She and Lyndhurst were dining alone the evening after this meeting of “ways and means,” he in that state of mind which she not inaptly described as “worried” when she felt kind, and “cross” when she felt otherwise. He had come home hot from his walk, and, having sat in his room where there was no fire, when evening fell chilly, had had a smart touch of lumbago. Thus there were clearly two causes for complaint against Amy, and a third disturbing topic, for there was no shadow of doubt that it was his bouquet of chrysanthemums that he had found in the road outside Dr. Evans’ house, and even before the lumbago had produced its characteristic pessimism, he had been unable to find any encouraging explanation of this floral castaway.
“I’m sure I don’t know what was the good of my spending all August,” he said, “in that filthy hole of a Harrogate, at no end of expense, too, if I’m to be crippled all winter. But you urged me to sostrongly: should never have thought of going there otherwise.”
“My dear, you have only been crippled for half-an-hour at present,” she observed. “It is a great bore, but if only you will take a good hot bath to-night, and have a very light dinner, I expect you will be much better in the morning. Parker, tell them to see that there is plenty of hot water in the kitchen boiler.”
“It’ll be the only warm thing in the house, if there is,” said he. “My room was like an ice-house when I came in. Positively like an ice-house. Enough to give a man pneumonia, let alone lumbago. Soup cold, too.”
“My dear, you should take more care of yourself,” said Mrs. Ames placidly. “Why did you not light the fire instead of being cold? I’m sure it was laid.”
“And have it just burning up at dinner-time,” said he, “when I no longer wanted it.”
It was still early in the course of dinner.
“Light the fire in the drawing-room, Parker,” said Mrs. Ames. “Let there be a good fire when we come out of dinner.”
“Get roasted alive,” said Major Ames, half to himself, but intending to be heard.
But Mrs. Ames’ mind had been feasting for weeks past on things which had a solider existence than her husband’s unreasonable strictures. Since this new diet had been hers, his snaps and growls had produced no effect: they often annoyed her into repartee, and as likely as not, a few months ago, she would have said that his claret seemed a very poor kind of beverage. But to-night she felt not the smallest desire to retort. She was very sorry for his lumbago, but felt no inclination to carry the war into his territories, or totell him that if people, perspiring freely, and of gouty habit, choose to sit down without changing, and get chilly, they must expect reprisal for their imprudence.
“Then we will open the window, dear,” she said, “if we find we are frizzling. But I don’t think it will be too hot. Evenings are chilly in October. Did you have a pleasant lunch, Lyndhurst? Indeed, I don’t know where you lunched. I ordered curry for you. I sat down at a quarter to two as you did not come in.”
It was all so infinitesimal ... yet it was the mental diet which had supported her for years. Perhaps after dinner they would play picquet. The garden, the kitchen, for years, except for gossip infinitely less real, these had been the topics. There had been no joy for him in the beauty of the garden, only a pleased sense of proprietorship, if a rare plant flowered, or if there were more roses than usual. For her, she had been vaguely pleased if Lyndhurst had taken two helpings of a dish, and both of them had been vaguely disquieted if Harry quoted Swinburne.
“I lunched with the Evans’,” he said. “By the way, I met your cousin James Westbourne this afternoon, when I was on my walk. Extraordinarily cordial he gets when there’s business ahead that brings him into Riseborough, and he wants to cadge a dinner or two. It’s little notice he takes of us the rest of the year, and I’m sure it’s a couple of years since he so much as sent us a brace of pheasants, and more than that since he asked me to shoot there. But as I say, when he wants to pick up a dinner or two in Riseborough, he’s all heartiness, and saying he doesn’t see half enough of us. He doesn’t seem to strain himself in trying to see more, and there’s seldom a week-end when he and that great guy of a wife of his don’t have the house packed with people. I suppose we’re not smart enough for them, except when it’s convenient to dine in Riseborough. Then he’s not above drinking a bottle of my champagne.”
Mrs. Ames was eager in support of her husband.
“I’m sure there’s no call for you to open any more bottles for him, my dear,” she said. “If Cousin James wants to see us, he can take his turn in asking us. And Harriet is a great guy, as you say, with her big fiddle-head.”
Major Ames shrugged his shoulders rather magnificently.
“I’m sure I don’t grudge him his dinner,” he said, “and, in point of fact, I told him he could come and dine with us before his first meeting. He’s got some Cabinet Minister with him, and I said he could bring him too. You might get up a little party, that’s to say if I’m not in bed with this infernal lumbago. And Cousin James will return our hospitality by giving us seats on the platform to hear him stamp and stammer and rant. An infernal bad speaker. Never heard a worse. Wretched delivery, nothing to say, and says it all fifty times over. Enough to make a man turn Radical. However, he’ll have made himself at home with my Mumm, and perhaps he’ll go to sleep himself before he sends us off.”
This, of course, represented the lumbago-view. Major Ames had been fulsomely cordial to Cousin James, and had himself urged the dinner that he represented now as being forced on him.
“Have you actually asked him, Lyndhurst?” said Mrs. Ames rather faintly. “Did he say he would come?”
“Did you ever know your Cousin James refuse a decent dinner?” asked Lyndhurst. “And he was kind enough to say he would like it at a quarter past seven. Cool, upon my word! I wish I had asked him if he’d have thick soup or clear, and if he preferred a wing to a leg. That’s the sort of thing one never thinks of till afterwards.”
Mrs. Ames was not attending closely: there was that below the surface which claimed all her mind. Consequently she missed the pungency of this irony, hearing only the words.
“Cousin James never takes soup at all,” she said. “He told me it always disagreed.”
Major Ames sighed; his lumbago felt less acute, his ill-temper had found relief in words, and he had long ago discovered that women had no sense of humour. On the whole, it was gratifying to find the truth of this so amply endorsed. For the moment it put him into quite a good temper.
“I’m afraid I’ve been grumbling all dinner,” he said. “Shall we go into the other room? There’s little sense in my looking at the decanters, if I mayn’t take my glass of port. Eh! That was a twinge!”
“Itis no use, Henry,” said Mrs. Altham on that same evening, “telling me it is all stuff and nonsense, when I’ve seen with my own eyes the parcel of Suffragette riband being actually directed to Mrs. Brooks; for pen and ink is pen and ink, when all is said and done. Tapworth measured off six yards of it on the counter-measure that gives two feet, for he gave nine lengths of it and put it in paper and directed it. Of course, if nine lengths of two feet doesn’t make eighteen feet, which is six yards, I am wrong and you are right, and twice two no longer makes four. And there were two other parcels already done up of exactly the same shape. You will see if I am not right. Or do you suppose that Mrs. Brooks is ordering it just to trim her nightgown with it?”
“I never said anything about Mrs. Brooks’ nightgown,” said Henry, who, to do him justice, had been goaded into slightly Rabelaisian mood: “I never thought about Mrs. Brooks’ nightgown. I didn’t know she wore one—I mean——”
Mrs. Altham made what children would call “a face.” Her eyes grew suddenly fixed and boiled, and her mouth assumed an acidulated expression as if with a plethora of lemon-juice. The “face” was due to the entry of the parlour-maid with the pudding. It was jelly, and was served in silence. Mrs. Altham waited till the door was quietly closed again.
