Marcella Part 90

Through it all Wharton showed extraordinary skill. The columns of the _Clarion_ teemed with sympathetic appeals to the strikers, flanked by long statements of "hard fact"--the details of foreign compet.i.tion and the rest, the plans of the masters--freely supplied him by Mr. Pearson.

With Bennett and his colleagues in the House he took a bold line; admitted that he had endangered his popularity both inside Parliament and out of it at a particularly critical moment; and implied, though he did not say, that some men were still capable of doing independent things to their own hurt. Meanwhile he pushed a number of other matters to the front, both in the paper and in his own daily doings. He made at least two important speeches in the provinces, in the course of these days, on the Bill before the House of Lords; he asked questions in Parliament on the subject of the wages paid to Government employes; and he opened an attack on the report of a certain Conservative Commission which had been rousing the particular indignation of a large ma.s.s of South London working men.

At the end of ten days the strike was over; the workers, sullen and enraged, had submitted, and the plans of the Syndicate were in all the papers. Wharton, looking round him, realised to his own amazement that his political position had rather gained than suffered. The general impression produced by his action had been on the whole that of a man strong enough to take a line of his own, even at the risk of unpopularity. There was a new tone of respect among his opponents, and, resentful as some of the Labour members were, Wharton did not believe that what he had done would ultimately damage his chances on the 10th at all. He had vindicated his importance, and he held his head high, adopting towards his chances of the leadership a strong and careless tone that served him well.

Meanwhile there were, of course, clever people behind the scenes who looked on and laughed. But they held their tongues, and Wharton, who had carefully avoided the mention of names during the negotiations with Pearson, did his best to forget them. He felt uncomfortable, indeed, when he pa.s.sed the portly Denny in the House or in the street. Denny had a way of looking at the member for West Brookshire out of the corner of a small, slit-like eye. He did it more than usual during these days, and Wharton had only to say to himself that for all things there is a price--which the G.o.ds exact.

Wilkins, since the first disclosure of the _Clarion_ change of policy, had been astonishingly quiet. Wharton had made certain of violent attack from him. On the contrary, Wilkins wore now in the House a subdued and pre-occupied air that escaped notice even with his own party in the general fulness of the public mind. A few caustic north-countryisms on the subject of the _Clarion_ and its master did indeed escape him now and then, and were reported from mouth to mouth; but on the whole he lay very low.

Still, whether in elation or anxiety, Wharton seemed to himself throughout the whole period to be a _fighter_, straining every muscle, his back to the wall and his hand against every man. There at the end of the fortnight stood the three goal-posts that must be pa.s.sed, in victory or defeat; the meeting that would for the present decide his parliamentary prospects, his interview with Marcella, and--the confounded annual meeting of the "People's Banking Company," with all its threatened annoyances.

He became, indeed, more and more occupied with this latter business as the days went on. But he could see no way of evading it. He would have to fight it; luckily, now, he had the money.

The annual meeting took place two days before that fixed for the committee of the Labour party. Wharton was not present at it, and in spite of ample warning he gave way to certain lively movements of disgust and depression when at his club he first got hold of the evening papers containing the reports. His name, of course, figured amply in the denunciations heaped upon the directors of all dates; the sums which he with others were supposed to have made out of the first dealings with the shares on the Stock Exchange were freely mentioned; and the shareholders as a body had shown themselves most uncomfortably violent. He at once wrote off a letter to the papers disclaiming all responsibility for the worst irregularities which had occurred, and courting full enquiry--a letter which, as usual, both convinced and affected himself.

Then he went, restless and fuming, down to the House. Bennett pa.s.sed him in the lobby with an uneasy and averted eye. Whereupon Wharton seized upon him, carried him into the Library, and talked to him, till Bennett, who, in spite of his extraordinary shrewdness and judgment in certain departments, was a babe in matters of company finance, wore a somewhat cheered countenance.

They came out into the lobby together, Wharton holding his head very high.

"I shall deal with the whole thing in my speech on Thursday!" he said aloud, as they parted.

Bennett gave him a friendly nod and smile.

There was in this little man, with his considerable brain and his poet's heart, something of the "imperishable child." Like a wholesome child, he did not easily "think evil"; his temper towards all men--even the owners of "way-leaves" and mining royalties--was optimist. He had the most nave admiration for Wharton's ability, and for the academic attainments he himself secretly pined for; and to the young complex personality itself he had taken from the beginning an unaccountable liking. The bond between the two, though incongruous and recent, was real; Wharton was as glad of Bennett's farewell kindness as Bennett had been of the younger man's explanations.

