‘You know the story about Giotto,’ she said, ‘that when some grand people came to commission a picture, and wanted a specimen of his work, he just drew a perfect circle for them with his brush? He got the job. That impressed me somehow as a child. I used to practise it, as if it were a guarantee of success.’
‘Is it hard?’ said Mor.
‘Try’, said Miss Carter, handing him the brush, still full of paint.
Mor balanced the unfamiliar object in his hand, and drew a very shaky oval shape upon the paper. ‘Hopeless!’ he said, laughing. The two figures intersected. ‘I think we ought to go, said Mor. He had promised to deliver Miss Carter back for a late tea at Brayling’s Close, and he began suddenly to be uneasy about the time.
‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Now I don’t want to go. The smell of paint makes me feel quite strange.’ She began to wander between the rows of stools and easels, sniffing the air and spreading out her arms. ‘Where does that lead to?’ she asked, pointing to a wooden ladder which led upward to a trap-door in the ceiling of the studio.
This is an old barn, you know,‘ said Mor. ’That leads to the loft. It’s quite well lighted. The near part of it is a pottery room, and the far part has been made into a sort of flat for Mr Bledyard.‘
‘He lives up there?’ said Miss Carter.
‘Yes,’ said Mor.
‘I want to see!’ she said, and before Mor could stop her she was running up the ladder and pushing at the trap-door.
‘Wait a moment!’ cried Mor, and began to climb after her. The trap-door yielded and he saw the canvas shoes flapping to reveal the soles of her feet as she pulled herself up into the loft above him. When he reached the top Miss Carter was running about between the potter’s wheels which stood at intervals about the floor. Mor was reminded of the scene in the rose garden. He began to feel nervous.
‘I think we’d better go,’ he said. ‘Mr Bledyard might come back and find us here.’
‘I should like to see his room,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Is it in here?’ She went to the far end of the loft and opened a door. Mor followed her.
The big space, stretching the width of the loft, with the roof sloping on both sides, and well lit by sky-lights, was Bledyard’s bed-sittingroom. His kitchen and bathroom were in an outhouse below, which was reached by a wooden stair. Mor, who had only once before beheld this room, looked at it with a little awe. It was extremely bare and colourless. The floor was scrubbed and the walls whitewashed. No picture, no coloured object adorned it. The furniture was of pale wood, and even the bed had a white cover.
Miss Carter stared about her. ‘No colours,’ she murmured. ‘Interesting.’
‘Well, now you’ve seen it, let’s go down,’ said Mor.
‘I must just try the bed,’ said Miss Carter, ‘to see how hard it is!’ She skipped across to Bledyard’s bed and subsided on to it, reclining there with her head propped on her arm and her black trousered legs outstretched on the counterpane. In the chaste scene she looked as dusky as a chimney-sweeper’s boy. She peered up at Mor.
Mor was irritated and slightly shocked. He checked a comment, and deliberately withdrew his attention from her as from a child that shows off. It was not clear to him just how spontaneous these antics were. He went back to the trap-door, meaning to descend again into the studio, but as he looked down through the square hole into the well-lighted room below, he saw with a slight thrill of alarm that the studio door was opening. The foreshortened figure of Bledyard, his chin sunk upon his breast as usual, appeared slowly round the door. He seemed to be alone. He began to poke around, looking for something. As he was so intent upon his search, and as his lank and longish hair fell well forward on either side of his cheeks like blinkers, it was unlikely that his gaze should be attracted to the trap-door. He continued to potter. Mor watched him, feeling the curious guilt which attaches to seeing someone unseen from above: and the moment somehow passed at which he could call out to him in a natural way. He hesitated, trying to think of something to say to Bledyard which would at the same time warn Miss Carter to rise from her ridiculous pose and set the bed to rights. However, before he could speak, Bledyard had turned about and left the studio, and his footsteps were to be heard pounding across the cobbles and into the wood.
