Guy Renton Read online

  He was delighted two years ago when he had met him by chance in the Taunton market place. They had recognized each other right away. Ferguson had taken him round to the shop, to see ‘the wife’; she was blonde and plump and pink; she spoke with an agreeable West Country burr. She had a son, and the birth of a second child was imminent. She watched her husband all the time. She seemed a very simple girl. Guy wondered whether it was not largely on her account that Ferguson had declined to become an officer, intuition warning him that a commission would have taken him into a different world, unfitting him to be her husband.

  The parlour into which she proudly introduced him and which was clearly seldom used was decorated over the mantelpiece with an enlarged photograph of Ferguson in private’s uniform. “Had that taken when I joined up,” he said. That was ten years ago, but he looked little different. They talked with animation; recalling this and the other incident, that and the other person. “It’s nice for you to have those things to look back upon,” his wife remarked.

  For a quarter of an hour, half an hour it went on: then pauses came; pauses that grew awkward. Things to look back upon: but that was all they had. They were two men who had shared a journey. But now there was no longer any active link between them. Guy had felt depressed as he had taken the afternoon train on to Exeter. It was hard not to feel nostalgic sometimes for the comradeship of war.

  “In spite of everything, we didn’t have too bad a time: apart from the actual fighting: and that was after all only two weeks in three months,” he said. “There was another thing too about it there, everyone you met was on your side: everybody was your friend, anxious to help in any way he could: you were all in the same show together. It’s different now with everybody’s hand against everybody else, with everyone being told he’s being exploited by the other man. In one way we were all happier then.”

  Rex’s face lit up. “I’m glad you should say that. I wanted to bring up that very point. I’ve been seeing some of my old lot lately: one or two of my senior officers, some of my contemporaries, and a few younger men who decided that the Army wasn’t offering much in peace-time. We aren’t happy about the country; all this unemployment, and this discontent, there’s a good deal of Bolshevism; we’ve got to move with the times. We’re all socialists to-day. At the same time power must be kept in the right hands. The right people in Russia weren’t organized in the right way at the right moment. In Italy they were. We’ve got to carry into peacetime, as an insurance against future trouble, that spirit that you were talking about, the spirit that kept us together during the war. You’d agree on that, I’m sure.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then in that case you’d agree we must be on our guard.”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  In actual appearance, Rex had changed little in the last seven years. He had kept his hair and his figure. And as he talked now in a firm assertive voice, Guy was reminded of all those conferences on the eve of battle when Rex in just that tone had given his officers and N.C.O.s complete unquestioning confidence in his capacity to control events. Something of the old magnetism remained, but Guy was no longer a twenty-two-year-old company commander. He was a thirty-year-old partner in an important company, used to dealing with devious customers, trained to spot the loopholes in a proposition. And Rex seemed to him to be trying to amalgamate three or four separate ideas in a general synthesis.

  “What exactly is your plan?” Guy asked.

  “Exactly? Well, I don’t want to be too precise. My idea, our idea is to form the equivalent of a training cadre; you know what I mean by that. When a regiment is ordered overseas, you leave behind a skeleton organization of senior officers, subalterns, and N.C.O.s round which the recruits can form themselves. That’s what we need now, politically. When the trouble comes, or rather if the trouble comes, we want a framework of men, capable of running the country, round which scattered elements can group themselves.”

  “A military coup d’état, you mean?”

  “Not altogether; though there would have to be a military organization, as the spearhead of the taking over. And of course it’s in the military sense that I can help. But we want more than that. We shall need to take over the organization of every aspect of the national life, the Treasury, the factories, the whole administration so that the public as a whole won’t know that anything has happened. The great thing is to be prepared. That’s how the Bolsheviks got control in Russia. They were prepared when no other faction was. That’s why the Communists didn’t get control of Italy. Mussolini was prepared for them.”

  “I’ve heard about a British Union of Fascists. Are you anything to do with that?”

  Rex shook his head. “We’re in touch, and if the situation developed in a certain way we might make use of them. We should need, certainly, a striking force: but the idea of a private army is most un-English. The English don’t like uniforms. The Italians and the Germans do. We must keep behind the scenes, with no publicity, a wide intelligence service, and a well-trained staff. Readiness, that’s the point.”

  “How far has this thing got?”

  “Farther than you’d think. I’m only on the fringe. But I know a number of people who are connected with it: substantial people from every walk of life.”

  “Who is financing it?”

  “There isn’t any trouble on that score. A number of big industrialists have the sense to see which side their bread is buttered. They don’t want to have their assets nationalized. They regard us as an insurance policy. Actually with Income Tax at the height it is, it doesn’t cost them much. They enter their subscriptions under the heading of publicity. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose it does.”

  “I’m glad that you feel that. I’d hoped you would. You could be very useful to us.”

  So this was the reason for Rex’s invitation. Guy hedged. “I’m not sure that I’m the right man for that.”

