“Yes,” he said, “Markham has—a fancy for my Janet. There is nothing very wonderful in that. His mother tried to persuade me that this was the entire cause of his devotion to my principles and me. But that is a way women have. They think nothing comparable to their own influence. He satisfied me as to that. Yes,” said Spears, with a softened, meditative tone, “that is the secondary motive I spoke of; and, to tell the truth, when I heard of the old fellow’s death I was sorry. I said to myself, the girl will never be able to resist the temptation of being ‘my lady.’”
A smile began to creep about the corners of his mouth. For himself, it is very likely that Spears would have had virtue enough to carry out his own principles and resist all bribes of rank had they been thrown in his way; but he contemplated the possible elevation of his child with a tender sense of the wonderful, and the ludicrous, and incredible which melted all sterner feelings. The idea that Janet might be “my lady” filled him with a subdued pleasure and amusement, and a subtle pride which veiled itself in the humour of the notion. It made him smile in spite of himself. As for Fairfax, this had so completely taken his breath away that he seemed beyond the power of speech, and Spears went on musingly for a minute or two walking beside him, his active thoughts lulled by the fantastic pleasure of that vision, and the smile still lingered about his closely-shut lips. At last he started from the weakness of this reverie.
“There is to be a meeting to-night,” he said, “down in one of these streets—and I’m going to give them an address. I’ve got the name of the street here in my pocket and the house and all that—if you like to come.”
“Certainly I will come,” said Fairfax with alacrity. He had not much to occupy his evenings, and he took a kind of careless speculative interest, not like Paul’s impassioned adoption of the scheme and all its issues, in Spears’s political crusade. The demagogue patted him on the shoulders once more as he left him. He had always half-patronised, half stood in awe of Fairfax, whose careless humour sometimes threw a passing light of ridicule even on the cause. “If you see Markham, bring him along with you; and tell him I must understand what he means,” he said.
But Fairfax did not see Paul again. He did not indeed put himself in the way of Paul, though his mind was full of him, for the rest of the day. Janet Spears was a new complication in Paul’s way. The whole situation was dreary and hopeless enough. His position as head in his house and family, the importance, his wealth, his power of influencing others, all taken from him in a day, and Spears’s daughter—Janet Spears—hung round his neck like a millstone. Paul! of all men in the world to get into such a vulgar complication, Paul was about the last. And yet there could be no mistake about it. Fairfax, who honestly felt himself Paul’s inferior in everything, heard this news with the wondering dismay of one whose own thoughts had taken a direction as much above him (he thought) as the other’s was beneath him. With a painful flush of bewilderment, he thought of himself floated up into regions above himself into a different atmosphere, another world, by means of the woman who had been Paul’s companion all his life, while Paul—— He had heard of such things; of men falling into the mire out of the purest places, of rebellions from the best to the worst. They were common enough. But that it should be Paul!
When evening came he took his way to the crowded quarter where he had met Spears, and to the meeting, which was held in a back room in an unsavoury street. It had begun to rain, the air was wet and warm, the streets muddy, the floor of the room black and stained with many footsteps. There was a number of men packed together in a comparatively small space, which soon became almost insupportable with the flaring gaslights, the odour from their damp clothes, and their breath. At one end of it were a few men seated round a table, Spears among them. Fairfax could only get in at the other end, and close to the door, which was the saving of him. He exercised politeness at a cheap cost by letting everybody who came penetrate further than he. Some of the men looked at him with suspicion. He had kept on his morning dress, but even that was very different from the clothes they wore. They were not very penetrating in respect to looks, and some of them thought him a policeman in plain clothes. This was not a comfortable notion among a number of hot-blooded men. Fairfax, however, soon became too much interested in the proceedings to observe the looks that were directed to himself. There was a good deal of commonplace business to be gone through first—small subscriptions to pay, some of which were weekly; little books to produce, with little sums marked; reports to be given in, on here and there a wavering member, a falling back into the world, a new convert. It looked to Fairfax at first like a parochial meeting about the little charities of the parish, the schools, and the almshouses. Perhaps organisation of every kind has its inherent vulgarities. This movement felt grand, heroic, to the men engaged in it, how much above the curate and his pennies who could say; but it seemed inevitable that it should begin in the same way.
