CHAPTER VI.
"So I understand you wish me to go down at once?" said Louis Craven."This is Friday--say Monday?"
Wharton nodded. He and Craven were sitting in Marcella's littlesitting-room. Their hostess and Edith Craven had escaped through thedoor in the back kitchen communicating with the Hurds' tenement, so thatthe two men might be left alone a while. The interview between them hadgone smoothly, and Louis Craven had accepted immediate employment on the_Labour Clarion_, as the paper's correspondent in the Midlands, withspecial reference to the important strike just pending. Wharton, whosetendency in matters of business was always to go rather further than hehad meant to go, for the sake generally of making an impression on theman with whom he was dealing, had spoken of a two years' engagement, andhad offered two hundred a year. So far as that went, Craven wasabundantly satisfied.
"And I understand from you," he said, "that the paper _goes in_ for thestrike, that you will fight it through?"
He fixed his penetrating greenish eyes on his companion. Louis Cravenwas now a tall man with narrow shoulders, a fine oval head and face,delicate features, and a nervous look of short sight, producing inappearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of acourtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm. Wharton hadnever felt himself personally at ease with him, either now, or in theold days of Venturist debates.
"Certainly, we shall fight it through," Wharton replied, withemphasis--"I have gone through the secretary's statement, which I nowhand over to you, and I never saw a clearer case. The poor wretches havebeen skinned too long; it is high time the public backed them up. Thereare two of the masters in the House. Denny, I should say, belonged quiteto the worst type of employer going."
He spoke with light venom, buttoning his coat as he spoke with the airof the busy public man who must not linger over an appointment.
"Oh! Denny!" said Craven, musing; "yes, Denny is a hard man, but a justone according to his lights. There are plenty worse than he."
Wharton was disagreeably reminded of the Venturist habit of neveraccepting anything that was said quite as it stood--of not, even insmall things, "swearing to the words" of anybody. He was conscious ofthe quick passing feeling that his judgment, with regard to Denny, oughtto have been enough for Craven.
"One thing more," said Craven suddenly, as Wharton looked for hisstick--"you see there is talk of arbitration."
"Oh yes, I know!" said Wharton impatiently; "a mere blind. The men havebeen done by it twice before. They get some big-wig from theneighbourhood--not in the trade, indeed, but next door to it--and, ofcourse, the award goes against the men."
"Then the paper will not back arbitration?"
Craven took out a note-book.
"No!--The quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff. The men are askingfor a mere pittance, and must get it if they are to live. It's like allthese home industries, abominably ground down. We must go for them! Imean to go for them hot and strong. Poor devils! did you read theevidence in that Bluebook last year? Arbitration? no, indeed! let themlive first!"
Craven looked up absently.
"And I think," he said, "you gave me Mr. Thorpe's address?" Mr. Thorpewas the secretary.
Again Wharton gulped down his annoyance. If he chose to be expansive, itwas not for Craven to take no notice.
Craven, however, except in print, where he could be as vehement asanybody else, never spoke but in the driest way of those workman'sgrievances, which in reality burnt at the man's heart. A deepdisdain for what had always seemed to him the cheapest form ofself-advertisement, held him back. It was this dryness, combined with anamazing disinterestedness, which had so far stood in his way.
Wharton repeated the address, following it up by some rather curtdirections as to the length and date of articles, to which Craven gavethe minutest attention.
"May we come in?" said Marcella's voice.
"By all means," said Wharton, with a complete change of tone. "Businessis up and I am off!"
He took up his hat as he spoke.
"Not at all! Tea is just coming, without which no guest departs," saidMarcella, taking as she spoke a little tray from the red-haired Daisywho followed her, and motioning to the child to bring the tea-table.
Wharton looked at her irresolute. He had spent half an hour with her_tete-a-tete_ before Louis Craven arrived, and he was really due at theHouse. But now that she was on the scene again, he did not find it soeasy to go away. How astonishingly beautiful she was, even in thisdisguise! She wore her nurse's dress; for her second daily round beganat half-past four, and her cloak, bonnet, and bag were lying ready on achair beside her. The dress was plain brown holland, with collar andarmlets of white linen; but, to Wharton's eye, the dark Italian head,and the long slenderness of form had never shown more finely. Hehesitated and stayed.