  “Aren’t you? I should have thought you were: the very man. I’ll tell you how we’ve worked the thing. We got together. I won’t tell you how many we are or who we are: but you’d be surprised if you could see the names: and each of us was asked to enrol the four men whom he had come to trust most during the war.

  “That sounds like a Communist cell.”

  Rex flushed. “Not at all. And anyhow one can always learn something from one’s enemies. Each of us was to enrol four more. But only if they could find exactly the right men.”

  “What do you mean by the right men?”

  “The kind of man who puts his country first: who experienced during the war the feeling you were speaking of, the pride of service, and the relief of knowing that he and the men he respected most were working for a common aim. I was particularly insistent that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to regular and ex-regular officers. We don’t want to become a military clique and we don’t want only ex-officers. We want our movement to be national; democratic in the true sense of the word. That’s why I was asking about your Ferguson. The very man we need. I’m glad you’ve told me he’s in Taunton. I’ll get in touch with him. But of course, my dear fellow, the very first person who occurred to me was you.”

  He paused and his expression changed. For the last minute he had talked as impersonally as though he was reciting a lesson he had memorized. Now there came into his face a look of personal affection.

  “It’s not just because you’re my brother-in-law and because I’m proud of you: proud of your football and the way you’re stepping into your father’s shoes. It goes back much earlier, I said it at the time, and the B.G.S. if he were alive, poor fellow, would bear me out, you were the ideal example of the type of young public schoolboy who enlisted in August 1914: a born leader: you had already what we had to instil into the average young subaltern from Sandhurst; your men followed you because you were you, not because you were wearing the King’s uniform and they were trained to obey orders. You’re the very man our movement needs.”

  Guy f
lushed; once again he felt a nostalgic twinge. How proud he would have been nine years ago if Rex had said the tenth of that. Now he felt awkward and embarrassed, wondering how he could decline without offence. For this wasn’t his kind of thing; he liked things straightforward, above-board.

  “I’m afraid——” he started. But Rex interrupted.

  “I know what you are going to say. You had enough soldiering in France to last you for a lifetime. You needn’t worry upon that score now: intelligence, that’s where you come in. You’ve so many contacts, with a firm like yours: agencies in every city; linked with brewers, you could find out what people in the pubs were saying; arrange to have our men put in key positions, where they could influence opinion. That’s what I said at the last conference; the pub is the poor man’s club, get the right men running the pubs and the fight’s half won. See what I’m driving at?”

  Guy saw too well. If he’d had any doubts earlier in the conversation, this would have settled it. This was the kind of thing that had been threatened, if Germany had won the war. He hesitated, wondering how to put his refusal tactfully.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m the kind of person—well, when there’s a war, I get into it as soon as possible, but when there’s no war, I like to go on living my own life; I’m the same politically. I vote Conservative when there’s an election, but I accept whatever government’s in power. I wouldn’t be happy in any organization that would—well, this sounds rather a stuffy thing to say, but one that might try to overturn a government by any but constitutional means.”

  “Even if that government had come into power unconstitutionally?”

  “Honestly I don’t believe that that could happen here.”

  “That’s what our class said in Russia: and it’s just because our class didn’t say that in Italy, that Italy’s safe now.”

  Guy smiled. “You could make all my arguments sound very feeble, but I’m the kind of person who lets things drift until the crisis comes.”

  “And that’s the very person for whom we’re catering: for whom we’re building up this cadre; so that when the crisis comes you’ll know what to do. That’s what we’re for; to harness and direct the activities of the right kind of man. It doesn’t matter how small a minority may be, provided it’s well-organized. All the average man wants is to be allowed to carry on with his private life and private business undisturbed. He’ll welcome any government that lets him do it; provided of course it’s a kind of government that he can respect: if that government then makes demands upon him in terms of service, he’s happy and he’s proud to pay them.”

  Once again Guy had the feeling that his brother-in-law was reciting a recently learnt lesson; once again he had the suspicion that three different and divergent theories were being driven in uneasy harness.

  “I see your point, my dear fellow,” Rex was going on, “and it’s just because a man like you does feel that way, that it’s so essential for our movement to be continued. The day will come when you’ll have need of us. I hope it won’t, but I’m afraid it will. You will be grateful to us then, and if, of course, at any time the political trend forces you to change your mind, you know who to come to, don’t you?

  “Now let’s not talk about this any more. Mustn’t think I asked you out to lunch to try and rope you in. No, not by any means. But your saying that you missed the spirit of comradeship we all had in the war made me think it was a good opportunity to bring the matter up. Now let’s forget about it. How about a glass of port with a dab of Stilton? What have we got by the glass to-day? Cockburn 1912. Can’t do better than that now, can we? Tell me about young Franklin. Settling down at Oxford? Got over that little trouble of his all right?”

