THIS being a period of his life when Erb could do nothing wrong, the
unpremeditated experiment with fists had a result that seldom attends
efforts of the kind. Railton sent to Erb by post the following day an
elaborate letter of apology, in which he argued that Erb, by a quite
excusable error, had misunderstood what he (Railton) had intended to
convey; that he honoured Mr. Barnes for the attitude he had taken up
(which, under similar circumstances, would have been his own), that he
should of course carry out his engagement with the young lady whose name
it was unnecessary to mention, that he should ever retain an agreeable
memory of Mr. Barnes (to whose efforts in the cause of labour he begged
in passing to offer his best wishes), he trusted very sincerely that
their friendship would not be impaired by the unfortunate incident of the
preceding night. Thus Mr. Railton, with many an emphasising underline
and note of exclamation, and a flourish under the signature, intended to
convey the impression that here was a document of value to be preserved
for all time. On Erb discovering his elocution teacher--whose lessons he
now scarce required, but whose services as instructress in the art of
public oratory he continued for the sheer pleasure of listening to her
private speech--on Erb discovering her at his next visit with traces of
recent tears he insisted on knowing the cause, and was told, first, that
father had been borrowing seventeen shillings and sixpence, which she
would have to pay back, amount required in order, the Professor had
explained to the credulous lender, to enable him to purchase a comedy
which had a part that would fit the Professor like a glove ("I can see
myself in it," the Professor declared); and on Erb dismissing this
incident as too common for tears, Rosalind reluctantly showed him a
letter from the admirable Railton, written by that young gentleman at the
same time apparently as the communication he had sent to Erb: in this he
regretted time had not permitted him to call at Camberwell Gate, the loss
was his; but what he particularly wanted to say was that the farce of
their engagement need no longer be allowed to run. On neither side,
wrote Mr. Railton, had there been any real affection, and he was sure
that this formal intimation would be as great a relief to Rosalind as to
himself; he trusted she would find another good _fiance_, and he was,
with all regards, her friend and well-wisher, Lawrence Railton. Erb,
greatly concerned for Rosalind, told her nothing of the incident of the
benefit performance, but tried to comfort her with the suggestion that
Railton had probably written without thought.
"I am beginning to see," said Rosalind presently, "I am beginning to see
that I have at least one real friend in the world."
"One's ample," replied Erb stolidly.
With the men of the society the occurrence gave to Erb distinct
promotion. Something to have a quick mind with figures, something to be
ready of speech, something to be always at hand wherever in London a
railway carman was in trouble, but better than all these things was it to
be able to think of their secretary as one able to put up his fists.
Wherever he went, for a time, congratulations were shouted from the hood
of parcels carts or the high seat of pair-horse goods vans; boys hanging
by ropes at the tail boards giving a cheer as they went by. There is
nothing quite so dear and precious as the world's applause, and if here
and there a man should announce his distaste for it, the world may be
quite sure that this is said only to extort an additional and an undue
share. At the next committee meeting Erb was requested, with a good deal
of importance, by Payne, as chairman, to be good enough to leave the room
for ten minutes: on his return it was announced to him that, moved by G.
Spanswick, and seconded by H. R. Bates, a resolution had been carried,
according to Herbert Barnes, secretary, an increase in salary of twenty
pounds per annum. Erb announced this to his young white-faced sister,
and added to the announcement an order directing her to leave her factory
and look after the home in Page's Walk; but Louisa would not hear of
this, declaring that a humdrum life would never suit her, that she should
mope herself into a state of lunacy if Erb insisted, and that the money
could be laid out much more usefully on, first, a pianoforte; second, a
new suite of chairs for the sitting room in place of furniture which had
been in the Barnes family for two generations; third, in articles of
costume for Erb, and--if any sum remained--in something for herself.
They argued the point with desperate good humour from either side of the
table, until Erb found that she was really in earnest, and then he gave
in.
"You always have your own way, Louisa."
