|ADA was married in white satin, though Peter sold books to do it and
her trousseau lacked essentials. It depends, though, on one’s point of
view. Ada thought white satin essential, while another might have put
underclothing first. But it is fitting to wear a crown at a coronation
and, when the object of one’s life has been to get married, to celebrate
in satin the attaining of one’s aim.
It also reminded the congregation that the bride is the central figure
at a wedding. People might otherwise have remembered that they did not
come because Ada was Ada, but because she was Peter’s daughter.
She entered with _réclame_ into the state of being Mrs. Samuel
Branstone, resenting a little the tweeds of Stewart, Sam’s best man,
but liking his manners and liking, too, the way in which Sam took it
for granted that the day was hers, not his. He did not even obtrude a
family.
George was, in fact, obscurely there, hidden among the congregation. He
was there in the spirit of schoolboy, playing truant from Anne, who
was at home with Madge. Ada thought that the conspicuous absence of
Branstones added lustre to her satin. None but the necessary Sam was
there.
They went to London, where neither of them had been before, and since it
is a bitter thing to have to look back to a boring honeymoon, the choice
of place had great discretion. There was so much besides themselves to
see in London that they postponed looking at each other till they
came home. They saw sights and went to theatres, but though they slept
together and rose together and saw the sights (all but one) together
there was no realization of “togetherness,” no birth of a new life
in which they were not Sam and Ada, but these two in one. They were
furiously modest about things which no honeymooner has any right to be
modest about. If they are modest about them, they have no right to be
honeymooners. It may have been in their case something both worse
and better than modesty. It may have been downright shame. Perhaps
subconsciously they knew that this was not a marriage, not the coming
together of two fit mates. It had no passion in it. There was self when
they should have been ecstatically selfless. They were two when they
should have been most one.
But Sam, if he fell immensely short of ecstasy, was still too much under
her spell to be critical. He wondered a little at the frank delight in
being married which she displayed in public, at her flaunting of her
new wedding ring, at her advertisement that this was a honeymoon, and
contrasted this outward relish with her intimate frigidity; but even
this seemed a disloyalty, and he told himself that Ada in a hotel was
one person and at home would be another. Ada would “settle down,” and
meantime they were in London, and London was waiting to be explored with
her.
They explored chiefly the London which Londoners do not know, the London
of the guide-books, and felt tremendously metropolitan because they went
to the Tower, the British Museum and the National Gallery. The shops
seared Ada. Their windows fascinated but their doors repelled. Probably
Sam would have held her back by main force had she attempted to go in,
but, as it was, she had the same satisfaction in identifying them that
social snobs find in recognizing, at a distance, famous people. These
were the authentic shops which advertised in the papers and they had a
game called “hunting the Harrod” or “looking for Barkers,” which led
to a lot of fun with ‘buses after they had quartered Oxford Street and
Regent Street. It was all very gay, and gayer, almost naughtily gay, to
go one night to a place called the Coliseum--a music-hall; a thing to
do audaciously, not to be spoken of at home; and yet the place was
very full of really most respectable people. They marvelled at the
emancipation of the Londoner.
On his honeymoon, Sam became possessed of an ambition. It was not an
extraordinarily fine ambition, but he came to care about, it greatly and
it repaid his care a thousandfold. The way to sanity is to desire
very keenly something which it is just possible one may get, and Sam’s
ambition kept him sane in the days when he knew that Ada had failed him.
Struggles had suggested to our debater of the Concentrics that he ought
to see the House of Commons at debate, and had written to their local
Member for a pass to the Gallery. The result was the most thrilling
experience of Sam’s honeymoon! It was, for one thing, unique that Ada
could not be with him: these were the first hours since he married her
that they spent apart and perhaps that, all unconsciously, had gilded
them for Sam. They had almost a tiff before she let him go: not quite,
but she resented his desertion of her and considered it his fault that
she was not allowed to sit with him to hear the legislators who made
laws for her as for him. Not that Ada cared who made her laws, nor cared
to watch the makers at their work, but she managed to put enough snap
into her resentment at his going to lend the added quality of a stolen
pleasure to his experience.
That gallery, with its foreshortened view of the dingy cock-pit, is not
the first choice of the connoisseur in thrills, but on Sam its effect
was amazing. He must have had some gift, quite undisclosed till now, of
veneration, for it is almost beyond belief that the reality of the House
of Commons can impress. But the idea can and perhaps (to be just) the
reality is more impressive than that of any other Chamber on earth.
Imagination helping him, it caught and held his mind.
A small stout man of undistinguished appearance was speaking in a
conversational tone not easy to hear from the Gallery, but presently the
orator warmed to his subject and poured out living words in a spate of
real emotion. He was one of those rare men, and this one of those rare
speeches, that really convert an opponent: and Sam’s ambition to speak
as this politician spoke, and from those benches, came instantly to
birth.
