Thorne Guy
The Socialist

"I see, father!" Lady Constance said as the stately old gentleman concluded his rounded periods. But there was a slight note of indifference in her voice. The bishop did not hear it, Lord Hayle did not hear it, but the duke detected it with a slight sensation of surprise. His senses were sharpened to apprehend every inflection in the voice of the girl he loved. And he wondered that she, apparently, was a little bored by the bishop's explanation.

He did not realise, being a young man, and one who had enjoyed a long minority, and had known but little of his parents, that, even though a prophet may sometimes have honour in his own country, his children do not always pay him his due meed of recognition when he is, so to speak, "unbuttoned and at home."

The duke had never heard the story of the angry old gentleman who was threatening two little boys, who had thrown some orange peel at him, with the imminent arrival of a policeman upon the other side of the road. "Garn!" said the little boys in chorus. "Why, that's farver!"

The duke himself was intensely interested in the bishop's logical and singularly powerful exposition of socialistic fallacies.

He had been uneasy for a long time now. He had had an alarming suspicion that the arguments of Fabian Rose and his companions were unanswerable, and, on that very afternoon, he had been specially struck by the vigour and force of the concluding chapter of Arthur Burnside's book.

Now he was reinstated in all his old ideas. His mental trouble seemed to pass away like a dream. The world was as it had been before! The remainder of the dinner passed off as brightly and merrily as it had begun. Lord Camborne was a charming host. He could tell stories of the great people of the Victorian Era, for he had been upon intimate terms with all of them. As a young man he had sat with Lord Tennyson in a Fleet Street chop-house in the first days of the Saturday Review. He had been in Venice when Browning wrote that beautiful poem beginning —

 
"Oh, to be in England, now that April's there!"
 

and had been cynically amused at the poet's steadfast determination to remain in the City of Palaces until the cold weather of his native land was definitely over.

He had been an honoured guest at the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and many years afterwards he had sat at the hospitable table of Sandringham, and had reminded the King and Queen of the scene of their marriage.

It was very fascinating to the duke to hear these stories told with a delicate point and wit, and with the air which reminded the young man pleasantly of the fact that he, too, all his life, had been of these people, and was, indeed, a leader in England.

Since his association with Fabian Rose – an association which pleased and interested him, he had, nevertheless, found a great diminution of his own importance. That sense had been so carefully cultivated from his very earliest years that the loss of it had occasioned him much uneasiness. Now it all seemed restored to him. He was in his own proper milieu, and as he looked constantly at Lady Constance Camborne, more and more he felt that here, indeed, was his destined bride.

Lord Camborne, himself one of the astutest and shrewdest readers of character in England, gathered something of what was passing in the young man's mind. He wanted the duke for a son-in-law. It was all so eminently suitable. The two young people were both exactly the two young people who ought to marry each other. The news of their engagement would, the bishop knew, be very welcome at Court, and society would acclaim it as the most fitting arrangement that could be made.

"If I am not very much mistaken," the old gentleman thought to himself, "the dear boy will ask Connie to marry him to-night. I must see if an opportunity cannot be arranged."

Lord Hayle, as it happened, was going to a bridge-party of young men, which was to be held in one of the card-rooms at the Cocoa Tree Club. He had asked the duke to accompany him, but the duke had already refused.

"I hate cards, my dear Gerald, as you know; and, really, I am not feeling too fit to-night."

"Very well, then," the bishop said, "we will smoke a cigar and have a chat, Paddington, and perhaps Connie will make some music for us? Sir William expressly asked me to see that you did not do too much, and went early to bed, after your terrible experiences, and I am not going to let you spoil your recovery."

"What a pompous old bore Sir William is," the duke said, laughing. "But I suppose he really does know about what he says."

"The greatest doctor alive at present," said the bishop.

Lady Constance did not leave the table after dessert, as they were all so intimate and at home. The young men were allowed to light their cigarettes, the bishop preferring to go to the library before he smoked.

Suddenly Lady Constance, who had cracked an almond, held out the kernel to the duke.

"Look," she said with almost childish glee, "this nut has two kernels. Now, let us have a phillipine. Will you, duke?"

