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Making of a Bigot

<h2>CHAPTER XII. HYDE PARK TERRACE.</h2> FORTUNATELY Mrs. Crawford did like Eddy (he presumed, therefore, that she did not know he was a socialist and a suffragist, and had tried to do many things he couldn’t), so Molly did not have to walk out of the house. He liked her too, and went to her house very frequently. She was pretty and clever and frankly worldly, and had a sweet trailing voice, a graceful figure, and two daughters just out, one of whom was engaged already to a young man in the Foreign Office. She told Molly, “I like your young man, dear; he has pleasant manners, and seems to appreciate me,” and asked him to come to the house as often as he could. Eddy did so. He came to lunch and dinner, and met pleasant, polite, well-dressed people. (You had to be rather well-dressed at the Crawfords’: they expected it, as so many others do, with what varying degrees of fulfilment!) It is, of course, as may before have been remarked in these pages, exceedingly important to dress well. Eddy knew this, having been well brought up, and did dress as well as accorded with his station and his duties. He quite saw the beauty of the idea, as of the other ideas presented to him. He also, however, saw the merits of the opposite idea held by some of his friends, that clothes are things not worth time, money, or trouble, and fashion an irrelevant absurdity. He always assented sincerely to Arnold when he delivered himself on this subject, and with equal sincerity to the tacit recognition of high standards that he met at the Crawfords’ and elsewhere. He also met at the Crawfords’ their nephew Nevill Bellairs, who was now parliamentary secretary to an eminent member, and more than ever admirable in his certainty about what was right and what wrong. The Crawfords too were certain about that. To hear Nevill on Why Women should Not Vote was to feel that he and Daphne must be for ever sundered, and, in fact, were best apart. Eddy came to that melancholy conclusion, though he divined that their mutual and unhappy love still flourished. “You’re unfashionable, Nevill,” his aunt admonished him. “You should try and not be that more than you can help.” Captain Crawford, a simple, engaging, and extraordinarily youthful sailor man of forty-six, said, “Don’t be brow-beaten, Nevill; I’m with you,” for that was the sort of man he was; and the young man from the Foreign Office said how a little while ago he had approved of a limited women’s suffrage, but since the militants, etc., etc., and everyone he knew was saying the same. “I am sure they are,” Mrs. Crawford murmured to Eddy. “What a pity it does not seem to him a sufficient reason for abstaining from the remark himself. I do so dislike the subject of the suffrage; it makes everyone so exceedingly banal and obvious. I never make any remarks about it myself, for I have a deep fear that if I did so they might not be more original than that.” “Mine certainly wouldn’t,” Eddy agreed. “Militant suffragism is like the weather, a safety-valve for all our worst commonplaces. Only it’s unlike the weather in being a little dull in itself, whereas the weather is an agitatingly interesting subject, as a rule inadequately handled.... You know, I’ve no objection to commonplace remarks myself, I rather like them. That’s why I make them so often, I suppose.” “I think you have no objection to any kind of remarks,” Mrs. Crawford commented. “You are fortunate.” Nevill said from across the room, “How’s the paper getting on, Eddy? Is the first number launched yet?” “Not yet. Only the dummy. I have a copy of the dummy here; look at it. We have filled it with the opinions of eminent persons on the great need that exists for our paper. We wrote to many. Some didn’t answer. I suppose they were not aware of this great need, which is recognised so clearly by others. The strange thing is that Unity has never been started before, considering how badly it is obviously wanted. We have here encouraging words from politicians, authors, philanthropists, a bishop, an eminent rationalist, a fellow of All Souls, a landlord, a labour member, and many others. The bishop says, ‘I am greatly interested in the prospectus you have sent me of your proposed new paper. Without committing myself to agreement with every detail, I may say that the lines on which it is proposed to conduct Unity promise a very useful and attractive paper, and one which should meet a genuine need and touch an extensive circle.’ The labour member says, ‘Your new paper is much needed, and with such fine ideals should be of great service to all.’ The landlord says, ‘Your articles dealing with country matters should meet a long-felt demand, and make for good feeling between landlords, tenants and labourers.’ The rationalist says, ‘Precisely what we want.’ The Liberal politician says, ‘I heartily wish all success to Unity. A good new paper on those lines cannot fail to be of inestimable service.’ The Unionist says, ‘A capital paper, with excellent ideals.’ The philanthropist says, ‘I hope it will wage relentless war against the miserable internal squabbles which retard our social efforts.’ Here’s a more tepid one—he’s an author. He only says, ‘There may be scope for such a paper, amid the ever-increasing throng of new journalistic enterprises. Anyhow there is no harm in trying.’ A little damping, he was. Denison was against putting it in, but I think it so rude, when you’ve asked a man for a word of encouragement, and he gives it you according to his means, not to use it. Of course we had to draw the line somewhere. Shore merely said, ‘It’s a free country. You can hang yourselves if you like.’ We didn’t put in that. But on the whole people are obviously pining for the paper, aren’t they. Of course they all think we’re going to support their particular pet party and project. And so we are. That is why I think we shall sell so well—touch so extensive a circle, as the bishop puts it.” “As long as you help to knock another plank from beneath the feet of this beggarly government, I’ll back you through thick and thin,” said Captain Crawford. “Are you going on the Down-with-the-Jews tack?” Nevill asked. “That’s been overdone, I think; it’s such beastly bad form.” “All the same,” murmured Captain Crawford, “I don’t care about the Hebrew.” “We’re not,” said Eddy, “going on a down-with-anybody tack. Our métier is to encourage the good, not to discourage anyone. That, as I remarked before, is why we shall sell so extremely well.” Mrs. Crawford said, “Humph. It sounds to me a trifle savourless. A little abuse hasn’t usually been found, I believe, to reduce the sales of a paper appreciably. We most of us like to see our enemies hauled over the coals; or, failing our enemies, some innocuous and eminent member of an unpopular and over-intelligent race. In short, we like to see a fine hot quarrel going on. If Unity isn’t going to quarrel with anyone, I shall certainly not subscribe.” “You shall have it gratis,” said Eddy. “It is obviously, as the eminent rationalist puts it, precisely what you need.” Nevill said, “By the way, what’s happening to that Radical paper of poor Hugh Datcherd’s? Is it dead?” “Yes. It couldn’t have survived Datcherd; no one else could possibly take it on. Besides, he financed it entirely himself; it never anything near paid its way, of course. It’s a pity; it was interesting.” “Like it’s owner,” Mrs. Crawford remarked. “He too, one gathers, was a pity, though no doubt an interesting one. The one failure in a distinguished family.” “I should call all the Datcherds a pity, if you ask me,” said Nevill. “They’re wrong-headed Radicals. All agnostics, too, and more or less anti-church.” “All the same,” said his aunt, “they’re not failures, mostly. They achieve success; even renown. They occasionally become cabinet ministers. I ask no more of a family than that. You may be as wrong-headed, radical, and anti-church as you please, Nevill, if you attain to being a cabinet minister. Of course they have disadvantages, such as England expecting them not to invest their money as they would prefer, and so on; but on the whole an enviable career. Better even than running a paper which meets a long-felt demand.” “But the paper’s much more fun,” Molly put in, and her aunt returned, “My dear child, we are not put into this troubled world to have fun, though I have noticed that you labour under that delusion.” The young man from the Foreign Office said, “It’s not a delusion that can survive in my profession, anyhow. I must be getting back, I’m afraid,” and they all went away to do something else. Eddy arranged to meet Molly and her aunt at tea-time, and take them to Jane Dawn’s studio; he had asked her if he might bring them to see her drawings. They met at Mrs. Crawford’s club, and drove to Blackfriars’ Road. “Where?” inquired Mrs. Crawford, after Eddy’s order to the driver. “Pleasance Court, Blackfriars’ Road,” Eddy repeated. “Oh! I somehow had an idea it was Chelsea. That’s where one often finds studios; but, after all, there must be many others, if one comes to think of it.” “Perhaps Jane can’t afford Chelsea. She’s not poor, but she spends her money like a child. She takes after her father, who is extravagant, like so many professors.” “Chelsea’s supposed to be cheap, my dear boy. That’s why it’s full of struggling young artists.” “I daresay Pleasance Court is