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A Woman Intervenes by Robert Barr

R >> Robert Barr >> A Woman Intervenes



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed
Proofreaders. This file was produced from images generously made
available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.




A WOMAN INTERVENES

BY

ROBERT BARR




AUTHOR OF

'IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS,' 'IN A STEAMER CHAIR,' 'FROM WHOSE BOURNE,'
ETC.

WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY HAL HURST

1896

TO

MY FRIEND

HORACE HART




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

'I HAD NO INTENTION OF INSULTING YOU' _Frontispiece_

WENTWORTH SHOWED HER HOW TO TURN IT ROUND

MISS JENNIE ALLOWED HIM TO ADJUST THE WRAPS AROUND HER

'OH, YES! YOU WILL STAY,' CRIED THE OTHER

SHE WALKED ALONE UP AND DOWN THE PROMENADE

SHE SPRANG SUDDENLY TO HER FEET

'YOU HAVE A PRODIGIOUS HEAD FOR BUSINESS'

EDITH LONGWORTH HAD SAT DOWN BESIDE HIM




CHAPTER I.


The managing editor of the _New York Argus_ sat at his desk with a deep
frown on his face, looking out from under his shaggy eyebrows at the
young man who had just thrown a huge fur overcoat on the back of one
chair, while he sat down himself on another.

'I got your telegram,' began the editor. 'Am I to understand from it that
you have failed?'

'Yes, sir,' answered the young man, without the slightest hesitation.

'Completely?'

'Utterly.'

'Didn't you even get a synopsis of the documents?'

'Not a hanged synop.'

The editor's frown grew deeper. The ends of his fingers drummed nervously
on the desk.

'You take failure rather jauntily, it strikes me,' he said at last.

'What's the use of taking it any other way? I have the consciousness of
knowing that I did my best.'

'Um, yes. It's a great consolation, no doubt, but it doesn't count in
the newspaper business. What did you do?'

'I received your telegram at Montreal, and at once left for Burnt
Pine--most outlandish spot on earth. I found that Kenyon and
Wentworth were staying at the only hotel in the place. Tried to worm
out of them what their reports were to be. They were very polite, but
I didn't succeed. Then I tried to bribe them, and they ordered me out
of the room.'

'Perhaps you didn't offer them enough.'

'I offered double what the London Syndicate was to pay them for making
the report, taking their own word for the amount. I couldn't offer more,
because at that point they closed the discussion by ordering me out of
the room. I tried to get the papers that night, on the quiet, out of
Wentworth's valise, but was unfortunately interrupted. The young men
were suspicious, and next morning they left for Ottawa to post the
reports, as I gathered afterwards, to England. I succeeded in getting
hold of the reports, but I couldn't hang on. There are too many police
in Ottawa to suit me.'

'Do you mean to tell me,' said the editor, 'that you actually had the
reports in your hands, and that they were taken from you?'

'Certainly I had; and as to their being taken from me, it was either that
or gaol. They don't mince matters in Canada as they do in the United
States, you know.'

'But I should think a man of your shrewdness would have been able to get
at least a synopsis of the reports before letting them out of his
possession.'

'My dear sir,' said the reporter, rather angry, 'the whole thing covered
I forget how many pages of foolscap paper, and was the most mixed-up
matter I ever saw in my life. I tried--I sat in my room at the hotel, and
did my best to master the details. It was full of technicalities, and I
couldn't make it out. It required a mining expert to get the hang of
their phrases and figures, so I thought the best thing to do was to
telegraph it all straight through to New York. I knew it would cost a lot
of money, but I knew, also, you didn't mind that; and I thought, perhaps,
somebody here could make sense out of what baffled me; besides, I wanted
to get the documents out of my possession just as quickly as possible.'

'Hem!' said the editor. 'You took no notes whatever?'

'No, I did not. I had no time. I knew the moment they missed the
documents they would have the detectives on my track. As it was, I was
arrested when I entered the telegraph-office.'

'Well, it seems to me,' said the managing editor, 'if I had once had the
papers in my hand, I should not have let them go until I had got the gist
of what was in them.'

'Oh, it's all very well for you to say so,' replied the reporter, with
the free and easy manner in which an American newspaper man talks to his
employer; 'but I can tell you, with a Canadian gaol facing a man, it is
hard to decide what is best to do. I couldn't get out of the town for
three hours, and before the end of that time they would have had my
description in the hands of every policeman in the place. They knew well
enough who took the papers, so my only hope lay in getting the thing
telegraphed through; and if that had been accomplished, everything would
have been all right. I would have gone to gaol with pleasure if I had
got the particulars through to New York.'

'Well, what are we to do now?' asked the editor.

