The Career of Katherine Bush Part 18

"Yes, very--have not you?"

"No, because I have had no illusions--one never can tell where a side cross comes in, or what will be the effect of overbreeding--that runs to enormities sometimes."

"I suppose so--"

"And have the moral qualities surprised you also?"

"Oh, yes--more than the physical; I have seen and heard what I would have thought were common things even at Bindon's Green."

He laughed again--If the crew who had attended the tableaux rehearsals could have heard her!

"You are perfectly right--looked at in the abstract, I suppose we are rather a shoddy company nowadays."

"There are individuals who come up to the measure, of course, but not all of them, as I had imagined. You must have opened the doors to quite ordinary people to have made such a mixture."

"We have grown indifferent; we no longer care about a standard, I fear."

"That is why you let all these Radicals be in power, perhaps--You have become effete like the n.o.bles before the revolution in France, who could only die like gentlemen, but not live like men."

Gerard Strobridge was startled. This from the granddaughter of a butcher of Bindon's Green!

"She picks it all up from Seraphim, of course," he reflected presently.

"And yet--look at her strange face!--it is a woman of parts from wherever it has come!"

"That is an apt phrase--where did you find it--'die like gentleman, but not live like men'?"

"I don't know, it just came from thinking and reading about them--so much was fine, and so much--foolish."

"Yes--and you think we are growing also to that stage in England?

Perhaps you are right; we want some great national danger to pull us together."

"You will rust out otherwise, and it will be such a pity."

"You think we are good enough to keep?"

"In your highest development--like Her Ladys.h.i.+p--you are, I should think, the best things for a country in the world."

She knew he was drawing her out and was very pleased to be so drawn.

"Tell me about us--what have we that is good?"

"You have a sense of values--you know what is worth having--You have had hundreds of years to acquire the quality of looking ahead. No person of the cla.s.ses from which the Radical statesmen are drawn has naturally the quality of looking ahead; he has to be told about it, and then get it if he can--it is not in his blood because his forebears only had to s.n.a.t.c.h what they could for themselves and their families day by day, and were not required to observe any broad horizon."

"How very true--you are a student of heredity then, Miss Bush?"

"Yes--it explains everything. I examine it in myself; I am always combating ordinary and cramping instincts which I find I have got."

"How interesting!"

"No common Radical could be a successful foreign minister, for instance--unless perhaps he were a Jew like Disraeli--but they have sense enough to know that themselves, and always choose a gentleman, don't they?"

"You wonderful girl--do you ever air these views to my aunt? They would please her."

"Of course not--Her Ladys.h.i.+p is my employer and she knows my place. I speak to her when I am spoken to."

"You think we on our side are too casual, then?--That we are letting our birthright slip from us--I believe you are right."

"Yes--you are too sure of yourselves. You think it does not matter really--and so you let the others creep in with lies and promises--you let them alter all the standards of public honour without a protest, and so you will gradually sink to the new level, too--I feel very sorry for England sometimes."

"So do I--" his face altered. He looked sad, and in earnest and older.

For the moment he forgot that he was wasting valuable time in the most agreeable task of exploiting the ideas of a new species of female; her words had touched a matter very near his weary heart.

"What can we do?" he cried, in a tone of deep interest. "That is the question--what can we do?"

"You should all wake up to begin with, like people do when they find that their houses have caught fire--at least, those whom the smoke has not suffocated first. You ought to make a concentrated, determined effort to save what you can to build a new shelter with."

"Admitted--but how?"

"Have common sense taught from the beginning in the schools, the reasons of things explained to the children. If you knew the frightful ignorance upon all the subjects that matter which prevails among my cla.s.s, for instance! They have false perspectives about everything--not because they are bad; in the ma.s.s they are much better than you--but because they are so frightfully ignorant of the meaning of even the little they have learnt. Everything has a false value for them. There is hardly a subject that they can see straightly about; they are m.u.f.fled and blighted with shams and hypocrisies."

"You should address meetings among them."

"They would not listen to me for a moment; the truths I would tell them would wound their vanity; it would only be in the schools among the children that anything effectual could be done."

"You think so?"

"Oh, yes, I know--My own sisters and brothers are examples. I could never teach them anything, and there are millions in England just like them. Good as gold--and stupid as owls."

"It does not sound hopeful, then."

"No, the rust has gone too far; there should have been no education at all, or a better one--but the present system looks as if it would swamp England if the children are not taught things soon."

"You are a Tory, it would seem."

"No, I don't think I am. I think everyone has an equal right, but only according to his capacity; and I certainly don't think the sc.u.m of the earth of idiots and wastrels have equal rights with hardworking, sensible artisans."

"Indeed, no?--Go on!"

"I think aristocrats are things apart from the opportunities they have had, and should know it, and keep up the prestige and make their order a great goal to strive for. You see, if they were stamped out, it would be like cutting down all the old trees in Kensington Gardens; they could not be produced again for hundreds of years, and all the beauty and dignity of the gardens would be gone. But aristocrats ought to act as such, and never slip into the gutter."

"There you are certainly right. I am more than with you--But what can one do?"

"You should have the courage of your opinions, as Her Ladys.h.i.+p has--you only laugh when she is saying splendid things sometimes. So few of you seem to have any backbone that I have seen."

"You shame me!"

Her face became filled with a humorous expression--they had been serious long enough, she thought. His caught the light of her eyes; he was intensely fascinated.

"You did not, of course, come from--Bindon's Green--is it?--You came down from Parna.s.sus to teach us poor devils of aristocrats to stick to our guns--I will be your first disciple, priestess of wisdom!"