Erb/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
"MY dear Mr. Barnes,” wrote Lady Frances' uncle in a genial note, dated from a Pall Mall club, “I am sorry my niece did not make my intention more apparent; possibly the mistake was my own. I never dreamt of offering you, as you assume, anything in the shape of a bribe. What I thought was that, as one who had the interests both of capital and labour at heart, I might be allowed to make a small contribution towards any movement in which you were interested. You mentioned once an idea of starting a small paper; my small cheque could have assisted in this excellent effort.
“I was glad to see your admirable speech so fully reported in the newspapers. The new movement owes much to your influential voice. I think we shall want you to run down to Birmingham next week, but the secretary will write you, and he also will see to the expenses. If you will not accept payment for your services, at any rate there is no reason why you should be out of pocket over the business.—Yours, with great regard.”
“Reads fair enough,” commented Erb. “I may have worded my letter a bit too harsh.”
From Birmingham the party went to Stafford and to Coventry, all somewhat in the manner of a travelling theatrical company, the party including, indeed, some eccentrics which emphasised the resemblance. There was an Irish barrister, who had hitherto pleaded mainly at Cogers' Hall, and had a change in temperament for every glass of whiskey that he drank, going up and up the hill of cheerfulness until a certain number was reached, whereupon each succeeding glass made him descend slowly to the tableland of contempt for the world; a young Oxford man eager to make some alteration in the world without delay; and one or two safe men, who could always be relied upon to say a few appropriate words. Erb sent to Rosalind from each town press notices, with crosses near to the references to himself, until it suddenly occurred to him that these signs might have two meanings; afterwards he drew a rather clumsy hand to draw attention to the only item in the papers worthy of Rosalind's notice.
Erb, now so much in the movement of life, experienced a kind of restless fever unless he had some new project in hand. He felt ashamed to confess himself hurt on his journey back to town when he found names of other labour leaders endowed with the importance of print, and a newspaper which did not contain his name appeared to him to have been scarce worth the trouble of setting up; this was emphasised by the fact that the Irish barrister, on seeing him off, had given him a generous compliment; patting him on the back, he had assured Erb that the name of Barnes was one that would be engraven in imperishable letters of gold on the temple of Fame, and that he, for his part, would never, never forget him. Small wonder, with this feeling of self-importance, that Erb should give but little attention to the fact that Louisa was at home in Page's Walk, looking paler than usual. Louisa remarked that she was really only playing truant, having made up her mind not to work so hard in future. “They think all the more of you,” said Louisa acutely.
A storm seldom occurs without some premonitory signs, and it was on the tramcar that took him to Camberwell—no reason why he should go to Camberwell other than his desire to see Rosalind, and this would make him late for the committee meeting—it was on the tramcar that the first warnings appeared. Erb was seated at the back reading the manuscript, an article commencing, “Brother Workers!” when two men in railway uniform came up the steps, so keenly engaged in conversation that they stopped half-way to settle some disputed point, barring the descent of passengers who wished to alight. When, at the strenuously-worded request of the delayed passengers, and the mild appeal of a tame conductor, they were induced to move, they scampered up, and taking seats immediately in front of Erb, recommenced their argument. One was a member of Erb's society; the other, a man who had obstinately kept outside. Erb would have spoken to them, but that he was just then in a state of ecstatic admiration over what seemed to him a well-turned sentence in the article.
“Tell you what it is, old man,” said the non-member, slapping his corduroyed knee emphatically. “You've been makin' a little tin god of the chap, and, naturally enough, he's taken advantage of it. You pass him votes of thanks, and what not, and fill him up with soft soap, and consequence is, he goes swelling about like anything.”
“He wasn't far wrong about that South Western business,” remarked the other with meek determination, “and chance it.”
“You can't expect a man not to do right sometimes. I ain't arguin', mind you, that Erb's a fool. Far from it! My view of the matter is, if you must know”
“I never ast for your opinion!”
