Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘No, no; for God’s sake, don’t tell him you’ve seen me!’ And she left him so quickly as to give no time for another word. As she sped down the street a loitering policeman turned to look sharply at her, and two tidy-looking women who were standing at the opposite corner exchanged significant glances.

  ‘I never thought she was one of that sort!’ said one.

  ‘Ah! said the other, ‘bad times drives some that way as ‘ud keep straight enough with fair-paid work.’

  CHAPTER VI. BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS.

  DICK did not feel inclined to go to Morley’s after this rencontre, so he turned back towards his hotel. The problem was not actually solved, certainly; but he was disposed to take all that had passed as a confirmation of his worst suspicions — so much so, that he felt he could not meet his brother just then, as if nothing had happened. He took two or three turns up and down that festive promenade, the Euston Road, thinking indignantly that his position ought to have been Roland’s, and Roland’s his — that he was suffering for his brother’s misdeeds, while his brother was enjoying bright glances from eyes that would hardly look so kindly on him could their owner have known how Dick was spending the evening. For the first time, too, he saw, though only dimly, a few of the difficulties that would lie in his way. It would be harder than ever to keep on any sort of terms with his brother now that he could no longer respect him, and to respect a man who had brought misery into a family which, he was bound by every law of honour to protect was not possible to Dick. As his rival he had almost hated Roland; as the man who had ruined Alice Hatfield he both hated and despised him, and he knew well enough that between partners in business these sort of feelings do not lead to commercial success. He did not care to follow out all the train of thought that this suggested; but the remembrance of his father’s strange will was very present with him as he went to bed.

  In the morning things looked different. It is away things have.

  Colours seen by candle light Will not look the same by day.

  After all, was it proved? When he came to think over what the girl had said there seemed to be nothing positively conclusive in it all. It was a strange contradiction — he had been very eager to trace the matter out — to prove to himself that Roland was utterly unworthy to win Clare Stanley; and yet now he felt that he would give a good deal to believe that Roland had not done this thing. And this was not only because of the grave pecuniary dilemma in which he must involve himself by any quarrel with Roland. Perhaps it was partly because blood is, after all, thicker than water.

  It did not seem to Dick that his knowledge was much increased by his conversation with Alice. The blackest point was still that mysterious holiday trip, taken at such an unusual time, and about which his brother had been so strangely reticent. And that might be accounted for in plenty of other ways. Alice’s disappearance at that particular time was very likely only a rather queer coincidence.

  Dick had thought all this, and more, before he had finished dressing, and he was ready to meet his brother at breakfast with a manner a shade more cordial than usual — the reaction perhaps from his recent suspicions. Roland was in particularly high spirits.

  ‘Wherever did you get to last night?’ he asked. ‘I was quite uneasy till I heard you were safe in your bed.’

  ‘What time did you get home?’

  It seemed that Roland’s uneasiness had been shown by his not turning in till about two.

  ‘Good heavens! — you didn’t stay there till that time?’ asked Dick, with an air of outraged propriety that would have amused him very much in anyone else. ‘How old Stanley must have cursed you!’

  ‘Oh, no; we left there at eleven.’

  ‘We? You didn’t take Miss Stanley for a walk on the Embankment, I presume?’

  ‘No such luck. Didn’t I tell you? I met an awfully jolly fellow there — a Russian beggar — a real Nihilist and a count, and we went and had a smoke together.’

  ‘My dear fellow, all exiled Russians are Nihilists, and most of them are counts.’

  ‘Oh, no; he really is. I only found out he was a count quite by chance.’

  ‘What’s made old Stanley take up with him? Not community of political sentiments, I guess?’

  ‘Oh, no; he saved the old boy from being smashed by some runaway horses, and of course he’s earned his everlasting gratitude. I didn’t like him much at first, but when you come to talk to him you find he’s got a lot in him. I’m sure you’ll like him when you see him.’

  ‘Am I sure to have that honour?’ asked Dick, helping himself to another kidney. ‘Is he tame cat about the Stanleys already.’

