Erb/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
IF Erb's experience of life had been greater, if his knowledge of the trend of events had been more extensive, he would have been helped by the assurance that in this world, mist and sunshine alternate, and that rarely a fog descends on the life of an energetic man and remains there always. But had Erb known this, there would still have remained the undeniable fact that, for the time at any rate, the atmosphere was murky. He showed temper. He sent in his keys to the acting-secretary, and, knowing that the accounts were all in order, declined the request that he should attend to explain money matters to his successor; he decided to leave London (having indeed very little there to leave) and to go down to Worthing, giving no one but Payne his address.
“Looks as though you had turned sulky,” remonstrated Payne.
“I have!” said Erb.
The new number of The Carman, which he himself had made up, contained a brief paragraph, to make room for which a quotation from Ruskin had been deleted.
“We beg to state that Herbert Barnes has no longer any connection with the Society, and that the position of Secretary will be filled up at the next meeting of the committee. At present everything points to friend Doubleday, who is in a position to devote the whole of his time to the work, and can be relied on not to have dealings with the representatives of capital.”
More stings came on the way up the Borough to London Bridge station. Four railway carmen he met, driving their vans, instead of the “Hello!” and the mystic twist of the whip, there was first a glance of cautious recognition, then a steady look ahead, with an air of absorbed interest, as though realising for the first time the horse's presence. At the station itself, men of his old Society, on seeing him, hurried round to the tails of their vans, and commenced sorting parcels there with industry. All this sent Erb into the deeper depths, and it was not until he reached Worthing, and found on the platform Rosalind and Aunt Emma and his sister, Louisa, Louisa's white face becoming pink with excitement, that he forgot his worries.
“Well,” said Aunt Emma, “what's the best news?”
“There isn't any best news,” replied Erb.
They went, arm-in-arm, down the long road to the sea front, and in a shelter there, Erb sat between them, and for the first time since the downfall found the luxury of detailed description and frank avowal. When the account came of the worst Rosalind touched his sleeve sympathetically.
“And there you are!” said Erb when he had finished. He found himself now inclined to look on the disasters as though they had occurred to someone else with whom he had nothing in common. “And here I am, in about as awkward a situation as I've ever been in in all my life.”
“Complimentary to us,” said Rosalind brightly.
He took her hand and patted it.
“You know what I mean,” he whispered.
“They'd no right to sell up the 'ome,” said Louisa fiercely.
“Yes they had,” said Erb. “By the law.”
“But that Spanswick's the one that should have suffered.”
“An oven in a oast house,” suggested Aunt Emma, “would finish him off. That's how he'll be treated in the next world, anyway.”
“I ought to have verified the information he gave me about the first affair.”
“And in the second affair you were perfectly right.”
“That don't make any difference to the law of libel. Besides, I was in a temper when I wrote it. I let my feelings get the better of me.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“Haven't a single idea,” declared Erb exultantly. “Go back on me hands and knees and get a berth as carman again, I s'pose.”
“That you never shall,” said the two young women emphatically.
“You have some long walks whilst you're down here,” counselled Rosalind, “and think it over by yourself.”
“If a bit of money's wanted,” began Aunt Emma. “you may as well have it now as later on.”
“All this time,” he said, turning to Louisa and pinching her white cheek, “all this time I haven't inquired how you are pulling along.”
“I'm as right as rain, Erb.”
“Ah!” he remarked doubtfully, “so you've always said. Heard anything of Alice?”
“Not a word from the overgrown minx,” said Louisa with wrath. “If she was here I'd speak my mind to her, and pretty quick about it, too. Oh, yes, I know,” Louisa went on, not to be deterred by an interruption from the rare luxury of an access of temper, “she may have a lot to think of; she takes jolly good care not to think of us.”
“Has anyone written to tell her?” asked Rosalind quietly.
“Why should we?” demanded Erb's young sister illogically. “It's her business to find out! But, of course, she wouldn't care if we was both in the workhouse.”
“I wouldn't go so far as that.”
“I shouldn't let you,” said Aunt Emma.
“Meanwhile,” interrupted Rosalind, “we're not giving your brother anything to eat. Let me run off to our rooms and get something ready.”
The opportunity came here for Louisa to tell her brother how good Rosalind had been, what a first-class nurse she had proved herself, how bright and attentive—“I should have kicked the bucket, I think,” said Louisa looking out across the sea rather thoughtfully, “if it hadn't been for her. And such a manager! Isn't she, Aunt Emma?”
“She's a wunnerful young 'oman,” said Aunt Emma, “for her age.”
Erb listening, began to feel that the world was not such a bad world after all. He talked hopefully, but vaguely, of either going to Canada, where he believed a man with a handful of capital was welcomed, and estates presented to him by a hospitable Government, or to New South Wales, where, so far as he could ascertain, labour leaders were in demand, and treated with proper amount of trustfulness. On Aunt Emma asking whether these places were not in point of fact a long way off, Erb was forced to admit that they were a pretty tidy step, and that, everything else being equal, he would prefer to stay in the London where he had been born—the London that he knew, the London that he liked.
