Maud Brereton was lying in a hammock underneath a big chestnut-tree in the garden of the house at Windsor. She had been here a fortnight alone, having been sent from London in disgrace by her mother after her refusal, in consequence of her interview with Marie Alston, to accept the riches and devotion of Anthony Maxwell. This fortnight she had spent in sublime inaction, surrounded as she was by all those things which to her made life lovable. Her dogs were here, her pony was here, the meadows were tall with hay, the river brimming, and the garden-beds presented every day some new miracle of unfolding colour. Each morning she had got up early and ridden in the park, while the day was still cool and dewy; she had read, not much; she had played the piano diligently; she had been the centre of an adoring crowd of dogs and gardeners; and for somedays—not all this fortnight, indeed, but the bigger and earlier half of it—she had been completely happy in her own mild ruminative manner. It had been a source of great satisfaction to compare the rival merits of the two systems: London on the one hand; on the other, being in disgrace. For the sight of the hot square garden, she had here this cool, green lawn; for the riband of dull wood pavement up Grosvenor Street, the silver line of the Thames; for the companionship of languid and heated mankind, the eager dogs; and for the hopeless tedium of a ball, the cool vast night pouring in through the open windows of the drawing-room.
This idyllic attitude towards life in general had lasted ten days or so, but during the last four she no longer tried to conceal from herself her mind had changed. The weather, perhaps, became rather hotter, or she more languid; in any case, though she cared no less for the dogs and the riot of vegetable life, she missed something. And that something, she was beginning to be afraid, was people. Again and again she arrived at this same disheartening conclusion, and though, as many times, she went over in her mind the list of the people whom it waspossible she might miss, and found none desirable, it was none the less true that she missed themen masse. Imagining them with her now, one by one, she would have wished each of them away, but with them all away there was something lacking. "Perhaps they are like a tonic," she said to herself. "One doesn't want to take it, but one is the better for it."
She sat up in her hammock and surveyed her surroundings. The book she had brought out to read had fallen, crumple-edged, on the grass, and looking at the back, even the very title came as new to her. Dogs in various stages of exhaustion were stretched round her, and at the sound of her movement tails thumped the grass, but otherwise none stirred. Overhead, the chestnut with green five-fingered leaves drooped in the heat, and stars of wavering light fell through the interspaces of foliage on to her dress. To the right the hay, already tall and ripe to die, stood motionless in the dead calm; and the scent of clover and flowering grass, which in the morning had been wafted in flow and ebb of varying scent, hung heavy and stagnant in the air. Southwards the river was a sheet of glass; a centreboard, hopelessly becalmed,lay with flapping sail in the middle, and a splashed line of broken water showed the paddling efforts of its master. To this side lay the lawn; the croquet hoops were up, and leaning against the stick was a mallet; four balls in as uninteresting position lay immobilized here and there, thedébrisof a game, red versus blue, which Maud had begun that morning, but had found her honesty or her interest unable to cope with. Beyond was the house, bandaged as to the windows with green sun-blinds, and empty but for Maud's maid, who was in love with the caretaker, who adored the kitchenmaid-cook, who adored nobody. There was also the caretaker's wife, and nobody adored her.
The path which led from the lawn to the river was concealed by a lilac-bush from Maud's hammock, and it was with a sudden quickening of the pulse that she heard a crisp step passing along it. It was a man's tread, so much was certain; it was certain also that it did not belong to any of the gardeners, all of whose steps, Maud had noticed, were marked by a sort of drowsy cumbersomeness, like people who are walking about a dark room. Soon the crisp step paused and began to retrace itself, left the gravel for the grass,and in another moment Anthony Maxwell came round the lilac-bush.
Maud did not feel in the least surprised; her unconscious self had probably guessed who it was. She rose from her sitting position on the hammock, but gave him no word or gesture of greeting.
"I came down on my motor-car," he said. "It was particularly hot. May I sit here a little while and get cool?"
"By all means," said Maud. Then, after a pause, "Do you think it was right of you to come?" she said.
"I don't think anything about it," he said; "I had to."
Maud hardened and retreated into herself.
"You mean, I suppose, that my mother insisted on it," she said, with a cold resentment in her voice.
"Your mother does not know I have come," said he. "I should have told her, but I thought she would probably have forbidden me."
"Indeed she would not," said Maud. "She would certainly have encouraged you."
"That would have been just as bad," said Anthony.
Suddenly Maud felt stimulated. During all this fortnight neither the gardeners nor the dogs had said anything so interesting. She sat down again.
"I should like you to explain that," she said, without confessing to herself that explanation was unnecessary or that she wished to hear him explain.
"You are sure?" he said.
"Quite."
"It is this, then," said he—"we have both been put in a false position. We have been urged to marry each other, and you have refused me. It has not been fair on either of us. In spite of the pressure which has been put upon you, you have refused me; in spite of the pressure put upon me, I want nothing else in the world but that you should marry me. Mind, I quite sympathize with you, for if there is anything in the world which would make one wish never to see a person again, it is to have that person persistently hurled at one. I have been hurled at you. That is one of the reasons why I came here, to tell you that I sympathize with you. I am afraid people have made me an uncommon nuisance to you."
Anthony paused, raised his eyes a moment,and saw that Maud was looking at him steadily, with grave consideration in her face. He felt, rightly, that never before had she given him such favourable attention.
"I am not such a coxcomb as to suppose that you would have given me a different answer if you had not quite naturally been 'put off' by the way in which you have been treated," he continued; "but I do ask you to remember that I have scarcely had a fair chance. Please try to think that it has not been my fault."
"No; it has been my mother's," said Maud.
"Yes, it has been her fault. I suppose she thought that continued perseverance would have some effect. It may or may not have had the opposite effect to what she intended, but certainly not that."
"It has had the opposite effect," said Maud.
"Are you sure?"
"I am now."
"Can you try and banish it from your mind?"
"I will try."
Anthony, again looked at her, and his heart hammered against his ribs. But eventhough he scarcely felt master of himself, he did not lose his wisdom and press this point further.
"I do not hope to win you," he said, "by making myself importunate, and perhaps, now I think of it, it was not wise of me to come. But I am not sorry I came; nor do I give up hope. Very likely that is presumptuous of me; but for myself, I am sure that I shall not change."
