CHAPTER
III
I
Old Mrs. Brand
and Mabel were seated at a window of the new Admiralty Offices in Trafalgar
Square to see Oliver deliver his speech on the fiftieth anniversary of the
passing of the Poor Laws Reform.
It was an
inspiriting sight, this bright June morning, to see the crowds gathering round
Braithwaite's statue. That politician, dead fifteen years before, was
represented in his famous attitude, with arms outstretched and down dropped,
his head up and one foot slightly advanced, and to-day was decked, as was
becoming more and more usual on such occasions, in his Masonic insignia. It was
he who had given immense impetus to that secret movement by his declaration in
the House that the key of future progress and brotherhood of nations was in the
hands of the Order. It was through this alone that the false unity of the
Church with its fantastic spiritual fraternity could be counteracted. St. Paul
had been right, he declared, in his desire to break down the partition-walls
between nations, and wrong only in his exaltation of Jesus Christ. Thus he had
preluded his speech on the Poor Law question, pointing to the true charity that
existed among Masons apart from religious motive, and appealing to the famous
benefactions on the Continent; and in the enthusiasm of the Bill's success the
Order had received a great accession of members.
Old Mrs. Brand
was in her best to-day, and looked out with considerable excitement at the huge
throng gathered to hear her son speak. A platform was erected round the bronze
statue at such a height that the statesman appeared to be one of the speakers,
though at a slightly higher elevation, and this platform was hung with roses,
surmounted by a sounding-board, and set with a chair and table.
The whole square
round about was paved with heads and resonant with sound, the murmurs of
thousands of voices, overpowered now and again by the crash of brass and
thunder of drums as the Benefit Societies and democratic Guilds, each headed by
a banner, deployed from North, South, East and West, and converged towards the
wide railed space about the platform where room was reserved for them. The
windows on every side were packed with faces; tall stands were erected along
the front of the National Gallery and St. Martin's Church, garden-beds of
colour behind the mute, white statues that faced outwards round the square;
from Braithwaite in front, past the Victorians - John Davidson, John Burns, and
the rest - round to Hampden and de Montfort towards the north. The old column
was gone, with its lions. Nelson had not been found advantageous to the Entente
Cordiale, nor the lions to the new art; and in their place stretched a wide
pavement broken by slopes of steps that led up to the National Gallery.
Overhead the
roofs showed crowded friezes of heads against the blue summer sky. Not less
than one hundred thousand persons, it was estimated in the evening papers, were
collected within sight and sound of the platform by noon.
As the clocks
began to tell the hour, two figures appeared from behind the statue and came
forward, and, in an instant, the murmurs of talk rose into cheering.
Old Lord
Pemberton came first, a grey-haired, upright man, whose father had been active
in denouncing the House of which he was a member on the occasion of its fall
over seventy years ago, and his son had succeeded him worthily. This man was
now a member of the Government, and sat for Manchester; and it was he who was
to be chairman on this auspicious occasion. Behind him came Oliver, bareheaded
and spruce, and even at that distance his mother and wife could see his brisk
movement, his sudden smile and nod as his name emerged from the storm of sound
that surged round the platform. Lord Pemberton came forward, lifted his hand
and made a signal; and in a moment the thin cheering died under the sudden roll
of drums beneath that preluded the Masonic Hymn.
There was no
doubt that these Londoners could sing. It was as if a giant voice hummed the
sonorous melody, rising to enthusiasm till the music of massed bands followed
it as a flag follows a flag-stick. The hymn was one composed ten years before,
and all England was familiar with it. Old Mrs. Bland lifted the printed paper
mechanically to her eyes, and saw the words that she knew so well:
"The Lord that dwells in earth and sea."…
She glanced down
the verses, that from the Humanitarian point of view had been composed with
both skill and ardour. They had a religious ring; the unintelligent Christian
could sing them without a qualm; yet their sense was plain enough - the old
human creed that man was all. Even Christ's, words themselves were quoted. The
kingdom of God, it was said, lay within the human heart, and the greatest of
all graces was Charity.
