The Power of the Dead Read online

  “I understand that. I’d like to pay for it myself. How much is it? Twenty-eight pounds? I suppose you wouldn’t allow me a little time to pay? I could give you a post-dated cheque——”

  “But why should you have to spend your hard-earned money on——”

  “I know what you mean, but I assure you that the Coplestons are solvent. They are an extremely kind and unworldly family, really.”

  Mr. Roper offered him a chair. “Part of my life of drudgery is made worth while when I can talk to a genuine literary person like yourself,” he said. “Will you give me permission to speak frankly?”

  “Certainly. Truth never killed anyone yet.”

  “Not your kind of truth, I agree. But I see such things from another angle, from the wrong side of the counter, perhaps, but that is my side as a tradesman, I suppose. Only this morning I had the manager of the Empire Stores in here, sitting where you are sitting now. He is a genuine poetic character, and like all such, suffers at times from association with average insensitive humanity. Do you know, he has been owed a bill for groceries delivered to the Coplestons during more than two years! Where is he, if he cannot get his account paid? Either he risks being dismissed as an incompetent manager by his regional inspector, or else he has to make up the bad debt himself. Thirty-nine pounds for two years’ groceries. And yet they can afford, apparently, to order expensive encyclopædias for cross-word puzzles—those refuges of idle intellects—and also to go otter-hunting.”

  Mr. Roper began to look almost angry. “Why, my dear sir, I find an incompatability in the two view-points, and would give another name for what you call ‘unworldly’.”

  His words shocked Phillip. The bookseller saw this, and continued in his normal soft voice, “This is entirely between ourselves, of course. Only I felt I must tell you what I thought, since you have done me the honour of confiding in me. Now I have lived here all my life, and have a vivid memory of myself as a small boy, being sent by my father, who founded this bookshop, with a book to the ‘big house’, as we called Colonel Chychester’s place, in Tarrant Park, in those days. It must have been thirty years ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday. I felt extremely proud to be taking a book to the Colonel, who was a hero to us boys, for he had fought in the Crimea, and had been badly wounded. Well, I walked up the drive of Tarrant Park, terrified by the great size of the place growing and growing before me and timidly rang the bell at the immense oak door. My heart beat in my ears as I heard it being opened, and then a footman looked down at me and said, ‘What are you doing here? Get round to the back door with you!’ in a brusque voice. Almost in tears, I hastened away, gave the parcel to someone, and ran home. And when I see this attitude of, well—I can only call it indifference—towards the feelings of small shopkeepers today among a certain class of so-called ladies and gentlemen, our betters, I remember the small boy’s reception thirty years ago and my blood boils. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it.”

  “But I am sure neither the Boys’ grandmother, Mrs. Chychester, nor the Colonel, would have treated a small boy like that, Mr. Roper, had they seen him.”

  “Well, Mr. Maddison, I know it must seem trivial and even crass prejudice on my part, but there is something wrong with a system by which such things—slight as they are, they indicate the world as it really is today—are maintained.”

  “Lack of imagination.”

  “I call it selfishness.”

  “Lack of imagination is the same thing, surely?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Bernard Shaw has a piercing line at the end of Saint Joan—‘Must a Christ perish in torment in every generation, because people have no imagination?’ That is the cry of the poets of the ages.”

  “And what is the answer?”

  “Education must be aimed at creating a wider imagination in the child, not at suppressing. The child’s mind must be set free.”

  “But according to your theory, these people have known every freedom—with the result that they have grown up to please themselves.”

  “Well, I think there is also a duty, an idea of service, still remaining, you know. This case is perhaps not typical. A recluse—his sons growing up without proper direction—their mother dead—the old-boy broken-hearted. Inept, if you like: but not knowingly selfish.”

  “Inept is the word. Do you know that the youngest boy, Tim, played truant for a year and more from the local grammar school? What did his father do about it?”

  “I don’t think he knew.”

  “Not even when the bill for the term’s fees failed to come in?”

