Produced by Al Haines.
*WILLIAM
AN ENGLISHMAN*
BY
CICELY HAMILTON
London
SKEFFINGTON & SON, LTD.
34 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 2.
PUBLISHERS TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING
1919
*WILLIAM--AN ENGLISHMAN*
*CHAPTER I*
William Tully was a little over three-and-twenty when he emerged from
the chrysalis stage of his clerkdom and became a Social Reformer. His
life and doings until the age of twenty-three, had given small promise
of the distinction of his future career; from a mild-mannered,
pale-faced and under-sized boy he had developed into a mild-mannered,
pale-faced little adult standing five foot five in his boots. Educated
at a small private school in the suburbs of London, his record for
conduct was practically spotless and he once took a prize for Divinity;
further, to the surprise and relief of his preceptors, he managed to
scrape through the Senior Cambridge Local Examination before he was
transferred to a desk in the office of a London insurance company. His
preceptor-in-chief, in a neatly-written certificate, assured his future
employers that they would find him painstaking and obedient--and
William, for the first six years of his engagement, lived up to the
character given him. His mother, a sharp-eyed, masterful woman, had
brought him up to be painstaking and obedient; it might be said with
truth that as long as she lived he did not know how to be otherwise. It
is true he disliked his office superiors vaguely, for the restrictions
they placed upon his wishes--just as, for the same reason, he vaguely
disliked his mother; but his wishes being indeterminate and his ambition
non-existent, his vague dislike never stiffened into active resentment.
It would seem that the supreme effort of passing his Cambridge Local had
left him mentally exhausted for a season; at any rate, from the
conclusion of his school-days till he made the acquaintance of Faraday,
his reading was practically confined to romantic and humorous
literature. He was a regular patron of the fiction department of the
municipal lending library and did not disdain to spend modestly on
periodicals of the type of _Snappy Bits_. He was unable to spend more
than modestly because his earnings, with the exception of a small sum
for fares and pocket-money, were annexed by his mother each Saturday as
a matter of normal routine. The manner of her annexation made
discussion singularly difficult; and if William ever felt stirrings of
rebellion over the weekly cash delivery he was careful never to betray
them.
With his colleagues of the office Tully was a negligible quantity. He
was not unpopular--it was merely that he did not matter. His mother's
control of the family funds was no doubt in part accountable for his
comrades' neglect of his society; but his own habits and manners were
still more largely to blame, since besides being painstaking and
obedient he was unobtrusive and diffident. There was once a project on
foot in the office to take him out and make him drunk--but nothing came
of it because no one was sufficiently interested in William to give up
an evening to the job.
The crisis in his hitherto well-ordered life came when his mother died
suddenly. This was in October 1910. William had gone to the office as
usual that morning, leaving his mother apparently in her usual health;
he returned in the evening to blinds already drawn down. A neighbour
(female) was in waiting in the sitting-room and broke the great news
with a sense of its importance and her own; she took William's hand,
told him with sniffs that it was the will of the Lord, and entered into
clinical details. William sat down rather suddenly when he realized
that there would be no one in future to annex his weekly earnings; then,
shocked by his lack of filial feeling, he endeavoured to produce an
emotion more suited to the solemn occasion. Disconcerted by a want of
success which he feared was apparent to his audience, he fidgeted,
dry-eyed and awkward--and finally, all things considered, acted well and
wisely by demanding to be left alone. To his relief the demand was
accepted as reasonable and proper in the first moments of his grief; the
sympathizer withdrew, wiping her eyes--unnecessarily--and hoping that
God would support him. He locked the door stealthily and stared at his
mother's armchair; he was a little afraid of its emptiness, he was also
shocked and excited. He knew instinctively that more was to happen,
that life from now on would be something new and different.... The
arm-chair was empty; the masterful little woman who had borne him,
slapped him, managed him and cowed him--the masterful little woman was
dead! There was no one now to whom he was accountable; no one of whom he
was afraid.... He walked on tiptoe round the tiny room, feeling
strangely and pleasantly alive.
The next day increased the sense of his new-found importance; his mother
had died rich, as he and she understood riches. She had trusted her son
in nothing, not even with the knowledge of her income, and after the
stinting and scraping to which she had accustomed him he was amazed to
find himself master of a hundred and fifty pounds a year, the interest
on capital gradually and carefully invested. In his amazement--at first
incredulous--he trod on air, while his mind wandered hazily over the
glorious possibilities of opulent years to come; the only alloy in his
otherwise supreme content being the necessity for preserving (at least
until the funeral was over) a decent appearance of dejection. He felt,
too, the need of a friend in whom to confide, some one of his own age
and standing before whom it would not be needful to keep up the
appearance of dejection and who would not be shocked at the babblings of
his stirred and exultant soul; and it was this natural longing for a
confidant which, on the day following his mother's funeral, led to the
beginning of his friendship with his fellow-clerk, Faraday.