"All well?" said Marcella, in a half whisper, as she passed Louis Cravenon her way to get some cake.
He nodded and smiled, and she went back to the tea-table with an eye allgaiety, pleased with herself and everybody else.
The quarter of an hour that followed went agreeably enough. Wharton satamong the little group, far too clever to patronise a cat, let alone aVenturist, but none the less master and conscious master of theoccasion, because it suited him to take the airs of equality. Cravensaid little, but as he lounged in Marcella's long cane chair with hisarms behind his head, his serene and hazy air showed him contented; andMarcella talked and laughed with the animation that belongs to one whoseplots for improving the universe have at least temporarily succeeded.Or did it betray, perhaps, a woman's secret consciousness of somepresence beside her, more troubling and magnetic to her than others?
"Well then, Friday," said Wharton at last, when his time was more thanspent.--"You must be there early, for there will be a crush. Miss Cravencomes too? Excellent! I will tell the doorkeeper to look out for you.Good-bye!--good-bye!"
And with a hasty shake of the hand to the Cravens, and one more keenglance, first at Marcella and then round the little workman's room inwhich they had been sitting, he went.
He had hardly departed before Anthony Craven, the lame elder brother,who must have passed him on the stairs, appeared.
"Well--any news?" he said, as Marcella found him a chair.
"All right!" said Louis, whose manner had entirely changed since Whartonhad left the room. "I am to go down on Monday to report the Damesleystrike that is to be. A month's trial, and then a salary--two hundred ayear. Oh! it'll do."
He fidgeted and looked away from his brother, as though trying to hidehis pleasure. But in spite of him it transformed every line of thepinched and worn face.
"And you and Anna will walk to the Registry Office next week?" saidAnthony, sourly, as he took his tea.
"It can't be next week," said Edith Craven's quiet voice, interposing."Anna's got to work out her shirt-making time. She only left thetailoresses and began this new business ten days ago. And she was tohave a month at each."
Marcella's lifted eyebrows asked for explanations. She had not yet seenLouis's betrothed, but she was understood to be a character, and abetter authority on many Labour questions than he.
Louis explained that Anna was exploring various sweated trades for thebenefit of an East End newspaper. She had earned fourteen shillings herlast week at tailoring, but the feat had exhausted her so much that hehad been obliged to insist on two or three days respite before moving onto shirts. Shirts were now brisk, and the hours appallingly long in thisheat.
"It was on shirts they made acquaintance," said Edith pensively. "Louiswas lodging on the second floor, she in the third floor back, and theyused to pass on the stairs. One day she heard him imploring the littleslavey to put some buttons on his shirts. The slavey tossed her head,and said she'd see about it. When he'd gone out, Anna came downstairs,calmly demanded his shirts, and, having the slavey under her thumb, gotthem, walked off with them, and mended them all. When Louis came home hediscovered a neat heap reposing on his table. Of cours
e hewept--whatever he may say. But next morning Miss Anna found her shoesoutside her door, blacked as they had never been blacked before, with anote inside one of them. Affecting! wasn't it? Thenceforward, as long asthey remained in those lodgings, Anna mended and Louis blacked.Naturally, Anthony and I drew our conclusions."
Marcella laughed.
"You must bring her to see me," she said to Louis.
"I will," said Louis, with some perplexity; "if I can get hold of her.But when she isn't stitching she's writing, or trying to set up Unions.She does the work of six. She'll earn nearly as much as I do when we'remarried. Oh! we shall swim!"
Anthony surveyed his radiant aspect--so unlike the gentle or satiricaldetachment which made his ordinary manner--with a darkening eye, asthough annoyed by his effusion.