'I'm sure I don't know. The two men will be in New York very shortly.
They sail, I understand, on the _Caloric_, which leaves in a week. If you
think you have a reporter who can get the particulars out of these men, I
should be very pleased to see you set him on. I tell you it isn't so easy
to discover what an Englishman doesn't want you to know.'

'Well,' said the editor, 'perhaps that's true. I will think about it. Of
course you did your best, and I appreciate your efforts; but I am sorry
you failed.'

'You are not half so sorry as I am,' said Rivers, as he picked up his big
Canadian fur coat and took his leave.

The editor did think about it. He thought for fully two minutes. Then he
dashed off a note on a sheet of paper, pulled down the little knob that
rang the District Messenger alarm, and when the uniformed boy appeared,
gave him the note, saying:

'Deliver this as quickly as you can.'

The boy disappeared, and the result of his trip was soon apparent in the
arrival of a very natty young woman in the editorial rooms. She was
dressed in a neatly-fitting tailor-made costume, and was a very pretty
girl, who looked about nineteen, but was, in reality, somewhat older. She
had large, appealing blue eyes, with a tender, trustful expression in
them, which made the ordinary man say: 'What a sweet, innocent look that
girl has!' yet, what the young woman didn't know about New York was not
worth knowing. She boasted that she could get State secrets from
dignified members of the Cabinet, and an ordinary Senator or Congressman
she looked upon as her lawful prey. That which had been told her in the
strictest confidence had often become the sensation of the next day in
the paper she represented. She wrote over a _nom de guerre_, and had
tried her hand at nearly everything. She had answered advertisements,
exposed rogues and swindlers, and had gone to a hotel as chambermaid, in
order to write her experiences. She had been arrested and locked up, so
that she might write a three-column account, for the Sunday edition of
the _Argus_, of 'How Women are Treated at Police Headquarters.' The
editor looked upon her as one of the most valuable members of his staff,
and she was paid accordingly.

She came into the room with the self-possessed air of the owner of the
building, took a seat, after nodding to the editor, and said, 'Well?'

'Look here, Jennie,' began that austere individual, 'do you wish to take
a trip to Europe?'

'That depends,' said Jennie; 'this is not just the time of year that
people go to Europe for pleasure, you know.'

'Well, this is not exactly a pleasure trip. The truth of the matter is,
Rivers has been on a job and has bungled it fearfully, besides nearly
getting himself arrested.'

The young woman's eyes twinkled. She liked anything with a spice of
danger in it, and did not object to hear that she was expected to succeed
where a mere masculine reporter had failed.

The editor continued:

'Two young men are going across to England on the _Caloric_. It sails in
a week. I want you to take a ticket for Liverpool by that boat, and
obtain from either of those two men the particulars--the _full_
particulars--of reports they have made on some mining properties in
Canada. Then you must land at Queenstown and cable a complete account to
the _Argus_.'

'Mining isn't much in my line,' said Miss Jennie, with a frown on her
pretty brow. 'What sort of mines were they dealing with--gold, silver,
copper, or what?'

'They are certain mines on the Ottawa River.'

'That's rather indefinite.'

'I know it is. I can't give you much information about the matter. I
don't know myself, to tell the truth, but I know it is vitally important
that we should get a synopsis of what the reports of these young men are
to be. A company, called the London Syndicate, has been formed in
England. This syndicate is to acquire a large number of mines in Canada,
if the accounts given by the present owners are anything like correct.
Two men, Kenyon and Wentworth--the first a mining engineer, and the
second an experienced accountant--have been sent from London to Canada,
one to examine the mines, the other to examine the books of the various
corporations. Whether the mines are bought or not will depend a good deal
on the reports these two men have in their possession. The reports, when
published, will make a big difference, one way or the other, on the Stock
Exchange. I want to have the gist of them before the London Syndicate
sees them. It will be a big thing for the _Argus_ if it is the first in
the field, and I am willing to spend a pile of hard cash to succeed. So,
don't economize on your cable expenses.'

'Very well; have you a book on Canadian mines?'

'I don't know that we have; but there is a book here, "The Mining
Resources of Canada;" will that be of any use?'

'I shall need something of that sort. I want to be a little familiar with
the subject, you know.'

'Quite so,' said the editor; 'I will see what can be got in that line.
You can read it before you start, and on the way over.'

'All right,' said Miss Jennie; 'and am I to take my pick of the two
young men?'

'Certainly,' answered the editor. 'You will see them both, and can easily
make up your mind which will the sooner fall a victim.'

'The _Caloric_ sails in a week, does it?'

'Yes.'

'Then I shall need at least five hundred dollars to get new dresses
with.'

'Good gracious!' cried the editor.

