"It is fine," Rose answered; "but there are many Socialists who would do it—just as there are, of course, plenty of Socialists who would become individualists within five minutes of inheriting a quarter of a million! But Burnside will not give it all up; I shall see to that."
"But I thought——"
"Many people fail to understand that we don't want, at any rate, in the present state of things and probably not for hundreds of years, to abolish private property. We want to regulate it. We want to abolish poverty entirely, but we don't say yet that a man shall not have a fair income, and one in excess of others. I shall advise Burnside, for he will come to me, to retain a sufficient capital to bring him in an income of a thousand pounds a year. If the possession of capital was limited to, say, thirty thousand pounds in each individual case, the economic problem would be solved. But I must go. The world arrives, the individualists and aristocrats muster in force!"
"What are you going to do? Why not sit here with me?"
Rose smiled. "I never watch one of my plays on the first night," he said. "It would be torture to the nerves. I am going to forget all about the play and go to a concert at the Queen's Hall. I shall come back before the curtain is rung down—in case the audience want to throw things at me! Au revoir, until supper—you've given me a great deal to think about."
With a wave of his hand, Rose hurried away, and the duke was once more alone.
The theatre was filling up rapidly as the duke moved a little to the front of the box and peeped round the curtains.
Party after party of well-dressed people were pouring into the stalls. Diamonds shimmered upon necks and arms which were like columns of ivory, there was a sudden infusion of colour, pinks and blues, greens and greys, wonderfully accentuated and set off by the sombre black and white of the men's clothes.
A subtle perfume began to fill the air, the blending of many essences ravished from the flowers of the Côte d'Azur. The lights in the roof suddenly jumped up, and the electric candelabra round the circle became brilliant. There was a hum of talk, a cadence of cultured and modulated voices. The whole theatre had become alive, vivid, full of colour and movement.
And, in some electric fashion, the duke was aware that every one was expecting—even as he was expecting—the coming of great things. There was a subtle sense of stifled excitement—apprehension was it?—that was perfectly patent and real.
Everybody felt that something was going to happen. It was not an ordinary first night. Even the critics, who sat more or less together, were talking eagerly among themselves and had lost their somewhat exaggerated air of nonchalance and boredom.
The duke saw many people that he knew. Every one who was not upon the Riviera was there. Great ladies nodded and whispered, celebrated men whispered and nodded. A curious blend of amusement and anxiety was the keynote of the expression upon many faces.
To-night, indeed, was a night of nights!
The duke had not written to Lady Constance Camborne to say that he was going to be present at the first night of The Socialist. She had made some joking reference to the coming production in one of her letters but he had not replied to it. He had kept all his new mental development from her—locked up in his heart. From the very first he had never known real intimacy with her.
As Society took its seats he was certain that every one was talking about him. Sooner or later some one or other would see him, and there would be a sensation. He was sure of it. It would create a sensation.
For many reasons the duke was glad that neither Lord Hayle, the bishop, nor Constance were in the theatre. Gerald, of course, was in hospital at Oxford, the earl and Constance were down at Carlton.
Even as the thought came to his mind, and he watched the stalls cautiously from the back of the darkened box, he started and became rigid. Something seemed to rattle in his head, there was a sensation as if cold water had been poured down his spine.
The Earl of Camborne and his daughter had entered the opposite box upon the grand circle tier.
The duke shrank back into the box, asking himself with fierce insistence why he felt thus—guilty, found out, ashamed?
At that moment the overture ended and the curtain rose upon the play.
Then the duke knew.
CHAPTER XXI IN THE STAGE BOX AT THE PARK LANE THEATRE
The curtain rose upon a drawing-room scene, perfectly conceived and carried out, an illusion of solid reality, immense and satisfying to eye and intelligence alike.
Here was a silver table, covered with those charming toys, modern and antique, which fashionable women collect and display.
There was a revolving book-shelf of ebony and lapis lazuli which held—so those members of the audience who were near could see—the actual novels and volumes of belles lettres of the moment; the things they had in their own drawing-rooms.
The whole scheme was wonderfully done. It was a room such as Waring and Liberty, assisted by the individual taste of its owner, carry out.
Up to a certain height the walls—and how real and solid they appeared!—were of pale grey, then came a black picture rail, and above it a frieze of deep orange colour. Black, orange, and grey, these were the colour notes of all the scene, and upon the expanses of grey were rows of old Japanese prints, or, rather, the skilful imitation of them, framed in gold.
The carpet was of orange, carrying a serpentine design of dead black, two heavy curtains of black velvet hung on either side of a door leading into a conservatory, softly lit by electric lights concealed amid the massed blossoms, for it was a night scene that opened the play.
There was a low murmur of applause and pleasure from the crowded theatre, for here was a picture as complete and beautiful as any hardened playgoers had seen for many years. Then the sound died away. The new actress was upon the stage, the unknown Mary Marriott; there was a great hush of curiosity and interest.
As the curtain rose the girl had been sitting upon a Chesterfield sofa of blue linen at the "O. P." side of the stage. For a moment or two she had remained quite motionless, a part of the picture, and, with a handkerchief held to her face, her shoulders shaking convulsively.
She was dressed in an evening gown of flame-colour and black.
In front of her, and in the centre of the stage, two odd and incongruous figures were standing.
One was a shabby, middle-aged woman, pale, shrinking, and a little furtive among all the splendours in which she found herself. She wore a rusty bonnet and a black cape scantily trimmed with jet.
By the woman's side stood a tall girl in a hat and a cheap, fawn-coloured jacket. The girl held a soiled boa of white imitation fur in one restless hand. She was beautiful, but sullen and hard of face.
Not a word was spoken.
It might have been a minute and a half before a word was said. The only sound was that of the sobbing from the richly-dressed woman upon the couch and the timid, shuffling feet of the two humble people—mother and daughter evidently—who stood before her.
Yet, curiously enough—and, indeed, it was unprecedented—not a sigh nor sound of impatience escaped the audience. One and all were as still as death. Some extraordinary influence was already flowing over the footlights to capture their imaginations and their nerves.
As yet they hadn't seen the face of the new actress, of whom they had heard so much in general talk and read so much in the newspapers.
A minute and a half had gone by and not a word had been spoken.
They all sat silent and motionless.
