No More Learning

The ‘never the time and
the place’ motif is not made enough of in novels.



Chapter 7


The plumes of the chimneys floated perpendicular against skies of smoky rose.

Gordon caught the 27 bus at ten past eight. The streets were still locked in their Sunday
sleep. On the doorsteps the milk bottles waited ungathered like little white sentinels.
Gordon had fourteen shillings in his hand — thirteen and nine, rather, because the bus fare
was threepence. Nine bob he had set aside from his wages — God knew what that was
going to mean, later in the week! — and five he had borrowed from Julia.

He had gone round to Julia’s place on Thursday night. Julia’s room in Earl’s Court,
though only a second-floor back, was not just a vulgar bedroom like Gordon’s. It was a
bed-sitting with the accent on the sitting. Julia would have died of starvation sooner than
put up with such squalor as Gordon lived in. Indeed every one of her scraps of furniture,
collected over intervals of years, represented a period of semi-starvation. There was a
divan bed that could very nearly be mistaken for a sofa, and a little round fumed oak
table, and two ‘antique’ hardwood chairs, and an ornamental footstool and a chintz-
covered annchair — Drage’s: thirteen monthly payments — in front of the tiny gas-fire; and
there were various brackets with framed photos of father and mother and Gordon and
Aunt Angela, and a birchwood calendar — somebody’s Christmas present — with ‘It’s a
long lane that has no turning’ done on it in pokerwork. Julia depressed Gordon horribly.
He was always telling himself that he ought to go and see her oftener; but in practice he
never went near her except to ‘borrow’ money.

When Gordon had given three knocks — three knocks for second floor — Julia took him
up to her room and knelt down in front of the gas-fire.

‘I’ll light the fire again,’ she said. ‘You’d like a cup of tea, wouldn’t you? ’

He noted the ‘again’. The room was beastly cold — no fire had been lighted in it this
evening. Julia always ‘saved gas’ when she was alone. He looked at her long narrow back
as she knelt down. How grey her hair was getting! Whole locks of it were quite grey. A
little more, and it would be ‘grey hair’ tout court.



‘You like your tea strong, don’t you? ’ breathed Julia, hovering over the tea-caddy with
tender, goose-like movements.


Gordon drank his cup of tea standing up, his eye on the birchwood calendar. Out with it!
Get it over! Yet his heart almost failed him. The meanness of this hateful cadging! What
would it all tot up to, the money he had ‘borrowed’ from her in all these years?

‘I say, Julia, I’m damned sorry — I hate asking you; but look here — ’

‘Yes, Gordon? ’ she said quietly. She knew what was coming.

‘Look here, Julia, I’m damned sorry, but could you lend me five bob? ’

‘Yes, Gordon, I expect so. ’

She sought out the small, worn black leather purse that was hidden at the bottom of her
linen drawer. He knew what she was thinking. It meant less for Christmas presents. That
was the great event of her life nowadays — Christmas and the giving of presents: hunting
through the glittering streets, late at night after the teashop was shut, from one bargain
counter to another, picking out the trash that women are so curiously fond of.
Handkerchief sachets, letter racks, teapots, manicure sets, birchwood calendars with
mottoes in pokerwork. All through the year she was scraping from her wretched wages
for ‘So-and-so’s Christmas present’, or ‘So-and-so’s birthday present’. And had she not,
last Christmas, because Gordon was ‘fond of poetry’, given him the Selected Poems of
John Drinkwater in green morocco, which he had sold for half a crown? Poor Julia!
Gordon made off with his five bob as soon as he decently could. Why is it that one can’t
borrow from a rich friend and can from a half-starved relative? But one’s family, of
course, ‘don’t count’.

On the top of the bus he did mental arithmetic. Thirteen and nine in hand. Two day-
returns to Slough, five bob. Bus fares, say two bob more, seven bob. Bread and cheese
and beer at a pub, say a bob each, nine bob. Tea, eightpence each, twelve bob. A bob for
cigarettes, thirteen bob. That left ninepence for emergencies. They would manage all
right. And how about the rest of the week? Not a penny for tobacco! But he refused to let
it worry him. Today would be worth it, anyway.



