THE LITTLE BIT EXTRA
Yet that August when Parliament had risen, Harry Rames and Cynthia
were cruising in the Solent and no word had been spoken by her to
remedy their trouble. It was Cynthia who had proposed this holiday and
Harry had fallen in with her plan eagerly. They had chartered a small
steam yacht of a hundred tons. Rames navigated the boat himself and
slipping their moorings one afternoon, they left Cowes behind them and
steamed away through the north channel of the Shingles to Poole.
Cynthia had ceased to wrestle with herself. She was content to lie in
her deck chair and put into and out of the harbors of the West.
"This shall be the perfect holiday," she had said. "Whatever the
future may hold for us, we will have this month together without
visitors, without any shadows."
They were tossed in Portland race; they steamed across the West Bay
over a sea smooth and bright as a steel mirror. They dropped their
anchor at Dartmouth. They rounded the Start on the next day and
crossed the Bar of Salcombe harbor under the shadow of Bolt Head on
just such an evening of sunset as that which the poet fixed in a few
lines of deathless verse. Cynthia stood with her arm through Harry's,
as very slowly with the lead going in the bows he set the boat over
the shallows.
"Sunset and evening star," Cynthia quoted.
"And one clear call for me," Harry Rames continued and abruptly broke
off like a guilty person who has spoken without thought. Cynthia
walked to the end of the bridge. After all, this cruise had made a
difference to Harry. She consoled herself by the reflection. He had
recovered something of his buoyancy of spirits since he had trodden
the planks of this little yacht and looked down from its flimsy bridge
onto its narrow deck and tapering bow. He was interested in the boat,
quick to induce her to give him of her best, and her brass shone like
a woman's ornaments. They put out from Salcombe the next day, and
keeping clear of Plymouth and Polperro and Fowey, heard the bell upon
the Manacles in the afternoon and dropped anchor between the woods of
Helford River. They stayed there for a day and made a passage thence
to Guernsey on a night of moonlight. Cynthia sat late upon the bridge
while Rames in his great-coat kept the boat upon her course. Toward
morning he came to her side and stooped over her.
"I thought you were asleep."
"No."
"Aren't you tired?"
"No."
"You were lying so still."
"Yes," said Cynthia. "I am storing this night up."
The swish and sparkle of the water along the boat's sides, the rattle
of the chain as the helmsman spun the wheel, the quiet orders of her
husband, the infinite peace of sky and sea, and the yacht like a jewel
hung between them, were indeed to dwell long in Cynthia's memories.
For their holiday was at an end. A sailor was sent ashore at Guernsey
for the ship's letters and he brought them on board whilst Harry and
Cynthia were at breakfast in the deck cabin. There was one for Rames
with the Hickleton postmark stamped upon the envelope. Harry tore it
open reluctantly.
"Carberley has resigned," he said. "There will be a meeting of the
executive on Friday night to adopt young Burrell."
Cynthia looked out across the harbor.
"We ought to go back, oughtn't we?" she said slowly.
Harry glanced at his letter.
"It is not expected that the election will take place for five weeks,"
he answered.
Cynthia shook her head.
"We shall want all that time, Harry." Then she cried with a sudden
vehemence. "You have got to win this fight, Harry. So much hangs on it
for you and me."
"I know, Cynthia," he answered.
"More than you know."
Harry rose from his chair.
"I'll give orders. We will steam back to Southampton at once. But it's
a pity, isn't it? Old Carberley might have waited for another month. I
am sorry."
"So am I," said Cynthia. Her eyes had wandered from him and were once
more fixed upon the shipping in the harbor. Her face had grown white.
"More sorry than you can know."
A little white dinghy, gay with a sailor in a white jersey and a red
cap, was just leaving the side of a big yacht moored across the water.
The picture of that little boat was fixed for life in Cynthia's
recollections. It had nothing to do with her, she never knew who
sailed in the yacht, or on what business the boat put off to shore.
But the picture of it was vivid to her long after important memories
had grown altogether dim.
The fight for the Hickleton Division was memorable in the political
history of that year. From first to last it was Rames's fight. The
candidate was young, and a halting speaker, and unknown to the
constituency. But he lived in Rames's house and when he appeared upon
a platform he appeared with Rames at his side. When he spoke he
uttered the words which Rames had prepared, and when he had finished
Rames was on his legs to fill up the deficiencies and whip the
assembly to a fire of enthusiasm. From the great guns of his own party
no assistance came. Indeed, most of them would have been well pleased
had the seat not been won. For in the forefront of his programme Mr.
William Burrell put hostility to the land bill. The two men left the
white house early in the morning to return there late at night. For
five weeks the lights of Rames's motor flashed on the hedges of the
country roads in Warwickshire, and the constituency was won. The
result was declared at noon, and half an hour later Mr. William
Burrell, M.P., a slim, fair young gentleman with a small gift of
flippancy, made his one memorable speech in the big room of the club.
