Late that night Amelius sat alone in his room, making notes for the lecture which he had now formally engaged himself to deliver in a week’s time.
Thanks to his American education (as Rufus had supposed), he had not been without practice in the art of public speaking. He had learnt to face his fellow-creatures in the act of oratory, and to hear the sound of his own voice in a silent assembly, without trembling from head to foot. English newspapers were regularly sent to Tadmor, and English politics were frequently discussed in the little parliament of the Community. The prospect of addressing a new audience, with their sympathies probably against him at the outset, had its terrors undoubtedly. But the more formidable consideration, to the mind of Amelius, was presented by the limits imposed on him in the matter of time. The lecture was to be succeeded (at the request of a clerical member of the Institution) by a public discussion; and the secretary’s experience suggested that the lecturer would do well to reduce his address within the compass of an hour. “Socialism is a large subject to be squeezed into that small space,” Amelius had objected. And the secretary sighed, and answered, “They won’t listen any longer.”
Making notes, from time to time, of the points on which it was most desirable to insist, and on the relative positions which they should occupy in his lecture, the memory of Amelius became more and more absorbed in recalling the scenes in which his early life had been passed.
He laid down his pen, as the clock of the nearest church struck the first dark hour of the morning, and let his thoughts take him back again, without interruption or restraint, to the hills and vales of Tadmor. Once more the kind old Elder Brother taught him the noble lessons of Christianity as they came from the inspired Teacher’s own lips; once more he took his turn of healthy work in the garden and the field; once more the voices of his companions joined with him in the evening songs, and the timid little figure of Mellicent stood at his side, content to hold the music-book and listen. How poor, how corrupt, did the life look that he was leading now, by comparison with the life that he had led in those earlier and happier days! How shamefully he had forgotten the simple precepts of Christian humility, Christian sympathy, and Christian self-restraint, in which his teachers had trusted as the safeguards that were to preserve him from the foul contact of the world! Within the last two days only, he had refused to make merciful allowance for the errors of a man, whose life had been wasted in the sordid struggle upward from poverty to wealth. And, worse yet, he had cruelly distressed the poor girl who loved him, at the prompting of those selfish passions which it was his first and foremost duty to restrain. The bare remembrance of it was unendurable to him, in his present frame of mind. With his customary impetuosity, he snatched up the pen, to make atonement before he went to rest that night. He wrote in few words to Mr. Farnaby, declaring that he regretted having spoken impatiently and contemptuously at the interview between them, and expressing the hope that their experience of each other, in the time to come, might perhaps lead to acceptable concessions on either side. His letter to Regina was written, it is needless to say, in warmer terms and at much greater length: it was the honest outpouring of his love and his penitence. When the letters were safe in their envelopes he was not satisfied, even yet. No matter what the hour might be, there was no ease of mind for Amelius, until he had actually posted his letters. He stole downstairs, and softly unbolted the door, and hurried away to the nearest letter-box. When he had let himself in again with his latch-key, his mind was relieved at last. “Now,” he thought, as he lit his bed-room candle, “I can go to sleep!”
A visit from Rufus was the first event of the day.
The two set to work together to draw out the necessary advertisement of the lecture. It was well calculated to attract attention in certain quarters. The announcement addressed itself, in capital letters, to all honest people who were poor and discontented. “Come, and hear the remedy which Christian Socialism provides for your troubles, explained to you by a friend and a brother; and pay no more than sixpence for the place that you occupy.” The necessary information as to time and place followed this appeal; including the offer of reserved seats at higher prices. By advice of the secretary, the advertisement was not sent to any journal having its circulation among the wealthier classes of society. It appeared prominently in one daily paper and in two weekly papers; the three possessing an aggregate sale of four hundred thousand copies. “Assume only five readers to each copy,” cried sanguine Amelius, “and we appeal to an audience of two millions. What a magnificent publicity!”
There was one inevitable result of magnificent publicity which Amelius failed to consider. His advertisements were certain to bring people together, who might otherwise never have met in the great world of London, under one roof. All over England, Scotland, and Ireland, he invited unknown guests to pass the evening with him. In such circumstances, recognitions may take place between persons who have lost sight of each other for years; conversations may be held, which might otherwise never have been exchanged; and results may follow, for which the hero of the evening may be innocently responsible, because two or three among his audience happen to be sitting to hear him on the same bench. A man who opens his doors, and invites the public indiscriminately to come in, runs the risk of playing with inflammable materials, and can never be sure at what time or in what direction they may explode.
Rufus himself took the fair copies of the advertisement to the nearest agent. Amelius stayed at home to think over his lecture.
He was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Farnaby’s answer to his letter. The man of the oily whiskers wrote courteously and guardedly. He was evidently flattered and pleased by the advance that had been made to him; and he was quite willing “under the circumstances” to give the lovers opportunities of meeting at his house. At the same time, he limited the number of the opportunities. “Once a week, for the present, my dear sir. Regina will doubtless write to you, when she returns to London.”
Regina wrote, by return of post. The next morning Amelius received a letter from her which enchanted him. She had never loved him as she loved him now; she longed to see him again; she had prevailed on Mrs. Ormond to let her shorten her visit, and to intercede for her with the authorities at home. They were to return together to London on the afternoon of the next day. Amelius would be sure to find her, if he arranged to call in time for five-o’clock tea.