So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting, championing, explaining; while Wharton, laden with parliamentary business, vivid, unabashed, and resourceful, let it be known to all whom it concerned that in his solicitor's opinion he had a triumphant answer to all charges; and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the soreness of those poor devils of shareholders.

The hours pa.s.sed on. Wednesday was mainly spent by Wharton in a series of conferences and intrigues either at the House or at his club; when he drove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged--the train irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of the party certain.

Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable; but the vehemence and rancour shown by the great Nehemiah during the summer in the pursuit of his anti-Wharton campaign had to some extent defeated themselves. A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not a formidable weapon. Wharton would have felt perfectly easy on the subject but for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins's part during the last forty-eight hours--whenever, in fact, the two men had run across each other in the House--marked by a sort of new and insolent good humour, that puzzled him. But there is a bravado of defeat. Yes!--he thought Wilkins was disposed of.

From his present point of ease--debts paid, banker propitiated, income a.s.sured--it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnight before. Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain it must have been accepted. After all his luck had held! Once get through this odious company business--as to which, with a pleasing consciousness of turning the tables, he had peremptorily instructed Mr.

Pearson himself--and the barque of his fortunes was a.s.sured.

Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs from him. His very hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood. There stole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought--a world well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rule small inclination to dwell therein. But he was touched and shaken to-night by his own achievement. The heavenly powers had been unexpectedly kind to him, and he was half moved to offer them something in return.

"Do as you are done by"--that was an ethic he understood. And in moments of feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to his friends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtful thing--but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vague philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his mind. The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christian never. He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhaps the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. He would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling to think of.

_Marcella_!--ah! Marcella! He gave himself to the thought of her with a new and delightful tenderness which had in it elements of compunction.

After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers, he had instantly written to her. "Every public man"--he had said to her, finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her--"is liable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are at once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask--I know--that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your thoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your face! The time is long!"

To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had rung sadly and coldly. No doubt Louis Craven had something to do with it. It would have alarmed him could he simply have found the time to think about it.

Yet she was ready to see him on the 11th; and his confidence in his own powers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he had told her at Lady Masterton's! Well! What pa.s.sion ever yet but had its subterfuges? One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish, wild falcon that she was. Then--pleasure and brave living! And she also should have her way. She should breathe into him the language of those great illusions he had found it of late so hard to feign with her; and they two would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, pa.s.sion, affairs--life explored and exploited--and at last--"_que la mort me treuve plantant mes choulx--mais nonchalant d'elle!--et encore plus de mon jardin imparfaict_!"

He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the same temper in which the devout man would have made an act of faith. Then, with a long breath and a curious emotion, he went to try and sleep himself into the new day.

CHAPTER XV.

The following afternoon about six o'clock Marcella came in from her second round. After a very busy week, work happened to be slack; and she had been attending one or two cases in and near Brown's Buildings rather because they were near than because they seriously wanted her. She looked to see whether there was any letter or telegram from the office which would have obliged her to go out again. Nothing was to be seen; and she put down her bag and cloak, childishly glad of the extra hour of rest.

She was, indeed, pale and worn. The moral struggle which had filled the past fortnight from end to end had deepened all the grooves and strained the forces of life; and the path, though glimmering, was not wholly plain.

A letter lay unfinished in her drawer--if she sent it that night, there would be little necessity or inducement for Wharton to climb those stairs on the morrow. Yet, if he held her to it, she must see him.

As the sunset and the dusk crept on she still sat silent and alone, sunk in a depression which showed itself in every line of the drooping form.

She was degraded in her own eyes. The nature of the impulses which had led her to give Wharton the hold upon her she had given him had become plain to her. What lay between them, and the worst impulses that poison the lives of women, but differences of degree, of expression? After those wild hours of sensuous revolt, a kind of moral terror was upon her.

What had worked in her? What was at the root of this vehemence of moral reaction, this haunting fear of losing for ever the _best_ in life--self-respect, the comradeship of the good, communion with things n.o.ble and unstained--which had conquered at last the mere _woman_, the weakness of vanity and of s.e.x? She hardly knew. Only there was in her a sort of vague thankfulness _for her daily work_. It did not seem to be possible to see one's own life solely under the aspects of selfish desire while hands and mind were busy with the piteous realities of sickness and of death. From every act of service--from every contact with the patience and simplicity of the poor--_something_ had spoken to her, that divine ineffable something for ever "set in the world," like beauty, like charm, for the winning of men to itself. "Follow truth!" it said to her in faint mysterious breathings--"the truth of your own heart. The sorrow to which it will lead you is the only _joy_ that remains to you."

