Touch and Go Part 8

GERALD. She isn't. She's a flagrant amateur.

(EVA plays; they dance a little ballet.)

MR. BARLOW. Charming--charming, Miss Wrath:--will you allow me to say _Anabel_, we shall all feel so much more at home? Yes--thank you--er--you enter into the spirit of it wonderfully, Anabel, dear. The others are accustomed to play together. But it is not so easy to come in on occasion as you do.

GERALD. Oh, Anabel's a genius!--I beg your pardon, Miss Wrath--familiarity is catching.

MR. BARLOW. Gerald, my boy, don't forget that you are virtually host here.

EVA. Did you want any more music, sir?

GERALD. No, don't stay, Eva. We mustn't tire father. (Exit EVA.)

MR. BARLOW. I am afraid, Anabel, you will have a great deal to excuse in us, in the way of manners. We have never been a formal household. But you have lived in the world of artists: you will understand, I hope.

ANABEL. Oh, surely---

MR. BARLOW. Yes, I know. We have been a turbulent family, and we have had our share of sorrow, even more, perhaps, than of joys. And sorrow makes one indifferent to the conventionalities of life.

GERALD. Excuse me, father: do you mind if I go and write a letter I have on my conscience?

MR. BARLOW. No, my boy. (Exit GERALD.) We have had our share of sorrow and of conflict, Miss Wrath, as you may have gathered.

ANABEL. Yes--a little.

MR. BARLOW. The mines were opened when my father was a boy--the first--and I was born late, when he was nearly fifty. So that all my life has been involved with coal and colliers. As a young man, I was gay and thoughtless. But I married young, and we lost our first child through a terrible accident. Two children we have lost through sudden and violent death. (WINIFRED goes out unnoticed.) It made me reflect.

And when I came to reflect, Anabel, I could not justify my position in life. If I believed in the teachings of the New Testament--which I did, and do--how could I keep two or three thousand men employed and underground in the mines, at a wage, let us say, of two pounds a week, whilst I lived in this comfortable house, and took something like two thousand pounds a year--let us name any figure---

ANABEL. Yes, of course. But is it money that really matters, Mr. Barlow?

MR. BARLOW. My dear, if you are a working man, it matters. When I went into the homes of my poor fellows, when they were ill or had had accidents--then I knew it mattered. I knew that the great disparity was wrong--even as we are taught that it is wrong.

ANABEL. Yes, I believe that the great disparity is a mistake. But take their lives, Mr. Barlow. Do you thing they would LIVE more, if they had more money? Do you think the poor live less than the rich?--is their life emptier?

MR. BARLOW. Surely their lives would be better, Anabel.

OLIVER. All our lives would be better, if we hadn't to hang on in the perpetual tug-of-war, like two donkeys pulling at one carrot. The ghastly tension of possessions, and struggling for possession, spoils life for everybody.

MR. BARLOW. Yes, I know now, as I knew then, that it was wrong. But how to avoid the wrong? If I gave away the whole of my income, it would merely be an arbitrary dispensation of charity. The money would still be mine to give, and those that received it would probably only be weakened instead of strengthened. And then my wife was accustomed to a certain way of living, a certain establishment. Had I any right to sacrifice her, without her consent?

ANABEL. Why, no!

MR. BARLOW. Again, if I withdrew from the Company, if I retired on a small income, I knew that another man would automatically take my place, and make it probably harder for the men.

ANABEL. Of course--while the system stands, if one makes self-sacrifice one only panders to the system, makes it fatter.

MR. BARLOW. One panders to the system--one panders to the system. And so, you see, the problem is too much. One man cannot alter or affect the system; he can only sacrifice himself to it. Which is the worst thing probably that he can do.

OLIVER. Quite. But why feel guilty for the system?--everybody supports it, the poor as much as the rich. If every rich man withdrew from the system, the working cla.s.s and socialists would keep it going, every man in the hope of getting rich himself at last. It's the people that are wrong. They want the system much more than the rich do--because they are much more anxious to be rich--never having been rich, poor devils.

MR. BARLOW. Just the system. So I decided at last that the best way was to give every private help that lay in my power. I would help my men individually and personally, wherever I could. Not one of them came to me and went away unheard; and there was no distress which could be alleviated that I did not try to alleviate. Yet I am afraid that the greatest distress I never heard of, the most distressed never came to me. They hid their trouble.