Towards four o’clock on the next day, while Amelius was putting the finishing touches to his dress, he was informed that “a young person wished to see him.” The visitor proved to be Phoebe, with her handkerchief to her eyes; indulging in grief, in humble imitation of her young mistress’s gentle method of proceeding on similar occasions.
“Good God!” cried Amelius, “has anything happened to Regina?”
“No, sir,” Phoebe murmured behind the handkerchief. “Miss Regina is at home, and well.”
“Then what are you crying about?”
Phoebe forgot her mistress’s gentle method. She answered, with an explosion of sobs, “I’m ruined, sir!”
“What do you mean by being ruined? Who’s done it?”
“You’ve done it, sir!”
Amelius started. His relations with Phoebe had been purely and entirely of the pecuniary sort. She was a showy, pretty girl, with a smart little figure—but with some undeniably bad lines, which only observant physiognomists remarked, about her eyebrows and her mouth. Amelius was not a physiognomist; but he was in love with Regina, which at his age implied faithful love. It is only men over forty who can court the mistress, with reserves of admiration to spare for the maid.
“Sit down,” said Amelius; “and tell me in two words what you mean.”
Phoebe sat down, and dried her eyes. “I have been infamously treated, sir, by Mrs. Farnaby,” she began—and stopped, overpowered by the bare remembrance of her wrongs. She was angry enough, at that moment, to be off her guard. The vindictive nature that was in the girl found its way outward, and showed itself in her face. Amelius perceived the change, and began to doubt whether Phoebe was quite worthy of the place which she had hitherto held in his estimation.
“Surely there must be some mistake,” he said. “What opportunity has Mrs. Farnaby had of ill-treating you? You have only just got back to London.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, we got back sooner than we expected. Mrs. Ormond had business in town: and she left Miss Regina at her own door, nearly two hours since.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I had hardly taken off my bonnet and shawl, when I was sent for by Mrs. Farnaby. ‘Have you unpacked your box yet?’ says she. I told her I hadn’t had time to do so. ‘You needn’t trouble yourself to unpack,’ says she. ‘You are no longer in Miss Regina’s service. There are your wages—with a month’s wages besides, in place of the customary warning.’ I’m only a poor girl, sir, but I up and spoke to her as plain as she spoke to me. ‘I want to know,’ I says, ‘why I am sent away in this uncivil manner?’ I couldn’t possibly repeat what she said. My blood boils when I think of it,” Phoebe declared, with melodramatic vehemence. “Somebody has found us out, sir. Somebody has told Mrs. Farnaby of your private meeting with Miss Regina in the shrubbery, and the money you kindly gave me. I believe Mrs. Ormond is at the bottom of it; you remember nobody knew where she was, when I thought she was in the house speaking to the cook. That’s guess-work, I allow, so far. What is certain is, that I have been spoken to as if I was the lowest creature that walks the streets. Mrs. Farnaby refuses to give me a character, sir. She actually said she would call in the police, if I didn’t leave the house in half an hour. How am I to get another place, without a character? I’m a ruined girl, that’s what I am—and all through You!”
Threatened at this point with an illustrative outburst of sobbing Amelius was simple enough to try the consoling influence of a sovereign. “Why don’t you speak to Miss Regina?” he asked. “You know she will help you.”
“She has done all she can, sir. I have nothing to say against Miss Regina—she’s a good creature. She came into the room, and begged, and prayed, and took all the blame on herself. Mrs. Farnaby wouldn’t hear a word. ‘I’m mistress here,’ she says; ‘you had better go back to your room.’ Ah, Mr. Amelius, I can tell you Mrs. Farnaby is your enemy as well as mine! you’ll never marry her niece ifshecan stop it. Mark my words, sir, that’s the secret of the vile manner in which she has used me. My conscience is clear, thank God. I’ve tried to serve the cause of true love—and I’m not ashamed of it. Never mind! my turn is to come. I’m only a poor servant, sent adrift in the world without a character. Wait a little! you see if I am not even (and better than even) with Mrs. Farnaby, before long!I know what I know.I am not going to say any more than that. She shall rue the day,” cried Phoebe, relapsing into melodrama again, “when she turned me out of the house like a thief!”
“Come! come!” said Amelius, sharply, “you mustn’t speak in that way.”
Phoebe had got her money: she could afford to be independent. She rose from her chair. The insolence which is the almost invariable accompaniment of a sense of injury among Englishwomen of her class expressed itself in her answer to Amelius. “I speak as I think, sir. I have some spirit in me; I am not a woman to be trodden underfoot—and so Mrs. Farnaby shall find, before she is many days older.”
“Phoebe! Phoebe! you are talking like a heathen. If Mrs. Farnaby has behaved to you with unjust severity, set her an example of moderation on your side. It’s your duty as a Christian to forgive injuries.”
Phoebe burst out laughing. “Hee-hee-hee! Thank you, sir, for a sermon as well as a sovereign. You have been most kind, indeed!” She changed suddenly from irony to anger. “I never was called a heathen before! Considering what I have done for you, I think you might at least have been civil. Good afternoon, sir.” She lifted her saucy little snub-nose, and walked with dignity out of the room.
