A PHOENIX IN THE
PARK x - -
Carly navel


A PHOENIX IN THE PARK.
Maurice Rowdon.
Maurice Rowdon,
48, Walton Street,
Oxford.


Class institutions and social institutions decay. AB
they decay this small, quick-stepping fellow nal med Stephen
Harlow, broker's clerk, succumbs gradually, easily, gently
to the presaure from under the earth; his spirit folds over,
like a flower, to the source of decay, reflects it, receives
1t, and finally droops wretchedly down, forsaken.
Harlow
is not precisely young, but you would not Bay that he had yet
forgotten the experiences of his adolescence: how his suburba n
first love had punished his soul; how the discovery thereafter
of sin ar andthe delight of furtive acts had healed his soul;
how once he had wished to flee the city, the country, the friends,
for fictional places of adventure, the Congos, the ranches,
the Erewhons; how finally he had assumed a man's responsibilities,
the job, the wife, the dog, and, only three or four months
after his marriage
on account of a miscalculation for which
his mother never forgave him the child. All four are
vicious and noisy burdens.
But it 18 not beneath these
that Stephen Harlow bends: it is beneath the burden of a
dead society; it is amid the ghosts of his world.
He has
neither self-respect nor moral sbandards.
His steps are
too emphatic for the dirty pa vement al nd the unimportance


of his life: feeling this, hearing their fastidious click,
he slows his pace; for he is not a one to say that he is made
of better stuff than the next man.
Not a t all.
He is
decaying.
If we slip into the tiny house called No. 4. Simcott
Avenue, we shall find ourselves in the compaay of Mrs. Marion
Harlow, who, since she is a lower middle-class housewife with
social ambitions, is stupid, sycophantic and mean. She
dislikes her husba nd on account of his behavioug in the bed.
She, like her husband, extracts most delight from those acts
of which she is most ashamed.
The door is small, the door-knob is polished, the cur-
tains of the front window are pink and clean.
The passage,
dark al nd confined, leads from the door to the foot of a stair-
case which seems almost too small for a person to mount it
comfortably.
There is one mat inside the hall and one long
carpet which ex tends to the foot of the stairs: the ma t is
designed to steal mud from the shoes, the carpet is designed
to entertain the visitor's eye; thus the first is ugly al nd
the second so garish tnat it sends up a faint glow of red into
the face of anyone stepping across it. I visitor will be
smiled at and nodded to: he will also be stared at surrep-
titiously, lest he should be a robber, a social superior,
or a religious fa natic; the fact that he might be a friend
(that is if he ha 8 not already become known as a friend) is
one which is not given a moment's thought.
Mrs. Marion


Harlow leads the visitor forward into the dark corner near
the staircase, where there is a door leading into a small
low-ceilinged , close-furnished room. Intnis room, the
door once closed against the air from outside, the smell
evolved by the regular, 111-tempered, scrambled life of three
human beings ncadang 1 et at becomes intense,
almost suffocating.
It was on account of this smell that we decided to follow
Stephen Harlow on his way from the broker's office to a cafe,
in mid afternoon, rataer than go directly to his marital home.
His child, moreover, will at this hour be screaming for Mother,
even though tha t woman is incompetent to give him solace.
It is strange how very y oung children are like cracified,
agonised symbols of the union which called them into being.
Strange al nd terrifying, especially when they scream to remind
The child is male.
If he is going to pursue the Harlow
tradition 1t 1s proba ble that he will put an end to it altogether 9
for the tradition is not strong enough to be further pursued.
He is the son in whom all those tendencies towards self-murder
which should have resided in genera ations past of the narlow
family will find their sovereign territory.
For him there
is no future, since there is no hope.
In 80 far as he is proud of anything Stephen Harlow is
proud of his child.
He calls him 'My son' a nd as he speaks
his eyes take on a more positive aspect than usually they possess:
in the short phrase 'My sond are enclosed all those hopes which


he ha S never dared to entertain for himself.
His own mother
and fa ther were not precisely poor, nor were they precisely
wealthy; they were not precisely determined al nd they were not
precisely weak.
Because they were not precisely al nything Stephen
- Harlow has inherited a kind og vagueness in speech and thought,
a kind of prosaic indifference to the world, al nd a formless
countenanoe whose deepening crevices do nothing to give it
definition.
His eyes
fearful, peering tunnels which are ever,
it seems, trying to escape the function for which they were
designed - have not cooperated with the motions of the rest of his
face for many a year, so that they seem to writhe, like round,
embarrassed little men, in a red-streaked, sclerotic pool.
He is proud of his son because he expects it to make the
best of the opportunities which he offers it.
He is uttèrly
wrong, because the opportunities he offers are confined by the
ugliness and ai irlessness of the city in which he lives, by tue
presence of his wife and last, but unhappily for the child not
at all least, by Stephen Harlow's own inability to play any
human role with zest or purpose.
He does not precisely dote
over his son but on the other hand he is never precisely inaccess-
ible to it.
For he is a kind man.
It is natural that the child
should seek his breast when the maternal breast is cold, should
seek his voice when the maternal voice is shrill with indict-
ment, should seek his lips Wen the ma ternal 1ips are bloodless
with ra ncour.
It is natural, too, that t Stephen Harlow should
give himself freely when he is sought, much to the demonst-
rated disgust of his wife: it is natural because noone


