Kitabı oku: «The Socialist»

CHAPTER I
CONCERNING HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PADDINGTON

There are as many social degrees in the peerage as there are in the middle and lower classes.

There are barons who are greater noblemen than earls, viscounts who are welcomed in a society that some marquises can never hope to enter – it is a question not of wealth or celebrity, but of family relationships and date of creation.

When, however, a man is a duke in England, his state is so lofty, he is so inevitably apart from every one else that these remarks hardly apply at all. Yet even in dukedoms one recognises there are degrees. There are royal dukes, stately figureheads moving in the brilliant light which pours from the throne, and generally a little obscured by its refulgence. These have their own serene place and being.

There are the political dukes, Cabinet-made, who are solemnly caricatured through two generations of Punch, massive, Olympian, and generally asleep on the front benches of the House of Lords.

And every now and then it happens that there are the young dukes.

The fathers of the young dukes have lived to a great age and married late in life. They have died when their sons were little children. For years it seems to the outside public as if certain historic houses are in abeyance. Nothing much is heard of these names, and only Londoners who pay enormous ground rents to this or that Ducal estate office realise what a long minority means.

From time to time paragraphs find their way into the society papers telling of the progress of this or that young dukeling at Eton. The paragraphs become more in evidence when the lad goes to Oxford, and then, like a suddenly-lit lamp, the prince attains his majority.

Paragraphs in weekly papers expand into columns in all the dailies. The public suddenly realises that the Duke of – , a young man of twenty-one, owns a great slice of London, has an income of from one to two hundred thousand pounds a year, and by the fact of his position is a force in public affairs. For a week every one talks about the darling of fortune. His pictures are in all the journals. His castle in Kent, his palace in Park Lane, his castle in Scotland, his villa at Monte Carlo, are, as it were, thrown open to the inspection of the world. The hereditary jewels are disinterred by popular rumour from the vaults at Coutts' Bank. The Mysore Nagar emerald that the third duke brought from India glitters once more in the fierce light of day. The famous diamond tiara that the second duke bought for his duchess (in the year when his horse "Strawberry Leaf" won the Derby and His Grace eighty thousand pounds) sparkles as never before. Photographers seek, and obtain, permission to visit the famous picture galleries at Duke Dale, and American millionaires gasp with envy as they read of the Velasquez, the three Murillos, the priceless series of Rembrandt genre pictures, and the "Prince in Sable" of Vandyck, owned by a youth who has in all probability never seen any one of them.

The man in the street has his passing throb of envy, and then, being a generous-minded fellow in the main, and deeply imbued with loyalty to all existing and splendid institutions, wishes his lordship luck and promptly forgets all about him.

What the man on the street – a very different sort of person – says, is merely a matter which polite people do not hear, for who heeds a few growls in cellars or curses in a cul-de-sac?

Women are even more generous, as is their dear mission to the world. If your dukeling is a pretty lad, presentable and straight as caught by the obsequious camera, they give him kind thoughts and wonder who the fortunate girl will be. Who shall share the throne of Prince Fortunatus? On whose white and slender neck shall that great Indian emerald give out its sinful Asiatic fire? On whose shining coronet of hair shall rise that crown of diamonds that the brave horse won for the "bad old duke" on Epsom Downs?

And then all the stir and bother is over. Some newer thing engages the public mind. Another stone is thrown into another pool; the ripples upon the first die away, and the waters are tranquil once more.

Prince Fortunatus has ascended his throne, and the echoes of the ceremonial trumpets are over and gone.

* * * * * *

John Augustus Basil FitzTracy was the fifth Duke of Paddington, Earl of Fakenham in Norfolk, and a baronet of the United Kingdom.

His seats were Fakenham Hall, at Fakenham, Castle Trink, N. B., and the old Welsh stronghold, near Conway, known as Carleon, which had come to him from his mother's aunt, old Lady Carleon of Lys.

In regard to his houses, there was, first and foremost, the great square pile in Piccadilly, which was almost as big as the Duke of Devonshire's palace, and was known as Paddington House. There was an old Saxon house near Chipping Norton, in Gloucestershire, which was used as a hunting-box – the late duke always having ridden with the Heythrop. There was also a big blue, pink-and-white villa upon the Promenade des Anglais at Nice – the late duke liked to spend February among the palms and roses of the Riviera, though it was said that the duchess never accompanied him upon these expeditions to the sun-lit shores of the Mediterranean.

