Part 7

I couldn’t get rid of Leader that way, though. He was horribly hearty and stayed a very long time, and insisted on Lathom’s and my going down to the College to see over the labs, and “meet a few of the men,” who all hated me at sight, by the way, when they _did_ see me. I thought the sooner we got it over the better, so we went this afternoon. Lathom is in one of his vagrom moods—doing no work, and catching at any excuse to waste time. I tried to get out of it, but no! I “absolutely must come, old man.” I take it the idea was to impress Leader’s friends with the idea that men of intellect are proud to know him. It had not occurred to me that best-selling had such idiotic accompaniments.

Leader was in his element, of course, showing off his half-baked knowledge, and exhibiting fragments of anatomy in bottles. I can see Leader one of these days as the principal witness at an inquest, frightfully slapdash and cocksure, professing that he can tell the time of the murder to within five minutes by taking half a glance at the corpse, and swearing somebody’s life away with cheerful confidence in his own infallibility. He was highly impressive in the dissecting-room, but at his best, I think, displaying his knowledge of poisons (which, by the way, they seem to keep handy on the open shelves for any passing visitor to help himself to). He was very great on synthetic drugs—all made on the premises out of God knows what, and imitating nature so abominably—abominably well, that is—that chemical analysis can’t tell them apart. Indeed, indeed, sirs (and apart from the wearisomeness of Leader), but this troubles me. Synthetic perfumes from coal-tar are bad enough, and synthetic dyes, and I can put up with synthetic camphor and synthetic poisons, but when it comes to synthetic gland-extracts like adrenalin and thyroxin, I begin to get worried. Synthetic vitamins next, I suppose, and synthetic beef and cabbages—and after that, synthetic babies. So far, however, they don’t seem to have been able to make synthetic life—the nearest they have got is stimulating frog-spawn into life with needles. But what of the years to come? If, as the bio-chemists say, life is only a very complicated chemical process, will the difference between life and death be first expressible in a formula and then prisonable in a bottle?

This is a jolly kind of letter to write to you, old girl, on this auspicious occasion, but this everlasting question of life and the making of life seems to haunt me—and it is, after all, not so remote from the problem of marriage. We can pass it on and re-continue it, but what is it? They say now that the universe is finite, and that there is only so much matter in it and no more. But does life obey the same rule, or can it emerge indefinitely from the lifeless? Where was it, when the world was only a dusty chaos of whirling gas and cinders? What started it? What gave it the thrust, the bias, to roll so ceaselessly and so eccentrically. To look forward is easy—the final inertia, when the last atom of energy has been shaken out of the disintegrating atom—when the clocks stand still and time’s arrow has neither point nor shaft—but the beginning!

One thing is certain. If I begin to think like this, I shall never write another best-seller. Heaven preserve us from random speculation! Our own immediate affairs are as important as the loves of the electrons in this universe of infinitesimal immensities, and as far as we are concerned. . . .

[The remainder of this letter, being of a very intimate nature, is not available.]

32. _The Same to the Same_

SMITH’S HOTEL, BLOOMSBURY 25.2.29

DEAREST,

Just a hasty line to say that I have had to leave Whittington Terrace on account of a very unfortunate incident, which I will tell you about later on. I am here for a few days till I can get my belongings moved out and warehoused somewhere _pro tem_.

It is all extremely tiresome. However, it only means that we shall have to do our house-hunting a little earlier than we expected. I think I had better run up to Kirkcudbright and have a yap with you about it, if I can get away from publishers and agents.

All my love, JACK

33. _Agatha Milsom to Elizabeth Drake_

15, WHITTINGTON TERRACE, BAYSWATER 25.2.29

DEAR MADAM,

You will probably be very angry at what I am going to say, but I feel it is my duty to warn you against Mr. John Munting. Girls do not always know how men go on behind their backs, and it is only right they should be told by those who have had _unfortunate experience_ of these men’s real character.

You may think that Mr. Munting is honourable, but he has been turned out of this house on account of indecent behaviour, and your eyes ought to be opened to his goings-on. You may believe me because I have the best right to speak of what _I know_. I have no doubt he will tell you that this is all false and try to pull the wool over your eyes, but I have _proof_ of what I say, and if you should want further evidence you can write to Mr. Harrison at this address, and he will tell you that every word is true.

I am sending you this warning for your good, because you ought not to marry a man like that; he is not fit to marry a decent woman. You are young, and you do not know what the consequences may be of marrying a man of depraved habits. This is one incident I can tell you about of my own knowledge, but _there are others_, or why does he so often come in late at night?

