Thoughts rose in him which were not those of a pessimist--thoughts, however, which the wise man will express as little as possible, since talk profanes them. The concluding words of Peel's great Corn Law speech ran through his memory, and thrilled it. He was accused of indifference to the lot of the poor. It was not true. It never had been true.
"Hullo! who comes?"
Mrs. Colwood was running over the lawn, bringing apparently a letter, and a newspaper.
She came up, a little breathless.
"This letter has just come for you, Mr. Ferrier, by special messenger. And Miss Mallory asked me to bring you the newspaper."
Ferrier took the letter, which was bulky and addressed in the Premier's handwriting.
"Kindly ask the messenger to wait. I will come and speak to him."
He opened the letter and read it. Then, having put it deliberately in his pocket, he sat bending forward, staring at the grass. The newspaper caught his eye. It was theHeraldof that morning. He raised it from the ground, read the first leading article, and then a column "from a correspondent" on which the article was based.
As he came to the end of it a strange premonition took possession of him. He was still himself, but it seemed to him that the roar of some approaching cataract was in his ears. He mastered himself with difficulty, took a pencil from his pocket, and drew a wavering line beside a passage in the article contributed by theHerald'scorrespondent. The newspaper slid from his knee to the ground.
Then, with a groping hand, he sought again for Broadstone's letter, drew it out of its envelope, and, with a mist before his eyes, felt for the last page which, he seemed to remember, was blank. On this he traced, with difficulty, a few lines, replaced the whole letter in the torn envelope and wrote an address upon it--uncertainly crossing out his own name.
Then, suddenly, he fell back. The letter followed the newspaper to the ground. Deadly weakness was creeping upon him, but as yet the brain was clear. Only his will struggled no more; everything had given way, but with the sense of utter catastrophe there mingled neither pain nor bitterness. Some of the Latin verse scattered over the essay he had been reading ran vaguely through his mind--then phrases from his last talk with the Prime Minister--then remembrances of the night at Assisi--and the face of the poet--
A piercing cry rang out close beside him--Diana's cry. His life made a last rally, and his eyes opened. They closed again, and he heard no more.
Sir James Chide stooped over Diana.
"Run for help!--brandy!--a doctor! I'll stay with him. Run!"
Diana ran. She met Mrs. Colwood hurrying, and sent her for brandy. She herself sped on blindly toward the village.
A few yards beyond the Beechcote gate she was overtaken by a carriage. There was an exclamation, the carriage pulled up sharp, and a man leaped from it.
"Miss Mallory!--what is the matter?"
She looked up, saw Oliver Marsham, and, in the carriage behind him, Lady Lucy, sitting stiff and pale, with astonished eyes.
"Mr. Ferrier is ill--very ill! Please go for the doctor! He is here--at my house."
The figure in the carriage rose hurriedly. Lady Lucy was beside her.
"What is the matter?" She laid an imperious hand on the girl's arm.
"I think--he is dying," said Diana, gasping. "Oh, come!--come back at once!"
Marsham was already in the carriage. The horse galloped forward. Diana and Lady Lucy ran toward the house.
"In the garden," said Diana, breathlessly; and, taking Lady Lucy's hand, she guided her.
Beside the dying man stood Sir James Chide, Muriel Colwood, and the old butler. Sir James looked up, started at the sight of Lady Lucy, and went to meet her.
"You are just in time," he said, tenderly; "but he is going fast. We have done all we could."
Ferrier was now lying on the grass, his head supported. Lady Lucy sank beside him.
"John!" she called, in a voice of anguish--"John--dear, dear friend!"
But the dying man made no sign. And as she lifted his hand to her lips--the love she had shown him so grudgingly in life speaking now undisguised through her tears and her despair--Sir James watched the gentle passage of the last breaths, and knew that all was done--the play over and the lights out.
A sad hurrying and murmuring filled the old rooms and passages of Beechcote. The village doctor had arrived, and under his direction the body of John Ferrier had been removed from the garden to the library of the house. There, amid Diana's books and pictures, Ferrier lay, shut-eyed and serene, that touch of the ugly and the ponderous which in life had mingled with the power and humanity of his aspect entirely lost and drowned in the dignity of death.
Chide and the doctor were in low-voiced consultation at one end of the room; Lady Lucy sat beside the body, her face buried in her hands; Marsham stood behind her.
Brown, the butler, noiselessly entered the room, and approached Chide.
