Chapter 15

When young Marsten reached the walled-in house at Wimbledon, he found that Sartwell had indeed paid little attention to the wishes of his chief, and had left for the works at his usual hour in the morning. Mr. Hope had evidently not put his foot down firmly enough when he told the manager not to go to his office next day.

Marsten stood hesitatingly on the door-step; not knowing exactly the next best thing to do. After the events of yesterday, there was some difficulty about seeking an interview with the manager at his office.

“Mrs. Sartwell’s not home either,” said the servant, noting his indecision; “but Miss Sartwell is in the garden. Perhaps you would like to see her?”

Perhaps! The young man’s pulses beat faster at the mere mention of her name. He had tried to convince himself that he lingered there through disappointment at finding the manager away from home; but he knew that all his faculties were alert to catch sight or sound of her. He hoped to hear her voice; to get a glimpse of her, however fleeting. He wanted nothing so much on earth at that moment as to speak with her—to touch her hand; but he knew that if he met her, and the meeting came to her father’s knowledge, it would kindle Sartwell’s fierce resentment against him, and undoubtedly jeopardize his mission. Sartwell would see in his visit to Wimbledon nothing but a ruse to obtain an interview with the girl. Braunt had trusted him, and had sent him off with a hearty God-speed; the fate of exasperated men on the very brink of disorder might depend on his success. Women and children might starve to pay for five minutes’ delightful talk with Edna Sartwell. No such temptation had ever confronted him before, and he put it away from him with a faint and wavering hand.

“No,” he said, with a sigh, “it was Mr. Sartwell I wanted to see. I will call upon him at his office.”

The servant closed the door with a bang. Surely he did not need to take all that time, keeping her standing there, to say “No.”

The smallness of a word, however, bears little relation to the difficulty there may be in pronouncing it. Yet the bang of the door resulting from his hesitation brought about the very meeting he had with such reluctance resolved to forego. It is perhaps hardly complimentary to Sartwell to state that, when his daughter heard the door shut so emphatically, she thought her father had returned, and that something had gone wrong. Patience was not among Sartwell’s virtues, and when his wife, actuated solely by a strict sense of duty, endeavoured to point out to him some of his numerous failings, the man, instead of being grateful, often terminated a conversation intended entirely for his own good, by violently slamming the door and betaking himself to the breezy common, where a person may walk miles without going twice over the same path.

The girl ran towards the front of the house, on hearing the noisy closing of the door, and was far from being reassured when she recognized Marsten almost at the gate. That something had happened to her father instantly flashed across her mind, She fleetly overtook the young man, and his evident agitation on seeing her confirmed her fears.

“Oh, Mr. Marsten,” she cried, breathlessly, “is there anything wrong? Has there been more trouble at the works?”

“No; I don’t think so,” he stammered.

“I feel sure something is amiss. Tell me, tell me. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“I think everything is all right.”

“Why do you say you ‘think’? Aren’t you sure? You have come from the works?”

“No, I haven’t. I’ve just come from Surbiton. I wanted to speak with Mr. Sartwell, but I find he’s not at home.”

“Oh,” said the girl, evidently much relieved. Then she flashed a bewilderingly piercing glance at him, that vaguely recalled her father to his mind. “From Surbiton? You came from Surbiton just now?”

“Yes,” he faltered.

“You have been to see Mr. Hope?”

Marsten was undeniably confused, and the girl saw it. A flush of anger overspread her face.

“If your visit was a secret one, of course I don’t expect you to answer my question.”

“It was not intended to be a secret visit, but—but Mr. Hope asked me not to mention it.”

“Not to mention it to my father?”

“To any one.”

Edna Sartwell gazed at the unhappy young man with a look of reproach in her eyes, and also—alas!—a look of scorn.

“I can see by your face,” she said, indignantly, “that you don’t want my father to know that you have been talking to Mr. Hope about the strike.”

“My face does not tell you everything I think, Miss Sartwell,” replied Marsten, with a burst of courage that astonished himself. “I saw Mr. Hope about the strike, and it was his wish, not mine, that Mr. Sartwell should not know I had been there. But I am wrong in saying it was not mine. I don’t want Mr. Sartwell to know either.”

“Well, I call that treachery,” cried the girl, her face ablaze.

“To whom?” asked Marsten, the colour leaving his face as it mounted in hers.

“To my father.”

“It may be treachery, as you say, but not to Mr. Sartwell. It is treachery to Gibbons, perhaps, for he is secretary to the Union and leader of the strike, while I am a member of the Union and a striker. I cannot be treacherous to Mr. Sartwell, for we are at war with each other.”

“You were not at war with him when you thought he could do you a favour,” said the girl, disdainfully.

The young man looked at her in speechless amazement.