“I haven't played the game well,” admitted Erb candidly. “I've tried to be fair and straightforward with both sides, and I've managed to fall down in between them. And I've hurt myself!”
They had nearly finished their steak at dinner, and Louisa, breaking from new and fiercer condemnation of Alice, was about to inquire of Rosalind whether there was anything for after, when a miniature telegraph-boy passed the window in Portland Street, and gave a double knock, altogether out of proportion to his size, at the front door. The landlady's daughter brought in a telegram, and “Please,” said the landlady's daughter (inspecting Erb with curiosity, in order to give a report to her mother), “Please is there any answer?”
“Just heard of trouble. Lady Frances wishes to see you this evening. Most important.—Alice.”
“Tear it up!” said Louisa, not yet restored to coolness. “Ignore it!”
Rosalind offered no counsel. Aunt Emma watched her narrowly. Erb considered for a moment, looking from one to another.
“I ought to go back if it's really important,” he said. “And Lady Frances is a young lady who doesn't like being disappointed.”
“Please yourself,” said Aunt Emma shortly. “But take care, that's all!”
He found news, on his return after this very brief visit, in a letter at the emptied rooms in Page's Walk that at once encouraged him and gave him perturbation. The white-haired Labour member wrote in cautious terms that a certain bye-election in a London constituency was imminent. It had been decided to run a Labour candidate; the other two sides were pretty evenly matched, and if the game were played well, and played out, there was good chance of the Labour man making a fair show; there was another chance, less probable, but possible, that the Liberal candidate, if he found he had no prospect of winning, might retire before the election. The point was (wrote the Labour M.P.), would Erb consent to stand if he were selected? All the expenses would be paid, and all the help that the party could give would be willingly afforded. It would be better to put up a man like Erb, who had never before submitted to the suffrages of a constituency, than a man who had elsewhere undergone the experience of rejection. A reply to the House of Commons would oblige, and, meanwhile, this communication was to be regarded as strictly private.
“He hasn't heard,” said Erb thoughtfully, “of my come down.”
There were many courses, Erb felt, to pursue which were not straightforward, but only one that was honest. He went into a stationer's in Willow Walk, and, borrowing pen and ink, and purchasing paper and envelope, wrote a frank letter, giving all the necessary details of recent events, and just caught the five-thirty post as the pillar box was being deprived of its contents. Then he made his way on foot—a desperate spirit of economy possessing him—to Eaton Square.
“Ages since I saw you,” said Mr. Danks the footman, receiving him on the area steps with something like enthusiasm, “but I've heard of you over and over again.”
“How are you getting on with your aitches?” asked Erb.
“Very complimentary remarks, too,” said Mr. Danks, ignoring the inquiry. “My cousin Rosie seems to think of nobody else, so far as I can judge. I'd no idea you were a favourite with the fair sex!”
“It's brain that tells in the long run,” remarked Erb.
“If I thought there was anything in that remark,” said the footman, interested, “I'd go in for literature or something of the kind myself. I'm expecting to be thrown over by a young lady in Lowndes Square by every post, and—but I'm keeping you waiting.”
“I noticed that,” said Erb.
Jackson, said cook (now stouter and apparently shorter than ever), “would be down directly.” Would Erb let her cut for him a sandwich or a snack; well, Erb could please himself, cook's own motto in the matter of feeding was, “Little and often,” but it had never been her way to force her opinions on other people, in which particular her motto was “Interfere with nobody, and nobody will interfere with you.” Cook had many other aphorisms to impart, and seemed a little hurt when Alice came into the kitchen and claimed her brother with a kiss that had about it unexpected affection.
“I've been worrying about you day and night,” declared Alice. “I never thought anything would upset me so much.”
“Wonder you don't ask after Jessie,” interrupted cook.
“Jessie who?” demanded Erb.
“Just Jessie! Thought you was rather struck on her. She's with a family travelling abroad now. Tall girl with eyes.”
“I'd forgotten all about her.”
“Ah!” sighed the cook. “That's a man all over. It's the old saying over again. 'Out of sight, out of mind.”
“And I told Lady Frances,” continued Alice, leaving cook to mutter to a large joint of beef turning before a desperately fierce fire, “and you're to see her, Erb, directly after dinner.”
“What's in the wind?”
“Last time you was here, Mr. Barnes,” said cook, over her shoulder from the fire, “you came as a friend of the family. Funny world isn't it? Upstairs one day, downstairs the next.”
