Erb/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
THE incident revealed to Erb the fact that the men's support and confidence had something of a tidal nature. He had watched, sometimes with amusement, always with interest, the state of other leaders—from high water, when they could swim luxuriously, to low water, when they were left stranded foolishly on the beach; it had not before occurred to him that he himself might encounter a similar experience; he determined now to make his position as secure as possible. In this effort he relied a good deal on the new journal he was preparing, the first number of which was to bear on the front page the words, “Edited by Herbert C. Barnes.” Lady Frances had written on the subject of labour—
“Oh horny-handed sons of toil,
Who spin and weave and dig in mines.”
Erb, summoned to Eaton Square to take charge of this (the risk of loss in the post being too great to endure), had ventured to point out to the poetess, with, of course, great respect, that it would have been more appropriate to introduce something about kindness to horses and the difficulties occasioned by the stress and turmoil of traffic; Lady Frances, listening with a slight frown on her young forehead, answered that she was much obliged, that she thought she saw her way to another poem to be called “Sturm and Drang,” but she felt it would be unwise to touch the first effort; good poetry was always dashed off on the impulse of the moment.
“I didn't know that,” remarked Erb, with deference.
So poem Number One was to go in, please, exactly as she had written it, and on the day the paper came out would Erb oblige her very much by coming to dinner at Eaton Square.
“Dinner?” echoed Erb amazedly.
To dinner at Eaton Square, and bringing with him one, or perhaps more, copies. Her uncle and a few more men would be present, and, to make the dinner quite informal, they would wear morning dress. No, no, please, no excuses of any kind. Lady Frances was going to see her tailor in Maddox Street, and she could give Erb a lift so far. The tall maid (who was Miss Luker of the dance) being rung for, brought in hat and cloak, and helped her young mistress with them, giving no glance towards Erb, and the two went downstairs together. Seated at the side of Lady Frances, he was watched curiously by the drivers of one or two railway vans, who, in their anxiety to verify what appeared to be a dream, looked round by the side, allowing thus their blinkered horses to peer into omnibuses and nibble at conductors' hats, necessitating a swift exchange of the kind of repartee in which the London driver is a past master. When Erb stepped out at Maddox Street and, raising his hat, started back to a point whence he could walk to his office at Bermondsey, he noticed that Lady Frances had a look on her face that might come to one who advanced the cause of millions and, by an act of her own, had made a whole world glad. It would be quite unfair to suggest that at this period Erb was by way of becoming a snob, but it would be untrue to say that he had any objection to the soft, pleasant perfume, the well-bred air, the gracious manner that he found with Lady Frances. It is also right to say that directly he had left her he began to think of Rosalind and of his work. At this period sometimes one came first, sometimes the other.
He retained his habit of talking as he went along the London streets, and in this way he often had long talks with Rosalind of an extremely fervent nature; Rosalind helping him with a few coy questions, all in a way that had never yet found realisation; his fluency in these rehearsals astonished him sometimes as much as his inexcusable awkwardness when he called at Camberwell.
“I'm a bit of a muddler,” he confessed in Waterloo Place, “where women are concerned. In other matters, now Look where you're coming, stupid!”
Spanswick, red faced, short necked, and pimpled, addressed in this way, was walking backwards in the inconvenient manner adopted by some on crowded pavements who wish to review scenes that have passed; it was a silken ankle stepping into a carriage that had clipped Spanswick's attention.
“What ho!” cried Spanswick. “Still a lordin' it, Erb, old man? Kind of a amphibious animal, ain't you?”
“I can swim!” said Erb.
“The best swimmers get drownded sometimes.”
“Not more than once.”
“Talking of which,” said Spanswick cheerily, “are you going to stand us a drink?”
“No,” replied Erb.
“Ah, well,” said Spanswick with an effort, “me and you can't afford to quarrel. We've both got our axes to grind. Whereabouts is Pall Mall?”
“You're in it now. It runs up that way to the bottom of St. James's Street.”
“That's the best of 'aving been a parcels carman,” sighed Spanswick enviously. “I was never anything but a goods man, and I never had no chances of getting amongst the aristocracy as you have. Otherwise I should meet you on equal terms. How's the young woman?”
“What young woman?”
“Old man, don't let's go kicking up a common fracas here. You don't understand my style of humour. This newspaper, or journal, or organ, or whatever you like to call it—how's it going?”
