The Socialist

CHAPTER XXII

THE SUPPER ON THE STAGE

The success of the play was beyond all question. It was stupendous, overwhelming and complete.

For ten minutes the house shouted itself hoarse and Mary Marriott was recalled over and over again. Great baskets of flowers had made their appearance as she stood bowing for the tenth time, and were handed up to her till she stood surrounded by a mass of blossom.

Hundreds of opera glasses were levelled at her, eager, critical and admiring faces watched this lovely and graceful girl who stood before them, quietly and modestly, and with a great joy shining in her eyes.

For she had stirred them, stirred them by the depths of her art and the passion of her playing. They knew that in one night a great artist had suddenly appeared. However much they might disagree and dislike the doctrines preached in The Socialist they knew that the play was a work of genius, and had been interpreted with supreme talent. Aubrey Flood they were fond of. He was a popular favourite, he had acquitted himself well upon this eventful night. He had received his meed of praise.

But for Mary Marriott there was a reception so whole-hearted and magnificent that the tears might well come into the young girl's eyes and the slim, flower-laden hands tremble with emotion as she bowed her gratitude.

James Fabian Rose had to make a little speech.

He did it with extraordinary assurance and aplomb, and he was received with shouts of applause and good-natured laughter. He had amused and pleased society, and that was enough. The few mocking and brilliant epigrams he flung at them were taken in good part. The deep undercurrent of seriousness seemed but to harmonise with the electric, emotional influences of the moment.

For a minute or two – until they should be seated at supper in the smart restaurants, clubs, and houses – they were all Socialists!

And the fact that their convictions of the truth would vanish with the first plover's egg and glass at Pol Roger, by no means affected their butterfly enthusiasm as the famous author talked to and at them.

The Duke of Paddington watched it all with a strange sense of exhilaration and joy. Lord Camborne had given him an appointment in Grosvenor Street for the morrow, and had hurried away in the most marked perplexity and annoyance.

Lord Hayle had been writing to his father, the duke saw that at once, but he was not perturbed. He had made his resolve. He was master of his own fate, captain of his own soul – what did anything else matter? What was to be done was to be done, come what might. One must be true to oneself!

As the weary, excited audience began at last to press out of the stalls and boxes, there was a tap upon the door of the duke's, and Mr. Goodrick, the editor of the Daily Wire, entered. The little man's face was flushed with excitement, and he was smiling with pleasure.

Yet even under these conditions of animation he still seemed a quiet, insignificant little person, and did not in any way suggest the keen, sword-like intellect, the controller of a vast mass of public opinion that he was.

"Rose has sent me to say that supper will be ready in ten minutes," he began, "and Mary Marriott especially charged me to tell you how grateful she is that you have come here to-night. What a success! There has never been anything like it! All London will go mad about the thing to-morrow! I had three members of the staff here to-night – Masterman, who does the dramatic criticism, purely from the standpoint of dramatic art, don't you know; William Conrad, the parson's younger brother, who is one of our political people; and old Miss Saurin, who does the society and dress. They're all three gone down to the office in cabs in a state of lambent enthusiasm and excitement. We shall have a fine paper to-morrow morning!"

"I'm sure you will, Mr. Goodrick," the duke answered. "Perhaps finer than you know."

The little man laughed as he lit a cigarette and offered the case to his companion. "Yes," he said, "but this time it won't be a 'scoop' as it was when I first had the pleasure of meeting you. Good heavens! what a boom that was for the Wire. I shall never forget it as long as I live! We were absolutely the only paper in the kingdom to publish the full details of your disappearance and recovery. You don't know how much we owe you, your Grace, from the journalistic point of view. Such things don't come twice, more's the pity!"

"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Goodrick," the duke replied slowly. "Perhaps to-night, within an hour or so, I am going to provide you with a 'scoop' as you call it, to which the first was a mere nothing!"

The editor stiffened as a setter stiffens in the stubble when the birds are near. "Your voice has no joking in it," he said. "There is meaning in your Grace's words – what is it?"

As he spoke a waiter came into the box. "Supper is prepared upon the stage, your Grace," he said. "Miss Marriott, Mr. Rose, and Mr. Aubrey Flood request the honour of your Grace's presence."

"Come along, Mr. Goodrick," the duke said, laughing a little. "You see you will have to wait an event like any one else in this world! But I promise you the 'scoop' all the same!"

They went out of the box, the waiter leading the way to the sliding iron "pass door," which led directly on to the stage. For the first few steps they were in semi-darkness, for a boxed-in screen had been hurriedly set by the carpenters to make a supper-room. Then, pushing open a canvas door, they came out into the improvised supper-room.