cheaper. Besides, it’s pleasant. They like it.” “They?” “Jane and her friend Miss Peters, who shares rooms with her. Rather a jolly sort of girl; though——” On second thoughts Eddy refrained from mentioning that Sally Peters was a militant and had been in prison; he remembered that Mrs. Crawford found the subject tedious. But militancy will out, as must have been noticed by many. Before the visitors had been there ten minutes, Sally referred to the recent destruction of the property of a distinguished widowed lady in such laudatory terms that Mrs. Crawford discerned her in a minute, raised a disapproving lorgnette at her, murmured, “They devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long speeches,” and turned her back on her. Jolly sorts of girls who were also criminal lunatics were not suffered in the sphere of her acquaintance. Jane’s drawings were obviously charming; also they were the drawings of an artist, not of a young lady of talent. Mrs. Crawford, who knew the difference, perceived that, and gave them the tribute she always ceded to success. She thought she would ask Jane to lunch one day, without, of course, the blue-eyed child who devoured widows’ houses. She did so presently. Jane said, “Thank you so much, but I’m afraid I can’t,” and knitted her large forehead a little, in her apologetic way, so obviously trying to think of a suitable reason why she couldn’t, that Mrs. Crawford came to her rescue with “Perhaps you’re too busy,” which was gratefully accepted. “I am rather busy just now.” Jane was very polite, very deprecating, but inwardly she reproached Eddy for letting in on her strange ladies who asked her to lunch. That no one ought to be too busy for social engagements, was what Mrs. Crawford thought, and she turned a little crisper and cooler in manner. Molly was standing before a small drawing in a corner—a drawing of a girl, bare-legged, childish, half elfin, lying among sedges by a stream, one leg up to the knee in water, and one arm up to the elbow. Admirably the suggestion had been caught of a small wild thing, a little half-sulky animal. Molly laughed at it. “That’s Daffy, of course. It’s not like her—and yet it is her. A sort of inside look it’s got of her; hasn’t it, Eddy? I suppose it looks different because Daffy’s always so neat and tailor-made, and never would be like that. It’s a different Daffy, but it is Daffy.” “Your pretty little sister, isn’t it, Eddy,” said Mrs. Crawford, who had met Daphne at Welchester. “Yes, that’s clever. ‘Undine,’ you call it. Why? Has she no soul?” Jane smiled and retired from this question. She seldom explained why her pictures were so called; they just were. Molly was not looking at Undine. Her glance had fallen on a drawing near it. It was another drawing of a girl; a very beautiful girl, playing a violin. It was called “Life.” No one would have asked why about this; the lightly poised figure, the glowing eyes under their shadowing black brows, the fiddle tucked away under the round chin, and the dimples tucked away in the round cheeks, the fine supple hands, expressed the very spirit of life, all its joy and brilliance and genius and fire, and all its potential tragedy. Molly looked at it without comment, as she might have looked at a picture of some friend of the artist’s who had died a sad death. She knew that Eileen Le Moine had died, from her point of view; she knew that she had spent the last months of Hugh Datcherd’s life with him, for Eddy had told her. She had said to Eddy that this was dreadful and wicked. Eddy had said, “They don’t think it is, you see.” Molly had said that what they thought made no difference to right and wrong; Eddy had replied that it made all the difference in the world. She had finally turned on him with, “But you think it dreadful, Eddy?” and he had, to her dismay, shaken his head. “Not as they’re doing it, I don’t. It’s all right. You’d know it was all right if you knew them, Molly. It’s been, all along, the most faithful, loyal, fine, simple, sad thing in the world, their love. They’ve held out against it just so long as to give in would have hurt anyone but themselves; now it won’t, and she’s giving herself to him that he may die in peace. Don’t judge them, Molly.” But she had judged them so uncompromisingly, so unyieldingly, that she had never referred to the subject again, for fear it should come between Eddy and her. A difference of principle was the one thing Molly could not bear. To her this thing, whatever its excuse, was wrong, against the laws of the Christian Church, in fine, wicked. And it was Eddy’s friends who had done it, and he didn’t want her to judge them; she must say nothing, therefore. Molly’s ways were ways of peace. Mrs. Crawford peered through her lorgnette at the drawing. “What’s that delicious thing? ‘Life.’ Quite; just that. That is really utterly charming. Who’s the original? Why, it’s——-” She stopped suddenly. “It’s Mrs. Le Moine, the violinist,” said Jane. “She’s a great friend of ours,” Sally interpolated, in childish pride, from behind. “I expect you’ve heard her play, haven’t you?” Mrs. Crawford had. She recognised the genius of the picture, which had so exquisitely caught and imprisoned the genius of the subject. “Of course; who hasn’t? A marvellous player. And a marvellous picture.” “It’s Eileen all over,” said Eddy, who knew it of old. “Hugh bought it, you know,” said Jane. “And when he died Eileen sent it back to me. I thought perhaps you and Eddy,” she turned to Molly, “might care to have it for a wedding-present, with ‘Undine.’ ” Molly thanked her shyly, flushing a little. She would have preferred to refuse ‘Life,’ but her never-failing courtesy and tenderness for people’s feelings drove her to smile and accept. It was then that someone knocked on the studio door. Sally went to open it; cried, “Oh, Eileen,” and drew her in, an arm about her waist. She was not very like Jane’s drawing of her just now. The tragic elements of Life had conquered and beaten down its brilliance and joy; the rounded white cheeks were thin, and showed, instead of dimples, the fine structure of the face and jaw; the great deep blue eyes brooded sombrely under sad brows; she drooped a little as she stood. It was as if something had been quenched in her, and left her as a dead fire. The old flashing smile had left only the wan, strange ghost of itself. If Jane had drawn her now, or any time since the middle of August, she would rather have called the drawing “Wreckage.” To Eddy and all her friends she and her wrecked joy, her quenched vividness, stabbed at a pity beyond tears. Molly looked at her for a moment, and turned rosy red all over her wholesome little tanned face, and bent over a picture near her. Mrs. Crawford looked at her, through her, above her, and said to Jane, “Thank you so much for a delightful afternoon. We really must go now.” Jane said, slipping a hand into Eileen’s, “Oh, but you’ll have tea, won’t you? I’m so sorry; we ought to have had it earlier.... Do you know Mrs. Le Moine? Mrs. Crawford; and you know each other, of course,” she connected Eileen and Molly with a smile, and Molly put out a timid hand. Mrs. Crawford’s bow was so slight that it might have been not a bow at all. “Thank you, but I’m afraid we mustn’t stop. We have enjoyed your delightful drawings exceedingly. Goodbye.” “Must you both go?” said Eddy to Molly. “Can’t you stop and have tea and go home with me afterwards?” “I’m afraid not,” Molly murmured, still rosy. “Are you coming with us, Eddy?” asked Molly’s aunt, in her sweet, sub-acid voice. “No? Goodbye then. Oh, don’t trouble, please, Miss Dawn; Eddy will show us out.” Her faint bow comprehended the company. Eddy came with them to their carriage. “I’m sorry you won’t stop,” he said. Mrs. Crawford’s fine eyebrows rose a little. “You could hardly expect me to stop, still less to let Molly stop, in company with a lady of Mrs. Le Moine’s reputation. She has elected to become, as you of course are aware, one of the persons whose acquaintance must be dispensed with by all but the unfastidious. You are not going to dispense with it, I perceive? Very well; but you must allow Molly and me to take the ordinary course of the world in such matters. Goodbye.” Eddy, red as if her words had been a whip in his face, turned back into the house and shut the door rather violently behind him, as if by the gesture he would shut out all the harsh, coarse judgments of the undiscriminating world. He climbed the stairs to the studio, and found them having tea and discussing pictures, from their own several points of view, not the world’s. It was a rest. Mrs. Crawford, as they drove over the jolting surface of Blackfriars’ Road, said, “Very odd friends your young man has, darling. And what a very unpleasant region they live in. It is just as well for the sake of the carriage wheels that we shall never have to go there again. We can’t, of course, if we are liable to meet people of no reputation there. I’m sure you know nothing about things like that, but I’m sorry to say that Mrs. Le Moine has done things she ought not to have done. One may continue to admire her music, as one may admire the acting of those who lead such unfortunate lives on the stage; but one can’t meet her. Eddy ought to know that. Of course it’s different for him. Men may meet anyone; in fact, I believe they do; and no one thinks the worse of them. But I can’t; still less, of