Poor Caroline (21 page)

He opened the door and found the other members of the
Board already assembled. Isenbaum was back, sleek and ingratiating and self-conscious. Hugh did not know that the
Jew had now gained his object in joining the company, and
that this was the last Board meeting which he would attend. Guerdon polished his pince-nez very timidly. St. Denis, a
white carnation in his buttonhole, was softly chaffing John
son, who greeted the new-comer with boisterous geniality.

Hugh came forward and took his place at the table, Miss
Denton-Smyth pushed the leather-bound attendance book
towards him. He signed his name in his precise, legible
writing, carrying back the tail of the final V under the other
letters with malicious triumph.

The chairman, in his habitually gentle voice, called the
meeting to order. The minutes were read. The usual cor
respondence was discussed. Hugh waited impatiently. All
this kind of thing was waste of
time. Why couldn't they
come to the point and tell him straight out that they could
not raise the money?

Miss Denton-Smyth put down her file.

Her chains and beads rattled together. Her lorgnette
tinkled. She snapped it open again with trembling fingers. She coughed. And then she spoke in her quick trembling
voice:

'Well, I ought perhaps to deal next with a communication
which might otherwise have had a place in the agenda to
itself, but I really had no time after it was officially made to
alter the agenda, and I think the Board will give the clem
ency already suggested by the chairman that I should read
it now.'

She looked round the table. The papers rustled beneath her shaking fingers. But even a man so little expert in
Psychol'gy as Hugh Macafee could not mistake her excite
ment for distress. There was no doubt about it. Miss
Denton-Smyth was delighted about something.

'I have received an application, that is to say, the company has received an application, from Miss Eleanor de la
Roux, late of Pretoria, now of the Earl's Court Club, Lon
don, S.W-5, for three thousand pounds' worth of ordinary
shares. I have already Miss de la Roux's cheque before me,
and have made proper inquiries that the bank
will honour
it. And that at once disposes of another little item which is
down on the agenda, the purchase of the Tona Perfecta
design.' She beamed joyfully across at Hugh. 'What I mean
to say is that the Board now is able to fulfil Mr. Macafee's
conditions, and I suppose that we may congratulate our
selves on having prevented the breach of a relationship which we all value.'

Hugh listened in amazement. He was so much overcome
by surprise that he lost his head completely. Had he re
tained full possession of his faculties, he would undoubtedly
have chosen this opportunity to escape completely from the
company. But instead he heard his own voice saying: 'Well,
gentlemen, I have no objection. I suppose this means that I sell you exclusive rights of reproduction for ten years for
£500 cash down as a retaining fee, £2,000 when you begin
to manufacture, and a royalty often per cent, on each 1,000
feet of film sold.'

There was more talk. There were technical details and business details. The company was to launch forth into a
great campaign of advertisement and propaganda. It was
to make every effort within the next three months to raise
the thirty thousand pounds. The company's fortune was as
good as made already. The clergy and educationalists who
had hung off a little, while the affair was still uncertain, would come rushing forward to buy shares now that its
business prospects were secure. A bishop was to join the
Board at once.

'Well, I haven't exactly got his lordship's
promise,''
said
Miss Denton-Smyth. 'But the Reverend Father Mortimer,
a very
distinguished
young priest and scholar, you know, who
has been doing temporary duty at Saint Augustine's,
he
has said that he will speak to the Bishop of Kensington-Gore about it, and knowing Father Mortimer I may say that I am
quite
certain
of success, indeed, I hope soon to add an arch
bishop to our list of directors.'

'An archbishop?'

'An archbishop, Mr. Johnson. Do you not remember that
at our last meeting we decided to invite a number of dis
tinguished ladies and gentlemen, representing the Stage, the
Church, the Schools, the Universities, Art, Music and public
service, to become directors so that when we send out our appeals we may make it
quite
clear that we have the highest possible authority behind us? My idea was, if possible, a
Cabinet
Minister, even the Premier might, being so greatly interested in English culture. I confess that I should like to
see Mr. Baldwin's name upon our Board and possibly the Archbishop of Canterbury. I always say
aim
high and you
may keep on the level.'

Hugh listened in a dream. He learned that there were
to be new directors, that there were to be new circulars,
that there was to be a big public meeting. He heard Miss
Denton-Smyth outlining her proposals for this final function.

It was, if possible, to be held at the Albert Hall, that is to say, if Miss Smyth could induce the Prime Minister or Mr.
Lloyd George, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Mr.
Bernard Shaw to speak for them. 'A great public expression of protest against the present condition of the cinema,' said
Miss Denton-Smyth. 'Possibly with extracts from some of
the worst films to be shown, because I always think that a
graphic
example goes a long way, but of course avoid all that
sex
or stuff which can be more delicately handled verbally
by the dear Archbishop.'