"Two hundred a year?" he said slowly; "about what Mr. Harry Whartonspends on his clothes, I should think. The Labour men tell me he issuperb in that line. And for the same sum that he spends on his clothes,he is able to buy _you_, Louis, body and soul, and you seem inclined tobe grateful."
"Never mind," said Louis recklessly. "He didn't buy some one else--and I_am_ grateful!"
"No; by Heaven, you shan't be!" said Anthony, with a fierce change oftone. "_You_ the dependent of that charlatan! I don't know how I'm toput up with it. You know very well what I think of him, and of yourbecoming dependent on him."
Marcella gave an angry start. Louis protested.
"Nonsense!" said Anthony doggedly; "you'll have to bear it from me, Itell you--unless you muzzle me too with an Anna."
"But I don't see why _I_ should bear it," said Marcella, turning uponhim. "I think you know that I owe Mr. Wharton a debt. Please rememberit!"
Anthony looked at her an instant in silence. A question crossed hismind concerning her. Then he made her a little clumsy bow.
"I am dumb," he said. "My manners, you perceive, are what they alwayswere."
"What do you mean by such a remark," cried Marcella, fuming. "How can aman who has reached the position he has in so short a time--in so manydifferent worlds--be disposed of by calling him an ugly name? It is morethan unjust--it is absurd! Besides, what can you know of him?"
"You forget," said Anthony, as he calmly helped himself to more breadand butter, "that it is some three years since Master Harry Whartonjoined the Venturists and began to be heard of at all. I watched hisbeginnings, and if I didn't know him well, my friends and Louis's did.And most of them--as he knows!--have pretty strong opinions by now aboutthe man."
"Come, come, Anthony!" said Louis, "nobody expects a man of that type tobe the pure-eyed patriot. But neither you nor I can deny that he hasdone some good service. Am I asked to take him to my bosom? Not at all!He proposes a job to me, and offers to pay me. I like the job, and meanto use him and his paper, both to earn some money that I want, and do abit of decent work."
"_You_--use Harry Wharton!" said the cripple, with a sarcasm thatbrought the colour to Louis's thin cheek and made Marcella angrier thanbefore. She saw nothing in his attack on Wharton, except personalprejudice and ill-will. It was natural enough, that a man of AnthonyCraven's type--poor, unsuccessful, and embittered--should dislike apopular victorious personality.
"Suppose we leave Mr. Wharton alone?" she said with emphasis, andAnthony, making her a little proud gesture of submission, threw himselfback in his chair, and was silent.
It had soon become evident to Marcella, upon the renewal of herfriendship with the Cravens, that Anthony's temper towards all men,especially towards social reformers and politicians, had developed intoa mere impotent bitterness. While Louis had renounced his art, anddevoted himself to journalism, unpaid public work and starvation, thathe might so throw himself the more directly into the Socialist battle,Anthony had remained an artist, mainly employed as before in decorativedesign. Yet he was probably the more fierce Venturist and anticapitalistof the two. Only what with Louis was an intoxication of hope, was on thewhole with Anthony a counsel of despair. He loathed wealth morepassionately than ever; but he believed less in the working man, less inhis kind. Rich men must cease to exist; but the world on any terms wouldprobably remain a sorry spot.
In the few talks that he had had with Marcella since she left thehospital, she had allowed him to gather more or less clearly--thoughwith hardly a mention of Aldous Raeburn's name--what had happened to herat Mellor. Anthony Craven thought out the story for himself, finding ita fit food for a caustic temper. Poor devil--the lover! To fall a victimto enthusiasms so raw, so unprofitable from any point of view, was hard.And as to this move to London, he thought he foresaw the certain end ofit. At any rate he believed in her no more than before. But her beautywas more marked than ever, and would, of course, be the dominant factorin her fate. He was thankful, at any rate, that Louis in this two years'interval had finally transferred his heart elsewhere.
After watching his three companions for a while, he broke in upon theirchat with an abrupt--
"What _is_ this job, Louis?"
"I told you. I am to investigate, report, and back up the Damesleystrike, or rather the strike that begins at Damesley next week."