  “I think the Head Master thought he’d left. And the old boy was shattered after his wife’s death. He’d retired from life. It was a tragedy, I assure you. Since then the Boys have worked really very hard—often all night on the lathes. I’ve seen them—and all without proper business direction. Their actual work has been good, too—nothing scamped or shoddy. In fact, it’s too good. Well, I must away. I’ll see the manager of the grocery stores is paid very soon. And I’ll collect the Encyclopædia shortly—and pay cash for it—I’ve very nearly got an offer of fifty pounds for a book from my agent——”

  “Why should you waste your talent and your money on others?”

  “Why do you waste your spirit and your sympathy on others—the grocer, for example?”

  “Ah well, Mr. Maddison, I see your point. You’ll consider me hard and unsympathetic, no doubt, but even grocers have to live, you know. This one’s a great man for poetry—Shelley especially.”

  At the Empire Stores Phillip spotted him at once—a thin-faced man with a wide gentle mouth and a high forehead. Tim had told Phillip that he had a habit of introducing the poet Shelley into conversation with his customers on all occasions. This had caused him to be considered locally as slightly gone in the upper storey, according to Tim. Phillip knew, of course, that Tim’s ideas were in part formed by the fiction of popular magazines: in the pages of which anyone who ‘spouted’ poetry was usually portrayed as a long-haired eccentric character, sometimes with a butterfly net; comic stock-characters of the Conglomerated Press, London, E.C.

  This Shelley of the cheese cloves and weys, of butter firkins and tubs, of bacon flitch and bolls of oatmeal, looked at Phillip expectantly with an essentially innocent, child-like expression.

  “‘O wild west wind, thou breath of autumn’s being’,” said Phillip. “How do you do. May I see you privately for a moment?”

  “May I have your name, sir?”

  “I am one whose name at the moment is writ in water.”

  “Do I not recognise the author of the Donkin trilogy? I do, sir? Ah, may I congratulate you on a very fine performance.”

  “Thank you. I hope you are well?”

  “Hitherto, ‘a heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d, One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud’, but with your coming, sir, I am with the Cloud. Pray step into my office.”

  Phillip entered a cube of glass hung with clipped bills. Without preamble he said, “I know I can trust you, since we have Shelley as our friend. I want to tell you that the Coplestons are rather unpractical, living in a dream world. They have now entrusted their optimism and inexperience to me. They are, in a way, like Shelley, but without his mental penetration into reality. Have you read Shelley’s political pamphlets?”

  “Have I not. He had to flee England for telling the simple truth. Godwin was the man, his father-in-law! Have you read his ‘Political Justice’?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then I will lend it to you. Excuse me a moment.” He hopped out of the glass box. “Yes, madam, we have the finest Danish bacon. Mr. Gray, your best skill with our new hygienic cutter. Thank you.” He hopped back. “Your pardon, sir. The pig in Denmark does not suffer both mental and physical obscurity, as in darkest England. As I was presuming to say, Shelley absorbed much of Godwin’s wisdom, just as Godwin absorbed much of Shelley’s income.”

  Phillip felt it was
his fault for starting this slightly pretentious talk, and got away after promising soon to settle the account. He must work all night at his writing to make up for lost time.

  That afternoon mechanic, carpenter, smith and apprentice were given notice.

  The smith grumbled. “Where am I now? What about my son?”

  Phillip pointed out that his son had been getting £1 a week as an apprentice, and had been learning his trade into the bargain.

  “The easy money will upset him for a while only. He should never have received it. Why, the farm labourer gets only just over thirty shillings a week. And most apprentices have to pay a premium, you know that—getting it back in wages of about five bob a week.”

  He offered the smith the use of the forge for shoeing; the smith to take one half of the money, the Works the other half for use of tools and all materials, including coal.

  “All right,” said the smith, after an unhappy silence. “That seems fair.”

  Chapter 3

  THE WORKS

  By the end of the week four new summonses had been delivered at the Works, making the total of money owing nearly £200. On the credit side ‘Mister’, according to the cheque-book stubs, owed the Boys £145; a parson’s wife owed for a Dynawurkur vacuum cleaner; the buildings of the Works was £600, and stock and machinery paid for came to a further £180.

