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diff --git a/old/56014-h/56014-h.htm b/old/56014-h/56014-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 29c6f18..0000000 --- a/old/56014-h/56014-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5644 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <title> - The Demagogue and Lady Phayre, by William J. Locke - </title> - <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" /> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent25 { margin-left: 25%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent35 { margin-left: 35%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -Project Gutenberg's The Demagogue and Lady Phayre, by William J. Locke - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Demagogue and Lady Phayre - -Author: William J. Locke - -Release Date: April 29, 2017 [EBook #56014] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE DEMAGOGUE <br />AND LADY PHAYRE - </h1> - <h2> - By William J. Locke - </h2> - <h4> - London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York - </h4> - <h4> - Third Edition - </h4> - <h3> - 1911 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0009.jpg" alt="0009 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE</b> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—THE ETERNAL FEMININE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—A REVOLUTION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—THE END OF AN ACT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—LADY PHAYRE AND THE COMING MAN - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—LIZZIE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—A DEMAGOGUE’S IDYLL </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—WITH THE HELP OF LADY PHAYRE - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENTS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—LADY PHAYRE THROWS HER CAP OVER - THE WINDMILLS. </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—RECONSTRUCTION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—A LEADER OF MEN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE - MATTER </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE - </h1> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER I—THE ETERNAL FEMININE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">“I</span> F you are coming - my way, Goddard, we may as well walk back together,” said the Member, - putting on his fur-lined coat. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Aloysius Gleam, member for Sunington, was a spare, precisely dressed - little man on the hither side of forty. He was somewhat bald, and - clean-shaven all to a tightly-screwed fair moustache. A gold-rimmed - eye-glass added a quaint air of alertness to a shrewd, sharp-featured - face. - </p> - <p> - Goddard acquiesced readily, although on this particular evening his road - lay in a different direction. But democrat though he was, he felt - flattered by Mr. Gleam’s friendly proposal. He was young—eight and - twenty, a cabinetmaker by trade, self-taught and consequently - self-opinionated, yet humble enough before evident superiority of - knowledge or experience. Besides, in coming to take the chair at his - lecture on The New Trades Unionism, before the Sunington Radical Club, the - Member had paid him a decided compliment. A member of Parliament has many - pleasanter and more profitable ways of spending a precious spare evening - during a busy session. - </p> - <p> - They formed a singular contrast as they stood side by side in the little - knot of committee-men who had remained behind after the audience had left. - Goddard was above the middle height, squarely built, deep-chested, - large-limbed; his decent workman’s clothes hung loosely upon him. His - features were dark and massive, chin and forehead square, nose somewhat - fleshy, mouth shutting stubbornly with folds at the sides; the lip, on - which, like the rest of his face, no hair grew, rather long; altogether it - was a powerful face, showing a nature capable of strong passions both for - good and evil. The accident of straight black hair generally falling - across his forehead, and a humorous setting of his eyes, relieved the face - of harshness. At the present moment it was alive with the frankness of - youth, and flushed with the success that had attended his lecture. - </p> - <p> - The group walked slowly down the hall through the chairs, and lingered for - a moment at the clubhouse door. It was a new quarter of London. Mr. - Aloysius Gleam had lived in the neighbourhood most of his life, and had - seen it spring up from fields and market-gardens into a bustling town, - with arteries fed from the life-stream of Oxford Street and the Strand. - Its development had been dear to him. There was strong local feeling, and - he was deservedly popular. It was therefore some time before he could - break away from his supporters. At last he did so, and started with - Goddard at a brisk pace up the High Street. - </p> - <p> - “I have been wondering,” he said, after a short silence, “whether you - would care to take to politics seriously.” - </p> - <p> - “I hope you don’t think I’m playing at it,” replied Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “Tut! don’t be so confoundedly touchy,” said Gleam good-humouredly. “By - ‘seriously’ I meant entirely, professionally. Would you like to devote all - your time to the work?” - </p> - <p> - “I should think I would,” replied Goddard quickly; “but I can’t. I have my - bread and butter to earn. I don’t quite see why you ask me.” - </p> - <p> - “Would you accept a position if your bread and butter were assured to - you?” - </p> - <p> - “As a paid agitator? Oh no, thanks! I couldn’t stand that. Work of that - sort must be given, not sold.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s rubbish,” said the Member lightly. “The labourer is worthy of his - hire. The notion is as cranky as Tolstoi’s.” - </p> - <p> - “It isn’t,” said Goddard. “The paid agitator is a fraud. He pretends to be - a working-man and he isn’t. When I address a crowd I can say, ‘I am one of - yourselves, the real thing. I belong to the Amalgamated Union of - Cabinetmakers, and earn my forty bob a week with the work of my hands.’ - Men listen to me, and respect me. What I could not swallow would be for a - fellow to get up and tell me, ‘It’s all very well for you to talk; but - you’re paid for talking, and make a jolly good thing of it. Instead of - helping the working-man, you are simply growing fat on the working-man’s - hard-earned money.’ I’ve heard that said to paid agitators myself.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, who said I wanted you to become a paid agitator?” asked Gleam. “I - don’t want you to stand on a barrel and address people as - ‘fellow-sufferers.’ You are a cut above that kind of thing. What I wanted - to propose to you was work on our new National Progressive League. Of - course, scores of men are giving their services; but they are men of a - certain amount of leisure. They can afford it. The working-man has no - leisure to speak of, and we would give anything for the services of a few - well-educated, clearheaded working-men like yourself. We could manage - three pounds a week—perhaps more. Well, there’s a chance for you.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard walked on a few steps in silence. He was young, earnest, a - passionate champion of the great questions on the Progressive programme. - He felt in himself a power to grip the attention of men. He had dreamed - vague dreams of personal ambition. Gleam’s offer was a great temptation. - But the consciousness that it was a temptation made him adhere all the - more obstinately to his principles. - </p> - <p> - “You are very kind,” he said at last, “and I am flattered by your opinion - of me. But I shouldn’t feel justified in giving up my trade: it wouldn’t - seem right.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, do as you like, my good fellow,” replied the Member cheerily. “But - I think you’re a bit of an idiot. You’ll find a thousand first-rate - cabinetmakers for one competent politician. Anyhow, if you change your - mind——” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t like changing my mind,” returned Goddard, with a laugh, “as if it - were a shirt.” - </p> - <p> - “We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest,” quoted the Member - below his breath. - </p> - <p> - But, taking a broad view of youth, he forbore to rebuke the young man, and - turned the conversation upon certain points in the recently delivered - lecture. When he reached his turning he shook hands and disappeared. - </p> - <p> - Goddard looked at his watch, and gave a little whistle of dismay. An - omnibus from the west lumbered up. Goddard climbed on to the roof, and - returned down the High Street. At the “Golden Stag,” where the ’bus - route ended, he descended, and proceeded almost at a run down some side - streets and lanes, and eventually knocked at a door in a row of workmen’s - cottages. - </p> - <p> - “Well, you <i>are</i> late,” said a girl who opened the door to him. “I’ve - been waiting with my ’at on for the last three-quarters of an hour. - No; you ain’t going to kiss me. If you’d wanted to do that, you’d have - found your way here before.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve come as fast as I could, Lizzie,” said the young man, somewhat out - of breath. “But I went back part of the way with Mr. Gleam, who wanted to - speak to me.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s all very fine,” said Lizzie. “But I think I count for something.” - </p> - <p> - She led the way into a little front room, where a couple of girls were - busy with dressmaking. One of them was bending over a sewing-machine. Bits - of stuff and patterns littered the table. A few spotted fashion-plates - adorned the walls. The air was heavy with the smell of new mercery. - </p> - <p> - “Here’s Dan at last!” said Lizzie. “It’s only a case of how d’ye do and - good-bye. These are my two cousins. This one’s Emily, and that’s Sophie. - Oh, look at the clock! It <i>is</i> a shaime!” Goddard shook hands with - the two cousins of his affianced—pale, anemic girls, who giggled a - little, while Lizzie saw to the straightness of her hat in the gilt mirror - over the mantelpiece. When that was done, she admired herself for a - moment. She was pretty—with the devil’s prettiness; fluffy fair - hair, a pink complexion and small, watery blue eyes—a poetic but - discarded admirer had termed them “liquid azure,” which had pleased her - mightily. Her mouth had a ripe way of pouting that took the edge off tart - speeches, at any-rate in a lover’s opinion, but otherwise it was loose and - devoid of character. - </p> - <p> - “I can’t let him stop to talk,” she said, turning to her cousins. - “Father’ll be in an awful stew. I’ll bring him round another day.” - </p> - <p> - “If he’ll come,” said Emily, the elder of the two. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, of course I will,” said Goddard. “I’m very pleased to make your - acquaintance.” - </p> - <p> - He was feeling, somewhat abashed amid these feminine surroundings, and - laughed awkwardly. When the door closed behind Lizzie and himself he was - relieved. - </p> - <p> - “I hope you are not vexed with me, Lizzie,” he said humbly. “I really did - not know it was so late.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s no use talking about it,” said Lizzie in an injured tone. “But just - let me keep you waiting, and see how you’d like it.” - </p> - <p> - However, after a time, Lizzie was mollified, and in token thereof drew - Daniel’s arm, correctly loverwise, within her own. - </p> - <p> - “The lecture was a great success,” he said at length. “Many more people - than I had expected. I wish you had been there. Only they don’t admit - ladies.” - </p> - <p> - “What was it about? Politics, wasn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—broadly speaking. Strictly it was on the New Trades Unionism. I - traced its development, you know, showing how the spirit has changed. The - Old Trades Unions were intensely jealous of State interference, because - they looked upon the Government as the natural enemy of labour. But now - labour is a powerful element in the State, and means to legislate for - itself, and so make State-control the very bulwark of its rights. Of - course I went into all kinds of details, but that was the general run of - it.” - </p> - <p> - “It must have been awfully clever,” said Lizzie, without much enthusiasm. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t know,” laughed the young man. “I was a little nervous at - first. You see I have spoken often enough, both at the club and in the open - air, and then the words come naturally. You get warmed up, you know, and - you let them have it straight. But this is the first time I’ve given a set - lecture in cold blood, where everything has got to be expressed in chosen - language—but it went very well. Mr. Gleam told me I was quite - academic.” - </p> - <p> - “He’s a great swell, isn’t he?” asked Lizzie. “Drives his carriage and - pair, and lives in the big house with the griffins on the front gates. And - you walked back with him?” - </p> - <p> - “Only to the top of the street,” replied Goddard, still sounding an - apologetic note. “He wanted to ask me whether I would throw up the - workshop and become a paid agent of the National Progressive League.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, how nice!” said Lizzie. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it was nice of him,” replied Goddard; “but, of course, I declined.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Daniel! How could you? It would have been so much more genteel.” - </p> - <p> - The word jarred upon him. It set the matter in a new light, and made it - look very ugly. Besides, it afforded him a not very satisfactory peep into - Lizzie’s spiritual horizon. - </p> - <p> - “You don’t mind my being a working-man, do you, Lizzie?” he asked, with - some reproach. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, never mind. What’s the odds? We needn’t trouble about it. If you like - to wear a dirty apron and have your ’ands all covered over with - varnish and turpentine, I’m sure I don’t care.” - </p> - <p> - She tossed her head, and drew a little away from him, so that only his - fingers touched her arm. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think we need discuss that,” said Goddard stiffly—“unless - you think I am not good enough for you. In that case you might as well - tell me at once.” - </p> - <p> - “Now you’re unkind,” said Lizzie. - </p> - <p> - They walked a few steps in silence, and then Lizzie pulled out a - pocket-handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. The young man’s heart softened - miraculously. He slid back his arm beneath hers, and drew her a little - closer. - </p> - <p> - “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Liz. Indeed, I didn’t. What can I do to say - I’m sorry?” - </p> - <p> - “You think I don’t care for you,” whimpered Lizzie. “Every one knows I - gave up Joe Forster just for you; and he’s got his own tobacco business - and keeps an assistant.” - </p> - <p> - The main part of which statement was not exactly in accordance with facts. - But Goddard was not in the current of local gossip, and did not suspect - his sweetheart’s veracity. - </p> - <p> - “Then you’ll forgive me, and we’ll make it up?” - </p> - <p> - “You don’t want to break it off?” - </p> - <p> - “I? Good gracious, no. Why, Liz!” - </p> - <p> - There was another pause. They were in the middle of the High Street. Knots - of loafers hung around the blazing entrances of the public-houses, but - otherwise the pavement was more or less deserted. - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you put your arm round my waist, then?” said Lizzie softly. - </p> - <p> - Goddard did as he was bidden. She laughed out loud at his shy awkwardness, - and pulled his fingers tighter round her figure. - </p> - <p> - “One’d say I was the only girl you’d ever walked out with.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you are,” replied Goddard simply. “I never bothered much with girls - till I knew you.” - </p> - <p> - “I believe that’s a cracker,” said Lizzie, who was beginning to enjoy the - walk. - </p> - <p> - “It isn’t, indeed. I swear it’s true.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh! How can you? Well, if it’s true it oughtn’t to have been. You ought - to have had some one to practise on, and then you would have learned to do - things nicely. Practice makes perfect, you know.” - </p> - <p> - A light argument followed, which ended in Goddard’s discomfiture, and left - him with a vague feeling that he had missed one of the duties of man in - letting his talent for lovemaking lie dormant, and also an uneasy wonder - at the extent of Lizzie’s familiarity with the subject. But Lizzie was - quite happy. - </p> - <p> - “You wouldn’t like any other girl, would you?” - </p> - <p> - She rested her head slightly against him. The glare of an electric-lighted - shop-front fell on her pretty, upturned face, and the young man forgot - everything, save that she had soft puckered lips and young, even teeth. - </p> - <p> - They were reconciled as far as harmony was ever possible between their - natures. The rest of the walk home was undisturbed, and when they arrived - at Lizzie’s door they were well pleased with each other. She opened the - door with her latch-key and, holding it ajar, received his kiss prettily, - and then with a desire to complete the reconciliation in all ways, said— - </p> - <p> - “I’m glad you decided to remain a workingman, Dan. I can’t bear them silly - politics.” - </p> - <p> - She disappeared quickly. Dan remained for a moment looking vaguely at the - knocker, as if to address it in confidential remonstrance; and then - turning away, he let himself into the adjoining house, and slowly mounted - the stairs to his room, with an all-pervading sense of the strange - futility of the female mind. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER II—A REVOLUTION - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>he was the one - thing feminine that had come across his path. He had stared at it like a - new Adam. His original Eden lay at the back of the houses, and was divided - by a low wall. Here, first, he used to lean, in his shirt-sleeves, pipe in - mouth, on the late summer evenings, and exchange remarks with her as she - removed the washing from the clothes’ lines, or idly took the air. How he - had drifted into his present relations he would have found it difficult to - determine. It never occurred to him to do so, his mind being filled with - other things. - </p> - <p> - By degrees he had familiarised himself with the fact of her existence. - Then it seemed natural that he should marry her. In his social sphere a - wife formed a necessary part of everyday existence. And then she was the - prettiest girl he had ever seen. When he kissed the pouting lips, all - kinds of strange tinglings ran through him. That was proof positive of his - being in love. So one day he called on her father, a retired captain of a - Thames steamboat, and obtained his consent to the marriage. He was earning - good wages, had even a little put by. The old man, whose tastes were not - of a domestic order, and who found a daughter an expensive luxury, got - solemnly drunk all by himself to celebrate the occasion. Goddard - considered him an abandoned old ruffian, as soon as he came to know more - about him, and conceiving a tender pity for Lizzie, longed to get her out - of his clutches. - </p> - <p> - It was hard work to carry on his trade, his self-education, his political - pursuits, and his lovemaking, all at the same time. The last was - distinctly pleasant, but it was sadly lacking in advantages from a - utilitarian point of view. Until he had fallen in love with her over that - back-garden wall, he had scouted the idea of “messing about” with girls as - a criminal waste of precious hours Even now he felt somewhat guilty. He - longed to be married, to settle down, to have Lizzie’s pretty face at his - fireside definitely assured to him for the rest of his days, and to see - before him a peaceful, undisturbed stretch of years wherein to further - with all his heart and energies the great movement in which he was - absorbed. - </p> - <p> - Perhaps Lizzie was right. A little previous practice in the art of love - would have been for his good; but in a widely different sense from that - which came within Lizzie’s philosophy. - </p> - <p> - A few evenings after he had given the lecture at the Radical Club, he took - her to the theatre. Some weeks previously he had treated her to the - Lyceum, not doubting in the guilelessness of his heart that her aesthetic - appreciation would be as great as his own. But she had been bored to - death, had come home cross, and the subject of play-going became a - dangerous one. This time, however, by way of compensation, it was the - Adelphi. Lizzie laughed and wept and squeezed Daniel’s arm, and enjoyed - herself amazingly. She did not know with whom she was the more delighted, - Mr. William Terriss or Daniel. On the top of the homeward ’bus she - decided in favour of Daniel. She nestled close to him on the garden-seat, - and brought his arm round her. Then she drew off her well-worn glove, so - as to put her bare hand in his. He was touched, tightened his circling - arm, and bent down his head till the fluffy fair curls brushed his lips. - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you hug me oftener, Dan?” she murmured. “Like this. It makes me - feel much more homey with you.” - </p> - <p> - “We are not always on top of a ’bus,” said Dan. - </p> - <p> - She gave him a little nudge to show him that she appreciated his jest, but - she went on— - </p> - <p> - “I don’t mind your kissing me, Dan. I like it. Now we’re engaged you ought - to be awfully spoony, you know, and squeeze me, and tell me how lovely I - look, and all that.” - </p> - <p> - They were on the front seat of the ’bus; the people behind did not - count as spectators; the hurrying roadway and crowded pavement below were - remote as the clear-shining stars above. Daniel surrendered to the coaxing - murmur, and kissed her a long lover’s kiss. When an inspector, a short - time afterwards, demanded their tickets, Goddard forgot his Collectivist - principles and became a fierce Individualist. - </p> - <p> - “What a confounded nuisance—these fellows disturbing us! It oughtn’t - to be allowed,” he said, resettling himself. And Lizzie acquiesced. - </p> - <p> - Towards the end of the journey they grew silent. Lizzie, tired, dozed with - her head on his shoulder. A sudden jolt of the ‘bus awakened her. She - laughed, and rubbed her eyes. - </p> - <p> - “I do believe I’ve been asleep. What have you been doing all the time?” - </p> - <p> - “Thinking,” he replied, smiling at the question. - </p> - <p> - “What of?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I was thinking of my speech on Saturday in Hyde Park, you know. - There is an Eight Hour demonstration, and the League people have asked me - to take a platform. I’m becoming quite an important person, you see, Liz.” - </p> - <p> - “I thought you were going to say you’d been thinking of me,” said Lizzie, - piqued. “I call that beastly of you.” - </p> - <p> - It took him all the time until they parted to re-establish the “spoony” - relations that alone, according to Lizzie, seemed to make for happiness - between them. - </p> - <p> - But when he went to bed that night he found himself wondering for the - first time whether his political interests might not cause serious - friction between Lizzie and himself. To give them up was out of the - question. Vague doubts came as to the wisdom of the step he was about to - take. - </p> - <p> - They troubled him, kept him from sleep for some hours. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - But before he could give the question fuller thought, new and undreamed of - conditions arose that changed the whole aspect of his life. - </p> - <p> - It was a couple of days afterwards. He sat in a solicitor’s office staring - at a little whiskered gentleman, whose even voice seemed to come from some - other world. He had called in response to a letter, bringing with him the - few documents he possessed—his dead mother’s marriage certificate, - his own birth certificate, and his old indentures of apprenticeship. He - had thought it a question of some trifling legacy on the part of the dead - uncle whom he had never known, who had disowned his mother because she had - brought disgrace on the family by marrying Sam Goddard the builder. He had - conjectured that the hard old heart that had stonily refused succour to - widowed sister had melted before his death, and had sought to make some - little posthumous reparation to his sister’s son. Save that Robert Haig - was a well-to-do hosier in Birmingham, Goddard knew nothing at all about - him. But when the little whiskered man announced that this unknown uncle - had died, wifeless, childless, and intestate, that he, Goddard, was the - next-of-kin, and inherited, not only the business as it stood, but a - considerable sum of invested money, that brought in between four and five - hundred a year, he stared, open-mouthed, in blank amazement, and it was - some time before he could recover his bewildered faculties. - </p> - <p> - “Is there no one who has a better right to all this money than I?” he - asked, after a while. - </p> - <p> - “Not a soul. Since the death of his wife and daughter the late Mr. Haig - had neither kith nor kin besides yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “How did you find my whereabouts?” - </p> - <p> - It seemed to him as if he were living for the moment the irresponsible - life of comic opera. - </p> - <p> - “Simplest thing in the world,” replied the lawyer. “Your mother’s letters - were found docketed amongst Mr. Haig’s papers. The last one, appealing to - him for help on the occasion of your father’s death, contained the address - of the firm of cabinetmakers to whom you were indentured. They gave us - your present address.