Part 45 (1/2)

Aldous felt a sudden stab of suspicion--presentiment.

”Of course he will be well defended; he will have every chance; that you may be sure of,” he said slowly.

Marcella controlled herself, and they walked on. As they entered the drive of Mellor, Aldous thought pa.s.sionately of those divine moments in his sitting-room, hardly yet nine hours old. And now--_now_!--she walked beside him as an enemy.

The sound of a step on the gravel in front of them made them look up.

Past, present, and future met in the girl's bewildered and stormy sense as she recognised Wharton.

CHAPTER X.

The first sitting of the Birmingham Labour Congress was just over, and the streets about the hall in which it had been held were beginning to fill with the issuing delegates. Rain was pouring down and umbrellas were plentiful.

Harry Wharton, accompanied by a group of men, left the main entrance of the hall,--releasing himself with difficulty from the friendly crowd about the doors--and crossed the street to his hotel.

”Well, I'm glad you think I did decently,” he said, as they mounted the hotel stairs. ”What a beastly day, and how stuffy that hall was! Come in and have something to drink.”

He threw open the door of his sitting-room as he spoke. The four men with him followed him in.

”I must go back to the hall to see two or three men before everybody disperses,” said the one in front. ”No refreshment for me, thank you, Mr. Wharton. But I want to ask a question--what arrangements have you made for the reporting of your speech?”

The man who spoke was thin and dark, with a modest kindly eye. He wore a black frock coat, and had the air of a minister.

”Oh, thank you, Bennett, it's all right. The _Post_, the _Chronicle_, and the _Northern Guardian_ will have full copies. I sent them off before the meeting. And my own paper, of course. As to the rest they may report it as they like. I don't care.”

”They'll all have it,” said another man, bluntly. ”It's the best speech you've ever made--the best president's speech we've had yet, I say,--don't you think so?”

The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Both nodded.

”Hallin's speech last year was first-rate,” he continued, ”but somehow Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just now is _fight_--and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!”

And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one to another. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowded hall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men present indeed--though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in the rest--had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenly conscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emerged successfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they went over the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene which had followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip.

Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his own expense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving, contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just delivered had been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridor at Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his own room, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, and make two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its range nor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. The programme of labour for the next five years had never been better presented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin's presidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in the memory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, and knew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellows who would otherwise have stood in his way.

Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He had already betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to the New Unionism, and affected a costume in character--fustian trousers, flannel s.h.i.+rt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculated to set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun life as a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recently formed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to be already on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would win a seat in the coming Parliament.

The other two men were Molloy, secretary to the congress, short, smooth-faced, and wiry, a man whose pleasant eye and manner were often misleading, since he was in truth one of the hottest fighting men of a fighting movement; and Wilkins, a friend of Casey's--ex-iron worker, Union official, and Labour candidate for a Yorks.h.i.+re division--an uneducated, pa.s.sionate fellow, speaking with a broad, Yorks.h.i.+re accent, a bad man of affairs, but honest, and endowed with the influence which comes of sincerity, together with a gift for speaking and superhuman powers of physical endurance.

”Well, I'm glad it's over,” said Wharton, throwing himself into a chair with a long breath, and at the same time stretching out his hand to ring the bell. ”Casey, some whisky? No? Nor you, Wilkins? nor Molloy? As for you, Bennett, I know it's no good asking you. By George! our grandfathers would have thought us a poor lot! Well, some coffee at any rate you must all of you have before you go back. Waiter! coffee. By the way, I have been seeing something of Hallin, Bennett, down in the country.”

He took out his cigarette case as he spoke, and offered it to the others. All refused except Molloy. Casey took his half-smoked pipe out of his pocket and lit up. He was not a teetotaler as the others were, but he would have scorned to drink his whisky and water at the expense of a ”gentleman” like Wharton, or to smoke the ”gentleman's” cigarettes.

His cla.s.s-pride was irritably strong. Molloy, who was by nature anybody's equal, took the cigarette with an easy good manners, which made Casey look at him askance.

Mr. Bennett drew his chair close to Wharton's. The mention of Hallin had roused a look of anxiety in his quick dark eyes.

”How is he, Mr. Wharton? The last letter I had from him he made light of his health. But you know he only just avoided a breakdown in that strike business. We only pulled him through by the skin of his teeth--Mr.

Raeburn and I.”