Upsidonia Part 21

He was in a state of considerable excitement, but not over the affair that was in all our minds, which he put aside as of no account.

"Oh, that will all blow over," he said. "There is something far more serious now to engage people's attention."

We all looked at him expectantly. He was much agitated, and seemed at first incapable of speech. But when he had gulped down a little tea, he said in a voice vibrant with emotion: "This day will never be forgotten in Upsidonia. The social revolution has commenced."

We all looked towards Mr. Perry. It rested with him--the head of the family, and a man with a whole life of benevolent wisdom behind him--to indicate the line to be taken in face of this startling intelligence.

He kept his eyes fixed on his plate, but looked very grave, and shook his head slowly.

There was a moment's silence, and then he said: "It is an extraordinary thing that with all the improvements in communication we never can get our fish perfectly fresh. Mollie, will you take this away and give me some kidneys and bacon. I beg your pardon, Edward--you were saying--?"

Edward launched himself into an almost violent flood of speech. "I have felt it coming for a long time," he said. "I have done what I could to stem the tide, and to confine it in safe channels, such as I knew you, dear father, would approve of. But the torrent has been too strong. It has broken through all the puny obstacles I have set up. We are now launched on its full flood, and heaven help those who are not to be found on the right side."

"My dear Edward, tell us what has happened," said Mrs. Perry. "You are keeping us on tenterhooks."

Edward calmed himself a little and said: "It is Mr. and Mrs. Bolster who have put the match to the powder. I am proud to call them friends of mine. The name of Bolster will ring through the ages as that of people who did not shrink from taking a foremost place in the battle of freedom. And I trust that the name of Perry will go down with it."

"Bolster is a very respectable fellow," said Mr. Perry. "I have nothing whatever to say against Bolster, except that he has always been rather a grumbler. But I do not want our name to ring through the ages with his, Edward. Bolster and Perry! It would not sound well."

"What have they done, Edward?" asked Mrs. Perry. "Nothing foolish, I hope."

"Last night," said Edward, consenting at last to be drawn into a plain story, "Bolster came home to find that the inspectors had paid his house a visit. It seems that the cook had given information that the housekeeping bills had not been kept up to the level that the Bolsters are a.s.sessed upon. They made a scene with Mrs. Bolster, and refused to accept her explanation that her son, to whom she chiefly looked to help them in their meals, was away at c.o.xford, and the servants had all along refused to consume their proper share. The inspectors went away, and directed all the Bolsters' tradespeople to supply the house with double the quant.i.ty of goods ordered until further notice."

"They had no right to do that," said Mr. Perry. "They ought to have told Mrs. Bolster to do it, and left an inspector there to see that the goods were consumed. They have acted against the law."

"What do they care about the law?" exclaimed Edward bitterly. "The law in Upsidonia is for the poor, not for the rich. Bolster has taken the law into his own hands, and I am glad of it. I respect and honour him for his n.o.ble stand. When he came home and learnt what had happened, he threw every ounce of food in the house out into the garden. He did more than that. He is a big man, as you know, and he forced his butler to get up all the wine out of his cellar and pour it down the stable drains.

The servants were in a terrible state of anger, but they could do nothing with him. He turned them out of the house neck and crop, and told them they could go and complain to the police. He didn't care where they went or what they did. He stood up to them all, men and women. Then he barricaded all the doors and windows; but before he did so he threw out all the money in the house and all the plate. He is now shut up with Mrs. Bolster and quite prepared to stand a siege. I hope that thousands will follow his example. It will be the end of this stifling tyranny.

The rich will be able to breathe once more, and the selfish poor will have to shoulder their burdens and learn what misery they have inflicted so callously on their unfortunate fellow creatures."

"I am afraid Bolster will get into trouble," said Mr. Perry calmly. "I should not mix myself up with it, Edward, if I were you. We must go on quietly in our own way, without setting cla.s.s against cla.s.s. The methods of anarchy are not for such as us. My dear, another cup of tea, if you please."

Edward choked down his emotion, and succeeded in making a fair breakfast. But I thought that in this matter he did not see eye to eye with his father. In his opinion the time for anarchy _had_ come, and he was nerving himself to take a more prominent part in the struggle he saw coming than the more cautious and experienced Mr. Perry would approve of.

However, he gave us no hint of any intentions he may have formed while we were together, and directly he had finished his meal left the room.

CHAPTER XXII

I followed Edward as soon as I could, for I had a crow of my own to pick with him.

But I found him quite unable to discuss anything but the startling and courageous behaviour of his friend, Mr. Bolster. He was going to his house at once, and I said that I would go with him.

Mr. Bolster lived in a large house not far from Magnolia Hall, and as we walked there I insisted upon Edward listening to my complaint.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" he asked impatiently. "You don't know where you come from, and I don't know either. My explanation is almost certainly the right one, and you _must_ have some explanation of yourself ready. What are you complaining about?"

"I'm complaining of your having told Miriam that I am an escaped lunatic."

"My dear fellow, I'm pretty certain she suspected it. It was the nonsense you talked to her when you first came that made me tell her the truth. Now that she has the explanation she doesn't mind. No sensible girl would. She knows you are all right at present, and she'll see that you don't go wrong again."

I had to leave it at that. There was no satisfaction to be got out of the officious Edward.

Mr. Bolster's house was a pretentious building in the Italianate Gothic style, with Byzantine and other features. It stood in an extremely ugly garden, with asphalt paths, and stretches of gra.s.s cut up into beds of the shape of crescents, triangles, starfishes, Prince of Wales'

feathers, interrogation marks, all elaborately planted to imitate carpets or rugs of the worst possible design. Wherever there was room for it, there was a large gla.s.s-house, and apparently Mr. Bolster had employed some of the hours of his self-imposed incarceration in throwing things at them; for there was hardly a pane within range that was left intact, and the ground about them was littered with lumps of coal and with the smaller articles of household furnis.h.i.+ng, with which he, and possibly Mrs. Bolster, had missed their aim. The things with which they had been more fortunate were inside the gla.s.s-houses, which presented a picture of destruction that showed the seriousness of the battle now being waged.