Rosemary met him on time. It was one of her virtues that she was never late, and even at
this hour of the morning she was bright and debonair. She was rather nicely dressed, as
usual. She was wearing her mock-shovel hat again, because he had said he liked it. They
had the station practically to themselves. The huge grey place, littered and deserted, had a
blowsy, unwashed air, as though it were still sleeping off a Saturday night debauch. A
yawning porter in need of a shave told them the best way to get to Burnham Beeches, and
presently they were in a third-class smoker, rolling westward, and the mean wilderness of
London was opening out and giving way to narrow sooty fields dotted with ads for
Carter’s Little Liver Pills. The day was very still and warm. Gordon’s prayer had come
true. It was one of those windless days which you can hardly tell from summer. You
could feel the sun behind the mist; it would break through presently, with any luck.
Gordon and Rosemary were profoundly and rather absurdly happy. There was a sense of
wild adventure in getting out of London, with the long day in ‘the country’ stretching out
ahead of them. It was months since Rosemary and a year since Gordon had set foot in
‘the country’. They sat close together with the Sunday Times open across their knees;
they did not read it, however, but watched the fields and cows and houses and the empty
goods trucks and great sleeping factories rolling past. Both of them enjoyed the railway
journey so much that they wished it had been longer.

At Slough they got out and travelled to Farnham Common in an absurd chocolate-
coloured bus with no top. Slough was still half asleep. Rosemary remembered the way
now that they had got to Farnham Common. You walked down a rutted road and came
out on to stretches of fine, wet, tussocky grass dotted with little naked birches. The beech
woods were beyond. Not a bough or a blade was stirring. The trees stood like ghosts in
the still, misty air. Both Rosemary and Gordon exclaimed at the loveliness of everything.
The dew, the stillness, the satiny stems of the birches, the softness of the turf under your
feet! Nevertheless, at first they felt shrunken and out of place, as Londoners do when they
get outside London. Gordon felt as though he had been living underground for a long
time past. He felt etiolated and unkempt. He slipped behind Rosemary as they walked, so
that she should not see his lined, colourless face. Also, they were out of breath before
they had walked far, because they were only used to London walking, and for the first
half hour they scarcely talked. They plunged into the woods and started westward, with
not much idea of where they were making for — anywhere, so long as it was away from
London. All round them the beech-trees soared, curiously phallic with their smooth skin-



like bark and their flutings at the base. Nothing grew at their roots, but the dried leaves
were strewn so thickly that in the distance the slopes looked like folds of copper-coloured
silk. Not a soul seemed to be awake. Presently Gordon came level with Rosemary. They
walked on hand in hand, swishing through the dry coppery leaves that had drifted into the
ruts. Sometimes they came out on to stretches of road where they passed huge desolate
houses — opulent country houses, once, in the carriage days, but now deserted and
unsaleable. Down the road the mist-dimmed hedges wore that strange purplish brown, the
colour of brown madder, that naked brushwood takes on in winter. There were a few
birds about — jays, sometimes, passing between the trees with dipping flight, and
pheasants that loitered across the road with long tails trailing, almost as tame as hens, as
though knowing they were safe on Sunday. But in half an hour Gordon and Rosemary
had not passed a human being. Sleep lay upon the countryside. It was hard to believe that
they were only twenty miles out of London.

Presently they had walked themselves into trim. They had got their second wind and the
blood glowed in their veins. It was one of those days when you feel you could walk a
hundred miles if necessary. Suddenly, as they came out on to the road again, the dew all
down the hedge glittered with a diamond flash. The sun had pierced the clouds. The light
came slanting and yellow across the fields, and delicate unexpected colours sprang out in
everything, as though some giant’s child had been let loose with a new paintbox.
Rosemary caught Gordon’s arm and pulled him against her.

