“If you are coming my way, Goddard, we may as well walk back
together,” said the Member, putting on his fur-lined coat.
Mr. Aloysius Gleam, member for Sunington, was a spare, precisely dressed
little man on the hither side of forty. He was somewhat bald, and
clean-shaven all to a tightly-screwed fair moustache. A gold-rimmed
eye-glass added a quaint air of alertness to a shrewd, sharp-featured
face.
Goddard acquiesced readily, although on this particular evening his
road lay in a different direction. But democrat though he was, he felt
flattered by Mr. Gleam’s friendly proposal. He was young--eight
and twenty, a cabinetmaker by trade, self-taught and consequently
self-opinionated, yet humble enough before evident superiority of
knowledge or experience. Besides, in coming to take the chair at his
lecture on The New Trades Unionism, before the Sunington Radical Club,
the Member had paid him a decided compliment. A member of Parliament has
many pleasanter and more profitable ways of spending a precious spare
evening during a busy session.
They formed a singular contrast as they stood side by side in the little
knot of committee-men who had remained behind after the audience had
left. Goddard was above the middle height, squarely built, deep-chested,
large-limbed; his decent workman’s clothes hung loosely upon him. His
features were dark and massive, chin and forehead square, nose somewhat
fleshy, mouth shutting stubbornly with folds at the sides; the lip, on
which, like the rest of his face, no hair grew, rather long; altogether
it was a powerful face, showing a nature capable of strong passions both
for good and evil. The accident of straight black hair generally falling
across his forehead, and a humorous setting of his eyes, relieved the
face of harshness. At the present moment it was alive with the frankness
of youth, and flushed with the success that had attended his lecture.
The group walked slowly down the hall through the chairs, and lingered
for a moment at the clubhouse door. It was a new quarter of London. Mr.
Aloysius Gleam had lived in the neighbourhood most of his life, and had
seen it spring up from fields and market-gardens into a bustling town,
with arteries fed from the life-stream of Oxford Street and the Strand.
Its development had been dear to him. There was strong local feeling,
and he was deservedly popular. It was therefore some time before he
could break away from his supporters. At last he did so, and started
with Goddard at a brisk pace up the High Street.
“I have been wondering,” he said, after a short silence, “whether you
would care to take to politics seriously.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m playing at it,” replied Goddard.
“Tut! don’t be so confoundedly touchy,” said Gleam good-humouredly. “By
‘seriously’ I meant entirely, professionally. Would you like to devote
all your time to the work?”
“I should think I would,” replied Goddard quickly; “but I can’t. I have
my bread and butter to earn. I don’t quite see why you ask me.”
“Would you accept a position if your bread and butter were assured to
you?”
“As a paid agitator? Oh no, thanks! I couldn’t stand that. Work of that
sort must be given, not sold.”
“That’s rubbish,” said the Member lightly. “The labourer is worthy of
his hire. The notion is as cranky as Tolstoi’s.”
“It isn’t,” said Goddard. “The paid agitator is a fraud. He pretends to
be a working-man and he isn’t. When I address a crowd I can say, ‘I am
one of yourselves, the real thing. I belong to the Amalgamated Union of
Cabinetmakers, and earn my forty bob a week with the work of my hands.’
Men listen to me, and respect me. What I could not swallow would be for
a fellow to get up and tell me, ‘It’s all very well for you to talk; but
you’re paid for talking, and make a jolly good thing of it. Instead of
helping the working-man, you are simply growing fat on the working-man’s
hard-earned money.’ I’ve heard that said to paid agitators myself.”
“Well, who said I wanted you to become a paid agitator?” asked Gleam.
“I don’t want you to stand on a barrel and address people as
‘fellow-sufferers.’ You are a cut above that kind of thing. What I
wanted to propose to you was work on our new National Progressive
League. Of course, scores of men are giving their services; but they are
men of a certain amount of leisure. They can afford it. The working-man
has no leisure to speak of, and we would give anything for the services
of a few well-educated, clearheaded working-men like yourself. We could
manage three pounds a week--perhaps more. Well, there’s a chance for
you.”
Goddard walked on a few steps in silence. He was young, earnest, a
passionate champion of the great questions on the Progressive programme.