Suddenly Mary jumped up from the sofa and threw her handkerchief away.
They saw her for the first time; her marvellous beauty sent a flutter through the boxes and the stalls, her voice struck upon their ears almost like a blow.
Never was a play started thus before. Mary—upon the programme she was Lady Augusta Decies, a young widow—leapt up and faced the two motionless figures before her. Tears were splashing down her cheeks, her lovely mouth quivered with pain, her arms were outstretched, and her perfect hands were spread in sympathy and entreaty.
"Oh, but it shan't be, Mrs. Dobson! It can't be! I will stop it! I will alter it for you and Helen and all of you!"
These were the first words of the play. They poured out with a music that was terribly compelling.
There was a cry of agony, a hymn of sympathy, and a stern resolve. An audible sigh and shudder went round the theatre as that perfect voice swept round it.
"What was this play to be? Who was this girl? What did it all mean?"
Some such thought was in the mind of every one.
Such a voice had not been heard in a London theatre for long. Sarah Bernhardt had a voice like that, Duse had a voice like that—a voice like liquid silver, a voice like a fairy waterfall falling into a lake of dreamland. Most of the people there had heard the loveliest speaking voices of the modern world. But this was as lovely and compelling as any of them, and yet it had something more. It had one supreme quality—the quality of absolute conviction.
The new player—this unknown Mary Marriott—was hardly acting. It was a real cry of anguish straight from the heart itself.
Every one there felt it, though in different ways and according to the measure of their understanding.
To one man it came as a double revelation; it came with the force and power of a mighty avalanche that rushes down the sides of a high Alp, sweeping forests and villages away in its tremendous course.
The duke knew that here was one of the very greatest artists who had ever come upon the boards, and he knew also—oh, sweet misery and sudden shame!—that this was the woman he had loved from their first meeting—had loved, loved now, hopelessly, for ever and a day!
In that moment he lowered his head and prayed.
He sent up an inarticulate prayer to God, a wild, despairing ejaculation, that he might be given power to bear the burden, that he might be a man, a gentleman, and keep these things hid.
From where he sat in the shadow of the box he could see Lady Constance Camborne opposite. Both she and the bishop were leaning forward with polite attention stamped upon their faces. There was the girl who was to be his wife. He was bound to her for always, but she didn't know—she never should know! Above all, he must be a gentleman!
Never did play have such an extraordinary beginning, one only possible to an artist of consummate ability and knowledge, to a playwright of absolute unconventionality and daring in art.
In ten minutes the whole attention of the house was engrossed, after the first quarter of an hour the audience was perfectly still.
But this was curious. Throughout the whole of the first act there was hardly any applause—until the fall of the curtain. What little clapping of hands there was came from the huge upper circle, which combined in itself the functions of pit, upper circle, and gallery in the Park Lane Theatre.
But it was not a chilling silence; it was by no means the silence of indifference, of boredom. It was a silence of astonishment at the daring of the play. It was also a silence of wonder at, and appreciation of, the supreme talent of the writer, and the players who interpreted him.
There were many Socialists in the house, more especially in the upper tiers, but these were in a large minority.
Rose and Flood had allowed but few tickets to be sold to the libraries and theatre agents for the first three nights.
They had laid their plans well; they wanted Society to see the play before other classes of the community did so.
The "boom" which had been worked up in the general Press of London, more especially owing to the skilful direction of it by that astute editor, Mr. Goodrick, of the Daily Wire, had been quite sufficient to ensure an enormous demand for seats.
The manager of the box office had his instructions, and as a result the theatre was crammed with people to whom socialistic doctrines were anathema, and who sat angry at the doctrine which was being pumped into their brains from the other side of the footlights, but spellbound by the genius that was doing it.
Yet the plot of the play was quite simple. It seemed fresh and new because of the subtlety of its treatment, yet, nevertheless, it was but a peg on which to hang an object lesson.
Mary, the heroine, represented a woman of the wealthy class which controls the "high finance." Her late husband had left her millions. As a girl she was brought up in the usual life of her class, shielded from all true knowledge of human want, the younger daughter of an earl, married at twenty to a gentlemanly high priest of the god Mammon, who had died five years after the marriage, leaving her with one child, a boy, and mistress of his vast fortune. At the period when the play opened she was engaged to the young Marquis of Wigan, a peer, also immensely wealthy. She was deeply in love with him—real love had come to her for the first time in her life—and he adored her. They were soon to be married. They lived in a rosy dream. They knew nothing of the outside world.
It was at her first real contact with the outside world, at terrible, stinging, and bitter truths, which were told her by an ex-kitchenmaid whom she had employed in the past but never seen, which struck the keynote of the play.
It was a play of black and white, of yellow and violet—of incredible contrasts.
No such brutal and poignant thing had been seen upon the stage of a West End theatre before. In all its shifting scenes and changes there was a hideous alternation.
The perfection of cultured luxury, of environment and thought, was shown with the most lavish detail and fidelity. No scenes in the lives of wealthy and celebrated people had ever been presented with such entire disregard of cost before.
The pictures were perfect. They were recognized by every one there—they lived in just such a way themselves.
But the other scenes?—the hideously sombre pictures—these struck into the heart with chilling horror and dismay.
Every one knew in a vague sort of way that such things went on. They had always known it, but they had put the facts away from themselves and refused to recognize them.
They were trapped now.
They had to sit and watch a supremely skilful imitation of real life in the malign slums of London. They had to sit and listen to dialogue which burnt and blistered, which seared even the most callous heart, truths from the hell of London forced into their ears, phrases which lashed their soft complacency like burning whips.
The act-drop came down in absolute silence after the last scene of the first act, a scene in an East-End sweater's den, so cruel and relentless in its realism that dainty women held handkerchiefs of filmy lace to their nostrils as if the very foul odour and miasma of the place might reach them.
There was a long sigh of relief as the horror was shut out. The dead, funereal silence was continued for a moment, and then everybody suddenly realized something.
The whole audience realized that they had been witnessing an artistic triumph that would always be historic in the annals of the stage.
Mary Marriott had done this thing. The fire of her incarnate pity and sorrow had played upon their heart-strings till all of them—wishful, greedy, worldly, sensual—were caught up into an extraordinary emotion of gratitude and sympathy.
