Barrie, J M - Better Dead Read online

  So far the members had given her the courteous non-attention which thoughtful introductory remarks can always claim. It was when she reached her second head that they fastened upon her words.

  Then Andrew had seen no sharper audience since he was one of a Scotch congregation on the scent of a heretic.

  "At a full meeting of committee," said Mrs. Fawcett, with a ring of bitterness in her voice, "you passed a law that women should not enjoy the advantages of the association. Be they ever so eminent, their sex deprives them of your care. You take up the case of a petty maker of books because his tea-leaf solutions weary you, and you put a stop to him with an enthusiasm worthy of a nobler object.

  "But the woman is left to decay.

  "This society at its noblest was instituted for taking strong means to prevent men's slipping down the ladder it has been such a toil to them to mount, but the women who have climbed as high as they can fall from rung to rung.

  "There are female nuisances as well as male; I presume no one here will gainsay me that. But you do not know them officially. The politicians who joke about three acres and a cow, the writers who are comic about mothers-in-law, the very boot-blacks have your solicitude, but you ignore their complements in the softer sex.

  "Yet you call yourselves a society for suppressing excrescences! Your president tells me you are at present inquiring for the address of the man who signs himself 'Paterfamilias' in the 'Times'; but the letters from 'A British Matron' are of no account.

  "I do not need to be told how Dr. Smith, the fashionable physician, was precipitated down that area the other day; but what I do ask is, why should he be taken and all the lady doctors left?

  "Their degrees are as good as his. You are too 'manly,' you say, to arrest their course. Is injustice manliness? We have another name for it. We say you want the pluck.

  "I suppose every one of you has been reading a very able address recently delivered at the meeting of the Social Science Congress. I refer to my friend Mrs. Kendal's paper on the moral aspect of the drama in this country.

  "It is a powerful indictment of the rank and file other professional brothers and sisters, and nowhere sadder, more impressive, or more unanswerable than where she speaks of the involuntary fall of the actor into social snobbishness and professional clap-trap.

  "I do not know how the paper affected you. But since reading it I have asked in despair, how can this gifted lady continue to pick her way between the snares with which the stage is beset?

  "Is it possible that the time may come when she will advertise by photographs and beg from reporters the 'pars' she now so scathingly criticises? Nay, when I look upon the drop scene at the St. James's Theatre, I ask myself if the deterioration has not already set in.

  "Gentlemen, is this a matter of indifference to you? But why do I ask? Has not Mrs. Lynn Linton another article in the new 'Nineteenth Century' that makes her worthy your attention? They are women, and the sex is outside your sphere."

  It was nearly twelve o'clock when Mrs. Fawcett finished her address, and the society had adopted the good old rule of getting to bed betimes. Thus it was afterwards that Andrew learned how long and carefully the society had already considered the advisability of giving women equal rights with men.

  As he was leaving the chambers the president slipped something into his hand. He held it there until he reached his room.

  On the way a man struck against him, scanned him piercingly, and then shuffled off. He was muffled up, but Andrew wondered if he had not seen him at the meeting.

  The young Scotchman had an uneasy feeling that his footsteps were dodged.

  As soon as he reached home he unfolded the scrap of paper that had been pushed into his hand. It merely contained these words--

  "Cover up your neck."

  CHAPTER V

  On the following Tuesday Andrew met the president by appointment at the Marble Arch.

  Until he had received his final instructions he was pledged not to begin, and he had passed these two intervening days staring at his empty fireplace.

  They shook hands silently a nd passed into the Park. The president was always thoughtful in a crowd.

  "In such a gathering as this," said Andrew, pointing an imaginary pistol at a lecturer on Socialism, "you could hardly go wrong to let fly."

  "You must not speak like that," the president said gently, "or we shall soon lose you. Your remark, however, opens the way for what I have to say. You have never expressed any curiosity as to your possible fate. I hope this is not because you under-estimate the risks. If the authorities saw you 'letting fly' as you term it, promiscuously, or even at a given object, they would treat you as no better than a malefactor."

  "I thought that all out yesterday," said Andrew, "and I am amazed at the society's success in escaping detection."

  "I feared this," said the president. "You are mistaken. We don't always escape detection. Sometimes we are caught--"

  "Caught?"

  "Yes, and hanged."

  "But if that is so, why does it not get into the papers?"

  "The papers are full of it."

  Andrew looked incredulous.

  "In the present state of the law," said the president, "motive in a murder goes for nothing. However iniquitous this may be--and I do not attempt to defend it--we accept it as a fact. Your motives may have been unexceptionable, but they hang you all the same. Thus our members when apprehended preserve silence on this point, or say that they are Fenians. This is to save the society. The man who got fifteen years the other day for being found near St. Stephen's with six infernal machines in his pockets was really one of us. He was taking them to be repaired."

  "And the other who got ten years the week before?"

  "He was from America, but it was for one of our affairs that he was sentenced. He was quite innocent. You see the dynamiters, vulgarly so called, are playing into our hands. Suspicion naturally falls on them. He was our fifth."