"Please sir, Lord Broadstone's messenger is here. He thinks you might wish him to take back a letter to his lordship."
Chide turned abruptly.
"Lord Broadstone's messenger?"
"He brought a letter for Mr. Ferrier, sir, half an hour ago."
Chide's face changed.
"Where is the letter?" He turned to the doctor, who shook his head.
"I saw nothing when we brought him in."
Marsham, who had overheard the conversation, came forward.
"Perhaps on the grass--"
Chide--pale, with drawn brows--looked at him a moment in silence.
Marsham hurried to the garden and to the spot under the yews, where the death had taken place. Round the garden chairs were signs of trampling feet--the feet of the gardeners who had carried the body. A medley of books, opened letters, and working-materials lay on the grass. Marsham looked through them; they all belonged to Diana or Mrs. Colwood. Then he noticed a cushion which had fallen beside the chair, and a corner of newspaper peeping from below it. He lifted it up.
Below lay Broadstone's open letter, in its envelope, addressed first in the Premier's well-known handwriting to "The Right Honble. John Ferrier, M.P."--and, secondly, in wavering pencil, to "Lady Lucy Marsham, Tallyn Hall."
Marsham turned the letter over, while thoughts hurried through his brain. Evidently Ferrier had had time to read it. Why that address to his mother?--and in that painful hand--written, it seemed, with the weakness of death already upon him?
The newspaper? Ah!--theHerald!--lying as though, after reading it, Ferrier had thrown it down and let the letter drop upon it, from a hand that had ceased to obey him. As Marsham saw it the color rushed into his cheeks. He stooped and raised it. Suddenly he noticed on the margin of the paper a pencilled line, faint and wavering, like the words written on the envelope. It ran beside a passage in the article "from a correspondent," and as he looked at it consciousness and pulse paused in dismay. There, under his eye, in that dim mark, was the last word and sign of John Ferrier.
He was still staring at it when a sound disturbed him. Lady Lucy came to him, feebly, across the grass. Marsham dropped the newspaper, retaining Broadstone's letter.
"Sir James wished me to leave him a little," she said, brokenly. "The ambulance will be here directly. They will take him to Lytchett. I thought it should have been Tallyn. But Sir James decided it."
"Mother!"--Marsham moved toward her, reluctantly--"here is a letter--no doubt of importance. And--it is addressed to you."
Lady Lucy gave a little cry. She looked at the pencilled address, with quivering lips; then she opened the envelope, and on the back of the closely written letter she saw at once Ferrier's last words to her.
Marsham, moved by a son's natural impulse, stooped and kissed her hair. He drew a chair forward, and she sank into it with the letter. While she was reading it he raised theHeraldagain, unobserved, folded it up hurriedly, and put it in his pocket; then walked away a few steps, that he might leave his mother to her grief. Presently Lady Lucy called him.
"Oliver!" The voice was strong. He went back to her and she received him with sparkling eyes, her hand on Broadstone's letter.
"Oliver, this is what killed him! Lord Broadstone must bear the responsibility."
And hurriedly, incoherently, she explained that the letter from Lord Broadstone was an urgent appeal to Ferrier's patriotism and to his personal friendship for the writer; begging him for the sake of party unity, and for the sake of the country, to allow the Prime Minister to cancel the agreement of the day before; to accept a peerage and the War Office in lieu of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House. The Premier gave a full account of the insurmountable difficulties in the way of the completion of the Government, which had disclosed themselves during the course of the afternoon and evening following his interview with Ferrier. Refusals of the most unexpected kind, from the most unlikely quarters; letters and visits of protest from persons impossible to ignore--most of them, no doubt, engineered by Lord Philip; "finally the newspapers of this morning--especially the article in theHerald, which you will have seen before this reaches you--all these, taken together, convince me that if I cannot persuade you to see the matter in the same light as I do--and I know well that, whether you accept or refuse, you will put the public advantage first--I must at once inform her Majesty that my attempt to construct a Government has broken down."
Marsham followed her version of the letter as well as he could; and as she turned the last page, he too perceived the pencilled writing, which was not Broadstone's. This she did not offer to communicate; indeed, she covered it at once with her hand.
"Yes, I suppose it was the shock," he said, in a low voice. "But it was not Broadstone's fault. It was no one's fault."
Lady Lucy flushed and looked up.