Some forty people were standing upon the stage in groups, talking animatedly to each other. In the background were flower-covered tables gleaming with glass and silver and covered with flowers, among which many tiny electric lights were hidden.

Mary Marriott stood in the centre of a laughing happy group of men and women. She wore a long tea-gown of dark red, made of some Indian fabric, and edged with a narrow band of green embroidery upon a biscuit-coloured ground. She wore dark-red roses in the coiled masses of her marvellous black hair, the paint of the theatre had been washed from her face, and her eyes were brighter, her cheeks more lovely, than any art could make them. She was a queen come into her own on that night! An empress of her art, throned, acknowledged, and wonderful.

To her came the duke.

It was a strange and almost symbolic meeting to some of the quick-wits and artists' brains there. Here was a real prince of this world, a prince who had suffered the hours of a keen and bitter attack with fine dignity and chivalry – James Fabian Rose had not spared words – and there was a princess of art, who from nothing had made a more enduring kingdom, a more splendid realm, than even the long line of peers, statesmen, and warriors had bestowed upon the young man before her.

Yet they were both royal, they looked royal, there was an emanation of royalty as the duke bowed over the hand of the actress and touched it with his lips.

"Hommage au vrai Art," he murmured, quoting the words which a king had once used as he kissed the hand of the greatest French actress of his time.

"It was so good of you to come," she said, and he thought that her voice sounded like a flute. "It is kinder still of you to be here now. But they are sitting down to supper. I believe we are placed together; shall we go?"

She took his arm, and his whole being thrilled as the little white hand touched his sleeve and her gracious presence was so near.

They sat down together in the centre of one of the long tables. The duke sat on one side of Mary, James Fabian Rose upon the other.

The waiters began to serve the clear amber consommé in little porcelain bowls; the champagne, cream and amber, flowed into the glasses.

Every one was in the highest spirits – actors, authors, journalists, socialistic leaders – every one.

It was an odd gathering enough to the casual eye. The ladies of the stage were radiant in their evening gowns and flowers, some of the ladies in the ranks – or rather upon the staff – of the Socialist army were in evening frocks also, others, hard-featured, earnest-eyed women, with short hair and serviceable coats and skirts, were scattered among them, grubs among the butterflies, scorning gay attire.

The men were the same, though the majority of them were in conventional evening clothes. Yet, sitting by Mrs. Rose, charming in pale blue, and with sapphires upon her neck, sat a man in a brown suit with a turn-down collar of blue linen, a grey flannel shirt, and a red tie. It was Mr. William Butterworth, the great Socialist M.P. for one of the Lancashire manufacturing towns, who had never worn a dress suit in his life, and never meant to, on principle. Such contrasts were everywhere apparent, but to-night they were mere superficial accidents.

Every one was rejoicing at the immense success of The Socialist, every one realised that to-night a new and hitherto undreamed of weapon had been forged.

An artery was beating in the duke's head – or was it his heart? – beating with the sound of distant drums. He was speaking to Mary in a low voice, and she was bending a little towards him. "Oh, it was far more wonderful and moving than you yourself can ever know!" he said. "I have seen all the great players of our day. But you are queen of them all! There has never been any one like you. There never will be any one like you."

He stopped, unable to say more. The drumming within gathered power and sound, became imminent, near, a mighty crescendo, a tide! a flood!

"It is sweet of you to say such things," she answered in her low, flute-like voice, "but of course they are not true. I am only a very humble artist indeed. And no one could have helped playing fairly well in such a play as this, especially when the cause it advocates has become very dear to me. I am a Socialist heart and soul now, you know." She sighed, hesitated for a moment, and then went on: "I hope you were not hurt to-night by anything upon the stage. I could not help thinking of you. I knew you were in the box, and it was, by the very nature of it, aimed so directly at you, or rather the class to which you belong and lead. Since I have been converted to Socialism I have tried to put myself into the place of other people – to imagine how they see things. And I know how subversive and outrageous all our ideas must seem to you."

"Then you were really sorry for me?"

"Really and truly sorry." Perhaps the lovely girl's voice betrayed her a little, its note was so strangely intimate and tender.

He started violently, and a joyful, wonderful, and yet despairing thought flashed into his mind. He was silent for some seconds before he replied.

"No, I wasn't hurt a bit," he said at length. "Not in the very least. I have something to tell you, Mary" – he was quite unconscious that he had called her by her Christian name. She saw it instantly, and now it was her turn to feel the sudden, overwhelming stab of joy and wonder – and despair!

"Tell me," she said softly.