Do not tell him I have written to you, as it is not a pleasant thing to have to do, and naturally I do not care to write or talk about it in detail. But ask him why he was ordered out of the house, and do not believe the excuses he makes, because everybody here knows the truth and could tell it if necessary.

Now for your own sake pay attention to what I say and have no more to do with that disgusting man. I know I shall get no thanks for doing my duty, but in this world one must not expect gratitude. I have already been deprived of my livelihood and made to suffer mental and financial persecution on this man’s account. However, I bear no malice, and remain

Your sincere well-wisher, AGATHA MILSOM

34. _Elizabeth Drake to John Munting_

[Endorsed on the above.]

DEAR JACK,

What on earth is all this about? Is the woman mad?

Yours, in all confidence and love, E

35. _Telegram from John Munting to Elizabeth Drake, dated_ 26.2.29

A little mad and quite mistaken. Do not worry. Am starting North to-night.

JACK

36. _George Harrison to Paul Harrison_

27.2.29

MY DEAR PAUL,

I have to inform you of a most disagreeable incident which has caused a disturbance in our family life, and in consequences of which I have had to turn that man Munting out of the house. It occurred while I was unfortunately obliged to be absent over the Middleshire Electrical Installation, and, but for the accidental intervention of Miss Milsom, Margaret might have been exposed to an annoyance and risk that I shudder to think of.

I was summoned home by an urgent and rather incoherent letter from Miss Milsom, accusing Munting of an indecent assault upon herself. You will naturally understand that I found this rather difficult to believe, since the man (to do him justice) had shown no signs of being actually demented. By the same post I received a letter from Margaret written in great mental distress, and begging me to take no notice of Miss Milsom, on the ground that she was suffering from delusions. Obviously, whatever was the truth of the matter, it was necessary that I should intervene, and I hastened home at once (at a most inconvenient moment of my work, but, fortunately, the greater part of the contract was settled, and Freeman is quite competent to carry on).

On arriving, I immediately interrogated Miss Milsom closely. Her story was that, on the night of the 22nd, at about 12.30, she had felt a sudden craving for sardines (the woman is certainly unbalanced), and had gone downstairs to ransack the larder. She came up again in the dark—knowing the house well she did not trouble to turn on the light—and was just entering her bedroom, which, if you remember, is next to ours, when to her alarm she heard somebody breathing quite close to her. She gave some sort of exclamation and tried to get her hand on the landing switch but encountered the hand of a man. Thinking it was a burglar, she started to scream, but the man gripped at her arm and said in a whisper, “It’s all right, Miss Milsom.” She clutched at his arm, and felt what she at once recognised as the sleeve of Munting’s quilted dressing-gown, which he frequently wears when doing his writing. She at once asked him what he was doing on her landing, and he mumbled something about fetching some article or other from his overcoat on the hall-stand and missing his way in the dark. She expostulated, and he pulled her away from the lighting-switch, saying, “Don’t make a disturbance—you’ll alarm Mrs. Harrison. It’s quite all right.” She told him she did not believe him, and according to her account, he then made advances to her, which she repelled with indignation. He replied, “Oh, very well!” and started off upstairs. She went back and turned the light on in time to see the tail of the dressing-gown disappearing upstairs. Thoroughly frightened, she rushed into my wife’s bedroom and had an attack of hysterics. Margaret endeavoured to soothe her, and they spent the rest of the night together. The next night, Miss Milsom summoned up courage to remain in her own room, bolting the door. Margaret did the same, and they suffered no further disturbance.

I then questioned Margaret. She was, naturally, very much upset, but thought that Miss Milsom was completely mistaken, and making a mountain out of a mole-hill. She is too innocent to see—what I, of course, saw very plainly—that this shameless attack was directed against herself and not against Miss Milsom. I did not suggest this to her (not wishing to alarm her), and promised to hear Munting’s version of the affair before taking any further steps.