‘Oh, Gordon, what a LOVELY day! ’

‘Lovely. ’

‘And, oh, look, look! Look at all the rabbits in that field! ’

Sure enough, at the other end of the field, innumerable rabbits were browsing, almost like
a flock of sheep. Suddenly there was a flurry under the hedge. A rabbit had been lying
there. It leapt from its nest in the grass with a flirt of dew and dashed away down the
field, its white tail lifted. Rosemary threw herself into Gordon’s arms. It was
astonishingly warm, as wann as summer. They pressed their bodies together in a sort of
sexless rapture, like children. Here in the open air he could see the marks of time quite
clearly upon her face. She was nearly thirty, and looked it, and he was nearly thirty, and



looked more; and it mattered nothing. He pulled off the absurd flat hat. The three white
hairs gleamed on her crown. At the moment he did not wish them away. They were part
of her and therefore lovable.

‘What fun to be here alone with you! I’m so glad we came! ’

‘And, oh, Gordon, to think we’ve got all day together! And it might so easily have rained.
How lucky we are! ’

‘Yes. We’ll burn a sacrifice to the immortal gods, presently. ’

They were extravagantly happy. As they walked on they fell into absurd enthusiasms
over everything they saw: over a jay’s feather that they picked up, blue as lapis lazuli;
over a stagnant pool like a jet mirror, with boughs reflected deep down in it; over the
fungi that sprouted from the trees like monstrous horizontal ears. They discussed for a
long time what would be the best epithet to describe a beech-tree. Both agreed that
beeches look more like sentient creatures than other trees. It is because of the smoothness
of their bark, probably, and the curious limb-like way in which the boughs sprout from
the trunk. Gordon said that the little knobs on the bark were like the nipples of breasts
and that the sinuous upper boughs, with their smooth sooty skin, were like the writhing
trunks of elephants. They argued about similes and metaphors. From time to time they
quarrelled vigorously, according to their custom. Gordon began to tease her by finding
ugly similes for everything they passed. He said that the russet foliage of the hornbeams
was like the hair of Burne-Jones maidens, and that the smooth tentacles of the ivy that
wound about the trees were like the clinging arms of Dickens heroines. Once he insisted
upon destroying some mauve toadstools because he said they reminded him of a
Rackham illustration and he suspected fairies of dancing round them. Rosemary called
him a soulless pig. She waded through a bed of drifted beech leaves that rustled about
her, knee-deep, like a weightless red-gold sea.

‘Oh, Gordon, these leaves! Look at them with the sun on them! They’re like gold. They
really are like gold. ’


‘Fairy gold. You’ll be going all Barrie in another moment. As a matter of fact, if you
want an exact simile, they’re just the colour of tomato soup. ’



‘Don’t be a pig, Gordon! Listen how they rustle. “Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the
brooks in Vallombrosa. ’”

‘Or like one of those American breakfast cereals. Truweet Breakfast Crisps. “Kiddies
clamour for their Breakfast Crisps. ’”

‘You are a beast! ’

She laughed. They walked on hand in hand, swishing ankle-deep through the leaves and
declaiming:

‘Thick as the Breakfast Crisps that strow the plates
In Welwyn Garden City! ’

It was great fun. Presently they came out of the wooded area. There were plenty of people
abroad now, but not many cars if you kept away from the main roads. Sometimes they
heard church bells ringing and made detours to avoid the churchgoers. They began to
pass through straggling villages on whose outskirts pseudo-Tudor villas stood sniffishly
apart, amid their garages, their laurel shrubberies and their raw-looking lawns. And
Gordon had some fun railing against the villas and the godless civilization of which they
were part — a civilization of stockbrokers and their lip-sticked wives, of golf, whisky,
ouija-boards, and Aberdeen terriers called Jock. So they walked another four miles or so,
talking and frequently quarrelling. A few gauzy clouds were drifting across the sky, but
there was hardly a breath of wind.

They were growing rather footsore and more and more hungry. Of its own accord the
conversation began to turn upon food. Neither of them had a watch, but when they passed
through a village they saw that the pubs were open, so that it must be after twelve
o’clock. They hesitated outside a rather low-looking pub called the Bird in Hand. Gordon
was for going in; privately he reflected that in a pub like that your bread and cheese and
beer would cost you a bob at the very most. But Rosemary said that it was a nasty-
looking place, which indeed it was, and they went on, hoping to find a pleasanter pub at
the other end of the village. They had visions of a cosy bar-parlour, with an oak settle and
perhaps a stuffed pike in a glass case on the wall.



