Norah’s armour would prove even yet more vulnerable. Norah, a young lady brought up amid all the traditions of respectability, had dared even ridicule; had committed worse than crimes—vulgarities. A militant suffragette reproving fanaticism need not be listened to attentively.
But this case she was thinking of was exceptional. Whatever Anthony and she might choose to do with the remainder of their lives need not affect their children. Norah and Jim would be free to choose for themselves. But the young mother faced with the problem of her children’s future? Ten years ago, what answer would she herself have made?
The argument took hold of her. She found herself working it out not as a personal concern, but in terms of the community. Was it necessary to be rich that one’s children should be happy? Childhood would answer “no.” It is not little Lord Fauntleroy who clamours for the velvet suit and the lace collar. It is not Princess Goldenlocks who would keep close barred the ivory gate that leads into the wood. Childhood has no use for riches. Childhood’s joys are cheap enough. Youth’s pleasures can be purchased for little more than health and comradeship. The cricket bat, the tennis racket, the push bike, the leaky boat that one bought for a song and had the fun of patching up and making good; even that crown of the young world’s desire, the motor-cycle itself—these and their kindred were not the things for which one need to sell one’s soul. Education depended upon the scholar not the school. Was the future welfare of our children helped by our being rich? or hindered?
Suppose we brought up our children not to believe in riches, not to be afraid of poverty: not to be afraid of love in a six-roomed house, not to believe that they were bound to be just twice as happy in a house containing twelve, and thereby save themselves the fret and frenzy of trying to get there: the bitterness and heart break of those who never reached it. The love of money, the belief in money, was it not the root of nine-tenths of the world’s sorrow? Suppose one taught one’s children not to fall down and worship it, not to sacrifice to it their youth and health and joy. Might they not be better off—in a quite material way?
It occurred to her suddenly that she had not as yet thought about it from the religious point of view. She laughed. It had always been said that it was woman who was the practical. It was man, was the dreamer.
But was she not right? Had that not been the whole trouble: that we had drawn a dividing line between our religion and our life, rendering our actions unto Caesar, and only our lips unto God? Christianity was Common Sense in the highest—was sheer Worldly Wisdom. The proof was staring her in the face. From the bay of the deep window, looking eastward, she could see it standing out against the flame-lit sky, the great grey Cross with round its base the young men’s names in golden letters.
The one thing man did well—make war. Man’s one success—the fighting machine. The one institution man had built up that had stood the test of time. The one thing man had made perfect—War.
The one thing to which man had applied the principles of Christianity. Above all things required of the soldier was self-forgetfulness, self-sacrifice. The place of suffering became the place of honour. The forlorn hope a privilege to be contended for. To the soldier, alone among men, love thy neighbour as thyself—nay, better than thyself—was inculcated not as a meaningless formula, but as a sacred duty necessary to the very existence of the Regiment. When war broke out in a land, the teachings of Christ were immediately recognized to be the only sensible guide to conduct. At the time, Anthony’s suggestion had seemed monstrous to her; that he should ask her to give up riches, accept poverty, that he should put a vague impersonal love of humanity above his natural affection for her children and herself! But if it had been England and not God that he had been thinking of—if, at any moment during the war, it had seemed to him that the welfare of England demanded this, or even greater sacrifice, she would have approved. The very people whose ridicule she was now dreading would have applauded. Who had suggested to the young recruit that he should think of his wife and children before his country, that his first duty was to provide for them, to see to it that they had their comforts, their luxuries: and then—and not till then—to think of England? She had regarded his determination to go down into the smoky dismal town, to live his life there among common people, as foolish, fantastic. He could have helped the poor of Millsborough better by keeping his possessions, showering down upon them benefits and blessings. He could have been of more help to God, powerful and rich, a leader among men. As a struggling solicitor in Bruton Square of what use could he be?
Had she thought like that, during the war, of the men who had given money but who had shirked the mud and blood of the trenches—of the shouters who had pointed out to others the gate of service?
Neither rich nor poor, neither great nor simple—only comrades. Would it ever be won, the war to end war—man’s victory over himself.