‘What is it?’ asked Miss Carter. She was still stretched out on the bed, watching Mor intently through the bedroom door.
He came back and stood over her. He did not want to raise his voice. ‘Bledyard!’ he said. ‘But he’s gone now.’
Miss Carter sprang up and began to smooth down the counterpane. She was extremely flurried and apologetic. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘He didn’t see us, did he? I am so sorry.’
Mor told her it didn’t matter, and then led her away quickly down the back stairs. He felt annoyance with himself for not having spoken at once to Bledyard and with the girl for the thoroughly silly way in which their afternoon had ended. Here, it seemed, was another foolish small secret between them. Mor disapproved of secrets.
Chapter Four
NAN never managed to look like anything in her outdoor clothes. She could look handsome and well got-up at an evening party - but her coats and hats never looked quite right. Mor could see her now, as he gazed over the heads of his audience, sitting near the back with a slightly superior smile on her face. She wore a rather characterless felt hat, and although it was a warm evening, a coat with fur on the collar.
Mor was giving his WEA class. The evening was nearly over. He often wondered why Nan insisted on coming and what she made of those performances. She was not on easy terms with Tim Burke, who always acted as chairman and entertained them afterwards, and Mor could hardly believe that she came to hear him talk. In any case, she never referred later to anything that he had said. If she ever asked a question, it was a simple and sometimes a stupid one. Mor felt that she did it merely for appearances, and wished that she wouldn’t.
Donald Mor was also present, not sitting with his mother, but in a seat at the side near the front, leaning his back against the wall, one long leg crossed over the other. He had a special dispensation from St Bride’s to attend these sessions. Marsington was three stops along the railway, and just inside the London area, but a fast train would bring the boy back to school well before midnight. Why Don came was no mystery to Mor. He came for the sake of Tim Burke, whom he adored, and from whom he scarcely took his eyes throughout the evening. Mor doubted whether Donald listened to a single word that was said.
Mor was anwering a question. ‘Freedom,’ he said, ‘is not exactly what I would call a virtue. Freedom might be called a benefit or a sort of grace — though of course to seek it or to gain it might be a proof of ment.
The questioner, a successful middle-aged greengrocer, who was one of the props of the local Labour Party, was hanging grimly on to the back of the chair in front of him, whose occupant was leaning nervously forward. The greengrocer who had made the remark that surely freedom was the chief virtue, and wasn’t it thinking so that differentiated us from the Middle Ages? stared intently at Mor as if drinking in his words. Mor thought, he is not really listening, he does not want to hear what I say, he knows what he thinks and is not going to reorganize his views. The words I am uttering are not the words for him.
He felt again that sad guilty feeling which he had whenever he caught himself going through the motions of being a teacher without really caring to make his pupils understand. How well he knew that many teachers, including some who got high reputations by doing so, contented themselves with putting up a show, often a brilliant one, in front of those who were to be instructed - and of this performance both sides might be the dupes. Whereas the real teacher cares only for one thing, that the matter should be understood; and into that process he vanishes. Mor hated it when he caught himself trying to be clever. Sometimes the temptation was strong. An adult education class will often contain persons who have come merely to parade a certain view-point, and with no intention of learning anything.
In response to this provocation it was tempting to produce merely a counter-attraction, a show, designed to impress rather than to make anything clear. But to make anything clear here, Mor felt with a sudden despair - how could it be done? With this feeling he irrelevantly remembered Tim Burke’s moving proposition, and felt a sudden shame at this evening’s efforts.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Staveley,’ said Mor, ‘I’ve said nothing to the purpose. Let me try again. You say surely freedom is a virtue — and I hesitate to accept this phrase. Let me explain why. To begin with, as I was saying in my talk this evening, freedom needs to be defined. If by freedom we mean absence of external restraint, then we may call a man lucky for being free — but why should we call him good? If, on the other hand, by freedom we mean self-discipline, which dominates selfish desires, then indeed we may call a free man virtuous. But, as we know, this more refined conception of freedom can also play a dangerous role in politics. It may be used to justify the tyranny of people who think themselves to be the enlightened ones. Whereas the notion of freedom which I’m sure Mr Staveley has in mind, the freedom which inspired the great Liberal leaders of the last century, is political freedom, the absence of tyranny. This is the condition of virtue, and to strive for it is a virtue. But it is not itself a virtue. To call mere absence of restraint or mere kicking over the traces and flouting of conventions a virtue is to be simply romantic.’
