CHAPTER XXX

IN WHICH WE JOURNEY TO THE NORTH BY NEFARIOUS MEANS, AND NAOMI AND I STUMBLE UPON A PRECISELY SIMILAR FEELING

Naomi's old school friendship with Mrs. Farrar, who is the daughter of the Rector of Winfield, is ripening into a new intimacy, into which I am being drawn. Not unwillingly; for although she is rather a slangy, frivolous young woman, she is very fresh and impulsive and genuine, and I have long given up that wish (with which most of us begin life) that every candidate for friendship should conform to one's own standards.

Farrar, I confess, is not exciting; but it is not unamusing to watch the mental and physical processes of a young man who has been brought up never to know the meaning of hunger or thirst, except as the prelude to their agreeable gratification, or to do a day's work beyond fiddling with a defective motor-engine, or walking miles in pursuit of a rubber-cored ball. He is not offensively selfish in his idleness, and has a ready hand for subscription-hunters. In fact, he is really very generous, although, of course, not thoughtful enough. He distributes the kind of presents, for example, that cause servants to give notice: silver chafing-dishes, patent foot warmers--things like that. Generosity, however, is far from being all, and indeed it may be and often is merely the selfish man's device to be spared worry. It could not save Farrar from Spanton, who would say that the Farrar lily cannot long continue to toil not, neither to spin, in a community such as ours. Times are changing; and though I doubtless shall see little of the social revolution, for things move slowly in England, it will come.

Something, of course, must be done to make these young people responsible; for nothing does it now. They are anti-social to the roots, if they only knew it. Their one desire is to enjoy themselves, which they do in a curious monotonous way that to the ordinary domesticated observer seems to be singularly like discomfort. Their first essential for enjoyment is to get away from home as much as possible, and to reduce to a minimum the responsibility of home. There are therefore no children, although there is youth, vigour, and wealth. Some day they may settle down and have perhaps two, but preferably one; but not yet. To-day they are too keen on moving about, and Gwendolen is too keen on doing everything that Farrar does. She is, in short, a good fellow; and these female good fellows are becoming a danger to the State.

After much mild opposition on my part, we consented to join the Farrars in a motor trip to Winfield. I did not want to go, for several reasons. I like my hearth; I like my habits; I dislike motor-cars; I dislike strange inn beds. I was not prepared for four or five days' racing through this green England in company so limited in imagination. But when I found that Farrar and his wife always sat in front, I relented a little, for it would mean that Naomi and I had the inside wholly to ourselves. I hazarded the stipulation that we should make it a rule on desirable occasions to offer lifts on the road; but Farrar asked me not to press it. It would not work, he said. And I now agree with him, for, as a matter of fact, you can't do things like that in a motor. Motors refuse to stop quickly enough. There can be only one mind in a motor, and that is the driver's, and the driver's is stunned or dulled by his office. Hence, just as one always overshoots the prettiest cottages and gardens and the most beautiful by-roads, so one has long passed the unhappy footsore pedestrian before the impulse to pick him up can be communicated to the man at the wheel; and of course in a motor there is no going back.

As a matter of fact, we did chance to assist one man in this way, but he came up to us when we were stopping for a sandwich on the roadside. That is to say, he overtook us and caught us off our guard: a tall lean man with a stubble on his chin and an air still slightly rakish in spite of travel-stains and weariness. He asked how far it was to Birmingham, and told us that he was an actor and had heard of a travelling company with whom, before a long illness, he had been associated, and he was walking to Birmingham hoping it might find room for him.

Gwendolen came inside and the histrion (as I am sure he would love best to be called) rode beside Farrar in silence. But when he said good-bye he wrung my hand under the impression that I was the owner of the car, and drew me aside to mention the fact that the loan of half a crown for two days would be an incalculable boon. Poor fellow, he looked so fragile and empty that I made the sum a good deal larger, and pressed him not to be so hasty in returning it; and he promised he would not.

"I could wish sometimes," he said brokenly, with his hat in his hand, as we parted, "that the Great Prompter would ring down the curtain!"

"Hullo!" said Farrar, as I rejoined them, "been biting your ear, eh? That's what always comes of this lift business. How much did he bite it for?"

"Only half a crown," I said, and spent the next hour wondering why it is that one is so terrified of letting a man of the world think one a human being.

We reached Winfield for lunch in Canon Frome's hospitable rectory, and at tea-time strolled over to see some friends of the Fromes named Harberton, who live in a very charming house amid a thick shrubbery: one of those secure and serene houses that are found only in England, a perfect backwater in the stream of industry and ambition. Harberton is a man of about my own age, a dilettante with literary tastes and some reputation as the editor of Boswell. His wife is much younger--a beautiful woman with very quick sympathies and understanding. Not particularly clever herself, but stimulating others to their best. She has three children, all girls, and when we arrived the whole family was under a cedar about a tea-table. Some white pigeons fluttered on the roof and a spaniel regained its feet with extreme deliberateness and walked slowly to meet and investigate us. The lawn was like velvet: too soft for any game.

Looking at it all I could not help wondering how my young friend Spanton would snort at it. Nothing but leisure and culture here, he would say. No progress. Dead languages, belles-lettres. Everything that is retrograde.

And yet surely there must be, even in a new England of intense socialistic activity, some oases such as this, where ancient peace reigns and children are being thoughtfully brought up to be old-fashioned--as I am sure these three little girls will be. Let there be here and there tiny spots of ointment among the flies!

Mrs. Harberton is all right, of course: she is a mother, and an influence; but as to how far it would be possible to defend Harberton against the Spantons I cannot say. His class doubtless will be put upon its trial before long, just as the Farrars will. You may be very charming and distinguished and all that, the Spantons will say, but what are you doing for your country and your kind? You are living on dividends earned by other people's labour. That has got to stop. You have got to disgorge and labour yourself. What will you do? What could Harberton do? What could I do?

It is funny that I should thus bracket myself with Harberton, for that night Naomi told me that he reminded her not a little of me.

"That's odd," I said, "for Mrs. Harberton reminds me rather of you."