For the moment, Amelius was amused. As he heard the house-door closed, he turned laughing to the window, for a last look at Phoebe in the character of an injured Christian. In an instant the smile left his lips—he drew back from the window with a start.
A man had been waiting for Phoebe, in the street. At the moment when Amelius looked out, she had just taken his arm. He glanced back at the house, as they walked away together. Amelius immediately recognised, in Phoebe’s companion (and sweetheart), a vagabond Irishman, nicknamed Jervy, whose face he had last seen at Tadmor. Employed as one of the agents of the Community in transacting their business with the neighbouring town, he had been dismissed for misconduct, and had been unwisely taken back again, at the intercession of a respectable person who believed in his promises of amendment. Amelius had suspected this man of being the spy who officiously informed against Mellicent and himself, but having discovered no evidence to justify his suspicions, he had remained silent on the subject. It was now quite plain to him that Jervy’s appearance in London could only be attributed to a second dismissal from the service of the Community, for some offence sufficiently serious to oblige him to take refuge in England. A more disreputable person it was hardly possible for Phoebe to have become acquainted with. In her present vindictive mood, he would be emphatically a dangerous companion and counsellor. Amelius felt this so strongly, that he determined to follow them, on the chance of finding out where Jervy lived. Unhappily, he had only arrived at this resolution after a lapse of a minute or two. He ran into the street but it was too late; not a trace of them was to be discovered. Pursuing his way to Mr. Farnaby’s house, he decided on mentioning what had happened to Regina. Her aunt had not acted wisely in refusing to let the maid refer to her for a character. She would do well to set herself right with Phoebe, in this particular, before it was too late.
Mrs. Farnaby stood at the door of her own room, and looked at her niece with an air of contemptuous curiosity.
“Well? You and your lover have had a fine time of it together, I suppose? What do you want here?”
“Amelius wishes particularly to speak to you, aunt.”
“Tell him to save himself the trouble. He may reconcile your uncle to his marriage—he won’t reconcile Me.”
“It’s not about that, aunt; it’s about Phoebe.”
“Does he want me to take Phoebe back again?”
At that moment Amelius appeared in the hall, and answered the question himself. “I want to give you a word of warning,” he said.
Mrs. Farnaby smiled grimly. “That excites my curiosity,” she replied. “Come in. I don’t wantyou,”she added, dismissing her niece at the door. “So you’re willing to wait ten years for Regina?” she continued, when Amelius was alone with her. “I’m disappointed in you; you’re a poor weak creature, after all. What about that young hussy, Phoebe?”
Amelius told her unreservedly all that had passed between the discarded maid and himself, not forgetting, before he concluded, to caution her on the subject of the maid’s companion. “I don’t know what that man may not do to mislead Phoebe,” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t drive her into a corner.”
Mrs. Farnaby eyed him scornfully from head to foot. “You used to have the spirit of a man in you,” she answered. “Keeping company with Regina has made you a milksop already. If you want to know what I think of Phoebe and her sweetheart—” she stopped, and snapped her fingers. “There!” she said, “that’s what I think! Now go back to Regina. I can tell you one thing—she will never be your wife.”
Amelius looked at her in quiet surprise. “It seems odd,” he remarked, “that you should treat me as you do, after what you said to me, the last time I was in this room. You expect me to help you in the dearest wish of your life—and you do everything you can to thwart the dearest wish ofmylife. A man can’t keep his temper under continual provocation. Suppose I refuse to help you?”
Mrs. Farnaby looked at him with the most exasperating composure. “I defy you to do it,” she answered.
“You defy me to do it!” Amelius exclaimed.
“Do you take me for a fool?” Mrs. Farnaby went on. “Do you think I don’t know you better than you know yourself?” She stepped up close to him; her voice sank suddenly to low and tender tones. “If that last unlikely chance should turn out in my favour,” she went on; “if you really did meet with my poor girl, one of these days, and knew that you had met with her—do you mean to say you could be cruel enough, no matter how badly I behaved to you, to tell me nothing about it? Isthatthe heart I can feel beating under my hand? Isthatthe Christianity you learnt at Tadmor? Pooh, pooh, you foolish boy! Go back to Regina; and tell her you have tried to frighten me, and you find it won’t do.”
The next day was Saturday. The advertisement of the lecture appeared in the newspapers. Rufus confessed that he had been extravagant enough, in the case of the two weekly journals, to occupy half a page. “The public,” he explained, “have got a nasty way of overlooking advertisements of a modest and retiring character. Hit ‘em in the eyes when they open the paper, or you don’t hit ‘em at all.”
Among the members of the public attracted by the new announcement, Mrs. Farnaby was one. She honoured Amelius with a visit at his lodgings. “I called you a poor weak creature yesterday” (these were her first words on entering the room); “I talked like a fool. You’re a splendid fellow; I respect your courage, and I shall attend your lecture. Never mind what Mr. Farnaby and Regina say. Regina’s poor little conventional soul is shaken, I dare say; you needn’t expect to have my niece among your audience. But Farnaby is a humbug, as usual. He affects to be horrified; he talks big about breaking off the match. In his own self, he’s bursting with curiosity to know how you will get through with it. I tell you this—he will sneak into the hall and stand at the back where nobody can see him. I shall go with him; and, when you’re on the platform, I’ll hold up my handkerchief like this. Then you’ll know he’s there. Hit him hard, Amelius—hit him hard! Where is your friend Rufus? just gone away? I like that American. Give him my love, and tell him to come and see me.” She left the room as abruptly as she had entered it. Amelius looked after her in amazement. Mrs. Farnaby was not like herself; Mrs. Farnaby was in good spirits!