But there were no more pubs in the village, and presently they were in open country
again, with no houses in sight and not even any signposts. Gordon and Rosemary began
to be alarmed. At two the pubs would shut, and then there would be no food to be had,
except perhaps a packet of biscuits from some village sweetshop. At this thought a
ravening hunger took possession of them. They toiled exhaustedly up an enonnous hill,
hoping to find a village on the other side. There was no village, but far below a dark
green river wound, with what seemed quite like a large town scattered along its edge and
a grey bridge crossing it. They did not even know what river it was — it was the Thames,
of course.

‘Thank God! ’ said Gordon. ‘There must be plenty of pubs down there. We’d better take
the first one we can find. ’

‘Yes, do let’s. I’m starving. ’

But when they neared the town it seemed strangely quiet. Gordon wondered whether the
people were all at church or eating their Sunday dinners, until he realized that the place
was quite deserted. It was Crickham-on-Thames, one of those riverside towns which live
for the boating season and go into hibernation for the rest of the year. It straggled along
the bank for a mile or more, and it consisted entirely of boat-houses and bungalows, all of
them shut up and empty. There were no signs of life anywhere. At last, however, they
came upon a fat, aloof, red-nosed man, with a ragged moustache, sitting on a camp-stool
beside a jar of beer on the towpath. He was fishing with a twenty-foot roach pole, while
on the smooth green water two swans circled about his float, trying to steal his bait as
often as he pulled it up.
‘Can you tell us where we can get something to eat? ’ said Gordon.

The fat man seemed to have been expecting this question and to derive a sort of private
pleasure from it. He answered without looking at Gordon.

‘YOU won’t get nothing to eat. Not here you won’t,’ he said.


‘But dash it! Do you mean to say there isn’t a pub in the whole place? We’ve walked all
the way from Famham Common. ’



The fat man sniffed and seemed to reflect, still keeping his eye on the float. ‘I dessay you
might try the Ravenscroft Hotel,’ he said. ‘About half a mile along, that is. I dessay
they’d give you something; that is, they would if they was open. ’

‘But ARE they open? ’

‘They might be and they might not,’ said the fat man comfortably.

‘And can you tell us what time it is? ’ said Rosemary.

‘It’s jest gone ten parse one. ’

The two swans followed Gordon and Rosemary a little way along the towpath, evidently
expecting to be fed. There did not seem much hope that the Ravenscroft Hotel would be
open. The whole place had that desolate flyblown air of pleasure resorts in the off-season.
The woodwork of the bungalows was cracking, the white paint was peeling off, the dusty
windows showed bare interiors. Even the slot machines that were dotted along the bank
were out of order. There seemed to be another bridge at the other end of the town.
Gordon swore heartily.

‘What bloody fools we were not to go in that pub when we had the chance! ’

‘Oh, dear! I’m simply STARVING. Had we better turn back, do you think? ’

‘It’s no use, there were no pubs the way we came. We must keep on. I suppose the
Ravenscroft Hotel’s on the other side of that bridge. If that’s a main road there’s just a
chance it’ll be open. Otherwise we’re su nk . ’

They dragged their way as far as the bridge. They were thoroughly footsore now. But
behold! here at last was what they wanted, for just beyond the bridge, down a sort of
private road, stood a biggish, smartish hotel, its back lawns running down to the river. It
was obviously open. Gordon and Rosemary started eagerly towards it, and then paused,
daunted.


‘It looks frightfully expensive,’ said Rosemary.



It did look expensive. It was a vulgar pretentious place, all gilt and white paint — one of
those hotels which have overcharging and bad service written on every brick. Beside the
drive, commanding the road, a snobbish board announced in gilt lettering:

THE RAVENSCROFT HOTEL

OPEN TO NON-RESIDENTS

LUNCHEONS-TEAS-DINNERS

DANCE HALL AND TENNIS COURTS

PARTIES CATERED FOR

Two gleaming two-seater cars were parked in the drive. Gordon quailed. The money in
his pocket seemed to shrink to nothing, this was the very opposite to the cosy pub they
had been looking for. But he was very hungry. Rosemary tweaked at his ann.