“It is not a question of Mrs. Brooks’ nightgown,” she said, “since we both agree that she would not order six yards of Suffragette riband to trim it. I spoke sarcastically, Henry, and you interpreted me literally, as you often do. It was the same at Littlestone in August, when the bacon was so salt one day that I said to Mrs. Churchill that a little bacon in the bath would be equivalent to sea-bathing. Upon which you must needs tell her next morning to send your bacon to the bath-room, which she did, and there was a plate of bacon on the sponge-tray, so extraordinary. But all that is beside the point, though what she can have thought of you I can’t imagine. After all, your gift of being literal may help you now. Why does Mrs. Brooks want six yards of Suffragette riband, and why are there two similar parcels on Tapworth’s counter? If I had had a moment alone I would certainly have looked at the other addresses, and seen where they were being sent. But young Tapworth was there all the time—that one with the pince-nez, and the ridiculous chin—and he put them into the errand-boy’s basket, and told him to be sharp about it. So I had no chance of seeing.”
“You might have strolled along behind the boy to see where he went,” suggested Mr. Altham.
“He went on a bicycle,” said Mrs. Altham, “and it is impossible to stroll behind a boy on a bicycle and hope to get there in time. But he went up the High Street. I should not in the least wonder if Mrs. Evans had turned Suffragette, after that note to me about her not having time to attend the anti-Suffragette meetings.”
“Especially since there was only one,” said Henry,in the literal mood that had been forced on him, “and nobody came to that. It would not have sacrificed very much of her time. Not that I ever heard it was valuable.”
“What she can do with her day I can’t imagine,” said Mrs. Altham, her mind completely diverted by this new topic. “Her cook told Griffiths that as often as not she doesn’t go down to the kitchen at all in the morning, and she’s hardly ever to be seen shopping in the High Street before lunch, and what with Elsie gone to Dresden, and her husband away on his rounds all day, she must be glad when it’s bedtime. And she’s a small sleeper, too, for she told me herself that she considers six hours a good night, though I expect she sleeps more than she knows, and I daresay has a nap after lunch as well. Dear me, what were we talking about? Ah, yes, I was saying I should not wonder if she had turned Suffragette, though I can’t recall what made me think so.”
“Because Tapworth’s boy went up the High Street on a bicycle,” said Mr. Altham, who had a great gift of picking out single threads from the tangle of his wife’s conversation; “though, after all, the High Street leads to other houses besides Mrs. Evans’. The station, for instance.”
“You seem to want to find fault with everything I say, to-night, Henry. I don’t know what makes you so contrary. But there it is: I saw eighteen yards of Suffragette riband being sent out when I happened to be in Tapworth’s this morning, and I daresay that’s but a tithe of what has been ordered, though I can’t say as to that, unless you expect me to stand in the High Street all day and watch. And as to what it all means, I’ll let you conjecture foryourself, since if I told you what I thought, you would probably contradict me again.”
It was no wonder that Mrs. Altham was annoyed. She had been thrilled to the marrow by the parcels of Suffragette riband, and when she communicated her discovery, Henry, who usually was so sympathetic, had seen nothing to be thrilled about. But he had not meant to be unsympathetic, and repaired his error.
“I’m sure, my dear, that you will have formed a very good guess as to what it means,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”
“Well, if you care to know,” said she, “I think it all points to there being some demonstration planned, and I for one should not be surprised if I looked out of the window some morning, and saw Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Brooks and the rest of them marching down the High Street with ribands and banners. They’ve been keeping very quiet about it all, at least not a word of what they’ve been doing has come to my ears, and I consider that’s a proof that something is going on and that they want to keep it secret.”
Mr. Altham’s legal mind cried out to him to put in the plea that a complete absence of news does not necessarily constitute a proof that exciting events are occurring, but he rightly considered that such logic might be taken to be a sign of continued “contrariness.” So he gave an illogical assent to his wife’s theory.
“Certainly it is odd that nothing more has been heard of it all,” he said. “I wonder what they are planning. The election coming on so soon, too! Can they be planning anything in connection with that?”
Mrs. Altham got up, letting her napkin fall on the floor.
“Henry, I believe you have hit it,” she said. “Now what can it be? Let us go into the drawing-room, and thresh it out.”
But the best threshing-machines in the world cannot successfully fulfil their function unless there is some material to work upon; they can but show by their whirling wheels and rattling gear that they are capable of threshing should anything be provided for them. The poor Althams were somewhat in this position, for their rations of gossip were sadly reduced, their two chief sources being cut off from them. For ever since the mendacious Mrs. Brooks had appeared as Cleopatra, when she had as good as promised to be Hermione, chill politeness had taken the place of intimacy between the two houses, since there was no telling what trick she might not play next, while the very decided line which Mrs. Altham had taken when she found she was expected to meet people like tradesmen’s wives had caused a complete rupture in relations with the Ames’. That Suffragette meetings were going on was certain, else what sane mind could account for the fact that only to-day a perfect stream of people, some of them not even known by sight to Mrs. Altham, and therefore probably of the very lowest origin, with Mrs. Ames and the wife of the station-master among them, had been seen coming out of Mr. Turner’s warehouse. It was ridiculous “to tell me” that they had been all making purchases (nobody had told her), and such a supposition was thoroughly negatived by the subsequent discovery that the warehouse in question contained only aquantity of chairs. All this, however, had been threshed out at tea-time, and the fly-wheels buzzed emptily. Against the probability of an election-demonstration was the fact that the Unionist member, to whom these attentions would naturally be directed, was Mrs. Ames’ cousin, though “cousin” was a vague word, and Mrs. Altham would not wonder if he was a very distant sort of cousin indeed. Still, it would be worth while to get tickets anyhow for the first of Sir James’ meetings, when the President of the Board of Trade was going to speak, so as to be certain of a good place.Hewas not Mrs. Ames’ cousin, so far as Mrs. Altham knew, though she did not pretend to follow the ramifications of Mrs. Ames’ family.
The fly-wheels were allowed to run on in silence for some little while after this meagre material had been thoroughly sifted, in case anything further offered itself; then Mr. Altham proposed another topic.
“You were saying that you wondered how Mrs. Evans got through her time,” he began.
But there was no need for him to say another word, not any opportunity.
Mrs. Altham stooped like a hawk on the quarry.
“You mean Major Ames,” she said. “I’m sure I never pass the house but what he’s either going in or coming out, and he does a good deal more of the going in than of the other, in my opinion.”
Henry penetrated into the meaning of what sounded a rather curious achievement and corroborated.
“He was there this morning,” he said, “on the doorstep at eleven o’clock, or it might have been a quarter-past, with a bouquet of chrysanthemumsbig enough to do all Mrs. Ames’ decorations at St. Barnabas. What is the matter, my dear?”
For Mrs. Altham had literally bounced out of her chair, and was pointing at him a forefinger that trembled with a nameless emotion.
