Marcella Part 89

Finally, with a little joyous energetic movement which betrayed the inner man, he flung down his cigarette, and turned to write an ardent letter to Marcella, while the morning sun stole into the dusty room.

Difficult? of course! Both now and in the future. It would take him half his time yet--and he could ill afford it--to bring her bound and captive. He recognised in her the southern element, so strangely mated with the moral English temper. Yet he smiled over it. The subtleties of the struggle he foresaw enchanted him.

And she would be mastered! In this heightened state of nerve his man's resolution only rose the more fiercely to the challenge of her resistance.

Nor should she cheat him with long delays. His income would be his own again, and life decently easy. He already felt himself the vain showman of her beauty.

A thought of Lady Selina crossed his mind, producing amus.e.m.e.nt and compa.s.sion--indulgent amus.e.m.e.nt, such as the young man is apt to feel towards the spinster of thirty-five who pays him attention. A certain sense of re-habilitation, too, which at the moment was particularly welcome. For, no doubt, he might have married her and her fortune had he so chosen. As it was, why didn't she find some needy boy to take pity on her? There were plenty going, and she must have abundance of money. Old Alresford, too, was fast doddering off the stage, and then where would she be--without Alresford House, or Busbridge, or those various other pedestals which had hitherto held her aloft?

Early on Sunday morning Wharton telegraphed to Craven, directing him to "come up at once for consultation." The rest of the day the owner of the _Clarion_ spent pleasantly on the river with Mrs. Lane and a party of ladies, including a young d.u.c.h.ess, who was pretty, literary, and socialistic. At night he went down to the _Clarion_ office, and produced a leader on the position of affairs at Damesley which, to the practised eye, contained one paragraph--but one only--wherein the dawn of a new policy might have been discerned.

Naturally the juxtaposition of events at the moment gave him considerable anxiety. He knew very well that the Damesley bargain could not be kept waiting. The masters were losing heavily every day, and were not likely to let him postpone the execution of his part of the contract for a fortnight or so to suit his own convenience. It was like the sale of an "old master." His influence must be sold now--at the ripe moment--or not at all.

At the same time it was very awkward. In one short fortnight the meeting of the party would be upon him. Surrender on the Damesley question would give great offence to many of the Labour members. It would have to be very carefully managed--very carefully thought out.

By eleven o'clock on Monday he was in Mr. Pearson's office. After the first involuntary smile, concealed by the fair moustaches, and instantly dismissed, with which the eminent lawyer greeted the announcement of his visitor's name, the two augurs carried through their affairs with perfect decorum. Wharton realised, indeed, that he was being firmly handled. Mr. Pearson gave the _Clarion_ a week in which to accomplish its retreat and drop its strike fund. And the fund was to be "checked"

as soon as possible.

A little later, when Wharton abruptly demanded a guarantee of secrecy, Mr. Pearson allowed himself his first--visible--smile.

"My dear sir, are such things generally made public property? I can give you no better a.s.surance than you can extract yourself from the circ.u.mstances. As to writing--well!--I should advise you very strongly against anything of the sort. A long experience has convinced me that in any delicate negotiation the less that is _written_ the better."

Towards the end Wharton turned upon his companion sharply, and asked:

"How did you discover that I wanted money?"

Mr. Pearson lifted his eyebrows pleasantly.

"Most of the things in this world, Mr. Wharton, that one wants to know, can be found out. Now--I have no wish to hurry you--not in the least, but I may perhaps mention that I have an important appointment directly.

Don't you think--we might settle our business?"

Wharton was half-humorously conscious of an inward leap of fury with the necessities which had given this man--to whom he had taken an instantaneous dislike--the power of dealing thus summarily with the member for West Brookshire. However, there was no help for it; he submitted, and twenty minutes afterwards he left Lincoln's Inn carrying doc.u.ments in the breast-pocket of his coat which, when brought under his bankers' notice, would be worth to him an immediate advance of some eight thousand pounds. The remainder of the purchase-money for his "shares" would be paid over to him as soon as his part of the contract had been carried out.

