CHAPTER X

OPEN DIAPASON

Six weeks later, in the musky fragrance of an August twilight, Gaveston sat on the rocky cliffs above Ploumenar’ch-lez-Quémouk. For there, in a charming old-world cottage of Breton gneiss, a brilliant reading party from Wallace, under Mongo’s supervision, had assembled for the vacation. He gazed out over the dark malachite waste of Atlantic waters, reflecting how successful his choice of a _venue_ had proved, and hummed softly the third act of “Tristan und Isolde.”

“Dear old Wagner!” he murmured.

Discussion over the various possibilities had been lively one night in Mongo’s room during the Commemorative Week which so satisfactorily rounded off that marvellous summer term.

Mongo opted for Minorca, but Monty Wytham vetoed that as too Chopinesque.

“But my uncle might lend us a bothy at Tober-na-Vuolich,” ventured the Marquis of Kirkcudbright (Ch. Ch.), hexametrically enough. But his poetic ambitions and simple tastes were only too well known. There was an uncomfortable silence. He shuffled his feet.

“Connemara?” put in Monty, after a moment’s reflection.

“Or the Lizard?” queried Peter Creek.

“The Broads?” tried Monty again, doubling.

“The Downs?”

“The Lake of Lucerne?”

Hard upon each other came the enterprising suggestions, but for each of them Gaveston had an objection as conclusive as it was witty.[18]

[18] Unhappily these have not been recorded _in extenso_ by Mr. Budd. (LIT. EXEC.)

“But you’re all so hackneyed,” he cried with peals of good-humoured laughter. “These have all been done before, every one of them!”

“Well, tell us _your_ idea, Gav,” smiled Monty, with a touch of defiance.

“I propose Brittany,” he answered quite simply.

There was a ripple of admiring approbation. Brittany was decided on.

Well had the choice been justified. Long had been the bicycle expeditions through that unexplored fringe of glamorous old Celtic seaboard; to St. Malo and Cancale, Rennes and Brest, and many another half-forgotten shrine of old romance had they sped. And healthy had been the life: reading from dawn till breakfast, bathing and romping before luncheon, exploring caves before tea, collecting shells till supper, and taking moonlit or starlit tramps over the neighbouring menhirs and dolmens before going merrily to bed.

Thus the weeks flew past, with the inexorable rapidity of monotonously happy hours. Nature grew rhythmical with the youthful happiness of the Wallace reading party. With elaborate regularity the ebbs and flows coursed over the gleaming sands; up rose the sun, bejewelled the meridian sky, and set once more; each eventide there came an unique and quotidian miracle of colour attendant upon its marine _accouchement_. And nightly Gaveston stood breathless, hushed, pulsating, beneath the twinkling of little, little stars, so deliberate and glamorous that they seemed like to the remote, liturgical swinging of lanthorns, carven with outlandish birds and belacquered with esoteric fishes, in some half-religious dancing festival of Old Japan.

“I don’t think I was ever so happy!” said David one morning at breakfast.

And no one disagreed with him.

* * * * *

It was with David that Gaveston passed most of his time. He always found him a satisfying companion, ever eager to listen and encourage, and to David one glowing afternoon, lying on the sand in the shady mouth of a stalactitous cave, Gaveston exposed his new determination, his latest programme.

“Power!” he said succinctly.

“Power! Power!” echoed back the stalactites.

“Power?” added David.

“Yes, power,” nodded Gaveston.

There was a silence.

Far off the waves lapped. A sea-mew flashed against the blue. A stalactite dripped.

And Gaveston went on relentlessly to explain himself. Not for such as he the cowardly retirement into the cloister of Art. Not for such as he the perverse pursuit of an unattainable past, or the artificial archaism of creeds outworn. What were these but phases, halts upon the Greater Pilgrimage?

“Oh, quite,” said David, letting the warm sand trickle dreamily through his fingers.

Power! He must impose Truth upon his fellows, the truth about themselves, the truth about the world of yesterday and to-day and to-morrow. That was power. That was life. And how else to do it but by the Pen?

“Mightier than the sword it is, David, you know.”

David agreed.

And so was conceived the new review of politics, art, literature, life, the drama, music, religion and ethnology, which was to galvanize Oxford, and through Oxford, England, in the fast-approaching term. It was daring in conception, but it was characteristic of the man.

Would Mongo contribute?

That was the first question to be decided. And when the great plan was unfolded to him, and his assistance asked, the fresh, rosy face of the aged veteran lit up. But “Can’t be done, I’m afraid, Gav,” he said with a shake of his curious coloured locks. “The senior members might object, you see.” It was a disappointment, but, nothing daunted, the collaborators set out to find a title for their paper which should adequately embody its ideals.

And this proved a harder task than might have been expected from so brilliant a party. _Young Oxford_ was put forward in vain. _The New Wallace_ was ruled out as parochial. David’s suggestion was _The University Echo_, and _The Parnassian_ did not lack a few supporters. Several showed enthusiasm for _The Cherwell_, but Gaveston it was who won the unanimous suffrage of all with _The Mongoose_. Everyone was delighted, and Vere O’Neill, the chartered artist of the party, quickly etched on a scrap of paper lying to hand a clever woodcut of that engaging bird. Gav put the finishing touches to it with a tube of water-colours, and so the title, and the cover of at least the first issue, were ready.

A policy? That was surely the next thing to be gone into, and again there were differences while they sat up late one night over a friendly bowl of _absinthe_, the national drink of the country. Outside the cottage the Atlantic hurricanes battered upon the shutters.

Mongo considered that the problems of the Near East were perhaps inadequately represented at Oxford. But O’Neill was strong for a judicious blending of socialism and articraftiness.

“Back to Marx!” was his cry. It was a daring appeal, but all felt that perhaps his quick Hibernian imagination might carry them too far. Other tempting suggestions, philanthropic, poetic, imperialist, flashed in the shadowy room, but David brought a refreshing current of cool sanity into the somewhat hectic debate.

“I think Gaveston had better decide,” he said. And they knew he was right.

At once Gaveston rose from his seat and stood by the fireplace. His address was a masterpiece of editorial tact.

“You’re right, Mr. Arundel,” he began; and this revival of an all but forgotten name at such an auspicious moment was recognized as possessing the true ffoulis _cachet_. “You’re right. Our foreign policy shall centre round the Balkans: they need a rallying point. You’re right too, O’Neill: we shall insist on the importance of Art for the Masses. You shall write an article on Morris Dancing and we shall publish at least two poems in every number. You’re right too, David, decidedly. And so are all of you others. We cannot, as you rightly insist, go on allowing the present social system to stew in its own juice. We certainly must not allow the great Pegasus of the English poetic tradition to be left for ever ambling round Poppin’s Court, or even to be emasculated in Carlyle Square. Nor must we allow the Empire to be neglected.”

The applause was now general.

“But what,” demanded the speaker, “what is the link which will unite all these admittedly various policies? What will give them a driving force and a _sacrée union_?”

The company had already forgotten their foaming glasses on the table, and were gathering round the handsome orator by the fireplace. They knew that if Gaveston asked a question, it was only because he had an answer ready. The pause was impressive, even agonizing.

“A Jacobite Democracy! The triumph of the People under the ægis of the White Rose!”

No one interrupted, and Gaveston continued _con fuoco_.

“The ubiquitous support of constitutional monarchy as our foreign policy! A Stuart as governor-general for every colony! A cottage and a white rose garden for every working man! And down, down, down with the Usurper from Germany!”

“And where does your real King live, Gav?” asked Mongo with his inscrutable, and often perhaps unmeaning, smile. But none knew.

“All the laws made since the intrusion of Hanoverian George must be nulled and voided, and we shall have a clean slate to write on. But I must insist on the democratic nature of our programme. The old legitism is worse than useless: we must be Jacobins as well as Jacobites! With such a policy we cut the ground from beneath the feet of Socialists and Conservatives alike. And then our only opponents will be the Liberals, famous only as a discredited and disappearing faction--we shall augment their unenviable fame. And our ensign, you ask?”

The question was rhetorical.

“Our ensign shall be the Hammer of Labour encircled by White Rose!”

While the enthusiastic applause rang among the rafters, O’Neill hurriedly added this device to his cover design. And soon afterwards all retired to their rooms, not, on this night of nights, to sleep, but each to elaborate his first contribution to the new organ.

Only Gaveston and David lingered a little longer over the last glowing embers. The two friends were speechless with emotion. The wind had fallen. The tide was out. The silence was intense around the gneiss walls.

Suddenly Gav rose, crossed the room, and drew open the curtain of the tiny window. There was a dull glow in the dark skies.

“See, David,” he said very softly, “the dawn is breaking over Ploumenar’ch-lez-Quémouk.”

* * * * *

It was.