“Never mind whether you ast for it or not. My view of the whole matter is that he's the only clever man amongst you. He's got you all on a bit o' string. He goes away, as you mentioned, for a week or ten days together, and never thinks of communicatin' with you; he gets his name in the papers; for all you know he may be playin' a double game—”
The conductor came up for fares, and the argumentative man fortified his position by paying for both.
“A double game. No, no! let me finish! And all the time laughing in his sleeve at the lot of you. I've known that sort before. I've met 'em. I've come across 'em. I say no more,” he added mysteriously, and sat back, glaring at the sky.
“Well, but” The member seemed ill-qualified for debate, and Erb was greatly tempted to prompt him. “What I mean is What I was about to say was”
“He's a having you,” said the other, smiling thoughtfully at the sky, “he's a having you on toast!”
“But what's it to do with you?” demanded the other, not finding the argument for which he had searched.
“Nothing!” retorted the other.
The member, taken aback by this unexpected reply, could not speak for a few moments. He looked appealingly at the names on the shops by which they were passing for a suggestion, and appeared to find one in the word Goodenough.
“After all,” he began, “for our purpose”
“Don't forget this!” interrupted the other. “Don't let this fact slip out of your memory. It was you began this argument. I never seeked for it. We was having a glass in the Old Kent Road, and you, or one of the others, began by saying that Erb was growing a great deal too big for his boots.”
“I never said it,” growled the other sulkily.
“Did someone pass a remark to that effect, or did someone not pass a remark to that effect? Am I speaking the truth, or am I a blooming liar?”
“It's one or the other,” said the member cautiously.
“That won't do for me,” said the non-member, now in the sheer enjoyment of cross-examination. “I ast you a straightforward question, and if you can't give me a straightforward answer, why, I must draw me own conclusions. That's all.” And smiled again mysteriously at the sky.
“Well,” replied the other, goaded, “I don't mind going so far as this. Certain things have been said of late at certain depôts that I needn't name, and it's all going to be brought up at the meeting to-night. Mind you, it mustn't go any further.” The other man gave a nod intended to signify that he had guessed all this. “And being meself on Erb's side, and not wanting to be mixed up in anything like a shindy, why, I'm giving it a miss, and I'm off down to meet the wife's brother at his club in Peckham and spend a nice, quiet, sociable evening. See?”
“And you,” remarked the other thoughtfully, “you call yourself a man? Well, well, well!” with a sigh, “the longer we live the older we get.”
“What are you snacking at me about now?” demanded the member heatedly.
Erb slipped down the steps, disturbed by the news which he had heard, but with also a feeling of elation at the prospect of a fight. The small servant sluicing the pavement in Southampton Street informed him, after a word of reproof for always coming when she was trying to clean up, that the Professor was alone in the house; Rosalind was out giving lessons at a school for superior young ladies at Brixton. Professor full of a kind of stale enthusiasm concerning a new project, which was to take a theatre or a town hall or a room or something and give costume recitals, grave and gay, and to keep on at it night after night until people found themselves forced to come in their thousands; the Professor seemed to have worked this out as though it were a scheme for winning gold at Monte Carlo, and he had already decided what he should do with the enormous profits. Difficulty was to select from the many suburbs of London one place which should be favoured with the experiment; another difficulty (but this he seemed to think of less importance) consisted in the fact that, from inquiries he had caused to be made, it appeared that those who controlled the letting of public premises had a distrustful habit of requiring the rent in advance. Erb, in answer to a question, declared that he had no sort of influence in the City, and suggested it was not a bad idea to start saving money before one talked so much of spending it; the Professor glanced at him quickly. Erb added, in tones of apology, that it was of course not for him to dictate; the Professor considered the matter for a while with one hand twirling his hair, and then, illuminated, announced his intention of taking off his coat to the work. As a first step, he proposed to take a cab to Throgmorton Street, and have a thoroughly good look round. Erb suggested a 'bus and the Professor replied that undertakings of this kind had to be carried through with a certain amount of dash and spirit which could not be done under one-and-six, or, at the very least, one and three. For this sum Erb compounded, and the Professor made a note of the amount on the back of an envelope that a treacherous memory should not play tricks; the message for Rosalind he could trust to his mind. He was working like a bonded slave, he added, on behalf of his little girl: she was fortunate, indeed, in having a father who could keep accounts. Erb restrained an obvious repartee, and the old gentleman, in his slippers, walked with him out to Camberwell Gate, where, in the interests of economy, he proposed to look in at a bar which had in its window a card bearing the ambiguous announcement, “The Stage Taken In.”
