The Master Craftsman

What might have happened after this act of open rebellion I do not know. Perhaps these terrifying overtures were the first signs of a real but as yet unconscious passion, just called into existence by some unexpected charm of a girl whose charms he had never understood. Certain I am that a man so complete in all his faculties could not lack the universal faculty of love; it is only dullards who are cold to Venus. The greatest men have always been the most open to the charms of women; subsequent events proved so much at least in Robert’s case. Equally certain it is that had this sleeping lover been awakened completely, he would have paid small attention to any obstacle or resistance offered by his mistress. She would have been ordered to put on a white frock, and she would have been dragged to the altar. The bells would have rung once more at the parish church of Wapping for the wedding of another Burnikel, a boat-builder, like his ancestors. Providence interposed to avert this calamity, and, in order to make it impossible, provided earthquakes and convulsions. Proud indeed should that maiden be, for whom, in order to prevent her own unhappy marriage, the whole nation should be thrown into agitation.

It came the very next morning—the day after this lovers’ quarrel. The thing happened which Robert had been expecting so long. You all remember how everybody said it was coming—coming—coming. And it came not. The Government, with its narrow majority, still hung on; it still discussed and passed Bills. All the papers on one side declared that the Dissolution must come; they said it must come in a month—a week—the day after to-morrow at latest. How could a Cabinet go on with their absurd little majority? The papers on the other side declared that the Government could go on for ever if they pleased, even with a majority of one; but their confidence was weakened by the rumours published in the same columns, and by the reports of movements, the appearance of candidates, and the active work already beginning among the constituencies. And the by-elections, one after the other, were going against the Government. And outsiders like Robert daily saw more reason for believing that there must be, before long, an appeal to the country. But still the Government continued. Then, lo! the thing came—and it seemed to burst upon the world as quite an unexpected thing. We received it as if we had no idea of its possibility.

Robert took his paper, like most of us, as a part of his breakfast. This morning he opened it with less eagerness than usual, because his mind was disturbed by that little rebellion in the study. He was uncertain, I believe, how to comport himself with the culprit, who now sat opposite him with looks still mutinous. But the thing that he read in the forefront of the paper drove all other thoughts out of his head. And so far as concerned Isabel, they never came back again, as you shall hear, if you have patience. There it was, in big letters, DISSOLUTION.

He read the announcement, and the lines that followed, first swiftly, as one always reads things that are surprising. The plain, bald intelligence of an event can be mastered in a moment. The bearings and meanings and possibilities and certainties and doubtfulnesses of the event take a second and a third reading for fuller comprehension. It is a strange power, that of reading a whole column of news in one glance down a column. We all have it in moments of excitement. The first time, then, that Robert read the news he grasped it all at that one glance; the second time and the third time he read it more slowly, turning over in his mind at the same moment the possible relation of the Dissolution of Parliament to himself.

Nothing national has ever much affected me, nor is it likely to affect me now, unless it makes the price of materials prohibitory.

Then he laid down the paper, and gazed across the table at Isabel, who was still under the terror of yesterday, and feared new developments. There was no cause for any such anxiety.

‘It has come,’ he said solemnly. And then she knew that she was safe for the moment, because she divined what had happened.

‘What has come?’ asked the Captain, astonished, looking up from his plate of bacon.

‘What I have been looking for, what is going to make my fortune—the General Election—has come. That’s all. Only the General Election! At last!’ he sighed. Then he threw the paper across the table. ‘You can have it,’ he said. ‘Anyone can have it. There’s no more news in it so far as I care. The dissolution of Parliament! There’s news enough for me—quite enough.’

He swallowed his tea, and retreated to his own den without more words.

‘Oh,’ said the Captain thoughtfully, ‘it’s a General Election, is it? Then, they’ll have an election at Shadwell, I suppose. Ah! and Robert will get in. They all tell me he’ll get in. And they say he’ll work wonders when he does get in. Very likely. I don’t know much about these things, Isabel, but I’ve lived for sixty-five years, and they’ve been looking for wonders all the time, it seems to me. When I used to come home—which was once in five years or so—I used to say. “Well, what are you doing—looking for wonders?” That’s what they always confessed that they were looking after. And the wonders never came, and, what was more wonderful, we got on quite as well without them. One after the other I remember them all. There was Palmerston and Johnny Russell, and John Bright and Gladstone, and Bradlaugh and Balfour—but the wonders never came. Next it’s going to be Burnikel, if he’s lucky and can make ’em believe in him. Well, well, Burnikel and Wonders! Robert’s as good as any of ’em, you’ll see. Give me some more tea, my dear.’

