert himself, to do things that weren't like him: to be boastful, arrogant, self-important. When Tavenham had gone he would think, “Did I say the wrong thing? Did I give the wrong impression?” In the same way that on the morning after a party where one is conscious that one drank unwisely one rings up a trusted friend and asks “Did I do anything too appalling yesterday?” Hugh would have been happier about Tavenham had he felt less respect for him. But his respect for him was vast. It measured the dissatisfaction with which he realized that Tavenham simply did not recognize him as a competitor.

On the afternoon after the M.C.C. game, Hugh walked into his club to find Tavenham the sole occupant of the drawing-room annexe. A pot of tea and a plate of toast were at his side. He was busily studying the
Sportsman
. He looked up friendlily at Hugh's entrance.

“What are you backing for the two-fifteen?” he asked.

Hugh never backed horses. He knew nothing about horses. He only followed such sports as he understood by playing them: cricket, Rugby football, tennis, golf.

“I didn't even know there was a race meeting.”

Tavenham raised his eyebrows; then nodded his head quickly as though he were remembering.

“Of course, yes, I remember. You're a cricketer.”

It was said without any undercurrent of reflection. But Hugh read an implied criticism into the surprise followed by the explanation. As though he were the kind of person who would not know about horses, because he had not a country place; who would follow an urban, plebeian game like cricket.

Nor was Tavenham's next remark calculated to restore Hugh's self-respect.

“I heard something that might be useful to you, yesterday. Met a man just back from Hamburg. Told me that everyone over there was talking about war; they expect it before the autumn. Why don't you lay in a big store of hock? German wine may be very hard to get.”

Hugh resented the reference to his occupation. A man in trade, that's how Tavenham thought about him. He assumed a patronizing manner.

“That sounds sense. It's not really my line, of course. But I'll hand it over to the fellow whose job it is.” He paused, fretted by the necessity to restore himself in his own esteem, and Tavenham's. He began an anecdote.

“There's a lot that's very boring about business. But there's a lot that's fun,” he said. “The thing I like about it is the chance it gives you of being able to beat people at their own game. I had an amusing experience the other week, with one of those northern industrialists. You know the type: made of money; thinks everything's for sale; pleased as punch with himself for having more money than the rest have. I was giving a small lunch party—I have to now and then—mostly for clients or prospective clients. Though I'd never sold anything to this particular fellow, and didn't much care whether I did or not. He interested me, in himself, as a man whose entire world was bounded by bank notes. Well, I gave this lunch party, here. I brought my own wines with me. They were chosen pretty carefully, you can believe me. It was the kind of lunch where there was just not too much drink, so that a man would not only feel he was having a good time while he was there, but would go on thinking it, three hours later.

“I hoped, of course, that at least one of them would ask me about the wines afterwards, would place a pretty considerable order with me, I'd got a hock that was something special. But I didn't
expect hock to appeal to this particular fellow. He was the kind that calls champagne wine and doesn't think that there are any other wines; that really only likes what he'd call short drinks: port, whisky, brandy. I noticed from the way he held the port in his mouth that he was enjoying it. He took a second sip quickly, then a third and longer one. ‘Young man,' he said, ‘that's pretty good port you have given me. I don't care what it stands me in. You can put me down for a pipe of it.'

“It was a pretty awful thing to do, of course. There's a convention that when two men are having a business lunch they don't start talking business till they've reached the coffee; when there are several men and you're trying to sell something to them separately, you're supposed to pretend they're not there for anything but the pleasure of each other's company. It's silly, but it's one of the rules of the game. There was a very surprised hush, all round the table. Luckily I kept my head.

“‘I shouldn't do that, if I were you,' I said.

“He was so surprised that he couldn't do more than gape. I don't suppose that in his whole life he had seen an order treated in that way. ‘What on earth do you mean?' he said.

“‘Just that a port like this wouldn't be any use to a person like yourself, who does most of his entertaining at home and in the evening. A port like this is very pleasant for lunch, when you don't want to drink more than a glass. But it's too rich, and sweet, for you to take more than a couple of glasses, as you'd want to, more likely than not, in the evening. I'll tell you what. I'll send you down a couple of bottles, and if you still want that pipe of it, I'll be surprised.'

“I've never seen anyone have the wind so completely taken out of their sails.”