"No chance!" said Anthony shortly, "the masters are too strong. I had atalk with Denny yesterday."
The Denny he meant, however, was not Wharton's colleague in the House,but his son--a young man who, beginning life as the heir of one of themost stiff-backed and autocratic of capitalists, had developed socialistopinions, renounced his father's allowance, and was now a member of the"intellectual proletariat," as they have been called, the free-lances ofthe Collectivist movement. He had lately joined the Venturists. Anthonyhad taken a fancy to him. Louis as yet knew little or nothing of him.
"Ah, well!" he said, in reply to his brother, "I don't know. I think the_Clarion can_ do something. The press grows more and more powerful inthese things."
And he repeated some of the statements that Wharton had made--thatWharton always did make, in talking of the _Clarion_--as to its growthunder his hands, and increasing influence in Labour disputes.
"Bunkum!" interrupted Anthony drily; "pure bunkum! My own belief isthat the _Clarion_ is a rotten property, and that he knows it!"
At this both Marcella and Louis laughed out. Extravagance after acertain point becomes amusing. They dropped their vexation, and Anthonyfor the next ten minutes had to submit to the part of the fractiousperson whom one humours but does not argue with. He accepted the part,saying little, his eager, feverish eyes, full of hostility, glancingfrom one to the other.
However, at the end, Marcella bade him a perfectly friendly farewell. Itwas always in her mind that Anthony Craven was lame and solitary, andher pity no less than her respect for him had long since yielded him theright to be rude.
"How are you getting on?" he said to her abruptly as he dropped herhand.
"Oh, very well! my superintendent leaves me almost alone now, which is acompliment. There is a parish doctor who calls me 'my good woman,' and asanitary inspector who tells me to go to him whenever I want advice.Those are my chief grievances, I think."
"And you are as much in love with the poor as ever?"
She stiffened at the note of sarcasm, and a retaliatory impulse made hersay:--
"I see a great deal more happiness than I expected."
He laughed.
"How like a woman! A few ill-housed villagers made you a democrat. A fewwell-paid London artisans will carry you safely back to your class. Yourpeople were wise to let you take this work."
"Do you suppose I nurse none but well-paid artisans?" she asked him,mocking. "And I didn't say 'money' or 'comfort,' did I? but 'happiness.'As for my 'democracy,' you are not perhaps the best judge."
She stood resting both hands on a little table behind her, in anattitude touched with the wild freedom which best became her, a gleam ofstorm in her great eyes.
"Why are you still a Venturist?" he asked her abruptly.
"Because I have every right to be! I joined a society, pledged to work'for a better future.'
According to my lights, I do what poor work I canin that spirit."
"_You_ are not a Socialist. Half the things you say, or imply, show it.And we _are_ Socialists."
She hesitated, looking at him steadily.
"No!--so far as Socialism means a political system--the trampling out ofprivate enterprise and competition, and all the rest of it--I findmyself slipping away from it more and more. No!--as I go about amongthese wage-earners, the emphasis--do what I will--comes to lie less andless on possession--more and more on character. I go to two tenements inthe same building. One is Hell--the other Heaven. Why? Both belong towell-paid artisans with equal opportunities. Both, so far as I can see,might have a decent and pleasant life of it. But one is a man--theother, with all his belongings, will soon be a vagabond. That is notall, I know--oh! don't trouble to tell me so!--but it is more than Ithought. No!--my sympathies in this district where I work are not somuch with the Socialists that I know here--saving your presence!but--with the people, for instance, that slave at Charity Organisation!and get all the abuse from all sides."
Anthony laughed scornfully.
"It is always the way with a woman," he said; "she invariably prefersthe tinkers to the reformers."
"And as to your Socialism," she went on, unheeding, the thought of manydays finding defiant expression--"it seems to me like all otherinteresting and important things--destined to help something else!Christianity begins with the poor and division of goods--it becomes thegreat bulwark of property and the feudal state. The Crusades--they setout to recover the tomb of the Lord!--what they did was to increasetrade and knowledge. And so with Socialism. It talks of a neworder--what it _will_ do is to help to make the old sound!"