He did not, however, go to his bank, but straight to the _Clarion_ office, where he had a mid-day appointment with Louis Craven.

At first sight of the tall, narrow-shouldered form and anxious face waiting for him in his private room, Wharton felt a movement of ill-humour.

Craven had the morning's _Clarion_ in his hand.

"This _cannot_ mean"--he said, when they had exchanged a brief salutation--"that the paper is backing out?"

He pointed to the suspicious paragraph in Wharton's leader, his delicate features quivering with an excitement he could ill repress.

"Well, let us sit down and discuss the thing," said Wharton, closing the door, "that's what I wired to you for."

He offered Craven a cigarette, which was refused, took one himself, and the two men sat confronting each other with a writing-table between them. Wharton was disagreeably conscious at times of the stiff papers in his coat-pocket, and was perhaps a little paler than usual. Otherwise he showed no trace of mental disturbance; and Craven, himself jaded and sleepless, was struck with a momentary perception of his companion's boyish good looks--the tumbling curls, that Wharton straightened now and then, the charming blue eyes, the athlete's frame. Any stranger would have taken Craven for the older man; in reality it was the other way.

The conversation lasted nearly an hour. Craven exhausted both argument and entreaty, though when the completeness of the retreat resolved upon had been disclosed to him, the feeling roused in him was so fierce that he could barely maintain his composure. He had been living among scenes of starvation and endurance, which, to his mind, had all the character of martyrdom. These men and women were struggling for two objects--the power to live more humanly, and the free right of combination--to both of which, if need were, he would have given his own life to help them without an instant's hesitation. Behind his blinking manner he saw everything with the idealist's intensity, the reformer's pa.s.sion. To be fair to an employer was not in his power. To spend his last breath, were it called for, in the attempt to succour the working-man against his capitalist oppressors, would have seemed to him the merest matter of course.

And his mental acuteness was quite equal to his enthusiasm, and far more evident. In his talk with Wharton, he for a long time avoided, as before, out of a certain inner disdain, the smallest touch of sentiment.

He pointed out--what, indeed, Wharton well knew--that the next two or three weeks of the strike would be the most critical period in its history; that, if the work-people could only be carried through them, they were almost sure of victory. He gave his own reasons for believing that the employers could ultimately be coerced, he offered proof of yielding among them, proof also that the better men in their ranks were fully alive to and ashamed of the condition of the workers. As to the Syndicate, he saw no objection to it, _provided_ the workers' claims were first admitted. Otherwise it would only prove a more powerful engine of oppression.

Wharton's arguments may perhaps be left to the imagination. He would have liked simply to play the proprietor and the master--to say, "This is my decision, those are my terms--take my work or leave it." But Craven was Miss Boyce's friend; he was also a Venturist. Chafing under both facts, Wharton found that he must state his case.

And he did state it with his usual ability. He laid great stress on "information from a private source which I cannot disregard," to the effect that, if the resistance went on, the trade would be broken up; that several of the largest employers were on the point of making arrangements for Italian factories.

"I know," he said finally, "that but for the _Clarion_ the strike would drop. Well! I have come to the conclusion that the responsibility is too heavy. I shall be doing the men themselves more harm than good. There is the case in a nutsh.e.l.l. We differ--I can't help that. The responsibility is mine."

Craven rose with a quick, nervous movement. The prophet spoke at last.

"You understand," he said, laying a thin hand on the table, "that the condition of the workers in this trade is _infamous_!--that the award and your action together plunge them back into a state of things which is a _shame_ and a _curse_ to England!"

Wharton made no answer. He, too, had risen, and was putting away some papers in a drawer. A tremor ran through Craven's tall frame; and for an instant, as his eye rested on his companion, the idea of foul play crossed his mind. He cast it out, that he might deal calmly with his own position.