'There is no "good gracious" about it. I'm going to travel as a
millionaire's daughter, and it isn't likely that one or two dresses will
do me all the way over.'

'But you can't get new dresses made in a week,' said the editor.

'Can't I? Well, you just get me the five hundred dollars, and I'll see
about the making.'

The editor jotted the amount down.

'You don't think four hundred dollars would do?' he said.

'No, I don't. And, say, am I to get a trip to Paris after this is over,
or must I come directly back?'

'Oh, I guess we can throw in the trip to Paris,' said the editor.

'What did you say the names of the young men are?--or are they not
young? Probably they are old fogies, if they are in the mining business.'

'No; they are young, they are shrewd, and they are English. So you see
your work is cut out for you. Their names are George Wentworth and
John Kenyon.'

'Oh, Wentworth is my man,' said the young woman breezily. 'John Kenyon! I
know just what sort of a person he is--sombre and taciturn. Sounds too
much like John Bunyan, or John Milton, or names of that sort.'

'Well, I wouldn't be too sure about it until you see them. Better not
make up your mind about the matter.'

'When shall I call for the five hundred dollars?'

'Oh, that you needn't trouble about. The better way is to get your
dresses made, and tell the people to send the bills to our office.'

'Very well,' said the young woman. 'I shall be ready. Don't be frightened
at the bills when they come in. If they come up to a thousand dollars,
remember I told you I would let you off for five hundred dollars.'

The editor looked at her for a moment, and seemed to reflect that
perhaps it was better not to give a young lady unlimited credit in New
York. So he said:

'Wait a bit; I'll write you out the order, and you can take it
downstairs.'

Miss Jennie took the paper when it was offered to her, and disappeared.
When she presented the order in the business office, the cashier raised
his eyebrows as he noticed the amount, and, with a low whistle, said to
himself:

'Five hundred dollars! I wonder what game Jennie Brewster's up to now.'




CHAPTER II.


The last bell had rung. Those who were going ashore had taken their
departure. Crowds of human beings clustered on the pier-head, and at the
large doorways of the warehouse which stood open on the steamer wharf. As
the big ship slowly backed out there was a fluttering of handkerchiefs
from the mass on the pier, and an answering flutter from those who
crowded along the bulwarks of the steamer. The tug slowly pulled the prow
of the vessel round, and at last the engines of the steamship began their
pulsating throbs--throbs that would vibrate night and day until the
steamer reached an older civilization. The crowd on the pier became more
and more indistinct to those on board, and many of the passengers went
below, for the air was bitterly cold, and the boat was forcing its way
down the bay among huge blocks of ice.

Two, at least, of the passengers had taken little interest in the
departure. They were leaving no friends behind them, and were both
setting their faces toward friends at home.

'Let us go down,' said Wentworth to Kenyon, 'and see that we get seats
together at table before all are taken.'

'Very good,' replied his companion, and they descended to the roomy
saloon, where two long tables were already laid with an ostentatious
display of silver, glassware, and cutlery, which made many, who looked on
this wilderness of white linen with something like dismay, hope that the
voyage would be smooth, although, as it was a winter passage, there was
every chance it would not be. The purser and two of his assistants sat
at one of the shorter tables with a plan before them, marking off the
names of passengers who wished to be together, or who wanted some
particular place at any of the tables. The smaller side-tables were still
uncovered because the number of passengers at that season of the year was
comparatively few. As the places were assigned, one of the helpers to the
purser wrote the names of the passengers on small cards, and the other
put the cards on the tables.

One young woman, in a beautifully-fitting travelling gown, which was
evidently of the newest cut and design, stood a little apart from the
general group which surrounded the purser and his assistants. She eagerly
scanned every face, and listened attentively to the names given.
Sometimes a shade of disappointment crossed her brow, as if she expected
some particular person to possess some particular name which that
particular person did not bear. At last her eyes sparkled.

'My name is Wentworth,' said the young man whose turn it was.

'Ah! any favourite place, Mr. Wentworth?' asked the purser blandly, as if
he had known Wentworth all his life.

'No, we don't care where we sit; but my friend Mr. Kenyon and myself
would like places together.'

'Very good; you had better come to my table,' replied the purser.
'Numbers 23 and 24--Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Wentworth.'

The steward took the cards that were given him, and placed them to
correspond with the numbers the purser had named. Then the young woman
moved gracefully along, as if she were interested in the names upon the
table. She looked at Wentworth's name for a moment, and saw in the place
next to his the name of Mr. Brown. She gave a quick, apprehensive glance
around the saloon, and observed the two young men who had arranged for
their seats at table now walking leisurely toward the companion-way. She
took the card with the name of Mr. Brown upon it, and slipped upon the
table another on which were written the words 'Miss Jennie Brewster.' Mr.
Brown's card she placed on the spot from which she had taken her own.

