It is difficult to judge of any course of conduct entirely on its own
merits, when it has a reflex action on ourselves. When Rendel before his
marriage used to go to Prince's Gate and to see Rachel, absolutely
oblivious of herself, hovering tenderly round her mother, watching to
see that her father's wishes were fulfilled, that unselfish devotion and
absorption in filial duty seemed to him the most entirely beautiful
thing on this earth. But when, instead of being the spectator of the
situation, he became an active participator in it, when the stream of
Rachel's filial devotion was diverted from that of her conjugal duties,
it unconsciously assumed another aspect in his eyes. But not for worlds
would he have put into words the annoyance he could not help feeling,
and Rachel was entirely unconscious of his attitude. The devoted,
uncritical affection for her father which had grown up with her life was
in her mind so absolutely taken for granted as one of the foundations of
existence, that it did not even occur to her that Rendel might possibly
not look at it in the same light. She took for granted that he would
share her attitude towards her father as he had shared her adoration for
her mother. It was all part of her entire trust in Rendel, and the
simple directness with which she approached the problems of life. She
had, before her marriage, expressed an earnest wish, which Rendel
understood as a condition, that even if her father did not wish to live
with them, she might share in his life and watch over him, and Rendel
had accepted the condition and promised that it should be as she wished.
But it is obviously not the actual making of a promise that is the
difficulty. If it were possible when we pledge ourselves to a given
course for our imagination to show us in a vision of the future the
innumerable occasions on which we should be called upon to redeem, each
time by a conscious separate effort, that lightly given pledge of an
instant, the stoutest-hearted of us would quail at the prospect. Rendel
looked back with a sigh to those days, that seemed already to have
receded into a luminous distance, when Rachel, alone with him in
Scotland, with no divided allegiance, had given herself up, heart and
mind, to the new happiness, the new existence, that was opening before
her.
The danger of pouring life while it is still fluid into the wrong mould,
of letting it drift and harden into the wrong shape, is an insidious
peril which is not sufficiently guarded against. It is easy enough to
say, Begin as you mean to go on; but the difficulty is to know exactly
the moment when you begin, and when the point of going on has been
arrived at; and of drifting gradually into some irremediable course of
action from which it is almost impossible to turn back without
difficulty and struggle. There had been a feeling that everything was
somehow temporary during those first days at Cosmo Place, which extended
into the weeks. Sir William held as a principle, and was quite genuine
in his intention when he said it, that young people ought to be left to
themselves. He would not, therefore, take up his abode under their roof,
but still that he should do so eventually was felt by all concerned as a
vague possibility which prevented in the young household a sense of
having finally and comfortably settled down. Indeed, as it was, it was
perhaps more unsettling to Rachel, and therefore to her husband, to have
Sir William coming and going than it would have been to have him
actually under the same roof. If he had been living with them his
presence would have been a matter of course, and less constant
companionship and diversion would probably have been considered
necessary for him than they were when he dropped in at odd times. The
advancing season and the grey dark mornings made the early rides
impossible. Rachel in her secret soul did not regret them. Sir William
had taken the habit of looking in at Cosmo Place on his way to Pall Mall
and further eastward, and it always gave Rachel a pang of remorse if she
found that by an unlucky chance she had been out of the way when he
came. He would also sometimes come in on his way back, as has been
said, in the obvious expectation of having a game of chess, of which
Rendel, if he were at home, had not the heart to disappoint him. In
these days there was not much occupation for him in the City. The
excitement of starting and floating the "Equator" Company and the
allotting of the shares to the eager band of subscribers had been
accomplished some time since. The "Equator's" hour, however, had not
come yet. The outlook in the City was not encouraging for those who knew
how to read the weather chart of the coming days. The heart of the
country was still beating fast and tumultuously after the emotions of
the past two years; it needed a period of assured quiet to regain its
normal condition. In the meantime the storm seemed to be subsiding. The
great railway laying its iron grip on the heart of Africa was advancing
steadily from the north as well as from the south: it was nearing the
Equator. The country, its imagination profoundly stirred by the
enterprise, watched it in suspense. But until the meeting of the two
giant highways was effected, everything depended upon an equable balance
of forces, of which a touch might destroy the equilibrium. German
possessions and German forces lay perilously near the meeting of the two
lines. At any moment a spark from some other part of the world might be
wafted to Africa and set the fierce flame of war ablaze in the centre of
the continent.
