CHAPTER X.
The first sitting of the Birmingham Labour Congress was just over, and the streets about the hall in which it had been held were beginning to fill with the issuing delegates. Rain was pouring down and umbrellas were plentiful.
Harry Wharton, accompanied by a group of men, left the main entrance of the hall,—releasing himself with difficulty from the friendly crowd about the doors—and crossed the street to his hotel.
"Well, I'm glad you think I did decently," he said, as they mounted the hotel stairs. "What a beastly day, and how stuffy that hall was! Come in and have something to drink."
He threw open the door of his sitting-room as he spoke. The four men with him followed him in.
"I must go back to the hall to see two or three men before everybody disperses," said the one in front. "No refreshment for me, thank you, Mr. Wharton. But I want to ask a question—what arrangements have you made for the reporting of your speech?"
The man who spoke was thin and dark, with a modest kindly eye. He wore a black frock coat, and had the air of a minister.
"Oh, thank you, Bennett, it's all right. The Post, the Chronicle, and the Northern Guardian will have full copies. I sent them off before the meeting. And my own paper, of course. As to the rest they may report it as they like. I don't care."
"They'll all have it," said another man, bluntly. "It's the best speech you've ever made—the best president's speech we've had yet, I say,—don't you think so?"
The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Both nodded.
"Hallin's speech last year was first-rate," he continued, "but somehow Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just now is fight—and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!"
And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one to another. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowded hall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men present indeed—though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in the rest—had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenly conscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emerged successfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they went over the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene which had followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip. Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his own expense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving, contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just delivered had been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridor at Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his own room, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, and make two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its range nor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. The programme of labour for the next five years had never been better presented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin's presidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in the memory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, and knew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellows who would otherwise have stood in his way.
Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He had already betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to the New Unionism, and affected a costume in character—fustian trousers, flannel shirt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculated to set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun life as a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recently formed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to be already on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would win a seat in the coming Parliament.
The other two men were Molloy, secretary to the congress, short, smooth-faced, and wiry, a man whose pleasant eye and manner were often misleading, since he was in truth one of the hottest fighting men of a fighting movement; and Wilkins, a friend of Casey's—ex-iron worker, Union official, and Labour candidate for a Yorkshire division—an uneducated, passionate fellow, speaking with a broad, Yorkshire accent, a bad man of affairs, but honest, and endowed with the influence which comes of sincerity, together with a gift for speaking and superhuman powers of physical endurance.
"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Wharton, throwing himself into a chair with a long breath, and at the same time stretching out his hand to ring the bell. "Casey, some whisky? No? Nor you, Wilkins? nor Molloy? As for you, Bennett, I know it's no good asking you. By George! our grandfathers would have thought us a poor lot! Well, some coffee at any rate you must all of you have before you go back. Waiter! coffee. By the way, I have been seeing something of Hallin, Bennett, down in the country."
He took out his cigarette case as he spoke, and offered it to the others. All refused except Molloy. Casey took his half-smoked pipe out of his pocket and lit up. He was not a teetotaler as the others were, but he would have scorned to drink his whisky and water at the expense of a "gentleman" like Wharton, or to smoke the "gentleman's" cigarettes. His class-pride was irritably strong. Molloy, who was by nature anybody's equal, took the cigarette with an easy good manners, which made Casey look at him askance.
Mr. Bennett drew his chair close to Wharton's. The mention of Hallin had roused a look of anxiety in his quick dark eyes.
"How is he, Mr. Wharton? The last letter I had from him he made light of his health. But you know he only just avoided a breakdown in that strike business. We only pulled him through by the skin of his teeth—Mr. Raeburn and I."
"Oh, he's no constitution; never had, I suppose. But he seemed much as usual. He's staying with Raeburn, you know, and I've been staying with the father of the young lady whom Raeburn 's going to marry."
"Ah! I've heard of that," said Bennett, with a look of interest. "Well, Mr. Raeburn isn't on our side, but for judgment and fair dealing there are very few men of his class and circumstances I would trust as I would him. The lady should be happy."
"Of course," said Wharton, drily. "However, neither she nor Raeburn are very happy just at this moment. A horrible affair happened down there last night. One of Lord Maxwell's gamekeepers and a 'helper,' a lad of seventeen, were killed last night in a fight with poachers. I only just heard the outlines of it before I came away, but I got a telegram just before going into congress, asking me to defend the man charged with the murder."