Erb found that he had allowed the garrulous old gentleman to detain him longer than he should have done; when, on reaching the coffee-shop in Grange Road he ran upstairs to the committee rooms, he could hear voices raised, and he knew that not only had the meeting already commenced, but that a contentious subject was being debated. The rapping of Payne's hammer failed to arrest tumultuous speech, and it was only when Erb opened the door that the argumentative voices stopped.
“Fact of the matter is,” said Payne, in the chair, rather hurriedly—“evening, Erb, you're latish—fact of the matter is this is one of them very peculiar subjects where there's something, no doubt, to be said on both sides. Let's get on to the next business.”
Erb went to his chair by the side of Payne and took some papers from his pocket. He looked up and down the table nodding; his salutation was not in every case returned, and some of the men glared sternly at the advertisements; Spanswick waved his hand in the friendliest manner.
“There's the matter,” said Payne, “the matter of starting a paper or a organ or something of a sim'lar nature. I call upon the secretary to make a statement.”
“I object,” said a voice.
“That you, Lindsay?”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman,” announced a hot-faced youth, rising from his seat, “it is me.”
“Sed down,” advised Spanswick audibly at his side. “Don't make a silly young laughing-stock of yourself.”
This was sufficient for the fiery-faced Mr. Lindsay. He was from St. Pancras, and an engagement with a lady who kept a small laundry at Child's Hill had recently been annulled at her particular request (a circumstance he had related in confidence to everybody). The Midland man having been driving about London for some days boiling up his thoughts, had decided that the world was managed on some erroneous system; it behoved him to put it right. Lindsay had come to the meeting with the vague desire to get satisfaction by opposing something; here in the discussion concerning Erb appeared a subject which exactly fitted his requirements.
“I should like to say a few brief words on the matter which we 'ave jest been discussing.”
“Question!” cried Spanswick.
“I'll question you,” retorted Lindsay heatedly, “if you can't leave off interruptin'. I appeal to the Midland men present, and I ask whether they're going to allow themselves to be sat upon?”
“You'll be jumped on if you don't look out,” said Spanswick. The room began to take sides.
“You do it,” shouted the other, goaded. “You do it, that's all! Try it on! Have a dash at it, my friend, and see what 'appens. You talk a lot, but I vurry much doubt whether you can do anything else.”
Payne in the chair made his hammer heard above the din of contending voices, and then, standing up, shook the hammer threateningly. If they did not at once stop their row, said Payne, he, as chairman, would have to consider the advisability of jolly well doing something; having given this vague threat Payne conferred with Erb in a whisper.
“Tell you what occurs to me,” said Payne, with a weak pretence of proclaiming an idea of his own. “Let's hear what friend Lindsay has to say, and if there's anything in it, why no doubt our friend the secretary will reply.”
“On a point of order” said Spanswick, rising.
“I should like to point out” began a Great Western man in the corner.
“Seems to me that the proper course to pursue” said another.
The Chair hammered away noisily. A half-minute of strenuous tumult, and the noise subsided. Lindsay, of St. Pancras, rose, buttoning his jacket; this done he unbuttoned it again, continuing this eccentric action during the whole of his speech. Irritating comments from Spanswick served to encourage him, and he succeeded in recapitulating charges which it seemed had been made by certain members, now coy and reserved, against the secretary during the previous half-hour. When having made his fiercest rush, Lindsay, of St. Pancras, showed signs of wavering, it was Spanswick who pricked him again into fury with a banderillo question to another neighbour: “But what was the real reason why the gel wouldn't have him?” asked Spanswick.