‘Since Robert wants to get into the House, I hope he will. I don’t understand why he should want it.’

‘I hope so, too. Because you see, Isabel, since we are alone—it’s a delicate subject to talk about; but, as I say, since we are alone’—the Captain approached the subject with some difficulty—‘we may talk a bit about what we can’t talk about very well either with George or Robert.’

‘What is it, father?’

‘Well, my dear, it’s about this engagement of yours. I confess I don’t like the way it’s going on—there!’

‘Oh, don’t vex yourself, father, about my engagement. You can do no good by interfering.’

‘I don’t want to interfere, but I don’t like it, I say. Robert a lover? Why, he takes no more notice of you than if you were a log.’

‘Never mind, father; it is his way.’

‘And you the prettiest girl, though I say it, within a mile all round—that is, the prettiest girl since George came and put a little colour into your cheeks, and made you sit upright. Why, you are not the same girl. I shouldn’t know you again. You are twice the girl you were. George has done it all—and all for Robert. And Robert sees nothing.’

‘It is his way, father,’ she repeated.

‘George don’t like it, either. He told me as much. He wants me to break it off, and let Robert go free. Says Robert ought to cruise about in search of an animated iceberg in petticoats, who would suit him. Nothing short of an iceberg would suit him, that’s certain.’

‘Pray do not say or do anything, father, I implore you. Remember what we owe to Robert. The least we can do in such a matter as this is to respect his wishes. If he wants to put off his marriage, he must.’

‘I do remember, child. I wish I could forget,’ said the Captain gloomily. ‘I live upon his bounty.’

‘Never by word, or by action, or by look, has he made us feel it, father.’

‘I’ll be as grateful as you please, my dear; though somehow gratitude isn’t one of the feelings which make a man cheerful. It’s a gloomy kind of dish to eat, is gratitude. Come back to the engagement. You’ve been engaged for four or five years—since you were seventeen, and now you are twenty-one. Have you any reason to believe the time is coming?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Isabel. ‘He has said nothing.’

‘Four years is a terrible long time for a young man to wait. It isn’t natural for a young man to wait so long. Do you suppose I would have waited four years?’ The Captain laughed. ‘Four days was nearer the mark. Isabel, do you suppose there’s—there’s someone else—up the back-stairs—some other girl—another wife in another port?’

‘If Robert was in love with some other girl he would very soon make an end of my engagement,’ said Isabel.

The Captain shook his head dubiously, as one loaded with sad experiences, but refrained from pursuing that branch of the subject.

‘To be sure,’ he went on. ‘Robert’s a bookish man; he reads a good deal, reads something every day. It’s the only use many of them get of their eyes. But even the readingest of young fellows can’t be always thinking about his books. Then he speechifies a good deal—makes ’em up, learns ’em, and fires ’em off; but a young fellow can’t be always thinking about his speechifying. Mostly the young fellows of the present day are like those of my day. They are fond of a song and glass, and they like to shake a leg now and again, and to kiss a pretty woman.’

‘Robert is not one of that kind. He never wants either a song or a glass. And as for shaking a leg—oh!’

‘But to wait for four years—four long years. To go on waiting as if he liked it. It sticks in the gizzard, my dear.’

‘I am in no hurry, please.’

‘I’m not thinking about you, my dear. No one expects you to be in a hurry. I’m thinking about him. A woman always likes courtship better than matrimony.’

‘I know as little of one as of the other,’ said Isabel.

‘Yes, my dear, and it’s a shame and a wonder. What is the man made of? That’s what puzzles me. Well—but now—when Robert gets into the House of Commons, which I’ve always understood that he desired, I suppose his ambition will be satisfied, and the thing will come off.’

‘I am in no hurry,’ said Isabel. ‘And I do not know—and I shall not ask him.’

‘Hang it! ’tis the man’s part—the man’s part, my dear—to be in a hurry. So, I say, we may expect——’

‘Do not expect anything, father. Let us go on in silence. I am to marry Robert when he is willing. Till then I wait.’

‘It was to come off, he told me, when he had done something or other. Well, a man can’t be engaged for ever. The election, I expect, was what he meant.’

The Captain took up the paper again and read the leading article in the paper twice over, slowly.