else in his life has previously sought his presence.
The
child is not hal ppy: it ha 8 conceived a fear of its mother,
a ha tred of noise (with the result that it is in a condition
of tearful ha tred for the better part of every day) and an
attitude of disdaining condescension towards its fatner.
Stephen narlow is aware of none of these things: he is
only a ware, now and then, of the fact that life is not going
as well as 1t night have gone, had he been rich, had he been
handsome, had he been clever, or had he been well-bred.
ha ve described him as a drooping flower, but he had not the
delicate and soothing a spect of a flower even before he began
to droop: some t wenty-five years ago, indeed, when he was ten,
he was coarse, awkward, already forsaken, quite unlike a flower
but a month from its spring.
Stephen Harlow's pace becomes untidy and erratic at the
point in the ma in street where it seems to recoil darkly away
from the pavement.
Here is the cafe where he int ends going:
it is withdrawn and unadvertised, apart from a sole notice design-
ed two decades since to draw lorry-drivers and working-men into
its cosy shelter.
Stephen narlow is not strictly, ofcourse,
a working-man: he lacks both the robustness and the stoicism
of the working-man.
But the cafe is cheap and it is one of his
habits to visit it whenever his day at the broker's office
finishes early.
Eating is one of his primary pleasures, for
Mrs. Marion Harlow is neither an immaculate nor a generous
cook; it is therefore no dissipa tion on his part to take
a meal but thtrty minutes before what is described by Mrs.


Harlow as 'dinner'
a stale, twice-cooked meal
is brought
fromtthe oven into the low-ceilinged, close-furnished room at
No. 4. Simcott A venue.
Stephen Harlow does not sonfide his
predilection for the lorry-drivers' cosy shelter to his wife,
and it 1's precisely the surreptitious nature of his visits
here which makes them a source of pleasure, even - if the terms
are not too vivid - a source of excitement to him.
The cafe if like a surgical theatre created primitively
from planks of st trong timber: where the doctor's rostrum would
be is :the entrance from the street; the tables and cha irs
are arranged in four steeply rising tiers, ending above in
a platform from which the meals are served.
Steam lingers
about the ceiling, so that the distemper there is cracked and
hal nging.
There are only a few working-men in the cafe at
this time; one of them is blowing the steam from his cup of
tea, preparing to swallow it; another is bowed frowningly
over his dish: Both have a fine reflective air about them,
as if they are doing sonething of which, in their unpresumptious
way, they are quite proud.
One of the two waitresses, standing on the raased plat-
form, smiles down at Stephen Harlow as he enters,,in recognition.
She raises her eyebrows, silently asking for his order.
ponders a little, standing on the second tier, al nd then,
without gazing at her directly, orders Hamburger steak ar nd
mash.
He concludes his sentence with a smile, but finds when
he glances up, that she has already turned her ba ck. For his
impulses are slow in producing action, 8o tha t in fact proba bly


some few seconds passed between tne end of his sentence a nd
the beginning of his smile.
"O. An' some tea, please" he says.
The waitress clearly understands him, for. she nods ner hea d,
but she does not turn round to look at him again.
Drawing in his breath and bending his head, like a ma n
surrounded by nma ny people who are gazing up at him, he sits
down on the edge of one of the wooden seats, nearest the gang-
way.
"Allo, Steve"
There is a quiet, consoling recognition in the voice
which murmurs to him from the other end of the table.
looks up and finds that one of his friends called Sid is sit-
ting there with a cup of tea in his right hand, sta ring towards
him pleasantly.
Stephen Harlow is not surprised by the en-
counter, because he has never failed to meet this same. Sid
on any of his visits to the cafe.
For Sid is to all intents
and purposes one of the cafe's complacent institututions.
They talk together quietly, and Stephen Harlow agrees
with most of wha t his friend says.
He signifies his agree-
ment by nodding his head once and murmuring, "Mm"; if it is
his duty to confirm a criticism of some outrageous theory
or person or social phenomenon he nods his head and makes a
brief clicking noise with his sBB3A tongue, as if to deprecate.
Stephen Harlow offers little to the conversation.
withdraws his elhows from the table when the waitress come 8
with a dish and a cup of tea. He thanks her with a blink
and a restrained smile as she puts them down before him.


When he discovers thatishe has brought him coffee and
inot tea, he turns round towards the platform a nd hesita tingly
cries:
"Oo, waitress, yew've given me coffee"
The waitress answers. in a much louder voice a nd explains
that she could swear he said coffee al nd that hei day would
be considerably less arduous if some of her castomers (sne
makes it clear to whom, in particular, she is referring)
would "Jest speak up a bit!"
As she comesi from the pla tform it is easy to see tl ha t
Stephen Harlow has already regretted his complaint.
For
he turns to her before she reaches the table al nd murmurs:
"O, that's alright, if its any trouble.
Not all tha t fond
of tea, anyway!'
She ponders hugely over him.
"Yew shore?" she cries. Then more restrainddly, more
sympathetically: "Only it does ma ke more work"
Quick to cooperate with the intima te intonation, Stephen
Harlow nods twice ot three times and says: "Don't you worry"
While he is eating his friend Sid continues to talk,
pleasantly, pessimistically.
"That's what it 1s" he says.
"Mn,'replies Stephen Harlow, #1
we're
down
'spose
goin
the drain"
"Well, jest look at 1t.
No Empire, no money.
stands to reason, the government's got no money"
"Might as well pack up now"