A burst of cheering, a thunder of applause absolutely without precedent, rang and echoed in the theatre. The evening pedestrians upon the pavements of Oxford Street heard it and halted in wonder before the façade of the theatre.
High up in the "grid" the distant stage carpenters heard it and looked at each other in amazement. Up stone flights of stairs in far-away dressing-rooms members of the company heard it and gasped.
Mary Marriott and Aubrey Flood came before the curtain and bowed.
The full-handed thunder rose to a terrifying volume of sound, and the Duke of Paddington, forgetful of all else, leaned forward in his box and shouted with the rest.
The tears were falling down his cheeks, his voice was choked and hoarse. As she retired Mary Marriott looked at him and smiled a welcome!
* * * * * *
There were only three acts.
In the course of the plot, simply but ingeniously construed, the Marquis of Wigan and Lady Augusta Decies were taken into the most awful and hopeless places of London. There was a third principal character, a cynical cicerone with a ruthless and bitter tongue, who explained everything to them and was the chorus of their progression.
In Doctor Davidson, a prominent socialistic leader, every one recognized a caricature of James Fabian Rose by himself, put before them to ram the message home!
The struggle in the woman's mind and heart was manifested with supreme art. Piece by piece the audience saw the old barriers of caste and prejudice crumbling away, until the culminating moment arrived when the young marquis must choose between the loss of her and the abandonment of all his life theories and the prejudices of race.
The end came swiftly and inevitably.
There was a great culminating scene, in which the girl appealed to her lover to give up almost everything—as she herself was about to do—for the cause of the people, for the cause of brotherhood and humanity. He hesitates and wavers. He is kindly and good-hearted, he wants her more than anything else, but in him caste and long training triumphs.
There is a final moment in which he confesses that he cannot do this thing.
With pain and anguish he renounces his love for her in favour of his order, the order to which she also belongs.
Even for her he cannot do it. He must remain as he has always been; he must say good-bye.
The last scene is the same as the first—it is Lady Augusta's drawing-room. Everything is over; they say farewell at the parting of the ways.
But she holds the little son by her first husband up to him.
"Good-bye, dear Charles!" she says. "You and I go different ways for ever and a day. God bless you! But this little fellow, with the blood of our own class in his veins, shall do what you cannot do. Good-bye!"
As the last curtain fell a tall and portly figure came into the Duke of Paddington's box.
"John," said the Earl of Camborne and Bishop of Carlton, "I have known that you were here for the last hour. Constance has gone back to Grosvenor Street, but I want to speak to you very seriously indeed."
The duke looked up quickly, his voice was decisive.
"I didn't know that either you or Connie were in London," he said. "I understood from Gerald that you were both down at the palace. I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we shall have to postpone our talk until to-morrow morning. I'll turn up at Grosvenor Street at whatever time you wish. To-night, however, now, as a matter of fact, I am very particularly engaged indeed."
CHAPTER XXII THE SUPPER ON THE STAGE
The success of the play was beyond all question. It was stupendous, overwhelming and complete.
For ten minutes the house shouted itself hoarse and Mary Marriott was recalled over and over again. Great baskets of flowers had made their appearance as she stood bowing for the tenth time, and were handed up to her till she stood surrounded by a mass of blossom.
Hundreds of opera glasses were levelled at her, eager, critical and admiring faces watched this lovely and graceful girl who stood before them, quietly and modestly, and with a great joy shining in her eyes.
For she had stirred them, stirred them by the depths of her art and the passion of her playing. They knew that in one night a great artist had suddenly appeared. However much they might disagree and dislike the doctrines preached in The Socialist they knew that the play was a work of genius, and had been interpreted with supreme talent. Aubrey Flood they were fond of. He was a popular favourite, he had acquitted himself well upon this eventful night. He had received his meed of praise.
But for Mary Marriott there was a reception so whole-hearted and magnificent that the tears might well come into the young girl's eyes and the slim, flower-laden hands tremble with emotion as she bowed her gratitude.
James Fabian Rose had to make a little speech.
He did it with extraordinary assurance and aplomb, and he was received with shouts of applause and good-natured laughter. He had amused and pleased society, and that was enough. The few mocking and brilliant epigrams he flung at them were taken in good part. The deep undercurrent of seriousness seemed but to harmonise with the electric, emotional influences of the moment.
For a minute or two—until they should be seated at supper in the smart restaurants, clubs, and houses—they were all Socialists!
And the fact that their convictions of the truth would vanish with the first plover's egg and glass at Pol Roger, by no means affected their butterfly enthusiasm as the famous author talked to and at them.
The Duke of Paddington watched it all with a strange sense of exhilaration and joy. Lord Camborne had given him an appointment in Grosvenor Street for the morrow, and had hurried away in the most marked perplexity and annoyance.
Lord Hayle had been writing to his father, the duke saw that at once, but he was not perturbed. He had made his resolve. He was master of his own fate, captain of his own soul—what did anything else matter? What was to be done was to be done, come what might. One must be true to oneself!
As the weary, excited audience began at last to press out of the stalls and boxes, there was a tap upon the door of the duke's, and Mr. Goodrick, the editor of the Daily Wire, entered. The little man's face was flushed with excitement, and he was smiling with pleasure.
Yet even under these conditions of animation he still seemed a quiet, insignificant little person, and did not in any way suggest the keen, sword-like intellect, the controller of a vast mass of public opinion that he was.
"Rose has sent me to say that supper will be ready in ten minutes," he began, "and Mary Marriott especially charged me to tell you how grateful she is that you have come here to-night. What a success! There has never been anything like it! All London will go mad about the thing to-morrow! I had three members of the staff here to-night—Masterman, who does the dramatic criticism, purely from the standpoint of dramatic art, don't you know; William Conrad, the parson's younger brother, who is one of our political people; and old Miss Saurin, who does the society and dress. They're all three gone down to the office in cabs in a state of lambent enthusiasm and excitement. We shall have a fine paper to-morrow morning!"
"I'm sure you will, Mr. Goodrick," the duke answered. "Perhaps finer than you know."
The little man laughed as he lit a cigarette and offered the case to his companion. "Yes," he said, "but this time it won't be a 'scoop' as it was when I first had the pleasure of meeting you. Good heavens! what a boom that was for the Wire. I shall never forget it as long as I live! We were absolutely the only paper in the kingdom to publish the full details of your disappearance and recovery. You don't know how much we owe you, your Grace, from the journalistic point of view. Such things don't come twice, more's the pity!"