"Precious little use having anybody else's," she retorted sharply.
"You've got a knack of deciding questions," complained her brother,
good-temperedly, "that makes you a little debating society in yourself."
"There's something in connection with your society," went on Louisa,
encouraged, "that you might arrange if you'd got any gumption."
"Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that I have."
"It's this. When one of your single chaps gets engaged let him begin
paying into a wedding fund. You've got your strike funds and what not,
but you ain't got no wedding fund."
"We haven't any wedding fund," corrected Erb.
"Oh, never mind about grammar," said his young sister impetuously, "I'm
talking sense. Let them all pay a bob or so a week, and the one that
draws a good number gets his ten pound and goes off and gets married like
a shot. See what an interest it'd make the girls take in your society.
See how it'd make your young carmen sought after. See how fine it'd be
for them to start life on their own, instead of having to go on paying so
much a week for 'ire to the furniture shops. See how--"
"A reg'lar little orator," said Erb approvingly. "It must run in the
blood, I think. Besides, there's an idea in what you say."
"I never speak," said his sister with confidence, "without I say
something." She paused for a moment. "I suppose, Erb, that--that with
all this money coming in, you'll begin to think about getting--"
He put his knife and fork down and rose from his chair.
The marriage club was only one of the new features that Erb introduced to
the society, but it was the one which had a tinge of melancholy, in that
it appeared to him that he was almost alone in not having in hand a
successful affair of the heart. Lady Frances came frequently to
Bermondsey, where she threw herself with great earnestness into the
excellent work of providing amusing hours for children--children who had
never been taught games, and knew no other sport than that of imperilling
their little lives in the street. Erb, being seen with her one evening
as she returned from a Board School, there ensued at the next committee
meeting considerable badinage of a lumbering type; Payne declared that
Erb should join the wedding club in order that the happy pair should be
in a position to set up a house in Portman Square together; Spanswick
remarked with less of good temper, that some people's heads were getting
too big for their hats; whilst other members, ever ready to take part in
the fine old London sport of chipping, offered gibes. Erb retorted with
his usual readiness, and laughed at the suggestion; but afterwards found
himself fearing whether Lady Frances was, in point of fact, lavishing
upon him a hopeless affection. He had almost persuaded himself to admit
that this was the case, when his sister Alice made one of her
condescending calls at Page's Walk and gave, with other information, the
fact that the sweetheart of Lady Frances, a lieutenant, the Honourable
Somebody, had some time since been ordered away on a mission to the
North-West Coast of Africa; her young ladyship was, by this desperate
interest in the juveniles of Bermondsey, endeavouring to distract her
mind from thoughts of her absent lover. Erb breathed again and gave
assistance in managing the most trying boys at the "Happy Evenings." One
night, as he performed the duty of seeing Lady Frances through the
dimly-lighted streets to Spa Road Station, they met Rosalind and her
father. Rosalind flushed hotly, and Erb wondered why. He demanded of
her the reason at the next elocution lesson, and Rosalind said calmly,
that it was because at that moment she had given her second-best ankle a
twist.
Lady Frances brought to Erb an invitation that flattered him. Her uncle,
of Queen Anne's Mansions, a man in most of the money-making schemes of
London, but one never anxious to obtrude his own name or his own
personality, felt desirous of starting a movement for (to give the full
Christian names) "The Anglicising of Foreign Manufactures."
This Lady Frances explained to him, with her usual vivacity, the while
both kept an eye on some noisy Bermondsey infants, who were playing in
the hall of the Board School.
"Other countries are getting ahead of us, my uncle says, and unless
something is done at once, British trade (Now, children, do play without
quarrelling, please, to oblige me!), British trade will go down, and
down, and down, and there will be nothing left."
"Are things really so bad?"
"Oh, they're terrible," declared Lady Frances, with great cheerfulness.
"Apparently the bed-rock has almost been reached, and it is only by a
great and a unanimous effort that Great Britain will ever again be
enabled to get its head above water. So, at any rate, my uncle tells
me."