She glanced at
Mabel, and saw that the girl was singing with all her might, with her eyes
fixed on her husband's dark figure a hundred yards away, and her soul pouring
through them. So the mother, too, began to move her lips in chorus with that
vast volume of sound.
As the hymn died
away, and before the cheering could begin again, old Lord Pemberton was
standing forward on the edge of the platform, and his thin, metallic voice
piped a sentence or two across the tinkling splash of the fountains behind him.
Then he stepped back, and Oliver came forward.
* * * * *
It was too far for the two to hear what was said,
but Mabel slipped a paper, smiling tremulously, into the old lady's hand, and
herself bent forward to listen.
Old Mrs. Brand
looked at that, too, knowing that it was an analysis of her son's speech, and
aware that she would not be able to hear his words.
There was an
exordium first, congratulating all who were present to do honour to the great
man who presided from his pedestal on the occasion of this great anniversary.
Then there came a retrospect, comparing the old state of England with the
present. Fifty years ago, the speaker said, poverty was still a disgrace, now
it was so no longer. It was in the causes that led to poverty that the disgrace
or the merit lay. Who would not honour a man worn out in the service of his
country, or overcome at last by circumstances against which his efforts could
not prevail?… He enumerated the reforms passed fifty years before on this very
day, by which the nation once and for all declared the glory of poverty and
man's sympathy with the unfortunate.
So he had told
them he was to sing the praise of patient poverty and its reward, and that, he
supposed, together with a few periods on the reform of the prison laws, would
form the first half of his speech.
The second part
was to be a panegyric of Braithwaite, treating him as the Precursor of a
movement that even now had begun.
Old Mrs. Brand
leaned back in her seat, and looked about her.
The window where
they sat had been reserved for them; two arm-chairs filled the space, but
immediately behind there were others, standing very silent now, craning
forward, watching, too, with parted lips: a couple of women with an old man
directly behind, and other faces visible again behind them. Their obvious
absorption made the old lady a little ashamed of her distraction, and she
turned resolutely once more to the square.
Ah! he was
working up now to his panegyric! The tiny dark figure was back, a yard nearer
the statue, and as she looked, his hand went up and he wheeled, pointing, as a
murmur of applause drowned for an instant the minute, resonant voice. Then
again he was forward, half crouching - for he was a born actor - and a storm of
laughter rippled round the throng of heads. She heard an indrawn hiss behind
her chair, and the next instant an exclamation from Mabel... What was that?
There was a sharp
crack, and the tiny gesticulating figure staggered back a step. The old man at
the table was up in a moment, and simultaneously a violent commotion bubbled
and heaved like water about a rock at a point in the crowd immediately outside
the railed space where the bands were massed, and directly opposite the front
of the platform.
Mrs. Brand,
bewildered and dazed, found herself standing up, clutching the window rail, while
the girl gripped her, crying out something she could not understand. A great
roaring filled the square, the heads tossed this way and that, like corn under
a squall of wind. Then Oliver was forward again, pointing and crying out, for
she could see his gestures; and she sank back quickly, the blood racing through
her old veins, and her heart hammering at the base of her throat.
"My dear, my
dear, what is it?" she sobbed.
But Mabel was up,
too, staring out at her husband; and a quick babble of talk and exclamations
from behind made itself audible in spite of the roaring tumult of the square.
II
Oliver told them
the explanation of the whole affair that evening at home, leaning back in his
chair, with one arm bandaged and in a sling.
They had not been
able to get near him at the time; the excitement in the square had been too
fierce; but a messenger had come to his wife with the news that her husband was
only slightly wounded, and was in the hands of the doctors.
"He was a
Catholic," explained the drawn-faced Oliver. "He must have come
ready, for his repeater was found loaded. Well, there was no chance for a
priest this time."
Mabel nodded
slowly: she had read of the man's fate on the placards.
"He was
killed - trampled and strangled instantly," said Oliver. "I did what
I could: you saw me. But - well, I dare say it was more merciful."
"But you did
what you could, my dear?" said the old lady, anxiously, from her corner.
"I called
out to them, mother, but they wouldn't hear me."