"I was not hurt," he answered, "because all my ideas are changed also. I, too, have seen the light. The mists of selfishness and individualism have vanished from around me. The process has been gradual. It has been terribly hard. But it has been inevitable and sure, and it dates from the day on which I first saw you by my bedside in the house of James Fabian Rose. To-night you and he together have completed my conversion. With a full knowledge of all that this means to me, I still say to you that from to-night onwards I am a Socialist heart and soul!"

She looked at him, and the colour faded out of her flower-like face, and her great eyes grew wide with wonder. Then the colour came stealing back, pink, like the delicate inside of a shell, crimson with realisation and gladness.

"Then – " she began.

"You will hear to-night," he answered, and even as he did so Aubrey Flood, flushed with excitement, and his voice trembling with emotion, rose, and in a few broken, heart-felt words proposed the health of Mary Marriott and James Fabian Rose.

The toast was drunk with indescribable enthusiasm and verve. The high grid of the stage above echoed with the cheers. The very waiters, forgetting their duties, were caught up in the swing and excitement of it and shouted with the rest.

It was some minutes before the pale man with the yellow beard could obtain a hearing. He stood there smiling and bowing and patting Mary upon the shoulder.

Then he began. He acknowledged the honour they had done Mary and himself in a few brief words of deep feeling. Then, taking a wider course, he told them what he believed this would mean for Socialism, how that the theatre, a huge educational machine with far more power and appeal than a thousand books, a hundred lectures, was now their own.

A new era was opening for them, and it dated from this night. Everything had been leading up to it for years, now the hour of fulfilment had come.

He took a letter from his pocket.

It was from Arthur Burnside, and had arrived from Oxford, during the course of the play. He had found it waiting for him when he returned to the theatre as the curtain fell on the last act.

He told them the great news in short, sharp sentences of triumph, how that on this very night of huge success a great fortune was placed in their hands for the furtherance of the great work of humanity.

When the second prolonged burst of applause and cheering was over Rose concluded his speech with a sympathetic reference to the duke's presence among them.

As he concluded the duke leaned behind Mary's chair and whispered a word to him.

Immediately afterwards the leader rose and said that the Duke of Paddington asked permission to speak to them for a moment.

There was a second's silence of surprise, a burst of generous cheers, and the duke was speaking in grave, quiet tones the few sentences which were to agitate all England on the morrow and alter the whole course of his life for ever and a day.

Mr. Goodrick had a notebook before him and a pencil poised in his right hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the duke, "what I have to say shall be said in the very fewest words possible. My friend Mr. Rose has said in his kind remarks about my presence here that to-night I must have felt like a Daniel in a den of lions, or a lion in a den of Daniels – he was not sure which. I felt like neither one nor the other. Miss Marriott said to me just now that she hoped I was not hurt by the attack upon that class of the community which I may be thought to represent. Miss Marriott was wrong also. I have gone through experiences and learnt lessons which I need not trouble you with now. There stands my master in chief" – he pointed to Mr. Rose – "and there have been many others. I came to the theatre to-night as nearly a Socialist in heart and mental conviction as any man could be without an actual declaration. At this moment I announce and avow myself a true and convinced Socialist. I am with you all heart and soul! Allow me a personal reference. I am extremely wealthy. I have great estates in London and other parts of England. Some of these are entailed upon my heirs, and I only enjoy the emoluments during my own lifetime. The rest – and owing to past circumstances and my long minority the more considerable part – are mine to do with as I will. They are mine no longer. I give them freely to the Cause and to England. I join with my friend, Arthur Burnside, in renouncing a vast property in favour of the people. I shall retain only a sufficient sum to provide for me in reasonable comfort. All the details will be settled by the Central Committee of our party – it will take many months to arrange them, but that is by the way. And I offer myself and my work, for what they are worth, to the Cause also. I have no more to say, ladies and gentlemen."

He sat down in his chair, swayed a little, and as Mary bent over him and every one present rose to their feet, he swooned away.

Mr. Goodrick stole out from his seat, rushed down the passage to the stage door, clasping his note-book, and leaped into a waiting cab.

"A sovereign if you get me to the offices of the Daily Wire, in Fleet Street, in half an hour!" said Mr. Goodrick.

CHAPTER XXIII

POINTS OF VIEW FROM A DUKE, A BISHOP, A VISCOUNT, AND THE DAUGHTER OF AN EARL

The rain was pouring down and it was a horribly gloomy, depressing morning.

The rain fell through the drab, smoke-laden air of London like leaden spears, thrown upon the metropolis in anger by the gods who control the weather.