"Of course I will, Lady Constance," he answered. "We must arrange all about it. I forget the rules. Is it not the first person who says 'phillipine' to-morrow morning who wins?"

"That's it," she answered. "Now, what are you going to give me, or what am I going to give you?"

"Whatever you like," said the duke.

"Well, you choose first," said Lady Constance.

"I don't quite know what I want," said the duke.

The bishop laughed softly. Things were going excellently well.

"Surely, my dear boy," he said, "even you – fortunate as you are – cannot say that there is nothing in the world that you don't want?"

"I know!" the duke answered suddenly, with a quick flush. "There is one thing which I want very much!"

"Well, then, if it is not too expensive," Lady Constance said, "and if you win, of course, I will give it to you. But what is it?"

"I don't think I will tell you now," the duke replied. "We will wait and see the issues. But what do you want, Lady Constance?"

"Well, I don't know, either," she said. "Oh, yes, I do. I saw Barrett's the other day – the place in Piccadilly, you know – there were some delightful little ivory pigs. I should like a pig to add to my collection of charms. I meant to have bought one then, only I was rather in a hurry, and besides, your chain charms ought always to be given to you if they are to bring you good luck."

"Very well, then, that is settled," said the duke.

"I don't think it is at all fair, all the same," she said, "not to tell me what your prize is to be if you win."

"My resolution upon that point is inflexible, Lady Constance," he answered.

Then there was a curious momentary silence. Nobody looked at the other. Lord Hayle was thinking of the bridge-party to which he was going. The bishop had realised what the duke meant, and was wondering if his daughter had realised it also. The duke wondered if, carried away by the moment, he had been a little too explicit. Lady Constance? What did Lady Constance wonder?

The bishop saved the situation, if, indeed, it needed salvage.

"Well," he said, "shall we go into the drawing-room? Gerald, I know, wants to get away, and I and Paddington will be allowed to smoke, as there's nobody else there. Connie won't mind, I know."

"Oh, I sha'n't mind a bit," Lady Constance answered. "Father's disgraceful when we're alone. He smokes everywhere. But the butler has invented a wonderful way of removing all traces of smoke in the air by the next morning. He makes one of the maids put down a couple of great copper bowls full of water, and they seem to absorb it all. Then, we will go."

Laughing and chatting together, they passed out of the dining-room and mounted to the drawing-rooms on the first floor.

Lord Camborne and his guest sat by one of the fire-places and played a game of chess. Lady Constance was at the Erard, some distance away. Her touch of the piano was perfect, and she played brilliant little trifles, snatches from Grieg or Chopin, and once she played a Tarantelle of Miguel Arteaga – a flashing, scarlet thing, instinct with the heat and spirit of the South.

The bishop won the game of chess. He was, as a matter of fact, though the duke did not know it, one of the finest amateurs of the game then living.

The duke was at his best an indifferent performer.

A minute or two after the game was over Mr. Westinghouse, the chaplain, came into the drawing-room. He had been dining in his own rooms that night, as he was very busy upon some special correspondence for the bishop. It was then that Lord Camborne saw his chance.

"Westinghouse," he said, "I think we had better go through those letters now, because some of them are most important. I am sure, Paddington, you will excuse me for a few minutes? Come along, Westinghouse, and we will get the whole thing done, and then we will come back, and my daughter will sing to us."

Together the two clergymen left the drawing-room.

Lady Constance was still at the piano, playing soft and dreamy music to herself.

The duke was standing in front of the fire looking out upon the great room lit with its softly-shaded electric lights. The harmonies of colour at that discreet and comfortable hour blended charmingly. It was a room designed by some one who knew what a beautiful room should be. The flowers standing about everywhere blended into the colour scheme. It was as lovely a place as could be found in London on that winter's night.

The duke stood there, tall, young-looking, and with that unmistakable aura which "personality" gives – motionless, and saying nothing. His head was a little bowed; he was thinking deeply.

Suddenly he left the hearth-rug, took three quick steps out into the middle of the room, and then walked up to the piano. He leant over it and looked at the beautiful girl, who went on playing, smiling up at him.