The Duke of Paddington was not a great country nobleman. Fakenham was some three thousand acres, and though the shooting was excellent, as is the shooting of all the big houses which surround Sandringham Hall, the place in itself was not particularly noteworthy. Nor did the duke own coal mines, while no railways had enriched him by passing through any of his properties.

The duke's enormous revenues were drawn from London. He and their graces of Westminster and Bedford might well have contended for a new title – Duke of London. If extent of possessions and magnitude of fortune could alone decide such an issue the Duke of Paddington would have won.

A huge slice of the outer West End – anywhere north of Oxford Street – belonged to him.

His income was variously stated, but the only truth about it, upon which every one was agreed, was that it was incredibly large.

There was a certain modest, massive stone building in the Edgware Road where the duke's affairs were conducted. It was known as the FitzTracy Estate Office, forty clerks were regularly employed there, and only old Colonel Simpson, late of the Army Service Corps, and now chief agent to the duke, knew what the actual income was.

Possessor of all this, – and it is but the barest epitome, – the duke was twenty-three years of age, had no near relations, and was just finishing his university career at Oxford.

Everything that the human mind can wish for was his; there was hardly anything in the world, worthy or unworthy, that he could not have by asking for it.

The duke was an undergraduate of St. Paul's College, Oxford. Much smaller than Christ Church, Magdalen, or New College, St. Paul's is, nevertheless, the richest and most aristocratic foundation in the university. It was a preserve of the peerage; no poor men could afford to enter at Paul's, and it was even more difficult for the sons of rich vulgarians to do so.

On one dull, cold morning at the end of the October term the duke came out of his bedroom into the smaller of his two sitting rooms. It was about ten o'clock. He had cut both early chapel or its alternative roll-call – necessities from which even dukes are not exempt if they wish to keep their terms.

The duke wore an old Norfolk jacket and a pair of grey flannel trousers. His feet were thrust into a pair of red leather bath slippers. He was about five feet ten in height, somewhat sturdily built, and deliberate in his movements. His head was thickly covered with very dark red hair. The eyes were grey, and with a certain calm and impassivity about them – the calm of one so highly placed that nothing can easily affect him; one sees it in the eyes of kings and queens. The nose was aquiline, and thin at the nostrils, the nose of an aristocrat; the mouth was large, and pleasant in expression, though by no means always genial. There was, in short, something Olympian about this young man, an air, a manner, an aroma of slight aloofness, a consciousness of his position. It was not aggressive or pronounced, but it was indubitably there.

In the majority of colleges at Oxford undergraduates have only two rooms. In Paul's, more particularly in what were known as the new buildings, men had three, a bedroom, a dining-room or small sitting-room, in which breakfast and lunch were taken, and a larger sitting-room.

The duke came out of his bedroom into the smaller room. It was panelled in white throughout. Let into the panels here and there were first impressions of famous coloured mezzotints by Raphael Smith, Valentine Green, and other masters. They had been brought from the portfolios at Paddington House, and each one was worth three hundred pounds.

The chairs of this room were upholstered in red leather – a true vermilion, and not the ordinary crimson – which went admirably with the white walls and the Persian carpet, brick-dust and peacock blue colour, from Teheran. A glowing fire of cedar logs sent a cheerful warmth into the room, and the flames were reflected in the china and silver of a small round table prepared for breakfast.

Although it was November, there was a great silver dish of fruit, nectarines, and strawberries, grapes and peaches, all produced in the new electric forcing houses which had been installed at the duke's place at Fakenham. There was no apparatus for tea or coffee. In some things the duke was a little unusual. He never drank tea or coffee, but took a glass of thin white wine from Valperga. The tall yellow bottle stood on the table now, and by its side was a fragile glass of gold and purple, blown in Venice three hundred years ago.

The duke crossed the room and the larger one that opened out of it. He pushed open the swing door – the heavy outer "oak" lay flat against the wall – and shouted down the staircase for his "scout."

Despite the ineradicable belief of some popular novelists, there are no bells at Oxford, and duke or commoner must summon his servant in the good old mediæval way.

