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Mrs. Warren's Daughter by Sir Harry Johnston

S >> Sir Harry Johnston >> Mrs. Warren\'s Daughter




Just about this time--during David's extended spring holiday in
Wales (he had brought many law books down with him to read)--there
had begun one of the newspaper-made-famous Revivals. It was led by a
young prophet--a football half-back or whatever they are called,
though I, who prefer thoroughness, would, if I played football,
offer up the whole of my back to bear the brunt--who saw visions of
Teutonically-conceived angels with wings, who heard "voices," was in
constant communication with the Redeemer of Mankind and on familiar
terms with God, had a lovely tenor voice and moved emotional men and
hysterical, love-sick women to tears, even to bellowings by his
prayers and songs. He had for some weeks been confined in publicity
to half-contemptuous paragraphs in the South Wales Press. Then the
_Daily Chronicle_ took him up. Their well-known, emotional-article
writer, Mr. Sigsbee, saw "copy" in him, and--to do him justice (for
there I agreed with him)--a chance to pierce the armour of the
hand-in-glove-with-Government distillers, so went down to Wales to
write him up. For three weeks he became more interesting than a
Cabinet Minister. Indeed Cabinet Ministers or those who aspired to
become such at the next turn of the wheel truckled to him. Some were
afraid he might become a small Messiah and lead Wales into open
revolt; others that he might smash the whiskey trade and impair the
revenue. Mr. Lloyd George going to address a pro-Boer meeting at
Aberystwith (was it?) encountered him at a railway junction,
attended by a court of ex-footballers and reformed roysterers, and
said in the hearing of a reporter "I must fight with the Sword of
the Flesh; but you fight with the Sword of the Spirit"--whatever
that may have meant--and I do not pretend to complete accuracy of
remembrance--I only know I felt very angry with the whole movement
at the time, because it delayed indefinitely the _Daily Chronicle's_
review of my new book. Well this Evan--in all such movements an Evan
is inevitable--Evan Gwyllim Jones--with the black eyes, abundant
black hair, beautiful features (he was a handsome lad) and glorious
voice, addressed meetings in the open air and in every available
building of four walls. Thousands withdrew their names from
foot-ballery, nigh on Two Millions must have taken the pledge--and
not merely an anti-whiskey pledge but a fierce renunciation of the
most diluted alcohol as well; and approximately two hundred and
fifty thousand confessed their sins of unchastity and swore to be
reborn Galahads for the rest of their lives. It was a spiritual
Spring-cleaning, as drastic and as overdone as are the domestic
upheavals known by that name. But it did a vast deal of good, all
the same, to South Wales; and though it was a seventh wave, the tide
of temperance, thrift, cleanliness, bodily and spiritual, has risen
to a higher level of average in the beautiful romantic Principality
ever since. Evan Gwyllim Jones, however, overdid it. He had to
retire from the world to a Home--some said even to a Mental
Hospital. Six months afterwards he emerged, cured of his "voices,"
much plumper, and--perhaps--poor soul--shorn of some of his
illusions and ideals; but he married a grocer's widow of Cardiff,
and the _Daily Chronicle_ mentioned him no more.

The infection of his meetings however penetrated to the agricultural
district in which Pontystrad was situated. Five villages went
completely off their heads. The blacksmith-pastor had to be put
under temporary restraint. Quite decent-looking, unsuspected folk
confessed to far worse sins than they had ever committed. There
arose an aristocracy of outcasts. Three inns where little worse than
bad beer was sold were gutted, respectable farmers' wives drank
Eau-de-Cologne instead of spirits, several over-due marriages took
place, there were a number of premature births, and the membership
of the football clubs was disastrously reduced. Such excitement was
generated that little work was done, and the illegitimate birth rate
of west Glamorganshire--always high--for the opening months of 1903
became even higher.

David was enlisted by the employers of labour, the farmers,
chemical works, mining and smelting-works managers, squires, and
postmasters to restore order. He preached against the Revivalists.
Not with any lack of sympathy, any apology for the real ills which
they denounced. He spoke with emphasis against the loosening of
morality, recommended early marriage, and above all _education_;
denounced the consumption of alcohol so strenuously and convincedly
that then and there as he spoke he resolved himself henceforth to
abstain from anything stronger than lager beer or the lighter
French and German wines. But he threw cold water resolutely on the
fantastical nonsense that accompanied these emotional outbursts of
so-called religion; invited his hearers to study--at any rate
elementarily--astronomy and biology; did not run down football but
advised a moderate interest only being taken in such futile sports;
recommended volunteering and an acquaintance with rifles as far
preferable, seeing that we always stood in danger of a European war
or of a drastic revival of insolent conservatism.