He sat on the ground playing with the ear of one of the dogs, but as he said these last words his fingers made a sudden violent movement, and the dog whimpered. "There, there!" he said, and fell to stroking it again quietly.
"You said that this was one of the reasons why you came," said Maud. "What was the other?"
"There was only one other. I wanted to see you. I was drawn by cords," he said.
"Poor Mr. Anthony," said she very quietly, and there was no shade of irony in her voice.
"Thank you for that," he said.
Maud lifted her feet off the ground, and swung gently to and fro in the hammock. She was naturally very reserved, and in mattersof the emotions still extraordinarily ignorant, and it would have puzzled her to say exactly what she felt now. It was no tearing or violent emotion, no storm, but rather the strong, serene press of a flowing tide. Hitherto the human race, whether considered individually or collectively, had not much occupied her, but something now within her quickened and stirred and moved, and she was certainly at this moment not indifferent to this plain young man who was so modest and so self-assured. There was more about him to be learned than she had known, and that book just opening promised to interest her. Of passion she felt no touch, but her "poor Mr. Anthony" had contained authentic pity.
"You are quite right," she said. "Your various advantages have been constantly told me by my mother. All the things which seemed to her such excellent causes why I should marry you seemed to me to be very bad causes indeed; but they were represented to me as most urgent. I did not find them so." She paused, and Anthony said nothing, feeling that some further word was on her lips. "I like you," she said at length. "Come and have tea."
The moment she had said it she was afraid that he would do something stupid, look fervent, even seize her hand. But she need not have been afraid. Anthony rose at once.
"Oh, do let us have tea," he said; "I am longing for it."
Maud's relief was great.
"It was stupid of me," she said. "Won't you have a whisky-and-soda? You must be awfully thirsty."
"No, I should prefer tea, thanks," he said. "I hate drinks at odd times. How lovely your garden looks!"
"Yes; but it's still rather backward. The chestnut-flowers should be out by now, and they are still hardly budding."
"How can you remember that?"
"Oh, if one takes an interest in things, it is difficult to forget about them," said Maud.
"That is perfectly true," remarked Anthony.
Soon after tea he left again, and took the white riband of the Bath Road back into London. He could not help telling himself that he had prospered beyond all expectation; and if he had been, as he had told Maud, not hopeless before, he was, it may be supposed, on the sunny side of hope now. But he intendedto stop, once and for all, the risk of mismanagement on the part of others, and having reached home he went straight to his mother's room.
"I've been down to Windsor," said he, "and I had tea with Maud Brereton—alone."
"You haven't got a spark of proper pride, Anthony," said his mother with some heat. "To go dangling and mooning after a girl who's refused you flat! I wonder what she sets up to be!"
"I think she sets up to be herself," said Anthony. "It is rather rare. I like it. But I want to manage my own affair in my own way. I particularly wish Lady Brereton not to say a word more of any kind to Maud. I should like you to tell her so if you have an opportunity."
"Why, I'm sure she's been as eager as anybody," said Lady Maxwell.
"I shall not succeed with her because her mother wishes it," said Anthony. "I'll play my hand alone, please."
In London, in the meantime, the fact that Maud had refused him had become generally known, and London, with that admirable substitute for altruism which is so characteristic of it, and consists in vividly concerning one'sself with those things that do not in the least concern one, had been very voluble on the subject. There was scarcely any divergence in the views expressed, and everybody was agreed that it was a terrible thing for poor Mildred to find she had for a daughter so obstinate and wrong-headed a girl. "Why, the Maxwells roll, my dear—simply roll! Of course, Maud is wonderfully good-looking, and no doubt lots of other men will be after her, but why not have accepted Anthony provisionally? It is always so easy to let it be understood, if anything else turned up, that a young girl like that hadn't known her own mind——"
On the top of this there leaked out the fact that Marie Alston had strongly dissuaded her from it, and the world, with the agility and restlessness of monkeys, leaped to the new topic. Really Marie was getting a little too strong! It was all very well to scatter those amusing and general criticisms on people in general, and take the unworldly pose; but when it came to putting her finger in the wheels of the Society watch, so to speak, and stopping them from turning, it was too much. How on earth were struggling mothers to hope to get their daughters happily—yes,happily—married, if idealistic snowflakes were ready to descend upon them at street corners and forbid the banns. Over this Society grinned and showed its teeth for a little while, and then was off again on a fresh tack. How would Mildred behave to Marie? Here there were wheels within wheels, and the upshot was that Society was not at all sure that there had not been a break on one side or the other between Jack and her. Given that certain things had come to Marie's ear, it would account for everything. What an ingenious revenge, too, on Marie's part! Really, she was a person of brains. It required cool thinking to hit upon aripostelike that.
After this, sensation came hard on the heels of sensation. Mildred began to be mentioned in the same breath as Jim Spencer, and, far more remarkable, Jack began to be mentioned in the same breath as his wife. They had dined out together twice last week; they had been together to party after party. How curious and interesting! A complete resorting of the cards, and without any fuss whatever; and the honour, as usual, in Marie's hand. In onepartieshe had recaptured her husband, shunted off her admireron to Mildred, scored heavily against her, all the time with her nose in the air, as unapproachable and distinguished as ever. But meanwhile Lady Ardingly sat like a spider in the middle of her web. The threads had extended farther than even she had originally planned, but she did not object in the least to that. And when people came and told her the news, she was less severe than usual.
"Ah, my dear!" she would say, "how you fly about, and gather honey and all sorts of curious other things! And I sit here. I never know anything except what you are good enough to come and tell me. And so Jack isamourachéagain of his wife? So charming, is she not? Let us play Bridge immediately."
Mildred, however, did not think that things were quite so satisfactory. At first the idea of Jack and Marie Darby-and-Joaning it together sent her into fits of laughter. But after a week or so the joke began to lose its point—or, to state it more accurately, the point became rather too sharp for her liking. Jack and she had settled that they were to see less of each other, and not give any ground for people to say behind their backswhat was perfectly and absolutely true; but she had not bargained for this return to intimacy between husband and wife. Once she had approached Jack on the subject.