Regina’s opinion of the lecture arrived by post.
Every other word in her letter was underlined; half the sentences began with “Oh!”; Regina was shocked, astonished, ashamed, alarmed. What would Amelius do next? Why had he deceived her, and left her to find it out in the papers? He had undone all the good effect of those charming letters to her father and herself. He had no idea of the disgust and abhorrence which respectable people would feel at his odious Socialism. Was she never to know another happy moment? and was Amelius to be the cause of it? and so on, and so on.
Mr. Farnaby’s protest followed, delivered by Mr. Farnaby himself. He kept his gloves on when he called; he was solemn and pathetic; he remonstrated, in the character of one of the ancestors of Amelius; he pitied the ancient family “mouldering in the silent grave,” he would abstain from deciding in a hurry, but his daughter’s feelings were outraged, and he feared it might be his duty to break off the match. Amelius, with perfect good temper, offered him a free admission, and asked him to hear the lecture and decide for himself whether there was any harm in it. Mr. Farnaby turned his head away from the ticket as if it was something indecent. “Sad! sad!” That was his only farewell to the gentleman-Socialist.
On the Sunday (being the only day in London on which a man can use his brains without being interrupted by street music), Amelius rehearsed his lecture. On the Monday, he paid his weekly visit to Regina.
She was reported—whether truly or not it was impossible for him to discover—to have gone out in the carriage with Mrs. Ormond. Amelius wrote to her in soothing and affectionate terms, suggesting, as he had suggested to her father, that she should wait to hear the lecture before she condemned it. In the mean time, he entreated her to remember that they had promised to be true to one another, in time and eternity—Socialism notwithstanding.
The answer came back by private messenger. The tone was serious. Regina’s principles forbade her to attend a Socialist lecture. She hoped Amelius was in earnest in writing as he did about time and eternity. The subject was very awful to a rightly-constituted mind. On the next page, some mitigation of this severity followed in a postscript. Regina would wait at home to see Amelius, the day after his “regrettable appearance in public.”
The evening of Tuesday was the evening of the lecture.
Rufus posted himself at the ticket-taker’s office, in the interests of Amelius. “Even sixpences do sometimes stick to a man’s fingers, on their way from the public to the money-box,” he remarked. The sixpences did indeed flow in rapidly; the advertisements had, so far, produced their effect. But the reserved seats sold very slowly. The members of the Institution, who were admitted for nothing, arrived in large numbers, and secured the best places. Towards eight o’clock (the hour at which the lecture was to begin), the sixpenny audience was still pouring in. Rufus recognised Phoebe among the late arrivals, escorted by a person in the dress of a gentleman, who was palpably a blackguard nevertheless. A short stout lady followed, who warily shook hands with Rufus, and said, “Let me introduce you to Mr. Farnaby.” Mr. Farnaby’s mouth and chin were shrouded in a wrapper; his hat was over his eyebrows. Rufus observed that he looked as if he was ashamed of himself. A gaunt, dirty, savage old woman, miserably dressed, offered her sixpence to the moneytaker, while the two gentlemen were shaking hands; the example, it is needless to say, being set by Rufus. The old woman looked attentively at all that was visible of Mr. Farnaby—that is to say, at his eyes and his whiskers—by the gas-lamp hanging in the corridor. She instantly drew back, though she had got her ticket; waited until Mr. Farnaby had paid for his wife and himself, and then followed close behind them, into the hall.
And why not? The advertisements addressed this wretched old creature as one of the poor and discontented public. Sixteen years ago, John Farnaby had put his own child into that woman’s hands at Ramsgate, and had never seen either of them since.
Entering the hall, Mr. Farnaby discovered without difficulty the position of modest retirement of which he was in search.
The cheap seats were situated, as usual, on that part of the floor of the building which was farthest from the platform. A gallery at this end of the hall threw its shadow over the hindermost benches and the gangway by which they were approached. In the sheltering obscurity thus produced, Mr. Farnaby took his place; standing in the corner formed by the angle it which the two walls of the building met, with his dutiful wife at his side.
Still following them, unnoticed in the crowd, the old woman stopped at the extremity of the hindermost bench, looked close at a smartly-dressed young man who occupied the last seat at the end, and who paid marked attention to a pretty girl sitting by him, and whispered in his ear, “Now then, Jervy! can’t you make room for Mother Sowler?”
The man started and looked round. “You here?” he exclaimed, with an oath.
Before he could say more, Phoebe whispered to him on the other side, “What a horrid old creature! How did you ever come to know her?”
At the same moment, Mrs. Sowler reiterated her request in more peremptory language. “Do you hear, Jervy—do you hear? Sit a little closer.”
Jervy apparently had his reasons for treating the expression of Mrs. Sowler’s wishes with deference, shabby as she was. Making abundant apologies, he asked his neighbours to favour him by sitting a little nearer to each other, and so contrive to leave a morsel of vacant space at the edge of the bench.