course, you. I don’t suppose your dear mother would like me to tell you about her, so I won’t.” “I know,” said Molly, blushing again and feeling she oughtn’t to. “Eddy told me. He’s a great friend of hers, you see.” “Oh, indeed. Well, girls know everything now-a-days, of course. In fact, everyone knows this; both she and Hugh Datcherd were such well-known people. I don’t say it was so very dreadfully wrong, what they did; and of course Dorothy Datcherd left Hugh in the lurch first—but you wouldn’t have heard of that, no—only it does put Mrs. Le Moine beyond the pale. And, in fact, it is dreadfully wrong to fly in the face of everybody’s principles and social codes; of course it is.” Molly cared nothing for everyone’s principles and social codes; but she knew it was dreadfully wrong, what they had done. She couldn’t even reason it out; couldn’t formulate the real reason why it was wrong; couldn’t see that it was because it was giving rein to individual desire at the expense of the violation of a system which on the whole, however roughly and crudely, made for civilisation, virtue, and intellectual and moral progress; that it was, in short, a step backwards into savagery, a giving up of ground gained. Arnold Denison, more clear-sighted, saw that; Molly, with only her childlike, unphilosophical, but intensely vivid recognition of right and wrong to help her, merely knew it was wrong. From three widely different standpoints those three, Molly, Arnold Denison, Mrs. Crawford, joined in that recognition. Against them stood Eddy, who saw only the right in it, and the stabbing, wounding pity of it.... “It is extremely fortunate,” said Mrs. Crawford, “that that young woman Miss Dawn refused to come to lunch. I daresay she knew she wasn’t fit for lunch, with such people straying in and out of her rooms and she holding their hands. I give her credit so far. As for the plump fair child, she is obviously one of those vulgarians I insist on not hearing mentioned. Very strange friends, darling, your....” “I’m sure nearly all Eddy’s friends are very nice,” Molly broke in. “Miss Dawn was staying at the Deanery at Christmas, you know. I’m sure she’s nice, and she draws beautifully. And I expect Miss Peters is nice too; she’s so friendly and jolly, and has such pretty hair and eyes. And....” “You can stop there, dearest. If you are proceeding to say that you are sure Mrs. Le Moine is nice too, you can spare yourself the trouble.” “I wasn’t,” said Molly unhappily, and lifted her shamed, honest, amber eyes to her aunt’s face. “Of course ... I know ... she can’t be.” Her aunt gave her a soothing pat on the shoulder. “Very well, pet: don’t worry about it. I’m afraid you will find that there are a large number of people in the world, and only too many of them aren’t at all nice. Shockingly sad, of course; but if one took them all to heart one would sink into an early grave. The worst of this really is that we have lost our tea. We might drop in on the Tommy Durnfords; it’s their day, surely.... When shall you see Eddy next, by the way?” “I think doesn’t he come to dinner to-morrow?” “So he does. Well, he and I must have a good talk.” Molly looked at her doubtfully. “Aunt Vyvian, I don’t think so. Truly I don’t.” “Well, I do, my dear. I’m responsible to your parents for you, and your young man’s got to be careful of you, and I shall tell him so.” She told him so in the drawing-room after dinner next evening. She sat out from bridge on purpose to tell him. She said, “I was surprised and shocked yesterday afternoon, Eddy, as no doubt you gathered.” Eddy admitted that he had gathered that. “Do you mind if I say that I was too, a little?” he added. “Is that rude? I hope not.” “Not in the least. I’ve no doubt you were shocked; but I don’t think really that you can have been much surprised, you know. Did you honestly expect me and Molly to stay and have tea with Mrs. Le Moine? She’s not a person whom Molly ought to know. She’s stepped deliberately outside the social pale, and must stay there. Seriously, Eddy, you mustn’t bring her and Molly together.” “Seriously,” said Eddy, “I mean to. I want Molly to know and care for all my friends. Of course she’ll find in lots of them things she wouldn’t agree with; but that’s no barrier. I can’t shut her out, don’t you see? I know all these people so awfully well, and see so much of them; of course she must know them too. As for Mrs. Le Moine, she’s one of the finest people I know; I should think anyone would be proud to know her. Surely one can’t be rigid about things?” “One can,” Mrs. Crawford asserted. “One can, and one is. One draws one’s line. Or rather the world draws it for one. Those who choose to step outside it must remain