“At a quarter-past one, or a few minutes later,” she said, “that bouquet was lying in the middle of the road. Let us say twenty minutes past one, because I came straight home, took off my hat, and was ready for lunch. It was more like a haystack than a bouquet: I’m sure if I hadn’t stepped over it, I should have tripped and fallen. And to think that I never mentioned it to you, Henry! How things piece themselves together, if you give them a chance! Now did you actually see Major Ames carry it into the house?”
“The door was opened to him, just as I came opposite,” said Henry firmly, “and in he went, bouquet and all.”
“Then somebodymusthave thrown it out again,” said Mrs. Altham.
She held up one hand, and ticked off names on its fingers.
“Who was then in the house?” she said. “Mrs. Evans, Dr. Evans, Major Ames. Otherwise the servants—how they can find work for six servants in that house I can’t understand—and servants would never have thrown chrysanthemums into the street. So we needn’t count the servants. Now can you imagine Mrs. Evans throwing away a bouquet that Major Ames had brought her? If so, I envy you your power of imagination. Or——”
She paused a moment.
“Or can there have been a quarrel, and did shetell him she had too much of him and his bouquets? Or——”
“Dr. Evans,” said Henry.
She nodded portentously.
“Turned out of the house, he and his bouquet,” she said. “Dr. Evans is a powerful man, and Major Ames, for all his size, is mostly fat. I should not wonder if Dr. Evans knocked him down. Henry, I have a good mind to treat Mrs. Ames as if she had not been so insulting to me that day (and after all that is only Christian conduct) and to take round to her after lunch to-morrow the book she said she wanted to see last July. I am sure I have forgotten what it was, but any book will do, since she only wants it to be thought that she reads. After all, I should be sorry to let Mrs. Ames suppose that anything she can do should have the power of putting me out, and I should like to see if she still dyes her hair. After the chrysanthemums in the road I should not be the least surprised to be told that Major Ames is ill. Then we shall know all. Dear me, it is eleven o’clock already, and I never felt less inclined to sleep.”
Henry stepped downstairs to drink a mild whisky and soda after all this conversation and excitement, but while it was still half drunk, he felt compelled to run upstairs and tap at his wife’s door.
“I am not coming in, dear,” he said, in answer to her impassioned negative. “But if you find Major Ames is not ill?”
“No one will be more rejoiced than myself, Henry,” said she, in a disappointed voice.
Henry went gently downstairs again.
Mrs. Ames was at home when the forgiving Mrs.Altham arrived on the following afternoon, bearing a copy of a book of which there were already two examples in the house. But she clearly remembered having wanted to see some book of which they had spoken together, last July, and it was very kind of Mrs. Altham to have attempted to supply her with it. Beyond doubt she had ceased to dye her hair, for the usual grey streaks were apparent in it, a proof (if Mrs. Altham wanted a proof, which she did not) that artificial means had been resorted to. And even as Mrs. Altham, with her powerful observation, noticed the difference in Mrs. Ames’ hair, so also she noticed a difference in Mrs. Ames. She no longer seemed pompous: there was a kindliness about her which was utterly unlike her usual condescension, though it manifested itself only in the trivial happenings of an afternoon call, such as putting a cushion in her chair, and asking if she found the room, with its prospering fire, too hot. This also led to interesting information.
“It is scarcely cold enough for a fire to-day,” she said, “but my husband is laid up with a little attack of lumbago.”
“I am so sorry to hear that,” said Mrs. Altham feverishly. “When did he catch it?”
“He felt it first last night before dinner. It is disappointing, for he expected Harrogate to cure him of such tendencies. But it is not very severe: I have no doubt he will be in here presently for tea.”
Mrs. Altham felt quite convinced he would not, and hastened to glean further enlightenment.
“You must be very busy thinking of the election,” she said. “I suppose Sir James is safe to get in. I got tickets for the first of his meetings this morning.”
“That will be the one at which the President of the Board of Trade speaks,” said Mrs. Ames. “My cousin and he dine with us first.”
Mrs. Altham determined on more direct questions.
“Really, it must require courage to be a politician nowadays,” she said, “especially if you are in the Cabinet. Mr. Chilcot has been hardly able to open his mouth lately without being interrupted by some Suffragette. Dear me, I hope I have not said the wrong thing! I quite forgot your sympathies.”
“It is certainly a subject that interests me,” said Mrs. Ames, “though as for saying the wrong thing, dear Mrs. Altham, why, the world would be a very dull place if we all agreed with each other. But I think it requires just as much courage for a woman to get up at a meeting and interrupt. I cannot imagine myself being bold enough. I feel I should be unable to get on my feet, or utter a word. They must be very much in earnest, and have a great deal of conviction to nerve them.”
This was not very satisfactory; if anything was to be learned from it, it was that Mrs. Ames was but a tepid supporter of the cause. But what followed was still more vexing, for the parlour-maid announced Mrs. Evans.
“So sorry to hear about Major Ames, dear cousin Amy,” she said. “Wilfred told me he had been to see him.”
Mrs. Ames made a kissing-pad, so to speak, of her small toad’s face, and Millie dabbed her cheek on it.
“Dear Millie, how nice of you to call! Parker, tell the Major that tea is ready and that Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Altham are here.”
But by the time Major Ames arrived Mrs. Althamwas there no longer. She was thoroughly disgusted with the transformation into chaff of all the beautiful grain that they had taken the trouble to thresh out the night before. She summed it up succinctly to her husband when he came back from his golf.
“I don’t believe the Suffragettes are going to do anything at all, Henry,” she said, “and I shouldn’t wonder if these chrysanthemums had nothing to do with anybody. The only thing is that her hair is dyed, because it was all speckled with grey again as thickly as yours, and I declare I leftThe Safety of the Racebehind me, instead of bringing it back again, as I meant to do.”
Henry, who had won his match at golf, was naturally optimistic.
“Then you didn’t actually see Major Ames?” he asked.
“No, but there was no longer any doubt about it all,” she said. “I do not think I am unduly credulous, but it was clear there was nothing the matter with him except a touch of lumbago. And all this Suffragette business means nothing at all, in spite of the yards of riband. You may take my word for it.”
“Then there will be no point in going to Sir James’ meeting,” said Henry, “though the President of the Board of Trade is going to speak.”
“Not unless you want to hear the biggest windbag in the country buttering up the greatest prig in the county. I should be sorry to waste my time over it; and he is dining with the Ames’, and so I suppose all there will be to look at will be the row of them on the platform, all swollen with one of Mrs. Ames’ biggest dinners. We might have gone to bed at our usual time last night, for all the usethat there has been in our talk. And it was you saw the chrysanthemums, from which you expected so much and thought it worth while to tell me about them.”
And Henry felt too much depressed at the utter flatness of all that had made so fair a promise, to enter any protest against the palpable injustice of these conclusions.