"I don't know--(Young Tommy Gibbons, if I catch you at that again you
know what will happen)--I don't know that I've ever studied the subject
in the large. My own society takes up nearly all my time, and other work
I leave to other people."
"Exactly, Mr. Barnes, exactly! I quite understand your position. But I
have such faith in my uncle. Do you know that nearly everything he
touches turns into money."
"Very agreeable gift."
"But the point is this, that nothing can be done unless capital and
labour work in unison for a common end. One is affected quite as much as
the other, and alone neither can do anything. British trades are being
snapped up by America, by France, by Germany, even by Belgium, the only
remedy, my uncle says, is for us to take some of their manufactures and
plant them here.--(I was sure you'd fall down and hurt your knee, little
boy. Come here and let me kiss the place and make it well)--I don't know
whether I make myself quite plain to you, Mr. Barnes?"
"In one sense you do," said Erb. "Only thing I can't see is, where your
uncle imagines that I come in."
A dispute between two children over a doll necessitated interference,
based on the judgment of Solomon.
"Obviously," replied the girl, delighted at the importance of her task,
"obviously, your work will be to organise."
"Organise what?"
"Meetings of working men to take up the idea, discussion in the halfpenny
papers, argument in workshops. In this way," she said, with her engaging
frankness, "in this way, you see, you could strengthen my uncle's hands."
"Not sure that that is the one desire of my life."
"I am so clumsy," deplored Lady Frances.
"Not more than most people."
"If you would only see my uncle and argue it out! He, I am sure, would
succeed where I," with a sigh, "where I so horribly fail."
"Look here," said Erb, hastily, "if it's any satisfaction to you, I'll
say at once that I'm with the movement, heart, body, and soul."
Lady Frances took his big hand and patted it thankfully.
"Can't tell you how pleased I am," she declared. "I'll send on all the
circulars and figures and things when I reach Eaton Square
to-night--(Children, children, you are tiresome, really)--and then you
can start work directly, can't you?"
A busy man always has time to spare; it is only your lazy person who can
never place a minute at anyone's disposal. Thus it was that Erb tacked
on to his other duties, the work of making known the Society for
Anglicising Foreign Manufactures, pressing into the service all the young
orators of his acquaintance, and furnishing them with short and easy
arguments. Our import trade was so many millions in excess of our
outgoing trade: why should this be so? Our villages were becoming
deserted, and country manufactories dwindled day by day: this must be
stopped. Vague talk about technical education; praise for the English
working man, and adulation of his extraordinary, but sometimes dormant
brain power; necessity of providing tasks for the rising generation that
they might not push men of forty out of berths. An agreeable programme,
one that could be promulgated without those submissive inquiries
addressed to the labour leaders in the House, which always had a
suggestion of servility. Erb, the following Sunday, spoke at Southwark
Park in the morning, at Peckham Rye in the afternoon, and Deptford
Broadway in the evening, and, the subject being new, he found himself
invited to address several working men's clubs during the week.
Paragraphs, slipped into the newspapers, sometimes contained his name:
Lady Frances wrote that her uncle was delighted, and had asked to be
especially remembered. A later note mentioned that it was intended to
hold a mass meeting at St. James's Hall, to bring the subject well before
the people of London: her uncle would not be able to be present, but he
had begged her to request Mr. Barnes to speak on this occasion: there
would be a Duchess of philanthropic tendencies in the chair, and several
members of Parliament had promised to speak. "Don't disappoint us!" said
the postscript appealingly. Erb sent an agreeable postcard in reply, and
a friend of his, an assistant-librarian in the Free Library, promised to
devote himself to work of research and ascertain how one addressed a lady
of such distinguished rank as the wife of a Duke. The
assistant-librarian urged that evening-dress was the correct thing, and
offered to lend a suit which he and his brother wore when they went out
into society, patronising dances at the Surrey Masonic Hall but here
Erb's commonsense interfered. The meeting was advertised in the daily
papers and on hoardings, his name given as Herbert Barnes, Esquire, with
full qualifications set out: he never saw one of the posters without
stopping to enjoy the sight, and it pained him extremely to find that on
one or two in the neighbourhood of home some friend had erased the affix.