  "I had no idea of this," murmured Andrew.

  "You see what a bad name does," said the president. "Let this be a warning to you, Andrew."

  "But is this quite fair?"

  "As for that, they like it--the leading spirits, I mean. It gives them a reputation. Besides, they hurt as well as help us. It was after their appearance that the authorities were taught to be distrustful. You have little idea of the precautions taken nowadays. There is Sir William Harcourt, for instance, who is attended by policemen everywhere. I used to go home from the House behind him nightly, but I could never get him alone. I have walked in the very shadow of that man, but always in a company."

  "You were never arrested yourself?" asked Andrew.

  "I was once, but we substituted a probationer."

  "Then did he--was he--"

  "Yes, poor fellow."

  "Is that often done?"

  "Sometimes. You perhaps remember the man who went over the Embankment the night we met? Well, if I had been charged with that, you would have had to be hanged."

  Andrew took a seat to collect his thoughts.

  "Was that why you seemed to take to me so much?" he asked, wistfully.

  "It was only one reason," said the president, soothingly. "I liked you from the first."

  "But I don't see," said Andrew, "why I should have suffered for your action."

  For the moment, his veneration for this remarkable man hung in the balance.

  "It would have been for the society's sake," said the president, simply; "probationers are hardly missed."

  His face wore a pained look, but there was no reproach in his voice.

  Andrew was touched.

  He looked the apology, which, as a Scotchman, he could not go the length of uttering.

  "Before I leave you to-day," said the president, turning to a pleasanter subject, "I shall give you some money. We do not, you understand, pay our probationers a fixed salary."

  "It is more, is it not," said Andrew, "in nature of a scholarship?"

  "Yes, a scholar
ship--for the endowment of research. You see we do not tie you down to any particular line of study. Still, I shall be happy to hear of any programme you may have drawn up."

  Andrew hesitated. He did not know that, to the president, he was an open book.

  "I dare say I can read your thoughts," said his companion. "There is an eminent person whom you would like to make your first?"

  Andrew admitted that this was so.

  "I do not ask any confidences of you," continued the president, "nor shall I discourage ambition. But I hope, Andrew, you have only in view the greatest good of the greatest number. At such a time, it is well for the probationer to ask himself two questions: Is it not self-glorification that prompts me to pick this man out from among so many? and, Am I actuated by any personal animosity? If you cannot answer both these questions in the negative, it is time to ask a third, Should I go on with this undertaking?"

  "In this case," said Andrew, "I do not think it is self-glory, and I am sure it is not spite. He is a man I have a very high opinion of."

  "A politician? Remember that we are above party considerations."

  "He is a politician," said Andrew, reluctantly, "but it is his politics I admire."

  "And you are sure his time has come? Then how do you propose to set about it?"

  "I thought of calling at his house, and putting it to him."

  The president's countenance fell.

  "Well, well," he said, "that may answer. But there is no harm in bearing in mind that persuasion is not necessarily a passive force. Without going the length of removing him yourself, you know, you could put temptation in his way."

  "If I know my man," said Andrew, "that will not be required."

  The president had drunk life's disappointments to the dregs, but it was not in his heart to damp the youth's enthusiasm.

  Experience he knew to be a commodity for which we pay a fancy price.

  "After that," said Andrew, "I thought of Henry Irving."

  "We don't kill actors," his companion said.

  It was Andrew's countenance's turn to fall now.

  "We don't have time for it," the president explained. "When the society was instituted, we took a few of them, but merely to get our hands in. We didn't want to bungle good cases, you see, and it did not matter so much for them."

  "How did you do it?"

  "We waited at the stage-door, and went off with the first person who came out, male or female."

  "But I understood you did not take up women?"

  "Nor do we. Theatrical people constitute a sex by themselves--like curates."

  "Then can't I even do the man who stands at the theatre doors, all shirt-front and diamonds?"

  The president shivered.

  "If you happen to be passing, at any rate," he said.

  "And surely some of the playwrights would be better dead. They must see that themselves."

  "They have had their chance," said the president. Despite his nationality, Andrew had not heard the story, so the president told it him.

  "Many years ago, when the drama was in its infancy, some young men from Stratford-on-Avon and elsewhere resolved to build a theatre in London.

  "The times, however, were moral, and no one would imperil his soul so far as to give them a site.

  "One night, they met in despair, when suddenly the room was illumined by lightning, and they saw the devil in the midst of them.

  "He has always been a large proprietor in London, and he had come to strike a bargain with them. They could have as many sites as they chose, on one condition. Every year they must send him a dramatist.

  "You see he was willing to take his chance of the players.

  "The compact was made, and up to the present time it has been religiously kept. But this year, as the day drew near, found the managers very uneasy. They did what they could. They forwarded the best man they had."

  "What happened?" asked Andrew, breathlessly.

  "The devil sent him back," said the president.

  CHAPTER VI

  It was one Sunday forenoon, on such a sunny day as slovenly men seize upon to wash their feet and have it over, that Andrew set out to call on Mr. Labouchere.