Major Ames’ lumbago was of the Laodicean sort, neither hot nor cold. It hung about, occasionally stabbing him shrewdly, at times retreating in the Parthian mode, so that he was encouraged to drink a glass of port, upon which it shot at him again, and he had to get back to his stew of sloppy diet and depressing reflections. Most of all, the relations into which he had allowed himself to drift with regard to Millie filled him with a timorous yet exultant agitation, but he almost, if not quite, exaggerated his indisposition, in order to escape from the responsibility of deciding what should come of it. Damp and boisterous weather made it prudent for him to keep to the house, and she came to see him daily. Behind her demure quietness he divined a mind that was expectant and sure: there was no doubt as to her view of the situation that had arisen between them. She had played with the emotions of others once too often, and was caught in the agitation which she had so often excited without sharing in it. Mrs. Ames was generally present at these visits, but when it was quite certain that she was not looking, Millie often raised her eyes to his, and this disconcerting conviction lurked behind them. Her speech was equally disconcerting, forshe would say, “It will be nice when you are well again,” in a manner that quite belied the commonplace words. And this force that lay behind strangely controlled him. Involuntarily, almost, he answered her signals, gave himself the lover-like privilege of seeming to understand all that was not said. All the time, too, he perfectly appreciated the bad taste of the affair—namely, that a woman who was in love with him, and to whom he had given indications of the most unmistakable kind that he was on her plane of emotion, should play these unacted scenes in his wife’s house, coming there to make pass his invalid hours, and that he should take his part in them. It was common, and he could not but contrast that commonness with the unconsciousness of his wife. Occasionally he was inclined to think, “Poor Amy, how little she sees,” but as often it occurred to him that she was too big to be aware of such smallnesses as he and Milly were guilty of. And, in reality, the truth lay between these extreme views. She was not too big to be aware of it; she was quite aware of it, but she was big enough to appear too big to be aware of it. She watched, and scorned herself for her watching. She fed herself with suspicions, but was robust enough to spew them forth again. Also, and this allowed the robuster attitude to flourish, she was concerned with a nightmare of her own which daily grew more vivid and unescapable.
A decade of streaming October days passed in this trying atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty and apprehension. Of the three of them it was Major Ames who was most thoroughly ill at ease, for he had no inspiration which enabled him to bear this sordid martyrdom. He divined that Millie was evolvingsome situation in which he would be expected to play a very prominent part, and such ardour as was his he felt not to be of the adequate temperature, and he looked back over the peaceful days when his garden supplied him not only with flowers, but with the most poignant emotions known to his nature, almost with regret. It had all been so peaceful and pleasant in that land-locked harbour, and now she, like a steam-tug, was slowly towing him out past the pier-head into a waste of breakers. Strictly speaking, it was possible for him at any moment to cast the towing-rope off and return to his quiet anchorage, but he was afraid he lacked the moral power to do so. He had let her throw the rope aboard him, he had helped to attach it to the bollard, thinking, so to speak, that he was the tug and she the frail little craft. But that frail little craft had developed into an engined apparatus, and it was his turn to be towed, helpless and at least unwilling, and wholly uninspired. The others, at any rate, had inspiration to warm their discomfort: Mrs. Ames the sense of justice and sisterhood which was leavening her dumpy existence, Mrs. Evans the fire which, however strange and illicit are its burnings, however common and trivial the material from which it springs, must still be called love.
It was the evening of Sir James’ first meeting, and Mrs. Ames at six o’clock was satisfying herself that nothing had been omitted in the preparations for dinner. The printed menu cards were in place, announcing all that was most sumptuous; the requisite relays of knives, spoons and forks were on the sideboard; the plates of opalescent glass for ice were tohand, and there was no longer anything connected with this terrible feast, that to her had the horror of a murderer’s breakfast on the last morning of his life, which could serve to distract her mind any more. Millie was to dine with them and with them come to the meeting, but just now it did not seem to matter in the slightest what Millie did. All day Mrs. Ames had been catching at problematic straws that might save her: it was possible that Mr. Chilcot would be seized with sudden indisposition, and the meeting be postponed. But she herself had seen him drive by in Cousin James’ motor, looking particularly hearty. Or Cousin James might catch influenza: Lady Westbourne already had it, and it was pleasantly infectious. Or Lyndhurst might get an attack of really acute lumbago, but instead he felt absolutely well again to-day, and had even done a little garden-rolling. One by one these bright possibilities had been extinguished—now no reasonable anchor remained except that dinner would acutely disagree with her (and that was hardly likely, since she felt incapable of eating anything) or that the motor which was to take them to the town hall would break down.
At half-past six she went upstairs to dress; she would thus secure a quarter of an hour before the actual operation of decking herself began, in which to be alone and really face what was going to happen. It was no use trying to face it in one piece: taken all together the coming evening had the horror and unreality of nightmare brooding over it. She had to take it moment by moment from the time when she would welcome her guests, whom, so it seemed to her, she was then going to betray, till the time when, perhaps four hours from now, she would beback again here in her room, and everything that had happened had woven itself into the woolly texture of the past, in place of being in the steely, imminent future. There was dinner to be gone through; that was only tolerable to think of because of what was to follow: in itself it would please her to entertain her cousin and so notable a man as a Cabinet Minister. Clearly, then, she must separate dinner from the rest, and enjoy it independently. But when she went down to dinner she must have left here in readiness the little black velvet bag ... that was not so pleasant to think of. Yet the little black velvet bag had nothing to do yet. Then there would follow the drive to the town hall: that would not be unpleasant: in itself she would rather enjoy the stir and pomp of their arrival. Sir James would doubtless say to the scrutinizing doorkeeper, “These ladies are with me,” and they would pass on amid demonstrations of deference. Probably there would be a little procession on to the platform ... the Mayor would very likely lead the way with her, her and her little black velvet bag....
And then poor Mrs. Ames suddenly felt that if she thought about it any more she would have a nervous collapse. And at that thought her inspiration, so to speak, reached out a cool, firm hand to her. At any cost she was going through with this nightmare for the sake of that which inspired it. It was no use saying it was pleasant, nor was it pleasant to have a tooth out. But any woman with the slightest self-respect, when once convinced that it was better to have the tooth out, went to the dentist at the appointed hour, declined gas (Mrs. Ames had verydecided opinions about those who made a fuss over a little pain), opened her mouth, and held the arms of the chair very firmly. One wanted something to hold on to at these moments. She wondered what she would find to hold on to this evening. Perhaps the holding on would be done by somebody else—a policeman, for instance.
There was one more detail to attend to before dressing, and she opened the little black velvet bag. In it were two chains—light, but of steel: they had been sold her with the gratifying recommendation that either of them alone would hold a mastiff, which was more than was required. One was of such length as to go tightly round her waist: a spring lock with hasp passing through the last link of it, closing with an internal snap, obviated the necessity of a key. This she proposed to put on below the light cloak she wore before they started. The second chain was rather longer but otherwise similar. It was to be passed through the one already in place on her waist, and round the object to which she desired to attach herself. Another snap lock made the necessary connection.
She saw that all was in order and, putting the big Suffragette rosette on top of the other apparatus, closed the bag: it was useless to try to accustom herself to it by looking; she might as well inspect the dentist’s forceps, hoping thus to mollify their grip. Cloak and little velvet bag she would leave here and come up for them after dinner. And already the quarter of an hour was over, and it was time to dress.