'I hope Mr. Brown is not particular which place he occupies,' said Jennie
to herself; 'but at any rate I shall see that I am early for dinner, and
I'm sure Mr. Brown, whoever he is, will not be so ungallant as to insist
on having this place if he knows his card was here.'

Subsequent events proved her surmise regarding Mr. Brown's indifference
to be perfectly well founded. That young man searched for his card, found
it, and sat down on the chair opposite the young woman, who already
occupied her chair, and was, in fact, the first one at table. Seeing
there would be no unseemly dispute about places, she began to plan in her
own mind how she would first attract the attention of Mr. Wentworth.
While thinking how best to approach her victim, Jennie heard his voice.

'Here you are, Kenyon; here are our places.'

'Which is mine?' said the voice of Kenyon.

'It doesn't matter,' answered Wentworth, and then a thrill of fear went
through the gentle heart of Miss Jennie Brewster. She had not thought of
the young man not caring which seat he occupied, and she dreaded the
possibility of finding herself next to Kenyon rather than Wentworth. Her
first estimate of the characters of the two men seemed to be correct. She
always thought of Kenyon as Bunyan, and she felt certain that Wentworth
would be the easier man of the two to influence. The next moment her
fears were allayed, for Kenyon, giving a rapid glance at the handsome
young woman, deliberately chose the seat farthest from her, and
Wentworth, with 'I beg your pardon,' slipped in and sat down on the chair
beside her.

'Now,' thought Jennie, with a sigh of relief, 'our positions are fixed
for the meals of the voyage.' She had made her plans for beginning an
acquaintance with the young man, but they were rendered unnecessary by
the polite Mr. Wentworth handing her the bill of fare.

'Oh, thank you,' said the girl, in a low voice, which was so musical that
Wentworth glanced at her a second time and saw how sweet and pretty and
innocent she was.

'I'm in luck,' said the unfortunate young man to himself. Then he
remarked aloud: 'We have not many ladies with us this voyage.'

'No,' replied Miss Brewster; 'I suppose nobody crosses at this time of
the year unless compelled to.'

'I can answer for two passengers that such is the case.'

'Do you mean yourself as one?'

'Yes, myself and my friend.'

'How pleasant it must be,' said Miss Brewster, 'to travel with a friend!
Then one is not lonely. I, unfortunately, am travelling alone.'

'I fancy,' said the gallant Wentworth, 'that if you are lonely while on
board ship, it will be entirely your own fault.'

Miss Brewster laughed a silvery little laugh.

'I don't know about that,' she said. 'I am going to that Mecca of all
Americans--Paris. My father is to meet me there, and we are then going on
to the Riviera together.'

'Ah, that will be very pleasant,' said Wentworth. 'The Riviera at this
season is certainly a place to be desired.'

'So I have heard,' she replied.

'Have you not been across before?'

'No, this is my first trip. I suppose you have crossed many times?'

'Oh no,' answered the Englishman; 'this is only my second voyage, my
first having been the one that took me to America.'

'Ah, then you are not an American,' returned Miss Brewster, with
apparent surprise.

She imagined that a man is generally flattered when a mistake of this
kind is made. No matter how proud he may be of his country, he is pleased
to learn that there is no provincialism about him which, as the Americans
say, 'gives him away.'

'I think,' said Wentworth, 'as a general thing, I am not taken for
anything but what I am--an Englishman.'

'I have met so few Englishmen,' said the guileless young woman, 'that
really I should not be expected to know.'

'I understand it is a common delusion among Americans that every
Englishman drops his "h's," and is to be detected in that way.'

Jennie laughed again, and George Wentworth thought it one of the
prettiest laughs he had ever heard.

Poor Kenyon was rather neglected by his friend during the dinner. He felt
a little gloomy while the courses went on, and wished he had an evening
paper. Meanwhile, Wentworth and the handsome girl beside him got on very
well together. At the end of the dinner she seemed to have some
difficulty in getting up from her chair, and Wentworth showed her how to
turn it round, leaving her free to rise. She thanked him prettily.

'I am going on deck,' she said, turning to go; 'I am so anxious to get my
first glimpse of the ocean at night from the deck of a steamer.'

'I hope you will let me accompany you,' returned young Wentworth. 'The
decks are rather slippery, and even when the boat is not rolling it
isn't quite safe for a lady unused to the motion of a ship to walk alone
in the dark.'

'Oh, thank you very much,' replied Miss Brewster, with effusion. 'It
is kind of you, I am sure; and if you promise not to let me rob you
of the pleasure of your after-dinner cigar, I shall be most happy to
have you accompany me. I will meet you at the top of the stairway in
five minutes.'