"What are you playing?" he asked.

"It is the incidental music of a little play called Villon by Alfred Calmour," she said. "I don't know who wrote the music in the first instance, but it was afterwards collected and welded into a sort of musical pictorial account of the play. You know about Villon, I suppose?"

"He was a French medieval poet, wasn't he? And rather a rascal, too?" the duke said.

"Yes," she replied. "The story is this: Villon lived with robbers and cut-throats, despite all his beautiful poetry. One night he and two friends, called Beaugerac and Réné de Montigny, decided to rob an old man, who was said to have a lot of money stowed away. His name was Gervais.

"It was a bitter night in old Paris, and people said that wolves would be coming into the streets. The rich man's house was on the outskirts of the town. Villon is to go to the house, knock at the door, and ask for shelter. Then, when he is once inside, he is to make a signal to Beaugerac and Montigny, who are to rush in and kill the old man, tie up his daughter, who lives with him, and take away the money.

"Villon goes through the snow, and is admitted by the daughter, Marie.

"The old man is there, and asks him to sit down and share their simple supper. Villon does so, and during the meal the old man says: 'What is your name, stranger, who have come to us to share our meal this cold winter's night?"

"Taken unawares, Villon told the truth. 'I, sir,' he said, 'am one François Villon, a poor master of arts of the University of Paris.'

"'Villon!' says the girl suddenly. 'Villon, the poet!'

"'None other! At your service, mademoiselle,' he answers, rising.

"'Villon!' said the old man, 'Villon, the poet! who associates with cut-throats and robbers? Begone from my house!'

"'Sir,' the poet answers, 'I wish you a very good night. Mademoiselle, you have then read my poems?'

"'Ay, and loved them truly,' Mary answers in a whisper.

"'Begone!' Gervais says once more.

"Villon casts a last look at the girl and goes to the door and opens it. Flakes of snow are driven in by the wind as he does so. There is a sudden snarl of anger, a shriek of pain, and then a low gurgle.

"Beaugerac and Montigny have watched their confederate through the window, sitting at supper, and have come to the conclusion that he has betrayed them. So Villon lies dying on the threshold as they rush away, frightened at what they have done, and the girl bends over him and places a crucifix upon his lips."

She stopped. "Now then," she said, "I will play you the piece. It is marvellously descriptive of the little story of the play."

Her face, as she looked up at him, was so sweet and lovely, so throbbing with the pity of the little tale, that he could hesitate no longer.

"No," he said, "you shall not play me the music now. Listen, oh, my dear, listen instead to my story, because I love you!"

CHAPTER XVIII
A LOVER, AND NEWS OF LOVERS

Mary Marriott sat alone in her little flat at the top of the old house in Bloomsbury. The new year had begun, bright and cold from its very first day until the present – eight days after its birth.

The terrible fogs and depression of the old year had vanished as if they had never been. On such a morning as this was they seemed but a dim memory.

And yet how much had happened during those weeks when London lay under a leaden pall. For Mary at least they had been the most eventful weeks of her life.

Everything had been changed for her. From obscurity she had been given an unparalleled opportunity of gaining fame – swift and complete – a fame which some of the best judges in London told her was already assured. Nor was this all, stupendous though it was. A few weeks ago she had been as friendless and lonely a girl as any in London; now she had troops of friends, distinguished, brilliant, and fascinating, and among all these kind people she was, as it were, upon a pedestal. They regarded her as a great artist, took her on trust as that; they regarded her also as a tremendous force to aid the victory of the Cause they had at heart.

And there was more even than this. In the old days her art had always been her one ideal in life. The art of the theatre was everything to her. It was so still, but it was welded and fused with another ideal. Art for art's sake, just that and nothing more, was welded and fused with something new and uplifting. She saw how her art might become a means of definitely helping forward a movement which had for its object the relief of the down-trodden and oppressed, the doing away with poverty and misery, the ushering in – at last – of the Golden Age! She was to fulfil her artistic destiny, to do the work she came into the world to do, and at the same time to consecrate that work to the service of her sisters and brethren of England.

