The Arbiter Part 11

"Even admitting that," said Rendel, "it seems to me that the determination and courage necessary to knock down what is in your way, when it can't be got out by any other method, is part of what makes a great statesman."

"You speak," said Sir William, "as if he were a savage potentate."

"In some respects," said Rendel, "the savage potentate and civilised ruler are inevitably alike. The ultimate ground, the ultimate arbiter of their empire, is force."

"Empire!" said Sir William. "That is the cry! In your greed for empire you lose sight of everything but the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of a dominion already so immense as to be unwieldy."

"Still," said Rendel, "as we have this big thing in our hands, it is better to keep it there than let it drop and break to pieces."

"I don't wish to let it drop," said Gore. "I wish to be content to increase it by friendly intercourse with the world, by the arts of peace and civilisation, and not by destruction and bloodshed."

"I am afraid," said Rendel, "that the savage, which, as you say too truly, still lurks in the majority of civilised beings, will not be content to see the world governed on those amiable lines."

"There I must beg leave to differ from you," said Sir William, "I believe that the majority of civilised human beings will, when it has been put before them, be on the side of peace."

"We shall see," Rendel said, with a smile which was perhaps not as conciliatory as he intended it to be.

"Yes, you will see when the General Election comes," said Gore. "And if it goes for us, and we have a Cabinet composed of men who are not the mere puppets in the hands of an autocrat, the destinies of the world will be altered."

"Father," said Rachel, "do you really think that is how the General Election will go?"

"Quite possibly," Gore said, with decision. Rendel said nothing.

"Oh, father!" said Rachel. "I wish that you were in Parliament! Suppose you were in the Government!"

"Ah, well, my life as you know, was otherwise filled up," said Sir William, with a sigh; "but in that case the Imperialists perhaps might not have found everything such plain sailing." And so much had he penetrated himself with the conviction of what he was saying, that he felt himself, as he sat there opposite Rendel, whose wisdom and sagacity in reality so far exceeded his own, to be in the position of the older, wiser man of great influence and many opportunities condescending to explain his own career to an obscure novice.

Rendel looked across at Rachel sitting opposite to him, listening to what her father said with her customary air of sweet and gentle deference, and then smiling at himself; and again he inwardly vowed that, for her sake, he would endure the daily pinp.r.i.c.ks that are almost as difficult to bear in the end as one good sword-thrust.

"I must say it will be interesting to see who goes out as Governor of British Zambesiland," he said presently, looking up from the paper.

"That will be a big job if you like."

"Let's hope they will find a big man to do it," said Sir William.

"I heard to-day," said Rendel, "that it would probably be Belmont."

"Well, he'll be a firebrand Governor after Stamfordham's own heart,"

said Gore. "It's absurd sending all these young men out to these important posts."

"That is rather Stamfordham's theory," said Rendel--"to have youngish men, I mean."

"If he would confine himself to theories," said Sir William, "it would be better for England at this moment."

"It might, however, interfere with his practical use as a Foreign Secretary," Rendel was about to say, but he checked the words on his tongue.

After dinner that evening he remained downstairs under pretext of writing some letters, while Rachel proposed to her father to give her a lesson in chess.

Rendel turned on the electric light in his study, shut the door, stood in front of the fire and looked round him with a delightful sense of possession, of privacy, of well-being. His new house--indeed, one might almost have said his new life--was still so recent a possession as to have lost none of its preciousness. He still felt a childish joy in all its details. The house was one of those built within the last decade which seem to have made a struggle to escape the uniformity of the older streets. The front door opened into a square hall, from the left side of which opened the dining-room, from the right the study, both of these rooms having bow windows, built with that broad sweep of curve which makes for beauty instead of vulgarity. The house, Rendel had told his wife with a smile when they came to it, he had furnished for her, with the exception of one room in it; the study he had arranged for himself.

And it certainly was a room in which, to judge by appearances, a worker need never be stopped in his work by the paltry need of any necessary tool. Rendel was a man of almost exaggerated precision and order.