The walls were roughly plastered and washed with a dingy tone of colour. The men sat on benches which were very uncomfortable, and showed all the independent curves of backs which toil had not straightened, the rough heads and dingy clothes. Over all this the gas flickered, unmitigated even by the usual glass globe. There was a constant shuffling of feet, a murmur of conversation, sometimes the joke of a privileged wit whispered about with earthquakes of suppressed laughter. For the men, on the whole, suppressed themselves with the sense of the dignity of a meeting and the expectation of Spears’s address. “He’s a fellow from the North, ain’t he?” Fairfax heard one man say. “No, he’s a miner fellow.” “He’s one of the cotton spinners.” While another added authoritatively, “None of you know anything about it. It’s Spears the delegate. He’s been sent about all over the place. There’s been some talk of sending him to Parliament.” “Parliament! I put no faith in Parliament.” “No more do I.” “Nor I,” the men said. “And yet,” said the first speaker, “we’ve got no chance of getting our rights till they’ve got a lot like him there.”
At this moment one of the men at the table rose, and there was instant silence. The lights flared, the rain rained outside with a persistent swish upon the pavement, the restless feet shuffled upon the floor, but otherwise there was not a sound to interrupt the stillness. This was somewhat tried, however, by the reading of a report, still very like a missionary report in a parish meeting. There was a good deal about an S. C. and an L. M. who had been led to think of higher principles of political morality by the action of the society, and who had now finally given in their adhesion. The meeting greeted the announcement of these new members by knocking with their boot-heels upon the floor. Then some one else got up and said that the prospects of the society were most hopeful, and that the conversion of L. C. and S. M. were only an earnest of what was to come. Soon the whole mass of the working classes, as already its highest intelligence, would be with them. The meeting again applauded this “highest intelligence.” They felt it in themselves, and they liked the compliment. “Mr. Spears will now address the meeting,” the last speaker said, and then this confused part of the proceeding came to an end, and everything became clear again when Spears spoke.
And yet Fairfax thought, looking on, it was by no means clear what Spears wanted, or wished to persuade the others that they wanted. Very soon, however, he secured their attention which was one great point; the very feet got disciplined into quiet, and when a late member came down the long passage which led straight into this room, there was a universal murmur and hush as he bustled in. Spears stood up and looked round him, his powerful square shoulders and rugged face dominating the assembly. He took a kind of text for his address, “not from the Bible,” he said, “which many of you think out of date,” at which there was a murmur, chiefly of assent; “mind you,” said the orator, “I don’t; that’s a subject on which I’m free to keep my private opinion; but the other book you’ll allow is never out of date. It’s from the sayings of a man that woke up out of the easy thoughts of a lad, the taking everything for granted as we all do one time or another, to find that he could take nothing for granted, that all about was false, horrible, mean, and sham. That was the worst of it all—sham. He found the mother that bore him was a false woman and the girl he loved hid his enemy behind the door to listen to what he was saying, and his friends, the fellows he had played with, went off with him on a false errand, with letters to get him killed, ‘There’s something rotten,’ says he, ‘in this State of Denmark—’ that was all the poor fellow could get out at first, ‘something rotten;’ ay, ay, Prince Hamlet, a deal that was rotten. We’re not fond of princes, my friends,” said Spears, stopping short with a gleam of humour in his face, “but Shakspeare lived a good few years ago, and hadn’t found that out. We’ve made a great many discoveries since his day.”
At this the feet applauded again, but there was a little doubtfulness upon the faces of the audience who did not see what the speaker meant to be at.