He felt in himself a power to grip the attention of men. He had dreamed
vague dreams of personal ambition. Gleam’s offer was a great temptation.
But the consciousness that it was a temptation made him adhere all the
more obstinately to his principles.
“You are very kind,” he said at last, “and I am flattered by your
opinion of me. But I shouldn’t feel justified in giving up my trade: it
wouldn’t seem right.”
“Well, do as you like, my good fellow,” replied the Member cheerily.
“But I think you’re a bit of an idiot. You’ll find a thousand first-rate
cabinetmakers for one competent politician. Anyhow, if you change your
mind----”
“I don’t like changing my mind,” returned Goddard, with a laugh, “as if
it were a shirt.”
“We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest,” quoted the Member
below his breath.
But, taking a broad view of youth, he forbore to rebuke the young
man, and turned the conversation upon certain points in the recently
delivered lecture. When he reached his turning he shook hands and
disappeared.
Goddard looked at his watch, and gave a little whistle of dismay. An
omnibus from the west lumbered up. Goddard climbed on to the roof, and
returned down the High Street. At the “Golden Stag,” where the ’bus
route ended, he descended, and proceeded almost at a run down some
side streets and lanes, and eventually knocked at a door in a row of
workmen’s cottages.
“Well, you _are_ late,” said a girl who opened the door to him. “I’ve
been waiting with my ’at on for the last three-quarters of an hour.
No; you ain’t going to kiss me. If you’d wanted to do that, you’d have
found your way here before.”
“I’ve come as fast as I could, Lizzie,” said the young man, somewhat out
of breath. “But I went back part of the way with Mr. Gleam, who wanted
to speak to me.”
“That’s all very fine,” said Lizzie. “But I think I count for
something.”
She led the way into a little front room, where a couple of girls were
busy with dressmaking. One of them was bending over a sewing-machine.
Bits of stuff and patterns littered the table. A few spotted
fashion-plates adorned the walls. The air was heavy with the smell of
new mercery.
“Here’s Dan at last!” said Lizzie. “It’s only a case of how d’ye do and
good-bye. These are my two cousins. This one’s Emily, and that’s Sophie.
Oh, look at the clock! It _is_ a shaime!” Goddard shook hands with the
two cousins of his affianced--pale, anemic girls, who giggled a little,
while Lizzie saw to the straightness of her hat in the gilt mirror over
the mantelpiece. When that was done, she admired herself for a moment.
She was pretty--with the devil’s prettiness; fluffy fair hair, a pink
complexion and small, watery blue eyes--a poetic but discarded admirer
had termed them “liquid azure,” which had pleased her mightily. Her
mouth had a ripe way of pouting that took the edge off tart speeches, at
any-rate in a lover’s opinion, but otherwise it was loose and devoid of
character.
“I can’t let him stop to talk,” she said, turning to her cousins.
“Father’ll be in an awful stew. I’ll bring him round another day.”
“If he’ll come,” said Emily, the elder of the two.
“Oh, of course I will,” said Goddard. “I’m very pleased to make your
acquaintance.”
He was feeling, somewhat abashed amid these feminine surroundings, and
laughed awkwardly. When the door closed behind Lizzie and himself he was
relieved.
“I hope you are not vexed with me, Lizzie,” he said humbly. “I really
did not know it was so late.”
“It’s no use talking about it,” said Lizzie in an injured tone. “But
just let me keep you waiting, and see how you’d like it.”
However, after a time, Lizzie was mollified, and in token thereof drew
Daniel’s arm, correctly loverwise, within her own.
“The lecture was a great success,” he said at length. “Many more people
than I had expected. I wish you had been there. Only they don’t admit
ladies.”
“What was it about? Politics, wasn’t it?”
“Yes--broadly speaking. Strictly it was on the New Trades Unionism. I
traced its development, you know, showing how the spirit has changed.
The Old Trades Unions were intensely jealous of State interference,
because they looked upon the Government as the natural enemy of
labour. But now labour is a powerful element in the State, and means to
legislate for itself, and so make State-control the very bulwark of its
rights. Of course I went into all kinds of details, but that was the
general run of it.”
“It must have been awfully clever,” said Lizzie, without much
enthusiasm.