Mabel leaned forward
-
"Oliver, I
know this sounds stupid of me; but - but I wish they had not killed him."
Oliver smiled at
her. He knew this tender trait in her.
"It would
have been more perfect if they had not," she said. Then she broke off and
sat back.
"Why did he
shoot just then?" she asked.
Oliver turned his
eyes for an instant towards his mother, but she was knitting tranquilly.
Then he answered
with a curious deliberateness.
"I said that
Braithwaite had done more for the world by one speech than Jesus and all His
saints put together." He was aware that the knitting-needles stopped for a
second; then they went on again as before.
"But he must
have meant to do it anyhow," continued Oliver.
"How do they
know he was a Catholic?" asked the girl again.
"There was a
rosary on him; and then he just had time to call on his God."
"And nothing
more is known?"
"Nothing
more. He was well dressed, though."
Oliver leaned
back a little wearily and closed his eyes; his arm still throbbed intolerably.
But he was very happy at heart. It was true that he had been wounded by a
fanatic, but he was not sorry to bear pain in such a cause, and it was obvious
that the sympathy of England was with him. Mr. Phillips even now was busy in
the next room, answering the telegrams that poured in every moment. Caldecott,
the Prime Minister, Maxwell, Snowford and a dozen others had wired instantly
their congratulations, and from every part of England streamed in message after
message. It was an immense stroke for the Communists; their spokesman had been
assaulted during the discharge of his duty, speaking in defence of his
principles; it was an incalculable gain for them, and loss for the
Individualists, that confessors were not all on one side after all. The huge
electric placards over London had winked out the facts in Esperanto as Oliver
stepped into the train at twilight.
"Oliver
Brand wounded... Catholic assailant... Indignation of the country...
Well-deserved fate of assassin."
He was pleased,
too, that he honestly had done his best to save the man. Even in that moment of
sudden and acute pain he had cried out for a fair trial; but he had been too
late. He had seen the starting eyes roll up in the crimson face, and the horrid
grin come and go as the hands had clutched and torn at his throat. Then the
face had vanished and a heavy trampling began where it had disappeared. Oh!
there was some passion and loyalty left in England!
His mother got up
presently and went out, still without a word; and Mabel turned to him, laying a
hand on his knee.
"Are you too
tired to talk, my dear?"
He opened his
eyes.
"Of course
not, my darling. What is it?"
"What do you
think will be the effect?"
He raised himself
a little, looking out as usual through the darkening windows on to that
astonishing view. Everywhere now lights were glowing, a sea of mellow moons
just above the houses, and above the mysterious heavy blue of a summer evening.
"The
effect?" he said. "It can be nothing but good. It was time that
something happened. My dear, I feel very downcast sometimes, as you know. Well,
I do not think I shall be again. I have been afraid sometimes that we were
losing all our spirit, and that the old Tories were partly right when they
prophesied what Communism would do. But after this -"
"Well?"
"Well; we have
shown that we can shed our blood too. It is in the nick of time, too, just at
the crisis. I don't want to exaggerate; it is only a scratch - but it was so
deliberate, and - and so dramatic. The poor devil could not have chosen a worse
moment. People won't forget it."
Mabel's eyes
shone with pleasure.
"You poor
dear!" she said. "Are you in pain?"
"Not much.
Besides, Christ! what do I care? If only this infernal Eastern affair would
end!"
He knew he was
feverish and irritable, and made a great effort to drive it down.
"Oh, my
dear!" he went on, flushed a little. "If they would not be such heavy
fools: they don't understand; they don't understand."
"Yes,
Oliver?"
"They don't
understand what a glorious thing it all is Humanity, Life, Truth at last, and
the death of Folly! But haven't I told them a hundred times?"
She looked at him
with kindling eyes. She loved to see him like this, his confident, flushed
face, the enthusiasm in his blue eyes; and the knowledge of his pain pricked
her feeling with passion. She bent forward and kissed him suddenly.
"My dear, I
am so proud of you. Oh, Oliver!"
He said nothing;
but she could see what she loved to see, that response to her own heart; and so
they sat in silence while the sky darkened yet more, and the click of the
writer in the next room told them that the world was alive and that they had a
share in its affairs.