Not only did he want to be a Member of Parliament, but a Liberal Member,
because this man of words was Liberal. Up to this time, Sam had not been
a political animal although he had voted, and voted Tory because that
was in general the line of Mr. Travers and the property-owning class he
represented. Now with a swift enthusiasm he was Liberal, knowing nothing
of either side, but caught by sudden hero-worship for a little, pudgy,
snubnosed politician who spoke in sentences of prodigious length and
never lost his way in them.
In a twinkling he acquired the bias of the politician: his hero’s
opponent was palpably a fool; he had no gifts, no argument. Yes, Sam was
doubly right to be a Liberal. They had so obviously all the brains, they
were so undeniably the winning side. He did not understand the technique
of a division and was surprised when he looked at the paper next day
to find that the Liberals were outvoted. It gave him pause, but did
not shake him. When the Liberals came back to power, as with their
superiority in brain they were certain to do, he, Sam Branstone, would
come with them. Let it be only a year or two and he would be ready. He
too would loll upon those padded benches, and catch the Speaker’s eye,
and be an orator.
He walked along the Embankment towards his hotel, and it came into his
mind that he had spent four hours in the Gallery and had not thought of
Ada. Nor could he, though he tried, think of her now.
Sky-signs still flashed across the river, and as he paused and leaned
against the parapet a young policeman kept a wary eye on him. But Sam
was meditating life, not death. The lights of London gleamed upon the
Thames and made it magical for him. He conquered London in his reverie,
and stepped, a member, from the House to his automobile. His home, he
supposed, was somewhere in Park Lane.
He thought back now to the theatre where he had seen _The Sign of the
Cross_. It was different from the London Theatres he had seen where
audiences seemed afraid of emotion. Or was it that the plays had not
been right? That was it: they had not the note: they weren’t--what was
Stewart’s phrase?--erotic religious plays. He wanted to move audiences
as that play had moved its audience. Power! The power of the spoken
word. That was the thing, and since he could not write a play he must
rely upon himself, his oratory, his single voice. He saw himself on
platforms facing crowded halls, gripping his hearers, leading them where
he would, taming the mob till it made an idol of its master. As to where
he would lead, why, he would lead and that was what mattered. Branstone
was Prime Minister that night.
It was one o’clock before the young policeman felt at liberty to resume
his beat, and Sam left the enchanted river for his little hotel in
Norfolk Street. Ada had her back to him and apparently she slept.
Actually she was wide awake; she was wondering whether it had happened
to any other woman to be treated so abominably on her honeymoon.
She brushed her hair nest morning with a notable viciousness. Hair has
uses beyond those of mere adornment. It is an admirable veil through
which one can watch without being seen to watch. Ada was watching Sam
and she was also listening to him.
She listened not because his enthusiasm for the House of Commons
interested her, but because she was waiting for some word of apology.
It did not come. He was full of regret, but only because this was their
last day in town and he could not go to the House again.
“What time is our train?” she asked.
He told her.
“Then I have time to do some shopping first.”
“Shopping?” he asked, but unsuspiciously.
She nodded. Sam was going to pay for his pleasures. Those blouses she
had seen at Peter Robinson’s no longer seemed impossibly expensive. If
Sam chose to enjoy himself in his own way, without her, she would enjoy
herself in hers--with Sam to pay the piper.
Shopping is a loose term; one shops when one buys a kipper or a diamond
tiara. Ada was putting her hair up and he imagined her to mean that she
wanted a packet of hair-pins. “Oh, yes,” he said pensively. “And while
you go, I think I will just slip down to the House of Parliament again.”
The House would not be sitting and he could not get in. He knew that,
but he wanted to gaze, to look at the frame which was some day to
contain him. He wanted to be certain that it was still there.
“I think,” she said, “that you will come with me to the shop. I shall
want you there to pay.”
Sam paused in the act of fastening his collar. “To pay?” he asked, not
unsuspiciously now.
“Are your selfish pleasures all you think about?” Ada wanted to know.
“Isn’t it a privilege to be allowed to buy me nice clothes?”
He had not looked upon it in that light. In budgeting for their future
he had indeed assumed that a trousseau lasted a bride for her first
year. “I see,” he said gloomily; then remembering that he was in love
with her, “of course,” he added with a smile which might count to him
for heroism. “But we must not forget the fares, and after I have paid
the bill here I shall not have more than two pounds left to spend.”
“Then I spend two pounds on blouses,” she said.
He made a monosyllabic noise which might have been “Yes.” It might also
have been “Damn.”
The truth was that he had deliberately kept those two pounds back,
intending to spend some, but not, he hoped, all of it, on a present for
Ada. He had thought of a hand-bag, had imagined her gasp of delight
when he audaciously entered with her one of those forbiddingly inviting
shops, her appreciation of his generosity.
Last night had driven the thought entirely from his mind, and he was
annoyed now not only at his forgetfulness, but at Ada. She did not ask,
she demanded. A night in the Gallery may be regarded as dissipation, but
at least it is not a crime. It is even patriotic, and he was asked to
foot a bill for two pounds as the price of his patriotism. Ambition, he
thought, would be an expensive luxury if he had to pay in clothes for
Ada every time he went to a political meeting. For that, plainly, was
her attitude: she demanded a _quid pro quo_: she announced a policy of
retaliation.