In all the socialistic ranks there was no more enthusiastic convert than this lovely and brilliant girl. She was singing now as she sat in her little room, and the crisp, bright winter sunshine poured into it; crooning an old Jacobite song, though her eyes were fixed upon the typewritten manuscript of her part in the new play at the Park Lane Theatre. Her ivory brow was wrinkled a little, for she was deep in thought over a detail of her work – should the voice drop at the end of that impressive line, or would not the excitement in which it was to be uttered give it a sharper and more staccato character? – it required thinking out.

The little sitting-room was not quite the same as it had been. Another bookshelf had been added, and it was filled with the literature of Socialism. On the top shelf was a long row of neat volumes bound in grey-green, the complete works of James Fabian Rose, presented to Mary by the author himself. All over the place masses of flowers were blooming, pale mauve violets from the Riviera, roses of sulphur and blood-colour from Grasse, striped carnations from Nice. Mary had many friends now who sent her flowers. They came constantly, and her tiny room was redolent of sweet odours. The walls of the room now bore legends painted upon them in quaint lettering. Mr. Conrad, the socialistic clergyman, Fabian Rose's friend, was clever with his brush, and had indeed decorated his church with fresco work. He had painted sentences and socialistic texts upon the walls of Mary's sitting-room.

"The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the maker of them all," was taken from the Book of Proverbs and painted over the door. Upon the board over the fire, painted in black letter, was this quotation from Sir Thomas More: "I am persuaded that till property is taken away there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed, for so long as that is maintained the greatest and the far best of mankind will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties."

There were many other pregnant and pithy sayings upon the walls, and Mary, who used to speak of her cosy little attic as her "sanctum" or "nest," now laughingly called it her "Profession of faith."

Mary also was not quite as she had been. A larger experience of life, new interests, new friends, and, above all, a new ideal had added to her grace and charm of manner, given fulness and maturity even to her beauty. More than ever she was marvellously and wonderfully alive, charged with a kind of radiant energy and force, a joyous power of true correspondence with environment which had made Conrad whisper to James Fabian Rose – one night in the house at Westminster: "For she on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise." Indeed, her experiences had been strangely varied and diversified during the last few weeks.

Rose and his friends had spared nothing in the effort to make her a very perfect instrument which should interpret their ideas to the world at large. They had found their task not only easy, but full of intense pleasure. The girl was so responsive, so quick to mark and learn, of such an enthusiastic and original temper of mind that her education on new lines was a specific joy, and their first hopes seemed already assured of fruition.

It was now only a few days before the play upon which so many hopes depended was to be produced at the Park Lane Theatre.

Already the whole of London was in a fever of curiosity about it. Mr. Goodrick had begun the stimulation of public curiosity in the Daily Wire, Lionel Westwood had continued the work until the whole Press had interested itself and daily teemed with report, rumour, and conjecture.

Almost everyone in the metropolis knew that something quite out of the ordinary, unprecedented, indeed, in the history of the theatre was afoot. Absolutely correct information there was none. Goodrick was reserving full and accurate details for the day before the production, when the Daily Wire promised a complete and authoritative statement of an absolutely exclusive kind.

The three facts which had leaked out in more or less correct fashion, and which were responsible for much of the eager curiosity of London, were the three essential ones. The Socialist, which was announced as the title of the play, was known to be the first step in an organised attempt to use the theatre as a method of socialistic propaganda. It was also said that the play was indubitably the masterpiece of James Fabian Rose. This in itself was sufficient to attract marked interest.

Secondly, every one seemed to be aware that a young actress of extraordinary beauty and talent had been discovered in the provinces and was about to burst into the theatrical firmament as a full-fledged star, a new Duse or Bernhardt, a star of the first magnitude.

Again, there were the most curious rumours afloat in regard to the actual plot of the play. It was said that the whole scheme was nothing more or less than a virulent attack upon a certain great nobleman who owned a large portion of the West End of London and whose name had been much in the public mouth of late. No newspaper had as yet ventured to print the actual name, but it was a more or less open secret that the Duke of Paddington was meant.