Lindsay from St. Pancras, waving his arms excitedly, cried now in a scream that they were paying a princely salary to a man who thought he could twist the society round his little finger; who went about mixing with the nobs and getting his name into the papers; who lorded it over everybody, or tried to; who, to put it briefly, and to put it finally, was trying to push everybody else off the earth. Lindsay begged to move that the secretary, Herbert Barnes, be requested to hand in his resignation without delay, and sat down, grumbling to himself in an undertone, his head still shaking with excitement. There was more applause than one would have expected, applause being a thing that can be created furtively by the stamping of feet hidden under the table. Erb rose. As he did so, Spanswick, with his right arm raised, a reminiscence of Board School manners, rose also, and claimed the attention of Payne in the chair.
“I consider it an insult,” said Spanswick loudly, “to allow our friend the secretary to answer the ridic'lous attack that has been made upon him. I claim the right to reply on his behalf.” Erb sat down. “It's all very well for men to talk who've never been tempted either by the attractions of 'igh society, or—what shall I say—the allurements and what not that titled parties, be they gentlemen or be they ladies, can offer; but put them in our friend Erb's position, and wouldn't they make mistakes the same as he has? Course they would! Besides, there's this to be said.”
Spanswick, going on with elaborate replies to attacks that had never been made, did not look at Erb, preferring to direct his argument to the contumacious Lindsay and his friends: the cheers from Erb's supporters which greeted Spanswick's start diminished in volume as he went on.
“Drop it!” whispered somebody to him. “Drop it, old man, before you spile it.”
When Spanswick came to a finish of his ingenious Mark Antony speech the room was left with the impression that charges of a very serious nature had been brought against Erb, and that the principal defence to be urged was the fact of Erb's youth and inexperience. Erb, recognising the damage that Spanswick's advocacy had effected, started up to argue the case from his own point of view, but he was again anticipated by a supporter, this time by a man on whose loyalty he could depend, although his stock of discretion had limits.
“I claim the right to say a few words!” shouted the new man. The room cried, “Erb, Erb, Erb!” being, it seemed, anxious to see if the case could possibly be readjusted, and wishful, at any rate, to see the effort made.
“Take five minutes,” ordered the Chair.
“I can do it in under that,” said the other generously. “If it's a case of argument by words, I think I'm equal to it: if it's case of argument by fists, I jolly well know I am. Understand that, my fine friend!” he added, addressing Lindsay.
Lindsay of St. Pancras, at a loss for a good repartee, suggested rather wearily that the speaker should go home and fry his face. The room looked on this as wanting in finish, and to Lindsay's confusion gave it no applause.
“You come from St. Pancras, I believe? Very well; I'll St. Pancras you before I've done with you.”
“Do it!” cried Lindsay, annoyed by the failure of his retort. “You do it, that's all!”
Lindsay slipped from his seat, and, evading the efforts made by neighbours to detain him, went quickly to the side of the speaker. The Chair half rose, his hammer uplifted. Erb stood up with a pained look.
“Here I am,” said Lindsay, offering his scarlet face to Erb's supporter. “Now show us what you can do.”
The invitation was one not to be declined. The loud smack on the scarlet face made Lindsay stagger; the next moment he had seized a wooden chair, and the speaker had similarly armed himself. Voices in the room shouted, Payne hammered on the table before him, everybody, in an excited way, begged everybody else to keep calm. Erb made his way, thrusting aside the intervening arm, to the quarter of the room where the two men were facing each other. Lindsay swung his chair, and the other guarded; the two chairs broke noisily, and left the two disputants holding a single wooden leg. Spanswick remarked that Lindsay seemed about as successful in undertakings of this kind as in his love affairs, and the St. Pancras youth, goaded by this, brought the leg of the chair viciously down on the head of his opponent. A red line matted the hair; the room filled with uproar.
“Stop 'em! Keep 'em apart!”
“Let 'em fight it out! Stand back and let 'em finish it!”
“Leave off shoving me then! I've got as good a right to look on as you have. For two pins”
“The other one began it. He asked for it.”
“I beg your pardon, he did nothing of the kind whatsoever. Keep your elbows out of the way, or else I'll serve you like he served him. Yes, and quick about it, too!”
