THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

CHAPTER THE THIRD
THE BREAKING POINT
1

And then we broke down. We broke our faith with both Margaret and

Shoesmith, flung career and duty out of our lives, and went away

together.

It is only now, almost a year after these events, that I can begin

to see what happened to me. At the time it seemed to me I was a

rational, responsible creature, but indeed I had not parted from her

two days before I became a monomaniac to whom nothing could matter

but Isabel. Every truth had to be squared to that obsession, every

duty. It astounds me to think how I forgot Margaret, forgot my

work, forgot everything but that we two were parted. I still

believe that with better chances we might have escaped the

consequences of the emotional storm that presently seized us both.

But we had no foresight of that, and no preparation for it, and our

circumstances betrayed us. It was partly Shoesmith's unwisdom in

delaying his marriage until after the end of the session-partly my

own amazing folly in returning within four days to Westminster. But

we were all of us intent upon the defeat of scandal and the complete

restoration of appearances. It seemed necessary that Shoesmith's

marriage should not seem to be hurried, still more necessary that I

should not vanish inexplicably. I had to be visible with Margaret

in London just as much as possible; we went to restaurants, we

visited the theatre; we could even contemplate the possibility of my

presence at the wedding. For that, however, we had schemed a

weekend visit to Wales, and a fictitious sprained ankle at the last

moment which would justify my absence…

I cannot convey to you the intolerable wretchedness and rebellion of

my separation from Isabel. It seemed that in the past two years all

my thoughts had spun commisures to Isabel's brain and I could think

of nothing that did not lead me surely to the need of the one

intimate I had found in the world. I came back to the House and the

office and my home, I filled all my days with appointments and duty,

and it did not save me in the least from a lonely emptiness such as

I had never felt before in all my life. I had little sleep. In the

daytime I did a hundred things, I even spoke in the House on two

occasions, and by my own low standards spoke well, and it seemed to

me that I was going about in my own brain like a hushed survivor in

a house whose owner lies dead upstairs.

I came to a crisis after that wild dinner of Tarvrille's. Something

in that stripped my soul bare.

It was an occasion made absurd and strange by the odd accident that

the house caught fire upstairs while we were dining below. It was a

men's dinner-" A dinner of all sorts," said Tarvrille, when he

invited me; "everything from Evesham and Gane to Wilkins the author,

and Heaven knows what will happen!" I remember that afterwards

Tarvrille was accused of having planned the fire to make his dinner

a marvel and a memory. It was indeed a wonderful occasion, and I

suppose if I had not been altogether drenched in misery, I should

have found the same wild amusement in it that glowed in all the

others. There were one or two university dons, Lord George Fester,

the racing man, Panmure, the artist, two or three big City men,

Weston Massinghay and another prominent Liberal whose name I can't

remember, the three men Tarvrille had promised and Esmeer, Lord

Wrassleton, Waulsort, the member for Monckton, Neal and several

others. We began a little coldly, with duologues, but the

conversation was already becoming general-so far as such a long

table permitted-when the fire asserted itself.

It asserted itself first as a penetrating and emphatic smell of

burning rubber,-it was caused by the fusing of an electric wire.

The reek forced its way into the discussion of the Pekin massacres

that had sprung up between Evesham, Waulsort, and the others at the

end of the table. "Something burning," said the man next to me.

"Something must be burning," said Panmure.

Tarvrille hated undignified interruptions. He had a particularly

imperturbable butler with a cadaverous sad face and an eye of rigid

disapproval. He spoke to this individual over his shoulder. "Just

see, will you," he said, and caught up the pause in the talk to his

left.

Wilkins was asking questions, and I, too, was curious. The story of

the siege of the Legations in China in the year 1900 and all that

followed upon that, is just one of those disturbing interludes in

history that refuse to join on to that general scheme of

protestation by which civilisation is maintained. It is a break in

the general flow of experience as disconcerting to statecraft as the

robbery of my knife and the scuffle that followed it had been to me

when I was a boy at Penge. It is like a tear in a curtain revealing

quite unexpected backgrounds. I had never given the business a

thought for years; now this talk brought back a string of pictures

to my mind; how the reliefs arrived and the plundering began, how

section after section of the International Army was drawn into

murder and pillage, how the infection spread upward until the wives

of Ministers were busy looting, and the very sentinels stripped and

crawled like snakes into the Palace they were set to guard. It did

not stop at robbery, men were murdered, women, being plundered, were

outraged, children were butchered, strong men had found themselves

with arms in a lawless, defenceless city, and this had followed.

Now it was all recalled.

"Respectable ladies addicted to district visiting at home were as

bad as any one," said Panmure. "Glazebrook told me of one-flushed

like a woman at a bargain sale, he said-and when he pointed out to

her that the silk she'd got was bloodstained, she just said, 'Oh,

bother!' and threw it aside and went back…"

We became aware that Tarvrille's butler had returned. We tried not

to seem to listen.