'You are getting on,' said Kenyon, as the young woman disappeared.

'What's the use of being on board ship,' said Wentworth, 'If you don't
take advantage of the opportunity for making shipboard acquaintances?
There is an unconventionality about life on a steamer that is not without
its charm, as perhaps you will find out before the voyage is over, John.'

'You are merely trying to ease your conscience because of your heartless
desertion of me.'

George Wentworth had waited at the top of the companion-way a little more
than five minutes when Miss Brewster appeared, wrapped in a cloak edged
with fur, which lent an additional charm to her complexion, set off as it
was by a jaunty steamer cap. They stepped out on the deck, and found it
not at all so dark as they had expected. Little globes of electric light
were placed at regular intervals on the walls of the deck building.
Overhead was stretched a sort of canvas roof, against which the sleety
rain pattered. One of the sailors, with a rubber mop, was pushing into
the gutter by the side of the ship the moisture from the deck. All around
the boat the night was as black as ink, except here and there where the
white curl of a wave showed luminous for a moment in the darkness.

Miss Brewster insisted that Wentworth should light his cigar, which,
after some persuasion, he did. Then he tucked her hand snugly under his
arm, and she adjusted her step to suit his. They had the promenade all to
themselves. The rainy winter night was not so inviting to most of the
passengers as the comfortable rooms below. Kenyon, however, and one or
two others came up, and sat on the steamer chairs that were tied to the
brass rod which ran along the deckhouse wall. He saw the glow of
Wentworth's cigar as the couple turned at the farther end of the walk,
and when they passed him he heard a low murmur of conversation, and
caught now and then a snatch of silvery laughter. It was not because
Wentworth had deserted him that Kenyon felt so uncomfortable and
depressed. He could not tell just what it was, but there had settled on
his mind a strange, uneasy foreboding. After a time he went down into the
saloon and tried to read, but could not, and so wandered along the
seemingly endless narrow passage to his room (which was Wentworth's as
well), and, in nautical phrase, 'turned in.' It was late when his
companion came.

'Asleep, Kenyon?' asked the latter.

'No,' was the answer.

'By George! John, she is one of the most charming girls I ever met.
Wonderfully clever, too; makes a man feel like a fool beside her. She has
read nearly everything. Has opinions on all our authors, a great many of
whom I've never heard of. I wish, for your sake, John, she had a sister
on board.'

'Thanks, old man; awfully good of you, I'm sure,' said Kenyon. 'Don't
you think it's about time to stop raving, get into your bunk, and turn
out that confounded light?'

'All right, growler, I will.'

Meanwhile, in her own state-room, Miss Jennie Brewster was looking at her
reflection in the glass. As she shook out her long hair until it rippled
down her back, she smiled sweetly, and said to herself:

'Poor Mr. Wentworth! Only the first night out, and he told me his name
was George.'




CHAPTER III.


The second day out was a pleasant surprise for all on board who had made
up their minds to a disagreeable winter passage. The air was clear, the
sky blue as if it were spring-time, instead of midwinter. They were in
the Gulf Stream. The sun shone brightly and the temperature was mild.
Nevertheless, it was an uncomfortable day for those who were poor
sailors. Although there did not seem, to the casual observer, to be much
of a sea running, the ship rolled atrociously. Those who had made heroic
resolutions on the subject were sitting in silent misery in their
deck-chairs, which had been lashed to firm stanchions. Few were walking
the clean bright deck, because walking that morning was a gymnastic feat.
Three or four who evidently wished to show they had crossed before, and
knew all about it, managed to make their way along the deck. Those
recumbent in the steamer-chairs watched with lazy interest the
pedestrians who now and then stood still, leaning apparently far out of
the perpendicular, as the deck inclined downward. Sometimes the
pedestrian's feet slipped, and he shot swiftly down the incline. Such an
incident was invariably welcomed by those who sat. Even the invalids
smiled wanly.

Extract: The Whales by Evie Wyld

Christos Tsiolkas and David Mitchell, both much-tipped when they appeared on the award longlist, have been overlooked in the six finalists

It headed the most controversial Man Booker prize longlist in years, but Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap has failed to make the final cut for the literary award, as has David Mitchell's much-tipped fifth novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

Judges overlooked Australian novelist Tsiolkas's tale of the consequences when a child is slapped at a suburban barbecue – which is either "unbelievably misogynistic" or "riveting from beginning to end", depending on who's asked – and Mitchell, twice shortlisted for the prize in the past, to select a shortlist which ranges from two-time former winner Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America to Emma Donoghue. The Irish writer has also stirred up debate with her Josel Fritzl-inspired Room, the story of a boy and his mother imprisoned in a tiny room for years.