"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Goodrick," the duke replied slowly. "Perhaps to-night, within an hour or so, I am going to provide you with a 'scoop' as you call it, to which the first was a mere nothing!"
The editor stiffened as a setter stiffens in the stubble when the birds are near. "Your voice has no joking in it," he said. "There is meaning in your Grace's words—what is it?"
As he spoke a waiter came into the box. "Supper is prepared upon the stage, your Grace," he said. "Miss Marriott, Mr. Rose, and Mr. Aubrey Flood request the honour of your Grace's presence."
"Come along, Mr. Goodrick," the duke said, laughing a little. "You see you will have to wait an event like any one else in this world! But I promise you the 'scoop' all the same!"
They went out of the box, the waiter leading the way to the sliding iron "pass door," which led directly on to the stage. For the first few steps they were in semi-darkness, for a boxed-in screen had been hurriedly set by the carpenters to make a supper-room. Then, pushing open a canvas door, they came out into the improvised supper-room.
Some forty people were standing upon the stage in groups, talking animatedly to each other. In the background were flower-covered tables gleaming with glass and silver and covered with flowers, among which many tiny electric lights were hidden.
Mary Marriott stood in the centre of a laughing happy group of men and women. She wore a long tea-gown of dark red, made of some Indian fabric, and edged with a narrow band of green embroidery upon a biscuit-coloured ground. She wore dark-red roses in the coiled masses of her marvellous black hair, the paint of the theatre had been washed from her face, and her eyes were brighter, her cheeks more lovely, than any art could make them. She was a queen come into her own on that night! An empress of her art, throned, acknowledged, and wonderful.
To her came the duke.
It was a strange and almost symbolic meeting to some of the quick-wits and artists' brains there. Here was a real prince of this world, a prince who had suffered the hours of a keen and bitter attack with fine dignity and chivalry—James Fabian Rose had not spared words—and there was a princess of art, who from nothing had made a more enduring kingdom, a more splendid realm, than even the long line of peers, statesmen, and warriors had bestowed upon the young man before her.
Yet they were both royal, they looked royal, there was an emanation of royalty as the duke bowed over the hand of the actress and touched it with his lips.
"Hommage au vrai Art," he murmured, quoting the words which a king had once used as he kissed the hand of the greatest French actress of his time.
"It was so good of you to come," she said, and he thought that her voice sounded like a flute. "It is kinder still of you to be here now. But they are sitting down to supper. I believe we are placed together; shall we go?"
She took his arm, and his whole being thrilled as the little white hand touched his sleeve and her gracious presence was so near.
They sat down together in the centre of one of the long tables. The duke sat on one side of Mary, James Fabian Rose upon the other.
The waiters began to serve the clear amber consommé in little porcelain bowls; the champagne, cream and amber, flowed into the glasses.
Every one was in the highest spirits—actors, authors, journalists, socialistic leaders—every one.
It was an odd gathering enough to the casual eye. The ladies of the stage were radiant in their evening gowns and flowers, some of the ladies in the ranks—or rather upon the staff—of the Socialist army were in evening frocks also, others, hard-featured, earnest-eyed women, with short hair and serviceable coats and skirts, were scattered among them, grubs among the butterflies, scorning gay attire.
The men were the same, though the majority of them were in conventional evening clothes. Yet, sitting by Mrs. Rose, charming in pale blue, and with sapphires upon her neck, sat a man in a brown suit with a turn-down collar of blue linen, a grey flannel shirt, and a red tie. It was Mr. William Butterworth, the great Socialist M.P. for one of the Lancashire manufacturing towns, who had never worn a dress suit in his life, and never meant to, on principle. Such contrasts were everywhere apparent, but to-night they were mere superficial accidents.
Every one was rejoicing at the immense success of The Socialist, every one realised that to-night a new and hitherto undreamed of weapon had been forged.
An artery was beating in the duke's head—or was it his heart?—beating with the sound of distant drums. He was speaking to Mary in a low voice, and she was bending a little towards him. "Oh, it was far more wonderful and moving than you yourself can ever know!" he said. "I have seen all the great players of our day. But you are queen of them all! There has never been any one like you. There never will be any one like you."
He stopped, unable to say more. The drumming within gathered power and sound, became imminent, near, a mighty crescendo, a tide! a flood!
"It is sweet of you to say such things," she answered in her low, flute-like voice, "but of course they are not true. I am only a very humble artist indeed. And no one could have helped playing fairly well in such a play as this, especially when the cause it advocates has become very dear to me. I am a Socialist heart and soul now, you know." She sighed, hesitated for a moment, and then went on: "I hope you were not hurt to-night by anything upon the stage. I could not help thinking of you. I knew you were in the box, and it was, by the very nature of it, aimed so directly at you, or rather the class to which you belong and lead. Since I have been converted to Socialism I have tried to put myself into the place of other people—to imagine how they see things. And I know how subversive and outrageous all our ideas must seem to you."
"Then you were really sorry for me?"
"Really and truly sorry." Perhaps the lovely girl's voice betrayed her a little, its note was so strangely intimate and tender.
He started violently, and a joyful, wonderful, and yet despairing thought flashed into his mind. He was silent for some seconds before he replied.
"No, I wasn't hurt a bit," he said at length. "Not in the very least. I have something to tell you, Mary"—he was quite unconscious that he had called her by her Christian name. She saw it instantly, and now it was her turn to feel the sudden, overwhelming stab of joy and wonder—and despair!
"Tell me," she said softly.
"I was not hurt," he answered, "because all my ideas are changed also. I, too, have seen the light. The mists of selfishness and individualism have vanished from around me. The process has been gradual. It has been terribly hard. But it has been inevitable and sure, and it dates from the day on which I first saw you by my bedside in the house of James Fabian Rose. To-night you and he together have completed my conversion. With a full knowledge of all that this means to me, I still say to you that from to-night onwards I am a Socialist heart and soul!"
She looked at him, and the colour faded out of her flower-like face, and her great eyes grew wide with wonder. Then the colour came stealing back, pink, like the delicate inside of a shell, crimson with realisation and gladness.