  ‘Why, he’d never been there before; what a fellow you are! I’ve asked him to come and have dinner with us to-night. I want you to see him. I’m sure you’ll get on together. He seems to have met with all sorts of adventures.’

  ‘A veritable Baron Munchausen, in fact?’

  ‘I never met such a suspicious fellow as you are, Dick,’ said Roland, a little huffily; ‘you never seem to believe in any body.’ This smote Dick with some compunction, and he resolved, not to dislike this soi-disant count until he had cause to do so, which cause he did not doubt that their first meeting would furnish forth abundantly. But he was wrong.

  Litvinoff came, and Dick found his prejudices melting away. The count seemed a standing proof of the correctness of the parallels which have been drawn between Russian and English character. He was English in his frankness, his modesty, his offhand way of telling his own adventures without making himself the hero of his stories. Before the evening was over Dick began to realise that Nihilists were not quite so black as they are sometimes painted, and that there are other countries besides England where progressive measures are desirable. The brothers were both interested, and tried very hard to get more particulars of Nihilist doctrines, but as they grew more curious Litvinoff became more reticent. As he rose to go he said, —

  ‘Well, if you want to hear a more explicit statement of our wrongs, our principles, and our hopes, and you don’t mind rubbing shoulders with English workmen for an hour or two — and if you’re not too strict Sabbatarians, by-the-way — you might come down to a Radical club in Soho. I am going to speak there at eight on Sunday evening. I shall be very glad if you’ll come; but don’t come if you think it will bore you.’

  ‘I shall like it awfully,’ said Dick. ‘You’ll go, won’t you, Roland?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘We might have dinner together,’ said Litvinoff. ‘Come down to Morley’s; we’ll dine at six.’

  This offer was too tempting to be refused. It presented an admirable opportunity for making an afternoon call on the Stanleys, and the brothers closed with it with avidity, and their new acquaintance took his leave.

  When Dick was alone he opened a letter which had been brought to him during the evening. He read: —

  ‘15 SPRAY’S BUILDINGS, PORSON STREET, W.C.

  ‘DEAR Mr RICHARD, — I promised to write to you but I did not mean to see you again. But it was a great comfort to meet a face I knew, and I feel I must see you again, if it’s only to ask you so many questions about them all at home. I do not seem to have said half I ought to have said the other night. If you really care to see me again, I shall be in on Monday afternoon. Go straight up the stairs until you get to the very top — it’s the right-hand door. I beg you not to say you have seen me — to Mr Roland or to anyone else. — Yours respectfully,

  ‘ALICE HATFIELD.’

  This letter revived his doubts, but he was very glad of the chance of seeing her again, and he determined not to be deterred from pressing the question which he had at heart by any pain which it might cause her or himself. Jealousy, curiosity, regard for the girl — all these urged him to learn the truth, and besides them all a certain sense of duty. If her sorrow had come to her through his brother it surely was all the more incumbent on him to see that her material sufferings, at any rate, were speedily ended. If not....

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p; Men almost always move from very mixed motives, and of these motives they only acknowledge one to be their spring of action. This sense of duty was the one motive which Dick now admitted to himself. At any rate he did not mean to think any more about it till Monday came, so he thrust the letter into his pocket, and let his fancy busy itself with Clare Stanley after its wonted fashion. It found plenty of occupation in the anticipation of that Sunday afternoon call.

  When the call was made Mr Stanley was asleep, and though he roused himself to welcome them he soon relapsed into the condition which is peculiar to the respectable Briton on Sunday afternoons.

  Miss Stanley was particularly cheerful, but as soon as she heard where they intended to spend the evening, the conversation took a turn so distinctly Russian, as to be almost a forestalment of the coming evening’s entertainment Nihilism in general and Nihilist counts in particular seemed to be the only theme on which she would converse for two minutes at a time. Roland made a vigorous effort to lead the conversation to things English, but it was a dead failure. Dick sought to elicit Miss Stanley’s opinion of the reigning actress, but this, as he might have foreseen, only led to a detailed account of that adventure in which the principal part of hero had been played by a Russian, a Nihilist, or a count, and there were all the favoured subjects at once over again.

