Erb/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
SILK-HATTED men were hurrying to and fro in the lobby, each with an air of bearing the responsibilities of the Empire on his shoulders; cards were being sent in by the attendants: a few country visitors stood about near to the statue of Mr. Gladstone waiting awkwardly for the arrival of their member. Swing-doors moved unceasingly: now and again two members would encounter each other and consult furtively with wrinkled foreheads, and visitors stood back from the round space at the centre with awe and respect. Erb, in a morning coat and a necktie of such gaiety that alone it betrayed the fact of his wedding-day was an event not yet forgotten, strolled about, less appalled by the surroundings than most, so that provincials came to him now and again and made inquiries. Whenever he had been to the House before he had always felt wistful, and had looked through corridor to the inner lobby with anticipation; this evening the feeling was absent.
“Haven't kept you waiting I hope, Barnes?” The white-haired Labour member bustling out was conspicuous by reason of his bowler hat. “Rather a lot of things to do one way and another. When you get here you'll find—I can't see him now,” answering a messenger. “Tell him I'm going down to Bermondsey to put something straight that has got crooked, and I shall not be back till ten. Tell him that!”
“Cab or 'bus?” inquired Erb, as they went down the broad steps.
“'Bus,” said the Labour member, promptly. “Somebody might see us if we took a hansom. You'll find that you can't be too careful. And there's another thing, too. Flower in your coat, you know. Mistake!”
With axiom and words of counsel, the white-haired member shortened the journey from Westminster to the rooms in Grange Road; Erb listening with a proper deference, and refraining from all but appropriate and well-chosen interruptions. The member appeared stimulated by the task before him, and Erb felt quite mature in remembering the time when he, too, would have found his blood run quicker at the prospect of argument. His companion hurried up the corkscrew staircase of the coffee-house, Erb following slowly, nodding to a few of the men who, with anxious expression of countenance stood about on the landing. He went into a room at the side, where he hoped to be alone. Spanswick, however, had seen him, and Spanswick, following in, took a wooden chair on the opposite side of the table. But Erb's old van boy interposed, big with a message. The chief had sent him (said William Henry) to mention in confidence that, if Erb cared to come back to his former position “Extraordinary thing,” said Erb, “how much the world wants you when you show that you don't want the world. No answer, William Henry, only thanks.”
“I've been telling a lot of 'em,” said Spanswick, jerking his hand in the direction of the other room as the young diplomatist went, “that if they take my advice, Erb, they'll ask you to come back.”
“I see!”
“I've pointed out to 'em—of course I'm not a member now, but I can still talk—that they've blundered all along. That matter of the cheque, for instance—it's proved that it's never been cashed and, therefore, as I say, the money could never have come into your pocket. On the top of that,” said Spanswick, with something like indignation, “they go and select a bounder like old Doubleday. Why I could see what the man was like from the very start. I took his measure the first time I came across him. A talkative, interfering, muddle-headed gas-bag—I told some of 'em that it was a wonder they got men to take the trouble to lead them at all.”
“It is a wonder!”
“And here they are now,” said Spanswick, “here they are now down on their hands and knees without a single penny in the cash-box, worse off than they've ever been ever since the Society started, and not one amongst 'em capable of taking what you may call the reins of government in hand. It all comes,” concluded Spanswick, tapping at his nose with his forefinger, “it all comes through people not listening to the advice of the few of us,” here he struck his waistcoat impressively—“the few of us, like me and you, that know.”
Through the partition Erb could hear the voice of the Labour member. Impossible to distinguish the words, but clearly there was reproof in the tones at first; this gave place later to the quieter key of counsel. The men who had hitherto been silent began to applaud; fists struck the table with approval, and presently there came the sound of emphatic cheering that had often made Erb warm with pleasure.
“You're wanted, old man,” said Payne, opening the door importantly. “Foller me into the next room, will you?”
The old scent of gas and cheap tobacco and corduroys. The old faces looking round as he entered, elbows resting on the table, some of the men with tumblers before them; others, wearing the stern look of sobriety, had been making notes of the speech to which they had just listened. Circular stains on the long wooden U-shaped wooden tables; the impaled advertisements on the wall awry as though affected by the perfumes coming from the bar downstairs; the dulled mirror at the end reflecting the room mistily, with its frame protected eternally by tissue paper. The barman waiting for orders at the doorway gave Erb a tap of encouragement as he went in.
“Bravo! vo! vo! vo!” murmured the room.
“Order! order!” said the chairman. “I call on our old and trusted friend—I forget his blessed name—from Paddington Parcels, at any rate, to address the meeting.”
