“Oh,” said Rosamund, with almost ominous quiet and restraint. “You think nobody will ever notice him?”
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Lord Seawood. “I never noticed him myself.”
If Lord Seawood has hitherto remained behind the scenes of the drama of “Blondel the Troubadour,” if he has remained behind the curtains and tapestries of Seawood Abbey, it is only because he did so remain during all such superficial social proceedings, and was, in the true sense of the word, conspicuous by his absence. This fact arose from many causes but chiefly from two: first that he had the misfortune to be an invalid and second that he had the misfortune to be a statesman. He was one of those who withdraw into a narrower and narrower world on the pretence of acting in a wider and wider sphere. He lived in a small world out of a love of large questions. He had, as he had suggested, a sort of hobby of heraldry and the tracing out of the history of his own and other noble families, but he had felt all the more at ease because there were only two or three other experts in England who troubled about such things at all. And as he dealt with heraldry, so he dealt with society; with politics and many other things. He never talked to any people except experts; that is, in trusting the expert, he always trusted the exception. Exceptional people gave him information of exceptional value; but he never knew what was going on in his own house. Now and then he was conscious that the details of his domestic arrangements were not what they had always been; and this was about the extent of his consciousness of the whole business of the Troubadour play and its strange sequel. But if he had noticed the librarian on the top of the ladder, it is doubtful whether he would have asked him why he was there. It is more probable he would have opened communications with a scientific specialist on the use of ladders; but only after he was honestly convinced that he had the very best specialist of the time. He would defend the aristocratic principle by an appeal to the Greek derivation, saying that he insisted on having the best of everything. And, to do him justice, though he was too much of an invalid and perhaps too much of a faddist to drink or smoke, he never had any wine or cigars in his house except the very best. He was, in his personal capacity, a bony and brittle little man, with a high-bridged nose and angles all over him, and a capacity for staring at people suddenly with a look of startled attention, which had an almost stunning effect on those who made the mistake of supposing that he was merely a fool. The whole of his somewhat secretive personality, with its concentration and its bewilderment, its attention and its inattention, must be understood with a sympathy bordering upon subtlety, before the conditions of this drama can be conceived. Probably he was the only man in the world who could have had these things happening in his own house without realizing how far they had gone.
But there comes a point when even the hermit in a cave on the mountains looks forth and sees that the city in the valley is flaming with flags. There comes a point when even the most drugged and dreamy scholar in an attic looks out of the window and sees that the town is illuminated. And at last Lord Seawood began to realize that a revolution had taken place outside the door of his own study, although he had received no official report in connection with it. If it had been a revolution in Guatemala, he would have known all about it as soon as he could have communicated with the Guatemalan Minister in London. If it had been a revolution in Northern Thibet, of course he would have sent for Biggle, who is the only fellow who has ever really been to Northern Thibet. But as it was only ramping and roaring all over his own garden and drawing-room, he was cautious about receiving what might be exaggerated accounts. Thus it happened that about a fortnight later he was seated in the summer-house that stood at the end of the garden path opposite the library, engaged in grave consultation with the Prime Minister. He did not notice anything in the whole landscape except the Prime Minister. This was not in the least an indication of snobbishness, for he considered himself, in the social and genealogical sense, more important than any Prime Minister; though the one in question was the Earl of Eden. But he did attach importance to being closetted only with people of importance. He listened with solemn receptivity to all the news that so important a messenger could bring him from the outer world; but he cared for nothing except the outer world. He lived, if not at the end of the earth, at any rate at the end of the telephone. The views of the Prime Minister himself, about this concentrated complacency in his host, might have been worth hearing, for Lord Eden was a man of some humour, of the sort that is counted rather crabbed and cynical, because it faces facts and does not deal very much in catch-words. Lord Eden was a man with a lean and wrinkled face so much in contrast with his yellow hair as to make it look like a yellow wig. He was doing most of the talking, but his host never lost the air of one listening gravely to a report brought to headquarters.
“The trouble is,” said the Prime Minister, “that their side has suddenly developed somebody who believes in something. It’s not fair, in a way. We knew all about Labour members, of course, and they were damned like all other members. You couldn’t insult them; you got at them by degrees; you told them they were admirable parliamentarians and foemen worthy of your steel, and then, of course, you found some sort of a job for them sooner or later; and there you were. But this business of the Coal-Tar people is different. The Unions wouldn’t have been much different by themselves, of course. People at a Trade Union meeting don’t know what they’re voting about–”
“Of course not,” said Seawood nodding gravely and graciously, “quite ignorant, I suppose?”
“–any more than we do,” went on Lord Eden, “any more than the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Did you ever know a party meeting that knew what it was voting about? They called themselves Socialists or something and we called ourselves Imperialists or something. But, as a matter of fact, things had got quieter and quieter on both sides. But now that this man Braintree has turned up, talking all their nonsense in a new sort of way, we don’t seem to have any of our nonsense to call up against him. It used to be the Empire. But something has gone wrong with all that; the damn Colonials would come over and people saw them, and there you are. They won’t talk as if they wanted to die for us, and nobody seems to want very much to live with them. But whatever it was, all that sort of picture and poetry of the thing seems to have given out on our side; just at the moment when something picturesque turns up on the other side.”
“Is this Mr. Braintree picturesque?” asked Lord Seawood, being entirely unaware that Mr. Braintree had been his guest for a considerable time.
“These fellows seem to think so,” replied the Prime Minister. “It’s not so much the Coal people themselves; it’s much more the affiliated Unions connected with the by-products; all the people he seems to have worked up just round here. That’s why I came to ask you about it. We are both interested in Coal-Tar as well as Coal, and I’d be very glad to have your opinion. There seems to be such a devil of a lot of these small Unions mixed up with the business. You must know more about ’em than anybody else– except Braintree himself, of course. And it’s no good asking him. I wish to God it were.”
“It is quite true that I have considerable interest in this neighbourhood,” said Lord Seawood, inclining his head, “as you know, most of us have nowadays to go into trade a little. Would have horrified our ancestors, I suppose, but it’s better than losing the estates and so on. Yes, I may tell you in confidence that my interests are even more committed to the by-products than to the original material, so to speak. It is all the more unfortunate that this Mr. Braintree should have chosen that for a field of battle.”