Oliver stirred
presently.
"Did you
notice anything just now, sweetheart - when I said that about Jesus
Christ?"
"She stopped
knitting for a moment," said the girl.
He nodded.
"You saw
that too, then… Mabel, do you think she is falling back?"
"Oh! she is
getting old," said the girl lightly. "Of course she looks back a
little."
"But you
don't think - it would be too awful!"
She shook her head.
"No, no, my
dear; you're excited and tired. It's just a little sentiment... Oliver, I don't
think I would say that kind of thing before her."
"But she
hears it everywhere now."
"No, she
doesn't. Remember she hardly ever goes out. Besides, she hates it. After all,
she was brought up a Catholic."
Oliver nodded,
and lay back again, looking dreamily out.
"Isn't it
astonishing the way in which suggestion lasts? She can't get it out of her
head, even after fifty years. Well, watch her, won't you?… By the way…"
"Yes?"
"There's a
little more news from the East. They say Felsenburgh's running the whole thing
now. The Empire is sending him everywhere - Tobolsk, Benares, Yakutsk - everywhere;
and he's been to Australia."
Mabel sat up
briskly.
"Isn't that
very hopeful?"
"I suppose
so. There's no doubt that the Sufis are winning; but for how long is another
question. Besides, the troops don't disperse."
"And
Europe?"
"Europe is
arming as fast as possible. I hear we are to meet the Powers next week at Paris.
I must go."
"Your arm,
my dear?"
"My arm must
get well. It will have to go with me, anyhow."
"Tell me
some more."
"There is no
more. But it is just as certain as it can be that this is the crisis. If the
East can be persuaded to hold its hand now, it will never be likely to raise it
again. It will mean free trade all over the world, I suppose, and all that kind
of thing. But if not -"
"Well?"
"If not,
there will be a catastrophe such as never has been even imagined. The whole
human race will be at war, and either East or West will be simply wiped out.
These new Benninschein explosives will make certain of that."
"But is it
absolutely certain that the East has got them?"
"Absolutely.
Benninschein sold them simultaneously to East and West; then he died, luckily
for him."
Mabel had heard
this kind of talk before, but her imagination simply refused to grasp it. A
duel of East and West under these new conditions was an unthinkable thing.
There had been no European war within living memory, and the Eastern wars of
the last century had been under the old conditions. Now, if tales were true,
entire towns would be destroyed with a single shell. The new conditions were
unimaginable. Military experts prophesied extravagantly, contradicting one
another on vital points; the whole procedure of war was a matter of theory;
there were no precedents with which to compare it. It was as if archers
disputed as to the results of cordite. Only one thing was certain - that the
East had every modern engine, and, as regards male population, half as much
again as the rest of the world put together; and the conclusion to be drawn
from these premisses was not reassuring to England.
But imagination
simply refused to speak. The daily papers had a short, careful leading article
every day, founded upon the scraps of news that stole out from the conferences
on the other side of the world; Felsenburgh's name appeared more frequently
than ever: otherwise there seemed to be a kind of hush. Nothing suffered very
much; trade went on; European stocks were not appreciably lower than usual; men
still built houses, married wives, begat sons and daughters, did their business
and went to the theatre, for the mere reason that there was no good in anything
else. They could neither save nor precipitate the situation; it was on too
large a scale. Occasionally people went mad - people who had succeeded in
goading their imagination to a height whence a glimpse of reality could be
obtained; and there was a diffused atmosphere of tenseness. But that was all.
Not many speeches were made on the subject; it had been found inadvisable.
After all, there was nothing to do but to wait.
III
Mabel remembered
her husband's advice to watch, and for a few days did her best. But there was
nothing that alarmed her. The old lady was a little quiet, perhaps, but went
about her minute affairs as usual. She asked the girl to read to her sometimes,
and listened unblenching to whatever was offered her; she attended in the
kitchen daily, organised varieties of food, and appeared interested in all that
concerned her son. She packed his bag with her own hands, set out his furs for
the swift flight to Paris, and waved to him from the window as he went down the
little path towards the junction. He would be gone three days, he said.