The Paddington Parcels member cleared his throat and rose. He had been one of the first to go over, and this he frankly admitted. “Gives me all the more title,” said Paddington Parcels determinedly, “to undertake what I'm undertaking of now.” Paddington Parcels handsomely offered to cut a long story short, and the room gave encouragement to this proposal, whereupon he proceeded to speak at intolerable length with ever, “Just one word and I've done,” and “Let me add a couple of words more,” and “Finally, I should like to remark,” and other phrases all suggesting an immediate finish, anticipation not justified by results.
Summarised, the argument was that the society had made a grievous blunder; that when a chap made a mistake he should apologise for it and set it right; that a society was like a chap, and should behave as a chap would, and that in the present deplorable state of the society there was only one thing they could do, namely, to ask Erb Barnes to let bygones be bygones, and to come back and resume the secretaryship. Payne spoke briefly. Every society had its ups and downs: this Society was just now all in the downs, as the song had it. But it was well worth while to have such an experience, if only to see his old chum, his good old chum Erb, righted in the eyes of everybody and restored to a position that he ought never to have quitted.
The Labour member begged leave (his tones intimating nothing of humility) to say a few words before this was put to the vote. The Society had been compared to a man, but the Society, as a society, was, so to speak, a mere child, and it had recently behaved in the impulsive wrong-headed manner of a child. That might be overlooked once; it would not be overlooked a second time. Mind that! Mind that! And there was another thing. The success of the labour movement as a whole depended on the loyalty of the men to those who were doing brain work on their behalf; let that loyalty once exhibit anything of doubt and the whole scheme, the whole business, the whole movement—the Labour member struck the wooden table emphatically at each variant of the phrase—the whole show would go to pot. All the same, he congratulated them on the wise decision at which they were about to arrive, and he strongly urged his friend Erb Barnes, “in consideration of certain prospective events,” said the white-haired member, lowering his voice mysteriously, “of which he is aware, but cannot at the present time be made public,” to accept the invitation of the men.
The men had kept silent whilst receiving criticism; at these last words they rose from the Windsor chairs and shouted approval. The shirt-sleeved waiter went up and down the tables, culling empty glasses and making them into a bouquet. Erb went to the mantelpiece, and resting one hand there, spoke quietly. Every face turned in his direction.
“I think,” said the chairman importantly, “I think I may say carried per se—I mean nem. con.”
“I'm not going to occupy your time for long,” said Erb from the fireplace when the renewed cheering had ceased. “You'll have other business to do—('No, no')—and, contrary to my usual practice I'm going to be brief. There have been times when you've heard me speak at a considerable length, and for all your kindness to me under those circumstances I give you my thanks. I shan't ever trouble you again to that extent. A month or so ago you met here—you, just the same men that you are now—and you gave me the sack. You never gave me a chance of defending myself or explaining my actions; you just pushed me off.”
The room murmured an unintelligible protest.
“You just pushed me off. You jilted me. You broke off the engagement. We're all constituted differently, I s'pose, but I'm like this: if anybody's faithful to me I should be glad of the opportunity of going through fire and water for them, if they're not, then fire and water are things they can go through for themselves. I reckon I've been in love with this society for the last year, and I've been loyal to it; now I'm in love with somebody else.”
“Who?” demanded the room.
“I'm in love,” said Erb, turning to glance at himself contentedly in the clouded mirror, “in love with my wife.”
“In love with his wife!” said the members to each other amazedly.
“Some people possess a stock of enthusiasm that's got no limits; mine all vanished, I find, directly you treated me unfairly. My friend who's kindly come down from Westminster to talk to you knows that I'm giving up prospects that would tempt a good many; it's only honest to tell you that those prospects, which a month since would have made my head swell, at this moment don't allure me in the slightest degree. I think—I don't know, mind—I think I'm seeing things clearer than I did. I idealised you. I imagined all the right and all the justice and all the everything was on our side; I've come to see that, as a matter of fact, it's about fairly divided. I'm going to take up a little business on my own account down in Wandsworth as a master carman, and I should be very glad, chaps, if you could manage to wish me luck. I'm going now. I'm going to leave you to go on with the business of appointing a secretary. There's plenty of capable men in the world, and the opportunity always finds them. So I wish you every prosperity, and I wish we may always keep friends, because some day we might find ourselves shoulder to shoulder again. And I wish you” Erb hesitated for a moment in order to steady his voice, “I wish you good-bye.”
The men crowded towards the doorway as Erb went in that direction.
“Come back to us, old man,” they cried. “We want you. Can't you see that”
On the opposite side of the roadway below, warmly jacketed in view of the coolness of an autumn evening, a pleasant figure walked to and fro. Regardless of the circumstances that faces looked down from the windows, Erb hurried across and kissed her.
Up the street they walked, arm-in-arm with each other, and arm-in-arm with happiness.
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS