The outskirts of Ecclesby, where the “quality” live in villas
decorously withdrawn from the roadway, and screened from public view by
the garden-trees, are as pleasant as those of any idle town given up
to homing the Great Retired. The traveller by road might fancy he was
entering a Midland Cheltenham or Leamington, so soothingly genteel
are its approaches. But a few minutes’ walk, past smaller villas, then
semidetached villas, then villas clustered together like reeds in a
pan-pipe, then unpretending red-brick jerry-built cottages, would bring
on a gradual disillusion, preparing him for the hopeless disenchantment
of the town itself. A long black street, untidy with little shops
and public-houses standing here and there amid a row of poor, dirty
dwelling-houses, mounts in an undecided curve from the railway station,
and suddenly, at the top of the hill, twists sharply round into the High
Street, where brand-new hotels and brand-new shops try to look smugly
unconscious of the world below the corner. But the shops have to supply
that world’s wants, and all the bravery of window fronts cannot give the
illusion of refined and luxurious patronage. There is not much pleasure
to be got out of Ecclesby. Even its theatre is up a dingy side-street,
and has a threepenny gallery and sixpenny pit. The fair follies and vain
amenities of existence find no place there. It is given over to labour
grim, absorbing, inevitable. At certain periods of the day the High
Street, Market Square, and Union Street, which cuts laterally through
its heart, at the top of the rise, are quite deserted. The great bells
ring, and the gaunt countless-windowed factories situated all around in
labyrinthine tangle of mean streets disgorge into the main thoroughfare
the pale work-grimed population they had swallowed up. The town becomes
a swarming hive. The shops are thronged. From the ever-swinging doors
of public-houses comes the roar of voices, borne upon gusts of air
saturated with alcohol and shag-tobacco. There is little diversity of
type or costume. The town exists for one industry. The population drifts
from the grim Board School inevitably, unquestioningly into the grim
factory. If the next transition is not into the grimmer workhouse by the
railway station, they account themselves happy. Each man acts, dresses,
eats, hopes, thinks, and, at last, looks like his neighbour. And the
girls and women work in the factories too. The streets are alive
with them. They march along in knots of three or four, bareheaded,
bare-armed, red-shawled, shrill, nonreticent of speech. The doorways
of hundreds of dwellings in squalid by-streets are dissonant with the
clamour and picturesque with the dirt-encrusted chubbiness of children.
This is Ecclesby when the factories are working, and the hum of strange
machinery strikes the ear on passing by the yawning gateways. But when
Goddard went there a blight had fallen on the town. The factories
for the most part were silent, the streets depressing with unjoyous
idleness. The fact that the strikers had gone in procession the day
before with a brass band that played the Dead March in “Saul” before the
employers’ villas had not produced lasting exhilaration. The very deadly
boredom of leisure, apart from anxiety as to issues, was wearing down
the adult population. To lean against a street corner, pipe in mouth,
hands in pockets, in taciturn converse with one’s mates, is pleasant
enough for a few hours on Saturday afternoons; but to persist in it all
day long, and day after day, induces considerable lassitude of the
flesh and infinite weariness of the spirit. What the deputation had told
Goddard was true. The men were growing sick of the struggle. Whispers of
submission already floated in the air. The Trades Union officials were
steadily losing their influence. The employers’ agents had been busy
among them, spreading nerve-shaking reports as to the impregnable
position of the firms. The Union was small, poor, badly organised. The
strike pay was scanty. Much of it was spent, almost unwillingly, in
drink.
Severe distress already began to make itself felt.
Goddard brought a practised intelligence to grasp the situation, and
realised how fully his were victory, if it were gained; also how great
a responsibility rested upon his shoulders in urging the continuance
of the strike. It meant the extravagant love or execration of a teeming
town.
“If you advise us to give in, we’ll do so,” said the secretary of the
Union, a careworn man with iron-grey hair and lantern-face. They had
been discussing affairs in the office. The fire had gone out in the tiny
grate, and the dimness of a gathering wet evening crept in through the
uncleaned panes. Goddard was silent a moment. The man’s tone was so
hopeless.