The General Election was coming within measurable distance; the Liberal
Peace Crusade was strenuously canvassing the country in favour of
coming to a definite understanding with certain foreign powers.
At the house in Cosmo Place it was no longer always possible, as on that
first evening, to avoid the subject of politics.
"I must say," said Rendel one night with enthusiasm--Stamfordham had
made a big speech the day before of which the papers were
full--"Stamfordham is a great speaker, and a great man to boot."
"A great speaker, perhaps," Sir William said. "I don't know that that is
entirely what you want from the man at the helm."
"Well, proverbially it isn't," said Rendel, with a smile, determined to
be good-humoured.
"As to being a great man," continued Sir William, "anybody who knocks
down everything that comes in his way and stands upon it looks rather
big."
"Even admitting that," said Rendel, "it seems to me that the
determination and courage necessary to knock down what is in your way,
when it can't be got out by any other method, is part of what makes a
great statesman."
"You speak," said Sir William, "as if he were a savage potentate."
"In some respects," said Rendel, "the savage potentate and civilised
ruler are inevitably alike. The ultimate ground, the ultimate arbiter of
their empire, is force."
"Empire!" said Sir William. "That is the cry! In your greed for empire
you lose sight of everything but the aggrandisement of a dominion
already so immense as to be unwieldy."
"Still," said Rendel, "as we have this big thing in our hands, it is
better to keep it there than let it drop and break to pieces."
"I don't wish to let it drop," said Gore. "I wish to be content to
increase it by friendly intercourse with the world, by the arts of peace
and civilisation, and not by destruction and bloodshed."
"I am afraid," said Rendel, "that the savage, which, as you say too
truly, still lurks in the majority of civilised beings, will not be
content to see the world governed on those amiable lines."
"There I must beg leave to differ from you," said Sir William, "I
believe that the majority of civilised human beings will, when it has
been put before them, be on the side of peace."
"We shall see," Rendel said, with a smile which was perhaps not as
conciliatory as he intended it to be.
"Yes, you will see when the General Election comes," said Gore. "And if
it goes for us, and we have a Cabinet composed of men who are not the
mere puppets in the hands of an autocrat, the destinies of the world
will be altered."
"Father," said Rachel, "do you really think that is how the General
Election will go?"
"Quite possibly," Gore said, with decision. Rendel said nothing.
"Oh, father!" said Rachel. "I wish that you were in Parliament! Suppose
you were in the Government!"
"Ah, well, my life as you know, was otherwise filled up," said Sir
William, with a sigh; "but in that case the Imperialists perhaps might
not have found everything such plain sailing." And so much had he
penetrated himself with the conviction of what he was saying, that he
felt himself, as he sat there opposite Rendel, whose wisdom and sagacity
in reality so far exceeded his own, to be in the position of the older,
wiser man of great influence and many opportunities condescending to
explain his own career to an obscure novice.
Rendel looked across at Rachel sitting opposite to him, listening to
what her father said with her customary air of sweet and gentle
deference, and then smiling at himself; and again he inwardly vowed
that, for her sake, he would endure the daily pinpricks that are almost
as difficult to bear in the end as one good sword-thrust.
"I must say it will be interesting to see who goes out as Governor of
British Zambesiland," he said presently, looking up from the paper.
"That will be a big job if you like."
"Let's hope they will find a big man to do it," said Sir William.
"I heard to-day," said Rendel, "that it would probably be Belmont."
"Well, he'll be a firebrand Governor after Stamfordham's own heart,"
said Gore. "It's absurd sending all these young men out to these
important posts."
"That is rather Stamfordham's theory," said Rendel--"to have youngish
men, I mean."