Mary had seen but little of the duke, and then she had thought his manner altered. She had met him once or twice at the Roses' house, and he seemed to her to have lost his usual serenity. He was as a man on whose mind something weighs heavily. Restless, and with a certain appeal in his eyes. He looked, Mary reflected upon one of these occasions, like a man who had made some great mistake and was beginning to find it out. She had had little or no private talk with him except on one occasion, and then only for a moment.

One afternoon the duke had taken her and Mrs. Rose to Paddington House in Piccadilly, and showed the two ladies the treasures of the historic place. It was an old-standing promise, dating from the time of his illness at Westminster, that he should do so.

He had called for them in his motor-brougham, and they had noticed his restlessness and depression, both of which seemed accentuated. After a little while the young man's spirits began to improve, and he had not been with them for half an hour when he became bright and animated. In some subtle way he managed to convey to Mary – and she knew that she was not mistaken – a sense that he was glad to see her, glad to be with her, that he liked her.

When they were in the picture gallery Mrs. Rose had walked on a few yards to examine a Goya, and the two younger people were left alone for a minute.

"I have secured my box for the first performance of The Socialist, Miss Marriott," the duke said.

Mary flushed a little, she could not help it. "I am sure – " she began, and then hesitated as to what she should say.

"You mean that I had better not come," the duke answered with a smile. "Oh, I don't think I shall mind Rose's satire, judging from what I heard when the play was read, at any rate, and, besides, I quite understand that it is not I personally who am shot at so much as that I am unfortunately a sort of typical target. The papers I see are full of it and all my friends are chaffing me."

Mary looked at him, her great eyes full of doubt and musing. There was something in his voice which touched her – a weariness, a sadness. "I don't know," she said, "but I think it very likely that when you see the play as it is now you will find it hits harder than you expect. We are all very much in earnest. I think it is very good of you to come at all. I hope at any rate that you will forgive me my part in it. You and I live in very different ways of life, but since we have met once or twice I should not like you to think hardly of me."

She spoke perfectly sincerely, absolutely naturally, as few people ever spoke to him.

The duke's answer had been singular, and Mary did not forget it. "Miss Marriott," he said in a voice which suddenly became intensely earnest and vibrated strangely, "let me say this, once and for all, Never, under any circumstances whatever, could I think hardly or unkindly of you. To be allowed to call myself your friend, if, indeed, I may be so allowed, is one of the greatest privileges I possess or ever can possess."

He had been about to say more, and his eyes seemed eloquent with further words, when Mrs. Rose rejoined them. Mary heard him give a little weary sigh, saw the light die out of his eyes, and something strangely like resignation fall over his face.

She had wondered very much at the time what were the causes of the recent changes in the duke's manner, what trouble assailed him. When he had spoken to her in the picture gallery there had been almost a note of pleading in his voice. It hurt her at the time, and she had often recalled it since, more especially as she had seen nothing of him for some time. He had not been to see the Roses, and had, it seemed, quite dropped out of the life of Mary and her friends.

The girl was sorry, perhaps more sorry than she cared to admit to herself. Quite apart from the romance of their first meeting, without being in any way influenced by the unique circumstances of his rank and wealth, Mary liked the duke very much indeed. She liked him better, perhaps, than any other man she had ever met. It was always a pleasure to her to be in his society, and she made no disguise about it to herself.

Mary put down the manuscript of the play and glanced at the little carriage clock, covered in red leather, which stood on the mantelshelf.

It was eleven o'clock, and she had to be at the theatre at the half hour to meet Aubrey Flood and discuss some details of stage business with him. Then she was to lunch with the Roses at Westminster, after which she would return to the theatre and begin a rehearsal, which, with a brief interval for dinner, might last till any hour of the night.

She put on her hat and jacket, descended the various flights of stairs which led to her nest in the old Georgian mansion, and walked briskly towards Park Lane.

Mr. Flood had not yet arrived, she was told by the stage-door keeper, and thanking him she passed down a short stone passage and pushed open the swing door which led directly on to the stage itself.

