Years of Plenty Part 21

So they met again and on Sat.u.r.day night they drove out in a taxi to Abingdon and dined in rather squalid pomp. Henceforward they saw much of one another and had more drives and dinners and were happy: for both had won a release.

They did not at all know what they wanted, but both knew quite plainly from what they wanted to escape. Martin wanted to throw off for a few hours the burden of his work, which was neither mere routine, like copying addresses, nor definite creation, like the making of a poem or a good mas.h.i.+e shot. This minute preparation of books and this learning by rote of variant readings and emendations seemed so appalling just because they defied both a mechanical application and a vivid interest.

And May wanted to escape from the frigid respectability of a red-brick villa at Botley, where she lived with her father, a retired Oxford tradesman: she wanted to escape from an existence which contained nothing but meals, a bicycle, _The Daily Mirror_, and walks with the girl next door. So she invented an old school friend who had jolly evenings in Walton Street. Her father had the virtue of credulity and allowed her to go her own way, and Martin's.

So much they knew and nothing more. Martin never discovered whether he actually felt any enthusiasm for May as a real person abstracted from Mods and his own despair and the black ma.s.s of circ.u.mstance: he didn't think about it, but just took her as she was. There were times when she amused him and gave him pleasure, and times when he thought that the satisfaction of her kisses was as nothing to the boredom of her conversation. Yet, because he was young and simple and far more conscientious than he would have cared to admit to the advanced young men of the Push, he was not prepared to confess to himself that she was just an amus.e.m.e.nt. The Martin who talked so airily in Lawrence's rooms about women and the world was an innocent impostor: as a matter of fact the Push, also conscious and a little ashamed of their own excessive virtue, were not taken in by his magniloquence. May was equally ignorant about her own att.i.tude and intentions. She was not at all a fast or desperate young woman: an impartial critic might even have noticed in her a leaden morality. But her conscience did not forbid the unaccustomed thrill of a lover's attendance and the subsequent lie of convenience. No one had ever encouraged her to think things out or to formulate her purposes. Consequently she drifted placidly, and if conscience whispered or Martin suggested another evening's pleasure, it was too much trouble to listen to the one or refuse the other.

Mods were to begin on a Thursday. On the preceding Sat.u.r.day Martin was going down to the Berrisfords to seek fresh air and to forget the existence of Demosthenes. He had wanted to stay and cram to the end, but ultimately he had yielded to Petworth's advice and decided to go.

At eleven o'clock on the Friday night he was wandering back alone through Osney. He had walked with May along the Eynsham Road: it had been a perfect night with the moon hanging over Wytham Woods like a silver slit in a cloth of blackest fabric. But May didn't bother about the moon, and they had gone to a deserted barn where they had met before, a good enough place for lovers in the mood but otherwise draughty and forlorn. They had not quarrelled: neither had alluded to the possibility of such a thing. But Martin had thought May dull and May had thought Martin cold. The evening had not been a success, and the fact that it had not been a confessed failure made it all the worse, for Martin had arranged to see her again on Wednesday night before his exam.

Now, as he tramped slowly home, he fell into a great anger and despair.

That night at least he might have devoted to learning the long lists of words which he had so laboriously compiled. But he hadn't: he had dallied in an outhouse with a girl who didn't think, didn't know, didn't care, a girl whose only attraction lay in her wistful eyes and an engaging atmosphere of loneliness. To have to philander in back roads and crumbling sheds--how revolting it all was when he looked at it in cold blood. To have to--well, perhaps he hadn't to, but life, with its misery of Mods, wasn't much fun if he didn't. This was the only escape. Martin wanted to meet women openly, if he had to meet them, and to face things clearly and honestly. But he couldn't do so because of morality, official morality with its peeping proctors and furtive pettiness. How Lawrence and he had thrashed it all out! It seemed that men should have honourable and reasonable relations with women, and yet, because of decency, it came to this. Wherever man met woman, there also must be mean slinking and shame-faced meeting, taxis and back lanes and a sordid round of evasion. Earlier in the term the sheer joy of release had blinded him to the squalor of it. Now, when enchantment had been staled by habit, his fastidiousness returned. It wasn't only that Pink Roses were beginning to fade: he was beginning to realise that pleasure demands its pleasance and Pink Roses an adequate rose-bed.