In a minute the man appeared with breakfast. He had previously brought his master a printed list from the kitchens when he called him. Gardener was an elderly, grey-haired man, clean-shaven, and confidential of manner. He had served many young noblemen on staircase number one, and each and all had found him invaluable. He had feathered his nest well during the years, and was worth every penny of ten thousand pounds. A type produced nowhere in such completeness and perfection as at Oxford or Cambridge, he represented a certain definite social class, a class more hated by the working man than perhaps any other – the polite parasite!

"Beastly weather, Gardener," said the duke in a voice which every one found musical and pleasant, a contented, full-blooded voice.

"It is indeed, sir," said Gardener, as he arranged two silver dishes upon the table – "very dull and cold. I was told that there would be skating on Port Meadow as I came into college this morning."

"Well, I don't think it will tempt me," said the duke. "You understand thoroughly about lunch?"

"Thoroughly, sir, thank you. Do you wish anything else now, sir?"

"Nothing more, Gardener. You can go."

"I thank your grace," said the scout, and left the room. Gardener had brought the art of politeness to a high point. Indeed, he had elevated it to a science. He always made a distinction, thoroughly understood and appreciated by his masters, between himself and the ordinary flunkey or house servant. He called a duke or a marquis "sir" in general address, reserving the title for the moment of leaving the room, thus showing that he did not forget the claims of rank, while he was too well-bred to weary his hearer by undue repetition.

The duke began his breakfast – a chop and a poached egg. The young man was by no means of a luxurious turn of mind as far as his personal tastes were concerned. Simplicity was the keynote of many of his actions. But he was very punctilious that everything about him should be "just so," and had he dined on a dish of lentils he would have liked them cooked by Escoffier.

There was a pile of letters by his plate. He opened them one by one, throwing most of them on to an adjacent chair for his secretary – who called every day at eleven – to answer.

One of the letters bore the cardinal's hat, which is the crest of Christ Church College, and was from the duke's greatest friend in the university, Viscount Hayle.

This was the letter:

"MY DEAR JOHN, – My father and sister arrived to-night, and, as I supposed, they will be delighted to lunch to-morrow. You said at one, didn't you? I have been dining with them at the Randolph, but I have come back to college, as I must read for a couple of hours before I go to bed.

"Yours,

"GERALD."

Gerald, Viscount Hayle, was the only son of the Earl of Camborne, who was a spiritual as well as a temporal peer inasmuch as he was the Bishop of Carlton, the great northern manufacturing centre.

Lord Hayle and the Duke of Paddington had gone up to Oxford in the same term. They were of equal ages, and many of their tastes and opinions were identical, while the remaining differences of temperament and thought only served to accentuate their strong friendship and to give it a wholesome tonic quality.

The duke had met Lord Camborne once only. He had never stayed at the palace, though often pressed to do so by Lord Hayle. Something or other had always intervened to prevent it. The two young men had not known each other during their school days – the duke had been at Eton, his friend at Winchester – and their association had been simply at the university.

Now the bishop, who was a widower, was coming to Oxford for a few days, to be present at a reception to be given to Herr Schmölder, the famous German Biblical scholar, and was bringing his daughter, Lady Constance Camborne, with him.

As he ate his nectarine the duke wondered what sort of a girl Lady Constance was. That she was very lovely he knew from general report, and Gerald also was extremely good-looking. But he wondered if she was like all the other girls he knew, accomplished, charming, sometimes beautiful and always smart, but – stereotyped.

That was just what all society girls were; they always struck him as having been made in exactly the same mould. They said the same sort of things in the same sort of voice. Their thoughts ran in grooves, not necessarily narrow or limited grooves, but identical ones.

Before he had finished breakfast the duke's valet entered. The man was his own private servant, and of course lived out of college, while there was a perpetual feud between him and old Gardener, the scout.

The man carried two large boxes of thin wood in his hands.

"The orchids have come, your grace," he said. "They were sent down from the shop in Piccadilly by an early train in answer to my telegram. I went to the station this morning to get them."

"Oh, very well, Proctor," said the duke. "Thank you. Just open the boxes and I will look at them. Then you can arrange them in the other room. I sha'n't have any flowers on the table at lunch."

In a minute Proctor had opened the boxes and displayed the wealth of strange, spotted blooms within – monstrous exotic flowers, beautiful with a morbid and almost unhealthy beauty.

The duke was a connoisseur of orchids. "Yes, these will do very well," he said. "Now you can take them out."

The man, a slim, clean-shaven young fellow, with dark eyes and a resolute jaw, hesitated a moment as if about to speak.

