All Roads Lead to Calvary

He told her how one spring, walking across a common, after a fire, he had found a mother thrush burnt to death upon her nest, her charred wings spread out in a vain endeavour to protect her brood. He had buried her there among the blackened thorn and furze, and placed a little cross of stones above her.

“I hope nobody saw me,” he said with a laugh. “But I couldn’t bear to leave her there, unhonoured.”

“It’s one of the things that make me less certain than I want to be of a future existence,” said Joan: “the thought that animals can have no part in it; that all their courage and love and faithfulness dies with them and is wasted.”

“Are you sure it is?” he answered. “It would be so unreasonable.”

They had tea at an old-fashioned inn beside a stream. It was a favourite resort in summer time, but now they had it to themselves. The wind had played pranks with her hair and he found a mirror and knelt before her, holding it.

She stood erect, looking down at him while seeming to be absorbed in the rearrangement of her hair, feeling a little ashamed of herself. She was “encouraging” him. There was no other word for it. She seemed to have developed a sudden penchant for this sort of thing. It would end in his proposing to her; and then she would have to tell him that she cared for him only in a cousinly sort of way – whatever that might mean – and that she could never marry him. She dared not ask herself why. She must manoeuvre to put it off as long as possible; and meanwhile some opening might occur to enlighten him. She would talk to him about her work; and explain to him how she had determined to devote her life to it to the exclusion of all other distractions. If, then, he chose to go on loving her – or if he couldn’t help it – that would not be her fault. After all, it did him no harm. She could always be gracious and kind to him. It was not as if she had tricked him. He had always loved her. Kneeling before her, serving her: it was evident it made him supremely happy. It would be cruel of her to end it.

The landlady entered unexpectedly with the tea; but he did not rise till Joan turned away, nor did he seem disconcerted. Neither did the landlady. She was an elderly, quiet-eyed woman, and had served more than one generation of young people with their teas.

They returned home by train. Joan insisted on travelling third class, and selected a compartment containing a stout woman and two children. Arthur had to be at the works. An important contract had got behindhand and they were working overtime. She and her father dined alone. He made her fulfil her promise to talk about herself, and she told him all she thought would interest him. She passed lightly over her acquaintanceship with Phillips. He would regard it as highly undesirable, she told herself, and it would trouble him. He was reading her articles in the Sunday Post, as also her Letters from Clorinda: and of the two preferred the latter as being less subversive of law and order. Also he did not like seeing her photograph each week, displayed across two columns with her name beneath in one inch type. He supposed he was old-fashioned. She was getting rather tired of it herself.

“The Editor insisted upon it,” she explained. “It was worth it for the opportunity it gives me. I preach every Sunday to a congregation of over a million souls. It’s better than being a Bishop. Besides,” she added, “the men are just as bad. You see their silly faces everywhere.”

“That’s like you women,” he answered with a smile. “You pretend to be superior; and then you copy us.”

She laughed. But the next moment she was serious.

“No, we don’t,” she said, “not those of us who think. We know we shall never oust man from his place. He will always be the greater. We want to help him; that’s all.”

“But wasn’t that the Lord’s idea,” he said; “when He gave Eve to Adam to be his helpmeet?”

“Yes, that was all right,” she answered. “He fashioned Eve for Adam and saw that Adam got her. The ideal marriage might have been the ideal solution. If the Lord had intended that, he should have kept the match-making in His own hands: not have left it to man. Somewhere in Athens there must have been the helpmeet God had made for Socrates. When they met, it was Xanthippe that she kissed.”

A servant brought the coffee and went out again. Her father lighted a cigar and handed her the cigarettes.

“Will it shock you, Dad?” she asked.

“Rather late in the day for you to worry yourself about that, isn’t it?” he answered with a smile.

He struck a match and held it for her. Joan sat with her elbows on the table and smoked in silence. She was thinking.