Orange prize winner Andrea Levy's The Long Song, about the last years of slavery in Jamaica; Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question, a cerebral comedy about grief and Anglo-Jewishness; experimental novelist Tom McCarthy's C, which tells the story of Serge Carrefax, a first world war radio operator who escapes from a German prison camp; and South African writer Damon Galgut's tale of a young man travelling through Greece, India and Africa, In a Strange Room, complete the six-strong shortlist for the £50,000 prize, announced this morning.

"It's been a great privilege and an exciting challenge for us to reduce our longlist of 13 to this shortlist of six outstandingly good novels," said chair of judges Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate. "In doing so, we feel sure we've chosen books which demonstrate a rich variety of styles and themes – while in every case providing deep individual pleasures."

The panel of judges had previously read 138 books to select the 13 titles for their longlist, with Martin Amis's new novel The Pregnant Widow and Ian McEwan's venture into comic fiction Solar both overlooked and Carey the only previous Booker winner on the longlist.

His inclusion on the shortlist today for Parrot and Olivier in America, a reimagining of Democracy in America author Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to the New World, gives him the chance of becoming the first ever writer to win the Booker three times, having previously taken it in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang.

"The omission of both David Mitchell and Christos Tsiolkas from the shortlist is a real shock. While both writers might rightly feel aggrieved at being overlooked, I imagine it took some wrangling amongst the judges to reduce one of the best longlists in years to six," said Jonathan Ruppin at independent book chain Foyles, who, while praising all six books for their "lightness of touch which means the reader doesn't get bogged down in something worthy or dull", predicted that Room was the most likely title to go on to win the award.

Waterstone's tipped C to take the prize, with fiction buying manager Simon Burke calling it "a challenging yet dazzling novel". "The news that David Mitchell has not made the shortlist will cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth across the bookworld, but perhaps is a useful reminder of the independence and unpredictability of the Booker," he said. "But this is still a hugely varied and exciting list, worthy of the Booker brand. Carey and Levy have to be strong contenders, but our money is on Tom McCarthy. The more people that read [C] the better."

The bookies agreed, with William Hill immediately installing McCarthy as 2/1 favourite to win the prize. "There has been a considerable media buzz around all of the books on the shortlist, and literary punters have staked more money in total on Tom McCarthy to win than any of the other authors, so he is a worthy favourite," said spokesman Graham Sharpe. Donoghue and Galgut came in second at the bookmaker, both at 3/1, with one customer so sure that In A Strange Room would win that they placed £400 on Galgut at 7/1, the largest single bet on the prize "for a few years", said Sharpe.

Carey came in fourth, at 5/1, with Levy at 7/1 and Jacobson the 8/1 outside to take the prize.

The opinion-splitting novels picked for this year's longlist have helped make it the most popular since 2001, with Tsiolkas's novel selling the most copies, followed by Donoghue's. The winner, who will join a roster of former winners including Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle and JM Coetzee, will be announced on 12 October. Last year's winner Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is the fastest-selling Booker winner ever, with sales of around half-a-million copies to date.

The Man Booker shortlist in full:

Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America

Emma Donoghue's Room

Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room

Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question

Andrea Levy's The Long Song

Tom McCarthy's C

The books that send me back to school

For Ralph Miliband governments could never tame capitalism. New Labour thought otherwise – and then came the financial crisis. But what will David or Ed do if they gain the leadership? By John Gray

Viewed from one angle Ralph Miliband was a theorist of revolution who failed to notice the radical transformations going on around him. A lifelong Marxist, he never doubted that the future would be shaped by the struggle against capitalism. In fact it was capitalism that proved to be the revolutionary force in the late 20th century, consigning socialism to the memory hole. By the time Miliband died in May 1994, the Soviet system had been replaced by a type of resource-based authoritarian capitalism, while China's Communist party was overseeing the development of an unbridled market of a kind that Milton Friedman could only dream about.

In Britain in the 1980s Miliband managed to convince himself that Labour, which he had always bitterly attacked, might, under the influence of Tony Benn, turn into a genuinely socialist party. In fact Labour split, which more than any other single factor enabled the continuing dominance of Thatcher. Probably only the battles fought by Neil Kinnock prevented Labour disintegrating altogether. When John Smith became leader, the party began the "prawn cocktail offensive", a rapprochement with the financial sector pursued through private lunches with leading City figures, which formed the prelude to New Labour. Only weeks after Smith died (in the same month as Miliband) the party would start burying any trace of its socialist past.