Then the joy of battle rose within him, and was mingled strangely with
the radiance of Lady Phayre--a thrilling sense of his own strength,
trebled by the wine of her influence--and he leapt from his chair and
brought his two great hands down on the secretary’s timorous shoulders.
“We’ll win this, mate. We’ll carry it through, and have the firms on
their knees. Ruin is staring them in the face. They will have to climb
down. Man, we are not fighting machinery. If we were, I would say ‘throw
it up.’ Man has never bested a machine yet, and never will. It’s mere
brute force--who can hold out longest. And they can’t hold out longer
than we. I’ll stake my soul upon it.”
“But the capital behind them,” murmured the secretary.
“That’s a pack of damned lies!” cried Goddard. “You can take it from
me!”
A glow appeared on the grey face as Goddard’s splendid assurance gained
upon him.
“We’ll follow your lead past starvation, sir,” he said in a voice hoarse
with new-born hope.
The knowledge of Goddard’s arrival had quickened the general apathy.
His visible presence in the streets was a draught of strength. The brave
words he spoke to casual knots of men turned their sullenness to hope,
and were passed from lip to lip after he had gone by. Before the
great meeting in the afternoon, he had already lifted the tone of the
strikers. They were conscious of a new force among them.
When he mounted the platform in the densely packed market-place, a
spontaneous cheer arose to greet him. When he retired, after a long,
vigorous speech, he knew that he had accomplished the first and
all-important part of his task--the winning of the men’s confidence.
And then began a period of intense, unremitting work. For beyond the
commonplaces of strike organisation, picketing, fund-distribution,
speech-making, and the like, the continuous maintenance of the moral
strength of a whole community by sheer force of will involved infinite
devotion. He had to carry things with a high hand. The Employers’
Federation invited a conference. For a while he had high hopes. The
hour came, and the whole town awaited the issue in breathless suspense.
Goddard sat alone in the little office of the Union, chafing at his
necessary exclusion from the discussion. At last the representatives of
the Union returned, the secretary bearing a paper in his hand.
“Shall we agree?” he asked, giving it to Goddard.
He glanced over it, and his face darkened.
“Can I make this public?”
“Certainly, if you think it best,” replied the secretary, with a sigh.
“Thank God, it’s over, any way,” said one of the representatives.
But Goddard did not hear. He flung open the window and brandished the
paper before the crowd assembled in the street.
“Men! listen to the result of the conference.”
He read the document in a loud, even voice. The employers had offered
a few trivial concessions, a slight rise in skilled wages; but the
principles were untouched. He hurried through the last clause; and
before there was time for a cry to come from below, he tore the paper
across and across with a passionate gesture, and scattered the pieces on
the heads of the crowd. The men, who had listened in silent submission
to what they thought were the final terms agreed upon, burst into a
great cheer. The dramatic touch had quickened the revulsion of feeling.
“There, gentlemen,” said Goddard, turning round to the representatives.
“I have burned your ships for you.”
A day or two afterwards Lady Phayre appeared upon the scene. She was
coming on business--not pleasure, she had informed her friends, and
accordingly laid house, carriages, and servants under requisition.
Mr. Christopher Wentworth, her host, was the leading member of the
Progressive League in the neighbourhood, and a humble vassal of Lady
Phayre. His wife’s interests in life extended from her husband’s throat,
which was delicate, to his digestive organs, which were dainty.
“So long as you don’t take Christopher to open-air meetings, Rhodanthe,”
she said to Lady Phayre, “and give him bronchitis, or make him late for
dinner, you can do exactly what you like.”
“Oh, I don’t want Christopher. He would be sadly in the way,” said Lady
Phayre, reassuringly. “I’ll make him stay at home and write letters and
collect funds.”
She summoned Goddard to wait upon her. He had already received two or
three daintily penned letters from London, and had been eagerly looking
forward to this one from Ecclesby itself.