Why had he never “brought her up,” never exacted obedience from her, never even tried to influence her? It could not have been mere weakness. She stole a sidelong glance at the tired, lined face with its steel-blue eyes. She had never seen them other than calm, but they must have been able to flash. Why had he always been so just and kind and patient with her? Why had he never scolded her and bullied her and teased her? Why had he let her go away, leaving him lonely in his empty, voiceless house? Why had he never made any claim upon her? The idea came to her as an inspiration. At least, it would ease her conscience. “Why don’t you let Arthur live here,” she said, “instead of going back to his lodgings? It would be company for you.”

He did not answer for some time. She had begun to wonder if he had heard.

“What do you think of him?” he said, without looking at her.

“Oh, he’s quite a nice lad,” she answered.

It was some while again before he spoke. “He will be the last of the Allways,” he said. “I should like to think of the name being continued; and he’s a good business man, in spite of his dreaminess. Perhaps he would get on better with the men.”

She seized at the chance of changing the subject.

“It was a foolish notion,” she said, “that of the Manchester school: that men and women could be treated as mere figures in a sum.”

To her surprise, he agreed with her. “The feudal system had a fine idea in it,” he said, “if it had been honestly carried out. A master should be the friend, the helper of his men. They should be one family.”

She looked at him a little incredulously, remembering the bitter periods of strikes and lock-outs.

“Did you ever try, Dad?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” he answered. “But I tried the wrong way.” “The right way might be found,” he added, “by the right man, and woman.”

She felt that he was watching her through his half-closed eyes. “There are those cottages,” he continued, “just before you come to the bridge. They might be repaired and a club house added. The idea is catching on, they tell me. Garden villages, they call them now. It gets the men and women away from the dirty streets; and gives the children a chance.”

She knew the place. A sad group of dilapidated little houses forming three sides of a paved quadrangle, with a shattered fountain and withered trees in the centre. Ever since she could remember, they had stood there empty, ghostly, with creaking doors and broken windows, their gardens overgrown with weeds.

“Are they yours?” she asked. She had never connected them with the works, some half a mile away. Though had she been curious, she might have learnt that they were known as “Allway’s Folly.”

“Your mother’s,” he answered. “I built them the year I came back from America and gave them to her. I thought it would interest her. Perhaps it would, if I had left her to her own ways.”

“Why didn’t they want them?” she asked.

“They did, at first,” he answered. “The time-servers and the hypocrites among them. I made it a condition that they should be teetotallers, and chapel goers, and everything else that I thought good for them. I thought that I could save their souls by bribing them with cheap rents and share of profits. And then the Union came, and that of course finished it.”

So he, too, had thought to build Jerusalem.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll sound him about giving up his lodgings.”

Joan lay awake for a long while that night. The moon looked in at the window. It seemed to have got itself entangled in the tops of the tall pines. Would it not be her duty to come back – make her father happy, to say nothing of the other. He was a dear, sweet, lovable lad. Together, they might realize her father’s dream: repair the blunders, plant gardens where the weeds now grew, drive out the old sad ghosts with living voices. It had been a fine thought, a “King’s thought.” Others had followed, profiting by his mistakes. But might it not be carried further than even they had gone, shaped into some noble venture that should serve the future.

Was not her America here? Why seek it further? What was this unknown Force, that, against all sense and reason, seemed driving her out into the wilderness to preach. Might it not be mere vanity, mere egoism. Almost she had convinced herself.

And then there flashed remembrance of her mother. She, too, had laid aside herself; had thought that love and duty could teach one to be other than one was. The Ego was the all important thing, entrusted to us as the talents of silver to the faithful servant: to be developed, not for our own purposes, but for the service of the Master.

One did no good by suppressing one’s nature. In the end it proved too strong. Marriage with Arthur would be only repeating the mistake. To be worshipped, to be served. It would be very pleasant, when one was in the mood. But it would not satisfy her. There was something strong and fierce and primitive in her nature – something that had come down to her through the generations from some harness-girded ancestress – something impelling her instinctively to choose the fighter; to share with him the joy of battle, healing his wounds, giving him of her courage, exulting with him in the victory.

The moon had risen clear of the entangling pines. It rode serene and free.

Her father came to the station with her in the morning. The train was not in: and they walked up and down and talked. Suddenly she remembered: it had slipped her mind.