When he gave the Bennite wing his intellectual support, Miliband was colluding in the politics of make-believe. Yet in one vital respect this intractably oppositional Jewish refugee from nazism had a firmer grip on reality than the social democrats who eventually prevailed in Labour's internecine conflicts, and when he ridiculed Anthony Crosland's vision of a domesticated and pacified capitalism, he left the party with a dilemma it has not been able to resolve. Like Marx, Miliband understood that states and governments are never autonomous actors; their options are shaped, and often foreclosed, by the distribution of power and resources. This was the central theme of Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society (1969), a penetrating assault on social-democratic thinking in which he developed and extended the argument against revisionism of his earlier Parliamentary Socialism: A Study of the Politics of Labour (1961).

In The Future of Socialism (1956), Crosland had argued that Labour must distinguish between means and ends (a theme pursued later by Blair). Capitalism had changed fundamentally, and rather than opposing it Labour should use the market to advance socialist values. Properly managed to ensure steady economic growth, free markets could be used to promote an egalitarian society in which everyone could live the good life. Against this rosy vision, Miliband urged – rightly, I've always thought – that the world had not changed as much as Crosland and his fellow-revisionists imagined. Capitalism remained an unruly beast, and the idea that governments had learnt how to tame it was just an illusion.

The oil shocks of the 70s were an early warning of the fragility of the postwar order. The shocks were not fatal, and capitalism survived the crisis (as it will survive the present crisis, in one form or another). But it was already becoming apparent that while governments could withstand upheavals in the global economy, the state was not the directing agency social democrats imagined it to be. As Miliband saw it, the state was a servant of these forces rather than their potential master. Of course he exaggerated. The interests of capitalists are often at odds, and in any case politics is driven by far more than class conflict. Even so, Miliband's view that the state is constrained, reactive and hemmed in by market forces has become increasingly plausible with the passage of time. But if this is so, what role can there be for a party that aims to make capitalism a force for the collective good? Can a future Labour government succeed where past governments have failed and harness capitalism to a vision of social improvement? Or should Labour accept that it is capitalism itself that must be changed?

These are precisely the questions that face Miliband's sons as they contend for the Labour leadership. The clash between the two has an undeniable drama, and it is not just a matter of sibling rivalry. It occurs at a time when the world economy is in a crisis the founders of New Labour believed to be impossible. Lacking the Marxian insight that capitalism is inherently volatile and constantly mutating, they never doubted that the deregulated finance-capitalism that developed in the US towards the end of the past century would last. The left had to overcome its suspicion of the free market, and accept that only by exploiting its productivity could government improve society: social democracy and neo-liberal economics were actually complementary.

Just like Crosland, though without his Keynesian grasp of the dangers of recurring boom and bust, New Labour believed capitalism had been tamed. But as Ralph Miliband suspected and events have confirmed, the anarchic energy of the free market is not so easily controlled. The fall of communism was celebrated as a triumph of capitalism, which now became practically world-wide; but the effect was to make capitalism more unstable, as disturbances in one part of the system were rapidly transmitted to all the rest. The fragmented world of the cold war was more resilient to shocks, and also more hospitable to social democracy, than the world that ensued. Governments found that few of the levers they used to control the economy worked as they had before. New Labour did not want to control the market. A feature of the understanding it reached with the City was that financial markets would continue to be deregulated. In part this was accepted as the price for power, but it also reflected New Labour's Fukuyama-like faith that market capitalism was the final stage of economic development; the future lay with the self-regulating market.

As could be foreseen, things turned out rather differently. With regulatory controls relaxed or scrapped the financial institutions whose support Labour had wooed became predatory, raking in vast profits from strategies whose risks they did not understand. Inevitably this hubris led to their downfall, and the financial system imploded. The market millennium lasted hardly more than a decade, leaving a legacy of unsustainable debt.

The happy conjunction of neo-liberal economics with social democracy on which New Labour was founded is now history. This is the truth evaded in Tony Blair's autohagiography. If New Labour is obsolete it is not because of the personal defects of Gordon Brown, Blair's delusional moral certainty and incessant war-mongering or even the dysfunctional relationship between the two leaders. It is because American finance-capitalism, the model for virtually everything that New Labour ever did, has blown itself up.

The problem with the debate between the Milibands is not that it risks turning into a public family feud. It is that neither of the two contenders has come to terms with the bankruptcy of the New Labour project in which each of them was involved. Neither has acknowledged, or perhaps fully understood, the implications of the financial crisis for a future Labour government. It can only mean an erosion of the very foundations of Britain's social democratic inheritance. Yet in different ways, each of the Miliband brothers still sees government as capable of controlling market forces – the illusion their father presciently exposed.