The daring rose-coloured silk was to be worn on this occasion, and she hoped that it would not experience any rough treatment. Yet it hardlymattered: after to-night she would very likely never care to set eyes on it again, and emphatically Lyndhurst would find it full of disagreeable associations. And then she felt suddenly and acutely sorry for him and for the amazement and chagrin that he was about to feel. He could not fail to be burningly ashamed of her, to choke with rage and mortification. Perhaps it would bring on another attack of lumbago, which she would intensely regret. But she did not anticipate feeling in the least degree ashamed of herself. But she intensely wished it had not got to be.
And now she was ready: the rose-coloured silk glowed softly in the electric light, the pink satin shoes which “went with it” were on her plump, pretty little feet, the row of garnets was clasped round her neck. There was a good deal of colour in her face, and she was pleased to see she looked so well. The last time she had worn all these fine feathers was on the evening she returned home with brown hair and softened wrinkles from Overstrand. That was not a successful evening: it seemed that the rose-coloured silk was destined to shine on inauspicious scenes. But now she was ready: this was her last moment alone. And she plumped down on her knees by the bedside, in a sudden access of despair at what lay before her, and found her lips involuntarily repeating the words that were used in the hugest and most holy agony that man’s spirit has ever known, when for one moment He felt that even He could not face the sacrifice of Himself or to drink of the cup. But next moment she sprang from her knees again, her face all aflame with the shame at her paltriness. “You wretched little coward!” she said to herself. “How dare you?”
Dinner, that long expensive dinner, brought with it trouble unanticipated by Mrs. Ames. Mr. Chilcot, it appeared, was a teetotaler at all times, and never ate anything but a couple of poached eggs before he made a speech. He was also, owing to recent experiences, a little nervous about Suffragettes, and required reiterated assurances that unaccountable females had not been seen about.
“It’s true that a week or two ago I received a letter asking me my views,” said Sir James, “but I wrote a fairly curt reply, and have heard nothing more about it. My agent’s pretty wide awake. He would have known if there was likely to be any disturbance. No thanks, Major, one glass of champagne is all I allow myself before making a speech. Capital wine, I know; I always say you give one the best glass of wine to be had in Kent. How’s time, by the way? Ah, we’ve got plenty of time yet.”
“I like to have five minutes’ quiet before going on to the platform,” said Mr. Chilcot.
“Yes, that will be all right. Perhaps we might have the motor five minutes earlier, Cousin Amy. No, no sweetbread thanks. Dear me, what a great dinner you are giving us.”
An awful and dismal atmosphere descended. Mr. Chilcot, thinking of his speech, frowned at his poached eggs, and, when they were finished, at the table-cloth. Cousin James refused dish after dish, Mrs. Ames felt herself incapable of eating, and Major Ames and Mrs. Evans, who was practically a vegetarian, were left to do the carousing. Wines went round untouched, silences grew longer, and an interminable succession of dishes failed to tempt anybody except Major Ames. At this rate, not one, but a wholeseries of luncheon-parties would be necessary to finish up the untouched dainties of this ill-starred dinner. Outside, a brisk tattoo of rain beat on the windows, and the wind having got up, the fire began to smoke, and Mr. Chilcot to cough. A readjustment of door and window mended this matter, but sluiced Cousin James in a chilly draught. Mr. Chilcot brightened up a little as coffee came round, but the coffee was the only weak spot in an admirable repast, being but moderately warm. He put it down. Mrs. Ames tried to repair this error.
“I’m afraid it is not hot enough,” she said. “Parker, tell them to heat it up at once.”
Cousin James looked at his watch.
“Really, I think we ought to be off,” he said. “I’m sure they can get a cup of coffee for Mr. Chilcot from the hotel. We might all go together unless you have ordered something, Cousin Amy. The motor holds five easily.”
A smart, chill October rain was falling, and they drove through blurred and disconsolate streets. A few figures under umbrellas went swiftly along the cheerless pavements, a crowd of the very smallest dimensions, scarce two deep across the pavement opposite the town hall, watched the arrival of those who were attending the meeting. There was an insignificant queue of half-a-dozen carriages awaiting their disembarkments, but as the hands of the town hall clock indicated that the meeting was not timed to begin for twenty minutes yet, even Mr. Chilcot could not get agitated about the possibility of a cup of coffee before his effort. Through the rain-streaked windows Mrs. Ames could see how meagre,owing no doubt to the inclement night, was the assembly of the ticket-holders. It was possible, of course, that crowds might soon begin to arrive, but Riseborough generally made a point of being in its place in plenty of time, and she anticipated a sparsely attended room. Mrs. Brooks hurried by in mackintosh and goloshes, the cheerful Turner family, who were just behind them in a cab, dived into the wet night, and emerged again under the awning. Mrs. Currie (wife of the station-master), with her Suffragette rosette in a paper parcel, had a friendly word with a policeman at the door, and at these sights, since they indicated a forcible assemblage of the league, she felt a little encouraged. Then the car moved on and stopped again opposite the awning, and their party dismounted.
A bustling official demanded their tickets, and was summarily thrust aside by another, just as bustling but more enlightened, who had recognized Sir James, and conducted them all to the Mayor’s parlour, where that dignitary received them. There was coffee already provided, and all anxiety on that score was removed. Mr. Chilcot effaced himself in a corner with his cup and his notes, while the others, notably Sir James, behaved with that mixture of social condescension and official deference which appears to be the right attitude in dealing with mayors. Then the Mayoress said, “George, dear, it has gone the half-hour; will you escort Mrs. Ames?”
George asked Mrs. Ames if he might have the honour, and observed—
“We shall have but a thin meeting, I am afraid. Most inclement for October.”
Mrs. Ames pulled her cloak a little closer roundher, in order to hide a chain that was more significant than the Mayor’s, and felt the little black velvet bag beating time to her steps against her knee.
They walked through the stark bare passages, with stone floors that exuded cold moisture in sympathy with the wetness of the evening, and came out into a sudden blaze of light.
A faint applause from nearly empty benches heralded their appearance, and they disposed themselves on a row of plush arm-chairs behind a long oak table. The Mayor sat in the centre, to right and left of him Sir James and Mr. Chilcot. Just opposite Mrs. Ames was a large table-leg, which had for her the significance of the execution-shed.
She put her bag conveniently on her knees, and quietly unloosed the latch that fastened it. There were no more preparations to be made just yet, since the chain was quite ready, and in a curious irresponsible calm she took further note of her surroundings. Scarcely a hundred people were there, all told, and face after face, as she passed her eyes down the seats, was friendly and familiar. Mrs. Currie bowed, and the Turner family, in a state of the pleasantest excitement, beamed; Mrs. Brooks gave her an excited hand-wave. They were all sitting in encouraging vicinity to each other, but she was alone, as on the inexorable seas, while they were on the pier.... Then the Mayor cleared his throat.
It had been arranged that the Mayor was to be given an uninterrupted hearing, for he was the local grocer, and it had, perhaps, been tacitly felt that he might adopt retaliatory measures in the inferior quality of the subsequent supplies of sugar. Heinvolved himself in sentences that had no end, and would probably have gone on for ever, had he not, with commendable valour, chopped off their tails when their coils threatened to strangle him, and begun again. The point of it all was that they had the honour to welcome the President of the Board of Trade and Sir James Westbourne. Luckily, the posters, with which the town had been placarded for the last fortnight, corroborated the information, and no reasonable person could any longer doubt it.