“Could I, as a child, have known an old clergyman?” she asked him. “At least he wouldn’t have been old then. I dropped into Chelsea Church one evening and heard him preach; and on the way home I passed him again in the street. It seemed to me that I had seen his face before. But not for many years. I meant to write you about it, but forgot.”

He had to turn aside for a moment to speak to an acquaintance about business.

“Oh, it’s possible,” he answered on rejoining her. “What was his name?”

“I do not know,” she answered. “He was not the regular Incumbent. But it was someone that I seemed to know quite well – that I must have been familiar with.”

“It may have been,” he answered carelessly, “though the gulf was wider then than it is now. I’ll try and think. Perhaps it is only your fancy.”

The train drew in, and he found her a corner seat, and stood talking by the window, about common things.

“What did he preach about?” he asked her unexpectedly.

She was puzzled for the moment. “Oh, the old clergyman,” she answered, recollecting. “Oh, Calvary. All roads lead to Calvary, he thought. It was rather interesting.”

She looked back at the end of the platform. He had not moved.

CHAPTER IX

A pile of correspondence was awaiting her and, standing by the desk, she began to open and read it. Suddenly she paused, conscious that someone had entered the room and, turning, she saw Hilda. She must have left the door ajar, for she had heard no sound. The child closed the door noiselessly and came across, holding out a letter.

“Papa told me to give you this the moment you came in,” she said. Joan had not yet taken off her things. The child must have been keeping a close watch. Save for the signature it contained but one line: “I have accepted.”

Joan replaced the letter in its envelope, and laid it down upon the desk. Unconsciously a smile played about her lips.

The child was watching her. “I’m glad you persuaded him,” she said.

Joan felt a flush mount to her face. She had forgotten Hilda for the instant.

She forced a laugh. “Oh, I only persuaded him to do what he had made up his mind to do,” she explained. “It was all settled.”

“No, it wasn’t,” answered the child. “Most of them were against it. And then there was Mama,” she added in a lower tone.

“What do you mean,” asked Joan. “Didn’t she wish it?”

The child raised her eyes. There was a dull anger in them. “Oh, what’s the good of pretending,” she said. “He’s so great. He could be the Prime Minister of England if he chose. But then he would have to visit kings and nobles, and receive them at his house, and Mama – ” She broke off with a passionate gesture of the small thin hands.

Joan was puzzled what to say. She knew exactly what she ought to say: what she would have said to any ordinary child. But to say it to this uncannily knowing little creature did not promise much good.

“Who told you I persuaded him?” she asked.

“Nobody,” answered the child. “I knew.”

Joan seated herself, and drew the child towards her.

“It isn’t as terrible as you think,” she said. “Many men who have risen and taken a high place in the world were married to kind, good women unable to share their greatness. There was Shakespeare, you know, who married Anne Hathaway and had a clever daughter. She was just a nice, homely body a few years older than himself. And he seems to have been very fond of her; and was always running down to Stratford to be with her.”

“Yes, but he didn’t bring her up to London,” answered the child. “Mama would have wanted to come; and Papa would have let her, and wouldn’t have gone to see Queen Elizabeth unless she had been invited too.”

Joan wished she had not mentioned Shakespeare. There had surely been others; men who had climbed up and carried their impossible wives with them. But she couldn’t think of one, just then.

“We must help her,” she answered somewhat lamely. “She’s anxious to learn, I know.”

The child shook her head. “She doesn’t understand,” she said. “And Papa won’t tell her. He says it would only hurt her and do no good.” The small hands were clenched. “I shall hate her if she spoils his life.”

The atmosphere was becoming tragic. Joan felt the need of escaping from it. She sprang up.

“Oh, don’t be nonsensical,” she said. “Your father isn’t the only man married to a woman not as clever as himself. He isn’t going to let that stop him. And your mother’s going to learn to be the wife of a great man and do the best she can. And if they don’t like her they’ve got to put up with her. I shall talk to the both of them.” A wave of motherliness towards the entire Phillips family passed over her. It included Hilda. She caught the child to her and gave her a hug. “You go back to school,” she said, “and get on as fast as you can, so that you’ll be able to be useful to him.”