Everything lay ready to his hand in the place where he expected to find it. A glance at his well-appointed writing-table gave evidence of it.

The back wall of the study, opposite the window, was lined with books.

On the wall over the fireplace hung a large map of Africa. Rendel looked intently at it as he thought of the stirring pages of history that were in the making on that huge, misshapen continent, of the field that it was going to be for the statesmen and administrators of the future: he thought of Lord Belmont, only two years older than himself, with whom he had been at Eton and at Oxford, and wondered what it felt like to be in his place and have the ball at one's feet. For Rendel in his heart was burning with ambition of no ign.o.ble kind. He was burning to do, to act, and not to watch only; to take his part in shaping the destinies of his fellow-men, to help the world into what he believed to be the right path; and he would do it yet. In his mind that evening, as he stood upright, intent, looking on into the future, there was not the shadow of a doubt that he would carry out his purpose. He had come downstairs smarting under the impression of Sir William's last words when they were discussing the new Governor. Then he recovered, and reminded himself of the obvious truism that the man occupied with politics must school himself to have his opinions contradicted by his opponents, and must make up his mind that there are as many people opposed to his way of thinking in the world as agreeing with it. But it is one thing to engage in a free fight in the open field, and another to keep parrying the petty blows dealt by a persecuting antagonist. Day by day, hour by hour, as the time went on, Rendel had to make a conscious effort to keep to the line he had traced out for himself; he had to tighten his resolution, to readjust his burden. The yoke of even a beloved companions.h.i.+p may be willingly borne, but it is a yoke and a restraint for all that. But Rendel would not have forgotten it. He accepted the lot he had chosen, unspeakably grateful to Rachel for having bestowed such happiness on him, ready and determined to fulfil his part of the compact, to carry out, even at the cost of a daily and hourly sacrifice, the bargain he had made. And, after all, as long as he made up his mind that it did not signify, he could well afford, in the great happiness that had fallen to his lot, to disregard the minor annoyances. His life, his standards, should be arranged on a scale that would enable him to disregard them. If one is only moving along swiftly enough, one has impetus to glide over minor impediments without being stopped or turned aside by them. For Rachel's sake all would be possible, it would be almost easy. At any rate, it should be done. Rendel's will felt braced and strengthened by his resolve, and he knew that he would be master of his fate. There are certain moments in our lives when we stop at a turning, it may be, to take stock of our situation, when we look back along the road we have come--how interminable it seemed as we began it!--and look along the one we are going to travel, prepared to start onward again with a fresh impulse of purpose and energy. That night, as Rendel looked on into the future, he felt like the knight who, lance in rest but ready to his hand, rides out into the world ready to embrace the opportunity that shall come to him.

CHAPTER X

The opportunity that came that night was ushered in somewhat prosaically, not by the sound of a foeman's horn being wound in the distance, but by the postman's knock. There was only one letter, but that was an important looking one addressed to Rendel, in a big, square envelope with an official signature in the corner. It was, however, marked "private and confidential," and was not written in an official capacity. Rendel as he looked at it, saw that the signature was "Belmont." In an instant as he unfolded the page his hopes leapt to meet the words he would find there. Yes, Lord Belmont was going to be Governor of Zambesiland; that was the beginning. And what was this that followed? He asked Rendel whether, if offered the post of Governor's Secretary, practically the second in command, he would accept it and go out to Africa with him. The offer, which meant a five years'