"Of course, you perceive," he said, as he took up his hat, "that I can no longer on these terms remain the _Clarion's_ correspondent. Somebody else must be found to do this business."

"I regret your decision, immensely," said Wharton, with perfect suavity, "but of course I understand it. I trust, however, that you will not leave us altogether. I can give you plenty of work that will suit you. Here, for instance"--he pointed to a pile of Blue Books from the Labour Commission lying on the table--"are a number of reports that want a.n.a.lysing and putting before the public. You could do them in town at your leisure."

Craven struggled with himself. His first instinct was to fling the offer in Wharton's face. Then he thought of his wife; of the tiny new household just started with such small, happy, self-denying shifts; of the woman's inevitable lot, of the hope of a child.

"Thank you," he said, in a husky voice. "I will consider, I will write."

Wharton nodded to him pleasantly, and he went.

The owner of the _Clarion_ drew a long breath.

"Now I think on the whole it would serve my purpose best to sit down and write to _her_--after that. It would be well that _my_ account should come first."

A few hours later, after an interview with his bankers and a further spell of letter-writing, Wharton descended the steps of his club in a curious restless state. The mortgage on the _Clarion_ had been arranged for, his gambling debts settled, and all his other money matters were successfully in train. Nevertheless, the exhilaration of the morning had pa.s.sed into misgiving and depression.

Vague presentiments hung about him all day, whether in the House of Commons or elsewhere, and it was not till he found himself on his legs at a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the Government Bill and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence in the general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton, and Harry Wharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power.

A letter from Marcella--written before she had received either of his--reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting. A touching letter!--yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcerted him.

"Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. It might be--I believe it would be--best for us both. But if you will not--if I must give my answer, then, as I said, I must have time. It is only quite recently that I have _realised_ the enormity of what I did last year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life--or another's--a second time. Not to be _sure_ is for me torment. Why perfect simplicity of feeling--which would scorn the very notion of questioning itself--seems to be beyond me, I do not know. That it is so fills me with a sort of shame and bitterness. But I must follow my nature.

"So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your 'cause,' your life-work, attracts me strongly. I should not any longer accept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion matters infinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with a friend 'in everything except opinion.' All that would matter to me now would be to feel that _your_ heart was wholly in your work, in your public acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I might differ from. But there--for we must be frank with each other--is just my difficulty. _Why_ do you do so many contradictory things? Why do you talk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you can with the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talk their language; you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems; you accept their standards. Oh!--to the really 'consecrate' in heart and thought I could give my life so easily, so slavishly even! There is no one weaker than I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon--and a strength, pure at the core, that I can respect and follow.

"Here in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to the best of whom life is very real and simple--and often, of course, very sad. And I am another being in it from what I was at Lady Winterbourne's. Everything looks differently to me. No, no! you must please wait till the inner voice speaks so that I can hear it plainly--for your sake at least as much as for mine. If you persisted in coming to see me now, I should have to put an end to it all."

"Strange is the modern woman!" thought Wharton to himself, not without sharp pique, as he pondered that letter in the course of his drive home from the meeting. "I talk to her of pa.s.sion, and she asks me in return why I do things inconsistent with my political opinions! puts me through a moral catechism, in fact! What is the meaning of it all--confound it!

--her state of mind and mine? Is the good old _ars amandi_ perishing out of the world? Let some Stendhal come and tell us why!"

But he sat up to answer her, and could not get free from an inward pleading or wrestle with her, which haunted him through all the intervals of these rapid days.

Life while they lasted was indeed a gymnast's contest of breath and endurance. The _Clarion_ made its retreat in Wharton's finest style, and the fact rang through labouring England. The strike-leaders came up from the Midlands; Wharton had to see them. He was hotly attacked in the House privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennett showed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile the Conservative papers talked the usual employers' political economy; and the Liberal papers, whose support of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of no particular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they were glad to get, and went in strongly for the award.