The child flung her arms about her. “You’re so beautiful and wonderful,” she said. “You can do anything. I’m so glad you came.”

Joan laughed. It was surprising how easily the problem had been solved. She would take Mrs. Phillips in hand at once. At all events she should be wholesome and unobtrusive. It would be a delicate mission, but Joan felt sure of her own tact. She could see his boyish eyes turned upon her with wonder and gratitude.

“I was so afraid you would not be back before I went,” said the child. “I ought to have gone this afternoon, but Papa let me stay till the evening.”

“You will help?” she added, fixing on Joan her great, grave eyes.

Joan promised, and the child went out. She looked pretty when she smiled. She closed the door behind her noiselessly.

It occurred to Joan that she would like to talk matters over with Greyson. There was “Clorinda’s” attitude to be decided upon; and she was interested to know what view he himself would take. Of course he would be on P-’s side. The Evening Gazette had always supported the “gas and water school” of socialism; and to include the people’s food was surely only an extension of the principle. She rang him up and Miss Greyson answered, asking her to come round to dinner: they would be alone. And she agreed.

The Greysons lived in a small house squeezed into an angle of the Outer Circle, overlooking Regent’s Park. It was charmingly furnished, chiefly with old Chippendale. The drawing-room made quite a picture. It was home-like and restful with its faded colouring, and absence of all show and overcrowding. They sat there after dinner and discussed Joan’s news. Miss Greyson was repairing a piece of old embroidery she had brought back with her from Italy; and Greyson sat smoking, with his hands behind his head, and his long legs stretched out towards the fire.

“Carleton will want him to make his food policy include Tariff Reform,” he said. “If he prove pliable, and is willing to throw over his free trade principles, all well and good.”

“What’s Carleton got to do with it?” demanded Joan with a note of indignation.

He turned his head towards her with an amused raising of the eyebrows. “Carleton owns two London dailies,” he answered, “and is in treaty for a third: together with a dozen others scattered about the provinces. Most politicians find themselves, sooner or later, convinced by his arguments. Phillips may prove the exception.”

“It would be rather interesting, a fight between them,” said Joan. “Myself I should back Phillips.”

“He might win through,” mused Greyson. “He’s the man to do it, if anybody could. But the odds will be against him.”

“I don’t see it,” said Joan, with decision.

“I’m afraid you haven’t yet grasped the power of the Press,” he answered with a smile. “Phillips speaks occasionally to five thousand people. Carleton addresses every day a circle of five million readers.”

“Yes, but when Phillips does speak, he speaks to the whole country,” retorted Joan.

“Through the medium of Carleton and his like; and just so far as they allow his influence to permeate beyond the platform,” answered Greyson.

“But they report his speeches. They are bound to,” explained Joan.

“It doesn’t read quite the same,” he answered. “Phillips goes home under the impression that he has made a great success and has roused the country. He and millions of other readers learn from the next morning’s headlines that it was ‘A Tame Speech’ that he made. What sounded to him ‘Loud Cheers’ have sunk to mild ‘Hear, Hears.’ That five minutes’ hurricane of applause, during which wildly excited men and women leapt upon the benches and roared themselves hoarse, and which he felt had settled the whole question, he searches for in vain. A few silly interjections, probably pre-arranged by Carleton’s young lions, become ‘renewed interruptions.’ The report is strictly truthful; but the impression produced is that Robert Phillips has failed to carry even his own people with him. And then follow leaders in fourteen widely-circulated Dailies, stretching from the Clyde to the Severn, foretelling how Mr. Robert Phillips could regain his waning popularity by the simple process of adopting Tariff Reform: or whatever the pet panacea of Carleton and Co. may, at the moment, happen to be.”

“Don’t make us out all alike,” pleaded his sister with a laugh. “There are still a few old-fashioned papers that do give their opponents fair play.”

“They are not increasing in numbers,” he answered, “and the Carleton group is. There is no reason why in another ten years he should not control the entire popular press of the country. He’s got the genius and he’s got the means.”