“Oh, I don’t know,” laughed the young man. “I was a little nervous at
first. You see I have spoken often enough, both at the club and in the
open air, and then the words come naturally. You get warmed up, you
know, and you let them have it straight. But this is the first time
I’ve given a set lecture in cold blood, where everything has got to be
expressed in chosen language--but it went very well. Mr. Gleam told me I
was quite academic.”
“He’s a great swell, isn’t he?” asked Lizzie. “Drives his carriage and
pair, and lives in the big house with the griffins on the front gates.
And you walked back with him?”
“Only to the top of the street,” replied Goddard, still sounding an
apologetic note. “He wanted to ask me whether I would throw up the
workshop and become a paid agent of the National Progressive League.”
“Oh, how nice!” said Lizzie.
“Yes, it was nice of him,” replied Goddard; “but, of course, I
declined.”
“Oh, Daniel! How could you? It would have been so much more genteel.”
The word jarred upon him. It set the matter in a new light, and made it
look very ugly. Besides, it afforded him a not very satisfactory peep
into Lizzie’s spiritual horizon.
“You don’t mind my being a working-man, do you, Lizzie?” he asked, with
some reproach.
“Oh, never mind. What’s the odds? We needn’t trouble about it. If you
like to wear a dirty apron and have your ’ands all covered over with
varnish and turpentine, I’m sure I don’t care.”
She tossed her head, and drew a little away from him, so that only his
fingers touched her arm.
“I don’t think we need discuss that,” said Goddard stiffly--“unless you
think I am not good enough for you. In that case you might as well tell
me at once.”
“Now you’re unkind,” said Lizzie.
They walked a few steps in silence, and then Lizzie pulled out a
pocket-handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. The young man’s heart softened
miraculously. He slid back his arm beneath hers, and drew her a little
closer.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Liz. Indeed, I didn’t. What can I do to say
I’m sorry?”
“You think I don’t care for you,” whimpered Lizzie. “Every one knows I
gave up Joe Forster just for you; and he’s got his own tobacco business
and keeps an assistant.”
The main part of which statement was not exactly in accordance with
facts. But Goddard was not in the current of local gossip, and did not
suspect his sweetheart’s veracity.
“Then you’ll forgive me, and we’ll make it up?”
“You don’t want to break it off?”
“I? Good gracious, no. Why, Liz!”
There was another pause. They were in the middle of the High Street.
Knots of loafers hung around the blazing entrances of the public-houses,
but otherwise the pavement was more or less deserted.
“Why don’t you put your arm round my waist, then?” said Lizzie softly.
Goddard did as he was bidden. She laughed out loud at his shy
awkwardness, and pulled his fingers tighter round her figure.
“One’d say I was the only girl you’d ever walked out with.”
“Well, you are,” replied Goddard simply. “I never bothered much with
girls till I knew you.”
“I believe that’s a cracker,” said Lizzie, who was beginning to enjoy
the walk.
“It isn’t, indeed. I swear it’s true.”
“Oh! How can you? Well, if it’s true it oughtn’t to have been. You ought
to have had some one to practise on, and then you would have learned to
do things nicely. Practice makes perfect, you know.”
A light argument followed, which ended in Goddard’s discomfiture, and
left him with a vague feeling that he had missed one of the duties of
man in letting his talent for lovemaking lie dormant, and also an uneasy
wonder at the extent of Lizzie’s familiarity with the subject. But
Lizzie was quite happy.
“You wouldn’t like any other girl, would you?”
She rested her head slightly against him. The glare of an
electric-lighted shop-front fell on her pretty, upturned face, and the
young man forgot everything, save that she had soft puckered lips and
young, even teeth.
They were reconciled as far as harmony was ever possible between their
natures. The rest of the walk home was undisturbed, and when they
arrived at Lizzie’s door they were well pleased with each other. She
opened the door with her latch-key and, holding it ajar, received his
kiss prettily, and then with a desire to complete the reconciliation in
all ways, said--
“I’m glad you decided to remain a workingman, Dan. I can’t bear them
silly politics.”
She disappeared quickly. Dan remained for a moment looking vaguely at
the knocker, as if to address it in confidential remonstrance; and
then turning away, he let himself into the adjoining house, and slowly
mounted the stairs to his room, with an all-pervading sense of the
strange futility of the female mind.