“The man comes home, sits down to it, and rises from it unsatisfied. What does he do? He goes out and strolls round to the public-house. Put a good meal, well-cooked, inside of him, and he’ll not be so disposed to move. He’ll be inclined to smoke his pipe by the fire in his kitchen.”
He passed on to other topics. The whole speech was clever and was uttered on a lift of enthusiasm. But again Cynthia argued, it was the enthusiasm for the arena, not for a cause. It was ambition without ideals, power without high motive.
Diana Royle inclined toward her.
“Aren’t you satisfied now?” she asked.
“Oh, he will get on,” said Cynthia; and then she suddenly sat upright in her chair, with her lips parted and the blood bright in her cheeks.
“But, after all,” Rames was saying; his voice was beginning to grow hoarse and he raised his hand in an appeal for silence, “here are we discussing the work to be done, and leaving out in our discussion the great necessity. I don’t know what you think, but to my notion there is no greatness in any work unless it has a dream at the heart of it. The world’s work is done by the great dreamers. Well, here is my last word before the poll, perhaps the last word I shall speak in this constituency.”
He was interrupted as he had meant to be by loud repudiations of such a possibility.
“No, no!”
“You’re a member already.”
“We’ll put you in.”
Such phrases broke in upon the words and then a cheery voice, louder than the rest, shouted from the back of the hall:
“Never fear! You’re well patronized in Ludsey, Captain.”
A burst of laughter followed upon the words, and a flush of annoyance darkened Rames’s face.
“I will remind my friend that I am not a public entertainer,” he said. “And it’s really against the spirit represented in that sentence that I wish to direct my first words. I have my dream too — a dream. I speak openly to you — at my very heart. Let me tell it you. It involves a confession. When I first came to Ludsey six months ago, when for the first time I saw from the windows of my railway carriage across the summer fields the tall chimneys and high, long roofs of its factories, the delicate steeples of its churches, it was to me just a town like another. I will be frank, it was just a polling-booth. But as I got to know your city that error passed out of my thoughts.”
Cynthia leaned forward. He had used her own words. She could not but be flattered by his use of them. They had been acclaimed, too, by this great gathering, and she was proud of that. Not for anything would she have had their authorship revealed, but she was proud to hear them used, proud, too, because they seemed to have led, if she dared believe her ears, Harry Rames out of his detested breeziness into a contemplation of something other than the personal gain. She could hardly doubt him now; he spoke with so simple a sincerity. She had a sudden glimpse once more of her enchanted garden wherein she had walked with and helped the great ones of the earth. To help, herself unknown except by those she helped! — that had been the dream when she had encouraged dreams; and it sprang once more into life now as she listened.
“It is a city,” Rames continued, “where a few steps will take you out of the thronged streets into some old garden, quiet with the peace of ancient memories; some old close of plaster and black beams; some old room with windows deep-set in four-foot walls and wide hearths of centuries ago. And round about these old places stands a ring of factories where in good times the lights blaze until the morning and the whir of its machines never ceases from your ears. It is a city whose continuous life is written for all to see upon its buildings. Here kings and queens have tarried on their journeys; there chambers of commerce hold their meetings. From small and ancient beginnings it has been made by the activity of generations of men into a modern industrial city. Well, I have my dream. It is to be one little link in the continuity of its life and to do my share of service in the forwarding of its prosperity.”
A shout answered his words. He had his audience in hand. He stilled it with a swift gesture and his voice rang out with a laugh which had all the exultation of battle.
“Well, we shall know to-morrow night. We are in the ice-pack now, but we are coming to the outer rim of it. We can see the blue water already. We shall be sailing smoothly upon it this time to-morrow night.”
He had been chary of references to the voyage which had made his reputation; all the more, therefore, this one struck home. He sat down tempestuously acclaimed, and turning in his chair held out his hand to Cynthia Daventry.
“I am glad that you came,” he said. “I have achieved two triumphs to-night. I have brought you and Mr. Benoliel to your first political meeting and both of you are on my platform.”