appointment, was flatteringly worded, with a mention of Lord Stamfordham's strong recommendation which had prompted it, and wound up with an earnestly expressed hope that Rendel would not at any rate refuse without having deeply considered it. Belmont, however, asked for a reply as soon as was consistent with the serious reflection necessary before taking the step. Rendel looked at the clock. It was half-past nine. He need not write by post that night, he would send round the first thing in the morning. That would do as well. At this particular moment he need do nothing but look the thing in the face. Serious consideration it should have, undoubtedly, though that was not needed in order to come to a decision. He was not afraid of gazing at this new possibility that had just swum into his ken. The moment that comes to those who are going to achieve, when the door in the wall, showing that glorious vista beyond, suddenly opens to them, is fraught with an excited joy which partakes at once of antic.i.p.ation and of fulfilment, and is probably never surpa.s.sed when in the fulness of time the opportunities come even too fast on each other's heels, and it has become a foregone conclusion to take advantage of them. There is no moment of outlook that has the charm of that first gaze from afar, when the deep blue distances cloak what is lovely and unlovely alike and merge them all into one harmonious and inviting mystery. Rendel was in no hurry for that curtain of mysterious distance to lift: possibility and success lay behind it. He relished with an exquisite pleasure the sense of having a dream fulfilled. The crucial moment that comes to nearly all of us of having to compare the place that others a.s.sign to us in life with that which we imagined we were ent.i.tled to occupy, is to some fraught with the bitterest disappointment. The sense of having cleared successfully that great gulf which lies between one's own appreciation of oneself and that of other people is one of rapture.

Rendel had been so short a time married, and had had so few opportunities during that time of being called upon for any decision, that it was an entirely new sensation to him to remember suddenly that this was a thing which concerned somebody else as well as it did himself. But the thought was nothing but sweet; it meant that there was somebody now by his side, there always would be, to care for the things that happened to him; and Rachel, too, would be borne up on the wave of excitement and rejoicing that was shaking Rendel, to his own surprise, so strangely out of his usual reserved composure. He sat down mechanically at his writing-table and drew a sheet of writing-paper idly towards him, wondering how he should formulate his reply. To his great surprise and somewhat shamefaced amus.e.m.e.nt, he found that his hand was shaking so that he could not control the pen. He would go up before writing and tell Rachel. Then, as he went upstairs, he was conscious of a secret annoyance that a third person should just at this moment be between them.

A profound silence reigned as he opened the drawing-room door. Rachel and her father were poring intently over the chess-board. Rachel looked up eagerly as her husband came in.

"Oh, Francis," she said, "I am so glad. Do come and tell me what to do."

"Yes, I wish you would," Sir William said, with some impatience. "Look what she is doing with her queen."

"Is that a letter you want to show me?" said Rachel, looking at the envelope in Rendel's hand.

"All right. It will keep," he said quietly, putting it back in his breast pocket.

Sir William kept his eyes intently fixed upon the board. He would not countenance any diversion of fixed and rigid attention from the game in hand.

"That is what I should do," said Rendel, moving one of Rachel's p.a.w.ns on to the back line.

"Oh! how splendid!" said Rachel. "I believe I have a chance after all."

Sir William gave a grunt of satisfaction. "That's more like it," he said. "If you had come up a little sooner we might have had a decent game."

Rendel made no comment. The game ended in the most auspicious way possible. Rachel, backed by Rendel's advice, showed fight a little longer and left the victory to Sir William in the end after a desperate struggle. The hour of departure came. Rachel and her husband both went downstairs with Sir William. They opened the door. It was a bright, starlight night. Sir William announced his intention of walking to a cab, and with his coat b.u.t.toned up against the east wind, started off along the pavement. Rachel turned back into the house with a sigh as she saw him go.

"He is getting to look much older, isn't he?" she said. "Poor dear, it is hard on him to have to turn out at this time of night."

Rendel vaguely heard and barely took in the meaning of what she was saying. His one idea was that now he would be able to tell her his news.

"Come in here," he said, drawing her into the study. "I want to tell you something." And he made her sit down in his own comfortable chair. "I have had a letter this evening," he said.

"Have you?" said Rachel, looking up at him in surprise at the unusual note of joyousness, almost of exultation, in his tone. "What is it about?"

"You shall read it," he said, giving it to her. Her colour rose as she read on.

"Oh, what an opportunity!" she said, and a tinge of regret crept strangely into her voice. "What a pity!"

"A pity?" said Rendel, looking at her.

"Yes," she said. "It would have been so delightful."