"That man Barrington!" she said, vehemently. "Oh, if I had never had him in my house!"
Oliver made no reply. He sat beside her, staring at the grass. Suddenly Lady Lucy touched him on the knee.
"Oliver!"--her voice was gasping and difficult--"Oliver!--you had nothing to do with that?"
"With what, mother?"
"With theHeraldarticle. I read it this morning. But I laughed at it! John's letter arrived at the same moment--so happy, so full of plans--"
"Mother!--you don't imagine that a man in Ferrier's position can be upset by an article in a newspaper?"
"I don't know--theHeraldwas so important--I have heard John say so. Oliver!"--her face worked painfully--"I know you talked with that man that night. You didn't--"
"I didn't say anything of which I am ashamed," he said, sharply, raising his head.
His mother looked at him in silence. Their eyes met in a flash of strange antagonism--as though each accused the other.
A sound behind them made Lady Lucy turn round. Brown was coming over the grass.
"A telegram, sir, for you. Your coachman stopped the boy and sent him here."
Marsham opened it hastily. As he read it his gray and haggard face flushed again heavily.
"Awful news just reached me. Deepest sympathy with you and yours. Should be grateful if I might see you to-day."BROADSTONE."
He handed it to his mother, but Lady Lucy scarcely took in the sense of it. When he left her to write his answer, she sat on in the July sun which had now reached the chairs, mechanically drawing her large country hat forward to shield her from its glare--a forlorn figure, with staring absent eyes; every detail of her sharp slenderness, her blanched and quivering face, the elegance of her black dress, the diamond fastening the black lace hat-strings tied under her pointed chin--set in the full and searching illumination of mid-day. It showed her an old woman--left alone.
Her whole being rebelled against what had happened to her. Life without John's letters, John's homage, John's sympathy--how was it to be endured? Disguises that shrouded her habitual feelings and instincts even from herself dropped away. That Oliver was left to her did not make up to her in the least for John's death.
The smart that held her in its grip was a new experience. She had never felt it at the death of the imperious husband, to whom she had been, nevertheless, decorously attached. Her thoughts clung to those last broken words under her hand, trying to wring from them something that might content and comfort her remorse:
"DEAR LUCY,--I feel ill--it may be nothing--Chide and you may read this letter. Broadstone couldn't help it. Tell him so. Bless you--Tell Oliver--Yours, J.F."
The greater part of the letter was all but illegible even by her--but the "bless you" and the "J.F." were more firmly written than the rest, as though the failing hand had made a last effort.
Her spiritual vanity was hungry and miserable. Surely, though she would not be his wife, she had been John's best friend!--his good angel. Her heart clamored for some warmer, gratefuller word--that might justify her to herself. And, instead, she realized for the first time the desert she had herself created, the loneliness she had herself imposed. And with prophetic terror she saw in front of her the daily self-reproach that her self-esteem might not be able to kill.
"Tell Oliver--"
Did it mean "if I die, tell Oliver"? But John never said anything futile or superfluous in his life. Was it not rather the beginning of some last word to Oliver that he could not finish? Oh, if her son had indeed contributed to his death!
She shivered under the thought; hurrying recollections of Mr. Barrington's visit, of theHeraldarticle of that morning, of Oliver's speeches and doings during the preceding month, rushing through her mind. She had already expressed her indignation about theHeraldarticle to Oliver that morning, on the drive which had been so tragically interrupted.
"Dear Lady Lucy!"
She looked up. Sir James Chide stood beside her.
The first thing he did was to draw her to her feet, and then to move her chair into the shade.
"You have lost more than any of us," he said, as she sank back into it, and, holding out his hand, he took hers into his warm compassionate clasp. He had never thought that she behaved well to Ferrier, and he knew that she had behaved vilely to Diana; but his heart melted within him at the sight of a woman--and a gray-haired woman--in grief.
"I hear you found Broadstone's letter?" He glanced at it on her lap. "I too have heard from him. The messenger, as soon as he knew I was here, produced a letter for me that he was to have taken on to Lytchett. It is a nice letter--a very nice letter, as far as that goes. Broadstone wanted me to use my influence--with John--described his difficulties--"
Chide's hand suddenly clinched on his knee.
"--If I could only get at that creature, Lord Philip!"
"You think it was the shock--killed him?" The hard slow tears had begun again to drop upon her dress.