‘There is no doubt, I suppose,’ he said, ‘though the papers do reel off lies every day, that they have got the right end of the stick this time. There will be a General Election, and Robert will get in, and——’

‘Father, do you suppose he really meant the Election?’

‘What more could he mean? And, as I said before, no man likes to go on being engaged for ever. Wedding-bells will be ringing, Isabel—wedding-bells, my dear.’

She rose and fled.

When I arrived at ten o’clock, Robert was still in his study, pacing the room in uncontrollable agitation. ‘The time has come!’ he cried. ‘It has come! My chance has come. I feel as if it was my only chance.’

‘I congratulate you, Robert. As for your only chance, that is rubbish. You are only twenty-six at the present moment. Applying the arithmetical method, you may stand for nine Parliaments yet; probably there will be many more chances between this and your seventieth birthday.’

‘No, no. It could not be the same thing. I’ve thrown all my hopes, all my powers of persuasion and argument, into this election. I could never again be so fresh and so strong, or work so hard. I must succeed this time. I am carrying the men away against their convictions—if they’ve any—I am making them follow me. That means work.’

‘All right. You shall get in. I know nothing whatever about the matter, because I never assisted at an election before; but here I am; take me; take all my time; I will live here, if you like; I will look after the yard for you. I have heard of Nottingham lambs being wanted. I will become a lamb. Platforms are sometimes rushed and candidates hustled off. I will get up a stalwart party of hustlers, if you like. Candidates are heckled out of their five senses. I will become a heckler of the most venomous kind for your opponents. I can’t write epigrams and verses, because that part of my education has been neglected. But here I am, Robert—one man, at least, at your service.’

‘Thanks, a thousand times. You shall join my committee, to begin with. I must make haste to get my committee together; they shall all be working men except you. I must sit down to prepare an address. I shall have to arrange for an address somewhere or other every night till polling-day. It’s going to be a splendid time—a magnificent time. By——’ He swore a great oath, for the first time in his life. ‘My chance has come—my chance has come!’

His voice softened; he sank into his chair and leaned his head upon his hand. Robert was, for the moment, overcome. The spectacle of this emotion pleased me. I suppose no one likes to think of a man as altogether composed of cast-iron. When any ordinary human being sees the thing for which all his life long he has worked and longed actually within his reach, that ordinary or average human being is generally a little overcome. Remember that in this case ambition had devoured nearly all other passions. The man had had no youth; none of the delightful freaks, fredaines and frolics of youth could be recorded of this young man; the unfortunate Robert had never kissed a girl to his subsequent confusion; nor scoured the streets; nor painted Wapping red; nor passed his midnights over cups; he had worked and trained himself for this end and none other. He would have been more than human had he shown no sense of the crisis or juncture of events.

While he sat there, head in hand, Isabel stole in softly like a ghost, and stood beside his chair. I made as if I would go, but she motioned me to stay. By the two red spots in her cheeks I was made aware that something decisive would be said.

He seemed not to observe her presence. She touched his shoulder. ‘Robert!’

‘Isabel!’ He started, and sat up, with a quick frown of irritation.

‘I have come to congratulate you, Robert,’ she said timidly.

‘Yes, thank you, Isabel. Thank you. Don’t say any more.’

‘When the General Election is over, you will have done what you proposed to do, I suppose. I thought it would be years first. Your ambition, I mean, will be achieved.’

‘Achieved? Why, Isabel, you understand nothing. That is only a beginning.’

‘Oh! Only a beginning?’ She looked rather bewildered.

‘Why, what else should it be? No one would want to be a member of Parliament only for the pride of it, I suppose.’

‘Oh! I thought——’

‘Look here, Isabel, I’m glad you came in. After the little misunderstanding of yesterday, it’s as well to have a talk. You won’t mind George; he knows all about it. Sit down there.’ Such was the improvement in his manners that he actually got up and placed a chair for her. As for me, I retired to the seat in the window, not proposing to interrupt the conversation.

‘I will just tell you exactly what is the meaning of the situation. I have told no one—no one except George, so far. I didn’t tell you, because you wouldn’t understand. It isn’t in your way to see. You’ve changed a bit since you took to going about with George’—there was not a touch of jealousy in his mind—‘straightened yourself, and filled out and improved so, that I hardly know you any more. You’re bigger than you were, Isabel—I like a woman to look strong—but, still, I don’t think you can quite understand.’

‘I should be glad to hear all your proposals, Robert.’

‘I am astonished now to think of it, how I dared, in my inexperience and ignorance, to form such an ambition. If I had known, six months ago, what the thing meant, I should have been afraid.’

