"All"s well that ends well," he said at length, spluttering out his words. "Good heavens! what a marvellous day it has been! We go to the Duke of Paddington"s property, so that Miss Marriott can get ideas for the part of the heroine in the play which is to draw all England to the iniquity of great landlords like the duke, who do nothing, and allow their agents to draw rents for rat-holes. Then we find the duke himself trussed up like a chicken in a gloomy cellar of one of his own filthy properties! What extraordinary tricks Fate does play sometimes! Who would have thought that such a thing could possibly happen? And, what is better still--what is more quaintly humorous than ever--here is the young gentleman with his hundred and fifty thousand a year and his great name and t.i.tle, here! sleeping in my best bedroom--in the very headquarters of the party which is labouring to destroy monopolies such as his. I wonder what he will say when he wakes up and finds out where he is, poor fellow!"
"If he is a gentleman, as I suppose he is," said Mrs. Rose, "he will say "Thank you"--not once, but several times, because, you know, Fabian dear, not only did you save his life, in the first instance by chance, but you brought him here instead of sending him to a hospital when you had no idea who he was."
"And that," Mary broke in, "is what I call practical socialism. Don"t you allow, Mr. Rose, that the duke is a brother?"
"Oh, yes," the Socialist replied, "but no more and no less a brother because of his dukedom."
There was a tap at the door. The nurse had sent down a message that the gentleman upstairs was awake, had learned where he was, and would like to see Mr. Rose.
This was what had occurred. For three days the duke had lain in bed, gradually growing stronger. Lord Hayle had visited him constantly, and when he was well enough to be moved he was to go straight to the Camborne"s house in Grosvenor Street.
The sun poured into the bedroom--a cold, wintry sun, but still grateful enough after the fog and gloom of the last week. A fire crackled upon the hearth, and the duke lay propped up with pillows, smoking a cigarette. On a chair at the side of the bed sat Fabian Rose, and on a chair on the other side was Mr. Conrad, the clergyman. An animated conversation was in progress.
For the first time in his life the duke had met types to which he was utterly unaccustomed. He had known of Fabian Rose, of course; there was no one in England who did not know the great Socialist"s name, and few people of the upper cla.s.ses who had not, at some time or other, witnessed one of his immensely clever plays. But now the duke was finding that all his ideas were being rudely upset. They were in a process of transition. The man with the white face and the mustard-coloured beard, with the lambent humour, had captivated him. He felt drawn to Rose, though his predominant sensation when talking to his host was one of wild amazement, and as for the clergyman, the duke liked him also, though he was a type that he had never met before.
It was an odd situation indeed. Here was the great capitalist captured and cornered by two of the most militant Socialists of the day--and here--he was rather enjoying it!
"Well," he said, "I seem fated nowadays to be carried off into the camp of the enemy; but I like this captivity better than the first. All the same, I cannot in the least agree with you, Mr. Conrad, in what you say, that the law of England, as it stands at present, is simply in the interests of the cla.s.ses with property. Poor people have just as much justice, I have always understood, as any others."
"It is not so," replied Mr. Conrad, shaking his head. "I wish it were.
As I see it, as Rose sees it, as we Socialists see it, the law works wholly to protect property and the propertied, and to do whatever injustices the propertied people who control the State require of it.
"When a hungry man helps himself to the food he cannot pay for, a man in blue introduces him to a man on a bench, and the result of the interview is that the hungry one is put away and locked up for a lengthened time.
When the people meet to discuss their miseries and to demand relief men in scarlet as well as in blue beat and cut them to death. The law of England, as it stands at present, is entirely built up upon what John Kenworthy has so aptly described as "that Devil"s Bible, the Codex Romanorum." Rome built up a property system which a.s.serted and maintained the rights of the selfish and cunning over those whom they cheated and robbed, and we have done precisely the same with similar results. It is just the same in England to-day as it is in Russia, though the English people are not able to a.s.sert themselves as their brethren in Russia are doing. Count Tolstoi has said that in both countries--in almost all countries, in fact, authority is in the hands of men who, like all the rest, are ever ready to sacrifice the commonweal if their own personal interests are at stake. These men encounter no resistance from the oppressed, and are wholly subject to the corrupting influence of authority itself. And yet we call ourselves a Christian nation!"
"And so we are, Mr. Conrad," the duke replied. "England is ruled and guided entirely by the Christian faith. If it were not so society would fall to pieces in a day."