"If he would confine himself to theories," said Sir William, "it would
be better for England at this moment."
"It might, however, interfere with his practical use as a Foreign
Secretary," Rendel was about to say, but he checked the words on his
tongue.
After dinner that evening he remained downstairs under pretext of
writing some letters, while Rachel proposed to her father to give her a
lesson in chess.
Rendel turned on the electric light in his study, shut the door, stood
in front of the fire and looked round him with a delightful sense of
possession, of privacy, of well-being. His new house--indeed, one might
almost have said his new life--was still so recent a possession as to
have lost none of its preciousness. He still felt a childish joy in all
its details. The house was one of those built within the last decade
which seem to have made a struggle to escape the uniformity of the older
streets. The front door opened into a square hall, from the left side of
which opened the dining-room, from the right the study, both of these
rooms having bow windows, built with that broad sweep of curve which
makes for beauty instead of vulgarity. The house, Rendel had told his
wife with a smile when they came to it, he had furnished for her, with
the exception of one room in it; the study he had arranged for himself.
And it certainly was a room in which, to judge by appearances, a worker
need never be stopped in his work by the paltry need of any necessary
tool. Rendel was a man of almost exaggerated precision and order.
Everything lay ready to his hand in the place where he expected to find
it. A glance at his well-appointed writing-table gave evidence of it.
The back wall of the study, opposite the window, was lined with books.
On the wall over the fireplace hung a large map of Africa. Rendel looked
intently at it as he thought of the stirring pages of history that were
in the making on that huge, misshapen continent, of the field that it
was going to be for the statesmen and administrators of the future: he
thought of Lord Belmont, only two years older than himself, with whom he
had been at Eton and at Oxford, and wondered what it felt like to be in
his place and have the ball at one's feet. For Rendel in his heart was
burning with ambition of no ignoble kind. He was burning to do, to act,
and not to watch only; to take his part in shaping the destinies of his
fellow-men, to help the world into what he believed to be the right
path; and he would do it yet. In his mind that evening, as he stood
upright, intent, looking on into the future, there was not the shadow of
a doubt that he would carry out his purpose. He had come downstairs
smarting under the impression of Sir William's last words when they were
discussing the new Governor. Then he recovered, and reminded himself of
the obvious truism that the man occupied with politics must school
himself to have his opinions contradicted by his opponents, and must
make up his mind that there are as many people opposed to his way of
thinking in the world as agreeing with it. But it is one thing to engage
in a free fight in the open field, and another to keep parrying the
petty blows dealt by a persecuting antagonist. Day by day, hour by hour,
as the time went on, Rendel had to make a conscious effort to keep to
the line he had traced out for himself; he had to tighten his
resolution, to readjust his burden. The yoke of even a beloved
companionship may be willingly borne, but it is a yoke and a restraint
for all that. But Rendel would not have forgotten it. He accepted the
lot he had chosen, unspeakably grateful to Rachel for having bestowed
such happiness on him, ready and determined to fulfil his part of the
compact, to carry out, even at the cost of a daily and hourly sacrifice,
the bargain he had made. And, after all, as long as he made up his mind
that it did not signify, he could well afford, in the great happiness
that had fallen to his lot, to disregard the minor annoyances. His life,
his standards, should be arranged on a scale that would enable him to
disregard them. If one is only moving along swiftly enough, one has
impetus to glide over minor impediments without being stopped or turned
aside by them. For Rachel's sake all would be possible, it would be
almost easy. At any rate, it should be done. Rendel's will felt braced
and strengthened by his resolve, and he knew that he would be master of
his fate. There are certain moments in our lives when we stop at a
turning, it may be, to take stock of our situation, when we look back
along the road we have come--how interminable it seemed as we began
it!--and look along the one we are going to travel, prepared to start
onward again with a fresh impulse of purpose and energy. That night, as
Rendel looked on into the future, he felt like the knight who, lance in
rest but ready to his hand, rides out into the world ready to embrace
the opportunity that shall come to him.