  “It seems on the surface that we are solvent, Tim, but we must do something to stave off the bailiffs entering to seize goods for a knock-down sale to clear these judgment summons’. Damn, I’ve just remembered something on the farm. D’you mind if I use the telephone? I must know if Johnson’s Iron Horses have returned this morning.”

  Lucy replied that she hadn’t seen them. Time was getting on. A fortnight to go to the shoot. He felt impatient with these slow minds.

  “Now, Tim, for heaven’s sake get on with your sac machine contract. First, the Works must be tidied up. That will be good for morale. The new lavatories are a disgrace. Come with me. Look at them—strewn with newspaper, in a state of total inefficiency and neglect. The office must be cleared of rubbish. And there’s another thing. How much longer is the Tamplin cycle-car going to stand sheltering nettles? I’ve seen it here for nearly eighteen months, and it was rusting and rotting away before then.”

  “Yes, by Jove, the old Tamp. The fact of the matter is, my dear Phil, that it is of no further use. It has no brakes, the belts and tyres are perishing, the body is decayed.”

  “It was left with you to be sold, wasn’t it? Then it should be sold now. The engine’s worth a tenner.”

  “It’s not ours to sell,” said Fiennes, coming up.

  “Then whose is it?”

  “A friend left it with us, to be sold if we could find a buyer,” explained Tim.

  “Why haven’t you tried to find a buyer?”

  “It really wasn’t much use, it’s out of date,” said Tim. “You see, the cyclecar is now superseded by the light car—Morris, Humber, Trojan, Calthorp——”

  “How long have you had it?” Phillip asked Fiennes.

  “Oh, about four years.”

  “And in that four years it has become out of date?”

  “Your attitude is intolerable,” said Fiennes, walking away to the office.

  Turning to Tim, Phillip said, “Hardy wrote in one of his last poems, ‘If way to the better there be, it enacts a full look at the worst’. That’s what I’m trying to bring home to you three. If things are to be better, everyone here will have to alter the blueprint of his mind.”

  “Yes, I understand what you mean,” replied Tim, earnestly. “But perhaps I ought to explain something.”

  Before his young brother-in-law’s mild and gentle gaze Phillip felt that he had spoken too sharply.

  “Do explain what’s on your mind, Tim. Let’s talk in the office. Fiennes should hear what I’ve got to say.”

  “We appreciate that you’re trying to help us, and believe me, we are grateful. But you see, we don’t regard money from a business sense only. I mean, we offered to try to sell ‘Bongo’s’ Tamp for him when he went to Africa, if we got a chance. But we haven’t had anyone here who wanted to buy it.”

  “Now as regards our money,” said Fiennes, “we were only too pleased to be able to help ‘Mister’——”

  “I see what you’re driving at. You didn’t like me going after ‘Mister’ for that money he borrowed, while I felt it my duty to get him to sign a promissory note. After all, it is to be kept in the bank, to be claimed from the trustees of his estate when he dies. That way the thing is done properly, and leaves no ill-feeling. Don’t you both agree?”

  The brothers remained silent. “If you won’t face facts for yourselves, I must for you. The truth is that you have several pressing claims, and I’m trying to stave off a knock-down sale by the bailiffs. The writ is still only being held off by daily payments. If they lapse, all this machinery will go at a knock-down sale with no reserve.”

  “Personally, I don’t give a damn if it does, I’m sick of the whole thing,” said Fiennes, going out of the office. “It’s a low spring tide, and I want some prawns.”

  When he had gone, Ernest, with a mutter, edged his way out, leaving Tim and Phillip alone.

  “As Fiennes tried to explain,” said Tim, “the Coplestons have never exactly looked on money as something which is to be put before living. You yourself once told me that money for money’s sake is a bad thing, in that it alters human nature, making people grim and hard. We really are grateful for all you are doing, and we certainly intend to pay you back one day, but I think Fiennes feels a personal note of criticism in your tone of voice. Please forgive me saying all this, but you said the truth was wanted.”