Then he made his appeal to the women. He spoke of the dangers of
this hysteria; the need there was for level-headed house-keeping
women in our councils; how they should first qualify for and then
demand the suffrage, having already attained the civic vote. (Here
some of the employers of labour disapproved, plucked at his arm or
hem of his reefer jacket, and one squire lumbered off the platform.)
But he held on, warming with a theme that hitherto had hardly
interested him. His speeches were above the heads of his peasant
audiences; but they were a more sensitive harp to play on than the
average Anglo-Saxon audience. Many women wept, only decorously, as
he outlined their influence in a reformed village, a purified
Principality. The men applauded frantically because, despite some
prudent reserves, there seemed to be a promise of revolt in his
suggestions. David felt the electric thrill of the orator in harmony
with his audience; who for that reason will strive for further
triumphs, more resounding perorations. He introduced scraps of
Welsh--all his auto-intoxicated brain could remember (How physically
true was that taunt of Dizzy's--"Inebriated with the exuberance of
his own verbosity!").

And the delighted audience shouted back "You're the man we want!
Into Parliament you shall go, Davy-bach" and much else. So David
restored the five villages to sobriety in life and faith, yet left
them with a new enthusiasm kindled. Before he departed on his return
to London and the grind of his profession, he had effected another
change. Because he had spoken as he had spoken and touched the
hearts of emotional people, they came trickling back to his father's
church, to the "British" Church, as David now called it. Little
Bethel was empty, and the pastor-blacksmith not yet out of the
asylum at Swansea. The Revd. Howel Williams trod on air. His sermons
became terribly long and involved, but that was no drawback in the
minds of his Welsh auditory; though it made his son swear inwardly
and reconciled him to the approaching return to Fig Tree Court. The
old Druid felt inspired to convince the hundred people present that
the Church they had returned to _was_ the Church of their fathers,
not only back to Roman times, when Glamorganshire was basking in an
Italian civilization, but further still. He showed how the Druids
were rather to be described as Ante-Christian than Anti--with an
_i_; and played ponderously on this quip. In Druidism, he
observed--I am sure I cannot think why, but it was his hobby--you
had a remarkable foreshadowing of Christianity; the idea of the
human sacrifice, the Atonement, the Communion of Saints, the mystic
Vine, which he clumsily identified with the mistletoe, and what not
else. He read portions of his privately-published _Tales of
Taliessin_. In short such happiness radiated from his pink-cheeked
face and recovered eyes that David regretted in no wise his own
lapses into conventional, stereotyped religion. The Church of
Britain might be stiff and stomachered, as the offspring of
Elizabeth, but it was stately, it was respectable--as outwardly was
the great virgin Queen--and it was easy to live with. Only he
counselled his father to do two things: never to preach for more
than half-an-hour--even if it meant keeping a small American clock
going inside the pulpit-ledge; and to obtain a curate, so that the
new enthusiasm might not cool and his father verging on seventy,
might not overstrain himself. He pointed out that by letting off
most of the glebe land and pretermitting David's "pocket-money" he
might secure a young and energetic Welsh-speaking curate, the
remainder of whose living-wage would--he felt sure--be found out of
the diocesan funds of St. David's bishopric.

The Revd. Howel let him have his way (This was after David had
returned to Fig Tree Court) and by the following June a stalwart
young curate was lodged in the village and took over the bulk of the
progressive church work from the fumbling hands of the dear old
Vicar. He was a thoroughly good sort, this curate, troubled by no
possible doubts whatever, a fervent tee-totaller, a half-back or
whole back--I forget which--at football, a good boxer, and an
unwearied organizer. Little Bethel was sold and eventually turned
into a seed-merchant's repository and drying-room. The curate in
course of time married the squire's daughter and I dare say long
afterwards succeeded the Revd. Howel Vaughan Williams when the
latter died--but that date is still far ahead of my story. At any
rate--isn't it _droll_ how these things come about?--David's action
in this matter, undertaken he hardly knew why--did much to fetter
Mr. Lloyd George's subsequent attempts to disestablish the British
Church in Wales.