‘No,’ said Isabel; ‘nothing would ever make you afraid.’

‘You think so, Isabel? Perhaps. In a general way I am not a coward.’

‘I suppose you want to do something great in the House of Commons?’

‘Put it that way if you please. I will give you details and particulars.’

Isabel sat facing him. There was no look of passion or admiration on his face. The hungry look had left his eyes, which were now filled with the eagerness of the coming struggle. There was nothing to fear from him. Indeed, at such a moment as this it is not of love that a man can be expected to think: he may most lawfully and laudably think of nothing but himself, even before Helen of Troy herself. But I thought, looking at the two of them, What a strange pair of lovers! The man who had never said a kind word—the girl who looked forward to her marriage with terror!

‘Now, Isabel,’ he said, ‘I will tell you. I am going to enter the House as a plain Master Craftsman, not a gentleman, except that I know their tricks and phrases—I shall be a man experienced in industrial questions and in everything concerned with work practical and theoretical. They want such a man badly. I am going in as an Independent Member, like John Bright. When I have made my mark in the House, and am a power in it, as John Bright was, I shall perhaps join a party in order to enter the Cabinet. And not till then. And perhaps not at all. As for being one of the rank and file, saying what one is told to say, put up to defend the incompetence and the blundering of the commanders, calling the Irish members, for instance, all the names under the sun one day, and all the opposite names the next day, just to catch votes—to be everything and all things for votes—votes—more votes—I won’t do it. That kind of work will not do for me.’

‘Well?’ Either Isabel did not understand the point, or else it had no interest for her. She looked unconcerned, and spoke coldly.

‘I told George at the outset. I called upon him on purpose to tell him all this when he was a stranger, and he managed to fall in with it as soon as he saw that I meant business. At the first go-off he thought I was a conceited windbag—one of the ignorant lot turned out by every local Parliament. I could see very well what he thought. When he saw that I was a determined kind of chap he fell in with it, I say, and helped me all he could.’

‘Yes?’ Isabel showed no manner of interest in this revelation of political ambition.

‘And thought about this and about that thing wanted. Oh, the essentials of the thing were all right—the knowledge, and the appearance, and the power of speech; but there was one thing wanting. I had never thought of such an omission, and without him I could never have repaired that omission. I’m not ashamed to say, not as things have gone, that what I wanted was manners.’

‘Manners!’ cried Isabel, showing interest at this point. ‘You to want manners!’

‘Just what I said myself. But George was right. There’s a thousand little ways in which the fellows at the West End are different from us. They are mostly tricks invented to show that they are a superior race. I’ve learned these tricks, and now, I believe, I can pretend to be a gentleman.’

‘You never were anything else.’

‘There are gentlemen and gentlemen, Isabel. Have you noticed any change in me?’

‘Well, Robert,’ she replied timidly, ‘I have thought that you were gentler.’

‘Of course. One of the things is to repress yourself, and pretend not to care. That’s what you call being gentle.’

‘Oh, but to learn manners!’ said Isabel.

‘I would do a great deal more than that for the sake of getting on. Well, now you know what we did when I went away with George every evening.’

‘And when you get on in the House?’ She returned to the main point.

‘I say that, when I have made my mark, I may take office; but I don’t know quite what I shall do. It may be best to stay outside.’

‘Best, you mean, for your power or for your reputation?’

‘For both.’

‘Power is what you desire more than anything else in the world, Robert. You have always desired it.’

‘Always. There is nothing in the world worth having compared with power, Isabel. I want to be a leader—nothing less than that—mind—is my ambition. I understand now how it must seem to other people a wild and presumptuous dream for a man in my position. I don’t care a straw what it seems. I realize how great a thing it is, and I am just all the more confirmed in my resolution.’

‘And when you are a leader!’ It was quite impossible to make Isabel understand the audacity of this ambition. She thought that Robert would simply stand upon the floor of the House of Commons in order to receive the distinctions that would be showered upon him; that everybody would immediately begin to offer him posts of honour, because he was so strong and masterful a man.

‘Well, one thing, Isabel: as soon as I am in the Cabinet—say Home Secretary—my first ambition will be achieved. Then, as regards a certain promise——’

‘How long,’ she interrupted quickly, ‘do you think it will take before you arrive so far?’

‘No one can say. A party gets turned out or keeps in. At the quickest time possible for a new man to work his way and be recognised, and put over the heads of other men, one can’t very well expect such success in less than five years.’