"Oh! he has been an ill man since May," said Chide, evasively. "No doubt there has been heart mischief--unsuspected--for a long time. The doctors will know--presently. Poor Broadstone!--it will nearly kill him too."
She held out the letter to him.
"You are to read it;" and then, in broken tones, pointing: "look! he said so."
He started as he saw the writing on the back, and again his hand pressed hers kindly.
"He felt ill," she said, brokenly; "he foresaw it. Those are his last words--his precious last words."
She hid her face. As Chide gave it back to her, his brow and lip had settled into the look which made him so formidable in court. He looked round him abruptly.
"Where is theHerald? I hear Mrs. Colwood brought it out."
He searched the grass in vain, and the chairs. Lady Lucy was silent. Presently she rose feebly.
"When--when will they take him away?"
"Directly. The ambulance is coming--I shall go with him. Take my arm." She leaned on him heavily, and as they approached the house they saw two figures step out of it--Marsham and Diana.
Diana came quickly, in her light white dress. Her eyes were red, but she was quite composed. Chide looked at her with tenderness. In the two hours which had passed since the tragedy she had been the help and the support of everybody, writing, giving directions, making arrangements, under his own guidance, while keeping herself entirely in the background. No parade of grief, no interference with himself or the doctors; but once, as he sat by the body in the darkened room, he was conscious of her coming in, of her kneeling for a little while at the dead man's side, of her soft, stifled weeping. He had not said a word to her, nor she to him. They understood each other.
And now she came, with this wistful face, to Lady Lucy. She stood between that lady and Marsham, in her own garden, without, as it seemed to Sir James, a thought of herself. As for him, in the midst of his own sharp grief, he could not help looking covertly from one to the other, remembering that February scene in Lady Lucy's drawing-room. And presently he was sure that Lady Lucy too remembered it. Diana timidly begged that she would take some food--some milk or wine--before her drive home. It was three hours--incredible as it seemed--since she had called to them in the road. Lady Lucy, looking at her, and evidently but half conscious--at first--of what was said, suddenly colored, and refused--courteously but decidedly.
"Thank you. I want nothing. I shall soon be home. Oliver!"
"I go to Lytchett with Sir James, mother. Miss Mallory begs that you will let Mrs. Colwood take you home."
"It is very kind, but I prefer to go alone. Is my carriage there?"
She spoke like the stately shadow of her normal self. The carriage was waiting. Lady Lucy approached Sir James, who was standing apart, and murmured something in his ear, to the effect that she would come to Lytchett that evening, and would bring flowers. "Let mine be the first," she said, inaudibly to the rest. Sir James assented. Such observances, he supposed, count for a great deal with women; especially with those who are conscious of having trifled a little with the weightier matters of the law.
Then Lady Lucy took her leave; Marsham saw her to her carriage. The two left behind watched the receding figures--the mother, bent and tottering, clinging to her son.
"She is terribly shaken," said Sir James; "but she will never give way."
Diana did not reply, and as he glanced at her, he saw that she was struggling for self-control, her eyes on the ground.
"And that woman might have had her for daughter!" he said to himself, divining in her the rebuff of some deep and tender instinct.
Marsham came back.
"The ambulance is just arriving."
Sir James nodded, and turned toward the house. Marsham detained him, dropping his voice.
"Let me go with him, and you take my fly."
Sir James frowned.
"That is all settled," he said, peremptorily. Then he looked at Diana. "I will see to everything in-doors. Will you take Miss Mallory into the garden?"
Diana submitted; though, for the first time, her face reddened faintly. She understood that Sir James wished her to be out of sight and hearing while they moved the dead.
That was a strange walk together for these two! Side by side, almost in silence, they followed the garden path which had taken them to the downs, on a certain February evening. The thought of it hovered, a ghost unlaid, in both their minds. Instinctively, Marsham guided her by this path, that they might avoid that spot on the farther lawn, where the scattered chairs, the trampled books and papers still showed where Death and Sleep had descended. Yet, as they passed it from a distance he saw the natural shudder run through her; and, by association, there flashed through him intolerably the memory of that moment of divine abandonment in their last interview, when he had comforted her, and she had clung to him. And now, how near she was to him--and yet how infinitely remote! She walked beside him, her step faltering now and then, her head thrown back, as though she craved for air and coolness on her brow and tear-stained eyes. He could not flatter himself that his presence disturbed her, that she was thinking at all about him. As for him, his mind, held as it still was in the grip of catastrophe, and stunned by new compunctions, was still susceptible from time to time of the most discordant and agitating recollections--memories glancing, lightning-quick, through the mind, unsummoned and shattering. Her face in the moonlight, her voice in the great words of her promise--"all that a woman can!"--that wretched evening in the House of Commons when he had finally deserted her--a certain passage with Alicia, in the Tallyn woods--these images quivered, as it were, through nerve and vein, disabling and silencing him.