What did Bridget think of all this, of the spiritual evolution of
her nursling, of his identity with the vicious, shifty, idle youth
whose uncanny gift of design seemed to have been completely lost
after his stay in South Africa? David Vavasour Williams had left
home to the relief of his father and the whole village, if even to
the half-pitying regret of his old nurse, in 1896. He had spent a
year or more in Mr. Praed's studio studying to be an architect or a
scene painter. Then somehow or other he did not get on with Mr.
Praed and he enlisted impulsively in a South African Police force
(in the Army, it seemed to Bridget). He had somehow become involved
in a war with a South African people, called by Bridget "the Wild
Boars"; he is wounded or ill in hospital; is little heard of, almost
presumed dead. Throughout all these five years he scarcely ever
writes to his forgiving father; maintains latterly a sulky silence.
Then, suddenly in the summer of 1901, returns; preceded only by a
telegram but apparently vouched for by this Mr. Praed; and announces
himself as having forgotten his Welsh and most of the events of his
youth, but having acquired a changed heart, and an anxiety to make
up for past ill-behaviour by a present good conduct which seems
almost miraculous.

Well: miracles were easily believed in by Bridget. Perhaps his
father's prayers had been answered. Providence sometimes meted out
an overwhelming boon to really good people. David was certainly a
Vavasour, if there was nothing Williamsy about his looks.... His
mother, in Mrs. Bridget Evanwy's private opinion, had been a
hussy.... Was David his father's son? Hadn't she once caught Mrs.
Howel Williams kissing a young stranger behind a holly bush and
wasn't that why Bridget had really been sent away? She had returned
to take charge of the pretty, motherless little boy when she herself
was a widow disappointed of children, and the child was only three.
Would she ever turn against her nursling now, above all, when he was
showing himself such a son to his old father? Not she. He might be
who and what he would. He was giving another ten years of renewed
life to the dear old Druid and the continuance of a comfortable home
to his old Nannie.

They talked a great deal up at Little Bethel of a "change of
heart." Perhaps such things really took place, though Bridget Evanwy
from a shrewd appraisement of the Welsh nature doubted it. She would
like to, but couldn't quite believe that an angel from heaven had
taken possession of David's body and come here to play a divine
part; because David sometimes talked so strangely--seemed not only
to doubt the existence of a heavenly host, but even of Something
beyond, so awful in Bridget's mind that she hardly liked to define
it in words, though in her own Welsh tongue it was so earthily
styled "the Big Man."

However, at all costs, she would stand by David ... and without
quite knowing why, she decided that on all future visits she herself
would "do out" his room, would attend to him exclusively. The "girl"
was a chatterer, albeit she looked upon Mr. David with eyes of awe
and a most respectful admiration, while David on his part scarcely
bestowed on her a glance.




CHAPTER IX

DAVID IS CALLED TO THE BAR


1902 was the year of King Edward's break-down in health but of his
ultimate Coronation; it was the year in which Mr. Arthur Balfour
became premier; it was the year in which motors became really
well-known, familiar objects in the London streets, and hansoms (I
think) had to adopt taximeter clocks on the eve of their
displacement by taxi-cabs. It was likewise the year in which the
South African War was finally wound up and the star of Joseph
Chamberlain paled to its setting, and Mrs. Pankhurst and her
daughter Christabel founded the Women's Social and Political Union
at Manchester.

In 1903, the Fiscal controversy absorbed much of public attention,
the War Office was once more reformed, women's skirts still swept
the pavement and encumbered the ball-room, a Peeress wrote
to the _Times_ to complain of Modern Manners, Surrey beat
Something-or-other at the Oval, and modern Cricket was voted dull.

In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War was concluded, and _Fraser and
Warren_ received a year's notice from the Midland Insurance Co. that
they must vacate their premises on the fifth floor of Nos. 88-90
Chancery Lane. The business of _F. and W._ had grown so considerable
that, as the affairs of the Midland Insurance Co. had slackened, it
became intolerable to hear the lift going up and down to the fifth
floor all through the day. The housekeeper also thought it odd that
a well-dressed young gentleman should steal in and up, day after
day, after office hours to work apparently alone in _Fraser and
Warren's_ partners' room. _Fraser and Warren_ over the hand of its
junior partner, Mrs. Claridge, accepted the notice. Their business
had quite overgrown these inconveniently situated offices and a move
to the West End was projected. Mrs. Claridge's scheme for week-end
cottages had been enormously successful and had put much money not
only into the coffers of _Fraser and Warren_ but into the banking
account of that clever architect, Francis Brimley Storrington.

[I find I made an absurd mistake earlier in this book in charging
the too amorous architect with a home at "Storrington." His home
really was in a midland garden city which he had designed, but his
name--a not uncommon one--was Storrington.]