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard rose from his chair, and made one or two turns about the room. - </p> - <p> - “It’s difficult to realise it all at once,” he said, stopping before the - solicitor. “But I think I have grasped it now. What would you advise me to - do?” - </p> - <p> - “You had better go as soon as possible to Birmingham and see our - principals, Messrs. Taylor & Blythe. We are only acting for them, you - know. They will be able to go into fuller details with you, particularly - in the matter of the hosiery business.” - </p> - <p> - “They’ll have to sell that,” said Goddard quickly. “It would be a white - elephant to me.” - </p> - <p> - “I should strongly dissuade you from parting with it,” said the lawyer. - “It appears to be a going concern. You should keep it on. Work it up. You - would soon get into the way of it.” - </p> - <p> - “And turn hosier? Oh no! I’m proud of my handicraft, and I would go on - with it if there were any necessity. But to wear a long frock-coat, and - sell collars and neckties behind a counter—I am afraid I wasn’t made - for it.” - </p> - <p> - He laughed at the vision of himself. The lawyer smiled too. The dark, - heavily-cut face, with its great forehead and bright clever eyes, giving - its promise of strength and intellect, seemed fitted for more strenuous - work than shrewd buying and polite selling of hosiery. - </p> - <p> - “Well, you’ll think it over,” said the lawyer. “Yes,” said Goddard. “It - strikes me I have a deal of thinking to do the next few days.” - </p> - <p> - He got into a District train to return to the workshop, from which he had - obtained a couple of hours’ leave of absence. The journey passed in a - dream. The fortune that had befallen him seemed almost beyond his powers - of realisation. The prospective changes in his life presented themselves - before him in quick succession—the suggestion of one leading to the - shock of another. His trade would be abandoned, unless he chose to - continue it as a hobby. He need never do an hour’s work again as long as - he lived. He could live in a comfortable house of his own, surround - himself with books—an endless vista of shelf upon shelf quivered - before his eyes. The possession of such an income demanded changes in - habits, food, raiment. It gave infinite leisure. And then a thought that - had gradually been piercing through the cloud of his bewilderment broke - out like a sun over his mind, causing his heart to leap in a thrilling - delight, as a great life-work was revealed to him. He no longer need stand - at the brink of the great struggle, lending a helping hand in all too few - hours of leisure. He could plunge into the very midst, fight for the cause - of the people with all his brain and heart and energies. His face flushed, - and his breath came quickly. It was a chilly day, and a man seated - opposite to him in the third-class carriage was surprised to see him wipe - the perspiration from his forehead. - </p> - <p> - And then there was Lizzie. He would tell her that evening. He pictured to - himself the ecstatic wonder on her pretty face. But the greater passion - held him, and Lizzie’s face floated vaguely behind the flashing dreams of - work and struggle and victories. - </p> - <p> - At the workshop he sought his employer, but the latter was absent. Goddard - took off his coat, put on his apron, rolled up his sleeves, and turned to - the fitting of the writing-table on which he had been engaged that - morning. The feeling that he was doing this familiar thing for the last - time made it appear strangely unreal. His tool-bag seemed no longer to - belong to him. He had given it, in his mind, to the young apprentice who - was working at his side. He joined in the desultory chat and jesting of - his companions with the ready good humour that had always made him popular - among them; but his brain throbbed with the effort of self-control. He - worked steadily, with the deft, sure touch of the skilled craftsman. The - pigeon-hole slides ran into the grooves without a hairbreadth deviation, - the little secret panel ran in and out without the hitch that a grain of - dust could have made. It was gratifying to him to be able to put the - finishing touches to a piece of work he had undertaken. When he had done, - he passed his hand caressingly over the polished curves of the sliding - cover. He was proud of his craft. It was a beautiful thing that had shaped - itself under his touch. - </p> - <p> - “If all the work I do in the future,” he thought, “is as perfect of its - kind as this, I need fear no rivals.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - It was over. He had had a pleasant interview with his employer, had - received the hearty congratulations of his mates, who, after the manner - understanded of the British workman, drank to his health and prosperity at - a neighbouring tavern. He had bidden farewell to the trade in which he had - found so much honest happiness. Again the sense of unreality came over - him. The change had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly. That morning he had - risen a poor artisan; he would lie down that night the owner of fabulous - wealth, which he was going to Birmingham the next day to claim. In spite - of the strong will that strove to repress extravagant fancies, and to put - matters in a common-sense, practical light, his imagination slipped - elusively from his control, and ran riot amid the courts and halls of airy - palaces. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER III—THE END OF AN ACT - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r., or, as he - loved to be designated, Captain Jenkyns, had once followed the sea. But - that was a long time ago. The serious part of his life had been spent on a - Thames steamer. The outer man was nautical, and the carnal inner, as an - inveterate craving for fiery drink clearly proved; but many years of fresh - water seemed to have washed the true sailor’s kindly salt out of his - nature. He was a thick-set, grizzled old man, with bibulous superannuation - written on every wrinkle that mounted to his little red-rimmed eyes, and - in every filament of the network of tiny red veins on his nose. - </p> - <p> - He was sitting in the leathern arm-chair, with his back to the parlour - window, drinking his tea out of a saucer. Goddard and Lizzie sat - decorously at the tea-table. It was a ceremonious occasion, as the use of - the parlour, the potted ham and seed-cake on the table, Captain Jenkyns’s - brass-buttoned coat, and the little blue ribbon round Lizzie’s neck, with - the bow tied kittenishly under her ear, all combined to testify. - Previously Goddard used to join the domestic circle in the kitchen, but - then he had never been to Birmingham nor opened a banking account at the - City Bank. That made all the difference. - </p> - <p> - So far, conversation had not been animated. Goddard had conducted it - practically alone, sketching his visit to Birmingham, which had terminated - to his complete satisfaction. An offer for the shop and good-will was - already under consideration. The solicitors had advanced him a good round - sum for present needs. - </p> - <p> - “To keep a shop warn’t good enough for yer, I suppose,” Captain Jenkyns - had remarked in his agreeable way. - </p> - <p> - “No,” Goddard had answered coldly—he did not love the captain. “It - wasn’t.” - </p> - <p> - And then he had proceeded with his story. But the talk languished. Lizzie, - never expansive in her father’s presence, was less so to-day than usual. - Goddard’s sudden accession to wealth—riches beyond the dreams of - Lizzie’s avarice—somewhat awed her, after the first excitement had - passed. His cleverness, his personality, all in fact that differentiated - him from Joe Forster the tobacconist and his class, had always put him a - little beyond her reach; but now that he was a rich man as well, she felt - frightened and abashed. She offered him bread and butter timidly, and - flushed scarlet when she awkwardly flooded his tea-cup. Then crumbs of - cake went the wrong way, and she retired to the window to hide her - discomfiture. - </p> - <p> - “And now you’re a hindependent gentleman,” said the old man after a pause, - setting down his saucer. “I suppose you won’t want to be thinking of - marrying my gell.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard sprang to his feet. He had his own reasons for feeling stung to - the quick. - </p> - <p> - “You have no right to say that,” he cried hotly. “What do you take me - for?” - </p> - <p> - The ex-captain made the motion of “Ease her!” with his hand, and chuckled. - </p> - <p> - “Do you think I don’t know human natur’, when I’ve seed boat-loads of it - every day for sixty years?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you don’t know my nature,” said Daniel. “Lizzie, come here. We’ll - soon settle that matter.” - </p> - <p> - Lizzie turned from the window and advanced towards him, flushing - uncomfortably. - </p> - <p> - “Damme! I don’t want you to marry her. I don’t care a tinker’s damn,” said - the old man with unreasonable heat, as Goddard met Lizzie and took her by - the hand. “I ain’t going down on my bended knees to ask you to marry her.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, father! don’t,” said Lizzie on the brink of tears. - </p> - <p> - “Never mind,” said Goddard. “<i>I</i> want to marry you, and I’m going to - marry you. I’ll have the banns put up next Sunday.” - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you have a special licence at once?” growled the Captain - sarcastically. - </p> - <p> - “Because I know my own business best,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “Then I’m blarsted if you’ll have her at all!” - </p> - <p> - “Don’t make a scene, father,” Lizzie entreated. She tried to slip away, - but Goddard’s arm tightened and restrained her. He looked with disgust on - the ignoble old face that blinked in cantankerous dignity. Save on the - ground of pure ill-temper he could not understand his outburst. Lizzie had - often told him of the awful rows she had had with her father about nothing - at all. But Goddard was not the man to be bullied. - </p> - <p> - “Lizzie is over twenty-one, and I’m going to marry her whether you are - blasted or not, Captain Jenkyns. You can take that from me.” - </p> - <p> - “Then you’re a ———er fool than I took you for,” replied - the Captain, giving in beneath the young fellow’s strong gaze. “Marry in - haste; repent at leisure. You want to make a lady of her. She ain’t going - to be no lady. It’s only going to set her off her ’ead. Think she’s - going to recognise her poor old father when she lives in a fine ’ouse - and dressed in silks and satins? Not a bit of it. I know human natur’, I - tell yer. I brought her up to be an honest working man’s wife. That’s what - she’s fit for. So that she could give me a bit of dinner on Sundays. Now - you’re a going to take her away from her natural surroundings, what she - was born in, and make her neither flesh, nor fowl, nor good red ’erring. - Think I don’t know? And you, with your ’igh-falutin’ idea about - being too good to keep a shop, you ought to marry a duchess instead of a - poor old sailor’s gell: that’s what you ought to do.” - </p> - <p> - He produced a flat bottle of rum from his side pocket, filled his - half-emptied tea-cup with spirits, and drank the compound to console his - poor old sailor’s paternal heart. - </p> - <p> - Goddard, seeing that the storm was over, smiled at the mixture of - shrewdness and selfishness in the old man’s speech. Certain home-truths - made him wince a little; but the prospect of Captain Jenkyns not finding a - seat at his Sunday dinner-table did not present itself to him as in any - way pathetic. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” he said good-humouredly, “I am not going to marry a duchess, but a - girl as sweet as one. Isn’t that true, Liz? And so there’s an end to the - matter. I suppose I can count on you to give her away, Captain?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I’ll give her away. Jolly good riddance,” growled the old man. - </p> - <p> - A short while afterwards he rose, filled his clay pipe with cavendish, - which he ground fine between his hands, and excusing himself on the score - of business, left the two young people to themselves. His destination, - however, was a far-off river-side public, where he spent the rest of the - evening with his cronies, and informed them, in speech that grew gradually - more marked by thickness and profanity, of the approaching splendour of - his daughter’s fortunes. - </p> - <p> - “Cheer up, Lizzie,” said Goddard, as she began to clear away the - tea-things in silence. “We neither of us mind what he says.” - </p> - <p> - “He makes me so ashamed,” said Lizzie. “I didn’t know where to look. He’s - been at it ever since you’ve been away, saying as how you would want to - back out; and he made me quite miserable, he did.” - </p> - <p> - The baby-blue eyes filled with tears. Goddard consoled her as best he - could. - </p> - <p> - “There, there, don’t cry,” he said, patting her shoulder with his great - hand. “The banns will be put up next Sunday, as I said; and three weeks - won’t be long, you know; and then it will all be over, and we’ll start - fair. Leave those things alone for the present, and let us talk about it.” - </p> - <p> - So they sat, side by side, over the fire, and spoke of the near future. - They would live in lodgings until they could find a house to suit them. - They discussed the size of the house, its position, the furniture, the - question of servants. They came nearer the present, and Goddard counted - out into her hand six crisp bank-notes wherewith to buy her trousseau. - Lizzie’s mind swam in ecstatic wonderment. - </p> - <p> - “All this—for me?” she whispered, awestricken. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, and as much more if you like. I am going to get a new rig out, so - why shouldn’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Dan,” she broke out suddenly, throwing her arms round his neck, “I - didn’t quite know whether I loved you before—but I do now—Dan!” - </p> - <p> - There followed an interlude, during which the future was left in abeyance. - </p> - <p> - “And I was wondering <i>how</i> I was going to get a wedding-dress. Emmie - and I have talked for hours over it. Won’t I get a beauty now! White satin - with a long, long train. I saw one yesterday in a fashion-plate—oh! - just lovely.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose you won’t feel married otherwise,” he said, with a quiet smile. - And then, seeing a quick shadow of dismay on her face, he laughed and - kissed her. “You shall drive to the church in a coach and four, with the - horses’ manes and tails all tied up with orange-blossoms, if you like.” - </p> - <p> - She saw he was jesting kindly, and joined in the laugh—but - perfunctorily. The wedding-dress was the ecstatic, enrapturing part of the - ceremony. To jest upon it savoured of profanity. - </p> - <p> - After a while Lizzie returned to the tea-things, and, aided by Daniel, - washed them up in the kitchen. - </p> - <p> - “Only fancy! I am going to have servants to do this for me ever - afterwards,” she said brightly. - </p> - <p> - The possession of the trousseau money had strongly influenced the girl’s - facile temperament. The changed fortune ceased to be shadowy and - disquieting. It had assumed already a comforting, concrete form. The - overwhelming realisation of the potential finery that lay in those crisp - notes had crushed any feelings of delicacy in accepting the gift. The - first wondering delight and childlike impulse of gratitude to Goddard was - succeeded by a new sense of personal importance. Her garments would be - dazzling—the thought of them raised her to a height whence she could - almost look down upon Daniel. She no longer felt shy or constrained. - </p> - <p> - They returned to the parlour, a prim little room, with a pervading - impression of horse-hair, crocheted antimacassars, woolly mats and - wax-fruit, and again envisaged the future. Lizzie sat in her father’s - arm-chair, her hands deliciously idle in her lap, her mind all - transcendental millinery. Goddard rested his elbow on the table, pushed - back his hair from his forehead, and looked at her gravely. - </p> - <p> - “It’s not all going to be beer and skittles, you know, Liz,” he said. - “Although I have chucked the working-man, I am going in for precious hard - work all the same.” - </p> - <p> - “Why, whatever for, when you haven’t your living to get?” she asked in - surprise. - </p> - <p> - Like the apocryphal British workman, Lizzie hated work, and hated those - that liked it. She saw no point in unnecessary labour. - </p> - <p> - “No,” said Goddard, his face lighting up with the impulse of reply. “Not - my own living to get, thank God, but I have to help others to get theirs. - I may not be able to do much. But when a lot of men work together, every - little effort of each tells. And I mean, too, to come to the front, Liz, - for the nearer the front a man is, the bigger the things he can do. And - the front means a big position in Parliament, and that’s what I’m going to - try and get before I die. If I don’t, it won’t be for want of fighting. - But it will be a long time coming, and will take me all I know. That’s why - I didn’t take over the shop in Birmingham.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that’s why?” said Lizzie, trying to look sympathetic. - </p> - <p> - “Of course. You see it wasn’t because I suddenly became too big for my - boots—but I wanted all my time to myself for this other work. I have - made a fair start. I know something about the inner workings of things - already, and I can get men to listen to me when I speak. So I am going to - work like a nigger, Liz.” - </p> - <p> - She sat silent and plucked at her dress. It was very wonderful and clever - of Daniel to talk about becoming a Member of Parliament, but she could not - in the least see why it was necessary for him to work like a nigger. In - her heart she regretted the hosier’s shop, but she was afraid to tell him - so. She looked up at him and smiled, with the outside of her features as - it were, after the manner of dutiful yet uninterested woman. Goddard, - encouraged, continued to unfold his schemes. He was in intense earnest, - and spoke to her, as he had never spoken before, of the burning questions - of the day—the unequal struggle between labour and capital, the - iniquity of the living wage, the stupendous problem of the unemployed, the - great reforms on whose behalf he felt summoned forth to fight. And as the - passion grew upon him, his voice vibrated and his eyes glowed, and his - words waxed eloquent. He broke the bonds of his usual speech with her, - partly through a need of expansion, partly through a half-conscious desire - to awaken a little of the girl’s sympathy. - </p> - <p> - When he had done, and a little pause had followed, she looked up from the - puckering of her dress. - </p> - <p> - “That’s all lovely, Dan,” she said; “but what am <i>I</i> to do?” - </p> - <p> - The question brought his thoughts down from the empyræan like a gash in a - balloon. - </p> - <p> - “Well, there will be the house to look after,” he said, in an altered - tone; “and then—well—there will be babies—and lots of - things,” he concluded lamely. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t like babies,” said Lizzie, with frank inconsequence. “They - always want such a lot of fussing after, and they’re always squalling. I’m - sure I shall want to smack them. Nasty little things.” - </p> - <p> - He looked at her rather perplexedly. It was a delicate subject. She caught - his glance and coloured. - </p> - <p> - “You shouldn’t go saying such things,” she murmured, giggling in - embarrassment—“and we not married yet!” - </p> - <p> - Then something seemed to catch him by the heart, a queer chilly grip, and - tug it downwards. He blamed himself for having suggested the idea, - although he had done so without shadowing thoughts. The innuendo jarred - upon him—he could not tell why. - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry,” he said gravely. - </p> - <p> - There was a silence for some time. Goddard idly turned over the leaves of - a rickety album filled with faded photographs of stiff, staring people in - the costume of the sixties. - </p> - <p> - Lizzie lay back in her chair, and devised the white satin wedding-dress. - At last she called to him softly. - </p> - <p> - “Dan.” - </p> - <p> - He turned, saw her reclining there, smiling at him. Her cheeks were so - pink, her fair hair so bewilderingly soft and fluffy, her parted lips so - fresh and inviting, her young figure so cleanly cut, in spite of the - ill-fitting dress and cheap corsets beneath, her white throat set off by - the coquettish blue ribbon so alluring, that the heart of the young man, - who knew little of the ways and fascinations of women, threw off the cold - grip in a great quick throb. - </p> - <p> - “You haven’t given me a kiss all the time, Dan,” she said without - stirring. - </p> - <p> - Well, he rose and kissed her. - </p> - <p> - And the next day he called on the vicar of the parish, and settled the - question of the banns. It was over. He felt lighter. There is nothing that - is more irksome to a strong-willed man than indecision, and Goddard had - passed through a period of grave misgiving. - </p> - <p> - On his way down the path to the vicarage gate, however, he met Mr. - Aloysius Gleam just entering it. The Member let fall his gold-rimmed - eye-glass in some surprise, as he greeted him. - </p> - <p> - “What, more miracles? You in the house of Rimmon?” he exclaimed, for - Goddard had been a thorn in the vicar’s flesh for some time past. - </p> - <p> - “I’m going to get married,” replied Goddard, by way of explanation. - </p> - <p> - The Member drooped his shoulders and lowered the point of his stick in a - helpless attitude, and looked at him with an air of dismay. “What <i>are</i> - you doing it for? Just when you ought to be going round the country like a - firebrand. Now you’ll be a damp faggot. I know. Go back and tell the vicar - you didn’t mean it. It was an elaborate ‘draw’ on your part.” - </p> - <p> - Daniel stuck his hands in his pockets and laughed. - </p> - <p> - “I feel inclined to answer you like Touchstone,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “The deuce you do,” said Gleam. - </p> - <p> - A quick glance passed between them, and a shade of annoyance came over - Goddard’s dark face. The analogy perhaps was closer than he intended. The - other might retort with the gibes of Jacques. - </p> - <p> - “Of course it isn’t my business,” added Gleam in a deprecating tone. “But - it might have been better for you to have waited—considering the - change in your fortune, and your scheme of life generally. Well, I suppose - folks will marry. It is even within the bounds of possibility I may do it - myself one of these days.” - </p> - <p> - He put up his eye-glass and passed his fingers over his tight fair - moustache, as if to prepare himself for the ordeal. - </p> - <p> - “It won’t interfere with any of our plans, I can assure you,” said - Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “That’s right. Don’t let it, for goodness’ sake. But marriage is a - function of two independent variables, as they say in the differential - calculus—and a deuced tough function too. Anyhow, if you’re bent - upon it, I wish you luck.” - </p> - <p> - They shook hands and parted. Goddard turned away slowly. - </p> - <p> - The Member’s words sounded again the note of warning, the same note that - had rung in those of the old man on the previous day, the same that had - rung in his own ears. - </p> - <p> - “But I should have been a knave to have done differently,” he thought to - himself. “There was only one alternative.” - </p> - <p> - He had deliberately chosen the part of the fool. - </p> - <p> - “I am damned glad,” he said aloud, swinging his stick. “I’ll walk - straight, now and ever afterwards, whatever happens.” - </p> - <p> - Three weeks afterwards they were married, and Lizzie’s wedding-dress, to - her trembling joy, was fully described in the <i>Sunington Weekly - Chronicle</i>. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IV—LADY PHAYRE AND THE COMING MAN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">“I</span> WISH something - new would happen,” said Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - “There is the session just begun,” replied Mr. Aloysius Gleam, drawing his - arm-chair an inch nearer the fire. “We can promise you many New Year - novelties.” - </p> - <p> - “Call you them novelties?” asked Lady Phayre. “They will be as old as—as - the antepenultimate barrel-organ tune.” - </p> - <p> - “You want to go too fast. Great political reforms move slowly.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, that is true—deadeningly true. I think I read it once in a - newspaper.” - </p> - <p> - Gleam laughed, and spread out his hands before the blaze. He was familiar - with her mood—a mild spiritual unrest, induced by supreme bodily - comfort and intellectual disturbance. He had the faculty of the aesthetic - as well as ultrademocratic tendencies, and he appreciated the harmony - between her mood and the dim afternoon hour with its gathering shadows in - comers of the room. Her comfortable attitude, with one hand hanging over - the arm of the chair; her costume, a dark fur-edged tea-gown; her - expression of wistful meditation—all betokened a relaxation of fibre - trying to pamper itself into depression. So the Member laughed, and a - smile played round his clean-shaven lips in the silence that followed. - </p> - <p> - The politician within the esoteric revolutionary ring, who did not know - Lady Phayre, was like a Positivist ignorant of Auguste Comte. The analogy - halts, however. Lady Phayre was far from being an evangelist; she was not - even an apostle. She had been left with the key of a pleasant situation, - and, like a wise woman, she used it. Her enemies called her insincere. If - the late Sir Ephraim, they said, had sat as a Conservative, and had formed - the cartilage as it were of a brilliant wing of that party, Lady Phayre’s - flat would have become an audaciously unauthorised Primrose Habitation. - But political opponents will say anything. - </p> - <p> - Certainly she took no combative part in political warfare. Her functions - were rather those of an etherealised <i>vivandière</i> to the band. The - members came exhausted into her drawing-room, where she revived them with - pannikins of sympathy, and spread the delicate ointment of flattery over - their bruises. Not but what she exposed herself in times of need to the - dangers and fatigues of the campaign. She had risked typhoid in slums, and - congestion of the lungs in draughty halls. She also kept bravely up with - the march, picking her dainty way through prodigious quantities of - speeches, pamphlets, and articles, both in type and manuscript. Now and - then she stumbled sorely. Bimetallism was a morass, and trade statistics - stone fences. On these occasions she would cry out for a helping hand, - preferably that of Aloysius Gleam; after which she would survey herself - with rueful introspection, and put to herself the question addressed to - the immortal Scapin. - </p> - <p> - Her mood of to-day followed one of these periodic rescuings. - </p> - <p> - “Hendrick’s amendment is coming on this evening,” said Aloysius Gleam at - last. “The audacity of it is novel enough. Come down. It will amuse you. - Burnet has a lady’s ticket going a-begging.” - </p> - <p> - “I have had enough of Hendrick for some time,” replied Lady Phayre. “He - took me down to dinner last night at the M’Kays’, and could talk of - nothing else. I wish you could put some sense into him.” - </p> - <p> - “I wish I could. But a Collectivist who has broken loose is running - headlong to destruction.” - </p> - <p> - “That was what I told him. Push Collectivism to its logical conclusion, - and we get Mr. Bellamy’s intolerable paradise. He got purple in the face, - said he was nothing if not logical, insisted on the establishment of - comparative values for different kinds of labour and products, and called - me a reactionary because I asked him how the State was going to determine - the number of mutton chops that would go to a sonnet.” - </p> - <p> - “Is that phrase your own, Lady Phayre?” asked Gleam, pricking up his ears. - </p> - <p> - “No,” she replied, with a little touch of audacity. “I snapped it up as an - unconsidered trifle out of a review article.” - </p> - <p> - “Goddard’s, I think, on Extremism as applied to Practical Politics.” - </p> - <p> - “You are an encyclopaedia,” said Lady Phayre, laughing. “You know - everything.” - </p> - <p> - “Did you like the article?” - </p> - <p> - “Immensely. I detached it from the review, and restitched it with blue - ribbon to use as a text-book. Without it I might have been led to - destruction by Hendrick.