He found her alone in the bright morning-room, radiant as Romney’s
Bacchante head of Lady Hamilton that hung on the wall, and wearing the
simplest of elegantly-cut blue serge costumes. Her sunniness almost
dazed his eyes, accustomed lately to the gloom of sordid homes and
pinched faces. She was eager to hear all the details of the situation;
drew from him an exhaustive report. Her presence lifted him into a
sanguine mood, filled him with a vague sweet sense of the triumph of
life.
“Now let me tell _you_ something,” she said when he had finished. “Don’t
say I am not a woman of character. I have been bursting with it since
you came into the room, and I have waited patiently. I have arranged a
surprise for you. I am going to institute at once a children’s halfpenny
tea-house. Haven’t you heard anything about it?”
“Not a word.”
“I am so glad.” She laughed, and clapped her hands. “It has all been
going on under your very nose. My own idea. It is the children that
suffer so. They don’t know why they should bear with hunger. So I am
going to give them a great breakfast or tea, with as much bread and
butter as they can eat, for a halfpenny.”
“But the funds?” asked Goddard.
“That is the greatest stroke of all,” replied Lady Phayre
enthusiastically. “I have inveigled a grant out of the League, and
the _Evening Chronicle_ has promised me to start a subscription list
to-night. I am negotiating for the use of the Salvation Army Barracks,
and Evans and Williams are going to contract for the meals. Haven’t I
been industrious?”
“You have,” said Goddard. “It will be a tremendous help to us.”
“You don’t mind my having kept it a secret from you?” she asked after
some further discussion; “I wanted it to come as a surprise to you--to
cheer you with a little unexpected help.”
She put her hands in her lap, and bent forward with a pretty air of
humility. A faint note of wistfulness in her voice increased its charm.
All Goddard could say was that the scheme had been perfect. He tried
to say more, but his unaccustomed brain refused to formulate in words
subtleties of emotion. But before leaving he had a sudden inspiration.
“I feel a different man since I have seen you,” he said abruptly; “I was
inclined to be harassed and despondent. Now---- ‘Strange how a smile of
God can change the world.’ That’s what you seem to be.”
Lady Phayre turned away her head and blushed. She knew it was like a
school-girl, but she could not help it. No one had ever told her quite
that before. The glimpse into spiritual things rather frightened her.
She did not know whether to be angry or pleased at being enraptured.
Like a wise woman, she decided upon indefiniteness. But she could not
hide a certain softness in her eyes as she bade him good-bye.
“I shall be in the Salvation Army Barracks at nine this evening. If you
could help me just a little--unless you are too busy?”
He promised, delighted, and went away on house-to-house visits in the
dark byways of the town, spreading everywhere, with great voice and
hearty gestures, the overflow of his happiness. He felt himself filled
with the spirit of victory. One man refused to be comforted.
“Strikes never did no good,” he said.
Goddard drew himself up, towered over him, and rated him for
pusillanimity. If he could have spoken his inmost heart, he would have
shouted--
“Man, don’t you see that I am unconquerable!”
And so for the next few days the men were held together and lifted by
the one man’s happiness.
Meanwhile the Children’s Tavern was a great success. Lady Phayre worked
indefatigably, serving herself, with other helpers, behind the trestles
ranged round the great bare hall and creaking beneath the load of great
tea-ums, mountains of bread and butter, and, in the morning, steaming
pans of porridge. Goddard loved to make his way through the crowd of
clamorous unwashed children to the place where Lady Phayre, deliciously
fresh in white bib-apron and turned-back cuffs, was busily dispensing
viands, receiving pence and halfpence from grubby little hands, and
paying for countless moneyless urchins from a great private store of
coppers by her side. And after the press was over, she would emerge from
behind the trestles and walk up and down the hall with him discussing
affairs.
Never had she seemed so near to him as now when a common interest united
them. But in Goddard’s fresh, newly-awakened idealism, it was not
her arm that brushed his on a common level, but it was her wings that
touched his head.
Sometimes he would meet her in the streets, on a round of visits among
such homes as she knew; sometimes he would see her sitting in the
dog-cart, with her host, on the outskirts of a crowd he was addressing.