I then interviewed Munting. He took the thing in the worst possible way—with a cool effrontery which roused me to the highest pitch of indignation—treated the whole matter as a triviality, and positively laughed in my face. “The woman is demented,” he said, “I assure you my tastes do not lie in _that_ direction.” “I never supposed they did,” I answered, and made quite clear to him what my suspicions were. He laughed again, and said I was mistaken. I said I knew very well that I was _not_ mistaken, and asked him what other explanation he could offer of being found outside my wife’s door in the middle of the night. “You have heard the explanation,” said he, airily. “And a very convincing one it is,” said I; “at least, you don’t deny that you were there, I suppose?” He said, “Would you believe me if I did deny it?” I said that his manner had convinced me that the story was true, and that nothing he said would persuade me to the contrary. “Then it’s not an atom of use my denying it, is it?” said he coolly. “Not an atom,” I said. “Will you leave the house straight away or wait to be kicked out?” “If you put it that way,” said he, “I think it would cause less excitement in the neighbourhood if I went of my own accord.” I gave him half an hour to be out of the house, and he said that would suit him very well, and had the impudence to request the use of our telephone to order a taxi. I told him I would not have him in our part of the house on any pretence whatever. “Oh,” said he, “then perhaps you would be good enough to order the taxi yourself.” I did so, in order to give him no excuse for hanging about the place, and he took himself off. On the way downstairs he said, in a more subdued tone, “Look here, Harrison. Won’t you believe that this is all a mistake?” I told him to get out of the house before I sent for the police, and he went without another word.

All this has upset us very much. I am only thankful that no further harm has come of it. Margaret says he had never previously offered her any rudeness, and I believe her; but, looking back on the matter, I can remember occasions when I have not altogether cared for the tone of his conversation. He is too experienced a man in this kind of thing, however, to have shown his hand while I was there. I am only sorry that our friendship with young Lathom, whom we all like so much, should have led to this unpleasantness.

Lathom is extremely distressed, as you may imagine. I thought it well to warn him to show more discretion in future with regard to his choice of friends. He was too genuinely horrified and unhappy to wish to talk about the matter; still, I think he was grateful for the advice. Unhappily, this means that we shall lose him as well, since his means do not permit of his keeping on the upper maisonnette by himself. I suggested that he might stay till the end of the quarter, but he said that he was engaged to visit some friends next month, and would be leaving anyway at the end of the week.

This incident has made it very clear to me that Miss Milsom must be got rid of. She is in a state of violent hysteria, and is obviously subject to delusions about herself, and in no way a fit companion for Margaret. I have given her a month’s salary in lieu of notice, and sent her home. Out of all this hateful episode this one good thing has come: that I have now a valid reason for insisting on this woman’s departure.

Other news has been rather over-shadowed by these anxieties, and must wait till my next letter. I hope all is well with you.

Your affectionate DAD

37. _Statement of John Munting_

It was a mistake from the very beginning for Lathom and myself to set up housekeeping together. It happened purely by chance—one of those silly, unnecessary chances that set one spinning out cheap platitudes about fatality and the great issues that hang upon an accidental meeting. It used to be considered highly unphilosophical to indulge in speculations about coincidence, still more to base any work of art upon it—but that was in the days when we believed in causality. Now, thanks to the Quantum theory and the second law of thermo-dynamics, we know better. We know that the element of randomness is what makes the Universe go round, and that the writers of sensation novels are wiser in their generation than the children of sweetness and light.

All the same, there still remains an appearance of causation here and there, and I persist in attributing some of the blame to the imbecilities of the public-school system. If Lathom had not worn an old Wincastrian tie, I should never have spoken to him in the little restaurant Au Bon Bourgeois in Greek Street. Or, at the most, I should have asked him to pass the French mustard. As it was, my natural aversion to my fellow-creatures being broken down by Burgundy, I was fool enough to say: “Hullo! you come from the old school, I see. Did I know you?”—and was instantly swamped and carried away in the flood of Lathom’s expansiveness.

Lathom is an incorrigible extrovert. His thyroids and liver function with riotous vigour. He beams out enthusiastically upon the world and is refracted out from everything and everybody he meets in a rainbow of colour. That is his fatal charm. In the ordinary way I am ill-adapted for prismatic function. That evening was an unfortunate exception. I couldn’t keep it up afterwards; that was the trouble.

When Lathom mentioned his name I recognised it at once. He is six years younger than I am, and was an obnoxious brat in the Upper Third when I was preparing for Oxford in the Sixth, but he had penetrated to my Olympian seclusion in virtue of his reputation.

Lathom, of course—Burrage’s celebrated fag, who scrounged toasting-forks. He was always in trouble with the other prefects for his apparent inability to distinguish other people’s property from Burrage’s. If anything was wanted, he took it; if anything had to be done, he did it, regardless of other people’s convenience, or, indeed, of his own. He was attached to Burrage, who naturally stood up for him. In fact, I think we were all jealous of Burrage for having a fag so ruthlessly competent. Burrage patronised the kid in his large, appreciative way, and Lathom basked in the rays of Burrage’s approval. I don’t blame Burrage altogether, but he certainly spoilt Lathom. He protected him from the consequences of his actions. Perhaps Burrage had advanced ideas about the non-existence of causation and imparted them to Lathom. But Burrage was rather an ass, and his reactions were probably more human and immediate.