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, my dear Lady Phayre—I shall not tell it in Gath; but when are - you going to have views of your own?” - </p> - <p> - “Views? Of course I have views,” said Lady Phayre, comfortably reversing - the crossing of her feet, “just like everybody else, only theirs are fixed - and mine are—dissolving. It gives greater variety to life. But I - think the Goddard view will be lasting.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall tell him. He will be flattered.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you know him?” - </p> - <p> - “Pretty intimately. I may say that I trained him—in the sporting, - not the pedagogic sense.” - </p> - <p> - “You never told me. Have you many more lights under your bushel?” - </p> - <p> - “A dazzling illumination of unsuspected virtues. But I didn’t do very much - for Goddard except put him in the way of things; and he would have come to - the front right enough without me. He is the coming man of the younger - school of Progressists. The anomaly of his generation—a hot reformer - with luminous common-sense—a popular demagogue with an idea of - proportion—an original thinker—a powerful, eloquent speaker. - Look at the work he has done on the Council, the Progressive League—ramifications - spreading all over the country with organised courses of lectures on - civism, social economics, and what not. Decidedly the coming man.” - </p> - <p> - “It does one good to see you enthusiastic,” cried Lady Phayre with a - laugh. “Your criticisms are generally more bracing than genial. But why - don’t I know Goddard?” - </p> - <p> - “He surely has not sprung suddenly into your horizon?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course not. The newspapers—general talk—I know all about - him that way. I meant, why don’t I know him personally?” - </p> - <p> - There was a touch of reprimand in the “why.” Gleam was Lord Chamberlain in - Ordinary to her ladyship. - </p> - <p> - “I was waiting until he got into the House at the next general election. - You see, until seven years ago, when he came into some money that rendered - him independent, he was a carpenter or something—no, cabinetmaker—and - so, to be frank, I never thought of it.” - </p> - <p> - “And you call yourself a Radical! Well, what is the matter with him? Does - he wear corduroys tied up at the knees, and carry a red - pocket-handkerchief in his hat?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh dear no!” exclaimed Gleam hastily. “He is presentable. I told you of a - little training——” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, lose no time in bringing him,” said Lady Phayre. “He surely - must have heard of <i>me</i>.” - </p> - <p> - She was proud of her position: somewhat jealous of it too. That a - generation of Progressists should arise which knew not Lady Phayre was a - dreadful contingency. She had a prescriptive right to the homage of the - coming man of the wing. Besides, an ex-cabinetmaker whose views on social - polity she had thought worth while to tie up with blue ribbon was a - novelty. - </p> - <p> - Aloysius Gleam took his leave. At the door he was summoned to pause. - </p> - <p> - “He won’t walk up and down the room and shake his finger at me, will he?” - </p> - <p> - “Like Fenton?” he laughed. “No, you can reassure your nerves. By the way,” - he cried suddenly, “there is a large meeting at Stepney next week, - Thursday, at which Goddard is going to speak, and I have promised to say - something. Would you care to come?” - </p> - <p> - “I shall be delighted,” said Lady Phayre. “Then I can see for myself - whether he is like Fenton.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I can guarantee that,” said Gleam, with a final word of adieu. - </p> - <p> - She sank back in her chair relieved. Fenton was an aggressive person, fond - of hurling at her his theory of State education of babies as the sovereign - panacea for the Weltschmerz. She was a practical woman; and philosophical - ideas, unless gracefully conveyed, rather bored her. She could see no - sense in their absolute use. A limitless volume of abstraction did not - interest her so much as a cubic inch of solid fact. That was why she liked - Aloysius Gleam. - </p> - <p> - She meditated a little longer before the fire, then she switched on the - electric light, rang for the curtains to be drawn, and re-read Daniel - Goddard’s article until it was time to dress for dinner. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - It was not a new experience for Lady Phayre. She was familiar with - platforms, and the sight of the pale, moving mass of human faces in front. - She had listened to the speeches of many demagogues to the proletariat, - and had found them singularly lacking in originality. Accordingly, it was - with the air of an old campaigner that she settled herself down by the - side of Aloysius Gleam, and surveyed the decorous occupants of the - platform, and the noisy but enthusiastic audience of working men and women - in the body of the hall. - </p> - <p> - Proceedings had already commenced when they entered. The chairman was - concluding his introductory speech. The courteous applause that followed - his remarks suddenly grew into the thunder that comes from the heart. - Goddard was standing before the table, his massive dark face lit with - pleasure at his welcome. He began to speak. His voice, rich and sonorous, - rang out through the last dying cheers, and compelled willing attention. - After a few moments he held the audience in his grasp. - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre bent forward and looked with interested curiosity at the - speaker, whom she saw mostly in profile, at intervals full-face, when he - flashed round to the side benches. Her quick perception appreciated the - mastery he had obtained over his hearers, their instant responsiveness to - his touch. She herself was gradually drawn under the spell, felt herself - but a chord of the instrument that responded to every shade of invective, - irony, and promise. She was not unconscious of a certain unfamiliar - sensuousness in this surrender of her individuality. Perhaps feminine - instincts that had long lain dormant were awakened. The sense of power in - the man set working deep-hidden springs of sensation. A strain of the - barbaric lingers even in so super-refined a product as Lady Phayre. When - Goddard had finished speaking, she leaned back in her chair with a kind of - sigh. - </p> - <p> - “That’s the genuine article, isn’t it?” said Gleam, turning to her - smilingly. - </p> - <p> - She nodded, rested her glance thoughtfully upon him for a moment. He - seemed so small, precise, uninspiring compared with the huge-limbed man - with the leonine face and rolling voice who had just been swaying her. - </p> - <p> - “He is a power among these people,” she said below her breath. - </p> - <p> - “I deserve some credit, don’t I?” he remarked. He was proud of Goddard, - honestly delighted at the impression his pupil had made upon Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - The succeeding speeches, modest and formal, after Goddard’s magnetic - harangue, were quickly over. After three cheers for Dan Goddard, the - audience broke up. The occupants of the platform formed into little - groups. Gleam drew Goddard from the largest of these. - </p> - <p> - “I want to present you to Lady Phayre, the Lady Superior of the League.” - </p> - <p> - And before the other could reply, he had taken him prisoner by the lapel - of his coat, and brought him, in his brisk way, to where Lady Phayre was - standing, and had gone through the formality of presentation. - </p> - <p> - “You have had a great success to-night, Mr. Goddard,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “It is easy to speak to an enthusiastic audience,” said Goddard. “You see - we mean business,” he added, addressing Gleam. “We’ve done our share in - agitation. It is for you people in the House now to carry the bill - through.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll undertake to see that they don’t halt by the way,” said Lady Phayre - with bewitching authority. - </p> - <p> - “I wish you were in the House, Goddard,” said Gleam. - </p> - <p> - “Get me a seat and I’ll come,” he replied with a laugh. - </p> - <p> - “You’ll have the Hough division offered you according to general whisper.” - </p> - <p> - “Not under a miracle,” said Goddard. “The moderate element in the - constituency is too strong.” - </p> - <p> - “I heard they were going to run an Independent Labour candidate,” - interposed Lady Phayre. “I know the neighbourhood pretty well. Some - friends I often stay with live near Ecclesby, and I hear the local gossip - through them.” - </p> - <p> - “They would withdraw the Labour man and support Goddard, if he stood,” - explained Gleam. - </p> - <p> - But Goddard laughed deprecatingly and shook his head. - </p> - <p> - “It is all in the clouds. Repson has not resigned the seat yet. It is only - a rumour that he intends doing so, and haste in the matter would be - indecent. Anyhow,” he added, after a pause, to Lady Phayre, “if you would - tell Mr. Gleam any news you may get, you would be doing me a service.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not come and get it first hand?” asked Lady Phayre sweetly. “I should - be most pleased to see you if you would call—13 Queen’s Court - Mansions—Tuesdays.” - </p> - <p> - “You are very kind,” said Goddard, bowing. “I had better give you a card,” - she said, taking one from an elaborate little memoranda-book; “then you - won’t forget the address.” - </p> - <p> - They remained a while in desultory talk. Then Lady Phayre departed under - Gleam’s escort, and Goddard returned to the group that had been waiting - for him. An eager discussion, prolonged until the party broke up in the - street, swept away from Goddard’s mind every lingering impression of his - first interview with Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER V—LIZZIE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he National - Progressive League, under whose auspices the meeting at Stepney had been - held, had originated in the minds of certain members of the extreme - Parliamentary left, the most active of whom were the late Sir Ephraim - Phayre, the chief, and Mr. Aloysius Gleam, his henchman. Its primary - object was to form a strong wing of the Liberal party, in which - extremists, opportunists, and the waverers on the edge of the Independent - Labour Party might rally together around practical Collectivist - principles. It sought to embrace academic Radicalism and the interests of - the Labour Party in a broader scheme of imperial policy. - </p> - <p> - When Goddard threw himself into the work of the League it had all the - promise and vitality of youth. Centres were being rapidly established - throughout the kingdom. Systems of lectures on social and political - subjects were being organised. Meetings, conferences, and demonstrations - were arranged under its auspices. Pamphlets were published from its - headquarters in London, as well as a vigorously written journal. Besides - thus working on its own account, the League was gradually gathering - influence enough to constitute itself a great agency. It sent speakers to - political gatherings, and canvassers to Parliamentary and municipal - elections. It gained the confidence of the great trades unions and - operatives’ associations, and provided helpers in labour conflicts. It was - in touch at all points with political life—a vast undertaking, - offering an unlimited field for the energies of its supporters. Its - Statistical Bureau alone was capable of almost infinite extension. - </p> - <p> - It was with a thrilling sense of pride that Goddard found himself in the - full stream of the new movement. Every day brought him an added sense of - power and responsibility. To qualify himself for the tasks that devolved - upon him, he read deeply and widely, setting himself resolutely to fill in - the gaps of his self-education. He studied French, German, Latin, - beginning the latter with <i>mensa</i>, like a child, and strove to train - his taste and judgment by extending his acquaintance with pure literature. - His vigorous intellect assimilated rapidly, both from books and men, and - gradually, as the months passed into years, his views became clearer, his - judgments more penetrating, and his grasp more sure and far-reaching. - </p> - <p> - The League work, and afterwards his election to a political club, brought - him into frequent contact with Aloysius Gleam. The latter was anxious to - keep in touch with Goddard, not only because he foresaw in him a valuable - man for the party, but also because he took a keen personal interest in - the young man’s career. He had all a shrewd, generous little man’s vanity - in extending to a big man the patronage he felt would soon not be needed. - To his friends he prophesied great things of Goddard. He introduced him to - the chief shortly before Sir Ephraim’s death. - </p> - <p> - “It is courageous of you to tackle that powerful-faced young giant,” said - Sir Ephraim, laughing. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” replied Gleam, “I feel like a hen hatching an ostrich egg.” - </p> - <p> - And when the young ostrich stalked out of the shell, and in the course of - time took up its position in the world as a superior bird, Aloysius Gleam - looked on with undisguised satisfaction. - </p> - <p> - Once, in the early days of Goddard’s affluence, Gleam interrupted a warm - discussion. - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you take elocution lessons?” - </p> - <p> - “I never thought of it,” Goddard replied. “I have no desire to become an - elegant orator.” - </p> - <p> - “It might be useful to you in your private speech,” said Gleam, looking at - him in his shrewd way. Goddard frowned perplexedly. Then he understood and - coloured slightly. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t want to pretend to be better than I am,” he said. “If my speech - shows I belong to the people, so much the better. No one will think the - worse of me.” - </p> - <p> - Gleam laid his hand kindly on the young democrat’s arm—they were - walking up and down the lobby of the House—and broke out into an - impetuous harangue. The young man’s argument was easily demolished. - </p> - <p> - The result was that in this, as in many other things, he took Gleam’s - advice. He was no fool for angry pride to furnish him with cap and bells. - He saw, when he came to consider the matter dispassionately, that though - London Doric might be sweet in the ears of the proletariat, it grated on - the finer susceptibilities of the House of Commons. Whereupon he set to - work upon elocution with the tireless energy of a Demosthenes. - </p> - <p> - So in seven years he had gained for himself an ever-growing reputation. - The great reviews had opened their pages to him. The League intrusted him - with responsible work. He was on the London County Council, and a seat in - Parliament awaited him at no distant future. - </p> - <p> - To please his wife, Daniel had not settled down in Sunington. He had - bidden farewell reluctantly, for it meant the sundering of many ties, and - the surrendering of many interests. But Lizzie had been insistent. Visions - of domestic harmony, disturbed by incursions of Captain Jenkyns in an - advanced state of profanity, had prompted earnest beseeching. Perhaps she - was wise; for soon after her marriage the old reprobate, to the exceeding - great scandal of the neighbourhood, took to himself a mistress-housekeeper - in the shape of a flaunting, red-faced female of pugnacious instincts, who - had retained possession of the house after his death. Their goings on, - Emily and Sophie declared, had been something awful. - </p> - <p> - Lizzie had been well out of it. Daniel would never have been able to hold - up his head for the disgrace; whereat Daniel had smiled somewhat - sardonically. His skin was a little too tough, he said, for vicarious - reprobation. - </p> - <p> - But Lizzie had other and more private reasons for wishing to migrate. In - the first flush of her dignity she had shrunk from the streets with which - she had been too grossly familiar during her early girlhood. She had - larked with the butcher’s boy, played kiss in the ring with the - greengrocer’s assistant, and kept very serious company with Joe Forster - the tobacconist. Such daily reminiscences are apt to prove embarrassing. - The translated Lizzie had felt out of her element in Sunington. So, to - please her, Daniel had come into London and taken a house in Notting Hill, - where they had remained during the seven years of their married life. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - It was late when Goddard stood before the familiar door, on his return - from the Stepney meeting. An expression of impatience escaped his lips as - he noticed a light in the basement; otherwise, with the exception of the - faintly illuminated fanlight, the house was in darkness. He let himself in - with his latch-key, and walking the length of the dim passage, descended - the kitchen stairs, groping his way. He opened the kitchen door softly, - and found the housemaid asleep, with her head on the deal table. Awakened - by his presence, the girl started in some confusion. - </p> - <p> - “Why haven’t you gone to bed, Jane?” - </p> - <p> - His tone was less one of reprimand than that of a man repeating a - disagreeable formula. - </p> - <p> - “Mistress was very poorly to-night, sir, and I thought I had better sit up - till you came.” - </p> - <p> - He nodded, looked at her sombrely from beneath his eyebrows. - </p> - <p> - “Did you see her to bed comfortably?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Hasn’t Miss Jenkyns been here?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir. Miss Sophie came for an hour this afternoon.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well,” said Goddard, turning on his heel. “Go to bed now, there’s a - good girl. You must be tired.” - </p> - <p> - He went heavily up the stairs again, turned off the gas in the hall, and - continued his ascent. On the first floor he paused, leaned his ear against - the bedroom door, and listened. Satisfied with a sound of heavy breathing - within, he mounted the next flight and lit the gas in his own study, - stirred a blackening fire, and after warming his hands for a few seconds, - sat down at his writing-table. - </p> - <p> - It was a plainly furnished room, lined with books in sober bindings, - sloping and falling, with great gaps, untidily, in the shelves. A great - table, covered with a red baize cloth and piled with papers, pamphlets, - and odd volumes, occupied the centre. An old arm-chair, its seat filled - with a set of blue books, was drawn up near the fire. The mantelpiece was - bare, save for a few pipes and smoker’s odds and ends. Above was pinned a - broad-sheet almanac issued by some Reform organisation. Nowhere appeared - any attempt at adornment. - </p> - <p> - Goddard sat in his round-backed wooden chair, opened a couple of letters - that had come by the evening post, and then drummed with his fingers on - the table in a preoccupied way. The setting of his face was too stern to - express pain, and yet the deep vertical furrow between the brows and the - tightly compressed lips indicated thoughts far removed from joyousness. At - last he shook himself, brushed his hair from his forehead with a hasty - gesture, and drawing a great breath, which ended like a sigh, separated - some papers from the chaotic mass, and set to work on them, pen in hand. - He worked for half-an-hour, only pausing to fill and light a pipe, and - then with a yawn he rose and went through the communicating door into the - adjoining room. A camp bedstead and the bare bedroom requisites were all - that it contained. His seven years of affluence had brought him no sense - of the minor luxuries of life. His personal tastes were as simple as when - he lodged in the little top-floor-back in the working folks’ street in - Sunington. - </p> - <p> - With his watch he drew from his waistcoat pocket the card he had received - at Stepney: “Lady Phayre, 15 Queen’s Court Mansions.” He had forgotten her - existence. He glanced at the card rather contemptuously, tore it across, - and threw it into the grate. Then he undressed and slept the sleep of the - weary man. - </p> - <p> - The next morning he began his breakfast alone, although the table was laid - for two. As he ate, he ran through his correspondence, and jotted down - notes in his pocket-book. He was a busy man, particularly occupied just - now with heavy committee-work on the Council, and sundry organisation - schemes connected with the League, and every moment was of value. - </p> - <p> - Presently the door opened, and Lizzie entered. She did not meet his - following glance, but came forward with sullen, downcast eyes, and - silently took her place at the table. The seven years had pressed upon her - with the weight of fourteen. The devil had walked off with his own beauty. - Although she was barely thirty, the plump freshness of youth had gone. The - pink cheeks had paled and grown flabby; round contours had fallen into - puffiness; the pout of the soft lips had relaxed into unlovely looseness - of mouth marked by marring lines. A common, slatternly woman, with loose - untidy hair and swollen eyelids, and dressed in an old morning wrapper, - she was as unlike the rosebud bride of Sunington as the light is unlike - the darkness; and yet by the inexorable law of development she was the - same woman. - </p> - <p> - She poured herself out a cup of tea and broke some dry bread on her plate. - Neither had spoken. Goddard’s brow darkened a little as he went on with - his breakfast and his papers. She stole from time to time a shifting - glance at him. The expression of absorbed interest on his dark face - irritated her. The dead silence became unbearable. Suddenly she thrust - back her chair a few inches, and struck the table sharply with her - fingers. - </p> - <p> - “For God’s sake say something, can’t you,” she cried half-hysterically. - </p> - <p> - Goddard looked up gravely and laid down his pencil. - </p> - <p> - “What can I say to you, Lizzie?” - </p> - <p> - “Anything. Curse me, nag at me—anything; only don’t sit there as if - I was the scum of the earth and you God Almighty.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you have broken your promise once more. What else can I tell you? - You can’t expect me to be pleased, and I see no good in cursing and - nagging. So I hold my tongue.” - </p> - <p> - “I wish I was dead,” said Lizzie bitterly. - </p> - <p> - Goddard shrugged his shoulders. He had done his best according to his - lights, and he had failed. Sometimes his heart echoed her wish. - </p> - <p> - “You have only yourself to thank,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Have I? I’ve not got you to thank for anything. Oh dear, no! You know you - hate me. You never did care for me. Even when we was first married you - cared for your dirty old politics more than you did for me. Oh, why didn’t - I marry Joe Forster? He has three big shops now, and can hold up his head - as much as you can, for all you’re a County Councillor and have your name - in the newspapers. And what good does that do to me, I’d like to know? - It’s all your fault, every bit your fault, and you drive me to it; you - know you do, and you’d be glad if I dropped down dead now.” - </p> - <p> - It was not a new story. Her words had no longer power to move him to - anger. He accepted her grimly as a burden he had to bear through life. - </p> - <p> - “We made a mistake in marrying, Lizzie,” he said. “We both found it out - long ago. I was not the sort of man you wanted, and perhaps I ought to - have remained single. But I have done my duty by you honestly, and—so - help me, God—I always shall. What is it you want that I do not try - to give you?” - </p> - <p> - Many and many a woman, when she has been asked that question, the helpless - question across the league-sundering gulf, has answered, aloud or dumbly, - in a great yearning: “Love, a breath of passion, a touch of tenderness.” - But in Lizzie that craving had never been deeper than the bloom on her - cheek, and with the bloom it had perished. There are natures too common - for the need of love, which is an instinct upwards of the soul. Instead, - she answered querulously: “Why don’t you give me some money, and let me - live away, somewhere?” - </p> - <p> - “To do God knows what with yourself? Not I, unless you would like this - sort of thing.” He took from among the circulars with which he was daily - deluged a chance-sent prospectus of a Home, and put it before her. She - glanced at it, and then crumpled it up fiercely, and threw it into the - fire. - </p> - <p> - “If you’re going to do that with me, you’d better look sharp, I can tell - you,” she cried, trembling with sudden rage. “How long have you been - making that little plan?” - </p> - <p> - “It is no plan. You could only go in there of your own free will. My only - plan is to shelter you here, and make life as happy for you as you will - let me.” - </p> - <p> - Lizzie sniffed contemptuously. - </p> - <p> - “What did you send for that thing for?” - </p> - <p> - “It came quite by chance.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s a damn lie!” - </p> - <p> - He bent forward, took her wrist, and looked at her sternly between the - eyes, which lowered, abashed. - </p> - <p> - “You know I never tell lies,” he said. “I tell you that you shall never go - to such a place unless you wish to. But you shall stay in my house. And - listen to me. If this goes on much longer, I shall have to engage a - special attendant to live here, who will watch you like a cat. It will be - a disgrace for you that you can well spare yourself. So be warned, and - turn over a new leaf.” - </p> - <p> - He rose, opened the morning paper, and skimmed through the news summary. - Lizzie rubbed the wrist that he had held in an unconsciously tight grip, - and then she began to whimper. But her tears had lost their effect upon - Daniel. They came with maudlin frequency. - </p> - <p> - At last she broke into a great spluttering sob. “I have been miserable - ever since little Jacky died. I wish I had died with him.” - </p> - <p> - The name of the child, dead three years before, touched the man’s heart. - Of the two, perhaps he had felt the loss the more. Standing behind her, he - laid a hand upon her shoulder, and said in a rough, tenderer tone— - </p> - <p> - “It was hard, my girl. But you are not the only one. Other women have been - left desolate.” - </p> - <p> - “And other women have wished they were dead. I expect most of ’em - do. It’s beastly to be a woman.