"Gentlemen," he said, "the British public, as a whole, is indifferent
to politics. It wakes up to be sure at the time of an election. But if
I were asked to define politics in relation to the British public I
should define it as a spasm of pain recurring once in every four or
five years. What, then, is it which arouses the enthusiasm of which I
am a witness? What is it which achieves these triumphs? Need I say? It
is personality. Character--that's what you want in public life--and
now, gentlemen, you have got it."
The speech was received with a very tornado of laughter. Rames turned
to his wife who sat by him on the little raised platform at the end of
the room.
"I told you he wasn't a fool," he said, and Mr. Arnall, who had come
over from Ludsey, cried out with a chuckle of delight that he had now
a companion speech to match the famous one of Taylor the democrat.
"You won't go back to London until to-morrow, will you?" said Rames to
young Burrell. "It's best not to hurry away the moment you've won the
seat."
They returned accordingly to the white house, and when the two men
were left by Cynthia to their wine after dinner, Rames turned
inquisitively to his guest.
"I have noticed a change in you, Burrell, during these five weeks. You
came into the contest as though it was a joke, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did," said Burrell, blushing.
"And though you laughed at it again to-day, as a matter of fact it
ceased to be a joke very quickly."
Burrell agreed. "Very quickly."
Rames fetched a box of cigars from the sideboard.
"Now light a cigar," he said, "and tell me just as clearly as you can
what brought about the change, and what this election really means to
you."
Mr. William Burrell, M.P., shied at the proposal.
"Oh, I say, Rames," he began, but Rames cut him short.
"I really want to hear," he said earnestly. "I ask for a particular
reason."
Burrell lit his cigar. The contest had impressed him deeply. But like
most men he was shy of revealing any strength of feeling. The eager
eyes of Rames, however, kept him to his task. He looked back over the
five weeks, gathering up his little sheaf of recollections.
"What remains in my mind," he said with hesitation, "is not the
excitement, nor the applause, is not the difficulty of making speeches
about subjects with which one is not half acquainted, nor the fear
of being asked questions for which one has no reply ready, but
something quite different. It is the memory of little bare raftered
school-rooms, hot with gas-light, crowded with white faces, faces so
hopeful, so--intolerably hopeful--the faces of people who look
confidently to candidates and Parliaments for so much more than it
seems to me Parliaments and candidates can ever do."
"Ah!" said Rames curiously. "You felt that too. I remember that I
did."
Burrell leaned forward.
"Did you too, though you shouted yourself hoarse with the rest, feel a
little ashamed?"
Rames reflected. "No," he said; "never." Then he added with a smile,
"but I think I should now."
"I did," said Burrell. "There were times when I wanted to stop my
speech in the middle and cry out, 'Don't look at me with such high
hopes. It's no use! It's no use!' But I held my tongue. For there's
always the little that governments can do. That's the consolation,
isn't it?" Burrell was finding it easier to speak out his thoughts
now. The false shame with which he had begun had quite left him. His
words tumbled out hot from his soul. The strangely curious, almost
envious, look with which Harry Rames, his tutor and leader, waited
upon him encouraged and urged him on.
"The fight, the excitement, the victory--oh yes, they are worth
having, even though one owes them to another, just as I owe them,
Captain Rames, to you. But now, after the victory, there's still the
little which can be done; and there's still the memory of the raftered
school-rooms, the hot gas-light, and the rows of eager, hopeful,
pallid faces to help one on to do it."
He stopped and leaned back in his chair. The shame of a young man who
has let his tongue wag before his elders and masters seized hold upon
him.
"But why did you lead me on to talk this sort of blatter to you?" he
asked in an aggrieved voice. "All that I have just learnt you knew
long since."
Harry Rames shook his head.
"Your opposition to Devenish's land bill shows it," Burrell insisted.
"Oh, we'll have a real policy of land reform, not an act of revenge."
Harry Rames leaned across the corner of the table toward young
Burrell. To the youth's eyes he looked at this moment extraordinarily
haggard and old.
"I'll tell you, Burrell, why I asked my question. I wanted to
recapture from you if I could something of a man's enthusiasm at his
first political victory."
Burrell looked at his leader with astonishment. Of the man of fire who
had blazed through the constituency from corner to corner with clear
ringing phrases and an inexhaustible good-humor there was now nothing
left. He was burnt out. He sat with brooding eyes and a white face all
fallen into despair. The tale of his years was suddenly written large
upon him. Burrell had wit enough to understand that fatigue did not
explain the change. A mask was withdrawn; he saw misery like a cancer.
Rames sat and betrayed himself like a man in his cups.
"You tell me you felt ashamed in the school-rooms. I never knew
anything of such shame. To win, to win, to win! That was all I thought
about. That was all the desire I felt. That was what I hoped you would
help me to recapture to-night. But you haven't helped."