Louisa went boldly one evening to the offices of the new society, in
College Street, Westminster, and obtained a copy of the poster; this she
would have exhibited in the front window, but compromised by sticking it
at its four corners on the wall of the sitting room.
St. James's Hall was not over-crowded on the evening, and a wealthy
member of the committee went about telling everybody that a smaller room
would have been cheaper, but it was full enough to please Erb as he took
a view of it from the stairs leading to the platform. The platform was
fringed with palms; on the walls were hung banners, with quotations from
Shakespeare down to the newest poet; quotations, that appeared to give
vague support to the movement. Lady Frances, hovering about in the
manner of an anxious butterfly, introduced Erb to the Duchess, and the
Duchess, without using her lorgnon, said beamingly that she had read all
of Mr. Barnes's works, and felt quite too delighted to meet the author;
Erb protested nervously that he had never written a book, but the Duchess
waved this aside as ineffective badinage, and went on talking the while
she looked away through her glasses at arriving people. So delighted,
said the Duchess absently, to mingle with men of talent; it took one into
another atmosphere. The Duchess, for her part, claimed to have powers of
observation, and trusted piously that she was not altogether without a
sense of humour, but these exceptional qualities, she said, had never
availed her when she took pen in hand. Erb, perceiving the futility of
contradiction, suggested that she should one day, when a spare moment
arrived, have another dash at it, and the Duchess, bringing her gaze by a
process of exhaustion round to him, stared at him wonderingly for a
moment, and then promised to act upon his advice. A shy little man of
letters being submitted just then to her consideration, the Duchess
dropped Erb, and engaged in animated monologue on the subject of labour
and how to conciliate it: her own method seemed to be to treat it as an
elephant and give it buns. Erb stood about the room, whilst well-dressed
people flew one to the other with every sign of gratification; he felt
all his usual difficulty of not knowing what to do with his hands. The
people had a manner of speech that he could understand with difficulty,
they talked of things that for him were a sealed book. Three clergymen
who came in a bunch and seemed similarly out of the movement, gave him a
feeling of companionship. When they all formed in a line and marched up
on the platform to a mild, whispered cheering from the Hall, Erb's
interest quickened, and the slight feeling of nervousness came which
always affected him when he was going to speak.
"And I _do_ think," said the Duchess, with shrill endeavour to make her
voice reach the back of the hall, "I _do_ think that the more we consider
such matters the more likely we are to understand them and to realise
what they mean, and to gain a better and a wider and a truer knowledge."
The three clergymen said, "Good, good," in a burst of respectful
approbation, as men suddenly illuminated by a new thought. "I am tempted
to go further," said the Duchess, waving her notes threateningly at the
audience, "to go further, and express myself, if I may so say, that
having put our hands to the plough--" She looked round at the straight
line of folk behind her, and they endeavoured to convey by their looks
that if a Duchess could not be allowed the use of daring metaphor, then
it would have to be denied to everybody. "Having put our hands to the
plough, we shall not turn back--(slight cheering)--we shall not
falter--(renewed slight cheering)--we shall not loiter by the roadside,
but we shall go steadily on, knowing well that--that--" Here the Duchess
found her notes and read the last words of her peroration carefully,
"knowing well that our goal is none other than the rising sun, which
symbolises so happily the renaissance--" Here she looked down at the
reporters' table, and seemed about to spell the word, but refraining
contented herself by saying it again with great distinctness. "The
renaissance of British Trade and British Supremacy!"