In the autumn of 1902, poor Lady Fraser died. In January, 1903,
Honoria married the impatient Colonel Armstrong. In January, 1904,
she had her first baby--a boy.

At the close of 1904 Beryl Claridge made proposals to Honoria Fraser
relative to a change in the constitution of _Fraser and Warren_.
Honoria was to have an interest still as a sleeping partner in the
concern and some voice in its management and policy. But she was to
take no active share of the office work and "Warren" was to pass out
of it altogether. Beryl pointed out it was rather a farce when the
middle partner--she herself had been made the junior partner a year
before--was perpetually and mysteriously absent, year after year,
engaged seemingly on work of her own abroad. Her architect
semi-husband moreover, who if not in the firm was doing an
increasing share of its business, wanted to know _more_ about Vivien
Warren. "Was she or was she not the daughter of the 'notorious' Mrs.
Warren; because if so..." He took of course a highly virtuous line.
Like so many other people he compounded for the sins he was
inclined to by being severe towards the misdoings of others. _His_
case--he would say to Beryl when they were together at Chelsea--was
_sui generis_, quite exceptional, they were really in a way
perfectly good people--_Tout savoir c'est tout pardonner, etc._;
whereas the _things_ that were _said_ about Mrs. Warren!... And
though Vivien was nothing nearer sin than being her daughter, still
if it were known or known more widely that _she_ was the Warren in
_Fraser and Warren_, why the wives of the wealthier clergy, for
example, and a number of Quakeresses would withdraw their affairs
from the firm's management. Whereas if only his little Berry could
become the boss, _he_ knew where to get "big money" to put behind
the Firm's dealings. The idea was all right; an association for the
special management on thoroughly honest lines of women's affairs.
They'd better get rid of that hulking young clerk, Bertie Adams, and
staff the entire concern with capable women. He himself would always
remain in the background, giving them ideas from time to time, and
if any were taken up merely being paid his fees and commissions.

David Vavasour Williams, privately consulted by Norie, put forward
no objection. He disliked Beryl and was increasingly shy of his
rather clandestine work on the fifth floor of the Midland Insurance
Chambers; besides, if and when he were called to the Bar, he would
have to cease all connection with _Fraser and Warren_. The consent
of Vivie was obtained through the Power of Attorney she had left
behind. A new deed of partnership was drawn up. Honoria insisted
that Vivien Warren must be bought out for Three Thousand pounds,
which amount was put temporarily to the banking account of David
Vavasour Williams; she herself received another Three Thousand and a
small percentage of the future profits and a share in the direction
of affairs of THE WOMEN'S CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION (_Fraser and
Claridge_) so long as she left a capital of Five Thousand pounds at
their disposal.

So in 1905 David with Three Thousand pounds purchased an annuity of
L210 a year for Vivien Warren. That investment would save Vivie from
becoming at any time penniless and dependent, and consequently would
subserve the same purpose for her cousin and agent, David V.
Williams.

Going to the C. and C. Bank, Temple Bar branch, to take stock of
Vivie's affairs, he found a Thousand pounds had been paid in to her
current account. Ascertaining the name of the payee to be L.M.
Praed, he hurried off at the first opportunity to Praed's studio.
Praed was entertaining a large party of young men and women to tea
and the exhibition of some wild futurist drawings and a few rather
striking designs for stage scenery and book covers. David had
perforce to keep his questions bottled up and take part in the
rather vapid conversation that was going on between young men with
_glabre_ faces and high-pitched voices and women with rather wild
eyes.

[It struck David about this time that women were getting a little
out of hand, strained, over-inclined to laugh mirthless laughter,
greedy for sensuality, sensation, sincerity, sweetmeats. Something.
Even if they satisfied some fleeting passion or jealousy by
marrying, they soon wanted to be de-married, separated, divorced, to
don male costume, to go on the amateur stage and act Salome parts on
Sunday afternoons that most ladies of the real Stage had refused;
while the men that went about with them in these troops from
restaurant to restaurant, studio to studio, music hall to cafe
chantant, Brighton to Monte Carlo, Sandown to Goodwood, were shifty,
too well-dressed, too near neutrality in sex, without defined
professions, known by nicknames only, spend-thrifts, spongers,
bankrupts, and collectors of needless bric-a-brac.]

However this mob at last quitted Praddy's premises and he and David
were left alone.