Well, what’s wrong with being romantic?‘ said Mr Staveley obstinately. ’Let’s have “romantic” defined, since you’re so keen on definitions.‘
‘Surely, isn’t love the chief virtue?’ said a lady sitting near the front, and turning round to look at Mr Staveley. ‘Or does Mr Staveley think that the New Testament is out of date?’
I’ve failed again, thought Mor, with the feeling of one who has brought the horse round the field a second time only for it to shy once more at the jump. He felt very tired and the words did not come easily. But he was prepared to go on trying.
‘Let’s leave “romantic”,’ he said, and stick to one thing at a time. Let me start again — ‘
‘I’m afraid,’ said Tim Burke, ‘that it is time to bring this stimulating session to a close.’
Confound him, thought Mor. He’s ending early because he wants to talk to me about that other matter. Mor sat down. He felt defeated. He could see Mr Staveley shaking his head and saying something in an undertone to his neighbour.
Tim Burke stood up and leaned confidentially forward across the table in the manner of one pretending to be a public speaker. Mor knew his timidity on these occasions.
“I am sorry, friends,‘ said Tim Burke, ’to terminate this most educational argument so abruptly, but time, as they say, waits for no man. And Mr Mor will, I am sure, not be offended if I say that we shall all appreciate a short spell in the adjacent hostelry during which his words of wisdom may be digested together with a pint of mild and bitter.‘ The termination of the meeting well before closing time was one of the few matters on which the Marsington WEA was in complete agreement.
‘And with this,’ said Tim Burke, swinging back upon his heels, ‘we terminate yet another series of profitable talks from Mr Mor; talks, I may safely say, from which we have all profited one and all, and which will stimulate us, I have no doubt, to private studies and reflections in the months that lie ahead, before our class reassembles here in the autumn. And by which time, if I may be so indiscreet, we all have hopes that Mr Mor will have been persuaded to fill another. and a more exalted post for which the people of Marsington think him to be most eminently fitted. On which delicate topic I say no more - and close proceedings with a request that you express your grateful thanks to Mr Mor in the customary manner.’
Loud and enthusiastic clapping followed, together with cries of ‘Hear, hear!’ Damn! thought Mor. He could see Nan clapping daintily, her eyes cast down. Mor disliked Tim Burke’s public eloquence in any case, and his persona of a student of politics in particular. When he encountered Tim in the context of the WEA he was made aware of him as an awkward half-educated man, ill at ease and anxious to impress. Mor was fond of Tim, there were even things about Tim which he wished to admire, and he was hurt for him by these appearances. He preferred to see his friend relaxed in a pub, or business-like in a committee, or best of all talkative and serene in the dark encrusted interior of the jeweller’s shop. But it was a sad paradox of their relationship that Tim was continually trying to please Mor by a parade of his scanty learning. To instruct him was difficult; to have checked him would have been unthinkable. So Mor continued to be irritated. He had not, however, expected this evening’s indiscretion. Just when Nan needed to be handled especially carefully, Tim had elected to put his foot in it. Now she’ll think I’ve arranged everything with Tim behind her back, thought Mor.