"You are very realistic," she had said, "and have a great respect for detail."
"To what are you referring?" he asked.
"Oh, don't be stupid! You are taking your part very seriously. You see nothing of me—that is all right; but is it necessary to bore yourself quite so much with Marie?"
"I don't bore myself," he had said.
"Bore her, then?"
"I try not to do that," said Jack with curdling equanimity. "But what are you driving at? Do you want me to mourn for you, to watch the shadow on your blind? That would be rather unconvincing to other people, would it not?"
"No; they would say I was tired of you."
Jack considered this.
"I don't want them to say anything about us at all," he answered, and again the sense of imperfect grip haunted the woman, and the sense of having been talking to a cook the man.
Nor was this the sum of Mildred's discomfort.She had amiably proposed not long ago to break with Marie, but now that the opportunity was ripe she felt herself simply unable to do so. There was a deficiency of force in her—moral or immoral, it matters not which—which was unable to stand up to the other. Also, she was dimly aware that people in general were watching her, looking at her rather as they had done when, now years ago, her hair had turned golden in a single night. But now the cause was not so tangible. Was it that she herself, not her hair only, was turning gray? Certainly she was conscious of a failure of power. It was in vain that she ate her many solid meals, or, as the whim took her, lived on varalettes and lean meat, vowing that this treatment made the whole difference to her; it was in vain she slept her solid six hours, drove a great deal in the fresh air, and kept her windows unwontedly open. People, the hundred diverting situations in which her friends daily found themselves, diverted her less, and she wondered whether the truth was, as fashion papers assured her, that the season was not very brilliant, or whether it was she who was losing the power to be amused. The thought of old age, a veritable bogey to one who has always felt young, sat daily byher in the empty seat of the victoria, and flapped in the wind-stirred blind of her bedroom at dark hours.
After she had left Jack that afternoon she had driven for an hour in the Park. The day was very fine, and the roadway and the path beside the Ladies' Mile were both crowded. She sat up very straight, as her custom was, in her victoria, the anæmic Yorkshire terrier by her side, and put up her veil so as both to see and be seen more distinctly. She was dressed, she knew, with extreme success, and it had been pleasant, at a block entering the Park, to see a gaunt female taking notes of the occupants of the carriages. Her own had by singular good luck paused exactly opposite this journalist, and she had out of the corner of her eye seen her examining and writing down with the facility of long practice the details of her costume: "Many smart people were in the Park, driving and walking last Thursday. Among others, I noticed Lady Brereton driving in her victoria, with her sweet little terrier by her side, extremely stylishly gowned. Her Saturday-till-Monday parties are still the attraction, and no wonder. On this occasion Lady Brereton had a new 'creation,' which I must describe.The bodice was of yellow silk, faced with orange colour; her bonnet," etc.
After this the crowd claimed her attention. Indeed, as "Diana" would say next week, "all the smart world" was about. Silly Billy, as usual, was taking his daily airing previous to clearing out the company at the "Deuce of Spades" at Bridge, talking to a nameless female, who appeared to want a lot of attention. Mildred just caught his eye, and, full of tact as ever, immediately looked away. Further on was Arthur Naseby, with hands wildly gesticulating, shrilly declaiming something of a clearly screaming nature to Blanche Devereux and a small and select company. He was standing close to the rails, and cried, "Dear lady! how are you?" to her, and the select company smiled their sweetest at her. Then, as her carriage passed at a foot's pace, she again heard his voice—in a different key and much lower. She could not catch the words, but felt sure that he was saying something about her. Then followed Jim Spencer alone. To him she waved her hand and beckoned him to the vacant seat in her victoria. But he, with seeming obtuseness, appeared not to understand, and went on his way. Then came LadyDavies, driving in the opposite direction, who passed without recognising her; soon after Kitty Paget, making violent love to her husband; and presently a tandem, which she recognised while yet some way off as Jack's. He was driving himself; a woman was seated by him. At the same moment the muscles of Mildred's face hauled up as by a crane all the paraphernalia of smiles, for the woman was her dear friend and Jack's wife. Immediately afterwards the smile had to be tied to the mast again, for close behind them was Lady Ardingly, "got up to kill," as Mildred angrily said to herself. She looked like a Turner landscape of the later period, with a lopsided sunset of auburn hair perched negligently on the top. Her mouth seemed to crack a little by way of recognition, and she passed in a flash of winking lacquer.
But Marie driving with Jack! That penultimate meeting was the most surprising. Did he really think she—Mildred—or, indeed, Marie, was the sort of woman to stand aménage à trois, especially when one of the three was his wife? Then, like an earthquake wave laden with the dead slime of the stirred depths, the sense of her own impotence came over her. Only a fortnight ago she had airilytold Jack that she was glad that concealment was at an end—that she would now break with Marie. But what if something else was at an end? What if her revolt at aménage à troiswas altogether ill-founded? Out of three people there were two mathematically possible arrangementsà deux. In this case one would have to be left out.
She had put up her veil, and at this moment something line-like crossed the field of her left eye. She put up her hand, and found between her finger and thumb a long hair, golden, but gray near the root. One hair only, and they were all numbered! But this was not number one.... There were certain savage tribes that could only count up to eight. She rather envied them their blissful incapacity.
There came a sudden stop, and she found herself in a queue of carriages at the side of the road. Down the centre came the royal outriders, followed by the carriage. The King and one of the Princesses were seated in it. He took off his hat to some one in the carriage immediately in front of hers, then turned and spoke to his companion. Probably his oversight of her was quite unintentional. But something within her said,"What if—" For some weeks now she had been a little uneasy; she had felt that her case was under consideration. Perhaps her not being recognised was the formal declaration to her of her sentence.
Then, in a flash, she was herself again, back to the wall, fighting desperately for her position, which was equivalent to her life. She would show everybody if she was done with yet. A gray hair or two! What did that matter, when a woman like Lady Ardingly had no hairs at all, gray or any other colour, and all the world knew it? She had money—any amount of it—which was of more consequence than anything else; she had, what was almost better than wit, a quick and incisive tongue—an instrument, it is true, not to be used except on such occasions as when a man may draw his revolver, to defend himself at close quarters, but as valuable, when people knew you had it, as the revolver. She was selfish, ambitious, greedy of worse things than food, unscrupulous, ready to amuse, and easy to be amused. She had everything, in fact, which was needful to make up the kind of success which she desired, and which, in point of fact, she had hitherto enjoyed. Yet she had industriouslyand carefully been making a private little hell for herself during this last hour simply because Marie went driving with her husband, and the King happened not to see her!