Scattered about on the flower-beds, and on the gra.s.s near the house, was a curious a.s.sortment of articles, which included joints of meat, silver epergnes, brocaded cus.h.i.+ons, cooking utensils, wearing apparel, pictures, clocks, and indeed every article of luxury that such a house as this might contain.

We were not the only people who had come to gaze at this extraordinary scene. There was a well-dressed ill-mannered crowd hanging about and looking up at the shuttered windows; and more were driving up every minute. Many of them gathered round Edward, who was generally recognized, and gave him such items of news as they thought might interest him.

"You'll see 'im in a minute," said one excited gentleman. "'E put 'is 'ead out of that window just now. 'Ad a c.o.c.k-shy at one of the bobbies, wiv a boot-tree. There it is."

"Have the police been here?" asked Edward. "Where are they now?"

"Gorn off to git some more. Lor lumme! it ain't 'arf a circus, is it?"

The opulent-looking overfed ladies and gentlemen around us seemed more amused than impressed with what was going on. But Edward's face was very grave. "Poor creatures!" he said aside to me. "They are hardly capable of taking anything seriously. They lead such terrible lives that anything is a distraction to them. When a chance of emanc.i.p.ation comes, they are too sunk in misery to take it."

They did not appear to me to be precisely sunk in misery, and but for their fine clothes and the smart-looking equipages in which they had arrived, and which were now gathered round the gates waiting to take them away again, they were exactly like a careless, rather noisy London crowd, come out to see some fun.

As Edward was speaking there was a shout, and, looking up at a sort of Florentine balcony stuck on to a crenellated tower, I saw the now notorious Mr. Bolster, standing with his arms folded, surveying the crowd. He was in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and had not brushed his hair. Possibly he had thrown all the brushes in the house at the conservatories.

The crowd cheered him, and he bowed repeatedly with an air of self-satisfaction, but presently held up his hand to command silence, and then made a short speech.

"Fellow men and fellow women," he said. "I've begun, and now it's for you to carry on. Down with servants! Down with luckshry! Down with the pore!"

The renewed cheers with which this stirring address was received caused Edward's eyes to brighten. "Their hearts are in the right place," he said. "They only want a leader." Then he raised his voice and shouted: "Three cheers for Bolster and his n.o.ble wife!"

The cheers were given, and Mrs. Bolster, attired in what I believe is called a peignoir, appeared by the side of her husband and acknowledged them with him. Then both of them retired from the balcony.

Edward now set himself to turn the enthusiasm of the crowd in a practical direction. He did not address them collectively, but spoke to one here and there, and presently had round him a number of people who showed that they also recognized that Mr. Bolster's demonstration had sprung from a state of affairs intolerable to them as well as to him.

"Look 'ere, what do yer think of this?" asked one man. "Me and the missus was going to the theaytre, and my second coachman was adrivin' of us. Well, 'e took us round to where a old aunt of the cook's lived, and there we 'ad to set in the kerridge for 'alf an hour, while 'e yarned with 'er ladys.h.i.+p about a dinner-party they were giving in the servants'

'all, and 'oo was to be invited, and all such things as them. And 'er taking no more notice of us than if we wasn't there!"

"Yuss, it's just like 'em," said another. "My groom of the chambers 'auled me over the coals the other day for not usin' up the stationery quicker. Blarst 'im and 'is stationery, I sez, and I'd a good mind to tell 'im so."

"Why didn't you?" asked Edward. "If you were all to make a stand against this tyranny to which you are subjected, you could end it to-morrow. See what Bolster has done! It isn't all talk with him; it's action."

But, much as they no doubt approved of Bolster's bold stand, they seemed to shrink from taking any steps to follow his lead. Edward, who now began to go round among them with a note-book to take the names of those who were ready for concerted action, got more refusals than promises of support.

"What's the good?" asked one man. "They'll git 'old of Bolster all right, you'll see, and 'e'll be worse off than 'e was before. I ain't agoing to risk my luxurious 'ome, and run myself into trouble, not till I see a lot more of 'em chucking things about. It's all very well for Bolster. 'E ain't got a lot o' kids depending on 'im. A pretty thing if I was to leave mine to get through all the grub by themselves, while I was sent to chokey! 'Cos they don't let you order in no less. I've got a good appet.i.te so far, and I can stand it better nor what they can."

That was the trouble with most of these long-suffering people. They were fighting their daily battle against profusion, not for themselves alone, but for dear ones dependent on them; and I could not find it in my heart to blame them for shrinking from throwing themselves into Edward's campaign.

But now there came a diversion. A butcher's cart drove up to the house, driven by an aristocratic-looking young man in a blue coat. Mr. Bolster appeared again on the Florentine balcony, and let down a basket, into which was put a large a.s.sortment of fleshy delicacies. These he hauled up. When he had collected them all around him, he held up four lamb cutlets for us to see, and handed them to his wife. Then he began to bombard the butcher with the rest of the lamb cutlets, sweetbreads, lumps of suet, and everything else that he had so carefully taken from him; and so accurate was his aim that the young man swung off down the drive, s.h.i.+elding his well-greased head with his arm, and exhibiting every sign of resentment. When he was out of range, he pulled up and addressed Mr. Bolster most injuriously, threatening him with all sorts of penalties. But the crowd, heartened by the exhibition, jeered at him, and presently he drove away.