Suddenly she looked round her little room with a rush of tenderness. The windows were open to the evening and the shouts of children playing in the courtyard came floating up. A bowl of Mellor roses scented the air; the tray for her simple meal stood ready, and beside it a volume of "The Divine Comedy," one of her mother's very rare gifts to her, in her motherless youth--for of late she had turned thirstily to poetry. There was a great peace and plainness about it all; and, besides, touches of beauty--tokens of the soul. Her work spoke in it; called to her; promised comfort and enn.o.bling. She thought with yearning, too, of her parents; of the autumn holiday she was soon to spend with them. Her heart went out--sorely--to all the primal claims upon it.

Nevertheless, clear as was the inner resolution, the immediate future filled her with dread. Her ignorance of herself--her excitable folly--had given Wharton rights which her conscience admitted. He would not let her go without a struggle, and she must face it.

As to the incidents which had happened during the fortnight--Louis Craven's return, and the scandal of the "People's Banking Company"--they had troubled and distressed her; but it would not be true to say that they had had any part in shaping her slow determination. Louis Craven was sore and bitter. She was very sorry for him; and his reports of the Damesley strikers made her miserable. But she took Wharton's "leaders"

in the _Clarion_ for another equally competent opinion on the same subject; and told herself that she was no judge. As for the Company scandal, she had instantly and proudly responded to the appeal of his letter, and put the matter out of her thoughts, till at least he should give his own account. So much at any rate she owed to the man who had stood by her through the Hurd trial. Marcella Boyce would not readily believe in his dishonour! She did not in fact believe it. In spite of later misgivings, the impression of his personality, as she had first conceived it, in the early days at Mellor, was still too strong.

No--rather--she had constantly recollected throughout the day what was going on in Parliament. These were for him testing and critical hours, and she felt a wistful sympathy. Let him only rise to his part--take up his great task.

An imperious knocking on her thin outer door roused her. She went to open it and saw Anthony Craven,--the perspiration standing on his brow, his delicate cripple's face white and fierce.

"I want to talk to you," he said without preface. "Have you seen the afternoon papers?"

"No," she said in astonishment, "I was just going to send for them. What is wrong?"

He followed her into the sitting-room without speaking; and then he unfolded the _Pall Mall_ he had in his hand and pointed to a large-print paragraph on the central page with a shaking hand.

Marcella read:

"EXCITING SCENES IN THE HOUSE.--MEETING OF THE LABOUR MEMBERS.--A committee of the Labour representatives in Parliament met this afternoon at 2 o'clock for the purpose of electing a chairman, and appointing whips to the party, thus const.i.tuting a separate parliamentary group.

Much interest was felt in the proceedings, which it was universally supposed would lead to the appointment of Mr. H. S. Wharton, the member for West Brookshire, as chairman and leader of the Labour party. The excitement of the meeting and in the House may be imagined when--after a short but very cordial and effective speech from Mr. Bennett, the member for North Whinwick, in support of Mr. Wharton's candidature--Mr.

Wilkins, the miner's member for Derlingham, rose and made a series of astounding charges against the personal honour of the member for West Brookshire. Put briefly, they amount to this: that during the recent strike at Damesley the support of the _Clarion_ newspaper, of which Mr.

Wharton is owner and practically editor, was _bought_ by the employers in return for certain shares in the new Syndicate; that the money for these shares--which is put as high as 20,000 _l._--had already gone into Mr. Wharton's private pocket; and that the change of policy on the part of the _Clarion_, which led to the collapse of the strike, was thus entirely due to what the Labour members can only regard under the circ.u.mstances as a bribe of a most disgraceful kind. The effect produced has been enormous. The debate is still proceeding, and reporters have been excluded. But I hope to send a fuller account later."

Marcella dropped the paper from her hand.

"What does it mean?" she said to her companion.

"Precisely what it says," replied Anthony, with a nervous impatience he could not repress. "Now," he added, as his lameness forced him to sit down, "will you kindly allow me some conversation with you? It was you--practically--who introduced Louis to that man. You meant well to Louis, and Mr. Wharton has been your friend. We therefore feel that we owe you some explanation. For that paragraph"--he pointed to the paper--"is, substantially--Louis's doing, and mine."

"_Yours?_" she said mechanically. "But Louis has been going on working for the paper--I persuaded him."