“You must be short of money, Erb,” whispered his sister, in an undertone. “I've got quite a tidy bit put away in the savings bank. If ten or twenty pounds”
“Upon my word,” cried Erb, “it's worth while having a touch of misfortune now and again, if it's only just to find how much kindness there is about. But I shall find my feet somehow, Alice. Don't you worry about me.”
“Can't help doing so.”
“You might do what you can for Louisa, though. If it hadn't been for—for a friend of mine, I don't know where she'd have been.”
“We've never quite got on together in the past,” said Alice regretfully. “The difference in our heights seem to have led to other differences. But I'll see that it all dries straight. She'll pull through, of course.”
“I think she'll just pull through,” said Erb, thoughtfully, “and that's about all. Doctor says that if there was unlimited money about she'd be herself in a few months. But there you are, you see! Just when it's wanted particularly, it goes and hides.”
Mr. Danks knocked and came in with a reverential air that differed from the one with which he had greeted Erb in the area. Lady Frances' compliments, and she would be pleased to see Mr. Barnes in the drawing-room now.
“Let me put your tie straight,” said Alice.
Lady Frances, looking taller and more charming than ever in her dinner dress, was delighted to see Mr. Barnes again. Quite a long time since they had met. She herself had been very busy—would not Mr. Barnes sit down?—very busy, and that must be taken as her excuse. Rather worried, too. There was trouble out in North Africa, and when one had friends there But the point was this: Lady Frances had heard all about the disastrous events in the Barnes household. In regard to Louisa, she must go to the Riviera with Lady Frances this winter. No, no! It was entirely a selfish proposition, and Louisa would be a most amusing companion; Lady Frances never tired of Cockney humour.
“In return for which,” said Erb, fervently, “I'll do any blessed thing you like to ask me.”
“So far, good!” said Lady Frances, with a gesture of applause with her fan. “Now to get on a little further. Her uncle—Mr. Barnes remembered her uncle?”
“I remember him well!”
Now, this was a great secret, and must not be mentioned to a soul. Her uncle was going to stand for the coming bye-election at—Ah! Mr. Barnes had heard of the probable vacancy. Strange how information flew about—and in this constituency (here Lady Frances tried to wrinkle her smooth young forehead, and to look extremely wise) there was, it appeared, a large working class element. Mr. Barnes had been useful in a somewhat similar way before. Why should not he again be of assistance? The money that he would thus earn would enable him to do almost anything. Go abroad to one of the Colonies, or stay here and marry and settle down, or do anything.”
“There's just this about it that I ought to tell you,” said Erb. “I've been asked to have a dash at the same event as Labour Candidate.”
That, Lady Frances admitted with another effort to look aged, that certainly did complicate matters. Was there probability of Mr. Barnes accepting the offer?
“Not the least probability in the world.”
Capital, capital! The young diplomatist again signified approval with her fan and leaned forward from her chair in a most attractive way. All that now remained to do was for Mr. Barnes to say “yes,” and the whole matter would be arranged satisfactorily.
“Upon my word,” declared Erb, after a few moments' thought, “to say ‘yes' would be far and away the easiest thing to do. I owe precious little to my men after the way they've treated me, and it would just let they deserved.”
Mr. Barnes would excuse Lady Frances for interrupting, but a really most supremely brilliant idea had just occurred to her, and it was indispensable that she should communicate it without an instant's delay. (The young woman panted with surprise and enthusiasm, and Erb watched her reverently.) Why should not Mr. Barnes—this was absolutely the greatest notion that had ever occurred to anybody since the world began—why should not Mr. Barnes do everything he could to forward his candidature as an Independent, and then, just at the last moment retire in favour of her uncle.
“No!” said Erb suddenly.
The young woman did not conceal her disappointment at Erb's unreasonable attitude. No ambassador rebuffed in a mission on which future promotion depended, could have felt greater annoyance. But she recovered amiability, and leaving the discussion where it was, spoke further of her intentions in regard to Louisa and the trip to the South of France, on which subject she showed such real kindness that when Erb was presently shown out into Eaton Square by Mr. Danks, he felt something like contempt for himself for having declined so abruptly to accept her suggestion and advice. He went off to Payne's house, where something was done to a magic piece of furniture that pretended ordinarily to be a chair, whereupon it became a bedstead, and afforded comfortable rest for the night.
The next morning Erb, for about the first time in his life, found himself with nothing to do but to count the hours. He envied the easy carelessness of men able to loaf outside the public-houses in Dover Street; in some public gardens near there were able-bodied youths smoking cigarettes and sunning themselves luxuriously, content apparently to feel that there, at any rate, work could never force itself upon their attention, and no danger existed of encountering a job. Whatever happened, Erb knew that he would never slide down to this. It might well be that he would not find himself now in a position to ask Rosalind to become his wife, but he would never become a loafer. He walked up through the increasingly busy crowd of High Street, Borough, and comparison between their state and his forced him to recognise the fact that in no place, under certain conditions, can one be so lonely as in London.