Praed yawned, and almost intentionally knocked over an easel with a
semi-obscene drawing on it of a Sphynx with swelling breasts
embracing a lean young man against his will.

_David_: "Praddy! why do you tolerate such people and why prostitute
your studio to such unwholesome art?"

_Praed_: "My dear David! This is _indeed_ Satan rebuking sin. Why
there are three designs here--one I've just knocked over--beastly,
wasn't it?--that _you _ left with me when you went off at a tangent
to South Africa.... Really, we ought to have _some_ continuity you
know....

"But I agree with you.... I'm sick of the whole business of this
Nouvel Art and L'Art Nouveau, about Aubrey Beardsley and the
disgusting 'nineties generally--But what _will_ you? If Miss Vivie
Warren had condescended to accept me as a husband she might have
brought a wholesome atmosphere into my life and swept away all
this ... inspired me perhaps with some final ambition for the little
that remains of my stock of energy.... Heigh-ho! Well: what is the
quarrel now? The life I lead, the people who come here?"

_David_: "No. I hardly came about that; though dear old Praddy, I
wish I had time to look after you ... Perhaps later.... No: what I
came to ask was: what _did_ you mean the other day by paying in a
Thousand Pounds to Vivie Warren's account at her bank? She's not in
want of money so far as I know, and you can't be so very rich, even
though you design three millionaire's houses a year. Who gave you
the money to pay in to my--to Vivie's account?"

_Praed_: "Well, when Vivie herself comes to ask me, p'raps I'll
tell; but I can't see how it concerns _you_. Why not stop and
dine--a l'imprevu, but I dare say my housekeeper can rake something
together or it may not be too late to send out for a pate. We can
then talk of other things. When are you going to get your call?"

_David_: "Sorry, dear old chap, but I can't stay to dinner. I'm not
going anywhere else but I've got some papers I _must_ study before I
go to bed. But I'll stop another half-hour at any rate. Don't ring
for lights or turn up the electric lamps. I would sooner sit in the
dark studio and put my question. Who has given me that thousand
pounds?"

_Praed_: "That's _my_ business: _I_ haven't! I shan't give or lend
Vivie a penny till she consents to marry me. As to the rest, take it
and be thankful. You're not certain to get any more and I happen to
know it had what you would call a 'clean origin.'"

_David_: "You mean it didn't come from those 'Hotels'?"

_Praed_: "Well, at any rate not directly. Don't be a romantic ass, a
tiresome fool, and give me any trouble about it. A certain person I
imagine must have heard that _Fraser and Warren_ had been wound up
and couldn't bear the thought of your being hard up in consequence
... doesn't know you got a share of the purchase-money..."

* * * * *

David decided at any rate for the present to accept the addition to
his capital--you can perhaps push principle _too_ far; or, once you
plunge into affairs, you cease to be quite so high-souled. At any
rate nothing in David's middle-class mind was so horrible as penury
and the impotence that comes with it. How many months or years would
lie ahead of him before fees could be gained and a professional
income be earned? Besides he wanted to take Bertie Adams into his
service as a Clerk. A barrister must have a clerk, and David in his
peculiar circumstances could only engage one acquainted more or
less with his secret.

So Bertie Adams fulfilled the ambition he had cherished for three
years--he felt all along it was coming true. And when David was
called to the Bar--which he was with all the stately ceremonial of a
Call night at the Inner Temple in the Easter term of 1905, more
elbow room was acquired at Fig Tree Court, and Bertie Adams was
installed there as clerk to Mr. David Vavasour Williams, who had
residential chambers on the third floor, and a fair-sized Office and
small private room on the second floor. Bertie's mother had "washed"
for both Honoria and Vivie in their respective dwellings for years,
and for David after he came to live at Fig Tree Court. A substantial
douceur to the "housekeeper" had facilitated this, for in the part
of the Temple where lies Fig Tree Court the residents do not call
their ministrants "laundresses," but "housekeepers." Curiously
enough the accounts were always tendered to the absent Vivie Warren,
but Mrs. Adams noted no discrepancy in their being paid by her son
or in an unmarried lady living in the Temple under the name of David
Williams.

Installed as clerk and advised by his employer to court one of the
fair daughters of the housekeeper (Mrs. Laidly) with a view to
marriage and settling down in premises hard-by, Bertie Adams (who
like David had spent his time well between 1901 and 1905 and was now
an accomplished and serviceable barrister's clerk) soon set to work
to chum up with other clerks in this clerical hive and get for his
master small briefs, small chances for defending undefended cases in
which hapless women were concerned.

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