"Beg pardon, m'lord," he said. "The house IS on fire, m'lord."

"Upstairs, m'lord."

"Just overhead, m'lord."

"The maids are throwing water, m'lord, and I've telephoned FIRE."

"No, m'lord, no immediate danger."

"It's all right," said Tarvrille to the table generally. Go on!

It's not a general conflagration, and the fire brigade won't be five

minutes. Don't see that it's our affair. The stuff's insured.

They say old Lady Paskershortly was dreadful. Like a harpy. The

Dowager Empress had shown her some little things of hers. Pet

things-hidden away. Susan went straight for them-used to take an

umbrella for the silks. Born shoplifter."

It was evident he didn't want his dinner spoilt, and we played up

loyally.

"This is recorded history," said Wilkins,-" practically. It makes

one wonder about unrecorded history. In India, for example."

But nobody touched that.

"Thompson," said Tarvrille to the imperturbable butler, and

indicating the table generally, "champagne. Champagne. Keep it

going."

"M'lord," and Thompson marshalled his assistants.

Some man I didn't know began to remember things about Mandalay.

"It's queer," he said, "how people break out at times;" and told his

story of an army doctor, brave, public-spirited, and, as it

happened, deeply religious, who was caught one evening by the

excitement of plundering-and stole and hid, twisted the wrist of a

boy until it broke, and was afterwards overcome by wild remorse.

I watched Evesham listening intently. "Strange," he said, "very

strange. We are such stuff as thieves are made of. And in China,

too, they murdered people-for the sake of murdering. Apart, so to

speak, from mercenary considerations. I'm afraid there's no doubt

of it in certain cases. No doubt at all. Young soldiers fresh from

German high schools and English homes!"

"Did OUR people?" asked some patriot.

"Not so much. But I'm afraid there were cases… Some of the

Indian troops were pretty bad."

Gane picked up the tale with confirmations.

It is all printed in the vividest way as a picture upon my memory,

so that were I a painter I think I could give the deep rich browns

and warm greys beyond the brightly lit table, the various

distinguished faces, strongly illuminated, interested and keen,

above the black and white of evening dress, the alert menservants

with their heavier, clean-shaved faces indistinctly seen in the

dimness behind. Then this was coloured emotionally for me by my

aching sense of loss and sacrifice, and by the chance trend of our

talk to the breaches and unrealities of the civilised scheme. We

seemed a little transitory circle of light in a universe of darkness

and violence; an effect to which the diminishing smell of burning

rubber, the trampling of feet overhead, the swish of water, added

enormously. Everybody-unless, perhaps, it was Evesham-drank

rather carelessly because of the suppressed excitement of our

situation, and talked the louder and more freely.

"But what a flimsy thing our civilisation is!" said Evesham; "a mere

thin net of habits and associations!"

"I suppose those men came back," said Wilkins.

"Lady Paskershortly did!" chuckled Evesham.

"How do they fit it in with the rest of their lives?" Wilkins

speculated. "I suppose there's Pekin-stained police officers,

Pekin-stained J. P.'s-trying petty pilferers in the severest

manner."…

Then for a time things became preposterous. There was a sudden

cascade of water by the fireplace, and then absurdly the ceiling

began to rain upon us, first at this point and then that. "My new

suit!" cried some one. "Perrrrrr-up pe-rr"-a new vertical line of

blackened water would establish itself and form a spreading pool

upon the gleaming cloth. The men nearest would arrange catchment

areas of plates and flower bowls. "Draw up!" said Tarvrille, "draw

up. That's the bad end of the table!" He turned to the

imperturbable butler. "Take round bath towels," he said; and

presently the men behind us were offering-with inflexible dignity-

"Port wine, Sir. Bath towel, Sir!" Waulsort, with streaks of

blackened water on his forehead, was suddenly reminded of a wet year

when he had followed the French army manoeuvres. An animated

dispute sprang up between him and Neal about the relative efficiency

of the new French and German field guns. Wrassleton joined in and a

little drunken shrivelled Oxford don of some sort with a black-

splashed shirt front who presently silenced them all by the

immensity and particularity of his knowledge of field artillery.

Then the talk drifted to Sedan and the effect of dead horses upon

drinking-water, which brought Wrassleton and Weston Massinghay into

a dispute of great vigour and emphasis. "The trouble in South

Africa," said Weston Massinghay, "wasn't that we didn't boil our

water. It was that we didn't boil our men. The Boers drank the

same stuff we did. THEY didn't get dysentery."

That argument went on for some time. I was attacked across the

table by a man named Burshort about my Endowment of Motherhood

schemes, but in the gaps of that debate I could still hear Weston

Massinghay at intervals repeat in a rather thickened voice: "THEY

didn't get dysentery."