But presently, to his astonishment, Diana began to talk, in her natural voice, without a trace of preoccupation or embarrassment. She poured out her latest recollections of Ferrier. She spoke, brushing away her tears sometimes, of his visit in the morning, and his talk as he lay beside them on the grass--his recent letters to her--her remembrance of him in Italy.
Marsham listened in silence. What she said was new to him, and often bitter. He had known nothing of this intimate relation which had sprung up so rapidly between her and Ferrier. While he acknowledged its beauty and delicacy, the very thought of it, even at this moment, filled him with an irritable jealousy. The new bond had arisen out of the wreck of those he had himself broken; Ferrier had turned to her, and she to Ferrier, just as he, by his own acts, had lost them both; it might be right and natural; he winced under it--in a sense, resented it--none the less.
And all the time he never ceased to be conscious of the newspaper in his breast-pocket, and of that faint pencilled line that seemed to burn against his heart.
Would she shrink from him, finally and irrevocably, if she knew it? Once or twice he looked at her curiously, wondering at the power that women have of filling and softening a situation. Her broken talk of Ferrier was the only possible talk that could have arisen between them at that moment without awkwardness, without risk. To that last ground of friendship she could still admit him, and a wounded self-love suggested that she chose it for his sake as well as Ferrier's.
Of course, she had seen him with Alicia, and must have drawn her conclusions. Four months after the breach with her!--and such a breach! As he walked beside her through the radiant scented garden, with its massed roses and delphiniums, its tangle of poppy and lupin, he suddenly beheld himself as a kind of outcast--distrusted and disliked by an old friend like Chide, separated forever from the good opinion of this girl whom he had loved, suspected even by his mother, and finally crushed by this unexpected tragedy, and by the shock of Barrington's unpardonable behavior.
Then his whole being reacted in a fierce protesting irritation. He had been the victim of circumstance as much as she. His will hardened to a passionate self-defence; he flung off, he held at bay, an anguish that must and should be conquered. He had to live his life. He would live it.
They passed into the orchard, where, amid the old trees, covered with tiny green apples, some climbing roses were running at will, hanging their trails of blossom, crimson and pale pink, from branch to branch. Linnets and blackbirds made a pleasant chatter; the grass beneath the trees was rich and soft, and through their tops, one saw white clouds hovering in a blazing blue.
Diana turned suddenly toward the house.
"I think we may go back now," she said, and her hand contracted and her lip, as though she realized that her dear dead friend had left her roof forever.
They hurried back, but there was still time for conversation.
"You knew him, of course, from a child?" she said to him, glancing at him with timid interrogation.
In reply he forced himself to play that part of Ferrier's intimate--almost son--which, indeed, she had given him, by implication, throughout her own talk. In this she had shown a tact, a kindness for which he owed her gratitude. She must have heard the charges brought against him by the Ferrier party during the election, yet, noble creature that she was, she had not believed them. He could have thanked her aloud, till he remembered that marked newspaper in his pocket.
Once a straggling rose branch caught in her dress. He stooped to free it. Then for the first time he saw her shrink. The instinctive service had made them man and woman again--not mind and mind; and he perceived, with a miserable throb, that she could not be so unconscious of his identity, his presence, their past, as she had seemed to be.
She had lost--he realized it--the bloom of first youth. How thin was the hand which gathered up her dress!--the hand once covered with his kisses. Yet she seemed to him lovelier than ever, and he divined her more woman than ever, more instinct with feeling, life, and passion.
Sir James's messenger met them half-way. At the door the ambulance waited.
Chide, bareheaded, and a group of doctors, gardeners, and police stood beside it.
"I follow you," said Marsham to Sir James. "There is a great deal to do."
Chide assented coldly. "I have written to Broadstone, and I have sent a preliminary statement to the papers."
"I can take anything you want to town," said Marsham, hastily. "I must go up this evening."
He handed Broadstone's telegram to Sir James.