Once she even persuaded him to accept a dinner invitation at the
Wentworths’. She grew more into his life daily.
The strain of his position, as arbiter of the struggle, grew more
intense. Rumours of the larger firms being backed up by the great
capitalist Rosenthal were gaining hopeless credence. At another
fruitless conference, one of the employers boasted that they could
maintain a lockout for a couple of years. Goddard summoned a great
mass-meeting of operatives, and gave the manufacturer the lie with
passionate vehemence. Once more he imposed his will upon them.
He was fighting this battle as he had never fought before. Every aim
of his life seemed to be merged in the issue. Not only were the great
principles of the rights of labour at stake, not only the present and
future happiness of this great community, but his own career seemed to
hang in the balance, and, in a strange, uncomprehended way, his credit
with Lady Phayre.
At last the London world began to clamour for Lady Phayre. A rift was
threatening to appear in the Progressive lute. “You only can put things
straight,” wrote Aloysius Gleam. “Fenton and Hendrick have bumped each
other’s heads in the dark, and they are angry with one another, and we
are all taking sides. You must bring them to kiss and make friends over
your dinner-table.” So Lady Phayre deliberated. She had one very good
reason for remaining at Ecclesby; but, on the other hand, she had fifty
little feminine ones for leaving it. The work she had taken in hand, the
Children’s Tavern, was in capital going order. She had already found
her own services, as attendant, superfluous. She was free to resign the
charge of it into competent hands. Why should she stay? It was not often
that Lady Phayre did not know her own mind. At last she compromised. She
would pay a visit to London, to effect the desired reconciliation, and
then return to Ecclesby.
“I don’t like leaving you at all,” she said to Goddard, the evening
before her departure. “It seems as if I am deserting you. But I shall
make haste back.”
“Ah, do!” said Goddard pleadingly. “The people have grown so fond of
you. And you are such a help to me.”
To atone for her defection, she had dismissed the carriage, and allowed
him to see her home after the tea at the Salvation Army Barracks. It was
already night, but the moon had risen, and lent a tenderness to things.
Lady Phayre was glad of its aid, for it was on her conscience to leave
Goddard with comfortable impressions.
“I have done very little,” she replied.
“You have advised me at every turn,” said Goddard.
“You have advised yourself while talking to me.”
“Anyhow, I could not have got on without you.”
“Believe it then, if it pleases you,” she said softly. “You can write me
a daily account of things, if you like--and I will go on ‘advising’ you.
Will that do?”
“You are too good to me,” he said fervently.
They walked on a little in silence. Then she asked him how much longer
he thought the strike would last.
“Another fortnight must see the end of the employers’ resources,” he
said with conviction. “The game of bluff can’t last longer.”
“And are you sure that the Rosenthal story is a myth?”
“As sure as I am that the moon is shining on your face.”
Upon the word, the moon disappeared behind a cloud. Lady Phayre started,
and touched his sleeve.
“Oh, what a bad omen!”
But Daniel laughed. Omens had no place in his downright philosophy.
“Well, Juliet calls the moon inconstant,” said Lady Phayre gaily. “So we
won’t believe it.”
“I only have to keep the men up till then,” said Goddard.
“And you will do it, Mr. Goddard,” she replied. “It will be a great
victory, and we shall all be so proud of you.”
So Goddard went to sleep that night with hope thrilling through his
dreams. And he woke up the next morning and went about his work, and
longed for Lady Phayre. She might be back in five days.
But before the five days were up, Rosenthal’s support of the Employers’
Association became a matter of public certainty.
“I will not believe it,” shouted Goddard to the grey-faced secretary.
“Nothing but the sight of Rosenthal’s cheque would convince me. If you
give in now, you’ll be throwing up the most glorious victory labour
ever won in this country. You are fools--wretched, cowardly, credulous
fools.”
But the tide of conviction had set in. He was powerless against it.
He strove with the passionate rage of his nature, exhausted himself in
wild, furious effort. The end came with overwhelming rapidity. Goddard
felt that he had lost his Waterloo.