It was on the
evening of the second day that she fell ill; and Mabel, running upstairs, in
alarm at the message of the servant, found her rather flushed and agitated in
her chair.
"It is
nothing, my dear," said the old lady tremulously; and she added the
description of a symptom or two.
Mabel got her to
bed, sent for the doctor, and sat down to wait.
She was sincerely
fond of the old lady, and had always found her presence in the house a quiet
sort of delight. The effect of her upon the mind was as that of an easy-chair
upon the body. The old lady was so tranquil and human, so absorbed in small
external matters, so reminiscent now and then of the days of her youth, so
utterly without resentment or peevishness. It seemed curiously pathetic to the
girl to watch that quiet old spirit approach its extinction, or rather, as
Mabel believed, its loss of personality in the reabsorption into the Spirit of
Life which informed the world. She found less difficulty in contemplating the
end of a vigorous soul, for in that case she imagined a kind of energetic rush
of force back into the origin of things; but in this peaceful old lady there
was so little energy; her whole point, so to speak, lay in the delicate little
fabric of personality, built out of fragile things into an entity far more
significant than the sum of its component parts: the death of a flower,
reflected Mabel, is sadder than the death of a lion; the breaking of a piece of
china more irreparable than the ruin of a palace.
"It is
syncope," said the doctor when he came in. "She may die at any time;
she may live ten years."
"There is no
need to telegraph for Mr. Brand?"
He made a little
deprecating movement with his hands.
"It is not
certain that she will die - it is not imminent?" she asked.
"No, no; she
may live ten years, I said."
He added a word
or two of advice as to the use of the oxygen injector, and went away.
* * * * *
The old lady was lying quietly in bed, when the
girl went up, and put out a wrinkled hand.
"Well, my
dear?" she asked.
"It is just
a little weakness, mother. You must lie quiet and do nothing. Shall I read to
you?"
"No, my
dear; I will think a little."
It was no part of
Mabel's idea to duty to tell her that she was in danger, for there was no past
to set straight, no Judge to be confronted. Death was an ending, not a
beginning. It was a peaceful Gospel; at least, it became peaceful as soon as
the end had come.
So the girl went
downstairs once more, with a quiet little ache at her heart that refused to be
still.
What a strange
and beautiful thing death was, she told herself - this resolution of a chord
that had hung suspended for thirty, fifty or seventy years - back again into
the stillness of the huge Instrument that was all in all to itself. Those same
notes would be struck again, were being struck again even now all over the
world, though with an infinite delicacy of difference in the touch; but that
particular emotion was gone: it was foolish to think that it was sounding
eternally elsewhere, for there was no elsewhere. She, too, herself would cease
one day, let her see to it that the tone was pure and lovely.
* * * * *
Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning as usual,
just as Mabel had left the old lady's room, and asked news of her.
"She is a
little better, I think," said Mabel. "She must be very quiet all
day."
The secretary
bowed and turned aside into Oliver's room, where a heap of letters lay to be
answered.
A couple of hours
later, as Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr. Phillips coming down. He
looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.
"Mrs. Brand
sent for me," he said. "She wished to know whether Mr. Oliver would
be back to-night."
"He will,
will he not? You have not heard?"
"Mr. Brand
said he would be here for a late dinner. He will reach London at
nineteen."
"And is
there any other news?"
He compressed his
lips.
"There are
rumours," he said. "Mr. Brand wired to me an hour ago."
He seemed moved
at something, and Mabel looked at him in astonishment.
"It is not
Eastern news?" she asked.
His eyebrows
wrinkled a little.
"You must
forgive me, Mrs. Brand," he said. "I am not at liberty to say
anything."
She was not
offended, for she trusted her husband too well; but she went on into the
sick-room with her heart beating.
The old lady,
too, seemed excited. She lay in bed with a clear flush in her white cheeks, and
hardly smiled at all to the girl's greeting.
"Well, you
have seen Mr. Phillips, then?" said Mabel.