Like all wise people, though she would not admit it to any one else, she frankly admitted to herself that she had made a mistake—such a little one, too—when she had allowed Silly Billy to talk about Marie and Jim Spencer, and this mistake, she was aware, had ramified further than she had anticipated. She ought never to have started it. She had not got enough beam, so to speak, to sail against Marie. Yet what a tempting prospect, if only she could have won! Marie really besmirched! How unspeakably convenient! But apparently this was not to be. She confessed that she had failed, and was genuinely sorry she had attempted it. Things had been very happy and comfortable before, and she ought to have been content. She felt, indeed, rather like a person who cannot swim, who has capsized near the bank, but in the first moment of immersion does not know whether he is within his depth or not. In any case, a few floundering plunges towards land would settle the matter, and she would be safe again—not, indeed, on the otherbank, which had looked so inviting, but where she was before, and very enjoyable it had been!
As a matter of fact, one of Mildred's depressed conjectures had been quite correct, and had she known what was being said a mile or so behind her, she would not have found it so easy, perhaps, to brace herself up to make her efforts.
"Busily employed," said Arthur Naseby shrilly, "in taking the plug out of the bottom of her own boat. She exhibits a marvellous dexterity in doing it. What is the use of trying to start a scandal which nobody will believe? It was so stale, too. You and I certainly had done our level best to believe it long before, Lady Devereux. That Sunday down at Windsor—don't you remember?"
"Yes, I tried for a week, with both hands and my eyes shut," said Blanche.
"And I tried with my eyes open," said Arthur; "so we have given ourselves every chance. It, too, had every chance. It was launched without a hitch, and the colours waved madly on the winds of heaven. Silly Billy, the 'Deuce of Spades,' the overhearing of it by Jack! All brilliant accessories! But the piece was damned from the first!"
"It really is too shocking!" said Mrs. Leighton, with her mouth underneath her left ear. "Such a mistake on dear Mildred's part! Gracious powers below! did you see?" she said, pointing with her parasol at Jack and Marie in the tandem. "Yes, too heavenly, is it not?" she screamed at them. "Mildred has just passed, like Solomon in all his glory, with the Yorkshire terrier. And there are the lilies of the field," she continued, looking after Marie. "Poor dear Solomon!"
"There is a decided flavour of the best French farces in the air," remarked Arthur. "Enter, also, Madame la Marquise."
Lady Ardingly said something violent to her coachman, who drew up with a jerk.
"Ah, my dears!" she said with extreme graciousness. "How are you all? Why do none of you drive with poor Mildred? I have just passed her all alone. I am alone, too—am I not?—but I am used to it."
"Do let me come and drive with you, Lady Ardingly!" cried Arthur.
"And leave these enchanting ladies?" said she. "They would say all sorts of horrible things, and not come to my parties any more, nor tell me the news! What has been happening?"
"Jack and Marie have just passed in the tandem!" said Arthur.
"Indeed! And Black Care was going in the other direction, not sitting behind them. So much better! Ah, here are the outriders! I am not fit to be seen."
She put up an immense mauve-coloured parasol to shut herself out, and the others rose, as the carriage passed in a whirl of dust.
"And what else?" she continued.
"Well, it is supposed that Black Care has annexed Jim Spencer."
"Ah, you have heard that, too? She has a genius for annexation. Your Government would have saved a world of trouble if they had sent her out to the Transvaal years ago. That is very nice, and we shall all live peaceably again now. Marie and Jack in the tandem, and dear Mildred provided for! Good-bye, my dears; I must get home. I am playing a little Bridge this afternoon. You are all coming to my party to-night, are you not? That is so kind of you! Drive on. What a dolt!" she said to the coachman.
"There is only one Lady Ardingly," said Arthur in a reverent tone; "and I am her devoted admirer. How does she do it?"
Mrs. Leighton considered a moment.
"I would get a wig, and call my coachman fool, and ask everybody for news, in a minute, if it would do any good," she said; "but it wouldn't. People would consider me slightly cracked, and I'm sure I shouldn't wonder."
Blanche got up with a sigh.
"She takes the taste out of everybody else," she said. "I shall go home and practise doing it before a glass;" and she waved to her footman.
Arthur Naseby rose also.
"I believe she is running this whole show," he said. "She never contradicted us once. But what is she playing at?"
But since collectively they could not have mustered one-third of Lady Ardingly's brains, it was no wonder that none of them could suggest an answer.
But as he handed Blanche into her carriage, Arthur summed up the situation.
"The fact is that it takes four or five of us to understand one-half of what she says," he remarked.
The General Election had been definitely fixed to begin in the second week in July, and consequently soon after Ascot politicians of all sorts and shades of opinion were sedulously flying about the country, busy recounting to the wondering provinces how grossly their opponents had misrepresented their aims and tactics, and proving in an array of terms which beggared the dictionary, that the country could only be saved by the united voice of the people declaring that they would record a firm and combined vote. South Africa was, of course, the chosen battlefield of both parties; here each was determined to fight the matter out (this was the only matter on which they were agreed), and the speed with which the opposing armies mobilized out there was as remarkable as their manœuvres when arrived. Some charged through the country already peopled in their minds with the families of reservists, and dotted withhappy homesteads, over which waved the fair golden corn, while on the hills of the Witwatersrand the great mills poured out their millions, and those who had been in arms were already spending happy Sunday evenings with their brother Boers, singing hymns to the accompaniment of the vrow's harmonium, and zealously marrying her buxom daughters. Gold paved the streets of Johannesburg, and the curbstones thereof were diamonds, and Paul Kruger and Mr. Leyds fell on their bended knees and, with tears of gratitude in their grateful eyes, blessed the names of Mr. Rhodes and the Colonial Secretary. The Union Jack waved on all the winds of heaven, and every Englishman in that happy land beat his rifle into a pea-shooter for his infant children—half Boer, half British—and ate his roast beef under his fig-tree.