Phoebe, making room under protest, began to whisper again. “What does she mean by calling you Jervy? She looks like a beggar. Tell her your name is Jervis.”
The reply she received did not encourage her to say more. “Hold your tongue; I have reasons for being civil to her—you be civil too.”
He turned to Mrs. Sowler, with the readiest submission to circumstances. Under the surface of his showy looks and his vulgar facility of manner, there lay hidden a substance of callous villainy and impenetrable cunning. He had in him the materials out of which the clever murderers are made, who baffle the police. If he could have done it with impunity, he would have destroyed without remorse the squalid old creature who sat by him, and who knew enough of his past career in England to send him to penal servitude for life. As it was, he spoke to her with a spurious condescension and good humour. “Why, it must be ten years, Mrs. Sowler, since I last saw you! What have you been doing?”
The woman frowned at him as she answered. “Can’t you look at me, and see? Starving!” She eyed his gaudy watch and chain greedily. “Money don’t seem to be scarce with you. Have you made your fortune in America?”
He laid his hand on her arm, and pressed it warningly. “Hush!” he said, under his breath. “We’ll talk about that, after the lecture.” His bright shifty black eyes turned furtively towards Phoebe—and Mrs. Sowler noticed it. The girl’s savings in service had paid for his jewelry and his fine clothes. She silently resented his rudeness in telling her to “hold her tongue”; sitting, sullen, with her impudent little nose in the air. Jervy tried to include her indirectly in his conversation with his shabby old friend. “This young lady,” he said, “knows Mr. Goldenheart. She feels sure he’ll break down; and we’ve come here to see the fun. I don’t hold with Socialism myself—I am for, what my favourite newspaper calls, the Altar and the Throne. In short, my politics are Conservative.”
“Your politics are in your girl’s pocket,” muttered Mrs. Sowler. “How long will her money last?”
Jervy turned a deaf ear to the interruption. “And what has brought you here?” he went on, in his most ingratiating way. “Did you see the advertisement in the papers?”
Mrs. Sowler answered loud enough to be heard above the hum of talking in the sixpenny places. “I was having a drop of gin, and I saw the paper at the public-house. I’m one of the discontented poor. I hate rich people; and I’m ready to pay my sixpence to hear them abused.”
“Hear, hear!” said a man near, who looked like a shoemaker.
“I hope he’ll give it to the aristocracy,” added one of the shoemaker’s neighbours, apparently a groom out of place.
“I’m sick of the aristocracy,” cried a woman with a fiery face and a crushed bonnet. “It’s them as swallows up the money. What business have they with their palaces and their parks, when my husband’s out of work, and my children hungry at home?”
The acquiescent shoemaker listened with admiration. “Very well put,” he said; “very well put.”
These expressions of popular feeling reached the respectable ears of Mr. Farnaby. “Do you hear those wretches?” he said to his wife.
Mrs. Farnaby seized the welcome opportunity of irritating him. “Poor things!” she answered. “In their place, we should talk as they do.”
“You had better go into the reserved seats,” rejoined her husband, turning from her with a look of disgust. “There’s plenty of room. Why do you stop here?”
“I couldn’t think of leaving you, my dear! How did you like my American friend?”
“I am astonished at your taking the liberty of introducing him to me. You knew perfectly well that I was here incognito. What do I care about a wandering American?”
Mrs. Farnaby persisted as maliciously as ever. “Ah, but you see, I like him. The wandering American is my ally.”
“Your ally! What do you mean?”
“Good heavens, how dull you are! don’t you know that I object to my niece’s marriage engagement? I was quite delighted when I heard of this lecture, because it’s an obstacle in the way. It disgusts Regina, and it disgusts You—and my dear American is the man who first brought it about. Hush! here’s Amelius. How well he looks! So graceful and so gentlemanlike,” cried Mrs. Farnaby, signalling with her handkerchief to show Amelius their position in the hall. “I declare I’m ready to become a Socialist before he opens his lips!”
The personal appearance of Amelius took the audience completely by surprise. A man who is young and handsome is not the order of man who is habitually associated in the popular mind with the idea of a lecture. After a moment of silence, there was a spontaneous burst of applause. It was renewed when Amelius, first placing on his table a little book, announced his intention of delivering the lecture extempore. The absence of the inevitable manuscript was in itself an act of mercy that cheered the public at starting.
The orator of the evening began.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thoughtful people accustomed to watch the signs of the times in this country, and among the other nations of Europe, are (so far as I know) agreed in the conclusion, that serious changes are likely to take place in present forms of government, and in existing systems of society, before the century in which we live has reached its end. In plain words, the next revolution is not so unlikely, and not so far off, as it pleases the higher and wealthier classes among European populations to suppose. I am one of those who believe that the coming convulsion will take the form, this time, of a social revolution, and that the man at the head of it will not be a military or a political man—but a Great Citizen, sprung from the people, and devoted heart and soul to the people’s cause. Within the limits assigned to me to-night, it is impossible that I should speak to you of government and society among other nations, even if I possessed the necessary knowledge and experience to venture on so vast a subject. All that I can now attempt to do is (first) to point out some of the causes which are paving the way for a coming change in the social and political condition of this country; and (secondly) to satisfy you that the only trustworthy remedy for existing abuses is to be found in the system which Christian Socialism extracts from this little book on my table—the book which you all know under the name of The New Testament. Before, however, I enter on my task, I feel it a duty to say one preliminary word on the subject of my claim to address you, such as it is. I am most unwilling to speak of myself—but my position here forces me to do so. I am a stranger to all of you; and I am a very young man. Let me tell you, then, briefly, what my life has been, and where I have been brought up—and then decide for yourselves whether it is worth your while to favour me with your attention, or not.”