“The cleverest thing he has done,” he continued, turning to Joan, “is your Sunday Post. Up till then, the working classes had escaped him. With the Sunday Post, he has solved the problem. They open their mouths; and he gives them their politics wrapped up in pictures and gossipy pars.”

Miss Greyson rose and put away her embroidery. “But what’s his object?” she said. “He must have more money than he can spend; and he works like a horse. I could understand it, if he had any beliefs.”

“Oh, we can all persuade ourselves that we are the Heaven-ordained dictator of the human race,” he answered. “Love of power is at the bottom of it. Why do our Rockefellers and our Carnegies condemn themselves to the existence of galley slaves, ruining their digestions so that they never can enjoy a square meal. It isn’t the money; it’s the trouble of their lives how to get rid of that. It is the notoriety, the power that they are out for. In Carleton’s case, it is to feel himself the power behind the throne; to know that he can make and unmake statesmen; has the keys of peace and war in his pocket; is able to exclaim: Public opinion? It is I.”

“It can be a respectable ambition,” suggested Joan.

“It has been responsible for most of man’s miseries,” he answered. “Every world’s conqueror meant to make it happy after he had finished knocking it about. We are all born with it, thanks to the devil.” He shifted his position and regarded her with critical eyes. “You’ve got it badly,” he said. “I can see it in the tilt of your chin and the quivering of your nostrils. You beware of it.”

Miss Greyson left them. She had to finish an article. They debated “Clorinda’s” views; and agreed that, as a practical housekeeper, she would welcome attention being given to the question of the nation’s food. The Evening Gazette would support Phillips in principle, while reserving to itself the right of criticism when it came to details.

“What’s he like in himself?” he asked her. “You’ve been seeing something of him, haven’t you?”

“Oh, a little,” she answered. “He’s absolutely sincere; and he means business. He won’t stop at the bottom of the ladder now he’s once got his foot upon it.”

“But he’s quite common, isn’t he?” he asked again. “I’ve only met him in public.”

“No, that’s precisely what he isn’t,” answered Joan. “You feel that he belongs to no class, but his own. The class of the Abraham Lincolns, and the Dantons.”

“England’s a different proposition,” he mused. “Society counts for so much with us. I doubt if we should accept even an Abraham Lincoln: unless in some supreme crisis. His wife rather handicaps him, too, doesn’t she?”

“She wasn’t born to be the châtelaine of Downing Street,” Joan admitted. “But it’s not an official position.”

“I’m not so sure that it isn’t,” he laughed. “It’s the dinner-table that rules in England. We settle everything round a dinner-table.”

She was sitting in front of the fire in a high-backed chair. She never cared to loll, and the shaded light from the electric sconces upon the mantelpiece illumined her.

“If the world were properly stage-managed, that’s what you ought to be,” he said, “the wife of a Prime Minister. I can see you giving such an excellent performance.”

“I must talk to Mary,” he added, “see if we can’t get you off on some promising young Under Secretary.”

“Don’t give me ideas above my station,” laughed Joan. “I’m a journalist.”

“That’s the pity of it,” he said. “You’re wasting the most important thing about you, your personality. You would do more good in a drawing-room, influencing the rulers, than you will ever do hiding behind a pen. It was the drawing-room that made the French Revolution.”

The firelight played about her hair. “I suppose every woman dreams of reviving the old French Salon,” she answered. “They must have been gloriously interesting.” He was leaning forward with clasped hands. “Why shouldn’t she?” he said. “The reason that our drawing-rooms have ceased to lead is that our beautiful women are generally frivolous and our clever women unfeminine. What we are waiting for is an English Madame Roland.”

Joan laughed. “Perhaps I shall some day,” she answered.

He insisted on seeing her as far as the bus. It was a soft, mild night; and they walked round the Circle to Gloucester Gate. He thought there would be more room in the buses at that point.

“I wish you would come oftener,” he said. “Mary has taken such a liking to you. If you care to meet people, we can always whip up somebody of interest.”

She promised that she would. She always felt curiously at home with the Greysons.

They were passing the long sweep of Chester Terrace. “I like this neighbourhood with its early Victorian atmosphere,” she said. “It always makes me feel quiet and good. I don’t know why.”