A quick expression of repulsion and disgust crossed Bennett's face.
"There have been a whole crop of such cases lately," he said. "How shall we ever escape from the curse of this game system?"
"We shan't escape it," said Wharton, quietly, knocking the end off his cigarette, "not in your lifetime or mine. When we get more Radicals on the bench we shall lighten the sentences; but that will only exasperate the sporting class into finding new ways of protecting themselves. Oh! the man will be hung—that's quite clear to me. But it will be a good case—from the public point of view—will work up well—"
He ran his hand through his curls, considering.
"Will work up admirably," he added in a lower tone of voice, as though to himself, his eyes keen and brilliant as ever, in spite of the marks of sleeplessness and fatigue visible in the rest of the face, though only visible there since he had allowed himself the repose of his cigarette and arm-chair.
"Are yo' comin' to dine at the 'Peterloo' to-night, Mr. Wharton?" said Wilkins, as Wharton handed him a cup of coffee; "but of coorse you are—part of yower duties, I suppose?"
While Molloy and Casey were deep in animated discussion of the great meeting of the afternoon he had been sitting silent against the edge of the table—a short-bearded sombre figure, ready at any moment to make a grievance, to suspect a slight.
"I'm afraid I can't," said Wharton, bending forward and speaking in a tone of concern; "that was just what I was going to ask you all—if you would make my excuses to-night? I have been explaining to Bennett. I have an important piece of business in the country—a labourer has been getting into trouble for shooting a keeper; they have asked me to defend him. The assizes come on in little more than a fortnight, worse luck! so that the time is short—"
And he went on to explain that, by taking an evening train back to Widrington, he could get the following (Saturday) morning with the solicitor in charge of the case, and be back in Birmingham, thanks to the convenience of a new line lately opened, in time for the second meeting of the congress, which was fixed for the early afternoon.
He spoke with great cordiality and persuasiveness. Among the men who surrounded him, his youth, good looks, and easy breeding shone out conspicuous. In the opinion of Wilkins, indeed, who followed his every word and gesture, he was far too well dressed and too well educated. A day would soon come when the labour movement would be able to show these young aristocrats the door. Not yet, however.
"Well, I thowt you wouldn't dine with us," he said, turning away with a blunt laugh.
Bennett's mild eye showed annoyance. "Mr. Wharton has explained himself very fully, I think," he said, turning to the others. "We shall miss him at dinner—but this matter seems to be one of life and death. And we mustn't forget anyway that Mr. Wharton is fulfilling this engagement at great inconvenience to himself. We none of us knew when we elected him last year that he would have to be fighting his election at the same time. Next Saturday, isn't it?"
Bennett rose as he spoke and carefully buttoned his coat. It was curious to contrast his position among his fellows—one of marked ascendency and authority—with his small insignificant physique. He had a gentle deprecating eye, and the heart of a poet. He played the flute and possessed the gift of repeating verse—especially Ebenezer Eliot's Corn Law Rhymes—so as to stir a great audience to enthusiasm or tears. The Wesleyan community of his native Cheshire village owned no more successful class-leader, and no humbler Christian. At the same time he could hold a large business meeting sternly in check, was the secretary of one of the largest and oldest Unions in the country, had been in Parliament for years, and was generally looked upon even by the men who hated his "moderate" policy, as a power not to be ignored.
"Next Saturday. Yes!" said Wharton, nodding in answer to his inquiry.
"Well, are you going to do it?" said Casey, looking round at him.
"Oh, yes!" said Wharton, cheerfully; "oh, yes! we shall do it. We shall settle old Dodgson, I think."
"Are the Raeburns as strong as they were?" asked Molloy, who knew
Brookshire.
"What landlord is? Since '84 the ground is mined for them all—good and bad—and they know it."
"The mine takes a long time blowing up—too long for my patience," said Wilkins, gruffly. "How the country can go on year after year paying its tribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attack them as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long as Parliament and the Cabinet is made up of them and their hangers on."
Wharton looked at him brightly, but silently, making a little assenting inclination of the head. He was not surprised that anything should pass Wilkins's comprehension, and he was determined to give him no opening for holding forth.
"Well, we'll let you alone," said Bennett. "You'll have very little time to get off in. We'll make your excuses, Mr. Wharton. You may be sure everybody is so pleased with your speech we shall find them all in a good temper. It was grand!—let me congratulate you again. Good-night—I hope you'll get your poacher off!"