If he casts his gaze towards the door of the cafe Stephen
Harlow can see the street outside, the passing vehicles, the
brown-red houses and shops opposite, the dark roofs, a
telegraph pole a nd beyond it the low, tempestuous sky.
The city seems to draw the cafe into its turbulent bosom,
to stifle tt, to darken it with an embrace.
When Stephen
Harlow does raise his eyes he catches sight of a bird which
alights on she telegraph wire, turns sharply this way and
that, hops about a little, and then flies up over the roofs
and out of sight.
He continues to gaze at the wire whéch
the bird has left, and he begins to feel sha a little excited
within, whether or not as a result of seeing the bird it is
impossible to say.
Perhaps, if only for an instant, in the most shapeless
fashion, his mind has dwelt for a moment on a vision of the
skies and the winds and the birds and the escaping autumnal
smells of a less tortured landscape than this, a landscape
which might bring to him. a more lasting sense of contentment
tha n any he could derive from riches, from hal ndsome looks,
from cleverness, or from good breeding. Alas! A pen is
free to roam what confused, eccentric, unviolated passages
of the mind it will, but even the present pen cannot invoke
thoughts in Stephen warlow's mind which he will never be able
to entertain.
Yet he speaks, ianediately.
"Courtneywold, he says,
"That's it.
The right idea


for this time of year"
Surprisingly, Sid seems to understand, for he replies:
"Courtneywold again?
That's a bit of luck!"
We are not bound to dwell with Stephen Harlow until he
leaves the cafe.
It has been useful to us, as Sid has 8 been
useful to us, but we need give neither any further thought.
Let us push ahead a little in time a nd observe that not more
than a week later a park some seventy miles from. London is
lying silent under a solemn afternoon sky: the park undulates,
as if its green surface had once stirred like an easy sea
and then been stilled again in a sea's shape for eternity;
its shallows are of the deepest green, seeming to hold myster-
ies; it is wonderfully darkened her ean and there by clusters
of tall, down-peering yew-trees, swept, 8o that they seem to
cry hoarsely one to another, by long, and never brutal,
sutumnal breezes.
Everything seems to slumber within a nd
around this park.
Suddenly, however al nd we are still gazing into the
future - there is a clatter and a whir from one of the tallest
trees and a large bird, many-fea thered, gold, russett, blue
and grey, bursts from the thin shroud of autumnal leaves a nd
with a long, echoing cry, an ecstatic beating of wings, flies
with steep ascent into the sky. For some seconds, as it flies,
the leaves continue to fall one by one from its body; it plunges
up with neck and tiny, crested head stretched foraard as if
to outdo the motion of its wings; higher and higher still
it soars, like a flaming cloud; higher and higher until the
solemn sky ha S enclosed it and all is silent again.


It is strange that such a large and garishly-bedecked
bird should be seen flying from the head of a tree.
For we
associate such an animal with the ground, with decorous,
strutting ways, with a life devoted to soil-grubbing and
serene proliferation.
The name of the park is Courtneywold.
It is a small
part of the property of Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey Manners: an
inheritance on the male side.
Humphrey Manners is the son
of the Hon. Deryk Manners, while Violet, his wife, is one
of the few survivors of a family no less aristocratic.
The
couple were married twenty years ago amid a deal of tasteful
publicity, it still being possible at that time to associate
publicity with taste. Humphrey Manners is a middle-aged
gentleman of the type who is found at his most typical al nd
persuasive when he is dressed in a loosety-fitting tweed suit,
his neck and shoulders bent a little, as if he were pondering
sometuing, and a pipe in his mouth.
He has the appearance
of one who ha S pursued his own interests so successfully tha t
he ha 8 more than half his mind a va ilable for the problems
of others.
He looks like a man whose tranquillity is not
easily disturbed, whose moral conscience forgives more than
it forbids, and who stands on no ceremony when ceremony
embarra sses those whom it is designed to honour.
In fact
his patience and his good will have declined with the years.
He is an embellishment living at a time when his people,
for better or for worse, ha ve dispensed with embellishments.
He is complete, and therefore uncreative.
But, like Stephen


Harlow, he is a kind ma n, and, unlike Stephen Harlow, he is
intelligent.
This is his difficulty.
Humphrey Manners has conceded little to the requirements
of a levelling society.
He has, in a manner of speaking,
gone out to meet it. For, although he is an aristocrat, he
is still a wealthy man.
In his youth he was wise and calcul-
ating enough to realise that in a society and no longer sustained
by a landed gentry his inherited fortune could either evapor-
ate of its own accord or augment itself at his own hands.
chose for it the latter course by becoming a business man, by
entering, 8o to speak, the counting houses of his social
inferiors.
He enjoyed the zest and even the concealed brut-
ality of middle class conpetéiion.
But he was surprised when
he found, moving casually among the newly rich, that social
naughtiness began siht with those whon once he had regarded
naturally as his social inferiors.
Gradually he learned to
admire in men virtue which seemed more or less ashamed of
itself, even though he seldom felt shame on his own account.
Now, at the age of fifty-three, he has many problems.
The walls of his house are mellowed with ivy and wysteria;
within them lives the proper couplement of housemaids and
cooks, even though Humphrey Manners ha S long since forgone
the luxury of a butler and a persona. lx valet.
The park
lies impervious to the at ttempts of house-builders, factory-
builders and civil servants to nibble at its edge or ravage its
centre.
But Humphrey Ma nners is aware that he is straining
at the lead, trying to pull society the wrong: way when society