  “I, too, believe that people should be happy, but I’ve known a fair amount of people who borrow money, and friendship is usually spoiled by it.”

  Someone knocked at the door. The postman wanted a signature for a registered letter. While Tim signed, Phillip opened the envelope, and then showed him a demand that the sum outstanding for advertising in The Model Engineer, £36, be settled at once, otherwise a writ would be applied for.

  “Dash it all, it quite escaped my mind. Our standing advertisement has been running on for four months, curse it. We forgot all about it, to be quite candid.”

  “I must go home and do some work, Tim. See you tomorrow.”

  A year drifts by, and it is the summer of 1917, the wettest summer in Flanders for many years. I am standing on a duck-board by the flooded and foul Steenbeke listening in the flare-pallid darkness to the cries of thousands of wounded men lost in the morasses of Third Ypres. To seek them is to drown with them … the living are still toiling on, homeless and without horizon, doing dreadful things under heaven that none want to do, through the long wet days and the longer nights, the weeks, the months of a bare, sodden winter out of doors.

  The survivors are worn out; some of them, tested beyond the limits of human dereliction, put the muzzles of their rifles in their mouths, in the darkness of the terrible nights of the Poelcappelle morasses, and pull the trigger.

  Those at home, sitting in arm-chairs and talking proudly of Patriotism and Heroism, will never realise the contempt and scorn which the soldiers have for these and other abstractions; the soldiers feel they have been betrayed by the high-sounding phrases that heralded the war, for they know that the enemy soldiers are the same men as themselves, suffering and disillusioned in exactly the same way.

  And in the stupendous roar and light-blast of the final barrage which broke the Siegfried Stellung I see only one thing, as recorded by Field-Marshal Hindenburg, an incident which grows radiant before my eyes until it fills all my world: the sight of a Saxon boy half-crushed under a shattered tank, moaning ‘Mutter—Mutter—Mutter’, out of ghastly grey lips. A British soldier, wounded in the leg and sitting nearby, hears the words, and dragging himself to the dying boy, takes his cold hand and says: ‘All right, son, it’s all right. Mother’s here with you.’
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  The next morning the Clerk to the Court told Phillip that another £4 for the Dynawurkur judgment summons must be paid in by six o’clock, otherwise he would have to distrain. That meant the bailiffs. Phillip went to his office and paid the £4 with his own cheque, then telegraphed to his literary agent in London. That would give them another twenty-four hours’ grace. The sale price had been £15. 17. 6; the sum due, with fees for stays of execution, was now £49.0.0.

  In the afternoon he gave his cheque for a further £14, being extra costs for the stay-of-execution of the writ, which was for £40, plus £8 accrued expenses. Then totting up the items in his cheque-book stubs he found that he was already £22 overdrawn. He paid £45 to the Court, bringing his overdraft to £67.0.0.

  “I am afraid that, unless a further four pounds is forthcoming by noon tomorrow, I must distrain,” said the Clerk.

  “But can’t some of this be used for that?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve already made out the receipt.”

  When Phillip told Tim that they must find £4 somehow, Tim replied “Oo ah,” and disappeared.

  Nobody had made any attempt to clean up the Works, so he set about cleaning and tidying. Afterwards he thought to go down to the river and fish in the pool below the oak wood, and think what to do.

  He took with him a long bamboo pole, a reel of stout thread, a float made of a swan’s quill, and a length of 3-X silkworm gut; and having baited the hook with a bread-pill, lay on an elbow and watched the float. It was the first time he had fished since the summer of 1914; it brought back many memories and regrets, upon which mounted present thoughts about the neglected state of the Works; so he hid the rod and returned up the path through the trees.

  Tim reappeared soon after six o’clock. He got out of the Trojan with what a writer for the Conglomerated Press would describe as a mysterious smile on his face. Taking Phillip aside he said, “I have managed to get the four pounds.”