“Oh, yes,” she continued, “he told me of it—that night I was last at the office. He refused you, and you were angry then. I thought at the time you were merely disappointed, and I spoke to him on your behalf; but he said I knew nothing about you, and I see I didn’t. I never thought you were a person who would plot behind your employer’s back.”

“Miss Sartwell,” said Marsten, speaking slowly, “you are entirely wrong in your opinion of me. I feel no resentment against Mr. Sartwell, and I hope he has none against me. You spoke of treachery just now; my treachery, as I have said, is against Gibbons. I mean to depose him, if I can get enough of the men to vote with me. Then the way will be smooth for Mr. Sartwell to put an end to this trouble, which I am sure is causing him more worry than perhaps any one else.”

“But why, if that is the case, don’t you want him to know this?”

“Don’t you see why? It is so that he won’t make the same mistake that you have made. You have kindly allowed me to explain; Mr. Sartwell might not have waited for explanations.”

“I have not been very kind, have I?” said Edna, contritely, holding out her hand to him. “Please forgive me. Now I want to understand all about this, so come with me into the garden, where we sha’n’t be interrupted. Standing here at the gate, some one might call, and then I would have to go into the house, for my mother has gone to Surbiton to see how Mr. Hope is. Was he injured yesterday?”

“No. I will go with you, Miss Sartwell, on one condition.”

“What is that?” asked the girl, in some surprise. She had turned to go, expecting him to follow.

“That you will not tell Mr. Sartwell you have been talking with me.”

“Oh, I cannot promise that. I tell my father everything.”

“Very well. That is quite right, of course; but in this instance, when you tell him you talked with me, say that I came to see him; that the servant said neither he nor Mrs. Sartwell were in, and asked me if I would see you. Tell your father that I said ‘No,’ and that I was leaving when you spoke to me.”

The girl looked frankly at him—a little perplexed wrinkle on her smooth brow. She was puzzled.

“You say that because you do not understand him. He wouldn’t mind in the least your talking with me about the strike, because I am entirely in his confidence; but he might not like it if he knew you had been to see Mr. Hope.”

“Exactly. Now don’t you see that if you tell him you have been talking with me, you will have to tell him what was said? He will learn indirectly that I have been to Surbiton, and will undoubtedly be angry, the more so when he hears I did not intend to tell him. In fact, now that this conversation has taken place, I shall go straight to him and tell him I have talked with Mr. Hope, although I feel sure my doing so will nullify all my plans.”

“And this simply because I talked with you for a few minutes?”

“Yes.”

The girl bent her perplexed face upon the ground, absent-mindedly disturbing the gravel on the walk with the tiny toe of her very neat boot. The young man devoured her with his eyes, and yearned towards her in his heart. At last she looked suddenly up at him with a wavering smile.

“I am sorry I stopped you,” she said. “Perhaps you don’t know what it is to think more of one person than all the rest of the world together. My father is everything to me, and when I saw you I was afraid something had happened to him. It doesn’t seem right that I should keep anything from him, and it doesn’t seem right that I should put anything in the way of a quick settlement. I don’t know what to do.”

When did a woman ever waver without the man in the case taking instant advantage of her indecision, turning her own weapons against her?

“Don’t you see,” said Marsten, eagerly, “that Mr. Sartwell has already as much on his mind as a man should bear? Why, then, add to his anxiety by telling him that I have been here or at Surbiton? The explanations which seem satisfactory to you might not be satisfactory to him. He would then merely worry himself quite unnecessarily.”

“Do you think he would?”

“Think! I know it.”

“Yes, I believe that is true. Well, then, I promise not to tell him of your visit unless he asks me directly. Now come with me; I want to know all your plans, and what Mr. Hope said. I can perhaps help you with a suggestion here and there; for I certainly know what my father will do, and what he won’t do, better than any of you.”

Edna led the way down the garden path, stopping at last where some chairs were scattered under a wide-spreading tree.

“Sit down,” she said. “We can talk here entirely undisturbed.”

Marsten sat down with Edna Sartwell opposite him in the still seclusion of the remotest depths of that walled garden. He would not have exchanged his place for one in Paradise, and he thought his lucky stars were fighting for him. But it is fated that every man must pay for his pleasure sooner or later, and Marsten promptly discovered that fate required of him cash down. He had no credit in the bank of the gods.

“Now, although I have promised,” began Edna, “I am sure you are wrong in thinking my father would be displeased if he knew we talked over the strike together, and if I have said I will not tell him you were here, it is not because I fear he will be annoyed at that, but because I would have certainly to tell him of your Surbiton visit as well, and, as you say, he might not think you were justified in going to Mr. Hope, no matter what your intentions were. But with me it is quite different. He would just laugh at our discussing the situation, as he does over the conversations I have with Mr. Barnard Hope in this very garden.”