And then came four days of Devons.h.i.+re, with clear winds from the sea such as never breathed strength and spirit into Oxford's mellow torpor: four days too of The Steading's restful beauty, of real hills and whispering coverts. And there were two days of golf on a distant course, a season of great hitting with driver and bra.s.sie, fierce efforts to make "fours" of fives, with rare successes and frequent disaster. In the evenings John Berrisford was more wonderful than ever.

Nor was fresh company wanting. Margaret had a friend staying with her, a Miss Freda Neilson. At first Martin thought her insignificant, but he soon saw that her insignificance was intensely significant. She wasn't just a small and timid person with nothing to be said for or against her. In her quick-glancing eyes of deepest brown lurked courage and speculation, and there was a charming ease about her clothes and the swift movements of her body. She certainly was not a frowsy intellectual, and the fact that Margaret had brought her down for inspection was a guarantee that she wasn't a stupid little thing.

Martin had talked a little to her on Sat.u.r.day night: after breakfast on Sunday he noticed her on a seat in the garden enjoying the strong suns.h.i.+ne. He went towards her and looked over her shoulder. She was reading one of Mr Berrisford's more private French works. Careless of Margaret to leave it about!

"On Sunday, too!" said Martin.

"Just to counteract the very English breakfast," she laughed. "I don't think I ever ate so much in my life since I came here."

"My uncle's sound about breakfast. Those were true sausages."

"I suppose so. I don't think I'm very good at sausages. I'm afraid I hanker after rolls and fruit and things."

"Then you're all wrong. You've no case at all."

"And who gave you permission to lay down the law about taste?"

"My own common-sense. How can two people talk unless someone starts by dogmatising? Supposing I started off, 'Sausages may possibly, if they are good ones and of sound pork richly fried, seem nice to some people, the world being as it is,' ... we wouldn't get far, would we?"

"And who said I wanted conversation?"

"I ventured to deduce it from the fact that you looked round when you thought I wasn't looking."

"I never did."

"Didn't you? Then I made a bad shot. I'm sorry!"

Martin wasn't very happy about this rather heavy beginning. The conversation was floundering hopelessly. Freda, seeing this, took him firmly in hand.

"Well," she said, closing the sinister work of decadence, "as you've come, you'd better stay and enjoy the suns.h.i.+ne and take an interest in me."

"Will you take one in me?"

"Oh yes! Fair play. Don't let's talk stilted rubbish any more: it's such an effort. Now then, I'll begin. What about Oxford and Mods?"

So he told her the weary tale. She was sympathetic in a rather challenging, offensive way, which he enjoyed.

"And now you?" he said.

"Oh, I'm just an office girl. I ought to read _The Mirror_ and _The London Mail_, but I don't. You know Margaret was doing some work for the Women's Trade Union Movement: that's how she ran into me. I do the typing in the office where she works. We had a rush of work owing to the strikes in Lancas.h.i.+re and my silly health collapsed. She brought me down here. The Berrisfords have been awfully good to me."

"Do you like being in the office?" asked Martin.

"It might be worse, because the letters I have to type are sometimes about something mildly interesting. Just fancy having to do business letters all day. But the society is so short of funds that they work me hard and don't overpay me."

"I always knew that sweating began with the charity-mongers. But I thought your people might be a bit better."

"I suppose I oughtn't to grumble. Shouldn't I pay a small sacrifice to the great cause of Efficiency?"

"I hate Collectivism. I mean the Efficiency type."

"So young, my lord, and a Syndicalist?"

"In parts. Anyhow, they might treat you better." Martin spoke with conviction.

"It's nice of you to be worried, but you needn't. I used to be a school-ma'am and teach English literature to girls with pigtails and secret societies to giggle about. Can't you imagine me? We always did _As You Like It_ or _The Tempest_. That was just h.e.l.l. I'd much sooner pinch and sc.r.a.pe in London than live in a school with bells and prayers and the younger members of my own s.e.x. It was quite a good post and everyone said I ought to have stayed on. But I just couldn't.

So now I have only myself to blame if I'm unhappy."

"I think it was very plucky of you," was all Martin could think of.

"Oh, I'm safe enough. I don't starve, you know. But there's not much over for books."

"It must be rotten!"

There was a silence.

"Do the Berrisfords go to church?" Freda asked suddenly. "I only came on Tuesday."

"No, rather not."

"Thank G.o.d!"

"Then you aren't one of the faithful?"

"No. Taking the girls to church had a bad effect on my temper.

Besides, after all----"

"Well?"

"I'm keen on philosophy. Are you?"

"I'm going to be when I begin Greats."

"Don't you like it now?"