Chide read it and returned it in silence. Then he entered the ambulance, taking his seat beside the shrouded form within. Slowly it drove away, mounted police accompanying it. It took a back way from Beechcote, thus avoiding the crowd, which on the village side had gathered round the gates.
Diana, on the steps, saw it go, following it with her eyes; standing very white and still. Then Marsham lifted his hat to her, conscious through every nerve of the curiosity among the little group of people standing by. Suddenly, he thought, she too divined it. For she looked round her, bowed to him slightly, and disappeared with Mrs. Colwood.
He spent two or three hours at Lytchett, making the first arrangements for the funeral, with Sir James. It was to be at Tallyn, and the burial in the churchyard of the old Tallyn church. Sir James gave a slow and grudging assent to this; but in the end he did assent, after the relations between him and Marsham had become still more strained.
Further statements were drawn up for the newspapers. As the afternoon wore on the grounds and hall of Lytchett betrayed the presence of a number of reporters, hurriedly sent thither by the chief London and provincial papers. By now the news had travelled through England.
Marsham worked hard, saving Sir James all he could. Another messenger arrived from Lord Broadstone, with a pathetic letter for Sir James. Chide's face darkened over it. "Broadstone must bear up," he said to Marsham, as they stood together in Chide's sanctum. "It was not his fault, and he has the country to think of. You tell him so. Now, are you off?"
Marsham replied that his fly had been announced.
"What'll they offer you?" said Chide, abruptly.
"Offer me? It doesn't much matter, does it?--on a day like this?" Marsham's tone was equally curt. Then he added: "I shall be here again to-morrow."
Chide acquiesced. When Marsham had driven off, and as the sound of the wheels died away, Chide uttered a fierce inarticulate sound. His hot Irish heart swelled within him. He walked hurriedly to and fro, his hands in his pockets.
"John!--John!" he groaned. "They'll be dancing and triumphing on your grave to-night, John; and that fellow you were a father to--like the rest. But they shall do it without me, John--they shall do it without me!"
And he thought, with a grim satisfaction, of the note he had just confided to the Premier's second messenger refusing the offer of the Attorney-Generalship. He was sorry for Broadstone; he had done his best to comfort him; but he would serve in no Government with John's supplanters.
Meanwhile Marsham was speeding up to town. At every way-side station, under the evening light, he saw the long lines of placards: "Sudden death of Mr. Ferrier. Effect on the new Ministry." Every paper he bought was full of comments and hasty biographies. There was more than a conventional note of loss in them. Ferrier was not widely popular, in the sense in which many English statesmen have been popular, but there was something in his personality that had long since won the affection and respect of all that public, in all classes, which really observes and directs English affairs. He was sincerely mourned, and he would be practically missed.
But the immediate effect would be the triumph of the Cave, a new direction given to current politics. That no one doubted.
Marsham was lost in tumultuous thought. The truth was that the two articles in theHeraldof that morning, which had arrived at Tallyn by nine o'clock, had struck him with nothing less than consternation.
Ever since his interview with Barrington, he had persuaded himself that in it he had laid the foundations of party reunion; and he had since been eagerly scanning the signs of slow change in the attitude of the party paper, combined--as they had been up to this very day--with an unbroken personal loyalty to Ferrier. But the article of this morning had shown a complete--and in Oliver's opinion, as he read it at the breakfast-table--an extravagantvolte-face. It amounted to nothing less than a vehement appeal to the new Prime Minister to intrust the leadership of the House of Commons, at so critical a moment, to a man more truly in sympathy with the forward policy of the party.
"We have hoped against hope," said theHerald; "we have supported Mr. Ferrier against all opposition; but a careful reconsideration and analysis of his latest speeches--taken together with our general knowledge public and private, of the political situation--have convinced us, sorely against our will, that while Mr. Ferrier must, of course, hold one of the most important offices in the new Cabinet, his leadership of the Commons--in view of the two great measures to which the party is practically pledged--could only bring calamity. He will not oppose them; that, of course, we know; but is it possible that he canfight them throughwith success? We appeal to his patriotism, which has never yet failed him or us. If he will only accept the peerage he has so amply earned, together with either the War Office or the Admiralty, and represent the Government in the Lords, where it is sorely in need of strength, all will be well. The leadership of the Commons must necessarily fall to that section of the party which, through Lord Philip's astonishing campaign, has risen so rapidly in public favor. Lord Philip himself, indeed, is no more acceptable to the moderates than Mr. Ferrier to the Left Wing. Heat of personal feeling alone would prevent his filling the part successfully. But two or three men are named, under whom Lord Philip would be content to serve, while the moderates would have nothing to say against them."