‘It looks a beastly place. I vote we go on. ’

‘But we’ve got to get some food. It’s our last chance. We shan’t find another pub. ’

‘The food’s always so disgusting in these places. Beastly cold beef that tastes as if it had
been saved up from last year. And they charge you the earth for it. ’

‘Oh, well, we’ll just order bread and cheese and beer. It always costs about the same. ’

‘But they hate you doing that. They’ll try to bully us into having a proper lunch, you’ll
see. We must be firm and just say bread and cheese. ’

‘All right, we’ll be firm. Come on. ’

They went in, resolved to be firm. But there was an expensive smell in the draughty
hallway — a smell of chintz, dead flowers, Thames water, and the rinsings of wine bottles.
It was the characteristic smell of a riverside hotel. Gordon’s heart sank lower. He knew
the type of place this was. It was one of those desolate hotels which exist all along the
motor roads and are frequented by stockbrokers airing their whores on Sunday



afternoons. In such places you are insulted and overcharged almost as a matter of course.
Rosemary shrank nearer to him. She too was intimidated. They saw a door marked
‘Saloon’ and pushed it open, thinking it must be the bar. It was not a bar, however, but a
large, smart, chilly room with corduroy-upholstered chairs and settees. You could have
mistaken it for an ordinary drawing-room except that all the ashtrays advertised White
Horse whisky. And round one of the tables the people from the cars outside — two blond,
flat-headed, fattish men, over-youthfully dressed, and two disagreeable elegant young
women — were sitting, having evidently just finished lunch. A waiter, bending over their
table, was serving them with liqueurs.

Gordon and Rosemary had halted in the doorway. The people at the table were already
eyeing them with offensive upper-middle-class eyes. Gordon and Rosemary looked tired
and dirty, and they knew it. The notion of ordering bread and cheese and beer had almost
vanished from their minds. In such a place as this you couldn’t possibly say ‘Bread and
cheese and beer’; ‘Lunch’ was the only thing you could say. There was nothing for it but
‘Lunch’ or flight. The waiter was almost openly contemptuous. He had summed them up
at a glance as having no money; but also he had divined that it was in their minds to fly
and was determined to stop them before they could escape.

‘Sare? ’ he demanded, lifting his tray off the table.

Now for it! Say ‘Bread and cheese and beer’, and damn the consequences! Alas! his
courage was gone. ‘Lunch’ it would have to be. With a seeming-careless gesture he thrust
his hand into his pocket. He was feeling his money to make sure that it was still there.
Seven and elevenpence left, he knew. The waiter’s eye followed the movement; Gordon
had a hateful feeling that the man could actually see through the cloth and count the
money in his pocket. In a tone as lordly as he could make it, he remarked:

‘Can we have some lunch, please? ’

‘Luncheon, sare? Yes, sare. Zees way. ’

The waiter was a black-haired young man with a very smooth, well-featured, sallow face.
His dress clothes were excellently cut and yet unclean-looking, as though he seldom took
them off. He looked like a Russian prince; probably he was an Englishman and had



assumed a foreign accent because this was proper in a waiter. Defeated, Rosemary and
Gordon followed him to the dining-room, which was at the back, giving on to the lawn. It
was exactly like an aquarium. It was built entirely of greenish glass, and it was so damp
and chilly that you could almost have fancied yourself under water. You could both see
and smell the river outside. In the middle of each of the small round tables there was a
bowl of paper flowers, but at one side, to complete the aquarium effect, there was a
whole florist’s stand of evergreens, palms, and aspidistras and so forth, like dreary water-
plants. In summer such a room might be pleasant enough; at present, when the sun had
gone behind a cloud, it was merely dank and miserable. Rosemary was almost as much
afraid of the waiter as Gordon was. As they sat down and he turned away for a moment
she made a face at his back.

‘I’m going to pay for my own lunch,’ she whispered to Gordon, across the table.