  The young men felt that the visit had not been a distinct success, and when Clare woke her father up to beg him to take her to that Radical club in Soho, even his explosive refusal and anathematising of Radicals as pests of society failed to reconcile the Ferriers to their lady’s new enthusiasm.

  The conversation at dinner, however, was a complete change. Count Litvinoff appeared to feel no interest in life, save in the question of athletics at the English universities; but on this topic he managed to be so entertaining that his guests quite forgot, in his charm as talker, the irritation he had caused them to feel when he was merely the subject of someone else’s talk. When dinner was over, and the three started to walk to Soho, they were all on the very best of terms with themselves and each other.

  Would one of them have been quite so much at ease if he had known that the announcement of the coming lecture had been seen in the paper by Alice Hatfield, and that she — not being much by way of going to church — had made up her mind to be there?

  CHAPTER VII. SUNDAY EVENING IN SOHO.

  THE average English citizen and his wife have a certain method of spending Sunday which admits of no variation, and is as essential to their religion as any doctrine which that religion inculcates. Indeed, it is very often the only tribute which they pay to those supernatural powers who are supposed to smile upon virtue and to frown upon vice.

  When church and chapel — St Waltheofs and Little Bethel — unite in teaching that ceremonial observance is at least as important as moral practice, is it to be wondered at that their congregations, feeling that it would be more than human to combine the two, choose to move along the line of least resistance? It is comparatively easy, though perhaps somewhat tiresome, especially in hot weather, to get up only a little late on Sunday mornings, instead of a good deal late, as the ‘natural man’ would prefer to do; to assume a more or less solemn aspect at the breakfast-table; to wear garments of unusual splendour, which do not see daylight during the week, and in assuming them to feel tremors of uneasiness lest they should be outshone by Mr Jones’ wife, Mr Smith’s daughter, Mr Brown’s sister, or Mr Robinson’s maiden aunt. It is not quite so easy, but still possible, to sit for two hours on a narrow seat, evidently made by someone who knew he would never have to sit on it, and to keep awake (in the old pews this was not imperative), while a preacher, whom one does not care for, talks, in language one does not understand, on subjects in which one takes not the slightest interest. And then, as a compensation, one has the heavy early dinner and the afternoon sleep, in itself almost a religious exercise. Perhaps one’s ungodly neighbours curse the day they were born as they hear one, after tea, playing long-drawn hymn tunes on a harmonium, till the bells begin to go for evening ‘worship’; then one’s wife goes to put on her bonnet (which has been lying in state all day on the best bed, covered with a white handkerchief), and one goes to one’s ‘sitting’ again with a delicious sense that the worse of it is over. All this is not so difficult, and an eternity of bliss is cheap at the price — distinctly.

  But to refrain from sanding the sugar or watering the milk — especially for a ‘family man,’ who has ‘others to think of besides himself’ — to keep one’s hand from this, and one’s tongue from evil-speaking, lying and slandering, to keep one’s body in temperance and soberness, to be true and just in all one’s dealings — this would be not only difficult but absurd, nowadays.

  There are a good many who try to carry out the moral teachings and let the ceremonial observances alone, and there are far more who disregard the one and the other; and for both these classes there are ways of spending Sunday evening of which the strict Sabbatarian has no conception. Among others are the entertainments provided by working men’s clubs. These are not the wildest form of dissipation; but, as a rule, they have some practical bearing on this world and its affairs and, though rather solid pudding, are appreciated by the audiences, mostly working men, who have a strong and increasing taste for solids, and no small discernment in the matter of flavours.

  To-night the dish provided for the Agora Club was a Russian one, and was likely to be highly spiced.

  ‘Do you expect a large audience?’ Richard Ferrier asked Litvinoff, as they walked along.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I can always speak better to a full room. Perhaps the physical heat does something to grease one’s tongue; and then, again, in a large audience, you’re sure to have some people who agree with you, and you and they reflect enthusiasm backwards and forwards between you. We’re close there now,’ he added, as they turned down a narrow street of high, unhappy-looking houses.