There is a queer perverted pleasure in scratching an open wound, in
cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. He had meant to be generous
and he wanted still to be generous, but the money he had laid aside for
generosity was now hypothecated to meet her claim. He would give her her
pound of flesh, but wanted very badly to roast it for her with coals of
fire.
Gloom lifted from him suddenly. He took off the old tie which he had put
on as being good enough to travel in, and fastened very carefully one
which he had bought “for London.”
“I’ll do it,” he was thinking. “It is--almost--a stroke.”
At breakfast he was positively gay, so that Ada wondered furtively what
he was up to, and whether the way to raise his spirits would always be
to demand new clothes of him. It did not seem likely, but she proposed
at any rate to experiment freely in that direction.
He divided his attention between her, breakfast, and the Parliamentary
report of the _Times_. He felt that he had virtually participated in
that debate, and even the shock of reading that the division had gone
against his hero did not spoil the pleasure he found in reading of it.
He read with a prophetic eye. He, too, would be reported in the _Times_
some day.
He called the waiter. “Marmalade, sir?” asked the man.
“No, thanks. Bring me the directory.”
“The directory,” protested the waiter, “is in the reading-room.”
“And I,” said Sam superbly, “am in the coffee-room.”
The waiter brought him the directory.
Sam smiled broadly. He was testing his form, and decided that if it
were equal to coercing a waiter into carrying a directory to his
breakfast-table, it would probably not fail him in what he proposed
to do. He consulted the book and noted an address which was not, he
observed, in Park Lane. His respect for Sir William Gatenby suffered a
slight decline.
Half an hour later he rang the hell of that gentleman’s house. Gatenby
was the local member, to whom Peter Struggles had written for Sam’s pass
to the Gallery.
“Sir William in?” he asked.
“Yes, but----” A trained eye observed his clothes. They were not cut in
Savile Row.
“He will see me,” said Sam serenely. Some people are at their best in
the early morning.
His card was accepted from him, and he was shown into a library of
severe Blue Books, possibly qualified by a reproduction of Millais’
portrait of Gladstone. Ordinarily, Sam would have been met in the
library by a secretary who earned his salary by his talent for
administering polite snubs to unwanted callers. The secretary was not
earning his salary to-day, but, probably, spending it. It was Derby Day.
After all, a vote is a vote, and Sir William came in with a show of
geniality. “Good morning, Mr. Branstone,” he said, reading Sam’s card.
“From the old town. I see.”
“Is that all you remember about me?” asked Sam.
“At the moment,” confessed Sir William warily. His majority was not
large.
“Well,” said Sam, “the Reverend Mr. Struggles is my father-in-law.”
“Sit down,” said Sir William. “I am very glad you called. How is Mr.
Struggles?”
“T left him well, thank you. Perhaps you remember that he wrote to you
to ask you for a pass to the Gallery for me.”
“I was happy to be lucky in the ballot,” said the Member.
“Yes,” said Sam, “I went last night. But I mentioned that to establish
my identity. My object in calling upon you is to ask you to lend me five
pounds.”
Sir William thought of his secretary, who should have saved him this.
Thinking of his secretary, he thought of Derby Day and the probable
intentions of a man who chooses that day to ask for a loan. “My dear
sir!” he said.
“Quite,” agreed Sam. “Life would be unbearable to you if every
constituent who came to London tried to borrow money off you. But I
am Branstone. I run the Branstone Press and the Branstone Classics. I
published the ‘Social Evil’ pamphlet and sent you a copy which, I regret
to say, you did not acknowledge.” Sir William thought again of his
secretary, and unkindly. “This,” said Sam, “is merely to indicate that I
am a man of substance.”
Sir William Gatenby wore side-whiskers. He was an old man and there was
little left of him besides pomposity and a determination to hold his
seat. He looked, what at this moment he felt, some one in a farce. He
was quite sure that Sam was some one in a farce. They were both in
a farce, and of course five-pound notes fly in farces like gnats in
August. It did not seem to him that there was anything to do but to
produce a five-pound note.
“Thank you,” said Sam, and sat at a desk. “I will give you my cheque for
this.”
It staggered Sir William. He nearly warned Sam of the danger of issuing
a cheque which was not likely to be honoured, but refrained in time.
“Then,” he said, “there was really no need for you to come to me at
all?”
“Only,” said Sam, “that I wanted you to remember me.”
“I think I shall do that,” said Sir William.
“Thank you,” said Sam calmly. “I wanted to know you because I intend to
go into politics.”
“The Cause,” said Sir William solemnly, “demands his best from every
earnest worker.”
“I will work for the Cause,” said Sam. Neither of them attempted to
define the Cause, and Sam left without further remark, but his call had
this result: that on finding the cheque honoured Sir William wrote
to his agent to tell him of “a queer fish called Samuel Branstone who
called on me the other day, and offered to work for the Cause. A young
man whom I think you should encourage. He is the son-in-law of
Mr. Struggles, and the Church, alas, is so tepid towards our great
Principles that we must not neglect a promising recruit from that fold.”