The sight of blood excited all to the point of ill-temper. Two, with the best intentions, held Erb firmly, screaming to him urgent recommendations to keep cool, and as Erb was the only man in the room capable of exercising any control over the members, there seemed no reason why the disturbance should not go on for all time; the arrival of the landlord with a threat of police caused the two men to loosen their hold of Erb, and he, with a fierce remark condemning the stupidity of all, freed himself, and took charge of the proceedings. Ordered Payne to turn the landlord out and lock the door. Directed his supporters to resume their seats. Found the decanter, the contents of which had been only partly upset, and, pouring water into the palm of his hand, bathed the damaged man's head. Commanded Lindsay to stand away at the end of the room by himself, which that young man did, to his own astonishment. Gave orders to members of one or two disputant groups, causing them to separate and occupy themselves with other duties. Whispered to Payne. Payne went back to his chair and his hammer.
“Friends,” cried Payne, mopping his forehead, “this meeting's going to be adjourned for 'alf a hower so as to get cool.”
The men went downstairs, and in the bar discussed the tumultuous event with hushed voices, that outsiders might not share the knowledge; they were not quite certain whether to be proud of the incident or ashamed. Erb told off two to take his damaged advocate to a chemist's, and, giving no answer to inquiries concerning his intentions, went out, and walked up and down Grange Road alone. He saw the whole case clearly; admitted that his popularity had received a shock; recognised the true inwardness of Spanswick's intervention, foresaw the difficulties that would obstruct his path if he should lose his position. Not seeing Rosalind this evening was, he now felt, an augury of bad luck; he would be glad when the night was over and done with.
“This ain't my birthday,” said Erb grimly.
Erb stopped at a furniture shop and tried to guess the identity of a young man with hat tipped back and forehead creased with thought; the face looked familiar, and it was only on approaching that he discovered it was his own reflection in a long mirror marked in chalk, “A Rare Bargain. Late the Property of a Club.” He laughed and went back.
“I don't want to make a speech,” he said quietly. The room had refilled, members conducting themselves with a studied decorum almost painful to behold; the smoke had escaped by the open windows, and it was possible to see everything clearly. “It appears that there's some dissatisfaction.”
“No, no!” said voices.
“There's some dissatisfaction,” repeated Erb determinedly, “and it doesn't really matter much whether it's grounded or not. No society can go on like this with success under these circumstances. I started this society”
“Earear!”
“And I tell you candidly, I feel much more interested in the prosperity of this society than I do in the prosperity of myself. I'm a single man, I regret to I mean to say I'm a single man, and as a single man, I can find something else to do.”
Members looked at each other with concern.
“That is why, Mr. Chairman, I address myself to you, because you're an old friend and a good sort.” Payne blinked at the compliment. “And I hand to you, old chum, this letter that I've just written out, which contains”
The room leaned forward to listen.
“My resignation.” Erb sat down.
A murmur started slowly near the chairman and went down the table, increased its pace and its volume, and came back to Erb in the condition of an angry remonstrance. Half a dozen men rose.
“I give notice,” said Spanswick, “that at the next meeting I shall move the appointment of a new secretary.”
“At the next meeting,” said a Cannon Street man, who had never heard his own voice raised in public speech before, and seemed himself astonished by the novelty, “at the next meeting you'll damn well do nothing of the kind.” The room roared its approval. “We don't want a new secretary, because we ain't a going to get rid of the old one. The position isn't vacant. I move, Mr. Chairman, or second, or whatever you call it, that that letter what you've got in your hand be given back to our friend Erb, and that he be asked or invited or requested—I don't know how you put these things—to tear it up and forget all about it; I will now conclude my few remarks by asking you to join me in a well-known song.”
The room sang the refrain with enthusiasm; the man with the broken head came, bandaged, and sand seconds. Spanswick, recognising that the game for the present was over, beat time.
“That's all right, then,” said Payne, when the hurrahing stopped. “Now, let's get on to the next business. 'Proposed starting of a new paper to be called The Carman.'”