But oddly enough exactly the same data furnished the Opposition with a picture by no means identical. These gentlemen went mournfully through the land, which was, it appeared, a desert. Cemeteries and ruined homesteads were the only features that they, for their part, could discern in that desolate landscape, and the cemeteries, they sadly declared, marked, not only the graves of theyoung British soldier, martyred to gorge the capitalist with gold, but were, to the thoughtful eye, none else than the place where the British Empire died and was buried. Along the ridge of the Witwatersrand rose the grass-grown engines of the mines; the rusty fly-wheels hung cableless in that miasmic air, tainted with rotting corpses. No sound was heard, no sign of life was visible; only from time to time there came from the bowels of the earth the sobbing of those who had once been gorged capitalists. The country was drained of its resources, sir—emptied of its inhabitants. That garden of the Lord was barren and desolate. Who, they asked, with rising passion, had done this? The late Government. Why had they done this? Because they were under the thumb of the capitalists. They had piles and masses of documentary evidence to prove every word they said. And awe fell on the assemblies.
After this first plain statement of the case delivered in duet by the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition, there followed what may be described as a fugual chorus. Everybody else, that is to say, joined in and shouted the same thing over and over again at the top of his voice. There were twoconductors, no other than the executants of the opening duet, who, standing back to back, beat away at the chorus for all they were worth, and in the more delirious moments turned round and hit savagely at each other with their batons. The audience comprised nearly all the inhabitants of the round world, and this remarkable chorus lasted day and night without intermission for three weeks. Then they all sang "Britons never, never, never will be slaves," but with totally different expression, and meaning utterly different things, so that the effect of unanimity, which otherwise would no doubt have been extremely striking, was spoiled, and rude things were said in the French journals. That, it is true, for a moment produced a defensive alliance among themselves, and they roared out across the Channel. "How about Dreyfus?" But almost immediately the more ardent spirits—sober politicians they called themselves—began again, and mixed with the renewed chorus-singing were bonfires and other things, and most prominent people were burned in effigy and appeared not to mind it.
Then, when every one was exhausted and out of breath, they put on their coats again, and sat down for a while to see what the resulthad been. Europe generally was smiling, and went on much as usual; but in England itself it appeared that certain groups of people were not listening to the beautiful music at all, but puzzling and frowning over some papers of statistics. Also it was observed that some men, who ought to have been singing as hard as anybody, were not singing at all, but talking quietly to those portions of the audience who were willing to listen. Of these, two were immediately concerned with this story, and these were Lord Alston and Jim Spencer. And, although they belonged to opposite parties, they were both saying precisely the same thing.
This particular evening Jack had returned to London somewhat unexpectedly, having found himself able to catch a late train up, after the meeting he had been addressing in Southampton on behalf of a young Conservative, standing for the first time, who, because he had been nearly all the way to Pretoria, was therefore apparently qualified to say the last word on every measure, from seats for shop girls to seats for Bishops in the Upper House. Marie had just come home from a party when he arrived, and the two talked while Jack had supper.
"I don't suppose I shouted and screamed enough to please him," he said; "but the fact is, I do not think he is necessarily omniscient, nor that he will be Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four. However, I preached the gospel."
Marie threw back her cloak.
"Talk to me while you eat," she said. "I am getting swept into the vortex, too; this evening we talked about nothing but politics."
"Won't it bore you?"
"I shall enjoy it. I think people believe in you, Jack."
Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"The point is that they should believe what I say. It doesn't matter about me."
"Indeed it does. It is you who make them believe it. Besides—well, go on."
"Well, I told them that I thought both Conservatives and Liberals were doing quite wrong in making the South African affair, except in so far as it was a test of our efficiency, the cry of the election. It has been the fashion to speak of it as a great war. It is nothing of the kind, though it is perfectly true that, owing to our own hopeless mistakes, we brought it very near to being a most disastrous war, if not a war fatal to the Empire.Young Campbell's face fell rapidly as I spoke."
"I can imagine that," said Marie.
"The audience were not too pleased, either; but somehow, Marie, and for the first time, I did not care a rap. You have often told me that I speak without conviction. It is quite true; I believe what I say without feeling it. But to-night I felt it, and I knew I could make them feel it. I had them in my hand, and at first I carefully rubbed them up the wrong way. I went through the disasters of December, 1899—Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso. I pointed out that most of these could have been saved, if we had only been decently prepared, instead of going into the war in a blind and idiotic manner, as if the fact of our being the British Empire made it impious and profane for any one to attempt to withstand or, even worse, check us. I touched every sore place that I could put my finger on. Once I thought I had gone too far, for a man shouted out: 'Turn the—well, horrid Radical out!' And having, as well as I could, pulled our policy to bits, I proceeded to pluck the army itself. I assure you there was hardly a feather left on it. Doesn't all this bore you?"
Jack got up, having finished his meal, and stood beside her.
"You know it doesn't," said she.
"And then quite suddenly I assured them that the Empire was far the soundest concern in the world. Well, it may seem conceited, Marie, but it is the fact, that I had them so much in hand by then that a huge sigh of relief went round the hall. I never felt so flattered. But short of that I said everything was about as wrong as it could be. What is wanted is not amiable and excellent noblemen, who talk a great deal and are excessively polite, but people who just work, do things and not say them, pay no attention to party politics whatever—that can be done by the rank and file, all those who get into Parliament simply in order to talk—and buckle to, guided entirely by experts, and insist on having men and officers, mind you, properly trained, given proper guns to handle, and made to use their heads. We have, I believe, the best material in the world out of which to make the army we need. But it is raw, it is untrained; it is no more an army than sheep's wool is a coat. And it was their first duty, I told them, to vote for the Government which they thought would best put the House in order. This wasa Conservative meeting, I reminded them, but I would sooner that every man in it voted Liberal than that he should, merely because he was accustomed to call himself a Conservative, vote Conservative, if he believed that the Liberals would be more likely to put these necessary reforms into effect. Then I came down hammer and tongs with Rule, Britannia; there should be only one party in our great, our happy and glorious island, the Party of Efficiency. Efficiency is our first need. I concluded with some amiable remarks about Campbell."
Marie got up, her eye flashing.
"Well, you've done it now, Jack," she said.
"I know I have. I couldn't help it. And to-morrow I shall find out exactly what I have done."
Marie got up and walked up and down the room for a few moments without replying. Jack's highly original line of conduct for a man whose aim was to get into the Cabinet was extraordinarily attractive to her sense of picturesqueness. He had certainly played a very bold game, but she could not feel satisfied in her own mind whether he had over-stepped the dividing-line between boldness and sheer audacity.
"Also I said that, if the Conservatives got in, it was to be hoped they would clear out the old gang," remarked Jack, in parenthesis to her thoughts.
Marie frowned.
"Ah, that was not wise, was it?" she said. "Didn't it savour too much of an application for a vacant post?"
"It was meant to," said Jack. "After the rest of my speech, it could not be supposed that I hoped—as I do hope—to get the War Office by ingratiating myself with the old gang. If I get it, I shall get it because I am popularly supposed to be wanted. I do apply for the post. I gave them this afternoon my idea of my duties if I get it. But I apply to the people. Lord, what a treat the morning papers will be!"
Marie's eyes kindled again as she continued to walk up and down the dusky dining-room, her long dress whispering on the carpet.
"I am excited, exhilarated," she said. "It is like getting out of stuffy rooms into the open air to hear you talk, Jack. I can't make up my mind as to whether I think you have done altogether wisely, but you have gone on a big scale. I admire that."
Jack got up. Marie's words thrilled him with a warmth he had not felt for her for years. Already he was beginning to look on the conduct of his married life with a wonder that rose now into a disgusted incredulity. Her splendid contempt for him had begun it; he had been stung into seeing her as she was, and her generosity to him had fostered it. No after-word of reproach had passed her lips for that which now made his ears burn to think of. She had seen with her woman's instinct his deepening contrition for that ugly scene, and, seeing it, did not need or desire a spoken assurance. But what Jack did not know was that his reawakened passion roused in her no answering spark whatever. Passion for him was dead in her. In a moment she went on:
"I am immensely interested in your aims, Jack, and your method of working for them. If one is not sure of one's self, tact and diplomacy help one to feel one's way; but there is a higher gift than these, and I believe you have it—it is strength."
He turned round, facing the fireplace, feeling suddenly chilled. In the hall a clock struck two, and a weary-faced footman looked suggestively in.
"Good gracious! is it already two?" she said, picking up her unopened post; "and I have not read these yet. They must wait; I know by the feel of them they are uninteresting."
She turned and faced him, standing in the full blaze of the electric light, her face brilliantly illuminated. She had thrown back her cloak, her white bosom moved slowly and gently to her breathing, and his eyes were dazzled at her incomparable beauty. And all this, the perfect bloom of womanhood, this lily in a leper settlement, had been his. Instead he had preferred outwardly the rouge and the dye, inwardly the vulgar flashiness and tawdry wit of her who had so long been his mistress. At the moment he felt he loathed Mildred. Once he tried to speak and could not, and she had turned again.
"Good-night, Jack," she said over her shoulder. "You must be tired. I shall be excited to see what the unofficial Government organs make of you. Will you tell them to put the lights out when you go upstairs?"
He stood where he was listening to the diminuendo whisper of her dress. Then, after a moment, he heard the door of her bedroom shut behind her.
Quite a quantity of unknown, though probably not obscure, leader-writers bestowed their distinguished attention on Jack next day. The Daily Chronicle and Daily News announced that they had had the sagacity months before to foresee this split in the Conservative party, and hailed Jack as a prodigal son returning to the depleted homesteads of Liberalism. The Standard, on the other hand, grabbed him as thehomme nécessaireof the Conservative party; the Times, gently trimming, admitted that to a certain extent, and subject to various conditions, there was something in what he said; the Daily Telegraph clearly did not know what to think, and fell back on generalities about 9.7 guns; while a few hours later the Westminster Gazette had a cartoon entitled "Jack the Ripper," in which he was represented with an impassive face methodically disembowelling the present Cabinet—a signpost indicated Hatfield. The effect on the press, in fact, was very satisfactory; opinions were widely divergent and extremely violent. In fact, as Jack said to Marie when he saw her next morning, he seemed to have "caught on."
"And what do you suppose they will think?" asked Marie.
"Who? Oh, they! I don't know. But I soon shall, as I'm going down to headquarters now. I think, perhaps, as the papers have taken me up, it may incline them to give me office. Not that they ever read the papers. But office is regarded as a muzzling order, as far as I can make out. They may think me worth muzzling. If so, I see no reason for not taking my muzzle off. I may not be back for lunch; I rather want to see Lady Ardingly."
"General bureau; central office," said she.
"Precisely. You have the habit of putting things well. Good-bye, Marie." He bent over the low chair where she was sitting and gently kissed her on the forehead. She looked up in genuine astonishment, then flushed slightly, for they had long been strangers to that sort of spontaneous caress, and it seemed to her to come from a stranger. He saw her astonishment and winced at it. "I—I beg your pardon!" he said hurriedly, knowing the moment he spoke that he was ill-inspired.
The bewildered moment of surprise passed, leaving Marie, however, with a glimpse of what might be even more bewildering.She laughed lightly enough, but with a certain nervousness.
"How original, for a husband to apologize to his wife for kissing her!" she said.
But she got up and did not offer to return the caress.
Marie required a few moments in which to steady herself after he had left her. She had been utterly taken by surprise. If Jack had emptied the contents of the waste-paper-basket over her, he would not have astonished her more. For days now she had had the impression that some change had come over Jack. At first she had put it all down to his regret for his telling her that her name was coupled with Jim Spencer's, but by degrees it had seemed to her that there must be something more. But this possibility she had only glanced at to reject. It could not be. Then he had kissed her.