A service member of Parliament proposed the first resolution, and did so
in a speech that would have suited any and every occasion on sea or land,
in that it was made up entirely of platitudes, and included not one
argument that could be seized by the most contentious; the whole
brightened by what the member of Parliament himself described as a most
amusing discussion which he had held with a man of the labouring classes
not many years since (on which occasion the member had travelled second,
this being notoriously the only way of discovering the true aspirations
of the lower classes), and the member had subjected the man to a rigid
cross-examination of the most preposterous and useless nature which he
now repeated with many an "Ah, but I said--" and "Now listen to me, my
good fellow--" and "Permit me to explain what I mean in simple words so
that even you can understand," the labouring man eventually giving in
(so, at any rate, the Member declared), admitting that the gallant Member
had won the game at every point--the probability being that the poor
fellow, bullied and harried by a talkative bore, had done so in the
interests of peace and with a desire to be let alone and allowed to read
his evening paper. The service Member clearly prided himself not only on
the acuteness which he had displayed in the argument, but also on the
wonderful imitative faculty which enabled him to reproduce the dialect of
his opponent, a dialect which seemed to have been somewhat mixed, for in
one instance he spoke Lancashire with, "Aye, ah niver thowt o' that," and
the next broad Somerset, "There be zummat in what yew zay, zir," and anon
in a strange blend of Irish and Scotch.
"'That this meeting calls upon the working classes to put aside all
differences and to contribute their indispensable assistance to the new
movement, from which they themselves have so much to gain.' Will Mr.
Herbert Barnes please second?"
This was written on the slip of paper, and passed along to Erb at a
moment when the grisly fear had begun to possess him that he might not be
called upon at all. He nodded to the secretary, and felt that the
audience, now tired of listening to spoken words, looked at him
doubtfully. One of the three clergymen being selected to move the
resolution, the other two looked at their shoes with a pained interest,
and presently tugged at their black watch-guards, ascertained the time,
and, just before the chosen man arose, slipped quietly out. Fortunately
for Erb, the remaining clergyman started on a line of reasoning
excellently calculated to annoy and to stimulate. Began by pointing out
that everybody nowadays worked excepting the working man, doubted whether
it was of much use offering to him help, but declaring himself, in
doleful tones, an optimist, congratulated the new movement on its
courage, its altruism, its high nobility of purpose, and managed, before
sitting down, to intimate very defiantly that unless labour seized this
unique opportunity, then labour must be left to shift for itself and
could no longer expect any assistance from him.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" said Erb distinctly. The promise of listening to
a voice that could be heard without difficulty aroused the Hall. "I
should be glad if the gentleman who spoke last could spare just three
minutes of his time, and refrain for that space from making a hurried and
somewhat undignified departure from the Hall." The clergyman who had
adopted the crouching attitude of those who desire to escape furtively
from close confinement, returned and sat, his back straightened. "He has
spoke--I should say, he has spoken--in a patronising way of labour, and I
want to tell him that we resent very strongly his condescending and
almost contemptuous words."
His predecessor rose and said, "May it please your--"
"No, no, no!" said Erb, with but a slight modification of his Southwark
Park manner, "I didn't interrupt the reverend gentleman, and I'm not
going to allow him to interrupt me. Or to assume the duties, your
Grace," with a nod to the chair, "which you perform with such conspicuous
charm and ability."
The Duchess, who, fearing a row, had been anxiously consulting those
around her in order to gain hints as to procedure, recovered confidence
on receiving this compliment, and gave a smile of relief. Men at the
table below adjusted their black leaves of carbonic paper and began to
write.
"Now, I've been into the details almost as carefully as the reverend
gentleman has, and what I want to say, in order that this audience should
not consider that we are absolutely silly fools, is, that so far from
this movement having been arranged in order to benefit the workers
exclusively, it is very clear to me that there's a few behind the scenes
who are going to make a bit out of it."