“A very good opening,” remarked the shoemaker.
“A nice-looking fellow,” said the fiery-faced woman, “I should like to kiss him.”
“He’s too civil by half,” grumbled Mrs. Sowler; “I wish I had my sixpence back in my pocket.”
“Give him time.” whispered Jervy, “and he’ll warm up. I say, Phoebe, he doesn’t begin like a man who is going to break down. I don’t expect there will be much to laugh at to-night.”
“What an admirable speaker!” said Mrs. Farnaby to her husband. “Fancy such a man as that, being married to such an idiot as Regina!”
“There’s always a chance for him,” returned Mr. Farnaby, savagely, “as long as he’s not married to such a woman as You!”
In the mean time, Amelius had claimed national kindred with his audience as an Englishman, and had rapidly sketched his life at Tadmor, in its most noteworthy points. This done, he put the question whether they would hear him. His frankness and freshness had already won the public: they answered by a general shout of applause.
“Very well,” Amelius proceeded, “now let us get on. Suppose we take a glance (we have no time to do more) at the present state of our religious system, first. What is the public aspect of the thing called Christianity, in the England of our day? A hundred different sects all at variance with each other. An established church, rent in every direction by incessant wrangling—disputes about black gowns or white; about having candlesticks on tables, or off tables; about bowing to the east or bowing to the west; about which doctrine collects the most respectable support and possesses the largest sum of money, the doctrine in my church, or the doctrine in your church, or the doctrine in the church over the way. Look up, if you like, from this multitudinous and incessant squabbling among the rank and file, to the high regions in which the right reverend representatives of state religion sit apart. Are they Christians? If they are, show me the Bishop who dare assert his Christianity in the House of Lords, when the ministry of the day happens to see its advantage in engaging in a war! Where is that Bishop, and how many supporters does he count among his own order? Do you blame me for using intemperate language—language which I cannot justify? Take a fair test, and try me by that. The result of the Christianity of the New Testament is to make men true, humane, gentle, modest, strictly scrupulous and strictly considerate in their dealings with their neighbours. Does the Christianity of the churches and the sects produce these results among us? Look at the staple of the country, at the occupation which employs the largest number of Englishmen of all degrees—Look at our Commerce. What is its social aspect, judged by the morality which is in this book in my hand? Let those organised systems of imposture, masquerading under the disguise of banks and companies, answer the question—there is no need for me to answer it. You know what respectable names are associated, year after year, with the shameless falsification of accounts, and the merciless ruin of thousands on thousands of victims. You know how our poor Indian customer finds his cotton-print dress a sham that falls to pieces; how the savage who deals honestly with us for his weapon finds his gun a delusion that bursts; how the half-starved needlewoman who buys her reel of thread finds printed on the label a false statement of the number of yards that she buys; you know that, in the markets of Europe, foreign goods are fast taking the place of English goods, because the foreigner is the most honest manufacturer of the two—and, lastly, you know, what is worse than all, that these cruel and wicked deceptions, and many more like them, are regarded, on the highest commercial authority, as ‘forms of competition’ and justifiable proceedings in trade. Do you believe in the honourable accumulation of wealth by men who hold such opinions and perpetrate such impostures as these? I don’t! Do you find any brighter and purer prospect when you look down from the man who deceives you and me on the great scale, to the man who deceives us on the small? I don’t! Everything we eat, drink, and wear is a more or less adulterated commodity; and that very adulteration is sold to us by the tradesmen at such outrageous prices, that we are obliged to protect ourselves on the Socialist principle, by setting up cooperative shops of our own. Wait! and hear me out, before you applaud. Don’t mistake the plain purpose of what I am saying to you; and don’t suppose that I am blind to the brighter side of the dark picture that I have drawn. Look within the limits of private life, and you will find true Christians, thank God, among clergymen and laymen alike; you will find men and women who deserve to be called, in the highest sense of the word, disciples of Christ. But my business is not with private life—my business is with the present public aspect of the religion, morals, and politics of this country; and again I say it, that aspect presents one wide field of corruption and abuse, and reveals a callous and shocking insensibility on the part of the nation at large to the spectacle of its own demoralisation and disgrace.”
There Amelius paused, and took his first drink of water.
Reserved seats at public performances seem, by some curious affinity, to be occupied by reserved persons. The select public, seated nearest to the orator, preserved discreet silence. But the hearty applause from the sixpenny places made ample amends. There was enough of the lecturer’s own vehemence and impetuosity in this opening attack—sustained as it undeniably was by a sound foundation of truth—to appeal strongly to the majority of his audience. Mrs. Sowler began to think that her sixpence had been well laid out, after all; and Mrs. Farnaby pointed the direct application to her husband of all the hardest hits at commerce, by nodding her head at him as they were delivered.