"It is not so, believe me, duke," the clergyman answered; "and if society could but fall to pieces in a day, then indeed there would be a glorious opportunity to reconstruct it on really Christian lines! Jesus left no doubt as to the nature of His mission. He pictured Dives, the rich man, plunged into torment for nothing else than for being rich when another was poor--not, you will observe, only for being rich. He pictures Lazarus, who had not anything, poor and afflicted, as comforted and consoled. For that those evangelical nonconformists the Pharisees, derided the Great Teacher of mankind. Again, by the force of His personality, for it was not the scourge that He held in His hands alone, Jesus drove the usurers out of their business quarters in the Temple and named them thieves. "Woe," He said, "to those who lay up treasures upon earth. Blessed," He said, "are the poor!" It is," he concluded, "to reconstruct real Christianity that the Socialists are labouring to-day."
The duke did not answer. He lay back upon his pillows, thinking deeply.
"These are very new thoughts to me," he said, "and you must forgive me if I cannot immediately a.s.similate them."
"Quite so," Fabian Rose broke in, "but perhaps some day your Grace will get more light upon these subjects. It is impossible for you and us to think alike in any particular. Our whole lives and environment have been entirely different. Some men upon a mountain survey a landscape; others see nothing but a map. I agree with Mr. Conrad to a certain extent, but he would be the very last person to call me an orthodox Christian all the same. As one looks round it really does often seem that when Christ died the religion of Christ died too. Instead of that we have only the "Christian religion" nowadays. But we must not tire you, you must get up all your strength to-day, for your removal to Lord Camborne"s house to-morrow--for your removal out of our lives," he concluded, with an unusual sadness in his voice, "for our ways lie very far apart."
"If you will allow me, Mr. Rose," the duke answered, "our ways will not lie very far apart. Thinking differently as we do, looking upon these problems through different pairs of spectacles, nevertheless it would be a grief to me if I thought that we were not to meet sometimes and to remain friends. What you have done for me is more than I can say, and I should be indeed ungrateful if the fact that we were in opposite camps prevented a hand-grasp now and then."
"Well, well," Rose answered, "I am sure it is very kind of you to say so, and we shall see what the future brings forth. At the same time it is only fair to tell you what I have not told you before--that I am organising an active campaign against you in the first instance, as a type of the cla.s.s we desire to destroy, and for which we wish to subst.i.tute another."
"Dear me!" said the duke, smiling. "That sounds very dreadful, Mr. Rose.
Do tell me what is going to happen. Are you going to blow up some more of my house in Piccadilly?"
"Oh, no," Rose replied, laughing. "Those are not our methods, and although they have not found out, I understand, who threw the bomb and destroyed the Florentine Vase, I am sure it was no member of the Socialistic party, to which I belong. We accomplish our ends by more peaceful methods, though infinitely stronger. No, duke, I will tell you frankly what is on the cards."
Mr. Rose paused for a moment, and then in a few sentences told his guest exactly, and in detail, all his plan for educating society to socialistic ideals by means of the theatre.
"And here," he concluded with a smile, as Mrs. Rose knocked at the door and entered with Mary Marriott, who was carrying a bunch of chrysanthemums in her hand, "and here is the girl who is to be the arch offender against your rights! Here is the heroine of the play! The artist whose influence shall be more powerful and far-reaching than a thousand lectures!"
The duke smiled. He was glad to see the beautiful girl whom he had got to know and like during the two or three times he had met her.
"Well," he said, "if privilege is to be destroyed it could be at no more kindly hands I am sure!"
"I brought you some chrysanthemums, your Grace," Mary said, flushing a little, "a sort of peace offering, because Mr. Rose told me yesterday that he was going to tell you all that we propose to do. I hope your Grace will accept them?"
They left the duke alone after a few minutes further chat, and for the rest of the day he saw no one but the doctor and a new valet who had been engaged for him.
The flowers which Mary Marriott had given him stood upon a table by the bed, and, as he regarded their delicate, fantastic beauty, so instinct with the decorative spirit of the Land of the Rising Sun, he thought a good deal of the giver. To the duke an actress had hitherto always meant some dull wench in a burlesque. On one occasion only had he been to a supper party given to some of these ornaments of the ill.u.s.trated papers, and he had been so insufferably bored that he resolved the experience should be his last. He had known vaguely, of course, that ladies went on the stage nowadays, but the fact had never been brought home to him before he met Mary Marriott. How graceful she was! As graceful in every movement as any famous society beauty.
Her face was very lovely in its way, he thought, and though of quite a different type, it was almost as lovely as that of Lady Constance Camborne. What a pair they would make! What a bouquet of girls! It would be splendid to see them together, the dark girl and the fair.
