The Children's Book

Julian drawled back “Not clear, my dear chap. Are you referring to particular people, or minute particular figures?”

Florence said “William Blake was mad, you know,” but neither of them appeared to have heard her, and perhaps it was not a clever remark.

They gathered after the lecture, the three Kingsmen easy in each other’s company, analysing good points, dismissing bad ones. Personal relationships, said Gerald, were the root of every virtue, couldn’t be done without, a man could not spend his life on reducing other men to figures without damage. Florence said we are not all monads, and nobody answered. Charles/Karl said society did exist, it was not only a mass of individuals. Classes existed. And male and female said Florence, crossly. Indeed, said Julian politely. Geraint, who had joined them, said that new women’s groups for agitating were very interesting. Gerald took the conversation back to human friendship.

He was embarrassing Julian, not because he was insulting Julian’s sister, but because Julian no longer loved him, and was not ready to admit that, precisely because of the intensity of the Apostolic faith in friendship as a supreme value. Julian no longer wanted to kiss, or indeed even to touch, Gerald, who had—as often happens— become much more eager to touch, to hold, to grasp Julian as Julian withdrew. Julian had begun to think Gerald was clever and silly, and did not want to know he thought that, it was inconvenient, their group was so comfortable, their walks so companionable, Cambridge and the English countryside so lovely.

Geraint moved round the group to Florence’s side. He said “I wish you had been able to persuade Imogen to go back home for a few days.” So did she, said Florence, repressively.

Geraint said she was looking beautiful. She broke off her intent frown to smile weakly at him, which encouraged him. He did not feel at home with the theoretical Kingsmen. Also he half-despised them for their lack of acquaintance with “real life” which he thought he knew better. He asked Florence her opinion of Humphry’s talk and she said it did seem to suggest things that could really be done, and that it was absurd for the middle classes to live in fear, as they did, of the dirty and desperate armies in the sinks of their towns.

At this point, inopportunely, Elsie Warren approached them. She nodded to Florence, and asked Geraint, without urgency, if he had seen his father. Geraint had not.

“He’s not at home. At least I think not. He’s not at meals. Mind you, he often isn’t.”

“Probably recovering from his lecture,” said Geraint. “A very small quantity of society makes him a recluse for days.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Elsie. “Your mother isn’t bothered.”

“We shall need him at the end of the camp—for the firing.”

“I think he’ll come. He’ll want to oversee it.”

Geraint turned away from her rather abruptly, and asked Florence if he could walk her back to Rye. He expected her to say no, but she said yes. This was partly to claim independence from Julian and Gerald, and partly because she thought Geraint might have something to say about Imogen. But it was partly also that his feelings for her—his steadfastness and patience—were comforting. He was as much out of a men’s world as the Cambridge men, but in his men’s world, men liked women, women interested them.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Something is going on, that’s odd.”

“I always like talking to you. About anything at all.”

“I don’t know about this—”

“Try me,” said Geraint.

“It’s Papa,” said Florence.

They began to walk away, towards Rye.

Charles/Karl was left with Elsie Warren.

“You don’t recognise me, do you?” she said. “I’m out of place. You’ve met me at Purchase House, carrying dishes and clearing up. We’ve not been introduced, so to speak.”

He could not place her accent, which was not local, but he could tell that it was working-class. He considered her. She had made the best of herself, he thought. She had a pale grey high-necked shirt, with tight cuffs, and a swinging skirt in a dark grey cotton. She had a bright red belt, round a shapely waist, and a straw hat with a bright red ribbon and a dashing bunch of stitched anemones, red and purple and blue. He did not know what to say to her, or indeed, how to speak to her. He was also aware that she knew this, and was amused by it. Amusement was not a reaction he had expected.

“Did you enjoy the talk, then?” she said.

“It was of great interest. I am trying to decide whether to study these matters—statistics, poverty—at the London School of Economics.”

“Or?”

“What you mean, or?”

“If you don’t do that, what will you do?”

He could not say, be a good anarchist and foment a revolution. He blushed. “I might go to Germany.”

“Might you? Nice to have a choice. I should like such a choice.”

He looked at her and she looked back, intently. They saw each other clearly. She went on

“Being as I am both a woman and working-class, choice don’t come into it, much, for me. I do what I must.” Charles/Karl wanted to say he was sorry, and couldn’t.

“I imagine you don’t talk to many of us, as against studying us in bulk. The dangerous masses. To be put in camps, and set to work on projects.”

“You are being unfair,” said Charles/Karl. “You are mocking me.”

“We can do that, at least, if we dare.”