He shook hands with Isaac Benoliel and with Diana Royle. Cynthia leaned a little forward.
“I, too, am glad that I came,” she returned with a smile. Because of those last words of his, friendship was warm in her toward Harry Rames. She added, “You knew then that I was here — just behind you?”
Rames nodded.
“Yes, but I was too nervous to turn to you before I had made my speech. The flesh wears a little thin after three weeks of this. One gets jumpy. Even the tattered corner of blind hanging down there from the skylight seemed to-night charged with some important message.” He spoke, ridiculing the fancy, and Cynthia, with a smile and a quick lift of her eyebrows, cried:
“I noticed that too.”
“Then for the first time,” said Rames, “we have something in common. You and I are probably the only people in the hall who noticed it. We have a bond of union.”
“A strip of tattered blind!” said Cynthia.
“Well, there was nothing at all before,” said Captain Rames, and he suddenly turned back to his seat. For the tall, gaunt man was on his legs.
Cynthia neither heard his name nor followed his speech with any particular attention. It was indeed difficult to follow. He was an old hack of the platform with all the sounding phrases at the tip of his tongue. Rolling sentences, of the copybook, flowed out of him; declamations too vague to be understood were delivered with the vigor of a prophet. But he interspersed them with the familiar clichés of the day and each one received its salvo of applause. To Cynthia he was a man not so much stupid as out of place. She could imagine him at the head of a cavalry squadron. Here he seemed simply grotesque.
On the other hand, Captain Rames did not; and the contrast between the two men bent her to consider whether, after all, she had not been wrong in her condemnation of his new career. She was in the mood to admit it; and when the meeting broke up and the crowd was pouring through the doors into the street, and those upon the platform were descending its steps, she found herself alone for a second on the rostrum with Harry Rames.
“Perhaps I was wrong,” she said. “I remember what you told me of Mr. Smale. A vivid gift of phrase — he thought that necessary. You have it.”
“On the platform — yes. But the platform’s not the House,” said Rames. “Smale told me that too. I have yet to see whether I shall carry the House.”
“Yet those last words,” said Cynthia— “about the city and the continuity of its life and your pride to have a little share in it. Oh, that was finely done.”
And upon Rames’s face there came a grin.
“Yes, I thought that would fetch ’em,” he said.
Cynthia stepped back. Once again it occurred to Rames, as it had done on the night of their first meeting at the Admiralty, that just so would she look if he struck her a blow.
“Then — then — the city is still a polling-booth,” she stammered.
“Yes,” said Rames.
The hero newly perched upon his pediment tumbled off again.
“You used what I said to you because you just thought it would go down.”
Rames did not deny it. He remained silent.
“I remember,” she continued, “it was no doubt a foolish thing I said. But even when I said it, you we
re thinking this is the sort of thing that will take.”
That she was humiliated, her voice and her face clearly proved. Yet again Rames did not contradict her. Again he was silent. For there was nothing to be said.
“You do not allow me many illusions about you,” Cynthia said gently, and she began to turn away.
But now he arrested her.
“I don’t mean to,” he said quickly; and by the reply he undid some portion of the harm he had done himself in her eyes.
CHAPTER XIV
COLONEL CHALLONER’S MEMORY
IT HAD BEEN arranged that Mr. Benoliel’s small party should take supper with Harry Rames at his hotel. As they stood waiting at the foot of the platform the agent came to them from the outer doors.
“The way’s clear now,” he said. “I think you can go.”
They passed through the empty hall, Cynthia first at Harry Rames’s side, and in that order they came out upon the steps. A fine rain was falling, but the crowd had not dispersed. The great light over the door showed the climbing street thronged. Coat collars were turned up, hats were pressed down; and so as Rames and Cynthia came out they saw in the glare beneath the rain just a mass of swaying, jostling black things, round black things moving indecisively this way and that like some close-packed herd of blind animals. Just for a moment the illusion lasted. Then Rames was seen and of a sudden the heads were thrown back, the hats shaken high, and all those black round things became the white faces of living men, their eyes shining in the light, their voices shouting in acclamation.
Captain Rames took a step back.
“Did you see?” he cried to Cynthia.
“Yes. They are not animals to draw your chariot,” she replied. “They are men.”
“Yes, men — men to govern,” he answered. His was the spirit of the old Whig families. Though he was not of them, he meant to force his way among them. To govern the people, not to admit it to government, to go far in appeasing it, but not to give it the reins, that was his instinct. He wished to retain the old governing class, but he meant to be one of it. His ambitions soared to-night, and reached out beyond this hilly, narrow street. He led these men now who stood acclaiming him in the rain. His thoughts shot forward to other days when every town in England might at his coming pour out its masses to endorse his words.
He waved his hand toward his companions and the crowd made a lane for them across the street to the hotel. Rames himself was carried shoulder-high, and set down within the doors. He led the way up the stairs to a big room upon the first floor overlooking the street, where supper was laid. A great shout went up from the street as they entered the room.
“They want you,” said Mrs. Royle.
“No,” replied Rames. He opened a door into a smaller room in which no lights were lit and pulled up the blinds. Across the street under a great clock was a newspaper office and in the windows the election returns of the night were being, displayed. All along the line victories were gained for Rames’s party. Arthur Pynes, a young manufacturer, and the chairman of the association, to whose energy the organization was due; an ex-Mayor, a Mr. Charlesworth, and one or two hard fighters of the old school joined the group in the dark room. One of them, a rosy-faced contractor with a high laugh, who had presided over the association in its darker days, leaned against the window by Cynthia Daventry.
“He’ll have to appear on this balcony to-morrow night, as soon as he can after the result’s declared,” he said. “You see, the windows are all boarded up on the ground floors opposite.”
“He’ll speak from here?” asked Cynthia.
“He’ll speak, but they won’t listen,” replied Mr. Arnall. “I remember Sir William Harris, the last time he was elected before he was made a judge—” and he ran off into stories of the old days until the windows of the newspaper office were darkened and the crowd at last dispersed.
“Let us go in to supper,” said Rames, and they all passed into the next room. “Will you sit here, Mrs. Royle, and you here, Miss Daventry?” He placed Diana Royle upon his right hand and Cynthia upon his left. “Pynes, will you take the chair next to Mrs. Royle, and Colonel,” he addressed the tall, gaunt man whose flowing platitudes had left nothing in Cynthia’s mind but a recollection of sonority, a booming as of waves in a hollow cave, “will you sit next to Miss Daventry?”
The colonel bowed and prepared to take his seat. But he was a punctilious old gentleman and stood upon the ceremonies.
“You have not introduced me, Rames,” he said.
“I beg your pardon. Miss Daventry, this is Colonel Challoner. He has made his own seat a safe one — a county division which polls a week later than we do, and he lives in it. So when I applied at head-quarters for help at our last meeting Colonel Challoner was kind enough to volunteer.”
Cynthia shot a startled glance at her neighbor. Her own name was Challoner too; and all that was terrible in her recollections was linked with it. Of course, it did not follow that this Challoner was any relation of hers. There must be many families of that name. Nevertheless, the sudden sound of it caused her a shock. The blood rushed into her face. She made a movement. Almost she shrank away. Challoner, however, was taking his seat. He noticed the quick movement; he did not appreciate the instinct of fear which had caused it.
“Ah, it is true then, Miss Daventry,” he said. “We have already met. You remember it, too.”
Cynthia was startled.
“No, Colonel Challoner,” she replied quickly. “I don’t think that we have. Indeed, I am sure we have not. I should surely have remembered if we had.”
“That is a pretty thing for a young lady to say to an old man,” the colonel answered with a smile. “But my memory is a good one. I never forget a face.”
He had the particular pride of all men with good memories, and ambition had intensified it into an obstinacy. For he had his ambition, and successive disappointments had only strengthened its hold upon his heart. He aimed to be Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He had been military attaché at so many Embassies, the post, to his thinking, was marked out for him. At each new promotion to the Cabinet, at each general election, he was sure that he could no longer be overlooked. He ran from platform to platform to increase his claim upon the office should his party be returned. A telegram from the chief whip had brought him to Ludsey, would send him to-morrow into Yorkshire. Now, surely, his turn must come! He had one persistent fear, lest he should be thought too old. And he clung with an almost piteous reiteration to the accuracy of his recollections as a vindication of the alertness of his powers.
“When I saw you upon the platform I was quite sure that it was not for the first time, Miss Daventry,” he insisted.
“During the season, perhaps,” Cynthia replied. “At some reception or ball. Did you hear that, Colonel Challoner?” and she turned quickly toward Mr. Arnall, who was telling an old story of the days and the hustings when broken heads were common about the doors of the polling-booths.
Cynthia laughed eagerly with the rest in her anxiety to keep Colonel Challoner from plying her with questions. She was ready with her answers, but greatly she feared, lest by probing into his memories he should understand of a sudden where he had seen her before. And for a time she was successful. The confidence which had run from man to man in the great Corn Exchange an hour before was present at this supper-table and kindled them all to cheeriness. The ex-Mayor said with a pleasant drawl, which was his habit:
“Do you remember Taylor the Democrat, Arnall? He fought two elections here within three months and then went bankrupt. He was an adventurer and the most eloquent man I ever heard. But he was a caution.”
“Yes,” cried Mr. Arnall, with a clicking laugh at the back of his throat. “Do you remember his meeting down by the club? ‘Gag that calf,’” and Mr. Arnall spluttered with delight.
“That’s it,” said the ex-Mayor. “You must know that Taylor stood as a Democrat, Captain Rames. That’s where the fun comes in. He wore a blue swal
low-tail-coat with brass buttons and his hair down to his shoulders. ‘Your father was a miller,’ one fellow shouted from the crowd. ‘Gag that calf,’ cried Taylor and he held up his arms in the air. ‘Look at these fair hands. No work has ever sullied them.’ That did him all right.”
A quiet, elderly man leaned over the table.
“Did you notice the flag upon the chairman’s table, Captain Rames?” he asked. “It was woven out of Ludsey silk fifty years ago. It’s the true Ludsey blue. My father wove it for Sir William Harris’s first election, and the other fellows swore they would have it on the polling-day. But we carried it about the streets from morning to evening, with twelve big fellows to protect it. It was nearly down once, I remember. I was a lad at the time — at the corner of Stapley’s Lane. But we saved it and it was your table-cloth to-night, Captain Rames. It brought us victory then. It will again to-morrow.”
The stories were continued. They were often not very pointed; often enough the humor was far to seek; but they were alive. They were told with infinite enjoyment, and the smallest details were remembered over decades. Cynthia began now to listen to them for their own sake; she was learning with surprise the value of politics to the lives of men in a busy city of the provinces. But the colonel at her elbow was not longer to be diverted.
“I think it must have been in Dorsetshire that we met,” he said. “I live near to Wareham.”
Cynthia looked at him quite steadily.
“I have never been in Dorsetshire in my life, Colonel Challoner.”
“Yet I associate you with that county,” he persisted. “Now, why should I do that, Miss Daventry? You have not been to my house, I know. For since my wife died and my son went away, I have not had so many young people to stay with me as I should have liked.”
From the moment when Colonel Challoner had claimed her recognition, Cynthia had not doubted that she was sitting next to a relation. And Colonel Challoner’s location of his home in Dorsetshire, near to Wareham, had confirmed her belief. She knew quite well how it came about that he had seemed to recognize her, that he associated her with his own parish. She knew because upon one unforgettable night she had crouched in a great chair in a dark room and through the panels of a door had heard her father claim her as his daughter. He, too, had recognized her as Colonel Challoner now did, and just by the same means. For there was a Romney hanging upon the dining-room wall in that house near Wareham which might have been a portrait of herself. But until this moment she had not guessed what degree of relationship bound her to the old man at her side.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 489