King John of Jingalo Part 26

"You are becoming theatrical again," said the King.

"No, no," said Max, "but my brain is taking fire; an angel warned me of it in a dream, and behold it has come true. I have been seeing things."

"Your Uncle Nostrum won't be pleased," remarked the King.

"He never is," said Max. "Discontent is his prevailing virtue. Give himself something to be discontented about, then he can go down to his house justified."

"The Prime Minister has already recommended him," went on the King, "at least, said he would not oppose; but I don't know what he'll say to this."

"Nor do I," said Max, "and I don't care; neither do you."

The King opened his eyes as though he had been surprised in some secret--how did Max know that? And then his mind traveled a few months further on; yes, it was quite true, he did not now care in the least.

What he had made up his mind to do had released him from all ministerial terrors; and as he contemplated the relief in his own case his thoughts turned to that bright youth over whose head so unlooked-for a fate was now impending; how dramatic it would be! And here was Max, all unbeknownst, harnessing himself to the wheels of State, pledged, unable to run away. It was just one more turn in the toils which a simple-minded man of gentle and retiring character was able to wind around the scheming lives of others. By at last daring to be himself he had become a power.

"Very well. I will see that it is arranged," he said. "Yes, it is perhaps time you had some experience in presiding over--over boards and all that sort of thing. I shan't last for ever; I don't feel like it."

And he shook his head sadly, for he liked to be sorry for himself; nothing helped him more to bear up under the troubles of life.

"My dear father," said Max, with some fondness of tone, "you know that the prospect of going for your cure always depresses you; but as you insist on doing it you must pay the penalty. And when you are taking those waters which so upset your digestion, and deprive you of the flesh which nature meant you to wear, then think of me--not talking any longer, but really up and doing--preparing myself at last to follow in your footsteps. Now in this land of Jingalo, in the very heart of its social and commercial system, I am going to make history."

"Oh, you think so?" said the King to himself. "Young man, before you have much more than begun, you may have to come out of it! You can't do that sort of thing when you are in my shoes."

And then he bade Max a benevolent good-bye and went off to his cure; and Max, a.s.sured of his seat upon the forthcoming Commission, went off to his.

III

"How am I to dress for this business?" Max had inquired; it was one of the first practical problems to be solved, and an important one.

"If you don't mind," said Sister Jenifer, "you had better dress like a Socialist. Wear a very soft hat, a very low collar, and a very red or green tie, done loose in the French fas.h.i.+on, and n.o.body will wonder at your looking clean, or at your asking questions. Young Socialists come here to study the social problem and to show themselves off, and in a vague sort of way the people have begun to understand them; and though they look upon them as cranks, they don't any longer think they are inspectors or charity agents--the two things you must avoid."

"Dress," said Max, "has a very subtle effect upon the character. At a fancy-dress ball, last season, I wore a Cardinal's robe--there is a portrait of one in the British National Gallery rather like me--and it took me a month to get rid of the effects. If I turn into a Socialist, therefore, it will be upon your advice."

"As far as politics go it matters very little what you turn into," said Sister Jenifer.

"What a statement!" exclaimed Max.

"It is perfectly true," she said. "At present what we are fighting is ignorance and indifference; in comparison to that the mere theory of government doesn't matter, for nothing is going to succeed while one half of society neither knows nor cares how the other half lives. Your politicians are welcome to any theories they can find tenable, if only they will face facts."

"What are your own politics?"

"I haven't any; I haven't room for them. My only aim is just to get that one half of the community to come and look with understanding at the other half; and then service, I know, would follow. It won't until they do."

"Well, you are making me look," said Max.

"Yet I have not been able to make my father."

"Has he never been here?"

"He has opened churches."

"Well, you believe in prayer."

"That depends on how you define it."

"I wanted to ask you that. You are only a lay-sister; but some of you have taken vows--for a period, at all events."

"That is all the Church allows; but it makes little difference since they can always renew."

"Those who have taken vows--do they give themselves entirely up to prayer?"

"No, but they entirely depend upon it."

"Depend--how?"

"They could not do their work without it. You asked me for definition: I can only give you example. Some of our sisters quite literally cannot face what they have to do except after prayer; otherwise their flesh would revolt."

"Is it such horrible work?"

"They will not tell you so; but I know that it must be. You see I am rather an outsider. My father only allowed me to come here on certain conditions; and with the inner side of our work here I have nothing to do; I understand nothing about it."

Her face flushed slightly under his gaze, the faint, troubled flush of maidenhood which apprehends an evil of which it may not know the conditions; and he saw by swift intuition that this sincere spirit was ashamed of its own ignorance. His mind darted a guess that he had before him, in fact, an inexperience of life underlying intimate acquaintance with grief and poverty which he would not have believed to be possible.