The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;—Molloy, with an eager business reference to the order of the day for Saturday,—"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everything to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"—Casey, with the off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his benevolence mistaken for servility,—and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been read in the manner of the last two, that although this young man had just made a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far, they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before they must. In truth, both were already jealous of him; whereas Molloy, absorbed in the business of the congress, cared for nothing except to know whether in the next two days' debates Wharton would show himself as good a chairman as he was an orator; and Bennett, while saying no word that he did not mean, was fully conscious of an inner judgment, which pronounced five minutes of Edward Hallin's company to be worth more to him than anything which this brilliant young fellow could do or say.
* * * * *
Wharton saw them out, then came back and threw himself again into his chair by the window. The venetian blinds were not closed, and he looked out on a wide and handsome street of tall red-brick houses and shops, crowded with people and carriages, and lit with a lavishness of gas which overcame even the February dark and damp. But he noticed nothing, and even the sensation of his triumph was passing off. He was once more in the Mellor drive; Aldous Raeburn and Marcella stood in front of him; the thrill of the moment beat once more in his pulse.
He buried his head in his hands and thought. The news of the murder had reached him from Mr. Boyce. The master of Mellor had heard the news from William, the man-servant, at half-past seven, and had instantly knocked up his guest, by way of sharing the excitement with which his own feeble frame was throbbing.
"By Gad! I never heard such an atrocious business," said the invalid, his thin hand shaking against his dressing-gown. "That's what your Radical notions bring us to! We shall have them plundering and burning the country houses next."
"I don't think my Radical notions have much to do with it," said
Wharton, composedly.
But there was a red spot in his cheeks which belied his manner. So when he—they—saw Hurd cross the avenue he was on his way to this deed of blood. The shot that he, Wharton, had heard had been the shot which slew Westall? Probably. Well, what was the bearing of it? Could she keep her own counsel or would they find themselves in the witness box? The idea quickened his pulse amazingly.
"Any clue? Any arrests?" he asked of his host. "Why, I told you," said Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "They have got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers and police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's my daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and preaching to me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at the Court. I trust it will be a lesson to her."
Wharton drew a breath of relief. So the man was in custody, and there was other evidence. Good! There was no saying what a woman's conscience might be capable of, even against her friends and herself.
When Mr. Boyce at last left him free to dress and make his preparations for the early train, by which the night before, after the ladies' departure for the ball, he had suddenly made up his mind to leave Mellor, it was some time before Wharton could rouse himself to action. The situation absorbed him. Miss Boyce's friend was now in imminent danger of his neck, and Miss Boyce's thoughts must be of necessity concentrated upon his plight and that of his family. He foresaw the passion, the saeva indignatio, that she must ultimately throw—the general situation being what it was—into the struggle for Hurd's life. Whatever the evidence might be, he would be to her either victim or champion—and Westall, of course, merely the Holofernes of the piece.
How would Raeburn take it? Ah, well! the situation must develop. It occurred to him, however, that he would catch an earlier train to Widrington than the one he had fixed on, and have half an hour's talk with a solicitor who was a good friend of his before going on to Birmingham. Accordingly, he rang for William—who came, all staring and dishevelled, fresh from the agitation of the servants' hall—gave orders for his luggage to be sent after him, got as much fresh information as he could from the excited lad, plunged into his bath, and finally emerged, fresh and vigorous in every nerve, showing no trace whatever of the fact that two hours of broken sleep had been his sole portion for a night, in which he had gone through emotions and sustained a travail of brain either of which would have left their mark on most men.
* * * * *
Then the meeting in the drive! How plainly he saw them both—Raeburn grave and pale, Marcella in her dark serge skirt and cap, with an eye all passion and a cheek white as her hand.
"A tragic splendour enwrapped her!—a fierce heroic air. She was the embodiment of the moment—of the melancholy morning with its rain and leafless woods—of the human anguish throbbing in the little village. And I, who had seen her last in her festal dress, who had held her warm perfumed youth in my arms, who had watched in her white breast the heaving of the heart that I—I had troubled!—how did I find it possible to stand and face her? But I did. It rushed through me at once how I would make her forgive me—how I would regain possession of her. I had thought the play was closed: it was suddenly plain to me that the second act was but just beginning. She and Raeburn had already come to words—I knew it directly I saw them. This business will divide them more and more. His conscience will come in—and a Raeburn's conscience is the devil!