Anthony clapped her ironically.
"Excellent! When the Liberty and Property Defence people have got holdof you--ask me to come and hear!"
Meanwhile, Louis stood behind, with his hands on his sides, a smile inhis blinking eyes. He really had a contempt for what a handsomehalf-taught girl of twenty-three might think. Anthony only pretended ordesired to have it.
Nevertheless, Louis said good-bye to his hostess with real, and, forhim, rare effusion. Two years before, for the space of some months, hehad been in love with her. That she had never responded with anythingwarmer than liking and comradeship he knew; and his Anna now possessedhim wholly. But there was a deep and gentle chivalry at the bottom ofall his stern social faiths; and the woman towards whom he had once feltas he had towards Marcella Boyce could never lose the glamour lent herby that moment of passionate youth. And now, so kindly, so eagerly!--shehad given him his Anna.
When they were all gone Marcella threw herself into her chair a momentto think. Her wrath with Anthony was soon dismissed. But Louis's thankshad filled her with delicious pleasure. Her cheek, her eye had a child'sbrightness. The old passion for ruling and influencing was all alive andhappy.
"I will see it is all right," she was saying to herself. "I will lookafter them."
What she meant was, "I will see that Mr. Wharton looks after them!" andthrough the link of thought, memory flew quickly back to that_tete-a-tete_ with him which had preceded the Cravens' arrival.
How changed he was, yet how much the same! He had not sat beside her forten minutes before each was once more vividly, specially conscious ofthe other. She felt in him the old life and daring, the old imperiousclaim to confidence, to intimacy--on the other hand a new atmosphere, anew gravity, which suggested growing responsibilities, the difficultiesof power, a great position--everything fitted to touch such animagination as Marcella's, which, whatever its faults, was noble, bothin quality and range. The brow beneath the bright chestnut curls hadgained lines that pleased her--lines that a woman marks, because shethinks they mean experience an I mastery.
Altogether, to have met him again was pleasure; to think of him waspleasure; to look forward to hearing him speak in Parliament waspleasure; so too was his new connection with her old friends. And apleasure which took nothing from self-respect; which was open,honourable, eager. As for that ugly folly of the past, she frowned atthe thought of it, only to thrust the remembrance passionately away.That _he_ should remember or allude to it, would put an end tofriendship. Otherwise friends they would and should be; and the personalinterest in his public career should lift her out of the crampinginfluences that flow from the perpetual commerce of poverty andsuffering. Why not? Such equal friendships between men and women growmore possible every day. While, as for Hallin's distrust, and AnthonyCraven's jealous hostility, why should a third person be bound by eitherof them? Could any one suppose that such a temperament as Wharton'swould be congenial to Hallin or to Craven--or--to yet another person, ofwhom she did not want to think? Besides, who wished to make a hero ofhim? It was the very complexity and puzzle of the character that madeits force.
* * * * *
So with a reddened cheek, she lost herself a few minutes in thispleasant sense of a new wealth in life; and was only roused from thedreamy running to and fro of thought by the appearance of Minta, whocame to clear away the tea.
"Why, it is close on the half-hour!" cried Marcella, springing up."Where are my things?"
She looked down the notes of her cases, satisfied herself that her bagcontained all she wanted, and then hastily tied on her bonnet and cloak.
Suddenly--the room was empty, for Minta had just gone away with thetea--by a kind of subtle reaction, the face in that photograph onHallin's table flashed into her mind--its look--the grizzled hair. Withan uncontrollable pang of pain she dropped her hands from the fasteningsof her cloak, and wrung them together in front of her--a dumb gesture ofcontrition and of grief.
She!--she talk of social reform and "character," she give her opinion,as of right, on points of speculation and of ethics, she, whose mainachievement so far had been to make a good man suffer! Somethingbelittling and withering swept over all her estimate of herself, all herpleasant self-conceit. Quietly, with downcast eyes, she went her way.