This was damaging enough. But far more serious was the "communicated" article on the next page--"from a correspondent"--on which the "leader" was based.
Marsham saw at once that the "correspondent" was really Barrington himself, and that the article was wholly derived from the conversation which had taken place at Tallyn, and from the portions of Ferrier's letters, which Marsham had read or summarized for the journalist's benefit.
The passage in particular which Ferrier's dying hand had marked--he recalled the gleam in Barrington's black eyes as he had listened to it, the instinctive movement in his powerful hand, as though to pounce, vulturelike, on the letter--and his own qualm of anxiety--his sudden sense of having gone too far--his insistence on discretion.
Discretion indeed! The whole thing was monstrous treachery. He had warned the man that these few sentences were not to be taken literally--that they were, in fact, Ferrier's caricature of himself and his true opinion. "You press on me a particular measure," they said, in effect, "you expect the millennium from it. Well, I'll tell you what you'll really get by it!"--and then a forecast of the future, after the great Bill was passed, in Ferrier's most biting vein.
The passage in theHeraldwas given as a paraphrase, or, rather, as a kind ofreductio ad absurdumof one of Ferrier's last speeches in the House. It was, in truth, a literal quotation from one of the letters. Barrington had an excellent memory. He had omitted nothing. The stolen sentences made the point, the damning point, of the article. They were not exactly quoted as Ferrier's, but they claimed to express Ferrier more closely than he had yet expressed himself. "We have excellent reason to believe that this is, in truth, the attitude of Mr. Ferrier." How, then, could a man of so cold and sceptical a temper continue to lead the young reformers of the party? TheHerald, with infinite regret, made its bow to its old leader, and went over bag and baggage to the camp of Lord Philip, who, Marsham could not doubt, had been in close consultation with the editor through the whole business.
Again and again, as the train sped on, did Marsham go back over the fatal interview which had led to these results. His mind, full of an agony of remorse he could not still, was full also of storm and fury against Barrington. Never had a journalist made a more shameful use of a trust reposed in him.
With torturing clearness, imagination built up the scene in the garden: the arrival of Broadstone's letter; the hand of the stricken man groping for the newspaper; the effort of those pencilled lines; and, finally, that wavering mark, John Ferrier's last word on earth.
If it had, indeed, been meant for him, Oliver--well, he had received it; the dead man had reached out and touched him; he felt the brand upon him; and it was a secret forever between Ferrier and himself.
The train was nearing St. Pancras. Marsham roused himself with an effort. After all, what fault was it of his--this tragic coincidence of a tragic day? If Ferrier had lived, all could have been explained; or if not all, most. And because Ferrier had died of a sudden ailment, common among men worn out with high responsibilities, was a man to go on reproaching himself eternally for another man's vile behavior--for the results of an indiscretion committed with no ill-intent whatever? With miserable self-control, Oliver turned his mind to his approaching interview with the Prime Minister. Up to the morning of this awful day he had been hanging on the Cabinet news from hour to hour. The most important posts would, of course be filled first. Afterward would come the minor appointments--and then!
Marsham found the Premier much shaken. He was an old man; he had been a warm personal friend of Ferrier's; and the blow had hit him hard.
Evidently for a few hours he had been determined to resign; but strong influences had been brought to bear, and he had wearily resumed his task.
Reluctantly, Marsham told the story. Poor Lord Broadstone could not escape from the connection between the arrival of his letter and the seizure which had killed his old comrade. He sat bowed beneath it for a while; then, with a fortitude and a self-control which never fails men of his type in times of public stress and difficulty, he roused himself to discuss the political situation which had arisen--so far, at least, as was necessary and fitting in the case of a man not in the inner circle.
As the two men sat talking the messenger arrived from Beechcote with Sir James Chide's letter. From the Premier's expression as he laid it down Marsham divined that it contained Chide's refusal to join the Government. Lord Broadstone got up and began to move to and fro, wrapped in a cloud of thought. He seemed to forget Marsham's presence, and Marsham made a movement to go. As he did so Lord Broadstone looked up and came toward him.