He had much to occupy his mind as he lay alone. The novel which they had brought him lay unheeded upon the counterpane. He had stepped into a new world, of that there was no doubt at all, and had begun to realise how his great possessions and high rank had hitherto set him apart and barred him from much that was vivid and interesting, pulsating with life. He had always been exclusive; it was in his blood to be so, and his training had fostered the instinct. But he saw now that he would never be quite the same again. His curiosity was aroused, and his interest in cla.s.ses of society of which he had never thought before. He determined to investigate. He would keep friends with Fabian Rose and his circle. If they were going to write a socialistic play, well, let them. It would be amusing to watch it, and, besides, it could not hurt him. He would get to know this Miss Marriott better, and he would ask her about her art, which seemed to be so dominant a purpose in her life.
There were many things that he resolved he would do in the future. Then again, there was that young Arthur Burnside. The duke remembered how, during the afternoon before the accident, he had talked with Burnside in St. Paul"s College, and had been able to give him the vacant librarianship at Paddington House, which had meant a total change in the young man"s prospects. Yes! he would go to Paddington House one day, when he was staying with the Cambornes, and he would see how Burnside was getting on, and have a talk with him. Oh, yes, there were many things that he would do!
On the morning of the next day, a bright winter"s morning, the duke left the hospitable house in Westminster. It was with real regret and with a sense of parting from old friends that he said "Good-bye." Mary Marriott was there. She was now in constant confabulation with Rose every morning, and she formed one of the little group who a.s.sembled on the steps of the house in the quiet street behind the Abbey.
A huge motor brougham, with Lord Camborne"s coronet upon the panels, was waiting there. A groom in motoring livery stood by the door. The chauffeur took off his hat as the duke came out. It was not often that such splendour was seen in that quarter. Then the brougham rolled swiftly away, and another page in the young man"s life was turned over.
He did not drive straight to Lord Camborne"s house, but told the chauffeur to stop at Gerrard"s in Regent Street, the florist"s, and went into the shop, where the great ma.s.ses of hothouse flowers made the air all Arabia for him and all comers. His purchase of lilies and roses was so stupendous that even the imperturbable young ladies in that floral temple showed more than their usual interest.
Indeed, the house of the Socialist would be gay that afternoon, and Mrs.
Rose would be surrounded by a perfect garden of the flowers whose name she bore--a delicate thankoffering.
In a few minutes more the duke arrived at Lord Camborne"s house in Grosvenor Street.
Both his host and Lord Hayle were out, but Lady Constance received him.
"Now, you are going to be very quiet, and not talk much," she said. "We are going to be most careful of you, after what you have gone through. I cannot tell you, duke, how agitated we have all been about you. Poor Gerald has been nearly mad with anxiety. He is so fond of you, you know.
What terrible things you have been through--first the accident, and then that awful horror!" She shuddered.
She was very fair as she stood there, in her simple morning gown, with all the beauty of sympathy added to her supreme loveliness. As the duke was shown to his own rooms he felt once more that throbbing pulsation, that sudden exhilaration, which he had known when Lady Constance had come to lunch at Paul"s and he had seen her for the first time. She did not know, nor could he tell her, how star-like she had been in his thoughts during the long, dark hours of his captivity, and how it was the radiant vision of her, etched into his memory, which had given strength to his obstinacy and power to resist the demands of his tormentors.
CHAPTER XIV
AT THE PARK LANE THEATRE
The Park Lane Theatre in Oxford Street, about two hundred yards east of the Marble Arch, was one of the most successful houses of those many theatres which have sprung up in London during the last few years. Its reputation was thoroughly high-cla.s.s, and more particularly that of a theatre patronised by Society. It was in fact, the St. James"s of that quarter of London. Here was no pit, and the gallery seats were half-a-crown for example.
The long and successful run of a play at the Park Lane had just concluded, and the theatrical journalists were hazarding this or that surmise as to what would be next produced. For some reason or other there seemed to be a sort of mystery. The syndicate which owned the theatre would make no announcements through their manager, save only that the theatre had been let.
Inquiries elicited nothing. This or that well-known _entrepreneur_, when asked the question had denied that he was interested in any forthcoming production at the theatre. There was a good deal of speculation on the point, and the play-going public itself was beginning to be interested.
Then, one morning, there appeared in the _Daily Wire_ a paragraph, displayed in a prominent position, which stated that the theatre had been leased to Mr. Aubrey Flood, the well-known actor-manager, and the paragraph--obviously inspired--went on to hint at a most sensational development, of which the public might shortly expect news in the columns of the great Radical daily.