"Then——" she began.
"You will hear to-night," he answered, and even as he did so Aubrey Flood, flushed with excitement, and his voice trembling with emotion, rose, and in a few broken, heart-felt words proposed the health of Mary Marriott and James Fabian Rose.
The toast was drunk with indescribable enthusiasm and verve. The high grid of the stage above echoed with the cheers. The very waiters, forgetting their duties, were caught up in the swing and excitement of it and shouted with the rest.
It was some minutes before the pale man with the yellow beard could obtain a hearing. He stood there smiling and bowing and patting Mary upon the shoulder.
Then he began. He acknowledged the honour they had done Mary and himself in a few brief words of deep feeling. Then, taking a wider course, he told them what he believed this would mean for Socialism, how that the theatre, a huge educational machine with far more power and appeal than a thousand books, a hundred lectures, was now their own.
A new era was opening for them, and it dated from this night. Everything had been leading up to it for years, now the hour of fulfilment had come.
He took a letter from his pocket.
It was from Arthur Burnside, and had arrived from Oxford, during the course of the play. He had found it waiting for him when he returned to the theatre as the curtain fell on the last act.
He told them the great news in short, sharp sentences of triumph, how that on this very night of huge success a great fortune was placed in their hands for the furtherance of the great work of humanity.
When the second prolonged burst of applause and cheering was over Rose concluded his speech with a sympathetic reference to the duke's presence among them.
As he concluded the duke leaned behind Mary's chair and whispered a word to him.
Immediately afterwards the leader rose and said that the Duke of Paddington asked permission to speak to them for a moment.
There was a second's silence of surprise, a burst of generous cheers, and the duke was speaking in grave, quiet tones the few sentences which were to agitate all England on the morrow and alter the whole course of his life for ever and a day.
Mr. Goodrick had a notebook before him and a pencil poised in his right hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said the duke, "what I have to say shall be said in the very fewest words possible. My friend Mr. Rose has said in his kind remarks about my presence here that to-night I must have felt like a Daniel in a den of lions, or a lion in a den of Daniels—he was not sure which. I felt like neither one nor the other. Miss Marriott said to me just now that she hoped I was not hurt by the attack upon that class of the community which I may be thought to represent. Miss Marriott was wrong also. I have gone through experiences and learnt lessons which I need not trouble you with now. There stands my master in chief"—he pointed to Mr. Rose—"and there have been many others. I came to the theatre to-night as nearly a Socialist in heart and mental conviction as any man could be without an actual declaration. At this moment I announce and avow myself a true and convinced Socialist. I am with you all heart and soul! Allow me a personal reference. I am extremely wealthy. I have great estates in London and other parts of England. Some of these are entailed upon my heirs, and I only enjoy the emoluments during my own lifetime. The rest—and owing to past circumstances and my long minority the more considerable part—are mine to do with as I will. They are mine no longer. I give them freely to the Cause and to England. I join with my friend, Arthur Burnside, in renouncing a vast property in favour of the people. I shall retain only a sufficient sum to provide for me in reasonable comfort. All the details will be settled by the Central Committee of our party—it will take many months to arrange them, but that is by the way. And I offer myself and my work, for what they are worth, to the Cause also. I have no more to say, ladies and gentlemen."
He sat down in his chair, swayed a little, and as Mary bent over him and every one present rose to their feet, he swooned away.
Mr. Goodrick stole out from his seat, rushed down the passage to the stage door, clasping his note-book, and leaped into a waiting cab.
"A sovereign if you get me to the offices of the Daily Wire, in Fleet Street, in half an hour!" said Mr. Goodrick.
CHAPTER XXIII POINTS OF VIEW FROM A DUKE, A BISHOP, A VISCOUNT, AND THE DAUGHTER OF AN EARL
The rain was pouring down and it was a horribly gloomy, depressing morning.
The rain fell through the drab, smoke-laden air of London like leaden spears, thrown upon the metropolis in anger by the gods who control the weather.
The duke woke up and through the window opposite the foot of his bed saw the rain falling. He was in the same guest-room in the house of James Fabian Rose to which he had been carried when the exploring party had found him in the hands of the criminals of the West End slum. How long ago that seemed now, he thought, as he lay there in the grey, dreary light of the London morning.
When he had fainted on the night before he had been carried into Aubrey Flood's dressing-room, and speedily recovered consciousness.
His swoon was nothing more than a natural protest of the nerves against an overwhelming strain. It could hardly have been otherwise. One does not undergo weeks of mental strain and dismay without overtaxing the strength. One does not go through a night in which conviction of truth comes to one, the knowledge of love, the certainty that, in honour, that love could never be declared, the solemn and public renunciation of almost everything is realised and declared, without collapse.
He had found Mrs. Rose and Mary Marriott—ministering angels—by his side when he came back to the world.
Rose had entered, and would not hear of the duke's return to the Ritz. A messenger had been sent home for his things, and now he woke in the old familiar room upon this grey, depressing morning.
He was feeling the inevitable reaction. He could not help but feel it. It was eight o'clock he saw from his watch, the same watch which had been taken from him by force on the night of the railway accident.
The morning papers were out. One of these papers he knew would be even now having a record sale. The Daily Wire was having a huge boom. The general public were already learning of his renunciation. Before mid-day all society would know of it also. His hundreds of relations and connections would be reading the story. It would be known at Buckingham Palace and at Marlborough House. Lord Camborne would know of it, the news would reach Lord Hayle on his sick-bed at Oxford. Lady Constance would know it.
Before lunch he had to go to Grosvenor Street He must keep his appointment with his future father-in-law.
And he was fearing this interview as he had never feared anything in this world before. What was going to happen he didn't know. But he was certain that the meeting would be terrible. He felt frightfully alone, and there was only one little gleam of satisfaction in the outlook. Constance would stand by him. The beautiful girl who was to be his wife had often expressed her sympathy with the down-trodden and the poor. He could rely on her at least.
He did not love her. He could never love her. He loved some one else with all his heart and soul, and believed—dared to believe—that she loved him also.
That was a secret for her and for him for ever and ever. The thing might not be. He had to keep his word inviolable, his honour unstained. They both had duties to do—he and Mary! They must live for the Cause, apart, lonely, but strong.
