William John Locke

“ Lady Phayre looked on, pleased, she could scarcely tell why. These big, earnest men were sometimes like babies—so helpless, if left to themselves. She tended on him now and then in a pretty way without leaving her seat, passed his plate, handed him the little silver jug of cream, and, when the meal was over, fetched from a cupboard a box of cigarettes. Like a man unaccustomed to delicate feminine ministrations, Goddard accepted them rather tongue-tied, with a certain tremulous bashfulness. ”

“ Many and many a woman, when she has been asked that question, the helpless question across the league-sundering gulf, has answered, aloud or dumbly, in a great yearning: “Love, a breath of passion, a touch of tenderness.” But in Lizzie that craving had never been deeper than the bloom on her cheek, and with the bloom it had perished. There are natures too common for the need of love, which is an instinct upwards of the soul. ”

“ To have driven to a politician’s house at night to deliver a political message was a commonplace of propriety. But to take the message of victory to the man she loved, knowing, with a thrill that quivered from her feet to her hair, that the message would contain also the openly avowed gift of herself—that set matters on a totally different plane. It was wild, daring, unutterably sweet. The breathless moment that followed the lie was the supreme point of happiness in Lady Phayre’s life. ”

“ Take care. You great strong men break with a crash. Go away and have a rest.”
“Like Lady Phayre,” said Goddard, in the bitterness of his heart.
“Quite so. That confounded strike of yours did for her. What the dickens we’re to do without her I don’t know.”
“Life will go on just the same, I suppose. No one is indispensable.”
He laughed mirthlessly. A faint flush rose in Gleam’s dry cheeks.
“You’re talking treason, Goddard. You certainly do want a rest.”
“One wants a devil of a lot of things one can’t get,” said Goddard. ”

“ Goddard stumbled heavily upstairs to his own room, threw himself on the bed, and lay there, holding his burning head in his hands.
And Emily sat in the death-chamber and cried, the only soul on the wide earth who had love for the poor, wrecked creature that was dead, for Sophie, her sister, had never had a word of good to say on Lizzie’s behalf. She alone knew and pitied the miserable tragedy of that poor, futile life. ”

“ You are in the swim of everything—the pivot of the party.”
“Oh, the party!” cried Lady Phayre. “Sometimes I get so tired of it. It seems to be all concerned with means—the end lost sight of. Nothing day after day but little moves, and counter-moves, and intrigues, and this person’s speech, and that person’s vote. Oh, Mr. Goddard, when you get into Parliament you will never develop into the typical party-man—the lobbyist, and asker of questions, and mover of amendments. ‘You are so different from most of the other men who come here.” ”

“ It is a simple way to rid ourselves of burdens, to consign them to Avernus, and ship them on the waters of Lethe. Unfortunately it is not always successful. They are apt to be elusive, like the vampire in the Indian story which Vikram could not keep in his sack. They slip from the hold of the dark ship, and return to the shoulders of the consigner. But in this Goddard’s pride allowed no confession of failure. He blustered himself into the belief that Lady Phayre was no more to him than Hecuba was to the First Player, thus playing the hypocrite to himself with morose and stubborn futility. ”

“ But the shops have to supply that world’s wants, and all the bravery of window fronts cannot give the illusion of refined and luxurious patronage. There is not much pleasure to be got out of Ecclesby. Even its theatre is up a dingy side-street, and has a threepenny gallery and sixpenny pit. The fair follies and vain amenities of existence find no place there. It is given over to labour grim, absorbing, inevitable. At certain periods of the day the High Street, Market Square, and Union Street, which cuts laterally through its heart, at the top of the rise, are quite deserted. ”

“ When Goddard took his leave, he was unaware how far he had advanced in Lady Phayre’s good favour; but he realised that something new and helpful had come into his own life.
After this he became a constant visitor at Queen’s Court Mansions. Usually he chose the times when Lady Phayre was alone. In the general society he now and then met in her drawing-room, he felt shy and constrained, blundered in his speech, and grew hot with anger at imaginary errors. A proud man, he was ashamed at himself for envying the ease of manner of other men. ”

“ Like the apocryphal British workman, Lizzie hated work, and hated those that liked it. She saw no point in unnecessary labour.
“No,” said Goddard, his face lighting up with the impulse of reply. “Not my own living to get, thank God, but I have to help others to get theirs. I may not be able to do much. But when a lot of men work together, every little effort of each tells. And I mean, too, to come to the front, Liz, for the nearer the front a man is, the bigger the things he can do. And the front means a big position in Parliament, and that’s what I’m going to try and get before I die. ”