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you can’t help that,” he said grimly, resuming his newspaper. “You - had better try and make the best of it.” - </p> - <p> - The servant entered with his boots, which she placed on the hearthrug. - When he had laced them up he stamped them into ease and looked more - cheerful. A man’s moral tone always undergoes a subtle change with the - donning of the morning boot or the evening slipper. - </p> - <p> - “I shall be back for supper early this evening,” he said, “so you won’t be - lonely. Now be a good girl. Do.” - </p> - <p> - She made no reply, although he had spoken kindly and forgivingly, and she - knew from past experience that the subject of the last night’s slip would - not be alluded to again. As soon as he had gone, she drew from her - dressing-gown pocket a soiled penny novelette, and settled down to her - idle morning by the fireside. In the afternoon Emily came, a weary, - shrivelled woman, to remain with her for a few hours. For some time past - Daniel had made the sisters a secret allowance, as compensation for loss - of time in their dressmaking business, on the condition of their keeping - Lizzie company. Society in the ordinary sense she had none. It was the - loneliness and idleness that had crushed her. At first it had seemed a - grand thing to wear pretty dresses, and keep her hands white, and give - over all the work of the house to the servants. Now the habit of sloth was - ingrained. She had no occupation, no interests. Even her girlish fondness - for finery was gone. The costume that gave her least trouble to put on was - the one she selected. Like the once free-swimming sea-anemone she had - grown encrusted to her rock, stretching out lazy tentacles. When her - cousin arrived she was still attired in the old dressing-gown and - down-at-heel slippers she had thrust on as she got out of her bed. Emily, - who was precise and businesslike, hurried her off with an indignation not - staled by custom, to dress herself decently. During her toilet she made - the usual confession to Emily with pleas in mitigation, and the usual - indictment of Daniel. But Emily was not sympathetic. She banged in the - drawer, where she had been arranging Lizzie’s slovenly kept under-linen, - and pulled out another viciously. - </p> - <p> - “You should have married a man like father,” she said. “That’s the sort of - husband you should have had, who would have pulled you out of bed by your - hair and given you a good sound hiding. Daniel’s thousands of miles too - good for you.” - </p> - <p> - Lizzie turned round and faced her passionately, straining at the ends of - her stay-lace. - </p> - <p> - “I wish sometimes he would beat me. There! I’ll make him do it one of - these days.” - </p> - <p> - “Dan’s not the man to treat his wife like a dog.” - </p> - <p> - “No. He treats me like a tabby-cat—beneath his notice. He has always - done it. I may be a silly fool, but it doesn’t require much intellec’ to - know when folks look upon you as the dirt beneath their feet.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, the dirt ought to be grateful when a man like Daniel condescends to - put his foot upon it,” replied Emily with conviction. - </p> - <p> - “Why didn’t you marry him yourself?” said Lizzie witheringly. - </p> - <p> - “Elizabeth Goddard, you’re no better than a fool,” returned Emily. “And if - you’ve nothing pleasanter to say, I’ll go back home.” - </p> - <p> - As on many previous occasions, the threat moved Lizzie to tears, then to - reproaches, finally to entreaties and submission. When peace was made they - went off on a shopping expedition to Kensington High Street, where Lizzie, - to make amends, bought her cousin a bonnet, and interested herself in a - discussed readjustment of trimming. But outside a newsvendor’s Emily - pointed with her umbrella to an item in the contents bill of a Radical - evening paper: “Dan Goddard at Stepney—Enthusiastic Reception.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes, I see,” said Lizzie petulantly. “I suppose you think I ought to - fall down and worship him when he comes back.” - </p> - <p> - Her ill-humour returned, and she regretted the bonnet—an additional - grievance. - </p> - <p> - “If it wasn’t for him I’m blessed if I’d ever come near you,” said Emily - in the discussion that followed. - </p> - <p> - And so it happened that when Goddard came home he found his wife in a fit - of sulks. The experiment of a domestic evening failed, as it had done so - many times before. She replied monosyllabically to his attempts at - conversation, refused point-blank his offer to put her into a cab and - drive her to a theatre—a wild delight of past years—and - retired to bed at nine o’clock. - </p> - <p> - Goddard mounted to his own den, and plunged into his work with the zest of - a man who has conscientiously acquitted himself of an irksome duty, and is - free to apply himself without scruple to more congenial occupations. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VI—THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was the Tuesday - luncheon-hour. The diningroom of the political club was thronged with - hungry councillors from Spring Gardens, and politicians to whom the weekly - meetings of the Council were a matter of concern. The air buzzed with - eager talk. There was a continual going to and fro between the tables—greetings, - handshakes, hurried conversations between lunchers and passers-by. Elation - over an important measure successfully carried through was the prevailing - tone, encouraging grandiose imaginings. London was to have its - hanging-gardens, like Babylon of old, and the streams that water the New - Jerusalem would take a lesson in limpidness from the Thames. - </p> - <p> - Goddard sat at a table with three others, who were thus forecasting the - municipal millennium. He listened with a smile. Had he not just pricked - the visionaries with kindly satire in his review article on Extremism? - </p> - <p> - “And all <i>ad majorent L. C. C. gloriam</i>,” said he. “That way madness - lies.” - </p> - <p> - There was an impatient laugh. - </p> - <p> - “You are a reactionary.” - </p> - <p> - “I am a practical man,” said Goddard. “I don’t like confusing means with - ends. Matthew Arnold was right in calling faith in machinery our besetting - sin. We have beatified too many of our institutions already, and made them - too much puffed up with conceit for work-a-day purposes. We are always in - danger of drifting into the idea that the work exists for the - glorification of the instrument.” - </p> - <p> - “But what about our ideals?” cried one. “They are as necessary for the - life of the party of progress, as the reverence for decayed antiquity is - for that of the Tories. Man is a dreaming animal, and his dreams inspire - his actions.” - </p> - <p> - “Hence this crazy society,” said Goddard, with a laugh. “I understand now. - But man has reason to direct his inspirations. Have your ideals by all - means, but see they are true ones—that they can be attained without - the sacrifice of minor commonplace reforms. Best to build up your ideal as - you go along.” - </p> - <p> - “Synthetic socialism—a good title,” murmured another, a journalist - in the labour interest. - </p> - <p> - “Ezekiel has done it all before you, with his line upon line, precept upon - precept,’” remarked Goddard. “They did know something down in Judee. But - you’ve begged the question as to the glorification of the County Council. - You want to make London flow with milk and honey. Is that your real end? - Or is it to pose as a composite middle-class Jehovah? I think the latter. - No. I believe in progress. I have given up my life to the cause of it, and - I will fight for it till the last breath in my body. But I will look upon - myself and any institution to which I belong as the merest tool in the - hands of social evolution.” Here the discussion was interrupted by the - waiter, whose temporary ideal was the perfection of his guidance of - Goddard in the matter of sweets. - </p> - <p> - “I will have another helping of beef,” said Goddard. “I am hungry.” - </p> - <p> - “That accounts for your paradoxical humour,” said the journalist. “I have - often noticed it.” Goddard nodded and leant back in his chair. Just then - he caught sight of Aloysius Gleam, the pink of neatness, with an orchid in - the buttonhole of his frock-coat, scanning the room through his eye-glass. - When his glance met Goddard he came forward with the expression of a man - who has found the object of his search. Pending the arrival of the beef, - Goddard rose and advanced to meet him. - </p> - <p> - “I thought I should find you,” said Gleam. “I want to talk to you - seriously.” - </p> - <p> - “So do I,” said Goddard. “You’re the very man I was longing for. Perhaps - it’s about the same matter.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps,” said Gleam, with a twinkle of amusement. “You broach it.” - </p> - <p> - “The rumour about Ecclesby.” - </p> - <p> - “What rumour?” asked Gleam, becoming grave. - </p> - <p> - “The strike. There is a big storm brewing for the near future, I’m afraid. - Haven’t you heard?” - </p> - <p> - “Not a suggestion,” returned Gleam. - </p> - <p> - “I had a report from Willaston—he is the League secretary there—forecasting - probable events. Nothing is definite. I thought perhaps you might have - heard.” - </p> - <p> - Gleam shook his head. - </p> - <p> - “What is wrong? New machinery, and Trades Union and Employers’ Federation - at loggerheads about it?” - </p> - <p> - “No. Not machinery. Worse than that. Sweating, out-work. Simple tyranny. - Here is the letter.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think much of it. It will blow over,” said Gleam, having looked - through the letter. “Wait a bit though,” he added, with a quick glance. - “Ecclesby is in the Hough division, isn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said Goddard. “That’s why Willaston wrote to me in - particular.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll keep a look-out,” said Gleam. “Cleaver and Flyte are the leading - firm there. Oddly enough, I am connected with them in a roundabout way in - the City, through Rosenthal, you know. And then there are Flood & Sons - in London.” - </p> - <p> - “What an encyclopaedia you are!” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - Aloysius Gleam laughed, and curled his moustache. - </p> - <p> - “That reminds me of my mission,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Why haven’t you called upon Lady Phayre?” Goddard disregarded the - apparent non sequitur, and replied with an air of surprise— - </p> - <p> - “What have I to do in ladies’ drawing-rooms?” - </p> - <p> - “Sit, drink tea, and talk political gossip,” said Gleam. - </p> - <p> - “I wasn’t brought up to it,” replied Goddard. - </p> - <p> -“I have never done it, and - therefore it is not to be done. Sound doctrine for a Progressist. Well, - Lady Phayre is a little indignant.” - </p> - <p> - “Why? For not taking advantage of a piece of empty politeness?” - </p> - <p> - “Lady Phayre’s politeness is never empty when it is directed towards a - member of the party. Her name is not unknown to you?” Goddard admitted - that the fame of Lady Phayre had reached him. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then,” said Gleam, “I advise you, as your oldest political friend, - to go and see her. She’s a charming woman, attached heart and soul to the - party, and can give you help in the most unexpected ways. There never was - a successful politician yet who despised the assistance of women.” - </p> - <p> - “Many have got into rare messes through women,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “More have got out of them by their aid,” retorted Gleam convincedly. - </p> - <p> - “But she would be rather astonished if I turned up, wouldn’t she?” said - Goddard. - </p> - <p> - Gleam broke into a laugh. There were unlooked for simplicities in Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “I tell you, my dear man,” he said, “that, as Lady Shepherdess of the - party, Lady Phayre expects you to go and pay her your homage. Hang it, - man! she paid you the compliment of journeying all the way to Stepney to - hear you speak.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard’s face assumed an air of perplexity, oddly at variance with its - usual stern, resolute expression. Then the obstinacy in his nature - asserted itself. - </p> - <p> - “No. It’s very kind of Lady Phayre, and I feel flattered. But I’ll stick - to my own ways. Call me bear, or Goth, or what you like—I have no - relish for false positions. You know who I am and all about me, so I don’t - mind talking frankly to you.” - </p> - <p> - The blood rose to his face as he said this, and he held up his head - somewhat defiantly. He had barely as yet divested himself of the - uncomfortable impression of masquerading in his well fitting clothes, and - of incongruity in refined table adjuncts. If these occasioned a worrying - feeling of unfamiliarity, the sense of a wrong element in a lady’s - drawing-room was still more galling. Gleam was keen enough to perceive - these workings of false pride, and he bore Goddard no malice. - </p> - <p> - “Very well, then,” he said with a smile. “Perhaps you are right in your - pig-headed way. I mustn’t keep you from your lunch. Good-bye. I’ll bear - Ecclesby in mind.” - </p> - <p> - He shook hands, waved a salute to one of the men at Goddard’s table, and - after exchanging a few words with a party near the door, went away. - Goddard returned to his beef, which was getting cold, and, after the meal, - retired with his three companions to the smoking-room, where an argument - arose that banished Lady Phayre from his mind. - </p> - <p> - He could have resisted Aloysius Gleam’s persuasion to the crack of doom; - but when the stars in their courses began to take up the matter, he was as - helpless as Sisera. If he had marched straight out of the club, he - possibly might never have spoken to Lady Phayre again. But the stars - turned his steps aside to the Central News tape-machine in the strangers’ - waiting-room, and there he found himself suddenly face to face with her - sitting—a dainty vision—in an arm-chair near the entrance. - </p> - <p> - Her face brightened as she saw him, and she made a slight forward movement - in expectation of his advance. Goddard could do no less than acknowledge - these manifestations of friendliness. - </p> - <p> - “Have you seen Mr. Gleam in the club? They are keeping me such a time - waiting.” - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid he’s gone,” said Goddard, an announcement which the page-boy - came up that moment to confirm. - </p> - <p> - “What a nuisance,” said Lady Phayre. “I want a couple of ladies’ tickets - all in a hurry for the House. I have a country girl staying with me, and - have only this evening free.” - </p> - <p> - She looked at Goddard with a little air of concern. Now when Lady Phayre - looked at a man like that, she simply rested all her responsibilities upon - his shoulders. They became the man’s own personal affairs. Goddard was a - man like any other. He reflected instinctively. - </p> - <p> - “I dare say I could get some men in the club to ballot for you—if - you don’t mind waiting a little longer.” - </p> - <p> - “Would you really try?” she said, her eyes beaming gratitude and apparent - astonishment. - </p> - <p> - “With pleasure,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - During his absence she turned over the advertisement pages of a railway - time-table, and devised in her mind various club improvements that might - conduce to the comfort of lady strangers. When he came back she rose, saw - from the look of pleasure on his face that he had been successful. - </p> - <p> - “I have seen Jervons, the member for Twickenham. He undertakes to get - half-a-dozen men to ballot for you; so if they are successful the orders - will be round at your house before five o’clock. Will that do?” - </p> - <p> - “Beautifully,” said Lady Phayre: “a thousand thanks.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m afraid it won’t be very interesting,” said Goddard—“the Army - Estimates will be on.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” said Lady Phayre cheerfully: “the child will be - pleased, whatever it is. I shall take a novel.” - </p> - <p> - He did not reply, but looked down at her from his superior height, one - hand grasping his hat and stick, the other on his hip. There was a tiny - pause. So Lady Phayre looked up at him and smiled. There was just the - faintest gleam of mockery in her eyes, a transient consciousness of the - feminine magic that had made the huge, powerful man do her bidding with - the lightness of an Ariel. She put out a delicately gloved hand from her - sealskin muff. - </p> - <p> - “I was saving up a quarrel with you, Mr. Goddard,” she said, “for not - having been to see me. Surely you could have spared just one half-hour.” - </p> - <p> - There was so much frankness and charm in her tone and in her attitude, as - she stood with half-extended hand, and head slightly inclined to one side, - that Goddard reddened with a sense of boorishness. - </p> - <p> - “I am hardly a society man, Lady Phayre,” he said lamely, his pride not - allowing him to formulate the more conventional apology. - </p> - <p> - She laughed. She had known men positively intrigue for the right of - entrance at her door, and here was one refusing the privilege. He was a - curiosity. Her self-pride was pricked. - </p> - <p> - “You mean my frivolity frightens you,” she said. “But I am not as - frivolous as I look, I assure you. I can talk even earnestly at times.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it isn’t you,” he began. - </p> - <p> - “Then it is my friends. Well, some of them are as unbutterfly-like as - bats. But if you don’t like a crowd, avoid an ‘at home’ day, and come any - afternoon.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you honestly care whether I come or not?” asked Goddard bluntly. - </p> - <p> - “Well, considering that I have gone out of my way to ask you twice,” she - replied, rather staggered, “you might have taken my sincerity for - granted.” - </p> - <p> - She raised her chin a little, and put back her hand into her muff. Goddard - realised that he had been rude. The desirable aspects of Lady Phayre’s - friendship also began to dawn upon him. - </p> - <p> - “Forgive me, Lady Phayre,” he said, after an awkward pause. “You see what - a bear I am.” - </p> - <p> - The admission brought out again smile and hand. - </p> - <p> - “Can I come and see you?” he added whimsically. - </p> - <p> - “Do you honestly want to?” she asked, echoing his tone. - </p> - <p> - “I should very much like to, indeed,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - That evening, Lady Phayre sent down her card, from behind the grating, to - Aloysius Gleam. He came up after a while. - </p> - <p> - “I didn’t know you were here,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Who do you think got me the tickets?” - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t the vaguest idea.” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Goddard,” said Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - “Miss Mabel,” said Gleam, turning to the country girl, who was listening - to a technical statement by the War Secretary with rapt attention, “Lady - Phayre is like Providence: her ways are inscrutable.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VII—A DEMAGOGUE’S IDYLL - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>oddard went away, - after paying his first visit to Lady Phayre, with a wondering mind. His - original intention had been to make it as short as he possibly could: he - had remained nearly a couple of hours. He could scarcely believe his - watch. - </p> - <p> - The delicate play of mind of a pretty and highly cultured woman was a - novelty as rare to him as the bubbling of champagne in his apprentice - days. He had gone expecting to endure the inane small-talk which his - second-hand experience persuaded him was the inevitable adjunct of a - lady’s tea-table; he had found conversation upon all the subjects dear to - him invested with a charm such as he had never before imagined. Talk on - social questions had ever been with him a deeply serious matter. Lady - Phayre had brought into it an unknown lightness, a sparkle, a mental - keenness, against which his own intellect sharpened itself, and at the - same time a bewildering waywardness that never allowed him to forget she - was a woman. In short, Lady Phayre was a revelation. He walked along with - a buoyant step, like a man who has made a new discovery that promises to - change the old order of things. - </p> - <p> - After a short interval a pretext arose for repeating the visit. He was - careful to magnify its importance for the sake of self-justification. But - on the third occasion he owned to himself that he had called out of sheer - desire for Lady Phayre’s society. - </p> - <p> - As he stood, hat in hand, in the drawing-room waiting for her, he had a - feeling of misgiving curiously like that of a boy who is fearful lest he - is taking too great advantage of a kindly neighbour’s invitation to visit - his fruit garden. Her smile of welcome, however, as she entered, reassured - him. - </p> - <p> - “How good of you to come. I had a bit of a headache, and was beginning to - mope by myself.” - </p> - <p> - “I too felt as if it would do me good to have a talk with you,” said - Goddard, seating himself. - </p> - <p> - “Surely you don’t mope?” said Lady Phayre, lifting her eyebrows. - </p> - <p> - “O Lord, no!” he exclaimed with a laugh. “I have too much to do.” - </p> - <p> - “I wish I were a man,” sighed Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t,” said Goddard. “If you were, I don’t think I should have wanted - so much to come and see you.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, how am I to do you good? Will tea comfort you?” - </p> - <p> - “I think it would,” replied Goddard, smiling—“out of your gossamer - tea-cups, and with imperceptible films of bread and butter. They seem - outside of the uses of the weary, work-a-day world.” - </p> - <p> - “You shall have them, and until they come you shall tell me all the news. - I have heard nothing for two days.” - </p> - <p> - He opened his budget. It was somewhat heavy. The lighter trifles of - political gossip were beyond his range; but Lady Phayre listened - attentively, adroitly brought him to his own part in current affairs. He - had just been on a committee of the League, in the north of England, - inquiring into the working of the Factory Act for women in certain trades. - He had visited many white-lead works, where he had felt daunted by the - inevitableness of the sacrifice of human health and happiness. - </p> - <p> - “But manufacturers are obliged to enforce precautions,” said Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - Goddard waved his hand impatiently. - </p> - <p> - “No precautions will ever prevent it. The poison gets in everywhere. The - dust is in the air—impregnates the food, finds its way into the - baths, creeps in through the tightest overalls. Women should not be - allowed in it—and yet they must work. One feels paralysed before - these deadly trades. I saw some women—young and vigorous—who - had ‘got the lead,’ as they call it—death written on their faces, - one going to have a child; that is one of the horrible parts of it—to - be poisoned before one is born.” - </p> - <p> - “You take it to heart,” said Lady Phayre in a low voice. She was touched - by his earnestness. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose I do,” replied Goddard. “If a man doesn’t, he had better leave - Social Reform alone.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre handed him his tea. The strong, heavily veined hand - outstretched to receive the cup, conveyed to her a suggestion of strength - which she could not help associating with the earnestness of his tone. For - a moment Lady Phayre felt, not unpleasantly, the insignificance of her - sex. - </p> - <p> - “Do you know, when I see men like you devoting your whole lives to the - cause of others, I feel very small and petty,” she said, upon the impulse. - </p> - <p> - Daniel looked at her in some confusion. No one had ever paid him such a - tribute before. Coming from Lady Phayre, it gratified more than a man’s - vanity. He laughed awkwardly. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know that I do so much good after all,” he said. “You are a far - more important person, really. You are in the swim of everything—the - pivot of the party.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, the party!” cried Lady Phayre. “Sometimes I get so tired of it. It - seems to be all concerned with means—the end lost sight of. Nothing - day after day but little moves, and counter-moves, and intrigues, and this - person’s speech, and that person’s vote. Oh, Mr. Goddard, when you get - into Parliament you will never develop into the typical party-man—the - lobbyist, and asker of questions, and mover of amendments. ‘You are so - different from most of the other men who come here.” - </p> - <p> - She spoke sincerely for the moment. By the light of Goddard’s earnestness - she glanced ashamedly at her own political dilettanteism. A momentary - conception of nobler effort passed through her mind. Womanlike she - projected these higher subjective workings into increased regard for the - man. When Goddard took his leave, he was unaware how far he had advanced - in Lady Phayre’s good favour; but he realised that something new and - helpful had come into his own life. - </p> - <p> - After this he became a constant visitor at Queen’s Court Mansions. Usually - he chose the times when Lady Phayre was alone. In the general society he - now and then met in her drawing-room, he felt shy and constrained, - blundered in his speech, and grew hot with anger at imaginary errors. A - proud man, he was ashamed at himself for envying the ease of manner of - other men. In a mixed assembly he was helpless. - </p> - <p> - “I am not coming to your omnium gatherums any more,” he said once to Lady - Phayre. “I don’t know how to talk to these people. Their ways are natural - to them. I have to put them on, and I put them on crooked.” - </p> - <p> - “But you know how to talk to me,” she replied with a smile. - </p> - <p> - “You are different,” he said. “You know who and what I am. You are good - enough to take me just as birth and circumstances have made me.” - </p> - <p> - She bent forward and looked him sweetly in the face. - </p> - <p> - “Be to others just as you are to me.