'Aren't we being a little ambitious?' asked Guerdon sadly,
repolishing his polished glasses.

'Of course we are!" cried Miss Denton-Smyth, bringing
down her open hand on the table with such emphasis that
all her chains rattled again. 'Of course we are ambitious.
And why else have we met together? I always say that great
oaks from small acorns grow. What does it matter if there
are very few of us who have the faith yet? We are few in
number, but
great,
very great, in unity and in inspiration, and then look how our contagion spreads! When dear Eleanor —
when Miss de la Roux approached me about the shares I
knew
our faith was justified. We shall go forward. Was there
ever a great cause launched without a few apparently
obscure people coming together in an upper chamber to deliberate about impossibilities? I always say that nothing
is worth doing unless you do it when it seems impossible.
We are going to raise
England
to get a clean cinema!'

§4

The world into which the Christian Cinema Company
now led Hugh differed not only from the worlds which he
had previously known, but from those also which he had any desire to know.

He understood the farmer's life in Perthshire, its intimate
relationship with heat and cold, and wind and weather, its
simple animal necessities of hunger, fatigue, toil and mating,
and its occasional excursions into the fear or fortitude of
Calvinism. He understood the life of a modern university,
with its intellectual
emulation, its job-hunting and subli
mated gossip. He knew the austere and excellent world of
scientific order, which he entered each time he closed behind
him the doors of his laboratory, and he knew now the semi-respectable poverty of his lodgings in Penge and the Free Library.

But Miss Denton-Smyth's world was the world of uplift,
good works and propaganda, and it was a world in itself. It had its own inhabitants, busy middle-aged women in drab
clothes, elderly, rather querulous Quakers and Socialists,
blossoming round-bellied Liberal Philanthropists, earnest
young women with spectacles and pimples, clergymen with
saccharine manners, social workers carrying bags heavy with
reports and pamphlets. It had its own activities, com
mittees, annual general meetings, public demonstrations,
At Homes, bazaars and lectures. It spoke its own language. All round him, Hugh heard phrases such as 'educating public opinion,' 'creating the right atmosphere,' 'getting a good press,' 'non-party,' 'non-sectarian,' 'pioneer work,' and 'ap
proaching the younger generation.' Especially he heard of appeals to the younger generation. What is it, thought he,
about this younger generation which makes it so important?
Why should the conversion of a young man of twenty-two to
temperance or disarmament or public hyg
iene be more important than the conversion of an older man of fifty-five? Hugh looked round about him and observed that in spite of all this touching enthusiasm, one generation appeared very
much like another. He considered that the young were
sadly over-rated.

Indeed, thought Hugh, the young possibly find this world
as strange as I do. He could understand the pursuit of
wealth, or the pursuit of truth. He could accept, though he despised, the pursuit of pleasure. But Miss Denton-Smyth
and her associates apparently cared for none of these things.

They despised wealth. They spent laborious days and nights on work which was either unpaid or was rewarded
by infinitesimal sums called 'nominal salaries.' Protesting
against sweated labour, they permitted themselves to be exploited shamelessly. They travelled uncomfortably in trams
and buses, they lunched off milk and baked-beans-on-toast,
they darned their cotton gloves, and knotted their brows over budgets which rarely balanced in back bed-sitting
rooms and basement flats.

They despised pleasure. Their wildest dissipations rarely
exceeded a Social Evening, enlivened by sandwiches and
coffee in a bleak suite of cellars resembling a public lavatory,
below a building owned by the Christian Mothers' Guild.

They had little use for truth, even though they paid lip-
service to it. Those facts which failed to support their own particular vision of the perfect world, they tacitly ignored.
They spoke of scientific research, meaning the exploration
of phenomena advantageous to their cause. They inquired
if men or women were 'sound,' with the intention of dis
covering not their habitual rectitude or sanity, but the
degree of their devotion to a particular point of view. They
had no use for laboratory investigation, unless its results
could be predetermined in their favour. They had no love
for the world as it was, no mercy upon its contradictions, no
appreciation of its variety. They sought to mould society according to some self-designed pattern of good, to impose
their wills upon the shifting wills of men, their ideals upon
the mobile framework of the universe. And they called upon
Hugh to help them secure Anglo-American Alliances, a national home for Armenians, the suppression of informa
tion about birth control, the propagation of information
about birth control, the abolition of African Native mar
riage customs as social atrocities, the preservation of African
marriage customs as anthropological curiosities, the advancement of the British Navy, the abolition of all navies,
the suppression of vivisection, the defence of medical research from anti-vivisectionists, the prohibition of alcoholic liquors, the defence of the human right to choose one's own
liquors, and the complete and absolute emancipation of
women.