The head of his department, meeting him in the passage, had said a few
perfunctory and conventional words of condolence--whereto William had
muttered a sheepish "Thank you, sir," and escaped as soon as might be.
The familiar office after his four days' estrangement from it affected
him curiously and unpleasantly; he felt his newly-acquired sense of
importance slipping gradually away from him, felt himself becoming once
again the underling and creature of routine--the William Tully, obedient
and painstaking, who had earned from his childhood the favourable
contempt of his superiors. It was borne in on him as the hours went by
that it was not enough to accept good fortune--good fortune had to be
made use of; and he began to make plans in an irregular, tentative
fashion, biting the end of his pen and neglecting his work. Should he
chuck the office? and if he chucked it, what then? ... Here imagination
failed him; his life had been so ordered, so bound down and directed by
others, that even his desires were tamed to the wishes of others and
left to himself he could not tell what he desired. The need for
sympathy and guidance became imperative; driving him, when the other
occupants of the room had departed for lunch, to unbosom himself to
Faraday.
In his longing to talk he would have addressed himself almost to any
one; but on the whole, and in spite of an entire ignorance of his habits
and character, he was glad it was Faraday who was left behind to hear
him--a newcomer, recently transferred from another branch and, as
William realized (if only half-consciously) like himself regarded by
their fellow-clerks as a bit of an outsider. A sallow-faced young man,
dark-haired and with large hazel eyes, he was neatly garbed as became an
insurance clerk; but there was a suggestion of discomfort about his
conventional neatness, just as there was a suggestion of effort about
his personal cleanliness. He worked hard and steadily; taking no part in
the interludes of blithesome chat wherewith his companions enlivened
their hours of toil and appearing to be satisfied rather than annoyed by
the knowledge of his own isolation. He had spoken to William but two or
three times and always in the way of business--nor was his profile bent
over a ledger particularly suggestive of sympathy; William's emotions,
however, had reached exploding-point, and the door had hardly closed
behind the last of their fellows when he blurted out, "I say," and
Faraday raised his head.
"I say," William blurted again, "did you know--my mother's dead?"
"Ah--yes," said Faraday uncomfortably; he believed he was being appealed
to for sympathy, and fidgeted, clearing his throat; "I--I had heard it
mentioned. I needn't say I'm very sorry--extremely.... I suppose you
were very much attached to her?"
William reflected for a moment and then answered honestly, "No."
"Indeed!" Faraday returned, surprised as well as uncomfortable. Not
knowing what further to say, his eyes went back to the ledger and the
conversation languished. It was William who resumed it--wondering at
the difficulty of expressing his bubbling emotions.
"I don't mean to say," he explained with a twinge of remorse, "that I
had anything to complain of. My mother always did her duty by me. But
we weren't what you might call sympathetic."
"Indeed!" Faraday repeated--still at sea as to the motive of the
conversation.
"It was unfortunate," William went on, "but it couldn't be helped. I am
sure she was a very good woman." (He said this with the more confidence
because, from his childhood up, he had always associated goodness with
lack of amiability.) "But that wasn't what I wanted to say. What I
wanted to say was, she has left me a good deal of money."
"Indeed?" said Faraday for the third time; adding something about
"congratulation." He hoped the episode was over--but William was only
beginning.
"I've been wondering," he said, "what I should do--now that I'm
independent. I don't want to go on like this. It's a waste--when
you've got money. But I don't know how to set about things.... If some
one would put me in the way!"
Faraday, raising his eyes from the ledger, met the wistful appeal in
William's and imagined himself enlightened.
"I see," he said interrogatively; "then you haven't got your living to
earn--you are not tied here any longer? You can direct your own life
and take up any line you choose?"
"Yes," William assented, pleased with the phrase; "I can direct my own
life--certainly."
"Which," Faraday suggested, "was difficult for you before?"
"Very," said William emphatically.
"And," the other went on, "now that you are your own man you wish to
take the line that attracts you and be of some use?"
"Oh, certainly," William assented again--perhaps a shade less
emphatically. So far his ideas had run more upon pleasure than
usefulness.
Faraday reflected with his chin resting on his hand.
"Why have you asked me?" he demanded suddenly--with the accent strongly
on the "me."
"I know so few people," William explained humbly. "I mean, of course,
people who could give me any ideas.... I thought you wouldn't mind--at
least I hoped you wouldn't.... I know it's unusual--but if you could
help me in any way? ... With suggestions, you know."
Again Faraday reflected with his chin resting on his hand.
"I could put you," he said at last, "in touch with people who might help
you. I should be very pleased to do so.... Of course, I should like to
know more of you first--what your views are----"
"Of course," William agreed vaguely, puzzled partly by the words and
partly by the enigmatic manner.