The duke woke up and through the window opposite the foot of his bed saw the rain falling. He was in the same guest-room in the house of James Fabian Rose to which he had been carried when the exploring party had found him in the hands of the criminals of the West End slum. How long ago that seemed now, he thought, as he lay there in the grey, dreary light of the London morning.

When he had fainted on the night before he had been carried into Aubrey Flood's dressing-room, and speedily recovered consciousness.

His swoon was nothing more than a natural protest of the nerves against an overwhelming strain. It could hardly have been otherwise. One does not undergo weeks of mental strain and dismay without overtaxing the strength. One does not go through a night in which conviction of truth comes to one, the knowledge of love, the certainty that, in honour, that love could never be declared, the solemn and public renunciation of almost everything is realised and declared, without collapse.

He had found Mrs. Rose and Mary Marriott – ministering angels – by his side when he came back to the world.

Rose had entered, and would not hear of the duke's return to the Ritz. A messenger had been sent home for his things, and now he woke in the old familiar room upon this grey, depressing morning.

He was feeling the inevitable reaction. He could not help but feel it. It was eight o'clock he saw from his watch, the same watch which had been taken from him by force on the night of the railway accident.

The morning papers were out. One of these papers he knew would be even now having a record sale. The Daily Wire was having a huge boom. The general public were already learning of his renunciation. Before mid-day all society would know of it also. His hundreds of relations and connections would be reading the story. It would be known at Buckingham Palace and at Marlborough House. Lord Camborne would know of it, the news would reach Lord Hayle on his sick-bed at Oxford. Lady Constance would know it.

Before lunch he had to go to Grosvenor Street He must keep his appointment with his future father-in-law.

And he was fearing this interview as he had never feared anything in this world before. What was going to happen he didn't know. But he was certain that the meeting would be terrible. He felt frightfully alone, and there was only one little gleam of satisfaction in the outlook. Constance would stand by him. The beautiful girl who was to be his wife had often expressed her sympathy with the down-trodden and the poor. He could rely on her at least.

He did not love her. He could never love her. He loved some one else with all his heart and soul, and believed – dared to believe – that she loved him also.

That was a secret for her and for him for ever and ever. The thing might not be. He had to keep his word inviolable, his honour unstained. They both had duties to do – he and Mary! They must live for the Cause, apart, lonely, but strong.

He was pledged to Constance Camborne, and hand in hand, good comrades, they would work together for the common weal.

The joy of life must be found in just that – in the "stern lawgiver" Duty. The other and divinest joy was not for him, and he must face the fact like a man of a great race.

"So be it," he muttered to himself with a bitter smile. "Amen!" Then he rose and plunged into the cold bath prepared for him in an alcove of the bedroom.

He breakfasted alone with James Fabian Rose. Mary Marriott was staying in the house but both she and Mrs. Rose were utterly exhausted and would not be visible for many hours.

The duke was quite frank with his host. He unburdened himself of the "perilous stuff" of weeks to him; he laid everything bare, all the mental processes which had led to his absolute change of view. He spoke of the future and reiterated his determination to become a leader in the new Israel. He even told Rose of his fear and terror at the approaching interview with Lord Camborne, but of the most real and deep pain and distress he said never a word.

He did not mention Mary Marriott, he said nothing of Lady Constance Camborne. Rose appeared to him then in a new light.

The apostle of Socialism, the caustic wit, the celebrated man of literature was as gentle and tender as a child. He seemed to know everything, to enter into the psychology of the situation with an intuition and understanding which were as delicate and sure as those of a woman. He said no single word to indicate it, but the duke felt more and more certain as the meal went on that this wonderful man had penetrated, more deeply than he could have thought possible, to the depths of his soul.

Rose knew that he loved Mary Marriott and must marry Constance Camborne. Twice during breakfast a swift gleam of sardonic but utterly kindly and sympathetic amusement flashed into the dark eyes of the pallid man. It was a gleam full of promise and understanding. But the duke never saw it, he did not see into the immediate future with the unerring certainty that the writer of plays and student of human life saw it.

The duke had no hint of his own deliverance, but the elder man saw it clear and plain, and he would say nothing. A martyr must undergo his martyrdom before he wins his proper peace, it is the supreme condition of self-sacrifice, and James Fabian Rose knew that very well.

The duke stood waiting in the bishop's library at Grosvenor Street.

"His lordship will be with you in a moment, your Grace," the butler said, quietly closing the door of that noble room. It might have been imagination, but the young man thought that he saw a curious expression flit over the man's face, the half-compassionate, half-contemptuous look with which callous intelligence regards a madman.