CHAPTER XVIII.
IN THE HOUSE.
Then followed the meeting of the newly-elected Commons. Our own member went off with a quiet air of self-reliance, not arrogance. ‘I am not in the least afraid of my own powers,’ he repeated. ‘I have tried and proved them. I shall speak to the House first, and to the country next.’
‘Don’t be in a hurry to begin, Robert.’
‘Certainly not. I shall wait until a question arises on which I can speak with authority. And I shall not speak often. My first ambition is that, when I do rise, the House may look for a solid contribution, not for talk. Let me be considered as a man who knows. Don’t think that I shall throw away my chances by chatter.’
‘We shall look out eagerly.’
‘You will, I believe.’ There was just a little touch of disappointment in his voice. ‘You will; Isabel will not. She cares nothing about it. I suppose that women never understand ambitions or politics.’
‘Some women do.’ I thought of Frances, who understood nothing else.
‘I wish I knew them, then. Not that it matters. Men don’t want the sympathy of women in their work; we want power and authority. All a woman wants is comfort, and to sit by the fire. If you had had a woman for a shorthand clerk, as I have, your opinion of the feminine intellect would not be quite so high, perhaps.’
So he went off, the strong man armed, to begin the fight; and we looked after him as he strode down the street, for my own part always with the feeling that we had somehow changed places.
‘Robert will get, I suppose, some day, the desire of his heart,’ said Isabel. ‘I wonder why men desire these things?’
‘They are very grand things,’ I told her. ‘Robert wants to be a leader of men. Is not that a great thing to desire? What greater thing can there be?’
‘Yes, if he is fit for it, and if he be a wise leader. But Robert puts the leadership first and the wisdom next. He only desires the wisdom in order to get the leadership.’
‘Nay, Isabel; we must think exactly the contrary. Otherwise, how is the world ever to respect the leader?’
‘I cannot think anything except what I know.’
‘Well, then, power is a very great thing to have. Every man in the world, except myself, ought to desire power. I don’t want it, I confess, because I am not ambitious. Perhaps that is philosophy. Give me a tranquil, an obscure life, if you like, with private interests—boat-building, for instance—and—what it seems I shall have to forego.’
Isabel paid no heed to the latter sentence, but went on talking about Robert. ‘Always to lead, always to command—that is Robert’s single thought. If he was King, he would not be contented unless he ruled the whole world.’
‘A noble ambition, truly.’
‘Sometimes I wonder whether all the great men of history have been self-seekers as well as masterful.’
‘I should say all. The personal motives, desire of place and authority, must underlie everything else.’
‘Then, how can any woman love a man who thinks of nothing but himself? I could not, George; but you know it—you—I cannot.’
‘Well, Isabel, a woman may love the greatness and strength of the man, first of all. Besides, she may call that a noble ambition which you call self-seeking; she may call that tenacity which you call selfishness; she may lend her whole strength’—I thought of Frances and what she would do—‘to advance the career in which her husband is absorbed without asking for thanks or recognition from him at all.’
‘I could not do it, George. The thought of devotion without thanks or recognition makes me wretched. I could never love a man who would accept such work. Besides, I could never love a man unless I filled his heart, and made him think of me.’
So she spoke, telling me all her thoughts in sweet confidence, knowing that it would not be abused. Well, some women differ. Frances would be contented, if only her husband became a great man, with neither thanks nor recognition. Isabel cared nothing about the greatness. And I suppose that some women are contented with the ideal they have set up. They love not the strong man for his strength, nor the weak man for his weakness; they love an imaginary man. In this way the noblest woman may love the lowest man, seeing her ideal even through the matted overgrowth of animalism. Isabel had no power, unfortunately, of setting up an ideal. In this case she knew the real man in his workshop, without his coat—so to speak, in his shirt-sleeves. I said so. ‘You worked with him, and for him, Isabel; that destroyed the ideal. No man is a hero to his typewriter.’
‘Perhaps; but love and mastery cannot go together. Well, Robert is now beginning the career of which he has thought so much. It will be ten years, you say—ten years—ten good long years—before he succeeds. Ah! a great deal may happen in ten years. He will grow tired; I shall grow old. I hope I shall grow old and hideous.’
‘A great deal may happen in ten years. Yes. Men may ask to be released from hasty promises. Anything may happen. Perhaps, again, he will never succeed.’
‘We must not dare to hope that he will fail. It would be like hoping that he was dead.’