Old Mrs. Brand
looked at her sharply an instant, but said nothing.
"Don't
excite yourself, mother. Oliver will be back to-night."
The old lady drew
a long breath.
"Don't
trouble about me, my dear," she said. "I shall do very well now. He
will be back to dinner, will he not?"
"If the
volor is not late. Now, mother, are you ready for breakfast?"
* * * * *
Mabel passed an afternoon of considerable
agitation. It was certain that something had happened. The secretary, who
breakfasted with her in the parlour looking on to the garden, had appeared
strangely excited. He had told her that he would be away the rest of the day:
Mr. Oliver had given him his instructions. He had refrained from all discussion
of the Eastern question, and he had given her no news of the Paris Convention;
he only repeated that Mr. Oliver would be back that night. Then he had gone of
in a hurry half-an-hour later.
The old lady
seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabel did not like to
disturb her. Neither did she like to leave the house; so she walked by herself
in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing, till the long shadow lay across
the path, and the tumbled platform of roofs was bathed in a dusty green haze
from the west.
As she came in
she took up the evening paper, but there was no news there except to the effect
that the Convention would close that afternoon.
* * * * *
Twenty o'clock came, but there was no sign of
Oliver. The Paris volor should have arrived an hour before, but Mabel, staring
out into the darkening heavens had seen the stars come out like jewels one by
one, but no slender winged fish pass overhead. Of course she might have missed
it; there was no depending on its exact course; but she had seen it a hundred
times before, and wondered unreasonably why she had not seen it now. But she
would not sit down to dinner, and paced up and down in her white dress, turning
again and again to the window, listening to the soft rush of the trains, the
faint hoots from the track, and the musical chords from the junction a mile
away. The lights were up by now, and the vast sweep of the towns looked like
fairyland between the earthly light and the heavenly darkness. Why did not
Oliver come, or at least let her know why he did not?
Once she went
upstairs, miserably anxious herself, to reassure the old lady, and found her
again very drowsy.
"He is not
come," she said. "I dare say he may be kept in Paris."
The old face on
the pillow nodded and murmured, and Mabel went down again. It was now an hour
after dinner-time.
Oh! there were a
hundred things that might have kept him. He had often been later than this: he
might have missed the volor he meant to catch; the Convention might have been
prolonged; he might be exhausted, and think it better to sleep in Paris after
all, and have forgotten to wire. He might even have wired to Mr. Phillips, and
the secretary have forgotten to pass on the message.
She went at last,
hopelessly, to the telephone, and looked at it. There it was, that round silent
month, that little row of labelled buttons. She half decided to touch them one
by one, and inquire whether anything had been heard of her husband: there was
his club, his office in Whitehall, Mr. Phillips's house, Parliament-house, and
the rest. But she hesitated, telling herself to be patient. Oliver hated
interference, and he would surely soon remember and relieve her anxiety.
Then, even as she
turned away, the bell rang sharply, and a white label flashed into sight. -WHITEHALL.
She pressed the
corresponding button, and, her hand shaking so much that she could scarcely
hold the receiver to her ear, she listened.
"Who is
there?"
Her heart leaped
at the sound of her husband's voice, tiny and minute across the miles of wire.
"I - Mabel,"
she said. "Alone here."
"Oh! Mabel.
Very well. I am back: all is well. Now listen. Can you hear?"
"Yes,
yes."
"The best
has happened. It is all over in the East. Felsenburgh has done it. Now listen.
I cannot come home to-night. It will be announced in Paul's House in two hours
from now. We are communicating with the Press. Come up here to me at once. You
must be present... Can you hear?"
"Oh, yes."
"Come then
at once. It will be the greatest thing in history. Tell no one. Come before the
rush begins. In half-an-hour the way will be stopped."
"Oliver."
"Yes?
Quick."
"Mother is
ill. Shall I leave her?"
"How
ill?"
"Oh, no
immediate danger. The doctor has seen her."
There was silence
for a moment.
"Yes; come
then. We will go back to-night anyhow, then. Tell her we shall be late."
"Very
well."
"…Yes, you
must come. Felsenburgh will be there."