"I am much obliged to you for having come so promptly," he said, with melancholy courtesy. "I thought we should have met soon--on an occasion--more agreeable to us both. As you are here, forgive me if I talk business. This rough-and-tumble world has to be carried on, and if it suits you, I shall be happy to recommend your appointment to her Majesty--as a Junior Lord of the Treasury--carrying with it, as of course you understand, the office of Second Whip."
Ten minutes later Marsham left the Prime Minister's house. As he walked back to St. Pancras, he was conscious of yet another smart added to the rest. Ifanythingwere offered to him, he had certainly hoped for something more considerable.
It looked as though while the Ferrier influence had ignored him, the Darcy influence had not troubled itself to do much for him. That he had claims could not be denied. So this very meagre bone had been flung him. But if he had refused it, he would have got nothing else.
The appointment would involve re-election. All that infernal business to go through again!--probably in the very midst of disturbances in the mining district. The news from the collieries was as bad as it could be.
He reached home very late--close on midnight. His mother had gone to bed, ill and worn out, and was not to be disturbed. Isabel Fotheringham and Alicia awaited him in the drawing-room.
Mrs. Fotheringham had arrived in the course of the evening. She herself was peevish with fatigue, incurred in canvassing for two of Lord Philip's most headlong supporters. Personally, she had broken with John Ferrier some weeks before the election; but the fact had made more impression on her own mind than on his.
"Well, Oliver, this is a shocking thing! However, of course, Ferrier had been unhealthy for a long time; any one could see that. It was really better it should end so."
"You take it calmly!" he said, scandalized by her manner and tone.
"I am sorry, of course. But Ferrier had outlived himself. The people I have been working among felt him merely in the way. But, of course, I am sorry mamma is dreadfully upset. That one must expect. Well, now then--you have seen Broadstone?"
She rose to question him, the political passion in her veins asserting itself against her weariness. She was still in her travelling dress. From her small, haggard face the reddish hair was drawn tightly back; the spectacled eyes, the dry lips, expressed a woman whose life had hardened to dusty uses. Her mere aspect chilled and repelled her brother, and he answered her questions shortly.
"Broadstone has treated you shabbily!" she remarked, with decision; "but I suppose you will have to put up with it. And this terrible thing that has happened to-day may tell against you when it comes to the election. Ferrier will be looked upon as a martyr, and we shall suffer."
Oliver turned his eyes for relief to Alicia. She, in a soft black dress, with many slender chains, studded with beautiful turquoises, about her white neck, rested and cheered his sight. The black was for sympathy with the family sorrow; the turquoises were there because he specially admired them; he understood them both. The night was hot, and without teasing him with questions she had brought him a glass of iced lemonade, touching him caressingly on the arm while he drank it.
"Poor Mr. Ferrier! It was terribly, terribly sad!" Her voice was subtly tuned and pitched. It made no fresh claim on emotion, of which, in his mental and moral exhaustion, he had none to give; but it more than met the decencies of the situation, which Isabel had flouted.
"So there will be another election?" she said, presently, still standing in front of him, erect and provocative, her eyes fixed on his.
"Yes; but I sha'n't be such a brute as to bother you with it this time."
"I shall decide that for myself," she said, lightly. Then--after a pause: "So Lord Philip has won!--all along the line! I should like to know that man!"
"You do know him."
"Oh, just to pass the time of day. That's nothing. But I am to meet him at the Treshams' next week." Her eyes sparkled a little. Marsham glanced at his sister, who was gathering up some small possessions at the end of the room.
"Don't try and make a fool of him!" he said, in a low voice. "He's not your sort."
"Isn't he?" She laughed. "I suppose he's one of the biggest men in England now. And somebody told me the other day that, after losing two or three fortunes, he had just got another."
Marsham nodded.
"Altogether, an excellentparti."
Alicia's infectious laugh broke out. She sat down beside him, with her hands round her knees.
"You look miles better than when you came in. But I think--you'd better go to bed."
As Marsham, in undressing, flung his coat upon a chair, the copy of theHeraldwhich he had momentarily forgotten fell out of the inner pocket. He raised it--irresolute. Should he tear it up, and throw the fragments away?
No. He could not bring himself to do it. It was as though Ferrier, lying still and cold at Lytchett, would know of it--as though the act would do some roughness to the dead.
He went into his sitting-room, found an empty drawer in his writing-table, thrust in the newspaper, and closed the drawer.