In his Keir Hardie lecture in July, David Miliband spoke eloquently of moving away from state paternalism and reviving Labour traditions of mutualism. The state can no longer be the centre of knowledge and initiative – its function is rather that of empowering society. Top-down Fabian control must be replaced by open democratic relationships. No doubt these are desirable goals, if very much in the spirit of the prevailing conventional wisdom and perhaps not so different from Cameron's fluffy "big society". The larger difficulty is that Miliband is harking back to Crosland (whom he recently cited as his political hero) at a time when Crosland's thinking is no longer applicable.

Crosland's vision was based above all on economic growth – steady, continuing and robust. Following Keynes, he believed that wise economic management could create a society of abundance. But the effect of the financial crisis has been to curtail growth, at least in developed economies. Even if the economy recovers, governments will not have the largesse he assumed would be available. Bailing out the banks has passed the burden of debt on to the state, and no British government can expect to avoid large-scale cut-backs in borrowing and spending. Instead of the market generating wealth that could be used by governments for collective purposes, the resources of government have been pre-empted for the repayment of debts incurred by the market's excesses. Against this background, the post-paternalist state is likely to mean higher unemployment and cash-starved public services.

Unlike his brother, Ed Miliband has chosen to define his candidacy explicitly in terms of New Labour's failings and argues forcefully for the need to remodel capitalism. "Britain's big question of the next decade," he has written, "is whether we head towards an increasingly US-style capitalism – more unequal, more brutish, more unjust – or whether we can build a different model, a capitalism that works for people and not the other way around". Once again these are noble aspirations but far removed from reality. Globalisation is an idea that has been greatly over-hyped, yet governments' freedom of action has without question been reduced as capital has become more mobile. Even the US may soon find it difficult to fund its ballooning federal debt. But if American capitalism is entering a crisis zone, Britain will not have the luxury of forging a new economic model; it will have trouble just staying afloat. Ralph Miliband's pessimistic assessment of the future of social democracy could well be vindicated.

If one of the Miliband brothers wins the Labour leadership and becomes prime minister he will confront in an acute form the constraints on the power of the state his father astutely identified. Rather than controlling or reshaping capitalism, a Miliband government would find itself struggling to preserve Britain's social democratic inheritance in the face of capitalism's renewed disorder. Ralph Miliband seems never to have lost the Marxist faith that history would eventually open the way to a truly socialist society. He would surely have appreciated the curious dialectic through which it has fallen to his sons to defend the social democracy he so fiercely attacked.

Booktrust teenage prize shortlist spans time, space and genre

It's the start of another school year and I'm dreaming of new pencil cases, satchels and the books I read in class. But what are the books you remember from your own school days?

Fourteen years after I finished school, there's still something about September which feels like the start of the year, and I'm nostalgic this morning for new pencils and felt tips, satchels and packed lunches. As the hope of the nation barrels back into classrooms, I'm also thinking back to the books I read in school.

I was away last weekend and talking about how we all read William Golding's Lord of the Flies (and no, the weekend wasn't that bad, it's just that one of my friends is currently making her way through his complete works, to settle a bet). I was 14, and I think there couldn't have been a more perfect book to pick for kids of that age – if you're not going to be hooked by Ralph and Piggy and Simon and Jack, and "kill the pig, cut his throat, spill his blood", then you're not going to be hooked by anything. This was the edition we had – just looking at it casts me back to yellow highlighters and doodling and the horrors of reading aloud.

Anyway, the shocking gloriousness of Lord of the Flies made me hungry for more Golding. Our school library was pretty small, but it did, impressively, have a copy of Pincher Martin. I am quite sure I failed to get any allegorical, existential meaning from the book, but it successfully terrified me, burning an image of Martin clinging to his lonely rock into my brain. In typically disorganised fashion, I promptly lost the book for about a month and was subsequently banned from the school library for giving it back so late – obviously as a sop to all those Golding fans clamouring for more of his work.

Golding and my thieving tendencies aside, Jane Eyre bored me, King Lear enthralled me, and I described Romeo and Juliet in my mock GSCE as a novel – so something clearly went wrong there (thankfully I'd got the right end of the stick by the time the real thing came around). But the other book which really stands out in my memory from schooldays is Wuthering Heights. I was on to A-levels by then, but for some reason we were still going through the purgatory of reading (droning) aloud in class – possibly one of the best ways to make a group of teenagers lose interest in a novel. I was lazy, more interested in messing around than working, but I was so caught up in the melodramas of Cathy and Heathcliff ("Do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you! Oh God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!") that I'd be pages ahead when it came to my turn to read and would get in trouble for not concentrating. And I distinctly remember spending a break time racing to the end.

The rest of it, though, the years of English classes and essays, revising and exams, has largely faded into oblivion, which is rather worrying. But how about you? Indulge my nostalgia and tell me what you remember of your own literary school days.