He was rejoiced to see so crowded an assembly met together—this was not very happy, but the sentence had been carefully thought out, and it was a pity not to reproduce it—and was convinced that they would all spend a most interesting and enjoyable evening, which would certainly prove to be epoch-making. Politics were taken seriously in Riseborough, and it was pleasant to see the gathering graced by so many members of the fair sex. He felt he had detained them all quite long enough (no) and he would detain them no longer (yes), but call on the Right Honourable Mr. Chilcot (cheers).
As Mr. Chilcot rose, Mr. Turner rose also, and said in a clear, cheerful voice, “Votes for Women.” He had a rosette, pinned a little crookedly, depending from his shoulder. Immediately his wife and daughter rose too, and in a sort of Gregorian chant said, “Women’s rights,” and a rattle of chains made a pleasant light accompaniment. From beneath her seat Mrs. Currie produced a banner trimmed with the appropriate colours, on which was embroidered “Votes for Women.” But the folds clung dispiritingly together: there was never a more dejected banner. Two stalwart porters whom she had broughtwith her also got up, wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, and said in low, hoarse tones, “Votes for Women.”
This lasted but a few seconds, and there was silence again. It was impossible to imagine a less impressive demonstration: it seemed the incarnation of ineffectiveness. Mr. Chilcot had instantly sat down when it began, and, though he had cause to be shy of Suffragettes, seemed quite undisturbed; he was smiling good-naturedly, and for a moment consulted his notes again. And then, suddenly, Mrs. Ames realized that she had taken no share in it; it had begun so quickly, and so quickly ended, that for the time she had merely watched. But then her blood and her courage came back to her: it should not be her fault, in any case, if the proceedings lacked fire. The Idea, all that had meant so much to her during these last months, seemed to stand by her, asking her aid. She opened the little black velvet bag, pinned on her rosette, passed the second chain (strong enough to hold a mastiff) through the first, and round the leg of the table in front of her, heard the spring lock click, and rose to her feet, waving her hand.
“Votes for Women!” she cried. “Votes for Women. Hurrah!”
Instantly every one on the platform turned to her: she saw Lyndhurst’s inflamed and astonished face, with mouth fallen open in incredulous surprise, like a fish in an aquarium: she saw Cousin James’ frown of distinguished horror. Mrs. Evans looked as if about to laugh, and the Mayoress said, “Lor’!” Mr. Chilcot turned round in his seat, and his good-humored smile faded, leaving an angry fighting face. But all this hostility and amazement, so far fromcowing or silencing her, seemed like a draught of wine. “Votes for Women!” she cried again.
At that the cry was taken up in earnest: by a desperate effort Mrs. Currie unfurled her banner, so that it floated free, her porters roared out their message with the conviction they put into their announcements to a stopping train that this was Riseborough, the Turner family gleefully shouted together: Mrs. Brooks, unable to adjust her rosette, madly waved it, and a solid group of enthusiasts just below the platform emitted loud and militant cries. All that had been flat and lifeless a moment before was inspired and vital. And Mrs. Ames had done it. For a moment she had nothing but glory in her heart.
Mr. Chilcot leaned over the table to her.
“I had no idea,” he said, “when I had the honour of dining with you that you proposed immediately afterwards to treat me with such gross discourtesy.”
“Votes for Women!” shouted Mrs. Ames again.
This time the cry was less vehemently taken up, for there was nothing to interrupt. Mr. Chilcot conferred a moment quietly with Sir James, and Mrs. Ames saw that Lyndhurst and Mrs. Evans were talking together: the former was spluttering with rage, and Mrs. Evans had laid her slim, white-gloved hand on his knee, in the attempt, it appeared, to soothe him. At present the endeavour did not seem to be meeting with any notable measure of success. Even in the midst of her excitement, Mrs. Ames thought how ludicrous Lyndhurst’s face was; she also felt sorry for him. As well, she had the sense of this being tremendous fun: never in her life had she been so effective, never had she even for a momentparalysed the plans of other people. But she was doing that now; Mr. Chilcot had come here to speak, and she was not permitting him to. And again she cried “Votes for Women!”
An inspector of police had come on to the platform, and after a few words with Sir James, he vaulted down into the body of the hall. Next moment, some dozen policemen tramped in from outside, and immediately afterwards the Turner family, still beaming, were being trundled down the gangway, and firmly ejected. Sundry high notes and muffled shoutings came from outside, but after a few seconds they were dumb, as if a tap had been turned off. There was a little more trouble with Mrs. Currie, but a few smart tugs brought away the somewhat flimsy wooden rail to which she had attached herself, and she was taken along in a sort of tripping step, like a cheerful dancing bear, with her chains jingling round her, after the Turners, and quietly put out into the night. Then Sir James came across to Mrs. Ames.
“Cousin Amy,” he said, “you must please give us your word to cause no more disturbance, or I shall tell a couple of men to take you away.”
“Votes for Women!” shouted Mrs. Ames again. But the excitement which possessed her was rapidly dying, and from the hall there came no response except very audible laughter.
“I am very sorry,” said Cousin James.
And then with a sudden overwhelming wave, the futility of the whole thing struck her. What had she done? She had merely been extremely rude to her two guests, had seriously annoyed her husband, and had aroused perfectly justifiable laughter.General Fortescue was sitting a few rows off: he was looking at her through his pince-nez, and his red, good-humoured face was all a-chink with smiles. Then two policemen, one of whom had his beat in St. Barnabas Road, vaulted up on to the platform, and several people left their places to look on from a more advantageous position.
“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” said the St. Barnabas policeman, touching his helmet with imperturbable politeness. “She’s chained up too, Bill.”
Bill was a slow, large, fatherly-looking man, and examined Mrs. Ames’ fetters. Then a broad grin broke out over his amiable face.
“It’s only just passed around the table-leg,” he said. “Hitch up the table-leg, mate, and slip it off.”
It was too true ... patent lock and mastiff-holding chain were slipped down the table-leg, and Mrs. Ames, with the fatherly-looking policeman politely carrying her chains and the little velvet bag, was gently and inevitably propelled through the door which, a quarter of an hour ago, she had entered escorted by the Mayor, and down the stone passage and out into the dripping street. The rain fell heavily on to the rose-coloured silk dress, and the fatherly policeman put her cloak, which had half fallen off, more shelteringly round her.
“Better have a cab, ma’am, and go home quietly,” he said. “You’ll catch cold if you stay here, and we can’t let you in again, begging your pardon, ma’am.”
Mrs. Ames looked round: Mrs. Currie was just crossing the road, apparently on her way home, and a carriage drove off containing the Turner family. A sense of utter failure and futility possessed her: it was cold and wet, and a chilly wind flapped theawning, blowing a shower of dripping raindrops on to her. The excitement and courage that had possessed her just now had all oozed away: nothing had been effected, unless to make herself ridiculous could be counted as an achievement.
“Call a cab for the lady, Bill,” said her policeman soothingly.