He was pledged to Constance Camborne, and hand in hand, good comrades, they would work together for the common weal.
The joy of life must be found in just that—in the "stern lawgiver" Duty. The other and divinest joy was not for him, and he must face the fact like a man of a great race.
"So be it," he muttered to himself with a bitter smile. "Amen!" Then he rose and plunged into the cold bath prepared for him in an alcove of the bedroom.
He breakfasted alone with James Fabian Rose. Mary Marriott was staying in the house but both she and Mrs. Rose were utterly exhausted and would not be visible for many hours.
The duke was quite frank with his host. He unburdened himself of the "perilous stuff" of weeks to him; he laid everything bare, all the mental processes which had led to his absolute change of view. He spoke of the future and reiterated his determination to become a leader in the new Israel. He even told Rose of his fear and terror at the approaching interview with Lord Camborne, but of the most real and deep pain and distress he said never a word.
He did not mention Mary Marriott, he said nothing of Lady Constance Camborne. Rose appeared to him then in a new light.
The apostle of Socialism, the caustic wit, the celebrated man of literature was as gentle and tender as a child. He seemed to know everything, to enter into the psychology of the situation with an intuition and understanding which were as delicate and sure as those of a woman. He said no single word to indicate it, but the duke felt more and more certain as the meal went on that this wonderful man had penetrated, more deeply than he could have thought possible, to the depths of his soul.
Rose knew that he loved Mary Marriott and must marry Constance Camborne. Twice during breakfast a swift gleam of sardonic but utterly kindly and sympathetic amusement flashed into the dark eyes of the pallid man. It was a gleam full of promise and understanding. But the duke never saw it, he did not see into the immediate future with the unerring certainty that the writer of plays and student of human life saw it.
The duke had no hint of his own deliverance, but the elder man saw it clear and plain, and he would say nothing. A martyr must undergo his martyrdom before he wins his proper peace, it is the supreme condition of self-sacrifice, and James Fabian Rose knew that very well.
* * * * * *
The duke stood waiting in the bishop's library at Grosvenor Street.
"His lordship will be with you in a moment, your Grace," the butler said, quietly closing the door of that noble room. It might have been imagination, but the young man thought that he saw a curious expression flit over the man's face, the half-compassionate, half-contemptuous look with which callous intelligence regards a madman.
"Ah!" he thought to himself, "I suppose that sort of look is one to which I must become familiar in the future, it is part of the price that I must pay for living up to the truth that is in me. Very well, let it be so, I can keep a stiff upper lip, I believe. I must always remember the sort of people from whom I am descended. Many of them were robbers and scoundrels, but at least they were strong men."
It was in this temper of mind that he waited in the splendid library, among all the hushed silence that a great collection of books seems to give a room, until the bishop should arrive.
The duke had not long to wait.
The distinguished and commanding old man entered, closed the door behind him, and walked straight up to him.
The bishop's face was very stern and the lines of old age seemed more deeply cut into it than usual. But there was a real pain in the steadfast and proud red eyes which added a pathos to his aspect and troubled the duke.
"John," Lord Camborne began, "when I saw you last night at that wicked and blasphemous play I trembled to think that most disquieting news which had reached me was true."
"And what was that, my lord?"
"Suffer me to proceed in my own way, please, and bear with me if I am prolix. I am in no happy mind. I went to that play as a public duty, and I took my daughter that she might see for herself the truth about the Socialists and the godless anarchy they preach. You had made no mention of your intention to be present, and I was glad to think that you would be quietly at Oxford. I had heard from Gerald—than whom you have no greater friend—that you were associating with disreputable and doubtful people, forsaking men of your own class and living an extraordinary life."
"It was a lie," the duke answered shortly. "Gerald has been ill in bed, he has been misinformed."
"It was not only Gerald," the old man went on, "but letters reached me from other sources, letters full of the most disturbing details."
"Do you set spies upon my actions, Lord Camborne?"
"That is unworthy of you, John," the bishop answered gently, "unworthy both of you and of me. You are well aware that I could not stoop to such a thing. Do you forget that in your high position, with all its manifold responsibilities to God, to your country, and to yourself, your movements and dispositions are the object of the most wise and watchful scrutiny on the part of your tutors?"
"I am sorry I spoke wrongly."
"I make allowances for you. The word was nothing, but it is a far harder task to make allowances for you in another way. You seem to have committed yourself irrevocably."
The old man's voice had become very stern. The duke saw at once that he had read the Daily Wire. He said nothing.
"You have been a traitor to your order," the pitiless voice went on. "You have publicly blasphemed against the wise ordinances of God. A great peer of England, pledged to support the Throne, you have cast in your lot with those who would destroy it. I say this in the full persuasion that the report of what occurred last night is correctly set forth in that pestilent news-sheet, the Daily Wire."
"It is perfectly true," said the duke.
"You intend to abide by it?"
"Unswervingly. My reason is convinced and my honour is pledged."
The bishop turned and strode twice up and down the library, a noble and reverend figure as he struggled with his anger.
"I have seen Constance," he said at length, speaking with marked difficulty. "Of course any idea of your marriage is now out of the question."
The suddenness of the words hit the duke like a blow.
"And Constance?" he said in a faint voice; "she——"
"She is of one mind with me," Lord Camborne answered. "The blow has been terrible for her, but she is true to her blood. An announcement that the marriage will not take place will be sent to the papers to-day."
"May I see her?"
"You may see her, John," the bishop said brokenly. "Oh, why have you brought this shame and public disgrace upon us? I did not intend to make an appeal to you, but I knew your father, I have loved you, and there is my dear daughter. Is it too late? Cannot you withdraw? Can it not be explained as a momentary aberration, a freak, a joke, call it what you will? There would be talk and scandal, of course, but it would soon blow over and be forgotten. It could be arranged. I have great influence. Is it too late? Remember all that you are losing, think well before you answer."
There were tears in the bishop's voice.
There were tears in the duke's eyes as he answered. "Alas!" he said, "it is too late, I would not change even if I could, I must be true to myself."
"God help you, preserve you, and forgive you," Lord Camborne replied with lifted hand. "And now good-bye, in this world we shall not meet again. I will send Constance to you. Do not keep her long. Remember that you have an old man's blessing."