Rames's eyes dwelt angrily upon his colleague.
"No. You have made me feel ashamed too." Then his face relaxed and he
added in a friendlier voice: "I believe that I have helped you--really
helped you. Oh, not to win a seat in the House of Commons. That's
nothing to be so proud about. But to find your vocation."
"Where you have found yours," said Burrell firmly.
"Not a bit of it," said Rames, and then he woke from his moodiness to
a savage outburst of contempt. "Oh, I am going on with it. Don't be
alarmed, Burrell. I'll lead you. We'll put up a fight. We'll make the
fur fly. Very possibly we'll pull the whole Government down with a
run. But--" and drawing his chair nearer to the youth he changed his
tone. "I'll tell you the truth about the House of Commons. It's the
place where the second-rate gets the finest show in the world. In no
walk of life does second-rate intellect reap so high a reward or meet
with such great esteem. But it won't lift you to the very top. Nor
will first-rate intellect either. Remember that!"
"What will then?" asked Burrell in perplexity, and Harry Rames
shrugged his shoulders.
"The little bit extra. Character, perseverance! I don't know.
Something anyway. It's the same everywhere now. There are too many
clever people about. Faith in a cause, I think will do it. That's why
the sentimentalists do so much harm in public affairs. They get their
way, because they believe. They are not playing the political game.
Cleverness is twelve for a penny nowadays. To get up to the top you
must have the little bit extra. Now in the sphere of politics I
haven't got it. I don't say office is out of my reach. It isn't. I
have been offered it. I have refused it. But I haven't got the little
bit extra. Outside politics--in quite another sphere--I believe I
have. But that's all done with. I was warned when I went into
politics--warned by a shrewd, wise man. But I wouldn't listen, and so
some day amongst the second-rate Right Honorables half a dozen lines
will announce my death in the _Times_."
Young Burrell had no great experience of the intenser emotions, and
the bitterness with which Rames spoke appalled him. He saw a man in
torture, and he listened to a cry of pain grown intolerable. Then in a
second all was changed again. Rames was on his feet replacing the
stoppers in the decanters, taking the shades from off the candles,
performing the little conventional acts of a host in his dining-room.
The chasm in the ordinary level surface of things which had yawned for
a moment and given Burrell a glimpse of the pit where misery gnawed
had closed up.
"We will join my wife," said Rames. He stopped at the door.
"Were you ever at Toulon?"
"No."
"There's a statue on the quay there, at the water's edge, overlooking
the harbor. A great bronze figure, extraordinarily alert, with a light
upon its forehead, the Genius of the Sea. And on the open pages of a
bronze book in the front of the pedestal, the names of the great
sailors are engraved. Cook and the rest of them. The list ends with
D'Urville, I remember. I only saw the statue once. My father showed it
to me when I was a boy. I don't suppose that I have ever thought of it
until to-day." He repeated softly as though speaking to himself:
"Yes the list ends with D'Urville." Then he roused himself. "Bring
your cigar in. Cynthia doesn't mind. By the way," and a smile of
tenderness transfigured his face, "not a word of this to her. She
thinks I am going to be a great man. She's wrong, but I don't want her
to know before she needs must." Burrell consented at once. He followed
Rames from the room with all joy in his victory quite overcast. He
looked beyond the surprising revelations of his host and obtained a
glimpse into a new side of life. He was the spectator of one of
the grim comedies of marriage. Here was the wife--so it seemed to
him--believing joyfully in the great destiny of her husband; and the
husband laboring in torment to sustain her belief, while all the while
he knew that his destiny was thwarted and that the true current of his
life ran through other fields.
They went along the passage into the drawing-room. It was a warm night
of September and the windows stood open upon the garden. Cynthia was
not in the room. Harry stepped out onto the lawn. The night was dark
and he could see no one. But the light in the drawing-room had
revealed him as he stepped out, and whilst he was standing peering
into the darkness Cynthia came softly over the grass to his side.
"You'll catch cold," he said. "The dew's heavy."
Cynthia took his arm. "Hush," she said. "Listen!" and through the
still air the chimes of the great clock in Ludsey steeple floated with
a silvery and melodious sound to their ears. A tune was struck out by
the bells, then another.
"I heard that," said Cynthia in a whisper, "on the night my father
died. I was sitting alone with him in the darkness while his life
drifted away. It was winter."
Harry put his arm about her and pressed her to his side.
"I heard them again," she continued, "one night when I was waiting for
you to telephone to me, Harry. Do you remember?"
"Yes."
"I waited a long time for you that night, Harry," and there was a
catch in her voice. "Ludsey chimes have meant very much to us. Let us
hear them out!"
They stood together in the darkness until the last distant note had
died away. It seemed to Rames that Cynthia listened as though she were
taking a farewell of them.