This was soon summoned, and Bill touched his helmet as she got in, and before closing the door pulled up the window for her. The cabman also knew her, and there was no need to give him her address. The rain pattered on the windows and on the roof, and the horse splashed briskly along through the puddles in the roadway.
Parker opened the door to her, surprised at the speediness of her return.
“Why, ma’am!” she exclaimed, “has anything happened?”
“No, nothing, Parker,” said she, feeling that a dreadful truth underlay her words. “Tell the Major, when he comes in, that I have gone to bed.”
She looked for a moment into the dining-room. So short a time had passed that the table was not yet cleared: the printed menu-cards had been collected, but the coffee, which had not been hot enough, still stood untasted in the cups, and the slices of pineapple, cut, but not eaten, were ruinously piled together. The thought of all the luncheons that would be necessary to consume all this expensive food made her feel sick.... These little things had assumed a ridiculous size to her mind; that which had seemed so big was pitifully dwindled. She felt desperately tired, and cold and lonely.
“Andwhat’s to be done now?” said Major Ames, chipping his bacon high into the air above his plate. “If you didn’t hear me, I said, ‘What’s to be done now?’ I don’t know how you can look Riseborough in the face again, and, upon my word, I don’t see how I can. They’ll point at me in the street, and say, ‘That’s Major Ames, whose wife made a fool of herself.’ That’s what you did, Amy. You made a fool of yourself. And what was the good of it all? Are you any nearer getting the vote than before, because you’ve screamed ‘Votes for Women’ a dozen times? You’ve only given a proof the more of how utterly unfit you are to have anything at all of your own, let alone a vote. I passed a sleepless night with thinking of your folly, and I feel infernally unwell this morning.”
This clearly constituted a climax, and Mrs. Ames took advantage of the rhetorical pause that followed.
“Nonsense, Lyndhurst,” she said; “I heard you snoring.”
“It’s enough to make a man snore,” he said. “Snore, indeed! Why couldn’t you even have told me that you were going to behave like a silly lunatic, and if I couldn’t have persuaded you to behave sanely, I could have stopped away, instead of looking on at such an exhibition? Every one will suppose I must have known about it, and have countenancedyou. I’ve a good mind to write to theKent Chronicleand say that I was absolutely ignorant of what you were going to do. You’ve disgraced us; that’s what you’ve done.”
He took a gulp of tea, imprudently, for it was much hotter than he anticipated.
“And now I’ve burned my mouth!” he said.
Mrs. Ames put down her napkin, left her seat, and came and stood by him.
“I am sorry you are so much vexed,” she said, “but I can’t and I won’t discuss anything with you if you talk like that. You are thinking about nothing but yourself, whether you are disgraced, and whether you have had a bad night.”
“Certainly you don’t seem to have thought about me,” he said.
“As a matter of fact I did,” she said. “I knew you would not like it, and I was sorry. But do you suppose I liked it? But I thought most about the reason for which I did it.”
“You did it for notoriety,” said Major Ames, with conviction. “You wanted to see your name in the papers, as having interrupted a Cabinet Minister’s speech. You won’t even have that satisfaction, I am glad to say. Your cousin James, who is a decent sort of fellow after all, spoke to the reporters last night and asked them to leave out all account of the disturbance. They consented; they are decent fellows too; they didn’t want to give publicity to your folly. They were sorry for you, Amy; and how do you like half-a-dozen reporters at a pound a week being sorry for you? Your cousin James was equally generous. He bore no malice to me, and shook hands with me, and said he saw you were unwell when he sat downto dinner. But when a man of the world, as your Cousin James is, says he thinks that a woman is unwell, I know what he means. He thought you were intoxicated. Drunk, in fact. That’s what he thought. He thought you were drunk. My wife drunk. And it was the kindest interpretation he could have put upon it. Mad or drunk. He chose drunk. And he hoped I should be able to come over some day next week and help him to thin out the pheasants. Very friendly, considering all that had happened.”
Mrs. Ames moved slightly away from him.
“Do you mean to go?” she asked.
“Of course I mean to go. He shows a very generous spirit, and I think I can account for the highest of his rocketters. He wants to smoothe things over and be generous, and all that—hold out the olive branch. He recognizes that I’ve got to live down your folly, and if it’s known that I’ve been shooting with him, it will help us. Forgive and forget, hey? I shall just go over there,en garçon, and will patch matters up. I dare say he’ll ask you over again some time. He doesn’t want to be hard on you. Nor do I, I am sure. But there are things no man can stand. A man’s got to put his foot down sometimes, even if he puts it down on his wife. And if I was a bit rough with you just now, you must realize, Amy, you must realize that I felt strongly, strongly and rightly. We’ve got to live down what you have done. Well, I’m by you. We’ll live it down together. I’ll make your peace with your cousin. You can trust me.”
These magnificent assurances failed to dazzle Mrs. Ames, and she made no acknowledgement of them.Instead, she went back rather abruptly and inconveniently to a previous topic.
“You tell me that Cousin James believed I was drunk,” she said. “Now you knew I was not. But you seem to have let it pass.”
Major Ames felt that more magnanimous assurances might be in place.
“There are some things best passed over,” he said. “Let sleeping dogs lie. I think the less we talk about last night the better. I hope I am generous enough not to want to rub it in, Amy, not to make you more uncomfortable than you are.”
Mrs. Ames sat down in a chair by the fireplace. A huge fire burned there, altogether disproportionate to the day, and she screened her face from the blaze with the morning paper. Also she made a mental note to speak to Parker about it.
“You are making me very uncomfortable indeed, Lyndhurst,” she said; “by not telling me what I ask you. Did you let it pass, when you saw James thought I was drunk?”
“Yes; he didn’t say so in so many words. If he had said so, well, I dare say I should have—have made some sort of answer. And, mind you, it was no accusation he made against you; he made an excuse for you!”
Mrs. Ames’ small, insignificant face grew suddenly very firm and fixed.
“We do not need to go into that,” she said. “You saw he thought I was drunk, and said nothing. And after that you mean to go over and shoot his pheasants. Is that so?”
“Certainly it is. You are making a mountain out of——”
“I am making no mountain out of anything. Personally, I don’t believe Cousin James thought anything of the kind. What matters is that you let it pass. What matters is that I should have to tell you that you must apologize to me, instead of your seeing it for yourself.”
Major Ames got up, pushing his chair violently back.
“Well, here’s a pretty state of things,” he cried; “that you should be telling me to apologize for last night’s degrading exhibition! I wonder what you’ll be asking next? A vote of thanks from the Mayor, I shouldn’t wonder, and an illuminated address. You teaching me what I ought to do! I should have thought a woman would have been only too glad to trust to her husband, if he was so kind, as I have been, as to want to get her out of the consequences of her folly. And now it’s you who must sit there, opposite a fire fit to roast an ox, and tell me I must apologize. Apologies be damned! There! It’s not my habit to swear, as you well know, but there are occasions—— Apologies be damned!”
And a moment later the house shook with the thunder of the slammed front door.