"By now he hates me; every word I speak to him—still more every word to her—galls him. But he controlled himself when I made him tell me the story—I had no reason to complain—though every now and then I could see him wince under the knowledge I must needs show of the persons and places concerned—a knowledge I could only have got from her. And she stood by meanwhile like a statue. Not a word, not a look, so far, though she had been forced to touch my hand. But my instinct saved me. I roused her—I played upon her! I took the line that I was morally certain she had been taking in their tête-à-tête. Why not a scuffle?—a general scrimmage?—in which it was matter of accident who fell? The man surely was inoffensive and gentle, incapable of deliberate murder. And as to the evidence of hatred, it told both ways. He stiffened and was silent. What a fine brow he has—a look sometimes, when he is moved, of antique power and probity! But she—she trembled—animation came back. She would almost have spoken to me—but I did well not to prolong it—to hurry on."
Then he took the telegram out of his pocket which had been put into his hands as he reached the hotel, his mouth quivering again with the exultation which he had felt when he had received it. It recalled to his ranging memory all the details of his hurried interview with the little Widrington solicitor, who had already scented a job in the matter of Hurd's defence. This man—needy, shrewd, and well equipped with local knowledge—had done work for Wharton and the party, and asked nothing better than to stand well with the future member for the division. "There is a lady," Wharton had said, "the daughter of Mr. Boyce of Mellor, who is already very much interested in this fellow and his family. She takes this business greatly to heart. I have seen her this morning, but had no time to discuss the matter with her. She will, I have little doubt, try to help the relations in the arrangements for the defence. Go to her this morning—tell her that the case has my sympathy—that, as she knows, I am a barrister, and, if she wishes it, I will defend Hurd. I shall be hard put to it to get up the case with the election coming on, but I will do it—for the sake of the public interest involved. You understand? Her father is a Tory—and she is just about to marry Mr. Raeburn. Her position, therefore, is difficult. Nevertheless, she will feel strongly—she does feel strongly about this case, and about the whole game system—and I feel moved to support her. She will take her own line, whatever happens. See her—see the wife, too, who is entirely under Miss Boyce's influence—and wire to me at my hotel at Birmingham. If they wish to make other arrangements, well and good. I shall have all the more time to give to the election."
Leaving this commission behind him, he had started on his journey. At the end of it a telegram had been handed to him on the stairs of his hotel:
"Have seen the lady, also Mrs. Hurd. You are urgently asked to undertake defence."
He spread it out before him now, and pondered it. The bit of flimsy paper contained for him the promise of all he most coveted,—influence, emotion, excitement. "She will have returns upon herself," he thought smiling, "when I see her again. She will be dignified, resentful; she will suspect everything I say or do—still more, she will suspect herself. No matter! The situation is in my hands. Whether I succeed or fail, she will be forced to work with me, to consult with me—she will owe me gratitude. What made her consent?—she must have felt it in some sort a humiliation. Is it that Raeburn has been driving her to strong measures—that she wants, woman-like, to win, and thought me after all her best chance, and put her pride in her pocket? Or is it?—ah! one should put that out of one's head. It's like wine—it unsteadies one. And for a thing like this one must go into training. Shall I write to her—there is just time now, before I start—take the lofty tone, the equal masculine tone, which I have noticed she likes?—ask her pardon for an act of madness—before we go together to the rescue of a life? It might do—it might go down. But no, I think not! Let the situation develop itself. Action and reaction—the unexpected—I commit myself to that. She—marry Aldous Raeburn in a month? Well, she may—certainly she may. But there is no need for me, I think, to take it greatly into account. Curious! twenty-four hours ago I thought it all done with—dead and done with. 'So like Provvy,' as Bentham used to say, when he heard of anything particularly unseemly in the way of natural catastrophe. Now to dine, and be off! How little sleep can I do with in the next fortnight?"
He rang, ordered his cab, and then went to the coffee-room for some hasty food. As he was passing one of the small tables with which the room was filled, a man who was dining there with a friend recognised him and gave him a cold nod. Wharton walked on to the further end of the room, and, while waiting for his meal, buried himself in the local evening paper, which already contained a report of his speech.
"Did you see that man?" asked the stranger of his friend.
"The small young fellow with the curly hair?"