"If you've nothing else to do," Faraday continued, "perhaps you'll come
round to my rooms to-night for a talk? Say at half-past eight. We
could discuss things more comfortably there."
William, still puzzled by the hint of mystery in his manner, murmured
that he also should be very pleased, and Faraday gave him the
address--returning forthwith to his ledger in sign that he considered
the incident closed for the present. He had a distinctly authoritative
way with him, and William, who would gladly have continued the subject,
had perforce to be content with wondering what the night's discussion
and exchange of "views" would bring forth; an evening spent away from
home was so rare an event in his life that the prospect of his visit to
Faraday's rooms afforded him food for an afternoon's busy speculation.
His own domicile being in the region of Camberwell, he did not return to
it after office hours but whiled away the time by dinner at an Oxford
Street Lyons--secretly glorying in the length of his bill and
contrasting his power of spending what he liked with the old days of
doled-out allowance. He rang down a sovereign at the pay-desk, gathered
up his change and strolled out of the building with an air--and at
half-past eight precisely found himself outside Faraday's lodgings in a
mournful side-street in Bloomsbury. A shabby maid-servant ushered him
upstairs to a shabby, paper-strewn room where Faraday, pipe in mouth,
rose to greet him.
They were not long in finding out that the invitation had been given and
accepted under a misapprehension on both sides. Faraday, as soon as he
had settled his guest in a chair, came straight to the point with "Now
tell me--how long have you been interested in social questions?"
"In social questions?" William repeated blankly. "I'm afraid I don't----
What sort of questions do you mean?"
It was Faraday's turn to be taken aback, and, though he did not say it,
his eyes looked. "Then what the devil----?" William's fell before them
nervously, and he shifted in his chair like a child detected in a
blunder.
"I'm afraid I don't----" he said again--and halted.
"Then you didn't know," his companion queried, "that I am 'Vindex' of
_The Torch_?"
"I'm afraid not," muttered William, who had heard neither of one nor the
other.
"Vindex" of _The Torch_ sighed inwardly. He was young, ambitious,
fiercely in earnest and ever on the look-out for his Chance; and, the
wish being father to the thought, he had momentarily mistaken William
for an embodiment of his Chance and dreamed dreams since the
morning--dreams of a comrade like-minded and willing to be led, whose
newly-inherited riches might be used to endow a periodical that should
preach a purer and more violent rebellion even than _The Torch_ itself.
With the aid of William's three pounds a week--magnified many times over
in the eyes of his eager mind--he had seen himself casting the hated
insurance behind him and devoting himself heart and pen to the
regeneration of the State and Race by means of the Class War. And
lo!--as a couple more searching questions revealed to him--in place of a
patron and comrade was a nervous little nincompoop, bewildered at
finding himself for the first time out of leading-strings, to whom a
hundred and fifty a year was wealth untold and who had never so much as
heard of the Class War! For a moment he was more than half inclined to
be angry with the nervous little nincompoop whose blundering, egoistic
attempt at confidence had induced him to believe that the secret of his
identity had been penetrated by an ardent sympathizer. (It was an open
secret in "advanced" circles, though carefully guarded in the office.)
Then, more justly, he softened, recognizing that the blunder was his
own, the mistake of his own making--and, pitying William's dropped jaw
and open confusion, poured him out a whisky and endeavoured to set him
at his ease.
That evening in the company of Faraday and his first whisky was the
turning-point in the career of William Tully. Any man stronger than
himself could at that juncture in his life have turned him to right or
left; a push in the wrong direction would have made of him an idler and
a wastrel, and fate was in a kindly mood when she placed him mentally
and morally in charge of "Vindex" of _The Torch_. She might, as her
reckless way is, have handed over his little soul to some flamboyant
rogue or expert in small vices; instead, she laid it in the keeping of a
man who was clean-living, charged with unselfish enthusiasm and never
consciously dishonest. The product of a Board School Scholarship and a
fiercely energetic process of self-education (prompted in part by the
desire to excel those he despised) Faraday, when William made his
acquaintance, was beginning to realize some of his cherished ambitions,
beginning, in certain Labour and Socialist circles, to be treated as a
man of mark. His pen was fluent as well as sarcastic, and if his
numerous contributions to the "rebel" press had been paid for at
ordinary rates he would have been a prosperous journalist.
It was somewhat of a shock to William to discover on the top of the
whisky that his new acquaintance was a Socialist; but after the first
and momentary shock he swallowed the fact as he had swallowed the
alcohol--not because he liked it, but because it was something the
narrow circle of his mother's friends would have heartily and loudly
disapproved of. This reactionary and undutiful attitude of mind was not
deliberate or conscious; on the contrary, he would certainly have been
horrified to learn that it was the dominant factor in his existence
during the first few weeks of his emancipation from maternal supervision
and control--urging him to drink deeply of Faraday's brand of Socialism
as it urged him to partake with unnecessary sumptuousness of the best
that Lyons could provide.