I think Evesham went early. The rest of us clustered more and more

closely towards the drier end of the room, the table was pushed

along, and the area beneath the extinguished conflagration abandoned

to a tinkling, splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and

baths. Everybody was now disposed to be hilarious and noisy, to say

startling and aggressive things; we must have sounded a queer

clamour to a listener in the next room. The devil inspired them to

begin baiting me. "Ours isn't the Tory party any more," said

Burshort. "Remington has made it the Obstetric Party."

"That's good!" said Weston Massinghay, with all his teeth gleaming;

"I shall use that against you in the House!"

"I shall denounce you for abusing private confidences if you do,"

said Tarvrille.

"Remington wants us to give up launching Dreadnoughts and launch

babies instead," Burshort urged. "For the price of one Dreadnought-"

The little shrivelled don who had been omniscient about guns joined

in the baiting, and displayed himself a venomous creature.

Something in his eyes told me he knew Isabel and hated me for it.

"Love and fine thinking," he began, a little thickly, and knocking

over a wine-glass with a too easy gesture. "Love and fine thinking.

Two things don't go together. No philosophy worth a damn ever came

out of excesses of love. Salt Lake City-Piggott-Ag-Agapemone

again-no works to matter."

Everybody laughed.

"Got to rec'nise these facts," said my assailant. "Love and fine

think'n pretty phrase-attractive. Suitable for p'litical

dec'rations. Postcard, Christmas, gilt lets, in a wreath of white

flow's. Not oth'wise valu'ble."

I made some remark, I forget what, but he overbore me.

Real things we want are Hate-Hate and COARSE think'n. I b'long to

the school of Mrs. F's Aunt-"

"What?" said some one, intent.

"In 'Little Dorrit,'" explained Tarvrille; "go on!"

"Hate a fool," said my assailant.

Tarvrille glanced at me. I smiled to conceal the loss of my temper.

"Hate," said the little man, emphasising his point with a clumsy

fist. "Hate's the driving force. What's m'rality?-hate of rotten

goings on. What's patriotism?-hate of int'loping foreigners.

What's Radicalism?-hate of lords. What's Toryism?-hate of

disturbance. It's all hate-hate from top to bottom. Hate of a

mess. Remington owned it the other day, said he hated a mu'll.

There you are! If you couldn't get hate into an election, damn it

(hic) people wou'n't poll. Poll for love!-no' me!"

He paused, but before any one could speak he had resumed.

"Then this about fine thinking. Like going into a bear pit armed

with a tagle-talgent-talgent galv'nometer. Like going to fight a

mad dog with Shasepear and the Bible. Fine thinking-what we want

is the thickes' thinking we can get. Thinking that stands up alone.

Taf Reform means work for all, thassort of thing."

The gentleman from Cambridge paused. "YOU a flag!" he said. "I'd

as soon go to ba'ell und' wet tissue paper!"

My best answer on the spur of the moment was:

"The Japanese did." Which was absurd.

I went on to some other reply, I forget exactly what, and the talk

of the whole table drew round me. It was an extraordinary

revelation to me. Every one was unusually careless and outspoken,

and it was amazing how manifestly they echoed the feeling of this

old Tory spokesman. They were quite friendly to me, they regarded

me and the BLUE WEEKLY as valuable party assets for Toryism, but it

was clear they attached no more importance to what were my realities

than they did to the remarkable therapeutic claims of Mrs. Eddy.

They were flushed and amused, perhaps they went a little too far in

their resolves to draw me, but they left the impression on my mind

of men irrevocably set upon narrow and cynical views of political

life. For them the political struggle was a game, whose counters

were human hate and human credulity; their real aim was just every

one's aim, the preservation of the class and way of living to which

their lives were attuned. They did not know how tired I was, how

exhausted mentally and morally, nor how cruel their convergent

attack on me chanced to be. But my temper gave way, I became tart

and fierce, perhaps my replies were a trifle absurd, and Tarvrille,

with that quick eye and sympathy of his, came to the rescue. Then

for a time I sat silent and drank port wine while the others talked.

The disorder of the room, the still dripping ceiling, the noise, the

displaced ties and crumpled shirts of my companions, jarred on my

tormented nerves…

It was long past midnight when we dispersed. I remember Tarvrille

coming with me into the hall, and then suggesting we should go

upstairs to see the damage. A manservant carried up two flickering

candles for us. One end of the room was gutted, curtains, hangings,

several chairs and tables were completely burnt, the panelling was

scorched and warped, three smashed windows made the candles flare

and gutter, and some scraps of broken china still lay on the puddled

floor.

As we surveyed this, Lady Tarvrille appeared, back from some party,

a slender, white-cloaked, satin-footed figure with amazed blue eyes

beneath her golden hair. I remember how stupidly we laughed at her

surprise.