‘It can only be done in five years,’ I interposed for the first time, ‘under the most favourable circumstances possible—if the present Government gets returned again, if it stays in five years, if you meet with immediate success, if vacancies occur among the chiefs, if you are able to serve in some subordinate capacity. If I were you, Robert, I should say ten years.’

‘Well; in ten years,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘A year or two is neither here nor there if a man is advancing all the time.’

‘And a woman is waiting,’ I added.

‘Ten years!’ said Isabel. ‘But your side may get turned out.’

‘They may; then it might be longer. Of course, if a man once becomes a power in the House, he becomes also a power in the country. His influence may go on increasing.’

‘Ten years! That is a very long time. There will be many changes in ten years.’

‘Changes? I dare say—I dare say. I hope so. I shall make some changes myself.’

‘Changes in your own mind, Robert.’

He saw what she meant. ‘I think not, Isabel. A promise is a promise. When my word is passed the thing is as good as done.’

She got up. ‘I won’t waste your time any longer, Robert. I am glad to hear what your ambitions really mean. It was about that—promise—that I came to see you. I thought the time was come when you might want to fulfil that promise.’

‘Not yet, Isabel.’

‘Not yet. I came to set you free, if you wished to be set free.’

‘To set me free?’

‘Because a man like you should not be hampered by an engagement, especially with a woman whom—I mean—you ought to be free. So, Robert, I do set you free—if you desire it.’

‘What makes you think that I desire it, Isabel? I don’t desire it.’

‘That is because you don’t know other women. So, Robert, it shall be always and at any time as you desire. We owe so much to you that this is due to you in return. I will wait for the fulfilment of that promise for ten years, twenty years, all my life, if you please. I will cheerfully set you free whenever you desire to be released. That is all, Robert.’

‘Why,’ said Robert, ‘there spoke a good and reasonable girl. But you’ve given me quite as much in work as I’ve given you in board and lodging. You owe me nothing. As for being released, ask me if I want to be released when I am the Right Honourable Robert Burnikel, Secretary of State for India. And now let’s make an end of thanksgivings and explainings, and get to business; there’s lots of work before us.’

‘Let me help you, Robert. My shorthand and typewriting ought to be of some use to you.’

‘I wouldn’t ask you, Isabel; but you can be of the greatest use. I take it very kindly of you after yesterday.’ He held out his hand in token of forgiveness. Isabel accepted it, smiling graciously. ‘I do indeed, Isabel, after yesterday’s little misunderstanding.’ He held her hand and looked her straight in the face; and not one touch of softening in his eyes, not the slightest look of love.

It was just what I expected of Isabel. She offered Robert his release if he would take it; if he would not, she remained bound to him for life, if need be, by promise. A barren and a hopeless engagement, miserable in either event—fulfilment or waiting. And for myself—— But just then was not a moment propitious for thinking of one’s own broken eggs and shattered crockery. Besides, I was always quite sure that there would be a way out of it.

Then Isabel took her old place as shorthand clerk, and Robert walked about his room dictating to her and talking to me. I understood for the first time how a man may come to regard a woman as a mere mechanical contrivance for working purposes. He spoke to Isabel, once more his clerk, as if she were a senseless log. He ordered her to write this, to write that. I think that I could never bring myself to forget the sex or the humanity of a girl clerk.

That day, the first of many busy days, we arranged a great many things. During the dinner-hour we adjourned to the Yard, and turned that into a reception-room for the working men, who came in crowds. We arranged for addresses; we got together our committee; we opened our headquarters; we prepared our address to the constituents; we wrote our placards and our handbills; we started our election cries; in a word, we lost no time. And in order to be on the spot, I took up my residence in the house, being assigned the old four-poster of the ancient John Burnikel, Master Mariner.

‘My career is beginning,’ said Robert at eleven o’clock, after the first great speech had been delivered—‘it is beginning. Well, I am not afraid—I am not in the least afraid. The House of Commons is no more difficult to move than the music-hall of Shadwell. There’s only one way to move any class of hearers: you must first talk to interest them; that’s grip. I’ve got the grip of a bull-dog. Then you must talk to make ’em cry. I can make ’em cry.’

‘If you make the House of Commons cry,’ I said, ‘they’ll shove you up into the House of Lords.’

‘And you must be able to make ’em laugh. I can make ’em laugh.’

‘If you can make the House of Commons laugh, Robert, they’ll never let you go up to the other House at all.’