He acquired the taste for Faraday's political views more thoroughly and
easily than the taste for Faraday's whisky. The man's authoritative and
easy manner, the manner which stood him in good stead with his
audiences, of assuming (quite honestly) that his statements were proven
facts which no sane human being could dispute, would have made it
impossible for William to combat his opinions even had his limited
reading and thinking supplied him with material for the contest. He was
impressed with Faraday's erudition no less than with Faraday's manner;
and impressed still more when, later in the evening, a colleague of _The
Torch_ dropped in for a smoke and a chat. The pair talked Labour and
International movements with the careless ease of connoisseurs and
bandied the names of politicians contemptuously from mouth to
mouth--William sitting by in a silence dazed and awed, drinking in a
language that attracted by its wild incomprehensibility and suggestion.
His mind was blank and virgin for the sowing of any seed; and under
Faraday's influence his dull, half-torpid resentment against the
restrictions, physical and mental, of his hitherto narrow life became
merged in a wider sympathy with the general discomfort, in an honest and
fiery little passion for Justice, Right and Progress. That, of course,
was not the affair of one evening's talk; but even the one evening's
talk sowed the seeds. He went away from it uncomfortably conscious that
as yet he had lived solely for himself, never troubling his head
concerning the evils that men like Faraday were fighting to overcome.
The manner of his future living was decided for him when he knocked at
the door of Faraday's Bloomsbury lodging.
His simple and awed admiration for his new-found friend and faith had in
all probability more than a little to do with Faraday's readiness to
allow the acquaintance to continue--even a rebel prophet is not
insensible to flattery. William became for a time his satellite and
pupil, the admiring sharer of his schemes, of his hatreds and laudable
ambitions; he read Faraday's vehement articles and accepted each word
and line. His very blankness of mind made him an apt pupil, and within
a month of his mother's death he was living, out of office hours, in a
whirl of semi-political agitation, attending meetings and cramming his
head with pamphlets. In three months more all his hours were
out-of-office hours; in his enthusiasm for his new creed and interests
his neglect of his professional duties had become so marked that the
manager, after one or two warnings, called him into his room for a
solemn and last reprimand. As it happened, Faraday, the night before,
had confided to William the news of his approaching appointment to the
post of organizing secretary of the Independent Socialist Party, an
appointment which would entail a speedy retirement from his hated desk
in the City. The news, naturally, had not increased the attraction of
the office for William, in whom the spirit of revolt had already
fermented to some purpose; thus, to the infinite surprise of his
superiors, who had known him hitherto as the meekest of meek little
clerks, the threat of dismissal failing improvement was countered by a
prompt resignation as truculent as William could make it. In fact, in
the exhilaration of the moment, he treated the astonished representative
of capitalism to something in the nature of a speech--culled principally
from the writings of "Vindex."
From that day onwards he devoted himself to what he termed public
life--a ferment of protestation and grievance; sometimes genuine,
sometimes manufactured or, at least, artificially heightened. He was an
extremist, passionately well-intentioned and with all the extremist's,
contempt for those who balance, see difficulties and strive to give the
other side its due. He began by haunting meetings as a listener and a
steward; Faraday's meetings at first, then, as his circle of
acquaintance and interest widened, any sort of demonstration that
promised a sufficiency of excitement in the form of invective. The
gentlest of creatures by nature and in private life, he grew to delight
in denunciation, and under its ceaseless influence the world divided
itself into two well-marked camps; the good and enlightened who agreed
with him, and the fools and miscreants who did not.... In short, he
became a politician.
As I have said, at the outset of his career he modestly confined his
energies to stewarding--to the sale of what propagandist bodies insist
on describing as "literature," the taking of tickets, ushering to seats
and the like; but in a short time ambition fired him and the fighting
spirit thereby engendered led him to opposition meetings where, on
Faraday's advice, he tried heckling the enemy speakers. His first and
flustered attempts were not over-successful, but, sustained by
revolutionary enthusiasm, he refused to be crushed by failure and
accompanying jeers and held doggedly on to his purpose. Repeated
efforts brought their measure of success, and he began to be marked by
his comrades as a willing and valuable member.