Suddenly it seemed to her that the place where his lips had been burned her; she felt as if she had been insulted; a fine state of mind for a wife, she told herself angrily. Then, with a remorseless frankness, her conscience told her why she felt thus. It was because she had made herself a stranger tohim; her heart was not here, it was with another. And Jack was her husband. Anyhow, she would face it honestly. She had despised and shown her scorn for him when he told her what people said, thinking she was honest in her indignation. But what if he had told her what nobody said, but what she knew, and what she was perfectly well aware Jim Spencer knew? Had she been so faithful, then, as to warrant her cold and burning words to Jack! She had scorned and then ignored the actual falsehood of his words, but what of that which was true, which he did not know—the real essential truth of that which lay behind the falsehood?
She gave a little frightened gasp as these intimate discoveries, cape after cape, bay after bay, came into vision. And what complaint had she of her husband, but that they had long been at discord? No breath of scandal, even from the gutter, had ever reached her ears about him. She had no reason, absolutely none, for supposing that he had not been far more faithful to her than she to him. But when he kissed her she had shrunk away from him.
Now, since her drive in the Park a few days before, and the discovery attendantthereon that efforts were necessary, a militant spirit had possessed Mildred. She was seen everywhere, at her loudest and most characteristic; she had simply summoned Maud from the retirement at Windsor, she had secured a record party for next Sunday, and for the sake of general completeness she had determined, in spite of Lady Ardingly, to ask Jack and Marie. The notice was very short, and, instead of writing a note, she drove round this morning to Park Lane to deliver her invitation verbatim; she likewise wished, in case Marie was in, to air a few poisonous nothings, scouts, as it were, of her advancing armies. And arriving at this moment, she was admitted and shown upstairs.
"Dearest Marie, it is ages, simply ages!" she began. "I have come to supplicate. Do come down to Windsor from Saturday till Monday. You shall not be bored; there is Guardina to sing to you, and the place really looks too lovely. Maud has been describing it to me; she came up yesterday. And there are half the Front Bench coming on Sunday. It might be useful for Jack to be there. My dear, what do you think of Jack's speech? However, about Saturday first."
"I don't think we can," said Marie. "Wehave already refused two Saturday parties on the plea of— If I only could remember the plea it might be more hopeful. Political plea, I think."
"That's just right, then," said Mildred. "Jack will have a quiet talk with the old gang. Besides, Marie, if one only saw you on the days when you had not refused an invitation, I should not know you by sight in a year. So you'll come."
"Well, I think 'political' covers it," she said. "I shall be charmed if Jack has made no other arrangement. And his speech. What do you think of it?"
Mildred held up her hands in despairing deprecation.
"I thought I should have died," she said. "It is too sad when you see a clever man industriously digging his own grave. One always does it eventually by mistake, but on purpose like that, and with his eyes open!"
"Did it strike you so?"
"Surely, and the ridiculous point is that Jim said almost precisely the same things down at Freshfield."
"That surely, then, is, as far as it goes, as the Times would say, in favour of both of them," remarked Marie. "To my mind,there is a new party in birth. You may call it Imperial, I suppose. It is far from Jingo. Jack's speech is the antithesis of Jingoism; it is also not—well, Northamptonish. It is beginning to roar as every well-conducted baby should."
Mildred's appetite for politics was at all times bird-like. She pecked and hopped away. On this occasion she hopped away to a considerable distance.
"I have seen a good deal of Jim lately," she said. "In fact, I am afraid I have been seeing a little too much."
"You mean you are getting tired of him?" asked Marie, who, from having been rather absent, was now intent and alert.
"Dear me, no! not that at all. I delight in him," said Mildred, rapidly adding wings and new courtyards to the structure Lady Ardingly had indicated. "But people talk so easily and without foundation. You know what I mean."
She leaned back a little in the shadow as she spoke, feeling that she was really a very gifted woman, for her speech had many edges. In the first place, it was dramatically amusing to blood her second invention with the life of her first; a sharp edge was thatshe more than half believed that there was something between Marie and Jim, and what she had said was therefore of the nature of a test question; and, thirdly, granting this, how would Marie meet the claim on her property?
The paper she had been reading slid rustling to the ground off Marie's lap. It seemed to her as if some dark room familiar to her, though she could not tell how or when she had seen it, had been suddenly illuminated.
"Oh, my dear Mildred," she said, "if one pauses to pick scraps of paper out of the gutter to see what is written on them, one would spend all one's life in the same slum. I should have thought you, of all people, would not have cared an atom what people said, so long, of course, as there was no earthly truth in it."
Mildred settled herself in her chair. There was plenty more, she felt, where this came from.
"But has your experience of the world taught you that?" she asked.
"Taught me not to care what people say?" said Marie—"yes, I may certainly assure you of that. For instance—" and she paused.
Mildred rustled suggestively.
"There is no reason I should not tell you," said Marie. "It is this. Oddly enough, some fortnight or three weeks ago exactly the same thing was said about me as you are afraid will be said about you. I was supposed, in fact, to be much attached to Jim. So I am; we are the greatest friends. But this charming world uses 'friend' in two senses. Probably some cook of a woman, finding nothing to say to some valet of a man, said so. And the kitchen section of London society, I have been told, talked about it. But any perfectly inane piece of fabrication like that soon dies of—of its own inanition."
"But who on earth started anything so absurd?" asked Mildred.
"I have no idea; I did not even want to know. I was angry, I will allow, for a day or two. Then other things came and swallowed it up. It became merely dull. It simply did not interest me. I assure you I had almost forgotten it. I suppose one has lots of enemies one does not know of. Probably I had made some cook of a woman, as I said, angry without intending it. I—yes, something of that sort."
It was not till these words were on her lips that a sudden idea, wild and preposterousas it might be, occurred to her. It came into her mind quite unbidden, and was wholly unaccountable. Mildred laughed quite naturally.
"Ah, you are the Snowflake," she said—"our one unsmirchable. It is all very well for you to shrug your shoulders at what the world says!"
"That is exactly what I am told was said of me," said she quietly. "I was supposed to have melted. Did the story, then, reach you?"
"Some sort of a story did," said she. "It seemed to me not even worth repeating to you."
"Quite right. It wasn't."
Mildred rose.
"I must fly," she said. "Too delightful of you to come on Saturday, Marie! I always think nothing is complete without you."
She went gracefully out, leaving the air heavy with some languid scent, and went down the stairs rather quicker than she had come up. There was something closely resembling a flea in her ear. And everything had looked so well on paper. Unfortunately, Marie did not in the least remind one of paper.