"Small young fellow, indeed! He is the wiriest athlete I know—extraordinary physical strength for his size—and one of the cleverest rascals out as a politician. I am a neighbour of his in the country. His property joins mine. I knew his father—a little, dried-up old chap of the old school—very elegant manners and very obstinate—worried to death by his wife—oh, my goodness! such a woman!"
"What's the name?" said the friend, interrupting.
"Wharton—H.S. Wharton. His mother was a daughter of Lord Westgate, and her mother was an actress whom the old lord married in his dotage. Lady Mildred Wharton was like Garrick, only natural when she was acting, which she did on every possible occasion. A preposterous woman! Old Wharton ought to have beaten her for her handwriting, and murdered her for her gowns. Her signature took a sheet of note-paper, and as for her dress I never could get out of her way. Whatever part of the room I happened to be in I always found my feet tangled in her skirts. Somehow, I never could understand how she was able to find so much stuff of one pattern. But it was only to make you notice her, like all the rest. Every bit of her was a pose, and the maternal pose was the worst of all."
"H.S. Wharton?" said the other. "Why, that's the man who has been speaking here to-day. I've just been reading the account of it in the Evening Star. A big meeting—called by a joint committee of the leading Birmingham trades to consider the Liberal election programme as it affects labour—that's the man—he's been at it hammer and tongs—red-hot—all the usual devices for harrying the employer out of existence, with a few trifles—graduated income-tax and land nationalisation—thrown in. Oh! that's the man, is it?—they say he had a great reception—spoke brilliantly—and is certainly going to get into Parliament next week."
The speaker, who had the air of a shrewd and prosperous manufacturer, put up his eyeglass to look at this young Robespierre. His vis-à-vis—a stout country gentleman who had been in the army and knocked about the world before coming into his estate—shrugged his shoulders.
"So I hear—he daren't show his nose as a candidate in our part of the world, though of course he does us all the harm he can. I remember a good story of his mother—she quarrelled with her husband and all her relations, his and hers, and then she took to speaking in public, accompanied by her dear boy. On one occasion she was speaking at a market town near us, and telling the farmers that as far as she was concerned she would like to see the big properties cut up to-morrow. The sooner her father's and husband's estates were made into small holdings stocked with public capital the better. After it was all over, a friend of mine, who was there, was coming home in a sort of omnibus that ran between the town and a neighbouring village. He found himself between two fat farmers, and this was the conversation—broad Lincolnshire, of course: 'Did tha hear Lady Mildred Wharton say them things, Willum?' 'Aye, a did.' 'What did tha think, Willum?' 'What did tha think, George?' 'Wal, aa thowt Laady Mildred Wharton wor a graät fule, Willum, if tha asks me.' 'I'll uphowd tha, George! I'll uphowd tha!' said the other, and then they talked no more for the rest of the journey."
The friend laughed.
"So it was from the dear mamma that the young man got his opinions?"
"Of course. She dragged him into every absurdity she could from the time he was fifteen. When the husband died she tried to get the servants to come in to meals, but the butler struck. So did Wharton himself, who, for a Socialist, has always showed a very pretty turn for comfort. I am bound to say he was cut up when she died. It was the only time I ever felt like being civil to him—in those months after she departed. I suppose she was devoted to him—which after all is something."
"Good heavens!" said the other, still lazily turning over the pages of the newspaper as they sat waiting for their second course, "here is another poaching murder—in Brookshire—the third I have noticed within a month. On Lord Maxwell's property—you know them?"
"I know the old man a little—fine old fellow! They'll make him President of the Council, I suppose. He can't have much work left in him; but it is such a popular, respectable name. Ah! I'm sorry; the sort of thing to distress him terribly."
"I see the grandson is standing."
"Oh yes; will get in too. A queer sort of man—great ability and high character. But you can't imagine him getting on in politics, unless it's by sheer weight of wealth and family influence. He'll find a scruple in every bush—never stand the rough work of the House, or get on with the men. My goodness! you have to pull with some queer customers nowadays. By the way, I hear he is making an unsatisfactory marriage—a girl very handsome, but with no manners, and like nobody else—the daughter, too, of an extremely shady father. It's surprising; you'd have thought a man like Aldous Raeburn would have looked for the pick of things."
"Perhaps it was she looked for the pick of things!" said the other, with a blunt laugh. "Waiter, another bottle of champagne."