“The very man!” cried a voice. The hook of a walking-stick caught his arm.
“That you?” said Erb. “Get my letter?”
“Had your letter,” said the white-haired Labour M.P. in his swift, energetic way, “and I'm going down now to put everything straight for you.”
“That'll take a bit of doing.”
“I've had more twisted things to deal with than this. Which way were you going?”
“Scarcely know.”
“Then you're coming down with me.”
“Shan't I be rather in the way?”
“I hope so,” said the Labour M.P.
A swift walker, the Labour M.P., and one with whom it was not easy to keep pace; he talked at a corresponding rate, so that by the time they reached the office of the London Railway Carmen's Society, he was showing signs of exhaustion, and the duty of talking to Spanswick, who was perched on the window-sill on the landing, devolved upon Erb. Spanswick wore a look of perturbation and showed some desire not to look at Erb in speaking to him; he puffed at a ragged cigar, at which he glanced now and again with deep regret.
“I can't make 'ead or tail of it,” said Spanswick, despondently. “It's a mystery, that's what it is. Why I should have trusted that man with untold gold.”
“What's happened?” asked Erb.
“After all I've done for him, too,” went on Spanswick. “I've treated him like a brother, I have; I might go so far as to say I've treated him more like a friend than a brother. It was only last night that we were 'aving a few friendly glasses together—I paid for the last, worse luck!—and he was talking about what he was going to do for the Society, and all the time he must have had this letter in his pocket, ready to pop in the post.”
“Where's the key to this door?” asked the Labour M.P. sharply.
“He might well call himself Doubleday,” went on Spanswick, finding the key in his pocket, “I've never been more deceived in anybody in all my life. Him and me has been pals for over six weeks, and this is how he turns round and treats me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I've seen him home when it's been necessary after the places were closed, and sometimes,” Spanswick admitted this grudgingly, “sometimes of course, he's seen me 'ome when it's been necessary. He's told me things about his early boyhood; I've told him things about my early boyhood. I got him the best berth he ever had in all his born days”
“And ousted me from it,” remarked Erb. “What's up'?”
“But don't it jest show you,” demanded Spanswick eagerly, “how the very best of us can sometimes be taken in? I'm looked on as a man who knows enough to come in when it rains, and I certainly pride myself more on taking in others than being took in meself. And here am I, in me forty-second year of me age”
“Barnes!” called the voice of the Labour M.P. from the office, “come here!”
Spanswick went on growling to himself as Erb left him and entered the office.
“The books do not appear to have been touched since you left,” said the white-haired man. “Not a figure, not a letter.”
“Then he can't be accused of tampering with 'em.”
“How much cash did you leave in the safe?” Erb showed the sum at the foot of a page in the accounts book. “I've half a mind,” said the Labour M.P., in a way that suggested he was making an understatement, “I have half a mind to break it open!”
“Wouldn't it be better to give him a chance of coming back?”
“Read that letter!”
Erb read a slip of paper that Doubleday had left on the desk. Doubleday had addressed it to the committee, and it told them that, finding his health was giving way under the stress of the few days' work, he had decided to take a holiday. If there should be any little trifle short in the cash accounts, that would be replaced as soon as he could make it convenient to do so. He added that he had drawn the sum standing to the Society's credit, because there was not enough money in the safe to enable him to take the somewhat lengthened holiday which he felt was necessary. Thanking them for all past favours, regretting their acquaintance had been so brief, and wishing the Society every success, he remained, theirs faithfully, Edward H. Doubleday.
“I'd like to know the worst,” said the Labour M.P. “I suppose you've no experience in forcing looks?”
“Branch of my education,” replied Erb, “that's been sadly neg— Why, the blessed thing's open!”
The safe was, indeed, unlocked, and this mattered the less, because the safe was quite empty. Erb struck a match and searched the corners; there was nothing to be seen but an envelope bearing the words, “I.O.U.,” a certain large amount, and Doubleday's portentous signature.
“What's the next step, sir?” asked Erb.
“Set the police on his track.”
“And the next?”
“Call the committee together at the earliest possible moment. Make them do what I should have induced them to do even though this had not happened—reinstate you as secretary.”
“Anything else?”
“After that you and I can talk over this bye-election business. I think we shall get you in the House, Barnes, before you're very much older.” The M.P. looked at his large silver watch, “I must be moving. Deputation to the Home Secretary at one. Fine life ours, Barnes; always something doing. Always difficulties to be cleared away. You'll enjoy it when you're in the midst of it.”
The Labour M.P. hurried off, pushing Spanswick aside as that desolate man made an effort to impart some further details of his acute grievance. Spanswick went to the door of the office, but found it shut in his face.
“Now, if I'd been in his place,” cried Spanswick, through the keyhole, “the least I should have thought of saying would have been ‘'alves!'”