‘If he were any ordinary person I should say that his ambition was wildly presumptuous. Seeing that he is Robert, and seeing what Robert stands for, I do not call it wild. Yet there are many things in the way far more than he understands as yet. Let us be patient, Isabel. If you are waiting, I am waiting too. When you promised to wait his will, you passed that sentence upon me as well.’
For three weeks nothing happened. At the house we went on as usual, but without Robert, who remained at Westminster, living in my chambers, while I took over the work of his boat-yard all day, and the care of his mistress every evening. We were loyal to him; there was passed between us no word or look of which one need be ashamed. Isabel had repeated her promise; she had renewed the oath; one could only wait.
One morning, however, I found a letter lying on my plate. It was from Frances. I opened it. A long letter. I laid it aside. With my second cup of tea I began to read it leisurely; but over the second page I jumped with interjections.
‘My dear George’ (she began),
‘I was in the House last night looking down upon the new lot. They seem to be rather a mixed lot. We have had losses. However, a good many of our old friends are back again, and the majority is assured, and is large enough if the Whips do their duty. Alas! if my mother were still living, with her salon and her dinners, that majority would become a solid block growing every day. I might myself have such a salon, if there was a man anywhere for whose sake I could take the trouble, and make myself a leader. But, George, as you know very well, there is not.’
I laid down the note. I could see in imagination Frances writing these words. She would throw down the pen and spring to her feet in impatience—in queenly impatience—because among all her subjects she could not find one man strong enough. Yet to one strong and ambitious she would give, not only herself, but also such help in his career as few, very few, men could hope for; the help of a very long purse, very great family influence, political experience, and social power. She wanted to find such a man; she desired above all things to be a political lady, the wife of a great political leader. She would exact from him in return for all she gave nothing but devotion to his career; she would acquiesce in his working and thinking for no other object.
On the other side of the table sat the other type of woman—one who wanted nothing of life but love, with sufficiency and tranquillity; one who would be perfectly contented with a life in the shade, and with a perfectly obscure husband.
As for myself, it seemed then, and it seems now, as if no distinctions—which do not distinguish—were worth the struggle and conflict, the misrepresentation and lies and slanders of the party contest. Whereas, to live in obscurity beside a babbling brook, or Wapping Old Stairs, for instance; among thick woods—the burial-ground of St. John’s, Wapping, for instance; in country lanes with high hedges on either side—say the High Street, Wapping; with love and Isabel ... I resumed the letter:
‘The questions do really grow more tedious every day. At last the adjourned debate began again—at half-past nine. You never take interest in anything really interesting, my dear George, so that it is useless to tell you that the Bill was a Labour Bill, and that everybody thought it a very useful Bill—even the working men Members until to-night. The Bill, everybody says, will have to be abandoned. In other words, your cousin, in a single maiden speech, has done the Government the injury of making them withdraw a Bill. It is equivalent to a defeat. But I am anticipating. My dear George, your cousin’s speech is talked of by everybody.’
‘Where’s the paper?’ I cried. ‘Give it to me, Captain.’ I tore it open and looked at the debates. Yes, there it was! Robert had made his first speech. ‘Look, Isabel!’ I cried. ‘Look! he has succeeded with a single speech.’ I threw the paper across the table and went on reading:
‘I dare say you will have seen all about it in the papers. Now, it is very curious; I had almost forgotten that your cousin was a candidate. They told me that he had no chance whatever, and I left off thinking about him as a candidate. Of course, I could not forget the fiery orator of Shadwell, or the hero of the splendid fight that I witnessed. So that when he got up to speak I was quite unprepared for him. Of course, I remembered him instantly; he is not the kind of man one forgets readily. I think he is quite the handsomest man in the House; not the tallest, but what they used to call the properest man and the comeliest; he has not the least air of fashion, but he has the look of distinction.’
‘Good,’ said the Captain. ‘I always said that he looked like a Duke.’
‘Read the speech, George,’ said Isabel, ‘and then go on with the letter.’
I read the speech aloud. The oblique narrative makes everything cold. Even in direct narrative one loses the voice—in this case so rich and musical a voice—and the aspect of the man, the personality of the speaker—in this case so marked and so distinguished. Now, the House of Commons may be cold—how can that unhappy body, doomed to listen day after day to floods and cataracts of words, be anything but cold?—but I was sure even from this dry précis that the members must have listened with surprise and delight. The close of the speech I turned back from the oblique to direct narrative, and read it in the first person.