“Well,” said Erb, returning to good temper. “I find I'm having to do it pretty nigh all myself. There's another column to do now before the first number's ready.”
“I'm pretty 'andy with me pen,” remarked the other. “I don't prefess to be a literary man, of course, but I'll send you in a few items of news.”
“Ever so much obliged to you. Make 'em smart and readable, mind.”
“I'll make 'em smart,” said Spanswick.
It seemed to Erb, on the day The Carman was to appear, that something special of a less selfish character than the dinner in Eaton Square should be arranged to mark the event. What he vaguely desired was to give an outing to Louisa—the short sister had become too weak to take public promenade, and the current young man had to shout to her of an evening, gripping the railings in Page's Walk. Erb had some daring thought of inviting Rosalind, and taking them both up the river. This detail of the plan he accepted and rejected, and accepted and rejected again; meeting Rosalind herself one evening in the strenuous fight for trams on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, he, after protecting her in the struggle up the steps, and allowing himself in the carrying out of his duty to press the plump arm above the elbow, found himself in the mood of accepting the detail, and he submitted the proposal in a way meant to be deferential, which, however, came out quite brusque and defiant. “Ever been to Battersea Park?” he asked gruffly. Rosalind had never been to Battersea Park. “Care to go?” Rosalind was so busy that she feared “I'm going to take Louisa.” In that case (with a flush that went partly over her face and then ran away), in that case Rosalind would be very pleased. “Must be Wednesday next,” said Erb shortly. Wednesday was rather an awkward day, because there was a pupil at half-past one, who came in her dinner hour, and another at three. “Put her off,” commanded Erb. Very well, then, the three o'clock pupil should be off; Rosalind declared she would be thinking of the afternoon every hour of the day until it arrived. Had Erb seen Lady Frances lately? “We can't bear to be apart,” said Erb, in a tone meant to be jocular.
There were times when the one thing certain seemed to be that by no possible chance could the first number of The Carman come out on the day appointed. The printers did not place the importance of the undertaking so high as Erb did; difficult to make them understand the importance of producing it on the day fixed; the foreman of the noisy, rattling printing establishment in Southwark said frankly that the world having done without the journal for so long, no great hurt could be occasioned if it should be twenty-four hours or so late.
But on the day, their van drove up to the doorway of the office where Erb and some of the committee were waiting, and a minute later each man had a copy in his hands, his eyes fixed on the gratifying place where his own name appeared. Erb had taken ingenious care to mention as many names as possible, and, because of this, railway vans sent, say, from Paddington to Haverstock Hill, made a slight detour and called at Bermondsey for copies. There were some misprints, and one man, whose Christian name was given as John instead of James, cancelled his subscription instantly, and prophesied a gloomy future for the paper. Erb demanded opinions, and discovered to his regret, that nearly every line in the small paper received condemnation from somebody (personal paragraphs about high officials in the railway world alone excepted), the fact being that the readers of The Carman misapprehended the question, and assumed, when asked for an opinion, that they were invited to give adverse judgment; a thing that has happened with other critics in other circumstances.
But the particular copies presented to Louisa and to Rosalind extorted from these young women, on their way slowly to Cherry Garden Pier, unqualified approval. On the pier, where they waited for the steamer coming up from Greenwich, the two ladies read again the printed references to themselves.
“Yours,” said Erb importantly, fanning himself with his straw hat, “yours is what we newspaper people call a dummy ad.”
“I can pay for mine,” said Rosalind quickly.
“You'll do nothing of the sort,” retorted Erb. “Read it out!”
She read it with a flush of gratification on her young face, Erb looking over her shoulder. The scent of brown Windsor came to him.
“'Miss Rosalind Danks,'” she read, “'Professor of Elocution, Declamation, Gesture, etcetera, etcetera. Number so-and-so Southampton Street, Camberwell, S.E. Schools attended. Private lessons given. Assisted by Mr. Reginald C. Danks, formerly of the principal West End theatres. “Shall we never forget his Montgiron.” Vide Press.'”
“Now yours, Louisa.”
A break in his short sister's voice betokened uncontrollable pride.
“'We are glad to say that Miss L. Barnes, younger sister of our secretary, is slowly recovering from a rather serious illness.' First time,” said Louisa, waving the journal in the air, “the very first time my name's ever been in print.”