Within a year, he had found his feet and was a busy and full-blown
speaker--of the species that can be relied on to turn on, at any moment,
a glib, excited stream of partisan fact and sentiment. His services
were in constant demand, since he spoke for anything and
everything--provided only the promoters of the meeting were sufficiently
violent in their efforts to upset the prevailing order. He had
developed and was pleased with himself; Faraday, though still a great
man in his eyes, was more of an equal than an idol. He was wonderfully
happy in his new, unrestful existence; it was not only that he knew he
was doing great good and that applause uplifted him and went to his head
like wine; as a member of an organization and swayed by its collective
passion, he attained to, and was conscious of, an emotional (and, as he
thought, intellectual) activity of which as an individual he would have
been entirely incapable. As a deceased statesman was intoxicated with
the exuberance of his own verbosity, so William was intoxicated with the
exuberance of his own emotions. There were moments when he looked back
on his old life and could hardly believe he was the same William Tully
who once, without thought of the Social Revolution, went daily from
Camberwell to the City and back from the City to Camberwell.... As time
went on, he was entrusted with "campaigns" and the stirring up of
revolt; and it was a proud day for him when a Conservative evening
paper, in connection with his share in a mining agitation, referred to
him as a dangerous man. He wondered, with pity for her blindness, what
his mother would have thought if any one had told her in her lifetime
that her son would turn out dangerous.
As a matter of course he was a supporter of votes for women; an adherent
(equally as a matter of course) of the movement in its noisiest and most
intolerant form. He signed petitions denouncing forcible feeding and
attended meetings advocating civil war, where the civil warriors
complained with bitterness that the other side had hit them back; and
his contempt for the less virulent form of suffragist was as great as
his contempt for the Home Secretary and the orthodox members of the
Labour Party. It was at one of these meetings, in December 1913, that
he met Griselda Watkins.
Griselda Watkins, then a little under twenty-five, was his exact
counterpart in petticoats; a piece of blank-minded, suburban
young-womanhood caught into the militant suffrage movement and enjoying
herself therein. She was inclined to plumpness, had a fresh complexion,
a mouth slightly ajar and suggestive of adenoids, and the satisfied
expression which comes from a spirit at rest. Like William, she had
found peace of mind and perennial interest in the hearty denunciation of
those who did not agree with her.
On the night when William first saw her she wore, as a steward, a white
dress, a sash with the colours of her association and a badge denoting
that she had suffered for the Cause in Holloway. Her manner was
eminently self-conscious and assured, but at the same time almost
ostentatiously gracious and womanly; it was the policy of her particular
branch of the suffrage movement to repress manifestations of the
masculine type in its members and encourage fluffiness of garb and
appeal of manner. Griselda, who had a natural weakness for cheap
finery, was a warm adherent of the policy, went out window-smashing in a
picture-hat and cultivated ladylike charm.
She introduced herself to William after the meeting with a compliment on
his speech, which had been fiery enough even for her; they both
considered the compliment graceful and for a few minutes exchanged
sympathetic platitudes on martyrdom, civil war and the scoundrelly
behaviour of the Government. Even in those first few minutes they were
conscious of attraction for each other and pleased to discover, in the
course of their talk, that they should meet again next week on another
militant platform.
They met and re-met--at first only on platforms, afterwards more
privately and pleasantly. William, when his own meetings did not claim
him, took to following Griselda about to hers, that he might listen
entranced to the words of enthusiastic abuse that flowed from her
confident lips; he had heard them all before and from speakers as
confident, but never before had they seemed so inspired and inspiring,
never before had he desired with trembling to kiss the lips that uttered
them. Griselda, touched as a woman and flattered as an orator by his
persistent presence in her audience, invited him to tea at her aunt's
house in Balham; the visit was a success, and from that evening (in
early March) the end was a foregone conclusion. Their friendship
ripened so fast that one night at the beginning of April (1914) William,
escorting her home from a meeting, proposed to her on the top of an
otherwise empty 'bus, and was duly and sweetly accepted.
There were none of the customary obstacles in the way of the happy
pair--on the contrary, all was plain sailing. William's original income
had for some years been augmented by his earnings as a speaker, and
Griselda's parents had left her modestly provided for. Her aunt, long
since converted to the Movement (to the extent of being unable to talk
of anything but forcible feeding), smiled blessings on so suitable a
match and proceeded to consider the trousseau; and after a little
persuasion on part the wedding was fixed for July.
*CHAPTER II*
The mating of William and Griselda might be called an ideal mating;
theirs were indeed two hearts that beat as one. With each day they were
happier in each other's company; their minds as it were flowed together
and intermingled joyously--minds so alike and akin that it would have
been difficult, without hearing the voice that spoke it, to distinguish
an utterance of Griselda from an idea formulated by William. Their
prominent blue eyes--they both had prominent blue eyes--looked out upon
the world from exactly the same point of view; and as they had been
trained by the same influences and were incapable of forming an
independent judgment, it would not have been easy to find cause of
disagreement between them. There are men and women not a few who find
their complement in their contrast; but of such were not William and
Griselda. Their standard of conduct was rigid and their views were
pronounced; those who did not share their views and act in conformity
with their standards were outside the pale of their liking. And this not
because they were abnormally or essentially uncharitable, but because
they had lived for so long less as individuals than as members of
organizations--a form of existence which will end by sucking charity out
of the sweetest heart alive.
