This had brought Mark back to his doubts as to whether he were really being given a job and, if so, what it was. The Fairy had warned him that Steele was a dangerous man. “There are two people you want to be very cautious about,” she said. “One is Frost and the other is old Wither.” But she had laughed at his fears in general.
“You’re in all right, Sonny,” she said. “Only don’t be too particular about what exactly you’ve got to do. You’ll find out as it comes along. Wither doesn’t like people who try to pin him down. There’s no good saying you’ve come here to do this and you won’t do that. The game’s too fast just at present for that sort of thing. You’ve got to make yourself useful. And don’t believe everything you’re told.”
At dinner Mark found himself seated next to Hingest.
“Well,” said Hingest, “have they finally roped you into it, eh?”
“I rather believe they have,” said Mark.
“Because,” said Hingest, “if you thought the better of it I’m motoring back to-night and I could give you a lift.”
“You haven’t yet told me why you are leaving us yourself,” said Mark.
“Oh, well, it all depends what a man likes. If you enjoy the society of that Italian eunuch and the mad parson and that Hardcastle girl-her grandmother would have boxed her ears if she were alive-of course there’s nothing more to be said.”
“I suppose it’s hardly to be judged on purely social grounds-I mean, it’s something more than a club.”
“Eh? Judged? Never judged anything in my life , to the best of my knowledge, except at a flower show. It’s all a question of taste. I came here because I thought it had something to do with science. Now that I find it’s something more like a political conspiracy, I shall go home. I’m too old for that kind of thing, and if I wanted to join a conspiracy, this one wouldn’t be my choice.”
“You mean, I suppose, that the element of social planning doesn’t appeal to you? I can quite understand that it doesn’t fit in with your work as it does with sciences like sociology, but . . .”
“There are no sciences like sociology. And if I found chemistry beginning to fit in with a secret police run by a middle-aged virago who doesn’t wear corsets and a scheme for taking away his farm and his shop and his children from every Englishman, I’d let chemistry go to the devil and take up gardening again.”
“I think I do understand that sentiment that still attaches to the small man, but when you come to study the reality as I have had to do “
“I should want to pull it to bits and put something else in its place. Of course. That’s what happens when you study men: you find mare’s nests. I happen to believe that you can’t study men, you can only get to know them which is quite a different thing. Because you study them, you want to make the lower orders govern the country and listen to classical music, which is balderdash. You also want to take away from them everything which makes life worth living, and not only from them but from everyone except a parcel of prigs and professors.”
“Bill! “said Fairy Hardcastle suddenly, from the far side of the table, in a voice so loud that even he could not ignore it. Hingest fixed his eyes upon her and his face grew a dark red.
“Is it true,” bawled the Fairy, “that you’re going off by car immediately after dinner?”
“Yes, Miss Hardcastle, it is.”
“I was wondering if you could give me a lift.”
“I should be happy to do so,” said Hingest in a voice not intended to deceive, “if we are going in the same direction.”
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to Edgestow.”
“Will you be passing Brenstock?”
“No, I leave the by-pass at the cross-roads just beyond Lord Holywood’s front gate and go down what they used to call Potter’s Lane.”
“Oh, damn! No good to me. I may as well wait till the morning.”
After this Mark found himself engaged by his left-hand neighbour and did not see Bill the Blizzard again until he met him in the hall after dinner. He was in his overcoat and just ready to step into his car.
He began talking as he opened the door and thus Mark was drawn into accompanying him across the gravel sweep to where his car was parked.
“Take my advice, Studdock,” he said, “or at least think it over. I don’t believe in sociology myself, but you’ve got quite a decent career before you if you stay at Bracton. You’ll do yourself no good by getting mixed up with the N.I.C.E.-and, by God, you’ll do nobody else any good either.”
“I suppose there are two views about everything,” said Mark.
“Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there’s never more than one. But it’s no affair of mine. Good night.”
“Good night, Hingest,” said Mark. The other started up the car and drove off.
There was a touch of frost in the air. The shoulder of Orion, though Mark did not know even that earnest constellation, flamed at him above the treetops. He felt a hesitation about going back into the house. It might mean further talk with interesting and influential people: but it might also mean feeling once more an outsider hanging about and watching conversations which he could not join. Anyway, he was tired. Strolling along the front of the house he came presently to another and smaller door by which, he judged, one could enter without passing through the hall or the public rooms. He did so, and went upstairs for the night immediately.
V
Camilla Denniston showed Jane out-not by the little door in the wall at which she had come in, but by the main gate which opened on the same road about a hundred yards farther on. Yellow light from a westward gap in the grey sky was pouring a short-lived and chilly brightness over the whole landscape. Jane had been ashamed to show either temper or anxiety before Camilla: as a result both had in reality been diminished when she said good-bye. But a settled distaste for what she called “all this nonsense” remained. She was not indeed sure that it was nonsense: but she had already resolved to treat it as if it were. She would not get “mixed up in it,” would not be drawn in. One had to live one’s own life. To avoid entanglements and interferences had long been one of her first principles. Even when she had discovered that she was going to marry Mark if he asked her, the thought “But I must still keep up my own life” had arisen at once and had never for more than a few minutes at a stretch been absent from her mind. Some resentment against love itself, and therefore against Mark, for thus invading her life, remained. She was at least very vividly aware how much a woman gives up in getting married. Mark seemed to her insufficiently aware of this. Though she did not formulate it, this fear of being invaded and entangled was the deepest ground of her determination not to have a child-or not for a long time yet. One had one’s own life to live.
Almost as soon as she got back to the flat the telephone went. “Is that you, Jane?” came a voice. “It’s me, Margaret Dimble. Such a dreadful thing’s happened. I’ll tell you when I come. I’m too angry to speak at the moment. Have you a spare bed by any chance? What? Mr. Studdock’s away? Not a bit, if you don’t mind. I’ve sent Cecil to sleep in College. You’re sure it won’t be a nuisance? Thanks most awfully. I’ll be round in half an hour.”