“ It was not a new experience for Lady Phayre. She was familiar with platforms, and the sight of the pale, moving mass of human faces in front. She had listened to the speeches of many demagogues to the proletariat, and had found them singularly lacking in originality. Accordingly, it was with the air of an old campaigner that she settled herself down by the side of Aloysius Gleam, and surveyed the decorous occupants of the platform, and the noisy but enthusiastic audience of working men and women in the body of the hall. ”

“ He looked at Carson with a searching appeal in his eyes. The latter took his hand, felt his pulse.
“What you are to do,” he said, “is to go to bed at once and sleep. I’ll send you round a draught. What you are to think, when you wake up, is that you are not responsible for her death—that she might have died at any moment, that it is better to die than to live a life of misery; that you are a free man, young, with all that makes life worth living in front of you. And lastly, if you like, that I have forgotten all you have told me. Now, go to bed and stay there.”
“Impossible,” cried Goddard. ”

“ CHAPTER IX—SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENTS Goddard mounted the stairs of Queen’s Court Mansions with a heavy tread. He was physically tired, and his heart was sullenly sore. He had felt himself irresistibly drawn hither, though his pride hated the ordeal of confessing his failure to a woman, especially to Lady Phayre. The old, fierce class feeling was ineradicable. She was above him. Success, brilliance alone could keep him on her level. Failure brought him down. ”

“ This is Ecclesby when the factories are working, and the hum of strange machinery strikes the ear on passing by the yawning gateways. But when Goddard went there a blight had fallen on the town. The factories for the most part were silent, the streets depressing with unjoyous idleness. The fact that the strikers had gone in procession the day before with a brass band that played the Dead March in “Saul” before the employers’ villas had not produced lasting exhilaration. The very deadly boredom of leisure, apart from anxiety as to issues, was wearing down the adult population. ”

“ But men of Goddard’s stamp survive the shipwreck of their happiness. They live on, and go about the world’s work doggedly, stubbornly, blindly obeying the fighting instinct within them. The great tragedies of the soul culminate not in death, but in dragging years of life, when the grasshopper is a burden and desire fails. ”

“ No wonder Gleam was enraptured.
Women who are in the habit of throwing their caps over windmills find it as monotonous as anything else after a time; but for one who has never done it before, the act is accompanied with a rare exhilaration.
Lady Phayre had lived a bright but perfectly exemplary life. No breath of scandal had ever rested upon her name. Sir Ephraim had cloyed her with affection, and hitherto she had regarded amatory offerings with a young confectioner’s serene indifference to puffs. ”

“ Lizzie, never expansive in her father’s presence, was less so to-day than usual. Goddard’s sudden accession to wealth—riches beyond the dreams of Lizzie’s avarice—somewhat awed her, after the first excitement had passed. His cleverness, his personality, all in fact that differentiated him from Joe Forster the tobacconist and his class, had always put him a little beyond her reach; but now that he was a rich man as well, she felt frightened and abashed. She offered him bread and butter timidly, and flushed scarlet when she awkwardly flooded his tea-cup. ”

“ Do you know that?”
“You were looking so worn out and sad when you came in, that it pained me,” said Lady Phayre, non-committally.
But Goddard’s ear detected a soft note in her voice. He came near to her, sat down on the fender-stool, almost by her knees.
“Why are all women not like you? What a great beautiful world it would be.”
“Any woman would have done the same; given you of her best to cheer you. Besides, I was grieved—you have worked so nobly. Everybody has been talking about you—of nothing else. ”

“ But instead of drawing away her hand, she moved it slightly so that her lips touched the palm, and there it stayed while she gave herself up to a day-dream. And the smile rose into her eyes which no one has ever seen in a woman’s, except when she has been taken unawares; which only comes when she is alone, and is looking half tremulously, half amusedly into her heart. ”

“ Goddard felt a strange and stern comfort in steeping his soul in these wide waters of bitterness. He went on and on, through brawling companies of sailors, swarthy Lascars, and the land-scum that clings round the seafaring life; past evil-smelling marine stores, live-stock dealers dissonant with the screeching of parrots, slop-shops, low eating-houses, scented from afar, even through the general stench, by the miasmic exhalations from basement gratings. ”