‘No, you’re not. ’

‘What a horrible place! The food’s sure to be filthy. I do wish we hadn’t come. ’

‘Sh! ’

The waiter had come back with a flyblown printed menu. He handed it to Gordon and
stood over him with the menacing air of a waiter who knows that you have not much
money in your pocket. Gordon’s heart pounded. If it was a table d’hote lunch at three and
sixpence or even half a crown, they were sunk. He set his teeth and looked at the menu.
Thank God! It was a la carte. The cheapest thing on the list was cold beef and salad for
one and sixpence. He said, or rather mumbled:

‘We’ll have some cold beef, please. ’

The waiter’s delicate eyebrows lifted. He feigned surprise.

‘ONLY ze cold beef, sare? ’

‘Yes that’ll do to go on with, anyway. ’


‘But you will not have ANYSING else, sare? ’



‘Oh, well. Bring us some bread, of course. And butter. ’


‘But no soup to start wiz, sare? ’

‘No. No soup. ’

‘Nor any fish, sare? Only ze cold beef? ’

‘Do we want any fish, Rosemary? I don’t think we do. No. No fish. ’

‘Nor any sweet to follow, sare? ONLY ze cold beef? ’

Gordon had difficulty in controlling his features. He thought he had never hated anyone
so much as he hated this waiter.

‘We’ll tell you afterwards if we want anything else,’ he said.

‘And you will drink sare? ’

Gordon had meant to ask for beer, but he hadn’t the courage now. He had got to win back
his prestige after this affair of the cold beef.

‘Bring me the wine list,’ he said flatly.

Another flyblown list was produced. All the wines looked impossibly expensive.
However, at the very top of the list there was some nameless table claret at two and nine
a bottle. Gordon made hurried calculations. He could just manage two and nine. He
indicated the wine with his thumbnail.

‘Bring us a bottle of this,’ he said.

The waiter’s eyebrows rose again. He essayed a stroke of irony.

‘You will have ze WHOLE bottle, sare? You would not prefare ze half bottle? ’


‘A whole bottle,’ said Gordon coldly.



All in a single delicate movement of contempt the waiter inclined his head, shrugged his
left shoulder, and turned away. Gordon could not stand it. He caught Rosemary’s eye
across the table. Somehow or other they had got to put that waiter in his place! In a
moment the waiter came back, carrying the bottle of cheap wine by the neck, and half
concealing it behind his coat tails, as though it were something a little indecent or
unclean. Gordon had thought of a way to avenge himself. As the waiter displayed the
bottle he put out a hand, felt it, and frowned.

‘That’s not the way to serve red wine,’ he said.

Just for a moment the waiter was taken aback. ‘Sare? ’ he said.

‘It’s stone cold. Take the bottle away and wann it. ’

‘Very good, sare. ’

But it was not really a victory. The waiter did not look abashed. Was the wine worth
wanning? his raised eyebrow said. He bore the bottle away with easy disdain, making it
quite clear to Rosemary and Gordon that it was bad enough to order the cheapest wine on
the list without making this fuss about it afterwards.

The beef and salad were corpse-cold and did not seem like real food at all. They tasted
like water. The rolls, also, though stale, were damp. The reedy Thames water seemed to
have got into everything. It was no surprise that when the wine was opened it tasted like
mud. But it was alcoholic, that was the great thing. It was quite a surprise to find how
stimulating it was, once you had got it past your gullet and into your stomach. After
drinking a glass and a half Gordon felt very much better. The waiter stood by the door,
ironically patient, his napkin over his arm, trying to make Gordon and Rosemary
uncomfortable by his presence. At first he succeeded, but Gordon’s back was towards
him, and he disregarded him and presently almost forgot him. By degrees their courage
returned. They began to talk more easily and in louder voices.

‘Look,’ said Gordon. ‘Those swans have followed us all the way up here. ’

Sure enough, there were the two swans sailing vaguely to and fro over the dark green
water. And at this moment the sun burst out again and the dreary aquarium of a dining-



room was flooded with pleasant greenish light. Gordon and Rosemary felt suddenly
wann and happy. They began chattering about nothing, almost as though the waiter had
not been there, and Gordon took up the bottle and poured out two more glasses of wine.