It was well for them, therefore, that their creed, like their code of
manners and morals, was identical or practically identical. It was a
simple creed and they held to it loyally and faithfully. They believed
in a large, vague and beautifully undefined identity, called by William
the People, and by Griselda, Woman; who in the time to come was to
accomplish much beautiful and undefined Good; and in whose service they
were prepared meanwhile to suffer any amount of obloquy and talk any
amount of nonsense. They believed that Society could be straightened
and set right by the well-meaning efforts of well-meaning souls like
themselves--aided by the Ballot, the Voice of the People, and Woman.
They believed, in defiance of the teachings of history, that Democracy
is another word for peace and goodwill towards men. They believed
(quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded
(quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree
with them must therefore be evil and impure.... They were, in short,
very honest and devout sectarians--cocksure, contemptuous, intolerant,
self-sacrificing after the manner of their kind.
They held, as I have said, to their own opinions strongly and would have
died rather than renounce, or seem to renounce, them--which did not
restrain them from resenting the same attitude of mind and heart in
others. What in themselves they admired as loyalty, they denounced in
others as interested and malignant stubbornness. More--it did not
prevent them from disliking and despising many excellent persons whose
opinions, if analysed, would have proved nearly akin to their own.
William, for instance, would all but foam at the mouth when compulsory
service in the army was the subject of conversation, and "militarism,"
to him, was the blackest of all the works of the devil; but he was
bitter, and violently bitter, against the blackleg who objected to
compulsory service in a Trade Union, and had spoken, times without
number, in hearty encouragement of that form of siege warfare which is
commonly known as a Strike. He was a pacifist of the type which seeks
peace and ensues it by insisting firmly, and even to blood, that it is
the other side's duty to give way.
Griselda also was a pacifist--when it suited her and when she had got
her way. She believed in a future World-Amity, brought about chiefly by
Woman; meanwhile, she exulted loudly and frequently in the fighting
qualities of her sex. Like William, she had no quarrel with Continental
nations; on the contrary, what she had seen of Continental nations
during a fortnight's stay at Interlaken had inclined her to look on them
with favour. Like William, her combatant instincts were concentrated on
antagonists nearer home; she knew them better and therefore disliked
them more. It is a mistake to suppose that either nations or individuals
will necessarily like the people they see most of; if you must know a
man in order to love him, you seldom hate a man with whom you have not
acquaintance. Nothing could have been more ideally peaceful than the
relations of China and England during the Middle Ages--for the simple
reason that China and England knew absolutely nothing of each other. In
the same way, if in a lesser degree, Griselda and William had a friendly
feeling for Germany and the German people. They had never been to
Germany and knew nothing of her history or politics; but they had heard
of the Germans as intelligent people addicted to spectacles, beer and
sonatas, and established on the banks of the Rhine. And--the Rhine
being some way off--they liked them.
As internationalists they had no words too strong for standing armies
and their methods; but upon military operations against domestic tyrants
they looked with less disapproval. There existed, I believe, in the
back of their minds some ill-defined distinction between bloodshed
perpetrated by persons clad in uniform and by persons not so
clad--between fighting with bayonets and fighting with bombs and
brickbats. The one was militarism and unjustifiable; the other heroism
and holy. Had you been unkind enough to pen them into a corner and
force them to acknowledge that there are many born warriors out of
khaki, they would have ended probably by declaring that one should take
arms only against tyranny and in a righteous cause--and so have found
themselves in entire agreement not only with their adversary but with
the Tory Party, the German Emperor, the professional soldier and poor
humanity in general. The elect, when one comes to examine them, are not
always so very elect. The difficulty would have been to persuade them
that there could be two opinions concerning a cause they espoused; their
little vision was as narrow as it was pure, and their little minds were
so seldom exhausted by thinking. Apostles of the reign of Woman and of
International Amity, they might have been summed up as the perfect type
of aggressor.
With regard to what used to be called culture (before August 1914), the
attainments of William and Griselda were very much on a level. They
read newspapers written by persons who wholly agreed with their views;
they read pamphlets issued, and books recommended, by societies of which
they were members. From these they quoted, in public and imposingly,
with absolute faith in their statements. Of history and science, of
literature and art, they knew nothing, or next to nothing; and, their
ignorance being mutual, neither bored the other by straying away from
the subjects in which both were interested.... As I have said, their
mating was an ideal mating.
The period of their engagement was not without its beauty; an
ever-present consciousness of their mission to mankind did not prevent
them from being blissful as loving young couples are blissful--it merely
coloured their relations and spiritualized them. One evening, not long
before their wedding, they sat together in Battersea Park on a bench and
dedicated their mutual lives to the service of Progress and Humanity.