a huge, lumbering monster - never chooses the way of lone mel n
but the way of multitudes.
Humphrey Manners has devoted the
last two decades to the writing of books and to more or less
dilettante studies.
He disa pproves of his society's soulless
emptricism, its sentimentality and its tyrannical equalities.
He does not look like a drooping, forsaken flower; yet -
he is.more surely forsaken than even Mr. Stephel en Harlow.
will never allow himself to droop, but he cannot prevent
society from forsaking him.
Violet, his wife, has the benused, smiling face, the
through-gazing, reflective eyes of a leisured woman.
Like
Humphrey Manners she ha S never associated leisure with sin,
but on the other hand she accepts a society which insists on
such an association with a good deal more - not resigna I tion,
for she will never be resigned to anything but a good deal
more serenity than her husband.
Her speech is clear: it
takes some time to convince her that anything in which she
believes strongly is 1llusory or untrue.
While her hus-
band's books are largely devoted to remote philosophical
subjects and equally remote travel-adventures, her own, as
yet unpublished, are more delibera tely ligerary creations,
written in that somnambula tory condition which was once kns
a requisite of the highest genius and which 1's now a reminine
preserve. For the hostile forces in a soctety attack firét
the male, dividing his powers, abusing his moral attitudes,
withdrawing his sources of hope ; they deal much more gently


with the woman, for she is a more primitive creature, more
passive to life's punishing whips, hap ppier with short-term
pleasures al nd ma keshift compromises: Like the strange bird
we have already observed in thepark, she grubs al nd proliferates
in serene disregard of ultima te truths ar nd future disasters,
so tha t her flights, when she does undertake them, are all
the more remarkable, as the flight of our bird was remarkable.
When he is not visiting the city and enterta ining his
business friends, Humphrey Manners is normally sitting
quietly in his study or strolling ponderously in the park,
or talking to his wife, - a humouring, inattentive audience.
Violet 9 on her side, is happiest when she is entertaining
her literary friends, who visit her sometimes to obtain her
pa tronage, sometimes merely to enjoy her compa ny, and some-
tim F 8 - if not usually
for solace.. She jud ges them harshly.
They are mostly middle-class editors and wri ters whose conver-
sation is a feithful replica, she says, of conversations
which not bong ago figured only in the cleverest novels;
the theme of their puhlications is a despera te one, for, since
they perceive no future for themselves, they insist tha t there
should be nane for the rest of society, even for that immense
and inchoate class which is usurping their powers; when they
create they tend to snatch a norbid fancy from the clouds
ra ther than a bréghter fancy from an earth which does not
allure them; invariably they publish under a pseudonym, since
while t hey have convictions they ha ve not-always the courage
of them; they profess to an interest in wha t are sometimes
called, in Violet Manner's society, working class writers,


those ma rtyrs to the slum who write as fish-wives talk because
they ha ve been too idle and too sentimental to learn a harder,
and more expreeive,tongue; now a nd again they attempt to do
some violence to theaselves by beconing Bohemian, which, in
a society whose members are easily taned, mea ns keeping late
hours, drinking more than is good for énther the liver or the
sanity, haunting 1llicit beds with ever-diminishing lust al nd
substituting a broad-minded, tha t is to says by modern usage,
a mindless morality for the respectable one in which they are
most trauly at home.
It does not eccur to Violet Mal nners that
her criticism is too severe because her stan dards of human
behaviour are too exacting.
A-this eae
trne-oppostte
of-her-nusbal nd. Bhe enjoys t he compa ny of her literary
friends, but insists tha t finally they are worthless people.
In their presence she sits upright in her armcha ir and smiles
at then with a secret-withholding, benused expression.
They,
on their side, know her only as a shrewd woman,"not as a critic.
But how is it that Stephen Harlow, neither a literery
man nor a business-friend nor even an enterta ining fellow in
own right, should suddenly decide, in a damp and ill-lit
cafe, to visét the seat of Mr. and Mrs. Ma nners?
The reason resided in the fat, heaving, cheerful body,of
one Kate Thompson, now since five years dust.
She was the
first nousekeeper to be engaged by Mr. and Mrs. Manners after
their marriage, ha ving served for some time previously in the
household of one of Violet Ma nnerls aunts: We need only
kno. f L Pate yt - areon's


know tha t Kat te Tnompson's unenligntened appeti te for work,
together with her intimate side-digging ways, had evoked love
and admiration in Mr, and Mrs, Manners within a few weeks of
her entering the ir service.
When the first, and, as ma tters
were to turn out, the only son of Mr. and Mrs. Manners was
born, Kate Thompson ga ve sound advice to the.mother a nd began
sharing the nursing duties of he r own accord.. When she died,
in t he first year of the second world war, the son, then a lad
of twenty, showed more sorpow than it is usual for a young
ma n of hie social position to show for a housekeeper.
himself was killed by a ha nd-grenade on the Italian front
a few years later.
Kate Thompson's daughter is now Mrs. Marion Harlow.
As a child Mrs. Marion Harlow was a regula r visitor to Court-
neywold: we cannot claim that she evoked love in Mr. and
hes
Mrs. Manners as her mother had evoked it.
But Jar visits
did become more frequent when Kate Chompson died.
Now tha at
the young Manners is also dead, she brings to Humphrey a nd
Violet Ma nners agreeable associations from the past, 80 tha t They
mana ge to enjoy her presence in a quiet Tashion.
For herlast few visits to Courtneywold Mrs. Marion
Ha rlow has brought Mr. StephenvHarlawrwith her.
He is for
the most part a silént compandon.
He is aware that Mr.
and Mrs. Ma nners are no better than himself merely because
they have a Arge house and income enough to maintain it, but
his
he cannot surpress in,mind a sense of being flattered when
he is at Courtneywold, a sense - not of rising, for he knows


