Marcella Part 76

The girl, absorbed in her pleasant or agitating impressions, knew nothing of her own effect. She was drinking in the sunset light--the poetic mystery of the river--the lovely line of the bridge--the a.s.sociations of the place where she stood, of this great building overshadowing her. Every now and then she started in a kind of terror lest some figure in the dusk should be Aldous Raeburn; then when a stranger showed himself she gave herself up again to her young pleasure in the crowd and the spectacle. But Wharton knew that she was observed; Wharton caught the whisper that followed her. His vanity, already so well-fed this evening, took the attention given to her as so much fresh homage to itself; and she had more and more glamour for him in the reflected light of this publicity, this common judgment.

"Ah, here are the Lanes!" he said, detecting at last a short lady in black amid a group of men.

Marcella and Edith were introduced. Then Edith found a friend in a young London member who was to be one of the party, and strolled off with him till dinner should be announced.

"I will just take Miss Boyce to the end of the terrace," said Wharton to Mr. Lane; "we shan't get anything to eat yet awhile. What a crowd! The Alresfords not come yet, I see."

Lane shrugged his shoulders as he looked round.

"Raeburn has a party to-night. And there are at least three or four others besides ourselves. I should think food and service will be equally scarce!"

Wharton glanced quickly at Marcella. But she was talking to Mrs. Lane, and had heard nothing.

"Let me just show you the terrace," he said to her. "No chance of dinner for another twenty minutes."

They strolled away together. As they moved along, a number of men waylaid the speaker of the night with talk and congratulations--glancing the while at the lady on his left. But presently they were away from the crowd which hung about the main entrance to the terrace, and had reached the comparatively quiet western end, where were only a few pairs and groups walking up and down.

"Shall I see Mr. Bennett?" she asked him eagerly, as they paused by the parapet, looking down upon the grey-brown water swishing under the fast incoming tide. "I want to."

"I asked him to dine, but he wouldn't. He has gone to a prayer-meeting--at least I guess so. There is a famous American evangelist speaking in Westminster to-night--I am as certain as I ever am of anything that Bennett is there--dining on Moody and Sankey. Men are a medley, don't you think?--So you liked his speech?"

"How coolly you ask!" she said, laughing. "Did _you_?"

He was silent a moment, his smiling gaze fixed on the water. Then he turned to her.

"How much grat.i.tude do you think I owe him?"

"As much as you can pay," she said with emphasis. "I never heard anything more complete, more generous."

"So you were carried away?"

She looked at him with a curious, sudden gravity--a touch of defiance.

"No!--neither by him, nor by you. I don't believe in your Bill--and I am _sure_ you will never carry it!"

Wharton lifted his eyebrows.

"Perhaps you'll tell me where you are," he said, "that I may know how to talk? When we last discussed these things at Mellor, I _think_--you were a Socialist?"

"What does it matter what I was last year?" she asked him gaily, yet with a final inflection of the voice which was not gay; "I was a baby!

_Now_ perhaps I have earned a few poor, little opinions--but they are a ragged bundle--and I have never any time to sort them."

"Have you left the Venturists?"

"No!--but I am full of perplexities; and the Cravens, I see, will soon be for turning me out. You understand--I _know_ some working folk now!"

"So you did last year."

"No!"--she insisted, shaking her head--"that was all different. But now I am _in_ their world--I live with them--and they talk to me. One evening in the week I am 'at home' for all the people I know in our Buildings--men and women. Mrs. Hurd--you know who I mean?"--her brow contracted a moment--"she comes with her sewing to keep me company; so does Edith Craven; and sometimes the little room is packed. The men smoke--when we can have the windows open!--and I believe I shall soon smoke too--it makes them talk better. We get all sorts--Socialists, Conservatives, Radicals--"

"--And you don't think much of the Socialists?"

"Well! they are the interesting, dreamy fellows," she said, laughing, "who don't save, and muddle their lives. And as for argument, the Socialist workman doesn't care twopence for facts--that don't suit him.

It's superb the way he treats them!"

"I should like to know who does care!" said Wharton, with a shrug. Then he turned with his back to the parapet, the better to command her. He had taken off his hat for coolness, and the wind played with the crisp curls of hair. "But tell me"--he went on--"who has been tampering with you? Is it Hallin? You told me you saw him often."

"Perhaps. But what if it's everything?--_living?_--saving your presence!

A year ago at any rate the world was all black--_or_ white--to me. Now I lie awake at night, puzzling my head about the shades between--which makes the difference. A compulsory Eight Hours' Day for all men in all trades!" Her note of scorn startled him. "You _know_ you won't get it!

And all the other big exasperating things you talk about--public organisation of labour, and the rest--you won't get them till all the world is a New Jerusalem--and when the world is a New Jerusalem n.o.body will want them!"

Wharton made her an ironical bow.

"Nicely said!--though we have heard it before. Upon my word, you have marched!--or Edward Hallin has carried you. So now you think the poor are as well off as possible, in the best of all possible worlds--is that the result of your nursing? You agree with Denny, in fact? the man who got up after me?"

His tone annoyed her. Then suddenly the name suggested to her a recollection that brought a frown.

"That was the man, then, you attacked in the _Clarion_ this morning!"

"Ah! you read me!" said Wharton, with sudden pleasure. "Yes--that opened the campaign. As you know, of course, Craven has gone down, and the strike begins next week. Soon we shall bring two batteries to bear, he letting fly as correspondent, and I from the office. I enjoyed writing that article."

"So I should think," she said drily; "all I know is, it made _one_ reader pa.s.sionately certain that there was another side to the matter!

There may not be. I dare say there isn't; but on me at least that was the effect. Why is it"--she broke out with vehemence--"that not a single Labour paper is ever capable of the simplest justice to an opponent?"

"You think any other sort of paper is any better?" he asked her scornfully.

"I dare say not. But that doesn't matter to me! it is _we_ who talk of justice, of respect, and sympathy from man to man, and then we go and blacken the men who don't agree with us--whole cla.s.ses, that is to say, of our fellow-countrymen, not in the old honest slashing style, Tartuffes that we are!--but with all the delicate methods of a new art of slander, pursued almost for its own sake. We know so much better--always--than our opponents, we hardly condescend even to be angry. One is only 'sorry'--'obliged to punish'--like the priggish governess of one's childhood!"

In spite of himself, Wharton flushed.

"My best thanks!" he said. "Anything more? I prefer to take my drubbing all at once."

She looked at him steadily.

"Why did you write, or allow that article on the West Brookshire landlords two days ago?"

Wharton started.

"Well! wasn't it true?"

"No!" she said with a curling lip; "and I think you know it wasn't true."

"What! as to the Raeburns? Upon my word, I should have imagined," he said slowly, "that it represented your views at one time with tolerable accuracy."

Her nerve suddenly deserted her. She bent over the parapet, and, taking up a tiny stone that lay near, she threw it unsteadily into the river.

He saw the hand shake.

"Look here," he said, turning round so that he too leant over the river, his arms on the parapet, his voice close to her ear. "Are you always going to quarrel with me like this? Don't you know that there is no one in the world I would sooner please if I could?"