They had invented a suitable formula for the occasion and repeated it
softly, one after the other, holding each other's hands. Griselda's
voice trembled as she vowed, in semi-ecclesiastical phraseology, that
not even her great love for William should wean her from her life's
work; and William's voice shook back as he vowed in his turn that not
even Griselda, the woman of his dreams, should make him neglectful of
the call of Mankind and his duty to the holiest of causes. It was a
very solemn little moment; man and woman, affianced lovers, they
dedicated themselves to their mission, the uplifting of the human race.
They were spared the doubts which would have assailed wiser heads as to
the manner of accomplishing their mission; and as they sat side by side
on the bench, with their hands clasped, they knew themselves for
acceptable types and forerunners of the world they were helping to
create.... Man and Woman, side by side, vowed to service.
"We shall never forget this evening," Griselda whispered as the sun
dipped down in glory. "In all our lives there can be nothing more
beautiful than this."
She was right; the two best gifts of life are love and an approving
conscience. These twain, William and Griselda, loved each other
sincerely--if not with the tempestuous passion of a Romeo and a Juliet,
with an honest and healthy affection; they had for each other an
attraction which could set their pulses beating and start them dreaming
dreams. That evening, on the bench in Battersea Park, they had dreamed
their dreams--while their consciences looked on and smiled. They
foreshadowed their home not only as a nest where they two and their
children should dwell, but as a centre of light and duty--as they
understood duty and light; a meeting-place for the like-minded, where
fresh courage could be gathered for the strife with prejudice and evil.
They pictured themselves (this was in June 1914) as what they would have
called Powers--as a man and a woman working for progress and destined to
leave their mark. The sense of their destiny awed and elated them--and
they walked away from Battersea Park with their hearts too full for
speech.
On the way home a flaring headline distracted Griselda temporarily from
her dreams. "Who's this Archduke that's been assassinated?" she asked.
(Her morning's reading had been confined to _The Suffragette_.)
"Austrian," William informed her. (He had read the _Daily Herald_.)
"Franz Joseph--no, Franz Ferdinand--the heir to the Austrian throne."
"Who assassinated him?" his betrothed inquired, not very much
interested.
"I can't remember their names," William admitted, "but there seem to
have been several in it. Anyhow, he's been assassinated. Somewhere in
the Balkans. With bombs."
"Oh!" said Griselda, ceasing to be interested at all. Her mind had
turned from traffic in strange archdukes and was running on a high
resolve; the solemn vow of service was translating itself into action.
"I shall go to the meeting to-morrow," she announced, "and make my
protest."
William knew what was passing in her mind and made no effort to dissuade
her. No more than she dared he let their mutual happiness enervate
them--it must urge them to high endeavour, to struggle and sacrifice for
the Cause.
"I'll go too," he said simply, "if I can manage to get a ticket."
"Oh, I'll get you a ticket," Griselda told him; "they're sure to have
some at the office"--and thanked him with a squeeze of the fingers that
set his pulses beating.
She was as good as her word, and the next night saw him in a Cabinet
Minister's audience. From his seat in the arena (their seats were not
together and the pair had entered separately) his eye sought for
Griselda and found her easily in the first row of the balcony--most
obviously composed and with her gloved hands folded on the rail. She
was dressed in pale blue, with a flowered toque perched on her head; her
blue silk blouse, in view of possibilities, was firmly connected by
safety-pins with the belt of her blue cloth skirt, and her hair secured
more tightly than usual by an extra allowance of combs. Previous
experience had taught her the wisdom of these measures. As usual, in
accordance with the tradition of her party, she had insisted in her
costume on the ultra-feminine note; her blouse savoured of Liberty and
there was a cluster of rosebuds at her breast. She was breathing
quickly, so her mouth was more open than usual; otherwise she gave no
sign of mental or physical trepidation--save a studied indifference
which might have betrayed her to an eye sufficiently acute. To William
she looked adorable and his heart swelled with admiration of her courage
and determination to sustain her in her protest to the uttermost; he
vowed to himself to be worthy of such a mate.
He did his best to prove himself worthy when the critical moment came.
He waited for that moment during more than three-quarters of an
hour--for Griselda was not without confederates, and three ladies in
picture hats and a gentleman in the garb of a Nonconformist minister had
arisen at intervals to make the running before her voice rang out. All
were suppressed, though not without excitement; two of the ladies parted
with their hats and the clergyman broke a chair. The chair and the
clergyman having been alike removed, the audience buzzed down into
silence, and for full five minutes there was peace--until the speaker
permitted himself a jesting allusion to the recently exported objectors.
A man with a steward's rosette in his coat was stationed in the gangway
close to William; and as the laughter the jest had provoked died away,
he swore under his breath, "By God, there's another in the balcony!"
William swung round, saw Griselda on her feet and heard her voice shrill
out--to him an inspiration and a clarion, to the steward a source of
profanity.