  ‘How in the world do you come to be lecturing at a place like this? How do you know anything about it?’ asked Roland.

  ‘There is a freemasonry among the soldiers of Liberty which holds good all over the world, and we who serve her are pledged to carry her light into the darkest corners.’

  If this seemed somewhat rhetorical to the young Englishmen, they were ready enough to excuse it in a foreigner, and especially in a foreigner who was about to make a speech. It did occur to Dick that the locality in which they were at the moment was a dark corner which stood as much in need of the services of the Metropolitan Gas Company as of those of the torch-bearers of Freedom; but there was light enough in the room into which Count Litvinoff soon led them.

  It was long and rather low, not unlike a certain type of dissenting meeting-room. At one end was a platform, on which stood two wooden chairs, and a deal table which had upon it a tumbler, a bottle of water, and a small wooden hammer, similar to those used by auctioneers. The room was well filled — so well filled that all the wooden forms and chairs were occupied, and even the standing room was so much taken up that the three young men found a little difficulty in working their way to the upper end of the room. Roland noticed, with some surprise, that among the audience were several women, who seemed quite as much at home there as the husbands and brothers with whom they had come.

  The two Ferriers were placed on a seat facing the platform, which Litvinoff at once ascended, in company with the chairman. The two were received with cheers and applause, which redoubled when the chairman in his opening remarks referred to the count as ‘one who had suffered and worked for years for the cause he was about to advocate.’

  Much as the Ferriers had already wondered at Litvinoff s mastery of English, they wondered still more after the first ten minutes on his speech. It is one thing to carry on a social conversation in a tongue not one’s own; it is another and a widely different thing to be able to hold a foreign audience, and to sway and move it, to rouse its enthusiasm and to thrill it with horror, at one’s will and pleasure. Yet such was t
he power of this young Russian rebel. He spoke without notes, and without the slightest hesitation. His voice in the opening sentences was very low, but so clear as to be heard distinctly all over the room.

  The first part of his address was simply a narrative. In a calm, unimpassioned way he told his hearers the story, from its beginning, of a struggle for freedom; he told them how a movement which had begun in a spirit of love, enthusiasm, and self-sacrifice, had been turned by blind tyranny and brutal oppression into one of wild vengeance and bitter relentless hatred. He told them how, for a chance expression of sympathy with the down-trodden peasants; for the possession of a suppressed book; sometimes even for less than these offences, for having incurred the personal spite of some members of the police, aged men and tender girls had been, and were, at that moment while he spoke to them, being delivered over to the torture chambers of the Russian monarch, to be scourged and starved, to be devoured by disease and riven by madness. He told them how tyranny always had treated — how while it exists, tyranny always will treat the sons of men.

  Then, when many among his audience had broken out into groans of indignation and cries of ‘Shame!’ the usual note of an indignant English audience, the speaker dropped the narrative tone and became argumentative. Here, when he justified the Nihilists’

  ‘deeds of death’ as the lawful punishment of criminals — punishment inflicted by the only power that has the right to execute vengeance, the outraged spirit of man — he seemed to lose for a moment the sympathy of some of his hearers, and certainly of the Ferriers, who like most Englishmen, believed in the efficacy of Parliamentary reforms, and also forgot, like most Englishmen, that these patent remedies for all the ills of life are hardly applicable to nations that have no parliament.

  With the ready apprehension of a true orator, Litvinoff saw the slight shade of coldness as it passed over some of the upturned faces before him, and, with a consummate skill that was the result either of long practice or oratorical genius, he changed, without seeming to change, the argumentative and defensive attitude for one of stern and glowing denunciation. His voice rang through the room now like a trumpet-call. A very little of this sort of thing was sufficient to rouse the men before him to stormy approbation, and Richard whispered to his brother that if any Russian dignitary were to come in just then, while the speaker was in the full tide of his invective, he would have very much the sort of reception that was given to the Austrian woman-flogging general some years ago by the stalwart draymen of Messrs Barclay & Perkins.