that they are not his superiors
but a sense of being, at
least for the time of his stay at courtneywold, rather diff-
erent from the men wit th whom he talks familiarly at the office.
AT once, then, Courtneywold is for him a source of pleasure
and perplexity.
When he leaves the cafe Stephen Harlow goes directly to
his home at No. 4. Simcott Avenue.
His wife does not look
up fron the table when he enters the dark room behind the
stai ircase.
He is going to tell her about his decision
immed ia tely.
"What about Courtneywold for nextwweckedd, duck?" he
asks. "Came to me in,the office."
Mrs. Marion Harlow looks up.slowly. She takes stock
with her eyes of his face, his suit,and his shoes, methodically.
Then she raises her shoulders and imitates, quite effectively,
a proper lady in high dudgeon, her lips pursed, her stare stern.
"O" she says, making a very round noise.
"Courtneywold:
So he thought we'd go to Courtneywold, did he?" Dhe is being
impossibly charming. "It ceem to him in the office, did it?"
Now she lea ns on the table and her impersonation is at an
end. But she rétains her stern stare.
"And where does the money come from, may I ask?"
There is no charm in her question.
Stephen Harlow sits
down a nd receives her gaze with a neutral calm.
"Where it always comes from", he replies, "Out of one of
these pockets"
It is perha ps the original and derring-do quality of
his reply that finally persuades Mrs. Marion Hai rlow


to telephone Courtneywold Manor and warn Mr. and Mrs. Ma nner S
of her coming.
In fact, she is even happier to be leaving
Simcott Avenue for two or three days than her husba nd.
The telephone conversation is a surprising one for Mrs.
Marion Harlow.
Not only does Violet Manners say tha t she
is agreeable to a visit but adds tnat it would be a 'welcome
relief'; she has had it in mind for some time to invite
Mrs. Marion Harlow down.
The latter is proud, for she has
few friends who do not in sone way despise her and whom in
some way she does not despise. What, she asks herself a
little cautiously, can be the cause of Violet Manners'
friendliness?
Courtneywold does not dress itself up for visitors.
nev er loses its slumbering appearance.
Thus it is that when
Mr. and Mrs. Harlow arrive, with one attache-case, and umbrella
and two raincoats, they are received with poise and shown imm-
ediately to their rooms overlooking the park.
They meet their
hosts for the first time a t tea.
Conversation is ofcourse spasmodic and cautious.
Hum-
phrey Ma nners al ppears to be uncoaforaable in the presence of
the darlows and after he ha S put a few polite and smiling
questions to them he sits silently in his cha ir or goes to the
window a nd gazes out, while his wife talks.
Hts attempts vto
draw Stephen Harlow into sone kind of masculine conversation,
about travel or trade or interior decoration, have always failed:
for when he puts forward a thesis of his own he is discouraged
by Stephen Harlow's immediate and even then inarticulate,


agreement: when he asks for Stephen Harlow's views he haars
either nothing in reply or else a brief self-deprecating chuckle.
Mrs. Harlow and Mrs. Manners seem, on the other hand, to
have a good deal in common, for they talk quietly and earnestly
with each other when they are alone. AB the day motes forward
they more and more confine their gazes to each other and sometimes
they do not coneult the men when they make arrangements for
the whole party.
Mrs. Marion Harlow has always disregarded
her husband, but now she tends to disregard a man for whom she
has a profound, even servile, respect, namely Humphrey Ma nners.
For her stupidity, to which WG have already referred, betrays
itself in a kind of worshipping devotion to Violet Ma nrers ;
the sycophant in' her has now a single parpose, to become like
Eiolet Manners; ker meanness ha S become calculation to keep
Violet Manners to herself.
Small, muscular-looking, primly-
-clothed, sae constantly watches Violet Manners: her wide,
ra ther insensate black eyes follow all her quiet gestures as
she talks, easily, confidently, precisely.
The first day passes awkwardly for the two men: at meals
they linger bervously at the edge of a reminine conversa tion.
When Mr. and Mrs. Harlow ret ire to bed at ten oclock Humphrey
Ma nners goes to his study al nd settles down to four hours' work.
After tea on the second day Violet Manners suggests tha t
they all take a turn in the park.
She and Mrs. Harlow walk
together while the men stroll on either side of them, Humphrey
Ma nners humming to himself, hands in pocket, head bowed,


Stephen Harlow blinking a t the sky, coughing every now al nd
then, erect, but a smaller frailer ma n.
Conversa tion has for the time ceased when suddenly the
same bird which we have already observéd frees itself frem
with a wild clatter from the head of a tree just thirty or
forty yards in front of them.
They stop immedia tely and
follow with their eyes the bird's swift, steep flight, higher
and higher like a flaming cloud, until the solemn sky has
enclosed it and all is silent again.
They look at each other astonished.
"Damned extraordinary! I excàaims Humphrey Ma nners to
his wife.
"Queer!" says Mr. Stephen Harlow.
"I don't think I ha ve seen anything so surprising a nd
beautiful in tae park' murmurs Viole t Manners, gazing into
the distance.. "wint-on-earth could it have been, Humphrey?"
"Something after its freedom, my dear, but I cal nnot
inagine what!
Now Stephen Harlow speaks.
He has given no warning
of his intention to speal k.
His wife, Humphrey Manners and
Violet Manners turn to him in surprise as he opens his mouth.
tin
"Must ha ve trren hysterical; he says, "Mad like"
There is silence.
It is difficult to say whether Mrs.
Marion Hal rlow titters, but her expression is one of scorn
and impatience.
Violet Manners disconsolately lowers her
gaze to the earth and for the firdt time leaves the conversation
to revive of its own accord.
It does.