outside it.” Eddy said softly, “Bother the world!” “I’m not going,” she returned, “to do any such thing. I belong to the world, and am much attached to it. And about this sort of thing it happens to be entirely right. I abide by its decrees, and so must Molly, and so must you.” “I had hoped,” he said, “that you, as well as Molly, would make friends with Eileen. She needs friendship rather. She’s hurt and broken; you must have seen that yesterday.” “Indeed, I hardly looked. But I’ve no doubt she would be. I’m sorry for your unfortunate friend, Eddy, but I really can’t know her. You didn’t surely expect me to ask her here, to meet Chrissie and Dulcie and my innocent Jimmy, did you? What will you think of next? Well, well, I’m going to play bridge now, and you can go and talk to Molly. Only don’t try and persuade her to meet your scandalous friends, because I shall not allow her to, and she has no desire to if I did. Molly, I am pleased to say, is a very right-minded and well-conducted girl.” Eddy discovered that this was so. Molly evinced no desire to meet Eileen Le Moine. She said “Aunt Vyvian doesn’t want me to.” “But,” Eddy expostulated, “she’s constantly with the rest—Jane and Sally, and Denison, and Billy Raymond, and Cecil Le Moine, and all that set—you can’t help meeting her sometimes.” “I needn’t meet any of them much, really,” said Molly. Eddy disagreed. “Of course you need. They’re some of my greatest friends. They’ve got to be your friends too. When we’re married they’ll come and see us constantly, I hope, and we shall go and see them. We shall always be meeting. I awfully want you to get to know them quickly. They’re such good sorts, Molly; you’ll like them all, and they’ll love you.” There was an odd doubtful look in Molly’s eyes. “Eddy,” she said after a moment, painfully blushing, “I’m awfully sorry, and it sounds priggish and silly—but I can’t like people when I think they don’t feel rightly about right and wrong. I suppose I’m made like that. I’m sorry.” “You precious infant.” He smiled at her distressed face. “You’re made as I prefer. But you see, they do feel rightly about things; they really do, Molly.” “Then,” her shamed, averted eyes seemed to say, “why don’t they act rightly?” “Just try,” he besought her, “to understand their points of view—everyone’s point of view. Or rather, don’t bother about points of view; just know the people, and you won’t be able to help caring for them. People are like that—so much more alive and important than what they think or do, that none of that seems to matter. Oh, don’t put up barriers, Molly. Do love my friends. I want you to. I’ll love all yours; I will indeed, whatever dreadful things they’ve done or are doing. I’ll love them even if they burn widows’ houses, or paint problem pictures for the Academy, or write prize novels, or won’t take in Unity. I’ll love them through everything. Won’t you love mine a little, too?” She laughed back at him, unsteadily. “Idiot, of course I will. I will indeed. I’ll love them nearly all. Only I can’t love things I hate, Eddy. Don’t ask me to do that, because I can’t.” “But you mustn’t hate, Molly. Why hate? It isn’t what things are there for, to be hated. Look here. Here are you and I set down in the middle of all this jolly, splendid, exciting jumble of things, just like a toy-shop, and we can go round looking at everything, touching everything, tasting everything (I used always to try to taste tarts and things in shops, didn’t you?) Well isn’t it all jolly and nice, and don’t you like it? And here you sit and talk of hating!” Molly was looking at him with her merry eyes unusually serious. “But Eddy—you’re just pretending when you talk of hating nothing. You know you hate some things yourself; there are some things everyone must hate. You know you do.” “Do I?” Eddy considered it. “Why, yes, I suppose so; some things. But very few.” “There’s good,” said Molly, with a gesture of one hand, “and there’s bad....” she swept the other. “They’re quite separate, and they’re fighting.” Eddy observed that she was a Manichean Dualist. “Don’t know what that is. But it seems to mean an ordinary sensible person, so I hope I am. Aren’t you?” “I think not. Not to your extent, anyhow. But I quite see your point of view. Now will you see mine? And Eileen’s? And all the others? Anyhow, will you think it over, so that by the time we’re married you’ll be ready to be friends?” Molly shook her head. “It’s no use, Eddy. Don’t let’s talk about it any more. Come and play coon-can; I do like it such a lot better than bridge; it’s so much sillier.” “I like them all,” said Eddy. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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