Amelius went on.
“The next thing we have to discover is this: Will our present system of government supply us with peaceable means for the reform of the abuses which I have already noticed? not forgetting that other enormous abuse, represented by our intolerable national expenditure, increasing with every year. Unless you insist on it, I do not propose to waste our precious time by saying anything about the House of Lords, for three good reasons. In the first place, that assembly is not elected by the people, and it has therefore no right of existence in a really free country. In the second place, out of its four hundred and eighty-five members, no less than one hundred and eighty-four directly profit by the expenditure of the public money; being in the annual receipt, under one pretence or another, of more than half a million sterling. In the third place, if the assembly of the Commons has in it the will, as well as the capacity, to lead the way in the needful reforms, the assembly of the Lords has no alternative but to follow, or to raise the revolution which it only escaped, by a hair’s-breadth, some forty years since. What do you say? Shall we waste our time in speaking of the House of Lords?”
Loud cries from the sixpenny benches answered No; the ostler and the fiery-faced woman being the most vociferous of all. Here and there, certain dissentient individuals raised a little hiss—led by Jervy, in the interests of “the Altar and the Throne.”
Amelius resumed.
“Well, will the House of Commons help us to get purer Christianity, and cheaper government, by lawful and sufficient process of reform? Let me again remind you that this assembly has the power—if it has the will. Is it so constituted at present as to have the will? There is the question! The number of members is a little over six hundred and fifty. Out of this muster, one fifth only represent (or pretend to represent) the trading interests of the country. As for the members charged with the interests of the working class, they are more easily counted still—they are two in number! Then, in heaven’s name (you will ask), what interest does the majority of members in this assembly represent? There is but one answer—the military and aristocratic interest. In these days of the decay of representative institutions, the House of Commons has become a complete misnomer. The Commons are not represented; modern members belong to classes of the community which have really no interest in providing for popular needs and lightening popular burdens. In one word, there is no sort of hope for us in the House of Commons. And whose fault is this? I own it with shame and sorrow—it is emphatically the fault of the people. Yes, I say to you plainly, it is the disgrace and the peril of England that the people themselves have elected the representative assembly which ignores the people’s wants! You voters, in town and county alike, have had every conceivable freedom and encouragement secured to you in the exercise of your sacred trust—and there is the modern House of Commons to prove that you are thoroughly unworthy of it!”
These bold words produced an outbreak of disapprobation from the audience, which, for the moment, completely overpowered the speaker’s voice. They were prepared to listen with inexhaustible patience to the enumeration of their virtues and their wrongs—but they had not paid sixpence each to be informed of the vicious and contemptible part which they play in modern politics. They yelled and groaned and hissed—and felt that their handsome young lecturer had insulted them!
Amelius waited quietly until the disturbance had worn itself out.
“I am sorry I have made you angry with me,” he said, smiling. “The blame for this little disturbance really rests with the public speakers who are afraid of you and who flatter you—especially if you belong to the working classes. You are not accustomed to have the truth told you to your faces. Why, my good friends, the people in this country, who are unworthy of the great trust which the wise and generous English constitution places in their hands, are so numerous that they can be divided into distinct classes! There is the highly-educated class which despairs, and holds aloof. There is the class beneath—without self-respect, and therefore without public spirit—which can be bribed indirectly, by the gift of a place, by the concession of a lease, even by an invitation to a party at a great house which includes the wives and the daughters. And there is the lower class still—mercenary, corrupt, shameless to the marrow of its bones—which sells itself and its liberties for money and drink. When I began this discourse, and adverted to great changes that are to come, I spoke of them as revolutionary changes. Am I an alarmist? Do I unjustly ignore the capacity for peaceable reformation which has preserved modern England from revolutions, thus far? God forbid that I should deny the truth, or that I should alarm you without need! But history tells me, if I look no farther back than to the first French Revolution, that there are social and political corruptions, which strike their roots in a nation so widely and so deeply, that no force short of the force of a revolutionary convulsion can tear them up and cast them away. And I do personally fear (and older and wiser men than I agree with me), that the corruptions at which I have only been able to hint, in this brief address, are fast extending themselves—in England, as well as in Europe generally—beyond the reach of that lawful and bloodless reform which has served us so well in past years. Whether I am mistaken in this view (and I hope with all my heart it may be so), or whether events yet in the future will prove that I am right, the remedy in either case, the one sure foundation on which a permanent, complete, and worthy reformation can be built—whether it prevents a convulsion or whether it follows a convulsion—is only to be found within the covers of this book. Do not, I entreat you, suffer yourselves to be persuaded by those purblind philosophers who assert that the divine virtue of Christianity is a virtue which is wearing out with the lapse of time. It is the abuse and corruption of Christianity that is wearing out—as all falsities and all impostures must and do wear out. Never, since Christ and his apostles first showed men the way to be better and happier, have the nations stood in sorer need of a return to that teaching, in its pristine purity and simplicity, than now! Never, more certainly than at this critical time, was it the interest as well as the duty of mankind to turn a deaf ear to the turmoil of false teachers, and to trust in that all-wise and all-merciful Voice which only ceased to exalt, console, and purify humanity, when it expired in darkness under the torture of the cross! Are these the wild words of an enthusiast? Is this the dream of an earthly Paradise in which it is sheer folly to believe? I can tell you of one existing community (one among others) which numbers some hundreds of persons; and which has found prosperity and happiness, by reducing the whole art and mystery of government to the simple solution set forth in the New Testament—fear God, and love thy neighbour as thyself.”