Mrs. Ames sat for a couple of minutes exactly where she was, still shielding her face from the fire. She felt all the chilling effects of the reaction that follows on excitement, whether the excitement is rapturous or as sickening as last night’s had been, but not for a moment did she regret her share either in the events of the evening before or in the sequel of this morning. Last night had ended in utter fiasco, but she had done her best; this morning’s talk had ended in a pretty sharp quarrel, but again she foundit impossible to reconsider her share in it. Humanly she felt beaten and ridiculed and sick at heart, but not ashamed. She had passed a sleepless night, and was horribly tired, with that tiredness that seems to sap all pluck and power of resistance, and gradually her eyes grew dim, and the difficult meagre tears of middle age, which are so bitter, began to roll down her cheeks, and the hard inelastic sobs to rise in her throat.... Yet it was no use sitting here crying, lunch and dinner had to be ordered whether she felt unhappy or not; she had to see how extensive was the damage done to her pink satin shoes by the wet pavements last night; she had to speak about this ox-roasting fire. Also there was appointed a Suffragette meeting at Mr. Turner’s house for eleven o’clock, at which past achievements and future plans would be discussed. She had barely time to wash her face, for it was unthinkable that Parker or the cook should see she had been crying, and get through her household duties, before it was time to start.
She dried her eyes and went to the window, through which streamed the pale saffron-coloured October sunshine. All the stormy trouble of the night had passed, and the air sparkled with “the clear shining after rain.” But the frost of a few nights before had blackened the autumn flowers, and the chill rain had beaten down the glory of her husband’s chrysanthemums, so that the garden-beds looked withered and dishevelled, like those whose interest in life is finished, and who no longer care what appearance they present. The interest of others in them seemed to be finished also; it was not the gardener’s day here, for he only came twice in the week, and Major Ames, who should have been assiduous in binding up the broken-stemmed, encouraging the invalids, and clearing away the havoc wrought by the storm, had left the house. Perhaps he had gone to the club, perhaps even now he was trying to make light of it all. She could almost hear him say, “Women get queer notions into their heads, and the notions run away with them, bless them. You’ll take a glass of sherry with me, General, won’t you? Are you by any chance going to Sir James’ shoot next week? I’m shooting there one day.” Or was he talking it over somewhere else, perhaps not making light of it? She did not know; all she knew was that she was alone, and wanted somebody who understood, even if he disagreed. It did not seem to matter that Lyndhurst utterly disagreed with her, what mattered was that he had misunderstood her motives so entirely, that the monstrous implication that she had been intoxicated seemed to him an excuse. And he was not sorry. What could she do since he was not sorry? It was as difficult to answer that as it was easy to know what to do the moment he was sorry. Indeed, then it would be unnecessary to do anything; the reconciliation would be automatic, and would bring with it something she yearned after, an opportunity of making him see that she cared, that the woman in her reached out towards him, in some different fashion now from that in which she had tried to recapture the semblance of youth and his awakened admiration. To-day, she looked back on that episode shamefacedly. She had taken so much trouble with so paltry a purpose. And yet that innocent and natural coquetry was not quite dead in her; no woman’s heart need be so old that it no longer cares whether she is pleasing in her husband’s eyes.Only to-day, it seemed to Mrs. Ames that her pains had been as disproportionate to her purpose as they had been to its result; now she longed to take pains for a purpose that was somewhat deeper than that for which she softened her wrinkles and refreshed the colour of her hair.
She turned from the window and the empty garden, wishing that the rain would be renewed, so that there would be an excuse for her to go to Mr. Turner’s in a shut cab. As it was, there was no such excuse, and she felt that it would require an effort to walk past the club window, and to traverse the length of the High Street. Female Riseborough, on this warm sunny morning, she knew would be there in force, popping in and out of shops, and holding little conversations on the pavement. There would be but one topic to-day, and for many days yet; it would be long before the autumn novelty lost anything of its freshness. She wondered how her appearance in the town would be greeted; would people smile and turn aside as she approached, and whisper or giggle after she had gone by? What of the Mayor who, like an honest tradesman, was often to be seen at the door of his shop, or looking at the “dressing” of his windows? A policeman always stood at the bottom of the street, controlling the cross-traffic from St. Barnabas Road. Would he be that one who had helped to further her movements last night?... She almost felt she ought to thank him.... And then quite suddenly her pluck returned again, or it was that she realized that she did not, comparatively speaking, care two straws for any individual comment or by-play that might take place in the High Street, or for its accumulated weight.There were other things to care about. For them she cared immensely.
The High Street proved to be paved with incident. Turning quickly round the corner, she nearly ran into Bill, the policeman, off duty at this hour, and obviously giving a humorous recital of some sort to a small amused circle outside the public-house. It was abruptly discontinued when she appeared, and she felt that the interest that his audience developed in the sunny October sky, which they contemplated with faint grins, would be succeeded by stifled laughter after she had passed. A few paces further on, controlling the traffic of market-day, was her other policeman Bill, who smiled in a pleasant and familiar manner to her, as if there was some capital joke private to them. Twenty yards further along the street was standing the Mayor, contemplating his shop-window; he saw her, and urgent business appeared to demand his presence inside. After that there came General Fortescue tottering to the club; he crossed the street to meet her, and took off his hat and shook hands.
“By Jove! Mrs. Ames,” he said, “I never enjoyed a meeting so much, and my wife’s wild that she didn’t go. What a lark! Made me feel quite young again. I wanted to shout too, and tell them to give the ladies a vote. Monstrously amusing! Just going to the club to have a chat about it all.”
And he went on his way, with his fat old body shaking with laughter. Then, feeling rather ill from this encounter, she heard rapid steps in pursuit of her, and Mrs. Altham joined her.
“Oh, Mrs. Ames,” she said. “I could die ofvexation that I was not there. Is it really true that you threw a glass of water at Mr. Chilcot and hit the policeman? Fancy, that it should have been such a terribly wet night, and Henry and I just sat at home, never thinking that five minutes in a cab would make such a difference. We sat and played patience; I should have been most impatient if I had known. And what is to happen next? It was so stupid of me not to join your league; I wonder if it is too late.”
This was quite dreadful; Mrs. Ames had been prepared for her husband’s anger, and for pride and aversion from people like Mrs. Altham. What was totally unexpected and unwelcome was that she was supposed to have scored a sort of popular success, that Riseborough considered the dreadful fiasco of last night as an achievement, something not only to talk about, but a kind of new game, more exciting than croquet or criticism. She had begun by thinking of the Suffragette movement as an autumn novelty, but leanness came very near her soul when she found that it now appeared to others as she had first thought of it herself. She had travelled since then; she had seen thehinterlandof it; the idea that rose up behind it, austere and beautiful and wise. All that these others saw was just the hysterical jungle that bounded the coast. To her this morning, after her experience of it, the hysterical jungle seemed—an hysterical jungle. If it was only by that route that the heights could be attained, then that route must be followed. She was willing to try it again. But was there not somewhere and somehow a better road?
It was not necessary to be particularly cordial toMrs. Altham, and she held out no certain prospect of an immediate repetition of last night’s scenes, nor of a desire for additional recruits. But further trials awaited her in this short walk. Dr. Evans, driving the high-stepping cob, wheeled round, and dismounted, throwing the reins to the groom.