One cry of approval came from the distant gallery, but this scarcely
counted, for it was a voice that had applauded contrary statements with
the same decision. Erb knew the owner of the voice, a queer old crank,
who went about to public meetings, his pockets bursting with newspapers,
more than content if in the Free Library the next day he should find but
one of his solitary cries of "Hear, hear," reported in the daily press.
"I've no doubt they feel pretty certain of a safe eight or ten per cent.;
if they didn't, this meeting would never have been held, and we should
have been denied the pleasure of listening to that lucid and illuminating
speech with which your Grace has favoured us. I say this that the
previous speaker may see and that you all may recognise the fact that if
those I represent give the cause any assistance, we do so with our eyes
wide open, and that we are not blindfolded by the cheap flannel sort of
arguments to which we have just listened. But let me go on. Because
this is going to be a soft thing for the capitalists, it by no means
follows that it is going to be a hard thing for the worker. On the
contrary! I can see--or I think I can see--that this is likely to
benefit both of us. (Cheers.) And whilst I repudiate the attitude and
the arguments of the last speaker, I promise you that I am prepared to do
all that I can for the scheme--(cheers)--not in the interests of capital,
for capital can look after itself, but in the interests of labour, which
sometimes wants a lot of looking after. Your Grace, I beg to second the
resolution."
Not a great speech by any means, but one with the golden virtue of
brevity, and one spoken with obvious earnestness. The Hall liked it; the
subsequent speakers made genial references to it, and the Duchess, in
acknowledging a vote of thanks, repaid Erb for his compliment to herself
by prophesying that Mr. Barnes would prove a pillar of strength to the
cause, declaring graciously that she should watch his career with
interest, and gave him a fierce smile that seemed to hint that this in
itself was sufficient to ensure success. (Later, when he said goodbye,
the Duchess called him Mr. Blenkinsop, and begged him to convey her
kindest regards to his dear wife.)
"I wonder," said a gentleman with concave spectacles, "I wonder, now,
whether you have a card about you?"
"Going to do a trick?" asked Erb.
"Here's mine. Have you ever thought of entering the House?"
"Someone would have to provide me with a latch-key."
"I take you!" remarked the spectacled gentleman adroitly. "Don't happen
to be Welsh, I suppose, by any chance? Ah! a pity!"
For a moment it occurred to Erb that this might be a sample of
aristocratic chaff; he stopped his retort on seeing that the other was
talking with perfect seriousness. "But something else may happen at any
moment. We live in strange times."
"We always do," said Erb.
"I shall keep you in my mind."
Lady Frances eluded some dowagers who were bearing down upon her, and
came to him; she took an envelope from a pretty hiding place.
"My uncle particularly begged me to give you this. You were so good, Mr.
Barnes. (Don't open it until you get home.) Your speech was just what
one wanted. You quite cleared the air."
"Afraid I should clear the 'All." Lady Frances seemed not to comprehend,
and the knowledge came to Erb that he had missed an aspirate.
"My uncle will be so pleased. I shall be down at Bermondsey next week,
and I can bring any message my uncle wishes to send. I don't bother you,
Mr. Barnes?"
"Need you ask?" replied Erb.
"You're not going?" with her gloved hand held out.
Erb took the hint and made his exit with difficulty, because several
ladies buzzed around him, humming pleasant words. The spectacled man
walked with him along Piccadilly, talking busily, and expressed a desire
to take Erb into the club for coffee. "Only that my place is so deucedly
uncivil to visitors." He contented himself with a threat that Erb should
most certainly hear from him again.
"I shan't lose your address," said the spectacled person.
It was not until the Committee Meeting of the R.C.S. had nearly finished
one evening that Erb, in searching for a letter which some members
desired to see, found the note from Lady Frances's uncle. He tore the
flap casually, and, recognising it, placed the opened envelope aside, and
pursued his searches for the required document. Spanswick, with a busy
air of giving assistance, looked through the letters, and opened the
communication which Lady Frances had brought.
"Pardon, old man," whispered Spanswick confidentially. "Didn't know I
was interfering with money matters."