And oh, s.e.xually, how it redoubled her beauty and charm! Yes, he could not deny that so unnatural a combination attracted him, and yet it enraged him also. A few moments ago he had heard from this woman's lips a declaration that no help could come till half and half made up one whole in knowledge and understanding; and yet there she stood--if his guess was right--hesitant and bashful on the borders of that great central problem about which parental authority had decreed she was to know nothing; an example set before him of that idealistic waste of womanhood which is for ever going on, and which for bad practical reasons society is always encouraging. For depend upon it the practical social result is what we men are really afraid of--not lest our women should lose either modesty or charm, but lest with knowledge they should apply themselves too ruthlessly to practical ends, and set upon their charm a price which hitherto we have avoided having to pay. And as he so moralized upon the relations of s.e.x, a sentimental desire grew in him to kneel down there and then at her feet and tell her how good a young man from his point of view he had always been--and how bad a one from hers.

For the time being he resisted that temptation; other things that he was not yet sure of must come first; for before we can allow the beloved to think ill of us at all she must first think far better of us than we deserve. Then for the letting-down process there is a safe margin left, and confession becomes a luxury with no danger involved; since to see himself retrospectively pardoned by a heart virginally pure has surely restored to many a weary and disillusioned sensualist a better opinion of himself than he could ever have hoped to refurbish by his own efforts. That, oh ye men about town, is a good woman's mission in life; that is what she is for--when the watch has run down she winds it up again and sets it domestically ticking. And that she may continue to do so, let us keep her from all knowledge independently acquired. When we ourselves bring her the evidence, having first packed her fond jury of a heart, then we can also dictate verdict and sentence, and the world will run on in the grooves to which we have accustomed it.

All of which is a digression, and not in the least intended as being applicable to Max, unless, indeed, some reader of virulent morals so chooses to apply it; for far be it from this historian to prevent any reader forming his or her own judgment on the facts set forth. And if to any of these Max appears as one whose springs have run riotously down and now need setting up again--if his seems to be a heart that has never yet ticked domestically, because it had not been legally registered, I can at least promise them this--that before they come to the end of this history they will have an eminent ecclesiastical authority agreeing with them, and expressing their sentiments with an eloquence which I cannot hope to rival. And so having done with digression, let us return to the social education of Max, now trying to become acquainted with the lowest stratum of all.

IV

After a few weeks he began to distinguish in the squalor of the faces that surrounded him the separate causes of their malady--to know drink from disease, dissipation from dest.i.tution, the drug-habit from hunger.

Complexion and facial expression stood more than dress as an indication of trade, habit, and environment; from physiognomy he began to learn history, and from Monday's streets a commentary on the linked sweetness long drawn out of Jewish followed by Christian sabbath. He became inured to smells, to the breathing of foul atmosphere, to contact with foul bodies, to a nakedness of speech such as he had not dreamed of, to a cla.s.s-hatred that struck from eye to eye like murder, to an apathy of dead hopelessness that revolted him yet more. From Sister Jenifer he learned the hardest lesson of all, that to understand social conditions he must refrain from gifts of charity. And so, afraid of his own frailty, he came to his district with empty pockets, and going hungry himself spent hours among sale-dens, p.a.w.n-shops, the alleys where half-starved middle-men received the piece-work of sweated labor, and the black staircases where rent-collectors, hard-driven by competing agencies, plied a desperate piece-work of their own.

In every place he visited cleanliness was discouraged, and the water system seemed a mere after-thought. In most cases the taps were b.u.t.tons requiring continuous pressure, and then yielding only an exiguous supply; a kettle took nearly a minute to fill, so that while one tenant drew service others stood waiting. He spoke indignantly of it to Sister Jenifer. What were the sanitary authorities doing? he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said, "those b.u.t.tons are a new device; the old taps were taken away--they became too dangerous; these poor people found a way of turning them to effect."

"You mean they stole the fixings?"

"No; though they used to do that now and then. But this was at the last strike which happened to come during a drought. One of their leaders said to them: 'Take all the water you can; drain the city dry, make the rich give up their baths,--then perhaps they will attend to you.' They actually had the power; they organized the whole of the working district, and one night they turned on all the taps, the street fountains as well. And we, because at last they were taking their full share, were threatened with a water famine! Yes, if they had those tenement baths which the last Housing Commission recommended they could run us dry as their leader proposed,--hold the whole city up to ransom and dictate terms. As it was even those taps proved dangerous, so we gave them b.u.t.tons instead; and of course the death-rate has gone up."

"And now the next strike has come."

"Ah, yes, but this is not such a large one and so, as it isn't reckoned 'dangerous,' the Government doesn't interfere, and no one outside troubles about the rights of it."

They were moving on the outskirts of a crowd in the center of which a demonstration of strikers was going on. Gaunt, hungry, apathetic faces formed the bulk of them; in their midst a man with a big voice talked heroically of the rights of labor and prophesied victory. They stood to listen for a while, then moved on. At the corner of a side-street which they crossed stood a smaller group; a woman, her hat tied round with a motor-veil, stood waving her arms from an orange-box.

"Who are those?" inquired Max.