But, leaving out all that was not to her taste in this last interview, her clouds were showing the traditional silver lining. It was, for instance, quite evident to her that Maud's golden lover had not in the least finished with her. She, when questioned on the subject, cultivated a strong reserve, which, as her mother concluded, implied in itself something which admitted of reservation. It was certain, on Maud's own authority, that Anthony had been to Windsor, but with that her nose went into the air quite like Marie's, and it was impossible to talk familiarly with such an icicle. And her mother thanked God that she herself was not of such a temperament.
Altogether, then, the solid ground had not failed beneath her feet. But it was best to make efforts; either she had been on the verge of a precipice or her nerves had led her to believe that she was. In either case, there was no such tonic as a good dose of the world—that combined soporific to the conscience and astringent to the energies. She had, it is true, applied herself to the wrong bottle when she went to see Marie, but that was easily set right, and by way of antidote she drove on to Lady Ardingly's, who, it appeared, was "up," but about whom therehung at this hour of the morning a veil of mystery, not to be dispelled without further inquiries. These inquiries were favourable, and Mildred was conducted, still by the footman, to her dressing-room.
Lady Ardingly was seated in a costume that it would be impossible to specify without being prolix, and possibly indelicate, writing notes. An uneasy shadow of a maid hovered near her, to whom she paid no attention. The footman, in obvious perturbation, opened the door and waited, in obedience, it would seem, to a command.
"Ah, my dear, how are you?" said Lady Ardingly, addressing her last note. "One moment, if you will be so kind. Walter, take these, and have them sent at once by hand. They must all wait for answers. In case any are not in, let them be brought back. Do you understand?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Say it, then."
"All to be delivered, and if"—and he glanced at the two letters—"if their lordships isn't in, the notes not to be left."
And he cast a glance of awe and astonishment at his mistress and fled.
Lady Ardingly was, in truth, an astonishingobject. Nothing had been done to her; she was, with the exception of certain linen garments, as her Maker had willed she should be. Short and scant gray hair imperfectly covered her head; her face, of a curious gray hue, was arbitrarily intersected by a hundred wrinkles and crow's-feet.
"I am in dishabille," she said, rather unnecessarily; "but every old woman is in dishabille. You will get used to it, my dear, some day. So you have come to tell me what every one is saying about Jack's speech. Yes, I am ready for you," she threw over her shoulder to her maid.
That functionary took her stand by her mistress and handed the weapons. A powder-puff began the work, followed by an impressionist dusting on of rouge. Lady Ardingly grew beneath the work of her hands. Then a thick crayon of charcoal traced the approximate line where her eyebrows had once been, and a luxuriant auburn wig framed the picture. Mildred, who locked up even from the eyes of her maid such aids as she was accustomed to use, looked on with a sort of shamefacedness. Just as Marie had just now given almost a shock to her instinct of covering up and doing in secret the processesof thought, of showing to the world only the finished and diplomatic product, so Lady Ardingly gave a shock to her body. Each of them—differing by the distance of miles—was alike in this. And the frankness of both was inconceivable to her. Yet both, in their way, possessed calmly and fully what it cost her long effort to catch a semblance of. Neither minded being natural, and both naturally were so. Mildred's naturalness—a rare phenomenon—was the outcome of intense artificiality.
"And what is every one saying of Jack's speech?" repeated Lady Ardingly, with one eye closed, regarding with some favour a brilliant patch of rouge on her left cheek. "Or what do you say? You can scarcely yet have heard what people think of it."
"Surely he has almost declared himself a Liberal," suggested Mildred.
"So the Daily Chronicle said," remarked Lady Ardingly. "What else?"
"But, on the other hand, the Cabinet would sooner have such a critic on their side than against them."
"Ah, my dear, you have read the Standard too. So have I. Have you not any opinion of your own?"
"Yes; he is on the edge of a precipice."
Lady Ardingly's decorative hand paused.
"And what is the precipice?" she asked. "You have not forgotten our talk, I see."
Mildred lost patience a little.
"Your advice, you mean," she said.
"My advice, if you prefer. I am so glad you have been behaving with such good sense. And as for Jack's speech, I tell you frankly I was astonished with delight. He seems to me to have hit exactly the right note, and he is in the middle of the right note, like Guardina when she sings. I consider him as having the ball at his feet. He has sprung to the front at a bound. Now his supporters will push him along. He has only got to keep greatlyen évidence, and he need do nothing more till the first meeting of the Cabinet."
"Has his speech done all that for him?" asked Mildred.
"Yes, certainly, for it is the speech of a man of action, of whom there are fewer in England than the fingers on my hand. He told his audience that speeches are not in his line. That is immensely taking, when at the time he was making a really magnificent one. Yes, Jack is assured, if only you are careful,"she added in French, which, if considered a precautionary measure against her maid's comprehension, was not a very tactful move, since the latter was a Frenchwoman.
Mildred's eye brightened; at the same time she thought she would not tell Lady Ardingly that Marie and he were probably coming to Windsor the next Sunday.
"Dear Jack!" she said, "I have always had an immense belief in him. And now his time has come."
"I feel certain of it, provided he makes nofaux pas. And what of your other friend, Jim Spencer? He also spoke last night, I see. I have not read his speech yet."
"There is no need. He said what Jack said," replied Mildred.
"Indeed. I am glad, then, you took measures to kill that absurd gossip we spoke of the other day. Otherwise people would say that he had been inspired by Marie."
"You think of everything, I believe," said Mildred.
"I have a great deal of time on my hands. But now you must go, my dear. To-day I happen to be busy."
Lady Ardingly held out a rather knuckly hand. She clearly did not wish that her face,new every morning, should be disturbed just yet.
"Ah, by the way," she added, "please let me drive down to see you on Sunday afternoon, according to your invitation. I am afraid I forgot to answer it."
Now, no such invitation had ever been given, and Mildred knew it; so, no doubt, did Lady Ardingly. She paused a moment before answering.
"Of course, we shall be charmed!" she said.
"She has asked Jack, and does not want me to come," thought Lady Ardingly. Then aloud: "So sweet of you! Your garden must be looking lovely now. Good-bye, my dear."