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s an utter impossibility!” he exclaimed quickly, with a flash in his - eye, at which her face flushed. - </p> - <p> - “Well, perhaps not quite the same,” she said. “But I like you to come - occasionally and show yourself at my little receptions. It completes them, - you know.” - </p> - <p> - So Goddard withdrew his decision and strove to adapt himself to society - ways. But it went sorely against the grain. The hour’s discomfort over, he - hurried home, threw his dress-coat on a chair, and smoked a pipe in his - shirt-sleeves with feelings of intense relief. Other invitations, which - Lady Phayre’s patronage necessarily procured for him, he refused with - obstinate persistence. - </p> - <p> - “I do far more good, both to myself and others, if I put in a spare - evening at a working-man’s club,” he said to Gleam, who was persuading him - to take advantage of social opportunities. - </p> - <p> - The months went by. Goddard worked with a zest which even he had not known - before. In the little comedy of their lives Lady Phayre played Egeria with - nice discrimination. Daniel imperceptibly acquired the habit of setting - forth all his schemes and ambitions for her approval. His strenuous life - had been so single-purposed that he had retained many simplicities, and - his nature came fresh to receive her sympathy. The first time he handed - her the manuscript of a review article he blushed like a schoolboy. It was - a pleasant time. He was too ingenuous to suspect pitfalls in his path. - </p> - <p> - His domestic life continued its usual course. Lizzie had spells of - soberness and quasi-repentance, alternating with periods of outbreak. - These latter, however, were growing more frequent. To Daniel the - asperities of everyday existence became more and more external. A dogged, - almost Philistine sense of duty kept him uniformly kind and considerate; - but he had long since ceased to regard her as one fulfilling any of a - wife’s functions. - </p> - <p> - A bond of union between Lady Phayre and himself was formed by the - increasing rumours of trade disturbances at Ecclesby, and the consequent - complications introduced into the choice of a Parliamentary candidate for - the Hough division, in which it was situated. The sitting member was daily - expected to accept the Chiltern Hundreds. The Conservatives had secured a - strong candidate. The Liberal organisation was divided. The influential - local man desired by the moderate section would be opposed by the Labour - vote in favour of an Independent candidate. To save a three-cornered - contest, the advanced section had approached Goddard. All through the - summer, things had remained at a deadlock. Lady Phayre, with feminine love - of intrigue, had stimulated her friends at Ecclesby to exert their - influence in Goddard’s favour. - </p> - <p> - “I am going down there in the autumn,” she told him one day, “and I shall - open the campaign in person.” - </p> - <p> - But before she could fulfil her promise, the trade storm burst in - Ecclesby. A general strike and lock-out declared itself. Attempts at - compromise failed hopelessly. Terms of agreement, suggested by a board of - arbitration, were indignantly rejected by both sides. A long, bitter - struggle seemed inevitable. Daniel watched its progress with intense - interest. Principles of relation between Labour and Capital were at stake, - in whose cause he had fought from those far-off days when he had carried a - three-legged stool to Hyde Park on Sunday afternoons, and harangued his - casual and apathetic audience. It was a small strike when compared with - the great contests that have convulsed industry of late years; but its - result would have far-reaching consequences. He thirsted to join in the - battle, but the delicacy of his position as regards the constituency kept - his tongue silent. And as the days went on, and he saw that the Trades - Union was less and less able to hold its own, he chafed in London, and - poured out his heart to Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - At last, one memorable day, he found himself in a cab speeding to her, all - too slowly. A great delight was thrilling through his veins. Visions of - fierce conflict, victory, fulfilled ambition danced before his eyes. He - sprang up the steps of Queen’s Court Mansions, tingling with the news he - was carrying to his—to his what? He did not know. An impulse, whose - sanity he never questioned, brought him hither irresistibly. During the - long interview with the strike leaders, from which he had freshly come, - his thoughts had turned to her, had identified the anticipation of telling - her with the pride of the moment. The gift of feminine sympathy was still - so new to him that he rushed to it with a child’s indubitative eagerness. - </p> - <p> - The door of the flat opened as he reached the landing, and Lady Phayre - appeared, dressed for walking, in a dark fawn costume trimmed with fur and - a toque to match. - </p> - <p> - “You look pleased,” she said, smiling at his dark, flushed face and - shining eyes. “Whatever has happened?” - </p> - <p> - “I am going down to Ecclesby to lead the strike,” he said, panting a - little. “The Trades Union people have just been to me, and I have come to - tell you at once.” - </p> - <p> - The news pleased her, the homage flattered her. She beamed gracious - appreciation upon him, invited him to enter and acquaint her with the - details. They both remained standing in the drawing-room. - </p> - <p> - “It’s very simple,” he said. “The union is badly organised, is gradually - losing hold on the men. No one seems able to take the lead. They are - making a mess of it. I was afraid they would. I was only telling you so - lately. So they have begged me to come and help them.” - </p> - <p> - “I see,” said Lady Phayre, with kindling cheeks, “they want a strong man - with a strong will; a leader of men.” She put out her hand impulsively. “I - am so proud.” - </p> - <p> - The words and the touch of her hand quivered deliciously through Goddard’s - frame. - </p> - <p> - “It is the biggest thing I have been called upon to do yet,” he said. “Of - course I have no official position in the matter; I cannot approach the - masters in any way. But the Union has guaranteed free action; placed - itself unreservedly in my hands. All the responsibility is practically - mine. I shall win,” he added, after a pause, during which he took three or - four strides backwards and forwards in the room. “Somehow I feel it. I - have eternal justice on my side. Oh, to think what success will mean for - all these people!” - </p> - <p> - “And for you, my friend,” said Lady Phayre. “Win, and there’s Parliament - for you with a triumphant majority.” - </p> - <p> - He looked at her for a moment open-mouthed. She saw a new intelligence - dawn in his glance. - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean to tell me you never thought of that?” she asked quickly. - </p> - <p> - “No,” he said simply; “it had not struck me.” Lady Phayre turned her face - from him, and buttoned her glove. There are some feelings which rush into - a woman’s eyes that it is not advisable to show to the man who evokes - them. When she had slipped the last button she looked up at him smilingly. - </p> - <p> - “I think you’re the only man in England who could have said that. When do - you commence operations?” - </p> - <p> - “The day after to-morrow. There will be a big open-air demonstration. Then - I’ll settle down to regular work—visiting, picketing, speechifying, - overhauling the books, agitating for help from cognate trades. I shall - have my hands full.” - </p> - <p> - He prepared to take his departure, seeing that she was going out. - </p> - <p> - “You can walk part of the way with me, if you like,” she said graciously. - </p> - <p> - It was an undreamed-of honour. Save his mother and his wife, he did not - remember to have walked in the street with any woman. He strode by her - side proud and happy. Their way lay through Hyde Park. The October leaves - shimmered like golden scales in the afternoon sun, shedding a glory around - him. The few passers-by seemed non-existent. The great stretch of lawn - rolled on either side towards the just visible white house-tops. In front, - the chequered path of the burnished avenue. From time to time his - companion raised her delicate face to him. A slanting beam caught the - light of her eyes and the gold tints of her hair under her dainty toque. A - strange, unknown feeling stole upon his heart. - </p> - <p> - A great silence and splendour had fallen over life. - </p> - <p> - It was Lady Phayre who broke the silence at last. Her voice was sweetly - silvery. - </p> - <p> - “If I came to Ecclesby, could I be of any use to you?” - </p> - <p> - “You would only have to look as you look now,” he answered, “and there is - nothing you couldn’t help me to do.” - </p> - <h3> - “I——” - </h3> - <p> - Lady Phayre began, stopped abruptly as a little tremor shook her shoulders - delicately, then recovering herself, broke into a laugh. - </p> - <p> - “I shall look ever so much more businesslike, I assure you. I’ll go and - make friends with the wives. It will be useful against canvassing time. I - am an old campaigner in electioneering, you know. But I have never taken - an active part in a strike. It will be a new thing for the political woman - to do. I am always seeking after something new. I must have been an - Athenian in past ages—an Athenian of the Athenians—and my soul - got so impregnated that it has never been able to free itself. I wonder if - they would let me make a speech, Mr. Goddard?” - </p> - <p> - “We will ask the Union,” he laughed, following her unwittingly into the - lighter track she had started upon. “But will you really come and help?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course.” - </p> - <p> - “How can I thank you?” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “Post me up in all the ins and outs and technicalities,” she replied - brightly. - </p> - <p> - He took up his parable, and told her of shifts and piece-work, and the - intricacies of sliding-scales of wages, and the complications of the - trade. And, in truth, it was a parable. For the idyllic hour of Goddard’s - life had come, and air, and trees, and sun, and words all lost their outer - sense, and became informed with hidden meaning. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER VIII—WITH THE HELP OF LADY PHAYRE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he outskirts of - Ecclesby, where the “quality” live in villas decorously withdrawn from the - roadway, and screened from public view by the garden-trees, are as - pleasant as those of any idle town given up to homing the Great Retired. - The traveller by road might fancy he was entering a Midland Cheltenham or - Leamington, so soothingly genteel are its approaches. But a few minutes’ - walk, past smaller villas, then semidetached villas, then villas clustered - together like reeds in a pan-pipe, then unpretending red-brick jerry-built - cottages, would bring on a gradual disillusion, preparing him for the - hopeless disenchantment of the town itself. A long black street, untidy - with little shops and public-houses standing here and there amid a row of - poor, dirty dwelling-houses, mounts in an undecided curve from the railway - station, and suddenly, at the top of the hill, twists sharply round into - the High Street, where brand-new hotels and brand-new shops try to look - smugly unconscious of the world below the corner. But the shops have to - supply that world’s wants, and all the bravery of window fronts cannot - give the illusion of refined and luxurious patronage. There is not much - pleasure to be got out of Ecclesby. Even its theatre is up a dingy - side-street, and has a threepenny gallery and sixpenny pit. The fair - follies and vain amenities of existence find no place there. It is given - over to labour grim, absorbing, inevitable. At certain periods of the day - the High Street, Market Square, and Union Street, which cuts laterally - through its heart, at the top of the rise, are quite deserted. The great - bells ring, and the gaunt countless-windowed factories situated all around - in labyrinthine tangle of mean streets disgorge into the main thoroughfare - the pale work-grimed population they had swallowed up. The town becomes a - swarming hive. The shops are thronged. From the ever-swinging doors of - public-houses comes the roar of voices, borne upon gusts of air saturated - with alcohol and shag-tobacco. There is little diversity of type or - costume. The town exists for one industry. The population drifts from the - grim Board School inevitably, unquestioningly into the grim factory. If - the next transition is not into the grimmer workhouse by the railway - station, they account themselves happy. Each man acts, dresses, eats, - hopes, thinks, and, at last, looks like his neighbour. And the girls and - women work in the factories too. The streets are alive with them. They - march along in knots of three or four, bareheaded, bare-armed, - red-shawled, shrill, nonreticent of speech. The doorways of hundreds of - dwellings in squalid by-streets are dissonant with the clamour and - picturesque with the dirt-encrusted chubbiness of children. - </p> - <p> - This is Ecclesby when the factories are working, and the hum of strange - machinery strikes the ear on passing by the yawning gateways. But when - Goddard went there a blight had fallen on the town. The factories for the - most part were silent, the streets depressing with unjoyous idleness. The - fact that the strikers had gone in procession the day before with a brass - band that played the Dead March in “Saul” before the employers’ villas had - not produced lasting exhilaration. The very deadly boredom of leisure, - apart from anxiety as to issues, was wearing down the adult population. To - lean against a street corner, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, in taciturn - converse with one’s mates, is pleasant enough for a few hours on Saturday - afternoons; but to persist in it all day long, and day after day, induces - considerable lassitude of the flesh and infinite weariness of the spirit. - What the deputation had told Goddard was true. The men were growing sick - of the struggle. Whispers of submission already floated in the air. The - Trades Union officials were steadily losing their influence. The - employers’ agents had been busy among them, spreading nerve-shaking - reports as to the impregnable position of the firms. The Union was small, - poor, badly organised. The strike pay was scanty. Much of it was spent, - almost unwillingly, in drink. - </p> - <p> - Severe distress already began to make itself felt. - </p> - <p> - Goddard brought a practised intelligence to grasp the situation, and - realised how fully his were victory, if it were gained; also how great a - responsibility rested upon his shoulders in urging the continuance of the - strike. It meant the extravagant love or execration of a teeming town. - </p> - <p> - “If you advise us to give in, we’ll do so,” said the secretary of the - Union, a careworn man with iron-grey hair and lantern-face. They had been - discussing affairs in the office. The fire had gone out in the tiny grate, - and the dimness of a gathering wet evening crept in through the uncleaned - panes. Goddard was silent a moment. The man’s tone was so hopeless. - </p> - <p> - Then the joy of battle rose within him, and was mingled strangely with the - radiance of Lady Phayre—a thrilling sense of his own strength, - trebled by the wine of her influence—and he leapt from his chair and - brought his two great hands down on the secretary’s timorous shoulders. - </p> - <p> - “We’ll win this, mate. We’ll carry it through, and have the firms on their - knees. Ruin is staring them in the face. They will have to climb down. - Man, we are not fighting machinery. If we were, I would say ‘throw it up.’ - Man has never bested a machine yet, and never will. It’s mere brute force—who - can hold out longest. And they can’t hold out longer than we. I’ll stake - my soul upon it.” - </p> - <p> - “But the capital behind them,” murmured the secretary. - </p> - <p> - “That’s a pack of damned lies!” cried Goddard. “You can take it from me!” - </p> - <p> - A glow appeared on the grey face as Goddard’s splendid assurance gained - upon him. - </p> - <p> - “We’ll follow your lead past starvation, sir,” he said in a voice hoarse - with new-born hope. - </p> - <p> - The knowledge of Goddard’s arrival had quickened the general apathy. His - visible presence in the streets was a draught of strength. The brave words - he spoke to casual knots of men turned their sullenness to hope, and were - passed from lip to lip after he had gone by. Before the great meeting in - the afternoon, he had already lifted the tone of the strikers. They were - conscious of a new force among them. - </p> - <p> - When he mounted the platform in the densely packed market-place, a - spontaneous cheer arose to greet him. When he retired, after a long, - vigorous speech, he knew that he had accomplished the first and - all-important part of his task—the winning of the men’s confidence. - </p> - <p> - And then began a period of intense, unremitting work. For beyond the - commonplaces of strike organisation, picketing, fund-distribution, - speech-making, and the like, the continuous maintenance of the moral - strength of a whole community by sheer force of will involved infinite - devotion. He had to carry things with a high hand. The Employers’ - Federation invited a conference. For a while he had high hopes. The hour - came, and the whole town awaited the issue in breathless suspense. Goddard - sat alone in the little office of the Union, chafing at his necessary - exclusion from the discussion. At last the representatives of the Union - returned, the secretary bearing a paper in his hand. - </p> - <p> - “Shall we agree?” he asked, giving it to Goddard. - </p> - <p> - He glanced over it, and his face darkened. - </p> - <p> - “Can I make this public?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly, if you think it best,” replied the secretary, with a sigh. - </p> - <p> - “Thank God, it’s over, any way,” said one of the representatives. - </p> - <p> - But Goddard did not hear. He flung open the window and brandished the - paper before the crowd assembled in the street. - </p> - <p> - “Men! listen to the result of the conference.” - </p> - <p> - He read the document in a loud, even voice. The employers had offered a - few trivial concessions, a slight rise in skilled wages; but the - principles were untouched. He hurried through the last clause; and before - there was time for a cry to come from below, he tore the paper across and - across with a passionate gesture, and scattered the pieces on the heads of - the crowd. The men, who had listened in silent submission to what they - thought were the final terms agreed upon, burst into a great cheer. The - dramatic touch had quickened the revulsion of feeling. - </p> - <p> - “There, gentlemen,” said Goddard, turning round to the representatives. “I - have burned your ships for you.” - </p> - <p> - A day or two afterwards Lady Phayre appeared upon the scene. She was - coming on business—not pleasure, she had informed her friends, and - accordingly laid house, carriages, and servants under requisition. Mr. - Christopher Wentworth, her host, was the leading member of the Progressive - League in the neighbourhood, and a humble vassal of Lady Phayre. His - wife’s interests in life extended from her husband’s throat, which was - delicate, to his digestive organs, which were dainty. - </p> - <p> - “So long as you don’t take Christopher to open-air meetings, Rhodanthe,” - she said to Lady Phayre, “and give him bronchitis, or make him late for - dinner, you can do exactly what you like.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t want Christopher. He would be sadly in the way,” said Lady - Phayre, reassuringly. “I’ll make him stay at home and write letters and - collect funds.” - </p> - <p> - She summoned Goddard to wait upon her. He had already received two or - three daintily penned letters from London, and had been eagerly looking - forward to this one from Ecclesby itself. - </p> - <p> - He found her alone in the bright morning-room, radiant as Romney’s - Bacchante head of Lady Hamilton that hung on the wall, and wearing the - simplest of elegantly-cut blue serge costumes. Her sunniness almost dazed - his eyes, accustomed lately to the gloom of sordid homes and pinched - faces. She was eager to hear all the details of the situation; drew from - him an exhaustive report. Her presence lifted him into a sanguine mood, - filled him with a vague sweet sense of the triumph of life. - </p> - <p> - “Now let me tell <i>you</i> something,” she said when he had finished. - “Don’t say I am not a woman of character. I have been bursting with it - since you came into the room, and I have waited patiently. I have arranged - a surprise for you. I am going to institute at once a children’s halfpenny - tea-house. Haven’t you heard anything about it?” - </p> - <p> - “Not a word.” - </p> - <p> - “I am so glad.” She laughed, and clapped her hands. “It has all been going - on under your very nose. My own idea. It is the children that suffer so. - They don’t know why they should bear with hunger. So I am going to give - them a great breakfast or tea, with as much bread and butter as they can - eat, for a halfpenny.” - </p> - <p> - “But the funds?” asked Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “That is the greatest stroke of all,” replied Lady Phayre - enthusiastically. “I have inveigled a grant out of the League, and the <i>Evening - Chronicle</i> has promised me to start a subscription list to-night. I am - negotiating for the use of the Salvation Army Barracks, and Evans and - Williams are going to contract for the meals. Haven’t I been industrious?” - </p> - <p> - “You have,” said Goddard. “It will be a tremendous help to us.” - </p> - <p> - “You don’t mind my having kept it a secret from you?” she asked after some - further discussion; “I wanted it to come as a surprise to you—to - cheer you with a little unexpected help.” - </p> - <p> - She put her hands in her lap, and bent forward with a pretty air of - humility. A faint note of wistfulness in her voice increased its charm. - </p> - <p> - All Goddard could say was that the scheme had been perfect. He tried to - say more, but his unaccustomed brain refused to formulate in words - subtleties of emotion. But before leaving he had a sudden inspiration. - </p> - <p> - “I feel a different man since I have seen you,” he said abruptly; “I was - inclined to be harassed and despondent. Now—— ‘Strange how a - smile of God can change the world.’ That’s what you seem to be.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre turned away her head and blushed. She knew it was like a - school-girl, but she could not help it. No one had ever told her quite - that before. The glimpse into spiritual things rather frightened her. She - did not know whether to be angry or pleased at being enraptured. Like a - wise woman, she decided upon indefiniteness. But she could not hide a - certain softness in her eyes as she bade him good-bye. - </p> - <p> - “I shall be in the Salvation Army Barracks at nine this evening. If you - could help me just a little—unless you are too busy?” - </p> - <p> - He promised, delighted, and went away on house-to-house visits in the dark - byways of the town, spreading everywhere, with great voice and hearty - gestures, the overflow of his happiness. He felt himself filled with the - spirit of victory. One man refused to be comforted. - </p> - <p> - “Strikes never did no good,” he said. - </p> - <p> - Goddard drew himself up, towered over him, and rated him for - pusillanimity. If he could have spoken his inmost heart, he would have - shouted— - </p> - <p> - “Man, don’t you see that I am unconquerable!” - </p> - <p> - And so for the next few days the men were held together and lifted by the - one man’s happiness. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile the Children’s Tavern was a great success. Lady Phayre worked - indefatigably, serving herself, with other helpers, behind the trestles - ranged round the great bare hall and creaking beneath the load of great - tea-ums, mountains of bread and butter, and, in the morning, steaming pans - of porridge. Goddard loved to make his way through the crowd of clamorous - unwashed children to the place where Lady Phayre, deliciously fresh in - white bib-apron and turned-back cuffs, was busily dispensing viands, - receiving pence and halfpence from grubby little hands, and paying for - countless moneyless urchins from a great private store of coppers by her - side. And after the press was over, she would emerge from behind the - trestles and walk up and down the hall with him discussing affairs. - </p> - <p> - Never had she seemed so near to him as now when a common interest united - them. But in Goddard’s fresh, newly-awakened idealism, it was not her arm - that brushed his on a common level, but it was her wings that touched his - head. - </p> - <p> - Sometimes he would meet her in the streets, on a round of visits among - such homes as she knew; sometimes he would see her sitting in the - dog-cart, with her host, on the outskirts of a crowd he was addressing. - Once she even persuaded him to accept a dinner invitation at the - Wentworths’. She grew more into his life daily. - </p> - <p> - The strain of his position, as arbiter of the struggle, grew more intense. - Rumours of the larger firms being backed up by the great capitalist - Rosenthal were gaining hopeless credence. At another fruitless conference, - one of the employers boasted that they could maintain a lockout for a - couple of years. Goddard summoned a great mass-meeting of operatives, and - gave the manufacturer the lie with passionate vehemence. Once more he - imposed his will upon them. - </p> - <p> - He was fighting this battle as he had never fought before. Every aim of - his life seemed to be merged in the issue. Not only were the great - principles of the rights of labour at stake, not only the present and - future happiness of this great community, but his own career seemed to - hang in the balance, and, in a strange, uncomprehended way, his credit - with Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - At last the London world began to clamour for Lady Phayre. A rift was - threatening to appear in the Progressive lute. “You only can put things - straight,” wrote Aloysius Gleam. “Fenton and Hendrick have bumped each - other’s heads in the dark, and they are angry with one another, and we are - all taking sides. You must bring them to kiss and make friends over your - dinner-table.” So Lady Phayre deliberated. She had one very good reason - for remaining at Ecclesby; but, on the other hand, she had fifty little - feminine ones for leaving it. The work she had taken in hand, the - Children’s Tavern, was in capital going order. She had already found her - own services, as attendant, superfluous. She was free to resign the charge - of it into competent hands. Why should she stay? It was not often that - Lady Phayre did not know her own mind. At last she compromised. She would - pay a visit to London, to effect the desired reconciliation, and then - return to Ecclesby. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t like leaving you at all,” she said to Goddard, the evening before - her departure. “It seems as if I am deserting you. But I shall make haste - back.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, do!” said Goddard pleadingly. “The people have grown so fond of you. - And you are such a help to me.” - </p> - <p> - To atone for her defection, she had dismissed the carriage, and allowed - him to see her home after the tea at the Salvation Army Barracks. It was - already night, but the moon had risen, and lent a tenderness to things. - Lady Phayre was glad of its aid, for it was on her conscience to leave - Goddard with comfortable impressions. - </p> - <p> - “I have done very little,” she replied. - </p> - <p> - “You have advised me at every turn,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “You have advised yourself while talking to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Anyhow, I could not have got on without you.” - </p> - <p> - “Believe it then, if it pleases you,” she said softly. “You can write me a - daily account of things, if you like—and I will go on ‘advising’ - you. Will that do?” - </p> - <p> - “You are too good to me,” he said fervently. - </p> - <p> - They walked on a little in silence. Then she asked him how much longer he - thought the strike would last. - </p> - <p> - “Another fortnight must see the end of the employers’ resources,” he said - with conviction. “The game of bluff can’t last longer.” - </p> - <p> - “And are you sure that the Rosenthal story is a myth?” - </p> - <p> - “As sure as I am that the moon is shining on your face.” - </p> - <p> - Upon the word, the moon disappeared behind a cloud. Lady Phayre started, - and touched his sleeve. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, what a bad omen!” - </p> - <p> - But Daniel laughed. Omens had no place in his downright philosophy. - </p> - <p> - “Well, Juliet calls the moon inconstant,” said Lady Phayre gaily. “So we - won’t believe it.” - </p> - <p> - “I only have to keep the men up till then,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “And you will do it, Mr. Goddard,” she replied. “It will be a great - victory, and we shall all be so proud of you.” - </p> - <p> - So Goddard went to sleep that night with hope thrilling through his - dreams. And he woke up the next morning and went about his work, and - longed for Lady Phayre. She might be back in five days. - </p> - <p> - But before the five days were up, Rosenthal’s support of the Employers’ - Association became a matter of public certainty. - </p> - <p> - “I will not believe it,” shouted Goddard to the grey-faced secretary. - “Nothing but the sight of Rosenthal’s cheque would convince me. If you - give in now, you’ll be throwing up the most glorious victory labour ever - won in this country. You are fools—wretched, cowardly, credulous - fools.” - </p> - <p> - But the tide of conviction had set in. He was powerless against it. He - strove with the passionate rage of his nature, exhausted himself in wild, - furious effort. The end came with overwhelming rapidity. Goddard felt that - he had lost his Waterloo. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER IX—SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENTS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>oddard mounted the - stairs of Queen’s Court Mansions with a heavy tread. He was physically - tired, and his heart was sullenly sore. He had felt himself irresistibly - drawn hither, though his pride hated the ordeal of confessing his failure - to a woman, especially to Lady Phayre. The old, fierce class feeling was - ineradicable. She was above him. Success, brilliance alone could keep him - on her level. Failure brought him down. A glimmering realisation of this - had come to him in the train, and he had pulled up his coat-collar - angrily, and doggedly resolved to swallow his humble-pie to the last - mouthful. But it did not occur to do otherwise than drive straight to her - from the railway station. - </p> - <p> - He deposited his bag and ulster in the hall, and followed the servant into - the drawing-room. The first glimpse of it cheered him. The subdued light, - the dancing fire, the warm tones of carpet and curtains, the cosy - atmosphere, the charm of perfectly harmonised surroundings, struck - gratefully upon his sense. - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre dropped on the hearthrug the book she was reading, and rising - quickly, made a step or two to meet him. Her eyes were wide, in great - concern. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, how tired you are looking. Come and sit down, in the big chair by the - fire. It was good of you to come. See, I have been waiting for you—with - Monmouth.” - </p> - <p> - She smiled, and directed her glance downwards to the white cat which had - stalked up and was rubbing itself, with arched back and outstanding fur, - against Goddard’s legs. He stooped and patted the beast. - </p> - <p> - “I am just done-up,” he said, sitting down wearily in the chair, and - throwing back his head. - </p> - <p> - He was looking exhausted. A pallor appeared beneath his dark skin; his - eyes were rather sunken, thus bringing into strange relief his somewhat - massively hewn features. A strand of black straight hair fell from the - side-parting across his forehead. Lady Phayre, standing with one hand on - the back of her chair, regarded him pityingly. - </p> - <p> - “Have you had anything to eat?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes; I think so.” - </p> - <p> - “Tell me when. Ah! I see you haven’t. I’ll order you something in the - dining-room.” - </p> - <p> - “I couldn’t think——” he began; but she interrupted him. - </p> - <p> - “You must, to please me. I can’t bear to see you so tired. You will feel - quite a different man. And a small bottle of champagne.” - </p> - <p> - Man has not been born of a woman who could have refused Lady Phayre, when - she spoke with that coaxing charm. - </p> - <p> - Goddard’s face softened into assent, and he followed her with his eyes, in - a dumb, wondering way, as she went to give the necessary directions. - </p> - <p> - He had never quite familiarised himself with his surroundings in that - room. It always seemed a corner of Paradise that had somehow got left - behind upon the unlovely earth. The feeling had never been so strong as at - present. With his brain throbbing from the painful emotions of the day, - his eyes still dazed by the various scenes—the mean, squalid - streets, the grim, closed factories, the poverty-stricken homes, the idle, - sullen men lounging at street-corners, the crowd of gaunt, unresponsive - faces at the meeting—and with his body exhausted with fatigue and - hunger, this warm nest of exquisite peace and comfort was deliciously - unreal. Even Moumouth, luxuriously coiled on his velvet cushion, seemed a - creature of a different sphere from that of the lean grey cats he had seen - darting from doorways across alleys, preceding the appearance of - red-shawled women. And the voice of Lady Phayre hummed like far-away music - in his ears, and her delicate womanly sympathy was like soft hands against - his cheek. It was almost a dream. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his - fingers through his hair. He longed for her to come back, so that he could - tell her of the failure. Somehow, it no longer struck him as an ordeal. - The magic of her presence had charmed away his repugnance. - </p> - <p> - She returned, knelt down on the long fender-stool, and spread out her - hands before the blaze. - </p> - <p> - “They won’t be long.” - </p> - <p> - She turned her head sideways towards him as she spoke. Her attitude was - alive with feminine grace and charm. - </p> - <p> - “You are as good as you are beautiful,” he said, in reply to her - hospitable remark. - </p> - <p> - She met his full glance, and smiled contentedly. The blunt sincerity of - the tribute compensated for its lack of the finer imaginative shades. - There was a moment’s silence. Then she raised her eyes again, but this - time with sad expectancy. - </p> - <p> - “Well?” - </p> - <p> - He broke out in a kind of groan. - </p> - <p> - “It’s all over. I needn’t tell you that. You got my letter this morning, - and you must have guessed from my wire this afternoon. We give in - to-morrow unconditionally—after all these weeks of struggle and - sacrifice. It is the most crushing blow labour has ever had. And I’ll - stake my existence another week would have seen them through. Rosenthal is - no more going to finance these firms than he is going to finance me. It - has been cruel. I have been working at it since six o’clock this morning. - It has been like trying to fly a kite with a cannon-ball at its tail. At - the meeting this afternoon I did all I knew. I have never lost my head - with passion before. They were all like dead men; went away dragging their - boots. Some of them cursed me. Managers came round me afterwards. ‘Didn’t - I know? The strike fund was exhausted.’ As if I was ignorant of it! ‘Two - more days would see the end of it.’ I said, ‘In God’s name, see the two - days out.’ They shook their heads; were going to announce surrender then - and there; but I managed to make them put it off till the morning. And - then I came away—eating my heart out.” - </p> - <p> - He set his teeth and glowered at the fire. The story of the defeat had - brought back the bitterness in all its intensity. Lady Phayre did not - speak, instinctively knowing that, with him, silence was the truest - sympathy. - </p> - <p> - “The bitter part to me,” he continued, with note of passion that vibrated - through the woman, “is, that if I could have had a hundredth part of the - grip on them to-day that I had a week ago, I should have brought them - through. I know it as I know water goes down hill. I have failed. It is my - failure. I have been responsible for all these poor creatures’ sacrifices - during the past weeks; and now all the poverty, hunger, despair, for - nothing. You saw what it was a few days ago. You should have been there - this morning. I saw a man seize a bit of bread and treacle out of a - child’s hand and begin to devour it—like a wolf—I couldn’t - stand it.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre looked at him quickly, and then for the first time noticed a - slight bruise and an abrasion on his forehead. She drew her own - conclusions. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, the awful misery of it all,” said Goddard between his teeth. - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry,” said Lady Phayre in a low voice, “sorry to my inmost heart; - but I am sorrier for you.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah! you mustn’t say that,” cried Goddard passionately. “Think—you - couldn’t mean it. It would be inhuman!” - </p> - <p> - “It is only too human,” murmured Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - He was about to speak, when the maid-servant announced that the supper was - ready; so, instead of replying to Lady Phayre’s murmur, he remained - silently wondering. - </p> - <p> - She led the way into the dining-room, where a dainty but substantial meal - was spread—a piece of salmon with crisp salad, a truffled pie, a - cold fruit-tart. Only one place was laid. It had seemed to Lady Phayre she - could give him kinder welcome if she sat by him as he ate than if she went - through the formal pretence of joining him at the meal. Then she wondered, - in the feminine way, whether he was cognisant of it. The servant uncorked - the champagne and retired. Lady Phayre sat down near him, resting her - elbow on the table. At first he leaned back in his chair, looked at his - plate, then at her. - </p> - <p> - “I feel too sick at heart to eat. The thought of those poor starving women - and children!” - </p> - <p> - “Your going without food will not fill their mouths, you know,” said Lady - Phayre in sympathetic remonstrance. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose I feel my own personal humiliation too,” he said ungraciously, - as if forcing out the admission. “One may as well be honest. It’s the - biggest thing I’ve set my hand to as yet, with everything depending upon - it. And to have to throw it up when victory was staring one in the face! - It is maddening!” - </p> - <p> - He bent forward impatiently and took up his fork. He laid it on his plate, - and turned to Lady Phayre. - </p> - <p> - “You are the only person in the world I could say that to.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know why?” - </p> - <p> - The words were half whispered, but she looked at him full and clearly. - </p> - <p> - “Because you are yourself, I suppose—your good opinion dear to me, - your sympathy a necessity.” - </p> - <p> - “And all that because you know I believe in you.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes fell beneath his gaze, which was stern and yet half pleading. - Then she raised them again slowly, with the delicious upward sweep of her - lashes, and repeated— - </p> - <p> - “I believe in you.” - </p> - <p> - A thrill ran through the man; his dark, powerful face lit up. Lady Phayre - shifted her attitude, and broke into a silvery laugh. - </p> - <p> - “And all this time you are not eating. If you don’t begin at once I shall - go away.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard laughed shamefacedly, with a vague consciousness that he had been - ungracious in not having commenced before. He helped himself to the - salmon. After the first mouthful or two his aversion to food disappeared, - and he went on eating with the appetite of a bigframed, very hungry man. - With the exception of a sandwich and a glass of beer at the station bar - before starting, he had eaten nothing since his early breakfast. The food - and the wine restored his physical well-being. Lady Phayre looked on, - pleased, she could scarcely tell why. These big, earnest men were - sometimes like babies—so helpless, if left to themselves. She tended - on him now and then in a pretty way without leaving her seat, passed his - plate, handed him the little silver jug of cream, and, when the meal was - over, fetched from a cupboard a box of cigarettes. Like a man unaccustomed - to delicate feminine ministrations, Goddard accepted them rather - tongue-tied, with a certain tremulous bashfulness. The little hospitable - actions, so homely and therefore charming to a man of gentler nurture, - were to him full of a rare exotic sweetness. All through the meal she - exerted herself to talk to him brightly of little things, incidents that - had brought them into pleasant contact during the late struggle. He - finished his cigarette, and they returned to the drawingroom. - </p> - <p> - Goddard stood before the fire, with his hands in his jacket pockets. The - sense of personal humiliation still smouldered within him, but the raging - of the flame had been subdued. He felt that he could hold up his head - again. And it was the loyal tender sympathy of that woman in the low - arm-chair before him who had brought it about. He had never known before - how a woman could be a necessity in a man’s life. Till then he even had - not realised how imperious were the cravings for her, in spite of the - revolt of his galled pride, during that weary journey back to town. She - looked so fair and exquisite. His eyes met hers. But something more than - her beauty stirred the eternal masculine within him, and when he spoke his - voice vibrated. - </p> - <p> - “Will you always treat me like this, Lady Phayre?” - </p> - <p> - She smiled. - </p> - <p> - “Is it much to do for you?” - </p> - <p> - “It is growing to mean everything in the world to me. I have lived a rough - life away from women—ladies—women like you. Hitherto it has - never occurred to me that I was not self-sufficing—that I could ever - look to a woman for help. A year ago I should have laughed at it—thought - it a sickly fancy of the hyper-sensitive semi-men in novels. But I have - needed you this day, and I came to you because something stronger than I - impelled me. And you have given me new life to-night. Do you know that?” - </p> - <p> - “You were looking so worn out and sad when you came in, that it pained - me,” said Lady Phayre, non-committally. - </p> - <p> - But Goddard’s ear detected a soft note in her voice. He came near to her, - sat down on the fender-stool, almost by her knees. - </p> - <p> - “Why are all women not like you? What a great beautiful world it would - be.” - </p> - <p> - “Any woman would have done the same; given you of her best to cheer you. - Besides, I was grieved—you have worked so nobly. Everybody has been - talking about you—of nothing else. I felt so proud I had been - working with you in my poor way—and I had set my heart upon your - winning.” - </p> - <p> - “And I have failed miserably,” said Goddard. “Therefore you ought to feel - I was unworthy of your trust.” - </p> - <p> - “You don’t mean that. It hurts me,” she cried quickly, really wounded. - </p> - <p> - Goddard’s heart came into his eyes. The goddess had come down from the - far-off pedestal where he had worshipped her, and was by his side, - throbbing woman. He had a strange intoxicating sense of her nearness. He - raised his hand and touched the edges of the feather firescreen she was - holding in her lap. - </p> - <p> - “Forgive me,” he said. “It is hard to believe that my success or my - failure is of concern to you.” - </p> - <p> - “Why is it hard?” she asked in a low voice, looking down. - </p> - <p> - “Because it means more than my wildest dreams could ever bid me hope,” he - replied, with a sudden rush of passion. - </p> - <p> - There was a long silence. Lady Phayre could find no words to answer, - conscious that her muteness was an expectation of fuller avowal. - </p> - <p> - But Goddard’s brain was whirling with wonder and strange joy. His hand - sunk a hair’s-breadth, and touched her knee. The contact was electric to - him. He drew his hand away quickly, and, rising to his feet, stretched - himself, as if he had awakened out of a dream. He could scarcely realise - what had happened. His enthusiastic practical life had not been fertile in - psychological moments. Lady Phayre looked up at him with angelic - sweetness. Generally more graceful than seductive, she was bewilderingly - woman at this moment. Suddenly, with an instinct of self-preservation, she - rose too, and laughed. - </p> - <p> - “I told you I believed in you, you know. Our little faiths are of moment - to us.” - </p> - <p> - Her light tone saved the situation. Talk was resumed, but it did not flow - so spontaneously as before. At last Goddard rose to leave. She was - solicitous as to his rest. Had he any more work to-night? - </p> - <p> - “I am going straight home,” he answered, with a laugh. - </p> - <p> - He held her hand for a long time and looked her in the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “You will sleep happier than if you had not come to me?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “Ah! God bless you,” he said, rather huskily. - </p> - <p> - And then he squeezed her hand, and went hurriedly from the room. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER X—LADY PHAYRE THROWS HER CAP OVER THE WINDMILLS. - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t had been a quick - rough grasp, bringing to Lady Phayre a new conception of handshakes. It - had not been violent like that of certain per-fervid ones among her - friends, forcing the rings into her delicate flesh; but her hand tingled, - and the tingling mounted her arm and died away in a flutter in her bosom. - Involuntarily she held up the hand in front of her, saw that it trembled a - little, and then laid it against her cheek. A swift consciousness of the - act brought a flush to her face. But instead of drawing away her hand, she - moved it slightly so that her lips touched the palm, and there it stayed - while she gave herself up to a day-dream. And the smile rose into her eyes - which no one has ever seen in a woman’s, except when she has been taken - unawares; which only comes when she is alone, and is looking half - tremulously, half amusedly into her heart. - </p> - <p> - Gradually, however, the smile grew dim with a gathering moisture. She was - not a woman to whom tears came readily. She was surprised and glad. They - were a delicate test of the sincerity of her emotion. A drop hung on the - lower lid for a moment and fell upon the back of her fingers, losing - itself among the rings. Her heart melted over Goddard. Failure for him was - different from failure for other men. The wherefore of this conclusion she - did not argue out, content with the assurance of its truth in her own - mind. The great battle, into whose side-issues she herself had been drawn, - was lost. She was sorry. But she had spoken truly when she had said she - was sorrier for him. The fallen cause was merged in the defeated man. Her - thoughts drifted towards plans of consolation. - </p> - <p> - It was very still, silence only broken by the whirr of the little leaping - flame jets in the fire. The white cat rose from the hearthrug, stretched - himself, stole noiselessly over the pile carpet to the centre of the room, - and then, after a dubious wag of the tail, returned to slumber. Lady - Phayre did not change her attitude. Her occupation engrossed her. She was - compounding balm for Goddard—a new and wondrous panacea, whose - secret she had just discovered—an extract of many feminine simples - as old as the leaves on the Tree of Knowledge. - </p> - <p> - The sudden opening of the door caused her to start with a foolish hope - that it might be Goddard returning. But the neat maid-servant, in her - subdued voice, announced Mr. Gleam. - </p> - <p> - He came forward eagerly, his dry equable face glowing with excitement. - </p> - <p> - “Have you seen Goddard?” - </p> - <p> - He was too preoccupied with his business even to linger his usual moment - over her finger-tips. - </p> - <p> - “He has been here. Why do you want him?” The question was in a breath with - the reply. Something had happened. She caught Gleam’s excitement, half - rose in her chair, and looked up at him anxiously. - </p> - <p> - “To tell him some news. Great news. Glorious news. I am the only one who - has got it. The enemy have been weakening all the time—a rift within - their lute. Rosenthal has backed out. Cleaver & Flyte are in a panic—Rosenthal - was behind them, you know. The others can’t stand alone. It’s utter rout!” - </p> - <p> - “But it’s too late!” exclaimed Lady Phayre, with a ring of dismay in her - voice. “Haven’t you heard?” - </p> - <p> - “It isn’t. Not yet,” replied Gleam animatedly. “The managers won’t declare - till to-morrow morning—unless they are fools. But I have more - precise news still. You did not let me finish,” he laughed apologetically. - “They will give in all along the line if the men hold out another - four-and-twenty hours.” - </p> - <p> - “They must hold out,” cried Lady Phayre. “Oh, why isn’t Goddard there?” - </p> - <p> - “Better he should be here—if I could only get at him. Wiring - couldn’t have been definite enough. It’s not safe. Let me track him down, - and off he goes by the midnight train, or the newspaper train, and then——” - </p> - <p> - “He will win,” cried Lady Phayre exultantly. - </p> - <p> - “Of course. Come, see, conquer. As easy as lying. That is why I have - killed three cab horses under me to find him. I was in despair. I knew he - had left Ecclesby. At his house they assured me he was not in London—did - not expect him for a couple of days. No news at the clubs—his - offices. Then I came here. Thank Heaven, he is in London, at any rate. If - I can’t find him, some one else will have to go down.” - </p> - <p> - “And Goddard lose his triumph after all? He must be found. Besides, they - would not believe any one else.” - </p> - <p> - “I was thinking of going myself, <i>en dernier ressort</i>,” said Gleam - rather quizzically, “just as I am. I think they would believe me.” - </p> - <p> - “So would the masters. A member of Parliament in dress clothes going about - at six o’clock in the morning! Besides, you would catch your death of - cold.” - </p> - <p> - She laughed playfully, but she was trembling all through with suppressed - joy. The knuckles of her hand, that held a futile ball of a handkerchief, - were white. There was a little pause. She looked on the ground for a - moment, then she lifted her long lashes, and regarded him half-shyly, with - a smile playing round her lips. - </p> - <p> - “What would you say if I told you where you can find him?” - </p> - <p> - “Anything,” cried Gleam. “Where is he?” - </p> - <p> - “At the Midland Grand Hotel.” - </p> - <p> - She told the lie with astounding charm. He whipped up his hat from the - table and turned towards her. - </p> - <p> - “Why did I not come to you at once? You are not a woman, but an Immortal. - A crisis—a time of difficulty—and you come out of a rosy cloud - like an Homeric goddess.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre smiled on him divinely. She held out her hand. - </p> - <p> - “I won’t keep you. I am as eager as you are.” - </p> - <p> - In another minute she heard the wheels of his departing cab in the street - below. She broke into a little ringing laugh: he had gone so promptly and - unquestioningly on his fool’s errand. A woman in an exalted condition of - mind has a queer sense of humour. - </p> - <p> - A wild fancy had seized her. It had grown into an irrepressible desire. - Her woman’s wit had worked swiftly. The lie had mounted to her lips on - wings of triumph, and spread radiance over her face. No wonder Gleam was - enraptured. - </p> - <p> - Women who are in the habit of throwing their caps over windmills find it - as monotonous as anything else after a time; but for one who has never - done it before, the act is accompanied with a rare exhilaration. - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre had lived a bright but perfectly exemplary life. No breath of - scandal had ever rested upon her name. Sir Ephraim had cloyed her with - affection, and hitherto she had regarded amatory offerings with a young - confectioner’s serene indifference to puffs. If she dared now and then to - flout at convention, she was only exercising the privileges of her - position. No one could find a word to say against it. To have driven to a - politician’s house at night to deliver a political message was a - commonplace of propriety. But to take the message of victory to the man - she loved, knowing, with a thrill that quivered from her feet to her hair, - that the message would contain also the openly avowed gift of herself—that - set matters on a totally different plane. It was wild, daring, unutterably - sweet. The breathless moment that followed the lie was the supreme point - of happiness in Lady Phayre’s life. - </p> - <p> - She went to a writing-table, took a sheet of the crested, - delicately-scented paper, and wrote a hurried line, which she enclosed in - an envelope and thrust in her corsage. Then she rang for her maid, and in - a few moments was speeding across London in a hansom cab. The cold air - caught her face, filling her with a joyous sense of vitality. She - pictured, glowingly, the little scene that would take place. First, his - look of wondering delight at her presence, then the illumination on his - face when she gave him her breathless message. There would be just time to - deliver it, if he was to catch the midnight train. The letter she would - slip into the letter-box. It would be found after she had left. If it was - forwarded to him the next day, so much the better. - </p> - <p> - She loved him. It was a new, wild sensation to her. The gradual drifting - towards the rapids had been pleasant, though not unaccompanied by certain - trepidations and misgivings. This evening had brought her to the edge, and - the swirl fascinated her. For once Lady Phayre had lost her head. And yet - there was method in her wildness. She felt herself worshipped, longed for, - saw the man standing in passionate helplessness on the other side of the - social gap between them. It was her prerogative to stretch the bridge - across. In the midst of all the excitement, Lady Phayre was deliciously - conscious that she was doing it gracefully. - </p> - <p> - Her mind was blissfully unheedful of the route. Crowded thoroughfares, - dreary squares, long, gaunt streets—it was all the same to her. She - lay back in a corner of the cab, felt the letter stiff against her bosom, - beneath her sealskin jacket, and surrendered herself to her sensations. - They were those of an angel of mercy committing a rapturous indiscretion. - </p> - <p> - At last the cab stopped at the given number of the quiet street where - Goddard lived. Bidding the cabman wait, she ran up the steps and rang the - bell. For a moment she hesitated with the letter in her hand, fingering it - nervously. Then, with a little throb, half-joy, half-fear, she thrust it - into the letter-box. - </p> - <p> - A servant came to the door and stared at the visitor. Lady Phayre’s heart - beat so fast that she could scarcely speak. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Goddard’s upstairs, ma’am. I’ll fetch him,” said the servant; and she - ran up the stairs, leaving Lady Phayre standing in the hall. - </p> - <p> - She was a slatternly slip of a girl, in a print dress. The thought of - men’s incapacity in the domestic economies brought a superior smile to - Lady Phayre’s lips. She forgave him, on account of his sex, for being left - to wait in a draughty passage. But the dining-room door was ajar, showing - a light within. There was no reason against her entering, her hand was - upon it, when it was suddenly opened wide, and, in the full light appeared - the figure of a woman with sodden features, dull eyes, and loose, untidy - hair, dressed in a dirty flannel dressing-gown. - </p> - <p> - For a second they stood watching one another. Then the woman made a step, - and reeled sideways against the wall. She was drunk. - </p> - <p> - “Who the ———— are you?” she cried in a thick - voice. - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre was transfixed with horror. She shrank back, just as Goddard - rushed down the stairs. He had heard his wife’s speech. It was an awful - moment. At the sight of him the woman cowered. - </p> - <p> - “Stay in that room!” he thundered at her; then he slammed the door, and - still gripping the knob, stood with livid features and heavily coming - breath, staring into Lady Phayre’s white face. - </p> - <p> - “You here? What madness brought you?” he said hoarsely. - </p> - <p> - The sound of his voice addressing her was an awakening shock to Lady - Phayre. - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” she exclaimed, the disgust and revolt of her soul finding its only - expression in an inarticulate cry. And then she instinctively fled towards - the street door. - </p> - <p> - But Goddard overtook her in two or three great strides. She shrank into - the corner, put up her hand as if he were about to touch her. - </p> - <p> - “Let me go. Don’t come near me. Don’t speak to me. It is horrible.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it’s horrible,” he replied fiercely. “But it is my curse, and not my - fault, that I have a wife like that.” - </p> - <p> - “Your wife, your wife?” she said in a queer, faint voice. “That—that - woman your wife?” - </p> - <p> - “You did not think it was my mistress?” he exclaimed with bitter - coarseness. “To come to <i>her</i> after leaving you!” - </p> - <p> - She recovered her composure with a strong effort. - </p> - <p> - “I will trouble you to open that door for me.” - </p> - <p> - He slid back the latch, held the door open for her to pass out, followed - her, and, shutting it behind him, stood with her on the steps. Then, - before she had time to descend, he seized her by the wrist. - </p> - <p> - “What madness made you come to this house? Tell me.” - </p> - <p> - Her first impulse was to wrench herself free and rush down to the waiting - cab, so as to fly from the loathed spot, and be alone with her sickening - mortification. But he held her too firmly. - </p> - <p> - “Tell me,” he said again sternly. “You would not come here without some - good reason.” - </p> - <p> - “Let go my arm. You are hurting me.” - </p> - <p> - “Forgive me,” he said, in a softer tone, dropping her wrist. “The hell of - indoors followed me out here.” - </p> - <p> - Lady Phayre at that moment hated him intensely. If it had been a mere - personal service to him, rather than perform it she would have called to - her safe-conduct into the cab the policeman who was pacing the solitary, - windswept street. But she reflected on the gravity of the issue. Mastering - her repugnance, she told him in a few curt sentences the object of her - mission. The longing for escape tingled through every fibre in her body. - As soon as the last word of the hated task was spoken, she shuddered, flew - down the steps, and rushed into the cab. - </p> - <p> - At the door of Queen’s Court Mansions, after she had paid her fare, her - heart stood still with a sickening recollection. She had left the letter - behind in the box. For a moment she thought of driving back to claim it; - but that was impossible. She crawled up the stairs and went to bed, her - brain reeling with rage, disgust, and humiliation. - </p> - <p> - Goddard stood bareheaded on the steps till the cab had disappeared in the - darkness, and then let himself in with his latch-key. He went into the - dining-room. Lizzie, lying half asleep on the couch by the fire, turned - her glazed eyes towards him as he entered. Her hair was squalidly loose, - her face bloated, her figure shapeless, her dirty dressing-gown half open, - her stockings wrinkling around her ankles. The room smelt of spirits; the - furniture was awry; the table-cloth was askew, and on it were crumbs of a - half-eaten Bath bun, a dirty handkerchief, and a copy of a penny - novelette, lying open at a great stain of grease. - </p> - <p> - A wave of indescribable loathing passed through the man. A savage desire - leaped from his heart to snatch the sofa-cushion from under her and stifle - her with it as she lay there, but it ended in a great lump in his throat. - </p> - <p> - “I told you to go to bed,” he said fiercely. “Go at once.” - </p> - <p> - She rose to her feet and staggered, unable to walk. If she had fallen to - the ground, Goddard felt that he could not have touched her. She dropped - back on the couch. He rang the bell and the girl appeared. - </p> - <p> - “Call cook and put your mistress to bed at once. I am going back to - Ecclesby to-night. I don’t know how long I shall be away. I shall wire to - Mrs. Smith to come here to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - The girl went out to fetch the cook. Lizzie looked at him with stupid - gravity. - </p> - <p> - “Think I believe you’re a-going to Ecclesby? You’re going to that - Piccadilly Circus woman.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard sprang forward, caught her by the loose collar of her dressing - gown, and shook her till the stuff tore. - </p> - <p> - “Do you want me to kill you?” he said, between his teeth, glaring at her. - </p> - <p> - She was frightened, and began to whimper. - </p> - <p> - Goddard stood for a moment looking at her. Then he passed his hand through - his hair in a passionate gesture. - </p> - <p> - “O God!” he cried, in a low, trembling voice, and then strode out of the - room. - </p> - <p> - He sought mechanically his still unpacked bag, his overcoat and - necessaries, and went out into the night. At St. Pancras Station he found - Gleam waiting on the platform. He was conscious of the Member asking him - for certain explanations concerning the Midland Grand Hotel and Lady - Phayre, and of listening to details of the leakage of secrets, Rosenthal’s - defection, to congratulations, encouragement, adieux as the train moved - off, but it was all a phantasmagoria in which his intellect worked - independently of himself. The glorious news he was carrying, the certain - victory that was to crown his hopes and ambitions, the thousands of lives - whose destiny he was bearing in his hands—all loomed like vague - shadows at the back of his consciousness. But his brain was on fire with - passionate love for Lady Phayre, and wild hatred of the woman from whom he - had just parted. If man ever carried the fires of hell in his heart it was - Goddard, that night, as he was on his way to realise the first great - ambition of his life. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XI—RECONSTRUCTION - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he victory was - complete. The sudden collapse of the firms caused a sensation all over the - country. The newspapers were ringing with his name. He was the hero of the - hour. At Ecclesby he was the hero for all time. His first appearance after - the announcement of the terms of settlement was a signal for extravagant - demonstration. Men shouted themselves hoarse, and fought to shake hands - with him. Women wept upon each other’s necks and shrilled out blessings. - One, mad with joy, threw her arms around him and kissed him. A torch-light - procession, headed by two frenzied bands, playing “See the Conquering Hero - comes,” carried him in triumph through the streets. - </p> - <p> - For the time his heart glowed with the intoxication of success and popular - worship. But when the shouts of the crowd had ceased ringing in his ears, - the glow faded like a false glamour, and left him face to face with grim - realities, before which all else seemed shadowy. As soon as he reached - London, he went with whirling thoughts to Queen’s Court Mansions. - </p> - <p> - What he should say to Lady Phayre he did not know. All that he had defined - was a fierce hunger to see her again, a wild longing to throw himself at - her feet. The dormant passion of the man had awakened and shook him to the - depths of his nature. His love for her had flowed so calmly, had quickened - so imperceptibly, had maintained so smooth a surface with passionate - depths so unsuspected, that when the sudden chasm met its course, it - dashed down an overwhelming cataract that swept him headlong into unknown - abysses. The blood swirled through his veins as he stood waiting outside - the familiar door. The servant opened it. Lady Phayre was unwell, was not - receiving any visitors. “Is she in bed?” asked Daniel rudely. - </p> - <p> - “She is keeping her room, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Tell her that I wish to see her.” - </p> - <p> - The servant retired, and returned with the message that Lady Phayre could - not possibly receive, and would not be well enough to do so for some time. - He had to depart, raging with disappointment. He went home, shut himself - up in his room, and wrote to her. The days passed, and he received no - reply. A second letter met with similar treatment. Then he called again. - This time neither the electric bell, nor the little brass knocker, caused - the door to be opened. At the entrance to the Mansions he met the porter, - who told him that Lady Phayre had locked up her flat for six months, and - had gone to the south of France. - </p> - <p> - Then, and then only, did Goddard realise his lost paradise. He had been - buoyed up with hopes that if he could but have speech with her he could - win his pardon, his right of entry into the bit-over of Eden that she - inhabited. Now she had closed the gates. If the porter had been the angel - of the flaming sword, Goddard could not have looked at him with more - hopeless acquiescence. - </p> - <p> - He wandered for some time aimlessly through the streets. Life seemed as - drear as the murky November afternoon that was merging into a wet, dismal - night. He had finished his routine duties for the day, had hurried through - them feverishly in view of his visit to Lady Phayre. He walked on to - Piccadilly Circus. There he stopped, debated for a moment what he should - do. A Bayswater ’bus had just drawn up at the end of the lumbering - line, and the conductor was vociferating loudly. He shouted into Goddard’s - face— - </p> - <p> - “Now, then! Nottin’ ’Ill, sir. Room inside.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard turned away quickly. He could not go home. The thought of Lizzie, - foul and drunken, caused a red cloud to pass before his eyes. In his - present mood it would be well not to see her. - </p> - <p> - He made his way to his club, mounted to the quiet library, where he would - be undisturbed by the chatter of acquaintances, and pulling up an - arm-chair before a fire-place in a dark corner, gave himself up to the - grim task of reconstructing his life. A new devastating element had come - into his sphere—Lizzie. In the days before his friendship with Lady - Phayre his wife had counted for little in his earnest life. He regretted - her unhappiness, did what lay in his power to remedy the irremediable - mistake of his marriage; but never desiring freedom, the bond scarcely - troubled him. Even during the sweetness of his intercourse with Lady - Phayre it had galled him but little. She was so far above him, the - feelings with which he regarded her were so new to his almost original - experience that he had not realised that he loved her after the common way - of men. In the serenity of Lady Phayre’s atmosphere Lizzie counted for no - more than the little bare top-room in which he had once lived, his early - memories of hardship and struggle with poverty. But now when the idyll was - over, when he felt the man’s fierce passion for the woman that was lost to - him, the other woman who stood between counted as a terrible, resistless - force. - </p> - <p> - He gazed with set features into the fire. It faded, and in its place rose - the scene of that night when the two women had met. One face noble, - intellectual, pure in outline; the other, sodden, coarse, and bestial. He - gripped the arms of his chair, and a half groan came from his lips. A - loathing of the woman to whom he was bound arose within him like a nausea. - </p> - <p> - Then anger shook him—anger at the folly of his marriage; anger at - the coarse nature of his wife, at her father’s drunkenness, at the pretty - baby face that had caught his raw fancy—anger, too, at Lady Phayre. - Why had she sought him out? Why had she lured him on to enslave himself to - her? Anger at her scorn of him, at her fine-lady sensitiveness that was - revolted at the sight of a drunken shrew. Anger at her having led him into - the fool’s paradise only to eject him ignominiously. - </p> - <p> - A slight tap on his shoulder aroused him. He started round: the anger that - was hot within him turned against the disturber. It was Gleam. - </p> - <p> - “I have been looking round the club for some one to dine with. Come - along,” he said in his friendly way. - </p> - <p> - But Goddard glowered at him. At that moment Gleam seemed to belong to the - other side of the great gulf, and he hated him with the old class-hatred. - He looked so spick and span with his evening dress, and gold eye-glass, - and meticulously trimmed head. His manner was so easy, giving the - impression of freedom from sordid cares. He had no foul drunken wife - dragging him down. He could meet Lady Phayre on a level. He could offer - her marriage, and she could but take the offer as a compliment. A sense of - personal degradation filled Goddard’s soul, and he hated himself for - hating Gleam. In a moment, however, he came to his senses, but not before - Gleam had rallied him on his confusion. - </p> - <p> - “Caught you napping, eh? Well—will you dine?” - </p> - <p> - “No,” said Goddard, rising from his chair. “Not to-night. I ought to have - got out of this half-an-hour ago.” - </p> - <p> - He made a pretence of stretching himself as if he had been asleep. Gleam - looked at him with his quick glance. - </p> - <p> - “You have been overworking yourself. Take care. You great strong men break - with a crash. Go away and have a rest.” - </p> - <p> - “Like Lady Phayre,” said Goddard, in the bitterness of his heart. - </p> - <p> - “Quite so. That confounded strike of yours did for her. What the dickens - we’re to do without her I don’t know.” - </p> - <p> - “Life will go on just the same, I suppose. No one is indispensable.” - </p> - <p> - He laughed mirthlessly. A faint flush rose in Gleam’s dry cheeks. - </p> - <p> - “You’re talking treason, Goddard. You certainly do want a rest.” - </p> - <p> - “One wants a devil of a lot of things one can’t get,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “I want my dinner, and I’m going to get it,” replied Gleam - good-humouredly. “Goodbye.” - </p> - <p> - He went out of the library, took his place in the lift. His eyes twinkled, - and he smoothed his moustache abstractedly. Then a little exclamation - broke from him. - </p> - <p> - “I wonder!” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Did you speak, sir?” said the lift-porter. - </p> - <p> - “Eh?” replied Gleam. “Yes; I wonder—I wonder why I have come down to - the basement when I wanted the dining-room floor.” - </p> - <p> - But Goddard could not sit any longer in the library. The brooding spell - was over, and its place was taken by feverish unrest. He left the Club, - went out into the streets, and began to walk rapidly. Whither was he - going? He did not care. A vague idea that he could free himself of his - madness by physical exercise prompted him. He had a faint recollection of - a scene in a penny dreadful read in his board-school days—a scene - where the hero, to bring calmness to his throbbing brain, mounted his - horse and galloped at whirlwind speed over miles and miles of moorland, in - frenzied chase, until the noble animal’s heart burst and he staggered and - fell, throwing his rider, who broke his neck. But Goddard walked—up - the hurrying Strand and Fleet Street, through the fast-emptying City; - eastwards, up Fenchurch Street, the Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road, - jostling through the crowded thoroughfares that reeked with the odour of - fried-fish, naphtha from costers’ barrows, and the day’s sweat of the - toiling population; down Whitehouse Lane and Stepney High Street on to - Ratcliffe Highway. The squalor and misery of it all touched the - ever-responsive chord in his nature, awoke the demagogue in him to - sympathy with the people. The East End had never appeared to him so - terrible, so crushing in its vast unloveliness. Mile after mile it was - just the same—the same stench, the same stunted men; the same anemic - girl-mothers; the same foul, fringed, and feathered women of the street; - the same bestial talk that seemed to hang continuously on the air; the - same scenes of drunken brawling outside the public-houses; the same - dreamy, endless tram-cars, smoothly gliding past this hubbub and swelter - of humanity on the pavement; and everywhere the same joyless struggle for - the four sole ends of life—food, raiment, shelter, and - forgetfulness. - </p> - <p> - Goddard felt a strange and stern comfort in steeping his soul in these - wide waters of bitterness. He went on and on, through brawling companies - of sailors, swarthy Lascars, and the land-scum that clings round the - seafaring life; past evil-smelling marine stores, live-stock dealers - dissonant with the screeching of parrots, slop-shops, low eating-houses, - scented from afar, even through the general stench, by the miasmic - exhalations from basement gratings. At the end of the Highway he turned, - retraced his steps, went through the foul river-side slums, crossed the - Commercial Road, struck northwards, up dark, narrow streets, where the - flare and turmoil of the great arteries were perceived but faintly, and - the minor privacies of life were in sordid evidence. Through streets of - sweaters’ dens he could see the vague forms of the workers behind the - blindless windows. Once he stopped and counted—thirty in one small, - gas-lit room. - </p> - <p> - To carry on the combat with the powers of evil that enthralled this - hideous city, his life needed little reconstruction. He thought of Lady - Phayre, clenched his stick, and swung it furiously. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll go on with my work, and she can go to the devil!” he said. - </p> - <p> - And he walked on through the endless streets. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - It is a simple way to rid ourselves of burdens, to consign them to - Avernus, and ship them on the waters of Lethe. Unfortunately it is not - always successful. They are apt to be elusive, like the vampire in the - Indian story which Vikram could not keep in his sack. They slip from the - hold of the dark ship, and return to the shoulders of the consigner. But - in this Goddard’s pride allowed no confession of failure. He blustered - himself into the belief that Lady Phayre was no more to him than Hecuba - was to the First Player, thus playing the hypocrite to himself with morose - and stubborn futility. He plunged into his work with redoubled energy, - grew angry when he found that it did not give him the old sufficing - happiness, and obstinately refused to allow the simple, obvious cause. - </p> - <p> - And then the new element of discord in his life had to be accepted and - harmonised. Lizzie was going from bad to worse. He brought Emily to live - in the house to take permanent charge of her. Together they tried to - mitigate the evil, to circumvent her in her plans for obtaining drink; but - she was more than their equal in cunning. The disease had laid its - everlasting grasp upon her. She sank daily in degradation. Daniel could - not cheat himself into the fancy of freedom from this burden of loathing. - Yet he was a man with a keen sense of justice. The more his heart - revolted, the more doggedly did he repress outward manifestation. He bore - her reproaches silently, strove to render her lot less bitter. - </p> - <p> - “I believe you’re an angel from heaven, Daniel,” said Emily once. She - always had looked up to him with reverential adoration. “How you can put - up with her I don’t know. You’re a living angel if ever there was one.” - </p> - <p> - “You think so, do you, Em?” he answered with a rough laugh, rather - touched. “Well, go on thinking so. It won’t do me any harm.” - </p> - <p> - Only once did Lizzie refer to the night of Lady Phayre’s visit. It was a - Sunday evening. Emily had gone to church, and had left the two together in - the drawing-room. Daniel was smoking a pipe over a book, and Lizzie was - engaged with some needlework—a rare occupation. She had been less - fretful that day, had even asked him to sit with her. Gradually, as Daniel - read, her efforts with her needle became spasmodic. There were intervals - of gazing into the fire, and sudden resumptions of industry. Then she - rose, moved about the room, idly examining nicknacks and fidgeting with - furniture. At last she left the room, and entered her bedroom that - adjoined. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly Daniel’s attention was arrested by a sharp tinkling sound. He - started to his feet and went quickly to join Lizzie. It was as he had - suspected. By the half-light of the dim-burning gas he saw her thrusting a - bottle beneath some garments in a trunk. A glass half full of spirits was - close by on the mantelpiece. - </p> - <p> - “Lizzie! How can you?” he cried. - </p> - <p> - She turned upon him in a fury. - </p> - <p> - “How dare you come in here! How dare you spy upon me! If I want to drink - I’ll drink. What business is it of yours if I kill myself?” - </p> - <p> - She seized the glass, had already put it to her lips, when he strode - forward and dashed it from her hand. - </p> - <p> - “You won’t do it to-night anyhow, Lizzie,” he said calmly. - </p> - <p> - She broke into a torrent of angry speech. - </p> - <p> - When the drink or passion was upon her, she used the vernacular of the - Sunington streets—of her own home, for the matter of that. He waited - until there was a lull in the tempest. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll have the bottle anyway,” he said, turning to the trunk. - </p> - <p> - But that was the signal for a fresh outburst. She sat upon the trunk, - swore he should never have it while she lived, prepared to defend her - property by physical means. Goddard shrugged his shoulders, and sat down - upon the bed. - </p> - <p> - “All right,” he said; “I’ll wait.” - </p> - <p> - Then she burst into hysterical sobbing. She wished she was dead. She hated - him. He was a brute. That was all he lived for—to keep the spy upon - her when he wasn’t making up to other women. - </p> - <p> - “Do you think I’m a fool?” she cried, suddenly taking her hands from her - face and turning to him. “Do you think I don’t know? I don’t interfere - with you: why should you interfere with me? Only don’t bring your women to - this house. Do you think I don’t know your goings on? You are worse than I - am. I don’t pretend. You are a dirty blackguard. You think I don’t know - all about your Rhodanthes and things?” - </p> - <p> - He started as if she had struck him, for a moment lost the command over - himself that he had maintained through all the ordure of words. He - regained it with a violent effort, clutching the counterpane fiercely, - until his finger-nails were turned back. He understood now how a man could - beat a woman. If he lost the hold over himself, he would rush to her and - beat her—beat her until she lay senseless. Perhaps she almost - expected it, for she paused at the last words, and looked at him - half-coweringly, half-defiantly. So their eyes remained fixed on one - another in the dim-lit room. Then she shuddered with body and lips, and - uttering a low cry hid her face. A terror had taken possession of her. She - was conquered. - </p> - <p> - Daniel rose from the bed, went to her, and took her by the arm. - </p> - <p> - “Go into the next room,” he said sternly, and she obeyed. - </p> - <p> - He joined her after he had disposed of the disputed whisky-bottle. And - there they sat in an appalling silence, until Emily came back from church, - and relieved him of his charge. - </p> - <p> - That was the last time that Lizzie referred to Lady Phayre. He wondered - how she had learned her name—that name Rhodanthe, which he had ever - in his mind—which, save this once, he had never heard uttered aloud. - It was a curious freak of fate’s irony that, on this one occasion, it - should have been uttered by his wife’s lips. The circumstance embittered - him still more against her. - </p> - <p> - A few weeks after this the long-expected vacancy in the Hough division - occurred, and Goddard was definitely chosen as the Radical candidate. In - the very beginning of his electoral campaign he received news from London - that the terrible drink illness had fallen upon his wife. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XII—A LEADER OF MEN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">“D</span> O YOU think it - wise for me to go in?” asked Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “She has been asking for you,” said the nurse. “It may do her good; but - don’t speak to her.” - </p> - <p> - “Then she has definitely turned the corner.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; at last. But her recovery depends upon absolute quiet. It is the - heart now. A sudden excitement, and then”—she snapped her fingers—“syncope.” - </p> - <p> - “That is to say—sudden death.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said the nurse. - </p> - <p> - “I shall merely sit by her side for ten minutes,” said Daniel. “You are - sure it will please her?” - </p> - <p> - “It will be a sign of forgiveness,” said the nurse. She sighed. “Ah! poor - thing! I’ll go and prepare her.