She was in a meditative mood that morning, and as her feet tapped upon the boards of the huge empty space she wondered if indeed she was destined to triumph there. Was this really to be the scene in which she would realise her life-long dreams or – She put the ugly alternative away from her with a shudder and fell to considering her part, walking the boards and taking up this or that position upon them in solitary rehearsal.

The curtain was up and the enormous cavern of the auditorium in gloom, save only where a single pale shaft of sunlight filtered through a circular window in the roof. The brown holland which covered all the seats and gilding seemed like some ghostly audience. To Mary's right, on the prompt side of the proscenium, a man stood upon a little railed-in platform some eight feet above the stage-floor level. He was an electrician, and was busy with the frame of black vulcanite, full four feet square and covered with taps and switches of brass. From here the operator would control all the lights of the stage as the play went on. A click, and the moon would rise over the garden and flood it with soft, silver light; a handle turned this way or that, and the lights of the mimic scene would rise or die and flood the stage with colour – colour fitted to the emotion of the moment, as the music of the orchestra would be fitted to it also – science invoked once more to aid the great illusion.

Mary looked up at the man and the thought came to her swiftly. Yes, it was illusion, a strange and dream-like phantasma of the truth! She herself was a shadow in a dream, moving through unrealities, animated by art, so that the dream should take shape and colour, and the others – the real people – on the other side of the footlights should learn their lesson and take a forceful memory home. It was a strange and confusing thought, remote from actuality, as her mood was at that moment. She looked upwards into a haze of light, far away among the network of beams and ropes and hanging scenery of the "grid."

A narrow-railed bridge crossed the open space nearly forty feet above her. Two men in their shirt-sleeves were standing there talking, small and far away. They seemed like sailors on the yard of a ship, seen from the deck below.

The girl had seen it all a thousand times before, under every aspect of shifting light and colour, but to-day it had a certain unfamiliarity and strangeness. She realised that she was not quite herself, her usual self, this morning, though for what reason she could not divine. Perhaps the strain of hard work, of opening her mind to new impressions and ideals, was beginning to tell a little upon her. Life had changed too suddenly for her, perhaps, and, above all, there was the abiding sense of waiting and expectation. Her triumph or her failure were imminent. One thing or the other would assuredly happen. But, meanwhile, the waiting was trying, and she longed for the moment of fruition – this way or that.

Her reverie was broken in upon. With quick footsteps, quick footsteps which echoed on the empty stage, Aubrey Flood came up to her. He was wearing a heavy fur coat, the collar and cuffs of Persian lamb. His hat was of grey felt – a hard hat – for he had a little farm down at Pinner, where he went for week-ends, and affected something of the country gentleman in his dress.

Mary was glad to see him at last, not only because she had been waiting for him to discuss business matters, but because a friendly face at this moment cut into her rather weary and dreamy mood, and brought her back to the life of the moment and the movement of the day.

"Oh, here you are!" she said gladly. "I've been waiting quite a long time, and I've been in the blues, rather. The empty theatre, when one is the only person in it, suggests horrible possibilities for the future, don't you think?"

He answered her quickly. "No, I don't think anything of the sort. Mary, you are getting into that silly nervous state which comes to so many girls before the first night, the first important night, I mean. You must not do it, I won't allow it, I won't let you. You're overstrained, of course. We're all very much over-strained. So much depends upon the play. But, all the same, we all know that everything is sure and certain. So cheer up, Mary."

Flood had called her by her Christian name for two weeks now. The two had become friends. The celebrated young actor-manager and the unknown provincial actress had realised each other in the kindliest fashion. The girl had never met a cleverer, more artistic, nor more chivalrous man in the ranks of her profession, and Flood himself, a decent, clean-living citizen of London, had not grasped hands with a girl like Mary for many months.

Mary Marriott sighed. "Oh," she said, "it's all very well for you to talk in that way. But you know, Mr. Flood, how all of you have poured the whole thing on to me, as it were. You have insisted that I am the pivot of it all, and there are moments when it is too overwhelming and one gets tired and dispirited."

"Don't talk nonsense," he answered quickly.