For Humphrey Ma nners has suffered too long and too silently
in the company of Mr. Stephen Harlow. At this moment all the
feelings of discomfort and resentment and disapproba tion which
he ha S stored up too long against society, and particularly
against Stephen Harlow if the truth were known, burst forth
in one statement of passion, sudden and unexpected.
WI ha t
precisely is there in the word 'hysterical' to draw the thunder
of Humphrey Manners' soul?
It is a mild word and Stephen
Harlow's motives, in calling the attention of the party to the
mac d quality of the bird's flight, have been of the kindest.
But Humphrey Manners takes no account of motives.
He knows
only that he hates, yes hates, Mr. Stephen Harlow.
He takes
the pipe from his mouth.
"What do you damned well mea n a hysterical!"
He thrusts his head forward and stares a t the small, frail
ma n.
For a moment we feel that there is no justice in the
view which we have already offered, nam mely that he is a kind
ma n: now he is ferocious; : he ha S f orgotten the ladies; he
ha 8 forgotten to remain unmis ta kal bly aristocratic.
Humphrey Ma nners, his brow heavy a nd magnificent, advances
towards Stphen Harlow and takes him by the lapel of nis coat.
Surprise and fear have claimed immediate proprietorship of
Stephen Harlow's face and their clai im has been uncontested.
The women withdraw a little, confused both of them and
shocked.
"Humphrey :" murmurs Violet Menners, putting forward a


restra ining arm.
"Humphrey my foot!" is the reply she receives.
For Hum-
phrey Ma nners ha s attention only for his prey.
"Hysterical! Why that t bird there, man, tha t bird there
was flying to freedom!
Freedom!
Something you'll never
know with your damned tamed ways.
A nd yourethe man I'm
supposed to call an equal!
Why, I'd take you for a servant
and give you a whipping for the pleasure!
Hysterical, he
The air is dangerous with threat a nd tne women are now
awa re that there is nothing either of them ca n do to stay the
course of male fury.
stephen Harlow is gathering his fa llen
spirit, 80 to speak, and looks Humphrey Ma nners Inrihexfirs)
in the face for the first time.
"What's that?" he asks.
"What's that?
So I'm a servant,
The women are now too surprised to feel fear, for Stephen
Harlow is giving evidence of a spirit for the fight which
noone would seriously ha ve associated with him.
"Did'nt I know it?" he cries.
"I thought all along I
wasn't good enough for the likes of you. And who the hell
do yàu think,you're holding by the coat? Take your rotten
ha nd a way!"
"I'll do no such thing, you damned toad!"
"o yes you will!
Just because you belong to a clase
of bloody parasites you think you can do wha t you like with me, ,
don't you?
Well, you can'ti/ Because I work for my living.


You and y our highfallutin'style!"
Humphrey Manners takes nis la nd from the lapel of Stephen
Harlow's coat a nd withdraws a little.
They sbare at each other
tensely and their lips are pursed.
Humphrey Manners Strikes
Stephen Harlow full in the face.
"Take that, you bastard!"
Stephen Harlow stumbles a little, holding his chin, al nd
then, having recovered himself, grasps Humphrey Manners'
collar and gives him a blow in the ear.
Soon they are stram-
bind bling with each other on the grass AXEE
ADEXE under
the deepening shadow of the yew-trees.
Violet Manners and Mrs. Marion Harlow wa tch then with sad and S
shocked eyes.
"Come, my dear, there is nothing we can do.
They'll ma ke
it up and follow us in"
Violet Manners takes Mrs. Marion Harlow's arm consolangly
and they walk slowly towards the house, leaving the sound
of gasps and curses and blows behind them.
"Men are so hot-headed sometimes?
"You wait till I get tha t ma n indoors. Answering back
like tha t!"
"Ah, but Mr. Harlow was under provoca ation"
"It makes no difference.
He should learn to hold his
tongue.
Besides, he is tane and he is a toad and he does
need a whipping"
"Really?
You agree with my husba nd?
How strange"
"You wouldn't think it was stra nge if you lived at Simcott


Avenue along with me"
"I do understand.
But my husband isn't the easiest
person to live with either"
"Now don't tell me that.
He's the kindest old fellow
I've ever met"
"Kindest perhaps.
But kindness, you know, must be accom-
panied by otner good qualities. And his other qualities are
not easy to live with.
We'll have some tea a nd talk it over"
When they reach the house Violet Mar nners opens the French
windows of a large drawing room a nd turns on the light, 8o tha t
they can sit and watch the dusk grow over the park, ma king the
clusters og yew-trees black and huge.
An hour passes while they chat and drink their tea, and
the ien still do not return.
Now that she is alone with the
lady of the house Mrs. Marion Harlow is happler a nd less
restrained.
A kind of conspiracy has grown between them;
they talk quietly; the hush of the park is like a shroud
protecting them.
"You see"sViolet Ma nners says, gazing into the park from
her chair, "poor Humphrey has too many problems for a worthy
husband.
It is such a burden to see him wandering about the
park with his chin buried in his collar, just as if he wanted
to committ suicide.
He is beginning to make the servants
feel tha t they can never please him, which I always think is
embarrassing"
She passes a hand over her brow.
"And you
ha ve no idea, Marion, how much Sha W he reads.
You know what t
I mean by Shaw?"