"Mr. Chairman, I rise to protest against the speaker's gross insult to
the noble women who----"
A man in the seat behind clapped his hands on her shoulders and rammed
her back into her chair--where she writhed vigorously, calling him
coward and demanding how he dared! His grip, sufficiently hard to be
unpleasant, roused her fighting instincts and gave a fillip to her
conscientious protest; in contact with actual, if not painful, personal
violence, she found it easier to scream, hit out and struggle. Two
stewards, starting from either end of the row of chairs, were wedging
themselves towards her; she clung to her seat with fingers and toes, and
shrieked a regulation formula which the meeting drowned in opprobrium.
Conscious of rectitude, the jeers and hoots but encouraged her and fired
her blood; and when her hands were wrenched from their hold on the chair
she clung and clawed to the shoulder of her next-door neighbour--a stout
and orthodox Liberal who thrust her from him, snorting indignation. One
steward had her gripped under the armpits, the other with difficulty
mastered her active ankles; and, wriggling like a blue silk eel and
crowing her indefatigable protest, she was bundled in rapid and
business-like fashion to a side entrance of the building.
"Cowards!" she ejaculated as she found her feet on the pavement.
"Damned little cat!" was the ungentlemanly rejoinder. "If you come here
again I'll pare your nasty little nails for you."
And, dabbing a scored left hand with his handkerchief, the steward
returned to his duties--leaving Griselda in the centre of a jocular
crowd attracted to the spot by several previous ejections. She was
minus her rosebuds, her toque and quite half of her hairpins; on the
other hand, she held tightly grasped in her fingers a crumpled silk
necktie which had once been the property of a stout and orthodox
Liberal. She was conscious that she had acted with perfect dignity as
well as with unusual courage--and that consciousness, combined with her
experience of similar situations, enabled her to sustain with calm
contempt the attentions of the jocular crowd.
"You'd like a taxi, I suppose, miss?" the constable on duty
suggested--having also considerable experience of similar situations.
Griselda assented and the taxi was duly hailed. Before it arrived at
the kerb she was joined on the pavement by her lover, who had left the
meeting by the same door as his betrothed and in much the same manner
and condition; he had parted with a shoe as well as a hat, and one of
his braces was broken. A hearty shove assisted him down the steps to
the pavement where, to the applause of the unthinking multitude, he fell
on his knees in an attitude of adoration before Griselda's friend the
constable. Recovering his equilibrium, he would have turned again to
the assault; but his game attempt to re-enter the building was
frustrated not only by a solidly extended arm of the law but by the
intervention of Griselda herself.
"You have done enough for to-night, dear," she whispered, taking his
arm. "My instructions are not to insist on arrest. We have made our
protest--we can afford to withdraw."
She led the retreat to the taxi with a dignity born of practice;
William, now conscious of his snapped brace, following with less
deportment. The vehicle once clear of the jeering crowd, Griselda put
her arms round her lover and kissed his forehead solemnly.
"My dear one," she said, "I am proud of you."
"Oh, Griselda, I'm proud of you," he murmured between their kisses.
"How brave you are--how wonderful!--how dared they! ... I went nearly
mad when I saw them handling you--I hit out, and the cowards knocked me
down.... A woman raising her voice on the side of justice--and they
silence her with brutal violence----"
"It's only what we must expect, dear," she whispered back, stroking his
rumpled hair. "Remember this is War--God knows it's horrible, but we
must not shrink from it."
She spoke from her heart, from the profound ignorance of the unread and
unimaginative ... and once more in the darkness of the taxi the warriors
clasped and kissed.
*CHAPTER III*
After the usual hesitations and excursions they had settled on their
future home--a tiny flat in Bloomsbury, central and handy for the
perpetual getting about to meetings which was so integral a part of
their well-filled, bustling lives. They furnished it lovingly and with
what they considered good taste; Griselda brought in her friends to
admire, and engaged a respectable woman who was to "do" for them and
have all in readiness when they returned from their four weeks'
honeymoon--and they were as foolishly happy over their nest as any other
loving little couple.
They were married towards the end of July--to be exact, on the
twenty-third day of the month. The wedding took place in Balham from
the house of Griselda's aunt; the ceremony was performed by an
enlightened vicar who had consented to omit the ignoble vow of
obedience; and the church was thronged to its doors with comrades and
ardent sympathizers. The advanced Press spread itself over the
description of the ceremony and--in view of the fact that the
bridesmaids, six in number, had all done time for assault--even the
Press that was not advanced considered the event worth a paragraph. The
pair were snapshotted on leaving the church with the customary direful
results, and the modest residence of Griselda's aunt could hardly
accommodate the flood of progressive guests. There was rice and
slipper-throwing and a whirl of good wishes--and Griselda, flushed,
looked pretty, and in William's eyes quite lovely.
They left by an afternoon train for Dover and crossed the next day to
Ostend.