By these gradations Amelius arrived at the second of the two parts into which he had divided his address.
He now repeated, at greater length and with a more careful choice of language, the statement of the religious and social principles of the Community at Tadmor, which he had already addressed to his two fellow-travellers on the voyage to England. While he confined himself to plain narrative, describing a mode of life which was entirely new to his hearers, he held the attention of the audience. But when he began to argue the question of applying Christian Socialism to the government of large populations as well as small—when he inquired logically whether what he had proved to be good for some hundreds of persons was not also good for some thousands, and, conceding that, for some hundreds of thousands, and so on until he had arrived, by dint of sheer argument, at the conclusion that what had succeeded at Tadmor must necessarily succeed on a fair trial in London—then the public interest began to flag. People remembered their coughs and colds, and talked in whispers, and looked about them with a vague feeling of relief in staring at each other. Mrs. Sowler, hitherto content with furtively glancing at Mr. Farnaby from time to time, now began to look at him more boldly, as he stood in his corner with his eyes fixed sternly on the platform at the other end of the hall. He too began to feel that the lecture was changing its tone. It was no longer the daring outbreak which he had come to hear, as his sufficient justification (if necessary) for forbidding Amelius to enter his house. “I have had enough of it,” he said, suddenly turning to his wife, “let us go.”
If Mrs. Farnaby could have been forewarned that she was standing in that assembly of strangers, not as one of themselves, but as a woman with a formidable danger hanging over her head—or if she had only happened to look towards Phoebe, and had felt a passing reluctance to submit herself to the possibly insolent notice of a discharged servant—she might have gone out with her husband, and might have so escaped the peril that had been lying in wait for her, from the fatal moment when she first entered the hall. As it was she refused to move. “You forget the public discussion,” she said. “Wait and see what sort of fight Amelius makes of it when the lecture is over.”
She spoke loud enough to be heard by some of the people seated nearest to her. Phoebe, critically examining the dresses of the few ladies in the reserved seats, twisted round on the bench, and noticed for the first time the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Farnaby in their dim corner. “Look!” she whispered to Jervy, “there’s the wretch who turned me out of her house without a character, and her husband with her.”
Jervy looked round, in his turn, a little doubtful of the accuracy of his sweetheart’s information. “Surely they wouldn’t come to the sixpenny places,” he said. “Are you certain it’s Mr. and Mrs. Farnaby?”
He spoke in cautiously-lowered tones; but Mrs. Sowler had seen him look back at the lady and gentleman in the corner, and was listening attentively to catch the first words that fell from his lips.
“Which is Mr. Farnaby?” she asked.
“The man in the corner there, with the white silk wrapper over his mouth, and his hat down to his eyebrows.”
Mrs. Sowler looked round for a moment—to make sure that Jervy’s man and her man were one and the same.
“Farnaby?” she muttered to herself, in the tone of a person who heard the name for the first time. She considered a little, and leaning across Jervy, addressed herself to his companion. “My dear,” she whispered, “did that gentleman ever go by the name of Morgan, and have his letters addressed to the George and Dragon, in Tooley-street?”
Phoebe lifted her eyebrows with a look of contemptuous surprise, which was an answer in itself. “Fancy the great Mr. Farnaby going by an assumed name, and having his letters addressed to a public-house!” she said to Jervy.
Mrs. Sowler asked no more questions. She relapsed into muttering to herself, under her breath. “His whiskers have turned gray, to be sure—but I know his eyes again; I’ll take my oath to it, there’s no mistakinghiseyes!” She suddenly appealed to Jervy. “Is Mr. Farnaby rich?” she asked.
“Rolling in riches!” was the answer.
“Where does he live?”
Jervy was cautious how he replied to that; he consulted Phoebe. “Shall I tell her?”
Phoebe answered petulantly, “I’m turned out of the house; I don’t care what you tell her!”
Jervy again addressed the old woman, still keeping his information in reserve. “Why do you want to know where he lives?”
“He owes me money,” said Mrs. Sowler.
Jervy looked hard at her, and emitted a long low whistle, expressive of blank amazement. The persons near, annoyed by the incessant whispering, looked round irritably, and insisted on silence. Jervy ventured nevertheless on a last interruption. “You seem to be tired of this,” he remarked to Phoebe; “let’s go and get some oysters.” She rose directly. Jervy tapped Mrs. Sowler on the shoulder, as they passed her. “Come and have some supper,” he said; “I’ll stand treat.”
The three were necessarily noticed by their neighbours as they passed out. Mrs. Farnaby discovered Phoebe—when it was too late. Mr. Farnaby happened to look first at the old woman. Sixteen years of squalid poverty effectually disguised her, in that dim light. He only looked away again, and said to his wife impatiently, “Let us go too!”
Mrs. Farnaby was still obstinate. “You can go if you like,” she said; “I shall stay here.”