“May I suggest, Mr. Editor,” said Rosalind, leading him to the iron chain that protected the edge of the pier, “that it is a little clumsy to express satisfaction at slow recovery? It wasn't what you meant.”
“Don't let on to her about it,” urged Erb distressed. “I haven't got quite the hang of writing. Is there anything else you noticed?”
“Nothing of importance.”
“Tell us,” begged the anxious editor, “and get it over.”
“These personal paragraphs, headed 'What we Want to Know.'”
“The men all liked them.”
“A little spiteful,” she said quietly. “Calculated to hurt somebody. I shouldn't, if I were you. This one, for instance.”
“We'll drop 'em in number two. Here's our boat coming.”
Some particular people complain of the river steamers, but the Flying Arrow that took charge of the three at London Bridge, and conveyed them up under railway bridges, and past embankments, and by the terrace of the House of Commons—Erb waved his straw hat to his friend the white-haired Labour member, and the Labour member waved in return in such a friendly manner that other passengers became at once interested in Erb, and whispered (to Louisa's great satisfaction), “Who is he? Who is he, eh?”—by the Tate Gallery, and between unattractive stores, Nine Elms way—the Flying Arrow, I say, for these three young people might have been a gaily-caparisoned barge lent by Cleopatra; the gramophone that squeaked out songs in a ghostly, unnatural tone of voice, a selected troupe from the Royal Italian Opera; and the changes that the atmosphere took from inexpensive cigars and cheap tobaccos, the choicest perfumes from Old Bond Street. The top note of satisfaction was reached when Erb, invited to political debate by the self-confident captain, worsted that uniformed official with the greatest possible ease, and sent him back limp to the bridge, to resume a profession for which he was qualified. Disappointing, perhaps, to find that people on the steamboat who studied literature were not applying themselves to The Carman, devoting their minds, instead, to cheap journals, which offered German pictures (second-hand), with American jokes underneath, not absolutely new. Erb left two copies of The Carman, one aft and one at the other end, and the girls watched results; a lad with a bulgy forehead took up a copy and read it with languid interest; he presently dropped it on the deck, and a waiter in a bowler hat who came along at that moment threw it into the river, where it drifted away helplessly. The other copy seemed likely to taste more of success, for a woman seized it with every sign of delight; when she proceeded to wrap up a pair of boots in the new journal Erb felt annoyed. But it was not easy to remain in this state with a cheerful young woman like Louisa, or with a more sedate but equally agreeable person like Rosalind, and they presently had a great game of pretending that they were royalty on a tour round the world, so that Nine Elms pier became Gibraltar, and a few minutes later they were going through the Suez Canal, which others called Battersea Bridge. On reaching Sydney (which had no harbour to speak of, but possessed a wobbling pier marked Battersea Park) they disembarked with most of the other voyagers, some of whom had decided that the three were either theatrical people or not quite right in their heads. As they went up the wooden gangway and entered the Park, Louisa had colour in her white cheeks, and, declining assistance of her companions, ordered them to give each other their arms. Which they did for a moment only.
“Shan't go to that dinner this evening,” said Erb.
“I think you will,” remarked Rosalind.
“Catch you,” said Louisa satirically, “catch you missing a chance like that.”
“I shan't go. I don't want anything better'n this.”
“You'll have to,” decided Louisa. “And come back and tell us all about it. I'd give anything to see Alice's face when she hears you've been upstairs.”
“I'd forgot about Alice.”
“She's forgot about us,” retorted Louisa. “That's the worst of tall people, they always look down on you. How'd it be if I sat down here for a bit and let you two walk on and come back for me?”
“And leave you alone?” asked Rosalind.
“I can set here and laugh at the foreigners,” she remarked.
Erb and Rosalind made Louisa comfortable on a chair, and left her applying herself once more to the intellectual delight of again reading through The Carman, with special attention to the paragraph that concerned herself. Just before they went out of sight of her, in going round the circle where bicycles were swishing along, they turned and waved their hands: she unpinned her straw hat and lifted it in a gentlemanly way.
“I wonder,” said Erb thoughtfully, “whether she's going to make old bones.”
“I shouldn't let her go again to that work of hers.”