  9

  Early in the new year Guy fulfilled his promise to Renée and invited her and Roger to a small cocktail party to meet Franklin, Margery, and Barbara. Rex and Lucy happened to be in town. As Barbara insisted upon bringing Pamela Duke, Guy to keep the numbers even invited Jimmy Grant.

  It was the first time he had seen him for a year. Guy, while he was still playing football, had imagined that he would keep in touch with the game after he had retired; attending committee meetings, going down to Twickenham every Saturday; but it hadn’t worked out that way. He had found himself wanting to play golf on Saturdays, usually on committee nights there had been something else to do. He would probably resign in April. Football in that way was not like cricket; you could not taper off with club and village matches. Twickenham was no equivalent for Lord’s where you could go up on summer evenings for an hour or two’s gossip with your friends. Football was Saturday afternoons or nothing. When you gave up the game, ninety-nine times in a hundred you dropped right out.

  To his surprise he had not found himself missing it. He had thought it would be a wrench; it wasn’t. He did however find himself now and again missing certain of his friends—particularly Jimmy Grant. They had had more than football in common with each other. Jimmy would complete his party very adequately; moreover he might be the right kind of man for Margery, since she had this prejudice against unmarried Englishmen of her own class. She could find no one who looked less like what he actually was than Jimmy Grant.

  Jimmy arrived the first. He had put on weight appreciably during the last eighteen months.

  “Yes, I know it’s terrible,” he said. “If I weren’t captain they’d drop me from the side. I’ll be retiring in April. Heaven knows what I’ll look like by midsummer. How on earth have you managed to stay thin? Yes, I know: don’t tell me. No bread, no beer, no butter, no potatoes. Is life worth living under those conditions? Yes, I know, the alternative’s much worse. I’ll have to do the same next year. Till April though I can tell myself that as long as I’m fit to play on Saturdays I can do what I like during the week. Have beer and enjoy it while I can. You’ve a nice place here: fine shrine for super-dick. I hope it’s proving it.”

  He rattled on with his old exuberance. He was wearing a fawn-grey double-breasted waistcoat and a maroon tie decorated with pale blue elephants: no one would take him for an Englishman. He might well be right for Margery.

  “I’m going to enjoy myself to-night. Cocktail parties are the greatest invention since the wheel,” he was continuing. “If you don’t meet anyone exciting there’s always the club and a reasonable evening with the chaps. But if you do find a girl without a date, you take her on to dinner with half your work done or you; the evening’s yours, or at least up to you. Compare that with those evening parties that began at nine. You’d dine a girl, get her in a congenial temper, take her to someone’s party, be separated by your hostess, some wolf who’d come without an escort would benefit by the party mood you’d got her into, reaping where he. hadn’t sown; you wouldn’t see her again till the party’s end and then you’d probably find yourself in a taxi with another couple; anyhow the mood had gone. No fun at all. Give me a cocktail party every time.”

  It was a successful party: at first there was general conversation, then a splitting into twos and threes, a mingling into a three there and a four here. Barbara gave Pamela a personally-conducted tour of the flat, showing her the books, the pictures, the ornaments along the bookshelves; Rex was in an uncontentious mood. Franklin made an obviously favourable impression upon Roger; Margery paired off with Jimmy. Himself he had a long quiet talk with Renée.

  In early days, he had felt shy of meeting her in public, he had found it almost impossible to talk with her. That period was over now. They had several mutual friends; had indeed made a point of cultivating acquaintances that they could share. They were constantly meeting not only at each other’s parties, but in the houses of these acquaintances. Their friendship, approved by Roger, was an established fact: quite often a hostess would say in reply to Renée’s ‘We’d have loved to come but Roger has to attend a conference in Cambridge’, ‘Well, what about that nice friend of yours, Guy Renton?’

  They met now naturally under such conditions. Arriving at a party separately, Gu
y would play his part normally as a guest; no longer perpetually glancing over his shoulder to the door and breaking off a conversation to exchange a word with her: he had now no need for such reassurance. He would catch her eye and smile, continue his conversation, let himself be introduced to another guest, then gradually work his way towards her; to talk for three, five minutes; then let the party catch them up again. Those few moments of casual talk in crowded rooms were as much a cement to their relationship as the telephone calls which they managed to make at some point or another of every day. The earlier restlessness had gone, but the hours that they spent alone were no less vivid; they had now a confidence, a sureness in each other. He had no longer the desperate fear that she might lose interest in him, that someone would take her from him.

  He felt no awkwardness, no sense of haste or urgency as he sat beside her at his party. They had made no definite date for their next meeting, but as far as he could be sure of anything he knew that next morning or the morning after she would ring up to say, “Why don’t I come round to tea with you on Wednesday?”

  He was lucky to have a job that did not tie him to fixed hours. He had every excuse for going out.

  “I’m so glad to have seen your family,” she was saying now. “It’s going to make it so much easier for you to talk about them. I’ve always felt a little worried, knowing so little about your home. I felt myself shut out.”