Lathom was saved from disaster, partly by Burrage and partly by Halliday. Halliday was a great man and captain of the First Eleven. He took things easily and when he said that the kid was just potty we all accepted the explanation. That was on the day of the picnic, when Lathom turned up at feeding-time without his overcoat, and said he had thrown it away because it got in his way. The weather turned to soaking rain and Lathom got pneumonia and nearly died. We were all rather frightened and distressed, and when Lathom turned up next term we made allowances for him. I reminded Lathom that we had called him “Potty,” and he laughed and said we were perfectly right.

I remembered, too, that in those days Lathom had earned a reputation for himself by making caricatures of the masters. This fascinating gift had earned him still more toleration. I was not surprised to hear that he had become an artist. He said he was looking for a studio, and had seen just the thing in Bayswater, only he couldn’t afford to take it.

I asked, why Bayswater, of all places? Why not Chelsea or Bloomsbury? But Lathom said no, the rents were too high, and besides, Chelsea and Bloomsbury were hopelessly arty and insincere. They lived at second-hand and had no beliefs. To see life lived in the raw, one ought really to go to Harringay or Totting, but they were really not central enough. Bayswater was near enough to be convenient and far enough out to be healthy suburban.

“The suburbs are the only places left,” said Lathom, “where men and women will die and persecute for their beliefs. Artists believe in nothing—not even in art. They live in little cliques and draw the fashionable outlines in the fashionable colours. They can’t love—they can only fornicate and talk. I’ve had some. And the aristocracy has lost the one belief that made it tolerable—its belief in itself. It’s fool enough to pretend to believe in the people, and what is the good of an aristocracy playing at being democratic? And the people . . .” He made a violent gesture. “Cheap scientific text-books—cheap atheism—cheap sociology—cheap clothes—your blasted educationists have left them no beliefs at all. They marry, and then the woman comes howling to the magistrate for a separation order on any pretext, so as to get money for nothing and go to cheap dance-halls. And the man goes yelping away for a dole to shuffle all his responsibilities on to the State. But the blessed people of the suburbs—they do believe in something. They believe in Respectability. They’ll lie, die, commit murder to keep up appearances. Look at Crippen. Look at Bywaters. Look at the man who hid his dead wife in a bath and ate his meals on the lid for fear somebody should suspect a scandal. My God! Those people are living, living with all their blood and their bones. That’s reality—in the suburbs—life, guts—something to chew at, there!”

At the time I was rather struck by this.

It ended, of course, in my consenting to share the maisonnette with Lathom. An hour earlier, the very word would have put me off, but under the spell of Lathom’s enthusiasm, and stupefied with food and public-school spirit, I began to think there was really something raw, red and life-like about living in a maisonnette with an Old Wincastrian. And perhaps Lathom was right after all. The trouble is that raw, red life is possibly better seen at second-hand. A good still-life of a piece of rump-steak has none of the oozing clamminess of the real thing.

I wish, all the same, that I had tried to play up to Lathom better. It was irritating, of course, to find that he was still regardless of other people’s convenience. I did not object to his bagging the best room for his studio—that was in the bond—but it was tiresome to have him overflowing into my room all day when I was at work. Lathom is one of those spasmodic workers who need constant applause and excitement. He would work like fury for several hours, snarling at me if I came in to retrieve a garment or lighter that he had borrowed; but, the fit over, he would wander in to where I was grimly struggling with a knotty piece of biography and talk. He talks well, but his interests are lop-sided. He is a real creator—narrow, eager, headlong, and loathing introspection and compromise. He questions nothing; I question everything. I am only semi-creative, and that is why I cannot settle and dismiss questions, as he does, in one burst of inspired insight or equally inspired contempt. Lathom is all light and dark—a Rembrandt. I am flat, cold, tentative, uneasily questioning, a labourer in detail. I caught no fire from Lathom, and I quenched his. It is my disease to doubt and to modify—to be unable to cry at a tragedy or shout in a chorus. It was my fault that I did not help Lathom more, for, just because of my uneasy sensitiveness, I understood him far better than he ever understood me. It would have suited him better if I had violently disagreed with him. But I had the fatal knack of seeing his point and cautiously advancing counter-arguments, and that satisfied neither of us. I see this now, and, indeed, I saw it then; it is characteristic of people like me to see a thing and do nothing about it.