‘Oh!’ said Isabel. ‘I think I hear him speaking. Those facts I copied for him myself from a Blue-book.’
‘Robert will be a great man,’ said the Captain. ‘My dear, they will make him something. He will be a nobleman, and you will be my Lady.’
‘You read it just as Robert would speak it,’ said Isabel. ‘Your voice is like his, only not so strong. But you are like him in so many ways.’
‘It is a noble speech, Isabel.’
‘It is his first bid for power,’ she distinguished. ‘I dare say it is an able speech. But I feel as if I had been behind the scenes while he was preparing the show. To me, George, it will always be a show.’
‘You are like the child who wants to go beyond the story, Isabel. Why not be contented with the things presented?’
Why, indeed, not be contented with the show? If one were to analyze things and to discover the real motives and the springs of action, what would become of the patriot, the statesman, the philanthropist? What worth are the tender words of the poet? What consolation is left in the sermon of the preacher? No man, I said, is a hero to his typewriter: Isabel was the typewriter. There must be rehearsals and stage management, even for the effective conduct of a martyrdom. One may be filled with pity for the poor, with enthusiasm for a cause; but consider how emotion is stirred into action when the personal ambitions and the private interests lie in the same direction. ‘It is the first bid for power,’ said Isabel. So it was; and yet that speech, while it revealed the speaker, killed a Bill which might have involved mischief incalculable. The perfect private secretary—a very, very rare creature—is able to forget the rehearsals and the stage management.
I laid down the paper and took up the letter again, and read it aloud:
‘I told you, George, in that East End den, that the man was a born orator. He spoke better to-night, in the House, than before those working men—perhaps because he was more careful. He is one of those speakers, I mean, with whom repression increases strength. He spoke consciously, I am sure, to the country as well as to the House. His voice is magnetic in its richness and fulness; his periods are balanced; he spoke without the least hesitation, yet without the fatal fluency. He was not embarrassed; he spoke with authority. The effect of his speech upon the House was wonderful; the members were dominated. They listened—compelled to listen. When he sat down there was a universal gasp, not of relief, but of astonishment.
‘Of course I do not know what your cousin means or wishes by going into the House. Probably nothing but a vague ambition. What should such a man understand of the political career? Yet, when I say “such a man,” I think of his trade, not of his appearance or his manner. He looks like a king, and has the manners—in the House, at least, whatever he might have in society—of one accustomed to the best people. Come and talk to me about him.
‘Of course, also, one must never judge by a first speech. It is always interesting to hear the maiden effort. Very likely your cousin prepared every phrase and every word of it, and he would break down in debate. I wait for his second speech, and for a speech in reply.
‘The member for Shadwell, as I told you before, is absurdly like you in face and in general appearance, but he is a bigger man. Perhaps he resembles the Judge, who was a very big man, more than you. Well, George, for your sake I shall watch his movements and read his speeches. He may do something considerable; he may not. Many a man makes a good beginning in the House who cannot keep it up. The floor is knee-deep with the dust and bones of dead and gone ambitions. They take the place of the rushes which they formerly strewed on the floor. I was looking at the faces of the members last night. There were the old stagers who have long since parted with their ambitions, and now sit quiet and resigned, and vote like sheep. Why do they do it? What is the joy of remaining all their lives among the rank and file? Then I saw the faces of the new young men. I made them all out, one after the other, those who are ambitious and those who are not. Oh, George! what an interesting place the House of Commons is, and why—why—why have you left it to a tradesman cousin to have all the ambition in the family?’
I read all this aloud.
‘Who is your correspondent, George?’ Isabel asked. ‘I suppose it is your friend, Lady Frances. Why is she so contemptuous about tradesmen?’
‘She only thinks that I ought to have gone into the House, Isabel. It is her way of expressing herself.’
However, the rest I did not read aloud:
‘You may bring your cousin to see me, George. I am at home this day week. You so seldom come to see me that I am almost tempted to come over to Wapping. But it would be too dreadful to see you among the chips, with your coat off and your sleeves turned up, and an apron, and, I dare say, disfiguring callosities already appearing on your hands. When you are sick and tired of it, come back to the world. Lord Caerleon will soon want a private secretary. The post would suit you entirely. He is a man of the world—not a politician only. And there are still things to be had worth the having, and in the gift of Ministers, which are not awarded by competitive examination to candidates who certainly have no more merit than you yourself. Come back. Great Donkey, it is dull without you.
‘Your affectionate sister—by adoption,
‘Frances.’