  The leaves in the squares were green, and the twittering of the birds among the boughs was almost gay enough to charm him out of the severity of countenance which a Scotchman wears on a Sunday with his blacks.

  Andrew could not help regarding the mother-of-pearl sky as a favourable omen. Several times he caught himself becoming light-hearted.

  He got the great Radical on the door-step, just setting out for church.

  The two men had not met before, but Andrew was a disciple in the school in which the other taught.

  Between man and man formal introductions are humbug.

  Andrew explained in a few words the nature of his visit, and received a cordial welcome.

  "But I could call again," he said, observing the hymn-book in the other's hand.

  "Nonsense," said Mr. Labouchere heartily; "it must be business before pleasure. Mind the step."

  So saying, he led his visitor into a cheerful snuggery at the back of the house. It was furnished with a careful contempt for taste, and the first thing that caught Andrew's eye was a pot of apple jam on a side table.

  "I have no gum," Mr. Labouchere explained hastily.

  A handsomely framed picture, representing Truth lying drowned at the bottom of a well, stood on the mantel-piece; indeed, there were many things in the room that, on another occasion, Andrew would have been interested to hear the history of.

  He could not but know, however, that at present he was to some extent an intruder, and until he had fully explained his somewhat delicate business he would not feel at ease.

  Though argumentative, Andrew was essentially a shy, proud man.

  It was very like Mr. Labouchere to leave him to tell his story in his own way, only now and then, at the outset, interjecting a humorous remark, which we here omit.

  "I hope," said Andrew earnestly, "that you will not think it fulsome on my part to say how much I like y ou. In your public utterances you have let it be known what value you set on pretty phrases; but I speak the blunt truth, as you have taught it. I am only a young man, perhaps awkward and unpolished--"

  Here Andrew paused, but as Mr. Labouchere did not say anything he resumed.

  "That as it may be, I should like you to know that your political speeches have become part of my life. When I was a student it seemed to me that the Radicalism of so called advanced thinkers was a half-hearted sham; I had no interest in politics at all until I read your attack--one of them--on the House of Lords. That day marked an epoch in my life. I used to read the University library copy of 'Truth' from cover to cover. Sometimes I carried it into the class-room. That was not allowed. I took it up my waistcoat. In those days I said that if I wrote a book I would dedicate it to you without permission, and London, when I came to it, was to me the town where you lived."

  There was a great deal of truth in this; indeed, Mr. Labouchere's single-hearted enthusiasm--be his politics right or wrong--is well calculated to fascinate young men.

  If it was slightly over-charged, the temptation was great. Andrew was keenly desirous of carrying his point, and he wanted his host to see that he was only thinking of his good.

  "Well, but what is it you would have me do?" asked Mr. Labouchere, who often had claimants on his bounty and his autographs.

  "I want you," said Andrew eagerly, "to die."

  The two men looked hard at each other. There was not even a clock in the room to break the silence. At last the statesman spoke.

  "Why?" he asked.

  His visitor sank back in his chair relieved. He had put all his hopes in the other's common-sense.

  It had never failed Mr. Labouchere, and now it promised not to fail Andrew.

  "I am anxious to explain that," the young man said glibly. "If you can look at yourself with the same eyes with which you see other people, it won't take long.
Make a looking-glass of me, and it is done.

  "You have now reached a high position in the worlds of politics and literature, to which you have cut your way unaided.

  "You are a great satirist, combining instruction with amusement, a sort of comic Carlyle.

  "You hate shams so much that if man had been constructed for it I dare say you would kick at yourself.

  "You have your enemies, but the very persons who blunt their weapons on you do you the honour of sharpening them on 'Truth.' In short, you have reached the summit of your fame, and you are too keen a man of the world not to know that fame is a touch-and-go thing."

  Andrew paused.

  "Go on," said Mr. Labouchere.

  "Well, you have now got fame, honour, everything for which it is legitimate in man to strive.

  "So far back as I can remember, you have had the world laughing with you. But you know what human nature is.

  "There comes a morning to all wits, when their public wakes to find them bores. The fault may not be the wit's, but what of that? The result is the same.

  "Wits are like theatres: they may have a glorious youth and prime, but their old age is dismal. To the outsider, like myself, signs are not wanting--to continue the figure of speech--that you have put on your last successful piece.

  "Can you say candidly that your last Christmas number was more than a reflection of its predecessors, or that your remarks this year on the Derby day took as they did the year before?

  "Surely the most incisive of our satirists will not let himself degenerate into an illustration of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory that man repeats himself, like history.

  "Mr. Labouchere, sir, to those of us who have grown up in your inspiration it would indeed be pitiful if this were so."

  Andrew's host turned nervously in his chair.

  Probably he wished that he had gone to church now.

  "You need not be alarmed," he said, with a forced smile.

  "You will die," cried Andrew, "before they send you to the House of Lords?"

  "In which case the gain would be all to those left behind."

  "No," said Andrew, who now felt that he had as good as gained the day; "there could not be a greater mistake.