“If anything serious happened,” he said slowly, “I'd make such a stir about the business that they'd have to shut up the factory.”
“That wouldn't bring her back,” remarked Rosalind.
“Back?” Erb stopped affrighted. “Why you don't think—you don't fancy for a moment, do you, that she's going to” They walked on quickly for a while. “My goodness,” he cried excitedly, “I'd tear the place down for them! There shouldn't be a stone left! I'd get questions asked about the business in Parliament! I'd organise meetings. I'd make London get white hot about it! I'd never let 'em rest. I'd set every society at 'em. We'd get up demonstrations in the streets. We'd—”
“Don't let's get cross about anything,” said Rosalind. “I want to look back on to-day when I get into my dull moments.”
“You never get dull.”
“I suppose nobody's life is perfectly happy.”
“I say,” said Erb, walking nearer to her and speaking in an undertone. “You never worry about that chap Railton, do you?”
“Not—not very often.”
“That's right,” he said. “You know there's no man in this world that is worth a single tear from your eyes.”
“Don't talk about me as though I were perfect.”
“You wouldn't be perfect,” said Erb, “if it wasn't for your faults.”
They talked of Louisa, and reckoned up amusedly her long list of engagements. From this Erb went on to a short lecture on the time that some wasted over affairs of the heart, urging that there were other matters of equal or greater interest in life, such as the joy of getting on better than other people, and thus extorting the open envy, the cloaked admiration of colleagues. He succeeded at last in minimising the value of love to such a small amount that his companion ceased to give any consenting words, and, noticing her silence, he recognised that he was outrunning her approval; he had to hark back to the point where her silence had commenced to hint at want of agreement. They read the wooden labels on preposterous-looking trees, and invented names of like manner for themselves: Erb delivered a brief address from the banks of the lake to the swans on the water, urging them to form a society of their own and to fight to the last feather for their rights: they found a long broad avenue under trees that leaned across at the top, and a perfectly new Rosalind offered, in a sportive way that amazed Erb and gratified him, to race him as far as a mail-cart, and Erb starting, took no trouble over what appeared an easy task, with the result that he reached the winning-post badly beaten by the limping girl by several yards, and forced to endure from the baby occupant of a mail-cart a sneer of contempt. They rested after this, and, whilst Erb fanned her with his copy of The Carman, Rosalind talked of her father, and, instead of becoming serious as usual when the old Professor occupied her thoughts, told with great enjoyment the story of a great week once at Littlehampton when they were playing East Lynne with a fit-up company to such imperfectly filled houses that it became certain there would be not only no money with which to pay the excellent landlady on Sunday morning, but scarce a penny to buy food on Saturday. Of aforesaid excellent landlady coming in on the Saturday night and making one of eight people in the pit, and being so affected by the performance by Rosalind as little Willy, and moved to such anguish of tears by the scene, that she bustled out between the last acts, purchased a sheep's head at the butcher's, had a fragrant, gorgeous supper ready for the Professor and Rosalind on their hungry return, and came in after the meal, when the two had searched once more for an emergency exit from the situation, with formal announcement to the effect that she knew quite well that they hadn't a shilling to bless themselves with, that her native town in regard to appreciation of the dramatic art was past praying for; that Rosalind was a little dear, and that, for her part, if she touched a copper of their non-existent money she would never again know a moment's peace: the landlady begged two favours, and two favours only—first, that she might give the little girl a good hug; second, that she might be permitted to stay up and bake them a meat and potato pie that would keep their bodies and souls together on to-morrow's journey.
They remembered Louisa presently, and went back to the white-faced girl, who had found company in a penny novelette left on the seat by someone tired of literature, and who made them go away again until she ascertained whether the young woman in the story married the brilliant young journalist or the middle-aged peer. When justice had been done by presentation of the prize to brains, and the House of Lords, resigning itself without a murmur, had given its blessing and a cheque, she called them back, and the three held council in regard to the dinner in Eaton Square. Erb was still inclined to be obstinate, but the two young women were equally determined, and they took him across the bridge into King's Road, where the committee purchased for him a new neck-tie, the while they sent him away to wash his face and hands. They left him presently at Sloane Square, and went home to Bermondsey, because Louisa was now forced to confess that she had become tired; Rosalind having the evening free, and being anxious to hear the report of Erb's experience in Eaton Square, offered to read to her in Page's Walk.