"Yes, indeed"
"It is a forn of dotage. I taxed him with it the other
day and all he had to say was tha t he'd ra ther die a Shavian
than a charlatan.
He dislikes democracy; he says tha t we have
pa id our homage to the working ma n long enough, now it is time
to make him work for his living.
But in that case why doesn't
hed do something positive about it or else committ suicide?
I am being quite sincere with you, Marion, when I say that I'd
rather have him dead tha n like this.
He is so different from
the ma n I married.
He avoids my literary friends.
He is always
rude to politicians, and we know so ma ny of them.
He locks
himself ap in his study for hours on end" She glances up.
"Let me show you something of his that I found yesterday.
typifies his state of mind"
She brings a slip of paper from the desk a nd hai nds it to
Mrs. Marion Harlow.
It is as follows:
.emasculated pigmies.
Men of wit and learning have no
place in such a society, for the material of their lives is in
the ha nds of sophisticated merchants who give a rap for nothing
but their own physical well-being.
Since educat tion is the
process by mea ns of which chameleons a nd sycaphants teach the
young to imitate their more shameless vices, it is natural tha t
the educated al nd the voluble should be well received by such a
society as this, a society which, although untyranted from above,
yet conta ins within its bowels a tyrant of insipid convention
far more vicious al nd exacting than any Herod could ha ve been"
"What does he mean?" asks Mrs. Marion Harlow when she has


read the fragme nt.
"Nothing at all interesting.
He is only grumbling. i In
some ways, you know, he reminds me of my son.
William was
always on the edge of solving a problem, and never beyond the
edge.
That is why he went into the infantry during the war.
He had an idea, you know, tha t. he must prove himself, put
himself to a kind of ultimate al nd supreme test in battle,
merely because this society wasn't virile enough in peace to
assess a man's s trength.
Really he committed suicide, I
suppose.
He had only been fighting a month when he was killed"
"Tha t was a terrible shame"
"Are you sure?
There was a kind of fatality about both of
them a - William and Humphrey.
I think they both felt tha t
society no longer had any use for their capacities!
"I suppose Mr. Manners was dreadfully cut up about William?"
"Cut up?
I never heard the last of it.
I kept trying
to tell him; I am eleven years younger than yoû are: I still
ha ve time to produce another child.
And he told me I was
ruthless"
"Stephen would be the same"
"I think you and I have this in connon, Marion: that we
know how very sentimental men can be. But it doesn't do to be
sentimental about anything nowadays.
How is your little baby,
by the way?"
"Well, boys are easier"
"But you are breeding him for the next war: I suppose you
know tha t?"


"He's not going to be a mummy's boy!
"Then it is best not to enoourage him if he wants to stay
too long at school.
Temper his curiositles; try to ma ke him
8i imple.
God-forbid tha t he should become learned or artistic.
Being a man he would only suffer that: way o
Women are different:
they are stronger perhaps.
That is what I think"
"You're right if you're judging by my marriage.
I think
I've got more guts in my little fi inger tha n Stephen Harlow has
in all his body.
I'm even getting tired of looking after his
baby!
"Now tha t is unasual.
But it is a good sign in a' woman.
The ma ternal instinct is a most dreadful encumbrance at times,
you know"
"I couldn't leave my ba by, but I know its going to grow up
like Stephen"
"How terrible"
"It would be better dead"
"Quite so.
Then you should put it out for adoption or else
leave Harlow"
"I feel like leaving both Bogether sometimes, but only
sometimes!
"That is even better"
Violet Manners glances towards the open French windows.
"Do you know' she says, "I think, they will kill each other?"
"I think so"
"I suppose we ought to go and ha ve a look"


"We ought to, my dear, but we won't"
The dusk has passed into night and no sound issues from the
park.
There is escitement in Violet Mai nners' gaze.
"I wish you were a better educated woman, Marion: we could
plan 8o much together.
But perhaps on the other hand you are
fresher, more innocent as you are"
She looks long at Marion
Harlow.
"I like your instinct to rise in the world"
"I8d like to get higher than that husba nd of mine will ever
let me go'; Marion Harlow replies.
"Precisely.
You must read the book I am writing on the
subject of rising"
"That would be lovely"
"You might understal nd it if you applied yourself to it
earnestly.
I think you might then learn how easy it is for
you to rise"
"Is it a long book?"
"It is long and it is concentrated.
My literary friends
even tell ne tha t it is well written"
She smiles.
"Not tha t
their judgenents are worth anything:
They are happier talking
about obtainable foods than they are about serious projects like
mine.
But they are useful to me; also they par nder to me.
Some of them have tried to seduce me, but my physical desires
are few and far between; when desires are on me it is usually
I who do the seducing"
Marion Harlow giggles.
"Is it nice?" she asks.
"Why do you giggle?
You must learn to drop the giggling