“Ah, Mr. Barnard Hope comes here, does he?”

“Yes, quite often, ever since the strike began. He takes the greatest possible interest in the condition of the workingman.”

“Does he? It is very much to his credit.”

“That’s what I say, but father just laughs at him. He thinks Mr. Hope is a good deal of a—a——”

“Of a fool,” promptly put in Marsten, seeing her hesitation.

“Well, yes,” said Edna, laughing confidentially; “although that is putting it a little strongly, and is not quite what I intended to say. But I don’t think so. He may be frivolous—or rather he may have been frivolous, but that was before he came to recognize his responsibilities. I think him a very earnest young man, and he is exceedingly humble about it, saying that he hopes his earnestness will make up for any lack of ability that——”

“Then he needs all the earnestness he can bring to bear upon the subject.”

“Oh, he realizes that,” cried Edna, enthusiastically. “If there is only some one to point him the way, he says, he will do everything that lies in his power to assist the workingman in bettering his condition. I have told him that his own vacillation of mind is his worst enemy.”

“He vacillates, does he?”

“Dreadfully. He will leave here to-day, for instance, thoroughly convinced that a certain course of action is right. To-morrow he will return, having thought over it, and he has ever so many objections that he is not clear about. He says—which is quite true—that it is a most intricate question which one must look upon in all its bearings; otherwise mistakes are sure to be made.”

“That is why he does nothing, I suppose. Then he is sure of not making any mistake.”

Something of bitterness in the young man’s tone caused the girl to look at him in surprise. Surely two people who had the interests of the workingman so much at heart as both Hope and Marsten ought to be glad of any help one could give the other; yet Marsten did not seem to relish hearing of the unselfish and lofty aims of Barney.

“Why do you say he does nothing?”

“Well, when I called upon him before the strike began, hoping he would use his influence to avert trouble, he showed no desire to ameliorate any one’s condition but his own. He was comfortable and happy, so why trouble about the men? ‘Foolish beggars,’ he called them, when I told him they had voted to go on strike.”

“Now you see,” cried Edna, gleefully, “how easy it is, as you yourself said, for men to misunderstand each other. A few words of explanation will show you how you have thought unjustly of Mr. Barnard Hope. He did intend to use his influence on behalf of the men, and came all the way from Chelsea here to see father on the subject, just as you have done to-day, and father was not at home, just as he is not to-day. Mr. Hope talked it over with mother and me, and he quite agreed with us that it would not be fair to father if there was any interference. It was for my father’s sake that he refused to take part in the dispute.”

To this conclusive defence of Barney, the young man had no answer; but he was saved the necessity of a reply, for both talker and listener were startled by a shrill voice near the house, calling the girl’s name.

Edna started to her feet in alarm, and Marsten also arose.

“That is my step-mother calling me. She has returned. I had no idea it was so late. What shall we do? She mustn’t see you here, and yet you can’t get out without passing the house.”

“I can go over the wall. I wonder who lives in the next house?”

“It is vacant, but the wall is high, and there is broken glass on the top.”

“I’ll have a try for it, any way.”

They passed through the shrubbery to the dividing wall.

“Oh, I am sure you can’t do it, and you will cut your hands.”

Marsten pulled off his coat; threw it, widespread, over the barbarous broken glass; stepped back as far as the shrubbery would allow him, and took a running jump, catching the top of the wall with his hands where the coat covered the glass. Next instant he was up, putting on his coat, while his boots crunched the broken bottles.

“You haven’t cut yourself? I’m so glad. Good-by!” she whispered up at him, her face aglow with excitement.

“One moment,” he said, in a low but distinct voice. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you my plans.”

“Oh, please, please jump down; my mother may be here at any moment.”

The cry of “Edna!” came again from the house.

“It’s all right yet,” whispered Marsten. “But I must know what you think of my plans. I’ll be here at this hour to-morrow, and if the coast is clear would you throw your shawl, or a ribbon, or anything, on the wall where my coat was, so that I can see it from this side?”

“Do go. If you are seen it will spoil everything. I don’t know what to say about to-morrow. I’ll think over it.”

“Remember, I shall be on this side. You make everything so clear that I must consult you about this—it is very important.”

“Yes, yes. I promise, but you are risking it all by remaining there.”

Marsten jumped down into another man’s garden and pushed his trespass ruthlessly over and through whatever came in his way, until he reached the gate and was out once more on the public way. The safety signal, “To be Let,” was in the windows of the house and on a board above the high wall.

“Ah, Barney Hope,” he muttered, clenching his fist, “all the good things of this world are not for you. Once over the wall is worth a dozen times through the gate. I fancy I need instruction on my duty to my employers quite as much as you require having your obligations to the workingman explained to you.”