With his hand over his eyes the bishop went from the room. More than once he stumbled in his walk. He was weeping.
It was awful to see that high and stately old man stricken, to see that white and honourable head bowed in sorrow and farewell.
Lady Constance came into the room. She was very pale, her eyes were swollen as if she also had been weeping.
She went straight up to the duke, tall and erect as a dart, and held out her hand to him.
"John," she said. "I've come to say good-bye. Father has allowed me five minutes and no more. Father is terribly shaken."
He held her hand in his for a moment. She was very beautiful, very patrician, a true daughter of the race from which she had sprung.
"Then it is really all over, Constance?" he said with great sadness.
"It must be all over for you and me," she answered.
"Tell me this, dear. Is what you say said of your own free will, or is it said because of your father's authority and pressure? He has been very kind to me, kinder than from his natural point of view I can ever deserve. But I must know. I am ready and anxious. I am putting it horribly, but the situation is horrible. Constance, won't you marry me still?"
"You are not putting it horribly," she said with a faint smile. "You are putting it chivalrously and like a gentleman. Let us be absolutely frank one with another. We come of ancient races, you and I. We have blood in us that common people have not. We are both of us quietly and intensely proud of that. 'Noblesse oblige' is our creed. Very well, I will not marry you for three reasons. First of them all is that you do not love me. No, don't start, don't protest. This is our last real meeting, and so in God's name let's be done with shame. You admire me, you have a true affection for me. But that is all. We were both dazzled and overcome by circumstances and the moment. You wanted me because I am beautiful, of your rank, because we should get on together. I was ready to marry you because I am very fond of you and because I know and feel that it is my destined lot in life to make a great marriage, to lead Society, always to be near the throne. The second reason that I won't marry you is that by your own act you have deprived yourself of those material things that are my right and my destiny, and the third reason is that my father forbids it. John, I think I honour and like you more than I have ever done before for what you are doing. You have chosen your path, find peace and joy in it. I pray that you will ever do so, and I know that you are going to be very happy."
"Very happy, Constance?"
"Very happy, indeed. Oh, you foolish boy, did I not see your face at the theatre last night! Oh, foolish boy!"
She wore a little bunch of violets at her breast.
She took them and held them out to him. "Give them to her with my love," she said.
She bent forward, kissed him upon the forehead, and left the room without even looking back.
A noblewoman always.
CHAPTER XXIV "LOVE CROWNS THE DEED"
The duke stood on the pavement outside Lord Camborne's house in Grosvenor Street.
It was still pouring heavy drops of rain, which beat a tattoo upon his umbrella.
He glanced back at the massive green-painted door which the butler had just closed behind him. Never again would that hospitable door open for him! He would see none of his kind friends any more. Gerald, who had been as a brother to him for so long, would never shake him by the hand again—he knew Lord Hayle's temperament too well to expect it.
Constance, beautiful, frank, and stately, had vanished from his life. The earl, a prince of the Church and a princely old man, would never again tell him his genial and courtly stories of the past.
The duke stood there alone. Alone!—the word tolled in his ears like a bell, making a melancholy accompaniment to the rain.
He began to walk towards Bond Street in a shaken and melancholy mood.
How swift and strange it all was! How a few months had altered all his life, utterly and irrevocably! An infinitesimal time back he had not a care in the world. He was Prince Fortunatus, enjoying every moment of his life and position in a dignified and becoming fashion.
And what was he now?
He laughed a small, bitter laugh as he asked himself the question. He was still the Duke of Paddington, the owner of millions, the proprietor of huge estates, perhaps the most highly-placed young man in England. Even now it was not too late to undo much of what he had done. Everything would be condoned and forgiven to such a man as he.
He could buy a great yacht, go round the world for a year with a choice society of friends of his own standing, and when he returned Court and Society would welcome him with open arms once more—all this he understood very well.
He had but to say a few words and all that was now slipping away from him would be his own once more.
Struggles against conscience and convictions are either protracted or very short. The protracted struggle was over in his case. He had fought out the battle long before. His public action on the night before had been the outcome. But there was still the last after-temptation to be faced, the final and conclusive victory to be won.
It was not far from Lord Camborne's town house to Bond Street, but during the distance the battle within the young man's mind raged fiercely.
He must not be blamed. The whole of his past life must be taken into consideration. It must be remembered that he had just been enduring a succession of shocks, and it must also be taken into account that no one feels the same enthusiasm on a grey, wet morning, when he is alone, as he does in a brilliant, lighted place at midnight, surrounded by troops of friends and sympathisers.
A tiny urchin, wet and ragged, with bare feet, came pattering round the corner. Under his arm he held a bundle of pink papers in an oil-skin wrapper. In front of him, as a sort of soiled apron, was the limp contents-bill of an evening paper.
The duke saw his own name upon it. He realised that by now, of course, the early editions of all the evening papers were on the streets, and that they had copied the news from the Daily Wire.
"Pyper, m'lord!" said the urchin, turning up a shrewd and dirty face to the duke, who shook his head and would have passed on.
"Yer wouldn't sye no, m'lord, if yer noo the noos!" said the child. "'Ere's a bloomin' noo hactress wot's goin' to beat the bloomin' 'ead orf of all the other gels, just a cert she is! And there's a mad dook wot's gone and give all is oof to the pore! P'raps I shell get a bit of it—I don't fink!—'ave a pyper, sir?"
The impish readiness of the boy amused the duke, though his words stung. Yes! all the world was ringing with his name. The knowledge, or rather the realisation of what he had known before, acted as a sudden tonic. In a swift moment he set his teeth and braced himself up. A mad duke, was he?—au contraire, he felt particularly sane! The past was over and done—let it be so. The future was before him—let him welcome it and be strong. If he was indeed mad, then it should be a fine madness—a madness of living for humanity!
He looked at the pinched and anxious face of the boy. A sudden thought struck him. He would begin with the boy.
"Hungry?" he said.
"Not 'arf!" said the boy.
"Father and mother?"
"Old man's doin' five years, old woman's dead—Lock Orspital."
"Home?"
"Occasional, as you might sye," said the imp reflectively; "but Hadelphi Harches as hoften as not—blarst 'em!"
"Very well," said the duke. "Now you're going to have as much as you like to eat, good clothes, and a happy life if you come with me. I'll see you through."