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard sat down wearily in the stiffly furnished drawing-room to await - his summons, and rested his head in his hands. He was very tired. The - strain, mental and physical, of the past three months had told upon him. - His face was worn and yellow, and his eyes were rather too bright for - health. A strange thing for him, he had been driven to seek medical advice - for insomnia. The prescription was immediate rest and change. He shrugged - his shoulders. After the election, perhaps. - </p> - <p> - Intense political feeling prevailed in the division. Goddard’s influence - was such as to leave none lukewarm. The conflict was raging fiercely. One - of the heaviest polls on record was anticipated. The strain of candidature - would have been great in ordinary circumstances. Coming as it did upon an - already over-worked man, it was dangerous. And then there was Lizzie’s - illness. He had already come to town several times to satisfy himself that - all was being done for her that money and skill could accomplish. It had - been a matter of feverish anxiety lest any act of omission on his part - should endanger her recovery. - </p> - <p> - He sat with his head in his hands, staring at the pattern of the carpet, - too tired to think coherently. To-morrow was polling day. He would have to - get back that evening. By the registers he ought to get in. “Daniel - Goddard, M.P.”—a name to conjure with in a few years’ time. And yet - there was something missing. He knew what it was only too well. It might - have been. He would have seen her in Hough to-morrow—eager, radiant, - driving about the polling-booths, wearing his colours. And if he won—the - joy of standing before her in his victory! But the other picture rose up - before him. All through the election he had been haunted by the two women. - He had wrestled with passionate desires. One night, when news had come - that Lizzie lay between life and death, a horrible, overwhelming longing - that she might die had kept him awake till the morning, when he rose and - took the first train to town, to assure himself that no stone was being - left unturned in order to save her. He remembered now some of Emily’s - descriptions of the horrors of that bed-side, and he shivered. Thank God - it was over. She wanted to see him. Perhaps this might mark a change in - their lives. He wondered whether she knew anything of the election. - Perhaps she might take a pride in being the wife of a Member of - Parliament. But what good could it do her? It would not bring fresh - interests into her life. Yes, it was hopeless. Any common woman in the - street would be as fit a companion for him. And again the longing for the - companionship he had lost came upon him, and his thoughts, in his weary - mood, lingered over the witchery of her odd name—Rhodanthe. - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Goddard,” said the nurse, coming - in. “There were some odds and ends to do in the room. You’ll be very, very - quiet, won’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “You are sure there is no danger?” asked Goddard. - </p> - <p> - The nurse smiled at his insistence. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t speak to her or make her talk. That is all,” she said. - </p> - <p> - Goddard entered the sick-room on tiptoe. At the door Emily met him on her - way out, and whispered a caution not to stay too long. He went to the - bedside. Lizzie was lying very still and white. The flesh had left her - cheeks; they were pinched, her features sharp, the skin drawn away tight - against the bones. Her colourless lips hung loose; her teeth were - prominent—a death’s head rather than a living woman. Goddard was - shocked to the heart. He scarcely recognised her. Not only did he fail to - see in her any traces of the girl he had once thought to love, but also - she was no longer the woman he had hated. - </p> - <p> - “So you’ve come,” she whispered, moving a feeble hand. - </p> - <p> - He took it in his, tried to smile to reassure her. Her lips moved again. - </p> - <p> - “Won’t you kiss me?” - </p> - <p> - Her voice had not changed. It lessened the strange sense of unfamiliarity - with which he had been regarding her. There was an involuntary touch of - peevishness in the tone. He bent down and kissed her cheek. - </p> - <p> - “Make haste and get well, Lizzie,” he said in a low voice. - </p> - <p> - She seemed satisfied with this, for she half closed her eyes, and let her - hand slip from his on to the counterpane. Daniel sat down in the chair - facing the small table by the bedside, on which were a bottle of medicine - and glass, a bunch of violets in water, and her Bible. This last was a - beautifully bound volume, edged with brass, and closed with a heavy clasp. - Daniel had given it to her in the early days of their marriage, when she - was eager to surround herself with all the obvious essentials of - gentility. He had learned lately from Emily’s chatter how she had insisted - upon this Bible being placed near her. “As if the Holy Book could charm - away the other things,” Emily had said in an awed tone. - </p> - <p> - The sight of it carried his thoughts back. Only once before had he sat by - her side like this—in this very room, too. She had been very white - and still then, but young and fresh, with gladness in her eyes that had - awakened within him an answering thrill. And there had been a little wee - pink thing at her breast. It had fluffy black down on its head, he - remembered. In this room, too, it had died three years later of - diphtheria. The room’s associations grew upon him. It was here that he had - first come by the knowledge of the curse of her life. She was lying - speechless one evening on the bed. He had bent over her unsuspectingly, - and then started back with a horrible spasm of disgust. Involuntarily now - he raised his head and looked at her. Her eyes were open, staring at the - ceiling. His fancy seemed to read in them the lingering horrors through - which she had passed. He shuddered, thanked God that the child had died. - The hereditary poison must have lurked in its young veins. - </p> - <p> - To shake off these thoughts he rose, stirred the fire into a blaze, and - returned to his seat. Then, moved by compunction—for this was a - visit of forgiveness—he stretched out his arm and smoothed the back - of her hand. A look of gratefulness appeared on her face, and she closed - her eyes again. Daniel’s heart softened a little towards her. - </p> - <p> - The minutes passed slowly. He grew restless, wished that the nurse or - Emily would come and relieve him. A sick-room, where one has to sit - perfectly still, is not the place for a man suffering from nervous - excitement. His eyes fell again on the Bible. He had not seen his gift for - years. There was a certain pathos in her desire to have it near her. - </p> - <p> - He took it up, undid the clasp, and looked at the fly-leaf. “To my dear - wife.” He sighed. He had tried to delude himself in those days that he - loved her. Could he ever write such an inscription again? He shook his - head, as the ever-haunting face of the other woman came between his eyes - and the leaf. He turned the pages. They fell open, naturally, where a - letter had been placed. The back of the envelope was turned to him. He - thought it was one of his own to his wife, and felt touched by the idea of - her keeping it there. He took it up curiously, but as his glance fell on - the address he started with great amazement. It was in Lady Phayre’s - handwriting—bore only his name. It had been opened. He himself - surely had never received such a letter. With heart furiously beating and - trembling fingers, he drew out the enclosure. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Go, my hero and leader of men, to your victory. And if you love me, - come back to me for your reward—whatsoever your heart desireth. </i> - </p> - <p> - “Rhodanthe.” - </p> - <p> - For a few moments he remained staring at the paper, unable to comprehend. - Then the truth crashed down upon him—both the letter’s significance - and the probable history of its miscarriage. His brain reeled. She loved - him. The note of passion in the words drowned his senses like a great - diapason. She loved him. But for this other woman she would be his. He - rose from his chair, turning his back to his wife, and put his hand to his - forehead. His instinct was to fly from her presence. The smouldering - hatred had sprung into fierce flame. He made a few steps by the foot of - the bed, then stopped and looked at her. Their eyes met. He saw that she - had been following his movements from the time he had first opened the - Bible. A wave of gathering madness clouded his brain, surged red before - his eyes. Remaining sanity bade him rush from the room if she was to live. - An explosion of his passion would kill her. But the expression of - excitement and fear on her peaked, livid face read in his disordered brain - as one of mocking triumph. It swept away the lingering self-control. He - strode round to her side, lifted his arms above his head, clenching the - letter and shaking with passion, let loose all the fury in his soul in a - low, hoarse cry. - </p> - <p> - Lizzie rose to a sitting posture, gazed at him for a moment, an awful - terror in her eyes, and then, with a gasp, fell back on her pillow—dead. - </p> - <p> - How long he stood there, as if petrified, he never knew. When he recovered - reason he wiped the great drops of perspiration from his forehead, thrust - the letter into his pocket, and rushed from the room. - </p> - <p> - “Emily! Nurse!” he shouted from the top of the landing; and when they - appeared hurriedly from the dining-room, “Come up at once: I think Lizzie - is dead.” - </p> - <p> - The women ran up the stairs. - </p> - <p> - “Go to her. I will fetch Dr. Carson,” he cried, brushing past them. - </p> - <p> - He caught up a hat from the hall, and in another moment was out of doors. - This pretext for absence and solitude was an inspiration. She was dead. He - was free. He had killed her. He did not notice that an icy, heavy rain was - sweeping the streets. He had killed her for Rhodanthe. Rhodanthe was his: - he had bought her with his soul. He bit his lips to prevent himself from - crying aloud. The rare passers-by turned round scared at his wild face and - furious gait. - </p> - <p> - The calm of the doctor’s waiting-room was a check, and allowed him to - concentrate his scattered faculties. When the medical man appeared, alert - and matter of fact, he was master of himself. He explained his errand. He - had been sitting with his wife, had idly reached for her Bible by the - bedside. She had sprang up to prevent him. The exertion had killed her. He - had looked through the Bible, found a letter written to him which she had - guarded through jealousy. The explanation was simple and satisfactory, yet - he felt deadly faint. - </p> - <p> - “You are upset,” said Dr. Carson, who had known him for several years. - “You have been burning the candle at both ends lately. Drink this while I - go and put on my coat.” He poured him out a glass of brandy, which he took - from a cupboard. Goddard gulped it down neat. The spirit saved him from - the threatening collapse and braced his nerves. - </p> - <p> - He accompanied the doctor to his own house in silence, left him at the - dining-room door to go upstairs to the bedroom, and entering, sat down to - wait. When the doctor returned, it was with a great effort that Goddard - compelled himself to look him in the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid your wife is dead,” said the doctor gravely. - </p> - <p> - “And I am indirectly the cause,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - The other moved a deprecating hand. “Don’t let that add to your sadness. - Any other chance accident might have done it. Besides, may I speak to you - frankly?” - </p> - <p> - “By all means.” - </p> - <p> - “Then—if it will not pain you—it is better so.” - </p> - <p> - “Would she never have recovered?” - </p> - <p> - “Her health was shattered. In all probability she would have broken out - again. She and you have been spared some years of certain misery.” - </p> - <p> - “Then I have done a good action from a philosophical point of view?” said - Goddard, with a harsh laugh. - </p> - <p> - “If you put it that way, you have,” replied he doctor, somewhat stiffly. - </p> - <p> - “Look here, Carson,” cried Goddard excitedly. “I can’t tell you that I am - grieved she had gone. Don’t expect me to play the hypocrite.” - </p> - <p> - “I expect nothing but the misfortune of having you upon my hands in a - short time,” said the other. - </p> - <p> - “Then let me speak to you once and for all—as a medical man: I must - speak to somebody. These last few weeks I have been in hell fire. I hated - her. I wanted her to die. I used to wake up at nights wet through with - sweat, through the terror of it. I have been to blame throughout from the - first cursed day I married her. I didn’t love her; she didn’t care much - for me. I had to go my way: she couldn’t follow me. How could she? She was - left alone here all by herself—no company, no occupations—nothing. - You know her history—her father. The drink was in her blood. I tried - to save her—after my fashion. You, who have attended her for the - last eight years, can bear me out. But we were strangers—not an - impulse in common. Latterly—listen: I must tell some one once, or I - shall go mad. I knew what a woman could be—what it was to want a - woman passionately, madly. She came here one night, discovered I was - married—saw my wife drunk in this room. Since then my wife has been - like an incubus throttling me, dragging me down to damnation. And I wanted - her to die. In that room upstairs, an hour ago, when I kissed her and - forgave her, I wanted her to die. When the moment came it was as though I - had murdered her. Tell me, what am I to think? What am I to do?” - </p> - <p> - His features were working strangely, his brow damp with the black hair - straggling across it. He looked at Carson with a searching appeal in his - eyes. The latter took his hand, felt his pulse. - </p> - <p> - “What you are to do,” he said, “is to go to bed at once and sleep. I’ll - send you round a draught. What you are to think, when you wake up, is that - you are not responsible for her death—that she might have died at - any moment, that it is better to die than to live a life of misery; that - you are a free man, young, with all that makes life worth living in front - of you. And lastly, if you like, that I have forgotten all you have told - me. Now, go to bed and stay there.” - </p> - <p> - “Impossible,” cried Goddard. “The election.” - </p> - <p> - “Damn the election!” said the doctor. - </p> - <p> - “I must go back to-day.” - </p> - <p> - “And——?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll make the arrangements,” replied Goddard with a shiver. “To-day is - Tuesday. It will be for Friday. The poll will be declared at latest on - Thursday morning. I must be there. Man alive!” he cried, with a queer - tremor in his voice. “I cannot stay in this house! It would drive me mad. - To sit here doing nothing—nothing—only thinking. I must go - back. It will occupy my mind. There are two women in this house—the - dead one who is living, and the living one who is dead—has been dead - to me. If ever action and stimulus have been necessary to me, they are - imperative now. I must do it, man, I tell you—I must do it.” - </p> - <p> - He began to walk about the room in a state of restless excitement, now and - then moistening his lips with his tongue, and passing his hand through his - hair. Dr. Carson reasoned with him. He was a young man, and felt himself - powerless before Goddard’s stronger personality. By virtue of mere - professional prestige you cannot force a man to follow your prescriptions. - Goddard impetuously swept aside his arguments. At last he stopped short, - as if struck by a sudden inspiration. - </p> - <p> - “I tell you what, Carson, I’ll promise to start at once for the south of - France, as soon as this miserable business is over, and not do a stroke of - work for a month.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s the only sensible thing you have said to-day,” returned the other, - more cheerily. “You’d better let me see you again before you go.” - </p> - <p> - They parted. Goddard stumbled heavily upstairs to his own room, threw - himself on the bed, and lay there, holding his burning head in his hands. - </p> - <p> - And Emily sat in the death-chamber and cried, the only soul on the wide - earth who had love for the poor, wrecked creature that was dead, for - Sophie, her sister, had never had a word of good to say on Lizzie’s - behalf. She alone knew and pitied the miserable tragedy of that poor, - futile life. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER XIII—THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he Paris-Lyons - express was speeding through the darkness. It was intensely cold. The two - other occupants of the carriage were shiveringly asleep beneath their - rugs. But Goddard was awake, tinglingly awake, yet unconscious of external - things. - </p> - <p> - He was passing through one of those rare epochs in life when a man feels - himself to be master of his fate. Ever since he had seen the Dover Cliffs - fading out of sight, and with them the last troubling impressions of a - late graveside, he had been strung with a sense of invincibility. Nothing - in his life that he had ardently desired had not been accomplished. He had - but to will a thing, and it was done. He had conquered his position, step - by step, with never a failure—his reputation as a popular leader, - his responsible position in the Progressive League, his seat on the London - County Council, his standing as an economic writer, his prestige at - Ecclesby, and now his seat in Parliament. He had been returned by a - triumphant majority. The victory intoxicated him—that and the - elation of freedom. In his exalted mood he saw himself lifted above the - moral conventions of men. The death of his wife seemed a part of his - destiny of victory. He had scarcely been responsible. Blind fate had - helped him, as it had done hitherto. - </p> - <p> - And now he was on his way to the most glorious conquest of all. Every - moment was bringing him nearer. To-morrow he would see Lady Phayre. His - arms would be about her. She would yield herself to him. The new life - would begin—great, glorious, wonderful. With her by his side there - would be nothing impossible. The whole world should bless his name. He - would make history. He would go down to posterity as the Great Demagogue. - </p> - <p> - She would put her white arms about his neck, and her lips would cling to - his. When the thought came, a flash of passion irradiated the whole man. - </p> - <p> - He never doubted that he would win her. She loved him. The letter which he - had read over a thousand times was overwhelming evidence. Her hurried - flight from London also testified to the seriousness of the blow the - discovery had been to her. He conjured up scenes and incidents in their - past intercourse whose significance, unnoticed at the time, became sweetly - plain in the light of his new knowledge. Nothing could stand in his way - now. He was going to her, not a broken man humiliated with failure, as he - had done on the last occasion he had sought her, but proud with name and - fame, and the promise of great power in the land. - </p> - <p> - He had not written to her. His imagination was too much fired with the - idea he had conceived of bursting upon her suddenly with the news of his - freedom and with a passionate appeal. The vividness and excitement of the - past few days had awakened the theatrical element in his nature—the - dramatic instinct that lies in the nature of any great orator and leader - of men. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Lyons, dix minutes d’arrêt!</i>” - </p> - <p> - Goddard left the compartment to stretch his legs. The great station loomed - vast in the darkness of the mid-January morning. The tapping of the wheels - echoed ghostly in the stillness. Only a few muffled forms had braved the - cold, and were stamping their feet on the platform, or hurrying to the - dimly lit buffet for the morning coffee. Nothing more delicious than this - in the sweet spring dawn, but at five o’clock in mid-winter it requires an - effort to leave the snugness of the compartment. To Goddard the journey - was half dream, half delight. The great train, standing, to his English - eyes, monstrously high above the rails, seemed some strange engine - appointed by fate to his service. It seemed symbolic of the irresistible - force that he had at his command. - </p> - <p> - When the train started again he tried to sleep, but his brain was too - excited. He had not slept for three nights. Yet the feelings of - prostration that had come upon him just before Lizzie’s death had passed - away, giving place to one of intense vitality. Every fibre in his body was - alive. Sleep was scarcely necessary. Only a shooting pain now and then in - his head made him start and pass his hand impatiently across his forehead. - The train thundered on through the darkness, and Goddard remained awake, - possessed by the passionate intensity of his fixed idea. He watched the - day dawn, bright and glorious. At Avignon the world was bathed in - sunshine. It was an omen of happiness. At Marseilles it was hot. All along - that beautiful coast Goddard’s heart glowed within him. The deep-coloured - sea, the flowers, the light, the joyousness of the south filled his senses - with the wonder of a new world. His silent companions got out at Toulon, - and three swarthy Gascons took their place, and talked with rich deep - voices and extravagant gestures until they reached Camoules, their - destination. Goddard missed their whole-hearted laughter when they had - gone. - </p> - <p> - The day wore on. Cannes at four o’clock. In a few moments he would be in - Nice. He drew once more the letter from his pocket, rested his eyes on the - few words a long, long time. “Whatsoever your heart desireth— -Rhodanthe.” - He looked out at the deep blue water meeting the violet sky. Rhodanthe! - The name was strangely in harmony with this exotic beauty. Before the - night was over he would call her by it. She would be his. Together they - would conquer the world. - </p> - <p> - He stepped on to the platform at Nice like a king coming to take - possession of a new realm. He looked around, as if he should see Lady - Phayre awaiting him, and then smiled at the fancy. The hotel porter took - his luggage to the Hôtel Terminus, the nearest. He was feverishly anxious - to set out on his quest of her without loss of time. A quarter of an hour - sufficed him to wash and make himself presentable, and then he went out - into the Avenue de la Gare. At another time he would have loved to walk - down the beautiful boulevard, bright with shops and cafés and gaily - coloured kiosques; but now the supreme hour of his life had come, and the - great thoroughfare became blurred as in a dream. He hailed a cab, gave the - address “Hôtel des Anglais” to the driver, and sat bolt upright all the - way, in an agony of impatience. He had no eyes now for the sea as he - emerged on to the Promenade des Anglais; but he scanned the long line of - palace-hotels, wondering which was Lady Phayre’s. The cab stopped by the - public gardens. Goddard looked up. It was the Hôtel des Anglais. He threw - a piece of money to the cabman, and entered. - </p> - <p> - The frock-coated, brass-buttoned porter approached him in polite inquiry. - </p> - <p> - “I want to see Lady Phayre,” said Goddard. - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid, sir,” replied the man, “that Lady Phayre has gone away this - very morning.” - </p> - <p> - “Gone away?” asked Goddard, looking at him blankly. “Where to?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, that I cannot say,” said the porter. - </p> - <p> - And then he added, with the benevolent smile of his class— - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps you have not heard, sir, that there is no longer such a person as - Lady Phayre.” - </p> - <p> - “What?” cried Goddard. “What do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “Only that Madame was married this morning. It was to a Monsieur Gleam. I - believe he is a member of Parliament. He has been staying in the hotel.” - </p> - <p> - Goddard stared at him with a ghastly face. He turned slowly and went down - the hotel steps. He staggered a few yards. Then the sea, and the trees, - and the great white palaces mingled together in a whirling circle, and - disappeared in the blackness of night. Something in his brain seemed to - snap, and he fell an inert mass on the pavement. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - For weeks he lay ill. He recovered to wish that he had died. Despair - overwhelmed him. His crime haunted him waking and sleeping. In his bodily - prostration he seemed to hear the mocking laughter of the fiend that had - prompted it. With the torture of remorse was paradoxically mingled - impotent anger at the cynicism of fate. His soul sickened at the futility - of things. He shrank with shuddering dismay from the ordeal that lay - before him. There were times when death beckoned to him with tempting - hands. - </p> - <p> - But men of Goddard’s stamp survive the shipwreck of their happiness. They - live on, and go about the world’s work doggedly, stubbornly, blindly - obeying the fighting instinct within them. The great tragedies of the soul - culminate not in death, but in dragging years of life, when the - grasshopper is a burden and desire fails. And such is the end of Daniel - Goddard’s tragedy. He lives to-day. His name is a household word. He is - the coming man, not of a party-clique, but of a nation. He has sat upon - the Treasury Bench. In the next Liberal Administration he will hold - Cabinet rank. He is envied, courted, flattered. The wildest ambitions of - his boyhood are in course of certain fulfilment. But he has lost for ever - the joy of victory; the springs of happiness are for ever closed by the - one overwhelming defeat of his life. - </p> - <p> - He is on the best of terms with Aloysius Gleam, and attends his wife’s - dinner-parties. Between them the past has only once been referred to, and - that silently. It was the first time he found himself alone with her, one - evening after dinner, Gleam having been summoned from the drawing-room. - Their eyes met for an embarrassing moment. Then Goddard drew the familiar - letter from his pocket-book, held it out for a few seconds so as to catch - her eye, and threw it into the fire. She watched it blaze, and gave two or - three little nods of acknowledgment. Then, being in a comfortable chair, a - bewitching costume, and a considerably relieved frame of mind, she allowed - the moisture to gather in her eyes. But neither spoke until Gleam returned - with a sprightly saying on his lips. He threw himself into a chair. - </p> - <p> - “An old servant has just been to return me a sovereign she once stole. It - weighed on her conscience. I asked her about a certain diamond pin. She - looked haggard, and fled incontinently. Verily, all is for the funniest in - this funniest of all possible worlds.” - </p> - <p> - Rhodanthe broke into her silvery laugh. Goddard joined in grimly and - looked at her. For desire of her he had committed murder. He was laughing - and jesting with her husband and herself. Gleam was right. It was the most - humorous of worlds. - </p> - <p> - Then his mind went back to the terrible moment of his life, and his heart - gave a great heave, and his lips moved noiselessly. - </p> - <p> - “God, forgive me!” - </p> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Demagogue and Lady Phayre, by William J. 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