A Man of Parts by David Lodge

Author:David Lodge [Lodge, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Harvill Secker
Published: 2011-11-19T11:51:37+00:00

She wrote very shortly after his return home to say how much she had enjoyed their talk in her rooms, and how greatly she appreciated his support and encouragement. He was virtuously restrained in his reply and subsequent correspondence, keeping to a tone of avuncular-tutorial concern for her welfare, and he resisted the temptation to find new reasons to go to Cambridge. Instead he threw himself back briefly into Fabian politics. He and Jane were both re-elected to the Executive in March, rather to his surprise, because he had attended hardly any meetings in the past year. But the ordinary members didn’t know that, and a significant number obviously still regarded him as their spokesman. He felt an obligation to their loyalty, and picked up once again the much-chewed but currently dry bone of the Basis. Apart from the addition of the clause about equal citizenship for women which had been approved last September, thanks mainly to Maud Reeves’s efforts, the Basis remained unchanged from its original form, and the small committee of himself, Shaw and Webb, charged a year ago with the task of revising it, had achieved nothing. Accordingly he got out the papers and wrote yet another draft, with which he was rather pleased, and sent it off to his two colleagues, only to get dismissive replies from both to say that they saw much in the document with which they disagreed but were too busy with other matters – Poor Law reform in Webb’s case – to respond fully. He fired off a furious missive to Webb saying ‘You two men are the most intolerable egotists, narrow, suspicious, obstructive, I’ve ever met’, which Webb evidently passed to Shaw who favoured him with one of his patronising, sarcastic homilies: ‘There is an art of public life which you have not mastered, expert as you are in the art of private life.’ The effect of this correspondence was to make him wish he had never allowed his name to go forward for re-election on to the Executive. He had really had enough, more than enough, of being treated by the Old Gang like some promising but disruptive young pupil at the back of the class. He made up his mind to resign from the Fabian, but he would choose his own moment, one that would not make him look as if he were merely sulking.

Early in April Jane received a letter from Maud Reeves to say that she was worried about Amber, who was at home for the Easter vacation and showing signs of nervous tension about her forthcoming exams, not eating or sleeping well. ‘I feel I should be looking after her more, but the trouble is I have so many speaking engagements for the suffrage movement that I’m rushing up and down the country and often away for days at a time, and Will of course is always busy with his work. I know she loves staying with you and H.G. – she was in raptures about her visit after Christmas – and I wonder if you could bear to have her again for a few days.

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