"Straight?—no bloomin' reformatory?"
"Come along with me, you little devil," said the duke genially. "Do you think I'm going to let you in? If you do—scoot!"
"I'm on," said the child, much reassured at being called a little devil. "Carn't be much worse off than nah, wotever 'appens."
Two cabs were found at the corner.
"Jump in that one," the duke said, pointing to the last. "Follow me," he said to the driver, getting into the first cab as he did so, and giving the address of Rose's house in Westminster.
The two cabs started without comment or question.
There was something very authoritative about his Grace of Paddington sometimes.
The two cabs drove up to the little house in Westminster just as the rain cleared off, and a gleam of sunlight bursting through the clouds shone on the budding trees which topped the high wall of the Westminster sanctuary and jewelled them with prismatic fires. High above, the towers of the Abbey seemed washed and clean, rising into an air purged for a moment of grime and smoke, while the wet leaden roof of the nave shone like silver.
James Fabian Rose was on the doorstep of his house, and in the act of unlocking the door with his latchkey.
"Hallo!" he said. "So you're back, duke—home again! The ordeal is over, then!"
"Yes, it's quite over," the duke answered.
"Who's this ruffian?" said Rose, smiling at the little newsboy.
"A recruit!" the duke said. "I'm responsible for him for the future. And meanwhile he's confoundedly hungry."
"So I bloomin' well am," said the imp—though "blooming" was not the precise word he used.
Rose took the urchin by the ear.
"Come along, embryo Socialist," he said; "there's lots to eat inside—I'll take him to the kitchen, duke, and meet you in a moment in my study. My wife's in the kitchen helping the cook. She'll see to this youngster."
The duke paid the cabmen. As he gave half-a-crown to the second man, the fellow leaned down from his box and said, "God bless you, my lord. I knew you as soon as you got into my cab. It'll be many years before you know the good you done last night. People like us know wot you done and are goin' to do. I arst you to remember that."
He gave a salute with his whip and clattered away.
The duke went into the house.
As the door closed behind him and he stood alone in the narrow hall, the final revelation, the complete realisation came to him.
Mechanically he took off his wet overcoat and bowler hat, hanging them upon the rack. He put his dripping umbrella in the stand and went upstairs to the first floor.
Rose's study was on the first floor, facing the drawing-room.
He opened the door and went in.
The room, lined with books, a working-room, was rather dark. It did not face the newly-arrived sun.
But a dancing fire burned upon the hearth, and in a chair by the side of it Mary Marriott sat alone.
Her face was pale, she wore a long, flowing tea-gown, round her feet were scattered the innumerable daily papers in which she had been reading the extraordinary chorus of praise for her triumph of the night before.
She was leaning back in a high-backed armchair covered in green Spanish leather, looking like one of Sargeant's wonderful portraits that catch up eye and heart into a sort of awe at such cunning and splendour of presentation.
The duke stopped upon the threshold for a second—only for a second. He had known what he had come to do directly he was in the house—immediately he had entered the house and felt the influence which pervaded it.
He went quickly up to her and sank on his knees beside her chair.
He took her white hands in his—things of carved ivory, with a soul informing them. An hour ago he had held another pair of hands as beautiful as these.
Her face flushed deeply, her eyes grew wide, her lips parted. She tried to draw her hands away.
The words burst from her lips as if she had no power to control them. Her soul spoke, her heart spoke; it was an absolute avowal. But conscience, her sense of right and duty, her high thought for him and for herself spoke also.
"No, no! It is dishonourable, you are vowed!"
He held her fast, the strong male impulse dominated her, she was sick to death with surrender.
"But you love me, Mary?"
"Yes!—oh, what am I saying? God help me!—go, for you are a gentleman, and must preserve our hearts unstained!"
"Darling!" he cried, "God is with us. I break no troth! All that is over and done—I am free, I am yours."
He had her little hands in his, tight, close—ah, close!
Swift, passionate words come from his lips, fierce loving words caught up in sobs, broken with the hot tears of happiness in that he is so blessed and she so dear!
Her face, in its supreme loveliness, its tenderness, its joy, is turned full to his now.
The river of his speech rushes down upon her heart, surging over her. His words catch her up upon their flood, her will seems to her merged in his, she swoons with love.
For her! For her—this wonder is for her! It is an echo from the love of the august parents in the sweet garden of Eden.
Gone is the world, the world in which she has always moved. Gone are ideals and causes, gone are art and triumph, homage and success! Gone—vanished utterly away—while her own lover holds her hands in his.
She bent her lovely head. No longer did she look up into her lover's face with happy eyes. A deep flush suffused her face and the white column of her neck.
"So you see, dearest—best, I had to tell you. This is the moment when the love that throngs and swells over a man's heart bursts all bonds of repression and surges out in a great flood. Oh! darling! there has never been any one like you—there will never be any one like you again! My love and my lady, dare I ask you to be mine? Oh, I don't know—I can't say! I kneel before you as a man kneels before a shrine. I wonder that I have even words to speak to you, so peerless, so gracious, and so beautiful!"
His voice dropped and broke for a moment. He could say no more. Mary said no word. The firelight made flickering gleams in the great masses of dead-black hair. The wonderful face was hidden by the white hands which she had withdrawn from his.
His own strong hands were clasped upon her knees.
They shook and trembled violently.
What was she thinking? How did she receive his words?—his winged and fiery words. He knelt there in an agony of doubt.
Then, in one swift access of passion, his mood changed to one of greater power.
She was a woman, and therefore to be won! The clear, strong thought came down upon him like fire from heaven. He knew then that he was her conqueror, the man she must have to be her mate, her strength, her lover!
His strong arms were round her. They held her close. "Darling!" he whispered, "my arms are the home for you. That is what the old Roman poet said. Horace said it in the vineyards and the sun. I say it now. See, you are mine, mine!—only mine! You shall never break away, my own, incomparable lady and love!"
The whole world went away from her and was no more. She only knew, in a super-sensual ecstasy, that his kisses fell upon her cheek like a hot summer wind.
She found a little voice, a little, crushed, happy voice.
"But you are a duke, you are so much that is great! I am only Mary Marriott, the actress!"
"You are only the supreme genius of the stage. I am the greatest man in the world because you love me. Mary, it is just like that—and that is all."