ANABEL. Yes, the decent ones.

MR. BARLOW. But I wished to help--it was my duty. Still, I think that, on the whole, we were a comfortable and happy community. Barlow & Walsall's men were not unhappy in those days, I believe. We were liberal; the men lived.

OLIVER. Yes, that is true. Even twenty years ago the place was still jolly.

MR. BARLOW. And then, when Gerald was a lad of thirteen, came the great lock-out. We belonged to the Masters' Federation--I was but one man on the Board. We had to abide by the decision. The mines were closed till the men would accept the reduction.--Well, that cut my life across. We were shutting the men out from work, starving their families, in order to force them to accept a reduction. It may be the condition of trade made it imperative. But, for myself, I would rather have lost everything.--Of course, we did what we could. Food was very cheap--practically given away. We had open kitchen here. And it was mercifully warm summer-time. Nevertheless, there was privation and suffering, and trouble and bitterness. We had the redcoats down--even to guard this house. And from this window I saw Whatmore head-stocks ablaze, and before I could get to the spot the soldiers had shot two poor fellows. They were not killed, thank G.o.d---

OLIVER. Ah, but they enjoyed it--they enjoyed it immensely. I remember what grand old sporting weeks they were. It was like a fox-hunt, so lively and gay--bands and tea-parties and excitement everywhere, pit-ponies loose, men all over the country-side---

MR. BARLOW. There was a great deal of suffering, which you were too young to appreciate. However, since that year I have had to acknowledge a new situation--a radical if unspoken opposition between masters and men. Since that year we have been split into opposite camps. Whatever I might privately feel, I was one of the owners, one of the masters, and therefore in the opposite camp. To my men I was an oppressor, a representative of injustice and greed. Privately, I like to think that even to this day they bear me no malice, that they have some lingering regard for me. But the master stands before the human being, and the condition of war overrides individuals--they hate the master, even whilst, as a human being, he would be their friend. I recognise the inevitable justice. It is the price one has to pay.

ANABEL. Yes, it is difficult--very.

MR. BARLOW. Perhaps I weary you?

ANABEL. Oh, no--no.

MR. BARLOW. Well--then the mines began to pay badly. The seams ran thin and unprofitable, work was short. Either we must close down or introduce a new system, American methods, which I dislike so extremely. Now it really became a case of men working against machines, flesh and blood working against iron, for a livelihood. Still, it had to be done--the whole system revolutionised. Gerald took it in hand--and now I hardly know my own pits, with the great electric plants and strange machinery, and the new coal-cutters--iron men, as the colliers call them--everything running at top speed, utterly dehumanised, inhuman.

Well, it had to be done; it was the only alternative to closing down and throwing three thousand men out of work. And Gerald has done it. But I can't bear to see it. The men of this generation are not like my men.

They are worn and gloomy; they have a hollow look that I can't bear to see. They are a great grief to me. I remember men even twenty years ago--a noisy, lively, careless set, who kept the place ringing. I feel it is unnatural; I feel afraid of it. And I cannot help feeling guilty.

ANABEL. Yes--I understand. It terrifies me.

MR. BARLOW. Does it?--does it?--Yes.--And as my wife says, I leave it all to Gerald--this terrible situation. But I appeal to G.o.d, if anything in my power could have averted it, I would have averted it. I would have made any sacrifice. For it is a great and bitter trouble to me.

ANABEL. Ah, well, in death there is no industrial situation. Something must be different there.

MR. BARLOW. Yes--yes.

OLIVER. And you see sacrifice isn't the slightest use. If only people would be sane and decent.

MR. BARLOW. Yes, indeed.--Would you be so good as to ring, Oliver? I think I must go to bed.

ANABEL. Ah, you have over-tired yourself.

MR. BARLOW. No, my dear--not over-tired. Excuse me if I have burdened you with all this. I relieves me to speak of it.

ANABEL. I realise HOW terrible it is, Mr. Barlow--and how helpless one is.

MR. BARLOW. Thank you, my dear, for your sympathy.

OLIVER. If the people for one minute pulled themselves up and conquered their mania for money and machine excitement, the whole thing would be solved.--Would you like me to find Winnie and tell her to say good night to you?