“ Mile after mile it was just the same—the same stench, the same stunted men; the same anemic girl-mothers; the same foul, fringed, and feathered women of the street; the same bestial talk that seemed to hang continuously on the air; the same scenes of drunken brawling outside the public-houses; the same dreamy, endless tram-cars, smoothly gliding past this hubbub and swelter of humanity on the pavement; and everywhere the same joyless struggle for the four sole ends of life—food, raiment, shelter, and forgetfulness. ”

“ His instinct was to fly from her presence. The smouldering hatred had sprung into fierce flame. He made a few steps by the foot of the bed, then stopped and looked at her. Their eyes met. He saw that she had been following his movements from the time he had first opened the Bible. A wave of gathering madness clouded his brain, surged red before his eyes. Remaining sanity bade him rush from the room if she was to live. An explosion of his passion would kill her. But the expression of excitement and fear on her peaked, livid face read in his disordered brain as one of mocking triumph. ”

“ A drop hung on the lower lid for a moment and fell upon the back of her fingers, losing itself among the rings. Her heart melted over Goddard. Failure for him was different from failure for other men. ”

“ He had just been on a committee of the League, in the north of England, inquiring into the working of the Factory Act for women in certain trades. He had visited many white-lead works, where he had felt daunted by the inevitableness of the sacrifice of human health and happiness.
“But manufacturers are obliged to enforce precautions,” said Lady Phayre.
Goddard waved his hand impatiently.
“No precautions will ever prevent it. The poison gets in everywhere. The dust is in the air—impregnates the food, finds its way into the baths, creeps in through the tightest overalls. ”

“ Without it I might have been led to destruction by Hendrick.”
“Ah, my dear Lady Phayre—I shall not tell it in Gath; but when are you going to have views of your own?”
“Views? Of course I have views,” said Lady Phayre, comfortably reversing the crossing of her feet, “just like everybody else, only theirs are fixed and mine are—dissolving. It gives greater variety to life. But I think the Goddard view will be lasting.” ”

“ They were on the front seat of the ’bus; the people behind did not count as spectators; the hurrying roadway and crowded pavement below were remote as the clear-shining stars above. Daniel surrendered to the coaxing murmur, and kissed her a long lover’s kiss. When an inspector, a short time afterwards, demanded their tickets, Goddard forgot his Collectivist principles and became a fierce Individualist.
“What a confounded nuisance—these fellows disturbing us! It oughtn’t to be allowed,” he said, resettling himself. And Lizzie acquiesced. ”

“ We have beatified too many of our institutions already, and made them too much puffed up with conceit for work-a-day purposes. We are always in danger of drifting into the idea that the work exists for the glorification of the instrument.”
“But what about our ideals?” cried one. “They are as necessary for the life of the party of progress, as the reverence for decayed antiquity is for that of the Tories. Man is a dreaming animal, and his dreams inspire his actions.”
“Hence this crazy society,” said Goddard, with a laugh. “I understand now. But man has reason to direct his inspirations. ”

“ He put up his eye-glass and passed his fingers over his tight fair moustache, as if to prepare himself for the ordeal.
“It won’t interfere with any of our plans, I can assure you,” said Goddard.
“That’s right. Don’t let it, for goodness’ sake. But marriage is a function of two independent variables, as they say in the differential calculus—and a deuced tough function too. Anyhow, if you’re bent upon it, I wish you luck.”
They shook hands and parted. Goddard turned away slowly. ”

“ Goddard was silent a moment. The man’s tone was so hopeless.
Then the joy of battle rose within him, and was mingled strangely with the radiance of Lady Phayre—a thrilling sense of his own strength, trebled by the wine of her influence—and he leapt from his chair and brought his two great hands down on the secretary’s timorous shoulders.
“We’ll win this, mate. We’ll carry it through, and have the firms on their knees. Ruin is staring them in the face. They will have to climb down. Man, we are not fighting machinery. ”

“ The great bells ring, and the gaunt countless-windowed factories situated all around in labyrinthine tangle of mean streets disgorge into the main thoroughfare the pale work-grimed population they had swallowed up. The town becomes a swarming hive. The shops are thronged. From the ever-swinging doors of public-houses comes the roar of voices, borne upon gusts of air saturated with alcohol and shag-tobacco. There is little diversity of type or costume. The town exists for one industry. The population drifts from the grim Board School inevitably, unquestioningly into the grim factory. ”