Events progressed in Page's Walk to the point of a cosy chat, where Louisa defied sleep in order to recite to Rosalind in their due order the circumstances of the many engagements from the respective starts to the individual finishes, with imitations of the voice of each suitor, and occasionally a parody of the gait. It was in the middle of a diverting account of Number Five—who had at least one defect in that he had no roof to his mouth—that Erb returned. The two surrounded him, firing questions.
“One at a time,” said Erb, good-humoured, because of the unexpected joy of seeing Rosalind again. “One at a time. There were small things first, sardines and what not.”
“Hors d'œuvres,” said Rosalind.
“I daresay. Anyhow, after that, soup.”
“Can't stand soup,” remarked Louisa. “There's no stay in soup. Go on, Erb.”
“Now comes what I may term,” said Erb, “the gist or point of this anecdote. The lady with the shoulders next to me”
“I should faint if I found myself going out like that,” declared Louisa, interrupting again. “How anyone can do it beats me. It's like being caught in your disables.”
“The lady with the shoulders next to me turned and asked me something that I didn't exactly catch, and I turned round rather suddenly and said, 'Beg pardon?' Knocked the arm of the girl who was serving the fish, and as near upset the plate that she held in her hand as didn't matter. I jumps up, and then for the first time I recognised it was Alice.”
“Wasn't she took aback?”
“Not half so much as I was,” said Erb. “I suppose being rather a large dinner party they'd laid her on extra. Of course, I shook hands with her and said, 'Hullo, Alice, how's the world using you?'”
“Well, you are,” said Louisa with horror, “absolutely the biggest juggins I ever come across.”
“But what was I to do?”
“Do?” echoed the short sister. “Do? I could have soon shown you what to do. All you'd got to do was to take no notice of her. Ignore her! Look past her! Pretend she wasn't there! You'll never get asked again, that's a very sure thing.”
“I don't care,” answered Erb. “I'm an awkward chap in these West End circles. When I'm not in 'em I want to be there, and once I'm there I look round directly for an open door to slip out of.”
“And what did Miss Alice have to say for herself?” asked Louisa, coming back to the incident with relish.
“Oh, she kept very cool, and she just whispered, 'Sit down, Erb, and behave.'”
“That's her all over.”
“They stared at me naturally enough, and young Lady Frances seemed a bit upset just for a moment, and nobody spoke for a bit, but after a while they were all chatting away again, and the party with the shoulders next to me began asking me what I thought of the new woman at Covent Garden. Then I put me foot in it again,” said Erb amusedly. “I thought she meant the market.”
“How they'd pull you to pieces after you left,” remarked Louisa sighing. “I can 'ear 'em saying things.”
“I can't,” said Erb contentedly. “And if I did I shouldn't care. What would you have done,” he appealed to Rosalind, “what would you have done, now, in similar circumstances?”
Rosalind, as she put on her gloves, considered for a moment before replying. Then she leaned towards him and touched Erb's hand.
“I should have done,” she said, “exactly as you did.”
There were several reasons why Erb should not take her by the arms; all these reasons jumped up before him as he rose and made a step forward. He stopped himself with an effort, and preceded her to the door. They went downstairs, and he walked bareheaded as far as the “Lord Nelson.”
“You were never nearer being kissed,” he said to her ear, “in all your life.”
“Please, please!” she said reprovingly.
Erb went back to Page's Walk checked and cooled by this reproof. The prospect that he had had momentarily in his mind of the small house close to Wandsworth Common, with a billiard-table lawn at the back, at a time when he, perhaps, would be in the House, unique among all labour members by reason of having a wife who could be introduced with confidence, was dismissed with a caution.
“Letter for you, Erb, on the mantel,” cried Louisa from her room. “It's just been sent over. Good night!”
A portentous envelope, addressed to the Editor of The Carman. Erb sliced it with his penknife. The large letter paper was folded in three.
“Sir,—
“We have been consulted by our client, Sir William Durmin, with reference to the libellous statement which appears in No. I of The Carman.
“Our client cannot allow such statements to be made, and our instructions are to issue a writ without further notice.
“If you wish to avoid personal service, please supply us by return of post with the name of your solicitor who will accept service on your behalf.
“Yours faithfully.”
“Now,” said Erb, “the band's beginning to play.”