The meeting was breaking up. Mor rose to his feet and stretched. He felt only tired now, his eagerness dissipated. He hoped that he would be spared a private interview with Mr Staveley, and moved nearer to Tim Burke for protection. Tim was gathering up the papers with which he felt it part of his duty as chairman to strew the table. Tim was an old friend of the Mor family. They had met through Labour Party activities, when Mor had been teaching in a school on the south side of London, and Mor and Nan had to some extent taken Tim, who was a bachelor, under their wing. They saw less of him now than formerly, but Mor still counted Tim as one of his best friends. He was a trifle older than Mor, a lean pale man with a pock-marked face and large white hands and rather thin pale hair of which it was hard to say whether it was yellow or grey. He was distinguished chiefly by his eyes, of a flecked and streaky blue, and by his voice. Tim Burke had left Ireland when he was a child, but there was no mistaking his nationality, although long residence in London and the frequenting of cinemas had introduced a Cockney intonation into his brogue and a number of Americanisms among the flowery locutions of his Dublin speech. He was an accomplished goldsmith and could have been richer if he had wished.
‘Take it easy, chief, we’ll get you out of this if it’s the last thing we do!’ said Tim, casting a wary eye at Mr Staveley, who was standing by himself in brooding meditation.
The meetings took place in the Parish Hall, an exceptionally featureless building whose bright unshaded electric lights had just been turned on. The evening was still blue and bright outside and through it a large part of the audience were already making their way towards the Dog and Duck. The rest stood about on the bare boards, between trestle tables and tubular chairs, talking or listening or casting uneasy glances towards the speaker, wondering if they dared to ask him a question and whether they could make their question sound intelligent. Nan was pulling her gloves on in a very slow way which Mor knew she adopted when she wished to detach herself in a superior manner from the surrounding scene. Mor had hoped that Nan might make some friends at this class, and had originally imagined that perhaps this was why she came. But Nan had steadfastly refused to get to know anyone or to pay any attention at all to her fellow-students. If Mor ever referred to a member of the class she would be unable, or profess to be unable, to remember who it was. She behaved as one surrounded by her inferiors.
Nan came slowly down the room. Donald had already come forward and was holding on to the table while Tim Burke gathered up his things. At such moments Donald seemed to attach himself directly to Tim as if invisible threads joined their bodies. In passing between them, as he moved now past Tim in the direction of the door, Mor felt a shock. He stopped close to his son, but he knew that it was Tim only that Donald was aware of, Tim’s gesture and Tim’s voice for which he was waiting. Don’s admiration for his friend was another thing which irritated Mor. It was so totally non-rational. He could not conceive why it should exist at all.
It was customary after these meetings for Tim to carry off the Mor family and take them down the road to his shop, where he would offer them refreshment until it was time to take the train. Tim held, and Mor agreed, that it was not necessary for Mor to run the gauntlet i
n the Dog and Duck. Tim now took a quick look at the scene. Mr Staveley was lifting his head. A look of renewed determination was on his face.
‘Out the back!’ said Tim, and in a moment he had shepherded them out through a kitchen and an alleyway and round into the road. Marsington was an old village with a fine broad main street with grassy cobbled edges. The fields about it had long ago been covered with the red-roofed houses between which the green Southern Region trains sped at frequent intervals bringing the inhabitants of Marsington and its neighbouring boroughs to and from their daily work in central London. The main street now carried one of the most important routes to the metropolis, and its most conspicuous features were the rival garages whose brightly lit petrol pumps, glowing upon ancient brick and stone, attracted the passing motorist. The traffic was incessant. For all that, in the warm twilight it had a remote and peaceful air, the long broad façades of its inns and spacious houses withdrawn and reassuring.
Tim Burke’s shop was a little farther down, in the middle of a row of old shops, dark below and white above. A black sign swung above the door. T. Burke. Jeweller and Goldsmith. Tim stood fumbling for his keys. Mor leaned against the wall. He felt relief at having escaped, mingled with uneasiness at the presence close beside him of Nan, who was probably angry and preparing for a sulk. He cast a quick glance sideways at her. Her lips were pursed. A bad sign. The door gave way and they all stepped into the shop, and stood still while Tim turned on a lamp in the far corner.