29 en
attitude.
I think one should go directly to what one wants in
life: that is a woman's way"
"Yes, I suppose it is"
"But my book will interest you because it recognises the
necessity of orienting ourselves to a new and, at least for
people like Humphrey, brutal world before too late"
"I think I understand! "
"Really?
I think that proba bly you don't, Marion.
But
you will.
If the men do kill each other, and I think they will,
you must come to live with me here.
I have a few other women
friends who would also like to come, and I shall have more than
enough money because I have more than enough business sense.
We shall choose our men visitors freely from a 11 classes al nd
all cliques"
"Exciting"
"For a time, Marion: until you find that the creation of
a new world is very hard work"
"But you'll help me, Mrs. Ma nners"
Marion Harlow gazes eagerly at Violet Manners.
Marion
Harlow is a lustful woman; she reclines in her chai ir more
easily than she would at No.4 Simcott Avenue.
"You see" Violet Ma nners continu es, "men have abandoned
conscience.
Stephen Harlow has no idea what is good a nd wha t
is bad in life; Humphrey ha S a strong idea but unfortunately
noone agrees with him and he 1s getting very suicidal.
Now
women have never known good a nd evil without their men telling
them,
The moment they learn to sleep with a man tney become
dependent on him not only for their livelihood but also for


their moral standards!
"I've always sa 18 marriage is t ne trouble"
"Not at all, my dear.
But a woman is tamed by marriage,
certainly.
Tha t is why termagants and whores become upright
women when they marry; tha t is why they try to prevent their
children committing the same sins which they 80 much enjoyed.
Now my question is as follows: why should not a woma n ha ve
a moral doctrine of her own?"
"Why not?"
"The only thing in her way is the ma ternal instinct.
is this which attaches her to one ma an, which tames her, which
deprives her of what I have called in my book moral originality.
The maternal instinct ha S been your trouble all along, my dear,
otherwise you could never have stayed with such a (looby as
Harlow for so long"
"But I do love babies"
"ofcourse.
The ma ternal instinct is ab bsolutely necessary
and indestructible.
But it càn be generalised: is there any
reason why children should not be bred on a coumunal basis by
the V ery mothers who have borne them?
Everyone is happier
as a result: women are then free to indulge those pleasures
of which they are starved in marriage, - the pleasures of
promiscuity or else the pleasures of a profound devotion to
one ma n which does not dissipate itself in the unwholesome
va pours of a marital home"
"We should be free, then?"
"Free, Marion, to work at last.
Free to ma ke a life


based on 1I Again she smiles.
11 feminine stupadity,
feminine calcula tion and feminine envy.
Intelligence is a fter
all a male obsession. And look what it has made for us: wars
and quarrels which any woman could have ended with a material
bargain"
Violet Manners is now in full possession of Marion Harlow's
soul and the latter appea rs happier for it.
We have observed
shrewd
tha t Violet Ma nners is a realisttie woman, a nd indeed she has
for long made use of her friends, particularly her literary
friends, in the service of a cause which she has had in mind,
for the most part silently,during the last twenty years.
She
has devoted herself to it without for one moment appearing
more tuan an intelligent lady of a noble house. Few ha ve
suspected her of an interest in the fate of society as a whole,
an interest, tha t is to say, waich amounts to more than a
lingering anxiety or regret.
Her literary friends will see
her books in the hands of one of the best publishers in the
country, they will even begin to mention her as one of those
unsensational feminine influences on social thought which
ma ke themselves felt by mea ns of private convereation ra ther
than by public manifesto, but they will not for a long time
know the extent of her shrewdness ar ndher determination.
"3ut I'am tiring you with my nonsense'" she says.
"o no, not at all!"
Violet Manners rises with a siile.
"Thee supreme test is coming this evening,
Everything
depends on whether the men kill each other.
But let us take


the matter into our own ha nds at least for the time being.
I'll drive you to my club and we'll discuss the matter there.
I have much more to say, ofcourse: it is altogether more
elaborate than my words would lead you to think"
Marion Harlow also rises and they go together towards the
door.
Marien Violet Ma nners stops and turns to Marion
Harlow.
11 - if you feel the need of male coupaay there will
plenty of men to choose from.
I myself find them desparate
and dull, a concupiscent nightmare.
But everyone to her
taste"
"I think I want to listen to you"
As Violet Manners opens the door she says: "I wonder how
Humphrey and Stephen are doing"
"Making it yp I expect"
"They would be fools enough"
The door closes and they are gone from the room.
Some
moments later they are gone from the house ar nd the noise of a
car-engine dies gradually away on the night.
But ha 8 Violet
Ma nners' victory been complete?
She has gained another soul,
yes, but she knows that her final victory rests on the fate of
Humphrey Manners and Stephen Harlow, on events that are even
now ta king place in the shrouded park.
Everything yields to the silence.
The women ha ve neglected
to tunn off the light in the drawing room, so tha t a long beam
of false moonlight is shed onto the undulating parkla and and
the yew-trees bey ond, giving a seemingly illicit lustre to the


breeze-convulsed leaves.
Suddenly a man's scream breaks distantly from out of the
night, echoing across the long parkland, from far, far out.
Then silence gradually draws over again, the last echo is lost.
We are left to speculate whether it is Humphrey or Stephen who
has died, or both.
The drawing room is s till deserted.
Like the bird in the
park have the women flown, al nd as strangely.