The duke, who had found a certain pleasure in thinking of his friend's sister and wondering if she would be like her brother, had been lost in a vague but pleasing reverie in fact, looked up sharply. He wanted to be alone again. He wanted to catch up the thread of his thoughts. "Well?" he said. "I think I told you to go, Proctor?"

The valet flushed at his master's tone. Then he seemed to make an effort. "I beg your grace's pardon," he said. "I wish to give you my notice."

The duke stared at his valet. "Why, what on earth do you mean?" he said. "You've only been with me for nine months, and I have found you satisfactory in every way. You have just learnt all my habits and exactly how I like things done. And now you want to leave me! Are you aware, Proctor, that you enjoy a situation that many men would give their ears for?"

"Indeed, your grace, I know that I am fortunate, and that there are many that would envy me."

"Then don't talk any more nonsense. What do I pay you? A hundred and twenty pounds a year, isn't it? Well, then, take another twenty pounds. Now go and arrange the orchids."

"I am very sorry, your grace," Proctor said. "But I do not seek any increase of wages. I respectfully ask you to accept my month's notice."

A certain firmness and determination had come into the valet's voice. It irritated the duke. It was a note to which he was not accustomed. But he tried to keep his temper.

"What are your reasons for wishing to leave me?" he said, asking the direct question for the first time.

"I have been successful with a small invention, your grace. I occupy my spare time with mechanics. It is an improved lock and key, and a firm have taken it up."

"Have they paid you?" said the duke.

"A certain sum down, your grace, and a royalty is to follow on future sales."

"I congratulate you, I'm sure," the duke said, with an unconsciously contemptuous smile, for he shared the not uncommon opinion among certain people that there is something ludicrous in the originality of a servant. "No idea you were such a clever fellow. But I don't see why you should want to leave me. Because you are my servant it won't interfere with you collecting your royalties or whatever they are."

The duke was a kind-hearted young man enough. He did not mean to wound his valet, but he had never been accustomed to think of such people as quite human – human in the sense that he himself was human – and his tone was far more unpleasant than he had any idea of.

The valet flushed up. Then he did an extraordinary thing. He took two five-pound notes from his pocket and placed them upon the table.

"That is a month's wages, your grace," he said, "instead of a month's notice. I am no longer your servant, nor any man's."

As he spoke the whole aspect of the valet changed. He seemed to stand more upright, his eyes had a curious light in them, his lips were parted as one who inhales pure air after being long in a close room.

The duke's face grew pale with anger. "What do you mean by this?" he said in a voice which was a strange mixture of passion and astonishment.

"Exactly what I say, sir," Proctor answered. "That I am no longer in your service. I have done all that is legally necessary to discharge myself. And I have a word to say to you. You are not likely to hear such words addressed to you again, until your class and all it means is swept away for ever. You sneer at me because I have dared to invent something, to produce something, to add something to the world's wealth and the world's comfort. What have you ever done? What have you ever contributed to society? I am a better man than you are, and worth more to society, because I've worked for my living and earned my daily bread, even though fortune made me your body servant. But I'm free now, and, mark what I say, read the signs of the times, if one in your position can have any insight into truth at all! Read the signs of the times, and be sure that before you and I are old men we shall be equal in the eyes of the world as we are unequal now! There aren't going to be any more drones in the hive. Men aren't going to have huge stores of private property any more. You won't be allowed to own land which is the property of every one."

He stopped suddenly in the flood of high-pitched, agitated speech, quivering with excitement, a man transformed and carried away. Was this the suave, quiet fellow who had brushed the clothes and put studs into the shirts? With an involuntary gesture the duke passed his hand before his eyes. He was astounded at this sudden volcanic outburst. Nothing, as Balzac said, is more alarming than the rebellion of a sheep.

But as Proctor's voice died away his excitement seemed to go with it, or at any rate long habit and training checked and mastered it. The man bowed, not without dignity, and when he spoke again his voice was once more the old respectful one. "I beg your grace's pardon," he said, "if I have been disrespectful. There are times when a man loses control of himself, and what is beneath the surface will out. Your grace will find everything in perfect order." He withdrew without another word and passed out of his master's life.

The duke was left staring at the masses of orchids which lay before him on the table.

When Gardener, the scout, entered he found the duke still in the same position – lost in a sort of day-dream.